[He showed no mercy to Angron]
If one word could define Angron's life, it would be suffering.
Nuceria was a world of mountains and oceans, outwardly civilized, technologically stagnant yet sustained by fragments of Dark Age relics. Its ruling High-Riders maintained a decadent slave aristocracy. Their greatest pleasure was spectacle—gladiatorial slaughter broadcast across city-states as entertainment.
They were not warriors.
They were spectators.
Angron's gestation pod did not descend gently. It crashed into the high mountain glaciers of Nuceria. The infant Primarch clawed his way free from ice and wreckage—only to be met by Eldar assassins.
Their Farseer had foreseen oceans of blood.
They intended to prevent it.
The infant did not understand prophecy.
He understood survival.
He tore them apart with stone and broken metal, his first act upon the world one of slaughter. He survived, but barely—wounded, exhausted, feral.
He was discovered by Nucerian slavers.
On most worlds, a Primarch's presence inspired awe, loyalty, reverence. On Nuceria, only dominance mattered.
They saw not a son of the Emperor.
They saw an asset.
They named him Angron—after the mountains where he was found—and cast him into the gladiator pits.
The Gentle Primarch
Before the Nails, Angron was not rage.
He was empathy.
Among the gladiators he found something close to family. Onomarchus—older, disciplined, patient—became mentor and father. Others became brothers and sisters in chains.
Angron possessed a rare psychic gift.
He could feel the pain of others.
Not metaphorically—literally.
After his first forced kill, he nearly broke. He sensed the fear and anguish of the fallen as if it were his own.
Later, when he touched a wounded child in the slave barracks, the boy's panic quieted instantly.
Angron absorbed suffering.
It did not destroy him.
It strengthened him.
For a brief time, the gladiator cells became something sacred. They slept in a circle, hands clasped. Angron drew in their fear, letting them rest.
He was not born a monster.
He was born a protector.
The Butcher's Nails
The High-Riders grew bored.
They demanded spectacle beyond spectacle: Angron versus his mentor.
Angron refused.
Refusal meant nothing.
They drugged him.
They implanted the Butcher's Nails—an archaeotech cranial device of pre-Imperial origin, crudely integrated into his cortex.
The Nails did not merely cause pain.
They rewired him.
Rewarded violence.
Punished stillness.
When Angron awoke, disoriented and screaming, Onomarchus lay before him in the arena.
The Nails burned.
They demanded blood.
When it ended, Angron's gift was gone.
He could no longer feel the pain of others.
Only his own.
The gentle son died in that pit.
What rose was something else.
The Eaters of Cities
Angron led rebellion not from strategy, but from fury.
The gladiators became an army.
They seized cities.
They butchered overseers.
They shattered garrisons.
They were unstoppable—until they were not.
The High-Riders deployed relic weaponry.
Coordinated armies.
Orbital bombardments.
Angron's rebels dwindled.
Eventually, they were surrounded—seven armies hemming them into a final redoubt.
They had no supplies.
No reinforcements.
No future.
They laughed anyway.
They shared Angron's blood as rations.
He bared his teeth in savage humor.
"Tell me," he growled, "whose blood tastes sweeter?"
"The nobles!" someone rasped back. "They're fat!"
Laughter echoed across the ridge.
They would die together.
That was enough.
The Emperor's Judgment
The Emperor arrived too late.
Or perhaps exactly on time.
He met the High-Riders.
Their terms were simple:
"You may take your son. The slaves die."
"Fine."
Khârn of the War Hounds stood frozen.
He had expected war.
Retribution.
Vindication.
Instead, indifference.
The War Hounds had longed for their Primarch. They imagined reunion, triumph, restoration.
Not abandonment.
Khârn's hands trembled.
He would have spoken—perhaps even accused—had Yuki not placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
Then she smiled.
"Allow me a counterproposal."
The High-Rider began to object.
His skull collapsed in her grip.
The Sun Angels struck simultaneously, eliminating every guard in the chamber.
Silence.
Yuki turned to the Emperor.
"Why not overturn Nuceria?"
The Custodians tensed.
The Emperor's gaze hardened.
"You indulge in illusions."
"And you indulge in detachment," she replied softly.
He had already judged Angron.
A Primarch who had failed to conquer his world.
A broken weapon.
Unfit for command.
To wage war for him would cost time.
Resources.
Momentum.
The Great Crusade did not pause for tragedy.
"You decide," the Emperor said at last.
He departed.
The choice was hers.
The Last Stand
The final battle had begun.
Less than a thousand rebels against disciplined legions of Nucerian soldiery.
Angron moved like a living siege engine.
Each swing of his chain-axe shattered bone and armor.
He did not retreat.
He did not think.
The Nails screamed.
Mechanical scourges tore into his flesh.
Artillery hammered the ridge.
"Retreat!" his comrades shouted.
He heard nothing.
Only rage.
Then—
Light.
Teleport flares detonated across the battlefield.
War Hounds materialized in disciplined formation, bolters roaring.
"To the Primarch!"
Khârn pushed forward, carving a path.
Angron paused.
Blood recognition stirred beneath the Nails.
"Who are you?" he demanded, splitting a cavalryman in half.
"You are our father!"
Another impact—white light streaking from the sky, annihilating a distant cannon emplacement.
She descended in its wake.
"Who are you?" Angron snarled.
"Your sister."
He bared his teeth.
"My family stands behind me."
She nodded.
"Then I will stand with them."
"What do you want?"
"To offer you salvation."
He laughed, raw and broken.
"You come now?"
"No," she said calmly. "I offer freedom."
Freedom.
The word struck deeper than any blade.
"How can I trust you?" he growled. "What do you want?"
She took his blood-soaked hand.
The Nails shrieked.
For a heartbeat—
Silence.
"You have nowhere left to run," she said. "Bet everything."
"And your price?"
She considered.
"I haven't decided."
His mind was fractured, splintered by pain.
He could not calculate.
He could only feel.
His instincts did not recoil.
"…Fine."
He released her hand.
"Fine."
She rose into the sky, wings unfolding.
White lightning gathered above.
Then it fell—
like divine punishment.
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