A former Hive City criminal, his Lasgun drained of power, actually threw his weapon away, picked up a rock from the ground, and leaped onto an Ork boss's back with a howl, smashing the back of his skull again and again in a frenzy.
The recruit who had once trembled in terror was now wrestling with an Ork twice his size. His arm was caught between the creature's tusks, almost torn apart. Yet he ignored it, putting every ounce of strength into hacking an Entrenching Tool deep into its neck.
This was Alexander's "Fireplace."
Fueled by hatred and despair, it burned with a pure battle frenzy fierce enough to consume reason and fear alike.
Alexander stood at the very center of the battlefield.
Around him stood his personal guard, a Flame Core formed from his most zealous, most loyal soldiers.
Every swing of the Power Sword in his hand left a blue arc in the air and an Ork with its head severed.
An enormous Ork boss wielding a Power Claw noticed this "humie" in a black uniform. It could sense that this humie was the core of the mob of crazed humans.
"Waaagh!!!"
The Ork boss roared, its enormous Power Claw hurtling toward Alexander with a shriek of tearing air.
Alexander did not dodge.
There was even a faint smile on his lips.
Just as the Power Claw was about to touch him, a burly figure slammed into the Ork.
It was Orik.
"-Don't touch him!!!"
The Kasrkin veteran roared like a wounded beast. His Chainsword screeched as he swept it upward, driving it viciously into the Ork boss's chest.
Squelch-!
The Chainsword's teeth easily ripped through the Ork's coarse skin and crude armor, spraying a great gout of green blood and entrails.
The Ork boss looked down in disbelief at the enormous gash in its chest, then collapsed heavily.
Orik did not even spare it another glance. He turned and planted his body in front of Alexander, scanning their surroundings warily, as though he intended to shield Alexander from every danger in the world.
"Elder Brother, it's too dangerous here. Please fall back."
"I am with you, Orik." Alexander flicked the green blood from his Power Sword. His voice was calm, but filled with unquestionable authority. "I told you, we are a family. Family does not abandon one another."
Those words spread across the entire battlefield through the communicator Orik carried.
"Did you hear that? Elder Brother is with us!"
"Protect Elder Brother!!"
"Kill every Ork bastard that gets near Elder Brother!!!"
Every soldier who heard those words seemed to have been injected with the most potent combat stimulant. Their fighting strength surged once more. They formed moving walls of bodies, tearing apart any Ork that tried to approach Alexander.
On the Orks' side, however, things were quite the opposite.
The Ork boss leading them was named Mog "Ironfang." He had thought this would be an easy slaughter.
Now, though, he was a little baffled.
Something was wrong with these humies.
They weren't afraid to die. That was nothing special. Some of those crazy "tin cans" weren't afraid to die either.
But these humies looked... as though they were enjoying the battle?
As they fought, they shouted slogans he couldn't understand, but which sounded fanatical. Things like "Fireplace," "family," and "Adding Fuel to the Fire."
And when they fought, they cared even less about their lives than the craziest boy under his command.
Stranger still, they seemed to be... protecting that humie in black, the one who looked weakest of all?
That black-clad humie seemed to be their boss. As long as he remained standing, these humies fought like they were pumped full of stimulants, never letting up.
That don't make sense, Mog "Ironfang" thought.
Weren't humie bosses supposed to hide right at the back and be the first to leg it when things went bad? What kind stood right at the front and had his lads protect him?
"Boss! There's something dead weird about these humies! We... we can't hold 'em much longer!" An Ork with half the skin burned off its face ran up to him, shouting in terror.
"Shut it!" Mog sent it flying with a slap. "I ain't had enough fun yet! Get stuck in! First one to back off, I'll twist his head off myself!"
Just then, however, a piercing whistle came from above.
Mog instinctively looked up, and one last thought flashed through his brain, barely larger than a walnut.
...What's that thing?
BOOM-!!!
An unerringly precise shell from one of the 99th Regiment's few Griffon mortars landed squarely between Mog and his most elite bodyguards.
The violent explosion instantly tore the Orks into green parts that flew in every direction.
The death of their commander was the final straw.
Without anyone to lead them, the remaining Orks descended into chaos. What little morale they possessed was utterly shattered by the 99th Regiment's suicidal ferocity.
"Run!"
Whoever it was, one of the Orks shouted first.
Then the rout spread like a plague.
The Orks threw away their weapons and fled back the way they had come, wailing and screaming.
"No pursuit!" Colonel Valeus issued the order over the command channel in time. "Clear the battlefield! Treat the wounded! We... we held."
His voice carried a trace of disbelieving exhaustion and... awe.
He watched the soldiers stabbing Ork corpses with their bayonets, again and again; he watched the soldiers supporting one another as they sang at the top of their lungs.
Suddenly, he understood Alexander's theory.
This was no "Fireplace."
This was clearly a... fanatical combat cult with the Commissar at its heart.
And he was this cult's... military director.
For the first time, Colonel Valeus felt deeply worried about his future.
But he also had to admit that this feeling... was pretty fucking good.
In the murky orbit of Viridia Prime, aboard the bridge of the flagship Big Smash, the warlord Grak "Ironjaw" Bonecrusher furiously crushed a Gretchin reporting on the battle into green pulp with his enormous Power Claw.
"Wot did you say?!" Grak's booming voice made the entire bridge hum with the vibrations. "That idiot Mog took all them boyz of mine, and a whole mob of battlewagons, to stomp a bunch of broke humies what came in scrap ships, and... got chased off?!"
Every smaller Ork on the bridge shrank its head between its shoulders, terrified of becoming the next target of the warlord's fury.
A boss second only to Grak in size, with half his head replaced by crude machinery, plucked up his courage and said in a muffled rumble, "Boss, I heard from the boyz what came back. Them humies... there's somethin' weird about 'em."