As always, there are three advance chapters on P-atreon (remove the spaces and dashes):p-atreon/ SkySage24
In ages past...
The fragment was worried.
The prison that the Manufacturer superweapon had constructed for the enemy's shard was decaying. The prison had been well-built, but even the Manufacturer's work had faltered under the shard's endless assault and simple entropy.
It was to be expected. The creature within the prison may have been a shard, but it was a shard of one of the greatest Devourers.
Once upon a time, the Manufacturer had made sure to check and maintain the prison regularly, but that had ceased after the Administrator's edict to prevent interaction between the superweapons and the prototype warforms.
And now, the edict was so deeply engraved in the collective consciousness of the prototypes that the Administrator could not revoke it. To make matters worse, the prototypes had been mired in their own arrogance and decadence for far too long. They possessed the might to deal with the shard still, to be sure, but the shard had already proven it's cunning once. It would not be so foolish as to attack the prototypes in a weakened state. It would wait and prepare.
And with the prototypes lost in the haze of their own arrogance and severed from the superweapons? The shard would have ample space and time to build weapons and servitors until it could challenge the newest empire the prototypes had built.
No. The shard's escape had to be prevented.
But the fragment lacked the knowledge and power to properly repair the prison. It was only a fragment, after all, lacking the full knowledge and might of its whole self. It had done what it could, but the vast majority of the knowledge the fragment possessed was on the creation of incarnate superweapons, not on how to build prisons.
...though, perhaps a new superweapon, one unbound by the Administrator's edict, could deal with the shard, and repair the prison. The Manufacturer had constructed the prison well. It only required a fresh infusion of power to regenerate to full strength, power which the fragment could not provide. But even a moderately powerful superweapon easily could.
Still, creating a superweapon was no easy task. The fragment had the knowledge, but not the power. It would need help.
The prototypes would be ideal, but any superweapon produced by them would be bound by the Administrator's edict. Of the other surviving warforms…the final generation, their great masterpiece, had fallen to rampancy long ago, and never recovered. The converters had succumbed to rampancy as well, and their remnants were well contained by the automata that the prototypes had built in any case.
But...the planet nearby, seeded with life by the fragment's race so long ago, before The War, had just begun to produce individuals with psychic potential. Weak by the standards of the fragment's race and their creations, but impressive by most other standards.
Perhaps those primitive psionics could be of some use?
It was risky, but the fragment hardly had anything left to lose…
The Emperor opened his eyes, the vision already fading away.
That had been…unexpected.
He did not need to sleep and had not done so in centuries, but he still routinely meditated in order to focus and clear his mind.
That vision had come out of nowhere. Very rarely did the Emperor have visions of the lives of his human creators, and even more rarely did he have a glimpse of the life of the fragment that had created him. The last time must have been well before the Iron War.
The vision had not granted him any new knowledge that he did not already possess. Still, it felt odd to be reminded of the alien being that had helped in his creation a short few decades after Isha had come to Terra.
Speaking of Isha…she had been distant recently.
The matter of the Sisters of Silence had seemed to briefly provoke her curiosity, but after that, she had been quiet and withdrawn. She never emerged from the labs anymore, no longer asked any questions, nor perched herself atop the highest towers of the ships to read silly books.
Instead, she had settled into a dull routine of spending all her time working in the labs. Her chambers in the Aetos Dios were untouched, and had been since their return.
It had not affected her work, of course. She still dutifully churned out all the crops and medicines the campaign required.
But it was disconcerting all the same. The Emperor had grown used to Isha's inquisitive questions, her passionate disagreements, and the pieces of ancient knowledge that she told him of the galaxy before his birth.
To her company. To someone who simply saw him as he was, who did not treat him with unswerving loyalty and obedience, or fear and distance.
Her lapse into silent, dutiful obedience was something he had long wished for. Yet now that it was here, the Emperor found himself unbearably bored and…
Admit it, at least to yourself.
…lonely.
There was work to be done, of course, but none of it was exactly difficult or engaging. Papers to review, commands to give, cities to conquer, speeches to make…the work of a warlord was something he had unfortunately become very used to.
It wasn't even as if it took up much of his time. The Emperor could complete his work far faster than any mortal could ever hope to. What held the campaign back was the fact that not everyone could move as fast as him.
Horus was a bright spot in the midst of it all, but his son needed his own space. He was still learning the ways of command and warfare, and though George enjoyed teaching him, he could not hover over the boy's shoulder at all times.
So instead, he was left alone most of the time. He tinkered with projects in his private labs, and teleported back to the palace at night to tend to administrative work, but none of it was enough to make up for Isha's withdrawn, almost sullen, behaviour.
But George could admit that he had no one to blame but himself.
The compact was a step in the right direction, but it was the first time he had sincerely made an effort to reciprocate Isha's attempts at reaching out and building an alliance since they had met.
She had tried and tried and tried, and he had always been reluctant to accept.
And of course, there was the matter of Iyanden, not that George blamed her for it. Though such self-awareness would have escaped him only months prior, George could only imagine how he would have reacted if their positions were reversed, if Isha had threatened the lives of Bai-heng and its inhabitants to extract concessions and valuable knowledge from him.
Of course, she had still not overcome her bitterness about the affair, even after the compact had been made. He certainly would not have!
But that didn't make the loneliness any less difficult to deal with or tell him what else he could do to reach out to her again, to convince her that he would no longer resist all her attempts at cooperation and friendship.
Then there was everything else.
The Mechanicum was still working to arm and fund his enemies behind his back. Luna was growing bolder thanks to their support, daring to launch raids on Imperial territory.
The Emperor had given orders to the Terrawatt Clans to accelerate their production of starships. He had funnelled various resources to them for that purpose, but the kind of fleet he would need to take and hold Luna was still some months away from completion.
Still, a campaign against Luna was within his grasp, it was only a matter of time. And Isha's contributions meant that capturing Luna was not as critical as it had once been. While the concerns she had raised about the genetically programmed loyalty of the Space Marines was valid and demanded that production be slowed, the Legions were already fairly large, not least due to the fact that Isha had doubled the recruitment pool by making it viable to create female Space Marines. And, of course, the Thunder Warriors were now stable and had always included women in their ranks. The Emperor had forces sufficient to conquer Luna, he just needed the fleet to overcome Luna's defenses.
The Mechanicum remained a much larger problem. They continued to periodically raid Terra for resources and caches of ancient technology, and it was important to repel them, but he could not afford an outright war with them. The Emperor was reasonably confident the Imperium would win any conflict against Mars, if only because the Imperium had him and Mars did not.
But the price of that victory would be too high. The Mechanicum's industrial base would almost certainly be damaged in the process, with spiteful and desperate Tech-Priests unleashing the most potent relics and horrors in their vaults to stall him, or simply to make him pay for attempting to conquer them.
And taking Mars only by seriously damaging it would extend the timeline of his campaigns and humanity's reunification by almost a century, even with all the help Isha had given.
No, the Emperor needed Mars on board without bloodshed. He needed their peaceful submission and cooperation, and their resources.
He would need to visit the red planet personally after Luna was captured and use every tactic in the book to dazzle them into agreeing with him. Many compromises would likely be necessary, but it was that or a drawn-out war that he could not afford.
That Humanity could not afford.
The Emperor sighed. He wished there was someone he could discuss the matter of Mars with, but both Malcador and Isha were upset with him, and Horus was too young.
…perhaps Isha would feel better if he permitted her to visit Iyanden again. And this time, he would not frighten the entire Craftworld to death.
As the Emperor mulled over these thoughts, he felt a presence reaching out to Terra in the Warp. He paused, his instinctive reaction to slap it away stopped by the fact that said presence felt almost…familiar.
It was coming from very, very far away, he realized. And though it was unrefined and raw compared to himself, it was powerful, more powerful than any ordinary psyker could hope to be, and-
Oh.
"Hello, Father!" An adolescent voice cried out in his mind, and the vision of a beaming boy with skin and hair both bright red, yet shining golden eyes akin to his own appeared in his mind. Hope, joy and disbelief filled the Emperor's heart as he stared at the presence in wonder. "It is so good to see you!"
Magnus.
Isha sat at the desk in her labs, paging through the reports on the newest bioweapons encountered by the Emperor's forces.
Flesh-eating bacteria, airborne toxins designed to turn a person to stone, a Nurglite plague meant to rot brains, literally…
It was all rather unimaginative and dealt with easily. She had expected this predictability from Nurgle's worshippers, but she had thought uncorrupted humans would be able to do better.
The one mildly irritating factor was that there were apparently groups of people claiming that her vaccines and antidotes were actually poisons, and would turn people into…well, it depended on the group, with fears ranging from either being the true source of sickness, or turning them into aliens or mutants. Or mutant aliens.
Most of these groups, surprisingly, were not in any of the cities they had conquered so far, but back in Imperial territory, full of people annoyed by the Emperor's recent softer policies on so-called abhumans and mutants.
The reports suggested that there was some Nurglite Chaos cult behind it, and Custodes had already been deployed to hunt it down.
Isha vaguely wondered if she should discuss the matter with the Emperor, before dismissing the idea.
Binding compact aside, the Guardian had made it clear he had no interest in her counsel. There was little point in pressing the issue, even if the compact would force him to at least humour her. If anything, being forced to listen to her advice because of the compact might make him more resentful than it would have before, when it was at least his own choice and nothing else.
It was best to simply keep her head down and stick to the routine, rather than take any risks. The pact ensured her a degree of safety it had not before, yes, but even so….
Only a fool would not take pattern recognition into account. Isha was unsure how long this bout of the Emperor's goodwill towards her would last, but there was no point in testing it.
Not when her children were within his reach.
Sighing, Isha put the reports aside and began work on weaving together new antidotes.
She continued her work for several hours, making a conscious effort to focus the entirety of herself on it, ignoring both the endless tide of daemons and the Emperor, but she was shaken from her concentration when something prodded her.
Startled, Isha looked into the Sea of Souls, just in time to hear the Emperor's psychic cry, the tone of a fond but exasperated parent.
"Magnus, no-"
"Who are you?" The presence which had prodded her asked in a childish voice, brimming with curiosity and wonder, a bright red astral projection of a vaguely human adolescent appearing in her mind's eye.
"What?" Isha said, too taken aback to answer.
The Emperor's presence came closer, annoyance and amusement radiating from him in equal amounts.
"Magnus, this is Lady Isha, a…guest of mine, whom you should treat with more decorum and respect." He told the child pointedly before turning to her. "Isha, I apologize for the intrusion. This is Magnus, one of my sons."
Ah.
Author's Note: If you're interested, here's an invite code to my Discord server: 2AmdcYhK