[Simulation initialising.]
[Current available identities: Space Wolf Bloodclaw, Lord Cypher (Unknown Region - Pursuit in Progress)]
[Please select an identity to proceed.]
[Selection declined.]
[Identity assigned at random.]
[Simulation initialising.]
[You have arrived in the Warhammer Universe.]
[Time: Unknown.]
[Location: Gloriana-class Battleship, Red Tear.]
[You are standing in a ship's corridor. The lighting overhead is pale red, casting long shadows across the floor. You are looking down at your own hands.]
[You are wearing speed-type power armour, painted blue. The Heart of the Furnace sits at your hip. The Blood Scythe is in your grip, though you have no memory of taking it with you when the simulation began.]
[Your eyes are blue. Wolf blue. You blink once and register that detail without knowing what to do with it.]
[Before you can form a question, the voice arrives.]
["Who are you? Thirteenth Legion markings, but what are you doing aboard the Red Tear?"]
[You turn around slowly, both hands visible, posture deliberately open. The Astartes behind you is wearing blood-red power armour of exceptional quality, every surface precision-fitted, the craftsmanship of a Legion that takes pride in its presentation. He is watching you with the particular alertness of a warrior who has not yet decided whether you are a problem.]
[You take a breath.]
["Brother. What ship is this, and what year is it? I need the specific year."]
[Your calm seems to do something. Maybe it is the tone. Maybe it is the fact that you are not moving toward him. The Blood Angel's posture shifts by a fraction.]
["...M31. Fifth year of the Great Crusade."]
[The answer lands in you like a key turning a lock. M31. The Crusade still ongoing. Horus's rebellion only just beginning to form in the dark spaces where loyalty is tested and found wanting. There is still time. There is still time for something to matter here.]
[You look at him directly.]
["This is the Red Tear. Sanguinius's flagship." It comes out as a statement rather than a question. "Then I need to speak with him. Right now. It cannot wait."]
["You address Father by his name." The Blood Angel's hand moves toward his hip. "Who are you? Answer me properly or I will make you answer."]
[He draws his power sword and charges without further warning.]
[You step into it rather than back. The Blood Scythe comes up in a short arc, the green light along its edge steady, and the ancient power sword meets the blade and stops meeting it in the same moment, the upper half spinning away and clattering against the corridor wall. Your fist follows immediately, the elbow thruster firing as it extends, and the impact connects squarely with the side of his helmet.]
[He hits the floor.]
[You place one magnetic boot on his chest plate to keep him there and look down at him. He is alive and conscious and furious, which is exactly what you want.]
["I am the twenty-second Primarch, created by the Emperor. I have information about the survival of the human race that I must bring to Sanguinius personally. Where is he?"]
["That's impossible." He says it through gritted teeth, his voice muffled by the helmet. "There are nineteen Primarchs other than Father. And a true Primarch would not be standing at your height. You are either a liar or something worse."]
[You swing the flat of the Blood Scythe against the side of his helmet. Not hard enough to damage. Hard enough to be clear.]
["I am not in the mood for this. The revolver at my hip is Vulkan's personal sidearm. Sanguinius will recognise it. If you think I am a fraud, then bring me to your father and let him decide for himself. Given his record, do you believe he needs your protection from me?"
[The Blood Angel is quiet for a moment.]
["Fine. I will take you to him. But Lord Sanguinius is not aboard the Red Tear. He has led most of the Legion to Signus Prime. We are waiting for their return."]
[The name lands in you like cold water.]
[Signus Prime. A fragment of something rises in the back of your mind, incomplete and urgent, a half-memory from a half-life of simulations. Signus Prime. The Red Tear. A captain. A ship. A corruption that begins before the destination is reached.]
["The Red Tear is going to crash." You say it flatly, removing your boot from his chest. "Your captain has been corrupted. It has already begun."]
[You are moving before he has finished processing this, magnetic boots accelerating to full stride, the speed-type armour pushing you toward the bridge.]
["Wait! Stop!"]
[He is up and running behind you faster than you expected. Good. You want him with you.]
["Captain Athene DuCade is a mortal officer with a record of exceptional service. She has the respect of every Blood Angel aboard this ship. You cannot simply accuse her of..."]
["Chaos corruption does not require weakness! It finds the strong precisely because the strong believe it cannot find them!"]
[You are not looking back at him. The corridor branches ahead of you and you are making decisions based on fragments of memory that may or may not be accurate.]
["Listen to me. Just this once. If I am wrong, your father comes home to a ship that is exactly as he left it and you have a story to tell. If I am right, he comes home to a ship that is still flying because you chose to believe a stranger in a corridor for thirty seconds."]
[A pause. His footsteps do not slow.]
["By Sanguinius himself. I must be thirsting for blood to take any of this seriously." A beat. "You went the wrong way. Left! The bridge is to the left!"]
[You correct course without comment.]
["Also." His voice has shifted slightly, something that is not quite humour and not quite exasperation sitting somewhere in the middle. "My name is not 'battle brother.' I am Azkaellon. Remember it."]
[You remember it.]