Rebirth & Redemption Ch 3

"Sorry about that." Andrew smiled. "It means something like 'days long past'. It's Scottish. My name is Andrew Clark, and as for how I got here, it's a crazy story. You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

Then in a whisper, talking to himself; "Besides, I'd rather not be burned as a Heretic."

He thought he'd been to quiet for the giant to hear, but apparently he had superhuman hearing.

"I am in no position to judge anther's actions. Not when my own have yet to be judged or atoned for." The man spoke heavily, his grief and regret coming back to the fore.

"Who are you?" Andrew was genuinely curious. "Are you a Primaris Space Marine? You are much bigger than I expected."

"I am Fulgrim." The man spoke, as if making a confession. "Primarch of the Third Legion, once son of the Emperor, and now a damned betrayer, kin-slayer, and museum exhibit."

"Wait, Fulgrim?" Andrew took a few step backwards warily. "You don't look like a four armed snake man Daemon Primarch?"

"So you have heard of me." The self-proclaimed Fulgrim tried not nod, but his limited range of movement minimized the gesture. "Through the grace of my Progenitor I was reborn. I thought it was so that I might atone for my mistakes, but perhaps this is part of that atonement."

"Ah!" Replied Andrew, as understanding dawned. "You're Fabius Bile's Clonegrim! Now that I think about it, I remember that Bile sold you out to Trazyn."

"The Imperium knows about me?" A glimmer of hope seemed to appear in Fulgrim's voice. "How did they learn of me? Did some of my children go to them to rescue me?"

Andrew grimaced. He hated to dash Fulgrim's hopes. "As far as I know, no-one in the Imperium knows that you exist. Aside from those who were there, the only people who know are nerds from early M3."

"Nerds from early M3?" Fulgrim had never felt more nonplussed in his life.

"Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me either, but here I am." Andrew gestured around him with a shrug to convey his own helplessness."

"I'm... Going to need more of an explanation than that." Fulgrim looked at Andrew with the eyes of someone trying to figure out what a crazy person was talking about.

"Well, given that we're both stuck here, and that the nearest Inquisitor is probably dozens or hundreds of light years away... Well, depending on the exact date Greyfax may be around somewhere, but if so she's almost certainly in one of Trazyn's poke-balls..." Andrew realized he was babbling, so he took a deep breath and decided to start over.

"My name is Andrew Clark, and I was born in the year 1991 AD, or, as current Imperials would call it: the year 991 M2. During that time, there was a company that sold wargaming rules, models, and novels, called Games Workshop. They had a number of different product lines, but their most popular was called Warhammer 40,000, so called because most of the information was set in and around M40, M41, and later M42. I enjoyed that franchise for many years, before apparently being killed in a car crash in the year 2031. Earlier today, I was apparently cloned earlier today by a device from your Age of Technology before your Long Night, and now I'm stuck here in this insanely bloody and simply insane galaxy that you call home."

Fulgrim looked at him in shock and disbelief. "Forgive me, citizen. I certainly appreciate a human voice to talk to after all this time, so I hope you will forgive me when I say that I will need some proof of this claim."

Andrew nodded. "Fair enough. It seems extremely outlandish when I say it too. I'd take you to the machine that cloned me, but you seem a little... held up, at the moment. Now what can I do that will prove it to you? … Ah! I know! Just a moment."

Andrew pulled out his HappyFun Time Bar, and stared at it, as he converted various memories of media into recreations of that media, then copied them over the resulting files. Finally set the device down where Fulgrim could see it, and activated it. After a moment, a voice began to play.

"Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix. Written by Josh Reynolds. Ready by Jonathan Keeble. It is a time of legend. Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy. The vast armies of the Emperor of Mankind conquer the stars in a Great Crusade – the myriad alien races are to be smashed by his elite warriors and wiped from the face of history."

There was more to the brief introduction, but after that, Fulgrim listened with growing shock to events he had almost forgotten, so buried had they been by all that came afterwards. At first he wanted to deny it. To claim that this was all some kind of Tzeenchian trick. But it was too real for that, and it forced him deeper into the introspection that he'd tried to avoid in Bile's service, and that his time alone and unmoving here had forced him to start. He saw the pride and desperate need for approval that had plagued all too many of his sons. And more than anything, he saw it in himself. Beneath the genuine love and compassion for the mortal citizens, and future citizens of the Imperium, there was the insecurity and need for constant approbation.

"Perhaps it would be better if I never leave this place" he muttered, more to himself than to this strange man from a past so ancient he had trouble even imagining it.

"Now that's where I have to disagree with you." The voice brought him back to the here and now. "Sure you aren't perfect. You've been proud, and self-aggrandizing, and the first time you realized it you chose to be a coward rather than facing it." The words were as painful as a Dark Eldar flaying knife, and Fulgrim winced at every one.

"But that's the thing, Fulgrim. Nobody is. Not you. Not your dad. Not Sanguinious. Not Guilliman or Dorn. All of you messed up. Big time." Andrew paused, and then sighed.

"And the normal humans and the space marines are no better. I've been lazy and unmotivated. I tried to pretend that it was my employer's fault. That they squeezed the little guy and gave no opportunity to rise. And to be fair there was some truth to that. But if I'd been willing to put in the effort I could have risen far beyond where I did." Andrew squared his shoulders and continued.

"But the truly important thing is not 'have you ever failed'. Or even 'have you failed majorly.' No the true question is 'what did you do after you discovered you failed'. And that's open ended. You can change it today." Now Andrew gestured to the wall, as if it was a representation of the rest of the galaxy.

"It's a mess out there. Abaddon's been working for millennia. His 13th Black Crusade is going to destroy Cadia and that'll lead to a giant warp rift cutting the galaxy in half. But even discounting Chaos. If all the traitor Astartes and the Dark Mechanicum, and all the demons, and even the Big 4 so called 'gods' all went 'Poof' tomorrow, the Galaxy would still be in really rough shape." Andrew gestured around them, indicating the Necron facility they were trapped in.

"The Necrons are waking up. They've got technology that surpasses that of any race you can think of. They're almost impossible to permanently kill. They're scattered all over the place. And depending on the faction they want to either kill all sapient life in the galaxy, enslave all sapient life in the galaxy, or turn us into flesh suits they can download themselves into to stop being all metal.

Then there's the Tyranids. There's potentially unlimited numbers of those swarming hyper-evolving space locust coming from outside the galaxy to eat everything to continue hyper-evolving.

Then you have all the second tier threats. The Eldar. The Dark Eldar, the Tau, The Squats are apparently back as the 'Leagues of Votann' and whatever happened to make them disappear for millennia they aren't allied to the Imperium any more.

But the true biggest threat to the Imperium isn't any one of these. It's the Imperium itself. The whole thing was a jury-rigged lashup from the start, and it's only gotten worse. It's riddled with corruption, infighting, incompetence, tradition for the sake of tradition, the list goes on, and no one but the most greedy and self-centered dares to even contemplate shaking up the status quo, for fear of being labeled a 'Heretic' and getting themselves and everyone they care about tortured to death."

Andrew turned back to him, and Fulgrim saw a fire in his eyes that hadn't been there previously.

"So tell me, Mr Phoenician. Are you a Phoenix, or are you a Chicken. And even if you aren't really a Phoenix, what gives you the right to sit on your hands here, (figuratively speaking), when you are capable of making a difference? If you need more convincing that you don't have to be perfect to make a difference, let me introduce you to one of the greatest living 'Heroes of the Imperium', a Commissar by the name of Ciaphas Cain!" Andrew sent a signal to the HappyFun Time Bar, and a new audiobook started playing.

Note: I can't remember if I said M2 previously, but if we're going by the standard calendar we have been in M3 since the year 2000.