Metal fingers beat in time with constant explosions as the battlefield heated up. A constant thrumming until he could almost remember the memory of feeling it in wars past as the enemy came once again. The War in Heaven was over, the War in Heaven had just begun for always their were fresh enemies who dared to tread upon his tomb.

But the explosions sounded dimmer than they had before and the memory of his blood racing faded away with it. "Report." Light flowed green around his room as one of his Chosen Immortals was redirected towards his throne room. Light cracks fading as the metal repaired itself before his eyes.

"Your Greatness the enemy retreats in confusion for they have brought insufficient resources to prosecute this war. Though it has only been a few days they have retreated from countless positions and seem unable to replenish their losses in a way that could hope to match us. Soon another glorious victory will be upon us."

He dismissed the answer because it could only be truly glorious if it gave him that feeling again. If he could forget for a moment his death and remember being alive. But that had been so long ago that he barely even remembered it now. "Bring me some of their survivors, I intend to send them a message."

His orders would be obeyed as they always were. Time passed and slowly a handful of survivors found themselves at his feet. A small spark of understanding and horror playing across their eyes and he rose to the occasion. His long cloak fluttering around him as he stood and gazed down upon the pitiful existence. Almost like the old days when his serfs had quailed at his feet.

"I am Nemesor Tlazeron the architect of your demise feeble servants. Your paltry attempts to wrest control of this world from my dominion can only ever be futile, for my dynasty reigns supreme today much the same as it did sixty million years ago and time alone is not enough to change that. Your masters were foolish to believe that such a force could hope to contest this esteemed one and you have only begun to see the merest hint of the defences we have in store for your next incursion."

He stretched over and gazed into each of their eyes in turn seeing the tiny spark of fear within. "I will have you take this message to your masters that they might remember my might in future and you all will be the vessel by which they receive it. Do you understand."

They nodded back at him fear and awe in equal measure and if his face could still move he might have smiled.

"Send them to meet their maker."

The servants of the Old Ones came again, a weapon thrust into the heart of his tomb world. A whole fleet daring to rain down their vengeance against his forces. The explosions enough that if he could just pretend, he might even feel them.

The field danced before his eyes as the chattel died two tides of unending ranks dying in droves in the rhythm of battle even as he orchestrated his own troops to ever more glorious feats. Around him broken corpses glimmered back into existence as he pulled more immortals to him to hear their reports.

When it reached the crescendo, he struck. A bastion of his strongest marshalled at his own command stepping forth amid the viridescent glow of his teleporter and tearing the beating heart out of the enemy's champion in one fell swoop.

The thrill of the hunt, the blood spurting around him and the screams of the dying were all enough to almost make him feel alive. He pushed on to capture that feeling even as the enemy trembled and routed in front of his charge. Their corpses piling high as they finally retreated to their ships and escaped into the realm of the Old Ones once more.

Today had been good enough that he'd almost felt once more and captured a glimpse of what he'd been like when he still lived.

At the last he pulled back a handful of their survivors for one final audience. "I am Nemesor Tlazeron the undefeatable. Though you have brought me a most glorious war you were still no match for my limitless power. Quake servants of the Old Ones for I stand triumphant against any fleet you may hope to muster for I am exalted beyond your comprehension. I send you with this message back to your masters that my empire shall stand eternal against the night and no mere mortals may ever hope to face it." He strode from the room as he gave one final command to his Immortals.

"Send them to meet their maker."

The third incursion was pitiful compared to the last. For a moment he wondered what diabolical trick must have been running in the background. To send only two ships when an entire fleet had been devastated the last time they had come.

He barely felt anything and in the throes of his anguish he had the survivors brought before him once more.

Skeletal metal fingers clasped around the face of the creature. While he could not feel and had only the memory of the experience, he had long ago known what it meant to feel so helpless as this one. "You send only two ships after I crushed your forces so absolutely last time. Do you jest or is there some discord between your brethren that has them waste their resources like this?"

It trembled in response staring up at him before. He turned to the next, and the next until finally one of them was brave enough to speak. "This was thought to be an empty world we didn't know."

He scoffed at the notion. "I am Nemesor Tlazeron

"You'll let us live and go back?" For the first time something like hope crossed the face of his captive prisoner.

He indulged in the power it gave him even as it was a poor replacement for the touch he used to have. "Live? I will grant you an audience with your gods that they might know of my majesty. When you sit in the hallowed halls of the Old Ones and they decide whether you will be reborn, let them know that I sent you."

Only confusion met his words though, a sort of dawning horror on the face of his prey and for a moment a thought as terrible as it was unthinkable dawned on him. For once there had been a race called the Necrontyr and with mortal bodies with short lifespans it was known that they only lived once.

He paused letting even the facsimile of life he tried to portray fade away as he turned back to the creature before him. His mind whirring as it made a strange sort of sense. "You are the children of the Old Ones are you not?"

The creature stared back up at him in confusion and fear as it struggled for words even as his grip on the frail creature tightened. Finally it answered with as much doubt as any mind could possess. "No?"

Ignorance, such ignorance that a creature would not even know the truth of the world in front of its eyes. But perhaps the question could be changed to something even a simpleton could understand. "You are one of those beings that live and breathe beyond the Materium are you not?"

"That when you die you enter the hallowed halls of your gods before they return you to the mortal realm in a new body like the Krork and the Aeldari do thus letting you relay my messages back." It was the cursed method the Old Ones had constructed in a terrible mimicry of their own methods to return their soldiers to life. That each side would have an endless horde of replaceable automatons with which to prosecute the unending war across all time. "How few lives you have lived to not even understand that."

But the look on its face was not understanding but confusion. "Humans only live once."

He looked anew at the childish creature and while his own body could not feel anymore he still remembered how it was to be awkward and shuffling nervously before your superiors. It was not a creation of the Old Ones and could perhaps even be considered as something more similar to the Necrontyr back in their heyday. Short lived creatures that only lived once before the silence took them.

He headed back to the other room, where the corpses of the last expedition still lay in their last repose from where he'd had them executed. The time it seemed had come to stop shooting his messengers.

Well, there may be a bit too much leadup to this one before it hit the joke. Ah well it was easy to write when I had the idea so all is well that ends well. Ah I have a Tau one in the works that I'm enjoying writing. A possibly weird Dark Eldar one that might well be even more divergent than most of my heretic ones but amused me when I planned it.

But they shall come in the new year.