Dad, someone from the Inquisition is looking for me

Vashtorr was struck as if by lightning. He hurriedly looked toward the location of the human astronomican.
That freezing warp sun had existed for ages, unshaken.
Curses. The Dark King lived up to his status, standing even closer to godhood than himself, actively counteracting his measures.

Vashtorr grew dazed. Then, the grinding screeches of machinery, the endless roar of production lines and workshop pipelines crawling beneath his feet, inspired the power of malicious craft!
He had to win this—he had to wrest his divine seat from the hands of the Dark King!
And that bastard still occupied the name of the Omnissiah.
As long as he could snatch back his wife—no, snatch back the first war chariot forged by the divine power of malicious craft, proving himself more worthy than that blonde upstart—
He could kick the Dark King right off that throne.

Yet before that feat could be accomplished, the war chariot was about to be piloted by that blonde upstart—
Vashtorr entered his highest frequency of calculation. His consciousness forcefully touched the foul cog imprint, birthing numerous forbidden techniques from within.
"This is a battle for godhood. The era where the eight most ancient domains coexisted has faded away."
"Even Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, cannot rob us of the overlapping parts of our domains!"
"Dark King! I declare war upon you!"

Vashtorr let out a colossal roar. All the warp-machinery production lines began to shriek, venting the fury of the self-proclaimed Lord of Malicious Craft.
The already violent warp tides surged into even more ferocious waves.
The Changer of Ways had no particular objections; the more chaotic, the better. His daemons were currently taking advantage of the instability in those daemon workshops to steal back a few production lines.
The Lord of Skulls expressed his admiration for Vashtorr's courage in challenging the Dark King.
The Lord of Pleasure probed the matter on a deeper level, knowing that the Dark King had taken Vashtorr's first time—referring to the divine creation of malicious craft, not the rupture of any gear valve.

Only in a certain black wooden house within the garden did Nurgle carefully stir the soup in his cauldron.
He was busy repairing the body of Mortarion, who had been beaten into psychological trauma, and handling the psychological rehabilitation.
No matter how terrifying your dear father is, daddy will always love you. Be a good boy and hurry out to work.

Near midnight that evening, Anda returned home, toying with a miniaturized scarab in his hand.
He had fashioned a fake war chariot out of alternative materials.
Now this was brilliant: the two priests on the front lines were fake, and the war chariot was fake.
At this rate, the pharaoh's army marching north would all turn out to be fake as well.

"Aaron? Aaron! Your dad brought the war chariot back!"
"Hurry and enter the dream, send it over to Jaghatai!"
Anda shouted at the top of his lungs. To project his paternal side, his actions and demeanor always had to be a bit aggressive.
After all, the more one lacked something, the more one overcompensated.

Aaron rubbed his eyes, yawning as he crawled out of bed.
"Haaah—my lyre still needs a bit of time. Malum said he would help me string it at dawn. Father, you always act on sudden whims; whatever you say one second, you forget the next."
"I'm starting to suspect you have senile dementia."

Hearing this, Anda pulled a sour face and tossed the toy car into Aaron's hands.
He really did seem to have a slight problem with contradicting himself. It must be because the future was exerting too much influence on him.
Still, he shouldn't become an idiot just from sitting still for too long.

Anda picked up a bucket of water to rinse off, muttering, "Go back to sleep then. Ah, tomorrow is the great day of the festival, and I still have to spend half a day at home making handicrafts for you. I just want to go drinking and dancing. Sigh."

Malum, assisting Anda in changing his clothes, asked softly, "My lord, I have never heard any record in the future empire stating that you enjoyed grand banquets and balls."

Anda's face darkened. "If you don't know how to speak, keep your trap shut. I know Cawl had you carefully analyze the differences between past and future me. What's wrong with me liking to indulge in pleasure?"

Malum dared not presume, lowering his head. "No, it is merely that—much like broadcasting music to you—Archmagos Cawl hopes to recreate these activities before the future you."

Anda sat down on the bed, musing, "Sitting on the throne listening to music with my old bones is one thing, but could Cawl possibly find a way to make future me rave?"
"Splendid. That old codger's brain is truly flexible."
Malum sighed. "My lord, I fear it is not that the archmagos's brain is flexible; his lubricant replacement cycle is simply three times more frequent than that of other Tech-Priests."

Anda lay down, adjusting himself into a comfortable sleeping posture. "Speak human."
Malum respectfully replied, "They can no longer find any way to awaken your humanity, so they can only pin their hopes on this."

Anda smacked his lips. "Why does that sound a bit wrong to me? It sounds like I've contracted a terminal illness and fallen into a coma, while you lot outside are beating gongs and drums, using all sorts of methods to keep me from staying asleep."
"I can feel it. The psychic and mental projection of my future self is undeniably powerful, practically brimming with vitality. It must be unimaginably bright in the warp."
"Alright, alright, time to rest."
He rolled over and tucked the blanket over Aaron.

Malum did not find this heartwarming. The weather here was sultry; a light cloth blanket or nothing at all was needed, with no risk of catching a cold. His Majesty's behavior would only make Aaron inexplicably sweat through the night.

Aaron in his sleep did not manifest in the timeline of some brother, but rather atop a strange altar.
The entire altar was crude and rudimentary, located in an unknown space. Pitch blackness surrounded it, making it impossible to tell if it was a room or some claustrophobic cavern.
The altar was strewn with bizarre objects: fragments formed from strings of metal rings of varying sizes, or ancient, weathered pottery shards stamped with brownish-red paintings of minotaurs.

"Aaron Will! What manner of creature are you, daring to usurp a Son of the Emperor!"
A harsh, grating voice rang out, sounding as though a pair of lungs had been punctured.

Aaron looked around the vicinity of the altar, searching for the source of the sound, and then reached out to touch the barrier that seemed intended to restrict his movement.
He passed right through it effortlessly, as if the barrier were completely useless against him.
Aaron shouted loudly, "Who are you? And what is this place?"

The next moment, dozens of figures began to move. They had been standing right there in the dark, stepping forward just then, which created a contrast with the surrounding environment and brought them into Aaron's field of vision.
Five Throne-Proxies (individuals on the verge of becoming full Inquisitors) escorted an Inquisitor as they stepped forward, approaching the altar.

Only then did Aaron catch sight of their appearances.
The five guard-like attendants were tall—though not quite matching Astartes—and their exposed skin was covered in scars, their bodies corded with muscular strength.
Even in human form, Aaron had a subtle, nagging feeling that these "people" were not of the same kind.

The woman in the center was slightly shorter, but her presence was far more imposing than those around her.
She wore a strange wide-brimmed, triangular curved hat, a black undergarment, and leather straps inscribed with tiny golden characters.
Her upper body was draped in a red woolen trench coat with apparent shoulder pads. When she raised her head, her resolute face bore an ocular implant with a flashing red lens over her left eye.
She drew the blade at her waist—a genuine single-handed metal sword, which made Aaron's mouth water with envy.

Her voice rang out again, still just as harsh, as if something had damaged her alveoli, yet it failed to hinder her speech:
"I am called Loiska!"
"We are the Emperor's most loyal servants. All heretics and xenos shall be obliterated."
"Aaron Will! Kneel in the dust and submit to the judgment of the Inquisition!"

Aaron merely scratched his head, continuing to observe the summoning ritual of this so-called altar, and figured out the reason he had ended up here.
A pen that Guilliman had used.
Understood. Next time, he would just shut down this interface.

"A bunch of morons. Father, if your future subordinates are all this unhinged, I'd say there's no hope for you lot."
"Farewell to you all. Any message you'd like me to pass along to Father?"

Aaron limbered up his body, preparing to charge at Loiska. This wasn't his real physical body after all; he could mess around as much as he liked.
He also wanted to see if he measured up compared to soldiers from over forty millennia in the future.