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The new orcish Kaos Army recruits were quickly put to work assembling yet more parts to the growing army base under the careful directions of Corporal Rave, armed with his shiny new swagger stick and a disproportionate sense of importance.

In his office, Anar could hear the sharp whine of power drills at work, the sawing of lumber, the hammering of nails and the velociraptor officer's barked commands. Any reply of 'Yes, Corporal!' that wasn't delivered in a timely manner earned the fresh grunts a wallop and he could hear pained yelps in amongst the cacophony of it all.

He himself was poring over old maps as he prepared to visit other orc encampments across the continent. Using the main Trans Dimensional Warpway gate was proving to be rather a hassle; it had to be kept open for the duration of his trip so that he could return at his leisure, but this required continuous power to the portal generating unit. As with the rest of the buildings, the electricity supply here wasn't provided by an actual power grid. They were using old generators that ran on diesel. If the open portal were to lose its power source for any reason, it would subsequently close, and that meant he could be stranded in the middle of nowhere many days' drive from the army base. He knew he had to be prepared. Once they had enough soldiers to spare a few, they could give those Pocket Portals a thorough testing for safety and efficiency, but until then it was a case of firing up the big gate and hoping for the best. He chose his next destination, curled the parchment up carefully tucking it under an arm, swung The Bag over a shoulder and finished his coffee.

The office he had been given to work in was already looking a little more welcoming after he'd pulled a few things from The Bag to hang on the walls and place on his desk. Earth Generals would have finely detailed maps of the world, a few ally flags, some framed portraits of themselves with their families, and certificates of commendation or bravery. Well, he did had a map of the Black Planet but... see, most of it was blank as no-one had gone there yet. Or if they had, they weren't a cartographer. The only flag as such was their own, as far as he knew, until he reached out to other societies that is, and the only proper portrait he had of himself had been printed out in black and white using his office printer, and that dinky thing was as far removed from the old hulking muti-jet monster he'd been kicking into submission in Hell as you could get. Luckily, Anar was only shades of grey so it didn't really matter, but he would have liked a nice colour picture to look at. The only other photos he had of himself were ones from Hell and he'd be quite happy to never look at those ever again.

The Dragon was trying his best to bring modern technology to this funny little world but, honestly, it was all over the place. They had lazar blasters from Alpha Centauri and a vehicle that had a quantum engine and ran on sunlight, but the office equipment was lumps of beige straight out of the nineteen eighties and there was no telecommunications or television. If Anar wanted to listen to music, he had to use his trusty Sony Walkman. The computer at his desk still ran on Windows 95 when back home on Earth they would be using Windows 98 now and welcoming the turn of the Millennium. He'd spent time in the Underworld being subjected to infuriating software built solely for the purpose of tormenting the living and here he was, once again, having to survive crashes, updates and internal errors. Why couldn't they have the kind of future technology that actually worked? It must be on the other side of a portal somewhere. They just had to find it.

He walked out to the Titan which was back to its fully armoured form after that embarrassing incident back at the orc village. You'd think a button that changed it from a plated van big enough to need two parking spots and a map with packed lunch just to walk round it, into a nippy sporty roofless roadster, would be prominently marked but, hey, life was full of surprises and so it was tucked away by the window controls where you could accidentally set it off at any given moment. Come to think of it, that was probably why there was only one of the rotten things left. Someone somewhere probably flipped the switch accidentally in heat of battle and got their funny head knocked off, leading to the rest of the fleet being turned to scrap metal.

The Dragon had some funny ideas about only taking what weaponry they needed from dead worlds. He said it was because he didn't want to encourage thriving civilisations to make more machines of war and munitions purely for the Kaos Army to use. After much thought Anar had decided this wasn't really the whole truth. The Dragon only used those things from dead worlds because that was all he had access to at the moment, it was nothing noble at all.

He left Rave behind, still happily waving his stick around and shouting orders, as he headed through the open portal to the next unprepared bunch of villagers on his list. This time he was entering rocky hills and the Titan's huge, solid wheels ate up the sharp stones with a satisfying crunch as he followed the beaten path toward the entrance to the system of caves that this particular tribe called home. He wouldn't be able to do his grenade throwing shenanigans here to impress them, lest the whole damn mountain caved in, but he did have a bag full of shiny things to help convince the poor sods that signing up would be a good idea. A good idea until Rave got chance to work them half to death, anyway. He honestly expected the big, burly, three-hundred-pound orc warriors to give the raptor a hard time, but somehow they were terrified of him. Still, couldn't complain, if he wrote a list of all the things that could possibly go wrong while trying to start up a futuristic military organisation on an alien planet full of medieval peasants twice your size and half as intelligent, he'd run out of paper. They were off to a strong start and that was what really mattered.

Anar hoped they were expecting him today, and not The Dragon, as disappointment could lead to angry stabby-stabby. He was about to find out as he hit the brakes and came to a stop on a wide, flat, well-worn ledge in front of a gaping hole in the rock. There were markings painted upon it in rusty colours and charcoal. Even orc written text was sharp and pointy. The Dragon had woven some of his magic to provide a handy universal translation for communication, which was incredibly useful and if properly implemented could most likely be used to prevent wars rather than start them, but hey, this was a paid gig and he wasn't going to argue with an aeons-old fantastical creature from beyond time and space.

Slinging The Bag upon his back, (minding not to wrinkle his wonderful, fancy jacket), Anar wondered if he was expected to knock, or holler, or simply walk on in like a lamb to slaughter. At the other village there were sentries at the gate, but up here in the wilderness there was no-one around. It was pitch black ahead. He drummed his fingers on a canvas strap and thought a moment - he knew just what he needed! On the back seat of the Titan was a bag full of 'Oh Shit' emergency items; rope, matches, firelighters, blanket, bottles of water, First Aid kit, long shelf-life ration packs and a battery-powered torch that could burn your retinas off. He clicked it on, making sure it was pointed well away from him, and walked into the orc caves feeling a little safer knowing he could easily blind anyone within twenty feet of him. He did have a handgun at his hip, but he'd rather not shoot anyone if he could help it. He only had five bullets and hadn't got around to bringing in any more for this particular weapon. It was on his to-do list, but so was twenty million other things...

The inside of the geological structure sprang into view and shadows rolled across the floor as Anar's boots tramped carefully. It was rough and uneven, but a clear path of steady foot traffic had worn a smooth trail ahead, meandering through the larger boulders and pools of moisture that dripped from above. This was the kind of cave you found a fictional dragon from a fantasy book in. This was also the kind of cave you learned about in High School history class when they tried to teach you all about the origins of modern anthropomorphs and the birth of the Stone Age, but you were too busy passing love notes to Cassandra Miller in hopes of getting off with her behind the bike sheds later, to listen to the droning teacher. Momentarily distracted by fond flashbacks to those bike-shed memories, the sudden eruption of loud animal growls almost took Anar unawares, but he managed to stand his ground and held his torch out defensively. Just beyond the light's reach, forms moved. He knew there was the danger of encountering wild animals on his travels, and caves back home had bears in them which you didn't fuck with, so he had packed flares to scare them off and bear spray if they still got too close. He was ready to leg it too, if needed. Thankfully, though, someone spoke from the darkness asking who was there, and Anar actually breathed a sigh of relief. "General Warlock, from the Kaos Army," he replied, and his voice rolled off the walls. It still sounded so weird to be calling himself that. "War Boss Vandergraaz is expecting me." Vandergraaz Thunderfist was the chief's full, official title. Anar had wondered if the orc chief was as awesome as his name implied or if, in a cruel twist of irony, he would have small hands.

"How have you brought the sun with you?" the voice ahead demanded, "that is not fire, have you brought magic? We'll not allow any magic here!"

Anar dipped the torch, quickly, "it's not magic," he explained, "it's an LED torch. It won't harm you," well... it could blind you or send you nini if I hit you about the head with it... "so what do you say? You'll take me to your leader, right?"

A larger than normal and incredibly fluffy wolf with bright eyes and bared fangs padded forth with an orc riding upon its back. The warrior was in a simple tunic with bare arms exposed, covered in scars that could have been deliberately put there in effort of decoration, or the guy had regular fallings out with his wolf steed. "I will take you. Come."

"Nice!" Anar smiled but the orc did not smile back. He walked alongside, still pointing the torch towards the floor. "So, you can see in the dark?" he asked.

"I cannot, but Dreadfang can."

"Dreadfang! Good name," Anar nodded, more to himself than anything, "very good name. Fitting." He noticed that unlike the other orcs he had encountered, this one was not draped with knives or swords or axes, or a collection of all three. "You don't have a weapon?" he inquired, casually.

"I am riding one," the orc almost tutted.

"Ah! Yes, yes you are. Big wolf, Dreadfang. Biggest I've seen at any rate." Anar hadn't seen a wolf in person before. Not a single one. A bit of flattery couldn't hurt, though.

Despite himself, Anar's guide took the bait and conversed, "Warg. Dreadfang is a Warg. We Nargelect, that's our tribe, breed them for war. We are very proud of them; they are fast and strong and deadly. If you are to impress War Boss Thunderfist, you will be required to defeat one in the arena."

Anar almost tripped over his own feet. "I'll...sorry, what? I'll be asked to... one of these?!" he gestured madly to the overgrown fleabag that came up to his shoulders.

It growled, low and deep and primal, almost to prove a point.

The orc looked rather happy now, and Anar decided that this particular orc and Rave would get along like a house on fire.

This was going to be a bit tricky...