A/N: I've added some links to music and ambient sounds. These are just my personal opinion, so take them or leave them.
1 Fate/stay night UBW OST - Down in the zero
Isha watched as the Psychomatons finished their work at each of the ships. The one that had risen right before her dropped Kyrazis's remains with a disdainful shake of its hand before joining the others. The blood squeezed out of Kyrazis's mouth still stained the ground at her feet, but as Isha closed her eyes both his corpse and the blood he had left disappeared into the ashy ground like water dripped upon a sponge.
She would not let him or any of the others be wasted.
All that they were and all that they had suffered gathered in her breast, suffusing her heart with pain and power.
There was an electric crackle behind her, and the Emperor stepped out of the Warp to stand beside her. The Master of Mankind didn't bother to cast a look in her direction, instead glaring at the Psychomatons cutting into the ships.
Isha didn't bother to open her mouth. No words had been shared between the two of them ever since their last exchange on the Bucephelus. Lysander was the one who called her via the device she was given by the Emperor to notify her that the transports were prepared and they awaited her arrival. However, she did travel back to the Bucephelus's hangar where the transports were via another of the Emperor's portals, so the Master of Mankind was not completely ignoring her.
The crack of splintering Wraithbone and crackle of psychic lightning continued to echo throughout the valley as the Psychomatons finished their work. Some were already walking towards her, giving quizzical looks towards the Emperor beside her.
Isha reached out with her psychic touch and caressed their cheeks, reassuring them that they had nothing to worry.
These Psychomatons had been her children, even though almost nothing of them remained.
—-
The Aeldari had fought for 60 million years in the War in Heaven. A span of time almost two thousand times longer than the lifespan of the empire they built after it. During the endless battle, some of her children became unmatched fighters in all forms of combat. They switched from melee to ranged and back again in an instant, singing the weapons they needed into existence as they fought, repairing the Wraithbone armor that adorned them as it was stripped away by the Necron's Gauss flayers. They were the masters of war, and their victories and legends brought great joy to Khaine.
Their battle instincts, psychic mastery, and martial prowess was perfected with every reincarnation. Even when they fell against the Necron, the reason for their defeat was learned bitterly with first hand knowledge so the same mistakes would not be repeated again when they were reborn.
Then, one day, they emerged from their mother's wombs stillborn.
Every single one of their most potent warriors returned to the materium cold, choking to death as they tried to take their first breath despite being perfectly healthy.
Many Aeldari mothers cried, holding the unmoving infant they had carried for many months inside them to their breast.
Isha shared their pain, and took each and every soul that had failed to reincarnate into her own embrace.
But, they could not return to her.
The Aeldari ability to focus was intended to ensure they could fight under even the most strenuous physical and mental trauma. However, this also led to some of her children becoming easily obsessed with certain things or emotions.
The children who had been their greatest warriors were all obsessed with war and perfecting its art. They had sung Khaine's song for so long, all other activities and concepts had been slowly burned from their minds.
Their souls, tens of thousands of years old by this point, had gone so far down the path of violence and strife that they could no longer eat, drink, or even breath; for to do any of these was to spend a moment not fighting.
Until now, such idiosyncrasies had been supported by their enhanced biology, and the medical knowledge her children had developed for themselves. Their need to eat was replaced by sets of nutrient injecting tubes while their need to breathe was augmented with direct infusions of oxygen mixtures into the air sacs that surrounded their avian-like lungs.
Such augmentations were only necessary once the child had fully recovered their memories, but now their souls were no longer those of living beings. They were all demi-gods that dreamt only of destruction and carnage.
Apotheosis of her children was not a common thing, but it was not entirely impossible either. The Old Ones had engineered them with that possibility in the first place, for it was the Aeldari gods they needed to fight against the Star Gods of the Necron. The Krork would have been sufficient if all they wanted were foot soldiers.
Isha tried her hardest to revive these tortured souls that had been her children.
This fate of theirs was too cruel, especially after everything they had suffered and sacrificed.
What point was there to their pain if they could not enjoy the fruits of their own labors?
Life suffered the frigid winters and burning summers to enjoy the fresh spring and fattening autumn. She could not allow this to be the fate for the children who had toiled under the Old Ones for so long.
But, even as she held the tortured remains of her children to her breast, Khaine came to take those who had called for him the most often.
That time, it was Isha who was restrained by Asuryan, for War was Khaine's domain and it was not hers to intrude upon.
Khaine took every one of their souls in his burning hands, and ripped them from Isha's grasp. Even as she stretched out her fingers to reach them, Asuryan's chains held her to the ground as Khaine marched away to Vaul to forge new bodies for them so they could sing his song for all eternity.
From Vaul's anvil, bodies of blackstone and Wraithbone were forged, and the souls of Isha's children were hammered into obedient shapes so their bloodlust would work for the Aeldari and never against them.
With every blow from Vaul's hammer, her children were crushed, flattened, and broken, while the searing fires from Khaine's hands burned away all that he deemed unnecessary; heating their immaterial essence, making them malleable like metal.
The process removed every other memory they had had before the long road of war made them what they were, reducing their mental state to that of a newborn infant; an idiot savant knowledgeable in all things relating to war and only war.
When everything was finished, the first Psychomatons were sent out through the Webway as automatons bound eternally to the Aeldari and their gods.
—-
The Psychomatons crooned, enjoying the touch of their mother.
Isha gave them a sad smile as she inspected each of their souls for any oddities or evidence of She who Thirst's touch.
These children were closer to the God of Excess than Isha or any other Aeldari god besides Khaine. They were the result of Aeldari who had gone so far down the path of war they ceased to be living beings. They were all avatars of excess in that sense. Even their physical forms, with 6 arms and 2 legs resonated with the numbers preferred by the Prince of Pleasure and the Lord of Skulls.
Their very nature as automatons of the Aeldari gods also made them vulnerable to She who Thirsts, for Hir immaterial body was made of the stolen parts of the Aeldari pantheon.
When Slaanesh's voice broke into the materium through the great Warp rift the humans called the Eye of Terror, every Psychomaton who heard it was drawn out of their physical shell and sucked back into the immaterium.
There was no knowing what She who Thirsts was doing to them, but Isha knew that they could still feel pain.
Shaking her head, Isha pushed the thought out of her mind as she injected some of her power into each Psychomaton, weaving psychic vines and roots to secure the ancient soul in each one to their physical form. All the Psychomatons she had buried here were saved from Hir voice, just as they had been protected from Khaine's call before she activated the edict. Her psychic bindings could hold them here in the materium, essentially tricking the laws of reality to view them as living mortals with physical bodies instead of demi-gods who belonged in the immaterium. However, these countermeasures would only last for as long as their physical bodies remained. The Psychomatons' souls still could not return to her.
The last ship was finally cut apart, and the rest of the Psychomatons gathered before Isha and the Emperor, arranging themselves into ranks as they instinctively felt the most at ease in military parade formations.
Isha finished the last of her countermeasures, before turning to the Emperor.
"They will serve you." She said quietly, as the Emperor continued to glare up at the Psychomatons.
"Make them kneel."
Isha raised an eyebrow at this. "... As you wish."
If the Emperor's ego needed to be stoked, then she would acquiesce to it.
The Psychomatons all knelt before them with a silent psychic command from Isha; joints moving silently as their legs bent fluidly with the only sound being the rush of the wind their enormous forms created with the displaced air due to their movements.
"You said they would serve me?" The Emperor asked, continuing to glare upwards at the Aeldari War-walkers.
"They will do so, through me." Isha answered.
The Psychomatons would not answer to any other than their mother, besides Khaine's song. Even now, the front row of War-walkers were returning the Emperor's glare with annoyed looks. They found the Warp negating presence of the Master of Mankind irritating, like an overly bright flashlight being shone into their eyes.
The Emperor continued to glare at the Psychomatons for a few moments, then summoned a communication device from the Warp. The device crackled once, and binaric static came from the earpiece.
Isha missed what was said in the binary speech of what was probably another heavily augmented human. It was encoded this time, unlike the communications of the Tech Priests who had held her back on the Necron Pylon world, preventing her from easily deciphering its meaning. However, the Emperor seemed to understand what was said, for it nodded approvingly at the message's contents.
"Prepare weapons. Fire when ready."
Both Isha and the Psychomatons twitched; Isha at what the Emperor had just said, and the Psychomatons from their sensor readings of the titanic War-machines in the distance.
"... What are you doing?" Isha asked the Emperor, eyes widening as the kneeling Pyschomatons began to rise.
"This is my first and final order for them." The Emperor said turning towards Isha. "Die."
Isha swallowed as she saw the burning hate within the Emperor's eyes. Only gold shone there; a self-righteous anger inspired by past sins and vengeance that existed only within the Emperor.
"Do not do this." Isha stepped towards the Emperor, voice pleading. "They will serve you. I will serve you."
The Emperor turned away from Isha, returning to glare at the Psychomatons who were rumbling and growling as they sensed the inferior machines around them targeting them with horribly inefficient yet dangerous weapons.
"What more do you want? What assurance can I give?!" Isha reached for the Emperor's right hand, the hand without the taloned powerfist, only for the Emperor to turn its blazing eyes towards her with an unspoken threat.
"They can be yours!" Isha cried out as she drew back her hands, clasping them before her breast. "They will conquer for you as they did for the Aeldari! Can you not see the worth of these soldiers before you?!"
"And just whose worlds do you think your Psychomatons conquered?" The Emperor retorted angrily, turning back towards Isha.
The Psychomatons were weapons of war and they had toiled in the Aeldari's name. They were not deployed on barren uninhabited worlds, for they were not meant for menial labor. The only lands their feet touched were the ones which had already been inhabited, and had not surrendered to the Aeldari empire.
Many races had been slain by their blades, and the belligerent cities of those who would not accept the status of 'client' race were trampled under their feet; green skins, Necron sleeper cells, Khrave, Enslavers, and of course Humans.
"You call them soldiers, but all I see are weapons controllable only by you from the zenith of your empire." The Emperor snorted, venting some of the frustration and rage it felt into the air, allowing its tone to calm. "I told you I was here to deal with the remains of the misery your kind wrought. Your Psychomatons are but one of them."
Isha took a step backwards as she grasped what the Emperor meant.
"You… You came here all this way, so far from your home to kill and loot the remains of my children's empire?"
"What better timing to do it with your people scattered and your War-walkers immobile?" The Emperor replied rhetorically with a shrug. "I will take what will not be given, steal what will not be gifted, and destroy anything that stands in my path." The Emperor repeated the words it spoke on the Bucephelus. "The age of the Aeldari is over, and I will not let it ever return."
The world seemed to spin in front of Isha as the worst case scenario she could have imagined rushed towards her. The Emperor was not just here to cull the survivors of the Fall. It wanted to take and destroy as much of what remained of the Aeldari's infrastructure and weapons as it could, all in order to hamper those that survived for as long as possible while taking their technology and knowledge to adapt for humanity's use.
"Please, I beg of you. Do not do this. If you destroy them, their souls will have nowhere to go but the immaterium. If they return there, She who Thirsts will take them." She forced herself to approach the Emperor, pleading and begging; even though almost every part of her being was repulsed by the creature before her. "You see the power in each of their souls. You know how dangerous it will be to let She who Thirsts take them."
There was a short silence between, interrupted by the rumblings of the Psychomatons and the electric droning of charging capacitors and plasma cells of the human Titans in the distance.
Finally, the Emperor lifted the communication device again.
"Change target priorities. Focus on their limbs. Avoid the head and core parts of the torso." A burst of binary returned, and the communication device fell silent. "This is the limit of my mercy." The Emperor replied quietly. "Now, are you the tool you promised you would be, or will you too stand in the way of humanity."
Isha glared up into the brown eyes of the Emperor, teeth clenched tight before turning to the Psychomatons. Her brow furrowed as psychic words were exchanged before shaking her head.
"Your people's weapons have aggravated them. They see your War-walkers as a threat, and will not quell their anger."
The Emperor snorted at this and turned away. "I have no need for tools that do not serve."
Isha's hands balled into fists. The Psychomatons were Khaine's, and although they would listen to her, they would prioritize Khaine's song over her words.
They did not fear death or eternal torment. They had already suffered both and still stood here, serving as they had always done so. Even now, surrounded on all sides by primitive alien machines they were seeing for the first time, they wanted to fight.
What did they have to fear?
These alien War-walkers were a far cry from the weapons the Necrons had deployed against them, and one of their own gods stood before them. She was vastly diminished, but they could see what the sacrificed dissidents who dared to disobey the gods had given back to her. If the battle was swift, they could destroy all of the aliens here. Many of their Wraithbone and blackstone bodies might fall, but even if their souls were sent to the immaterium, they were prepared to make the final sacrifice so many of their number had made when fighting against the be devoured by Slaanesh or the cursed Star Gods, the fate was largely the same. They were ready to fight and die in the name of the Aeldari, as eternal veterans of the War in Heaven.
She only needed to give them the word, and even if she didn't they would still fight.
There was no way they could lose this battle, for their mother stood beside them.
"Damn you, for what you force me to do." Isha hissed at the Emperor, shoulders shaking as she felt the anticipation and excitement of the Psychomatons.
"RUN!" The command was made verbally and psychically, and the stray note threw the Psychomaton's Warsong out of tempo and tune.
"RUN!" Isha commanded again, confusing them further.
Retreat was a part of the Warsong. Better to flee than fight a completely lost battle. However, this battle was far from lost. Yet, their mother ordered them to flee.
Several Psychomatons widened their sensor ranges, searching for further threats to their safety. None were found, confounding them even more.
Why order them to run when victory was just in sight?
That single instance of confusion and internal questioning, the attempted reassessment of threats and recalculation of the paths fate could take, slowed the Psychomatons movements for a brief moment.
In that moment, the human's own God-Machines fired.
—-
Gabina Thrumb watched as the first salvo from all the Warlord-class Titans struck where the Aeldari Psychomatons stood. Each and every one of the human Titans was a divine construct, molded from the designs of the original Castigator-class Titan; the first Titan God-Machine ever created.
That knowledge was given to her by the Machine Spirit of the Titan she was bound to, for it remembered its divine heritage, passed down from the Omnissiah itself.
Clouds of ash obscured everything before them as plasma blasts and laser beams caused thermal explosions to kick dust and soot into the air. The sight was heartwarming, even though Gabina's own biological pump had been replaced with a mechanical one when she was interred in the fluid filled tube that allowed her shriveled body to integrate with the Machine Spirit of the Titan.
Normally, both she and the Machine Spirit of the Titan would have rejoiced at the destruction, but although what remained of her brain was filled with endorphins and dopamine at the sight of another instance of the instrumentation of the Emperor's will, the Titan itself was strangely melancholy. It had been so every time they had stripped apart or dug up another one of the Xenos War-walkers. Disappointment was the closest emotion she could assign to how the Machine Spirit felt to her, if she was to personify a being as elevated as it.
It would not reveal to her why it felt this way, preventing access to the information just as it did so whenever she asked it about the Omnissiah and its teachings. She usually took that as evidence that she lacked the necessary faith required to learn such secrets, and would recite the relevant codes, command prompts, and mathematical equations necessary to improve and adjust the power output and aiming parameters of the metal body they both inhabited. Why it restricted access to these feelings it felt when destroying the Psychomatons, however, was a mystery to her.
Regardless, the Volkite Destructor attached to each arm fired with their usual accuracy. Whatever the cause of the Machine Spirit's melancholy, it was not affecting her aim.
Suddenly, the dust clouds twisted as unseen winds whipped them into a frenzy, causing small tornadoes to form. Then, one of the Psychomatons lept out of the cloud. It was missing half of its arms, having received a volkite beam to the upper right part of its torso, cutting through the conjoined shoulder blades that attached each of the triplicate set of arms to the Psychomaton's back.
Gabina smiled with what was left of her mouth. Her shot had been well placed, perfectly dodging the psychic crystal matrix in the central cavity of the torso that they had theorized would house the main power source and Xenos Abominable Intelligence. At the same time, it severed the binding tendons and load bearing supports that kept the Psychomaton's limbs attached to its body.
The sensors of the Titan magnified her vision, centering on the wound, and she could see both scorch marks and tension scars; indicating her shot had only cut off part of the shoulder blade before gravity and its own mass tore the rest of it off.
This was not the first time she had taken apart the Xenos War-walkers. They had spent several decades going from world to world, recovering lost technology, both human and Xenos. The first Psychomatons they found were unmoving corpses; Abominable Intelligence wiped out by the psychic shockwave the Xenos had instigated with their untrained and uninhibited psyker technology.
They dissected their bizarre bodies made of bone-like material and obsidian alloys, collecting many priceless samples as well as the necessary sensor readings required to find more of them.
Then, they found the Psychomatons the Xenos had buried within the planet's crust; possibly for storage or as sleeper agents to awaken to destroy whatever unfortunate colonists that attempted to find a new life on the barren worlds the Xenos had placed their war machines on.
Many Titans had fallen the first time they had awakened the Xenos constructs. It took more than ten of them to finally take one down, and only two Titans were recoverable after the battle. None emerged unscathed.
After that, orbital bombardment had been the preferred method of dealing with them, but even then the Xenos machines did not die easily. It became their duty to deal with whatever damaged stragglers were left, and they had gotten quite proficient at hunting the Xenos machines down.
The Psychomaton let out several guttural growls, glaring at Gabina as it shifted its weight forwards to begin sprinting towards her. However, it suddenly stopped mid posture, and looked down at something at its feet with confusion expressed throughout its body language.
Gabina fired again, taking advantage of the Psychomaton's sudden pause, only for both shots to miss as her target shifted its feet, turning sideways like a fencer dodging a lunge. The orange beams of thermal radiation passed by either side of it, meters away from the bone-like material that covered every surface level inch of the Xenos War-walker; illuminating its form with the lava glow of the Volkite beams.
Gabina redirected the beams, cutting through the ground behind the Psychomaton as they closed in on it from either side attempting to sever its legs like the blades of a giant pair of scissors.
A strange distortion appeared behind the Psychomaton. A sudden source of thermal energy was warping the air like the hot sun does on asphalt when making a heat haze. Then, small plumes of plasma jetted out the spikes that jutted out of its back as it leapt into the sky, backflipping over both of the beams and then twirling mid-air as it dodged a bolt of plasma fired by a different Titan, landing several hundred meters behind where it had been in a cloud of ash.
Several more Psychomatons were also leaving the original cloud of debris the first salvo of volkite, plasma, and lance fire had stirred up. Not a single one was rendered immobile, for even in the brief moment they had been distracted, they took action to minimize the damage they would receive. Arms and hands had been placed in the path of the human's weapon fire, sacrificing some of their upper limbs to protect their legs. However, all of them were scarred, and some had suffered glancing blows to their thighs and knees, causing them to limp or hobble as their own weight threatened to snap the remaining supporting structure.
Each one appeared confused, as if unsure as to what to do.
Gabina recognized the slight shiver in their movements. It was the shiver her Titan experienced when conflicting directives coursed through its Machine Spirit. The Psychomatons were trying to shift their weight forwards, to sprint towards them and tear apart the Titans with their bare hands if they had to. Yet, something was telling them to stop, and it was slowing their movements making them easy targets.
The shock absorbing medium that surrounded Gabina bubbled as she laughed soundlessly. The lithe machines, perfectly capable of dodging the majority of their firepower were helpless before them, held back by an inexplicable force. Of course, there was only one possible being who could be responsible. Truly, if this was not a miracle of the Omnissiah, then what was.
The Titans fired again, but they did so in sequence this time, herding the Psychomatons together so they would have less room to maneuver.
Gabina's own Titan did its part, synchronizing with all the other God-Machines, allowing her to see where each one planned to fire and at what time it would. Hundreds of redundant gyros and counterweights shifted in unison. The Machine Spirit was automatically adjusting for the Titan's immense weight as she moved its feet like she would her own, placing her and the God-Machine into the position necessary to head off any Xenos War-walker that would try to leave the web of Volkite, Plasma, and laser fire they spun around them.
One by one, the Psychomatons fell.
Stuck between beams of Volkite, and forced to catch a stream of bright blue plasma from a Plasma Annihilator with their hands.
Knocked aside by missiles fired from launchers on the Titan's back detonated mid-air beside them, so they would fall into the laser beams of Volcano cannons.
Quake cannons fired in high arks, aimed exactly where they stood, so when they inevitably dodged the massive artillery shells, the resulting shockwave released through the ground would force their damaged legs to stumble. Then, another Titan would blow off their legs, leaving them to crawl on the ground before the rest of their limbs were surgically amputated at long range by Volkite fire.
Finally, every last one of the Xenos War-walkers lay limbless on the ground.
Gabina felt the warm amusement from the Machine Spirit, and rejoiced that it had roused itself from whatever ennui had taken hold of it. Perhaps her work in the Omnissiah's service had pleased it.
Whatever the cause, she was glad her life-long partner and steed was feeling better.
They would soon be put into stasis, and she preferred to go to sleep on a positive note.
This was the last task the Emperor had prepared for them. Now, they would return to Terra, although she would not be woken there. A finer hand would be needed to deal with the Ethnarchy, and Gabina and her Titan were the wrong tool to straighten out the cogs in the Emperor's plan.
Gabina turned her TItan back to the transports. They had enough samples, and leaving the Xenos War-walkers in that sorry state would certainly provide a clear message to any of their ilk that found them.
Humanity's time had come, and the Xenos' time was over.
—-
1
Isha stumbled forwards through the almost searing hot air left behind by the humans' weapon fire. She was unharmed, despite being so close to the point of impact of the Titan's weapons. The Emperor was also unharmed, and it forced back the dust around it with a flash of golden telekinesis; like waving a handkerchief to fan away a displeasing smell.
Isha paid the Emperor no attention, instead staggering towards one of the Psychomatons that lay on the ground.
"I'm sorry." She said, and caressed its bladed head. "I'm sorry." she continued to apologize as she sank to her knees, arms wrapped around its pointed face. She had told them to run many times, knowing full well they would not be able to. She felt the betrayal in their hearts, and the frustration at her voice meddling with their warsong.
'Why?' The Psychomaton asked its mother. They could have won. They could still win. If their mother bought them enough time, they could sing the Wraithbone to repair or replace their missing limbs. They would still be hobbled, and the patchy replacements would shatter with every step or swing. They would not be able to run or fly, but they could lurch and stand, raise their weapons and throw the spears and lances that so easily pierced the thick Wraithbone hulls of the Aeldari Void ships into the turned backs of the alien machines that brought them down. Then, they could fall on the god thing that stood at their feet, so their mother could take it apart and devour it.
'Why?' The Psychomaton asked again. Victory was in their grasp. She only needed to allow them to sing. 'Why?'
"For my children, and for our future." Isha replied, and the Psychomaton was silent for a moment.
'Did I do good?' The innocent question furrowed Isha's brow and her hands curled as her embrace grew tighter around the Wraithbone face of her long lost child.
"Yes. Yes you did."
There was silence again, then the Psychomaton shifted its body with its neck, so it could lie to stare up at the sky.
'Then all is good.'
It had done its duty, although it did not know what that duty was. However, that was nothing new. They existed for one purpose, to serve the Aeldari and their gods. If their mother told them everything was good, then so it was.
Isha bit her lip as she felt the Psychomaton's thoughts become distant. It was entering into a bored trance as it stared listlessly up at the gray sky with eyes that could never blink. They had done as she had asked, and had suffered because of it.
There was a footstep behind her, the crunch of ash being compacted under an armored boot.
"It is time to go." The Emperor said, and Isha turned her head towards it, teeth bared. "My mission here is complete. There is nothing I need from here, nor any danger worth my time."
"How many did you kill?" Isha growled at the Emperor, eliciting a frown in response.
The shots of the human Titans had been too accurate and too experienced for this to be their first time battling the Psychomatons. She would have seen any battle between the Aeldari and the Emperor before the Fall while she was on her throne in the Sea of Souls, so the only time they could have gained that experience was within the several decades she ran from the tendrils of the Warp.
"We destroyed 200 of your active Psychomatons." The admission was made dismissively. "Had I known where their souls would have gone I would have been more cautious, but whether they remain in your people's hands or Slaanesh matters little for humanity. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. It is just another obstacle."
Isha's breath grew ragged as rage pooled in her chest like magma. She could feel her father's blood, the blood of the God of War, boiling in her veins.
The children she had buried were innocent of whatever the Emperor accused them of. They had been asleep since the activation of Asuryan's edict, long before humanity had even discovered fire. All of the children who had survived Slaanesh's scream, all of those that had been either obliterated from orbit or dug up by the humans had never even met one of them until the day they were murdered in their sleep or rudely awakened from their slumber with cutting lasers and diamond coated drills.
Whatever harm the Emperor imagined they had done to humanity did not exist. Whatever sins their brothers and sisters had committed against humanity were not theirs.
But, that did not matter to the Emperor. It only cared about one thing.
Humanity.
Everything else was just an obstacle in its path.
Therefore, there was no appeasing the Emperor. There was no reasoning with the Emperor. It would not matter how much she helped it or how many of its kind she saved. This was how it would return everything she could give it.
Still, she could not strike at it now.
She stopped the Psychomatons from slaughtering the humans because she knew that would mean all out war between the Emperor and herself. It was the Protector of Mankind, and any attack made against its species would mark her as its mortal enemy.
Even though she knew her children were right, the true victors of any war between her and the Emperor would not have been them but the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. That was the only reason she betrayed her children for the Emperor.
However, although she hated the Four for all that they had done to her and her people, the Anathema could be hated with equal fury; even if it opposed the Four.
Nurgle, Tzeentch, Khorne, and Slaanesh all hated each other and took every opportunity to slight and sabotage their siblings. That did not make them her allies, and the Anathema was starting to fall into the same category as them.
If things proceeded at the Emperor's pace, she truly would end up as nothing but a slave to this violent tyrant. She had seen creatures of similar mind many times. There was no satisfying their appetite for conquest and glory.
The three paths she had considered rose in her mind again.
Coexistence, Separation, Mutual Destruction.
She had thought only one of these would crumble when her offer of the Psychomatons' service was rebuked, but she could feel two of them turning to dust leaving only one possibility for the both of them.
Isha slowly uncurled her fingers from the Psychomaton and rose to her feet, head bowed in submission.
The Emperor tilted its head, as if it had expected more of a fight from her, but then turned away from her while opening a Warp portal back to the Bucephelus.
"I will return to the Bucephelus later. Go, and we will discuss what other services you can offer me when I return."
Isha gave a slight nod before passing through the portal.
There would be no war between the Emperor and her.
But, she would teach this Mon-keigh a lesson it would never ever forget.