Angron was loud. His voice boomed when he spoke, his steps echoed. He was in constant motion, underlining his words with gestures, prowling when he listened. It made Janos want to grab him and force him to sit down, but he resisted the urge. What point would it have?
They left the Captains behind. He knew Cas and Falk would keep Adi's sourness in line. Most likely, they would make a better impression on the Eighth Captain of the War Hounds than he would make on Angron.
His brother was bigger than him: broad, built like the namesake of his Legion. He looked powerful and dangerous, with the red face paint and the scars on his torso. The last part made him wonder—he had a hard time understanding why anyone would want to show off signs of their own vulnerability. A scar only showed you had been weak enough to get wounded.
"This is the Rope," Angron said, and Janos realized he had been staring at the scar for some time now. "For each fight I took part in, I'd make a cut. All red, not one black."
Janos gave him a puzzled look, wondering how one made a black cut. Perhaps he misunderstood something? Not all of his brothers spoke Gothic or its variations as their native languages. And even a Primarch could sometimes fumble over an idiom.
"For a lost battle, you make a cut and rub some dirt from the arena in," Angron explained. "A black twist."
It was still odd, but Janos held his tongue and did not voice his disapproval of the practice. After all, he might not like the idea of scarring oneself for whatever purpose, but his new brother would not see it his way. He viewed this Rope of his as a sign of victory, of strength. He somehow doubted commenting on the danger of infection those "black twists" came with would be appreciated either.
When you have no control over your fate, you can at least control your body. Unless that is taken from you too—it seemed his brother had been spared that, at least.
"For a fight won, you let the cut heal—a red twist," Angron continued. "How do you commemorate your battles?"
Each Legion had its traditions. The Luna Wolves had a whole museum of trophies from conquered worlds and defeated armies. The Celestial Griffins had a different custom. "My Legion started doing this even before I joined. After each conquest, we take a piece of metal from the defeated—a gun, a piece of armor or part of a tank—and our techmarines add it to a mosaic on the bridge of Beata Ira."
Angron gave him a puzzled look, but before Janos could explain he hazarded a guess. "That's one of those Titan things?"
"Ah, no," Janos said. "That's the XIth Legion's flagship."
Angron sighed irritably. "You could keep the names of the ships in one language, you know? It's too confusing."
"You can tell Father that next time we see him," Janos suggested. He wasn't even certain why this bothered his brother so much. He had just accepted the fact that some names got translated and some didn't.
By then, they entered the training halls. The training cages stood in long rows on both sides of the room. Some were occupied—on a Space Marine vessel somebody was always training. The din of training blades and the whirring of automated systems stopped as they passed. The occupants of the cages turned to watch them, making the sign of Aquila in awed silence. Surprisingly, nobody knelt. There was always somebody who knelt, when Primarchs were about. He remembered quite vividly Horus telling people not to kneel and yet here, no one bent his knee.
Angron stopped in front of one of the empty training cages and the automatic doors hissed open. He gave the mechanism a sullen look and breathed out belligerently. For a while he hovered over the control console, before grinning to himself and pressing a combination with one large finger. The tock sounds came in larger intervals than Janos was used to.
It wasn't exactly what Janos had been expecting. They'd barely met and fighting so soon was… odd? He wasn't certain what to make of it. Not yet. He didn't get much time to think in depth about it, as apparently Angron made a mistake with the codes.
With a sound of cutting air, automated blades descended from the ceiling and started whirling to Angron's irritation, if the growl he let out was any indication.
"I thought this was the combination," he snarled, before irritably punching in another code. This one seemed to be correct as the blades retreated into the ceiling.
"Let me try," Janos offered. "What did you want to do?"
He was not particularly fond of close combat, but he had spent enough in a training cage to know how to operate it. Horus had insisted he learned how to fight and so he regularly trained, even if he preferred the shooting range. After all, he could not rely on his Marines to protect him.
Angron glared at the console for a while longer, almost gnashing his teeth. Finally, with an angry snort, he nodded at Janos. "Make sure that thing doesn't start doing stuff like that."
Janos considered the request, before setting the parameters to neutral. Angron hovered quite uncomfortably close to his shoulder, watching his fingers intently as he entered the code. After a few seconds, he stepped back.
"I'll take off my armor. It will take a moment," he said. "You're not armored, so neither should I be."
There were racks outside of every training cage—some where brimming with weapons: axes, swords, even spears. Others were empty, prepared to accept the equipment of the occupants. While Angron picked his weapons, Janos took off his armor. Piece by piece, he placed them on the rack. Briefly, he regretted not asking anyone to come with him. Taking off one's armor on one's own took quite long. He wasn't even halfway done, when he heard Angron pacing impatiently behind him.
"You could always help with this," he offered, peering over his shoulder.
"And get you stuck in that?" Angron snorted.
"You will have to learn how to operate power armor," Janos replied, shrugging. "Why not start now?"
Angron grunted wordlessly in response and energetically stepped closer. Janos wasn't certain if his brother's aid had truly sped up the process—he had to instruct him quite often, but at least it kept Angron from pacing.
Finally, as the last piece clanked against the rack, Janos was left in the thin undersuit he wore beneath his armor. Near him metal chimed twice as Angron drew twin axes. Janos took a sword and they entered the cage together. They parted ways in the middle of the cage and each took a place opposite to the other. Janos watched his brother's form and tried to gauge as much as possible before making a move.
Angron was a seasoned fighter, but patience was clearly not his strong suite. Most likely he didn't need it before—he had fought mortals not nearly close to his strength or prowess. He charged: not blindly, but loudly announcing his attack with a bellow. Janos moved aside trying to swipe him from the left, but Angron twisted around and caught his attack with one of his axes. The other came whistling towards Janos' arm and he barely had the time to drop down. Quickly, he kicked Angron in the knee and jumped up.
His brother stumbled, giving Janos time to strike at his side, but somehow Angron managed to avoid getting hit and launch another strike at Janos. This one he barely blocked and stumbled away, off balance.
Clearly, Angron was better than him. Each attack was proving this to Janos—his brother had a fighter's instinct. His reactions were lightening quick—he did not think, he acted. Still, this instinct was the only thing that let Janos fight Angron on something approaching equal terms. Before, Angron had only fought unaugmented humans or so Janos had assumed. Perhaps he had trained with some of his Astartes by now, but nevertheless, nobody he had fought against had come close to a Primarch's size. Most of his blows came low and this allowed Janos to guess how to move.
Still, he needed to end this quickly, before Angron adjusted completely. Being beaten by a newly found brother during the first training fight would be a bit too embarrassing. He dove under Angron's arm and rammed him with his shoulder. The move itself was much more effective in armor, when one had pauldrons, but it served its purpose and made Angron stumble. Or so at least Janos thought - until one powerful arm wrapped around his throat and he found himself smashing head first into the wall.
"You'd have a better chance of winning if you didn't fight like you're going to lose," Angron said, shaking his head.
AN: In the words of Detritus the troll "Why I appear to be cogitating!" (paraphrased)