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Chris — Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos.
From the moment he took up the mantle of Inquisitor, he had come to Terra as a man already prepared to give his life for the God-Emperor.
He was no Ordo Malleus Inquisitor — but like Inquisitor Eisenhorn before him, he had walked a line that, by any strict measure, made him no different from the heretics he hunted.
The work of an Inquisitor had a way of grinding a man down until he stopped feeling. And then, inheriting the vast resources left behind by his retired mentor — among them a considerable collection of Chaos artifacts, more than enough to earn him a white phosphorus execution on the spot — Chris had long since accepted that his end would not be a peaceful one.
His mentor had been lucky enough to make it to retirement. He'd gone to spend his final years on a Garden World somewhere, surrounded by greenery and quiet. Chris didn't think he'd be that fortunate.
So before his reckoning came, he intended to give everything he had — to the Imperium, and to His Majesty.
Toward that end, he had read voraciously — devoured libraries, piece by piece — and evaded Tzeentch's corruption more than once. All of it in service of one goal: to find, somewhere in the vast and endless sea of knowledge, a means of defeating the Imperium's greatest enemies.
T'au. Orks. Genestealers. Necrons...
He had dealt with far too many xenos species to count. These were the ones worth recording. As for the ones the Imperium had simply slapped out of existence with overwhelming force — he couldn't even keep track of those anymore.
So Chris considered himself a capable and experienced Inquisitor. But today, he felt his entire worldview overturn.
Necrons — an ancient race of skeletal machine-warriors. Their technology sat at the apex of the galaxy. They had once possessed a civilization of breathtaking brilliance. He knew them well. He knew how to deal with them.
The God-Emperor — the only hope for humanity's rotting Imperium.
But the moment these two things — two concepts that had absolutely nothing to do with each other — were fused together, accompanied by that cry full of honor and devotion... Chris felt his mind simply stop working.
He didn't know whether this world had always been this unhinged, or whether he had finally gone insane.
He wasn't the only one. The White Scars Astartes were standing there with their mouths open, staring at it all. They knew well enough that the Necrons had slept for so long their skulls had gone soft — but this kind of Necron, radiating sacred Imperial devotion from every inch of its metal frame, worshipping the God-Emperor — what in all the galaxy was this thing?
As for the mortals — there was nothing to say at all. They stood there murmuring to themselves, watching everything unfold in blank incomprehension.
Until...
"Ahh. Much better."
A thoroughly ill-timed voice materialized alongside a flash of teleportation. Tech-Priest 010 Omega — Aestia's self-appointed savior — had returned, accompanied by his four Kastelan Robots.
This was the highest concentration of combat power on all of Aestia. Though — why was one of them gold?
Oh. That wasn't a Kastelan Robot. That was a Necron Phaeron. Never mind then.
Wait — a Necron Phaeron?!
In that same instant, a ring of eyes turned toward Zhou Ye with expressions of sheer horror. But Zhou Ye, entirely unaware of what was going through their heads, was gazing down at the battlefield below with obvious interest.
"So this is Warhammer 40K. Speaking of which — what was the original reason I came here again? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. Right now I just want my Grand Free-for-All."
Watching everything playing out below, Zhou Ye let a satisfied smile cross his face. Of course, with the helmet visor in the way, no one could see a thing.
Click.
But just as Zhou Ye was standing there appreciating the view, the sound of weapons being chambered rang out. Almost every single person had their weapon pointed at the Necron Phaeron.
It had apparently once had a name, but he had long since forgotten what it was. At some point during the repair process, it had bestowed upon itself a new one.
The self-proclaimed Archbishop of Aestia now stood with every weapon on the field trained squarely at it.
The soldiers hesitated, though. Something about that skeleton radiating sacred Imperial energy made them deeply uncertain. They weren't sure if shooting it would count as desecrating the God-Emperor — and so, one by one, they gave up on the idea.
"We are all faithful subjects of the God-Emperor. What we must do now is extend His Majesty's mercy to the Chaos filth and the heretical cultists among us. I humbly ask that you do not, at this moment, start a civil war within the Imperium."
"......"
The Archbishop of Aestia stood there with a barrel pointed at its golden ribcage from every direction, expression radiating solemn righteousness and deep compassion for all living things.
This spectacle struck every last person present into stunned silence.
You know what they were watching? A Necron — standing there talking about the God-Emperor. Urging them to destroy the xenos for His Majesty's sake. Except the problem was that right here, right now, across all of Aestia — you were the biggest xenos on the field.
And "civil war" — wasn't shooting a Necron just the natural order of things?
But the Archbishop of Aestia paid no attention to the weapons pointed at it. It walked over to each soldier it could find and began personally delivering a lecture on the Imperial Catechism. One by one, it told each of them: they were all the God-Emperor's faithful.
Every single person was the God-Emperor's currency. Such precious currency should never be wasted on internal conflict.
The God-Emperor is benevolent. We must stand together and destroy His enemies.
By the time it was done, every last PDF trooper it had spoken to was hanging their head in shame — and lowering their weapon.
As for why the Astartes had gone un-lectured — it was because they and the Inquisitor had already surrounded Zhou Ye. Qin Meng and Chris were staring at him with eyes that had gone a dangerous, vivid red, as though they were about to physically tear him apart.
"You wanted reinforcements. I'm asking you — is this or is this not reinforcements."
Ringed by a crowd of men standing two meters or taller, Zhou Ye produced what could only be described as a shy smile.
"Yes — the more the better — but can you please explain to me what exactly this is?!"
Chris had already given up on processing the Necrons. What he wanted right now was to tear Zhou Ye apart with his bare hands. The only thing stopping him was the pre-warming glow already building in the cannon barrels of Zhou Ye's Kastelan Robots, radiating patient menace. He choked back everything he wanted to do and said nothing.
The rest of them didn't know. But what Zhou Ye had said over their shared channel earlier — every one of them had heard it.
And watching Zhou Ye act innocent like this now made Chris grind his teeth hard enough to crack them.
"That counts as your request. I've already got it on record."
"Just tell me how you did it. And what state are they actually in."
"It was just a little bit of... ahem ahem ahem — when I slipped inside, the Necron tomb had been running a dormant sleep cycle for so long that the core Necron Phaeron had already degraded. Its engrammic core was too far gone."
"And so you just... repaired it for them???"
Chris said this through clenched teeth, momentarily forgetting that the majority of Necron technology was simply incomprehensible to humanity.
"That's not quite it......"
Zhou Ye had absolutely no intention of admitting he had genuinely repaired it himself. He switched angles instead:
"I had previously obtained an ownerless Necron core, and I tried writing the Imperial Catechism into it. This time, I simply installed that core into its body."