=== The Father ===
Lightning tore the sky open in jagged scars of white and blue, thunder rolling like war drums.
The Son struck at the father, a blur of dark energy, his body twisting mid-leap as he launched toward the elder. The Daughter intercepted, pivoting in a flash of white and gold, her palm slamming into her brother's chest mid-flight. The impact cracked the stone beneath her feet as she redirected his momentum, sending him sliding sideways, sparks flying where his heels carved into the floor.
Kharath followed instantly, warp power detonating from his staff like a miniature sun. Purple-blue fire roared forth in a cone, reality screaming as the flame consumed oxygen and light alike. The Father didn't dodge, he simply raised one hand and parted the inferno. The warp-fire split down the middle, hissing and snarling as it curled harmlessly around him and struck the far wall in a boiling detonation.
The Father advanced, slow but unstoppable, and with a gesture sent a dozen slabs of temple stone ripping free of the courtyard floor, each one orbiting him like a shield wall. Kharath laughed, wild and eager, and swung his staff like a scythe, each arc spraying ripples of warp-energy that shattered the stone like glass.
Behind them, brother and sister clashed.
The Son's movements were savage, his blows strong enough to break durasteel, his footwork unpredictable, erratic, fueled by Chaos. He'd strike with a burst of lightning, she'd catch it, and redirect it into the ground. He'd try to crush her throat with a gesture, she'd dissolve the pressure mid-motion, countering with a telekinetic throw that sent him into a broken column, only for him to rebound with frightening speed.
"Stop fighting me!" he shouted mid-strike, fist grazing her jaw with a shockwave of compressed Force. "Why cling to Father's lies?"
"Because they're not lies!" she snapped, countering with a spinning kick that cracked his ribs and hurled him back.
Kharath and the Father closed again, the battle shifting from sorcery to brutal melee.
The Sorcerer lunged, dagger in one hand, staff in the other, two strikes at once, both carrying the weight of a god's favor. The Father moved, catching the staff, spinning in a perfect arc, and letting Kharath's own momentum slam the Chaos wielder into the ground. The stone cratered.
Kharath roared and lashed out, his staff igniting in warp-flame, burning into the Father's robes. The Father answered with a point-blank telekinetic pulse that ripped the courtyard apart, but the Sorcerer met him with his own. The combined telekinetic burst shattered the courtyard, dust filled the air, slabs of stone flew in every direction like artillery shells.
The Son exploded from the dust, hammering at the Father with a relentless barrage of strikes, each one carrying enough Force to topple buildings. The Father dodged, blocked, turned his power back on him, but he was unrelenting, driven and consumed by hatred. He caught the Fathers arm, and slammed him into a wall, but the elder rebounded off it mid-impact, twisting to drive a focused blast of energy into his son's chest, launching him through a shattered pillar.
At the same instant, Kharath erupted forward, warp energy bleeding from his armor as if it were cracking under the sheer pressure of what flowed through him. His staff became a blur, sword to spear to scythe in shifting shapes, every form carrying lethal precision.
The Daughter caught the spear-form between her palms, twisted, and shattered the weapon into fragments, only for it to reform mid-air into a jagged blade that sliced a gash across her forearm. She barely flinched, backhanding Kharath with such force that the Sorcerer cratered a wall fifty meters away.
"YES!" Kharath laughed, coughing blood. "MORE! SHOW ME THE TRUE LIMITS OF A GOD!"
He lunged again, now little more than a blur of Warp-bending rage, every step twisting reality like melted glass.
The courtyard began to collapse. Chunks of the temple floated as gravity wavered under the weight of unleashed Force and Warp energy. The storm above became unnatural, lightning striking in spirals, clouds bleeding colors that had no names.
The Father caught his son in a telekinetic bind mid-swing, locking him in place, straining to hold him still. "Listen to me!" he shouted over the howl of the storm. "This path does not end in freedom. It ends in your destruction!"
The Son roared, shattering the Father's hold with a pulse of dark power that sent the elder skidding across the courtyard, blood at the corner of his mouth. "You lie!"
The Daughter finally gained ground, slamming Kharath back, pinning him mid-air with a Force grip so strong the very Warp screamed around him, but the dagger in Kharath's grip pulsed, corrupted, alive, and its influence dug deep, pushing back, corroding the Daughter's hold like acid eating through metal.
For a breath, the four forces balanced, light, dark, balance, corruption, none overcoming the other, all pushing the galaxy closer to a single, irreversible break.
Then they switched once more.
The Son roared and hurled debris the size of transports at his sister. She sliced them apart mid-flight, then lunged through the wreckage, striking with everything she had. Kharath broke the Father's hold and slammed his dagger upward in a killing arc, warp-fire bursting outward like a nova. The Father met it with a gesture that turned raw power into a shield of impossible strength, the collision tearing the courtyard apart in a single blinding flash.
But then something else shifted.
Three of the four combatants stood locked in motion mid-strike, because something pulsed through the Force.
It was ancient. Hungry. And wrong.
A single thrum echoed in every living thing on Mortis, a vibration that rattled the soul more than the stone beneath their feet. Even Kharath, who knew little of the strange, primordial truths of this place, faltered for a heartbeat, his corrupted eyes flicking skyward as if expecting the world itself to split.
The Son froze mid-swing, a snarl dying on his lips. The Daughter stumbled back, her eyes wide with fear, her connection to the Force whispering something was very wrong. The Father stiffened, his eyes narrowing as if he could see the vibration tearing through the currents.
"Abeloth…" the Father whispered, so low that even the air seemed to recoil from the name.
The word meant nothing to Kharath. But the moment, oh, the moment was everything.
In that heartbeat, when gods faltered, Kharath struck.
He pivoted, dagger in hand, and with the manic laughter of Tzeentch in his ears he plunged the corrupted Dagger of Mortis into the Father's side.
For a fraction of a moment, everything stopped.
The storm froze mid-roar. Dust hung in the air like stars in a void. The Son, the Daughter, even the world itself seemed to hold its breath.
The Father's eyes went wide, more with realization than pain. His glow dimmed by a fraction, just enough for the horror to register.
Then the Daughter screamed.
"No!" she cried, voice cracking with fury and grief as she lunged for Kharath, every inch of her being consumed with righteous wrath.
But she never reached him.
The Son stepped in front of her, catching her by the arm, his grip iron, his expression unreadable for one agonizing second.
"Brother, move!" she spat, tears streaming now, raw fury boiling from her in waves.
His voice was quiet, broken in a way she had never heard before. "Leave. Now. Do not return."
"What?" she hissed, disbelief painted in every syllable.
"This is done," he said, though his voice trembled. "There's no undoing it. There's no going back. I chose this. I made my pact. The balance is shattered, and you must go before you are next."
"No," she growled, trying to tear herself free, but his grip tightened.
"You stay," he said softly, painfully, "and you will die with him."
She stared at him, the boy who had been her brother, the man who had become her enemy, the thing who was now something else entirely.
And slowly, painfully, she stepped back. Her eyes never left his, not even when they turned to glass, full of tears that would never fall again.
Kharath, meanwhile, heard none of this.
He was too busy marveling.
The dagger slid free from the Father's side with a wet sound that was drowned in the thunder. Blood, not blood as mortals knew it, but something luminous, raw, almost holy trickled down the blade and hissed where it struck the stones.
Kharath's eyes went wide with manic delight.
And he struck again.
The dagger pierced the Father a second time, deeper, angled cruelly.
The Father gasped.
And again.
A third strike, vicious, twisting, dragging, corrupting.
By the fourth, the Father collapsed to his knees. His glow guttered like a flickering candle. His breath rattled through the courtyard.
Kharath stepped back, breathing hard, his left arm drenched in the radiance of his victim's blood, staring at the dagger like it had become the most beautiful thing he had laid eyes on. He spread his arms wide, warp-fire crawling like living snakes across his armor.
"I…" he whispered, half to himself, half to the mad god that whispered from the Warp, "I have done it. I have slain Balance itself. And now, I ascend!"
The Son, watching his sister disappear, finally stepped forward. He knelt by his father, no longer the rebel, no longer the traitor, just a son staring at what he had helped destroy.
For the first time in an eternity, he looked… remorseful.
"I didn't want this," he murmured, voice barely audible. "I wanted freedom. I wanted a choice. I didn't…" His words faltered. He swallowed hard. "…I didn't want it like this. You forced my hand, Father."
The Father's eyes, dim now, found his son's.
After all the betrayal, the schemes, the violence, he did not glare. He did not curse.
He smiled.
"My son," he whispered, voice thin but steady, "after everything… I still love you."
"I forgive you," the Father said, breath catching, "…for all that you have done."
He exhaled once, and he was then still. His body relaxed, and the glow that had once marked him as the balance of the Force… faded.
Behind them, Kharath stood motionless. The corrupted dagger still slick with divine blood. His breathing was ragged from exhilaration.
And then he heard it.
A vibration through the Warp, through the marrow of his bones, through the thin membrane of sanity that Chaos always strained. It was a whisper of silk and knives, a promise painted in fire.
Kharath's head tilted slightly, as if listening to something no one else could hear.
A grin began to creep across his face slowly, like a beast baring its teeth just before the pounce.
He stepped forward. His boots crunched on ancient stone, the noise strangely loud in the vast courtyard. The Son did not react. He barely seemed to notice Kharath's presence at all, he was drowning too deeply in what he'd done.
Kharath came to stand just behind him.
A gauntleted hand came to rest on the Son's shoulder.
The Son stiffened, as if startled from a trance. Slowly, he glanced sideways, but not enough to meet Kharath's eyes.
Kharath leaned in slightly, voice low, almost tender in mockery.
"Receive your reward."
Before the words even settled, the dagger slid upward, quick and vicious, under the jaw and into the neck.
The Son gasped, his hands flying to the wound, fingers clawing at Kharath's arm, trying to push away what he already knew was death creeping in.
He twisted, a desperate half-turn, but Kharath shifted with him as they struggled. The dagger stayed buried, the metal grinding cruelly as Kharath drove it deeper.
The Son's knees buckled as he tried to stand, but Kharath pressed his weight down, one hand clamped like iron on the Son's shoulder, forcing him to remain kneeling.
"You wanted freedom," Kharath hissed, twisting the blade again. "Now you have it!" Another twist, blood like molten gold spilling freely.
The Son tried to speak, but only a wet, broken choke left his throat. One of his hands scraped at the stone, reaching for something, anything, before strength fled his limbs entirely.
With one final brutal and vicious twist, the Son's body went slack.
Kharath let him drop. The corpse pitched forward, landing heavily across the Father's still form, the two now united in death where they had been divided in life.
For a moment, Kharath simply stood there, staring at the two godlike beings he had ended. His breathing slowed. The silence was deafening.
Then he threw back his head.
And he laughed.
His arms spread wide, Warp-light coiling up his limbs as he began to change, and still, he laughed.
The age of balance was over. And now, the Galaxy would know only war.
Endless war.
===
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