Marius Vairosean returned to the Pride of the Emperor in a good mood. That was rare for him, even before Fulgrim's betrayal; but his campaign had gone well, and together with the 32nd Company of Coralius Astarune - another Captain resistant to the Legion's degeneration - Vairosean had conquered over twenty worlds at a breakneck pace. There had been planning, of course; Astarune didn't mind it, and though it combined with the campaign's speed to leave no time for anything besides battle and strategy, Vairosean did well in such extremes.
They were what Astartes had been made for - war, and preparation for war. Now Fulgrim was trying to cut out the latter, destroying the Emperor's Crusade along the way.
Marius Vairosean returned to the Pride of the Emperor in a good mood. That faded as soon as he saw the Marine awaiting him on the deck.
"Demeter?" The Second Captain did not look like himself. "What's happened to you?"
"A god happened to me!" Demeter exclaimed, and Vairosean knew his friend was lost. "Come, let me explain. Vairosean? Come on!"
Grim-faced, Marius Vairosean stomped out of his shuttle towards the Triumphal Way.
He remembered the necklace still sitting in his ship, the deception. It was engraved with the symbolism of Slaanesh - a god's sigil. Or a demon's sigil, for all he knew; Slaanesh did not seem to be on the Crusade's side. Vairosean had often held it in his hands, and odd thoughts had come to him. But the Third Captain had always been bored by them, after he summoned the resolve to put the necklace into its container.
Demeter, it seemed, had lacked that resolve, that willpower. And the grinning face of Vairosean's friend was so completely changed…
Almost like Dasara. Maybe exactly like Dasara. Everyone was a traitor; no one could be trusted, not even his own thoughts if they were influenced by the… entity. By Slaanesh.
"Why so sullen, Marius?" Demeter asked.
The Third Captain shrugged it off wordlessly. Demeter continued babbling, more reasonably, but Vairosean paid him no conscious heed. His gaze locked squarely onto the road ahead, cold certainty filling him.
Demeter had received the implants from Bile. It had taken them a long time, longer than for anyone else. But in the end, even Solomon Demeter couldn't resist chemistry.
Heavy footfalls rang along the deck. Vairosean saw faces to his front, unhelmeted Emperor's Children. Lord Commander Vespasian was there, as well as a couple of other Captains. Vairosean thought of ignoring them, and there was a strong part of him that desired to do that; but the Third Captain needed to keep up appearances.
"Vairosean!"
"Jaenispius!" Julius Jaenispius was the new Captain of the Thirteenth Company, having been appointed after Lucius' dishonor; from all reports, he had quickly surpassed his predecessor in disgustingness. "How has it been?"
"Wondrous. Truly delightful. We enlightened three worlds to the word of Slaanesh."
"Only three?"
Jaenispius shrugged. "We were having fun." What exactly the fun consisted of was left to Vairosean's imagination, but the Third Captain had no doubt that his dark thoughts were far tamer than what had in fact happened.
"Vairosean," Vespasian announced when the conversation had died down, "the Brotherhood of the Phoenix will be meeting in minutes. Yours was the last shuttle to arrive; the Legion is gathered once more. We head now to Ultramar. Oh, and - Captain Demeter has initiated a new program for recruiting. We'll discuss it at the meeting, but I thought I should warn you."
Marius Vairosean nodded, and the set of Captains strode into the Triumphal Way. Vairosean noted Vespasian's changed visage along the way; the Lord Commander had received an additional ocular implant since the Third Captain had seen him last, an addition whose scars were still not fully healed.
The Triumphal Way itself, too, had changed. The guard was completely gone now; no tainted Legionnaire desired duty. Bile rose in the Third Captain's stomach, but he suppressed it.
Skulls, mutilated skulls, now coated the walls. An odd yellow slime oozed through the orifices within those skulls. It dripped onto the floor, where it instantly solidified; with some shock, Vairosean recognized the liquid as being molten gold.
"How was your campaign?" Demeter asked, pulling alongside his former friend once more. "I assume you followed our Primarch's edicts?"
Vairosean chose his response carefully. "Of course," he said, "despite initial misgivings. But I have made peace with it now."
"That's reassuring to hear. I mean, Fulgrim was right, of course. He had to have been, otherwise..."
For a moment, paralysis gripped Vairosean's legs: what if Demeter, converted, had informed Fulgrim that Vairosean knew of the treachery? But there was nothing to be done about that, so he continued to walk through a steadily darkening corridor of dripping gold.
The light from above was effectively gone by the time the Captains and Vespasian reached the entrance to the Heliopolis; there was only the reddish glow of the yellowish gold. Thus, the Heliopolis' light was at first blinding. Vespasian opened the gates without announcing the enterers' names to the Phoenix Guard; Vairosean supposed there was no more Phoenix Guard, or at least that it was severely reduced to just the bodyguards of the Phoenician.
The light of the Heliopolis was blinding. But it was wrong. The lamps were distorted somehow; there was no shadow, and every point within the room was equally lit. It was a perfection that Vairosean had dreamed of, yet it was also unnatural.
Outside, total darkness remained, lit only by the dripping gold. It formed intricate structures near the Heliopolis, but the floodlights within should have made its faint glow invisible; yet the lava-like fluid retained its luminescence. Indeed, no light escaped the confines of the circular Heliopolis; while Vairiosean stood before the entrance, he was darkened.
He stepped into the light. The Heliopolis was revealed before Marius Vairosean as the Captain strode to his seat in the second circle. Rows filed by, and Captains within them, from Abranxe to Zipritie. Circles lay within circles, and even as Vairosean sat down, Fulgrim Phoenician entered the brotherhood's sanctum.
The lights immediately flickered, then moved, converging on the Primarch. Usually this effect seemed to happen due to Fulgrim's luminescence; but when Vairosean looked up, he saw the floodlights had in fact altered their position.
"My children!" Fulgrim announced. "I bid you welcome. Only a few brief moments remain until we are due to depart for the realm of Ultramar. The treachery of my brother Guilliman is unimaginable, yet it is truth. Let me remind, then: Roboute Guilliman has turned from the light of the Emperor."
Fulgrim cast a long glance around the room, as if sweeping it for bugs. It was not a harsh glare, however; the Primarch's gaze was simultaneously paternal, and Vairosean had to struggle not to give into the hypnotism. This was, he knew, the real enemy. Guilliman would fall sooner or later, as long as the Imperium was strong.
Going against his Primarch - never what Vairosean had planned, but he would do what he had to.
"We fly to the jaws of Ultramar, to its western frontiers. The Thirteenth Legion thinks is can stop us with high walls and wide cannons. They are wrong!"
Was the Primarch suicidal? Without foreplanning, yes, a Legion's strength could capture a few planets. But Ultramar… Ultramar was intimidating. Ultramar needed a plan.
Fabius' corruptees could fight well. For the soldiers, that was enough. But an officer needed to be capable of thinking as well, and that seemed absent in the tainted.
"We will attack. We will win. For are we not the Children of the Emperor? Yes, we will burn their pitiful remnants away! For Slaanesh!"
Of course. Fulgrim was purely Slaaneshi now, a tool of the daemon-god. Pathetic, really.
Yet the Legion cheered, for reasons incomprehensible to Marius Vairosean. Many of them would follow Slaanesh anywhere, of course. The Third Captain preferred to stay alive, and useful to the Emperor.
"Can the galaxy contain our glory?" Eidolon asked.
"It can, and without difficulty," Demeter answered, "our galaxy is more than you believe."
"What," Astarune - having arrived to the Heliopolis shortly before Vairosean himself - asked, "has happened to the Triumphal Way?"
"Eidolon redecorated it," Vairosean put in, "remember?"
"But what's with the molten gold? How is that even physically possible?"
"The might of the Warp makes all things possible," Ruen declared.
That made no sense, and at the same time it was a pretty clear-cut explanation. Perhaps all of this had something to do with ex-Captain Lucius' dark ritual before Slodi? If it was then that Fulgrim had first communed with Slaanesh… but no, Fabius' modifications had started long ago. It was Laeran, all Laeran.
There was a bit more discussion after that, questions and answers about the Captains' campaigns and other ruins. Vairosean and Astarune had achieved the highest efficiency, but that led to little praise nowadays.
Eventually, however, the discourse quieted down, and Fulgrim found himself the center of attention once more. Many of Vairosean's fellow captains seemed as addicts, looking to Fulgrim to provide their next dose. Their gazes were turned up, and on their faces desperate admiration was carved.
They needed Fulgrim. And Fulgrim was ready for that.
"My children!" he pronounced. "I have two more announcements today. The first is that news has recently reached us that my traitorous brother, Jaghatai Khan, will never in life come to the side of the Emperor once more. For his treachery, he has been rewarded with a death in battle. There are only seventeen Primarchs now."
A Primarch dead.
A Primarch dead. It was incomprehensible. Vairosean was not, of course, about to argue that the Khan hadn't deserved it, but still….
"I mourned for him," Fulgrim said, "despite his turning. I never wanted this. I never wanted all this. Let my pain be your pain, and let your pain feed Slaanesh."
Vairosean found it difficult to summon sympathy for the traitor. There was only room in his heart for awe. A Primarch dead….
"The battle happened a while ago, but the news has been kept from us by the whims of the Warp. In any case, my second announcement is a happier one."
Happy. Ha.
"Solomon Demeter, Second Captain, has at last found a solution to our recruiting difficulties. From this day forth, the Emperor's Children will recruit from enemy populations. From this day forth, we shall capture our young enemies and mold those that survive into new Initiates for our glorious Legion!"
Applause erupted, a furious rattle, exuded by ceramite smashing against ceramite. There was cheering, too, spreading through the Heliopolis like a virus. Marius Vairosean sat in place, rigid, trying to piece together the Legion's pieces in his mind and failing.
Did Fulgrm not see? No, he did, of course. The Phoenician was still a Primarch, despite the madness. But Fulgrim most certainly had a plan to deal with the rebellious Initiates, the ones unbound by Chemos' regulations and traditions, the ones that would still be nurturing a hatred of their superiors from beneath their psycho-conditioning. There were so many reasons this would not work!
Fulgrim was sending the Third Legion to hell.
''Thank you!" Fulgrim screamed over the cheering. "Thank you, and farewell!"
The Phoenician turned, his cloak swooping around him, and in the last moment before his Primarch's face was turned Vairosean imagined he saw a tear on his father's face- imagined, because Fulgrim was certainly beyond weeping now. Then Fulgrim was ascending the stairs to his sanctum, and the Brotherhood of the Phoenix began flowing out. Kaesoron came up to the Third Captain, his face tired.
"For Slaanesh," Vairosean mumbled. "Not "For the Emperor"."
"Fulgrim is only embracing the dark god to please the Legion," Kaesoron said, also under his breath. "He is still sane."
Kaesoron, even with his implants, seemed to doubt it.
And then Marius Vairosean walked out of the Heliopolis, through the gilded Triumphal Way, heading unerringly toward the Triple Hall. His pace was heavy, his humour melancholic with a hint of choler as he went to give proof of his fake loyalty.
"For the Emperor," he said, mostly to himself.
Someone had to say it.
