Katarinya Greyfax - Fall of Cadia and the Celestinian Crusade: At some unknown point several standard centuries ago, Katarinya Greyfax and her bodyguard of Tempestus Scions drawn from the 55th Kappic Eagles were trapped by the Necron Lord Trazyn the Infinite within one of his Tesseract Labyrinths on his homeworld of Solemnace because he considered them an interesting addition to his "Imperial collection." At some point before and after this capture, Trazyn infected Greyfax with Mindshackle Scarabs that altered her cerebral functions so that she was compelled to never injure the Necron Lord, no matter how hard she tried or how desperate her desire. As Abaddon the Despoiler began his final assault upon the Fortress World of Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade, Trazyn made the decision to lend his aid to the defending Imperials, as the victory of Chaos was not in his, or the Necron, interest. Among the assets he brought with him to Cadia was a small portion of his collected Imperials, including Inquisitor Greyfax.It was the Adeptus Mechanicus Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, who explained to the Imperial defenders of Cadia that the Despoiler's real goal was to destroy Cadia and the xenos pylons that were scattered in concentrations across its surface. The pylons kept the Warp from bleeding into realspace and maintained the only clear passage out of the Eye of Terror known as the Cadian Gate. With their destruction, the Forces of Chaos would be able to launch themselves out of the Eye and overwhelm the defences of the Imperium at the same time that they would be able to summon an endless legion of daemons until Terra itself had fallen, the Emperor cast down from His Golden Throne. Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed, the commander of the Imperial forces on Cadia, ordered that the catacombs beneath the pylons on the Elysion Fields be reinforced to serve as a last line of defence to hold back the expected Chaos assault while Cawl worked to explore the pylons' systems and discover a way that they could be used as a weapon against Chaos.Unknown to Creed and Celestine, Cawl had secretly been contacted by Trazyn the Infinite. With Trazyn's knowledge, Cawl was able to determine how to use the pylons to cut off the local area of space-time from contact with the Immaterium. But as he worked, the Archenemy launched its expected assault against the catacombs, and Creed and Saint Celestine, a Living Saint, who had herself only recently arrived on Cadia with reinforcements from the Adepta Sororitas, led the defence. What was not expected was that Abaddon the Despoiler, frustrated beyond reason by Cadia's continuing defiance, led that assault himself. Pushed to the breaking point by the Black Legion's assault, Trazyn decided to once more aid the Imperials, and released the contents of one of his Tesseract Labyrinths into the catacombs to aid the Imperials. Among those time-lost defenders were Katarinya Greyfax and the Tempestus Scions she had long ago indentured as her personal bodyguard.But even the reinforcements provided by Trazyn's Tesseract Labyrinths, including Lieutenant-Commander Cerantes and a unit of Ultramarines Legionaries dating to the era of the Horus Heresy, proved unable to stand against the full might of the Despoiler and his Chaos Terminators. Once Cerantes fell beneath Abaddon's foul Daemon Sword Drach'nyen, it seemed the Imperial defence of the catacombs would not give Belisarius Cawl the time he needed to understand the pylons' full workings.It was then that Saint Celestine arrived in a burst of golden light as the ceiling of the cavern ripped open, the Living Saint once more coming to the aid of Cadia's ever-beleaguered defenders. Fire streaming from her wingtips, she swooped to confront the Despoiler. Daemons pounced, but a sweep of the Ardent Blade cast them, broken, to the ground. Winged Possessed soared, talons clawing at limb and blade, but the Geminae Superia clove them from the air. Soon they faced one another: spiritual daughter of the beneficent Emperor, and heir to the greatest Traitor in the history of Mankind. No words were spoken. None were needed. Soulfire roiled as the Ardent Blade struck Drach'nyen, the wail of hope and despair shivering the spirits of all who heard it. Abaddon was the mightier by far. Alone, Celestine had no hope of triumph. But she was not alone. The Geminae Superia were ever at her side, the three fighting as one against the Despoiler of legends.At the cavern's edge, Katarinya Greyfax beheld Celestine's arrival with revulsion. How long had she been gone that such heresy could take root? Battle-Sisters suffused with the power of idolatry? Warriors of the Adeptus Astartes revelling in the corruption of their own mutations? Spirits wreathed in hellfire? And yet the loyal soldiers of Cadia and Ultramar, known across the galaxy for their unswerving devotion, their purity, embraced these evils in the name of victory?It was a cornerstone of Greyfax's Puritan certainty that evil had no shades, no lesser forms that could be tolerated in service to a larger goal. Purity was perfection, uncompromising, ideal. She had killed thousands for lesser sins than this. She had killed her own kind, other Inquisitors, for wavering from the path. What victory could there be if adamant precepts were torn asunder?The shadows reformed around her. Green eyes blazed. Greyfax aimed the muzzle of her Condemnor Bolter squarely between them. "Abomination.""That word again." A metal hand gestured lazily across the cavern. "Stop me if this sounds familiar, but I suspect your priorities require re-evaluation.""You sow corruption wherever you tread. Your reckoning is overdue." She pulled the trigger. Or she tried to. Her finger didn't respond.Trazyn opened his palm, a ﬂood of microscopic machines ﬂowing over his fingers. "I'm not a fool. The Mindshackle will not let you harm me."Bile ﬂooded Greyfax's mouth. Anger seared it away. "You've corrupted me! As you did Valeria!""A precaution only. As for Valeria ... She had a remarkable brain. You robbed me of the opportunity for study."Again Greyfax tried to pull the trigger. Again nothing happened. Useless."I brought you here out of common cause," said Trazyn. "I am not yet done with this world, and nor is your Imperium. If you seek to save it, I suggest you focus that formidable certainty of yours elsewhere. Our reckoning will wait."With a snarl, Greyfax turned away.As the ground battle between the Despoiler's invaders and Ursarkar E. Creed's defenders reached its climax, Cawl activated the pylons. The Necron technology operated precisely as had been expected, cutting off Cadia from the Warp, banishing the daemons of Chaos, actually shrinking the Eye of Terror and giving Cadia's defenders a chance for yet another unlikely victory. However, the loss of access to the Immaterium also affected Celestine, whose own extraordinary powers of faith were also fuelled by the psychic currents of the Warp. Meeting the Despoiler head-on, in her weakened form she was defeated by the Warmaster of Chaos. Even as she sat at his feet, she promised him that Mankind would one day be free of his vile masters."There is no freedom," was his only reply.But Celestine was saved at the last moment when Greyfax psychically assaulted Abaddon, forcing the Despoiler to back away, despite her deep suspicion of the Living Saint she considered little better than a common witch and betrayer of the Emperor's trust. But desperate times made for strange bed-fellows, even for the Puritan Inquisitor.Agony exploded behind Abaddon's eyes. Searing pain arced across his synapses. Neurons flared and died, consumed by an attack channelled through the fading skeins of the Immaterium. His daemon-blade, meant to pierce Celestine's heart, froze mid-strike.Katarinya Greyfax gritted her teeth, channelling into her psychic assault all the rage she had known since her reawakening. Though she was loathe to admit it, Trazyn had been correct -- her priorities had strayed. An Inquisitor's duty was to the Imperium, not to her own slighted being. Moreover, while all heresies must be purged by flame, some clamoured for its caress more urgently than others. Retribution would find the false saint -- of that Greyfax was certain -- but Abaddon's sins held the prior claim.Blinded and staggering, the Despoiler fought back, his indomitable will meeting the psychic fire with some of its own. Strength already sapped by her constant battle against the pylons' pull, Greyfax's hold on his mind snapped. But she wasn't yet done. As the malediction faded, the Inquisitor's Condemnor Bolter roared.Shells scattering off his armour, Abaddon started towards Celestine once more. A rush of bayonets blocked his path. The Guardsmen of the 8th Cadian Regiment of Cadian Shock Troops leading the defence of the catacombs were determined to preserve their beloved saint, even at the cost of their lives. And die they did, by the dozen, by the score, hacked apart as the Despoiler strove to reach the wounded Celestine. With their blood, they bought the saint precious moments.Before he could resume the advance, the pylons' strike upon the Immaterium intensified, banishing the Despoiler's daemons and weakening his forces. A massed attack on the Despoiler by Creed and his 8th Cadian failed when Abaddon and his Chaos Terminators broke the charge and badly wounded Creed, severing one of his arms. But just as the Despoiler moved to put an end to the Lord Castellan by cracking his spine, Celestine, though much diminished, managed to stab him from behind with the Ardent Blade."The Emperor protects," Celestine promised the wounded Despoiler.Abaddon lurched away from Celestine, her blade ripping free of his flesh. It had been millennia since he had last been so wounded, and his spirit boiled with vengeance. But as the remaining troops of the Cadian 8th surged to reclaim their beloved general, Abaddon realised he had no time for the luxury of pride. The last vestiges of the Warp were retreating before the pylons' arcane energies. If he were to depart, it would have to be now. Reluctantly, his eyes never leaving Celestine's, Abaddon gave the order to withdraw.As his flagship's teleport anchors engaged, the honourable warrior Ezekyle Abaddon had once been so long before acknowledged the feat Cadia's defenders had managed. They had lost, though they did not yet know it. But they had also won. He had sought to break Cadia's spirit, send the vanquished souls of its garrisons screaming into the Warp. He had not done so.Unfortunately, the Despoiler would not be denied the prize he had sought for millennia so easily. Foreseeing the need for a fail-safe, Abaddon had the damaged bulk of the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity, its systems disabled by an assault from the Imperial Fists' star fort Phalanx, hurled from orbit as an artificial meteor into the surface of Cadia. The massive kinetic strike destroyed what remained of the world's defences, ensuring its envelopment by the now rapidly-expanding Eye of Terror. Perhaps the only positive outcome was that the destruction of the pylons also restored Celestine's own strength and vitality as her connection with the Empyrean was re-established.The badly wounded Lord Castellan Creed ordered an evacuation of the dying world. The Imperial survivors of Cadia -- led by Cawl, Saint Celestine, Greyfax and Marshal Marius Amalrich of the Black Templars -- now calling themselves the Celestinian Crusade -- used every voidship at their disposal, including Cawl's massive Ark Mechanicus, the Iron Revenant, to ferry the three million survivors off Cadia. Unable to enter the Warp because of the roiling instability of the Immaterium near the Cadian Gate, the Imperial fleet was forced to flee through the Cadia System at sub-light speed, and the Chaos warfleets gave chase. The largest and most powerful remaining Imperial capital ship, Cawl's Iron Revenant, heroically sacrificed itself in battle against Abaddon's flagship the Vengeful Spirit so that the Celestinian Crusade could escape to Klaisus, the nearby ice moon of the world of Kasr Holn. It was Celestine who explained that she had experienced a precognitive vision that their salvation -- and that of the Imperium itself -- lay on that barren, frigid planetoid.Celestine's vision proved prophetic, for the surviving Celestinians were rescued from Chaos attacks and the unforgiving arctic environment at the last by the arrival of the Eldar Ynnari through Klaisus' hidden Webway gate. Though his flagship was lost, Belisarius Cawl had rescued its most precious cargo -- the Armour of Fate, key to the resurrection of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman.