[You are quiet for a moment.]
[There is something sharp in it: that the loyalty of a Primarch's clone could run deeper and more unbroken than the loyalty of the original. That the copy might carry the virtue the source had abandoned.]
[You blink.]
[Then you raise your hand slowly and hold it out toward him.]
["I don't believe you could face an Ascended Primarch alone and win." You hold his gaze. "But I respect the intention behind the attempt. Brother."]
[Fulgrim's clone comes back from wherever the emotion had taken him. He looks at your outstretched hand for a moment, and then a genuine smile crosses his face. He reaches out, his hand large and covered in the same terracotta-shelled purple and gold as his armor, and takes yours.]
[The sounds of the alien mass fill the air around you again, closer than before.]
[You tighten your grip on the Blood Scythe and turn to look at him.]
["You have been here longer than I have. Do you have any sense of a direction? A route out of this place?"]
["Brother, I would very much like to tell you that everything is under control." His brow draws together slightly, his face bright against the backdrop of his white hair even in the low light. "But I only broke free from the stasis field a short time ago. From what I could observe along the way, the space is vast and the passageways are a labyrinth. Two alone would struggle to navigate it."]
[You take a breath and look toward the nearest metal corridor.]
["Then we start moving. Before this place's true master returns, we find whoever else has broken free and bring them with us. Enough people and we do more than escape: we give whoever is responsible for this a considerable problem."]
[You push your blood-stained vibranium armor into motion without waiting for a response.]
[Fulgrim's clone tilts his chin up slightly. His gaze moves to the dark metal dome overhead, vast and cold and arched like a night sky with no stars. His grip shifts on the longsword.]
[Then he follows.]
[The two of you move through the passageway network, taking turns and junctions in sequence. Your animal instincts read the air ahead of each corner, tracking pressure changes and sound and the particular smell of confined alien biology. You angle consistently away from the heaviest concentrations, threading toward the outer margins of the area.]
[Then you round a turn into a small metal plaza and find a group of Necrons.]
[Neither side pauses to assess. You and Fulgrim's clone are already moving.]
[A Cryptek commanding a small detachment of warriors has no viable counter to a Primarch-grade combatant operating at nearly full capacity alongside someone of equivalent scale. The engagement is short and entirely one-sided. A dozen minutes later you are kneeling beside the shattered remains of the Cryptek, lifting a heavy metal catalog from the debris.]
["Brother. The alien creatures." Fulgrim's clone keeps his eyes on the corridor mouths around you.]
["I can make no promises about the others," you say, turning pages without looking up. "But Necron weapons and equipment should be safe to handle as long as we avoid anything whose function we cannot identify. Give me a moment." You stop on a page. "I think I have found where we are."]
[The catalog contains a partial map of the complex, rendered in the Necron's own script alongside graphic representations you can read without needing the language. You and Fulgrim's clone orient against it quickly, identify the current position, and select a direction.]
[You leave the Necron plaza and change course.]
[The labyrinthine corridors gradually open as you travel. The tight metal passages give way to something older and larger: a palace complex, the architecture entirely different in character from the Necron construction surrounding it. The proportions are too elegant for human hands, the ornamentation following aesthetic principles built around a different sense of what beauty requires.]
["Eldar design," Fulgrim's clone says, studying the vaulted columns and carved arches above you.]
[You neither confirm nor deny it. You shake your head slightly and keep moving.]
[Boom boom boom...]
[You and Fulgrim's clone stop at the same instant and look at each other.]
[Weapons. Somewhere ahead, a sharp firefight is underway.]
[You move toward it without discussing the decision.]
[The source is a wide approach to an ancient palace, its facade encrusted with what you recognize as spirit bones worked into decorative patterns across every surface. In the open ground before it, a performance of violence is in progress that carries its own strange beauty.]
[A dozen Harlequins hold the center of the approach. Their movements are not military in any conventional sense: they turn, feint, and strike in patterns that blur the line between combat and display, Shuriken rounds streaming from their weapons in precise, glittering arcs. They are fighting toward a single point, pressing it, and what they are pressing against does not move.]
[Five Chaos Space Marines in black Terminator plate advance from the palace entrance. Slowly. Methodically. Absorbing what the Harlequins send at them and continuing forward regardless.]
["Black Legion Terminators," you say under your breath. The cold is entirely absent from the word. What replaces it is less charitable than contempt.]
[Fulgrim's clone glances at you.]
["Abaddon's Legion. What remained of Horus's warriors, rebuilt under the Despoiler's hand." You watch the Terminators absorb another volley without breaking stride. "Traitors compounding treason. Not worth the cost of an intervention."]
["Agreed," Fulgrim's clone says. His voice is quiet and carries its own weight. He looks at the two sides with visible distaste. "Since they are both enemies, neither deserves saving."]
[You nod once and begin to move away from the corner.]
[Hissing sounds...]
[Shuriken rounds cut through the air from two directions simultaneously, both trajectories aimed at the corner where you are standing. At the same moment, three Harlequins peel away from the main engagement with the fluid precision of dancers who have always known where the third step was going to land, and come directly toward your position.]
["How did they find us?" Fulgrim's clone mutters, his hand already tightening on the longsword.]
[You rise from cover and bring the Blood Scythe up. "It doesn't matter. If they want to press the point, we accommodate them."]
[You and Fulgrim's clone clear the corner together.]
[The longsword and the Blood Scythe move at the same moment, and the Harlequins who reach you are met with a combined storm that gives them no useful angle. A power shortsword clashes against the Blood Scythe, the impact jarring up through your arm. You redirect the momentum, flip the blade, and drive the green-lit edge in deep.]
[Fulgrim's clone is already past his first target. Two masked heads separate from their owners in the same breath and have not yet reached the ground.]
[The Harlequin pinned on your blade does not stop moving. It pushes forward against the weapon lodged in its chest, closing the distance between you, and speaks in the Imperial language with the urgency of someone who has very little time to say something important.]
["Break through the illusion to reach the truth. You must break through the illusion to reach the truth. Only then can ultimate liberation be attained."]
["What did you say?" You hold the gaze behind the mask, your grip steady on the scythe.]
[But the Harlequin has already spent its last breath. The light behind the mask goes out. Its body goes still against the blade, and the space it occupied is silent.]