The one time Valdor felt True Fear
Valdor had been separated from the Emperor.
His Lord had decreed that they teleport to the Vengeful Spirit, to face down the traitor Sixteenth. And by all accounts, that is where he should be. Yet, all he sees is a snowy mountain. Jagged rocks, scattered around the white scenery. Not the interior of a spaceship, for sure.
Valdor thought back to the moment of teleportation. When he was in between realities, he heard the laughter. Not the malevolent laughter of the thirsting Archenemy, no, this laughter sounded more like that of a prankster. Or perhaps, a clown.
He scanned his surrounding again. No taint of the warp, no sigils of Chaos, nothing. He knew that the Archenemy can disguise itself very well, but on the Vengeful Spirit? No way. Not with how heavily warped the damned ship was.
Regardless, he has his duty. He must find out where he is, then go to his Lord's side to aid in the final confrontation. With this in mind, he marched on.
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Stuart was tired.
Even since Kevin stood on the cannon, and accidentally fired at the Boss, they and all their friends and family had been hunted by the bluecoats. Fleeing with all the strength in their tiny bodies, they managed to outrun their hunters, and now they are lost in the snowy mountains. As is tradition, they must now look for a new Boss to serve, and the bigger and badder the better.
Yet, fleeing their pursuers has sapped all strength from their bodies, and in this freezing environment, food was nowhere to be found. Stuart collapsed onto the ground and rolled over. Bob did his best to kick him along, but even then Bob is running out of steam.
If they cannot find food, or worse, a new Boss, this will be the end of them.
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Valdor looked at his chronometer.
812.M2.
812.M2.
He had heard of the warp causing ships to travel backwards or forwards in time. Yet, the most extreme cases he had heard of, was at most limited to decades. Not the tens of millennia he had been subjected to. Even then, the ships spat out are usually little more than lifeless husks, warped by the powers of the Immaterium.
Either he has really travelled 30,000 years into the past, or his chronometer and armor was compromised. Common sense dictated that time travel that far into the past was impossible, yet if the Archenemy could damage his chronometer underneath his auramite armor, it would have just killed him.
It was with these dark thoughts weighing on his mind when he heard mumbling and exhausted groans coming from around the corner. With his superhuman senses, he could tell that it was from a large and exhausted group, and that each speaker was small, perhaps only a meter in height. The language being spoken was weird, completely different to the whispers and taunts of the Neverborn. In fact, it sounded like the language from the Iberian sector, only that the speaker was speaking backwards.
Raising his Apollonian Spear, Valdor charged around the corner, and saw a field of yellow in the white snow. Instead of demons or corrupted Astartes, he saw a horde of yellow mutants. Each had two arms and 2 legs, bald, and with no neck. Instead, the head merged with the body, making each mutant like a capsule with arms and legs. Some mutants have only one eye, others have 2, but all were wearing goggle-glasses. In fact, they look familiar, like he had seen the exact type of mutant before somewhere.
These mutants looked exactly like the yellow characters from that ancient pict-recording, in the Emperor's most prized collection.
Valdor froze.
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Stuart collapsed forward into the snow to tired to even lift a finger, when suddenly a massive shadow loomed over him. Raising his head, he gazed upon the most holy sight.
A... thing was towering over his group, filling out his view of the sky, and blocking his way. This thing was massive, at least 3 meters in height. It was big, it was long, and most importantly, it was yellow.
Stuart sucked in as much air as his little body could hold, and let out the loudest cry he had ever yelled. Since before he had served the Boss with the bluecoats, since before he had served the Boss with the leopard skirt. Since before that Boss with a tail got knocked into the fire-mountain. Since before the first Boss crawled onto the beach, and he and his friend and family followed.
"BA
NA
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Then he charged. Followed by every single Minion.
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It is often said that Space Marines know no fear. That is not true. Space Marines do know fear, but they have the conditioning necessary to not let it affect them, and the training to charge through the fear.
Custodes are different. Hand-crafted by the Emperor and his genewrights, Custodes are built for one and one purpose only. To protect the Emperor. As such, any hint of emotion not needed for this purpose, especially fear, are discarded.
Valdor was a veteran of the Unification war. He has fought witches and barbarian warlords with nothing but leather armor. He has faced down demigods in meatsuits raging at him. He has slaughtered scores of chaos-corrupted Astartes, and he has fought in the Webway, seeing nine out of ten of his host fall to the Archenemy. Yet at this very moment, terror filled Valdor's heart, and he turned and fled from the battlecry of Banana, and the Charge of the Minions.
A/N: Yes, I put the Golden Banana in the Minion-verse. Fear me.