>>6006946>1/?Etched in flowing gothic script his name stands proud on his ornate armor, just below the pointed skull plate of his helm. Kasilos Xaas, a chimeric name from his birthplace, one of the labyrinthine underground prisons of Terra. A reminder of an absent father and a miserable mother. Xaas’ early life was hard, yet when the Lord of Lightning came looking for recruits it allowed him to catch the eye of an overseer, and pushed him to become one of the first marines of the Eighth Legion.
Spreading his arms and taking a wide stance the servitors began encasing him in the light ceramite and enlarged servos of his Mark VI plate. As his legs are clad Xaas notes that a memento of that time stands proud on his kneepad, the Emperor’s own Raptor Imperialis. It is a rare honor now, for not only does it mark him as a Terran it also honors his service alongside the Emperor in the last wars of Unity.
Those campaigns were his proudest, bringing Unity to the ignorant masses and petty tyrants of old Earth. He waged war in the original Thunder plate, wielding a primitive Terrawatt-pattern bolter and a simple steel blade. With these tools he and his brothers forged the Eighth’s doctrine refining the Emperor’s original command to bring terror to his foes.
Recidivists were given no quarter for defying His will. Kasilos personally sentenced many to mutilation and death, from Saragorn to Antius, and even the Hive fortress of the Crimson Walkers. Yet the horror gave him no joy, at least not beyond the pride of rendering his services to his lord, meting out justice to those who would deny mankind’s future. That was the standard among his brothers in those days. Konrad Curze and Nostramo had changed much.
The servitors now lift his large cuirasse together, struggling with the cumbersome piece as it is brought to Kasilos’ chest.
Curze’s leadership had brought nothing but contradiction, bouts of madness, and a hyperfocus on cruelty. Many times at the expense of the wider campaign. Nostramo’s tithe had diluted a proud Legion with all manner of lowlife gangers. Thieves, murderers, rapists, all were given the gifts necessary to become Astartes.
How he loathed what became of his Legion. He had tried everything to avert this course and yet look where it had led him.
The bright red gauntlets were easily fitted and screwed into his vambraces. Censure and exile. A guaranteed death in the barbaric customs of his Primarch’s home.
Command over the others who were damned by similar attempts. Fellow Terrans were the majority, an obvious purge of the Eighth’s ranks, and those Nostraman-born who had a modicum of disgust left.
Finally his helm is lowered into place, seals clicking together, locking him within. Various visual feeds blink by and auto-sense systems come online.
He and his brothers may be damned, but he would continue to serve.
