[You push through the alien mass with your vibranium armor, the Blood Scythe cutting in steady arcs.]
[Beside you, Fulgrim's clone moves like something that has always known what grace under violence looks like. His white hair streams behind him. The longsword in his grip sweeps and turns, and the aliens that press closest come apart in streaks of blood and scattered tissue. The purple and gold of his armor is the only clear color in the corridor.]
[You glance down at the Blood Scythe in your own hand.]
[Your brow draws together. The feeling is still there, quiet and persistent, sitting just below the surface where you cannot quite reach it. You have seen this before. Not this corridor, not this alien, but the shape of the moment. Something about it is familiar in a way you cannot account for.]
[And yet you are certain: this Primarch brother at your side is someone you have never met.]
[Fulgrim's clone finishes the last cluster and turns toward you, the longsword lowering. There is a trace of something contemplative in his expression, behind the flawless lines of his face.]
["I did not expect to find a Primarch brother in a place like this." His voice is quiet and carries its own weight. "It seems our father has not been allowed a moment's rest."]
["Fulgrim." You narrow your eyes slowly. "Have we met before? On any battlefield you can recall?"]
[He holds your gaze without hesitation. "Brother, I give you my word before the Emperor. This is without question our first meeting."]
[You study him for a moment, then nod once. The feeling does not resolve, but you let it sit.]
["Then it seems we will be fighting alongside each other for some time." You extend your vibranium hand toward him.]
[He takes it. The grip is firm and brief.]
[You ask him what he remembers of this space. He frowns slightly, and tells you that the stasis field has done something to his recall: many things that should be clear are present only as shapes, the detail gone. He can orient but not reconstruct.]
[You nod to show you understand, and the two of you select a direction and move.]
[The time that follows is a sustained effort. Corridors and corridors of crazed aliens, pursuit from multiple directions, the two of you cutting a path through the labyrinthine passages until the architecture finally opens into something different: a garden space, small and unexpected, with a fountain at its center where actual water is running.]
[You and Fulgrim's clone fill your reserves without speaking. The water is cold.]
[You lean over the surface of the fountain for a moment and look at your own reflection. Gray hair, dark with old blood at the edges. The face underneath is the same as always, but looking at it produces a feeling you cannot name: the sense that you have stood in this spot before and looked at this same face and been aware of the same gap in your memory. Something important. Something you have already forgotten once.]
[You straighten up and keep moving.]
[Boom boom boom...]
[You and Fulgrim's clone stop simultaneously. Bolter fire, ahead and to the left.]
[Both of you tighten your grips and move toward the sound.]
[The scene that opens before you is immediately recognizable in its outlines: five Black Legion Terminators in a slow, grinding advance, absorbing fire and closing ground. Opposed to them, a dozen Harlequins pressing hard, their Shuriken rounds glittering in the air between the sides. Neither force has finished the other yet.]
[You find yourself explaining the Black Legion to Fulgrim's clone without entirely deciding to. Abaddon the Despoiler, who inherited what remained of Horus's warband and rebuilt it into the instrument of ruin it had become.]
[Fulgrim's clone goes quiet when he hears the name. Something shifts behind his eyes that is not quite grief and not quite guilt, but shares a border with both. He murmurs to himself, his voice low enough that you only catch the shape of it: he had known a First Captain who always wore his hair in a topknot, had seen him many times, had never imagined it would come to this. He had never imagined any of it would.]
[You do not press him on it.]
[You watch the two sides engage, and something is working through your mind: the Harlequins. The last time. The last time the dying one said something, the words carrying an urgency that did not have enough breath behind them to finish. You need the Harlequins alive long enough to speak.]
[You turn to Fulgrim's clone.]
["I need your trust on this. We hit the Terminators. We leave the Harlequins."]
[He meets your eyes for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth moves very slightly. "You chose to trust me. I extend the same to you. Let's go."]
[He adjusts his grip on the longsword. His free hand settles at your shoulder plate for a moment, brief and certain.]
[Then you both break cover.]
[You draw the battered bolter at your waist with your left hand and fire into the Terminator formation as you close. Fulgrim's clone is already past the outer edge of the Harlequins, who pull back by instinct before they register that you are not targeting them.]
[The Harlequins pause. Then they read the engagement: your weapons pointed at the Terminators only, your backs angled away from them. The next volley of Shuriken rounds goes past you and into the Black Legion formation from the other direction.]
[Five Terminator veterans take under a minute between the three forces. The last one goes down in a pool of black-green fluid, and the corridor is quiet.]
[You drop the Terminator's helmet from your hand. Fulgrim's clone settles the longsword into a neutral carry and turns his cold eyes to the Harlequins without comment.]
[You step forward.]
["You can understand me. Someone tell me how to leave this place."]
[The lead Harlequin's masked head turns toward you. When it speaks, its Imperial Low Gothic carries no accent and no warmth.]
["After the thirteen bell tolls fade, the Chaos Gods will return to their places. But the suffering beings will ultimately be unable to escape their fated end." It pauses. "As her offspring, you are not yet clear-headed enough. The timing is wrong. You have arrived too early. Once again."]
[Before you can respond, the lead Harlequin raises its power blade.]
[You and Fulgrim's clone bring your weapons up in the same instant.]
[But the blade does not move toward you.]
[Each Harlequin turns the powered edge toward their own throat. The motion is simultaneous and unhurried, as though it has been decided for some time. In the space of a breath, a dozen masked heads come free of a dozen bodies and find the floor in separate, rolling paths.]
[You look at them. Fulgrim's clone looks at them. A moment passes.]
[Clap. Clap. Clap.]
[From behind you. Slow, deliberate, metal on metal.]
[You and Fulgrim's clone spin together.]
[A silver Necron Overlord approaches across the open ground, scepter in hand, green eyes burning with something that might be amusement.]
["Trazyn." The name comes out of you as a low sound, somewhere between recognition and a growl.]
[Your teeth are set. Your grip on the Blood Scythe is tight enough that you can feel the haft through the armor.]