The march into Digga’s camp was uneventful. Grots scattered, and a few Orks just snorted or laughed at us, then went back to fiddling and fixing their shitty guns. The place was a mess compared to Hedsnagga’s workstation, with Grots just running about, and hardly any form of police or orderlies. Half-finished projects were everywhere, with only a few being cared for by the smaller goblins. I scoffed at the lack of discipline, then reminded myself my own camp was far worse. I’d need to start organizing as soon as I got back. No more spending entire weeks on projects and letting everything go to hell. I’d have to limit my work time, and combine the two camps so I can at least be around when trouble starts. And speaking of trouble… actually, there wasn’t really any. We literally walked up to the main building without any form of challenge. It was a complete farce, and actually pissed me off to be dismissed in such a way. I got myself riled up as we approached, and rather than announce myself as planned, I decided the building needed a few holes. So I opened fire.

I sprayed the building with my gun, the hundred round drum emptying in seconds. The entire building was shredded like swiss cheese, holes the size of fists covering the entire structure. Several screams issued from inside, along with some small explosions, and a very, VERY angry hiss, like a snake that just got stepped on, and is planning on taking a nice chunk of your leg in response. The Boyz followed my lead, and opened up fire as well, but being the worst shooters in the mob, along with having sub-par pistols as their main ranged armament, the results were lackluster. They DID manage to kill a few Grots that scurried out of the building, but that was all. And then a dozen of them exploded.

A flash of green light exploded out from one of the larger bullet holes, the angry hiss from before reaching a pitch so high, it started to hurt even through the fully sealed helmet. Moments later, a massive blast nearly knocked me off my feet, and dozens of steel and stone fragments crashed against my suit, leaving more than a few scratches and dents. Horrified, I turned to the remains of my gore-covered mob, whose size had been cut nearly in half, with more than a few crippled by shrapnel. Luckily, my Boyz were Orks, and knew just what to do. A cry of WAAAAGH! rallied the survivors, who promptly charged the building, firing with wild abandon at anything and everything. The green light had dimmed after firing, but was starting to grow in size, and rather than wait for the inevitable death that awaited anyone in the way of the blast, I revved my rokket, and took off into the air. I felt the shockwave of the second shot even while I was in the air, a testament to the power of the weapon. Want!

I slapped my left arm into the reloading brace, waited until the gun was reloaded, then let loose on the patch of green light, ignoring the few Boyz that were closing into melee. A massive explosion of gold lightning filled the air around my target, turning all of my bullets into dust and when it faded, the building and Orks were completely untouched. My Boyz started cleaving their way into the building, but were soon met with a hail of gunfire, not that it stopped their desperate attempt to reach their foe. At least only the stupid, replaceable ones were dying. Seeing as how my gun was useless against the Mek’s forcefield, I decided to get up close and personal, and hope he didn’t have a suit of his own. The building was already in tatters, and so I went for a more direct approach. I flew straight at the roof, and with a explosive crash, broke through to land right beside a massive Ork Mek. The creature was covered in thick, yellow metal plates that were bolted straight onto his body, and he had a large metal box on his back, covered in antennae and flashy bits, which sparked and crackled with the same gold light that had deflected my bullets. A steaming plasma weapon lay holstered in his belt, and he held a double-barreled Shoota in one hand, and some sort of wrench turned chainsword in the other, which he was using to disembowel one of the Orks that had tried to scramble through a hole too small for him.

I didn’t notice any more details, the heat of battle having filled my mind with bloodlust. My chainsword raked across the Ork’s back leg, ripping through the thick metal plating, and gouging out small chunks of flesh. The Ork whirled on me, slapping his Shoota at my face. I let the weapon smash across my helmet, opting to shove my chainsword into his gut right beneath his outstretched arm, and smash my gun arm against his knee. The sword scratched and tore at the thicker plating, but didn’t reach his flesh before my weapon was knocked away by the Orks saw-wrench. A Choppa hit the Ork from behind, but Digga hardly noticed, hitting me in the head again with his gun while raising his wrench for an overhead blow. I quickly crouched down, and flipped my rokket on full throttle. I practically shot into the big Ork’s chest, sending us crashing through the building, and into the air. Digga was hardly fazed by the sudden attack, and he swung his wrench down on my back, the teeth sawing through my rokket with ease, puncturing the fuel tank which swiftly immolated us both in liquid fire. He suffered far worse, having plenty of exposed skin, but my plating was thinner, and the liquid started burning through the thinnest joints with a wretched hiss. We crashed into the wall with the force of a tanker truck, leaving a small crater before we plummeted to the ground.

Despite being in freefall, Digga still managed to strike me again with his wrench, and fire his Shoota into my leg. My leg armor held, but my left shoulder was ripped apart, flesh and bone exploding everywhere as it ate through the plating, the inner skeleton, then into my collar bone. We landed with a heavy thud, with him on top. His head struck my chestplate with a heavy thud, the whiplash from the crash leaving him dazed. I punched him in the face with my gun arm, and shoved my chainsword into his side. Melted metal started to eat into my suit, and my sword arm went dead. I tried to force the arm to move with brute strength, and managed to shove the sword several inches deeper into his side, gore bathing the blade with a red and green slime. His wrench kept digging into my shoulder, but it lacked any force from his arm, merely shredding the top level of skin and muscle as I shifted beneath him. Fire blinded us both as we struggled, legs and arms kicking and shoving, trying to gain control in the grapple. I had only one good arm, but it was heavy and powerful, and I managed to pin his head against a pool of burning promethium on the ground. He struggled and kicked at me, and though it didn’t do much damage, it gave the promethium more time to eat into my suit.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I shoved my blade deeper into his stomach while promethium ate away at his skull. Soon, my right leg lost power, and liquid metal started to pour down my back, but Digga’s resistance slowly weakened, and soon, stopped completely. I heaved myself to the side, and out of the growing puddle of liquid fire. I scrambled to open my suit, but the opening mechanism had been shorted out, along with most of the electronics. With a terrified roar, I pushed and shoved against the inner frame, which slowly gave way as heat deformed the entire structure. I ripped off my sword arm first, then pulled apart the wires and soddering that held the chainsword, which I then used to cut off my rokket. Not an easy task to do one handed, and without a good view of, well, anything. It took awhile, but I was able to slowly extract myself from the suit, ruining much of the inner structure with my struggles. Once I'd escaped, I was able to scrape off the remaining molten metal and promethium from my burnt flesh. With a cheer of exultation and triumph, I collapsed to the floor, spread eagle as I stared at the ceiling above, bathing in the tumult of emotion that filled me. I had won.

It took a while to regain my bearings and focus through the pain and excitement, but eventually, I got to my feet. The remaining Boyz were busy dragging the bodies of the fallen into a pile, with all the loot into another, though there were already fights starting over who got what. Plenty of Grots had been dragged into things as well, the working and the fighting, but only a pittance compared to the numbers I’d seen before. No rest for the weary, I guess. With a heavy sigh, I got to my feet and gave an almighty roar. This got everyone’s attention right quick, several fights stopping mid blow to see what the fuss was about. I walked over to the Mek’s body, grabbed the belt with the plasma gun, then sawed off his head. With another roar, I lifted the head into the air, waving it for all to see. Every throat, from the largest Boy to the smallest goblin, poured out their soul in one single, heartfelt warcry. And in that moment, I felt a connection to them all, an understanding of how it felt to truly be an Ork. And what a wonderful moment it was. But all moments must end, mine coming from a stinging pain from my raised arm, ruined collarbone protesting my enthusiasm. I lowered my arm, and waited until the attention was back on me. It was time to organize. Again.

Getting Orks to organize in any manner is like herding cats. Almost impossible. Fortunately, as I’ve said before, I have a talent in that regard. And so, with plenty of kicks, smacks, and loud threats, I had the Boyz split between hauling all the weapons and flashy bits into piles, corralling all the goblins and having them fetch their entire Squig herds, and bringing the rest of the Mob up to help with the move. There was more scrap and constructions here than at the Stormboy camp, but there was more space out there, and keeping to the familiar seemed like it would help with some of the changes I’d be making soon. As for myself, I needed to salvage what remained of my suit, and Digga’s special bits before they were completely ruined. Several melted rods and tools later, I had managed to scrape clean most of the usable remains, which amounted to both my legs, the entire left arm ( minus the shoulder ), and all the power generators. Most of the electric bits were completely fried, and the right arm, the chest, the rokket, and the helmet would have to be melted down and remade. As for Digga’s bits, his shield generator was pretty damaged, and had been sparking pretty wildly, but I’d managed to rip out the power source before things went nuclear. The antennae were all slagged, but the inside was only moderately melted, which would hopefully give me some insights into the tek in question. Back when Orky me had tried his hand at this particular brand of Teknology, it had all failed horribly, but having more examples to use might help, and if there was even a chance at making myself a forcefield, you can be damn sure I'd be trying it, explosions and electruction be damned.

Thinking about Orky me brought up some important questions, which I could no longer postpone. It was getting really hard to tell the difference between the two entities. If anything, it felt like I was always Orky me, but with a heavy dose of clever human, like a mixture of salt and water that was finally beginning to mix and dissolve into one whole, rather than two parts. I could still detect some activity from what I recognized as the entity separate from me that encompassed plenty of the Orkish notions and attitudes, but it felt both smaller, and more familiar, kind of how I’d imagine it would if we were mixing like the previous salt and water analogy. Given that I’d finished most of my own portion of work, all I had was time, which meant thinking. Grikkle and the crew eventually showed up as I was searching my, for lack of a better term, soul, but it took only a few minutes to explain the situation. Anything that looks functional, or will soon be functional, goes in one pile to be taken by the Trukk. The rest gets carried back to camp. Meks are to be corralled, and put to work repairing whatever tools and gubbinz got damaged, and kept from escaping until I could be bothered putting them to work on other things. Once that was handled, I returned to probing at the strange things in my mind. It was time to get to the bottom of what exactly I was, and what I was becoming.