Disclaimer: I own jackshit
AN: Ok, so... I'm back! This chapter took a hell of a long time to put together, and was an utter pain in the ass, but it's finally complete! As always, a round of applause goes to Vladicus, for proof-reading and making sense of the madness I tend to generate as a result of my writing. Anyway, hope you lot enjoy!
XXX
Kaurava II was burning.
The entire planet was consumed by an omnipresent maelstrom of fire, blood and death as Orks fought their mechanized adversaries with a relish and glee that one could only describe as disturbing. In the process of fighting one another, even the planet was reduced to little more than collateral damage as the once omnipresent forests that covered the planet had been reduced to cinders and splinters. Craters covered the landscape as fires flickered and ignited unspent fuel, providing illumination for the mountains of corpses, the lakes of blood and oils, and the vast fields of wrecked war-machines that now made up the landscape of the planet.
Thick bands of black clouds obscured the sky above, creating a barrier from which the light of the local star couldn't penetrate without assistance. Rain poured from these clouds, along with the occasional bolt of lightning that provided more light, and caused the fires to hiss and flicker even as they refused to be smothered completely under this watery assault. Dirt and soil had turned to mud, already heavily mixed with the blood and oil of the fallen, as entire sections of regions were made near-impassable due to how deep and thick the mud was. Gravity proved itself a foe to all, as loose mud and soil came cascading down mountain sides at the slightest provocation, submerging entire battlefields and drowning combatants from both sides in earthen coffins.
And yet, neither side cared, merely clawing their way back to the surface as they renewed their blood feud with one another without wasting a moment to catch their breath.
From atop the reinforced Ferrocrete fortifications of his firebase, Captain Indrick Boreale, Force Commander of the Blood Ravens Space Marine Chapter, looked out at the world and what had become of it. Through armored lenses, he watched as the pseudo-night was punctuated by the thunder of distant guns and the howls of beasts. The Auto-senses of his Power Armor clicked and chittered as fireballs rose into the sky as the faint shimmers of heat and pressure waves that passed over his form. The ground under him rattled and groaned from each movement, sending loose soil and stone skittering one way or another, but he remained firmly in place as he glared at the distant events.
Atomic weapons and Melta warheads, along with other weapons of mass destruction, were being unleashed in massive quantities by the enemies of man, any one of which could have rendered their entire firebase down to smoking ruins. It was only their relative isolation that had spared them from such destruction, but the Captain doubted that such a thing would last.
Even with the limited Augurs that had been built by their Tech-Marines with whatever materials they had on hand, they could still track the relative progress of what was going on in the world beyond their fortifications. They could see as the Silica Animus did ever-escalating battle with the Greenskins, both sides deploying ever-more destructive weapons in vast quantities against one another as numberless hordes of Xenos and Abominable Intelligences clashed against one another.
Squat and wide-shouldered Ork Demi-Titans marched in flocks against the grotesque and inhuman forms of their soulless equivalent, causing the air to ring with the sound of Titan-grade weapons firing alongside the surrounding hordes of flesh and metal. Monstrously massive shapes roved the battlefield, surging from the lines of both sides as they slaughtered one another before being slaughtered in turn. Scouts brought back images of six-limbed killing machines that moved like bloody-handed ghosts as they tore through rank after rank of Orks before fading back into the darkness, to go along with pict-captures of skeletal figures that moved so quickly as to almost look like a blur of motion to even Transhuman eyes.
Reports from what few forward observation posts remained were filled with descriptions and data-recordings of new weapons that were being deployed by both sides, along with observations that something was happening to the Orks. Captain Boreale had seen the images, and had chosen caution over glory, as the sight of several Orks armed with weapons and armor of notably superior craftsmanship was reason enough to reassess the situation. Most notably, several Scouts had reported that these Orks seemed to have a much darker skin colouration than that of the normal Greenskins, along with being of greater size and strength than those that had previously been encountered. Questions had been raised, and no answers could be given as none could remember ever witnessing a similar phenomenon taking place within the living memory of any of the surviving three-hundred and eighty-two Space Marines that had arrived in the Kaurava system.
And given what was happening in orbit...
Through ad-hoc Augurs, they could see the inhuman shapes of the Thinking Machine's voidcraft as they arrived and began to strip the armored flesh from the crippled forms of their once-venerated Battle Barge, the Litany of Fury, along with the two Strike Cruisers, Ravenous Spirit and Rage of Erudition, that had escorted them. Like a swarm of flesh-eating insects, the Machine's void-forms feasted upon the corpses of the ancient vessels without thought or remorse, stripping it down to the bones before it continued to consume even that. Even now, the Captain knew the process was continuing with the slow, methodical patience that no being of flesh and blood could match, stripping away every shred of pride and dignity from their former home while devouring everything within. Priceless artifacts and clues to their heritage, ancient texts and tomes, all destroyed by an uncompromising mind that had been forged by the arrogance of the Golden Age of Man.
The sight alone had been enough to overwhelm more than a few of his Battle-Brothers, causing many to either collapse to their knees as they witnessed the desecration of what had once been their home. Others raged and roared, unable to contain their anger completely at the sight of the slow dissection of the noble craft. The Tech-Marines, in particular, took the sight especially hard, as they prayed for the Machine-Spirits of the three vessels and for the Omnissiah to grant them vengeance for the desecration visited upon them. Harnessing such rage and hate, the Tech-Adepts of the Chapter had worked at a blistering rate to ensure that, when the enemies of man came for them, they would not be found wanting.
Thump!
The sudden sound of the dirt being stepped on by an armored boot brought Boreale out of his reveries, causing him to turn and watch as the Scouts advanced towards him. As they moved, the Captain's eyes roved over the four Scouts and took in every detail as he watched their body language to get a measure of their combat readiness. Each of the four Scouts was utterly covered in mud, not a single patch of skin or cloth was left untouched and Boreale didn't doubt that they had probably developed a darker skin tone in response to the increasing amount of radiation in the air. Likewise, their wargear was covered with a thick layer of blood-soaked dirt and mud, decorated with several scratches that denoted heavy usage. Turning his gaze to the Scout Sergeant leading the squad, he prepared himself for the news of what was heading their way, the only question being a matter of when.
"Scout Sergeant, report." Boreale ordered as soon as the four Scout Marines came to a stop.
"The Machines are advancing through the South-East Quadrant, they've already destroyed Forward Observation Outposts Alpha-3 to Alpha-9 and are continuing on a path directly to this base. Several Ghost-class Machines have been observed acting as forward scouts and vanguards for the incoming assault forces. Outposts Gamma-12 and Delta-1 have also fallen silent, with large concentrations of Machines moving in those directions, sir." The Scout Sergeant reported with a grim tone, knowing in turn what was coming as Boreale nodded once.
"Anything else?" The Captain asked, his mind already working through contingency plans for the exact situation that he was looking at, compiled by the divinations of the surviving Librarians. Currently, it looked like the Machines were planning to go for a full encirclement before squeezing the Blood Ravens from all directions and trying to drown them with a tide of metal. Such tactics could be countered through the use of Plan Six-Lambda-Five, but any more details would help to narrow down the exact situation and counter that was required. Already, Boreale was making plans to visit the remaining Librarians in their make-shift Librarius where they had stored what few scraps of knowledge they could retrieve before being forced to abandon their craft in orbit.
"Just one, sir. The Machines have unleashed a number of new weapons, and refinements to existing weapons, on the Greenskin hordes, with largely positive results. The exact capabilities of these new weapons is currently unknown, but several new Automata have also been sighted within the Machine assault force heading for this base, sir. The most obvious being a Titan-scale insectoid construct armed with several weapons, including an array of tendrils that it used to devastate the Greenskins by physically crushing or throwing any opposing Titans." An eyebrow rose at that, adding a new variable that he needed to contend with as he mentally ran back through the selection of plans before he picked the one that he believed would offer the greatest chance of survival against the hordes of the Silica Animus.
"Report to central command and have a report prepared for immediate distribution. I want every Battle-Brother to be aware of these new threats as soon as possible. Dismissed." Boreale commanded as the Scouts snapped a salute before moving off at speed after a quick 'sir' as acknowledgement to his orders.
Turning back around as the Scouts sped away, Force Commander Indrick Boreale looked into the distant darkness and watched with his Transhuman eyes, immediately knowing where to look as he searched for signs of what was to come. It was nearly impossible to miss, as he spotted the dust clouds lifting off from the ash-tainted soil and floating up into the sky, all but announcing the approaching assault. The shadows of massive constructs could be seen in the distance, a testament to their sheer size as they stamped over the hordes of lesser constructs that, without doubt, swarmed under their feet.
Seeing such a sight, Boreale knew that it was highly unlikely that any of them would survive to see the next 'dawn'. The Machine could replenish itself without limit while their numbers and supplies were both finite and dwindling. Even with the Librarians putting the word out and sending Astropathic messages to every Imperial Psyker within range, none doubted that it would take days, at the very least, before the first reinforcements arrived to combat the Horror from the Dark Ages.
Those were days that they did not have, and they all knew it with a certainty that was beyond bone deep. The best they could hope for was to last as long as possible while passing on as much information as they could of the observed capabilities of the Silica Animus. Aside from that, all they could do was to carry out their duty; Fighting the foes of mankind with everything they had in the Emperor's name.
"For the Emperor." They may be dead by tomorrow, but they would die standing and defiant to the last.
XXX
If nothing else, whatever was happening to the local Orks was giving me plenty of opportunities, and reason, to try out new weapons and tech.
In the aftermath of the Argent prototype being turned into the first Argent bomb, the Orks had rapidly transformed into an even more dangerous beast as some previously unknown catalyst was introduced to them. Physical changes were the most easily seen, and not just the once happening to the Orks themselves as they grew stronger and more durable, along with no longer slouching forwards in their stance. Their tech had also made leaps and bounds as they improved it and transitioned from ad-hoc scrap metal to proper weapons that worked because they were supposed to, rather than because the Orks willed them to.
Suddenly, each Ork that was stepping onto the battlefield was carrying oversized rifles and pistols that fired bullets larger than Heavy Bolter shells. Not only that, but each of them was coming onto the battlefield wearing a full suit of armor plating thick enough to match a suit of Astartes Power Armor, covered in Orkish-but-distinctly-not patterns and designs, and equipped with a light powered exoskeleton. The initial ones that had appeared within an hour of the Argent being detonated hadn't been environmentally sealed, but the ones that were being produced in the following hours had a full environmental seal, integrated NBC protections and a basic oxygen rebreather system that could last for weeks.
Likewise, after the initial wave of scrap-vehicles had been reduced to rubble with the help of a few new Forms, and some of the Gargants had been dog-piled by a half-dozen Juggernauts each, the new vehicles had rolled up to the frontlines and announced themselves to the world. Each of which was a massive brick of armor, weapons, shield generators and tracks that stormed onto the battlefield with all guns blazing and Orkish infantry all but jumping off them as they raced through war-torn battlefields and cratered warzones. Even the smallest of these vehicles was larger than a 'mere' Land Raider, while the largest would have put things like the Imperial Leviathans and what I knew of Squat land vehicles to shame. Titan-grade weapons quickly became more and more wide spread across the Greenskin forces as more of the Mega-Bricks started rolling on to the killing fields of Kaurava II in larger numbers, joined by magnitudes of lesser weapons that ranged from being 'mere' Anti-infantry weapons all the way up to the after-mentioned Titan weapons.
Long-armed, Gorilla-like machines as big as any Warlord Battle-Titan marched onto the battlefields right beside these bricks of Orkish steel, cloaked in multiple layers of Shields, covered in armor and armed in with an overabundance of killing implements. Gargantuan melee weapons and monstrous cannon assemblies fought for space on machines that almost seemed too small to hold and use them, looking like some horrific joke that no one was laughing about even as they thundered forwards on many-taloned-tipped feet.
Great gouges were torn from the soil with every step, releasing terrible vibrations that often heralded their approach, triggering landslides in loose dirt, causing mud to flow like a river down the side of the corpse-dunes and crater-walls of dozens of battlefields. Where they walked, death and destruction followed, just as catching the gaze of such Orkish war-machines was nothing less than inviting a painful suicide as shells and warheads rained down onto their targets.
And that was just some of the more conventional weapons that the Orks were adding to their ever-growing arsenal.
More exotic weapons and technologies, normally considered rare outside of the most powerful and well-feed Warbands, were being used with greater frequency. Teleporter systems were now widespread, equipped on every Mega-Brick and only limited by their relatively short range, to deploy entire companies of Orkish Shock Troopers behind enemy lines. Either that, or to deploy potent bombs that would detonate in the heart of any sufficiently large concentration of Platforms. Small scale Neutron Degenerate Matter explosives, Induced Grav-shear projectors, short-lived Micro-Singularity warheads, Hyper-compression Gravitational Beamers and a dozen other forms of weapons of mass destruction had come from the Orks in as many minutes.
And, in the hours following the detonation of the Argent, the Orks took full advantage of every single bullet, bomb and blaster that decorated their extensive armories.
Bitter stalemates and brutal meat-grinders were shattered, turned into Orkish victories and hordes of power-armored Orks surged through every new breach in my defensive lines. Fortified flanks were uprooted by deep-striking squads of teleported Commandos and Shock Troopers, laughing even as they were killed by rapid response forces, secure in the knowledge that the damage had been done. Counter-attacks were met with an almost casual joy as they were torn apart and slaughtered with an insulting ease that left Data-minds stuttering in incomprehension.
Entire formations of Platforms disappeared under the advancing Green Tide, reduced to scrap metal as their scavengers fought over the remains of Templars, Maulers, Juggernauts and dozens of other types of Forms even as they laughed in glee. Staging areas, FOBs, Defense lines and landing sites were overrun with Orks, isolated from any reinforcements and smothered under hordes of cheering Orks and cackling Gretchins.
For five hours, that was the reality of the situation on Kaurava II.
The Orks advanced, and I threw everything I had at them in some attempt to slow them down. Not to stop, but to slow down. Entire armies of machines were constructed, outfitted and deployed for the sole intention of serving as cannon-fodder in an attempt to buy more time as resources were redirected. Every minute saw a new iteration of a Form-template being created and deployed, tested against the Orks under a rain of Fusion-armed Kinetic bombardments. Reinforcements, originally destined for other worlds in the system, were re-routed to Kaurava II in droves, stripping standing forces down to the bare minimum needed to keep them ahead of any predicted attrition with near non-existent margins for error.
Production was ramped up across every captured stellar body as masses of Hex components grew taller and taller with every passing moment, spreading like a macro-cancer upon whatever world they found themselves on. New defense lines were frantically constructed by skittering Engineers and Fabrication Walkers one after the other, built stronger and stronger Forms in the hope that they would be the ones to halt the Ork's advance. Combat protocols were continually updated, altered and reconfigured to optimize the killing potential brought to the fight by every Form in the search for yet another advantage as the Orks continued forwards.
Every victory the Orks won sent them roaring in joy, just as every struggle caused them to cheer in glee at the challenge faced before them. Even the smallest hint of resistance, of a fight, was enough to cause the Greenskins to become giddy with anticipation. And so, for five hours, I fought them and watched as they laughed and cheered and roared to the sky, enjoying every minute of it as their war-machine crawled ever onwards like clockwork. For five hours, I was forced to endure failure after failure, defeat after defeat, and loss after loss as Forms, resources and energy were poured down the drain that was Kaurava II.
For five hours... I watched. I observed. I learned. And I evolved.
Throughout those five hours of hell and setbacks, I watched the world turn through millions of sensors and hunted for every scrap of information that I could find. Combat data was gathered from every Form that stepped on to, and died on, the battlefields across Kaurava II as strengths, weaknesses and capabilities were mapped out. Observers watched from orbit around the planet, mapping out troop movements, supply lines and industrial sites that spawned from the aftermath of the Argent. Discord-class Forms were sent in as advanced scouts, saboteurs and ultra-lethal killing machines that worked to throw as many gears into the Orkish war-machine as was physically possible. Doing everything they could to find chinks in the armor of the Greenskin's defences as orbital bombardments rained down on crackling, but holding, Orkish Shields.
New Auditors Battle-Forms stalked from battlefield to battlefield, hidden from sight by advanced stealth technologies as they hunted down isolated units of Orks before slaughtering them with swarms of Tau-inspired Kill-drones. Bodies were dissected by assemblies of bladed limbs as they were held beneath these field researchers by grasping talons, as equipment was Reclaimed in a mist of active nanomachines, both to test out the effectiveness of new weapons and to discover every secret that the Orks held. Survivors were flayed open and peeled like some demented fruit as more data was torn from their still-living bodies right up to the moment they expired from the damage done.
Likewise, skeletal Scavenger Combat-Forms roamed the aftermath of each battlefield, searching samples of new technologies among the wrecks of Ork vehicles that traced their path back to the first battlefields, where the first changes had taken place. High-powered sensors searched for anything of value, either Reclaiming it in an instant, or carrying such items off for safe-keeping and further observation, at least until they could be disassembled with no fear of detection. Whether those items came as individual pieces of technology, or the still-intact brains of dead Orks, mattered little to me. What did matter, however, was that they could be used as yet another source of information for what was to come.
Of course, I didn't just search through the remains of fallen Orks for new information, more resources and inspiration for new weapons of death. Architects scoured orbital debris for anything of value, picking over the corpses of once-proud vessels for items of value to go along with the materials that once clothed the ships of war. Vessels were pulled apart one bulkhead at a time, care being taken to ensure that any item of importance was not damaged, while also securing every scrap of valuable material was Reclaimed.
Adamantium, Ceramite, Warp-conductive materials and a host of other materials were Reclaimed and stored away within the vast network of my economy, reduced into a slurry of subatomic particles, or stored away inside a separate assembly as disconnected molecules. Likewise, the organic crews were pulled apart atom by atom, their entire structure mapped to allow for a mimicry of life to be generated within my Matrix. Secrets, gossip and hints of information that would have normally been hoarded in life were given away freely by these individuals after their deaths, regardless of race or allegiance. Ork, Tau, Human, Astartes, Aeldari, it really didn't matter to me or my Forms, only that they had information that could prove to be useful.
In particular, the vessels of the Blood Ravens proved to be the greatest source of all for knowledge, items and secrets. Stolen relics and forbidden tomes of lore were all stored away within the vast vessels of the Blood Ravens, proving that they had truly lived up to their name as the 'Bloody Magpies'. Hidden vaults dotted the superstructure of the ancient vessel, filled with a wide range of trinkets that had probably been stolen from their original owners more often than being freely gifted. Alongside this, the more easily found Librariums, Apothecarions and Armories proved to be treasure troves in their own right, containing examples of rare weapons or priceless examples of ancient wisdom recorded in thick volumes of parchment-like vellum.
Orders were given and carried out just as quickly, ensuring that nothing was left untouched as every word, letter and molecule was recorded in a digital format even as Forms skittered through the halls of the vaulted craft, carrying away everything they could find and storing them away in secure vaults built into my Alpha Poly-Complex. Even the Sanctorium Arcanum was pulled free from the Astartes Battle-Barge before being stored away for later investigation, being pulled out from the heart of the vessel after it had been stripped down to the superstructure by hungering mists of nanomachines.
Such formations of swarms of Architects, however, were not alone.
In orbit of Kaurava II, more swarms moved through the void as they clustered into tight groups and sprayed forth pillars of nanomachines towards a singular point between them. Said points grew at tremendous speed, bathing in the light of distant stars and being fed by metric tons of raw matter every second, arranged into very exacting patterns as they expanded one molecule of advanced alloy armor at a time. Vast constructs took shape within the cold void, slowly coming to life as power cores cycled into activity while distributed processing networks stuttered to life.
The spark of awareness flickered into existence and only grew as a spark became an ember, and then a roaring bonfire, and then an inferno as fresh data was fed to it and its kin. Entire archives were assimilated by these monolithic constructs, designed to feed the growing intelligence just as they were meant to prepare it for what was to come, carefully cultivating the intelligences for their primary purpose. Great limbs formed from the vast seas of nano-constructors as optics flickered for a moment before they focused on the planet below. I could feel the full awareness of the new Forms come online, second only to a full Data-mind and leaving no doubt as to what I was about to unleash upon this universe.
A new War-Form.
XXX
When the sixth hour came, things changed.
All at once, across a dozen battlefields where the Orks advanced with near-impunity, the momentum of war changed in a single instant as a chain of events reached their ultimate conclusion. At the frontlines, Forms died in their tens of thousands, millions even, to delay the Ork advance long enough for new reinforcements to arrive and take up the strain. I watched as one more Form fell, holes riddled through its mechanical body as the Orks advanced another step, a new Form stepping up to fill the hole punched through the frontlines. Near-immediately, that new Form came under attack by the indiscriminate fire of the Orks, unleashing a hail of projectiles and energy bolts strong enough to reduce most Imperial tanks into little more than scrap metal. It was an onslaught that few of my Forms could endure...
Until now.
The dead fell, replaced by a new breed that weathered the incoming wave of firepower without faltering a single step; The dead hit the ground, but their successors continued on with the wisdom gathered from the deaths of their kin. New armor materials, discovered through laborious trial and error before being laminated into a singular composite material, glinted in the light of flickering false-stars. Energy shields, reverse-engineered, re-sized and enhanced, beyond even what the Tau had ever been capable of, glowed and rippled with a cyan sheen with every impact. Weapons, upgraded beyond the original specifications of their long-discontinued ancestors, were raised and fired on the advancing horde of Power Armor-clad Orks that rushed to meet them. Either held in hands, or mounted on the superstructure of a Form. It didn't matter, only that they were capable of striking their target; Capable of delivering death as their wielders marched forth.
A few hundred metres separated the two opposing forces, a distance crossed in the blink of an eye as the results of the five hours of study and research, and another of preparation, became self-evident to all. Almost immediately after the triggers of a dozen weapons were pulled, the front line units of the Ork horde disappeared in a shower of gore and metal. Advanced gyrojet projectiles, sheathed in Power Fields and directed by 'dumb' processors, honed in on targets and drilled right through their armor before detonating internally. Webs of Stasis-Hardened mono-molecular wire sliced through entire groups of Orks unlucky enough to be caught in their path, reduced to little more than giblets of meat and scrap metal that slide to the ground in neatly cut chunks. Bolts of magnetically contained Plasma rained down on entire formations of Orks, they were spat into the air by the back-mounted Plasma Mortars of a dozen Templars as coolant systems laughed at the waste heat generated with every shot. Needle-thin streams of molten metal and roaring beams of exotic particles screamed through the air, targeting heavily armored Orks, their shield-clad superiors, or sufficiently durable vehicles before reducing them to nothing but slag and cooked meat. My own flavors of gravitational weapons either caused shear-effects that shredded entire companies of Orks, or compacted them into spheres of matter so dense and small that none could have survived.
A battle line that had stormed through every defense and counter-attack I had previously mustered was simply gone, in an instant. Their dead lay where they had died even as the survivors tried to regroup and throw themselves into the teeth of my advancing Forms, roaring and laughing with glee as they did so. Most didn't even manage to get within a dozen metres of my Forms, gunned down by weapons that could now reliably punch through their thick power armored hides. Those that did manage to close the distance found themselves ripped apart, torn limb from limb by Transonic talons and Power Field-coated blades of a dozen types.
And across a battlefield bigger than some countries once found on ancient Terra, this scene repeated itself a dozen times as Orks charged, Orks roared, and Orks died.
It was a moment of pure catharsis from the repeated defeats, losses and humiliations that followed in the wake of the Argent's detonation. Words could not express just how jubilant I felt as I watched rank, after rank, after rank of my Platforms stepped over the gore-fields of Ork meat and scrap metal. It was a moment immortalized in memory, captured through the sensors of millions of Forms that moved like a living sea of metal as they advanced onwards, transformed into artistic renders of the moment in oil and water-based paints and added to my growing collection. Turning Point was the name I gave to my latest acquisitions, since that very moment represented a very real turning point in the war for Kaurava II.
And I was far from finished, not even close to in fact.
Turning my attention towards the orbital space above the once-vibrant planet, I looked through circling Observers and watched as the last pieces started to fall into place. Literally, in this case, as the vast leviathans of alloy that had been under construction for so long finally started to move from within clouds of swarming Architects. With a deceptive slowness, they moved away from their birth-places on small gouts of fire ejected from their titanic bodies, nudging them closer and closer to the planet below. Soon, gravity caught each of them and their speed increased, pulled down to the mass of ash-covered rock by one of the most fundamental forces in existence. Armored plates metres thick didn't even glow as fire danced across them, ignited from the sudden contact with the atmosphere as the massive Forms burned their way through the atmosphere with an echoing roar that filled the heavens. Maneuvering jets fired as it was pulled towards the ground below, never working to slow the titanic machine down, instead, only serving to keep the beast of alloy on target and accelerate it further towards the rapidly approaching ground.
And then, impact.
Like the hammer strike of some ancient god, the world descended into fire and flame as near-literal mountains of metal impacted their chosen landing zone at terminal velocity. Said landing zones just happened to be directly in the heart of a dozen approaching Orkoid armies, each numbering in the millions and all eager for a fight. It was a fight many of them lost instantly, as heat and over-pressure washed over their entire formations, wiping out any Ork that didn't have sufficient protection. Massive assemblies of tracks, weapons and armor came undone under the intense kinetic energies unleashed by the mother of all orbital strikes. Metal alloys and exotic armoring materials ran like hot wax, exposed to temperatures that they had never been expected to survive in. Anything lighter than a 'Heavy' Brick or Orkoid Titan was pulped and superheated from sheer kinetic energy alone, showering others in the molten remains just milliseconds before they experienced the same fate themselves.
Only the heaviest of Ork vehicles had even the slightest chance of surviving the maelstrom that was unleashed, and even then, that only meant that they weren't immediately pulverized into nothingness. Often times, these survivors were simply ripped from the ground and thrown far into the distance, tumbling through the air before finally impacting the ground with their armor plating rent open and simmering with excess heat. Sixty such events played out across the surface of Kaurava II, shattering the Omni-present barrier of ash-soaked clouds to reveal the sky beyond to the world below to the naked eye, or mark one optical sensor.
A wave of devastation spread from each and turned whole regions into wastelands of cinders and freshly cooled rock formations set in odd designs, ashes filled the air yet again as the carbonized matter fluttered in the wind. Words truly failed to capture the sheer destruction wrought upon the planet, and even the new images I captured felt... Cheap, for lack of a better word, in comparison to what I had just witnessed.
Still, as the dust settled, I knew it wasn't over.
Within the still-lingering dust clouds scattered around what little territory that I still held upon the planet, I felt the dozens of Hardener Fields disengage all at once as something stirred from its imposed slumber. Shadows danced through the dust clouds, obscured from immediate sight, but visible all the same as titanic appendages unfurled from their original confinement and stretched for the first time. Limbs, longer than some Titans were tall, extended fully as gargantuan claws dug into the earth, cutting gouges deep into the dead soil before they found a firm footing. A rumble filled the air as colossi pulled themselves free from the crystallized dirt of each crater and stood tall for the first time in their collective existence. Air was displaced with each motion, causing the dust clouds to ripple and shudder with every movement, as a thundering *Boom!* echoed out from each crater as true Titans took their first steps upon a fresh killing field.
Around one such crater, I watched as an Ork Titan rushed towards the dust cloud at the centre of said
crater. Its form was rent open with dozens of cracked armor plates, dozens of its weapons were little more than scrap metal, and the entire machine walked with a limp as it dragged one barely-attached foot behind it. Sparks danced across exposed metal and fire belched from a dozen openings that covered the machine, giving it the appearance of something barely clinging to life even as it staggered onwards.
And yet, for all that, the Ork-built Titan was still ready for battle. Scans inspected the once-menacing machine and found that what weapons it still had were still fully capable of firing, its armor and shields still strong enough to endure the rigors of war. It had survived damages that would have ruined a Titan of any of the other major powers, and come out of still alive and combat capable, ready for more. Horns blared through the still air, roaring battle cries and wordless shouts of utter glee at the prospect of a good fight, the very psychology of the Orks ensuring that you'd sooner see them dead than run away in fear. Both stood as a testament, if nothing else, to the durability of Orkish engineering and the skill of the Old Ones in creating such resilient weapons, even as devolved as they were.
The Orks commanding the Titan charged forwards, weapons firing into the dust cloud as quickly as the weapons could be recharged or a new round could be cycled into the firing chamber of colossal armatures. Each filled the air with the stink of ozone and spent propellant, displacing air and smoke as they fired into the vast clouds that contained their target, uncaring of whether the attacks hit or not. As they grew closer, Titan-scale melee weapons whirled into activity, monstrously larger Tractor-Chain weapons stuttering into life as minor gravitational effects came online, pulling matter towards the killing edge of the weapon. Each tooth, forged from hyper-dense alloys through the Ork's mastery of gravity, larger than a Leman Russ Main Battle Tank, clanked against each other as they spun up to optimal killing speed, ready to carve open their latest prey with gleeful abandon as they reached the edge of the dust cloud.
Most would have considered such a sight to be terrifying... I considered it to be a waste of effort on the Ork's part.
The Orkoid Titan reached the dust cloud's edge, but never got a chance to take a single step further as a gigantic claw speared out from the dust cloud and grabbed the Ork Titan by the neck, stopping the machine dead in its tracks. The sound of buckling metal filled the air around the Titan as the claws gripped down and applied impossible amounts of pressure to the Xeno God-Machine, breaking the superstructure and frame further as the Orks struggled against their captor. Weapons lashed out against a machine that was well above their weight class, firing blindly into the shadows cast by the dust clouds and hoping to do as much damage as they could.
Vox-amplified voices roared war-cries and shouted threats that they would 'Krump'em gud!', horns blared and squawked to fill the empty air as their massive blade spun down at the limb holding them up in the air. Teeth meant to rip through the armored hide of fellow Titans screeched and ground themselves against the armored skin of the Form holding them up, sending a shower of sparks even as they failed to find purchase against the behemoth they now faced.
Looking down at the Orkoid Titan through the eyes of the construct, I felt a sense of amusement fill me as the intelligence within my newest War-Form as it glared down at the enemy God-Machine that had thought it to be some weak prey. I watched as the internal AI ran through potential responses, analyzing its own system status and checking on the integrity of the Stasis-Hardened alloy skin that coated the limb currently under assault. Insane amounts of power were being flooded through conduits built to handle even larger quantities of energy, reinforcing the structure of the machine and all but laughing at the Ork's attempts to overpower it. Threat analysis software ticked away for all of an instant, scanning the Ork Titan and comparing it against the possible enemy combatants that it might yet face, before it disregarded the Orkish war machine as a threat altogether before moving to deal with it.
A flick of the massive limb holding the Ork God-Machine in place sent the walker flying, having thrown it into the air with no visible sign of effort. With an almost lazy air to it, the same limb straightened out before pointing at the still-airborne Titan, before unleashing a beam of pure destruction upon it. A roaring stream of Fusion-grade nuclear Plasma was unleashed on the air-born Titan, leaping from between the clawed digits and spearing through its designated target, burning through shields and armor plating through sheer brute force. What remained of the Titan rained around my newest War-Form as little more than droplets of rapidly cooling slag as it stepped clear of its chosen landing zone and out of the dust cloud that had hidden it from sight.
It was the first Titan kill of the Harvester War-Forms.
It would not be the last.
XXX
The tables had turned, and it was glorious!
Within an hour and a half of being unleashed, the horde of Harvesters that now stalked across the corpse-lands of Kaurava II had not only repelled the offenses launched by the Greenskins, but pushed them back, retaking lost territory and pushing further into the territories of the Orks. Every step taken by the colossal machines caused the maps to be redrawn even further as mountains disappeared alongside Orkish fortifications and Greenskin settlements. Entire armies of Power Armor-clad Xenos surged forwards to meet each Harvester in battle, dying under the baneful gaze of the vast machines before being consumed and fed into the internal machinery of the something big enough to make a Warlord Battle-Titan look small, feeding the most devastating aspect of the machine.
You see, a Harvester was more than just a singular war-machine, it was a walking war-factory.
Standing fifty metres tall at the 'shoulder', four-hundred metres long from one end to the other, and eighty metres from one 'shoulder' to another, the Harvester was a walking mountain in its own right. A mountain filled to the brim with weapons, armor and enough Fabrication Chambers to easily manufacture fresh armies on the spot. Powered by no less than eight Resource Cores, each being backed up by a triplet of reverse-engineered Dark Matter Nova Reactors, each War-Form generated an utterly insane energy and mass income on their own. What energy and matter the Uber God-Machines didn't use for manufacturing fresh hordes of Combat Platforms was either fed back into my infrastructure, or was channeled into the protection of such an investment. Energy Shields of virtually impossible strength were combined with Void Shields into a multi-layered matrix of defense, further augmented by Electromagnetic Screens capable of twisting incoming assaults off course if the medium of attack was even slightly influenced by EM fields. Alloy flesh was woven with multiple layers of energy absorbing and dissipating materials, sheathed in stasis-locked positions and enhanced with quintuple-redundant self-repair systems that were fed more matter than they would know what to do with.
And even without a majority of such defenses, a Harvester was no easy target, it's plethora of arms would have made it more than an equal for any number of smaller voidcraft. Six tendrils, as long as the machine's main body, were tipped with mono-molecular-edged claws that could reconfigure themselves Power Field-sheathed drills, or massive weapons of war. The equivalent of ten Bolos had been combined, merged and reformed to give even a single Harvester the capability to launch a single-unit assault on all but the most hardened of enemy installations or fortifications and come out the victor for it.
Something that the Orks were discovering, much to their apparent glee.
The sight of the oncoming Harvesters, along with the nigh-endless hordes of Combat Platforms that accompanied them, drove the Orks into a fresh frenzy of murder-lust at the prospect of a fresh battlefield awaiting them. Laughter filled the air for hundreds of kilometres in every direction as the Orks came surging forwards in great Tsunamis of green flesh, crashing into the advancing line of Platforms with zeros hesitation and an almost child-like eagerness. The prospect of retreating and fighting defensively never even crossed the minds of the Orks, too busy roaring their approval about having a 'Propa Fight' over every medium of communication that they had. Air waves reported nothing else, as entire settlements were emptied of everything beyond the bare minimum of Orks needed to spread their viral Spores around, to cultivate the Greenskin ecosystem and to produce fresh materials for the Xenos war-machine.
Armor-clad Squiggoths sprinted right alongside Mega-Bricks and 'Sloth' Battle-Titans, all standing among a sea of Greenskined infantry, surging forwards to meet my forces on the latest field of battle. Weapons' fire filled the sky, turning the night-like conditions to day as ash-clouds were obliterated by pressure waves and the world was filled with the light of atomic fire. Compressed Matter warheads detonated along Nano-Clouds, right on top of Orkoid formations that had gotten themselves tangled in a melee with the latest generation of Templars, killing all within the blast radius.
Missiles rained down on both sides of every clash, detonating like miniature stars as Plasma washed over everything within reach and burning it to cinders moments later. Body parts piled up quickly as raw muscle power came to the forefront, orders of battle disintegrating as the titanic clashes turned into bloody, brutal slogging matches where both my Platforms and the Orks did their best to rip each other limb from limb. Combatants fought on top of the corpses of their former allies and enemies alike as the bodies piled up until they were fighting on the sides of hills, and then on the sides of mountains as blood and gore flowed like water in a monsoon.
Orbital fire punched through the thick bands of smoke that concealed the world from the light of distant stars, slamming into advancing Orkish armies with mixed results as some scattered and reformed while others weathered such assaults from under immensely strong energy shields of their own. Lances of green energy and shells bigger than some super heavy flyers returned fire, piercing through the atmosphere and annihilating Observer after Observer in a never-ending struggle that only grew fiercer and fiercer as time went on. Weapons of mass destruction by the thousands were detonated around the clock, remodeling the very face of the planet as entire regions were irradiated again and again, purging them of any chance of sustaining life in the aftermath. Clouds of Nano-disassemblers flowed over battlefields, attacking environmental seals and ripping apart any form of non-exotic matter they encountered, reducing Orks into little more than puddles of raw bio-matter. Entire forests of guns rose on both sides of the battlefield as storms of projectiles and energy bolts leapt at one side or another.
Every minute saw Death having its day as more and more destructive weapons were unleashed. Here, a Micro-singularity was overcharged and destabilized, exploding in a halo of Hawking radiation strong enough that a decent sized country's worth of land was evaporated through raw output alone. There, a continent was reduced to a literal lava-pit as multiple, focused Anti-matter charges blasted holes through the crust and allowed lava to come spraying out of the wounds like puss from a boil. Over there, what remained of a mountain range was flattened and turned into yet more collateral damage as compressed-matter explosives showered the area like so much rain. And through it all, the Orks roared, laughed and celebrated as they were slaughtered and slaughtered their enemies in turn. Gorging themselves on the raw energies of Death and War as they grew greater for it even as they were pushed back, their losses exceeding their production as death came faster and faster. They grew in size as my Forms grew closer and closer to their Heart-land, the centre of their power. The size of Dreadnoughts; The size of Sentinels; the size of Knights.
By the time my forces were at the front gates, every Ork that was still capable of fighting was at least as big as some Knight-patterns that the Imperium made use of, with others growing even larger. Every single one of them was a veteran of the Kaurava II conflict, covered in scars that ran over their darkened flesh and clad in suits of armor that were just shy of being Gargants in their own right. Titan-grade weapons were bolted on to them, combined with a liberal mix of lesser weapons meant to deal with the smaller Forms that crawled around their feet, like ants under foot. And even for their apparent size and mass, they were by no means slow or sluggish in how fast they could move, if anything, they seemed to laugh at the Square-cube Law with every motion. Something that was made all the more apparent when one saw them backhanding a charging Juggernaut before literally pulling it limb from limb with a disturbing amounts of glee.
It was a literal war between Titans, and standing right in the centre of the maelstrom was none other than Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter himself.
Compared to the Orks that surrounded him, he was a Giant among Dwarfs. Over thirty metres tall, clad in thick plates of Hyper-dense alloy and sheathed in fields of protective energies, the Warboss of the Orkish hordes, something that one had to see to believe. The armor gave the Warboss bulk, but did nothing to distract from the fact that the massive beast of a creature was a monument of solid muscle that laughed at physical laws as it lifted weapons fit for a void-born warship with an impossibly casual ease. Shoulder turrets tracked and fired into the sprawling melee, unleashing lances of pure energy that wiped out tens of kilometres with every shot, killing Forms and Orks alike.
Missiles bigger than some tanks lay in racks, numbering in the hundreds as they were unleashed in swarms, each detonating with the force of an exceptionally powerful nuclear warhead. Talons tipped every finger, longer than the wingspan of some fighters and crackling with energy as they shredded anything that came within arm's reach of Gorgutz. Either that, or found themselves being yanked off their feet by the Tractor beam emitter built into each palm. However, the most dangerous weapon that the Warboss held was a single cannon, mounted on his forearm and ending in a fat, square barrel that hissed with excess heat from every firing.
A Juggernaut charged the Prime-Ork, surging through a gap in the Orkish lines and sprinting towards the great Ork without pause or hesitation. Gorgutz didn't hesitate either, bringing his arm-cannon around and pulling the trigger without a second thought. Instantly, tendrils of green energy lashed out from the muzzle and struck at the Juggernaut, tearing through shields and armor before ripping into anything that stood behind it. The weapon kept firing as whips of gravitic energy were dragged over the battlefield, ripping through combatants and reducing them to smears of atoms. A potent weapon, one that had already proven its worth after it almost killed one of my Harvesters, terrifyingly enough. Only the machine's utterly insane amount of self-repair systems had saved it from termination, and even that was a close thing, since the weapon had impacted it off-centre. Had the hit been on the centre of mass, that particular Harvester would have been little more than a pile of scrap metal.
Seconds counted up from one to ten as the air filled with the scent of fresh Ozone, forgotten in the atmosphere of ash as Gorgutz finally took his finger off the trigger. By that point, the battlefield had been stripped clean of combatants, the melee being reduced to a pit of remains and revealing untouched bedrock below. Through a dozen cameras, I could see the savage grin that spread across the face of the Prime-Ork, all teeth and sharpened tusks as its head lulled back, lips parting and bellowed. The sound echoed into the distance in every direction, causing soil to come loose and mountains of dead to come crumbling down, having been shaken loose by the Warboss's roar. Other battle-cries followed, echoing out from the throats of the few Orks still standing, numbering less than a hundred altogether, but each one was a Prime-Ork of great size, strength and destructive potential.
"Iz dat 'da best yer've got, Tinies?!" Gorgutz cried, rage and savage glee dancing through his guttural tones as his voice carried on the wind, arms spread wide and as he glared at the approaching Forms that were moving to replace the loses taken from earlier. Shields flared as long distance artillery fire impacted the Prime-Warboss, detonating prematurely on the wall of force that protected him from danger. The Prime-Ork chuckled for a second, more amused than anything else as the projectiles continued to hammer away at his shield, to little effect.
"Ya're gunna haff ta do betta dan dat, Tinies!" The Ork taunted, his surviving warband laughing with him as I looked on from within my Matrix, a smile playing across my features as a number of reports played through my vision. Absently, I dismissed the report of the Space Marines being dealt with, their fortress having been neutralized and their Battle-Brothers either captured or killed. In the grand scheme of things, it was a rather minor event, one that hardly mattered when compared to what had been happening across the planet, or what came next. Another report opened, showing a single line of text and a trigger switch. Glancing back at the ruins of an Orkish urban setting that had turned into a battlefield, I flipped the switch.
Gorgutz had a second to look down as the ground rumbled under his feet, eyes widening before the soil exploded in a flash of motion and violence. Whipping tendrils lashed out, catching the Prime-Ork across the chest and launching him back as Power Fields burned across the surface of his armor, his shield having been unable to intercept the attack before it could hit. Several of the other Prime-Orks were nowhere near as lucky, their armors not being tough enough as they were either snapped in half by raw kinetic force, or evaporated from existence by the unrestrained energy output of the overlapping Power Fields.
In either case, their bodies hit the ground and stayed down, blending into the landscape as yet another burial mound for the combatants of this bloodbath. At the same time, the Warboss landed with a rumble that shook the earth, feet and finger-talons digging into corpse-soaked soil in order to arrest his own momentum. He looked up just in time to see his attacker pull itself free from the flesh of the planet, dirt dripping from its form as six pairs of optical sensors glared at him, causing him to grin and glare in turn.
Slowly, Gorgutz rose from the ground with a grin that split his face from ear to ear, eyes never wavering as he glared back at my latest creation. A hand flashed out in an upwards swipe that bisected a Lesser Prime-Ork that had been thrown at him, cleaving through shields, armor and flesh all at once. The two pieces landed a moment later, hitting the ground with a subdued rumble, disappearing in the cacophony of sounds that assaulted the senses as other Lesser Prime-Orks shouted, roared and yelled as they charged their newest, nearest target with gleeful abandon. Through the eyes of both killer and orbital witness, I watched as Lesser Prime-Orks charged and died, becoming yet more meat for the grinder as the bodies piled higher still even as others were slowly disassembled by resurgent assault groups that spilled back into the low valley that had once been the Orkish capital.
Titanic appendages lashed out in a whirlwind of violence, seeking any target within reach even as those same six optics glared at the distant form of the Warboss with hate and utter loathing. Thorn-coated tendrils flashed through the air, sonic booms marking their passage as they assaulted the Lesser Primes, biting into flesh and metal alike. The smell of burning Ozone filled the battlefield anew, twined with the familiar stench of burning Ork-flesh as Lightning storms danced across each tendril and ate away at anything they touched. Talon-tipped limbs struck with pulverizing force, leaving great rents and life-ending wounds behind as each body acted as yet another cobblestone for their killer to advance along. Two arms and four legs worked in unison to end the life of Greenskinned behemoths one after another, spilling lifeblood and shattering skulls with mountain-breaking blows that thundered through the air for kilometres around. Overpowered weapons fired against one another, so powerful that they didn't so much as reload between shots as they rebuilt themselves from the wreckage of their previous incarnations.
A dozen lives were ended in as many seconds, joyful, but kicking and screaming the entire way as death took them despite their best efforts to spite their killer, even to the last breath. Shields cracked under the Hive-shattering amounts of firepower as colossal bodies slammed into one another in a frenzy of murder-lust. Tendril-limbs were pulled off, reinforced alloys groaning their protests to the world as they were ripped free one after another, Power Fields crackling around them and burning flesh from bone even as the last one was yanked free from its mountings. Great rents were left in armor plating as gargantuan Power Klaws raked over exposed composites that seemed to visibly repair themselves in real-time. Counter-measures worked in a frenzy of activity, trying to keep the war machine in the fight even as hundreds of teeth longer than some tanks clamped down on the throat of an attacking Prime-Ork. Another one to be added to the growing tally.
And through the ensuing bloodbath, Gorgutz grinned in savage glee.
"Nuw dis...? Dis iz moar' like it?! WAAaagh!" Gorgutz thundered, his voice starting at a low rumble before roaring his battle cry to the heavens as he exploded into a mad sprint into the centre of the melee. Through dozens of sensors, I tracked his movement and watched as events unfolded. The Prime-Warlord burst through rank after rank of surviving Prime-Orks, throwing them aside through sheer difference in mass, uncaring of their survival as he bolted for his chosen opponent, bringing his weapons to bear. Said opponent reacted in a flash as the closest Prime-Orks died in an instant, the machine diving for cover in a flash of Ozone as it disappeared back underground in a blur of motion. The weapon fired, launching whips of green energy that vaporized everything in the cone of fire into specks of matter and dust, but failing to kill the initial target beyond cutting the two remaining tendrils in half.
Gorgutz barely had half a second to realize this fact before the machine burst back up from the underground, tackling him at the waist with enough force to through the Prime-Warlord's balance off and causing him to throw his arms out to try and regain it. Rogue tendrils of emerald energized flashed out, whipping after the dark green giant's aim even as he brought an armored elbow down, trying to dislodge his attacker and denting war-plate in the process as the two fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Still-regrowing tendrils wrapped around limbs and forced Gorgutz to fight for every movement as his cannon was pinned to the ground and trapped under half of the machine's weight by a pair of legs. Talon-tipped feet grasped at the Ork's sides and grip hard, digging into armor and flesh as the smell of cooking, very burnt, meat filled the air and held the machine firmly in place.
"Git of'a me, ya Git!" The Headhunter roared in anger, Mega-Power Klaw grabbing at the pair of tendrils holding his arm in place before ripping them out of their mountings entirely. A shower of sparks leaked from the wound even as the colossal blades lashed out at the machine again, catching its jaw as it pulled itself down to try and bit Gorgutz's face off as mechanical arms tried to pull him closer. Pulling his head back, the Prime-Warlord growled as he threw his face forwards and caught the machine in a headbutt, causing it to lurch back even as he kept hold of its lower jaw and pulled it free.
Oil, sparking electronics and web-like strands of artificial muscle came loose with a groaning shriek of protesting metal as the Uber-Titan recoiled from the impact, half its face caved in and regenerating in equal measure. Glaring back down at the Warlord, the machine glared through three functioning optics as the other three reformed or flickered in and out of activity, claws digging deeper into Old One-forged flesh and drawing a louder growl from Gorgutz's throat. Drawing his arm back, Gorgutz aimed his own glare at the machine above him, smashing his fist into the machine's chest, lifting it up for a split second and giving him room to breathe even as its claw and talon-tipped limbs grilled his internals. In that moment, the Prime-Warlord shifted his legs and planted them on the war machine's torso before pushing with all his strength.
The resulting sight of a flying Titan was as surreal and awe-inspiring, as it was frustrating, if only because that damned Ork would not lay down and Die!
The God-machine hit the ground some distance away, managing to stick the landing even as it glared back at Gorgutz, who had clambered to his feet, his armor now covered in giant rents and tears, where the machine's claws had tried to remain buried in his flesh and failed. Some had snapped off, breaking from their mountings and remained buried in dark green flesh while others hadn't, falling to the ground as the machine was launched into the air. The latter of which were of no consequence, already being broken down by internal self-destruct systems that had been incorporated into every component, however, the former were of much greater utility.
Even at a distance, it was possible to see a hint of the great wounds that now decorated the Ork's body, just as it was possible to see that there was something distinctly wrong with them as black lines seemed to be threading through the wounded flesh and crawling under his skin. A snarling grimace seemed to play over the Prime-Ork's face as he pressed a hand on one side and looked down as he pulled the hand away, seeing threads twisting between his fingers as they tried digging through his armor. Pulling his hand away, he watched as the strands broke and fled back into his flesh before glaring back at the machine that was his opponent, it's wounds already healing as a new jaw and set of fanged-teeth formed from its skull.
"I'z gonna rip ya're guts out an' wear 'em like a hat for 'dat, ya Tin Git! WAAaaagh!" The Prime-Warlord roared as he charged back forwards, intent on meeting his opponent in combat once more. Already, his cannon was pulled up and pressed into firing position, internal mechanisms working fine despite the damage done to the armored sheath that covered the weapon. In response the titanic Form moved to charge back into the fray without a moment's hesitation, it's systems rapidly repairing themselves as damage disappeared under a haze of nanites and self-repair systems. To an outside observer, such a scene would have looked like it was the start of yet another grand melee between dueling Gods, but that was far from the truth. In the end, it hardly mattered, as an expiration date had already been placed on Gorgutz's life, and it was due.
Suddenly, something launched itself out from underground, spearing through Gorgutz's shoulder and wrapping around his arm and the cannon mounted on it before pulling itself taunt through the wound, pulling the Warlord backwards even as bladed limbs bit and clawed at any vulnerability. Then I saw the Prime-Ork's eyes widened as he saw his attacker, a massive mechanical centipede made from black, armored segments and tipped with an open maw of multi-tier lamprey-like teeth that slowly rotated as he watched. Only quick reflexes saved the Great Ork's life as the new attacker lunged for his life, catching it with his offhand even as comparatively tiny blades scratched at his armor. Teeth snapped at Gorgutz's face, just barely missing his chin as the front blade-limbs tried to swipe at his exposed face, a rumble growing from deep within the Warlord's throat as he fought to keep his newest attacker from burrowing into his head.
Distracted by his current struggle against certain death, Gorgutz didn't notice the second centipede until it was too late, having started to burrow through his right shin, up his thigh, before digging into his lower torso and slowly, painfully, beginning to hollow out his cavernous chest. Blood exploded up from the Headhunter's mouth, spraying outwards like a waterfall as his legs collapsed under him, only being held up by the combined strength of his two attackers, and the hand that reached out and grasped his collar. Pulling the Prime-Ork up, his feet leaving the ground, I glared at the Ork with an expression of malefic satisfaction mirrored on the minor facial features of the machine slated to be his executioner.
"Now... You die, Ork..." The words felt like the purest, highest form of catharsis, solidifying that this was real, and it was happening, and that there wasn't a damned thing that Gorgutz could do to stop it. Gargling on his own blood, I witnessed him struggling against the bindings that secured his cannon-arm even as his off-hand grasped at the wrist of the arm currently holding him aloft. Sounds sputtered from a half-drowned throat as I watched him die with grim humor dancing at the back of my mind.
Expectations filled my thoughts just as much as the status reports and updates from across a battle-torn planet, now pacified and being seized in a grip tighter than any vice. I expected him to growl, to roar, to scream his defiance and try to drag his killer with him to the grave, just like so many Orks had done before.
Instead, he did none of these things. Instead, he chuckled.
Gone were the hints of bestial rage and guttural overtones, replaced with a deep rumble that sounded like the slow grinding of distant boulders, interrupted only by the occasional cough of blood that bubbled up from deep within his oversized biological framework. The Prime-Warlord's chuckle lasted a few seconds, ended by a sputtering cough that escaped his half-eaten lungs even as he drowned in his own blood and looked directly at the machine destined to be his killer. In that moment, it was hard to even call Gorgutz an Ork, his face no longer twisted into a leering snarl, but into a gentle smile with intelligence and acceptance sparkling in oversized eyes. It was a sight I never expected to see, one only made even more surreal by the next thing that came from the Ork's mouth.
"Maybe so... Maybe so... But I die an Honored Death... Against a Recognized Foe... A last challenge before Silence takes me... And for that... For that... I thank you for meeting me one last time... On the War-Fields of this world..." The Ork spoke, it's words smooth and deep, rich and cultured in a way that no Ork should have been capable of even as it continued speaking in near-flawless Low Gothic, only interrupted by sporadic coughs that bleed the life from the body. Smiling still, it let go of the arm that held it above the ground, looking past the maw of chittering teeth and looked directly into the optics of the machine he had fought and been bested by, looked straight at me, and kept smiling.
"I thank you... Old Foe, for giving me this... For giving me a Warrior's Death after so long as a Memory... Thank you... For giving me one last chance at a Glorious End... For this chance... To relive the glory... And the destruction... Of the... Old War..." The coughing started becoming harsher, started coming more quickly. A dozen sensor reports flashed through my awareness, all telling me the same thing that I could see with my borrowed eyes as the Ork's last moments played out in front of me. Indecision gripped me, not letting go even as the Ork placed a hand on the shoulder of my chosen body, gently squeezing it even as implications ran through my mind, generated many questions and few answers.
"... Thank you, Legacy... Thank you... My Old Friend... For giving an old... Marshal... One last... Battle... May the Seth'nal bless your journey and... And may the Fallen guide... Your... Blade..." His words trailed off, ending in, what felt like, a deeply traditional blessing after losing their strength as the last spark of life slipped beyond the mortal veil. Limbs went limp and fell without resistance, a hand slipping from its hold on the machine's shoulder even as I looked at the corpse that now hung from my grasp, a smile etched into its features and acceptance visible in glassed-over eyes.
It was an expression of peace, one that would never, could never, be seen on an Ork's face, but here it was. An impossibility, but one that was happening even as I tried to reconcile the events that had led up to this with the extremely terrifying implications that now ran rampant through my mind. Questions came, but found few answers as I unconsciously caused the machine's body to shift, turning to look up as a single question bounced around my mind. Perhaps, the most important, but also the most obvious one:
What the fuck was that?
XXX
AN: Oh, the implications... Hope you enjoyed them, along with the rest of the chapter and as always, feel free to leave comments, feedback and discuss away.