Making her way back to her lab, Nephalut swung the staff, launching blasts of energy in random directions leaving a trail of craters. It was a good staff. Before, she rarely used weapons. Gauss Flayers and the rest of the ranged Necron armory weren't her forte, nor did they interest her. Sure, they were empowering if she were the only one in the room wielding one. Yet how plentiful they were reduced how empowering having one was - everyone would have an equal or better chance of wounding her, regardless of skill.
Terran weapons were always fun. Punching holes by lobbing round chunks of metal. They did pose a threat once the chunks got large enough or when the punishment overloaded the Necrodermis' regeneration, but soon that concern and the fun of using them would be gone. A strange helper left her containers filled with a darker, lighter form of the living metal. A strange alloy it was. Who could produce this and why would they deliver it to her? Were they the same person who gave Kophtet the staff, wand, and the invulnerable Deathmarks? She was sure her fellow Cryptek didn't find those on his own, and she had some doubt in him developing them.
Both staff and wand seemed to be made of this material, making them light and easy to use. When she touched the staff it became an extension of herself, acting like an extra limb her body had ignored all this time. Its light weight was deceiving as the punch, from what she'd felt, could be as brutal as the tip of a warship slamming into one's face at the speed of light. She wondered if Azultep had anything in his ancient armory to match his weapon. Perhaps she could even take on the Silent King herself if he ever showed up. Or maybe that extra-galactic infesting horde known by many as the Tyrannids. She'd like to see how the staff would perform against one of those pestilent hive fleets.
Malat hopped onto her shoulder.
"If I lose this. . . I won't." Whereas one could survive a barrage of Gauss Flayers (if they were nimble or quite resilient), so far the staff had proven capable of guaranteeing a crippling, if not fatal, blow.
Falling into the wrong hands wouldn't be a happy occasion, nor would it be any happier if that special Deathmark got ahold of it. "But I have an idea," she said. Malat made eye contact with her, perched on her shoulder. She entered the lab and noticed a peculiar person still bound.
"You're still alive?"
The Terran nodded at the machine. He recognized her, given the shreds of skin she still wore.
She pointed her staff at him. "Keep it up." And left him there as she went into the second chamber of her lab.
A while later she came out. The near-dead Terran turned his head to her. His fingers twitched as his bruised arms sagged in their bindings. "Catch!" she said and threw the staff at him.
He opened his mouth, and before he could bite down on it the flying pole flew back into her hand.
"Keep it up," she said and left the room. Malat scurried over to the Terran and sprinkled water on his tired face.
There, it's solved, she thought. And a few new moves. Those she planned to practice in front of Lord Szazadrekh, who was probably doing one of two things. Either he was sitting his throne or he was walking around to look busy, comfortable in his general boredom when there was nothing else to do. Not having anything to do was normal for the Lord, and the idea of infringing on his right to be bored never came to Nephalut's mind until now.
Szazadrekh sat on his throne, the sooty remnants of the cigar rubbed all over his toothy "mouth", carved grooves on his faceplate. Chin on palm, elbow on knee, he gazed into the nothingness that inhabits an eternal mind. His eyes glowed dim and his back hunched over. The only thing other than nothing running through his mind was the fuzzy memory that he should be doing something right now.
"Belakh, do something important." Nothing was happening other than the usual and the repairs going about around the ship. He had no opinion about the cigar; if he had one it must've burned up with it. He wasn't in the mood to have an opinion right now. That battle took a lot out of him, or so he told himself.
This is what I always do between the active parts, he thought. Sit and do nothing. An afterlife I can't hate or love. Who could've guessed boredom was actually an interesting and fun activity? Truly, it is the activity and the duty of us royalty who "live forever". Once everything's said and done, rather than die we just sit down and spend the rest of eternity in a limbo between active duty and retirement. What's even better is that the wealth I saved up before the great slumber doesn't exist any more, and I don't need it. Nothing to buy, nothing to envy, nothing to do. Maybe a political uprising amongst the dynasties? What about taking back the corrupted dynasties infected with flayer-ism? What about taking back the galaxy for a glorious Necron dominated millenium? Meh. For now, the boredom will do-
His eyes glowed bright-the staff stopped in front of his face. It flew back into Nephalut's hands.
"Ah, Nephalut. How's that jaw coming along?"
"Pretty well," she replied. "Mind if I move some stuff in here? I've come up with a few modifications for our fancy sticks."
"Not until you bring my new jaw with the hinges-"
A loud p-tang! shattered the stillness hanging over the conversation.
Eyes burning up, Szazadrekh reached upwards and caught his new "jaw"-his split lower face-swinging to the side. "Excuse me?"
Nephalut slammed the staff against the floor, however she underestimated. She stumbled, as the force of the staff shook the chamber and put a giant dent in the living metal beneath her. She used the staff to steady herself, and then said, "I'll get you a jaw, but I insist we do the modifications first or else you might loose that wand of yours like you almost lost your chin."
Szazadrekh pressed his freely hanging jaw against the bottom of his face. "Good idea-"
"I'll be modifying your arms by applying new necrodermis that interacts with our own quite well. I've still yet to figure out how to replicate this substance, as it was a gift from a stranger."
"Certainly not Kophtet," Szazadrekh said, patting his chest, sides, thighs, and calves, shaking his scaly royal garb, and even trying to reach under the plating that surrounded his large body.
Nephalut tilted her head. She figured what he was trying to do, but what he wouldn't admit to doing. "Need any help?"
"No-" He said before feeling the force of twenty thousand white dwarfs slam into his torso, plow him through the throne (ripping off the back of the chair), hurl him across and slam him into the wall creating one wide and deep dent with chunks of necrodermis flying off.
Before the throne, one end of the staff hung in the air where Szazadrekh just was. A little steam rose and condensation covered the end - from the intense heat, resulting from the immediate compression of the gasses between Szazadrekh and the end of the staff before impact, and the kinetic energy not transferred released as heat, immediately cooling after the staff hit its target.
Szazadrekh pried himself from the fractured wall and hopped down. He pointed to the staff. "I don't like you having that," he said. "Especially when you're this able-"
He crashed into the wall, putting another dent into it.
Nephalut caught the returning staff with a sharp ping! that ricocheted around the room. A resulting sonic boom dented the wall behind behind Nephalut.
Szazadrekh looked up and saw her step down the high dais where his broken throne stood, the back of it shattered, and head straight for him. He patted down again, his horror displayed in frantic efforts to find the wand. He looked down just to make sure he wouldn't miss it.
He shuddered as the staff end pressed against his forehead and pushed his head up. "Found it," Nephalut said. She waved it by the tip, playfully.
"Give me the wand. Now." Nephalut could feel the heat of his burning eyes from where she stood.
"Really?" She extended her staff and pried him back on his feet- "I didn't know you were afraid of death."
A wraith burst out of the dented wall, the structure slowly mending itself, and lunged for the shattered throne. Seconds later it was back in shape and the Lord made his way over and sat down on it. "I don't know with that." His finger aimed at the staff. "Now can I have my wand?"
"Have you become so weak you can't get it yourself?" Nephalut said. She tossed and caught it over and over.
If Nephalut didn't have both the staff and the wand with her, he would've summoned every able-bodied automaton to take her down. But with the staff in her possession and this new Necrodermis binding it too her, disarming her was a fantasy. However, the wand wasn't bound to her.
He lowered his patience, stood up, and stepped down to the top stair's edge. "Could you say that a bit closer?"
She stepped forward to the bottom stair. She's in range, he thought. "Well?" she said. "Are you going to come and get it or am I just gonna stand here and tease you? I never knew you liked to be teased."
"Nor did I know you to be the one to act like a stray house cat when the other person you're concerned about isn't around." He stepped down another stair. "I always took you for the boring, 'I sit by my glyphs till I rust' kind of guy-girl-whatever you identify yourself as. It appears to be that I've been wrong all along." He took off his royal scaled cloak and held it in his fist. "I'm beginning to question the nature of what you do when no one is looking. Maybe I should revoke some privileges."
"Do that and you wont be getting this back any time soon."
"You're going to hand it to me? I thought you wanted me to come and get it myself. Thus I would be doing all the effort." He stepped down another stair. "Surely your a Cryptek of your word."
"I am," she replied.
"Or so I'd guess before now. You seem to be a different person with that staff around. Maybe I should take it as well."
"Try."
"I will-" He threw his cloak in front of him and sidestepped as it wrapped around the spinning projectile. The staff flew by him and he lunged.
Nephalut saw the larger Lord falling on her and instinctively threw both arms up to break his fall. He would tackle her before the staff returned. Then she spread her arms, realizing that even with them out, she'd be crushed-as well as her staff was now likely to be on the return-
Szazadrekh felt that same terrifying force plow into his back. Fortunately, the staff hit parallel to his spine. Unfortunately, the force smashed him into the Cryptek and drove the two through the floor into a chamber they weren't aware of.
When the dust settled the two "opened" their eyes and saw that they were face to face. His body was against hers, and her arm came to rest on his back with the staff. Their hands clutched the wand, while Szazadrekh's arm wrapped around her back.
"So, uh... Quite the waltz we're having?" A voice said.
Nephalut and Szazadrekh flicked the wand in the direction it came from and heard a tiny shriek from where the bolt of energy crackled.
"Get off me." Nephalut said and took her arm off his back. "Take your wand and get off. Now."
The Lord rolled off her and the two rose to their feet. He beat the dust out of his cloak while she walked over to see who was lurking at the far end of the forgotten chamber.
She approached and found a auto-maton scorpion. She ripped off its tail and obliterated the severed limb with a blast from her staff.
"Someone's been living down here," Szazadrekh said. "Belakh, can you light it up?"
The chamber glowed an eerie amber. Lord and Cryptek looked around and found unmarked containers upon unmarked containers, of different sizes, stacked and tucked away.
"I... Did not know there was a cargo hold down here," he said. "I don't recall this being a part of the ship at all..."
Belakh chirped through the glyphs.
"But it is part of the ship," Szazadrekh added. "Otherwise Belakh wouldn't have access. In that case, Belakh! Have some sentinels, scarabs, and wraiths run some checks. I don't like having surprises like these aboard my flagship."
He looked to a set of crates and saw a patch of fuzz spreading across the floor. "Nephalut, come here. We have something."
"No. No we don't." Nephalut said. "I was just messing with you. I didn't mean to attract your passion. No offense but you're not my kind of Lord."
Szazadrekh turned his head and pointed. "I did not mean that. I meant that!"
She walked over and saw what he was pointing to.
"You want to retrieve it?" He asked.
She looked at the ork head in the center of the patch, spores floating off its skin. With wands, staffs, strange compartments, and crazed Deathmarks on the loose, the last thing they needed was an ork infestation. "Recent events have depreciated his research value. I'd rather exterminate him."
Staff and wand, they obliterated the growth.
"Here's his friend," she said, holding up the little automaton, its belly facing outward. "He may be of use."
Szazadrekh looked at the markings on the automaton's belly. There was an older set of glyphs, but over them was painted the markings of none other than...
"Kophet," Szazadrekh sighed. "Nephalut. Either you're pulling my leg and trying to win my favor or this is true."
She shrugged. "Up to you."
"Though, given what his record... I will put my trust in you." He looked up. "Belakh, get a security detail down here. Also, let the rest of the fleet as well as Azultep's know the threat of Cryptek Kophtet. As for our fleet, have his entry privileges revoked from here on. If anyone sees him, he is to be immediately apprehended and disarmed. He has some answering to do." He turned to Nephalut, and held her at wand-point. "If this is by any chance some sophisticated plot to remove him, or you undermine my trust in any other way, expect similar treatment."
"In that case," Nephalut said with a grin. "Let's get you those modifications so you can properly punish me." She started to climb her way up a few crates to the opening above.
"And I thought you said I wasn't your kind of Lord." He followed suit, climbing up behind her.
"Quit dreaming," she said and kicked him back down.