Warhammer 40000: Imperial Guardspony

Chapter Three

Names were gradually called out, and their corresponding pony each, eventually, got their testing results. Flash examined his sheet. At the top, in what he'd assumed to be some sort of ancient language, it read 'index-unicornis proficiendi'. Unicorn proficiency index? They sorted them out? Flash was rated six point five, Torch rated eight, and the scale was out of ten.

"Whoo! I did good on it! Uh, what does this mean?" Torch's thoughts spilled from her mouth.

"There has to be a purpose to it. Maybe they'll tell us." Flash was worried. What would happen to unicorns that didn't do well? Did he do well enough?

A booming voice broke the chatter of the ponies, each of which were discussing their results.

"All those with scores of five or lower, report to left chamber. All others, report to right chamber. Now!" The voice was highly authoritive, and all ponies complied.

*****

The two ponies were never told about what had happened to the low-scoring ponies. Whenever they asked, they were ignored. It did not sit well with them as the high-scoring ponies- about a hundred of them in all- were instructed on the various horrors they were to fight 'in the name of the Emperor' against. They described the most awful of beasts, and went into specifics about how to kill them, how tough they were, and how to deal with a swarm of them. Torchlight was bored by the theory lessons, while Flash doubted their usefulness in a real fight. They were not, to their knowledge, to be issued any equipment other than a 'vox caster' in each of their 'squads', and that they'd have two 'commissars' with them to 'encourage them'. It was all fishy to Flash, but he took it in, and adhered to it. Several older unicorns gave magical demonstrations and lessons in combat and defensive magic, and most of them learned quickly. It had been several days, and nothing had been seen of the other ponies, or of Briggs, for that matter. But by now they knew that this ship was huge, its crew numbering in thousands, and that about three hundred ponies were on board when this evaluation took place, which meant that two hundred of them were unaccounted for. Had they been sent back to Equestria? Somewhere else? Flash wondered this as he sat through the theory and magical accuracy training, along with their attempted pressing of the 'Imperial Cult' on them. He couldn't think about anything else. He couldn't think.

*****

The ship was huge. Torchlight wondered why the Imperium needed any help at all, with such a powerful ship. And if she estimated correctly, there were hundreds, no, thousands of ships, just like this one, prowling the cosmos. She noticed that, unlike the crew and guardsmen aboard, they had not been given any tasks to perform while they were there, most of the time was spent learning. It was boring. They'd already told them that demons are evil, demons are dangerous, shoot the demons with the magic, bye-bye, all of that. It was all so boring now. She wanted to do something good, make a difference, to help. After all, anything beat just waiting on this dinky ship for a week or two until they got where they were going. They'd been told that they were travelling through the Warp, where demons lived, but that these demons couldn't get us, and that we couldn't fight them from here. It was so confusing, and still boring. Unable to find any higher-ranking human willing to give her an assignment, she had no choice but to wait.

Three days later

A great thundering could be heard, startling the idling ponies. A klaxxon blared, guardsmen moved, assembling to their posts. The ponies were called to assemble as well. Neither Torch or Flash knew anything of what was going on, though someone had been yelling about a 'gellar field'. What the hay was a gellar field? Standing in ranks, with commissars at the front, they were briefed on the situation by the senior officer in charge of their training, a cold, calculating individual that valued results over anything else.

"Something has been detected attempting to force its way through a small part of our Gellar field. Normally, we would drop out of the Warp, but our Warp drive has been locked, sabotaged, meaning we have a traitor aboard, a heretic. We have no way of getting out of the Warp. Due to the focused nature of the force attacking our Gellar field, it is likely that we are being directly attacked by a major Ruinous Power. So, we must prepare ourselves for a demonic incursion- in force- onto this vessel. Active patrols, now!"

Torch and Flash were, thankfully, in the same group, consisting of twenty unicorns and two humans. The signaller pony donned his bulky vox set, and they were off. What they had been training for, waiting for, was about to happen, and Torch was anything but scared, she was excited, somehow. Flash was less than enthusiastic. Demons were not a laughing matter. They served their patron god of Chaos, and did so with ruthless efficiency, and in great numbers. The commissars were completely fearless, they only saw a challenge to overcome, and attempted with all of their will to bestow this belief on the others, through enthusiasm and threats alike. It was mostly effective, and most of them were ready to get down to buisness, to kill some demons. Minutes passed as the wary group proceeded through the ship.

An intercom blared. "Demonic presence detected on decks 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. Divert security forces, enforce countermeasures. Biohazard procedures advised."

Flash looked around, and just as the nearest commissar started to say something, he noticed on the wall, in numerals: XIV. They were on deck fourteen.

"They're here! Give them the Emperor's wrath!" The commissar said.

"Where, sir?" Flash asked him, looking around. Then he noticed it. It was a terrible nauseating smell. On of decay... of pestilence. A swarm of flies was headed down the corridor, the commissar pointed to it.

"Plague flies!" He shouted. Torchlight came to the front.

"I've got this!" She said with pride, and, with effort, summoned a great fireball that left nothing in its wake intact down the corridor, incinerating all of the flies. A series of noises alerted them to the presence of numerous bloated humanoids on the other end of the corridor, each holding a nasty-looking projectile weapon of some sort. Flash charged his horn, the commissar in front raised his weapon, but it was too late. The beasts opened fire, a ball-shaped green object hit the commissar and one pony, felling both. Flash let out a fierce cutting beam, as did two other ponies, slicing the beastmen apart before they could fire again. Their attention turned to the fallen, but the other commissar, the one standing at the back of the group, shouted for them to move on. They did, leaving the unnaturally fast-decomposing bodies behind, moving to look for the source of these Nurglites. Nurglites, the force of Chaos they hoped never to face. Of the four Chaos gods, the ponies were most susceptable to the ailments caused by the plague lord. While Tzeentch and Slaanesh could not rend their minds and the demons of Khorne could be fought in a direct fashion, Nurglites struck with sickness, not sorcery or force, sickness, which was unhindered by the fact that the Warp had none of the usual symptoms on unicorns.

Ahead, in the corridor, they saw the black-clothed man that had tested them, holding a weird-looking weapon that spewed flame at the Nurglings in front of him. He noticed our approach, and spun, weapon at the ready.

"Ah, xenos. Perfect. Have you come to assist me?"

"We have, inquisitor." The commissar spoke.

"Good. We must find the source of these demons and take the only course of action we can- destroy it." The inquisitor now led them down the corridor, with the group stopping multiple times to dispatch clouds of plague flies, trade shots with plaguebearers, and avoid pools of pus and slime that marked the demons' path. Their mission was going well enough so far, but several ponies had fallen to the plaguebearers, and an attempt to outrun a swarm of plague flies 'forced' the inquisitor to close a door on a pair of ponies that had fallen behind, leaving them to the plague-ridden insects. Their group now numbered thirteen. Way too many have died. Flash thought. Torchlight had completely lost her air of enthusiasm, and the ponies were now concerned with getting out of this mess alive and healthy.

The group was going through an automatic door when it suddenly closed, and in the two-wide arrangement that left only the inquisitor, the commissar, Torch, and Flash on one side of the door, the rest on the other. From the other side of the door, noises were heard. The noises of hooves banging on the metal door, which the commissar could not open for some reason, then thundering footsteps. Yells saying that their spells were ineffective. Then the screams. Screams echoed through the ventilation shafts above, and the four listened in horror as they heard the rest of their unit slaughtered, so close to them, with nothing they could do about it. After a moment or so, the pounding on the door stopped, and, with an unnatural fury, something began to bash on the door. It was immediately evident that it would not hold for long.

"Get moving!" The inquisitor was hardly fazed by the event, Torch and Flash immediately and blindly obeyed him, and they were running down the hall. It was a dash through the now plague-ridden halls of the ship, until they crossed a corridor and heard lasgun fire coming in their direction. They skidded to a stop.

"Hold fire, guardsman! State your name, rank, and situation." The commissar ordered, and they stepped around the corner. Three Imperial guardsmen were standing there, two of them holding large, obviously-heavy weapons with a tube feeding something from a backpack into them, with tips glowing with flame, and the other holding a standard-issue lasgun. They stood at attention, and through his helmet, they heard the one with a lasgun acknowledge the commissar.

"Corporal Briggs, sir! This is all that's left of our unit." He gazed at the two ponies.

"Well, our horse-witch friends are safe and sound, are they?"

"These two, yes. Explain the situation, corporal." The commissar said.

"Thank the Emperor for these flamers, we would have been rotting corpses by now if it weren't for them." Briggs remarked, and the two wielding flamers stepped forward, and one of them nodded at the ponies.

"We've found out where they're coming from, but we were ambushed and had to fall back here." Briggs reported, "It's just this way, I think we can take them, the seven of us."

"That's the spirit, corporal! Forward!" The commissar shouted, and they bounded down the corridor, making best speed.