A.N.: And there it is. The final Chapter. I'll keep my author's note for the end, I hope you all enjoy this chapter!
To Infernius: I do not think I will do a second volume of this story specifically, as I feel like any follow-up would be so far into insanity it would be as hard to describe as the warp haha. Although Mass Effect is a setting I'm familiar with; My first two stories being crossovers between Hollow Knight and Mass Effect :D
Eternity Gate came to a standstill, opened as wide as it possibly could. Anya took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she centred herself. Even like that she could still see the radiant light ahead, that searing beacon that seemed to strip away at her very soul with its mere presence.
Her eyes opened as she flared her shielding to life, bolstered with the psychic might she had accumulated all this time. The collective weight of the billions of eldar souls she had consumed, each burning a hundred times brighter than almost any human soul. The light barely dimmed; It was still enough for her to take a step forward, at last entering the chamber of the Emperor.
The room itself was immense in scale; kilometres in every direction, tall pillars reaching up as thick as a titan's leg and as tall as a cathedral spire. Engravings and decorations covered every centimetre of the walls, floor and ceiling; Carved and painted with exquisite care, if questionable taste. She could have spent days observing and watching, taking in each and every detail if it hadn't been for the colossal mechanism taking up most of the room; The device immediately catching her attention, her eyes burning with yellow light as she gazed in both awe and undisguised horror.
Stairs of faded, sickly gold reaching a hundred metres in the air. A towering construct of precious metals and ancient machinery that was as imposing in its presence as it was pitiful from lack of maintenance. It was clear even from a cursory sight that whomever was in charge of keeping the baroque device functional had little understanding of its inner workings, and a tapisserie of added wiring, tubing and patchwork modifications added further to the bulk of the Throne. At the very top of it was a corpse. Or at least, it should have been a corpse. The decaying, skeletal remains of the giant resting upon the seat of the throne could not possibly belong to anything alive; Even the cloth it was draped in was tattered and worn. A single bionic eye remained in its empty skull, glimmering a tarnished red. From the body countless tubes, wires and other devices protruded, stuck inside of it and keeping through arcane means the corpse of the Emperor alive. The body itself was immense in scale; It must have been easily ten metres tall at the least. A titan, even in death. Yet all that remained was this desiccated husk, this shell that burned so bright yet appeared so frail and tarnished. She found herself staring, unable to stop herself, contemplating the entity in the name of which she and so many others had been sacrificed; The being they had been told to live, work and die for, to worship at the altar as a God. The human who had gone out in the galaxy and blazed a trail of destruction, genocide and sorrow in some nebulous attempt to unite the human race.
Her eyes narrowed as her teeth gnashed, fury and indignation filling her very soul. What a colossal farce. She took a step forward. Then another. And another. Slowly, she began walking towards the bottom of the Golden Throne, hesitantly placing a foot on the first step. Immediately, a colossal pressure descended onto her. She nearly buckled, her legs trembling under the sheer weight of the power she felt. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open in a silent scream as a voice echoed within her mind. A hushed whisper that echoed with a thousand different intonations, growing into a deafening clamour that threatened to overwhelm her.
"...A CHILD STANDS BEFORE ME..." The voice bellowed in her mind, shattered and calm and frenzied and quiet and angry and contemplative and...
She raised her psychic shielding further. No. No, she wouldn't let this...this thing break her. She wouldn't be made to bow at the foot of His throne. She refused!
She rose back to her full height and opened her wings defiantly. The act felt petulant; Childlike. But to her, it mattered little. It was something. Anything to show she rejected Him. That she refused Him. That she would not break so easily.
Step by step she took up the throne, feeling the crushing pressure against her psychic shielding. The burning heat of His soul radiating so close was suffocating; The very air trembling like a mirage the closer she got to His corpse.
"I remember you. - Who are you. - Anya. - Amica. - Human. - Tyranid." Once again, the chorus of voices battered at her mind, sounding even more fragmented than before. It was an avalanche of thoughts and feelings, of emotions that crushed her under their weight. Teeth poured from her mouth with how hard she bit her own lips to prevent herself screaming. She would not grant him the pleasure. She would not!
She was half way up the throne when the world around her flickered. No longer was she in the Imperial Palace climbing up the Golden Throne towards the carcasse of the Emperor. She stood now at the bottom of an open lighthouse, a burning blaze in the Warp. Slowly ascending the celestial peak towards the realm of the Gods where He resided, a maelstrom of might and pain, of power and torture. Far away, held at bay by radiant light, she saw the predators of the warp; Fathomless creatures in numbers beyond the stars, twisted and cackling and screaming and grinning and howling. She saw the Demons at the Gate. She was trembling, she realised, and had to look away. Anything to not have to see the horrors that lay beyond. She saw the throne for what it was; Agony made manifest, an instrument as much life-saver as it was tormentor. She saw the stoic creature standing atop it; A man denying his Godhood, or a God forgetting its humanity. She was unsure which. It was as if watching something caught in between; A soul trying to ascend to the Godhood millenia of worship had granted, bound to the throne by sheer stubborn defiance, rejection of its status and pure human will. It was a startling sight, and the very act of looking upon the Emperor's Soul with no filters; No lenses to protect herself was enough to sear her eyes blind.
She was back in the Palace. She knew when she felt her foot softly land on the next step of the throne. Had she ever even left? Or perhaps she had simply seen things from a different angle. A forced perspective, imposed on her. One that she knew, beyond all doubt, had been true. You could not lie to a soul.
But she could not let this deter her. If anything, it only served to fuel her determination; The sight of the things in the dark only made her more fearful of them. She needed the power he wielded, to keep them at bay. To slay them, utterly. To make them wary enough of her to leave her alone. She could never beat the Chaos Gods. She wasn't naive enough to think she could.
But she could survive them. Her eyes focused on the corpse. She just needed his light. THE Light!
"YOU SEE BEYOND THE VEIL. - What fate awaits us all should We Fail. - Yet you persist in your path? - What madness is this? - What dreadful will?" A thousand echoes, and yet in this they spoke the same stupefied incomprehension. Fragments they may be, but on this at least they held common ground.
She did not answer. Could not. Dared not. Too afraid that her voice would come out crooked and cracking, a defiant squeak to the howling hurricane of the Emperor's own words. She was all too self-aware of what she must look like in His eyes. He had said it himself. Nothing but a child.
Step. She continued on, stubbornly ignoring the growing pressure on her. Mending the cracks in her shielding as they appeared. Regenerating her eyes within an instant as she continued on forth. Three quarters of the way she was before the world once more changed around her.
She was almost at the top of the tower. The landscape had changed; No longer a mountain but a lighthouse, no longer an empty celestial void but an endless sea. And yet, much remained the same. Still the Golden Throne stood atop the lighthouse, casting its golden glare into the horizon. The endless hordes of demons remained contained beneath the waters, but she could see their shapes under the waters. Swarming. Waiting. Plotting. She shivered in dread at the sight.
The world returned to normal as she forced herself to take another step.
"Petulant child! You risk the fate of us all! - Do you not understand the nightmares that lurk so close? - Do you not see them now, gathering like vultures before a feast? - TURN BACK NOW."
Those last three words hit her with the strength of a titan's fist. She gasped as her shield strained, cracking and shimmering against the invisible force summoned with the Emperor's mere voice. She grit her teeth, digging her feet in as claws were morphed from them, slashing into the ground to anchor her.
After a few seconds of weathering the storm, she took another step forward. The strength of the blow faltered. She took another step forward. Her shield started reforming. Another step. She was nearly there. Nearly at the top.
She clenched her crystal halberd. She would not hesitate. She would not. She could not!
She picked up the pace as she climbed the last few steps, her feet scraping the ground as she pushed back against the Emperor's words of power, breaking into a full spring as she reached the last step, jumping towards the corpse with her halberd poised to strike...
The world changed.
Her halberd was gone. Anya blinked in confusion, looking down at her empty hands. It had followed her the last two times the Emperor had used his strange powers, and yet now... She looked around her, trying to make sense of her surroundings.
The room around her was a strange sight. She seemed to be inside some sort of log cabin from what she could tell; Something she had never seen herself but that the collective memory of all the Hive-Mind had devoured contained the knowledge of. On the wall were framed pictures of people she did not recognize along with a single simple painting depicting a tall snowy mountain. The room contained some comfy looking furniture; A table about two metres across with a set of seven chairs, a couch with a small coffee table and a further two chairs next to it, and a roaring fireplace by the wall opposite the wall leading outside. A set of stairs went up to a further level and four windows let the sunshine through, allowing her to see outside. Cautiously she walked towards the closest window; The wood under her feet feeling so incredibly real she would not have been able to tell this wasn't the normal world had she not been in the Throne Room but an instant before.
Her eyes widened as she looked beyond the windows. Her heart started beating faster, the child running towards the front door and slamming it open, her breath catching as she took in the sight before her.
Trees. Trees as far as the eye could see; An immense forest of great and mighty redwoods, proud and towering in the millions. The sky was a delicate blue, gentle white clouds drifting overhead and casting occasional shadows over the land. The house had been built at the top of a hill, a path leading down a winding trail towards a large lake nestled at the crook of the valley below, fed and feeding into a river system of flowing clear waters. Something in her heart twinged at the sight before her. Uncaring for her lack of weapons and ignoring any risks for ambushes or traps, she started walking down the path towards the lake.
The air felt fresh in a way she had never experienced in her life. Her entire life had been spent in the polluted hellscape of the underhive on Secundus; And whilst she was no longer troubled by such things with her tyranid body filtering all bad particles, not once had she experienced air that was just...pure. Free to breathe without filter. Without needing to be cleansed, or saturated with tyranid micro-organisms. The sounds of the forest brought an immense comfort within her; A soothing instinct within her relaxing her at the same time as her mind struggled to understand. She had never walked this path. Had never experienced these things. How could they be so soothing?! She considered a mental attack, a psychic attempt by the Emperor to pacify her...And yet...
She reached the edge of the lake. There was someone there, standing by the waters on the pebble beach. They were dressed in a simple pair of trousers, shirt and vest, looking out at the tranquil lake. She carefully walked up to them, keeping some distance between the two.
A comfortable silence settled as they both gazed out at the beautiful landscape around them.
"...What is this place?" She asked in a whisper, as if afraid saying anything too loud would bring the quiet serenity of the land.
"Terra." The stranger answered. They had olive skin and semi-long black hair. Their eyes were a dark jade that shone with faded light. "Before the Imperium. Before the Dark Age of Technology. Back when some of it was still untainted by Man." He took a deep breath. "I used to come by this lake in quiet contemplation when things would begin to feel overwhelming."
"You? Overwhelmed?" She asked with some mockery. Despite the acidity of her words, she did feel genuinely surprised.
"Oh yes. Many times over." He easily admitted. It threw her off balance somewhat. Anya glanced at him, taking in his tired face; The dark circles beneath his eyes, the skin stretched just a bit too thin.
"...I guess even the Emperor can't handle everything life throws at him." She mumbled. He chuckled.
"Indeed." Silence fell once more between then, only broken by the sounds of water flowing and wind rustling the leaves.
"Why did you bring me here?" She eventually asked. "If you are hoping this will be enough to stop me from striking you down, you are deeply mistaken." For a moment, the Emperor remained silent.
"...I have spent over ten millenia fighting for mankind. Over ten millennia of nothing but endless war, violence and bloodshed. I once thought that, with sufficient strength and might, nothing was out of my reach." He closed his eyes, a look of deep pain coming over him. "I've had a very long time to reflect on that. For once, I want to try to solve things without resorting to fighting as the first option." Anya scoffed.
"I think we're a few xenocides, genocides and mass purges too late for that." The Emperor did not seem bothered by her words.
"I am aware of the hypocrisy of such a statement. However, having done poor decisions and terrible actions in the past should not stop you from trying to do the right thing when given the chance." She narrowed her eyes.
"That's a pretty blatant innuendo." He shrugged.
"I've hardly been called a man of subtlety." She rolled her eyes.
"An understatement." She glared at him, her fingers twitching. She was so close to him. If she just... But no. No, she couldn't make the mistake of underestimating him. She remembered all too well the monolith of power he had been. Shattered and broken, but still impossibly powerful. He might appear harmless right now, but he was anything but. She needed more information. Needed to wait for the right moment. Perhaps if she got him emotional he would do a mistake. Give her an opportunity to strike. "I'm surprised you even want to talk. Given how much trouble I've been giving your Imperium, that Terra itself is burning right now and that your golden guard lies slaughtered..."
"...I am aware of the kind of monster that lays before me, yes." He whispered, and for the first time his calm composure broke. She saw the way he glared at her, felt the burning power that lay beneath the innocuous shell. "Self-righteousness is hardly something available to me however. My own actions..." He shook his head. "Come now. Let us discuss. One monster to another." She glared at him with open contempt, before shaking her head.
"A monster to another huh?" She giggled. "Alright. I can do that." She cleared her throat. "I hate you. Everything you have done. Everything you have made." She took a step closer to her. The Emperor continued watching her with an impassive expression. It infuriated her. "You claim to have wanted to save Humanity, to claim the stars as our birthright. You tout human superiority whilst demonstrating all of its worse qualities. You proudly declare only you can truly lead humanity to its golden future and yet have plunged it into its most abject state of existence yet!" Her voice was slowly climbing higher and higher. Louder and more high-pitched as emotion welled within her. "You turned being human into a living nightmare! The galaxy is a bad enough place to live in, with monsters lurking at every corner; And yet nothing inflicts more misery on the average person than your fucking Imperium!" She snarled, taking another step forward. "You claim to free mankind from the dominion of the xenos; And then allow a handful of your oh-so-glorious humans to chain the overwhelming majority into a state barely above that of a slave if they are lucky! You crushed any other attempts to challenge this nightmare of a galaxy under numbers and might rather than serve as a guardian for them to rise to the heights they could, given just the fucking chance!" She pointed a finger at him. "But no, because then you might not be in charge! Because then you might have to admit you're not the best one to lead mankind, not the one who knows best!" Tears of frustration and anger rolled down. "You have so much power! You're ridiculously smart! You could have taken a better path! A kinder path! One where mankind wasn't some dystopian nightmare where people are turned into corpse starch, where human life is worth less than the lasgun ammo they fire and where someone like me can't come on a planet and easily convince over half of it to side with a monster like me rather than continue to live in such horrific conditions!" She screamed then. "AT THE VERY LEAST, YOU COULD HAVE NOT GONE AROUND AND FUCKED EVERYONE ELSE OVER LIKE SOME PETULANT KID SMASHING EVERYONE ELSE'S SANDCASTLES BECAUSE THEY WERE PRETTIER THAN YOURS!" She panted, glaring up at him. "How many human civilisations did you annihilate on your quest to conquer the galaxy? How many were doing just fine, would have done just fine if it hadn't been for you coming over and breaking them over the knee?"
"...You really are still a child." The words were said in both contempt and no small amount of pity. "Do you think I would not have rather united humanity beneath some benevolent overlord? Do you think I chose the path of war and conquest out of a whim?" He shook his head. "There was no time to be lost. The orks were becoming an ever growing threat. The eldar could, at any moment, decide we were more trouble than was worth dealing with and cull us, one system at a time. And Chaos?!" He laughed, a bitter, fragile laugh. "Do you think they would have allowed the rise of a peaceful humanity? They would have smothered the infant in its crib, as they tried with the Imperium. But the Imperium had the strength what you envision would not have had."
"You call that strength?" She spat. "Half of the Imperium's strength is constantly being used to fight itself. The other half is plagued by ignorance, malpractice, stagnancy."
"That is not what the Imperium was meant to be. It was not what I envisioned for it." He argued back.
"It was exactly what it was going to turn out to be! No matter what you say, no matter your intentions! The foundations you laid were already there!" She paced back and forth, agitated. The waters of the lake began rippling, small waves hitting the shores. "You created an entire system where might makes right! Where the leader will just break people into submission, where conquest and violence is what makes him the head of us all! Power through violence, and that is how every single governor, inquisitor, mayor and king has done since! The slightest opposition, the slightest questioning, the merest suggestion the leader is wrong is to be met with overwhelming repression and strength! There can be no change when the person in charge has the right to simply kill anyone who wants to bring about this change! Stagnancy isn't a flaw that affects the Imperium, it's in its fucking blueprint!" She lowered her head. Her voice lost its furious rage. "The only way the Imperium can exist and function is with you at its head, forever. An eternal Emperor, and we better hope he is forever kind and graceful, adaptive and intelligent. Perfect. Anyone else, and eventually you would end up with the situation as it is today; Corrupt and greedy rulers that use the overwhelming violence of the regime to keep themselves comfortable and fat whilst massively oppressing everyone else, no matter how much doing things differently might actually make the Imperium not only better to live in, but stronger against the forces it faces." Tears rolled down her face. "You bet all of mankind on yourself. The ultimate arrogance. All of our dreams, all of our lives. Our happiness, our successes. Everything on your insane bet of the Imperium." She slowly raised her head, staring right into his eyes. "And you failed. Because no one, not even you, could ever live up to the standards the Emperor would need."
"Someone had to try. Someone had to do something." The Emperor declared somberly. His eyes were burning with power.
"It shouldn't have been you." She challenged back.
"...Regardless of what you may think of me or the state of the Imperium." He changed the subject, looking back to the lake. "You know what waits beyond the veil. Your tyranids are a kindness compared to the horrors the warp would unleash on humanity and the galaxy at large." He looked back at her. "Surely on that we can agree."
"...I suppose." She reluctantly nodded.
"For ten thousand years have I held the line." His words held a weight to them, as if the very world held its breath as he spoke. Even Any could not find it within her to quip or insult him. "Ten thousand years of torture, of torment beyond comprehension, sitting on the Golden Throne. At any point I could have given in. I could have let death take me. And yet, I did not. For I knew the moment I faltered, Chaos would pour from the webway gate like a disease through a wound. The fatal blow to my Imperium. To Mankind. There would be no recovering from that. And so, for the sake of Humanity, I Held The Line." A tired sigh escaped his lips. "Now you stand before me. A child broken by the very monster I have created. You have lived in abject conditions from birth, and only abandoning my Imperium has allowed you to live. For that..." He took a deep breath. "For that, I am sorry." Her eyes widened and she took a step back in shock.
"N...no. No you don't..." Tears poured down her face. "You don't get to say that!"
"But now, you stand before me. Intent on striking me down. You hate me." He continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "I cannot blame you for that. I will not speak of your actions until now; They are irrelevant at this moment." He turned towards her. "Were you to succeed in striking me down, you would unleash this plague upon us all. You and your tyranids will not be spared. No one will." He looked down at her. "Are you willing to let that happen?" She stared at him, her eyes red and puffy.
"You don't get to fucking..." She sniffled. "Bastard. Bastard!" She cried out. "What else is there to do?! Leave things as they are and continue to slowly creep towards the end, one croaking gasp at a time?!" She snarled. "This isn't living! This is barely surviving!"
"Surviving is the best mankind can hope to do. Ever since Horus..." The Emperor closed his eyes. "This is the dying of the Light. It always has been. One day we may well be snuffed out, but it does not have to be today." He reached out a pleading hand to her. "Terra may fall. The Solar System may be crippled. But the Golden Throne cannot be allowed to fail under any circumstances." She stayed silent, staring up at her.
"...You're right. Without you, there's nothing to hold them back, is there?" She asked softly. "It's your power. It's managing to keep them at bay. Without you, it's like removing the dam. There's no stopping the flood."
"Indeed." He agreed easily. "The Imperium is a nightmare of a system. It is a horror beyond horrors." The admission made her relax somewhat. "But it is the best we have."
"...No." Her halberd appeared in her hands as she thrust the blade towards the Emperor, his eyes widening as the blade pierced his chest. "It isn't. And I'm tired of hearing that excuse." To her confusion, the Emperor merely closed his eyes, sighing.
"So be it. In the end, it always returns to violence." His eyes snapped open, golden light pouring from them. "There is one thing I must thank you for. The Shadow in the Warp makes holding back the horde quite a bit easier. It has allowed me to gather my strength for some time." She jumped back as his body began glowing with power, pulling at her own psychic might. "Not nearly enough to recover. But enough to focus, even if for a limited time." The world around them shook with tremors, the trees shivering and groaning as tumultuous waves crashed onto the pebble shore. The sky had gone dark as endless stars gazed down at them like so many spectators. The form of the Emperor glimmered and grew; No longer the average man she had been talking to but an instant prior.
A titan of light faced her; Towering above the tallest tree, a construct of pure psychic power. A single soul radiating brighter than the sun itself; And yet still appearing humanoid. A golden armour clad the giant, an immense flaming blade in their hand pointed squarely at the child. Anya stared in stunned awe at the sight, terror radiating through her at the sheer power she could feel. She had known she was outmatched when she had come to Terra; Had that suspicion confirmed when she assaulted the Imperial Palace. And yet, she had believed the difference could be bridged through cunning and clever tactics.
Now that she faced the Emperor's full power, his nearly undivided attention, she realised what a foolish belief that had been. How naive she'd been! Even missing parts of itself, this gestalt contained more than enough power to smite her where she stood.
Something clicked within her. This was it. This was the final test. The ultimate challenge. Either she overcame and lived, or she succumbed and died. There was no indecision to be had. No second guessing. She couldn't go back.
Two wings of white feathers sprouted from her back, opening wide as they flung her upwards right as the sword of the Emperor came swinging down. The earth split where it hit, a massive canyon formed from the crack erupting into flame. She felt the heat of the psychic fire lick at her legs, thankfully out of the range of the attack. A smile spread on her face as she cackled with glee.
"NOW THAT'S MORE LIKE IT! COME ON!" Anya laughed as she unleashed her full power, her body shifting to reflect this as the Emperor's had.
Two immense wings, each the size of a small ship, supported the body that now stood massive enough to just barely see above the tall trees surrounding them when on the ground. Silvery chitin covered her body like armour, leaving only the face uncovered. Were one to see her from afar, they might think her a gigantic armoured angel of legend. Up close, the tyranid nature of this armour was clear, despite the human looking face. Her eyes glowed with sickly yellow light, staring defiantly into the thunderous golden glare of the Emperor. "LET'S DANCE!"
The Emperor did not answer. Instead, they merely grasped their sword.
Then, they swung their blade.
The air split apart as it was split in two, from deep beneath the crust to the very clouds kilometres above them. A realm of thought and mind this was, and it reflected the titanic weight of power being used. Anya barely managed to bring her powers to bear in time, the crystal halberd appearing in her hands and brought forth, clashing against the slash. She grit her teeth under the sheer weight of the blow, watching in fear as the Emperor raised a hand. She snarled, pushing the power the slash had unleashed against her, right in time to face the beam of pure energy fired upon her. Not aimed at her, the beam exploded at her feet; Preventing her from simply dodging the light as it detonated in a sundering so powerful the forest was consumed in an instant. A crater kilometres wide was left in its place, the burned and bleeding form of Anya standing in the centre of it, floating with beaten wings. The Emperor stepped forth, ready to bring his sword down onto the creature, only to witness in fascination as the wounds regenerated with incredible speed.
"SO THE REGENERATION IS NOT LIMITED TO THE PHYSICAL FORM. INTERESTING." Anya glared at him, disappearing in a blur of speed before reappearing before him with her halberd poised to strike. Her attack was parried by the Emperor's flaming sword as he glared down at her with contempt. A mighty kick to the chest sent her reeling back as he slashed once more, Anya managing to use her wings to dash to the side and avoid the attack.
She grinned, laughing as she summoned as much of her power as possible, the air around her crackling with lightning. Her laugh turned into a hysterical giggle as she unleashed her attack onto the Emperor; A powerful sphere of pure psychic power surging towards him with lightning coursing around it. The Emperor did not seem concerned, and with a flick of the hand raised a mighty golden shield upon which the sphere detonated; Taking both itself and the shield out of the picture. The Emperor remained unscathed. The thunderous god strode forth, crossing the distance in a flash; His blade dancing through the air as it clashed against Anya's halberd. Once again, she found herself pushed back under the relentless assault. As she was forced to protect herself from the dazzling assault she found herself bombarded on all sides with beams of light; Fired from innumerable direction as the Emperor's will fractured to better attack her before once more coagulating into a death blow from above, the sword descending in a cleaving arc. Despite her best attempts and her rallying all of her power into a mighty psychic shield, she was not able to withstand the assault. The blade struck true, a good portion of her left side struck clean off the rest of her psychic avatar. She screamed in pain and anger as she leapt back, a blast of power forcing the Emperor to take pause of his assault as she regenerated. Even then, she could feel herself tiring. Using her full power was something she did not have nearly as much experience with as the Emperor, and the difference between them was vast. Not so vast that he could simply annihilate her with a thought, but enough that she had yet to actually inflict a wound on him. He was expanding power, and this would weaken him and take a good deal of power for him to take her down; She was at this point one of the strongest psykers in the galaxy after all. But he would do it. It was inevitable. The thought sent shivers of fear through her.
She couldn't win this. She struck against him, halberd turned away with a gesture from the sword before a blazing ray of light burned through her arm, followed by a mighty crash of thunder that burned her right wing to a crisp. She was once more forced on the defensive, feeling her power waning with each regeneration. She couldn't keep this up forever.
She was going to die.
She was going to die?
The thought struck her at once. The sheer terror of dying came rushing all at once. No, no this wasn't right. None of this was right! She'd come this far, done so much...She'd bled, suffered, fought her hardest! She'd crawled her way to the top, only to be struck down once more?! This wasn't fair!
Then again, was it fair for her to have caused the death of billions in her selfish quest for life? Was it fair for the trillions her invasion of Terra would cause, regardless of outcome? Even if the Emperor won, Terra's defences were gutted. The centre of the Imperium would take centuries to recover, if it ever did. Even if she died, doubtless her swarms would finish the job. Regardless of if she died or not, the tyranids had won. Right until Chaos came into this world through the gaping wound the death of the Emperor would leave.
Was this enough? She'd come this far. The scared little girl had grown and become a monster who had gone farther than any other, save perhaps Horus. Even he hadn't had victory in his grasp, the certainty that even should he fall Terra would too. The tyranids would win. Wasn't this enough? Was she satisfied?
She snarled as she rammed her halberd into the Emperor's side, the blow deflected yet again. Of course not! She'd come this far, and she wasn't going to give up, no matter what! She would fight to the end, she would live, she would...
The flaming sword sank into her chest. She gasped, falling back as she used a powerful blast to send herself flying away from him. She coughed up blood as she patted at her chest, feeling the wound. It was regenerating but slowly, too slowly. The golden giant cautiously approached her, as a hunter would a wounded but still dangerous prey.
"IT IS REGRETFUL YOU WERE NEVER FOUND BY THE BLACK SHIPS. YOU WOULD HAVE MADE A FORMIDABLE SERVANT." She chuckled as she fell to her knees, unable to stand any longer.
"Me?" She weakly croaked. "Serving you?" She looked down to her blood stained hands. Her hands. The wound was regenerating so slowly... "Aren't I enough of a monster as it is?" She frowned, noticing how the world around her seemed to have...dimmed almost. Was the blood loss affecting her? Wasn't this some mental projection? And yet, things were growing darker...
"FITTING LAST WORDS." The giant spoke as he swung his flaming sword, intent on cutting off her neck. His eyes widened as a Shadow passed over him, the giant leaping back as something truly gargantuan slammed where he'd been standing a mere instant.
A Shadow descended upon the Warp.
Anya and the Emperor both found themselves stunned by the appearance of this new entity. Its very appearance was a sight to behold; A creature that seemed to drown out the sky with its sheer size; A cross between a dragon, a snake, a hydra and a million other creatures. A monster with a million eyes and a thousand hungry mouths, covered in scales, chitin and fur; A beast of Hunger and devastation, with cunning and intelligence far beyond that of mortal man. Its every step shook the earth; Its breath was a hurricane. As it opened its many maws it roared, and its roar made the stars tremble and hide, the sky growing dark with shadows.
The Hive Mind was here.
Anya could not help but feel a grudging respect for the Emperor as his eyes narrowed and he readied his sword; For while the very horrors of the warp recoiled and shrieked in fear, whilst Anya herself could not help but shiver in fear at the sight of the Ultimate Predator despite being part of it herself, The Emperor showed no fear and seemed ready to fight this new foe. The very thought was ludicrous. Fight the Hive Mind itself?! And yet here he stood, not taking a single step back.
"SO THAT WAS YOUR PLAN CREATURE. LET ME FIGHT YOUR PUPPET AND ONCE I GREW TIRED, EMERGE LIKE THE SCAVENGER YOU ARE AND STRIKE THE KILLING BLOW?" The Emperor's form flared with power as his sword roared with psychic fire. "WELL HERE I AM CREATURE! FACE ME IF YOU DARE!" The Hive Mind roared once more in defiance before pouncing, descending upon the Emperor with fury and hunger.
Anya watched as the Emperor thrust his flaming blade forth, summoning to him immense pillars of light that sundered flesh and bone from the Hive Mind; The entity so massive even these attacks were not enough to slow down its relentless charge. The sword struck true, melting eyes from its heat and piercing thick chitin. The Hive Mind slammed into the Emperor, tentacles seeking to restrain the golden giant as immense claws clamped down on his arms. She saw the Emperor grunt as he blasted the Hive Mind with golden light, expertaping himself from its grasp and lunging back as he swung his blade, cutting the appendages that were chasing him down. The Hive Mind howled in bestial outrage, eyes carefully examining its prey. A thousand different weapons morphed from its body, opening fire onto the Emperor with psychic manifestation of its power. The Emperor grunted under the barrage, the relentless howling of the Hive Mind as it expressed the hunger of trillions upon trillions of creatures; Anya finally managing to snap herself out of her shock as she felt strength return to her from the presence of the Hive Mind. She rose to her feet, immediately flying towards the Emperor. She saw his eyes snap to her, slashing his sword at her; And whilst she found herself injured by the attack, her left arm slashed clean off before she could even swing her halberd at him, it weakened his shielding against the onslaught of the Hive Mind; Resulting in many of the attacks passing through and hitting him directly. He winced as parts of his armour cracked and sizzled against the psychic power of the collective species of the Tyranids.
She relentlessly pursued the Emperor as he fought off both of his opponents; She could see he was struggling to keep up. Whilst fighting her had been a relatively simple task before, if one that required him to actually focus and use his full power, the Hive Mind was much more powerful than her and able to give the Emperor a run for his money. And with her constantly harassing him and distracting him, he was slowly weakening from having to defend himself from the deluge of attacks. She noticed his form flicker; His armour had cracks in it.
She sprinted at the golden giant, focusing her power into a hyper-focused beam of power; Using the technique she had used so long ago against Occ back on Secundus, but amplified to an immense amount through her new power. The Emperor gasped as the Hive Mind rammed into him, horns and claws and teeth digging into his armour, trying to pierce through; Giving Anya just the amount of time and space she needed to send her beam forth and burn through his armour, hitting the psychic body underneath. She saw the golden glow flicker. The Hive Mind pressed the attack, digging its immeasurable amounts of biological weapons into the Emperor. In truth nothing was happening as it was appearing to her here; This was merely a representation of the battle between immensely potent psykers in the very depths of the Warp. And yet she felt the pulsing fever of the hunt in her, the predatory instinct when facing wounded prey. She eagerly rushed, wanting to deal the deathblow. She felt a screaming warning from the Hive Mind.
It was the only thing that saved her.
The sheer power behind the shockwave of power that emerged from the Emperor slamming into her was only slightly dampened by her hastily reinforced shields, sending her broken body flying backwards. Her mind was reeling with pain and horror at the understanding that had the Hive Mind not seen through the Emperor's attack, she would have died right then and there. She watched helplessly as the Emperor pushed his advantage, the Hive Mind managing to block the sword by pinning the Emperor's arm down only for the Emperor to use his other arm to wrestle the tyranid entity, lifting it up despite the seeming impossibility of the task due to their sheer size difference and slamming it down into the ground, a shockwave echoing the cracking of bone and chitin along with the squelching of flesh and organs. But the Hive Mind was not so easily taken down, and soon dozens of limbs had grasped the Emperor, throwing him up in the air. As the Emperor fell down, the tyranid collective entity bombarded it with psychic attacks, numberless limbs protruding and becoming weapons to shred him midair. By the time he hit the ground, he had sustained major damage. Already the Hive Mind was onto him, the relentless predator exploiting any moment of weakness, any faltering from the broken nascent god. Yet again the Emperor held the monster at bay, brandishing the flaming sword as early humans did against predators. But this predator was clever, this one was experienced. And whilst it was weary, it feared not the Emperor's flame.
She could feel her strength slowly return. As long as the Hive Mind lived, so would she. She saw the Emperor grit his teeth in pain as a vicious scythe-like claw the size of a mountain cleaved through his armour, drawing ethereal blood from them. The golden glow flickered once more, growing duller.
The Emperor's psychic might, fuelled by millenia of worship by trillions of souls, slowly suffocated and drowned out by the weight of the collective mind of a species older than Humanity itself, with numbers that far surpassed the collective weight of the Imperium. Had he been at the peak of his might, with his mind intact and the millenia of worship to fuel him, he would have stood a chance. He could have if not won at least forced the foe into retreat. But the Emperor was fractured in mind and body; In eternal agony and pain, his focus disturbed by both the demons nipping at the gates and the torture he was constantly subjected to. Anya watched as the expression on the Emperor's face slowly shifted from cold determination to stubborn defiance, to a glint of hesitation. She saw the moment fear entered his eyes as the Hive Mind broke through his defences and tore a hole into him with countless hungry maws. Yet she knew he feared not the monster devouring him, nor the predator waiting to recover and pounce on him once more. It was the same realisation she'd had when facing him alone; That no matter what one did or how hard they tried, they would lose. But whereas she had feared for her life...She could feel it in his psychic energy. He feared for the loss of all he had built. For Humanity.
The Emperor's grip slipped.
The Hive Mind descended upon them like a frenzied animal, thrashing, stabbing and howling in excitement as they tore apart the broken soul of the Emperor.
Anya felt a twinge of pity at the sight. This was...
A thousand maws began biting on the Emperor's body, ripping chunks of armour and psychic flesh. For the first time since she'd faced him he began screaming as he was devoured alive.
"Wait." She softly said. The Hive Mind continued tearing into the Emperor. Something inside of her rebelled at the sight. "WAIT!" It froze, pausing for a second. She walked forward, having recovered from her injuries, her halberd held in her hands tightly. "This...let me do it. He paid enough for what he has done." Ten thousand years on the Golden Throne. Suffering beyond what any could imagine or endure. She hated him; He deserved every bit of suffering he had gone through. And yet...to die like this. After having done so much, gone so far. It...it didn't feel right.
She lowered the blade of her halberd on the Emperor's neck. For a moment she stared down at him, his defiant glare as he stared up at her, smothered in the Hive Mind's mass, pinned and unable to strike out at her. Softly, she spoke:
"It's time to rest." She lifted her halberd in the sky, an executioner's blade ready to strike down.
"Rest?" He chuckled bitterly. "This will not be rest. It will be oblivion. Death." His eyes closed for a moment. "Only in death does duty end. Is mine..." He shivered. "Is mine finally over?" He sounded angry. Bitter. And yet...she saw how his face slackened. How his entire body slouched. Felt his soul untense, and in a moment as their souls burned bright against each other she felt the Emperor for what he was.
A man. A man born with immense power, who had lived long enough to see both the best and the worst of Mankind; Who had seen the path they had taken and tried to guide them along that which he believed best for them. Who had seen Humanity rise to the peak of its power, mastering its destiny, only to be brought down by arrogance and complacency. Who had understood the state of the galaxy, who had seen it for the place of horror that it was; An endless ocean full of monsters that sought nothing but to devour and extinguish the light of mankind. So what if he had to crush the few friendly critters to ensure their survival? Anything for his people. Anything to make sure Humanity lived. When faced with the enormity of the truth, when faced with the colossal task of trying to save humanity from an unsalvageable situation, he had refused to give in. Refused to give up. He had risen to the challenge and given it his all; And damn all who stood in his way, knowingly or not. He'd become a monster, for what else but a monster could do the things that needed to be done? And then, when it seemed like he might finally have managed to walk that oh so narrow path to mankind's salvation, he fell harder than he could have ever imagined. Ten thousand years on the greatest torture device the galaxy had ever invented, left to wallow in misery and contemplation as he saw all that he had ever worked for become twisted and corrupted beyond anything he could have imagined. As mankind fell prey to infighting and innumerable threats came from all sides, feasting on the rotting corpse of his Imperium, he could have given up. At any moment he could have absolved himself of the pain, of the horror, of the nightmare. And yet he did not. He chose to stay, chose to suffer as his Imperium did and stand for Mankind. He knew the depths of which he had failed them but refused to give up. To fight until the very end. To rage against the dying of the Light.
"..." She stayed stunned for a moment at the enormity of what she had seen. Of the comprehension of who the Emperor really was. He was a monster, no doubt, and he needed to die. But to simplify it to that was to leave out so much of what he was, of what he had done. As she brought the blade of the halberd down, she saw his expression relax. He did not smile. He could not be at peace, not knowing what would be of humanity without him. But he seemed...relieved. At the very least, the pain was over. He would not have to continue seeing the slow degradation of all he had cherished and built.
The blade kissed his neck.
Anya was back in the Imperial Palace. The Emperor's body was slumped on the throne. Alarms were resounding all around from the throne, warning of the deceased status of the one who sat on it.
"NO TIME TO THINK. THEY WILL BE HERE SOON. CONSUME. HIS BODY. HIS SOUL. CONSUME. GROW." The overwhelming will of the collective Hive Mind was a sweeping power over her, compelling her to move forward. She climbed onto the massive skeletal frame of the Emperor.
Her teeth sank into his bones as demonic screeching grew stronger and stronger in the back of her mind.
Deep below, a whirring mechanism triggered from the death of the Emperor. Slowly but surely, the mechanism gathered strength as Anya devoured the corpse and soul of the dead Emperor.
Atop the Golden Throne, a cocoon of flesh and psychic energy coalesced together, as the Child began her transformation. Echoes of psychic power rang out through Terra, tremors shaking the earth as lightning crossed the sky. The Astronomicon flickered wildly as the power that fuelled it faded. The shielding that kept the demons at bay from the Webway Gate in the heart of the Imperial Palace slowly gave way under the furious assaults of demons, cackling and screaming in glee at the death of the Anathema. All the while the terrible mechanism that fuelled the Talisman of Seven Hammers awoke, triggered in action.
Across Terra billions of tyranids had spontaneously died off, each blow from the Emperor against the Hive Mind reflecting in mass death amongst the species. A drop in the bucket at the full scale of the Tyranids, but due to proximity had almost entirely echoed onto the tyranids on Terra. This sudden mass death allowed the few remaining defenders to rally and focus on the massive amounts of rebels and insurgents, turning the weapons of mass destruction available to them against the population. Thousands of bio-ships floated lifelessly, the surviving ones wasting no time to begin consuming their corpses.
In the Throne Room, the cocoon began beating. One two. One two. One two. Each beat sent a flow of psychic power, a wave of pure energy that would have turned to ashes any who stood nearby. Sickly yellow light began streaming from the cocoon. In the failing throne, the talisman finally activated as the first demon began crossing through the webway gate, setting foot into the Imperial Palace.
The talisman triggered itself, detonating into an explosion of roaring flames that would have consumed Terra itself had it not been for what came to be next.
The cocoon hatched.
"Are we a God?" The question echoed in the empty mindspace.
"I'm not sure." The answer came. "Does it matter?"
"It must. Everyone makes such a big deal out of it. The Imperials justify so much through the Emperor being a God. The Emperor waged war against the concept of Gods. The Eldar have their Gods. And Chaos is self explicit."
"Hm. I don't think it matters. What even is a God anyways? If all it takes is for someone to be much more powerful than normal and to be worshipped, then there's a lot of Gods out there. If not, where do we draw the line?"
"I guess. It just...it feels like we should have an answer."
"I don't want to be a God."
"Neither did He. Look where that got Him."
"...We are not a God. We are Anya."
"We are tyranid."
"And human."
"I suppose it'll do for now."
"What about the hole in reality? There's demons coming through. I don't want the people of Terra to die."
"Hm. Well, we can block it ourselves for some time. Then maybe make a hyper creature from Kronos to seal it up? That could work."
"It could. But what about the demons that are crossing through now?"
"Well, I mean, we have a massive, world shattering explosion here, and we have power beyond what we could have ever imagined."
"So?"
"So..."
"Oh. Yeah, let's do that then."
Contained in a bubble of pure power, the talisman of seven hammers found itself frozen at the point of detonation. As the cocoon fully opened, revealing its contents, the talisman was flung through the webway gate, finding itself forcefully shut as a new psychic shielding snapped into place. The explosion from the talisman was enough to incinerate any demon who had been near the gate as the shield placed itself. This was not enough to deter the demonic hordes, new legions quickly arriving to try and break through this new shielding. The closer they got however, the weaker they seemed to get; The shield casting an ominous shadow over the warp that sapped at their very strength. Any who managed to pass this strange drain on their power would find themselves burned by the powerful shield's aura; An oh so familiar light gleaming from it, turned a sickly yellow.
The cocoon slowly decomposed as the creature within it stepped out. Radiating power, the humanoid entity walked down from the broken down Golden Throne, the world around her warping and straining under the sheer magnitude of psychic energy contained within. White hair flowed in the air as golden yellow eyes swept over their surroundings, eight great gleaming wings opening wide.
In the distance, the clamour of panic and horror grew to a crescendo as every single entity within the Solar System was granted with the singular insight, the intangible knowledge, that the Emperor had fallen. For the Imperials this devolved into either complete and utter breakdowns of hysteric terror, existential dread, frenzied fanatical last stands or stoic resilience.
Across the Galaxy, fear and confusion spread as the light of the Astronomicon flickered and died. Its eternal vigil at last coming to an end. Countless souls were lost to the warp as the ships they sailed were cast into the open sea of souls, lost and drifting. Planets found themselves isolated from one another, each system left to their own defence. A shadow was cast over the Imperium as its great lighthouse was smothered in a blanket of darkness.
Anya closed her eyes. In every mind within the Solar System, her words were echoed, a proclamation that none could ignore no matter how much they wished the words would grow silent.
"There once was a young girl called Anya. She was, as so many of you still are, a slave of the Imperium. Bound to it from birth, condemned to a life of labour and suffering until she was spent.
That girl is no more.
I am Anya, who devoured Aetia Secundus. I am Anya, who crushed the Imperials on Quintus. I am Anya, who scoured the eldar Craft World. I am Anya, who burned through the Solar System. I am Anya, who devoured the Emperor." As the words echoed within each and every mind, more sounds began creeping in, slowly clawing their way through. The chattering of teeth. The skittering of countless claws. "To those who have embraced Amica, know your salvation is at hand. You shall not suffer at our hands. You are free. Fear not being devoured, for you shall be spared." The psychic feedback began extending beyond the minds of those present, echoing through radio channels, playing through vox casters. Screams and bellowing of monstrous beasts could be heard by all. "To those who still seek to follow the Emperor in death. Who would still seek to uphold the Imperium. Hear me now. There is nowhere in this galaxy you can hide. There isn't a fortress strong enough to resist me. There isn't a world I will not sunder to destroy you." Across Terra, tyranid creatures began moving with impossible coordination, their eyes glowing a sickly gold as they descended on the remaining defenders, picking them apart and devouring them alive. The air was alive with dying screams and cheers. "So build your castles. Man your walls. Brace yourselves."
"WE ARE COMING."
And there it is. The end of the story. Well, mostly. I might add an epilogue chapter next week, but that will depend on a few factors. This story has been an insane endeavour and by far the longest of the fanfics I have written; Going far beyond what I had first planned for this story. I was honestly thinking of stopping after Secundus, and I am glad that I didn't.
Thank you so very much to everyone that has been reading, favouriting, following and especially reviewing this story. It's been great fun seeing what everyone thought of the story, and I'm glad that I managed to give a bit more representation to the tyranids! I'm very grateful to all the people who took time out of their day to give me their thoughts and read the story; And I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your life!
With all that said, I will mark this story as complete for now; And if I am to add an epilogue, it will be next week.
If you have any questions you'd like me to answer regarding the story, well now that I don't have to worry about spoilers I'll make sure to properly answer each and every one of them with as much detail as I can!