New chapter. As always, the next two chapters are up on my P-a-t-r-e-o-n, here: h*t*t*p*s :/ w*w*w . p*a*t*r*e*o*n user - ? - u = 52718582 (remove the spaces and stars)
The plan was simple.
The factory they were attacking was newly built, located in a city that had until recently been part of the Pan-Pacific Empire, but had since allied with the Ethnarchy.
The Emperor suspected that Chaos cults were seeking to hijack the automatons that the Ethnarchy had deployed to secure their new territory, and had no intention of allowing this to occur.
The ship and the army would continue their course, securing the new territory, while the Emperor and Isha would go ahead to destroy the factory and root out any Chaos cults.
Not that anyone knew Isha was going along. The Emperor had already constructed an illusion of her in the ship's labs and was cloaking their presence as they moved through the city. Projecting the image of a simple, ordinary man for himself, but erasing her presence even as she walked at his side.
Isha didn't particularly mind. This was her first time walking among ordinary humans, and it was…strange.
The city they were in was ruled poorly. The streets were dirty and ill-maintained, there were stacks of garbage rising high into the sky on every street corner. Slums filled with homeless people were everywhere, the air was grey and thick with pollution and the stench of disease."
Most people were walking around in gas masks to breathe…and those who weren't were beggars, weeping on the street and asking for help from those who rushed by, ignoring the beggars' pleas for help.
Not even out of malice. Isha could sense the guilt and empathy in the heart of many of those who passed the beggars by…but they ignored them nevertheless, unable to put the needs of others over their own, forcing themselves to be apathetic.
I need every scrap of money to pay the doctor…
The beggars are probably just gathering money for a gang.
I wish I could help them, but I have to look out for my family.
Isha heard every rationalization and more, pity stirring in her heart for them all.
But in the end, it was the poor and abandoned who needed her help most of all.
She reached out, subtly adjusting their immune systems to make them hardier, clearing away diseases and damage, ensuring they wouldn't need to eat for a few days…
It wasn't nearly enough, but she would do more once the Chaos cults were dealt with.
She turned to the Emperor. The Guardian had exchanged the guise of the golden king for the appearance of an ordinary man with pale skin and brown hair in ragged grey clothes, but the burning golden light below his skin was obvious as ever to her.
"I agree," She said quietly. "This city is the perfect place for a Nurglite cult to rule. Keeping the populace miserable, turning it into a toxic pit…"
"Indeed," The Emperor replied. "And the city has been like this for a long time. I doubt the cults had to exert but the bare minimum of effort to corrupt the ruling oligarchs."
"I am surprised they can hide from us at such a close range," Isha mused. "I can smell Nurgle's corruption but it is…buried somehow." The smell of rot, of the power of the Lord of Decay, was there, but she had to look for it and even then, it was almost out of reach.
The Emperor chuckled darkly, though there was no humour in the sound. "They have grown adept at hiding from me over these past few centuries."
"I suppose I should have expected this," Isha murmured. "The Three did hide from us for a long time." If they had not, she and her family would have slain them long ago, before their strength had begun to wane, before Chaos had grown beyond them to dominate the Immaterium.
Many Daemon Kings had died at the hands of her family or her children, but not all. And always, always, more had emerged. For no matter how many daemons they slaughtered, the taint of Chaos, the scars of the War in Heaven…those were impossible to erase from the Immaterium.
The creatures of Chaos were akin to Orks in that sense. Quelling them was possible, but required great strength and constant attention. And eradicating them had proven impossible.
"They would be significantly easier to deal with if they were not capable of subtlety," The Emperor responded. "In any case, I believe we know where our target is." He turned right, moving faster now.
"We do, indeed," Isha agreed. The stench of Nurgle's power was becoming stronger as they moved down this street, along the edges of the city.
The buildings grew larger and more ornate as they passed, but no less horrid. Huts and broken-down houses were replaced by large factories, spewing toxic smoke into the air, mostly grey but edged with green. The street lights cast a dim and ominous light and the stench grew ever stronger.
And as they walked, there were fewer and fewer people on the streets, until there were none at all.
None of these factories was their target, however. The one they were looking for was easy enough to pick, though it was indistinguishable from the rest from a purely visual perspective. The same ugly blocky design, the same chimneys releasing chemicals into the air, surrounded by clones of itself.
But to those who could see it, there was an ominous green light that radiated from the factory, invisible to mortal eyes. And unlike the rest, which was filled with workers as miserable as those poor people in the slums, the emotions radiating from this factory were different. The people in the slums and other factories were miserable, but they took no joy in their misery. Even if they had given up, they still hated what their lives were like.
But from this factory…there was a horrid, all-too-familiar mix of despair and false happiness.
It was hollow happiness, the joy of wilful denial and delusion, of telling yourself that there was not only any other way but that this was the best way, no matter how much pain and sorrow it held.
Nurgle's mark was clear indeed.
"Shall we, Lady Isha?" The Emperor asked, eyes shifting to a molten gold as divine lightning crackled below his skin.
"We shall, Lord Emperor," Isha replied, offering him a brief, vicious smile.
The factory was an old one, but it had been recently renovated. Though it looked the same as ever from the outside, the forces of the Ethnarchy had reinforced it, automatons labouring to build defences, reinforce the structures, and create more of themselves.
And, of course, the Cult of the Grandfather had laid their strongest wards over the factory, to make sure no one could destroy it.
Against two incarnate gods, all these defences failed. The cultists inside screamed in shock and terror as a thunderbolt tore through the factory, the burning presence of the Emperor making them recoil.
No one outside the factory noticed. An illusion crafted by Isha and the Emperor in conjunction held, concealing the battle within.
Towering steel soldiers unleashed bioweapons enhanced by sorcery upon the attackers, and the cultists called upon their powers to unleash spells that would have inflicted a slow, painful death on anyone else, rotting them from the inside out.
It was all futile, the Emperor and Isha briefly separating as they cut a swathe through the cultists.
Flowers bloomed below Isha's feet as she strode through the factory. The cultists were warped by their corruption, bloated masses of pus and disease, but she cleansed them with a wave of her hand, restoring their humanity.
And at last, she found the chief cultist, hiding behind a legion of machine soldiers and lesser cultists. He was the most hideous of them all, his flesh rotten and bloated, and yet his skeleton was somehow visible underneath it, glowing eerily. Pus oozed from his ores and his eyes were a sickly yellow.
He was as close to a daemon as mortals could become without actually becoming one, Nurgle's claws far deeper in him than in any of the others.
His eyes widened when he saw Isha, and he raised a hand, as if mustering a spell, but a sharp glare from Isha froze him in place as her will pressed down upon him.
"I see you, child," Isha said, the weight of her gaze freeing the sorcerer in place, as he fell to his knees, trembling. "The lies you have been fed, the despair that has consumed you. Come, let me heal you."
She pointed a finger at him, and the rot and bloat sloughed off from him as the power of life poured into his form, battling the power of decay, his pulsating skin returning to an ordinary white, his hair receding and turning brown. His form shrank until he was just a man again. Simple, ordinary.
But it was not as simple as that. The Ruinous Powers were jealous gods, and they grew weary of Isha freeing their slaves.
In the depths of the Sea of Souls, Isha felt the great leviathan that was Nurgle stir, trying to force his way to the surface. The Immaterium churned and writhed as the leviathan moved and Plaguefather poured his power back into his pawn's form.
The sorcerer screamed as he bloated and mutated, his skin turning a mottled green and his eyes rotting away into nothingness under the weight of the two clashing powers.
I see you
The words were not spoken. They did not need to be spoken. The weight of Nurgle's intent expressed itself through the psyker, the words carved into the fabric of reality itself.
Isha stepped back, unable to completely quell the spark of fear in her heart. She knew that this was nothing. Nurgle could not manifest here, could not even send any of his Greater Daemons. To use such a weak and unprepared mortal as his voice must have cost Nurgle a great deal.
And yet…
Sweet Isha Nurgle crooned, reality cracking under the force of his words. Gentle Isha. Why do you run from me? I can keep you safe. To the Anathema's side, of all beings?
Isha trembled for a moment, the words rolling over her in both the Materium and Immaterium, enough to reduce any lesser creature to insanity. "You are one of the things I need safety from, monster."
What a hurtful thing to say! We are alike, you and I. We are both Life.
"I am nothing like you," Isha spat, temper flaring. "You are an abomination, a rot upon reality itself."
I am the inevitable state of all things, sweet Isha Nurgle cooed, and the love and gentleness in his tone were more sickening and frightening than any rage or contempt could have been. And I see everything. I see the despair in you, the weariness, the desire to just stop fighting. I have seen it in you since your king betrayed you and cast you into Khaine's clutches. I know the fear that lurked in your heart for so long.
Isha recoiled from the words, even as they forcibly dragged her most horrid memories to the front of her mind. Those long years as Khaine's prisoner as he inflicted torment after torment upon her and Kurnous, the fear that had held her back from attempting to save Vaul and that guilt that had lain upon her because of that, the helplessness in the face of Slaanesh.
The all-consuming despair of her children, which she could hear even now.
Join me, and you can rest, there is no need to fight any longer.-
"No," Isha snarled. "Enough of this," She was the goddess of life, and though she always sought to grant it wherever possible, she also held the power to take it away. If Nurgle would not let her save the mortal, then he left her with no other choice.
Cold winds swirled around them, tinges of frost creeping into her emerald aura as ice crept across the mortal's twisted form until it had consumed him completely, down to his very bones.
And in the Aethyr, Isha's power was joined by a torrent of golden flame, striking at the Plaguefather and reminding him of his folly for daring to come so close to the Emperor's domain.
And then, the ice shattered, Nurgle's tenuous hold broken.
All that was left was the broken shards of his puppet.
Isha let her power recede, sinking to the ground, feeling exhaustion settling upon her even though she was beyond such things.
This was not the last time she'd need to fight this battle, she knew. She would have to deal with the Plageufather again and again and again, for the rest of eternity.
For a long moment, she just stood there, staring at the mangled corpse of the mortal she had hoped to save until she heard the Emperor's footsteps behind her.
"I sensed Nurgle," He said, his voice unusually quiet, almost…gentle. "Did he harm you?"
A glance should have told him that she was fine, but Isha appreciated the effort. "No," She said softly. "I just…I was not expecting that. Foolish of me, I suppose. The Ruinous Powers never took it well when I gifted their slaves with freedom."
"Indeed," the Emperor murmured, stopping next to her as he peered at the corpse. "Do you think this might happen again?"
"I doubt it," Isha said, forcing her gaze away from the corpse to the Emperor. "This was an attack of opportunity. I was outside your fortress, I sought to directly wrench a soul from Nurgle's grasp-" Arrogant of her. She had become complacent. "And the sheer effort to speak directly to me for so little gain will have cost Nurgle considerably. He will struggle to influence things in the Materium for years to come."
"True," The Emperor acknowledged, waving a hand and causing the corpse to erupt into golden flames. "But then, if he was wise, Nurgle would never have attempted this at all. Khorne and Tzentech…I do not know, but Slaanesh at least might try something like this as well. We will have to be ready."
"Yes, you're right," Isha said. "We will be."
Ready forever, because this was a battle that would never end.
The sound of creaking footsteps came from behind, and both Isha and the Emperor turned to see another squadron of steel soldiers marching towards them.
How convenient. Isha desperately wanted to think of anything except Nurgle and what he had said to her, and here was a distraction.
"I have been thinking," Isha began as she stepped over the broken remnants of the automatons "All this, the corruption of Nathan Dume, the alliance between your enemies, the blinding of your gaze…I have an idea of who might be behind it."
The Emperor's gaze turned to her as he carelessly tossed aside a small block of metal that had previously been a nine-foot automaton. "Oh?"
"Bel'akor, the First-Damned," Isha said. "He is one of the very few Daemon Princes of Chaos that could pose a threat to you, and if he could capture me or sabotage your plans or even both at the same time…he may regain the favour of the Ruinous Powers."
The Emperor considered it. "Yes, I see it. I have encountered Bel'akor before and this entire affair certainly seems like it could be his handiwork. He is a troublesome opponent. But I am far stronger now than I was when we last fought."
"Yes, but Bel'akor is old, and in his time he has uncovered many secrets and devised much dark sorcery in his long quest to become a Daemon King. Few beings surpass his knowledge. If anyone short of the Four could blind you, it would be him."
The Emperor's eyes flickered with something indecipherable before it vanished. "I see your point. I will investigate it."
Isha nodded. "Of course."
Hopefully, the Emperor would be able to find him, but Bel'akor was good at running away above all. Many times had he been hunted by herself, her family or her children, only to flee beyond all sight, to survive another day.
But in the end, his cowardice also cost him, even if it kept him alive. The Dark Master remained a servant of the Three-, the Four and had never successfully become a true Daemon King: a creature of Chaos still, but not bound to any of the Ruinous Powers and capable of becoming a god in time.
That was what the First-Damned longed for above all, to be a god in his own right, but he had never succeeded. He had come dangerously close at times, but he had been foiled every time.
"Do you have any other daemons you think might be behind this?" The Emperor inquired.
Isha considered. "Tzentech's servants, of course. Kairos Fateweaver and his kin. The other Three could lend their strength to such efforts, but this is not their domain. Beyond that…" Isha mulled it over. "I know of no other Daemon Kings that yet live. My family and I slew most of them long ago, and I do not believe any new ones have arisen."
"None?"
"As far as I know," Isha said honestly. "The Three seem to have grown too powerful, too dominant, able to feast on the sins of mortal kind that might otherwise have birthed new Daemon Kings."
"Could Bel'akor have become a Daemon King, while your family was…preoccupied?"
"It's possible," Isha admitted with a frown. "In the chaos of the past age…yes, it would have been a ripe opportunity for him. And for new ones to be born, I must admit." She hated to even consider it, but her family had been under siege from Chaos for so long before the Fall.
"Something we will have to consider, at any rate," The Emperor rumbled, crossing his arms. "In any case, a matter for later. We have a city to secure."
Ah, yes, the city. Isha had almost forgotten it. "Do I have your permission to cleanse the city and heal its inhabitants?" She inquired. "Are there any limitations?"
"Cleanse the Chaos corruption and ensure no one dies, but do not make any visible changes just yet. Once the army arrives, I will announce that I have set up a machine to cleanse the atmosphere of the city. Then you may begin clearing it."
"Understood," Isha said, suppressing the prickle of annoyance. "Anything else?"
"Nothing. You may begin."
Inclining her head, Isha took to the sky, weaving a cloak of illusion around herself to prevent anyone from seeing her as she began her work.
And did her best to forget what Nurgle had said to her.
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