Rebirth and Redemption Prologue
The Emperor, or at least this fragment of himself, once again felt despair.
He had felt despair so many times of his interminable existence, but for a few hours the being who had abandoned his name to be The Emperor had felt something he hadn't felt in all those millennia since that awful day aboard the Vengeful Spirit.
Over the hours as he'd sensed his long lost son's soul come into his clone, he'd begun to hope. As he'd heard his son reborn speak of his sorrow and regret for what he'd done, the spark had begun to grow. As his son rallied both the poor wretches Bile had cloned, and even some of his son's corrupted and wayward sons, it had become the beginnings of a flame. And as his son promised to right the wrongs he had done, a joy the Emperor had thought long gone began anew. There in the warp, he could feel his son's resolve and conviction, and a steadiness of purpose that the old Fulgrim, for all his myriad excellent qualities, had never quite possessed.
But the vile soul cankers some of his son's chose to worship loved to raise hopes, only to dash them again. They whispered in Bile's head, playing upon his pride, his greed and his fear. They found fertile soil, for Bile had long since absolved himself and his gene-father's legion of any faults and flaws, blaming anything and everything always and solely upon said gene-father.
So the returned Fulgrim was betrayed. Trazyn took the deal offered, and hope died.
Had this been in the years, the centuries even, right after being interred upon the Ur-Pharos Primus, he could have intervened. He would have burned this shard of himself, even to the point of immolation, reverse the blandishments of the Queen of Harlots and the machinations of the Architect of Fate to free his son.
But there was not enough of him left. Not that was close enough to gather in time. He would have burnt himself, but the truth was, he already had. He and the other shards of himself. To prevent his beloved Corax from losing so much of himself that he could never come back to himself. To ensure that even after the Beast, his beloved Vulkan retained his Perpetuality, and would have the chance to someday reform. To save his beloved Jaghati when the vile Drukari had been willing to detonate a whole sector of their vile realm in order to be rid of him. To nullify the Vortex Bombs Vandire had hidden all throughout the Terran system rigged to detonate with his death. And on and on.
Other times, they had transformed themselves, or parts of themselves. Into the perpetual protection of the Grey Knights. Into an empowering spirit to those poor, brave, deluded women. Into mighty relics.
After all this time, he couldn't hold enough of his remaining power in one place at one time to be able to act in major ways, without preparation. He had to gather his power. He would have sighed if he still had that capability.
Trazyn had long gone back to his fortress museum, guarded by some of the most potent anti-psychic wards ever to exist. Even before his fall, striking an alert and active Trazyn there would have been challenging. For a while he considered destroying Bile. That would take far less energy and far less conniving. Punching through the Four's defenses against his interference would be a task, but now that he wasn't doing anything as noteworthy as raising or betraying a Primarch their attention had wandered. A simple misfire of one of his bodyguards' weapons at the correct time and place, coinciding with a power surge where he stored his clones, and there would be no more Bile. But the Emperor had long ago accepted that he must be practical. And if Bile could clone one uncorrupted Primarch he could do it again.
And so this shard of the being the Warp called the Anathema surveyed the galaxy, searching for somewhere he could tip the scales toward mankind's survival. But his attention kept coming back to Solemnace.
It was during yet another such time when amongst the junk and imprisoned beings of Trazyn's collection, the Emperor saw something he recognized from long, long ago.
It was a machine, one from humanity's long lost Age of Technology; a box about as tall as a man, with a coffin sized tube laid out in front, and a hopper atop. Behind, and attached at the base, was a Corinthian style column rising to the height of the hopper, with a pile of skulls resting atop. It was an art installation exhibit from before the Long Night, meant to draw attention to the ethical implications of the availability of technology that could take a sample of DNA from a long dead person, and produce a perfected clone of them, using genetic memory to keep their identity intact.
Back when he'd first see it, it had been very thought provoking, but he'd been disappointed that the artist had settled for merely raising the question, rather than giving any thought to possible answers. If he'd ever taken the time to find the original identities of the people who's skulls were on the plinth, that knowledge was long lost to him, but he doubted he had. Why would he have.
It was a gable, but still, even with the wards over this place, with a manageable expenditure of power; a nudge here, a press there, and a new, unknown, but definitely human variable would be introduced to the situation. He'd just have to hope a single unconstrained variable would be enough, and that his son would seize the opportunity. He'd taken gambles on worse odds for lesser payouts, and almost any risk was worth it, if it would bring back one of his lost sons.
Making up his mind, the Emperor moved. A slight tremor destabilized the pile of skulls, leading one to fall into the hopper. A tiny push of force on the activation button, and as his consciousness receded to recover, felt the beginnings of a new, yet incredibly old, life come into the world of Solemnace.