Warhammer 40000: Imperial Guardspony

Chapter Five

The two ponies, with their quite traumatizing ordeal still fresh in their memories, entered the barracks of the pony unit they'd been assigned to. There were now fifty-seven ponies stationed here, and with Torchlight and Flash adding to this number, fifty-nine ponies were accounted for. Three squads. Not much, but these were seasoned unicorns, some of them had gone through dozens of battles, or so they heard. They were greeted by a tired-looking unicorn.

"Hey, you're the survivors, those two ponies that escaped that ship alive after the Nurglites came." He said.

"Yeah, that's us." Flash said. Torchlight had only spoken when talked to since the incident, and it was obvious that she was not excited to be here anymore.

"You two are really lucky to have survived that. You know how often that happens to ships like that? Particularly the ones carrying unicorns? Really often nowadays. Almost every fifth ship gets hit, and usually there are no survivors. It's not always Nurglites, either. It's as though they're all working in unison to take out the ponies before they get here. I'm sorry about your friends in your unit, it's always hard when they die, but in this line of work, it happens a tad bit often."

"Thank you. I'm Blinding Flash, by the way. This is Torchlight. She's... lost her enthusiasm."

"I'm Tin Kettle, Tin for short. It's not unusual for ponies to get demoralized like this, it happened to me once, but then I figured it out- find something to fight for, avenge your fallen brethren on the battlefield, that's all you need to fight for. Torchlight, you know why you're here. You knew that ponies would die. You knew that you had to be ready, and now it's time. Abaddon's forces are mobilizing, and we're going to hit them with all we have, and we will win. You get me?"

Torchlight nodded slowly, "I do."

"Good! Settle in, but don't get too comfy, we're going on cult patrol in two hours." Tin walked away then, to talk to his other colleagues. Tin was a well-adjusted pony, one to be learned from. He wasn't going to wallow in despair if his friends fell, he'd just fight harder. To the bitter end, they both thought, and at precisely the same moment, they both thought of what they'd do if the other were to die. Tin was right. Avenge your fallen, make their foes pay, make their friends' sacrifices worth it.

*****

The two chimeras were loaded full with ponies and men. Three squads were to report to the undercity neighborhoods and investigate activity of the Imperial citizens there. Cadia was heavily military-oriented, and screened its troops and citizens often. After all, being so close to such a large gap in reality, the Cadian Gate, there would be some seepage of the Ruinous Powers' influence, more than usual, here.

Their squad, of ten instead of twenty as it was on the ship, disembarked the machine and began their sweep, as instructed by the commissar, they'd split off into two groups, five ponies in one, one with a vox caster, and the other with four ponies and the commissar, who was lucky enough to be issued a smaller, more valuable vox set from a forgotten era. The Imperial citizens were giving them a wide berth, almost as though they were feared, or at least respected. During their training, Flash and Torch had been told that their magical abilities were considerably powerful, and were the entire reason they were allowed to be in the Imperial Guard in the first place; each unicorn was an independant weapon system, capable of using a wide variety of devastatingly powerful spells, like Torchlight's 'super-ember' as she called it, which was proven to be powerful enough even to go through Astartes power armor, and Flash's light beam, which was proven to be capable of cutting through Great Unclean One hide.

Cult patrol was boring, and nothing notable occurred while they were out. The commissar said that they were lucky this time; the number of cults springing up grew alarmingly after Abaddon's forces mobilized. When they'd come through the Cadian Gate was not certain, but the Imperial battlefleets Gothic and Cadia had been mobilized in response, assembling near the Eye of Terror. Flash and Torch wondered what roles they'd play in the war about to be waged, as support troops, using their magic to produce powerful long-range blasts of ice, lightning, fire, plasma, or anything else? Or as front-line troops, using their magic to take down scores of foes simultaneously with focussed beams of light, fireballs, or just plain magical blasts? They'd have to wait to find out, but at least they'd have a chance to talk with their fellow unicorns, learn something from them.

*****

The ponies were in small circles, a few of them playing games with human playing cards, some of them chatting, some resting, some doing nothing. Torch and Flash were among the last group, not knowing what to do to pass their time on Cadia. Flash could already tell that this was not what Torch had in mind when she suggested this. They walked over to one of the talking groups.

"Hello." Torch said, cheerful for the first time since their encounter with the Nurglites.

"Hey, aren't you two those survivors from that ship that got hit?" One of the ponies asked. They'd been getting that a lot recently.

"Yes, we are. What's going on?"

"We were just swapping stories. Where are you two from?" Another pony answered.

"We're both from Ponyville. I'm Torchlight, this is Blinding Flash, we signed up together. But it seemed like a better idea at the time."

"Yeah, it always seems like a better idea when you're safe on Equestria. But we've got a whole mess of Chaos stuff to deal with coming out of the woodwork any day now, it's only a matter of time before we do what we signed up to do: kick demon flank. I've been with this bunch nearly a year, but some of us are from a while back, but most of us don't live too long, given the rediculously dangerous assignments they'll give us every so often, be it raiding a cultist concentration, or investigating a Space Hulk, something always goes wrong. It's almost like they don't care what happens to us, you know?" The first pony said.

"Well, it's clear the inquisitors, whoever they are, don't like us." Flash said. The ponies' eyes widened.

"Don't talk about them. Last time somepony did that, they hauled him off, never saw 'im again." The other said.

"Huh..." Flash knew that the Imperium only let unicorns serve it because Celestia insisted that they allow volunteers to help them, and since they seemed to hate aliens so much... they hated them too. They were disposable to them, but useful enough to keep around. Had the Imperium just killed them all if Celestia hadn't intervened with her mysterious threat? The answer was now evident: yes. Like Briggs had said, they were logically enemies.

"Well, it was nice meeting you." Flash began walking away, bringing Torch with him.

"Torch! The Imperium doesn't place any value on our lives at all. We have to find a way back to Equestria if we're going to live through this, and soon." Flash whispered. Torch thought about it for a second, then nodded slowly.

Suddenly, an alarm sounded. A commissar almost immediately entered the room.

"Cadia's under attack, get going, we're being shipped to the front lines within the hour!"

Torch looked at Flash, and both of them nodded, then went to get ready.