Anhomqena woke up from her endless reverie to a body that she utterly loathed.

It was not just that her beauty and femininity had been wiped away, replaced with a disgustingly masculine shell. It was not just that it was a machine, rather than her warm, organic curves. No, what fundamentally revolted her about it was the fact that it was the same as everyone else. Anhomqena had never articulated her greatest fears, when she had been alive, but now she suddenly discovered that being turned into a nameless cog, a bland bit of putty, was easily the vilest fate she could imagine.

That led to what could uncharitably have been called a minor tantrum.

"I must have this body changed," Anhomqena demanded. The crypteks wanted her to help them make portraits, work with 'human' sketch artists – what even was a human? She did not know or care – but Anhomqena had no interest until her demands were met. "I cannot stand to look like this. It's disgusting! I want to be sick!"

"Please don't be so dramatic – " one of the Crypteks said and she rounded on him, even knowing it was perhaps foolish. But her utter revulsion was making her so angry.

"How would you feel if someone dropped you into the body of an ork?" she demanded sharply. "This body is not ME. I would rather die than live like this! I would rather die!" She could even see her own reflection in his silvery necrodermis and there was just nothing feminine about it, just a hulking brute of steel and green flux. Abhorrent! Utterly abhorrent!

Then the door opened and a new voice spoke.

"Anhomqena, is that you?" Anhomqena turned to see a noble of this new breed. His appearance was more palatable than hers… very individual, with a two-pointed headdress washed with gold, set with rubies. The gold gave her the hint.

"Osatek?" She asked uncertainly and he nodded before opening his arms. That gesture was so familiar that Anhomqena wanted to respond but – "This body, how can I…" She was Osatek's size. It was all wrong, she should have been shorter and slighter, her warm curves fitting against him so nicely. Now she was just this – this thing.

"Oh Anhomqena, no matter what you look like you are still yourself." That made her heart melt and she tried to settle into his embrace as she would have so long ago. Osatek really was so sweet, she loved that about him. He held her close and she could sense his emotion, even in these awful, sterile bodies. "I thought you were lost to me, that I would never see you again… I remembered you after the resouling." Then his voice quavered slightly. Even with these odd mechanical tones, she could hear it. "You didn't run… I should have told you to run, I regret that. But it meant so much to me that you didn't."

"I couldn't leave you, not like that," she murmured. It would have felt like such awful cowardice and Anhomqena had always prided herself on her strength of will. As a camp follower, she had been in the midst of shelling on several occasions and also been drafted into binding wounds many, many times. Running away and leaving her crippled mate behind… she could not bear it. "I do care for you Osatek, so very much." They had both known their relationship was somewhat transactional, but there was feeling there too.

"Anhomqena…" He murmured her name and just held her for a moment more before stirring and looking at the crypteks. They were politely giving them a moment. "What was this argument I walked in on?"

"We just want her to help us make portraits, but she wants to be remodeled immediately. We can't do that, the human sketch artist is waiting in orbit!" The cryptek said, genuinely harassed and Anhomqena wanted to snarl at him that she did not CARE but Osatek was right there so she held herself back. She was being too demanding, she knew that, but it was so hard when she hated this body so much. Osatek tilted his head to one side.

"Why don't you do both?" What? "The way you want your body remodeled is such an important decision and the sketch artist can surely help you. Why don't you ask him to make art for you, depictions of the body you would like to have?" Anhomqena was struck by the idea. She was a highly visual person, she always had been, but she had no real talent for art. It was so frustrating to have such beautiful images in her mind and be completely unable to translate them to reality, but her hands would just not cooperate. "Then you can get the portraits done and the humans can leave before the remodel." Well, she would prefer a different order of events but presumably these 'humans' had brought their own food and water. Did this planet even have those things? Somehow, Anhomqena was sure it didn't.

"Very well, we can do things that way," Anhomqena acquiesced. She WOULD love to have sketches of a beautiful mechanical body made and hopefully the crypteks could translate the sketches into reality. Osatek gently let her go.

"I will come with you." Oh, that would be lovely. Anhomqena wasn't acclimatized to this place yet. As they went to take the shuttle to the ship that held the humans, Anhomqena goggled a bit at the familiar yet strangely alien architecture. It was necrontyr but it also wasn't and she found it both disturbing and fascinating. The whole place was full of green light, though, the most pleasing of colors.

(yah! Green is da best!)

(hush you, this isn't your story)

Anhomqena was brought onto a small shuttle and taken into the sky around Mandragora. A ship was waiting there and she got to see these 'humans'. They came in a variety of shades, ranging from a very pale shade like alabaster all the way to a very dark hue, as dark as the necrontyr but without their rich indigo tone. Their faces were close enough to the necrontyr to be passable and Anhomqena even found them a touch attractive. If she'd still had a mortal body, Anhomqena might have been curious to see if they were compatible in other ways.

The humans had actually not brought just one sketch artist, they had brought three. The logic was that each artist could only work so long, and they were going to try to make a dozen or so portraits. When one artist was tired another could take a turn and they could see different artwork styles, different takes on the subject matter. Anhomqena was bemused by it all but insisted they do her concept art first.

All three of the artists had a crack at it as Anhomqena described what she wanted. She already had an idea in her mind… a slim, feminine figure of bronze and black with a few accents of emerald green. She wanted her 'hair' to be thick braids of black metal, if it could be arranged, two in front of her and the rest flowing behind. She wanted her face to be a death mask of her living face, not the face of a skeleton she had now, and she wanted the eyes to be lined in black and ornamented with green, like the makeup she had worn when she was alive. Her body would be styled like a necron, with the Sautekh symbol on the chest cartouche, but her chest would be a gentle swell, mimicking the breasts that she had once had. Her hips should also be pronounced, returning her to her beautifully sensual gait. It would all be bronze, with black lining on the edges of her shoulders and other plates. Gorgeous green would be enamelled on her wrists and ankles, matching the eye 'makeup' on her face.

"What do you think?" Anhomqena asked Osatek as they looked at the finished sketches. They were all quite lovely although there was one that appealed to her more than the others. But what did he think of her ideas?

"Well… I think the hair might be impractical. The metal braids will break if they are too long." Oh. That was exactly the kind of thing she wouldn't know. "Perhaps they could be done in segments, with hinges designed to look like silver pins?" Hmm… perhaps… "Also, perhaps that should be a headdress, that you can take on and off. Then you could change it whenever you like."

"Oh, like a wig?" That was a good idea. Wigs were not well thought of among the necrontyr, mainly because reliance on them was a sign of sickness. But it was considered impolite to point it out that someone was wearing one, for just that reason. It could happen to anyone, after all. "That is a wonderful idea, we should do that." The more she thought about it, the more appealing that became. In the living times, she could just have pulled her hair up into a tight bun and then put a headdress over it, or made a beautiful hairstyle with beads and precious stones worked into it. Now if she wanted to do that, they should all be removable headdresses.

With that decided, Anhomqena and the sketch artists moved to the portraits. Anhomqena was a bit bemused at how strange they found her memory, particularly when Osatek mentioned it.

"You never told me you have a photographic memory," he said, a bit reproachfully. Anhomqena looked at him in puzzlement.

"I really don't know what you mean. Isn't everyone this way?" she said, reflecting on it. She could not remember once discussing her ability to recall faces in life, she had just assumed everyone else remembered as perfectly as she did. Osatek buzzed a soft sigh.

"You remind me of father… he's learned otherwise, but I remember him sometimes saying things like that when I was a child." Well, no one else was like the Stormlord. But he hadn't known that? And she had a similar gift? What a strange thing.

In the end, they were very glad the humans had brought three sketch artists, because Anhomqena could do even more than portraits. They made highly detailed sketches of the Sautekh court, the glory that had once been. Images of the battlefields of the necrontyr, their noble forces fighting against the aeldari and the krork. Even a sketch of the evening, the common soldiers huddling around their little heaters as they licked their wounds, sad and tired. The beauty and horror of the necrontyr race, taking shape in these sketches of the past. They could have gone on, but the humans really needed to return to their world, a place called Antioch.

"I need to speak to father… I wonder if we could create a human suitable habitat around Mandragora, for events like this? Or even terraform one of the other planets in system? I don't know if any of them are suitable." She certainly wouldn't know, but it was intriguing. "Of course, many of the other Overlords might object to sharing this system with humans… we'll have to see." Really? Why? Anhomqena could understand not wanting to share the planet itself but what did it matter if one of the nearby planets hosted their serfs and slaves? Was that not useful to have them close for labor? "What we should do is take you to Hope. The pictures and sculptures we could make!" Osatek seemed to beam at the thought, as much as a machine could.

"I remember everything and I would gladly help with it all," Anhomqena said. She remembered the childhood orphanage, the sight of the sky at dawn, all kinds of little things they hadn't had time to do right now. Those things could also be drawn and colored or painted. A great picture of a necrontyr world… actually, now that she thought about it, Anhomqena realized that her memory WAS unusual. Being able to so clearly remember her entire childhood wasn't normal, was it? "But I want my remodel done NOW." If they were done with the sketches, she wanted the crypteks put to work. Would they remodel her current body or just create a new one, then transfer her mind? The second might be more practical but Anhomqena didn't really care how they got it done. Osatek gently put an arm around her waist. It really didn't work the way it had before but Anhomqena tried to lean into the gesture.

"Don't worry, we will. I want to see you like this as well," he said and that reassured her, as they went back to Mandragora.

Soon enough, she would have a body that wasn't exactly like trillions of others. She would be herself again.

Meanwhile, in Mandragora, Zivok was conducting more experiments.

He had spent some time serving as an apprentice to the Psychomancers. Already fairly versed in their craft, from his work on Hope, he quickly advanced and was able to replace his lab coat with a cloak of plaques. He worked extremely well with the other Psychomancers, who shared some of his inclinations. Although even there, he sometimes heard the name 'Szeras' muttered and it made Zivok wonder. Would he ever meet the person everyone thought he resembled?

Zivok deeply immersed himself in the knowledge of the necron mind, learning how it functioned on every level. He also examined the minds of pwi-necrons, which led him to a startling conclusion.

"You know, I think that during bio-transference, it would be possible to essentially 'copy' the engrams of a human undergoing the process and archive them. Then, if that person is permanently killed, it would be possible to rebuild them from scratch." Zivok paused to tap a pen against his face. Necrons used their own version of pens, enjoying hand writing, so it wasn't even a strange gesture. "Am I correct in thinking this would be taboo for necrons and extremely ethically dubious even by Hope standards?" He wasn't the best at evaluating what was ethically dubious. The STC had told him that, actually.

"My, you do think of the most appalling things," Cryptek Zaphokh, one of the high ranked Psychomancers, said admiringly. "And if we're being completely honest, that has already been done." Oh really?! "We don't talk about it much because the Overlords would be upset but once in a while, we've deeply scanned and then re-created someone of vital importance. I won't say who." Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

"I feel like I have found my people… we should bring this to the attention of the technicians on Hope and the STC. I know they'll insist on things like informed consent but perhaps a few of the truly brilliant lights will give it." That was very important, to Zivok's mind. Yes, Hope was managing to churn out more Cryptek candidates every day but the true luminaries like Jan and Iplanen were still few and far between. "Oh, that reminds me, Boris took biotransference recently. That's Jan's father, a specialist in bionic improvements. Hopefully we can get him into Mandragora for our projects." True, his current specialization had nothing to do with anything they were working on but Zivok had met him. "A quick crash course in recall technology and he'll be on his way." Zivok had absolute confidence in him.

"Do you really think so? Recall is our greatest technology." Yes indeed it was. "Ah, but you're probably right… I think Orikan is right, the essence of who can be a great luminary is the ability to continue to learn. I know I have that ability and I assume this Boris does too?" Zivok bobbed his head.

"He's quite old for a human and still learning ever day, still inventing too." There was no resting on his laurels for that one. "No rest for the wicked… speaking of which, what are we doing today?" He had been told they wanted him for a new experiment but Zivok wasn't sure what the master Psychomancers were up to. Zaphokh was among the very elite of the Psychomancers and also cross trained as a Technomancer, which was a truly great achievement.

"We're doing more work on the Destroyers." Ah yes. Imotekh had asked the Psychomancers to see if the Destroyers could be modified to be something closer to the Death Seekers. Still insanely devoted to destruction but a bit more rational about it and willing to let organics exist. With souls and engrammatic alterations, they were modestly confident in success. So far they had just been examining the Destroyer virus thoroughly, the way it distorted engrams.

"Ah, I see, time for the resouling," Zivok said cheerfully. "Who are we working on?" He knew the Destroyers by name now and their attitudes towards him ranged from those who found him amusing, to those who utterly detested him. Their attitudes towards pwi-necrons also varied, from those who thought this was an acceptable way to end organic life to those who thought it was an abomination and should be destroyed.

"Overlord Agatef." Ah, that one… he was highly intelligent and really quite frightening, for those who felt such things. Zivok felt no fear but had quietly marked Agatef in his mind as a very dangerous experimental subject who needed to be restrained quite carefully, preferably with backups. Agatef seemed to find them amusing but that meant nothing, if he saw the opportunity to rip them into pieces. "Imotekh would really like to have him back to his old self. He speaks of the old Agatef quite highly." Yes, Zivok could certainly see why. As a Destroyer he could probably run an entire campaign of genocide with beautiful efficiency. If only they could foster a bit of tolerance of organics, they could put that brilliance to use again.

Agatef was being kept in stasis, like all of the Sautekh Dynasties' Destroyers. They were weapons of last resort, or weapons to be employed against other necron Dynasties. The way they wanted to annihilate all organic life was just not acceptable to Imotekh and they knew it, leading to an endless conflict. Stasis solved that conflict, somewhat, although the Destroyers resented it. Any who disobeyed the Stormlord in battle, though, suffered a quick and brutal end.

That deep resentment made working with them difficult though, particularly the ones like Agatef, who were more than intelligent enough to understand what the Psychomancers and Technomancers were trying to do. Unlike the sufferers of the Flayer virus, they had no desire to be cured and hated the very idea. Zivok reached up to touch his glasses in an old, familiar gesture as Agatef's stasis was deactivated.

"Well, well. You maggots again. What do you want this time?" The Destroyer rumbled from behind the variety of protective fields they had in place. Zivok paused a moment to just look at him… Agatef's appearance was definitely worth a second look. Like most of his kind, the Destroyer disdained his old form and cared for nothing but becoming more efficient at the art of slaughter. Agatef had chosen to become a centaur like creature, the torso of a Necron Overlord sitting atop a six-legged base that could move with stunning agility and speed. It was in fact quite efficient and Zivok admired it. He had no need of such things, being a researcher, but if Zivok were ever to enter the arena of war he thought he would choose something similar.

(Zivok would actually have been very, very good at the arts of war, turning his cold intellect to the pursuit of efficient death. And his reflexes and instincts were excellent)

"We are ready to begin the next step of your rehabilitation," Zivok said cheerfully and Agatef's eyes flared.

"There is no 'rehabilitation', maggot. This is what I am and I desire nothing else." Zivok was supremely indifferent to his desires.

"Your disorder distorts the mind, so your wishes are invalid. You know that perfectly well," he said calmly and felt Agatef's anger, a cold, dead weight of rage.

"There is a fine line between brilliance and foolishness. Which side of it do you fall on, I wonder?" Then Agatef moved. Zivok watched as the first protection layered around him shorted out with a vicious shriek, then the next. The third proved far more difficult for the Destroyer, as he had to hammer on it hard and also discharge flux energies but he finally overcame it. Then he was abruptly stopped dead, seized by a modified stasis field. "Pah. I should have known it was a test."

"You should have, although it wasn't MY test," Zivok agreed before looking at Zaphokh. "Was that absolutely necessary?" He'd been in charge of setting up the protective fields. The other Psychomancer responded cheerfully.

"I just wanted to test out a few of my new force field ideas and I knew you wouldn't mind." True, Zivok wasn't remotely bothered. Other Psychomancers would be having nervous breakdowns about now. "And I knew Agatef would give them a fearsome test! I liked the results with the third one, I can use that." Wonderful, wonderful. Zivok hummed to himself as he approached the restrained monster, ghost wood in hand.

"Do you have any idea what I would love to do to you," Agatef murmured in his ear as Zivok began attaching the ghost wood.

"Well alas for you, I no longer have an organic body and this shell has the ancient pain functions removed. While you technically COULD figure out a way to torture me, I think you lack the patience to spend a thousand years puzzling it out," Zivok said absently as he gently attached all the cables, then cupped the ghost wood. "Also, it would be a horrendous misuse of your time and you probably couldn't equal the drukhari anyway. I was tortured nearly to death as a child, you know. I think it burnt away a great deal of my original personality…" He certainly wasn't normal, not that he minded. Zivok squeezed the ghost wood, crumpling it as he gently pushed the soul into the body. Agatef twitched with a mechanical growl as he began registering the pain of an unadjusted soul. Zivok quickly began fixing that, mimicking the patterns Manric had taught him. He was almost as good at it as Manric, now. "We don't expect this to entirely fix your mental disorder, but it will be a start. We think that with this to help, the Psychomancers might be able to create a genuine therapeutic treatment."

"I don't want it…" Agatef's response was distracted, though, as he began registering a change. "What have you done to me…" That was a rhetorical question, he knew about their resouling operations. But presumably, it was already affecting his mind.

"You'll be given some time to experience this and adjust to the new sensations. Then, we will begin your treatment." Zaphokh said and Agatef didn't respond. He seemed to be locking up, lost in his own mind. Zivok considered that a good response.

Hopefully, when Agatef came out of this fugue, he would be more amenable to his therapy.

Author's Note: Next chapter will be about the various necron Dynasties in the universe and how they're reacting to all this