The lower manufactoria stank of ozone and old blood.
Servitors, half-rusted and crawling with corrupted augmetics, twitched on the floor where Malk had cut them down with his bolter. Their mechanical limbs sparked in stuttering arcs, gears shrieking as their bodies failed.
The fight had been short, brutal. Black File excelled at that. Small, precise strikes. In and out before the manufactoria alarms could echo too far.
But even in the silence after, tension lingered like smoke.
Volst wiped grime from her cheek with the back of her hand, her rifle still hot from the fight. Her eyes flicked to Elias, to the faint glow of orange that never left his irises now.
"You know what they call you down here?" she said, voice low but sharp as a knife.
"The Flame. Prophet. Miracle. Every time you so much as breathe fire, another whisper starts. They'll follow you into the pits, Mercer. And when the Inquisition hears about it, they'll burn all of us for standing too close."
Malk snorted, his laughter harsh, hollow. He spat black phlegm onto the metal floor and hefted his bolter against his shoulder.
"I've seen this before," he growled. "Some poor bastard pulls a miracle, the people start bowing, and the priests send us in to clean up the ashes. You think you're different? You're just another freak in a galaxy that eats freaks for breakfast. The only thing keeping us alive is the fact that you burn hotter than the things trying to kill us."
He jabbed a finger at Elias. "But don't think for a second that makes you some kind of savior. You're just another weapon. And weapons get used until they break."
Lirae had been quiet through the exchange.
She was crouched over a corrupted cogitator, her augmetic eye glowing faint blue as she traced its innards. She didn't look up when she spoke. Her voice was cool, even, stripped of emotion.
"You don't scare me, Mercer," she said. "But you don't add up either. Fire that eats metal, clones that fight like men, eyes that burn… None of it fits into the reports."
She glanced at him then, her gaze sharp as a blade. "So the question isn't what you are. It's what you're planning."
Elias stood silent, the ash settling around him, the faint flicker of fire under his skin refusing to be hidden.
Inside, his thoughts pressed hard. Volst fears me because she still believes the Imperium will protect her. Malk spits at me because he's already broken and doesn't want to see me bend him too. And Lirae… she sees too much, but she hasn't turned it against me yet.
Three blades. One squad. If I can't bring them into the fire, they'll cut my throat when the avalanche falls.
He finally spoke, voice steady but low, every word measured.
"You're right," he said to them all. "I'm not a savior. And I'm not a weapon. I'm a man who survived where I should've burned. That's all."
He let the silence stretch, watching their faces.
"But think on this: the Imperium will use you until you're broken. You'll die with nothing but a line in a ledger. That's all you are to them." He let his eyes burn brighter, the glow reflected in the oil-slick floor. "I offer something else. A fight where your life buys more than a foot of dirt. A war where we decide what it means to live and die."
He didn't say the word "faith." Not yet. But the seed was planted.
Volst stared hard at him, her jaw tight, but she didn't fire back.
Malk muttered a curse under his breath and turned away, as if spitting out the taste of Elias's words.
And Lirae — Lirae kept her gaze fixed, her eye whirring softly, curiosity sparking in its glow.
Elias breathed slowly, steadying the fire in his chest.
Not yet, he thought. But the day will come when even the Black File must choose. And when it does, I'll make sure they choose me.
[END OF PART 2: Fractures in the File]