Author's Note: There are currentlytwo advance chapters on P-atreon (remove the spaces and dash): p-atreon/ SkySage24
For anyone interested, here's also an invite code to my Discord: spRvk5tC
Footsteps softly padded across the grass, and golden eyes darted around the forest.
If that creature had the capacity for higher thought, it would have described the world around it as…unfamiliar. It had been bred in a lab, and cold glass and steel was all it had ever known from birth. Even when it had been sent out to hunt, it had never seen anything like this.
The towering trees, the grass beneath its feet, the very air…these were all unfamiliar sensations to the creature.
Yet, it also called to something within the beast, something ancient and primordial. Something that whispered that this was home.
But in the end, it was not enough to overcome the creature's programming. It had been built to hunt and kill for its masters, and that was what it would do.
Its spiked tail flicked around it, and a growl rose from the creature's throat as it smelt its prey. The smell was nothing like the creature had ever smelt before, soft and warm and sweet, but it knew that its masters wanted it to kill it.
The beast was a predator, engineered from birth to serve as the ultimate hunting hound, its DNA spliced together from the remnants of ancient Terra's most dangerous predators and enhanced with the most potent genecraft the mad men and women of the Selenar could devise. It had killed many people in service of its creators and was rewarded with the flesh of its prey.
Now, it had been released into the forests of Luna along with countless others of its kind to hunt the interloper, and the beast knew that it had to capture the prey first, before the others.
The interloper had scared the masters. They had turned desperate and afraid. Never before had the creature been given such freedom, with no handlers or collars around its neck.
Perhaps, after the prey, the masters would be next. The beast licked its lips at the thought.
As it moved, its muscles rippling below the gleaming metallic fur, the creature turned invisible, the camouflage field activating.
Nothing could detect it now. Nothing ever had.
It prowled through the forest, nearing the sound of running water (not that it recognized it as such), the scent becoming stronger and stronger with every step.
Finally, it saw its prey.
The prey was tall, and it looked human. It had a long, flowing red mane of fur and soft, delicious-looking skin hidden by a green robe.
But there was something wrong with the scent, the beast realized. Something unfamiliar.
Something alien.
How had it not detected it before?
The creature shifted uneasily for a moment, before readying itself. Prey was prey.
The prey was kneeling in the mud, drinking water from the river, oblivious to its impending doom.
Tensing, the beast prepared to pounce. It would tear the creature apart and then feast on its flesh. As alien as the scent was, there was also something tempting, and intoxicating about it.
But before the beast could pounce, the prey turned around.
And it looked right at him.
The beast knew it was invisible. Nothing could detect it.
But those inhumanely bright green orbs with slitted pupils were staring right at it, intent and merciless. Something was lurking behind those eyes, something the beast had never seen before.
The beast's instincts screamed. This was no prey. This was something else, something like it had never encountered.
Something dangerous.
Stepping back, and then turning away, the beast ran.
It didn't get far.
Claws that could tear worlds asunder dug into its back, straight into the chest. The enhanced muscles, the metallic fur, none of it was any sort of defence as its heart was torn out and it died instantly.
Isha withdrew her hand from the beast's chest, its still beating heart gripped in her clawed hands, now drenched with the animal's blood.
It was a chimera of some sort, an animal created from a Terran lion, but modified to be larger and more powerful, with metallic fur strengthening its defenses, and a tail armed with venomous spikes.
But it was just an animal, not a human taken and made into a slave against its will.
Therefore, Isha felt no compunctions in raising the creature's heart to her mouth and biting in.
Hmm. A bit too gamey for her tastes, Isha mused as the blood and flesh filled her mouth. It would taste better cooked. Roasted or fried, perhaps. Mixed with a few vegetables, maybe.
But it wasn't bad. Enjoyable enough, even if she had tasted far better.
Swallowing her meal, Isha walked away, leaving the corpse of the creature behind, its blood still dripping from her claws.
How long had it been since Isha had unleashed her power, her inner self, like this? Aeons, surely, she mused as she sat near the bank of the newborn river, leaning against a tree.
Even before she had come to Terra, she had been constrained by Asuryan's Edict, by the endless war against Chaos as the Three grew stronger and stronger, and her family weaker.
But here, on Luna, she was free, at last. No need to constrain herself to remain within 'acceptable boundaries', to conserve her power for the next assault. The skies were slowly turning a shimmering blue, and the air was rich, sweet, and clean in a way that not even Bai-heng's air was.
Terra's single natural satellite was like clay in her hands, and she molded it carefully, sculpting it, and reshaping it into a garden, using the Genesis Flower as a focus as its roots spread across Luna like veins.
There were some limits, naturally. The Emperor had instructed her to focus on the realms directly under Heliosa's control. He wished to intimidate the other Selenar Cults but not to harm them just yet. So Isha was taking the terraforming process slowly and carefully, rather than doing it as fast as she could have.
More importantly, she had to take care not to damage the subterranean hives where most of Luna's population lived, to avoid killing the countless innocents enslaved by the Selenar Cults.
Beyond that, it was not worth the potential risks to craft Luna exactly to her liking. Isha was creating strictly Terran flora and fauna, changing the atmosphere to suit the records of mankind's glory days that the Emperor had shown her.
She could have gone much, much further, made Luna truly her own, a living world teeming with beauty and danger the likes of which the galaxy had not seen since before the Sundering…but that would be selfish and cruel. This was not her world, it was mankind's.
Another time, perhaps. Iyanden's defences could be bolstered further, and with the contract that now bound her and the Emperor, he could no longer object to her improving the defences that shielded her children from the horrors of the cosmos.
And that aside, Isha could not deny the satisfaction that filled her at dealing with the Selenar Cults.
She was Isha, Farmer, Mother, and Healer. All of those were aspects true to her being.
But she was also Isha, Queen of the Wild Hunt, wife to the greatest hunter the galaxy had ever known. The satisfaction of tracking down prey, carefully entrapping it, and then killing it…it was a uniquely fulfilling feeling in its own right.
Not the best thing Isha had ever experienced, but enjoyable nevertheless.
(And it reminded her of Kurnous, of their time together. Of long gone times, when they had hunted monsters for both necessity and enjoyment and made love beneath the stars.)
And what a prey the Selenar made. Slavers and fiends, all of them, preying on innocents, twisting people into slaves and monsters. Though their crimes were far lesser in scale, and they were nowhere near as intelligent and capable, the usage of clone soldiers, the crafting of living creatures as weapons…it all reminded Isha of the Old Ones at their worst, of the depths they had sunk to survive the War in Heaven.
These Selenar were not worthy prey, they were not a challenge. But to bring them to justice was a worthy cause in itself, and the thrill of the hunt sang in Isha's veins.
The aspect of herself that she had long kept suppressed to avoid any conflict with the Emperor; the Huntress, the Daughter of War, was coming to the forefront once more, and it rejoiced to be unleashed upon scum such as these Selenar.
The only frustration was that she had to focus on a single cult, even if the most powerful one, leaving the others intact for now.
Isha wasn't sure if she'd be able to tamp down on this part of herself again anytime soon.
She wasn't even sure she wanted to.
Denying herself had been painful and difficult, and the opportunity to finally unleash her rage and spite upon deserving targets made her blood sing.
Isha stood, stretching languidly. This was not her only self on Luna. She had divided herself into six avatars, as many as she could, tending to various tasks. Dealing with the Selenar, freeing slaves, managing the reshaping of Luna through the Genesis Flower, making sure the subterranean infrastructure was not harmed, making it look as if it was all the work of some ancient bioweapon released by the Emperor…
And this avatar was to hunt the creatures the Selenar had unleashed across the Moon in a desperate attempt to do something, anything to stop her.
Those who were slaves, she freed.
Those who were monsters, she slew.
And those that were mere beasts…Isha smiled broadly, baring fangs still stained with the blood of the false lion's heart.
Well, it had been a long time since she had feasted.
Leaping into the forest, Isha began hunting for more prey.
Miles below the revitalized Lunar surface, another one of Isha's avatars stood in Heliosa's former throne room, cloaked in illusion as she watched the Emperor at work.
The Mechanicum's priest, a Magos if she recalled the title correctly, floated in mid-air, suspended by the Emperor's will.
The slaver was a hideous creature, who had sought to rid himself of his humanity by becoming a creature of iron, something like a poor copy of what the Necrontyr had become under the hand of the Yngir. It was not that Isha had never seen her own children experiment with such things, especially Vaul's followers, but this crude method of cutting out your flesh to replace it with metal, all because the flesh was supposedly weak…well, that was a different matter.
Isha wondered if that was the Dragon Shard's influence. Indeed a cult of madmen obsessed with technology, worshiping a machine god, could not have arisen on the same planet where the shard was imprisoned without being influenced by it to some degree.
Food for thought.
At the moment, however, Isha merely leaned against the moss-covered surface of what had once been Heliosa's throne, watching as the Emperor interrogated the slaver priest.
SPEAK
The Emperor's voice boomed around the room, resonating across multiple dimensions, making the Tech-Priest writhe in place, his…mechandrites, Isha believed they were called, flailing frantically as he tried to escape the psychic grip upon it.
+I am only here at the command of Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal, I meant no harm!+ It warbled in binary. It was not a data language Isha knew, but translating the intent through the Immaterium was not difficult.
You expect me to believe you? The Emperor scoffed. I know you ordered the first strike against the wishes of your masters.
Truth be told, Isha wasn't entirely sure what the point of this was. She knew the Emperor had already extracted all necessary information from the Tech-Priest's mind, and there was nothing further to learn.
There was no point in this 'interrogation' whatsoever.
But then, Isha supposed she could not criticize. There had been no need for her to toy with Heliosa as she had. She could have disposed of the woman in a heartbeat.
If the Emperor wanted to amuse himself by tormenting slaver filth, it was not Isha's place to complain.
+I have information!+ The slaver wailed. +I know many secrets of Mars! I can help! If you spare me, I will serve you!+
Convince me, then. The Emperor told him, loosening his grip ever so slightly. Tell me how I can benefit from your service.
As she watched, Isha could not help but wonder what he had in mind for the Mechanicum. With all the changes he had undergone recently, or at least claimed to have undergone…did that extend to the Mechanicum? Did he finally understand why she disdained them so much?
Or was this merely because they had defied him, had struck against him, and might possibly be corrupted by Chaos? Were the Mechanicum's own sins still not worthy of notice in his eyes?
Well. Isha supposed she would find out soon enough, as she watched the Tech-Priest blubber for mercy.