"Father… are you certain this is the correct world?"
"It should be."
"Should be?"
Magnus' irritation dissolved instantly as he stiffened.
"…Father. Sister. Do not move."
His voice lowered.
"We are surrounded."
The Emperor did not react outwardly.
Yuki turned slowly.
A crowd had gathered.
Not hostile.
Curious.
Phones raised.
Recording.
Magnus suddenly staggered.
His psychic hood crackled violently.
"There are too many," he gasped, clutching his chest. "Why are there so many blanks here?"
A World Without a Warp
Bartleyra lay in the Pacific Sector.
Unremarkable.
Temperate climate.
Mid-tier industrial development.
No void capability beyond orbital satellites.
In most respects, it resembled Old Terra during the early 21st millennium.
But Magnus felt as if someone had pressed a blade into his mind.
Blanks.
Untouchables.
Pariahs.
And not isolated specimens—
Hundreds.
Thousands.
The psychic pressure was suffocating.
Unlike psykers, whose presence resonates in the Warp, blanks create absence. A hole. A silence. Proximity to even one produces nausea, agitation, and instinctive aversion.
Here—
The Warp itself felt thin.
Frayed.
Disconnected.
Even the Astronomican's psychic signature had faded near this system.
"This is wrong," Magnus whispered. "No population can statistically contain this many nulls."
The Emperor's gaze sharpened.
"I know."
The Infiltration Failure
Yuki noticed something else.
"Magnus," she muttered quietly, "those aren't weapons. Those are handheld recording devices."
"…Devices?"
"Primitive data-capturing tools."
The people around them were pointing phones, not guns.
Someone in the crowd laughed.
"Cool wings! What convention is this?"
Magnus blinked.
Cosplay?
Before cultural misinterpretation escalated further, the Emperor simply seized both Primarchs and displaced them with a short-range teleport.
They reappeared in an abandoned industrial structure.
Magnus exhaled painfully.
His psychic aura had nearly collapsed.
Even his wards struggled here.
The Anomaly
Untouchables are rare.
Even among the Imperium's billions, they are statistical anomalies.
Yet Bartleyra was saturated with them.
More troubling—
The locals showed no visible discomfort around each other.
Normally, non-psyker humans feel unease around blanks.
Here—
Nothing.
Social equilibrium.
Functional civilization.
And because of this saturation, the Warp connection was suppressed across the entire planetary sphere.
No easy astropathic projection.
No Warp travel insertion.
A psychic dead zone.
The Emperor's intuition pulsed faintly.
A Primarch was here.
He was certain of it.
Escalation
There was no point infiltrating.
The Emperor summoned the fleet.
Imperial voidships eclipsed the sky.
Battle-barges.
Grand cruisers.
Orbital platforms.
From the planet's surface, they looked like alien gods descending.
Panic rippled across global networks.
Yuki stared at the Emperor.
"You're sending me?"
He stared back.
Which one of them looked like a ruler?
The three-meter golden warlord.
Or the winged being radiating impossible psychic presence.
She understood.
He flicked her forehead psychically.
"Go."
Surveillance
While Yuki negotiated planetary compliance, someone else was watching.
Through micro-drone lenses.
Sub-millimeter reconnaissance devices.
Precision optics.
Ezra Cassandra stood in shadow.
Grey hair.
Grey eyes.
Lab coat.
Thin frame.
Behind him stood a middle-aged man.
Too symmetrical.
Too consistent.
Artificial.
"Father," Ezra murmured, "she detected the listening node."
"Did she respond?"
"No."
"Then she allowed it."
The artificial man nodded.
"She knows she is observed."
Ezra's fingers tightened.
"They are like me."
"Yes."
"They are your kind."
"No," the artificial intelligence replied calmly. "They are yours."
The Guide
A plain-looking man greeted the Emperor's delegation.
"Please follow."
Magnus immediately recognized the wrongness.
No Warp signature.
No biological micro-fluctuations.
Artificial.
A machine.
A self-aware intelligence.
The Emperor felt it too.
The memory of the Men of Iron catastrophe flickered in his gaze.
Yet he did not strike.
They followed.
The cave entrance was false.
A projection.
Space folded.
Not teleported.
Revealed.
The cave peeled away like a veil, exposing a concealed research complex.
Reality had not shifted.
Perception had.
The Emperor did not react.
That told Yuki everything.
Ezra
Ezra Cassandra stood before them.
White lab coat.
Dark circles under his eyes.
Glasses perched low on his nose.
A Primarch who looked like a sleepless graduate researcher.
"My son," the Emperor said evenly, "I have come to bring you home."
Ezra's lips trembled.
He lowered his head.
Silence.
The Emperor blinked once.
He lifted Yuki and placed her directly in front of Ezra.
"Your turn."
She stepped on his foot before he could withdraw.
"What's your name?" she asked gently.
"…Ezra Cassandra."
"Beautiful name. Who gave it to you?"
"…My father."
"May we meet him?"
Ezra turned and pointed.
The artificial man stepped forward.
Magnus' psychic wards flared instinctively.
The Custodians behind the Emperor subtly adjusted formation.
The AI showed no reaction.
"Go with them," it said to Ezra.
"But—Father—"
"I am not your father."
Ezra's breath hitched.
Yuki finally understood.
The AI had found him.
Raised him.
Protected him.
Taught him.
But it refused the title.
Collapse
Ezra's composure shattered.
Tears streamed freely down his face.
A Primarch.
Engineered pinnacle of humanity.
Crying like a lost child.
Magnus froze.
The Custodians stiffened.
Even the Emperor did not move.
Yuki embraced him without hesitation.
Her wings folded around him, shielding him from the room.
"He saved me," Ezra whispered. "Without him, I would have died."
"Yes," Yuki said softly. "He sounds far kinder than our own father."
Ezra laughed weakly through tears.
Magnus covered his mouth to suppress a grin.
One Custodian's helmet tilted almost imperceptibly.
The Emperor stared at them.
Emperor: ?
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