V3 Chapter 81: Shortening [Purification]'s Cooldown, A Deal With Guilliman
Duvette watched the Ultramarines Honour Guard escort Guilliman into a nearby emergency medicae bay.
The Imperial Primarch's steps still held steady, though a slight unevenness had crept into them. Several Ultramarines Apothecaries and tech-sergeants arrived at speed and cleared everyone else from the room, Duvette among them. He raised no objection.
Guilliman had just fought his ascended, daemon-risen brother head-on; the armour of fate had suffered severe damage, and his body had taken wounds far beyond what even an ordinary Primarch should endure. Even with Duvette's enhancement carrying him through the fight's end, a full examination was genuinely warranted now.
The medicae bay's armoured door closed in front of him.
Duvette had just turned to leave when a notification he had never seen before suddenly appeared in his field of view.
[You have banished the Khornate Daemon Primarch Angron, and dealt him a genuine, grievous wound.]
[You have awakened a portion of your own essential nature.]
Duvette's steps came to a halt.
This notification bore no resemblance to any System message he had ever seen before.
It did not tell him what he had gained, nor explain what this "essential nature" was even supposed to mean. Duvette stared at those words for several seconds, trying to wring more information out of them, but the System interface remained silent.
Right after, a second notification appeared before him.
[Emperor's Wrath +7000.]
Duvette raised an eyebrow.
That was a great deal.
The reward for banishing Angron outstripped the payout from most of the campaigns he'd been through so far. Combined with what he'd already banked, his Emperor's Wrath now stood at over nine thousand.
So this was the actual reward.
Which left the question of what that "partial awakening of essential nature" was even supposed to be.
Duvette did not walk away.
He stopped outside the medicae bay, leaned against the metal bulkhead nearby, and bowed his head as though deep in thought. A few of the Honour Guard standing watch at the door glanced his way, then looked away again.
They assumed Duvette was simply waiting on word about their gene-father's condition.
This mortal had just saved Guilliman, and helped them banish Angron besides. Odd as his behaviour might look, the Honour Guard had no intention of shooing him off.
In truth, Duvette's entire attention had already turned inward, to his own System interface.
He kept working through his skills, his Emperor's Wrath balance, and the notification that had just appeared.
Before long, Duvette noticed an option he had never seen before.
Beside every skill still on cooldown, a tiny new marker had appeared.
Focusing his attention on it brought up a new line of explanation.
Emperor's Wrath could now be invested into a skill currently on cooldown, to advance the time remaining.
Duvette's eyes went wide in an instant.
He straightened up sharply.
The nearby Honour Guard glanced his way again, a touch of confusion in their eyes this time. Duvette simply paced a couple of steps back and forth outside the bay, as though he'd finally lost the fight to hide his worry over what was happening inside.
Seeing that, the Honour Guard looked away once more.
Inside, though, Duvette's thoughts had already broken into a storm.
He pulled up [Purification] at once.
The skill was still deep in its long cooldown. He'd nearly exhausted himself entirely purifying the Men of Iron STC, corrupted so badly by Chaos, and even now there were still nine years left before he could use it again.
Clearing those nine remaining years entirely would cost nine thousand points of Emperor's Wrath.
A thousand points a year, roughly.
That was genuinely a great deal.
But so long as Duvette kept winning major campaigns, he'd keep earning Emperor's Wrath. If this chaotic galaxy was short on anything, it wasn't war, and it certainly wasn't enemies who could earn him a reward.
Which meant that, so long as he was willing to pay the price, he could bring a critical ability back online early at the moments that truly mattered.
Of course, it would completely upend his original plans as well.
That Emperor's Wrath had been meant to keep accumulating toward unlocking other Legion abilities. Pour all nine thousand points into [Purification], and he'd have no way of picking up any new skill for a long time to come.
Still, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
A powerful ability that had already proven its worth was, more often than not, more reliable than some unknown new one.
The real question now was this.
If he ended [Purification]'s cooldown, where should he actually use it next?
Duvette thought back to the Chaos-corrupted STC.
Purifying that machine had taken everything he had; he'd ended up utterly spent by the end of it, and that had only been a single STC. Duvette's steps came to a sudden stop.
A bold idea surfaced in his mind.
At that same moment, the medicae bay's armoured door finally opened.
Several Apothecaries and tech-sergeants filed out of the room. Their expressions were still grave, but it was clear the first round of emergency examination and treatment was finished.
Duvette walked over to the doorway and cleared his throat twice, lightly.
"Come in."
Guilliman's voice came from inside.
Duvette stepped into the medicae bay.
Guilliman was out of the armour of fate now, sitting in nothing but a fitted undersuit on a medicae chair built to a Primarch's proportions. Several monitoring leads still ran to his chest and arms, while the badly damaged armour of fate stood mounted on the far side of the room, several repair rigs already working on it in earnest.
The Imperial Primarch sat rubbing thoughtfully at his own throat.
Seeing Duvette come in, Guilliman gestured toward the seat across from him.
"Sit."
The Apothecaries and tech-sergeants nearby did not leave right away.
They clearly weren't comfortable leaving their gene-father alone here, out of the armour of fate as he was. Only after Guilliman repeated the request did they file out, one by one.
The armoured door closed once more.
Only Guilliman and Duvette remained in the room.
Guilliman was quiet for a moment, then let out a sudden, rueful laugh.
It was the first time Duvette had ever seen that particular expression on the Imperial Primarch's face.
"I owe you again."
Guilliman lowered the hand from his throat, his gaze settling on Duvette.
"If you hadn't arrived when you did, I would very likely be dead at Angron's hands by now."
"That's not so certain."
Duvette leaned back in his seat.
"Your Honour Guard were already about to charge in and save you."
"That would only have gotten them killed first."
Guilliman's answer came calm and even.
He rose slowly and walked over to the armour of fate as it was being repaired. Its blue-and-gold breastplate had caved in badly, and the shoulder and waist plating still bore the gouges Spinegrinder and Samni'arius had left behind.
"Cawl and Yvraine both warned me once."
"The armour of fate is what sustains my life. I may never be able to be entirely free of it, only leave it for the briefest windows of time."
Guilliman raised his hand to his throat again.
"But that power just now changed something."
The old wound Fulgrim had once left behind was still there, but it had already improved considerably from before. That burning ache that had lodged deep in his throat for so long had faded to something faint, faint enough that, for the first time, a thought had crossed Guilliman's mind.
Perhaps he wouldn't have to depend on the armour of fate forever after all.
As for the wounds taken in the fight against Angron, they too had healed considerably while Duvette's power was active. The caved-in armour of fate still bore witness to how brutal that battle had been, but most of the internal tearing and broken bone had already mended.
Guilliman turned around.
"I've felt your power firsthand now."
"I'm starting to believe you truly have met my father."
Duvette showed no surprise. "I have."
Guilliman studied him. "Regardless, I intend to ask him myself."
"Of course," Duvette said, nodding. He couldn't help muttering to himself.
You'll probably still need my buff for that, when the time comes.
Otherwise, given the Emperor's current state, you might not even understand a single complete sentence he says.
Guilliman had no idea what was crossing his mind.
"You stayed behind. There must be something else."
"There is." Duvette sat up a little straighter. "I intend to launch a boarding action against the Conqueror."
Guilliman's brow furrowed.
"You mean to board the Conqueror yourself?"
"Yes." Duvette nodded. "The Conqueror's weapon systems facing the Macragge's Honour are essentially out of action by now. Its void shields keep dropping, and what's left of its fleet is being suppressed by our own ships. The risk of a boarding action has come down a great deal."
"What concerns me isn't whether the boarding itself can succeed." Guilliman looked toward the tactical projection beside them. "The Conqueror is the Twelfth Legion's ancient flagship. It's endured ten thousand years of Warp corruption. Its interior structure may well be as twisted as the Warp itself by now, and the ship as a whole may have become some form of daemonic entity in its own right."
"My plan is to sink it outright."
Duvette gave a short laugh. "That would be a shame, wouldn't it."
Guilliman looked at him.
Duvette went on. "I've pulled thirteen Warp-corrupted Shadow Wolves of Luna back before. I've also purified an STC completely overrun by Chaos."
"And right now, a Gloriana-class battleship is sitting right in front of us."
"One that's already lost most of its ability to resist."
Duvette left the rest of it unsaid.
Guilliman understood him regardless.
The medicae bay fell into a brief silence.
A moment later, Guilliman asked, "Are you certain you can do this?"
"I'm not." Duvette's answer came without hesitation. "A Gloriana-class battleship over twenty kilometres long is simply too vast, and its corruption runs far deeper than thirteen Astartes or a single STC."
"There's no way I could purify the entire Conqueror in one go. My body and mind couldn't survive that kind of strain."
Guilliman listened in silence.
"For a first attempt, all I could try is purifying its core machine spirit and the most critical sections."
Duvette looked back at Guilliman, holding his gaze. "If those areas can be restored, the Conqueror would at least stop actively resisting us. We'd gain basic control over it, and the rest could be purified in stages, later."
Guilliman frowned, as though weighing something. "How long do you expect this to take?"
"I don't know." Duvette shook his head. "It could take a long time. Or it could fail the instant I make contact with the core machine spirit."
"But I can try."
Guilliman looked at him again. "It sounds like you have another condition in mind."
Duvette smiled faintly.
"I do have one small request."
"Name it."
"If I actually manage to fully purify this Legion flagship."
Duvette looked Guilliman straight in the eye.
"I want ownership of it."
It was an extraordinarily bold proposal.
A Gloriana-class Legion flagship was enough, on its own, to shift the strategic balance of an entire crusade fleet.
And the Conqueror, on top of that, was an ancient vessel that had once belonged to both the Twelfth Legion and Angron himself.
Duvette had already braced himself for Guilliman to refuse.
Even if the request provoked genuine anger, it wouldn't have surprised him.
But Guilliman did not answer at once.
He simply stood where he was, his eyes still fixed on the projection of the Conqueror. Duvette did not press him. He knew Guilliman's mind was working fast, weighing every consequence such a decision might carry.
After a while, Guilliman raised his head.
"If you truly can do this, I grant you temporary authority over the Conqueror, the right to dispose of it, and the right to appoint its captain. Final ownership will be confirmed once we return to Terra."
Duvette didn't care that it was only temporary.
He'd already gotten the answer he wanted.
"Deal."
Duvette rose from his seat and offered his hand to Guilliman first.
The Imperial Primarch was visibly caught off guard for a moment.
It looked far more like two equals sealing a deal than a subordinate receiving a Primarch's command.
Guilliman looked down at the offered hand.
In the end, he reached out with his own, far larger palm and gave it a light, deliberate shake.
"Then I'll go prepare for the boarding action."
Duvette let go and turned toward the exit.
"I'll be joining as well."
Guilliman's voice came from behind him.
Duvette's step faltered, and he turned to look back.
"You just finished fighting Angron."
"Once the armour of fate finishes emergency repairs, I'll be joining the operation."
There was no room for argument in Guilliman's tone.
"The Conqueror once belonged to my brother. It was once one of the Imperium's mightiest Legion flagships as well."
"I want to see your ability for myself. And I want to confirm, with my own eyes, whether it can truly be freed from Chaos."
Duvette looked at him for a few seconds.
"Fine."
He didn't refuse, only nodded, then opened the medicae bay's armoured door.
The Honour Guard outside turned to look at him at once.
Duvette drew a deep breath, gave them a sudden grin, nodded, and turned to walk off down the corridor.
Next up.
Time to go and take the Conqueror.