Chapter XXIII
“Fifteen Orks on a dead man's hulk
Starin' down the barrel of a gun
Gruntin' to each uvva
Through big sharp teef
Sayin' this one'll give us some fun.”
The ork camp was filled with the din of techy-ology furiously working through hundreds of tons of steel.
“Fourteen orks on a humie ship
Killing everything that ain't green
Grunting to each uvva
Through big sharp teef
Saying times are getting lean!”
Thousands of orks sang the song as loud as they could, working happily as they built one of the strongest vehicles orks knew, an idol to the destructive powers of Gork.
Or possibly Mork.
“Thirteen Orks on the captain's chest
Looking to quench their greedy thirst
Grunting to each uvva
Through big sharp teef
Saying ‘I was da wun dat found it first!’”
Of course, Scootaloo knew the truth. She knew that this Waaagh! wasn’t big enough for a gargant. They weren’t ready for it. As it was the Mekboyz were guessing as to what goes where instead of instinctively knowing the place of every bolt and rivet.
She had learned long ago that certain parts of the Mekboy brain didn’t work until the Waaagh! got to a certain size. A Mekboy in a Waaagh! of ten might not even know how to make a shootah, and Scootaloo was using that to her advantage. The Gargant would be horribly unstable to begin with, even by ork standards. Her bomb would be far more than just devastating.
Still, it was good to see the Waaagh! excited. Even if they only knew the one space-borne song.
“One Ork left to steal the loot
Wishing it hadn't turned out so
Grunting to itself
Through big sharp teef
Saying ‘I shoulda let the pilot go.’”
Facehaka, Blooddagga, and Hellspitta all stood nervously behind her, watching the orks with nervous anticipation. Scootaloo told them they were not allowed to build the titanic machine, lest they sabotage her own efforts.
She wasn’t questioning their loyalty or anything, she simply didn’t want them to lose themselves in the moment. A gargant was no small thing for a Waaagh!, it was easy to get caught up in the building of such a beast.
A young squiggoth pulled pieces and shards of metal into place. Normally a weapon in and of itself, the four-legged monster that stood as large as a tank was delegated down to beast of burden, and for that, Scootaloo was thankful. While this little beast wasn’t yet its full size, it could still do some serious damage.
But, as long as the orks used him as a heavy lifter, then she wouldn’t have to worry.
The massive machine was being fitted with klaws, cannons, guns, more guns, and even a massive steamroller on its front. One arm was nothing but guns, the other was just blades stuck to the klaw, and all of the pieces connected to the klaw.
It also had a massive cannon between legs that was incredibly hilarious, but that was sadly lost on the orks.
So much dirty humor, so little time.
“So…” Facehaka began, “What we doin’, Boss?”
“Nobgobba’s got a job fer us,” she told them, “so we’re going to do it, as though there’s nothing wrong.”
“So what’s da job?” Hellspitta asked.
“We’z get to have some fun with da Chaos Boyz,” Scootaloo told them with a smirk.
Blooddagga smiled. “Now dat sounds good.”
“Don’t it though?” she asked, grinning. “We’re going to make sure they fight us just when the Gargant starts movin’. Give the boyz some blood to spill.”
“Dat’s more like it!” Hellspita hollered. “We’z getting a proper foight!”
“Dat we are, boyz!” Scootaloo said with a smile. “And once we’re done with them, we get to fight the Eldar!”
They gave a cheer.
“And after that, we get back to Nabrot, and we won’t have to worry about Nobgobba again.”
That was something they could certainly look forward to.
---=][=---
Scootaloo and her kommandoz stood, hunched over and staring down at the Chaos camp.
Pink and black Chaos marines wandered about, most in a daze, while a handful of marines that seemed to be carrying massive guitars of some description strummed a few awful notes.
The guitar marines were no joke, she knew. The last time she saw one of them, the thing had released a riff of sonic energy that shook her to the core and blew out her eardrums with ease.
If it weren’t for her orky body she would have been out for weeks, if not months, as well as been deaf for the rest of her life.
Luckily, she was fine, and would hesitantly admit that they were kind of cool.
“Alright boyz,” she whispered. “Stikkbombs there and there. Take out the noisy ones first. Dat’ll get them angry. Blooddagga, Hellspitta youz boyz are wif’ me. Once the bombs go off, we’z gettin’ in dere and given ‘em a proper foight. Facehaka shoot the ones farthest away from us, got it?”
“Got it, Boss,” came the reply.
“Now, remember, only a few kills. The rest have got to come back with us.”
A series of nods met her.
She smiled as she loosed the stikkbombs from her harness. “Then let’s have some fun.”
The two orks and her snuck forward, getting closer and closer to the Chaos Marine’s camp. As Scootaloo approached, she could smell the thick scent of decay and the smell of something sweeter than honey mixed with rot.
Any Imperium Underhive citizen could tell her in a second what that scent was. It was the smell of bad narcotics.
She smiled, and hefted the stikkbomb in her hoof. This was going to be too easy.
Heavy fire suddenly filled the air. Bullets tore through pink armor, and Scootaloo’s eyes went wide as she saw new figures enter the field. More marines, but dressed in clean, red armor with a black bird on their shoulders.
She sent a quick signal, and ger kommandos froze.
The Chaos Marines, meanwhile, flew into a flurry of activity. “Blood Ravens! The Blood Ravens are here! Slay them! Slay them in the name of Slaanesh!”
But the Blood Ravens had the advantage. While the Chaos Marines ran for their weapons, the Blood Ravens attacked with expert precision. Firing at specific targets with an efficiency Scootaloo had never seen before. The Chaos Marines fell quickly, dropping like flies to the Blood Raven’s bolts.
Armor split, horns cracked, head exploded as the still-drugged Emperor’s Children were destroyed.
And Scootaloo had her kommandos hold.
“By the throne,” one of the Blood Ravens said, as he stepped from the trees. “The Emperor’s Children are here as well? Is there no end to the Chaos filth on this planet?”
“I would wager they are here for the Eldar,” another said. “At least, if the work of Inquisitor Lucilius Bast of the Ordo Hereticus is correct. He mentions that many heretics and traitors hunt the Eldar.”
“Truly?” The first one asked, “I have not read his work. I did read Inquisitor Sherrell Blanquart of the Ordo Malleus’ dissertation concerning the link between deamon’s and the Eldar, but I was not aware the heretics hunt them down.”
The second nodded. “He theorizes that the Eldar organs, specifically the organ that acts as the kidney, are necessary for various rituals…”
Scootaloo sat, hidden in the bushes, listening to the two go on.
“By Gork, they are nerds…” She thought. Still, she was able to pick some good information from them.
Like bait, for instance.
---=][=---
“This way!” the Chaos marine yelled, followed by the sonic blast of a noise marine and the thundering of a squad coming up behind him.
The marine led them forward, pushing through the jungle as they followed their quarry. A wounded Eldar, weak and helpless, running through the forest, just ahead of them.
The Slaaneshi marines had caught the scent of blood, and wanted nothing more than to bring the xeno to Slaanesh’s own depths of decadence.
“He’s getting away!” The leader said, firing a few bolts after the creature.
“This way! This way!” came the call.
The squad of Emperor’s Children barreled through the forest, chasing the Eldar down, licking their lips in anticipation and sending the occasional shot after him into the foliage.
“He’s getting away!” the leader called.
A glimpse of white armor caught his eye through the forest beyond, and charged after him. The leader leapt up into the air, slamming into the figure and tackling him to the ground. “I’ve got him!”
The squad quickly followed him in, finding him in a small clearing.
“I-I...have him?” he asked, standing.
The thing in his hands, however, was not an Eldar. Instead, it was a thick, steel slab, with an Eldar painted on the side.
“I...What?” the leader managed to say.
And that’s when the forest erupted into a battlecry. “Waaaaaaagh!”
The clearing suddenly exploded as a massive, spiked steamroller smashed through the woods. The leader was instantly crushed, impaled and flattened by the roller as it slammed into him, while the rest of them took one look at the massive moving structure and ran.
And all the while, Nobgobba, from the seat of his cockpit, laughed heartily. “Now dis is it!” he laughed. “Dis is da fun I’ve been wantin’!”
The massive machine slammed through the trees, its gigantic power klaw slicing trees in half and ripping the trunks from the ground.
A knock sounded on the Gargant’s relatively thin windows. “Oi! Nobgobba!”
Nobgobba groaned at the sound of Scootaloo’s voice. “Whadda ya want now, ya flyin’ git?!”
“Ya wanna know where da Chaos boyz are, don’tcha?” she asked.
Nobgobba’s face screwed into a scowl as he thought, before speaking. “Naah,” he yelled, trying to be heard over the relentless din of the Gargant’s machinery, “let’s just crush da Eldar!”
“Waaaagh!” came the battlecry, echoing through the titan.
Scootaloo smirked from outside, and nodded, before flying down, back to the forest and her waiting Kommandos. “Alright boyz, we’re headin’ for the Eldar. Nobgobba wants us to foight the sneaky gits instead.”
Blooddagga groaned. “But Ah wanted ta foight da Chaos boyz…”
Scootaloo sighed. “I know, Blooddagga, I know,” she said with a smile. “Luckily, we’z gonna change things around here.”
“But...but da Gargant…” Facehaka said.
“Just think of the explosion, though.”
The ork shrugged, nodding his head. “Would be proper orky,” he admitted.
Scootaloo nodded. “There ya go. Now, come on, let’s have some fun!”
She led them down, towards the Eldar tree forts. The orks were gonna have some fun, one way, or another.
---=][=---
The Waaagh! marched. With the Gargant at its head, the green horde simply carved its way through the trees. A giant swath of destroyed forest marked their path, and the massive billowing cloud of black smoke marked their location for all to see.
Orks don’t do subtlety, they never have, and when they marched, the world knew of it.
The Eldar strike teams returned, blasting them with high-powered las blasts from the backs of carnosaurs and hovering, anti-gravity tanks.
But the gargant merely shrugged off the attacks, its armor refusing to give to the blows for sheer stubbornness. The blue/white beams slammed ineffectual against the heavy steel plates, somehow doing nothing against it.
The titan merely shrugged the attacks off, before answer in kind with its massive trouser cannon. The gigantic weapon tore through a tank, and Nobgobba’s laugh could be heard from the control room, barely audible over the constant chugging of the massive machine.
“You ain’t notfin’ ta me, sneaky gits!” The warboss roared from his command chair. “Ah’m da biggest, I’m da strongest, and I’m da boss!”
A cry went out from the Eldar line, and they quickly began to retreat in the face of the green horde.
“No! Ya don’t get ta run away from me! Get back here and foight!”
The gun arm fired, destroying an entire chunk of forest, and leaving the dirt empty. “Where’d you go, you sneaky gits? Where are ya?”
The Eldar did not answer, mostly because they still had functioning brains.
Nobgobba roared in rage. “Get back here, you grots! Ah ain’t done foightin’ yet!”
The giant metal siege weapon stomped about angrily, searching for the Eldar forces.
An orange blur flew past the moving totem’s face. “Oi! Nobgobba! This way! They went this way!” Scootaloo cried, as she motioned him towards her.
The gargant turned to her, and Nobgobba saw her, indeed. The metal monstrosity began to turn, and as it did, it sealed its fate.
---=][=---
The legs of the Gargant connected to a massive axle, a huge beam of steel, that chugged, bounced, vibrated, and spun about the massive engine of the titan. The engine was an amalgamation of a plasma engine, a las engine (don’t ask), and the standard internal combustion, and would have made a techpriest faint just from a passing glance at it. It rummbled, burning red hot with bursts of green and blue erupting from vents and pipes held together by tape, rivets, and the Waaagh!
But next to that engine, right by the massive axle, was a bomb. A horrendous mass of stikkbombs, fuel tanks, and other, incredibly explosive materials sat strapped to the engine. No one noticed it, surprisingly, but there was certainly enough to blow the engine apart, and that would be enough to do Scootaloo’s dirty work.
Of course, this was only half of the equation. Hanging from the axle, hung a string. The sting had pulled taunt several times during the Gargant’s march, but never enough to pull the detonation ring free form the stikkbomb.
But as the Gargant began to turn, the axle began to spin. The string went taunt, and the ring came flying out of the grenade.
There was a beat, two, a third.
And then the engine was rent asunder.
---=][=---
Green, blue, and red explosions ripped across the metal hide, causing thundering explosions that sent steel plates flying and threw machinery through the air.
Scootaloo glided to the ground, dodging the plates as they exploded into the air, and ducking beneath the tree canopy, where her Kommandos waited for her. “Well, there she goes,” Scoots said as she took a look back.
The Waaagh! behind the titan slowed, gaping as the idol to Gork turned into a raging inferno of plasma, las energy, and fire.
“Do ya fink da Boss is dead?” Hellspitta asked.
“Nobgobba?” Scootaloo asked. “Nah. There are boyz that made it out of there, and if they can make it, then Nobgobba’s fine. The big question is how he’s going to react to being disowned by the gods.”
---=][=---
Amidst the rubble and debris of what remained of the Gargant, a figure slowly emerged. A green hand pushed away the massive steel plates that pinned him to the ground. A big choppa sat in one hand, and his powered armored chugged as it struggled against the massive weight of the debris.
Stomping free, he pulled himself away, and turned to look at the devastation that was once his greatest achievement.
Only silence, and the sight of broken steel met him.
Most orks would take this as a sign. For a gargant to fall, out of battle, no less, was a serious thing. A gargant was the centerpiece of the greatest of Waaagh!s, they were the great idols of Gork and Mork themselves. Any ork was willing to fall in battle, but out of it?
Only a very few orks would dismiss this as mere coincidence.
And Nobgobba was not one of them.
Mork and Gork had abandoned him. He was no longer their chosen.
He was nobody.
Nobgobba felt...hurt…
For the first time in his life he had nothing.
His fist tightened around his choppa, his teeth grit together painfully, and his armor, dented and broken, groaned as he puffed out his chest.
And he roared.
No ork, in the history of the Imperium had even given such a pained, hopeless roar. Never once had an ork soul felt such anguish.
Nobgobba, was a broken boss.
And he was never seen nor heard from again.
---=][=---
Kraagan and Festerus, along with a new, fresh squad of Legionnaires, were marching west.
Things were moving quickly. With the Blood Ravens to the east, the Orks to the south, and the Eldar to the west, three of the four pawns were already in position. Pushing the Emperor’s Children to the north, so that they may assault the Blood Ravens, put them in the perfect position to garrison the old Eldar fortress that had been abandoned millennia before.
Once they were there, the trap would be set, and blood would flow.
His squad moved over the burnt ground, his flamer squads having cleaned this section of the crater of all life. They were visible, but Kraagan was not terribly worried. All other eyes were drawn elsewhere. The Eldar, distracted by the orks, would not notice, and the Emperor’s Children were blinded to all but the Ravens.
They were safe, hidden, for now.
“How much further, Sorcerer?” the captain asked.
“Just to the crest of the crater, Lord,” Festerus answered. “Once there, the Infinity Gate will be mine.”
“Mine, Sorcerer,” Kraagan reminded him. “But even then, I would not count it won. The Eldar do have a presence there.”
“Our scouts reported only two,” Festerus pointed out. “Surely, even you alone could deal with this.”
Kraagan acted as though he did not notice the insult. “Yes, but where there is one Eldar, there are more. We will not move until we know it empty.”
Festerus sent a glare to the back of Kraagan’s head, but said nothing.
This fool would learn soon enough.
---=][=---
The fight lasted three days.
Once Nobgobba disappeared, the Waaagh! needed a Boss. The power vacuum lasted only a moment before some nob declared himself “da new boss!”
This was, of course, met with a choppa going to his face, and a cry of “No! Ah’m da new boss!”
“Ah’m bigga den you, Ah’m da Boss!”
“Ah’m stronga, so Ah’m da Boss!”
“Ah’m bigga and stronga den bothf of ya!”
And so on.
And Scootaloo sat and watched from the seat of her bike, smiling all the way.
Finally, after three days of non-stop fighting, a Boss did, indeed emerge. Grimtrasha was his name, and he was the second biggest ork in the Waaagh! and he just so happened to be fiercely loyal to Nabrot.
It’s almost like Scootaloo planned that all along.
After helping ol’ Grim secure his place with the application of a few tons of bad Squig meat, he was more than willing to listen to her.
And her plan was simple.
Kill everything, and the orks will think they’ll have favor again. Once they have favor, they can go back home.
And so, the Waaagh! marched again.
---=][=---
“He who lives for nothing is nothing. He who dies for the Emperor is a hero.”—Imperial Thought of the Day.
Alright, guys, there you go. If it felt like it took a little longer than usual, I apologize greatly.
"Aw, It's okay, Miner..."
Well, I hope so, anyway.
"Next time!"
Sweetie Belle stands in the temple! Oraban learns the truth! The greatest battle of Ursidhe-ka begins!
"Ooh! Sounds fun!"
It will be. See you next time, guys!
"Bye!"
P.S.
Why isn't anyone looking at my story! I just posted!
"Because it's 1 AM and you forgot to hit publish."
What? No I—
Oh. Th-thanks Pinkie...
"It's what I'm here for!"
Stats
Page generated in 0.029 seconds
Total duration
1,038 users online
1,547,270 hits today, 2,782,760 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I love how Scootaloo could be the one running everything from behind the scenes if she wanted to. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the great work. Deus tecum.
7269843
In a world of first graders, the second grader is king.
I only have one thing to say.
WAAAGH!!!
Hah!
Honestly, Scootaloo is incredibly dangerous. Smart enough too know how to push the horde in the direction she wants, and also smart enough to not aim to be the one in charge.