"There's something troubling you, old friend," It wasn't a question – not really. Malcador knew him well enough at this point, which meant there was no real reason to even deny it. His old friend walked up to him, but otherwise did not continue to speak. Instead, his old friend waited as he stared at the tiny shred of ancient cloth in his hand. It was vaguely circular in shape, its edges burnt, and its center containing traces of dirt from the days when humanity was primitive and ignorant, when the gods they worshiped walked the earth with them.
"There is," He finally said. "Ryomen Sukuna carried with him a remnant from the most ancient days of Terra, a weapon crafted by one of my children."
Malcador nodded and hummed. "You're referring to the Trishula, created by Shiva, god of destruction. I remember."
He glanced down at the cloth once again, his frown deepening. He thought he'd buried away his feelings on the matter, the love he'd held for his trueborn sons and the mortal women who'd once stolen away his heart. He loved all of his children. He raised them himself. And he loved their mothers. He'd never once made a trueborn child with a mortal he did not truly love – a child would've been impossible, otherwise. Shiva... one of his beloved children had gotten drunk on his own power. He was born stronger than his siblings and became a tyrant because of it, calling himself the God of Destruction. He imbued a tenth of his power into the Trishula and wielded it in battle against his brothers and sisters.
As he was with almost all his children, he was forced to put down the rabid, power-hungry animal that Shiva had become. He found out, as he lay cradling his son's broken body, that his child had been subtly corrupted by the Great Enemy. He'd forgotten to destroy the Trishula, caught up in raging emotions. Aside from the great mystery of how Sukuna somehow managed to bind that accursed weapon to himself, Neoth cursed the bubbling emotions he'd locked away. Because having to kill almost all his children, one by one, because they all became monsters, left scars in his soul and his heart so deep no other wound could possibly compare.
Seeing that weapon opened up a lot more old wounds than he expected.
So, it was a rather strange thought that, out of any other of his sons, the Trishula was likely safest with Sukuna, who was one of the least likely of the Primarchs to be corrupted – as Malcador found out through his own investigation.
"I killed them, Malcador," He said, clutching the cloth. It'd belonged to a daughter of his, Amaterasu, who'd perished in warp fire. This was all that was left of her, bearing the tiniest fragments of her essence, enough that he could almost fool himself that she was here if he closed his eyes for long enough. But, like most of his children, Amaterasu was gone, reduced to ashes. And she would never rise again. "I killed all of them, one by one. My own children. I can still see their blood in my hands, old friend."
Before him was a... list, thousands and thousands of names, etched upon a massive monolith of pure jade, the names of all his children – all of them. Neoth did not forget even a single one of them. He remembered how they looked like, what their favorite food was, what their laughter sounded like, how naughty or how behaved they were as children. He remembered their mothers, too. And he hated that he did.
"Why does that memory trouble you now – of all times, old friend?" Malcador understood, at the very least, what it was like to squeeze the life out of your own children, to kill them for the greater good of all. The quantity might not be the same, as Malcador was much younger than he was, but the heft of it was close enough.
"Seeing the Trishula simply reminded me of things better left forgotten," Neoth sighed. Right here, right then and there, he wasn't the Emperor of Mankind. He was Malcador's friend. He was a man, grieving all that he'd lost – a broken father, wishing to sleep and find himself in better days. Finally, he shook his head and willed away the memories. They'd resurface again, in time, but not yet. For now, he had enough self-control that they would not distract him from the great work, the only war that mattered. "Let us forget such trivialities, old friend. And turn our focus on more important matters."
Malcador nodded, happy to move on from such morbid and pointless melancholy. "Primarch Sukuna's on his way to conquer his first world. Your decision to send him against xenos empires only was surely the right choice. I cannot fathom what that hedonistic cannibal would do if he found a human colony. That said, I have sent one of our most promising Primarchs to guide him if necessary."
Neoth nodded. "Horus was a good choice. That boy has a good head on his shoulders and is suitably charismatic enough that Sukuna might listen to him. I still feel that Guilliman might've been the best choice to oversee him. Sukuna might be cruel and destructive, but he is also efficient; allied with the logistical prowess of the Ultramarines, he's sure to learn a thing or two."
"In his next conquest, perhaps," Malcador agreed, nodding. "But, unlike Guilliman, Horus Lupercal has plenty of experience waging war against the Asari, across six campaigns."
"Ah, those blue-skinned humanoids?" Neoth said. Looking back, there was a time, long ago, when the Asari were allied to humanity. There was a time, in fact, when they sailed the stars together and many human men and women married and mingled with the aliens. At the time, Neoth thought little of it. But then came the fall of humanity, the Age of Strife, and the Asari, like every other xenos race that'd once been the allies of mankind, turned against them. He'd killed his fair share of the mono-gendered xenos. But their strength was never in open warfare, but in hit and run tactics and cloak and dagger maneuvers, much like the foul Aeldari; the difference being that the Asari lacked the raw power that sometimes made the Aeldari extremely tricky to deal with.
"Yes, them," Malcador nodded.
"I honestly don't think Sukuna even needs help with them," Neoth shrugged as the door before them hissed open and they both stepped into the war room. "But, if nothing else, it'll be good to see how well he interacts with his brothers. Personally? I think this can only end in disaster."
"You did not look into the future to see?"
"Nah, it's not necessary. And, besides, I like to be surprised every once in a while. Who knows? Sukuna might just surprise me." Neoth sat down and eyed the galactic map before him. "But, honestly? At most, he's going to ignore Horus entirely. At worst, they are going to argue. But Sukuna treats my orders as absolute, even if he tries to weasel his way through a bunch of them. He will not kill or hurt a fellow Primarch – or any servant of the Imperium for that matter."
Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the Luna Wolves Legion of Astartes, looked on, with wide eyes, as his brother, Primarch Ryomen Sukuna of the Devourers Legion, leapt right out of his Flagship's hangar, wearing only a pair of pants and not even a helmet, and began personally cutting down the Asari Vessels with his 'slicing' power – as Uncle Malcador called it. No sound could travel through space, but based entirely on his brother's facial expression, Horus was rather certain that Primarch Ryomen Sukuna was laughing.
Fire and death and shrapnel and the corpses of ruined vessels scattered and exploded around his form, but his brother simply healed through whatever damage he might've sustained by virtue of possessing some form of regeneration that put his own to shame. Because Primarch Sukuna was, quite literally, restoring lost limbs as he waged what seemed to be a one-man war against the Asari. And, the most intriguing part, Horus mused, was that his brother was actually winning. The alien vessels couldn't properly target him, because he wore no armor and, thus, presented a target so small that their targeting systems simply did not recognize Sukuna as an actual target to be fired at.
And so, the Asari fighters were forced to fire their weapons by relying only on their visual acuity, which wasn't a whole lot. Horus blinked as Sukuna, quite literally, dove into an enemy vessel and tore it to shreds from within, reducing a suitably large ship, about five hundred meters in length, into little more than ribbons within mere moments, before his brother emerged from the other side, still laughing maniacally at all the fire and death and destruction that reigned around him. After that, Primarch Ryomen Sukuna began free-falling into the world, catching fire even as a shell of strange energies wrapped around him. And, even then, his brother's strange power allowed him to cut down more and more of the Asari fighters and bombers.
Horus' eyes narrowed. The reports he'd read about his brother's cutting ability seemed to underestimate just how powerful it actually was.
There was some method to the madness, however, as Primarch Sukuna's rather... unorthodox attack paved the way for the Devourers to begin dropping into orbit with their drop pods. None of them, to Horus' relief, were nearly as crazy as their father. Still, the reports stated that each of them inherited portions of their father's arcane abilities, such as the extreme regeneration.
Horus could hardly imagine... a legion that required no medical aid, an army that shrugged off wounds and kept on marching and fighting. Fearsome.
An Asari dreadnought raced upwards from the planet. Primarch Ryomen Sukuna charged it head on, unleashing a great arrow of fire, which pierced into the belly of the vessel and detonated, causing the kilometer-long ship to explode from the inside, its hulls rupturing and bursting into flames. The reports never mentioned any ability like that, Horus mused. But, then again, his brother, Magnus the Red, could pull gargantuan ships from orbit and crush it with his mind. So, what Sukuna did wasn't anything new.
Though, not even Magnus was crazy enough to rid himself of his armor and jump off a vessel, personally engaging in void combat against enemy ships.
"My lord," Abaddon began. All around him, Horus noted, his captains stood perplexed. The expressions on their faces was almost laughable. "It seems that Primarch Sukuna has abandoned all reason and logic. What should we do?"
Weirdly, a part of him wished to do the same thing, because it actually looked quite fun. But, unfortunately, Horus did not possess the same regenerative powers as his brother. And neither did he possess the power to cut down enemy vessels, without the aid of weapons. So, if he tried that little stunt, he'd die – straight up. Still, Horus had to wonder if he could do it. Well, no, he couldn't, but it'd be really great if he could.
"My brother's fleet does not possess the necessary firepower to secure orbital supremacy," Horus declared. Primarch Ryomen Sukuna, for some odd reason, did not come with his full fleet. Malcador already briefed him and Horus knew for a fact that his brother had, at least, six other vessels, each one capable of waging war. But, Horus mused, the most likely explanation was the simplest; his brother's legion, the Devourers, numbered only a few thousand, at best, less than six thousand, actually. And so, a single vessel was large enough to transport all of them. Eh, it'd certainly make things simpler. Horus smiled at Abaddon, a trusted friend and ally. "We shall cripple the Asari fleet. Prepare to board the xenos vessels. Afterwards... well... my brother can't have all the fun of slaughtering aliens, can't he?"
AN: Chapter 21 is out on (Pat)reon!