Chapter 29: First Experience
The flesh was coarse between Francis's teeth, fibrous like preserved meat left too long in the sun. Each chew released the metallic tang of old blood and something else, pure anguish distilled into the very cells. He forced himself to swallow.
Then the flood began.
Primarch designation: Angron. Personal affinity: Unknown. Origin: Nuceria, gladiatorial servitude. Psychic capability: Empathic absorption of negative emotions.
The genetic data crashed through Francis's mind like a broken dam, and Angron's memories blazed across his consciousness, each one a fresh wound.
A child abandoned on Nuceria's blood-soaked sands. Slavers' chains. The roar of crowds baying for death in the gladiatorial pits. The Butcher's Nails, those crude, ancient implants hammered into his skull like railroad spikes, turning pain into rage and rage into strength.
Francis watched helplessly as young Angron was forced to kill his adoptive father, the man who'd shown him the only kindness he'd ever known. He saw the rebellion that followed, Angron leading his gladiator-brothers against their oppressors and tasting freedom for one precious moment.
Then came the Emperor's arrival. The choice that wasn't a choice. Angron torn from his dying brothers, forced to watch them fall while he was dragged to the stars to serve a distant father who would never understand.
A tear rolled down Francis's cheek. He stared at the moisture on his fingertip, confused. When had he last wept?
"Francis?" Leman Russ's voice carried an edge of concern. "What's happening? How is he?"
Francis turned toward the unconscious Red Angel. For the first time in decades, the deep furrows of pain had smoothed from Angron's brow, and in sleep, he looked almost peaceful.
The change in Francis's perception was immediate and overwhelming. Emotional auras blazed around every person in the room like colored flames. Leman Russ burned with amber anxiety while the attending warriors flickered with red distress, blue confusion, and the dull gray of resigned pain.
But Angron... Angron's presence wasn't an aura; it was a maelstrom. A hurricane of crimson rage and black despair that dwarfed every other soul in the room. If the others' emotions were candle flames, Angron's was a burning city.
"A Primarch's genetic structure is far more complex than any Astartes," Francis said, his voice strangely distant. "There are components I don't recognise, elements that seem to exist partially outside reality itself, like fragments of the Warp made flesh."
Leman Russ's shoulders sagged. "A wound even the Emperor couldn't heal. What hope do any of us have?"
"There might be a way." Francis met his brother's eyes. "I could give him peace, real peace, even if it's temporary."
Hope flared in the Wolf King's gaze. "Even temporary peace would be a blessing beyond measure."
Francis drew a deep breath and reached out with his newly awakened senses, touching the edge of Angron's emotional storm.
The contact hit him like a las-bolt to the skull, and their psyches linked, raw and immediate.
Then the tide broke.
Angron's rage and agony poured into Francis like molten metal through a cracked dam. Centuries of accumulated fury, pain distilled into pure essence, the psychic weight of every gladiator who'd died screaming his name.
Francis's eyes went blood-red. Veins bulged across his temples as his body convulsed, and when the scream tore from his throat, it barely sounded human.
It felt like the Butcher's Nails themselves were being hammered into his skull, one spike at a time. Every nerve ending ignited. His body rejected the foreign emotions even as his psychic nature compelled him to absorb them. The two forces warred within him, his regenerative abilities fighting to heal damage that renewed itself with every heartbeat.
"Francis!" Leman Russ lunged forward, trying to restrain his thrashing brother. "Stop this! You're killing yourself!"
"Can't, " Francis clawed at his own face, leaving bloody furrows. "Can't stop, it won't let me stop!"
The agony was beyond description, like having his soul flayed and regrown, over and over. Through the red haze of pain, he could see Leman Russ's horrified face and could hear his own voice begging for death.
Blood streamed from his eyes, his nose, his ears. His armor plates cracked under the pressure of his convulsing muscles, and the sound of grinding ceramite and snapping bones became a strange comfort, proof that he could still feel something other than Angron's eternal rage.
Outside the medical bay, the Soul Drinkers had heard their gene-father's screams. They hammered against the sealed doors, their own anguish adding to the psychic storm.
"My lord!" Sarpedon's voice carried through the reinforced metal. "What's happening?"
"Let us in!"
"Stand back," another voice growled. "I'll cut through, "
"GO AWAY!" Francis's voice cracked like breaking glass. "ALL OF YOU, GET OUT!"
The screaming continued for thirty-seven days.
When the doors finally opened, crimson vapour billowed out like smoke from a crematorium. The stench of old blood and burned flesh made even hardened Space Marines gag.
The medical bay looked like a warzone. Metal fragments were scattered everywhere, and blood coated every surface in layers, some fresh, some weeks old. In the centre of the destruction sat a figure that barely resembled their Primarch.
Francis had withered to perhaps a third of his former mass. His armour hung in tatters, held together by dried blood and determination, and when he tried to speak, only a whisper emerged.
"It's... done."
He collapsed.
Sarpedon caught him before he hit the ground, cradling his gene-father's broken form. "Get him to Secondary Medical. Now!"
As they carried Francis away, Leman Russ remained behind, staring at Angron's sleeping form. For the first time in living memory, the Red Angel's face showed no trace of pain.
"You magnificent fool," the Wolf King whispered. "You actually did it."
Francis drifted through memories not his own. He saw vast battlefields where Space Marines fought things that shouldn't exist, creatures of twisted flesh and impossible geometry that crawled up from deep rifts in reality itself.
Ancient Dreadnoughts stood like metal mountains, their hulls inscribed with wards that flickered with otherworldly light. Their weapons carved through hordes of daemons, but for every monster destroyed, two more took its place.
The vision felt familiar, though Francis couldn't say why. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice whispered that this was important, that he would need to remember this when the time came.
But the Soul Drinkers were calling him back, their psychic presence like anchors in a storm, and duty demanded his return.
When Francis finally opened his eyes, three weeks had passed. His body bore the scars of his ordeal, great fissures across his torso where the conflicting energies had nearly torn him apart. But he was healing, slowly but surely.
"Father." Sarpedon knelt beside the medical slab, relief evident even through his helmet's vox-grille. "You've been unconscious for..."
"I know." Francis's voice was hoarse but steady. "How is he?"
"Angron?" Sarpedon's tone carried wonder. "He's been sleeping peacefully since you... since the incident. Real sleep, not the pain-wracked unconsciousness he is used to. It's the first time any of us have seen him without that constant tension."
Francis nodded weakly. The psychic connection still thrummed faintly between them; he could feel Angron's dreams, tinged with old sadness but free of the endless rage that had consumed him for so long.
It wouldn't last forever. The Butcher's Nails would reassert themselves eventually, but for now, his brother had peace.
And sometimes, Francis reflected as sleep took him again, that was enough.
[End of Chapter]
My boy Angron… finally, he's in peace.
"The nails are silent, the rage is gone. "