A snippet out of UC during Mel's arc for @ossmodula 's oc fic weekend for the Friend + Betrayal prompts
Mel stared up at the bolter, not quite believing it. He knew he wouldn't be able to move fast enough, he knew he had no weapon and no chance. He knew that, but still the name slipped from him in a whisper, shocked and heartbroken. "Lanzlet-?"
A shadow of something crossed Lanzlet's face, wide-eyed and stunned as Mel was, and then it was gone, his finger tensed on the trigger and-
The sound of two thousand pounds of ceramite colliding with another armored marine at sixty miles an hour was a little bit like bolter combustion at close range, so it took a moment for Melwas to register that Lanzlet's green shadow had been replaced by Ultramarine blue and gold. Juno's hair whipped in the storm wind, wet and glistening and dark in some places with blood. She growled as she exhaled, the handle of her sword creaking as she flexed her iron grip. Mel didn't need to see her face to know she was glaring at Lanzlet, laid out flat on his back several meters away. She'd hit him hard enough he must have been sent flying, and there was a short trench at his feet from where his power pack had plowed the mud as he'd skid.
Lanzlet did not rise. His limbs flailed about for purchase in the soft ground as he tried to gain his bearings and crawl away.
"Craven filth!"Juno roared over the sound of the battle, and Mel could hear now from her voice that the heir of Ultramar was beyond pissed. "Keep your hands off my squadmate!" She advanced on the downed man with murderous purpose.
Shots from the left. Something exploded along Mel's pauldron, but it surprised him more than it did any real damage. He was on his feet, reaching for his bolter and shooting back, and then Juno was there beside him, her own bolter barking over his shoulder at the reinforcements and shoving him towards cover.
Glancing back at the clearing, Mel saw Lanzlet being helped into a portal by another fallen.
"Come on," Juno broke into his attention with a gruff order. "Let's get to extraction, you need an apothecary."
Juno stayed with him in the apothecary bay. The Dark Angel didn't offer to treat her, but she stood there anyway, a dark shape in the corner, arms crossed, glowering at Mel as he got his rib plate set and thigh stapled.
"I didn't know," he told her miserably.
She scowled deeper at him. "I know that," she snapped.
He felt stupid for trying to speak, and spent the rest of his time in silence. When he had been cleared, he made to hoist himself off the bed, but the apothecary stopped him with a gauntleted hand. Despite the fear it garnered, Melwas had expected this.
He did not expect Juno to step in.
She placed herself, fully armored and stinking still of battle, in front of the apothecary, crowding him away with sudden force. "If Lord Uncle Lion wants to speak to my marine," she growled through grit teeth, "he may speak to me."
Melwas felt the blood drain from his face. Juno was intense on a good day but her fury now seemed to eclipse the very light in the room. The air was heavy with her presence in a way that was unique to the Emperor's kin, a very physical reminder of her heritage.
The apothecary balked.
Melwas followed timidly behind her as she stalked back through towards their lodgings. He wondered if the others had survived the collapse. It was not something he'd had time to think about before, but he had only seen Juno after. The xeno and the daemon would be fine, he was sure, but Boy…? And maybe the others weren't alright, he hadn't seen them. Juno hadn't spoken into her vox.
His heart sank. It was his fault. If he hadn't been so occupied with his own guilt he might have known something was off with his- with Lanzlet.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Mel," Juno bit out, "shut up."
He pulled up short. They were in an empty hallway, Juno's armored footsteps echoing off the stone. "Lieutenant."
Juno turned to face him.
"If I may," Melwas said quickly, eyes glued to the ground, "there is something you should know." He didn't like the way she'd said his name; it was too familiar, and left the guilt in his stomach thick like tar.
"You may not," Juno interrupted.
Melwas jolted.
Juno stepped up to him, breastplate to breastplate. Her face was above him but Melwas didn't have the courage to look up that far.
"I-"
"Melwas," she said in her strict, sharp monotone. "I know about the reports."
Shame poured over him, heating his cheeks. He swallowed.
"Anyone Lion sent to us would be keeping him informed." She snorted softly. "Paranoid bastard."
Melwas said nothing. What could he say, knowing that he had been so thorough a failure?
One of Juno's gauntleted hands grasped the nape of his neck and she smashed their foreheads together. The pain was enough that Melwas gasped, but her hold kept him firmly in place. He had no choice but to stare.
"You. are. my. Brother," she said. "Do you understand?"
He made to nod, and realized too late he couldn't. "Y-yes," he said quietly. In this one thing Dark Angels and Ultramarines were in agreement; brotherhood was sacred.
"You are my brother," she repeated. "Am I yours?"
"Yes." It did not take conscious thought to answer.
At one point it had been a bond he and Lanzlet had shared.
"I have betrayed us," he said softly.
"You have not," Juno said, pressing forward into his bruised brow until Mel hissed through his teeth. "Lion has called us here. You think The Lion calls just anyone to his aid?"
"He's worked with you before?" Melwas tried, blinking rapidly through wet lashes.
"He did not call me," Juno's lip curled up in a vindictive grin. "He called Oddball. And he would not have done so if you did not vouch for us."
Melwas doubted he had any influence on the primarch's thoughts, but before he could say as much, Juno shifted. Still holding him in place by the scruff of his neck, she pulled back and pressed a firm kiss to his forehead. It was not tender; he could feel her teeth behind her thin lips.
It was an Ultramarine thing. He had seen Juno on the receiving end of such actions not infrequently from her myriad Brothers and the Chapter Master and her Lord Father.
Okay big ask: happy Mortarion? Whatever that looks like for you. An AU, if you need to/want. And thank you so so so much for all the good food 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Im actually a huge fan of the Isha Switch for a morty return arc, but that's only partially canon to Updated Codex because my ideal happy morty does not get rid of all the nasty stuff. He's a farmer, like a real farmer. He's sloshing through muddy fields and fertilizing the earth with stinking dead fish and letting the insects drawn to decomposition do their work. Exposure therapy works, in doses; he cultures vaccines and grows sumac in the house. He's left alone but he's not Alone.
I like to think the night lords have figured out his beetles clean trophies quicker than they can, he's got a pretty good commission system set up.
I also think he was happy, for a time, on barbarus. or something like it
jumping the queue since i've had a few asks about him. mel. melwas my baby adorable darling baby boy,,,
Melwas DuLac was born to a peasant family on a feudal world. He and his friend, a noble son named Lanzlet Amphios, were selected as part of a tithe and entered into the ritualized Aspirant trials being run on his planet. Both of them survived the trials and the Dark Angel's tests, and became neophytes.
Melwas is not particularly good with a blade, preferring the standard bolter, and he is as psychic as a rock (he gets lost in forestwalk if he doesn't hold someone's hand), but he is doggedly loyal and doesn't ask questions, something that the older Brothers like. Mostly, he followed Lanzlet as his friend climbed the ranks. The two of them grew very close over the course of their education, and they spent most of their off-time in each other's bunks, reading old calabanite poetry and historical epics. Melwas, who had been barely literate previously, greatly enjoyed this new form of entertainment.
Once ascended, Lanzlet got himself into a good position very quickly, and he took Melwas along with him as a subordinate. This was how Lion noticed Mel. Mel has the anxiety side of the DA paranoia gene, and often Knowing alarming facts like chapter secrets freaks him out. He would rather Not Know, thanks. Much of his behavior reads as 'quiet' and 'unobtrusive,' and he is a bit of a people pleaser, something which can aid in smoothing rough edges between his proud brothers...at the cost of his own social status. He's seen as a bit of a wimp, for lack of a better phrasing, and most assume he's so close to Champion Lanzlet in part out of sentimental pity on Lanzlet's part...which is not entirely untrue. Despite his apparent cowardice, Mel is completely devoted to the Dark Angels, believing their purpose to be like that of the chivalric heroes in the epics. As such, he's got a very strong sense of devotion, and ethics (skewed as all space marine ethics are), and he tries his best to follow that through.
This includes his devotion for lion. Lion is having trouble. He's trying to fix things with the Fallen, he is, and he's trying to handle his Risen, he's trying to wrangle his Unforgiven, and he's trying to figure out what a primaris is and why guilliman invented one, and oh hey at least dad's back but he's not. saying anything really and he's grown a little sure but the imperium has also gotten significantly more politically complex since he was last awake and. and !!!!
Lion sees this kid, who isn't power-hungry, who is very devoted despite being generally looked down upon and largely ignored, who tries his best, and it's very obvious his best is all he can give, who just thinks the world of his primarch and his brothers, whos more socially aware than a lot of the others and who usually tries to use that to aid his chapter, not himself. he's the platonic ideal of chivalric servitude, a perfect storybook squire, content to carry the knight's sword and hold his horses forever and ever. which is very pleasing to a guy who's surrounded himself with what amounts to be nobles, who want to be rewarded with access to secret knowledge, who are motivated to keep their own secrets and be paranoid bastards about the whole thing, who end up taking matters into their own hands because nobody in the entire legion knows how to Use Their Damn Words, so Lion just kinda,
...steals him? for this personal mission. and the mission is like this:
guilliman, among other things, has this kid of his own you see. and she's A Little Weird. and guilliman himself is A Little Weird right now, almost like he's not part of the imperium proper anymore but don't pay attention to that. and his Weird Little Daughter is grown up and getting this...experiment squad. There'll be others there, other xenos, chaos-touched creatures...no no it's all sanctioned don't worry about it. now terra is already sending a representative, but we're not really entirely trusting of terra proper now are we? no, of course not. so i need someone on the inside. just. just in case. because lion knows, if he doesn't have someone trustworthy watching this little group, he will drive himself Fucking Insane not knowing what they're up to.
not that Lion actually explains all this in so many words, he basically just throws the kid at oddball and tells him to write him if anything Heresy-ish is happening.
so Mel drops everything, leaves the Dark Angels, leaves Lanzlet, on his primarch's command, goes to join a group of xeno-princes and daemon-primarch-spawn and the Heir of Ultramar, who is, by the way, his new Co, his new Co who he has to SPY ON, whose movements he's writing in reports sent back directly to the Lion without her knowledge, a betrayal of trust that sits ill in his chest as the honorable, devoted creature he believed himself to be, completely unlike the brave stories of monster-slaying swordsmen in shining armor, and he has to learn to live with that. and surely it all turns out fine and his new (ultramarine-raised) Co is nice to him because ultramarines and dark angels don't have a long and storied history of having the exact mix of mental illnesses designed in a lab to Piss Each Other The Fuck Off. right. he's fine, right. juno you're nice to the baby right, he hasn't even had his carapace for that long. Juno you're not being mean to him right? right juno?? juno 'mini sicarius' 'taught by hesperax' 'avenging temper' guilliman yOU ARE BEING NICE TO THIS BOY, RIGHT???? (she is not)
So there Mel is, sending letters back to Lion and feeling guilty that he has to, and feeling equally guilty that he's guilty about it, and kind of putting up with juno's shit because he feels like he probably deserves to feel bad about Feeling This Bad since astartes aren't supposed to do that, and you have to understand, this whole time oddball is Getting Up To Significant Shit and generally experiencing All The Best that the setting has to offer, so half his letters read like
Dear princess celestia Lord Primarch Lion,
Today we learned about the angels vermillion. I would like to unlearn about the angels vermillion effective immediately. i'm pretty sure they are not supposed to be doing all that. anyway, can you call lord sanguinius?
thx,
-Mel
It's worth mentioning i think that Mel is the Actual Youngest member of Oddball's command squad. Juno is 22, Ubasti is 20, Boy is almost 40, and Tuk is. Tuk. Melwas is fully like a whole 19. he is BABY. and he is also the only one not Completely and unrealistically kitted out with primarch-god-powers (or command of a tomb world, in tuk's case)
And the thing is, mel is like. he’s meant to be lion’s eyes and ears over there. because otherwise lion would drive himself crazy trying to watch not just juno but tuk and ubasti as well. that’s why it’s such a sign of respect that mel was chosen, lion is literally being like ok. be my judgement over there.
the problem being lion has not like. Said any of this to mel. in any capacity. the conversation has kind of gone like this:
lion talking to mel: u will report to me at these intervals. you will watch the rest of the squad carefully. you will be responsible should their actions turn in favor of the enemy. am i clear.
mel: y-yessir ;~;
lion talking to sang and magnus and dorn and guilliman: i am handing you my best son of this new batch. he’s very polite and well trained. i trust your wards will treat him appropriately in return. if anything happens to him people will end up in the torture dungeons i don’t have.
so Mel is under the impression that he's been chosen for this mission because he is Expendable. New, not very impressive by Astartes standard...if the DAs had to willingly lose a brother he's a very low-cost option for them. He is also aware this is true for Oddball as well; he hardly stacks up against Boy 'told a warp god No. in his sleep' Dorn, nevermind the rest of them.
mel is highly regarded amongst the other Lion da’s btw. bc none of them know what the fuck kind of mission he’s on, just that he’s been primarch-picked to handle guilliman’s daughter (presumably with a bolter if that’s what it comes to) there’s a handful that are resentful and an overlapping handful that are afraid of him because he has the direct ear of the primarch. some of the more rigid unforgiven think he’s almost too aligned with lion, but these tend to be the guys that are also harsh about Risen. mel operates on an understanding that there’s a 80% chance of getting accused of heresy anytime he meets a brother, which is less correct (it’s closer to 30-40% depending on how that particular company feels about lion’s decisions of late) and his reasoning is off (he thinks it’s cause he kind of might deserve it and that lion would agree if he found certain things out. in reality if he was taken in for heresy lion would take it as a direct attempt at undermining his power. that’s his handpicked helper!! if he needs to be investigated he’ll be handling that, thank you!!!)
this does have the hilarious effect of some da companies assuming Mel knows things he absolutely does not. they’ll just tell him shit bc they assume he has the clearance. it’s super useful when the oddball squad needs info that the da’s have tucked away but he’s constantly getting hit with the ‘yes so the guy we put in the Heretic Blender said-‘ and mel has to sit there and clamp his mouth shut over thoughts like ‘what is a heretic blender and why do we have it’
Melwas does have his own Watcher who accompanies him, and he ends up working a lot with Lil Nid (they are very similar, both bred to take orders and on a lower rung of the ladder than the other Oddball members). He's a midrange fighter (compared to Boy, the long-range sniper and Juno, miss melee tank) and generally doesn't do much commanding; in a pinch, his strategies mostly default to 'stay alive till someone of greater rank can show up and tell us what to do ;-;' He is generally kind to baselines, largely due to his memories of his mortal family (whom he knows are still out there, somewhere, back home)
in conclusion, please enjoy the saddest wettest most baby dark angel ever made. treat him well Or Else
Whats updated codex Lion doing and how is he handling that hi brothers are back
lion is rockin the dad bod if i’m bein honest
ah yes. lets talk about the championship warcrimes mcgee everyone forgets to rank with the other championship warcrime mcgees.
Lion is less concerned with his returned brothers than he is with the emperor and gman. Lion’s whole deal is loyalty, particularly to those above you (we’re still working on being loyal to those who rely on you but we’re getting there). To him, emps accepting magnus back into the palace isnt so different from him collecting the Risen, but emps’ refusal to take the reigns from guilliman despite his brother’s measured response to stuff like the ecclesiarchy is baffling to him. He’s mellowed out a Lot since imperium secundus, but his most basic thought process does not understand why they aren’t all just wiping planetary governments and starting from scratch now that dad’s back. Why go through the trouble of installing the triarchy when you leave all the rest of the stupid 40k imperial bureaucracy anyway? Why is dad allowing gman’s 20 stupid space books of space rules when the first one sucked anyway?? Why isn’t dad in charge???
I say most basic thought because, again, he’s had some time, he’s done some Introspection, he has admitted to himself banishing people for mistakes is not always the neat and tidy solution it’s made out to be in his head, and that his paranoia is a problem, it’s just hard for him to change that pattern of thinking. also he’s not entirely wrong i mean. gman is slow going because he’s got approximately the entire universe on his plate but like. some of this stuff feels like something that should have a ten-step removal plan. right??? point is it’s complicated, and he doesn’t have a clean solution and is actively restraining himself from enacting his own version of a ‘clean solution’ which he’s at least learned is maybe a bad idea without running it by dad first.
In the meantime dad said to continue gathering the Risen, so that’s fine he can put his energy into that. Dad also did not say shit about the risen being not codex compliant so take that gman. so lion currently is largely occupied with trying to get his legion in order, which is a bit like herding cats pun absolutely intended. lion is constantly fighting new fissures between what he and the risen envision and what the newer astartes of his geneline are used to expecting, issues that run hot enough that there are some days where it feels like they’re creating fallen instead of saving them. it’s a constant uphill battle even with the newfound self awareness. running back and forth to gather bits of his old legion means he’s mostly out of the way of his brothers, and that’s just fine as far as he’s concerned.
That said, him and his arc are more central to Updated Codex than one might expect. For one, lion is the one who tattles on gman to emps. He takes one look at juno and goes
'i'm telling dad!!' and runs off to do just that, forcing gman to introduce juno to the wider imperium. she’s about 4 at the time.
An older Juno, as stated in the snippet below, has been boots-on-the-ground for fallen retrieval missions; in fact they were probably some of her first joint campaigns outside of ultramar/ultra successors. Lion has seen her work as and with astartes, and generally is alright treating her the way he does his formerly wayward sons.
that doesn’t mean he trusts her. The paranoia didn’t magically disappear. when she gets her own little specialist squad consisting of some weird serf, the child of a traitor, and a xeno spawn, He manages to get a dark angel attached to their retinue, and instructs him to report on their actions regularly.
Juno isn’t impressed.
Melwas is a brand new Dark Angel looking to prove himself in a time when living legends, tarnished though they may be, walk amongst them and his primarch is personally watching every move he makes. Mel has a massive guilt complex, for both genuinely enjoying the oddball squad’s company (a betrayal of his mission) and for spying on them (a betrayal of his friends). It’s a lot of pressure, which isn’t helped when, upon reuniting with a former neophyte friend of his, he is promptly subjected to a barriss offee style turncoat plot where his friend tries to kill him (and the squad) in an effort to make a point about how the DAs are losing their way of life, yadda yadda, angst, yadda yadda etc. yaaaaay!!!
He gets a weird dog and some hugs from his friends and maybe his dad figures out how to tell him in words he was handpicked for the oddball squad because lion is actually quite impressed with his level head. maybe lion will go the extra mile and figure things out with luthor and mel can make out i mean up with that friend who tried to kill him or something. who knows.
