"Stay close, Kars! If you fall behind, I can't guarantee you won't be disintegrated."
I shouted over the mounting roar of the tomb.
"Right behind you, Vertin!" Kars yelled, his lasgun barking as he sent crimson bolts into the chest of a waking warrior. The necron stumbled back, but more are approaching. "We are getting surrounded"
He was right. The catwalk was being swarmed from both ends. The Necrons weren't just waking; they were calibrating. Their movements, initially jerky and sluggish, were becoming terrifyingly fluid.
[ INTEGRATION: 41% ]
[ THREAT LEVEL: CATASTROPHIC ]
[ SUGGESTED ACTION: 'POSSESSIVE OVERRIDE' ]
"I need a lift," I muttered, my eyes darting across the chasm.
Below us, a Canoptek Wraith a horrific, serpentine construct with flickering phase-claws had detached itself from the ceiling. It moved like a nightmare, slipping in and out of reality as it ascended toward us.
"Kars, hold your fire on the big one!" I commanded.
"Are you mad? That thing will shred us to ribbons!"
"Just trust me!"
I stepped to the very edge of the catwalk. As the Wraith lunged, its bladed limbs extended to decapitate me, I didn't flinch. I reached out, my fingers glowing with a violent, pulsating violet hue.
[ 'THE WEAVER'S HAND' ACTIVE ]
[ OVERRIDING CANOPTEK LOGIC CORE... ]
When my hand touched the Wraith's cold, metallic brow, a shockwave of data slammed into my brain. For a second, I wasn't Vertin; I was a mindless drone, seeing the world in trillions of green geometric vectors. Then, I forced my will into the machine. The violet light bled into its green ocular sensors, turning them a haunting shade of amethyst.
The Wraith shivered, its tail whipping violently, before it lowered its back to me, hovering submissively.
"Get on!" I yelled to Kars.
"You've got to be joking," he stammered, but a volley of gauss fire hitting the railing next to his head settled the argument. He scrambled onto the machine's back, gripping the segmented plating for dear life.
I vaulted on behind him, my hand staying firmly on the Wraith's head to maintain the connection. "Up! To the ventilation shaft!"
The Wraith screeched a sound of tearing metal and dove into the open air.
We weren't flying so much as falling upward. The Wraith ignored gravity, its phase-generators humming as we zipped past levels of the pyramid that were now fully alive. I saw the Lord from earlier standing on a balcony, his staff pulsing with power as he watched our escape. He didn't fire. He simply watched, his cold eyes calculating.
"We're almost there!" Kars shouted, pointing at the massive fan blades of the ventilation shaft above. They were the size of starship wings, spinning fast enough to blend into a solid disc of death.
"I can't stop the fans!" I realized, my head was throbbing from the strain of controlling the Wraith.
[ CALCULATION COMPLETE ]
[ USE 'PHASE-SHIFT' ON ENTIRE UNIT? ]
[ WARNING: HIGH RISK OF MOLECULAR DESTABILIZATION ]
"Do it or die, System!" I screamed.
I poured every ounce of my will into the Wraith. A bubble of translucent energy expanded around us, blurring the edges of my vision. We hit the spinning blades.
There was no crash. There was only a high-pitched whing and the sensation of being pulled through a straw. For a heartbeat, I saw the atoms of the fan blades passing through my own hands.
Then, cold air hit my face.
The Wraith slammed onto the surface of the planet, skidding across red, crystalline sand. Kars tumbled off, gasping for breath, while I collapsed against the machine's cooling metal frame.
I looked up, adjusting my hat against a wind that bit like ice. We were outside. Above us, the sky was a bruised purple, dominated by a shattered moon. And scattered across the horizon were the ruins of a gothic city, its spires broken like jagged teeth.
"We're out, we lived! I am alive! " Kars wheezed, looking back at the massive black tip of the pyramid protruding from the sand. "But Vertin... look."
Out of the ruins, dozens of spotlights began to swerve toward our location. The roar of engines human engines echoed across the dunes.
" reinforcements?" I asked hopefully.
Kars didn't look hopeful. He looked terrified. "No. Those are Inquisition markings. If they see what you just did to that Necron... they won't be asking for your name. They'll be looking for a pyre."
"Don't worry i don't tell them about your weird stuff after you save my life" Kars said.
Likely it seems I have gained a friend plus a wraith.