Kratos5627
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The Weight of Fate
🕑 Added 2025-04-18 03:30:01 +0000 UTCCassian moved with efficiency as he prepared himself. His Inquisitorial power armor locked into place with a hum, the servos flexing as he tested the movements. The weight was familiar now, almost reassuring in its presence. His chainsword rested at his hip, the Godwyn-pattern bolter slung over his shoulder, and the meltagun secured across his back.
The bolter’s ammo situation was grim. He had managed to scrounge up some magazines from the ship’s dwindling stock, but this was it. Once spent, there would be no more. He had learned to be careful with his shots, but against something like a Phoenix Lord, it was a cruel joke.
He stepped through the ship’s dim corridors. The air was filled with the distant hum of power generators and the occasional static bursts of machine spirits communicating through the vessel’s systems. He found Magos Faron in his workshop, hunched over a collection of data-slates, mechadendrites clicking as they adjusted inputs with precise movements.
Without looking up, Faron intoned, “You have come for the device.”
Cassian nodded. “Yes. The gravity imploder.”
A hiss of pressurized air, and from a reinforced case, Faron produced the weapon. It was compact, not much larger than a grenade, but he knew what it could do. A single activation, and whatever was within its radius would be crushed into a singularity. It was a one-time use tool, devastating.
Faron turned to regard him properly, the glow of his optics flickering. “This plan of yours... It relies on an Eldar’s word. That is foolish, You should Rethink helping her.”
Cassian gave a humorless smirk. “No other choice.”
“There is always another choice,” Faron countered. “Merely ones that are less favorable.”
Cassian took the device, securing it to his belt. “Then what would you have me do? Stay here? Rot on this world? You know that’s not an option.”
Faron was silent for a moment before speaking again. “The Eldar. Their arrogance is boundless, but it is not without merit. If she believes you are useful, she will keep her word... for now.”
“That’s why I have this,” Cassian said, tapping the imploder. “Insurance.”
Faron let out a low, metallic chuckle. “A crude solution, but doable.”
Cassian glanced at the Magos, noting the way his mechadendrites twitched, his mechanical mind likely running through hundreds of possible outcomes.
“You seem preoccupied,” Cassian said.
Faron gave a mechanical shrug. “I am merely considering the irony. A servant of the Omnissiah, assisting in dealings with xenos. A deviation, but necessity overrides purity.”
Cassian chuckled. “Necessity overrides a lot of things.”
With that, he turned, the weight of his weapons and armor settling fully as he made his way to the ship’s exit. The meeting with faevelith awaited.
---
Cassian saw her before she spoke, standing among the ruins like she belonged there. Faevelith was out of her armor, dressed in a skintight bodysuit that clung to her every curve. Eldar craftsmanship was unparalleled—nothing ever seemed out of place, nothing ever fit wrong. The dark material hugged her athletic frame, accentuating the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, the sharp dip of her waist. Every movement was elegant, like she was made to fit the world around her rather than move through it.
Her face was just as striking—sharp yet delicate, with high cheekbones and full lips that always seemed a little amused. Violet eyes studied him with that unreadable Eldar arrogance, like she was evaluating something lesser. It was the kind of beauty that didn’t just distract—it unsettled. Like she knew exactly the effect she had and wielded it as easily as her weapons.
Cassian, however, wasn’t the type to be easily thrown. He acknowledged her beauty like he would a well-crafted art piece—appreciation, then moving on.
Faevelith tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing. “Your mind is different,” she noted. “Stronger. More… rigid.”
Cassian met her gaze. “That a problem?”
She smiled slightly. “Amusing.” A pause, then, “Few humans build such formidable defenses against the Warp. Even fewer do it in so little time.”
“Survival makes you adapt.”
She hummed, half in amusement, half in agreement. “A rare sentiment for your kind.”
Cassian didn’t bother responding. His eyes flickered over her weapons instead—twin blades, impossibly light, and a shuriken pistol resting easy at her hip. Eldar weapons were sleek, built for speed and lethality. They had none of the brutal, heavy-handed efficiency of Imperial arms.
She caught him looking and smirked. “Your weapons are heavy,” she said, nodding toward his bolter and meltagun. “Reliable, I’m sure, but lacking in refinement. If you’d prefer something with a touch more grace, I could provide alternatives.”
Cassian arched a brow. “How genrous of you.”
She pulled something from her belt—a slender knife, its black blade catching the dim light like it was drinking it in. With a lazy flick of her wrist, she spun it between her fingers before offering it hilt-first. “Not generosity. Practicality. If you’re going to fight beside me, I’d rather you not flail about like an ogryn with a club.”
Cassian took it, testing the weight. It was lighter than it should be, but he could tell with a glance—it was sharp enough to carve through flesh and bone effortlessly. A weapon of precision, meant for warriors who ended fights before they even began.
“Hnh,” he muttered, adjusting his grip. “Sharp.”
Faevelith smirked. “Would you have expected me to hand you something dull?”
Cassian secured the knife at his side, meeting her gaze. “No. Just wondering if I should be amused or insulted that you think I need this.”
She stepped closer, just enough that he caught the faintest trace of her scent—something light, floral, entirely foreign. “Both, ideally.”
They stood there for a moment, neither quite hostile but far from trusting. A flicker of understanding passed between them.
They were enemies in all but circumstance, but for now, necessity made them allies.
Faevelith turned on her heel, her movements effortlessly smooth. “Come. The Phoenix Lord will not wait forever, and I have no patience for standing in the dust.”
Cassian exhaled, checking his gear one last time before following. Whatever lay ahead, he would be ready.
---
The air was thick with the scent of charred ruins and the lingering, acrid stench of warpfire as Cassian walked alongside Faevelith. The terrain ahead was a jagged wasteland of broken spires and shattered statues—remnants of a time when this world might have been something more than a decaying corpse of rock and madness.
Cassian adjusted the grip on his weapon, the weight of the meltagun familiar yet utterly insufficient against what they were about to face. He had fought plenty of things in his life, but a Phoenix Lord twisted by Chaos? That was far beyond his comfort zone.
"You’ve been oddly quiet, mon-keigh," Faevelith said without turning her head, her voice carrying that familiar note of superiority.
"I’ve been thinking."
"A rare occurrence for your kind."
Cassian let the insult pass, eyes scanning the horizon as they continued their trek. "Why is he here?"
Faevelith’s steps slowed for half a second—so brief that anyone else might have missed it. But he caught it. She was stiff, her expression carefully neutral as she glanced at him.
"Does it matter?" she asked.
"If I’m going to fight something I have no business fighting, I’d at least like to know why and you have been suspiciously quiet about our plan."
She exhaled sharply through her nose, as if irritated that he had even asked. But after a few moments, she spoke.
"He seeks something buried here—a shrine to Morai-Heg."
Cassian frowned. "Your goddess?"
"One of them," she corrected. "Morai-Heg is the keeper of fate, the goddess of endings and wisdom. The shrine was lost long before your kind even learned to crawl in the dirt. My kind abandoned it when we still had the luxury of running from our mistakes."
"And he found it?"
"He found its fragments. And he became obsessed. Even before his fall, he was… troubled. Always seeking truths beyond our grasp, always questioning why we had to walk the paths we do. He believed we were being manipulated. That fate had been stolen from us."
Cassian let that sink in. Fate. The concept was meaningless to him—at least, it had been before. But ever since he stepped onto this world, ever since the demons of Changer of Ways had started pressing into his mind, he had begun to wonder. The very idea of fate being something stolen rather than simply existing… That was a dangerous thought.
"And then he fell to She Who Thirsts," he said.
"Not immediately," Faevelith murmured, her voice quieter now. "It started with small things. His discipline wavered. He started speaking of visions, of whispers. We all thought he was losing himself to the burden of his station. And then…"
She hesitated.
Cassian glanced at her. "And then?"
She met his gaze, her violet eyes hard. "He killed his own students. Drained their souls to fuel his understanding. He believed that Morai-Heg’s wisdom could only be taken with blood. And when he saw the power that gave him, he… embraced it."
Cassian didn’t speak for a long moment. There was something deeply unsettling about the idea of a Phoenix Lord—a being who was meant to be incorruptible—falling so completely. And worse, that he had done so believing he was unraveling a stolen truth.
"This was never just about power," he muttered.
"No," Faevelith admitted. "It is about control. He believes he can take fate into his own hands and remake it. That we—our kind, our existence—can be free from she who thirsts if we simply stop bowing to rules we never agreed to follow. Ironically that made him fall to the corruption"
Cassian swallowed the dry lump in his throat. There was something terrifying about that level of conviction. He had seen men consumed by zealotry, by belief so unshakable that nothing—not reason, not pain, not even the certainty of death—could dissuade them. But this was something worse. Because if what she was saying was true…
"What happens if he succeeds?" Cassian asked.
Faevelith didn’t answer immediately. When she did, her voice was quiet.
"Then nothing we do will matter anymore. He will be able to manipulate our fates easily. And the galaxy may witness the birth of a demon prince."
They walked in silence after that, the weight of her words pressing down like a vice. Cassian had always prided himself on his ability to adapt, to turn a situation to his advantage no matter how dire it seemed. But this… this was beyond him. He was standing in the shadow of something far greater than he could comprehend, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t sure if he was making the right choice.
Because if the Phoenix Lord was right… if fate could be rewritten…
Then what did that mean for him?
As an outsider does he has a fate or his transmigration was a pre ordained thing.
He shook the thought away. This was not the time to get lost in questions he could not answer.
"You are afraid," Faevelith said, watching him from the corner of her eye.
Cassian snorted. "Of course I’m afraid. I’d be an idiot not to be."
She gave him a look, as if judging whether or not he was being honest. Then, surprisingly, she smirked. "Good. It means you might actually survive this."
He chuckled dryly. "Was that encouragement? From an Eldar?"
"Do not mistake pragmatism for sentiment, mon-keigh," she replied smoothly.
"Too late," he shot back.
She rolled her eyes but said nothing more.
They continued onward, the ruins growing darker as the unnatural sky above shifted, warpfire crackling somewhere in the distance. The closer they got, the heavier the air became. Not physically—Cassian had fought in dead worlds, in void-scarred wrecks. No, this was something else.
Something deeper.
The weight of destiny, of something unseen watching them.
Faevelith noticed too. She didn’t speak of it, but her posture changed, her movements sharper. The arrogance in her stride dimmed just slightly, replaced with something more… focused.
"We are close," she murmured.
Cassian didn’t respond.
Because he had felt it too.
Something was waiting for them.
And for the first time in a long, long time…
Cassian wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what.
---
Comments
Kratos5628
Yeah, as Tyler T said. The ship is parked on the planet. It is not in outer space.
Tyler T
The ship is parked on the planet
Siva Chandan Chakka
Thank you for chapter, a quick question. How are they moving from planet to ship so fast?
