The Astartes had not witnessed the previous duel between the Aegis Protector and the Skorpekh Lord, but the sudden manifestation of a Necron Destroyer Lord on the battlefield caused their tactical stress levels to spike.
This xenos monstrosity was mounted upon an anti-gravity repulsor cradle, resembling a legless, mechanical mantis. Its upper torso retained a cruel humanoid symmetry, its cranium etched with the glyphs of its dynasty and the mark of the Necron race. In its grip, a massive war-scythe thrummed with the sickly green radiance of eldritch power. The repulsor platform afforded the Destroyer Lord a degree of maneuverability and speed that far eclipsed that of the Skorpekh Lord.
Confronted by this unknown adversary, the Aegis Protector's first programmed response was to interpose its power blade against the incoming scythe. However, the weapon had already sustained severe structural fatigue during the bout with the Skorpekh Lord. Under the immense force of the Destroyer Lord's swing, the war-scythe carved a brilliant emerald arc through the air.
The Aegis Protector's wrist-mounted blade was sheared in half. The exaggerated reach of the war-scythe's haft allowed for a devastatingly wide killing zone; as the broken blade spun away, it was followed by the Protector's own oval-shaped mechanical head.
The hyperphase field enveloping the scythe's edge vaporized a portion of the alloyed plating at the neck and cranium. The severed metal head struck the deck with a dull, heavy clang.
BOOM!
Observing the apparent neutralization of its target, the Destroyer Lord emitted a piercing, static-laced burst of laughter, seemingly satisfied with the lethality of its strike. It banked its repulsor sled, turning to begin a slaughter of the Greyshield Astartes who had been providing cover fire for the automaton.
SCREECH!
The sound of tortured metal grinding against metal tore through the chamber.
The headless Aegis Protector had reached out with a mechanical limb, firmly grasping the Destroyer Lord's bizarre repulsor chassis just as it attempted to accelerate away. The sudden arrest of its momentum caused the Necron lord to jerk violently.
Watching from the flank, Axion offered a rare, detached observation. "The designs of these ancient xenos are truly moronic."
The Destroyer Lord possessed formidable mobility; under normal parameters, no enemy should have been able to launch a close-quarters ambush from its rear arc. But this situation defied standard tactical logic. Just as the Iron Men knew little of the Necrons, the Necrons were utterly ignorant of the Iron Men.
According to conventional engineering, core processing components are housed within the most heavily armored sections to prevent combat incapacity. In a mechanical frame, the torso provides the greatest volume and protection. While the Aegis Protector's head housed an array of sophisticated sensors and optics, its cognitive core was not situated there.
Furthermore, Axion was currently slaving his own sensor data to the Protector via a quantum data-link. Even deprived of its primary optics, the automaton was receiving a full environmental telemetry feed from Axion.
The headless Aegis Protector remained fully combat-capable; it merely required a microsecond to reconfigure its combat protocols. It was this momentary pause that led the Destroyer Lord to the erroneous conclusion that the unit had been deactivated.
"Impossible! Filthy construct, unhand me!" the Destroyer Lord snarled, its voice a rasp of binharic-adjacent distortion.
The Aegis Protector vaulted upward, straddling the rear section of the Destroyer Lord's repulsor base. Infuriated, the Necron realized its torso could not rotate far enough to dislodge the passenger. The sheer length of its war-scythe rendered the weapon useless against an enemy clinging to its blind spot.
In a fit of desperate pragmatism, the Lord discarded its scythe and attempted to reach back, clawing at the Protector's legs to tear it loose. However, as the Destroyer Lord twisted its torso, the Aegis Protector seized its limbs and applied overwhelming torque, forcing the Necron's upper body to rotate far beyond its structural tolerances.
"No! No!" the Destroyer Lord roared, its metal arms flailing wildly in a futile attempt to dislodge the machine.
With Axion's tactical assistance, the Protector easily parried and pinned the flailing limbs.
CRACK!
Amidst the screeching of tearing metal, the Destroyer Lord experienced a sensation it had not felt in aeons: pure, physical violation. Its humanoid upper torso was being systematically wrenched from its repulsor base. Despite its mangled state, the Necron continued to struggle, powered by the flickering remnants of its energy conduits.
The headless Aegis Protector leaned down, bringing its jagged, metallic neck-stump close to the Destroyer Lord's face, as if mimicking a cold, eyeless stare. Then, its mechanical hands clamped onto the Lord's head, a component larger and more ornate than those of the rank-and-file.
The Protector's servos whined as it began to pull.
To the onlookers, the gesture was unmistakable. It was the exact execution move Axion had performed seconds prior: the decapitation.
Having confirmed that such a strike induced immediate shutdown in Necron units, Axion had designated the head as a primary critical weakness. He remained perplexed that a fellow mechanical entity would possess such a glaringly vulnerable design flaw, but he was more than willing to exploit it.
A headless Aegis Protector might continue the slaughter. A headless Necron, however, was destined for the long sleep.
SNAP! BANG!
The sound of shearing necrodermis echoed as the head was ripped free. The Destroyer Lord lost all power instantly. The combined weight of the noble's chassis and the Aegis Protector slammed into the deck with a thunderous impact.
The Aegis Protector stood over the wreckage, triumphantly raising the severed head of the Destroyer Lord toward Axion. It was a gesture strangely reminiscent of a child seeking approval from a father after a job well done.
With their command hierarchy shattered, the remaining Immortals began to flicker with the green luminescence of phase-out teleportation. The scattered remains of their kin followed suit. Interestingly, while the Skorpekh Lord's remains had been covertly dragged back into the tomb ship by Canoptek Scarabs through sub-dimensional rifts, the Destroyer Lord's chassis remained where it fell, abandoned by its dynasty as a mark of failure.
Sensing the enemy's withdrawal, Axion turned his attention to the oversized demolition charge surrounded by the Greyshields.
"What is the detonation sequence for this device?"
Though the Greyshields had witnessed Axion and his automaton dismantle the xenos, they remained wary of the unknown machine and did not answer. The two Ultramines, recognizing the Imperial eagle and the Cog Mechanicum etched into Axion's plate, signaled for the Greyshields to stand down. Archmagos Belisarius Cawl had shared the specific iconography and profile of Axion during their mission briefing.
"We follow the mandates of Archmagos Cawl," one Ultramarine stated. "The Heavy Melta Charge is delivered. The interface panel allows for timed detonation. There is no secondary verification required, but once armed, the timer cannot be reset by conventional—"
Before the Ultramarine could finish his warning, Axion stepped forward and hoisted the massive explosive onto his shoulder with ease. He keyed the panel twice with a metallic digit and, with a violent surge of strength, hurled the charge deep into the heart of the xenos gateway.