Chapter 40: Darkness to Light
Reviewers:
Silvanas: Great idea. Be sure to remind me about it when we get near the end.
BGTom: You're probably right. Torpedo spheres won't do Vader much good yet since the Imperium hasn't taken any planets. Thanks for agreeing to help me. Rebel projectile weapons may only be useful on the black parts, but bolters can blow through light tank armor. Et Imperator!
The BEE: Yes, Imperium weapons are stronger, but it only took a couple of laser shots to blow up a shield generator dome. The Imperium's using Transphasic torpedoes because they can penetrate shields.
Joseph: Thanks. The Apex Twins are girls who were the only twin psykers ever born. They here taken from their home by a black ship, but their powers turned out to be beyond even alpha class. They escaped an Inquisition fortress and have been murdering their way across the galaxy for thousands of years. I'll try and get the Necrons and Tau in.
Oblivionknight7: They're out their. They didn't want to get involved in huge fleet battles, but they'll make an appearance soon, don't worry.
Liljimmyurine: Sorry about the spelling mistakes. I'll try and do better. Heavy weapons aren't used very often on board ships because they cold punch through the hull or damage systems. You'll get your ground battle, trust me.
SPECIALGUY: Yes I do realize that, but it's good to have a lot of free time, at least for me.
Grayangle: I know, I was kidding. You're right, it is shocking.
Lennox: Thanks. The Imperium will have to work overtime to conquer the Empire. You're right, that is like plasma weapons. My system is three chapters from one universe, one from the 40k universe then another three chapters from the next universe.
The Emperor's strike fleet was three days from the planet shown to them by the dead Inquisitor, deep in the Halo stars. The fleet was made up of only fifty ships. The Emperor wished to keep his fleet's psychic signature small enough for him to mask. Farseer Silvanas's fleet gone through the wormhole. The Emperor knew that Tzeench was to powerful for the Eldar warriors to face. Still, three Eldar ships were with then, filled with the most powerful psykers Silvanas had. They would need them when they came up against Tzeench.
The Farseer was on the bridge with the Emperor.
"When we reach the planet I do not know how many ships will be waiting for us," the Emperor said.
"Likely not a great amount. I doubt the Chaos gods could take many ships with them, if any, through the Warp at the speed they must have gone to escape your weapon," Silvanas replied.
"I only pray we are able to fight the gods separately. I do not believe we could stand against two at once."
"I agree, however, the power of our psykers and the Death Blade should give us a fighting chance even if we do engage them together," Silvanas said. Suddenly the Emperor stiffened. "Is something wrong?"
"Have the fleet drop out of the Warp," the Emperor ordered.
The fleet reentered normal space near a planet. It looked primitive, likely in a black powder age of technology. There were a few large cities and many small villages.
"Why have we stopped?" Silvanas asked.
"Can you not sense it Farseer? There is a great power down there. The greatest power I have ever sensed apart from my own and that of Tzeench." The Farseer reached out with his mind and he too senses it. There was an extremely powerful psyker down there. Or perhaps two, it was impossible to tell.
"Yes, I sense it."
"I am going down there."
"Is that wise Emperor?" Silvanas asked. "It could be a Chaos trap."
"If it is then we should spring it now instead of waiting and seeing if it strikes us after we arrive at the chaos planet. I am going alone," he said when Silvanas moved to follow him. "The power down there is so strong I believe only I can fight it."
The Emperor materialized in a forest near the city where he had senses the power. He wore his full armor and his sword because this planet seemed to be at the age where it wouldn't attract much attention. Still, he disguised his energy. He did not wish to alert whoever or whatever was on this planet.
When he entered the city, he found it a place of death. People everywhere lay in pools of their own blood. Most seemed to have died of self-inflicted wounds. Even buildings had been torn down, seemingly be a single push. The Emperor followed the trail of death and destruction to the city's center. There he saw a castle surrounded by black lightening. He knew he had to go inside.
As he approached the castle gates, they opened on their own and he walked inside. Within the castle it was the same as it had been in the city. Place guards and what had to be the royal family lay in blood or in pieces. He followed the trial and the quickly growing psychic energy in the air to the castle's throne room. There he found the absolute last thing he had expected. Twin young girls sitting on the thrones. They appeared no older than seven but the Emperor could feel their ancient malice and anger. He knew then that these girls had to be the 'Apex Twins' he had read of in Inquisitorial reports. The most powerful psykers in the galaxy and also the only ones to ever be born as twins. They each had blond hair, blue eyes and ribbons tying their hair into two high ponytails.
The Emperor walked into the room and the twins eyes came to rest on him. He sensed their curiosity. They were wondering why anyone would even dream of approaching them.
"Why have you come here?" They asked in unison.
"I sensed your powers and came to meet you," the Emperor replied. That apparently made them angry.
"Then you will die!" They said and unleashed a massive psychic blast at him. The Emperor cast of his psychic disguise and used his own power to block it. Still, he was forced back a step.
The twins were shocked. No one had ever been able to survive their attacks before.
"I have not come here to fight you," the Emperor said. "I know what happened to you."
This made the twins even angrier. They remembered all too clearly what they had been through. They fired an even more powerful blast at the Emperor. This time he drew his sword, ablaze with light and deflected it.
"I can help you."
The twins laughed.
"You have no idea of what we have endured," they said, continuing their assault. The Emperor swung his sword and their blasts exploded through wall on either side of him.
"No, I don't, but I still wish to help you." He could sense their minds had been filled with nothing but hatred for thousands of years. He could not reach them from out here. He would have to do something else. He continued walking towards the twins, blocking their attacks. The closer he got, the more powerful their blasts became. The last blast nearly drove him to his knees. He had not felt this level of power since his battle with Horus. Then, with a burst of speed he jumped up to the thrones and placed his hands on the girls' heads.
The Emperor found himself on a dark plain streaked with lightening. He knew this was the minds of the twins. If the distance he saw a structure and he moved to it. It was a long hall. As the Emperor passed through it, he saw the things the twins had done. He saw entire planets die beneath them. He saw men ripped apart in both a second and at the same time eternity. Most men would have been driven to insanity by now from the aura of evil that permeated this place, but The Emperor was stronger. At the end on the hall was a door. The twins were doing everything they could to stop the Emperor from reaching it. Whatever was in there, they did not want anyone to see it.
When he passed through the door, the Emperor could feel the psychic defenses of the twins getting stronger. It took all his strength to open the door on the other side, and then he found himself inside a small house. There was a calendar and he saw it was the 36th millennium. Then he heard sounds coming from a room. He opened a door and found the twins, but they looked much different. They were dressed in plain cloths, their hair was shorter, but most of all, they were laughing. They had none on the malice or anger he had seen before. Then a woman entered the room. The twins' mother. She was helping them build something with plastic blocks.
Suddenly the sky darkened and Imperial shuttles landed. The Emperor saw the symbol of the Inquisition on them as well as the insignia of the black ship fleet. The mother must have seen them before, for she gathered up the twins in her arms and ran to the basement. She placed the girls in a pantry and waited for the men to come to her door, and sure enough they came an hour later. They walked past a grave the Emperor hadn't noticed before. He saw it was the grave of the twins' father. He had died before the girls were even born.
"Where are they?" One of the men asked her.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the woman answered. The men pushed past her and headed for the basement. "Stay out of there!" The woman shouted, but one of the men knocked her to the ground with his weapon. She screamed when they tied her hands and feet.
"Mommy!" The twins yelled as they emerged from their hiding place. The men grabbed them and injected them with sedatives. When they left, one of the men turned to the mother.
"You should thank us mam. If we hadn't come your girls could have dammed this whole planet."
"My girls wouldn't hurt anyone!"
"It wouldn't be them, but the beings who worked through them," he said as he cut her bonds. "You would do well to forget all of this," he said as he walked away. The last thing the Emperor heard before the scene faded to black was the sound of the twins' mother weeping.
When the vision returned it was within the holds of a black ship. The twins had been separated. Gradually, the terror and sadness seeped into them, causing their powers to magnify. Days later they broke out of their cells and attempted to find people to play with, but everyone was afraid of them. They grew angry, and with their new powers and the rapidly growing evil in their souls, they found their own methods of having fun. When an Inquisitor boarded the ship, which was floating dead in space, he found it a charnel house. The twins were the only ones still alive.
From then on the Emperor watched as the twins escaped from the Inquisition fortress on Nemesis Tessera and began their path of destruction across the galaxy. However the Emperor had already seen that and instead focused on the tiny piece of their souls that remained from before they had been taken. He knew that was what he had to focus on.
Suddenly he found himself in a dark room. The girls were suspended within two pillars of ice which the Emperor recognized as the evil they had been overcome by. He walked up to the pillars, wading through an almost solid barrier of the twins' anger.
"Stop! We will not allow you to hurt us again!" Their voices said and the Emperor was hurled into the stone wall.
"I do not seek to hurt you," he answered, slowly walking toward the columns through a hurricane wind of hate. The twins were throwing all the anger and pain they had stored up over the centuries at him to stop him from awakening the good that was still within them. "I only want to help you return to the kind and caring girls you once were. Please, let me help you." He was buffeted by even more power; it took everything he had to keep going. He knew the twins couldn't keep this up for much longer, and already he could feel their anger waning. Slowly he made it to the pillars that encased the girls and poured all his strength into them. Slowly, cracks appeared and spread.
"NOOOOO! We won't let you hurt us!" The twins cried, but they had spent most of their strength. The cracks spread and a minute later the pillars of ice shattered. The twins fell to the floor but the Emperor caught them. Slowly they opened their eyes.
"Where am I?" They both asked.
"Safe," The Emperor replied. Then the memories of what they had done flooded the twins' minds and hey cried out. The Emperor held them. He had not interacted with many children in his lifetime, but he had seen many families going through hard times. He simply held then and stroked their hair, saying it would be all right. Finally they stopped crying and looked up at the Emperor.
"Why did you risk so much to help us?" One of the twins asked. The Emperor smiled. He could feel their darkness dissolving.
"Because every human being deserves to be happy," he said. "It doesn't matter what you've done, for you weren't yourselves. What matters is what you do now. I would like to help you if you will let me." The twins nodded and suddenly all three of them were back in the throne room in the palace. The twins' faces were streaked with tears and the Emperor's nose was bleeding from the strain of the mind link. He wiped it clean and looked down at the twins. Their faces were now filled with hope and happiness.
"Daddy!" They cried, jumping onto the Emperor and nearly knocking him over. He set them down.
"Will you come with me?" He asked. They nodded. He activated his comm. link.
"This is the Emperor, requesting three to be beamed directly to my quarters." A moment later the Emperor and the twins materialized in the Emperor's private stateroom. The Emperor set them down on his bed.
"I'll be right back. I have to talk to someone," he said. "Will you two be all right?"
"Yes," they answered. As the Emperor walked to the door, he turned.
"I just realized I don't know your names."
"I'm Keren," the first girl said.
"And I'm her sister Sharen," the other twin said. You could tell them part by their hair ribbons. Keren's were pink and Sharen's were light blue.
As the Emperor left to consult with Farseer Silvanas, he could not help feeling that the universe suddenly seemed a little brighter.
How was that? The Emperor now has the two most powerful psykers in the Imperium on his side. Will they and Farseer Silvanas be enough to destroy the remaining Chaos gods? Find out soon. In the next chapter we move o to the Andromeda galaxy. See ya then, and don't forget to review!
ENTILZA