Roboute Guilliman narrowed his eyes after deactivating the Cawl Inferior. Following the device's last activation, the Primarch had met with Belisarius Cawl in the flesh.
Cawl had been explicit: he had never made any such requests.
The Cawl Inferior stationed aboard the Macragge's Honour had forfeited Guilliman's trust. Any counsel it offered now required rigorous scrutiny; its only remaining utility was that of a glorified vox-caster to reach the Archmagos himself.
While awaiting a response from the real Cawl, Guilliman stepped toward the massive viewport of the Macragge's Honour. Beyond the reinforced transparisteel, the Dawn of Fire held its station nearby.
Guilliman's gaze was deep, his mind a tempest of shifting thoughts. Ten millennia of slumber had left the Imperium fractured and riddled with decay. He was consumed by his duties, so burdened that he had no time to truly look upon Ultramar, nor even return to see the prosperity of Macragge itself.
Upon his awakening, the traitors of the Imperium had dared to manifest before his very stasis field. Their treachery had plunged the entirety of the Five Hundred Worlds into the chaotic fires of war.
This moment, brief as it was, might be his only reprieve.
The sight of the congested shipping lanes and the endless procession of merchant fleets offered him a flicker of solace. At the very least, his labors for this Imperium were not in vain.
Turning back toward the shadowed corridors of the flagship, a sudden, divergent thought struck him. If the Cawl Inferior's behavior was unsettling, there was an even more disconcerting presence aboard the Dawn of Fire.
Perhaps it was time to meet with Axion.
Guilliman stepped into the corridor, addressing the Shield-Captain standing watch at the threshold.
"Wayne, return to the Dawn of Fire. Locate Calanthus and have him bring Axion here to see me."
The veteran Shield-Captain, hearing his name, hesitated as he looked upon his gene-father.
"My Lord Primarch, do you truly wish to grant an audience to that unstable, ancient construct within these walls?"
Guilliman could sense his son's concern for his safety. However, the Primarch harbored no fear of what the ancient Iron Man might attempt. He could not pinpoint the source of this confidence, but the intuition was absolute.
"Go, Wayne."
Wayne said no more. He offered a respectful salute and departed. Within moments, another warrior of the Victrix Guard stepped forward to fill the vacancy.
…
As Calanthus cycled the hatch open, the scene that met his eyes forced a sharp exclamation from his lips.
"By the Emperor!"
Heaps of metallic components lay scattered across the deck. Axion's hands emitted a faint, golden luminescence as he performed a final polish on a series of parts.
Compared to a standard STC-pattern forge-fane capable of integrated printing, the precision of a starship's workbench left much to be desired. Fortunately, by utilizing particle oscillation, Axion could perform secondary refinements, though it was a tedious waste of time.
Having secured a sufficient cache of rare materials from the ship's reserves, Axion finally had the opportunity to construct a simplified quantum power core for his protector.
The core's dimensions, however, were substantial.
To accommodate it, Axion had dismantled the Aegis, overhauled its skeletal architecture, and mounted the core dead-center within the torso.
The current Aegis Protector bore no resemblance to its previous iteration; in scale, it now neared the bulk of a Dreadnought. The only thing that remained was its humanoid design, though its massive size now afforded it far greater lethality.
This renewed Aegis Protector featured reinforced energy shielding and high-speed recharge modules. The shield that once had to be carried by hand was now integrated directly into the forearm structures.
Axion had added articulated manipulators to enhance versatility. The original neutron-beam emitter had been replaced; the machine's arms were now equipped with a variable-structure detonative bombardment cannon and a heavy rapid-fire cannon. A directional gravity-traction array had been embedded within the chassis.
Concealed beneath the arm-shields were retractable particle-vibration field blades.
Heavy, full-coverage interlocking armor plates now completely encased every joint, eliminating any potential structural weaknesses.
Should an enemy prove resilient to long-range fire, the Aegis Protector could use its gravity-traction array to drag the foe directly into its reach, before pulverizing them with its reinforced bulk. The array could also be used to instantly pull Axion himself into the machine's defensive perimeter from a distance.
As for armored units, they would be carved asunder by the field blades.
With its increased mass and thickened shielding, it could better absorb enemy fire and endure concentrated barrages.
Due to the limitations of his manufacturing tools, Axion had struggled for a significant duration just to complete this single refit. While the appropriate materials existed, Axion lacked the industrial capacity to process them effectively. At times, he even wondered if the standard factory construction templates had been omitted from his original data-core.
Calanthus stood in the doorway, his shout of alarm leaving Axion somewhat puzzled. The ship was not exactly lacking in Dreadnoughts; there was no need to scream at the sight of something of similar displacement.
"I assume your Primarch wishes to see me?"
Axion had not seen Guilliman for some time, nor had Calanthus appeared. Aside from a single encounter with the Adeptus Custodes, everyone on the ship had treated him as if he didn't exist.
Now that Calanthus had returned, it was obvious someone required his presence.
Coming to his senses, Calanthus pointed a trembling finger at the nearly six-meter-tall mechanical titan, asking with uncertainty:
"What... what is that?"
"My Aegis Protector. You have seen it before," Axion replied nonchalantly.
Axion's casual tone brought back memories of the small machine that had once traded blows with a Custodian.
"That small automaton that followed you? How did it become... this?" Calanthus was a portrait of confusion.
Axion was equally perplexed.
"Core Designation DF-000001A. My first subordinate semi-intelligent unit. The core designation has not changed, and the core heuristic code version is verified as identical. This is the Aegis Protector. I fail to see what has changed."
The issue giving Calanthus a headache was no longer why the machine had doubled in size.
"Tell me... if you leave this room, will this Aegis Protector follow you?"
Axion nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the universe.
"Perhaps you do not understand the definition of a 'Protector'? I could explain it to you?"
Calanthus turned helplessly to look at Wayne, who was waiting outside the chamber. He was at a loss.
Bringing an ancient Iron Man, flanked by what was essentially a personalized 'Dreadnought', onto the Macragge's Honour to meet the Gene-Father?
Even if I were to die of sheer stupidity, I wouldn't do something that reckless.
Who knew if this 'Iron Man' might take offense and engage the Primarch? Even a veteran Shield-Captain would be little more than a sacrificial lamb before such a machine.
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