Above the scarred world where Aurora's Folly had fallen, a vessel of impossible elegance and madness drifted through the void. Fulgrim, the Phoenician, daemon prince no longer—returned in flesh and corruption—stood at the heart of his throne chamber, surrounded by marble-clad monstrosities and gilded slaughter-art.
His voice, as silken as it was venomous, coiled through the chamber like incense smoke. "Sanguinius... the lost symphony unfinished. I will silence you under Slaanesh's will."
His warband—sons of madness sculpted in gold and flesh—bowed in reverence. Fulgrim's obsession with the Angel was not born of rivalry alone. He had once admired him, tried to corrupt him, failed—and that failure was an itch that never stopped bleeding. Now, with Sanguinius alive once more, Fulgrim would not only kill him. He would unmake the memory.
"Prepare the retinue," Fulgrim commanded. "We descend not to conquer—but to compose a requiem. His requiem."
Below, the world writhed. Aurora's Folly lay partially embedded in a ravine, a beacon of biomass that drew Tyranids like carrion to rot. The Ultramarines, cornered and bloodied, defended a nearby bastion—its defenses barely holding against waves of xenos. Amid the chaos, the fallen Primarch Sanguinius stood sentinel among mortals. Beside him, Aang's brow furrowed as he felt the balance of nature buckling beneath war's weight.
"The past always finds me," Sanguinius whispered, his eyes fixed on the darkening sky. "Even in death."
The Ultramarines fought with precision and valor, bolters blazing and chainswords roaring. Sergeant Valen led them with stoic resolve, his armor scoured with ichor and dust. Yet, for every xenos they felled, more came. Spore pods rained from the skies. The earth trembled. The bastion's vox crackled in desperate cycles.
In orbit, Fulgrim's ship birthed its elite—a strike force of Emperor's Children descending in drop-pods of ivory and screaming chrome. They did not aim for strategic targets. They descended in a crescent around the crash site and the bastion, stalking, encircling.
Back at the wreckage, Aang turned to Sanguinius. "Something's wrong. The Tyranids are shifting—the wind carries the scent of something fouler."
Sanguinius tensed. "He's here."
The warp wept. Vox-signals howled in agony. The temperature shifted—sweet, cloying heat that tasted of perfume and rot.
Then Fulgrim landed.
He did not crash. He alighted, as though gravity bowed in courtesy. Clad in resplendent gold and amethyst armor, his four arms bore weapons and horrors alike. His once-regal features twisted in decadent mockery, his beauty now a lie wrapped in flesh.
"Brother," he purred, voice echoing through stone and bone. "Come. Sing with me one last time."
Sanguinius stepped forward, wings flaring wide, his expression a frozen sculpture of pain, memory, and resolve. "I will never sing your song."
Fulgrim smiled. "No, but you'll scream in tune."
Their duel ignited like thunderclaps torn from myth. Blades met in showers of unnatural light. Fulgrim danced, every strike a flourish, every dodge a pirouette of death. Sanguinius countered with radiant fury, his sword an extension of divine wrath. Around them, the battlefield became a cathedral of war.
The Emperor's Children engaged the defenders, their sonic weapons turning air into agony. Aang, on the bastion's height, raised his staff and summoned a gale that tore through the Tyranid swarms, buying the Ultramarines a precious reprieve.
Sergeant Valen watched in awe. "what are they?"
Fulgrim laughed, blood trailing from a cut across his cheek—an imperfection that enraged him. "You still bleed for them?" he sneered. "After all they let you seal for?"
Sanguinius answered only with a blow that staggered the daemon prince. But Fulgrim was not so easily slain.
As Tyranid pressure surged again, the Emperor's Children began to withdraw, their purpose achieved: they had drawn Sanguinius out. Fulgrim disengaged with a howl of manic delight.
"This was only the prelude, brother. Next time, I will make a masterpiece of your end."
He vanished in a shimmer of unreality, retreating into the dark. The remaining Emperor's Children melted into the field like shadows.
The battlefield stilled. Smoke and ichor choked the air. Aang descended from the bastion walls to find Sanguinius kneeling among the fallen.hurt by the duel.
"He's still out there," the Angel said. "But so are we."
The Ultramarines gathered, battered but alive. They had witnessed gods at war and lived to tell the tale.
Above them, the sky cleared—for now. The shadow of Fulgrim retreated,with wound but its echo would linger.
And deep within the ruined corridors of Aurora's Folly, a new signal pulsed—faint, but unmistakably human.
The next movement of this symphony had only begun.
The medicae bay of Aurora's Folly felt like a tomb carved from groaning metal. The internal structures shrieked with every residual tremor from the void battle, the ship's life support straining against ragged hull breaches. In the centre of the sterile chamber—redolent with ozone, burnt pinions, and synthetic antiseptics—lay the Golden Primarch.
Sanguinius.
The Lord of the IX Legion. Angel of the Imperium. A figure of terrible, broken beauty.
Even in ruin, his transhuman form radiated majesty. His skin—once lit with a soft, golden glow—was now pale as ceramite dust, slick with sweat and drying blood. A cauterised wound split his chest: sluggishly weeping, still warm with dark vitality. But it was his wings that drew the eye. Once-pristine arcs of white and gold, now scorched and ruined, their feathers reduced to brittle husks strewn across the floor like funerary ash.
Yet it was not death that had claimed him.
A psychic seal—subtle and immense—shimmered faintly around his body, forming a translucent sphere of warding energy. It pulsed like a heartbeat, holding him in stasis. This was no machine-made sarcophagus. It was woven from desperation, spiritual energy, and psychic reinforcement. Not healing. Not revival. Containment.
Sanguinius lived. But slumbered—suspended between salvation and corruption.
Kneeling at his side, Aang's simple robes were out of place amid the ruin. His hands hovered inches above the seal, his face drawn, his chi and spirit energy spent.
He had held the Angel back from death—but not from the Warp.
The corruption seeded by Fulgrim's blade had embedded itself into the very soul of the Primarch. Aang, drawing upon spiritual force and ancient bending techniques, had sealed it—barely. He could feel it pulsing beneath the barrier. Seductive. Mocking. Alive. A whispering toxin wrapped in ecstasy. This was no ordinary warp infection—it was a signature. A melodic cruelty. A stain of Slaanesh.
"He is sealed," Aang murmured. "But not safe. The poison waits. I can suppress it… but I cannot cleanse it alone."
Around him, the surviving crew of Aurora's Folly moved like ghosts. They dared not look at the sealed Angel for long. Hope warred with dread in their hollow stares.
Then came a vibration through the deck—not the groan of dying metal, but the low, focused hum of precision thrusters.
A strike cruiser had made planetfall.
Hope surged—and with it, fear. Were they allies? Or another nightmare?
Minutes later, thunderous boots echoed through the wounded corridors. Azure-armoured Astartes moved in disciplined formation, their bolters held steady, their vigilance unshaken by the carnage. At their head walked Captain Thalon Merion, face uncovered, every line of his jaw set with grim expectation.
A half-bandaged survivor stumbled forward. "Captain Merion… by the Throne… you're real. He's alive. The Angel. That one—" he pointed to Aang, "—kept him from falling."
Thalon advanced, and for a moment, his breath caught.
The sealed form radiated awe and horror both. Sanguinius—alive, but not whole. Contained, but not free. The shimmering seal pulsed steadily, a heartbeat against the Warp's pull.
"You," Thalon said to Aang. "What are you?"
"Aang," came the exhausted reply. "I tried to heal him. But I could only hold the corruption back. It is… deep. Intentional."
Thalon's gaze sharpened. "Warp-spawned?"
"Yes," Aang confirmed. "But more than that. This isn't just a curse. It's art. Whoever struck him didn't want to kill him. They wanted to… remake him."
The Captain said nothing for a long moment. The seal flickered, as if reacting to their words.
"He's sealed for now," Aang continued, "but it won't last forever. I need help. Knowledge. Time."
Thalon turned to his men. "Secure this deck. Lock down all data-feeds. Vox encryption, level Omega. No word of this leaves the ship."
Moments later, a makeshift war council convened in a reinforced command chamber. Thalon, Aang, the surviving bridge officers, and the ship's medicae chief stood around a shattered hololith.
Thalon addressed them grimly. "The Angel lives. But his condition is perilous. Stasis was achieved only through this outsider's skill."
Aang bowed slightly. "What struck him was Fulgrim—but through him, something far worse. I believe it was Slaanesh. Or a shard of its will."
The medicae officer spoke next, white-knuckled. "His biology… is stabilised, for now. But the psychic taint resists all known treatment. If we tamper with the seal—if we open it—there's no telling what might emerge."
Thalon looked toward the stars. "Then we hold. We fortify this wreck. If Fulgrim returns—and he will—we must be ready. Until then… the Angel is ours to guard."
Aang said softly, "His salvation may require more than steel and fire."
Outside, the storm-laden skies churned. The darkness watched from orbit, patient and hungry.
The Angel was sealed. The line had held. But the war for his soul was only just beginning.