As Spartan advised me, I allowed Primarch Khan the honor of dueling with the female Necron Overlord and Phaerakh of the Maynarkh Dynasty , only acting to keep him safe from ambush.

Then again, I might have lost in a straight up duel, since this crazy Necron girl was loaded with ancient artifacts and weapons. But Khan was likely the best swordsman in the galaxy, his skills honed by constant fighting in the Dark Eldar arenas. Much safer for everyone to let Khan do it, and divert the Necron girl from thinking about using her tesseract in other ways, like flicking the Primarch into the sun, for example.

The duel was a sight to behold, and also record with slow-motion pict-thieves! The Primarch was not the only one able to enter hyperspeed or dodge hits by the millimeter. Xun'bakyr used her Death Shroud to great effect to boost her speed, and other artifacts too. Her Staff_of_Light was adorned with reaping blades, making it even more lethal. Worse than this, the Necron was covered in an aura of darkness, possibly the effect of a Shadowloom.

As the fight went on, I sneakily located the Tesseract Vault, which contained a Transcedant C'tan, now broken up into small, damaged shards trying to bind themselves together after being struck by the Immaterium Beam.

"Human! Let me out of this prison and I can destroy these foul Necrons for you!" the C'tan pleaded in my mind, sounding rather in pain.

"Oh? You are willing to work for me, Mighty C'tan?" I asked curious, while reinforcing my mind with the Empathic Bone Staff I got from Trazyn.

"..." the C'tan hesitated, possibly not expecting this line from a little human.

"Look, the Necron girl is busy right now, but when she returns it would be a different story. I may not be able to defeat her..." I proposed with an easy voice.

"I will not exchange a master for another!" The C'tan spoke with hateful words.

Straining my mind, I overlapped my labyrinth onto the Vault and grabbed a lonely C'tan shard, then set it out outside the Vault.

"What do you say, little shard? Work for me, or back in the box?" I asked with a mild voice and pointed at my wolf.

The shard shifted, taking the aspect of a Fenrisian Wolf, just like Canis at my side. "I am very weak now, my Lord. That Immaterium weapon broke something." the shard growled with an awkward bow.

"Do you remember who you were, before that?" I asked quite curious.

"The Mighty C'tan being was called Nyadra'zatha , the Burning one. Their godly domain was fire." the wolf-shaped C'tan explained in a despondent voice.

"How do you propose we deal with your bigger brother?" I offered as an open question. It was also a loyalty test, and we'll soon see if this C'tan shard was truthful.

"Wrestle control over the Vault from Xun'bakyr and use his powers as you please." the C'tan shard said with a strange shrug. Or maybe the wolf shape made it strange, who knows?

"Waaarrggg?" Canis wondered as he poked the new wolf-shifter.

"Maybe like Lash, or maybe not. We'll call him Zath." I decided after a minute. As for wrestling control over the Vault, that would be a bit difficult.

"My name is Zath?" the wolf asked in wonder.

I powered up my C'tan Claw and pointed at the Vault. "Spit out an interface port for the Vault. And a dozen Phase Blades." I ordered with a grin.

A small pyramid fell from the wolf's mouth, followed by a dozen ugly metal blades, just like Alric had. I stared down at the failed products, then took out a proper C'tan sword that Lash had spat out years ago.

"You are not the first C'tan I worked with. Try again, and this time make proper weapons usable by Astartes. Energy blades, not whatever crap that is." I demanded in a harsher voice, powering up the lightsaber and spinning it around for the whooosh. Whooosh! It did make a nice sound, possibly slicing air atoms in half or something.

Canis also powered up his Phase Claw and growled at the new stupid wolf.

Chastised, Zath ate his leftover blades and chewed them a bit, than spat out brand new C'tan swords, even adding proper Aquilas on the pommel and an ignition button for the energy blade. Much better.

Click. My tesseract moved the new blades into the hands of Khan and his Honor Guard, helping them fight the Necron Boss and her Lychguards armored with Sempiternal_Weave armor and thus pretty much invulnerable to their regular swords.

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Zath traced the weapons emerging into combat on the Tomb Ship's bridge, and grinned wolfishly. "Clever. Testing my weapons on the enemy with no risk for yourself. If they fail, it would be my fault."

I smiled back. "Your task is over Zath. You're free to go, if you want." I spoke with a knowing voice, then collected the interface pyramid. A bit rough, but the shard made the activation engrams simple enough to use, even for a human.

"Grrrwooo!" Canis warned the C'tan before he left.

The wolf C'tan hesitated, then returned at my side. "Perhaps I could join you for a while, Master Lancefire. Your wolf is certain I would only be captured by someone else."

"This extermination attack was sanctioned by a Necron Overlord called Trazyn. He will keep an eye out for any sparkly loot that I fail to collect. Like a C'tan shard for example. Especially a weak one like yourself, Zath."

I explained politely, and began interfacing with the Tesseract Vault, just as the duel of fates reached its climax on the bridge.

With his new C'tan blade, Primarch Khan began to chip away at the Necron ruler, and her guards fell one by one to his own Honor Guard of White Scars.

Thousands of Thallax suits formed an impromptu audience, while my Mourners maintained a security perimeter.

Finding herself losing, the Necron ruler backed away into a corner and held out a control rod. "Come forth Nyadra'zatha!" she chanted with a cruel voice.

"..." Primarch Khan tilted his helmet to the side, as nothing happened.

"Come out, damn stupid C'tan!" she yelled in despair for the last time. Khan flashed forwards and blurred his swords into a grinder, mincing the former Necron Overlord into tiny bit of metal bones and ancient circuitry.

And done! Pushing my willpower to the maximum, I over-rode the Necron engrams and took over the Vault, finding myself in control over an Exterminatus class weapon with no need for torpedoes or recharge.

Nyadra'zatha was capable of manipulating entire stars, either make them produce solar flares or even going supernova.

"Was this your desired outcome, Zath?" I asked from my new pet C'tan.

The wolf nodded meekly. "Xun'bakyr had to die for her deeds. Plus, all her dynasty was already cursed by the Flayer. They would have become Flayed Ones in a few years anyways, and they all knew it. It is why they attacked here, even at suicidal odds."

I took out a low-end Manifold implant and held it in my palm. "Eat this, and speak through the implant from now on. Wolves don't talk in the Imperium of Man, see?" I explained with a wry voice.

"Wooou!" Canis demanded in a stern voice, flaring his collar shield, then lighting up his claws one by one.

"I get it! I should convert some cognitive engrams to wolf behavior, as to better disguise myself from the xenophobic humans. Canis is quite smart, for a wolf..." Zath muttered just as Canis slapped his head to show dominance.

"Wooou!" Zath howled back, finally getting the point.

Good enough. Canis had trained a C'tan wolf before, so he was already a veteran beastmaster.

Click. Click. The Khan boarding party returned to their own ship, while the Command Tomb Ship was absconded into my tesseract for later use.

I will have to repair the damaged Thallax, replace the killed pilots and run analysis on the Xeno Auxilia effectiveness.

While the main Hive City of New Vassburg was protected from the solar flare by the shadow of the Black Lament, most of the day-side of the Amarah had been blasted into burning ruins, except for Void Shielded Hive Cities, now under desperate attacks from the remaining Necrons teleported by their ruler and left without a path of retreat.

It was a decent training ground however, for the entire Crusade force and even the Indomitus fleet, thousands of Imperial fighters fighting over the Amarah skies with Doom Scythes and other Necron crafts, while deep in the hives there were millions of Scarbs bursting through sewer pipes to devour the local gangs and mutants hiding in perpetual darkness.

Did I use the occasion to loot anything worth taking like old relics and vaults of precious gems? A Sector capital was quite rich.

Setting up new Sister of Battle forts and accident most of the male clergy?

I deny any such non-sense! Battle damage...pure and simple.

I couldn't completely reformat the system as there was a bit much, but I helped where I could. My own forces needed some upgrades too.

Plenty of work, on the way to deserted planet of Ordex-Thaag, abandoned after being over-run by Orks. Or so it said in the cartographic database, last logged some 500 years ago. I doubted it was still deserted, or the Blade of Infinity would not come out to warn us about it.

M would need to provide a better fleet deployment model, while Spartan...he did great actually. As long as the clones wore their Invictus Warsuits, nobody should suspect a thing. Just another Lancefire, acting weird.

Librarian Menelau didn't even bother to scoff at the new wolf this time, possibly sighing inward at his strange father.