Deep within the abyss of the void space between worlds, in the heart of a sickly nebula; suspended by nothing but the roaring engines, a bastion named the Sheron of Novum peacefully and eerily sat undisturbed. It's metallic hull stretching for miles spread out like a diseased vein; the decorated pillars and monolithic keeps within its heart transforming this wound into a castle. Where serrated spirals and nonfunctional towers sprouted from underneath and atop of the castle; depictions of proud gold-hawks adorn across the pillars joined by human skulls embedded into the center of gears, watched over by cherubs perched on the very tips.

Breaking the silence; purging the nebula were four giant cannons, they mercilessly attacked the space around them. The Gigantic cannons the size of valkyries, covered in hundreds of seals and detailed with minute letterings, attacked without pause firing red hot blobs of plasma at the ill nebula drawing blood from it with every attack, for what reason did these cannons bathe the nebula in blood? That reason was not clear and the question puzzled the very man who thought it. He watched, plagued by his own disease called fatigue and curiosity, as the nebula was mercilessly attacked; occasionally being blessed by the power of these cannons, bathed in their bright and brimming blue plasma from the window sealing him not from death but its relief, freedom.

He rubbed his temples with his finger as his mechanical arm crackled with impatience. The blue light from the nebula strained his eyes and hurted but he had nothing else to look at or entertain himself with. His room was cramped and burdened with his own clutter, barely enough for the bed he had laid on for many weeks, he believed, and the desk where his many scriptures and prayers sat unfinished. He was enthusiastic to write his words of praise of his God and the Prophet, but even they strain and pained him after too many hours, more so when having to be careful to pick his words delicately in front of an audience. A silent audience hidden behind a mechanical eye embedded into a skull and into a wall watching him unflinchingly and with an unbreaking focus, forever staring at him.

The Man did not pay much tithe to it for there was nowhere to hide from it nor any reason to, he was a prisoner of this room. He very much desired to get out but upon this fortress in the cloud of dust there was nowhere to escape to but death's embrace and his mind.

Neither a good option.

Drained mentally he had resolved himself to stare out into the abyss his many nights here. If only he truly could be alone, alone within his own mind then perchance becoming lost within it would not be such a cruel fate but it was not his.

'I tell you I do not know how, just that they did, friend.'

'I say you must have known! You have predicted the enemies movements many times before! Why of all the times has that changed now, dear friend?' The coarse harshe voice rebuttal the kinder and softer voice.

These were not voices of others within his same imprisonment but instead voices entrapped within his own mind. Arguing and bickering with one another since he could remember. Unable to recall a moment of his life in which they had not weighed in their opinions or given their grievances of his actions. But despite their occasional bitter attitudes their words usually held merit and have guided him in avoiding death's grasp, unfortunately.

For many weeks they have been here; the Kind Voice singing and praising the Commander of the station, believing him to be trustworthy, possibly an ally, despite never meeting them. While Fides spewed nothing but resentment of Diffidentia and slurs towards the Commander and advocating for the death of everyone on board in retaliation for their imprisonment. As always with their disagreements, He was in the middle of their skirmish of words.

Luckily for the mind they were guests to, He would finally find solace as the doors hissed and slid open with a loud thud, awakening him from his slumber. What stood behind it was what could be called a man but also not. A metal plate where a lower jaw would go, leaving his teeth to be bared, his hair not locks but instead bundles of wire and giant pipes; a mechanical eye in his right socket in place of the actual eye and his black gloves, like most of his clothing, hid what may be flesh or more mechanical augmentations. Smoke spewed from his back and smog oozed from his cloak, as he threw his bulk of a metal arm into the corridor.

"Genetor Cari, I have come to bring you to my Lord." Their voice: a series of whirls and piercing whistles, unintelligible to any normal man, but not him! To him they held meaning; enough to make him sigh with relief and reminisce of his time with his comrades, other tech priests, fellow tech priests. Like most he also adorned himself in their Mars-colored cloak; with stitched into the Cog Mechanicum. Memories of incense, countless miles of scrolls and holy seals; the harsh smell of iron filling his nose rushed to him from the close past. Without words he nodded and obediently walked out into the corridor and followed without pause the directions through the maze that was the Sheron.

As they walked through one of many decorated arches, Cari took pause at the sight before him. Gasping in pure shock at the sight before him as he peered over the catwalks to the machinery below were sat the chassis of a Holy Monolith, a machine of war, an Imperial Knight! But it was not of one Cari recognized, he was no expert within this field of representations of God but he knew what was happening before him. They may have hid it under an atmosphere of incense and a cloak of protective prayer seals but Cari knew that before him was something new.

'Ha! Is this thing really something to become flustered over? Isn't this creation something that could prove… powerful against Xenos and Chaos? Maybe even-.'

Enough of this!

This was a provocation, Cari knew, Diffidentia's voice is gentle and motherly but when he wishes he can be crueler than Fides. 'What I mean Brother… for someone with goals as your's… are you someone who can fairly judge them for their horridious acts against the Mechanicus?' And his words can sting more than any mindless slur Fideos could come up with woofing and barking.

Escaping from his mind he turned back to the naked Knight and its armor that had yet to bare a seal. Never has Cari seen a knight without a house, never before has Cari seen a knight in steel, but even so he wondered which house this child would go to or if it would be the sire of a new one. 'It's probability of being given to a house in general is low. It's more likely it's just going to be a guard for this station.' Fides whispered. It saddened him but he knew he was being optimistic.

Despite the disheartened whispers and hisses of the voices, the anxiety and worry within Cari's heart had been calmed, soothed by this magnificent sight. From below raised both ash and smoke, both tickled and singed his nose with that of a familiar smell, the smell of blessed iron and steel. His chest burned with the small particles of metals being breathed into his lungs. A lower man would cough and gag, crying and quivering in pain, but Cari relished in the smog and pollution. They, to him, were a blessing from his Lord, from the Omnissiah, blessings to him and his fellow priest along with the future knight to be.

The wonderful smell made his heart race with excitement, the banging of hammers made him smile with glee, but soon as it had all appeared it had all disappeared once they had crossed the catwalks. The warmth of the workshop quickly replaced by that of cold halls, a cleansed air instead of a serrated one. Passing through the workshop made him remember why he became Tech Priest in the first place: to serve his Lord and the Omnissiah, and discover even more relics of old to serve in their never ending wars.

As if he had been floating high above clouds, his thoughts descended into that of a storm. Thunder and lightning roared as Diffidentia and Fides bickered back and forth with one another, stirring his memories.

"I-I am… I am sorry, I am sorry Emperor but I am weak!" Cari remembered himself crying and falling to the ground. Bloodied with not only his own, his right arm bleeding fresh blood, and the corpse of someone he called friend skewed by darkness.

'Weak? Cari you are by no means weak! Your actions have proved that to many, and should have proved to yourself you are not! Do not let a single death eat you-'

'Ha! Boy, if one death-... if the death of one stranger... can break you so then you should quit!'

'Fides! How can you call him a stranger with what he has done for us?!'

'Hold your tongue for what I say is truth! He was not a friend! He was just another servant of the Emperor just as they were... and just like Cari wants to be! You do know what he desires right? You have not forgotten the pain nor the reason, yes? Y-you must concur, agree with me, such a thing, such a goal and dream is not possible for someone like him… not anymore!' Diffidentia did not answer nor speak, letting silence fall upon them, he did have an answer and that it was one that Cari would not like to hear. Cari could sense that much.

He clutched the plume of silky hair in his hand and spoke with more than a hint of anger in his growl of a voice. "I do not need your console… I do not need it anymore."

'Calm yourself Cari. You don't know what you're saying.'

'Huh? What was that, boy?' They hissed within the tensing air threatening to crush the young Cari, but he stood firm and the boy they've known for two decades, his entire life, spoke back to them in a harsh and cold tone. A tone of which they have never been addressed with before. There was no sympathy in his words nor in his mind, the sensation of a torrent of grating against rocks overcoming them.

"I said: I no longer need your advice, nor desire it… I shall only demand that you help me… from now on, and I demand you help me!"

Fides scoffed with a click of his nonexistent tongue. 'Who are you to command us? Nothing more than a boy. Ha! A weakling, a failure of a man, who could not protect his only friend from his enemies!' Diffidentia mockingly laughed following with his own words. 'To help you rid us from your mind-'

"I am not a boy… I am not a weakling… you've bravely declared it yourself, Diffidentia! That I, Cari Nfex, am not a failure… I am a man, a strong man, who has faced death's test countless times, at only sixteen; 'under' your advice, your gifted words, yes but lest I remind you only by my actions have I passed their trials. Only through what I've done have I survived! Do not think of me as a fool though, my intellect cannot challenge your's but I would be a fool to not take your's and add it to mine. With that added intellect I have decided I no longer need any of your's, of either of your's. You will assist me, and I do not care if you don't!" Cari declared to the darkness, to his friend, to his former friends, and he would take action, take his fate into his own hands and bend it to his will without the console, the aid, without his nonphysical guests.

Cari coddled the shortened plume on his belt as he imagined the nightmare that was his past. Looking back and becoming overcomed by his thumping heart, not roaring and raging with anger and hatred for the whispers but instead his sorrow and sadness of his lost friend - friends.

While very much part of the Grand Cult of Mars, despite being a man of position - noble birth, his views differed greatly compared to theirs like a few other like-minded individuals within the cult. He did not see the flesh as weak but as its own powerful organic machine. One that could be mended and melded just as any inorganic one. He became one that probed the mysteries of the flesh rather than that of the machine, but unlike most others that studied it for its weaknesses, Cari studied it for himself instead. He seeks to restore himself and more.

The echoing of the unioned Tech Priest's and Cari's footsteps would finally come to an end, stopping in front of a heavy silver door. It towered over them in silent awe but it also screamed at them. From top to bottom and to the very edges, it was plated with seals of blessings and scriptures, runes of the Mechanicus, and a carving depicting the story of a man.

With a nod the Tech Priest slowly faded down the dimly lit hallways leaving Cari standing alone before the intimidating door that challenged his meak presence with its existence. He took in the sight of the scenery upon the door without hesitation or consideration of time, taking in all the minute details of the story.

The story told of a man, a human male, standing before a cliff overlooking a bountiful and thriving forest; one that made him pause and become inspired with its elegance. So inspired was he that the Man captured these animals that held no strategic value and began his many thorough examinations of them. These studies would bear many fruits as their augments served him in future engagements with many won victoriously. Induced by the possibilities of these augments he gathered Brothers and Sisters, Tech Priests, willing to follow him and founded this station they stood upon.

Printed in fine at the very bottom, and in the language of the Mechanicus, was the birthdate and name of the Station's Lord "Genetor Lucius Virrus Khan" flanked by the Opus Machina.

'If the story and the date is based on reality then the Khan is a True Genetor through and through… and must be unrecognizable compared to any other Adeptus Mechanicus.'

' I wonder how many xenos make up his body now, is he more filth than shine, does he even look human anymore? Can he even properly be called a human anymore?' Fides mischievously speculated as Cari wondered the very same thing with less malicious intent.

'It does make one wonder… why one like himself, a Great Genetor, would decline a healthy bountiful death world for a derelict laboratory in a barren dust nebula.' Diffidentia and Cari both pondered.

'Perhaps the study of flesh… is a thing of the past, something of his youth?'

Or his influence has grown so great he no longer needs to personally collect his samples. A Great Genetor or not, he is a elderly Adeptus Mechanicus with centuries of precious information that cannot afford to be lost due to a beast killing him.

'"Lost information"... Do you believe that is why he called you here?' Diffidentia asked with a tone of worry. The sight, the memory, of the hanting fleet that had passed a few days ago flashed to Cari's mind. '...or is it something else you are hoping for?' Diffidentia tauntly whispered. Cari shook his head, dismissing the taunting ghost; shoving apart the silver doors and boldly stepping into the thick cloud of caving fog.

Blinded by the cloudy mist he stomped and weaved his way through, guided by a singular light in the distance, a faded green no different to the green of the sickly nebula, but like a true plague it spreaded. One after another bright shines of light pierced the gray fog revealing themselves to be neither illusions or windows but jars, canisters and vessels, with a web of interlacing tubes, wires, and pipes wrapped around them and dressed along the floor. They all connected, they mimicked each other despite their scales, and occasionally pulsated. A strange mass slithered its way from the thicker pipes and branches into the more slender offshoots connected to the vessels. Vessels illuminating sickly light and filled with just as sickly parts.

It's a living organism.

Cari hypothesized.

Momentarily the room rumbled and then was filled with the loud sounds of clicks that pierced their way into his ears and what could be called a heavy hum that shook his body in its entirety. He theorized - he guessed - what these pipes connected to but with the clicks and beeps it confirmed what he thought, even more so when those seemingly random noises were translated into that language. "Genetor Cari Iuvenis Nfex, I greet and welcome you humbly to my abode." It communicated.

"Genetor Lucius I-"

"Before I allow you to speak I wish to inquire your view of my Knight Forge and the void I've come to call my home." It simply spoked but Cari's senses flared up in defense! It spoke in a series of crackling beeps and booming thuds that shook his body, forcing him to wince in pain as it threatened to break him. "You wish to hear my opinion-… on your heretical acts? How bold of you..." He strained to sputter. "...and truly cruel to bring me here to toy with me."

"Bold? It is not bold at all, do not think your title of Genetor has meaning in the presence of me, Genetor Lucius Virrus Khan, or any other true Believer of the Mechanicus. You are nothing more than a whelp, a tick, scouring for salvage to restore your meak feeble and frail body of flesh!" Cari panted as he ached from each word of Lucius' booming voice; it came from all directions and none, the very air itself crushing him to communicate the Elder Genetor's words.

'Cari-'

"Silence… Compared to you… Lord, I may be inept and your words of my faith… may be more than a fable… but the knowledge I have been granted, and taught by my Mistress is enough to allow me to see… to recognize my faults and gaze upon the gap between the student and a true Scholar." The mist, the heavy fog or smog, finally dissipated revealing to him his superior, the Greater Genetor, Lucius Virrus Khan. No longer did the man's voice seem to be inhuman for now it appeared to be the most human thing about him. Sprouting thousands of roots and hundreds of jagged metal legs; emitting a small atmosphere of smog, a smile beamed down at Cari from atop this mass of scrap. A bodiless head that was only partially flesh, concave on the side of its face; giving into the leeching wires and pipes, no visible eyes but the glowing one made from the partial skitarii helm melded into their skull; looking down at him… joyously.

Blazing abruptly from the remnants of the cloudy smog did their presence suddenly appear without warning. The men who coveted to be machines but were not tech priests, not men of knowledge, but of war.

Skitarii!

They bored their armor and the bulky augments that ate their flesh proudly under their smirking Master; standing at the ready with their antique rifles. But from one of the rangers came tumbling a powered pack, one of Cari's designs.

"I assure you, Genetor Cari Iuvenis Nfex, I do not wish to be seen as an enemy by the pupil of… my friend. A friend who I've known for centuries, a friend who I knew almost everything about!" The Genetor warned; gesturing to the powered pack.

There was a hint of reserve to Cari but before the Whispers could begin their pushing he shoved himself forwards to take hold of the pack. Say for the subtle rumbling of the Genetor's breathing the room was silent as Cari attached the powered pack into his flesh embedded sockets, a pleasant hiss and click followed as the pipes and wires slotted into place to then be followed by gags as he forced the bulwark of wire attached to his mask's respirator down his throat.

"If… if you… if you knew everything about my Mistress then… What do you have about me? What do you want with me?" His voice reverberated just as Genetor Lucius' did. "It is true I knew much about my friend, Genetor Massallia Balphadion, but I did not know what she knew. I knew of the troublesome cirustance she loved to get herself into but never about the reason she got into trouble, the knowledge that caused such… chaos." He glanced up to the Genetor and then trained his eyes back on the skitarii before him, standing at the ready with their plated armor, their blue hunting eyes plunging the remnant bits of fog, and their antique weapons that hummed menacingly.

Damn it!

He clenched his fist and swore to himself. Cari had prayed for this moment, prayed to the Omnissiah, to the Emperor, that this moment would not come, but here he was! At the very pinnacle of the moment he dreaded! There was no other reason for Genetor Lucius to go out of his way to assist him and his dying Mistress without a goal, without desiring something, but he didn't know exactly; he only hoped it was political favoring and recognition, and not something else, not information.

"If Genetor Massallia Balphadion was as great of a Mistress as you knew her, surely she has gifted you with her knowledge? At least a vast portion of it so it is not entirely lost to… the evil forces?" Cari's face could not go any paler than it was only more red as the gears in his mind painstakingly turned trying to think of a way out of this situation, but he - they - could not think of anything!

"Such knowledge… such a vast amount of knowledge surely has not been lost?" The skitarii's eyes glimmered for just a fraction of a second, slow enough for Cari to notice. "My Mistress was a great Scholar… and I could not - never let her down by being any less than that… to be anything else was a discredit to her name… Yes, I stood by Genetor Massallia for only a few decades but I greedily learnt all I could of what she knew."

"As any proper Successor, and Adeptus Mechanicus, should." The Genetor said as if caring to soothe the emotionally moved Cari. "I do not plan to take Genetor Massallia Balphadion's knowledge from you to add to my own… but I do plan to preserve you, your knowledge, and use it to my benefit." The Genetor wasn't even attempting to hide his plans, nor did he care.

The room fell silent for a moment before erupting with hissing air and loud clunking of straining cogs under them. Working to pull from under the Cog mechanicus, Cari behind behind, a cylinder that rose from the webbery of pipes. Cari's eyes quickly bolted to the skull and gear, and out of instinct reached for his missing laspistol. Like a switch his warding expression flickered to that of surprise from the contents of the towering tube before him.

By the Emperor's will, how did he-

A beast covered in plates, made from living machinery; a part of an organic machinery now slept before him. It dawned a dark purple armor across its body, across its double set of arms, and its legs that came to three clawed feet. It had a very hunched back that made it no less taller or shorter. Its head was bobulous if not swollen to a large size with a small horrid face that had a jagged serrated smile. It bobbed up and down in the tube in a comatose state of stasis as Cari looked on with both horror and amazement.

-how did he collect a tyranid?

"Knowledge is something to be hoarded, it should always be seeked and coveted; should always be used, through its usage only then will its divinity truly be shown. I do not know from where but from when Genetor Massallia Balphadion heard of these creatures, from then on after your arrival into her care, she furiously began to search for this beast, for this beast. I did not understand why she wanted this beast… why she wanted… a Genestealer. Such weak and meager creatures are nothing compared to… compared to Carinfex." The Genetor's bulwark of machinery hissed and rumbled in a laughing manner, but his clattering code faded to Cari, memorized by the beast before him. Caressing the tube and recalling the plans that He, Fides and Diffidentia had devised and laid forth to rid himself of them.

His heart fluttered with fear, excitement, and joy. Joy for if their scheme did work he would be set free of them to be his own person free of their more subtle influence. Excitement for the unknown depths of space they were about to enter. Never before had Cari done something like this and never before had something like this been done, he believed. And in the back of his mind he felt fear. He did not know if that was his fear of this beast responsible for millions upon millions of deaths, the uncertainty of the future for him, or the beast itself influencing him!

"What… what is it that you seek from… my Mistress' knowledge of these creatures…?" His desperate voice waned in and out, not caring whether he interrupted the Great Genetor or not. However he seemed amused by Cari's enthrallment in the creature.

"I wish for you to show me… show me the importance of this beast. Show me why my dear friend has coveted it such, for so many decades. Why this creature is above the rest, above a carnifex, above their warriors." The Great Genetor's words were clear, they hid neither contempt nor malice, simply pure curiosity of the Genestealer's potential compared to the other tyranid train's just like Cari's own eyes glimmered with it.

"Then… I shall… show you it… I shall show you the divinity of this knowledge I bare." Cari's own words however were filled with malice and misguidance, but the Great Genetor knew this. He knew the Pupil of his dear friend would not easily surrender and expose his knowledge's divinity to him, but he had something Cari did not, time. He had all the time in the universe to observe the boy as he conducted his experiments and showed the worth of the Genestealer… at least before he could betray him.