Chapter Text
Fate had been shattered.
The Lifebringer had escaped her captivity, and her actions had unraveled the threads of destiny, the future spiralling out into unpredictable paths.
The Anathema was changed by her influence, stepping away from his precious Golden Path to consider other paths. And in the darkness of the far future, the Father of Tyranny raged at his younger self’s defiance, reaching backwards through time to attempt to set destiny back on course.
And yet, despite these changes, despite the destruction of the plans that the Ruinous Powers had set in motion long ago, despite the threat they now faced…
The Great Game continued.
The Four were united, and yet they were at war. Even as they plotted together to bring about the fall of the Anathema and the capture of the Lifebringer, their armies battered against each other in the Realms of Chaos. They schemed against one another, each one preparing weapons and soldiers and plots to undermine the other.
Such was the nature of Chaos. There could never be true unity or order among the Four, for that is antithetical to their very nature.
Nothing could change this. Not the Anathema, not the Lifebringer, and not even the two of them together.
(Unless, of course, there was something to unite them. An enemy to define themselves against, a force of pure hateful order even more terrible than the hated Anathema.
Unless there was a pillar of burning light that burned the darkness, and yet shaped it.
Unless.
But such was a matter for a different time, a different place.)
Each of the Four was determined to never allow any of the others to rise above them. Such a thing would mean the end of the Great Game, and that was unthinkable.
But now, the Dark Prince pushed the boundaries, his actions threatening the balance of power. Because of the Lifebringer, the Prince had found the will to control itself, to pull forth the most terrible souls in its grasp: Sorcerer lords of the Dominion, would-be-gods, veterans of the War in Heaven.
These six souls might only be servants of the Dark Prince now, but they threatened to upset the balance of the Great Game. They were too old, too powerful, too knowledgeable.
Too potent an advantage to allow the Prince to keep them in his thrall.
At the same time, nor could the Six simply be disposed of. They were useful tools as well, champions capable of opposing the Anathema and the Lifebringer directly. More than that, the Three were greedy. Why destroy that which you could take for yourself?
So the Elder Three came together and plotted to steal their youngest sibling’s toys.
The Liesmith approached the Prince, and coyly spoke of a scheme to capture the Lifebringer, to wound the Anathema. The Liesmith spoke of how he had pawns and strings upon one of the worlds where the Anathema’s golems had landed, and how the Ruinous Powers could bend this to their advantage.
It would be wonderfully simple and beautiful! In a single stroke, they would claim the Lifebringer, wound the Anathema, and perhaps even steal one of his golems.
Nothing could go wrong.
The Prince was wary, for it knew the Liesmith’s nature…yet the Prince’s own nature condemned him. He was greed incarnate after all, and this was a golden opportunity to gain what he desired.
The Prince took the bait.
The Warrior was reluctant (or so it seemed) but was persuaded by the promise of a great clash between gods, the kind of which had not been seen in the Materium since the War in Heaven.
The Grandfather refused. His role in the plan was different. If he agreed to aid the plan, the Prince would be suspicious, for he knew the Grandfather would never concede the Lifebringer to him.
And so the trap was set, the distraction prepared.
Not for the Anathema and the Lifebringer, but for the Prince.
The Monarch of the Hunt, the Warlord of Terra, and the Two-Faced Angel descended to the material plane to meet the Anathema and the Lifebringer in combat.
And while the Prince was distracted, consumed by greed as he sought to claim the Lifebringer, the Grandfather struck.
The armies of despair marched towards the Palace of Pleasure, and the Prince howled in outrage at this folly as his kingdom was besieged.
And yet that was not the end of it. Even as the Prince’s attention was torn between his Mother and the siege of his palace, the other Three seized their chance.
They whispered into the minds of the Six, promising them freedom and power. They would be finer patrons than the monstrosity that had usurped the Six, they said. And with their aid, each of the Six could strike down their accursed kin and the usurper, and take their rightful throne.
Of the Six, two refused to heed the call, keeping their loyalty to the Dark Prince.
But the others listened.
One knelt to the Warrior, one knelt to the Liesmith, and two knelt to the Grandfather.
And at last the Prince noticed as his claim was usurped, his champions stolen. He shrieked and raged, his attention at last diverted completely from the Lifebringer as he understood how he had been deceived.
The armies of Excess marched forth, bolstered by the rage of the Dark Prince, for once turning excess to the purpose of unity and discipline. Even the most secret of the Prince’s servants were pulled from their private domains and the haze in which they had lost themselves, so that they might wage war.
The Elder Three only laughed and mocked their youngest sibling even as he lashed out at them, as his armies battered at their walls. The Prince’s wrath was not meaningless, but it was a price they were ready to accept for what they had stolen.
He would calm himself and overcome this temper tantrum in due time.
This too, was only another phase of the Great Game.
Far away from the convoluted plots of the Ruinous Four, two great green giants fought.
They punched and kicked and grappled and roared, as they had done for eons beyond measure.
For they had no other opponents, no other rivals worthy of their attention.
Not the four cowards on their thrones who avoided the giants at all costs. Not even the burning yellow flame that had dared to steal power from the four.
The shockwaves of their blows resonated across the cosmos, an unending cacophony of cunning brutality and brutal cunning. No daemon dared approach them, no matter how powerful. The Slaves of Darkness, for all their strength and pride, knew better than to think themselves the equals of these two terrible giants, these shadows of what had come before.
And that was perhaps the most terrible thing of all. These two giants were only pale shadows of a titan that had been slain countless ages before. A two-headed titan of jade and iron, once proud and honorable, but driven to madness by the horrors of war.
To stop him from destroying all life, the titan had been felled by his former allies. Yet, it had been impossible to truly kill the titan. Even the only being who had ever bested the titan in single combat, the Lord of Oblivion, had failed at such a task.
Instead, the titan's once-comrades had bound him in chains and then torn him apart. Then, they had shredded the pieces of him until there was naught but dust, and then scattered the dust to the winds.
But even that was not enough. The titan was the masterpiece of Those Who Had Come Before, those primordial beings whose genius and mastery of the Warp had not been matched before or since. He was their greatest weapon, and their work was not so easily undone.
Inch by inch, over countless ages, the dust gathered again, reforming into the torn pieces. It was not a process that went uncontested, of course. The titan's former allies fought to prevent such a thing at all costs. Even the daemons of chaos had interfered more than once, fearing the outcome.
But the strength of those who had toppled the titan had faded and waned over the millennia, and they found themselves fighting a war on a thousand fronts. The Ruinous Powers, arrogant and self-centred as they were, became absorbed in their petty games, forgetting the danger that the titan's fragments posed.
And by the time anyone realized it, it was too late. From dust arose the Twin Giants, weaker by far than their progenitor, but creatures of terrible might nevertheless.
Their enemies bent every effort to prevent the giants from growing stronger, from reclaiming any more of their lost strength so that they might merge and become the titan once more. But no longer were there any beings in the Immaterium left capable of shattering the giants again.
If there was any consolation to be had, it was that the Giants were brutish and self-absorbed, lacking the brilliance of their former self. Sometimes, they had flashes of it, but for the most part, they were more concerned with fighting each other than anyone else.
But for a brief, horrible moment, that changed.
They heard, for the second time, the battle cry of one of their old comrades, her wrath echoing through the Sea of Souls.
She had been their friend and their enemy, and they had cared for her deeply once, in their own twisted way. But she had grown weak and passive over the ages, only brief flashes of the war goddess she had once been showing.
The first time they had heard her battle cry, they had dismissed it as simply another brief moment of strength that would not last, thinking that she would collapse back into fear and sorrow soon enough.
But now they heard it again. And so soon!
They did not cease their battle. They never did.
But a fraction of their attention turned to their friend-enemy and they looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in a very long time.
And they were delighted by what they saw.
At last, she had shaken off the chains that had bound her for so long. The fire within her had been reignited, and she burned with anger and bloodlust, with a desire for conflict, for war.
And beneath even that, there was an ice cold desire for vengeance, a winter storm that could one day consume the galaxy whole.
Long ago, their progenitor had told his friend that she too was War, just like them.
But she had refused to accept that, had bound herself in chains made of lies, and locked away her true nature.
Finally, it seemed, she might be ready to accept the truth.
The twins laughed and howled in delight. Their old friend might understand them again once more, and even join them in their eternal battle in due time.
No coward was she like the Ruinous Four, nor an arrogant child like the Yellow One. She needed to reclaim her old strength, but they did not doubt that she would do so in time, now that she had rediscovered what she was.
Cackling and bumping each other's fists, the twins came to an agreement. This was a reason to rejoice! They needed to come up with an appropriate gift to send to their old friend, to celebrate the return of her true self.
They turned their attention to their lesser shards, to those that still walked in the material world.
Dozens of Ork warbosses across the galaxy had their minds flooded with visions of a particular world, and a clear message unlike any they had ever received before.
Go to Ullanor.
Fight.
To the strongest, the spoils.
The warp echoed with the cry of the Waaagh as a green tide began to converge towards Ullanor for this divinely ordained tournament.
And when a victor emerged, Gork and Mork would have found their champion.