Stormwind: Marine

A Warhammer 40,000/Warcraft Crossover (Practice)

By Kiwi Productions

(Matthew Co)

Chapter One

Niko Gearhammer's PoV

I, Gnome Paladin Niko Gorenzo Gearhammer of the Order of the Holy Shield, didn't want to be here.

Surely, the fact that I, of all people, was currently in the middle of a gathering held by warlocks on "How to Hurt Demons Effectively" was more than enough to make me uncomfortable. I mean, why the hell was it that we, paladins of the Light, took the advice of warlocks? I wasn't sure, but Justicar Josetta would have none of my points.

She sent me and my talking Netherwhelp sidekick, Sparky, as well as a few paladins of our Order, to learn more about how to kill demons more efficiently, as you might've guessed at the title of the meeting, when we could be back in Northrend, killing Scourge and paving the way into Icecrown Citadel.

This meeting was a simple waste of time. I already knew how to hurt a demon effectively.

'Sparky, I seriously doubt this is gonna be worth it,' I whispered to Sparky. 'It's just a bunch of warlocks waggling their fingers and pointing at the vulnerable points of demons.'

Sparky turned around and looked at me. The fact that he was, in fact, sitting down rather than hovering in the air was a feat unto itself, and I found my large blue eyes hovering towards his well-rounded cute belly as his glowing blue eyes narrowed at me.

'Niko, you know the motto of the Knights of the Holy Shield!' he simply squeaked back. '"We are the living weapons of the Alliance; Forged in blood, tempered in battle…"'

'"...Our function: Cleanse the unclean, Purge the Unholy and Crush the corrupt and impure." Yes, I know the motto, Sparky,' I finished, sighing. 'But this gathering's unnecessary. I already know where to hit demons to kill them in the most efficient manner.'

Sparky simply glared at me. Although Sparky's frustration actually looked kind of cute, I knew better than to laugh or smile at him, as the last time someone laughed at that very look… I shuddered from the inside at Sparky's own brand of retribution. Last time we saw that fellow, he was dangling from a signpost in Ironforge by his underpants, his own hammer's haft stuck up his… well, the place where the sun don't shine, if you, uh, see what I mean.

'Oh, really?' Sparky squeaked at me. I just nodded.

'Of course. You just aim for the crotch and swing your hammer at it with all your might. 'Nuff said.'

Wiser words never said, I say. It's true; even the females among demons generally find a two-handed adamantium blessed hammer rammed up there with a lot of force painful.

'And if they don't have a crotch, Paladin Gearhammer?'

I turned to see one of the warlocks, a fellow gnome, peering at me with suspicion. Head Warlock Istfan has his arms across his purple-robed chest as he spoke to me.

Arrogant bastard.

'All demons have a crotch,' I pointed out from experience, scratching my grey, handsome groomed hair and my mutton-chop beard. 'Even the female ones. It still has the same effect.'

'Not all demons have a crotch, Paladin Gearhammer,' Istfan said, 'which shows your ignorance. And I thought we warlocks were supposed to be ignorant…'

The warlock sighed dramatically as everyone around the bonfire looked at me.

What? Warlocks are ignorant. Just take a look at pretty much any orc and you'll see what I mean. It's because of warlocks and demons that orcs became so screwed-up.

'…and to see if your principle works, I'll summon an infernal, a demon that does not have a crotch, and see how you deal with it.'

Huzzah.

Before Sparky could protest, the Head Warlock started his chanting to summon the demon to the material plane. Everyone took a few steps back and watched in earnest as the warlock's hands burst into flame, bringing the infernal closer. I simply stood up and took out my trusty two-handed hammer and grinned at the Head Warlock.

'You say I'm ignorant,' I said, aware that the warlock was too focussed in his spell to listen. 'We'll see who the ignorant one is when I show you just how Niko Gearhammer gets stuff done!'

Before I knew it, the ritual was complete. The wailing sound of a large, heavy object falling from the heavens and towards Goldshire could be heard – the telltale signs of an Infernal approaching. Sparky flew up and perched on my shoulder as both me and Istfan took a few steps back to give the flaming rock some space to land.

A few seconds later, the rock crashed into the space between the both of us, dead center in the middle of the road. Smoke rose out of the crater as everyone waited for the demon to crawl out.

Ten seconds passed, and it still didn't come out. Thirty. A minute. Istfan scratched his head.

'That's strange... Infernals don't take even ten seconds to get out of a crater…' he admitted.

Curious about what had happened, I walked up to the edge of the crater and looked down into it, as did Istfan.

There, in the middle of the crater, was a large, silver-armoured figure the likes no one had ever seen before.

Bah. It wasn't an infernal, but I'd rather whack myself in the face with my hammer than admit it to Istfan.

Shrugging for a second, I slid down the small crater between the unconscious figure's legs, and raised my hammer above my head. He wasn't an infernal, but he'd just have to do. After all, he did come in the same way an infernal should've. Who would blame me?

Before I could swing down, Spark grabbed my arms, stopping me from completing the movement.

'What the hell are you doing?' the netherwhelp squeaked in protest.

I sighed.

'It's got a crotch, Sparky! You think I'm gonna let all-high-and-mighty up on the edge of this crater get his satisfaction of calling me ignorant without being shown who's boss?'

'It's not a demon, Niko! It's human!' Istfan yelled down at me. 'Put that bloody hammer away!'

Those words got the attention of everyone that had attended the meeting, and they all gathered at the edges of the crater. Gasps went around the attendees as Istfan slid down the crater to have a closer look at the giant figure.

I put my hammer down as I examined the figure. Every part of the unconscious figure was armoured except for its head, and I had to hop up onto its chest to see its unarmoured face. Istfan was right, Light damn his soul. It was human – it even had a black ponytail and short, full beard. But it wasn't like any other human I'd seen. Humans weren't seven gnomish feet tall.

'Who could it be?' I managed.

'It could be a paladin, Niko,' Sparky managed. 'I think we'd better get him to Stormwind. You see that symbol on his shoulder?'

I managed to spare a glance at the armoured figure's shoulderpad. It was a sword on top of a shield.

'He might be one of the Knights of the Holy Shield's templars,' Sparky continued, and I knew he was right. The symbol on the man's shoulder guard was almost the same as the one on my shoulderguard, although the style was slightly different. 'We'd best get him to Duke Edric over in the Cathedral of Light. He might know what to do.'

I nodded.

'Best we can do,' I simply said. I then spotted a grey, stocky a miniature musket-like contraption hanging from one side of his belt and what appears to be a one-sided blade with triangular teeth, much like a saw on a goblin lumber shredder.

I plucked both contraptions from the giant's belt.

'What in the name of the Light are these?' I asked, mostly to myself before depositing both things on the edges of the crater before pulling on the gauntlet of the giant to drag him out.

Light, he was heavier than heaving an anvil around, that's for sure.

It was as if I'd triggered something, because suddenly, the massive human groaned. I dropped the arm immediately and scrambled back up the crater as the crowd backed off as the giant started to slowly wake up.

As I reached the top of the crater with Sparky on my shoulder, I turned around and looked at the armoured figure as it shifted at the bottom of the small crater.

'Lok'tar Ogar! FOR THE HORDE!'

I spun around, eyes widening as he saw a group of about ten Horde scouts charge towards us.

Horde scum!

Their leader, an orc, had managed to get up close to me, and now had his two-handed sword above his head, ready to bring it down upon me. Crap. This was going to suck. I wasn't able to even lift my hammer up in time to parry.

Turns out, I didn't have to.

Before the orc bastard could bring the sword down on me, the large armoured figure leaps over my head and tackles the orc to the ground, and with one hand, he ripped the scout's head clean off.

As we watched, he quickly stood up to full height, and a roar tore itself from his lips;

'FOR THE EMPEROR!'

****************

Brother-Sergeant Matthew Corschach's PoV

I woke to the smell of smoke, soot, scorched earth and… wait. Sweat?

As my eyes flickered open, I saw that I was in the middle of a crater. Faces, human and humanoid alike looked down at me as I stirred. I slowly picked myself up. Where the frak was I? Where the frak had the bloody Warp Storm had blown us off to?

Looking around quickly, I saw the faces – some of them were human, others... mutants. Or xeno. I wasn't exactly able to tell the difference in my dazed state, but I knew that they were looking down at me with awe.

My bolt pistol and chainsword had been taken from my belt, and now lay beside one of the smaller mutants, whose back was turned away from me. By the Emperor, he was only one human foot tall!

I was about to reach for my weapons when I saw out of the corner of my eye why it was that the mini-mutant had his back turned to me. In front of him was a large, green-skinned xeno I noticed looked very similar to an Ork with a large, archaic sword over his head, about to bring it down upon the mutant.

One of the many things I learned while training as a neophyte in the newly-created Space Marine chapter of the Stormwind Marines is how to think quickly on your feet. I figured that since the mutant had managed to disarm me and hadn't used the opportunity to kill me, I guessed that they were with me.

And so, I leapt over the tiny mutant and onto the ork, tackling it down to the ground.

Before it could react, I tore its head off with my right hand. Standing back up straight after, I looked around. The ork wasn't alone.

There were humans in the same red garb as the ork, but I instantly recognised them as servants of Nurgle, with their rotting flesh showing. There were also other xenos, some with greenish-bluish skin and pointy ears, and others that looked like a mix between humans and the cows back home on Tarvis IV. There were nine of them now, their leader's headless.

And so, I bellowed out the cry that would rally any servant of the Emperor to fight.

'FOR THE EMPEROR!' I bellowed.

To my surprise, the fellows around the crater I had been in just gave me a confusing look. It appeared that I had landed on a world where they had not heard of the glorious Emperor. Other Space Marine chapters would've thought it blasphemous. I, being a Stormwind Marine, knew that not every world had known about the Emperor. I guess I would have to teach them later.

Swiping my bolt pistol and chainsword from the ground, I spun around to meet the first of my attackers, a Nurgulite, who had swung a battered sword at me. The blow simply bounced off my armour, and I kicked it in the chest, sending it onto its back. I thumbed the activator rune of my chainsword, leapt onto the unnatural thing's chest and rammed it straight into its throat.

I stood back up, only to be met by a burst of fire that hit my chest.

It had been one of the pointy-eared xenos that had thrown the fireball at me. Its eyes widened in horror for a few seconds before the barking of my bolt pistol sounded and its head exploded as more of its allies charged me.

One of them, wielding a large two-handed axe started spinning around in circles like a whirlwind like a madman just before he reached me. Wondering how it was such a move could prove useful, I simply aimed with my bolt pistol at his exposed head and blew his xeno brains out with one shot.

The axe was flung wildly out of his dead hands, and it slit the throats of two of his allies before it embedded itself in the face of another.

Only three remained now. I spat acid at one of my assailants, blinding him as he screamed in agony, holding his face as the acid got to work before I shot his two remaining friends in the heads with my pistol.

As the last one fell to his knees, I approached him, reversed the grip on my chainsword, and then rammed it into the middle of his head, the teeth grinding his brains to mush before he finally died.

I pulled out my chainsword, thumbed the deactivator rune, and sheathed both of my weapons, looking at the carnage that I had wrought. I went on one knee and prayed to the spirits of my wargear that they were sated by the blood of my enemies.

After a few seconds, I stood back up and looked behind me to see the assorted humans and mutants looking back at me with awe and fear apparent on their faces. The short mutant that had placed my weapons on the ground walked over to me, and to my surprise, saluted.

'Very nice killing you did there, sir,' he said in an awed tone in Low Gothic. 'I'm Niko Gearhammer, Gnome Paladin of the Knights of the Holy Shield. And you are?'

I coughed, remembering the Low Gothic I had learned from my time in the orphanage in Skandavis, Tarvis IV's capital city, before I was inducted into the Stormwind Marines.

'Brother-Sergeant Matthew Corschach of the Stormwind Marines Chapter,' I introduced myself, extending a gauntlet towards him, which he shook, to my surprise. 'You wouldn't happen to know where the closest Imperium outpost is, would you?'

The gnome shook his head.

'Imperium… outpost…?' he asked me, scratching his head. 'Brother-Sergeant, this is Azeroth. There's, uh, Stormwind City over yonder, I guess. Otherwise, I've got no idea what this "Imperium" is. Does it have anything to do with this "Emperor" fellow you were talking about earlier?'

It was then I realized. Chapter Master Eric had told the neophytes of the Stormwind Marines about the time he was blown off-course by a Warp Storm and ended up in a place called Azeroth. He said that he'd found the city called Stormwind, and impressed by the valour this city's people showed, he named the Chapter after it.

At first I thought he'd been kidding, making up the story just to pass the time. Now I knew otherwise.

But if I was here, where was everyone else from the Penance? Where was the rest of the Stormwind Marines Chapter?

The entire Chapter only had one Company, and had been on the Penance when it entered the warp storm by accident, including Chapter Master Eric and my beloved beautiful Sonja Fioras, one of the Chapter serfs. What had happened to them?

I feared the worst. And worst of all, I knew that without my battle-brothers, I would be left stranded, alone.