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126 – Orky business

  “Why are you following me?” I asked, gng at the green mass of fungal muscle ambling after me with a silly grin on his ugly mug.

  The Ork shrugged, then panicked as he almost dropped one of his looted guns.

  "Ya'z good fer a humie. Might be sum good fightin' wiv ya." He said after a while.

  I hummed nonittally, keeping a single mind core on him at all times. His eagerness was clear to see, not only in his aura, but on his face too. He was eager to fight, whether that was with me ainst me again was uain though.

  I didn’t doubt for a moment that if this numbskull thought he could shank me in the back, he would go for it. But he seemed just as happy to just follow along. Orks, what weird creatures you are.

  Well, I wasn’t oo not make the most of the circumstances when possible, so I did some mental exercises. I opened up my mind and turned my Empathy up to eleven, drinking in the bloodthirsty glee this Ork — and the ey damned ship to a lesser extent — radiated.

  A handful of mind cores paid careful attention to my sciousness, noting how strands of thoughts and bursts of emotions shifted.

  Don't let it affect you. Feel the emotions, but don’t let them bee your own. I told myself as I sank into a deeper focus. Right now, having been ‘ied’ by the Orks’ emotions wasn’t a problem, but if an Orkish WAAAGH mental field thingy could affect me, wouldn’t then mean chaotifluence also had an easy way in? Or even some Imperial bullshit.

  Madness aal degradation were a terrifying, but very real danger for me.

  I could end up as an Emperor-worshipping chirl if I stepped foot on a rger Shrine World with a few billion Emperor botherers. Or as a raving lunatic who got off on paireme sounds, blood, death or something equally disturbing.

  At that point, being a budget store Tyranid hive-mind with my emotions wiped might be the better alternative.

  I’d rather stay as myself though, so I’ll have to practise. I thought the half a thousand differeal barriers and wards I ed my mind in would be enough but not if my stupid empathy opens up the backdoor for any mindrapist wannabe.

  “You don’t mind that I pn oing all of your fellow Orks and your boss into a paste I take it?”

  "Hah! Good luck, humie! Dis gonna be fun to watch!"

  “You pn on joining in?” I asked, finding myself somewhat curious about the strange way their minds worked. It was all so simple and illogical, but at the same time logical in their owirely alien way.

  "Oi, if dere's a scrap, ya bet I'll be in da middle of it!"

  “On whose side?” I raised an eyebrow.

  "We'll see who'z da toughest, den I'll decide!" He nodded sagely.

  “What if it's me?” I tinued, a part of my mind wrestling my thoughts bato order as the raw Orkish emotions tried to bend them. It was se, yet simple. This strange effect was like a fme, needing fuel to burn. Or rather, the emotions ing through my empathy were the oil thrown on the embers of emotions I already had in me and turning those little flie into r infernos. The rger the embers, the rger the resulting fme. “What if you join me and I kill every other Ork on the ship? And just for the record, I will leave afterwards and leave you here. I won’t take an Ork with me where I’m going.”

  "If ya leave me on da ship alone, den I'm da st Ork 'ere, meanin' I'm da biggest Ork and thus da boss." He said. "It'd take a bit to make new boyz, but in a bit we'd be back to headin' to a scrap."

  “You could make new boys in this ship? Half destroyed as it is?”

  "We'z Orks! We make boyz outta scrap and spores! Dis ship's good enuff.” He gave me a strange look, like that much was obvious ahought I was g in the braiment. An Ork thought me stupid. What a day. In the grimdark future of the 42nd millennium, each day is a mystery box of new and ued experiences. "Half-destroyed means half-built! Plenty of spaore boyz!"

  I could see the flimsiest threads of logic there if I squint really hard and made sure to only use a single braio think. Well, he does whatever makes him happy I guess. Unless he attacks me again or hurts Selene, he live I guess. Could be fun to see what he’d get up to iure with a crew of his own.

  “What’s your name by the way?” I asked him offhandedly. “Mine’s Ea, as of te.”

  "Me hrogg." He nodded.

  “No title yet? Or any fancy sed name?” I asked curiously. I hardly remembered a sihing about Orks beyond the general stuff and things like their culture and naming ventions were well outside of my pool of knowledge.

  Throgg's eyes gleamed with a mixture of pride and anticipation. "Not yet, humie. But give it time. Soon I'll be Throgg da Skullkrumpa or Throgg da Warlord. Jus' need a few mood scraps to earn it proper-like." He grinned, revealing his sharp, yellowed teeth. "Or maybe sumthin' eveer if I krump enough gits."

  “You do you, big guy.” I shrugged and tinued walking. Hallways, the bane of my existence. Why does every single building in this damned gaxy have to be some intricate maze of tight corridors and custrophobia-indug hallways?

  The only time I fought out in the open and not in a shitty tunnel like this one was ba the deserts of Baal, but even then I ended up battling the bugs down in that oversized anthill.

  I’ll make sure any ships I make have nice big rooms where I fight invaders freely. I thought, then spped the malfuning ork-ied strand of thought into oblivion. My ships would be proper spaceships made for proper led void bat.

  If the enemy board me, I’d be seriously fucked by that point already. Though I suppose fate or whatever else is at py here might have other pns. What if it always makes sure braindead ramming and broadside barrages would always work? I’ll have to at for every possible sario, especially adventure novel-worthy ones like a squad of Space Marines b my ship and blowing up its geor in a heroic sacrifice sorta way.

  That didn’t mean I wouldn’t make sure I could bst any enemy into dust from beyond the gactic horizon with railguns or something like that. Take precautions, but hope for the best? Was that how the sayi?

  During the b walk, I piled a few dozeches for my future ship, one of which even graduated into the blueprint phase where my mind cores turned a shoddy mental illustration into a halfway workable framework.

  Orks stumbled upon the happily humming me and the stomping Throgg just a mier. The ten of them burst forth from a nearby room and threw themselves on us with little thought.

  I didn’t back down, instead poung on them and slipping into their mist like a storm of metallic bdes and whips. I used my speed and my slowly — painfully slowly — growing melee skills to eviscerate them. The rge aliens had trouble doing much. The corridors were only about two Orks wide and there were ten of them.

  They got in one or two good hits that had me healing up mulched ans as the blunt damage passed through the subdermal armour, but dig up their lot took five mi most. It’s much easier when they don’t shoot exploding stuff at you.

  I was breathing heavily as I observed the massacre. My head remained mostly clear throughout the fight. I could keep the cold and calg side of me w even as the thrill of bat tried te my mind.

  Gettier. I hummed, my gaze stopping on Throgg, a handful ashes seeping blood all over his body. He didn’t seem to care though as he jumped between the corpses and yaheir teeth out oer the other like a jittery schoolgirl. I suppose when I start ag like that is the point where I should sider a factory reset on my mind.

  I reviewed the battle, fog on the moments I caught Throgg among the gaggle. A strike here, a few shots there. In all, I could attribute three of the ten corpses to his handiwork.

  With a shrug, I sent a bolt of bio-energy at the rge oaf, mending all his wounds before I set off again. He deserves that much for helping, even without prompting, I suppose. Let’s see how long he stay alive.

  ******

  The aurned out to be more surprising than I initially thought. About two hours, and hundreds of dead Orks ter, I watched on as a marginally rger Throgg bsted into a group of Orks on the side like a bulldozer.

  The cycle was simple. I fought, he fought along with me and I healed him up when he killed enough of our eo impress me. The bar was low, seeing as he was a grunt-level Ork, but again and again, he jumped over it effortlessly. Though he came close to dying about …

  [Answer: 98 times, 21 of which would have ended in his death only seds ter without your healing.]

  I returned my focus to my own fight. We were in a much rger room, a hangar bay of sorts with smaller shoddy Orkish fighters around and an impressive amount athered together. The reason for the tter stood before me: An Ork half again as tall as the rest.

  He wasn’t the Warboss, I felt that one a few levels above me dang around with Selene as Val’s preseched over them. No, this one was the right hand at most, maybe a lesser ander. It’ll still be a sizable challenge in this body.

  The Orks around us retreated and made a circle as I walked towards their boss, my sughtering of a good tenth of their numbers in mere hours earnihat much respect from these blood-loving brutes.

  Unfortunately for the both of us, they would not be getting much of a fight. Selene was fighting the Warboss, and I really wao watch that instead of butting heads with this rown fungus.

  Which meant I’d be lifting my self-imposed handicaps to get this shit over with quickly.

  I didn’t ge the neis, but my eldritch tendrils, thio microscopic threads, reformed the bnd human form surrounding it onto my trusty Psyker form — minus the Soulbone skeleton, but I wouldn’t be needing that to deal with a measly Ork.

  “Sorry about this,” I said to the hulking behemoth as I stared into his one w eye. “But my girlfriend is fighting up above and I o get going so I’ll make this quick.”

  The Ork threw back his head a out a booming ugh. "Hah! You'z got guts, humie! I likes dat! But if ya think ya krump me quick, you'z in fer a good scrap! Let's see if ya'z tough enuff to save yer girl and walk away in one piece!"

  He pounded on his chest with his massive fists like some goril, a move which was soon echoed by the Orks making up the circle surrounding us. A hundred fists thundered on Orkish chests in an eg rhythm that would have got even a corpse’s blood boiling.

  I felt my now muhanced heart beat out of rhythm, pig up pace as a grin tugged at my lips. Then I took a deep breath, trying to ighe smell of blood, gore, ah, suffusing the entire room before letting it out in a huff.

  Well, fuck. I’ll cheat then. I drew on my pool of soul energy, guiding the otherworldly power over my mind aing it wash away my unwanted emotions. Being so close to so many fired-up Orks roving to be a bit much to hahout a bit of cheating. Still, that I remained mostly clear-headed until now was a sign of my mental fortitude improving.

  The breath drew on bio-energy instead, colleg a glob of the energy in the base of my skull from the eldritch flesh residing within my skull. As I softly released the breath, the energy surged through my body and seeped into bones, muscles, and ligaments, emp my body with strength, speed, and endurance.

  My neis arm, which had been repced by a flesh and blood arm that was in no way inferior, split in two and formed into two sleek short swords which I gripped one of in each hand.

  “Do you have s for how you start a duel?” I asked, tilting my head curiously as I watched the Ork’s muscles twitch this way and that. He was alert, muscles coiled and tighteo cords, ready to unleash his strength at a moment’s notice.

  The rinned, showing off a row of jagged teeth. "Heh, s, ya say? Ain't much fer fancy stuff, but we got one rule: Start when yer ready to die!" He let out a deep rumbling chuckle, raising his massive axe-thing high. "I give da first hit, den we see who'z still standin'! Ready, humie? Let’s see if ya got da guts to face me!"

  With that, the Ork lowered into a fighting stance, waiting for the slightest sign that the duel had begun.

  Well, your loss mate. I shrugged inwardly as I watched his body moving iremely slow motion. My body was the ohat fought a Norn Emissary. Even if I wasn’t pushing it to the very limit like back then, the Ork was fucked in every siure I could predict. Let’s get this over with.

  I moved, feet kig off the ground with a simple flick that set my body into motion, rag through the air faster than most bullets. Then I was behind him. I didn’t slow even a bit as both of my swords fshed out, one pierg him through the skull aing through his mouth and the oing right through his heart.

  I tore my swords to the sides, leaving the t Ork with two wounds as lethal as a swim in the sun.

  He stumbled, one foot stepping forward as his body swung around wildly. The axe thing tore through the air and flew at me with the force of a freight train, but I just held up one of my swords and dug my heels into the metal floor.

  The floor tore up under my feet, uo hahe force of the blow while my body held it effortlessly. His one eye stared at me, holding faint traces of life quickly disappearing, but in them, I only saw admiration as a st smirk graced his mouth before death finally cimed him.

  As he fell, I stared in mild bewilderment. Mushed brain, a shredded heart, and a half-split skull, aill forced out one final attack. He went down fighting, even against an oppo he had no hope of defeating.

  “Orks,” I murmured with a strange look. When the rest, the hundreds having made a circle around the two of us, broke out in cheers and screamed in joy at my victory, I just chuckled. “What a strange species.”

  Then they rushed me.

  P3t1

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