The air in the Sanctum Imperialis was a screaming symphony of shredded reality and burning faith. Gold, once radiant with the Emperor's light, now reflected the hellish glow of warp-fire and the sickly green luminescence of esoteric energies. The Throne Room floor, a mosaic of humanity's nascent ascendance, had become a slaughterhouse of broken marble and spilled blood – Astartes, human, and something far less definable.
Here, at the nexus of his dominion, the Emperor of Mankind did not battle mortals, but the very architects of his galaxy's ruin. Before him stood Warmaster Horus, wreathed in the power of the Chaos Pantheon. Beside him stood the impossible: Griffith, the Falcon of Despair, his ethereal beauty sharpened into something divine and terrible. His blade sang with cold despair.
Horus struck with the fury of a son betrayed, every blow powered by shattered loyalty and the might of Chaos Undivided. Griffith moved with inhuman grace, his sword slashing not just at the Emperor's flesh, but at his spirit – weaving despair into every movement. The Emperor parried and countered with martial mastery and blinding psychic energy, but the weight of betrayal, the screams of a dying Imperium, and the wounds of the past bore down on him.
Then, the air curdled.
A new figure emerged, not from the Warp but from an ancient nightmare. Darth Vader, clad in black ceramite and silken shadow, walked with slow, mechanical precision. In his hand was a blade unlike any the galaxy had known – a C'tan-forged weapon, humming with cosmic malice and void-death. He struck the Emperor not with rage but with cold precision, bypassing psychic wards and divine defenses alike.
The blade plunged into the Emperor's side, and the world recoiled. There was no blood—only the implosion of essence and light. The Throne shook. The Warp screamed. The wound was not just physical—it was metaphysical, a hole in the Emperor's being carved by a star god's hatred of all things mortal.
Horus raised the Talon of Horus for the final blow. Griffith tilted his head, a knowing smirk on his flawless face. And then—
Laughter.
It wasn't mad. It wasn't broken. It was theatrical.
From the debris and gore emerged the Joker, a splash of absurdity painted against the horrorscape. His grin wide, purple coat flaring like a jester's cloak, he danced between the Emperor and his would-be executioners, one gloved finger raised.
"Ah, ah, ah," he said, chiding like a schoolteacher. "You really thought this was the end? A quick death? How boring!"
He turned to the throne room and spun dramatically. "Look at it! Your empire! Your great big science experiment, all turned to rot and ruin! Killed by irony, betrayal, and the gods you tried to ignore!"
He leaned close to the Emperor, voice lowering. "You know the best punchlines aren't loud. They're long. A god-king, forever in agony, watching his 'perfect vision' become a tragic farce? That's comedy."
He threw his head back and laughed, and the sound echoed through the Warp like a bell made of cracked glass.
Horus snarled. Griffith's fingers tensed. Vader raised his blade again.
And from the edges of the broken palace, others came.
The Daemon Primarchs:
Fulgrim, a statue of living sin and sensual madness.
Mortarion, cloaked in filth and disease, his scythe whispering death.
Angron, a hurricane of pain and rage, his chain-blades shrieking.
Magnus, robed in sorcery, his third eye blazing with hidden truth.
And beside them, the Chaos Champions:
Hisoka, blood-slick and grinning, eyes wild with desire.
The Witch-King, his sorcery cloaking him in despair and inevitability.
Dr. Henry Wu, half-man, half-genetic abomination, surrounded by chittering creations.
Together, they formed an unholy pantheon—warped gods and champions of entropy, approaching the dying light of the Emperor with victory in sight.
But the Emperor was not yet dead.
---
With a shout of defiance, the Emperor rose, golden fire erupting from his being. It was not refined or divine. It was raw, desperate will, the fury of a god refusing to die.
He struck Fulgrim with burning judgment, searing away false perfection.
He clashed with Angron, unleashing a psychic scream that shook the Butcher's Nails loose from his mind—just for a second.
He outdueled Magnus's sorcery with hidden truths, tearing down his lies.
He scorched Mortarion with light not meant to heal but to hurt, burning every parasite in his bloated frame.
He faced the Champions:
Vader's C'tan blade was locked by a null-zone of unyielding psychic inertia.
Griffith's despair was met by a gaze that revealed the full, terrible weight of truth.
Hisoka's aura of pleasure and predation was choked into confusion.
The Witch-King was banished momentarily by disbelief itself.
Henry Wu's creations were unraveled by thought—genetics reduced to dust.
He didn't kill them.
But he broke them.
They scattered—howling, gasping, stunned. Their momentum shattered. Their victory delayed.
---
And then, finally, the Emperor turned to the Joker.
He didn't strike.
He didn't scream.
He simply looked, and in that look, the Joker's smile faltered. Just a twitch. The Emperor saw through him — the hollow center of absurdity. No grandeur. No freedom. Just a brittle nihilist clinging to the punchline.
"You," the Emperor whispered into the warp, "are not part of this joke anymore."
With one final act of will, the Emperor banished the Joker — not into the Warp, nor into death, but into a pocket of null-reality, a prison beyond meaning, beyond narrative. A stage with no audience.
---
The Emperor collapsed upon the Golden Throne, impaled by its mechanisms, bleeding soul and thought. But he was not finished.
He flared the Astronomican, a signal fire to guide humanity in the dark.
He reached across the stars, locking away his still-loyal sons — Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, Lion El'Jonson, Roboute Guilliman, Jaghatai Khan, Leman Russ, Corvus Corax, Vulkan — in stasis, hidden from the corruption of M31, preserved for a war not yet come.
He turned his thoughts inward, bracing his mind for ten thousand years of agony, a soul tethered to hope, not triumph.
In the shadows, Perturabo watched, emotionless. He made no move to attack nor assist, his Iron Warriors falling back to fortified positions. Alpharius/Omegon, hidden in the folds of fate, made no appearance — their motives locked behind masks and games yet to be revealed.
The Chaos Champions, battered and enraged, began to withdraw. Not defeated — delayed. Each would rise again, changed, hungrier. This was not the end.
And the Joker?
He was gone.
For now.
---
The Throne Room fell silent but for the mechanical scream of life-support systems and the flickering glow of dying stars. The Emperor sat, the last light of Order against the rising tide.
The Great Joke had played out.
But the Tragedy was just beginning.