A/N: Chap 54 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thank you to all who've read and reviewed!
Chapter Fifty-Five: Venio Cito Tene
"Where'd they go?" Sister Cera sounded shaken, worse even than when they first found her on Hagia.
Gaunt had no answer. He wasn't entirely sure even where he was, or when, for that matter. Corbec, Dorden, Rawne and other senior officers crowded within the chamber while the rest of the surviving regiment loitered in the odd, alien hall behind. This was not the first time the Tanith had been exposed to non-human structures. Nor, even, the first time they'd lost someone to an alien portal. But it was the first time he could remember where they legitimately had no idea where in space, or when in time, they happened to be.
They were so deep under the broken mountain that none of the battle of the surface was audible. He couldn't help but wonder how their strange allies were faring against the traitor marine forces.
His eyes drifted unconsciously to the dead body of Taylor Hebert, whom he'd known as Jada Washton. Sister Cera's bolter shell shattered the woman's head like an egg, but not even a second later, Hebert popped back into existence, staring over that very same body. He wondered if that's what happened back at Vervunhive, when she'd saved his life.
With she, the Beati and their winged sister gone, though, it felt as if the entire thing had been a dream.
Until the demigod in golden auramite armor stirred. "They are through."
"Will they return, Lord?"
Constantin Valdor, as much as Lion El Johnson, was a figure of religious awe and myth–the Emperor's companion, the first Custodes. In the scriptures, he was at the Emperor's side from before Unification right up until the end, when the Emperor sacrificed himself for humanity and assumed his place on the Golden Throne.
For this being to now speak to Ibram, and to see him, was an honor that humbled Gaunt immensely. The fact that this ancient, holy being called a woman 'mother' whom Gaunt had commanded left him confused and troubled.
"If they return, they will have failed, and humanity is doomed," Valdor said.
"Then, Lord, what shall you have us do?"
A rumble shook through the whole chamber. "Brace yourselves!"
The powerful shout of Constantin Valdor was the last thing Ibram Gaunt heard on the planet Molech.
He saw a wash of golden light that billowed like flame from the cracked obsidian wall, a golden fire that washed over him and all behind him. Within it, though, he found himself staring up at the golden skies of Manzipor.
He was laying on the sun-warmed deck of his childhood home on Mount Resyde, watching the light bugs bumble heavily through the atrium. Past the deck, he could hear the distant thunder of waterfalls plunging down the canyons of the Northern Rift. His old tutor was there, pointing with his prosthetic limbs at the various points in the sky. Benthlay was undoubtedly dead by now, Ibram thought, for he was ancient when Ibram was only a child.
And there was Oric, an old veteran of his father's unit and now the family cook. He looked but couldn't find Uncle Dercius, but then again…Dercius got his father killed. Why would he be in this memory?
"It's not a memory, Ibram," old Benthlay said with that never-ending patience. It was a patience, Ibram's adult mind realized, won through a lifetime of hardship, pain and loss. "It is your mind's way of coping with things not meant for mortals."
Confused, Gaunt tried to remember what the old tutor could possibly mean. Brace yourselves. "The golden fire?"
"You have been blessed, Ibram," the tutor said. "But like all blessings, it carries a heavy burden."
He stumbled from the fire, and then tripped and fell. A small shard of metal in the rubble he found himself in cut the meat of his left hand and elicited a curse. As he picked himself up, he felt as if he were trapped in soft amber. It took incredible effort to stand back up. To move his head. To even breathe. And yet, that same pressure squeezed at the cut on his hand, and before his amazed eyes the deep cut healed so thoroughly no sign of it remained save the blood.
As the odd density of the air eased, he happened to look up to see a streak of golden light piercing a heavy, low cloud of putrid yellow pollution. His mind felt sluggish, as if he were waking up for a fourth watch after only a few hours of sleep.
"Colm!" He forced the word out through a dry throat. He spun around, looking for his second officer. He found his friend and subordinate almost exactly where he would have been in the cave.
"I was home," the battered old officer said. "In my dad's workshop."
"I was hunting in the nalwoods," Hlaine Larkin called out nearby. The man was cradling his sniper las as if it were his most beloved child.
As the mental fog began slipping away, Ibram saw Sister Cera nearby on her knees, praying. He then saw what she was praying to, and had to stop himself from shouting more profanity.
Two massive trees with gently glowing golden boughs filled the center of what looked like a crater, as if they stood untouched at the epicenter of an orbital barrage or nuclear blast. All around he saw hills of debris rising up several hundred meters, and the silhouettes of burning hive spires barely visible over the mounds. Their physical location defied his understanding.
When he saw the four-meter-tall giant in green drakon artificer armor, he understood he was in the presence of assembled greatness not seen since the Emperor last walked among humanity. This giant figure's skin was a shade of night that made his red eyes gleam, darker even than the liturgical portraits made him seem. This had to be Vulkan, the gene-father of the Salamander's marine chapter.
He spoke quietly to the Lion, who had been on Molech with Gaunt but must have recovered his senses faster than the mortals who were transported by Telos' fire with him.
"Hello, Colonel."
Gaunt forced his eyes away from the demigod sons of the Emperor and focused on this newcomer. It was a young woman, only a few years older than Sister Cera, with short-cut blonde hair, green eyes and oval face, clad in power armor akin to that of a Sororitas. However, instead of the flor de lys of the sororitas, the center of her armor bore a winged figure in gold.
She followed his gaze and looked down at her own chestplate, tracing the figure. "Oh," she said absently. "That was the Inquisitorial skullform a few minutes ago. She didn't even do it consciously."
"Inquisition?"
"I am…was Interrogator Lyta Rothid, former acolyte of…Lord Inquisitor Brin Milo."
The name brought Ibram short. "What?"
"Colonel, it has been over two centuries since you entered the trees. This is Terra. Brin survived on Hagia, and was rescued by an Inquisitor who wished for the truth of Telos to remain safely hidden. He led a good life, married and had children and grandchildren and more. I believe you would have been proud of all he accomplished."
He glanced at the trees, and the two Primarchs. They were now speaking to Constantin Valdor, and another Custodes in black armor, while he and his mortal regiment seemed largely forgotten. "She made it, then?"
The former interrogator grinned; a joyful expression. "She did. And because of her love and respect for you and your men, she brought you with her. But understand, Colonel. Telos Reborn is…so far beyond human that if she were to speak her natural voice, it would kill us. I am her Pythia–her voice. Lord Vulkan will explain what is happening to the Lion, but for us mortals, I will help."
"Can you tell me…the Sabbat Crusade?"
"History tells us that the forces of Chaos abandoned their positions throughout the Sabbat Worlds to attack Hagia in strength. The threat of Telos reborn was so terrifying to the Great Enemy that all of their servants were driven to destroy the world. Which is where Warmaster Macaroth was able to catch the majority of their fleet in a devastating strike. The crusade was won, Colonel."
His eyes stung at the thought. At any other time, he would have been embarrassed by the show of emotional weakness. But this strange young woman did not make him feel embarrassed. "We've done almost nothing but flee since Sabbat woke," he said. "What use are we?"
"Colonel, I think you'll find yourself and your men of great value in the coming days. For now, though, I wish to warn you. The Lord Primarchs have called for transport. Most who come do so in honor of their request, but others are coming who fear what we represent. Remember what you spoke of with Taylor Hebert and Sabbat in the back of that Chimera."
The woman's statement was like a punch to his gut. "How can you possibly know that?"
"I am the Pythia of Telos Reborn," Rothid said. "My soul sings in resonance to hers. I saw you through Taylor's own eyes. Warn your regiment, colonel, and be prepared to defend yourselves."
She stepped away, tracing a precarious path through the wreckage which dominated the area around the glowing trees. Smoke still rose from various piles, which made him believe the damage just occurred. He signaled Corbec over.
"My head feels like it's been stuffed with bandages," the colonel said. "But my body's never felt better! Sir, do you know what's going on?"
"Gather all the platoon leaders, on the double," he said. "Hark, where are you?"
The intrepid Commissar made his unsteady way over. "Sir, do you know where we are?"
"We're on Holy Terra. Taylor and her sisters made it, and then brought us here. There may be danger; I need all the units in formation and combat ready."
"On…on Terra, sir?"
"Look around you, Commissar. We're not out of the nalwoods yet."
It was obvious that Hark had been doing that very thing, just trying to figure out where they were. But with Gaunt's first affirmative orders since arriving, he grasped onto the mission with desperate need.
"Yes, sir." He turned and bellowed in his field command voice, "Ghosts, form up by platoon! Weapons at the ready!"
The platoon leaders picked up the call, and bit by bit the remnants of the Tanith began to make their way through the debris to form up into units. The officer who had served in Constantin's forces, now vastly reduced after their battle on Molech, made his way to Gaunt. "What is the situation, Colonel?"
"Major Osteil, I've received intelligence that we may be facing armed resistance."
"From whom, sir?"
The answer came in the form of a fleet of Thunderhawk transports bearing the skull form insignia of the Holy Inquisition that dropped ominously below the pollution clouds as they flew toward the glowing trees.
"Ah, I see," Osteil said. "We have had dealings with their kind before. We shall follow your lead, Colonel."
"Thank you, Major. Have your men form up, weapons ready."
The soldiers of the Tanith First had no idea when or where they were, though he suspected his words to Corbec and Hark were making their way through the ranks. The Thunderhawks didn't even bother to land before they unleashed a massive volley of missiles, lascannons and autocannon fire.
The Lion roared in rage at being fired upon by supposedly loyal forces of the Imperium, only to realize the fire was not directed at him, or even at the Tanith.
The transports were firing at the two trees. Though their golden glow was vastly diminished since Telos's rebirth, the weaponry had no more impact on them than the demon army did. The missiles exploded with numbing concussions of force just meters from the branches, while the auto and lascannon fire ricocheted from the branches as if the trees were protected by a refraction field of some kind.
The dozen vehicles continued their descent, ceasing their fire when it became apparent they could not harm the trees. They came to a hover just over the debris and released hundreds of soldiers in white Ordos carapace armor, all of whom carried heavy repeater-las hellguns connected to powerpacks they carried on their backs.
They were not alone, though. Two of the thunderhawks released two teams of Adepta Sororitas in power armor, bearing flamers and bolter guns.
Gaunt considered the sheer madness of what he saw, and could not comprehend it. Two sons of the Emperor stood not fifty feet from him. They were surrounded by four Adeptus Custodes. And yet the militant wing of the Inquisition did not hesitate as they opened fire.
"Take cover and return fire!" Gaunt shouted. It was unnecessary–the Tanith were some of the most experienced and capable soldiers the Astra Militarum had ever produced. They were breaking into cover the moment it became clear the Inquisition was going to fire on them.
The Lion was shouting his name, and ordering the Inquisition to stand down. They ignored him, but also did not approach him, Vulkan or the Custodes. Their targets were the mortals–they wanted to kill the human witnesses of what had happened here.
If not for Rothid's forewarning, they may have succeeded, as well. But with due warning, the Tanith quickly found cover in the debris-ridden fields around the trees. The Inquisition came with heavy weapons that sprayed a rain of lasbolts through the air. The Tanith responded with precision single shots that hit their target more often than not.
The Inquisition attacked with two hundred soldiers and another twenty battle sisters. They attacked a force of over two thousand well-trained guardsmen, many of whom were accomplished snipers.
He saw that even Sister Cera was fighting back against her own sisters, standing side-by-side with the Tanith and the surviving members of Valdor's Thameizin 5th regiment.
Though the Lion was incensed, Vulkan stood watching, leaning on his hammer. Over the din of the brief battle, he could hear the Lion ask why his brother did nothing.
"Because there is no need. Telos chose these mortals for good reason."
The Storm Troopers of the Inquisition were the most highly trained soldiers of the Guard. Many were Progenium alumni like Gaunt himself. They were undoubtedly accustomed to attacking foes already cowed by the power of the Inquisition itself.
They were not prepared for the Tanith First and Only. Shot by shot, the stormtroopers went down. Gaunt winced at each of his own who fell, but as he also fired his laspistol at the Inquisitorial forces, he knew they would win this particular battle. It was not the first time he'd had to fight what should have been allies, but in this case he just wasn't sure why the battle was being fought in the first place.
Abruptly a missile snaked its way through the clouds and slammed into one of the Thunderhawks. Another fleet of transports, these of a make Gaunt was unfamiliar with, dropped below the cloudline and began firing on the landed vessels.
The attacking Inquisition forces turned and tried to retreat, only to find that the Tanith were not the forgiving sort. Snipers stepped up and began decimating the enemy even as the new ships continued to pound the transports. In a surprisingly short amount of time, all of the enemy Thunderhawks were destroyed.
The new ships gleamed dull gold under the pollution and dim light of the hidden sun. They bore the aquila of the Imperium as they swept around the trees. A side door opened, and a pair of golden giants dropped to the ground without aid of jump packs or gravitics. They landed with a flex of their armor-strengthened knees and wielded guardian spears larger than a man. The spears fired bolter shells that shattered stormtroopers like bloody glass.
The conditioning of the Inquisition was more powerful even than that of the Progenium. These soldiers would not surrender, not even against impossible odds. But even with fifty of them remaining and facing only two of the Emperor's companions, the conclusion was writ large.
One of the new vessels landed nearby, crushing the heaped debris under its massive weight.
"What the hell was that about, Colonel?" Colm's face was flushed almost crimson with anger.
With the immediate threat handled, Gaunt was able to think about all they'd been through. "For good or bad, Colm, we're part of Telos' movement now. That makes us an enemy to the establishment."
The old soldier blinked back. "We serve the Emperor!"
"But does the Imperium? Does the Inquisition really serve the Emperor? And which part of the Inquisition?"
Any further thoughts were thoroughly disrupted by a deep, smooth voice that spoke almost in his ear. "What is your name?"
The Custodes appeared so silently Colm cursed and even Ibram jerked back in surprise. Having spent some time with Valdor, the man's size didn't quite overwhelm him, but it was still startling how quiet they could be. "I am Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt. Prior to this we were assigned to the Hagia Liberation Fleet as part of the Sabbat-Worlds Crusade. I have been told it has been centuries since then."
"These men?"
"The Tanith First Light Regiment. There were others from Valdor's people, but they were not regular Guard."
The Custodes made no notes, but was obviously checking something out within his closed, conical helm. "Confirmed. You are to be transported to the Imperial Palace as part of the Lion's entourage. This way."
The fact they were considered part of a primarch's entourage gave Gaunt some relief. More so when the Primach in question joined them as Ibram barked out orders to make to the waiting transports. "These Inquisitors shall be held to account," the Primach said darkly.
"Lord, I suspect they will not be the only ones to fire on us. You and your brother are a threat to those who have ruled in your absence."
Lion El Johnson was an extraordinary being. His size made him intimidating, but his mind was frightening. "I have no interest in ruling except what is necessary to protect what my father built. But I take your meaning, Colonel. If they consider my brother and I threats, then Telos must have them in fits."
For some reason, the idea actually appealed. "My lord, I believe you are right."
Vulkan rode in a separate transport, and Valdor in yet another. It reduced the risk of putting all the high value targets in one vehicle. The transports were large enough to easily accommodate half of Gaunt's regiment, and he made sure the other half and their allies were safely evacuated.
As he settled into a flight seat, dwarfed by the primarch and still fighting back a sense of numbing awe at El Johnson's sheer presence, the young woman calling herself Pythia joined them. The other officers of the Tanith First were getting the regiment settled, and taking a roll of the latest casualties.
"Lord Primarch, Colonel, I've received communication from the Inquisitorial Representative from within the Imperial Palace. We will likely be making a combat drop."
"Who is this representative?" El Johnson demanded.
"She is one of the Lords of Terra, and the nominal head of the Inquisition. She was also Brin Milo's patron, Colonel, though I didn't realize it at the time. A civil war is raging throughout the planet among the Gallentist and Puritan factions of the Inquisition, but especially in the Imperial Palace."
The primarch's frown was enough to make Gaunt's stomach clench. "They dare? Has the Imperium fallen so low that this Inquisition would ignore the words of primarchs?"
"The primarchs have been gone for ten thousand years, Lord," the Pythia noted. "While the parents were away, the children had free reign. And after so long, they're not fully prepared to give it up."
"And where is Telos now, Pythia?" Gaunt asked.
The young woman blinked at him, her eyes glistening. "She's finished up on Luna already, and now she's flying around Terra. I'm not sure how much she's sharing intentionally, or if it's just because of the resonance in my soul, but…"
She stopped and wiped an eye. "Taylor Hebert watched Terra change over the last forty thousand years. But Telos Reborn…she still sees the Terra that was. She sees oceans and forests. This new Terra is breaking her heart, Colonel. The condition of humanity hurts her badly. She swore herself to be a guardian and savior to all mankind when she was only a teenager, and seeing how far we've fallen…" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "She's trying to shield me, I think. She feels things so deeply. She will be there when all of us arrive."
"All of us?" the Lion said.
"Yes, Lord. All of us."
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
There was no single moment of transition. No last words or thoughts. Three aspects of a shattered personality willingly stepped into the embrace of a long-lost fourth. Mind, body, soul, and spirit. Earth, Air, Water and Fire. The material world and its idealized perfect state.
There were no more doubts; no more fears. As Taylor Hebert, Sabbat of Hagia and Telos of Asgard stepped from the Well of Eternity across the span of the galaxy into the spiritual echo of Telos that Was which dwelled with the trees, everything the four separate shards had ever been, or had the potential to be, merged into a single gestalt being.
I am.
The whole was so profoundly more powerful than the parts. More powerful than Telos had been during her first life. She was not Telos of America–she was Telos Renasci, reborn and remade.
Within the two trees, she heard and felt every prayer; every iota of faith of every follower of the Church of Telos that had ever lived for almost thirty thousand years. Countless quintillions of souls, all saying prayers to her in one form or another. Even if the last ten thousand years had seen only a trickle, for a period longer than the entirety of human history preceding it, a significant percentage of the entire human race had prayed to Telos daily.
The spiritual shard of themselves–the heavenly goddess who shepherded the souls of the faithful into their folkvangr–absorbed and cherished the spiritual power of that faith for millennia, looking forward to a day only she could see from her ascended state.
Three material shards of a long-dead goddess stepped into a heavenly realm to be embraced by their spiritual fourth–and Telos Reborn emerged.
There was no transition. No fear or pain. She was. She felt and breathed. Her mind raced faster than ever before as she instinctively combined the esoteric knowledge of Sabbat's century of study of magic with Telos' alien polyphysics and Taylor Hebert's forty thousand years of historical knowledge. It all came together in a perfect merger, leaving nothing to guess at.
When the euphoria of rebirth faded, then came the depths of horror. What had her brother done to humanity?
It hurt. The entire Earth groaned in pain, like she could never have imagined. She knew its condition, how could she not? Through Taylor, she lived through the Heresy and the great Siege of Terra. But Taylor Hebert, without the magic of her birthright, could only see the damage. She could only imagine.
Telos Renasci felt it. She could feel the echo of every atomic warhead fired throughout the world's history, from Hiroshima to Nordafric and the traitor siege of the Palace. She could feel the spirits and the echoes of the ancient gods of the sea screaming as their waters were siphoned away until not even puddles remained. She ached with the death of every tree to ever exist, until none existed but the two that sheltered her spiritual self.
The atrocity of the Golden Throne pulsed like an angry cancer driving deep into the wounded world's crust, skimming the mantle to help power its unholy mechanisms. With her bifrost eyes and Olympian mind, she could see its truth, comprehend its mechanics and understand its purpose, while abhorring its existence. The tear it caused in the plane between the material and spiritual world was a raw wound that bled over into both. Whatever gods survived humanity's diaspora into space could not survive the ignition of the Emperor's great project.
Though by then the gods had been reduced; either by their own hand or the Emperor's. They surrendered their divine mantle to take up the title of Perpetual. Of Pyskers. Her father had not been the only one; though he was the only one doing so out of love for his son.
She could feel the lingering echo of his thoughts imprinted throughout the palace even ten thousand years. A last prayer; a last expression of love. Come back to me, child.
Such was the power of the Throne that not even she, with her Bifrost eyes, could clearly see at the heart of the palace. But everything they learned in the Well of Eternity, plus Taylor's long history, told her what was there. She knew that the Emperor had taken shards of Eden that he'd kept to himself much like the ancient conspiracy Cauldron had, and used divine alchemy to break the shards into their component parts to power his machine within Phater's ancient domain.
He had been stealing from gods ever since, all in the belief that he was protecting humanity.
As she left Roboute Guilliman on Luna and tore through the obscene pollution that choked her home's skies, all she felt was the agony around her. Hundreds of billions of human beings were dying below her, their beaten souls twisted by the incursion of dark gods intent on wreaking their vengeance on humanity. Hundreds of millions more had already died in the past few days. Since the tear in the materium caused by Cadia's collapse had struck, more humans had died to the demonic incursion than had lived throughout human history during her first life. She also knew that the worst of the attacks was yet to come. The Dark Gods must have felt her rebirth, and she knew they would not stand idly by.
Those billions lost were the merest drop against the quadrillions that filled this poor, beaten world. Bodies piled upon bodies, eating themselves because the planet could never grow enough food to feed them. The Earth had become, itself, a cancer feeding off the toils of a thousand other worlds to keep its obscenely massive population alive.
And nearly every single human in the world was beaten down and held in perpetual slavery in a feudal system millennia old. Born small and underfed in the unending shadows of a hive city, kept ignorant and put to work before their fourteenth year, if not sooner. They were encouraged to marry and have kids not out of beneficence, but to produce more workers to throw into the grinder of the never-ending industry, or the trillions of soldiers chipping away at the frayed edges of the Imperium. Never a moment of peace. Never a moment of respite. Work, misery and death. Millenia of such treatment had created almost a subrace of humanity. Barely capable of speech or learning through hundreds of generations of inadequate nutrition and brutal, relentless lives.
The sheer, nonsensical depth of the misery felt almost satirical, as if it could not possibly have come to be this bad without some force driving it. Her father would not have allowed it. For all her doubts, she did not believe even the Emperor would have allowed it.
And yet, there they were. Ultimate proof that whatever plans the Emperor made ended in defeat and despair.
Telos hated it. Her memories as Taylor Hebert hung heavily in her mind, against the horror of Telos of Asgard, and the grim recognition of Sabbat of Hagia. This was the Imperium of Man–an Imperium of horrors for all but the tiniest sliver of humanity.
A ship fired upon her. She had slowed her flight in consideration of the broken word below her and left herself open.
Las cannon bolts slammed into the air several meters from her body, unable to penetrate the umbra of her divinity. She felt no pain–the restored protections from the Blessing of Baldur, and the armor of Brigid of the Dawn were far too powerful for any mortal weapon to harm her. She turned her bifrost eyes onto a ship of the Inquisition that had fired the shots.
She could see the pilots and stormtroopers within, and one of the thousands of Inquisitors who lived to combat anything they thought threatened the Imperium. The horror of it was that they were often right in their motivations, even if their approach made the worst butchers in history look innocent by comparison.
She saw the truth of those within, and knew they were her enemy. Not even the Emperor's own words would convince them otherwise.
"Stop." She spoke the word softly, as much an experiment and effort of control as anything else.
What emerged was a sonic and psychic shockwave that shattered the inquisitorial Thunderhawk into its component atoms, killing the Inquisitor and twenty-man crew so quickly they were reduced to vapor.
She found it difficult to feel bad; instead she chose to accept it as a valuable lesson that she needed to work on her communication skills. Being able to speak directly to key personnel without vaporizing them would be useful for her immediate and future plans. The young demi-mortal girl who felt horrified by her father's willingness to kill was long past.
She continued her survey of what remained of Earth. Ocean basins bristled with so much construction it was almost impossible to see where the oceans had once been. Everything was covered in a crust of human habitation.
And everywhere, the warp bled through the veils of reality to corrupt and destroy.
Turning her bifrost eyes skyward, she pierced the veil of the warp storm that had settled around the Terran System. Just like when she was a child first coming into her divinity, she had a feeling of falling upward as her gaze pierced the purely physical and took her gaze deep into the galaxy. It did not take long to see where the tear in space had occurred.
Cadia. The whole planet was cracked apart, and the Eye of Terra that marked the birth-pains of the fourth warp god had spilled out across the galaxy with the planet's death. The Warp Gods' plans had come into terrifying fruition, and hundreds of trillions of souls were lost as a result.
Cadia was more than just a planet that sat on the edge of real space near the Eye of Terra. Forty thousand years of Taylor Hebert's memories; of Sabbat's crusade and the teachings of her mentors; and the metaphysical knowledge and expertise of Telos of Asgard merged into perfect synchronicity and revealed the truth.
Cadia was not a planet, it was the door of a cage. Not built by humans, and not built solely to stop the Eye of Terra. No, the beings that built the pylons of Cadia and the other worlds they saw burning in Lion El Johnson's Dark Forest were built to contain the warp itself. A weapon against enemies that could strike from heaven or hell itself. It was a weapon from a true war in heaven that likely predated the existence of humanity by epochs.
A corrupted, transhuman child of humanity was the one to destroy the gate, and in so doing the galaxy was split almost in half by the expanded Eye, where the essence of the spiritual realm bled into the physical–where the Immaterium collided with the Materium.
What a mess.
She felt a prayer; an achingly familiar soul calling to her. Lyta Rothid was a horribly misplaced being. She had far, far too much compassion and love to thrive in the Imperium of Man. It was not a lack of strength or determination that hampered her career within the Inquisition, it was her compassion and love of others. She could never build the callouses on her soul necessary to kill the way her order demanded it, and so she would have eventually destroyed herself.
But as Pythia, she found her place, and that made her beautiful. That this descendant of Telos' best friend Lisa, who carried Lisa's face and a shard of her soul, now served as the voice of the church felt right, and just.
That voice called her that it was time, and so Telos Reborn answered.
