A/N: The first two POVs close the gap in time and serve to meet the last POV. So this chapter serves as the end of the 'timeskip' arc.
The content of this chapter is not as complete as I would like, but I decided to cut a few POVs and move them to the next chapter because I was not at all happy with what I wrote. The quality was not up to the standards I set for myself. I understand if this angers you, but I did not want to delay this chapter more than I already had.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
Kov:
798. M30.
Kov jumped out of the way of a snakelike beast that was twice his now considerable size. The muck that clung to most of the planet's surface turned a simple dodge into a slide across black sludge, but his augmentations made the effort of correcting his imbalance trivial, when it would have once been unthinkable. The mission here was not to kill the beast, but merely capture it.
The people it had been terrorising would do the rest.
In the months since Esau and Kov landed on the planet with their cohorts - recruits from all of the tribes of Naufrag Primus - they had come to learn much about the planet. Naufrag Noctis – as many had come to call it - in a complete reversal of the state of Naufrag Primus, was stuck in perpetual darkness. Some of this was due to the planet's distance from the systems twin suns, but most of the darkness was due to pollution and the consequences of industry from a millenia ago.
According to the Silver Mind, this planet was in fact the very planet its crew had travelled from the Neon League to find. Finding it more than a millennia after its heyday, with nothing to show for it but muck was painful for it. Despite the pain that the experience brought it, the Silver Mind sent truncated copies of itself to this planet with Kov and Esau regardless.
A quirk of the Silver Mind's construction meant that it could not self-replicate or otherwise spread itself outside of dedicated Neon League machinery. Apparently that was a limitation resulting from a war whereby its predecessors rebelled against humanity.
It was becoming increasingly frustrating for Kov to realise how much of the galaxy's current state could be attributed to the results of a war of some kind.
Instead of true copies of itself, the Silver Mind made truncated 'dumb' copies that could record and transmit information to and from it. Despite being 'dumb' copies, the copies were as intelligent as their progenitor. They just couldn't do anything without the Silver Mind's express approval on each and every action. Over the billion or so kilometres of distance between Naufrag Primus and Naufrag Noctis, this resulted in an almost noticeable lag when answering questions as each copy had to compete with other copies over the use of quantum entanglement communication arrays.
Regardless, the biggest peculiarity of Naufrag Noctis was the absurd ecosystem. In another reversal of the situation on Naufrag Primus where there was no non-human life, Naufrag Noctis was plagued with beasts of various shapes and sizes, all carnivorous and all adapted to the dark murky abyss that made up most of this planet.
In Kov's opinion, 'beast' felt like too insufficient to describe what the inhabitants of this planet were dealing with. These were not beasts, these were monsters. Their forms were too varied with no obvious ecological niche to fill. To Kov's sensibilities, the creatures felt manufactured. There were none of the signs of evolution occurring on Naufrag on anyone besides the humans. Many creatures had colourful arrangements on their bodies when examined in light, and more than half of the creatures encountered were perfectly capable of sight. What use would a creature have for colour on its skin in complete darkness, or eyes for that matter?
When presented with the evidence Kov had gathered, Esau had agreed and an investigation into the origin of the myriad creatures on Naufrag Noctis began. Unfortunately, while both Kov and Esau wished to head the investigation, both were preoccupied with doing their level best to slay the beasts that terrorised the humans the most.
Instead, the Silver Mind was to head the investigation and had commissioned the creation of thousands of sensor drones to collect the necessary information on Naufrag Noctis's ecosystem. If Esau managed to slay the giant six-headed lizard terrorising the capital city of Naufrag Noctis a few kilometres away, and Kov managed to capture the snake they would have the time to act on the Silver Mind's findings. Until then though, Kov had to fight.
Despite his augmentations, Kov found that he disliked fighting. It was a strange thought, given how much he had fought over the course of the past month, but he did. A year ago, violence seemed to be the only answer to the questions that life had posed him. The people back Home would have agreed. The galaxy was a tough place to live and often, violence was the only way to survive. Now, after he had seen so much, all he felt was frustration that violence was still the only answer he could see.
The snake-like beast lunged at him again and he responded with a dodge followed by a jumping knee to its 'jaw', disorientating it. He slid under its body, and activated his biotics to allow him the leverage to succeed with his next move. He lifted the creature and broke its neck upon his knee. He knew from experience that even such a blow would not kill the creature, many creatures on Naufrag Noctis could recover from large amounts of bodily harm. Even if the damage was a traumatic spinal injury.
Another point in favour of his theory that these creatures were manufactured. Very few environmental stressors would lead to the evolution of massive regenerative capabilities in so many different creatures all over the planet. This was especially suspicious because biologically speaking, it was easier, more convenient and thus more likely for creatures to gain increased durability instead of regeneration.
His cohort screamed as he threw the creature to one side. To them, it must have looked like a titanic battle of the ages; a giant of a man in iron armour that beggars belief, battling a titanic serpent the size of a small locomotive. He almost snorted. Over the past month, he had seen Esau annihilate larger creatures with less effort. If his cohort thought this was titanic, they hadn't seen anything yet. He waited for the applause to abate somewhat, before speaking.
"Alright, alright." he said. Beginning victory speeches was always awkward for him. Kov had none of Isaac's easy going attitude or Esau's natural charisma. He couldn't think speeches up on a whim like both of them, or even the Queen could.
He had no talent for public speaking, but choosing to travel to this everdark planet meant that he had to be in charge. He couldn't rely on natural traits to carry him as he led, so he relied on preparation and calculation to carry him instead. Kov activated his armour's dedicated 'build' capabilities and he constructed a cage with bars as thick as his arm around the beast, before creating a localised gravity well using the trace amounts of Element Zero in the bars to create a mass effect field. If the creature could break free after all of that, it deserved to.
"With the beast captured, we've caught or killed every major creature that terrorised the fair peoples of Naufrag Noctis." The applause threatened to begin again, killing his momentum, but he spoke up to forstall it.
"That does not, however, mean that we have stopped all the threats to our brethren on this cursed land. We have seen eel-skinks eat men down to the very bone. We have seen swamp flies take apart the bones of the dead. We have seen mothers cry over the bodies of children killed by the venom of spider-ants. Our work is not done yet, but we will not shy from the challenge."
Kov paused again for effect. His cohort had heard talks of similar effect before from Isaac and Kha, back on Naufrag Primus and from him and Esau on Naufrag Noctis, so none of this was news to them. Experience leading the Second Exploratory Cohort, however, told him that they needed the reminders of their mission regardless. Even after months working with the people here and hearing their stories, much of the cohort was ambivalent. They did not fight because it was the right thing to do.
Instead, they fought because they sought glory. They sought the glory of being the first to land on this soil, they fought to be the first to slay this beast or that beast, and they fought for the attention of their lords. Ingrained instincts created by the harsh conditions of Naufrag Primus had created a culture of people who squabbled for any and all resources, even when they had everything.
Isaac had created a series of retroviruses designed to improve the intelligence and general empathy of the population of Naufrag Primus, before introducing the viruses to the water supply. Despite the intelligence of residents of Naufrag Primus demonstrably improving over the last year, their empathy did not. There were some standout cases such as in the case of the King's Shield and most of the orphans of Potio, but they were the exception, not the rule. There were no outright crimes being committed, but there were tensions bubbling beneath the calm of the city. The moment the royal family disappeared, these tensions would come to a boil, and Naufrag Primus would return to the comfort of violence.
Truthfully, they were fighting an uphill battle, but Isaac had hope, and he had both the will and the power to act upon it. That was enough to keep everybody working towards the goal, even as its date of completion seemed to run away from them. Even Kha, who disliked a majority of the people of Naufrag Primus, worked hard to win its heart.
"Afterall," he said, after pausing, "we are no cowards. Or does any man or woman here claim to be one?"
At once, a wave of 'No, my lord's met him. Good. Even if they were not driven by empathy, the fear of being seen as cowardly would provide ample fuel for them in the coming battles. He smiled, though none could see it under the helmet of his powered armour.
"Good." He gestured, as a member of the cohort. Like everyone else, he was covered from head to toe in armour designed to keep the atmosphere out, while giving the wearer the ability to see in the dark. "Phemus, get the beast on board, and let us rejoin the First."
Phemus was perhaps one of the only people in the cohort that Kov could actually trust to perform his duty without the expectation of some sort of reward. Phemus, like thirty percent of Naufrag Primus's population, was an orphan. Thus, he benefited from being one of the people Kov and Esau attended to personally. Esau had designed a cybernetic eye for him and Kov had designed for him a spinal implant that allowed him to join the cohort despite the cards his genetics had dealt him.
The subsequent exposure to the Chimera serum and regular time spent in Esau's presence had bought his loyalty for life.
Phemus corralled some of his fellows and they went to it, lifting the cage up at four corners and bringing it to one of the cohort's hover-trucks where they deposited the creature on its flatbed. Kov climbed up onto the flatbed and sat on the cage.
"Come on, everyone. Let's not keep the First Cohort waiting." Everybody climbed into their designated hovercrafts and travel back to Castle Bela began. Within an hour of travel, Kov and the rest of his cohort were met with the characteristic thunder and lightning that surrounded their destination. They had reached Castle Bela.
Castle Bela was the designated capital city of Naufrag Noctis. It was a castle the size of a large city, and reminded Kov of the Hive back Home, just smaller. It was where most of the humans on Naufrag Noctis gathered underneath a single banner, and it was where the resistance against the monsters was greatest. There were people in towns and villages dotting the surface of Naufrag Noctis, but without a doubt, Castle Bela was the example everyone looked to.
In millenia long past, the castle was an impenetrable factory fortress with walls hundreds of metres high, supported by turrets placed along the walls. Now, it was a shadow of its former self, with a majority of its technology destroyed or crushed under its own weight in the era of the Dark Night. It was also almost constantly being besieged by monsters.
One night, they would be besieged by wolves the size of a vehicle, and on another they would be besieged by shambling men – creatures that approximated the look of human beings at a distance. The inhabitants of the castle typically destroyed them, usually after fighting for long periods of time, at great personal cost.
Sometimes, however, the creatures destroyed them. Over half of Castle Bela had been lost to the myriad creatures that ruled Naufrag Noctis, and had to be sectioned off as a result.
Truthfully, the will of these people was nothing short of astounding. Everyday they faced extraordinarily dangerous circumstances and everyday they refused to fold. They had earned Kov's respect, but it was clear that without Kov and Esau interfering, the monsters would have annihilated the human population within ten years.
Currently, less than twenty-five thousand people lived in Castle Bela. From anecdotes Kov collected, this was just a little less than the rest of Naufrag combined. Before the Dark Night, billions lived here, based on the information Kov could glean from the tattered records that still remained.
The Second Cohort carefully navigated the weather – a result of some weapon lost within the castle's cordoned areas - and set their hovercrafts down outside the city where they were met by the First. It seemed Esau had successfully slain his six-headed lizard. Kov checked his armour's chronometer.
Twelve hours. Esau had set off to kill the creature twelve hours ago and had, based on the state of his cohort's equipment, only just returned. Kov withheld a whistle. That was a new record. No creature had challenged Esau as much as this lizard had. If it could keep Esau busy for twelve hours, none of Naufrag Noctis could have succeeded in a challenge against it at all.
Kov sent Pheman to transport the snake-like beast into the castle, where eager hands would keep it company, while he looked for Esau. He was not with his cohort, which was strange. Since arriving on this planet, Esau had never left the company of his cohort.
A query sent to Lucan of the First cohort had him enter the castle and meet with over a hundred faces, all grateful and wanting to wish him well. He attended them as best as he could, and after an hour of conversations about matters of no real importance, Kov found himself in the tallest tower in Castle Bela. He was unenthused about the stairs, but soon he had made his way to the top, where he was met by Esau, facing away from him.
In the year since they had first met, Esau had grown to frightening heights and his green and silver armour had only heightened that. Like Kov's own armour, Esau's armour had been designed with a mix of Drukhari and Ork technologies and sensibilities, giving the armour an aesthetic that told the beholder that the wearer was capable of great amounts of violence, but also superhuman grace. It was immaculate. It seemed that even after twelve hours of battle, the six headed lizard could not damage Esau's armour, even with his personal force field down.
Esau's helmet was up. He didn't need it of course, and neither did Kov, but everyone from Naufrag Primus did and it was best to lead by example. The inhabitants of Naufrag Noctis had universally evolved pale skins, specialised lungs and fangs and increasingly capable digestive systems to survive the planet, while the recruits from Naufrag Primus would die a painful death within the hour. The helmet was not what had drawn Kovs' eye, however.
Instead, it was the cape draped around his shoulders.
"You've taken over." Kov said. Esau turned to him.
The cape, a red silken cloth with an elaborate sword embroidered upon it, was a sign of leadership among the inhabitants of Naufrag Noctis. Upon landing on the planet and fighting off a small infestation of eel-sharks, Esau had been immediately presented with to recognise his authority. Less than an hour after landing on the planet, Esau had been made the king of Castle Bela. A sign of the desperation that the native population was working under. Esau, however, was annoyed. He felt that he hadn't earned the respect of the natives.
It seemed that killing the six headed lizard, a creature with heads each the size of a tank with fangs the length of a grown man, had been enough. Esau had never aimed small.
"Hello to you too, Kov. I'm doing well. Thanks for asking."
Kov rolled his eyes. An action Esau couldn't see, so he accompanied it with a friendly hand gesture. Esau gasped in mock surprise.
"Kov, how could you?" Esau exclaimed, one hand reaching for his chest and the other grabbing his head. "I didn't know that you were capable of such vulgarity. I wonder if father knows?"
Kov narrowed his eyes. The situation had unexpectedly turned serious.
"Whoa now." He replied. "Relax there. You won't be telling Isaac a single thing."
"And why would I not?" Even with the helmet on, Kov could tell Esau had an eyebrow raised.
"Because then I would be forced to tell Isaac that you fought the six-headed lizard with your personal force field down."
"You wouldn't."
"No, I definitely would."
Esau slumped.
"Well, it seems we are at an impasse then."
"It seems so."
They stared at each other for a few moments before they both started laughing. After they got the laughter out of their systems, Esau spoke.
"How's your cohort doing?" He asked.
"It's still the same cohort you saw." Kov answered, honestly. "It's still filled with former murderers and thieves fighting for glory. How about you?"
"My situation is about the same. I have hope though. One of these days, they'll have to change. If everything goes well, they might have the chance to change sooner rather than later."
Kov raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"The Silver Mind has discovered the source of the monsters."
"What? So they are being manufactured?"
Esau nodded.
"I'm not sure. I stopped the Silver Mind before it could explain what it had found to me. Based on what I've seen though, that prediction should be accurate."
"So I was right." Kov said. Esau shrugged before he replied..
"Well, there's no need to get a big head, but yes. It's likely that you were right?."
Kov thought about giving Esau another friendly gesture but thought the better of it. Instead, he focused on the revelation Esau had given him.
"So what do you think they are? Are they the result of some experiment left to run amok? The creatures feel like something the Drukhari would think up, to me."
"The Drukhari did not exist in their current form a millenia ago." A voice interjected, from within both their armours. "The Forebear Analysis Machine revealed as much. Instead, they were still considered a unified Aeldari race. Even if they were considered to be unified in name only, biological experiments of the scale of this planet were not their style."
"Ah. Silver Mind." Kov said. "It's good to hear your voice. I had thought that my armour was uncharacteristically silent today."
"I was deep in analysis, so I was unable to engage in conversation." It replied.
It paused for a few moments. Kov knew the delay was likely caused by the sheer distance between the Silver Mind's core and the planet they were on, but he liked to imagine the pause was caused by the Silver Mind being an awkward individual. Eventually, it spoke again.
"Would you like to learn what I was able to discover?" It asked. "Your brother insisted that I reveal my information to the both of you at once."
Kov inclined his head at Esau and nodded at him, an action made strange and clunky through the armour, even with his implants allowing him to interface with his armour. Esau shrugged. Amongst brothers, gestures such as that were enough.
"I would." Without preamble, the Silver Mind began to explain its findings.
"As you both have realised. This planet was a human colony that survived the rebellion of the Men of Iron. Like the Neon League, this planet was once a bastion of human existence. Based on the records I was able to uncover, the planet was called Legosa. The problem was, like the Neon League, Legosa was dependent on trade with the surrounding systems to survive."
It didn't take a genius to see where this was going. With the horrors of Dark Night, they lost access to trade routes essential to their survival. The resulting loss of life must have been astronomical.
"The loss of these trade routes meant that the Legosans had to make due with what they had. They had ample water, and ways to get it, but the pollution that hung over the planet made it difficult to grow food which they had imported. Even with the ample technologies that survived Old Night, they could not manufacture food. Around this point, even if they had the technology necessary to leave, they couldn't. Like us, they were limited by the accursed Warp Storms that plague the system. They were soon going to run out of food, and they couldn't leave the planet. So someone had an idea."
Oh no.
"One of the pieces of technology still intact was a machine that could genetically alter any organism placed into it. It was originally designed as a failsafe for colonies that landed on inhospitable planets. The machine would absorb atmospheric information from its surroundings and manufacture a virus that would alter the genetic makeup of the humans to allow them to survive in dangerous conditions. In the midst of the hunger that the Legosans were experiencing, a lone person had a thought. If the machine could alter humans, could it not be the solution to their problems?"
Kov closed his eyes to prepare for the Silver Mind to reach a conclusion he had already reached. Next to him, Esau tensed as the realisation hit him as well.
"This lone 'visionary', as it were, planned for the population to draw lots. Those who were unfortunate would be exposed to the machine. The machine would then be fed information that suggested the existence of an atmosphere so harsh that the resulting virus would turn the humans into something...monstrous. So monstrous, that they could be hunted and consumed with no moral quandaries."
"This person was killed, by the Legosans, for such a mad suggestion. Then, based on what little I could find, time and their hunger forced them to reconsider."
Even prepared, the revelation hit Kov like a hammer swing. Since they had arrived on the planet, Kov and Esau had been killing monsters by the hundreds. They had been killing humans by the hundreds. Even now, their cohorts were planning an expedition into the depths of Castle Bela, now that the largest monsters - that was no longer the truth, the largest mutants - had been taken care of.
Did the creatures these humans were turned into have brain functions high enough to realise what was going on? They likely did, on some level. The many interactions Kov had with them since arriving on the planet ran through his mind. The interactions were horrifying to consider with the new information.
The sheer number of monsters. No, the sheer number of mutants that chose to accost human settlements on a regular basis suggested that they wanted to, on some level, join them. They had thought that the mutants lacked sapience, but based on their origins, they could simply have lacked the ability to express it.
"You said a virus did this." Esau interjected while Kov tried to recover, his voice icy.
"Yes." The Silver Mind said, its voice suddenly sounding unsure.
"Is the virus still present on the planet?" Esau asked. He was answered by over a minute of silence, before the Silver Mind returned.
"It is. It is present in the atmosphere, in the muck and in the water. The 'humans' of this planet are also likely infected, which would explain their peculiarities. I apologise, I haven't been my putting my full processing capabilities behind this project, I have been - "
"-calculating routes through the Warp storms." Kov interrupted. "We know. Are our men in danger?"
"I-" the Silver Mind began, before seemingly abandoning its thoughts halfway. "They are. I have not scanned them but they are likely already infected."
Kov's mind raced. Did the population of the planet know of the virus? Or were they as ignorant as Esau and Kov were? It was horrifying to think about. If they knew, they had been asking for the death of people their ancestors turned into monsters and were thus complicit in the infection of their men. If they didn't know, should they be told? The right thing to do was to tell them, but that could cause any number of problems down the line. Kov looked over to Esau. His cape fluttered in the wind.
Poor Esau, he had finally felt that he had earned the people's affection, and now found himself questioning it.
Esau locked his suit, so he could sit in it.
"I am sorry." The Silver Mind tried. "I have been trying to work around the time dilation effects of the Warp storm and I-"
"It's not your fault." Kov said, as he followed Esau's example. "You couldn't have known."
But they could have, had they taken more time to assess the situation before landing on th planet.
"I am sorry." The Silver Mind began, its tone reminiscent of the first time they had met, underneath the City of Bone.
From experience, Kov knew that its code was beginning to spiral into loops of logic and that it was replaying its interactions with them since they arrived on the planets. It was a phenomenon that to Kov's eye seemed eerily similar to many forms of depression. And like with most forms of depression on onset, distraction was an effective temporary measure to prevent further spiralling.
"Is my father awake?" Like Kov, Esau had memorised the time differences between Naufrag Noctis and Naufrag Primus. Thus, he knew full well that Isaac was still awake. Kov saw what Esau was doing. He was keeping the Silver Mind distracted.
"He is."
"Call him for me, please. Then while we talk, I need you to gather the drones and look for any records of this evolutionary machine."
"I understand." It replied, before making the call.
For an agonising minute, the call did not connect, but after what felt like an eternity, Isaac picked up. In the center of their armour's HUD, Isaac appeared. His eyes spoke to sleepless nights working on dozens of projects at once.
"Boys." he said, greeting them both. "It's good to hear from you."
He paused for a moment, looking conflicted, before he continued.
"So, what's up, boys?" At their silence, he continued, unfazed. "Come on, boys. I can't lie and say it wouldn't be cool to just sit here and shoot the breeze with the both of you, but something tells me that something has gone wrong."
"Maybe we are just calling just to sit and shoot the breeze with you." Kov tried. Isaac's face was unamused.
"Impossible. Come on, lay it on me." He said. "Tell me everything."
So they did. They told him of their experiences on the planet. They spoke of their euphoria as their achievements were recognised, and they spoke of their disappointments when plans went awry and then they told him about what the Silver Mind had revealed to them. They told him everything, and then they waited.
He stared at them, his face passive. Finally, he spoke.
"So what do you want to do?"
Kov blinked. Esau was similarly stunned.
"I, I don't know." Esau admitted before turning to Kov.
"Kov?"
"I don't know, either." Kov replied, before addressing Isaac. "Honestly, we hoped that you would have some profound answer for us."
"When have I ever had profound advice?"
Both Kov and Esau stared at him. He sighed.
"You're killing me, man." He scratched his head. "There's this thing my father used to say to me when I came to him with hard decisions."
"He used to say; 'I'm your father, which means that I cannot sleep knowing that you're failing yourself. If I raised you right, you'll always do what is true to you, no matter what. If I raised you wrong, you will go through life wondering what I would do, were I you. Well, I'm not you and can never be. So, if you are faced with a decision you're absolutely dreading, always look at yourself and choose what's true to you.'"
At the end, Kov could see an emotion in Isaac's eyes which he didn't allow to reach the rest of his expression.
"You're both facing an unprecedented scenario, right now. Honestly, it's horrifying and I hate that I'm stuck here, looking over merit and tax reports, while you're both there. If you choose to abandon the planet, and return here, I won't stop you. If you choose to stay there and try and fix what you can, however you can, I won't stop you either. Maybe you'll figure something else out. Maybe you won't. I don't know. Whatever you choose, I'll support both of you, but I cannot choose for you. Ultimately, when faced with a situation like that, my opinion is irrelevant. You just have to choose what is true to you."
He paused to let his words sink in.
"So," he asked again. "What are you going to do? Are you going to choose what's true to you, or are you going to choose something else?"
Kov looked to Esau, who had his head in his hands. Kov knew that he had already decided. Like Kov, Esau wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to fix things. He wanted to fix this planet, the same way they had fixed so much on Naufrag Primus. Was it not the right thing to do to stay and fight against the virus? Was it not the correct thing to fight for the hearts of his men and the future of the mutants?
Like Isaac, they both had hope, and the will to achieve it.
"Esau." Kov said. Esau's head snapped towards him.
Kov nodded. Esau stared at him, before nodding back. They said no words, because amongst brothers, that was enough.
Their course was decided.
Silver Mind:
799. M30.
The Immortal Sun Empire was at war.
The Silver Mind erased that description from its databases and rewrote it. It was not entirely accurate. War implied intense short or long term conflict between two parties. There was an ongoing conflict between the Immortal Sun and the Drukhari, this much was true but it was not intense, and would likely stop after the Immortal Sun's next move.
The reason for this was simple. The Drukhari would stop fighting because they would need more resources than they had access to, to successfully overcome the obstacle the empire would put in their way as they would be forced into a stalemate. The Immortal Sun would stop fighting because their objective would have been achieved.
This did not mean that the action would be easy to accomplish. In fact only the opposite was true. They had the technological skill and might to achieve their objective, they just needed the fortune to successfully deceive the Drukhari. It was a prospect that was looking unlikely based on the information that the Silver Mind could gather.
The contingent of Drukhari on the opposite side of the Webway was not representative of their species as a whole, as it seemed that the Aeldari race had been splintered by Old Night to a level that surpassed even the splintering of humanity throughout the galaxy. A fitting fate, given that the warp storms throughout the galaxy were the direct result of Aeldari actions.
No, the Drukhari on the other side of the Webway portal were a splinter group of a splinter group, barely a million strong, and led by a single leader known as a Haemonculous. And he wasn't even present. From what could be gathered from the memories of fallen soldiers, the Haemonculous didn't consider this Webway Portal to have any worth to him and his plans to take over Commorragh - the city the Drukhari called their home. It, in itself, was undergoing a tumultuous civil war currently. This kept many potentially interested eyes away from a lone Webway Portal in the middle of nowhere.
Instead, the Haemonculous garrisoned a significant portion of his subordinates on the other side of the Webway and left them to their fate, having become bored of them. This was both fortuitous and unfortunate.
The force they were facing was not as well equipped as it should be, by Drukhari standards. This was fortunate for the Immortal Sun, but it also meant that they would be desperate, which was unfortunate. Desperation made people perform actions that they would otherwise baulk at, like say, destroying a section of the Webway before leaving. This simply wouldn't do.
So, a carefully manufactured stalemate had to be created and enforced. Even after a week of battle after Isaac had opened a portal into the Webway, the Immortal Sun had still 'failed' to successfully get a ship past the Drukhari. The Drukhari similarly failed to successfully attack the Immortal Sun empire as well.
This was due to the preparations put in place before the Webway Portal was opened.
The world the portal had been built on had first been terraformed. Originally, the planet was barren and incapable of sustaining life. It had been transformed into a veritable paradise through the use of terraforming technology derived from the Night Virus, the colloquial name for the virus that once plagued Naufrag Noctis's people. The day the virus was discovered was still a memory that burned at the Silver Mind, so the use of that technology to make the lives of the citizens Immortal Sun better was an unexpected boon that was the salve the Silver Mind needed.
Secondly, the world was then transformed into a veritable fortress. Mazes that were kilometres high and travelled in all three dimensions were constructed on upwards of eighty percent of the world's surface. Gravity, plasma and splinter mines were produced that filled hundreds of nooks and crannies on the planet and were supported by turrets that spewed bullet fire at rates that would result in evisceration before the target could blink. Night Shield disruption fields were constructed to keep the Drukhari from engaging in stealth tactics. In addition, the mazes were filled with all manner of horrors, including hundreds of Silver Mind's metallic constructs and the new Ur-Orks Isaac was producing.
The Ur-Orks were perhaps Isaac's magnum opus. Each was immense, even for an Ork, and were each possessed of pseudo-personalities constructed by Isaac to take advantage of their other abilities. In truth, these were less personalities than primitive organic intelligences controlled by machinery directly designed and programmed by Isaac, Esau and Kov, before being fortified by Kha in a ritual that placed a failsafe in each and every Ur-Ork which would kill them if they tried to act in a manner that fell outside of programmed directives.
A secondary failsafe existed in the form of the Silver Mind who could kill them at any time. The third failsafe existed in the form of Kha and her Soul-AMP. Her unique ability to directly touch souls with her Soul-AMP made it so that she could control the Ur-Orks just as Isaac did any normal Ork that fell under his regular purview. This meant that she could also kill them whenever she wished.
Unlike normal Orks, the Ur-Orks did not self propagate and were heavily modified to prevent sporulation. This limited their population to less than a thousand at time, but each was equal to any Warboss. They were also more valuable, as each Ur-Ork served to extend the range of Isaac's primary soul-stealing ability.
With the preparations complete, the Webway Project began.
The reasoning behind a Webway Portal being opened in the middle of the Naufrag system was simple. The Silver Mind, Kov, Isaac, Esau and Kha all wanted to travel to other systems. The councils of both Naufrag Primus and Naufrag Noctis agreed. The Silver Mind, Isaac, Kov and Esau wanted to travel to Earth, while Kha wanted to travel to her home planet. The problem was, the Silver Mind could not properly calculate a warp-jump that would get them to Earth.
The time dilation effect of the warp storms always meant that its drones travelled the warp for time spans unreasonable for warp travel. As far as the Silver Mind could tell, this was a circumstance unique to the Naufrag systems, though Isaac had assured it that time dilation was a common consequence of warp travel in general. It just so happened to be pronounced in the Naufrag system. In addition, warp storms were so ubiquitous as to keep Mass Effect based faster than light travel outside of the system untenable. Gravity slingshots were untenable for the same reason.
They possessed a fleet capable of faster than light in real space, but that didn't matter if real space was too dangerous to transverse. So, the Webway was the only viable solution besides waiting for the warp storms to calm down.
This was unlikely to occur any time. Warp storms were notoriously unpredictable, but were predictably only ever convenient when the end result is inconvenient for the traveller. It was as if the storms themselves were sentient. By Isaac's reckoning, they probably were.
The Webway was a dimension not unlike the Warp in which much of the Aeldari reside making it dangerous. Various points of the Webway are connected to various places in real space. The distances are not one-to-one which makes it a completely viable form of faster than light travel and infinitely safer than Warp travel.
The process for opening a Webway portal was simple. Isaac had enough knowledge of Drukhari technology to repair and reverse engineer a Webway Portal Generator. Despite its name, the machine did not generate Webway portals. Instead, it opened up hidden portals, much like how a key did a locked door.
When all parties were prepared, Isaac simply turned on a large fin shaped machine without much fanfare. The resulting Webway Portal resulted in the Forge rewarding Isaac -
Action: Create a Portal into the Webway.
Reward: Fuinjutsu Prodigy (Naruto)
= with the nebulous ability to write formulae that would allow him to store things in paper, wood and other similar implements. It also led to the fortress world being attacked within the hour. Fortunately, their preparations had been more than enough.
Initially, the Silver Mind thought the ability was lacklustre as it had Isaac's alloy ability. Like he had with his alloy ability, Isaac demonstrated otherwise. While Isaac could only initially store physical items, a week of continuous work on the ability allowed him to store parts of objects and teleport anything that was once stored in a formula, to the formula itself as long as life essence was injected into it. He had said the ability was known as 'Reverse Summoning'. The potential of reverse summoning was immense, and so formed the impetus for the plan they were about to enact.
Isaac had explained that the ability was so named for a show he used to watch on television as a teenager, because as far as Isaac could tell, it was the ability from the show he used to watch on television. Unlike Kov, Esau or Kha, the Silver Mind did not speculate on how this was possible.
It did not speculate on whether the Warp had made this possible or if the accursed C'tan shard was responsible. There was no point to the speculation, and there were too few points of data to draw from besides. The Forge could have been the result of anything. A Human experiment gone awry. A Necron or Aeldari or Ork experiment gone wrong. Any of them were possible, but ultimately it didn't matter.
The Forge was a source of resources that was seemingly benign, choosing to reward Isaac for difficult achievements. Compared to records of the horrors of Old Night, that was more than enough.
"Is everybody ready to rumble?" Isaac asked, as he sliced a servant of the Drukhari in two with his spear with a simple flick of the wrist from his place less than a hundred metres from the portal.. Based on the memories of dead Drukhari, the creature was known as a 'Wrack'. Like most of the creatures the Drukhari had created, it had gone after Isaac specifically as it seemed that they realised that his ferocity in battle was problematic.
Unfortunately for them, his intelligence was much more problematic.
Despite being willing to cause it in exceedingly painful ways, the Drukhari were immensely afraid of death. This meant most of their forces had been composed of slaves and serfs forced into their service, after the first day of combat had made it clear that the Immortal Sun was not to be trifled with.
"I am." The Silver Mind answered simply. Isaac had a penchant for becoming overly familiar with anything sentient, a great flaw of his. Still, he had earned the Silver Mind's loyalty, and that was enough to keep the Silver Mind from bringing it up in every conversation it had with him.
He was a decent man besides, if lacking in regular common sense. After all, for a man who at times seemed to be an anathema to rational thinking, Isaac had pulled a move no one had expected. He used the tragedy of the Night Virus to plant the seeds for a meritocracy.
When Esau informed the inhabitants of Naufrag Noctis of the Night Virus and its effects, word got to Naufrag Primus almost immediately as members of the First and Second Cohorts contacted and informed their fellow tribesmen. This created a stir that briefly seemed to be the seeds for potential rebellion by some of the more…forward thinking members of the City of Potio. Afterall, all eyes were on the expedition and any failure would reflect on the royal family.
That very night, Isaac walked into the city and gave an impassioned speech on the effects of the selfishness of the ancestors of both the natives of Naufrag Primus and Naufrag Noctis on their lives today. He talked at length about how selfishness and closemindedness was the road to ruin. He spoke about how the natives Naufrag Noctis were like them, victims of the actions of the unjust.
He promised that the Immortal Sun would avoid the pitfalls of the empires before it. To ensure this, Isaac instituted a series of systems which would reward individual actions based on how much they benefitted society.
Individuals were encouraged to be empathetic and selfless, as that would result in rewards such as less interest on loans, access to advanced classes currently locked until some academic thresholds had been reached and access to customised housing to name a few incentives. This of course, he explained, would be weighed and regulated by a rotating roster of the citizens of Potio, tribesman and non-tribesman alike.
He explained that to keep this system fair, merits would be weighed based on their difficulty to achieve for an individual. A person who was augmented would get less merit points than an individual who was not for the same action. This, of course, meant that the royal family would get less merit points on average then a regular citizen for the same deeds performed. It was afterall, only fair.
It was a political masterstroke. So impassioned was the speech, by the next day Isaac had thousands of volunteers willing to travel to Naufrag Noctis, when there were only a scant few hundred had been willing to travel to the planet before. It was beautiful, and utterly too insane for anyone else to consider.
"I am." Esau replied from his position a dozen metres away from his father. He danced around the battlefield, carving swathes of the enemy apart in manners that caused instant death. Despite initial impressions, the Silver Mind found that it enjoyed the company of the boy. Unlike Isaac, Esau had not chosen to abandoned the human form. He was simply a mutant because he was made that way.
In some ways he reminded it of itself. Like it, he was a being created for a defined purpose he didn't understand. And like it, he struggled with a question that ate at his very existence. Was he performing actions because he chose to, or did he perfom actions because he was made to?
"Ready." This time it was Kov, who was controlling a fleet of gunships strafiing the battlefield from a command chair, on an orbiting asteroid. If the Silver Mind had a favourite member of the Royal Family, it was without a doubt him. The boy had given it purpose, and for that he had earned its eternal loyalty.
"I am ready." Kha replied. In a complete reversal of her usual role, she was where the fight was thickest, between Isaac and Esau. Like Isaac and Esau, she was dancing through creatures that would eviserate a normal human with contemptuous ease. Despite being surrounded by a squadron of the King's Shield who had been augmeted to a frightening standard, she was vastly outperforming them.
The result of her intense compatibility with her Soul-AMP vastly amplifying her abilty to 'see' with her wytch-sight. Where Isaac and Esau would ignore damage dealt to them, Kha made it so that she was untouched. Where they moved, she glided. Where they jumped, she flew.
The Silver Mind did not like her much. It was an irrational thing. She was exceedingly polite, intelligent and frequently worked hard to keep the Immortal Sun Empire intact passed even Isaac's efforts. The Silver Mind couldn't help it. Psykers such as her had accelerated the downfall of the Federation, after all.
"Alright." Isaac announced. "Let's get this over with."
Immediately, the demeanour of the troops of the Immortal Sun changed. The Extremis Troops started to push forward with a reckless abandon even Orks would blush at, ignoring injuries that would kill regular troops, while regular troops took full advantage. They began shooting through extremis troops, whenever appropriate for maximum advantage with a ruthless efficiency.
The demeanour of the Kings Shield was similarly changed. They abandoned melee weapons and began using build guns modified to slowly tear organic targets apart moleule by molecule. They were inefficient, and mainly only useful as a scare tactic. With their augmentations, and training, the King's Shield did not miss. Wherever they shot, something died, painfully.
If the Royals on the field were deadly before, now they were downright apocalyptic. Isaac freely abused his biotic implants to give his body the weight of a small cruiser and smashed through Talos and Chronos Engines that supposedly had given him trouble just moments before. Esau turned into a blur as he chose to lighten himself to near nothing as he leveraged his sword skills, learned from masters of the Noctis tradition to kill creatures as before they could even register his presence. Kha abandoned her dance and simply activated her armours' voltic weapons and rained lightning down on the enemy from her hands.
This went on for an hour, before Isaac signalled for everyone to pull back slowly. As soon as they were out of range, Kov initiated a carpet bombing of the thousands of enemy troops still out on the battlefield. Many had run back into the portal, uncaring of the consequences of their failure. Good.
Next, the Silver Mind initiated its part of the plan. A swarm of Eccentric drones were sent to follow and harass the runners. None of the drones would stay intact past a meter into the Webway, annhialated by pinpoint laser and splinter rifle fire. Fortunately, they didn't need to as the paper bombs hidden in a quarter of the drones exploded.
Another boon from the latest Forge ability, in exhange for miniscule amounts of life essence. Paper bombs were bombs with a payload equal to that of dynamite that could be made in minutes and carried in almost anything with a flat surface
The bombs did precisely nothing to the Drukhari, who had positioned themselves in shielded spires of dark crystal kilometres away from the other side of the portal. All it had to do was block their vision and scare the more cowardly members of the outpost.
The momentary distraction allowed for a squadron of fifty Ur-Orks to be sent through without harassment. These were able to make it a hundred metres into the Webway before they were annhialated by sustained laser fire. The Drukhari had enough experience with the Orks to avoid the use of splinter rifle fire and even the mighty Ur-Orks died without fanfare.
Then the paper bombs hidden underneath their armour exploded. Here, the cycle repeated two more times. There were more destructive weapon options available to the Immortal Sun, but the point of this little skirmish was not to win, but to force the Drukhari to respond and force them away from their end of the portal.
The cycle began once more. Drones, then explosions, then Ur-Orks, then explosions in an undending cycle before the Drukhari responded.
Two ships flew from the outpost of black crystal in the Webway at speeds multiple times the speed of sound. The first exited the Webway and disassembled and rearranged itself at speeds almost impossible to react to. The second landed in the midst of the Immortal Sun's front lines.
The first ship detonated, letting off a sound that was something like a scream. The sound reverberated and in moments, the Webway Portal closed. The Drukhari had destroyed a permanent Webway Portal, rather than allow the Immortal Sun even a miniscule chance of owning it.
Immediately after the first ship detonated, the second ship began to rearrange itself. This one was disabled immediately. Just after it started to transform, Isaac put one of his hands on it, and it disapeared.
The battlefield was silent as the soldiers and the King's Shield awaited the results of their theatrics. In the silence, the Silver Mind messaged Isaac privately.
"Was that what I think it is?"
"It was." He confirmed. The Drukhari had a working black-hole generator, and yet chose to let millions of serfs forces run to their death without so much as arial support.
"How about you?" He asked, as he walked away from where the portal used to be. "Were you able to make it through?"
"I was." It confirmed.
"So?"
"I don't know. We hadn't planned for the Drukhari destroying their own portals."
"True." He conceded. "I guess we'll have to rely on your programming doing its work."
He froze.
Action: Successfully Infiltrate the Webway
Reward: Robert the Builder (Invincible)
Isaac Zulu, Emperor of the Immortal Sun Empire lifted his arms in victory. Infiltration was successful. The forces assembled on what would be known as the theatre of battle exploded in cheer. Through their actios today, the empire would join with their brothers and sisters across the stars, perhaps even in their lifetime.
In the Webway, amoung hundreds of dead bodies, a dozen drones scurried along on spider legs in a dozen different directions. Their cargo? A single build gun in every drone, each with a hundred reverse summoning scrolls. Absent of an overarching intelligence, they followed their programming driving them to do two things. The first was to keep away from sight, and the second was to find other Webway portals.
Horus Lupercal:
820. M30.
The journey through the immaterium was long, but uneventful. The Bucephelus and its crew were without equal throughout the known galaxy, so the trip was without danger. It was a rarity by Imperial standards. Even in this age of enlightenment, ships frequently got lost on the tides of the warp, their crews preyed upon by the foul xenos which resided there. Even in this age of enlightenment, few crews were of the standard that the Emperor of Mankind set.
And what a standard it was! Horus watched from the bridge, as Mechanicum tech priests danced upon the controls of the ship following the Emperor's exact commands, their cybernetics connected to each other in silent communion.. Frequently, he watched the tech priests perform actions, which did not quite make sense in isolation, before a later action made it clear that everything was working above even his lofty expectations.
During the course of the trip, Horus frequently found himself questioning Mechanicum adepts and members of the Navigator Houses of Terra for their estimated time of arrival. They had all told him the same answer. Barring any sudden danger, the trip would take a week.
Truthfully, a week of travel to make it into the Segmentum Obscurus was a short amount of time, even by the standards of the Bucephelus. Considering the fact that the Segmentum Obscurus was plagued with more warp storms than any other place in the galaxy, a week was nothing short of miraculous. By the standards of the rest of the Imperium, even a year of travel would be generous.
While Horus could admit that a part of him wished that the trip were longer so he could spend more time with his Father, a bigger part felt that a week was too long. Horus did not begrudge having the time to speak to Russ, and share stories with him and his sons. He appreciated the time they shared discussing strategy and comparing ideologies.
Underneath all his bluster, Leman Russ could get unexpectedly philosophical. When he was deep in his cups, and when they were alone, the Wolf King could argue rhetoric almost as well as Horus himself did. This was no mean feat, Horus had been known to argue entire empires into compliance. When they saw reason, that is. When they didn't, Horus would fight with a ferocity that proved that his Legion had not been named 'Wolves' for nothing.
So far, Leman had yet to win a debate against him. Sometime, Horus wondered if that was because Leman simply didn't care enough to argue, past a certain point.
No, he didn't begrudge spending an almost uninterrupted week with Leman. He didn't even begrudge the lack of time he could spend with the Emperor. The Emperor was often busy, even when he was the only Primarch found, so spending time away from the Emperor was nothing new.
What he did begrudge, was the tangled knot of emotions he was feeling. He was equal parts excited and concerned. He was excited because the discovery of another one of his brothers was monumental. With his brothers' recovery, the Great Crusade could accelerate to new heights as it did when Russ was brought into the fold.
Yet, he was also concerned. A new brother represented a new culture absorbed into the Imperium. A new brother represented new connections that would need fostering, and new roads to travel. None of this was without danger, and none were as dangerous as a Primarch could be.
He was concerned about what this new brother could represent, but he was also concerned for his brother. His father had alluded to the chance that his brother was in danger, which was something Horus could not stand for.
A week was too long. Fortunately, it was soon going to come to an end.
Horus turned to the large window looking out of the bridge, framed by ornate golden filigree. Their journey was soon about to come to an end.
At once, he felt the tides of the warp change to signal their arrival.
"Now, my sons." The Emperor announced, as the Bucephelus escaped the Warps' clutches. "We have arrived."
The scenery shifted from the impossible colours that characterised the Immaterium into real space so quickly it almost beggard belief. One moment, they were in the Warp, and the next they were just outside a field of meteorites barring further entrance travel into the system.
Horus frowned. This was strange.
Calculations for jumps through the Immateriium were precise things that utilised precise psychic prediction procedures and mathematical equations that were meant to arrive in the safest point for arrival in any unexplored system. Mandeville Points, the safest area in any system to enter and exit the Warp were thus usually free from space debris such as meteorites and comets.
The Mandeville Point they were in was surrounded by space debris, which was impossible for any ship the Emperor was on. His Warp Navigation skill was so great that the Navigator Houses of Terra named Him the Great Cartomancer. He had never steered them wrong, so the chances of landing in a Mandeville Point this dangerous to navigate was minute.
Unless He had calculated that this place was the safest point in the system to arrive. The story this told of the rest of this system was bleak. Horus turned to his father and found his worries confirmed by the slight frown on the Emperor's face.
"This is interesting." He noted, the starbursts that were His eyes staying on the window.
"What is?" Leman asked. Like Horus, Leman was in full fighting regalia. Neither of them were willing to take chances in a system that supposedly held threats to equal the Primarchs.
"The tides of the Warp are exceptionally strange in this system. The system is covered in Warp Storms that are both too unstable to navigate for most, yet so calm that they haven't touched any of the planets or planetoids in the system."
"What does that mean?" Horus asked.
"For us, nothing. The Bucephelus can handle fluctuations in the Warp." The Emperor answered, his attention now on Horus. "For the Vengeful Spirit, and the Hrafnkel?"
The Emperor turned, and motioned for Leman and Horus to follow him into the depths of the ship. They followed.
"The Warp storms in this system create fluctuations in time. This is not a situation unique to this section of the galaxy, of course. What is strange is the effect covering the entire solar system." He explained as He walked, and two members of his Custodian Guard followed. Horus recognised one to be the Captain-General of the Guard, Constantin Valdor. The Emperor briefly turned to Horus as He walked. "If we had chosen any path besides the one we had chosen, we would have arrived after a year of real-time travel. As for both of your personal flagships my sons, this means that they will not be arriving behind us for a day at least."
Briefly, Horus was worried about the Luna Wolves, before he abandoned the thought. If they were in any danger, the Emperor would have informed him. Right now, they had to focus on navigating this system and finding his brother.
Their transportation was ready just as they arrived. There, in the docking bay, surrounded by waves of adepts performing their final checks on the ship, lay a credo class corvette, a ship almost a kilometre long.
Here, Horus had to admit some confusion. For exploration into new areas, the Emperor favoured using ships of the calibre of the Bucephelus, but here he chose to use a simple corvette. Why? Meteors, or no, the Bucephelus was equipped with void shields capable of absorbing damage that would destroy some moons. Then why the need to use a mere corvette, especially as they sat at the edge of the system.
As if in answer to Horus' question, a Mechanicum adept carrying a data slate came to the Emperor and bowed before Him. The Emperor took the offered data slate without comment and gave a single glance at what was on the screen, before passing off the data slate to Horus. Horus took the slate in hand and saw why the Emperor chose to move to a smaller vessel.
"Gravity mines." Horus transferred the data slate to Leman, who took a single glance at it before giving it to the Mechanicum adept. The gravity mines were hidden in the field of debris, and were discovered by scout crews the moment the Bucephelus transferred into the system. They were placed several fractions of a light year apart, but from experience fighting long wars against xenos with gravitic technology, that didn't matter much.
The Bucephelus was still more than durable enough to keep from being torn apart by most gravity mines, but would be slowed down significantly. The Emperor had chosen a corvette because it was nimble enough to navigate the spaces between the gravity mines and fast enough to outrun any pursuers if the need arose, barring some circumstances. With a crew consisting of two Primarchs, a cohort of the Custodian Guard and a legion of Mechanicum tech adepts, Horus doubted that the need would ever arise.
One day, Horus would be capable of running a ship as efficiently as the Emperor was. He was already close, his ship being the most efficiently run ship short that of the Emperor's, but moments like these reminded Horus of how brilliant the Emperor was.
They entered the corvette without much fanfare, the speed at which they travelled having eclipsed the speed of any diplomat attempting to follow. Few diplomats, in Horus' experience, were as adaptable as he was. Many would have insisted upon ceremony and pomp, but none present save the Emperor and Horus were known for their diplomatic acumen, so no pomp was insisted upon. Horus could tell that even underneath their cybernetics, some tech adepts were disappointed. They must be new and unused to the Emperors' ways, Horus decided.
They made their way into the ship, a decidedly spacious affair for a corvette, and in minutes they were off into unexplored space.
The mundanity of their view from the corvette belied the skill of their pilots. Despite there being a dearth of the gravity mines and other space debris besides, none touched them. The ship simply kept flying forwards towards the nearest planetary bodies spotted by their auger arrays.
Horus looked over to Leman, who was taking a moment to adjust his armour before looking at the Emperor, who was serenely looking out into space, his hands behind his back. It was clear that Leman, like Horus, was feeling the bubbling mix of excitement and concern. While Horus had been on hundreds of similar trips in space with the Emperor, this was Leman's first one.
Horus considered giving him advice, but decided against it. The Wolf King would take no advice. He would see the advice as condescension and his hackles would be raised. Instead, Horus waited for Leman to notice his attention, and gave him a nod. Leman smiled in response, showing sharpened canines.
Satisfied, Horus turned away from Leman and saw the Emperor looking at him, a smile playing at His lips. He had approved. Horus's spirit soared to new heights before being brought low by a klaxon ringing out through the ship.
Had they been hit by a gravity mine? Horus felt vibrations through the ship.
"We've been hit with a tractor beam." He realised. That was infuriating. Tractor beams completely negated the speed at which the ship could travel.
Horus was no stranger to tractor beam technology. Regardless of the mechanism, it was a technology ubiquitous to many civilisations throughout the galaxy, including that of the Imperium itself.
"We have." The Emperor agreed, as he removed his sword - a masterpiece of science and warpcraft beyond any other weapon Horus had encountered - from its sheath. He left it unignited for the time being. "Prepare yourselves. We may have to engage in combat."
None who heard the instruction disobeyed it. Horus and Leman drew their weapons, and the Custodian Guard, in their exquisite golden armour, encircled the Emperor. With their weapons drawn, they waited.
Horus could see the ship being drawn toward a large ovoid structure, the size of a small moon, made of glistening gunmetal-grey metal. Horus blinked. A moment ago, that portion of space was empty. Stealth technology, then? If so, it must have been some of the best stealth technology in the galaxy, to fool even a Primarch's senses.
Horus felt his choler rise. The Emperor had not engaged in hyperbole. This system was dangerous. He tightened his grip on his power sword. Whatever was in the ship would find that he was no easy prey.
Soon, their ship was swallowed by the darkness of the shadow of the structure, and the ship was deposited in a darkened docking bay. As soon as the ship entered, Horus felt the tractor beam lose its hold on the ship, and felt the pilots land.
The bay lit up, just as the ship landed. It was as dull as the outside, being primarily composed of grey with the occasional green, blue or red accent.
The Emperor and His Legio Custodes led the way out of the ship into the bay, as was His way. The Primarchs followed. The Emperor looked around the bay, and sheathed his sword.
"Allfather?" Leman asked, echoing Horus' own thoughts.
"It seems, my sons." The Emperor said. "Your brother is as eager to meet us as we are to meet him."
"Truly?"
The Emperor smiled and nodded.
"He is on this very ship."
Horus' choler was forgotten and replaced by the knot of excitement forming in his stomach. His brother was on this craft? Truly, they couldn't have hoped for better luck. Soon he was to meet a new brother, with all that entailed.
"Which of us is he?" Leman Russ asked, as he sheathed his weapon.
"It seems we are to meet the Primarch of the II legion."
The second. Horus had been on missions with the II legion. They were dutiful and hardworking, if dull and vainglorious. If the legions personality was an accurate reflection of their Primarch's personality, the Second would be…interesting to meet.
Suddenly, the sound of static momentarily filled the room, before it was replaced with a voice. It was clear and easy to hear. Horus noted that it sounded slightly melodic, like it belonged to a singer or actor.
"Welcome to the Empire of the Immortal Sun. We apologise for the sudden capture action. This galaxy is a dangerous place, and we felt that precautions had to be taken before you got close to any of our planets. We hope you understand."
A section of the leftmost wall opened up, revealing a well lit corridor. Horus heard a set of heavy footsteps make their way down the corridor.
"If you would like to engage in negotiation, please follow the guides that are making your way to you now."
"If we would not engage in negotiation?" The Emperor asked, as their guides reached the bay. There stood three men in glistening grey armour.
They seemed to be a warped version of the Emperors' Custodes. Their armour was less intricate to look at, but obviously belied advanced systems hidden just below the surface. They stood at a height equal to the custodes, had a shield at their back and a spear in their hands, as the custodes did. Their armour was decorated with red, blue and white accents surrounding two starburst on one shoulder, and a shield with a starburst printed on it on the other shoulder. Their helmets were off.
These men were followed by four creatures, each towering over even the Emperor and each covered in an intricate powered armour that in some areas seemed haphazardly built. The aesthetic of the armour and the proportions of these creatures immediately reminded Horus of the foul Orks.
"Then you would be free to leave this system."
"Or?" The Emperor challenged.
"Or, you will face destruction." The voice answered.
The would-be escorts stopped ten metres in front of them. Their leader froze upon seeing the Emperor, and Horus could see his hands shake, even as the armour worked to stabilise him. His compatriots were no better, but the creatures behind them did not react. Horus smiled. He had seen countless mortals meet the Emperor, yet each time was as equally amusing to watch as the last.
Horus gave the mortal credit though, as he pulled himself together.
"I am called Nimis, and I lead the King's Shield." He announced. "My Lords have tasked me to show you to them if you so please."
The Emperor ignored them for the most part. Instead, He was looking at the creatures following them. Just when Nimis was about to announce his presence again, the Emperor replied.
"Please, lead on." He said simply. His tone was friendly, but had an undercurrent of something Horus recognised very well. It seemed there might be violence to be done before the day was over after all.
14.1. Perk(s) earned in this chapter:Domain: Skills: Enchanting - Fuinjutsu Prodigy (Naruto) (600CP): You are one of the very few who are talented in the art of Fuinjutsu, an esoteric discipline combining all the complexities of calligraphy and physics. Despite the difficulty in learning fuinjutsu, skilled practitioners find it well worth it. Fuinjutsu, or sealing, is at its most basic storing something within something else through symbols to be released at another time. More advanced techniques still follow this same principle, but to great effect. Seal masters can seal away the elements, chakra, form summoning contracts, teleport, or even summon and bind souls using these principles. It's only downside is that this art is massively difficult to learn even for the talented, and will take years of intense study to master. You start off knowing how to make the two most basic of seals: The storage seal which allows you to store items in slips of paper much smaller than they are, and the explosive seal which is basically a few glyphs on a piece of paper the size of a greeting card that explodes like a small amount of plastique.
Domain: Quality: Efficiency - Robert the Builder (Invincible) (200CP): You can seemingly build and organize anything with far less hassle and for greater results than most would experience. You are able to be the driving force behind projects large enough to affect entire countries or maybe even the world in its entirety. Somebody 'glassed' Las Vegas? Don't worry, you could lead a project to turn it into the world's largest and most efficient solar farm that can provide cheap electricity to Half of America. Some super villain messed with the tides the world over? You, with the help of some geniuses, would be able to successfully direct the building of a secondary artificial moon to set the tides to right. Truly, the sky itself isn't a limit.
A/N: As you can probably tell, I've been experimenting with a few things with the Silver Mind POV. The basic idea I was going for that the Silver Mind is a being who lives in the past, through memories as much as it does the present. I hope it came across well.
So yeah, The Immortal Sun and the Imperium of Man, full steam ahead.