HARVEST

The pyramid’s doors opened, slowly, and with a combination of awe, fear, and respect, the Necrontyr beheld their master.

Semta stepped forward into the harsh glare of the midday sun. His body shone with the reflected light, and the deep purple gems on his chest glowed. He walked up to the lines of warriors, now stiff and at attention, and raised up his Necirta, the ‘Staff of Light’.

The warriors fell to their knees at the sight of the Necirta, their heads lowered in respect. The Immortals kneeled. The Scarabs stopped hovering and flew softly to the ground.

"Arise, my warriors!" Semta shouted. "Lift up your heads and your spirits! For today we go forth and regain some of our lost glory. We will descend upon the human world Shalet and let them know what it means to stand before the Necrontyr. This we will do, and more. We will harvest the finest among the humans, so that we may study them and know their strengths and their weaknesses, and so that we may use their flesh and blood to make ourselves whole once more"

Semta lifted his Necirta once more. Talin was caught up in the beauty of the rune sitting atop the staff, the sign of the god Lopoch.

The Necrontyr lord walked around the warriors, to the portal that was set up beside them. He gestured to it with his staff.

One by one the Necrontyr marched into the portal, and were teleported to another world. Talin experienced an awkward feeling for a moment as he passed through and his physical body passed through the spirit realm. For an instant his eyes saw nothing.  They focused on his new surroundings just as his audio sensors picked up the sounds of battle.   The sounds of the dying mixed with the shimmering sound of gauss rifles and the quickly silenced screams of the raid's victims.

Talin held his guass rifle up in his arms, ready to fire upon any threat. He quickly searched for and found the squad he was assigned to, identifying them by the runes on their bodies. He ran to them, snapping off a quick shot at a human who was running from the new arrivals. The shot struck the human's side, stripping away his skin, muscles, and bones so quickly that his scream came out as a squeal before his throat disintegrated.

More Necrontyr materialized in the midst of the battle, adding their own weapons fire. Talin looked around to familiarize himself with his settings. He was in the midst of a small town that had been set up near a forest. Buildings made of stone and steel with glass windows surrounded him. They were primitive constructs, lacking the beauty of the Necrontyr pyramids.  They were squat, ugly creations, with nothing given to their looks, resembling boxes more than a true building.  In that moment Talin realized these humans would never be as great as his people.

Three units of human warriors ran to take positions of cover in the rubble left from the collapse of a series of buildings. They fired laser rifles at the warriors. Their shots bounced harmlessly off Talin’s metal body.

Talin and his unit advanced, firing as they went. He was pleased that his training was still intact after all these years. Five opponents were downed in just three seconds, with only Kreyl falling to the fire from a large bore automatic weapon. Only two other warriors in the raiding force had fallen, but already the humans looked ready to retreat, their fallen comrades a grim example of their what would soon be their own fate.

A gaunt human with a long black coat appeared out of the ruins, shouting orders to the human warriors. They seemed to take heart at his appearance and his shouted words. Talin ignored him. His job was to take out the human warriors and capture living specimens.   Semta would take care of the black-garbed human.

Lord Semta was soon in the front lines of the Necrontyr force, marching forth with his warriors. A unit of Immortals stood around him, shielding him from harm. Talin thought that his lord looked quite elegant, striding majestically into the heart of battle with his Necirta held high above his head for the warriors to see.

A moment later, the Necirta was down. Semta held it with both hands and stopped his advance. His eyes, already a cold blue, lit up and he slowly aimed the staff at the human leader. A bolt of blue light left the staff and impacted with the human’s torso in an instant, tearing away his entire chest in a messy explosion.

The humans looked at their leader. They knew they had lost. They turned and fled, trying to escape the wrath of the Necrons.

They didn’t get far.

With cold malice, Talin and the other warriors turned their guns upon the humans’ backs. In a few seconds, the humans were dead.

Talin walked forward, taking a moment to look down at the remains of a human warrior. He lay face down on the ground, his rifle still held tightly in his hands. He had been killed by a hail of metal shards when his fellow warrior's heavy weapon had exploded.