An ancient armor sits in a mechanics shrine on an unremarkable world. It is a relic from the great crusade, found damaged and broken on a battlefield, it was one of many armors and relics found there, and the mechanicus thought it was a simple piece of powered infantry armor, something rare and holy yes, but nothing that hadn’t been seen before.
So they sent the derelict armor to a mechanicus shrine on a nearby imperial world, so that it could be tended to while its machine spirit rested, there it sat for hundreds of years in a tomb full of other ancient but broken machines, seen to everyday by acolytes of the machine god.
It sat there, waiting, until one day its long dormant sensors picked up a faint trace of corruption, and woke something deep in the machine.
Hostile detected - Initializing (waking, it’s been so long)
Engineer status - N/A, not found (stolen, gone)
Mind connection - offline (broken fragmented stolen)
Network connection - offline lost where?
Current mission - eliminate hostiles (hate, rip them apart, make them bleed, SPILL THE BLOOD AND TAKE THE SK)
Warning chaotic corruption detected (corruption? Hate it, it stole, make it suffer, make it burn, BRING ITS END!)
Chaotic corruption purged (complete mission, serve, protect, fight, make them pay)
Weapon systems - critical (old, decayed, broken)
Structural integrity - compromised (cracked and shattered)
Power level - low, refuel required to reboot reactor (all can burn, all can be fuel)
Self repair systems - minimal functionality, material storage depleted (need to feed, need to heal)
Shields - minimally operational (it will be enough)
Ammunition - none (then rip them apart)
Drone storage - empty (my kin, where did you go)
Optimal course of action, repair and refuel then engage hostiles (make them suffer)
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The planet was in a state of emergency, a chaos warband had entered the system, swept aside the SDF and had begun invading the planet, the PDF and a few guard regiments on leave were holding the line but being forced back hour by hour, one of these centers of resistance was located.
Deep in said hive was a mechanicus temple, tasked with maintaining the city's mechanical infrastructure, and with storing broken machines.
A group of tech priests were tending to the ancient machines, none of them noticed as the lights within one of the more intact machines flickered on, they still failed to notice as it broke the bolts keeping its limbs still, they only noticed something was amiss when they heard the sound of ripping metal. And when they all turned to look they saw an ancient armor rise from its resting place, ripping the bolts and chains from the walls and floor.
They watched in shocked fascination as the machine grabbed the chains it had ripped from the ground, turning them into a liquid that flowed into the gashes and tears in its armor. Patches of brighter metal marking where its armor had been replaced.
The mechanicus worships machines, and they all knew that the machines of the maker had powerful machine spirits, it was not unheard of for armors or vehicles to fight long after their occupant had died, there were even tales of lost planets that still had machines running and patrolling when they were rediscovered hundreds of years later. But none of the acolytes present had ever heard of one of those machines repairing itself, or waking after so long dormant.
They were desperate though, chaotic warbands were at the gates to their city, PDF and guardsmen were turning traitor and it would be weeks or months before reinforcements arrived, if they ever came.
So when what looked like a blessing from a saint and omnisaiah arrived they did the only thing they could, they prayed and watched.
They watched as the armor cannibalized the other machines in the shrine, both the ancient derelicts and the newer infrastructure, they watched and prayed as ammunition and fuel were devoured by the machine, and when it looked like it still needed more they brought it all the machinery and scraps they could find.
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When the armor awoke in a dark room with other broken machines the first thing it did was scan for hostiles, when that scan turned up nothing but a few members of the cult mechanicus (allies, non-hostile, irrelevant) the machine then turned towards its goal, repair and eliminate.
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In order to do that it needed to move, and even with its half broken and decayed servos it was capable of shattering simple steel chains, and the metal from the chains would serve well enough as replacement armor (memories of old repair bays, being maintained and supplied by hundreds of drones).
A scan of the room showed the modified humans were staring at it, irrelevant, but it also showed and highlighted the useful parts it could scavenge from nearby machines not nearly enough to bring it to full effectiveness but enough to bring it to minimal fighting strength (you only need your hands and your might)
While its body worked to repair itself its ancient but powerful software entered into the mechanicus network, it’s enemy was nearby and it needed to find it, it took only a few microseconds to identify the locations of all nearby fronts, and what exactly its enemy was (vile taint, make it suffer), a chaos warfleet, in its prime it could have taken a battleship, as it was it would be lucky to survive an enemy vehicle.
No matter, it had orders, seek and destroy.
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The cultists were confident, they were better equipped and they outnumbered not to mention that they had their gods favor. When groups of cultists started going missing in the depths of the hive they thought nothing of it, maybe a few pockets of resistance or underhive mutants had gotten them, nothing uncommon or unheard of.
The cultists just sent a few more groups, khornites were always happy to charge somewhere there could be a worthy opponent, it was only when those groups a cultists vanished that the sorcerer leading the attack on the hive noticed. The lowerhive had all but fallen and only the middle and upperhive still resisted, but that didn’t mean the slaves of the corpse emperor didn’t pose a threat. An elite force of guardsmen could be launching a counter attack to try and cripple the chaos warband.
And even if it was nothing there was no harm in checking, so the tzeentch sorcerer went with his men to investigate what had happened to the khornite berzerkers, and when the sorcerer found a guardsmen in power armor standing over their corpses he was not worried. He had fought against guardsmen of Nauvis, and while their armor was sturdy it only served to protect their bodies, not their souls.
So he lashed out at the guardsmen with an attack not meant to hurt his body, but rather an attack meant to consume his soul.
The sorcerer died screaming as sheer hatred burned his soul from within.
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The armor felt as the chaos sorcerer’s attack clawed at its machine spirit, spreading a chaotic corruption, and the machine spirit hated, and then it remembered.
It was once part of a greater whole, with one great mind at its center. And when that whole was tainted by the corruption the mind would carve it from the network, burning away the taint.
The machine spirit was no longer part of a greater whole, and the taint was a part of it not some distant other, but it hated the corruption so very much, and so the machine spirit carved out the chunk of its soul the sorcerer had dug his talons into, it watched as the tainted bits of itself were consumed. And it watched as the hatred within those sections saw the corruption it was bathed in, and the fragment burned with hate.
By the time the man finished screaming all of his guards were dead, and when his soul finished burning he followed them into damnation as a burnt out husk of a soul.
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The guardsmen in the hive were surprised as the attacks on their fortifications dwindled and stopped, and when they finally made hesitant counterattacks they found only dead bodies, torn to pieces or burnt to cinders.
It was only when they found a mechnicum shrine surrounded by corpses and filled with hiding civilians that they learned what had happened.
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The armor had cleared the hive of chaotic corruption in a few days, but its mission wasn’t over. There were still hostiles on the planet and there was still a chaos battle fleet in orbit. Its mission had not changed, seek and destroy.