Two Minutes to ED

“Has he lost his mind?

Can he see or is he blind?

Can he walk at all?

Or if he moves will he fall?”

--Excerpt from Black Sabbath's Iron Man

The soft light of dusk filtered through the window of his room, as Edd entered it after a long day. A very long day... He sat down in his chair and rolled out the plans he'd been carrying onto his desk. Unwillingly, as he looked the plans over, his eyes traced to the file in his bookshelf, containing all the paper copies of the adventures they had as Outlaws. The originals were actually ones and nils in his computer, and he'd given a copy of them to McKenzie. Edd had met with McKenzie often before he began thinking of his grades more than his psychics. The Master Lexicanum had taught a way to retain his powers, and it had worked surprisingly well. Edd was as powerful now as when he'd donned the powered armour of a Space Outlaw. That was now nearly three years ago. Back then, Edd and his two friends had been in the age of twelve. Now they all aged 15, and high school was looming in the horizon. Things had, startling quickly, gone back to normal. Rolf seemed to endure well the memories of the legendary Commissar-general. There were, however, parts of the memories he never talked about, and McKenzie had told Edd why... Oh, the pain that Rolf's doppelganger had gone through... Still, Rolf was a common aim for their scams, but his attitude towards the Eds had warmed. Much to Kevin's fury. At times, Kevin reminded Edd of the Dark Lord they'd fought and defeated.

'So happy Kevin ain't a Marine...' Edd thought to himself as he went back to the plans. Although Rolf shrugged their scams off with a hearty laugh, the other kids didn't. They had the same attitude towards the Eds, and the bad luck of Eddy's ideas hadn't changed. Edd was just so happy Eddy's bad luck hadn't been around as an Outlaw... Well, it had, Edd reminded himself. Eddy had nearly been crushed by Kharn, as his leg-servo locked itself. He'd just been lucky Rolf was awake. Rolf Yarrick, Edd reminded himself again.

Their latest scam had been named Crazy Ed's Home Made Bike. They'd just managed to escape from Kevin, as the whole darned thing had fallen apart under Kevin's "molesting" of it. That word suited fine. Kevin always pushed it too far, and as the Eds got chased away, Eddy put it upon Edd to root out any flaws in the construction. They'd been doing it for three times now, if they counted in the new amendments Edd was going to do tonight.

Edd found himself thinking why they even bothered to try to pull scams anymore. They were for the Sacred God-Emperor of Mankind 15 years old! And the kids had learned how to see through even their cleverest of scams. Edd settled for the fact that it was a bit of a tradition now. Something to hark back to the past with. To a time of innocence, before the entire thing with the Imperium and company. The scams didn't want to let go, just as the memories they had from their adventures. There were times, when the Eds and Rolf were alone, when they would discuss whatever they could've done better. How they could've stopped Kharn from the beginning, on Armageddon and in the Tower of Doom...

The sound hadn't been loud, just so loud that Edd more sensed something was out there, and then heard it. His sixth sense, being as evolved as it was with his psychics, could pick up sound waves. So he'd learned from McKenzie. That and more. He could now blind an enemy. Heck, if it was needed, he could even banish lesser deamons back to the Warp they came from. But, as it was an ordinary day, on their summer holidays, Edd decided it couldn't be anything as harmful as a deamon. He was a bit saddened by the thought, in fact.

"Wonderful, most probably it is Ed sleepwalking again." Edd said sourly to himself as he went down the stairs and to his backdoor. "I'd better guide him home before he tries to eat Jim again."

As Edd fumbled with the lock to the backdoor, he threw a glance out the back window. He didn't see the nearly 1m90 tall klutz that was his life-long friend. It was something entirely else. The sight froze Edd in his tracks.

It wasn't Ed, obviously, it was taller, maybe around 2 metres. Its skin was of a glittering surface, given away by the moonlight. Metal skin, it seemed, so it was a shocking conclusion that passed through Edd's mind: Robot! The gleaming red eyeslits of it made it look hostile, even without the big gun it was wielding.

"This isn't happening..." Edd whispered under his breath. He threw a glance at his wristwatch. 21.55! Had he been up that long? It didn't matter; he had to get to warn the others. The robot hadn't seen him; it seemed, so as quietly as he could, Edd moved towards the front door. He pulled on his shoes and snuck out, careful not to make a sound. Then he stormed across the street towards Eddy's house, cursing his heart for making such noise as he knocked Eddy's door.

Luckily, Eddy hadn't gone to sleep yet. The lights were turned off, but the lava lamp threw a luminous, almost ghostly light in the room. He hoped to the sweet, dear God of Mankind that the robot wouldn't hear his knocking on Eddy's door. Suddenly, startling Edd in the process, a light came on inside. There was a shuffling of tired feet across the floor and Eddy opened the door and glared out at his slender friend. Eddy had, just as Edd, changed a whole lot these three years. Ed had gotten taller and grown a brain. Edd had gotten taller too, nearly 1m80, but remained slightly built. Eddy hadn't grown so much, he merely measured 1m70, but his stocky build had begun to show itself containing a brute muscular strength, nearly rivalling Ed's. Eddy was also unshaven as he gave Edd a scrutinizing stare.

"Double D, what on Earth are you up to? Do you know what time it is?" Eddy asked harshly, trying to suppress a yawn.

"Never mind what time it is!" Edd wavered off the questions with a shrug. "There's a robot in my backyard."

It was said now. Edd waited for the other shoe to drop, as Eddy seemed to be processing this.

"What, did one of Ed's toys get loose again?" Eddy said after a moment of silence.

Edd grabbed Eddy by his arm and dragged him along. "No, not a toy robot. A real, man-sized robot. C'mon!"

Eddy told Edd to calm down a bit and went in and put on his clothes and shoes. When Eddy was dressed, he followed Edd to his backyard. They stopped by the side of Edd's house and looked round the corner. The robot was still there. It seemed to be patrolling, or looking for something as it went to and fro in the backyard. It didn't seem to have noticed the two young men watching it though.

"What is that thing?" Eddy whispered, not letting his sight go from the robot.

"I haven't got a clue, but it's definitely not friendly." Edd whispered back.

"So, genius, what do we do?" Eddy snapped, realizing that something bad was brewing. Again.

"You get Ed, I'll get Rolf. Then, we can start thinking of a plan." Edd whispered and snuck backwards. Eddy followed.

Eddy saw how nimbly Edd crossed the street, not making himself visible from his backyard a nanosecond. In fact, Eddy didn't want to admit it, but Edd's psychics were beginning to scare him a bit. Shrugging of the feeling, he made way towards Ed's house. "This is going to be one long night,” he thought as he slid down through Ed's open window.

As Eddy got down into Ed's room, Edd got right beneath Rolf's window. It was the one closest to his house. Carefully, as if afraid to disturb the rest of the serenity of the cul-de-sac, Edd gently tapped Rolf's window. No lights went on as in Eddy's case. Rolf just came over and opened the window, slowly. Edd rose and saw that Rolf had been lying on the floor. He decided not to ask why. That could wait. He also saw the Yarrickian sword resting in its sheath in a sword case. Edd was startled to see it resting were it was. Whenever he'd seen it, it had been passing through the enemies of Humanity and other hostilities. Now it almost seemed...sleeping, awaiting the next call to battle. It was indeed a mighty blade; forged before the Imperium was founded, thus making it older than the pyramids of Giza.

Rolf was wearing his white singlet and blue jeans, as he usually wore when not with friends. He'd gotten taller as well, taller than Ed, and was also getting muscles. But he was still lean and still had that dialect of his, although his voice had gotten deeper.

"Brainy Ed-boy? Why are you tapping on Rolf's window this late into the day?" Rolf said, cocking an eyebrow.

"Rolf, there's a robot in my backyard, a real one. I have a feeling it came from..." Edd started, but Rolf cut him off.

"From the Imperium?" The older boy almost sighed at the fact. "Will this madness ever end? But, were are the other Ed-boys?"

"Eddy's getting Ed as we speak, but I have no idea on what good that'll do. We don't have our armour or weapons any more."

"Ed-boy, no need to get worried. Rolf still is the Holder of the Sword! Remember that!"

This was no idle threat. Edd knew it full well. Rolf had managed to make his parents cut down on his chores, and let him take sword-fighting lessons. Three years had passed since he started, and Rolf had proved to be a quick learner. In a way, Edd almost felt the skill of Rolf's fighting as he spoke those words. Edd sometimes thought that Rolf had to be Yarrickian in some way. The sword was said only to be welded by the first-born son of a first-born son, and it hadn't withered or anything in Rolf's hand.

"Rolf, I know you have the sword, but that numbers our arsenal of weapons to one legendary blade and nothing more. And we're not letting you fight a 2 metres tall mechanoid on your own." Edd said seriously. Edd also felt as Eddy and Ed came running up behind them. Ed was still bleary eyed from being so suddenly woken. Eddy had landed on his stomach.

"Old gang is assembled." Eddy said flatly. "What do we do now?"

"We can't risk fighting it in the cul-de-sac. It could injure the others, and we'll be put through a horrible line of questions afterwards." Edd seemed to think out aloud, but not too loudly. "My suggestion is to lure it to the dump, it's not far away from my house. No innocent bystanders, no witnesses and most importantly, we'll have cover!"

As Edd finished that, Rolf joined them on the outside. He had for, reasons unknown, donned the greatcoat, cap and boots of the Commissar-general and slung the sword sheath over his shoulder, so it rested on his back in the leather strap. He stopped close to the Eds, and Eddy could've sworn he saw the look of the Commissar-general as he looked up at Rolf. The cap, the braid, the sword, they all had made Rolf Yarrick whom he was, and now, they had transmuted Rolf, their neighbour, into something very similar. Eddy snapped to reality.

"I don't suppose anyone's figured out we're going to fight this thing without gear?" he asked. Eddy in fact felt sad that he didn't wear the chunky and protective Terminator armour. He missed the lightning claws and the feeling of complete power in his hands.

Rolf suddenly made way towards Edd's backyard. Looking over his shoulder, the tall, tanned young man said: "Do not worry Ed-boy. We will simply have to compromise!"

The Eds followed him, of course. They had no choice.

"Compromise?" Ed said with a quizzical look.

"I think our Rolf means improvise, Ed." Edd replied.

Although Rolf was first, he wasn't first to act. That was going to be Ed. He remembered the way he'd been playing living bait as an Outlaw, and this was no exception for him. To take risks was everyday life for him. As he snuck up towards the robot by the side of Edd's house, he carefully picked up an empty can from the ground. They'd had a party not long ago here, and Edd, having gone less pedantic lately, hadn't been too careful in picking up garbage. Ed weighed the can in his hand a moment, until he silently rose and threw the can.

It spanged off the robot's metallic shoulder, and the thing spun round and glared at Ed with it's inhuman eyes. The robot looked over Ed, and Ed looked over the robot. Across its chest, a heavy necklace hung. Its reason, Ed had no idea. The face of the robot looked like a human skull and the long weapon in its hand seemed to be made of a combination of metal and crystal parts. Ed decided not to stay and find out what such a weapon did with a man, so he turned and ran for the dumpster. If Ed had been clocked, one would've clocked him for new World Record on the distance 100m. The robot set after, not moving as fast, but at a very quick stride. Its mechanical legs gave, surprisingly, no sound as it moved. It was far from the clumsy mechanoids of the B-movies Ed watched. And it was with a stroke of terror that Ed realized this. Even if Ed was running for a new world record, the robot was closing in on him as he reached the dump. It levelled the gun it was carrying, the blade under the 'barrel' glittering in the stark moonlight. The robot was aiming on impaling Ed on the far end of the bayonet.

It never got to do so. The robot lost its balance a few seconds as it received a blow from the side. Rolf had struck hard and the sacred sword had passed through the robot's side in a flurry of sparks and loose metal parts. Rolf made a new attack against the robot, joined quickly by Ed and Eddy, wielding crowbars they'd found amongst the trash. They struck at the robot, but the thing had only been caught off guard, and as it regained its senses, it started to fight back. It pulled out a wickedly curved blade seemingly out of nowhere and begun hacking at the boys. The two Eds and Rolf held their ground for a moment, but were then herded backwards under a flurry of blows. It was with fear that they realized the robot was backing them up towards a wall. At this point, the robot put down the blade, and aimed the strange gun towards the boys. The crystal of it started to glow with a greenish light and having nowhere to run to, the three young men awaited what undoubtedly had to come. They closed their eyes...

And opened them again as a most inhuman shriek of agony was heard. Rolf looked over the shoulder of the robot, and saw that Edd was standing there; arm stretched out and hand trailing blue smoke. The robot was now fixing Edd with its unblinking stare. A mistake of unknown bounds when up against a psyker of Edd's magnitude. As the robot turned to face this new threat, giving Ed, Eddy and Rolf to duck for cover, something brightly white and round began to form in Edd's hand. Two seconds later, a saucer shaped psibolt flew from Edd's hand and struck the robot full in the face, blinding it. Edd knew it wouldn't be blinded for long. McKenzie had told him that most bionic eyes contained a layer that filtered out powerful and irritating lights. That had too be the case of robots as well.

"Now what, Einstein?" Eddy asked as the others joined Edd.

"I have a crazy idea." Edd mumbled. "Hold the thing of for another moment!" With that, Edd ran away.

"Roger Wilco, Lexicanum!" Ed said and made a salute, almost striking himself with the crowbar in his right hand.

"Shut up, Ed." Eddy hissed as he looked back at the robot. The thing had already recovered from the flash. It made its way towards the three boys, anger glowing in its alien eyes. It drew out the blade again, and the close combat resumed. Rolf had a drill, and he stuck to it, but for Ed and Eddy it was harder. They didn't have Rolf's training, neither did they have swords. So more than once, they found themselves shuffled away from combat.

"I'm getting tired, Eddy." Ed said under one of these occasions.

"Me too," Eddy replied. "And I don't think we are doing any real damage to it."

Rolf, having heard what the Eds had said, growled in a strained voice: "Don't loose faith Ed-boys. Faith is our best shield against these aliens!"

Eddy was about to reply with a rude remark to Rolf and his sayings, undoubtedly spawned from the Commissariat, when he realized they'd been driven backwards again, this time the other way. Further into the dump. In an unguarded moment, the robot threw the three boys off itself and raised the blade in a two-handed grip over its head, to make a final cut against the Eds and Rolf.

The downswing never came. The robot and its arms were held in place by an unseen force. Looking up, the Eds and Rolf saw that the force was that of a lifter-magnet, attached to a crane. In the cab, Edd was sitting, and they could almost feel the force of the magnet being turned up as Edd drew a level a bit further down. The air had a ticklish smell to it, the electro-magnetic field tangible in the night-air. The robot got stuck up on the magnet with a bang. Guiding the crane to hover above the crusher machine they'd seen the first day that the Eds ever encountered the phrase Space Outlaw, Edd cut the power to the magnet and the robot fell into the crushing-machine. Eddy dived for the crusher's controls and activated the crusher before the robot could climb out. The robot had managed to get its upper body above the crusher, but that didn't help. With a sickening crunch, the legs of the robot were turned into scrap. The crusher opened its steel maw again and the robot's upper body fell in as well. Once more, the crusher closed, completing its task. With that, Eddy turned the crusher off, and Edd hit on the power to the magnet again. A small cube of metal floated out of the crusher, almost lazily. Edd directed the crane to land the cube on the ground and then turned it off. He climbed out of the cab and joined his friends. Under silence, they buried the cube of metal in a far off part of the dump. More metal garbage would soon be collected there, so no one would ever find it. However, it was no easy task getting the cube there, as the robot originally had weighed nearly three hundred kilos, and that mass had only been compressed.

When this was done, the four boys went back to the cul-de-sac. Fatigue was total. It had been late, and they hadn't been prepared. The robot had proved one hard nut to crack, despite it being outnumbered.

"Rolf needs to find his bed." Rolf silently concluded, removing the peaked cap and running his fingers through his blue hair. As he pulled out his hand, it was wet with sweat.

"I second that one," was all that Eddy managed.

Edd, however, couldn't really relax yet. "Yes, it's been a long day, and I have a feeling this isn't over, quite yet..."

"I hate it when you say stuff like that!" Eddy snapped and looked darkly at Edd.

"Why so, Eddy?" Ed asked, stumped.

"Because he's usually right..." Eddy sighed.

"Indeed, we fared well tonight, but if more of those things show up, we may not be so fortunate. We're going to have to bring McGranth, McKenzie and Charleston in on this." Edd sighed, playing with the thought of removing his hat and do what Rolf had done. He dismissed the thought immediately.

"One slight problem there, sock-head," Eddy snapped. He hadn't lost his attitude. "We don't have any idea where they are!"

"Maybe not," Edd simply replied. "There might be one way to contact them. Excuse me, I have a lot of 'thinking' to do." With that Edd veered off from the group and aimed for home. He left his friends in a puzzled mood. Rolf, who wanted to get home and get to bed and out of the uniform, left Ed and Eddy.

"What was he talking about, Eddy?" Ed asked. He might have grown a brain, but he was no man on solving mysteries.

"Search me," was Eddy's reply. With that, the two steered home too, hoping Edd's prophecies would prove wrong for just once.

Edd was once again in his room. The blueprints still lay on his desk, but they were since long forgotten. Instead, Edd had pulled out a strip of paper from somewhere. The strip held an address:

Edward R. McKenzie

45 Howard Street

It was followed by the postal code and the city he lived in. It was the city that made Peach Creek a suburb. Edd sat on his bed, his legs folded and eyes closed. He calmed down, shutting out the adrenaline kick from the recent battle, forcing his heartbeat down. He cleared his mind from any disturbances: homework, tests, wars and more.

'Hope this works.' Edd thought and begun murmuring a litany under his breath. It was a prayer McKenzie had taught him. It helped in focusing the mind when searching for other psykers, or making a 'scan' as McKenzie had put it. As the murmured prayer became a something that he didn't need to focus on anymore, Edd let go of his mind and felt his mind leave his body. It flew out of his house, from the cul-de-sac and followed the road to the highway to the city. It passed through the industrial zones, the market zones and finally came to the habitual zones of the city. It found a special street, a special house. His mind flexed and took in all nearby human psyches. Most of them were faint like candle lights, other bright like beacons.

'Latent psykers...' Edd gave an involuntary, contemptuous thought. They had no idea what risks they took if deamons would find a way to Earth; deamons lived of the souls of unprotected humans, and they favoured psykers! A trained psyker could repel them, but an untrained one...

Amongst the few bright ones, Edd found one soul-flare that shone brightly, but with a moderate light. It was tempered, so to say. He shot away towards that soul.

In his apartment, Master Lexicanum Edward McKenzie was sitting in a similar position to Edd's. But he wasn't trying to scan. He was merely meditating. Flexing his mind to keep it at peak efficiency. He did it every evening. Charleston and McGranth went before him to the local bar, and after a few minutes, McKenzie followed, finished with his mind flexing. Charleston and McGranth lived in their own apartments, but in the same house. McKenzie knew how Terrans would react if they had all lived together. They would all have gotten arrested by the local Arbites. Policemen, McKenzie reminded himself that their name was.

McKenzie was just to stop his meditating, when he felt something tugging at him. He quickly recognized the pattern of a scan and realized someone was trying to communicate with him. The scanner wanted to tell him something; that was clear. Back in the Imperium, McKenzie often held contact with the most powerful psykers, and knew their patterns from heart, but this pattern was new. McKenzie, for once, didn't know who was trying to communicate with him.

He let the stranger in, intrigued, and almost had a shock when he felt that the psi-pattern of the other psyker was similar to his, he realized that it had to be the cul-de-sac boy called Double D. He let the youngster completely in on his mind, and the relief that reached him actually made him worried. McKenzie felt a rush in his mind as Edd's recent memories reach him psychically. McKenzie saw what Edd had seen; it rolled out before him as a sort of movie. But this was highly real. McKenzie didn't just see pictures and heard sounds; he felt Edd's feeling and heard his thoughts as well.

He saw how Edd discovered the robot, his dash to Eddy and the sudden jolt of adrenaline that came then. He saw the gathering of the foursome, and almost felled a tear at seeing the Yarrickian Sword again. It was a relic for all of the Imperium. It symbolised freedom, just as the Emperor had. McKenzie also felt the next jolt of adrenaline when Edd gave the robot the feel of the power of psychics. McKenzie also saw the quiet burial of the robot. With the 'movie' finished, Edd left McKenzie's mind. This made McKenzie jerk back to reality. The slender Marine remained sitting for a while, thinking of what he'd seen. He remembered Armageddon, twelve years before the fall. Sebastian and Charleston had, as McGranth put it, frekked up, and gone wandering in the huge, seemingly impenetrable pyramid in the Equatorial Jungle. They had encountered robots in there. An anti-matter bomb had taken out both the whole pyramid and the nearby Khornate monolith. McKenzie had though returned, and in the few ruins that remained, he'd found a picture of the robots that had resided in the pyramid. Charleston and Sebastian had given their explanations of them, so had Herman von Strab, before he was executed. They had all given similar explanations and of what McKenzie could tell, these were the same robots.

"So, there are more of them?" McKenzie thought darkly to himself. The droid from Edd's backyard hadn't been exactly the same, but it was clear they had been based on the same technology. "Heck," McKenzie said quietly. "Even robots evolve, if a few thousand years pass by."

McKenzie got up and picked up keys to his BMW motorbike, put on his leather jacket and grabbed his helmet. He ran down the stairs and into the garage shared by most people in the house. McGranth's and Charleston's bikes were gone, but McKenzie's still stood there. To his disgust, he found some gutter-kids trying to steal it. Instead of driving them off, he focused on the ignition key and made a psi one by the bike and ran it into the ignition set, turned it and the bike flared into life. The kids jumped away from it by surprise.

"Wot da F is goin' on?" McKenzie heard one of them shout. McKenzie smiled to himself as he unlocked the chain keeping the bike were it was. Moving it by sheer force of will, McKenzie revved the engine for measure. This scared the kids even more. They ran away. McKenzie put on his helmet and strode up to his bike and put in the first gear and drove off into the night. He put in the second gear, the third as he sped the bike faster and faster towards the bar his friends had gone to. They wanted to try something new, so went to one in the far end of the city. The plush part, so to say, in big difference to the 'slums' in which they resided. McKenzie just hoped no police officers would stop him. If they tried, they'd end up with erased memories of the last few minutes. McKenzie threw a glance down at the speed-meter as he drove down a straight. 90 kph.

The traffic light before him changed from red to green at McKenzie's command and he took a curve at alarming speed. A move like that would not have been possible in daylight. It still took McKenzie twenty minutes to reach the bar where Charleston and McGranth was.

He parked the bike outside, locking it psychically instead of manually and rushed into the bar, throwing off his helmet.

"Thought you'd never come, Edward." was McGranth's comment when McKenzie stormed into the bar. McGranth threw a second glance at his friend and saw something wasn't right.

"Hey, Edd, what's wrong?" McGranth said and looked puzzled. Charleston looked up from his beer too. McKenzie calmed down and was about to tell the other two about what had happened in the cul-de-sac and what they were to await, when three green beams of light stabbed through the window of the bar and destroyed the mirror behind the bar-keeper. The barkeeper and the few guests except the Marine commanders threw themselves down unto the floor. The Marines flung round and watched as three robots of humanoid size and shape entered through the destroyed window.

"What are those?" McGranth asked and raised his fists. Right now he wanted his storm bolter and power axe.

"What I was about to tell you about!" McKenzie shouted back. The screams from the people in the bar were getting to him. The people on the outside, well, the few ones, were also screaming in terror of the droids. "The cul-de-sac kids killed one barely an hour ago! I went here to tell you there could be more!" McKenzie raised his fists and made a psychic barrier around them. "Frekk, I hate to be right!"

"Still haven't answered my question, Master Lexicanum!" McGranth shouted. The robots were close now.

"Necrons!" Charleston shouted and dove towards one. McGranth just gave a shrug and attack the one closest to him, and so did McKenzie with his. McGranth and Charleston were both left with fighting the droids with their bare fists; McKenzie used his psyker powers to deal some extra damage with each punch. Still though, both Charleston and McGranth were stronger than the lanky Lexicanum. McGranth attacked his droid with legs spread, in a kickboxing style stance. His punches were always followed by a powerful kick. Although the robot in front of him did no attempts to duck the punches thrown at it, Eddie's kicks made it reel backwards. One such powerful kick crushed the giant necklace's gemstone. Following the confused seconds for the droid, McGranth struck it hard on its jaw with his palm, sending the robot flying through the air and landing outside. McGranth was pleased to see smoke billowing from its broken form. He was not so pleased to see the tiny insecticides crawling over the broken necklace and the deformed jaw of the Necron, leaving repaired injuries. In a matter of minutes, the robot was up on its feet again, striding towards the Death Angel's Commander.

Charleston was faring ill as well. His opponent wasn't wielding the hefty guns as the other two robots. It was carrying a tall glaive, able to keep the tall Marine at a distance. At the end of the glaive, there were both an emitter for the ray gun and a curved blade, utterly alien in design. Charleston, being a simple man, grabbed the staff like weapon and began tugging it. The robot held firm. They both started pulling the glaive, but in the end Charleston's immense strength prevailed over artificial muscles. He pulled the glaive out of the Necron's hands and threw it away, so it stuck with the blade into a nearby wall. Charleston then attacked the robot with pure fury, head butting the thing so seriously he caused a hole in the forehead of the robot. The Necron, temporarily stunned, couldn't do anything to prevent the Marine from ramming his massive fists into the hole and parting the robot's head in two. Charleston's hands were soaked in oil as he let go and saw the Necron fall to the ground. A pleased smile crossed his lips as the thing fizzled and threw electrical sparks around it, but it soon vanished as he saw the same small insecticide robots that his commander had seen, came creeping out of the bowels of the Necron and started to repair it. The split face was rebuilt and the Necron stood up soundlessly. The only thing Charleston had gained from his head butt had been one heck of a bump in his forehead and a coming headache...

McKenzie was having a hard time too, despite his powers. He'd downed the robot once, but then tiny robot insects had repaired it. He saw no end to the fight, until one of his psychic-augmented punches revealed a piece of the Necron's "brain" as it struck against the thing's head. Inside, McKenzie saw what would've been described as a computer chip, had it not been twice the size of a normal such, and made out of something completely else than silicon. The material glowed in the light that McKenzie's psychics generated and looked completely smooth on the surface. No leads or connection links ran to it. It was suspended in some sort of magnetic field. McKenzie came to the realisation it had to be a super conducting material and made a powerful back swing with his right arm and crushed the skull of the Necron into tiny pieces. He felt a cold tingling in his hand and arm as he smashed the controller chip of the robot. The thing fell limply to the ground, like a doll with its strings cut. No insects ran out of its body to repair it either. McKenzie smiled. He'd found a way to destroy the Necrons!

"Ed, Eddie, destroy the controller chip in their heads, and the Necrons seize to work!" he shouted over the battling sounds in the bar. He didn't bother to wait for a response. Charleston and McGranth had given up that habit, to respond. They only did as McKenzie told them when he'd found a solution. McKenzie started to drag the dead Necron out to the back of the bar. Out in the alleys, he picked it apart, and put different pieces in many different trashcans. The only thing he saved was the wrecked controller chip. Without that, the Necron would never work again.

On the inside, Charleston and McGranth were both trying to destroy the heads of the mechanoids. Charleston had tried to squash the skull of his with his bare hands, while McGranth aimed high kicks against the head, hoping to wreck something on the inside. It wasn't proving successful. After one incredibly powerful kick, McGranth found his droid on the ground again. He threw a glance at Charleston and saw that he two had grounded his Necron. Charleston looked at McGranth. Making a silent decision between each other, they grabbed the legs of their opponents and swung them round with great force. At the exact time, having timing only centuries of fighting together could achieve, the two Marines let go off the legs of their opponents and saw the two Necrons fly heads first straight towards each other. The two heads collided with a force that should've knocked a hole in a German WW2 "Tiger"-tank's front armour. Now, the two, mechanoid heads didn't have the durability of 15 centimetres of armoured plating and both skulls were more or less disintegrated into tiny fragments. The bodies of the droids landed on the floor of the bar with a thud. Charleston and McGranth didn't rest for that. They grabbed a Necron each and dragged it out to the back where McKenzie was waiting. The psyker picked them too into tiny pieces and saved the controller chips, or what was left of them. With that, the threesome returned to the bar.

The bartender was covering behind the counter, but looked up at the three Marines as they came back in.

"What in the name of God was that?" he asked wide-eyed. "And what are you?" This second remark was aimed towards all three Marines.

"Nothing of importance, right Edd?" McGranth said with a nudge.

"Right." McKenzie's simple answer came, as he let fly a psychic wave, which erased the memories of all the recent happenings in the minds of all the normal humans that had seen the happening. This was a great move, McKenzie knew, and it could in fact attract deamons, if he wasn't careful.

The bartender got a blank look on his face. McKenzie flexed his mind some more and planted "better" memories into the mind of the man. While McKenzie was doing this, Charleston and McGranth were both paying up. The bartender accepted the money and paid no attention it seemed to the demolished window. The three Marines then left, sat astride on their bikes and rode home. They both knew what they were going to have to do tomorrow. It seemed they only had gotten a few years of peace, before it was time for them to suit up again. It would prove one long summer.

They had no idea how right they would prove...