Gragoth raised his head.
He looked at the nearly ten-metre-tall giant tin can and laughed.
“Yeah, I like wearing iron shells.” He paused and glanced at the giant machine’s oil lines.
Black engine oil was leaking from the pipe connections and running down the hydraulic pistons, leaving a crooked trail of oil all the way from behind the factory to where it now stood.
“But my iron shell doesn’t piss itself everywhere it walks.” The grin on Blastfurnace’s face froze.
He instinctively looked down beside the mech’s leg.
Oil was seeping from a hydraulic connection on the right leg and running down the surface of the armour plating.
Several nearby Orks followed his gaze and looked at the trail of oil.
No one knew who laughed first.
A short “Ha!” burst from somewhere in the crowd, and then dozens of Orks bared their tusks at once.
“Hahahaha!” Blastfurnace snapped his head up, his roar coming through the megaphone with obvious anger.
“What da hell are you laughing at?!” “Open your eyes and look!
This is my—Super-Invincible Big-Foot Smash King!” His gaze passed over Gragoth’s shoulder and landed on the flatbed carts behind him.
Three carts stood side by side at the factory entrance, each piled with at least five or six layers of Meks.
Iron chains and ropes dangled over the edges, while several Meks on top were still squirming, their bound arms struggling to break free.
One-Eye stood guard beside the first cart.
Stikk was beside the rearmost one, where a Mek had managed to stretch half his body out in an attempt to escape before Stikk shoved him back inside with one hand.
Blastfurnace stared at the mountain of captured Meks, the mechanical lenses over his eye contracting and focusing again.
“You dare steal my Boyz?!” Gragoth took two steps forward with his axe resting on his shoulder.
His four-metre-tall power armour didn’t look particularly large beneath the shadow of the enormous machine, but it positioned him perfectly in front of the carts.
“What d’you mean, your Boyz?
These are all my tech ser—” He stopped halfway through and changed course.
“Anyway, they’re all mine!” Blastfurnace was so angry that his mechanical lenses kept contracting and expanding.
The power unit on his back spat out a longer electrical arc, which snapped against the inside wall of the cockpit.
“Then you’ve gotta beat me first!” He slammed a fist onto the control panel.
The instant his fist came down, every engine in the giant machine’s chest revved at once.
The exhaust pouring from its pipes changed from grey to pitch-black, and the smoke erupting from its six smokestacks instantly doubled in thickness.
The heavy cannon on its right arm began to turn.
Its barrel bearings ground loudly as the muzzle slowly lowered under its own momentum until it finally stopped, aimed directly at Gragoth.
Gragoth looked up at the muzzle, which was wider than his own head.
Gunpowder residue still coated the inside of the barrel, and the rifling ran all the way from deep inside to the opening.
The centre of Gragoth’s faceplate was lined up directly with the barrel.
“…?” The muzzle lit up.
Gragoth suddenly jumped sideways.
The instant his four-metre-tall power armour pushed off, it stamped a shallow crater into the steel plating beneath his feet and sent his entire body flying sideways.
BOOM!
The place where he’d been standing vanished.
The steel floor, the layer of pipes beneath it, the concrete foundation, and even the bases of several nearby support columns were blasted into the air.
Fragments of metal and rubble sprayed outward in a fan, hammering against the surrounding factory walls with a rapid series of impacts.
The shockwave caught Gragoth in midair.
A tremendous force struck his back and hurled the four-metre-tall iron shell even farther.
He flipped most of the way over in the air, hit the ground right shoulder first, then rolled once across the steel floor.
The massive axe flew out of his hand.
Its blade bit into the ground and dragged through the steel in a shower of sparks for five or six metres before finally stopping.
Gragoth rolled back onto his feet.
The pauldron of his power armour scraped across the floor, throwing off another trail of sparks.
Chunks of debris kicked up by the shot were still raining down, clattering against his helmet and pauldrons.
He looked back at where he’d just been standing.
A crater nearly ten metres across had been left behind.
The metal along its edges was still glowing red, while molten metal seeped downward at the bottom.
Gragoth stared at the crater and cursed under his breath.
“Fuck.
I really might not be able to beat this thing.” Blackfang’s roar came from the side.
“Primarch!” Blackfang charged out of the smoke, all three exhaust pipes spewing thick black fumes, his battle axe raised above his head.
“You dare shoot da Primarch of my Eleventh Legion—!” Gragoth opened his mouth to shout, “Get back!” But before the words could come out, Blackfang had already reached the giant machine’s feet.
The First Company Captain’s power armour barely reached halfway up the armour plating on one of its legs.
Blackfang gripped his battle axe with both hands and lowered his body as far as he could.
He twisted at the waist, then put his entire body into the swing.
The axe blade, driven by the full output of his power armour, smashed into the armour covering the left leg.
CLANG!
A huge shower of sparks exploded outward.
The piercing impact of axe against armour drowned out every other sound nearby, and the surrounding Orks all covered their ears.
The axe bounced back.
Both of Blackfang’s hands had gone numb, and a thin layer of dark-green fluid seeped from the webbing between his fingers.
He looked down at the axe blade.
It had curled.
Then he looked at the mechanical leg.
There was only a shallow white mark on the armour.
“That hard?” The shadow above him suddenly grew larger.
Blackfang looked up.
An iron foot weighing who knew how many tonnes was coming down directly toward him.
Every groove in the anti-slip pattern beneath it was thicker than his arm.
“What da hell is that?!” Blackfang turned and ran.
His iron boot had barely pushed off the ground when the mechanical foot came down.
BOOM!
The entire industrial district shook.
Several rivets along the seams of the steel floor jumped loose from the impact.
Blackfang ran for his life.
The impact shook the entire district again, and the shockwave threw him forward.
He skidded three or four metres on all fours before driving his battle axe into the floor to stop himself.
Then he scrambled back up and kept running without even looking behind him.
“FUCK!” Gragoth charged in from the side with his massive axe in hand, his gaze locked on the cockpit.
Blastfurnace’s heavy right-arm cannon had already begun turning again.
The muzzle slowly lowered toward Gragoth’s new position.
“Gragoth!” Blastfurnace’s voice came down from the cockpit, the amplifier making every word vibrate.
“Ain’t you supposed to be some Primarch?
Stop running!” Gragoth looked up and cursed.
“If you’ve got da guts, get down here!” “Why would I come down?!” Blastfurnace laughed and pointed his mechanical arm at the enormous machine beneath him.
“My iron shell’s da biggest!” He pulled the control lever.
The machine started chasing after Gragoth.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Every step made the ground tremble.
Gragoth turned and ran.
His four-metre-tall power armour was already enormous among ordinary Orks, but compared to the ten-metre machine behind him, he was barely more than a Gretchin.
He drove both legs into the ground at full force.
The hydraulic systems in his power armour’s legs ran at maximum output, each step leaving a shallow footprint dent in the steel floor.
“Get outta da way!” Gragoth roared as he ran.
Several Orks ahead who were carrying captured Meks looked up and saw the Primarch charging toward them.
Then they saw the enormous machine chasing behind him.
They immediately dropped the Meks and scattered to both sides.
One of the Meks hit the ground with a howl and curled up against the wall with his hands over his head.
The heavy cannon on the machine’s right arm fired again.
The shell missed by more than ten metres and slammed into the outer wall of a factory to Gragoth’s left.
The entire wall was blown through.
Bricks, rebar, and broken pipes burst outward through the hole.
The blast wave shoved Gragoth half a body-width to the right.
He used the force to turn into a narrow alley between two factories.
“Gragoth!” Blastfurnace’s voice chased him from behind.
“Why’re you running?!
Come fight me if you’ve got da guts!” ————————————————————
It really helps the fic grow!