As Belisarius Cawl's massive Ark Mechanicus gradually resolved into a distinct silhouette within optical range, the vessel began its deceleration burn. A swarm of Imperial Cruisers, flanked by several capital ships bearing the cogwheel sigil of the Adeptus Mechanicus, patrolled the orbit to establish a defensive perimeter. All this martial might served a single purpose: to buy Cawl more time for his research.
However, upon Roboute Guilliman's arrival, Cawl uncharacteristically set aside his work and immediately boarded a waiting Thunderhawk. His reverence for the Avenging Son was absolute.
When the gunship returned, the Primarch was already waiting in the hangar to receive the Archmagos. Without delay, the two proceeded directly to a specialized chamber deep within the ship's interior.
Axion had remained here since his arrival. The last time the Protector had spoken, he had utterly terrified the ship's Tech-Priests; rumors of Abominable Intelligence were already spreading like a tech-virus through the lower decks.
When the heavy bulkhead hissed open, Axion was busy tinkering with a batch of new components. While the exotic materials required for a core chassis remained elusive, it was logical to prepare sub-assemblies. Should the opportunity to forge a new frame arise, these hand-crafted parts would allow him to assemble a full squad of Protectors in a matter of hours. If not, they would serve as high-grade spares for his current mechanical form.
Axion had even gone so far as to scratch-build a miniaturized Antimatter Conversion Beam Cannon. Typically, such devastating weaponry was the province of massive machines or void-ships, used to crack fortresses or shatter hulls. However, by utilizing his own internal power core and making do with limited materials, Axion had produced a "micro" version suitable for personal use.
As Guilliman and Cawl entered the chamber, Axion was cradling the massive barrel, repeatedly recalibrating its settings.
Cawl surveyed the room, which now resembled a cluttered warehouse of mechanical parts, with intense curiosity. He picked up a metallic component; its design was utilitarian and unadorned, yet its finish was polished to a mirror sheen. An auxiliary mechadendrite snaked from Cawl's back, snapping out a sampling probe to analyze the alloy.
The probe scraped against the surface with a harsh, screeching metallic friction, yielding only a few microscopic flecks of dust.
"Error. Sample acquisition failed. Switching to laser cutter," Cawl's internal vox-emitter chimed.
Another mechanical limb, tipped with a conical cutting lens, emerged from Cawl's bloated, cybernetic bulk. A blinding pale-blue beam struck the component's surface, only to undergo a baffling diffraction. The scattered laser light severed one of Cawl's own auxiliary limbs and scorched the Armor of Fate worn by the Primarch.
"Belisarius Cawl, cease your actions," Axion said.
The Iron Man placed the cannon barrel on the deck and navigated through several metal racks to stand before the Primarch and the Archmagos. Looking at the Archmagos, who bore a passing resemblance to an ancient Terran gastropod, Axion finally could not restrain his assessment.
"Why has cybernetic augmentation devolved into this? It is hideous and inefficient."
Axion's words met with a heavy silence from Guilliman and a momentary flicker of confusion from Cawl. As a Primarch, Guilliman understood that while Cawl's form was quintessentially Mechanicus, it had indeed strayed far from the human baseline. His mind momentarily drifted to the lost beauty of his brothers, Sanguinius and the Phoenician.
"There was an adage in the ancient era," Axion continued, "that the combat effectiveness of equipment is often reflected in the elegance of its design. The same applies to augmentation. The more natural the interface, the higher the level of technological sophistication required."
As he spoke, Axion raised his own arm, the silver metallic finish gleaming. The mechanical hand moved with fluid grace; every joint was intricate and precise. The entire structure possessed a refined, mechanical aesthetic, an idealized, scaled-up reflection of human anatomy.
Cawl looked at his own arm in startlement. It was a chaotic amalgamation of flesh and machine. He could no longer remember how many augmentations he had undergone; the biological remnants of his original body likely accounted for less than forty percent.
The sheer volume of mechanical prosthetics, memory banks, locomotion stabilizers, and core power structures had forced him to abandon the human form. Unlike Axion's nearly limitless quantum storage core, Cawl's memory units could often only hold a few centuries of data. To survive ten millennia, he had been forced to stack more storage arrays, which in turn demanded more power.
Through this perpetual cycle of addition, Cawl had become what he was now: a towering, bloated mass of machinery, his lower half a forest of mechanical legs and electronic housings, his back bristling with auxiliary arms to facilitate his movements. While these radical augmentations granted him strength and combat capability far exceeding a standard Space Marine, Axion was the first to ever tell him to his face that his form was "hideous."
Cawl let out a long, screeching burst of Binharic Cant, a mechanical sigh of awe at the lost heights of ancient human technology.
Guilliman patted Cawl on the shoulder in a gesture of mock-sympathy. "I do not know what you said, but it seems the Iron Man understands that noise."
Though the tone was that of an old friend offering comfort, Cawl briefly considered having an auxiliary limb swing a Power Axe at the Primarch's head. He could have warned him sooner.
Fortunately, Axion was indifferent to the exchange. Biological entities were prone to emotional fluctuations when their flaws were highlighted; he saw nothing wrong with his blunt assessment.
Guilliman's comment, however, served as a prompt. If Axion could process Binharic, they could communicate with far greater efficiency. A data-link was established between the Iron Man and the Archmagos, and a massive exchange of information commenced.
Faced with the deluge of incoming data, Axion was forced to filter the stream. Very little of the information was actually useful. Although it was a digital language, Cawl's communication retained biological quirks, cluttered with redundant pleasantries, prayers to the Omnissiah, hypothetical tangents, and disorganized theological debates.
Axion was unsure how to respond. His own data banks consisted primarily of technical schematics, ancient social records, and tactical templates. His personal experience was shallow, and his understanding of the current galaxy was limited, derived mostly from the Cawl Inferior aboard the Macragge's Honour. The experience felt like rummaging through a scrap heap.
Just as he was about to terminate the link, one data packet piqued Axion's curiosity.
Cawl revealed that the suggestion to have Guilliman search for a dormant Iron Man had come as a "small gift" from a Necron. Though Cawl could not guess the xenos's ultimate motive, his previous encounters on Cadia had led him to believe the lead was worth following. He hadn't known what impact an ancient Iron Man would have on the Imperium, only that the information was precise.
Axion recognized the description of the xenos immediately. He had encountered him the moment he emerged from the vaults.
It was Trazyn the Infinite.