When creating something, one first produces an initial test model to verify the idea and gather practical data.
In other words, a prototype.
The designation of prototype applies to people as well.
Through test models subjected to genetic enhancement or modification surgery, one identifies side effects and defects in advance, then improves and corrects them.
Before seriously beginning the creation of the Primarchs, the Emperor ordered the production of a Generation Zero Primarch prototype to conduct comparative verification and accumulate foundational data.
When he abruptly said we were to create a Primarch prototype, I wondered whether anything like this had existed in the original canon.
But that had merely been lore from a game. What lay before me now was indisputable reality, so I accepted that it was entirely possible.
Thus, together with Erda and the biotechnologist Amar Astarte, I embarked on the Generation Zero Primarch Project.
At their side, I fulfilled my role as technical adviser, calibrating matters appropriately in real time.
First, we safely implanted the Emperor's genes into the egg Erda had donated to him.
Then we began painstakingly inscribing and injecting, one by one, the genetic enhancement formulas we had designed beforehand.
I kept watch over the data, offered advice, and stepped in as the relief pitcher who set things right whenever unforeseen difficulties or problems arose during the process.
By the time the fetus in the cultivation tank had begun to take on a complete form—
the Emperor arrived, as though he had been waiting for that very moment.
"Is it finished?"
"Yes. The basic preparatory stages have been completed."
I looked at the indescribably luminous something the Emperor held in his hand and asked,
"What is that thing you're holding?"
"A kind of seed."
The Emperor brought forth an essence containing an immense concentration of Warp power and, with an incantation, forced it into the fetus's soul.
The result was the birth of an existence so far beyond the category of a mere human that it could rightly be called ultimate.
The researchers witnessing the moment stood entranced and spellbound.
But beyond the dazzling figures in the data, I detected an anomaly.
Even for a fetus designed with enhanced genes, he had forcibly crammed in a level of power beyond anything it could bear.
Literally speaking, that fetus was like a balloon inflated to the verge of bursting.
If it continued to grow like this, collapse would someday be inevitable.
"What? Why is the data such a mess? Something's wrong here."
Sensing something abnormal in the energy forcibly settled inside the fetus, I secretly extracted the data and sent it to the version of myself aboard the Ark, requesting an analysis from the monastery of Dharma Temple, the finest psyker order on the Ark.
After a meticulous analysis by their guide, the Akasha Master, and several monks, the conclusion that returned was this:
Countless intricate, conflicting powers that had not been unified into one had been forcibly crammed together, barely maintaining a single form.
The instant I realized that, fury surged up from deep within me.
No matter that it was only a prototype for testing, what breathed inside that tank was still a living life—and his own flesh and blood.
Yet the Emperor was treating that child, writhing in the incubator fluid, as nothing more than a biological test instrument to be discarded later.
He had made him from the outset as a sacrificial victim to use and throw away.
It seemed that after remaining at the Emperor's side for so long, I had temporarily forgotten that sociopath's cruel nature.
I turned my head and looked across at Erda, who was gazing at the fetus while carefully stroking the glass of the cultivation tank.
She always maintained a cold, expressionless face, but her eyes were filled with pure joy at the creation of life, and with the faintly budding stirrings of maternal love.
Having confirmed this cruel result, I could not help but foresee that child's tragic end.
That child growing in there... won't live long.
It was not a matter of lifespan.
The immense, ruinous power within him that his body could not contain would slowly eat away at both his body and mind.
That left only two paths.
Either his inner power would run wild and he would collapse on his own, or the Emperor would purge him before that happened.
I frowned at the betrayal rising within me, and at the guilt I felt toward the child.
In the end, I too was an accomplice who had brought that child into this cruel world, bound to such a cruel fate.
I had helped create him as well.
That meant I bore responsibility too.
Clutching my head, I let out a deep sigh.
Part of me wanted to rush to the Emperor, who was probably waging the Unification Wars on the surface alongside the Thunder Warriors and Custodian Guard, and grab him by the collar.
But nothing would change even if I did.
In the end, I went to find Malcador, the Emperor's agent.
"What is it, Noah?"
"Hey, Malcador."
I looked at him coldly and asked whether he knew about the cruel truth behind the Generation Zero being born right now.
Unable to meet my icy gaze, Malcador remained silent for a long time. At last, he gave a faint nod.
I breathed out a long sigh.
"Then did you tell Erda too?"
"...I did not. But if it is her, she must already have noticed the child's condition."
I gave a hollow laugh at that answer.
"You're so obsessed with that grand cause of yours, supposedly for humanity, that you've forgotten—or cast away—every fundamental quality a human being should possess. Can creatures who live like that really be called human?"
Malcador could not speak for some time. Then, in a subdued voice, he murmured,
"...It was something that had to be done."
"Yeah, I know. But if you're human, it should have ended with gathering information. Why the hell are you using that little thing as a living laboratory?"
"Even so, it was something that had to be done."
"Ah, fuck! You motherless, fatherless sons of bitches."
Leaving those cold words behind, I walked away.
Then I made my way to Erda.
I quietly approached her as she continued to stare into the glass tank.
Erda spoke to me first, in an emotionless voice.
"Noah, is this a human being? Or is it a weapon?"
Unlike Malcador, I had never particularly become acquainted with her or spoken with her, so this was the first time she had ever addressed me first.
I considered her question for a moment before giving her my answer.
"That... is something we'll have to wait and see."
"Why do you think so?"
"Because if he's human, he needs to think for himself and understand his own heart. It's too soon to decide hastily."
"No. You're wrong. This is a weapon. Not my child—only that man's weapon."
Erda's eyes, reflected in the glass as she spoke, were dark as an abyss.
"I'm sorry."
"You need not apologize. It is an unavoidable sacrifice..."
She called it an unavoidable sacrifice, but to my eyes, those calm words looked like a scream desperately trying to turn away from the wound carved into her.
In the end, even a Perpetual could not entirely escape the fundamental nature of being human.
The maternal love in her heart was already soaked in tears of guilt.
Behind her coldness lay a deep guilt; behind her ruthlessness, tears she could not bring herself to shed.
Without asking anything further, I merely murmured, "...Right," gathered the research materials, and left the laboratory.
About five years passed after that.
The tiny fetus had grown into a man as large as a house, enough to fill the enormous incubation chamber.
He was a gigantic figure nearly four meters tall. Great feathered wings had sprouted from his back, making him resemble an angel from ancient myth.
And there was the overwhelming pressure radiating from his entire body.
It was a strange sensation, as if a living god had been forcibly brought to completion.
As expected of the Emperor's child, he resembled him in every way.
Ordinarily, he should have emerged from the cultivation tank as an infant. But the young body could not withstand the immense power dwelling within it, so only now, once he had become physically mature, was he ready to be brought into the world.
I walked up to the transparent incubator and gently placed my palm against its glass wall.
The child sleeping inside opened his eyes. Through the transparent wall, he raised his enormous hand and pressed it against mine.
His clear eyes stared blankly at me.
I beamed and gave him a little wave.
Following my lead, the child smiled, lifting the corners of his lips, and waved his huge hand back at me.
I was the only person who shared such a bond with him.
The Emperor never came to see him, occupied with war, and since that day Erda had refused to face the child.
That was why I took responsibility for staying close to the child confined in that narrow chamber.
When the work began in earnest, the Emperor returned reeking of the bloodshed of the Unification Wars and looked upon the completed prototype with satisfaction.
As the procedure to awaken the child began, the cultivation fluid filling the glass chamber drained away rapidly, and the chamber slid open.
The child stepped out and, guided by instinctive attraction, approached the Emperor.
When he emerged and beat the enormous wings on his back, a fierce gale swept through the entire vast laboratory.
His dazzling golden hair streamed in the wind, making him seem as mysterious as a mythical being stepped out of an ancient mural.
Looking upon his creation, the Emperor declared quietly,
"You are Angel. In time, you will eradicate Chaos, humanity's eternal enemy, and become my angel, who shall lead humanity down the path to greatness."
At those words, Erda's face darkened at once, and I clicked my tongue inwardly.
The Emperor did not see that child as his son.
He saw him only as a perfectly honed tool, a living weapon.
Even that smile was not born of paternal love. It was the arrogant satisfaction of a man who had acquired the finest weapon.
After saying, "Wait here while I prepare a gift for you," the Emperor left the laboratory.
Erda seemed unable to bear her guilt and withdrew somewhere, while Amar Astarte quietly disappeared as well, taking his research materials with him.
In the end, only Angel and I remained in the sprawling laboratory.
I slowly walked over to the child.
Though he was many times larger than I was, Angel's inner age was still that of an innocent child.
Angel looked at me and spoke already, his pronunciation clumsy.
"Hel... lo."
"Yeah. Hello."
With my hand resting on the child's enormous leg, I smiled brightly and congratulated him on his birth.
Then, after thinking for a moment, I gave the child a name myself.
Hoping he would become a noble and sacred guardian worthy of his beautiful appearance, I gifted him the name Michael.
Pointing to the child, I told him gently,
"Your name is Michael."
This time, the child murmured in a much clearer voice,
"...Michael."
Then Michael pointed at me with a finger and tilted his head.
Realizing he was asking me to tell him my name too, I smiled.
"My name is Noah."
I led Michael out of the bleak laboratory and toward my private quarters.
They were called private quarters, but in truth they were an exceptionally vast space.
Michael's flapping wings stirred up such strong winds that the room became a complete mess.
But I only laughed it off and dressed the child in clothes teleported in real time from the Ark.
For about a week, Michael and I spent warm, simple days together.
But happiness did not last long.
The Emperor summoned Michael.
The Emperor placed immense golden armor and a sword wreathed in blue radiance into Michael's hands, then took him away and began instructing him in the education and skills of a warrior.
Just as the Emperor could not interfere with me, I could not lightly interfere with his course of action either.
All I could do was watch Michael's retreating back with sorrow.
After returning from the Emperor, Michael moved like someone who had found a firm purpose and mission.
His existence displayed overwhelming power in the Unification Wars, particularly in purging the Chaos worshippers and daemons infesting all of Terra.
Whenever Angel spread his immense angelic wings, cleaved the sky, and swung his blue-radiant sword, his enemies were burned into ash and vanished without even the chance to scream.
The daemons of the Warp had their souls twisted and extinguished merely by meeting Michael's cold gaze.
As the most perfect and terrifying ultimate weapon to carry out the Emperor's will, he crushed Terra's enemies without restraint.
Even in battle against the great daemon, the Daemon Prince Paraguotla, who had steeped Terra in terror since ancient ages, the Emperor himself entered the battlefield and fought in concert with Michael.
In the end, they completely drove the enormous daemon from Terra.
But with every battle, the danger lurking within Michael began to reveal itself more and more extremely.
The more he roamed the blood-soaked battlefields, the more emotional Michael became, until he could no longer control himself.
Before long, he frequently flew into such a violent rage that even the Emperor found him difficult to control.
Ultimately, under the pretext of rooting out Chaos corruption, Michael brought about a terrible tragedy: in a single night, he completely erased an entire nation of techno-barbarians from the map.
Judging that Michael could no longer be deployed as a weapon in the present balance of the Unification Wars, the Emperor forcibly calmed him and transported him to the headquarters in the Himalayas, where the Imperial Palace was being built.
"Michael, welcome back."
"Noah, it's been a long time."
"Yeah. You've changed a lot."
The Michael who returned was no longer the innocent child he had been.
His entire body exuded rage and hatred so thick that it carried an eerie madness.
Whenever he encountered other humans nearby, he would bare his hostility with a savage, murderous edge.
In the end, I watched over Michael personally and thoroughly prevented anyone from coming near him.
When the Emperor ordered that Michael's activities be suspended for the time being, Malcador and the researchers hurriedly began preparing a hibernation procedure to put him to sleep.
I spent what time I could with the child until he entered stasis.
I told this young child, barely more than two years old and driven to such extremes, the long tales of heroes from ancient Earth.
I let him taste sweet snacks brought from the Ark, soothing the heart being stained by madness.
On the night when exactly one day remained until he entered the hibernation chamber, I made up my mind.
After making Michael promise to keep everything secret and never cause trouble, I told him I would take him to a secret garden where wondrous scenery awaited.
"Now, close your eyes tight and follow me."
"All right."
I perfectly disabled every surveillance device in the room and severed the entire room's dimensions of space and time, isolating it.
Then, holding the hand of Michael, who was waiting with his eyes tightly shut in anticipation, I immediately made a spatial jump with him to the Ark.
"We're here. Open your eyes now, Michael."
"...Ah. This is!"
When Michael opened his eyes aboard the Ark, he could not contain his astonishment at the otherworldly sights he was seeing for the first time in his life.
The child seemed deeply shocked by this dazzling, tranquil world of peace, so utterly different from Terra, stained by bloodshed and gray wastelands.
Because of the risk that Michael, who had come to hate humanity, might suddenly turn dangerous, all the residents of this district had been evacuated in advance.
But Veronica alone approached us with a kindly smile in her bio-android body.
"Hello, Michael."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Veronica. You can think of me as the keeper of this secret garden, and Noah's eternal companion."
"...You're strange. You don't disgust me."
"Hehe. Thank you for thinking kindly of me."
Veronica, Michael, and I walked throughout the Ark together, building up warm, unforgettable moments that would remain in the child's memories forever.
Michael showed great interest in the films about ancient Earth in the screening room.
And he loved cola and fried chicken.
After we had been playing for some time, Michael suddenly looked at me and quietly asked,
"Noah... why are the humans here different from the people of Terra?"
His unexpected question caught me off guard for a moment.
I had certainly isolated and evacuated everyone in this district. Yet Michael, with his transcendent spiritual senses, had discerned from mere traces of presence and souls that the humans aboard the Ark differed from the humans of Terra he had seen until now.
I thought for a moment, then answered in a warm voice.
"Because the environments they live in are different. Human beings can change greatly depending on the environment and education given to them."
Michael's eyes gleamed as he asked again,
"...Then can the people of Terra change someday too?"
I gently stroked the child's leg and nodded.
As if he had found a profound thought and realization in that answer, Michael quietly returned to the underground laboratory on Terra once the promised time had come.
And he obediently walked into the prepared hibernation chamber.
As I drove the other researchers away and performed Michael's hibernation procedure alone, the capsule lid closed. Just before he fell asleep, Michael spoke to me words heavy with feeling—words he had never offered even to the Emperor.
"...Let's play again, Father."
At that quiet resonance, I looked sorrowfully at Michael as he drifted into sleep inside the glass chamber.
Then I softly waved to the child and replied,
"Yeah, son."
*
After that, whenever the Emperor needed Michael as a weapon, he would awaken him and deploy him on the battlefield.
Within that cruel cycle of sleeping and fighting, repeated again and again, I could not meet Michael.
The small warmth I had helped bloom within the child's heart aboard the Ark was mercilessly swept away by waves of madness and rampage.
But I was certain.
Eventually, the day would surely come when the Emperor judged Michael an uncontrollable failure and abandoned him.
I waited only for that moment.
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