The breaking point came three days after the Primarchs' initial visit.
Lion El'Jonson had not left the station. Unlike Guilliman and Vulkan, who had returned to their respective duties with promises to "keep in touch" (Guilliman's words) and "visit the forges together sometime" (Vulkan's words), the Lion had remained.
Watching.
Waiting.
Calculating.
He attended meetings. He observed training exercises. He spoke with the Ultramarines, the Space Wolves, the Custodians—anyone who had spent significant time with Bartholomew.
And with each passing hour, his discomfort grew.
Because nothing made sense.
Nothing about Bartholomew Thaddeus Jenkins III made any sense.
The Lion had spent ten thousand years in slumber, yes, but he had also spent the centuries before that learning to read people. To identify threats. To categorize individuals into neat mental boxes: ally, enemy, tool, obstacle.
Bartholomew fit none of these boxes.
He was not an ally—he had no agenda, no goals, no ambition that the Lion could identify or exploit.
He was not an enemy—he showed no hostility, no malice, no sign of deception.
He was not a tool—he could not be controlled, directed, or predicted.
He was not an obstacle—he actively avoided conflict and seemed genuinely distressed by attention.
He was just... there. Existing. Being impossible.
And the Lion hated things he could not categorize.
The incident began in the training hall.
Bartholomew had been practicing with his new fire abilities—under Vulkan's remote guidance via holo-link—when the Lion walked in.
"Leave us," the Lion commanded.
The training hall emptied instantly. Even the Custodian assigned to observe Bartholomew hesitated only briefly before withdrawing. When a Primarch gave an order in that tone, you obeyed.
Bartholomew looked up from the small flame dancing between his fingers.
"Uh, hi. Did you need something?"
"Yes." The Lion drew his sword—the legendary Fealty, a blade that had slain daemons and traitors and monsters beyond counting. "I need answers."
"I've told you everything I know—"
"You have told me nothing. You speak words, but they are meaningless. You claim ignorance, but you wield powers that should be impossible. You say you are 'just a guy,' but you have defeated Custodians and piloted Titans and bonded with my brother's fire."
The Lion's voice rose with each sentence, centuries of suppressed frustration bubbling to the surface.
"I do not trust you. I do not understand you. And I cannot categorize you. Do you know what that means?"
"That I'm confusing?"
"It means you are DANGEROUS!" The Lion leveled Fealty at Bartholomew's chest. "Everything I cannot understand is a potential threat. Every anomaly is a possible enemy. You are the greatest anomaly I have ever encountered, and I will NOT simply accept your existence on faith!"
Bartholomew slowly lowered his hands, letting the practice flame die.
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to SHOW ME. Show me what you truly are. Show me the limits of your power. Show me something—anything—that makes SENSE."
"I don't know how to do that."
"Then I will FORCE you to show me."
The Lion attacked.
The first strike was not meant to kill.
Probably.
It was a test—a probing thrust aimed at Bartholomew's shoulder, fast enough to skewer a normal human before they could blink, slow enough (by Primarch standards) to allow for a response.
Bartholomew teleported.
He didn't think about it. He didn't plan it. One moment he was standing in the path of a Primarch's blade, and the next moment he was ten feet to the left, staring at the space where he'd been.
"Teleportation," the Lion observed, already turning. "As reported. Show me more."
He attacked again.
Faster this time.
Bartholomew teleported again—but this time the Lion was ready. He anticipated the destination, adjusting his strike mid-swing, forcing Bartholomew to teleport a second time. A third time. A fourth.
"You rely too much on that ability," the Lion said, his voice analytically calm despite the violence of his movements. "What happens when I predict your patterns?"
He predicted Bartholomew's pattern.
Fealty swept through the space where Bartholomew appeared, missing his throat by inches only because Bartholomew's body moved on instinct—bending backward in a way that should have been anatomically impossible, the blade passing so close that it actually shaved a few hairs from his head.
"Better," the Lion acknowledged. "You have reflexes beyond human norm. What else?"
He pressed the attack.
From outside the training hall, a crowd had gathered.
Word spread fast on a station full of soldiers who had nothing better to do than gossip about their legendary commander. Within minutes, every viewscreen showing the training hall feed was surrounded by dozens of shocked faces.
"Is that... is the Lion attacking Jenkins?" Sergeant Marcus Aurelius breathed.
"It appears so," Shield-Captain Valdor confirmed, his voice carefully neutral.
"Shouldn't we... do something?"
"What would you suggest? Intervening in a Primarch's actions? That would be both futile and suicidal."
"But Jenkins—"
"Is holding his own."
Everyone stared at the screen.
Valdor was right.
Bartholomew was holding his own.
Not winning—not by any stretch of imagination. He was retreating, dodging, teleporting, doing everything possible to avoid the Lion's strikes rather than countering them. But he was surviving. Against a Primarch. In direct combat.
"That's not possible," someone whispered.
"We've established that possibility is a flexible concept where Jenkins is concerned," Inquisitor Vorn replied, her voice strained.
Inside the training hall, Bartholomew was having what could only be described as the most terrifying experience of his entire existence.
And that was saying something.
The Lion was fast. Not Space Marine fast. Not Custodian fast. Primarch fast. His blade moved in blurs that Bartholomew's eyes could barely track. His footwork was perfect, economical, each step precisely calculated to maximize pressure while minimizing exposure.
He was, objectively, the greatest swordsman Bartholomew had ever faced.
And he was clearly holding back.
"You're not using your new fire," the Lion observed, pressing Bartholomew toward a corner. "Why?"
"I don't—I don't know how—"
"Learn."
The Lion's next strike was aimed at Bartholomew's leg—a crippling blow that would end the fight without killing him.
Bartholomew's hand moved on instinct.
Fire erupted.
Not the gentle, comforting flame that Vulkan had gifted him. This was something else—desperate, reactive, a burst of golden heat that intercepted Fealty mid-swing and actually stopped it.
For about half a second.
Then the Lion pushed through, his Primarch strength overwhelming the barrier, and Bartholomew had to teleport away again.
But that half second had been enough.
"Interesting," the Lion said. "The fire responds to threat. It protects you."
"I didn't know it could do that!"
"Then let us discover what else it can do."
The fight evolved.
Or rather, it stopped being a fight and became something else—a test, with Bartholomew as the subject and the Lion as the proctor.
Each attack was designed to push Bartholomew past his limits. To force new abilities to manifest. To strip away the confusion and reveal the truth beneath.
And slowly, impossibly, it was working.
Bartholomew stopped just teleporting. He started moving—that strange sideways step through reality that he had discovered against the Herald of Tzeentch. The Lion's blade would swing through space he had just occupied, but Bartholomew wouldn't be where normal physics said he should be. He would be elsewhere, having taken a path that didn't exist on any conventional map of reality.
"That," the Lion said, a note of genuine surprise in his voice. "That is new."
"I don't understand it either!"
"Understanding can come later. Show me more."
The fire started manifesting automatically. Not as shields, but as extensions of Bartholomew's movement—trails of golden flame that marked his passage, redirecting the Lion's strikes, providing split-second warnings of incoming attacks.
His body moved in ways that no human body should move. Joints bent at angles that would have been painful for a normal person. Muscles contracted with a speed and power that his frame shouldn't have been able to support.
And through it all, his mind remained clear.
Terrified, yes. Confused, absolutely. But clear.
"You are adapting," the Lion observed, his attacks now coming at something approaching genuine speed. "Your body is learning in real-time. Evolving to meet the threat."
"Is that—is that a good thing?"
"It is an impossible thing. Which means it is happening because you are impossible. Which tells me nothing I did not already know."
The Lion's frustration was mounting.
He had expected the test to reveal something—some weakness, some limit, some explanation for Bartholomew's abilities.
Instead, he was discovering that the more he pushed, the more Bartholomew grew.
"This is not a fair fight," Commissar Cain observed from the watching crowd.
"No," Ragnar Blackmane agreed. "It is not."
"A Primarch against a mortal. Even a mortal like Jenkins."
"And yet the mortal still stands."
They watched as Bartholomew narrowly avoided a strike that would have decapitated him, his body flickering through a step that made Cain's eyes hurt to follow.
"He's not winning," Cain said.
"No."
"He's not even really fighting. He's just... surviving."
"That is often enough."
"Against a Primarch?"
Ragnar's smile was wolfish.
"Against the Lion specifically. The First Primarch. The greatest swordsman among us. The fact that Jenkins survives even one minute of his attention is remarkable. The fact that he has survived—" Ragnar checked the time, "—seventeen minutes is impossible."
"Everything about Jenkins is impossible."
"Yes. And that is why he is so entertaining."
The Lion was becoming angry.
Not the cold, calculating anger that had driven him for most of his existence. This was something rawer. More primal.
He was the Lion. The First. The best.
And this mortal was matching him.
Not defeating him—that was still clearly beyond Bartholomew's capabilities. The Lion had to hold back significantly just to avoid killing him instantly. But within those constraints, Bartholomew was keeping up.
Every time the Lion increased his speed, Bartholomew adapted.
Every time the Lion tried a new angle, Bartholomew found a counter.
Every time the Lion thought he had finally cornered his prey, the prey simply stepped sideways out of reality and reappeared somewhere unexpected.
"ENOUGH!" the Lion roared, and for the first time in the fight, he committed fully to an attack.
Fealty blazed with power—the ancient sword channeling the Lion's fury into a single, devastating strike that could have cleaved a battle tank in half.
Bartholomew didn't teleport.
He didn't step sideways.
He caught the blade.
Not with his hands—that would have been suicide. He caught it with fire. With the gift that Vulkan had given him, manifesting in full force for the first time.
Golden flames exploded outward, forming a barrier that absorbed the Lion's strike. Not stopped it—absorbed it. The kinetic energy of a Primarch's killing blow converted into light and heat and dissipated harmlessly into the air.
The Lion stared.
Bartholomew stared back, his eyes glowing with reflected firelight, his entire body wreathed in flames that danced and flickered without burning him.
"How?" the Lion demanded.
"I don't know."
"That is IMPOSSIBLE!"
"I KNOW!"
For a long moment, the two of them stood there—the greatest warrior the Dark Angels had ever produced and the most impossible mortal in the galaxy—facing each other across a gap of a few feet that might as well have been a universe.
Then the Lion lowered his sword.
"I cannot beat you," he said quietly.
"What?"
"I cannot beat you. Not without killing you. And Father has forbidden that." The Lion's voice was bitter. "Every time I increase my power, you adapt. Every time I find a weakness, it disappears. You are not becoming stronger—you are becoming appropriate. Matching me. Precisely matching me."
"I'm not doing it on purpose!"
"I know. That is what makes it so frustrating." The Lion sheathed Fealty with a decisive click. "You are not my enemy. I see that now."
"Thank you?"
"You are something worse. You are a mirror. A reflection of whatever faces you, adapting to match it, never quite reaching but never falling behind. You cannot be defeated because you cannot be exceeded. Whatever your opponent brings, you bring just enough to match it."
"That doesn't sound right. I definitely felt like I was about to die multiple times."
"You felt fear. That is normal. But you never actually approached death. I watched carefully. No matter how close my blade came, there was always exactly enough space, exactly enough time, exactly enough power for you to escape."
The Lion shook his head.
"I have faced daemons and traitors and horrors beyond description. I have never faced anything that so perfectly adapted to my every action. It is... humbling."
"I'm sorry?"
"Do not apologize. You have done nothing wrong." The Lion's expression shifted into something almost resembling respect. "You have shown me something I did not expect. You have proven that there are still things in this universe I do not understand."
"Is that... good?"
"I do not know. But it is true. And truth has value, even when it is uncomfortable."
The crowd outside the training hall was absolutely silent.
They had watched a Primarch—the First Primarch, the Lord of the Dark Angels, one of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy—fail to defeat a mortal.
"What just happened?" someone finally asked.
"I have no idea," Valdor admitted. "And I witnessed the entire thing."
"He caught the Lion's sword. With fire."
"I saw."
"That's not possible."
"I am aware."
"So what do we do?"
Valdor was quiet for a long moment.
"We accept," he said finally. "We accept that Bartholomew Jenkins is beyond our understanding. We accept that he will continue to do impossible things. And we accept that our role is not to explain him, but to support him."
"That's a very philosophical approach."
"It is a practical approach. I have tried to understand him. The Lion has tried to understand him. Even the Emperor Himself has admitted confusion. Understanding is not possible. Acceptance is the only remaining option."
Inside the training hall, Bartholomew was slowly letting the flames die down.
His whole body ached. Not from injury—the Lion hadn't actually landed a single hit—but from exertion. Whatever he had done had pushed his body to limits he hadn't known existed.
"I need to sit down," he mumbled.
"Do so," the Lion said. "You have earned rest."
Bartholomew collapsed onto the floor with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.
"That was terrifying," he announced.
"It was meant to be."
"You were trying to kill me."
"I was trying to understand you. There is a difference."
"Is there? Because from my perspective, there was a lot of 'giant sword swinging at my face' happening."
The Lion's expression flickered.
It might have been amusement.
"You face death without losing your sense of humor. That is rare. Admirable, even."
"It's a coping mechanism. My therapist would probably say it's unhealthy."
"Your... therapist?"
"Someone who helps you deal with mental and emotional problems. From my world."
"We do not have those."
"Yeah, I noticed. This place could really use some. The amount of unprocessed trauma walking around is astronomical."
The Lion stared at him.
Then, impossibly, he laughed.
It was not a warm laugh. It was not a friendly laugh. But it was genuine—the laugh of someone who had been surprised by something unexpected and found it, against all odds, amusing.
"You are strange, Bartholomew Jenkins."
"I've been told."
"But perhaps strange is not the same as dangerous. I have... misjudged you."
"Is that an apology?"
"Lions do not apologize."
"Of course they don't."
"But they do acknowledge errors. I acknowledge my error. You are not a threat. You are simply... inexplicable. And I must learn to accept that."
The aftermath of the fight spread through the station like wildfire.
By the time Bartholomew emerged from the training hall—exhausted, confused, and desperately in need of a shower—he was greeted by a crowd that had quadrupled in size.
"THE EMPEROR'S CHAMPION HAS MATCHED A PRIMARCH!" someone screamed.
"BLESSED BE HIS NAME!"
"HE STOOD AGAINST THE LION AND DID NOT FALL!"
"I didn't beat him—" Bartholomew started.
"HE IS TOO HUMBLE TO CLAIM VICTORY!"
"TRULY HE IS THE GREATEST OF US!"
"That's not what—"
"JENKINS! JENKINS! JENKINS!"
Bartholomew looked at the Lion, who was standing behind him with an expression of sardonic amusement.
"Help?" Bartholomew pleaded.
"You have made your bed," the Lion replied. "Now you must lie in it."
"That's not helpful!"
"It was not meant to be."
In the Warp, four gods watched with varying degrees of satisfaction.
"He matched a Primarch," Tzeentch said, his voice filled with something approaching awe. "Not defeated—matched. Precisely matched."
"HE DID NOT KILL THE LION," Khorne grumbled. "THAT IS DISAPPOINTING."
"He survived the Lion's full attack," Nurgle pointed out. "That is remarkable in itself."
"And he did it beautifully," Slaanesh added. "The movement, the fire, the way he adapted in real-time—it was art. Deadly, desperate art."
"HE IS GROWING," Khorne admitted. "FASTER THAN ANTICIPATED."
"He is becoming what he was always meant to become," Tzeentch said. "A nexus. A convergence point. A being who can match anything because he is, fundamentally, everything."
"That sounds dangerous," Nurgle observed.
"It is. But dangerous is interesting. And interesting is what we wanted."
"WE SHOULD GIVE HIM MORE BLESSINGS," Khorne decided. "MORE POWER. MORE ABILITY TO FIGHT."
"We should let him grow naturally," Tzeentch countered. "He is developing on his own. Our interference might disrupt the process."
"OR ENHANCE IT."
"Or destroy it. We do not know. That is the nature of chaos—even we cannot predict all outcomes."
"Speaking of outcomes," Slaanesh interjected, "the Warp-sentience is pleased."
Everyone turned their attention to the nascent consciousness that had been growing around Bartholomew.
It was larger now. More defined. Still shapeless, still without clear identity, but undeniably present in a way it hadn't been before.
"IT IS HAPPY," Khorne observed. "CAN WARP-ENTITIES BE HAPPY?"
"This one can, apparently," Nurgle said. "It is attached to our mortal. Bonded to him. His growth is its growth."
"IS THAT A PROBLEM?"
"I don't know. But it is happening regardless of whether we consider it a problem."
The Chaos Gods fell silent, watching their mortal rest, watching the Warp-sentience pulse with contentment, watching the universe slowly rearrange itself around the most impossible person to ever exist.
And for once, they had nothing to say.
You did well, the Warp-voice said, its tone warm.
I almost died. Multiple times.
But you did not. You survived. You grew. You learned.
I don't even know what I learned.
You learned that you can match anything. That your limits are not fixed. That you can become whatever you need to become.
That sounds terrifying.
It is. But it is also liberating. You are not bound by what you were. You can be anything.
Bartholomew lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
His whole body still ached. His mind still reeled from the fight. But somewhere, deep inside, he felt something that might have been satisfaction.
He had faced a Primarch.
He had not died.
In the grim darkness of the forty-first millennium, that counted as a win.
Sleep now, the Warp-voice suggested. Tomorrow will bring new challenges.
It always does.
But you will meet them. As you always do. And you will grow. As you always do.
Is that a prediction?
It is a promise.
Bartholomew closed his eyes.
The small flame that Vulkan had given him flickered to life in his chest, warm and comforting, a tiny beacon against the darkness.
And despite everything—the fear, the confusion, the overwhelming weight of his impossible existence—he smiled.
Because he was still alive.
And in this universe, that was more than most could say.
[END OF CHAPTER TEN]