Editing Heretical Love (section)

=== Thread 13: ME MAX, YOU TONYA ===

The massive pain in your head finally passes, leaving you feeling normal.

Well, downright terrified, though that is relatively normal for a guardsman.

“Do you know that guy on the hologram?” Karen asks while she massages your temples.

“I do. Though last time I saw him, he didn’t have any arms.”

She screws her face up a bit at this.

“No arms?”

“None.”

A few minutes of silence pass by, the wind having picked up a bit and the air growing colder.

“Bored?”

“Eh.” You shrug.

“Want to help me fix up my ‘eavy arma?”

That’s how you found yourself, screwdriver in hand, helping an Ork princess do some modifications to a heavy and surprisingly not super Orky suit of armor.

“Thanks for doing this, it’s difficult to get good help around here.” Karen smiles as she reaches for a spanner.

“Really? Seems like you guys are genii when it comes to this kind of stuff.” You reply through gritted teeth, having pinched the web of your hand in a joint.

“Well, they are good at a lot of stuff…” Karen muses as she turns a bolt.

“But, they don’t seem to understand that I don’t want to weigh this thing down even more by NOT strapping even MORE dakka all over it.”

You stop dead, this is absolutely not correct.

“You can never have enough dakka…” You eyeball her, this is obviously a trap.

Karen laughs and sets her tool aside, before gesturing down at the left arm which is bristling with guns.

“If I add any more, I won’t be able to lift the arm up.”

You tap your screwdriver on the shoulder.

“That’s why I’m thinking we add a rokkit launcha here.” You grin.

"Well, dats roight Orky it is..."

The two of you work well into the night, replacing plates with too much damage, repairing wiring, adding that rokkit.

With a yawn you lay down on a wooden bench inside the Mek shop.

“Done already?” Karen teases.

“ah tareasd” You mumble incoherently, already falling asleep.

“Want the Dok to fix you something up so you can stay awake?”

“Please no…”

Karen giggles and turns back to her armor, continuing her work even as you drift off to sleep.

Several hours later you wake back up, groggily rubbing your eyes.

You realize Karen is carrying you in her arms.

“This feels backwards…”

“Oh hush up and go back to sleep.”

Finally she sets you on a relatively comfortable bed, and you pass out almost as soon as your head touches a pillow sewn crudely into the shape of a choppa.

Your dreams consist of annoying Helena by placing a few rubbers spiders around the inside of her tank. She hates spiders…

Something gives your shoulder a shake.

“You might want to wake up, the waagh party is coming back.”

You sit up with a yawn, stretching your arms above your head.

“Hmm… So?”

“Probably a bad idea to stick around here while they are still all riled up from a fight, it would be hard to get out of here once they return.”

You check your communicator, at least its morning.

Karen walks with you through the camp, keeping an eye out for any early birds.

Finally you both arrive at the edge of the makeshift Ork settlement.

“Well, this was by far my Orkiest day.” You yawn again, scratching your side, you need a shower.

“Mmm…” Karen mumbles, kicking the dirt and glancing up at you though you don’t see it.

“It was good to play again though, haven’t had a chance to do that in a while.”

A pair of hands grabs you somewhat roughly by the head, turning you around.

Karen’s face presses forward and in a split second your lips meet.

She’s aggressive about it, and despite that you are actually enjoying it.

Finally she pulls away, poking at her chin as she looks off in the distance.

“Err… Cool?” You ask, still not sure what really happened.

“Haha... Sorry… It’s just that I’ve always seen that in some of the looted movies we get, but I don’t really have any desire to kiss any of da boyz…”

You kissed an Ork... And you liked it?

A horn blast and clatter of shoota fire in the distance causes you both to look over toward the horizon. Even from here, you can make out the dust cloud.

“You’d better go.” Karen says, not looking away.

“Yeah. Um, you got some way I can contact you?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah!” She pulls out a mess of wires, gears, and riveted plating. You notice there is also a gun sticking out the side.

You give her your frequency and she gives you hers, though you have to interpret it over to something you can actually enter into your device.

With a final goodbye, you sprint off out of the camp, cutting a 90 degree away from the incoming Ork mob.

Even as you run, you think of something to do next.

You jump back onto your bike and rev it up, trying to put as much distance between you and the Orks as you can. Karen was fun, but you don’t like the idea of being around a bunch of blood thirsty Nobs who maybe still have a battle hard on.

…Can Orks even get a hard on?

You decide that, out of everything, is a question you never want answered.

The cannoness’s bike soars over the rough terrain, and you decide you will have to thank her for letting you borrow it when you get back.

Despite knowing you could return to somewhere of relative safety, for some reason you have the hunger for a bit of danger.

You cut the engine and coast as you approach the tomb, looking around wearily for any sign of the necron who almost gaussed you in the head after shooting up the flayed one.

The bike finally slows to a stop, and you’ve seen no sign of life. Or mechanical xeno monstrosities.

Quietly you slip off of the seat, the grass and leaves barely crunching underfoot.

You start to walk toward the mouth of the tomb, still looking around cautiously.

From what you remember, they taught you in training that a necron can take some serious punishment and keep going.
Your right hand rubs at your mechanical arm as you continue to stalk forward.

You hope if you do get into some kind of fight, it will be enough.

Peering down into the darkness inside the cave causes a knot to form inside your stomach. Is the flayed one who wore Doug’s corpse still down there?

Is it dead?

Something plants itself in the small of your back.

Before you can react, it boots you down into the tomb and you tumble down into the darkness. Steely mechanical laughter echoes along with you.

You are falling fast down the relatively steep incline, rolling end over end.

You stick out a foot to try and stop yourself, but it hits something hard and the pain reverberates through your entire leg and into your back.

All you can do is try to protect your head as you continue to slide and roll.

Finally you skid to a stop as the chamber levels out. You are bruised up from the fall, though thankfully it doesn’t feel like anything is broken.

You feel around, nothing seems out of place.

Still, you are winded hard. You wipe the dirt off your face and blink it out of your eyes. You also pull off your hat and brush him off.

As you pick yourself up from the ground, you hear something skitter in the darkness.

Scratch that, several things.

All at once, they rush you from all sides.

Flayed ones, dozens of them.

Including once again, the one wearing your best friend, now sporting several gauss burns on the flesh.

You activate your plasma gun, but it’s too late.

Several grab you in their bladed claws, pulling your arms back. Though they don’t cut into your flesh, they will if you struggle.

The flayed ones all look to the one wearing your friend, who paces in front of you as he looks you over.

You notice something else.

He seems to be wearing your arm. Well, the skin off of it anyways. You recognize your tattoo of your home world’s emblem on what used to be your forearm.

The flayed ones communicate in hisses and clicks, you don’t know what they are saying.

All at once, they close on you, surrounding you.

You wretch, gag, rotten flesh pressing in on you from all sides.

Energy crackles through the air, and you feel your stomach drop.

You vomit as they teleport you.

s your head stops spinning, you open your eyes, incredibly dizzy.

You wipe the puke off of your mouth, though the stench still clings to you it seems. The smell of rotten flesh, that is.

An icy cold hand suddenly clutches you by the throat and lifts you into the air. You swing at it, trying to break its grasp, but it doesn’t seem to relent.

Looking down, you notice a particularly large necron with lots of gold frills and extras hanging off of him. He seems to be grinning at you.

“Welcome, little flesh bag.”

You continue to struggle, but it doesn’t seem like much use. The necrons all around seem to be laughing at you, the flayed ones scraping their claws together as though hungry.

You gather up as much sanity as you can muster, focusing your mind.

With a glare you blast it out.

Several of the flayed ones beyond are thrown backwards, sailing end over end.

The necron holding you though…

His cape ruffles as if caught by a breeze.

He cackles squeezing harder.

You can’t even struggle now, your head on fire from the inside it seems. Your hands can only grab weakly at his.

“You are a tough one aren’t you, perhaps your face shall adorn the throne of Valgul. What an honor.”

He throws you aside and you collapse to the ground, grabbing at your throat as you gulp in air.

“I’m not done yet… Motherfucker.”

You stand up, doing your best to look tough despite the fact your brain feels like mush inside your skull. Your eyes feel wet and when you run a finger along one, you notice it gets soaked with blood.

Pulling your arm back, you prepare a punch that will break the heavens.

Or send you sailing off the platform you are on and into the vorpal nothing beyond.

“Take this! My love, my anger, and all of my sorrow!” You put your everything into your mechanical arm as you drive it forward.

The necron lashes out with his own, and your fists meet in the air. It’s a metal on metal fisting competition.

Despite you pressing hard, with all of your might, your blows cancel each other out, leaving you both standing connected fist to fist.

The necron laughs, his mechanical skull shaking side to side.

You smirk.

“Shining finger, bitch.”

The las blast bores a hole right through the necron’s head.
The large mechanical body seems to falter, swaying unsteadily on its feet.

You sidestep out of the way as it comes crashing down.

You blow on your finger like the scene out of an ancient Terran film.

“Alright, who’s next?”

Only there are a lot of flayed ones here, none who seem to give the slightest care at their lord being dropped.

“Perhaps I shall try again?”

The necron lord pushes himself off of the ground, despite the damage, and starts getting to his feet.

“Hey buddy, can we hurry this up? I’ve got some stuff I want to do.”

Your arm is talking to you.

“Statement: I say we ditch the meatbag. Did I say that out loud?”

Your arm is talking to itself?

“Hey, I like your style!” The first voice responds.

You don’t have time for this…

You activate the plasma gun and start firing as you dive out of the way as the necron swings his staff, the bladed end almost catching you.

“Suggestion: You’ve missed four shots, perhaps you should practice more.”

A flayed one’s bladed hand comes way too close to severing your other arm, and you knock it aside with your mechanical one before it can. You don’t want to be too mechanical. Though Mika might like it…

Plasma bolts sever arms and blast through flesh and plating of the flayed ones, but there are simply too many, and your arm is getting hot.

You keep firing, switching to your lasgun, as you back up.
The flayed ones are running at you, and you know you don’t have any way to fend off this many.

Three of them leap up at the same time, pouncing at you with claws ready to rend your flesh.

A simultaneous volley of gauss fire knocks them out of the air.
You whirl around just in time to see a line of Immortals, weapons blasting away.

They appear to be lead by a single pariah.

You recognize it...

Well, as much as you don’t really trust ANY necron at the moment, the flayed ones are far from the bottom of the long list of shit you hate. A hate-list being something you picked up from a brief meeting in a bar with an Angry Marines Commissar.

Firing your lasgun as cover, you sprint over toward the newcomers.

You notice, as you run, that while they do keep up their rate of fire, they seem to be taking the utmost precaution to avoid hitting you.

Ducking between two towering Immortals, you skid to a stop but not in time.

You collide into the Pariah before you can change course.
“Ah…” She says, her voice sweet but robotic.

“I’ve been waiting for you my honey, I knew I’d find you!” She rubs her face into your own.

Well this is a bizarre scene.

You are in some kind of other dimension; or so you think, with necrons fighting necrons as you get loved up on by, of all things, another necron.

“Uhh… Do I know you?” You finally ask.

“Oh my sweetie is so funny. But the next time you run away from me I’LL KILL YOU MYSELF! YOU ARE MINE AND MINE ALONE, honey.”

Well, that sure calms you down…

“I’ve been watching you ever since you came to this world. The first time I saw you I just knew I had to make you mine!” The necron girl continues happily as she smooshes you into her even more.

“Hah…Hah… You’re joking, right?”

Her eyes glow green at your comment.

“D-does my honey not want me? Does he want someone else? I can’t let that happen…” She pulls a dagger out of her cloak and raises it above you.

“O-of course not, I’m just joking around! Haha oh me the kidder!”

Her hand stops, poised to strike.

Finally her eyes return to normal.

“Oh you…” She snuggles you even harder.

“Yeah… Me…” You gulp.

“Congratulatory: *a wedding song starts to play*”

“Hey, get a room!” Your hand reaches into your pocket, produces a cigar, lights it, and proceeds to somehow smoke it with your thumb.

The necron girl looks at your arm, scowling.

“Such a rude thing… I don’t like it…”

She brings the knife closer to where your mechanical arm meets your flesh.

“Observation: I don’t think this is going to end well.”

“H-hey now! No need to cut it off, they will shut up!” You laugh, pushing on the arm holding the knife.

“*Hey you two, shut the hell up!*” You hiss at your arm.

"Query: Can we exist without being attached to this meatbag?"

"I dunno, should we find out?"

You clamp your other hand down on the speaker, muffling them. Why did Mika even add a speaker?!

“I don’t like them…” The necron girl says again, grabbing your arm more roughly and pressing the knife blade into the seam of flesh and metal.

You are going to have to think hard of something to do to stop her…

Too late, she plunges the knife down and buries it into the speaker, silencing it.

The two voices in your arm protest for a moment, but then fall silent. Well, at least she didn’t cut it off. Mika can fix the arm, but you don’t know if the two voices will return…

Until the necron keeps attacking the arm, stabbing it again and again. The weapons suite goes offline, and you find that the arm is now barely movable.

“Ah, now that’s soo much better!” The necron coos happily as she grabs you around the middle again.

“Hey, can we put the knife away please!” You ask as it comes close to jabbing you.

She does that at least, before tugging on the arm of an Immortal.

“Hurry up! How much longer do you need?” She asks him.
The Immortal gestures out, and you follow his finger.

The flayed ones lay in varying states of disassemble, most in too many pieces to recognize. The Immortals keep shooting to vaporize them entirely.

“Good, I need to give my honey a bath, he stinks!”

You feel your stomach drop again as she teleports you.
Back inside the tomb, though in a different section it looks like. You don’t recognize any of the surroundings, and you can’t see far in the faint green light.

Still she’s set you down as she tends to a large stone basin, turning knobs and dials.

“Hey, uh… Kinda dark in here isn't it?”

As if on command, the tomb illuminates further, to a more comfortable level.

“Well… It could be worse…”

“Oh honey! The bath is ready!”

While you don’t like your current predicament, you aren’t about to keep pushing her crazy buttons.

You slide out of your clothes, which is quite difficult with a barely functional left arm.

“Ara ara~” The necron says, as she eyes your junk.

You don’t give her the satisfaction of continuing to eye you up, as you step into the warm water.

Sitting down, you submerge yourself up to your chest.

Despite everything going on, it actually feels pretty good.
The Pariah hums some necron tune as she busies herself scrubbing you down. You just sit there limp and take it while your mind jumps around trying to figure out some way out of this mess.

Her metal fingers don’t actually feel terrible, and somehow you really think deep down she actually loves you. Too much.

“Does it feel good my sweet?” She asks as she rubs what you believe to be shampoo into your hair.

“Uh… Yeah…?” You answer, still desperately trying to muster your inner Tzeentch and come up with a plan.

“You know, I could make you feel even better…”

“So uh, before that, can I get your name? I need to associate your lovely face with it.”

The necron girl sits up slightly at your comment, her mechanical brow furrowing.

“My… My name…?” She asks, touching her lips as though unsure.

“I need a name? You won’t love me without a name?” Her hands grab you tightly, without your mechanical strength there is no way you could break that grip. Damn you wish your arm was fully operational.

“That’s uh… Not exactly what I meant…”

But she doesn’t seem to hear you, her eyes starting to grow more and more green.

“Name… Name… Name…” She keeps mumbling to herself, increasing in speed as she repeats the word, her eyes starting to glow brighter and brighter.

Her fingers seem to lose a bit of their tightness, you might be able to slip away…

“I’ll call you Tonya.”

Her eyes stop glowing, and her fingers relax.

“Tonya…Tonya…” She repeats it, playing with it.

“*Archiving name, please wait… One percent…*”

“Huh?” You turn around in the bath.

Several seconds go by.

“*…Five Percent…*” The completely monotone robotic voice chimes again.

Shit! This might be your chance to escape!

You snatch up your clothes and start pulling them on as fast as you can manage with one working arm and a half broken one.

“*…Fifty percent…*”

“Hey! You skipped a bunch!” You yell as you stuff your feet into the boots.

Wasting no time with anything else, you break into a fast run into the tomb.

Shoving your way between two Immortals guarding the door, you sprint as fast as you can manage. Perhaps the fastest in your life.

After several twists and wrong turns, you finally find the way back up to the surface.

“Where are you going, my honey? YOU CAN’T RUN FROM OUR LOVE!!!”

Tonya bursts out from around a turn and starts running up after you. She’s fast!

Still, you aren’t going to give up here.

Your legs pick up the pace and finally carry you out into the fresh air.

You are relieved to see the bike where you left it, and you run all out at it as the necron starts to close the distance.

Leaping on, you start it up as fast as you can. The engine doesn’t seem to want to ignite.

“Fucking machine spirit! Get the fuck moving!”

Finally the bike fires to life, and you twist hard, Tonya mere feet from you now.

Her fingers graze the back of the bike even as you spray her with dirt in your desperate bid to escape.

Finally you are out of her reach, you sigh in relief.

“I’LL FIND YOU!” You hear her voice call after you.

“YOU WILL BE MINE! ALL MINE! ONLY MINE!”

Finally her voice fades in the distance, masked by the rumble of the bike.

Mika scoffs and scolds you a bit as she looks your arm over.
You feel a bit bad, you haven’t had it for long and it’s already pretty beat up.

Despite this, she starts into fixing it and you lay back on the table.

After several hours and more than one test fire, it seems to be back in tip-top shape.

Though the voices haven’t returned.

“What could those have been?” You ask her.

Mika shrugs.

“Magnetic interference?” She finally muses out loud.