"They will fall and be assimilated, like every other human empire we've come across. It makes no difference!"
"You fool, we don't know anything about them – not the size of their fleets, their armies, and not even the location of their home planet. We do not know how they fight or if they desire to fight at all. Do you intend to sail out into the void and hope to stumble into them somehow? Are the nails addling your mind, Angron? Perhaps, you need to be put down, like the rabid animal that you are?"
"RAAAAGH!"
"Brother stop! There shall be no violence among us! Not in my ship. Stop!"
"I shall tolerate no insult from you of all people, Rus! You're nothing more than a dog!"
"And you are a beast!"
"Cease this violence immediately, brothers! We stand to gain nothing from this. Angron, peace be upon you. Calm."
"Bah! Fine! For Sanguinius' sake, I shall take my legion away from this mess! You deal with it as you see fit, Rus! And we shall see how better you fare against a foe you cannot even fight!"
"Brother-"
"No, let him leave; Angron has nothing constructive to add to this council. He lost one ship and a research vessel that was supposed to be under his protection. He's a failure of a Primarch."
"Let us speak no ill of our brother, Rus. Let us, instead, turn our attention to the present. Dorne, you've been silent, thus far, care to share your thoughts?"
"There is nothing to share. As Rus himself stated before, we know nothing about this enemy; we're not even certain if they're humans at all or just another race of humanoid aliens. In any case, I do believe that Angron and the World Eaters are the worst possible choice for this conflict. The Lion would be a better choice, but he is nowhere close to this sector. But, once again, it is impossible to discern anything about this matter. I recommend sending in probes and scouts first."
"Angron did that already and his attempt was not at all ill-advised. Whoever our enemy is, they were able to find each and every single probe and destroy them before they could even begin scanning anything. Those that were able to search for a time found nothing of note, before they were destroyed. Narrowing down their general location is impossible, unless we deploy billions of probes to deep space and hope they stumble into something of note."
"So, we have nothing. This new enemy has destroyed one Imperial Vessel and stolen one other. I doubt a research vessel holds any information of any real value, but anything they learn about the Imperium is a potential weapon to be turned against us. We cannot afford to leave them be – not after their attack."
"What if we-"
"Oh, that's interesting. It's the emergency distress beacon from the missing research vessel."
"Alright, I'll just go ahead and state the fact that this is obviously a trap."
"Of course, but it's also our only lead. We have no choice but to take the bait."
"We'll lay our own trap, of course, but there's no telling what the enemy has planned or what they're capable of; we must be prepared for every possible eventuality. My librarians, those with the ability to see into the future, find their visions clouded when I commanded them to look into this place."
"Unsurprising. But, let us focus on what we can do. The beacon rings from this system and I have no wish to underestimate any foe; I suggest we..."
"How long before we reach my home?" Thragg asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at the galactic map that'd spawned from the insides of the Reaper Leviathan, Nashara, who was now just as much a part of him as his own beating heart, but their individualities remained disconnected, separating their minds and memories, though accessing each other was as easy and as simple as blinking. Neither Thragg nor Nashara had any interest in joining their minds as one; they'd shared enough with each other, knew enough about each other. And they both hated how similar they were. And so Thragg and Nashara agreed to never join their minds, unless in the utmost need. And it worked better that way.
Connected they might've been, the co-equal gods were still distinct entities – Thragg and Nashara, Reaper and Viltrumite, gods all the same.
And so, Thragg asked the question, even if he could've simply known the answers by connecting with Nashara's mind.
"By your perception of time? A year, perhaps, maybe less." Nashara answered, appearing as a bluish, humanoid projection. The projection itself was unnecessary, but Nashara preferred it, apparently, once stating that all of existence was so much more interesting from a much smaller perspective.
"That will have to do." Thragg nodded and hovered away. Argall would definitely still be alive. His son was not under the spell of mortality as all other creatures were. But Syreen was another matter. Thragg sighed. He hoped that, at the very least, she'd still be alive when he got to her. How many years it must've been for them, without their father.
Too long.
Thagg wondered now if he had grandchildren. But, if Syreen was anything like her mother, then he probably should be expecting a whole new family tree by the time he got back home. Being acquainted with all his grandchildren would be fun. Nareena would've been overjoyed to do the same, though Thragg doubted she would've lived long enough to see any of her descendants.
He missed her as well. And, if there was an afterlife, Thragg wondered if she was the first person he'd meet there, the first to greet him. He'd die, sooner or later; such a thing was inevitable. Viltrumites aged in the thousands upon thousands of years, but they died eventually, usually through suicide after living for too long, but there were a few recorded instances of venerable ancients who simply died of old age – their bodies still strong, but their minds withered and gone.
Sighing, Thragg sat down and viewed one of Nashara's many memory shards, a means through which the Reaper recorded everything it knew. It was also his only means of alleviating his boredom.
There wasn't much to do when traveling across the void; so, Thragg spent his time learning. Nashara might've been horribly outdated with the current affairs of the galaxy, but that did not mean the Machine God was lacking in knowledge. It was, Thragg found, oddly amusing to learn of events so incredibly ancient that very few living creatures in the entire universe would've been old enough to even remember them. But Nashara remembered and probably so did its... strange cousins who called themselves the C'tan, though Nashara doubted that as they lacked physical forms at the time and would not have cared for the wars of the Reapers and the Old Ones.
That was, perhaps, one of the most interesting things about Nashara's existence. It didn't used to be a machine, as Thragg figured. No, the machine was simply a vessel for a higher existence. Though it no longer remembered, Nashara was once a being that fed on the light and heat of stars, an entity of pure energy, before the Leviathans captured and bound its essence onto a mechanical form, a Reaper, to act as the central intelligence and as a battery, stripping Nashara of everything it once was in a process that was far more advanced than whatever it was the C'tan taught the Ancient Necrontyr, something Nashara learned from listening to the faint whispers of the Old Ones and their minions, a war that spanned the breadth of the galaxy.
Thragg looked into the shard and learned and learned.
Neoth's eyes narrowed as he looked into the looms of fate and destiny. A great change had undone many of the threads, altering the fabric of what should be. One of his gene-forged sons was, unfortunately, always destined to become of the greatest enemies of mankind, destined to become the Arkifane, to mantle the name and destiny of Vashtor, the God of Craftsmen and Innovators, of unfettered and unbridled creativity – no rules, limits, codes, ethics, nothing. Vashtorr was destined to rule over the Forge of Souls, to build profane engines and weapons of great evil and malice, binding demons to metal constructs. But, as Neoth looked into the future, he saw... nothing.
Vashtorr was gone, his destiny undone, his future erased so utterly and so completely that the very idea of Vashtorr was rapidly fading from the Immaterium.
Something happened that broke the threads of fate, an arrival of something that should not have arrived or existed. The existence of Vashtorr was supposed to be an unbreakable thread, a fixed point in time; no matter what he did, one of his sons was going to become one of mankind's greatest and most powerful enemies. Why? Because he was on the path of the Rangdan and, no matter what he did or how he did it, the hostile xenos would've driven his son into a path of darkness, one that'd inevitably lead him into embracing the powers of the Immaterium – and there was nothing Neoth could've done to prevent that.
And yet, something did.
And now, entirely new branches of the future were there to see, revealing scenes that Neoth had never even conceived, of possibilities he'd long since abandoned.
It was hope.
Maybe, just maybe, there was finally a way for humanity to win without having to hide in the wretched ruins of forgotten gods.
"You have that look about you," The voice of his oldest and noblest friend echoed across the dark chamber. Neoth pulled himself away from the fabric of fate and destiny, sighing as he shook his head. He turned and saw Malcador walking towards him, his hood down. "Something's bothering you, Revelation, old friend."
"I'm fine, Malcador," Neoth said. "I'm simply... confused – pleasantly so."
"You speak of the Fate of the Arkifane, yes?" Malcador asked. "I've arrested and detained many cultists who spout the same words over and over again: the Fate of the Arkifane is broken, they said. Quite a fascinating thing. What did you see, my old friend?"
"I saw a future that I did not think was at all possible. I hadn't thought it possible for a very long time, now – not since the Iron Revolution, not since the massacre of the Golden Men." Neoth said. "But now... because of a... variable I hadn't known about, everything has been altered."
"It's true, then? The Fate of the Arkifane has been averted? Vashtorr has ceased entirely?"
"Embers of that creature's existence linger still, but I doubt they'd stick around for long." Neoth allowed himself a faint smile. "Even now, I feel its essence drifting away into nothing, into oblivion. In a few days, the very idea of Vashtorr will cease to exist. Its essence will be removed entirely from the fabric of fate and destiny. And humanity shall not have to suffer yet another foe."
Malcador's brow furrowed, his usually calm and inscrutable expression giving way to a rare look of astonishment. "A variable you hadn't known about? That's unlike you, Revelation. You always see further, deeper. What could possibly have disrupted the inevitable?"
Neoth walked slowly across the chamber, his heavy steps echoing in the vast, dark space. The dim light from the looming warp-lenses cast long shadows, their flickering reflections dancing on the cold stone walls. He paused, his gaze lost in the swirling colors of the Immaterium displayed before them. "I don't know, old friend. But something—someone—has unraveled the destiny of the Arkifane. It's as if an unforeseen force has intervened, one that doesn't belong in the weave of this reality. Perhaps an entity outside the reach of our understanding, or a mortal who defied the boundaries of fate itself."
"I would very much like to meet this mortal for myself, then." Malcador smiled.
AN: Chapter 45 is out on (Pat)reon!