The prompt this week was "A protagonist accidentally awakens an ancient army that is solely loyal to them."
Ruby glanced around the dark tunnels beneath Mantle uncertainly. Getting lost in the Dust mines had decidedly notbeen a part of the plan, but the sudden Grimm attack had thrown everything off. She needed to find her team fast, before Salem's real attack on Atlas began.
Ruby turned a corner and noticed a faint green light in the distance. She'd been relying entirely on her scroll's flashlight to navigate; another source of light was a good sign. She hurried toward the green light, and nearly jumped out of her skin as she rounded another corner.
Hovering in the air in front of her were a dozen machines, each the size of a small dog. They looked like beetles with their oblong bodies, pointed heads, and six spindly limbs. Each one had a single glowing green lens at the center of its head. Ruby couldn't begin to guess what was keeping them suspended in midair.
The robots dove towards Ruby, moving with shocking speed. She lifted Crescent Rose to defend herself, but just before the beetles reached her, a voice called out from farther down the tunnel.
"Stop!" cried the mechanical voice. The robots reacted instantly, freezing in midair mere feet from Ruby.
The Huntress turned to see where the voice had come from, and found another robot approaching down the tunnel. This one was humanoid, though it was more than seven feet tall. Its silver body had a skeletal aspect to it, especially the chest which had slits like a ribcage. Like the beetles, it had a single green lens in the middle of its face. It carried a staff in one hand that was even taller than the robot. The staff's flanged head glowed faintly green.
The robot approached Ruby, walking confidently through the halted beetles, before lowering itself to one knee.
"A thousand pardons, my Overlord," it entreated. Though its voice was mechanical, there was still inflection, emotion even, in its tone. "I do not know what would possess the Scarabs to attack you, but I will run a thorough systems diagnostic."
Ruby blinked in confusion at the robot. "Did you say overlord?"
"Of course, Overlord Zharakh," confirmed the robot. "My optical sensors have degraded during our long slumber, but I would recognize your warscythe anywhere. I, your humble Cryptek Positahn, am ready to serve you."
"Uh, yes… of course," Ruby replied uncertainly, planting Crescent Rose beside her. "Rise my… loyal subject."
Positahn rose to its feet and looked down to meet Ruby's eyes. If it found the difference in their heights unusual, it gave no indication.
"The tomb world awakens to do your will, my Overlord, but the process is slow. Still, I will have five thousand soldiers ready for you by the end of the day."
Ruby's eyes widened. Five thousand soldiers? If that was considered slow, she was afraid to ask how many there were in total.
"Additionally," continued the Cryptek. "I have run diagnostics on the Tesseract Vault, and it is fully operational."
"The what vault?" Ruby asked before she could stop herself.
"Yes," replied Positahn uncertainly as Ruby realized her mistake. "The Tesseract Vault that we possess. Surely you have not forgotten?"
"Of course not," answered Ruby, thinking quickly. "But my memory has been… disrupted by our long slumber."
"I see," Positahn acknowledged. "The Tesseract Vaults were used to imprison the shards of the C'tan when even our mightiest weapons could not destroy them completely. I know you have your misgivings about using unleashing the shard's power on the battlefield, but I assure you I can contain it. The C'tan will bend to your will."
"Wait," interrupted Ruby, holding up a hand. "Are you saying this Tesseract Vault is used to trap powerful beings that can't be killed?"
"Precisely."
An idea began to hatch in Ruby's mind. "Could we build another one?"
"Yes, our tomb world has the resources to do so," replied Positahn. "But why, my Overlord? Do you believe we are threatened by another C'tan shard?"
"Something like that…"
Legions of robotic Necron warriors marched across the wasteland towards Salem's keep. Their skeletal visages remained impassive even as hordes of Grimm rose up to meet them. The mechanical soldiers raised their Gauss weapons, and beams of green light fired into the beasts. The sinister beams ripped the Grimm apart atom by atom, leaving nothing but smoking black corpses in their wake.
Ruby watched it all from her command barge, lifted safely above the battle by the Necrons' peerless antigravity technology. Things had progressed shockingly quickly once she had the power of the Necrons at her disposal. Her first meeting with Cryptek Positahn had been just weeks ago, and here they were assaulting Salem's keep.
Nothing could stop them. Her Necron warriors brought down Grimm with casual ease. Tyrian, Hazel, and Watts had fallen to her Lychguard. Cinder had been a threat, but even she was no match for the power of the C'tan shard that Ruby commanded.
The hardest part had been explaining why she only wanted them to kill the Grimm and a small handful of others. Positahn had expected her to order the conquest of the entire planet, but it had accepted her as its Overlord, and ultimately her word was law.
There was only one challenge left. And Ruby could see her emerging from her keep.
Salem announced her presence on the battlefield with an enormous fireball that broke through the center of the Necron formation. She followed this with blasts of crimson lightning from her hands that fried the circuits of any warrior they fell upon. Her magic was even powerful enough to overload the Reanimation Protocols of many of Ruby's warriors, preventing their robotic bodies from reassembling themselves.
The witch caught sight of Ruby's command barge and launched a bolt of lightning at the Huntress. The tendril of electricity reached up into the sky, coming within inches of Ruby's face before being turned aside by the barge's quantum shielding. It almost felt like cheating.
"Fire the Doomsday Arc," ordered Ruby, trusting the command barge to relay her order.
From rear of the Necron formation, a hovering boat-like vehicle began charging the massive gun that made up the bulk of its structure. Receiving targeting data from the command barge, it shifted in midair to aim its mighty weapon. It hummed softly for a moment, then a loud whine sounded across the wasteland as the Doomsday Arc fired. The beam of light speared across the battlefield to strike the ground at Salem's feet with heat that could melt through feet of stone.
As the smoke began to clear from the glass crater left by the Doomsday Arc, Ruby caught sight of Salem's body glowing as it reconstituted itself.
"Now!" she cried.
More than a mile above the battlefield, a massive obelisk of Necron metal deactivated its antigravity drive and plummeted towards the surface of Remnant. It fell through the layers of clouds that had kept it hidden from the prying eyes of Grimm. An instant before it would have fallen on top of Salem, it split in four, each quadrant landing to one side of her.
No sooner had Salem's body finished reforming than chains of lightning reached out from the quadrants of the obelisk to bind her.
"What is this?" cried the witch, trying desperately to break free. But even her magic could not escape the prison of the Tesseract Vault. "No!"
As Salem screamed helplessly, the four quadrants slowly came together, reuniting into one whole and sealing the witch away in the interdimensional prison.
From atop her command barge Ruby laughed with relief. She had done it. She had saved Remnant from Salem.
Now she just needed to save it from the Necrons.
Author's Note: It's Warhammer 40,000 for anyone who didn't know the reference. Hope you enjoyed it!