Chapter 8
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Tony crouched beside a half-forged blade resting atop a stone rack, fingers grazing the alloy. The metal was warm, dense, but not molten—almost humming under his fingertips. It was crude by modern standards, uneven and thick. But there was something… intentional about it. Primitive, sure. But not careless.
"JARVIS, scan this," Tony said softly, eyes narrowing behind the HUD. "What are we looking at?"
A quiet pulse ran through the suit as JARVIS responded, voice calm as always.
> "The alloy appears to be a hyper-dense composite, Mr. Stark. Unknown elemental signature. Melting point exceeds 6000 degrees Celsius. It's… not from Earth. At least, not the Earth we know."
Tony whistled low. "Figures. Everything about this place screams *'I'm not from around here.'*"
He slowly walked along the stone path, lined on both sides with relics—tools, blades, helmets, and larger constructs that seemed equal parts weapon and symbol. Each piece bore a story he couldn't read, designs etched deep with hands that knew violence intimately but still chose precision.
"Y'know, J, I expected lava and brimstone. Not… an art gallery."
> "It is a fascinating contradiction, sir. Brutality paired with reverence. Like a cathedral built for war."
Tony chuckled. "Yeah. If war priests were thirty feet tall and on a protein-only diet."
He stopped before another row of towering statues, the shadows cast by their sculpted forms looming like titans watching over him. Their faces were carved with authority, some with serenity, others locked in eternal rage or sorrow. Then came *those* statues—the ones that hadn't left his mind since waking up.
The Primarchs.
Even now, their forms radiated power. Not in the literal sense—but in presence. Each figure stood unique, but unified by something ancient and noble… and tragic.
"That one," Tony muttered, pointing toward a statue of a grim warrior clad in a lion-themed pelt, his sword plunged into the stone beneath him. "He looks like he'd bench-press a planet and lecture you about honor while doing it."
> "They all appear regal, sir. Designed to inspire. Possibly a pantheon of some long-lost culture?"
"Could be." Tony shrugged, arms crossed as he stepped closer. "Or maybe mythologized warlords. You know how ancient empires love inflating their generals into gods. Still… there's weight here. Like they mattered. Like someone *misses* them."
That's when the deep voice cut through the room like thunder rolling through a canyon.
"They were my brothers."
Tony flinched. The suit's HUD immediately flared with alerts, his hand instinctively twitching toward his repulsors. He turned sharply—and there stood Vulkan, his massive form half-coated in heat shimmer, as if the molten core still clung to him.
For someone that size, he moved without sound. Without effort.
"I, uh… didn't hear you walk up," Tony said, forcing a smirk, hoping humor would diffuse his nerves. "You got the whole 'intimidating giant in silence' thing down."
Vulkan said nothing at first. He walked forward, his eyes not on Tony, but on the statues—those stone ghosts frozen mid-stride, locked in eternal vigilance. He stopped at one in particular: a towering figure in black armor with a noble face and somber gaze.
Sanguinius.
Tony noticed the change in the air—like gravity had thickened. Even JARVIS went quiet.
"They were more than warriors," Vulkan finally spoke, his voice not loud, but *deep*—like a furnace beneath the earth. "Each of them carved from the hand of the Emperor. Raised to be generals. Icons. Leaders of men."
Tony blinked. "The Emperor? Of…?"
"My Father," Vulkan answered, as if the concept needed no further clarification.
Tony exchanged a glance with JARVIS through the HUD, confusion flickering across his face. "Right. Oookay. Not weird at all. Just the usual post-apocalyptic deification thing. Totally normal."
But he didn't say it out loud.
Instead, he stepped beside Vulkan, now studying the statue of Roboute Guilliman—arms crossed, gaze determined, like a tactician locked in thought.
"You made all these?" Tony asked quietly, genuinely curious now.
Vulkan nodded once. "Every chisel mark is memory. Every line, a wound. Some healed. Most… not."
Tony watched him for a moment, reading the distance in the giant's face.
"What happened to them?"
Silence stretched, only broken by the distant hiss of lava down the forge's throat.
"Some fell," Vulkan said, voice heavy with quiet pain. "Others died. A few still endure. But we are scattered now. My world is gone. My people, scattered dust. The Imperium I once bled for is twisted into something… unrecognizable."
Tony looked away, giving the silence its space. "I've… been there. Not *that* scale, but… losing everything. Watching your legacy burn. Feels like someone took a hammer to your ribs and forgot to stop."
That drew the faintest flicker of a smile from Vulkan.
"You speak like a warrior," he said.
"I'm a man in a tin can with daddy issues and a lot of sarcasm," Tony replied. "But yeah. I've bled enough."
Vulkan turned, arms crossed, the forge's glow making his skin gleam like bronze.
"You seek answers, Stark. But answers are heavy. Just like truth."
"I'll take heavy if it means I understand what the hell's going on."
Vulkan looked down at him for a long time. Then slowly gestured toward the far end of the chamber, where a different row of statues stood—far more grotesque than the noble ones before. These were monsters.
Warp-twisted abominations, their forms mutated beyond reason, screaming silently in mid-transformation. Hulking figures wielding malformed weapons. Creatures that looked like gods of plague, rage, lust, and manipulation.
Tony's smile faded.
"What… are *those*?"
"Fallen gods," Vulkan said, his tone hardening. "My brothers who gave themselves to the Warp. To Chaos."
He pointed at one—a horned warrior with eight-pointed symbols wrapped across his armor, grinning with madness.
"Horus. The one who damned us all."
Tony stared for a moment, then looked back at the noble statues. "So that's what broke your family."
Vulkan's voice dropped. "He was the first. But not the last."
The silence returned, stretching like scar tissue between them.
"…This isn't just old ruins," Tony finally said. "You're not just some lost ancient. This all really happened, didn't it?"
Vulkan looked at him with tired eyes. "It *still* happens."
Tony didn't have a clever reply for that. Not this time.
So instead, he just stood there, beside the giant, looking up at the broken legacy carved in stone—trying to make sense of the impossible.
And for the first time, *listening*.
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