Huff Huff Huff
Looking behind him, something he never expected to see. A horror that he had hoped to never encounter.
A fully metallic being with a cloth draped over itself, cloths but not cloths. One of the most dangerous things that his null field can never affect, A flayed one.
Shhhk-Shhhk-Shhhk
There is no thought involved in it, in this dry and rocky part of Cygnis III there is no cover, only running. The man is trying to hide behind a formation of rocks when the sound of metal scraping rocks comes behind him.
BOOM!!
The rocks explode on his back as he dives forward. Caspian lunged, his fist a blur of bio-mechanical force. As his knuckles were centimeters from the Necron's chest, the air curdled.
A Quantum Shield flickered into existence, a hexagonal grid of green light that hummed with a repulsive force.
THUD.
The impact didn't break metal; it sent a bone-jarring vibration back up Caspian's arm. The shield held.
Before he could recoil, the Flayed One's hands, jagged, meter-long talons, whipped forward in a blurred arc.
The air hissed as they partitioned the space Caspian had occupied a millisecond before. He dove, but the mono-molecular edges found purchase, shearing through his makeshift clothes and deep into the dense muscle of his shoulder.
3 deep cuts running along his arm, from shoulder to fist. His arm is no longer useful for combat, he is out of options.
"Why is there a flayed one here? I really need to know where I am." Caspian the man covered heat to toe in make shift clothing pants as he said
"I have never heard of a place that is this messed up. If i knew, i should have watched more lore videos"
Caspian made the decision to run, he must find a way to hide. Although he cannot fight it he is definitely faster than it. Turning around he ran for his life. There is a location he was trying to get to before he encountered the flayed one.
That would have to be his hide away. Taking 2 steps, a searing pain radiates from his back. The necron predicted him running.
Caspian grabbed the necron's hand and did a jujitsu throw on the monster, slamming it into the rocks. He did not check to see the damage, he just ran as fast as he could.
After 3 hours of running, Caspian is drained, bleeding from his arm and exhausted from running for so long. He comes up to the ruins that he wanted to check out. He looked around for the necron flayed one, but did not see him.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he hurried to the ruin. It is a metallic structure, rusted and broken from what he cannot tell. There are burn marks all over the structure showing laser fire had been used here.
A section of the wall is damaged, just enough for a normal sized human to enter. Caspian squeezes himself into it, to not allow more things to enter into the facility.
The sharper edges cut into his skin, causing a muffled scoff, but not enough to draw blood from him.
Inside looked almost untouched, except for the few dead humans, there is not much destruction inside the ruin.
Walking around, undamaged stations, and control pods are seen, even a couple of lights on the floors strobe with the rhythm of a dying machine-spirit, casting long, jagged shadows.
("Magos Ferrum-Rho, come I need assistance in understanding this place. And don't tell me about growth, this is technological") Caspian said to the Magos fragment, not in the mood to be lectured by him again.
("[Query]: Atmospheric scan indicates 12% probability of Necron-signature tracking. Subject Caspian-Source shows 15% loss in fluid-pressure.")
("[Data-Stream Active]: Technological inclusion acknowledged. Accessing local Noospheric-echoes. I will provide a sub-routine for interface, provided the unit Caspian agrees to the data-tether.")
("Agreed, now come over, please")
"So pissy, it is my fault for not asking for a full information download of their activities while I was asleep."
With a shimmer over his shoulder Magos Ferrum-Rho, appeared in a ghostly form behind Caspian. He has now almost lost looking like a human at this point, except his head, everything else is mechanical.
If not because due to his ability, he might have removed parts of his skull to process more storage and processing capacity like other Magi of the Machanicus.
Looking around, the Magos started inspecting and scanning everything with his bionic eye. He did not say a word to Caspian, he just moved through the area, about 10 feet from Caspian before stopping. He looked at Caspian waiting for him to move.
After coming towards a console, he pointed at some damaged wires, a lever, and a console, then stood back and said nothing.
"What not talking" Caspian asked
"[Response]: 5% cognitive allocation dedicated to this shell. Main processing remains locked on [Project: Legio Titanicus Calibration]. Proceed with manual interface..."
'Asshole, did he really come with an automated response, what could he possibly still be doing.'
"Still wasting your time on the dire wolf titan right. If only you could incorporate less hydraulics and more gears and levers you should have a dire wolf titan that moves faster than others." Caspian commented off-handed
[Binary-Pause: 0.004 seconds]
[Processing Linkage: ...]
[Output]: ?
He just looked at Caspian, how one would look at a child who just got the answers to a math question.
Getting to work Caspian began restoring the systems available within the ruin. His first goal is power, as he worked, the tattoo of a gear on him started to have a faint outline of gold on it.
Power came back on with the turn of a lever.
On the console Caspian started looking through what was there, only to find plans for battle, references to battle preparations that seemed to involve weapons that were above what even the Men of Gold could accomplish. A causality canon.
Expecting the Magos to have an input, Caspian turned to find out that he was once again, alone. With the power back on it is time to take care of his injuries, and block the entrance. Grabbing some wires and an iron rod, passing electricity through it to supper heat it, then
ARHHHHH
Using heat to seal a wound may be painful, but it is effective. Looking around what could be considered the control room, Caspian began moving deeper into the ruin to find something he could use to block the hole he used to get in.
Deeper into the ruin Caspian finally finds out that although there were human bodies at the control room, the more comfortable quarters here have no humans. Only one room has a body of a xenos, which he could not identify.
BANG…BANG…BANG
Way off into the distance from where he came, Caspian hears banging. It would seem he would have to run once more. Rushing out of the luxurious quarters, and into a room with 2 bunk beds Caspian picks up a pair of boots he saw earlier.
Opening the locks, they expand far from that they looked to be, he puts them on and starts running deeper into the ruins. This facility is connected to the mountain at the back, used for mining operations before the war that occurred.
They are Mag-Lock grav-aegis Greaves, they reduce gravity and have gravitational orientation settings. The grating sound he has come to hate echoes behind him at a distance as he moves.