Chapter 7: The Meeting on Olympia
2026-02-27 02:13:57 — Author: One-Sixty-Me
"From your tone, it seems you're not exactly welcoming my return. Has my uninvited arrival caught you off guard?"
Noticing the Emperor's unfavorable expression and the somewhat grave looks on everyone's faces, Perturabo spoke.
"It seems I was a little too hasty. Let's save the conversation for when you arrive on Olympia — I'll have a banquet prepared for you there."
The Primarchs had wanted to exchange a few words with this brother who already looked like trouble, but Perturabo's image dimmed and faded once more.
"One more thing — I don't want my sons to be treated this way. I hope you'll release them from this state before you reach Olympia. Otherwise, I can't promise what I might do to you when you arrive."
That was Perturabo's parting words, yet the Emperor and Malcador's deeply furrowed brows eased somewhat.
Though the Fourth had deviated enormously from the path they had envisioned for him, he had still chosen to stand on humanity's side — and that was enough.
As for the mistakes he had made, everything could be slowly discussed after he returned and they reached Olympia.
"This brother is dangerous. No wonder you had all of us come along, Father."
Horus stepped forward to stand beside the Emperor. He couldn't discern what exactly was wrong with Perturabo, but it was plainly obvious that this brother was not someone easy to get along with.
The Emperor nodded, then shook his head.
"No — the fact that he's willing to return proves he has no intention of conflict with the Imperium. But his return may not look like yours did."
The Emperor's words left several of the Primarchs puzzled.
"Do you mean he might not acknowledge the Imperium — or you, Father?"
Guilliman's words struck like thunder.
Vulkan's mind struggled to keep up, but most of the other Primarchs grasped Guilliman's meaning, and their thoughts diverged in different directions.
Sanguinius thought: this brother was immensely powerful, and even if he was unwilling to stand squarely with the Imperium, the very fact that he had still chosen to return suggested he retained a sense of right and wrong at his core. What harm was there in cultivating a friendship with him?
Magnus's nerves were far thicker. He simply felt that despite the awkwardness of their brief encounter, the two of them were sure to share a fine friendship — and perhaps in future Great Crusade campaigns they could explore the galaxy's technologies and knowledge together. Furthermore, judging by the sheer strength of Perturabo's psychic power, his mastery of the Warp surely surpassed Magnus's own — and that was a subject worth discussing. Magnus was almost impatient to find a place where the two of them could talk alone for ten days and ten nights straight.
Ferrus and Dorn had both sensed something distinctly different emanating from Perturabo — this brother seemed oddly compatible with them in temperament.
Ferrus, however, was thinking more in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation. He had already decided to forge a fine weapon and present it as a gift to win this brother's friendship.
Dorn was different. What came to his mind was the extremely high degree of overlap between the Fourth and Seventh Legions. He realized that this brother and himself had been assigned much the same role in the Emperor's design, and a strange competitive urge rose unbidden in his chest — he resolved then and there to push the Imperial Fists to the absolute pinnacle of their strengths over the course of the Great Crusade.
Russ had shed his usual irreverent and free-spirited manner. His rugged face wore an expression of silence and gravity.
The duty the Emperor had given the Wolf King made him acutely sensitive to Perturabo's existence.
This brother was not only extraordinarily powerful — there was every possibility that even the Emperor himself could not bring this brother to heel without a fight.
Russ knew very well how strong the Emperor was. And yet when facing this brother just now, every hair on Russ's body had stood on end — his predatory instincts, honed to their absolute peak, told him that this was not an enemy he could match by strength alone.
But his duty and his loyalty to the Emperor had made him raise the Spear of Russ — a weapon he had little fondness for — and plant it between the Emperor and Perturabo all the same.
The Lion's reaction was simple: he had sensed danger. As the Emperor's black gauntlet, the First Legion had been entrusted with the Emperor's highest hopes — they were the last contingency the Emperor had prepared against the darkest of possible futures, their duty always shrouded in secrecy and weighted with immense importance.
Yet after Perturabo's appearance aboard the Vengeful Spirit, the Lion found himself wondering whether his own role, and that of the First Legion, was perhaps not quite as singular as he had believed.
Horus's feelings were complicated. He had meant to be a guide for this newly returning brother — to play the role of the good elder sibling and spare his father the trouble. But now that plan looked rather less feasible.
Guilliman keenly sensed that this brother was going to stir up a storm within the Imperium, though the situation remained too unclear to say anything definitive. Better to observe more carefully once they had arrived at this brother's homeworld.
His innate political instinct and a rationality that rivalled Ferrus's made Guilliman's mind naturally prone to wandering far and wide. He was sharp, he thought of many things — yet the values instilled by his adoptive parents always led him toward idealistic solutions when he assessed a problem.
At this very moment, his mind had already sketched the broad frameworks of no fewer than thirteen different plans, with only some of the finer details still needing to be filled in.
Fulgrim had sensed in Perturabo the same feeling he'd had when he first met Ferrus — utterly grating. Yet Ferrus had become his dearest friend, and even Gorgon, a word that carried an obvious edge of mockery on Ferrus's homeworld, could now be uttered freely by Fulgrim and carry an entirely different kind of warmth. Because of that, Fulgrim bore no particular hostility toward Perturabo from the outset. And since he had no real familiarity with this brother yet, he made no gesture and offered no opinion.
Vulkan was the most straightforward of them all — he genuinely didn't understand the undercurrents running through the room. Though this brother's return had been tinged with unpleasantness, the Lord of Drakes sincerely and wholeheartedly hoped for brotherhood and harmony among them all, followed by working together to save humanity.
The Emperor nodded, confirming what Guilliman had said.
Perturabo's defiance left the assembled Primarchs feeling somewhat at a loss — they had never encountered anything like this before. The Emperor had come personally, and still could not bring him fully to heel.
"My Lord, the Fourth has strayed far too far from his designated role. What are your intentions?"
The moment Malcador spoke, almost every Primarch — with the exception of Dorn and Russ — felt an instinctive revulsion. Even Alpharius was no exception.
"The Fourth is still on our side. That's enough for now — let's get there first."
The Emperor said nothing more, but Horus could no longer hold himself back.
"Regent — watch your words. That is our brother. The Emperor's Fourth Son. Not 'the Fourth.'"
The Primarchs held no love for this mortal Regent — in truth, most of them despised him intensely.
Every time they conquered a world, the Regent was there like a hyena that had caught the scent of blood, flooding those worlds they had fought so hard and shed so much blood to reclaim with his civilian bureaucrats. He levied crushing taxes on those worlds every single time, which deeply rankled more than a few Primarchs.
It was also the result of an agreement between the Emperor and this wizened old man that Primarchs and Astartes were barred from any involvement in politics — which only deepened the Primarchs' contempt for Malcador further.
We bleed and sweat to bring these human worlds back into the fold, and we have absolutely no say in what happens to them?
How could the Primarchs swallow that?
They could perhaps accept it personally — but what about their sons? What about the Legion warriors who fought on the front lines of the Great Crusade, always and without rest, for the Imperium and for humanity?
This was a thorn lodged in the heart of every Primarch. And to make things worse, Malcador didn't think much of these returned Primarchs either — in private he had always used the Emperor's favor as leverage to squeeze everything he could out of them.
For the sake of the Great Crusade, for the Imperium, for humanity — so the refrain went. Yet after every battle, those civilian bureaucrats managed to arrive on the newly conquered worlds with pinpoint timing, slotting seamlessly into local power structures. And yet somehow, the supply convoys never managed to be so punctual.
Logistics were always dragging their feet — short on supplies, short on materiel — and whenever a Primarch raised the issue, the answer was always the same: the Warp routes are treacherous, the Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs has misallocated resources, there is a severe shortage of supplies.
Since the Great Crusade had begun, not once had the expedition's logistical support arrived on time. And counting yourself lucky if half the promised materiel showed up at all.
Which expedition commander could stomach that indefinitely? But after multiple appeals that went nowhere, they had all learned to solve the problem themselves. Sanguinius could speak to this at considerable length, and so could the Fourth Legion.
"Your Highness, my wording may have been ill-chosen. I hope you can forgive me."
Malcador had no intention of quarreling, yet the coldness in his tone was audible to anyone who cared to listen. He clearly did not regard these Primarchs as anything worthy of great concern.
What infuriated the assembled Primarchs was that the Emperor said absolutely nothing in response.
He must have bewitched Father somehow — we don't know what tricks he used!
Horus's eyes flickered with something dangerous. Guilliman's brow contracted almost unconsciously. Even the good-natured Sanguinius and Vulkan looked close to losing their patience and intervening physically.
Ferrus's fists had already clenched. Fulgrim said nothing — but standing behind Ferrus, he was giving Malcador a sideways glance whose meaning required no explanation.
The Lion was the most direct of all: he turned to face Malcador squarely, and the great sword in his hand was barely a heartbeat away from swinging down.
Dorn talked down Magnus, who was also on the verge of losing his temper.
Russ, for his part, felt no particular urge to act. He grinned, watching the scene unfold — he knew the Emperor would intervene.
"Enough. Calm yourselves. Turn your attention to preparing for your brother's return — he is somewhat unusual. Perhaps after you've arrived there, you'll come away with some new perspectives."
The Emperor redirected the Primarchs' attention. The Fourth was fine in nearly every respect — except for that one matter of toying with Abominable Intelligence, which had crossed a line in the Emperor's heart.
That was a line neither the Emperor nor the Imperium could tolerate. The Men of Iron Rebellion could not be allowed to happen again to a humanity already weakened and brought so low.
The Emperor wasn't sure how to characterize the Fourth — he had genuinely never imagined that the Fourth could carve out a foothold within Chaos and still maintain a physical vessel in the material universe through which to act freely.
Well. He would deal with it when they got there.
At the Emperor's naked favoritism — and at the sight of that composed, unreadable, reed-thin old man who still hadn't uttered a single word — the Primarchs' fury burned hotter than ever.
But with the Emperor having spoken, there was nothing further to pursue.
The journey was not especially long, yet the atmosphere aboard the Vengeful Spirit was so heavy that even the Custodians did not dare breathe loudly. The control systems in their helms calibrated their volume output with exquisite precision. The Astartes accompanying their gene-father were the same, to say nothing of the mortal crew members, who were treading on eggshells.
The movement of a fleet that vast could never be swift. The Fourth Legion's warships fell into formation behind the Vengeful Spirit — which improved Perturabo's mood, if only by the smallest increment.
"Abo, the banquet is ready."
"Mm. Thank you, Sister."
"It's nothing."
Calliphone looked at her brother, something clearly on the tip of her tongue.
"They don't look like they've come to welcome your return."
She hadn't wanted to say it — but the Emperor and the others had behaved in a way that seemed genuinely hostile, so she said it anyway.
"They weren't, at first. Whether they still feel that way or not, that's how it will be now. Don't worry, Sister."
The easy nonchalance in Perturabo's voice put Calliphone at ease.
Behind them stood the Cybernetica constructs and Iron Circles Perturabo had built over the years, along with some gene-enhanced soldiers — the Iron Guard: Perturabo's personal household troops on Olympia, veterans who had been with him from the very beginning of Olympia's city-state wars and had followed him all the way to the present day.
Their bodies had been modified to a degree that brought them nearly on par with Astartes — standing at two meters and twenty centimeters tall, clad in high-end power armor, armed with advanced weapons. Even measured in raw statistics against a single Astartes, they had a realistic chance of prevailing.
The Iron Guard numbered a full thirty thousand, and Calliphone had arranged every last one of them in the welcoming formation, in full battle kit, on display as a show of force.
Enormous warships in the sky above had arranged themselves into elaborate formations — and the whole of Olympia had been extensively decorated for the occasion, which was, under the rule of the Iron Lord, nothing short of astonishing.
But who dared say a word? Everyone simply complied.
Andros was still overseeing the arrangements inside the banquet hall, taking the task his elder brother had entrusted to him with the utmost seriousness, ensuring that not even the smallest mistake or oversight would slip through.
There were no extravagant decorations — but by any measure, the scale and standard of Perturabo's reception was among the finest imaginable.
The Vengeful Spirit and the vast fleet came to rest in the star ports of Olympia and several of the surrounding planets, disrupting Olympia's standard shipping lanes considerably and throttling efficiency.
The Primarchs were already impressed by the sheer excellence of this brother's world — even Dorn, in the early days of his own return, had not built his homeworld to such a standard.
And in the star ports themselves, their astonishment only deepened. A star port of that colossal throughput, operating with that degree of orderly precision, was something the vast majority of Imperial worlds could only dream of matching.
Terra itself was no exception — and that was not an insult to Terra, merely the truth. Anyone who had ever passed through Terra knew exactly what it was like: a ludicrously large volume of traffic crammed into a criminally small space, with routing so chaotic that even Horus had felt the urge to grumble about it.
But more staggering still were the vessels berthed in those star ports. Every single one of them looked substantially more advanced than anything the Mechanicum had produced — and even the fighters that had come out to escort them looked uncomfortably familiar.
Aren't those Stormbirds? And not merely Stormbirds — larger than the Imperial pattern, clearly more sophisticated. And alongside them, smaller fighter craft, equally surprising.
Every Primarch could see the tactical value written into those fighters at a glance. The capital ships were no different — not a single one was inferior to the current Imperial Navy. If anything, they were a great deal better.
This brother hasn't even formally returned to the Imperium yet — so why is he building these things?
The Primarchs had no answer. But when they saw the Emperor, with Malcador and Valdor, board one of the Stormbirds, they followed.
The mortal crew seemed somewhat taken aback by the towering frames and extraordinary appearances of these giants, but the surprise lasted only a moment before each of them returned to their duties without missing a beat.
This piqued the Primarchs' interest — few mortals, on seeing them for the first time, were capable of remembering their responsibilities within the same breath.
Guided by a few of the mortal crew, they observed Olympia from aboard the Stormbird as it flew.
For all of Olympia's evident strength, there was something oppressive about the place — a heaviness that the Primarchs could feel.
After hearing from the mortals about Perturabo's "ruthless" rule, Russ was the first to lose his composure. A Fenrisian born to the wild and the free, he had little patience for tyrants.
Vulkan was close behind, his near-saintly compassion unable to abide this brother's iron-fisted governance of humanity.
Ferrus, meanwhile, was considering whether this system of rule contained elements that could be transplanted into his own governance of Medusa. A firm believer in the strong consuming the weak, he had no patience for hand-wringing — he even thought Perturabo was being too soft. The system could have been perfected further.
Guilliman and Horus declined to pass judgment. For the Imperium, in its current state, to level criticism at Perturabo would invite ridicule, even if Guilliman personally disagreed with Perturabo's methods.
Fulgrim found it difficult to bear — the environment of Chemos had left him with a bone-deep, instinctive revulsion for this kind of governance. But he held himself in check.
The Lion listened to the exchange between the mortals and his brothers, watching the grandeur of Olympia below, and felt — inexplicably — a cold prickling across his skin. This world, so much more vast and advanced than any "hive city" he had ever known, gave him a feeling like every hair on his body standing at attention.
He had been uneasy throughout the journey to Olympia — uneasy during the Warp transit, uneasy at the Mandeville point, and now that he was here, the feeling was stronger than ever.
Magnus had been looking for the library. But as his psychic senses swept freely through the surroundings, his face suddenly changed — utterly.
He looked toward the Emperor, whose expression had taken on a dark and brooding cast, and felt a creeping fear take root in him. This brother had committed a grave transgression.
Perturabo hadn't even bothered to conceal it. He had trampled upon the Emperor's authority and the Imperium's edicts openly and without shame — the machinery and weapons and infrastructure clearly operating under Abominable Intelligence, the Cybernetica constructs and robots on patrol everywhere throughout the city, and a powerful Abominable Intelligence presiding over all of it without so much as a veil of pretense.
Magnus felt his own pulse quicken. Still possessed of two eyes at this point, he now looked strangely unsettled, his ruddy skin dulling to a muted shade.
"What's wrong, Magnus?"
Guilliman noticed.
Magnus glanced at the Emperor, saw that his father had no intention of offering any explanation, and decided he dared say nothing either — trusting that the Emperor had his reasons.
"Nothing."
Nothing? Nobody believed that for a second.
But with the Emperor not volunteering any explanation, no one pressed the matter. It was probably Magnus abusing his psychic senses again and glimpsing something he shouldn't have. And since the Emperor didn't seem concerned, it presumably wasn't a catastrophe — or the Emperor had tacitly accepted what was happening.
Yet as they drew ever closer to the citadel peak, the other Primarchs' expressions began to darken as well.
What is this brother trying to say?
Perturabo and his sister and brother were already waiting there.
But watching the slight curl at the corner of Perturabo's mouth, Calliphone had an odd feeling — her brother seemed to be enjoying some private joke.
What on earth had put him in that kind of mood?
Calliphone couldn't tell. She was about to ask, but the Stormbird had already come down not far away, and the figures stepping out of it made it very difficult for her to look anywhere else.
The man at the front, clad in golden armor, was the most commanding presence of all — his stature nearly matched the Iron Lord himself, and he radiated an aura of effortless authority and charisma that made something in you simply want to believe in him.
Those who followed were no less remarkable — clad in armor of every description, extraordinary in face and bearing, with an air that transcended the merely human. And even the escorts following behind them were massive golden-armored giants that dwarfed the Iron Guard in both size and build.
Aren't these Abo's little figurines? Calliphone recognized them — she remembered them from his idle hours. And yet seeing them in person, she was still struck dumb with disbelief, much as she had been when she suddenly realized that every ship in that enormous fleet looked strangely familiar to her somehow.
Simply looking at them stirred something in Calliphone that she couldn't put words to. But seeing them clad in armor, she realized that these were not people who had arrived with peace in their hearts — and yet something Abo had done had clearly made them set aside whatever danger they had brought with them.
"Tch."
The moment the Emperor appeared, Perturabo let out a quiet, contemptuous scoff.
As expected. The Emperor had always been like this — always fond of using his psychic power to get things done. Even now, at a moment like this, he was using it to subtly awe and enrapture the people of Olympia.
As the group came to stand before Perturabo and the others, Calliphone and Andros felt the full weight of the Emperor and the Primarchs' presence up close — unavoidable, overwhelming. And only now, standing this near, did they notice that beside these giants there was also a slender, silver-haired old man.
"You enjoy doing this sort of thing, don't you?"
The first words Perturabo said to the Emperor when he came to stand before him caught everyone off guard.
"As I recall, the Imperium isn't particularly invested in matters of psychic power — so why is it that you are so fond of using it?"
"And I prohibit Abominable Intelligence. Didn't stop you from using it — and rather brazenly, at that."
The Emperor did not take Perturabo's bait on that point. Instead, he went directly to the matter of the AI.
"Logic engines are useful. My Cybernetica constructs and Iron Circles are superior to the Iron Guard in every measurable respect — I'd wager they're more effective than your Custodians too, frankly."
"Besides — it took a very long time before the Men of Iron rebelled. Humanity's own civil wars were far more chaotic and destructive than anything the Abominable Intelligences ever did. And they certainly lasted longer than the time some people spent driving their followers to betrayal and abandonment."
That final line landed hard enough to make even the Emperor's temper flare — and before the Emperor could form a rebuttal, Perturabo had already changed the subject, his gaze shifting to the assembled Primarchs.
"Welcome, brothers. The banquet is prepared for you."
"Come inside — whatever needs to be said is better discussed within. If you have questions, save them for when we're inside."
Perturabo turned and began walking toward the palace that had been built for this occasion.
Calliphone and Andros exchanged a glance, unsure how to proceed, and could only extend what hospitality they could — gesturing for the assembled guests to follow them inside.