He Who Protects
Chapter 5
"Your vision, was it real?" Tanaka whispered, as if afraid to break the heavy silence. 'How does one even respond to a story like that?'
The Emperor strode toward a small bust and motioned toward it. Tanaka followed.
She'd seen the small statue upon entering his chambers and had assumed it'd been carved in his likeness, a gift from when he'd first assumed lordship over the Empire. However, upon closer inspection she noticed several differences between the Emperor and the statue.
The carved man was no less a beautiful and regal specimen than her Lord. Its hair was straight rather than curly, its face a tad more linear with sharper cheekbones. The bust's face was far less kind than the Emperor's, serious in a way that Tanaka believed was impossible for her liege Lord.
"It was very real," the Emperor breathed, his hand hovering over the bust. "I carved this bust; it's the only one in existence. This was the man I met in the immaterium. This was where I first saw the power I would someday wield, when the Emperor of Mankind ripped my soul from my mortal body to simply meet with him."
Tanaka gasped, her eyes flitting between the Emperor, past and present. She ran her hand over the carving, her fingernails catching on its sharp, defined edges. A sense of mysticality washed over her. Unseen eyes drilled into her back. Her hand retreated and she shivered.
"Does he still live?" she asked.
The Emperor mulled over the question for a few moments. "In a manner of speaking. When we met, his physical body had long since been destroyed. At that time he was little more than a weakened celestial being brought into existence by the belief of countless trillions that he was a god."
Her stomach leapt into her chest. "This…Emperor was believed into existence in the warp, my Lord? It sounds far-fetched."
The larger than life man closed his eyes and held out his hand. Coloured, misty eddies sprang into existence above his outstretched palm. The crackling streams of warp energy writhed and streamed around one another without touching.
He opened his eyes. "The warp is something which cannot be explained or fully understood, let alone controlled. My predecessor knew this, yet he could not sate his curiosity. That, and his penchant for keeping secrets from those close to him, were his downfall. What is somewhat understood about the immaterium is that its aetherial energies respond to both our actions and our beliefs. It can create, destroy, give power and weaken from nothing. This is not possible without quirks or psychic occurrences in realspace."
"Then why do we harness its power with psykers and warp drives, my Lord?" Tanaka's unblinking eyes soaked in the power on display inches from her face.
"Out of necessity," he replied, snuffing the energies in a clenched fist. "Our Mechanicum have yet to discover the means of faster than light travel without warp drives, but they are close. Our psykers are a necessity to combat warp-born monstrosities, though they are monitored closely."
Tanaka bit her lip against the desire to inquire more. Knowledge of the warp, while permitted, was limited to a need-to-know basis for good reason. History lessons of the Second Dark Age of Quirks sprang to her mind.
"What can you tell me of this…other Emperor?"
"He was a man turned god against his will." The Emperor sighed, a faraway look in his eyes. "He was a man, a good man, who made many mistakes. He united trillions of men across the galaxy under his banner. But he was betrayed by his own sons and eventually fell to the Ruinous Powers. When I met him his power, once a vast, lush garden, had withered to mere roots struggling for sustenance."
◹†◸◹†◸◹†◸◹†◸
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Izuku groaned and brought a hand up to rub his crusty eyes. 'Damn that alarm clock to hell,' he thought. 'It's far too early for this.'
A deep thrum resonated through his small room and the air smelt of ozone. Izuku's body crackled, his heart leaping into his throat. He opened his eyes as a deep whooshing sound swept through him and across the room.
The alarm clock he'd had for over a decade lay in pieces on his table, a thin wisp of smoke unfurling from it. He looked down at his hands; they were shimmering with heat haze, thrumming with an unseen energy.
"What the hell?" He shook his hands, but the haze remained. Izuku blinked. "It wasn't a dream then."
"A valiant first effort, my son." The Emperor's voice whispered in his mind. "But I must caution you against using warp energies for so menial a task. The power can be most…tempting for an untrained and unshielded mind."
Izuku grumbled, aches and pains washing through his body as he moved to stand. A flicker of light from the rising sun lanced his eyes, his head screaming in protest. Memories and knowledge, though not any he should have known, shot through his mind.
Surprisingly, Izuku found that he could understand it all, but his ability to process and use that knowledge was limited. He looked up at his ceiling, finding that it was much closer than he recalled.
"What happened?" he whispered, knowing the Emperor could hear him through the chaotic warp. "These memories, they aren't mine. How did I use psychic abilities?"
He felt a rumbling chuckle in his head. "The answer is quite simple, my son… Though, I suppose I should not refer to you as such any longer."
Gritting his teeth, Izuku closed his eyes and struggled against the deluge of information crashing through his mind. Uncountable centuries passed by his eyes in faint flickers, though there were obvious blank spaces.
Men in hulking armour knelt before him
Hurt flickered in Horus's eyes for a brief moment before he schooled himself and swept from the throne room.
Explosions rocked the earth, the humming thrum of orbital shells shook the air. Guttural shouts rang out as green skinned humanoids crested a rocky crest, their glowing red eyes anticipating the violence to come.
He watched from the immaterium, sorrow suffusing his soul, as his sons were devoured by chitinous beasts on Macragge, helpless to fully change the outcome against the shadow in the warp.
Blades pierced his chest, tears rolling down his cheeks, as he looked into the hate-filled eyes of his most favoured son, now corrupted by the Ruinous Powers. And with one final push he tore the soul from the man's body and ripped it asunder.
Blood pounded in Izuku's ears and behind his eyes as he fought the deluge down. Pressure built in his skull, threatening to spill out his ears.
"My mind is my own," he hissed through gritted teeth. "You will obey."
The deluge slowed to a trickle over several moments and he released a breath.
"My apologies," the Emperor muttered. "Memory and informational transfers are most unpleasant without the use of an omophagea and other neural implants. I suggest you take time to sift through them at your own pace to fully integrate them."
One final memory flashed through Izuku's mind. He sat in his throne room, shells from Horus's fleet rocking Terra during the preparatory bombardment. A small tome sat in his lap, the words as clear as if he were actually reading them. A theoretical work on the properties of souls and possible transference, tearing the soul and making it anew. An ancient work written by shamans from times long lost to history.
"You destroyed my soul," Izuku hissed, fury flooding his veins. He stomped his foot, the walls of the apartment rattling in protest. "And you are rebuilding it with your essence as part of it. You said you would help me. You lied!"
"If you recall, I made no mention of how I would assist you." The Emperor's tone was as calm as a babbling brook. "This also helps me. Rest assured, your soul is still your own, merely different than before. The transference is not yet complete, as doing so immediately would have destroyed your mind and body, leaving you a vegetable. I'm sure your new memories will assist you in remembering what that is like. An outcome both of us would want to avoid."
Izuku's fingers twitched at his side and curled into fists. "How does this help you? How does this help me?"
"Do not be purposely obtuse, Izuku Midoriya." The Emperor's tone, though calm, thoroughly chastised Izuku. "You cannot yet imagine living as long as I, being trapped, unable to directly assist my sons and daughters. With this, I will finally be allowed to rest while you can end the burgeoning evil taking root on Terra. You will have knowledge of the warp and technologies unheard of in today's age, unparalleled understanding of human genetics, as well as my own observations of the current age."
Warm buzzes washed over Izuku's skull at the hints of knowledge peering up through the depths of his mind. His fingers twitched beneath his gaze, distorted by pulsing waves of heat haze. Power promising destruction, promising life.
"With this power comes physical and mental changes," the Emperor continued. "This is no mere quirk, boy. This is the power to change whole galaxies and bring them to heel. This is the power which has kept the forces of Chaos at bay for dozens of millenia! Quirks can be manipulated either genetically or by outside interference from another quirk. The abilities you will soon wield will not have been seen by any living being."
Memories of that power flashed through Izuku's mind. Punching the Void Dragon from Earth to Mars. Creating his sons, losing them to the warp. Reuniting with each of them. Countless hours of learning, researching and creating. The psychic battles with the Gods of Chaos over countless years. Malcador the Sigillite dying on the Golden Throne. His own body fusing with that infernal, torturous device for so long.
In all the memories assaulting his mind, one thing stood out to Izuku. "You were alone for so long," he murmured. "Many of your sons thought you created them simply as tools. You craved some sort of companionship. Their use as tools of war was secondary."
"I failed in many ways in that regard," the Emperor replied, his tone solemn. "I longed to create sons of my gene seed who could stand beside me. Yet, even with all my vaunted power, I was unable to create anything which came close to my goal. You will find with time, Izuku Midoriya, that with great power comes even greater loneliness. None can hope to stand beside you, much less understand you. You will always be great, but separate."
Kacchan's smirking face flitted before his mind's eye. The young boy was considered a prodigy at Aldera Junior High. But he had no true friends, no peers there. It was in part due to his attitude toward those beneath him, but also because of his great ability. How could any hope to understand him when he stood at the top of his small mountain?
Depression flooded his senses, pushing down on Izuku's shoulders. 'I wanted to be a hero. To save people and stand beside other heroes shoulder-to-shoulder. But I'll grow into something they can't hope to understand. Great, but separate.'
"Not great." The Emperor pushed a memory in Izuku's mind of Ullanor, of tens of thousands of his Adeptus Astartes kneeling before him in gleaming armour. "The greatest. Yes, you will be lonely. One day soon, even I, your only equal, will cease to exist. However, you will have the power to save all of humanity. You, Izuku Midoriya, shall be the greatest hero to have ever existed."