The world of Remnant spun on its axis as it orbited its sun. The same as it had done for eons before, from the time that its tectonic plates had been formed from volcanic activity, to when the first protozoic lifeforms had come into existence, to when the first hint of civilization arose on its surface and the first Grimm had appeared. The seas teemed with life, both natural and unnatural, while the sun continued its steady and never-ending course from east to west. People and Faunus lived, worked, loved, were born, and died, under the same passage.
As the sun worked its ways across the sky, two more orbs appeared in the celestial heavens. But where the sun was radiant sphere of light and warmth, these orbs were green, bright of colour but soulless in their light, yet they looked down upon Remnant with glee and amazement.
To anyone who would look up at the sky and seen those twin orbs, their spacing exactly as those as a pair of eyes on a face, would have been driven to sheer bouts of terror and anguish at the knowledge that they were being looked down upon by an intellect far greater and more alien than their own.
And yet, not a soul on Remnant was any the wiser. They just continued their lives as they had always done.
For Trazyn the Infinite, Overlord of Solemnace, chief archivist of the Nihilakh, had done it. He had done what he himself had thought impossible, even for one of the Necrontyr; an entire planet placed into his collection!
And not just any planet. But a world unlike any others that he had encountered in his galaxy.
Despite himself, Trazyn cannot help but reach a hand forward as he taps at the holographic containment field surrounding the captured planet and its sun. His necrodermis fingers prod the firmament of light that keeps the planetoid captured, the digit creating a rippling effect on the outermost skin of the display. The effect on the planet is nothing, Trazyn has had it checked just in case. It does no damage to the newest specimens of his collection.
Even if his skeletal, mechanoid face cannot show it, Trazyn was smiling like an infant given all the new toys he'd wanted during the festival.
It had been a stroke of luck that had lead the Necron down the paths of the Webway that had lead him to this planet. One of the few times that Trazyn would find himself unironically and truthfully thanking the Eldar, for to find this planet had been... it had been beautiful, in all its forms.
The first life forms had, admittedly, been a let down. Local fauna, similar to some found on older Terran-style planets, even the planet of Terra itself. Nothing to add to his collection. The first Grimm, that had been something else. Though it had ripped his first body to tatters before Trazyn could fully react to it. But Trazyn had other bodies to work with as he explored the planet.
The creatures of Grimm were boundless in form and shape, and the Necron could not help himself in adding each and every one to his collection. Beowolf, Ursa, Nevermore, Manticore, Griffon. Trazyn's collection of the beasts expanded and expanded with each trip to the planet.
And then he'd encountered the Faunus. Some offshoot of humanity, he was more than sure, but they were as varied as the Grimm and humanity itself. Some were able to be subdued and added to his collection easily, others had fought back. Some more powerfully than others, and that was when Trazyn had found out about Aura and Semblances.
Oh, the delight, and joy he had felt on finding such a thing! The soul as protection of the physical, and the personality and emotions of the being projected to help them fight! Such a thing was better than any Swarmlord, Ork Warboss, or Adeptus Custodes he had in his collection. The fact that humans and Faunus on this world had such a thing was of great interest to the Necron, and so he had begun his most extensive archiving event to date. All in the shadows, of course.
With a phalanx of Lychguards and Crypteks capable of chronomancy (never a discipline to turn your nose at, Trazyn had found thanks to that jackal-son, Orikan. The bastard.) at his disposal, Trazyn, a Necron who would be more than willing to say that he was normally loathe to do serious fieldwork, wandered the width and breadth of the planet of Remnant, learning all that he could on it. The cultures of the kingdoms, their histories and their peoples. The nature of planetary fuel called Dust, and its relation to the Semblances of humans and Faunus alike. The creatures of Grimm and their origins.
And that had lead Trazyn to... her.
The human woman, or at least the woman that looked human, was a singular entity. Unique. Powerful. Dangerous. If the woman had been one of the Necrontyr... Trazyn probably wouldn't have courted her because he'd valued his life. But since biotransference, Trazyn was more than willing to try and... woo the woman to be a centerpiece in his collection.
It never went well. After about the seventh death, which had seen a proxy Lychguard be pierced from groin to shoulder by a large, insect-like Grimm, Trazyn had decided that the kid gloves were off. The woman called Salem would join his collection regardless. Her being 'magical' (that had been an event too much like something from a fable) and immortal only reinforced Trazyn's goal.
As he'd worked to imprison her however, Trazyn had learned of the four Relics, the four Maidens, and the two Brother Gods. All of them were interconnected in such a way that Trazyn's interest and curiosity had been taken in full. And he came to realize that this planet, this Remnant, was worth so much more than just its singular facets in the Grimm, the Faunus, Auras and Semblances. The spectacle it could add to his collection on Solemnace was too good to ignore.
The arrival of a battle fleet from the Imperium of Man had sealed it.
It had taken every allegiance to himself and Solemnace that Trazyn could drawn on from the tomb world's long history. It had taken every act of cajoling, threatening, bargaining, and 'liberating', that Trazyn was capable of doing, but he was soon in possession of a device of such power and magnitude that had allowed him to do something that could only be dreamed of: the planet and its closest part of space had been taken and placed inside a holographic display. An entire planet, its population and the sun and moon that accompanied them was taken and placed into a holographic display of no more than four feet in height, four feet in width and four feet in depth.
A breathless, ancient sigh left Trazyn's mouth. "Perfect."
The display truly was perfect. The Necron lord was able to dip in and out of Remnant at will, to see what exactly was going on on the planet's surface. More fighting, more growth. Same old same old, really. No sign of the Brother Gods, but if there was anything that Trazyn the Infinite had, it was time.
The sound of an alarm blaring filled the air at the same time as a warning glyph-message appeared through interstitial link.
"What's happened now?" Trazyn asked as he activated the link to one of his chamberlains. "Well?"
"Apologies, my lord. But one of the exhibits has gotten loose."
"Which one?" Trazyn asked in exasperation, even as he accessed the datalogs and schematics of his collection.
"One of the xenos exhibits, my lord."
"That does not narrow it down. Which xenos exhibit?"
"... the lictor, my lord."
"Again?" Trazyn asked in exasperation and annoyance. "I thought we had fixed that containment?"
"We had, my lord." Replied the chamberlain. "It... broke through."
Trazyn sighed. He liked the lictor because it was a unique and dangerous xenos creature.. And he also hated it because it was a unique and dangerous xenos creature. "Engage, but do not kill. I want that lictor alive. And I will personally oversee its new exhibit."
Before any reply was forthcoming, Trazyn activated one of the engrams in his current body. Seconds later, a Lychguard fell to the floor like a marionette puppet with its strings cut while Trazyn the Infinite appeared in another gallery of his collection.
AN: It has been a LONG time since the last update, for any of my stories, and I know that me throwing out this little omake (which I wrote in under an hour, which goes some way to explain the quality of it) is virtually nothing to get excited over.
But the basic and only reason I can say is that I am struggling to write anything these days. I can manage maybe only a sentence or two on anything before I lose steam and interest in what I'm writing. I try and get started again by trying something new, but that goes the same route and I've ended up with far too many WIPs and half done chapters for the serious stories I'm doing.
I don't know why and what is causing it. I've got a holiday coming up so that might help, but I don't know.
Thank you guys for being patient with me and for still favoriting and following this story. It means so much to me.