A/N1: Thanks again to Skyborne for reading this chapter before hand.
A/N2: I've added some links to music and ambient sounds. These are just my personal opinion, so take them or leave them. Put the name in quotes ("") if searching on YouTube, otherwise you'll get a lot of unrelated search results.
1 01 - Into the Night
2 Fate stay night - Presentiment of a Storm
3 Hiroyuki Sawano – 「Wrath of The Gods」
4 Hiroyuki Sawano - Already Over
1
Gilgamesh traveled across the world, but he met with none who could withstand his arms till he came to Uruk. But, even after he took lordship there, the men of Uruk muttered sullenly or sarcastically in their houses, "Gilgamesh sounds the alarm for his amusement, his arrogance has no bounds by day or night. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all, even the children. However, the king should be a shepherd to his people. Yet, his lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble. This is the shepherd of the city; wise, beautiful, and utterly uncompromising."
The gods heard their lament, and the gods of heaven cried to the god of Uruk Anu. "A goddess made him strong as a savage bull, none can withstand his arms. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all. Is this the king, the shepherd of his people? His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble."
When Anu had heard their lamentation the gods cried to Aruru, the goddess of creation, "You made him, O Aruru; now create his equal; let it be as like him as his own reflection, his second self; stormy heart for stormy heart. Let them contend together and leave Uruk in peace."
-The Epic of Gilgamesh: The coming of Enkidu
1END
—-
"Commodore Lysander, welcome aboard the Artax." A man in the dress uniform of an Imperial captain saluted Lysander as he exited the shuttle with the rest of the bridge crew of the Bucephelus. They had just docked at one of the hangar bays of the battleship flanking the Bucephelus. Permission to board had already been requested over the Vox during transit and security personnel were already at the other shuttles, double checking whether those who disembarked matched the passenger manifest of each transport.
"Captain Velor." Lysander returned the man's salute as the bridge crew formed up in rank behind him. This was customary tradition for the navy since before Old Night. The captain of a ship was the commanding officer of that vessel and even an admiral had to at least pay symbolic respect to that fact. Coupled with the fact that the Bucephelus had only been disembarked, the crew of the Artax were treating this entire affair as an unexpected visit and exhibited a more cautious curiosity rather than an adrenaline pumped feeling of urgency.
'Then again…' Lysander thought to himself. 'It might be that out of place Custodes sticking out like a sore thumb behind us.'
The giant in gold armor with a spear longer than he was tall stood behind all of them, markedly out of place among the regular humans. There was a rather obvious look from the captain that flicked between Lysander and the Custodes, as if to ask 'Why is that here?'. Perhaps it was the odd gathering of humans that might have accentuated the surreal feeling of the entire situation.
However, Lysander and the bridge crew of the Bucephelus were all too aware that something was going to happen.
Lowering his hand, Lysander immediately began giving orders. "Escort me to the bridge, and prepare for a fleet-wide Vox." He said hurriedly as he began marching ahead of the captain towards the bridge. Captain Velor blinked once in surprise before frowning and hurriedly trotting after Lysander.
The commodore's words followed custom, but his actions blatantly ignored them. Leaving the captain behind like that ignored who the commanding officer of the Artax was, but the juxtaposition between polite words and urgent action was enough to inform both the captain and bridge staff of the Artax who had come to welcome them that the situation was indeed dire.
"I need medics and security teams sent to take control of all Astropaths and Navigators." Lysander whispered to the captain while also looking at the Lieutenant Commander in charge of the Artax's internal security force. "Sedate, restrain, and quarantine all registered psykers and suspected psykers."
The Lieutenant Commander looked at both the commodore and his captain, and Captain Velor gave him a nod. The man returned the nod before running off to carry out the orders he had been given.
"I want the Gellar fields on this ship and all others activated immediately." Lysander continued as they boarded one of the internal three-dimensional elevators that would take them to the bridge. Thick locking bolts disconnected from the shaft of the elevator once the bridge crew of both the Bucephelus and the welcoming party from the Artax boarded, and the anti-grav generators hummed to life before magnetic rails pushed and pulled the elevator forwards then upwards to the bridge of the Artax.
The captain nodded, and repeated the order through his personal communicator before turning to Lysander with a concerned expression.
"Commodore Lysander, may I ask what is happening?" The commodore's orders were bizarre, but had a definite direction. Gellar fields were the protective barriers deployed during Warp travel to shield against aberrant psychic manifestations. Deploying them in real-space when there were no orders to suggest Warp transit was odd, but added to the fact that the commodore had ordered all known and suspected psykers to be sedated, restrained, and quarantined meant that the commodore was preparing for some sort of psychic event or attack.
Lysander's brow furrowed. The Catumen's presence was not a fact shared beyond those aboard the Bucephelus. Depending on how the Emperor resolved things with it, that fact may never have existed in the first place.
"The situation is on a need-to-know basis, Captain." Lysander answered. "I am setting the fleet's threat level to substantial until we have word from the Emperor."
Captain Velor's mouth became a taut line. A threat level of substantial meant an attack on the fleet was likely. It was grim news just after preparing to celebrate a job well done for purging the Xenos raiders.
The elevator reached the nearest corridor to the bridge and they all exited off of it. Security teams were already returning to their posts as Lysander's previous orders percolated down through the chain of command; from the captain, to the Vox-officer of the Artax, and then to the entire fleet.
"I shall be at the holo-map to coordinate with the rest of the fleet captain. You have the bri-"
2
Suddenly, there was a flash of light from the view ports, and a beam of gold, green, and brown light burst out of the side of the Bucephelus narrowly missing the Artax; flying off into space only stopping when it impacted one of the distant moons of the planet they were orbiting.
"Get me a damage report on the Bucephelus and an enhanced image of that moon." Lysander ordered as he stormed towards the holo-map.
The natural satellite was just a spec to their eyes, and he wanted to assess just what they were dealing with by inspecting the damage inflicted upon its surface. The image was swiftly brought up as Velor took his seat in the captain's chair and began barking out orders to ready his ship for battle.
Lysander could feel his jaw clench as he inspected the damage. The beam had cut deep into the moon's crust, and thrown up vaporized rubble into clouds not unlike those generated by a nuclear bomb. Whatever that was it could penetrate the Bucephelus's thick hide and still have enough power to level a small city.
"Order all ships to brace for impact." Lysander ordered the Vox officer as a large psychic signal suddenly appeared on the holomap below their field of view, and fell towards the planet before vanishing beneath the ash clouds. He cast a look at the Custodes who had followed them from the shuttle, but the golden giant showed no emotion whatsoever remaining in the perfect guard position they took whenever they stood still.
Lysander stifled a shiver and turned back to the holo-map. He couldn't tell whether the Custodes' exemplary posture was a sign that everything was fine with the Emperor, or further proof that they truly felt no emotion at all.
—-
3
Golden nails clashed against the flaming talons and blade of the Emperor as the Goddess of Life struck back at the Hero of Humanity. Every blow rang with the high pitched screech of a thousand sparks as the Emperor's Truth repelled itself, rising to a crescendo as the repulsive forces became too much for Isha and the Emperor, forcing them apart like magnets with the same polarity with a resounding boom.
However, as soon as the Emperor's armored boots touched the ground he launched himself at Isha again.
Moments later, lightning struck where he lept from as well as several other places around them.
"You insane witch." The Emperor growled as he struck at her with both sword and talons from two different directions to avoid being bound in the same way by the tree bindings she had used on the Bucephelus.
"Oh, spare me your complaints." The goddess replied mockingly as she swung back at both weapons while hopping away from him. "Your Truth is far more unfair than any underhanded trick I could ever pull."
The Emperor grimaced as he lunged forwards again chasing Isha.
Lightning struck all around them, pelting the ground like rain, but the Emperor's Truth could not negate them for they were not an unnatural phenomenon.
Isha had whipped the winds of this planet into a frenzy while she lectured the Emperor about his nature and the ash clouds above them were filled to the brim with electric charge. The only reason lightning did not strike where Isha stood was because she willed it. Everywhere else was outside of her protection.
The ground had rumbled at her feet as well during her monologue. No doubt she had done something to the very dirt and rock beneath them.
Therefore, the Emperor was forced to rein in his aura, for to disturb Isha's control meant all that built up electricity in the sky would be unleashed upon the both of them in an instant. And that was the only trap he knew she had set for him.
Even if they were both struck by her lightning, it would not be an even trade. It had been prepared by Isha and there was no way she would allow her own trap to hurt her more than it would hurt him. If the Emperor annulled her immaterial touch, even if the lightning struck them at the same time, Isha would be the one who would have the advantage from that point.
And most of all…
The Emperor side-stepped Isha's nails and lunged even closer towards her with both arms raised over his head. Flaming sword and talons swung down upon the goddess, forcing both of her hands to rise to meet his weapons. Golden sparks arced as golden nails repelled both of the Emperor's weapons, but even as the Emperor's own Truth tried to force them apart, the Emperor shifted his full weight down upon Isha, shoving her downwards causing the repulsive force between them to drive her feet into the ground, forcing her to stand still.
Pinned between the ground and the weight of the Emperor, Isha grimaced before creating a green-brown barrier between her and the Emperor as his armored knee drove upwards to her chest.
Isha's barrier deformed upon contact with the Emperor's knee guard, like a pillow being struck, enveloping and dissipating the force of the blow, but it also began to smoke and smolder where the Emperor's golden armor touched it.
…The Emperor had the advantage at this range.
Isha was not a deity of war. She could fight, for she had the memories of billions and billions of Aeldari warriors, but none of them fought in the way she was forced to right now; with only her nails and no other part of the body. She could not create a martial art or combat stance from nothing, and it was only her inhuman reaction speed and advanced alien biology that allowed her to keep up with the Emperor.
Furthermore, the Emperor's Truth was expressed throughout his entire body. For Isha, it only showed on her nails.
That was to be expected. Isha was a being 60 million years old. The Emperor was only 50 thousand years old. In terms of percentages, the Emperor had only existed for about 0.083% of the time Isha had. That difference in their existence materialized upon their bodies.
All of humanity's legends amounted to a thin layer of nail at the very tip of her fingers.
But, that in itself was a weakness.
The Emperor's Truth negated beings from the immaterium, just like Isha. Thus, any blow against her body would damage more than just her physical form.
Her body was a representation of all the information stored within her. The fact that humanity's legend expressed itself upon her nails was proof of that. It was only the fact that her entirety was condensed into this single Aeldari form that the Emperor's immaterial negating Truth could be resisted. The sheer density of Isha's essence acted like folded steel in reinforced armor and that fact was what caused his talons to only scrape harmlessly against her skin when he grabbed her back on the Bucephelus.
It was only the enchantments on the Emperor's sword, the enchantment he had applied to his talons when he scraped them against the blade, the enchantment that allowed him to slay the Void Dragon that allowed his weapon to pierce her skin with ease.
However, that did not mean she was immune to him entirely. Every blow, like the kick she had just blocked, would damage her. Just as a warhammer or mace would send shockwaves through a knight's armor that would bruise the body and break bone, any physical blow by the Emperor that was strong enough could damage the information within Isha. If that damage built up, part of her would be lost permanently.
For that reason, given the choice, Isha would always expend psychic energy to protect herself from him, and any battle between psychic energies would always favor the Emperor.
This was still a battle of stamina.
He could regenerate his power as many times as necessary, but Isha was stuck with a constantly depleting reserve. However, just how large that reserve was unknown to him.
The amount of power she had gained from the Aeldari souls was still a mystery. Simple mathematics, even taking into account the fact that she had consumed them could not explain her current strength. There was some other trick Isha had. But, the information Isha had forced upon him had yet to reveal what it was.
"This is the limit of a god." The Emperor spoke to Isha, as he forced her arms downwards, bringing his talons and sword closer to her neck and shoulders. "You're all so fixed upon your own Truth and message, flaunting impossible idealism and placing impossible expectations on all who listen to you." Their faces drew close, as the Emperor's weapons inched towards Isha's skin. "But, in the end, you're all no better than the mortals you look down upon."
"Is that so?" Isha replied, pained smile twitching as her arms strained to force back the Emperor. "You think I fight for reasons no different to a mortal?"
Suddenly, the ground beneath the Emperor gave way, causing his one legged balance to shift. Simultaneously, Isha swayed, like a blade of grass bending with the wind. The Emperor's blows that had pinned her from above shifted to the side, releasing her from the downward force he applied and Isha used the built up repellant force between his weapons and her nails to shoot herself away from him.
The Emperor charged forwards, chasing Isha so he could fall under the zone of safety she made for herself, but lightning struck him twice before he could reach it. The electricity charred his flesh and shorted out some of the electronic components within his armor turning parts of it into dead weight, forcing him to power through with just his burnt muscles and telekinetic force.
"Then what do you call all this?!" The Emperor shouted as he shot forwards, blackened skin and broken armor repairing itself as he flew towards Isha.
"You struggle against me all alone, wasting the power you took from your people's souls in this mad tantrum against me." He sent out a pulse of his psychic touch through the ground, removing any trace of Isha's presence to solidify his footing, only for his boot to fall through a sinkhole that had been held shut by her power. "You would have done more damage, had you waited until we were both upon Terra!" A burst of telekinesis lifted him out of Isha's pitfall, and he threw himself at her again, psychic aura fully retracted into himself this time. "If this outburst isn't one of rage or pride, then what is it?!"
"I fought you then, for I saw no other way to get through your thick skull." Isha retorted as she ducked under the Emperor, slashing upwards and forcing him to block her blow. "I fight you now, fully justified in my first decision." The repulsive force between her nails and his weapons threw the Emperor over her, forcing him to use more psychic energy in order to redirect himself in order to remain within Isha's boundary of safety. "You truly know nothing but violence and power. Over your 50,000 year existence, you haven't changed from that tribal barbarian who had barely started crawling out of a cave to live in a hut!"
"Simple insults and confounding words will get you nowhere!" The Emperor snarled as he angled his flight path to clash with the goddess again,
"My words sting because they are the truth!" Both of the goddess's arms rose to intercept the Emperor, who was flying low to the ground in order to avoid being deflected again. "What other ways can I use to describe you, Gilgamesh?!" The two clashed again, but Isha allowed the Emperor to force her backwards, using her nails to hold onto both of the Emperor's flaming weapons to prevent him from landing and using his armored feet to strike her again. "What other words can I use to describe a tyrant who was so horrid to his own people, they birthed a third generation god just to hold him back?!"
"SILENCE!" The Emperor roared as he gathered his psychic energy into a ball before his brow. "You shall not speak of him with your accursed tongue!" His words lashed out at her at the same time the beam of golden light exploded towards Isha's face.
"I know him now just as well as you do!" Isha shouted back, bending her neck sideways to avoid the golden bolt shot by the Emperor, letting it crater the ground behind her. Her feet slid into the depression left by the blast, lowering her elevation for a brief instant, allowing her to position herself beneath him once again to redirect the repulsive force between them and throw the Emperor away from her. "If you are so bitter about that fact, delve into what I was forced to give you and retort in kind!"
"Then tell me, GODDESS! Tell me what I was supposed to do!" The Emperor crashed down into the crater, digging his boots into the obsidian glass made by his attack. "The unshackled daemons of the Warp, wild Enslavers, Psychneuein, and insane Warp based weapons roamed the immaterium!" He charged forwards on foot, assured that the ground he stood upon had been cauterized of Isha's touch. "Garbage left from your war threatened my people!" More psychic beams formed behind him and fired around Isha, creating a corridor with striated walls of golden death that lead from him to her. "Every human that roamed that planet was blind after the best and brightest of them sacrificed themselves to form me!" The Master of Mankind struck with his blade first, with his talons only 0.1 seconds behind. "If they were to survive in this merciless galaxy, what other choice did I have but to treat them that way?!"
"You speak of choice, but even the Old Ones didn't bother to justify their actions!" Isha snarled as she stepped back, swinging her hands to deflect both strikes while backing away from the Emperor before vaulting even further backwards away from another kick "You mimicked their methods, yet were stupid enough to ask whether that was right or wrong!" Her hands struck out at two of the psychic beams that were above her, deflecting them and opening up the cage bars she was trapped in with the Emperor wide enough for her to slip through. "You think what they did, what you did could ever be forgiven?!"
"I did what had to be done!" The Emperor shouted back, firing more and more psychic beams slightly below Isha forcing her to fly upwards into the sky. "You were not there, and nobody else would act!" A psychic barrier formed above him, just in time to block a bolt of lighting from striking him directly. "My mother died in childbirth, and my father was murdered by his own brother! You want to know the reason?!" Golden beam after beam chased Isha in the sky until she was nearly above him. "He stabbed my father all because one sheep would not stop nibbling at his fields!" The Emperor let loose his full aura, negating Isha's protective boundary, unleashing the lightning above them both. However, Isha was between him and the sky, and the electricity would strike her first before hitting the Emperor's barrier. What's more, with her detached from the ground, she would have no way to earth herself or summon a lightning rod to protect only herself from the storm. He would break through her trap, and hit her with her own weapon at the worst possible timing.
"That's how easily they killed each other, and how little power any so-called deity of humanity had!" The sky lit up pure white as all the charge in the natural capacitor formed by the ash clouds above them was unleashed in a single instance. "All it would have taken was one exhausted sigh, or an irritated long breath! One simple intake of air would have given him the 2 seconds he would have needed to reconsider his actions! But, even that simple small miracle was impossible for them! They couldn't stop that man from thinking about what he was doing for even a second any more than he could stop himself before he drew his knife and stabbed it into my father's back! What else besides useless and stupid am I supposed to call beings who can't even do that one simple thing!"
The Emperor's breath was heavy from the emotional outburst and mental strain at keeping the barrier above him whole as everything around them was replaced by the white light of the streams of lightning tearing everything around them to shreds. Finally, the barrier broke allowing the lightning to fry the Emperor and his armor; carbonizing both flesh and metal with the sheer volume of electrons coursing through him in their mad rush to the opposite pole deep within the earth.
"That… is why humanity needed order at that time." The Emperor said telepathically as his flesh and armor reformed themselves as the storm ended. "That is why I ruled over them without mercy or forgiveness and attempted to enhance them with my own genetics and knowledge."
There was a thud, and a charred humanoid thing with golden hair landed beside the Emperor. "Words are a funny thing" Isha spoke as her throat and lips reformed, the physical portion of her being reforming over the undamaged invisible metaphysical self. "Phrased like that, you seem the savior, but all you did was enslave and rape the less gifted and the less fortunate."
Several nearly invisible golden strands of hair pulled themselves out of the ground, and back to Isha; earthing wires individually insulated with the Emperor's Truth and disguised among the strands that remained her natural hair color to direct the electrical currents of her lightning into the ground away from her. They had prevented her from being vaporized by her own lightning, and would have allowed her to minimize the damage had she been able to earth herself with her feet as well. However, chased up into the air by the Emperor, her countermeasure was only partially effective. Thus, the damage done to both of them was almost equal.
However, Isha's body regrew faster than the Emperor's body and armor. He had two different systems to repair while she only had one.
"But, it was as I suspected. Humanity had other gods besides you. All races usually have several at the same time." Isha said, as her skin regrew across red muscles. "Pantheism through panentheism. The perception of gods through the wonderment at all the beauties and horrors life has to offer. They are the first attempts at rationalizing a mysterious world that expands far beyond what the mortal eye can see." A short note came from her lips, wrapping her in a white Wraithbone shift once again. "You were both hated and cherished by the first gods of humanity, for you were formed from all the heroes that had represented them, yet were destined to claim all of their future champions for yourself."
"They were useless." The charred remains of the Emperor retorted again telepathically as the burnt lips stretched out over his still white teeth grew full and moist with new blood and tissue. "They did nothing with all the power humanity gave them." He spat with his reformed mouth.
"Such is the fate of most first generation gods of a divided people. They are formed from the most basic thoughts and dreams of a species." Isha stretched out her fingers as her nails reformed, golden sparks crackling as she manifested the Emperor's Truth back onto her nails. "They listened to all the prayers of humanity, but because they did so they could not act in any meaningful way." She snorted and her knees bent in preparation to pounce upon the still reforming Emperor. "How can Kyzaghan of the Huns act against Greek Mars or Roman Ares if they are all the same thing?"
"They were born with humanity, and although humanity separated out into several tribal groups, the gods remained the same." Burnt armor creaked as the joints fused together from the lightning strike strained to break free. "But, all they did was listen." A golden glow surrounded the Emperor, and he lifted himself up with his own telekinesis and threw himself away from the goddess, having lost the race to repair himself to completion. "They stood by and watched as brother killed brother and distant cousins committed genocide on long forgotten parts of their own family tree."
"A just criticism, if you weren't the one who sowed so much misery yourself." Isha muttered as she gave chase. "It would have been better to have been the observer than the instigator of such suffering."
4
"I was a god among men, but yet I was still a man. The legends remember me as two-thirds divine, and they were correct in part. My body was already bursting at the seams with the amount of power humanity's combined consciousness gave me, focussed upon my essence by my deeds and legends of that time."
Multiple golden beams of psychic power fired out directly at Isha from before the still burnt form of the Emperor as he repaired his fused armor and blackened body.
"So you enslaved and subjugated them all, as any other mortal ruler of prehistoric humanity would, becoming the leader they would all aspire and follow." Isha sidestepped the Emperor's attack easily, but that was his intent in the first place. He was buying time by firing too many beams for Isha to block, forcing her to take an indirect and hence longer path to reach him.
"Of course you would do that as a man of that time." Isha hissed as she avoided the next salvo of the Emperor's attacks, forced once again to take a path in a wide spiral to approach the Emperor. "Why allow the lesser of your species to fail themselves when you could elevate them to greater heights? All others were only a fraction of your age at the time, and through sheer experience, you were the wisest and strongest of all. But, you were just another barbarian king lording over all those weaker than you. You even followed the actual ius primae noctis (the right of the first night) they practiced at the time unlike those medieval feudal lords. Truly barbaric, to take the virginity of every woman to show your dominance over both sexes."
"A failed experiment." The Emperor snorted. "I simply sought to reintroduce the genes from the psykers who made me back into the gene pool of humanity."
The joints of his armor finally came free, and he clasped his talon as he stretched out his arms and legs.
"The people prospered under my rule. Humanity formed its first empire and they grew with the wisdom I inherited from all the psykers that made me." He turned his eyes towards Isha, fully restored. "Although, it was all for nothing in the end. There was nothing of note from any of my spawn."
"Do not paint yourself as a misogynist." Isha retorted sarcastically as she continued to close the distance between her and the Emperor in a gradual spiral arc. "You heaped equal evils unto the men and children of Uruk. Forced labor for your city. Experimentation to find ways to better mankind's biology. Sacrifices for your arcane arts to investigate the immaterium. Of course, if you had a way to know whether women were barren with the technology you had at the time, you would have used them in the same way as men. No wonder the people of Uruk dreamed of a god that was your equal in all things that would free them from you."
The Emperor closed his eyes bitterly. "Enkidu, the star of heaven, the man who was my equal in all things."
"The first sightings of him were by the trappers of the city. The lowest social rank within your empire, and the ones who were oppressed by both you and all those who followed you." Isha continued as she avoided another salvo of the Emperor's beams. "Humanity enjoys tasty beef and succulent pork, yet the cattle and pig are the names of both animals and insults. As always, it is those who work to produce the products of livestock that end up at the lowest social rung of humanity; Buraku, Dalit, tanners, and other such 'untouchables' often arise from that occupation; forced to deal with the dirtiest parts of the work of hunting or herding."
"I was warned of his coming by the gods that still favored me as the remains of their mortal heroes, and I saw him with my own foresight. He would be my equal. The common people would jostle and the nobles would throng to kiss his feet." The Emperor shrugged as he fired another volley of beams towards Isha. Her trap in the sky and ground had both been sprung or destroyed. The balance of power that had been kept equal between them thanks to her tricks and preparation was falling towards his side. However, even though she was weaker than him in direct melee, she was still running towards him.
He fired another volley to force her to take the long route to reach him. Foolish this goddess may be in his eyes, but he had been bitten too many times in the past few hours. She still thought she could win. That was why she approached him.
"Poor young Neoth, grown into Gilgamesh after witnessing the worst parts of humanity as a homeless traveler journeying from one end of the globe to the other." Isha called out mockingly. "Still just a mortal, you craved a companion to share your burden and joy. As a being born from humanity, it was inevitable their laziness and loneliness would be part of you."
"I sent a priestess of the temple of love, Shamhat. A holy harlot who would take that fomenting god and give it a body through her own." The Emperor recited the old legend, almost reflexively as Isha's words resonated with his memories. "I sent her beyond the gate of real and not real, and she took in all of Enkidu from the wild Warp into her just as my conjoined soul entered my mother."
"And Enkidu was born into the realm of man. A god plucked from the immaterium with the express purpose of being your equal." Venom dripped from Isha's words as she closed within 100 meters of the Emperor.
The Emperor shifted sideways, positioning himself so his body would always face 45 degrees away from Isha in a one handed tail guard with his gauntlet lifted before him like a shield as Isha drew closer. The flames on his talons had gone out, dispelled when his barrier was broken by the lightning. However, he would not need it. If Isha came to him by herself, all he would have to do was concentrate his aura and Truth into an omni-directional shockwave that would reject the immaterial entirely, and then stab or cut her with his enchanted blade as her unnatural essence would be paralyzed with pain underneath her physical body as she suffered under the effect of his Truth.
"I thought to raise him up as my own, but he emerged from the gate with Shamhat fully grown."
"And you fought with him, for he was to be your equal in all things." Isha smirked as she watched him lower his position, and her fingers spread and curled in preparation to strike. "Finally, you had met a being that was not some obscene threat that was so powerful you had to cheat and trick your way to victory, nor was it some lesser creature that needed your protection."
"We shattered my primitive laboratories and destroyed the walls of my palace with our struggle. The people of Uruk flocked to see their tyrant brought low, but it was I who finally threw Enkidu to the ground."
10m. That was the remaining distance between them. The Emperor gripped his sword, keeping the flaming blade obscured behind his thick pauldrons, taloned gauntlet, and armored girth so Isha would not see whether he would strike from above, below, or the side.
"Even as a tyrant, the people saw you as their savior. Thus, as the god born from the wishes of the people of Uruk, Enkidu was preordained to lose despite being equivalent to you so long as they felt they needed you."
Isha feinted once, sidestepping backwards instead of forwards to avoid the last salvo of psychic beams before lunging forwards.
"He was my equal, my companion, my brother. He knew me in my entirety, and fought against me regardless."
The Emperor's tail guard was exposed. He faced Isha head on instead of slightly to the side, and his sword's trajectory would not be hidden by his taloned gauntlet and girth. However, it would not matter. Isha was not entirely immune to his Truth. Victory was almost his. It would merely take two more sword swings than he planned.
"You were the mortal on the verge of godhood who would stand at the forefront as the hero of humanity. He was the god made man who listened to all those who followed you and walked among the people instead of infront of them."
Sword met nails once again, knocking Isha's left hand out of the way. The Emperor's shockwave would be let loose with the next blow. The goddess's right hand would be knocked out of the way with his sword, and the other would be prevented from returning as the shockwave would petrify her. Then, the final blow would strike her head unimpeded by her nails, and impossible to avoid under the force of his Truth.
"He gave voice to the people under my rule, and made their bleating complaints into coherent arguments that I could listen to."
The Emperor's eyes widened as he heard a whistling sound, and he reformed his psychic barrier just as Isha jumped backwards away from him. Milliseconds later, a massive shadow blackened the sky as a small mountain's worth of rock and dirt crashed down upon him.
"Yes, he taught you many things during your adventures." Isha spoke to the mound of black volcanic rock and ashen dirt. "But, it was his death that put you on the path to learn what would truly form your Truth as a god." The mound shook, then exploded as the Emperor launched himself out of it, floating above her. "You carry the emotional scars from that event even to this day with the hair upon your head as an eternal memento."
White teeth bared, the Emperor let loose the shockwave he had been storing in a golden explosion, like a blazing star going supernova.
"As your hand grew softer, the prayers that made Enkidu began to diverge. The simple wish of freedom from oppression became a convoluted mix of conflicting desires." Isha stepped back and the ground opened up to swallow her, physically shielding her from the shockwave that was targeted at only the immaterial. The goddess had been slowly regaining control over the ground that had been cauterized by the Emperor's earlier attacks as she ran in the long spiral towards him. However, her voice soon returned as several holes opened, echoing up from an interconnected network deep underground where the Emperor's Truth could not reach, hiding where she was.
"The various classes and individuals of the unified society you made sought out their own definition of betterment, and they tore apart Enkidu's mind as he was forced to listen to every single one of their cries, for he was an actual god unlike yourself although he was your equal."
"Do not speak to me as if you know what I felt!" The Emperor roared as he fired a psychic beam into each and every one of the holes below him. "Your kind cannot choose between which one of your followers to kill and which ones to save! That's why the gods of humanity could not act, and why you let the Aeldari Fall!"
Images and flashbacks of Isha's own memories crackled before the Emperor's eyes as his decoding of the information Isha had burdened him with proceeded another percentage point. He saw partial fragments of the moment Isha activated the edict, removing the choice of which children to save and which to kill from her hands.
"You told me it was I that was blessed, but how dare you say that to me after seeing all of what I have been through! You Aeldari were never divided, never broken apart. The one war your kind waged against itself merely mirrored what was happening in the Sea of Souls."
The Aeldari had only truly warred with itself once, and even then they did not split their gods between themselves. Every other conflict was a minor scuffle or fight, too insignificant to affect the totality of the Aeldari and their empire. All that the Dark Muses had inspired and the social decay that destroyed their culture did not affect the gods either, for it was Slaanesh who fed on those concepts as She who Thirsts gestated within the Aeldari.
Humanity, on the other hand, had committed untold atrocities upon themselves with and without gods. Their nature was partially one of self-destruction and strife, even though they all stemmed from a common set of ancestors that had migrated from Africa to the Middle-East. That first group of humans laid the seeds for the subconscious of all modern mankind, and the deities they shared remained the conjoined concept of all humanity, even as they separated across the globe.
"Can you imagine what it was like, watching the one person you truly cared about splinter and crack as humanity bickered with itself before butchering their neighbors? Can you imagine what it was like, hearing the hundreds of different prayers asking for the destruction of a people who were only several generations away from sharing the same parents who worshiped you in the same way?"
Beam of light after beam of light descended upon the earth, tearing everything apart as the Emperor bombarded the land with his hate no longer aiming at the holes made by Isha, but simply destroying everything that was below him.
"You know nothing of what it was like to be a real god. How could you, for you are nothing but another weapon of the Old Ones." He snarled. "Being a loving caring god is worthless, for you are bound to inaction by the very people who scream all your different names. Worshiping any god is worse, for it is nothing but self-satisfaction that justifies all brutality." Finally, the bombardment stopped as the Emperor glared at the ground now obscured by clouds of dust and dirt. "Therefore, I am not a god. I am the Emperor, and my Imperial Truth is the only way reality will be perceived!"
"This is why I call you a tribal barbarian, Neoth." Isha's voice whispered upon the wind, causing the Emperor to instinctively turn behind him, just as another hole opened far off in the distance in the opposite direction to the Emperor's eyes. "The moment you returned to the mortal realm as one of their number, you reverted to your oldest and basest tendencies that you showed as Gilgamesh." The Wraithbone barrel of a massive gun emerged out of the earth before firing Isha out of it at the Emperor, destroying itself with the recoil. "The only part you do not replicate is your lust." She spat as her nails collided with the Emperor's sword as he whipped around from her momentary distraction to meet her. "What happened to your dream of autonomy from the unnatural, Neoth?! What happened to the memory of Enkidu!"
"XENOS WITCH!" The Emperor roared as the two of them once again fell from the sky and cratered the ground.
"Allow me to remind you of his dying words." Isha hissed as the two once again entered vicious melee combat.
"I curse the gate, the portal between man and not man!" Isha repeated Enkidu's dying words, the three part curse and blessing he sang out as he broke apart in the Emperor's arms.
The Emperor growled, but the memory of the man that was his brother could not allow the curse to be left alone. "I love the gate, for it was through it I met you!" The words were forced from his mouth for he could not leave the words of the god and man who loved humanity as much as he did end in bitterness.
"I curse the trapper, let him catch the least, make his game scarce, make him feeble, taking the smaller of every share, let his quarry escape from his nets, for it was he who told the world of me!" Isha shouted out the next line, striking the Emperor across the chest as the old emotional wound distracted him.
"I love the trapper, for it was his fear that led him to you! His cry brought me from the wild, and it was his eyes that saw me first!" The words cursing the first man to wish for a savior from Gilgamesh were annulled by Enkidu's own words as that wish was what brought Enkidu to life, and his brother; even though it eventually led to his death.
"I CURSE THE HARLOT!" Isha shrieked the words Enkidu shouted out as he bled from the mouth and his muscles melted under his skin. "For it was through your body and words that I became a man! There shall be no roof over your head. Let your business be in places fouled by the vomit of the drunkard, and your bed shall be the dunghill at night! Brambles and thorns will tear your feet! The drunk and the dry will strike your cheek and your mouth will ache! Be robbed of everything as you robbed me of all the treasures I wished for in the wilderness!"
"I LOVE THE WOMAN!" The Emperor shouted back, remembering the tears of regret and shame in his brother's eyes as he struggled to love humanity even though their cries tore him apart. "The mouth which cursed you shall bless you! Kings, princes and nobles shall adore you! The priest will lead you into the presence of the gods! She who taught me to eat bread fit for gods and drink wine of kings! She who gave me glorious Gilgamesh for my companion!"
With a final explosive strike the Goddess of Life and God of Heroes forced each other apart. Both breathed heavily, exhausted from reliving the pain and suffering of a god torn apart by mortal hands.
"And so…" Isha spoke first, recovering her breath faster than the Emperor. "You held Enkidu for 12 days as he rotted away, torn apart by all the thoughts, prayers, and dreams generated by the great deeds the two of you did as your equal in all things for the sin of simply walking with the populace instead of walking in front of them."
"And I mourned and howled his name for days on end." The Emperor replied, reliving that moment in time again. "I grabbed every coppersmith, goldsmith, and stone-worker to make a golden statue for him adorned with lapis lazuli on his breast. I forced every prince and king to bow at his statue and kiss the dirt at its feet. I made every man woman and child of Uruk weep for him, and forced all those joyful to stoop with sorrow."
"A vain effort." Isha snorted. "You cannot make mortals believe something so easily. Even all their prayers would not save him, for the thing they would have called out for the most was freedom from your tyranny, and even in his death Enkidu provided that to them."
The Emperor glared at Isha, but the hate in his heart was quelled by long forgotten nostalgic sorrow.
"He truly loved all humanity, even as he cursed them for his death." Isha continued. "You carry his love with you, even to this day."
"After his death, I grew my hair long and wandered the wilderness for 7 days and 7 nights in nothing but the skin of a lion that got in my way as a warning to all of its pride until the worms began to feast on my brother's flesh. Only then did I give his body back to the Earth." The golden talons of the Emperor's left hand touched the long locks of raven hair that hung from the Emperor's head. This was the eternal momento he kept of Enkidu.
"And as your equal in all things, you knew his fate could always be yours." Isha's position relaxed, allowing her spread and curled fingers to fall back into gentle curves. "You march at the front of all humanity, but all it requires is one call from behind you to turn your head over your shoulder, one moment of true empathy or regret, and then you would be at the end of the line and not in front of it. For all would follow your lead, and turn in the same direction as you, reversing the direction of your procession. Then, it would only be a matter of time before Enkidu's fate became your own."
"I left Terra to find a way to save myself and bring back my friend." The Emperor muttered, staring at nothing. "I traveled across the Sea of Souls, and searched for the longest lived and most ancient deities as well as those deities most associated with death."
"And after your meetings with many beings beyond your understanding, you washed up on the gates of my home." Isha sighed as she watched the events of the past through the eyes of the Emperor.
"When you did not let me in through your bolted doors, I broke into the infinite passageway that you called the Webway. I wandered endlessly before finally finding what I was looking for, and despairing."
Isha crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the Emperor.
"We exist as long as we do mostly thanks to the long memories of my children's reincarnating souls, and the stories that they hold in their minds and genes. Genetic memory and mimetic transmission of legend kept us what we were, as well as the efforts of my beloved Eldanesh to make sure all our stories were pure and sensible."
"You mean propaganda and lies." The Emperor spat, hateful fire returning to his eyes as he began to rouse himself from memory. "Legend crafting. The creation of culture to mature and modify the gestalt thoughts and dreams of an entire race."
"And the method to record all that information within the deity in question, to serve as a buffer to what it was and what it was not." Isha spoke while tapping her own skin; the impossibly hard skin formed as a representation of 60 million years of Aeldari culture and history. "You've managed to externalize those concepts, making your deed a manifest fact upon the immaterium. Let me guess, that part of your power was the real prize you pried from the Void Dragon's mind?"
"Along with the theories for the Dolmen gates, I learned their secrets of chronomancy and entanglement. Now, all I do is made real, and all I have done remains so!" The Emperor's sword roared as the flames shot out of the blade as the anger of being forced to relive his most painful and shameful moments flowed through his entire essence.
"Yet, with all that power, you could do nothing as a god." Isha smirked as the Emperor turned towards her. "You are the God of Heroes, and so it is only through heroes that you can act, and with all humanity divided and endlessly warring with itself, no one hero could ever serve you as you wished. You could give them all your powers, but they would not follow your word. The first act they would do with your blessing would be to cull all those who would stand against them, including any other would be heroes who would become part of you at the end of their story."
"And I was stuck for several decades, watching them break apart the empire I left when I traveled to the Sea of Souls and achieved the godhood destined to me." The Emperor glowered at Isha with a renewed personal hate for her. "There, I was stuck with the rest of the gods of humanity in the immaterium, equally powerless and equally suffering with the rest of them, because that is all a truly loving god can do."
"Your species' definition of a loving god is different from mine." Isha shrugged. "When my children called us, we answered every time during the War in Heaven. Our blood, bodies, and Truth held back the horrors unleashed upon the galaxy. Do not judge me for the inaction of your fellow deities."
"Then what do you call all of this?" The Emperor gestured to the ruined landscape around them with his sword and talons. "Reality tears itself apart at the center of the Aeldari's empire, and the survivors are scattered amongst the radioactive solar winds. If this is the best you could do, what else are you all but useless and impotent."
"We failed, but we did not fight in vain." Isha's silvery eyes glowed and her crossed arms unfolded themselves. "My children survived, and even now they fight aboard their Craftworlds and Maiden Worlds against the hordes of Chaos, while those in Cegorach's service strike from the safety of the Webway. They will not stop, and neither shall I."
"Then tell me, Isha!" The Emperor swung his sword at the goddess again, bringing it down upon her in a telegraphed swing. "If you are so wise as to what a god is or isn't what was I supposed to do!" Both of Isha's hands rose to hold the blade between all 10 of her nails as she met the fullforce of the Emperor in kind. "All the cries and prayers of every suffering soul threw themselves at my feet! Bitter enemies fighting against each other both cried out for my blessing! With their different names for the same thing they called to me! What was I supposed to do! GOD?!"
Decades spent listening to mortal hero after mortal hero fighting for selfish and selfless causes whispered in both of their ears.
As the two struggled against each other, Isha slowly grimaced before throwing back the Emperor's blade and question with a single sentence.
"I DO NOT KNOW!"