Geminized (Primarch SI

[Superbus]

Chapter One: Reincarnation
---​

I closed my laptop and walked outside of my house. I looked both ways and then went to cross the street.

Bing!

My phone. I frowned and pulled it out.

-Can you pick up dinner from Red Rocks tonight for your father?-
~Mom

I typed back.

-Sure thing.-

I heard sirens. I realized I was still standing in the middle of the street like an idiot. I turned to look to my left and I saw a truck speeding towards me, followed by police cars.

"Oh fuck!" I said and turned and started to sprint away. It still hit me, pulping my torso and running me over. The last thing I thought of was that I wasn't going to be able to pick up that pizza.

…

I flew in darkness, speeding up more and more until I slammed into something hard.

I heard a baby cry out.

I opened my eyes. I was floating in some kind of gel inside a metal capsule, fronted with glass. There were a number of pods just like mine with babies floating in them across from my pod. They were marked with Roman numerals.

Where the hell was I? It was some kind of laboratory, that was clear, but the workers were dressed strangely. There were no lab coats, many of the people in here wore some kind of weird techno-medieval plate made of gold. Others wore gray uniforms.

I tried to move and stared at my little hands. What the hell. I twisted in the gel and saw another infant.

He had violet eyes.

He looked at me and reached out and I reached out too. He grasped my hands.

Brother. I felt the thought running between our fingers like an electric charge.

Instinctively, I reciprocated the feeling on a primal urge. Brother.

This was my brother, I could sense that innately. We were twins. That was odd, I knew I had no brothers and only a sister, but this seemed a fact. This was how things were now.

I had died… and been reborn in this body in some kind of laboratory.

I had no idea where I was.

A siren started and a black slit opened in the middle of the laboratory. It sent out a shockwave that knocked all the golden warriors and gray uniformed workers to the ground. Bolts of green and red and violet and blue lightning shot out and struck the pods full of infants.

I screamed in the gel with my brother because the violet energies charging into our pod seared us. It almost felt good in a way but hurt so bad at the same time. I wanted to take the pain away from my brother.

I heard a woman laugh and felt something like a kiss on my cheek.

I gagged like I had tasted something too sweet.

Gravity seemed to reverse towards the black slit, pulling atmosphere and light into it. The lightning gripped the pods like claws and wrenched them free of their berths and dragged us into a spinning orbit.

One by one we were sucked into the slit like noodles into a mouth. My brother and I were fifth taken through the vortex slit after Sixteenth, Sixth, Second, and the Tenth.

Our number collectively, my twin and I, was Third. I could sense that as clear as day.

We were drawn into the slit and it became like a drug trip, time and space warped and colors exploded around us. It was beautiful and terrifying and nauseating and astounding. It was sensory overload incarnate. Too much, too fast, too long.

Enough! I roared in my head. My twin was screaming along with my roar.

This was a nightmare realm and we wanted out.

We picked up speed and dove through waves of technicolor cotton candy star dust and dodged giant diabolic hands reaching towards us, their claws scraping against our pod's metal.

As we spun and tossed and flipped and turned on our wild ride I occasionally caught glimpses of the other pods as they flew through the dreamscape of this acid trip dimension.

For a moment, the Twentieth pod danced face to face with us and I saw they had twins too. One of them waved at me and I waved back, shaking my head at the absurdity of the situation and not knowing what else to do.

We were headed towards another black slit and as we drew near, I grabbed onto my brother and held him in my arms. He trembled and I trembled with him.

We dived through the slit and emerged crashing down through the atmosphere of a gray looking planet. The pod shook and began to heat up and as it did so something in the bodies of my brother and I changed.

We dissolved into luminous energy, bodies composed of pure light. We still clung to each other but now it was with stranger electromagnetic physics than mere touch. The pod dissolved into light too, wreathing our own stellar energies.

We flew through the air and then crash landed hard. I was knocked out and came to only to the sounds of voices.

I couldn't understand them at first but slowly I pieced together their language. This shocked me, I was no polyglot or language genius. How could I possibly understand these people, they weren't speaking english.

"What is it?" A man asked. "How do we kill it?"

"I don't know, Sullax." Another man said. "I think it's harmless."

The first man touched the light. I learned the entirety of his mind. His name was Corrin, he was with his friend Sullax and Corrin's girlfriend Tullea and they were from the planet of Chemos. They were factory workers sent out to investigate a meteorite crash.

My brother and I dissolved back into flesh and blood. Water streamed from underneath us.

This shocked the three outsiders, two men and a woman.

"They're babies!" The woman said, reaching out to them.

"They're Daemons!" Sullax yelled. He grabbed a weapon.

"They're children, Sullax." Tullea said, reaching out a hand to block him.

He huffed. "They will only be more mouths to feed, siphoning away our resources. We should kill them."

Corrin shook head. "No."

Sullax stepped forward with determination in his eyes.

My brother let a cry that seemed to pierce the air and make the colors around us shift and become more vivid.

Corrin tensed, looked at Tullea, then at us and then brought out a wrench. He bashed it into Sullax's head over and over until I sensed the man had died. Brutal.

Tullea picked us up. "Twins. This one is Fulgrim," she said to my brother, "and this one is Astarion," she said to me.

Astarion. I felt the name sear into my mind, burning away my old one. Astarion was what I would now be known as.

 

[Doccer]

Sounds good!

 

[Superbus]

Chapter Two: Dogfight
---​

Two years later.

I spooned gruel into my mouth. Though it had only been two years since my brother and I had crashed on the planet of Chemos we were biologically eight years old. As such, we had responsibilities beyond that of a normal two year old. We had work to do today.

Fulgrim, my twin, was drawing on a piece of paper with a pen. That was pretty normal for him to do, he was quite taken with the arts and objects of beauty on this drab, industrial world. What was he drawing?

Ah. It was a picture of me, smiling brightly.

Aw. That was sweet of him.

"That's nice of you." I said to him.

"What?" Fulgrim said bewildered, his violet eyes wide in confusion.

I gestured towards the drawing. "You're drawing a picture of me."

He shook his head. "This is a self portrait."

I rolled my eyes. Of course.

My twin had a bit of an ego streak even he would admit to.

My father, Corrin, ate quickly and then kissed our mother, Tullea, on the cheek and walked to the door.

"I'm off, you boys know the way to the sorting stations?" Corrin asked.

"Yes, Dad." I said.

"Have a nice day, Dad." Fulgrim said with a sweet smile.

I narrowed my eyes at him. He was being sweeter than usual. He either wanted something, had done something or would be doing something that would get him in trouble. And if Fulgrim was getting in trouble, he'd drag his poor brother Astarion into it too.

"Stop glowering." Fulgrim said to me, kicking me. "It makes you look ugly, Asta. And that's almost like me looking ugly." He shuddered at the thought.

"I couldn't possibly look ugly." I said. Was it really vanity if it was the truth? Out of all the unlucky aspects of my reincarnation, my appearance was not one of them.

"All right, boys. Time to be off." Tullea said, patting us on the head and taking away our bowls of tasteless, gray gruel.

"Bye, Mom." I said. I didn't love her like my real mom, but she was a kind woman who had taken us in when for all she knew we could have been Daemons out to eat her soul.

"Bye, Mom." Fulgrim said, his violet eyes shining, his white hair a mess.

Mine was combed and shorter in comparison to his wild mane of gossamer alabaster locks.

I stared in the mirror as Fulgrim gathered our lunch pails, admiring myself. We didn't look a thing like our supposed parents, though Corrin and Tullea had managed to hide our otherworldly origins from the others of the fortress-factory of Callax. We had violet eyes that stabbed into the soul and smooth, almost poreless skin and snow white hair. Our faces kind of reminded me of a young Leonardo DiCaprio with a bit of Timothee Chalamet.

"And you call me vain." My twin chuckled, grabbing my arm and thrusting my lunch pail into my hands.

"Shove off." I said. "At least I don't look like a girl."

"I do not look like a girl." He said, stomping his little foot. "Mom! Tell Astarion to stop calling me a girl."

"Astarion stop saying poor Fulgrim looks like a girl." Tullea reproached me.

"Sorry, Mom." I said, not sorry at all. "Cut your hair and maybe I won't say it anymore."

"No. I like long hair." Fulgrim pouted.

I shrugged. "It's not my fault then that people are going to think-"

He shoved me. Hard.

I snapped a foot back and caught myself before my twin sent me through a wall. The tile I stopped on, pressing my foot into it, cracked.

Tullea swore. "Boys! What have I told you about superstrength in the domicile!"

Fulgrim began to fake cry and Tullea looked at me like it was my fault.

"I'm sorry." I said.

"Alright, you're going to be late, go on and get to work with the other children now."

"Yes, Mom." Fulgrim said, pretending to wipe his eyes of his fake tears.

"Ok, Mom." I said.

My twin grabbed a bag that clinked with the sound of metal and grabbed my hand.

Fulgrim and I walked out of the dormitories in subcomplex B34 and walked down the stairs and through a number of corridors until we got to our work station. Recycling industrial waste.

There were conveyor belts running through the room and we took our seats in the sides of one and began our task of of separating valuable scrap and materials from the waste. For the next seven hours I dug through grease, trash and junk for valuable copper wire, computer chips, screws, bolts, nuts, and nails and tried to shudder as I scraped through what might have genuinely been human feces.

As our workday ended and my brother and I washed our hands at an industrial water station, I closed my eyes glad to be done with it all and be able to return to writing my stories.

I felt a tugging at my sleeve and opened my eyes hesitantly. Fulgrim.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I have a secret mission for us." He said, smiling at me devilishly.

I groaned. "Fulgrim, I want to take a nap."

"C'mon Asta, don't be boring." Fulgrim said.

I sighed. "What are we doing today?" I said, accepting my fate to be ruled by my brother's mercurial and mischievous whims.

Fulgrim looked around slyly and then opened his backpack I had seen earlier. It was full of spray paint bottles.

"They're going to electrocute you if you tag another piece of company property." I said seriously.

"That's why we're going outside of Callax." Fulgrim said, his violet eyes flashing with foxlike energy.

"Outside of Callax!" I hissed.

"Outside of Callax." He confirmed with a whimsical grin. "Follow me."

He took my hand and snuck us to an air vent. Fulgrim took out a screwdriver and unscrewed the vents.

"I don't know about this, Fulgrim." I said warily.

"Don't be a coward." He replied. "I already explored the way. Follow me."

He crawled in and I followed. We went upwards and then straight and then right and then left and then downwards. He kicked out the grate and we were outside.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The spaceship graveyard." He said confidently. "I looked up the maps in the executives' offices.

"That's strictly off limits!" I said.

"ThAt'S sTrIcTlY oFf LiMiTs!" He mocked my tone.

"Shut up," I said, socking him in the arm.

Something growled.

I stopped short. "Fulgrim."

"Oh come on, Astarion, don't be such a-" Fulgrim said.

"No. Something's here." I said, looking around.

A pack of mutant cybercanids stalked out. Their mutated muscle was imposing and their metal claws shined. They circled us.

"Shit." Fulgrim whispered.

"I know." I said.

One tackled Fulgrim and another howled and rampaged towards me on mechanized limbs.

Time slowed down. My fingers twitched, my hearts pounded, my pupils dilated, my teeth clenched and grinded, my muscles vibrated and I felt an overwhelming energy surging through my body dictating one thing: protect my brother.

I ran through the one charging me, carving through its meat and metal and bone like bullet and then punched the skull off and another one and then tackled the one on Fulgrim off him.

"Don't touch my brother!" I roared and ripped its throat out with my teeth.

Fulgrim drove off the rest. I was covered in gore and oil.

"Well, we're not hiding this one from Mom and Dad, Astarion." Fulgrim said, surveying me.

"Nope. Can we just do your stupid art thing now." I said.

We walked to the graveyard of spacecraft outside of the fortress-factory of Callax. Fulgrim chose a canvas to work on, humming as he worked.

Spray by spray, with yellow and orange and red and blue and white, Fulgrim expertly blended and shaded it all together into a giant golden man in golden armor standing in front of a red sun winged with silver eagle's wings. It was abstract art done with spray bottles but it was genuinely stunning. I felt a little jealous of my brother's extreme artistic talent.

I stared at the golden man, something in my brain itching.

"It looks familiar," I decided slowly, not sure what it was that was ticking something off in my brain.

"I remembered it from a dream." Fulgrim said.

I shook my head. Whatever.

I went exploring and climbed up into a voidcraft. I wrenched the door open and then hopped in the cockpit. I grabbed the controls and pretended they worked. I pretended that this ship was taking me far, far away from this lifeless, gray world of Chemos. My fantasies and dreams become almost reality, simulated by my strange mental capacities. I fought aliens and destroyed asteroids and fought other spaceships.

"Vroom vroom!" I said as I imagined speeding up.

"Pew pew pew!" I said as I unleashed lasblasts from my ship.

"Pew pew pew?" Fulgrim asked with a laughing smile, poking his head into the ship.

"Oh, shut up." I said, preparing myself for some sibling ribbing. I threw some junk at his head and he ducked it. He rushed me and tackled me out of the chair.

We wrestled on the floor until Fulgrim got bored.

"Tell me more about that Day." He said.

"What day?" I asked, knowing exactly what he wanted to know but deciding to make it difficult for him to be petty.

He flicked me. "The day we were taken."

Fulgrim didn't remember that day very well.

"Well, we got sucked into a rift-"

Fulgrim kicked me. "Start from the beginning, Asta."

"The first thing I remember is waking up in a pod with you, looking out on other pods with infants in them. There were golden armored soldiers and gray robed workers. Then a black slit in reality opened up and sucked us in. We were taken into some kind of nightmare dimension and were stolen away to this planet." I said.

"Where do you think our other brothers are?" Fulgrim wondered.

"I don't know." I admitted. "Hopefully safe. We found our way to good parents, hopefully the others found their own Corrins and Tulleas."

"Hopefully…" My brother echoed. "What do you think our real parents are like? Do you think they miss us?"

"I'm not sure we have biological parents." I said.

"What?" Fulgrim sat up, looking disturbed.

"Well, we were like lab experiments there. Like clones or something maybe. I don't think we were made naturally." I said.

Fulgrim looked revolted. "So we're just orphan lab rats, test tube creations?"

"At least we have Corrin and Tullea." I said, putting a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

 

[McBirdie]

This is a great start, I look forward to seeing where you take this.

 

[Space_void]

Looking good. I wonder how things will turn out...

 

[Beyogi]

Yeah pretty curious. Heh, what a shocker for Fulgrim. But I guess better he realises that early than being delusional about that forever.

 

[Superbus]

Chapter Three: Unification
---​

13 years later

We were fifteen years old and Fulgrim was Chief Executive of the business clans of the fortress-factory of Callax. I was… his bodyguard, I supposed. Chief of Security. Fulgrim, as always, was the star of his own show. He had offered me a position on the board but I had turned it down. I had no need to puff up my ego with a trophy position when they were just going to do whatever my brother wanted in the first place and anything really important I could just get him to do myself through good old sibling bullying.

Fulgrim and I were now immense giants of superlative size. I was slightly taller and more muscular than my brother, he was more lithe and streamlined in proportions and shape. To accommodate our bulk, we had redesigned much of Callax's doorways and ceiling heights to fit our unnatural sizes. Fulgrim sat in a gargantuan chair at the head of a boardroom meeting of the executives of Callax. I stood behind him, glowering over my brother at the pack of devious snakes Fulgrim liked to call friends and allies. None of them dared to meet my eyes. To be fair, that would require them to take their eyes off of my brother who they were obsessed with. Fulgrim had some kind of presence about him that I lacked. Whatever. I made up for it with the threat of physical violence.

"Executive Gann." Fulgrim said, looking at a man with receding hair. "Report on the quality of water in Callax."

"We're up to ninety percent filtered water of impurities, oils, and biohazards. Water in sections D through J have been rated as adequate." Gann said.

"Good, good." Fulgrim said. He passed a dataslate over to the executive. "Here are my new plans for the filtration system. I want the old one stripped out and this one put in within two weeks."

"It will be done, Chief Executive." Gann said, bowing his head in deference to my brother.

The business meeting went on and on for another hour and I was bored out of my skull when Fulgrim ended it.

"That will be all, gentlemen!" He said, smiling brightly.

The executives all filed out, leaving my brother and I alone in the boardroom.

"What shall we do now?" Fulgrim wondered, looking up at me from his seated position.

I sighed, knowing my twin already had something planned in mind and that this was just a polite pretext of conversation.

"I don't know, what do you want to do?" I asked him.

"Let's look at my pretty pictures." He said, smiling luminously.

"The Hall of the Arts?" I groaned. "We just looked at it the other day."

"Oh shush. You could use a little culture, you brooding ape." Fulgrim said.

The Hall of the Arts was Fulgrim's attempt at bringing some artistic life and vibrancy to Chemos. He had painted and sculpted many of the exhibits himself with his superhuman talent for creation but had also sponsored and patronized many more artists and creative visionaries to make works for display for the leisure time of the hardworking Chemosians. Fulgrim said art was the mark of true civilization and uplifted the soul.

It was pretty, I supposed, but I didn't get his obsession with it quite as much.

We strolled through Callax to the Hall of the Arts and Fulgrim pointed and oohed and ahhed theatrically at the works of art like he was seeing them for the first time even when he himself was the artist who had made it.

I rolled my eyes.

He dragged me by the hand to one of his most recent works.

It was a golden two headed eagle ripping the head off an androgynous alien woman with crab claws for hands and devouring the head.

"Isn't it gorgeous?" Fulgrim said proudly. "It's new. I painted this one last night.

"All your works are gorgeous, Fulgrim. You could paint canid shit and make it a masterpiece that would awe the masses for ages."

Fulgrim chuckled. "I probably could, couldn't I?"

"It's nice. Really nice. Happy?" I said.

"You're so miserly with your compliments, brother." My twin said.

"It is absolutely stupendous, I have never seen such a tantalizing and vivacious work of art in my whole life." I said. "Can we go now?"

"What do you want to do now, dear brother of mine." Fulgrim asked lazily, his hands clasped behind his head.

"Train." I said immediately.

Fulgrim rolled his eyes. "All you want to do is train. For what?"

"I thought you liked dueling." I said.

"I do, sweet Asta, I do. I like the artistry of it, the sheer dance and ethereal energy of a good sword fight. You on the other hand are merely a poor brute, I'm afraid. As far as I can tell, you just like hitting things with metal sticks." Fulgrim lamented.

"Maybe I do. So what of it?" I asked.

"What are you training for, is my point. What's the purpose of it? What you do is animalistic, its petty violence and practice for threats that simply do not exist. Where is your poet's soul in your swordplay, dear Astarion?" Fulgrim said.

"I train because it's fun and because I have no idea what kind of threats we may face from this universe at all. I feel safer knowing I can punch things to death if they get too close to you." I said.

"That's kind of you, Astarion. I think you'll find though that I'm safe enough on my own." He said pridefully.

"I know, I know. I just worry about you." I said.

We walked into our personal training hall and selected swords and stepped into position. Fulgrim took up a refined gentleman's dueling pose while I simply held my sword at my side.

He darted towards me, raising his sword and I blocked.

Fulgrim pressed me and I evaded his every strike.

I thwacked him and his face twitched slightly. Not in pain, my brother would never show such weakness, but rather his perfectionism showing. I was better than him at sword fighting and this rankled him severely.

He hit me back and a tight smile showed on his face.

I smirked and hit him twice.

We went back and forth at speeds I doubted a human could really perceive.

…

Fulgrim was giving his speech about our yearly progress and I was doing my best not to fall asleep as I stood next to him.

"... and that's why Callax is the center of innovation and industrialization of Chemos…"

My eyes fluttered. So boring…

Something flickered in the corner of my eye and I was awakened to full alert in a microsecond.

Something was wrong. I tensed and then shoved Fulgrim out of the way of a Hotshot lasbolt, taking it in the chest. It was like a hot poker stabbing into me. I tracked the trajectory and found the attacker. She was on a balcony, overlooking the speech.

I leapt through the air and landed lithely on the balcony and ripped the would-be assassin's head off.

The Callaxians gathered here to hear my brother were still screaming and I ground my teeth as my super hearing twinged painfully in the din of human noises of fear and alarm and shock.

Thirty-five years later

We had unified the planet of Chemos a short while before fifty years after arriving. It had been a slow process because Fulgrim had insisted on doing it bloodlessly and the other executives of rival fortress-factories refused to meet Fulgrim in person when they heard of his supernatural charisma and skills of persuasion. Abilities I lacked, regrettably. Personally, I had wanted to do it at the point of a sword and the butt of a lasgun. Things I understood well. Fulgrim called me the warhammer to his scalpel. I admitted the comparison was apt.

"My lords," Fulgrim's assistant Marithu rushed in. "There are- there are invaders! From the sky!"

"Dispatch the Peacekeepers." I commanded.

"Sir!" Marithu said, saluting and went on his way quickly.

The Peacekeepers weren't technically an army, but they might as well have been. Chemos had little internal and no external threats but I kept a soldiery ready in the face of the unknown. What if whatever had taken us from our laboratory came for us again in the form of attackers? We had to be ready.

Fulgrim and I waited with baited breath for reports.

Fulgrim's communicator buzzed and crackled.

"Sir! Hundreds of dropships! Marked with a golden double headed eagle!" A Peacekeeper reported.

Fulgrim froze. "... double headed eagles…"

"What are you thinking, brother?" I asked him warily.

"Let them advance to Callax. Escort them to me and my brother." Fulgrim commanded.

"What are you doing??" I asked him incredulously. "You're letting unknown heavily armed invaders directly into the heart of Chemos's capital fortress-factory of your own free will. Get a grip, Fulgrim."

"Trust me." Fulgrim said absentmindedly, closing his eyes and smiling. "For once I am the one who remembers something you do not, Asta. This is the mark of our creators. They have come to reclaim us."

My heart froze over. I didn't know if I wanted our creators to find us. I was happy here with Fulgrim, playing with the planet of Chemos like an industrial strategy game, maximizing efficiency and improving the quality of life of Chemosians.

The outsiders approached and I watched through surveillance pictures as the heavily armored giants walked into Callax. They were led by a man in ostentatious golden armor. Fulgrim watched with rapt attention and awe. I watched with wariness and unease. What did this man want from us? That we were made for some purpose was clear but what did he need superhumans of a caliber of beings like Fulgrim and I and twenty other unknown souls of supernatural might and intellect.

"Let's go greet him," Fulgrim suggested.

"Fine." I allowed.

Our Peacekeepers buzzed the outsiders through into the fortress-factory of Callax and we met them.

I examined the warriors carefully. These were superhumans, I guessed. Grown in vats as well?

My brother had eyes only for their leader, the man in gold, who had dark hair and eyes and olive skin and wore a laurel wreath around his head. A bit gaudy, in my opinion. Too much gold, too much ornamentation.

He surveyed us and we looked at him in turn. Fulgrim fell to his knees. The golden man acknowledged this act of fealty with a graceful nod of his head. He turned his head to me.

Hesitatingly, I took a single knee.

"I am the Emperor of Mankind, First Leader of the Imperium of Man, Savior of Humanity. And you are my Primarch sons, my geneforged transhuman generals created from my genetic template to lead my armies of Astartes warriors. I have come to take you home to be reunited with your legion, the Third."

"Father, Creator…" Fulgrim uttered. "I am pleased you have reclaimed me and I yearn to serve you most passionately. I am Fulgrim and truly I am your most loyal son."

"I accept your fealty, Fulgrim." He looked at me. "And you, my son, second half of the Third Primarch?"

I wasn't sure I liked this man. My supervillain alarm bells were going off.

"I go where Fulgrim goes." I said. "I serve who Fulgrim serves."

"And your name?" The Emperor asked.

"I am Astarion." I said.

 

[Frescko]

So I guess the special Primarch Trait that makes Astarion special is his training? Out of all the Primarchs I don't think there's one who's solely dedicated themself to self improvement. Sure all Primarchs are good fighters, and have trained for that, but one who constantly trains their body and prowess? One who is always pushing their limits? None that I can think of

 

[Doccer]

So I guess the special Primarch Trait that makes Astarion special is his training? Out of all the Primarchs I don't think there's one who's solely dedicated themself to self improvement. Sure all Primarchs are good fighters, and have trained for that, but one who constantly trains their body and prowess? One who is always pushing their limits? None that I can think of

Click to shrink...

I don't know much about WH40k but I think Fulgrim is the one whose about perfecting himself. And another one whose honed his skills. Don't know who.

View: https://youtu.be/mduAFwujXss
So did Papa E make Fulgrim a twin or was that ROB sneaking him in at the last moment?
All these hints, hasn't Astarion figured what hell galaxy he's in yet?

 

[Superbus]

I don't know much about WH40k but I think Fulgrim is the one whose about perfecting himself. And another one whose honed his skills. Don't know who.

View: https://youtu.be/mduAFwujXss
So did Papa E make Fulgrim a twin or was that ROB sneaking him in at the last moment?
All these hints, hasn't Astarion figured what hell galaxy he's in yet?

Click to shrink...

In this timeline the Third Primarch is two twins.
He has no idea what Warhammer is.

 

[Superbus]

So I guess the special Primarch Trait that makes Astarion special is his training? Out of all the Primarchs I don't think there's one who's solely dedicated themself to self improvement. Sure all Primarchs are good fighters, and have trained for that, but one who constantly trains their body and prowess? One who is always pushing their limits? None that I can think of

Click to shrink...

It's an extension of canon Fulgrim's perfectionism with Astarion's determinator martial bent as flavoring.

 

[Superbus]

Chapter Four: Two Duels
---​

The Emperor smiled paternally at us. We had boarded a craft the Emperor had called a Stormbird.

"Tell me about your lives." He encouraged us.

"I am Chief Executive of Chemos." Fulgrim said brightly, shining in our creator's presence.

"And you, my son?" He asked me.

"Chief of Security." I grunted. For a micro moment I thought I detected disappointment in his eyes. I ignored it, if it was there. I didn't need this man's approval.

"We started in a factory setting, laboring as menials, but worked our way up the ranks." Fulgrim said.

"We improved the status and quality of life and production of Callax and then expanded out from there," I added.

"Through diplomatic efforts and trade, we managed to convince the rest of Chemos to unify under me." Fulgrim said.

"Well, peaceful conquest is certainly a useful skill. Too often violence has been necessary in my Great Crusade to unify mankind into one Imperium to protect it from threats within and without." The Emperor said.

Fulgrim smiled proudly at the praise.

We approached the immense flagship of the Emperor and pulled into one of many hangers.

There was a welcoming party that had come to greet us in the landing bay. Four giants, of different appearances and phenotypes, but surely our kin and genebrothers by their size and musculature. They had the stature of titans and the presence of demigods.

"These are your brothers." The Emperor said proudly. "Horus Lupercal, the Sixteenth, Commander of the Luna Wolves. Leman Russ, the Sixth, Commander of the Space Wolves. Corzan, the Second, Commander of the Aurelian Lions. Ferrus Manus, the Tenth, Commander of the Iron Hands."

"Brothers! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Horus Lupercal said with a beaming, alabaster smile. His head was shaved and he wore white and gold edged armor with a wolf pelt slung over his shoulders and reddish orange eyes adorning his plate in ornamentation.

Fulgrim embraced him.

Horus turned to me and I stuck out my hand for a hand shake. His grip was firm and sure without laxity that might convey weakness or force and tension that might indicate anxiety or the need to childishly project strength in a casual interaction.

"Two of you!" Russ, the Sixth Primarch said excitedly. He had long blond hair, sharp blue eyes and wolfish fangs set in his mouth.

"Welcome." Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands legion said stoically. He had silver eyes and dark black hair.

Corzan of the Aurelian Lions merely nodded to us. He had metallic gold hair, silver eyes and lion's fangs glinting at us.

We started up idle chit chat. Horus took control of the situation and I soon picked up that he was the leader of this group despite being the Sixteenth.

Fulgrim and Ferrus had hit it off.

"I love your hands." Fulgrim said enthusiastically. "It's such a bold artistic statement."

Ferrus smiled. "It wasn't intentional. I got it from drowning a great wyrm in lava and the beast's flesh melting and fusing with my own skin."

We continued speaking for a while.

Horus kind of creeped me out. He was a bit too friendly and familiar with you. A pinch too charismatic for a complete stranger. He reminded me of a car salesman or a politician. The sort of guy that would make everyone around him say "he's a guy you could sit down and have a beer with" fondly but I could tell it was all a persona. Horus could completely despise you and you would never know.

"Why's he not talking to anyone?" I asked, pointing at the Second Primarch.

"Who? The Xenophile?" Horus laughed.

"Yeah. What's up with him?" I asked.

"The Emperor's Champion was raised by xenos. He doesn't want to be here. He's good at fighting, just doesn't want to do it in the name of the Imperium. Father had to put a bit of pressure on him to get him to join up in the first place." Horus said.

"I see." I said. I made up my mind. "Thanks for talking with me, brother Horus. I think I might speak with the Second and get to know him whether he wants to or not."

"Suit yourself," Horus said smiling. "Excellent to meet you, Astarion. I can tell we're going to be close already."

"Indeed." I said, noncommittally.

I walked over to Corzan.

"Hey." I said.

He moved his silver eyes to me and examined me imperiously, with little emotion. There was no warmth, no friendliness, no sense of brotherhood. I was truly an unfamiliar stranger to him, one he had little interest in interacting with.

"Hey." He replied, subdued.

"Can't say I'm thrilled to be here either." I said.

"Welcome to the club then." He sighed.

"So you were raised by xenos." I questioned him.

"Yes." He said simply.

I waited.

He sighed again.

"Yes, I was raised with xenos. I grew up on a small farm and I wish I could go back to the days before my father came for me so I could go back to tilling the soil instead of shedding blood." He said.

I nodded. "I miss being on Chemos with just my brother."

"Fulgrim seems a bit annoying." Corzan remarked.

"You get past it." I assured him.

I overheard Fulgrim bragging to Horus, Ferrus Manus and Leman Russ.

"I'm fantastic with a blade," He said.

I rolled my eyes. Compared to a mortal maybe. When I let loose, I beat him eight times out of ten.

"So, brother. Fancy a duel then if you're so great with a sword?" Russ challenged him, the viking wolf Primarch smiling dangerously.

"If you want one." Fulgrim said. "Don't be angry if you lose."

Russ smiled confidently. "I don't lose."

"I knocked his ass out once." Corzan observed.

I laughed. "Did you now?"

"He beat me handily in the rematch," Corzan admitted. "But the first one on Ablaek I knocked him out cold."

We all walked to a practice arena designed for Primarchs, Custodians and Astartes. The Emperor led the way, followed by Russ, Ferrus, Fulgrim, and Horus. Corzan and I trailed them.

Fulgrim and Russ faced off from one another and went at it.

Faster and faster their silvery blades went. Fulgrim was a true artisan of swordsmanship and I could see quickly that that was his undoing. He made stylish moves for the sake of being bold and flashy and showing off, while Russ was clearly a brutal killer who wasted no manner of effort or energy in decisively making attacks.

I winced.

Step by step, Fulgrim was beaten back until Russ landed three great blows that sent Fulgrim to the floor easily.

He didn't look like he had worked up a sweat.

Fulgrim on the other hand looked dazed and defeated. I was filled with warm rage.

Horus stepped inside the circle and helped Fulgrim up sympathetically.

"Not so great after all." Leman observed. "Pity. I was expecting more."

My blood went cold. My fingers twitched. My vision narrowed. My teeth grit. My hearts pounded.

"I'll fight you, dog." I said calmly with a chill running through me at the sight of my twin.

Russ gave a fanged smile, the wolf in him coming out.

"Pick out a sword. Let's see if you're the better twin." Leman said.

"Beating you doesn't make me better than Fulgrim. It just means I've spent more time focused on combat when he was fixated on more important things like helping the people of Chemos." I said.

"Beating me? You're getting ahead of yourself." Russ warned.

I selected a longsword from the armory rack next to the foot of the arena stands and entered the ring.

We fought for forty minutes, the clash deafening and both of us covered in sweat. Our breaths rushed in and out of us as we heaved our blades at each other. Something or someone would have to break soon. I sturdied my grip and pressed on.

Leman flicked his sword precisely and my practice sword exploded into thousands of metallic slivers.

"Yield, brother. You are unarmed." Russ told him.

I thought of giving up but then the thought of Fulgrim lying down beaten and bloodied filled my mind and I put up my fists.

Russ laughed incredulously and hit me with his sword. I punched him in the face. It seemed he wasn't going to fight me fist to fist. Fine. It appeared my brother lacked a sense of fairness.

"You're beaten." Russ said. "Come now, Astarion. The rules are that of a duel with swords. You lack a sword, you have lost. The match is over."

"Not yet." I said. I hit him in the gut and he nearly put my eye out with the point of his blade, I turned my head at the last second.

His eyes hardened. "That was the easy way out. We can do it the hard way, Astarion."

I fist fought Leman Russ while he savagely beat me with a sword.

Russ knocked me down with a spinning blow. I spat out blood bitterly.

I struggled to my feet. I would not be beaten by this bastard!

We went back and forth, neither getting an advantage. Blood flew everywhere from superficial wounds, the Larraman cells clotting it from shimmering ruby fluid to fibrous white scar tissue as it soared through the air. I smelled coppery scent in the air from the sanguine ichor and salt from the sweat on our bodies.

Russ punched me in the face and knocked me down again.

I heard my twin hearts beat three times before I got up again, swaying like a skyscraper in the wind.

I hit Russ seven times in the face and pummeled the Wolf Lord down. I wrenched his sword out of his hand and threw it out of the ring.

Russ roared and got to his feet and threw me off him. We exchanged punches back and forth. Our heads whipped around from the hits and our knuckles split open and our bodies grew laden with bruises.

Russ picked me up by the throat and threw me to the floor.

Stars flashed in my eyes as my head slammed against the ground.

I got up yet again and this time I knocked one of Russ's teeth out.

I saw his returning blow and I knew this one was going to be bad. I met it with all the determination in my body.

Pain.

Shock.

Darkness.

 

[Frescko]

I'm guessing that the MC will be like Captain America and can "do this all day"?

 

[Xela63]

"You're so miserly with your compliments, brother." My twin said.

Click to shrink...

Ah, be grateful that he wasn't a German in his past life. The best you'll get to hear would be "I've seen worse".

 

[FuZzvKiNgZz]

Well… kind of expected more from a guy who supposedly trains religiously.

Just one of the knee jerk reactions of I'm told one thing and read about my boy getting his ass handed to him that makes me want to go "Well I'm out."

 

[Superbus]

Well… kind of expected more from a guy who supposedly trains religiously.

Just one of the knee jerk reactions of I'm told one thing and read about my boy getting his ass handed to him Thames want to go "Well I'm out."

Click to shrink...

I thought it would be cheap if the Executioner was beaten the first time they fight.

 

[Iridium Flare]

Well… kind of expected more from a guy who supposedly trains religiously.

Click to shrink...

I mean, man lasted over half an hour. Presumably with better equipment, things would've been different, and he has more training buddies now, too.

I'm guessing that the MC will be like Captain America and can "do this all day"?

Click to shrink...

Might be cool.

 

[Frescko]

Well… kind of expected more from a guy who supposedly trains religiously.

Just one of the knee jerk reactions of I'm told one thing and read about my boy getting his ass handed to him Thames want to go "Well I'm out."

Click to shrink...

I mean he held up really well against Russ, the guy who's designed to kill rouge primarchs and had far more combat experience, and similar or equal skill level. Really Asta's main weakness atm would probably be that he didn't have any enemies that gave him any combat experience. After all a ounce of experience os equal to a pound of training. If anything him staying up and giving Russ, a Primarch who's superior in every ways except perhaps raw skill is impressive. Really Asta has the potential to be the deadliest Primarch if he keeps up his intensive training.

 

[Vaalintine]

Since Corzan is there and not hostile, I'm assuming the species that raised him was integrated into the Imperium.

 

[Superbus]

Since Corzan is there and not hostile, I'm assuming the species that raised him was integrated into the Imperium.

Click to shrink...

The planet of Ablaek is now an Imperial Protectorate.

 

[Doccer]

Horus Lupercal, the Sixteenth

Click to shrink...

I thought the 11th and the 16th are the Lost Primarchs?

Executioner

Click to shrink...

???

 

[Superbus]

I thought the 11th and the 16th are the Lost Primarchs?

???

Click to shrink...

2nd and 11th.

Primarchs are said to have been created with roles by the Emperor. In canon Russ's is the Emperor's Executioner.

 

[Iridium Flare]

I thought the 11th and the 16th are the Lost Primarchs?

Click to shrink...

16th has always been Horus

 

[EzordCyborg45]

Hopefully Astarion can temper Fulgrim's flamboyance with pragmatism.

 

[Superbus]

Chapter Five: Horus
---​

I sucked in a breath and launched myself upwards into a sitting position. I breathed heavily, eyes flickering around. I was in some kind of medical setting in a giant size hospital bed, machines beeping all around me as they observed my health status and measured my bodily metrics and physiological data.

I turned to see Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the Luna Wolves, sitting in a chair at my bedside.

I was surprised to see him. He put down a dataslate he had been perusing.

"You're awake." He said smiling. He lightly punched me in the shoulder. "Took you long enough. Five hours-"

"-thirty seven minutes, twenty three seconds." I finished, rubbing my eyes. Guess it took some time to heal the full brain damage of a fully grown Primarch's blow. Ouch. Russ's hit had smarted. Practically knocked my brain off my brain stem and mushed it against the back of my skull.

"You know," Horus observed me carefully. "I could train with you. Get you caught up on the latest tricks and skill sets when it comes to dueling Primarchs. I offered to train your brother but I think his pride was hurt and he refused."

"You can beat Leman?" I asked skeptically. My brother and I had had the practice of fighting another Primarch for nearly fifty years and the Sixth had still beat both me and Fulgrim. We had been training since we were old enough to throw a punch and take a blow on the chin.

"I'm the First Found. I was reclaimed five years into my life cycle. I've been practicing dueling with the Emperor for most of my life. Russ has never won a fight with me, Emperor's Executioner or not." Horus said. There was no pride or boasting in his tone, simply a statement of fact.

"I accept your tutelage then." I said.

"It will be good too for the matter of the Crusade. Will improve your abilities beyond what you were naturally born with." Horus said.

I looked down.

"What?" Horus asked.

"I'm just… unsure of the whole Crusade business. I have some reservations."

Horus nodded. "I'm happy to hear them and share some of my thoughts on them. You are as Corzan then, I overheard part of your conversation."

"Yes. I have both personal and moral considerations for the matter of the Crusade." I said.

"Let's start with the personal ones then." Horus said.

"I liked my life on Chemos with Fulgrim. Liked how peaceful it was, I liked how Fulgrim solved things with negotiation and charisma even when I tried to convince him to use violence in taking over the planet. It just was a simpler time. Now with the way Fulgrim looks at him, at the Emperor, I feel something has changed. Like I'm losing my brother and our way of life to our father." I said.

"Change is often frightening. But I promise you, your brother will always be your brother, no matter his master. The Crusade is a military operation, one of conquest and violent occupation, I admit freely, but there is a place in it for talking and negotiating and bloodless Compliances. I have conducted many of them. More worlds are taken by the Imperium of Man without the firing of a single bolt shell or the unsheathing of a single power sword than ones are taken with extermination tactics and drop pods raining down in an iron rain. Fulgrim will always be himself and there will be room for the way of life you found on Chemos." Horus promised.

He looked away from me idly at an Apothecary Astartes conducting experiments on some kind of organ. "And the moral reservations?"

"What right do we have to force people to accept the Imperium's rule?" I asked.

"Right? None." He said casually. "We don't have a right to undemocratically force people to serve us and support our conquest efforts under duress from the threat of extreme violence."

I was taken aback at his bluntness. "Well then, why are you doing it?"

"What we have is a necessity. This galaxy is hostile to human life. There are innumerable threats we have already encountered over the course of the Crusade that could have grown to threaten significant portions of the human race scattered across the stars and our father has had many psychic visions of xenos enemy factions that will expand into empires that will do what we are doing now: conquering and destroying all things in front of it. We're merely ahead of the curve, just barely hanging onto our footing as we surf the wave of permanent human extinction or slavery. We have no choice. Humanity must unite or it will perish. United we stand, divided we fall." Horus said.

"I see. I'll think over these things." I said.

"Good. I'm happy to talk anytime you want, Astarion." Lupercal said.

Our conversation slowed to a lull. We merely sat in comfortable silence with each other.

"You know, Leman regrets being so rough and aggressive with you two, though he won't admit it. I think he wanted to impress you in his own way. Something about growing up with a wolf pack makes games of dominance his preferred way to make friendships. I had to lay him low a few times to get him to acknowledge me as second in command to the Emperor. Don't take this loss too seriously, I ask you, we need unity amongst our brotherhood to be preserved." Horus asked of me.

"Fulgrim won't see it that way." I said.

"Perhaps not." Horus said.

"But I'll agree and let bygones be bygones." I said.

"Thank you. I knew you would be reasonable. I got a very pragmatic, stoic vibe from you, from the moment I met you." Horus complimented me. "Your brother is more… flamboyant and flashy. More emotional and reactive. More prideful."

"Where is my brother?" I asked, disappointed. Of all the people I had expected to be at my bedside when I woke from being knocked out in a duel, I would have bet on my twin being there for me. I would have been there for him.

"I think Fulgrim has been avoiding coming here into the Apothecarion to see you because he feels responsible for your injuries for being so weak that you had to jump in to try to avenge his honor." Horus speculated.

"Fulgrim can be silly sometimes." I said.

Horus laughed at that and I smiled.

"You know, I think I misjudged you, brother." I said.

Horus raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How so?"

"When I first met you I found you kind of disconcerting. You seemed… too friendly to be honest about how I felt." I said.

"I noticed your reservation and inclination towards introversion when I met you but I let it go because I thought you needed more time to acclimate to the Great Crusade. Our father can be very sudden about his revelations of newfound ranks, glories and responsibilities." Horus said.

"I can't tell when you're being authentic and when you're putting on a front." I admitted. I prided myself on seeing the truth in people so it had been unnerving to meet the Sixteenth.

Horus laughed. "I myself don't always know where the line is. It comes from the pressures on me. I feel a need at all times to perform as the First Found, to be perfect and resilient and unfailing in front of our father and our brothers and my sons and the forces of the Imperium. To be a warrior and a scholar, a father and a son, a judge and an executioner, and a king and a pawn on the board at the same time."

He shook his head, eyes distant, staring at something unseen. "Sometimes I get lost in it all."

"I feel that." I said. I chose my words carefully, unsure how much I wanted to share with Horus Lupercal.

"If I didn't have Fulgrim to look out for and protect, if I didn't have this body suited for combat and violence and domination, I would just write stories for fun. Be creative. It's what I like to do in my free time when I'm not worrying over my brother or being dragged around by him on his adventures or misadventures or quests or going to see his artworks and presentations." I continued.

Horus nodded as if he already knew this information well. "You and your twin are together collectively the Third Primarch, not two separate Primarchs. Fulgrim and Astarion united are the Emperor's Artisan. The Emperor has told me you are two faces of the same coin. He said to me that you, Astarion, see the world as it truly is, with extraneous details and illusions stripped away, and that Fulgrim sees the world as it could be with all the wonders and possibilities that could be his. Together, you can make the universe your canvas."

"Did he tell you anything else about our making?" I wondered.

"He said that the unified Artisan's greatest strength and greatest flaw was perfectionism. And that Fulgrim's flaw alone is pride and vanity and his personal strength is passionate inspiration of others. He said that your personal flaw is obsessive determination and he said your personal virtues are clarity and humility." Horus said.

"I see." I said. "And what are the Sixteenth's flaws and strengths?"

He rubbed his chin. "He's actually never told me. He considers it better if we don't know."

"So you shouldn't have told me mine and Fulgrim's." I said.

Amusement entered his eyes. "Our little secret, right, Astarion?"

Ooh. So the First Found was more than just our father's loyal shadow serving at his whim.

"You got it." I said. "But if you had to guess what would it be?"

He considered the thought. "As the Emperor's Statesman, I would say my strengths are my charismatic ability to connect with people and my ability to empathically perceive others and my flaws are the fear of being replaced and being unwanted."

"Why would he want you to be afraid of replacement? Wouldn't that just foster dislike and unnecessary tension?" I said. It seemed like a misstep to me. Why damage your transhuman generals at all?

"It sharpens me, keeps me firm and committed to the Great Crusade. If you have nothing to lose, you begin to take your position for granted. That said, it's hard to know if it was intentional on our father's part and his personal decision. Others worked on us for one and our development was somewhat mutagenic and continually divergent. He started with an incredibly potent and fiercely independent genetic template in the first place, that of the greatest human psyker and an expert biomancer of supreme skill and alteration and a High Perpetual, and then altered it further to be further from human norms in specific ways. I get the sense that he shaped our paths but that there were hiccups in the process. Perhaps if he had perfect control and absolute mastery over our forming we wouldn't have had flaws in the first place." Horus Lupercal said.