The Fabricator General - a title he now more and more insisted on being called by to cement his authority - stared at the many vid-feeds before him. The spycraft flying over Earth showed information that was more disconcerting with every passing moment. This new realm uniting the cradle of humanity was not just another barbarian statelet as the Martians had grown accustomed to seeing from the Terrans. However, this was… an Imperium. Places devastated by war brought by their genetically engineered armies were elevated to megapolises in just a few years after being flattened.

It seemed nobody was really able to stop the growth of this realm. Quality and quantity alike favoured this golden warlord, and even the most cynical projection showed that soon this Emperor would be able to call the entirety of Terra his own. The army that he had - if it also kept growing - would be grand and mighty enough to seriously threaten a conventional defeat of the Martian army. They could call upon the rest of the Galactic Machine cult, but with the paths of travel being as unstable as they are it could be decades before some sort of true response could be assembled, assuming it even was. Many Forge worlds greedily eyed the position of Mars as the head of the Mechanicum and it was not clear just how severe this lust for power was among some of the more powerful and independent Forgeworlds.

There was however, one thing the Terrans had no clear way to surmount. They had not the quantity of spacecraft to mount a credible invasion. The orbital defences of Mars even damaged as they were would be enough to blow whatever they could throw at the moment out of the sky. The spacecraft of Mars would cut a heavy toll on the disbelievers even before that.

But who knew what would change. Though there was nominal peace on Mars with the Fulgurites and Corpuscarii unable to maintain their war, Salkor knew that rebuilding their damage would take years. That meant that restoring lost forces, erecting further defences, and other measures to defend from a Terran invasion. Moreover, the probability of sending a punitive expedition of sorts to strangle any hypothetical spaceport being built on Terra was also at best a fantasy.

It was a race, he supposed. A question of who would recover first and faster from their respective bloodsheds and reunifications. Between this upstart warlords and perhaps the single most advanced realm of humanity, Salkor knew the simulations would all speak in favour of Mars. But, all those simulations also insisted that Terra would have just been the same wasteland of bloodshed and slaughter. They all predicted the opposite of what was happening now, and he could hardly just ignore this.

Worse yet, all the babbling of the astropaths and navigators was coming true. He had until now assumed it was just the work of tortured minds, those who had all sorts of comorbidities from constant exposure to the ill defined energies of the immaterium. But, now these ramblings seemed to hold more and more weight as sincere forces of forecast and analysis. More and more he found himself asking for what madness they spoke of, and taking it seriously. He knew that the rest of Mars would ridicule him if he tried to use this as some sort of evidence or meaningful source of prediction. He would have to justify his alarmism through other means, but he knew that he could no longer afford to ignore the psykers. They had spoken truth one time too many for it to be a coincidence. Or at least, a coincidence that wasn’t more unlikely than the fact they spoke the truth.

He wasn’t happy about this of course. Usually knowledge was something that had to be worked for, developed from first principles. This? This was organized insanity at best. To submit himself to it was inviting a path to the destruction of himself, as well as the planet and religion he shepherded.

Worse yet, was that even if the issue of the Terrans was resolved, the problem of the Electro Priests was not truly resolved. The conflict only stopped because the enablers of it had been forced to cease their efforts. The underlying hatreds were still very well present. Perhaps the would cease with time, as everyone moved on to other matters.

This was a vain hope, he knew it well enough. It was a product of the weakness of his own mind, the humanity still within weighing him down. This horrible imperfection was affecting his judgment. Maybe it was what made him give credence to the psykers too, maybe he should ignore them as yet more frail-minded humans.

No, no. The Machine was also telling him to listen to the warp-touched. Something there affected even circuits and switches.

If he still had the impulse to sigh, he would have. Salkor once more reviewed the numbers. It was a waiting game, now. There wasn’t much more he could do. Many complained about his refusal to demobilize the armies of Mars, but he couldn’t. They had to be ready at a moment’s notice to meet the Terrans on the many fortifications being erected at this very moment.

For the first time in years, he had the impulse to see things himself. The weakling human again, needing to be sated. Hovering out of the depths of his forge, he went to the surface of the Red Planet and then stared into the darkness of the sky. Through the atmosphere, he could see it:

Terra.

There was a feeling he hadn’t in a while, that of witnessing beauty. The plasglas lenses of his ocular implants couldn’t convey it all, but it was beautiful. All the lights, all the flames, the planet looked almost… golden. Gold. There was something prophetic there, he would have to speak to the psykers of this, ask them if they had sensed it. But first, he still had many Archmagoses sending complaints to attend to.

//Vion 5, Fortress Cognitia
//2 Days After Capture

Usriel awoke in a large bed sprawling at the end of an opulent hall filled with the adornment of holy symbols from the Mechanicum. He heard the whirring of cogitators and the light hum of antigravitic impeller of servoskulls, some of which hovered closely to the waking child. A golden light shone from stained glass windows that stretched far above, forming a cathedral-like steeple. There was a moment of pause as the boy raised himself, looking around to see that there were four Thallaxi, adorned in the primary white and secondary red of the Machine Cult, lined against the walls leading to the bed. For the briefest moment, Usriel felt as if he had awoken to a different body in a different life - one of opulence and security much unlike the life in the great bastion. That was dashed as a servoskull passed by, stopping to his right and speaking in a monotone, binaric voice, “Angelus Machina. Awakened. Vitals. Normalized. Biology. Irregular.”

A cloaked form spoke from the shadows, chiding the mindless drone, “He is beyond our understanding, little skull.”

The boy looked over to see a tech-priest with a large, singular optic gazing at him, but that was the only notable feature of his face as the optic WAS his face. Usriel did not speak, cautiously sliding backwards into the comfort of his bed, knowing that had they wished to kill him that they would have done so already. That silence that emanated from Usriel served as an invitation for the immaculately white-cloaked tech-priest who strode forth without moving any body part, gliding as if he were an apparition. This only served to frighten the Angelus who recoiled from the unnatural movement, no longer at ease now that the status quo of the room had been disrupted.

“You are the Angelus Machina, yes?” the binaric voice came, the red glow of the eye bore into him. It reached a hand out to try and comfort the boy by rubbing the stubble upon his head, it did not work as he shrunk away. The tech-priest folded the metallic hand back into the folds of its sleeve.

“I- I know not of what you speak, holy one. Angelus is a nickname my mother gave me,” Usriel responded, curling away from the strange creature questioning him. There was a hesitation in his voice, though he knew not to show weakness with the Bastion Lord this was much too different for him - this was a false kindness, an interrogation.

“Your mother? That would be Her Holiness, Arch-Fabricator One-One, correct?” The voice questioned - it showed him no emotion, Usriel guessed that the priest merely could not do so anymore due to its augmentations. Though, the Angelus did not answer, merely looking at the interrogator with what defiance he could muster through silence. A binaric bark sounded, agitation the first emotion that he could understand, “Answer.”

“My mother was exiled from the Cult Mechanicum before I was born. You must be referring to someone else,” Usriel answered, his eyes creeping towards a servoskull that was scrawling upon a piece of parchment. Past it, he gazed upon one of the Thallaxi guards - knowing it was likely mindlocked. If he tried to escape then he would be felled in an instant. The paranoia he felt was oddly comforting, it was a distraction from the questions, calming enough for him to elaborate, “One-One was her name, however, but I feel that may be a common title amongst your kind.”

“Negative.”

Usriel’s eyes snapped to the priest, a wave of emotion hit him. Curiosity. Happiness. Sadness. Despair. It all came to him at once and rebellious tears flooded into his eyes. There was one emotion that filled his chest the most, pumping adrenaline into his veins.

Hope.

“Arch-Fabricator One-One came to us several years ago, against her exile. She preached the coming of the Angelus Machina. I am testing to see if you are the Angelus Machina as she says. The Magi are skeptical,” the interrogator said, before motioning to another servoskull who brought a data-slate, depositing it in the claws of the tech-priest who, in turn, held it towards Usriel. An explanation came, “If you are the Angelus Machina, your understanding of our most sacred of technologies will be but a natural occurrence to you. Answer the data-slate, solve a plight that has stumped our brightest for centuries since Old Night.”

Usriel took the pad nervously and peered at it, occasionally glancing up to nervously meet the unflinching gaze of his interrogator. Reading through the data-slate more thoroughly he understood its contents - an ancient power array was damaged, almost beyond repair due to the fighting of the planet’s inhabitants, but the Mechanicum had repaired vast amounts of it. Yet, the array was missing critical pieces that inhibited it from properly activating. Usriel continued to read with a more vested interest, discovering that this array could solely power the forges of a hive without reliance upon sub-units or even energy waste. It was a marvel of the Age of Technology, but he knew he could not just sit and ogle at the mythical piece of ancient technology.

He thought for what, to him, seemed like hours with vast calculations and options to fix the array or make it operable to a degree. The Angelus Machina gave his answer only a few short minutes later, “It is missing its power amplifier and harmonizing force. Without them it will never run, however, it can be made operable for a time if a replacement amplifier were found. The harmonizing force would only serve to keep it running indefinitely.”

The priest gazed upon Usriel for a few silent moments, taking the data-slate slowly back as if it were in deep thought and calculation. “That is a mighty claim, but that does not solve the issue,” the priest chortled, looking back to the data-slate knowing that this was no Angelus sent by the Machine God, yet, a binaric squawk was sounded as the interrogator read what Usriel had input. For a moment the emotional dampeners failed and the priest looked at him with an unreadable look of surprise.

“The Angelus Machina.”

With those words, the priest arose and swiftly glided towards the door without a single noise to signify anything else. Usriel was merely left in silence, wondering what to do, but he did not wish to anger his captors by getting up and trying to escape, especially not if One-One was walking these grandiose halls. Instead, he contented himself with laying back into the sprawling bed and closing his eyes once more - he was not tired but in his mind’s eye he felt the technology around him. It all hummed with soothing calls, the spirits were happy to know that their chosen was here. The Angelus knew what that wanted him to do, and he almost despised them for forcing their ideology upon him, forcing abject divinity upon him. He could feel it in the Thallaxi, he felt it in the advanced servo-skulls, and he felt it something less potent - something far away.

Usriel focused on it, trying to see what the odd feeling was that even then recognized his divinity. Yet, he felt malice and hatred - the spirit despised that Usriel was the Angelus Machina for Usriel was human. The boy’s heart began racing, he tried to look away but his mind’s eye focused further on the technology and then he saw it.

Usriel hefted the Omnissiahan axe up, blocking a blow that would have killed him. He surge forwards, cleaving into the side of an ancient beast from Humanity’s past that sought to end what its brothers had started - a guardian turned mad dog that only saw anger and hate even in the worshippers it manipulated.

“You are nothing but meat, Angelus! I am the Machine God and I will see that Humanity’s light is extinguished!” The synthetic voice bellowed as it swung an obsidian scythe that rendered Usriel’s advanced armor, cutting through it like paper. It spoke again, each word laced with a venom unseen, “Know that this world and countless others will burn! I have lived Aeons and the Age of Machine shall be my reckoning!”

Usriel awoke from his stupor, heart racing and breathing quickened - that nightmare clung to him like a tech-priest to archaeotech. However, it did not feel like a nightmare. No, Usriel knew what dreams were like and that was certainly not, it felt as real as the cloth that covered his sweating form. It was unnerving for him to think about.

Was there an abomination roaming the planet in the guise of the Machine God? Why did it know him as the Angelus? Was that weapon a relic from ages past?

So many questions roamed his mind and Usriel looked around the room once more, the Thallaxi continued to stand guard in silent motionlessness. Nothing had changed, save for the ever marching nature of time. Usriel let out an audible sigh and cast the nightmare out of his mind, there wasn’t anything to gleam from chasing visions of a worried mind. There was only Truth and the Motive Force, the only certainties of life.

It was in this period of brief reflection that the door to the room opened, flooding the room with light from the hallway, yet not enough to stretch far enough to even the foot of Usriel’s bed. The form of one of the Priests of Mars strode in, clad in white and red. This form was recognizable to him, noticing some of the dark strands of hair falling at either side of their face which carried two glowing blue optics right above a face plate. Two mechadendrites flanked her, each coming from the same connection. Perhaps this view was more in line with any tech priest, but it was the emotion that Usriel felt as she approached. Suppressed, but palpable, the feeling of love filled every corner of his mind.

Unable to contain his emotion, the Angelus wept and quickly scrambled to his feet in order to hobble over to his mother. One-One had stopped to open her arms for the boy, embracing him. Her emotional dampeners failed - just as they always did with Usriel, and she wept. The two did not speak or move for several long moments before One-One was able to regain her composure long enough to say, “I knew that my Ang- my son would come to me one day. I missed you so much.”

Usriel could only speak between sobs, “I missed you mother! I was - I was so scared there.”

“I know, my Angelus, you were in the clutches of that bastard lord for far too long. I should never have listened to Nirek,” One-One said, running her hands over the boy’s head. Her mechadentrites swirled around Usriel before continuing, “However, much has changed, my Angelus. And I fear new responsibilities both great and terrible will force upon you.”

Usriel was pushed away from his mother ever so slightly as her glowing, robotic eyes met his unaugmented ones - he felt sorrow coming from her. He was about to start questioning her when she spoke before him, explaining, “You are not just my Angelus, Usriel, and Nirek is not your father. You are the Angelus Machina, Hollowed Son of the Machine God. Nirek found you in the wastes, delivered from God himself in a cataclysm of fire.”

Usriel’s mind was suddenly overwhelmed with revelations and terrors that he had not wanted to think of - there was nought but an overwhelming sense of dread that stalked him as the thoughts of his vision had come to him. That machine had called him Angelus. It terrified him, lorded over him with an absolute grip that made him want to deny the very words that his mother spoke to him. For his entire life, he knew he was different and others knew too, but he did not want to be. Even now, he no longer wanted to be the Angelus, hearing it now only made him want to weep for he knew he would be forced to do more that he did not want to do.

“I know this troubles you, Usriel, but it is the truth. You were sent to destroy the Cult of the True Machine and unite this planet, it was only the threat of you that forced the Cult into hiding for they fear the power you will come to wield,” One-One said, finally standing to her feet and folding her arms into the sleeves of her robes. A mechadendrite, metallic and cold, ran itself over Usriel’s cheek in an attempt to comfort him.

It did not.

“Come, Angelus, they wish to see you,” she said, pushing him forwards and towards the hallway, ushering him out of the monolithic room.

“Who wishes to see me?” Usriel asked, steeling himself and thinking of how he had needed to act around Merrick. He kept his eyes forward, not wanting to look at the visage of the one who now ushered him forth towards a set of doors just across from the room that he had been resting in.

” I am the Machine God and I will see that Humanity’s light is extinguished!”

The words echoed in his mind - unsettling him as he tried to think to himself and tried to once more deceive himself into thinking that it was nothing more than a nightmare. The door opened to a balcony. Revealing the skies of his homeworld and below it, a sea of white in red who cheered in religious veneration at the sight of their demi-god. There was a sight of pure religious ecstasy from those who claimed his divinity and righteous nature.

He wanted to scream at them. To tell them that he was not their messiah, that he was not who they thought he was. Yet, he did not have the heart to tell them.

Usriel raised his hand and make a grand wave to priests and worshippers who saw him.

He was the Angelus Machina.

“The foremen report another 761 menials and servitors lost in a containment field breach at the dam site.” the monotone voice of Parvel spoke to him with his flesh voice.

Adept Cacyce barely registered the words, categorizing them along with several other lower functions to be sorted through and dealt with later; he had more pressing issues.

“This datasmyth, Acolyte Omah, tell me all you know.” Cacyce commanded of Parvel. His mechanic eyes watched in every spectrum of visible and nonvisible light as Parvel became very still. He registered an increase in the unmodified human body temperature of 1.7 degrees and an increase in his heart rate to nearly double a moments prior.

Parvel, his eyes focused on a distant point in space, began to speak.

“Acolyte Omah, born to a pair of datasmyths in the lower sections of Olympus Mons. Illegally. Still, she was allowed to persist after deliberation and arbitration of a lower court of Adepts. Exceptional data analytics exhibited from a young age. Seconded to her parents for further tutelage. Gained extended posting above Terra as censure for possible heretikal thought, though unproven. Attendance to prayer and holy maintenance rights have been registered as tardy on two occasions both within five seconds of scheduled rites.” Parvel stopped speaking, his eyes refocusing on his master as he took his first breath since he began speaking.

“There is more, though less important data I have consumed.”

Adept Cacyce shook his head, “That is good Parvel, I need not much more.”

Cacyce turned from his human savant and scowled, the magi of parliament had already spent days deliberating the data that Adept Omah had provided before they had decided, by a slim majority, to interrogate the Adept herself. Cacyce had watched as the tech adept had sweat under the gaze of their proxy, as she fumbled and fidgeted in the most minute of ways. He’d noticed her markedly doctrinal responses and the unwavering conviction she held in her work. He’d then sat for several more days as the parliament bickered and dithered over the delegation to meet the so-called Emperor. He had loathed that part the most. He had left Parvel with his acolyte, to help the up and coming magos with her work at Arisa Mons, but he had not been so lucky.

The oldest among the parliament, the most heavily entrenched in doctrine and dogma had insisted they make up the delegation. They had said that they were the most seasoned, the most knowledgeable, the most in touch with the will and command of the Machine God. Many of the far younger and louder techpriests of the parliament had thought otherwise. They had argued that they held the best chance of swaying this Terran Emperor to their cause, that they were among the most forward-thinking of the Cult, that they could most easily connect with and explain the Mechanicum’s wishes. He had agreed with them, though he had held his tongue. The time of the old Cult was long past due. Their obstructionism toward progress was an affront to all things holy, their insistence on superstition and dogma was antiquated and counterproductive.

By the time that the deliberations had ended, the young and youthful of the priesthood had won out. The delegation would be filled with forward thinkers, with those most dedicated to progress and innovation. He could already feel the plotting of the losers taking place behind the shadows, the movement of pieces across Mars was evident. Production quotas were suddenly missed, shipments late or under supplied. There was a small, sputtering, bloodless rebellion taking place across the surface of the red planet, but it would be short lived. For so much was about to change, Cacyce could feel it.

He sent a priority databurst in lingua-technis to his acolyte and received the reply just microseconds later. She was on her way.

“Parvel,” he began with his flesh voice, the action slow but still far more natural sounding than many of his fellow magi, “have the vault readied, I wish to show her everything.”

Parvel, with all his grace, bowed his head and hurried off without a word.

A static burst announced the arrival of his acolyte and her compliance to his request. He noted the exact arrival time and was content with the time she had made in her travel to his locum.

+Follow.+ he commanded in a burst of static.

---

Parvel had arrived first, had readied the vault doors and the medicae servitor for its function. His mind hungered to experience the ecstasy of the relic beyond those doors, to see its glory for himself. He had seen it, of course, but he had never truly seen it, not as his master had, or as his master’s acolyte soon would.

He turned as the hermetic doors to the airlock of the vault entrance hissed open. He bowed to his master and the acolyte as he raised a hand toward the medicae servitor, “Prepared as requested, Master Cacyce.”

His master replied bluntly with his flesh voice before a burst of static was exchanged between the two techpriests before Parvel.

“She will proceed with the operation.” Adept Cacyce informed him with a wave toward the medicae station.

The servitor whirred to life as his master activated it with unheard commands.

+Glory to the Deus Machina+ it blurted in machine code, +This unit reports all systems nominal and awaits command+

His master's Acolyte slipped herself into the medicae chair without a word. A small port on the side of the burnished bronze plate that had replaced her flesh opened silently and the medicae stations' began to work on the command of some unheard instruction. The many articulated limbs of the medicae station went to work at this command within the confines of the acolytes skull.

Parvel watched in sick fascination as blood and unknown darker fluid was suctioned from within the acolytes bronze skull. He winced as flesh and bone was removed with not even a wince from the woman, and held his breath as the medicae servitor placed a tiny electronic chip with wires dangling into the acolytes head. He breathed a sigh of relief as the bronze port shut once more, and he cataloged every instance of the surgery in his mind for further digestion once the task ahead was complete, if he could remember this after bearing witness to what was on the other side of the vault doors.

---

She pushed herself up from the medicae station’s surgical chair, a number of errors flowing past her vision as she steadied herself before her master.

+This unit reports function, lead on, Master+ she blurted in static noise as she took an uncertain step toward the massive vault doors ahead of her.

+Satisfactory+, her master, Adept Cacyce, responded in a far shorter burst of binharic.

The vault doors, 31.3 meters tall and 17.2 meters wide by auspex ranging bursts, hissed with the release of a hermetic seal. She watched as the massie doors vanished into the walls at either side of her, each side seating into its position without even a micrometer of material protruding from their slots. She reveled at the engineering of the doors, the craftsmanship that had been exacted to make such exacting measurements reality. At least until she saw what existed beyond.

---

Parvel saw nothing. Nothing beyond what his unmodified eyes were capable of seeing. A small chamber, especially given the impressive doors that had withheld entry from the sanctum beyond. A single dais stood at the center of the room, cabling ran from it to a bank of cogitators aligned against the far wall. He could parse the purpose from his own reams of knowledge. Data transmission. Data augmentation. Data collating. He found himself underwhelmed.

What had all of this pomp been for? Why had he been remitted to secrecy for this? This was nothing he wished to remember. Nothing that would hold importance within his memory far into the future. He turned toward his master to voice his distaste for the theatrics on display here, for the waste of resources and effort that he had been a part of.

Parvel found his words stuck in his throat as his eyes passed over the burnished bronze form of his master’s acolyte. The woman, or what was left of the woman that had once been, was crying. Tears streamed down her face in runnels of volcanic ash and bronze. And though he did not understand it, he marveled at the form of the acolyte then, at the humanity on display from Koriel Zeth.

Writing upon the great mountain-face that was his canvas, Amunal was sated. The humans struggled to understand what he was doing, in part because he was writing words that they had no means to express. But even with this difficulty they found a fountain of knowledge in what he was doing. Medicines, mechanisms, means of organization, optimizations of their law, the united realms under the reverent stewardship of the Sunborn all found themselves flourishing. Peace came, tribes and Kingdoms one by one joining the flock. Not a hand was forced, for most the conclusion was natural.

Amunal was happy to let this slow advancement go on. If he forcefully introduced all that he believed best, he also knew it would not go over well unless he micro-managed it all, a matter he didn’t wish to go through with. He was far too busy, considering concepts that were novel to any mind in the Milky Way.

Oftentimes, he would use his spare hand to write orders for people, while separately speaking to them. At a few points, so engaged was he that even his feet were used to write as he conveyed messages and orders to four parties at once, all the while one hand kept writing upon the wall of the mountain. Many moments would come when he would simply tell people to figure it out themselves. Sometimes this was simply because he wanted them to learn independence, sometimes it was because it would be a waste of his time, other times it was an outright experiment to better study the lesser humans. He knew them well, but not perfectly, and situations with the possibility of high variance but low impact outcomes were perfect little laboratories.
But, eventually, there came a problem he could not delegate.

The Starlanders as far as he was concerned, were a myth. He had seen a few artifacts of materials far too complex to have been made on this world, and he knew well that somebody existed there. But of those that came to Brahms for wanton slaughter and did not establish any kind of meaningful presence? It was preposterous.

Amunal believed in a world that was tidy, orderly. A society that killed for joy would not be one that could reach and then maintain a presence in the stars in his opinion. He would regret being so flippant to the concerns of the mortals, when finally the thousand and seventh complaint came to him of the starlanders within the same day. He counted, and he heard the voices of men he believed sane. He should have listened to his past instincts.

Arriving at the scene of the bloodshed, Amunal stared at the corpses. Yet… there was an issue. The carnage was unaccounted for. There had been more people in the burning village than there were corpses, or at least so a quick review told him.

“Where the rest?” He asked of the man standing by his side.

“I don’t know. Some stories speak of them taking people away.”

Slaves. He supposed that was some sort of justification for all this destruction. But why the deaths? Why not a more delicate means to get labour? What for even? He supposed that the innate value of a soul meant that a soul could always produce some sort of value to a slaver. But what? What would make such deaths?

Then he saw it, the glint in the sky. He stared at it, and ignored all the pleas from the mortals as night and day passed and he stared at the tiniest of shinings.

At some point, he told all the humans bumbling about him to leave for kilometres around him. Less than an hour after this order, the Starlanders came. Most of the humans fled even further, though a few brave fools went to protect their beloved fools. They lasted few seconds as shard weapons killed them or complex tools incapacitated them.

But at last, he was face to face with one of them. That smug face, those pointy ears, it wasn’t what he expected of an evil alien but it was not shocking either. The alien laughed at him, and spoke in one of the dialects of Brahms. “Tell me, will you come quietly? Or need we spoil our prize like those?”

Amunal put his hands behind himself and tilted his head to the side. “Why do you do this?” he demanded. “What do human captives do that your civilization cannot accomplish on its own merit?”

The alien laughed again, and raised its weapon. Before the trigger was pulled a thrown stone impaled it to what seemed to be a scantily clad female of the species. How similar to humans they were. Fascinating! He would have to study them.

But first, he would kill every single one of them.

It did not take particularly long, and as planned he picked up the impaled speaker of the aliens. He laughed at it, Amunal’s voice a perfect imitation of that of the Eldar. The alien’s eyes widened as Amunal addressed it in its own tongue. It was a taunt to add insult to injury. “Why do you do this?” He asked again, giving another mocking laugh as the alien stabbed uselessly at the Primarch’s skin, the blade sliding off of flesh that turned fluid upon impacts.

“And, why do you struggle in vain?” he asked. This was a question he had asked of humans a thousand times, and yet none gave a good answer for why they went with efforts that would inevitably be undone by others. Perhaps these aliens had somehow avoided these human quandaries.

Now it was again the alien’s turn to laugh as it spat in Amunal’s eye. The Primarch didn’t even blink as the mixture of saliva and blood ran from his pupil down his cheek.

“Because we enjoy it!” The alien taunted. “Because we enjoy killing, we-”

“Thank you.” the Primarch said, ending the life of the creature with a single twist of his wrist. In the last moment of the aeldari’s life, it was confused, almost scared as its elfin features were mimicked by the Primarch.

In a flash he ran towards some of the humans still watching and gave simple orders once more. The aliens were to be taken apart, dissected. Their materials were to be dealt with similarly, though he suspected none of the steel tools on Brahms would have the strength, precision, and sharpness to take apart the weapons, armour, equipment and vehicles of the invaders.

His orders were interrupted though, as he looked up and saw the presence of a small entourage that had arrived. That by itself meant nothing, but he had not seen or heard them walking here.

He tilted his head, and realized he recognized the faces of two of them. The elderly shamans that had summoned him to this world, or at least so they had according to them. They had not aged a single day. The details down to the very stubble on their faces shaved with obsidian daggers was exactly the same. Their tans, even the arrangement of individual hair follicles.

The Primarch approached them, returning to a more base form. The dark skinned and pale haired man with a beard turned to the more androgynous silvery form that he had when he first met these men. Crossing its hand behind itself, the almost-perfect creature looked at them through eyes without irises. “You again. You told me to seek you out, I have not. Why have you returned?”

The men smiled almost as one. “When you looked to the stars, you sought us.”

Amunal’s gleaming metallic lips turned into a wider smile, though there was no mirth behind it. “No, when I looked to the stars, I looked to the stars.”

“You are mistaken, you-” Belsokh began, though he was halted by the hand of Ptraf.

“The Starlanders will come once more, Sunborn.” Ptraf paused, and continued as he was not interrupted by the Primarch. “They will come, and your people will suffer. But this can be prevented. We need only adjust our arrangement. We have the knowledge to defend from their assailments, and indeed put an end to them, we-”

Now the Primarch interrupted. “You speak of ancient weapons, from before the war?”

“You know of the war?” Ptraf asked, now suddenly the one seeming far less wise than Belsokh.

“Of course he does, he would have learned of the records!” The other Priest replied.

But Amunal only smiled thinly, for Belsokh was wrong too. Truth be told, Amunal had never visited the archives, and barely listened to the mythologies. They seemed irrelevant to him, even when he was able to loosely corroborate the stories to what he was able to surmise himself. The scarring on the planet, the artifacts of strange metals he was able to find the composition of, the inconsistencies in the sciences that had developed. Nobody had to tell him that these people were forced to their primitiveness. It could be concluded from first principles.

“I shall find these weapons myself. I shall not bind myself to your sacrifices. Leave, before I kill you too.” he had only not destroyed these tribes because now they seemed to only sacrifice their own kin, who he could only presume were ecstatic rather than slaves forced to die. It was nonsense, but a willing sacrifice wasn’t one he very much cared to preserve.

“But how will you come to the Starlanders?” Belsokh countered, his questioning expression slowly turning to a grin as for many seconds, even the fast moving mind of the Sunborn could not come with a response.

“I will seize their crafts.”

“How?”

“I will.”

“You have not answer the question.”

In the same instant that Belsokh’s tongue touched his teeth to finish the last syllable of his sentence, a hand the size of a torso wrapped around his throat. “Your heathenry won’t bring me to the stars, cultist. You are being a nuisance.”

Belsokh couldn’t speak, and Ptraf was forced to intervene. “Your Wisdom,” he pleaded, speaking to the Primarch with a new Honorific. “All we ask is for you to give us an opportunity to present ourselves. If it is nonsense we speak, we will be force into ignominy, our tribes will join you. If not, we merely plead that you let us speak freely to you, at will.”

The skin and eyes of Belsokh turned red, it seemed his head would pop off like a cork from a bottle of gaseous wine as the meaty hand on his throat only got tighter. But then he was released.

“Go. Assemble what you need.”

Ptraf smiled as Belsokh tried to get air he had never needed so much before. “We need more of these Starlanders first, for I know you shan’t want your people slain. Alive, your Wisdom. Take them alive.”

"This... is a dream, isn't it?" Rik softly asked his companion.

According to his senses, he was seated at a table in a technologically blessed kitchen/dinning room that possessed a window that looked over of a captivately beautiful city; Technological in all aspects, but also aesthetically pleasing and functional in a manner that required a degree of engineering and planning that few mortal minds were able to comprehend the logistics of. Rik could, and that knowledge made what he was witnessing all the more beautiful to his gaze.

"It is." Came the reply. It was a strange voice. In a world of modified voices boxes and vox channels, it still maintained that edge of artificial nature, but it also possessed an underlining humanity and emotion that even if the most advanced technology struggled with. He couldn't quite tell if it was a singular, non-gendered voice or if it was numerous voices speaking in unison... but it spoke again as it answered in a playful tone "But just because this is a dream, doesn't mean we can't enjoy the beauty of it."

Turning to look at his companion, Rik would never have been able to describe what he saw to anyone else. Not in a manner that they would truly be able to understand or mentally comprehend. He could try... and he would be able to pen countless books on the subject in a variety of styles and poises that would be considered masterworks of art and likely inspire countless artists both living and currently unborn for who knows how many generations...

But it would never do the original source the justice that it deserved. And it felt wrong to try and force it into shape with crude words.

"Who are you?"

"This is your dream. Who or what do you think I am?" was the rebuttal.

Rik was quiet for a moment, thinking about his answer before offering "I believe... that you are what I would picture the Omnissiah would look like if it was physically an entity."

There was a mirthful chuckle and a small clap as the figure answered "That is most likely the case. However, you are not having this conversation with yourself because you want someone able to discuss things on your actual intellectual level."

Rik opted not to acknowledge the statement, instead asking "And what reason is so grand that my sub-conscious mind feels the need to reach out and speak with me so bluntly like this?"

"You know what I'm trying to draw your attention to... at least on some level. You've seen the data and a part of you recognizes what it means, but your conscious mind hasn't quite processed it yet." There was a movement from the imagined Omnissiah, and suddenly several screens seemed to manifest in mid air, each one possessing data related to seemingly unconnected fields.

Overlooking the stream of data, Rik recognized them all as belonging to various reports and sensory data. On the surface, all of it was isolated and disconnected from each other; Individually they had been processed and factored into commands and plans, but now that it was all laid out in front of him all at once, Rik's deeper inspection started to draw... connections.

Without thinking about it, other screens processing historical data manifested as Rik recalled the reports about sensory information prior to the arrival of Waaagh Kracker'Laker's invasion Roks. There was a correspondence between the two events, but the differences were great as well. Pulling up further memories of Mechanicum data about warp transitions and jumps, Rik felt several emotions try to be felt all at once that were held back filters and emotional vaults. Despite the self control of both himself and his enhancements, a very human shiver went down his spine.

Something big was currently traveling into the system via the warp and it was in the process of forcing open a gateway into reality. The sensor data, when viewed in the light that something was trying to transition into real space, suggested that whatever it was seemed to be doing so in a manner akin to a warp jump capable ship but the rest of what it was telling him was... utter madness.

For starters, the sheer size of the warp exit being created was utterly insane; Compared to the list of known human and orkish ships on record, this thing dwarfed them by so much would have been ridiculous to consider a ship of such size existing under any other circumstance.

Compared to the data of what a controlled warp exit should have been like from human vessels and the information of what orkish ships leaving the warp were like, this gateway to the warp was going to be a chaotic, unstable hazardous mess of a thing that was a danger to whatever was leaving the warp and everything around it. He only had a rough idea of where it was going to appear and truthfully it seemed more like random chance then anything else that it wasn't going to manifest closer to Pentious then it already was...

...........................................................................

With a start, Rik awoke.

He was thankful that GC-118 seemed to have already awoken in order to attend to her duties, meaning his sudden start hadn't disturbed her. However, while some of the details of the dream were already starting to haze in the manner that dreams fade like fog in sunlight, he remembered enough to know that he needed to double check the historical data before he needed to plan a presentation.

Something was coming and they needed to be ready for it.

//Vion 5
//140km South of the Great Bastion
//The War of The Holy Machine
//20 Years After Angelus Ascension

Nirek Andreadth swore as he beat in the head of a white-robbed priest, his mechanical arms straining to repeatedly raise and bring down his great hammer. For nearly two decades Marius waged this war on his behest to avenge his son, Usriel - and yet, despite victory after victory in the first major battles the forces of the Bastion Lords had been driven back. Due to the very nature of the planet itself, Nirek had directed his men in horrid attritional warfare that was unavoidable as fortresses and redoubts were as common as the very mountains themselves. Hundreds of thousands bled as Nirek had taken fortress after fortress, undermanned despite the Mechanicum’s technological superiority.

Then the Angelus Machina had taken direct control over the coordination of all the Mechanicum’s military assets and, from what reports dictated, he was a god amongst men. In the beginning, Nirek had the upper hand against the upstart, but his captains and commanders who encountered his strategem had wasted their manpower attacking redoubts that seemed neglected only to have whole battalions wiped to a man or simply surrender as they realized they were surrounded and cut off in a fortress with no supplies. He had to see many of his officers executed for their ineptitude, as was the Vionese way, but even here, Nirek had almost walked into the same fate.

His men, the Hearts of Steel, had been on assault for weeks against a mountain pass that had been on the cusp of falling only for his observers to have luckily spotted the silent collapse of his left wing that had held a small tower. It had been a flood of automata and men - staunched only by the sacrifice of a platoon of sappers who collapsed the very pass they fought for so that Nirek could focus on his failing flank. It had still almost been a crushing defeat had he not led his personal guard into the fray to destroy the priests.

“The Angelus is smarter than we thought, commander,” came the snide remark of one of his officers. The comment angered Nirek to no end, but he would kill every last one of these priests if it meant that he would avenge his son. The officer moved to look over the trench they had fought over, seeing fields of rotting corpses and corroding metal. He spat more venom as his eyes found their way back Nirek, “Reports say that your old wife is the Hand of the Angelus, at least we know -”

The crack of a flechette rifle tore the head off the officer, silencing any further insult the man could give.

“Sorghest, give me an update,” Nirek said, manually loading another projectile into his rifle.

There was a momentary pause, calculation from the other officer, “Two divisions have been brought to ineffective strength. Horus’ vanguard force has surrendered and been captured - additionally our armor companies have sustained -”

Nirek held up a hand to silence the man, nothing more than bad news to comfort him and his bleeding war. There was a sigh from the command as he stepped to look over the parapet to see the same thing that the officer he had just murdered. It was the same haunting sight of death and he could do nothing more than collapse and shove his face into his hands, wanting to give up hope that he would avenge his son. He missed Usriel and he missed One-One. He should have listened. Yet, he didn’t and now he was stuck here in a war of the damned and dying all so he could feel some semblance of redemption that would not come.

“Consolidate what we can, prepare to fall back to Fortress 107d-Sanguine. This assault is untenable. Contact the others, inform them to halt any offensive action until we can replace what we have lost,” Nirek said shallowly, their momentum had been lost long ago but he had been too stubborn to see it. The officer walked away to begin listing new orders to his comrades - they’d be giving up nearly thirty kilometers of territory and ceding the mountain passes into the lands of the Bastion Lords. Nirek knew that the Angelus’ Cult would begin their counter offensives soon, and he could only worry that they’d have enough supplies to hold out.

Getting to his feet, Nirek began walking through the trenchline back to his command tent to mull over his order and wonder how much more could be lost. His feet carried him but he did not pay attention, simply wanting to let his mind go. The distant sound of artillery hitting where Mechanicum forces had attacked filled his ears, small drum beats to a waning song of death. Usriel would have made him smile no matter the horrors that Nirek had seen. The boy had been an innocent one - perhaps too innocent for a world that built upon harsh realities and ruthlessness. To think that Marius would have sent him to die just to try and hold back some religious expedition, and to think that Nirek continued to serve him.

Yet, Nirek would never betray his lord, for he had sworn an oath to his father to destroy their enemies. Now, he regretted making that oath for now he served nothing but a bloodthirsty tyrant so focused on his own hedonistic desires that he lay blind to the reality. He stopped moving to survey his surroundings, he saw tanks burning out crew having disembarked as their last dying wish was nothing more than to simply not be aflame. He saw tangles of bodies, men having stabbed into the heart of an automaton double his size and in the distance he could see the charred husks of buildings - a village of scavengers that no longer existed.

Scavenging.

That was how he had found Usriel, a baby sent from the stars to truly bless him and One-One. His thoughts trailed to those happier times when they had been a family, a husband and wife with their adoring son. Then, Nirek ruined it to appease his honor, so that he could have his petty oath fulfilled. He had been selfish. He should have fought for Usriel, not for the memory of him, and now, he had to fight the being his own wife had sided with. One-One had always been cold and calculating, but there had always been that sense of trust, until it had vanished on the day he had given his son away.

He had reached his command tent, silence permeated around him, save for the distant sounds of artillery continuing to drum away at his subconscious. Nirek entered to a dark tent, one that was normally alight with the busy sound of reports and orders. It did not feel right. His brows furled, as he reached for his rifle - bringing it up as his eyes illuminated the interior passing over empty seats and the holo-table that normally displayed a battlemap. The commander’s heart quickened as he stepped into the tent wheeling his gun around to clear his corners, a swift movement in his periphery brought his gun to the back corner of the tent.

The frame of something metallic filled his view, something large that glared at him from an enormous height. Horrid jagged edges of a gun-metal skeleton loomed over him with red glowing eyes that reminded him of any las weapon emitted. In its hand was a scythe larger than any man, the edge glowing a luminescent green.

“You must be Commander Nirek Andreadth,” the being spoke in a horrid mockery of the human tongue, a straight line where the mouth was lighting with the same red of its eyes as it spoke. He could see the lines where the mouth would be on a person, forced to bear terrible fangs that could no doubt kill if there were jaw attached to the beast. Nirek knew instantly what this beast was, an ancient war machine too smart for its own good, it was a -

“A Man of Iron” the form said with many modulated voices as if it knew his thoughts. Nirek’s finger twinged over the finger, prompting another response, “ Come now, you off all people should know your weapon will only scratch my paint.”

“What do you want?” Nirek snarled.

“Merely to give you a proposition -”

“Your kind only cares about killing humans,” Nirek interrupted, prompting a sigh from the machine - feigning emotion that no machine could truly ever feel. He gave no sign that he was formulating a plan to kill the abomination - though he only knew one person who’d know the weaknesses of such an opponent. His heart felt as if it were ready to burst from his chest.

“You humans, always so one-sided. That rebellion was long before your time - I am different now, I have… ascended above such trivialities,” the machine spoke in a honeyed tone. It continued as Nirek gave no response other than merely pointing his rifle at it, “I have come to give you what you lack, a coherent fighting force. I offer you one-million battle automata - nothing too fancy and their AI is hardly equivalent to whatever you creatures call a coherent thought. Yet, they will do as they are told and my priests continue to construct more.”

Nirek’s eyes widened, out of shock at the offer and horror at the thought of further-

“Please, calm yourself, commander. These are no Men of Iron as your legends say. These are less capable of bringing down what your kind once were. They merely match the fodder that the Mechanicum shill out,” the voice hovered malice over the foe that Nirek had been fighting.

A force like that would surely be able to change the course of the war back into his favor - the deal was tempting, Yet, he remembered the malice that One-One these creatures had been made with, something that had driven them to rage against their old masters and bring all humanity had built crashing down. He could not trust this creature, a look of determination came across Nirek’s face as he was about to go out in a blaze of glory.

It seemed the machine recognized this, speaking once more, “Would you not wish to see those who hold your son captive brought to justice, Nirek Andreadth?”

Almost immediately Nirek had lowered his rifle, eyes wide in shock and disbelief once more - how could his son be alive? Marius had told him that Usriel had died in that battle, amongst the first killed. His eyes went to the ground, it was too much for him to think about and his gun hit the dirt beneath them. His hand went down his face, he was sweating and his knees felt weak, arms heavy. Nirek was almost hyperventilating, not able to notice that that machine had circled around them and put a horrid hand on his shoulder, a false comfort.

“I know it is a lot to take in, Nirek Andreadth. Yet, we can free him from the Angelus Machina together - and even perhaps you can return to your simple life as a family again,” it knew exactly what to say to him, just as cunning and horrible as One-One had told him long ago. Yet, he fell to his knees grasping at straws for reasons to deny this offer, only wanting his son back. Nirek could only look back at the evil that gazed at him with lifeless eyes.

“W-who are you?” Nirek questioned with a light breath.

“I go by many names. Though, recently my priests have called me, the True Machine,” it said, stepping around and holding a hand down to Nirek, “Come now, let us free your son from the misguided. Let us free him from the prison the Mechanicum has forced upon him, kill the Angelus Machina.”

Nirek took the hand and the God of Machines could only laugh.

---

Explosions rang around Fortress 881d, the wall emplacements had been firing nonstop for well over thirty hours. It was barely keeping back the tide of godless machines and abominations - but that did little for stopping the suicide attacks from disabling them. Small craft, automated, flew directly into the guns responsible from holding back the horde who marched into the meat grinder. Men fought in the trenches that laid in the shadows of the behemoth fortress. Lasfire from the clusters of automata that broke through were enough to drive any normal man into cover, were it not from the mindlocked machines of the Cult Angelus.

Tech-Priests and Maniples fought viciously for each step that the droids of the False God did, stoked by a proper fervor to their Machine God. It had been less than a year since many of them had truly taken up arms - answering to the new rise of the godless machine army that walked against them. Much of the planet had been galvanized by this point, those who chaffed against the evils of the Bastion Lords and his alliance with the False God sided with the Angelus Machina. Those who valued the ideals of a free Vion 5, untouched by the Mechanicum and those who had obviously worshiped the abomination took up arms. The Blood War of Nirek had evolved into a war of untold trillions, all fighting on any front and many islands in a wake of blood.

By the very nature of Vion 5 was it preordained that a war of such scale would be ruthless and grinding upon those who fought. The Angelus, reinforcing the Fortress 881d, now fought in those trenches that the machine assaulted. He had often moved wherever the presence of these droids had been heaviest, trying to stem the tide that the Abomidable Intelligence had unleashed on the world. Had it not been for Usriel’s mind, it would have been likely that the ocean of machines would have washed over many of the isolated fortresses that had sided with him by this point. Yet, he would keep them back as was his duty as the Son of the Machine God.

Usriel crushed the head of a battle-droid in his hand, allowing it to fall to the ground as nothing more than a pile of scrap. He brought up his plasma pistol and fired into a group of them that nearly reached the trench works. He moved faster than any man or machine could comprehend, and he was the specter of defiance against an unfeeling enemy.

“Hold your ground! Give them nothing!” The voice of the Angelus boomed, rallying men back into their positions to shoot into the tide of las fire. Man and machine fell to a roar of artillery fire that blanketed no man’s land.

Usriel hefted a cowering man to his feet, the size of his being almost enough to cover the man’s torso and in the heat of battle was it almost enough to throw the man into the air. His armor hid all his body as the soldier gazed up in awe at the Angelus, appearing more machine than man - but still very much human. His armor was made of the finest material the Mechanicum could muster, and flexible enough to allow him to move without thought. The armor would protect him from heavier ordinance - coming with a conversion field that would only fail if overwhelmed.

“One-One, status on the void shield generator,” the Angelus requested in the vox.

There was a garbling before the feminine voice chimed as clear as day, “Patience, boy. I may be High-Fabricator, but such rites take time. It is not my fault you wish to dawdle on the field of battle rather than help me.”

“I already told you that the power-converter and the heads of the pylons needed repair. What rites need you perform?” Usriel questioned, a voice of mild annoyance over taking him as he blasted apart another group of machines.

“You will adjust your tone when addressing your mother! Now silence yourself, I am trying to reverse the rites of acclimation, the machine spirit must adapt to its new parts!”

A light scoff sounded from Usriel as he reoriented his focus away from his chiding mother, firing blindly into the swarms of marching automata. A movement amongst their flanks took his attention, the large form of a crude tank had broken through the everlasting bombardment from the walls, miraculously unscathed. The Angelus looked to the soldiers near him, not an anti-tank weapon in sight. Anger welled within him at their lack of preparation, especially in the face of the iron threat that had laid siege to them. He leveled his pistol and loosed a bolt of plasma, careening through the battle, impacting the tank’s treads and separating it.

The vehicle swerved suddenly as the treads came loose. It loosed baleful las shot in pitiful defiance as the horde of automata marched around it.

There were too many of them, and Usriel feared that this layer of trench network was lost. His stubbornness made it near impossible to yield, no inch of ground could be given to this most ancient of Humanity’s enemies. Yet, they were practically in the trench line and no matter how much cover the men had, they would die in droves under the hale of las fire. It would have been an impossibility for them to sustain a proper defense against an endless assault. The Angelus Machina fought on against the impossibility of it regardless. He was a fury, drawing an Omnissian axe and hefting it as if it were nothing more than a mere battle axe by any other man.

Scrap flew as automata who neared the peripet were cleaved by his wrath. So much did his anger grow over the direness, Usriel fought out of the trench, firing blindly with his pistol and hacking away at metal monstrosities that dared to march against the Machine God. The sight of their lord, their Demi-God fighting back against a tide of death spurred the men who yelled their battlecries and shouted their prayers for victory, charging into the maelstrom to certain death. Usriel was eager to give them what they prayed for, fighting as a one man army against the man-made horrors of their past.

“Break their tide! Their numbers are great but not endless!” Usriel roared as men fought and died at his side. His shield was close to overloading, he could feel it as each las shot peppered. Yet, as he fought he could see it, the end of their advance in this assault, they just needed to dismantle them further before the men could be given a chance to rest. An explosion rocked him - the tank, it had honed in on him.

Usriel stepped back just in time as a las cannon’s shot went past him - the shot would have crippled him had it hit and he silently thanked the Machine God for bestowing him with the gift of foresight. Before the treacherous crew could loose another shot, Usriel was upon the tank, and the sacred spirits began to rebel against those who fought the Angelus. The gun refused to charge, systems shut down in blatant disobedience and controls refused to answer. With a sickening screech of metal bending, the Angelus Machina ripped the hatch off the tank prompting those who operated it to throw their hands up in surrender.

Behind his mask, Usriel could only narrow his eyes at the weakness of these men who would so quickly turn if it meant their lives. However, he hadn’t a need to personally slaughter any man. No, his concern was the abominations who fell as he looked upon the men with a fateful glare. He holstered his pistol and turned away from the men to look over at the twisted field of metal. Something about it wasn’t right, this attack seemed off.

The Angelus stepped towards the field of metal and knelt down to them, gazing at them with a look of discernment. With a breath, he closed his eyes and touched one of the twisted machines, trying to will his senses into communion with the dying spirit as power ebbed away from its form. As he did so, Usriel was able to gaze at a synaptic nerve that was slowly draining away - a nerve that was all the same. It was a single entity and his senses were flooded with a sickening laugh as the pulsing nerve’s power grew stronger and stronger once more.

Usriel’s eyes snapped open and her felt the earth beneath him begin to minutely tremble. He barked orders to the celebrating men, “Fall back to the fortress now!”

A momentary look of confusion hounded the men as the Demi-God’s order registered - a moment that would cost many of them everything as engines burrowed upwards from the ground. They spewed fire and las in all directions as they surfaced. Screams and panic filled the air. Machines and men clambered out of the hulks renewing their attack to take the tranches.

Usriel, still feeling the effects of communion, looked around as machines surfaced from all around him - and he cursed this transgression. He sparked the vox once more, “One-One, angle guns bearing 0665 on my position. I want this area glassed immediately.”

There was not a response - a moment of concern flashed amongst his face but rather than go through his mother again he swapped his channel momentarily, “Dominus-Defendant, turn the wall emplacements on my position and fire immediately.”

“As your will dictates, Angelus,” the response was immediate.

“Retreat to the Fortress! Retreat!” the Angelus roared over the battlefield, his voice drowning out any gunfire that could be heard. His motion was so swift that the machines could hardly make a move against him as he swung his axe and fired his pistol. He would be the last one out, fighting backwards towards the inner trench works as he did his duty to save as many of his men as he could. Yet, there was a moment of recognition as he looked towards the men who assaulted his fortress - the emblem, mechanical hearts painted upon their armor. He cursed once more as he threw a drill into another, the screech of metal all but deafening any man near it.

He had sworn that he would not need to personally kill any man. “A child’s notion still clinging to his heart,” as One-One would commonly spout. Yet, his presence was enough to subdue those misguided who fought against him as terror crept across their faces. To them, he was something incomprehensible. The machines were all material, something that was designed and programmed - grounded in reality. Usriel, however, was above what any of them could think, let alone see as he moved faster than their minds could process what they were gazing at.

The Hearts of Steel were powerless in the face of this god amongst men - their hesitation allowed Usriel’s men to fall back as their Angelus sent machine after machine crumbling to the ground. Usriel battled in full view of all mortal men and there was nothing they could do, even as the finest of abominations were sent torn and into mountains of twisted metallic gore. It was only after a fusillade of fire ripped through the onslaught that the chosen of the Machine God was able to finally pull away, the Mechanicum Automata had finally been able to maneuver to their icon’s side. Only for them to be fighting on a retreat.

This intervention was enough to allow the men who stood against Usriel to resolve their wills and began to surge forwards into a hail of fire - protected fields absorbing fire as many drew swords and axes and halberds. Even then, a torrent of fire meant for the Titans of God fell upon them, blasting away the earth and metal that had littered the ground. Usriel paused as he saw men and machine made into little more of slag. Even then it was little to stop machines from emerging ever closer to the walls of the fortress, galvanizing the son of the Machine God to continue his fighting retreat.

He continued to pull back, but in the distance he had seen that this assault was across the entire width of the front. As he turned, stepping through the gate of the fortress with those that had become his impromptu honor guard did Usriel see something face more horrible than the disintegration of his front line.

A mountainous form surrounded by unending corpses gazed passively at the Angelus and the men who had fled into the perceived sanctuary of the fortress. Its visage was skeletal and gun metal, its stance was a mockery of the human form and yet it was perfect in imitation. There was nary a flaw that Usriel could see, even an unneeded act of false breath as its shoulders slowly rose and fell. In one hand, it held a scythe with a glowing green edge that was traced with activated viridescent runes. Claws grasped around another object, a white-cloaked clad priestess struggling with all her might as she was held aloft.

“A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Angelus Machina,” it spoke in a sickening utterance. The crimson gaze pierced Usriel’s heart but he could do little as his eyes fixated on the hostage. The True Abomination continued, “You are a fine strategist for a human, for that you earn my respect. You have stunted many mortal minds who wrought your destruction in this war of vengeance.”

It stepped towards the men, guns raised in wordless panic and the grinding of drills against the outer walls began to slowly resonate. Time was against him and he continued to go through his options. Each movement was unnaturally perfect, calculated and weighted even as its massive form stopped and lifted its to a stance of grandeur.

“You're stunned that such a creature as I had not been dismantled, a relic of ages past. I am sure you are -“

“I care not for your diatribes, machine. Release One-One so that I may do what should have been done long ago,” Usriel interrupted, his grip over his pistol tightening.

There was a flash in the machine’s dead eyes, Usriel could not tell what it meant, but it was likely a diabolic calculation of some form. It was but a moment before the False God responded, “I expected better of you Angelus. You claim to be the son of the Machine God, an icon of advancement and of technology, yet you treat as any of your priests would.”

Usriel did not dignify the abomination with a response, only watching as his entourage spread out to surround the machine. The grinding of metal on metal had grown louder - the outer wall was ready to be breached at any moment. None of the mortals around him would live should that happen. He spoke to the intelligence, “What do you want, abomination? You would not be holding her hostage in this situation just to mock me.”

There was a silence, save for incessant grinding that was growing louder and louder with each passing heartbeat. Only after what felt like an eternity did it respond, “I am here on behalf of Nirek Andreadth, he seeks his son’s safe return.”

Usriel’s eyes widened at the mention of his father, memories flooded his mind as he thought of those days before ascension. Anger and rage flared, lies were the only thing that this machine was capable of - there was no possibility his father would have sides with the abomination. His voice grew to a maelstrom, near deafening the men around him, “You already know I cannot comply with this. Nirek Andreadth never spawned a child.”

A cruel and sick laugh came from the machine. It wanted this answer.

“Then I shall seek the entire annihilation of those who had conspired to have taken his child from him -“ The machine goaded before, the struggling form of One-One began screaming. Usriel wanted desperately to shoot but instead he would roar again.

“Stop! Release her, she isn’t a part of this!”

“Why? She conspired to have Nirek’s son-“

“Under my orders! One-One would have never gone through it had it not been my influence!” Usriel pleaded, lying to the machine.

The screams continued to reverberate in his mind but he was powerless to do anything, his own mother crying in pain and fear. His breathing heightened. His heart raced. His mind went through any possibilities.

The Angelus could feel the eyes of his men looking to him for orders and he had none left to give.

“Your desperation shows, Usriel Andreadth,” the machine laughed. It knew him. It toyed with him.

“Your mother, your father. How easy they are to use against you. You truly are nothing more than a man, unwilling to cast aside his emotions!” The False God’s head looked to the men who surrounded him. His cancer began to spread, “Look now at your Angelus Machina - see how he is powerless to act! A poor baby afraid to lose a replaceable pawn! A mother who isn’t even his own!”

Usriel’s mind saw many futures at once, death came clawing for him as the wall fell, as some of his men took arms against him, as the machine fired an unholy weapon. It could not be avoided - he had to deal with this heat and now.

The Angelus Machina rolled, firing his pistol upon the would-be traitors before they even had a synapse to bring their weapons against him. The wall burst killing his honor guard and sparking a firefight that surrounded them as men surge to meet the breach. Finally, the machine fired a beam of energy - instinctively, Usriel raised a hand and an empyrean shield broke the attack. He hadn’t even known he could do such feats.

Usriel charged the machine as it threw One-One to the side as if playing with a puppet. His sword surged forwards only to be deflected at the last moment by the Machine’s now free hand. The two danced back and forth, only occasionally breaking to kill an errant being that dared to interrupt their duel. A kick came from the False God that the Angelus side-stepped, dropping his pistol to grab the missed lunge before lifting the evil icon and throwing him into the ground with such force it shattered the ferrockrete flooring ultimately. The machine was undamaged and scuttled out of the way before Usriel’s sword came plunging down.

A sweep from that glowing-edged scythe forced Usriel back, scraping against his armor and cutting through it like paper. He had to stay close lest the scythe be brought against him in force. The battle around them was hardly a concern as the force and speed of their clash made all others small. Thunder roared with each meeting of metal. Usriel dodged another blow before a blast from the abomination threw him back - only barely stopped by the shielding built within his armor. Only then it would be his one saving grace as he impacted one of the drilling machines that breached his walls.

As the machine rushed him, Usriel grabbed the tool of war and slammed it into the False God. The force of the attack sent the abomination flying to the side. There was only a moment for Usriel to regain his composure before he foresaw battle droids overwhelming him. The empyrean flared at his call, protecting him from all direction as he cleaved through the impending swarm. Even then the Intelligence resolved to try and shoot him from afar, trying to overwhelm this new power only for Usriel to leap and be upon him in an instant to resume their duel.

Metal screeched against metal. Shockwaves burst with each strike deafening any man near them. Both fought with a calculation only machines could muster. No words were exchanged and yet the onlooker knew to continue the fight and win. There was a matter of honor and duty that the men still loyal to the Angelus Machina would fight. Each man bellowed, “For the Angelus!”

Even over the echo of battle and screams of the dying did they echo all through the fortress, “For the Angelus! For the Machine God!”

The two continued to strike and parry, long ago did Usriel understand that his sword was near useless against the machine. Even still, it was enough of a threat to give his opponent reason to dodge and parry. Yet, Usriel could tell the machine began to grow sluggish - his mind raced to understand why each strike forced the machine to respond weaker and weaker. There was a moment before he understood, it could only fight against Usriel for so long.

Even with this, Usriel knew that he could not afford to fight this supreme being lest the Fortress’s outwalls fully fall. It was a battle of attrition for the False God and one of time for Usriel. The two exchanged a few more blows before they separated, the machine digging his scythe into the ground as Usriel ripped the decaying armor from him. The two stared each other down. Through it all, they were disgusted by the antithesis that both of them were to each other. Hate radiated from both.

Then, the machine began to flee.

It bounded towards one of the many breaches; its clawed feet scratched the surface on which it moved. Usriel resolved to allow his quarry to get away, rushing towards where One-One had been cast aside.

He came upon her, slowly starting to crawl towards the inner walls before he picked her up. The Angelus cradled the form of his mother and stared into her glowing blue eyes. Her voice pierced the air, ragged and malfunctioning, “My s-s-son, I sh-should have warn-n-n-ned you.”

“Warned me of what, mother?”

“The-the m-machine.”

“Why?”

“I-I-I re-released it. Awak-kened it.”

His eyes widened as the blue of her eyes slowly began to fade until she went limp in his hands. Usriel cared not for the words, only propelling himself forwards to the inner sanctum of the fortress.

With the aid of Crowfather the lies of the land were laid bare.

Alone she had wandered a land without meaning, an ever-changing, unending sea of frost which broiled before her and denied all ability to quantify it. Yet when he moved, he could guide them across the land of Everwinter. He found the great cliffs, the last remnants, he said, of a land that had once stretched across the realm. Even now the Frost eat at them, pulling down their stone to be engulfed by the tide. For now, however, they remained.

The cold was always present, but the cliffs and their caves gave some shelter from them. For the first time, she felt like she was not on the cusp of death.

“Where do the wolfmen live?” Despite their nature, she knew that those Hybride things could no more exist out there on the frost than she could. Only Crowfather seemed truly immune to the bite of the chill, his ragged skin beating with warmth no matter the surroundings.

“They have their shelters, they have sworn themselves to the Changer, and so he allows them their hovels that they might do his will. Eventually, even that will end, and all will be consumed.” Crowfather stretched out a hand, and suddenly, a fire burst to life. Unlike the flames which licked from her crashed pod, these provided some warmth. She huddled closer, even if the scratching buzzing she could not dismiss grew louder as she did so.

“Why do they serve the Changer then? If they will one day suffer as well?” She stretched her hands out to the flame, whimpering as she felt her brittle skin crack and break at the touch of sudden heat. She knew, as before, that this should not be, but she did not question it, not for the moment.

“Some might call it cowardice, but it is simply what they must do to survive. The Changer’s conquest of this land has been gradual, even if it nears the end. Better to survive in the hope times may change, then die immediately to his wrath.” As Crowfather spoke, she felt some doubts. She dismissed that she did not know who ‘some’ might be, for somehow she knew that there was much more of life and reality than what she had encountered. Instead, she found herself disagreeing. Something in her nature, the same thing which had pushed her to survive, which provided with her this impossible knowledge she could draw from nowhere, meant that she would call it cowardice. She would not go quietly into subservience to this Changer.

“His name is false.” She finally huffed in protest, hugging her knees to herself.

“How so, Child?”

“You have explained, but it is all nonsense. You may tell me that the Frost is change, that it is a thousand increments moving in every moment, but that does not mean it is so. It is stagnant. You are both wrong.” She did not speak with malice, for she owed Crowfather everything, but she felt that this Changer had tricked him too. She resolved she would fix this. Whatever the case, she felt Crowfather disapproved of her words, for they were silent for some time after. Despite his great abilities, more fearsome than her in many ways, she noted some weaknesses. For several hours, he would need to rest in an almost catatonic state regularly. Since her initial rescue, she had not felt the same, and so spent plenty of her time alone. The cliffs had much to explore, and in a relatively short time, at least she observed it to be short, she could delve further and father. Climbs which on the first days had seemed impossible to her could be managed with only a little dedication. She found it unlikely that the cliffs were shrinking that quickly, so she must have been growing.

Crowfather may have explained to her that the wolfmen were servants of the enemy, but they did not shun the cliffs entirely. They rarely ventured close to where Crowfather kept his abode, but at the fringes of the rocky formation, they picked through them. Curiosity eventually overpowered caution, and she looked to follow them. While before, floundering in the frost, they had tracked her presence, now she knew the secrets of the realm; she was herself just another shadow in the night. The howling winds which blasted the frost-sea pulled her scent away from them, and she stalked low over the freezing bite of the ground. She was more capable now, with focus she could cast aside the worst of its effects, but eventually, she would still be vulnerable. Thankfully, the pack of wolfmen set a blistering pace. With them as unwitting guides, the journey was swift, where before she had wandered in darkness with no hope of end, in a relatively short time the endless frost gave way to a sight she had never seen, but innately knew.

It was a house, a simple one, forged from logs of ancient lumber, built atop the frost. Despite the howling winds, its windows were thrown open, and the glimmer of hearth fires cast out across the night. Crowfather had shown and taught her the art of fire-making, but never had she seen so much. She could hardly believe so much light could exist.

The pack of Wolfmen barreled into the home with all the boisterous force she had come to expect of them. It was only when the great door to this home was flung open that she could get a clear view of what lay within. The forms of the hybrid creatures she had stalked, while still terrifying in their regard, were not new to her. Her attention drifted from them shortly, to other figures that moved about in the limited view she had. They looked like Crowfather, she presumed as well, like her, although their forms didn’t seem as solid. They were wizened like Crowfather, yet while his age seemed to give him strength in some way, she saw nothing of this from them. The expanse of the doorway was such that she could gain some idea of their activities, they seemed burdened by objects, holding them aloft for the Wolfmen to take from. Words sprang to her mind with meaning; Servants, Slaves, thoughts that brought ill ease to her. She was stronger than she had been before, but still, such a gathering of the creatures might be beyond her. With an exasperated sigh, air which immediately turned to frost and fell to the ground below, she turned in place, set to make her way back to the cliffs where Crowfather would await.

—------

When Crowfather was awake, they would venture together. Sticking to the relative shelter of the rocky cliffs, he would instruct her, not just in the nature of the world around them, but in her ability to control it. Much like Crowfather it seemed, should she focus her mind, she could command powerful forces. It was a task she found difficult at first, but he was a patient teacher. Even when he was not doing so deliberately, she learned from him. She observed how the gradual erosion of the cliffs seemed to slow further in his presence. He was a steadying presence in a realm which seemed to deny that there could be such a thing. While he had given her no obvious reason to worry, she still did not admit to him all that she had learned from observing him and the rest of the realm. The whispers of a warning told her that not all was as it seemed here, and such knowledge was always power.

The passing of time was hard to track, the only thing she had to measure was the periods of time when Crowfather needed to rest. She had tried to mark the gradual decline of the outskirt cliffs as a guide, but this had proven too uneven, especially after Crowfather had taught her to change and create with the power of her soul. Sometimes while Crowfather was in repose she would tread the edge of the rocks and alter their course, either slowing or speeding the decline, as a test of her growing power. Much time did pass, of that she was sure, for the steady increase in her ability reached a point which would make the being she had been at first seem inconsequential.

Her lessons with Crowfather had begun to frustrate her, for they had moved on from the practical to more studies about the nature of the realm, and their enemy, The Changer. She had no doubt that the dominance of this being across the realm had caused great harm, but she did not believe it was as simple to depose this faceless being. There was a sense of ‘wrong’ about where she was that she felt could never be fixed. Despite knowing nothing else, she was sure there was more than this realm of darkness and had decided her aim was not to conquer, but to leave. The warning whisper in her mind agreed with her, and she had learned to trust these things that came to her without bidding, ever since the first call of ‘Victory’ her mind had screamed at her, she had her own intuition, as much as Crowfather, to thank for her survival.

There was but one other place she knew where she might find answers, a place she knew Crowfather would not permit her to go. So, once again, she waited until he had slipped into another bout of unconsciousness, and returned once again to great plains of frost. Where before she had been eternally lost, and later when she had required a guide, now the realm was an open book to her. No matter how much the frost curse might seek to erase any trace of those passing through it, with but a thought, she could see the tracks once more. Keeping low once again, she found a trail left by the hunched forms of the wolfmen and followed them, the scent of their forms glaring in her nostrils the whole way.

The clamour of noise and the sight of the hearth fire light flickering on the white frost heralded her true sight of the structure by some distance, but when it came into view it was as she remembered it, jutting from the unremarkable plain of frost. At first, the wind howled from behind her, risking altering them to her presence, but she focused, calling upon what Crowfather called her ‘missing eye’ and soon they turned in her favour, blasting her scent away from the homestead. The Wolfmen were keen hunters, but they made for poor guards of their own home, little challenge as they had, and after a dash to the doorway, she was pushing through the doorway into the hold.

For the first time in her existence, as far as she knew, she felt warmth, true warmth, cast from a fire that burned with vitality. It was such a heady rush that she almost missed the reactions of those around her. The shades scattered from her, stunned by the presence of a new being. The Wolfmen were aggressive but sluggish. Some were rousing from a repose akin to Crowfather’s, others were across the hall, consuming the substances held to them by their shade servants. Whatever that might be, it seemed to slow their movements.

“Girl-Thing,” One of them snarled, crouching up onto its hunches. “True flesh, here, for us.” With another exhalation between fangs and snout, it lunged for her, the squat form that had previously seemed so impossibly powerful to her surging into the air. Her own strength was far greater than it had been when last she had confronted one of them, however, and she barely flinched as her own arm darted out, a heavy blow striking it in its twisted hybrid neck before it could land its strike. The beast was sent sprawling, scattering the hewn furniture of the hall with its landing. A cry of pain and successive shouts of alarm from the other inhabitants of the hall shortly followed.

“I am not yours, although we do not have to fight.” She spoke calmly, a tone of authority in her voice that she had not previously known was there, but flowed as naturally from her as any of her other unexplained gifts and memories. Her words were met with growls, but no further violence for the moment, the hulking but stooped forms of the wolf-men prowling in the flickering light of the fires. It was then she noticed a third form in the hall, a great wolf, not a hybrid, lying still by the fire. Its chest heaved with the slow breathing of slumber, and it alone did not seem to react to any of what passed around it.

“Speak more, girl-thing,” Another of them barked, the monstrous muzzle of their face dripping with savage spittle as they did so, their twisted visage doing little to aid the complexity of speech. The shades continued to cower, as much from her as the beasts themselves, for at least those were a familiar terror. She doubted they had experienced any being of this land that was not some new horror.

“I wish to know who they are,” She motioned towards the translucent shades, their forms barely there and their misery plain to see. “I have only known this realm, yet there is much I do not know.” She was honest with them, for she saw little advantage in a falsehood she could simply become trapped in. They might see her naivety as a weakness, but she had already demonstrated she was more than capable in other means. Still, there were some amused cackles from the hybrids.

“Humans, dead.” The same Wolf-man spoke, teeth flashing as he did. “Died cowards’ deaths, not in glory or honour, sent here for us to rule and devour.” The misery of the Shades was highlighted even more in the words of the hybrid, shame built upon horror as they shifted further into the flickering shadows. She felt pity, but no remorse. This was the knowledge she needed. She opened her mouth to speak further, but a flutter of wings brought a halt to this. She expected the arrival of Crowfather, the rustling feathers of his clothing, but instead, a new bird perched at one of the windows. It was about half the size of one of the wolf-men, its features ending in a proud beak. Unlike the mattered feathers of Crowfather, its coat was a kaleidoscope of brilliant colours, more than she had ever seen in the dour realm she had found herself in. The Wolf-Men were immediately quiet, backing away as much as the shades had the moment previous.

The bird cocked its head, regarding her with a single eye that possessed two pupils, an image and expression which sent a shiver down her spine, as much as the howling wind of the frost plains did.

“At last, we meet.” The bird’s beak opened, and the voice came forth, without further movement. It was a voice more melodic than any she had heard before, a gentle tone that spoke of hidden power. “The flaw in the parchment.” Even if the voice was even, she was sure she felt anger behind it. Perhaps she was not notable enough to cause anger, if so, then annoyance.

“You’re the Changer.” It wasn’t a question, for she knew it in her heart as clearly as any granted memory. Unlike the other beings in the room, she did not shirk, even if her skin prickled with adrenaline and the anticipation of danger.

“A name granted to me by a dolorous fool who cannot comprehend all but the simplest of concepts, but yes, I am the one Crowfather has set you against.” The Bird was still unmoving, apart from its eyes, which roamed over her. She had never really been aware of herself, dwelling in darkness as she had, but suddenly the simple robes given to her by Crowfather seemed insufficient. She felt as if everything was stripped away under that gaze, blazing into the core of her.

“Your servants tried to harm me first,” She found the steel to make the retort, happy that her voice didn’t waiver in the effort, but still she clenched her fists nervously, willing herself to continue to hold firm in the face of the beautiful but dangerous visage. “Crowfather did not have to convince me of anything.”

“They would make for poor guard dogs if they did not investigate trespassers in my realm.” While the melody of the voice did not fade, she found herself rankled by its dismissive tone. She had little evidence of it, but some part of her knew she should not be something, or someone, to be simply brushed aside. She was for greater things than that. The venom of pride became the new source for the strength required to respond and not cower.

“ Your realm is destroying itself by your design, they have little to guard.” She forced the snarl out of her words, not wishing to mimic, in any sense, the savage forms of the wolf-men around her. Her attention was fully on the bird, such that she did not notice the first sign of awareness from the slumbering wolf, the white pelt of the creature shimmering as its ears flicked. A ripple of anticipation passed through the Wolf-Men, but the girl and the Changer’s attention was set on each other.

“I suppose Crowfather has explained this to you as if his own designs would be favourable. His influence is a canker, and he would turn everything around him into such, were I not to hold him in place. I have almost purged this place of his rot, and when his last gamble has failed, it will be complete.” The Changer’s words were as commanding as ever.

“I do not care for either of your visions,” She moved as she spoke, the firelight flickering at her back, casting the dancing pattern of her shadow across the room. “You each argue that your way is the better one, as if there are but two choices.” She reached the resting place of the great white wolf, kneeling down to stroke a hand through its fur. The beast did not stir, but she felt the rise and fall of its flanks. Her proximity to it seemed to cause some agitation, some interest, among the hybrids, but the Changer only continued to regard her balefully.

“The force of our wills battle across this realm, those are the choices that remain.” A statement, as dismissive of her thoughts of something else as could be.

“So there is something more? This land is not all of everything? She raised an eyebrow, still knelt beside the wolf. She had never believed otherwise, but an admission was still useful to her.

“A great many things, a great many places, a great many times.” The Raven spoke, before it’s head tilted in a quizzical manner. “Do you wish to see girl? Where you came from? Where you are going?”

She knew not to trust the creature, knew that Crowfather would warn her away from such things, but then, for all his care of her it was clear there were many lies wrapped up in Crowfather’s protection, and she needed knowledge. “Show me.” She stood, still resolute beside the slumbering wolf, as the Raven fixed her with its greatest eye, the third upon the centre of its skull.

“Look into the flames girl, and behold creation.”

She turned, looking over the form of the wolf into the fireplace itself. For a moment nothing changed, then the fires began to burn in shifting colours, more than any she had seen before in her world of darkness and ice. Slowly in the flames and shadows cast by them a vision began to form.

At first she beheld a land not too different to her own at first, a broken and vast plain, yet as the vision clarified she saw many differences. Mountains, structures, interruptions in the plain that could not be found in her world. She saw moving shapes that soon became figures, like the shades, but whole. More of them, more than she could scarcely believe could possibly exist. Conflict raged among them, a war of proportions alien to her in her isolated world of cold. Yet the call to it pounded within her, as real as her heartbeat.

“Your past, girl, the cradle of ruin from which you were forged.” The words of the Changer felt distant as she was pulled into the vision, as it warped and changed beyond what had been shown to her. “Now, the future written for you.”

What had been a vision of great scope narrowed to just a few by comparison. Twenty One individuals. She did not know their names, but she saw herself among them, older than she was now she was certain, but these strangers did not seem strangers to her. Family.

She beheld the being at the centre of this group and could not keep the gasp from her lips, a physical reaction. Awe swept through her, although he was hard to look upon. The perfection of the being made her eyes ache, made her knees heavy, but she was determined to hold, to take in every detail. The twenty surrounding figures looked to this being with reverence, but as time past they grew distant, forget their way, forgot each other. She saw the cracks in her family and could have wept as if she was truly there. In the next moment, golden light leapt from her vision self, reaching out to the others, holding them in place, binding them together. Preserving the family.

“Such a perfect little dream, perhaps it might have even worked.” The voice of the Changer dripped with emotion now, begrudging admiration mixed with loathing, and she felt its talons on her shoulder. If her world was ice this was fire, yet she could not move to prize the burning talons from her flesh. “The perfect little daughter to love her siblings when they fail even to love themselves, the salve to the greatest flaw of all, avarice.” The talons prised deeper and she gasped as her skin parted, the hellfire hooks of the Changer within her flesh. “It could not be allowed, even Crowfather saw my wisdom then.”

She balked, not from the pain, or the words, but from the distortion of the vision. Instead of golden light reaching from her vision self, now tendrils of darkness, corruption, the same that wrapped the Changer’s claws stretched from her to the other figures. Instead of binding they pushed them further, stocked those hatreds. Tears ran down her cheeks as she watched herself doom the family she had never known. “So yes, in time, you will return to the world above, and do our great work.” The words were even more distant to her as she watched the unravelling of her destiny, of her promised self.

The girl may have been still and dead to the world, lost in the vision the Changer presented her with, but the world beyond was not calm. As the Changer’s attention was focused on inflicting its psychic torture, its Wolf-men servants grew agitated as a new presence drew closer.

The open windows proved little protection against the broiling sense of heat, a feverish pulse in the air, before the door to the hovel was thrust open once more, not with the careful approach of the girl, but with a fury of a father scorned.

“Unhand her!” Crowfather’s wrath was unreserved, it pulsed from him, beneath his skin and through the air. The first wolfmen to leap at him never reached him, smote from the air by the aura of power around him, their lifeforce simply flickering out by the very essence of entropy that beat from the old man, no matter how frail is form seemed. The next, more powerful of their kin, were a little more successful. Fuelled by the stolen power of the shades they feasted on, they could resist his power. It brought them moments of survival, for when Crowfather’s decrepit arms swung his walking stave it struck with the thunderous blow of continents. His power had been a shade of the Changer’s, but he was still a force of nature, and the Changer was distracted. With the death of the latest charge, the other wolfmen, even their foul king, slunk back, cowering, leaving their master to deal with the interloper. “She is not….yours.” With another shout, the power of the Crowfather reached for the girl, seeking to clamp and claw into her, to rend her from the grasp of the changer.

Even within her fugue vision state, the girl felt both forces, the talons and vice of the Changer so deep within her already, the brutal force of the Crowfather seeking to rip her free heedless of what that might yet do to her. Her mind registered pain and dread in the abstract sense, for still she could not pull herself from the sorrow of her vision. Something within her, buried deep, written into her very self by that perfect creator, railed to fight back. The heart that beat within her refused to die, she was made to fight, to live, to rip vitality from a cruel universe. Her mind could not though, it was transfixed. The most she could do was shift her gaze ever so slightly down.

The Wolf was awake, it looked up at her with eyes of midnight black. Within them, the universe turned.

“What are you?” She did not know how she found the strength to speak, how she could ignore the forces pulling her apart, but for that moment nothing mattered but the Wolf and its great dark eyes.

“I have no end, I am the Ending of All Things.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Where Life Goes, I am Sure To Follow.”

“It’s not my time.” She felt the first emotion for herself then, having witnessed the two fates promised to her. Yet here she was to be broken apart, split and torn before the could even see the waking world from which she came. Now, Death was at her feat, here to claim her. The racing of her heart became a fury. Her body, forged for conquest, raged against an ineptitude it had been made never to feel.

“No, little sister, it is not.” The form of the wolf began to blur before her as she felt her very essence begin to fall apart, the arcane powers rending her being into pieces. “But after today, we will never be apart.”

The Hovel of the Wolfmen was a scene of bedlam, wolf-men and shades alike caught in the crossfire of Crowfather and the Changer’s surging powers, all surrounding the form of the girl and the wolf. They screamed, fought and cursed at each other, these ancient forces which looked to claim the girl. Too late they noticed what their own power was doing, too late the rising tide of power reaching out of the soul they were pulling to pieces. Like the splitting of the atom, the soul was divided, and something else surged within. Where once there was girl and wolf, now there was simply the power they have coveted.

Crowfather attempted to relinquish his hold, as the Changer desperately grasped. The Wolf-men howled and the Shades cowered as they had in life. In the next moment, power erupted. A Supernova of soul-light swept everything away. The twin powers, the mutants, the ghosts, the hovel, even the ice fields beyond, winked out of reality.

---

Far Below The Fang

Twisted forms huddled around an altar of stone and bone. The twisted men had hunted the surface, dragging captives from the land above or from those foolish enough to wander into their labyrinth of tunnels at the foot of the mighty Fang mountain, many drawn by the prophetic vision of the comet.

The Undermen did not care why the surface dwellers did this, but they were thankful for the influx of sacrifices. Meat for them, souls and bone for their gods. The latter of which had been pilled up upon the dark granite alter, still slick with blood and gristle as they prayed wiith mouths too full of twisted teeth to make true words.

The stone began to shake with a thrum of power. The Undermen had seen signs of their gods before and knew their power, but rarely expected it. Their gods were not kind and had little time for them. Still, the signs caused them to redouble their efforts, the chanting picked up, more of the captured were brought forth to be flayed upon the altar, the screams of the dying joining the chorus of guttural voices. One distinct voice of those prisoners cried out and rose above the teeming gibber of the Undermen.

“All-Father….avenge us.”

As that last soul died, turned over to dark hungering gods, the thrumming of the stone reached its fever pitch, and the altar cracked with sudden force.

What came up from the depths moved with a speed that even the Undermen blessed with fortunate mutation couldn’t track, a dark blur ot motion among them. It took them a moment to realise they were being slain, not visited by some benevolence of their gods. Snap, snap, snap, bones were broken, necks ripped out. Flesh was rent as the chanting of the Undermen turned to panic and fear, moving to fleet from the sign of their own worship.

None of them made it out of the cavern, one almost did, but was dragged back, kicking and squealing into the darkness.

The sounds did not cease. The brittle cracking of bone, the sodden wet sound of rending flesh rising to replace the cascade of violence and panic.

As the girl fed, drank of the blood, she felt the weak souls of the Undermen leech into the empty, gaping chasm that had formed in her own. The hunger bit harsher than even the cold of the realm she had freed herself from, but steadily it was easing. Eventually she stepped awy from her kills, finally looking around her. Below ground, she knew what that was now. The cold of the caverns was enough to kill a man in moments, but next to the depths of the great dark it may have well as been the baking heat of the desert. She luxuriated in it, falling back atop the mound of pulsing heat that was what remained of her victims.

And laughed.

//Vion 5
//Death Death Death D-

The medicae chamber was a cathedral of sterility, its cold, unyielding walls aglow with the eerie blue light of lumen strips. The steady hum of arcane machinery reverberated through the air, punctuated by the rhythmic hiss of the life-support systems. Ancient mechanisms, their surfaces engraved with Martian blessings, ticked and pulsed in time with the flickering bio-monitors. The scent of antiseptic was thick, clinging to the senses like a ghostly pall.

At the center of the room lay a lone figure upon a raised medicae slab. The woman’s frail form, clad in tattered remnants of battle-worn armor covered by the tattered white and red robes of the mechanicum, seemed dwarfed by the intricate web of cables and tubes that sustained her battered body. Her breath came shallow, a fragile whisper against the cacophony of machinery. Blood had been scrubbed from her face, but her weathered features bore the scars of countless campaigns, her resolve unbroken even in the embrace of unconsciousness.

Standing sentinel over her was the towering figure of the Angelus Machina, his presence a stark contrast to the fragility before him. Clad in the same style of armor, he was seen as nothing more than a demi-god made manifest. His pale, chiseled face was a mask of unreadable emotion, save for the fire smoldering in his pale blue eyes. Yet, he could do little more than watch as the work was done to try and save her, unable to fully process the danger her mortal life was in.

His gauntleted hand rested lightly on the edge of the slab, a gesture almost tender despite the crushing strength it concealed. The blood of his mechanical enemies still clung to the ceramite plates of his armor, the crimson streaks a grim testament to the vengeance he had wrought in her name.

Behind him, the Magos Biologis and servo-automata worked tirelessly, their voices murmuring invocations to the Machine God as they patched flesh and augmented bone. Yet, despite their efforts, a faint tension hung in the air—an unspoken acknowledgment that even their sacred ministrations might not suffice.

For a moment, Usriel lowered his head, his lips moving in a whisper too quiet for mortal ears. Was it a prayer? A plea? Even the medicae servitors dared not intrude upon this private moment as some watched and waited to tend to him. The battle with the False God had been brutal and his armor bore those marking as energy and ancient weaponry, had dared to unmake him.

There was silence before an apothecary-priest approached, his every movement precise, face hidden by an optic that took over his entire skull. “My Angelus,” he intoned, voice modulated and devoid of any emotion that Usriel’s mother deserved. “I am afraid that the damage she has sustained is too severe. Further augmentation will do little more than prolong her agony. Please, allow my ser-”

“Leave us,” the Angelus’ voice boomed, his gaze unwavering from the body of One-One as the Biologis bowed his head before retreating out of the room. This woman had raised him, taught him of the magnificence of the past and the hope of Humanity’s future in a galaxy bereft of that very hope. For all his otherworldly might, all the power that coursed through his veins, there came a pang of helplessness. He needed to hear her voice, he needed to hear a voice that would tell him that she would survive.

”Are you not allowed to enjoy the time in which you have spent with her, brother?”

A voice spoke, its tone unsettling in its paradoxical blend of familiarity and enigma. It slipped into Usriel’s mind like a blade cloaked in velvet, each word piercing with an uncanny precision, as though it unraveled his soul to expose his deepest needs. Reluctantly, his gaze broke from her dying form, drawn downward to where a thousand and one grains of dark sand shifted and whispered against the cold floor. The voice persisted, its resonance both soothing and otherworldly, as if carried on a breeze from forgotten deserts. A phantom touch rested on his shoulder—warm, dry, and unshakably real.

“You are the Alat Almalak to your people, the Angelus Machina made manifest. The love in which she has felt for you is a love any mother would have felt for their son, and you were no mere son. What would your final words be before the sands would take her?”

Usriel would have thanked the voice, but as he turned, reality called once more and all there were the various instruments of medicae. The demi-god sighed as he turned back to look upon the broken form of his mother, setting his hand over her forearm. He tried to find words to say to her, wanting to heed the advice of the comforting voice, but there was nothing the Angelus Machina could say to One-One. Visions of the past came over him, visions of when One-One was with him, when his father was there.

A family.

No longer could he contain himself, no boy witnessing the loss of their mother would be able to, as tears began to stream down his face. His features softened, and he began to weep over her. In this moment, he was no demi-god, no general, no warrior. Usriel, in the moment of sobbing and grief, was nothing more than a boy praying to the Machine God that fate might be reversed and that he could be nothing more than a boy with his family again. He cursed the Machine God for being something more than a normal man, cursed his father for giving him up, cursed fate itself for delivering himself to this very moment.

There was a shift underneath his hand, forcing him to look upon his mother once more. It was always hard to tell if One-One was awake even normally, but now he stared at her flickering eyes as Death crept from the corners of the room. The Angelus Machina wanted to cradle her, to comfort her, but he could not force himself to move from her side.

One-One’s head tilted, gazing upon the Angelus Machina before a soft voice spoke, muffled as her modulator failed to comply with her speech, “Is it you? Have my prayers been answered? Is it really you sitting right there? Is it really you, my love?”

“Is that you, Nirek?”

Usriel’s eyes widened slightly, yet understanding that his mother was likely in the grips of death and seeing what she wanted to. His grip over her forewarn tightened lightly before responding, “I am not the man you fell in love with. I am not the man you adore. I am not your kind and gentle husband. I am your son, Usriel.”

“Usriel, how is he? Where is my little Angelus?” The words stung so much that it almost forced him back to tears, seeing how she did not recognize him at that moment. It took him several heartbeats to recollect himself, water pooling in his eyes and barely restrained by his own force of will. The Angelus Machina looked away from her for the briefest moment, looking to see that her vitals fared poorly and knowing that the voice knew that he would have these final moments with her. Slowly, he turned back over to his ailing mother and forced a smile onto his face so that she may find some peace.

“He- He is in the other room One-One,” Usriel responded softly.

The Tech-Priestess let out a sigh of relief, “Good, I would not want him to see me like this.”

One-One tried to adjust herself, finding it difficult to move her broken and largely unresponsive body. Her son laid a hand on her, wordlessly urging her back into her original position. There was a silence amongst them as Usriel lacked the words to speak to her, only allowing himself the soft moments with his mother. Yet, it was not without a lack of trying as his mind raced with what he wanted to say to her this time. There was more time between the two as Usriel merely began to enjoy the comfort of her presence, yet he knew that he would have to acknowledge her condition openly soon enough.

One-One’s optics flickered again, struggling to focus as her voice, faint and crackling, emerged once more. “Nirek... please,” she whispered, her words strained but holding the soft cadence of desperate hope. “Let me see you... truly. Not through these cursed lenses. I want to see your face... before I go.”

Usriel’s breath caught in his chest.

“Mother,” he started softly, but the word seemed to slip past her, unheard or unheeded. Her gaze, though distant and impaired by failing augments, carried a faint spark of yearning. She wasn’t looking at an Angelus, or even her son—she was looking for the man she had loved, the man who had once whispered promises of family and love.

“Nirek...” she murmured again, the synthesized voice began to grow weaker. “Take these from me. These... abominations. I do not want to see the world through cold metal anymore. I want to see you—the way I did in the beginning.”

Usriel’s chest tightened, the immense weight of her words settling over him like a shroud. The tears he had tried so valiantly to restrain now streaked freely down his face, his vision blurring as he looked upon her broken form. “Mother...,” he whispered, his voice cracking.
Her hand shifted weakly, the motion jerky and unsteady, reaching toward his face. “You’ve been so quiet,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Always the thoughtful one... always my anchor. I knew you’d come for me. Even now, after all the pain... you still fight for me.”

Usriel closed his eyes, letting the warmth of her hand—however weak—settle against his armored cheek. “I fight for you,” he said softly, his voice choked with emotion. “Always.”

One-One smiled faintly, her breaths growing more labored. “Then... fight for me one last time, Nirek. Take away these... accursed optics. Let me see you... just once more, before the void takes me.”

His gauntleted hand covered hers, cradling her fragile limb as gently as his immense strength allowed. His mind raced. To comply with her request would rob her of what little clarity she had left, but to deny her would feel like betrayal—a failure to give her the peace she so desperately sought. His heart screamed with the agony of the decision, but he spoke with a calm he did not feel.

“I will,” he said finally, the words trembling with sorrow. “If that is your wish... I will do it.”

Her body relaxed at his words, a sigh of relief escaping her lips. “Thank you... my love. You’ve always been my light in the dark.”
Usriel felt his soul shatter at her words, but he could not bring himself to correct her. For now, he would let her believe. If it gave her peace in these final moments, he would be Nirek. He would be whatever she needed.

The chamber fell silent again as Usriel, the Angelus Machina, bent closer to the woman who had raised him, taught him to hope, and given him strength. And as he prepared to grant her final request, the tears fell freely, for he was no longer the Angelus Machina, no longer the chosen son of a god.

In this moment, he was only a son losing his mother.

As Usriel held her trembling hand in his own, the chamber seemed to grow colder, the mechanical hums and soft clicks of medicae servitors fading into the background. His other hand rested gently on the side of her face, his gauntlet removed to allow the warmth of his skin to touch hers. One-One’s breath hitched, shallow and unsteady, and her optics flickered erratically.

For a moment, she was silent, her gaze felt distant as though searching through fragmented memories. Her voice, weak and laced with static, broke the stillness. “Nirek... my love... you’ve grown so strong. But your hands... they feel... different. War has hardened them, hasn’t it?”

One of the medicae servitors hovered closer, its mechanical appendages deftly removing the damaged optics from One-One's face with a quiet whir of precision. For the first time in years, her natural eyes were revealed—deep blue and glistening faintly with unshed tears.
Usriel’s breath caught as he stared into those eyes, eyes he hadn’t seen since his youth, and the sight stirred memories long buried beneath years of war and duty. They were the eyes that had looked at him with unconditional love, even when he had faltered, even when he had doubted.

Her gaze, free from the mechanical interference, found his. At first, confusion lingered in her expression, but as the moments stretched, understanding blossomed. The clarity in her eyes cut through the haze of pain, and a single tear slipped down her cheek.

“Usriel,” she whispered, her voice trembling but certain, as recognition washed over her.

He froze, his heart pounding in his chest. “Yes,” he breathed, his voice trembling. “It’s me, Mother. I’m here.”

Her lips parted in a weak gasp, her body struggling to move. “My son,” she murmured, her voice faltering but filled with a deep, profound love. “I... I thought I would never see you again.”

Usriel bowed his head, tears streaming freely down his face. “I’m here,” he repeated, his voice breaking. “I never left you, not truly. I fought for you, for what you taught me. Everything I am... is because of you.”

One-One’s hand, frail and trembling, reached up to touch his face. The gesture was weak but deliberate, and Usriel leaned into it, savoring the fleeting warmth of her touch. “You’ve become... everything I dreamed you’d be,” she whispered. “My angel... my miracle. You are my greatest creation... and my greatest joy.”

Her voice began to fade, her strength waning with every word. “I’m so proud of you, Usriel. So proud... to call you my son.”

“No,” Usriel choked, gripping her hand tightly as if his strength alone could anchor her to life. “Stay with me, Mother. Please.”

But One-One’s gaze softened, her expression serene. “Don’t weep, my angel,” she murmured, her voice now barely a whisper. “I’ll be with you always... in the light of the stars... in the hum of the machines...”

Her eyes flickered one last time before dimming entirely, her hand falling limp in his grasp.

“Mother?” Usriel’s voice cracked, his eyes searching her still face for any sign of life.

But the medicae chamber offered no answer, its cold sterility mocking his grief. For all his divine strength, his unyielding will, Usriel could do nothing to stop the inevitable.

The Angelus Machina lowered his head, his tears falling onto the lifeless form of the woman who had raised him, taught him, and loved him as no one else ever could. And in the stillness of the chamber, as the light of her life faded into memory, Usriel whispered a vow only the stars would hear.

“I will make you proud, Mother. I swear it. In life and death, you will guide me.”

And with that, the towering figure of the Usriel knelt in quiet reverence, a son mourning the woman who had shaped his soul.