The Marks of War

by DungeonMiner

Chapter XVII

The Deathskulls were slowly winning this fight.

Thrown into the thick of things, the Exodite Eldar were forced to throw everything they had, their plans having been shattered within the first hours of planetfall.

Eldar warriors, a ragtag militia of hunters armed with simple lasblasters and even simpler knives and spears, ambushed massive, roving crowds of orks, while the reptilian-mounted knights did their best to keep them at distance.

The raptor-like mounts leapt over the heads of orks and treetops alike, while powerful las blasts erupted from the heads of their laslances.

Even still, they Eldar were slowly being pushed backwards.

Their forces were slowly being forced back by the green tide’s brute force. A Carnosaur or two had been ripped in half by the massive power klaws of the armored nobs, and an entire squadron of the so-called “dragon scouts” had been destroyed.

Of course, the fighting was still sparse, and hardly any of the orks liked that. It was, perhaps, the worst part of fighting the Eldar, the total lack of any proper orky fight. It was always ambushes followed by hiding, and many of the boyz just couldn’t take it. Infighting was already starting to break out and run rampant, dying whenever the Eldar appeared, and then starting up again immediately afterward.

They began falling back, retreating to somewhere else that Scootaloo did not know or really care about, while the bodies of Eldar warriors, and rangers slowly began littering the field.

Her bike purred loudly beneath her, belching smoke and spurting thick oil, as she looked out over the now burning forests.

The Mekboyz assured her that this was perfectly normal behavior for a bike.

Behind her, a massive building of twisted metal and large, riveted plates of salvage was slowly being erected, Da Base of Operashuns, and Nobgobba was still making sure that everything was in place.

Scootaloo herself, meanwhile was taking a break.

She had done her job, and she had done it better than anyone else in the Waaagh! She had completely devastated the entire leadership of the exodites with but a single move. To kill almost all of the Eldah Bosses with just a stik bomb? That was something she could brag about.

“So, uh...what we doin’ Boss?” Facehaka asked, leaning on his shootah.

Scootaloo opened her eye, and stared at her sniper. “Whadaya mean ‘what are we doin’?’” she asked, resting her head on her forelegs while she laid back in her seat, with both her hind legs kicked up onto the handlebars. “I’m havin’ a nap!”

The Kommandos looked between themselves. “So...what are we gonna do?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. If you want orders, go out and have some fun.”

The orks shrugged, before heading off to whatever they felt like, when a gretchin began running up to her and her bike. “Shootaloota! Shootaloota!”

Scootaloo’s eye popped open again, and she growled angrily at the tiny, knee-high orkoid. “What is it?”

“I’z got a message from Nobgobba!” He screeched, holding up a page of squig parchment.

She rolled her eyes before snatching the page away, before reading it to herself. She groaned as she reached the bottom of the page, and rolled off her bike. “Everytime...everytime without fail…” She grumbled, before throwing the page back at the gretchin and slowly making her way up to Da Base.

---=][=---

Nobgobba threw his feet up on his desk, and smirked to himself.

The desk itself was looted back from their last planet, and had a massive “I” on its front with a human skull at the center. Nobgobba had liked it the second he laid eyes on the massive wooden table, and had grabbed it and shoved it into the ship when they were getting ready to leave.

The best part was that it had a drawer that was filled with shootas and bullets. They were the dumb, humie bullets, but still.

He smiled to himself, patting his massive belly, while the grots around him were quick to orkify his desk, rivinting horns to the skull and large metal plates to the sides.

Yeah, the orky life was a good one.

His door slammed open, and Scootaloo barged in. “What is the meaning of this Nobgobba! I was takin’ a nap!”

Nobgobba growled, sitting up. “You does what I tell you, cause Ah’m da boss!” he snorted angrily. “Don’t forget dat, Shootaloota,” he warned.

“Ya still haven’t answered my question!” Scootaloo growled, narrowing her eyes. “Boss.”

Nobgobba kept glaring, his beady, red eyes beating down on Scootaloo, as if he expected her to melt if he stared hard enough.

When she didn’t melt, he growled again. “I needs ya ta find where all dese Eldar are hidin’. The boyz are gettin’ restless wifout an enemy ta fioght.”

Scootaloo sighed. “Is dat it? Ya want me and da Kommandos to find the Eldar?”

“Dat’s what Ah’d said!”

“Fine,” she said annoyed. “I’ll go do that.” She turned, and began slowly walking away. “Boss.”

---=][=---

“So...why’d we hafta leave?” Blooddagga asked.

“Because Nobgobba wants us ta find the Eldar,” Scootaloo answered.

“And why haven’t we killled ‘im yet?” Hellspitta asked.

“Because if he died too quick, then the Mork and Gork boyz would think that something was up.”

“Ya fink so?” Facehacka asked, chopping through the underbrush.

“We’re Deathskulls,” Scootaloo answered. “Of course they would.”

“Huh...Ah’d guess dat’s roight…” Hellspitta commented, as Scootaloo hovered over them, power klaw humming with power as she crushed the branches that were in her way.

“Look, we should only kill him once things go bad.” Scootaloo said. “Once that happens, then all the other boyz will wanna go back to Nabrot, we kill Nobgobba, and then the boyz would all be happy.”

“So...we’ze got ta wait until Nobgobba losses?”

Scootaloo smiled. “No...we make him fail.”

“We do wat?” Facehacka asked.

“Well, you know how da boyz are havin’ some trouble finding the eldar?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re gonna make sure they ain’t gonna be found,” Scootaloo said.

“What?” Blooddagga asked, looking almost horrified. “Whadaya mean?”

Scootaloo sighed, before landing in front of her kommandos. “Alright, boys, here’s the deal. This was our mission, to get rid of Nobgobba. We’ve let him have some victories, but it’s time ta start workin’. So we’s gonna take our time finding these Eldar, alroight? If we don’t find them for a few months, then the boyz back home ain’t gonna be too happy with Nobgobba. And that’s what we want.”

The Kommandos looked between themselves, unsure about how to feel about not just avoiding a fight, but disobeying the boss.

“Can...can we’z do dat?” Hellspitta asked.

“Of course we can!” Scootaloo said. “Look, boys, we ain’t letting the fight go, we’s just wait extra long before we hit ‘em.”

Another look between them.

“Look, I’m not askin’ you ta betray da boss. Nabrot wants us ta get rid of him, so dat’s what we’s gonna do. Besides, there’ll be plenty of fighting afterward.”

The Kommandos shared one last look.

“If you say so, Boss.”

---=][=---

The world spun around its sun for a whole cycle, and finally, finally Scootaloo and her Kommandos finally found the new center of the Eldar control.

A second, almost equally large tree some seven-hundred miles Southeast of their landing site, was quickly found. And the orks were finally glad to be on the move.

Scootaloo’s plan had been perfect, and the green tide was very, very angry about not being able to properly fight the Eldar forces, that continued to pepper them and then disappear into the jungle.

And so the orks marched.

Dinosaur-mounted heavy guns blasted at the orks from the heavy jungle, blowing massive holes into the green tide’s horde, while the rangers and warriors kept firing at a distance.

The ork losses were heavy, but the during the time it took for the orks to fall, new spores grew, forming new gorts, snots (their small, far stupider cousins), and orks.

The orks were not losing this fight. Not by a long shot.

Still, the orks weren’t happy about it.

Nobgobba was especially not happy with anything that had happened in the past year. And Scootaloo was happy to hear about it.

“What do we hafta do ta get these eldar ta foight us!” Nobgobba roared. He stood in the middle of a small clearing, roaring to himself as the orks made camp for the night.

“Somefin’ wrong, Boss?” Scootaloo asked from her perch in the tree above him.

“Yeah, somefin’s wrong you zoggin’ git!” Nobgobba yelled. “We’z gettin killed out dere! Does Eldar boys don’t foight roight! We’z can’t foight dem if dey keep runnin’ off!”

“Yeah, it is a bit of a problem, ain’t it?” Scootaloo asked, swinging down to the ground.

“We’z can’t let dem get away wif dis!” Nobgobba yelled. “Dis ain’t fair, neifer!”

Scootaloo smiled, before she sauntered up to the Warboss. “Why ain’t it fair?” she asked.

“‘Cause Mork was suppos’d ta be wif us! We’z suppos’d ta smash all da little humies an’ Eldar easy! Dis ain’t fair!”

“Gork and Mork, eh?” Scootaloo asked. “Ya know, I fink I know why they ain’t answering.”

“Ya do?”

“Yeah, I do,” she answered. “What do all the other Waaagh!s have that we don’t?”

Nobgobba went silent. “Um…”

“Whatcha need, Nobgobba, is a Gargant.”

“A Gargant?!” He asked, shocked at the revelation.

“Yup, a Gargant. Just imagine the thing, stompin’ through the forest and crushing the trees and the Eldar beneath it.”

Nobgobba blinked, and his eyes began to widen. “By...Gork…”

“Yeah, you’s seein’ it now, ain’t you? A giant of Gork—”

“Mork,” Nobgobba corrected.

“Right, standing there there on the battlefield, a statue of the glory of the ork gods, crushin’ anyfin’ that comes our way. That’s exactly what we need.”

“Yeah...yeah...dat’s it. Dat’s what we need…”

“Isn’t it?”

“But...but dere’s a problem…”

“What’s that?”

“We ain’t got nofin’ ta build it wif!”

“Well, then, sounds like we need to head back to the ship ta get some stuff then.”

“But we just got here!” Nobgobba yelled.

“Yeah, but they’d win if we don’t have a Gargant. We need it.”

Nobgobba growled. “Alroight, tell da boyz ta pack up! We’s gonna come back wif a Gargant!”

And Scootaloo smiled.

---=][=---

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, a pair of strike cruisers, one painted as black as the void itself, while the other colored pink and black entered low-planet orbit. Thunderhawks, ones both camouflaged for the jungle, and others pink and black, began descending to the surface, perfectly unnoticed by either the Eldar or the ork armies below.

The aerial machines began to unload their cargo, revealing the Space Marines of Chaos.

From the camouflaged thunderhawks came the black, green, and blue marines of the Alpha Legion, their three-headed hydras standing proudly against their pauldron. They moved swiftly and silently, quickly forming squads and securing the landing zone. Their armor, decorated with spikes, hooks, and bone, seemed to absorb light, as their highly-modified bolters scanned through the underbrush.

The pink and black thunderhawk, however, revealed some different warriors. While the Alpha Legion seemed mostly pristine, albeit grotesque with the devices they wore, these new warriors seemed horribly mutated by Chaos. A few had plates of armor that breathed with them, shuddering with each inhale. Others seemed to have merged with their helmets, their vox grills becoming caged maws that slithered and begged for food.

A dozen other mutations and deformities were present amongst these new marines, but one held the spotlight. Their captain, a helmetless soldier with a long, thin tentacle protruding from the left side of his head, walked forward, the golden, winged claw obvious on his pauldron.

“Where is your Captain?” He demanded, the tentacle wrapping around his head to the point where it almost seemed like some sort of strange hat. “I am Vulek the Debaucher, and I demand to speak with him!”

“Sir,” an Alpha Legionnaire answered, “Captain Kraagan has yet to make planetfall. He shall arrive shortly.”

Vulek’s tentacle writhed disturbingly across his head, before slowly uncoiling. “Is that so?” he asked.

The tentacle cracked like a whip, flying through the air are terrifying speeds and wrapping around the Legionnaire’s neck. With surprising, monstrous, strength, the tentacle, no more than three centimeters thick, lifted the Chaos Marine with ease, and dragged him through the air to be far too close to Vulek.

Vulek smiled, and opened his mouth to reveal a triangular, almost snake-like tounge. “You best hope he does not keep us waiting long,” he said, his tongue licking the Chaos Marine’s helmet. “My soldiers get bored easily, and you know what happens when the Emperor’s Children get bored, don’t you?”

The Legionnaire, to his credit, said nothing at first, before slowly, he raised a hand to grab Vulek’s mutated appendage. “You make Slaanesh happy.”

Vulek raised an eyebrow, before smiling. “Correct, that’s exactly what we do. I suppose a little more civility is called for here, considering the intel you brought us,” he said, setting the marine down. “Just don’t forget who is in charge here, hm?”

The Legionnaire nodded. “I won’t.”

---=][=---

Scootaloo was practically laughing to herself all the way back. The boyz were furious. They had finally found the Eldar’s base of operations, and then just as they were about to start fighting, and then then the Boss called them back.

Oh the wailing and the gnashing of teeth! It was almost beautiful.

She could see it, the thought of rebellion and mutiny laid in their eyes, hidden just thinly behind their fear of fighting the biggest and strongest ork in the Waaagh! The only thing that kept them from turning on Nobgobba complete was his promise of a Gargant.

Of course, once Scootaloo’s plan for the titanic machine came into play, then that would fall through very quickly.

The Kommandos were slightly unnerved by her un-orky plan, but she told them not to worry. Everything would be fine as soon as they got back to Nabrot. That was the plan after all.

Everything was going according to plan.

As the orks made camp for the night, Scootaloo and her Kommandos found a place to sleep on the outskirts. The pegasus found a nice branch to sleep in, while her boyz dragged some metal over to make a lean-to.

“Are you sure’s about dis, Boss?” Blooddagga asked once more, his night vision goggles keeping their campsite in perfect view without the need for a fire.

“Sure as sure can be, Blooddagga,” Scootaloo said as she adjusted herself for maximum comfort. “I really don’t know why you guys are worrying so much.”

“It’s jus’ so un-orky boss,” Facehacka said.

“Look, let me worry about it, and shoot at what I tell you to, okay?” Scootaloo ordered. “Now go to sleep and let me worry about it.”

Slowly, very slowly, the boyz calmed down, heading to their bunks and sleeping away.

The pegasus nodded, satisfied that she wouldn’t have to answer any more question that night. Adjusting herself once more to make herself comfortable, she finally settled in for the night.

And then her eyes snapped open.

She sat up, blinking, staring into the night.

She...that…

It couldn’t be.

She could’ve sworn…

“R-Rainbow Dash?”

---=][=---

“A suspicious mind is a healthy mind”—Imperial Thought of the Day

---

Alright, guys. Sorry it’s a bit short, but this planet’s going to be getting pretty unstable.

“How unstable?”

Unstable enough.

“Then let’s get on with it!”

Ever onwards, indeed!

“We’ll see you all next time, bye!”

Bye!

Comments

[ArchAngelGundam]

Scootaloo dreaming about Rainbow Dash. This is either good, or Chaos. Considering what I've seen Chaos do, I hope it's- Oh wait, Chaos is already here, aren't they? Well, shit.

[LunaRisen-Web_System]

...

pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw8952_medium.png

[sgtnolisten]

6956991 Chaos is EVERYWHERE!

[Greatmane]

Xenos and Heresy! Heresy and Xenos!

Someone needs a good purging!