# Tales of the Reclamation



## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

This will be a collection of short stories that expound on the background and activities of my army. I'll post more as I come up with them.

THE FINAL WAR
The Deceiver smiled into the void at the ships approaching them.

Siil looked at him, his metallic joints swirling into motion around him. His mighty weapon, The Pendulum, whirled furiously, the lights on its surface performing a haunting pirouette as the circular head rotated.

“Are you sure that this is the wisest course of action?” Siil asked hesitantly. There had to be a better way. The Deceiver was one of the last C’tan- Perhaps if he rallied the loyal factions—

As though reading Siil’s mind, the Deceiver responded. “There is no way to overcome the united forces of the traitor dynasties. No, Siil. You must let them believe that victory is secured.” A twisted grin crept across his face. “With no enemy left to fight, they will split once again. This schism will be their weakness.”

Siil grew frustrated. “Then why let them shatter the C’tan at all? Why not simply leave?”

The Deceiver shook his head. Siil was a peerless general, but made a poor politician.

Vier responded in lieu of the Deceiver. “Because, Siil, the looming threat of the C’tan’s existence will be a powerful tool that will stall the inevitable schism. If they are not to be believed to be destroyed, when the final Great Work is in its infancy, there will be a rallying cry across the galaxy, and, well… That will be all for the loyalists, and our proud race will be reduced to squabbling tribes for the rest of eternity.”

The door to the chamber slid open, and Val strode through, her long tendrils writhing about the floor, seeming to help propel her forward. Siil was always taken aback by her new appearance- Tall and deceptively frail looking, her lithe limbs framed by scores of slender, writhing metallic tentacles that originated from her skull, appendages that made her work both fast and precise.

In stark contrast, Ket’s gargantuan form lumbered in behind her, carrying Val’s latest invention. Ket towered over the others, her colossal armored body wrapped in several layers of living metal plates. Her glimmering eyes peered over her armored collar, and she set down the large black box on the deck.

Vier’s hooded form quickly navigated the space between himself and the crate, his arms behind his back. The deceiver spun slowly to look at the object.

The crate hissed and popped open. Within were two large cubes, etched ornately.

“And you are sure this will work?” Siil asked.

The Deceiver chuckled. “Of course. I will know my own plan. It is a simple matter.”

He turned back to the window. “They will come, and I will meet them. I will break through this barrier, feigning escape as to not jeopardize your true alignment. They will bring their power against me, and I will fall. You must collect two of my pieces in these. One will be held by you. The other must be placed at specific coordinates, on a specific planet. Vier, I believe I have programmed the correct destination into the computer.”

Vier nodded. “By your order.”

The ships were drawing closer.

“This is Alalakh, Overlord of the Relhekt dynasty, responding to your beacon. We are awaiting your response.”

The deceiver sneered slightly. He recognized the names as dynastic names, and found them far less palatable than the hyphenated dynasty-neutral names they had selected after the contact war with the Old Ones. 

The C’tan hurled himself forward, the hull of the ship buckling and tearing. The four Necrons were hurled to their feet by the blast, and the Deceiver hurtled straight at the oncoming fleet.

Vier opened a channel to the fleet. “It got loose! It knew you were coming! Quickly, destroy it before it can escape!”

The fleet quckly aimed at the C’tan. Glowing green energy built up around their weapons.

The Deceiver, hurtling through the blackness, grinned.

The flotilla opened fire, lances of energy carving through the stars, slicing across the body of the C’tan. As he was pierced and shredded, the deceiver laughed at his own “death”.

A massive explosion sent uncountable chunks of living metal hurtling into space, each one a tiny fragment of the Deceiver’s mind. Vier was already prepared. He and Siil mounted the barge sitting in the hangar and sped into the void, and hurriedly did as ordered- The two largest chunks, at the center of the explosion- The “heart” and ”mind”, or at least the largest concentration of these aspects. They held out the two cubes, and absorbed the pieces of material. The cubes glowed slightly for a moment, then fell inert once more. The barge silently moved back towards the ruined hangar bay.

Val watched as the fleet released hundreds of drones to collect the remnants of the C’tan. As the barge slid back into the bay, Siil handed the two cubes to Val. Ket hurriedly pried back a panel to reveal a hidden repository. She quickly deposited the two modified Tesseract Labyrinths into the hole, replacing the panel. Then, finally, Val sealed the panel back into place, her hair-like tendrils fusing the joints seamlessly with the wall once more. There the cubes would stay until the right time.

They were abruptly joined by a stately overlord who had beamed to their location.

He saluted each one in turn, in order of rank. “Kherevier. Siilekteth. Tohvalekh. Arahket. We are in your debt. It has been quite some time we have been hunting this final thorn in our side.”

Vier nodded. “His very nature made him quite slippery to find. We finally lured him from hiding and divined his true identity. Unfortunately, we were ill equipped to contain him.”

Alalakh nodded. “I just don’t understand why you would attempt to secure him in a hangar. Surely you knew he would escape.”

Vier could feel the suspicion in his voice.

Val spoke up. “It was by my advice. The means we used to attract the beast require a lot of very sensitive equipment, and removal of many load-supporting structures. Placing it deeper in the ship would have made the ship vulnerable. If he escaped, we could chase him. If he destroyed our core, however…”

Alalakh sneered. Having a Cryptek, even one so important and influential that she herself was basically an overlord in all but title, speak down to him was irritating.

Vier felt a pang of irritation. He knew Val’s reasoning was sound, but the over-complicated politics of the reformed dynastic houses meant that she had little influence and that her statement would irritate any overlord or phaeron. It didn’t help that many machine resenters hated her for her more than critical role in the development of the Necron machine bodies. Most knew she was merely a tool by which the Dragon executed his ideas, but that did nothing to dim their need for someone to blame.

“I would like to inspect this ship,” Alalakh ordered.

Ket stepped into his path, her mighty cleaver dragging the ground with an eerie wail. She stood it upright, slamming the butt of the polearm into the ground, leaving an impressive dent. “You overstep your authority, Alalakh. You will do no such thing.”

Alalakh gazed up at her colossal form nervously. “Why? What have you to hide?”

Ket stepped forward, her thundering footsteps reverberating across the ground of the airless chamber. “Your body,” she hissed, mere inches from him, his head at barely shoulder level to her.

Alalakh paused momentarily, but knew that Arahket would crush him if he fought her. Few lords would dare to oppose her, and that would make his house vulnerable. He quickly turned about and stormed back to the hole, and with one final irritated glance backward, was whisked away by a nigh-invisible Night Scythe.

Val watched the rest of the fleet pull away, then looked back at the panel. The labyrinths were designed to allow the captive to escape whenever it chose, rather than confining it against its will. They could smuggle the Deceiver’s shard to the chosen location, then the Great Slumber would begin for them.

The deceiver smiled in his voluntary prison. The Necrons believed the C’tan eradicated, and had made every C’tan vulnerable to his power. When the time was right, he would gobble up every shard, increasing his own power until he, and he alone, had the power of every C’tan- Even the mighty Nightbringer, once his closest ally. He would never be able to defeat the other C’tan while they were whole. He needed them shattered into pieces. That is why he engineered the revolt, and the Necrons had fallen right into his trap- A trap that would take millions of years to spring, but he had plenty of time. He would finish the Great Works, and only then would the foe they believed they had destroyed return to grip them once more in his hand.

After all, the greatest trick the Devil ever accomplished was to convince the world he did not exist.


----------



## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

This is an interesting take on the Deceiver's "defeat." 

Nice work. Nice work indeed. :clapping:


----------



## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

More excellent work.

The only issue I noted was a missing capital in one of the references to the Deceiver, which is trivial.


----------



## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

WHOEVER BRINGS THE NIGHT

The slender, black ship was silent as it slid through the murky sky on the frontier world.

Ket surveyed the inky surface from her transport. The world was lush and mountainous, and a vile swarm of human parasites had trespassed here, far too close to the Necrid system. They were to vanish in the night, without a whisper. This Ket could do.

But they would not strike at night.

Ket turned to survey her elite contingent one final time before they reached their destination. Ten immortals, all members of Crimson, her pre-reformation brigade, stood silently, awaiting her command. There were more as well- She could not see them, but she heard them.

Chittering. Gibbering madly. Flensing their long claws and twitching back and forth in a mantic frenzy brought on by insanity.

Flayed ones.

They made the Immortals uneasy, though their behavior made no difference to Ket. They were tools, nothing more. They had been herded into a different compartment for transport, but were unlikely to stay there long if left there.

The transport dropped silently to the ground, and a metallic thunk was heard as the flayed ones were ejected, roaring in confusion and anger, onto the ground below. They would burrow there, and could be relied upon to attack the humans within the next half cycle. That is when Ket would strike.

The transport moved away from the drop point, and Ket noticed the Immortals were slightly more at ease now. She eyed each one of them, and they nodded to her as her gaze passed over them. They were ready.

One of them spoke up. “My Lady, what are the humans armed with?” he asked.

She looked at him. “They are human. They barely rank above amoeboid. They will attack us with whatever primitive weapons they have managed to cobble together from semi-raw materials and unstable explosives.”

The immortal nodded, and brought up a display. “We have noted several different configurations for the human disease however.” He said as he shuffled through images of Space Marines, Inquisitors, Battle Sisters, and Imperial Guardsmen.

She stopped him on an image of a terrified guardsman.

“This is the particular breed of vermin we are tasked with eradicating,” she sneered contemptuously. Even the sight of those simian proto-creatures sent flares of rage through her. That they had managed to survive this long was astounding to her, but she supposed that any species that was in itself composed entirely of filth was capable of surviving in filth.

The immortal looked back at the screen. “Be gentle, my Lady. They look so fragile.”

The other immortals chuckled evilly. Ket stared expressionlessly at the screen, the terrified eyes of the human gazing back at her. In the reflection of his eyes was her face.

---

Thomas Harandan looked around uneasily. He knew he heard it that time.

“Hey. Get up!” he quietly hissed at his partner, who shared the gun nest with him. The man woke from his stupor and wiped the sweat from his dark skin. “What time is it? Are we relieved?”

“I don’t know how you can sleep out here. Every ten seconds theres a… a noise.”

“There’s always noise out here. Besides, I have you as my five-minute alarm clock,” his compatriot said sarcastically. “Theres no way I’ll miss any random chirp or—“

The ground exploded beneath the two men, hurling Thomas airborne. He landed, screaming, fumbling for his lasgun. He watched as a pair of bloody knives reached through the ground, then another, then another. His friend screamed, and was dragged under the surface, his lasgun firing wildly as he was eviscerated.

He finally found his lasgun and pointed it at the hole, but all that remained was the wrecked autocannon, half-sunk into the cavern, and the most terrifying gibbering noise, accompanied by the wet slap of skin and the crunch of bone. 

Thomas looked around. The vox had been in the hole with them, and they were at the perimeter of the camp. Lacking any other recourse, he decided to scream as loudly as he could.

Everything went silent, and Thomas realized his mistake. Whatever had attacked had not known he was there. He had made sure to correct their mistake however.

He watched in horror as a slender, hunched metallic figure clawed its way from the brim of the hole. His eyes widened and his stomach twisted as he recognized the dark skin of his companion- Shredded, diced, and draped across the monster’s horrible form.

It gazed at him, its insane eyes darting over him as it twitched madly. He fired his lasgun blindly as he screamed in horror, but the beast was upon him before he could scream again.

Ket watched the grisly scene, and knew it was the moment that had been waiting for. The rest of the flayed ones, about a dozen or so, clambered out of the hole and were shambling with surprising speed towards the compound.

A siren rang through the air, and Ket knew it was her time to do her part.

She reached deep into her mind, and felt for the device that had been left to her, a blessing left by the now scattered Nightbringer. She felt its presence, and triggered it.

Instantly, the sky filled with a noxious black and green layer of clouds, blotting out the sun. Only the faint light of incinerating lightning in the distance shed any light. It covered the field in brief strobes, each one with the flayed ones drawing nearer the gates. The siren reached a crescendo, and shouts of panic were heard from within the walls of the hastily-erected base, followed by the angry reprimands of their commander.

Trees burst into flame and disintegrated as the ghostly arcs of lightning stabbed from the sky. Ket and her Immortals advanced forward from the Night Scythe that had released them, following the Flayed Ones’ foot prints across the soft dirt. Searchlights snapped to life on the corners of the palisade, swinging side to side wildly to find attackers that weren’t there.

The immortals readied their weapons, and Ket unsheathed the Cleaver of Souls. It would be a glorious butchery today.

One of the searchlights swung wide and located the Flayed Ones. They hissed in defiance, but the ground about them scorched and smoked as lasgun fire peppered the group. They covered their faces, and broke into a run on all fours, their talons clasping the earth, to cover the remaining space between themselves and the gates, but the searchlight maintained its dedicated vigil and kept them squarely in its sights. One of the Flayed ones fell forward and rolled as it was struck in the knee by a lance of light, but it clambered back to its feet.

The Flayed Ones hit the gates to the palisade with a metallic thud, and roared as they attempted to claw through it.

Ket, just behind them, but sure to avoid the beam of light, aimed just to the right of the gate. She leveled her right arm, readied her proton gun, and released the charge.

A brilliant blue flash covered the battlefield as blast of protons erupted from the end of the weapon in a haunting sphere of pure annihilation. The blast collided with the wall, blowing clear through it and sending chunks of flaming wood and plaster backwards.

The Flayed Ones, unconcerned with anything but their next “meal”, abandoned the gate and piled through the hole. Screams were audible inside, but before Ket could enter the hole, the searchlight swiveled suddenly at her, illuminating herself and her squad.

Their cover blown, the Immortals opened fire, brilliant green beams lancing through the night. The searchlight blew apart, and the guardsman handling it was flung backwards, shrieking. Ket returned her attention to the hole. They clambered through the scorched opening, to find the humans within attempting in horror to fend off the voracious Flayed ones, some of which were only concerned with draping corpses over their frames.

A volley of bolter fire drove ket and her squad to cover behind two barracks structures flanking the emplacement. A heavy bolter set up in the center of the base was suppressing anything that came too close. One of the Flayed ones caught sight of the two humans in the foxhole, and with a gurgling roar, hurled itself at them. Ket watched as the bolter rounds blew the Flayed one apart, the fragments sparking and fizzling on the ground. They could go no further as long as it continued to hold them back, and they were aware the Flayed Ones were just a distraction.

“Your orders, my Lady?” one of the immortals calmly asked, bolter fire slamming into the structures they hid behind. 

She looked at her proton gun, its primary fire spent. She lowered its output, and decided the secondary function would have to do. 

“Distract the fools,” she hissed.

The Immmortal looked at the rest of the squad. “You heard the Lady. Covering fire!”

Five of the immortals jammed their blasters around the corner and released a salvo of fire, as five of them lumbered into the open, lending their fire. The heavy bolter operators fired blindly, diving behind the sandbags to avoid the wailing green death that arced over them.

Ket spun and ran towards the back of the building, on the far side where the gun could not hit her. She appeared behind the emplacement, raised her proton gun, and was instantly knocked forwards.

She registered damage to her back. She spun around, to find a Commissar, reeling back with his power fist to land another blow.

She could hear the heavy machine gun behind her still blaring, and heard one of the immortals collapse, then a second. She had to act quickly.

The Commissar swung, but Ket dodged the cumbersome blow. The Commissar stumbled forward, but whipped around to face her.

Ket had already leveled her proton gun, and unleashed a blast of particulate fury. The Commissar fell backward, scorched by the blue-white flames, and the two guardsmen in the weapon nest were incinerated instantly.

The Flayed Ones were mopping up the remaining guardsmen, their screams of agony and horror piercing the darkness, punctuated occasionally by the ravenous hiss of a Flayed One as it ‘consumed’ a victim.

The charred commissar lay on the ground, his skin blistered and blackened. Ket slowly strode towards him, her massive footsteps thudding loudly. The human feebly reached for his pistol, but Ket stomped the device, the splintered metal shards stabbed into the earth.

She leaned forward, grabbed the commissar by the collar, and hoisted him into the air. “Your every footstep is a malignant, festering lesion on this planet’s surface. Your fetid species has no place here, or anywhere else. Why have you dared to infect this world with your grimy presence?”

The Commissar coughed, and spat in her face. “I will tell you nothing, you monster. Kill me. I die with the Emperor’s name on my lips-“

Ket laughed, a screeching metallic cackle that shattered the night air. “Monster? I am the image of perfection. You… are vermin,” she sneered, narrowing her eyes and tightening her grip. “The only reason you register as anything more important than insects is because my master deems your souls to be appetizing.”

She shook him, her hate and disgust welling up inside her. She roared straight into his face in rage. “I am the shadow of death! I am the one who brings the night! I am the slayer of the pitiful dreams of the vermin who crawl through the murky filth of this galaxy!” She tightened her grip once more, and the commissar grasped feebly at her arms, kicking pathetically against the air. “Die.”

He kicked more furiously, gasping for breath.

“Die.”

He began to sputter, his hands grasping for purchase. His eyes furrowed angrily, and he sneered at her.

“Die.”

The Commissar roared with what remained of his breath, and brought his powerfist back for one final strike, but was too slow. Ket stepped forward and slammed him into the structure with a sickening series of snaps as his rib cage collapsed. She pulled him from the wall, and slammed him backwards again, a second wave of revolting crunches signaling the shattering of his spine. She pulled him back, and slammed him into the wall again, and again, and again, gradually pulping the Commissar.

The immortals looked on in a mixture of fear and awe, and the Flayed Ones, now finished with their gruesome work, watched in anticipation, seeing only meat, but still not stupid or insane enough to try to claim Ket’s prize while she still held it.

When she was finally finished, she briefly examined the face of the macerated Commissar, his head hanging at an unnatural angle. His limbs dangled limply from his shattered torso. She flung the lifeless carcass towards the Flayed Ones, who leapt upon the morsel, feasting ever more jubilantly upon it since it was a gift.

Ket stormed towards the waiting Night Scythe.

“Burn it. Reduce it to molecular ash. Let not even a footprint of these disgusting vermin survive,” she spat at the Immortals.

“And the Flayed Ones?” they asked uneasily.

“They have performed their duty. Ensure they are safely extricated with whatever gruesome spoils they desire to retain. Have them returned to the Crownworld and re-caged,” she said, boarding the craft.

“By your order, my Lady,” they said, and saluted as she rose into the air.

She strode to the computer, and scrolled to the image of the terrified Guardsman. She uploaded an image from her memory to the computer, and within an instant, she was gazing at the charred face of the Commissar, his eyes wide just before he was crushed against the structure.

In his eyes was the reflection of her face.


----------



## Driesco (Apr 13, 2011)

Brilliant, exactly what I needed for inspiration!


----------



## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Brutality. Ket is one badass bitch. I like this. :good:


----------



## Ambush Beast (Oct 31, 2010)

*Nice!*

Okay, I'm a fan. Great job. :biggrin:


----------



## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

THE POET AND THE PENDULUM

Siil stared with contempt at the structure before him.

Stone and poured cement. Crude. They even used wood, of all things, he scoffed. He observed the surface. Windows. Weaknesses. Doors. Weaknesses. Gates. Weaknesses.

How these primordial creatures managed to drag their filth-ridden, drooling forms to the stars was an insult beyond measuring to him. The Old Ones had turned these creatures from slobbering apes to slobbering spacefaring apes. The fact that Necrontyr genetic code was used to perform this uplifting stirred a sense of indignant disgust in Siil he couldn’t describe with words.

But, yet, he needed them. It was a sick symbiosis. Without them, he had no network with which to detect the Pariah gene. Their upper echelons had grown increasingly wary of mind control, due in no small part to the maddeningly infinite lack of restraint and self-control executed by the traitor dynasties. Mindshackle scarabs were intended to be used in stealth, not as an overt weapon. That defeated their purpose.

With that, he cast one final look at the etched cube that hung at his waist- The same cube that once contained the Deceiver’s shard. It found the most peculiar of uses these days, not the least of which was the transport of a special set of tools that would allow him to expand his network of informants.

He had used the Revenant’s Cloak to bring himself and a small group of his faithful within reach of the structure. The creatures guarding the barricades were none the wiser of his presence, and he would be out before anyone realized there was an issue. Vier’s distraction had successfully drawn the majority of their forces away from this area.

He leered at the doors through his gleaming white death mask. He hadn’t been spotted yet, but that could change at a moment’s notice.

He threw the tattered cloth from himself and strode purposefully towards the structure in plain view. His retinue followed suit- Five pariahs, their forms now perfected, flanked him as he smashed the dilapidated street beneath his metal heels.

The two guardsmen guarding the structure panicked at the lumbering approach of the Necron. They fired in a blind panic, their lasguns bouncing harmlessly from his armored carapace.

With a whisper, Siil was transformed into an oily black shadow that darted forward and rematerialized mere feet from one of them in what seemed like the blink of an eye. He brought his left hand forward, and impaled the man on an emerald beam of light. Siil extricated the wraithblade from his opponent’s limp corpse, and turned to the other.

He stumbled backwards, panicking, and tripped, dropping his weapon. Siil marched towards him, and without a second thought, lifted his foot, planting it squarely through the guardsman’s chest. He thought no more of the dead humans, and instead turned back to the doors. He nodded to the pariahs, and they nodded. One swift stroke of a Hyperphase sword, and the mechanism locking the door was cleanly bisected.

They were greeted with a hail of gunfire as the doors slid open. The pariahs hastily raised their dispersion shields, and the interlocking fields closed around them. Laser blasts and bolter fire deflected from them, as they slowly advanced forward.

Siil, in a rage at such an insult, advanced slowly behind them. He couldn’t see where the attackers were, and it would only be a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

He was about to give the order to retreat, but the doors slammed shut behind them, cutting them off, and leaving them unable to escape. The Revenant Cloak couldn’t go through solid objects, unfortunately.

The gunfire also stopped however. The guardsmen, and whatever else was inside, could no longer see them either. Siil gave the silent order to move, and they charged forward.

Lights came on across the center of the room, but Siil and the Lychguard were not there. It seemed they had expected him to simply sit still.

Fools.

A cry of panic went out through the crowd, with everyone trying to figure out where they went. Siil ran himself through maps of such structures, and recognized that he was in a large atrium, with balconies on the second floor.

With a whisper he became shadow once more, but brought his allies with him. He leapt to the second story just above himself, and toppled two guardsmen.

They slowly broke into a wail of terror as they realized what was happening, and Siil banged his mighty weapon, the Pendulum, against the ground once. It sparked to life, its two sawblade-like heads spinning furiously against one another, the molecular chainsaws at their tips glowing green with sickly energy as greenish sparks were flung from the device as it whirled in menacing, screeching circles.

He swung it once, and it effortlessly sliced the two guardsmen completely in two. Lights came on just above them, and Siil teleported away once more. He and his retinue darted about the room, their presence identified with screams of terror, and punctuated with wails of pain. The Pariahs cleaved limbs and eviscerated torsos, and the Wishmaster himself spent little more time than necessary ridding the room of its inhabitants.

He knew what they were protecting. He knew they would be guarding this place. He didn’t think they would be able to set up an ambush, but it had done them little good anyway. He leapt back to the center of the room, and strode to the door on the far side, leading to the interior of the structure.

He flung it wide, and inside, just beyond the reaches of the door, was his prize.

Hundreds of children cowered in terror, their guards slain. Anyone that couldn’t hold a weapon had been brought here. He didn’t know specifically why, nor did he care. This was his opportunity.

The entire crowd stood silent, watching him as he slowly plodded forward, his glowing green eyes malevolently piercing the dark as they swept over the dimly lit storehouse. They backed instinctively away as he approached, but he ignored their pitiful fear.

He bent down, and examined one of them. His enormous, leering faceplate came within inches of the child’s, and he registered the creature’s fetid breath against his death mask. The child stood, paralyzed with fear, unable to move or scream.

Siil stood upright once more, and removed the cube from his waist. It unfolded, and thousands of tiny scarabs emerged from it, a swarm of shadows that flitted through the air, buzzing and chittering madly.

The children screamed, but it was too late. The mindshackle scarabs burrowed into their skulls, and within moments, they were little more than slaves.

Once the screams stopped, the children gazed back at Siil emotionlessly. He wordlessly gave them their orders. They were refugees. They were to stow away and travel to distant worlds. They were to join the Guard, and be successful. They were to use that skill and success to find those that bore the Pariah gene.

Such a loose set of suggestions gave each room to accomplish this goal in their own way, their success enhanced by the mindshackle scarabs. This was an investment- It would be years before any of them were useful. But Siil had nothing but time.

The children stampeded from the building, screeching in faux terror. Siil watched them go, and with a whisper and a blink of oily shadow, he and his retinue vanished.


----------



## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

ANGELS FALL FIRST

“Show yourself!” the Judicator cried into the darkness. He slowly waved his flaming golden blade back and forth, casting light across the darkened citadel. He slowly glided forward, his long, feathered wings trailing behind him, the light from within his gleaming helm casting a ray of light across the room.

The Dragon unfurled, his rest interrupted. He dwarfed the Judicator, no mean feat- but the Judicator was undaunted.

“You refer to me, I assume,” the dragon slyly whispered as his long, serpentine form spiraled lazily through the air. “Can I help you in some way?” he grinned. The ever-shifting metallic skin of the Dragon reflected the Judicator’s form, the light from his helm and blade glinting in gold and fiery orange across the Dragon’s silvery form. The Dragon’s unblinking, glowing mechanical yellow eyes stared at the Judicator, his mouth slightly agape in a slight grin stretched across the segmented metallic plates that made up his face, displaying his prominent razor teeth. The plates of skin shifted back and forth, over and under each other constantly, giving the Dragon an almost liquid but decidedly mechanical appearance.

The Judicator looked into the fiery eyes of the Dragon. The Dragon knew why he had come so armed. But the Judicator needed to plea reason to the Dragon. Perhaps there was some inkling of compassion behind his blind ambition and sadistic curiosity.

“You cannot go through with this,” the Judicator said, lowering his blade. “This is not why we joined them!”

One segmented eyebrow on the Dragon’s face rose, his lizard-like features shifting slightly. “Is that so? Am I not giving them what they desire? What they crave above all else? Immortality is their goal, after all.”

“It is not our place to help them in this matter, and most certainly not in this way. This will give them what they desire, but at a cost they would never agree to.”

The Dragon’s features twisted into an evil sneer. “Oh, but how little you know. They already know. And they have made some adjustments more twisted than I would have ever made,” he hissed, grinning evilly.

The Judicator drew his sword. “What adjustments?” he asked resolutely, his gleaming metal body upright, proud, and ready to strike down the Dragon if necessary. The orange flames danced across the blade, glinting on the Dragon’s scales.

The Dragon cocked his head. “They have taken away any form of thought from their subordinates. It will certainly make them more pliable by all calculations, Their effectiveness in combat will-“

The Judicator pointed his sword at the Dragon menacingly, spreading his enormous wings. “Enough! This cannot go on! Do you not realize what will happen? When they realize how you have doomed them, they will turn on you! Please, for the pity of our race, and theirs both, stop this madness! We do not need this abominable act to defeat their foes! In the end, we will all be destroyed!” the Judicator pleaded desperately.

The Dragon’s lip curled as his eyes focused on the tip of the sword. “I certainly hope you are not threatening me, Judicator,” he sneered, his eyebrows furrowing, his eyes glowing malevolently. He looked into the glimmering faceplate of the Judicator, and saw pain.

The Judicator did not want to fight the Dragon. But he would strike him down if he had to.

The Dragon reared up slightly, his features becoming decidedly unamused. “They will not turn on us. They will know they cannot destroy us. You are safe.”

The Judicator roared in anger. “I am not worried about my own welfare! I am worried about the welfare of our subjects-“

The Dragon perked at the word. “See? Even you admit they are our lesser. Why should you care what happens to them?”

“Because they are our responsibility, not our playthings! That is what we agreed to!” the Judicator said, slashing his sword angrily to his side.

The Dragon leaned close to the Judicator, his enormous head peering into the face of the Judicator. “That is what you agreed to. I agreed to nothing of the sort.”

It was clear at that instant to both of them that the other would become a threat to their respective ideals and goals.

The Judicator slashed upwards at the Dragon’s head, but the Dragon recoiled in time to miss most of the blow. Several plates and parts went flying as the blade ripped through the Dragon’s face, but it quickly remolded from other parts. The Dragon quickly lashed out at the Judicator, lunging forward, razor jaws agape. The Judicator dodged to one side, and the massive Dragon swooped by, catching the Judicator in a short arm instead.

The two grappled, tearing the structure apart. The two battled across the landscape, the Judicator lashing out with his flaming blade, the Dragon lunging and dodging. For all his skill and willpower, the Judicator was outmatched by the sheer size and speed of the Dragon. Furiously, the Judicator attacked, inflicting damage that repaired itself instantly, or missing entirely as the Dragon undulated, his long serpentine body lithely dodging the mighty Judicator’s blows. Finally, the Dragon managed to wrap himself around the Judicator, his large form crushing the Judicator.

The Judicator struggled to free himself, but could not breach the barriers between the living metal where the two C’tan resided- He could not even destroy himself to escape and find a new body. It couldn’t end like this. He couldn’t allow this to happen to the people he had sworn to protect.

The Dragon slowly maneuvered his head into the Judicator’s face, sneering menacingly. His orange eyes burned as he leered into the Judicator’s gleaming faceplate. “You have made yourself a threat to my work, and to the Great Works of all of our kind. The Obelisks, the Nightbringer’s Pariah gene, the Celestial Orrery of the Sundown Sisters… All of it is at risk by your piety. You would make us slaves to our servants. And for that, you must be destroyed.”

The Judicator wordlessly reared his head back, and with one swift motion, slammed his forehead into the Dragon’s face. He would die fighting.

The Dragon, stunned, reeled back for a moment, but roared in rage and latched onto the Judicator’s head with his teeth.

The Judicator could feel the Dragon’s essence trying to seep into him, trying to crush his spirit into nothing. But he was weak. He had exerted himself too much in their battle. He was tired now, so tired… He could feel himself being absorbed by the Dragon. It was all over now. He would die for those he wanted to protect> It was the only death he would have been able to accept anyway. But for him, the final stroke was written, the first of the C’tan to end in millennia. 

The Judicator struggled futilely a few more times, before his body fell inert. The color drained from the Judicator’s body, his blade’s flames extinguished, and his luminous faceplate dulled into darkness. The Dragon released his lifeless form, now a rigid block of living metal in the shape of the Judicator, but a dull gray color rather than his brilliant burnished gold and white. The Dragon looked at the fallen foe, his metallic features twisted in pain and despair, now half-sunk in the red dust of the Dragon’s world.

The Dragon looked out across the reddish landscape to his ruined pyramid. He was going to disassemble it anyway- His true lair lay deep beneath the dust and rocks now. The remaining pieces would be scavenged as needed.

He cast one last scathing glance at the dead Judicator, and spun off towards his ruined temple, leaving the corpse of the Judicator where it lay to be buried by the sands and forgotten by time.

The Deceiver opened his eyes, grinning slightly from his safe stronghold. The Judicator, the only entity that could have successfully talked the C’tan into opposing the Dragon’s plan, had instead taken the issue directly to the Dragon. His staunch piety had been his undoing in the face of the Dragon’s blind ambition. The War in Heaven would go as planned. Little did the dragon know, but the Judicator was right about everything- After all, the Deceiver is the one that told him how the Dragon’s plan would end.


----------



## Pride365 (Apr 17, 2012)

This is really great! You make me almost want a Necron army!!!


----------



## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

Thanks for the input! Glad I could convert someone!


----------

