Cakeopolis
Pink and blue.
Pink and blue were the first amongst a myriad of colours to assault the mechanical eyes of Domor as he manually opened their shutters and stared unblinking into the bright new world. Scowling at the blinding light reflecting off of the pastel ornaments and paint around him and feeling profoundly disorientated, he reached out to his comrades for support only to find a void encompassing him - an emptiness devoid of life, with the exception of his sole opponent. Domor towered above the creature's diminuitive form, yet the seasoned Tanith soldier had never felt such a staggering certainty of defeat than in this contest of pure will.
It was a daemon, he decided, probably one of the Horrors of Tzeentch, which would explain the excessive jolity and almost offensively bright colours. Fething warpspawn was all he needed. First the crash, then the separation, then the insanity, and now this fight. Domor fought for the Emperor and his subjects, for the both the glory and very survival of the stricken Imperium, but also for the memory of his long dead world. For the glory of the Emperor and the memory of Tanith, he kept on, even when his sight was taken from him in a past battle, he kept fighting. But this was too much. Retching violently, Domor felt his strength ebb away, and unable to keep his balance, fell into the miniature chair behind him.
"Daemon! There is no other explanation! Your actions betray you!" Domor shouted at the monster, as he began vomiting onto the shining chequered floor.
As if to prove his point, the abomination opened its mouth to an unnatural size, and unfurled a gargantuan tongue. It was less than half the Tanith Ghost's size, yet its mouth was now wide and deep enough to swallow him whole, with a tongue the size of a Nalwood Fennakonda. Yet he was lucky, as this was not meant for him. On the table in front of the sickened, horrified Ghost, was a stack of muffins, pastries and cakes three times the height and double the width of Domor himself. The warptouched xenos swallowed it whole, and finished by wiping its now-considerable muzzle with the engorged oral tentacle which was ostensibly its tongue. Domor, both agape at this feat and terrified of its implications, simply sat in stupefied wonder as the purple xenos witch called out an end to the contest and victory for themselves.
It was over.
Domor had failed the Emperor, and was shamed. He could never go back to the regiment like this. There was honour to be had in defeat, if the battle itself was honourable, but to lose in such a fashion to small, childlike xenos...? It was unthinkable. However, as the shamed Ghost prepared to leave the structure, a voice from outside roused him from his tirade of self-hatred. No, not just a voice, a war cry.
"TAAAAAAAAANITHHHHHHHHHH!"
There was a great cacophony as windows broke, as benches shattered under supreme weight, as the very floor cracked and the vile xenos stepped back, appalled and unsure of how to react. The massive figure had just broken a sizable portion of the xenos structure and was now fast approaching the group of fighters. With one deft swing of its impossibly large hand, it gathered up a mountain of pastries, brought them up to its comparatively small mouth, and proceeded to devour them in totality. The pastries rapidly disappearing beyond his mouth and into his cavernous insides, "Try again." Bragg slammed one fist onto the table, and gently laid the other on Domor's Shoulder.
"The massed ranks of the Imperial Guard stand shoulder to shoulder, no one stands alone." Said Bragg, obviously trying to emulate the Colonel-Commissar, and doing a damn good job; "Don't worry friend, by the ghosts of Tanith, this fight isn't over yet."
"I'd say it has barely begun." The voice drifted over them all, and emanated from a shadowy figure at the doorway. "If this is how the enemies of the Imperium do battle, then by the Emperor we shall beat them at their own game."
Colonel-Commissar Gaunt had entered the room, and thus, the game. But he had not come alone, as five hundred screaming Ghosts of his Tanith First and Only burst through every orifice of the structure - some taking Bragg's route and therefore the path of least resistance, but others smashing more windows, breaking doors down, tunneling up from below, and climbing down the chimney. They appeared out of nowhere. The purple unicorn couldn't work out how so many huge and lumbering creatures had successfully got so close without warning, but there were more surprises to come.
They began to devour Mr. & Mrs. Cake's entire stockpile of cakes, cupcakes, pastries, muffins and cookies, wolfing them down and not faltering for a moment. Even the lead medic Dorden was in the process of eating a particularly attractive cupcake as he checked over Domor for internal bleeding, the distended stomach of the Tanith minesweeper hanging grossly from his abdomen.
"They may be xenos, but I have to admit, they certainly recognise the values of beauty and grace. It is almost painful to eat this confection and thus ruin its lustre, but I fear my hunger cannot simply be sated by gazing at it." said Dorden, inexplicably adminstering the correct dose of medicine without looking at or concentrating on Domor.
The pink creature fought desperately to keep up with the men of the Imperial Guard, though despite her renewed and voracious efforts and those of her comrades, she could not match the sheer volume of reinforcements. If there was one thing the Guard did well, it was strength in numbers. Though mounds of pastries disappeared past its lips, and at one point, so did an unlucky corporal in the confusion (who would be vomited out in a few days, as the xenos’ vegetarian digestive system caught up with its prodigious confectionery intake and realised there was two hundred pounds of rare steak inside), the xenos faction simply could not keep up, and began to lose the initiative.
Colonel-Commissar Gaunt himself was not taking part in the mindless gluttony which occupied his men, instead choosing to stand outside and parlay with the enemy leader. An agreement had been made, a deal with the devil: if Gaunt’s forces should win this test of mettle, the xenos witch would agree to act as caterers for Gaunt’s regiment for the next one hundred years; while a xenos victory would see Gaunt himself act as the witch’s personal slave for a period of also one hundred years. When the terms of the agreement were made clear, Gaunt accepted without compromise – an occurrence which startled many of his men. Surely Gaunt was not so willing to bear the shame of defeat, but moreso the shame of being slaved to this disturbingly hyper-sexualised warptouched xenos witch.
Gaunt was not insane. Gaunt was not willing to bear the shame of anything. Gaunt was not a xenos-lover. But Gaunt was arrogant to a degree, and believed wholeheartedly in the strength of his Tanith, both in mind and body, and was absolutely certain that victory would be achieved. The enemy leader, a ‘princess’ yet vastly older than any princess he had ever met, and taller even than him, was possessed of a keen political mind. She fully understood the dangers of allying herself with the likes of this Imperium of Man, but was as confident in the abilities of her little ponies as the Colonel-Commissar was in his Tanith. Neither side would lose. Both sides would attain victory. Both commanders swore it.
Inside the structure, the battle was over.
Hundreds of xenos filth had poured into the building once word had got out that the rest of the Tanith had joined the fray, and every single entity in the destroyed interior (which at that point numbered around a thousand) was groaning in pain, their stomachs protesting at the vast amount of sickening food having been ingested. Dorden and his staff tried desperately to administer medicine to both sides, as only a true medic would in honourable battle with favoured enemies, but their movements were stymied by a general feeling of lethargic malaise.
The battle was over but had it been won? Both the Tanith trooper and purple xenos witch who had been designated as score-keepers had also joined the fight in the later stages, and were now draped across each other with pained looks on their faces, desperately fighting over the last cupcake.
The last cupcake.
Bragg called out for the final scores to be announced, and so they were.
“I count fifteen thousand!” said the young Tanith actuary. His skill with recording numbers was beyond reproach, as even blindfolded he possessed a preternatural ability to discern values.
“I count fifteen thousand!” shouted the purple alien. She had demonstrated her own skill with numeracy to Domor when, during the course of the negotiations, she accurately and precisely counted the exact number of hairs on her own head, confirmed by her Tanith counterpart.
They said it together. They realised its significance together. They relaxed together. Then they passed out together.
The rest of their assembled forces however, did not. At once a flurry of activity buried the record-keepers in an ocean of equine and human flesh, camo-netting and manes, futile jutting hooves and grasping hands at the end of spindly arms – Lyra was in heaven. All were desperately attempting to reach the tie-breaker muffin, none would disappoint their respective leaders, but only one would reach the snack in time, and that person was a Ghost in the truest sense of the word. It gradually became clear through the ocean of human and xeno flesh that the muffin had disappeared, and was entirely likely just a hallucination brought on by excessive consumption of sugar and what was most likely MSG, according to doctor Dorden. With this in mind, the entire battlefront collapsed from fatigue and swiftly fell asleep where they lay.
Outside, both Gaunt and Celestia had been observing the chaos with growing concern, as while both leaders knew their forces were capable of victory, the possibility of a tie was worth little joy to them. It had been previously agreed that the incredibly unlikely event of a tie would be a sign from their respective religious deities of cooperation, and both promises would be fulfilled. Cursing under his breath at the news of the final tallies was revealed, Gaunt turned from the scene and began to walk back to his command tent as an unhinged giggle erupted from behind him, and his apparent new mistress spoke.
“Going somewhere Colonel-Commissar?” Celestia’s voice was full of mirth as she unfurled her wings to their fullest extent. “Not forgetting our agreement I hope. You are, after all, a man of singular honour, are you not?”
Through gritted teeth, Gaunt was about to reply in the positive when a shadow fell across them both. Mkoll. The Tanith scout leader and embodiment of pure stealth emerged from nowhere, silent as the night and clutching in his grubby hand, a muffin, the muffin, the last muffin. As overall commanders they were forbidden from taking part in the conflict, but Mkoll was a member of the Tanith First and Only, and could therefore win him the day. As if reading Gaunt’s mind, Mkoll shook his head sadly.
“Sorry sir, I’m diabetic.”
Gaunt’s heart fell, while Celestia’s leapt. For the first time in, well, forever, she would have an equal as a partner! Politics, war, economics, physics, literature, culture! She would finally have an absolute equal to spend a portion of her considerable life with, and the best part was that he was her personal slave to boot! No getting out of it this time, not like Discord, who strung her so willingly along, only to leave her and attempt to destroy the world after a single conversation about commitment.
Oh yes, the future would be glorious.
