Warhammer 40K: System Error, I Summoned the Arch-Traitor!

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"Forgive me, sir. If I may ask — is this gentleman your bodyguard?"

Fulgrim's gaze settled on Cullen, standing just behind Kaelen.

The old knight's helmet was tucked under his arm, exposing a face carved by decades of war and hard years. The Dark Angels insignia on his pauldron spoke for itself, silent and certain.

Kaelen glanced back at Cullen, then shook his head.

"No, he's my friend. His name is Cullen, Dark Angels, a Son of the Lion." Kaelen paused, picking his words with care, trying to give his friend a decent introduction in front of a Primarch. "The Emperor of Mankind personally called him 'Old Sword.' Does that qualify as an Emperor's Champion?"

He looked at Cullen, a hint of inquiry in his eyes.

Cullen gave the faintest shake of his head. The motion was tiny, but the meaning came through clean:

I haven't earned that. Don't oversell it.

"A son of the Lion."

Fulgrim turned to Cullen with a smile, genuine, unhurried, warm. The old knight dipped his head in return, a silent acknowledgment.

The Phoenician shifted his gaze back to Kaelen, and something in his tone gained weight.

"You have built strong bonds with many of my Primarch brothers, Mr. Kaelen. Especially Horus Lupercal. I heard from Roboute that you and he are trusted friends and comrades both."

Kaelen nodded, accepting that without any attempt to downplay it.

"That's accurate. Lupercal and I are the kind of friends who've faced death together. Cullen too, the three of us have been through quite a lot."

"Then I can trust you completely."

Fulgrim drew a slow breath, like a man who had just made a decision he'd been putting off.

"I kept you here because I want to say things I would not normally say. For a Primarch, admitting this kind of unease is... a shameful weakness."

"No, my lord." Kaelen waved that off. "Primarchs have fully human minds and emotions. When the Emperor of Mankind made you, He didn't strip those things out. This isn't weakness, it's completely normal. Think of it like pressure building inside a sealed cooker: let it pile up long enough with no outlet, and eventually it explodes."

He leaned forward slightly and dropped his voice, the way you would when sharing something you didn't want overheard.

"Lord Fulgrim, you can speak freely with me. And as a point of reference, I've already got one successfully treated patient under my belt. Want to guess who?"

The Phoenician's curiosity caught.

"Who?"

"Konrad Curze. Lord Guilliman must have mentioned he's back as well?"

Fulgrim nodded.

That brother had always kept a knot of worry lodged in his chest.

Among all his brothers, Curze was the one he could never quite set his mind at ease about. Too broken, so thoroughly broken that even hating him had become something closer to grief.

"How is he now?"

"I handed him law books. Then I pulled Horus and Sanguinius in for debates and long talks with him."

The corner of Kaelen's mouth twitched.

"Against all expectation, my lord, Curze has developed a genuine taste for learning. He doesn't push everything to extremes anymore. When you see him again, you'll be surprised."

A slow, quiet curve lifted the corner of Fulgrim's mouth.

Not a polished social smile. Something that came from further in, the particular joy of watching a brother move, piece by piece, toward something better.

"Then I look forward to it."

"Also, my lord, if privacy matters to you, rest assured. I keep what I hear to myself. For instance, I've accumulated quite a bit of material on the Lion that I've never, "

Cullen, beside him, produced a single measured cough.

Kaelen let it die there, looking faintly sheepish.

Fulgrim saw exactly what had just happened, but chose not to comment. He simply smiled.

"I take your meaning, sir."

The Phoenician breathed in slowly and began to let it out, the unease he'd been holding, poured out steadily, word by word.

Kaelen listened. He didn't interrupt.

Everything circled back to the same territory: confusion about the future, not knowing which way to move, an unrelenting drive toward good and perfect that had become its own kind of trap.

Having witnessed that epic, legendary version of himself from another world, the cloned Fulgrim was more lost than ever.

Could he actually do what that other self had done? He hadn't even started, and already he was dreading that he wouldn't be good enough, that he'd make the wrong call, that he'd crumble under pressure the same way he had before.

Kaelen noted this silently.

Everything he'd said about Fulgrim had been right.

Smooth sailing and the man was brilliant, easy, a force of nature. The moment pressure arrived, the fretting started. Push it past a threshold and something simply gave way, and then, even knowing he was wrong, he'd walk that road to the end, because the will to do better had gone out entirely.

That was what the fallen original had become.

As the Phoenician kept talking, Kaelen offered a few words at the right moments. Not too warm, not too distant. Like a fixed point in rough water, something for the other person to orient against while the current ran.

Gradually, Fulgrim felt the weight in his chest begin to ease.

When the Primarch finally stopped, Kaelen sat with it for a moment before speaking.

"My lord, you're too focused on making the right choice, on choosing 'good,' choosing 'perfect.' But that's not actually the key. The key is to decide, and then act, and then accept whatever comes from it. Good or bad."

His voice stayed level. Each word landed.

"If it goes well, we celebrate. If it goes badly, we take what the failure taught us, we identify what we missed, and we make sure that the next time we face the same situation — or something close to it — we don't make the same mistake again."

He paused. His gaze held the Phoenician's steadily.

"Do you remember something you once said yourself?"

Fulgrim blinked.

Kaelen gave it back to him, word for word.

It was the motto the master of the Third Legion had set down at the very beginning, the oath this uncorrupted soul had written with his own hand, ten thousand years ago:

"'Those enemies we labor to vanquish shall yield before our victory. Defeating the foes that once plagued our hearts shall bring us true joy. For true joy is found in the constant learning and ceaseless progress of moving forward. We cannot avoid making mistakes. We cannot avoid ignorance. We will always have flaws. We must step out from these shadows to find real light.'"

Kaelen held Fulgrim's gaze.

"That is what a perfect warrior actually looks like. I believe you are that person, my lord. Hardship and setbacks will always come. What matters is that they can always be worked through."

"When you look back someday at the things that kept you awake at night, you'll find yourself thinking: that's all it was."

Fulgrim didn't speak. But the confusion in his eyes was pulling back, slowly, like a tide going out.

Something new was taking root in the space it left behind.

Not burning confidence. Not the old blind perfectionism. Something steadier and deeper, like an engine turning over for the first time, finding its rhythm, beginning to hum with a low and certain power in his chest.

Kaelen spoke the last of it.

The words settled into Fulgrim's ears and sank further, down into something quieter. Like a coin struck with an inscription, worn smooth by years of handling, words you returned to, again and again, over a very long life.

"Constantine XI, at the very end, going down with Byzantium, was as brave as his ancestors a thousand years before him."

"Do all that a mortal can do. Then leave the rest to fate. And when it is over, you can tell yourself: I did not lose. I was brave."

-----------

Guilliman finished the last of his documents, pushed the cabin door open, and walked toward the room where Fulgrim and Kaelen were, looking forward to it.

This was one of the few pleasures left to him as Regent of the Imperium, talking freely with brothers and friends, without ceremony.

He had put particular care into Fulgrim's welcome. A suit of power armor designed in the style of the Byzantine imperial house: a purple cloak, gold heraldry, every detail chosen to honor the glory and aesthetic of the Third Legion.

He was looking forward to seeing that perfect brother of his again.

Guilliman was in quite a good mood when he pushed open the door.

Then he stopped.

Fulgrim was not wearing the armor.

Instead, he was dressed in a fully yellow kaftan robe, a red headscarf wrapped around his head, an enormous hat perched on top of it all.

That flawlessly perfect face had been fitted with a thick, extravagant false beard. Kaelen's handiwork, obviously, from a single glance.

Fulgrim was looking down at himself, studying his new appearance with an expression caught somewhere between puzzlement and genuine interest.

Kaelen stood beside him, still holding half a roll of unused red headscarf.

Guilliman's composure did not survive contact with this scene.

"You, you two—"

The Master of Ultramar's finger shook between the two of them, pointing at one and then the other. A look appeared on his face that almost never appeared there, something between visible horror and total structural collapse, as though he had opened the door to find an actual heresy in progress.

"You absolutely cannot, you cannot do this to hiiiim!"

(While writing this chapter I kept wondering why Guilliman and Fulgrim have always gotten along so well. Then it hit me, Guilliman is classical Roman, Fulgrim is Eastern Roman. They're both Romans. Of course they get along.)

➤ Next: Death Angel

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