The air itself felt wrong on this desolate world—not just thin and choked with volcanic ash, but frayed, like torn fabric on the edge of unraveling. Aang crouched behind a jagged ridge of obsidian, his chest heaving. He hadn't just crash-landed on this forgotten world—he had walk on this remote planet long enough, flung across the stars by the combined wills of the Emperor of Mankind and Cegorach. And yet, as he tried to steady his breath, he could feel it: something had gone wrong. Not with the landing, but with the planet itself. The Warp bled into the rocks, into the sky, into time.
Ashen plains stretched endlessly beneath a sky the color of bruised lead. Volcanic spires clawed at the clouds, and in the valleys, the very light bent strangely, time itself seeming to stretch and recoil like a wounded animal. He'd been here for hours—or days. Time had lost meaning. What he knew was this: the planet was tainted, forgotten by the Imperium, left to stew in temporal decay and psychic turbulence.
The remains of his pod were scattered across a black dune, but it wasn't the wreckage that troubled him. It was the wound within. His connection to the cosmic energy—his spiritual center—felt thin, strained by his desperate flight from Darth Vader and his brief, agonizing brush with the Warp. There was a throbbing emptiness in his core, like static fire behind his eyes, a residue of madness that clung to him.
Yet amid the Warp static, he sensed something else. A pattern beneath the noise. A call. A psychic beacon, faint but insistent. With no direction but instinct, Aang followed it, deeper into a labyrinth of volcanic canyons.
Eventually, he came upon a cliff face. The air here shimmered—a stillness amid chaos. His hand passed through it like a curtain of cold water, revealing a seamless door inscribed with glowing symbols. They radiated an ancient power he didn't understand but recognized: divine, imperial, final.
Inside was silence. Not the silence of death, but the silence of something preserved. The vault was enormous, its architecture impossibly smooth, black, and angular. At its center stood a crystalline pillar of living light, containing the source of the beacon.
Suspended within was a figure of awe and sorrow: tall, winged, robed in golden armor, face like sculpted perfection, hair the color of sunlight. Folded wings of radiant white shielded his form like a shroud.
Aang's breath caught. He didn't need to be told who this was. Every spiritual instinct, every fiber of his being screamed it: this was the Angel. Sanguinius. The one he had heard of only in hushed whispers and broken myths shared by those few who had not attacked him on sight. This was the hope the galaxy had buried.
The crystal was surrounded by golden glyphs, pulsing softly with light. They weren't just restraints. They were seals. Locks of divine purpose.
As Aang stepped closer, the Warp resonance in his spirit interacted with the vault. Images flickered in the air—visions of ruin, sacrifice, betrayal. He saw Horus, the Warmaster. He saw Sanguinius fall. But the visions shifted—he saw the Angel live again, hope reborn. Possibilities. Futures not yet fixed.
Aang reached out, not with his hands, but with his spirit. The golden glyphs resisted. A deeper consciousness stirred. A presence unfolded in his mind, vast and blinding: a projection of the Emperor's will, a construct born of the Emperor's power at the moment the vault was sealed.
"Unrecognized presence detected," the construct intoned, its form blazing with authority. "This vault is sealed against all intrusion. Access beyond this point is unauthorized. You approach a critical node in the grand design."
Aang frowned. "Unauthorized? But you—you summoned me here! You and that laughing god!"
The construct's expression remained serene. "Your presence has been permitted in this galaxy, not within this sanctum. This lock was forged before your thread was woven into the pattern. To interfere now is to unravel that which has been guarded for millennia."
"So I'm good enough to be summoned, to fight your wars," Aang said bitterly, "but not to save someone when it matters?"
"The Angel sleeps for a specific dawn," the construct continued. "His awakening is tied to a moment not yet reached. To disturb him now is to risk futures beyond repair."
Images filled Aang's mind—Sanguinius awoken too soon, vulnerable, out of place. The Emperor's plan collapsing like glass. Battles lost before they began. The cost was staggering.
But Aang had seen the cost of inaction. He had felt the Warp's madness. He had stared into the eyes of Darth Vader and known true despair.
"You see the future," Aang replied, voice tight with resolve. "But I see the now. Vader is here. Chaos is here. We don't have the luxury of waiting."
"You presume to understand the currents of fate," the construct warned. "Your compassion is noted—but irrelevant. Do not mistake immediacy for necessity."
Aang's body trembled. His tattoos began to glow faintly. The Avatar State stirred. But he did not draw solely on his own power. He reached deep, into the jagged Warp-thread left inside him from Vader. It was raw, unstable—but it was power. He didn't purify it. He didn't resist it. He wielded it.
Golden light met chaotic force. His spiritual energy, disciplined and ancient, blended with the Warp's wild hunger. The glyphs flared in alarm. The construct reeled—not in pain, but in recognition.
"You wield the void's touch? A dangerous path, mortal. The price—"
"I know the price!" Aang roared. "I've paid it already!"
With a final surge of will, he poured everything into the seal. Light and darkness collided. The glyphs cracked and shattered. The crystal groaned. A high, rising frequency screamed through the vault.
And then—the pillar broke. The Angel stirred.
Sanguinius, the Angel of Baal, began to wake.