[center][h1]The Duel[/h1][/center][center][sub]Now Kill And Make Up[/sub][/center]
[h3]Year: 001.M31[/h3][hr]
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The progenitors of both the Stargazers and the Daughters of Iron had been [i]requested[/i] to stay on station near Nikaea after the audience with the Emperor had finally concluded. Such a request meant little from most, even some of the Imperium’s highest notables, but this came from the newly christened Warmaster. Delays galled Daena, especially in considering the severity of the situation, but they were necessary. Augor had more pressing business, and Eiohsa…. Eiohsa was far too raw after having seen her daughters toyed with like a juvenat’s schola experiments. Time was required for the both of them.

But there had been time enough. Both had been summoned not to the planet below, but to the Doomsayer’s Gloriana, the [i]Redemption[/i]. The siblings were directed to land in a massive cargo bay that had been cleared for the occasion, the cavernous chamber empty for the moment save for the winged Warmaster herself. No grand reception awaited the Primarchs, and the Angel had even forgone her own panopoly. She sat in the exact center of the bay, dressed in plain black training gear, wings folded over herself as she focused her mind on what was to come. A part of her wished she was fighting orks instead.

Without fanfare, a single small vessel approached and docked within the vast battleship. From it, a small procession departed, headed by a massive figure. Towering over approximately a dozen companions clad in simple garb from Kayaamat and the other worlds of Saravata, the Primarch of the Sixteenth Legion strode forward, her expression blank. Since her meeting with the Emperor, and the night of merriment aboard her own flagship, she had stewed in her thoughts within her private quarters. Change was, slowly, taking form in her mind. The thoughts and sensations of those around her no longer drifted into her - still a novel sensation, or lack thereof. She was alone with nothing but her thoughts and the echoes of the dead. Eiohsa was clad not in the ceremonial armor she had worn during the council, but an unadorned and utilitarian suit of terminator armor. The heavy armored footfalls of the master-crafted suit echoed across the empty bay as she approached her target.

“Daena.” She said simply as she drew near her sister, inclining her head slightly. “My apologies that my foolish actions have lead to this.”

A sliver of Daena’s consciousness noted her sister’s arrival, the urge to grin and to frown warring within her as she appraised Eiohsa. She had been dour for so long that the Angel doubted she would understand what was so humorous about her appearance. “Sister. You have come ready for war,” the Mistress of the XIVth said in a soft voice, less accusation and more statement of fact. “I would ask for you to sit with me, but,” she added with a shrug as she trailed off, voluminous wings rippling about her as she did, sending a soft rain of feathers to the deck. “Nonetheless, be at peace. We await our brother.”

“Forgive me, then, sister.” Said Eiohsa, nodding her head once more. “I… I assumed that was why I was here.” 

She nodded to the small entourage that followed her, and two attendants stepped forward, skilled hands moving with practiced ease and dexterity. The hiss of airtight seals releasing filled the air around them, mechanical locks releasing, powered connections dying down. With a small nod of thanks, she stepped down from the chassis of war, clad in a simple bodysuit similarly devoid of decoration or extravagance. 

She sat down, cross legged, beside Daena to wait, “You believe, then, that he may be dissuaded from violence?”

"I was named [i]master[/i] of war, Eiohsa. Not bringer of it," Daena murmured, the core of her attention far from the physical space that they happened to share. “I believe his vengeance may be mitigated. But now, silence while we wait.”

Their brother did not come quietly.

Clearly having made the same assumption that Eiohsa herself had, the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion had saw fit to reroute the [i]Light of the Omnissiah[/i], the Twelfth Legions’ own Gloriana-class vessel, to draw abreast of the [i]Redemption[/i] less than a thousand kilometers off to its sister vessel’s starboard side. Where the [i]Redemption[/i] was almost inconspicuous in the backdrop of space with its subdued black and silver color scheme, the [i]Light of the Omnissiah[/i] was a blaring and brazen icon of brilliance in the void. Much of its coloration adhered to the standard pattern of Mars, albeit with the superlative addition of gold across most of its structure. The massive craft had also been given substantial external modifications that seemed to be purely aesthetic. Towering cathedrals, spires, immense icons of the Cog Mechanicum and a giant sigil depicting the Emperor in his aspect as the Omnissiah dominated the surface area of the exterior hull. Swarming about it like remoras around a shark were dozens of escort craft and what looked like personal Imperial transports. Few of these were broadcasting Twelfth Legion IFF signals, but instead seemed to be ships of the true Mechanicum, as well as the personal vessels of several Remembrancers and even two which were part of the retinue of the High Lords.

Likewise, Augor did not deign to transit over to the [i]Redemption[/i] via shuttle, but instead by way of a light cruiser that docked directly with the comparatively massive Gloriana - sticking out almost like a vibrant thorn from the larger, darker craft’s flank.

Thankfully, their brother’s excess had halted there. He arrived in the same armor and harness he had worn during the Council, and his retinue was even somewhat smaller than Eiohsa’s, discounting the swarm of servo-skulls - though it included, notably, a number of Remembrancers who had doubtlessly been sent invitations to join him. His expression as he emerged into the hold was inscrutable - his empty gaze, the set of his mouth, and the lines of his face revealing nothing.

The atmosphere of the chamber suddenly seeming to [i]strain[/i] and flood with the tang of ozone, remaining an indicator of his disposition.

“Warmaster.” Augor halted ten meters away and bowed expansively to Daena, before rising and making a two-handed gesture of the Cog Mechanicum with his bionic hands. “First amongst the Omnissiah’s children. I trust his will shall be furthered here between us.”

He finally smiled - though still his sentiment was inscrutable. The only thing his smile revealed was teeth. “I have foreseen it.”

Daena stood slowly, unfurling as she raised herself off of the ground. It was a show for the Remembrancers, one that she engaged in without much conscious thought, but the picts of the Primarch’s wings unfolding were no less impressive for being a show. The bow was returned in kind, the symbol of the cog pointedly not. It would not do for her to reply to it even if she did believe.

“Augor, my brother, you who found me in the dark. The first of our siblings I saw with my own eyes,” she said in a sad voice, her memories flashing to the days of the decimated Stargazers, whose losses against the Rangdan had been so terrible. In those days, Augor Astren had been a piteous, wretched shell of a man, tortured and uncertain in all things. Nothing like the confident and calculatingly severe Primarch who stood before her now. “Our Father’s will shall be done, of that you have my word. There is nothing He despises more than discord between His children, and I endeavor to solve this here and now, if you would listen. I will not deny that a great insult has been done to you.”

“‘Great’ does not sufficiently describe it, Warmaster. Civilizations have [i]perished[/i] for even the suspicion of such accusation. Hundreds of billions of souls consigned to nucleonic fire. It was the first of the Omnissiah’s Exigencies stipulated in the Treaty of Mars, and one that required no adjustment by the ruling priesthood of the Mechanicum, for it was already their will. There is no greater adversary to Humanity than Abominable Intelligence. My sister has done no less than declare me the antithesis not only of all of Humanity, of the Imperium, and of the Mechanicum, but of our father as well.”

Augor did not even look at Eiohsa as he spoke, though he did raise a pointed talon to jab emphatically in her direction. “It is the single greatest condemnation that can be uttered. I would slay one of my own sons for aiming such a disparagement at [i]anybody[/i] without just cause. Even a xenos. The gravity with which I take this insult cannot be understated.” Augor’s words were clearly rehearsed, and evidently just as much for show as Daena’s own motions.

“As you say,” Daena said with an inclination of her head. “And if I felt our sister spoke in truth, I would not have called you here. You know as well as I what she has seen - not just the horrors freshly of now, but those she endured in the Rangdan. I speak to you not only as my brother, but as one of few who can say they know what those days called for. I ask of you, as a father, were it not for the clarity of thought granted by the Machine-Cult, can you not imagine yourself saying the rash and impudent so soon to witnessing the desecration of your own sons?”

“Perhaps I can - but respectfully, Warmaster, I cannot conclude that my sister’s words were borne of either recklessness or grief. The subject of the gathering was one the Sixteenth Primarch was in favor of and, by her own admission, has been practicing to an extent - and furthermore, I was not the object of her legitimate and otherwise righteous wrath and despair. I made a rational appeal to the avowal of our souls to the Omnissiah, to our duty to all of mankind and our obligation to [i]save[/i] those who might forsake their oaths. I cannot imagine a Primarch taking such leave of their senses, nor any Astartes for that matter, to such an extent as to levy such a perilous insult in that moment unless it was to elicit a [i]calculated[/i] effect.” Augor’s intonation was clear, and he carefully enunciated every individual syllable as he carried on.

“You forget, brother.” Spoke the Sixteenth, her words carefully measured. “I do not merely [i]see[/i] that which is around me. I feel it - I perceive it - as though the experiences of those others around me are my own. Tell me truthfully, Brother - have you held your dying sons in your arms? Felt the life slip from their bodies violated by the cruelest sciences ever dreamt by human minds? Felt that violation as if your own flesh and blood? Then have you stood before an assemblage of your kin who not only denied that such wrongs could have been perpetrated, but some claiming them to be visited by your own hand? Then, have you stood before your brother who tells you, to your face, that there is never enough?” She fixed him with an even, expressionless gaze, but the anguish in her words was evident. “My opposition was not, and never will be, to the procedures themselves. You are correct - I have used them in the past, and will continue to use them in future. What I argued for was mercy. For nuance. And in my fury, and my foolishness, I believed you had none.” 

She stood, walking to him, “Show me then, that I was wrong.”

Augor held a bionic palm up and out to halt Eiohsa’s approach, and six servo-arms noticeably craned up and inwards just as she came within striking distance - giving him for all intents and purposes the appearance of a spider that was rearing up to attack.

“I spoke then, that those whose words meant nothing bore hearts of insipid ashes to be swept away by all true servants of the Imperium. You directed the most dire aspersion possible to me, my sons, and my followers. I in turn, swore a [i]curse[/i] upon you. A personal oath of vengeance that I shall carry with me either until it is fulfilled or I am no more - an oath that I swore upon the Omnissiah himself, our father, in his very presence.”

Augor still faced Daena as he spoke, staring directly past Eiohsa’s head as she stood before him in a deliberate refusal to acknowledge her proximity. Only once he had finished speaking did he finally turn his hollow eyes to the Sixteenth Primarch.

“Unlike [i]some[/i], my word is my bond. I am capable of mercy. My vow in this matter affords none. You have done this to the both of us, sister. I am obligated to carry out this sentence - and I see no reason not to begin now.”

He raised his Omnissian Axe in one hand and brought its haft down to bang against the bay’s hull, as though a judge delivering his final verdict. He continued to speak, though now his words were subtly embodied by his rhetorical power, the same psyker abilities he used to deliver sermons and battlefield litanies now being directed in condemnation of his sister. Even if it scarcely had any impact upon his fellow Primarchs, the effect it would have upon their retinues would prove immense, and what the Remembrancers would bring away with them would prove the efficacy of his words - which was likely his intention.

“As to the matter of my sons and my care for them, I can say with perfect clarity that I care more for the life and suffering of a [i]single one[/i] of my Astartes than you care for your [i]entire legion combined[/i]. You [i]play[/i] at war, sending your daughters to be slaughtered in droves, as if the only thing you learned from the Rangdan Xenocides was how to spend their lives freely. Do not speak to me of the cruelty of science. Do not speak to me of violation. Do not speak to me of loss. I am Augor Astren, Primarch of the Stargazers, and I have borne witness to horrors you can scarcely fathom in the darkest reaches of the cosmos beyond the light of our father’s Astronomican. I have safeguarded the Imperium of Man from the most malignant and insidious forces in the galaxy, far from the eyes of any who might offer thanks or praise, and I have not spoken of them for their very knowing would be a toxin in the minds of all fair and noble Adepts. I have liberated worlds, civilizations, dynasties from the clutches of depravity that you do not even have the basis of knowledge to comprehend - and at Vaomir, my sons and I cast down and smote the greatest threat the Imperium has ever known since the Rangdan. All of this and more, I have done while ensuring the vows and oaths sworn by us all were kept true, and doing everything within my power and where possible to preserve the lives of my sons. You speak of your daughter’s execution as if it was mercy, as if you stand upon the zenith of morality to claim that her suffering in that moment was greater than us, greater than our capacity to heal the fallen, greater than our father and his infinite insight, and perhaps most blasphemous of all - that her anguish was somehow greater than your daughter herself. You permitted her to be executed to [i]appease[/i] a [i]shadow[/i]. Of course I do not call your folly mercy - not when I know it was well within our power to restore to her a full life and the capability to experience joy, without forcing her to perish in ignominy and to have made a [i]liar[/i] of her and yourself in the process. You, Eiohsha izva Bronakavh, are [i]craven[/i], bereft of the capability to love, and bereft of integrity - and you have not yet even begun to experience the immensity of my displeasure.”

“You dare?” Said she, her voice hollow at first, filled with more disbelief than anger. She stood, eyes wide, before responding in kind, her own voice ringing with the might that had felled empires and humbled kings. Her spear flew to her hand as she stood defiant before him, striking its butt upon the ground in turn. “You [b]DARE[/b]!? I have faced horrors the likes of which you could scarce-[i]dream[/i]. You dare claim I throw my daughters' lives away like the Sixteenth’s leaders of old? I and my daughters have fought without end. Fought in the darkest campaigns the Imperium has born witness to. I know more than you could even [b]begin[/b] to comprehend of sufferi-”

“Prevaricate all you want. I shut off all the recording devices and started broadcasting neurostatic interference the moment you opened your errant mouth.” Augor cut her off lazily, not even raising his voice. The onlookers in his retinue, who might otherwise have been appalled by the shockingly low ploy, seemed to be swayed by his warp-laden words - and some of them even [i]snickered[/i] aloud as his desired sentiment overbore their wills.

“[i]Enough[/i],” Daena hissed, the word a spell of its own. Though she lacked their father’s might, it nonetheless sufficed to cut through the veil of warpcraft Augor had weaved, the order laced with her gene-gift. “If you have rage enough to engage in such showmanship, then it shall be redirected. Talk is pointless if you insist on these games, brother. The both of you can lay your sorrows end upon end for all the good that the comparison will do, or you,” she said, pointedly gazing at Augor, “can fulfill your oath with honor instead of perfidy and you,” she continued, shifting her head to Eiosha, “can rid yourself of your self defeating sorrows.”

“Answer, for if you seek to continue upon your present course then neither of you shall be welcome here.”

Eiohsa’s expression did not change in response to the Warmaster’s commands. She remained silent for a moment, the air around her smelling of ozone as it crackled with energy. Eventually, she looked away from Augor, towards her sister. “I shall do as you wish, sister, if our brother will do the same.” Eiohsa nodded to Daena. “What rules would you set forth?”

“My daughters had a way of things, when they still strode upon Old Earth,” Daena said, speaking more for the cameras than for Eiosha. “Our Father had many generals and chiefs sworn to his service, most of whom had sworn mighty oaths of great calumny and rage upon one another. These could not be set aside, but neither could they be permitted to slay their foe, for their lives had been bound by oaths mightier still to the Emperor. As have yours,” she said in a flat voice, turning between Augor and Eiosha before settling her gaze upon her sister.

“Of the crime you have been accused of, I find you guilty. Of the oath sworn to seek recompense, I find it fair - kinder by far than most would receive. But I shall decide when and how it will be fulfilled, to ensure the functioning of our Father’s will. For now though, neither of you are in the mood to accept dooms pronounced. No. You shall bleed each other of your wrath and sorrow, and I shall decide when you are ready, as the Judicators of old.”

Daena paused there, and with a single leap thrust herself within the air, gazing down upon her siblings with a pitiless gaze. “The rules are simple. You shall not compromise the structural integrity of this chamber. You shall not cause damage to any other area of this vessel. You shall not bring injury or harm to any aside from each other. And you shall not kill. Know that this is not the beginning of the settlement, merely its prologue. Do you find these terms acceptable, brother, sister?”

Eiohsa nodded, giving no hint to the flurry of emotion that raged within her. Her face was like an effigy of iron, unmoving and cold. Within, she felt the warring sensations of fury and resignation. Fury that she had been forced into such circumstances. Fury that she had faltered in her duties to such an extent. Fury with the man who stood across from her. Fury even at her beloved sister. But there was resignation - she was tired of war and of conflict. Tired of constant struggle. Tired of suffering and misery and the inevitable cycle of hardship and strife. She did not want to fight. She did not want to take up her spear against her brother. She wanted no part in further bloodshed, even against him. But she gave no hint of these emotions. “Yes.” She said, the vortex that whirled within her audible only to those of her retinue who knew her well, and perhaps to the Angel who called down from above. “I do.”

“I do not.” Augor stated flatly. “Pardon me, Warmaster, but such an arena is far too disadvantageous to my opponent, and I decline to elaborate as to what parameters might render it more suitable as that would prove sufficiently disadvantageous to myself. However, beyond your choice of arena, I find your terms acceptable. If I may suggest an alternative?”

Daena smiled wryly at her brother, and then gave a nod. “By all means.”

Augor brought up a hand to the side of his head and murmured a binaric command. After a moment he uttered another before resuming his former posture. “I have just ordered one of my ships to launch a single shock charge upon the planet’s surface within the range of the current terraforming efforts - the remainder of our forces have been alerted so as to deter alarm. The blast shall level the terrain and create a relatively even, featureless waste upon which the both of us may suitably vent our wrath upon the other in accordance with your terms - and more fairly.” Augor inclined his head to Daena, ever so faintly.

“Let it be done.”

Eiohsa nodded. “Very well, then.”

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As both of the Primarchs returned to their transports - Eiohsa to return to her own ship and Augor simply heading directly to his light cruiser’s teleportarium - Mercaerath strood alongside his father with a frown.

“Father. You have deceived the Warmaster. By your own acknowledgement she is first amongst the Omnissiah’s children. Were you in your right mind, you yourself would demand just cause for your own behavior.”

Augor nodded. If there was anybody in the galaxy he would accept such chastisement from freely, it was Kyrius, savior of more than simply his life. “I weighed my obligation of loyalty to the Warmaster against the vow I swore before the Omnissiah. I concluded that insofar as one does not directly contravene the other, my vow supersedes her authority. That is why such deception was ultimately necessary. Insofar as the Warmaster permits herself to be deceived, I cannot permit her to interfere with this matter. That is why I had our Remembrancers transmitting a live feed to be edited and redistributed in real time, in case the Warmaster demanded I terminate their recording at any point. I could then truthfully claim that it was beyond my immediate power to prevent its dissemination.”

“And I imagine you believe that also justifies the orders you sent?” Kyrius asked inquisitively. “You claimed advantage simply to reap the benefits of another unspoken one?”

“I yielded a small advantage for the benefit of reaping a [i]greater[/i] one.” Augor corrected. “Binharic invocations and communion with the Machine Spirits and Master Spirit of the [i]Redemption[/i] would have taken time and concentration and would not have sufficiently skewed the battle in my favor, potentially. Always remember this, Kyrius - the mind, itself, is the most formidable weapon we all possess. I elected to use mine in the pursuit of the curse I lay upon my foe. That my enemy declined to do so and that the Warmaster permitted me to is the Sixteenth’s failure and the Fourteenth’s decision.”

“Some might argue that you invite further accusation of [i]perfidy[/i] and injustice, father.”

“Such arguments are correct, but we are far beyond the grounds of reticence and reason. If I have to snuff out every star in the void to see my vow fulfilled, it will be done, and I will apologize for nothing and to nobody for what I had to do. So I swore. Would you do any differently, Kyrius?”

Kyrius was silent for several moments, staring straight ahead as they advanced before answering.

“I do not know. I permit that your sister’s trespass demands answer. I remain uncertain if all of…[i]this[/i] remains necessary.”

“I swore before the Omnissiah.” Augor repeated. “If I deem it necessary, then [i]so be it[/i].”


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“Bad start,” Vairya Kurus said laconically, the Doomsayer’s Legion Mistress fitting her gene-mother’s armor onto her divine frame. “Shouldn’t have let him bring his entire entourage aboard.”

“He is the wronged party,” Daena said softly, staring impassively at a hololith of Nikaea below. The blast-site of the Twelfth Legion’s shock munition seemed exactly as promised from remote analysis, simply a wide crater in the terrain, though direct analysis would be necessary to determine whether its mundane appearance matched its nature. “I permitted him his game, but he will accept my judgement. He must,” she finished in a flat voice.

“And if he doesn’t?” the XIVth’s second in command asked, clasping her Primarch’s breastplate tight against her.

“Then he doesn’t. It would not be our first enforcement,” she muttered, though both knew what she did not say. ‘Enforcements’ were trivial affairs when the disagreements were between mortals, or even Astartes, for the will of the Legion was absolute and its might unassailable. Dealing with other Primarchs was another matter entirely.

“Mother.”

“I know, Vairya.”

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“Take up thy Armor, Strength, and bear upon thy shoulders the harm wrought by thy foe who would stand in service of the Malevolent.”

The words echoed within the throats not of thousands, but of only three. The sacred Litany before battle. In a chorus of millions, its words had formed the death knell of many an empire. Now, she took what little comfort she could in them.

“Take up thy Shield, Love, and protect those dear to your heart from thy foe who would stand in service of the Malevolent.”

The chant was broken up by the sound of armored plate sealing into place. The hiss and whine of capacitor banks charging filled the air. The mechanical rack as heavy shells chugged into place within meticulously tuned firing mechanisms. Layered forcefields of exquisite make flickered to life with a dull hum. The eerie sound of an arsenal to fell an empire assembled in comparative silence.

“Take up thy Horn, Wisdom, and lead the forces of the Light against thy foe who would stand in service of the Malevolent.”

Eiohsa stood, accompanied only by two trusted companions within this chamber. Ayushmatki had departed days ago, returning to the management of the Saravati Empire and bidding her friend of centuries a concerned farewell. None of her flesh and blood tended to her amidst sculptures worked by her own hand from the iron of a thousand sundered empires. Two mortals. A man and a woman, both from her home of Kayaamat, assisted her in the donning of her armor. Their voices spoke in perfect tandem with her own.

“Take up thy Sword, Duty, and in defiance strike down thy foe who would stand in service of the Malevolent.”

No other words were spoken during this time, for there was nothing else to say. Her spear was light and agile in her hand, perfectly crafted. It had perhaps no equal in the galaxy. Yet despite that, the weight felt magnified a thousand-fold. She had not wanted it to come to this.

“Take up thy Holy Cause, the Good Creed Devasayana in devotion to Devan above and below us, and cleanse their world of the taint of thy foe who would stand in service of the Malevolent.”

Silence elapsed as the two attendants inclined their heads slowly, marking the sign of divinity across their chests as their leader strode forth, clad in her monstrous suit of war.
[hr]
Eiohsa spoke with a dull monotone into her armor’s vox-link. “I want the full report from your orbital scan the moment it’s finished processing. I want a full team with me to reconnoiter the area. I do not trust my brother in the slightest.” 

“Understood, mother.”

“Only a fool would surrender an advantage willingly.” She scoffed. “My brother is many things - and a fool is not one of them. I will sniff out what he has attempted to rig in his favor with this battlefield. And it will be his undoing.”

“What do you intend?”

“I intend to do what is best, child.” Said Eiohsa, her expression impossible to discern behind the visor. “One way or another, I have already lost this battle. Whether it ends with my spear at his throat, or his own blade at mine, I have lost.”

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The analyst, selected by the Fourteenth, had preceded the other groups to the battlefield and carefully examined it, sampling the earth and performing penetrating scans of the terrain.

"Surface impact crater's material composition appears mundane.” She reported to Daena upon her arrival. Her tone was perfunctory and unconcerned. “Mineral composition is many times higher in density than the norm for this region, but falls inside expected parameters given forces of compressive and thermal shock due to impact from a shock-round bombardment. Surface composition is a calefaction-hardened thermal crust, trace radiation detected [i]below[/i] the norms of what was expected. Trace heat and thermal instability in pockets throughout, all falling within expected parameters. No anomalous structures or substances detected beneath the surface. This...is a crater. In ten years it will be impossible to distinguish from a natural one."

Daena glanced down at the analyst for a moment, but only a moment. “We both know that is not true. Geologically, topographically, certainly. But in the ways that matter? This place will be remembered,” she said in a tired voice, the certainty of her pronouncement warring with the apprehension as to [i]what[/i] it would be remembered for.

“Let my siblings proceed with their bloodletting.”

Across to the Northern edge of the crater, Augor and his retinue - now including a veritable army of Tech-Priests and Artificers - swarmed over and around the Twelfth Primarch, tending to every scant centimeter of his armor and armaments. The Primarch himself stood, unmoving, serene, and unreadable as he prepared for the fight ahead.

From the Southern edge, Eiohsa observed the crater through the visor of her helmet. Around her swarmed myriad mortals and Astartes alike, fussing over last minute quadruple checks of every single system within the armor, uttering hurried prayers for her victory, and more. Eiohsa herself remained immobile, her expression fixed into a scowl as she surveyed the land, eyes peeled for any irregularities in it.

“I suppose this cannot be delayed any further.” She said, hefting her spear and preparing to enter the crater. “Let us see what trickery my brother has intended.”

Across to the other side, Augor’s horde of technicians had finally moved away, and the Twelfth Primarch, now in his full and true wargear, leapt from the lip of the crater to land with a crowning waft of unsettled dust in the depression below - from where he began to [i]stalk[/i] forward slowly. Turning the full might of her armor’s auspexes and her warp-sight onto her brother, Eiosha pried into everything she could discern about his gear based on sight alone.

Before her senses could even touch upon his armor itself, they passed through no less than three imperceptible, concentric rings of variant forces, each one layered over the last. Force fields, each one of a different make and with different properties. Two of them were recognizable as a refractor field and as the conversion field generated by an Iron Halo. The third eluded her repository of knowledge, but from what she had [i]heard[/i] it seemed likely to be one of the Mechanicum’s so-called ‘Voltagheist’ fields - something she had never personally seen employed before but knew academically was employed by their frontline zealots of lower-order priests, the Corpuscarii and Fulgurites.

Finally reaching his armor itself, Eiosha immediately took in the startling degree of irregular asymmetry to the design. The chassis was one that had been taken apart and reworked painstakingly over a century. Every nodule, every bump, every groove and every segment there told a story. This was the armor of a man who learned from every injury and misstep he suffered, building himself up and around them. Each irregularity in the armor’s surface represented a moment in its history where it must have suffered substantial damage and had been subsequently modified to render it imperishable. Based solely from what she could observe on the surface, the outermost layer was some form of reactive armor rather than being a more regular and conventional ceramite or adamantine alloy. That was not the most concerning thing however.

What truly made Eiosha take notice of that armor was its [i]recent[/i] history. Her insight informed her, certain as battle-steel, that the Twelfth Primarch’s armor had not suffered so much as a scratch inside of the last three decades. This was armor that had been tempered and molded in conflict and war until both it and its wearer had evolved to the point where injury had become a remote hypothetical.

She then turned his gaze to his weapons.

His many, [i]many[/i] weapons. His bionic talons, she knew, were electrostatic gauntlets. He held, lightly for the moment, his Omnissian Power Axe in one hand - its configuration was abnormal even for the wildly divergent designs of the Mechanicum. She knew enough to determine that it was truthfully another weapon which, incidentally, had been adorned and also functioned as a power axe. It seemed to be channeling and siphoning radiant energies directly into it, as if it were the end-point of flowing current for the entire area. Mounted on each of Augor’s back-mounted servo arms was a different weapon module, each ensconced in an encapsulating mechanism that shielded them from her awareness, for now. Lesser mechadendrites writhed at the joints of the Primarch’s armor, each bristling with penetrating mechanisms or else digital emitters - and as she watched, Augor Astren made his first substantive move.

He hefted his power axe in both hands, and slammed its haft down onto the crust of the crater floor. Immediately, there was a massive discharge of volatile energies, and the crust where the haft had slammed down fell apart into a superheated slurry of magma and molten metal. Writhing across Augor’s armor, the insidious mechadendrite hive that had been seated betwixt his mounted limbs pulled itself across his arms, dangling itself above the superheated pool of lava...into which it then dropped itself, instantly becoming submerged and vanishing into the pool. It was then that one of Augor’s six servo-arms reared up and its capsule drew back, revealing one of the concealed weapons. Opting not to start with his favored Conversion Beamer, Eiosha could instantly discern that the dish-shaped, radial implement he was pointing at her was some kind of [i]sonic[/i] weapon - something she had [i]never[/i] seen employed anywhere in the Imperium before. It was something she only knew of from her encounters with the [i]Eldar[/i], though the make of Augor’s device was nothing like their slim and graceful designs. It bore instead the hallmark boxy and tumorous aesthetics expected of a Mechanicum armament. 

Eiosha’s analysis was interrupted by the then nearly imperceptible - the barely audible whine of harmonic resonance. The sonic device was more than just a weapon - Augor was using it to [i]scan[/i] her. Immediately, one of her armor’s alerts pinged - the sound being emitted by the device was modulating along a number of frequencies, each one reverberating until it pulsed against a layer of Eiosha’s armor or some element of her equipment, probing for weak points and applying strain to them.

As that happened, her auspexes also reported a shift in the surrounding atmospheric pressure. It was climbing. A storm was brewing, and the wind picked up, starting to fill the depression of the crater with dust - and then, a second alert pinged. Her armor’s insulation and capacitors were fighting off some impulse to dump her power reserves into the open air - and then, she felt the last of it. Augor’s psychic touch. He was reaching out across the immaterium like a leech to feed off of her vital energies.

Despite herself, Eiohsa smiled. Something in her blood, implanted so many centuries ago deep within the laboratories of Terra, revelled in the sensation of battle. That such battle might be against an equal - a foe to challenge herself, to best her, even, was a rare delight to be savored. Everything else fell away into the bottomless void of oblivion as the spirit of war took hold. She breathed deep, before her senses once more encompassed all that surrounded her. 

She seized upon her own armor, strong-arming its systems into line. Her mind raced against every new threat, reacting in near-instantaneous fashion against the actions of her enemy. Her armor adjusted itself as she brute-forced its systems into configurations never before intended, adjusting the resonant frequency of each component when the probing of her foe’s sonic weaponry found its mark. The tendrils of her brother’s energy writhed around her, and she seized those in turn, summoning her own reserves of strength as she repulsed his attack. 

“You’ll have to do better than that!” She called, commencing her own offensive. Against such a foe, much of her arsenal would be worthless - and it was thus that the Maw of Yaman rose to its firing position, spitting forth a terrible payload of heavy bolts in the direction of her foe. Her spear sang in her hand as she pushed herself along, ethereal wisps of energy floating behind her as she raced towards her quarry at speeds that ought have been impossible.

Her enemy’s psychic attack had been rebuffed - but it instantly resumed. It would be a battle of attrition in the warp. She could continuously fend him off. He could continuously attack her. At some point the toll in concentration would be telling for one of them. As Eiosha leapt into her furious charge, unloading a storm of bolter rounds in Augor’s direction, he raised two servo-arms and their capsules drew back, revealing their implements.

The first was an eradication beamer - a well-known if still esoteric weapon of war mounted on the Mechanicum’s Onagers. Its tip pulsed, and a ray of scintillating yellow light erupted forth in a wide cone. The bolter rounds that entered that field of yellow light frayed at the edges and began to tumble and spin in their flight, some of them even unraveling and dissolving into particulate matter as the field of energy [i]atomized[/i] them. The piteous remnants of her bolter volley that made it through the burst of light were so tattered they could no longer even be called munitions, and were swept across and away upon Augor’s force fields like dust.

The second was another well-known weapon employed by the Mechanicum’s Taghmata - an oversized torsion canon. Its workings remained a mystery even to Eiosha, but what it did was evident enough - it was a gravity weapon. But he was not aiming it at her, at least not yet. He was aiming it at the [i]terrain[/i] -

The ground erupted beneath Eiosha’s feet, completely robbing her of traction and forward momentum as the Earth itself collapsed beneath her. A cataclysm of earth, rock, and crust flew up in every direction as the Twelfth Primarch’s Torsion cannon simply ripped the ground beneath Eiosha’s feet up and out from under her before slamming it back down on top of her. Every time she attempted to break free, he simply did the same, continuously pulling earth and rocks out from under her. The ground itself seemed to be alive under the Twelfth Primarch’s ministrations, and without traction, even a Primarch could not charge - and all the while, he continued to attack her through the warp.

Once again, she seized the tendrils of his psychic attack as soon as they latched onto her, crushing them in her grip. She snarled, hurling a furious storm of warp-lightning against her foe. A vast, torrential column of concentrated hatred that homed in upon the Twelfth. She aimed her weapons at him once more, firing off another volley of bolter rounds at him. The deafening blast filled the air as she felt the adrenaline of facing a [i]true[/i] opponent fill her. In the miasma of debris she struggled through, many of her bolts simply went astray and even her Warp Lightning grounded in a few chunks of earth - but enough got through to remain a threat. The Twelfth Primarch still had not even moved from his starting position, simply firing another ray from his eradication beamer to sweep away her hail of projectiles, and raising a single hand to summon currents of his own warp lightning while reaching out to individually quash the psychic energies much as she did with his own. The fearsome current of her purple and blue energies wrestled in an incandescent clash in the air above the crater with the gold and red energies of her brother - all through it, her auspex scanners dutifully informed her that the Twelfth Primarch’s energy reserves seemed to be [i]climbing[/i] rather than depleting as would be expected with such free use of such heavy and energy intense weaponry - but he could not possibly be draining the energy from her warp lightning. So how? Where was he getting his power?

She summoned her strength, forcing apart the terrain itself with an almighty head of psychic might. With a terrible groaning, boulders were torn from the earth, varying in size from that of a man to that of a tank. She cast her hand towards him, hurling the meteor swarm towards her target at such a terrific speed, they became naught but a blur. She reached out to him with tendrils of her own mind, locking around whatever could be seized in a sudden grip of iron as invisible chains lashed out from the empyrean to bind her foe. 

She threw herself, armor and all, from the ground that roiled beneath her feet, into the air. Enormous golden wings of a shimmering, radiant light burst forth from behind her as she held herself aloft, wreathed in a corona of golden light. She cast her senses about her once more, straining, through every resource she had at her disposal, to root out every last detail of her foe that she could. 

She was distracted from her attempts to unravel the mystery of where Augor was getting his energy when she realized she could not move.

Augor, seemingly wholly unconcerned for the golden chains binding him, still had not moved from his spot - but his torsion canon had tracked Eiosha as she leapt into the air, and its gaol-rings began to hum and spin eerily. The boulders she had shapechanged and flung came apart in shards and lumps of clod, slowing and reversing in motion before being lazily flung away by unseen force - which latched onto Eiosha and held her immobilized in place. An alert in her armor informed her that was currently experiencing more than fifty times Terra-standard gravity - and that the gravitational forces acting on her were rapidly [i]spinning[/i], applying immense strain to every fiber of her being. Thankfully, for a brief moment, Augor’s psychic attacks had ceased - likely as he diverted his focus to abjure the chains she had put him in.

Drawing on her reserves of strength once again, she railed against the effects of her foe’s weapon, her eyes focused on him, burning with hatred. This was folly, she realized dimly. Attempting to destroy another Primarch outright, through brute force - especially the Twelfth - was naught but a fool’s errand. 

The torsion cannon loomed large in her sight, and she focused all of her might upon it, boring into its internal workings with the fury of a woman possessed. It was an unfamiliar task, on an unfamiliar device, but as she felt it shift within her grip, she felt that same innate understanding begin to flood through her. She set to her task with a vengeance, tearing loose connections and wreaking whatever havoc within its internal workings that she could manage. 

It worked - she saw the gaol rings along the torsion cannon’s emitter barrel sputter, spark, and grind to a halt. The capsule that normally ensconced it drew close - and in that moment, Eiosha saw the interior of the capsule [i]seethe[/i]. Autocimulacra - the damage she had done was temporary. The torsion cannon was gone, but only for now. It was time to finally apply some pressure to her brother -

Her armor pinged with another alarm. Somewhere within it, Augor’s sonic weapon had resonated with something she had [i]no[/i] sensory input with. It had only detected as much because of the rippling force that then transferred to the rest of the armor. Eiosha mentally tallied down the list of every individual component in her armor that was isolated from its own internal sensors but came up with a blank. There was nothing. The only material she had with her [i]not[/i] plugged into her armor’s systems was -

...The two-stage solid rocket fuel in her bolter ammunition.

She could almost see the contemptuous smile on Augor’s face beneath his helmet as her golden chains dissolved from around him and he raised his free bionic hand to snap his fingers.

The frequencies she was blasted with then transformed from analytic to offensive, and the frictive power and strain of the acoustic forces that washed over her caused sparks to dance in exactly [i]one[/i] part of her armaments: Her bolter rounds.

Eiohsa swore, cursing herself and the man in front of her. A quick pulse of information to the armor, and the hardpoints jettisoned their load with alacrity. Eiohsa threw up a wall of shimmering golden energy to shield herself from the blast as thousands of rounds detonated just as Augor’s psychic attacks also resumed. She seethed, redirecting her own psychic energy onto him once more. She swatted aside his own attack and observed that another one of his servo arms had reared up to take the place of the one that had mounted the torsion cannon. Its capsule unsealed, revealing the brutal, ribbed length of a neutron laser - another weapon used by the Mechanicum’s Onagers. If her armor was hit by [i]that[/i], no amount of shapechanging would save it. Neutron cascading would cause its constituent atoms to break apart and after a moment of exposure, freely begin to fuse and split. She could already see the ghostly-blue light of the neutron blast forming at its head.

Within the eerie blue light of the weapon’s charging, she saw her doom. Not by the hand of Augor Austren, but by the deathly glow of an atmospheric incinerator torpedo igniting in the upper atmosphere of the world of Arretius. Around her, friends and family watched in shock and horror as the fleet of the Sixteenth Legion abandoned them to the ravages of the xenos from beyond the stars. Not merely abandoned, rather, but consigned to burn in the fires of war for the failures of their leadership. She hugged her children tight, knowing there was nothing to be done as the blast consum-

Eiohsa cast her hand out, throwing a golden aura around the neutron laser to hold it fast and wrench it away from her, now held immobile in an irresistible psychic grip. Her eyes blazed within the helmet as she stared down and focused in on his mind. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she shook within her armor. Absent all subtlety, all finesse, all pretense of anything but pure, brute force, she began her assault on his mind. 

She had mentally assailed [i]many[/i] entities in her campaigns. Twisted malformed xenos, erratic, lunatic cultists, even a few [i]Drukhari[/i]. She had also done so, a blissfully few number of times, on those she would normally have called allies - even those with augmented minds. Augor’s was, much to her surprise, largely unaugmented. Evidently he had decided his neural matter was too precious to risk fouling with artifice - though that did not mean nothing was there. His skull and cranium were ensconced in a cybernetic dome and crown, and as her psychic might lashed at it, her thread of focus [i]split[/i] - and seemed to coil down Augor Astren’s nervous system, coursing down, down, down through his chest, across his arms and through his legs -

The terrain where the Twelfth Primarch was standing seemed to explode in a sudden pyroclastic eruption of molten earth and metal, a massive inferno seeming to swell and spread through the terrain at Augor’s feet. Finally evidently startled and unsettled for the first time since their duel had begun, Augor took several hurried steps back - which was when Eiosha noticed. He did not seem nearly as impaired as he should have been by her attack. Even though her thread psychic focus had been split, she had still touched his mind and forced visions into his mind. Visions of death. A terrible avenging angel who had come to visit a wrath unmatched by the fury of a thousand sons. Augor saw cities burn in the light of phosphex, felt the living flame eating away at his flesh, over and over, tens of millions of souls trapped within the malevolent, [i]hateful[/i] grip of exterminatus. The biting, searing, rending agony as a planet was consumed. He was hurled through an endless void, adrift in a vast sea of endless, infinite psychic screaming. On and on it went, never ending. The final moments of countless human beings, brought about by the hand of the Sixteenth in her wars in the Emperor’s name. Augor died. Over and over again he died. His body was torn to shreds by bolter fire. His very soul lashed at by the golden light of the Spear of Ultima. An endless, piercing, soul chilling wail pervaded it all. The world exploded into ten trillion fractal particles of endless death and destruction, hammering into the Twelfth Primarch without end, without relent. As if his own flesh and blood, consumed by the ravages of war, he felt the full, mind numbing cacophony of the Sixteenth’s mind unload itself into him. Every iota of pain, sorrow, grief, despair, fury, rage, and agony she had born upon her shoulders from the lost voices of ten trillion souls for centuries unleashed in a blinding supernova that blotted out all else.

But as she had delivered her memories through her split thread of mental contact with his mind, she too saw his own thoughts and memories in turn, as though peering down upon his memories. 

She was struck by the parallels and repulsed by fresh depravities even she had never experienced. Not only the similar [i]immensity[/i] of the horrors he had witnessed and [i]performed[/i], but also by the grief, the rage, the utter despair that had accompanied him. Eiosha stood and saw herself partially reflected for a single solitary instant in her brother - and then she also saw his madness.

She saw planets full of Humans, enslaved by mind-devouring parasitic xenos. Saved by Augor Astren and the Stargazers and their technology - only for the Mechanicum to declare the entire population tainted. Only to witness the entire population forcibly lobotomized and converted into servitors. Only for the planet to be deemed ‘irrevocably’ unclean, and subjected to Exterminatus. A thousand campaigns fought, trillions of souls saved through stalwart effort and might, only to then be cast away like dice due to an errant word later. To suffer horrors at his own hands, or those of his own Imperium, far worse than what their fates would have been had he left them well enough alone in the clutches of ravenous xenos. She saw shapeless, writhing titans of tumorous flesh that eclipsed warships surging across plains, the sky embroiled with turbulent warp engines that seemed like they would unravel the skein of the cosmos. She saw technology, wonderous in its applications, either smashed or dismantled on the spot in spite of the good it might have done, the lives that might have been saved. She saw Augor Astren maim, mutilate, and murder tens of thousands of ordinary Adepts with his own hands for no crime greater than rank suspicion. Crowning the back of the recesses of his mind loomed some unseen, glorious, radiant idol with indiscernible features she could not make out - and at its feet was heaped a bloodied galaxy of torment. An offering borne before it both in adulation and appalled, bottomless [i]guilt[/i], as though begging for absolution.

Any normal man would have shattered under her attack. Augor Astren, with the mind of a Primarch, the experiences to match her own, and with the aid of the curious defensive mechanism he had clearly just employed, managed to bear the burden and recover after visibly recoiling.

[i]’I admit, I am impressed.’[/i] She heard his voice vox-casting to her on an open channel. [i]’In all my campaigns, I think I have only ever killed a single Psyker who was more powerful than you, witch.’[/i] 

Despite his words, clearly meant to intimidate her, his actual distress could not be hidden from her senses. The attack had clearly injured him and spoiled his focus, somehow. Perhaps he was hemorrhaging internally, from the almost imperceptible, buzzing slur that accompanied his words. But all the same, the mechanism intended to deter psychic attack on his mind had channeled that warp energy through his electoos and cybernetics, directly through his hands, feet, and his power axe, to ground into the earth as raw power - which, in this case, had nearly caused him to be consumed in the previously small and unassuming pool of magma he had created when the duel had first begun. The device was not perfect - but she could now sense his psychic attacks fading away as he diverted his mental abilities fully to defending himself, and her auspexes registered several new power signatures coming online within his armor - cogitators that would help filter out and handle the strain from her attack even further.

[i]’Yes...impressive indeed. More formidable than I estimated, an error on my part. I underestimated your capabilities and overestimated my artifice. This is an error that shall never be repeated.’[/i] She felt the last connections between their minds slip away as his full psychic power became a bastion standing between them, and the golden light that encased the Twelfth Primarch’s neutron laser faded away. 

Eiosha then noticed that her brother’s energy stores had [i]drastically[/i] increased abruptly. The wind whistling through the crater had intensified, and the sky seemed to have darkened. Crackling static energy seemed to crawl across the ground and every exposed surface of her armor, all of it radiating and flowing to the Twelfth Primarch. The stench of ozone would have been overwhelming outside her helmet.

[i]’...But I was also expecting you to have done this sooner.’[/i]

Realization dawned on her. The [i]magma pool.[/i] He had generated it right at the start of the duel and dropped an entire mechadendrite hive down into it - and having just dumped the brunt of her psychic attack as raw power into the earth, it had just grown substantially. It had to be tied to his steadily climbing reserves of power. 

Not intending to give her a free moment to contemplate the implications, Augor reoriented his neutron laser at Eiosha and fired. A beam of ghostly blue brilliance erupted into being.

The supercharged energy beam tore through the air, a bright lance of energy that impacted its target. The deadly beam sundered all in its path. Atoms were shredded to nothing in a blinding flash of light, the sound of flesh flash-boiling and of armor being torn asunder filled the air where the Sixteenth Primarch had been. The torn, mangled shreds of what remained fell to the ground with a heavy impact and slowly began to dissipate as the illusion wore off. Augor Astren whirled as his screaming sensors alerted him to the approach he had been ignoring - so addled had he been by the duplicity of the Sixteenth Primarch, the illusion had made him ignore his own armor’s readings in a single-minded moment of tunnel vision.

Before the remnants of the illusion impacted the ground, a blur of motion surrounded in a crackling golden aura slammed into the voltagheist field of the Twelfth Primarch. The shielding of her armor’s protective fields, and the corona of golden energy that surrounded her, sparked and fizzled in a brilliant display. Though her features were obscured by a helmet, all could hear the scream of primal fury that erupted from the radiant figure as she ploughed through the defenses of the Twelfth, driving the masterwork spear [i]Atonement[/i] straight for the heart of her quarry.

Having penetrated through his voltagheist field and knowing that neither the refractor field nor the Iron Halo’s field could deter her physical presence, Eiosha had been certain there could be no further barriers to her attack - but Augor, though deceived, had not been caught entirely flat footed. The hair across her body bristled as the Twelfth Primarch’s voltagheist field [i]pulsed[/i], snapping off and then erupting back to functionality as a shockwave of arcing energies that surged outwards from Augor’s armor. She could sense Augor dumping a substantial chunk of his energy reserves into the pulse as well, enough to give it physical heft that forced her back, even as the Twelfth Primarch raised his Omnissian Axe in a double-handed grip to block while also backstepping. His servo arms all realigned, and once more separated from him, Eiosha could tell she had only an instant before they unleashed their fury on her.

And then, the magma pool exploded. 

The head of the mechadendrite hive burst from the surface of the pool and fired a long stream of pressurized, cutting magma at her with enough force to power through tank armor - and it also carried in its currents the writhing form of several individual autonomous, worm-like constructs, each of them incandescent with molten heat. 

Within that lava she heard armageddon. A million souls trapped within howled for her blood. Phantasmal, skeletal hands grasped for her, glowing with the malevolent red aura of war. They were coming for her. They were coming for her. They were coming for her. They were coming for her. They were coming to drag her into the earth, to drown amidst the blood of all who had died by her hand. 

Eiohsa reacted on instinct. A golden, incandescent wall erupted between herself and her foe, slamming into each combatant with immense, unstoppable force. She, and Augor, were hurled apart from each other and away from the erupting pool of magma. Turning, she saw the mechadendrite hive sinking back into the molten depths even as the long line of lava it had spit out pooled in a stream across the ground. Perhaps a dozen writhing mechadendrites, each one radiant and glowing with white-hot intensity, coiled where they were on the ground and began to [i]burrow[/i] and return below.

They were laughing at her now. The skulls within the ground that stared up at her with empty eye sockets that wept endless rivers of blood. They laughed at her. Helpless. Pathetic. Those twisting warped assemblages of the enemy writhed before her eyes, they would come for her again, she was sure of it. She would not go! She would not! 

She reached out, seizing the twisted mass of glowing hot mechadendrites and every other as it tried to submerge once more beneath them. Her eyes glowed as she heaved at it with all her might, wrenching it and its spawn free and hurling them into the distance. Her eyes widened as she saw the glowing light of one of her opponent’s weapons.

Then, the entire world about her was bathed yellow as scintillating, dire yellow energy poured across her frame as the Twelfth Primarch’s eradication beamer emitted a cone of deadly energies at her. The ground and air around her shivered and then dissolved, atomized and rubbed from existence by that merciless presence.

Dozens of warnings flashed within her mind as parts of her armor were destroyed outright. Her conversion field - powerful enough to weather the full might of an enemy artillery battery - offered no aid against the ray of the eradication beamer. Eiohsa hurled herself into the air once more. Not directly up, but toward her opponent, through the narrower part of the deadly cone. She hurtled towards her foe once more, spear in hand as she plotted an irregular, errant path. The Twelfth Primarch’s eradication beamer could not steadily track her movement as it fired - but his other weapons could. Even as Eiosha spied the neutron laser’s capsule closing back up and another servo arm maneuvering into firing position in its place, the sonic weapon pulsed and bombarded her with a shock of resonant force - and now, her armor, heavily damaged and missing pieces all over, could no longer be adequately shapechanged on the fly to protect everything at once.

There was more laughter. Around the rim of the canyon stood the eighteen other Primarchs, the Emperor, her dear Ayushmatki. They stood. Silent. Judging. She screamed at them to say something, to intervene, to bring this madness to an end and to end her suffering. The voiceless throng of a million souls cackling in effervescent madness reached up around her, engulfing her. 

Data still streamed into her mind through the augmetic cables in her spine even as she felt skeletal hands tearing at them within, and it became immediately obvious that she would be unable to protect all of her armor from this point on. Her arms, and her body, were the most vital points - and so the decision was reached almost immediately to sacrifice the protection of her legs. Eiohsa reached out once more, tearing free from the glowing red tendrils that lept from the ground to envelop her arms, her eyes, now partially exposed by the impact of her brother’s weapons, blazing with a golden light that blotted out all else. Tears streamed from them, as she focused her psychic might around the servo-weapons of her brother. With all of the force she could muster, she strained against the connections that held his weapons in place. A daunting prospect when she felt at those connections and realized that though the enemy doubtlessly had a procedure to remove the harness itself, while connected it and the servo arms were directly secured to his spine. Telekinetic force that could sunder the earth beneath them, rend apart the armor and chassis of the heaviest of tanks, and breach the mightiest of walls seized upon those connections, and pulled. It was harder than she could have ever imagined - but she felt cables beginning to give way under the strain. Metal shrieked in protest as it was torn from bone and flesh alike, just as the armor on her legs slowly began to disintegrate from the focused attention of the sonic lance - but she roared in triumph as three servo-arms were torn from him. Held aloft in the golden aura were the transonic lance, the torsion cannon, and the neutron cannon. She extended her arm, and clenched her fist. The weapons were crushed to scrap in her grip and flung to the horizons as she hovered above her foe. 

As she turned, she saw the capsule mounted on the servo arm that had been repositioning had peeled back to reveal Augor Astren’s famed conversion beamer.

From her perspective, it seemed like the entire world suddenly exploded. Having used conversion beamers herself, she recognized peripherally that the Twelfth Primarch had [i]missed[/i] her, likely due to her wrenching off three of the other arms and damaging the back-mounted harness itself. The stream of antimatter that he had fired had likely shot right by her by a meter or so and she was caught in the explosive annihilatory blastwave that blossomed into existence where it had passed, [i]merely[/i] engulfing her in a tremendous blast from seemingly every direction at once.

The world began to fall to pieces around her. The continents shifted and buckled beneath her feet as the cataclysm engulfed her. She was carried aloft in the irresistible flow of destruction that encompassed her reality. The hands of bone seized her again, pulling her towards a white yawning maw as the earth itself split apart beneath her to reveal a catacomb of nothing but bone, jutting out at her, clawing for her, ready to seize her and to tear her apart. Perhaps, she prayed, it would free her.

Conversion beamers, she realized, some singular strain of logic piercing through her madness. One of her own favored tools of destruction. Against the motive elemental skills of her brother, however, it would be naught but a boon for him. The deadly beamers mounted in the arms of her armor were utterly useless in this battle, and the thought of using them had not even crossed her mind. Perhaps if Augor used his own conversion weapon against her again she could attempt to block the shot with her own antimatter streams, though that was but a single forlorn thought jumbling about in her mind as she fell from the sky and into the awaiting fields of bone below.

The ground warred with her. Trapping her. At the bidding of her foe, it clawed and bit at her, great gaping maws wrenching themselves from the ground to assail her. The world opened up beneath her as hard, white protrusions burst forth from it. The earth turned to a field of bone beneath her feet, and she began to sink into it. Again those skeletal hands burst forth, wrapping themselves around her body. Red iridescent digits groped and grabbed at her, seizing hold of her arms and legs. She warred against the reverberating screams that echoed in her mind, the eerie howling of a wind that blue from the cosmos down onto her. 

Eiohsa was buried in the pulverized bones of all who had died by her hand, and the world swam around her. Damage reports flickered to life before her eyes - and she realized that the weakened armor upon one of her legs had been completely destroyed in the blast. She enveloped herself in the same golden light once more, bursting forth from where she had been buried and into the sky once more. She surveyed the land, weeping golden tears as she beheld the endless fields of bone, rivers of blood pouring through them towards her foe. The enemy may have nullified some of her greatest weapons - but she held one indisputable advantage over him - and, deprived of his full control of the grasping hands that plunged into the earth to assail and destroy her, that drained the earth of its essence to feed his infernal energies, she could now use that advantage to its full effect. Warp lightning crackled around one hand, and a vast ball of warp flame gathered in the other, ethereal winds of the Immaterium howling around her as she cast the deadly spells that filled her with the force to annihilate near anything that was caught in its path. The wispy remnants of a million revenants that encircled her evaporated instantaneously in the all-encompassing blast.

Augor Astren, whose own psychic attacks have been conspicuously absent since he had switched fully to a defensive posture with them, simply held a hand aloft and retaliated with his own stream of hellish warp-lightning whilst turning his psychic bulwark to deny and diminish as much of Eiosha’s power as he could, given the gap in power between the two - but he clearly did not intend to give her the moments she needed to overwhelm him. Still unable to accurately aim his servo-mounted weapons due to the damage she had inflicted, he hunched over to draw a correct angle of fire on the Sixteenth Primarch and fired his still-functional eradication beamer. Now further out than before the ray of power was more diffuse, the constituent atoms in the affected air destabilizing and growing volatile rather than atomizing on the spot - but now, the cone was so wide that Eiosha could no longer readily evade it simply by flying out of it.

The burning light of the Emperor enveloped her, and she knew she would be washed away, burned to a cinder to drift endlessly through the universe as naught but the constituent atoms of cosmic dust. She screamed aloud, in defiance, as her body burned in the golden light that consumed her. She burned in the heat of supernova as she was enveloped fully in her foe’s light. But like so many times before she fought through the pain, setting her course on her enemy, illuminated in the horrific red glow as he called forth the forces that assailed her. He bent the light of the Emperor himself against her, burning away everything in its path.

Eiohsa responded not trying to fly away from it - but once more she hurtled forwards and upwards, towards her foe, like a comet wreathed in golden flame. Spear at the ready, she channeled her strength into reinforcing herself, her armor, and her weapons. The atomizing beam of the eradication beamer struggled against golden bonds that cinched tight the make and purpose of her armor. The exposed flesh of her leg sizzled and burned - but she did not pay heed to the pain, for she was reinforced in her purpose. The gleaming tip of [i]Atonement[/i] crackled with an aura of golden energy as she slammed into Augor’s Voltagheist field once more, its tip hardened with its purpose - to strike home and true. As she pushed to penetrate through it, the Twelfth Primarch raised two mechadendrites from his sides, both clutching primed mindscrambler grenades that he clearly intended to detonate on the spot, and his final servo-arm’s capsule peeled back to reveal his final mounted weapon - a graviton cannon. Eiosha instantly realized that the bonds she had conjured would act only to her detriment if the power from the weapon connected with her. [i]Atonement[/i] pierced through the voltagheist field, and predictably, Augor immediately pulsed it as he did before to bludgeon her with the raw force of its resurgence as he took a practiced backstep while moving to block. But with their purpose reinforced by the blazing corona of energy that surrounded it, spear and bearer pushed through the Voltagheist field a second time, flying with unbelievable speed towards her foe, and thrusting forward to drive the tip home in its target.

Several things then happened at once.

Augor Astren’s twin mindscrambler grenades detonated as he managed to [i]partially[/i] deflect Eiosha’s spearblow to penetrate the side of his armor rather than his heart with his axe. The reactive armored surface detonated then, jamming the spear in place, having impaled the Twelfth Primarch and causing ruinous heat to lash across the Sixteenth Primarch’s hand. Then, Twelfth Primarch reached out and grabbed Eiosha as she stabbed at him by the dangling remnants of her now unarmored leg. Every vestige of psychic power Augor had then, he diverted away from maintaining his mental bulwark and diverted into directing his powers into the Sixteenth primarch whilst her own focus and concentration was bent on pouring her psychic might into her force spear, as well as dealing with the impairing effects of the mindscrambler grenades which had seemingly left the Twelfth Primarch unaffected.

Every power that Augor Astren had intended to use had his prior psychic attacks ever touched upon her mind now came to fruition. In that instant, Eiosha’s entire body was set ablaze, flames leaping into being across her flesh and the surface of her armor. Her blood began to boil in her veins, vital force began to pour from the point of contact like a burst dam, and immense throes of warp lightning coursed through every fiber of her being. 

Eiohsa screamed in agony. Her world exploded before her as the stars bore fruit to a billion fractal universes that descended upon her in an unstoppable, infinite wave. The stars screamed at her, and she screamed back, the mocking laughter and jeers of all those who had come before returning now as gaunt, emaciated corpses danced around her in perfect synchronicity. The hands of bone and iron reached once more for her, grabbing hold of her flesh and beginning to tear her asunder. She screamed. And screamed. And the air was filled with the awful sound of one of the Emperor’s scions fighting for every breath she took.

But she took those breaths. Forcing her way through the pain, she drove an armored fist into the face of her brother, clutching his forehead in hand as she channeled every single shred of power she had into his mind - and into her spear, lodged in his side. His helmet’s external layer detonated, enveloping her hand, and once more the cranial mechanism that had defended her opponent from the previous mental attack launched at him roared to life. Power surged between the two Primarchs then, almost like a connected circuit, both of them pouring raw, hateful psychic energies into each other, which then seethed through the Twelfth Primarch’s body, through his axe and legs, and grounded itself beneath them - and as before, the Sixteenth Primarch’s immense psychic might proved so potent that the earth itself could not withstand the redirected power. Still close enough in proximity to the original magma pool that the terrain around them was already steaming-hot, it gave way readily beneath them with a fiery eruption, causing both Primarchs to sink into a rapidly-growing chasm of superheated rock and metal. The field of bones upon which she stood opened up beneath her in a vast, infinite maw that swallowed her and her opponent whole. The world ceased to exist as its burning tongue of blood and fire flooded into Eiosha’s exposed, unarmored eyes - save through her vision of her foe’s twisted and immense soul before her, writhing and battering at her as they both sank into oblivion. Her final mental assault had evidently finally deprived him of his fearsome cunning, having reduced his stratagem down to clawing at her with his bionic talons while the red hot hands of iron probed and pierced into every gap in her armor. She did not relent, and after a failed effort to pull the force spear out from the armor that trapped it, instead ripped it to the side, completely tearing away that piece of her foe’s abdomen. Another series of detonations filtered through the magma like distant, rumbling thunder, the sudden change in pressure causing her head to reel. He then savaged her arm with his talons, causing her already heavily abused fingers to slip.

The hands gripped her once again. They clawed at her in tandem with her opponent. White hot, full of hatred, they pried away at her being with relentless force. They seized around her armor, peeling away years of work in moments, and they fell upon her skin with ravenous hunger, tearing off her flesh with their burning claws and feasting upon her soul. They seized around the shaft of her spear, and pulled.

[i]Atonement[/i] fell away from her grasp to plunge further, deeper down into the growing pool of superheated rock. A hollow pit filled Eiosha’s gut as its presence faded into the distance beneath them - a void that was then shortly replaced with rage.

They were coming for her. 
They were coming for her. 
They were coming for her. 
They were coming for her. 
They were coming for her. 
They were coming to take her. 
They had taken everything already. Her spear. Her world. Her mind. Her love. Her future. They tore at her soul and her flesh, and she fought against them just as she fought against the demon before her. There would be nothing left of her if she surrendered now, surrendered to the nameless, faceless abomination that fought her.

Fully submerged in the now extended magma pool, the two Primarchs tore at each other like primates. There was no elegance or technique to their blows, the thick, dense magma impeding even their enhanced strength as they struggled against each other, their armor falling away and off them, burning in pieces. 

Eiohsa felt a strange clarity descend upon her as she fought in what she was sure would be her final moments. She looked before her and saw not the faceless demon enshrouded in a red cloak of war, but Augor Austren - her brother, the Twelfth Primarch. Why were they fighting? Where had gone the demon against which she had struggled? She fought against the phantasms of her mind in a final, desperate bid to save not only her own life - but that of her enemy. The golden wings sprung once more from her body and propelled her upward. Even as she ceased her attempts to destroy him, she wrapped the one arm she had remaining around him, pulling her foe from the lava that surrounded them. She burst forth from the glowing, molten rock in a radiant golden beacon of light that shot into the sky, golden wings shining brightly against the gathering clouds above. The hands reached out to seize her, to drag her down into the depths below once more. They would drown her. They would destroy her. But she soared above them, and they recoiled, evaporating in the intense golden light that radiated from her. Like a miniature sun she hovered there, half conscious, knowing that the battle was over. None of her armor remained, and she hung silhouetted in the sky. 

She saw the Emperor and his sons and daughters, arrayed before her. She bowed low to Him. The Primarchs - her brothers and sisters - remained immobile, impassive. Kaldun held no love, only contempt. Wolfram stared at her, weighing her in his imperial apparatus and finding her wanting. Daena watched her with those empty eyes, judging her, condemning her. She called out to her - to any of them - in despair to save her, to show mercy. But there was none. She had deserved this. They would not spare her. They would not save her. She would burn before them now. Weak. Pathetic. Superstitious fool. Abomination. Witch. [b]Failure.[/b].

The Emperor looked upon her, his gaze serene as she stared at him with hope and begged his forgiveness, his mercy. His eyes burned into her now, as he lifted his hand to point his thumb down. All light vanished from the world, save that of the Emperor’s iridescent glow and her own golden aura. She was alone within the void, accompanied only by the judge - and the executioner. Emaciated, skeletal arms wrapped around her once more. She struggled and fought as she was pulled, screaming, to her Foe who would be her doom. Held immobile, by countless emaciated claws and hands she stared into oblivion, and wept as the axe fell upon her.

She scarcely noticed anything about the world, transfixed as she. Noticed nothing as the battered, barely alive Twelfth Primarch directed his last remaining reserves of strength left upon her. The now forge-hot graviton cannon, glowing with a molten light raised to the ready position, taking aim. Eiohsa scarcely heard the weapon as it fired, pieces of her body being torn to shreds in its vortex. She was barely conscious and felt nothing as it ripped her body to pieces. The weapon hurled the battered, mutilated Primarchs away from each other, dozens of meters apart. They landed upon the hard ground unceremoniously more than thirty meters down, lying in crippled, helpless heaps splattered over with oozing rivulets of still-molten-hot lava, the air shimmering around both of them. Augor lay surrounded in the red glow of the forge, the mechadendrites Eiosha had thrown away finally sidewinding their way back to his motionless form, surrounding him like a wreath of fire serpents. Eiohsa lay ensconced in the dim, golden light of psychic wings and golden tears illuminating her battered, mutilated form.

Angels of gleaming silver daubed with streaks of black descended from upon high as the divine forms crashed to the earth, the Apothecaries of the Doomsayers reversing the color scheme of their Legion. Eiosha and Augor both were examined and stabilized by the heavenly host, Astartes granted narthecium and jetpacks rapidly seeing to the Emperor’s children. The ruined arena was filled with the roars and whines of engines arcing powered armored forms into the air and then slowing them upon their descents, the expected black and silver garbed women filling the battlespace.

Some reverently recovered what could be salvaged of the wrecked wargear and tattered flesh left in the wake of the encounter, the Doomsayers showing equal favor in the operation. The same egalitarian treatment was at play for the majority of the host, the Astartes forming perimeters around both demigods to separate one from the other. At last, she came, Daena descending upon true wings formed from neither artifice nor psychic might, gazing dispassionately at the destruction wrought. Augor had conspired against her and the fairness of the trial, that much had become obvious, but she could not bring herself to care. His perfidy would simply be taken from his sum of the verdict. Her doom had not yet been pronounced.

When the Warmaster spoke, her voice reverberated across the shattered crater and beyond, the words filled with a strength beyond what mere lungs could provide. To those who had arrived to watch the conflict in person, she sounded as if she were standing before them, the recordings carrying her will with a perfection beyond petty technical specifications. “Augor Astren. With the Emperor as your witness, you swore that Eiohsa izva Bronakavh and her daughters would suffer for their offense. That they would be made to know the consequence of your contempt, and bear your wrath, raw and unfettered. You would do all of this, and more, you promised, without violating the oaths you have sworn to our Father. Her very world shall come unraveled about her, and the cosmos shall behold it, and know that her upbraiding was preordained,” she repeated, announcing to one and all the terrible vow that had been made.

“So solemn a vow may not be abrogated by any power, save perhaps death, and I again hold it kinder than deserved. I deem it fulfilled in part, but not in full. Has your wrath abided such that you will now hear my will?” If she cared for the ruin her siblings had brought each other to, Daena’s face did not show it; the Angel may as well have been made of stone for all she revealed. Of Eiosha, even less concern was shown. Her sister would need to be tended to for wounds far worse than her body had suffered, but not now.

When Augor opened his mouth to speak, no words came out - molten iron had set inside and sealed his throat. Frowning, the Twelfth Primarch instead raised a bionic talon to the side of his head. His movements were slow, stiff, and halting. After several moments, a servo-skull whirred down by his side and began to speak in a heavily distorted, voxcoded voice.

[i]’My wrath-[b]click[/b]-has not govern-[b]chck[/b]-ed my design-[b]click[/b]-s here. I shall hear your will.’[/i]

“Be that as it may, you have shown a greater fury this day fit for our father’s greatest foes. You know well that were she crafted by any other than our Father’s mind she would have perished to a fraction of your furor. It is by his will and his design that she still lives despite the powers of primordial destruction you have unleashed. I hold your oath of wrath fulfilled, and shall hear no more of it,” Daena decreed, before her gaze turned pitilessly upon Eiosha.

“Let us speak now of contempt. Our sister rules seven hundred and seventy seven worlds, an empire in its own right, the pride of her works. There is nothing she takes more joy out of than the peace and prosperity of its citizens, for though she loves all mankind, she feels the most responsibility for those under her direct rule. Seven hundred and seventy seven worlds.”

”From these our sister shall levy seven hundred and seventy seven souls, one from each, to join your service. Their lives shall be yours to use as you see fit, save that you may not punish them for the crimes of their former masters. You shall treat them as you would any with similar skills and experiences who entered your service from Last Light. But even this price is too low. I am vexed that such discord was sewn between the two siblings who were most in agreement on the argument at hand, but I take some relief in knowing that the transition our Father decreed shall be brief. As such, your Techmarines need not spend their valuable time teaching Eiosha’s how to perform the proper procedures. Instead, they will spend their one year impressing upon the Daughters of Iron the proper contempt to be shown towards Abominable Intelligence, and [i]correcting[/i] any errors that may have led to this unfortunate state of affairs.”

“Do you both accept this doom?”

Augor appeared to hesitate for a moment, as if uncertain - but his keen mind had evidently started working properly again and so rather than begin to formulate a protest or argument, he simply turned his blind gaze to Eiosha. His previously hollow eyes, now filled with cooling spheres of molten iron, gave him a dark and leaden stare as he gauged her own reaction.

There came no audible reply from the battered, maimed figure lying insensate upon the crater floor. Eiohsa stared into oblivion, into nothingness, into the void of space before which she lay atop a field of blood and bone. Over her stood the Angel, her sister, her spear poised at her throat, irisless eyes staring down at her without emotion or care. She was to be her doom after all, Eiohsa realized. The Emperor had ordered her removal, and he watched the proceedings from above, radiant golden light burning away whatever meager defenses she could have mustered against her sister. A part of her, however small, was grateful. If she were to die, it would be by the hand of one of the few who had seen her for more than a living weapon, piteous fool, treasonous heretic, abominable witch, loathsome aberration. 

The words she spoke were heard only in the mind of her target, hovering in the air above those she had judged. She spoke to the phantasm before her and thus to Daena herself above her. She felt the tip of her spear against her bare flesh and smiled. “Am I to join the Lost, then?” She asked, her smile wavering. “I am glad it was you. It was only a matter of time. Father would never permit otherwise, not when I have failed his design. It was foolish of me to hope otherwise. But I am glad the last sight I see will be the sister I loved.” A single golden tear trailed down her cheek as she stared up at what was to be her end. “Please.” She said, her breath catching in her throat as she felt herself begin to sink into the rivers of bone and blood below. “Was I only to live, as a weapon, until our goal was within reach? Was it worth it? Will it be worth it? Everything we have done?” The spear began to sink into her, as the grasping, skeletal hands reached out for her once more, pulling her into the morass below. She reached out, her hands stained in the blood of trillions. 

Brief flashes of the phantasmal, nightmare scene flashed briefly within the Angel’s mind as the Sixteenth spoke. An apocalyptic expanse of bone and blood reached unto the horizon, where burned the spires of the world of Arretius in the searing light of orbital bombardment. It pulsed, it [i]breathed[/i] with an eerie malevolence that defied all rationale - and it hated. It pulled with hungry fangs and the skeletal hands of the dead at the Sixteenth, intent on swallowing her up, bent on destroying its creator. Above it all was the Emperor who watched in silent judgement, beside his Primarchs who would mold the Imperium in their shape. 

“May all your sins be forgiven, O murderer mine.”

The world exploded.

Eiohsa lay upon the soil of an impact crater, staring into the sky. She was alive. Frantically, she felt for the prying hands - and found none. The world of Nikea greeted her not with silence, but a deluge of sound. Around her were Astartes - not of her own blood, but those of her sister, Daena. She forced herself upright, eyes wide as she stared, transfixed, at the form of the Fourteenth in the sky. Her eyes glowed with a golden light, empty sockets burned in her struggle filled with those born of her mind. Those of the Doomsayers around her who tried to tend to her were pushed aside without heed. Her words rang in her mind now, her true words. 

[i]Seven hundred and seventy seven souls[/i]. 

She wanted to cry out in denial, to refuse this transgression upon herself and her people, but she could not. She could not bring herself to look upon her opponent who had driven her to this. She could not even bring herself to look upon her own Daughters who looked upon the scene in dismay from afar. It was her charge to defend humanity - and moreso, to defend her own people. To acquiesce to this decree was anathema, the very thought boiled within her with a toxic malevolence. Against near any other she would have resisted. And yet, as she emerged from the depths of madness, it became more and more evident that to comply was the only way. 

“Yes.” She said, the word a bitter acid upon her tongue as it forced its way from her. “I accept.”

Eiohsa collapsed onto the surface once more, her strength extinguished by her true defeat. A thought drifted to the forefront amidst a churning maelstrom. “My spear.” She murmured, only half conscious, to those who attended to her. “Bring it up, I beg of you.”

[i]“I also [b]click[/b] must accept, [b]chck[/b] then.’[/i] Augor stated via the servo-skull after several severe moments of thought. [i]’If my oath [b]chck[/b] has not yet been ful-[b]click[/b]-filled in its entire-[b]chck[/b]-ty, I shall have to en-[b]click[/b]-sure it is through this [b]click[/b] Doom I am offer-[b]click[/b]-ed whilst adhering to [b]chck[/b] your terms...warmaster.’[/i]

“Are you yet discontent, brother? Speak now, or be at peace,” Daena said flatly.

Augor turned his head faintly to leer at Daena with his new uneven, leaden eyes. [i]’It is as [b]click[/b] you yourself said, [b]click[/b] Warmaster. My curse can-[b]chck[/b]-not be abrogat-[b]click[/b]-ed by any power [b]click[/b] save death - and in your next [b]chck[/b] breath you deemed my [b]click[/b] vow in-[b]click[/b]-complete.’[/i] Augor conveyed, his face finally starting to crawl over with visible irritation - though whether with Daena or the limited faculties of his mouthpiece was uncertain. [i]’Then you offer me [b]chck[/b] a pittance of [b]chck[/b] scraps by which to ful-[b]click[/b]-fill the remain-[b]chck[/b]-der of my word. [b]chck[/b]I am dis-[b]click[/b]-content beyond measure, [b]chck[/b] yet I shall [b]click[/b] accede to your will [b]click[/b] to the extent my [b]click[/b] oath of vengeance [b]chck[/b] permits me to. [b]click[/b] Great-[b]chck[/b]-er work has been wrought [b]click[/b] with less. If my [b]chck[/b] oath can be ful-[b]chck[/b]-filled with-[b]click[/b]-in the bounds of your [b]click[/b] pronouncement, it shall be.’[/i]

A voice rose from the Sixteenth as she looked across to the Twelfth, her eyes narrowed. The medicae of the Doomsayers busied around her, but she ignored their requests, pushing herself into a sitting position once more. "Would you then have her end me, 'brother', to slake your bloodthirst?"

[i]’That would be [b]chck[/b] in defiance of the [b]click[/b] spirit of my oath.’[/i] Augor stated flatly without averting his molten gaze from Daena.

Daena’s furor was a rare thing, and when it did show itself she kept it under her iron will. The implications of Augor’s statements were clear enough to rile it from the depths of her enchained heart, but predictable to the point that she did not risk losing control. She did, however, let it fuel her response.

[i]Do you wish, then, for a day in which our Father pronounces Eiosha’s death? And for you to wield the spear which lances her heart?[/i] she thought, the words hammering into Augor’s mind as she returned his stare. [i]Such is the only way your oath may be fulfilled without violating Father’s will. You know this, Augor Astren. You knew this when you made your vow.[/i]

Augor’s steaming-hot, bionic talons curled into fists where he sat as the servo-skull slowly ground out his response. [i]‘I swore that she [b]click[/b] and her daughters would [b]chck[/b] suffer, that they would [b]chck[/b] bear my wrath, that [b]chck[/b] their world would come undone [b]click[/b]and that all would behold this [b]chck[/b] and know it was preordained. I did [b]click[/b] not speak to [b]chck[/b] nor demand death, for I knew even [b]click[/b] then that such would contravene the will of the [b]click[/b] Omnissiah, Warmaster. That is the difference [b]click[/b] between reckless aspersion and [b]chck[/b] calculated avowal. Even in the throes of rage unlike [b]click[/b] what I have known before, I remained [b]click[/b] cognizant of my loyalty to our father. Even in [b]chck[/b] pronouncing my curse, I held him and his [b]click[/b] wishes to be paramount and pre-[b]chck[/b]-dominant. It is true - to execute the Sixteenth at the [b]click[/b] Omnissiah’s order would fulfill the [b]chck[/b] curse, but it was not the end I fore-[b]chck[/b]-saw to my vow. I promised to break [b]chck[/b] Eiohsha izva Bronakavh and her daughters [b]click[/b] and that the galaxy would know of their [b]click[/b] castigation at my hands. You recited my curse in full, [b]chck[/b] Warmaster, you should know its implications full [b]chck[/b] and well.’[/i]

Then, Augor Astren reached out across the air and grasped the servo-skull in one bionic hand, crushing it into pieces. Hunching over with the visceral sound of tearing flesh, the Primarch gagged, and then his whole body coursed over with streams of red and golden warp-lightning. With a mute cry of anguish, one of the Twelfth Primarch’s mechadendrites darted into his mouth and [i]pulled[/i], and after several moments the freshly remolten metal that had been filling his esophagus was pulled free and ejected from his body, scattering across the ground before Daena as though it were brilliant ichor. The hunched-over Primarch then turned his now-leaden gaze back to the Warmaster, his molten eyes now visibly crackling and aglow with the brilliant empyreal energies he had summoned. He spoke then, blood trickling from his lips as he did.

“How dare you think so lightly of me. How dare you even [i]suspect[/i] my word is any less than I have claimed. Mark it well, [i]Warmaster[/i], I have said it before and I say it again: [i]My sons and I are the truest servants of the Omnissiah in existence.[/i] You dishonor me with your tremulous [i]doubt[/i].”

Daena fluttered down to earth, her face placid at Augor’s reproach. “You are correct, of course. You are the most loyal to our Father’s will. Never shall you disobey any oath made to him. Do as thou will then, with but one request. I have given you scraps in exchange for the full measure of your oath, compensation woeful in comparison. Let it now be a gift for your restraint. I will bind you to no Doom, for I know you shall do nothing to jeopardize our Father’s work. That is all that matters.”

[i]And should such a day come where that terrible order is given,[/i] Daena thought to her brother and he alone, [i]I shall ensure yours is the honor of swinging the blade.[/i]

Augor bowed his head to her, and raised his bionic hands in a pose of veneration, palms upright and fingers splayed.

[i]“Warmaster…”[/i] He whispered.

Delirious, scarcely comprehending the words that were being spoken, Eiohsa said nothing.

A roar filled the air as the Doomsayers left the field, the Angel and her daughters departing the carnage with judgement proclaimed and accepted. The needs of the Crusade weighed heavily upon the Warmaster’s heart, and as her wings sped her away from the field her mind already shifted to the more comfortable contemplation of conquest. It served better, at least, than the worry that though a verdict had been rendered, justice was far from done.

Augor rose and walked away without another word, raising one bionic talon to the side of his head. Minutes later, he and his retinue vanished, their forms seeming to unravel in lines of scintillating blue light.

[center][s]888888888888[/s][/center]

The vox and holofeeds that wound up being disseminated afterwards proved to be heavily edited and touched-up by the Twelfth Legion and its  sympathizers. Augor had evidently not been bluffing aboard the [i]Redemption[/i] - even surveillance equipment aboard the Warmaster’s ship had abruptly seemed to malfunction as they were bombarded by neurostatic signals the moment anybody said anything that had not comported with the Twelfth Primarch’s preferred narrative.

Although several different versions of the holovid were ultimately released, the one which passed through the greatest number of hands wound up being the one with the least amount of editing. It was a straightforward (if misleading) record of the council session and of the Sixteenth Primarch directing her insult to the Twelfth Primarch and his retinue of Stargazers and Tech-Priests, followed by Augor Astren’s invocation of his curse. The initial meeting between the Twelfth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth Primarchs was then shown - Augor’s greeting of the Warmaster, Daena’s deliberately practiced rise and sweep of her wings, and the Twelfth Primarch’s condemnation of Eiosha. The scene then cut dramatically to a slowly rotating overhead view of the crater where the two had dueled, both Primarchs slowly approaching the other before they had begun to unleash their weapons.

The fight was inevitably interrupted the final time Eiosha rushed in to clash with Augor - when his mindscrambler grenades both detonated, the holofeed went stark white, and moments later cut to the two Primarchs, both now heavily damaged, suspended in the air right before Augor Astren blasted Eiosha to pieces with his Graviton Cannon. The last shot depicted was of Augor Astren walking away from the scene, leaving Eiosha and her ragged body behind while the Warmaster’s final proclamation was played as a voice-over. 

Rampant speculation and theories over the various different versions and releases of the holovid bloomed overnight, compared with the different commentaries of the Remembrancers that Augor had brought with him alongside the remarks of ‘weapons specialists’ and ‘tacticians’ of the High Lords’ staffs who deigned to add commentary to certain aspects of the videos, all naturally invited to do so by the Twelfth Primarch. From the moment the Twelfth Primarch had left the council building he had intended to control and manipulate the narrative of the incident to his benefit - which he had.

The general consensus that thus emerged, though it had its detractors, was that Augor Astren had ‘won’ the duel, and that the Sixteenth Legion was now [i]cursed[/i], and that the Warmaster had blessed the Twelfth Primarch’s goal and acknowledged his status as the most loyal Primarch to the Emperor’s will. 

Amongst the Legions themselves, most saw through the surface-layer of duplicity - many of them had been at the council and the ensuing fight who knew better what had truly transpired, although they retained their own diversity of opinions regardless. Amongst the Imperial Army and amongst the High Lords and much of the Administratum, it entered their subconscious as fact, and from them down into the general malaise of the public’s collective unconscious. The greater Mechanicum, almost paradoxically, remained the most skeptical of the holovids and their presented outcome - not only due to their recognition of the altered nature of the documents, but due to the unseen and nebulous affinities of their doctrinal allegiances. Nonetheless, even amongst them, the Warmaster’s final proclamation still left a mark, and it became known amongst the Mechanicum that Augor Astren of the Ordo Astranoma had been acknowledged as the Omnissiah’s most loyal servant.

The ensuing sentimentality, perceptions, and rumors that developed would later serve as tinder for the flame that would engulf the entire Imperium.[hr]
[b][...End Log.][/b]
[b][...Terminating.][/b]
[b][Imperial Thought for the Day: And weep, ye children, and reap the fruits of blind wrath.][/b]