Gragoth pointed toward Big Rivet at the side of the crowd.
“Who taught you?” Big Rivet froze.
He seriously thought back for several seconds, then shook his head.
“Nobody.
I just look at stuff and know how it should go together.
Where to weld da plates, where to stick da engine—it’s already in my head.” Gragoth then pointed toward the Painboy in the white coat at the edge of the square.
“Who taught you how to do surgery?” The Painboy was still holding his huge bone saw.
When he was singled out, he froze for a moment and looked down at the saw in his hands.
“Dunno either.
First time I picked up a saw, I just felt like that was where I should cut.” Several nearby Orks silently shifted two steps away from the Painboy.
Gragoth looked around.
Several hundred Orks in the square had started murmuring among themselves.
Some stared at their own hands, some looked down at their guns, while one slapped the Mek beside him.
“Nobody really taught you?” “Nope.” “Then who taught you to make that gun?” “Nobody.
I fink that’s just how it’s supposed to go together.” All the Orks suddenly realized something: no one really had taught them any of this.
They were born knowing how to fight.
The moment Meks got their hands on parts, they knew how to put guns together.
Even when it came to cutting someone open with a bone saw, they somehow knew where to start the very first time.
Gragoth raised a fist and knocked it against his breastplate.
The armour gave off a dull metallic thud.
“Because all of that—” He said, “was already written into your bodies.” The square fell silent for a moment.
Some Orks tilted their heads, tusks jutting from the corners of their mouths as they tried to digest what he meant.
“It means before you even grew outta da ground, it was already in your brains, your bones, and your meat!” Now they understood.
The square erupted.
The Orks below started nodding.
“Yeah!
I could fight from da moment I was born!” “I only gotta watch Mek stuff a couple times and I get it!” The crowd started getting noisy again.
Gragoth remained standing in front of the statue and waited several seconds before suddenly raising his voice.
“But!” The roar silenced the Orks again.
Gragoth’s gaze swept over everyone.
His voice was low, but it carried to every corner of the square.
“Then who left all that inside you?” The crowd went completely quiet.
The Orks looked at one another.
Nobody answered.
They had never thought about that question before.
Fighting came naturally.
Building guns came naturally.
Even taking territory came naturally.
But when they really stopped to fink about it, all of that had to come from somewhere.
Gragoth raised his right arm and pointed at himself.
“Me!” Silence.
Several hundred Orks stared at Gragoth’s faceplate.
Blackfang stood in the front row with a frown.
He had only joined three days ago and hadn’t accepted this whole “Primarch” business as completely as Gragoth’s original Boyz had.
But this idea that “all da Orks’ natural fighting instincts came from Gragoth”…
He needed to fink about that.
“You?” Blackfang spoke.
His voice wasn’t loud, but in the silent square, everyone could hear it.
Gragoth didn’t answer immediately.
He turned and looked up at the massive statue of the Emperor behind him.
The thirty-metre granite figure overlooked the square, its arm broken, its body scarred, its pauldrons damaged.
Gragoth turned back to face all the Orks.
“Why am I bigger than all of you?” His voice carried across the empty square and echoed back from the surrounding ruins.
“Why am I fightier than Blackfang?” The corner of Blackfang’s mouth twitched.
The old wounds in his ribs gave a faint throb.
Gragoth pointed at the statue behind him again.
“Because of my dad!
Da Emperor!
He’s da fightiest Boss in da galaxy!
He once led eighteen Primarchs and countless Astartes to conquer countless worlds, and he can even sit on da Golden Throne and guide ships across da galaxy so they can go find fights!” “And all of you!
You’re Astartes who inherited da genes of me, a Lost Primarch!” Silence.
Gragoth paused, watching the expressions on the green faces below change.
These Orks had never been taught anything about the Emperor.
But “da biggest Boss in da galaxy,” “with eighteen of da fightiest Bosses under him,” “who conquered countless worlds”— those were descriptions they could understand.
An Ork in the front row stood there with his mouth hanging open, his tusks exposed.
Shatterjaw’s metal replacement tusk showed between his lips, while his eyes were nearly twice as wide as usual.
Big Rivet bent the wrench in his hand.
Blackfang’s expression changed.
His mouth opened and closed twice, his brow furrowing as deeply as it could, but this time he said nothing.
Silence.
Several hundred Orks stood there, the same thought turning through their heads: The biggest Boss had eighteen second-biggest Bosses under him, and those second-biggest Bosses each commanded an enormous horde of super Boyz.
And the one standing in front of them— the guy who had nearly died in an internal fight three days ago, then three days later put on an iron shell, smashed through Blackfang’s outpost, bent a battle axe with one punch, and slapped two teef out of someone’s mouth— he was da son of da biggest Boss in da galaxy!
Gragoth watched their expressions.
Shock.
Confusion.
Excitement.
Doubt.
He knew he had achieved his goal.
He secretly pressed the remote in his pocket.
The light made by the young Mek in the workshop had already been installed inside the Emperor’s statue.
Under cover of darkness the previous night, Gragoth had carried a ladder and welding torch up there and installed an entire row of high-powered searchlights inside the statue’s damaged breastplate.
The instant he pressed the button, dazzling white light burst out through the gaps in the Emperor’s breastplate.
The light shone outward from inside the statue, pouring through bullet holes, cracks, and gaps where the gilding had fallen away, illuminating the entire figure until it looked like a blazing mass of light.
The bullet scars along the sword filled with light, and the sword tip raised in its right hand looked like a torch in the twilight.
The entire square lit up.
Every crack and dry weed across the white stone paving was exposed beneath the glare, and every wrinkle and tusk on the green faces of the hundreds of Orks below was illuminated clearly.
The Orks collectively took a step back.
Someone shouted something.
No one knew who it was or what they said.
Then more voices joined in.
Heavy breathing and low growls mixed together, gathering into a continuous rumble across the square.
Gragoth stood at the foot of the statue with his back to the light, its glow pouring out from behind him and outlining his body as a heavy dark silhouette.
He was far smaller than the statue, but against that blazing backdrop, the figure standing there seemed even larger than usual.
It really helps the fic grow!