The engines of the Lancia Rally 037 roared as the 'quite-a-lot' horsepower was unleashed, its mana-infused exhaust pipes spitting cyan flames into the falling black ash of Ischara. Ahead, a fortified line of Iron Warrior Havocs and a towering Defiler were unleashing hell, but Gerhard just grinned and flipped a row of toggles next to the rally shifter.
"Time for the custom options!"
The Lancia's iconic quad-headlights suddenly retracted, instantly replaced by twin-linked, hyper-compressed Mana-Particle beam arrays. At the same time, the sleek side-skirts flipped open to reveal rows of micro-missile swarms, and the roof-mounted air scoop split apart to deploy an automated, auto-targeting rotary macro-cannon.
The car turned into a rolling fortress of absolute overkill, driving entirely on testosterone.
A storm of cyan beams tore through the Havocs' heavy adamantium armour as if it were wet paper. The micro-missiles deployed in a chaotic swarm, hunting down and obliterating two Chaos Predators hidden in the ruins with pinpoint accuracy. The rotary macro-cannon barked continuously, shredding anything that moved in a 360-degree arc.
Through the sheer devastation of his own making, Gerhard yanked the hydraulic handbrake, initiating a 200 mph sideways drift that took the pristine white-and-blue rally car cleanly beneath the leg of the staggering, badly damaged Iron Warriors Defiler.
As the car slid underneath, Gerhard pulled the eject lever and was shot upwards. He reached the chest cavity of the Defiler, cocked his hand, and unleashed a point-blank charge of his most powerful version of [Divergent Fist]. Naturally, he wore his Mk. IV-S' Apex Predator suit.
BOOOMM!
The initial physical strike shattered the daemon engine's left main joint. Three-tenths of a second later, the delayed Mana shockwave detonated inside its armour plating, blowing the Defiler's upper torso clean off its legs in a fountain of boiling daemonic essence.
Gerhard, having completed his duty, fell back down into the waiting Lancia and pressed the accelerator.
"Wooo! That's what I'm talking about!" Gerhard cackled over the stereo system, which was currently playing music at maximum volume. "Hans! How's Shockwave holding up?"
From inside the transformed Questoris Titan, Hans' voice came through the comms, entirely unbothered by the hellish warscape.
"Shockwave's structural integrity is at 98.4%, Master. We have drawn the attention of the local Iron Warriors heavy armour units."
Through the shattered smoke ahead, two corrupted Warhound Titans, which were spiked, rust-eaten monstrosities bearing the heretical markings of the Chaos Undivided, stomped forward, their Vulcan mega-bolters booming. Beside them, a towering Chaos Reaver Titan rumbled over the ferrocrete ruins, its carapace-mounted apocalypse missile launcher angling toward Shockwave.
"Two Warhounds and a Reaver," Sera Vahl breathed over the command channel from inside Shockwave's chest cavity, her hands flying across tactical monitors. "They're locking void shields!"
"Let them lock," Gerhard laughed, steering the Lancia up a collapsed overpass to gain a vantage point. "Hans, would you please show these rust-buckets what a legendary-grade polymorphic Necrodermis-Wraithbone Transformer can do!"
Inside Shockwave, Hans engaged the ambulatory mana routing. The impressive dexterity of the Transformer Questoris Titan kicked into full effect.
The bipedal 36-foot titan moved with speed that defied every law of Imperial and Chaos physics for the titan and knight-class warlords. As the leading Warhound fired a volley of high-explosive plasma rounds, Shockwave didn't even need to raise its void shield.
It simply stepped to the left, its Necrodermis-Wraithbone armour shifting smoothly, following Hans' commands and executed a fluid side-dash that sent the plasma scorching harmlessly into a ruined hab-block behind it.
Gerhard had truly outdone himself and taken the first step beyond the two most technologically advanced races in the galaxy. By combining the adaptive and strong features of the Necrodermis with the psychoreactive nature of Wraithbone, he had effectively created something never seen before. And he wasn't even finished improving it yet. There was still adamantium and auramite that he added as well, but which would be even better in time.
Before the Warhounds could adjust their targeting, Shockwave closed the distance. The 120,000-HP Titan lunged forward, grabbed the first Warhound's main weapon arm with its colossal left metal hand, and employed its massive strength and durability.
With a tasteful screech of tearing metal, Shockwave ripped the mega-bolter completely off, spun the smaller titan around, and slammed its face directly into the ferrocrete.
The second Warhound surged forward, its Ursus claw snapping toward Shockwave's neck, thinking that the titan wasn't paying attention to it.
Shockwave ducked cleanly underneath the strike, swept its right leg to kick the Warhound's knee joint out, and snapped its shoulder-mounted Mana Particle Cannon directly into the Reaver Titan's lower torso.
...
"Particle Mode: Medium Yield," Hans declared calmly.
VRROOOOOOMMMM--!!!
A blinding, blue beam of concentrated mana pierced the night sky. The Reaver's powerful void shields flickered momentarily, sending the energy into the Warp, before it immediately overloaded and collapsed in a shower of blinding white sparks.
The beam cleaved straight through the Reaver's reactor housing, leaving a perfectly smooth, glowing hole twenty feet wide. The giant machine shuddered, its corrupted machine-spirit dying in an instant, before collapsing forward like a pile of scraps in an explosion.
BOOOMMM
Down in the streets, the Ultramarines fought shoulder-to-shoulder alongside Astra Militarum guardsmen, and Lencillus, their bolters booming in rhythmic shots as Iron Warriors Havocs attempted to flank Gerhard's Lancia.
"By the Primarch..." one of the Ultramarines muttered, firing a burst into an advancing Chaos Marine. "The construct... it just dodged a Titan's power claw and decapitated a Reaver in six seconds. This looks more like one of the Xenos' creations."
"Focus, Brother!" another shouted, swinging his chainsword to clear an incoming trench-raider. "Lord Gerhard's tactics are... unorthodox, but effective! The Primarch trusts him."
"Unorthodox?" Gerhard asked over the comms, taking a sharp left turn and using the Lancia's mana-reinforced bumper to flatten an Iron Warrior Terminator. "This is art, my bioengineered friends! Pure, unadulterated ancient Italian engineering! With a touch of Gerhard, for good measure."
Before the Iron Warriors could regroup their surviving artillery batteries, the sky above Ischara tore open.
It was a Warp rift that had just opened up, but surprisingly, it wasn't a Warp rift that belonged to Chaos, no. It was something far louder, dumber, and infinitely more violent.
Something... green.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
A colossal Ork Rok, fitted with massive jet engines, mismatched thrusters, and rusty metal plates, came crashing down through the red clouds, cutting through the Warp-storm like a literal meteor.
Painted across the front and around the Rok in bright, crude, glowing green paint was a massive, hand-drawn symbol: A gear-toothed heart covered in orkish binary glyphs (01000100 01000001), with a gigantic, green middle finger raised directly at the viewer.
It was disturbing, frankly. Had Trajann Valoris been present... he would have been alarmed. Well, not that the Astartes and Lencillus weren't.
"What in the Warp is that?!" Sera yelled, watching the augur displays which showed the energies spike to catastrophic levels.
"Oh ho ho..." Gerhard grinned, pulling the Lancia to a halt atop a pile of rubble. "Look who decided to join our tea party!"
CRASH-THUUUUUUM!!
As was normal for the Orks, they didn't land on the outskirts of the battlefield or at the edge. No. The Rok slammed straight into the centre of the Iron Warriors' primary artillery ridge. The kinetic impact wiped out two entire Chaos trench lines instantly, throwing thousands of tons of burning dirt, stone, shattered siege cannons, Chaos Marines and thousands of Ork limbs through the air.
Before the dust even settled, the crude iron hatches of the Rok blew open with explosive charges and from it, emerged the beasts.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!"
A chorus of thousands of thick, Orkish-accented, throat-shredding roars of ecstasy erupted from the crater. Hundreds of heavily armed, wildly modified Ork Nobz, Flash Gitz, and Lootas spilt out of the wreckage like an emerald wave.
However, there were a surprisingly large number of Big Meks visible.
Hundreds of Trukks, carrying thousands of roaring battle-hungry Ork Boyz and Gretchin who all carried weapons of some kind. The trukks themselves were more a mixture of tank monstrosities than they were meant to transport Orks, but naturally, they had to work as both.
Because how else would they reach the site of battle fast? It was ingenious on their part.
Leading the charge was a massive Big Mek wearing powerful armour, carrying a heavily modified shoota that was somehow welded to a large battery and a chain-axe.
"WE HAS ARRIVED! WAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!"
The Orks roared all at once.
"Oi! Ya iron-clad beakys!" the Big Mek bellowed, pointing his clanking, sparking gun at the shocked and enraged Iron Warriors. "We has come ta find da Dakka Masta ta 'ave a big fight! Da Dakka Masta learned us a lesson! He showed us da way! We don't just charge right at 'em like puny Grots no more—we drop da whole zoggin' sky on ya 'eads!"
"Dis planet belongs to DA DAKKA MASTA! An' you's standin' in his way!"
"FOR DA DAKKA MASTA!" the horde roared back in terrifying unison. "KRUMP 'EM! GIVE 'EM DA REAL DAKKA! WAAAAAAAGH!!"
The Iron Warriors, renowned across the galaxy as the ultimate tactical siege masters and precision experts, stood frozen for two whole seconds as they tried to process what they were witnessing. Orks who seemed to combine the traits of different clans in one.
They seemed to be immensely rich, but weren't Bad Moons; they hadn't realised it yet, but they used tactics, although they valued overwhelming firepower more; they looted and scavenged from their defeated enemies, since you didn't leave anything behind as the Dakka Masta taught them, and most of all, they loved combat, like the Goffs.
In short, they were the amalgamation of all the worst possible traits for their enemies.
...
Orks. Wearing sigils of gear-toothed hearts, with a middle finger in the centre. Yelling, firing shootas that were emitting blue blasts mixed with solid lead and driving massive and powerful vehicles.
"Open fire! Annihilate the pathetic Xenos!" an Iron Warriors Warsmith commanded over their Chaos vox-network.
"DA BOSS SAYS: FLIP 'EM DA BIRD AN' SHOOT 'EM IN DA FACE!" the Ork Nob screamed, raising a giant mechanical claw that had three prongs and the one in the centre shaped like a middle finger before unleashing a hail of wildly inaccurate, immensely destructive plasma fire.
Plasma was something these Orks had come to love immensely. There was simply no downside to it. If it worked, it killed the grots in front, and if it didn't, it killed many more.
The battlefield devolved into total, beautiful chaos. Not the kind that Chaos, as in the Iron Warriors, appreciated... or anyone else, no, the kind that Gerhard and the Orks enjoyed. It was brutally honest, with little thought involved, or so it seemed.
The Dakkamasta Orks swarmed the Iron Warrior fortifications. Lootas mounted on makeshift Trukk-Tanks drove straight into Chaos barricades, while others drove over their own, spraying green and blue energy bolts while screaming praises to "Da Great Humie Boss who krumped Dakkabad."
It was a clusterfuck of firepower.
A mob of Tankbustas, who had realised that if they used Stormboyz and Flash Gitz, they would have so much more fun, and had therefore ordered the Meks to combine those into one, leapt onto a surviving Chaos Warhound Titan.
"Dakka! Dakka! Mega Krump!"
They stuck sticky-bombs all over its surface while chanting, then either fell off, jumped off, or simply smashed it with their fists until the melta charges went off.
BOOOOOOOOMMM--BORROOOOOOMM--!!!
"Hahahaha, this is absolutely hilarious. Who would have thought that leaving some of them alive would result in this?"
Gerhard leaned back in the Lancia's leather seat, resting his arm on the open window as he watched what was effectively his own Ork warband utterly obliterate the Chaos siege line from the inside.
"You know, Hans," Gerhard said through his com-link. "I think the middle finger really ties their whole aesthetic together."
"A most distinguished heraldry, Master," Hans replied.
Shockwave crushed an Iron Warriors Predator tank underfoot like an empty soda can.
"I believe Gork, Mork, and the Omnissiah are all equally ecstatic right about now."
Gerhard chuckled.
"You know, I think we can declare this a successful beta-test."