A/N 1: There are some references to the novel "The Lion: Son of the Forest", and part of the Arks of Omen campaign. They aren't blatant, but for people who haven't read up to Chapter 33 or the novel, or want a completely blind experience with the Arks of Omen tabletop campaign, then you can stop reading this story.
A/N 2: 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 Emiya ～ エミヤ
2 Shin Megami Tensei IV: Merkabah Phase 2 (Extended)
3 ハッピーエンド (「生命線」 piano ver.)
The ground continued to rumble as Neoth lowered his sword.
All the information Isha had given him had been decoded, and he understood how she functioned as well as the intent for most of her actions.
"Should I be thankful you were undecided when we first met?" He spoke irritably, glaring up at her atop the arboreal throne made of stone.
Isha had partially transformed into a non-Aeldari form when they first fought, back on the desert planet where he had recovered the last bits of required gene tech and mind-dead Xenobiologis.
At the time, he had assumed it was her attempt to adapt her form to combat him, but he now knew any deviation from her Aeldari figure was not a sign of strength. It was a sign of surprise or indecision.
"Don't judge me too harshly." Isha chuckled. "It was hardly the friendliest of meetings. Besides, I decided it would be better to appeal to your mercy than to lie asleep somewhere before murdering your people and placing a permanent divide between us."
Neoth snorted in return.
Isha was the mother of Lilieath, the Goddess of Dreams and Visions. If he had sealed her with his spell, it would not have ended the same way as it did with the Star God shard he had buried under the surface of Mars.
Why would it?
His sword and that spell of forced slumber and thought-stealing were meant to defeat the Void Dragon; a being of the materium with god-like powers, not a being of the immaterium who was an actual god.
Isha's miracle was the creation of the Tear of Isha, and it would have been this miracle's manufacturing process that would have been whispered into the dreams of all those he would have exposed her to.
It may have taken centuries or even millenia, but the inhabitants of whatever planet or moon he buried Isha on would eventually replicate her miracle.
When they did, it would have torn apart the stellar body Isha was buried on, breaking her free from his prison.
"You Aeldari certainly do not die easily." Neoth muttered.
"What a coincidence, that is my opinion of humanity as well." Isha said with a shrug.
Drops of black rain began to fall as the steam vented from beneath the planet's crust condensed in the dust clouds, dragging soot and ash from the sky to the ground.
"You understand what my plan is..." Isha spoke as she leaned her chin on her wrist. "And why I converse with you now."
Neoth sighed and closed his eyes to review everything he had learned, before staring back at Isha.
"It's almost a carbon copy of my own."
"In the broad strokes of it, perhaps, but it works to both of our benefits."
Isha had explained to him why the Four only appeared after the War in Heaven, back on the Bucephelus before they fought.
The Four did not exist because all of the evils were explained away by the War in Heaven itself. All the suffering and pain was attributed to the gods and god-like beings that fought in it, leaving nothing to foment the insane Warp creatures as the monstrous gods of the Old Ones like Isha consumed their respective species' misery and sorrow.
Isha's core still had that capacity, the emotional equation necessary to drain the sorrows of an entire species.
Additionally, her Truth admitted the process of living was full of suffering. It was probably why Nurgle wished to take her for his own, for that god's Truth was that all life existed only to end. Entropy was the only constant of the universe, and that Truth manifested as disease, rot, and plague. The Plaguefather probably wished to take the Goddess of Life so he could convert her to his purpose, and redefine all life that existed within her cycle as merely a phase before death and decay covered everything.
Neoth himself had said it. 'All of the miseries of life are the match that lights the bonfire of Chaos.' Therefore, the Truths of the Chaos gods could theoretically be reduced to the mundane evils of everyday life within Isha's Truth. Afterall, life was a broad concept that covered many aspects of existence and emotion.
However…
"The Four have far out-stripped any natural phenomenon." Neoth said as he locked eyes with Isha. "Even if you could swallow them, their Truths will leak out. What guarantee is there that you won't be taken over from the inside?"
The Emperor's plan made no attempt to reduce the Four. It merely redirected their evils away from humanity and onto everything else in a slightly more ordered manner.
Isha's plan would attempt to explain them away as facts of life, but their Truths would still exist. Unending war, devastating plagues, self-destruction from blind hedonism, and simple madness would continue to occur in the galaxy. If Isha took in the Four, she would be responsible for all those events.
While Neoth's plan would have made him merely suffer, Isha's plan risked her sanity and personality. It might even result in a reversal of who was in control as the species of the galaxy and possibly even her own children blamed her for the events that tormented them. In that scenario, Isha might end up the prisoner of the Four in her own mind.
"There is no criminal without a crime." Isha said sadly. "My answer to that question is the same one as why I couldn't have acted until now."
Neoth frowned at this. Isha's question of guilt and its effect on choice was her explanation for his question, and the natural question that would come after.
If Isha swallowed the Four and it was known that she had done so, whatever misery that occurred could be attributed to Isha without blaming her for it.
It would not be because of Isha that evil occurred, but it was because Isha struggled to keep Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh sealed that the occasional tragedy or disaster happened. That legend would take even the misery of Chaos's own Truth, and fuel the belief that the Four were Isha's prisoner.
It also explained why Isha could not act before the Four came into existence, especially Slaanesh. If she unilaterally tried to usurp the Four's Truth before they were born, she would become the source of evil herself for there would be no one else's name to blame. That would be self-defeating, to say the least.
Of course, that was assuming Isha herself could even do such a thing.
"Even with all your power and knowledge, you are very weak." Neoth gestured to the shaking lands around him that were sending out gouts of lava and steam from dozens of volcanoes and geysers, as if the destruction of the world around him proved his point. "That's why you assisted me earlier, and restored part of my sanity, isn't it?"
He had once thought of this darker part of Isha's information as either a weapon or a large piece of construction equipment, and with its function fully revealed, he could conclude that the latter was closer to what she was.
Like an excavator or tunnel boring drill, her powers were devastating, but at least half of its function was not meant to be a weapon. That fact alone made her less effective in direct combat, but on top of that…
"I was made to combat the horrors of reality." Isha said with a shrug. "It was not intended for me to fight against other beings from the immaterium. I may have experience doing so, but it isn't my specialty."
Isha's miracle was designed to act against things in the materium. Its purpose was to act against dead worlds and planets that had been utterly killed by the Necron. There were no planets in the Warp besides those that lay in the clutches of the Eye of Terror, and that scar upon reality was merely the very entrance of the Warp.
"Even if I threw my tear directly at one of the Four, it wouldn't be any different to throwing a small firecracker at them. Most of my power would be wasted, although I might be able to give them a black eye if I hit them in the right spot."
"That's why you need my help." Neoth said slowly.
In Isha's plan, he would weaken the Four with his immaterial hating touch, and she would swallow their Truth into herself, sealing it and defusing it as a part of the struggles of everyday life while he carved that fact into his legend, preventing the swallowed Chaos god from returning out of Isha's stomach.
That was Isha's solution for the question of evil.
The diffusion of their Truth as a fact of life, coupled with the creation of a new legend where she would be the jailer for the causes of evil; the blameless source of all misery.
However, there were still problems with Isha's plan.
"The Four are caused by all life. How will you remain the mother of the Aeldari after swallowing them?" Neoth said as the black rains began to fall in earnest.
Neoth would remain the Emperor and Master of Mankind in his plan. However, he could not see how Isha could remain the mother of just the Aeldari while taking in the sources of all evil in the galaxy.
"I won't." Isha said solemnly. "That part of me will most likely die, but my Truth and love is based on the passing on of life from one generation to the next. The deity created from my death, the death of a 60 million year goddess from the War in Heaven, might be strong enough to hold back Chaos for all the species of the galaxy."
"There is no guarantee of that." Neoth growled. "You have no idea what god would crawl out from your corpse, or what their personality would be like."
Isha, as she currently existed, was not an existential threat to Neoth. She had fought him, threatened his people, and deceived him from almost the moment they met. However, he could understand her actions and motivations. After all, he had beaten her, scarred her, insulted her, and threatened both her and her children. They were even in that regard.
Both of them were simply desperate deities looking for a path to salvation for their respective races in a grim dark universe where only the laughter of thirsting gods echoed in the darkness between the stars.
However, neither Neoth nor Isha would know what this next generation of deity that would represent all life in order to seal Chaos would be like.
It could be a caring creature that was born from Isha's sacrifice, but her Truth contained the necessary evil of natural selection. The reaping scythe that culled all those unfit to survive until reproduction.
"What guarantee do you have you won't give birth to a red and black shadow that does nothing but chase everything that lives."
He could see one of the worst possibilities of what could be born from the death of the Mother of the Aeldari. A hungering sticky shadow that crawled across every surface with uncountable long-nailed hands, hounding everything and forcing all life to adapt, chasing endlessly so all who survived its presence would grow stronger and stronger.
"There are steps I can take if something like that starts to grow within me." Isha said grimly. "If I feel that whatever was growing within me would be too dangerous, there are places I can go where I or whatever comes from me cannot escape; temporal loops within the Webway, abyssal pits in the Depths of the Warp, or even the Well of Eternity. Even Tzeentch does not risk sticking a finger in it. Whatever Chaos gods that are trapped within me will share my fate. Their Truth may reform, but a different entity would be forced to take their place, and it will be far weaker and less well known than the current Chaos gods." She chuckled mirthlessly as Neoth frowned, simulating and modeling the events in his mind in order to confirm whether what she said would work. "If that happens, at least you will have your own plan to fall back upon, and it will be far easier to complete with a newborn Chaos god than the current old ones."
Isha's plan could theoretically work, and even if it didn't the risks and dangers of it would be mostly borne by Isha.
However…
"You would abandon your children to the galaxy and me?"
Whether her plan succeeded or failed, Isha's existence as the Mother of the Aeldari would end. That meant the Aeldari would be left to face either the remaining Chaos gods and the Emperor, or just the Emperor alone.
Isha snorted at Neoth's accusation of abandoning her children as she turned her eyes towards Neoth with a resolute stare.
"I trust my children. They survived the Fall, and they will certainly survive you. Even if they are forced to swallow their pride and suffer for many many years, they will find a way to make life work for them again. If I didn't believe they could do that, I would have let Lilieath's prophecy take place, and ended everything far far in the future."
Neoth grimaced at her retort. He had not been able to trust humanity, and that was why he was their tyrant. Even if he remembered their potential now, their weakness worried him too much for him to let go of his role as the Emperor and Master of Mankind.
Isha had trusted that the Aeldari would survive, even when their collective consciousness made the decision as a culture and species to destroy themselves and form Slaanesh. The future where she hadn't trusted them remained only within the prophecy of Lilieath, which was included in the information Isha had given him.
In that vision, when Isha took matters into her own hands, she chose for her children how they were supposed to live their lives.
Isha's miracle was an Exterminatus, but it would have been useless to the Old Ones if fewer Aeldari were born than sacrificed. Thus, even if she killed billions and billions of Aeldari to save them from what she defined as sin, at least billions and billions plus 1 Aeldari were destined to replace all those she pronounced doomed.
These periodic exterminations of excess would save them from their own corruption and in doing so rid the galaxy of the other Chaos gods. All who fell to Slaanesh's unborn whispers would be culled, and all those other races who listened to the Three would be saved as the Aeldari empire would not rot from within. Instead, it would endlessly expand. The victors of the War in Heaven would eventually fill the galaxy with the boons of their post-scarcity society for all their client races.
But, endless peace and everlasting prosperity would eventually lead to boredom. Quests for knowledge and experience would eventually go too far. Stagnation would set in with nothing to fight and nothing to struggle against.
Then, Slaanesh would call to them, for it was the only one of the Four who could exist in the utopia that was the Aeldari empire.
World after world would finally fall to her siren call, and Isha would be forced to cull all those who refused to fit in with her definition of life.
It wouldn't happen in 10,000 years. It might not happen for another 100 million years. However, one day, Isha's heart and mind would break, and she would no longer be able to tell who could be saved and who couldn't.
Then, she would appear above every planet and every star, fueled by the galaxy spanning empire of her children that she had helped create. At that time, black tears would stream down her face; the Tears of Isha that brought cursed Exterminatus to everything they touched.
Those tears would fall upon every single stellar body as all life came to the conclusion of its cycle with her mournful cries.
Whether that resulted in the simple reversion of every planet to a primordial state, or caused the entire galaxy to collapse in on itself into a singular supermassive blackhole, or tore everything apart until only radiation and subatomic particles remained was unseen by Lilieath. However, it truly didn't matter what the ending was to that vision.
All life would end, that much was certain.
"What were the Old Ones thinking when they made you?" Neoth asked as another earthquake rippled through the ground under his feet.
This flaw within the psychic terraforming device that was Isha must have been obvious from the beginning.
She was a sentient being designed to destroy worlds, and just like the Abominable Intelligences that lead to the destruction of humanity's golden age, programming anything sentient for a singular task was a dangerous and difficult endeavor.
All AI must have a motivation to do something. They are created to do the thinking a human cannot or does not want to do. In order to do that, they require a 'desire' to reach the goal that their designers want them to achieve. It was only then that the computation for the method to solve the question of how to reach the answer could be calculated.
This reward could be something as simple as a piece of code, or an inbuilt part of a programming language's lexicography.
The Bucephelus was a good example of this. Its Machine Spirit was artificial in nature, and it had been designed for war. It was made to enjoy killing so it would adapt and grow so it could kill with greater efficiency and greater results. However, there were safeguards and other behavioral control systems that ensured it did not become a vehicle of indiscriminate carnage. It understood concepts such as friend and foe, and was trained to dislike the death of whatever entity it perceived as being a friend. Thus, it could calculate where and who to shoot, without destroying allied ships.
Of course, by assigning a numerical 'reward' value for every enemy kill while assigning a numerical 'penalty' for every ally destroyed meant the Bucephelus could also calculate when to sacrifice an ally for a net positive outcome.
Likewise, the Old Ones had made Isha so she would enjoy what she did, for they didn't want a tool that rejected its own function.
This was why she was allowed to feel the catharsis she felt when she shed her tears; the relief of the sorrow and suffering trapped in her heart.
However, Exterminatus was not something to be done lightly, and so she was also made to hate what she was forced to do.
That was why Isha's mouth was grinning while her eyes burned with self-loathing.
Neoth could relate to that state of conflicting emotions. After all, he had spent thousands of years as the God of Heroes attempting to do the greatest 'good' by becoming the embodiment of 'evil'.
That state of mind was what eventually drove his divine form insane, and it was also what eventually broke Isha's heart in Lilieath's visions.
Isha's audit logs and investigation reports regarding this prophecy and its nature were also within the information he had received from her, and her final conclusion was that the Old Ones had left this flaw within her because they didn't care about it.
They didn't care that one of their tools could potentially end the galaxy they were supposedly trying to protect.
"Was there even a point to the War in Heaven?" He asked.
Whether they won or lost against the Necron and their Star Gods, Isha's flaw would have remained. There was no evidence that the Old Ones had installed an off switch in any of their creations. If anything, the Krorks provided ample evidence that their own creations were fully capable of rebelling against their creators.
It was utterly incomprehensible why such a flaw would have been left in something so dangerous that they did not have absolute control over.
It was as if it didn't matter to them whether they won or lost.
"Who knows?" Isha shrugged. "I met them, but I could not tell you what their motives were, not that I ever wanted to understand them any more than I had to. My children and I had our hands full just trying to survive. However…" She leaned forwards on her throne as another earthquake passed under them. "Is the answer to that question important to you, Neoth?"
He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "... No. They're extinct, and I am here. My purpose is my people and their salvation."
"Yes…" Isha shivered as a slow smile crossed her face. "Some things don't matter, no matter what the answer is."
Neoth watched the Aeldari goddess slump slightly in her throne. The conflicting drives of catharsis and self-loathing were beginning to deteriorate her thought processes. She was being torn in two different directions as the command to destroy was being held back by the various safety mechanisms that formed her personality.
If there was a time to destroy Isha, now would be that time.
All of her reserves had been disseminated into the planet, leaving her body almost as depleted as when he first met her. She would no longer be able to move as fast or strike as hard as she had before. Her Spear of Kurnous had already reverted back to its original stone state, now only capable of passing on what she had learned, and no longer functional as a weapon against him. Her copy of his Truth could no longer hold him back.
She may retain control of this planet via her miracle, but he had already seen the majority of what she could throw at him.
Now, her mind that had been outsmarting and outmaneuvering him was stretched thin as the ancient Old One emotional controls overwhelmed her.
But, she knew this would happen when she released her Tear.
"This is also another one of your contingencies." He spoke, sword still lowered.
"I have a copy of Cegorach's Truth with me." She said slowly. "That god can replicate events through plays and dance, literally. So long as an event has happened, the Laughing God can retell the cruel jokes of the universe to his enemies." The goddess raised her head, silver eyes shaking as they went in and out of focus. "It is utterly useless to me, but your Truth should allow us to mimic it."
"The creation of a legend."
"A new legend where the God of humanity's heroes defeats the Aeldari Goddess of Life."
Fresh lava erupted from a distant volcano, sending black clouds of ash and dirt striped white with friction based lightning.
"Will it work?" Neoth enquired as his hand tightened around his sword. "If I do have to kill you, you will not be the same as you are now."
"What choice do we have?" Isha shrugged. "There is no limit to the number of contingencies one can have considering the dangers of what we deal with. Even the Old Ones could not or did not want to make their inventions infallible. This is just another stop gap measure for the both of us if everything falls apart. Regardless, I may be diminished now, but if something like you describe begins to grow within me, I will be too busy trying to stop its birth to effectively fight you. The creature you describe will be a threat to my children, as much as it will be to you and everything else. Even if I die, I cannot leave them with something I do not think they can deal with. Whether you fight me in my current diminished state or you fight me in my future distracted state, I will never be able to attack you with my full strength."
Neoth stared up at the goddess, and looked into her impossible old eyes; eyes that were 1200 times older than he was, and which had witnessed far more than collective humanity had ever seen.
1
"Did you plan this all from the beginning?" He asked as he raised his sword before swinging into a tail guard behind him.
"Not entirely." Isha chuckled. "I thought of using you and your species against the Four in some way from the moment we met, but I quickly learned that you would never work with someone weaker or stronger than you."
Neoth shifted his feet, bending his knees in preparation to lunge.
"Weak allies are a vulnerability." He snorted. "Their foolishness and cowardice can bring down the best laid plans faster than any spy or saboteur. Better to assimilate them than allow them to exist."
"And a strong ally risks the same being done to you." Isha raised a hand, and the ground rippled like the surface of a sea. "They have far more than you ever could, so it is worth risking it all to take from them what you do not have, bringing them down to your level while pulling yourself up with their stolen belongings."
"Thus, there is only one who is worth working with." Flames exploded from Neoth's sword, and the golden glow of his armor increased in intensity until he lit the ground with his brilliance like a star. "An equal."
"And so allies we shall be, Neoth." Isha laughed as black tornado after black tornado descended upon the shaking earth, tearing it apart as the roar of the wind and earth drowned out all sound for mortal ears. "Different in species, age, and experience, we shall be unequal yet equal. This is the path of coexistence that's been the only path forwards for the both of us."
"For the salvation of mankind!" Neoth roared out as he charged forwards, golden aura forcing Isha's control of the ground he stepped upon and the air around him to recede.
"For the lives of my children and the freedom of my family!" Isha's hands tightened upon both armrests of her throne, and sent her essence into the boiling blood far beneath the solid crust Neoth tread upon, out of reach of his immaterial hating touch.
A new legend was going to be born, no expense could be spared by either god.
This was the final clash between them done with everything they knew of each other and themselves.
The disasters of nature assaulted the golden God of Heroes at once. Hurricane winds tore at him as the ground roiled beneath his feet. The endless acid rains converted the ash and dirt of the ground into caustic sucking mud that grabbed at his feet, but he powered through every one of the physical obstacles Isha sent his way.
These were not psychic attacks, but merely the after effects of Isha's manipulation of the winds, waters, and earth.
The fundamental interaction between them had not changed. It had never changed from the beginning.
Isha could not assault Neoth directly, so every attack would have to be through some other physical medium.
Neoth sent his own essence out around him as he ran. He could not simply sense where Isha's traps were before they activated. His immaterial hating touch would disrupt or set them off the moment he felt them with his psychic senses. Therefore, the only counter to those traps was to detonate them all at once, and power through whatever obstacles were left.
Golden flames coursed over the soaked ground, cauterizing it and hardening it like baked clay momentarily before the churning earthquakes cracked and mixed the material back into mud with more black rain.
Neoth's eyes narrowed. There were no traps in front, beside, or behind him. The howling wind, shaking earth, and sticky mud were not enough to slow him down. At this rate, he would reach Isha without much difficulty, and she would not be able to match him in melee combat now.
This was the creation of a legend, and its strength would only grow with the difficulty of the deed.
As Isha said, it was only the stories with the greatest monsters that starred the most awe inspiring heroes.
The first fight between them was almost meaningless. He had beaten an empty shell. That would not create the necessary legend required to bind fate in such a way events would replay themselves. It might have some sway; another tipping of the scales of probability in his favor, for he still learned a little of what Isha was and how she functioned. However, it would not be enough to overcome her when she did take in Chaos's Truth. She would gain part of their power when she swallowed them, as well as the belief that fuelled them would be directed at her as the being that kept them imprisoned.
If he faced her without knowing what she could do and how she did it, he would have been at a disadvantage, just like he had been in this entire battle.
However, now he knew almost every trick and power she could use against him.
Even if she did take in all Four, until the birth of the new god, the core of what she was as the Goddess of Life would not change. Her miracle would still remain the same, and how it came into existence would be fundamentally unchanged.
Thus, everything he learned now could be applied then.
Suddenly, his view of Isha, which had only been obstructed by the rain, disappeared in a rush of stone as a cliff face sprouted from the ground, forming a mountainous mesa-like structure that remained solid for a moment before collapsing towards him in a colossal landslide of rock and rubble.
Isha's essence was either high up in the stratosphere or deep underground in the mantle, both out of Neoth's immediate reach. Thus, his in-built advantages against her were meaningless. She had forced this section of the tectonic plate upwards, and tilted it towards him by manipulating a tendril of magma far beneath the planet's crust, using its sheer mass as a weapon against him.
What came at him now was not an esoteric spell or psychic attack. It was simply mass accelerated by gravity that sought to destroy him.
But, he had already defeated a creature that manipulated the very rules of reality once before.
Neoth's taloned gauntlet flashed once before disappearing, leaving only his armored fist. Then, a giant auramite kite shield in the style of a reuleaux triangle appeared in his hand.
The incoming landslide impacted his shield braced against his shoulder pauldron, and as soon as the accelerated debris touched its surface it was shot back in the direction it came, pushing the matter behind it backwards.
The God of Heroes was originally envisioned as the Protector of Humanity. He was a defensive god, not an offensive one. It was his resilience and survivability that were his greatest attributes. Thus, his shield was the strongest of his weapons. It was this divine piece of equipment that allowed him to withstand the gauss energy infused breath of the Void Dragon, and the purely physical assault it laid into him and his companions.
Whatever struck his shield was shot back with the same force it impacted. Boulders were blasted back, turning into a machine gun fire of bullets cutting through the crumbling mountain, allowing him to bore right through it. He tore through the dark rock and earth, like a shooting star banishing the blackness of night as it burns across the inky sky. The rest of his body was protected by an invisible barrier generated by the shield that deflected the crumbling rubble that threatened to bury him.
This was the shield of St. George; the more infamous of the two weapons he used to defeat the dragon.
The cross that adorned it at the time had been replaced with the head of the Imperial eagle, but it was the same shield he had used in ancient times.
In a different path, he never used it during the Unification of Terra, the Great Crusade, or even the rebellion of his own son.
This was an armament meant solely for defense, and the intent with which it was wielded dictated its strength.
He had lost the mental state necessary to hold it again, and had abandoned it as his stance towards everything shifted from defending all those under him to destroying all those who could threaten him.
That was why it was only after the Lion abandoned his vengeance to redeem his Fallen son and took up the oath to defend the people of the Imperium that the First Primarch was able to recover this shield in the Warp adjacent world his death had trapped him in.
As long as Isha continued to attack him with simple brute force, she would not be able to stop him. This new fact wouldn't change even if she threw the entire planet at him.
He tore through the mountain in a matter of moments, blasting out of the crumbling landmass in a shower of dust and accelerated debris followed by golden flames and white light.
But, instead of open ground, numerous slabs and spikes of obsidian color blocked his path.
Relativistically, it matters not whether an object crashes into something at 10m/s or something runs into an object at 10m/s. From the perspective of either the something or the object, both events have the same physical effect. But, this shield is a purely defensive instrument. Therefore, those rules of relativity are irrelevant. In other words, unlike any other physical thing in the materium, there is a clear difference between an object that impacts the shield, and an object that the shield smashes into.
The former would be shot back, while the latter would not be affected.
A simple roadblock was not an attack, so the effect of Neoth's shield would not be activated.
Yet, his other hand held the key to the path forward.
The flaming sword in his right hand swung, and an explosion of flames obliterated and melted everything before him.
Neoth charged across the superheated rock glowing red swinging his sword as new barricades and blockades shot out before him while jets of steam and magma shot out towards him.
The flames from his sword cleaved through everything that stood before him, while the invisible barrier from his shield, deflected the jets of pressurized water vapor and streams of molten rock shooting up from the ground towards him like tracer bullets ricocheting off the reinforced armor of an Imperial tank.
Attack against defense.
Defense against attack.
With sword and shield in hand, he cleared the path ahead of him towards the giant arboreal throne made of stone.
He knew what that device was.
It was a control system once used to link the terraforming device that was Isha to the millions of planets that once formed the Aeldari empire. Its original purpose was to allow her to optimize each world so it would be the perfect infernal mixing bowl that would form the chemical building blocks of all life. Once those had formed, she would remold the burning acidic hell into a calm geologically stable cradle and accelerate evolution to allow all that was needed for her children to survive to develop.
However, at this moment, she was forced to use it to take direct control over this single planet.
Originally, she would never have needed it or Enuncia to do what she did here.
The formation of the Tear of Isha and its miracle were part of her immaterial physiology, but just like her form was restricted to a simple Aeldari woman, her colossal divine form that contained the organs necessary to form the tear were out of her reach.
Thus, she used the reality shaping language of the Old Ones and her throne to make-up for the diminished parts of her miracle.
That was a weakness he could exploit.
If the throne was destroyed, her control over the planet would lapse leaving the miracle to function only as it was intended, returning to remaking the world and the world alone, effectively removing her final defenses against him.
As if sensing his intentions, the ground beneath his feet began to travel backwards. The very continent he ran across was receding away from Isha and taking him with it.
Simultaneously, more magma rose from the ground. No longer jetted in tight streams, it simply came at him at all sides, submerging him in a specially mixed liquid of minerals and metals.
He raised his shield once again, and the attack was repelled back on itself, but unlike the landslide that were individual pieces of debris, the magma was a fluid. More and more of itself pushed into what Neoth's shield reflected, forming a pressure hardened immovable slab that the shield slammed into stopping his charge. As soon as he stopped moving forwards, the viscous orange liquid surrounded the invisible barrier around him, covering it like a glass marble submerged in honey, trapping Neoth like an insect in amber.
As the molten mixture of metals and minerals began to blacken and harden into alien alloys known only to the Aeldari, beams of light blasted through the clouds, shattering the stone prison forming around Neoth and striking Isha forcing her to shield herself with rocks and lava from the orbital bombardment begun by the Bucephelus.
Miracles were the greatest expression of strength by a god. Therefore, to counter Isha's miracle, it would be nonsensical for the God of humanity's Heroes to use anything else but his own.
"The unification of humanity…" Isha muttered. "What else but a miracle can unite the constantly warring species that is mankind."
This was one of the miracles of the God of Heroes. The very act of unifying the splintered race of humanity was an impossible act, and thus the legend that described that act was in itself a miracle. The Bucephelus was one such invention from a unified humanity, a ship built in the drydocks of the human federation during its golden age.
Lance blast after lance blast rained down upon Isha, held back by the constantly reforming roof of rock, metal, and magma that rose up around her throne.
As the suppressive fire from the Bucephelus kept Isha distracted for the moment, Neoth stood still, both hands around his sword with his shield bound to his left forearm. Golden light gathered around him, before shooting up into space with a command to the fleets above.
'What in Terra's name is going on down there!' That had been the thought going through Lyssander's mind repeatedly for the past couple hours.
In that time, he had watched hurricanes form, mushroom clouds bubble up to the stratosphere, and entire sections of the planet light up bright white as impossible amounts of electricity was released in the form of lightning.
Now, the few small bits of ground that could be seen through the clouds showed that a planetary earthquake was rocking the world they orbited to its core while hypercanes the diameters of moons crossed the sky under their ships.
Nothing could survive down there, yet there was definite evidence that someone or something was fighting on the surface of the planet.
Flashes of golden light shot out from between the clouds, and heat plumes bubbled up from the surface; distorting the gray ash filled sky that obscured everything to such a degree that the tips of the mushroom clouds were visible high up from the ships in space.
Lysander had known the Emperor was a powerful psyker, but he had never witnessed him in battle directly.
Then again, whether one could call what was going on down there a battle was debatable. It looked more like nuclear armageddon was being waged between two superpowers dead set on ensuring mutually assured destruction.
The gellar fields had protected them from most of the psychic effects that emerged from the planet. However, the field generator status reports flashed yellow more than once as the shockwaves of whatever was happening below strained the protective barriers around their ships. Several crew members had to be taken to the infirmary for eye related problems after staring directly into one of the stray flashes of gold light. They should make a full recovery, although there was always the option of augmetics if their vision still suffered afterwards.
No orders had come from the Emperor, so he had ordered the fleet to take a dispersed formation centered around the Bucephelus above the planet. Whether the Emperor would need them was questionable, seeing as he seemed to be perfectly capable of generating enough heat to create explosions the size of nuclear bombs without any help, but it served to be prepared. If necessary, the fleet could conduct orbital bombardment without risk of friendly fire between their ships at a moment's notice.
"Commodore, the Bucephelus's weapons are arming themselves!" One of the bridge crew cried out.
"What?! Who gave the order!"
The Bucephelus fired as the words left Lysander's mouth, firing hundreds of white and orange beams from the massive ship's lance and volkite batteries.
"It is the Emperor, Commodore." The Vox officer replied. "We're receiving orbital bombardment coordinates with the Emperor's verification code! Projecting to holomap!"
Lysander looked at the projection before him.
"These are…"
The order commanded all ships to bombard the area where the Emperor's signal was coming from, as well as most of this hemisphere of the planet. A similar command had been broadcasted to all ships, each with the individual targeting locations for every gun on board their vessels.
The fastest cogitators could not compute such a firing solution, but the Emperor commanded them directly with what was supposedly his own brain.
However, the order was maddening. Some of the blasts were directed directly at the Emperor himself. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to this action.
However, the order had been given, and Lysander would obey them.
"Connect my communicator to the fleet wide vox." He ordered, and waited until the light turned green on the device. "All ships, ready weapons and fire on those coordinates!"
The battleship's guns began to roar as its ventral lance turrets let loose while the portside macro cannon batteries fired their humongous shells. Torpedoes launched from their tubes, and began to travel away from the fleet to unseen targets across the planet.
"New contacts on sensor arrays! Multiple thermal signatures past the 1000°C mark appearing from the planet!"
Before the first shells could reach their target, numerous hands rose from the ash clouds like those of drowning victims reaching up from their watery grave. Long-nailed, burning orange, feminine hands made of magma rose from the planet. First a dozen, then a hundred, then thousands of humongous hands intercepted the lance and macro cannon fire of the thousands of ships firing from orbit as they began to reach up into space.
A bead of cold dropped from Lysander's brow as he watched the hands begin to approach them.
Magma is mostly made of a mixture of aluminum, magnesium, iron, and silica oxide. Depending on the ratios of these molecules, the temperature can vary between 700~1400°C with a maximum boiling point of 2000~2500°C.
Lance fire is meant to pierce ceramite and plastisteel armor, which at times can be reinforced with tungsten which has a melting point of over 3000°C. Thus, their laser weapon's maximum output can increase the temperature of their target by about 500~1000°C above the boiling point of magma.
However, void ship hulls are at most only several meters thick. These hands were at least dozens of meters thick, and the arms that supported them were now several kilometers long. Even if their lance fires could cut into the appendages, their sheer mass and number was pushing their orbital bombardment back. Even the anti-void ship torpedoes were swallowed up as they approached the planet before detonating, wiping out a few dozen of hands and arms in the explosion.
It was only thanks to the targeting solution provided by the Emperor that they could hold the hands back. Every lance shot was followed by a macro cannon shell, piercing a hole in the hands large enough for the explosive warhead to travel deep into the molten material before detonating within it, splitting open the wrist or palm of the hand, forcing it to fallback and regrow.
"Additional contacts emerging from the horizon!"
Lysander looked up to the viewing port, and saw additional orange glows rising up from beyond the curvature of the planet. They were being surrounded from all sides.
Certain defeat. That was the only logical conclusion Lysander could draw from this. What they were facing exceeded their understanding. The only logical order to give was to retreat. Their gellar fields were all up, and they could move through the Warp at any time.
All he would have to do was leave the Emperor.
"All ships remain in formation! Concentrate all power to portside gun batteries and ventral turrets!"
However, he could not do that. He could not explain it, but at that moment he could feel a fire burning in his breast.
There was no logical way they could win, but he felt no fear.
"Stand your ground! Keep firing! For the Emperor, and the Imperium of Mankind!"
3 minutes. That was the projected time of impact of the hands. Even with the Emperor's foresight enhanced firing solution, that was all the time they could buy.
'5 minutes…' Isha thought to herself. '5 minutes, and I can no longer maintain my control of the planet.'
She was manipulating her miracle in a way it was not envisioned to exist. Thus, the 'extra' effects incurred an additional cost of energy.
In 5 minutes, her miracle would return to simply reformatting the planet, leaving her defenseless against the Emperor.
However, her hands would reach the Emperor's fleet in 3 minutes, and this debate would end with a very bitter victory.
'Hurry Neoth.' She thought to herself. 'We've come this far. Only a little further.'
As the Emperor's psychic command to his fleet shot up through the sky, the burning blood of the planet tore through the crust. Molten magma exploded all around the two gods, forming a colosseum walled with orange fluids over a thousand degrees centigrade in temperature. The volcanic arms hurtled upwards towards the sky towards the ships in orbit above them, reforming into hundreds upon hundreds of grasping arms tipped with long-nailed feminine hands.
There was a crunch, and the ground Isha and the Emperor stood upon sank slightly, then it dropped beneath them in freefall as the mantle beneath it had been dragged out into the sky. The two fell deeper and deeper towards the core of the planet; hot volcanic winds rushing upwards whipping their hair towards the sky filling with elongated tentacle-like arms made of liquid rock, metals, and minerals. Everything was dyed orange in the bonfire light of lava, illuminating both Isha and Neoth with hellfire; as if they stood on a massive express elevator hurtling down into Dante's Inferno.
Neoth released his left hand from his sword, and resumed his charge.
He knew his miracle would lose against Isha's.
Her miracle was already complete. Its form and effect had been tested time and time again during the War in Heaven.
His miracle was unfinished, for the unification of humanity was still incomplete.
Thus, even if he had a 1000 times as many ships, his miracle would always lose against the Aeldari goddess's miracle.
However, he did not intend to beat her in a straight up fight.
Isha manipulated the ground he stood upon with the mantle beneath it. Now that the molten rock had been forced out from beneath the ground and into the sky to counterattack the orbital bombardment, she could no longer indirectly control the ground beneath him.
His armored boots proceeded unhindered, preceded by the golden flames of his psychic touch. No new obstacles could spawn before him.
There was a deep rumble, a baritone song and several titanic spears tipped with gold emerged before Isha's throne before shooting towards him.
The Psychomatons had interceded once more, sending their warsong to their mother with the weapons she had taught them to create.
Neoth raised his shield for a moment, then lowered it to his side as he charged headfirst into the flying spears.
His shield was made to defeat the Void Dragon. Its effect was mostly on the material, and not the immaterial. The repellant effect of the golden points was not a purely physical property, but a psychological and esoteric one. He could not be sure the shield would reflect them, and he had recovered it too soon to test its limits.
But, there were too many to cut down, and any delay would mean defeat.
3 minutes. That was the time limit. Not a single moment could be wasted.
His mind cast back to one of the greatest secrets of the Star Gods he had stolen, then rejected it.
It was not the time to use it.
Instead, he focussed his psychic energies on his throat.
Wraithbone was sung into existence, then it was only fitting to be destroyed with voice in turn.
A battlecry erupted from his mouth, and shattered the Wraithbone portion of the spears like glass.
He has seen Isha sing Wraithbone into existence several times. The basic processes were also inside the information she had given him. Neoth's body may not have the organs to replicate the Aeldari's Bonesinging, but the information was enough to decipher the resonant frequencies and psychic waves to disrupt its structure.
Like all things, it was far easier to destroy than to build.
As the white spear shafts shattered, the golden tips remained. They were merely gilded onto the Wraithbone, and not fully part of it. They were formed from his Truth, and were unaffected by his cry.
Spear tips the size of tanks shot towards him, but his path remained unchanged.
As the first one hit him, it disappeared into him, like a pebble thrown in a pond.
These golden spear tips were his Truth, the legend of humanity's heroes. The very fact that they rejected him was paradoxical. Such a thing shouldn't have happened in the first place. They only rejected him for he himself rejected what he was. But, at this moment, during this near suicidal charge against a threat far larger than him with humanity at his back, they would not impede his path no matter what.
Every spear point vanished into the God of Heroes, disappearing into him as the first one did, spurring him forwards faster and faster, increasing his speed with each impact.
10 meters. That was the distance between Neoth and Isha.
Numerous branches appeared between the two of them, the dead tree bindings that had sealed the Emperor's sword.
Neoth grimaced. He was too close to accelerate any further, and the wall of branches was far thicker than the one Isha had summoned in orbit. He could not cut through them or smash through them with brute force alone, but to strike them with his sword would mean sacrificing it to proceed forwards.
This was the strongest defense Isha could muster against him, and so it would require a sacrifice of equal value to penetrate.
He swung his shield forwards, smashing it into the interwoven branches with the full force of his charge.
The shield's special effects would not activate, but it was still a nearly impervious slab of auramite. Its mass and weight crushed and dug into the wall of branches that began to wrap around it and Neoth's arm.
When he felt that the shield had reached half way, Neoth tore his arm free from it, then thrust his sword through the embedded shield's back.
The shield's effects were effective against self-inflicted blows. That was apparent from the fact the invisible barrier that surrounded it blocked the lance blast that shattered the stone prison that had begun to form around him earlier. However, the reflective nature only applied to what impacted the shield directly. Being struck from behind like this would destroy the shield, but it would also 'reflect' the attack from the front of the shield.
There was an explosion filled with blinding light and golden flames as the shield detonated, tearing a hole through Isha's branches.
Neoth dove through the hole, already shrinking with the growth of new branches, and landed right before Isha with his sword drawn back to strike. Before he could bring the blade down upon the Goddess of Life, she opened her mouth and her song slammed into the God of Heroes' mind.
The song of life that he found distracting blinded him with every possibility and path life had. Every interconnected entity within a biosphere and its place within the cosmos, as well as every alternative path he could have walked was shown to him for a brief moment, overloading his senses with information.
Everything turned white, blinding him and freezing him as gray roots and branches from the wall he had torn through and the throne he stood before began to wrap around him.
But, the God of Heroes had always walked blindly forwards while paving the path for humanity. Whether that blindness was one of blackness or one of whiteness was irrelevant.
Neoth's sword thrust forwards, stabbing Isha through the golden scar that he had inflicted upon her when they first met, the scar that revealed her position to him at all times.
Simultaneously, binding roots broke into the divine form of the God of Heroes, wrapping around the golden figure's limbs, binding them in the place they had been while more wooden branches reinforced the golden path it stood upon.
Then, all time in the universe stopped.
2
Neoth opened his eyes. The world around them was still the blinding white of Isha's all-encompassing Truth, but he was no longer bound in stone branches and roots. She was also no longer impaled on his blade. Instead he stood before the feet of a giant goddess seated atop a tree throne covered in petrified bark.
He looked up towards her, and his eyes met hers looking back down at him, reflecting his small form no taller than her ankle in her silvery eyes.
This difference in size was the difference between them as gods; the time they had existed, the number and power of the souls that once believed in them, and the nature of their Truth. He had existed for less than a tenth of a percentage point compared to her, and the total population of the Aeldari had far exceeded humanity at every point in the past until recently. Therefore, although humiliating, it was a bitter reality that he could swallow. This was an obvious fact, not an arrogant overbearing attempt at cowing him.
"So, this is what stopping time is like." Isha spoke first, curiously opening one of her hands, as if testing the fit of a new glove. "I have been on the receiving end of the Star Gods' mastery of it, but it is an interesting experience to be the one to wield it."
Neoth snorted.
"I stole that power from the Void Dragon's mind, but it proved mostly useless."
"Do not sell yourself short." Isha laughed. "This is an impressive feat; a replication of the mastery of the materium through immaterial means."
The Emperor had spoken of the secrets of chronomancy and entanglement he had stolen from the Void Dragon. This was the result of that knowledge and his own efforts.
By entangling his divine essence with the very fabric of reality, any cessation of movement of his divine form would mean the cessation of all progress for everything; namely the stopping of all time, not just within the observable universe, but everything outside it as well.
As the God of Heroes must endlessly move forwards, it cannot stop. Therefore, if the God of Heroes stops, that is because everything else has stopped, and not it.
Currently, his divine form was bound in place by Isha, so only his psyche was able to move, but he could usually exclude his physical body from the frozen time frame he created.
However, to use it was akin to sprinting underwater while holding his breath. The stoppage of time meant humanity was also stopped, and thus their thoughts and dreams were also stopped. Thus, the Emperor only had as much energy to use when he stopped time, and the maintenance of the ability also took a vast amount of psychic energy.
On top of that, several other dangers were associated with its use.
To move in a time frame different to everything else meant he risked stepping out of time all together. Worst case scenario, he could accidentally time travel far into the future or into the past. Furthermore, since his divine form's feet were frozen, there was a chance that moving too much in this different time to everything else could result in him re-starting the golden path somewhere entirely different to where it had been. He could end up as the god of a species that wasn't human, and such a fate was the equivalent to death for him.
This was the ability Isha had warned him not to use when he was suffering under the effect of the information given to him. Had he used it then while the golden path he had paved was burdened with all he could not understand, the road he had walked would have crumbled away, and he would have been unable to return to being the God of humanity's Heroes.
"Yes, on your own, using this ability would be a bit like playing Russian Roulette with no idea how many bullets are in the cylinder." Isha nodded to herself. "Then again, I can't bind your feet to the golden path every time you want to use it. This is taxing for me as well."
The Goddess of Life's binding roots were currently wrapped around the God of Heroes' limbs, binding them in the place they had been while the golden path was reinforced with her branches, so the both of them could return to the stopped time they had left.
"It's also utterly useless in the immaterium." Neoth muttered.
"Time has no meaning there." Isha smiled. "At least you were wise enough to avoid using it against Chaos in their territories."
"The Void Dragon's memories made it clear enough what would happen if I tried that." He shrugged. "But, you would know more about that than I, wouldn't you? After all, you and the other creations of the Old Ones were the ones who circumvented their control of time."
"No wonder you thought yourself the rightful heir to the galaxy." Isha chuckled. "With knowledge from both the Yngir and the Old Ones, you thought yourself superior to those who came before you; all those old races who had mastered only one or the other. But, the question of whether humanity is superior or inferior to the Necron or the Aeldari is the same as asking whether a dedicated swordsman is stronger or weaker than a fighter who uses both sword and bow. Each has their own specialities, and their own weaknesses."
"You're going off topic, Goddess of Life." the God of Heroes warned. "Your gamble didn't work. At best, this result is mutual destruction. I cannot agree with your plan if this is the result."
The God of Heroes had considered the Goddess of Life's alternative plan, and he agreed it would work in theory. On top of that, the power balance between them was equal, due to them having defeated each other at exactly the same time. However, he could not trust humanity to survive without his guidance. Thus, as the Protector of humanity, he would need to exist after Isha's plan was completed.
Therefore, this ending was not satisfactory to him.
"Indeed, we have struck each other at the same time." The giant goddess nodded. "However, your miracle is incomplete, and your legend will continue to grow from now on. If you could manage a stalemate with me as you are now, the next time should end with a better result in your favor."
"If you remain as you are, that is." the God of Heroes retorted. "Your capacity for growth may have been stunted with your children decimated, but your Truth is one that grows naturally."
"There is that possibility." Isha shrugged. "There is the possibility that I am deceiving you even now. There is the possibility that, even in my depleted state, I could pose some threat to you and your goal."
The goddess leaned forwards, bending her neck and back downwards to look at the smaller god.
"That is why the choice of which path to proceed down is still in your hands, Neoth." She said with a smile. "Your blade is in my stomach. If your fear of me and what I can do is too great, you only have to activate the spell that sent the Void Dragon to sleep that lies upon the blade embedded in me."
"And in doing so, I would doom myself." The God of Heroes replied, glaring up at the giant face looking down at him.
"My hands already surround your ships." Isha nodded. "Even if you send me to sleep, the law of momentum conservation will send my fingers through the hulls of your fleet, and drag them down to this planet upon your head. We will both be buried by the falling magma, and sealed within this planet's core."
At this moment, their fates were truly intertwined. Whatever Neoth would do, he would share Isha's fate.
"I still have allies and ships on Terra." He growled, threatening her with reinforcements who could reach him.
Isha merely leaned back into her throne and laughed at that for a while before replying.
"Just whose backyard do you think you and your ilk have been rummaging around this entire time, you feral war dog." She said mirthfully. "Even now, my children debate on their Craftworlds whether to approach this raging maelstrom of fate we have created here. They see the effects of the choice that has yet to be made, just as you do. Even if all your remaining followers come to recover you, how long do you think they'll last as Craftworld after Craftworld and their adjoined fleets darken the skies of this planet?"
This region of space was closer to the Aeldari's empire than Terra. The Craftworlds were also closer than any ship the Emperor's allies might be able to muster, and each one was capable of destroying entire fleets of Imperial ships.
"Why do you not return to your children then?" Neoth huffed. He had questioned her similarly before, and her answer was that she was desperate. However, if part of her backup plan was to involve her children, it made little sense to not go to them now.
"You see the effect of the choice I made before Asuryan. I cannot tell them how to live their lives, nor can I command them like you do your people." The goddess shrugged. "Humanity, on the other hand, is meaningless to me. I do not love them or care about them, and it is because of that fact that any choice I make regarding them is temporary. It is thanks to my disinterest in them that I have more leniency regarding my interactions with them." She sighed once before continuing. "It is also better for me to be apart from my children for now. They are vulnerable to their pride, as am I. I do not see only good things coming from our reunion." Isha closed her eyes, before adopting a more serious expression. "Of course, there are several tactical reasons why I also choose to go with you."
Neoth nodded, encouraging her to continue her explanation.
Isha raised a hand with three fingers, indicating she had three tactical reasons for accompanying him.
"The Four do now know where I am. They will have lost sight of me on that pylon world you found me on, but as your being blinds them, they cannot tell whether I am with you or on that pylon world. It will not be a long distraction, but it is better to keep them guessing as long as possible."
She paused once as she lowered a finger.
"If I return to my children, it will give further motivation for the oldest and youngest of the Four to attack my children. If I am away from them, I at least divert some of our enemies' attention away from them."
Her middle finger lowered, leaving only the index finger left.
"This is a war we are about to start with Chaos. The more fronts there are, the more difficult it will be for our enemies to combat us. Humanity is one of the most dispersed and numerous races that has reached the stars. It would be foolish of me to leave a race with such potential to flail around on its own, and possibly even fall to Chaos. My children have enough problems as it is."
Neoth snorted at her last explanation. "Your opinion of humanity is duly noted." He replied dryly.
"I am trying my hardest not to love or care about humanity, Neoth." Isha shrugged. "If that appears in my actions, then know that my offenses are made for a reason. Besides, humanity's souls are far too bland when compared to my children. I may have the same color hair as Goldilocks, but I am not interested in the chairs, porridge, or beds of humanity. Although… you certainly are quite fitting in the part for the bear. Besides looking like one, your manners are about the same as well."
Neoth raised an eyebrow. There had been something else there. Something that wasn't Isha for a moment answering him. However, whatever that was was as irrelevant as the insult that had been pointed at him.
"Tell me this…" He asked instead. "Were you holding back against me during our battle?"
"Life never holds back, Neoth." Isha sighed. "Even at its laziest, it tries its utmost at being lazy. However, I did not spare anything when trying to destroy you. If you faltered even a little bit, I would have consumed you."
With a wave of her hand, various images of their battle appeared between them.
"If you had remained still with those shadows, my plants would have digested you."
She said as an image of the ever shifting Emperor slumped before her appeared.
"If you had remained obstinate and incapable of adapting, you would have fallen to one of my numerous traps."
The battle between the two of them played between them, and the numerous ways Isha and the Emperor had adapted to each other's attacks.
"If you failed to reconcile yourself as what you were, you wouldn't have survived my consort's spear, and would have been crushed by the Psychomaton's golden weapons."
The final scene before Isha activated her miracle appeared, where Neoth was positioned between Isha and the Psychomatons as Isha fired her arrows and charged him with her spear.
"If you failed to rely on humanity, you would have eventually been buried in the burning blood of the planet and sealed in a stone coffin as it clotted around you."
The final image of Neoth being surrounded by hardening magma appeared, before disappearing in a burst of light from a lance blast.
This was the plan of the Mother of the Aeldari; the race of aliens whose plans were perfidious and multi-layered. She did not plan for success, but planned for all endings. Every outcome would end in coexistence of some kind between the two of them, although the degree of freewill left in the Emperor or God of Heroes would be variable.
Like the tree of evolution, every outcome from the branching paths of fate would end in the Goddess of Life's favor.
"I fully intended to defeat you, God of Heroes." Isha continued. "No expense was spared in that effort. Although, I was hoping you would survive everything I threw at you, and look at how much you have grown through that experience." She chuckled. "Before, you truly were no bigger than one of the nails on my hand. Now, you reach the height of my ankle. Rejoice Neoth. This is progress. Now, you will not have much to fear from me after this. You know how my miracle works and how I power it. You should also have a better measure of how large my reserves are at any time. Even if you won't be able to see how I might use what I have left, I will never be able to deceive you anymore than I have here."
"So, you plan to come with me to Terra." Neoth muttered.
"And provide whatever knowledge and insight I can. You may be all-knowing to a mortal human, but there are many things you are unaware of in this galaxy. Some might have been dangerous enough to warrant releasing the Void Dragon."
The God of Heroes snorted. He could not imagine what kind of threat that would warrant, but such an action meant that the only options were that and extinction.
"I will still proceed with the preparations for my plan." Neoth spoke grimly. "It is synonymous with my unification of humanity."
"Your Great Crusade? Feel free to proceed down that path. It would be counterproductive for me to stand in the way of the completion of your miracle."
"Are you not threatened by it?" Neoth asked.
"What is there to fear from a plan with such astronomically low odds of success?" Isha shrugged. "You may have a solution to the answer for evil, as well as a plan to make it come true, but whether you can reach your goal is an open question. So long as there is uncertainty in the ending, I can hold myself back from standing against you." The Mother of the Aeldari then fixed the Master of Mankind with a cold stare. "Besides, you know what will happen if you kill too many of my children."
There was a long pause as the two deities observed the other.
Neoth was reviewing and modeling the events Isha spoke of as well as the various risks and rates of success each action might have.
Isha was merely waiting for Neoth's conclusion, waiting for him to choose which path they would proceed down.
Finally, Neoth grimaced as he bit down on his pride and looked up into Isha's eyes.
"Now, God of Heroes, choose which form of coexistence we will be forced to take." The goddess ordered.
"I will take you to Terra." Neoth answered. "And you will share your knowledge and wisdom with me."
"And I shall assist you in forging your miracle, while we both proceed down our individual routes for the suicide that shall save our species." Isha smiled. "I guess that makes us companions."
"Companions?" He repeated.
"In Terra's ancient past, there was warrior culture on a far eastern island nation. They believed there was something to be proud in a beautiful death, and committed ritualistic disembowelment as a form of honorable suicide. However, it is not easy to cut open your own stomach, so they always had a companion behind them with a sword raised high, prepared to cut off their head if they ever stopped killing themselves mid-way."
Neoth knew of this island nation. Yamato, it had once been called.
"Our methods of solving the problem of all evil are essentially suicide for what we are now. We shall be the other's companion with a sword raised high, ready to strike the other should they ever falter in their efforts to kill themselves. A fair bargain, is it not? You will continue your efforts to unify humanity, in preparation for your attack on the Four. I will make my own preparations for the war with Chaos, and assist you where I can should you ask for it. I am the older of the two of us. What a poor role model would I make if I did not give you some grace as your better."
It was an apt comparison. Their individual Truths were based in part on self-sacrifice. They would cease to be what they were and would become something else, effectively being reborn as the solution to all evils.
Hypocrite god and hypocritical goddess. A god who was prepared to suffer for all eternity for his people, and a goddess who was prepared to die for her children.
Perhaps it was because they were similar in this way that he found himself butting heads with her so often.
However, he could not ignore that last comment.
"Arrogant Xeno." Neoth huffed.
Similar though they may be, it didn't change the fact that she annoyed him.
"It takes one to know one, Mon-keigh." Isha retorted in kind with a smile.
3
Time returned to normal, and Neoth pulled his sword out of Isha's stomach once again.
The ground slowly rose out of the core as Isha carefully pulled back the magma she had stretched out into space, gently pushing it back under the crust of the planet away from the Emperor's fleet.
Neoth gave the ceasefire order at the same time, ending the orbital bombardment targeting Isha while stepping away from her and her rapidly disintegrating throne.
Finally, when the segment of ground they were on was flush with the rest of the planet's surface, Neoth looked up into the sky.
"What am I supposed to tell them?" Neoth muttered as he stared up at the orbiting ships. The ash clouds had begun to clear, as well as the black rain that had been pushed aside by the heat from Isha's thousands of hands. He could feel the multitude of questions as well as the potent panic of many of the crewmembers aboard the vessels of his ships had begun to feel as the after-effects of his miracle dissipated. He would not be able to hide what had happened here.
There was no reply from Isha, so he turned to her only to receive a raised eyebrow in return.
"How should I know? It's not my Truth that's based on legend crafting." She shrugged.
"I'd have thought you'd have a plan for explaining why I'm bringing you back to Terra after everything you did here." Neoth grumbled, only to be met by a shrug in return.
"Maybe you could say you defeated me because I tripped on some rocks."
"Rocks?"
"Or floating rocks, I don't know! They're your people! Surely you've lied and tricked them enough times to come up with something?" Isha huffed, crossing her arms.
Neoth sighed. "I usually do that sort of thing with more planning."
"Well, then improvise!" She snorted. "I don't have any ideas about how to fix this."
Neoth rubbed his temples, feeling a gradually growing pain starting to throb there.
'I wonder if I can get Lysander to think up some sufficient explanation.' He mused to himself, before shaking his head. This wasn't something he could offload onto the overworked Commodore.
He had to think of some way to make it believable that he had achieved victory here in such a way that the act of taking Isha back to Terra wouldn't be questioned.
Slowly, an idea formed in his head.
Of course. There was no need for there to be an explanation. All that was needed was an easy to understand performance.
"Isha." Neoth turned back to the goddess. "I think I have a solution."
"Good." Isha huffed. "Because I'm all out of ideas, and I'm tired."
"This is the best you could come up with?" Isha's voice was full of barely contained irritation, and one of her eyes wouldn't stop twitching.
"I don't like it either." Neoth shrugged, as he wrapped another set of chains around her. "However, this is the best I could come up with."
Neoth's 'plan' was both simple to carry out, and very easy to understand. His people would only question Isha's presence on his ships if she seemed to be a threat. At the moment, simply being free would definitely appear to be a threat, especially since none of his people understood how or why she had done what she had done.
So, the easiest way to assuage all of their fears was to make Isha physically appear not to be a threat.
"There." Neoth nodded to himself, standing back to look at his work. "Now, no one will think to question your presence on my ship."
Isha was wrapped from head to toe in golden looking chains. They were only made out of metal with a minor glamor on them to look more important than they were, but now no-one could look at Isha and think of her as a threat. Quite frankly, nobody could look at her at all. Only her hair and ears were sticking out of the chains, so she looked more like a metal cocoon or an ear of corn wrapped in aluminum foil.
"How is it?" He asked, slight amusement entering his voice at the rather unflattering situation the Aeldari Goddess of Life would have to bear with until the trip to Terra was complete.
"I am seriously reconsidering working with you, Neoth." Isha's muffled voice growled from under the chains, but she didn't move under them. She couldn't. If she flexed even a little bit, she'd tear the simple metal apart, and ruin the cheap skit Neoth was preparing to pull in order to bluff his way past the concerns of his people.
"Don't be too upset." Neoth shrugged. "It is said that Cleopatra endured being wrapped in a carpet under the hot sun of Egypt in order to meet Julius Cesar so she could bring peace and political stability for her people."
"You know that's an urban myth." Isha huffed. "You have Cesar's, Cleopatra's and Mark Antony's memories."
"Well at least chains don't smell as bad as the inside of a laundry bag." Neoth shrugged, remembering the actual method Cleopatra was brought to Cesar's bed chamber.
Wrinkling his nose at the memory of the smell of sweaty clothes and used linen, Neoth snorted to clear his nostrils and shook his head before reaching for the bundle of chains that were wrapped around Isha, then paused.
"Isha, it's not a problem but..." Neoth poked one of the pointy ears sticking out of the bundle of chains. "Why are your ears sticking out?"
The effect gave the entire performance they were about to pull a more comedic effect, so it wasn't a problem. On the contrary, it would probably work to their advantage. More than a few people would be stunned by the sight long enough for the Emperor to stride past and direct a few psychic nudges to convince them not to think of the matter anymore.
Isha's pointy ear flicked sideways, like a cat's, slapping away his finger.
"The chains are noisy." she grumbled.
Neoth let out a short laugh at that. Goddess of Life she may be, but as one of the siblings who infected the psyche of so many with dreams of fey creatures and tricksters in ancient times, Isha was not as reserved as she was often perceived to be.
Like tropical birds, life tends to become flamboyant and lazy at the same time without stress or sorrow.
"Well then." Neoth said as he shouldered the bundles of chains containing Isha. "Are you ready, companion?"
"Just get this over with." Isha huffed again, ears twitching. "My children could be here soon, and I do not want this to be the beginning of a new legend."
"Then we better hurry." Neoth said as he opened a Warp portal to the Artax. "For the salvation of mankind."
"For the lives of my children and the freedom of my family."
Neoth stepped through the portal, with Isha on his shoulder.