Editing Orkhammer (section)

== Orkron ==

It was rather worrying, thought the Necron Lord, to have such a large gap in his memories.

The last raid had been an utter failure, as it recalled. There had been the hated living, swarming on his – HIS planet, crawling over the once-blasted plains and barren soils. Now awakened after so long, he had marshaled his grand forces to strike at the enemy. Even with their powerful guns, the pitiful bovine creatures dressed in beige and tan had perished by the hundreds, their citizens, their troops. By the Star Gods, they were crawling all over the surface! He made a note for his next body to be made several times larger than standard, to make the harvest easier.

He had marched straight into their capital in a slow parade and taken the heads of their blue-skinned leaders with his own warscythe, sending them running in fear of death itself. And then there had been that strange asteroid, crashing down upon the city with brutal precision…

He had not minded, waking once again in a new metal body, as he had done so long ago. He had not minded, finding half his systems still unfinished and his chronological marker showing a half-cycle round the sun had passed – the price to pay for such upgrades to size and raw power. He even almost applauded the fact that monolith monitoring statistics showed almost more blood had been spilled than the whole of last cycle. But the fact that almost his entire force of Necrons had converted themselves into Flayed Ones was rather disturbing.

The Necron Lord, in his new, giant body, stumbled from the Monolith portal back onto the surface. Warscythe in hand, he watched his forces do their deadly work, killing even the animals that roamed the surface. Watched one Necron kill the small being with its mouth, crushing its head with a metal jaw. He mentally nodded to himself, killing being what a Necron’s job is. Very good.
He screeched his rallying call, summoning the warriors and servants to do his bidding.

And they came, shambling and tottering. Hundreds of his finest infantry, metal exoskeletons dragging themselves over the ground, swathed in the flesh of his enemies.

Rather a lot of flesh, now he came to think about it.

And he certainly didn't recall seeing any enemies with green skins, either… the lord of death made another note to ask where his troops were getting their decorations from.

“[Brothers!]” he screeched (perhaps it really wasn't a good idea to have swapped out the communications and life-sensing array for the extra extra large pauldrons? Ah, a bit too late now to change his order) “[Heed my call! The enemy of us all are here, on our surface!]” He pointed towards the next city (he’d made a whole annotated to-do list, starting with ‘wipe out all significant pockets of populations’, followed by ‘kill any other sentients nearby’, ‘finish up by gaussing all the wildlife, plant life and microscopics’ ‘check answering machine’ and ‘go back to sleep’) with his warscythe and roared. They answered him in the Necron way – a howling omen of death and despair, sure to tell all who heard their death was imminent.

The Necron Lord tapped the side of his metallic head. They weren't usually that loud.

The harvest in the city had been a bountiful one, and the Necron Lord’s fears had mostly been allayed. Still, there had to be some major flaws in the resurrection tomb system, what with the Flayed ones using non-standard gauss weaponry instead of their claws, and more flayed one torsos being mounted on destroyer bodies. He couldn't doubt their effectiveness. The Tau (as his inbuilt translator told him they were called) had broken and run once more when the metallic green monstrosities started clambering out of the broken streets and tearing into their fire teams with green lightning and claws. Lots of green. It was then he noticed the internal alarm going off – those wretched living had the gall to attack the necron staging grounds! Grabbing a nearby destroyer, he stepped onto its metallic carapace, gesturing back to the Monolith.
“[My subjects, we must make haste! Back, back to the monolith! Destroyers, Spyders! Split to two groups and flank the enemy! The rest of you, ready your phase units! My signal will tell you when to strike!]”
The destroyer he was on turned to look at him, puzzled. The metal jaw moved, speaking the long-dead necrontyr language.
“[Er… You’z want us to go over dere and crump da Tau, boss lord?]”
“[…Yes, that is what I spoke. Come hither, my army! Strike, strike them all dow-]”

Nearly falling from his mount as it jerked forward, the Necron Lord grabbed onto the shoulders of the Destroyer.
He’d really have to check the Monolith diagnostics for corrupted repair algorithms. This one’s power core was so out of alignment he could feel the heat of it right through the dead flesh.

“[Be ready my subjects! They will know their fate tonig-]”
“[QUIT YER YAPPIN, BOSS! WE KNOWS HOW TA GET REEL KILLY ALREADY!]”
The Necron Lord almost lost his footing again. How dare- How DARE his subjects talk back to him? Why had- ah yes.. flayed ones. While the immortality process that the necrodermis granted them had dulled most of the necrontyr minds, it was sometimes the case some memories remained.. and the flayed ones were the most erratic. Having been drawn from the ranks of the insane, it wasn't surprising their politeness was lacking.

Calming down, he tried to remember the management courses he had sat through when still one of the hated living. ‘When trying to deal with unfriendly workers, remember to-’ Ah, yes, that was it. A gout of green blaze engulfed the outspoken flayed one, sending its destroyer body crashing to the grass. ‘Remember to assert your authority first.’
”[WHO ELSE WISHES TO DOUBT ME? YOU WILL KILL! THAT IS YOUR ROLE! WHAT SAY YOU?!]”

A half second of silence. Then-
“[WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHHHH!]”

The Lord only tilted his head, this time. It was kind of catchy the more he heard it.

As they crested the hill, his jaw dropped. The Monolith was awash with gauss energy, splaying its deadly arcs of lightning everywhere. Quite literally, everywhere – it looked like someone had been modifying it a great deal, a quick count showed at least 12 more Flux arcs on it, as well as – were those infantry-class flayers mounted there? Who’d been tampering with it?

The Tau, with the loss of their high command, had seemed to lose hope, sending a near-suicidal charge at the Monolith. Thousands of Kroot lay dead already, their bodies stripped of flesh. But the meat had had some effect – smoke came from the black (well, /mostly/ still black, he’d really have to have words with the Necron who’d done this) pyramid, pierced by hypervelocity rounds. Still the Tau came, unaware of the danger he brought.

He crashed into them, taking their lives with wanton lust, tearing through their screaming ranks. His forces followed suit, ripping armor off crisis suits to rend the flesh beneath, beating fire teams to death with their own shielding drones. He laughed as they tried to regroup, walked straight through their (mostly) ineffectual fire.
”The monolith!” cried one T’au. “If we destroy that this will be over!” He made a point of killing that one personally.

It had been a slaughter from that point onwards. As it had always been. As it should always be.

Once again, analyzing the statistics he found himself surprised by the after-battle results. Yes, the added gauss flayers and flux arcs were against building regulations. Yes, the new paint job wasn't authorized. However, results were results. The AI in the building must have been motivated by the effort someone had put into redecorating – it had boosted firing rates and movements almost 300%. And the kill to damage ratio- ! All right, the Lord decided. It wasn't as if red paint jobs were unheard of. Especially if it was the blood of the once-living.

“[Immortal! Was it you who oversaw the modifications to the Monolith?]”
“[Yer wot, boss?]”
The Lord paused as he worked out how to talk to an obviously mind-damaged Necron.
“[You put more guns on the pyramid thing, and painted it red, yes?]”
“[Ah, wuz me all right. Heheh, fixed it good.]” The immortal seemed pleased with itself, the large metal exoskeleton heaving with enjoyment.
“[Tell me, what was the scheme you had in mind when making it?]”
“[Uh… we’z made it Or- I mean, we made it ded killy by adding more flash bitz.]”
He nodded sagely. More killing – that was indeed the ultimate aim of all Necrons.
“[Good. See that all our monoliths are modified like this. And try to fix the repair protocols while you’re at it – I believe I need a few holes patched up, so make it good.]”
The immortal nodded enthusiastically.
“[Uh, boss? C’n we add spikes?]”
“[…Sure, why not?]”

He awoke again, some time later. It seemed that his head had become much more clearer after that third slumber. And this time, he had resized to become even larger than his last incarnation. Good, good. All the better to kill with.

Towering over his minions, he stalked out of the monolith portal once more, personal gauss generators glowing green in the dark night. All the sentients on this planet had been purged. Yet his urge for death had still to be satisfied. He summoned his troops once more.

“[YOU’Z LOT! WE’Z DONE WELL WIZ OUR EFFORTZ SO FAR!]” The Lord paused for a second, checking his speech pattern. Strange. Oh well, the logs showed that Immortal HAD overhauled the repair facilities, and a good manager did learn the lingo of his company.
“[BUT WE’Z GOT A LONG WAY TO GO, ROIT?! DERE’Z A LOT MORE STUFF TA CRUMP OUT DERE!]” The fleet had been summoned, the AIs-controlled ships speeding to transport them across the stars.

“[WE’Z BRING DEFF TO DEM AWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGH!!!]”

They followed in his warcry.

Oh, he’d have some rather interesting ideas to spread at the next Necron board meeting...