Fulgrim - Fulgrim's Fate: Those that served in the IIIrd Legion had no idea that their beloved leader was clawing ineffectually at the bondage of his own mind in which he was held. Only the swordsman, Captain Lucius of the 13th Company, had appeared to realise that something was amiss with Fulgrim, but even he had said nothing. The Daemon-Fulgrim had sensed the burgeoning Warp touch upon the warrior and had presented him with the silver daemonblade within which the Laer had bound a fragment of its essence, as he now wielded the far more potent Kinebrach Anathame, a gift from Horus. Though the Laer Daemonsword was now bereft of its spirit, there was still power within the blade, power that would empower Lucius in the years of death to come.After the conclave aboard Horus' flagship, the Daemon-Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children Legion were ordered to Mars to aid the coming civil war within the Mechanicum by the Warmaster. But instead of following his brother's orders, the increasingly mercurial primarch decided to disobey, and instead ordered his Legion to assault a Mechanicum crystal Mining World called Prismatica V. Unable to deal with his lord's mercurial temperament as well as his fellow senior members of the Legion, Lord Commander Eidolon questioned the primarch's orders.This proved to be a tragic miscalculation on Eidolon's part. Unable to placate his angered lord, the few words he managed to speak on his own behalf inadvertently provoked the primarch further. The paranoid primarch believed that the lord commander was mocking him and planned to betray him. Quicker than the mind's eye could follow, the primarch withdrew the Anathame from its scabbard and slew his once-favoured son. He then held the severed head of the slain Eidolon over the opened casks of victory wine, the viscous blood dripping from the grisly trophy and mixing with the potent drink which was then shared amongst the senior members of the IIIrd Legion's inner circle.Far from upset at the death of the much-despised Eidolon, the ascendent champion of the Emperor's Children, Lucius, took note of yet another example of Fulgrim's increasingly capricious behaviour. Contemplating upon the change in his lord, Lucius was inspired to investigate further after receiving a series of dark dreams concerning the painting of the primarch that hang in La Fenice, which had been cordoned off and sealed by a detachment of the Phoenix Guard after the Maraviglia had worked its corrupting influence upon the Legion. Already concerned by his lord's erratic behaviour and strange moods, Lucius proceeded to scrutinise the primarch's every move.His concerns grew even more when he noticed Fulgrim's lack of brotherly-camaraderie and observance of Legion rituals and tradition. But what truly aroused Lucius' suspicions was the realisation that Fulgrim's swordsmanship was suddenly inferior to his own superlative skills. His primarch was not whom he appeared to be. His suspicions were further confirmed when he witnessed Fulgrim employing powerful psychic abilities in open combat against a Warhound-class Titan of the Mechanicum during the IIIrd Legion's assault on Prismatica V.Lucius continued to receive the strange dreams in his sleep, and began to follow the threads implanted by these prescient visions. Breaking a standing order, Lucius defied the primarch and went to investigate La Fenice, the theatre located aboard the Emperor's Childrens' flagship Pride of the Emperor. This is where the Emperor's Children had truly fallen to the corrupting influence of Slaanesh, awakened by the operatic symphony known as the Maraviglia. Investigating the ruined chamber thoroughly, Lucius discovered above the stage that a great portrait hung above the smashed wreckage of the proscenium.Even in the dying light, the portrait's magnificence was palpable. A glorious golden frame held the canvas trapped within its embrace, and the wondrous perfection of the painting was truly breathtaking. Clad in his wondrous armour of purple and gold, Fulgrim was portrayed before the great gates of the Heliopolis, the heart of the flagship, the flaming wings of a great phoenix sweeping up behind him. The firelight of the legendary bird shone upon his armour, each polished plate seeming to shimmer with the heat of the fire, his hair a cascade of gold. The primarch of the Emperor's Children was lovingly portrayed in perfect detail, every nuance of his grandeur and the life that made Fulgrim such a vision of beauty captured in the exquisite brushwork. No finer figure of a warrior had ever existed or ever would again, and to even glimpse such a flawless example of the painter's art was to know that wonder still existed in the galaxy.Gazing at the eyes of the painting, Lucius could see the horror within his primarch's eyes, a horror that had not been rendered by the skill of a mortal painter. The perfect, exquisite agony burned in the portrait's gaze, and the dark pools of the painted eyes seemed to follow his every movement. Lucius came to the conclusion that somehow, his primarch was trapped within the painting, and that the entity that paraded around as their Legion's lord was an imposter. Determined to free his primarch by any means at his disposal, Lucius secretly convened the Brotherhood of the Phoenix -- the exclusive warrior lodge of the IIIrd Legion that only allowed warriors of officer rank to join because of the Legion's love of hierarchy.This had to be done with the utmost secrecy, for by this time the corrupted senior officers had become powerful, volatile and self-obssessed with the pursuit of their individual pleasures. Also, many of these senior officers carried a loathing for Lucius, whom they viewed as a despised upstart. Through his skilled oratory, the swordsman was able to persuade his mercurial brothers that the primarch was not himself. He further challenged their egos and stroked their vanity, tempting them into boldly capturing their primarch. Shortly after, the Brotherhood of the Phoenix ambushed the primarch, and despite taking several casualties, manage to subdue their lord by rendering him unconscious.The primarch was then taken to the Apothecarion of the IIIrd Legion's Chief Apothecary Fabius Bile, where he was strapped down to one of the examination tables. Here, Fabius, Lucius, Julius Kaesoron and Marius Vairosean attempted to drive forth the Daemonic entity from their lord's mortal shell through a protracted torture session known as excruciation. Fulgrim willingly submitted himself to his tormentors' ministrations, and continuously spoke of his perceptions of reality, events that were currently taking place in the galaxy as Chaos grew in power and the envisioned path for his Legion.During the torture session, Lucius suddenly realised that they had been misled. Misinterpreting the situation, they had been duped by their lord. Lucius immediately bended his knee and prostrated himself before his primarch as Fulgrim easily tore himself free from his restraints. His fellow conspirators all bowed to their lord and master. Content that his favoured sons had learned from the experience, the primarch did not punish them for their transgressions, for he was not the Daemon-possessed shell of the Phoenix as he had allowed his Astartes to believe, but the man himself.Fulgrim decided to share with Lucius his motives for such an elaborate ruse. He revealed that he had indeed been possessed by a Daemonic entity for quite some time, an entity that had trapped his disembodied spirit within the great portrait that had hung in La Fenice. Unwilling to accept his fate, the primarch had bided his time and used the tormenting experience to learn of Warp-craft and the infallible ways of Daemonkind. He eventually was able to use this newly acquired arcane knowledge to force the Daemon out of his mortal body -- swapping places with the foul entity -- and trapping it within the portrait for all time.Presumably, it was the Daemon that had been sending Lucius the dark dreams in order to attempt to free itself from its prison. In an attempt to further educate his favoured champion in the unfathomable ways of Chaos, the primarch's apparent inferiority in his sword techniques was merely a ploy to manipulate Lucius into challenging him. The primarch went on to explain that his mercurial moods and lack of interest in camaraderie and the IIIrd Legion's rituals were a natural evolution of his nature to achieve perfection along the path laid out by Slaanesh.Fulgrim announced that he intended to go further than anyone in the realms of sensual experience, intent on pushing the boundaries of reality to the extreme. Fulgrim didn't merely want to accomplish these things for the sole acquisition of power, but to experience the journey -- a journey he wanted his gene-sons to undertake with him. He explained that he had ordered the assault on Prismatica V to claim the crystal the Mechanicum had been mining there so that it might be used to erect a wondrous new city of mirrors dedicated to the exploration of sensual pleasure and self-enlightenment through sensation. But the next step on the Emperor's Children's path towards enlightenment through Chaos was to rendezvous with Primarch Perturabo and his Iron Warriors Legion.