Hallucinations.
Overwhelming hallucinations.
Yarrick felt himself plunging endlessly; chaotic flashes and psychedelic patterns filled his vision, leaving him utterly lost.
He had no idea how long it lasted.
At last the chaos faded.
Yarrick slowly opened his eyes and found himself lying on the ground.
He pressed his palm to the floor and sprang up, frowning slightly.
The ground felt wrong—more like soft plastic than solid earth. He stamped; it yielded like strange, fleshy skin.
No, this wasn't the time to worry about that.
Training drilled into every Imperial Commissar snapped Yarrick back to focus.
A heartbeat later, the roar of battle crashed into his ears.
The symphony of blades, roars, screams, gunfire, explosions and howls wove the anthem of war, stoking boundless fury.
Yarrick looked around—nothing but war.
Orks in numbers that stunned even a commissar who had fought them half his life rampaged, shrieking, wielding outlandish guns and blades, slaughtering their own in ecstatic glee.
Why not enjoy the fight?
It's the only pastime in a dark galaxy.
Yarrick pondered.
Where was he?
"Oi, wot's this? A shrimp!"
An Ork lopped a head with its Chainsword, glanced around for its next victim, and spotted Yarrick's Imperial uniform—an alien speck amid the green tide.
"Wot's a shrimp doin' 'ere? How'd Gork and Mork let a shrimp in?"
The thought flickered through the Ork's mind and was instantly forgotten.
Whooping, it took the commissar as another gift from Gork and Mork and charged.
Yarrick merely glanced at it, calm and unmoving.
Even unarmed, he was no mere Greenskin Boy to be trifled with.
He surged forward so fast the Ork couldn't react. A precise chop to the knuckles sent the Chainsword clattering down.
Another step, a deft toe-hook, and the Ork watched the shrimp scoop up its own fallen Chainsword.
A perfect arc of whirring teeth tore a gaping wound through the Ork.
The Greenskin Boy toppled.
Armed at last, Yarrick felt a twinge of relief.
It also meant he had accepted his situation.
Now, Commissar Yarrick joined the hunt.
"For the Emperor!"
"I am Commissar Sebastian Yarrick! A candle for the Emperor's will, burning the wicked!"
He roared, the Chainsword howling, carving crimson arcs through the greenskin mob.
Since receiving Adam's golden flame and that pale sphere, Yarrick's senses and reflexes had sharpened dramatically.
In his other hand he hefted an Ork big shoota, spitting round after round and dropping every Ork that noticed him.
As long as he was human and a commissar, he would slay xenos.
Only death ends that duty.
Time blurred.
At last Yarrick paused, catching his breath.
Not from fatigue—simply because no more Orks rushed to kill him; the battle seemed to freeze.
They stared at him in awe, chanting his name:
"Yarrick! Yarrick! Yarrick!"
Then another name rolled through the mob:
"Urgukhad! Urgukhad! Urgukhad!"
Yarrick looked up calmly as a titan stepped into view.
A greenskin Warboss, slabs of muscle sheathed in crude armour. A massive power-klaw replaced one arm; the other hefted a huge big shoota.
Scars crisscrossed its brutal face as it sized up the tiny commissar.
"Heh-heh…"
The Warboss tossed the big shoota aside and strode forward.
"Yer skull'll make a grand ornament!"
Urgukhad bellowed and charged like an unstoppable mountain.
The power-klaw shimmered, its de-gauss field shrieking past Yarrick's ear.
Yarrick rolled clear, raised the big shoota, fired.
Two rounds spat out; the beast ducked with impossible speed, parried the descending Chainsword with its claw.
Sparks showered as the whirring teeth bit steel but could not penetrate.
The Warboss grinned and wrenched.
Out-muscled, Yarrick was yanked off balance.
"Damn—"
Too late. The power-klaw flashed, clamping his right shoulder.
Shluck—
Thud—
His arm hit the earth; blood geysered. Agony dropped him to his knees.
"No… not yet!"
Iron will fought the encroaching dark; Yarrick raised his head.
He had not lost.
His left hand still clutched the Chainsword.
"Urgukhad!"
The Warboss brandished the severed arm to the crowd, then turned at the yell.
The last thing it saw was a spiralling blur of chain-teeth.
The Chainsword carved through Urgukhad's neck.
Yarrick clenched his teeth, blood spattering his face.
He kept cutting until the Warboss's massive head thudded to the dust.
The Orks gaped as the little shrimp straightened, surveying them with cold eyes.
"Zoggin' right, dat was Waaagh!"
The thought echoed through every greenskin mind.
"Warboss iz dead!"
"Warboss Yarrick! Warboss Yarrick!"
They howled, cheering the name.
And not just those Orks.
Across the galaxy—on starships, in Hive Cities, on death-worlds and hulks—greenskins suddenly looked skyward.
A single, inexplicable omen rippled through them.
A name.
Sebastian Yarrick!!!
And with it, the booming, joyous laughter of Gork and Mork themselves.