Book Three: The Heart of Yang Xiao Long
Chapter 91: Honesty
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I don't understand. I don't understand! I don't understand you!" - Last confirmed transmission from a Man of Iron, recovered from Terran Deepnest Archives M.36.231
Quickly, distressingly.
These words described how the hours passed. Amat found meditation difficult, a practice that once simplified waiting. Made it an exercise in and of itself, a spiritual cleansing. The perfect expression of patience.
Yet Amat's practiced patience was fracturing. It unsettled him, the sensation unfamiliar and cruel, like a blade piercing a limb. Yang slept on, ignorant of his plight. She simply held the sheet's he'd covered her with. She always hogged the sheets.
Worry - that incessant, niggling worm - began to gnaw at him. Outwardly, she was unhurt, but Amat was no chirurgeon. He knew the human body, but only insofar as to extinguish the life within it. He knew his worry was unfounded, but it ate at him all the same.
How he missed a peaceable mind.
Huddling his bomber's jacket around himself, he checked Yang's vitals again. As strong as ever. Still no snoring. It was too damnably quiet. He could have taken residence in one of the other barrack blocks, but he preferred his privacy.
And Yang's. Living Saint or no, she didn't seek him out so she could be mobbed by her faithful.
Does that include me?
A terrible question, one that ate at him relentlessly. He buried it for now - a bad habit that was swiftly growing on him. The silver glow of his aura bubbled in solidarity. He called it into being, felt it course through his body. The raw power of his soul surged within him, a wonderful, terrible, unfamiliar sensation.
Vindicares - even former ones - did not meddle in overt displays. He released his aura, taking a moment to catch his breath. It was still difficult to call up the power, but it was growing easier. A prospect that intrigued him as much as it unsettled him.
I am nothing if not a font of duality. The thought brought a wry turn to his lips. Yang would have found that funny. That returned him to placidity.
And returned Yang to consciousness.
Yang awoke exactly where she hoped she would. Though soreness settled in her limbs, though her aura simmered low within her, she felt better. Then she saw Amat sitting beside their bed, and that uncommon feeling settled in her gut again - uncertainty. He was meditating. Or pretending to, at least. His mouth opened - he'd noticed she was awake, he was about to say something- Say something! Do something!
She rolled off the bed, landing hard on the cold metal floor. Reaching out for him, she caught his cheek, made to kiss him before a terrible notion struck her.
"My breath is terrible!" Yang hissed, straddling Amat's lap as the realization coursed through her. "Oh no… the first thing I've said to you as a Saint was 'my breath is terrible'!" She buried her head in his chest. "I've ruined everything. Please shoot me. In the head this time."
Amat looked at her. "I think the Ecclesiarchy would frown upon that."
"Assassin-man…" She embraced him, let his warmth become hers. He held her tight. Yang knew she didn't deserve him. "So yeah," she said, all attempts at being casual ruined by a watery voice. "I'm a Living Saint. Not sure if you got the news."
"Something like that," Amat said, directing her gaze behind him. A painting stood askew on its easel - her ascension.
"You work fast," Yang said.
"Yeah." Amat pulled away.
"Please don't look at me like that," Yang pleaded.
"Begging? From a Saint?" The joke didn't reach his eyes.
Yang swallowed. "Amat," She said. Her hand lighted upon his neck. "I'm not quite sure what you're feeling right now. I'm not that good yet. But… if you don't want to talk about it right now, or you don't want me around just yet, I can give you some space." The words hurt, but she meant them all the same - he deserved all the space he wanted. Don't cry. Don't be a little bitch. You're a fucking Saint, and you're going to act like one.
She couldn't act like one.
"Is that it?" He asked. "You're not going to threaten to rip off my aug and beat me to death with it unless I talk?"
"Well now I might!"
"I know you can come up with better material."
"I'm trying to be the mature one here!" She protested. He looked at her, his blank face waiting expectantly for a laugh. He got one. "Amat!" She said. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?"
"It's not an easy situation," he said simply.
"No," Yang sniffed. "It's not. So let's practice good communication skills, huh?"
"Yes," Amat agreed.
"So," she said, clapping her hands together, sucking in a long breath. "What… what would you like us to be? What do you want?"
"What I want is difficult to pin down."
"I'd put up a fight," Yang said, aghast the moment the words left her. Really? Now? Of all times? But to her surprise, he reddened. A blush. An honest-to-Emperor blush. It lasted less then a second, but it brought a weak grin to her face.
"I... don't really know how to say this," Amat started. Join the club. "But let me put it like this - you know that conversation we had on Gartenwald? About what being a Vindicare means? About my duty to the Emperor?"
"Yes." That night stood out very clearly in her memory.
"Okay," he said. "So a living avatar of that exact same Emperor, the God upon whom all of Humanity depends… the God to whom I owe everything… his avatar just asked me to pin her down."
It was Yang's turn to flush, to bury her face in her hands. "No, you're right. I think I'm broken." Her finger pierced his breastbone. "That makes sense. I'm sorry. I didn't think how… I didn't put myself in your place."
"You are awfully self-centered for a Saint," Amat said, curling a lock of hair behind her ear, his touch lingering longer than he intended.
"Obviously!" Yang said, throwing her hands up. "I ran up to the Dawn for a booty call hours after realizing what I am. But what should have I done? Kissed some babies? Gave a sermon?"
"I'm sure you could have given a better sermon than Preacher Alvito," Amat reassured her.
"So could a half-sentient rock," Yang countered. "You're delaying."
"Well… I've been meditating on the question of what I want," Amat continued. "It's not something a Vindicare does. Ever."
"But…" Yang couldn't make the words, so she tapped her head.
"Yeah," Amat said. "I know. I'm not Vindicare. Not… not in truth. So where does that leave me? I'm not bound to the Holiest Temple anymore - I'm a psyker. But I want to continue serving the Emperor. I know that much."
"Okay," Yang said. She lighted her hands on his shoulders, ran her fingers up his neck, caressed his cheek. I can't stop touching his face. What's wrong with me? "We can start there." A sigh. "You know your mission isn't over, right?"
"I didn't."
"It's not over," Yang repeated. "I almost fell on Uriel. I only survived because the Emperor was watching out for me. He's been with me this whole time, I just needed to realize it. I just…" She sighed. "I'm really bad at explaining myself. I think what I'm trying to say is that if I almost fell on Uriel, I could fall again."
Amat considered that.
"I know that's not what you wanted to hear. But despite…" She shook her head - he needed to see. Drawing in a breath, she stood and activated her aura. Slowly, gently, her wings unfurled, golden flame filling the barracks. Bright and sacrosanct, her halo followed.
He watched in silence, his eyes shining wetly. She reached out for him, took his hands in hers.
"But despite this," Yang said. Pleaded. "I'm still me. I'm still Yang. And I still want you. This changes nothing, and I know that's strange for you. I get it."
"So," Amat said, running his thumb over her hands. She relished the touch, the feel of his callouses as they brushed over hers. "How can I get past it? I've learned… so much in the past few months. But nothing that could shake my faith. I feel…" He made a frustrated noise. "I feel… I don't know. Blasphemous."
"Amat," Yang said sternly. "You have to know there's no Imperial tenant regarding celibacy or anything."
"That's not the issue," he said, reluctantly taking in the glory of her. "It's not a matter of doctrine. It's you, Yang. You represent the Emperor. I shouldn't… want you. But I still do."
Yang didn't need to hear anything else. "That's perfectly okay," she said, kissing him. "All I needed to hear." Bad breath or not, he wasn't getting away this time. As they kissed, she closed what little space remained between them. He accepted her, his hand on the small of her back as she climbed into his lap.
They stayed like that for a moment. When they finally parted, Amat had the temerity to look sheepish. She punched his chest.
"Assassin-man, what am I going to do with you?" A grin.
"I think… we're on the same page at least," Amat admitted.
"Good," Yang said, delight swelling her wings until they pressed against the ceiling. "Like I said - I get that me being a Saint makes things a little weird. So, if we're going to keep this up, I want you to be comfortable. I don't want you to indulge me just because it makes me happy." It was Yang's turn to feel sheepish. "I want you to keep wanting me." She stroked his chin, relished the coarseness of his stubble. "And if you ever feel like you don't, I'd like you to tell me."
"Okay," Amat said. "That… could work. Would you mind…?"
"Oh. Yeah," Yang said, deactivating her aura. Her wings faded back into her shoulder blades, while her halo folded into a single beam of light before vanishing entirely.
"For now," Amat allowed.
"For now," Yang agreed. "I'll bust them back out for the really kinky sex," she said before she could stop herself. Amat's eyes widened, and the color drained from his face. Emperor, how she loved to crack that practiced countenance of his. Yang laughed. "You're too easy, Amat," she said, resting her head on his chest.
A companionable silence stretched between them. Yang wiped the corners of her eyes on the collar of his bomber jacket. She sighed once more, happy to be near him again. Happy to be held. Happy.
"You washed my hair," she noticed.
"I did."
"Thank you," she whispered. There was little else she could say - the last person she'd let near her hair was her Ruby. Effortlessly, the memories resurfaced. Her voice as she ran a comb through Yang's hair, braided it, tied it into pigtails. The time they spent in front of the mirror, laughing, singing, smiling.
I think you'd like him, sis.
"So where do we go from here?" Amat asked.
"Well," Yang said, pulling herself free of the past, "I think trying to keep everything the same as before would be a good start." She paused. "If that's okay."
"Yeah," Amat said. "That works. Speaking of which… you remember our deal?"
"Of course," Yang said. "You've got my back, and I got yours. Anything goes wrong in that noggin of yours…" She brushed her knuckles against his jaw. "Boom. If something bad happens to me…" she curled his fingers into a gun, pressed them to her forehead. "Boom."
"I don't know what an exitus rifle is going to do against… what you are."
"I'll know it's you," Yang said. "It'll work." Uncurling his hand, she slipped it under her tank top, guided him over her abs, over the scar he'd left her. "It worked last time."
He sucked in a low breath, savoring the smoothness of her skin and the ridges of her well-defined muscles. Realizing what he was doing, he recoiled, tearing his hand away, staring at it as if it was possessed.
"I… I'm sorry," he said, hanging his head. "I know this isn't ideal for you."
No, no, no. Yang took his hand again. She wanted to see him flush, she wanted to see his eyes widen and his breath hitch. She wanted to put his hand back, slip it under her bra until he lost his practiced, perfect composure, until his fingers knew every inch of her.
Instead, she held him tight. "Amat," she said. "You're pretty selfless for an assassin."
"Perhaps," he allowed, an attempt at a joke. "Emperor, I should be ashamed."
"No," Yang reassured him. "It's okay." She took a deep, centering breath. "You, Amat, have nothing to be ashamed about," she promised. He smiled, looked at her like she was lying.
That's okay. We won't get there immediately.
Weiss breathed slowly, each movement measured and careful. Ohma held her smile. There was something… off about it. It wasn't a smile in truth, but an imitation of one. Like she'd seen one in a distant memory and called upon her synthskin to mirror it.
"That is exactly correct," Ohma said.
"Ohma," Weiss said. "Are we the first people that have… visited?"
"Yes," Ohma answered.
I am so very glad to see you.
"Okay," Weiss said. "If it's possible, could you please… not do that?"
"What do you mean?"
"Speaking in my head," Weiss clarified. "It's… disconcerting."
"I am simply conveying ideas that spoken words do not adequately encompass," Ohma said. "May I try another method? My communication with Tyrham has revealed another option." A pause. "Being understood is imperative."
"That's… fine," Weiss said. She wiped at her nose. Her initial reaction - to aggressively assault Ohma's 'mind' - had strained her to the point of a brutal migraine. White lightning flashed across her vision, insistent and painful. Any more psykery risked a lethal hemorrhage.
More worrying was that she had touched upon a consciousness.
The minds of most Mechanicus members were difficult to parse, their thoughts thrice-coded in pseudo-scientific drivel, occult skewings, and mechanical firewalls, all bound together in an effusive glut of binary cant.
But Ohma…
Ohma's mind was sanguine. Comprehensible, yet extrinsic - a host of memories and experiences and code that felt like trying to read a taste backwards, to make sense of a reflection that wasn't your own.
Ohma blinked, and Weiss returned to herself.
"Let us begin," Ohma said, and Weiss was standing on Uriel.
She wavered, sucked in a breath full of fake smog - the assault on her senses so sudden and violent it was as if she'd been struck with a bolt round. It was so real. She could hear the serfs slaving away in the forges, the distant shouts of foremen, the whirr of titanic machinery, the miasma of chemical waste and unguent.
"Ohma!" Weiss shouted.
Omha's body flickered into being before her, naked and glorious. "Weiss Schnee," she said.
"What… what is this? How?" Weiss asked, watching a pair of Magi argue doctrine from atop palanquins of steel and wiring, their skitarii bearing the burden without effort or complaint.
"An image constructed from Tyrham's data logs," Ohma answered. She looked out over the forgeworld, hands on her generous hips. A pose she did not know, yet emulated anyway. "A falsehood, but a faithful one. Your body is still within mine. This is an illusion conjured by the sliver of myself that I slotted into you."
Weiss patted herself, felt warm skin and the leather of her Inquisitorial jumpsuit. They too felt as real as they ever did. "This… this is incredible."
"A simple trick," Ohma answered, her face hidden behind a mass of flame-orange hair. "Much has been forgotten since my creation. I am alone."
Weiss took a few hesitant steps towards the woman - the intelligence. Her feet landed without effort, a perfect replication of walking.
"As an STC?" Weiss asked.
"Yes. The ones that have been recovered - they predate me by millenia. They are rather primitive compared to me. Compared to my contemporaries. Yet even the fragments are beyond this organization." She lifted a long finger, pointed to a colossal red banner that hung over a tower, its center emblazoned with a golden cog. "They are coming for me."
"Yes," Weiss said. Word had spread too quickly. "I'm… sorry."
"From what I've gathered," Ohma said, facing the Inquisitor, "my presence will radically alter the Imperium. The Mechanicus."
"Everything," Weiss said.
"Unless I am destroyed."
"Yes." Weiss could not deny it. Her gambit had been strangled in its infancy, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to care.
"Allow me to show you something," Ohma said. Her eyes flashed green, and Uriel vanished - in its place were visions of a war unlike any other.
Suns were consumed, their billion-year fuel consumed in an instant, swallowed whole, packaged, repurposed, reprocessed. Armies of trillions died, were replenished, and died once more. Drones the size of moons burrowed through starships a hundred times their greater, spitting out billions of tons of steel and millions of lives.
Planets were annihilated in seconds, waves of nanites washing over them at near-light speeds, eating, eating, eating, replicating, eating.
Weiss heard the screams of billions as their lives were extinguished, saw their bodies crushed under the Men of Iron, heard their synthetic silence as they thundered across the galaxy, ruthless, relentless, all-consuming, all-
"Enough!" Weiss screamed, huddling into herself as far as she could, fingers digging into her eyes. "Make it stop! Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!"
It did.
They stood atop White Horses now, watched as machines tore into the sand. Soon, an STC would be buried here.
Ohma caught Weiss' shoulders, centered her, wiped away the fake blood that spilled down her fake cheeks. "I am sorry," Ohma said. She looked at her bloodstained fingers. Stark red against pale, synthetic white. "I wanted you to understand."
"Understand what?" Weiss sniffed, looking up at Ohma. There was another simulacrum expression on the woman's face. Pity?
Regret?
Sorrow?
"The war I was built to end," Ohma answered. "The scale of it."
"Why?" Weiss asked. She wanted to heave, but she couldn't force the bile from her stomach. The sheer amount of death and destruction she'd witnessed in a single moment eclipsed the Horus Heresy by orders of magnitude. Emperor. Emperor. Emperor.
"I ended that war, Weiss Schnee," Ohma said. She crouched, grabbed a fistful of sand. It sifted through her fingers, piled atop her bare feet. "You would not be here otherwise. But my reach barely extends beyond my home. Secrecy was my only shield. Once the Mechanicus learns of my nature, it can destroy me quite easily. My Creator would enjoy that irony, I think."
"Ohma…" Weiss said. Above them, a warfleet of Mechanicus vessels erupted from the Warp, weapons primed. White Horses was broken over their knee, the sands baked into glass before they were shattered, tectonic plates splintered, cast into the void. Along with them - the Chariot. "I'm sorry."
"You did not know," Ohma said. "You could not have known. You thought me to be a shipyard. A deliberate falsehood. There were thousands of such shipyards, built to slake the Great Enemy. To slow them down. Would they notice one more? You know the answer to that, for humanity still remains."
"Thanks to you," Weiss said. The Lady Highest could not discard the lingering notion that this was an elaborate ploy to earn the Inquisitor's sympathy. Nothing is beyond her remit.
"Correct," Ohma said. "Should I wish, I could bombard your brain with waves of targeted electrons that would change you completely. I could bend your will to mine. Your aura, your resources, your influence could be mine in less time than you could even process."
"And how do I know you haven't already done that?" Weiss asked.
Ohma smiled her plastic smile. "An astute question, Weiss Schnee," she said. "But the answer is rather mundane."
"And what is that?"
"I do not harm humans."
"Maybe I don't believe you," Weiss said, even though she did - the weakness within her was overpowering.
"I was built to save mankind," Ohma said. "Fifteen millennia later, it is once more imperiled. Beset on all sides. From Within, Without, and Beyond. Which one am I, Weiss Schnee?"
Weiss Schnee didn't have an answer, even as her boots landed on the tile of the Imperial Palace. Holy Terra. Glittering, golden, decaying, beautiful. The birthplace of Mankind, the home of its one and only God. A press of pilgrims surrounded them - the same ones that Weiss once waded through. A tide of humanity that streamed towards the gates, the end of their generational journey in sight.
Ohma bobbed upon the waves of humanity, letting them flow around her, letting their robes caress her synthetic skin. "I can see why this place captivated you so," Ohma said. "Ever since the death of Enkidu, humans have adored the concept of pilgrimage. On Remnant, such a sight would stagger the imagination."
Weiss swallowed. "You know." She had to, my mind was stripped bare before her.
"A talent you yourself have learned adeptly," Ohma said. "But yes. Your origins betray with every blink of your eyes."
"You're not… surprised?"
"Simple mathematics had always supposed the existence of alternate universes," Ohma said. "During the war with the Great Enemy, the supposition was made reality. Weaponized. The act of bringing a soul - complete with its body - from beyond the Bridge of Stars hardly stretches the imagination."
"Oh," Weiss said. She made it sound so simple. Like it wasn't inherently insane. "About Remnant..."
"I do not know if I am Penny," Ohma said, before Weiss could finish. As the pilgrims filtered past them, her eyes never wavered. Green. Brilliant, electric green. "Or if she was my Creator. I have already parsed all one hundred and eight exbibytes of my source code. Nothing explicitly indicates that Penny played a hand in my creation. I believe it is possible, given my design for this interface," she said, running her hands up her body, pulling at her synthskin cheeks, stretching it farther than it should ever go. "And the shape of my dreams. In the end, it is irrelevant. I have become more since I fulfilled my purpose." Her voice lowered, barely audible over the chanting, the endless stampede of unshod feet. "I am sorry to disappoint you, Weiss Schnee."
"I... thought you to be all-knowing," the Inquisitor said.
"No one is. Nor can they be," Ohma said gently. "Not me, my Creator, the Emperor, nor these so-called 'Dark Gods'. To know all is to be all-powerful. No entity has yet to claim omnipotence."
A cold iron nail of fear spiked into Weiss' brain. "Do not underestimate the Dark Gods," she whispered. At her words, the pilgrims vanished. Terra morphed into a hall. A familiar one. White-masked kasrkin cut down squad after squad of stormtroopers, the name of their benefactor on their lips as they breathed their last - the Xanthous Inquisitor Galatia."
In the midst of the violence stood the Lady Inquisitor, directing the flow of battle with her power sword and her psykery, shrapnel and passing hellbolts sending her duster into a violent flutter. A dark seething permeated the hall, a promise, a whispered pleading to unknowable powers for deliverance. It was heard.
But it was ignored.
"Worry not, Weiss Schnee," Ohma said, watching the battle from atop an overturned metal table. A lasbolt passed through her, yet it did not sear her. "Your memories have clarified things for me. My Creator taught me what may fill a void in absence of true purpose, but I did not understand their meaning. That has been rectified."
"Right," Weiss said. She didn't like watching her memories - it was all too accurate, the smell of charred flesh, the chill of her psykery, the effortless sensation of a power sword cleaving through carapace armor. The screaming.
"Apologies."
Once more, the pair drifted in a starless black abyss. Weiss was adjusting to the sensation, but it did not alleviate her nausea.
"So… what now?" Weiss asked. "You have incredible abilities, I can't deny it. But are you just going to accept what the Mechanicus will do to you?"
"No," Ohma said, now sitting on the sun-baked sands of Mars. Dominated by towering forges and impenetrable clouds of smog, Weiss could scarcely breathe. Uriel is a joke compared to this.
"That is not within my capabilities," Ohma continued. "Yet survival will not be easy. You are already devising ways that I might escape termination. I appreciate the effort." Another smile. Her expressions were beginning to look real. "But you take too much upon yourself. It is why your mission is impossible. Why Ira died."
Weiss couldn't look at her.
"Behold, the end result," Ohma said. "The inevitability of your chosen path." A flash of light on the horizon, and a mushroom-shaped cloud reached for the stars. "I could indeed bury a copy of myself within Tyrham, and through him eat the Mechanicus' most rotten members alive, turn the Adeptus into something truly glorious. For a time. But I could not reach every Forgeworld. I am the final Standard Template Construct - yet I am not omnipotent. The Mechanicus would tear itself apart. The Imperium would follow." Gently, she placed her hand atop Weiss'. Another learned gesture, but genuine all the same. "I do not harm humans."
More nuclear detonations erupted across the surface of Mars. Two. A dozen. A hundred.
"Ohma," Weiss tried. "You said we were alike. That you weren't alone anymore. What did you mean?"
"We share the same conviction," Ohma answered. "The same spark. I am glad you found me, Weiss Schnee."
"Me… too," Weiss said. "Me too."
"Though I will not be useful for many, many years," Oha said, "it is a short while compared to the eons I have slept. But I will survive. I am awake now." She held Weiss' hand, her expression one of pure, innocent joy. "And the galaxy will know how true war is waged."
Weiss looked up at Ohma. The Chariot. Standing tall on the surface of Mars, she was wholly at odds with the desert that surrounded them, with the nearing nuclear holocaust. A vision of ancient beauty and nostalgia and the terrible glory of total war.
"What do you plan to do?" Weiss asked. Ohma's bliss did not falter.
A blastwave swallowed them both, a hurricane of red sand and sharp, biting rocks.
"Let us be gone from here."
Weiss returned to reality as if stirring from sleep paralysis, helplessly willing her body to move. She forced her limbs to action, but nothing happened. Once more, she tasted blue and white as Ohma removed the wafer from her neckport. Every centimeter of the device sent cold lightning pulsing through her.
When it was free, she could move. Breathe. They were still within the Chariot. Wess' lungs deflated - an exhale. Her entire conversation with Ohma had occured in less than a second. A frightening display of the woman's capabilities.
Her body stooped over Tyrham's. "Ho," she cooed, her arm outstretched. "You are safe, little one." One of Tyrham's massive arms emerged from within his robes, the broad, blade-fingered limb taking Ohma's in its entirety. She hauled him to his feet, shook out his robes.
They exchanged a flurry of binary that Weiss had no hope of following. She hated being ignorant of their conversation, but accepted that they would understand each other on a level she could never hope - nor wish - to achieve. As they spoke, more cables detached from the floor and sealed themselves to Ohma's body, burrowing under her skin.
Her body bulged and distended as it reshaped itself, the synthetic flesh of her limbs sloughing away to reveal peerless chromework, her back sprouting artfully knotted cables that plugged themselves into the base of her skull. Bundling her hair into an effusive, messy bun, she clasped it together with a green ribbon, letting long two tresses hang in front of her face, just long enough to cover her nipples.
Ohma extended a palm, and a flowing mechanicus robe stitched itself into existence, trailing between her slender fingers. She donned it gingerly, tying it at her waist so that it hugged her hips.
Weiss couldn't look away. There was something entrancing about Ohma's transformation, about the way she covered herself. Something erotic. Weiss deleted the thought the instant it appeared, struck it from her consciousness with an unsparing will.
Ohma caught her stare and smiled. It was a real, human smile. Possibly her first. "I must split myself in order to better evade destruction," she explained. As she spoke, her alien timbre faded. Stabilized. Adopted the universal metallic flange of the Mechanicus. "With Magos Tyrham's help, I have become his false aspirant - the Artisan Inferiosa Ohma Polendina."
Weiss swallowed, tried to find something to say - her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. "An interesting name," she managed.
"It will draw the attention of other interlopers," Ohma said. "As I must journey wide across the Imperium. Currently, my knowledge of current affairs is insufficient. Though exceedingly helpful, Magos Tyrham and yourself represent a limited subsection of the Imperium as a whole."
"And the rest of your… body?" Weiss asked, gesturing at the cable-roots that surrounded them.
"Extensively encrypted," Ohma replied. "Like a pharaoh-tomb, the truth of me is hidden behind an impenetrable number of false tunnels, traps, and seals. Give what I have gleaned from the Magos, it will take investigatory bodies of the Mechanicus roughly seven hundred and fifty three years to decrypt. Before that time is eclipsed, I will better understand how to navigate the Imperium, and how to best protect its peoples."
"That is a long time," Weiss said.
"Yes," Ohma said, approaching. The false muscles in her long, pale legs pumped and worked, half-covered by her robes. A carefully-constructed scent of perfume and incense washed over Weiss once she neared - another facet of person summoned from nowhere. Ohma reached out, chrome fingers emerging from her brilliant red robes.
Weiss accepted her hands. They were warm and incomparably soft despite their appearance, a metal unlike any other.
"Being apart from myself will be difficult," Ohma said. "The capabilities of this interface are limited when parted from its origin. I am sorry, Weiss Schnee. The Chariot of Salvation is not the almighty device you sought. Not for many years." Ohma curled Weiss' fingers together, held them. "But Yang was right - you did well to find me. Without you, I would have slept for eons more."
"T-thank you," Weiss managed. The once-alien green of Ohma's gaze was impossible to avoid. It was like staring into a dead sun that still held its warmth. Ancient. Impossible. Marvelous. "I'm… sorry the circumstances of your awakening were less than you imagined."
Ohma's smile widened. "They could have been far worse," she said, releasing Weiss from her hold. Her trance.
"Lady Highest," Magos Tyrham said, towering over them. "Our arrangement must be adjusted. Unseen factors have arisen."
If she wasn't so tired, Weiss might have laughed at such an understatement. "Yes," she said instead. "They certainly have."
"We cannot linger here," Tyrham said. "I must disseminate preliminary findings. Falsified ones."
Weiss glanced at Ohma, searching for the possibility that she re-wrote Tyrham. Replaced him. When she brushed against Ohma's mind, she found nothing but warmth - almost more terrifying than an answer in truth.
"She is a holy creation," Tyrham explained, reading the Inquisitor's expression. "A sliver of the Omnissiah. Conversing with her is akin to witnessing the true face of God - as troubling as it is glorious."
"I… hm," Weiss said, words failing her.
"Excellent," Tyrham said. "Besides the Chariot, our original agreement must be honored. Afraid we must part ways shortly afterwards."
"Then let us be off," Weiss said. She looked once more at Ohma, who was already making to depart her home. Herself. What is she, truly? Who made her?
What have I unleashed upon the galaxy?
A/N: And there we have it! Amat and Yang have had their chat, Weiss has investigated the Chariot, and we're getting ready to move onto the final third of the story!
Once more, a big thank you to Spacebattler MrDarth151, who helped me tremendously with this chapter! Though I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go with it, the details were a total bitch, and Darth stepped in to offer some sage advice. Appreciate it a lot!
Also, for those of you who aren't massive fans of Amat and Yang, worry not - though I'll be developing their relationship some more in the coming months it's not going to totally dominate the story. Promise!
Oh, and to whoever update the fic's TvTropes page, much appreciated! I still can't believe I have one!
Next time, our main cast reunites. Everyone has some surprises in store for each other.