Day 1

The Rim. As unfortunately unforgiving as anybody rational could ever call it. Needless to say, it wasn't a good place.

Scaria infected everything. Tribals that wanna bite your flesh off, wasters that run tox raids on just about anybody that they could ever get their hands on, and don't even get me started about the bugs and the goddamned mechs.

The cryptosleep caskets were more forgiving the first time around, but this time, I was the one that was left over in this shithole.

Planet Sopheamunda-15B. The worst fucking place, notwithstanding the possible VOID incursions. Not to be confused with the broken empire's homeworld of Sophiamunda. That's a different one alright.

I looked at the empty base that was filled with so so many memories. I hated seeing it so much. I walked past the hundreds, if not thousands of meteorites that were littered around in the landscape that once was a harsh and rigid tundra.

Unfortunately, there was some degree of instability with the local celestial instability that it had impacts from meteorites ranging from twice a day, to about ten.

I don't even mind the fact that so many fell so often, that just meant that I was able to buy my way straight into counthood with how much gold fell from the skies themselves.

But the actual hatred I felt whenever I had to go and revive my own mechanoids whenever I got the feel of their bandwidth getting disconnected, that was palpable beyond all words.

The entrance was simple, and directly led to the kitchen where I had about three or four fabricators working almost non-stop, making me hundreds of lavish meals, aside from charging times, that is.

Going southward I heard the hum of all of the batteries and first room that I slept alone in, walking past all of the old cradles that I made just for little Lady.

Her real name was Galina, but she was always the namesake that we gave her. I raised her alongside Paulie, who was a brother to me in all but name.

And yet I looked back at all of those years. How old am I already? Three hundred? Going three-ten? And all of that time in the biosculptor out here making me look like a twenty-five year old.

It just makes me laugh that she fell in love with me. I thought it was a joke. She didn't see it that way. Always walking up to me, pestering me about how she fell for me the very moment she turned 16.

Every day I asked her not to be that way, telling her to fall for somebody her age, and every day she waltzed around in full prestige cataphract gear, making bedroom eyes to me while I felt like shit.

There was really only one other woman that I had left in my heart. My first love, Samantha. The woman who gave me my new name.

Shun von Aachen, the newest arrival on the planet that wanted to make me into mincemeat. She said that she was a minister in some offworld military, acting out all of the bells and whistles that came along with the job description, but I couldn't really get a grasp of what she specifically did.

I had many children with her, but I remember the Beast well. Baki Fox von Aachen. Terrible name, I know. I guess I got that from my parents when I was named Shun Fox, in the first place.

Baki, oh you sweet sweet boy. You couldn't reel in the bloodlust as well as I did. That neuroquake. Oh gods that neuroquake.

Knocked Lady down and made you go mad while fighting against those devil sons of bitches. The fucking Impid bastards that went and made everything worse in this shithole.

I forgave you all of those years ago when you said that you killed our first slave, and a woman that I actually wanted to love, rather than control, all because their disease was far too late in the stage.

I forgave you son. I never forgot.

The old lab came up after I walked past all of the initial walls that I built to house the colony batteries. It's not like they were anywhere close to being reasonably good. What was first a sensible design that denied any chance of extreme fire risks went out of control all because we needed far more energy than what we could have ever produced.

The laboratory. Where I made all of my own mechanoids. The first time that I used a diabolus and a blaster centipede was one of the highlights of my life in this shithole.

The prison, laden with gold and the finest jade statues, to make the prisoners more compliant to any of our requests. And if they didn't wanna play nice, well, organ harvesting and ripscanning were always on the table.

North of the base was the rec room, floors of gold painted Ina black and red checkered design, and another workroom, past that was the hydroponics room, and besides that was the chemfuel genny room and my throne room.

Alternatively, the south held the extra sleeping quarters, all being worthy of stellarchs themselves, hell, I'm sure that even the Emperor of the empire would have been happy to sleep here with plasteel everything and gold-embedded anything in each room.

The wasters, yttakin and the damned impids thought it would have been a good idea to try and steal what was so so deep into the base, that they forgot that they were:

A. Fighting a battle in a tundra suffering from -30 temps in the fall.

B. Fighting in a tundra that's filled to the brim with unmined and untouched meteorites, making a natural barrier for them to have to traverse.

C. Trying to steal from someone that regularly "donates" about fifty five thousand silver worth of drugs and food to all of the diplomatically appealable factions on this rock.

All of these factors together were not a good time for any of these bastards. Sure, I may have polluted their most forward bases to hell and beyond with too many drop pods worth of toxpacks, but they were the ones that managed to kill a small child that was just slightly wandering around on the outskirts of the base.

They had it coming. The yttakin, I wasn't completely and utterly against. They were amazing animal tamers, Kinya was one herself. I didn't need to do anything, since she handled every single one of these animals in the base.

The impids were outclassed beyond words. Trying to fight a man that held a controlled killbox, a uranium labyrinth that just begged you to start a fire that you'd cook yourself in, and a full twenty mini-turret, four autoturret, and two uranium slug turret defense.

Needless to say, it was illogical. Outright suicidal. And yet whenever they see me sending out even more toxpacks, they just can't help but try and make me stop.

Sadly for them, all of the gold and prisoners that came along with their raids and my mining operations with my singular tunneler was just more than enough for me to send out a platoon's worth of troopers and cataphracts to kill whatever's outside of our base.

I don't even need to worry about the wastepacks anymore. All of those dead apocritons were more than worth it. All of the bodies, the time, the ones that I cared for leaving me batch by batch, it was all worth it in the end.

This was the third and final base that I intended to give up to them.

There won't be anything left for me once I've found what I wanted to get to. Not anymore. Not when I've finally found it. I looked at all of my mechanoids out working about.

Seventy or so of them, with most of my bandwidth being used for the sake of battle types. I've only gotten myself a single diabolus, and I don't really think that there's a whole lot that I need to worry when they're involved.

I didn't really think about making a war queen, since I knew that there would have been greater complications than simply having another mechanoid that could use up my resources.

I've named every single first mechanoid that I built.

My first builder mech? His name was Daedalus. My first cleansweeper was called Nightingale. My first fabricor, Da Vinci. My first pikeman called Dorothy. My first lancer Harlequin. The diabolus was Beelzebub. The charge blaster centipede was Captain Rex. And my first gunner centipede was Ma Deuce.

Dumb names, I know. It didn't really matter anymore. Either they'll be able to come along with me once I reach it, or they'll just join the rest of the local hive on this planet.

My life on this world, was poor. I was one of the "best" people from my own homeworld, and once I was able to stabilize the place I left in search of more.

So many bumps, trials, and horrible situations. And now, I've reached it. I've finally found what I've been looking for all of this time.

I've found the Archonexus.

All of the other unnamed mechanoids were left to their own devices. The machinery in this base would break apart slowly, raiders trying to take whatever's left of it, but they'll never get anything here.

I've already sold it off to the highest bidder.

(Goodbye you filthy, disgusting hellhole of a planet. May your star burn out faster than what you yourself could ever imagine.)

And to solidify me cutting everything off of this place, I called up the comms console for the broken empire, and just told them right then and there.

(I, Shun von Aachen, leader of the secondary Mechanoid hive located at- oh you all know where I'm at. Consider this my formal secession from the empire, and just to make it all better, there's been five apocriton beacons that have been signalled off in this base, and I assume that you still want the gear and other such things out of it.

Take your time, my mechs still count you all as friendlies, but that might change once I leave this area.)

I never gave them a chance to talk back as I put the down the comms and grabbed my charge rifle, and gunned the thing down.

{This is it. This is ascension waiting to happen. This is how it'll all end for me. This is the end of the story of the reclusive, scared, cannibalistically-inclined warlord that it Shun von Aachen nee Fox.

Heh, it's just funny. All these thoughts of a new life, living and dying on this rock and I still want to keep stepping. I should be in hell for what I did.}

I walked downwards once again into our temple as I felt the kneeling pads and the old lectern that I gave sermons at. And in that moment, I felt it. One last prayer for the old room, soon to be abandoned.

(Oh Pact of Blood and Glory. May the red ichor of our enemies be everlasting and nourishing. May their deaths signify our might, and their skulls as our affirmation to you. May the Slaughterhouse Pact be as eternal as I shall be.)

I looked out of the room and saw my little Sunkiss, a husky that just stayed with me ever since this whole thing ever began.

She had an archotech heart, one of the most powerful pieces of technology that could be applied to a person. And I gave it to her because her old one was riddled with carcinomas.

She'd still be the most loyal of my companions.

Her whimpers made me frown a little as I composed myself. I'll bring all of my named mechs, and Sunkiss to be with me when I ascend. I might as well beg for the archotechs to destroy me, but that's fine. I know how to plead well.