When Angron finally woke up in my lab, he didn't scream. He didn't smash a bulkhead or try to strangle the nearest tech-priest. He just sat on the edge of the reinforced surgical slab, staring at his massive hands, processing a concept he hadn't experienced since his youth on Nuceria: absolute, unadulterated peace.
"So..." I said, stepping into his line of sight while holding two mugs of hot recaf. "How's the head? No more angry buzzy-buzz?"
Angron slowly raised his gaze. The eternal rage in his eyes had retreated, leaving behind a profound, quiet awe. "The noise..." he whispered, his voice deep and raspy. "It's gone."
"Yep! Turns out if you don't have arch-archaic torture devices chewing on your cerebral cortex, you're actually a pretty cool guy," I said, handing him a mug that looked like a thimble in his massive fist. "Now, drink your coffee. I've got work to do."
"I owe you a life debt, Agnes," Angron rumbled, taking a microscopic sip. "Tell me who to kill. Give me a name."
"How about no killing today? Let's aim for a calm Tuesday."
Naturally, a calm Tuesday was mathematically impossible.
While I was busy fine-tuning a small, portable reality-anchoring device—mostly so I could stop finding Leman Russ hiding in the drop ceiling—a figure crept into the shadowy corridor outside my lab.
It was Erebus.
The First Chaplain of the Word Bearers was practically vibrating with insidious smugness. He held a dark, twisting athame dagger in one hand and a subtle, insidious warp-cursed artifact in the other. Tzeentch's command was crystal clear: *Corrupt her, or kill her.*
"Fools, all of them," Erebus muttered under his breath, adjusting his dark robes. "A mere mortal playing god. She will fall to the True Powers, just as—"
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Erebus jumped a foot in the air, barely hiding the dark dagger behind his back.
Standing right behind him was Konrad Curze, who had been hanging upside down from a decorative gothic arch for the past three hours, silently eating raw meat.
"Ah... Night Haunter," Erebus purred, quickly smoothing out his expression. "I was merely... seeking an audience with the Emperor's guest. I bring a, ah, *gift* of enlightenment."
Konrad dropped to the floor with a silent, terrifying grace, his dark eyes narrowing. "She gave me a squeaky toy bat yesterday and told me I needed 'more sunlight and a healthy sleep schedule.' I didn't like it. But she also fixed my night terrors with a blue pill." Konrad stepped uncomfortably close to Erebus, his long power claws twitching. "If you dear hurt her, I will skin you and turn your face into a rug for her laboratory."
"I assure you, brother, my intentions are entirely pure," Erebus said, a drop of cold sweat rolling down his tattooed neck.
He brushed past the Night Haunter and slid through the automatic doors of my lab.
"Ah! Erebus!" I called out from behind a glowing workbench, pulling off my welding goggles. "Just the man I wanted to see!"
Erebus paused, his sinister smile returning. "Perfect," he thought. *"She is naive. She does not suspect a thing."
"My lady," Erebus bowed low, subtly activating the dark, corrupting energies of the warp artifact in his palm. "I come bearing ancient wisdom from the stars. A truth the Emperor hides from—"
"Yeah, yeah, Chaos stuff, corrupting the soul, endless torment, dark gods, blah blah," I interrupted, waving my hand dismissively. "Hold this for a second."
I shoved a heavy, humming chrome cylinder directly into his hands.
"What... what is this?" Erebus blinked, the corrupting dark magic in his hand completely short-circuiting as the cylinder began to glow a violent neon pink.
"It's a Gellar-Field Inverter coupled with a localized sanctification matrix," I explained, tapping a few keys on my datapad. "Basically, it takes warp energy, purifies it, and converts it into pure, unfiltered, aggressive positivity."
Erebus's eyes widened in sheer horror. "Wait—what?"
"Press the green button!" I yelled, plugging my ears.
Before Erebus could drop the device, a blinding flash of golden-pink light erupted from the cylinder. A wave of pure, holy, unyielding anti-chaos energy washed over him. The dark, whispers of the warp screaming in his mind were instantly replaced by the soft, melodious chirping of cartoon birds and an overpowering urge to apologize for every bad thing he had ever done.
"NO! THE DARK GODS—THE RITES OF COLCHIS—" Erebus shrieked, falling to his knees as the evil tattoos on his face began to literally melt into harmless temporary glitter. "MY DARK DESTINY—"
"Works like a charm!" I cheered, jotting down notes. "Timmy! Bring out the mop! Erebus is leaking dark energy onto the linoleum!"
Ten minutes later, the lab doors slammed open.
Perturabo, Angron (looking shockingly well-groomed), and the Lion strode into the room, flanked by a squad of Dark Angels who were still looking around nervously, traumatized from their earlier kinetic wall incident.
"Agnes," Perturabo said, holding up his datapad. "The blueprints for the Eradicator Mk2+... we need to discuss the power routing on the plasma array. It's too efficient. It's making the Tech-Priests cry."
"Mother," the Lion added sternly, looking down at the twitching form of Erebus on the floor, who was currently mumbling something about wanting to adopt a puppy and open a soup kitchen. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Oh, him?" I pointed at Erebus with my stylus. "He tried to corrupt me with dark warp magic. Standard villain stuff."
A suffocating, deathly silence instantly descended upon the laboratory.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
Perturabo's eyes turned to cold, liquid iron. The Lion's hand slowly drifted to the hilt of his power sword. And Angron the newly cured, peaceful Angron cracked his knuckles with a sound like snapping starship hulls.
"He... what?" Angron growled softly.
"He tried to hurt our mother?" Perturabo rumbled, raising a massive siege-cannon arm.
"Wait, guys, chill! He didn't even get to finish his evil speech!" I protested. "Plus, I think the anti-warp light burned off his dark magic!"
"It matters not," the Lion declared coldly, drawing his blade with a lethal *shhh-wing*. "He threatened the only person in this palace who cares for us like family and does listen to us."
Outside the lab window, in the courtyard, a massive crowd of Iron Warriors, Night Lords, and Dark Angels began to gather, summoned by some collective, terrifying son-instinct.
Erebus slowly looked up from the floor, the glitter on his face sparkling under the fluorescent lights, as twenty-foot-tall super-demigods closed in on him with deeply unpleasant expressions.
"So..." Erebus squeaked, his voice cracking.
"Anyone want to talk about the primordial truth...?"
"Get him," Perturabo ordered.
As the chaos unfolded, I calmly sat back at my desk, took a sip of my cold recaf, and opened a fresh blueprint file.
"Note to self," I murmured, typing happily.
"Build a forcefield for Erebus. Or just ship him to the Sol system border in a cardboard box. Yeah... the box sounds easier."
--
Meanwhile, deep within the Warp...
"How the fuck did she do that!?" Tzeentch roared, his shifting form writhing in agitation.
"Years of planning, gone in seconds!"
He paced through the endless labyrinth of his domain, muttering to himself. Then, he stopped. His ever-changing features stilled for a fraction of a second before twisting into a scheming, sharp-toothed smile.
"Nevertheless... Erebus has already planted the seed. Sooner or later, Horus will fall," he chuckled softly, the sound echoing through the maddening currents of the Immaterium.
"And foolish Lorgar will join soon."
Meanwhile, with Slaanesh...
"Okay, so you guys are going to Terra," the Prince of Pleasure instructed lazily, leaning back as a cluster of shivering daemons knelt before the throne. "Can you possess some random people, go to Agnes's lab, and corrupt her by any means possible? Because I like her. Plus, only having one son of the Emperor sucks... but having one that is a mother figure for all the Primarchs will definitely cause some exquisite sadness."
"Yes, our Lady," the daemons chorused in unison.
With a flash of sickening pink light, they vanished into the void.
--
Agnes sat surrounded by giant figures of authority and cosmic power the Primarchs walked these halls, Malcador kept his vigilant eye, and even Big E himself offered a comforting shadow. Yet, despite their formidable presence, none of them could fill the hollow ache in her chest. They weren't Daiwa. They weren't Z23.
To make matters worse, The agonizing degradation in her legs was steadily catching up, a constant.
"I wonder if Big E can fix my legs..." I muttered softly, tilting my head back to stare aimlessly at the cold, metallic ceiling of my lab.
I closed my eyes, the loneliness washing over me in a suffocating wave.
"Daiwa... I miss you," I whispered to the empty room. "What I wouldn't give to see you again..."
Reaching out, I grabbed a cup of tea from the desk and took a slow, quiet sip, seeking solace in the warmth.
Then, it happened.
A chilling whisper slithered directly into my ear, feeling eerily like my own inner thoughts.
"If you want to see your Daiwa again... then you should—"
The voice cut out sharply, vanishing into nothingness. Before I could process it, a chorus of overlapping voices burst into my mind, talking over one another at frantic speeds before abruptly disappearing just as quickly as they had arrived.
I sat completely still. My eyes didn't even blink.
"...Interesting," I quietly murmured.
Pushing through the weakness in my lower limbs, I forced myself up from the chair. With a swift movement, I opened a glowing holographic window floating before me. My fingers hovered over the controls for a fraction of a second.
"Forgive me for what I am about to do..." I whispered.
I pressed the button.
[ Protocol: Plot Armor — ACTIVATED ]
The console hummed to life as the system executed the override. I pulled a sleek tablet from the terminal and held it tightly in my hands.
"If anything happens to me... may this at least stop me," I prayed under my breath.
Turning around, I tapped the comms interface and summoned a familiar guard. "Kitten."
Within moments, he stepped into the room, bowing slightly. "My lady, what do you need?"
I looked at him, my expression hardening with utmost gravity. "Kitten... safeguard this. If for any reason something happens to me, make sure that you activate whatever is inside this tablet."
Kitten paused, sensing the sudden, dangerous weight in the air. "...Understood, my lady."
"Tell no one of this. Not even the Emperor, and not Malcador," I instructed strictly. Then, my tone softened into a desperate plea.
"Now... as a favor, use this on me. It will erase my memory of what we have just talked about. For the good of the whole galaxy... do it for me."
I extended my hand, offering him a small, handheld neural device.
Kitten stared at the device, his voice laced with reluctant grief. "...I am sorry for this, my lady."
"No..." I countered softly, closing my eyes as I accepted my fate. "I am sorry for this."
FLASH.
Kitten fired the device. A painless shockwave rippled through my mind, instantly severing my thoughts and plunging me into complete darkness as I collapsed out of consciousness.