Seriously, Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Khorne
Nobody knew the world's name. For all intents and purposes, it was indistinguishable from hell. It was a morass of arenas, ruined streets, and ash-drowned wasteland, a charnel house where the champions of different gods tore each other apart endlessly.
Iratus loved the place. Were it possible to marry a location, he'd have done so long ago.
The Berzerker strode towards the makeshift, blood-stained altar that was the Blood God's main devotional point on the world. It was somewhere underneath a small mountain of skulls that filled his entire field of view. Two bulging sacks of trophies for the pile swung from the Chaos Space Marine's grasp, culled from a pack of Tzeentchian cultists that had come teleporting in at the worst possible time.
Iratus strode towards the skull-pile. His pace slowed. And then he stopped, turning his gaze up towards where the very top of the pile scraped the base of the ever-present stormclouds. He raised his arms, a bag dangling from each hand.
Slowly, deliberately, his grip loosened, and the bags fell at his boots.
"Blood for the Blood God, and skulls for Your throne," he purred, his voice as deep and resonant as the distant thunder. "That's how it normally works, isn't it? That's how it's been working for centuries, maybe millennia. I reap your due on this world, and deliver it unto you. Not once do you deign to lift a finger, almighty Khorne."
Iratus's arms blurred behind his back, and two whirring chainaxes appeared in his hands. He angled one towards the clouds while lightning screamed overhead. "I claim my centuries of effort! No more shall I bow and scrape and slave at your feet, enough to make any lapdog of the false Emperor proud! Blood for myself, and skulls for my -!"
What an unfortunate decision. For you, said a voice in Iratus's brain that was part volcano, part rasping metal, part battle-roar, and almost entirely concentrated pain.
The rest of the defiant speech he'd been carefully planning evaporated on the spot. Iratus's legs buckled, his axes fell to the ground, and his gauntleted hands scrabbled uselessly at the sides of his helmet. The quietest echo of the scream reverberating throughout his whole mind escaped his mouth as a feeble whisper.
Let no-one say Khorne was incapable of expressing displeasure.
I'm disappointed, Champion. To esteem oneself is a worthy thing. But to esteem oneself above a god in one's own mind is a pathetic failing. And to give voice and deed to those thoughts is … much worse.
Iratus was half-aware of a darkly-gleaming rip in the air gradually opening in front of him. Feverish warp light spilled out, and the laughter of demons ran at its edges like ripples in a pool of water. He was helpless and paralysed, and was powerless to struggle when a great hand seemed to seize hold of him around his back to life him up into the air. The portal opened further like a maw.
But if you're so displeased by the present arrangement, then let me deliver you to a new world with opportunities aplenty. You are welcome to try to prove your worth once more, Champion.
The force holding Iratus began to swing him back and forth like a pendulum, taking him closer to the portal with every swing. His token resistance consisted of hissing, "… gggk …" in a particularly discombobulated manner.
I jest. Goodbye. And at the height of one swing, the force vanished, and Iratus was slingshotted through the portal.
The pain lifted, and he managed a second or so of undignified yelling before bright light consumed him.
In a wide and well-appointed office at the top of Canterlot's tallest tower, Princess Celestia was throwing her intellect and patience into another cage match with Equestria's affairs of state.
A flash of light from her window caught her attention, and she lowered the multiple screens of paper hovering around her to examine it.
From a fluffy patch of white clouds hanging over the Everfree Forest, a tear in reality had sprung into existence. A figure so distant as to be a mere speck tumbled from it into the forest's depths, and the portal vanished in the instant after.
"Not this again," the Princess muttered, slamming a rolled-up trade invoice against her forehead.
The first thing to hit Iratus after he passed through the portal was a sensation of absolute soaring freedom. His vision was still blurry from the flash of light, but he could still feel the tug of air all around him. To fall through the sky, boundless and forever free, wasn't the worst thing that could have happened, all things considered …
The next thing to hit Iratus was a tree, which didn't react well to the better part of a ton of armoured Space Marine impacting it at terminal velocity.
For several long moments, he sprawled amidst the wreckage of the tree, emitting faint meeps as he waited for his world to cease being pain. His senses eventually began to co-operate once more, and he winced his way up to a sitting position in the Iratus-shaped crater he'd created.
He was in a forest, with sun-dappled trees on all sides of him, the greenery bright and vivid in its hues. Small creatures scampered through the undergrowth, mostly fleeing from Iratus. Birdsong filtered down from the highest branches. To one side, the forest seemed to run on and become deeper and darker. To the other, it thinned and ran out into pleasant open grassland.
From the grassland, there came the sound of a soft voice speaking, mixed with the odd plaintive grunt.
Iratus picked himself up fully, fumbling around his armour and the ground to check that he had made it through with his weapons at least. His krak grenades, good. His bolt-pistol, gathering dust around his belt. His axes lay on the ground, and he grasped them as gently as old lovers.
Looking towards the direction of the voice, a sharp smile crept onto his helmet-hidden features. He thumbed the triggers on his chainaxes, and the weapons rasped to life.
Fine. Declaring his pride before the Blood God may not have been an optimal tactic. He was enough of a grown-up – three and a half thousand years old, at a rough guess – to admit fault and adjust his approach.
But if the road back to his god's good graces involved remaking another world in the same image as the last, then that would not be a problem.
Holding out his axes at his side as he strode, absently shearing through the trees on either side of him as he went, Iratus stepped out into the light.
"Now open wide, Mr Bear. Let's see those molars."
"Hrrrrgrrrgaarrggh," Mr Bear said to Fluttershy in fluent Ursine. ("I assure you that won't be necessary. I attend them as best I'm able.")
"You said that last time," said Fluttershy reproachfully. "And what happened? You ended up with a dreadful toothache you didn't tell me about until the last minute. Colgate had to pull two out."
"Grrrgh. Hhaaarghnngrgh." ("A mere one-off incident. And I surely cannot be held entirely responsible. Honey is such a seductive yet ultimately all-consuming and deadly vice.")
"I know that. But you must let me help you take good care of yourself. You don't want to end up wrecking poor Colgate's office again when the painkillers end up not numbing enough, don't you?"
"Aaagrraghr." ("I did apologise. Or at least attempt to.") Mr Bear reluctantly opened his mouth regardless. Fluttershy leaned closer, flapping at about the height of Mr Bear's head with a makeshift torch and small mirror.
A sudden crashing from the forest interrupted her work, sending the torch and mirror tumbling from her hooves and to the ground. She wheeled around immediately, her eyes wide. "G-goodness! What's that?" Mr Bear glanced in the same direction.
The rasping sound of what sounded like construction equipment came from amidst the crashing, and Fluttershy ventured closer. She hadn't heard that any construction was going to be taking place in this part of the Everfree. There were animal habitats in that area. She had to fly there, warn the creatures and see them to safety, and then see who was working, see if they could be stopped before they did too much damage or accidentally hurt someone –
A figure then loomed out from between the trees, and the source of the crashing and construction noises revealed itself. A bear-sized biped covered entirely in what looked like red-painted metal armour loomed there, stinking of copper and sweat. Two large pieces of equipment hung from either hand, apparent crosses between chainsaws and logging axes. Their head swivelled from side to side, the expression on it inert. It stopped, and red-glowing eyes stared straight at Fluttershy.
Fluttershy hovered in place, torn between fleeing at the ominous sight of the creature, or venturing closer to make sure it wasn't lost. It didn't look like anything sentient she'd ever seen before, barring possibly a minotaur, but it must be intelligent enough to use tools. If she'd never seen anything like it before, then it might be confused and split off from the rest of its kin. It would need help, and possibly shelter and food while she had some of the birds help her search for others.
And in any case, she did have to warn it against blundering around when creatures would be trying to build nests.
"Oh, hello," she ventured, flying closer to it, ignoring a warning growl from Mr Bear. "I don't think I've seen anything like you before -"
"Then you've probably not heard this before," said the creature in tones of deep, melodious amusement. "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
Before she could react, so much as blink, the creature lunged forward in a shockingly fast motion with one of the strange axes. Fluttershy only got off the first second of a scream before the axe's head swung into her torso.
Then her scream turned into a startled, "Oof!" as it impacted with all the force of a light punch. She spun through the air and away from the creature, taken aback and startled.
The creature paused, looking from Fluttershy to the head of its own weapon, before Mr Bear stalked in from Fluttershy's right.
"Ghhrraarhhrrgrargh!" ("That was unseemly! Grant this mare an apology or grant me satisfaction, villain!") Mr Bear lumbered forwards on his hind legs, his claws ready.
"No, Mr Bear, there's no need!" said Fluttershy, sucking in breath to replace that which she'd lost. "He's probably lost and scared; you can't blame him for lashing out!"
"Odd." The creature spoke again, twirling his axes as he stepped closer to Fluttershy. "That ought to have bisected you. Is some warp sorcery warding you, beast?"
As he stepped, one growling axe swung out almost casually towards the base of Mr Bear's neck. It bounced off to no effect. The figure turned in apparent surprise, just as Mr Bear expressed his displeasure with an ear-drum splitting roar. ("INSOLENT WASTREL!")
"Wait - !" pleaded Fluttershy, to no avail. Mr Bear ploughed into the side of the creature like a furry avalanche, seizing tight around him with both paws and heaving him right up into the air with one mighty heave. The creature let loose a deafening roar of pure fury as well, lunging down and swatting away at Mr Bear's back with both its axes, hammering away as if at a drumset. The two spun and grappled, Mr Bear's roars mixing with the new figure's escalating yowls of aggravation.
"If we could all calm down?" said Fluttershy, without much optimism. The combat moved towards the trees, where Mr Bear proceeded to slam the creature into a tree trunk.
There might not be anything she could do. Some non-lethal fighting was how animals in the wild usually resolved their differences, and she didn't want to accidentally escalate that by stepping in. Besides, Mr Bear was very gentle. The strange creature probably wasn't in too much danger of being killed.
Fluttershy made a quick egress to fetch veterinary supplies from her cottage, while the sound of a helmet being repeatedly smashed into a tree trunk rang out repeatedly at her back.
"Hrrarrgagarrrgh!"
"Arrgh!"
After a while, the noises produced by the two started to harmonise. Iratus would have appreciated it, if he'd had anything resembling an appreciation for musical performance and he wasn't currently being concussed by a bear.
His axes were proving to be as effective as a pair of featherdusters. His bolt pistol and grenades were out of reach past the bear's grasp. His harshest invective had done little but apparently aggravate it even more.
Enough of this – he steadied himself as the bear pulled him away from yet another tree, and flung his outstretched arms back, kicking as hard as he could against the bear with both of his legs. The beast's unnatural strength faltered, and Iratus finally wriggled free with one shuddering motion, crashing to the ground below the bear in an undignified heap.
It took but a few seconds for the bear to descend upon him again, but those seconds were all Iratus needed. He dropped one axe, sprang to his feet, and snatched his bolt pistol from his belt, bringing it up in one fluid motion to aim right at the centre of the bear's mass.
"DIE!" he blazed, snapping on the trigger once, twice, three times in the space of a heartbeat.
The bolt rounds flew out. The bolt rounds impacted on the chest of the bear. The bolt rounds bounced off, one after the other, with little 'plink!' noises.
The bear's paw seized hold of the bolt pistol in Iratus's grasp and swung it up and into his helmet's front hard enough to send sudden constellations wheeling through Iratus's vision. He staggered back, trembled where he stood, and then fell poleaxed to the ground.
"Hrrangh!" snapped the bear. It turned on its heel and stamped away from Iratus's prone form, back into the forest.
Iratus tried to gather what little wits were left to him.
He'd just been beaten.
He'd just been beaten in a fight.
He'd just been beaten in a fight by wildlife.
This was … this wasn't … this had to be … this surely wasn't … but what if it was …
This was ridiculous. He'd been hammering away at the bear with the axes for a solid minute, axes which had punched through the hides of Greater Demons and the armour of Loyalist Astartes, and all he'd gotten for it were a few hairs out of place on its hide. That big-eyed, pastel-yellow, equine beast as well. He'd gotten it with as sound a blow as he'd ever struck, and he might as well have gently shoved it.
What were these creatures? What was the purpose of this world? Was there a trick, some strange sorcery to overcome? Was he meant to find a weapon here that would pierce their hides? Was it himself who had been weakened by the journey or some strange aspect of the world?
What was the Lord of Skulls playing at? He wouldn't put his greatest champion into a completely irreversible situation. That wouldn't be the vast, unfathomable, absolutely alien warp entity's style.
Strange memories were beginning to intrude on the back of Iratus's mind, memories from before he'd become a Champion in the World Eaters, before he'd been anointed into the Berzerker brotherhood, before he'd even been taken from him moment and inducted as a child offering into the legion.
He remembered being a child on some forsaken Imperial world of metal towers and smokestacks, being a child in a classroom with a host of others. Every week, as a reward for the children who best attended their lessons and recited the Imperial Creed every day, they would play a cartoon on a flickering media screen. It had always been the same series, about a troop of valiant but whimsical Guardsmen and their gruff-but-lovable commissar, and the endless slapstick and occasional grisly death they inflicted on the heretics and xenos they encountered on the campaign trail. Entertaining stuff. He remembered cheering at one particularly well-animated explosion of a heretic into their component giblets.
Why was he remembering it now? This world was dragging these long-dormant images back into the light. Its mix of bright hues and gentle pastel shades, the large-eyed creature he'd encountered, the seeming inability for violence to stick to the more photogenic inhabitants. All were prompting these thoughts.
A bizarre suspicion came to Iratus then, which he then dismissed as being beyond ludicrous. He had work to do, and no time to waste on outlandish fancies.
Iratus picked himself, checked himself for blessedly non-existent wounds – there were a few scratches and what could be a rent in his armour – and scooped up his fallen axe. One meagre defeat upon arrival in a strange world would not be permitted to put him off.
He set off, avoiding the route that led back to the grassland and in the opposite direction to that the bear had travelled, a wandering route that led through the forest's outskirts. A few minute's walking led him closer to some more intriguing sights and sounds. From a great distance, there came the sounds of rolling wheels and people talking. Past the trees and over the rolling hills, he could see the tops of buildings.
Iratus's grip tightened on the handles of his axes. Another chance. Another set of streets to send blood cascading through in bright rivers.
A gap in the trees showed him a beaten dirt trail running between the hills. He emerged onto it, finding that a fence ran at the path's other side. An orchard of swaying fruit-laden trees spread across the land beyond that.
He settled into a steady pace along the trail, content to let the sun beat off his armour, savouring the lull before the inevitable bloodshed and screaming and explosions and flying limbs that would follow shortly.
To take the edge off his appetite for it, his right-hand axe would occasionally thrum to life and descend through the fence, rewarding him with the sound of splintering wood.
Iratus didn't even become aware of the beast on the other side before their shout rang out, drowning out even the buzzing of the chainaxe.
"What in good tarnation do you think you're doing?!"
He looked up, and took a combat-ready stance upon seeing that it was another of the strangely resilient equine creatures. This one was a dull orange-colour, with some manner of headgear perched atop a thatch-yellow mane.
Most saliently, it looked angry, and was bearing down on him.
"You listening to me? You better have an explanation for why you just vandalised a stretch of my property – and throw in an explanation of what you even are after that, why don't you?"
Iratus dropped a brief and stiff bow, sneering at this creature which barely came up to his waist. "Let me furnish you with the latter, beast. I am Iratus the Red Herald, Champion of the World Eaters Legion and Chosen of Khorne. I have sundered nations, sent proud champions down screaming in seas of their own gore, laid waste to planets, brought death and destruction to my foes and all who stand with them. I have done all that a thousand times over three and a half thousand years. And your world lies in my path. Offer me valiant battle and your end shall be swift. Flee, and scream."
The orange beast's eyes narrowed. "Fancy words. But I don't give a good gosh-darn what some minotaur playing dress-up in his granddaddy's armour's been doing for the last thousands of years. All I care about is what he's gonna be doing for the next few hours with a hammer and nails. Fixing that there fence."
Two chainaxes thundered to life. "What a delightful delusion. Where shall I hang your pelt, I wonder?"
"Oh, your mouth just wrote a check your haunch can't cash." The beast pawed the ground with a hood, fixing Iratus with the most baleful glare he'd even seen coming from a pastel-coloured equine. "Back it up. I dare you."
"Gladly. SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" Iratus stepped forward, swinging the axes back and forwards in a whirling overhead arc that would bring them crashing down upon the equine. The equine itself spin nimbly on its forehooves, drawing its back legs in for some sort of kick. As if that would so much as wobble him –
Pain.
Flying.
Pretty clouds.
Ground.
Skidskidskidskid.
Building.
Twilight Sparkle felt the whole of the library shudder under a sudden impact.
"Not again, Rainbow Dash," she said wearily, getting up from her desk and trotting towards the staircase leading downstairs. "Spike!"
"Yes?" came her assistant's reply. He sounded somewhat strained.
"Get the first aid kit out from the downstairs cupboard. Rainbow might have misjudged a landing again."
"Don't think it was Rainbow Dash," came the definitely-strained reply. "Maybe you should come here, Twilight."
Twilight frowned and came downstairs at a swift canter. Down there, she found …
"What in the world? Spike, are you alright?"
Spike was standing stock-still next to the library's wall. On either side of him, two brass-edged strips of red metal had punched straight through the wall, scarcely a millimetre to spare between each one and the little dragon's hide.
"Yeah, sure, I'm perfectly fine," said Spike, staring down at one of the pieces of metal as if mesmerised. The edges looked as if they had been sharped to a razor's fineness. He slowly and surely shuffled sideways out from between them. "Just going to have a nice lie down and gibber to myself for a while. If that's cool?"
"I …" started Twilight before Spike slumped to the ground in a dead faint.
She took a moment to levitate him to the most comfortable reading chair in the downstairs library before teleporting outside. What could it have been? Some farm equipment that had run out of control? Some bizarre new contraption by the Cutie Mark Crusaders? Something like a hitching post being hammered in without her permission?
… it could even be an eight-foot, red-armoured, biped who seemed to have the top part of their head stuck in the wood of the tree. Their body flopped down towards the ground at an awkward angle. Something like a stubby metal crossbow without limbs lay on the grass beside them. Bulbous cylinders hung at their waist.
"Are you alright?" asked Twlight, hovering a few feet in the air with her wings and flying closer. The dull eyepieces set into the creature's armour flickered briefly, and one turned a bright red.
"Equine, I find myself in something of a predicament," said the creature, its words slightly slurred. "If you could move forward to assist, I would be most grateful."
"Hold on," said Twilight, flying to just above the creature's torso. She'd save her multitude of questions for later, once she'd extricated it. She'd have to consult her books for what on earth this creature could even be. She might even have to write to Princess Celestia. For now, she fixed her attention the point where what were presumably the helmet's crests were embedded in the wood of the library. "A little bit of telekinesis should slide you free, if I'm any judge."
She gathered magic about her horn, but was interrupted a second later. One great armoured arm shot up and seized one of her hooves. Both eyepieces burned a furious red, and the creature's other hand seized at one of the cylinders at its belt.
"I swear to all Four that I will not end this existence unblooded," growled the creature, ignoring Twilight's bemused protests as it waved the cylinder in her face. One of its fingers swiped what looked like a pin from the top of the object. "If I have to go to the Warp to drag the soul of so much as one of you beasts there as well, then SO BE IT!"
Twilight blinked, entirely caught off guard, in the instant as the object exploded. Bright light slammed upon her eyelids, dizzying and intense, along with a faint wash of heat.
When she opened her eyes again, it took a few moments to blink away the aftereffects. The creature was still stuck in the side of the tree, covered in a faint patina of soot. The eyepieces stared straight up at Twilight, burning bright and steady.
"What was that for? You could have blinded somepony!" Twilight flapped her wings furiously, aware of the chatter as other ponies began to look to see what was going on.
The creature didn't respond, instead slowly raising both its hands before its face. It regarded them, and then glanced to the space on its waist where the cylinder had hung.
"Twilight!" The breathless voice of Applejack came from her right, and the farmpony came galloping up to her side. "I got into a little tussle up the road, and I mighta kicked him a little too … um … he's not too badly hurt, is he?"
"Girls?" The equally breathless voice of Fluttershy came from Twilight's left. "Oh, thank goodness you've found him! He got into a fight with Mr Bear earlier, and I was worrying he might have gotten himself hurt, and – and why is he embedded in the library?"
Twilight breathed, slowly, deliberately. She looked straight down at the strange creature. "You've not been making many great first impressions here, have you?" she murmured, a note of sympathy entering her voice.
The creature seemed to just flatly regard the three ponies craning to see him, glanced at the gathering crowd making various concerned noises, and then looked straight up at the robin-egg blue sky.
It was the first time in the history of the galaxy anyone had ever seen a Berzerker burst into tears.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I was wondering if you could assist me with a bit of a problem that's arisen in Ponyville. A new creature's wandered into town, unlike anything we've seen before. He's a sentient biped, about twice the height of a pony at the withers, covered in what looks to be metal plating. He's also deeply confused and lost, and none of the books in my library tell me what he is or where I can find others like him.
Any knowledge you may have on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
Your faithful co-Princess, Twilight Sparkle.
Dearest Twilight,
I know of the creature you speak of, and I know where others like him can be found. He should be no threat to anypony in Ponyville under the Equestrian aegis; for all that he may appear hostile.
Please keep him contained and reasonably looked-after as best you can. I shall resolve this whole matter shortly.
Princess Celestia.
Kharneth,
Remember that gentleman's agreement we came to a while back? That same agreement you just broke when you threw one of your kin into my world to disrupt the peace there? Give me a reason why I shouldn't humiliate you in your own domain again.
Celestia.
Dear Celestia,
I apologise heartily for the inconvenience of inflicting my servant upon you. No especial disruption of Equestria's peace was intended; merely the punishment of an unworthy servant. I especially apologise for the fact that the warp storms surrounding your planet would make any attempt to expel him a massive undertaking, to put it mildly.
Consider that he wouldn't find any welcome on my side of these warp storms in any case. You must agree that it would be incumbent upon yourself to keep such a lost and wayward soul in your peaceful and harmonious world, where he might come to know the magic of friendship.
Kharneth.
Kharneth,
Were you at hand, and had but one collective nose amongst every skull that composes you, I would break it.
Celestia.
Dear Celestia,
Flirt.
Kharneth.
In a boutique mantled by starlight, a unicorn worked at a sewing machine.
"Now, I will not have it said that any lost soul who stumbled in out of the cold found a equally frosty welcome in Ponyville," said Rarity. "You'll bide with me in whatever hospitality it is within my power to grant. Would you like me to fashion some item of apparel for you, just to go with that … rather ornate armour of yours? A scarf? A light overdress?"
The creature in the corner of her workshop didn't respond, instead rocking back and forth on a comfortable chair. A cup of tea was growing cold in its grasp.
"Fluttershy was very concerned about you. Pinkie Pie will be thrilled to make your acquaintance. And I'm sure Applejack will entirely forgive you once you assist her in repairing the damage. You're among friends here. Never forget that."
The creature looked down at the cup of tea, its helmet betraying no expression or shift in emotion.
Eventually, it spoke.
"Can – can it be a red overdress?"
"Of course it may, darling."
Author's Note
I regret nothing.
The premise for this story, with kind permission, was borrowed wholesale from 'Berserker Hell' by Iron Ironwolf on FanFiction.net. Check his stuff out. It's pretty damn cool.
