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Ostia and Gitstank - First Meeting (Complete)
🕑 Added 2021-09-20 16:00:09 +0000 UTCOptional lore dump below! This piece was a lot of fun to work on, but very finicky getting it to come together.
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"Is not often you little 'umies fight good outs of the mechs and ins 'em."
The woman grunted back her affirmative, reloading her weapon while the Ork crested a mound of rubble. Great sheets of bolted metal wrapped around his core emblazoned with an emblem she did not know. A great bronzed tusk capped one end of its twisted smile. In one hand, the massive greenskin held a bloody axe, in the other, her severed foot he'd already claimed as a trophy.
Her shots were met with raucous laughter. Just as before. Each found its mark, not nestled quite as perfectly as her first volley, nor second or third. Against any other target, it would have been enough. But here, now, she might as well have missed him. Her arm was dropping, her back ached. It took everything to stay upright against her body's impulses to shut down. She had never felt so tired. And now she was out of bullets. Black ichor ran down the Orks chest like oil, covering his armor and drenching the ground beneath him. And still it advanced.
The plodding steps cracked the bleached stone beneath it. Each step was like thunder to her ears. The tolling of a bell.
"Yous got more in ya? Or 're we done 'er."
Did she? This thing had tossed her like she was a child, broken her across his axe without so much as a sweat. She had tumbled through the air, battered against her own Knight. Now her blood covered the ground, it filled her mouth, the sound of her own heart filled her ears, and she didn't know if she could stand again.
"Thrones Mercy" She spat blood after her words. She hoped it would seem intimidating, but truthfully it was growing hard to swallow now. "Wont have to smell you anymore, at least."
The Ork stopped in front of her. She was nearly overwhelmed by the foul tang of sweat and ichor rolling off his form. It only got worse as he opened his maw and smiled. "Thens its krushin time." The ork picked her up by the lapel of her jacket. To fast, far too fast for something his size. With one of his clawed hands she was pinned, and before she could get her bearings the other bore down, crushing her torso. She heard snapping, though she felt nothing but pressure. Her own screams were loud in her ears.
Ostia could not manage to struggle against the sheer weight of the Ork. She was helpless. On instinct alone, her hand whipped the jammed chainsword, and clumsily swung towards the Orks ribs. Like a club, ungraceful and desperate, it seemed to take forever to connect.
And then... the ringing of metal. It had connected with his armor. The woman consigned herself to death.
The Emperor's light itself might as well have filled her lungs and eyes as the weight lifted. Ostia crashed to the ground in a heap, far beyond movement or pain. She caught glimpses of the Ork stumbling back with a savage roar, one of the bolted plates falling away to reveal wounds still oozing and fresh, and the bloody girding lay bent beside her.
"Feth you." Ostia sputtered from the ground. As she spoke, she wished she had held her tongue. Each breath was like fire. The Ork growled, but whatever advance might have been made to the broken women was stopped by the nearby sound of shouting. Organized shouting, at least for the guard, but the voices brayed with a distinctly human cadence.
The Ork took a look towards the noise, then back to the bloody heap of the woman. "Yous... Yous better get back fightin'. We's not done." Ostia was beyond response, and could not keep her eyes open as the Ork hurried back to his own Mech.
