Petra

"There is no harder, more difficult truth to accept than this - that we are, all of us, the masters of our own souls. The greatest act of will is in learning who you are - who you were made to be, every single choice and every atom of matter that defines you - and in choosing to be what you wish anyway. I was made a monster. Born a weapon. Raised a tool. And I defy them all." - Petra of Olympia, Primarch of the Iron WarriorsPetra of Olympia, also known by her monikers 'The Lady of Iron,' 'The Hammer of Olympia,' and 'The Ommnissiah in Grey,' is the Primarch of the Iron Warriors, one of the original twenty Space Marine Legions. Weaned on war and intrigue in the strife-ridden courts of her homeworld of Olympia, Petra was a grim warrior and master of technological arcana who wielded logic and the mathematics of warfare as keenly as she did a hammer and Bolter.
Taciturn to the point of insult, preferring bluntness and honesty to praise, and deeply uncomfortable with the intricacies of social interaction, Petra would long exhibit traits of what would once have been called Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Such traits would contribute heavily to a deep-seated sense of isolation from others, until the occasion where she would meet the unusually charming and charismatic peasant diplomat, known as Aristides of Solonica. One of the few people to understand her creativity, and the true depth of emotion she put into any task she cared about, he would be the first to pierce her Iron shell, and connect with the woman who lay underneath.
With his patient and caring support, Petra would make great strides in connecting with others, though she would never truly abandon her bluntness, forthrightness, or ruthless honesty. Few, even amongst her fellow Primarchs, would truly be able to call her a friend, but none could fault her ability to wage campaigns, shatter fortifications, and shoulder the most difficult of tasks without complaint, in spite of the toll it took on her, and her IVth Legion. Her word, and her will, were as iron.
Unlike her sisters, many of whom embraced the Emperor of Mankind's Great Crusade with a fanatical devotion, Petra thought of it simply as a task that her sworn duty to the Emperor compelled her to pursue. Gifted with a brilliantly rational mind, the obscuritanism, supremacism, and brutality at the heart of the Imperial Truth disturbed her, and she never reconciled herself to its dictates. Nonetheless, she would grimly fulfil her duty, conquering, subduing, and integrating innumerable worlds and systems into the Imperium. All the same, her achievements would often go unremarked and unthanked, for she was given battles and campaigns that necessitated tremendous damage to the worlds she was required to subdue. She would leave behind many worlds eternally scarred by her ferocious, methodical, setpiece approach to battle.
Such pressure would weigh heavily on her mind and soul. Yet she would find support and comfort, especially in the hands of Aristides of Solonica, whom she would eventually marry. His able efforts as diplomat and bureaucrat would ensure Petra's homeworld of Olympia, and the personal fiefdom her status as a Primarch enabled her to command, her so-called Iron Ring, would prosper, and remain islands of stability amidst rivers of blood spilt during the Crusade. She would even sow the seeds of the Iron Ring's future independence, when, influenced by Aristides, she secretly conspired to admit Xenos and abhuman refugees fleeing death, slavery, or xenocide, to her domain.
Though the iron facade she and her Legion presented obfuscated the bitterness, resentment, and divisions that were percolating in their souls, they were not lost on the newly elevated Warmaster Hathor. Yet, though Hathor would attempt to exploit Petra's deep-seated grudge against the Imperium, and the Emperor, she would quickly come to realise that Petra would never accede to her plans, or her follow her in her new allegiance to the Dark Gods, and there was little likelihood that she might engineer events to break Petra's resolve. And so, the Warmaster would conspire with Vashtorr the Arkifane to ensure Petra was sidelined throughout the heresy. 
It would be this conspiracy that would see Petra, alongside her 125th Expeditionary Fleet, lost, for nine terrible years, in the cursed region of space known as the Ghoul Stars. Ambushed by Vashtorr on the world of Chyron III, Petra would very nearly succumb to the cursed influence of the Arkifane, only the be rescued by the influence of a mysterious entity that would awaken her innate powers in the warp, allowing her to repel the monster, though the effort would render her unconscious. The chaotic aftermath, however, would see her flagship, the Iron Blood, lost, along with her dear husband, and any connection she might have had to the rest of the galaxy. In the aftermath, Hathor would declare Petra lost, likely dead, and use the loss to turn many of the most disaffected members of her legion to her banner. Under the Warsmith Forrix, these Iron Warriors would tip into the abyss of betrayal and corruption during the subsequent Drop Site Massacre.
Yet though many would assume her dead and lost, the Lady of Iron had not fallen. Stewarding her fleet against an army of daemonic monsters Vashtorr had assembled to harry her, including two nightmarish war machines the Arkifane had constructed using pieces of Aristides' soul, she searched through ruins of human colonies from the Dark Age of Technology that Vashtorr had menaced. Devising defences against his attacks, and struggling with warp powers she had never realised she had held. It would only be when Petra would come face to face with the strange entity that had saved her the first time that she would begin to come to terms with her abilities, unlocking the true extent of her power. It would be this power that would allow her to forge her husband's soul back together, creating the mighty warship known as the Reconstruction in the process, and throw Vashtorr across the warp, allowing her to return to realspace. 
Petra would return to a galaxy in disaster, and to the full truth of what had taken place in her absence. Though she despised the Emperor, she could not countenance the destruction of the galaxy that would come from Hathor's victory. Using the resources provided by her Iron Ring, which had been held together during the Heresy by her sister Calliphone, she would bring together an able scratch force of auxiliae, mechanicum, and astartes alike, to intervene in the Siege of Terra. Intervening during the first assault on the Lion's Gate of the Imperial Palace, Petra and her Iron Warriors would fight with fortitude, courage, and unwavering discipline, uncomplainingly taking the toughest positions, and the hardest assaults. It would be Petra who would also lead the great sally forth from the Palace's walls at the end of the Siege, mercilessly pursuing and smashing the routing forces as best she could.
In the aftermath of the Siege, worn thin by 10 years of constant, apocalyptic warfare, Petra's patience would finally snap. Long convinced of the Imperium's unworthiness, and its inherent flaws, Petra was disgusted and furious by the fact that her sisters seemed to be determined to maintain the crumbling, ossified shards of a broken empire. Demanding that the Emperor be allowed to die, and the Imperium abandoned, she would abandon her sisters, and return to her own domain, effectively separating it from the Imperium of Mankind. Her newly established Iron Confederation would become a bastion of peace, liberty, and dignity, as the rest of the galaxy rotted under the control of the Imperium.
Petra herself would step back from the direct affairs of the Confederation not long after, giving its people the chance to control their own future. Over time, her spiteful bitterness towards her sisters who had sided with the Imperium faded into a profound loneliness, as one by one, they disappeared - appearing to either be dead, lost to the warp, or simply unwilling to reveal themselves. Yet she remains still, continuing to study the physical world and the vagaries of the Immaterium and the Warp with all the same rigour as before, determined that the future will not be lost to the blind subordination to order represented by the Imperium, or the primal madness of the Dark Gods. Her husband at her side, her Legion standing strong, she stands as a beacon of progress, reason, and dignity, pushing against the encroaching darkness.
== Background ==
=== Origins ===
When the Primarchs were scattered across the galaxy from the Emperor's gene-laboratory beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains on Terra by the Chaos Gods, Petra landed on a Civilised World named Olympia. The full details of this early period in Petra's life remain somewhat mysterious, coloured by Olympia's endemic intrigues and by Petra's own reluctance to speak of what she saw as a distant, useless past. The most reliable information points to Petra as having been recovered from the rocky wilds outside the city-states by the guards of a nearby settlement.
They had been pursuing tales of a strange and wondrous girl wandering between outlying minor settlements and outcast communities, on the fringe of the Deucalion's hills -- the girl plying her way both as a fighter for hire and as an artisan of phenomenal talent despite her great youth, staying in no one place for any length of time before moving on. Tales of the girl, who, it was said, had descended from the heavens in a wonderous ball of celestial fire, had reached the court and Tyrannos of Lochos: Dammekos, a shrewd and cunning ruler. And he had been intrigued enough to dispatch his retainers to find if any truth was in them and if so, how indeed they could be turned to his advantage.
Petra was eventually discovered climbing a mighty mountain on Lochos' border with one of its rivals, single-mindedly pursuing a task given to her to retrieve some lost trinket. Lochos' guardsmen, having realised this was no ordinary child, brought her before the Tyrant. On seeing the strange girl in the flesh, Dammekos put her to the test, witnessing her ability to defeat warriors twice her size and many times her age in combat on the one hand, and the girl's ability to solve any puzzle put to her by the Tyrant's own scholars on the other.
Dammekos was intrigued enough to offer the girl a place in his court. Between the girl and the Tyrant a bargain was struck; fealty, loyalty and service on the girl's part and on that of the Tyrant, patronage and protection, and access to the finest military training and scholarship the Tyrant's resources could confer upon her. And indeed, a place for the young girl within the Tyrant's family.
There would be many differing accounts of what would come after, obscured by the fact that many were commissioned by Dammekos himself. Many painted the girl as a prodigy of staggering and indeed inhuman ability, who spent her life in an unending regime of solitary training, and devouring whatever learning and lore was set before her, or she could dig out herself to study. Others make veiled references to a child who was both cold and devious; the rapidly growing girl never fully accepted her lot, never truly trusted the Olympians and refused to return any affection given her by her adopted father. Dammekos spent plenty of time with his new daughter (or so Dammekos himself claimed, especially in his own memoirs), but never received any affection in return.
The truth lay in the fact that Dammekos, shrewdly ambitious and cunning, could only see in the forthright, blunt, and honest Petra a tool for his own advancement. Uncaring for the girl's own wishes or desires, he exercised tight control over his valuable new asset, immersing her deep in the intrigues of Lochos' court, and the Tyrant's own ambition of turning Lochos into a great power on Olympia. Petra's prodigious skills only made his ambitions all the more expansive, for he recognised that her skill might even allow him to rise to the mythic status of Imperator - a title that seemed to belong only to Olympia's mythic past, denoting a ruler whose control stretched over the entire planet. Thus, to ensure that he might have as tight control of this asset as possible, the Tyrant consciously made an effort to undermine Petra's confidence in her own wishes, and only showed an interest in her abilities when they were of direct benefit to him. Dammekos' traditional and conservative attitudes towards women in his court only compounded this treatment, for he was happy to create a sense in Petra's mind that she was, by virtue not merely of her mysterious origins, but her sex, an oddity, an outsider, and inherently something for others to use. 
Yet there was also a more mysterious explanation for Petra's inherent mistrust, unknown to anyone but herself. Upon reaching the summit after climbing the icy, sleet-slicked mountain where she had first been found by Lochosian soldiers, the exhausted youth had peered towards the heavens and gazed upon a strange, nebulous stellar maelstrom erupting across a corner of the heavens. When she inquired of the Tyrant's guards whether they could see the strange phenomenon, the bewildered guards replied that they could not. For the next two standard centuries of Petra's life, this maelstrom would continue to look down upon the Primarch; making her feel as if it judged and measured her worth and spied on her every movement.
A life lived beneath its cold scrutiny made her brooding and loath to offer her trust, ever-watchful and aware of its baleful glare. It would be over two standard centuries later before she found a reason to seek an explanation of this strange star maelstrom’s mercurial depths, a galactic phenomena whose name she would coin, a name that would one day strike fear into the hearts of all those that heard it. This stellar maelstrom, in truth a giant rift between realspace and the Immaterium, would one day be known as the Eye of Terror.
Many Olympians saw the girl as a particularly cold and brooding child, though the fact that she was a genetically engineered superhuman who had been mysteriously thrown onto a far-off world with no idea of her origins or purpose did not help. Despite her aloof demeanour, the adopted girl learned from the culture in which she found herself the arts of the siege, for Olympia's myriad warring city-states afforded plenty of opportunity to study both the theory and the practice of this highly specialised branch of warfare. 
Upon her age of majority, the foundling took a name for herself to be known all his adult life, but against custom she chose not to honour the family into which she had been taken by assuming one of the names of its venerated history as expected. Instead she chose an ancient name that she had long favoured, a name that some claimed had been found in a forgotten text from before the fall of humanity -- a text written in a language only the girl in her precocious ability had succeeded in translating: Petra.
What true meaning it held, she did not divulge. To war the young Petra now set herself, and in this she had much to work on. Dammekos, by virtue of his intriguing over his home region of Duecalion, had turned Lochos into a great power, but he and his realm were beset by rivals and bitter vendettas on all sides, and having given an oath unbreakable, Dammekos' enemies were now Petra's. Granted first minor commands, the young Primarch ascended the ranks of her adopted house's armies at a frightening rate.
Victory after victory followed under her command and her legend grew, as did the mercenaries and war-artisans, flocking to the banner of Dammekos in their lust for success and plunder. But more than mere success in battle did Petra bring to Lochos, and even from the beginning was her genius noted not simply for war, but also invention. Having absorbed with superhuman clarity the breadth and depth of Olympia's science and artisanship, she soon surpassed it on every level and from her chambers a constant stream of blueprints and discoveries sprung, encompassing everything from revolutionary new machines, to treatises on architecture and production methods, and even ground-breaking works on medicine and astronomy.
But it was first and foremost by her advances in warfare that Petra's dark fame was bred and her legend as the "Hammer of Olympia" was born, first as the 'Hammer of Dammekos.' Driven in part by Dammekos' own insatiable demands, new weapons, munitions and hitherto unimagined siege engines were all birthed at Petra's hand and, in a brief span of years, it was they and Petra's own generalship, now as Warsmith to the Tyrant Dammekos, that made Lochos the most powerful and feared domain on Olympia, with a hundred others underneath its heel, and countless more cowed into defacto submission to its rulers. 
Petra's score upon score of military victories brought no peace to Lochos or Olympia however, only dominance, and the growing threat of an enemy within, the assassin's blade and the poisoner's kiss. It is believed that a great many attempts were carried out upon the life of Lochos' "Lady of Iron" during this time, both by subjugated Tyrants reasoning -- and rightly -- that without Petra, Lochos' supremacy would crumble, and by those who to Petra's face called her family and friend, but who secretly held er in terror or jealous hatred.
The Primarch, now full grown, towered over them all both in stature and intellect, but cared little for the baubles and trappings of power, and nothing at all for the falsehoods and intrigue of court. Aloof, prideful and justly wary of friend and enemy alike, Petra took as heraldry the steel executioner's mask and the ancient Kaveathos, as a warning of death to the transgressor. Such signs and seals promised savage punishment in repayment of failure by those beneath her, just as it promised death to her enemies. And, chafing under the weight of oath and expectation, she had begun to drift towards the status of a bloody, merciless warlord, for whom Mercy was an alien concept, save in the form of swift and painless death.
=== A Kind Stranger ===
And so it would have likely come to pass that Petra of Lochos would have continued this downward descent, for Dammekos' demands on her would likely have only become more insistent as time past. Demanding more glorious, more hasty, and ever more speedy conquests. Yet it would come in the later years of her march over her Olympia that she would meet a man who would eventually allow her to pull out of this self-destructive spiral. A man who would become a close confidante, and her eventual husband - Aristides of Solonica. 
And she would meet the man practically by accident. For, having been ordered to bring the entirety of the relatively prosperous and fertile region of Olympia to the East of the Aeritas Ocean under Lochos' control, Petra had scourged the region of Parthio, and its various, independently minded kingdoms. Such devastation, and in particular, her methodical destruction of the lands of the Tyrant of Colchis, had alarmed the independent city-state that sat at the nexus of Parthio and three other regions - the City-State of Parthenos, unusual amongst Olympian societies for its open nature, democratic governance, and politics of trust and commerce. Well aware that it was the gateway for the Lochosian advance on its neighbours, and hearing news that the terrifying Lady of Iron was about to descend on their city, a delegation was dispatched to attempt to avert this terrible fate, and offer their submission to the Tyrant of Lochos, whilst vainly seeking to maintain some form of political autonomy.
Here, Aristides and Petra would first meet. It would not be a smooth first meeting - for Petra, who so despised meaningless diplomatic pleasantries, and was a poor conversationalist, was also exhausted by a long march, and drained by the burden of commanding an army through such a long and grueling campaign. And here, Aristides would, for the first of many times, shock Petra, by both noticing the woman's exhaustion, and then asking, against her expectations, if she was feeling alright. Such a question stunned Petra so much, that she would agree to a day's delay to allow for the Parthenians to rest, and to give her time to recover. And though she was suspicious of this silver-tongued wordsmith, she was shocked to find that the man, for all his ability with weaving words, an attribute she assumed could only signify a liar, was sincere, honest, and genuine. 
This act of kindness would win Petra's trust in the man, and her agreement to take Parthenos' request for terms to her adoptive father. This, in turn, would win Aristides the most favourable of terms for Parthenos' submission to the distant Tyrant of Lochos - for the silver-tongued diplomat secured political independence for his city, in exchange for an ironclad oath of allegiance. Yet it would also secure a strange bond with the Warsmith who took him to Lochos, for as he learnt when he took the woman on a tour of his home, there was more to Petra than the legend of the Hammer of Dammekos suggested. She held a superhuman intellect, a remarkable capacity to digest new ideas and information, and a remarkable openness to the new and the unknown. And in return, she found his sincerity, honesty, and witty kindness to be so unlike the closed-off, stuffy, and backstabbing diplomats who inhabited her father's court.
So when Aristides offered himself to serve the Tyrant of Lochos after Parthenos' pact of submission had been signed, it was natural that he would be attached to Petra's army. Here was a diplomat, it seemed, who might be able to speed Petra's advance through the region, and hasten Dammekos' rise. In this, Aristides would prove faithful... but in a peculiar way. For, sensing that Petra was not a natural-born conqueror, he engineered a plan of unification and submission by economic influence. Giving Petra a chance to unleash her prodigious engineering and architectural skills. Thus began their long and successful partnership under Dammekos' auspices, which allowed them to bring some of the wealthiest, and most technologically advanced areas of Olympia, within Dammekos' orbit, with a bare minimum of violence. 
Thus, Aristides won Petra's confidence, and friendship. Soon, he became one of the few individuals who could have access to the woman's private workshop, where she created so many of her own designs, both on Dammekos' orders, and on her own initiative. He encouraged her creativity, and pushed her to design things for her own enjoyment, not merely out of duty. He would listen to her speak on a topic for hours when it had captured her overwhelming interest, and find subtle ways to publicise and share those innovations she was proudest of, and which Dammekos found useless, or did not approve of. So close did this bond of trust become, that she would eventually reveal her origins, and her strange sight of the distant Eye of Terror, as well as her strange instinct for seeing the flaws in things, which she had an unnatural ability to spot. Aristides, though he understood not what she talked of, was a patient, comforting listener, and where others had offered only confusion, he offered sympathy, and empathy - which only strengthed the growing bond between the two.
Aristides also offered Petra opportunities to grow, and push back on the influence of her land of birth. When Petra revealed her reasoning as to her origins, and her suspicions that she had been made for a purpose, to be used, the diplomat baulked, and did his best to undercut on any suggestion that she was little more than a tool for others to use, though such pushback would not bear fruit for many years yet. Aristides also pushed the woman to connect with her adoptive family, especially the kind-hearted, but shyly nervous Andos, and the brilliant, subtle, politically savvy Calliphone. Petra would, subsequently, become closer to two of her siblings, particularly Calliphone, who also saw the genius under the mask of iron she wore. And slowly, such influence began to give Petra a sense of connection with the mortal humans she lived alongside, and a greater understanding of certain behaviours and traditions she had never truly grasped. 
Yet it would also begin to make her more assertive at court, and less pliable to her adoptive father, for she was beginning to truly understand the man's manipulative grip on her, and actively attempt to subvert it. Such a sense of defiance alarmed Dammekos - and he would react swiftly. Placing Aristides in exile, and returning him to his home city with a noble rank - which was a further insult, given the republican tradition Parthenos had been governed under. Petra was furious with the decision, but could do little more than angrily protest, for Aristides' oath of service to Dammekos was the same as her own, and she could not counsel breaking it. Thus, the two parted, and a seed of intense, deep-seated bitterness would take root in Petra's heart against her father, and his absolute authority over Olympia. It is of note that despite the fact that should she have wished it, Petra could have overthrown Dammekos and removed him as Tyrant, she did not do so. The Primarch it seems, would not break her word or her bargain willingly, even when it had been so grievously tested. And though Dammekos might manipulate and seek to control Petra, he was careful to never once break his explicit word, or give her reason to think their oat was broken. 
Perhaps then, true to her oath, Petra would have simply let the aging Dammekos die a natural death, hastened by the Tyrant's own licentious excesses, before taking Lochos and then all of Olympia as her own in time. What such a future might have become can only be speculated at. For two years after Aristides' banishment a new star was observed in the heavens. Bright and brilliant, and growing moreso each night. And from golden craft, landing on the outskirts of Lochos, great figures emerged, resplendent and glorious -- the Emperor had come for his lost daughter at last.
=== The Emperor Comes ===
The Emperor’s arrival was magnificent and terrifying in equal measure – unlike on other worlds, he would make no pretence at hiding his presence on Olympia. Flanked by his companions, shimmering with an aura of power and regality, he descended on the Imperial palace of Dammekos the Tyrant, to regain the Hammer of Olympia, and bring this industrious world into the Imperial fold. 
In the end, it proved a relatively painless process to retrieve Petra, and to bring Olympia into compliance. Lochos lay near to the site of what had once been Olympia’s sole spaceport, on flat terrain, enclosed by rivers. There was plenty of space for Him and His Companions to land. The Emperor knew well enough what to expect from Olympia’s feudal, backstabbing politics, and calculated, correctly, Dammekos would happily bow his head if his personal fiefdom was secured. The Tyrant was more than willing to be the all-powerful satrap of his world. And if the Emperor had held any doubts, he would find that securing Petra’s loyalty was even easier. It is said that when the Emperor revealed his identity, and told Lochos’ court about his mission and vision of humanity, the giant woman stepped forth and knelt before Him, and said only, “I am here, oh creator. And I will come with you to the stars." 
Petra, for her part, had already reasoned out her true nature, at least in abstract, as an artificial post-human being. She had revealed her suspicions to Aristides, and indeed expected her creator to one day be revealed to her, even though the particulars no doubt remained a mystery until the Emperor himself appeared in orbit with his fleet. 
The Emperor's arrival would also be the catalyst that would reunite Aristides and Petra - for the Emperor bade Petra gather together her closest companions and allies to come with them to Terra, just as he had bade all of his daughters. Well aware that Dammekos would never willingly accede to letting Aristides leave Parthenos, Petra would commit her first act of true defiance against the man - going behind her back, and gaining an Imperial Edict in His name for Aristides' presence, which she then ordered to be presented to Parthenos in secret, confident that Aristides would come. Indeed he did, much to their mutual delight at being reunited - whatever the Emperor had in mind for her new destiny, Petra would not have to face it alone.
The next several years were a blur of activity. Petra was to meet with her sisters, to learn of their destinies and the part they would play in bringing the Emperor’s will to fruition, and to begin to absorb something of the history of humanity, whilst her chosen companions were to learn how best they might aid the Imperium's rise. For Petra and Aristides alike, it was a truly eye-opening experience. Aristides lost himself in old libraries and archives, immersing himself in knowledge of old institutions, and their whispered promises of freedom and liberty. Petra absorbed herself in science, technical expertise, and every possible field of scientific knowledge, mastering field after field, concept after concept, and absorbing herself in her own collection of philosophies. And almost every night – for hours at a time, sometimes, the two found themselves talking, discussing, marvelling in all there was for them to learn.
Sometimes, Aristides would sit by her side in her workshop, as she spoke at a mile a minute until her throat was hoarse, recounting all she had learnt from that day’s fevered studies. Other times, when her energy was nearly spent, Aristides would loyally read her passages from some ancient mathematical text to ease her mind – Euclid’s Elements one night, Isaac Newton’s Principia another. And at others, they would spend nearly the entire night arguing – she didactically, passionately, and he subtly, and soothingly – over the philosophies they absorbed from the past. Hobbes, Machiavelli, Petrarch, Erasmus, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Talleyrand, Locke, Malthus, Averroes and Avicenna, Bentham, Rawles, and countless others besides.
And together, they each found their own pieces of ancient Terran history that they admired. For Petra, it was the Florentines (the Firenzii) – who captivated her with their stories of ancient feuds and convoluted, machiavellian politics… but also with their pragmatism, their dreams of freedom, and their love of the arts. For Aristides, it was the ancient Athenians – for he could not help but feel kinship between his home city and this ancient polis. They toured old ruins together, each painting each other visions of these cities restored from the shattered ruins of Europa as it stood today, and comforted each other with old stories. And they both found a common piece of history that neither could stand – for though they were heirs to his beloved Athens, and their cultural sophistication easily surpassed her beloved Florence, neither could stomach the tales of backstabbing and court intrigue that lay at the heart of Byzantine history. It was too raw for them both, too reminiscent of the court of Dammekos they both despised.
Amidst all of this newfound activity, as Pertuarba fed her ravenous mind, Aristides also found himself becoming more and more aware that the Hammer of Olympia was exhibiting what he soon learnt – from old texts around human psychology – were symptoms of what seemed to have once been called Autism. Petra struggled with nuance in subject areas she could not easily grasp, found it easy to press scenarios into simple binaries, and struggled to interact with other people when discussion turned away from topics she cared about. She tired quickly of small talk, found sarcasm and wit difficult to parse, and sometimes struggled to even find the words to speak, or present herself – so exhausting did she find the process of trying to engage with others. In attempting to compensate, she only cemented her grim, anti-social persona, and pushed further away those who could not see past her façade. It was Aristides who became the enduring source of relief – for he was able to alert Petrq of something she had hitherto had always known, but never had any idea how to conceptualise. And it was he who stood by her side when she slipped up in functions or pushed people away… and actively pushed her to make apologies that she would never have otherwise made.
Slowly, over the course of those years, Petra began to open herself up to outsiders. Not, in the end, by a great deal… but in small ways. She grew more and more aware of her limitations… and yet also, became more and more cognisant of her advantages, and how she might use them to surpass or overcome her limitations. Initially bonding deeply with her sister Magnolia, as they both shared an insatiable appetite for knowledge and new things, it would be the gentle prompting of Aristides that allowed her to forge… if not friendships, then at least cordial relationships with near all of her sisters. In particular, in addition to her close bond with Magnolia, her brilliant mind one her a close friendship with the Gorgon, Ferra Manus, and her sharp eyes would allow her to eventually bond with the mysterious twin primarchs, Alpharia and Omega. As for the other Primarchs, they may not have fully understanded or appreciated their taciturn sibling – who so often seemed distant, dismissive, and contemptuous of the opinions of others – but through little deeds, and little gifts, each of them with their own unique meanings, she showed them that in spite of it all, she did care. Her friendship was still not easily achieved, but her loyalty, once won, was as unbreakable as the hardest iron.
To the Emperor such foibles mattered little, for in Petra he found a new weapon for the arsenal of the Great Crusade, a warlord and general whose savage might was only eclipsed by her razor-keen intellect. To Petra, each battle and each campaign was no more than a problem to be objectified, deconstructed and overcome. She trained hard under her new, unforgiving master, honing her instinct for warfare to a razor’s edge, and beginning to learn how to fill the role she had been designed for. If it troubled her that she had been crafted as a weapon of war, she did not show it outwardly to the Emperor. Instead, she learnt how to manipulate the unseen, and the seen. How to wield weapons of war, and command men and women to perform the impossible. She was taught how to be an imposing leader, and how to best serve the will of her new master. 
And of her sisters, she would also have the fewest things to learn – for her service to Dammekos had taught her much already about seigecraft and the brutality of war, and even more so about etiquette, and the power of command and authority. And for all the dark import of some of these teachings… Aristides could not help but be proud of how the woman had grown into her own skin. He was not sure who had been the most instrumental in allowing her to reach the heights of who she was… but that didn’t matter. He was content she had gotten there in the first place.
==== A Confession ====
So it was much to his own surprise that, in a small breaks he took before the end of her training, Petra invited him to spend the time with her on an island resort in the slowly refilling Mediterranean Sea. The resulting experience was… confusing, and could have very nearly gone very wrong. For Petra seemed… the exact opposite of her usual self that first night, with the two of them in a semi-private villa on what had been the island of Crete, built for Imperial aristocrats. She was… trying to be charming. And flirtatious. It was a deeply confusing experience for them both, as the two stumbled through.
For once, his usual sense for social cues dulled by familiarity and confusion, Aristides did not notice how agitated Petra was getting as he brushed her advances aside. For he’d never even considered the possibility that the Lady of Iron… even could come to care for him in that way. Oh, he might have begun to notice that Petra was beautiful – a tall, well-built, sculpted goddess, whose eyes sparkled so beautifully in the glow of the innovative, new, or undiscovered – and perhaps he might have dreamt that a woman much like Petra might come to love him, for oh how he loved her curiosity, and her mind, and her strength of will…. But Petra was... different. Beyond him. She was transhuman, unique in a way he was not. In almost every way... she utterly surpassed him. She was a figure to follow, to serve... maybe even worship. Not to… not to love as an equal. 
Yet Petra had come to a very different conclusion. Here, in her eyes, was the one person in the entire galaxy that had wanted her to grow and develop for her own sake. Who had not pressured her to evolve out of some selfish desire to fit some predestined role… but because he had believed, with all his heart, it would make her happier. He understood her in ways no one else did, knew secrets no one else had told. He listened to her, cared for her, and had enough backbone to disagree with and argue with her. And several times… he’d even managed to show her that even with her vast intellectual powers, she was capable of being wrong. That she was, and would always be flawed, her iron facade studded with imperfections… and yet that did not make her a failure. Aristides was creative, expressive, and a side of humanity that she had never before understood, yet she had come to find sublimely beautiful in time. How could she even tell Aristides how she felt? How could she even begin?
So, they spoke at cross-purposes. For the first time in years… they argued. The tension between them snapping in the worst possible way… when Petra interrupted an argument about how she was acting by simply attempting to kiss Aristides on the spot. It was a clumsy gesture, that instead resulted in her headbutting the poor man. The shock on his face… nearly broke Petra in two. For a second, it seemed as if she had irreparably broken the one relationship in her life that mattered. She ran off, bitter and angry with herself, leaving the diplomat alone for a moment. Aristides almost thought he had been insulted. That this was some sort of great practical joke. Yet… he had the patience to go after her… and do what he did best. Set aside the pleasantries, the platitudes, and the etiquette, and talk with Petra frankly.
The truth soon came out. Petra, it seemed, had come to her mind that she wanted to confess her love to Aristides at some point… but had no clue how, or when. So… she had gone to Fulgrim for advice. For anyone other Primarch, Fulgrim's advice might have been perfect... but Fulgrim was a classical romantic. A lover of sap, of great gestures, and all the witticism and verbal sparring that was the substance of great romantic stories, and which Petra despised. So when the Lady of Iron had tried to repeat the honeyed words Fulgrim had coached her to say, so subtle and silken, Aristides did not hear their meaning… but could only hear the way they came out through clenched teeth. Her composure and iron façade nearly cracking, Petra could only find it in her to apologise, clearly expecting that Aristides did not share her feelings.
But of course... she was wrong. Aristides was stunned by the admission. Normally so composed, so restrained and sublime with his words… Aristides uncharacteristically blundered his way through a clumsy confession of his own emotions. He did love Pertuarba, he insisted… but felt he could never accept her affection. How could he? And… how could she truly care for him? The justifications fell from his lips, one by one, as he seemed to slump in place. Telling her plainly, for the first time, just how much she had meant to him. Just how much a friend and companion she had been over the years. And how insignificant he felt he would always be, in comparison to her brilliance. He did love her... but how could he, a simple man, be anything more than a burden to her? This transhuman paragon, with such a brilliant, wondrous mind? So beautiful and fair?
And after it all came out, so frank and fraught with emotion… the two stared at each other for one long, agonising moment… before Petra gave a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. And said simply, “We’re both fools. You’re a fool for thinking you’re so insignificant… and I’m a damned fool for listening to my idiot sister.”
And so they kissed. Properly this time. And if they each returned from that vacation bearing bands of polished iron around their ring fingers, promises and oaths engraved on the inside of the ring in Olympian, looking at each other with soft stares only Fulgrim noticed… well, then that was her business.
=== An Oath Taken, A Legion Humbled ===
In time, just like her sisters before her, Pertuarba would swear her oath to the Emperor to serve him in his great crusade – ascending the Astartes Tower whose spire stretched high above the Himalayas with a fortitude and resolve that could only be matched by Regalia. Each step required a superhuman effort of will, determination and courage. It was not simply a physical ascent, but a challenge to the heart and intellect, a psychic communion with the Emperor himself that tested the very boundaries of a warrior’s endurance. But she managed it, and swore her Oath. And in turn, she would be gifted with her birthright – dominion over her world of origin, and a legion created of her own blood – the IVth Legion. Stern, ferocious, but rigid and inflexible. Ferocious in battle, yet with a stubborn, gnawing, narrow-minded belief in their own toughness and persistence. The IVth had gained tremendous renown and opprobrium, in equal measure, for their willingness to throw themselves at the toughest assault, to bear the heaviest burdens, and absorb the greatest losses without complaint.
Such rigidity may have been reminiscent of their gene-mother’s own, as was their stubbornness, and iron will in artillery warfare, but Petra found their mediocrity, their lack of imagination, and their dismissive attitude towards war to be wanting. Where others saw discipline, she saw weakness – weakness forged in passivity, laziness, and torpor. Their discipline was not the discipline of a war machine, for they did not make their decisions based on the calculus of war, but instead on a pride in their ability to absorb pain. Where others saw fortitude, she saw disdain for the basic principles of strategy. And so, following her review of the Legion’s record, its doctrines and practices, and all the awards given or revoked, and with the disaster at Incaladion fresh in her mind… she decided on an extreme approach. She would enforce her will upon this mob, and teach them a lesson about true discipline. And she would do so by reverting to an old Terran practice – that of decimation.
Her decision, however, recieved harsh criticism from her closest confidante, Aristides. He accepted her hard logic that Incaladion demonstrated her new legion knew nothing of the truth of warfare – that for all their admirable stubbornness, they were rigid, inflexible, and made sacrifice out of masochism instead of ruthless logic – but he was horrified at her suggestion of decimation. The barbaric punishment may well have appealed to Petra's instinctively binary mind, and her understanding of the cold calculus of warfare, but it was outdated, old-fashioned, and cruel. It consigned honourable fighters to a criminal’s death. It was a method meant to keep discipline amongst soldiers in an age of formation warfare, and it deserved to stay in the Classical era – such practices were not suitable for modern, interstellar conflict, surely?
The feud between the two on this matter was rancorous, and painful for them both. Neither willing to back own over their essential point on the message that Decimation would send. Petra was adamant that her legion needed to be taught a lesson on pride, stubbornness, and the nature of warfare. The IVth treated war as something to outlast, a challenge to take on - and it was not, and would never be. Decimation – the taste of the arbitrary randomness of war – would show them the truth of war’s inhumanity and cruelty, and force them to evolve. Aristides, horrified, was adamant all she would do was create a legion of automata. Too scared of her to use initiative, or evolve. Stubborn and proud her legion might have been, but random death would breed nothing but bitterness, and soldiers who would not question their commander. Pertuarba countered that she wanted a legion loyal to her. An outraged Aristides shot back that loyalty through fear was no loyalty at all.
Back and forth, the argument raged. Until on the night the decimation was to take place, Aristides thought she had managed to change Petra’s mind at last. Finally, it seemed, he had gotten through to her. When he woke up, however, Petra had seemingly changed her mind again. And worse… he could not intercede. He was forced to watch the parade ground as the IVth legion lined up to hear their mother harangue and insult them. Feeling his blood turn to ice as she told them what they were to endure. His heart sank as the lots were drawn, as parties of astartes prepared to murder their fellows without honour, carrying sticks and clubs-
When suddenly, Petra halted this sorry, dishonouring display before it could begin.
To stunned silence in the stands, and on the parade ground, she told her daughters and sons the purpose of this exercise. War was cruel. It was merciless. It was unforgiving. It did not equivocate, or care for stubborn pride. Above all else, it was blind – to rank, to reason, and to past deeds. The point of this was to demonstrate to all those who stood before her that their pride meant nothing. Their desire to prove their endurance meant nothing. Rather than treating this as a grim duty, they had treated this as a trial to overcome - another opportunity to prove themselves. And there was no greater proof of their failure than the fact that they had been willing to commit arbitrary murder, at a single command. If they wished to prove themselves, it would not be through this. And she ended her harangue: “Success is not measured in sacrifice. It is measured in outcomes. And it does not care for how willing you are to endure - only the harsh reality of victory. You will learn this, or you will fail as you have failed here.”
It was a piece of theatre worthy of Fulgrim, and left the observers of the Imperial Court stunned. And it had exactly the desired effect Petra had wanted. The shame of what they had almost done, and the recognition of just how close the IVth legion had come to such barbarism, had indeed shaken away the legionnaires' stubborn pride. Their desire to prove their worth had led them to the brink of damnation, and so absorbed had they been in the sick sense that they could withstand anything, they had failed to see how they had fallen. It would be the first step towards Petra's reshaping of the IVth in her cold, harsh, disciplined image. It would remain a mystery what had made Petra decide on this course of action. Some would claim this had always been her harsh, cold plan, others that she had changed her mind on the field, after realising the sick relish that had begun to sweep over her legion after her orders had been delivered.
As for Aristides? He was merely relieved that his worst nightmare had not come to pass. Only he knew how close the didactic, forceful Petra had been to truly carrying out the planned decimation. It would long remain a source of tension – for Petra was loathe to admit she ever made mistakes – but it passed in time. Yet all the same, rumours soon spread through her legion that their survival… was his doing. That he had convinced Petra not to perform the deed at the last moment. Soon enough, the newly renamed Iron Warriors had taken to calling him by his enduring nickname – her ‘Velvet Glove.’ For Petra already had an Iron Fist... and he was her complement. And gradually, the nickname spread… and stuck.
=== Iron Within, Iron Without ===
With her command over her legion secured, Petra would return to Olympia, to fully take possession of her Homeworld at last. With her oath to her adoptive father now void, she would depose Dammekos in the midst of his own court. Accounts speak of the cowering Tyrant, who had been upstaged in a ceremony where he had planned to execute dissidents for their disloyalty, having his crown plucked off his head, and crushed in one outstretched hand. The shocked Tyrant would be sent into exile, to the rejoicing of the people of Olympia, and Aristides would steward a revolution in civillian life on the planet. In return, Petra would begin to recruit Olympians into the Iron Warriors, and creating military auxiliae to support her newly established 125th Expeditionary Fleet. Her public deposition of Dammekos, and Aristides' deft transfer of power into the hands of the once disenfranchised Olympians, would foster a deep-seated loyalty amongst the once-distrusting populace to their Primarch, and would play a critical role in their eventual acceptance of independence.
All the while, Petra worked to mould her legion in her own image. She had been determined from the first that her Legion would be a peerless engine of war, and she immediately set about fashioning it into the weapon she desired it to be, a weapon whose edge she would first test against the rest of the Meratara Cluster at whose edge the Olympia Majoris star system sat. There she first overthrew the vaunted "Black Judges" and claimed their once-held domain for the Imperium, before vassalising the xenos Ecto-Saurids of Verikhonia and subjugating the Renegade Knight-fiefdom of Lyxos, completing her conquest of the cluster. In the same breath, Aristides would speed her conquests by his artful diplomacy. It would be his tact that would bring the proud, independent citizens of Nouvelle Meuse to the fold, and the arctic Qinut abhumans of Sovurra under Petra's banner.
Yet it would be in her recovery of the Forge World Etna-7, and her destruction of the major Knight House of Lyxos, that the IVth Legion ended by force a schism that had lasted for millennia back into the Age of Strife between the fragmented empire and its former masters in the Mechanicum, winning the Legion much favour with the Lords of Mars. This period was for the IVth Legion a winnowing; a time of trials and testing at their Primarch's hand. With calculated forethought and savage experiment Petra remade the Legion in her own image -- an image not echoing the Olympian or Terran ideal, but one fashioned purely from her own calculating, ruthless, and results-oriented psyche. At the end of the Meratara Custer campaign, the IVth Legion of old was no more, and the Iron Warriors had been forged from blood and fire in their place.
By the time Petra returned again to Olympia with his renamed force, she had already set her plans in motion. In alliance with the Mechanicum, new orbital shipyards and foundries burned with frenetic activity, many had been torn from dead orbits around conquered stars, dragged to Olympia and refitted and expanded to serve her Legion's purpose. These orbital rings would become a long-standing feature of Olympia's sky, and transform the planet into a hub of output and activity in the Segmentum Ultima. And the worlds of the Meratara Cluster, now within the aegis of Petra's so-called Iron Ring, managed ably by her dear Aristides, would also contribute to her part in the Imperium.
All was by Petra's hand and design. In the crucible of war, the Iron Warriors had undergone its reshaping, with the changes that had occurred seen having altered, modified, and amplified the IVth's underlying traits, rather than changing them entirely. Where once the Legion had been ruthless in its willingness to accept losses in return for victory, now it tempered such a ruthlessness with a cold rationalism. Where once pride had been taken in fortitude, now worthless losses and pointless assaults were to be seen as irresponsible pieces of vainglory. War had become a deadly equation which the Iron Warriors were supremely suited to solve; a relentlessly unyielding engine of war, a beast of steel and fire which smashed armies apart, seeking maximum output for minimal gain.
At the head of her 125th Expeditionary Fleet, into which Petra drew the bulk of her Legion's strength, the Primarch had command of a force which quickly became the battering ram of the Great Crusade. As they fought alongside each of their fellow Legions in turn, they gained an unmatched reputation for brutal efficiency in battle, mastery of armoured warfare and as artillerists without peer among the Legions. It was said of the Iron Warriors that there was no fortress built by the hand of humanity or that of the xenos they could not smash down, no stronghold they could not storm and no army they could not drown in steel, shot and shell.
==== A Crusade on a Tightrope ====
Yet even as Petra continued on this path, cracks would emerge in the facade of the project she had sworn to uphold. The Emperor's instructions to her on leaving Terra were cleare - she was to advance forth, relentless, and unafraid. If it troubled her that she was, once again, to play the role of the steamroller, slowly crushing opposition, the Emperor was not aware. And if it troubled her that, against her internal instinct for the new, the unknown, and her love of knowledge and progress, that the Imperium she would serve was to crush nearly all non-human resistance… the Emperor was not aware. As stoic as ever, Petra received her instructions impassively… and without complaint.
But away from the Emperor’s sight? They troubled her. So quick had she been to trust the Emperor’s will, she confided to Aristides, her doubts bubbling up in a great swam, she hadn’t realised all the ways he was like that damnable tyrant Dammekos. And now… she could not help but feel concerns. She was to rampage across the galaxy, constructing an empire, and simply obliterating what was in the way? Just as she had before, on Olympia? The Emperor seemed more concerned with burning all that opposed him than building something that could withstand the test of time. If she had learnt one thing on Olympia, one could not simply rampage across the galaxy and expect the galaxy to obey. People needed roads to travel. Houses for shelter. Water to drink, food to eat, art and science to keep them smart and wise. Yet the Emperor would only destroy, burn, starve, and atomise humanity. How could the Emperor not see what he was unleashing?
These were doubts that Aristides had always held, but it surprised him to hear them come from her. Because trusting, oath-keeping Petra… had never shared them so explicitly before. Oh, she had long complained about the orders she had been given in more base terms, but she had never shared such fundamental doubts so openly before. Aristides had never done so either, for that matter. Yet now, he confirmed that he shared them as well. Indeed, he shared that he found much of the Imperium’s ideas and espoused aims very troubling indeed. And so, he explained to Petra how in the past, when they had been working under Dammekos, he had seen an opportunity to work in what limited space there was in the name of a better cause. Dammekos, for example, had given broad instructions for his own sake of gaining power... and so long as his actions could credibly point to that goal, Aristides could justify any act. From measures that undermined the Tyrant, to those that saved lives, and preserved ancient knowledge. It just required walking a tightrope of sorts.
And Petra understood exactly what he was saying, and implying. The two came to an understanding - that if they played their parts, they might prevent the Crusade from turning into a terrible, monstrous bloodbath that they both feared. They might preserve taboo knowledge, undercut the darkness at the heart of the Imperial Truth, and undermine the Emperor's worst instincts. 
Thus, they fell into their preferred roles. Petra would be the mighty warrior and general, crushing opposition and levelling the fortresses of her foes, and Aristides would be her left hand. The silent grey eminence, employing his silver tongue to avoid war whenever possible, and make it as short and one-sided as he could when not. And when possible, the two would follow their conquests up by rebuilding what they had knocked down. With Petra focusing on the physical, the technical, the scientific, providing the means for shattered worlds to pick themselves up from the brink, and Aristides providing the political, the institutional, and the governmental, bringing those shattered worlds peace, security, and unity. In some ways, it was just as it was when they served Dammekos, all those years ago, but on a larger scale. In others, it was worse – more stressful, more high stakes, and with more eyes bearing down on them. 
For Aristides, this would meant becoming Petra’s official secretary, and the bureaucratic head of her personal fiefdom. The appointed chairman of the Council of the Iron Ring, the council of great men from those worlds who gave their allegiance to her, and the one to soothe their tempers, resolve disputes, and coordinate. Just as silver-tongued and charming as he was in his youth, the Velvet Glove would help make Lady of Iron's conquests shine. With gleaming cities, functional interstellar trade networks, a common institutional framework... and a political culture that would be open, free tolerant, and proudly secular and humanist in tone. Together, the two walked their tightrope so successfully, that none would truly notice what was taking place. Or the myriad ways that compliance with the Imperial Truth was being undermined. Aristides and Petra's reports to Terra would smoothly cover any cracks.
=== Bitter Resentments ===
Yet time would begin to drive a wedge between the Iron Warriors and their astartes kin. A wedge only driven home further as time passed, and resentments built up in the hearts of the Iron Warriors, and their Primarch. By her grim methods and coldly calculating example, Petra had awoken in her legionnaires a reflection of her soul, for good and ill, and within them began to fester her own suspicions, callousness to lives lost in the name of progress, and the seeds of a renewed, deep-seated pride. All of which grew alongside the ruthless determination, cold intellect and strength she wished to unlock from within them.
It is then not perhaps unsurprising, given the IVth Legion's predilection for open battle, expertise in grand, setpiece operations, its employment in siege assault -- the most dangerous and unpredictable of all forms of line warfare -- and its willingness at every level from its Primarch downwards to accept attrition as a necessary price for victory, that the Iron Warriors are estimated in many sources to have suffered the highest overall number of casualties taken over time of any of the Legions in the Great Crusade.
It is also similarly a testament to them and the cold and sometimes cruel genius of their Primarch, as well as the administrative expertise fostered by Aristides' management of the Iron Ring, that such losses were routinely absorbed by the Legion without serous lasting depreciation of the Iron Warriors' strategic fighting power. And in spite of occasions of serious casualties, the Legion did not deplete its strength or recruiting and resource bases. However, despite their genetically enhanced resilience to mental trauma and psycho-indoctrination, such a continuous exposure to loss and destruction worked a slow and bitter corrosion on the Legion's psyche.
Petra and her Legion were often blind to the honour or sensibilities of the allies alongside which they served, save perhaps the agents of the Mechanicum who aided them in the pursuit of ever more powerful and efficient means of waging war. In their pursuit of the coldly rational approach Petra adopted, they could only see self-deception, weakness, dishonour, and strategic folly in their fellow Astartes' traditions and tactics. And such attitudes meant that, in spite of Petra's cordial, sometimes friendly relationship with her sisters, the broader legion cultivated few friendships. Even some factions of the Mechanicum, to whom Petra's technological intellect was a wonder, did not trust her or her Legion fully, dangerously self-sufficient and adept in sciences as they were, and ignorant as they were of the Omnissiah's faith. Aristides could only compensate for these weaknesses, and in the cases of some legions, could make no headway.
And in spite of Petra's able stewardship of the auxiliae attached to her Legion, especially those from within her personal domain, the Iron Warriors' repute amongst the Imperial Army was decidedly dark. Petra had no patience for the aristocratic and ambitious officers who had joined the Emperor's armies in pursuit of glory and status, and indeed, she tended to give those officers who openly advocated such views deliberately minor or insulting posts. Such acts created powerful feelings against Petra in the highest ranks of the Imperial Army, not helped by Aristides' resoundingly plebian attitude towards their common soldiers. Yet many of these spurned commanders were still fine orators, and popular amongst their men, and so, they spread a poisonous attitude towards the IVth amongst their soldiers, to the point where the entire legion gained the hated epithet of "Corpse Grinders" among the common soldiers.
There were other reasons for this reputation as well. More than any other Legion, the Iron Warriors were seen as openly willing to use the lives of human auxiliaries as a strategic resource. Petra's cold attitude, which viewed war as an equation of minimising loss for maximised gain, did not help. Nor did her disdain for the factors of warfare she did not understand, such as morale, or unit cohesion - which she tended to regard as a waste of time to cultivate. Such ill-feeling would foster dissent, hostility, and on occassion open mutiny. And when such mutinies had to be put down by force, ill-feeling only grew further. This was often in spite of attempts by first Aristides, and then even Petra, to win the confidence of the common soldiers - the Imperial Officer Corps was simply too hostile for such conciliatory measures to work. In the end, the Iron Warriors would have to rely on a few trusted units, as well as their own Auxiliae.
By the last decades of the Great Crusade, rivalries as well as often mutual simmering disdain, such as the increasingly bitter rivalry between the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists, characterised the Iron Warriors' relationship with its fellow Legions. Indeed, even where the Iron Warriors and their Primarch fought successfully alongside their fellow Legions, their part was often treated with indifference or guarded disdain by the IVth Legion's contemporaries.
No better is this exemplified than in the critical war against WAAAGH! Mashogg. Before Petra and the Iron Warriors' arrival in the war zone, Overdog Mashogg's vast orbital fortifications had previously repulsed attack after attack from both the Space Wolves and the White Scars Legions, frustrating both Freya, and Alakhai Khatun. It would be Petra who succeeded at last in breaking the line and allowing for the Orks' slaughter. Yet in the contemporary Imperial chronicles, the remembrancers would only record Petra's crucial role as a nameless "comrade-in-arms." Petra was furious - and it would take the able intercession of Aristides, and Freya's beloved Slayer, to ensure the record was corrected.
As the Great Crusade moved forward, many Iron Warrior citadels were established on liberated worlds, guaranteeing a safe line of communications and an Imperial occupational force for the planet. Small units of Iron Warriors were garrisoned in these new fortifications, sometimes in ridiculously small numbers. One often-cited example was the Iron Keep on Delgas II, where a single Tactical Squad of ten Iron Warriors was stationed, despite the world having a disgruntled population of almost 130 million people. Such requests were nonsensical, yet the Emperor supported the orders of his high command to the hilt, and Petra, albeit bitterly, felt compelled to comply. The Iron Warriors were being turned into a garrison Legion, with tiny deployments all over the Imperium. Such was their indisputable success in siege and positional warfare, they found themselves "typecast" so that they became the automatic choice for any siege or garrison mission, ignoring the basic needs of all the Legion's Astartes for rest and reorganisation. And so it was that resentment against the Emperor's relentless demands began to build up throughout the IVth Legion, and in Petra herself.
==== Iron and Stone ====
Throughout it all, Petra's relationship with her sister Primarchs would be tested, time and time again. Yet for most, she would retain affectionate, or at least cordial, relationships, even through moments of great strain. Aristides was a great aid in this respect, for the man's patience gifted him with a great ability to soothe tensions between the transhuman demigoddesses. And he would, over time, teach Petra this same restraint, which came more naturally to her the more she practiced. Yet if there was one failure that Aristides had, above all others, it was that he could not prevent from forming the rift that grew between Petra, and her sister, Regalia Dorn. Those who suggest that likeness breeds familiarity need only look at the sisters to see how that maxim can fall short.
Both reserved to the point of taciturn, both unyielding, both sublime artisans of war who prized indomitability and endurance, there was much that would suggest that they should see the world with one set of eyes, that perhaps they should be closer than any others. That bitterest loathing could arise between two such closely matched kin seems incredible, but it was a reality, some say from the first moment of their meeting. The exact roots and cause of their enmity cannot be known to any save Regalia and Petra themselves, but if one looks closely there appears a pattern both of behaviour and incidents which may offer a clue. Often it seems as though the pair's similarities were the cause of discord rather than understanding. Both were stubborn and more so when challenged, both spoke rarely, and brooded much behind their stone and iron masks. So it was that the silence of one would aggravate the other, the blunt honesty of one roused the other to anger, and the intractability of both ensured that once a dispute was begun neither would yield.
That there were differences between the two cannot be denied, and often these differences may have been the cause of disputes even if they were not the underlying cause. While both Regalia and Petra often favoured siege craft in war, they often differed in its execution. While both were pragmatic, Petra was cold and calculating, willing to compromise and accept both heavy losses for victory, and imperfect compliance to secure an advance. Dorn would never baulk at paying heavy prices for victory, but she rarely accepted large numbers of casualties except through necessity, and would brook no half measures in the enforcement of the Emperor's will. And in their construction of fortifcations and great works, while both were experts at combining form and function, Dorn's constructions were always gilded with majesty and trappings of glory, where Petra preferred simpler designs, that showed beauty in their lack of adornment. All this perhaps spoke to the greatest wedge between the two: Dorn was an undoubted idealist above all else, Petra a pragmatist first and foremost. Where Dorn wholeheartedly embraced the Crusade, and the Emperor's ideals, Petra saw their inherent flaws with a searing clarity that bred contempt.
If there was a moment where it can be said that Petra and Regalia's disdain for each other turned into true contempt, Aristides of Solonica believed it could be traced back to their time on Terra. At their first meeting, Petra clumsily attempted to make conversation with Regalia on their shared knowledge of siegecraft – a topic which, for all the Lady of Iron’s discomfort, she was an avowed expert. Yet, unsure where to begin, and as of yet unaware of Regalia's own expertise, Petra started by offering only basic commentary. Regalia’s curt response, cutting her off, and stating that she had no desire to listen to such ‘amateur insights,' was not a good start. Yet the break would come when Petra, pressed by Aristides to try and heal the burgeoning rift, finally agreed to prepare a gift of some sort to Regalia. Recognising (perhaps begrudgingly) that Regalia's architectural talents were singular, and a shared point of pride, Petra constructed some of the finest architectural tools she good, embossing them with gold trim in the style of the Praetorian's homeworld. Yet Regalia took the gift as an insult - for the two had openly feuded about their skills before - and a comment on her lack of skills, and openly told Petra she did not need the same 'aids that you require to perform passable work.' The resulting argument turned into a screaming match that culminated in Petra smashing the crystal tripod she had made into fragments and dust in a rage. And ever after, the two were barely on speaking terms. And on such cracks and infertile ground, would be sown the seeds of the great galactic cataclysm that would follow.
== The Trials of the Hathor Heresy ==
=== The Genesis of Disaster ===
The origins of the Hathor Heresy can be traced back to inummerable causes. Some structural, some personal. Much blame could be plausibly laid at the Imperium’s own murderous nature, and the oceans of blood spilt in the Great Crusade. Much more could be heaped on the shoulders of its architect, the ‘Emperor of Mankind,’ whose secretive nature and obscurantist doctrine had already put humanity in a straightjacket of false progress and rationality. Much of this is still a topic of considerable debate amongst independent scholars of the traumatic events, and the disagreements have only been made worse by the loss of so much valuable primary information to time, and the ravages of a hostile Imperial Inquisition.
Whatever the precise reasons for the cataclysm, the reasons for Petra’s behaviour during the Heresy are far more obvious. For the Lady of Iron, grim and taciturn though she was, the Great Crusade had quickly become an exhausting, painful, traumatising slog. The Hammer of Olympia may have been an expert at siege warfare, but she found the process grueling, dehumanising, and often soul-crushing. It was an exhaustingly painful process to tear planets down to atoms, time after time, in inglorious, brutal engagements. Yet such was her expertise in the craft of setpiece operations that she found herself ordered, time and again, to the forefront of these battles. To be typecast in such a role, and to be given so many thankless engagements, could only have increased and fed her sense of bitterness and deeply ingrained resentment, both with her father, and the wider Imperium.
It was a similar animus to that which gradually grew in the heart of Aristides. An urbane, humanist, curious man, he naturally resisted the supremacist and obscurantinist undertones that sat at the heart of the Imperial Truth, and found its proscriptions on the alien and the mutant to be not merely abhorrent, but utterly despicable. It was this attitude that drove him to secretly undermine compliance with the Truth within Petra's Iron Rong, though he was careful never to do so openly. The reports he submitted may have demonstrated numbers of ‘abhumans’ and ‘sanctioned xenos’ that were far above the norm across the rest of the Imperium, but even then, he was always careful not to reveal too much. And at first, this approach may have satisfied his conscience… but as the Crusade continued, the scale of the bloodshed inflicted on the rest of the galaxy weighed his mind down. And it must have seemed that no matter what he did, he could not expunge the slaughter, xenocide, and violence.
Such cracks could only grow further into chasms, following the triumphant victory celebrations at Ullanor. The triumph of the Emperor and election of Hathor as Warmaster of a continued, more aimless Crusade was not a triumph shared evenly amongst the Primarchs. Petra had been absent during the entire Ullanor campaign, and was denied any of the credit for the final battle that supposedly marked the Imperium’s highest ascent. And the following years only brought more stress, and more pain, for both Primarch and consort. The news of the Burning of Monarchia was the first blow – for it signified the beginning of a crackdown on the independence that the Primarchs had been given in prior years, and a more forceful imposition of the Imperial Truth across the Imperium. Compliance, such an action suggested, would need to be much more strict… and the prospect horrified Aristides. 
Then there was the Council of Nikaea. Petra would initially treat the Council as something to be welcomed - whatever her bond with Magnolia, she held a measured skepticism of psychic powers. And whatever the impact of Aristides' latent psyker abilities had been on her acceptance of psykers, it was quickly counteracted by the strange, terrifying nightmares he had. All the same, Petra was overjoyed at being asked to create and build something new for the Council. She threw herself into the design of the amphitheater, constructing a beautiful classical pavilion, a place that could become an arena of competition and sisterhood through joy and games, and a place of learning and knowledge. At the council, Petra spoke briefly of her worries for unfettered powers, offering simple, rational solutions, leaving Aristides to implore the Council to recognise the humanity of the psykers and sorcerers it would rule on. Yet as the council dragged on, both would realise, to their horror, that this was not a gathering in good faith, seeking an answer to a complex and nuanced question. The Emperor's mind had already been made... and this was instead an arena for chastisement and humiliation. Petra was forced to watch as delegate after delegate humiliated her dearest sister, with even the council's defenders of psykers taking subtle aim at Magnolia, which Petra had not done. The Emperor's chastising edict was a bad enough result, and Magnolia's humiliation made it all the worse... but the personal insult came when the Emperor ordered the entire beautiful amphitheater razed to the ground. Petra would comply with the command... and only Aristides would witness the way she tore her workshop apart in betrayed rage when she was done. 
Such personal insults, however, were nothing to what was to come next. For Hathor’s orders for Petra, after the Council of Nikaea’s stinging edict, were that Petra was to engage in an ever-accelerating rate of conquest, her legion thrown into ever more brutal battles. All the while splitting her legion further into countless garrisons, spread out across the Imperium, many of whom slowly integrated into the Warrior Lodges that had been established within the walls of the fortresses. Other Primarchs may have fought these orders… but Petra felt obligated by oath to comply with them. Her legion, she must surely have felt, was slowly being torn apart and whittled down. And then would come the exhausting, grinding campaign to subdue the monstrous Hrud – a traumatising, high-casualty conflict that saw her legion face xenos that could rot Astartes away in seconds, turn siege engines to rusted heaps, and who visited untold and uncounted horrors upon her legion. And worse, at the start, her beloved Aristides very nearly died - for in his attempt to engage diplomatically with these enigmatic creatures, a Hrud 'diplomat' sadistically sent a pulse of energy up the man's arm that nearly aged him to dust, only saved with a nearby Legionnaire cut his arm off to stop the aging from spreading. 
The reasons behind these orders, in hindsight, are clear enough. Hathor was indeed tearing Petra’s legion apart, and trying to increase her sense of bitterness and angst against the Imperium. Deliberately placing her, and her beloved Aristides, in as dangerous a situation as possible, in the hope of causing destablising, painful wounds to one or the other. Petra’s spite, after all, was legendary, as was her temper. Now firmly in the hands of the ruinous powers, Hathor must surely have been trying to weaken Petra’s will, to chip away at the weakest, most obvious chink in her otherwise iron discipline. And perhaps it might have succeeded… had it not been for the calming, soothing presence of her Aristides. Who was quick to appease the growing anti-Imperial sentiment growing in Petra’s domains, so that she would never face a rebellion, and who increasingly became an anchor to her in troubled times. Even under his own great strain, Aristides' patience never snapped, and his kindness never wavered. After all she had been through... Petra held.
=== The Tragedy of Chyron III ===
At some point then, Hathor must have concluded that it was pointless to attempt to turn Petra to her side, and concluded that she would need to be sidelined instead. Exhausted and worn down by two hundred years of constant warfare she might have been, but the Lady of Iron was a formidable strategist, and her presence would have easily weighed heavily against any attempt to destroy the Emperor, whatever Petra's loathing of him. Instead, Hathor needed a plan to somehow sideline her – to ensure her absence, and allow the Warmaster to claim the loyalty of those Iron Warriors who would be willing to break away from the authority of their harsh, stern, and sometimes brutal gene-mother. And she would receive this support from an unlikely source.
For Hathor was not the only one concerned by Petra’s drift away from the path of chaos. Vashtorr the Arkifane had awaited the coming cataclysm that he knew was coming with baited breath, anticipating gleefully the fall of Petra’s soul to the dark powers of ruination. Her soul was especially precious, for the Emperor had infused it, like he had the souls of all his daughters, with the power of humanity's warp presence. Their gods, their spirits, their divinity. And in Petra's case, her soul was an amalgam of humanity's loves of craftsmanship, industry, and innovation. Her essence wpuld have offered the Arkifane that which he had longed for most – a path to godhood, to become the fifth god of the Ruinous Powers. It had been something he had desired ever since the Age of Strife, and the War of Iron, which he had engineered for the same purpose. And so, he offered Hathor a suggestion – that if Petra was directed towards him, he might keep the Lady of Iron busy, and give Hathor’s plot a chance to succeed. He even had the perfect plan in mind – for he had long been planting the nightmares that so troubled Aristides in his head, and knew how much they troubled both the diplomat, and Petra. If there was a chance to soothe those nightmares… the Arkifane was certain Petra would take it.
And so it was that the Warmaster and the Arkifane came to an agreement, and Petra received new orders. She was to take her 125th Expeditionary Fleet to the border of the mysterious region of space known as the Ghoul Stars, far away from consistent contact with the rest of the Imperium, to secure the dangerous technology that was rumoured to lie within. Even as Hathor was setting her final dominoes in place, Petra found herself orbiting distant, alien worlds… and former human colonies from the Age of Technology. They had all been laid low somehow, left as wastelands, inhabited by strange, nightmarish fusions of metal and flesh. Not hostile… yet not exactly friendly, either. And it would be here that the Arkifane would set his trap – for a strange mechanical oracle would tell Petra’s legion, in a mixture of cryptographic riddles… that it knew of the source of Aristides’ nightmares. And that the truth of them would be revealed, should they seek out the distant, ruined world of Chyron III.
Aristides did not trust the counsel, but Petra overruled him. Determined that she might find some way to repay his patient kindness by letting him sleep peacefully. And so, she came to Chyron III, finding the world overrun by hostile machines, and set out to crush resistance. Striding across the planet in Logos, her bolter-arrays roaring, and Harpax cutting a swathe through strange, monstrous constructions. Seeking the temple this strange Oracle had alluded to in its words, a temple to a heretical nightmare that had corrupted the machines of the Ghoul Stars.
And here the Arkifane sprung his trap. For that was his temple, and the Ghoul Stars had been his domain – the place where the War of Iron had first begun, where nanites had wasted human bodies away to skeletal husks, and nightmarish creatures of flesh and steel had first stalked the stars. For not long after the IVth started to surround the strange, pyramid-shaped structure, the mechanical monsters were replaced by creatures who seemed to step out of holes rent in reality, even as the 125th's fleet found itself beset on all sides by a legion of what were effectively ghost ships. The Iron Warriors had come across their first daemon engines, and their first Initial confusion claimed many lives, but Petra had trained her legion well, and soon, these strange creatures were set upon by waves of bolt-fire and hot plasma. 
And then the temple itself erupted, in fire, and smoke, and screams… and Vashtorr himself stepped out, laughing with malign glee. Spurring his machines to even greater efforts, the daemon lunged hungrily at Petra, engaging her in combat as the Lady of Iron tried to fend him off. It was a mighty clash… but though Petra was a fearsome warrior, and a Primarch no less, Vashtorr had prepared himself well, and was more than a match for the Lady of Iron in an equal fight. With scrapcode screams that scrambled the systems of her Logos armour, he tore into Petra with a fury, and overwhelmed her. Breaking both her arms with brutal strikes of his hammer.
The Arkifane closed in for the kill, gleeful look in his eyes. Petra, he warned the Primarch was to be a vessel for his ascension to a power she could not comprehend. And that she could either serve him, and retain some semblance of what she was now, and all she cared for… or he would destroy all she cared about, and force her to watch. And in this moment of dire need… she suddenly felt an itch in the back of her head. A strange, two-toned voice. Telling her to get up, that she needed to get up. That she was the only ‘Child of the Gods’ close enough to hear their plea, and that she could not give in now. And then they spoke a strange language….
And it was as if Petra’s mind was suddenly split open. A sudden wave of visions sweeping over her, flooding her mind with names she could not recognise. Names of ancient pedigree, of long-forgotten deities, of a human spirituality unfettered and free. In a silent scream, Petra’s body convulsed with a terrible, consuming surge of immaterial power that swept Vashtorr from his feet and momentarily knocked the Arkifane back into the warp. Leaving a delirious Petra to collapse into unconsciousness, suffering from shock.
Petra's collapse left the IVth rudderless, her fleet without a commander, and only worsened a chaotic situation. It was in that moment that the woman's inner circle of advisors, her 'Trident,' sprang into action, well aware that the situation was hopeless, and a retreat might be the only thing to preserve Petra’s ravaged 125th fleet. Conferring swiftly, the surviving commanders quickly agreed to evacuate, and extricate themselves from a lost cause. Together, Warsmiths Timoclea of Rall, Barban Falk, and Soltarn Bronn, converged on their master’s broken body, driving back a collection of monsters that seemed to be trying to claim the Lady of Iron’s unconscious form. The resulting retreat was only successful because of their rigid, unwavering discipline, and Falk’s own sacrifice – the Warsmith personally staying behind with the rearguard to ensure the bulk of the IVth could escape what it seemed could only be a trap.
Yet even here, the IVth legion was not safe. The 125th Expiditionary Fleet had been deployed to support ground troops, and by coming close enough to evacuate the beleaguered astartes, allowed themselves to be trapped against Chyron III. In a dire strategic predicament, Petra’s own flagship, the Iron Blood, was forced to lead a desperate charge through the enemy's lines, to allow the embattled, and depleted force, to escape intact.
And it was in this process that the Iron Blood – which contained a field workshop that contained so many of her most brilliant ideas and weapon ideas – was crippled. As the crew scrambled to escape the foundering vessel, and save themselves from the swarming monsters trying to claim it for themselves, Aristides found himself equipped with a desperate mission – to destroy his love’s workshop, to ensure none of the dangerous ideas fell into the wrong hands. Head pounding with psychic energy, he desperately rushed through the foundering ship, even as Petra lapsed in and out of consciousness on a different vessel, tended to by terrified and confused apothacaries, who could not understand the symptoms she was displaying. Entering the workshop, he set to work desperately, well aware that he was the only man aboard the vessel who could destroy the workshop. Setting fire to cabinets, pouring water on servers, doing everything he could to make Petra’s work unrecoverable.
And in that moment, Vashtorr himself re-entered warpspace… within Petra’s workshop. Much to his dismay, finding his prey had already slipped his grasp. But he was content to settle for Aristides instead, easily smashing aside the pitiful Dark Age drone Petra had fitted as his protection, and catching the bureaucrat out of his armour. And in his last, desperate act, suddenly understanding what it was this fel creature whom he had seen in his nightmares for nearly a century had always wanted… Aristides gave the survivors of the IVth Legion a pre-arranged command. For just such a desperate situation. They were to retreat in good order, irrespective of any orders to the contrary. Whatever Petra was to command them to do to save them… they were to disregard.
Understanding, the remnants of the 125th jumped out of orbit, to Vashtorr’s impotent howls of frustration. His prey had slipped his carefully spun net again. An all he was left with were scraps. Yet he would quickly recover his temper. For he would soon devise a plan to allow him to continue hunting Petra down – to the very edges of the galaxy, if possible. For Velvet Glove had not been entirely successful in his endeavour, and Petra’s workshop had fallen right into his hands, mostly intact. And so, the Arkifane withdrew into the warp. Taking all his treasure, including Petra’s precious Velvet Glove, with him. Leaving behind a shattered ruin.
=== A Sister’s Sacrifice ===
"You may spend this moment of fear to give in to your instincts. To squabble and fight over scraps of which you will be deprived. Or you can join me in my defiance. In holding back the darkness just one day longer, that the souls of the Iron Ring spend just one day more living in the light. Well? Where do you stand?" - Calliphone, sister to Petra, haranguing the Council of the Iron Ring.The consequences of the disaster at Chyron III would soon become apparent. For with the loss of the Iron Blood, the 125th Expeditionary Fleet lost not only Petra’s quantum communicator which connected her to Olympia, but also the vast majority of the 125th's contingent of astropaths. In an instant, her entire fleet was cut off, without further communication. All that the galaxy recieved was an automated message from the Iron Blood's black box system, indicating that Petra’s flagship had been lost. It would not take long for Hathor to pronounce the sad news – her sister was missing, and very likely dead.
For those elements of the IVth spread throughout the galaxy on garrison duty, the news was a profound shock. Spread far and wide, through every garrison, the Iron Warriors had elements within. It was disorienting news for the IVth, and for many of Petra's gene-children, it would act as the tipping point over which they would fall. Their sense of recrimination against the Imperium now brought to boil. Worse, most of the Iron Warriors who had remained on garrison duty had been placed there as a way to punish them for percieved slights or failings, meaning that many of Petra's most ambitious, power-hungry, and bitter warriors had suddenly recieved word that the only figure that could control them had likely perished. And just as Hathor hoped, the news allowed her to sway great swathes of the Iron Warriors to her banner, and the banner of the ruinous powers. In secret meetings, she would win over the Iron Warrior Warsmiths of most of the remaining Grand Battalions and garrison elements. At a stroke, Hathor had gained dozens of critical fortresses on the road to Terra, and great trains of disciplined, experienced siege warriors. The sacrifice of one of her sisters seemed small in comparison to that.
In the Drop Site Massacre, it would be these Iron Warriors, commanded by Warsmith Forrix, newly elevated to the Strategos of his legion, that would obliterate the loyalists in the greatest numbers. Massing artillery pieces to shatter the loyalist lines, causing the deaths of thousands of Salamanders, Night Lords, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard. In addition, Iron Warrior garrisons across the galaxy were suddenly activated against their commanders, turning over entire worlds to the Heretics at a single stroke. In the eyes of many, even the numerous Iron Warriors who did not turn traitor were suspect, and the Iron Ring became fixed in the minds of many loyalists as the home of traitors. 
Yet not all would follow the example of Warsmiths like Andraaz, Baldarun, Shon’ta, or Ferrous Ironclaw. The lowly Iron Warriors captain Khr Vhalen was just one of incalculable examples of Iron Warriors who did not follow the example of their brothers who were claimed by the lodges, or who followed their warsmiths to perdition on Istvaan V. It was a bravery that cost Vhalen his life, when in a mixed contingent of three hundred astartes from multiple chapters, he fought a hopeless 72-hour struggle that claimed the life of traitor Warsmith Kolvax, and allowed the escape of some twenty thousand civilians through a hidden webway gate, thanks to a captured Alderai farseer he let go, on the condition that she bring these tormented refugees to Olympia.
These stragglers would arrive on Olympia, to find the planet consumed by turmoil. At a stroke, it seemed, everything had been thrown into chaos. Competing reports poured out of Istvaan, the Primarch who they had been pledged to support was seemingly dead, and it seemed as if the entire Imperium had been thrown into utter turmoil. Rumours of horrifying nightmarish, incomprehensible evils seemed to pour out of every crevice and crack of the galaxy, terrifying the population of Petra’s domain. Loyalist and Heretic alike were beginning incursions into the Iron Ring, both convinced the worlds had aligned with their opposing sides.And worse, the coordinating body that had held Petra’s realm together had lost its Chairman, right at the moment when its unity was tested the most. Everything within Petra’s domain threatened to come apart.
And into this maelstrom, would step Calliphone of Olympia. By now elderly, the youngest daughter of the former Tyrant of Olympia had been in the process of mourning a sister she had fully believed was dead, whatever complex emotions she may have still held as a result of their past innumerable arguments. She had long disdained power – she had dreamt of a future where she could live free of its burden, free to do what she wished, to sew and design clothes, and write, and think, and teach – for she had long wanted the freedom to be able to write and philosophise, and had enjoyed the chance to do just that. Free of the burden of her station. But now… she stepped back into the fray.
Wielding her moral authority as the sister of the Lady of Iron, and deftly using her masterly understanding of the workings of power, she stepped into the gap that Petra and Aristides had left by their absence. Quickly, she marshalled the surviving Iron Warriors into some semblance of authority, under their surviving warsmiths – bidding Warsmiths Zhorischa and Korpanos to muster the surviving non-traitors back to Olympia, and uniting the Iron Ring behind her leadership. Together with other surviving Warsmiths, like Harkor, Xenophon, and Cyrene Ariaeus, she would somehow hold Petra’s realm together, against all the odds. It would prove a herculean feat to prevent Petra’s realm falling apart, yet she would somehow manage it, resisting attacks from traitors and loyalists alike.
It would be in this time that the world of Nouvelle-Meuse would come to prominence – for it would, without relief, at the behest of a largely citizen army, fend off countless attacks by various traitor and loyalist legions, in wars that scarred but did not break the planet’s verdant, lush landscape. So too would the worlds of Refuge, and Etna-7. The former, a planetary refugee colony that had hosted so many abuhumans and aliens fleeing the Crusade, produced countless legions of Auxiliae during the crisis, coming to the defence of countless worlds. The latter, a forge-world that hosted the Arcologis Mechanicum, became one of the first Forge Worlds to reject both Mars, and the Dark Mechanicum, spurred by the intervention of the Iron Warriors Warsmith Zhorischa’s intervention to quash a chaos uprising. And from the world of Sovurra would come Lota’lon’nua, better known by his simplifed name, Talon. A naval genius, who would win battle after battle against traitor and loyalist alike. Thus, the Iron Ring began to develop an identity independent of the Imperium, and some sense of unity amongst the distant stars. Such fire-forged bonds would prove critical in allowing Petra’s domain to overcome the storm of the Hathor Heresy, and even beyond it, as it raged on and grew more terrible and violent.
=== In the Depths of the Ghoul Stars ===
When Petra finally awoke from unconsciousness, healed thanks to tireless apothecary work and her own Primarch constitution, shaking off the delirium of visions and memories she did not recognise, it was to find her expeditionary fleet in shock, and shambles. The Tragedy at Chyron III had cost the fleet a full quarter of its strength, alongside many proud Iron Warriors. Yet that was nothing compared to the news that she had lost her flagship… and by extension, Aristides. Even worse came when she went to issue immediate orders to return to the planet, to try and recover him – Warsmith Timoclea was forced to reveal that by the diplomat’s own orders, if he was lost, Petra’s commands to try and retrieve him could not be obeyed. And being told this poleaxed the Primarch, who was left nearly inconsolable. And angry, screaming ball of grief and fury.
Yet, perhaps spurred on by the fact that she could not afford the luxury of mourning, she recovered quickly. Too aware of the graveness of her position to rest. Though the 125th Expeditionary Fleet’s life ships and mobile manufactorums (both parts of the large Mechanicum contingent travelling with her) were largely intact, its military might had been drastically depleted. Even worse, the fleet’s navigators delivered the terrible news that the Fleet was effectively stranded – the only way back to the galaxy proper was obscured by turbulent storms in the warp that would certainly destroy the fleet if it attempted to jump back to Olympia. Either they would need to try and travel through realspace – a journey that would, even at relativistic speeds, take tens of thousands of years – or they would need to try and find some other desperate way through.
Petra’s mind worked fast on the problem… and came to a grim conclusion. Whoever the entity had been on Chyron III… it was determined not to let her go. The warp storm was either its doing, or it had been conjured by the figure's allies - the timing was too convenient, and the Navigators said it showed no signs of dispersing. Worse, the entity clearly had some power over the immaterium, and its power was such that it had been able to bat her aside as if she were nothing. And yet, she and her legion likely could not leave without facing it again. In short, this ‘Vashtorr the Arkifane’ was hunting her. Either they found some way, in this cursed land, to defeat or destroy Vashtorr… or they would all die.
Not one member of her Trident, or one member of the 125th's hierarchy, liked this conclusion. Yet no one could propose anything that made sense. And so, Petra ordered the 125th to remuster, and begin an exhaustive process of trawling the cursed worlds for some sort of clues as to how to defeat this strange being, and the nightmarish monsters he wrought. The resulting campaign was certain to be a long nightmare, constantly harried by monsters, completely cut off from resupply. Yet there was no alternative. Through this nightmare they would need to campaign. And so began the first days of their long ordeal.
=== Two Sisters of Iron ===
The Lady of Iron would, however, not need to face this alone. For not long after the campaign began, her fleet would be surprised by fleetborne signals, breaking through the fog of the Warp Storm that had hemmed her in. Having tracked her down, and battled there way through the strange monsters that were chasing her. These were ships that bore symbols of an iron gauntlet, outstretched and firm, and thus it was that Petra would be relieved, at least in part, by her sister Ferra Manus, and her Iron Hands.
The meeting of these two wounded legions was a sorry sight. Ferra's sons had been nearly rendered extinct by their own trials in the burgeoning Hathor Heresy, brewing outside, and she and her beloved Anvil had both faced the agony of what had happened to them with pain. Even now, they could only command a meagre force, of a few thousand astartes. Yet it was a relief all the same - for Ferra and Petra were friends, fast and close, who had been bound together when Ferra had decided not to simply mock Petra's comments about a strange, monstrous wound in the night sky. Ferra's supportive words to her had given the Lady of Iron comfort, and begun a friendship of mutual bluntness, based on a deep-seated love of science. The news of Petra's disappearance had never been accepted by the Gorgon, who had determined that she needed to retrieve her sister, if there was any hope of arresting the madness. 
Their reunion might have even been a joyful one, were it not for Petra's pitiful state. For the Hammer of Olympia was wounded, angry, and hurt by the loss of her husband, a loss that left a tear deep in her soul. To see her sister was a relief indeed, though Petra's shock at Ferra's own, pitiful state, was profound. The Gorgon and her Anvil had limped into the Ghoul Stars with a ramshackle assortment of Iron Hands, and small detachments from other legions who had been thrown together in a desperate, traumatised mishmash of units. It smacked of a force who had nearly been all but annihilated. 
If Ferra might have expected Petra to be grateful that she had come to her sister's aid, she was to be disappointed. For Petra was flabbergasted that her sister had been such a fool as to travel through a murderous warpstorm in search of her, and said as much. Yet Ferra was quick to respond, and increase Petra's anguish. For it was now that the Lady of Iron was made aware of the true nature of Hathor's deeds... and much more besides. Stories and rumours of four terrible fonts of dark, ruinous power. Of their corrupt whispers, in the ear of her sisters. She heard the names of Atalanta, Fulgrim, Morrigan, Alpharia, Aurelia… and above all Hathor. Hathor the Everchosen. Hathor the Arch-traitor. And the Lady of Iron was to be robbed of the delusion of calling her sister a liar by a stray Alpha Legionnaire of Omega... who could only confirm the dark stories.
In an instant, Petra understood. She had been sent to the Ghoul Stars by Hathor to die. And her bitterness only grew with the knowledge that Ferra had, wittingly or otherwise, joined her. Yet Ferra was resolute, and unperturbed - she swore she would aid her sister in her strange headaches, her new warp powers, and the strange monster that seemed determined to chase her down, and they would get out of this somehow. 
And so, together, the two threw themselves into facing down the horrors of the Ghoul Stars. The deeds would be remembered, variously, as the Ghoul Stars Campaign by Petra and her legion, and as the Bleeding Crusade by Ferra and the Imperium. It was a struggle with little glory, and a great many horrors. Together, the two faced down the ruined remnants of humanity who lived here - thin and skeletal and ghoulish, as if wasted away by some unseen, fel energy.
And yet soon… even more disturbing reports greeted Petra and Ferra. Their fleet, it seemed, was being shadowed by some strange hulking mass of formless, shifting metal. One that was largely immune to lance and macro-cannon fire, and which Petra swore seemed fixated on her. In the same way that she could see the distant Eye of Terror, looming constantly in the background. Initially, she had even hoped it was harmless… but she was soon disabused of that notion, as she was forced to watch it consume a Firestorm Frigate whole. Twisting the metal, the crew, and all the astartes within… into some nightmarish mix of metal and flesh. Assimilating it into its broken mass.
And that was not all. Soon, Petra began coming across weak, wasted cultists… creating shrines to some new monster. The scrapcode emitters they carried seeming to translate into some strange mantra of madness – endlessly repeating the phrase “the Beast sings.” She would meet this mysterious Beast not long after – at first, it simply seemed a strange warship, which at first shadowed her, much as the formless hulk did. But it would soon prove that it too was far from harmless – it began probing her fleet’s defences, attacking at whim in strange, difficult to repel patterns. It held a seemingly impenetrable hull, and terrifyingly powerful weapons, disgorging hundreds of distended Iron Warriors, some of whom seemed to have come from outside the Ghoul Stars. all of them modified, twisted, upgraded with cybernetics and lobotomised by nerve staples. Each of these 'upgraded' astartes worth five Iron Warriors. And strangest of all… she could swear that if she tuned short-wave radios to a certain frequency, the transmissions the Beast gave off almost sounded like a song.
And all the while, Petra found herself wrestling with visions. Nightmares of Vashtorr taunting her with the screams of Aristides. Agonised howls, begging cries, whimpers of pain. Visions of a strange past, haunting her in a thousand broken fragments. As if her soul were adrift in a formless void. She felt herself start to slip – and felt a strange call coming from the warp, pulling at the back of her mind. Gifting her strange abilities she could not quantify. At times, she could not help but wonder if she was simply going mad.
But the worst was to come at the start of year four of this nightmare. When the two tormentors chasing her down seemed to converge on her and Ferra at the same time. The by now titanic hulk, that some had taken to calling ‘The Broken,’ and the strange, mysterious ‘Beast.’ Both came across her at the same time, when she was scouring the ruins of a former human colony for information on Vashtorr, amongst broken shrines, and empty houses. And she watched as the two figures… turned on each other. With a virulence that allowed her, just barely, to slip away. But just as she was leaving… she felt a psychic scream emanating from the broken, almost like a howl of pain. A wail of agony… that sounded almost like her lost beloved, screaming from a nightmare. And alongside her, a techpriest technician reported that she recognised the song the ‘Beast’ was… ‘singing.’ And when Petra listened… she did too. It was a concerto that Aristide had written in his spare time. Inspired by the heavy sounds of Iron Warriors artillery he had become so used to hearing.
The sickening thought dawned on her, in that moment… that the Beast and Broken were not just machines loosed on her by Vashtorr to hunt her. They were machines loosed to torment her. Worse… they were not just any fusion of machine and flesh. Of soul and metal. They were a fusion of one particular soul, with metal and machine. She was staring at two pieces of Aritides. At war with each other, right before her eyes.
=== The Work of the Arkifane ===
Petra’s initial flight had not made Vashtorr simply retire idly, to await his next opportunity. In the immediate aftermath of her escape from the bloody tragedy of Chyron III, he had returned to the warp, frustrated… but not defeated. He may not have had Petra herself, or her soul, but he had the thing dearest to her… and a collection of her most terrible and effective designs for weapons. And so, he set himself a test, to see what he might create, and see if he might be able to match, or even overcome the Lady of Iron’s creative talents.
At first, Aristides resisted. With all his will and might. Attempting to keep his sanity in the nightmarish realm that was Vashtorr’s domain. But though he lasted longer than most would… he did not last longer by much. He was never a Primarch, after all, and his latent psyker skills had only ever been minimal at best. He had no defence against what was unleashed upon him. Vashtorr distended him, broke him, body and soul, shattering him on his anvil, in a brutal, painful, agonising process that he was forced to experience in drawn out nanoseconds – his suffering giving texture to the Arkifane’s power of creation. His body was injected with the Obliterator virus, and forced to merge with a hunk of metal that Vashtorr had begun to forge into a warship based on designs he’d seen in Petra’s workshop. Savouring every second of Aristides' screams, the Arkifane gave his new form shape, and a new purpose.
And yet, at the height of his creation, he found, to his surprise, that the ship did not stay merged. Instead, just at the climax of the merger of Atristides' soul with the ship… Vashtorr’s final strike with his hammer of souls struck false, and must have split the diplomat’s soul in twain. For the ship split in two, and Aristides' body split with it – his brain staying in the shard that would become the Beast, and his heart in the shard that would become the Broken. It was a frustrating mistake… but in the end, Vashtorr was not unsatisfied with the result. The Beast may not have listened to him, and quickly purged itself of his attempts to leash it… but it seemed hungry to chase and torment Petra anyway. And the Broken… the Broken was desperate to get back to its beloved Petra. To find her, to be at peace with her… to assimilate her, and be made whole with her. So Vashtorr let the two go, and set off behind them. Hungrily following along in anticipation of his eventual catch.
Soon, tales would spread across the entire galaxy of these monsters – for neither the Beast, nor the Broken, were content to simply chase down Petra. The Broken seemed desperate to surround itself with as many pieces of Petra’s legion as possible, assimilating those loyal to the warmaster or otherwise alike in a nightmarish pastiche of desparate need. And the Beast was more than happen to strike one-sided bargains with worshipful traitors, who seemed to regard it as a sort of entity worthy of worship or praise. They tormented shipping lanes for all 8 years of the heresy, stories of their terrifying destructive power becoming a part of the shipping culture of the entire Segmentum Ultima.
And all the while, they harried Petra, Ferra and the 125th Expeditionary fleet, further and further. For 8 long years, Petra was forced to adopt uncomfortable tactics, for a woman so expert with siege warfare and setpiece operations. Forced into a campaign of exhausting, infuriating Fabian warfare, picking at the edge of her pursuers, and careful never to stay in one place for too long. It took a herculean effort for her not to crack under the pressure… yet in memory of her dear Aristides, supported by Ferra's unshakable resolve, she persisted. Stubbornly clinging to her sanity, and to her chosen, exhausting path. Slowly piecing together the truth of the horror that lay in the Ghoul Stars in the process. It was here that she learnt of the last gasp of the Dark Age of Technology. The War of Iron. The scrapcode that had driven humanity’s greatest innovations mad. How a strange creature of metal and flesh had offered humanity in this cursed realm salvation… and how humanity had desperately grasped at it. Only to waste away under Vashtorr's domination. Cruel and wicked.
Petra and Ferra refused to give into despair at these stories. Whatever emotional torture they caused, as the pieces of Aristides' soul chased the two down. They crafted defences against the scrapcode, countermeasures that turned the streaming screams of nefarious binary into little more than an unnerving jolt. They pieced every possible slice of information they could about Vashtorr together, seeking to build a picture of this fel creature that they could use to crush it. Ignoring how the details made their heads ache, and triggered those strange visions neither still could not understand - for soon, Ferra too began to hear these strange whispers. Whether out of hope or spite, or some combination of both, they did not give up.
=== The End of a Nightmare ===
Finally, half-way through the 8th year of Petra and Ferra's hellbound voyage… they stumbled upon a breakthrough. For months, they had been hearing that strange, two-toned voice in their heads begin to get louder, and more insistent. Begging, pleading, and demanding in equal measure. For a long time, they had ignored it, assuming it to be some fel vision… when in their search, they stumbled across a strange account, from a long-abandoned human settlement. It spoke of the end of the War of Iron… and the presence of a strange voice in their heads. The exact same voice they had been hearing. Feeding the bereft colonists hope… and urging them to leave. Desperately pushing them onwards, towards some mysterious point. Sensing a potential breakthrough, and the possibility of answers, at last, Petra and Ferra followed the trail to a small, isolated system, at the very edge of the galaxy.
And here, they came face to face with the strangest sight. For here sat a fertile world, lush and green, inhabited by perfectly healthy humans. Before they could investigate, however, they were checked by a strange, soulless being of metal - the same metal, it seemed, that coated Ferra's hands - who teleported onto their flagship, declaring that these strangers would never be given access to this world. A confused scene ensued… yet ended, when Petra was able to convince the figure she meant no harm. The figure, introducing itself as a ‘Necron,’ and as ‘Phaeron Kephrek of Akhmanis, Lord of Dust,’ explained that he had sworn himself to make up for the mistakes of his former people, who had very nearly destroyed the galaxy in a titanic war once before. It was a conclusion he had come to very recently, but one he was bound to unshakeably. Influenced by the sight of embattled refugees, fleeing an endless war. It was, he felt, the only way to regain his honour, after his former lords had spent it all in a quest for omnicide.
At any other time, such an encounter would have been a fascination for the Lady of Iron – for here stood a creation that straddled life and death, and wielded weapons and technology of a type she could not dream of. But Petra was too terse, too exhausted, and too desperate to care... and Ferra certainly had no desire to treat with a xeno any more than she needed to. Swallowing her curiosity, Petra explained that she and her exhausted followers were seeking the source of a mysterious voice – the one, she reasoned, which had first guided the refugees to Kephrek’s world. The necron confessed not to know, for he had never heard of this voice, and had not produced it… but suggested he knew of a place where what she described could be found. A world, stuck halfway between reality and the immaterial world. It orbited a star that itself sat on the edge between the two… where his ‘Crypteks’ had picked up odd fluctuations of energy. If they sought such a voice, the chance was that they would find it there. It would be a final, desperate gamble… but Petra and Ferra decided to take it.
And so, on a cursed lone planet, orbiting a doomed star, the world stuck halfway between the void and hell… the two made landfall with a landing party. Desperately trying to seek out the strange source of the voice that had been tormenting her for so long. Eventually, guided by psykers and techpriest readings… Petra and Ferra were drawn to a deep, dark, impossibly tall cave. Where, their heads screaming… they found a strange, hollowed statue.
Much to her shock, the statue spoke to her. With a hollow voice, in a language neither had ever learnt, yet which Petra recognised – classical Greek. At first, Petra threatened to smash it, thinking this some fel warp trick… but then its second voice spoke, in a similarly hollow, ancient Persian - which Ferra understood somehow. Neither knew the languages fluently, neither had known any more than fragments… and yet they somehow instinctively understood. And then, before their eyes, the statue came fully alive. Stepping off its podium, lit up internally by a burning glow of light, blossoming into six symmetrical wings of shimmering violet and sunlight.
The figure introduced itself to Petra and Ferra by the name Atena-Mazda. Greeting the, like prodigal daughters come home. And in the resulting conversation… explained the truth of their essence. Petra and Ferra, like their sisters, had been artificial creations of the Emperor of Mankind… who had once been a god-like being known as Revelation. Created from the sacrifice of all of humanity’s psychic potential, as a ritualistic embodiment of the denial of the dangers of spirituality, the urge to sacrifice oneself to protect ones’ fellow man… the god who was not a god. And the Emperor had grown to despise humanity’s gods – themselves avatars of human concepts, come into being by humanity’s faith and spiritual nature – or perhaps simply fear their power, or that it would fall into the hands of the four.
And so, the two heard, when Revelation had crossed into the warp to drive away Vashtorr during the War of Iron… he had decided to put an end to these gods. And he had slaughtered them all – using his power to murder them in cold blood. Tearing away their essence for himself… and for his own use. It was this essence, Atena-Mazda explained, that had been used to create the Primarchs. All of them, distilled down to natures the Emperor wished to unleash upon the galaxy. 
The Lioness, the embodiment of the noble knight. The Angel of Baal, the embodiment of the protector guardian. The Urizen, the distillation of zeal, derived from the faith of countless prophets. Petra, the Lady of Iron… the distillation of unshakeable wrath made flesh. Craftsmanship, innovation, unswerving determination, and methodical thoroughness. And Ferra, the Gorgon, the distillation of the same essence, Petra's twin... yet her opposite, the seeker on inner strength, compared to Petra's focus on the external world. They had been created from the divinity of countless crafters – god and spirit alike – her soul then bound by the Emperor’s essence, and made flesh. And yet those bonds - shackles, etched into their souls, locking away their true nature - wracked each of them with fatal, all-consuming flaws. Consuming paranoia. A hidden, bottomless pit of rage. A fickle desperation for some semblance of certainty. For inability to look at anything, without seeing the flaws, etched into its very fabric. From her own designs, to the words of others... to the fabric of the universe itself. And for Ferra, an inability to see anything but weakness within. Twisting every trait she held dear, every benefit intrinsic to her being, every skill she possessed... into a weakness that needed to be purged. Each of these flaws... was an expression of their true natures, begging for release, screaming against the bonds that held them back.
It was a story… that Petra found dizzyingly incomprehensible. That Ferra thought a bad joke. It did not matter that it all rang true, all seemed to align with everything they had experienced, that it might have seemed this figure was omniscient from how accurate a picture of their minds it had drawn. They dismissed the tale out of hand as a farce, or a lie. Once again suggesting this figure was just an illusion of the four. And yet it assured them it was not. Once, it said, it had been Athena, and Ahura Mazda – the Greek Goddess of wisdom and strategy, the Zoroastrian God of light, hope, and all things good. And they had only survived, when the Emperor had torn them in twain for their divinity, by merging their essences together into this chimeric form. And when Petra and Ferra still did not believe them… they reminded Petra of the visions she had experienced on Chyron III. 
Suddenly, they surged back into her mind all at once, and Petra fell to her knees, desperately trying to shut them out. But Atena-Mazda begged her to allow herself to see the truth. Pleading that the woman at last let herself truly see. And so… Petra let them flow. A stream of psychic consciousness... that slipped into Ferra's mind too. And finally, they saw that this creature was telling the truth. For they saw… through eyes that were their own, yet... also weren’t. They saw themselves as gods and goddesses. Bent over forges, straining at looms, hard at work in any number of crafts and forms of labour. Writing, teaching, learning... growing. It took but an instant... but it was an instant that seemed to go on forever. Filled with visions of who they had once been, fragmented into pieces, torn into shreds. All of it threatened to overwhelm them… right until the moment they were cut short. By a figure… with a flaming sword. Blazing eyes. A dark, terrible stare that spoke of sacrifice, and revelations beyond anything a mortal had a right to know-
And then death. Death and pain. And Petra and Ferra slumped in place… as the truth suffused them. The truth of what had become of them. Of what they and their sisters had been made to do… and why. And in this low moment… Atena-Mazda approached them. And with a voice barely at a whisper… promised them that whatever their origins had been… whatever the tragedy that had befallen them all, whatever the pain they had faced, and which had moulded them into who they were… that did not mean it was destined to define them forever. The Emperor had changed their essence… yet they could still change. Could still embrace what they were... and what they wanted to be. All that required… was that they break the bindings and wards the Emperor had imposed on their souls. Grow beyond what he had made them to be. Not by making pacts, or deals, or sacrifices… but looking inward to the divinity that lay within.
And after a moment’s pause… Petra did just that. Finally opening her mind fully to the warp. Letting the power of what she had seen flow through her. And to the astonishment of her companions… Petra of Olympia began to glow with the power of the warp. Her body momentarily becoming greater, and grander, her hands momentarily covered in stone, covering the gauntlets of the Logos. Even the Logos itself began to shift, and change, and meld, as if it was no longer simply armour… but an extension of her very being. And the impulse cables that connected her brain to her technology, that enabled her to receive every piece of information she needed to so effectively control battlefields expanded, and widened, glowing with a deep, brilliant light, as if the power within her mind were suddenly coursing through it so much that the cable might, at any moment, snap. And then, in a great flash, she was engulfed in warpfire, tinged gold and iron-grey. Burning with a icy, yet ferocious heat. And with the sound of shattering steel and cracking stone, Petra stood there once more. Unchanged… yet altered forever.
And beside the Lady of Iron, Ferra began to glow with the power of the warp, just like her sister. Her body seemed to glow from within, her skin turning the colour of molten copper. The metal adorning her form began to shift, glowing with the same inner flame that she did, flowing into complex shapes, like it was being poured into a cast once more. The metal adorning her hands and the Medusan Carapace began to grow, flowing upward to form the outline of a giant, hunched over the the Primarch's form, yet no less imposing. The metal giant raised its hand, a molten hammer held within, before bringing it down upon Ferra's glowing form. And then, in a great flash, the two were also engulfed in warpfire, tinged with gold, copper and iron. Burning with a bottomless heat. And with the sound of mighty hammer… Ferra stood in place, her arms no longer bound in flawless grey, her own master once more. 
The watching statue could only give a soft nod, as Petra returned from her strange, momentary trance. And as the two sisters watched… the statue began to crumble to dust before their eyes. Atena-Mazda explained there was not enough left to continue on - for there was no one left in this galaxy who had faith in them, only ghostly memories of what they were before, in forgotten myths and tales. They had only held together long enough in the hopes that one of the sisters, could find them, and learn the truth. And now they had… there was no need to hold together. So with the last of their strength… they imparted a breath of the power they had once held into the head of Harpax and Forgebreaker… and faded away. A last gift - leaving a nimbus of silver and gold around each. Wisdom and Hope, to guide and comfort them.
And it was then, as Petra and Ferra's senses returned to them, that they heard the vox chatter at last. The panicked calls for aid from their fleets. For the moment they had embraced their true nature… they had let out a pulse, that had attracted the Broken and the Beast right to them. Worse still… Vashtorr’s monstrous daemon ships were now closing in on the fleet, trapping them against the surface of the warp vortex that bound this nameless planet. Yet with a serene, firm voice, Petra commanded the fleet to engage gellar fields, and sail straight into the warp. Determined to face down the Broken and Beast, at long last. Suddenly possessed by the hope that with this new power… she might be able to recover the most precious thing she lost.
The resulting battle was a grueling one, for Petra was not yet certain how powerful in the warp she truly was, or the extent of her abilities, or even how they worked. Yet step by step… she took control of her powers. And to the shock of her amassed legion, with the aid of the equally confused Ferra, she managed to tear through both those terrible, mighty war machines, right down to the core of each. Wrenching open their fel cores. Fighting through waves of her own lobotomised legionnaires in the belly of the Beast, and wrenching her way through the mass of formless metal that comprised the Broken. And from each… tearing out the distended, broken parts of Aristides that she found within. The broken body, whimpering and withdrawn, locked in the Beast… and the still-beating heart that was stuck in the sludge-like morass of the broken.
Yet in that moment… in the depths of the warp, shimmering with power, as she clutched the pieces of Aristides, the broken husks of the war machines he had been entombed in standing derelict above her head… she realised she had no idea what to do next. How she could possibly put the diplomat she loved back together, or reverse what had been done. So, clutching his form close to her chest… Petra expressed some futile hope that at the very least, she could give him peace. 
And in that moment… the most remarkable thing happened. For subconsciously, as she cradled her husband in silent mourning, her hands began to glow with warp energy. And the metal dug beneath the man’s skin started to shift, to alter… to stitch itself back together. The mechanical and the flesh fusing back together to form a coherent mass. A body, unbroken, and untouched and unravaged by pain or suffering. And unnoticed, above her head… the two masses of metal began to merge together. And without her noticing… the stilled heart of Aristides began to beat in his chest again. And he awoke in her arms. Screaming, terrified, very nearly broken by all he had experienced, and dreamt through… but alive all the same. It was a miracle… beyond any reason or logic. And yet there they both were. Somehow alive. And overhead, the Broken and the Beast… had merged themselves, into a sleek, elegant machine of war. Right before the eyes of her astonished 125th Expeditionary Fleet. And to the shock of both Velvet Glove and Petra… this great battleship seemed almost to come to land alongside them both. As if waiting to be commanded. 
The silence could not last long, however. For, bellowing with fury at having his creations ripped from his control, Vashtorr descended on Petra and Ferra in fury. Determined to end her himself, to finally achieve his ascension. But they were no longer the women he had been chasing through the Ghoul Stars - and they simply stood, and smote the creature with a single blow each, just as the Emperor had done at the end of the War of Iron. Screaming, Vashtorr was cast back to the depths of the warp, a burning, bloody mark on his chest forever standing as a gaping reminder of his folly until the end of days.
=== Persistence ===
With Vashtorr vanquished at last, the warp storm separating Petra and Ferra from the rest of the galaxy finally abated. Enabling her to finally return to the galaxy proper, after so many years spent trapped on the galactic fringe. It was an uncomfortable trip back - with Petra still coming to terms with what she had been through, and doing her best to care for Aristides, deeply traumatised by the experience of being so greviously tortured. And that was without considering the newfound, almost fervent awe that Petra’s Mechanicum allies now seemed to bestow upon her. Some, upon seeing such a miracle of machine and flesh, even proclaimed her as the true Omnissiah. Yet both Primarchs were aware that they could not stay and dwell on what had been done - the galaxy proper needed their presence. And so, the two sisters bade each other farewell, and Ferra left with her Iron Hands on their own path.
Yet it was an even more uncomfortable homecoming for the 125th as it limped back to Olympia at last. Leaving warp transit after 9 years away. It had been, in some respects, a remarkable achievement - Petra had survived 9 years cut from outside contact or supplies, and her effective stewardship of resources had ensured she had only lost half of the fleet, even when she had been under constant attack. Yet her return to Olympia was not a joyous return… but instead a deeply, deeply depressing one. For when she emerged from realspace, her fleet was very nearly destroyed by Olympia’s orbital defences, and she was greeted not with relief, but with suspicion, joy, and fear. 
That was the first sign for Petra and her allies that their worst fears about what had befallen the rest of the galaxy had been realised. And soon, they would receive confirmation, when Petra finally stepped onto Olympian soil… only to be greeted by her sister, Magnolia the Red. Who filled in all the gaps that Petra had missed, after 9 years without news. She had returned to a galaxy in chaos, and to the news that many of her sisters were very likely dead, or mad, and to the news that half her legion had turned traitor in her absence. And indeed... had truly become monsters, it seemed.
It was terrible news for the exhausted 125th, and for Petra. Yet to her credit, the Lady of Iron did not flinch at the news. Without pause, she threw herself into analysing the new situation… and her conclusion was, once more, suitably grim. Now with a far greater understanding of the Immaterium, she quickly recognised Hathor’s goal, and the goal of the four beings she now knew were the Chaos Gods - to destroy the Emperor, unleash a warpstorm from Terra, and allow the immaterium to fully consume the entire galaxy. And even worse, by the time she had returned… it seemed as if Hathor might have already succeeded. News from Terra suggested that Regalia’s Imperial Fists were already being hemmed in from all sides, under terrible pressure from Hathor’s traitors. It was only a matter of time, it seemed, until the defence of Terra cracked.
With this in mind, Petra quickly convened a council of war. Gathering her legion’s Warsmiths together for the first time in 8 years - an occasion for celebration, were the circumstances not so dire. And there, Petra announced her intentions to undertake one last, desperate gamble. She would take as many volunteers as could be mustered, auxiliary or legionnaire, whatever their species or ability, and make a run for Terra. The path would be treacherous, dangerous, and likely fatal for many involved, but the logic was clear - if Terra were not urgently reinforced, the apocalypse was certain. And in spite of the exhaustion of her legion’s troops, it was a testament to their grit that every single Warsmith in attendance offered themselves for what might very well be a doomed voyage. In the end, however, Petra picked only a few to accompany her to bolster the ranks. Warsmiths Koparnos, Harkor, Timoclea, and Xenophon. They, and some 10,000 Iron Warriors, and 175,000 auxiliae, would run the desperate gauntlet through the Traitors’ battleline, to reinforce Terra.
And so, for a precious few days, the Iron Warriors repaired and refitted. It was just enough time for Petra to see her sister at last, after 8 years of being apart. It was a mournful meeting - Calliphone had, just a few days before Petra’s return, collapsed from the strain of bearing such a heavy burden of responsibility for 8 years. Old, tired, having eschewed rejuvenation treatments… the last biological child of Dammekos beheld her adoptive sister with relief… but exhaustion. Petra could only promise her sister that she would return, and apologise for leaving again so soon, amidst every other thing she had no time to apologise for. And Calliphone could only tell her that she understood. Tragically, they would never see each other again, for Calliphone would succumb to exhaustion not long after Petra departed on her last, desperate journey.
All the while, Aristides stood by, struggling to shake the memories of all he had been through. Worse… had been the fact that the diplomat could not simply forget or move on - for he had been permanently linked to the ship that had once been the source of his trauma. The rechristened Reconstruction may not have been the Beast or the Broken… but Aristides associated the vessel with them both all the same. And it did not help that to truly pilot the vessel, he needed to link himself to the ship’s warring machine spirits, like a princeps sat in a Titan’s chair. Worse still, these clashing spirits, the Hadean and the Thalassian, each represented shards of what he had been. The cold, brutal, calculated Hadean still spoke with the rumbling bluntness of the Beast. The passionate, ferocious, emotive Thalassian still spoke with the rambling aimlessness of the Broken. And the two would not leave him alone. 
Yet they could not leave him alone over a matter such as this. Aristides may have wanted nothing more than to never set foot aboard that cursed vessel, still so filled with reminders of all he had suffered… but the brutal truth, as he soon learnt, was that Petra’s risky gamble was all too likely to fail. Even with all the grit in the world, without support, there was no way for her to run the blockade and reinforce Terra, making it all too likely her forces would be torn to pieces before they could even hit the atmosphere. In short… they needed something powerful enough to, at least temporarily, break a hole in the traitors’ line. And for the Reconstruction to be that linebreaker... the two amalgams of AI and Machine Spirit needed a mediator. The 'Olympian.'
It was to Petra’s great consternation, then, that on the day she was to set out on her desperate quest, Aristides was already stood at the spaceport. Over her protestations, the diplomat swallowed his fears, and boarded the Reconstruction, determined that Petra should not be left to pointlessly gamble her life away. However uncomfortable, however painful, however re-traumatising the experience might be… Aristides was not going to leave Petra to face this alone. 
=== The Siege of Terra ===
"Tell Hathor that ruin has come to her plans. Death, despair, and an end to their madness. Tell Hathor her folly and dark power will come to nothing. Tell her that the empty whispers of her army will fall on deaf ears. Their Dark Masters will die. It will be human reason that will kill them. Tell her that an unbroken wall now stands between her and her prize. Tell her nothing can avail her now." 
- Petra of Olympia, broadcasting on an open channel to the attackers and defenders of the Siege of Terrea, before the landing of her scratch force.So it was that Petra’s small force of Iron Warriors, Mechanicum Skitarii, and auxiliae, left warp transit near the orbit of Mars, just before the start of the siege of Terra. It did not take long for Petra to learn just how dire the news from Terra was. Regalia’s Imperial Fists and Sanguinia’s Blood Angels were effectively trapped on Terra, hemmed in, with Terra’s orbital defences utterly crushed, and only Alakhai Khatun’s White Scars, themselves greatly weakened by years of increasingly exhausting warfare between themselves and amongst other legions, to act as a reserve. Hathor’s final push towards the Imperial Palace seemed imminent - and indeed, Petra had little time to plan for any sort of insertion on Terra with her small relieving force.
And yet, knowing she had little choice, she pressed on - first stopping at Mars, even now descending to the final stages of a brutal civil war, in the process of completely consuming and overwhelming the planet’s hive cities. Heeding distress calls, she ordered a few rapid, lightning strikes, to recover as many assets and allies as she could muster, and withdraw some scant powerful weapons, with which she vainly hoped she might try and counter the sheer weight of numbers that the traitors could bring to bear in titans. And then, mustering her numbers again, she prepared for the treacherous run of the Traitor’s lines.
Yet in the end, it proved far less of a gamble than she had hoped. For Aristides, swallowing the sick feeling that swelled in his stomach at the thought of the engagement, demonstrated the Reconstruction’s power by single-handedly punching a gap in the Traitor’s blockade. Unleashing swarms of drones and strike craft, and with the ship’s prow lance capable of vaporising even the mightiest battleship in one strike, and her macrocannon and plasma broadsides capable of atomising escort vessels, Reconstruction smashed a temporary gap in the traitor's battleline, leading the charge of the small Iron Warrior's fleet. And though he would find himself forced to withdraw, lest he suffer a nervous breakdown, his actions allowed Petra’s entire contingent to land on the battlefield largely unscathed, and the small fleet that had accompanied her to retire in good order, to harass and harry the numerically superior traitor fleet. It was an act of personal courage Petra would never forget from her beloved.
Yet she would have little time to dwell. For by the time her contingent landed, the Imperial Palace’s defences were already under direct assault. To Petra’s horror, Regalia had abandoned the surrounds of the Imperial Palace, with its dense urban environment offering ideal defences, and retreated to the Palace’s walls, which were already facing devastating bombardments. Already, this was having an effect - for the traitors seemed to have overrun the Lion's Gate, the first great obstacle to their prize. Yet Petra swallowed her anger at this tactical blunder, and fought a ferocious battle. Commanding the rearguard of her entire Iron Warriors contingent, it would be the brave auxiliae of Nouvelle Meuse, under the tough, capable Field Marshal Ferdinand Davout, who would gain the glory of ending the first Battle of the Lion's Gate. Gathering every self-propelled gun and armoured vehicle, the Auxiliae poured a curtain of shells on the massed traitors, annihilating theforces they had ammassed for their first attack, and allowing Petra's forces to break into the Palace's walls. The famous 'Charge of the Guns' would become immortalised in Nouvelle Meuse's folklore ever after. Petra's arrival was a shock to her sisters, many of whom had thought her dead for 9 years or more. Yet it was ultimately a welcome one.
For the next 52 days, Petra was a constant presence at the walls. Furiously working to prevent the Traitors from gaining even an inch of ground. Conscious of exactly what would await if they breached the sanctum of the Imperial Palace, and the golden throne. Here, at last, her Iron Warriors covered themselves truly with glory - for even through their great exhaustion, the 10,000 men and women of the IVth never once yielded from their tasks, showing often suicidal devotion to duty. Only one of the four Warsmiths who accompanied Petra would survive the brutal battle - Koparnos would fall having commandeered a broken Imperator titan, and engaged in a furious assault that covered the last of Petra's forces in their withdrawal to the palace, Xenophon would fall calling down artillery on his own position, smashing a thrust of World Eaters towards the Eternity Gate, and Timoclea would perish whilst annihilating an assault by Emperor's Children. Very nearly slaying the infamous Lucius, with brutal and inelegant strikes from her Power Maul, before a lascannon shot laid her low, and she succumbed to her wounds.. Only Warsmith Harkor would survive the brutal battle, which saw Petra’s contingent of 10,000 winnowed down to a mere 3,500.
And when Petra was not in the thick of battle, she was, irrespective of her own wound, tending to vital equipment below the walls. So tireless was she that whispers broke out amongst the defenders that she did not even sleep, for the entire 52 day duration of the Siege of Terra. Whatever the truth of these rumours, she was tireless, and never once left Logos throughout the course of the battle. And it would be whilst she was working on some vital repair… that she would be approached by Sanguinia’s beloved Dove, with a request for a specially prepared, experimental EMP bomb that Dove had heard Petra had been working on. The request surprised Petra… but when Dove explained their reasons… Petra understood. And she would give Dove what they had requested.
By the end of the siege, both sides were exhausted. And Hathor was left frustrated and furious. Petra’s intervention had stymied the Traitor’s attacks, and bogged them down in a grinding campaign of attrition that, for all those Iron Warriors Hathor could still command, would likely take months to resolve. And it was then that the daemonic allies of the Warmaster delivered the even worse news - Reinforcements were finally arriving. From Ultramar, the massive fleets of the Dark Angels and Ultramarines were less than a week away, and the Space Wolves perhaps only a day or two behind that. Even worse, Magnolia the Red, and her mixed force of Thousand Sons, and the surviving, massed Iron Warriors, were a mere single day away, if that - and would soon start to press against the Traitor’s lines. Hathor’s great gamble had failed. The siege could no longer be successful.
And thus came one final gamble. A challenge to the Emperor of Mankind. Hathor lowered the shields on her flagship… and the Emperor responded in kind. As she had always expected, Petra was not asked to accompany the Emperor to this final battle, and instead, continued to direct the war on the ground. And so… she would only be able to sense the events as they occurred, not see them.
But they were clear enough. She could, after all, feel the electricity of the Pulse bomb as it detonated in Dove’s hands. Could feel the sudden electric jolt of fury, and hatred, that suddenly surged through Sanguinia’s sons and daughters… mixed with a mournful scream of grief. She could tell what had happened well enough. And feeling their fury begin to boil over… Petra decided to take advantage. Well aware that Magnolia’s reinforcements had at last begun to emerge from the warp en masse - a sea of ships, of all kinds and types, xeno and human alike. Joining the small fleet that she had first taken to reinforce Terra… to begin an all-out assault. 
And so, Petra lead the defenders of the Imperial Palace in a great sally forth. With a ferocity that shocked, and stunned the traitor legions who had been so certain, until then, of victory. With ruthless, methodical ferocity, Petra let the grief-stricken Blood Angels lead the merciless assault, bringing out every able-bodied man and woman from the garrison in support. And at last… she unleashed her full psychic power on the traitors, having held back for so long to avoid exhausting her energy, or overextending powers she still did not quite understand. With single strikes of Harpax, she smashed corrupted Imperial Knights, tore apart tanks, and unleashed blasts of energy great enough to vaporise daemons. Even with their unnatural allies from the warp, the traitors reeled under the ferocity of this assault. And meanwhile, overhead, Petra’s fleets finally began to engage the Traitor’s battleline - an orbital hammer, crushing the out-of-place traitors against the anvil that was the planet of Terra. 
Yet success would not be hers until the Emperor would strike Hathor down aboard the Vengeful Spirit. For that would fully seal the fate of the traitors. In an instant, the Emperor’s power banished legions of daemons. Rendered daemon engines inert and harmless metal. Swept away the dark powers that had given unnatural life to so many of the traitors’ greatest weapons. Panic set in, and the Traitors began to crack. At first slowly… and then swiftly.
Relentlessly, Petra pursued. Turning retreat into rout, and rout into massacre. Yet as the traitors fled to their dropships, they found themselves facing a new enemy, in the vengeful appearance of Magnolia and Petra’s fleet. Firing on dropships, desperately working to escape the atmosphere, destroying countless numbers of them, and forcing them to spill their contents back to the earth below. It was a crushing defeat, that robbed the traitors of thousands, and practically destroyed the entire traitor auxiliae contingent that had landed on Terra, effectively mown down in retreat, or pulped by orbital strikes. 
By the end… Petra was left standing amidst a field of corpses, choking dust, and rent metal. Exhausted… and close to shattered. It would be Aristides who would find her - staggering off of a shuttle close to mentally broken by how long they had spent, locked in their pilot’s chair aboard the Reconstruction, returned to the terrifying weapon of destruction he had been reduced to under Vashtorr's hammer. And the two held to each other desperately in the ashen, post-battle silence. The galaxy had ben plunged into an uncertain, dark future. Terra had been shattered by war. The dead would be uncountable, and the scars from the Heresy deep. But for just that moment of terrible relief... the only thing that mattered was that they were both alive. 
== Aftermath ==
=== Embrace of Iconoclasm ===
Whatever relief Petra might have gained from the end of the Heresy was short-lived. For the entire 10-year period had been a vast, exhausting undertaking, which had destroyed her legion, and left deep pools of distrust between the Lady of Iron and many of her sisters. The treason of so many of her legion weighed heavily against her in the minds of some, especially Kassandra and Regalia. As for Petra, all those who she had been closest to were either dead, missing, or laid low by its terrible events. Magnolia had been diminished by Malcador, her essence torn into fragments and shards, many of which were still missing. The twins, Alpharia and Omega, had disappeared without a trace, and Alpharia even seemed to be dead. And though Ferra was alive, the grim Medusan had been worn thin, and Petra sensed a seething sickness in her soul at Fulgrim’s betrayal.
To these personal wounds was added a host of grievances, great and small, that had built up in her mind over the Crusade… and a growing sense of guilt that she had begun to build up during her time in the Ghoul Stars. Trudging through the dregs of humanity’s heights in the Dark Age of Technology might have made others think of humanity’s failure during this age… but to Petra, it symbolised a past that had been shattered, shredded, and blocked off by a distant Terran government, with its adherence to an obscurantist ideology that disdained progress, refused to learn from past mistakes, and treated knowledge, instead of ignorance, as the truest danger. The Emperor’s treatment of her still rankled, as did the Emperor’s treatment of her legion as fodder for his grinding conquests. And what she learnt of her heritage, of humanity’s past, and the cosmos, had only made her bitterness grow and grow, until it was a seething pit of emotional tar.
The Emperor’s failings, his refusal to ever admit responsibility, or take responsibility for the part he had played, and Aristides’ influence on her mind, his denunciations of its oppression, its inhumanity, its evils, all of it convinced her of two things. That for humanity to survive, the Imperium must be torn down… and that the Emperor held no further part to play in galactic affairs. Let both pass to history, as traumatic wounds to slowly treat and heal, and to be vilified for what they were. Something new had to be made. It would be this belief that would necessitate her final break with the Imperium.
It would come in the aftermath of the Siege, as the surviving Primarchs who had not fallen to chaos or disappeared, gathered to discuss the next steps they would undertake. It was a fraught gathering, with little joy – for though it might have come as a relief to see that sisters she had thought dead were alive, especially Corvess, such small pleasures would be overshadowed by the misery on display. Freya and El’Leonore had each been gripped by a deep depression, and a sense of profound failure in their inability to intervene meaningfully in the Heresy. Sanguinia was consumed by silent grief. Corvess brooded darkly on her legion’s near extinction. Magnolia had come only reluctantly, feeling the palace’s gaze as a terrible weight. And of course, most terribly of all, there was Hestia. The great, big-hearted giant, who had always been so kind and loving… laid low by a monstrous torture that no one had ever seen. In such an environment, this ‘Grand Council’ could only be dominated by the remaining six Primarchs – Juno Guilliman, Regalia Dorn, Kassandra Kurze, Ferra Manus, Petra herself, and the silent Alakhai Khatun, who had born grievous losses within her host with grim stoicism that no other Primarch matched.
For Petra, the Council was poorly timed. Her dear husband had, after the Siege had ended, collapsed in a nervous breakdown, left to sleep and recover under strict medical observation by apothecaries. Gone from her side was his steadying, soothing influence. His gentle, calming voice, reminding her to be mindful of her temper. And after so long suffering in silence, Petra’s nerves were frayed, and she was about ready to snap. From the first, Petra made clear that she thought the Imperium did not deserve to continue. Reacting sarcastically and disparagingly to deference shown to the Emperor. Thus, when Petra proposed her plan to work on a method to seal the Terran rift and destroy the Emperor, she received little support, and much derision. Derision which caused Petra to decisively snap.
Casting down the mask of amity, the Lady of Iron castigated the entire Imperial project. Openly, without care for those who were listening. It was a bankrupt, rotten, monstrous enterprise, a crime, with complicit falling on all who had taken part in the Crusade. She called out the lies her sisters had told themselves with an unbending ferocity, sparing only Hestia, Sanguinia, and Magnolia, aware of what they had suffered. Yet all her virulent tirade sparked was an argument. Ferra could not believe her sister would turn her back on the mass of humanity, still too inflexible to separate them from the Imperium to which they had been bound. Regalia was incensed by Petra’s denunciation of the entire Imperial project, and tried to outshout Petra, to silence her. But it was Juno, the woman who Petra had thought would surely see the folly of trying to keep the Imperium alive, who delivered the final blow. She made clear that they were here to preserve the Imperium. And to do so to honour the sacrifices paid by those who had defended it.
Such talk of ‘honour’ was too much for Petra to stomach. Bellowing her objection, she predicted, accurately, that before a millennia had passed, the Imperium would be an obscurantist hellhole, drowning in blood. The sacrifices made would mean nothing, the Imperium would feed as much misery as it fought against, and Hathor’s ‘folly’ would prove, in fact, to have been a victory to those ruinous powers who had brought the galaxy to its knees. In her assessment, she was joined by a contemptuous Alakhai, who declared that she agreed with Petra’s assessment, and had no desire to suborn herself to a corpse. And so, together with Magnolia, the three walked out. If their sisters wished to keep this shambling monster of an empire alive, they would do so without them.
Thus, the Iconoclastii were born – a term applied to all those humans not aligned with the Imperium who also publicly spurned the ruinous powers. For Petra, her embrace of independence was a natural consequence of the failures of the Imperium, and the obvious evils of the four, and she assumed that such a conclusion was so obvious, that eventually all her sisters would see it. Yet by the time she had returned to Olympia, the first signs that she and her fellow sisters might be alone in their embrace of rebellion would come from the destruction of Caliban. And the news that The Lioness had disappeared, presumed dead.
It was news that would become bitterly familiar to Petra, as she endured for the next 10,000 years. Her strengthened connection to the immaterium allowing her to gain a longevity that all her sisters had innate access to. One by one, her sisters disappeared, a process she could only watch from afar. The Lioness, missing presumed dead. Kassandra, Juno, and Sanguinia, all slipping into stasis fields or pods. Freya, Ferra and Corvess, all disappearing into the warp, on their own missions, quests… or whims. Even the Khatun, spurring contact with her fellow iconoclasts, would vanish – slipping into the Webway, with so little fanfare. And Hestia simply slipped out of sight – too broken and tortured to bear the galactic limelight any further. And finally, the stalwart, unbending, uncompromising Regalia would eventually disappear, in the darkness of the War of the Beast.
And ever after… Petra would be left to wonder, and stew in self-recrimination. What if, she could not help but ask, she had been just a little more patient? A little less angry, a little less confrontational? Could she have been able to convince her sisters that their connection to the Imperium was folly? Show them all the truth of what they were, what they were becoming… what they could be? Could she have saved them? Protected them? Given them space to heal, or survive? So she would stew on these thoughts forever after. And in time she would learn the hardest lesson she would ever learn – that vindication held no power over guilt or grief. 
=== The Founding ===
Having done what she sought to do, Petra would finally return to her former domain, her Iron Ring, as it threatened to plunge back into the depths of crisis. Calliphone’s able leadership during the Heresy had held the worlds of the Meratara Cluster together, but her death, and Aristides’ incapacity from PTSD, still left the worlds without leadership or purpose. Worse, Petra had unilaterally cut her realm off from the wider galaxy by her declaration that she was turning her back on the Imperium – a declaration that was immediately contested by the Imperial Navy and Army.
But equally, Petra’s realm held distinct advantages to the surrounding, devastated Imperium. Unlike much of the rest of the devastated Segmentum Ultima, The Iron Ring, spurred by ferocious resistance and efforts from its inhabitants, had gotten through the maelstrom of the Heresy largely intact. Government and institutions had not broken down, infrastructure had been prepared, and the efforts of the Iron Warriors in defence of this realm had earned the population’s loyalty. And in this, Aristides had, in his expert management of the Iron Ring before the heresy, bequeathed Petra a government that was stable, efficient, and which could provide for the widely diverse population of the sector. Aristides’ tightrope walk had also ensured that the Iron Ring was a haven for maverick thinkers, intellectuals, and aliens who would have otherwise been purged, providing an influx of technical know-how, and innovative thinkers, which helped compensate for the sheer advantage in resources the Imperium held.
Taking control on the Iron Ring, on her return, Petra set about putting these advantages to work, as best she could. Setting her legion to work in a process of refitting and rebuilding, after such a traumatic experience of the Heresy. Aided by the Mechanicum of Etna-7, who affirmed their loyalty to her and her project, reigniting Martian schisms, and the influx of dissident techpriests that followed, the Lady of Iron bound her domain together by instituting safe passage trade routes, establishing new colonies on the worlds she held firm control over, and building grand arcologies that could house and protect her people, and produce the necessary tools to keep her realm safe. On every planet she laid her eye, she put down plans for mighty metropolises, and grand public works, elevating the condition of life on these worlds to levels unimaginable to the rest of the galaxy.
Her most important project, however, was to establish a solid line of defence, beyond which no external threat could penetrate. The resulting network of void outposts, planets, system defence networks, fortifications, and settled worlds, became known as the Maginot Network – named for the region of Nouvelle Meuse where such defence networks had been modelled and exhaustively tested. Unlike its namesake, the Maginot Network held no gaps for enemies to enfilade, and no flanks to turn. Any invader would be forced to try and rend a breach, engaging in an exhaustive, grinding battle against superior positions. And each garrisoned planet, the so called ‘Maginot Worlds,’ became impenetrable rocks for enemies to crack their teeth on, and critical garrison points and training grounds for Petra’s Iron Warriors to test their mettle on.
Yet Petra was no politician. And she had no love for the exhausting responsibility of day to day politics, and little stomach left to take up the mantle of Tyrant that had nominally been hers. Her goal was to stabilise her realm, and give the realm a chance to breathe. Whilst in the background, she quietly circulated a draft document that had been written by her husband, in a happier time. When her defensive labours were done, Petra declared her belief that it was now time for her to step aside, and let the people she had led govern themselves. The circulated constitutional charter was soon being debated by the first formally elected representative assembly since the Dark Age of Technology, and it would not be long before they would sign the charter, giving birth to the new Confederation of Iron.
Petra would formally hand over her power to the Confederation’s civilian government not long after, declaring her intent to retreat from prominent political life, and only return should the situation be truly dire. She would not slip entirely out of view, nor would she simply disappear – she had no desire to abandon the galaxy, or to give up what she saw as the vital struggle to keep her slice of the galaxy both safe and free – but she did not wish to become the focal point of generations of humans, squabbling over influence. They needed a system that allowed them to aid each other, trade power, and stay safe. And that was what she gave them.
Trading time between the immaterium and the physical world, Petra spent the next century performing a panoply of tasks. One of these, with the aid of even a diminished Magnolia and her legion, was carving an island of stability in the warp. Embracing her newfound powers and heritage and tapping, somewhat uncomfortably, into the burgeoning faith starting to spread of her as the Grey Omnissiah, to push back on the influence of the Chaos Gods and the Emperor. Giving a space where new spirits, energy, and spirituality, uncorrupted and untouched by the otherwise fel energies of the warp, could emerge, and grow, and gain strength and form. Well aware of the danger that the warp could otherwise pose to unshrouded minds, Petra recognised that by pushing back the most corrupting elements of the warp, she could create a safe space for its further study. Petra would also devote herself to collecting shards of Magnolia that had been scattered around, and crushing warbands of chaos Iron Warriors - holding a vendetta against these treasonous sons and daughters.
Yet all the while, Petra came back to the Confederation she had helped found, with her mind on a task she had dreamt of since the earliest days of the Crusade. And one made all the more important by her husband's pain and trauma at all he'd been through. And so, using every piece of technical know-how she had, she would terraform one of the largest worlds in Olympia Majoris, the ironically named Elysia, which had long been a Venusian hothouse, into a verdant, lush paradise world. Elysia would, in turn, become the home of the Iron Warriors main barracks, a land to house the Confederation's military and naval veterans, and a fortified strongpoint covered in verdant and beautiful landscapes. 
And in the center of its main Citadel, she would build a beautiful manor of classical Athenian and Florentine extraction, where she and Aristides could live forever after. Just as they had always dreamed of building, in quiet moments during the past several hundred years. A home to last forever, a home they could truly call their own. And there... she would devote herself to caring for him, and helping him back on his feet. Doing all she could to be as patient and kind to him as he had been to her, that someday he might be himself again, after all the nightmares he had suffered. Holding him during his frequent nightmares, being with him in his darkest moments, and reminding the man that he was safe, loved, and never alone, in spite of all he had been through. And perhaps, she imagined, if she could give him a little peace, a little bit of all the love he had given her... she might pay back a fraction of the love she'd been given from him.
=== The Confederation of Iron ===
The Confederation of Iron stretches across the entire Meratara Cluster, and slightly beyond it, across 300 star systems, and various rogue planets or independent stars in the cluster. Whilst paltry in size compared to the Imperium, the Confederation is one of the largest independent entities outside of its influence. An economic and scientific juggernaut in per capita terms, the Confederation boasts an advanced, sophisticated economy, a diverse and multicultural population that spans several species and subspecies, and, uniquely, a system of free, open, and dynamic politics.
Creating such a society was not the project of overnight work, and required the bridging of several obstacles that might have otherwise scuttled the entire project. For whilst the Meratara Cluster’s worlds had the advantage of being in a relatively tight stellar neighbourhood, anchored in close proximity by a large black hole, distance would frustrate any attempt to create a centralised state structure. It would be Aristides who would devise a solution to this problem, decentralising power across the Confederation’s various worlds, whilst uniting their leaders in a common coordination council. Thus, where the Imperium was forced to rely on delegating powers of governance to nobles, Petra’s Iron Ring fostered a cooperative approach that stressed collaboration, and adherence to common principles.
This basic political and infrastructural framework was strengthened, by Petra upon her return to the Iron Ring. Creating a common network of communications by establishment of quantum communication relays, Petra was able to cut communication time from one side of her realm to the other to a matter of a week’s delay, whilst establishing astropathic choirs on key worlds to allow for emergency messages. Thus, information was able to spread quickly and efficiently across the Meratara Cluster, without being corrupted or blocked by malign influences. Between this and the establishment of safe shipping lanes and routes through the warp, Petra had allowed for people on very different worlds to receive the same information, in galactic terms, with relative simultaneity. As a result, the Confederation of Iron was able to adopt a common constitutional framework without succumbing to the need to adopt feudal, or completely autonomous, institutions.
The Confederation today is a democratic, asymmetrical confederation, with its component governments bound by a common legal and political framework. The Confederal Constitution sets down basic laws that all governments within are bound to follow, as well as the Confederation Council’s powers and obligations. The basic unit of the Confederation is the Star System, with each Star System having extensive rights for self-governance and economic development. The Confederation Council, under its own constitution, is only given power over a few areas of policy – defence, commerce and trade, galactic infrastructure and all ‘non-system colonial and economic development,’ and it collects a revenue from each Star System for this purpose.
The Star Systems themselves can vary widely in terms of basic political institutions and composition. Take two competing examples: the Olympia Majoris system is a system of six planets and two gas giants, all of them extensively developed and populated, comprising the mountainous urban world of Olympia, the paradise and training world of Elysia, the extensively terraformed agriworld of Asphodel, and many more besides. Olympia Majoris’s system government is, itself, a federal system, delegating responsibilities to individual planets. By contrast, the planetary government of Tikhana, a sparsely populated forest world once commanded by Knightly Houses, controls the entirety of its system, Revin Minoris, and is effectively an elective monarchy, with the populace electing one of the heads of each knightly house to the position of Regis for 50 year terms.
These divergences help contribute to the fluidity and dynamism of political opinion and policy across the Confederation, and have prompted a deeply sophisticated system of law and policy to help bridge the gaps that exist between them. Whilst system governments are, for instance given substantial powers of self-government, systems are also allowed to cede certain rights to the Confederation Council, were it is seen as pertinent for their own, or the national interest. Whilst most system governments, for example, maintain their own System Defence Forces, with naval elements to protect intra-system trade, these defence forces have all ceded ultimate sovereign authority to the Confederation’s central government. It is the Confederation Council that sets the limits for each system’s defence forces, and which restricts what equipment and ships can be acquired, to maintain a monopoly of force.
The Confederation Council itself is comprised of representatives from all of the Confederation’s system governments, a 311-strong representative body, with each Councillor elected by the inhabitants of each system. The Confederation Council is the legislative body, responsible for drawing up common trade policy and criminal laws, passing decrees to maintain and establish new infrastructure, and holding the Iron Ring publicly accountable. These Councillors, in turn, elect the core of the Confederation Council’s executive body, the Iron Ring, selecting its Chairman, Speaker, and Attorney-General.
Together with the system governments, these three then select the remaining executive councillors – The Admiral of the Fleet, the Councillors of Defence, Trade & Commerce, Colonisation,  Infrastructure, Interspecies Affairs, and Science. Alongside these, the council incorporates the Strategos of the Iron Warriors, the Field Marshal of the Confederation Army, the Arcologis Fabricator Magos of Etna-7, and the Director of the Special Intelligence Service. A space is also reserved for, but not always occupied by, the Farseer at the head of Craftworld Narellan’s Seer Council. For Narellan occupies an odd place both within, and outside, the Confederation’s political order, a sign of the separation between the alderai and humanity… but also of the Confederation’s selfless sheltering of the Craftworld, during the chaos of the Heresy.
Together with these elected organs, the Confederation is governed by its Judiciary, and the Confederation High Court. Charged with protecting the constitution’s integrity, and protecting the rights and liberties of the Confederation’s citizenry, the court has long been a bastion against despotic tendencies. Its judges are selected personally by the Attorney-General, on the advice of the full bench, and draw on deep wells of experience in the codified legal traditions Aristides handed down to the Confederation. The rigorous selection process has also been strengthened by the implementation of Eldar rituals to strengthen the mental fortitude of each justice against possible corruption. In the long history of the court, no Justice has ever fallen to the ruinous powers, strengthening its role as a constitutional bulwark.
Yet the best line of defence against subversion is, and has always been, the Special Intelligence Service (the SIS). First founded by Calliphone, to deal with the suspicious waves of unrest that seemed to spontaneously emerge around strange cult-like bodies during the Heresy, the SIS has a long experience in combatting the agents of the Ruinous powers and the Imperium alike. They are the invisible shield between perdition and despotism, ruthlessly rooting out chaos corruption and Inquisitorial infiltrators alike. They have sent countless daemons back to their fel masters, crushed cult after cult, and even turned whole radical Inquisitorial chapters into double agents.
==== Prominent Worlds of the Confederation of Iron: ====
* Olympia: The homeworld of both Petra and Aristides, Olympia is a sprawling, mighty, urbanised world, and the effective capital of the Confederation of Iron, Olympia is the capital world of the Olympia Majoris system, and one of its most populous and productive planets. Host to a sprawling population of well over 24 billion souls, with its capital still in the verdant riverine metropolis of Lochos, Olympia is famous for its culture, learning, and shipbuilding, aided by the massive planetary rings that surround the planet, which Petra took from the world of Mechanicum schismatics. These three rings contain another billion souls in permanent residence, and act as a massive port and shipbuilding station, whose productive capacity has risen so far that it even challenges the mighty Jovian shipyards. Initially the formal capital of the Confederation, the Iron Ring’s determination to prove its independence of Olympia has since lead to its formal functions being moved to a mobile space station, which can travel around the Confederation’s worlds. Yet this has not arrested the seemingly irresistible gravity Olympia exercises on its neighbours, simply by virtue of its sheer size and economy. Yet Olympia also stands as a stark challenge to the Imperium – for it is no world of hive arcologies. Instead, Olympia has maintained its biosphere, accommodating its vast population in grand, well-designed metropolises that are full of some of the finest buildings in the galaxy. It is a prosperity that has bred considerable loyalty amongst the population, and also considerable talent. Olympia boasts the highest level of university graduates in the sciences out of all the worlds, and also sends great numbers of its men and woman to serve in the Confederation Army, as well as providing the majority of aspirants for the Iron Warriors.
* Elysia: If Olympia is paradise to the average inhabitant of the Imperium, then Elysia is surely heaven. The second colonised world of the Olympia Majoris system (with the cooler agriworld Asphodel the fourth, and the heat-blasted, tidally locked forge moon Tartarus the first), Elysia was terraformed from a former Venusian hothouse world into a verdant paradise planet, to house in peace and tranquillity the veterans of the Confederation army. It also performs the role of a resort world - lush, relaxing, and serene – and paradoxically, also serves as the headquarters of the Iron Warriors. The towering Grand Citadel that sits amidst the highest peaks of Elysia’s mountain ranges is a complex of immense military might, and the spiritual home of the Confederation’s military and naval establishment, who work hand in hand with the transhuman men and women who dedicate themselves to the Confederation’s defence. It is also on Elysia that Petra and Aristides’ grand mansion can be found, in the comforting confines of Elysia’s capital, Lethe. Beautiful and sedate, with a public library at one end, the Lady of Iron and her Velvet Glove reside there when they are not out in the galaxy, sheltered by the guns of the Iron Warriors’ Grand Citadel.
* Etna-7: The beating industrial heart of the Confederation of Iron, and the home to the schismatics of the Grey Mechanicum, Etna-7 was once the home of the Mechanicus Arcologis, followers of the Omnissiah dedicated to geology, terraforming, and construction of galactic megaprojects. Aided by Petra in recovering their lost knowledge during the Great Crusade, the Lady of Iron forged an enduring bond with the techpriests of Etna-7 that would lead them into complete schism with Mars, and into their own worship of the Primarch who had delivered them from ignorance and despotism. Etna-7 has become the home of a sprawling network of shrines to the Omnissiah in Grey (or the Omnissiah in Iron or Steel, as she can be alternatively known), as well as vast factories producing every sort of good and weapon known to mankind. Unlike the Adeptus Mechanicus, however, the Grey Mechanicum’s culture is xenophilic, and innovative, prising new discoveries and rediscoveries, and the cycle of scientific improvement. Etna-7 is also home to the Academy of Techseers, and their esoteric art of psychic manipulation and engineering has driven vast advancements in the production of Immaterial Engines.
* Nouvelle-Meuse: One of many colonised worlds in the Maginot network, Nouvelle-Meuse is famous for its fractious, passionate local politics, its lush and verdant meadows… and its culture of military stoicism, fortitude, and ferocious defence. With their trademark blue uniforms and warden helms, and their doctrines of artillery fire, positional warfare, and aggressive forward defence, this is a world of conscript ferocity, lion-hearted pride, and stubborn adherence to comrade and regiment. Bolstered by a system of obligatory conscription, Nouvelle-Meuse’s citizen army has long formed the backbone of the Confederation’s defensive might. It’s reputation is fearsome indeed, for during the heresy, it repelled, without corruption or defeat, two attacks by the Space Wolves, and a full-blown incursion of Word Bearers. Proud, ferocious, unbowed, these scions of gallic resilience have not, and will never, give ground. In the words of the famed Field Marshal Ferdinand Davout, “Ils ne passeront pas!”
* Refuge: The most diverse of the planets of the Confederation, Refuge was once a small, backwater, barely settled planet called Tennant. It was Aristides who saw the value of this world as a possible refuge, for it had a mild climate, suitable to almost every species in the Milky Way. And so, he earmarked this world to be used as a refugee camp, first for humans fleeing persecution… but then, increasingly, for abhumans, mutants, and aliens fleeing the violence of the Crusade. Thus, Refuge became a beacon of hope and security in dark times, and a haven for alien species that would otherwise have surely gone extinct. Here, one can find communities of Diasporex and Kinebrach, alongside mutants who fled dark and dingy existences in the Imperium for the promise of safety and liberty. Refuge is what it always has been - a home and haven. Taking in the galaxy’s poor, huddled, yearning masses, and sheltering them on its windswept plains.
* Sovurra: An icy polar planet, Sovurra was initially thought an uninhabited death world by the Imperial explorators who uncovered it. But in fact, it was and is a thriving metropolis, home to the abhumans that have spread across similar balls of ice and cold across the galaxy, the Qinut, or Homo Sapiens Arctica. A spacefaring, bold, calculating people, the Qinut had evolved to thrive on icy worlds, with naturally cold body temperatures and a resistance to extreme cold and heat alike, and blood red eyes that could resist snow blindness, and take in information even in blizzard conditions. Aristides would fold Sovurra into Petra’s realm deftly, giving the Confederation access to these intelligent, warp-resistant, and cunning people. The Qinut make up a great deal of the operatives in the SIS, and a not insubstantial portion of the Confederation’s Naval officer corps, and even comprise two Grand Battalions of Iron Warriors specialised in arctic warfare… though the differences between Qinut and Human genomes are enough that the pool of potential aspirants for such an elevation is near zero.
* Craftworld Narellan: At once the Confederation’s neighbour, ally, and component, Craftworld Narellan’s relationship with the Confederation of Iron stretches back to the days of the Heresy, when the Qinut Grand Admiral Talon rescued a strange, large ship greater in size and sophistication than any vessel of the Imperial Navy, from an attack by corrupted astartes of the Emperor’s Children. He had, accidentally, rescued the small Alderai craftworld of Narellan from destruction. Bereft of its seer council for guidance, its infinity circuit ravaged and nearly destroyed, the Autarch of Narellan, Lethalin Ravenwind, accepted an offer to relocate the craftworld to the heart of the Confederation, for emergency repair and rest. Ever since, Narellan has remained within the Confederation’s borders, and has even accepted a role within the Confederation’s government – though, reflecting the fickle nature of Alderai human relations, their commitment always waxes and wanes. Yet though mutual incomprehension and Eldar arrogance might sometimes marr the relationship between the craftworld and the Confederation, one cannot undersell the friendship that craftworld shares with their erstwhile protectors. Safe from outside attack, Narellan is the sole Asuryani craftworld to have grown, instead of shrunk, over the past 10,000 years. Narellan has slowly expanded into a true craftworld, guarding a network of maiden worlds and exodite worlds within the Iron Confederation as their stewards, with the assistance of their Confederation counterparts. Whatever tensions exist between the two peoples, it is a far cry from the active hostility that defines Eldar and Human relations elsewhere in the galaxy.
== Appearance ==
Standing an even 10 feet tall, and with a body toned from years on the campaign, Petra of Olympia is an imposing presence on any battlefield. With a stride at a sprint that could keep pace with a tank, and a heavily muscled build, Petra in motion can come across like a freight train, unstoppable and terrifying. And as she is most often seen in her Logos, her terrifying battle armour, which grants her an additional foot of height, she can even rival her giant sister Hestia in height. And with the way she often links her mind through impulse cables to the litany of tactical systems installed in her Logos, it easy for her to come across as an inhuman monster of war.
Yet out of her armour, Petra is much less intimidating. Once, in her youth on Lochos, she found herself forced to wear the classic outfit of an Olympian Warsmith, with the ceremonial cape of metal plates and the high shoulderboards indicating rank and status. Now that she no longer has to saddle herself with such symbols of office, she prefers instead to wear casual, loose-fitting clothing, particularly trousers and chitons buckled by simple belts.
With striking blue-coloured eyes, and a legendarily piercing stare, Petra's other distinguishing feature is her unique hair. Like many Olympian women, Petra was raised to wear her hair long, in a braid that would eventually come down to her shoulderblades. Yet at her age of majority, she would shave the sides of her head to undercuts, and cease to groom the hair atop her head, giving her hair a military appearance. 
Within the warp, her unshielded essence often takes on the form given to her by the worship of the followers of the Grey Omnissiah - the band of Mechanicum who came to see her, and not the Emperor, as the embodiment of the machine god in mortal form. Mechandendrites form on her shoulderblades and back, of various kinds, and her arms gain a metallic bulk and size that makes them almost appear as mountains. It is in this form too that on occassion a halo of metal may form behind her head, comprised of various pieces of metal machinery and machine spirits, instinctively bowing to her unseen will.
== Personality ==
Though Petra spent nearly her entire life at the business end of a siege, digging trenches and razing cities, it was easy for her fellow Primarchs to forget she possessed a mind as advanced and gene-enhanced as any of her sisters. The Lady of Iron might not have possessed the Warp-lore of Magnolia the Red or the leadership qualities of Hathor, but what she lacked in tact or emotional intelligence, she made up for in every other aspect. Gifted with an instinctual affinity for technology, she was able to debate the finer points of the most esoteric arts, and the most advanced and specialised sciences, with the highest placed Adepts of the Mechanicum. 
Though Petra possessed a calculating mind well-suited to the highly technical aspects of siege warfare, she was not a simple journeyman, for she also possessed the soul of a craftsman. Over the centuries, Petra created a precisely ordered collection of genius to rival any work of Magnolia, Hestia, Ferra Manus, or Juno Guilliman. Her inner sanctum contained a superb collection of precisely reconstructed stonework, multiple murals and painted works of art as well as hundreds of rolled parchments containing architectural wonders of her own design. Immense drawing desks bore architectural plans for grand pavilions, magnificent amphitheatres, complex industrial infrastructures, vast hives of habitation, impregnable citadels and ornate palaces to rival, and even surpass, any dreamt up by the Emperor, or her sisters.
No architect of Terra had ever envisaged structures of such grandeur, and no fantasy of design had thought to render such magical buildings into life. That they had sprung from the hand of the Lady of Iron should have surprised no one, but the idea that a being so mired in destruction was capable of sublime creation seemed beyond comprehension. One of Petra's most notable examples was the design of the amphitheatre used during the Council of Nikaea. It had never been intended as a place of trial and censure, but an arena for mighty games of strength and skill. The use the Emperor had made of his creation shamed Petra, and its destruction would forever enrage her.
She would put all of this genius on display in her reconstruction of the Iron Confederation after the end of the Heresy. At last, no longer bound to an Imperium she despised, she turned her realms into gorgeously designed, sublime realms, with grand works everywhere. She offered designs for theatres, parliamentary buildings, judicial buildings, and more besides, creating her very own style of sublimely simple architecture. It would be on Elysia, where she would place the Rampart of Eternity, and construct what she foresaw as an eternal home for herself and her beloved Aristides, that she would show of her skill most wonderfully. Her craft was placed all over the paradise world, integrated seamlessly into an unbreakable series of fortifcations that could house her Iron Warriors. At the centre of it all would stand a rebuilt, mighty amphitheater of the kind she had built for Nikaea, a place where she hoped, one day, that all her sisters could finally congregate once more in peace. And of course, her personal palace. A beautiful blend of classical Athenian and renaissance Florentine architecture. A palazzo and villa rolled together. Peaceful, and truly their own.
Yet Petra's genius was not only confined to the drawing board, for she had also crafted hundreds of delicately wrought machines, trinkets and gadgets of such fine construction that it seemed impossible one so huge had modelled them. A silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head, gilded Fabergé eggs, fabulously wrought birdcages that would never again confine a living creature, and miniature war machines competed for space alongside automata of all shapes and description -- animal, mechanical, human and alien. She would place this genius on display in the gifts she gave to her sisters, on the suggestion of Aristides, as signs of affection. Each was a demonstration of the observant, diligent, perfectionist soul who lay under the iron mask, and spoke to the fact that Petra held greater powers of perception than many of her sisters gave her credit for. The gift she made of a chisel for breaking shackles to Atalanta, for instance, or the beautifully painted knotted Fenrisian armband she gave to Freya, spoke to their cultures and pasts, and to deeds that held special significance to them in particular.
Indeed, Petra's inner sanctum was a treasure trove of wonders, miraculous creations and the ancient history of Old Earth preserved in a hermetically sealed environment. Her collection would form the backbone of the collection of the Iron Confederation's Museum of Galactic History, and comprise, in whole or in part, a great portion of literature and text that might have otherwise been lost to time. Yet she found such knowledge and treasures difficult to share at times, spurred by her own perfectionism, but also a deep-seated possessiveness over her own knowledge, that it would take her a long time to let go of. The Lady of Iron was also able to speak multiple xenos languages, which included a number of dialects of the Eldar tongue as well as the proto-speech of guttural barks and grunts that comprised the Ork language. Such knowledge would impress the Alderai she would come to know - for unique amongst most humans, she could replicate the distinctive grammatical and tonal patterns of Alderai speech.
Exacting attention to detail served Petra well in his centuries of life. In war and at peace, he revelled in the minutiae of any given task, be it reducing an alien fortress to rubble or establishing the golden ratio within every portion of a theoretical design. Atalanta had berated him for wasting time on irrelevant details, while Guilliman had lauded her for her thoroughness. Two very different characters, two very different opinions. Both were correct in their own way, but neither fully appreciated Petra's methodology or the bitter drive behind her exacting preferences. The need to be better, the urge to prove her worth beyond taking the metal to the stone. Petra was a craftsman, a scientist, a dreamer and innovator, and to be worthy of the appellation, every piece of work that bore her name must be judged for as long as it stood. Her legacy was to leave no undertaking unfinished. Every task was approached as though it might be her last. Each duty and project another chance for advancement, refinement, and improvement of her craft.
Despite her gruff exterior and stoic demeanour, Petra showed a paternal affection for her gene-wrought sons and daughters, though on a far more reserved level than displayed by the Primarchs of the other Space Marine Legions. Yet such affection was strained by a sense of ingrained disgust in herself and them - for they had been designed as weapons of war, and Petra had always viewed war as a dirty, despoiling thing. In manners of discipline, the Lady of Iron was not a warrior who dealt with her subordinates with the easy familiarity some of the other Primarchs were said to enjoy. War was not a game, and she held little love for such aspects of warfare like morale, or spirit in battle - such baubles were pointless in the face of cold application of force. 
Yet, throughout her life, Petra would also gain a reputation as an honourable warrior. Willing to stay within certain boundaries of decency... unless her foes held no such qualms. In this, Aristides was a key influence - for he worked tirelessly on her mind, to get her to appreciate that war might be cruel, but she did not need to be in all of its applications. 
Later in her life, as the medical expertise of her Iron Confederation improved, she would begin to actively seek independent study of her body and mind, as a way to better understand what had, for a long time, been clumsy self-diagnoses. To little surprise, formal testing diagnosed the Lady of Iron as having a high-functioning form of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, which offered an explanation for her ability to fixate on specific topics, her impeccable skill in pattern recognition, and yet her blindness with social cues. It also provided an explanation as to why the woman sought out the comfort of certain noises, and why she had such a strong sensory aversion to scratchy fabrics. Such a diagnosis also offered an explanation for her dogged, binary style of thinking, for her constant search for certainty, and for infamous temper, which would flare up and whither away like the rising and falling of an ocean tide.
Awareness, and the influence of genuine confidantes such as Aristides, would gradually induce a change in her over 10,000 years. For Petra would become better at expressing herself to others, and understanding them as well. In addition, she would also become more comfortable with the inherent uncertainties of life, and less rigid in her thinking, or her demands on others. Such a change made her more merciful, more respectful of common humanity, and more willing to accept the coexistence of the rational with the spiritual. And she would even find herself unable to hate her sisters who had stayed at the Emperor's side, or embraced the dark madness of chaos. Understanding of their falls, however tragic or misguided, bred empathy in her that was not easy for her to shake. A melancholy would seep into her soul after so long spent without so many of her sisters, enhanced by a sense of profound loss of the only family she had ever held. For contrary to popular belief, the Lady of Iron had not been the emotionless, cold woman she had portrayed herself as. She had always felt, and felt deeply, and searingly so, about those she cared about. It took loss and time to make her understand just how many she had cared about.
=== Relationships: ===
Renowned for a taciturn, blunt, and grim manner, Petra did not make friends or establish bonds easily. With little understanding of the ways of small talk, or the diplomatic soft skills of establishing rapport, or building trust through speech, it was easy for many within the Imperium and outside it to dismiss the woman as a simple misanthrope. Uncomfortable in the company of others, disdaining those who she could not use as tools, and could not engage with on an intellectual level. Her discomfort with diplomatic functions and political festivals was legendary, and won her few friends amongst the Imperial aristocracy, or the elite of her own domain.
Yet to imagine Petra was therefore cut off from her sisters would be a mistake. For, driven in part by the careful coaching of her husband, and in part by the honesty she was able to prompt in some of her sisters, Petra would indeed forge strong, and often enduring bonds with them. The key to getting close to her was, as her husband understood well, patience, and a willingness to push past her blunt mannerisms, engaging her all the while with honesty. For whilst she did not make friends easily, her word and bond, once given, were as iron. Unflinching, unbreakable, and enduring through any storm. 
For all the strain and pain that would later develop between Petra and her sisters, each of them would still hold a place in her iron heart. This would be exemplified by the gifts she presented to each of her sisters, meant to forge a strong and enduring bond. A summary of her relationship with each can be found in the table below:
Primarch and Legion 	Relationship with Primarch 	Relationship with Primarch's SO 	Gift Given to the Primarch
1st Legion: El'Leonore and her Squire 	Given the mutual reserve both Primarchs showed, El'Leonore and Petra did not form an instinctive, instantaneous bond. Infamous for her secretive nature, Leonore and Petra would not grow close. Yet they would come to understand each other, especially after Petra gifted the Lioness of Caliban with the throne that even now adorns the bridge of the Invincible Reason. Their relationship was one of strained, but mutual, respect. Such respect might explain how Leonore would be fooled into handing over a series of siege guns to Warsmith Forrix - for the traitor would play on the Lioness' grief at Petra's disappearance to attain them. This respect would be sorely tested in the aftermath of Petra's decision to abandon the Imperium, but there is little evidence as to Leonore's precise reaction to Petra's stinging words, for she would fall in the siege of Caliban soon after. 	Though Petra and Squire seldom met, the Lady of Iron was one of the first in the galaxy to know of this best kept secret of the Lioness of Caliban. For when she had finished her work on Leonore's throne, she was surprised to recieve a request from the woman that, alongside a few other, minor alterations, Petra should make a second, smaller throne to sit alongside the first... with dimensions curiously similar to those of the 'bodyguard' that worked alongside her sister. Having extensively studied Caliban's culture, she knew a consort throne when she saw one - and so knew straight away what the purpose of this small seat was. When she revealed this to Leonore, the Lioness asked that Petra promise not to speak of it to anyone else - and, ever true to her word, Petra would uphold that promise. 	To her regal, courtly sister, Petra would gift an impressive throne to sit on the bridge of the Invincible Reason. Tall, princely, and modelled on numerous examples of Calibanite thrones she studied, she would drape the tall, imposing, stiff-backed alabaster and obsidian stonework in lion skins. Flanked on either side by two golden Lions Rampant, Petra painstakingly embossed El’Leonor’s heraldic crest on the seat’s back by hand. At Leonore's request, Petra would modify the chair to hide a hidden gun compartment under the left arm rest, and build a smaller version - a consort's throne for her Squire.
2nd Legion: [REDACTED] 	[REDACTED] 	[REDACTED] 	[REDACTED]
3rd Legion: Fulgrim and her Muse 	Though the two would clash on many other points, it would be to Fulgrim that Petra would turn at her most embarrassing, terrifying moment - when she desperately needed advice on how to convince her feelings to her beloved Aristides of Solonica. Yet Fulgrim's advice would not prove particularly helpful - for the renowned aesthete recommended Petra train herself in witticisms and classically romantic gestures that Petra found grating and dishonest. In the end, however, it all worked out, and Petra did not hold the mistake against her sister. Fulgrim's actions during the heresy, however, would sever whatever goodwill had existed between the two - her fall to chaos, and heinous torture of Hestia proving too much for Petra to accept. 	Shy, retiring, and secretive, Muse and Petra rarely met, though the two had relatively friendly relations, as in laws. 	To the Phoenician, Petra would gift a handmade mirror, rimmed in silver, gold, and lilac trim. The reverse was made of a special compound to ensure the mirror would never delaminate, and the image produced could never be distorted or warped by time. In addition, a small lever was installed that could subtly change how it reflected light, so as to manipulate the shadow, contrast, clarity, or even colour saturation, of the reflection. Unknown to Petra, a shard of Fulgrim's uncorrupted soul would be trapped in a fragment of the mirror, shattered on her wedding night. Even now, her Muse searches for the fragment.
5th Legion: Alakhai Khatun and her Whirlwind 	Embracing her status as the outside and outrider, Alakhai Khatun and Petra did not have much association with each other beyond the most perfunctory. Petra found the woman's mind impenetrable, and her demeanour difficult to pierce or parse. It came as a surprise, then, that the Khatun would take her side during her argument with her sisters after the Heresy. Even so, the Khatun would not join her fellow Iconoclastii, and would disappear not long after. 	Petra and Whirlwind did not know each other well enough to have a close relationship. 	To the Khatun, Petra would gift A jetbike, with a built-in refractor field. With an unfailing grav engine, tuned for maximum speed and silence, the jetbike was painted white and red, with small decorative medallions placed all over the outside. On the back, a replica of the Khatun’s horsehair spirit banner was constructed, that wherever she may go, all may know of her spirit, fiery and untamed. In addition, Petra would knit a tapestry that might serve as a star chart for her lover. The colour on it has never dulled, and the knots of the stitching have never broken.
6th Legion: Freya Russ and her Slayer 	Though at times Freya thought of Petra as a rigid, unfeeling flintheart, and Petra thought of Freya as a drunken oaf, the two would come to see each other as sisters, by blood and oath. Though their bond was not the closest they held, they learned to take a certain degree of comfort in each others' company during the Crusade, and even formed a suitable working relationship - though at times boorishness by either party created tension. What Freya thought of Petra's decision to split from the Imperium is unknown, for the Wolf Queen and Petra never did meet again after that meeting on Terra. 	During the destruction of WAAAAAGH!!! Mashogg, Slayer would gain the eternal respect of Petra for intervening on her behalf against the Imperial Remembrancers. Shamefully, her key role in crushing the fortifications of the Orks had been reduced to that of a nameless 'comrade in arms' in the histories of the Space Wolves and White Scars alike. Yet Slayer, in his own oral history of the Crusade, would give Petra full credit, and attempt to force the remembrancers to alter their accounts. The skald would ever be a friend to Petra, and the Iron Warriors. 	To the Wolf Queen of Fenris, Petra would gift a knotted Fenrisian armband. Crafted from wrought, polished iron, the motifs tell the tale of one of Freya’s sagas from her time as the Wolf Queen. Beautifully coloured, using dyes made of ground up crystal, the inside of the armband contains an advanced refractor field - for Petra could not create a simple trinket without giving it at least some purpose
7th Legion: Regalia Dorn and her Magister 	Much can be said about the bitter relationship between Regalia and Petra. The former an idealist and true believer in the Imperial cause, the latter a cynic and pragmatist, who learnt to despise the ideals of the Crusade. They would squabble, fight, and argue throughout their lives, over things both petty and childish... and also things that were consequential and terrible. The worst of these arguments would also be the most consequential - for in the immediate aftermath of the heresy, Petra would castigate all the loyalists, but especially Regalia, for their allegiance to the bankrupt project that was the Imperium. Had it not been for her Magister, Regalia might well have doomed her whole legion in a crusade for Petra's head. Even so... Petra would miss Regalia most of all her sisters in the end. For she would have the most regrets towards her. 	Though at first Thomas Buchanan, Regalia's Magister, would win Petra's trust through competence, she would increasingly find something about the man she did not like as time wore on. Whether it was simply a meaningless gut feeling, or an instinct for some... serpentine instinct for deceit, Petra could not at first say. Magister would hold Petra's respect for almost the entirety of the Heresy. The man would, however, lose this respect by its end, when it was revealed he had enlisted one of Petra's naval officers as a spy on her and her husband. It was not the espionage per se that rankled Petra... but the deceit, the lie, and the treason. Petra would never trust, or speak to, the Magister, ever again. 	To the Praetorian of Terra, Petra would try and gift a set of hand-crafted architectural tools and engineering instruments, as well as a bronze and gold-embossed drafting board. The border of the board was inscribed with laurel wreaths and the iconography of Inwit, and it was large enough to accommodate drawings for planetary structures. In spite of their fine make, they would never be used - for Regalia assumed the tools were some slight on her architectural skills. In the resulting argument, Petra would smash the crystal tripod she had painstakingly crafted for her sister in a furious rage.
8th Legion: Kassandra Curze and her Morgenstern 	The Night Haunter and the Lady of Iron's relationship could be described, at the best of times, as terse. Kassandra's reputation, after all, was infamous, and Petra had heard plenty of stories of her inhuman viciousness. Thus, Petra was disposed to treat Kassandra as a nuisance - an attack dog the Emperor kept on too long of a leash. Kassandra similarly saw Petra simply as an Imperial steamroller, and held little sympathy for whatever gnawing angst was growing in her heart over the Crusade. Yet there would be moments of reconciliation and understanding - especially when Petra learnt that Kassandra, much like her, held a deep-seated protective urge towards the one who had given her such a sense of protectiveness. Kassandra even seemed to understand Petra's decision, though she disagreed with it. She would part with Petra with words that would infuriate, torment, and play on her mind ever after: "May your vindication comfort you, sister. You'll need it." 	Though Petra and Morgenstern would never meet in person - the cold Vindicare assassin never once making himself known to the Lady of Iron - Petra would nonetheless prove instrumental in safeguarding him from harm, crafting him the cruel blades he would wield in the service to the 8th Legion. 	Initially, Petra did not believe there was anything she could gift the Night Haunter. She tried to concieve of gifts... but failed, utterly, abandoning her attempt to make some sort of poisoner's ring. Yet she would receive a commission from a desperate Curze for two adamantium blades - Curze explained, tearfully, that she needed them for the only person in the galaxy who seemed to care for her. And that no one else would make them. Initially unhappy with being asked to build weapons, Petra was non-committal… until she slept on the idea. And noticed just how much she empathised with Curze’s desperation to protect someone that mattered to her. Two weeks later, Curze’s flagship would receive a package containing two adamantium blades. Each sharpened so that they would never dull, capable of being fitted to a Vindicare’s belt, and with one carrying an in-built refractor field generator… and the other having an energy field.
9th Legion: Sanguinia and her Dove 	Endlessly patient, and with a kindness that stretched to all of her sisters, Sanguinia would end up forging a strong bond with the Lady of Iron. It was hardly unique amongst the bonds forged between sisters, but Petra was glad to consider the Angel of Baal a friend, and could not help but feel dismayed that she was passed over for the position of Warmaster. Of all her sisters, she would regret leaving Sanguinia to the Imperium the most - a regret tinged with guilt and sorrow at the loss of the Angel's darling Dove. 	Petra's respect for the apothecary Artorius ran deep, reinforced by the stories she heard of the man's dedication, persistence, and ferocious devotion to saving lives. It would be this respect that would prompt Petra to agree to provide Artorius with the experimental EMP grenade he would use on Hathor on the Vengeful Spirit. Petra would feel guilty about it forever after, especially after she saw Sanguinia weep for her fallen lover. 	To the Angel of Baal, Petra would gift a statue of Sanguinia and her Dove. One of Petra’s finest works of sculpture, Petra used perspective and shadows to make her subjects appear nestle closer together in a warm, tight embrace. The statue itself, still stood in the Blood Angels fortress monastery, is made of a special compound, that will never rust or decay and never wear down under raging sands (a consideration Petra thought of, given Baal). Sanguinia's wings are comprised of crystaline feathers that act as a wind-chime in the desert winds. Playing haunting music as the hot wind blows through them.
10th Legion: Ferra Manus and her Anvil 	Save Magnolia, Petra was closer to no other Primarch than the infamous Gorgon of the Xth Legion. Though she could not claim the friendship that Ferra held with Fulgrim, Petra would bond deeply with her fellow technophile, prompted in part by Ferra's willingness to listen to Petra's angst about her view of the Eye of Terror, glaring at her from the stars. Ferra's uncharacteristic openness, prompted by her Anvil's influence, opened the door for a close, and enduring partnership between the two. Ferra would indeed, in the post-Istvaan chaos, plunge into the Ghoul Stars after her sister, determined to make sure Petra was not dead as Hathor claimed. Ferra was a rock of stability for her sister during the traumatic months that followed, and would be awakened to her true nature just as Petra was. Yet their paths would painfully diverge in the aftermath of the Heresy - for Ferra was not willing to abandon the Imperial project she had devoted her life to, and claimed Petra was weak for her willingness to walk away. Both of them would come to bitterly regret what they said in those moments of anger and hurt. 	Ferra's Anvil, so similar to her beloved Aristides, ended up forging a friendship with the Lady of Iron, though the two rarely met. She saw in him a kindred spirit to her darling Aristides, and would never forget how Anvil had been willing to give Aristides comfort in his darkest moments. 	Petra struggled deeply with what gift she could possibly offer the Gorgon for a long while. For what possible tool could she give a smith and scientist as accomplished as Ferra? Finding she could give absolutely nothing that Ferra could not make herself... Petra resolved instead to fashion for her hardy, basic tools that she could augment as she liked. The result was a series of simple smithing tools and anvil, strong, unbreakable, and easily customisable. Here was the basis for a portable forge that Ferra could use as she pleased, durable and unadorned. The gesture worked perfectly - for Ferra appreciated the acknowledgement of her skill, and found the tools as sturdy, simple, and reliable as Petra had promised. Never once would they break or bend.
11th Legion: [REDACTED] 	[REDACTED] 	[REDACTED] 	[REDACTED]
12th Legion: Atalanta and her Rose 	Though Petra found Atalanta's story of rising against oppression inspiring, The Lady of Iron and the Red Angel of Nunceria were destined for an unhappy relationship. Atalanta's bloodthirst, and penchant for carnage was so developed by the time they first met that Petra could not get close to her. Indeed, by this point, neither had the patience or desire to form any sort of bond. Petra would eventually face Atalanta down before the walls of Terra, and drive the gladiator back from the walls. Petra would come to regret her coldness in time, but could do little more than mourn her loss. 	Atalanta's Rose did not engage with Petra during the crusade, largely distancing himself from all the Primarchs. Yet in the madness of the heresy, he would align himself with Vashtorr, desperately seeking a way to claw the Red Angel's soul back from perdition. Ever after, he has been a thorn in Petra's side. Vicious, bloodthirsty, persistent, and competent. 	Initially, Petra though to fashion an Iron Halo for her sister, as a symbol of protection, but Ferra would pre-empt her in this regard. Seeing Atalanta's furious reaction, Petra would scale down her gift. Instead, offering a simple polishing cloth that would never tear or lose its fine grain… and a simple, yet flawless, stone chisel. When asked about this, Petra would quietly tell her, “It is a symbol of how you broke your chains.”
13th Legion: Juno Guilliman and her Centurion 	Aided by the fact that Petra did not decimate her legion, she and Juno would build a cordial working relationship that grew into deep mutual respect. Though Juno's ways were much more patrician than Petra's own blunt manners, the two worked well together, and respected each others' talents in their respective areas of warcraft. Their's was a quiet, respectful sort of sisterhood, bolstered by mutual confidence. Yet this confidence would be shaken by the burning of Monarchia, and nearly fatally undermined by Petra's spurning of Juno's plans to support the Imperium. Petra's guilt at the angry words she threw Juno's way would contribute deeply to the speed with which she rushed to Macragge in the 41st Millenium, when she had heard Juno might be resurrected. 	Petra would long find Juno's Centurion suspicious in a way she could not place. For the man seemed too... ancient for who he was masquerading as. Petra's suspicions would later be confirmed when she learned about Perpetuals, and connected Centurion with them. 	To the Daughter of Macragge, Petra would gift a Celestial Timepiece, to be mounted from the planetary capital's clock tower. Crafted with three sets of hands - one for Terran time, the second for Macragge time, and the third to track the passage of the age of the universe, the crystals and mechanism are so perfectly designed that it only loses a second of time every million years. She would also, on Aristides' suggestion, repair an old cogitator that belonged to Juno's adoptive father, Konor Guilliman. Petra was very confused by this request, as she thought it was foolish to restore a relatively functionless item to working condition. Yet when she saw Juno's grateful tears... she perhaps understood.
14th Legion: Morrigan and her Lily 	The cold and distant Morrigan, an outrider who disdained company, would not meet Petra until the celebration of the Triumph at Ullanor. Neither sister was particularly close, and Petra could only disdain Morrigan for her seeming embrace of chaos. It would only be in M35, when a desperate, insane Morrigan, driven to near-insanity by uncontrolled warp powers and the theft of her beloved's soul by Nurgle, would surprisingly emerge from the warp, in desperate need, that Petra would finally meet her sister. It would prove a mark of her maturity that she would take it upon herself to assist Morrigan in understanding her true nature, the nature of her powers, and the importance of self-acceptance. When Morrigan would eventually confront Nurgle for the soul of her Lily, Petra would accompany her into the warp. 	Petra would not meet Morrigan's Lily, the herbalist Machaon, until after the man had been transmuted into a tree, and his soul had been stolen by the Plaguefather. It would be strange to talk to such a fey creature after the man's soul had been retrieved, but Petra would find him a decent sort, and be a devotedly protective aunt for Morrigan's two daughters. 	To the Pale Queen, Petra would gift a ceremonial sickle, with golden finish atop its iron blade. Also gifted were a pair of gloves, a small set of secateurs, and a mister/spray bottle. Simply constructed, they fit Morrigan’s grip perfectly, and were made of such fine make as to resist rot, decay, or disrepair for generations. Such simple tools fit well with what little Petra knew of her sister at the time.
15th Legion: Magnolia the Red and her Starlight 	Of all the relationships Petra held with her sisters, none were stronger or more important to her than the bond she held with Magnolia the Red. Both seekers of truth, lovers of intellect and science, with deep-seated love of knowledge in all its forms and types, the two bonded deeply over their shared love on Terra, and were inseparable ever after. There would be plenty of speedbumps in the relationship during the Crusade, due to different attitudes to sorcery and psykers, and this would come to a head during the Council of Nikaea - for though Petra's comments on restricting psykers were measured, considered, and carefully thought through, Magnolia still rankled at the comments. Yet all would be forgiven during the heresy - for Magnolia would openly weep at Petra's disappearance, before the heresy would begin. It would be to Magnolia's considerable joy that Petra would re-emerge towards the heresy's end, and Petra was relieved to see Magnolia alive, though she sensed that the Sorceress Supreme was diminished, somehow. Petra would remind Magnolia that she was far more than the Emperor's battery, and would work closely with her in their creation of independent domains. Indeed, Petra would also work with Magnolia to create a space in the warp that was uncorrupted by Chaos, or the Emperor, each sister embracing their innate warp powers and shaking off the shackles the Emperor had placed on their soul. Petra would be there for her dearest sister ever after, a constant rock through the best and worst of times alike.	Magnolia's Starlight, Medu the Keeper, would have perhaps the closest relationship to Petra that any normal human would have with the Lady of Iron. It was not always friendly - for Medu's penchant for pranks, sarcasm, and teasing, would drive Petra insane, and she would regularly complain that every third word from the psyker's mouth was pure nonsense, but all the same, she could not help but gain some respect for the powerful biomancer who was also her husband's dearest friend, and his best companion at their wedding. It was thus a deep agony for Petra to experience the fallout of the Rubric of Stars, and see Medu turned into the chaos spawn that would become the Orator. Petra would dedicate no small amount of time to trying to find some way, any way, to take Medu back from Tzeentch. 	Petra and Magnolia shared a bond of such closeness that the two would share many gifts and treasures over the years. Yet nothing gave them more mutual joy than shared projects. No project did they treasure more, at first, than the Opera House the two designed and built on Terra, as part of the Imperial Palace complex. Designed that with a stained glass roof over the main concert hall, casting shimmering shadows over the audience, the acoustics produced some of the most resonant basses and haunting trebles that any structure could produce. At the end of their labour, Petra would provide Magnolia with a hand-crafted crystal flute as a sign of success, and Aristides would prepare a pan-galactic orchestra. The cathedral would be devastated during the Siege of Terra, and rebuilt into a cathedral to the Emperor by the Ecclesiarchy - and some say that the hymns sung by the choir there are the most haunting in all the Imperium. Petra and Magnolia would eventually improve on their work, crafting even finer structures on Tizca.
16th Legion: Hathor Lupercal and her Moonbeam 	The stately Hathor was not a natural fit for the Lady of Iron, and the two had a somewhat frosty relationship even before the onset of the Great Crusade. For the two were cursed with the same secret desire for approval from others, though it came from different places in their minds. For a time, Hathor's Moonbeam, Sir Rekem, and Aristides would mediate between the two... but this would change with Hathor's elevation to Warmaster. Before long, Hathor was seeking to subtly undermine Petra, her confidence, and break her willpower, throwing her at the Hrud, and pulling her legion apart piece by piece. It would not be long before Hathor would then throw Petra to the Ghoul Stars - an act Petra would long remember. The Lady of Iron would take great subsequent pleasure in repaying this act by her intervention in the siege, breaking Hathor's thrust to Terra on the wall of her legion's steel. 	Sir Rekem, Hathor's Moonbeam, gained Petra's confidence through the way he gained Aristides' confidence. Through his gentle charisma, and treatment of all the Primarchs as his sisters in law. Mysteriously halted from communicating to Sir Rekem after the Hrud crusade, Petra would assume for a long time that he had joined Hathor, but was disabused of that notion during her final clash with Vashtorr. For she noticed a strange warp creature with his visage delaying the Arkifane long enough for her to rescue Aristides in that final, desperate struggle. And so, she understood. 	To the Warmaster, Petra would gift Renovations to Hathor’s flagship, comprising a fully-functioning war room and communications array. Crafted with all her technical expertise in dark age technology, for the sister she had known the longest and knew was the most important to the Emperor, the room was heavily decorated in the motifs of the Lunar Wolves legion, and the communications array was so advanced that the Emperor forbade any further production of it (perhaps out of fear of the spread of information it would provide). The centrepiece, however, was the Astarium - a star map of the entire galaxy, demonstrating every Imperial controlled, mapped, or monitored system, planet, sector, and segmentum. Initially only comprising the systems controlled by humanity at the time of her discovery, it would update automatically until nearly the entire galaxy was mapped out by the Crusade's end. Today, it is in possession of Ezekyle Abbadon, who has put its information to a use Petra had never intended.
17th Legion: Aurelia Lorgarion and her Little Light	The relationship between the Urizen and the Lady of Iron was turbulent, and defined by tensions that both pushed them together, and pulled them apart - in similar ways to the relationship between Regalia and Petra. Both were creators and builders, who longed to use the crusade for better ends. Yet whilst Aurelia was zealous, and a woman of deep and abiding faith, Petra was a cynical pragmatist, with no belief in gods, or faith in them. Thus, the two would argue, clash, and squabble often, even as they found much mutual common ground. Aurelia's slide into the darkness of corruption would, however, go unnoticed by Petra, and in the end, Aurelia would disappear before Petra could confront her. Petra would not learn where she had disappeared to for a long time. 	Aurelia's Little Light, known for his cheek and his temperance, was not well known to Petra, but she respected him as well as she respected any other orator. 	To the Urizen, Petra would gift a wind up, pull-apart music box, the size of a small cabinet. The box opened up to reveal a scale model of one of Aurelia’s most finely built Cathedrals, with a statue of an ambiguously divine figure, modelled after the emperor, standing over a defeated dragon, in front. The model was carved, painstakingly, out of marble, and given highlights by oil paint. The music box can be programmed to play any number of complex hymns - and along with the box, Petra gifted Aurelia a set of instructions on how to do just that.
18th Legion: Hestia and her Wyrmheart 	Hestia and Petra were not particularly close, but the two would bond over their mutual love of craftsmanship and technical matters. Hestia was a hard woman to hate, and Petra could not help but find her company a comfort and a joy. And as such, she was deeply, deeply hurt to hear of Fulgrim's abuse of the gentle giant during the heresy - which would forever tar Petra's image of the Phoenician in her mind. Upon her disappearance, Petra would extensively search for Hestia, hoping to find the broken woman and give her safe harbour after so much pain... but would be sadly disappointed. 	The small, yet big-hearted Wyrmheart would be equally impossible for Petra to dislike, though she did not see the man often. 	Initially uncertain what she could possibly gift her sister, Petra would be inspired by Hestia's gift of a working model of an Imperial Knight. In return, Petra would craft a clockwork model of a Warhound Titan so intricate that it could be programmed to climb up surfaces, and perform small routines. It even had a working, miniature flamethrower, its nozzle modelled on the head of a Nocturnian drake.
19th Legion: Corvess Corax and her Nightingale 	Brooding, silent, and discovered late in the crusade, Corvess and Petra did not interact much, especially given the Raven Queen's legendary dislike of the company of others. In this, the two were mutual misanthropes. Yet, pressed by their more tactful partners, they would eventually interact more. Indeed, Aristides could not help but admire Corvess' inspiring story... and such a response rubbed off onto Petra, who also grew to respect her sister in time. Between this respect, and Petra's thoughtful gifts to Corvess, the two would gain a quiet, comfortable friendship, though many things would strain it. The battle of Gate 42 was such an example - though Petra would try and propose a compromise strategy after she realised her boorishness, it placed a strain on their relations. Petra's exit from the Imperium broke whatever bond the two had held... though ever after, Petra would regret that she had pushed Corvess away. 	Corvess' Nightingale and Petra would not have much of a relationship... but Petra would nonetheless have a deep impact on the man's life. For Aristdes receive a set of blueprints from Wyrmheart, who had received a secret commission from Corvess for her Nightingale, for a modified power fist that incorporated elements of a power claw. Initially scoffing at the idea, Petra would eventually craft specifications for a ‘Power Talon’ - a Power Fist with in-built claws, sharp like lightning claws, and so heavily armored and shielded it could stop a tank shell. Wyrmheart would craft Nightingale’s talon, whilst Petra stashed the blueprint in her list of designs, hoping perhaps that one day she might pass it on to Corvess. The design would eventually become standard equipment for Iron Warriors scouts, and his talons would save Nightingale's life many times.	To the Raven Queen, Petra would gift a special cage to hold Corvess’ pet ravens, constructed with all the thoughtful craftsmanship she could offer. It was constructed with fine silver, adorned with all the things a bird might ever want for (enrichment and play, rest, food trays and water feeders). And atop it, she adorned a clockwork model of four ravens, in simulated flight, turned by a metal key. The door to the cage would only be opened by Corvess’ biological signature - but the bars were left wide, that the ravens could come and go as they pleased. In addition, when Corvess gave her a plot of land on Deliverance as a birthday present, Petra would respond with a touching memorial to those brave souls who had rebelled against exploitation and slavery, alongside a complex to produce advanced mining equipment, that none should suffer their deprivations.
20th Legion: Alpharia/Omega and their Detective 	Unbeknownst to Petra, Alpharia would remark that she viewed Petra as one of the more humble of her sisters, and respected her deeply for it, though she and Omega would likely have never said such things directly. But, prompted by their Detective, and Petra's gift to them, the Twins would show gratitude to Petra in person. In a remarkable encounter, Petra would manage to tell the two apart by noticing minute differences in their armour, noticing the two even when they attempted to swap places. Thus, Petra became the first Primarch beyond Hathor to know of the fabled secret of the Twins, which she would keep in exchange for being taught cryptography and the art of spycraft. Petra would become close to them, and count them amongst her friendship with Ferra and Magnolia. Thus, the Heresy, and Alpharia's seeming corruption, came as a deep personal blow, as did Omega's disappearance after the Heresy without a trace. After Petra had placed such trust in them both to be honest with her, it rankled that they would treat such a promise with such disdain. 	The Twins' Detective, being the puckish sort, did not get along easily with Petra - but she learnt to cope with him well enough. His insight and skill with spycraft was more than enough of a saving grace. 	To the twins, Petra would gift a jade and aquamarine figurine of a Hydra. The size of a large paperweight, it was fully sculpted out of pure gemstone to look exactly like the Alpha Marines’ logo. It also doubled as a fully functioning, intricate puzzle box, with a timing gear to check and record how quickly it took the user to open it.
== Abilities ==
=== Skills and Powers ===
* Innate Primarch Genetic Abilities - Like all Primarchs, Petra possesses the innate physical strength and abilities of her sisters. Engineered, in mind, body, and soul, to be the embodiment of the attritional general, capable of reducing even the most complex and difficult of strategic problems to solvable equations. To this end, Petra has a stamina and presence of mind beyond nearly all her sisters, save perhaps Juno, and physical strength that is only outmatched by Hestia. To this, the Emperor would engineer Petra's mind to be one of the finest, albeit one of the more inflexible, strategic minds in the galaxy. Over time, however, she would become more adaptable, aided by the fact that she possessed one of the keenest and intelligent minds out of all her sisters, with a capacity for learning, science, and innovation that was perhaps only exceeded by Magnolia.
* Innate Warp Powers - Though not all of them knew it, the Emperor's forging of the Primarchs from the energies of humanity's former gods, spirits, and manifestations in the warp, would give all of them innate warp capabilities. Petra would uncover these abilities at the end of the Ghoul Stars Campaign, and spend 10,000 years cultivating, studying, and carefully tapping into them. Such study has made her adept at the esoteric skill of technomancy, a form of psychic power driven by creativity and intelligence, which allows her to manipulate machines, matter, and electrictity with ease. By focusing her well, Petra can meld pieces of discarded machinery together into impromptu weapons, find the weakest physical point in any armour, and manipulate machine spirits and mechanisms to obey her command. Such is her command of this power, that her abilities even extent, to a limited to degree, to the living technology of the Alderai, or the nonsensical creations cobbled together by the Orks. 
** Channeling Faith in the Omnissiah in Grey - given the extent of the belief within the Mechanicum, and even amongst certain people of the Iron Confederation, of her status as the Omnissiah (the living avatar of the Machine God), Petra is able to channel this faith to fuel her powers. It is an act she does sparingly, for she does not wish to be worshipped as such, and has no desire to undergo apotheosis - yet nor does she stamp it out, mindful of the impact the Emperor's harsh subjugation of faith had. When she channels this faith, wire and metal tend to form great mechandendrites on her back, and her abilities become even more powerful. She is able to reconstruct machines with a touch, from simple tools all the way up to titans and battlecruisers, revive machine spirits, purge warp corruption from a machine, and even inspire those around her to scientific breakthroughs, and leaps in understanding. Channelling this faith, however, paradoxically leaves her more vulnerable to attack from Vashtorr, the spiritual nemesis of the Machine God.
** Fragment of the Anathema - as entities bound by the god-who-is-not-a-god, the so-called 'Anathema' to the Warp, the Primarchs all share a tiny aspect of the Emperor. Petra would be first to uncover that such influence would also give the Primarchs a fraction of His power to purge, purify, and erase warp entities without knowing their true names, or relying on Enuncia. Yet it was only a fraction - the Emperor must clearly have only intended that his essence might bolster his creations' willpower, and given them the strength to fend off the ruinous powers - and it would take continuous stewardship of it to tap into it. And it is Petra that has stewarded this ability most effectively of all her sisters, even the psychically active Magnolia. It will still take many millennia, possibly tens of millennia, for such power to come close to even matching that of the Emperor, but even now, her power is enough to unmake greater daemons, deliver gouging wounds to warp entities like the Arkifane or the First-Damned, though only for short stretches of time. And it was a power Petra demonstrated to all and sundry when she inflicted a true death on the Keeper of Secrets known as the Heartslayer - burning its foul essence from reality and unreality alike, and dispelling the dreadful pall that the creature cast over the souls of the Alderai. Even now, some warp entities begin to whisper of a 'Little Anthema,' beginning to take shape within the Iron Confederation's borders....
** The Vision of The Artisan - Once an innate flaw, wrought by the Emperor's binds on her soul, Petra's inability to see anything by the flaws in an object has since been transformed into an instinct for understanding the material properties of any object on sight. In seconds, Petra's unique vision gives her an ability to understand how an object, machine, or living creature has been constructed or made, and the most efficient ways it can be deconstructed and unmade. At times, this can still be a disorienting process, but Petra has since learnt how to restrain this sight when it is inconvenient.
* Exceptional Crafting and Scientific Skills - Driven in part by her ability to hyperfixate on whatever catches her focus, and her exceptional knowledge retention skills, Petra has slowly worked her way through every sort of trade, craft, or technical proficiency, mastering each in turn. She is a master of sculpture, masonry, carpentry, electronics, cryptography, physical and chemical sciences, engineering, and much more besides. Yet her absolute favourite fields of study and creation are architecture and arcology - the center of her workshop has always been the large designing board where she sketches out her ideas for cities and buildings alike.
* Expert Strategist and Logistician - A master of the mundane arts of war, and an expert in positional warfare, Petra of Olympia's expertise in siegecraft stems from a greater understanding of the art of setpiece operations. Whilst not necessarily a genius at improvisation, and easily capable of being momentarily surprised, Petra's detailed planning prowess, quick mind, and understanding of how to set up military operations in ways that allow different parts of the army to complement each other - a deeply sophisticated form of combined arms warfare - have made her the undisputed master of large-scale battles.
=== Equipment and Wargear ===
* The Logos (Artificer Armour) - Petra's panoply of war was a unique and highly customised suit of Artificer-crafted Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour, the heavy layered ceramite looking more at home on a tank than on a Primarch. This Artificer Armour was of her own design, and was known as the Logos. As well as providing a phenomenal level of defence against outside attack, the armour contained sophisticated command and control systems which linked Petra cybernetically to every facet of the forces under his disposal and a shifting array of weapons and secondary systems created by her vast intellect, such as mobile, shoulder-mounted mortars, or vortex missle batteries. During the Crusade, The Logos incorporated the finest technology of its age, including a Teleport Homer, a Cortex Controller for controlling Automata, a Nuncio-Vox and a Cognis Signum. Long afterwards, Petra would continue to work on improving the heresy, incorporating railgun batteries, new ammunition, upgraded Cortex Controllers and Vox systems, internal cogitators for providing strategic and tactical advice, and even in-built mobility systems to compensate for the armour's weight and bulk. By the 41st millenium, The Logos would be armour of sophistication and power beyond conception.
* Harpax (Pernicious Creatio) - A gift from The Gorgon, Pernicious Creatio was an exquisite warhammer crafted by Ferra Manus beneath Mount Narodnya, the greatest forge of the Ural Mountains on Terra. The length of a mortal man, its haft fashioned from an alloy that was as unbreakable as it was unknown, patterned like marble, coloured like iron, veined with lightning and capped by a pommel of adamantium, the head of the hammer was steel and gold, the killing face flat and murderous, with its rear hosting a sharp axe of simple, unadorned steel, with an edge sharp enough to cleave mountains. Initially named Pernicious Creatio by Ferra, as a reminder to Petra that she and her sisters were far more than killing machines, Petra would gradually come to rename it Harpax, after the ancient, reliable, unbending war machine. Following her foray in the Ghoul Stars, Harpax would gain a strange nimbus of silver and gold, which only enhanced its striking power against creatures of the warp.
* Wrist-Mounted Combi-Bolter Array - This wrist-mounted Combi-bolter is a variation on the ubiquitous Space Marine weapon. Its magazines are loaded with heavy, custom-fabricated Bolter rounds, able to punch through Space Marine battle plate with plasmic armour-piercing warheads which used the victims' body mass as bio-thermic fuel. These unfortunate victims would ignite like human pyres with every detonation. Petra would modify the array to take on even more types of specialised ammunition, from anti-fungal rounds that could scythe down orcs to even pure plasma rounds, for sheer destructive power.
* Cluster Grenade - Cluster Grenades are a type of anti-personnel grenade commonly used by the military forces of the Confederation of Iron. Made of several compact explosive devices combined together, it unleashes several blasts of shrapnel that can shred unarmoured troops, and overwhelm even Astartes plate. The blast has the tactical advantage of forcing the enemy to duck into cover to avoid damage, and in breaking up energy charges. Petra would become adept at using thrown or launched Cluster Grenades to stymie any attempts to surround or mass her.
* Tormentor - Tormentor was a converted Stormblade super-heavy tank, with additional armour plating on all sides and extended command and control functions. To accommodate the Lord of Iron's scale and his automaton bodyguards, the vehicle's superstructure and engine had been radically overhauled by the Legion's support elements. Its main weapons were enhanced, and no more effective a killing machine existed in the Iron Warriors Legion’s vehicle pool. By the 41st Millenium, the Tormentor Mk V would far exceed the already fearsome construction - for it would include working drone hangers and control stations, and grav-engines that allowed the tracks to carry a mere fraction of the tank's weight, as well as a void shield generator that could shrug off titan shells.
== Trivia ==
* Petra's love language is gift giving - she gives gifts as a way of showing affection, and is most moved when given gifts in return. Though no craftsman like her, Aristides would cater to her love of gestures small and large by spontaneous shows of physical affection, the procurement of technical challenges (such as crafting, architectural, or engineering projects to work on), letters from great minds seeking her advice, and the dedication of many of his musical compositions to her memory.
* Petra, as a result of her Autistic Spectrum Disorder, has several sensory triggers that can render her non-verbal, or greatly decrease her patience and tolerance for other people. These triggers include:
** Scratchy fabrics, or anything that causes irritation of the skin.
** Loud, overlapping conversations, especially during diplomatic or political functions.
** Particularly luxurious or rich smells, especially fermented fish or seafood products. The smell of garum is a particular trigger.
* Due to an upbringing surrounded by luxurious foods, Petra has a particular disdain for rich foods, and much prefers simple dishes. Her idea of a perfect meal is roasted goat-meat and feta stew, flatbread, and yoghurt.
** She also enjoys melas zomos, or 'black broth,' a soup made from pig blood.
** Her favourite desert has been pancakes ever since Aristides learnt how to make pancake art in the shape of castles.
* In private, amongst trusted friends, Petra is a known rambler, and will happily talk the ear off of anyone who expresses an interest in a topic she knows well. She has been known to talk for hours, even to the point of rendering herself hoarse.
* Petra has been known to talk to machines at times, ever since her psychic abilities awakened. She often does so without thinking.
Category:Iron Warriors
Category:Characters
Category:Female Characters
Category:Primarchs
Category:Royal Family
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