Hello everyone. Don Orbit here with another little project of mine that has been collecting dust over the years on my hard drive.

As I mentioned yesterday in my update to my Digimon/The Amazing Digital Circus story "Gelatine Rehardened To Bone", I am not doing well right now. Like at all. And since my personal situation looks rather grim at the moment, I wanted to at least get some stuff out there, because I seriously do not know when I might be able to do so again moving forward. Or rather, IF I'll be able to do so...

As for my personal opinion on the topic of Monster Girl Encyclopedia, I dislike it. A lot. It might be fitting to say, that I despise its a lot of its content just as much as the creatures listed in it. And for that reason, I would be more than willing to go full Black Templar and blast Linkin Loyalists to a campaign to rid that planet off of its mamono infestation!

However, I am trying to be not as blunt as a sledgehammer and this story will indeed not be about that... entirely. What are you looking at me like that for? It'z da greenskinz we iz talkin' bout 'ere. Of course, da boyz are gonna krump some stupid humiez and otha gitz. Dey wouldn't be propa orkz if dey didn't! WAAAGH!

Now onto da story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Warhammer 40.000 nor Monster Girl Encyclopedia.

WAT DA ZOG!

Prologue - Fire and Fury

It was a relatively warm night in the late spring deep in the forest. The trees stood tall and only occassionally rustled with their leaves when a slightly stronger breeze moved through them. Other than that there had been no further movement or sound as the forest laid dark and silent beneath the pale light of the waxing moon above, which appeared from the ground in its crescent shape. Not even the critters of the forest seemed to move in this darkness, not daring to disturb the silence.

But then there was something. An orange hue glowed from deep within the forest as the breeze suddenly carried the familiar scent of fire and smoke. And from where the fire's light shone, a pillar of smoke and ashes climbed higher and higher towards the sky. Then there were the screams. Panicked and desperate noises cut through the night like a knife alongside the roaring of the fires.

"Don't let them escape! Kill them all!"

"You bas-AARGH!"

"NOOO!"

"Die, you filth!"

Metal clashed against metal as the fire burned brighter.

Deep in that forest there had been a village of mamonos, though calling it a village was perhaps too much of a misconception of the loose collection of wooden huts that had been built in this place with nothing but simple beaten paths between them. Here a group of mamonos and their husbands had settled down in order to spend their lives in relative peace and quiet.

But the order of paladins had found them anyway.

And now the village burned brightly as the knights in their shining armour cut down everyone and anyone in their path. Bursting through treeline on horseback, the knights immediately killed a few unlucky mamono that were trampled under the hooves of the knight's steeds. Fire bombs were thrown into the huts and onto their thatch roofs. the structures of dry wood caught fire almost immediately, driving the families out of their homes and out into the knights who already had their weapons drawn to exterminate them.

Some of the mamono tried to fight back with all means they had at their disposal. Most of them were physically stronger than the normal human man, but they lacked the combat expertise of the paladins. A weakness, that their enemies exploited mercilessly. Men turned into incubi, mamono women and children were killed with brutal and swift efficiency, whether it was by the blades of their swords, their arrows or the flames.

The paladins did not care one way or another. Only a dead mamono was a good mamono. Whether a mamono had been born as one or was a human woman that had been turned by the foul mana of the mamono into one of them made no difference to them whatsoever. Only in death could those unfortunate turned be absolved of their sins.

Among the paladins, the figure of the captain stood particularly tall and strong. A knight clad from head to toe in armour like the others, though unlike them, his armour bore the holy sigil of their church on his chestplate and in his left hand he held a large shield. Overlooking the operation, he turned to his companions. In total the entire unit only composed of 10 men, but for a small nest of mamono like this it was more than enough.

"Search the houses and light them up as well. Make sure to not let anything escape. The rest keeps an eye open and burns the bodies." The captain ordered his men. 3 of the other 9 men made their way towards the few huts that had not yet caught fire. They moved fast and disciplined through the smoke and the broken bodies of the villagers strewn across the ground around them. They had to move fast before the fire would catch onto the surrounding trees and trap the paladins in this place and risking far worse consequences.

The rest simply grabbed the bodies closest to them and threw them into the burning buildings. The stench of burning flesh rose from the fires alongside black smoke as the flames greedily devoured the corpses of the former residents. Once again, the men worked with machine-like, emotionless efficiency as they had done this plenty of times. They were used to the screaming and the pleading of those deceitful vermin they hunted down. For that was all they were. Vermin. Parasites that were aiming for the destruction of humanity and therefore could not be allowed to be left alive, lest others would suffer a fate far worse than death.

Beneath one of the huts, that had not yet been set ablaze, a young ogre was hiding. Her pale green skin and pale lavender hair was now caked in dirt and roots as she quitely peeked outside from under the house. Her mother had dragged her into this place when the attack started, shoving her into the space beneath the hut's floorboards and shutting the hidden door above her. At first she had tried to get out, to help her mother fight the paladins. With her fists she had pounded against the door only to stop once the pained cries of her mother reached her ears, which had quickly been silenced by the sound of metal cutting through flesh.

Since then the young ogre had been laying in the dirt unable to truly move, not daring to move in fear that it would alert the paladins of her location. She covered her nose and mouth with her hands to silence her sobs and breathing. The heat of the flames and the sadness of losing her family made her eyes water as thick tears ran down her cheeks and blurring her vision.

Then she felt the boards above her shift and heard them groan under the weight of metal boots stomping above her. She felt the tips of her horns touch the wooden boards above as they were pressed down by the weight of the paladin just for a second before he moved on, but it was enough to make her instantly hold her breath. She slightly turned her head, trying to figure out in which part of the house the intruder was. By the way the boards bent slightly under the weight, her eyes could see how he had made his way from their living area towards the kitchen. The sudden noise of plates breaking and furniture being upturned made her twitch in fear. Though as soon as it started did it stop and the paladin moved back out of the house.

From her hiding spot the ogre watched as the man approached the captain before shaking his head. For a moment she thought she was safe, when two other men throw fire bombs at the house and set it ablaze as well. Panic gripped her heart as she felt the heat rising fast and smoke began to enter the space as well. She kept her mouth and nose covered, but it was getting harder and harder to suppress the reflex to cough. Looking outside through tears, she thought she saw the corpse of her mother being thrown on the pile of dead bodies that was now burning in what used to be the hut in the center of the community. Her eyes drifted to the edge of the forest. Instinctively, her mind began to formulate a desperate plan of escape, but it was quickly dashed when she realized that between her and the woods stood 3 armed men. There was no way she could make it through them in her current state and, even if she did, one of them could easily shoot them with the crossbow in his hands.

It was that moment that a sound broke through the crackling and roaring of fire. She was not quite sure what it was, but she was not the only one who had heard it. The paladins all turned their heads towards the woods and their hands either moved towards their weapons or gripped them tighter. Something was putting them on edge, and the mamono in hiding had no idea whether that was a good thing or not.

One of the paladins armed with a sword stepped closer to the edge of the woods. The fires of the village illuminated only so deep into the foliage and in contrast made the forest appear far deeper and darker just a few meters into it. Cautiously, the paladin looked through the visor of his helmet into the trees, his eyes darting around as his hand tightened around the handle of his weapon.

Then all of the sudden, something burst out of the trees, shattering wood and causing a small tree to fall down, making the paladins step back. The one that was closest to the forest's edge though was not so lucky as something now held him in a bone-crushing grip hoisted off the ground. He kicked his legs and tried to hit whatever was holding him, but to no avail. The rest of the paladins beheld the new arrival in horror as was the ogress hiding beneath her home.

Standing there was a massive, humanoid creature. Its skin was a pale green, a deeper shade than that of the ogre, while it looked with red eyes full of anger and bloodlust at the paladins. It was clad in what seemed to be rather badly stitched together clothing covering its bulk, while it wore two heavy boots. Most intimidating though was the mechanical gauntlet on its right arm, which now held one of the paladin in its three blade-like fingers as they easily pierced through the armour and caused blood to ooze out from underneath. The paladin in it screamed louder in agony as the claws bore deeper into it as the grip tightened. Lips pulling back in a sadistic smile as it revealed yellow sharp teeth with two prominent tusks in the lower jaw.

Then there was another creature perched on the hulking green beast's shoulder. It was far smaller than its companion, roughly the height of a human child with the same green skin, a long nose and large pointy ears. It too was clad in simple, makeshift clothing as it held a knife one hand and held onto its companion's shoulder with the other, while its mouth was filled with sharp, needle-like teeth.

Monster was the most appropriate word that came to the mind of the ogre and possibly the paladins too as they laid eyes on these two. Then the larger one crushed the paladin in its mechanical claw's grip, causing him to scream out on last time before a squal of blood splattered down onto the ground and the green-skin giant. It let out a barking laugh while the other creature snickered in apparent amusement, just before they charged at the humans letting out a thunderous war cry.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"