Iron Hearts: Book 5 - Suffer Not the Alien to Live

by SFaccountant

Chapters

Homecoming
Green Tide Rising
Divisions and Diversions
Bulwark
Breaking Point
Counter Strike
Nethalican
Eye of the Storm
Rally Point
Last Stand
The Way to Hell
Dead Space
Epilogue
Foundations
Balance of Power

Homecoming

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 2

Homecoming

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 20, Nightwatch

Midnight Blaze looked over the roster on the cogitator screen, frowning as she read off the names in her head.

"THIS is the Princess's security detail?" she asked, wrinkling her snout. "I feel like you could do better."

Dusk Blade raised an eyebrow while he looked over the weapons stacked up in the officer armory, weighing each option in his head.

"Well, of course I could. I didn't choose anypony on that list based on skill, I asked around and found out who wanted a last-second trip to Canterlot," he said, his eyes lingering on a double-barreled splinter rifle chased with silver.

"Are you serious?" Midnight growled, slamming a hoof against the input console and causing the screen to flicker. "This is the Princess's life you're guarding, here! How can you be so callous?!"

"Midnight, let's be real, here," Dusk said as he glanced at his fellow Lieutenant, "I understand that we have a duty, that we are expected to keep up appearances, and that there are perfectly good tactical reasons to have a squad of grunts hanging around extremely powerful ponies. But there's very little that Princess Luna couldn't handle but Princess Luna plus six batponies could. Never mind that Princess Twilight Sparkle is apparently coming along too. So you'll have to excuse me for not treating the selection like a matter of life and death."

The other batpony was still glaring, so Dusk continued. "Besides, nopony on that list is a screw-up; they're all solid guards. But our best thestrals are needed to hunt greenies tonight, not run escorts of formality."

Then he turned back to the armory. "What do you think is more dashing? The power sword or power lance?"

"You have hoofblades already," Midnight grumbled, allowing herself to be drawn onto a new topic, "take a ballistic harness."

"Nah. The melee weapons look more heroic, I think," Dusk bit onto a power sword's hilt, dragging it from the rack as his teeth sunk into it. The grip had been covered with a silicon padding, which made handling a weapon with one's mouth far easier and more effective.

Midnight Blaze fumed for a few seconds, then looked back over the roster in a contemplative silence.

"Hey, Dusk. Do you actually LIKE doing this?" she asked finally.

"What? Dressing up for bodyguard duty, or having to talk you into letting me do my job?" the batpony stallion replied before he sheathed the power blade over his back.

"I mean THIS," Midnight gestured to the tower around them with her hoof, "serving the apes like a bunch of attack hounds. Having to live in this industrial filth alongside insane cultists and the aliens that pretty much doomed us in the first place. You really just seem to take it all in stride, you know?"

Dusk brought a hoof to his chin. "I suppose I DO come off as less edgy and resentful than our peers," he said with mock seriousness, "but as for whether I like serving here, I suppose it depends on which part of it you mean. I'm VERY fond of having Chaos Space Marines on our side rather than killing us. That's just super. I also enjoy the prospect of MAYBE not being rendered extinct by green space savages. And to be honest, I'm kind of digging how we're not the creepiest and most dubious leg of our military establishment anymore." He paused to tilt his head to the side. "Other parts I don't like so much. Like the amazing weapons and armor, having artillery support in battle, or getting to hang out with the Elements of freaking Harmony in-between sorties." Then he paused again. "No, wait, my mistake. Those are pretty great too. What's YOUR problem?"

Midnight Blaze groaned before she slapped a hoof over her muzzle. "Princess Luna is just a tool to these apes, Dusk. All of us are."

"Including 'these apes' too, Midnight," the stallion retorted, "if you haven't noticed, human mercs all run missions just as dangerous as ours, and get the same lousy pay and disgusting food. That's EQUALITY, right there."

"I'd rather not be the equal of the sorry primates down below, if it's all the same to you," the mare jabbed a hoof briefly downward. Then she pursed her lips anxiously. "I'm being serious, Dusk. These people scare me. Celebrating killing as a religious rite? Worshiping DISEASE? Even their engineers insist that their machines are possessed or something! They're lunatics!"

"Okay, yeah, the cults are creepy. Fine," Dusk shrugged, "so what? You can't deny they get results, and nobody's asking YOU to join one. And logically, since they can provide observable evidence of their religious principles and gods' existence, it really falls to us to justify-"

"Oh, please, spare me your stupid lectures!" Midnight paused, giving a frustrated growl. Then she took a deep breath. "It wasn't supposed to be this way, Dusk. Us thestrals were finally being accepted into proper Equestrian society. Princess Luna was back, and the Night Court revitalized. It was supposed to be a new era for our people." She grit her teeth as she scowled. "Instead we get shipped out to this smoggy pit. Batpony recruitment has been THREE times that of other ponies."

"Well, to be fair, if Princess Celestia were the one playing superweapon instead of Princess Luna, I don't think there'd be any batponies here at all," Dusk reasoned.

"Exactly! They keep the Princess on their leash so that the rest of us have little choice but to follow! The Night Court was already weak when Princess Luna was its acting head, and now it's a complete shambles!" she groused. "And what's our term of service here? Until they're done with us! Every batpony that's been too badly injured to keep fighting gets thrown out like trash!"

Dusk Blade sighed as he walked by his colleague. "Is this about them shooting at us when we arrived? You need to get over that."

"It is about SO much more than that!" Midnight snapped, following him out. "But that certainly didn't help!"

The stallion halted in the hall, looking over his shoulder at the other Lieutenant. "Midnight, you can moan about what 'should have been' all night if you want, but it's pointless. THIS is our life now. And if we're lucky, it's our future too, because the alternative is for all of us to be stomped into the dirt by aliens." He tossed his head to the side, causing his dark blue mane to flip over his head. "So I, for one, plan to make the most of it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an escort to run. See you tomorrow night."

He didn't give her time for a response, trotting out toward the spire center.

Midnight Blaze fumed silently and turned away, heading back to her dwelling.

Although Nightwatch was built specifically for flying creatures that could access their quarters from the exterior, there were of course times that non-flyers had to access the tower. For that reason a large lift ran up through the core of the spire, all the way up to the level immediately beneath Princess Luna's room.

The pony Dusk Blade was meeting, strictly speaking, COULD fly, but she still preferred walking most of the time. He ran a hoof over his mane while
the elevator approached the top floor, and his lips stretched into a grin that revealed his extended canines.

The doors beeped, and then slid open.

"Oh! Hello," said Twilight Sparkle, slightly surprised to see somepony waiting for her. She had her power armor on, and the lavender alicorn quickly released the seals on her helmet to take it off.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, it's an honor and a pleasure to see you again," Dusk Blade said with a dramatic bow.

Twilight paused after levitating her helmet off. She spent a moment studying the batpony's face, and then her expression darkened when she remembered him.

"Ah, right. Hello," she offered unenthusiastically, "I haven't seen you around recently. Did you ever look into those slave prices?"

"I did, actually! They don't have a minotaur, though. Not yet, anyway," Dusk admitted, "I don't believe I've ever introduced myself properly. I'm Lieutenant Dusk Blade, and I'll be heading your and Princess Luna's security detail."

Twilight frowned at the stallion. "Not 'yet'?" she asked, brushing off his introduction.

"Well, I have to assume that as the 38th Company gets settled in and starts treating the planet as their own, they'll eventually extend their dominion over the non-pony kingdoms and integrate their populations into a single, unified military-industrial hegemony," Dusk explained as he started moving further down the hall, guiding Twilight out of the elevator, "and along the way, well, some of the dissidents within each given population may become prisoners. So I figure there'll be minotaur slaves EVENTUALLY."

Twilight blinked before she followed after him. "That's... hmmm." She frowned and she looked down at the floor, her helmet absently falling into place on her gorget. "Well, putting aside our intention to resist the expansion of forced labor rather than participate in it, that actually sounds very likely. I've never really considered the long-term political ramifications of Chaos colonization."

"Ah, and then there's that little issue: colonization," Dusk Blade continued, stepping closer to the alicorn, "right now the 38th Company is entirely focused on the immediate challenges of planetary defense, but eventually they'll have to establish a proper civilian institution to support the military here, given that they're losing men constantly and have pretty much zero population growth. Imagine what that will be like!"

Twilight did, and her eyes widened. "Chaos CIVILIANS?"

"Oh, yes. I've asked about it. They usually take the form of huge industrial populations whose lives mostly revolve around the cults. It's actually really interesting to hear about how a more-or-less stable and sustainable society crops up around an evil religion rife with violence and insanity."

Twilight considered the prospect uneasily for several seconds before regarding the batpony again. "You've spent a lot of time thinking about this, haven't you?"

"Well, contemporary philosophy isn't my ONLY hobby," he said with a happy chuckle before he leaned toward the power-armored mare, "perhaps we can talk more about it in Canterlot. Say, over dinner?"

Twilight recoiled, taking a sudden step away. "I, uh, c-can't," she stuttered, her eyes suddenly looking everywhere but at the Lunar Lieutenant, "I'm having d-dinner with Princess Celestia and Luna."

"Not a problem! I'm nocturnal! My dinner is your breakfast!" Dusk Blade said, leaning in further.

Twilight took a step away, her face flushed. "I w-was actually planning to see my p-parents tomorrow, so for breakfast I'm kind of b-booked..."

"Okay, so how about a walk in Canterlot at night?" Dusk tried next, taking a step forward. "I hear they finished a statue of an Iron Warrior to add to Voidsong's base so that it looks like he's punching her in the gut. It'll be fun!"

Twilight's armor made a screeching noise as it scraped against the wall of the hallway, and Twilight realized that she had no more room to back away from the thestral smiling hopefully at her. She was also out of excuses. Taking a late-night stroll in Canterlot while discussing alien civil society and theology actually sounded really nice.

"Well... I suppose I could..." she said nervously, not noticing the elevator opening behind them.

"Master Blade! Master Blade!" shouted a voice from the spire center.

A rather haggard-looking human man in a tunic with a metal ring around his neck rushed up to them, carrying a pair of dataslates. "Oh, thank the stars, you haven't left yet, Master! You almost forgot the letters from Shadow Step and Gloom Fang!"

Dusk turned to glare at the man. "Those are important, you twit! Why'd you let me leave without them?" he quickly snatched them away in his jaws and then tucked them under his wing as the man gulped.

Twilight's eye twitched. "Who is this?"

Dusk glanced between the Princess and the human, thinking quickly. "He's my, uh... assistant! That's the word. Yeah."

Twilight's eye twitched again. "Then why does he have a shock collar on?"

"Because sometimes he doesn't assist me very well," Dusk hissed, causing the man to back away nervously.

"Did I do something wrong, Master?" asked the human, wringing his hands. "I'm very sorry! Please don't hurt me anymore!"

"... You're disgusting," Twilight said flatly. Then her horn flashed, and she teleported away.

Dusk Blade clicked his tongue, and then glared even harder at the human. "Nice timing, jerk. You are in for SUCH a beating when I get back."

"Please, Master! No more kicking!"

"YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO, MONKEY SLAVE! AWAY WITH YOU!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 24 aerial platforms

Norris Delgan watched through the open access hatch of the thunderhawk gunship while the Princesses approached the landing platform, his hand gripping a ceiling rail. Rarity laid on the bench across from him, sipping on a steaming espresso as the man spoke.

"Believe me, Miss Rarity, I'm not one to begrudge individuals of status their dues, whether it be the profits of the merchant or the tithes of government," Delgan said, "but I hardly think the Lunar Guard's contributions to the war effort warranted a new tower designed for their exclusive residence. The thestrals haven't earned that kind of accommodation while the other soldiers are still packed into barracks and tenements."

Rarity chuckled. "Well, Princess Luna does have remarkable sway with the Warsmith. I hardly think the Dark Mechanicus would have given her so much as a pocket watch without his say-so."

"Remarkable isn't quite the right word," Delgan murmured, "I would say 'suspicious.' Warsmith Solon doesn't give such favor to Princess Sparkle, and he's known her longer."

"Why Norris," Rarity said with a smirk, "you sound like you're jealous!"

The Trademaster probably had a snarky response or dry protest to that accusation, but he fell silent when he judged the approaching Princesses and their escort to be nearing earshot.

"And here awaits our mighty chariot!" Luna shouted, appraising the thunderhawk from behind the crimson glow of her visor. "Quite a hideous and unwieldy beast, is it not?" Her pet possum Tiberius sat on her head, his tail wound around the horn casing on her helmet.

Twilight walked next to and just ahead of the other Princess, deliberately ignoring the six batponies that formed a half-circle behind them. "Well, I suppose you could go in your actual chariot, if you have it here, but the gunship will make much better time," Twilight reasoned, "I asked about the possibility of establishing a permanent magic gateway between Ferrous Dominus and Canterlot, but apparently it's too big a security risk for the Company."

Luna frowned after she reached the ramp and started heading up. She probably could have flown by herself to Canterlot at least as fast as the gunship, but that would have left both her Lunar Guards and Twilight in the dust. Nothing for it, then.

"Greetings, Trademaster!" Luna bellowed before she took a seat, causing Delgan to wince away from her. "It is good of thee to join us! Hast thou more business to conduct in our capital this evening?"

Delgan favored the dark alicorn with a thin smile while Twilight moved to sit next to Rarity. Tiberius leaned over to sniff at the commerce officer, and he carefully shifted out of paw's reach. "I always have business in Canterlot, Princess. There is much to be done once this world has been spared if it is to serve Chaos."

Twilight gave a brief shudder at that, promptly thinking back to her conversation with Dusk Blade. She resisted the urge to glance back at the Lunar Lieutenant, though. "Rarity, you're not wearing your armor?"

"Oh, dear no," the unicorn said with a grimace, "I'm thrilled to be able to leave it behind, for once. I'm rather surprised you two are wearing yours."

It was hard not to notice that the two alicorns were in full battle plate. In Luna's case the armor was all but unblemished, but Twilight hadn't even had time to have hers restored, and it still bore cracks and dents from the combat earlier that day.

"Well, I'm meeting with Princess Celestia and my parents while I'm there," Twilight said, taking off her helmet, "also, you know, if something happens I also have access to my vox system this way."

"Those both sound like reasons to leave it behind to me, but to each her own," the unicorn shrugged as the ramp closed and the engines started up.

Delgan watched the batpony guards arrange themselves around Luna. Despite the compartment being pressurized, none of them moved to remove their respirators or optics visors, and most of the glowing green sensors were locked onto the only non-equine of the group.

"So, Trademaster," Luna's helmet peeled away from her face as the craft lurched into the air under them, and Tiberius almost slipped off of her, "how shalt this world 'serve Chaos', in your words, once it is secure?"

"Besides providing a base for our raiding fleet, there are considerable caches of resources on your planet waiting for a force that knows how to extract them. I must be prepared to aid the Dark Mechanicus as it scours for ores and chemicals beyond those your people already harvest," Delgan explained, "but as ever, the possibility of such a venture depends on our success on the battlefield. And how fares the defense? My duties have kept me far from the front lines so far."

Luna eagerly took up the change of topic even as her expression soured.

"Although we smash each army swiftly after it lands, still many Orks survive and spread across the wilds. Before long We imagine they shalt displace the local bandits that plague Equestria's hinterlands." She clicked her tongue before she continued. "However, such brigands art little real threat. The Ork armies themselves hath been quickly broken each time they gather to oppose us. We personally take to the field to destroy the aliens' greatest weapons and slay their leaders, and thy 38th Company scatters the troops."

Twilight nodded slowly. "It's actually been going very well, but I'm getting worried. Every Ork army we've faced is smaller in absolute terms than the 38th Company itself, but that can't last with the kinds of numbers the Orks have at their disposal. If we don't finish the Nethalican soon, it's only a matter of time until a fraction of the Ork war fleet arrives that's simply too big for us to fight off."

"So what's the hold-up, exactly? Has anyone spoken to Serith?" Rarity asked.

Twilight made a face like she had just stepped in a pile of animal leavings.

"Darling, I know you loathe him personally, and I hardly feel any different, but the man is rather crucial to our survival."

Twilight sighed deeply, staring down at the floor. "Yes, I know. You're right. I've been avoiding him constantly ever since I actually joined the Company, and that's a petty reason not to be up-to-date on our plan to save the world." She grimaced before she looked up at Rarity again. "I guess I'm still a little surprised that he's going through with this. Even if this plan ultimately works out to the Iron Warriors' advantage, it just seems so unlike him to put this kind of effort into saving innocent lives."

"I guess it just goes to show," Dusk Blade interjected suddenly, "even if someone is a terrible person on the inside, they can still be a pretty cool guy on the outside!" He lifted his optics visor and winked at the purple Princess. "Eh? Eh?"

Twilight firmly pretended not to hear anything, but Rarity chuckled to herself. "Well, that's one way to put it, I suppose." Then she brightened. "Oh, right! Twilight, didn't you say you were going to speak to the Dark Mechanicus about joining as an apprentice to Gaela? How did that go?"

Twilight winced as Delgan promptly gave his full attention to the conversation.

"Really, now? And what brought that on, if you don't mind my asking?" the Trademaster inquired.

"Well, I've been studying the 38th Company and its technology basically every chance I get," the purple alicorn explained with a hint of bitterness in her voice, "but all of the most useful and interesting data are Mechanicus secrets, so I usually don't get very far. I asked Gaela, of course, but she would always tell me that the only way I was going to get to see the schema models and technologica essays was to join the Mechanicus myself."

"Personally, I thought she was being sarcastic," Rarity admitted.

Twilight harumphed. "She was."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 4 Dark Mechanicus Temple Secundus, four days ago

"... and that's why I want to begin a formal apprenticeship as a tech-adept under Dark Techpriest Gaela," Twilight said happily, standing before a trio of black-robed cyborgs. "I'm deployed to front-line combat duty fairly often, so I'd like to focus on armor and vehicle repair for practical purposes."

The three Dark Techpriests stared down at her silently.

"That's just to start out, though. Eventually I intend to join a research division once I feel I'm up to speed on a few key technologies," Twilight continued, "hopefully I can even design new civilian applications for your existing wargear! I'm especially intrigued by the possibilities offered by mono-directional gravity plating!"

The three Dark Techpriests stared down at her silently.

"Uh... I already have academic grounding in a wide variety of scientific fields, including magnetism, chemistry, alchemy, biology, thermodynamics, psykant harmonics, and, well, magic," Twilight chuckled awkwardly at the cyborgs standing around her, none of whom had made a sound or move since she had introduced herself.

"I know it generally isn't considered a science, but we try our best, you know!"

They still weren't saying anything.

"Um... I do admit I have to brush up on my astromancy. I really believed that stars revolved around their host planets until Gaela showed me evidence to the contrary. But in my defense, I was working with a sample size of a single system with extremely unusual qualities. And I'm willing to learn from my mistakes!" Still nothing. "I'm also aware that it's normally forbidden to induct non-humans into the Mechanicus. But given that the Dark Mechanicus favors the rejection of irrational restrictions and doctrines that limit your potential productivity, I thought there might be scope to work out an exception. I mean, you seem to have no problem working with the Tau engineers!" Twilight pointed a hoof somewhat desperately at Fennin, who was seated at a cogitator terminal nearby.

"Keep me out of this, horse," the Fio'el grumbled as he worked.

Twilight gulped while the Dark Techpriests kept staring at her silently. "So, uh... what do you say?"

The three cyborgs finally budged, turning toward each other and releasing bursts of chittering binary.

Then one of them held up a hand (or at least, a collection of mechadendrites and tapered rods that mostly served the function of hands).

"We have decided to proceed with your admission. However, there will be a test."

Twilight straightened up immediately and thumped one of her armored boots onto the floor. "Yes, Sir! What kind of test?"

"A logic test," the Dark Techpriest explained, "I am going to state a quandary to you, and you shall provide a satisfactory solution. Please stand in the designated testing zone." He pointed to a square on the floor painted over with warning chevrons.

Twilight eagerly jumped onto the square. This test sounded like it would be right up her alley. "Ready to begin, Dark Techpriest!"

"Quandary: Mechanicus doctrine regarding psykers demands that all such creatures be restricted from the cult Mechanicus, on account of their sorcerous abilities subverting critical physical laws relied upon by our technologies. A psyker requests membership in the Mechanicus. Response?"

Twilight wasn't expecting the question to hit so close to home, but she remained undaunted. "The rules restricting the contribution of psykers to the cult should be reviewed. Such broad bans represent an unnecessarily conservative approach that may ultimately hinder your progress and prevent new ideas and useful abilities from being explored. There must be some way to efficiently accommodate psykers while still maintaining safety standards."

The Dark Techpriest's optics pulsed. "Incorrect," he bleated, "the correct answer is: the red button."

Twilight frowned as another of the cultist engineers turned toward a wall console. "Red button? What red bu-"

She was interrupted when the other Techpriest pressed the aforementioned button. The front doors of the temple flew open, and then the floor plate conspicuously marked in yellow and black flipped up and launched Twilight outside. A surprised shriek came from the pony before it was silenced by a sudden impact with a parked APC.

Fennin blinked while the doors creaked closed. "... You actually installed a hydraulic springboard in the floor to eject people from the premises?"

"Affirmative," confirmed a Dark Techpriest, "we utilize it more frequently than you would anticipate."

"Huh. Working here might turn out to be more fun than I thought."

****

Canterlot Castle - (former) royal gardens, present day

The new guard armor was, it was widely decided, a vast improvement over the previous peytrals, barding, and helmets that made up the old guard equipment.

Flak armor was barely heavier than a winter jacket, easier to move around and fight in, and could be repaired with a small field kit rather than needing a blacksmith.

As Princess Celestia watched her soldiers line up at the edges of the makeshift landing area, however, she couldn't help but reflect upon how... drab and industrial the new equipment was. The soft, angled gray padding was a far cry in appearance from the gilded plating and bright crests that had been the trademark appearance of the Royal Guard for centuries. Likewise, the proud, tall spears and lances were absent from the procession; every guard had a lasgun securely harnessed to their foreleg, barrel pointed toward the ground. Short swords and combat knives were strapped to the foreleg opposite the lasguns, placed so that they could be bitten onto and drawn at a moment's notice. In a fortnight the proud majesty and ceremonial significance of the Equestrian soldiery had been scrubbed away by utilitarian efficiency and tactical supremacy.

Celestia hardly resented such things, even if she hated the prospect of buying weapons from the forces of Chaos. It was simply yet another stark reminder of how quickly and entirely her kingdom had changed, and the desperate straits that had brought such shifts about.

It was something that seemed especially poignant and significant while waiting for her sister to be dropped off at home via gunship transport.

"There it is," Kibitz said after a pegasus gestured down to him, "everypony, in position!"

The pegasi landed and shuffled into a line while the grounded guards stopped chatting amongst themselves.

Celestia looked up into the darkened sky as the sound of the gunship's engines became audible. She had seen to the descent of the sun already, but the moon didn't yet shine in the midsummer night sky. Granted, the moon's orbit had been somewhat... erratic of late, frequently speeding up to block out the sun and staying there for a few hours before moving on. Twilight had explained the eclipses to her, so she knew why they were happening, at least. Communication from Luna had been unfortunately rare.

"All right, get the orchestra in position!" Kibitz shouted as more ponies began arranging themselves to receive the Lunar Princess. These ones had instruments rather than weapons, and they quickly arranged themselves behind the royal soldiers.

"Kibitz, are you sure about this?" Celestia asked, watching the conductor take her position with a wooden pointer levitating in front of her.

"Trust me, Princess. You know how melodramatic your sister can be. And how confused she is by modern culture and context. She'll love it," the mustachioed stallion insisted.

The Thunderhawk's engines almost drowned out the stallion's reassurances before it swung down into a vertical landing, blowing waves of hot air over the waiting ponies.

The gunship landed, and Kibitz gave the signal to the orchestra conductor.

The thunderhawk released a hissing burst of steam, and as the access ramp opened, the orchestra began playing the Imperial March.

A great cloud of mist engulfed the embarkation ramp when it touched the ground, and the soldiers fidgeted as they spotted glowing green lights moving through the artificial fog.

Dark equine shapes emerged into view: batponies wearing jet black carapace armor and toting alien splinter rifles stepped down onto the scorched landing zone, scanning from side to side and twitching their blade-edged wings as if they were heading into a battlefield rather than their capital city. Each one of them still wore their respirators and optics masks, completely concealing their faces in dark rubber and glowing lights; only their manes and the personalized emblems on their armor pads stood to differentiate the ponies.

As the Lunar Guards spread out in a defensive formation, the mist was suddenly parted by an invisible wave of force.

Luna strode down the ramp, her helmet once again engaged and her horn sizzling with crimson power. As she descended, the moon finally made its appearance, rising over the mountains surrounding Canterlot and taking its rightful place of prominence in the night sky. Tiberius sat on her back, eyes narrowed and tiny arms crossed, looking for all the world like the reception was for him rather than his 'mount'.

It was quite a majestic sight, although most of the guards were too stunned by the image of her armored form to fully appreciate it. The unicorns in particular felt uncomfortable when they looked at the seething red eyes of the Iron Skull on her breastplate, and most of them quickly returned to staring forward blankly.

Twilight came down behind Luna, although her gait was more subdued and embarrassed by the ceremony. Delgan and Rarity followed behind her, keeping a respectful distance.

"Well, this is quite a reception," Rarity mumbled to the human, "a tad ostentatious even for MY tastes."

"I do prefer things a bit lower key," Delgan mumbled back, "although I like the music."

"Sister! We hast returned to thee!" Luna announced, stopping in front of the other alicorn and Kibitz. Her horn stopped glowing, and the helmet started to disengage and break apart.

"Luna, it's so good to see you again," Celestia said, hesitantly stepping forward to nuzzle the Dark Princess. She had to keep from gasping in relief when Luna returned the gesture without hesitation; they hadn't exactly set a warm and loving tone so far.

"Hello, Princess," Twilight greeted awkwardly, glancing over to the orchestra still in full swing, "that's an... interesting choice of music to greet us with."

"My idea," Kibitz said immediately, his mustache wiggling.

"We approve!" Luna declared, grinning as she walked by her sister. "We hast not heard this particular composition before! 'Tis most fitting!" Tiberius saluted the musicians.

"Told you," Kibitz whispered smugly to Celestia while the score was brought to a close. He turned toward the castle and headed back at a quick trot, leading them back inside.

****

Canterlot Castle - dining hall

"I must say, I'm still surprised by the ubiquity of this 'Centaur Pattern' power armor," Celestia said as she sat down on a silk cushion, "when I first saw Mister Macintosh with such an armament, I was surprised, but considering his other augmentations, it seemed reasonable. Yet all the Elements of Harmony now bear this sort of combat suit?"

Twilight's helmet was levitating above the table, and Celestia stared into the blood-red lenses of the visor while the castle servants carried out platters of food for the three alicorns.

"Yes, Princess. Originally Rainbow Dash managed to get hers by badgering Warsmith Solon into it, but eventually he gave us all customized wargear to aid in the combat effort," Twilight said as she levitated the force harmonizer up next to the helmet.

"Even Fluttershy?" Celestia asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yes. Granted, hers specializes in non-lethal combat support and evasion, but even she's started joining us during our front-line assignments as of late," Twilight explained.

Celestia put the helmet down, glancing over at Luna. "I see. And your armor, Luna? It seems... different, somehow."

The dark blue alicorn took a few seconds to reply, as she was hungrily eyeing the platters being carried into the room. "Aye! This armor is an artifact of great complexity and arcane might!"

The Iron Gage - which Celestia had assumed until then to be some sort of exotic decoration for the shoulder pads - suddenly lifted off into the air. One of them darted under a levitating dish of onions baked in cheese, and the unicorn carrying it yelped and recoiled before the black gauntlet picked up the platter and carried it back to its mistress.

"Whereas the other suits art indeed marvels of the highest technology available to the human race," Luna began while the other gauntlet picked up an onion between its fingers, "this 'daemon armor' 'tis a combination of that technology and the darkest sorceries of Chaos."

Luna paused to let the Iron Gage flick the onion into her open mouth, and after swallowing the morsel her expression turned grim.

"We watched the procedure to create the suit. Saw the man whose soul hath been damned to fuel this machine for time indefinite. His flesh was ripped apart before us as his body was taken by a daemon, and then the daemon was in turn subdued and imprisoned within the core." One of the gauntlets tapped the grinning gold skull on her chest, and a crackling red spark flashed from the contact. "We were told the man was a criminal, even amongst the rogues of the 38th, but We did not understand his crime. 'Twas a horrid fate, to be certain, and one from which We doubt there is release."

Twilight and Celestia had fallen silent at her somber explanation, and even the serving ponies had slowed to a crawl while they overheard the grisly tale.

"Is it... safe?" Celestia asked anxiously. "For you, I mean?"

Luna looked up at the ceiling as the Iron Gage fed a sliver of onion to Tiberius, considering the question.

"'Tis difficult to say," she admitted. One of the gauntlets clenched into a fist and floated in front of Luna as she stared at it, "to be certain, We hast suffered no physical harm from wearing the daemon armor, whilst it hath prevented a great deal of it. But there art times that..."

Luna trailed off, and the last of the serving ponies quickly dropped off her food and excused herself.

"... The armor doth not speak to us," Luna said finally, setting the Iron Gage back to its "holstered" position on her shoulder pads, "it is intelligent, and passionate; We can feel it. It could communicate if it so wished. But it hides itself from our mind as best it can. Surely this is preferable to being tested and challenged by thine own wargear, but it leaves us uncertain as to the extent of its power and influence."

She paused again, thinking over what she was about to tell them. "... There art times, in the midst of battle, when We find the Iron Gage moving to crush a foe before We hast noticed that particular enemy. After dispatching the enemy, at times We find ourselves galloping away toward the next closest combat, unsure as to whether We hast been taken by the thrill of battle or carried against our will by the armor. And the visor hath a most unseemly habit during combat of initially targeting allied soldiers as enemies."

Twilight gulped. She'd happened upon Luna more than once during sorties while she was taking apart an Ork walker or blasting away a mob. It was quite chilling to know that for a brief, disastrous moment, she had been seen as one of Luna's targets.

Luna shook her head. "But We beg of thee: let us speak no more of such terrible things. Let us eat and talk of lighter subjects!"

Celestia nodded pleasantly. "Yes, of course. But..." she trailed off, looking at the other Princesses uncertainly. "Are you two going to wear your, uh, power armor during supper?"

Luna's horn flashed, and then her armor glowed blue and vanished.

Twilight's horn likewise started to glow, although it took a bit longer before her power armor also disappeared.

"Thank you again for reminding me about the dimensional wardrobe spell," Twilight said to Luna as she started serving herself, "it saves a lot of time compared to disassembling the suit normally and then storing the components. Rarity has been trying to figure the spell out too, but I don't know if she can manage it. It's a lot more complex than her usual magic."

"Is the armor comfortable?" Celestia asked while food started flying onto her plate on wisps of golden magic. "You two didn't seem in any hurry to take it off."

"Yes," Twilight said. Then she paused. "Well, mostly. The flight pack forces our wings to be spread constantly, even when grounded. So they do start to get cramped eventually. Besides that, though, the suit is quite unobtrusive." Then her ears fell flat. "That said, I guess I've gotten so used to being shot at and clubbed with axes at this point that I instinctively wear it as much as possible."

Celestia shook her head sadly as her fork floated up over her meal. "I'm so sorry, Twilight. As many times as I've asked for your aid in fighting evil and protecting Equestria, I never meant for anything like this to happen. I never intended for you to have to see real war."

"Don't be sorry, Princess," Twilight retorted, "we all did our best and made sacrifices to get this far. You, me, Luna, the other Elements, and a hundred unicorns that have to attend daily lessons with Serith groping around in their minds." She shuddered. "I'd rather fight the Orks on my own than have to deal with THAT."

"AH! At last! Worthy sustenance!" Luna suddenly shouted, causing the other two Princesses to start. The Lunar Princess had already finished her first plate and was heaping on seconds as Tiberius nibbled on a celery stick.

"... So I take it human food isn't so advanced as their other amenities?" Celestia asked as her younger sister wolfed down her second servings.

"Let's just say that ponykind has a lot more to contribute to humanity than any of the Iron Warriors would admit." Twilight giggled, and then began on her own meal.

****

Canterlot Castle - courtyard, one hour later

Luna hummed happily to herself as she cantered along the walkway, staring up at the stars that decorated the void above.

"Yet another comfort We hast missed since taking up our station in Ferrous Dominus," the Dark Princess mused, "the lights and pollution mask the stars from view at all times. We had suggested to the Dark Mechanicus that Nightwatch should be built to such height to rise above the smog and lumens, but they refused." She sighed happily. "Such a common and infinite beauty, so casually denied to us. It is tragic, in a way." Tiberius allowed himself to shed a melodramatic tear.

Celestia followed behind the smaller alicorn, likewise gazing at the stars. "Beautiful, yes. And yet, I can't help but wonder how many of those stars hold more alien threats. More creatures of such power and malevolence that a whole planet cannot contain their hunger for war and conquest."

Luna snorted, trying to contain a laugh, and then she turned around. "Why, Sister, thou speaks with such bleak tone on this joyous meeting! Surely our current predicament is dire enough without imagining additional trials ahead!"

Celestia couldn't help but smile at seeing Luna's grin, but she had to admit it confused her.

"Luna, are they treating you well?" Celestia asked, walking close to the other Princess. "Even when holding endless meetings with ministers and advisors deep within the castle, I feel it each time the moon banishes the sun from view. How many times have you been thrown between the humans and the Orks? How many more times will they risk my sister's life to spare their own soldiers and weapons?"

Luna tilted her head to the side, frowning. Tiberius scurried around at her hooves, chasing after the fireflies that swarmed around the courtyard.

"In truth, We feel We art not deployed often enough," Luna admitted blandly, "the humans fight daily, and my Lunar Guards spend night after night hunting stray greenskins, but We hast taken to the field a mere six times." She snorted before she once again stared up at the stars. "It would seem that Lord Sliver doth not wish his troops to rely on our power. General Gnoss has also confessed to us that he finds the Eclipse quite inconvenient for his gun lines, and prefers to keep us waiting in reserve if he believes he already holds tactical supremacy."

Celestia nodded slowly. "I see. That's far from comforting, but I'm relieved to hear they're not treating you as if you were expendable."

"Oh, not at all," Luna scoffed, smirking, "Father's favor sees to that. And it is good for other things as well, such as proper housing and wargear." She sighed. "It hath not been enough to acquire quality meals, however."

Celestia was silent for several seconds. "... Luna, could you... say that again?"

"What? That We cannot get good food in Ferrous Dominus?" Luna asked. "We think We've mentioned that often enough tonight."

"No. The part before that," Celestia mumbled, gesturing to the side with a hoof.

Luna blinked. "The Warsmith's favor ensures that We art not treated as cannon fodder. What of it?"

The white alicorn continued staring at her sibling for several more seconds. "... Okay. I thought you said... something else."

Then Celestia turned her gaze away. "In any case, I'm a bit surprised. Twilight seemed determined and content with her service to the 38th Company. But you seem... happy with it," she finally admitted, "this mood you're in... I've rarely seen you so satisfied when you were here with me."

Celestia had tried to make the comment sound merely inquisitive, but it was hard to hide the implications of that statement.

Luna, for her part, sat down on her haunches and cast a melancholy look at Canterlot Castle.

"... I suppose I am," the Moon Princess said softly, dropping out of her formal speech for the first time that night, "for all the terrors and hatred I've seen within the Company, for all the suffering and darkness ahead of us... for the first time in over a millennium, I feel like I am performing a crucial duty to Equestria. Serving our country and our citizens in an important manner that no other pony could, and is befitting of my power."

"Luna," Celestia said sadly, "you have ALWAYS been important."

"Important to thee, Sister, of that I've no doubt," Luna assured the taller alicorn, nuzzling her cheek, "but I am an alicorn Princess, an immortal royal, and for that title I have little accomplishment to show for it."

Celestia was about to reply, but Luna kept going. "Ever since my return, my contributions to the state hath been paltry," she grumbled, "the Night Court, which supposedly shares power with thine own offices and functionaries, is a shambles; slow, confused, and inexperienced, and lacking any petitioners of consequence to notice. Thine own student and the Elements of Harmony defend the kingdom whilst I sleep through the day, at times entirely unaware of the threat. The other leaders of Equestria's government mistrust me at best, fearing the Nightmare that once possessed me, and resent me at worst. The only worthy aid I hast provided since my return is to release thee from the burden of the moon's orbit, and that is a trial thou endured for one thousand years without my assistance."

Celestia's expression wilted. "Luna..."

"Make no mistake," the blue alicorn interrupted before she straightened, slipping back into her usual speech, "We art not envious or embittered, as in the past. We hast seen what ruin such sentiments may wreak. But We owe a debt to Equestria, and to thee, and We feel that at last We art making good on it."

Celestia sighed before she leaned against Luna, wrapping a wing over her withers. "You know you have nothing to prove, Luna. Not to me, or anypony. You've suffered enough for your mistakes."

"We think thee too sanguine, Sister," Luna said, tapping the white Princess on the nose, "but that is beside the point. We hast strength far beyond the typical pony with which to fight, and that strength may yet prove the difference between survival or annihilation. It doth indeed please us to aid the Company thusly."

Luna moved on from under Celestia's wing, and her horn glowed as she levitated Tiberius up onto her back again.

"Luna, please, be careful," Celestia said as she followed, "although your motivations may be pure, Chaos thinks nothing of such things. And Solon..."

She trailed off as Luna raised an eyebrow at her.

"The Warsmith is a strange and intriguing man," Luna mused before her sister could gather her thoughts, "We hast viewed his dreams and felt his strength, but We can only guess at the extent of his knowledge and power. Yet he is looked down on by his servants, mocked by those he commands." She shook her head. "He is whimsical and amoral, yet it is thanks to him that Equestria hath weathered these invasions thus far. We know not what sort of twisted flesh or chitin be within that shell of sullied metal and arcane clockwork, yet he lay his mind bare to us at request." Luna smiled at her sister. "Horror though he may be, Solon hath earned our respect, and We count him amongst our few true friends."

"I see," Celestia said wryly, walking alongside the smaller alicorn again, "so is the Warsmith another reason for your good mood?"

"Mayhaps. He hath been quite indulgent of us thus far," Luna said teasingly as she cantered forward, "but if We art to make excuses for our disposition, 'tis likely because We hast found ourselves a paramour."

The Lunar Princess glanced back at her sister, whose jaw was hanging slack at the sudden revelation. Yes, that was precisely the reaction she was hoping for.

As Tiberius blew the white Princess a raspberry, Luna launched herself into the air.

"Luna? Luna, wait! Who is it?" Celestia shouted before she unfolded her own wings. "Oh, you do NOT get to drop that on me and then fly away! Get back here!"

"Come and get us, Sister! If thou art up to the challenge!"

****

Canterlot City - Sparkle household

"It's so nice that you could find time to drop by, Twilight! I know how busy you've been since your ascension, and resisting two alien invasions must leave you very short on free time!"

Twilight flushed as her mother, Twilight Velvet, trotted about in the kitchen preparing breakfast. "Well, I realized that I haven't seen you guys in a while, even though I'd taken lots of trips into Canterlot. It's the least I could do."

"Of course. I'm very sorry you had to stay on the couch, though," the pearl-colored unicorn apologized.

Twilight looked over to where her and Shining Armor's rooms used to be. Both doors had been replaced by a solid wall, on account of the bedrooms on the other side being recently demolished.

"Oh, that's okay. I'm just glad the... what was it that fell onto the house, again?"

"Some sort of flying machine. Just dropped out of the air right on the edge of the building. Night Light had a TERRIBLE time trying to control the fire, and there were all those scary people in armor shooting from the windows."

"Right. Well, I'm just glad you're okay," Twilight said.

Night Light was levitating the force harmonizer over the dining room table, his eyes squinted while he looked over the device.

"So, you work as some kind of space pirate now, do you?" the stallion asked as the harmonizer slowly rotated in the air above him. "Something of an... extreme career shift after becoming an alicorn Princess, don't you think?"

Twilight chuckled weakly. "Well, at present my duties have hardly involved anything resembling piracy, of either the conventional or extra-planetary sort. It is entirely possible that I may have to leave with the fleet and become a space pirate eventually, but for now the focus is purely on defending our planet from the Orks."

Night Light frowned as the force harmonizer trembled. "Didn't you say this thing turned into a sword? How does it work?"

"Oh! It's specifically attuned to my psionic wavelength. Here, allow me!" Twilight chirped before her horn flared.

Night Light jerked back when a dark purple triangle of crystalline-looking energy coalesced on one side of the weapon.

"The blade generates an extremely high-frequency electron surge on contact that tends to destabilize and disintegrate matter on an atomic level, allowing it to cut through extremely high-density materials with minimal effort." The blade swung lazily from side to side, causing the unicorn stallion to duck lower into his chair.

"Twilight, dear, don't deploy your wargear at the table," Velvet admonished as she levitated an omelet into place in front of her daughter. The harmonizer stopped humming, the blade disengaged, and then Twilight lowered it down next to the other pieces of her power armor.

"So, what has it been like out in the field fighting aliens?" Night Light asked as he straightened himself. "Shining Armor usually writes us after he completes a mission, but he hasn't had to fight any Orks yet."

"Thank Celestia for that," Velvet grumbled, "I don't want to hear that my little Shiny is battling those green thugs without his own suit of space armor and an army of humans for support." She put down a second plate in front of Night Light.

Twilight swallowed a forkful of her food, and then put a hoof to her chin. "Well, the Orks are individually formidable as soldiers, but they lack the tactical coordination and perfected technologies that makes human and Tau armies so effective. They usually try to compensate with overwhelming numbers, but luckily there haven't been enough of them yet to really challenge the 38th Company." Twilight paused to take another bite of her food, but then grimaced. "I'm worried, though. We know what kind of numbers are coming for us, and we're running out of time. Also, the humans have no way to reinforce themselves. They can take in and arm ponies by the hundreds to try to compensate, but without training and experience they make a marginal difference in each sortie."

"Can't they just make more humans the way we make more ponies?" Night Light asked, arching an eyebrow as he reached out and hugged his wife to him. Twilight Velvet giggled, swatting her husband coyly with her tail.

Twilight chuckled awkwardly, trying to keep from visibly cringing. "That isn't really feasible in the time frame we're working with, Dad." Then she paused as she briefly thought over the topic. "Also, these humans seem to have... issues... with love. For all the time I've spent around them, I'm pretty sure I haven't seen any human couples or human young."

Twilight returned to her food, letting the matter drop while Velvet sat down with her own meal.

Unfortunately, her parents were not so merciful.

"So, speaking of love and breeding," Twilight Velvet said in a sing-song voice as her fork hovered over her breakfast.

Twilight Sparkle had to brace her forelegs against the table to avoid smashing her face into it. "Mom! No!"

"What? Surely my daughter, unparalleled in her mastery of LOVE and tolerance, must have spotted an eligible stallion or two in that spooky death factory!" Velvet said with raised eyebrows.

"There has to be. I've seen the numbers," Night Light added between bites of his omelet, "and don't be afraid to play the field a little, Twilight. You're a pirate now, so that takes a LOT of pressure and responsibility off your shoulders versus being a Princess."

"Mom! Dad! Seriously! I'm engaged in near-daily warfare to save our entire species and planet from certain doom! I have LESS time than before to contemplate a love life!" Twilight complained, flailing her forelegs in the air. "And besides! The only stallion I actually know in Ferrous Dominus is an awful pony!"

Then she hesitated. "Well, I suppose I know Big Macintosh, too, come to think of it. But-"

"Ironside, eh? I remember that one from the recruitment ceremony," Night Light mumbled, looking up at the ceiling, "not exactly 'Prince' material, but you could do worse."

Velvet's eyes narrowed as she touched the tips of her hooves together over the table. "So. How much of him, exactly, has been replaced with the metal parts?"

"...... Suddenly I remember why I hardly ever visit home," Twilight deadpanned as her eyebrow twitched.

****

Sweet Apple Acres

"So this's the new club house, eh? Swanky!" Braeburn chuckled as he finished climbing up into the CMC tree house, marveling at the interior.

Apple Bloom nodded proudly, sitting down in the middle of the room. "Uh-huh! The Darkmechs fixed it up a bit when they rebuilt the farm! And Ah think them new metal support beams are actually stronger'n the tree, seein' how the other trees nearby were knocked over when the ship crashed."

There were many interesting oddities stored in the club house of the Chaos Mark Champions, from old, marked-up lists of cutie mark ventures to strange, arcane script scrawled across one wall in red paint that was obviously supposed to look like blood.

What Braeburn found most interesting, though, was the large gun platform built into the far side of the club house, complete with a complex array of targeting systems and conspicuously empty ammunition hoppers.

"Yeah, we don't really use it for crusading anymore, but this place is still nice to have around," Scootaloo mused as she lounged in a corner, "it's also, like, the ONE place we can do Chaos cult stuff without everypony getting mad at us."

"Uh huh..." Braeburn walked up to the quad gun, looking at the machinery closely. "This thing work?"

"Naw," Apple Bloom said, an unmistakable note of disappointment in her voice.

Sweetie Belle went on to explain. "Big Macintosh took out all the shells and power thingies so that it doesn't shoot."

"Which is SUPER lame, because right after he did that the farm was attacked again," Scootaloo added, "we could have helped defend Sweet Apple Acres! Diamond Tiara did more to save this place than us!"

Braeburn snickered and patted Apple Bloom on the head. "Ah'm sure ya woulda taught them little space men what fer. But fer now ya should let the grown-ups handle the space varmints, ya'hear?"

"Tzeentch says that my magic would have been SUPER useful against the Tau attack if I'd had it back then," Sweetie Belle insisted.

Braeburn regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "Who said that?"

"Tzeentch."

"Who's that?"

"He's my new God! His dominion is over secrets, sorcery, and-" Sweetie Belle suddenly suffered a short coughing fit, during which she mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "deception".

Braeburn cocked his head to the side. "Now, hold on a tick. Yer tellin' me that this here 'God' talks to ya? Like, the way Ah'm talkin' to ya?"

"Oh, sure!" The young unicorn sat upright as she smiled proudly. "Tzeentch talks to me all the time! He has a lot to say, usually when I'm making some kind of important moral decision! He's like my conscience!"

That idea was quite unsettling for some reason, and Braeburn looked over at the other two fillies. "So what about you two? Do yer Gods talk to y'all?"

"Oh, sure they do!" Scootaloo said, now laying on her back and rolling back and forth over the floor. "They just don't ever have anything useful to say."

"That so? What kinda God is that, then?" Braeburn wondered aloud. He wasn't very spiritual himself, or have many ideas regarding theology, but he felt that anything that laid claim to Godhood should have some manner of wisdom to impart.

Scootaloo frowned. "Khorne is great! He's just, you know, not much of a communicator."

"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, blood, kill, skulls, kill, kill, bloody blood blood, kill, kill, kill, kill, SKULL THRONE, kill!"

"Besides," the orange pegasus mumbled in a bored tone, "He's usually pretty clear about what He wants."

"Grandfather Nurgle don't talk much," Apple Bloom admitted with a tiny shrug, "Ah think He spends most of His timeless eternity nappin', like Granny Smith. He ain't much good fer advice even when He is awake, though. There's only so many problems ya can solve with diseases."

"Hey, Braeburn!" came a sudden shout from outside. "Git yer tail out here!"

The stallion perked up immediately, and then turned toward the entrance. "That was Cousin AJ; looks like she found some work fer me. You fillies have fun, now!"

While Braeburn climbed down from the club house, Applejack was waiting down below with her hoof tapping against the ground. The hoof was bare, for once, as she was not wearing her terminator armor, and Braeburn also noticed that it was splashed with blood. She looked quite displeased, but wasn't visibly injured, so he doubted the blood on her hoof was hers.

"What's wrong, Cuz?" the stallion asked as he dropped down, tilting back his heavily damaged hat.

"We got greenskins," the mare spat.

Braeburn blinked. "So y'all gotta take off again?"

"No, Ah mean we got greenskins HERE," Applejack growled. Then she whistled out of the side of her mouth.

Braeburn winced when Winona raced up to them, her tail wagging and a dirty green body hanging limply from her mouth.

"Ah heard a gunshot out next to the preservatory," Applejack said as Winona dropped the corpse of a Grot at their hooves, "this varmint SHOT at Winona! Ah saw another tryin' to sneak up on her, and he mighta done it if Ah hadn't flattened him first!"

Braeburn leaned in closer to the small, mangled body, noting the teeth marks and shattered limbs. "Well, shucks, Ah hope ya gave Winona a treat fer this. She walloped the varmint but good."

"Brae! Could ya try to take this seriously?" Applejack snapped.

"Okay, okay! When Ah'm workin' Ah'll take the lasgun with me," the Appleloosan said, "but really, Ah think Winona has a pretty good handle on the problem already."

The border collie barked happily and then started gnashing at the dead grot.

"Winona, stop that! That came from space!" Applejack chided. "It could have... Ah dunno, space diseases!" Then she glared back at Braeburn. "Ah ain't gonna start relying on little ol' Winona to control the alien pests 'round here! She could get hurt! These little varmints ain't scary, but they got guns and knives all the same!"

As she complained to her cousin, a sequence of very heavy footfalls came from behind them. Crabapple came up on the ponies with an Ork warbike clenched between its blood-stained adamantium teeth, and as the farmers watched, it stopped and dropped the vehicle next to them in imitation of its canine counterpart.

Applejack stared at the ruined bike for a few silent seconds, and then turned back to Braeburn. "Okay, fine, so Winona ain't exactly the only defense against vicious pests 'round here."

"Ah'll say. Does Crabby here do gophers, too?" the stallion asked.

"Braeburn, Ah'm worried," Applejack said with a grim tone, "these Orks are even worse than the Tau, and ya know darn well that Ah don't say that lightly. They're here to steal our food and dismantle our farm fer parts, and they'll kill us to do it if they can. Worse, it looks like they're startin' to spread all over the place, not just where they land and fight. There ain't been any Ork ships anywhere near Ponyville!"

Braeburn sighed and sat down on his haunches. "All right, all right. Let's think about this. Crabby, why doncha get back to helpin' Cousin Mac uproot the wasted trees?"

The Maulerfiend released a discordant crooning sound, and then swiftly turned around and walked back into the orchard.

"Now, obviously Crabby can handle the serious problems; ya can't get a much better guard animal than a fifty-ton, daemon-powered killin' machine," Braeburn mused, kicking at the grot corpse in front of him, "but what do we do about them little critters? Ah guess Ah could arm Fritter and Tart when they get down here and have 'em do patrols; ya did say ya still have a few spare lasguns, didn't ya?"

Applejack grimaced, although she seemed relieved that her cousin was taking this seriously. "We'll call that plan B. Ah don't really want any of mah relatives huntin' aliens 'less they got real combat gear."

"Well, that's gonna be a problem, Cuz," Braeburn drawled, "'cuz you and Mac and yer big, fancy guns ain't gonna be around all the time." Then he nodded toward the tree house. "How about Little Cuz? She got any Chaos mojo that can keep out trespassers?"

"Ah don't want no more Chaos hullabaloo 'round here!" Applejack retorted, stamping a hoof. "Evil magic wasps are worse than Tau AND Orks!"

"Well, Ah didn't mean THAT specifically."

"It don't matter! Far as Ah'm concerned, all evil Chaos magic is off-limits!"

"C'mon, Cuz, try to be open-minded. Ah mean, their evil Chaos guns're good enough fer ya, right?"

As the Apple cousins continued to (loudly) debate ideas for defending the farm, Big Macintosh approached the pair. He had left the task of tearing out trees to Crabapple again, and his augmetic rear leg was peppered with bits of wood and dirt from his own labor.

"What if we just got more dogs, then?" Braeburn asked. "Train 'em up to track down gretchin and kill 'em, like cats huntin' mice. Them little varmints smell awful, Ah'm sure they can be tracked."

Applejack chewed her lip anxiously. "Aw, shucks. Ah just don't know if Ah can do that to a dog on purpose. Sendin' 'em up against armed aliens? And what if they bring a full-sized Ork buddy with 'em, or some of them vicious little squig critters? We'd also need to find some right vicious breeds; most of the dogs 'round here are smaller and less aggressive than Winona."

"Oh! Ah know! Kroot Hounds!" Braeburn said with a grin.

Applejack's expression soured instantly. "Are ya crazy?! Ah ain't lettin' no Tau critters on mah farm to deal with the Ork critters!"

"No, no, that's the best part!" Braeburn said. "Ya don't even like 'em, so ya won't feel bad if they get hurt!"

As Applejack facehoofed, Big Macintosh suddenly piped up.

"Ah reckon Braeburn's onto somethin' actually."

"Are ya outta yer apple-pickin' mind?" the orange mare snapped, whirling around. "We ain't lettin' Kroot ANYTHING on our farm! Ah'd be more afraid of them than the Gretchin!"

"Not Kroot hounds," Big Mac said, turning to head toward the house, "but them greenskins are an alien problem. Ah reckon they need an alien solution. That's the way we handle 'em on the battlefield."

"So, what're ya sayin'? We hire human mercs or somethin'?" Applejack asked.

"Or somethin'," Big Mac answered, "lemme get to the vox system. Ah know a fella in the fleet who owes us a favor."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - the following day

"So these are the specimens, eh?" asked Geth.

"Ah don't know if ya'd call 'em 'specimens'. We ain't doin' no experiments 'cept in how best to kill the dang things," Applejack snorted.

The Scavurel Core was standing over a small pile of half a dozen Grots and a pair of Squigs that had been perforated with lasburns.

Several Scavurel Dregs stood behind the ponies and the squad leader, chattering in Binaric Cant while they reviewed the facilities.

Geth nodded. "Killing smaller 'pest' Orkoids is a challenge in efficiency and coverage, rather than stopping power. You face some unique problems in your situation. Your home is hardened against determined attack, but not from infiltration. And as I understand it, you hope to return to agricultural production soon; the greenskins will happily strip your flora bare if they can, even if they can't harm you or your dwelling."

"Well, how do we stop 'em?" Braeburn asked. "We don't gotta raise a pony militia to guard the place, do we?"

Geth made a noise that might have approximated a snort. "That is a crude and inefficient solution. Additionally, the poor proficiency of equine combatants may make them direct targets of scavenging efforts rather than a deterrent, in an attempt to recover their wargear."

"Poor proficiency? Who do ya think took down them red, toothy varmints?" Braeburn said indignantly. The stallion was going to poke Geth in the chest as he spoke, but given the way the blade-edged servo arms twitched when he raised his hoof, he thought better of it and settled for glaring.

"I assume it was you, of course," Geth replied, "if it had been Macintosh or Applejack, there would have been very little left to identify the creature." The Scavurel leader turned to his unit and released a series of bleating strings of Binary.

"It has been decided," Geth said after a few impressively short seconds of communication, turning directly toward Big Macintosh, "we shall construct several light laser turrets for perimeter defense within the orchard, encoded to a central cogitator in the central facility. One dozen should be adequate."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "A dozen? Not that we don't appreciate you givin' us more hardware, but ya can't cover much ground with just a dozen guns if they don't move."

"Your tactical assessment is correct," Geth replied, "however, the visible presence of fixed weaponry will give an impression of much higher security and frighten the more intelligent greenskins to seek out easier targets, as well as providing sensor coverage to aid in removing further infestations. The less discreet organisms will almost certainly stumble within the defense perimeter of their own volition eventually."

Geth then glanced over at the orchard, his optics cycling in his mask. "... Additionally, I wish to speak of the particular stock of flora that this complex specializes in."

Applejack raised her other eyebrow. "Ya mean our apple trees? What about 'em?"

"They are inferior," Geth said bluntly.

Big Mac took the rather characteristic Dark Mechanicus tact with the same calm apathy he always did, but Applejack had to stop herself from dashing into the house and fetching her battle armor.

"Inferior?! To what?!" the orange pony roared furiously. "Ya think you humans can walk onto mah farm with yer nutrient slime and engine-solvent moonshine and tell me mah apples are bad?!"

"Whoa! Easy, Cuz!" Braeburn said, trying to step between the Core and the enraged mare.

"Inferiority is a relative judgment," Geth answered, "although we have updated your agricultural infrastructure considerably, you are still reliant on outdated processes and organic material."

"Whatcha mean, Geth?" Big Mac asked. Applejack was still growling, as if she was ready to leap upon the cyborg for daring to criticize her favored crop.

"Human agri-facilities use gene-smithed crop flora to increase food production efficiency. These organisms consume less resources, produce more edible products, and are less susceptible to environmental conditions and cycles," Geth explained.

Applejack snorted. "Like you humans know anythin' 'bout farmin'. To you the ground is just somethin' holdin' all yer precious metals."

"That is not inaccurate," Geth said ambivalently, "and certainly there is little of the Dark Mechanicus devoted to agriculture. We do, however, practice gene-smithing."

Big Mac tilted his head to the side. "So yer sayin' you want to give us some kinda high-tech apple trees?"

Geth nodded calmly. "Affirmative. I do not consider the expense and installation of the laser turrets sufficient payment for my life and that of my peers. Were I to update your overall operational capacity, I would feel that my debt to you has been sufficiently repaid, Macintosh."

Macintosh nodded slowly, and glanced over at Applejack.

She didn't look especially pleased, although she no longer looked mad about the Scavurel's earlier "insult".

"Ah don't know 'bout that. Takin' in alien crops that we don't know nothin' about could cause problems. 'Sides, can't ya just triple the number of turrets or somethin' and call it square?"

"Negative," Geth said decisively, "the deployment of additional weaponry will likely provide little to no additional benefit. It is thus inefficient and unsatisfactory."

"Of course. Celestia forbid ya'll do anythin' 'inefficient'," Applejack deadpanned, rubbing her head with a hoof.

"Why don't we put a small plot of 'em right in the crater?" Braeburn suggested. "If they're so hardy then we won't have to fix up the land there, and it'll save us a lot of trouble to clean up the impact site. They'll fit in nice with the shipwreck, too." He chuckled.

Applejack deliberated silently for a few seconds, and then snorted. "Well, if Mac says okay, then Ah ain't gonna complain. If yer givin' em out fer free, then there's no real risk. We can always uproot 'em and replace 'em with normal trees if things don't work out."

"In theory, yes," Geth agreed.

The ponies waited for him to explain that qualification. He did not.

"Then it seems we have reached an agreement," the cyborg said, his tone shifting slightly in a way that may or may not have indicated happiness, "my peers will begin installation of the security network immediately. I will return to Ferrous Dominus with a sample of your primary apple breed so that modification and testing can begin."

"Well, there ya go! Problem solved!" laughed Braeburn, swinging a foreleg up over Applejack's withers. "Before ya know it, Sweet Apple Acres will be up and running better'n ever!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 4 Dark Mechanicus temple tertius, four hours later

+Techpriest Yaegen, I have returned from my errand and have a request for you.+

Geth crouched on one knee as he spoke, his servo arms curled inward as a show of submission to the dark-robed figure in front of him.

+"Errand", you call it? More dalliance with those mutant equines,+ blurted the Dark Techpriest, +although I can understand the Warsmith's fascination with their psykers and the Trademaster's fascination with their currency, I would expect more rational behavior from the Dark Mechanicus. What does our order have to gain from associating with these useless aliens?+

+If nothing else, such associations can be useful by sheer coincidence,+ Geth replied, +it is through our association with the equines that we have come to control engineers and scientists of the Tau Empire. This is a feat that no other Mechanicus faction can seriously contemplate.+

The Scavurel raised his head, his optics arrays glittering. +We have enemies enough, and we gain nothing from harming the ponies as we have done to so many other xenos species.+

+I would rather waste time exterminating useless wastes of flesh than waste time arming them. But enough of this idle banter. You said you have a request.+

+Affirmative.+ Geth stood up. +You have been searching for an experimental case to test your gene-graft of Tyranid spore towers, have you not?+

Yaegen regarded the soldier with a sidelong glance. +Affirmative. There is not enough space within the Harvest of Steel to establish a suitable environment. In theory I could use this world now that it serves as a long-term base, but I will be unable to stay planetside to maintain and observe the specimens once the fleet resumes normal operations.+

+Another happy coincidence, then,+ Geth said, holding up an apple in his metal-clad hand.

****

???

Solon watched shifting rivers of emerald-green code wash underneath him while he waited in the boot-up segment of his dreamscape, wondering what environs he would be setting up tonight for the equines who were likely already on their way.

It wasn't every night that he stopped working for a rest cycle, nor was it every night that Luna had nothing better to do than bring the Elements of Harmony through the fabric between worlds for what they generously described as "training". Still, they managed it often enough that his peaceful, productive, and lonely nights had become the exception rather than the rule.

The ponies weren't fooling him with their insistence that the simulations were for training purposes. With the exception of Fluttershy (who didn't even show up most nights), the ponies kept track of their "scores" obsessively, frequently dueled each other, and sometimes came up with strange, arbitrary objectives for their combats that bore no resemblance to realistic missions. He couldn't think of a single time he'd had a small group of warriors sprint into enemy territory, capture a small object - a flag, in this case - and then rush out while the enemy tried to gun them down.

Still, they DID spend the entire dream sequence fighting and using their wargear, so the simulations should have some training value. Besides that, he was interested enough in the way Luna's unique magic interacted with his rest cycle programs to swallow his dignity and observe his equine soldiers rather than try to get rid of them.

Not that they afforded him much dignity to preserve.

Solon sensed something materializing behind him, and he opened up a menu of planetary systems. "You're here. Very well, then, let's get started. Any terrain preference tonight?"

"We were hoping thou may provide something special for us, Warsmith," Luna replied, "We hast brought with us a rather unique guest to partake of thy visions."

Solon glanced behind him.

Standing behind Luna was Princess Celestia.

The Princess of the Sun wore her usual regalia and had every scrap of her usual psionic might available to her in her dream-state. And yet the larger alicorn flinched back when he met her eyes, glancing about nervously at the strange surroundings of a simulation boot field. She was obviously frightened to be here, and Solon had to wonder what reassurances and platitudes Luna had showered her sister with to convince the white Princess to venture into the mind of a Chaos Lord.

"I see. So, did you bring her here to be savagely and repeatedly murdered by Orks, or did you intend to fight her yourself?" asked the Iron Warrior.

Celestia recoiled, her eyes wide, but Luna giggled.

"Sister, calm thyself. We told thee that thou cannot suffer any true harm here, and We meant it," the dark alicorn said with a smirk.

"And I believe you completely, Luna," Celestia said, her eyes narrowing at Solon' wire-construct form, "but that doesn't mean I should have to spend the night being humiliated for the amusement of this..." She trailed off, considering her words before taking a deep breath. "For the amusement of the Warsmith."

"Oh, no, of course not. Why should I ever get what I want?" the Chaos Lord deadpanned. "But if you're not here to do battle, why are you here?"

Celestia looked at Luna. Luna nodded happily, nudging her head toward the Iron Warrior.

The Princess of the Sun seemed to gather herself, lifting her head up higher to address Solon. "Luna has suggested that my... lingering distaste and anxiousness regarding our... alliance..." she had to pause several times during her speech to stop and correct her wording in her head. "... May be because every time I've dealt with your people it has been under... exceptionally unpleasant or dangerous circumstances. She points out, not without reason, that I've made no effort to learn about you... much less understand you."

She glanced away briefly before continuing, finding it difficult to retain eye contact with the bizarre green wire-form. "I am not interested in understanding Chaos; it is a terrible, hateful, malevolent force that has no place among my little ponies. But... perhaps Chaos is not all there is to you. You could have come to our lands to destroy and plunder them, but you've always treated my people with... well... contempt, apathy, and occasionally mild fascination. It's not the best basis for friendship, but it's not murder." She paused to wet her lips. "Your restraint isn't due to reasons of benevolence or mercy, but it might be time I learned what those reasons are."

Solon snorted. "I don't see why you waste my time with such rubbish. Talk to Twilight Sparkle. She has invested much time and energy into these topics." He turned his head as Celestia released a frustrated sigh. "Cogitator assidium three-seven-"

"Wait!" Luna shouted, quickly darting in front of Solon. "Warsmith, hold. Please, We beg thy patience."

"You have received more of my patience than a great many of my peers and underlings, Princess," Solon noted, "but just as Princess Celestia does not wish to wander the mind of her enemy, I do not wish to suffer her presence and judgment. Why should I have to make excuses to her?"

Luna shook her head. "We expect no 'excuses', Warsmith. Thou need not justify thyself to us." She looked up into the hollow spots of light that made up the eyes of the Iron Warrior's current form. "We ask of thee only a vision, as We hast seen. So that Sister may yet witness some measure of the creature that lay beyond the Mark of Chaos thou bears."

The Chaos Lord fought a silent battle of wills with the sad, pleading expression on Luna's face, and in the end he was found wanting.

"Oh, fine," the Chaos Lord huffed, "I suppose it doesn't cost me anything but more time." He turned around and started opening up new menu screens. "But do ensure your sister behaves herself. She is not in her palace any longer, and I will not tolerate her usual attitude."

"Technically speaking, I AM still in my-" Celestia was cut off as Luna's magic forced her muzzle shut, and she wilted when her younger sister glared at her.

It was actually quite galling for Celestia to consider that a blatantly evil, corrupt scion of Chaos considered HER tactless and hostile, but even she could admit that she had never treated the Iron Warriors with the dignity and grace she reserved for most petitioners and diplomats.

"You wish to know the Iron Warriors? You wish to know of our trials, our grievances, and our crimes?" Solon spoke while he navigated the menus controlling his dream environment. "You can hardly grasp such things in a single night, even with all the lore in the galaxy at your disposal. But if I were to choose a single incident - a key engagement - that best demonstrates our character and history, there is really only one choice."

Solon finished his selection, and his body started to darken and fill itself from a wire-frame form to a creature of flesh (or, at least, illusory dream-flesh). The ground started to materialize around them as well, with reams of bare code shifting into stone and metal and then stretching into shapes at remarkable speed.

"We go to Terra, ponies."

Celestia and Luna craned their necks as they took in their new surroundings, staring up at the massive edifices and weapons that lay next to them. Luna, accustomed as she was to the grand and oversized constructs of the Mechanicus, was no less amazed for her experience. On one side of them towered a wall that stretched into the sky and bristled with cannons and reinforced fire points. The entire face of the battered fortification was ablaze with cannon shots and the flash of muzzle flares, scything across the ground below with desperate fury.

The walls of Ferrous Dominus were impressive to the point of excess; Luna could not imagine any sort of weapon or power to warrant such vast defenses, although the Iron Warriors assured her that such weapons existed. The walls above them, however, seemed unreal in their sheer scale. That such quantity of power and material should be confined to a single spot, immobile, just seemed absurd on the face of it.

And yet, judging by the explosions that peppered the bastion, there was an even greater absurdity afoot: apparently some force actually sought to challenge this bulwark.

Luna and Celestia turned around, and the latter gasped.

A veritable ocean of power armor stretched out opposite the wall, interspersed with great numbers of heavy combat vehicles and dark banners proclaiming allegiance to fell powers. Enormous strips of white, ivory, silver, gray, and purple made up the armies, and these were merely the Marines that were immediately visible to them through the plumes of smoke and ash. There were more Chaos Space Marines here, within view, than either Luna or Celestia could have guessed had even existed, and this was but one side in the titanic battle they had been called to witness.

Luna finished gaping at the image, and her horn glowed in preparation to summon her armor. "Art we to take to battle here?"

"No," Solon said simply, walking toward the wall, "for this vision we are incorporeal, for now. We are visitors here, not participants. Follow me and observe, Princesses."

Celestia turned to follow the Warsmith, noting that the Chaos Lord was in the form of an ordinary Iron Warrior with two servo arms attached to his backpack. With neither the corrupted bulk of his modern form nor the somewhat annoying slur to his voice, he seemed like a completely different person.

Not necessarily a better person, though, she reminded herself.

"Behold, the wall of the Imperial Palace," Solon said, raising a hand to gesture to the vast edifice above as he walked into the blasted trenches, "designed by Rogal Dorn himself, the finest defensive architect known to humanity, and constructed by the Imperium's most accomplished and brilliant engineer clergy. When the Warmaster assaulted the Sol system, he brought power enough to shatter the defensive fleets and all the orbital defenses. The bombardment from his ships unsettled the tectonic plates of this world, changing the face of Terra forever. Still, the walls held. No amount of crude, brute force could overcome this obstacle and grant access to the prize within: the Emperor of Mankind, whom the Warmaster sought to overthrow."

Solon walked into a trench filled with flame, but the heat didn't seem to bother him or burn his armor. The alicorns paused for only a moment before following, likewise feeling nothing from the roaring fire.

"So the Warmaster did what he, like the Emperor before him, always did when faced with an impossible bulwark: he told the Iron Warriors to break it."

Solon stepped up out of the trench, and then waited for his pony companions to join him.

"And we did." He pointed to the wall.

Luna and Celestia weren't exactly sure what happened next. Their senses were suddenly overwhelmed by explosions, all happening in rapid and constant sequence at a desperately unsafe proximity. Had they been corporeal, their bodies would have been utterly pulverized by the blasts and atomized by the heat, but as it was they could only stop and wait for the deafening roar to die down and the overwhelming light to fade. Seconds stretched into minutes as the barrage continued, drowning the equines in flame and force.

Then Solon continued speaking, his voice somehow reaching their ears despite the noise.

"It should have been our finest hour, a victory equal to that of any of our brothers' most hallowed triumphs. We had crushed the single greatest fortification this galaxy has ever seen, and directly humbled Dorn's Imperial Fists by besting their skill at fortification with our skill at siegecraft. We had removed the final great bastion holding back the Warmaster, all but handing him his prize. We had vindicated every dubious decision we had made, and redeemed our Legion in blood and fire."

The explosions finally seemed to recede, but the sensory assault continued. Enormous segments of reinforced ferrocrete and metal plating were raining down all around them, and the flames had given way to smoke. Still, the alicorns could do little but wait as the minutes pressed on and destruction continued boiling around them.

"But it was not a victory. Like so many of our other 'successes', the Siege of Terra soured, and our triumph turned to ashes before us. The Warmaster failed. The other Primarchs left out of fear or boredom. The Chaos Gods faltered and their power waned. The traitors that had so eagerly aided the Warmaster balked at the prospect of fighting on without him. And before we knew it we too were taking to the Warp, fleeing a planet on its knees and hounded by the Imperium's broken armies."

The dust parted before the equines, and Solon beckoned to them as he stood in front of the gaping hole in the Imperial Palace.

"Come. Let me give you the tour."

More Space Marines.

They were everywhere behind the walls, rushing to and fro while carrying wounded and supplies. Humans roamed the halls in great numbers as well, but the smaller sapiens moved cautiously and fearfully as the metal-clad giants sprinted past, as if they were afraid of being trampled.

Celestia saw four main color schemes on display amongst the loyalists: red, white, and yellow, with another faction who wore far more intricate power armor colored in brilliant gold and etched over with script. The loyalist power armor boasted richly colored crests, scrolls of flowing script, and bright red seals of wax and parchment. It was a stark contrast to the chains, spikes, and morbid trophies that now embellished the modern Iron Warriors.

Even Solon's current power armor suit, largely untouched by Chaos and decorated sparingly, seemed a crude, dirty thing compared to the defenders'. The caution stripes on the leg, the grimy stains of machine oil, and the dust and wear of heavy use made the Warsmith a bizarre and ugly sight indeed while walking through the corridors of his oblivious enemies.

"You were like them, once?" Celestia asked, speeding up to walk alongside the Iron Warrior. "Your body was as we see it now? Not..." she trailed off, trying to think of a way to describe Solon's present-day body without being egregiously offensive.

"I was once like them, yes. Both in body, and mind," Solon replied while he trudged through the halls, "there was a time when I too bent knee to our Emperor, and would have gladly given my life to defend his home."

"And Chaos changed that," Celestia mumbled, watching a pair of yellow dreadnoughts stomping off toward the breach.

Solon turned his head to look down at her. "No, it did not. Some other Legions were taken by the darker powers before their rebellion, and they discarded their oaths along with their sanity. The fools and imbeciles that made up the Emperor's Children fell to depravity long before they contemplated betrayal, and there's no telling how long the savages of the World Eaters were truly in thrall to Khorne. But the Iron Warriors were better than that. We did not turn against the Imperium for the sake of voices in our head. We did not listen to the honeyed lies of Erebus or the rest of the fanatical Word Bearers. We CHOSE our rebellion. Our grievances were more severe, and our goals more noble. Perturabo, our Primarch, wanted to unseat the Emperor and preserve the Imperium. To create a galaxy where we, his sons, could prosper and receive our due for our sacrifices."

"We presume it did not work out as such," Luna drawled as she caught up on the Warsmith's other side.

"No, it did not," Solon said curtly, "we won victory after victory. We slaughtered the Loyalist defenders everywhere we saw them and broke their mightiest fortifications again and again. Istvaan. Phall. Terra. Sebastus. Every battle a crushing success. We did everything asked of us and more. And still, we saw our goals and hopes crumble before us, consumed in the darkness that now sustains us: Chaos."

Celestia frowned up at him. "You recognize the harm it's done to you, and yet you still serve under its power?"

"Such is the way of the Iron Warriors," Solon snorted, "we serve our masters even as they grind us down to nothing and discard us like so much trash. First the Emperor, then the Warmaster, then the Dark Gods." A brief chuckle echoed through the Warsmith's helmet. "And now Princess Luna."

The dark alicorn started in surprise. "Pardon? Last We were aware, We served under thy command, not the reverse!"

"Then how come you never build anything for me?" Solon replied. Celestia was genuinely surprised to hear a hint of mirth in his voice.

Luna puffed up her cheeks as she glared up at the Chaos Lord. "We art no artisan! We hast destroyed many foes and brought thee prisoners of value! That is our contribution to thee!"

"Much obliged, Princess, but really, do you have any idea how much fuss Kaelith made when Gaela asked him to construct Nightwatch? If I hadn't intervened then she might have found her recent promotion revoked."

"'Tis hardly our fault that thy underlings hold us in contempt! Besides, our previous quarters were barely fit for our possum!"

Celestia watched in utter fascination while her sister bickered with the hulking Space Marine. Their arguing was more akin to that of relatives than subordinate and commander, without even taking into account that one of them was an evil alien overlord and super-scientist. The fact that they were also strolling through the hall as explosions shook the palace exterior and swarms of soldiers ran back and forth barely managed to make the scene more surreal.

"Where are you?" Celestia asked suddenly, interrupting them.

"Hm?" Solon turned his head again to regard the larger alicorn.

"You were here, right? On Terra, during this big, important battle. You obviously weren't walking through the palace like this. Where are you now?"

Solon grunted, facing forward again. "I had already taken command of the Primarch's 38th Company at this time. I was in the rear, guarding our supply lines." He sighed behind his helmet. "Thanks to that, the Iron Warriors suffered much less disruption to our supply lines than the other Legions. Though I had a rather disastrous run-in with a White Scars Chaplain that earned my first augmetic limb." He shook his head. "It's a feeble encounter to reflect on during the greatest and most important battle of our species."

The white Princess frowned, but said nothing more.

"Ah. Here we are." Solon gestured to a set of massive blast doors guarded by an entire hall of gold-armored Custodes and yellow-plated Imperial Fists. He picked up his pace, and the Princesses were forced to follow in a near-gallop through the fortress.

Celestia gulped nervously as she stared at the countless glaring visors watching the hallway. She knew that she was utterly invisible to them, and that she was anyway dreaming, but even so the sight of the quietly seething sentinels sent chills down her spine. What went through their heads, she wondered, as the Iron Warriors ripped open their fortress and the horrors of Chaos poured into it? What cruelties had they been subjected to as the siege wore on? What miseries did they labor under as their failures and casualties kept piling up higher and higher? She had come here to witness the history of Solon's Legion in particular, but there was so much more at stake, so many more lives in turmoil during this occasion. So much hatred, fear, and hubris, all coming to a disastrous conclusion, and the air was practically electrified from the sheer tension.

"Here," Solon said, approaching the super-heavy blast doors and the terminator-armored Blood Angels that stood in front of it.

With a wave of his hand, the red Space Marines disintegrated, vanishing into mist. The door was blasted open in an instant, the metal folding and tearing away like so much paper.

The dream actors around them started to react, but then Solon spoke.

"Pause simulation."

With those two words, everyone in the hall and the room beyond froze. The Warsmith walked in, and the curious ponies followed behind him.

"And here he is, Princesses. The single most powerful human the galaxy has ever seen, and ever will. The Emperor of Mankind."

A large figure in golden armor was looking up toward the breached doors, his eyebrows creased in mild concern while he stood over a hololith of the palace region.

"A psyker possessed of power that exceeds even your own, a technological genius, and a leader beloved of trillions." Solon laughed bitterly. "This is, of course, merely a cogitator engram. A pale, pitiful imitation of the real thing. But does he not still impress?"

Celestia certainly thought so, but decided to keep her opinions to herself as she looked up at the imposing figure. He seemed so powerful and assured, even frozen mid-pose in the dream world of one of his hated enemies. But at the same time... tired. Worried. Crushed, even. A hundred emotions danced within those softly glowing eyes, testament to the unimaginable loss he had seen so far.

There were others in the room too, including a pair of enormous Space Marines frozen in combat poses with weapons drawn. But the man in gold easily dominated the scene, such as to render the two warriors nearly insignificant.

"It was not Chaos that turned us against our people, no. It was this man who made us, figuratively and literally, into the monsters that have settled your hapless world." Solon walked past the Emperor and behind him, his fingers flexing as if yearning to hold a weapon. "You think the Tau cruel for sacrificing your people? In this man's name have we launched thousands of crusades of xenocide, cleansing the stars of aliens to make room for human colonists. You think your kingdom united and devout? Under this man's rule have numberless star systems submitted and paid tithe, separated as they are by distances that challenge our grandest technologies." Solon finished circling around the Emperor, leaning over the hololith table and planting his palms on the table surface. "Because of this man has an empire risen to reach from one end of this galaxy to the other, and because of this man do we tear it down, piece by piece. Humanity's greatest tyrant, and greatest hope." He pointed to the man in golden armor. "Say hello to the ponies, Emperor."

The Emperor had his movement and consciousness restored, and he promptly stood up straight, gazing hard at the Iron Warrior. He almost certainly noticed Celestia and Luna as well - they had all apparently turned corporeal recently - but his eyes were locked on the bar of blood red set in Solon's helmet.

"They wish to learn about us, Emperor," Solon said, his voice an angry snarl, "I have shown them the brutality and power of our rebellion. I've laid bare my Legion's triumphs and failures. Have you anything to add? Anything to provide some context to TEN THOUSAND YEARS of war and hate? Can you explain to me, Emperor, how my Legion has come so far, done so much, become so mighty, and yet accomplished so little? Don't hesitate, Lord! We eagerly await your wisdom!" he jeered.

The Emperor looked around the room, at his attendants and friends frozen in expressions of shock and anger, and his Primarchs, Rogal Dorn and Sanguinius, ready to smite the invading foe.

His eyes, the depthless beacons of light and power, settled back on Solon's visor.

"You're wrong," he said.

Celestia was guessing now that this dream-tour hadn't been rehearsed, because Solon's voice was a hoarse croak when he replied through his vox grille, thick with surging emotion.

"What did you say?"

"You're wrong," the Emperor repeated, "your revolution, your bitterness, your long war, it's all wrong." He spoke calmly, as if he wasn't talking to a sworn enemy that had burst into his meeting room and seemed to have total control over time and space. "You were wrong to seek glory rather than doing your duties to the Imperium. You were wrong to raise your hand against me. You were wrong to submit yourselves to Chaos." His gaze was unflinching, but it contained glints of sorrow and regret that his words could not convey alone.

Solon's body shook with fury as he gripped the edge of the strategium table, but the Emperor wasn't finished.

"You will continue to fight, you will continue to kill, and you will continue to sacrifice. You may win your battles. You may slaughter your enemies and satisfy your gods. But your suffering will not end, your goals will forever lay out of reach, and you will never be redeemed." The Emperor leaned across the hololith table. "Because no matter how hard you fight, and no matter how many wars you win, you're still WRONG."

"... Warsmith?" Luna asked uncertainly, stepping closer to the Iron Warrior.

Solon pushed himself away from the table. "And there you have it, Princesses. The heart and soul of the Iron Warriors Legion, explained," he growled. "Cogitator assidium three-seven-zero. Terminate rest cycle."

****

Centaur star system

Great flashes of light poured from the Warp as the first moments of realspace translation began. Huge, ugly gashes of green were carved haphazardly into space, and from these wounds leaked the next of set of reavers come to plunder the system. One after another, the ramshackle void ships of the Orks spilled into the material universe and fell into a clumsy fleet formation, their guns tracking wildly for any sign of enemies.

Eventually the vessels stopped coming, and as the last of the Warp-space breaches closed, a full twenty Ork ships set about the task of finding battle.

As these newcomers began their journey to the source of the beacon that had called them, a certain Ork Mek looked at the scopes on his ship sensors and smiled broadly.

"Yeah. Dat'll be enuff boyz," Hazarr Wrencha chuckled. "Warm up da enjuhns, yous gits! We'ze headin' back to da planet! WAAAAAGH!!"

Author's Note

Okay, that's enough character development and Fourth Legion angst. Time to get back to all that sexy violence.

There WAS a bitchin' new art piece for this Book that I was going to use to replace the current cover, and then knock that back onto Book 4, which I feel it was more appropriate for anyhow. But it turns out it was bigger than the max file size for the fanfic covers. I guess I'll just post it at the end of Chapter 1.
On the other hand, at least now I don't have to pray to the Omnissiah for Trixie's forgiveness.

Green Tide Rising

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 3

Green Tide Rising

****

Centaur System - Ork supa-krooza

"Ugh. Dis place iz a dump," Hazarr grunted as he stomped through the halls of the massive void ship that was hosting him.

The Big Mek didn't consider himself a hard Ork to impress, although his dim-witted crew would probably disagree. He didn't expect ships to be over-engineered and embellished like the human vessels, covered in iconography and macabre carvings. And Mork forbid his green brethren build vessels like the Eldar, clean and shining in the starlight and glittering with gems.

But the elderly Mek still figured that Orks should take some measure of pride in their machines. Seeing ruptured bulkheads with crates shoved up against them to block pressure leaks and loose wiring hanging from the deck lights - half of which weren't even working, casting the interior in perpetual gloom - made him grind his jaw in aggravation.

Ork boyz lounged against the scattered debris and empty storage containers while he walked by, eyeing him dangerously while caressing choppas or sluggas. That, at least, was a good sign; on many Ork ships the rank and file would be constantly arguing or scuffling. That these ones were unified enough to glower at outsiders rather than fight with each other meant that there was at least a decent amount of order in this fleet, so Hazarr supposed the Warboss knew how to do SOMETHING right.

Hazarr reached the door to the WAAAGH room, and his visor flashed red at a grot that was standing in front of a lever.

"Wot's yer name, mate?" the grot asked, sniffing at the Big Mek.

He regarded the tiny orkoid for a few seconds. "Hazarr 'Coggz' Wrencha," he rumbled.

The gretchin nodded, and then wrapped its long, nimble fingers around a lever behind it and pulled.

The lever, held together mainly with tape and desperately misplaced faith, snapped free of its mounting and sent the grot flailing across the grimy floor.

Hazarr sighed. He hadn't even been with this new tribe for an hour and he was already disillusioned. "I'm gettin' too old fer dis crap."

The Big Mek twisted to one side to bring his servo claw around, and he locked it into the lever mount before turning the gear within.

The blast doors slid open, and the grot quickly scurried in ahead of him.

"Fanks, guv! Roight handy, yous is! Da boss is in heah!"

The WAAAGH room was a mess, with most of the monitors broken and a few scattered sheets of old parchment marked up or used to mop up stains. Giant tusks had been built into chairs around a central meeting table that was overshadowed by an enormous skull hanging over the boss's chair, giving the central area the look of a giant beast's open mouth with a distended lower jaw.

If these chumps put half as much effort into hammering shut holes in the bulkheads as they did assembling bones into the decor, Hazarr might have been impressed. Or at least less disgusted.

"Heah he is, Boss!" squealed the grot as he walked up to the table. The animal skull blocked out what little illumination came from the ceiling lights, and a dark shape lounged underneath it, obscured by the shadow. "Hazz Cuz Ratchet!"

A heavy, metal-shod boot came down on the hapless gretchin, reducing him to a dark smear on the floor. "Da name is HAZARR WRENCHA!" the Big Mek snarled, his helmet visor flashing a bright red.

Then he glared up into the shadowed region beneath the skull. "But me boyz call me Coggz."

The dark shape moved, shifting into the light.

The Warboss was almost twice the size of Hazarr, with a heavily patched suit of mega armor that boasted a massive red pincer claw on each arm. A crackling power generator on his back fueled a force field emitter, and the massive Ork's eyes had been replaced by an augmetic visor over his face that boasted three blood-red optical lenses rather than the more traditional two. That piece, at least, seemed to be in good working order, so Hazarr figured there must be at least one Mek around who could tell one end of the screwdriver from the other.

"Youz best woch yahself, Mek, an' don' go 'round killin' all me grots," rumbled the Warboss, "dey ain't yers ta kill."

Hazarr grunted and scraped his foot against the metal flooring, causing a screeching noise to ring through the room. "Youz da Warboss o'dis heap?"

The larger Ork stomped closer, looming over Hazarr and poking his chest plate with a klaw. "Yeah, I is. Yer boyz work fer me now. Youz got a probbem wif dat?"

"Youz da biggest, so youz da boss," Hazarr said simply.

Behind his visor, the Big Mek was rolling his eyes. He gave this thickhead about a week before he got himself gunned down by humies.

"Good. I'm Drahgza Redclawz, da Warboss 'round heah. Dere's a big mess o' boyz comin' aftah us, muckin' about in da last fyoo planets an' lookin' fer grayskins. Me, I saw da beekun an' took off 'head o'the othah bosses. I'm tired o' gettin' left outta da fun. We'z gonna git down dere, and we'z gonna git our WAAAGH!!"

Hazarr leaned back slightly as the Warboss bellowed in his face, and then wiped off his welding mask with his klaw.

"Dat's gonna be tuff," the Big Mek began, "'cuz dere ain't no WAAAGH heah."

Drahgza was silently perplexed for several seconds. "... Say wot?"

"Dere wasn' no Orks 'fore me boyz got 'ere," Hazarr explained, scraping more bits of grot guts off his boot, "an' we didn' set up da beekun. We dunno wot's goin' on down dere, but it ain't no WAAAGH."

Drahgza tilted his head to the side, his optics glittering in the dim light. "So yous sayin' dere ain't no fightin' heah? Dere ain't no grayskins?"

"Oh, dere's fightin', all roight," Hazarr chuckled, "me boyz got stomped but good. I didn' see no grayskins, tho. Wot yer gonna find on dat dere planet is humies." His servo claw clanked shut noisily. "An' spiky boyz."

The Warboss recoiled slightly. "Spiky boyz? We'z fightin' spiky boyz?"

"Yeah. An' dey dead 'ard, dey is. Gots a bunch of nasty ships, plus a big 'un dat's cursed an' eats udder ships. Gots a big, cozy fort on da planet, full o'loot. An' dey gots an army. If'n we beat da spikies, we'z got a lotta loot down dere." He gestured vaguely in the direction of his own ship. "I gots sum reel big dakka ta bust dat dere fort, but I need mo' boyz ta make anudder go at it."

Warboss Drahgza snorted. "Well, now yer dakka's my dakka. We'z gonna bust dat fort." He was surprised and somewhat dismayed not to find himself sailing into a full-scale WAAAGH, but Drahgza was a Warboss. If there was no massive, genocidal planetary invasion happening here, that just meant it fell to him to start one.

And breaking open a fortress sounded like a great way to start.

"Anyfin' else dese spikies got waitin' fer us?" Drahgza asked, approaching an inter-ship vox system.

"... Yeah," Hazarr admitted after a moment's hesitation. "Dere's a lotta hosses down dere."

Drahgza halted again. "Say wot? Hosses?"

"Yeah. Hosses. Like wot dem humies ride, but mo' runty an' talky," the Big Mek grunted, "we'z been runnin' into sum boyz wot got stomped fightin' da spikies, an' dey's been tellin' tales. Mobs o' hosses wit humie guns, flyin' at dem an' lobbin' bomms. Hosses wit humie armor stompin' da mobs an' usin' weird powahs. An' sumtimes, da sun is blocked outta da sky durin' a fight, and den da fights go bad." He paused again. "Dey's been sayin' dat da spirit o' deff is on dat planet. In hoss form."

"Dat's a load o' grot droppinz," Drahgza snarled, "hosses ain't hard ta kill."

"Naw, dey ain't," Hazarr agreed, "jus' boyz tellin' tales." He pointed his klaw off to the side. "Follah me. Lemme show ya yer new dakka, Boss Redclawz."

****

Ponyville - Sugar Cube Corner

"So on the east orchard, Ah was thinkin' we could re-plant gala trees and fujis. Shake up our stock a little when we start harvestin' again, ya know?" Applejack was leaning over a table, her forehooves pressed onto a large sheet of parchment that had Sweet Apple Acres' property lines and structures drawn onto it. Big Mac and Braeburn sat on the other side of the table, and the larger of the stallions nodded.

"Eeyup." Big Mac contributed.

Braeburn looked more skeptical. "Ah dunno, Cuz. They don't sell as well as the normal reds, right? Can't grow as many, either."

"Sure. But now we actually got enough scratch that we don't hafta squeeze every bit outta the harvest," Applejack said, dropping back into her seat, "we'll still keep most of the south orchard fer cider apples, seein' how we're still the top provider in the region n'all, but with the produce stock Ah wanna diversify a little."

"Well, all right, then. What say we plant a few of mah namesake along with the galas?" Braeburn asked with a grin.

"Sure thing, Brae!" Applejack smirked as heavy footsteps approached from behind.

The orange pony tilted her head up, and a stone-faced Astartes stared down at her, each of his hands holding a serving tray.

"Your order," Dest rumbled, lowering a tray stacked with breakfast pastries onto the table over the property map. Then he started handing out mugs of coffee to the assembled farmers.

"Thanks, Dest!" Applejack said brightly, drawing a bit from under her hat and flipping it up at the Iron Warrior.

Dest caught the coin out of the air without ceremony, and then turned back around and headed to the counter again.

Braeburn watched the Chaos Marine go, and then turned toward his cousins. "So what's that guy doin' here, again?"

Applejack gave the tan stallion a look. "Dest works here."

"Yeah, Ah can see that," Braeburn retorted dryly, "and y'all don't find that a tad peculiar?"

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh said between bites of cream-filled doughnuts.

"Well, sure, it's a little weird, but he seems happy enough," Applejack said with a shrug.

Braeburn's eyes narrowed as he stared at the grim, armored giant, who was squeezing dollops of frosting on more doughnuts. His expression suggested intense concentration and seriousness, as if lives depended on the task. "Happy... How can ya tell?"

"He's still got his boltgun on him," Applejack noted before she raised her coffee mug, "if he was unhappy, we'd know."

The apples spent a few minutes in comfortable silence, eating their breakfast and drinking their coffee. Eventually Braeburn let out a satisfied sigh, and then he tapped a large, shaded circle on the map with his hoof.

"So, any details yet on what our new crop of alien apples is gonna be like?"

"Eeyup," Big Mac said, dropping his empty mug, "Geth sent me an information packet last night with some details fer plantin' and handlin'. Said the seeds should arrive within a few days."

"Neat," Applejack said, "so what kinda things should we know about 'em?"

Big Mac took a moment to recall what he had read that morning.

"The apple spines grow in any environment that gets at least a few hours of sunlight a day; don't matter what the soil quality or temperature is like. They don't need no waterin' or fertilizer; the roots go straight down and draw all the nutrients and water it needs outta deep underground."

"Well, that's convenient," Applejack mumbled, "and if them roots go straight down, then we can plant 'em pretty close to each other."

"Eeyup," Macintosh agreed, "Geth said that the apple spines ain't supposed to spread on their own, but if we find a stalk where we didn't plant it, then we need to destroy it with fire and tear out the root system."

Braeburn and Applejack shared a worried glance.

"Workers harvestin' or workin' near the apple spines should all wear respirators and be armed at all times," Big Mac continued, "after they finish, they should wash immediately and make sure to get any spores or sap outta their fur."

The red stallion paused to scarf down the last remaining doughnut, and after he swallowed it he continued. "Geth also said that if any workers started showing symptoms of a lung infection then they should be put down and their bodies incinerated, but there's a very small chance of that. Ah figure if it happens we can go to a doctor first." He paused again. "Also, puttin' in land mines is sure t'be more trouble than it's worth. Ah don't think we need to do that, either."

Braeburn's ears flattened against his head. "This's gettin' a mite shady, Cuz."

Big Mac shrugged. "Human tech can come with some risks," he acknowledged, "ya ever seen them usin' their plasma guns?"

Braeburn had not, but Applejack shuddered.

"Burned his hand CLEAN off," the orange pony claimed, shaking her head, "right through the gauntlet and everythin'. Mah stars, that was ugly. Rarity makes sure to keep hers a good distance from her face now."

Again, their conversation was interrupted by the approach of heavy footsteps.

Applejack was expecting Dest to take their dishes or drop off the bill, but instead he stopped and spoke.

"I have received a Company-wide vox message," the Rhino driver said, his tone slightly more grim than usual, "we have a situation."

"What kind?" Applejack asked, dropping onto all four hooves.

"The green kind," Dest replied, "the Orks are here."

"Well, that ain't exactly a surprise, is it? The Orks've been showin' up fer a while," Braeburn pointed out, "why's it any different this time?"

Dest's usual frown shifted into a grimace. "Because this time, there's too many of them."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17 strategium

"Oh, for Nurgle'sh shake, thish ish getting ridiculoush," Solon grumbled while he stared at the system hololith in the middle of the room.

"I warned you," Sliver hissed, "the Ssorcerer'ss power hass failed, and the green tide iss upon uss. Even thiss iss merely the vanguard of the horde to come."

Serith stood next to the hulking Chaos Lord, chuckling. "My power has hardly failed, Lord. In fact, this fleet will easily provide the damned souls necessary to fuel my Nethalican. Think of this as a boon!"

"And what usse iss your damned temple if there are no Iron Warriorss left to protect from the remaining xenoss?" Sliver growled.

"Well, it would still save our planet from being conquered by Orks, which would be super-duper with a cherry on top!" interjected Pinkie, who was leaning up onto the strategium table with her forelegs.

The three Iron Warriors stared at her for a few seconds before Solon pointed toward the exit. "Mish Pie, leave. Thish ish sherioush time."

"Awww! But I have a cool command hat and everything!" Pinkie Pie protested, her ears flipping down. She did indeed have a peaked cap on that boasted the Star of Chaos pinned on the front.

"I shee that. Give General Gnosh hish hat back on your way out," Solon demanded, still pointing toward the exit.

Pinkie hung her head and trudged to the door, pausing briefly in front of Cyrus Gnoss so that he could recover his headgear.

Once the pink pony had left the room and Gnoss had put his hat back on, Sliver's optic lens glowered at Solon.

"Explain to me again why I'm not allowed to kill her."

"It'sh not that you aren't ALLOWED to, Shliver, it'sh jusht that it will caushe more trouble than it shavesh ush!" the Warsmith insisted. "We have a sherioush challenge ahead of ush here, and we don't need to shtart making more problemsh." He focused on General Gnoss. "What's our eshtimate for Ork battle shtrength?"

"They have twenty-one ships at their disposal," the General began, highlighting the xeno craft in the hololith, "four cruisers, the rest are non-standard frigates. A void engagement could be successful, but there would definitely be losses."

"And avoiding losssess of our craft iss the entire point of uss sstill being here," Sliver growled.

"Preliminary analysis of the Ork approach, however, suggests that they aren't gearing up for a void battle. This formation is defensive, and built for speed. Their current course will bring them into orbit, but not engagement range."

"Then they must wish to fight a ground battle," Serith said, crossing his arms over his chest, "superb."

"That is an... optimistic way of putting it, Lord Serith," Gnoss said, "estimated ground forces of the xeno fleet run from 40,000 to 60,000. Rather like the Tau when they were sizing us up, that simply isn't a force that an army our size can plausibly deal with directly."

Serith tilted his head to the side. "And what are our total troop numbers now, General?"

"If I generously include the equines, only a fraction of whom are battle-ready, and the Tau, who still respond to my orders like they're unsure whether to obey or shoot me, then it comes to about nine thousand troops." He paused. "Rounding up, of course."

"Surely our soldiers, empowered by the Dark Gods and aided by the finest masters of war this galaxy has ever seen, can manage to slay four or five greenskins each," Serith chuckled.

"War doessn't work that way, WITCH," Sliver snarled, "if we engage the greensskinss in a sstruggle of attrition, WE. WILL. LOSE. It iss their greatesst sstrength, and our mosst obviouss weak point. We can call no reinforcementss. Theirss are without number."

"Then how do we do thish, Shliver?" Solon asked.

The Nurglite Lord looked up at his master, his gauntlets gripping the edge of the table tightly.

"I will not accept that thish foe cannot be beaten," Solon said, "we know the Orksh. Their power and weakneshesh. We have the run of thish world. We have the darker powersh and the indushtrial might of the Mechanicush by our shide. We have the shkillsh and technology of the Tau Empire, and shorceriesh of thish world'sh aliensh at our beck and call. I do not accept that we - that YOU - cannot overcome shome fifty thoushand Orksh."

Serith started to say something, but Solon held up his hand and the Sorcerer's voice trailed off. Gnoss waited silently, hands clasped behind his back, and generally feeling redundant. Several seconds passed without a word spoken.

"... It will have to be a ssingle battle," Sliver said finally, "one crushing, decisive victory. We musst sslay their leader, ssmash their sstrongesst weaponss, and sscatter their warriorss. Orkss do not fear death, but if we can kill their massterss and break their faith in their sstrength, then the horde will turn to infighting and raiding and break apart." He swept a gauntlet through the hololithic planet, causing it to flicker. "If their army iss broken, then it matterss not how many there are. We can hunt them down and sslay them at our leissure."

"So our objective is to defeat the Orks in a single, massive battle, and assassinate their Warboss, while heavily outnumbered," Gnoss said grimly, "what is our strategy?"

"We cannot determine that before the xenoss make planetfall," Sliver said, "we need intelligence when they do. As much and as detailed as posssible."

"My Lord?"

Sliver turned toward the pirate General, his visor lens glowing brighter.

"Get me Kaelith, and get me Wraithsstar. We will need their technologiess." Then he paused, and added with a growl. "Then contact the Equesstrianss. I want Captain Armor, and those sscout flyerss we ussed before. It'ss time that our 'alliess' sstarting acting like it."

Gnoss saluted. "Of course, my Lord. You will have them. By the Dark Gods, and the daemon Primarch, we WILL overcome."

****

Crystal Empire - Crystal Castle

"Wait, you're going WHERE?!" asked Cadence, her voice reaching a near-shriek.

Shining Armor sighed while several of his personal belongings magically flew into an open suitcase on the floor.

"Ferrous Dominus. I've been asked to help with the defense against the latest Ork attack wave." He paused. "For a given definition of 'asked'."

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait! I thought they finished the recruitment! They're not allowed to suddenly call on more ponies to join them! And not our soldiers!" Cadence shouted.

"There is some disagreement on the subject of what they are 'allowed' to do," Shining Armor drawled, "the four Iron Warriors out in the hall make a pretty strong case that I should make the trip."

He turned toward a ponnequin in the corner that held his barding and helmet. The golden trim to the plating still shined and the crest was a lush, brilliant mix of blues. The spear was slotted through a raised foreleg, its head sharpened to a razor edge and gleaming.

Shining Armor sighed again and turned away. That equipment was pretty much furniture now. He approached the small pile of polyceramic plates on his bed, along with a lasgun, spare power packs, and a sheathed power saber. At least the power saber seemed somewhat conventional and familiar, although he wasn't a fan of the yellow and black hazard striping over the sheath.

"I'm glad I have magic, so I don't have to wear a ballistics harness," Shining grunted as he started fitting the leg pieces over his hooves, "those things are a pain in the plot to clean, I've heard."

"No," Cadence said.

"You don't think so? Have you ever used one?" the stallion asked.

He jumped when the pink alicorn slammed her hoof down. "NO, you're not going!" she shouted.

Shining Armor cringed and glanced back at the doors to the hall. Did those power armor helmets block out sound, or enhance it? He couldn't remember off-hand.

"Cadence, please-" he began, only to be cut off.

"'Cadence, please' WHAT?" she demanded loudly. "Cadence, please, don't stand up to the alien marauders dragging more and more of your friends and loved ones into their stupid space wars? Cadence, please, let the nasty humans do whatever they want because they have the guns? Cadence, please, trust the evil pirates to keep me safe and not throw me in the path of a thousand rampaging Orks?!" She took a step closer with each sentence, until she was almost nose-to-nose with her husband.

Shining Armor's first instinct was to back away, but he pushed forward instead, pressing up against the alicorn and wrapping his forelegs around her back to embrace her. She whinnied in surprise and squirmed at first, but after a few seconds she stopped and exhaled a deep, shuddering breath.

After maybe ten more seconds of silent hugging, Cadence finally spoke again. "I'm still waiting for an answer," she grumbled, her voice far less angry and hysterical this time.

"I believe I was aiming for: Cadence, please, this isn't for the 38th Company," Shining said as he finally let go and took a step back, "this isn't 'their' stupid space war anymore, it's ours. You know that."

"I thought they had all the ponies they needed, though," the Princess grunted irritably.

"We were all hoping that, but it was a little naïve of us," the stallion sighed yet again before he cautiously went back to putting his armor on, "wouldn't that be convenient, to sign up a couple hundred ponies and then leave everything to the Company? The rest of us could kick back and not have to worry about the war, all the damage it could cause, and all the lives at risk." He shook his head as he levitated the torso piece up and strapped it around his barrel. "But that's not how this is playing out. We're not going to get out of this without getting our hooves dirty."

"I'm not worried about you getting DIRTY, I'm worried about you being SHOT," Cadence reminded him.

"I wish I could promise you that won't happen," Shining said as he secured his chest piece, "but I can't be afraid to face danger. Twily is out there every day fighting the Orks. This is still our country - our PLANET - and I'm going to help protect it if there's a place for me."

He floated the helmet overhead as he smiled at his wife. "Besides, their record for taking care of us ponies is actually pretty good. Twily says that she hasn't recorded a single actual death in combat yet among the equine auxiliaries."

Cadence blinked. "Really? That's... That's a little hard to believe, actually."

"I know, right? Maybe somepony up there is looking out for us," Shining Armor chuckled.

A heavy banging noise against the doors washed away the unicorn's smile. "I'm almost ready!" he shouted toward the door as his helmet dropped onto his head. It had an optics visor attached to it, and he flipped it up right away to clear his sight.

"I wish I could go with you," Cadence sighed.

"I do too," Shining agreed, "having three Princesses on deck would make those green savages think twice about messing with us... or regret it twice as much, at least. But we need somepony to stay here and protect the Crystal Empire. We can't both leave while aliens are running around the countryside."

He finished securing his armor and then leaned forward to give Cadence a peck on the muzzle.

Cadence surprised him by practically smashing their faces together in a deep, smothering kiss, and his levitating suitcase dropped onto the floor.

After almost a minute of desperately making out, Cadence suddenly pulled back, leaving her husband gasping for breath and somewhat dazed.

"You'd better come back to me," she warned, staring sternly at him while backing away.

Another series of banging noises came from the door, snapping Shining Armor out of his stupor. He could swear he heard it start to crack.

"All right, I'm ready!" He magically lifted his rifle and suitcase up above him. "I'll be back as soon as I can, honey. I love you!" The Guard Captain rushed out the door without further delay.

Four Iron Warriors stood outside the royal bedroom, and as soon as he entered the hall they turned and started heading out without a word.

Shining followed. "So, uh... are any of you my CO?" He asked, trying hard not to let his nervousness show.

"No. We are simply your escort," rumbled one of the Chaos Marines as they approached a guarded door at the end of the hall.

The crystal pony guards saluted and then pushed the doors open with uncommon speed and urgency, no doubt worried that the armor-clad giants would just walk right through the doors (and them) if they didn't clear the path.

"Okay, so... any idea what's going on, exactly?" Shining Armor asked, wondering if he should be requesting names and getting to know these guys. "I know that we have some more Orks coming, but not much else."

"It's not simply 'more Orks', it's an army that significantly outnumbers our own," grunted one Iron Warrior, "Lord Sliver believes that we will require more... creative tactics to challenge this many greenskins."

"Creative tactics? And he needs my help to think of something?" Shining asked.

A disdainful laugh came from the Marine in the lead. "No. Lord Sliver is a tactician with millennia of combat experience. He has won hundreds of wars against the Orks. He does not need your 'ideas', xeno."

Shining frowned, but decided not to challenge the statement. "So what does he need from me?"

"We understand that you equines have specific areas of competence, particularly when it comes to you psykers," muttered another of the soldiers.

"You mean our special talents," the unicorn said.

"Sure," the soldier replied as they reached the exits. Once again, crystal guards rushed to push the doors open for the group of power armored soldiers. "I understand that your 'special talent' is large force shields. We can use that."

Shining Armor paused as he looked over the thunderhawk gunship that had landed in the middle of the castle courtyard. "So, you want me to use my shields to hold off hundreds of enemy Orks? That's going to be a pretty tall order."

"It will not be mere 'hundreds', no," the Chaos Space Marine assured him, "we expect tens of thousands of foes to take part in the coming assault."

Shining gulped, but he didn't start to feel the creeping chill of fear along his back until the Iron Warrior spoke again.

"If you cannot perform this duty... well, you can explain your weakness to Lord Sliver in person soon enough."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 10 mining facilities, the next day

A furious, constant roar came from the skies above the smelting processors as Tellis soared over the towers of the fortress-factory, his flight pack leaving an aerial wake of "clear" air cutting through the clouds of smog.

He curved out of the way of a pair of pegasi soaring gently in the opposite direction. They had respirator masks and goggles on, of course, and their bodies were dark with soot and particulate filth. Most pegasi avoided flying too high above the city, as they were directly exposed to the heaviest concentrations of pollution when they did. Even if their masks filtered out all the toxins before it reached their lungs and kept the heavy dust out of their eyes, a pony could still pick up an impressive layer of filth in their fur. Despite this, for some the call of the skies couldn't be denied, no matter how long a shower one had to take later. Tellis certainly sympathized with that.

After giving a friendly wave to the flying ponies, the Raptor Lord began a shallow dive down toward the sector below, his eyes occasionally glancing toward the locator rune flickering on the edge of his visor.

Down below, trains of slaves hauled large iron carts spilling over with rocks for processing. Some of them flinched away as Tellis screamed overhead, but most simply kept their heads down and kept working.

Tellis glanced again at the locator rune. It flickered constantly, bouncing across his visor as his suit systems failed to lock down a direction. It seemed like this was as close as he was going to get.

Many more enslaved laborers than before flinched away when the Chaos Lord slammed into the ground amongst them, and those closest to the impact threw themselves to the ground for cover.

Tellis ignored them all, standing up straight and scanning from left to right.

"SHY?!" he called, his voice booming across the lot and nearly bowling over the closest groups of slaves. "Fluttershy?! You out here?! My visor says you're out here!"

He looked around for a few more seconds, oblivious to the ragged and brutalized humans staring at him.

Then a soft voice replied over his vox system.

"Uhm, yes. Is something wrong, Mister Murderer?"

The instant Fluttershy's vox system established a stable connection, her locator rune reappeared and stayed strong.

Tellis leapt in that direction, his flight pack flaring as it launched him into a tall arc over the ground.

He landed again, and then carefully watched the ground next to a heap of empty mining carts stacked up next to each other.

Flicker.

"There you are!" Tellis shouted, walking toward the very gentle, barely visible distortion in the air. "You know, when Boss Nerd gave you that stealth system, I don't think he meant for it to be used so much within our own base."

"Oh, but it's so much better for me with it on," Fluttershy's disembodied voice squeaked from below, amplified helpfully by her helmet vox, "I feel like everyone's staring at me whenever I'm visible."

"Well, they probably are," Tellis admitted, "you're kind of noticeable."

Another squeak, and the shimmering distortion in the air moved back behind one of the carts.

"But anyway, I'm not here to reinforce your social phobias," Tellis admitted, looking around, "although... why are you here, anyway?" He looked over at a chain gang struggling to push machinery toward the mine entrance. "Doesn't exactly seem like your kind of scene."

Fluttershy finally de-cloaked, her armored body coming into full view. Tellis could now see that there was a small bag hanging from the miniature servo arms on her chest plating.

"Oh, well..." she turned her head away, pawing at the ground, "sometimes I like to come down here and feed the slaves." Fluttershy opened up the bag to reveal a loaf of bread that was already halfway gone.

"... Explain," Tellis demanded.

"Well, they seem so under-nourished and tired," the pegasus mewled, "and I feel really bad for them! All the Tau slaves got to go free even though their army brought the Orks, but the human slaves are... well, still slaves."

"I wouldn't say that the grays got to go 'free', exactly, but never mind that," Tellis clarified, "what did you mean you feed the slaves? Show me."

Fluttershy dropped the bag down and then dug into it with her tiny servo arms, pinching off a mouthful-sized chunk of bread. Then she vanished from sight again.

Tellis watched silently as the wavering distortion in the air moved over to one of the lines of slaves pushing empty carts back toward the mines.

A wad of bread suddenly bounced onto the ground in front of one of them, as if materializing from nowhere.

The man stopped, stunned, and then quickly darted down toward the morsel. He scooped it up and shoved it into his mouth without a second thought, either not knowing or not caring that an Iron Warrior was watching him closely.

He became much more conscious of the Raptor when said Chaos Marine started laughing.

"HAH! That is HILARIOUS!" Tellis crowed, throwing his head back and pointing to the laborer. "You're feeding them like ducks! That's great!"

The slave, uncertain as to what, exactly, was happening, elected to chuckle nervously and hope that the Astartes remained more amused than angry.

Tellis stopped chuckling after a few seconds, and then waved to someone behind the anxious laborer. "Hey, overseer. How's it going?"

The slave didn't even have time to turn around before an electrified cord cut into his back, and he fell to the ground with a gurgling scream.

A Dark Acolyte walked up to the twitching, injured man, only to stop short when an armored pony suddenly appeared from nowhere next to the laborer.

"Why did you do that?" Fluttershy asked, her voice shaking as she stared up at the shadowed hood of the Acolyte. "That poor man! He didn't deserve that!"

The Dark Acolyte regarded the power-armored mare silently for a few seconds.

"Work stoppages are unacceptable. Punishment guidelines suggested shock lash as immediate remedy," the Acolyte answered in a dull monotone while the slave shakily stood up.

"But all he was doing was eating!" Fluttershy protested.

"Acknowledged," the Dark Acolyte droned.

Then the shock lash struck the man again, sending him screaming onto the ground again.

Tellis started laughing some more.

Fluttershy took a step toward the Dark Acolyte, incensed. "What was THAT for?"

"This is not a designated consumption period. Eating while at work is prohibited, and punishable by shock lash," the Acolyte explained.

"That's unfair! You stop that right now!" the pegasus demanded.

"You are not authorized to give me commands," the Acolyte buzzed back, its optics glowing brighter, "formulating response."

The shock lash whipped upward, and Fluttershy took a step back fearfully.

Then the lash came down again on the slave again, who elicited yet another sharp cry of pain.

"WHY?!" Fluttershy shouted her question to be heard over Tellis, who had doubled over laughing again.

"I am not authorized to administer punishment to a combat unit," the overseer explained, "I have authorization to express dissatisfaction through disciplinary measures applied to laborers."

"That's a horrible reason!" the pony exclaimed angrily.

"I tire of your insolence," the Acolyte said, a crackling electric arc running down the length of his whip as it again slashed through the air and struck the slave.

"Stop that right now!" Fluttershy demanded.

The lash cracked again, and the slave yelped again.

Fluttershy took a deep breath. "Okay, maybe we can talk this out? Please?"

Crack. Yelp.

"Why did you hit him THAT time?"

Crack. Yelp.

"Are you just whipping him every time I complete a sentence now?"

Crack. Yelp.

"You guys," Tellis was on the ground now, gasping between chuckles as his entire body shook, "I can't take it... heh heh heh... I only have... heh heh... three lungs... heh heh... stahp..."

"I'm TRYING to make him stop!" Fluttershy complained.

Again the electrified whip fell against the prone laborer, although this time his response was more of a strangled whimper.

"I wasn't talking to you that time!" Fluttershy protested, turning back to the overseer.

Crack.

"HE'S NOT EVEN CONSCIOUS ANYMORE!!" the pegasus screamed.

The Acolyte started to raise the lash again, then stopped. "Affirmative. I shall acquire another worker, and we shall continue."

Fluttershy's patience finally snapped, and her helmet hissed as it depressurized and broke open, folding away from the mare's face.

She jumped up into the air, and the repulsor engines of her wings suspended her above the hooded figure as she gazed hard into the glowing lenses under the overseer's cowl, unleashing the full power of The Stare.

A harsh buzzing noise came from the cybernetic worker, and his optics started flickering sporadically. "Neural synapse error. Nervous response anomaly detected."

Fluttershy continued Staring angrily at the Dark Acolyte, and Tellis finally stopped chuckling as he stood up again.

"Okay, so what's going on now?" asked the Chaos Marine.

"All motor networks unresponsive. Please reboot operating system and contact noosphere administrator," the Dark Acolyte explained unhelpfully before a few sparks crackled from a cranial plug.

"Now then, Mister overseer," Fluttershy said through clenched teeth, "I know you have a job to do, even if it is a terrible, cruel, and awful job. But let's be a little nicer about it in the future, okay? There's no need for VIOLENCE."

"Error. Error. Conflicting operative protocol prioritus. Dohjsfkghlbhk!" A loud popping noise came from the cyborg, and its head pitched to one side and sent him tumbling onto the ground.

"Huh. I think you broke him," Tellis mumbled, watching a stream of dark smoke leaking upward from the cowl.

Fluttershy dropped onto the ground, her expression shifting from stern to horrified. "I did WHAT? But I was just trying to stop him!"

Tellis kicked the Dark Acolyte lightly, watching the body roll limply across the ferrocrete. "And you sure did, too."

"Is he g-going to survive?" the pegasus asked, ducking her head down and quickly engaging her helmet again.

"I dunno. Whatever." He chuckled and leaned over to pat her helmet. "You know, you're a lot more fun to hang around with than I thought, Shy. We should do this more often."

Fluttershy groaned before she started backing away, not wanting to be around the pair of unconscious humanoids any longer. "Mister Murderer, was there a reason you came to find me?"

"OH! Right! I totally forgot! What with watching you dehumanize our slave workers and all. Seriously, that was gold," he coughed as he followed the armored pony away from the mining blocks, "yeah, so, there's a mission going down. Ork invasion, you know? A big one."

Fluttershy cringed, lowering her head. "I, uh, heard about that, yes."

The other Elements of Harmony/Equinoughts had largely reacted to the news of a large Ork assault force with calm confidence, but optimism had never been Fluttershy's strong suit. She was dismayed and disturbed by the carnage and damage caused by the Ork invasions thus far, each one consisting of a few thousand enemies shattered with relative ease and speed. She could hardly fathom a battle against an army that completely dwarfed the 38th Company.

"Good! Well, the Orks took up orbit opposite our own fleet, and they're unloading their troops on the edge of the continent," Tellis explained, "we don't really have a plan for how we're going to beat them yet, but Lord Ugly wants recon missions going around the clock, and wants the enemy scouts dead."

Fluttershy thought this over for a few seconds. "Okay... what does that have to do with you or me?"

"Guess who volunteered for a mission hunting the scouts?" he asked.

The pegasus mare considered the question. "Well, it wasn't me, so-"

"It's you!" the Iron Warrior interrupted cheerfully.

She gaped from behind her mask. "But... But I didn't..."

"Not technically, no. But I said you did, and command doesn't really ask me a lot of questions," Tellis admitted.

Fluttershy was stunned for a few seconds, and then she took a deep, calming breath.

"So, are the others coming with us?" Fluttershy asked.

"Nah. The Wonderbolts came back, so Dash is going with them, but the rest of them are too good for recon skirmishes, I guess." He snorted.

"I don't want to go," Fluttershy said firmly, drawing on the pent-up frustration and courage from earlier to assert her feelings about this unwelcome turn of events.

"And I don't want to not gut all these hapless slaves and make a little skeleton keep from their remains," Tellis chided, "but we all have to do some things we don't want to do sometimes, Fluttershy. This is an army, not a community volunteer group." He paused. "Well, except for the ponies that came here and formed that community volunteer group. But I'm pretty sure you're not on their roster."

Fluttershy again leapt into the air, hovering over the Iron Warrior as her helmet disengaged. Her eyes narrowed and her forehead furrowed, and her Stare pierced directly into the crimson slits in the Raptor Lord's helmet.

"Now, Tellis," she said tightly, using his real name, "I know that you want to spend time with me out of your rather stunted and inexperienced idea of what friendship is. But it is NOT okay to sign me up to dangerous battles that separate me from my friends! Do you understand?"

Tellis was silent for a few seconds, and then he asked, "So is this what you did to the other guy?"

"Yes!" the pegasus affirmed, leaning even further forward as her gaze bored into his visor.

"Weird. I don't get what happened to him. I'm not feeling anything but mild annoyance." Tellis reached up and poked Fluttershy in the forehead, causing her to squeak and back up. "Anyway, pack it in. The recon team is already out there and we're running behind."

Fluttershy wilted before she dropped back onto the ground, defeated.

"Aw, don't give me that look. It'll be fun! Angel Bunny is really excited!"

"What?!" Fluttershy's head snapped up again as she rushed to follow after Tellis. "Angel can't come with us! It's going to be really dangerous!"

"C'mon, Fluttershy, he can handle it! He has his own shiv and everything! Seriously, it's adorable!"

"I thought I threw that away!"

"He made another one from the discarded bones on my Khorne altar and an armor spike. That little guy is pretty handy."

"Tellis, Angel Bunny is NOT coming!"

"You're such a drag sometimes, Shy."

****

Unnamed forest - five kilometers from estimated Ork landing zone, five hours later

This hiss of pistons shifting and the snapping of branches underfoot filled the air as a formation of two dozen Sentinel scout walkers pushed through the brush. Each one of the reconnaissance vehicles had extended vox antennae, and most of them had two or three mercenaries hanging onto the sides. Several also had pegasi sitting on top, with the ponies equipped with flak armor and lasguns, like the human soldiers.

"The rendezvous point is at some sort of ruined forest temple just ahead!" Daniels shouted. "After that we push ahead on foot and start mapping out enemy movements and taking down any Ork scouts!"

"That's an awful lot of Orks to face with this many fighters, don't you think?" asked a pegasus mare sitting atop the sentinel. "How many others should be at the rendezvous point?"

"Less than you'd hope for!" Daniels replied. "This is going to be hard, but if we can keep from getting mobbed until dusk, then we can count on the nightpones to cover our retreat!"

"What about the DarkMech? Aren't they right behind us?" shouted a mercenary on another Sentinel who apparently hadn't bothered to read his briefing.

"They're setting up listening posts and vox relays! We're not getting any heavy support out here!" Daniels insisted. "The Tau have our back, but I'm not sure how much we can count on them!"

The mare riding above him lowered her respirator mask just so she could show off the disgusted sneer she was making.

"Finally, we've got the Wonderbolts up there as our celebrity guest unit, so everybody be on your best behavior, now!" Daniels chuckled wryly before the Sentinel lurched backward and then made a hop over a fallen log.

"Do we have the Eclipse on standby?" asked a Sentinel pilot.

"If you want to try to talk Command into it, you go right ahead!" Daniels answered. "As far as I'm aware, her Royal Highness needs her beauty sleep so that she can be spry and limber for killing Orks all night! Not much call for her now!"

The conversation died down while the group of light walkers continued stalking through the forest, their sensors sweeping constantly for signs of military activity.

"Movement up ahead," barked one operator, "there, in the brush."

"Greenskin?"

"Doubt it. Why would there be kommandos out here? And the other Orks aren't much for hiding."

A few pegasi jumped off of their perches to get a higher vantage point, and one of them shouted as he locked his foreleg into a firing position to aim his lasgun. "Timberwolves! We're in timberwolf territory!"

A spattering of lasers stabbed into the brush from the pegasi above, while the Sentinels shifted into a circle formation to cover all their approach vectors. None of the walkers fired though, jerking back and forth as they searched for targets.

"I have no visual contacts. Nothing on infra-red. Confirm enemy presence!"

"They're plant beasts!" shouted the hovering pony. "Just shoot anything wooden and leafy!"

"We're in a bloody FOREST, Cloudy!"

Daniels dropped down from his sentinel, shifting his optics visor up. "Watch for movement! Heavy flamers, forward! I heard about these things! They'll burn the same as anything else in this place!"

A deep, echoing howl came from deeper within the forest, and some of the larger collections of bushes started shaking.

One of the bushes spread apart, revealing that it wasn't obscuring a bizarre, magical wooden wolf-beast, but in fact had been one all along.

The timberwolf started to growl, only to quickly shift to pained yelping when one of the Sentinels charged forward with its heavy flamer on full blast.

"More at eight o'clock!"

"Two more at the rear. I've got them."

"We're surrounded!"

"Stay together! Concentrate fire on the closest ones!" Daniel shouted as one of the timberwolves darted forward at him.

He fired his rail rifle, but the wooden beast barely flinched as it drilled a clean hole down the length of its body and exited out of its back. With snarl, the timberwolf opened its jaws and lunged, only for it to suddenly catch a multilaser burst in the side.

"Geez! Watch it!" Daniels shouted, covering his face as the timberwolf nearly disintegrated in front of him. The beast's head bounced onto the ground at his feet, wisps of smoke trailing from its neck stump.

"You're welcome," snorted a woman's voice from one of the Sentinel's vox transmitters, "looks like energy weapons have the advantage here, everybody. Reiser, you can save your autocannons for the greenskins."

The whine of multilasers and the roar of flamers soon swallowed the other noises of battle, occasionally overcome with the agonized cry of a dying timberwolf. This only lasted for twenty seconds before the other predators emerging from behind the trees started backing away instead, reasoning that perhaps they had been hasty in launching this ambush.

"Hold up! They're backing off!" shouted a pegasus. Several of the timberwolves in the brush were retreating rapidly, their bodies peppered with scorched holes.

The humans waited for a few minutes and fired a few scattered lasgun bursts into suspicious bushes before they were convinced that the ponies were correct.

"Anybody hurt?" Daniels asked, waving the other soldiers back to the walkers.

"Nah. They sure broke quickly," muttered another mercenary as he jumped onto a sentinel and grabbed onto the cockpit frame.

"They were just trying to protect their territory." Explained a pegasus as she landed on the Sentinel's roof again. "Timberwolves are dumb, but not suicidal. They're not going to fight a battle they know they can't win."

"Well, that makes them smarter than us, at least," chuckled a Sentinel pilot.

"Can it, mercs. We're almost to the rendezvous point. Move out!"

Once again the formation marched through the forest, and the hiss of shifting pistons and snapping branches once again dominated the procession.

"Hey, Daniels?" mumbled the mare laying on top of the Sentinel Daniels was hanging onto.

"What is it, Skies?"

"Do you..." the pegasus trailed off for a moment, unsure if she wanted to get an honest answer to her question. "Do you really think we can't win this war?"

Daniels decided to slip his optics mask back down over his eyes. "Nobody pays me to think. Now stay sharp. If we stumble onto any more Centaurian critters, then you'll probably know before we do."

"R-Right..."

"I'm seeing some stonework ahead. Those look like our ruins," rumbled another Sentinel before it doubled its stride to take point.

The scout walkers spread out ahead, and the mercenaries all dropped to the ground to approach at their own speed.

The temple was an old, crumbling ziggurat overrun with moss and vines. Although it was short enough that it didn't stand higher than the treetops and make itself visible outside the forest, it was quite wide, and several partially-buried masses of shaped stone suggested that some of the structure's interior lay underground.

"Area secure, Danny," muttered a sniper as she sat down on a fallen pillar and started checking her longlas rifle.

"Confirmed," said a pegasus before the flying ponies all landed in a line on the edge of the forest temple, "nothing in the immediate area besides us... do you think we got here first?"

"Probably," Daniels mumbled as he shouldered his rifle. "We were the first ones to set out, and-"

The cracking of rocks cut him off, and the mercenary had his rail rifle back in his hands instantly after a few large chunks of stone broke free of the temple and bounced down the terrace steps.

"Whoa! What happened? What'd you touch?" demanded a mercenary of the pegasi, all of whom had leapt into the air again.

"We didn't do anything! The temple just started shaking!" protested the ponies.

"All right, everybody calm down," Daniels said, waving a hand, "Cloudy, can you-"

Once again, he was cut off mid-sentence as a single equine figure burst out of a crevice in the ruined ziggurat and landed right in the middle of the group of soldiers.

"Hold fire! Hold fire!" Daniels shouted as nearly every other mercenary aimed their weapons.

The newcomer - a mustard-colored pegasus with a pith helmet on, of all things - stared wide-eyed at the soldiers for a split second before sprinting forward, and it dashed right between the legs of one of the Sentinels before leaping into the brush.

The Company troops might have followed, but as the pony retreated a second shape crashed through the ruin walls and out into the open.

An enormous black snake that boasted a single eye in its forehead squirmed free of the rocks before it snarled a challenge into the air. "You will not essscape, Daring-"

"OPEN FIRE!!" Daniels screamed, bolting for cover behind a pillar.

"Wait, what? Who-?" the temple guardian mumbled in confusion when it suddenly became aware of a lot of other people around the temple entrance, all of them conspicuously well-armed.

All it was aware of after that was pain.

****

"Okay, what was THAT about?" Daniels demanded as he looked at the smoldering corpse of the giant snake-thing. It hadn't survived more than one volley from the sentinels, and most of its head had been taken off by a particularly well-aimed autocannon round.

"Adventurer," one of the pegasi mumbled while she struggled to reload her lasgun, "there are a lot of old ruins and stuff in the forests around Equestria, so you get some ponies who search them for treasure. No biggie."

"And the giant snake?" asked another mercenary.

"Well, nopony's going to leave treasure just sitting around indefinitely in a crumbling ruin with nothing to guard it, right?" scoffed the mare. "I mean, that's just common sense."

"Hey guys, what's all the noise about?!" came a shout from above.

The Sentinels and mercenaries backed up into a loose circle while Rainbow Dash came in for a landing, followed by a formation of other pegasi wearing sky-blue carapace armor and grenade bandoleers.

Spitfire landed and flipped her visor up, staring at the giant dead body hanging from the ziggurat. "You know, I don't hold the omnivore thing against you humans, but you should at least wait until after the mission's over to hold a squad barbecue," she said with an arched eyebrow.

"Well, we have to have SOME way to kill time while waiting for you slowpokes to show up," Daniels quipped, earning him some offended scowls from the newcomers, "how was the flight over, Dash?"

"Dull," Rainbow Dash answered, puffing flame from her flight pack, "can't wait to get out there and give those Ork pilots the last flying lesson of their lives!"

"Yeah, yeah, chill out, hotshot," Spitfire grunted, walking up to Daniels, "looks like you've had some trouble getting here."

"Local obstacles. No greenskins yet," the mercenary replied, "we expect them to deploy biker scouts soon, if they haven't already."

"Air cover?" the yellow pegasus asked.

"Haven't heard any jet flyovers or other Ork flyers yet, but you'd know better than me," the mercenary shrugged, leaning down next to Spitfire and picking up her foreleg. There was a small metal box attached to it, and the wires ran up her leg and up to her visor.

"I'll sync up your transmitters to the Sentinels' relay nodes. You won't be able to reach Command from here, but we'll be in constant contact."

Spitfire nodded and turned to her squad as Daniels dropped her hoof. "All right, Wonderbolts! It's go time! We have heavy cloud cover near the Ork LZ, so stay up on top of the cotton and stay hidden as much as you can!" Then she glanced back at Rainbow Dash, staring uncertainly at the crimson slits that made up her helmet visor. "Dash, I know you're eager to start, but I'm still holding out hope that we won't need your help. And if we do, well... are you sure you can do this?"

"Of course I am!" Rainbow Dash said breezily. "You just do your scouting thing, Spits! Rainbow Dash has got your back!"

Spitfire didn't really think she and the power-armored mare were on close enough terms to give each other nicknames, but now hardly seemed to be the time to harp on breaches of etiquette.

"All right, then. Wonderbolts, let's soar!" Spitfire shouted, leaping into the air and darting through the gaps in the branches above. The other stunt fliers followed, and Rainbow Dash practically vaulted into the sky with a burst from the impulse blasters on her legs.

"That's one group down, two more to go," Daniels mumbled.

One of the stallion pegasi trotted over to him, and then nudged his leg with a hoof.

"So, that Spitfire, eh?" the pony asked, flipping up his optics to wiggle his eyebrows at the man. "Quite a looker, huh?"

Daniels stared down at the pegasus in confusion. "Why are you asking me?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I know you're in a committed relationship with that Apple pony," the stallion said, waving a hoof, "but looking at a backside like Spitfire's almost makes you wish you weren't, you know?"

"You know, I can hurt you and get away with it," Daniels deadpanned.

The stallion immediately flinched away. "Okay, fine! Yeesh. Touchy much?" he grumbled, trudging away.

There was a rustling noise from some nearby bushes, and then another dark shape emerged into the open.

This figure was immediately targeted by every weapon in the scouting force, but it didn't really notice. Even as he stepped forward, the batpony stallion had his head turned around to look behind it.

Dusk Blade halted and turned his head back to look at the scout team. "Was that Daring Do back there?"

"I think so, yeah," one of the other ponies replied, "I was going to ask for an autograph, but, you know, she seemed busy."

"All right, focus, people," Daniels said, watching as more batponies emerged from the shrubs and from behind trees. There were many more of them than in his scout team, and he was guessing there were a lot more that were waiting elsewhere in hiding.

"Lieutenant Dusk Blade reporting," the first batpony said, raising a hoof to his forehead, "we've got an hour until nightfall. Then it's throat-cutting time."

"Any contacts?"

"A couple of those filthy little ones," Dusk shrugged, "I think they were out scavenging for food. They weren't grouped up or anything, and the Orks weren't keeping track of them. They won't be missed."

"Their blood tastes awful, too. Like dirty water," complained another thestral, his wings shaking irritably.

The pegasi all flinched back in shock. Those who had their masks off all wore expressions of horror, but even the pegasi whose faces were completely obscured managed to convey that they were surprised and disgusted by this revelation.

"You drink blood?" Daniels asked curiously.

"That is HARDCORE," said another sniper, fist/hoof-bumping the batpony.

"Most of us don't," Dusk explained quickly, "just a few clans in the north. The rest of us eat fruits and bugs."

"You eat BUGS?!" shouted one of the mares in disgust.

Dusk Blade released a tired sigh. "Can we save this lesson on cultural differences and tolerance for some other time? Like, when we're not on the edge of an alien army?"

"Roger that. Here, let me see your auspex," Daniels commanded.

Dusk raised his left foreleg, which had an auspex scanner secured to it with an adhesive patch. Daniels took his hoof - carefully avoiding the adamantium talons attached to them - and started entering a code.

"I'm uploading the mission registratum codex to your system. The Sentinels' scanners and DarkMech listening posts will relay enemy locations to it."

"Thanks," Dusk said, lowering his leg, "I'll take my guys to cover the-"

"CONTACT!"

The human mercenaries dove for cover when one of the Lunar Guards shouted a warning and opened fire. The Sentinels, however, had been keeping watch on the perimeter the entire time, and none of them had spotted any movement except for a Tau Stealth Suit team walking out from behind the edge of the forest ruins.

None of them were terribly surprised when the battlesuits turned out to be the targets of the sudden attack. The Stealth Suit on point flinched away as the shards of super-accelerated crystal toxin stabbed into his arm plating, gouging deep cracks in the ablative layer.

"Shadow, check fire! Check fire!" Dusk Blade shouted, whirling on the other batpony.

"Whoops! Just a gray," Shadow Step laughed before he lowered his leg and the attached rifle, "sorry about that, freaks! I guess I'm a little jumpy! You know how it is!"

The Stealth Suits started arguing with each other in their own language, while the soldier who had been shot growled and brought up his burst cannon.

"Whoa, there! Let's not do anything stupid, grayskin!" snarled the Lunar Guard before several other batponies raised their splinter rifles to back him up. "Two wrongs don't make a right, you know!"

Then a boot slammed down onto Shadow's neck, plowing his face into the forest floor.

Upon seeing one of the mercenaries subduing the aggressive equine, the Stealth Suit started to rush forward to help. It stopped when that same human calmly drew a pulse pistol and aimed at the Tau battlesuits, though.

"All right, kids, settle down," Daniels said, sounding slightly exasperated, "and keep in mind that, as a human goddamn being, I can kill any of you for any reason I like with minimal paperwork."

The batpony under his heel started to growl out profanities and flap his wings wildly, but then yelped in pain when Daniels dug his boot in deeper.

"Shadow, was it? I'm going to give you a little something my pal AJ calls a 'friendship lesson'. It goes like this!"

The other Lunar Guards seemed ready to leap at the mercenary's back to rescue their fellow warrior, but a decisive gesture from Dusk Blade had them backing down immediately.

"Dear Princess Luna: today I learned that you never, EVER deliberately shoot at friendly troops, since that just puts our mission - and by extension, all of our lives - in greater danger. It's bad for the Tau, it's bad for the humans, and ultimately, it's VERY bad for us ponies, too. PS: it turns out the humans can tell when an 'accident' is deliberate! Fancy that!" Daniels reached down with his free hand and seized a fistful of the batpony's mane. "Sign the letter."

"Y-Your l-loyal soldier, Sh-Shadow Step!" the Lunar Guard gasped out.

Daniels stepped back, holding his pistol up into the air. "Good. Now get out of here."

The Lunar Guards needed no further orders, and they all leapt into the air before darting back into the forest in flurry of beating wings. Shadow Step staggered for a moment, coughing into his respirator mask, but then quickly sprinted after his fellow batponies.

"That was awesome," snickered a pegasus as Daniels approached the Stealth Suits, "I mean, sure, we all WANT to shoot the Tau even though they're on our side, but you can't actually DO it. Not cool at all."

"Please refrain from talking about how much you hate your allies until they're out of earshot," Daniels deadpanned. Then he looked over the five armored aliens. "Which one of you speaks Gothic?"

The blue and black battlesuits continued staring at him silently through their crimson optics sensors.

"... None of you speak Gothic? You're kidding me," the mercenary grumbled, holding a hand to his head.

"The grayskins don't take this very seriously, do they? Sending us scouts that can't communicate with us," asked a sentinel pilot.

Daniels took a deep breath. "Orks! You know that word? Orks? Where? Where Orks?"

The Stealth Suits turned to glance at each other.

*I guess they really don't know that we have translation software installed in our battlesuits now.*

*I think it's best that they remain unaware. We can always pretend that we don't understand their orders when they tell us to do something stupid.*

*Hey, wait, watch this.*

The Stealth Suit in the lead slowly pointed his arm in the direction of the Ork landing zone. "Orks," he said slowly, as if sounding the word out.

"Oh, for the love of..." Daniels paused to go over a list of deities, and then shook his head as he decided against it. "Bloody worthless, the lot of you. Go! Do your mission! I hope your idiot leaders told you what it was, because I sure can't brief you!"

The battlesuits looked around in fake confusion for a moment as he waved them away, and then they quickly turned and started plodding away from the ruins.

*Good riddance to all of them. I give them about five minutes against the barbarians,* grumbled the lead Stealth Suit as they raced toward their recon sector.

*I don't know, I rather like the way that ape with the rail rifle disciplined the horse. At least some of these primates know what they're doing.*

*Forget them. Keep to our mission parameters and ignore any transmission that isn't in our language. And keep a route open for a retreat! The Orks will get us all eventually, but that doesn't mean we have to die HERE, with these morons.*

*Roger that, Shas'ui!*

****

Ork landing zone (aerial)

The Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash galloped over the veritable blanket of clouds, constantly searching the skies above for any signs of incoming vessels as they made their way over the area judged to be the Ork landing zone.

"Stop! Another Landa!" Spitfire called, falling flat against the clouds and practically burying herself into it. The other pegasi likewise dove for any cover they could find, curling up behind lumps of white or simply sinking as far as possible into the cotton-like surface below them.

In the distance, three Ork landing ships rocketed toward the surface, each one escorted by sputtering Fightas.

"Celestia's holy rump, those things are huge," grumbled Soarin, "each one carries a small army, right?"

"Yeah. And the humans say that they've been flying down and dropping off greenies all day," Rainbow Dash confirmed.

After the landing vessel sunk below the cloud level and out of sight, the ponies stood up again and resumed their approach.

"Glad we got sky-camo this time around. If the Orks' numbers are ANYTHING like the humans guess, we're going to need it," grumbled Fleetfoot.

"Yeah, on that note," Spitfire looked back at Rainbow Dash, "is there any way they could have made your armor any MORE conspicuous?"

"Hey! My armor's the best!" Rainbow shot back. "And yeah, I know the color scheme is a bit gaudy, but Solon says that I'll probably get shot by our own guys if I look different."

"Okay, fair enough. Just make sure to-" Spitfire yelped and threw herself down again as a Fighta zoomed up through the clouds barely a dozen meters away. Two more Ork fighter craft followed seconds later, and the clouds began to shift before another Landa pushed up through the cloud bank and ascended back toward orbit.

None of the vessels seemed to take notice of the Equestrians, most of whom murmured prayers to Celestia while the roar of engines became more and more distant.

"Okay, that thing was practically under us. I think it's time we start our photo shoot," Spitfire declared, pointing a hoof at the hole that the Landa had punched in the cloud cover, "there's as good a place to start as any. Dash, you hang back."

The Wonderbolts crept up to the edge of the fraying clouds, their heads swiveling to and fro nervously.

Spitfire reached the edge first, and she placed a hoof against her optics mask as she peered down at the distant ground.

"... Holy buck. That is a LOT of green," the yellow mare declared.

The other Wonderbolts joined her, each of them zooming in on a section of the vast army below and snapping pict-captures.

It was like an ocean of warriors, stretching over the hills that had served as their landing zone. Ribbons of smoke streamed into the air from hundreds of cook fires and exhaust ports, and gargantuan beasts were being led into a valley where they could be more easily penned in.

"What're those things with the tusks? They're huge!" Fleetfoot exclaimed.

"Sounds like Squiggoths," Rainbow Dash said from behind the stunt fliers, "I saw a couple of those in that raider clan outside Baltimare."

"Do they, uh, eat ponies?" Soarin asked nervously.

"Not if you kill them first."

"Okay! So, we've scouted, right? All done? We can go home?" asked Silver Lining, his voice much higher pitched than usual. His ribs had healed since their first encounter with the Orks, but the memory was still quite fresh.

"Yeah, no. Next vantage point. Move!" Spitfire ordered, pulling away from the open sky.

As the pegasi trotted across the cloud bank once more, Spitfire opened up a vox channel to Daniels. "Hey, you're the CO around here, right?"

"Not by rank, no. None of the sergeants were dumb enough to take this mission," came the reply, "I'm in charge because I have the best gun, I guess."

"I've seen worse rationale for promotion," Spitfire said wryly, "anyway, we got some images of the Ork camp. Take a look."

"Hold on..." several seconds of silence passed on the vox system. "Holy shite. That is a LOT of green."

"Tell me something I don't know," the Wonderbolts Captain grunted, "I mean that literally, by the way. I'd like to know what you can get out of this besides 'there's a lot of enemies'."

"All right, I've got something," Daniels responded, "I'm not seeing them building anything. No substructures, no material carts, nothing."

"So what does that mean?" Soarin asked, having linked into the conversation earlier.

"That means that this isn't really a camp; the Orks are just gathering here until they can get enough troops together from their ships, and then they're going to leave this area in a huge march toward the engagement zone."

"And where might this engagement zone be?" Spitfire pressed.

"There's only one place on this planet that can offer a decent fight to this many greenskins," Daniels said grimly.

"Ferry D," Rainbow Dash interjected.

"Well, it's an awfully long walk to the fortress," Blaze pointed out, "why'd they land way out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"If they tried to make planetfall closer, we'd probably try to intercept their landas and their ships with our ground batteries and fighter fleet. They could lose a good chunk of their army that way." Daniels paused. "That's pretty cautious for Orks. Somebody down there must think he's smart."

"Hey, Captain! Found another gap!" Fleetfoot shouted, bounding up to a section of clear sky in the cloud bank. "Let's see what we... have... here..." Fleetfoot's voice trailed off as she looked down at the army below.

"Fleet? Hey, what's up?" Soarin asked before he trotted up next to her. "What did you SWEET MOTHER OF LUNA!!"

Spitfire frowned behind her rebreather as she joined her subordinates. "It can't be that WHAT THE HAY IS THAT THING?!"

"Would you all stop sounding shocked and tell me what you're looking at?" Daniels asked through the vox.

Spitfire snapped a pict capture, but couldn't bring herself to describe the behemoth slowly lumbering across the ground below.

"Lemme see!" Rainbow said excitedly, rushing up to the edge of the clouds. "WHOA. Okay, I've never seen one of THOSE before."

"Dash!" Spitfire snapped. "Get back and out of sight! You're going to give us away! Do you want that thing to actually catch sight of us?!"

Rainbow Dash quickly backed up, lowering her head and mumbling apologies.

"Shit," Daniels swore over the vox, "shit, shit, shit."

"Agreed," Spitfire replied, "but that aside, would you like to put a name to that walking building down there? It's as big as Canterlot Castle!"

"That, my pony friends, is a Gargant," Daniels explained, "an Ork super-heavy walker. The heaviest, really."

Spitfire bit her lip anxiously. The titanic, pot-bellied war machine had four arms loaded down with ridiculously large cannons and overrun with wires and ammunition loading tubes. Other, smaller guns stuck out of various spots on the thick, obviously reinforced torso. The monstrous walker was topped with a head the size of a small house boasting big red cockpit windows and rokkits in place of ears. The machine was completely absurd in its scale and its dusty, scrap-metal appearance, but none of the equines staring at it imagined that the ramshackle giant was anything less than deadly.

"Okay. So, we have a... gargant. That's important. Good intelligence," Spitfire mumbled, "the Iron Warriors can handle one of those, right? I mean, they have advanced warning."

"Can they handle three?"

The other Wonderbolts felt a chill down their spines at Silver Lining's question, and they looked over to the stallion. He was crouched next to another, smaller break in the clouds, and visibly shaking as he stared down at the ground.

"Take a few picts and let's move on," Spitfire ordered. She didn't really want to have a look herself.

"Roger that, Captain."

The pegasi started moving again, all of them choosing not to remark further on the subject of the super-heavy walkers. Each of them were keenly aware that Daniels hadn't offered an answer to Spitfire's question.

Much less Silver Lining's.

The vox crackled in Spitfire's ear. "All right, we're seeing some bikers. Remy already sniped the Nob. You might see more activity over where you are as we pick off the scouts."

"Is that a good idea?" Blaze asked nervously. "I kind of feel like we shouldn't be making them mad. Until we're further away, at least."

Spitfire snorted. "Grow a backbone, Blaze. We're not going to beat these thugs by spying them to death."

"Does anypony else hear that?" Soarin asked, his ears twitching. "It sounds like one of those rotor-craft things."

Spitfire paused. "We might be over an air field or something. Maybe we can get a count on their planes." She looked around at the surrounding clouds, but saw no breaches in the cottony carpet. "Maybe we can dig a hole to look down? Yeah, that would-"

"Captain!" Soarin interrupted anxiously, his ears pinning back. "The sound is getting closer!"

Spitfire didn't have much time to think of a response before an Ork Deffkopta rose up through the cloud bank.

Rainbow Dash reacted immediately, blasting off toward the rotor craft and colliding with the rather surprised pilot. The Deffkopta shook at the impact, and the flyboy grunted painfully as he grabbed onto the horns of Rainbow Dash's helmet and tried to pry her off of him.

"Hey, watch the horns, punk! NOBODY touches the horns!"

The Ork managed to pull the armored pony off, one arm still holding onto Rainbow's helmet while the other tried to bring his aircraft under control.

Rainbow Dash couldn't line up her shuriken catapult in this position, so she aimed her forelegs at the pilot and activated her impulse blasters instead. The force ripped the pilot free of his cockpit harness and flung him into the air, and the armored pegasus laughed as the flailing alien plummeted back beneath the cloud cover.

"When you reach the ground, tell them Rainbow Dash sent you!" she shouted. The deffkopta started to sink as it whirled about out of control, and soon it too vanished beneath the clouds.

"I don't hear another one," the power-armored pony said before she dropped back down next to Soarin, "they still don't know we're here."

"Until they notice the Ork pilot plummeting to his death, or his vehicle, and wonder what happened," Soarin mumbled.

Rainbow Dash blinked behind her helmet. "Oh. Uh... maybe they... won't?"

Spitfire cringed. "Let's speed this up a little, yeah?"

****

Ork landing zone - ten minutes ago

"I gotta say, Coggz, youz kinda handy ta haff around," murmured Drahgza as he stared at his power klaws.

The hydraulic pincers now boasted a particle stream projector next to each main joint, as well as a far more complex power generator mounted onto the back of the Warboss's mega armor. Scavenged Tau power cells featured extensively in the new design.

"Fanks," the Big Mek snorted, closing a panel on the new generator after checking that all the meters were twitching wildly within an acceptable range, "jus' remembah dat I get furst cut o'da loot in da spiky fort."

Drahgza made a light growling noise in the back of his throat at the reminder. He didn't like the prospect of having to purchase the assistance of his underlings, even if it was with a promise of future gains in the event of complete success.

On the other klaw, the frequent tremors that ran up his legs were a very happy reminder of what his "purchase" had gotten him. The sight of three - THREE - Gargants shuffling over the ranks of his boyz nearly brought an oil tear to his bionik eyes. It also brought a hearty chuckle when a few gretchin got tripped up in the rush to get out of the way and were then smashed underfoot.

"Dat shood do it," Hazarr grunted before he backed away, "now, be careful wit da-" he was interrupted by a sharp hissing noise when Drahgza gleefully tested out his new weapon.

A thin jet of bright white energy lanced forward from one of the klaws, spearing a hapless slugga boy in the back and instantly burning a large hole through his torso.

Drahgza laughed after the smaller Ork collapsed into a heap, and the jet dissipated rapidly. "Ha! Dese tings is a hoot!" He looked down at the klaw, which was leaking an impressive amount of smoke. "Not too loud, doh."

Hazarr restrained a sigh, and he decided to skip his instructional lecture on how to use the "un-mattah beem" and its comparative advantages over other weapons. He didn't want to run the risk of them being used on him out of boredom.

"Boss! Boss Redclawz! We'z gotz a 'merjencee!" squealed a high-pitched voice running toward the two Orks.

Drahgza only briefly considered trying out his new weapon on the Grot too before deciding that he was in a good enough mood to actually listen to the news he was being given.

"Wot's da probbem?" the Warboss grunted.

"It's da bikahs, Boss! Da bikahs! Ya told 'em to start searchin' da place, an' dey got shot up!" the Gretchin squealed, pointing both hands fervently into the distance. "Da boyz wot didn' git shot caym back and sed dat dey didn' even see wot hit 'em!"

Drahgza growled. "Den send out mo' bikahs! Back 'em up wit' boyz in Trukks! Find wot's out dere an' kill it ded!"

"Dey see any hosses?" Hazarr asked suddenly.

Both the Grot and the Warboss turned to stare at the Mek.

"Wot? Nohbody sed nuffin' about no hosses," the gretchin said, perplexed.

"Dere's hosses out heah, too," Hazarr insisted, "if'n ya see 'em, ya gotta kill 'em roight kwik. Sum of 'em roight nasty, dey is."

"Who cayrs 'bout sum zoggin' hosses?" Drahgza snarled. "I'm lookin' ta git me klaws on da gits killin' me boyz! I don' haff time ta be snoopin' fer no dum hosses!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"

Most of the nearby greenskins looked up as they heard a rapidly approaching scream, and then watched silently as it was terminated suddenly upon impact with the ground. Along with the Ork doing the screaming.

"Well, now da hosses is killin' yer boyz," Hazarr snorted, "so waddya wanna do, Boss?"

Drahgza stared at the red splotch on the ground some distance away, then stared up at the cloudy skies. An out-of-control Deffkopta was slowly spiraling toward the ground, bereft of a pilot.

He looked down at the blood stain again.

"I'm cunfyoosed," Drahgza admitted.

"Da hosses 'round heah can fly," Hazarr pointed out.

"Wot?!" Drahgza rounded on the Big Mek angrily. "Hosses don' fly! If dey flyin', den dey ain't hosses!"

Hazarr considered that the Warboss actually had a point there, but wasn't really interested in discussing xeno-nomenclature. "Wotcha wanna do 'bout it, Boss?"

Drahgza released a furious snarl. "Wot do I wanna do?! Dis heah planet is MYN, now! So dis sky is myn too! An no humie, spiky, or zoggin' hoss is gonna be kickin' me boyz outta MY sky!" He held up his arms as he bellowed his next commands to everyone assembled. "Oi, youz dum gitz! Git yer green arses movin'! Dere's fightin' t'do!"

****

"Okay, yeah, I think we're in trouble," Fleetfoot said as her ears pinned back.

A wave of excited shouting could be heard from the distant ground, and she and Soarin backed away from a gap in the cloud bank.

"Agreed! I'm calling this mission accomplished!" Spitfire shouted, moving into a gallop. "Let's go, ponies! Stay over the cloud cover as much as possible! Move! MOVE!"

The Wonderbolts took to the air, breaking toward their planned extraction route. Rainbow Dash followed, but soon her visor lit up with a warning and a new set of target markers.

"Hey! We've got another landa coming down!" the armored pegasus shouted. "The Fightas with it are heading toward us! We've got two incoming!"

"Not again!" Silver Lining moaned.

"Keep going! Maximum speed!" Spitfire barked. "Dash, you got this?"

Rainbow Dash peeled off from the other ponies, curving upward into the sky. "Go on! You leave these jerks to me!"

Out of all the pegasi in the scouting group, Rainbow Dash was - as Spitfire was quick to point out - by far the easiest to notice, since she was wearing heavy, reflective armor and being propelled by engines rather than wings. So it came as no surprise to anypony when the Ork Fightas adjusted course to intercept her and ignored the other five equines.

Rainbow barrel rolled through the air when the Fightas opened fire, sending a veritable rain of bullets at the flying Equinought. Her twisting motions sent her into a wide spiral, and bullets whipped past her by the dozen as the Ork weapons ran hot.

"Almost..." Rainbow mumbled as she closed the distance with the closest plane at a completely reckless speed, leveling out and aiming directly for the cockpit. "RAINBOW-"

A bullet striking the cheek of her helmet pitched Rainbow's head to the side, causing the brash pony to flinch at a rather crucial moment.

The next few seconds were full of loud noises, shattering glass, and terrible pain.

"Ow. OW. Geez. That was REALLY stupid," Rainbow groaned as she tried to take stock of what had happened and where she was now. "Dang it! You guys can't shoot me while I'm doing that! If I forget to turn on the kinectic refreshing thingy, then I could get hurt! Seriously, I'm lucky I didn't dive right into your jet intake!"

As she complained, Rainbow noticed that she seemed to be in the horribly shredded cockpit of the lead Fighta. She was also partially embedded in the chest of the flyboy pilot, who had acquired quite a collection of shrapnel in his face.

"Well, it looks like you cushioned my impact a little, so at least you freaks are good for SOMETHING," she gave a disgusted grunt at all the blood splashed over her visor, glad as ever that her armor was sealed and pressurized.

Ignoring most of the damage warnings on her visor display - no alarms were blaring angrily at her, so it couldn't be that bad - Rainbow proceeded to take stock of her situation outside the damaged aircraft. With the Fighta interior painted over with Ork guts, the plane had naturally dipped down into an uncontrolled descent for an undoubtedly fatal landing. The other plane had broken off from its ruined wingmate, and was making a straight run for the Wonderbolts.

"Not today, punk," the armored pony muttered before her flight pack rumbled over her wings.

Rainbow Dash burst from the already doomed aircraft and started soaring toward the imminently doomed one, her impulse engines only sputtering briefly before they flared to life. This Fighta was rapidly approaching firing range of the ponies she was escorting, and while the Wonderbolts were no slouches when it came to aerial evasion, Rainbow Dash would really prefer that all the dangerous attention stay centered on her for the time being.

There was a problem, though: ramming a plane from behind with a Rainbow Buster while both she and the target were moving at top speed in the same direction tended to yield unimpressive results. There was probably some boring physics reason for that, but considering that she already had a force field that kicked physics' ass, Rainbow Dash thought it was completely unfair.

"Hey! Come pick on somepony your own speed!" Rainbow Dash yelled, her vox system amplifying her voice considerably. "Come on, man, those are celebrities! You kill them and you're going to get SO much hate mail, I'm not even kidding!"

Whether her shout was swallowed by the scream of the Fighta's engines or the Flyboy simply didn't feel provoked into changing tactics, the enemy plane stayed its course and started tilting to line up its guns on the rearmost Wonderbolt.

The craft shook slightly as something bumped into the top of the Fighta's hull.

"Okay, let's see here..." Rainbow mumbled while she looked over the ramshackle armor plating. Her boots were mag-locked to the hull, and her shuriken catapult tracked back and forth along with her head to search for vulnerable points.

"This would be so much easier if they would give me some more of those melta bomb things," Rainbow Dash mumbled. She located an armor seam that was shaking more than the rest of the vehicle - and had an alarming lack of intact bolts holding it in place - and then slammed a boot onto it.

A burst from that boot's impulse blaster nearly threw her off the Fighta, and Rainbow had to gun her flight pack in order to push her forelegs back down into contact with the hull plating. Once she was stabilized again, the armored pegasus was quite happy to see that there was a large opening where the armor used to be. She was rather perplexed by what was under it, however.

"Is that seriously supposed to be an engine? It looks like a garbage disposal wrapped in duct tape. How the hay do these things actually fly?"

Rainbow Dash felt her weight shift as the Fighta began to bank, apparently having clued in that something unfortunate was happening on top of it.

"Well, whatever this thing is, I hope it's important!" Rainbow yelled, unloading her shuriken catapult into the machine. Sparks flashed and bits of metal flew from the impact point as the projectiles carved into it, and Rainbow noticed a distinct increase in the Fighta's unsteady shaking.

After several more shuriken sliced into the booster, one of them cut open a fuel line. A few stray sparks ignited the gushing, highly unstable fuel, and as fire started spreading over the housing interior Rainbow reasoned that her work was done.

After she released her magnetic lock on the plane, however, she saw that she wasn't the only one who was finished with the aircraft. The Fighta's cockpit blasted open before the Flyboy's seat was launched into the air, and Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes as the Ork deployed a parachute and began a safe descent toward the ground.

"Hey, Daniels," she said, raising the mercenary in her vox system, "apparently these pilots have eject seats and parachutes in their jets. This one actually looks like he'll make it."

"Their mek DOES think he's clever, then. Take a run through the cables, that'll knock him down a peg. And a few thousand meters."

Rainbow Dash winced. "I dunno, I don't really want to be 'that pony', you know? I feel like it would cross some weird moral line if I started going out of my way to kill helpless, defeated opponents."

"Sorry, didn't catch that," Daniels asked, "I was busy talking to AJ over the vox about what a total wimp you are. Didn't mean to ignore you, lass. What were you crying about?"

"TIME FOR ANOTHER ORK PANCAKE!!" the pegasus shouted, blasting forward toward the parachute.

The Flyboy fired a slugga at Rainbow Dash as she rocketed toward him, but it was a very difficult shot even before taking typical Ork aim into account. The impulse-propelled armor shell shredded the parachute cables with ease, and Dash even managed to set the parachute fabric on fire with her afterburner before she pulled up.

Rainbow Dash didn't look back as she leveled out, and then linked up her vox to Daniels again. "Dude, you're like the 'anti-conscience,' you know that?"

"Welcome to the forces of Chaos, Dash."

A new series of alerts on her visor informed Rainbow that new planes were converging on her position: two from above, and at least four gaining altitude from below.

"Well, I gave the hornet's nest a good kick, so I guess it's time to get out of here," the Equinought said glibly before she took off, "after losing two planes and a copter thing, I'm pretty sure they won't be bothering the Wonderbolts anymore."

"Are you sure you can outfly them? Their engines are probably much bigger, but I'm sure you're more agile. So maybe-"

Rainbow Dash laughed. "Daniels, buddy, relax. I know what this suit can do. See you back at Ferry D, all right?" She cut the vox link.

The side of Rainbow's visor display started listing the pursuing aircraft and their respective distances, but her eye tracked down to a different, less prominent rune on the bottom edge.

She blink-clicked on it, and her vox system crackled briefly before it filled her helmet with a very different voice than before.

"Hiiiiiighwaaaaaay toooo theeeee DANGER ZONE!!" A heavy guitar riff followed the impassioned cry, and Rainbow Dash whooped loudly before she did a barrel roll through the sky.

"SO glad I found the dirge player function!"

****

8 kilometers from the Ork landing zone

"Spike, ensure that the signum transponder is functioning before boot-up. I am proceeding to place the primary charge."

Spike sat on top of a tall, tree-sized machine next to a cluster of thick thorn bushes, his claws wrapped tightly around a tall antennae as Gaela worked at the machine's base.

Despite his orders, the young dragon was less concerned with the listening post he was helping install and more with the trails of dust and exhaust clouds rolling across the distant plains. Although no Orks had happened upon him or any of the other Mechanicus teams yet, it was hard to ignore the presence of more and more bikers in the region around them.

"Shouldn't we have guards? I feel like we should have guards. Why couldn't Twilight come with us?" Spike mumbled as he turned toward the transponder and checked that all the small lumens on the side were on.

"The more firepower we possess, the more Orks we will draw to battle," Gaela explained calmly from below as she lifted a large metal block with the aid of her servo arms, "besides, it is almost dusk. They will make little progress chasing us after night falls."

Spike grunted and started climbing down the listening post. "If you say so, Gaela... anyway, the transponder's fine."

"Did you perform the cant of networking?" the Dark Techpriest asked, sliding the block into the machine housing.

"No, I didn't stop to pray," Spike said as he dropped onto the ground, rolling his eyes. The array of small tools strapped onto a belt around his chest rattled from the movement.

"Your disdain for the Machine Spirit is most unfortunate. You would make a halfway capable tech adept otherwise," Gaela mumbled before her servo tool started welding.

"I don't even want to join your crazy cult. Especially not after they rejected Twilight!" Spike complained.

"I don't see what our prohibition against psykers has to do with you."

"It's called LOYALTY, Gaela. It's a friendship thing."

"Perhaps if you were more loyal to yourself, people would stop mistaking you for a slave."

Spike opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Gaela didn't seem to notice the awkward halt to their conversation. "As engaging as this discussion is, we had best be silent. The greenskins are too close, and I'm arming the detonator now," she started fitting new parts onto the metal block and chanting in binary.

"Oh, uh, yeah. I'll leave you to that," Spike mumbled. He wasn't really sure why every listening post was being rigged with high explosives, but then he figured the greater strategy of holding off tens of thousands of alien warriors was beyond him.

Spike ran a claw over the tools on his belt, pausing on a holstered laspistol. He didn't imagine he'd actually use the weapon today, and if he did he was pretty sure he wouldn't do anything useful with it; he hadn't practiced with the sidearm at all, and from what he could tell it was a much more discriminating weapon than the melta gun.

Of course, if they'd just assign him another melta gun and camoline cloak like before, maybe he could... wait.

Spike whirled around as he heard some rustling from the bushes, and his claws tightened around the pistol. "Who's there?! Show yourself!" he shouted.

"Do we have an enemy contact?" Gaela asked as she continued working with the listening post. "This is a somewhat delicate procedure. I cannot stop to help in the case of enemy attack at the moment."

Spike let his arms fall. "... Nah, I don't think so." The Orks weren't exactly the kind of soldiers to be skulking through the bushes, as far as he'd seen. "Probably just an animal."

Then came the gunshots.

The first one zipped by Spike's head, and he had just enough time to yelp in fright before a second shot smashed into his chest. The young dragon was knocked off his feet and thrown onto his back.

Spike gasped, trying to draw in air to shout a warning, but before he could control his rising panic or the pain blooming through his body he was tackled by a pair of small green bodies.

"Loot! Loot!" cackled the Gretchin as they started pulling at Spike's tool belt.

Spike swiped desperately at his attackers, raking one of the grots over its arm and causing it to howl and back off. The other Gretchin snarled and kicked Spike in the side before drawing a small, crooked knife and seizing the dragon by his head fin.

"DIE, ya runty liddel-" both Spike and the grot were surprised when the greenskin's knife hand was seized in a literally iron grip, and then crushed into a gory pulp.

Gaela hauled up the howling gretchin, allowing it a moment to stare wide-eyed into the bright green optics under her hood.

"This interruption is unacceptable," she stated simply, "formulating response."

The grot screamed as a servo-mounted drill darted toward it, tearing through its chest with an utterly gratuitous spray of blood and gore.

The other grot leapt for the Dark Techpriest's leg, grabbing onto her cloak and stabbing for her knee. It managed to scrape its knife uselessly against Gaela's armor exactly twice before a servo arm reached down and seized it around the torso. A bit more pressure, and the squealing alien was crushed in an instant.

Before Gaela could check on Spike, a small caliber gunshot bounced off her shoulder plate, and she tracked another ten of the small greenskins emerging from the brush. Her servo laser cut down one of them right away, and she brought her axe to bear while her left hand locked its tri-claws into place and started charging the ion blaster.

"I thought you couldn't stop to help?" Spike coughed out.

A spray of ion bolts roasted two of the charging Gretchin alive before Gaela kicked another that had managed to reach her, shattering its torso.

"It occurred to me that having enemy scavengers overrunning our position is a greater impediment to the arming process-" she paused to chop another gretchin in half with her axe, and then seized another with a servo arm. "-than having to interrupt the rites of detection!"

"Wait, you were just PRAYING to it?" Spike asked. "I could have DIED!"

Gaela slammed her blaster arm onto another Grot's head, and then swung her power axe in a wide arc in front of her to drive the Gretchin back.

"Now is not a logical occasion to dispute my priorities; your demise is still quite likely under the current circumstances!"

Despite her warning, the small aliens were already starting to back off, deciding that they hadn't brought enough bodies to subdue the armored cyborg.

Another ion burst killed another grot, and the surviving greenskins finally bolted back into the brush while shrieking in terror. A laser beam followed and cut down another in the back as they fled, mostly out of spite.

"Area secure. Are you wounded?" Gaela asked, finally looking down at the dragon curled up behind her.

"Yes," Spike moaned, still clutching his arms around his chest.

Gaela reached down and pulled his arm free so that she could look at the injury.

There wasn't much see, really. The scales had clearly broken beneath the bullet impact, but the skin underneath hadn't split open.

"Impressive," the Dark Techpriest mumbled, "Gretchin possess the weakest and least reliable firearms in the Orkoid hierarchy, but nonetheless a direct hit would have inflicted a fatal wound on most creatures your size."

"Ha ha... good old dragon toughness," Spike said weakly before he started coughing painfully. "Ugh... it still hurts, though."

"Of course. If you had accepted your daemonic mutations when you had the chance-"

"Gaela, please, NO. Not this argument again," Spike cut her off before he pushed himself to his feet.

Then he froze when he heard the rumble of distant motorbike engines becoming much less distant. "The Orks! Are they-?"

"Yes," Gaela sighed, an electric arc running up the length of her left arm and curling around the pulse projector, "our earlier combat has attracted the biker team. Prepare for combat."

Spike cringed, looked down at his laspistol, and then looked back up at Gaela.

"... Right. Never mind. Get behind me," Gaela mumbled. In retrospect, it wouldn't have been much of a burden to take along Twilight Sparkle, and it would have considerably increased their total fighting power in a case like this.

Ah... hindsight.

"This is Cog Tertius, requesting immediate fire support," Gaela said into her vox system, cycling to the Tau frequencies. If she recalled the briefing map correctly, they would be the best placed to help. "Get a battlesuit team here immediately. We have Ork scouts moving to intercept."

The sound of machine guns drowned out the noise of bike engines, and as the first few Ork Bikers crested the hill a wide spray of bullets started sawing across the ground. It was nowhere near Gaela, of course, but given enough time and ammunition the alien marauders would surely hit her or the listening post. And considering that the recon device was packed with high explosives, she wasn't sure which would be worse.

"Come in, Xenis Command! This is Cog Tertius, requesting immediate support!" Gaela shouted, aiming her ion blaster.

A bolt of crackling blue slammed into the first of the oncoming Orks, and the rider howled in pain before his bike tilted over and then scraped him across the ground.

Two more raced over the hill to replace the fallen warrior, and one happened to have its guns aiming in the right direction before it started spewing ammunition at the Dark Techpriest.

Gaela staggered as Orks sped by her and bullets hammered her armor, peppering her robes with small tears.

"Spike, get on my back!" she commanded before she fired her heavy laser at the offending Biker. The motorcycle's front plating dissolved and fell apart, spilling its rider roughly into the dirt.

"Where are those damned grayskins?!" Gaela shouted as she felt Spike latch onto her servo harness. "This is Cog Tertius! To any units close enough to lend support! The Orks are overrunning this position!"

More Bikers were cresting the hills, although now that several of their mob were already circling her they weren't using their guns.

The Ork Bikers were utterly unimpressed by the losses they had taken thus far, and one popped a wheelie before slamming hard onto its booster and bursting forward directly at the armored machine-cultist.

Gaela met the charge directly, her power axe crackling as it carved into the front of the bike and then through the chest of the Ork on top of it. The force of the bike's impact, however, threw her off her feet and slammed her into the dirt next to her nearly-complete listening post. Spike yelped as he lost his grip and bounced away, rolling to a stop next to a gretchin's eviscerated corpse.

Gaela took a moment to gather her senses, and then started to stand up again.

Then an Ork Biker parked on top of her.

"Heh heh heh... dis one shur is fighty," the Biker chuckled before he turned off the engine and then jumped off his vehicle.

Gaela's servo arms were already twisting about to start ripping apart the motorbike, but the Ork brought down his choppa and cut off the closest one.

"Lotsa bitz on dis wun!" the greenskin cheered, holding up the dismembered servo limb. "Look! Grab sumfin' and cut it off, ladz! It's lootin' time!"

Spike stared in horror as more Orks surrounded the Dark Techpriest, choppas in hand. Many were eyeing the servo arms, but one of them was clearly angling himself to seize her legs, which he distinctly recalled were NOT mechanical.

"Aw, dis is borin'!" one boy complained, pouting. "Nuffin' out heah but wun humie! I taut we wuz gonna fight spiky boyz?"

"Spike!" Gaela hissed, watching her visor's pressure readouts shift as the Orks started grabbing hold of her servo arms to cut them off. "The post! Shoot the detonator!"

Spike's eyes widened, and he glanced over to the exposed inner casing of the listening post. The explosive block was still visible, and a detonator key was set in the body and displaying green lights. He didn't know how sensitive it was, but Gaela surely did. If a lasblast would set it off... he cringed.

His hesitation at the prospect of committing explosive suicide proved too long. Before Spike's trembling claws even closed around the laspistol, a dirty green hand seized his arm and hauled him up.

"Wuzzis?" murmured the Ork marauder, staring at the terrified dragon. "'Ey, dis liddel fing has mo' loot!"

Gaela spat a profanity in Binary, and then tried to pull her ion blaster arm away from an Ork that was inspecting it greedily.

She halted when a new contact appeared on her heads-up display.

"I still sez we'z missin' da gud fightin'!" another Biker bellowed. "I wanna fight spiky boyz!"

"Good news, then," Gaela interrupted, still face-down in the dirt, "it seems somebody received my emergency vox."

The impatient alien gave Gaela a swift kick in the side, his iron-shod boot impacting with a hefty CLANG. "Oi, shut it! We don' need nun o'yer lip, humie!"

The Dark Techpriest grunted painfully. "If you dislike banter from your opponents, you're going to HATE what's coming."

"Wuzzat?" mumbled another Ork who was still on his motorcycle, squinting up into the sky as he heard something far above. The sun was already setting and the day's light waning, but he could still make out a jet contrail that seemed to be heading toward them.

"IRON WITHIN, BECOME THE IRON WITHOUT! BLOOD! FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"

Tellis hit the first Ork Biker like a meteor, breaking the alien warrior and then the motorbike in half.

"Oh, man! I feel like it's been ages since I got to use my catch-phrase!" the Iron Warrior said cheerfully before he stepped out of the furrow he had cut into the ground. "Hi, guys! Who wants claws to the face?"

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" the battle cry of the greenskin horde boomed through the air as the Bikers raised their arms to the challenge. Some bolted for their parked bikes, but most of the dismounted warriors simply rushed forward on foot.

"All right, all right! Calm down!" Tellis said before he plunged his right-hand claws into the chest of the nearest Biker. "There's enough murder for everybody! Wait your turn!" He used the impaled Ork as a shield against the others as he pushed forward, lashing out with his free hand and cutting down another foe with each swipe.

The Ork that had picked up Spike discarded the dragon and quickly re-mounted his motorbike, revving the engine and then driving in a wide arc behind the Chaos Lord.

"I'm gonna turn ya inta spiky roadkill!" the Ork laughed before he gunned the engine and sped forward toward the Iron Warrior's back.

He made it about half-way before he met an unexpected obstacle. An unexpected, invisible, armored, pony-shaped obstacle.

"YEEK!" a surprised squeak followed a sharp cracking noise, and the Biker's head - followed by the rest of his body - was flung backward off his vehicle.

Fluttershy tumbled to the ground in a heap, quite surprised but unhurt. The motorbike sped off on its own, missing the combat entirely.

"C'mon you guys, take this seriously!" Tellis shouted as he backhanded an Ork's face in and then kicked another's shin to splinters before plunging his claws into its neck. "Do you need some time to get back on your bikes? I feel like I kind of caught you out of your element, here!"

He slammed both fists down onto another warrior, and then his flight pack launched him into the air.

Seeing an Ork that had already mounted his vehicle and was circling the battle, the Iron Warrior tilted his descent and lined up above and behind his new target.

"Bikes are pretty rad," he said while his altitude bled away, "I could've been a Biker. I like flying too much, though. But a bike definitely would've been my second choice."

He made a relatively soft landing on the back of the Ork motorbike, and then seized its rider's head and snapped it sharply to the side.

"Then again, who says I have to choose?" Tellis asked nobody, throwing the Ork corpse to the side and sliding into the driver's seat. "I'm a bike Raptor now! WHOOOOOO!!"

Gaela's augmetic arms squealed as she lifted herself up off the ground, pushing the Ork motorbike off her back and onto its side.

"Oh, Miss Gaela! Are you hurt? Me and Mister Murderer came as fast as we could after we heard you call for help!"

Gaela looked over as she stood up. There was a small distortion in the air at her feet, indicating an active cloaking field. It was effectively marred by the stripe of crimson splashed across the armor's chest plate, however, which was completely visible.

"Not your blood, I take it?" Gaela asked before she started a full system check on her armor.

"Oh, no. It was completely my fault, though. I really shouldn't be flying around invisible when there's so much traffic," Fluttershy explained.

"I see no other prospect for you to directly injure the enemy, so on the contrary, you should keep doing that," the Dark Techpriest countered, "to answer your earlier question, I have sustained no flesh-wounds, although all but one of my servo limbs are non-functional and there is severe damage in the waist actuator tracking."

Fluttershy was silent for a few seconds, allowing the sound of vox-distorted laughter and rumbling engines to dominate the area.

"I... can't really help with that," she admitted.

"Naturally. See to the dragon," Gaela commanded, lifting the arm that housed her ion blaster. The heat vents under the elbow blasted a cloud of blistering hot steam, and a lash of blue energy crawled around the tri-claws while the weapon charged again.

Turning back to the battle, though, Gaela had to wonder if she should even bother.

"WOOHOO!! BLOOD FOR BLOOD GOD, BITCHES!!" Tellis screamed, waving one arm in the air as the other guided the Ork motorbike in large circles and generated enormous clouds of smoke and dust.

The Orks, for their part, seemed to be enjoying this bizarre combat just as much as Tellis was, despite their numerous casualties and the hijacking of a vehicle. Riders whooped and cheered as they raced after the Iron Warrior, shaking their choppas in the air and laughing with glee. It seemed more like a hive gang's drag race than a battle.

"Maybe I should just finish arming the post and leave," Gaela mumbled.

"Seconded," Spike said quickly as Fluttershy carefully injected him with a painkiller.

Tellis laughed and banked his new bike into a power slide, the rear tire digging a furrow into the ground as it kicked even more dust and smoke into the air.

His Ork foes, not to be outdone, followed his maneuver as they pursued, machine guns rattling ineffectually all the while. One Biker leaned too far and crashed, spilling off his motorbike and tripping up the vehicle immediately behind him.

One Ork Biker proved more skillful, however, and as Tellis straightened out this particular Biker was already pulling up next to him.

"Dis rokk b'longs to da Orks now, spiky!" the alien bellowed before he pulled a chain loose from his chest and started whipping it in a circle over his head.

"We were here first, chump!" Tellis shouted back. "Well, second, technically, but Tau don't even use bikes, so screw them!"

The Ork lashed at Tellis with the chain, wrapping it around the Iron Warrior's arm.

Surprisingly, this did not end well.

Tellis yanked the Biker right out of his seat and flung the alien over his head. The Ork smashed into a rock outcropping, while his bike tilted sharply to the side and spun out onto the ground.

"Damn, this is fun!" the Chaos Lord laughed, checking the sensor intercepts on his visor. There were two more Ork Bikers left, and they were some distance behind him, approaching on either side.

And then the engine on his motorbike popped loudly and released a jet of flame into the air.

"Hey! What the hell, guys?!" Tellis complained after the rumbling motor died and his bike started to lose speed. "Stupid Ork tech! An internal combustion engine is not rocket science, people!"

He paused. "At least, I'm pretty sure it's not! You can ask the DarkMech nerd to make sure!"

"WAAAAAAAGH!!" roared the pair of Ork Bikers, shaking their choppas in the air as they raked bullets aimlessly across the clearing.

"Ugh, there's no talking to you guys," the Iron Warrior grumbled, leaning back in his seat.

Then, as the Orks passed by on either side, Tellis flung his arms out, claws crackling.

Both Bikers were unseated as the power blades shredded their vehicles, crashing painfully into the dirt while their bikes collapsed.

Tellis sighed while he looked around, noticing that a few of the Ork bikers were slowly pushing themselves up from their wipeouts. "I should probably go finish them off," he mumbled to himself. Killing was always generally better than not killing, but murdering dismounted riders was seriously anticlimactic after that awesome Biker duel.

The scream of a firing multilaser interrupted his musings, and Tellis glanced behind him to see that a Chimera was approaching the area and gunning down the helpless aliens.

It was a Dark Mechanicus Chimera.

"Hmmmmm..."

As the APC rolled into the clearing, Gaela finished sealing the casing of the post with her remaining welder.

+And so the eye opens, and reveals to its master the truth. Machine Spirit, see the foe and his weaknesses, and slay the alien that would think to disturb your vigilance.+

The lumens and displays on the listening post flickered as Gaela's augmetic hands left the casing, and the machine began transmitting without further incident.

+Dark Techpriest,+ buzzed a Scavurel that emerged from the Chimera access ramp, +we received your request for aid and arrived as quickly as possible.+

+Still too late, however,+ Gaela noted, +the enemy is beaten back for now. No thanks to the grayskins.+

The cyborg warrior looked back and forth at the bodies and motorbikes littering the ground, and his servo claws started scraping together anxiously. +Shall we begin scavenging operations?+

+Negative,+ Gaela said firmly, +enemy presence is too heavy. I believe that the main body of the enemy force is...+ her Binaric Cant trailed off as some very heavy footsteps came up from behind her.

"... Yes, Lord Tellis?" the Dark Techpriest asked without turning around. "How may I serve?"

Tellis dropped a smoldering Ork motorcycle next to her. "Can you fix that up so that it runs? Like, runs PROPERLY, so that I don't need a dumb reality-cheating magic field or whatever to use it?"

Gaela turned and looked down at the bike. Then she looked back up at Tellis.

"That can be done, yes. But... why?"

"Because it's AWESOME, obviously!" the Iron Warrior said, running a gauntlet over the bike frame. "With this thing I'll get all the babes!"

Gaela shared an inscrutable look with the Scavurel, and then looked back up at Tellis again. "And that's something you... want, Lord Tellis?"

Tellis stopped to think about it. "Oh, right. I guess not. Well, never mind, then."

He turned away. "Hey, Shy! Finish up with that opposite-of-murder thing you're doing, we're going to go find more Orks to kill!"

Fluttershy was sitting next to the listening post as Spike wiped the blood off of her armor with a rag, and she yelped at the command.

"Oh! Uh, I really think I should stay and make sure Spike is-"

Gaela cut her off. "Spike is in no medical danger and is currently my responsibility. He'll be leaving with me."

Fluttershy gulped. "Well, then maybe I should go with you as well, to-" she stopped talking when Tellis picked her up, and then sighed miserably.

"Catch ya later, nerds! Blood, skulls, etc.!"

****

Unnamed forest, 3 kilometers from Ork landing zone

Daniels couldn't hear the understated buzz of his rail rifle discharging among the deafening fury of the shootas, multilasers, and autocannons. He barely felt the discharge of the armor-piercing rail as it was accelerated through the rifle barrel and exited into the air. The rail rifle was a subtle weapon, not given to flashy displays of destruction or fiery ejections of wasted energy.

But when it came to results, the weapon was in a league of its own.

A howling warcry was reduced to a choking gasp when the rails punched through the mega armor of a charging Nob, exiting out his back in a dreadful spray of shredded metal and hot blood.

"Nob is down! Gager, get in there!"

A Sentinel with a heavy flamer quickly bound up to the Orks sheltering behind the trees, and as the aliens battered the walker's front armor panel with bullets it released its own weapon into the mob.

Within seconds half the unit was consumed in flames, and the rest of the Orks were bolting back into the forest.

One of them, however, paused long enough to fling a baton-shaped object at the feet of the sentinel.

The scout walker started backing up, but the stikkbomb exploded before it could get away. One of the legs wobbled after its actuator was ripped open, and the walker keeled over.

The Ork that had thrown the bomb didn't get any time to gloat, or suggest to his mob that they should turn around and keep fighting; a laser bolt speared through the side of his head and sent him stumbling to the ground.

"Get Gager out of there! We've got to move, people!" Daniels shouted, his chest heaving after the shooting died down.

Three of the mercenaries were gone, and the Sentinel boasting the heavy flamer was the fourth walker they had lost. Two more mercenaries were nursing injuries, while another was unharmed but had his hands full carrying a wounded pegasus.

"We've got more coming from the North!" warned a different pony hovering above the trees. "A lot of them! I see exhaust plumes too! They might have a Killa Kan!"

One of the trees in the Orks' path started shaking, and the pegasus winced behind his optics mask when it suddenly fell over. "Yeah, they've definitely got a Killa Kan."

"We're not waiting around for that," Daniels assured the pony as the Sentinel pilot crawled free of his walker. "We've got our intel and the listening posts are up! This mission is a wrap, folks! Let's go!"

Night had fallen by now, and the scouting team all had their visors in low-light mode as they rushed through the forest. The wounded among them were stuffed into the cockpits of the Sentinels or clung hard to the sides while the rest of the team made their way on foot.

Every once in a while they would hear sudden, distant bursts of gunfire, but each time it was too far away to possibly be targeting them. Perhaps the Orks had failed to track them and started fighting each other? Or were fighting the nocturnal wildlife?

Then several small screeching noises came from above, and many of the mercenaries halted and looked up. A swarm of small, leathery-winged creatures flew over the treetops, squeaking noisily.

Maybe something more fatal than wild animals had crossed the Orks, after all.

"You know, I have to say, it's kind of nice having creepy dark ponies and evil soldiers on our side, for once," a pegasus admitted, keeping his head down while the bats flew out of earshot.

"Hey!" shouted one of the snipers. "Don't call the batponies creepy! That is so rude!"

"They drink BLOOD," pointed out a mare.

"So what are they supposed to do? Stop? Who cares? It's not your blood."

"We don't know they don't drink pony blood!"

"No, I meant YOUR blood, specifically."

"Hey!" Daniels hissed suddenly before he held up his hand. "Shut up! All of you!"

The unit instantly halted and fell silent, and Daniels adjusted his optics to zoom in ahead.

"... Something up there. Advance. QUIETLY. Sentinels in the back."

"Should we break off and go get a look?" whispered a pegasus.

"No. Minimal approach profile. If this is an ambush we don't want to be separated," Daniels whispered back.

The scout team moved forward slowly, their footsteps gently scuffling against the ground. The Sentinels were - naturally - less stealthy, but even the whine of their leg servos was gentle enough that Daniel could hear a barely audible crackling noise ahead. There was also a glimmering light that was mostly obscured by the brush, and as the mercenaries took up firing positions behind the trees Daniels switched his visor to normal vision mode.

"Searchlights!" he bellowed.

Immediately the Sentinels flooded the next clearing with their headlights, and their weapons warmed up once more as they searched for targets.

There weren't any. The clearing was full of Orks, but the scorched bodies lying all over the ground were in no shape to fight off the handful of human and equine scouts. A battered Trukk had flattened its hood against a tree, and a large portion of its rear frame had been melted off. A small flame still burned over its engine, providing the flickering light and gentle noise that had attracted Daniels' attention.

"Well... this is convenient," mumbled a sniper.

Daniels kneeled down next to one of the aliens under the spotlight, zooming his optics onto its wound.

"Tau weapons," he mumbled, "and it looks like they came through recently. This is a classic Stealth Suit ambush."

"What are they doing back here? This is practically where they started. And we got that call to help out the DarkMech half an hour ago," another mercenary wondered.

"Maybe they were clearing our escape route?" suggested a Sentinel pilot.

"This is also THEIR escape route," a pony reminded them with a snort.

"Whatever," Daniels mumbled, "they're killing Orks rather than us, and that's all I can really hope for." He turned on his night vision optics again. "We're almost to our evac point. This mission is officially a success."

"And then we can stop the army, right? And those... really big things they have?" asked a pegasus.

"... One battle at a time, Cloudy," Daniels mumbled, "move it, lads."

Author's Note

I don't know how I would make these combat chapters comedy if it weren't for Tellis. That guy is such a rascal!

This chapter is dedicated to Heitomos, whose vigilant concern at the slightest prospect of pony murder has seen the equines through every book so far with nothing but a few amputations and broken bones. Equestria thanks you!

Divisions and Diversions

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 4

Divisions and Diversions

****

Uninhabited Region, 12 kilometers from Ork landing zone

"Oi, pick it up, ladz! We gots sumfin' up dere!"

Beams of light slashed through the darkness while the Ork Biker mob ripped across the empty plains. Their headlights washed over thick columns of smoke as they crested a small hill, and the Nob started to slow down after he got a good look at the area below.

"Well, sumwun foun' sum fightin', a'roight," chuckled a Biker as he slowed to a stop. His headlight was aimed at an Ork Trukk that was contributing the most smoke to the column that marked out this location and had led them here.

Dozens of Ork bodies littered the ground. Several motorbikes were scattered around the area as well, most of them parked. No less than three Trukks had been wrecked, each one having been blown apart and partially melted. The mobs that had ventured here appeared to be a complete loss.

"Oi! Dat's Girog! Dat git ohs me six teef!" complained one of the Bikers, pointing to a corpse.

"Den take 'em. He don' need 'em no more," the Nob grunted before he parked his bike and dismounted. "Dese is Zokk's boyz. Wot is dis?"

"Not jus' Zokk. Dat's Gurim's Trukk."

"An' dat's Dundreg ovah dere. He ain't part o'dem uddah mobs. Waddya fink got 'em?"

The Nob growled. He had come here expecting some action, not a mystery. "Oi! Wun o'ya gits go back ta da boss an' tell 'im wot's 'ere!"

One Biker grunted loudly and swung his bike around, gunning the engine before he started accelerating back toward the main body of the army. The rest of the mob started spreading out to observe the bodies.

None of them were looking back at the scout being sent away, and thus they didn't know anything was wrong until they heard the motorbike hit the dirt and scrape its way to a halt.

"Wuzzat?" the Nob demanded, whirling around.

One of the Bikers still mounted swung his motorcycle around to bring its headlight to bear. The light spilled over the downed bike, revealing that its wheels were still spinning and its rider was gone. The light also managed to catch a crimson splash across the ground.

The beam shifted to follow the blood, and it eventually revealed the body of the Ork Biker, lying in a heap with its throat slashed open.

"Well, dat's not gud," mumbled one of the boyz.

"Wot da zog is goin' on heah?!" the Nob demanded, his power klaw clanking shut irritably.

Then a burst of toxin-crystal shards punched into his back.

All around the Orks, dark shapes leapt out from behind the wrecked vehicles and parked motorbikes, wings beating against the air. The Ork shining a light on their fallen comrade was tackled off of his bike as metal talons plunged into the side of his neck. Another Biker along the periphery didn't react fast enough when a shadowy equine form jumped in front of his bike and bucked him in the forehead. The Nob, struggling against the poison flooding his body, was finished off with a blade through his back.

The other greenskins found themselves being strafed from the shadows, surrounded by the beat of leathery wings and the glowing emerald lights of numerous optics masks. Splinter rifle shots speared into them from all directions, and by the time the alien warriors started firing back the outermost ring of Orks were already slumping to the ground.

"Wot's goin' on? Wot're dese tings?!" one Biker shouted while his slugga bucked in his hand. He couldn't see much besides green lights and the dim muzzle glow of the splinter rifle discharges, so he aimed for any spot of light he could.

Another boy made a run for his bike, only for a stream of small, squealing animals to swoop down near his head, causing him to duck.

"Bats! Dey's bats!" he shouted over the din of gunfire.

"Da zog dey is! Bats don' got no dakka!" retorted his companion, bolting toward one of the glimmering green lights with choppa raised.

An ear-rending screech caused the charging Ork to flinch, and the next thing he knew a dark shape was twisting toward him through the air with glittering blades arcing toward his throat.

"Surprise!" Dusk Blade shouted before his hooves slammed home into the Ork's neck. "You green morons really can't take a hint! You see a bunch of dead bodies and you wander right into the middle of them!" He kicked his hoof-blade free of the alien's throat, and then swooped away from a choppa swinging toward him from another attacker. The Ork brought his slugga to bear, but Dusk was already upon him, jabbing at the warrior's face with his forehoof and kicking his rear legs at him. While suspended in the air by the heavy beat of his wings, every strike seemed timed and calculated to drive the talons home on a vulnerable point, while the wild, bobbing flight of the batpony foiled the Ork's desperate defense.

Several of the lights provided by the motorbikes were shot out by splinters, and several more dark shapes galloped out of the shadows between the dead bodies, slinking low to the ground and cutting at Ork shins. Others darted forward high in the air, forelegs extended before they dove at the alien soldiers from above.

Dusk Blade finished off his current opponent - badly bleeding and disarmed by now - with a back kick to the forehead, and then bit onto the handle of the dagger strapped to his chest.

"For Equestria! For Princess Luna! For the 38th Company!" he shouted around the blade before he lunged for the back of the next opponent.

The Ork was battering another batpony out of his face when Dusk's hoofblades sunk into his shoulders, and then a dagger plunged into the back of his neck. As the warrior started gasping, the annoyed batpony who had been attacking him latched onto his face and then bit into the Ork's throat.

Dusk let the other pony have the foe, and then spent a moment hovering in the air. The shrieking of the other batponies, the thumping of Ork corpses against the dirt, and the unnecessarily loud report of Ork sluggas roared around him. With a moment of concentration, the maddening cacophony formed a crystal-clear picture in his mind of the surrounding terrain and the movement of bodies. His ears twitched.

Dusk Blade darted to the side, and a choppa cleaved through the space that would have otherwise been his flank.

"One swing, that's all you get," he snapped as he spun around in the air and lashed out at his attacker with a spin-kick. The Ork grunted when the blades tore across his face, and the alien warrior staggered back. A quick burst from Dusk's splinter rifle had him keeling over onto the ground for good.

Again taking a moment to track the battle via echolocation, he noticed that three Orks were breaking for their motorbikes. The rest were confused, hurt, and badly outnumbered now that much of the mob had been cut down, and wouldn't last much longer.

"Nacht! You're up!" Dusk shouted.

A new batpony swooped out of the pillar of smoke and landed heavily on the hood of a wrecked Trukk. This one had a larger weapon secured onto her foreleg, with numerous tubes running from a power supply on her back and a fanged mouth making up the short, squat barrel.

"Is there an ECHO in here?!" she shouted, aiming the weapon at the greenskins jumping onto their bikes.

A deep, throbbing bass boomed from the strange gun, and the batponies shuddered as a sonic pulse blasted across the battlefield.

For the Orks mounting their bikes, the effect was more dramatic. The sonic pulses crashed together over the aliens in a head-splitting crescendo, and two of them roared in pain as blood seeped from their ears. They slumped to the ground a moment later, completely stunned.

The third Ork staggered, but managed to keep his focus while he revved the engine. Soon he was speeding away, the headlight slashing through the darkness.

The light briefly crossed the motorbike that had been knocked over earlier when the first Ork had made to carry news back to the army.

As if the reminder had been an omen of things to come, a loud screech briefly overcame the rumble of the Ork's motorbike. A moment later another batpony leapt into the Biker's path, blades scything for his throat.

"Music to my ears," sighed Dusk Blade as the alien's surprised shout was quickly silenced.

Then he landed and looked over the Lunar Guard standing over the freshly massacred Orks. "Everypony okay? Any wounded?"

"Lieutenant!" shouted one of the thestrals over near a wrecked Trukk.

He headed over, wincing when he saw a mare curled up on the ground and trembling. Two other ponies were with her, pressing a blood-soaked compress onto her side.

"Shady took a lucky hit from an axe. Tore her wing clean off," hissed one of them.

Dusk nodded grimly. "Shady, can you still walk?"

The batpony on the ground nodded, her teeth clenched.

"Good. Head back to waypoint seven for evac. Lune, you go with her," the Lunar Lieutenant ordered.

With that business done with, he marched up to the batpony standing on top of the trukk and still holding her sonic weapon at the ready. "Nacht!"

"Yes, Lieutenant?" she asked, perking up.

"As soon as we get back to base, you're relegated to the barracks until you come up with a new catch-phrase!" he shouted.

Nacht recoiled in surprise, and her ears fell flat against her head. "What's wrong with the one I have? See, it works because the gun is called an echo cann-"

"I get it," Dusk deadpanned, "but it still sucks harder than Gloom Fang."

"Hey!" complained another Guard, blood dripping from his muzzle.

"I meant you suck literally, Gloomy."

"Oh." He dropped his head again and went back to slurping up the crimson fluids seeping from the dead Orks.

"The humans have some top-notch one-liners, and I won't have my own team coming across as a bunch of dorks!" He spread his wings, and then turned toward the rest of his soldiers. "Back into position, ponies! These green thickheads haven't clued in yet, so-"

He stopped when a vox transmission came in over his headset, and then he quickly folded his wings.

"Echo Six, this is Echo Nine. Are you clear to assist?"

"This is Lieutenant Blade. Talk to me, Midnight," Dusk replied, checking the auspex on his leg, "your ambush go bad?"

"No, we had to abandon it. Two Battlewagons came rolling through covered in searchlights and guns. They even had a walker escort. We couldn't even get close, so we snuck away. Think we could double-team them?"

Dusk looked over his soldiers, most of whom were shaking their heads or avoiding eye contact (or optics contact, as it were). "I don't know, Midnight. That sounds like a pretty tough nut to crack. We're almost out of melta bombs, too."

"Well, we have to do SOMETHING. Those freaks are going to start rolling over our ambush sites and probably a few listening posts, if we let them."

As Dusk Blade considered the tactical maths of going after such large vehicles, another voice chimed in over the vox.

"Midnight Blaze, Dusk Blade. Take thy comrades to intercept the foe," commanded a very distinct and familiar voice.

"Princess! Good evening!" Dusk said cheerfully.

"And a fair evening to thee, Lieutenant," Luna said, "now make for Lieutenant Blaze's position. We shalt dispose of the enemy's tools of war and show these green mongrels the folly of their savage crusade."

Dusk Blade looked over his fellow thestrals for a moment. "So... when you say 'we', do you mean, like, us Lunar Guards, or-"

"We refer to our royal self, Lieutenant," Luna replied dryly.

"Awesome! Just checking! Lieutenant Blade, out!" he shouted, severing the vox connection. "All right, you heard the mare! Everypony move out! And Gloom, for moon's sake, get a napkin or something, would you? That's just GROSS."

****

The heavy rumble of big diesel engines shattered the nighttime quiet as the Battlewagons rode across the hills. Large searchlights were mounted on every turret, sweeping back and forth across the ground in search of anything of interest.

And the surroundings were plenty interesting.

"Wot's wit all da ded boyz?" demanded a Nob leaning over the edge of the crew compartment. Every few meters they came upon another bike, mutilated grot, or a dead Ork at the end of a long streak of dried blood.

"Dunno, Boss. I ain't seein' nuffin' wot killed 'em," confessed one of the soldiers manning a big shoota and its attached spotlight.

A cacophony of loud squeaks came from one of the bodies as a spotlight swept over it, and dozens of small, dark shapes scattered into the air.

"Ya fink da batz got 'em?" asked another Ork.

The Nob gave him a look. "Da batz? Yoo fer reelz?" He snorted, and then leaned over the edge to wave at the Deff Dread stomping along next to the Battlewagon. "Oi! Liff up wun o'dem ded boyz!"

A screeching noise issued from the Deff Dread's pincer arm as it reached down and clamped onto a dead Biker. It then lifted the corpse up next to the Battlewagon, which slowed to a stop.

The Nob aimed a spotlight at the dangling body, and then pointed at it.

"See? Dat ain't no bat killin'. Dere's wun cut 'cross da neck. Sumfin else got 'em."

"Humies? Or spikies?" asked another boy.

The Nob grunted. It was no feat of intellect to deduce that the single long gash hadn't been made by a small animal with tiny claws incapable of tearing Ork flesh, but he struggled to identify the wound otherwise. "... Dunno. Mebbe."

"Wot 'bout da hosses?" asked another warrior. The young Ork was smacked upside the head for his trouble.

"Don' be dumm. How ya fink hosses is gonna hurt an Ork?" the Nob snorted.

The conversation was interrupted by another flurry of squeaks and beating wings, and the Orks ducked down when another swarm of small mammals zoomed overhead.

"Shor are a lotta dem batz, doh," grumbled the Nob, shielding his head.

"'EY!" shouted an Ork from the other Battlewagon. "I fink I saw sumfin'!" One of the big shootas was swiveling back and forth, its spotlight slashing across the rocks and abandoned bikes next to the path.

"If it ain't an Ork, den shoot it ded!" shouted the Nob to other vehicle.

"Uh... can't tell from heah, Boss!"

The Nob growled. "Den shoot it eneeways!"

That was all the invitation the Ork gunners needed, and the big shootas on the far side of the Battlewagon started spraying bullets across the ground. After a few seconds, the Ork warriors being transported started firing their shootas and sluggas over the edge of the passenger bay, lighting up that entire side of the vehicle with muzzle flash.

After a few more seconds, the big shootas on the other Battlewagon started firing too, and the Nob whirled on one of his gunners.

"Wot's goin' on? You see sumfin' too?"

"Nah," answered the boy between bursts of gunfire, "jus' bored." The mob leader laughed.

Its doubtful that the heavy suppressive fire sawing across the shadows did any damage, but at the very least it seemed to have a severe effect on the wildlife: the bat swarms that had been circling the battlewagons started to converge into a single, swirling orb over the Ork vehicles. The squeaks and screeches of the agitated mammals became louder and angrier, until finally the creatures simply seemed to all meld into a single, spherical black mass.

"Da zog is dat?" mumbled the one Ork soldier that happened to be looking up at the screeching animals rather than shooting blindly into the darkness.

The anomalous black orb swooped down in front of the Battlewagons, splashing onto the ground in full view of the vehicle headlights. Many of the gunners stopped to stare as the blackness sloshed about like ink, but with suspiciously little respect for gravity. It swirled and churned, and then slowly warped itself into a stable shape right before the Orks' eyes.

Soon that shape hardened, giving way to hardened planes of ebony and edges of shining gold. Finally, two windows of blazing red appeared at the head, glaring up at the spotlights above.

"Come, aliens," said Princess Luna, her voice lilting and melodious even through the vox grille, "let the Princess of Dreams put you to rest."

Hiding behind a freshly bullet-riddled boulder, Dusk Blade turned toward Nacht.

"See that? THAT is a proper one-liner."

Nacht pouted, her ears pinned back.

The Orks didn't seem to appreciate the dramatic entrance nearly as much.

"KILL IT DED!!"

Both Battlewagons turned all available guns on the dark Princess, and a veritable storm of bullets rained down toward the black, armored figure. Some of them even hit her.

It wasn't until the rear Battlewagon swung its kannon down to aim at the dark equine that Luna's horn started to glow.

The massive gun made a sound like a thunderclap as it discharged, sending a shell sailing in Luna's general direction. In response, the alicorn's horn casing flared red, and then the kannon shell halted in the air, trembling, and wrapped in a crimson aura. A slight turn of her head, and the shell was flung through the air right into the face of the Deff Dread moving up to engage her, smashing into its face plate. The walker rocked backward under the explosion, shaken but still intact.

Luna's horn flared brighter, and clouds of sparkling red power bled from her helmet while the lower-caliber bullets continued scraping over her armor to little effect.

The Princess reared up, and a ghostly whinny escaped her vox grille before she fell back to her hooves again. When she did, a visible wave of power pulsed out over the ground, washing over the Ork vehicles. One by one, in rapid succession, the lights attached to the Battlewagon, Deff Dread, and various turret mounts shattered outward and fizzled. Within seconds, the Orks were plunged into the full darkness of Luna's night, their only immediate source of light being the muzzle flash of their guns.

"Come, our servants!" Luna demanded, the Iron Gage deploying as the Deff Dread moved once again to intercept her. "The foe's sight hath been taken! Let the shadows strike them with blade and fire!"

The beat of leathery wings and the glittering of green optics lights were the only sign of new combatants, and even those few Orks that noticed them seemed to think that the dark shape wrapped in waves of blazing red power was a more important target.

The Lunar Guard struck with speed and discretion, with two batponies darting under the Battlewagons and sliding to a stop on their backs. Melta bombs were clamped onto the vehicle undersides, and then armed. Then the nocturnal warriors rolled away and flew back out into the open night, racing clear of the potential blast zone.

One Battlewagon exploded violently when the charge detonated, ripping its hull in half and spraying Orks and flame over the ground. The other fared a bit better, collapsing without its fuel supply igniting.

The disabling of the transports only distantly registered to Luna, who was fully engaged with the Deff Dread. The Iron Gage seized the walker's close combat arm, the crackling fingers digging into the hydraulic pistons. The giant pincer snapped wildly as the floating power fists held it away from the armored mare, but soon the metal shrieked and tore, and the limb was flung away to the side.

The Dread took a heavy step back, and then it unleashed its skorcha at point-blank range, blasting the dark pony with flame.

Luna recoiled at the river of fire, and numerous alerts flashed over her visor. She could even hear a frustrated growl echo deep within her mind; an errant thought that clearly was not her own. Her armor seals held, however, and Luna concentrated on her next strike as the skorcha's attack waned and a roaring buzzsaw blade was thrust forward at her.

Multiple flashes of black lightning crashed against the Deff Dread's hull, and the machine shook as dark tendrils of power lashed around its arm and fused several of the joint components.

With a new opening, the Iron Gage shot forward and gripped the edges of the cockpit seal, its power field humming. With another moment of concentration the metal plating started to peel away from the cockpit with a horrendous shriek, creating a small opening into the vehicle interior.

Luna wasted no time when the Dread's other limbs started to converge on her once more, and a small dart of flame shot from her horn into the new hole in the hull. A panicked scream followed a moment later, and the Princess of the Night released her hold on the machine.

As the pilot cooked inside his vehicle, Luna jumped up on top of the stalled combat walker and surveyed the rest of the battle. The Orks that had been transported in the wrecked Battlewagon - and a few survivors from the one that had exploded - had abandoned their ruined vehicles to fight on foot. As expected, they had been immediately assaulted by the batponies hiding all around the ambush point, and most of the aliens already had two or three Lunar Guard circling them and lashing out with blades and hooves.

In the center of the green mob, covering near the light of a burning engine, there was a more solid core of resistance. A Nob was firing a big shoota - stripped straight off the Battlewagon, from the look of it - more or less blindly into the attacking batponies, and two other boys were staying close at hand and swiping defensively at any thestrals that threatened to approach. One such batpony tried to swoop in behind them, only for the Nob to turn with surprising swiftness and club the Lunar Guard out of the air with his gun. The pony bounced across the ground and slammed into a pile of wreckage, and the larger Ork promptly went back to spraying bullets at shadows.

With a thought, a wave of liquid darkness swept over Luna and teleported her right in front of the stubborn aliens.

Black lightning blasted one of the guards off his feet, slaying him in an instant. The Iron Gage descended on the other one, seizing his head between both black hands before they began to squeeze.

"WAAAAGH!!" The Nob turned the big shoota on Luna, hammering her ebony carapace with dozens of bullets to little apparent effect.

Luna's horn casing flashed again, and the inky shadows emerged and swirled around her legs before curving through the air and lashing out at the bigger Ork. The magical darkness cut through him like a blade, and the alien warrior roared in fury as his arm was sliced off at the shoulder.

A black, gore-soaked metal hand answered him, slamming its open palm against his chest and throwing him back onto the dirt.

Even while blood gushed from his shoulder and his ribs strained against the blow to his chest, the Nob growled and searched the surrounding ground for his weapon. He found it lying behind him, intact, with his severed arm still gripping it tightly.

"Stoopid zoggin' hosses fink dey can mess wit me," the Ork grunted, rolling his body closer to the big shoota. Each breath and motion caused his body to ache, but the heady adrenaline rush of battle surged through him and electrified his senses. "I'll show 'em!" He stretched his remaining arm toward the gun.

It suddenly bounced up into the air, out of reach, wrapped in an aura of bright red.

The big shoota shook for a moment as it hovered just above the Ork, and then the barrel suddenly folded in half. Then the gun was flung to the side, skidding across the blood-stained dirt.

As the Nob reflected upon the life choices that had led him up to this point, he couldn't help but notice that there were no more sounds of battle coming from around him. The reports of sluggas, the pained grunts of his boyz, and the annoying shrieks of the batponies had been replaced by near-total silence. The only things spoiling the quiet was the crackling fire nearby and the gentle huffs of breathing through dozens of respirator masks all around him.

The mob leader used his remaining arm to push himself onto his back. He was unsurprised to see about twenty equine shapes surrounding him, all of them wearing dark combat armor and optics masks. He was somewhat surprised to see that they had bat wings, because that was just weird. Most of his attention, regardless, was reserved for the largest of the ponies, and the Ork grinned while he stared into the blood-red visor of Luna's helmet.

"Heh heh heh..."

Luna tilted her head to the side curiously. "Is there something that thou finds amusing about thy current predicament, Ork? Doth the massacre of thy kin and subordinates entertain thee?"

The Nob kept chuckling. "It wuz hosses all along. Dat's a laff." His eyes seemed to glint happily as he looked up at the dark alicorn. "Youz even gud fer fightin'. Takin' dis planet's gunna be FUN."

Many of the Lunar Guards shook their wings in agitation and anger, but none of them made a move without their Princess's order.

"As ever, We art perplexed by thy gleeful disposition in the face of annihilation," Luna deadpanned, "We shalt remove ALL thy kind from our world, alien. Thou shalt not prevail here."

This time the Ork laughed even louder, although it quickly trailed off into painful coughing.

"Haaa... Ya dumm hosses fink youz can beat da Orks? 'Cuz ya stomped a cuppel boyz and da wagons?" He snorted. "We'z gots lots mo' boyz ta kill 'fore ya can tokk so big, hoss. Boss Redclawz is gunna rip ya ta shredz. An' even if ya krump him - an' ya won't! - dere's even mo' boyz, an' mo tanks, and mo' Warbosses comin'. Youz ALL ded! Ha!"

Luna considered the boast at length, and the servos of her armor whirred softly as she stepped forward and lowered her head until she was almost nose-to-nose with the Nob.

"We shalt see, greenskin, how many of thy dead thou must crawl over before thou can hope to overcome us. The tally may yet prove greater than even thou savages art willing to bear." Luna's voice was gentle and almost musical as she leaned in yet further, speaking directly into the Nob's ear. "But regardless of thy strength, or even the outcome of this war, We shalt teach thy kind to fear the dark."

Then Luna turned away, her Iron Gage clamping onto her shoulder pads.

"Lunar Guard. Come," she commanded. Most of the thestrals gave confused looks at the still-living Ork, but they quickly made to obey as they followed their Princess.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Dusk Blade trotted up next to Luna.

"Princess, you realize that isn't a fatal wound to an Ork, right? That big one is going to survive."

"Aye," Luna replied, not looking back at her Lieutenant, "ensure that one is not harmed further by any other Lunar Guards still patrolling the shadows. If we art to teach the alien fear, then they must have some inkling as to the threat that stalks them at night. One or two survivors bringing tales of ambush and massacre shalt suffice."

"Of course, Princess," Midnight Blaze said, trotting up on Luna's other side, "where do we go now?"

Luna halted, and her visor flickered with new map displays as it showed the sensor intercepts by the scattered listening posts.

"There art still many foes that dare wander away from their army, and the night is still young," the Dark Princess declared. For a moment Dusk Blade swore that the eyes of the Iron Skull on Luna's chest plate were glowing brighter. "We hunt!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 24 landing platforms

"Easy, lad. You're going to be just fine. We're home now," Daniels said soothingly as he carried a whimpering pegasus down the gunship embarkation ramp.

The pony had a gauze compress wrapped over his left shoulder, and the attached foreleg had been badly mangled. His left wing was in slightly better shape, although it bore a small hole and was missing a patch of feathers.

As they reached the bottom of the ramp, Daniels waited in front of two Dark Techpriests that were chatting in bursts of Binaric Cant while one removed a bullet from a wounded sniper. After a few seconds they noticed the mercenary and his wounded "passenger", and one of them gestured to the ground.

He put the stallion down next to them, but the Dark Techpriests quickly returned to buzzing at each other.

"Just... try to keep off your injured side," Daniels mumbled, getting a trembling nod from the winged equine.

The mercenary sighed and scrubbed his hair with his hand as he left the landing platform, still gripping his rail rifle tightly.

He paused when he saw a Tau battlesuit transport zoom overhead, probably returning from the same mission he had been on. He had a few questions for the Stealth Suit team, but reasoned that he was unlikely to get answers.

"Hey, Wyatt! Yer okay!"

He whirled around at the shout, and had to smile despite himself as he saw Applejack running up the avenue. Twilight was coming up behind her, although both ponies weren't wearing their armor, for once. In contrast to the naked mares, a unicorn stallion he didn't remember was bringing up the rear wearing colored carapace plate with a lasgun and power sword secured to his back.

"Hey, AJ. You came back already?" Daniels asked, leaning against a stack of crates.

"Ya kiddin'? Ah'd have been back sooner if Ah knew there was another bunch o'green varmints makin' planetfall again!" Applejack said when she reached the man and sat down.

Twilight sat down behind the farmer, and her horn glowed before a small dome barrier appeared over them to keep out the pollution. "So... I heard the estimates. How bad is it?" the alicorn asked gingerly.

Daniels didn't answer right away, reaching over to Applejack and rubbing her head through her hat. The orange mare squirmed and batted his hand away with a leg, frowning adorably at him.

Then he sighed. "It's bad. Very bad."

"There are more Orks than expected?" asked the stallion.

Daniels took off his mask and stared at the unicorn, and then Twilight suddenly cleared her throat.

"Right! You haven't been introduced! Daniels, this is my big brother, Prince of the Crystal Empire, and Captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor! Shining, this is Rifleman Wyatt Daniels of the 38th Company!" Twilight said enthusiastically.

Shining Armor nodded. "I see. I've heard a few things about you, Mister Daniels. You're the 'nice one'."

Twilight chuckled nervously a bit. Daniels raised an eyebrow.

"Depends on who you ask," he admitted, "I still kill for a living."

Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead again. "... There's more Orks than expected," Daniels said after a pause, "but frankly, that much almost IS expected. The problem is that we've got Gargants."

Applejack tilted her head to the side. "What're Gargants?"

"Imagine a Killa Kan," the rifleman said, pausing until the mares nodded (Shining Armor didn't quite know what Killa Kans looked like). "Now scale that up until it's the size of the dorms complex."

The ponies' eyes bulged.

"Now strap on a mess more guns, and a belly full of Ork infantry. Now you've got yourself a Gargant," Daniels finished.

Twilight stared, and then she shook her head. "There's no way! Something that big couldn't possibly move in a normal gravitational field!"

Daniels shrugged. "Well, you feel free to tell them that when they arrive."

The group turned their heads to watch as a familiar stomping came up on the landing pads. Warsmith Solon was approaching with a handful of Tau following him, including Shas'el Wraithstar and Shas'vre Jerriha.

Applejack leaned over to Daniel. "So how'd the grays do? They still mopin' that they gotta fight fer ya?"

"Yeah, it's kind of a sticking point," Daniels mumbled back, "and besides the lousy morale, we can't understand each other. Makes it hard to issue orders."

Solon paused, and then looked over to the group.

Applejack waved at him, smiling. "Howdy, Warsmith! Checkin' on the scout team?"

"That I am," Solon answered, "the Wonderboltsh arrived nearly an hour ago, and have been debriefed." He turned his optics onto Daniels. "The Shentinel team performed a largely technical role thish time, but I shtill wanted to get Mishter Danielsh' impreshion of the enemy."

"Too damn many, and too damn big," Daniels grumbled.

"Noted," the Warsmith replied, swiveling toward the landing platforms again, "that leavesh our little gray friendsh."

Applejack snorted derisively, throwing a glare at Jerriha. She stared back coldly, arms crossed over her chest.

The pair of sort-of-enemies held that pose as the Stealth Suit team approached. The battlesuits kept casting wary glances at Solon, but for the most part ignored the Iron Warrior to approach Wraithstar.

*Shas'el, mission complete. We have arrived for debriefing,* said the head Stealth Suit. Daniels couldn't understand the language, but he recognized the cracks in its arm plating; this was the one that had been subjected to the friendly fire "accident" near the ruins.

Wraithstar remained silent, staring at his soldiers grimly. Solon walked up next to them.

*You're reporting to me this evening, Shas'vre, not Wraithstar,* the Warsmith said in barely accented Tau, *what were your casualties?*

The Stealth Suit pilot hesitated. *None.*

*Enemy contacts?*

*Three events. One Gretchin herd and two Trukks with Ork squad in transit. All targets destroyed.*

*Good! Very good!* Solon said happily, leaning over toward the battlesuit and causing it to step backward reflexively. *Your impression of the enemy force?*

*... Nothing unique about it. Just Orks. Easy to outwit, hard to stop,* the Tau soldier mumbled.

*I see. Finally, what is this I hear about communication problems between my troops and yours?* Solon asked, his optics flickering.

The Stealth Suit hesitated, glancing over at Wraithstar.

*It was my understanding that translation programs were installed on all battlesuit units and all communication nodes updated to access our vox networks,* Solon continued.

Wraithstar didn't say anything, but continued staring hard at his subordinate.

*... I must have missed that update,* the pilot mumbled, still not looking at the Warsmith.

"My shcansh of your shyshtem logsh indicate that the transhlation shoftware ish inshtalled and functional," Solon declared, suddenly switching to Gothic, "furthermore, it hash been inshtalled shince well before today'sh mishion."

It took a few seconds for the Stealth Suit to react, mostly because he was waiting for his heads-up display to translate Solon's slurred speech.

By that time Solon's left hand had already seized the battlesuit's gun arm, and yanked the Tau off his feet.

"Warsmith Solon! Wait!" Wraithstar shouted.

"No," Solon said simply. Then he crushed the smaller soldier's arm in his hand, armor and all.

Twilight and Shining Armor flinched back as the pilot screamed, and the other Stealth Suits leapt away from the Chaos Lord. Jerriha finally broke eye contact from Applejack to scowl hatefully at the Iron Warrior.

"I tire of your people'sh insholence and cowardice, Wraithshtar." Solon said simply while blue-tinted blood ran down his arm. The Stealth Suit squirmed and the pilot gasped in his grip, but its struggles didn't seem to bother the massive Chaos Lord. "I have granted your sholdiersh ashylum from the threat YOU have unleashed, and yet your Fire Warriorsh sheem intent on making me regret the decishion. Contrary to what shome might shuggesht, my patience DOESH have limitsh."

"I understand, Lord Solon!" Wraithstar shouted, his teeth clenched as he watched the Stealth Suit hang in the air in front of him. "I will discipline them as appropriate, I promise!"

"Your promishesh sho far have amounted to very little, Wraithshtar," Solon replied, "if there ish no trusht between our forcesh, perhapsh I can provide a shuitable alternative: fear."

The giant servo claw on his chassis lunged forward, closing on the Stealth Suit like the jaws of a huge predator. And with similar results.

As blood splattered across the ground, Jerriha's hand went for her sidearm. One of the other Stealth Suits brandished its fusion blaster at about the same time.

The Tau Fireblade froze still when she suddenly heard the crack of armor, followed by an agonized gasp. A second later the Stealth Suit collapsed in front of a narrow fan of blood.

"Watch the guns," Daniels said blandly, his rail rifle aimed at the other trembling battlesuits.

The ponies stared at the scene in shock as Solon dropped the mess of gore and shattered polyceramics in front of Wraithstar. Even Applejack, who hadn't flinched at all when the Stealth Suit had its arm crushed, looked disturbed.

"I don't enjoy breaking my toolsh," Solon said as Wraithstar shook angrily under his glare, "I hope we can avoid any further incidentsh shuch ash thish in the future."

The clatter of a pulse pistol hitting the ferrocrete diverted the Iron Warrior's attention, and he turned his head toward Jerriha. The Fireblade was glaring up at him, and was now completely unarmed.

"So I still rate as nothing more than a 'tool'? I didn't realize that I had merely traded one pair of shackles for another," she spat, "if that's the case, let's be done with the pretenses of alliance. I will not fight. Send me back to your mines, if you wish. I'd be lucky to die hammering rocks for ore rather than being beaten to death by savages."

"Don't think the Orksh will be the onesh to kill you, grayshkin," Solon warned before his bloodstained servo claw clamped shut menacingly.

"I wasn't referring to the Orks," Jerriha snapped back.

"Shas'vre! Be SILENT!" Wraithstar shouted.

"I will NOT. I will not bow my head and submit to one who murders my Caste-mates," the Fireblade growled, her glare still locked on Solon. The other Stealth Suits glanced at each other, and then they, too, powered down their weapons and started to strip them off. "You have handed us one humiliation and misery after another, and you expect obedience and thanks?"

Twilight gulped. "Hey, now, hold on-"

"You know, I hate to find myself in agreement with a Tau," Shining Armor interrupted, his voice hard, "but I can't condone this sort of treatment either. That soldier did something wrong, obviously, but to kill him, just like that?" The Captain had his eyes narrowed as he stared up at the hulking Iron Warrior, and Twilight's fur paled several shades. "Is that really all we are to you? Tools to be used up and discarded when you don't need us anymore?"

"Oh, now don't YOU shtart," Solon said, rounding on the stallion, "you were all preshented with a choice, and you made your decishionsh. You sherve ME now."

"Choice? What 'choice'?!" Shining demanded. "You mean 'use your shield against the Orks or you'll be using it against the Iron Warriors outside your bedroom'?"

"And here you are," Solon said blandly, "I don't shee a problem."

"Guys, please, just-" Twilight began desperately, only for her brother to cut her off again.

"So what if an Equestrian can't accept a certain order? What if I don't? What if my SISTER doesn't?" Shining demanded, his anger building. "Are you going to squash us on the spot, too?"

Solon's legs shifted to lift his chassis up higher, and his servo claw clanked open and shut again. "Do you imagine that I won't?"

The unicorn recoiled, trembling with anger. "You... You mons-"

"HEY!! STOP IT!!" Everyone nearby flinched from the sudden, magically-amplified shout.

Twilight was hovering in the air behind Shining Armor, her chest heaving and her horn aglow.

"Would you all just LISTEN to yourselves?!" Twilight shouted, beads of sweat dripping from her bangs. "There are some sixty-plus THOUSAND Orks marching toward us even as we speak! We can NOT start fighting amongst ourselves!"

Jerriha sneered. "A Fire Warrior killed by this tin man is just as dead as-" she staggered backward as a stripe of glowing purple energy slapped over her mouth, silencing her.

"NO. You do NOT get to play the victim here, Shas'vre," Twilight snapped, her eyes briefly flaring white, "YOUR people brought this threat to us to save YOUR empire. That's done and over with, and we can live with that. But ONLY if your so-called 'warrior caste' can straighten up and do their jobs!" She pointed a hoof at Daniels, who blinked in surprise. "The humans have been fighting a war that isn't theirs all this time, and have been dying by the cartload for it! Mercenary casualties against the Orks have been TEN TIMES that of Fire Warriors! And I'll bet the survivors are plenty sick and tired of hearing about the 'humiliation' of having the same boss as they do and the 'misery' of doing the same missions!"

She whirled on Shining Armor before anyone could say anything in response. "Shiny, don't misunderstand; I see the same things you do. I know that the Iron Warriors aren't good people, and that we're just tactical assets to them. They haven't corrupted me or brainwashed me or any of that. But we NEED this alliance. This isn't just about the lives of the Equestrian soldiers, or you, or me. If we fail, EVERYPONY dies. I know you understand that."

Shining Armor pursed his lips and then nodded silently.

"Warsmith-" Twilight began, whirling around in the air.

The Chaos Lord flinched, scuttling backward for a few steps and ducking down defensively.

The others stared with arched eyebrows.

"Uhm..." Twilight hesitated for a moment, feeling honestly embarrassed by the reaction. "... Please don't kill anybody on our side anymore. It's not helping."

"Okay," Solon said quickly.

Twilight cleared her throat awkwardly before she continued. "The Orks are stronger and more numerous than we had guessed, and our ONLY chance of fighting them off is to work together! For the sake of survival, I think we can at least postpone these arguments until we don't have an alien horde breathing down our necks."

Wraithstar crossed his arms and stared hard at the Stealth Suits. They only paused briefly before picking their weapons up off the ground.

Jerriha was more reluctant as she leaned over to recover her pistol, the spell holding her mouth having faded.

"Of course... until later, then," the Fireblade murmured, holstering her pulse pistol, "if nothing else, I would like to kill a few more Orks before my life ends."

"Good attitude," Applejack said with a dark grin. Jerriha scowled tightly and stalked off.

Wraithstar took a deep breath (through his respirator mask, of course) before looking up at Solon. "Warsmith, I shall conduct a review of our detachment's communications over this mission, and ensure that my troops know of the..." he trailed off distastefully as he stared at the remains of the crushed Stealth Suit. "... The severe penalties for insubordination and deceit. No further demonstrations shall be necessary, Lord."

"Good. Uh..." Solon glanced back at Twilight, then switched to Tau. *Also, don't tell anyone else about this. The parts other than me killing your soldier, I mean.*

"Of course," Wraithstar drawled. Then he gestured sharply at the other Stealth Suits. *Come! You idiots already cost me two men, and weakened this entire army with your foolishness! There may yet be time to ensure you haven't cost us the war...*

****

Jerriha drummed her fingers on a cargo crate as she fumed silently. At the far end of the sector, where the landing pads gave way to empty space for expansion, a pair of Earth Caste workers were putting together a refueling station for the Tau flyers and gunships.

An abomination. Tau technology, given over to post-human reavers. Corrupted scum that were the embodiment of everything the Greater Good opposed. Selfish. Manic. Fractured. Hateful. Destructive.

Powerful.

No matter how much she despised their ideology and corruption, her Sept had no one but themselves to blame for the Iron Warriors' victory. The 38th Company had fought harder, smarter, and better than they had.

And they continued to do so, it seemed.

"A credit for your thoughts."

Jerriha managed to keep from jumping in surprise, but just barely. Daniels walked up next to her and then hopped backward to sit on the supply crate.

"What do you want, ape?" the Fireblade growled.

"Hey, now, let's not start with the racism," Daniels chided, "I know you've worked with 'gue'la' before, so it's not like you hate ALL of us."

"True. I used to hate the ones that wore the symbol of that wretched dictatorship: that absurd two-headed bird. I didn't know there was an even worse kind until I met you and that wretched star hanging from your neck."

"You sound like you need a hug, lass."

Jerriha clenched her teeth hard enough that it started to hurt. "What. Do. You. WANT."

"Oh, nothing much," Daniels said, leaning back and kicking his feet out, "I just noticed that you didn't look terribly inspired by Princess Twilight's little speech. Wondering why, is all. I found it very appropriate."

Jerriha was already scowling as much as she could possibly scowl, so she found herself without much scope for further expressing her discontent. "I didn't much care for the part where she compared us to you. Of course you serve without question or complaint. You're mercenaries. You don't care about your cause."

"See, now, to me, what you did there is take an advantage and make it sound like a weakness," Daniels pointed out, "if you care about your cause and it makes you miserable, then you're the one with the problem, mi'right?"

The Fireblade bristled. "What's it like, human? To be so lost, so self-absorbed and desperate in your desires that THIS..." she paused to wave a hand toward an iron Chaos Star with skulls hanging from it on chains, "seems like a good idea?"

Jerriha was expecting a snarky comeback or - ideally - for the man to get annoyed and leave.

"It's like you're constantly swimming," Daniels answered, all mirth gone from his voice, "you're treading water, and all around you, for as far as the eye can see, is just more water. Ocean, stretching out forever. And you keep swimming, but you don't know if you'll ever reach land, or if land exists, or if it exists but it's actually worse than the sea, somehow." He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and picked up the Chaos Star hanging around his neck. "Under those conditions, you'll embrace any flotsam you can get, no matter how slimy or dangerous. Anything to stay above water."

Daniels glanced over to the Fireblade, and saw that she was looking fairly stunned. "So, what's it like to be so attached to a philosophy that having to violate it for your own survival is almost worse than just keeling over and dying?"

Jerriha's senses returned to her, as did her scowl. Still... he had given her a real answer, so she felt obligated to do the same.

"It's like being on an island in that ocean," she mumbled, "a single spot of warmth, light, and hope, and all you can see around you is havoc and strife." She hung her head. "Tau'va has given us so much, and made us so strong... it is our reason for being. To have that stripped away... to be adrift, as you are... is..."

"It sucks, eh?" Daniels asked. "But you learn to live with it. Or, you know, you get cut up by xenos. One of those."

Then he suddenly slapped Jerriha on the shoulder, causing her to yelp and jump away. "But, hey! We have a shared metaphor for life, now! How's that for inter-species bonding!"

Jerriha's hand tightened around her pistol. "DON'T touch me!" she spat. "I don't want to 'bond' with you! You killed my Caste-brother!"

"I've killed several of your Caste-brothers, actually. Strangled one of them to death, even. Grisly stuff," Daniels admitted, "but that's all in the past, right?"

"You killed Herrula ten minutes ago!"

"Oh, come on, that was legit. He was about to shoot a fusion blaster at the Warsmith," Daniels protested.

Jerriha was about to retort, but stopped herself. There really was no point.

"Anyhow, you could learn a thing or two from the ponies in how they deal with us," Daniels said after deciding that the last argument was finished.

Jerriha laughed bitterly. "Is that so? What should we learn? How to properly beg for favor and serve your Astartes masters?"

"That IS what it looks like to you, I'm sure," Daniels said with a shrug, "but the truth is more complicated. The Equestrians have submitted, true, and we've changed them. Some of them, anyway. But they've changed us, too."

Jerriha was intrigued despite herself. "Really. How?"

"For starters, a month ago I would have never considered it worthwhile to listen to the complaints of an alien soldier," the mercenary pointed out, "I probably would have killed all the Stealth Suits rather than just the one that was gunning for the Warsmith, just in case they thought to turn their guns on me. And I DEFINITELY would have asked for a unit of Fire Warriors to take along on my missions as flesh-shields." He smirked as Jerriha glared. "Meeting Applejack has made me think that maybe making friends with aliens isn't all that hard or dangerous. I'm not with the Imperium anymore, so why not?"

Jerriha recoiled slightly, looking confused and somewhat repulsed. "You... want to be my... friend?"

Daniels shrugged. "Or I can scurry off to my pony friends and fellow humans and keep waiting until you give me an excuse to shoot you. I get paid the same either way. This approach seems more productive, though."

A long silence settled between the two as they watched the assembly drones install the fueling station.

"... Would I have to make friends with that orange horse, too?" Jerriha finally asked.

"No. In fact, I'd rather you didn't. Watching you twitch whenever AJ is nearby is a riot," Daniels chuckled.

Jerriha turned her head to stare at the man for several more seconds.

"If I was your friend, would you give me back my rail rifle?" she asked.

"Frag off, grayskin."

Jerriha sighed. "Worth a shot."

****

Main Ork army - the next day

Hazarr grunted irritably while he watched Lootas drag in more and more motorbikes and hurl them into the Trukks parked on the side of the path.

His boyz had gone on ahead from the bulk of the army to search for good looting opportunities and get the lay of the land. Of course, there was SUPPOSED to be scouting Biker Boyz returning to the main force who had done that, but for some reason none of them had returned yet.

As the Lootas hauled in yet ANOTHER few motorcycles for salvage, Hazarr had to consider that maybe they wouldn't be coming back at all.

"Boss! Boss Coggz!"

The Big Mek turned his head after a Loota rushed up to him happily. There was a team of Grots hauling a small metal cart behind him, and it was full of sluggas and stikkbombs. Some of them stained with dry blood.

"Wot's dis about?" Hazarr demanded, pointing to the wagon. "Ya see a lotta ded boyz out dere?"

"Oh, yea, Boss! Hunnerds of 'em! Bad lukk, I gehss." The Loota shrugged. "But nevah mind dat! Dere's sum REEL good loot ovah da hill! Sumfin we ain't seen bahfohr!"

The smaller Ork paused, his beady red eyes squinting. "It's a towah fing fulla glowy bitz, an' has good metuhl platin', an lotsa pritty wyahs! Jus' sittin' out dere, waytin' fer us!"

Hazarr frowned. "Wot'z it do?" It was a common mistake of lesser Orks, Hazarr knew, to forget that nearly all machines they looted for scrap had a useful function as they were. Some were obvious, like guns and tanks, but on occasion even more complex devices were worth more intact than the sum of their parts.

That logic, as usual, had escaped his underlings. "Er... dunno, Boss. Zimzog's takin' it apaht roight now, doh."

The explosion that came from behind the hill sent an enormous fireball into the air, briefly overwhelming the early morning sunlight. A small dark spot appeared in the air over it, and as the detonation receded a blazing Trukk slammed into the hill and then started bouncing down the side, trailing fire and scorched metal.

The Orks all stopped to watch as the vehicle eventually rolled to a stop. Some of them pointed and laughed.

"... I fink I noh wot da metuhl towahs do now, Boss," the Loota said helpfully.

Hazarr sighed and poked his subordinate in the chest with his power klaw. "Dis is why we can't haff nyss tings."

"Boss! Boss Coggz!"

The Big Mek turned around as yet ANOTHER Loota raced up to him and shouted for attention.

"Wot? If dis is about da metuhl towahs, let 'em be! Dey's traps!"

The second Loota shook his head. "Dat ain't it, Boss! I gotz wun o'da boyz wot wuz out last nite! A Nob! He wuz lost out inna woodz, he wuz!" the Loota explained.

"Well, dat's roight handy," Hazarr said, cracking his neck to one side and then the other. "Let's see wot he's got fer us."

****

"Say it agin," Drahgza demanded, glowering down at the one-armed Nob standing below him.

The Nob was exhausted, hungry, and still obviously wounded, but he stood firm as he gave his report to his Warboss. "It wuz hosses, Boss Drahgza. Hosses got da boyz."

One of the three lights on Drahgza's optics visor started to flicker in imitation of a twitching eye. "Hosses. HOSSES killed me Bikah Boyz and da uddah boyz I sent wot to bakk 'em up. Not spikies, not humies, but liddel HOSSES?!"

The Nob flinched, but he didn't relent. "Yeah. Dey ain't nahmal hosses, doh. Dey's sum kinda..." the injured Nob paused to think. "Sum kinda weerd bat-hoss. Dey has big weengs, an' shahp teef! An' dey packin' fansee dakka, too! An' dey gotz humie duds, I fink!"

Hazarr stood behind the one-armed Ork, tapping one talon of his power claw against a crate.

"But dat ain't all, Boss! Da liddel hosses had a big hoss wid 'em!"

Drahgza's powered pincer opened and closed with a heavy CLANG. "A BIG hoss. Ya don' say," the Warboss sneered.

The Nob nodded. "Dis wun was WEERD. Wit blakk ahmah an' glowin' eyes, an' flohtin' hans!" The Nob shook his head. "It shot thundah and brohk da lites, an' den killed da Deff Dread, an' den it killed me boyz. An' den..."

For the first time, the Nob hesitated, and Drahgza took a threatening step forward. "An' DEN?"

"It took off me arm. Brohk me gun. Den it tokked ta me, Boss," the Nob mumbled.

"Wot did it say?" Hazarr asked.

The Nob opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, and then closed his mouth, frowning.

"... Dunno," he admitted, "da big hoss tokked all funny. Wuz goin' on loik it wuz two hosses. I fink it took a klaw to da hed or sumfin'." He shrugged. "But I fink it sed sumfin' loik we shood be 'fraid o' da dahk."

Drahgza slammed a klaw on a metal crate next to him, and it crumpled like it was made of paper. "We'z da Orks!" he shouted. "An' Orks ain't 'fraid o' NUFFIN'!"

The Nob nodded quickly. "Dat's roight, Boss. Ya wanna krump da hosses, den?"

Drahgza looked like he was going to roar an agreement, but then the hulking Ork hesitated as the gears in his head started creaking.

He turned to Hazarr. "Dese bat-hosses. Dey da saym wuns youz wuz tellin' me 'bout?"

Hazarr shook his head. "Naw. I ain't seen no bat-hosses. But me boyz wuzn't out at nite."

Drahgza thought some more.

After almost five minutes, he started chuckling.

"Dese gitz fink dey reel clevah," the Warboss said between snorting laughs, "I send boyz doorin' da day, dey git shot up by humies an' essploded by trapz. I send boyz durin' da nite, an' dey git stomped by weerd nite hosses. Dey's pikkin' off me boyz bit by bit, tryin' ta scayr us."

He laughed, stomping past the other Orks and pointing out into the distance. "But we don' NEED no scowtz. We noh 'zactly weah we'z goin'. To da humie fort!"

Hazarr pointed his power klaw in a different direction. "Da humie fort's dat way."

"WOTEVAH!!" Drahgza roared. "Da poynt is, we'z keepin' all da boyz tahgethah from heah on! No mo' Bikahs, no mo' nite runz! If'n da humies or da hosses wanna mess wit us, dey mess wit ALL o'us! WAAAAAGH!!"

The classic Ork warcry was echoed by every warrior nearby, and then picked up by the Orks further away and repeated further. The bloodthirsty scream moved through the army like a wave, building in intensity and fervor. Boyz started shooting their guns into the air, and Squiggoths stomped their feet in angry sympathy. The three Gargants blasted their warhorns and shot rokkits into the sky, and the very air reverberated with bloodlust and fury.

"We'z movin' on, boyz! An' NUFFIN is gonna stop us now!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17 Command Center

Luna suppressed a yawn while she entered the central complex of the command center, walking through the busy hallway to the strategium.

She was weary, and she was certain her appearance betrayed as much. Her daemon armor, formidable as it was, was pitted, scored, and scarred from a night of constant battle. One of her wing sheaths had even been cracked open from a Biker ramming into her, although it hadn't been enough to harm the wing underneath.

The damage would heal over the day, as she slept, as if it were flesh. None of it required extra attention from Solon or the Warpsmiths. Still, it was far and away much more harm than she had sustained in her previous encounters.

Proud as she was of the blows she'd inflicted, she was also mindful of the truth of the words she'd heard from the Nob that she'd released back to his army. There were still far too many of the aliens left marching toward their lands. How many greenskins had been slain by the time morning broke? A hundred? Three, four hundred, maybe? From an army that counted its numbers in the tens of thousands. A glass of water taken from a lake. And another OCEAN of barbarians racing toward them through the Empyrean.

"Curse the Tau," the alicorn spat. As far as Luna was concerned, the Fire Warriors had a great deal more fighting and dying to do before they could begin to atone for the destruction they had unleashed upon her planet.

But then, there was plenty of fighting and dying ahead for ALL of them.

"We hast arrived!" Luna proclaimed as the doors to the strategium slid open for her. The shout was more for her own benefit than the tacticians inside. She had to keep her mind focused until she was released to her bed again.

Solon, Sliver, and Serith made up the usual group of Iron Warrior commanders overseeing these meetings. General Gnoss stood opposite them, also as usual. However, she was not expecting to see Twilight Sparkle, much less Shining Armor, flanking the General.

"Princesh Luna, welcome," Solon greeted the dark alicorn, "and how fared your mission lasht night?"

Luna debated retracting her helmet, but then glanced at Sliver and thought better of it. She could tolerate Solon's stench, but the odor of the Company's Vice-Commander was of a magnitude greater than his master. Twilight also had her armor and helmet on, she noticed.

"It fared very well, Warsmith," Luna said, dipping her head toward the Chaos Lord respectfully, "We hast scoured the plains and hills of the greenskins that dared leave the safety of their main force. The sensor stations proved most useful in this endeavor."

"Excellent," Solon said, "cashualtiesh?"

Luna pursed her lips. "Low. Relatively." She shook her head. "Our Lunar Guard struck the enemy with great vigor and ferocity, and few were injured during each sortie as the ground became littered with Orkish dead. Yet..." she sighed. "The foe is so numerous, despite our efforts, and the engagements were many. The casualties reached an uncomfortable sum by morning's light. Our thestral soldiers numbered but one hundred and twenty that were prepared to face the greenskins. That tally is much reduced now."

"Did any of them die?" Gnoss asked suddenly.

Luna blinked behind her helmet. "Pardon?"

"The casualties. Were they all non-fatal injuries?" the pirate officer pressed.

The dark alicorn thought about the question for a few seconds. "... Now that thou mentions it... We do not recall any fatalities in particular, nay. T'were many injuries to wings and shattered bones, mostly."

Twilight leaned over to her brother. "Told you."

"That's weird," Shining mumbled back, "great, but WEIRD." General Gnoss nodded in agreement.

"Enough," Sliver hissed, "there iss much to be disscusssed."

The befouled Chaos Lord seemed extra irritable somehow, Luna decided. The single lens of his visor was focused intently on the hololith display, and she could hear muted mumbling coming from his helmet.

"What hath we discovered of the foe?" Luna asked, looking over the hololith. It didn't make much sense to her, being a set of bright green rings, grids, and red spots.

"A lot. All of it useful and most of it quite frustrating," Gnoss explained with a shake of his head, "our initial estimates of the enemy's size was too small."

"Surprise, surprise," Serith sighed.

The General nodded absently. "We're looking at a number of ground troops somewhere in the realm of 80,000 soldiers."

A startled whinny escaped Shining Armor before he could stop it.

Luna was quite incredulous, but at least she was able to hide her expression under her helmet. "Thy initial guess was in deficit of twenty THOUSAND troops?"

"Well, that's total fleet strength. Some ten thousand or so have been left on their ships, which are still holding orbit opposite our own fleet around the planet," Gnoss explained, "but... well... yes. These things happen."

"They happen a lot when fighting greenshkinsh," Solon noted, "on the other hand, thish fleet containsh a prodigoush amount of light infantry. The ratio of troopsh to armored vehiclesh ish much higher than ushual."

"In other words, they don't have nearly as many tanks or transports as an army their size should," Gnoss explained, "the looting and salvage must have been poor for them recently."

"Thish putsh them at a dishadvantage in shome waysh, but obvioushly we shtill have a lot more targetsh than we'd like," said Solon.

Luna nodded. "We understand. Then what shalt we do?"

The others all looked at Sliver. Sliver released a growl.

"Tell me, Princesss... have you or any of your fellow witchess ssome trickery that can deal with the likess of THISS?"

Sliver's visor glowed briefly, and then Luna watched as a fat, silly-looking walker of some sort appeared on the hololith table.

She had to stop herself from giggling at the sight of the thing. "And what be this, Lord Sliver?"

"Thiss iss a Gargant. A 'Mega Gargant,' sspecifically," the Chaos Lord hissed.

"And this ludicrous contraption thinks to challenge the Warsmith's machines?" the Lunar Princess asked, laughing openly at the thought. "What threat doth this crude toy pose to thy fortress?"

Gnoss tapped a screen on the table's control panel. "Here, let me add an equine soldier next to it for scale. That should help you understand what we're looking at."

Luna continued staring at the hololithic Gargant. Then she tilted her head to one side of the image, and then the other.

"We do not see the pony," she confessed.

"Yes, that's about right," Gnoss replied.

Luna blinked. "Oh." Then her eyes widened. "OH." Then she cringed. "Oh..."

"And there are THREE of those things?" Twilight asked anxiously.

"THREE?!" Luna yelped. "Preposterous! Even for an army of this scale, how can such war machines exist?!"

"Orksh are annoying like that," Solon admitted, "the other two are Great Gargantsh, a shlightly shmaller variant, but any one of them poshesh a sherioush threat to thish fortresh. Combined, and properly shupported, Ferroush Dominush cannot shtop them."

"Well, your people fight Orks all the time, right? Including these 'Gargants'?" Shining Armor asked.

"That ish true, yesh," Solon confirmed.

"So how do you usually deal with something like that?" the Guard Captain asked.

"With Titansh," Solon said.

"So, how many Titans dost thee possess?" Luna asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Zero," Solon sighed.

The group fell silent, staring at the hololithic behemoth.

"Well, there ARE waysh to deshtroy Titansh without another Titan," Solon finally pointed out.

"True. But the pressence of an enemy army running in ssupport makes them problematic at besst," Sliver hissed, "sstill... moving on."

With a wave of his hand, the Gargant was replaced by a topographic map of the region, with a big red patch marking out the enemy army.

"The only explicitly good news we have is that the Orks seem to have reacted as we'd hoped to our initial strikes to kill off their scouts. When our listening posts detected that the army started moving again, it did so as a single, giant mass, and did not deploy more forward scouting units. Whatever strategy we use against them, they won't see coming," General Gnoss explained while he started putting more data into the hololith table.

"Okay... but what strategy could possibly break an army of that size, with weapons that powerful?" Shining Armor asked.

Serith chuckled. "We have many tools of war at our disposal, Lord Armor."

"I know that," the stallion grumbled, "I'm apparently one of them. But something tells me that if there were any easy solutions to winning this battle, you would have brought it up by now."

"Okay, here's the Ork army's projected route to the fortress," General Gnoss said as a series of red arrows marked the army's path over the land. The route took it into a mountain valley, and then curved southward sharply to enter the badlands and the fortification that lay within it.

Twilight's brow creased. "Hold on. There." She pointed a hoof at the valley. "Magnify."

The hololith zoomed in on the spot, and she and Shining Armor gasped.

"The Orks are going to go straight through Ponyville!" the alicorn shouted in distress.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Sso what?" Sliver asked.

"All those innocent ponies!" Shining Armor growled, shedding a tear then and there at the mere thought of such carnage.

"The fiends!" Luna groused.

The sapiens remained unimpressed.

"Can't you just evacuate them?" General Gnoss asked.

"Well, yeah, of course we will," Shining admitted. "But, you know, it's still sad. Their homes and livelihoods will be pretty much wiped out, right?"

"Sspare uss your ssimpering, pssyker," Sliver snapped, causing Twilight to cringe at the amount of phlegm that sentence seemed to be pushing through, "if you have nothing usseful to add, then be SSILENT."

Serith sighed. "It will have to be there, after all."

Solon and Sliver turned their helmets toward the Sorcerer.

"Shay what?" asked the Warsmith.

"The Orks. Their advance is projected to reach the village in three days, thanks to ease of travel across the plains and valley. The terrain up to Ferrous Dominus is not so forgiving. Four days, perhaps five. Unacceptable." He pointed a finger toward Ponyville. "We will conduct our battle here."

"Why'sh that, exactly?" Solon asked. Twilight and Shining looked stunned. Neither had seriously considered the prospect of facing the enemy horde in Ponyville rather than the reinforced and heavily defended walls of Ferrous Dominus.

"There simply isn't time," Serith sighed, "this has taken too long already, and if this army should delay its own destruction much longer then we are sure to have the bulk of the greenskin fleet upon us. Three days until contact. The alien must then be slain, and offered up to the Gods. On the fourth day I shall establish the Nethalican."

Shining Armor raised an eyebrow. "Are you... sure about this? That's a pretty unforgiving timetable."

"Call it a... witch's intuition," Serith said.

General Gnoss did not look convinced. "But how can it be done, my Lord? At least Ferrous Dominus poses SOME great obstacle, some chance to resist. A lucky macro-cannon shot can cripple a Gargant, and even the Orks' heaviest weapons will need time to tear down these walls... but a village? With nothing but wood and sandbags to protect our forces, how are we to defeat the army, much less stop their Gargants?"

Luna chewed her lip anxiously. "The General doth make a sound argument. Defending the fortress seems an unlikely task. Defending Ponyville seems impossible."

"It can work," Sliver mumbled.

Everybody was fairly surprised to hear Sliver speak in favor of the obviously stupid option.

"My Lord?" Gnoss asked hesitantly.

"The xeno army. Look at it," Sliver demanded, pointing to the cluster of red icons. "It marchess with no formation. Heavy armor travelss near the fuel transsportss. Light transsportss travel at the front. Artillery iss on the flankss. The Gargantss are sstrung out throughout the army. Crowdss of infantry everywhere, preventing the eassy mobilization of their vehicless. Thiss iss not a force ready for battle."

"True, but they are days away from any Equestrian settlements," Gnoss pointed out, "plenty of time for them to form up properly before reaching combat."

"Without a sscouting force, they will ssee neither the ssettlementss, or our forcess waiting for them. They are not expecting an attack. By the time they realize that they have sstumbled upon the enemy, we will rain death upon them. The valley will prove an adequate choke point, preventing them from encircling uss. Victory iss posssible."

Sliver paused. "Asssuming, of coursse, the Gargantss can be dealt with."

"Leave the Gargantsh to me," Solon said, pounding a fist against his breastplate, "I'll come up with shomething."

"Very encouraging," Sliver grumbled. Then he turned to Shining Armor, and the stallion recoiled. He still wasn't used to being around Iron Warriors in general, and Sliver was easily the most hideous and repulsive of the Chaos Marines he had met.

"You will provide protection. We will need every tactical advantage to overcome the Orkss."

Shining winced. "I have a spell I've been working on... rather than a dome, it creates a giant shield wall. A one-way barrier, so that troops from our side can shoot through it while the enemy can't." Then he shook his head. "But it can't possibly stand up to an army. I can probably keep it up for a few minutes, but as soon as any serious firepower hits it, the feedback will just be too much."

"Feedback, hm? That is the primary impediment?" Serith asked.

Shining gave him an uncertain look. "... Yes. Holding a barrier means stopping all the energy applied against it, which tries to undo the barrier. It becomes more difficult with more force."

"And in the case of very powerful weapons, it starts to hurt," Twilight added, "holding back pulse rifle fusillades in particular is very painful. The shock of holding back large ordnance can collapse a shield instantly, and could even knock out the pony projecting it."

"Not a problem. I can fix this weakness," Serith said, nodding his head to Sliver.

"You... You can?" Shining said incredulously.

"Good. Do it," Sliver snapped, "I disslike relying on your pssyker trickss, Ssorcerer, but all of thiss iss in aid of your damnable portal. Do NOT fail me."

Serith bowed, chuckling as usual. "Of course, Lord. I even have a little gift for you that should aid in this undertaking, if you would have it."

A wet snort preceded Sliver's reply. "I can't wait," he hissed.

"So we have three days to prepare, a shield, a disorganized foe, the element of surprise, and we're presuming that the Gargants will be destroyed before they see battle," General Gnoss mused, crossing his arms over his chest, "this is starting to look possible."

"What about the weather?" Twilight asked. "Would it help if there was some bad rain that day?"

"It would hinder the Orks slightly more than us, I suppose. They'd have to march through the mud while we'd be sitting in it," Gnoss reasoned.

"No, I mean, what if there was a rainstorm JUST over the valley?" Twilight clarified. "Maybe some lightning, too?"

The Iron Warriors stared.

"A rainshtorm that shomehow limitsh itshelf to the shpecific area our foesh are, without touching our forcesh?" Solon asked. "That would be a big help, actually. Ish that shome pshyker trick?"

"No, not at all. We'll just have the weather teams set it up," Shining said.

"The what, now?" Gnoss asked.

"The weather teams," Luna explained, "they refer to the pegasi that hath control of the weather conditions across Equestria."

The Iron Warriors were still staring. "... You, uh... didn't know about them?" Twilight asked, trying to recall if she'd ever brought the topic up previously.

"You control the bleeding WEATHER?!" General Gnoss shouted, slamming his hands onto the hololith table. "Why the hell haven't I heard about this before? That would have been pretty damn helpful some sixteen battles or so ago!"

The pony siblings shared a look. "We thought you knew!" Shining insisted. "I mean, what, does nobody control the weather at all on other planets?"

"Correct. Jusht like the sholar and Lunar cyclesh," Solon said, giving a meaningful glance at Luna. "On mosht worldsh the atmoshpheric and ashtrophyshical conditionsh of the planet do not rely on intervention from the inhabitantsh."

"... Oh... Well... on this planet, we have a weather factory instead," Shining said with a nervous smile and a shrug.

"Thiss iss officially too ridiculouss for me," Sliver grunted as he turned away from the table, "I shall work on our planss for the engagement." Without waiting to be dismissed, he stomped toward the exit.

"Very good. I should come up with that plan to defeat the Gargantsh," Solon mumbled as he too moved to leave.

"Warsmith! Allow us to destroy them!" Luna shouted, causing Solon to halt and swivel his torso around. "We hast dismantled the Orks' machines of war many times! These abominations shalt be no different!"

"It ish different, I'm afraid," Solon admitted, "Gargantsh are shimply not in the shame league ash their other heavy combat armor."

"We shalt force entry and slay the crew!" the dark alicorn declared. "Will this strategy not work?"

"If you can GET to the Gargant in the firsht place, yesh," Solon admitted, "there'sh quite an army in the way, though." Then he tilted his helmet to the side, his optics cluster rotating. "But then, you can teleport. Hmmm..."

The ponies waited anxiously as Solon paused. Luna herself was almost trembling.

"... You're probably good for one Gargant," Solon decided, "jusht one, though. We don't want to overdo it. And no eclipshesh thish time! We need the light for our defenshive linesh!"

"Huzzah!" the Princess of the Night cheered, raising the Iron Gage from her shoulders and clapping the massive gauntlets together. "The greenskins shalt rue the day they thought to oppose us! We shalt not fail thee, Father!"

That sentence startled quite a few individuals in the room, and Solon paused.

"... Shay that lasht thing again?" the Warsmith asked.

"We shalt not fail thee, Warsmith!" Luna repeated, holding her head up straighter before she shifted the Iron Gage into a salute. "We go now to our daily rest! Princess Sparkle, if any further matters require our attention, do not hesitate to alert us!"

"Okay... sure," Twilight mumbled, her eyebrow arched as Luna turned away and trotted out of the room.

"Shometimesh I worry about that mare," Solon mumbled after the doors shut behind the Lunar Princess.

"That probably contributes to her subconscious perception of you as a father figure," Twilight pointed out.

"I think it's kind of cute," Shining Armor said with a smirk, "slightly disturbing and depressing in its implications, but still, cute."

"Speaking of disturbing and depressing matters," Serith said, pointing to Shining Armor, "come with me."

The unicorn winced, but he didn't hesitate to follow the Sorcerer. They both headed toward the same exit Luna had used.

Twilight removed her helmet just so she could be sure that her glare at Serith's back was unobstructed. "You're not allowed to hurt him, Serith!" she growled.

"Unlesh doing sho providesh ush with a key tactical advantage," Solon amended.

Twilight shifted her glare to the larger Iron Warrior.

"What? He doeshn't work for me, why should I care?" the Warsmith asked.

A frustrated groan came from Twilight after the door shifted close behind her brother. She had no reason to think that Serith would hurt Shining Armor or even allow him to come to harm; his instruction of the other unicorns hadn't caused any casualties so far, and she had checked frequently to make sure. Still, mistrust of the Sorcerer was a reflex by now, and her fur bristled at the thought of him "instructing" members of her family.

Eventually Twilight sighed and looked up at Solon again. She was slightly surprised and nonplussed to see that the mechanized Chaos Lord was staring down at her.

"Hmmm..." Solon hummed.

"Er, is there something wrong?" Twilight asked, shifting back a step.

"No. No, there ishn't," Solon replied, "jusht conshidering my optionsh, ish all." He paused again. "Didn't you shay that Fluttershy hash shome kind of unique rapport with the daemon enginesh?"

Twilight blinked. "Yes, she does. I don't really understand it well, but they seem unusually... calm and obedient in her presence. Why?"

"Intereshting," Solon mumbled before he swiveled around, preparing to leave.

"Speaking of Fluttershy!" Twilight said loudly, causing the Warsmith to stop. "I haven't seen her since yesterday. I was surprised to see that she volunteered to help dispatch the enemy scouts, but now I'm worried."

"Rainbow Dash hash not returned either," Solon said blithely, "nor hash Tellish."

Twilight's eyes widened. "You don't think that they were-"

"Dishtracted from their mishion shuch that they completely forgot what they were doing?" Solon said as he started heading out again. "Yesh. I believe that ish exactly what happened."

****

???

"Wait, seriously? You're being serious right now?" Tellis asked while he and Rainbow Dash sat next to a campfire. "Our helmets seriously have DIRGE PLAYERS equipped?"

"Yeah. You didn't know?" Rainbow Dash snickered.

"GAH!" Tellis punched the ground, smashing an unlucky rock into gravel. "I can't believe it! This makes me so MAD!!"

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Really? Why?"

"Because I've been wasting all these thousands of years fighting and killing," the Raptor Lord huffed, "when I could have been fighting and killing with awesome theme music!" He slapped both gauntlets against the face of his helmet. "This is worse than when I found out that Necrons and daemons don't really die after I kill them! Augh!"

Rainbow Dash continued snickering as the Iron Warrior moaned, and eventually she turned her head toward the fire.

Said fire was situated on the wing of a crashed dakka jet, with several large branches thrown on top to keep it burning. Fluttershy was on the other side of the shredded aircraft, surrounded by woodland creatures as usual. Apparently she was having a very engaging - and almost silent - conversation with a boar that kept pacing in front of her.

Rainbow Dash turned back to Tellis. "Wait. You've been fighting for THOUSANDS of years?"

Tellis sighed, hanging his head. "Yeah. Four thousand, give or take a century. Why?"

"... How long do you guys live?" the cyan pony asked skeptically.

"Nobody knows. I'm pretty sure none of us ever dies of natural causes," Tellis shrugged.

"Huh. I didn't know you were such a geezer," Rainbow chuckled.

Tellis stared at her.

"You know, 'cause you're really old? Eh? I'm pretty sure you could be Celestia's dad, at your age! Eh?" the pegasus winked and bumped Tellis with her wing sheath, banging the armor plates together.

Tellis stared for several seconds longer before he offered up a reply. "Part of being immune to aging is not adapting the same kind of hang-ups about it that you mortal creatures do."

"Tch! Too bad. I had some pretty good nursing home jokes," Rainbow grumbled, "well, I guess I can always fall back on the Veggie God if I run out of material."

"That's not very loving and tolerant of you," Tellis warned, crossing his arms under his skull chain.

"Aww, did da widdle pony huwt your iddy biddy feewings?" Rainbow asked, her lower lip trembling and her eyes getting big and watery. "I'm so sowwy! Does da big shiny baby wanna hug?"

"Only if da widdle pony wants to limp all the way home," Tellis answered, leaning toward the grinning pegasus.

"Uhm, excuse me..."

The interruption had barely been loud enough to rise above the crackle of the fire, but both Tellis and Rainbow Dash had learned to pick up Fluttershy's mumbling above the background noise.

"Wassup, Shy? More greenies?" Tellis asked eagerly, standing up.

"Oh, uhm, sort of," Fluttershy said, anxiously scraping one armored foreleg against the other as she looked away from the Iron Warrior, "the animals have been telling me that the Orks are traveling past the forest. They've been shooting at everything they see, and it's been driving most of the woodland creatures deeper inside."

"Okay, so?" asked the Iron Warrior.

Fluttershy tilted her head to the side. "Er... don't you want to go after the Orks, Mister Murderer?"

"Nah," Tellis replied, planting his hands on his hips as he turned toward the general direction of the enemy. "If they're moving the main army together like the relay scans say they are, then that means there are THOUSANDS of Orks marching out there. I can't fight a horde that size on my own! It would take all day!"

"Should we head home, then?" Rainbow Dash asked. "I was supposed to hit up one of the DarkMech guys and get out of here, but I doubt they're still..."

Rainbow trailed off as all three of them started getting an incoming system alert via their vox systems. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were aware of small yellow lights flashing on their gorgets, and they both engaged their helmets in order to see their heads-up displays.

"Huh. We have a mission, now, I guess," Tellis said, for once having absolutely nothing better to do than pay attention to his orders, "let's see... defend Ponyville from the Ork horde. Huh."

Rainbow Dash straightened immediately. "Say what? Ponyville is under attack?"

"Eventually. The greenskins have a long walk ahead of them," Tellis mumbled, "that sounds like a bad idea, though, fighting off the army in Ponyville. A really bad idea. I'm surprised I didn't think of it first, really."

Rainbow scoffed. "Well, Ponyville is kind of important. The plan isn't THAT dumb."

"Uhm, according to this, I'm supposed to destroy a Great Gargant," Fluttershy interrupted, "what's a Great Gargant?"

"It's the punch line to that HILARIOUS joke that Command just sent you," Tellis snickered, "seriously, there's stupid, and then there's laugh-out-loud retarded. You can't fight a Great Gargant, Shy."

"Well, that's what Mister Solon sent me," the meek pony insisted, "do you think he made a mistake?"

"I think he blew a head gasket, is what I think. Suicide missions usually aren't his style."

Then Rainbow Dash piped up. "So, apparently, MY mission is to take out a Mega Gargant with Twi, AJ, and Rarity. Nifty!"

Tellis generally wasn't given to expressions of exasperation, but he couldn't help but slam a palm over his helmet at this point. "Did you guys piss him off or something? Seriously, this is BAD."

"Oh, dear. Are these Gargant things scary?" Fluttershy asked, ducking her head.

"A little, yeah," Rainbow admitted, "I mean, all Ork weapons are kind of hard to take seriously, but as far as size and firepower go, they're a big deal."

"This is stupid. This is SO stupid," Tellis groaned. "It's so stupid that even I think it can't work! That doesn't usually happen!"

"Oh well, time to go save the world. Again." Rainbow Dash said, her flight pack spreading as she jumped off the ground. "You guys coming?"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 5, Temple of Nurgle

Sliver knelt before the putrescent shrine at the center of the temple, his hammer on the floor at his side. Rotting carcasses adorned the interior of the building, nailed up onto the walls and hung by chains. The constant drone of swarms of flies drowned out all other background noise in the complex. Small trenches cut into the flooring allowed thin streams of vile, tainted fluids to run through the interior. The entire structure was given over to rot and filth, and it was enormously soothing to the Nurgle worshiper.

But on this occasion such surroundings could not put Sliver's mind at ease. Rather than murmuring prayers or simply meditating within the miasma, Sliver was fervently going over battle plans and defensive formations in his head, trying to concoct some workable formula for the days of fortification ahead.

That was hardly the only thing on his mind, though. Sliver had largely stopped protesting Serith's mad plan and Solon's moronic coddling of the planet's natives, but that didn't mean he was content with this foolishness. Even now, with the new Warp engines almost complete, he would have been all too happy to abandon the world and the crippled ships to the Orks entirely. Let the planet, and its damnable horses, be trampled and burned by the alien! He had an army to protect and a much grander war to conduct!

"And so the cycle comes to a close, and so another begins. One man dead, a million insects and microbes born within the womb of disease."

Sliver didn't respond initially to the passage. It was a familiar one to him, and there were other worshipers in the temple besides him. He ignored the prayer.

"Praise Nurgle, father of us all! Protector and nurturer, such that we may find common lot with the plague, the parasite, the chittering daemon! All are our brothers in pestilence!"

Okay, wait, that was weird. The verses were coming from a vox grille, but the voices were female. The only females that wore power armor within the 38th Company were the Dark Techpriests and...

"And said the prophet Deriphode: 'Let the end times come! Let bloodshed and ruin stretch from one end of this galaxy to the other! For with every foe struck down in the name of Khorne, with every body fatally exhausted by the attentions of Slaanesh, another colony of Nurgle is born!'"

The sound of their approach was unmistakable; the sharp, rapid sound of a quadruped in power armor was quite distinctive from the heavier gait of hominids.

Sliver stood up, his gauntlet closing tight around his hammer. "You dare mock me, equiness?" he snarled, whirling around.

The voice continued its prayer. "So said the prophet: 'One cannot escape entropy. One must BECOME entropy.'"

Sliver's angry tirade died on his lips, and his initial surge to violence faltered. There was, indeed, a power-armored mare in the shrine. Three of them, in fact. But they were obviously not the ponies he was familiar with.

A unicorn, pegasus, and an earth pony stood before Sliver, clad in power armor that couldn't have been completed more than a few days ago. The armor suits had more complex helmets, with hinged jaw assemblies, than the other Centaur pattern suits so far, and the earth and pegasus ponies had small boltguns mounted on their right foreleg platings. The unicorn had a full-size bolter mag-locked to her side, presumably able to fire it without such a mechanism.

What gave Sliver pause, however, was the cutie marks, which had (he assumed) been branded onto one shoulder pad as normal. The unicorn's was a biohazard symbol. The pegasus had three skulls arranged in a triangle. And the earth pony, who seemed to be attracting the local insect swarms as if she was dipped in honey, had three flies arranged in the same familiar pattern. All three marks were clearly permutations of the Mark of Nurgle.

"I... uh..." Sliver was not usually one to find himself at a loss for words, but he really had no idea what to make of this encounter. "Thiss... iss... what?"

It didn't help things at all when the three ponies bowed deeply, folding their forelegs and pressing their vox grilles to the unwashed floor.

"We were told we'd know you when we saw you, Lord Sliver," the unicorn said, her vox-echo carrying a distinct Trottingham accent, "Lord Serith was quite right."

Serith. Okay, that answered SOME questions. Not nearly enough that he felt remotely comfortable with this, but at least he had someone to blame, now.

"... What... Who are you?" Sliver asked, finally.

The equines lifted their heads, and then their helmets hissed sharply as the pressurization seals disengaged.

"Oh, wow. It is RIPE in here," the pegasus said after her helmet folded away, allowing her a whiff of the unfiltered air within the temple. Far from being repulsed, she started to inhale even deeper, savoring the smell.

"Please, allow us to introduce ourselves," said the unicorn with the accent after she levitated her helmet off. She had bright green fur and a dark green mane that fell on one side of her face now that her helmet was off. "My name is Poison Kiss."

"I'm Rot Blossom," said the earth pony, her voice rather scratchy and breathless. She seemed to have the opposite color palette of Poison Kiss, with a dark, seaweed-green coat and a big, bushy green mane that hid her eyes.

"And I'm Breezy Blight!" the pegasus chirped. Her coat was a simple granite gray, with a much darker shade for her mane color that was almost black.

None of the three looked particularly diseased, but Sliver knew that didn't mean much; Nurgle's afflictions didn't all cause obvious deformities, and these mares were obviously new to the cult. The fact that they were looking at the inside of a Temple of Nurgle with wonder and excitement rather than horror and revulsion was adequate proof on its own that their allegiance was genuine.

Still.

"Why..." the Chaos Lord had to pause and think, because there were a lot of questions he had right now that started with that word. "... Why do you exist?"

The mares shared a glance, smirking.

"A fun little book called the Contagion Apocrypha," giggled Kiss, "you know how it starts, Lord: the thirst for knowledge, the fascination with the grotesque and bizarre..."

"And then you find a big, super-sketchy magic book and crack it open, damning your soul forever. It happens," Blossom interjected.

"There was some weird, disembodied mumbling at first, and then a whole lot of flies started crawling out from between the pages," Breezy explained, "after that things got a little fuzzy because of all the panic and the intense, sudden fever. But when we woke up we could remember the contents of the book! We all felt much better by then, and our cutie marks had even changed!" She chuckled. "Talk about a plot twist!"

Sliver continued to gawk at the three ponies. "... And you changed your namess, too?" he asked hesitantly.

"No, those were our names before," Blossom noted.

"High school was a pretty tough time for us," Kiss remarked with a wince, "nonetheless, Lord, we have been armed by Warsmith Solon and... 'instructed' by High Sorcerer Serith since our recent conversion. And now we are to serve you."

Once again the three equines bowed to him.

By this time Sliver at least understood what was going on, even if he had barely begun to sort out his feelings about it. "Risse, xenoss," he commanded. The mares straightened immediately. "You are to sserve in the coming battless, then?"

"I imagine that was the Warsmith's intention when giving us this armor," Kiss mused as she levitated her helmet up and stared into the visor.

"And you are a pssyker," Sliver grumbled at Poison Kiss in particular.

"I am, Lord. Quite talented for my age, or so my magic tutor said," Kiss said, putting down the helmet, "as did Lord Serith. Is my being a unicorn a... problem?"

Sliver didn't answer right away, his hands resting on the pommel of his hammer.

"... Not as ssuch, no," he said finally, "I have no great resspect for ssorcery, but I will not dissmisss itss ussess."

Breezy snickered. "Need a tissue, buddy?"

Sliver's gaze snapped toward her immediately, and the pegasus felt a chill crawl down her spine.

"Erm, I meant... LORD buddy?" she amended, smiling nervously.

A wet snort came from the Chaos Lord's vox grille, and he shifted his attention back to Kiss. "I musst admit, the prosspect of a Nurgle Ssorcerer within the rankss intriguess me. None of the pssykerss we currently command accept Nurgle'ss embrace. We have no plague witchess among our rankss."

Poison Kiss smiled, and her horn started to glow a bleak yellow color. "I am pleased to be the first then, my Lord." A rectangular case attached to the side of her armor unlocked and opened up, revealing a large, leather-bound book that looked like it was on the verge of falling apart. The book floated up above her, lifted by the aura of her magic.

"Lord Serith was so happy that we let him experiment on us that he let me borrow the Contagion Apocrypha for a bit longer." The green unicorn giggled. "I hope that the Orks enjoy it as much as we did... but I doubt it."

Sliver plucked the tome out of the air, giving a brief look at the cover. It had several overlapping, crumbling rings cut into the leather, situated in such a way that it formed a triangle with a series of Chaos Stars. Interesting, but strange and macabre books were hardly his forte.

He looked back to the ponies. "To sserve me iss a privilege, equiness. One normally granted exclussively to the Iron Warriorss of the Company. I do not ssuffer incompetence and foolishnesss as the Warssmith doess, nor do I share Sserith'ss fasscination with your kind. You will earn your place under my command with the blood of Orkss, or you can sspend the resst of your sservice at the temple replacing corpsse hangingss."

The mares' happy expressions turned more serious, and they held their heads high.

"Absolutely, Lord. We would expect nothing less," Kiss insisted.

"Not that doing the decor around here would be that bad," Breezy said, glancing about, "some of these rotting bodies have very questionable feng shui."

Blossom cleared her throat loudly. "But we intend to," she paused again to clear her throat, "prove ourselves to," she halted again, making a gagging noise, and the other mares turned toward her in concern. "Hugh! Gluk! HURK!"

A wet slapping noise echoed through the temple as the infected earth pony vomited a slimy mass onto Sliver's greaves. The other two ponies gaped with wide eyes, while Rot Blossom took several deep, gasping breaths now that her throat was clear again.

Sliver looked down at the wriggling mass practically glued to his leg plating. It was a brown worm about the size of a human finger, boasting distinctive, bright yellow spots.

Blossom paled as soon as she realized what she'd done. "Lord Sliver, I am SO sorry! Really! I didn't know, er, I mean, I should have-"

"Iss that a Nithonian brain worm?" Sliver asked, interrupting her panicked babbling.

Rot Blossom hesitated, her ears pinning down. "I think it's actually from... Kossan? Yes, I'm sure Serith said Kossan."

"Do you need it back?" Sliver asked, still staring down at the loathsome parasite.

"Uh... no, there are a few more in me, I think," Blossom admitted cautiously.

"Then you are dissmisssed," Sliver grunted, tossing the book back toward Kiss and then using that hand to peel the brain worm off of his greaves, "complete your prayerss to Father Nurgle. Tomorrow I will contact you and we will disscusss your role in the coming battle."

"Yes, Lord Sliver! Thank you!" Poison Kiss blurted out.

The Chaos Lord said nothing further, turning to head out of the temple with the worm still wriggling between the massive fingers of his gauntlet.

It would be too much, certainly, to say that his opinion of ponykind had been changed because a handful of them had converted to a respectable faith. The vast majority of them still were still primitive, simple buffoons who thought weather and daylight only existed because their society provided it. Idiots following their absurd, weakling Princess who needed to enlist pirates and fell Sorcerers to protect her kingdom.

But maybe not ALL of them were so useless.

"You're going sstraight into the collection," Sliver mumbled to himself, staring at the worm writhing in his metal palm.

Author's Note

A little more meat in this chapter for you weirdoes who actually like Sliver. Really, I had no idea that would happen.

I'm also putting in some of the art that DavionX did for me. Not sure if the added visuals are really cool or just interrupt the story needlessly. Let me know!

Bulwark

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 5

Bulwark

****

Ponyville town periphery - 2 hours previous to enemy contact

Thunderlane huffed breathlessly as he stamped down another patch of dark clouds into place, molding the gray, cottony surface more or less flat. His coat was damp with sweat, and his usual mohawk swayed limply to one side.

All around him was a veritable ocean of near-black clouds, and the air was thick with the sound of heavy rain pouring down below. Every dozen seconds or so, a crackling ribbon of electricity would roll over the surface of the clouds, eventually sparking in a single spot and then discharging a bolt of lightning into the ground below with an echoing crash.

Thunderlane glanced around, panting. The members of his weather team had been joined by a few other teams that had volunteered from nearby settlements, as well as nearly a hundred pegasi from the ranks of the Royal Guard and the Company's Equiis detachment. With all the extra help, they had enough ponypower on hoof to manage several cities' weather. Still, the task of locating enough clouds to cover the valley, preparing them for heavy, sustained rainfall, and then pushing them into place had been a herculean task, and the weather ponies were exhausted.

Raindrops landed next to Thunderlane, her tongue hanging out of her mouth while she heaved for breath. "I double-checked... huff... the cloud bank... huff... on the West side... huff... are we... huff... done yet?"

"Just about," Thunderlane mumbled, looking over the vast stretches of cloud below his hooves, "and just in time, too. The last evacuation train is leaving soon."

Raindrops moaned at the reminder. It didn't sit well with any of them that they had labored so hard to help save their home, only to leave and hope it was still standing by the time the sun set.

But at least this way they could be of SOME help. Thunderlane didn't think he'd be of any use on the firing line.

Raindrops finally caught her breath, and she sat down as another bolt of lightning crashed onto the distant ground below. "Do you really think the Orks are coming?"

Thunderlane gave her a look. "Do you really think Princess Twilight Sparkle would ask us to do this as an elaborate practical joke?"

"No, I mean, do you really think an army would march through this kind of weather?" the mare asked, kicking softly at the clouds beneath her hooves. "Why wouldn't they just go around the valley, or wait for it to pass?"

"I don't know. I've never even seen an Ork," Thunderlane confessed. Then he jabbed a hoof in the direction of Ponyville. "But the three hundred Iron Warriors and four THOUSAND other troops over there seem pretty sure. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt."

Another crash of thunder caused the pegasi to flinch, and while they shook off the booming in their ears another pegasus swooped in and landed behind Thunderlane.

"All right, I think this valley is as miserable as we can make it for now!" barked the new pony. He was wearing flak armor with a Chaos Star pinned to the chest plate. On his helmet was a vox headset, and a lasgun was attached to his leg in a ballistics harness. "We're heading back to the firing line! Everypony else needs to make for the train station or fly on out of here!"

"Hey, do you really think the Orks are going to march through this?" Raindrops asked, apparently not satisfied by Thunderlane's earlier assurance. "What if they're not coming?"

The pony soldier paused and checked an auspex that was strapped to his other foreleg. "... Oh, they're coming, all right," the Company pony murmured with a wince, "let's go, ponies! We have an hour!"

"What happens in an hour?" Thunderlane asked as he took wing.

"In an hour, this valley becomes even MORE miserable."

The Ponyville weather team fell back as suggested, soaring over the low-hanging storm clouds they had stitched together over the valley.

Once they reached the end, the carpet of dark gray suddenly stopped, like the edge of a cliff, giving way to verdant prairies only SLIGHTLY marred by the brand-new mine field that had been set up on the edge of town. Beyond the patch of green peppered with gunmetal stood a slanted metal wall, heavily reinforced, that stood at chest level and was dotted with mounted heavy stubbers and heavy bolters. Soldiers were lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, nearly forming a second wall of bodies and laser rifles. The Iron Warriors came next, forming secondary firing lines elevated to allow them clear shots over the more expendable mercenaries. Bunkers had been placed to provide lascannon support, with Tau Fire Warriors standing on top of the battlements. Many other guard towers and turrets had been erected, manned mostly by Tau. Tanks idled next to caches of supplies, and walkers patrolled the streets. The Company's Baneblade super-heavy tank was sitting on the main road into town, flanked by two crab-like Defiler daemon walkers. Artillery was clustered on the West side. And all throughout the town, more ponies, more soldiers, and more Chaos Space Marines manned barricades and garrisoned houses.

It seemed ridiculous that anything could hope to challenge this kind of force. Thunderlane didn't know much about war, much less futuristic space war, but the amount of firepower on display as he swooped overhead could have broken a dragon in half in a single barrage.

Then again, 80,000 was a pretty big number.

"By Celestia, I wish we had time to buzz those guard towers," Raindrops griped, "I'd really like to kick one of those Tau jerks in the face. Just ONCE."

"Easy, Rainy," Thunderlane mumbled as they passed the town square. This area was given over to some sort of big metal Chaos Star being presided over by the Company Sorcerer.

"They're the ones that caused all this, Thunderlane!" the mare protested.

"Yeah. And now they're the ones down there trying to stop it. They're going to suffer plenty down there without your help."

Raindrops growled incoherently for several seconds. "If it were up to me, they'd be at the front acting as bullet shields!"

"And that's just ONE reason why nobody lets you run an army," Thunderlane quipped before he shifted his flight path for a landing, "come on. Once we're in Canterlot, I'll take you to lunch. If we find a good place, we might even be able to see the explosions from there."

The weather team pegasi started landing on the train station platform, folding their wings and taking a final look at their fortified home before boarding the waiting train.

Next to the platform, two well-armored Princesses stood over an obviously anxious Mayor Mare. Across from them, General Gnoss was calmly entering data into a dataslate being held up in front of him by a Dark Acolyte.

"You're going to have the shield, right? I don't see any shield. Somepony definitely said there was going to be a shield!" the Mayor said, her rear leg tapping the ground nervously.

"Aye, there shalt be a barrier," Luna said, sounding somewhat exasperated, "all our defenses art in place to combat the alien. We shalt surely prevail!"

General Cyrus Gnoss grunted. "Or at least we'll make for an impressive rout."

Twilight winced, stepping over to the General. "We've had plenty of time to prepare for this, right? With everything we've set up, we HAVE to have a chance!"

"That relies a little too much on YOU for my liking," Gnoss admitted, glancing meaningfully at the pony. "No disrespect intended, Princesses, but I am most uncomfortable leaving the fate of the battle in your hands."

"Hooves," Mayor Mare corrected automatically.

"Whatever," Gnoss grunted, "if those Gargants reach engagement range, this defense is over. Nothing we have can stand against them. Especially not with thousands of other targets in the way."

The Mayor gulped. "But, you can beat them, right Princess? These... Gargants can't be as bad as Discord! Or Nightmare-" her eyes quickly snapped over to Luna, and she winced. "Uh... Sombra! Right?"

"Well..." Twilight hedged uncomfortably, trying and failing to make any meaningful comparison between the bizarre magical tyrants and the enormous walking fortresses approaching the village.

Then a giant, black metal hand dropped onto Mayor Mare's back and lightly squeezed her, nearly giving the pony a heart attack on the spot.

"Fear not, Mayor!" Luna declared grandly. "We shalt not fail! Thy village will be returned to thy control in short order!"

"Whatever's left of it, at any rate," Gnoss mumbled.

Twilight grimaced at the man in annoyance. "You know, part of managing an army is keeping up MORALE, General."

"And part of managing expectations is a healthy sense of pessimism," Gnoss countered.

Mayor Mare chuckled weakly, feeling desperately uncomfortable with the Iron Gage rubbing her withers reassuringly. "Well, I suppose you're all doing your best."

As a trio of heavy walkers stomped by the platform, one of the war machines shouted out to them.

"Hey, ladies and gent! You ready for this?!" Pinkie waved her thunder hammer at the group while Sirius and Kairon, the other two Dreadnoughts in her unit, continued walking past. "Sorry I can't come with you on your super-important mission to destroy a Mega Gargant! It sounds super fun!"

"It sounds completely impossible," Sirius grunted, pausing in his patrol to growl at his subordinate walker.

"Sure, but in a super fun way!"

As the Contemptor Dreadnought growled in annoyance, Twilight intervened to defend her mission.

"I can assure you that Warsmith Solon knows what he's doing, my Lord," the purple pony insisted, "we won't let the Gargants reach Ponyville!"

"Preliminary estimates place your chances of success at six-point-nine percent," Kairon noted, "well outside the bounds of 'completely impossible'."

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle, wishing that the assault walkers would hold this conversation out of earshot of the Mayor. "I'm sure our odds are better than THAT..."

"That is the aggregate completion chance for all three operations," Kairon went on to explain, "any one assault may rate better possibility of success on its own." Then the Dreadnought pointed its massive power fist at Luna. "And, of course, the Lunar Princess's victory is all but assured."

The Iron Gage swung through the air, palm upraised, and then slammed into Kairon's open power fist in a jaw-rattling high-five.

"Yes, well, I suppose you all have this well in hoof, then," Mayor Mare said, backing away toward the train. She didn't look especially convinced, but she didn't really want to hang around any longer. "Goodbye, Princesses! And good luck!"

The Mayor heaved a heavy sigh before she stepped up onto the platform, casting another long look at the heavily militarized town that now stood between the aliens and the rest of Equestria.

Shaking her head, she stepped in front of the door to board. She had to wait, though, as another pony currently stood in the doorway making a tearful farewell.

"Just promise me you'll be careful, Jacob!" Lyra sniffled, clinging to the mercenary's leg with her hooves. "Don't let them get too close! No heroics! You HAVE to come back to me!"

"Well, estimated casualties are around forty percent," the man admitted with a shrug, "and that's if everything goes right. So surviving the battle is basically a coin toss, no matter what I do."

As Lyra's sniffling turned to outright bawling, Bonbon groaned from one of the train windows.

"Look, the train's on a schedule. Could you pry her off and shove her in here?" the cream-colored mare asked.

Jacob took Lyra off his leg without much difficulty, and then placed the sobbing unicorn into the carriage so that the other ponies waiting could board.

Soon the train doors shifted closed, and the engine's plasma reactor released a hiss of pressurized coolant.

"Goodbye, Jakey!" Lyra shouted through her tears as she magically waved a handkerchief out the window. "Stay safe!" Bonbon yanked the green pony back inside as the train started to accelerate, taking the last batch of civilians away from the imminent combat.

Pinkie's Dreadnought watched the train leave the platform for a few seconds, and then trundled about until she could see Twilight again.

"Hey, Twilight! I didn't want to say anything while the Mayor was here, because she already seemed pretty stressed out about the whole invasion and how it was likely to destroy all of Ponyville, which hopefully won't happen but you never know since we're facing an awful lot of enemies-"

"Pinkie," Twilight tried to interrupt, but her voice failed to halt the run-on sentence booming from Pinkie's vox caster.

"-just like that one time that Ponyville was almost destroyed but not like the other times because it wasn't really an accident even if Discord says he didn't want to just destroy stuff because that would boring but it was still pretty bad all things considered and the Mayor was seriously stressed just like now-"

"Pinkie!" Twilight tried interrupting louder, but it didn't seem to help.

"-so I didn't want to say anything bad in front of her and really this isn't THAT bad since it doesn't really destroy the city on purpose like the Orks would do except-"

A loud clanging noise came from the pink Dreadnought as Sirius' siege drill smacked her upside the helmet.

"Ouchies! That hurt, Sirius! Serious!" Pinkie exclaimed, snickering at her pun despite herself.

"Get to the POINT, you sniveling pink freak," the Contemptor Dreadnought growled, "the xenos approach, and we have little time for your foolishness."

"Oh! Right! So there's this shady Chaos dealie going on over on the North side of town, and you might want to check on that."

Twilight arched an eyebrow. "Pinkie, this whole operation is a shady 'Chaos dealie'. You'll need to be more specific."

"It's the Nurgle type of shady Chaos dealie," Pinkie Pie clarified, "with icky dark magic and stuff. It's kind of gross. Also, the other girls are over there trying to get them to stop. So, you know..." Pinkie Pie trailed off as a dust cloud billowed into her, courtesy of Twilight's expedited departure.

"No, no, no, no, no..." Twilight mumbled over and over as she skimmed across the ground, her legs folded up under her. She had to make a few low-power leaps to bound over the armored supply vehicles that were parked next to the streets, but soon she had reached the northern-most part of town.

This section of Ponyville hadn't been fortified or used to host supply caches or artillery, and had been left mostly bare. Or, at least, that was the impression Twilight had been under when she had reviewed the fortification maps. Now that she was quickly approaching the "unused" space, she could see that it was seeing a fair amount of, well, use. Rusted iron Chaos Stars were suspended above the ground by metal poles, and were hung with rotting fetishes and scraps of foul meat. Cultists of Nurgle, easily identified by their thick, filthy robes and nearly visible miasma of odor, shuffled about in small groups carrying jugs and crates. Each one of the shambling, diseased humans was wrapped up entirely in dirty rags and tubing, with full respirator masks and goggles, such that not a shred of their skin was visible. A courtesy to their less pious human peers, perhaps, but it didn't help the smell much.

Twilight stopped to put on her helmet, and she checked her armor seals before activating her suit's personal oxygen supply. It was no wonder Pinkie was concerned about what was going on; the stench alone could render this section of town uninhabitable to most ponies, and she wasn't so foolish as to think that awful smells were the worst hazards that Nurgle had to offer.

She passed by another house, and then Twilight almost tripped as she dropped onto the ground and skidded to a halt. She'd found the center of the "infection", and it wasn't quite what she had expected.

The altar shaped like three big circles and covered in festering Ork corpses, sure. The humans kneeling around it, hands clasped together while mumbling feverishly, fine. The cloud of flies circling through the lot and droning incessantly, naturally.

But the three ponies wearing power armor and facing off against Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were something of a surprise.

At the very least the confrontation didn't seem to be approaching violence, so Twilight allowed herself a moment to take in the three strangers. A unicorn, pegasus, and an earth pony, all of them mares - in contrast to her friends, the other three had their helmets disengaged - and all bearing very dubious cutie marks.

Her visor noted the Nurgle ponies' IFF signums and brought up their names. Poison Kiss, Breezy Blight, and Rot Blossom. Twilight winced. They'd probably had a rough childhood.

"Excuse me! What's going on here?" Twilight asked firmly as she approached.

Her friends whirled around, and judging by the tone of Applejack's voice, were quite relieved to see her.

"Twi! Thank Celestia yer here! Do you know these ponies?"

"No, I don't," Twilight admitted, stopping next to Rainbow Dash, "and I'm honestly kind of surprised about that. I would have thought that I'd know about any other equines that had been issued power armor."

Poison Kiss sighed. Her forehoof was resting on a large book, while her boltgun and helmet laid nearby, next to the altar. "Our conversion and deployment was not widely advertised. I'm sure you understand, Princess," she drew the title out for emphasis, "that our allegiance raises some uncomfortable questions. Questions that would be best left until after the Ork threat has passed."

"Yeah. Okay. That makes sense," Twilight admitted, "but I'd like an answer to a few of those questions anyway, please. How did you end up in a Chaos cult?"

"And a NURGLE cult, at that?" Rarity asked, clearly distressed. "Your coat and mane are so pristine and healthy, Miss Kiss! Think of what you're doing, I beg of you!"

Kiss hung her head as she sighed again. This was clearly not the first time in this encounter she had heard Rarity fearing for her future appearance. "Our enlightenment was quite a surprise to all of us, Princess Sparkle. And, I admit, not entirely voluntary."

"But in a nutshell," Blossom interjected, "it's all Serith's fault."

"SON OF A MULE!!"

****

Ponyville - town center

Serith suddenly looked up at the sky, and then tilted his head to the side. "Oh, what is she angry about NOW? I didn't even do anything this time. That I can recall off-hand."

"Erm, who are you talking about? What are you looking at?"

Serith lowered his gaze back to the stallion in front of him. Shining Armor was scanning the sky, looking confused.

"Nothing, Lord Armor. Pay it no mind. Let us continue."

Shining Armor was standing on a raised platform made of iron that was very conspicuously shaped like a Chaos Star. It was also floating roughly two feet off the ground, and might have risen higher if it weren't secured to the dirt with heavy metal chains at each point of the star.

Around the altar were some thirty unicorns, all of them wearing dark red cloaks and iron amulets shaped like each pony's cutie mark. Many of them looked nervous, but several others seemed bizarrely serene despite being so close to an enemy army. His own feelings were much closer the anxious ones.

"All you need do is cast your spell when General Gnoss gives the signal. He will be conducting the battle from there." Serith pointed to a small outpost located between a Chimera APC and a Leman Russ battle tank. "The cabal shall form a psychic choir, linking their minds to yours. Any feedback your barrier suffers, rather than falling upon your mind alone, will be shared amongst the group."

Shining Armor looked over the cloaked unicorns, some of whom waved shyly at him or whispered to each other. "And you think we can hold out against the Orks this way?"

"A single thread snaps but with the slightest tug," the Iron Warrior noted, "but when coiled with others it forms a binding that can weather any storm."

"... Including thousands of Orks?" Shining asked skeptically.

"The metaphor will only get you so far," Serith admitted, "but take heart, Lord Armor. The weaker you imagine your magic to be, the weaker it will manifest."

The unicorn stallion gulped, and then banished thoughts of the army yet to come. Serith was right; confidence made all the difference when it came to magic, and it was way too late for doubts.

"And where will you be, Lord Serith?" Shining asked uncertainly after he sat down on the hovering platform.

"Oh, I have other matters to attend to. We have many surprises in store for the Orks today, and I'm afraid I cannot keep watch on you."

"Fair enough," Shining mumbled, "but what should I do if the Orks reach this area?"

Serith turned and started walking away as he spoke. "If that occurs, it is mostly likely because both your barrier and the defensive lines have fallen, and the army is in retreat," the Sorcerer said blithely, "if that happens... well, it doesn't really matter what you do." Serith cast a final glance behind him, his visor glittering in the sunlight. "If this defense fails, then you, and your entire world, are doomed."

****

Ponyville - Altar of Nurgle

"Uh... ya all right, sugarcube?" Applejack asked as Twilight made a long string of incoherent growling noises.

"Yes! Yes, I am totally BUCKING fine!" Twilight snarled. "Great, even! It seems like Serith found other ponies to mess with! I guess tormenting me specifically was starting to get BORING for him!"

"Whoa. Think you've got some anger issues there, Princess," Breezy said, cringing.

"Naw, that's just Serith for you," Rainbow Dash assured the other pegasus, "even his own guys think he's a jerk."

"I don't mean to be disrespectful, Princess," Poison Kiss said gently, her accent giving her words a lilting, musical quality, "but we really don't have much time remaining until enemy contact."

"Right. Right, of course," Twilight mumbled, shaking her head, "never mind Serith, and never mind your corrup... erm, new religion. What I want to know is what you're doing here with all this." The alicorn Princess beckoned all around with a metal-clad hoof.

"Just another aspect of the defense against the Orks, Princess," Kiss assured her.

"An aspect that wasn't part of any battle plan I recall," Twilight pointed out, "what are you planning to do here?"

"And how much hoof sanitizer will it take to recover once you're done?" Rarity demanded. "I know a place where I can buy it in bulk, but I'll need to work fast once this is over! This lot is right next to my boutique!"

"Rarity, you don't live or work there anymore," Rainbow pointed out.

"I still haven't sold it, though! Do you know what a Nurgle cult could do to the property value?!"

Kiss shared an exasperated glance with the other members of her unit, and then turned back to Twilight. "It was suggested that our intended tactic might generate an... unfortunate effect upon morale if it were revealed ahead of time," the unicorn admitted, tilting her head apologetically, "you know how some humans get about Chaos sorcery, Princess. To say nothing of some PONIES." She narrowed her eyes at Rarity.

"It's just a back-up plan anyway," Breezy said with a shrug, "we're here to help if the Orks break the barricades and things start looking dicey."

Blossom yawned, her muzzle stretching open wide. A wasp zipped out of her mouth before she finished, flying off to join the insect swarms already present. She didn't seem to notice.

"Uh... well, that's... I mean..." Twilight stared along with her friends at the bushy-headed pony, completely distracted from the conversation she was having.

"What?" Blossom asked, wondering why all visors were locked on her now. She hadn't even said anything.

"Princess Sparkle," Kiss said, beckoning to herself with a boot, "I know that you have obvious, and perfectly valid, concerns about ponies turning to Chaos worship. But I assure you that we are still ponies in mind and heart, even if our souls are now sworn to a greater power."

Blossom and Breezy nodded enthusiastically as Kiss continued.

"We're here to defend our home and people, not glorify Grandfather Nurgle."

Twilight's helmet shifted over to look at the altar.

"... Well, at the very least, we're doing the latter for the sake of the former," Kiss corrected awkwardly, "but I can assure you that our actions here will not inflict any permanent harm or corruption upon Ponyville."

"You can?" Blossom asked, sounding surprised.

Kiss glared sharply at her, and the earth mare ducked her head sheepishly.

Applejack tilted her head toward Twilight. "Whaddya think, Twi?"

The armored alicorn pursed her lips nervously. "Well..."

"Also, we're here on Lord Sliver's order," Kiss added, "so it isn't as if you really get a say in the matter."

Twilight groaned. "I thought Princess Luna was in command of all pony auxiliaries?"

"We're an exception," Breezy shrugged and giggled, "we report directly to Vice-Commander Sliver. Isn't that cool?"

"Not really, no. Kinda feel sorry for you girls," Rainbow Dash said, "Sliver's gross. And mean. And his strict anti-party policy is completely not awesome."

"He's not a fun boss, I'll give you that," Blossom said, "but the humans respect him for a reason."

Twilight saw a locator rune appear on her helmet, and then she clicked her tongue. "All right, it looks like we have to go now. You haven't exactly set my mind at ease, here, but at least if Ponyville is horribly contaminated with toxins or the plague we'll know exactly who to blame."

The trio of Nurgle ponies shared another inscrutable glance. Then Poison Kiss smiled warmly at the alicorn Princess. "Well then, it looks like this is goodbye, Princess. Good luck out there. You'll need it."

****

Ponyville - East perimeter

Solon looked up at the cluster of locator runes approaching, and soon spotted three ponies in armor racing past the artillery batteries while a fourth swooped overhead.

"Ah, good! We're shtill on shchedule, then."

"Sorry, Warsmith," Twilight called out before she slowed to a trot, "we were just reviewing the defenses."

"And while your diligence ish appreciated, Princesh, it ish our offenshive power that should concern you," the Chaos Lord reminded her, "General Gnosh hash thish shituation well in hand."

"Right. Except for the parts Sliver didn't tell him about," Rainbow Dash mumbled after she dropped onto the ground.

"Ah, sho you found that little shurprishe, did you?" Solon chuckled. "I wash quite impreshed when I heard what the Nurgle cult had planned. I can't wait to shee if they pull it off!"

The four Equinoughts glanced at each other in concern. They all mostly trusted Solon, at least more than the equine cultists they had just met, but they knew that the preservation of Ponyville was hardly the Warsmith's top priority.

"Right, about that... what're they doin' exactly?" Applejack asked.

"Oh, you needn't worry about that. You have quite enough on your plate ash it ish." The Iron Warrior assured her. Then he pointed to a Valkyrie gunship waiting nearby. "There ish your transhport. It will join the resht of the aerial shtrike force and then carry you to your mission shite. Mishter Macintosh hash the melta chargesh you'll need to dishable the Mega Gargant once you gain entry."

Big Macintosh stood by the access ramp, staring out at nothing in particular as if he was guarding the aircraft. The ammunition crate that was normally strapped over his rear was replaced by a different kind of munition box, and covered in hazard striping.

"Ya really figger we can drop that thing on our own?" Applejack asked.

"If I'm to give an honesht tactical asheshment, no," Solon replied, "but you've all proven far more reshourceful and capable than I'd expected, sho I figure I'll keep giving you dangeroush jobsh and shee how long your good fortune holdsh out."

This earned a nervous laugh from Rarity and Twilight, but Rainbow Dash snorted.

"'Good fortune'? It wasn't good fortune that's smashed sixteen and a half Ork planes out the sky since they started showing up!" the pegasus boasted.

"No, it was moshtly the armor I deshigned," Solon agreed, "but even my weaponsh have limitsh. If I could have shimply built a gun to wipe out a Gargant in the time we had available, I would have."

Twilight decided not to pursue the implicit idea that Solon COULD have constructed a weapon to fell such massive war machines if given enough notice. She reared up and slapped a forehoof against her helmet. "We won't let you, or Equestria down! We're ready to go!"

"You're not going anywhere, yet!" barked a vox-amplified voice from above. The ponies flinched at the shout, startled, although Rainbow Dash quickly recognized the voice.

Tellis came in for one of his usual landings, slamming his boots hard into the ground while smoke from his flight pack marked his descent arc.

Then he stood up straight and pointed to Twilight. "I'm coming with you."

The purple pony recoiled. "What? Why? That wasn't part of the battle plan!"

"Screw the battle plan!" Tellis shouted, pounding his fists together and generating a burst of crimson sparks. "You're going to be facing like a hundred xenos in that Ork Titan, and that's if nothing else goes wrong trying to get into it. Without me, you're dead! With me you're probably dead anyway, but at least we'll have awesome, glorious deaths on top of heaps of Ork corpses and stuff. That would be SO metal."

"Sweet!" Rainbow cheered, racing up to the Chaos Lord and grinning widely.

"Tellish, you've been ashigned to the counter-attack contingent," Solon said firmly. His tone took on the distinctive quality of a beleaguered teacher telling a problem student to do his homework.

"What, so I can pounce on helpless greenskins after they crawl free of their exploding transports? No thanks!" the Raptor Lord scoffed. "I'm going with Dash and her pony flunkies!"

"Tellish..." Solon growled, his voice taking on a "warning" tone. Even Twilight, who actually still considered the Warsmith dangerous and frightening, couldn't help but snicker at him lecturing the smaller Chaos Lord.

"Nothing doing!" Tellis growled back. "I'm going with Rainbow Dash! It's my obligation in the name of friendship!"

Rarity and Twilight actually gasped in surprise at hearing one of the psychotic warriors invoke their prized virtue. They were even more shocked that he was doing it correctly, in the sense of wanting to shoulder the burden and danger they were facing. They weren't the only ones surprised, either; Solon stopped to consider his subordinate's words, his posture relaxing considerably.

After a few seconds, he gave his answer: "That ish actually the besht reashon you've ever provided for blatantly ignoring my ordersh."

"Really? Shoot, I should use that all the time, then!" Tellis chuckled before Solon released a defeated sigh.

Twilight cleared her throat, waiting for Tellis to look over at her. "Lord Tellis, I hope you understand that I'm in charge of this operation. So if you're coming with us, I'm going to need you to follow my orders."

"HAAA HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!" the Iron Warrior roared with laughter, doubling over on the spot while his wings shook.

Twilight's ears flipped down and she scowled at the Marine, saying nothing.

"HA HA HA HA!! HAH HAH oh, wait, you're serious." He straightened up immediately. "Yeah, no, that isn't happening. But nice try, Princess Dork."

"But... I... I'm..." Twilight's response faltered as Tellis strode right past her and into the Valkyrie.

Rainbow Dash offered a chuckle and a shrug, trotting after the shock trooper. "Well, I think we're all set to go!"

Twilight sighed while her friends trotted up to the ramp, apparently not worried about the new and aggressively unpredictable tag-along. Granted, having Tellis along boosted their fighting power considerably, especially in what she predicted was going to be a lot of desperate melee combat inside the Mega Gargant. Still, the Khorne worshiper was unreliable at best, and she could think of plenty of ways that the Raptor Lord could prove a liability.

Various catastrophic scenarios played out in her head as she walked up to the waiting gunship, but she steeled herself before she made to step onto the access ramp.

"WAIT!!"

Twilight jerked to a stop, whirling around. The rest of her unit also stared out of the transport compartment in surprise.

Solon swiveled around to track the source of the shout, and he was fairly perplexed to see a batpony stallion galloping over to the gunship with a panicked expression on his face.

Twilight's face darkened when she recognized who was racing up to her, although she could barely guess as to what he was doing here. No Lunar Guard aside from Luna herself were part of the defense, as manning a fortified firing line in the daytime rendered most of their talents useless. That probably meant he was here to see her specifically.

"Lieutenant Dusk Blade. Hello," she deadpanned, her eyes narrowing to slits, "it's a bit late in the morning for you to be up, isn't it?"

The Lieutenant slowed to a stop about a meter away from Twilight, panting heavily. He had obviously strained himself to make it here in time, and it took several seconds for him to catch his breath.

"P-Princess Twilight Sparkle. I'm g-glad I caught you before you left on your... uh... well, I don't want to say 'suicide mission', because that's k-kind of a jinx, but-"

"I don't have time for this," Twilight declared, cutting off the stallion's rambling before she turned around.

"Wait! Please! I just want to say something before you go!" Dusk protested.

"I SAID I don't have time!" the alicorn snapped as she ascended the ramp.

"Actually, your flight group doeshn't deploy for a while yet, even after your transhport reachesh the rendezvous point. You have plenty of time," Solon corrected helpfully.

Twilight fought down a groan and turned to the extremely hopeful and nervous stallion waiting at the bottom of the ramp. "What do you want, Lieutenant Blade?" She was acutely aware of her friends all poking their heads out of the gunship behind her, watching intently and whispering to each other.

"Apples alive, ya could chill cider with that tone," Applejack muttered.

"Is that the guy? I think that's the guy!" Rainbow stifled a giggle.

"Hmm... that mane could use some work, but she could do worse," Rarity mused.

Dusk also seemed aware of the muttering, and he pointed to a space by a supply transport. "Could we speak, you know, in private? Just for a few seconds?"

"No," Twilight refused, "anything you can say to me, you can say in front of my friends."

"Well, I shupposhe I'll be going, then," Solon said before he swiveled away and walked off.

Dusk Blade winced, but then took a deep breath. He had faced and defeated bloodthirsty Orks and wild beasts, and he wasn't about to back down now because of a cold shoulder.

"Okay, uhm... I just wanted to say that ever since I read your thesis on magical planar dispersion, after the batpony tribes were re-integrated with Equestria proper and I was allowed in the Canterlot Grand Library, I've always wanted to meet you!" he blurted, his words spilling out of his mouth before he could reconsider. "I read all the papers your teachers published, even that silly theoretical one about the dual nature of atomic particles!"

"Hey! Quantum mechanics are NOT silly!" Twilight retorted angrily. "And given that I've seen at least two examples of human technology that utilize quantum entanglement to function, it's not theoretical anymore, either!"

"I know! I was amazed!" Dusk admitted, sounding fairly breathless. "Since I actually met you, I've even read all your recent work on human socioeconomy and your hypothesis about xeno-military survival theory on a galactic scale! Oh, and your extrapolation of Dark Mechanicus production surveys was-"

"NERRRRRRRRRRD!!" Tellis shouted out of the waiting Valkyrie, leaning over Rainbow Dash while cupping his hands around his vox grille.

The pegasus looked up at him. "Tellis, I know you're just saying what the rest of us are thinking, but could you keep quiet this time? I REALLY want to see where this is going."

"Oh, fine," the Iron Warrior grunted, backing into the gunship and crossing his arms over his chest.

Twilight shot a dirty look toward the aircraft, and then her head snapped back to Dusk when she remembered something important. "Wait, how did you read all those essays on humans and the Company? I haven't published any of those."

"I break into your room sometimes and copy any dataslates I can find," Dusk said quickly, coughing to clear his throat as Twilight's eyes widened, "ANYWAY! I really admire you, and think you've done an amazing job working with the Iron Warriors and saving us all, and, uh," sweat started to crawl down his forehead as he forced his way through his confession, "and, well, I know I'm not really good enough for you-"

"That is LITERALLY the problem with you, yes," the purple mare said mercilessly, apparently unmoved by the soldier's praise.

Dusk Blade gulped, but kept going. "But I couldn't let you go without telling you... that... I, uh..." he sucked in a deep breath, his cheeks burning, "THAT I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU!"

Twilight's eyebrow twitched when she heard a high-pitched "Squeeee!" sound from behind her.

Dusk Blade, for his part, bolted away immediately while shouting behind him. "I just wanted to say that thanks for listening bye!"

Twilight Sparkle hardly hesitated any longer before she turned around and once again ascended the ramp. She walked by her friends, passed by Tellis, and then tapped the vox link at the rear of the passenger compartment. "Pilot, we're clear to depart."

"Confirmed. Enjoy the flight out, because it's going to get awfully bumpy once we hit the engagement zone," the pilot replied before the vox cut out.

Twilight climbed up onto a bench while the access ramp closed, and then sighed a long-suffering sigh as the engines started to warm up.

"... Well," Rainbow Dash began as the Valkyrie began to lift off, "...now you HAVE to go out with him."

"Oh, I do NOT!" Twilight snapped, glaring at her friend.

"Come now, darling. After he confessed to you right before a dangerous mission, and in front of spectators? Don't be so cold," Rarity chided, barely holding back a titter, "just let me have five minutes to fix up that mane of his, and I promise you won't be able to keep your hooves off him!"

"He is a SLAVE OWNER!" Twilight reminded her friends, loudly.

"Not that I care one bit about all this lame, girly, 'love' crap," said Tellis, "but so what?"

"So, I refuse to contemplate a relationship with somepony who owns a slave! It's unconscionable!" the alicorn growled.

Big Macintosh personally thought that she should have been more concerned with the Lunar Lieutenant infiltrating and rummaging through her room when she was out, but he kept quiet as he was wont to do. Nopony had asked for his opinion, anyway.

Applejack was not nearly so reserved. "Are ya sure he's a slave owner? Ah thought he just had an assistant."

"AAAAAAAAARGH!!"

****

Canterlot Castle

"And this space, class, used to be the royal gardens! It hosted all sorts of plants, all of them grown in magically controlled sections of the garden that copied their different natural environments!"

Cheerilee gestured to the large raised platform that now sat over the ruined plaza, a Chaos Star stamped over its surface. There were also a pair of massive promethium tanks standing nearby, right next to a pair of signs expressly forbidding smoking and pyromancy in that general area.

"When the Tau took Canterlot, the Iron Warriors sent a single squad of elite soldiers - along with three ponies - to attack the gardens and destroy the hidden device that prevented the unicorns and Princesses from using their magic! The fighting was so intense that the garden was completely ruined in the battle, but in the end the Iron Warriors succeeded!"

The young ponies were quite interested in the story, or at least more interested in it than the area being described. The rubble and debris had all been cleared from the gardens, and the only evidence of a combat was a few scorch marks on the ground that had stubbornly refused to be washed out but didn't quite warrant paving over.

"It's quite sad, really," Cheerilee continued, "some of the plants kept here were extremely rare, including a unique lava lilly bush that was the only known example of it's kind!"

There was a unicorn guard escorting the mare and her class, and the stallion chuckled. "Funny story, that: it actually survived the fire just fine, but a drunk mercenary wandered in from the celebration after the battle and peed on it." As the colts and fillies giggled, the guard's expression turned more somber. "Neither the bush nor the human survived the explosion. We're STILL finding little scraps of scorched bone out here."

Some of the young ponies stopped giggling. Others just laughed louder.

"Hey, weren't Apple Bloom's brother and sister here, too?" asked Snips.

"Why, yes, I believe they were two of the ponies that fought in the battle," Cheerilee replied, guiding her class forward past the landing pad, "I'm not sure what role they specifically played in the fight, though. You can ask her about it next time you see her."

Apple Bloom wasn't among the young ponies in her class today, nor were the rest of the CMC. They had been evacuated from Ponyville, of course, but had apparently been explicitly barred from any tours of the palace while in Canterlot. Cheerilee wasn't clear on why that was, but it only made her job easier not having to corral the Chaos-marked fillies along with everypony else.

"And over there is the throne room," the purple mare explained before she led her class underneath a row of colored armorglass windows. "Most of the windows commemorating major historical events in Equestrian history in the throne room were destroyed. Some during the initial invasion, and the rest during the subsequent climactic duel between Warsmith Solon and Tau Commander Voidsong."

"In which the Warsmith got OWNED," snickered the guard. Then he pointed a hoof up to one of the windows. It did, in fact, show the massive mechanized form of Warsmith Solon being decapitated by a battlesuit.

As her class laughed, Cheerilee cleared her throat so that she could continue. "Yes, well, be that as it may, these replacement armorglass windows were built by the 38th Company and given to Canterlot as a gift when our alliance was formalized. As you can see, they all present images from the siege of Canterlot."

The guard spoke up again. "Princess Celestia is going to replace them with something tasteful eventually, but wants to wait until the world is saved first."

"Oh, hey! This one has Miss Trixie!" Snails shouted, grinning widely.

As the class looked over the colored windows and murmured among themselves, a spectator watched the group from a high balcony, just out of sight.

Princess Celestia had not been briefed on any tours of the castle; such things weren't considered important enough to bother her for. But she could guess that the smallish class of mostly rural earth ponies was from a refugee evacuation and not one of the local schools. She could even guess which town they were evacuated from.

As she watched, two of the fillies broke off from the group and approached a human kneeling at the base of a statue.

"Princess?" Kibitz was next to her, and a sheet of parchment hovered in front of him. "We should hurry if we want to get to the commission committee meeting. It starts in a few minutes."

Celestia glanced over to her assistant, and then back out the balcony window. "Just a minute, Kibitz. The meeting can start without us."

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon trotted across the flagstones toward the human kneeling at the corner of the plaza. He was wearing a white robe with a sun emblem on the back and front, and he appeared to be praying underneath a statue of Princess Celestia.

Diamond Tiara glanced back at the rest of the class, confirming that she was still within view of Miss Cheerilee and the guard. It seemed like the unicorn soldier was going over the windows and talking about the events they pictured. Which was honestly pretty interesting, all told, but she was more curious about the man in white.

"Hey, human!" the pink filly shouted, causing the man to start and turn his head around. "Why aren't you in Ponyville defending Equestria?"

The man looked somewhat perplexed by her question. "I have renounced the sword in my quest to better embody the Celestial truth, young pony. I cannot fight."

Diamond frowned. "That sounds like an excuse, to me. Aren't you one of those Sunsworn weirdoes?"

"Indeed, I am," the human confirmed, "my name is Zack."

"So if you serve Celestia, shouldn't you be defending Equestria with the other humans?" Silver Spoon reasoned, adjusting her glasses.

"I could, if that is what the Princess of the Sun wished of me," Zack admitted, turning around and shifting into a seated position, "but the Celestial Goddess seems to disapprove of violence perpetrated in her name. Though most of us Sunsworn were once warriors, we have abandoned our weapons and embraced a peaceful and harmonious existence."

"LAME," Diamond scoffed, "what if we need you to actually help us with something? What are you supposed to do then?"

Zack smiled despite the criticism. "Exactly what I'm doing now." He turned around again and pressed his palms together. "Care to join me?"

"So all you do is pray? Does that work?" Silver Spoon asked, looking skeptical.

"I don't know," Zack said as he closed his eyes and bowed his head, "a prayer is merely a call for help. A petition for a higher power."

"Yeah, so does Princess Celestia ever help you?" Diamond Tiara asked.

"Not directly, no. Not yet, at any rate."

Silver Spoon snorted. "Not a big surprise. I hear she doesn't even like humans. So why do you bother?"

Zack opened his eyes and stared up at the stone figure above him. He was silent for several more seconds before he answered.

"It isn't for us to judge what the gods do," he shrugged, "their thoughts are unfathomable, their perception timeless, and their power nearly infinite. I'm just a man. Not even a psyker. What do I know of them?"

Diamond and Silver shared a glance before they sat down behind the cultist.

"That makes sense with your creepy evil gods, I guess, but Princess Celestia is a pony," Diamond Tiara pointed out.

"An immortal pony who raises the sun every morning," Zack clarified, "she takes a different - and if I might add, far more pleasant - form than the Dark Gods, and her power and outlook are different as well. These are what draw the Sunsworn to her in the first place. But her wisdom and power are still utterly beyond the scope of comprehension for mortals such as I. So who am I to say that my plea is worthy of her attention? Who am I to argue that she doesn't have anything better to do?"

The fillies contemplated this for several silent seconds.

"Meh. This religion thing sounds way too self-debasing for my tastes," Diamond Tiara said, "why pray if you don't even know if anypony's listening?"

"If you really need the help, why not?" Zack countered. "You never know."

Diamond and Silver shared another glance, and then seemed to come to a silent understanding.

They sat back on their haunches, and then pressed their forehooves together under their chins in imitation of the man in front of them.

"Oh blessed lady of the light, bringer of the sun upon this land of harmony and love..." Zack began.

"Although the harmony has involved an awful lot of bullets recently. Just saying," Silver Spoon interjected.

"... Show us your light and continue to guide those of us who struggle with the darkness. Protect our souls from the temptations and perversions of Chaos, and our bodies from the cruel instruments of war."

"And, uh..." Diamond Tiara trailed off briefly, wondering if she looked as stupid as she felt doing this. Then she braced herself and added her own prayer. "Please help the humans stop the Orks and save the world! I know you and the 38th Company aren't super cool with each other, but it's still really important to... well, everypony, basically. And, well, if you can, it would be really great if my house survived the battle, too. Apparently they're using it as an ordnance supply cache."

"Diamond Tiara? Silver Spoon? Are you ready to go? The class is leaving!"

From the balcony above, Celestia's horn slowly dimmed as she watched the fillies scramble across the plaza.

Before her spell faded completely, it brought her a final exchange between the Sunsworn and the young ponies, carried to her ears on the winds of magic.

"Goodbye, you human weirdo!"

"May Celestia's light protect you, ponies."

Celestia turned away from the balcony, and then started walking down the hall again.

"Ah, Princess? The meeting is that way," Kibitz said, sounding nervous and pointing a hoof in the opposite direction. This was clearly off-schedule.

"I think the committee will have to make a decision without me," Celestia said calmly as she headed down the hall, "in fact, you'll have to clear my day's schedule entirely, Kibitz."

"Wh-What? Why?" asked the Princess's assistant, nearly choking on his words. It wasn't unheard of for Celestia to alter his schedule as necessary or on a whim, but she'd never dumped an entire day's work for as long as he'd known her.

"I have a much more important appointment to keep with our good friend, the Warsmith." Celestia said wryly. "I think the bureaucrats can survive a day in my absence. Solon may not be so lucky."

****

Ponyville - improvised command post

"The greenskins have entered artillery range," General Gnoss said as the auspex readings flickered on his data display, "artillery squadrons Gamma, Delta, and Beta, prepare to fire on my mark. Maximum spread."

"Acknowledged, General."

The pirate officer took a long breath while the vox crackled its response. This was it. As soon as the shooting started and the horde was made aware of their presence, there would be no respite until one side buckled and fled.

The General had faced more desperate odds before, but never so willingly. They had always been efforts of desperation and survival, and usually they were fought to try and get his forces OFF a given planet, not so that they could stay. What a bizarre crossroads they had reached.

"Well, I suppose I should offer the men a bolstering speech before enemy contact," Gnoss mumbled, switching his vox set to the proximity frequency.

"GREETINGS, WARRIORS OF THE 38TH COMPANY, AND WELCOME TO PONYVILLE!!" someone else's voice boomed from the vox casters, causing him to jump in surprise.

"THIS BACKWARD HICK VILLAGE IS KNOWN FOR MANY THINGS, SUCH AS APPLES, SNARKY KNOW-IT-ALL BOOKWORM PONIES, AND BEING WAY TOO CLOSE TO A FOREST FULL OF MONSTERS!!"

Gnoss leaned out of the temporary command station to scan the area, and was utterly unsurprised to see a power-armored equine with a ridiculous, star-spangled hat and cape standing atop the Company's Baneblade super-heavy tank. She was standing on her rear legs and gesturing grandly while her voice roared through the vox system.

"BUT TODAY IT EARNS A NEW DISTINCTION!! YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE FUTURE SITE OF EQUESTRIA'S LARGEST XENO GRAVEYARD!!"

As a wave of cheering rolled over the ranks of human mercenaries, a sniper on a nearby balcony leaned closer to the unicorn to speak.

"Hey, you mean an Ork graveyard, right? Because the rest of us are technically aliens too, so..."

Trixie ignored the sniper as her visor was filled with data from the sensor outposts. Then she once again shouted into her helmet receiver, spreading her voice all across the town.

"TO KICK OFF THIS GALLANT DEFENSE, ALLOW THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE TO SHOW YOU TRIXIE'S NEW AND IMPROVED FIREWORK DISPLAY!!"

****

Ork horde - vanguard

The rain came down in thick sheets all around the advancing army, utterly soaking the advancing Ork troopers. Visibility was reduced to barely half a dozen meters, and the ground was a slurry of mud that constantly sucked at their boots.

Orks were not so easily discouraged, however. Their physiology was hardly bothered by the cold rain, nor did their single-minded eagerness to reach the next combat give way to tactical concerns about possibly having to fight with poor footing and reduced visibility if they were attacked. The terrain, though covered in a sheet of sticky mud, was clear and solid enough that it didn't pose any serious obstacle to the march even with the storm in play. The transports still rumbled along without difficulty, even as water sloshed about inside the transport cabs and chilled the passengers' feet. The frequent crashes of lightning were considered, if anything, an exciting respite from the dull pounding of the rain, and many of the green-skinned warriors gave a hearty chuckle from the banging of thunder rolling over them.

Despite their decent morale, the slog to the next battlefield was still long and boring. So when the Trukks that made up the haphazard "vanguard" of the army spotted something standing alone in the rain, they wasted no time in turning up the engines and roaring toward it.

"Oi! Wot's dat?"

"Dat a hoss?"

"Wotevah it is, it's ded! Hah hah hah!"

Two Trukks raced by on either side of the small, darkly-colored figure, and then swerved to a stop, spraying mud about in thick, dark waves. Having trapped the mysterious creature between two Trukk-loads of boyz and the mobs of Orks sprinting forward at the merest hint of violence, the passengers disembarked into the muck.

"Oi! You'z aint too bryt, standin' owt 'ere in da rayn!" chuckled a Nob as he strutted forward.

The figure was short and blue, and now that he could get a closer look, clearly equine. Furthermore, it had an umbrella strapped onto its back to keep the rain off, although it didn't seem to have any protection against the mud sticking at its hooves.

"'Ey, hoss! Ah'm tokkin' t'you!" the Nob barked, scowling as the pony didn't even turn around to acknowledge him.

A loud clanging noise came from behind him, and the mob leader briefly glanced back at one of his boyz as the younger Ork tripped into the mud face-first. The other boyz started laughing and kicking mud on the clumsy git, none of them being terribly curious about the hunk of metal in the mud that he had tripped on in the first place.

The Nob dismissed it and continued approaching the pony, eventually reaching out and tearing the umbrella off of its back.

Or at least he tried. Instead he ended up lifting the entire pony. Granted, the miniature horses were puny critters, but even he was surprised by how little weight his victim had.

He was also surprised by the way it didn't move as it was being picked up, or struggle in any way.

And by the wires attached to its belly that ran into the ground.

"Wayt a minnit..." the Nob mumbled, furrowing his brow.

Just as the idea started to take form that maybe the pony he was holding up WASN'T actually a living creature, it started talking, which just complicated things even further.

"Hey, ugly!" the life-sized Trixie plushie squeaked. "Wanna see a magic trick?"

And then all he knew was fire and pain.

The first detonation completely swallowed the Nob and his unit, throwing their Trukks into the air on jets of flame and shrapnel. The Orks rushing toward the encounter were either thrown back physically or simply stopped short in surprise as a rocket of fire shot upward through the mud and the disintegrating bodies of their compatriots. Then it exploded grandly, popping into a colorful starburst that shimmered beautifully in the pouring rain.

The explosions seemed a lot less pretty when they started happening under their feet instead.

Several tons of high explosives detonated in dense clusters under the Ork horde, obliterating warriors by the dozens, tearing transports into pieces, and bringing a pair of Squiggoths near the front to a shuddering halt.

One Battlewagon that had been carrying a load of Bomb Squigs was knocked flat on its side after the mud burst up under it, and the resulting burst of flashing lights above promptly frightened the dim-witted beasts as they spilled out of the vehicle and into the mud slick. As soon the bouncy red creatures got to their feet they scattered in all directions, snarling and snapping their oversized teeth while their bomb harnesses lit up.

Soon the vanguard of the Ork army was in complete chaos, with enormous rockets of bright colors bursting up from below while the squigs went wild on the ground. Orks and Gretchin raced about in all directions, some trying to escape the explosive animals, while others simply tried to find some patch of ground that wasn't blowing up. More often than not, those of one group ran headlong into those of the other, stopping both parties dead and ensuring that both failed.

Eventually, however, the carnage relented. The light flares ceased as the final charges detonated into the air. The last of the bomb squigs slipped into mud patches, smothering themselves in muck and dousing their explosive charges. Vehicles that were aflame or out of control were doused by the rain or dragged to a stop in the mud.

And as the dust settled, the shattered remains of the Ork vanguard picked themselves up in dazed confusion, wondering what had prompted such devastation, and what would be next.

****

Ponyville - main battle line

"AND WITH BUT A SLIVER OF HER GREAT AND POWERFUL MAGIC - and several hundred kilos of bombs - TRIXIE MAKES A HUNDRED ORKS DISAPPEAR!!"

The humans and ponies on the firing line roared their approval as they saw the distant light flares, shaking their rifles in the air or bucking wildly. Even some of the Fire Warriors seemed to be getting into it, although the Iron Warriors restricted themselves to grim chuckling as usual.

Trixie herself found the display rather underwhelming, as the heavy rain made the distant explosions almost invisible from Ponyville and even muted the noise considerably. The weather teams had definitely overdone the storm.

Oh, well. When it came to gifts of explosive traps, it was - as they say - the thought that counted.

General Cyrus Gnoss smirked as he sat back down. "Well, I certainly don't want to have to follow that." Then he turned on his own vox transmitter. "This is General Gnoss. All forward defense units, you may fire at will. Armor formations, remain on standby. Artillery, keep to firing plan theta." A pause. "Suffer not the alien to live."

Artillery thundered behind him as the first volleys of shells were loosed into the sky.

****

The Orks near the front of the horde were already in a shambles when the first shells crashed down from above, blasting more craters into the steaming mud next to the ones left by Trixie's trap.

These explosions, however, were preceded by a distant boom and the whistle of a descending shell. A conventional source of fiery death that the Orks were used to, and one that heralded the presence of an enemy.

As the first detonations rippled through the vanguard, crushing more transports and throwing Orks into the air, the response was nonetheless confused. They weren't expecting resistance this far from the fortress, and especially not during the day. Was this an indication of an enemy army, or just a few artillery batteries set up in the mountains to chip away at the advance?

As the next wave of shells started crashing into the mud, some of the warriors started scrambling forward into a charge, plowing forward through the storm in search of opposition. Others started dashing away in the opposite direction, intent on bringing news of the sudden assault to the Warboss and receiving definitive orders.

One unlucky Grot that had eagerly sought to be in the "retreating to warn the Boss" group ended up tripping in the mud during his mad sprint, falling flat on his face. The other Gretchin of his mob paid their companion no heed, trampling him as they continued the retreat he had started.

The ear-splitting crash of artillery shells pounded the earth relentlessly, and the soaked and filthy Grot curled up into a shaking ball as the very ground trembled underneath him.

An enraged roar snapped him out of his paralysis, however. The Grot looked up in horror to see a Gargantuan Squiggoth charging blindly through the rain, directly toward him. An earthshaker shell slammed into the muck right next to the beast, tearing off the armor on its flank and hammering the flesh underneath.

Far from disabling the warbeast, the wound only enraged it further, and the Squiggoth started swinging its head to and fro while it broke into a full sprint. Boyz were knocked aside or simply smashed to paste, and one Killa Kan that had lost a leg to an explosion was crushed flat under the Squiggoth's massive feet.

The lone Grot, for his part, rolled and crawled as best it could to get out of the animal's path. When the Gargantuan Squiggoth did reach the fallen Gretchin, the tremor from its passing was enough to bounce the Grot up out of the mud and onto a rocky outcropping.

Within moments the Squiggoth passed, its furious roars lost among the pouring rain and artillery strikes.

The Grot sighed miserably before he pushed himself to his feet, and he looked around at where he had landed. The outcropping led up to a sheer stone cliff that was part of the base of a mountain; one of many that formed the range that, in turn, formed the valley the horde was marching through. For now, it also seemed like the safest place to be if one wished to wait out the storm of artillery. Eventually he'd have to re-join the horde, but there would be plenty of opportunity to do that after the warriors had taken care of the humie guns.

The Grot idly kicked a rock toward the cliff face, trying to clear a space for him to sit down more-or-less comfortably. The rock fell through the stone surface and vanished without a trace.

The tiny greenskin froze in surprise, staring at the cliff. Despite his continued attention, the near-vertical stone face didn't disappear or give any other indication that it was anything other than a large hunk of rock, exactly like the stone around it.

And yet...

The Grot approached cautiously, his eyes narrowing at the cliff. There was something slightly OFF about the way that the rain struck it, now that he was paying close attention. The way the raindrops rolled down over its surface was much smoother than the surrounding rock. They didn't seem to splash off at all, as if the impact was somehow muted, or not really happening at all.

The Gretchin's brain was still in the midst of processing these observations when a lasher tendril came out of the cliff, wrapped around his leg, and dragged him screaming into the wall.

The Grot continued shrieking as he was pulled across a dark stone floor, his hands clawing desperately at the damp rock.

He gasped when he was suddenly pulled upward into the air and twisted around, and any further cries for help died in his throat as he stared into the glowing crimson eyes of a Maulerfiend siege walker.

"Oh, uhm, I'm very sorry about this," mumbled a voice from below, "but could you please stop yelling? It's kind of important..."

The Grot, struck dumb with terror, slowly turned his head away from the daemonic war engine to look at the rest of cavern he had apparently been dragged into.

Four more Maulerfiends were packed into the dark space, all of them lying on their bellies and staring at the hapless greenskin. In the middle of the siege walkers was a power-armored pegasus standing behind a hololith projector. The projector faced the cavern entrance, keeping the shelter hidden from view behind a highly detailed false image.

"Oh, thank you," Fluttershy said with relief, mistaking the alien's shock for cooperation, "if you could just keep the noise to a minimum, we should be okay."

The Maulerfiend currently holding the Grot upside-down via its metal tentacles held its hand out under him, and then dropped him into its palm.

"Now be careful, Crabapple," Fluttershy warned, "we don't have to hurt him."

Crabapple emitted a discordant growl in response. Fluttershy couldn't make any sense of Crabapple's corrupted Binary-speak, but she got the impression that the probe-turned-siege walker disagreed.

Really, she would have preferred to leave Apple Bloom's pet Maulerfiend out of this assault entirely; Crabapple didn't listen to her as easily as the other daemonic machines did, and she found the presence of its corrupted machine spirit far more unsettling than actual daemon minds. But Maulerfiends evidently weren't so common in the 38th Company's armor lots that they could afford to turn down the prospect of an extra one.

A sharp snapping noise, followed by the shriek of metal scraping against metal, came from behind the caretaker pony. Fluttershy whirled around immediately, her eyes narrowing as she saw one daemon engine biting at the arm of another.

"Hierix, you stop that right now!" Fluttershy said firmly, causing the war machine to freeze. A moment later it ducked its head away, looking almost bashful.

The pegasus sighed, her tone instantly softening. "I know it's really cramped in here, Hierix, but you'll get to go out and play soon, okay? I promise."

The daemon-machine fidgeted, making a rapid clicking noise in the back of its throat.

Fluttershy pursed her lips briefly, then pointed a boot at another of the Maulerfiends laying closer to the entrance. "See how calm and cool big brother Varox is? Don't you want to be a good boy like him?"

She had no idea if Varox was older or if the war machines had any relation besides serving in the same army, but such details didn't really matter. The Maulerfiend designated as Hierix shifted its posture to match that of the Maulerfiend Varox, and turned its jaws away from its irritated partner.

The Grot simply watched the exchange slack-jawed, having no idea what was going on.

"Now, then... what to do with you..." Fluttershy mused aloud before she stepped up to Crabapple. The pet Maulerfiend released a hot, dusty snort and lowered its hand so that the equine could more easily see its captive.

"P-P-Pleez lemme go!" the Gretchin sputtered, seizing upon the possibility that this horse was some sort of stupidly merciful creature. "I won' tell no wun dat yer heah! I sweahs it!"

Fluttershy shifted uncomfortably in her armor, and the small servo arms attached to her chest fidgeted anxiously.

"Well, uhm, I'm really very sorry about this... normally I would let you go, but I really can't! I mean, you don't even look very dangerous and I'm sure you're perfectly trustworthy..."

The Grot made a desperate leap off the Maulerfiend's palm, toward the cave entrance. He didn't even reach the ground before a lasher tendril snaked around his skinny torso and caught him in mid-air.

Fluttershy kept on speaking as if nothing had happened. "... But you see, the future of the world and everything I know and love kind of depends on my mission here, so I really can't risk making any mistakes that could ruin it. I'm really sorry!"

As the Grot whimpered pathetically, Fluttershy raised a boot to the vox grille of her helmet. "Let's see... I still don't see any need to hurt you, though... I know! Why don't we just keep you in the back, behind Tiberian? It shouldn't matter if you escape after we attack!"

Feeling quite proud of herself that she'd managed to reconcile her sense of mercy with the needs of the battle, Fluttershy pointed to Crabapple. "Go ahead, Crabapple. It's okay."

Crabapple blurted something at her, and then dropped the small greenskin onto the cavern floor. Then it smashed a giant fist onto the helpless alien, crushing it like an ant.

Fluttershy yelped and jumped back, and all the other Maulerfiends turned their heads to glare at the disobedient war machine.

"Crabapple! Why did you do that? He wasn't in a position to hurt anyone!" the pegasus insisted.

Crabapple didn't even bother trying to communicate anymore, and simply crossed its arms in front of it before lying down again and waiting for any further signs of intrusion.

Fluttershy puffed up her cheeks and narrowed her eyes at the recalcitrant siege walker, although it's doubtful her expression would have provoked any reaction even if she weren't still wearing her helmet. "Ohhh! I really have no idea how Apple Bloom puts up with you! How could you do something like that?!"

Crabapple growled something that nobody else understood, and Fluttershy shook her head in disappointment.

"All right, be that way. I just hope you'll listen to me when the Gargant shows up," Fluttershy grumbled, staring at the auger readout at the top of her visor.

****

The crash of artillery continued to clash with the noise of the storm as the Orks pushed forward through the mud, eager to find this unexpected enemy and bring them to battle.

Infantry mobs that had been gutted by the barrage or crawled their way free of wrecked transports joined up into larger hordes as they advanced, their numbers diminished but their excitement kindled. It also helped that the artillery strikes didn't seem to be following their advance; the rain of earthshaker munitions continuing to pound the same stretch of ground as fresh troops wandered underneath it, ensuring an even spread of devastation as the horde marched to this new battle.

Really, the only serious damper on the Orks' mood was the weather. So when even the rain started to thin out, the mobs started surging forward even faster, axes raised to the sky and sluggas aimed - mostly - forward, ready to fire.

And then the ground started exploding. AGAIN.

"Zog it all! Wot's da probbem now?!" demanded a Nob as he was battered by chunks of his unit. Another mob on his right suffered a similar detonation, and Orks near the center of the explosion went flying through the air while shrapnel pelted the ones still on their feet.

"Bommz! Dey gotz bommz in da durt!" claimed a Slugga Boy angrily, pointing to a metal disk ahead of them that was only partially covered in mud. The Nob held a hand over his brow to keep out the remaining rain, peering out at the stretch of ground before them.

There were definitely more explosives laid out on the ground, for starters. A lot more. The Nob decided then and there that they needed a few mobs of Gretchin to push through this area before he was going to try to get any further.

But besides that, with the lighter rainfall he could see something beyond the mines. It was still hard to make out, but it looked like a wall or something.

Then a pulse bolt struck the Ork in the face, sending him keeling back into the mud.

****

*Target down! We have contacts!* Jerriha shouted as she watched the Nob collapse through the scope of her pulse rifle. *They've reached the minefield! We have incoming!*

Dozens of other pulse rifles came up over barricade walls and battlements as the Fire Warriors prepared their own firing lines. Pathfinder units began sweeping the edge of the storm with their markerlights, searching for more targets to pass on to the Fire Warriors.

*We have incoming Trukks, Shas'vre!*

Four Ork light transports raced out of the gloom, boyz cheering and firing wildly when they finally recognized they had found the enemy.

The cheering proved short-lived. Explosive mines tore the Trukks apart from below while lascannons stabbed into the light armor from the barricades. All four vehicles were stopped dead or blown apart in seconds, their passengers spilling out onto the ground.

Following the anti-armor weapons were the stubbers, pulse rifles, and lasguns, which raked over the surviving aliens and finished them before they could get their bearings. More Orks staggered out of the sheets of rain with weapons primed, only to get cut down at range before they could take stock of the opposition.

"Squiggoth approaching on the right side!" barked a warning from the vox system. "Heavy weapons, concentrate fire!"

The shadow of the gargantuan beast loomed from behind the sheets of rain, the ground shaking from its advance. Orks sprinted into the minefields ahead of it to avoid being trampled to death, and these hapless warriors were duly cut down by rifle fire in short order.

The charging Squiggoth was greeted with volleys of lascannon fire and the report of tank cannons, and the warbeast was staggered almost immediately as intense heat cored its legs and explosions tore through its flank. The Gargantuan Squiggoth released a furious roar before its legs buckled, but even this was quickly silenced by a plasma cannon discharge that struck it square in the jaw.

The ground shook once more after the enormous creature collapsed on its side, blood and flame spilling from its body. The Orks riding it were dumped onto the ground as well, and soon joined their compatriots in being speared by laser blasts and pulse bolts.

"We got it! We actually got it!"

"WAHOO! Take that, you ugly, green savages!"

Daniels glanced back at several ponies that had started prancing about happily at seeing the demise of such a huge creature.

"Hey! Keep it together! This fight's barely started!" the mercenary shouted.

The equines quickly sobered and raced back to the barricades, although they still had huge grins on their faces.

"If we can keep this up, those Orks don't stand a chance!"

A bullet struck the top of the barricade, and the pony closest to the deflection yelped and quickly ducked down.

Daniels grimaced as he fired back into a squad of Lootas that were setting up behind a wreck. There were a lot more Orks coming into the killing zone now, and those with heavier weapons were seeking refuge behind the wrecked transports and Squiggoth corpse.

"We're seeing some incoming fire, here! Didn't somebody mention a shield or something?" Daniels shouted as he snapped of another shot at the Trukk remains. The hyper-accelerated rail punched through the twisted metal with ease, and the Ork Loota behind it lurched back onto the ground.

"Roger that!" the vox crackled. "Lord Armor, you may proceed when ready."

****

Ponyville - town square

Shining Armor took a deep breath after the command boomed through the vox network. With the crack of lasgun fire and the thundering of tank cannons at the front, he had known it wouldn't be long before he was called on to add his own contribution to the battle.

He looked around at the unicorns surrounding his spooky floating Chaos platform. "Well, are we ready?"

The cabal of robed ponies nodded.

"Let us proceed, Prince Armor," Fleur de Lis said grimly before her horn started to glow. The other ponies likewise adjusted the circle around him so that they were evenly spaced, and their horns lit up as well.

Shining began his spell, and his own horn pulsed as the familiar weave of magical patterns in his mind came together.

As they formed, however, he felt an intrusion in the process. Numerous other weaves of foreign magic brushed against his own, carefully linking into the spell. These links were feather-light at first, so as not to interfere with him, but as he progressed in the casting Shining felt the web of magical energy tighten considerably, drawing the other ponies' magic into his own.

The stallion gulped as he looked down at the unicorns in mid-cast. Their eyes were pale and glowing along with their horns, and some members of the cabal were mumbling to themselves. Such things were hardly unknown among unicorns, but it wasn't the sort of thing normally treated as a "good sign" while using magic.

"Here goes everything," Shining Armor murmured before he finished the final calculations in his head.

****

Ponyville - main defense lines

The firefight taking place at the barricades seemed to come to a complete halt as the space between the Ork attackers and various defenders shimmered brightly.

A sphere of purple coalesced in front of the barricade, and then seemed to flatten itself into a circle standing vertically between the two forces. Then the circle expanded, joining with the ground and spreading across the entire breadth of the valley.

None of the defenders dared fire, thinking that their weapons might disrupt or otherwise damage the feat of sorcery, but the Orks knew little such restraint. Impatient to get back to the fighting, a Tankbusta launched his rokkit in the general direction of a dug-in battle tank.

The missile went far afield of its intended target, but anyway met the translucent purple barrier first. It detonated against the shimmering wall, causing no apparent distortion or damage to it.

In response, the Leman Russ aimed its battle cannon at the aggressor and fired, causing the entire tank to lurch back from the recoil. The cannon shell passed through the purple barrier without incident, causing but a brief ripple through the ambient energies from its passing.

Then it crashed into the remains of a Wartrakk, obliterating much of the wreckage as well as the Orks sheltering behind it.

Whooping cheers and exultations came from the Company lines before the infantry started firing again with gusto. Their aim was somewhat hindered by the sparkly purple field in front of them, but they could hardly complain so long as their fusillades passed through the shield while the Ork munitions bounced off uselessly. Wartrakks and Guntrukks were shattered as soon as they appeared, and thick mobs of soaked and muddy Orks were scythed down before they could further expend the minefield.

As the battle entered the end of its second hour, the front lines of the Ork advance were little more than a vast stretch of wreckage and corpses. Smoke rose in thick columns through the thinning rainstorm, while those greenskins that hadn't fled the utterly hopeless assault found themselves covering in blast craters and behind heaps of the dead. All the while the Basilisk artillery cannons sent volley after volley of ordnance into the heart of the advancing horde, battering armor and gutting entire mobs before they even saw combat. Everything was going according to plan.

But even the Company's most optimistic battle plans acknowledged that the enemy wouldn't keep obliviously stumbling into their defenses forever.

****

Boss Squiggoth "Betsy"

"Wot da zog is goin' on down dere?! Wot's wit all da 'sploshuns?! Sumwun ANSAH me!"

Warboss Drahgza raged from atop his Gargantuan Squiggoth, his klaws snapping angrily as he demanded information from his subordinates.

The command howdah on "Betsy's" back was loaded to bursting with mega-armored Nobs, some oddboyz, and even a pair of lesser Warbosses. Hazarr Wrencha was also hitching a ride, although the Big Mek was there by request; if anybody had asked the older Ork's opinion, he would have rather taken to battle in one of the Gargants. Alas, nobody did.

Nobody in the coterie of massive greenskins knew what to tell Drahgza, however. The reports being brought by messengers and scorched survivors were numerous and confusing. First they had been told that the bright flashes of light were from a little horse using nasty magic. Someone else who hadn't seen any ponies at the scene himself claimed there were a bunch of explosive traps. Then someone ELSE claimed the explosions were from a batch of escaped bomb squigs. Yet another Ork insisted that they were being hit with artillery, but admitted that he hadn't seen any humans or their guns. Then came more Gretchin claiming that the rest of the army was advancing to try and find... whatever was ahead of them, he supposed. That particular Grot had no idea what was out there, and had been squashed underfoot for his ignorance.

Drahgza wasn't especially worried about a few measly explosions; it would be good to have a few boyz spontaneously die off during the advance just to keep the rest on their toes and entertained. But he didn't like the fact that his army was splitting itself up to race after an enemy that he wasn't even sure was there. It smelled like a trap.

A crackling noise came from behind him, and Drahgza whirled around to see Hazarr fiddling with a monitor screen.

"Wot're ya doin' NOW, Coggz?" the Warboss demanded.

"We'z got a messuj from da Great Gargant," the Big Mek grunted as he adjusted the communicator frequency, "gimme a sec."

Drahgza moved closer while the static started to break up, and after several seconds a dim image of another Ork was barely visible on the screen.

"Boss Coggz! We fownd 'em! Dey're 'ere! Da spikies an' humies is waytin' fer us!"

"Say wot?!" Drahgza growled, looming over Hazarr's shoulder. "Da spikies is 'posed ta be at da fort! Why's dey out heah?!"

A long stretch of static followed the Warboss's question.

"Erm, I dunno, Boss. But da boyz haz been gettin' shot up by 'em, so we wuz gonna go back 'em up, yeah?"

Drahgza's bionic visor display flickered, a sure sign that he was irritated.

"Dese humies do dat," Hazarr admitted, shaking his head, "dey don' wan' us ta get to da fort, I gess."

"So dey's fightin' us out heah? Wot a buncha idjits! We'z gonna crush 'em flat!"

Hazarr frowned. "Wot's da boyz from da frunt sayin'?"

The communicator crackled again, and then the operator laughed. "Da humies is dug in reel gud, dey fink. Lotsa dakka! We'ze gettin' shot up gud, but I'll stomp 'em ta bitz!"

"Boss... a warnin', Boss..." a hesitant, creaky voice came from behind the two Orks, and they turned to regard a much shorter greenskin.

This Ork was thin, wiry, and hunched over. His raggedy outfit was covered in feathers, fangs, and other strange trinkets and arcane fetishs as well. What was most obviously strange about him, though, was undoubtedly the fact that the top of his skull was missing, leaving his brains exposed to the air and rain. The exposed gray matter glowed and thrummed with strange energy, and every once in a while an arc of colorful electricity would crackle around it.

"Wot's da matter, 'Eadbusta?" Drahgza grunted, giving his full attention to the Ork Weirdboy.

The psyker shuddered before he looked up, shielding his face from the pouring rain.

"Dis storm iz a bad omen," the Weirdboy declared, "ain't nacherul. Da workin' of hoss majik."

The three circles on Drahgza's visor turned to three slits as he stared up at the rain.

"An' dere's mo', too. I been feelin' a lot o' hoss majik down da vallee. Dere's sum bad juju 'round heah."

The Warboss considered his head psyker's words cautiously, scraping at his gorget with a klaw blade.

"... If'n we'z fightin' hoss majik, dere's gotta be a hoss Weirdboy, yeah 'Eadbusta?"

'Eadbusta twitched badly, and another lash of energy colored neon green crawled over the surface of his brain. "Yeah. I can feel 'im. An' udders, too. LOT of bad juju."

"All roight! 'Ere's wot we'z gonna do!" Drahgza said, his voice suddenly bright and chipper. "Zoktoof!"

One of the Warbosses who was very deliberately lacking mega armor perked up. "Yeah, Boss?" His face was striped with purple warpaint, and a huge shotgun was slung over his back.

"You'z takin' 'Eadbusta, sneekin' up on da humies, and takin' out da weerd hosses! I don' want no 'juju' messin' up da fightin'!"

The lesser Warboss saluted, and then quickly made for the ladder that would lead him down from the command howdah and the Squiggoth.

"Dedhamma!" Drahgza barked next, causing the other Warboss in mega armor to shift to attention. "Get da boyz in fightin' ordah! I dunno wot da spikies is up ta, but if dey wanna fight heah, we'z gonna give 'em da best - an' LAST - fight dey evah had!"

Drahgza laughed as his Nobs started roaring their approval, and then the other Warboss moved to leave the Squiggoth.

Drahgza finally turned back to Hazarr. "Now, as fer you..."

Dispatching his last orders to the Big Mek turned out to be more complicated than expected, because Hazarr wasn't there. Drahgza wasn't sure when the newest addition to his horde had wandered off, but the command howdah on top of Betsy wasn't large enough that Hazarr could be hiding or otherwise simply be out of sight. When had the Big Mek left?

Drahgza noticed that the communications device was still on, however, so he cleared his throat and then yelled at that instead.

"Oi! Youz gitz in da big dakka stikk wit da footsloggaz! Da spikies cood be tryin' ta kill da big gunz 'fore we can yoos 'em on da fort! If'n ya see da humies, you blast 'em, but don' get stukk in yet, got it?!"

The disappointment of the Great Gargant pilot was palpable, even despite the heavy static. "Yer da boss..."

"Damm strayt," Drahgza grunted. Then he put his klaw through the face of the monitor, assuming that was the correct procedure for turning the device off.

Down below the command Squiggoth, Hazarr trudged through the veritable craters left in the mud by Betsy's footfalls, searching the surrounding mobs.

Battlewagons and looted tanks rolled alongside Betsy's earth-shaking stride, along with countless Ork mobs that hadn't been lucky enough to secure a transport for the long march to Ferrous Dominus. Hazarr headed toward one such unit, his mega armor squealing as it carried his bulk through the muck.

Although the Big Mek expected the horde to wash over the human resistance without much further issue now that they were aware of and prepared for them, he couldn't help but feel a niggling sense of deja vu. This seemed vaguely similar to when his own army had made its attempt on the planet, and while circumstances were definitely different this time around, it had gotten Hazarr to thinking.

"Oi! You dere!" Hazarr called to the largest of the passing mobs, waving his power klaw.

The Orks being hailed slowed down in confusion, and the unit Nob eventually shouldered his way forward to greet the approaching Mek.

"Wot's up? We'z got ordahs!"

"I'z got sumfin' I want ya ta do," Hazarr grunted as he stepped up to the Nob. His servo claw clanked open and shut irritably. "I'm gonna bring in wun o'my Battlewagons fer ya, so ya don' haff ta slog all da way to da frunt."

The Ork mob perked up considerably at that. They were already soaked and muddy, and even if there was an unexpected fight going on ahead, they fully expected it to be over by the time they walked there.

Hazarr leaned in closer to the Nob, his optic visor glowing softly. "Ting is, I want ya ta bring me wun o'da enemy bakk in tokkin' shayp."

The Nob tilted his head to the side, slightly confused. Taking prisoners wasn't at all rare for Orks, but it was usually a result of not being thorough enough in murdering everything the first time through. Deliberately subduing a foe without harming him was entirely new territory for this warrior.

"I dun care wot kinda enemy ya git. Spiky, humie, hoss, wotevah," Hazarr clarified, "but I want 'im in wun pees. Cleah?" Then the Big Mek pulled something from his belt. It was a small, brick-shaped object with a single black button on it. "Wen ya git da prisunah, git cleah of da fightin' and push da button. I'll go git 'em."

The Nob took the device hesitantly, and then shrugged his massive shoulders. "Yer da Boss, Coggz."

"Gud," the Big Mek declared, turning around to go organize the mob's new transport, "mebbe now I can figger out wot da zog is goin' on 'round heah..."

****

Valkyrie gunship Delta Primarus

"Okay, okay, I've got a new one," Tellis said as he leaned forward on the bench and pointed at Applejack, "your power is being really heavy, right?"

Applejack's eyes narrowed at the Iron Warrior. "I got special platin' on the soles o'my boots, if that's what yer referrin' to."

"Yeah, sure. That, plus you're huge. For a pony, anyway."

As a deep growling noise came from the farmer's throat, Twilight quickly interjected. "He means your ARMOR, Applejack. Your armor is heavier than ours."

"Right! And so is your muscley orange butt," the Raptor said without hesitation. Rainbow Dash made no effort to hide her snickering. "Anyway, I'm thinking we could fly you up, and then drop you like a bomb. You hit the gravity plating before impact, and WHAM. I'll bet you could flatten a battle tank!"

"That's not a bad idea," Rainbow Dash decided, bumping the glaring farmpony on the shoulder pad, "if she can even survive something like that, I mean."

"Ah'd rather not make gettin' bionic legs a new Apple family tradition," Applejack drawled. Then she glanced over at her brother. "Not that there's anythin' wrong with 'em, o'course."

"Nnope," the stallion agreed.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help out!" Tellis groused, crossing his arms under the skulls hanging from around his neck. "Work with me here, would you?"

"Don't think that we don't appreciate your help, dear," Rarity said with the slightest edge of sarcasm, "but we'd much prefer 'battle strategies' that don't involve flinging, dropping, or otherwise using us as pony projectiles."

"But you'd make a GREAT spear! And with your silly glowing horn thing, you could probably even generate a disruption field! You should at least TRY it."

Twilight generally ignored the belligerent Astartes. Besides the fact that she was glad to have someone dominating the conversation who didn't care about her unexpected confession of love before they embarked on the gunship, her attention was largely elsewhere. Twilight's visor was almost completely filled with auger displays from the listening posts. Estimates of troop strength, munitions levels, kill reports, and other numerical tidbits of data flashed over it every couple of seconds, allowing her to track the front line's efforts as closely as possible without actually being there. Fluttershy and Pinkie's vital signs and vox links were tracked on the corner, allowing her to see at a glance if anything untoward happened to her friends who weren't currently with her.

"Hey, Dash," Tellis said suddenly, turning away from an exasperated Rarity, "this is kinda dull. Ya wanna go jump onto the Tau flyers and freak out the pilots?"

Rainbow Dash brightened immediately, but Twilight was forced to once again intervene. "NO. We could get the signal to attack at any moment. We have to stay inside the gunship, and refrain from terrorizing our allies."

"Pft. You don't give me orders," Tellis reminded the alicorn, poking a thumb into his breastplate.

"Yeah, but she does give ME orders," Rainbow Dash said with a sigh, "and even though she's being a total drag as usual, Twi kind of has a point. The entire planet's fate is pretty much riding on this battle, so we should focus on the fight ahead."

Tellis seemed to consider the point as he leaned back on the bench, and his head tilted up so that he stared at the ceiling.

Then his gaze dropped back to the ponies. "Wait, the ENTIRE planet's fate is riding on this? How?"

Rarity released a long-suffering sigh. "We need to destroy this army here and now so that we can build the Nethalican before the rest of the Orks arrive," she explained tersely.

Again, the Chaos Raptor paused to digest this. "... What's a 'Neth-ali-can'? Is that some sort of weird magic horse gun?"

Twilight snapped out of her strategic ruminations so that she could gape at the Iron Warrior along with everypony else. Even Rainbow Dash had an expression that clearly asked "Are you kidding me?"

"You're saying you don't even know what we're doing here?" Rarity asked incredulously.

"Of course I do," Tellis replied, "we're taking down a Mega Gargant."

"Well, yeah, but ya don't know WHY yer doin' that?" Applejack asked.

"FOR FRIENDSHIP!" Tellis shouted, thrusting his arms into the air.

"Ah give up," Applejack sighed, slumping heavily against her brother. Big Mac gave her a comforting nuzzle as the orange mare groaned.

Twilight was about to launch into a complete explanation of the Nethalican, its supposed mechanisms, and its purpose. Not because she expected Tellis to appreciate it or even listen, but just because she found the Dark Portal fascinating and would have enjoyed discussing it.

Mercifully - for the others, at least - the gunship's internal vox system interrupted her and filled the passenger bay with Solon's static-distorted voice.

"Thish ish Warshmith Sholon to all unitsh..."

Every one of the passengers either chuckled or struggled not to.

"All battle plansh are progreshing ash shcheduled and all interception missionsh are go for launch. Delta Wing, Alpha Wing, Crine Wing, and all Xenish shquadronsh are to proceed ash planned to your deshignated shtrike zonesh. Ambush team theta, you are clear to attack at your dishcretion. Princesh Luna will be making her own deployment in T-minush eight-hundred shecondsh."

The constant shudder of the Valkyrie's engines turned to a heavy shaking as the gunship started accelerating, and the constant background roar of engines became far more pronounced. The ponies that didn't yet have their armor sealed grimaced, and one by one their helmets engaged, folding into place and pressurizing.

Solon's voice again came from vox. "May the Dark Godsh blesh your fire and bring ruination to the foe. For Chaosh!"

"For Khorne!" growled Tellis.

"For Equestria!" barked Rainbow Dash.

"For the Princess," Rarity said firmly.

"Fer Ponyville!" shouted Applejack.

"Eeyup," added Big Macintosh.

"For peace, harmony, and friendship!" Twilight added, lifting her head proudly.

The vox crackled again.

"IRON WITHIN. IRON WITHOUT."

Author's Note

Not completely satisfied with this chapter, but I'm pretty sure it's because there's a lot of top-down strategic imagery rather than the character narratives I'm used to. Much more awkward to write.
I was planning to do this entire battle in one chapter originally, but that was clearly not going to happen. I just hope I can wrap this up next chapter so that I don't have to do a three-piece cluster**** like Canterlot. Here's hoping!

Breaking Point

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 6

Breaking Point

****

Ork horde - 2.3 kilometers from Ponyville

"Awrite, boyz! We'z got ordahs!" boomed a Nob as he stood atop an idling Battlewagon, his shoota firing wildly into the air. Rain pounded the Ork's body from above, while behind the mighty warrior the form of the Great Gargant loomed high above.

A mighty whip of lightning struck the enormous war machine, and the Nob paused to let the booming thunder cease. Far from doing any actual damage to the super-heavy walker, the arcs of boiling plasma simply lashed around the Gargant's massive eyes, giving it the appearance of a huge, metal God.

"We'ze gonna git togeddah wit Hikkut's boyz! He's puttin' da Grot-bommas and Supa-kannons ta work on braykin' da spikies! If any o'da humies try an bust 'em, we'z gonna stomp 'em flat!"

Despite the heroic imagery he presented, the Orks promptly lost enthusiasm for the battle when they heard their main task was going to be guard duty.

"Oi, why ain't we fightin'?" demanded one Slugga Boy, waving his choppa angrily.

"Yeah! We'z got da Great Gargant, don' we? Let's 'ead to da REEL fight!"

The Nob took a deep breath. "SHUT IT, YA DUMM GITZ!!" he roared. A fortunately-timed blast of lightning struck behind him, and the lesser Orks flinched back.

"My ordahs're strayt from Boss Redclawz 'imself! He wants da Great Gargant ta stay bakk 'til dey need it! An' he wants YOU idjits ta garrd da dakka! Ya gotta probem wif dat, ya can tayk it up wif me choppa!"

The other greenskins grumbled in irritation, but none offered further protest.

"Gud! Any kwesjuns?" the Nob shouted.

One particularly brave - or perhaps just disgruntled - boy raised his hand. "Can we 'ave sumfin to keep off da rayn? It'z cold owt heah."

The Nob just laughed. "Wot? You'z boddahed by a liddel rayn? Is you an Ork, or a Grot?" He hammered a fist against his chest. "You'z an Ork, ain'cha? Den deel wif it! A liddel stohm nevah kill nobody!"

As if in direct response to the claim, a patch of storm clouds above suddenly split apart as the blanket of gray was pierced from the sky.

A lance of black lightning plunged into the Battlewagon, and the vehicle instantly buckled into the mud before it detonated horrifically. Flame, shrapnel, and bits of the contemptuous Nob battered the stunned aliens in the first few moments after impact. After a few tense, confusing seconds had passed, the warriors shifted and pushed closer to see what had happened.

As the crowd of Orks watched, a pair of large, black wings spread from the smoking crater.

"THY END HATH COME, ALIEN," Luna boomed in the Royal Canterlot voice as she reared up, her horn casing sparking crimson, "THE GREEN TIDE SHALT BREAK UPON-"

And then Luna learned what it felt like to be hit by one hundred bullets in three seconds.

The Princess of the Night yelped and staggered. Her entire body was shaking violently from the impacts all around her, and her legs slipped out from under her before she could do anything about it. She hit the ground on her side, and her eyes widened as damage alerts started to flash over her visor.

"Barrier!" she shouted desperately, her ears ringing while bullets continued hammering her armor. Abysmal Ork accuracy, it seemed, was not a great hindrance at very close range, and not when there were some two hundred soldiers firing upon a single target.

Luna reflected upon that crucial oversight as her shield dome snapped into place. This immediately brought a different kind of pain to bear when she felt the magic feedback of resisting such volume of fire, but at least Luna could see and think straight for a moment without being knocked around.

Climbing to her feet and shaking her head, the Dark Princess looked up to take stock of her main target, the Great Gargant.

As it turned out, her main target was aiming its huge arm cannon at her and her shimmering barrier barely five meters away.

"We humbly request a do-over," Luna said, her head ducking in embarrassment.

The explosion that resulted from the soopaguns' discharge knocked the nearest Ork soldiers off their feet, while the rest whooped and cheered at the sight of such intensity of destruction. A hot, dusty wave emanated from the center of the impact, which was now quite evidently devoid of any armored ponies.

****

Several tendrils of liquid darkness coalesced behind the Great Gargant as the Orks roared in laughter and glee, and in a flash of dim light, Luna reappeared again.

"... Aye. We much prefer this side of the foe," she mumbled before she raced forward toward the massive walker's back. Bullets immediately started whizzing by her from all directions again, but the intensity was much, much weaker than before. Still, she summoned a personal shield to protect her flanks as she leapt toward her target, well aware that her armor had suffered grievous abuse already.

Her greaves mag-locked against the surface of the Great Gargant's hull after she landed near its waist, and Luna began searching for anything that might allow for entry inside.

A sudden crackling noise in her helmet surprised her, however, and she saw a familiar vox link establish itself.

"Princesh, ish everything going all right out there? I'm sheeing shome very concerning readingsh from your armor readout."

"Aye! The strike is proceeding at speed!" Luna shouted while she clambered up the back of the Gargant. The Ork gunfire from below hadn't slackened at all, but was now being absorbed by the Great Gargant's own defense shielding before it could reach her damaged armor. "There was some small difficulty with our deployment, but it hath been overcome!"

A loud whirring noise came from above, and Luna's eyes narrowed when she saw a pair of machine guns covered in wires and haphazard sensors pop out of a concealed gun port. The Iron Gage lifted off from her shoulders and flew upward, palms flat, and then slapped together over one of the weapons, crushing it in a spray of sparks and metal scrap. The other gun started shooting, but its wild burst proved just as inaccurate as true Ork gunners.

"There should be a hatch near the bottom, and another accesh point in the center of the back," Solon advised, "whichever entrance you ushe, troopsh will flood into the Gargant from the bottom entry ramp to shtop you once you shtart to kill the crew."

The Iron Gage ripped the second gun from its mountings and flung it aside, allowing Luna a few moments to get her bearings without being shot at.

The respite proved short-lived; an Ork-sized hatch above her, identifiable by the big metal wheel attached on the outside, let out a squeal as it unlocked. Then the hatch flipped down, acting as a firing platform for the Ork who stepped out while toting a rokkit launcha.

Luna was genuinely surprised when the alien soldier aimed his weapon down at her, peering into a bent and dirty scope. Never mind that she was attached to the Orks' own war machine, but at this range the warrior could easily be caught in the explosion.

Both hands of the Iron Gage leapt upward before the Ork could fire, and Luna snorted in contempt as the dark gauntlets pried the rokkit launcha away from its owner.

"Such gross incompetence! We art relieving thee of thy weapon for thine own good!" the Princess declared. "Thou may hurt thyself!"

Then she blasted him with a magic bolt, sending the Ork hurtling to his death.

With the next obstacle overcome, Luna fed power to her wings and launched herself upward, locking onto the Gargant's hull again when she was right next to the open hatch.

"You can expect a deshperate and extremely claushtrophobic melee once you affect entry," Solon chimed in again over her vox, "if you have any witchcraft to aid your ashault, you'd besht deploy it now."

A deep shudder ran through the hull as the Great Gargant started moving again, and Luna spared a glance toward the ground. Orks were gathering in a thick crowd around the super-heavy walker, most of them pointing at her angrily or pouring small arms fire uselessly into the Gargant's defense shields.

Shaking her head, she recalled the Warsmith's advice and began drawing her magic to her.

She was still deciding on which spells to use when a power klaw reached out of the hatch, grabbed her by the leg, and then dragged the surprised pony into the Gargant.

Luna was smashed headlong into a bank of electric fuses, her body rattling around painfully in her armor. Then the fuse box started to spark dangerously, and she felt a howl of pain that was not her own bellow within her mind as her suit was electrocuted by a catastrophic discharge.

The Nob who had pulled her in chuckled heartily at seeing the dark equine thrash and squirm under the tendrils of energy. The lights illuminating the Gargant interior flickered, and dozens of other boyz crowded around to watch and wait for their own turn to strike.

Soon a loud BANG came from the fuse bank, and the lights went out entirely. The only illumination came from the rear hatch, casting a ray of light onto the Nob's back as smoke wafted through the maintenance bay interior.

"Princesh?" crackled the vox. "Ish everything all right?"

The light from the hatch was suddenly obscured when the Iron Gage flew inside through the opening and seized the Nob by the head.

"One attack is all thou gets," Luna hissed before her weapon crushed the Ork's skull to a sizzling pulp.

The other warriors surged forward, but as the dark alicorn stood up a whirlwind of liquid shadows swirled around her, slashing at the Orks and battering away their weapons.

Even so, more than one choppa forced its way through to hammer against Luna's armor, and the Princess of the Night felt the furious howls of her daemon plate echo louder and louder in her mind.

"WRETCHED CREATURES!! WE HAST HAD ENOUGH OF THEE!!" Luna boomed, rearing up in front of the mob. Almost instantly, the black tendrils swirling around her - practically invisible with the lights out - turned to a bright, bloody red before they started swirling faster and with greater intensity.

"Princesh?" mumbled Solon over the vox.

Luna's forehooves hit the floor with a tremendous crash, blasting the crowd of Orks back and smashing them into the other devices that filled this area. Metal cracked and folded, bones splintered, and sparks blasted from a dozen different machines that had to contend with the sudden impact of an Ork's face.

"PERISH, SAVAGES!!" Luna roared, her Canterlot voice almost bowling over the warriors climbing to their feet. "THOU THINKS TO DEFY US?! DARKNESS TAKE THEE!!"

"You shound like you're in the middle of shomething," Solon said as a shrieking howl filled the room, "I'll get back to you later."

The crimson energy that circled around Luna expanded, filling the entire room with the slashing tendrils of pure magical destruction. Orks were cut open and had limbs severed as they tried to fight back, but there was no escape or protection to be had against the pony's wrath.

Soon Luna added to the maelstrom of death with the Iron Gage, and the gauntlets crackled dangerously before crashing into the nearest warriors in wide, devastating swings. Some greenskins had their entire chest cavities smashed in, while others had the dubious fortune of merely being blown off their feet to be impaled on a hunk of torn metal or shredded by the strange red wind.

Luna herself surged forward when there were but three Orks left, and the magical energy that filled the maintenance bay seeped back to her before swirling around her horn. It speared an Ork boy through the abdomen as she charged, and the Princess flung the Ork into a wall with the merest toss of her head.

Another of the surviving warriors jumped at her with his choppa, but he was intercepted in mid-leap by the Iron Gage, which shoved him head-first into a damaged monitor.

The last Ork limped for the door, hoping that the others would divert the pony's attention long enough for him to open the hatch to the Gargant's left shoulder section.

He had just grabbed onto the wheel that would unseal the door when an energy beam punched through his back, vaporizing most of his body and partially melting down the lock mechanism.

Luna huffed deeply as her head twisted back and forth. The Iron Gage gently smoldered as its power fields cooked away the Ork viscera that coated the plating. The deep, ethereal howling of the daemon armor weakened to a gentle growl.

With no more enemies in sight, the dark alicorn released a long, shuddering sigh. That had been a great deal more vicious and draining than she had expected, and her body throbbed from the heavy impacts she had suffered so far.

"... Sho, ish now a better time? I'm sheeing your activity levelsh drop shubshtantially," asked Solon over the vox.

Luna raised her head immediately, adopting a stance of dignified indifference even though there was no one around to impress. "We hast forced entry into the enemy war machine!" she proclaimed. "We shalt now find the heart of this device and crush it!"

"Wonderful! The main reactor core ish further below. You may accesh it through either shoulder shectionsh, which should drop into a munitorum deck, and-"

Luna snapped her head around as she heard the squeal of heavy gears moving. Another hatch was opening, no doubt to admit a new wave of enemies.

Quickly running through her spells, Luna summoned a bolt of freezing cold and launched it at the door, covering it in a sheath of ice that completely sealed the locking mechanism in place.

The Lunar Princess nodded approvingly as angry banging noises started coming from the other side of the hatch, but then considered her situation. Now the passages to both shoulder sections were sealed, while the only other exit was the hatch that led outside. She could breach the sealed hatches easily enough if she wanted, but at this point she rather wished to avoid slugging her way through every half-wit alien on her way to the reactor. Besides, if she recalled Solon's earlier words correctly, the crew trying to get rid of her would be constantly reinforced by the massed infantry outside. Surely there was a better way.

"Warsmith," Luna began, "thou believes the reactor room is below? Where, exactly?"

"Right under you. Why?"

The Iron Gage stabbed into the floor fingers-first, splitting apart the seams between the floor plating as the power fields ate away at the metal. "We art making our own passage!"

The floor plates shrieked as they tore away, and strings of bolts popped loose and rolled away.

The Iron Gage tossed aside the heavy paneling, revealing a grid of bulkhead supports and several very surprised Meks.

"Now, remember Princesh: when you reach the core, be careful not to damage it outright," Solon warned.

Luna fired both hands of the Iron Gage down into the reactor room, ripping through the supports still in her way and vaporizing one of the Ork technicians. The beams cut deep, smoldering grooves into the floor below, and Luna wasted no time in dropping down into the smoke.

"Ork power generatorsh are highly unshtable, sho you'll need to turn the reactor off before deshtroying it."

The Iron Gage grabbed a Mek around the throat and slammed him into the reactor core. The crackling fist hammered the alien straight through the outer housing, splitting it open, and an enormous blast of steam poured into the room from the breach.

Another Mek raced for a control panel, but Luna struck him in the back with a bolt of dark lightning. The Ork was slain in an instant, but the lash of black magic ripped through the panel and the adjacent coolant tower, setting both machines aflame.

"Ah... Princesh?" Solon asked over the vox again. "I'm getting shome very dubioush readingsh from your vishor uplink. Ish shomething wrong?"

"Nay!" Luna declared as she stamped on a grot helper. "We art proceeding without difficulty!" Another two grots died in a magical fireburst, adding another blaze to the room.

"That was the last of them, for now!" the alicorn declared, standing in the middle of a ring of fire, scalding steam, and frenzied electric discharges. "Our apologies, Warsmith! We were in the midst of battle as thou spoke! What did thou wish of us?" A loud banging noise came from the reactor core as several valves broke open, but Luna gave her full attention to her commander.

She heard a sigh. "Shieldsh up, Princesh."

Luna didn't hesitate to raise her barrier, and the Iron Gage floated in front of her defensively even as she glanced around in confusion. "We do not understand. There art no foes left in-"

****

Ponyville

"WOW. Now THAT'S an explosion," whistled an earth pony guard. The light flare from the distant detonation - whatever it was, exactly - was so intense that it was fully visible despite the distance and the storm. The shining fireball persisted for several seconds, and then the light was finally swallowed by the rain.

The pony was one of a pair who were hooked up to a cart to ferry ammunition supplies to the main defense lines. Both had paused while crossing the bridge that went over the river, briefly distracted.

"You think that's a good sign?" asked the second pony nervously.

"Of course it was! Any explosions happening that far away are taking place among the greens, right? We are OWNING this!" her partner said confidently.

The other pony was about to reply, but she suddenly caught sight of something strange in the river. She didn't recall any reeds growing in this part of the river, but there were several thick ones standing up out of the water. They even seemed to be slowly moving, and didn't match the pace of the river's flow.

"Hey, you coming? Those heavy stubbers aren't going to reload themselves," the other pony said as he stepped off the bridge.

"Right. Yeah," the mare mumbled, putting the incident out of her mind. It was probably nothing. She had a job to do.

****

Valkyrie Gunship Delta Primarus

"This is General Gnoss to all units," the vox caster boomed suddenly, "we have a confirmed kill on a Great Gargant!"

"ALL RIGHT!!" Rainbow Dash shouted, rearing up and throwing one leg forward in a punch.

"Way ta go, Princess!" Applejack cheered, stomping a boot on the floor in celebration.

"Not bad," Tellis admitted.

Twilight released a heavy, relieved sigh.

Big Macintosh smiled quietly.

"Ah, one other thing," the vox continued, "if any units in any other attack groups see a smoldering black mass hit the ground nearby, flag it for retrieval. The Warsmith estimates a sixty percent chance that the Princess survived the explosion, but either way her body should be mostly intact."

"EeWHAT?!" Big Mac exclaimed, snapping his head up.

The other ponies in the passenger compartment probably would have been shocked by his unusually vocal surprise, but were themselves stunned by the announcement.

"What a way to go, though," Tellis mused, "blown up while taking down a Gargant. Bad-ASS."

"Well, hold on. He said there was a sixty percent chance she survived, right?" Rainbow Dash asked anxiously. "So that's... you know, pretty good, right?"

Twilight didn't really know what to tell her, but was anyway distracted as their transport started to shake violently.

"We have incoming enemy fire!" the pilot shouted over the internal vox. "Hang on! We've reached the engagement zone!"

****

The 38th Company's aerial attack force poured into the side of the Ork army, spearheaded by the pirates' Hellblade fighters. The strike craft picked out the light vehicles for their attacks, their reaper autocannons punching through the poorly armored Wartrakks and Big Trakks. The fighters also took the majority of the retaliatory fire, dodging around the Orks' furious response as the aliens came to grips with this unexpected assault.

Flakk tore through the sky, knocking the lightly armored aircraft aside before rokkits spiraled through the air by the dozen. A few Hellblades fell into blazing death spirals from the response, but most of the fighters peeled away from the Ork horde as the next wave of attackers swooped down below the storm clouds.

Tau Sunshark bombers veered for the infantry mobs, letting loose their pulse bombs into the heaviest concentrations. Entire units were gutted in an instant by the crackling discharges, mostly while the Orks were still trying to gun down the Chaos fighters.

Along with the bombers came the gunships, strafing the heaviest targets with lascannons and missiles. The Flakkatrukks that had shredded the other aircraft with their salvos were picked out and cut apart, and soon the Orks' most effective anti-air weapons were smoking hulks of wreckage.

Throughout the unexpected assault, towering over the Orks shooting and dying on the ground, stood the Mega Gargant. Surrounded by carnage and flame yet untouched by it, the massive walker had been completely ignored by the assailants as it lumbered about to face the waves of attackers.

As soon as a wing of Tau bombers passed in front of the behemoth, its numerous belly guns fired, and the very ground shook from the might of the salvo. Two of the aircraft were sent to the ground in flames, digging long, scorched trenches into the ground. The Mega Gargant's eyes glowed brightly for a few seconds, and then another Sunshark vanished in a flash of fire and steam, almost vaporized on the spot.

****

"Come on! We need more clearance to deploy! I can't dump the strike team into that mess down there!"

"I just lost half my bomber wing! We can't afford another run in front of the Gargant!"

"And if we don't get this mission going, you'll lose the other half, too! Make another run on the infantry mobs, you xeno cowards!"

"This is Delta-Three, we've sustained heavy damage! We are withdrawing from the mission area!"

"Crine Wing, we have Deffcoptas coming in at eight o'clock! Clean them off!"

"Aft engine is gone! We're going down!"

Twilight cringed at the furious exchange of vox traffic booming within her helmet, indicating the progress of the battle around them.

For the rest of the ponies, as well as Tellis, the only indications of how the battle was faring was the intermittent shaking of the passenger bay, as none of them were linked to the squadron comms feeds.

"Hey, uh, Ah don't mean t'be a nervous nellie, but shouldn't we have landed by now?" Applejack asked as she chewed her lip.

Something impacted the side of the Valkyrie, suddenly pitching the entire vehicle to one side. Rainbow Dash slammed visor-first into the wall, while Rarity yelped and wrapped her legs around her bench.

"What's going on?!" the unicorn asked desperately as sparks showered over her from above.

The internal vox crackled briefly. "We're still airborne, but that was too close! We're scrubbing the mission! Repeat, we are aborting mission!"

Twilight's eyes bulged. "What? No! You can't! If the Mega Gargant reaches Ponyville it will tear the entire town apart!"

"And if I try to drop you at its feet right now, you won't fare any better!" the pilot snapped back. "Resistance is just too heavy!"

Tellis snorted and moved over to the rear of the passenger bay. "Whatever. We'll just fly there."

The Raptor Lord grabbed the manual override lever next to the access ramp and wrenched it to the side. The passenger bay depressurized almost instantly, and the ponies all braced and mag-locked themselves before the access ramp dropped open.

This afforded them their first good look at what was happening outside, and the equines winced. The ground below seemed to be a veritable carpet of green flesh and muzzle flares, and rokkits cut through the rainfall in clusters of four or five at a time, leaving long, twisted trails of smoke in the air.

Tellis hammered a hand onto the bulkhead next to him. "Hey, pilot! Don't fly off just yet! We're getting off here!"

"What?" the vox replied in confusion.

"Hey, Telly, you forget that some of us can't fly?" Applejack asked wryly. "Unless y'all wanna carry us..."

"I call Rarity!" Rainbow Dash said quickly, not wanting to be responsible for lifting either of the Apple siblings.

"No way! I'm taking the bombs!" Tellis declared as he stepped up next to Big Mac. "You guys can chicken out with the pilot!"

Big Macintosh took a cautious step back, glancing at Twilight for permission to give up his cargo.

"Okay, wait! I have an idea!" Twilight shouted.

Another projectile struck the Valkyrie in the side, and the gunship again shook violently as the outer armor tore.

"Whatever you're doing, do it QUICK! Those Lootas are tearing us apart, here!" Another gunship plummeted to the ground in full view of the passenger bay, punctuating his plea with a blazing crash.

"Okay, I can teleport us onto the Gargant's body!" Twilight shouted as sweat started dripping down the sides of her head. "Pilot! Face directly away from the Gargant and hold steady! Just for a few seconds!"

"If you want us steady, perhaps you'd like to ask the greenskins to stop shooting at us?!"

"That is a direct order!" Twilight snapped, her horn flashing. "Turn this gunship around or Celestia help me I will MAGICALLY HURL the whole thing into the target instead!"

A frustrated growl came from the internal vox as the transport banked.

"Is it too late to vote for being magically hurled at the Gargant?" Tellis asked as the vehicle swung around. "That actually sounds pretty boss."

"Quiet!" Twilight shouted as the side of the Mega Gargant came into view. Data started pouring across her visor as it measured the distance to target, and her breaths grew short while she began making calculations in her head.

A stream of bullets poured into the passenger bay interior and stitched across the ceiling, ripping off one of the storage compartments and bouncing it off of Big Mac's helmet.

"Uh, Twilight?" Applejack said nervously as she stared out of the passenger bay. A rokkit flew past the opening close enough for its engine to scorch the edge of the embarkation ramp.

"QUIET! Just a few more seconds!" Twilight insisted as her horn pulsed.

Rainbow Dash gulped as she watched the Mega Gargant turn its head to face them, its giant eyes glowing ominously and sparking with energy. "Twilight! Seriously!"

"Almost..." the alicorn hissed, expanding the magical energy to cover the others in the passenger bay.

But her magic faltered as it tried to seize the sixth member of their group, slipping away as if she was trying to grip something soaked in oil. She tried again, her teeth clenching hard enough to hurt.

"TWILIGHT!!" Rarity screamed as the Gaze of Mork fired.

The stream of burning red energy slashed across the left wing of the Valkyrie, shearing it off and melting most of that side of the gunship. The transport immediately went into a spin before it dropped toward the ground.

The surrounding Orks cheered as the Valkyrie crashed in a flaming mess, carving a trench into the dirt before slamming into a wrecked Guntrukk. The last of the 38th Company's aerial assault units started gaining altitude as swiftly as possible, seeking the protection of the storm clouds from the remaining gunfire below. The brief skirmish was over, and though the raid had exacted a bloody toll, the Orks wasted no time mourning their losses.

The Mega Gargant lurched forward, its massive treads churning deep furrows through the mud. Within minutes, the survivors were on the march again, as eager as ever to see battle once more.

****

"Holy apples, that was close," Applejack gasped as she stared down at the flaming wrecks behind her.

On the back of the Mega Gargant, jutting up from its back and looming high over its head, was a narrow tower that vaguely resembled an antennae, but with a small metal shack on top. Twilight had no idea what that piece of the walker was for, as it had no apparent weapons; unlike, say, every other part of the war machine. However, it boasted a platform around the shack that was big enough to hold her and her friends, and it seemed to be out of the reach of all the Gargant's other weapons and massive limbs.

Rarity let out a shuddering sigh as she leaned against the small building. "Oh, but that poor pilot, though..."

"Pilot? PILOT?!" Rainbow snapped, startling the unicorn. "What about Tellis?!"

"What about... Tellis?" Applejack mumbled as she glanced around. Big Mac was behind her, and Twilight was lying in front of her, panting, but she saw no sign of the Iron Warrior.

Twilight pushed herself up even as she huffed desperately through her helmet grille. "I tried... I couldn't..." she gasped out, shaking her head. "I don't know why... my magic just wouldn't work on him." She hung her head. "I'm sorry, Dash..."

"So you left him behind?!" Rainbow growled. "What the hay, Twilight?! You could have at least said something!"

"I didn't realize it until the last moment," the alicorn said miserably, "it was either save us, or save no one."

A torrent of emotions surged through Rainbow's head at that claim. She even considered, however briefly, that Twilight may have left the Chaos Space Marine behind on purpose just so that she wouldn't have to deal with him.

Looking at Twilight now, though, with her helmet facing the floor in shame while rain pounded over her armor, Rainbow promptly discarded the accusation.

"... These green freaks are gonna pay for this," the pegasus hissed through clenched teeth as she bucked the side of the metal shack behind her.

"They will, Dash. They will," Applejack growled, looking around, "first things first, though: where are we, and where are we headed?"

Twilight tilted her head to the side to get a better look at the tower they were standing on. "... Judging by the energy distribution readings, I think this antennae generates the Mega Gargant's defensive barriers."

"Should we knock it out?" Rarity asked, glancing up at the small building next to them.

"No," Twilight said decisively, "damaging this part won't really stop it. Also, the Orks don't seem to realize that we're here yet. If we can get down to the cockpit without-"

The door to the structure behind them swung open, bumping to a stop against Big Mac.

A pair of Gretchin stared out at the armored ponies, their eyes wide and their pistols quivering in their hands.

Rainbow Dash was, naturally, the first to move, cracking a forehoof against the closest Grot and smashing its face in.

The other greenskin stumbled backward, tripping on a loose wire before he shrieked a warning. "Hosses! We gotz hosses on da sheeld dekk!" Its screaming was cut short when a flurry of shuriken ripped it apart.

"Wot? Hosses?" bellowed a voice from within the hut. The ponies groaned before an alarm klaxon started blaring a moment later.

"Nothing can ever be EASY with these savages, can it?" Rarity growled.

Applejack stomped forward into the shack. "Well, no point in leavin' 'em alive now. A fire in the shield deck sounds like a good start to takin' this thing apart, yeah?"

****

Ponyville - town square

Shining Armor wondered if it would breach some sort of human battlefield etiquette if he were to ask one of the ammo supply ponies for a glass of water. It probably didn't, but he was pretty leery of asking for their time. The ammo supplies were critical to fending off the Orks and the survival of everyone on the front line; he wasn't exactly in danger of dying of thirst.

Really, a parched throat was the only hazard he had endured so far for the sake of the defense. It felt almost surreal. On one side of him was the crack of rifle volleys and heavy weapons, along with the occasional detonation. On the other side, the rumble of artillery fire reverberated with almost perfect regularity.

And then there was Shining and his cabal of unicorns, sitting patiently in the middle of town and waiting for the fighting to end.

The only way he had to track the battle's progress was by the louder explosions and the numerous pinpricks of feedback pain from the barrier. Every time one of the heavier weapons started hammering the shield a dull ache would build in his head, near the base of his horn. Occasionally the Orks would hit the barrier in volley - probably by sheer chance - and the ache would briefly surge, causing many of the unicorns to grunt or grimace in discomfort.

The pain was brief, though, and entirely tolerable. The barrier held, and the unicorns showed no signs of faltering. And the Orks continued to charge uselessly into the barricades and die.

He was still pretty thirsty, though.

Shining Armor saw a pony galloping past the ritual circle who wasn't hitched up to a supply cart, and he opened his mouth to request a canteen.

"CONTACTS! We have enemies from the South side!" shouted the pony frantically as she raced by.

Shining Armor closed his mouth without saying anything. That sounded pretty important; he shouldn't stop her just so he could-

Wait.

"The SOUTH side?" asked Fleur de Lis, her eyes losing their ghastly white glow and flickering back to normal. "Aren't all the Orks attacking from the East?"

"All right, nopony panic," Shining said, his voice practically radiating authority and calm.

That authority and calm was severely challenged when gunfire suddenly came from the houses immediately behind him, followed by shouting and a few small grenade blasts.

"Wh-What are the Orks doing HERE? How did they get past the b-barrier?" stuttered a stallion before he started backing away from the ritual circle.

Shining Armor grit his teeth as he felt some of the cabal's magic fray and disconnect from his own. The difference was immediate: the pinpricks became needle jabs, and the impacts of rockets and cannon shells sent pulses of agony shooting through his skull.

"Ponies! Get it together!" Shining commanded, rearing up briefly. "If the barrier falls, then we're going to have a lot more Orks to deal with than a few-"

A shotgun report came from behind him, and then the world flipped upside-down.

Shining Armor was knocked clean off the iron platform, and he tumbled into the dirt as the unicorns started screaming. He rolled along the ground limply, a long streak of blood marking his path, until he finally came to rest in a twitching heap far outside the ritual circle.

His horn, which had pulsed constantly with magic for nearly five hours so far, finally went dim.

****

Ponyville - main defense line

Daniels reloaded his rifle as laser fire crackled all around him, his optics scanning the battlefield for a target worth his time and ammunition.

There weren't many. The killing grounds ahead of the barricades were thick with smoke, wreckage, and corpses, which mostly served as makeshift cover for the advancing mobs of boyz. Either wielding choppas and sluggas or the clumsy machine guns they simply called shootas, the infantry charges were each stopped and repulsed by torrents of laser and pulse rifle crossfire without needing support from the heavier weapons. Heavy bolters, stubbers, mortars, and the odd frag missile were used to hammer the aliens sheltering at the edge of the storm, keeping them from contributing to the battle in any useful way.

"Hey! Stop running into the mines, you little runts!" shouted the unicorn stallion next to him as a floating lasgun showered energy bolts onto a mob of Gretchin. "Those things are expensive! You're just wasting them!"

"Incoming bombs!" yelped the mare on the other side of him.

A pair of hefty explosives, each one "guided" by a cackling Grot, sailed out of the storm toward the defensive lines. They exploded against the purple barrier with little effect, although Daniels had to resist his ingrained reflex to drop his head below the barricades.

"Remind me to thank Captain Armor when all this is over!" Daniels shouted as he shot down the Ork slaver driving the Gretchin into the minefield.

"I know, right?" the unicorn laughed. "With the barrier up, the Orks don't stand a chance! It almost seems TOO easy!"

The huge wall of sparkling purple magic rippled, like a pond disturbed by a thrown pebble. Then it vanished completely.

Just as when the shield had been first put into place, the firefight was brought to a shuddering halt as both sides stopped to assess the new situation.

"...... FUCK," Daniels spat, perfectly summarizing the defenders' feelings about this new development.

A Kill Bursta tank, already leaking smoke from several devastating lascannon hits, fired its main cannon into the earthwork defenses, breaking the spontaneous cease-fire. The massive shell landed atop a Leman Russ's main turret, pulverizing the battle tank utterly before the Orks released a roaring cheer.

The defense lines lit up once again with volley fire, and Daniels put a rail through a Shoota Boy's chest as he decided that he couldn't be picky about his targets anymore.

"Did... Did I do that?" asked the unicorn next to him, sounding completely stunned. "Is this my fault?"

"Doubt it, mate! But you should probably keep any smug optimism to yourself from here on!" Daniels replied over the roar of gunfire.

"Don't worry!" the mare next to him declared as she fixed an energy pack into her lasgun to reload it. "We've still got our defenses! We can handle this! We can beat them!"

"You really think so?" the stallion murmured uncertainly.

"Yes! The Elements of Harmony will take care of the Gargants! You'll see!" she insisted. "And if they can take those down, then the greens have nothing that can get past us!"

"INCOMING HEAVIES!!" screamed a voice from one of the bunker battlements.

"WHAT KIND?!" demanded a voice back.

"ALL OF THEM!!"

Daniel took a moment to extend the range of his optics, peering into the obscuring rain covering the valley. Large, dark shapes were charging out of the storm in a single wave, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, stretching pretty much all the way across the breadth of the valley. Squiggoths, Battlewagons, and the profiles of a few Ork super-heavy tanks all rumbled toward the barricades at once in a titanic wave of screeching metal and rolling flesh.

Daniels turned his head to stare down at the mare next to him.

"I'm sorry," she sniffled, her ears pinning back beneath her helmet.

"Fire, fire, FIRE!!" howled the commanders above and around the barricades. Lascannons and autocannons and krak missiles lashed out desperately, boxing in the Squiggoths and Battlewagons and trying to cut them down at range. Two of the enormous beasts staggered to a halt and keeled over, while one Battlewagon broke down as the combination of impacts and mud finally proved too much for its tracks to handle. But there were still many more targets.

"Run! Back up! Behind the garrisons!" Daniels snapped as he bolted away from the defensive wall. The ponies didn't bother with silly questions such as whether the mercenary had any authority to order them to fall back. Not when the ground was starting to tremble from the Orks' charge. They were hardly the only ones; a great many of the humans abandoned the defensive walls to flee into town, well aware that their rifles wouldn't help stop the oncoming assault.

The sound of the advance became deafening as the attackers reached the main killing field in front of the defenders. The Orks that were valiantly keeping up their assault were smashed under foot and tread for their trouble, and the heaped piles of green corpses were ground to a paste before the charge pushed into the minefield.

The mines themselves proved little impediment to the Orks. The deffrollas mounted in front of the Battlewagons shook and bounced as the explosives blasted at them from below, leaving the heavy transports untouched. The Squiggoths roared in anger as the ground erupted painfully under their feet, but this only seemed to spur them on toward the bunkers and walls.

The addition of bolter and plasma gun fire to the defensive barrage felled another two Squiggoths, and a Skullhammer tank at the center of the charge ground to a halt as a concentrated barrage of battle cannons tore apart its treads.

Still, the charge pressed on, and the first of the Battlewagons smashed the barricade walls flat as it reached the defenses and rolled right over them.

The first line had been breached.

****

Mega Gargant

"Lite 'em up, boyz! Kill 'em kwik!"

"Oi! I can't see nuffin in alla dis rayn!"

"Stop whinin' and keep SHOOTIN'!"

Ork soldiers crowded up onto the Mega Gargant's shoulders as it advanced through the storm, their guns rattling ferociously and their tracer rounds cutting bright arcs through the gloom.

Rainbow Dash cut around the defenders, firing a spread of shuriken into their flanks before buzzing by the "face" of the Gargant.

Twilight circled around the other side, and her force harmonizer slashed an energy beam across the aliens that cut down three in an instant.

As his fellows staggered and died, the remaining Ork let out an enraged roar and pulled out a stikkbomb. He charged directly at Twilight as he pulled the pin out, looking as if he was actually going to try to bludgeon the pony with the grenade.

Rainbow came back around behind him, however, and her flight pack burned hotter before she slammed into the Ork's back, knocking him clean off the Gargant entirely. His stikkbomb clattered to the ground at Twilight's hooves, and was discarded with a brief pulse of telekinesis.

Twilight glanced up at the tower behind her. Big Macintosh was slowly climbing down to the shoulder level with his magnetic harpoon attached to the platform above, like a rappel line. Applejack and Rarity were both clinging to the stallion awkwardly as he descended, using the mag-locks on their boots.

A whirring noise diverted Twilight again, and she groaned when several automated machine guns popped up out of hidden turret hatches.

"Rainbow, a little help?" the alicorn asked as she fired the force harmonizer at the nearest one.

The armored pegasus wasted no time or breath (Twilight noticed that she had been much quieter since they lost Tellis), slamming into one of the guns and breaking its main actuators. Bouncing off, she landed in front of the auto-turret and hammered it with a back kick, tearing the gun off its mountings entirely.

A few of the turrets lasted long enough to open fire on the ponies, including one that apparently selected the three descending equines as the best target and cut through the pouring rain with a long, rattling burst.

"Yeek!" Rarity squealed as three bullets stitched across her back in a row, shaking her armor suit dangerously. Her plasma gun dropped off from her side a moment later, snapping up into a hovering position before the unicorn turned her head to look down.

"Stop that at ONCE, you thick-headed, unwashed ruff-never mind, it's a machine." Rarity sighed as she blasted the automated weapon with a plasma shot, having wasted all that indignant shouting. The turret let out an obnoxiously loud hiss as it vaporized, and a thick puff of steam blew outward from the surrounding rain superheated by the blast.

Big Mac glanced down to check how far up they still were, and then he pushed off from the shielding tower as he let his harpoon control the rest of their descent. His hooves hit the bulkhead with a mighty clang, and the mares attached to him grunted before letting go.

"Well, that was a trip. Now what?" Applejack asked aloud as she steadied herself on the extensive puddle that covered the top of the torso's hull. She kept her boots mag-locked whenever she wasn't moving, too. She didn't like the idea of crawling around on a huge, lumbering behemoth, like a fly on a cow. It reminded her of how easy it was for her to swat the insects flat.

Twilight twisted her force harmonizer, digging the humming energy blade deeper into a turret and tearing it apart. Then she ripped the weapon free in a spray of sparks.

"Is everypony okay?" she asked as she turned toward the others. Receiving a few mute nods (and proceeding before Rarity could think up a complaint), she pointed the thrumming purple blade of the harmonizer at the back of the Mega Gargant's head. "There's the cockpit. If we can take out the pilots, then we can disable the Gargant's movement and weapons and maybe even turn it on the Orks."

Rainbow Dash reared up and hammered her forelegs together. "NOW we're talking," she growled, "let's do this!"

"Be nice to get outta the rain fer a spell, at least," Applejack mused, pushing the water-logged rim of her hat away from her visor. She turned to Big Macintosh. "You wanna do the honors, Mac?"

The outer access point to the head was, obviously, heavily reinforced. It had a frame large enough to let a Terminator through and a seal thick enough to resist most of the weapons that such a warrior may carry. Partially to protect the Gargant controls from barrage fire from above, but also to protect them from this exact scenario, rare as it was. The head itself was as big as a Rhino APC, and from the back of the "head" there was no way to gauge what was inside.

Big Mac stepped up to the main hatch and pressed the side of his head against it. He could hear Orkish shouting within the cockpit, but such was the armoring on the door hatch that he couldn't make any of it out (and most of the time it was pretty hard to understand even when he could).

The stallion pulled back his head, and then tapped the two thick, heavy vault hinges.

"You need those loosened?" Twilight asked.

"Eeyup."

The alicorn lifted her head, and the force harmonizer rose above the hatch, angled down at the indicated points.

"All right. Applejack, after Mac takes down the hatch, you make a sweep with your heavy flamer and back off. We'll assess what we're dealing with in there and then decide on how to attack."

"Gotcha, Twi," the farmer said grimly, stepping up next to Big Mac as he turned away from the door.

Macintosh lifted his augmetic leg, and the actuator wheel releasing a low-pitched whine while it began to spin rapidly. Soon the hip joint started steaming as it boiled away the water dripping over it, and Big Mac nodded once again.

The force harmonizer crackled loudly and stabbed into the first of the massive hinges, carving apart the metal and then ripping itself free to tear into the next one.

Twilight sucked in a deep breath and magically pulled the blade free. "NOW!"

The hatch door blew off its shredded hinges as a power klaw crashed into it, slamming into Big Mac and bowling him over. Applejack reared back in surprise, and was treated to the sight of an Ork burna poking out of the cockpit at her.

This was rather the exact opposite of how things were supposed to be going, something that Applejack noted angrily as her armor was engulfed in flames and steam.

"Hey! Quit it! We're s'posed to be doin' this to YOU!" she screamed as she backed up.

Big Mac shoved the massive hatch door off of him with a snort and a heave, throwing it off the side of the Gargant. He was then treated to a faceful of bullets as some half-dozen Orks fired their shootas out of the cockpit.

"No, no, no!" Twilight chanted in a panic as the Apple siblings staggered away from the door, their armor straining against fire and steel. She and Rarity didn't have an angle to attack past the two earth ponies, so she quickly shifted the harmonizer to shield mode and dropped it between the Orks and her friends.

"Okay! New plan!" Twilight shouted frantically as the aliens hammered the barrier with their guns.

"Great! What is it?" Rarity asked with her power sword and plasma gun hovering over her at the ready.

"I don't know yet! Give me a minute!"

"We don't HAVE a minute!" Rainbow shouted. "Incoming!"

Twilight glanced behind her, and her fur paled several shades when she saw several rockets shooting up around the Mega Gargant, the noise of their ascent dampened by the storm. It wouldn't have mattered much to her if the Orks were attacking their own war machine to try to stop her, but these rockets were the sort that delivered soldiers into the enemy, not explosives.

Rainbow Dash managed to shoot down one of the incoming Stormboyz before they landed on the Gargant's shoulders, surrounding the ponies with nineteen more warriors firing their sluggas (uselessly) through the pounding rain.

"Th-There's too many!" Rarity shouted as her plasma gun sizzled, turning another pair of Orks into steaming corpses. She had to bring up her power sword a moment later, blocking a choppa from cutting into her neck.

"Keep it together, ponies!" Rainbow shouted, hovering above the melee while she tried to guide the attacking Orks away from the others. The Apple siblings were back in the fight now, but they were still badly outnumbered. "We can do this!"

A spray of bullets cut across her flank, momentarily distracting the pegasus. That moment was enough for her to see an Ork Warkopta approaching quickly through the storm. Its passengers already had their shootas sticking out of the passenger bay and searching for targets, but the aircraft definitely looked like it was aiming to land.

A choppa gouging out part of her leg plating brutally snapped her out of her observations. "Ow! Hey!"

Rainbow fired her impulse blaster, throwing the Stormboy and herself back. "Reinforcements! Twi, do something!"

"Like what?!" Twilight shouted, jumping up and kicking a Stormboy in the face before a slugga round pitched her head to the side. "Gugh! Seriously, I'm open to suggestions!"

"How about BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD?!"

Rainbow's eyes widened.

The melee briefly ground to a halt when an ear-rending screech cut through the sound of pouring rain, followed by the blast of a daemon-powered flight pack.

Tellis crashed into the side of the Warkopta like a living missile, knocking it off of its intended flight path. The transport pitched toward the Mega Gargant's shield tower, and the rotor blades broke apart as they struck the reinforced antennae.

Tellis hung onto the Warkopta just long enough to stab two passengers in the face, and then leapt off before the aircraft began its out-of-control death spiral. The Warkopta hit the surface of the Gargant's shoulder and skidded across its rain-slicked surface before sliding off the edge, taking several Stormboyz with it back to the ground below.

"I'M HERE TO KICK ASS AND STAB FACES!!" Tellis screeched as he landed a flying kick onto another Ork. "AND I'M ALL OUT OF... no, wait." He slashed open another Stormboy's chest, and then deflected a choppa strike from the side. "Damn it, I screwed that one up. Oh, whatever." The Raptor Lord disarmed the Ork that had tried to bludgeon him by cutting off his arm. Then he twisted his head to look at Twilight. "Hey, Princess Dork! Your powers suck!"

"Yeah, sorry about that!" Twilight hovered over a struggling Ork as the force harmonizer buried itself in his chest. A choppa strike from the back knocked her onto the floor again, but before the Stormboy behind her could capitalize on the advantage he found himself seized around the throat by adamantium fingers.

"Yeah, so it looks like you guys have been busy," Tellis said conversationally before he threw the Ork onto the bulkhead plating below, "what'd I miss?" He raised his leg and then stomped the Ork's head into a gory mulch.

"Oh, this n'that," Applejack grunted as she bucked a Burna Boy in the chest, shattering his rib cage. "Lucky ya showed up when ya did! Few more minutes and we'd be fresh out of Orks fer ya to kill!"

"HA!" Tellis launched forward to plunge his claws into another greenskin, and then threw the wounded alien at another Stormboy chasing after Rarity. Both warriors were sent flailing off the edge of the Gargant's shoulder, allowing the unicorn a moment to shift back into the normal flow of time and catch her breath.

"Annnnd that's combat," Tellis said before he clashed his claws against each other, generating long showers of red sparks that sizzled in the rain.

Suddenly his face was full of metal as something flew into his head and wrapped around his neck.

"TELLIS!! You're okay!" Rainbow Dash gasped out, her voice hitching as she tried to keep from bawling. "I... I thought you... you were..."

"Hey, knock it off," the Iron Warrior said, rapping the knuckles of his gauntlet against Dash's helmet, "Khorne would never forgive me if I died in something as lame as a transport wreck, and I don't think you would, either. Now stop crying like a mare, you big wuss."

Twilight blinked. "But... she IS a-"

Rarity placed a boot on her shoulder plate, stopping the Princess mid-sentence. "Let it go, darling. You'll spoil the moment."

In the end, however, it was the sound of a big shoota that spoiled the moment. A stream of bullets coming from the open cockpit of the Gargant sawed across the bulkhead floor, and the ponies yelped and scattered out of the line of fire.

"All right! Getting back to the previous obstacle!" Twilight said, summoning a reflective plane so that she could look into the cockpit hatch without eating any incoming bullets. "It looks like we've got another eight or so barricaded in there! I see some mega armor, too, so watch out!"

Applejack was looking over her brother as Twilight ruminated on their assault plan. Big Mac's neck plating had been cracked open at some point in the earlier struggle, and at least some of the blood washing off of his armor was his own.

"Look, ya just stay back from the fightin' and stay SANE, ya got me?" the orange mare demanded, tapping Mac's vox grille with her boot. "Ah don' want ya runnin' off all hopped up on space drugs 'round here!"

Big Mac started to nod reluctantly, but then his visor tilted up to look at something above Applejack's head.

"Hey! Look at me when Ah'm talkin' to-" Applejack paused suddenly when she felt something grab hold of her shoulder pads.

"Okay, I've got it!" Twilight shouted, trying to be heard over the sound of shoota fire. Not having any targets in their line of sight didn't discourage the Orks' fusillade one bit, it seemed. "Tellis, you have grenades, right? We'll start by-"

"HEY! Put me down, ya Iron galoot!"

The other ponies recoiled when they saw Tellis hugging Applejack against his chest plate, holding her up by her shoulder pads. The apple farmer flailed her boots and thrashed her tail, but she was clearly just as surprised and confused as anypony.

"I dub this tactic: Apple Shield!" Tellis declared before his flight pack spread narrowly behind him.

Then he charged into the cockpit of the Mega Gargant, holding the screaming, heavily armored pony in front of him like a battering ram.

Rainbow Dash barely managed to suppress a sniffle as a tear leaked from her eye. "I missed him so much..."

Bullets rained against the flailing pony as Tellis charged directly into the line of fire, and another Burna Boy managed to unleash a burst of flame before the Chaos Marine sprinted past him.

Tellis slammed Applejack into the mega-armored Big Mek in the middle of the formation, knocking him back into a control panel. Then he immediately jumped onto the Burna Boy, claws raking for the alien's throat.

The other ponies, stunned and dismayed as they were - except Rainbow Dash, anyway - rushed in behind the Chaos Marine to back up the Raptor. Twilight's harmonizer blade cut through barricades and Ork flesh alike, while Rarity's power sword made long, sweeping slashes over the metal tables and piping the enemies were sheltering behind. Big Mac displayed no such discretion, plowing directly into one such table and knocking over the Orks behind it. Rainbow Dash swooped in over him, barreling headlong into another Mek that was trying to get Applejack off of the group leader.

As for the apple farmer herself, she found herself staring right into the dazed eyes of the Gargant's pilot as the huge Ork sorted out what had happened.

"Git OFFA me, ya dumm git!" the Big Mek snarled as he started to shift under her. His power claw seized her rear leg, and the mechanism hissed before the power field crackled to life.

"Git offa mah PLANET, ya xeno freak!" Applejack snarled back, activating her gravity plating. The Mek grunted as the pony on top of him became several times heavier, and his armor servos squealed uselessly as he tried to heave her off.

Applejack raised a foreleg, a trail of gloomy purple hanging from the sole. Then she hammered it into the face of the Big Mek, shattering his bionik eye.

"Ah'm just a daggum apple farmer!" she snapped, raising the hoof and slamming it down again. "Ah shouldn't hafta put up with this hogwash!" Again her boot smashed into the Ork's face, relieving him of most of his teeth. "GIMME BACK MAH ORCHARD, YA DIRTY GREEN VARMINT!!"

The fourth blow finally pulverized the alien's skull, and Applejack cringed away after blood splattered over the face of her helmet. The klaw around her leg went slack, and after a few moments, her visor informed her that the area was secure.

Applejack stepped off of the bulky armored form and then turned around, only to find that everyone was staring at her.

"Dude," Tellis said, giving a thumbs-up, "that was HARDCORE."

"Wasn't it the Tau that damaged your farm, though?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Same difference!" Applejack shouted. Then her helmet snapped toward Tellis. "And you! What were ya thinkin', ya blood-crazy loon?!"

"What? It worked fine," Tellis pointed out.

"Ya got yer own armor! Don't be usin' mine!" Applejack growled. "If'n Ah wasn't soaked by the rain, Ah mighta caught fire when that flamer hit me!"

Tellis stared down silently for several seconds as he considered this.

"... How is your hat okay?"

Twilight directed Big Macintosh to drag away the body of the Big Mek, and then she stepped up into small and gore-splattered control alcove.

"So now we get to turn this beast on the greens, right?" Rainbow Dash asked, her helmet hissing before it disengaged. "Let's DO this!"

Twilight nodded quietly as she looked over the controls. Some three dozen assorted buttons and switches stood at the ready, plus five joysticks and two levers. Ork glyphs were attached to each control input, some of them written onto little yellow slips of paper and secured to the console with tape.

"... I feel like there should be more controls than this," Twilight mumbled as her brow furrowed, "this machine is ENORMOUS. Its control systems must be maddeningly complex."

"So what? Let's just start pressing stuff." Rainbow insisted, walking up to the console herself. "Unless you think there's a 'Mega Gargants: for Dummies' book lying around."

"There is, actually, but it's all in Orkish anyway," Tellis remarked, kicking away a small yellow booklet that was on the floor, "besides, reading is for geeks."

Twilight shook her head and blocked Rainbow's path to the controls. "Well, call me paranoid-"

"I prefer 'Princess Dork', if it's all the same to you. That nickname's here to stay," the Chaos Lord interrupted.

Twilight briefly wondered how hard it really would have been to fight off the Ork reinforcements and take the Gargant cockpit without any Astartes help. "... Sure. But as I was saying, I feel like pressing buttons and switches at random in a massive, poorly-built, walking artillery battery is a bad idea. Let's try to figure this out."

"OR..." Rarity drew the word out as she scrolled over the available vox links. "... We can ask a friend of ours who has experience with alien technology." Then she cleared her throat and linked in the rest of the ponies. "Hello, Warsmith!"

The vox caster in their helmets crackled briefly. "I shwear, if you're contacting me to complain about the rain ruining your armor finish, I will melt it down with you inshide it!"

The unicorn jerked her head back slightly. "Oh, come now! Do you really think I would bring such an ASININE complaint to the Company Warsmith?"

"Yesh."

"Yeah."

"Prob'ly."

"Eeyup."

"I don't even remember your name and even I think that would be in-character."

Twilight decided to seize control of the conversation while Rarity fumed indignantly. Also, that way she wouldn't be tempted to chime in herself. "Warsmith Solon, we've secured the cockpit of the Mega Gargant! I think we can use it against the Orks themselves before we completely disable the war machine!"

"Really? That'sh wonder-"

The ponies all cringed when a static-distorted explosion boomed in their ears. It wasn't painfully loud, but it was rather unexpected.

"Shorry, hold on." There was a rapid-fire booming noise, followed by a less noisy detonation. "That'sh wonderful! The operation ish half-way complete!"

"Uh... everythin' okay up there, Warsmith?" Applejack asked. "Ah didn't know ya were fightin' at the barricades with the others."

"Oh, I'm not." More booming noises. "Anyway, what did you need, exactly?" A loud, Orkish howl followed his question.

Twilight frowned, but pushed her doubts out of her mind. She had her own job to do. "I don't suppose you can give me a purely verbal crash-course on Ork pictography, can you?"

The sound of tearing metal filled the background as Solon replied. "No, I'm afraid not. Literacy being rather rare among Orksh, they don't have well-documented or shtandardized writing shyshtemsh." There was a heavy clanging noise. "But if you want to pilot an Ork vehicle, then you jusht have to think like an Ork."

"I haven't suffered any head injuries this mission, so I don't think I can do that," Twilight deadpanned.

"Well, then try ashking Mish Dash. She'sh had enough to lasht three mortal lifetimesh."

"Hey!" Rainbow shouted into her gorget receiver. "Okay, I know I'm not a total genius egghead loser like you guys, but just because I..." she trailed off, and then her head snapped over to Twilight. "Wait, does that mean I get to press the buttons?"

Twilight backed away from the console. "For the record, I still think this is a bad idea, but now it's Solon's bad idea," she said.

"I'm willing to take full reshponshibility for your untimely deathsh in the line of duty," Solon stated with no hesitation or irony, "do watch the heat levelsh, though; Ork coolant shyshtemsh are fragile at besht. Ash Princesh Luna ish now painfully aware."

Then another heavy clanging noise rang loud in the vox system. "All right, wash that all? Becaushe I'm rather occupied at the moment."

"That's all. Thank you, Lord," Rarity said with huff before she cut the link.

Rainbow Dash grinned maliciously as she reared up and planted her forelegs on the control console.

"Okay, so what are we working with, here?"

Twilight chewed her lip anxiously. "Well, I suppose the logic goes: if YOU were building a giant death machine, how would you arrange the controls?"

The pegasus wet her lips as she raised an eyebrow. "Well, I'd make it so that you could fire all the guns at once by pressing one big, obvious button." She paused. "It'd probably be painted in a bright color to make it stand out."

Her eyes tracked to the side, where there was a big, obtrusive yellow button sitting to the side of many smaller and less intriguing black buttons. "In fact, it'd be just like this one, here."

She paused again.

Click.

The Mega Gargant shook as every single gun and missile system discharged at once, sending massive explosions rolling over the hordes of Orks marching alongside and below the walker. The numerous belly cannons threw a staggered ordnance volley into the valley ahead, stopping the Mega Gargant in its tracks when the recoil briefly proved too much for its engines.

Rainbow laughed as the Gaze of Mork fired a searing energy beam straight forward, briefly filling the cockpit with bright light. "Oh, wow! This thing is WAY more fun from the inside!"

Twilight winced when a few alarm systems started ringing. "Okay, can you figure out aiming, next? We should try to break any high-value targets nearby."

"It's probably these," Rainbow declared, nudging one of the joysticks. Outside, the upper-right arm groaned and budged to the side in response. "I don't know how useful they're going to be, though," the pegasus grunted and stared at her boot critically, "why are we, like, the only species around without fingers, anyway?"

Twilight chose not to embark on any of her theories as to the origin of certain intergalactic cross-species evolutionary traits; the battle probably wouldn't last long enough. "Here, let me do it." Her horn lit up, and the soft purple aura tilted one of the joysticks to the side. Once again the superstructure rumbled as the arm moved, and a deep, creaking groan issued throughout the bulkheads.

Twilight frowned, staring up at the monitors on the sides of the cockpit. "I don't understand. Where's the targeting monitor? None of the screens are reacting to the joystick."

"Monitor? Why would we need that? We have a window," Rainbow pointed out, gesturing toward the large armorglass panels that made up the face of the cockpit.

"That's ridiculous!" Twilight retorted. "... So, of course that's how this was designed." She sighed.

"Hey, Twi, Ah'm gettin' worried," Applejack interrupted from where she and Big Mac guarded the cockpit entrance, "Solon sounded like he was in a whole heap o'trouble back in Ponyville. Ah think we should deep-six this rustbucket and git home."

"Why break the Gargant? We can ride this thing all the way to Ponyville!" Rainbow Dash said as she started fiddling with more switches. "We'll run down the entire enemy army in this thing!"

"Yeah, that could work," Tellis mused, "as long as none of the other hundred or so Orks on this heap don't do anything to stop us."

The very moment the Iron Warrior stopped speaking, the cockpit lights flickered. A dull whine came from the monitors and control panels as they powered down, going dark one by one. Finally, the trembling of the Gargant's movement receded and then stopped, the engine having bled away the last of its momentum.

"I just knew they were going to be uncool about this," Tellis grumbled before his visor switched to low-light mode.

A creaking noise came from below, and the team glanced down as a floor hatch opened up, spat out a stikkbomb, and then slammed shut.

"SO uncool," Rainbow Dash agreed.

Twilight quickly teleported the stikkbomb outside, wincing as the explosive peppered the cockpit with shrapnel. "Okay! It looks like the joyride is over! Let's get further down and disable this thing for good!"

"Can't we just blow up the controls here?" Rainbow Dash grunted, smashing a boot against the now-inert buttons.

"We don't know if they have some other means of controlling the Gargant, or if the Orks can jury-rig something to get it working again," Twilight refuted, "we have to cause PERMAMENT damage, here."

"On it," Tellis said as he grabbed onto Applejack.

"Oh, no ya don't!" the apple farmer growled, turning on her gravity plating immediately. "Yer not usin' me as a weapon again!"

"But it worked so well last time! C'mon hat horse, be a team player!"

Twilight grimaced. "Applejack, while I certainly don't think you should be used as a LITERAL shield, I would like you to take point. Your heavy flamer should work best in clearing a path."

"Oh, fine. Be that way," Tellis let go of the farmer, and then took a grenade off his belt as the team circled around the floor hatch. "Let's see if this works on them better than it works on us."

He pulled the pin, and then lifted up the hatch panel before rolling the grenade into it.

Panicked shrieks issued from below, followed by a muted detonation.

"Eeyup," Big Mac confirmed. He attached his harpoon to the panel and pulled it open completely, clearing the path for the others.

Applejack was the first to drop down into the hall below, inadvertently finishing off a wounded Ork by landing on his back.

Ignoring the cracking noise underneath her, Applejack immediately turned to face a half-dozen terrified Gretchin. They were all wielding tools rather than shabby knives and guns, and looked torn between dogpiling the pony or fleeing the scene.

The mare showed no such hesitation. "BURN, ya pesky varmints!"

A single burst from the heavy flamer incinerated the lot of them, as well as lighting a few exposed panels and cords on fire. Undaunted, Applejack took a few steps forward and searched for more enemies.

"All right, we're clear fer now!" she shouted upward.

Twilight dropped down after her, followed by Tellis, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Big Mac at the rear.

"All right, all these guns must require an enormous munitions stockpile," Twilight reasoned, "there should be extra ordnance supply rooms everywhere. If we arm those to blow, we can gut the entire Gargant without having to fight all the way to the reactor core."

"Sounds like a plan," Applejack said, "ya want to-" she was interrupted by a string of ricochets off of her chest plating, and she snarled at a Shoota Boy peeking around the corner ahead. "Incomin'!"

Applejack led a charge forward, and Rainbow Dash managed to squeeze past Tellis and swoop over Twilight's head to race after her.

The Ork loosed another burst down the hall, but the advantage in aiming offered by the narrow corridor couldn't compensate for the mare's heavy armor. Applejack reached the corner and swung one of her helmet tusks under the Ork's leg, throwing him onto his side. Rainbow Dash hit the wall at the end of the corridor hooves-first, mag-locking onto the bulkhead just over Applejack's head.

The next hallway, it turned out, was full of more Ork Boyz and Grots, with the former angrily trying to corral and control the latter. Rainbow loosed a high spread of shuriken into the group, and two of the larger greenskins dropped to the floor while clutching their faces.

"AJ! Cook 'em!" barked the pegasus.

"Like a fresh apple turnover!" Applejack agreed, stepping over the Ork she had knocked down. Bullets hammered her legs and shoulders, but the incoming fire wilted quickly once a tongue of outgoing fire poured into the mob. Those Gretchin that weren't incinerated bolted down the hall screaming, rushing around the legs of the Orks trying to goad them forward and knocking several down.

Rainbow Dash targeted the Orks that were still standing, ignoring the fleeing aliens. "Hey, Tellis! You gonna come help? There won't be any targets left for you at this rate!"

"I would if your Princess would move her giant purple butt! There's no room in here!" the Iron Warrior complained.

"Be quiet! The dimensions of my posterior are entirely within a healthy average range!"

"You tell yourself that, leadflank."

Applejack snapped her gravity lash forward, pulling another warrior off his feet and yanking him within kicking distance. "Whatever, we got this handled!" She pinned down the Ork with one foreleg, and then smashed down on the staggered alien with the other. "Y'all can take yer time!"

The last Ork struggling to limp away got a back full of shuriken for his efforts, and Rainbow Dash hopped down from the wall next to Applejack.

The ponies, being of narrow profile in general, could fit shoulder-to-shoulder in the relatively cramped corridor. An Iron Warrior boasting an enlarged flight pack proved to be a tighter fit, as was apparent when Twilight and Tellis rounded the corner.

"Stop kicking me!" the alicorn complained as she advanced. "Trying to shove your way forward while the others are fighting is probably going to do more harm than good!"

"That's not why I'm kicking you," Tellis confessed before booting the Princess in her armored rear.

Twilight grunted in annoyance as her hind legs bounced up off the floor. "You know, if you're getting BORED, I can always teleport you outside."

"No, apparently you CAN'T," the Chaos Lord retorted.

Twilight frowned. "Oh, right. I-" Boot. "QUIT IT!"

Rarity and Big Mac followed after Tellis, although it was hard for them to even see past the Chaos Marine, much less hope to contribute to anything going on at the front.

"Any progress on finding a room full of important, breakable things?" Rarity called out, reminding the others of why they were there.

"There's a door at the end of this hall," Applejack noted as she lumbered forward, "let's see if..."

She trailed off when a heavy pounding reverberated through the floor, and then rapidly got louder. "Hold on, Ah think somethin's comin'!"

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" Something was indeed coming.

The mega-armored Nob rounded the corner directly into the path of a stream of fire and shurikens, and plowed straight through it in a furious shoulder charge.

"NO! Look o-" was about as much warning as Applejack managed before the Nob slammed into her, shoving her back into the hovering Rainbow Dash.

"Gurk!" was all that the pegasus had to offer before the wing of her flight pack caught Twilight in the chest and carried her along.

"Aaaaah!" Twilight wailed as she was suddenly crushed from both her front and her rear.

Tellis had much faster reflexes than most ponies, and as such pushed forward to meet the inevitable pile-up rather than letting Twilight bowl him over. It wasn't quite enough to stop the momentum of the Ork's charge, however, and his greaves squealed as they were pushed along the bulkhead floor. Right into Rarity.

"This is the VERY WORST THING!" the unicorn howled as her face was mashed against what could only be considered Tellis' butt plate.

Big Mac managed to brace himself for the impact, thanks to Tellis slowing the Ork's charge down, and the collection of mangled armor suits came to a dead stop when Rarity's backside collided with his chest. Then, with a fierce snort, he began to push back.

"OW! OW! OW!" screamed Twilight, being in the exact middle of the crush of metal. "Stop it! Everybody, stop this right now! OW!"

"You'z gitz fink ya can hy-jakk our dakka?" laughed the Nob, his armor creaking while he continued pushing forward. On the one hand, he couldn't really use his weapons in this position, but on the other, none of the ponies had the leverage to attack him, either.

"No, no, we gave up on that," Tellis said, "we're just trying to destroy it now."

"Wot?! Well, dat ain't happenin', Spiky!"

"TWI!" Rainbow Dash grunted as her armor strained around her. "Do something magical! Now!"

"OW! OW! SERIOUSLY! I FEEL LIKE MY NECK IS ABOUT TO SNAP!!" said Princess screeched.

Rainbow quickly reconsidered their situation. "Tellis! Do something awesome! Now!"

"'Kay." Tellis reached behind him, and Rarity's eyes bulged as he seized her around the leg plate.

"What are you doing?! No! Stop!" the unicorn shouted desperately.

"Yo, mute pony, ya wanna shift a bit? I need the prissy white one," the Iron Warrior asked.

Big Macintosh groaned and moved to place more of his weight against the Raptor himself. Then Tellis pulled, and Rarity's armor shrieked (as did she) as he tore her free of the crush of armored bodies.

"No! No! No! NO!!" Rarity's denials swiftly rose in volume and pitch to match Twilight's complaints as Tellis bounced her up into the air to hold her under the abdomen on one hand.

"I dub this technique: Pearl Javelin!" the Chaos Lord proclaimed before launching the unicorn forward.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Despite her (loud) protests, Rarity did at least activate her magic before impact. Her horn casing struck the Nob in the forehead with a tremendous flash of light and crackle of power, briefly overloading Applejack's visor system. The Ork keeled back instantly, tumbling onto his massively armored back into a heap.

The ponies previously being crushed were immediately spilled onto the floor, much to their relief.

"I should go on these small-squad pony missions more often. This is fun!" Tellis said happily.

"Hate... you... SO... much..." whimpered Rarity. The unicorn was splayed out on top of the Ork Nob, her helmet splattered with scraps of the alien's head.

Twilight chose not to address the continuing use of ponies as improvised wargear. "Okay, everybody, just... calm down and catch your breath. We need-"

A clattering noise came from the next corner, and another stikkbomb bounced off the wall and landed at Applejack's hooves.

"Oh, give it a rest!" Twilight shouted before she magically sent the stikkbomb back on the exact same trajectory. It exploded a moment later, followed by a shout of agony.

"Think we don't have time fer a break," Applejack grumbled, stepping forward and nudging Rarity, "ya gonna be okay, sugarcube?"

"There are BRAINS splashed over my visor," Rarity informed her as she shuddered.

"Wow, who knew that greenskins had those?" Rainbow snickered before she leap-frogged over the other ponies and landed in front of the door they had been inspecting.

"Knock, knock!" Rainbow mag-locked three of her boots and then pressed her fourth against the door before triggering her impulse blaster.

The door burst off its hinges and was flung into the room, slamming into a far wall.

"Whatcha got, Dash?" Applejack asked as the rest of the team approached.

Rainbow fired a burst of shuriken into the room, but didn't bother seeking cover or otherwise moving out of the doorway. "Just a couple Grots."

"Well, what're they doin' in there?"

"Having a tea party," Rainbow chuckled as she fired another burst, shredding another two Gretchin while she walked into the room.

"Ya don't need to get all sarcastic with-" Applejack entered the room herself, and then halted just inside the doorway. "Oh. They really were havin' a tea party." There was a small metal table set up in the middle of the room, complete with a tea set and stale crumpets. This was especially odd given that the rest of the room was full of stacked shells, belts of bullets, and a cluster of massive missiles in the back.

Twilight came next, blinking past Applejack and releasing a sigh of relief after she looked around. "Okay, perfect! This is the munitions deck!"

Tellis peeked in after her. "Looks like a break room to me."

"Then what's with all the ordnance?" Applejack asked of the Iron Warrior.

"They cram ammunition into EVERY room. But not every room gets a tea set."

Twilight shook her head as Big Mac entered. "Whatever! It'll do! Let's get these charges placed before-"

"Dis way! Dey're in 'ere!" came a shout from down the hall.

"... Before this happens," Twilight groused, "all right everyone, let's pick up the pace! I want melta charges on everything that looks like it might explode! Tellis, you cut down anything that tries to stop us!"

"Can I use you as a weapon?" the Chaos Lord asked as Big Mac opened up the case of melta bombs.

"No!" Twilight snapped, levitating two bombs out of the case and over to the missiles.

"Aw, c'mon! I have the best name for it, though! 'Smart Bomb'!"

"Why aren't you busy stabbing greenskins?" Rarity asked tightly before she levitated a few melta bombs out for herself.

"Good question," the Iron Warrior mumbled, looking away.

Then an Ork came charging into the room, choppa raised and slugga bucking in his hands. The first slash took off his pistol arm, and then Tellis rammed his lightning claws up into the warrior's jaw.

He let that Ork drop, and then another came rushing into the doorway, choppa already swinging. Tellis cut away the weapon mid-shaft, and then smashed his elbow into his opponent's throat.

"Still feel like I could be doing better if I could throw a pony at them," he said before he clashed his claws together, blocking the next attacker.

Rainbow Dash twisted the handle of a melta bomb with her teeth, and then tossed it into a pile of stikkbombs. "All these things are on signum detonators, right?"

"Eeyup."

"Uh, hey, anypony give any thought as to how we're gettin' outta here 'fore this thing blows?" Applejack asked.

"There's an opening near the back for the ammo hoppers!" Twilight explained as she affixed more melta bombs to more missiles. "They have to have a way to get all these munitions to the guns, after all!"

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" The ponies cringed at the ear-splitting roar behind them, followed by the sound of grinding ceramite.

"Hey, knock it off!" Tellis snapped as he held back a two-handed choppa with a whirling buzzsaw for a blade. While the weapon started chewing through his shoulder pad, the Chaos Marine punched his claws into the stomach of the Nob advancing on him. Repeatedly.

Applejack bit onto the handle of another melta bomb to arm it, and then re-engaged her helmet. "All right, Ah think that's the last of 'em! Let's ditch this carrot stand!"

On the far wall of the room was a large armored shutter, situated next to a wooden cabinet hosting a diverse collection of herbal and breakfast teas. Twilight rushed over to a control panel boasting a single button on it mounted next to the shutter.

"I really do have to give the Orks credit for making these things simple," Twilight admitted, jumping up and bashing the button.

The metal hatches started to grind open, releasing a rush of air and water into the room. Outside was a huge servo claw, presumably for loading munitions into the ammo hoppers and launchers.

"Okay, so now what?" Applejack shouted as she rushed over to the open slot in the bulkhead. "We just gonna jump and hope we can push through the thousand or so Orks down there? 'Cuz Ah think we rate a better chance where we are!"

Twilight chewed her lip anxiously. "I'm thinking! Hold on!"

"No pressure over here," Tellis shouted as he slammed both fists down onto an Ork's head, "I think the piled-up bodies should seal this entrance soon!"

Then a stikkbomb flew over his shoulder and bounced along the floor.

"Ugh, this again?" Rarity magically flung the stikkbomb back where it came from, eliciting a howl from the Orks clustered around the entrance right before it exploded. "I suppose I shouldn't complain, but really, they don't learn!"

"I THINK that's probably because every guy that tries that, or is around when another guy tries that, dies right away," Rainbow reasoned, "makes it hard to get the word out."

"Okay! I know what to do!" Twilight suddenly shouted as thunder crashed outside. "I see a Squiggoth passing by!"

"Uh, okay. So?" Applejack asked.

"So, we're going to hijack it!" Twilight decided. "I'll teleport us ponies over, and Tellis can join us after that!"

Rarity winced. "Well, I suppose we don't have any better options..."

Tellis raised his hand.

"We are NOT letting you hurl us onto the Squiggoth one-by-one!" Twilight snapped.

"Man, you guys are NO fun," the Iron Warrior snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. Then a slugga round hit the back of his leg, staggering him.

"Damn it! We're done with you, now! Go away!" He plunged his claws into the head of the Ork boy climbing over the pile of bodies, returning his attention to the warriors trying to push into the room.

"All right! Get ready!" Twilight shouted as her friends clustered behind her. The giant, dinosaur-like beast was a dim shadow in the rain, and seemed to be struggling slightly with a wound that slowed its long march to the main battle. The armored fort built into a howdah on its back had a large gouge taken out of it, probably from a lucky artillery strike. The gap was easily big enough for all five ponies to fall into, but the Squiggoth was quite a distance away and in motion, which complicated the spell.

"This is going to be close..." Twilight warned as her visor zoomed in on the beast and listed the relevant calculations for her. She would never even attempt a group teleport with this little room for error without assistance. But even with her suit cogitator doing the math for her, the timing was going to be dangerously tight.

"Uh... would it help if I just flew there with Tellis?" Rainbow asked. "Because I can totally do that. You don't need to-"

"Too late! Now!"

Applejack's senses went fuzzy when the teleport engulfed her. Then they suddenly snapped back into focus, and she was instantly aware of the stomach-turning sensation of a free-fall.

Luckily for her, there was a nice, firm landing pad beneath her that cushioned her impact with the howdah floor. It wasn't ideal, seeing how her cushion immediately started yelling at her, but it was better than nothing.

"Guh! Git offa me, ya fat lunk-hed! Yer loik a zoggin' trukk!" shouted the straining Ork underneath her.

"Hey!" Applejack snapped as she righted herself atop the alien's back. "Ah ain't fat! Ah've just got farmer's muscles!"

She paused. "Also, shut up n'die!" A heavy stomp square in the back splintered the Ork's spine.

A choppa slammed into the side of Applejack's helmet, alerting her to the fact that a general melee had broken out behind her. Rarity's power sword spun and stabbed as she tried to keep out of clubbing range of the Orks, while Rainbow Dash and Big Macintosh were blasting and kicking the Orks out of the hole in the howdah (respectively).

A sharp crackling noise came from the center of the chaos, where Twilight's harmonizer blade was sparking dangerously while it squirmed in the grip of an Ork power klaw.

"This transport is ours, now!" the alicorn snapped, her horn flaring with power.

"Dis iz owr Squiggoth!" snarled the Nob, swinging a kick at the armored Princess. "We wuz heah furst!"

"Valid points!" Twilight conceded as she dodged back. "I'd like to refer you to a counter-argument I call 'your face is on fire'!"

True to the name of the technique, a firebolt lashed out from the alicorn's horn and immolated the Nob's head. The giant Ork reeled back in pain, and Twilight wrenched her harmonizer blade free from his klaw before stabbing it into his chest.

"All right! Everyone who doesn't have a confirmed mammalian evolutionary ancestry, this is your stop!"

Before Rainbow Dash had the chance to ask if that meant she was being kicked off the Squiggoth, Twilight started firing concentrated telekinetic bursts into the remaining Orks. One by one the warriors were blasted off their feet and off of the howdah, spilling them into the mud below.

Applejack bucked an Ork in the same direction, sending him flailing through the air in a much more impressive arc than his brothers. "Okay! We clear?"

"Just about, yes," Rarity grumbled, shoving her sword down into the back of a prone alien, "if one doesn't count the hundreds of other soldiers surrounding us." Her armor was rather badly dented and gouged by now, not to mention stained with Ork blood.

Not that the others were much better. Big Mac's visor was badly cracked and his heavy bolter had been ripped off, while Rainbow Dash's flight pack was leaking sparks all over her back. Applejack's armor appeared to be the worst off in terms of being scorched, hammered, and nicked, but was at least in fully functional shape thanks to its far heavier construction.

Plus her hat was completely undamaged, somehow.

"All right, when do we blow the Gargant?" Applejack asked.

Twilight paused to cut away the ladders that allowed access to the howdah, and she smirked when she heard angry howls and wet impacts coming from below. "Well, the brief said that Gargant reactors cause enormous damage upon destruction, so we probably have to get further away before we detonate the charges."

Rainbow cleared her throat. "ALSO, we need to wait until Tellis gets back."

"I don't see why," Rarity sniffed, "he survived the last exploding vehicle without a problem. Let's have a little faith in the psychotic monster!"

"Where IS he, anyway?" Applejack asked, looking up at the towering behemoth they had been sent to destroy. "Shouldn't take that long to break outta there and fly down here."

****

Mega Gargant - engine room

"DOUBLE KILL!" Tellis boomed as he raked his claws across an Ork's throat.

"MULTI KILL!" he said in an equally deep, reverberating voice as he stomped on a Grot.

"ULTRA KILL!" next came a Mek, which got his lightning claws to the chest before Tellis punched him in the face.

"KILTROCITY!" his flight pack blasted a Slugga Boy with flame, sending him howling onto the floor.

"KILAMAJ... KILLA... shit, what was the next one, again?" Tellis asked, pausing suddenly in his rampage.

A slugga round deflected off his chest plate, and he responded by stomping on the head of the wounded Ork that had shot him, spreading his skull - and its contents - out over the blood-soaked floor.

Then he paused and looked around. "Wait, what was I doing?"

The massive, grinding engines next to him suddenly started humming as power was restored. Then the lights flickered on overhead, and Tellis smacked a fist into his palm.

"Right! Retreat and escape! Totally forgot."

He turned around and dashed back toward the break room, dodging over the numerous corpses he had left on the way through the walker.

****

Mega Gargant exterior - Squiggoth

"Well, regardless of what happens to Tellis, we need to figure out a way to control this animal," Twilight decided, stamping a foot down on the floor.

The armored fort that made up the Squiggoth's howdah shook with every step the creature took, but the shaking was receding noticeably as the Squiggoth seemed to figure out that something had happened to its riders. They had barely passed by the Mega Gargant by now, and the massive beast had already slowed to a calm walk.

Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue. "What a time to be separated from Fluttershy. She would be perfect for this!"

"Yeah, she would, but she has her own job," Applejack mused as she walked to the end of the howdah. "Let me take a crack at it. Ah have mah own way with critters."

"Ah, Applejack?" Rarity said, pointing a hoof in the opposite direction. "The beast's head is on that end."

The farmer ignored her, reaching the end of the howdah and finding an opening in the floor. Looking down, she could see the leathery, rolling flesh of the Squiggoth's hindquarters under the rickety floor plating.

"Hold on to yer hats! Er, helmets!" she stuck the mouth of her heavy flamer into the gap.

The Squiggoth groaned as the flamer started to scorch its rear, and that rumbling protest became a ferocious roar as the stream of fire got hotter. The howdah shook dangerously, and the Squiggoth accelerated to an angry sprint.
Rainbow Dash cheered. "All right! We'll be back at Ponyville in no time!" Then she stopped to think about that eventuality. "I hope they don't shoot us 'cause we're on a Squiggoth."

"We can contact them when we arrive to let them know we're aboard," Twilight assured her.

"And how do we keep the Squiggoth from rampaging through our allies, if they can't kill it?" Rarity asked. "We don't exactly have a tight reign on this abominable creature."

"Er..."

Their conversation was interrupted by the report of possibly hundreds of shootas discharging from the mobs around them. All the ponies hit the deck, afraid that the Orks had decided to gun down their transport beast.

As the shooting continued, it became clear that this wasn't the case. They couldn't hear any ricochets against the howdah plating, and honestly even Ork gunners could usually hit the broad side of a Squiggoth.

"Incoming! Ow!" Tellis swooped into the hole gouged into the Squiggoth howdah, staggering on his landing and falling to his knee.

"Tellis! You made it!" Rainbow said, running up to the Iron Warrior and extending a leg toward him.

Tellis bumped her boot with his gauntlet knuckle, although his breath was heaving. "Yeah. Got a little caught up murdering. You know how it is." His armor was badly scored by numerous bullet impacts, and deep red cracks had formed where the plating had split open.

"Well, take a seat and get some rest," Twilight advised, "at this rate it will take us at least twenty minutes to get back to Ponyville, I figure."

"Oh, right! Also, the Mega Gargant is moving again," Tellis said, pointing over his shoulder, "thought you should know."

The ponies' eyes widened, and they rushed to the firing slits in the rear of the howdah.

"They must have gotten more troops into the cockpit after we left!" Twilight growled. The Mega Gargant was indeed moving again, its giant tracks grinding a slow path forward through the mud.

"Yeah, guess so," the Chaos Lord agreed, "also, they totally saw me fly here, and they're probably REALLY pissed off."

Twilight paled while the arms and cannons of the gargantuan war machine started to orient themselves downward.

"Detonator! Detonator! NOW!!"

Big Mac started fumbling with his servo arm to open the munitions box, but Rarity practically pounced on the stallion and pried it open with her sword instead.

"Faster! Faster! FASTER!!" Twilight demanded as the glow of the Gargant's eyes glimmered through the sheets of rain.

"Got it!" Rarity declared before she magically lifted the detonator up and squeezed the button.

The Mega Gargant rocked back as the first explosions blasted through its superstructure, vomiting flame out of the loading bays. Then new chains of explosions tore through it as the detonating ordnance blew up other stored munitions, blowing out big chunks of armor from the inside. An arm fell off after an ammo hopper exploded, and most of the cannons sticking out of its belly were ripped apart when fireballs erupted from the gun ports in quick succession.

The super-heavy walker shuddered to a halt, smoke and flame pouring from dozens of armor breaches.

Then the reactor finally detonated, and the very earth shook as it bore witness to the death of a mechanical God.

****

Ponyville - town hall

Shining Armor gasped and coughed as his eyes fluttered open. "Wh-Wha... What..."

"Yes! He's alive! Awesome work, Doc!"

"Oh... Oh dear... that was close..."

Shining was distantly aware of ponies talking above him, but was rushing to get his jumbled thoughts in order as consciousness spilled into his aching skull.

First order of business: body. He felt AWFUL. He was clearly lying down, yet every muscle that wasn't aching felt like it was on fire. Not a good start.

Second: mind. His thought process seemed to be coming along nicely, but he was having some trouble recalling what he was doing before he had lost consciousness. Wasn't there a battle or something? He had a distinct sense that he hadn't fallen asleep, and being forcibly rendered comatose was bad as a general rule.

Third: environment. Yeah, okay, there was definitely a battle going on. Like, right now, all around him. Full of the roar of gunfire, booming explosions, screams of the dying, etc. He was inside right now, but he could hear a pair of Iron Warriors shouting orders to each other in their growling, vox-distorted voices, and outside Orks were cackling with laughter and roaring battle cries in their own crude, Gothic-derived language.

That was rather alarming.

"Hey, Cap, you with us?" asked one of the ponies leaning over him.

There were two unicorns watching him. One was a stallion, and clearly a doctor, even if he was wearing a flak helmet. One was a mare, and just as clearly part of the unicorn cabal that had...

Wait. The cabal...

"Aw, PONYFEATHERS," Shining Armor hissed as he recalled what he was SUPPOSED to be doing right now, "what the hay happened?"

"The Orks got a bit clever, it would seem!" replied a voice from the window. Craning his neck over, Shining could see General Cyrus Gnoss at the window, firing a bolt pistol out of it. "They managed to sneak a force of Kommandos behind our lines, and somehow even knew to target you! I'm a bit impressed!"

Shining started to shift to get up, and then stopped as more pain surged through his body.

"As for you, you got shot. Badly," said the unicorn medicae, "your armor prevented most of the projectiles from penetrating, but the sheer force of the blast caused quite a bit of damage. I can't even guess at the moment how many of your bones are broken, but you aren't bleeding to death anymore."

"And the cabal?" Shining grunted.

The unicorn mare, a white pony with a multi-toned blue mane and magenta eyes, chewed on her lip briefly. "Probably about halfway to Canterlot, by now. Most of us bolted as soon as you hit the ground. The General over there managed to stop some and got us to drag you out of there while his dudes fought off the greens."

Shining Armor sighed as he nodded. "All right. How much longer do we figure the front line can hold without my shield?"

The ponies looked away, wincing.

"... Oh. I see. We're in trouble, aren't we?" the Captain asked nervously.

"I realize that you were on death's door just moments ago," Gnoss interjected as he ducked and reloaded his pistol, "but is there any chance you can manage another barrier in short order?"

"A small one, maybe," Shining grit his teeth as his horn flickered, "with the help of Miss..."

"Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch," the mare replied, saluting nervously.

"With the help of Miss Scratch, here, it might be able to hold back an Ork mob, but nothing like the earlier shield," he finished.

"Well, that's-"

The General was interrupted by a shrieking, metallic noise from the opposite wall, and the soldiers in the town hall whirled around as a giant buzzsaw started tearing through the building.

"Kan! Kan incoming!" shouted a human soldier as he started scrambling for new cover.

While the cackling walker tore through the wall, one of the Iron Warriors switched the setting on his combi-melta and took aim. After a few seconds the Ork vehicle crashed through the weakened wall and into the building proper, its saw whirling and its pincer claw snapping.

The jet of super-heated melta gas stopped the walker in its tracks, dissolving much of the front armor and leaving a gaping hole in the vehicle.

With an annoyed snort, another Chaos Space Marine tossed a krak grenade into the hole. Then he turned back to his previous firing point, gunning down passing Orks while the Killa Kan staggered.

"Well I can see that you're doing just fine so I suppose my work here is done!" the doctor pony said breathlessly as the walker collapsed. "Lot of other wounded to take care of behind the front lines! Busy, busy, busy!" The stallion leapt over a table that had been refashioned into a barricade and sprinted out the door, wailing in fear the entire time.

Shining Armor sighed, and then looked up at Vinyl. "You're handling this pretty well, all things considered."

"Oh, I've completely broken down by now!" she replied with perfectly hollow cheer. "I'm literally too terrified to move! Or else I would be long gone!"

"Well, as long as your legs are locked into place, do you mind if lean on you for a bit?" Shining asked. "Mine aren't in the best shape right now."

"Knock yourself out, Cap!" Vinyl said. "But not literally, please. That shield thing sounds like a really good idea right now."

"Damned Squiggoths!" Gnoss cursed as a giant, badly wounded beast trampled over a Chimera outside. "The bloody things don't last long in heavy crossfire, but they keep knocking over garrisons and guard towers!" An echoing roar followed his complaint, and then the floor trembled as one such enormous beast fell onto its side.

Shining Armor took a few deep breaths as Vinyl Scratch helped him up, and then he gingerly wrapped his foreleg over her withers. "All right, level with me, General: how bad is it?"

Cyrus Gnoss flinched away from the window as a line of bullets stitched across it. "Hard to say, honestly," he admitted after he stepped aside, behind the wall. "If I were running this defense alone, I'd consider this a rout and call the retreat. However, our Astartes masters are not so easily overcome. The Iron Warriors have exacted a fantastic toll on the greenskins as they've poured into town and assaulted the garrisons, and they have back-up plans in place for this sort of scenario." He shrugged. "But I don't think it needs to be said that we're outnumbered and see little prospect of breaking the enemy's advance!"

A scream came from the adjacent room, along with the crashing of furniture being knocked over.

"Hold your position, you grayskin whelps!" shouted one of the Iron Warriors at the door. "There will be no further retreat!"

As the bloodied body of a Fire Warrior was flung into the room, smashing the door to splinters, it became clear that the choice between fight and flight had already become moot.

A Burna Boy burst out from the next room, and Shining's horn flashed before the laughing alien discharged his signature weapon into the defenders.

The laughter gained a rather confused tone as the flame collided with a pinkish-purple wall, blocking its spread to the enemy warriors.

As soon as the burst of fire stopped the shield disappeared, and the Burna Boy was promptly gutted by bolter fire. The two Iron Warriors rushed to the doorway after he fell, one tossing a grenade into the next room.

"We will hold the North side! Secure reinforcements as soon as you can!" declared one of the Chaos Marines as the grenade exploded. He and his partner drew their chainswords and rushed into the fray a moment later.

"So what do we do now?" Shining Armor asked as the grisly buzz of chainblades faded behind the walls.

"We hold position and keep begging for more troops every few minutes," General Gnoss said with a grimace, "assuming the tactical situation doesn't change."

A heavy clang came from behind the wrecked Killa Kan that was currently blocking entry through the hole it had made in the wall. Then a stikkbomb bounced into the room from between its smoldering legs.

"The tactical situation has changed!" Shining shouted, again summoning a barrier. This time it was a small dome placed around the explosive, and the stallion winced painfully when the Ork grenade detonated.

"We've got incoming!" the remaining human troopers shouted as the hulk of metal was shoved aside.

Shining Armor quickly put up another barrier in front of the hole in the wall, squeezing his eyes shut in concentration. As such, he didn't get a good look at the figure stepping in behind the shield, although he did catch Vinyl's terrified whimper next to him.

The Ork currently standing behind the glimmering magic shield and sizing it up was HUGE. Compared to an average-sized mare like Vinyl Scratch, the mundane Orks were big, but this greenskin dwarfed even the massive Nobs by no small measure. He wasn't wearing mega armor, but was hoisting a massive shotgun and had a belt loaded with more stikkbombs. The Ork was also covered with splashes and stripes of purple war paint, for whatever reason.

"'Ello, hossy," the Ork said with a grin as he stood in front of the barrier, "ya didn't fink ya'd git away frum me so eezy, did ya?"

Shining Armor snapped his eyes open, and aside from finally seeing for himself how unreasonably big this new enemy was, he was extremely perturbed to see that the alien was staring down at him. Not the humans, who arguably posed a much greater potential threat to the enemy, but HIM, specifically.

"Wh-What? Who...?"

"I'm Zoktoof," the Ork Warboss cocked his scattagunn as he introduced himself. This ended up sending a perfectly usable shell bouncing away over the ground, but he felt it was worth it for the intimidating "ch-chak" sound. "I'm heah ta givv ya a messuj frum Warboss Redclawz."

The stallion gulped. "Wh-What message?"

The Ork infiltrator chuckled. "Boom."

All at once, three explosions blasted new holes in the wall from outside. The remaining mercenaries quickly turned their guns on the new breaches as Ork Kommandos rushed into the room, spraying burst fire and shouting battlecries.

"G-General! What should I do?!" Shining asked. His eyes were locked on the Warboss - who seemed content to wait behind the barrier - but he could already hear the gut-wrenching sounds of blades carving into flesh right behind him.

Gnoss fired his bolt pistol into the nearest Kommando, and as the Ork staggered back he darted forward and slashed the warrior open with his power sword. "Keep the Warboss constrained! We'll deal with this!"

He turned and side-stepped a choppa swing, cutting another Ork across the shin as he passed.

Zoktoof calmly tapped his knuckles against Shining's barrier as his boyz dueled with the human soldiers.

"So dis iz ya hoss majik, eh?" He snorted. "Dis all ya got? 'Eadbusta wud eet ya fer lunch."

"You mean that... figuratively, right?" the unicorn asked nervously.

Rather than answer the pointless question (and admit that he had no idea what "figuratively" meant), Zoktoof reared an arm back and hammered a fist into the barrier.

"Hgyaugh!" Shining Armor felt a surge of pain from the impact, and if he wasn't already leaning most of his weight on Vinyl he probably would have collapsed. He knew that Orks were strong, and was aware that he was exceptionally weak at the moment, but even with that in mind the blow had been disturbingly powerful.

"Scratch," he gasped, "get out of here... run! I can't hold him off!"

"Cap, it is taking everything I got just to keep from fainting right now," Vinyl said, her entire body trembling and silent tears running down her cheeks, "I'm not going ANYWHERE."

Zoktoof punched the barrier again, and then a third time. Each blow caused an agonizing energy flare to surge through Shining's horn, and the shield started flickering weakly by the time the Warboss aimed a fourth blow.

Shining Armor let the barrier fall rather than letting the Ork bash through it, and at least got some small satisfaction out of seeing the alien stagger forward in surprise.

That little victory shriveled rapidly as the Warboss drew a serrated machete-like choppa as long as he was.

"Whatever you do to me, let the mare go!" Shining Armor growled as the Ork walked up to them.

"Nah," Zoktoof casually refused as he raised his choppa over the ponies.

Then he suddenly shifted to guard his face with his arm, and two reports of a pistol put two mass-reactive rounds in his forearm.

"Xenos scum!" Gnoss roared as he charged across the room, power sword crackling. Blood streamed down the side of his head - both his and that of his previous foes - but the old warrior didn't seem at all phased as he sprinted toward a foe thrice his size.

Zoktoof laughed as he met the new challenge, completely ignoring the bloody gouges in his arm. He swung his choppa at the charging General, but the man changed direction at an intuitive moment, letting the blade pass by his shoulder. Then he lanced his sword forward, stabbing the cracking point of his weapon into Zoktoof's abdomen.

The Ork was reluctantly impressed. Rather than admitting such a thing, or really acknowledging the wound in any meaningful way, he instead clubbed the General over the head with the scattagunn in his off-hand.

A resounding CRACK came from the pirate's skull before he was slammed onto the ground, and Cyrus Gnoss promptly lost his grip on both his weapons.

"Dark Gods... c-curse you," Gnoss spat, speaking through the blood pooling in his mouth.

"Sho, humie. Wotevah ya say." Zoktoof aimed his scattagun at the man's back and pulled the trigger.

Shining Armor had to figure that he had been much farther away when this weapon had been used on him, and that the distance had weakened the shot. At the current range between the gun muzzle and General Gnoss, the officer's entire torso was pulverized, and any armor he might have been wearing was a moot point. The man was reduced to a blood slick.

Smoke wafted from Zoktoof's scattagunn as he cocked it, ejecting a shredded, fist-sized shell casing. "In da end, hoss majik and humie tek ain't no mach fer gud ol' Orky fightin' powah."

Shining Armor's horn flared, and the power sword stuck in Zoktoof's gut thrust itself an inch deeper.

The Warboss grunted irritably while he loaded his smoldering weapon with another shell, but otherwise ignored the blade in his stomach as he turned a dark gaze on the ponies. "If youz gonna be a payn 'bout dis, I'z gonna kill youz sloh."

This threat apparently pushed Vinyl Scratch past her limit. Her legs buckled and she swooned, dumping her and the pony Captain onto the floor.

"No mo' juju," Zoktoof mumbled, aiming his sizzling gun straight at Shining's head.

Then he paused when the first few creeping sensations of pain finally made the long trek from his hands to his head. His scattagunn was literally cooking the skin of his palms. It was getting so hot, in fact, that it was starting to glow. That wasn't normal.

"Wot da zog?" Zoktoof dropped the massive shotgun, taking a step back. As soon as it hit the floor, the weapon stock burst into flames, and the metal started to deform.

About that time, the Warboss became aware of a bright light coming from behind him where he had entered through the hole in the wall. He turned around.

"... Anudder hoss?" he mumbled in confusion. This one was bigger than the one inside, though. And it was wearing golden, bejeweled medieval-era plate armor. And its eyes were glowing a solid, angry yellow.

Zoktoof had the feeling it was upset about something.

"P-Princess Celestia!" Shining Armor stuttered, his eyes wide.

The Ork, for his part, didn't waste any more time and rushed the white alicorn. As he charged, his choppa was pointed forward for a quick, satisfying throat stabbing.

That didn't happen.

A searing bolt of light blasted from Celestia's horn, stopping the Warboss in his tracks when it plunged into his chest and then seemed to vanish into his skin.

"I overheard that you have an interest in our magic, Ork," Celestia said darkly as her eyes and horn pulsed with destructive energies, "you have seen Captain Armor's skills. Now witness mine."

Seams of golden power slowly ran through Zoktoof's flesh from the point of impact, and the infiltrator grunted painfully while his fluids literally started to boil inside him.

The Ork screamed in pain and fury, but the howl quickly withered to nothing as his flesh crumbled away to ashes. Gnoss's power sword tumbled onto the ground at Celestia's hooves, smoke curling around its blade.

"... Princess?" Shining mumbled, fairly stunned to have seen Celestia dispatch an enemy like that. Or at all, really.

"Captain Shining Armor," Celestia said regally, nodding slightly as her horn dimmed. "It is good to see you again, and still alive. The battle is faring worse than I'd feared."

"Yeah, I kind of dropped the ball on this one," the Captain admitted with a wince, "but... what are you doing here?"

Celestia formed a grim, slightly sad smile as she turned her head toward the sounds of more explosions and gunfire.

"Let's just say I heard a cry for help."

Author's Note

Boy, am I glad that nobody asked for a Cyrus Gnoss chapter in Visions of Darkness.
It should be obvious by now that I've completely failed in my quest to not make this engagement into a giant three-part extravaganza. I'm sure my readers are absolutely devastated, but I pray that you all may contain your disappointment while I wrap up this fiasco.

Also, for those of you with a few dollars to spare, please be aware that I am a contestant in the Tournament of Canterlot! The tournament page can be found here, while my donation page is here. Regardless of whether you contribute or not, thank you as always for your support!

Counter Strike

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 7

Counter Strike

****

Ork army - 0.7 kilometers outside of Ponyville

"Izzit troo, den?"

"Yah, it iz. Dat 'sploshun wuz da biggun. Dere ain't nuffin' left. Da Sole o'Gork is nuffin but scrap."

"Unpossibul! How'd da humies do it?"

"Wuzn't dere a buncha playns 'n wutnot?"

"Yah, dere wuz. Dat ain't wot killed it, doh..."

Sheltering next to the hull of a broken-down Battlewagon, three Nobs huddled close to the vehicle to shelter from the rain. The transport had suffered a partial hit from an earthshaker cannon and had its tracks shredded, and the Ork mob that had been packed inside was milling about restlessly while a Mek saw to fixing the vehicle.

"No way!" snarled one of the Nobs, his brow creasing angrily. "You'z lyin'!"

"Sweah ta Mork, dat's wot I 'eard," grumbled another. "Dere wuz a mob o'Stormboyz dat wuz sent ta git sum hosses offa da Sole o'Gork. An' now?"

The Nob pointed off into the distance. There wasn't really anything visible past the storm, but the other Orks knew full well what he was referring to. The explosion that had marked the end of the Mega Gargant had been visible for miles around. The heat and wind currents had been so intense that the storm clouds above what they presumed was now a smoking crater had been burned away, forming a large break in the rain. If the boys catching up from the rear of the horde were to be believed, anyway.

"You'z sayin' HOSSES killed da Mega Gargant?" the third Nob said in a near-whisper.

The Nob divulging this tidbit snorted and glowered. "Dunno. Wot's yer Boss, Redclawz say?"

"He ain't sed nuffin'," mumbled the second Nob.

"Dat's roight!" barked the first Ork. "We'z not even ta da humie fort, an' Boss Redclawz gits two Gargants stomped! Wot kinda boss izze?"

"Dat ain't da boss's fawlt!" claimed another. "Mebbe Coggz jus' mayks lowsy dakka!"

"Bah! Coggz ain't da wun lettin' hosses blo up da big gunz!" the first Nob growled.

The third Ork peeked out in the storm, staring up at the looming figure of the third - and evidently last - Gargant in their army. The massive war machine was slowly lumbering along down the valley, in no obvious hurry to reach combat.

He shook his head and pulled back. "Ya fink da hosses'll kill dis wun, too?"

"Onlee if ya dum gitz let 'em!" the second Nob snarled.

"Wot kinda Warboss can't stop a cuppel hosses frum braykin' da big dakka?" the first snapped back. "Noh wut I fink? I fink Redclawz ain't no gud as Boss!"

"'Ey!" the other Nob barked, shoving the insubordinate Ork in the chest. "Boss Redclawz got us a fight, didn' he? Youz gonna let sum liddel hossy scayr ya? We ain't even seen a humie yet, an' dey alreddy got ya runnin' scayrd!"

The other Ork shoved back. "If'n dis keeps up, den we'z gonna LOOZ. Orks don' looz!"

"An we ain't gonna, neethah!" the Nob insisted, turning around and walking out into the pouring rain. He pointed his choppa dramatically at the Great Gargant. "We'z got biggah dakka an' mo' boyz dan da Spikies! Dey can't stop us! We'z da Orks! An' no-wun fights bettah!"

"An' if da hosses sho up ta kill da las' Gargant?" asked a skeptical Nob.

The other Ork snorted, pounding a fist into his chest as the rain washed down his shoulders. "Hah! Any hosses sho deir dumm fayss 'round heah, I'll bash 'em meself!" The Ork warrior laughed, relishing the thought of encountering the small, spineless equines on the battlefield.

Then a Maulerfiend stepped on him.

The other Orks stared mutely as no less than five siege walkers sprinted by, splashing a wave of mud - and bits of their fellow Ork - over their boots. They even thought they could hear a voice squeaking "Excuse us!" while the war machines thundered past.

"Da zog did dey com frum?" yelled one Nob in disbelief, glancing back at the walker's path. There was nothing over that way except mountains and a few more mobs of equally surprised boyz. Unless the walkers had materialized from thin air, he couldn't figure out how machines so large had gotten so close without any Orks noticing.

The other Nob was less concerned with where they came from, and more worried about where they were going. The daemonic machines weren't leaping at their vehicles, thrashing at their mobs, or even trampling their poorly armored artillery squadrons nearby. They were making a mad dash straight for the biggest and deadliest weapon in the field.

"Ah, zog. Dere gohs da las' Gargant..."

The Maulerfiends shrieked as they cut across the valley at top speed, rushing over scattered Ork infantry and leaping over stunned vehicles in their path. Fluttershy meekly shouted apologies while she rode by on the back of the Maulerfiend Hierix, the armor plates shifting and shaking underneath her. She considered firing off a photon grenade to try to hinder some of the Orks that may fight back, but ultimately decided against it. She wasn't at all confident in her accuracy under the best of conditions, much less while being carried along at breakneck speed. Besides, the Orks didn't seem to be shooting at her at all.

And then, seemingly all at once, they did.

Shocked as the aliens were to find a sudden incursion of daemonic walkers, the Orks advancing toward the front lines ground to a halt and started bellowing battle cries. Tanks churned through great swaths of mud and Trukks pulled into tight, barely-controlled turns. The first few mobs started opening fire gleefully, and Fluttershy squeaked in fright as bullets started bouncing off her walker's armor with loud, ringing ricochets.

While the volleys of shootas may have been loud and frightening, they were barely a threat to Fluttershy and no threat at all to the Maulerfiends. Soon, though, the fusillade was joined by spiraling rokkits and pounding kannon fire, and the frightened pegasus squeezed her eyes shut as the detonations echoed through the constant roar of the storm and the intermittent bursts of machine gun fire.

Then she snapped her eyes open, her forehead creasing. No. She couldn't afford to flinch away now. Not when so much depended on her. Not when her friends, her Princess, and her... friends' friends were all fighting and suffering for Equestria's sake.

She checked a small window in the upper corner of her visor that showed that the Maulerfiends were starting to scatter. Between the storm and the incoming munitions coming at them (with accuracy comparable to the raindrops), the daemon engines were starting to get distracted.

"Stay together, everyone!" Fluttershy called, her voice amplified to an authoritative shout. "Don't get distracted! Remember what we're here to do!"

The daemon engines that were starting to stray from their attack path corrected themselves, again rushing directly for the huge walker. The Maulerfiend Varox staggered after a rokkit smashed into its leg, almost tripping into the mud. Crabapple shifted his path instantly, shouldering aside a looted Leman Russ that was about to follow up the attack. Crabapple quickly grabbed the tank's battle cannon and squeezed its barrel closed, and then dashed off once again while Varox regained its own pace.

The Great Gargant itself, of course, was hardly vulnerable during all of this. Although the Maulerfiends started their charge into the behemoth's rear, as soon as the shooting started the lumbering walker began turning around to add its own contribution.

The soopagun fired first, impacting right next to the Maulerfiend Tritus and knocking it onto its side. With the target immobilized, the Great Gargant followed with its lifta-droppa, and an arc of yellow lashed out from the Gargant's claw arm. The energy swirled and wrapped around the smaller walker, and Tritus started flailing angrily as it was hauled up into mid-air by the energy tether.

Then it was flung away through the rain, and the Orks watching bellowed and laughed as it spun and thrashed.

The Maulerfiend hit the side of a Guntrukk, caving in the Ork vehicle with its bulk before it bounced off into the muck. Dazed, but not critically damaged, the daemon walker started to squirm on the ground and dig through the mud with its limbs.

The Orks offered it no such chance to recover. Tankbustas sprinted through the mud with their explosive payloads, pouring clusters of rokkits into (and around) the downed machine. Detonations pounded the hapless war machine, and before long the death scream of the daemon engine ripped through the storm.

The Great Gargant had gotten rid of one of it foes, but the other four siege walkers closed the distance while Tritus died, intent on slaying their objective. The super-heavy walker fired the enormous cannon sticking out of its armored belly, but the cluster of shells missed badly, exploding far behind the lead engine.

Hierix leapt at the Gargant first, its fist crackling as it punched through the first layers of armor. Adamantium claws wrapped in a thrumming disruption field dug thick furrows into the Gargant's armor, while the melta cutters stabbed jets of super-heated gas into the shallow breaches.

The other Maulerfiends started hammering at the behemoth's legs, digging under the thick metal "skirt" of the hull and wrapping their lasher tendrils around its cannon arm. Soon the Ork walker was being literally ripped apart plate by plate while powered claws tore at it from all around.

A long howling noise issue from the Gargant's warhorn, which Fluttershy at first thought was the massive war machine's way of calling for help. Or maybe the machine was expressing panic and pain, somehow? It seemed strange, but as the one riding a daemon walker, she didn't have much right to judge.

A hefty kick from the Gargant slammed into Varox, throwing it aside into the mud. Then the claw that boasted its lifta-droppa swung downward and seized Hierix by its rear leg, hauling the entire walker - and its lone passenger - into the air.

The Great Gargant wrenched its cannon arm free of the Maulerfiends' tendrils, ripping most of the metal tentacles apart. Then it pressed the soopagun against the walker flailing desperately in its grip, and fired at point-blank range.

Fluttershy screamed as her "mount" was blown apart right under her, and she was flung away into the mud along with a prodigious amount of smoldering metal debris.

That left three Maulerfiends to tear through the Great Gargant, but when a small, pegasus-shaped body splashed into the mud, two of them hesitated.

Varox, which was already battered and knocked away from the target, saw more enemies rushing for their meek and adorable Mistress. It twisted around and bolted for Fluttershy. Tiberian, which still had one hand gripping the Gargant's leg, hammered one fist into the enemy machine out of spite before it pushed away and bolted after its fellow daemon engine.

Needless to say, Crabapple was not terribly happy about this.

Another blast came from the Gargant's warhorn after most of the siege walkers harassing it broke and ran, and then the Ork goliath shifted to flatten its remaining foe. Its foot came crashing down with surprising swiftness, trying to smash the remaining walker's head. Crabapple darted away just in time to avoid getting crushed, and then bolted around the Great Gargant in a circle. The larger machine twisted about, but it struggled to turn fast enough to face the siege walker.

As soon as Crabapple was directly behind the larger walker it leapt onto its back. Powered claws bit deep into armor plates and lasher tendrils quickly wrapped around any available protrusion to support Crabapple's weight.

The Great Gargant rang its warhorn again as it shook and flailed, and Crabapple began experiencing all-new emotions at the prospect of having to tear down this monstrosity alone. A review of its archives correctly identified the sensation as "resentment".

Fluttershy moaned in pain as she laid in the mud on her side, her head spinning. Her visor was blaring angrily at her, flashing numerous warnings and showing where her armor was breached, but she found it grossly redundant; she could FEEL where her armor had been broken through just fine. Despite the hot, searing pain, however, she did eventually get her faculties sorted.

Her faculties informed her that she was in trouble.

"WAAAAAGH!" the crude bellow of Orks on the charge rang in her ears, and when the pegasus twisted her helmet up she saw warriors sprinting at her through the mud.

Panicking, she activated her cloaking device. This did not seem to discourage the Orks one bit, and they continued rushing toward her.

As the first slugga round slammed into her armor pad, Fluttershy figured out why they weren't confused: she was covered in mud, and thus the cloaking field didn't help hide her much. The rain would eventually wash off the coat of wet soil, of course, but not before the Orks took her apart.

Fluttershy shrieked as a choppa descended onto her helmet, slamming her head back into the muck. The kick that followed threw her back, sending the pegasus rolling away before more slugga rounds followed after her.

Then a giant, metal hand fell before her, halting the rain of clumsy pistol shot (as well as the rain of rain).

"Oi, dat's a biggun!" proclaimed one of the Slugga Boyz irritably as the Maulerfiend hunched over the fallen pony, snarling. "Git da kannonz ovah heah, ya grot-lovahs!"

The heaviest nearby weapons, a pair of Wartrakks, didn't get the chance before Tiberian barreled into them, slamming one vehicle aside before mashing a fist onto the other. After reducing the nearest machines to a pulp it crowed fiercely to its fellow daemon walker.

"Wh-What? What's going on?" Fluttershy asked in a daze as she was picked up in a giant metal hand. Fingers that had torn through the thickest armor with ease handled the pegasus like a piece of broken porcelain, holding her gently under the siege walker's neck even as deffguns pounded against its back and sides.

"Wait..." Fluttershy coughed a few times before the Maulerfiend started to run. "The Gargant..."

The Maulerfiends ignored her feeble protests, charging into the storm with renewed intensity. Varox cradled Fluttershy close, shielding her from the relentless volleys of bullets that followed them. Tiberian acted as spearhead, pouncing on the heaviest vehicles that barred their path back to the mountains.

Rokkits, deffguns, and kannons tracked their escape, but the siege walkers' armored bodies practically danced with daemonic energy, folding the very space around them. Bullets struck plating with a fraction of their usual power and some warheads that found their mark inexplicably failed to detonate. Combined with the obscuring gloom caused by the storm and their considerable speed, the pair of Maulerfiends managed to escape the fusillade intact and make it to the mountain base once more. Even then, as they clambered up the crags to the relative safety of the peaks, the Orks may well have pursued. The daemon engines were badly battered, and were entirely vulnerable during their climbing escape.

Alas, the Orks were preoccupied with a much more interesting conflict.

Crabapple's claws continued to rip and tear at the Gargant's back, wrenching off plates of armor and flinging them aside. All the while the Great Gargant continued to shake and circle around, its warhorn bellowing in rage.

The next blow from the siege walker punched into the hull interior, and the disruption fields sparked brightly as Crabapple forced his hand inside to tear apart whatever was in the room.

Then the Gargant stopped moving.

For a moment Crabapple hesitated, thinking that it had perhaps crippled a vital system. A brief scan of its prey suggested otherwise, however; the Ork war machine had not lost power or suffered any great disruption to energy transmission. It had simply stopped moving around.

And turned off its defense shielding, for some reason.

A rokkit slammed straight into Crabapple's back, cracking the heavy shield between its shoulders and revealing the Orks' strategy. Where before the aliens had refrained from firing upon their own walker to remove the enemy clinging to it, it seemed that a lack of other distractions or obvious options had led them to simply hope the Gargant was sturdier than the siege walker on its back.

The problem was, they were right.

Lines of bullet ricochets sawed across the Gargant's back when a mob of Lootas opened fire with their deffguns, adding to the barrage. The large, customized heavy machine guns slashed a veritable beam of hot lead across Crabapple's arms and back, and dark crimson vapor seeped from the cracks where the armor buckled.

Crabapple knew then and there that it would not be able to tear apart the Great Gargant before the other Orks finished it off; there were simply too many enemies. It would have to either finish off the behemoth quickly, or leap away and flee with the other Maulerfiends.

Its instincts told it to flee. The spark of sentience, the churn of nascent emotions deep within its processors, led it to fear its imminent demise and seek to avoid it even if that meant failing its mission objective. The cold, mechanical logic that dominated its corrupted mind, however, presented a different case. If the Ork Gargant survived the battle, no weapon that the 38th Company possessed would be able to stand against it. Ponyville would be overrun and flattened, and Sweet Apple Acres would be razed along with it. Once again the Apple family, and Crabapple's mistress, would have their home and business devastated. Never mind the horrors that may come after that, if the defense of the planet were to crumble entirely.

But this time, Crabapple could do something about it.

Another rokkit slammed into the Gargant's shoulder, and then another spiraled away just over Crabapple's head before its eyes flashed brightly with renewed determination and ever-rising fury.

The siege walker shifted downward, gripping the edge of the hole it had torn into the enemy's back and peering into the breach.

Then Crabapple stabbed its head into the opening, punching its narrow jaws through the sundered armor and forcing its way into the room face-first.

There was, of course, no way for the entire Maulerfiend to fit inside a single room in a Great Gargant; just its head alone took up nearly a third of the space in wherever it had broken into. Gretchin ran screaming out of the room as their Ork masters finally lost control of the terrified slaves, understandably upset at seeing the toothy maw of a giant, metal daemon-machine break into the vehicle.

Crabapple took no interest in the crew, its eyes sweeping the room and looking over the machines even while heavy weapons fire continued pounding its back. Finding a control panel, its metal, serpentine tongue lashed out from its mouth and stabbed into the device, extending quite a bit further than the walker's design had ever intended.

The Maulerfiend's tongue was never intended to be used as a data uplink, and Crabapple's corrupted machine intelligence had never before had to deal with the utter absurdities of Ork electric transmission controls. It could literally TASTE the duct tape holding the systems together, despite never having a sense of taste and having no point of reference for the flavor.

Another rokkit tearing its right smokestack cluster off focused Crabapple's mind. As strange and awkward as these systems were, they still followed some basic principles of mechanical and electrical theory. Crabapple could still detect the flows of energy flooding from a power source practically quaking with instability.

So, with a force of sheer daemonic will and Chaos-fueled reversal of several immutable physical laws, Crabapple stopped the energy flows and sent them running back where they came from, inciting a catastrophic overload of the reactor.

A brief burst of discordant static briefly issued from every speaker in the Gargant, utterly confusing the crew just before various indicator needles and control meters suddenly veered dangerously into the red.

+Mission complete, Apple Bloom...+

****

Ponyville - town hall

Celestia stepped into the town hall, her golden shoes stirring the patch of hot ashes that used to be an Ork Warboss.

"Captain Armor. You're gravely wounded."

Shining Armor gulped and weakly pushed himself away from Vinyl Scratch's unconscious body. "Yeah, a little. That Ork there got me pretty good." A nervous chuckle sent pulses of pain surging through his chest.

Shining Armor knew Celestia well enough that he wasn't usually awe-struck or intimidated by her presence. But then, he'd never seen her reduce an enemy to a pile of hot dust before.

"I see. A moment, please." Celestia's horn flooded with soft yellow light, and then Vinyl Scratch vanished as she was teleported away. "I sent her to the West side of town. She'll be safer there as we turn aside the aliens."

Then Shining Armor felt Celestia's magic fill him. It was warm and gentle, yet almost smothering in its power. Like a blanket that was just too big and heavy to sleep comfortably with.

As the magic washed over him, though, the ache in his body started to subside.

"That spell will not truly repair your injuries, but it will numb the pain and keep you from aggravating them," Celestia explained before her magic faded, "Captain Armor, you've done more than enough here to defend your nation and your world, but I would ask that you continue to aid me as I purge the aliens from Ponyville."

The unicorn blinked. "You mean... the ORK aliens specifically, right? Because as much as I dislike the Iron Warriors, the General kind of died defending me, so..."

"Yes, I meant just the Orks," Celestia replied with some exasperation.

"Great! Perfect! I'm in!" he announced before he scrambled to his hooves. "What do you need me to do?"

"Defend me as I take to the field, Captain. The spells I plan to wield now will preclude me from summoning a personal barrier."

The white Princess stepped out of the hole in the wall and back outside, and Shining Armor followed. Their ears were immediately assaulted by all the sounds of battle echoing through the village. The laughing of Orks, the shouting of men, the ricochet of bullets, and the detonations of ordnance.

There were no fighters in the immediate area, though, and Celestia gingerly stepped around a pair of power-armored bodies on the ground before standing her forelegs atop a barricade wall. She looked over the columns of smoke and smashed homes of Ponyville, and her eyes narrowed.

"The Orks come to this planet seeking carnage and destruction for its own sake," Celestia growled through clenched teeth, "so that is what we shall give them."

Her horn flashed with magic.

The explosion that flared in the distance forced Shining to turn his eyes away, so great was its intensity. Even after the light faded somewhat within the gloom of the storm, the stallion could only just stand to glimpse the blinding fireball in the distance, and his jaw went slack at the sheer size of it. Seconds later the noise of the detonation reached them, washing over Ponyville in a dull echo of the fantastic act of destruction.

"That... That was..." Shining gasped out, his words momentarily failing him. "Princess, that was incredible! With a spell of that power, the Orks don't stand a chance! Even the Iron Warriors couldn't stand against you! You could flatten their entire fortress without them even seeing you!"

Princess Celestia held her regal, determined pose for several silent seconds before awkwardly pursing her lips. "That... wasn't me, actually..." The glow around her horn dimmed slightly.

The Guard Captain quickly snapped his jaw shut. "Ah. I see. Uh... sorry."

Celestia took a deep breath before she continued her previous casting, and the soft, golden glow slowly built around her horn until Shining Armor could no longer bear to look directly at the Princess.

"The sun is the bringer of light and life. It nurtures our world and gives its energy freely to us."

Shining squinted so that he could again glimpse the Princess of the Sun, and saw that her mane was whipping about wildly in a wind he couldn't feel. Her eyes were solid, shining windows of white light, and the jewels of her armor pulsed in gentle sympathy with her horn.

"But a star is a raw, destructive thing, and life is quite fragile. With but a nudge of our orbit, its sustaining energy could scour the surface of our planet entirely. Ork, human, Tau, pony. Even the dragons would boil alive."

Shining Armor wet his lips, trying not to look too anxious. "But, you're not going to do that... right?"

"Of course not," Celestia scoffed, "but I have more subtle ways to express the wrath of the sun."

****

"MEGA DREAD!! Move it! Run!"

Daniels panted heavily as he leapt out the window of somepony's cottage, his rail rifle clutched to his chest. He wasn't sure if there were others following him, but it seemed likely. He had passed at least a few friendlies that weren't dead yet.

The Mega Dread crashed through the wall behind him, its claw-arm tearing through the home's timbers with ease. Its kill kannon fired a round seemingly at random, doing no important damage but making a sufficiently impressive booming noise to rattle the fleeing humans further.

Daniels dodged behind a Predator battle tank that was busy tearing apart the Orks who were trying to advance down the street. The tank started to back up just after he leapt clear, which was lucky for him but didn't save the vehicle. The Mega Dread seized the edge of the Predator's turret with its claw, and then tore the weapon off of its chassis before a puff of steam blasted from its arm piston.

Daniels didn't turn around to watch the depressingly one-sided battle of mighty armor. He kept running and leapt a short wall of sandbags that protected the doorway of another home on the other side of the street.

The inside of the house was a swirling melee of Slugga Boyz and Chaos Space Marines, with chainswords chewing through Ork flesh and choppas clattering loudly against ceramite. The Iron Warriors were dominating the battle, but the Orks were filing inside as fast as they were being killed, rushing into the room in an endless stream of reinforcements.

Daniels did not let this discourage his immediate goal of surviving this battle. "Excuse me! Coming through! Whoa, little close there! Nice hit, my Lord! Go Chaos!" The mercenary ducked around power packs and jumped past staggering greenskins as he weaved his way through the room, trying best he could to keep to a route that put power armor between him and the alien warriors.

One Ork went flying back toward him as an Iron Warrior knocked it aside, and Daniels thrust his bayonet forward mostly out of reflex. The Slugga Boy roared in anger after the adamantium blade punched through its back, but didn't get the chance to further express its fury before its Astartes opponent slashed his chainsword across its chest.

Daniels cringed as Ork gore splattered over his respirator mask and optics, but recovered quickly and drew his bayonet free of the corpse. "Good show, Lord! Later, then!"

With the sound of the wall behind him coming down, Daniels jumped over a broken dinner table, vaulted off a wounded Ork's back, and then leapt out the window.

Daniels groaned after he rolled across the ground, but knew he couldn't afford a moment's rest. There wasn't a single safe place in Ponyville right now, and he was pretty much in the general area that currently constituted the "front lines".

The first thing he saw when he came to a stop was bullet casings rolling across the ground. Twisting his head around to look at where they were coming from, he was treated to the unfortunate sight of a half-dozen Ork Flashgitz piled behind a barricade and dueling a watch tower full of Fire Warriors.

Well, unfortunate to a point. None of the greenskins were facing him, and they seemed quite intent on their firefight. Having a clear shot at the backs of a group of enemy troopers was something of a tactical boon.

He would have preferred a safe haven, though.

Daniels shifted into a crouch and flung over his last fragmentation grenade. Then he let loose with his rail rifle, and between the two weapons a full three Flashgit Nobs collapsed onto the ground.

As the Orks died, though, their compatriots turned to the new threat angrily, not obviously impressed.

They stood up in front of the barricade before they loosed a wild burst in Daniel's direction, only for two more to get scythed down from pulse rifle fire.

"Meet your end, be'gel savage!" barked a crackling electric voice from above. A Crisis Suit landed on the roof of an adjacent building just as the last Flashgit was considering a retreat. The battlesuit's burst cannon finished off the Ork in a flurry of blue flares, digging a furrow of scorched ground in front of the barricades. Then the Tau heavy trooper bounded away, its jet pack carrying it over the rooftops to the next engagement.

Daniels rushed to his feet and then sprinted for the watch tower, diving behind the defense lines built around its base.

"Just to let you know," he shouted up to the Tau manning the tower, "there may or may not be an Ork Mega Dread behind me!"

An explosion issued from within the garrison, and Iron Warriors started rushing out from within its confines.

"Don't lead the heavy units here, you stupid ape! We can barely contain the foot soldiers!"

Daniels looked up at the tower, and then he waved when he spotted a familiar face among the dark helmets and glittering optics. "Hey, Jerri! Nice to see a friendly face out here!"

"Hurry up and die so I can get my rifle back!" Jerriha retorted.

A loud crash momentarily overwhelmed the other noise from combat when the Mega Dread emerged from the pony home, an Iron Warrior gripped in its close combat claw.

It flung the Astartes away into a wall, and then turned its kill kannon onto the watch tower.

Daniels felt a wave of heat wash over him as the kannon shell clipped the edge of the tower, tearing through two of the supports. The tower squealed before it began to collapse onto its side, but secondary struts snapped into place before the fortification fell over completely, holding it up at an awkward angle without dumping its occupants right onto the ground.

Jerriha grunted as she and the Fire Warriors slid toward the side of the tower, and she soon found herself being squished between her subordinates and the guardrail.

As the cackling walker advanced, however, she aimed her pulse carbine steady at the clanking monstrosity while a small red light blinked on the weapon sights.

+Authorizing seeker missile strikes on my markerlight, designation Ten'lan, high ballistic arc!+

The Mega Dread lumbered forward, claws snapping eagerly while its kill kannon loaded the next shell into the barrel. It didn't see the seeker missiles diving down on it from above, and frankly, even if it did, it's doubtful it could have done anything about them. The missiles slammed into the top of the heavy walker, and the vehicle staggered briefly before its kannon arm exploded, ripping the Dread's ranged weapon off in a flurry of hot metal.

As smoke bled from the wounded Mega Dread, though, it was obviously still active. A burst of steam blasted from is claw arm, and the assault walker began to march again toward the watch tower.

"Can you do that again? Like, three more times? I think that should do it," Daniels advised helpfully.

"The missile gunships are re-loading! There's a lot of demand for ordnance right now!" Jerriha barked before she dropped down from the crippled tower. "You're supposed to be the resourceful race! You come up with something!"

"We could try avoiding fights until we find something strong enough to help," Daniels suggested.

"Is that what brought you to us?" the Tau asked wryly.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it, Jerri."

The Mega Dread kept advancing on the barricades, but slowed upon spotting another piece of falling ordnance. It appeared to be a mortar shot, although it was falling rather more slowly than expected.

Then the mortar shell exploded in mid-air, right in front of the Ork walker, sprinkling it with confetti.

That was weird.

"What in the name of Aun'va..." Jerriha mumbled as she and Daniel watched the unfolding incident from behind cover. Sparkling bits of foil, party favors, loops of silly string, and the odd disco ball all bounced away from the "impact", covering the Mega Dread with extremely festive debris. This didn't do any harm to the vehicle, but did succeed in bringing it to a complete and utter standstill while it stooped over to look at the bizarre munitions.

The butcher cannon suddenly tearing into its side was a harsh reminder that the war machine was still in a combat zone. The Mega Dread lurched to one side before it rapidly swung about, spotting two enemy walkers approaching on opposite sides of the adjacent house. One was an obnoxiously pink Dreadnought suspiciously lacking in chains and skulls among its armor embellishments. The more obvious danger was a larger Contemptor-pattern Dreadnought that kept pumping high-caliber cannon shot into its damaged side. The Mega Dread stumbled into a clumsy run for the larger walker, an enraged battle cry echoing from within its hull.

"See? What'd I tell you?" Daniels stood up as Jerriha sighed. "Pinks! You're still around! Good to see you!"

Pinkie's Dreadnought shell had large patches of its paint job stripped away from enemy fire, and seemed to be moving with a slight limp, but the assault walker didn't hesitate to shake its thunder hammer at Daniels in imitation of a wave. "Hey, Danny! Don't you worry about a thing! We have some SIRIUS firepower on our side now!"

"I hate ALL of you," Sirius proclaimed while the Mega Dread closed the distance.

In contrast to the frantic Ork machine, the Contemptor seemed to wait patiently for the enemy to come close enough, only deigning to move once the enormous, hydraulic claw was reaching out for him.

Then Sirius surged forward, punching his siege drill squarely in the middle of the enemy's hull. The whirling teeth of the drill tore through the frontal plating with ease, digging into the cockpit and then breaking through the rear plating as well. Bits of components, armor, and Ork were all ejected out of the Mega Dread's back in a single gory spray of detritus before the crippled walker lurched to a stop.

"Trash belongs in the scrapyards," Sirius growled before he drew his siege drill out of the Mega Dread. Then he shouldered the wrecked walker aside and started firing on another Ork mob rushing up the street.

"Well, that worked out. What now?" Daniels asked rather breathlessly.

Jerriha scowled. "How would I know? This defense is a shambles! The Orks reinforce endlessly, and half our support is missing! What are your commanders doing?"

"C'mon, grayskin scum! Don't be like that!" Pinkie boomed, her insult standing in stark contrast to her tone. "It sounds like you could use a little morale boost! Gimme a hug!"

Jerriha stared up at the pink assault walker, its autocannon and thunder hammer spread apart as if it really was preparing for an embrace.

"What the blazes IS this thing, anyway?!" the Fireblade demanded, taking a step back from the bizarre war machine. "It's nothing like your other walkers!"

"THANK YOU," Sirius grumbled, pausing briefly between salvos from his butcher cannon. "At least somebody else in this damned army realizes that."

"Not important," Daniels said, waving down Pinkie Pie, "we may have stumbled a bit, but we can still win this."

"Stumbled 'a bit'? Have you been asleep the past hour?!" Jerriha snapped. "If I were running this defense I would have withdrawn long ago! Only a miracle can turn this battle around!"

The distant explosion that immediately followed this statement momentarily put all complaints and discussions on hold as everyone turned their eyes away from the fantastic bloom of light. Even Sirius had to pause in mowing down Orks as his optical filters were briefly overloaded.

The Contemptor waited patiently for his sensors to reset, but when they did he received a strategic alert from the auger network.

"The last Gargant has been eliminated," the assault walker growled, "the only strategic advantage the greenskins hold now is mere numbers." Sirius twisted around enough so that he could glare at his allies behind him. "You all would do well to aid in degrading that advantage, as I am."

"WOO HOO!" Pinkie Pie cheered, jumping into the air. She landed heavily enough to unsettle the Fire Warriors nearby. "You GO, girls!"

Daniels turned to Jerriha, who seemed to stunned by the news. "Well, we got our miracle. Happy?"

The Fireblade was, evidently, not happy, and her expression quickly returned to a scowl. "Call me defeatist, but the Orks outnumber us, what? Ten to one? Twenty? That is no 'mere' advantage when our defensive line has broken already!"

"So, what, you want another miracle before we give this a go?" the mercenary asked.

Then huge columns of light lanced down from the sky.

****

The Orks pouring into Ponyville, already confused about the sudden explosion of their last Gargant, were understandably spooked even further when big yellow beams struck the ground from above. The columns burnt through the storm cover that had been layered over the Ork's advance, and many mobs of warriors were caught within the rays of light. There were dozens of such columns, each one some fifty meters or so in diameter, and they seemed to be scattered through the valley completely at random. Those that were under them flinched back, blinded, but were pleasantly surprised that they weren't subsequently vaporized or hammered into the ground.

"Huh. Dis ain't so bad," mumbled one Ork while he shielded his eyes. He was sopping wet from the trek out of the storm, and the sunlight warmed his chilled flesh almost instantly, evaporating the clinging moisture in seconds. "Feelz kinda gud."

Some mobs started moving toward the light, eager to dry off and warm up before they got to killing. Those Orks within the beams of light and heat mostly stopped where they were in order to scrape the rapidly drying mud off their boots.

After a few dozen seconds, however, their skin darkened noticeably, and the grass under their feet withered from the unrelenting heat.

And then things started lighting on fire.

"Dis don' feel gud no mo'!" cried an Ork when a blaze jumped up from the shriveling grass underfoot. A few seconds later his top knot lit on fire as well. As he made a mad sprint with the rest of his mob out of the light, toward the damp safety of the storm, his clothes eventually lit aflame while the metal plates scalded his skin.

The Ork, like most of his unit, never made it to safety. He was cooked alive, his body shriveling and his senses fading before he, too, was swallowed by fire.

****

"... Subtle, huh?" Shining Armor asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Princess Celestia gave him a wry smile. "That is about as subtle as solar attacks get, yes." Her horn continued to pulse, fueling the building flames as hundreds of alien soldiers were consumed by light and fire.

Then Shining Armor frowned. "We should be careful. The Orks somehow knew that I was making the barrier to protect our soldiers. They might be able to figure out that you're the source of this new attack." Looking up at the way Celestia's horn pulsed and crackled like a beacon, the unicorn chewed his lip briefly. "Yeah, actually, I'm pretty sure they'll figure this one out."

"I expect as much. I am relying on you, Captain Armor," the white alicorn said firmly.

Shining straightened, a fierce snort blasting from his nostrils as he saluted with his hoof. "Absolutely, Princess! I won't fail!"

Then his eyes darted away, and then shifted back to Celestia. "Fail again, I mean." Then he began looking around. "Although, really, I feel like we should get some more help back here anyway. You know, just in case."

"How does one rally these human soldiers?" Celestia said, glancing down at the Captain. If it were her own Royal Guards, they would already be rushing to protect their Princess, drawn by the light of her magic. But she doubted soldiers in thrall to Chaos would be especially moved.

Shining looked over to the town hall, where he had woken up. Then his horn lit up, and he placed a dome barrier around Celestia. "This will do for now. Let's see what I can figure out."

****

"There. Two miracles. What's your excuse now, Jerri?" Daniels asked before he shot down a Nob sheltering behind a hedge.

Jerriha's Fire Warriors were already pressed against the barricades, taking apart the Orks at range while Sirius kept the aliens from advancing. The Fireblade herself was staring blankly toward the sky, unable to fully comprehend what had just happened.

Finally, she turned to Daniels. "So... does that actually work? Can we just keep asking for miracles, and then watch as inexplicable acts of destruction tear apart the enemy?"

A Grot bomb slammed into a house behind them, causing her to duck back down behind cover on reflex. Moments later, terrified shouting came from within the house before the structure started to fall apart, burying the mercenaries within under flaming timber.

"We may be fresh out of miracles by now. The Dark Gods don't do ALL our work for us, you know!" Daniels reasoned.

"Right. So what exactly are we supposed to do? Just sit here and keep shooting greenskins until we run out of ammunition and get trampled?" Jerriha beamed her carbine markerlight at the incoming Orks as they spoke, feeding enhanced targeting data to the Fire Warriors around her.

"Well, we already used my strategy, so if you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear them!" the mercenary quipped.

"I'm not the one in charge of this defense!" Jerriha shot back. "Our organization has fallen apart! What is your General doing, anyway?"

Then her comms system crackled to life in her ear.

"Uh, hello? Is anybody receiving this? I never really got a crash course on using these vox things."

Jerriha blinked. She was currently receiving a wide-spectrum signal that simultaneously carried on all Company frequencies. Only the 38th Company commanders were able to use such a signal, and the voice on the other end certainly wasn't from any of them.

She wasn't the only one who noticed, either. A second voice promptly answered the first over the same signal, and this one she recognized easily.

"Yesh, everyone ish receiving thish. Who are you, and why do you have the General'sh vox relay?"

Jerriha switched her comms unit so that it would project outside her helmet, and Daniels turned aside to listen as the first voice came back.

"Oh! Warsmith! Good! Listen, everybody's PROBABLY noticed by now that there are beams of hot, burning sunlight bombarding the Orks. Princess Celestia is here to help, but I need help defending her from any Ork counter-attacks. I need anyone you can spare to come to the town hall!"

"What the hellsh ish your shoveriegn doing here? And where ish General Gnosh?"

There was a long pause over the vox. "General Gnoss... didn't make it, Warsmith."

"See that?" Daniels said to Jerriha. "He had a good excuse after all." The Fireblade sighed in response.

"The Orksh got him? Blasht," Solon continued speaking over the vox.

"Yes, but we can still win! Please, send help as soon as you can!"

"Hmmm... well, okay. I'll shee what I can do."

The vox signal cut out, and Jerriha looked up at Daniels.

"Well, it looks like we have a new objective."

"Hooray!" Pinkie cheered, waving her thunder hammer in the air. "We're gonna save the Princess!"

"Then you will do it without me," Sirius growled, his butcher cannon still pounding away at the sheltering aliens, "I will have no part in this absurd diversion."

Daniels, for his part, looked over in the direction of the town hall.

There was a brilliant halo of light floating over it, pulsing brightly and generally letting anyone in town know that there was something strange and important going on over there.

"Yeah, see..." Daniels sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I don't really want to go over there. Nor do I have any orders to that effect. So I think I'll stay here with the Contemptor."

"Boo!" Pinkie shouted, briefly lifting the giant helmet up off her head so that she could frown at the mercenary. "Come on, Danny! Help us out! Princess Celestia needs you!"

"I don't really like her, though," Daniels admitted, "and as far as I can tell, the feeling's mutual."

Pinkie decided to switch tactics. Her ears flipped down while she held the helmet up, and she pursed her quivering lips as her eyes shimmered. "... PWEEEEEASE?"

The man grimaced. "I know when I'm being manipulated, Pinks." Then he hefted his rifle again. "But I'll be damned if it doesn't work anyway. Fine. Lead the way."

"Yes! You're the best, Danny!" Pinkie dropped her helmet back down and then turned to head down the street. "I'll tell AJ all about this! I'm sure she'll give you tons of sexy snuggles!"

"What do y-Damn it, not you, too! We're not a couple!"

Jerriha and the other Fire Warriors mutely watched Pinkie and Daniels leave the area, completely stunned.

*Was... Did...* one Fire Warrior tripped over his words as he pointed to the back of the pink Dreadnought. *... Did that assault walker have a PONY inside it?*

*Yes. Yes it did,* Jerriha admitted with a deadpan tone.

*But... I thought that the Dreadnoughts were-*

*Let's not dwell on it too much,* Jerriha replied, holding a hand to her head, *the rampant insanity of our allies is the least of our concerns at the moment. Half of you, with me. The rest of you stay and support the walker, and gather up any reinforcements fleeing through here.*

The unit Shas'ui nodded sharply, reloading his pulse rifle. *For the Greate...* the words came as a reflex, but died bitterly on his tongue. *... Good luck, Shas'vre.*

*You too, Shas'ui. At the very least, luck is something we seem to have left.*

****

Everfree Forest

Beneath the darkened canopy of the Everfree Forest, the reserve forces of the 38th Company milled about restlessly, awaiting orders.

In stark contrast to the village being overrun nearby, the mood in the gloomy forest was calm, and almost bored. The forces waiting there consisted mostly of Kroot mercenaries with a few units of Stealth Suits and Iron Warriors for close fire support. Hefty Krootox beasts walked slow patrols around the area to stave off the urge to sleep, while at the detachment's flank a pair of Greater Gnarlocs feasted on a manticore that had the calamitous luck to stumble upon the small army.

At the front of the group, within earshot of the explosions rolling through Ponyville, stood the detachment's commanders: Shas'el Wraithstar stood on one side of a tactical hololith within his customized prototype stealth suit, while Chaos Lord Sliver stood across from him.

Neither of the officers had said anything for ten minutes.

Occasionally Wraithstar would look up at the Iron Warrior, or silently gesture toward the hololith, but the Astartes ignored him. The single, glaring red lens of Sliver's helmet was locked onto the strategic display.

That display showed a fairly detailed image of the valley and was centered on a large, red skull. The skull marked the spot where a Great Gargant had stood about ten minutes ago, advancing to engagement range. At the edge of the hololithic map, two similar skulls were positioned in front of arrows, marking their respective deaths off-screen.

Wraithstar looked up at Sliver. A cough came from the external speaker of his battlesuit.

Sliver ignored him and continued staring at the red skull.

After a few more minutes of silence - which represented an equal number of minutes of complete pandemonium in Ponyville, Wraithstar recalled - the Tau Commander moved over next to the Iron Warrior.

"My Lord, the reserve detachment is ready to deploy," Wraithstar said quietly, "should we attack?"

Sliver ignored him, and kept staring at the red skull.

With an annoyed grunt, Wraithstar started waving his arm in front of the hulking Chaos Lord, trying to elicit some response from him.

Sliver grabbed onto the battlesuit's sensor head and then effortlessly shoved the prototype suit onto the ground. And kept staring at the red skull.

"Lord Sliver!" Wraithstar snapped, jumping to his feet. "Your soldiers are DYING! We must act!"

This, at last, seemed to stir the Chaos Lord out of his dumbfounded trance. "... Indeed. The misssion..."

Sliver trailed off again, his visor lingering on the hololith. "... The misssion to desstroy the enemy Gargantss hass been an unqualified ssuccesss," he finally admitted out loud, tearing his gaze away from the map, "no doubt thankss to the Warssmith'ss creationss. Yess... ssurely even a defunct grox could have claimed victory with ssuch weaponss at itss disspossal."

With the ponies' success fully rationalized, Sliver finally began to ease back into the role of commander and tactician. He had received the vox conversation between Shining Armor and Celestia along with everyone else, but at the time had been too stunned to care. "It sseemss the Ork advance hass not been sslowed by our ressisstance, and thiss new witchcraft iss unlikely to completely stop the tide, either. We will sstrike ssoon."

Then he linked his helmet vox to a special channel.

"Poisson Kisssss..." he said, drawing out the pony's name, "you may begin. Unleash your horrorss upon the xeno wretchess."

The reply over the vox was rather breathless, and came with plenty of background noise that suggested the mare was in the midst of battle. "Yes, Lord! Right away!"

With that counter-measure deployed, Sliver turned on his heel, searching behind him.

Among the forces awaiting the order to deploy, a set of three large durasteel cargo containers had been dragged into the forest. Only one person knew exactly what was in them, but everyone nearby could hear the sounds of grunting, scraping, and the occasional dull growl from within the reinforced boxes. Each one had a familiar type of heavy lock on the front keyed to the Iron Warriors' IFF signals; any Chaos Space Marine of the 38th Company could open them.

And yet, the one Chaos Space Marine who knew whether opening them would be a good idea was conspicuously absent. Sliver released a deep growl as he scanned his surroundings.

"Where iss Sserith?" the Chaos Lord demanded.

One of the Iron Warriors standing sentinel in front of the containers grunted a reply. "He left some time ago after fiddling with the cages. I believe he felt he was not needed here, Lord."

"And I would ssurely agree," Sliver hissed, "except that he left uss thesse... thingss, and no word on what to do with them." The container walls were heavy enough to prevent a simple visor scan from getting a good reading, although whatever was inside at least wasn't explosive or radioactive.

The Chaos Space Marine on guard gave the container an experimental kick, and he got an enraged, bestial snarl in reply.

"Multiple creatures. They don't sound very big," the Iron Warrior opined, "but we're still dealing with sorcerous weapons in the absence of a sorcerer. We don't even have one of the horse psykers on hand."

It bothered Sliver somewhat that it even occurred to the Chaos Marine to have a unicorn substitute for the 38th Company's head Sorcerer, but he let it go. "The Ssorcerer hass ever been... unreliable. But he hass never openly endangered hiss alliess." The Chaos Lord picked up his hammer. "Back away and prepare to open the vesssel on my ssignal. Ssoon, we move."

****

Ponyville - Altar of Nurgle

Poison Kiss swung her bolter about through the air as the Ork Nob rushed her, and the weapon bucked wildly and churned out mass-reactive shells in a blind scatter.

The Ork battered the floating gun away harmlessly, but the diversion gave Kiss precious extra seconds to prepare. Her horn glowed a sickly yellow as she fed her magic into the foe, and the alien warrior visibly shuddered. His assault faltered immediately afterward when his muscles cramped and his vision swam, and the Nob's next attack swung so far wide of his target it hardly seemed like he was aiming at her.

The jaw section of Kiss's helmet clanked open, exposing the mare's snarling muzzle before she reared up onto her hind legs.

With a sharp puff of breath, Kiss spat some half-dozen shards of bone at the Ork, each one trailing luminescent green fluids behind it. Whatever pain caused to the Ork before by the unicorn's spell increased tenfold after the darts punctured his flesh, and his choppa fell from numb fingers as he staggered.

Poison Kiss swung around and hammered the Nob's quivering leg with a back kick, grinning when she felt the weakening bones shatter. The Ork was down, and there seemed to be no enemies rushing to replace him.

That said, the area that had been cleared for her altar was still a mess... insofar as she considered its previous state not a mess. The Nurgle cultists sang praises to the Plaguefather while they hacked away at the Orks with filthy, rusted blades and lunatic fervor, but it would have been a losing battle if the fighting had been kept to conventional combat.

Luckily, it wasn't.

"Choke and die, alien freaks!" Breezy Blight shouted while she hovered over the melee, sucking in her breath. The pegasus then blew a fan of noxious green vapor into the combat, blanketing friend and foe alike.

The Nurgle cultists, free from the suffering of such toxins and anyway wearing extensive protective clothing, easily ignored the gas. The Orks, on the other hand, began convulsing and choking, making them much easier targets for the cultists' blades.

"The book!" Kiss shouted as she galloped to the altar, ducking through the mayhem. "It's time to use the spell!"

"Well, duh!" Breezy retorted before she swooped over the unicorn and then kept pace just above her. "I think it was time some half an hour ago!" She fired her leg-mounted bolter to cover her squad leader, gunning down a few retching Orks that were trying to crawl free of the melee.

"Lord Sliver didn't tell us to proceed until now, so we haven't," Kiss shouted harshly over the din of combat, "if he wanted your opinion, he would have asked for it!"

Poison Kiss jumped onto the altar, and quickly levitated the Apocrypha Contagion in front of her.

"Blossom! Come here! We need your help!"

The rather meek earth pony was fighting like a mare possessed, bucking wildly and shoving her way through the carnage with a strength that belied her unimpressive frame. A cloud of dark flies and needle-legged wasps followed her movements like a dark, buzzing tendril, flying into the faces of her targets and blinding them. The sting of the insects was inevitably followed by the impact of a bone-crushing adamantium boot, and one Ork after another collapsed onto the ground in her wake.

Rot Blossom heard the generic, universal war cry of the Orks roar to her right, drowning out Kiss's command entirely. An Ork Nob with a power klaw was howling victoriously while he held up the dismembered torso of his latest victim, firing his slugga into the air.

Blossom leapt onto the alien's back, growling after her helmet's jaw opened up. As she wrapped her forelegs over the Nob's shoulders, a chittering centipede shot out of her maw and bit into the Ork's neck, chewing rapidly into the waxy green flesh.

The Nob snarled and threw his head back, slamming the back of his skull onto the nose of Blossom's helmet. It fared unreasonably well in the impact, too.

With an enraged whinny (which was reduced considerably thanks to the giant centipede crawling through her throat), Blossom slammed her helmet forehead into the back of the Ork's head.

The Ork growled angrily at the retaliation, and then slammed her back. There was a distinct cracking noise as his skull impacted the helmet again, but he was fairly sure it was the pony's head and not his. He certainly couldn't FEEL his head breaking open.

Actually, the Nob couldn't feel much of anything at the moment.

The centipede started to draw back out of the Ork's neck, having finished delivering its paralyzing venom directly into his spinal column. The Nob's legs finally buckled a few seconds later, and he collapsed face-first onto the ground with Rot Blossom on his back.

The Plague Pony quickly swallowed the centipede back up, and then licked her lips before biting into the twitching body beneath her. Her teeth - optimized by natural selection over so many millennia for NOT tearing through skin and muscle - struggled to cut through the thick flesh of the Ork, but as she bit ever harder she could feel more creatures wriggling and crawling up her throat, eager to reach a new host.

Those new parasites burrowed into the bloody breaches in green skin, digging further into the still-living body to gorge themselves on fluids and propagate. Rot Blossom felt a warm pride swell in her heart after she released her victim, knowing that the vile insects, her parasite children, would soon found new generations within his organs and further spread the same love that Nurgle had given her. The love that had-

"OI, BLOSSOM!!" barked an irritated Trottingham accent, startling the earth pony out of her thoughts. "Stop reveling in your horrific new Chaos powers and get over here!"

Breezy snorted a puff of green vapor when she and Kiss were finally joined by the third pony in their unit.

"Sorry! Sorry! I'm here!" Rot Blossom apologized profusely, pausing to wipe some blood off of her muzzle.

"Yes, quite," Kiss sniffed, levitating the book open before her. "Now, concentrate."

The jaws of the Plague Ponies' helmets snapped closed, and the three mares closed their eyes. Including Poison Kiss, who immediately began to recite the passage before her despite being unable to see the page. She spoke in a tongue that nopony should know or even recognize; from Pipsqueak to Princess Celestia herself, the words would sound like nothing but feverish, mumbled nonsense. Yet to the three ponies and the human cultists, the words were as clear and familiar as their mother tongue.

The Orks understood none of it, but gladly took the initiative against the humans again now that the three figures in power armor had stopped bombarding them with their powers. To their growing frustration, however, the cultists themselves started fighting even harder than before. The filthy, robed warriors - who were surprisingly hard to cut down to begin with as they ignored their debilitating wounds - struck faster and more precisely as the ponies chanted. More and more Orks fell howling to the blood-strewn ground, and motes of gloomy yellow light started to rise from the earth.

Poison Kiss's horn attracted the magic flares, sucking them up into the tip while her magic built to a catastrophic peak. Her words echoed in her ears as the Apocrypha trembled before her, translated by her own feverish mind to simple Gothic.

"Let them see, oh great Lord, the truth of the Destroyer! That death is merely one aspect of the great cycle! One creature dies, and births a colony within its cooling body! To glow and writhe with life anew! Warm, teeming, filled with wonder and new love!"

The other ponies giggled somewhat hysterically, and the altar underneath them pulsed brightly in time with Poison Kiss's magic.

"Let them see, Plaguefather! Show them the glorious life within death! And then let them kill, and die, and spread life anew!"

The magic sphere around Kiss's horn casing collapsed, spilling away from her in a big, thick cloud of murky yellow gas.

Breezy quickly shifted her wings up, and then turned on her turboprops in reverse right in front of the cloud. The gas was promptly picked up in the rush of air, and then spread over the ground and out into the streets of Ponyville.

"Ah! That felt good!" Kiss chirped before she levitated her boltgun back up and snapped a fresh magazine into place. "Cheers! Back to killing, then!"

****

'Eadbusta chewed his lips calmly while he looked to the sky, his eyes tracing the distant columns of light.

Every few minutes, the columns would dissipate and fade away. Only to be replaced seconds later by new lances of heat in a different pattern streaming down from above. The beams never landed close to the village, but stuck to the valley along the Ork horde's approach. VERY inconvenient.

At least the boyz knew to avoid and run from them now, rather than using the amplified sunlight to dry off. Still, those caught in the beams didn't always make it to safety before being baked by the magically enhanced heat, and anyway the beams were disrupting the flow of troops. The flood of Orks into the village had become a trickle, and they still hadn't managed to shut down that blasted artillery yet.

'Eadbusta glanced toward Ponyville, his mind throbbing with a familiar ache. The battle-lust of his fellow Orks flowed over and through him, like a river, threatening to sweep him away in the tides of power. That was simply the way of the WAAAAGH, the power of the Orks as mirrored in the Warp's malevolent ocean of energy.

But that wasn't his greatest concern now, as he stared at the brilliant halo of golden light sticking up above the town. It seemed this ocean had a dragon.

And there was something else, too. A dark feeling suddenly creeping through the village. It created a frankly bizarre contrast with the punishing sunlight raining from the sky, but its malicious intent was unmistakable.

"Ugh! Youz gitz smell dat?" complained a Mek nearby. His Lootas were digging through the bodies, stuffing guns and ammunition into sacks while Trukks rolled by to deliver more Orks into battle.

The Mek slapped a hand over his face at the arrival of a new stench that impressively managed to overpower the smell of smoke and gunpowder. 'Eadbusta's eyes narrowed.

"Dis playss iz cursed, I tell ya," the Weirdboy grunted. The old Ork tapped his misshapen metal staff against the gutted remains of a Battlewagon.

"Cursed? Cuz o' spikies, or cuz o' hosses?" asked a Loota, looking up from his work.

'Eadbusta didn't answer immediately. A few lashes of bright green power sparked over his exposed brain.

"Oi, gimme wun o'dem tings da humies got on deir dumm fayses," the Mek demanded, pointing to one of his soldiers, "dis brees iz worss den da Squiggoth dens."

The Loota nodded in agreement before he stooped over a dead mercenary, prying off the man's respirator mask.

The mercenary, surprisingly, seemed to take exception to this, and started clawing at the Loota's arms. Unusually assertive for a corpse, the Ork noted.

"Oi! I dun fink dis wun is ded yet!" the Loota complained.

"Den mayk it ded!" the Mek barked back, annoyed that he had to instruct his mob on such a basic thing.

The Loota duly started bashing the mercenary's head in with a spare autogun, and the groaning soldier eventually fell away into a twitching heap. But then two MORE pairs of bleeding arms reached up from the ground to seize his own.

There might have been some greater pattern to this, the Loota considered.

"Wot da zog?!" the Mek staggered back, his head twisted back and forth. All around him, the dead were pushing themselves to their feet, blood still oozing from blatantly fatal wounds. The fallen humans were rising first, standing up clumsily, but the Tau, Orks, and even the few dead Iron Warriors were starting to squirm.

"Oi! We killed youz all-reddy!" growled a Nob before he stomped on a writhing mercenary's head. "Stay DED!"

Several mobs opened fire on the rising dead, shouting somewhat hesitant battlecries. The transports and infantry moving into Ponyville quickly reversed course and leapt onto the new enemies, hacking into the undead with gusto. Gretchin shrieked and fled from the terrifying creatures. Armored vehicles started turning to bring guns to bear or simply rolled forward to run down the undead horde. The battle had taken an unexpected turn, but the Orks were, as ever, ready for a new fight.

'Eadbusta growled deep in his throat as he watched the veritable carpet of dead Orks climb to their feet by the dozens. They were currently at the barricades that had made up Ponyville's first line of defense, and in this particular area the dead Orks outnumbered the living ones by a hefty margin. As more and more of his fallen brothers were filled with foul magic and resurrected, the living could yet find themselves overwhelmed.

"Youz boyz been sent ta Gork n' Mork, you haz. Youz dun heah. Dis Spiky curse ain't gonna stop us!" With an unearthly howl, 'Eadbusta slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.

A shock wave of emerald light blasted outward from his staff, washing over living and dead alike. The living Orks felt nothing but a warm, electric tingle crawl up their spines, energizing them further. The zombies struck by the wave all collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, falling to the ground in a wave of wet thuds.

The psychic pulse had a limited range, however, and more and more dead soldiers kept rising further away.

In truth the zombies were faring quite poorly against the Ork warriors, and the few Killa Kans that happened to be nearby were cutting through the undead swarm with complete impunity. But the flow of troops that had already been much reduced had halted to a complete standstill. 'Eadbusta didn't know what the situation looked like further in the village, but whatever was casting huge rays of light and flame into the horde needed to be stopped.

"Kill 'em wunss, an' den kill 'em agin! WAAAAAAGH!!"

The Ork psyker turned as he heard a gleeful shout from behind him, and then had to duck as several bodies flew through the air overhead.

Warboss Dedhamma plowed through the ranks of dead, mowing through the zombie horde like a combine through a wheat field. His mega armor boasted a big shoota on the wrist of the right arm, but unusually did not have a power klaw on the other left. Instead, Dedhamma stayed true to his namesake, holding a massive hammer with a spiked head.

This weapon made an absolute mockery of the undead swarm, and zombies of all races went flying into the air as the Warboss swung wildly through the press of enemies.

At least the larger Ork seemed to be enjoying himself, laughing gleefully while he smashed and stomped the groaning plague zombies. The undead beat and clawed at his armor, trying to drag the warrior down, but they may as well have been kittens clawing at an elephant.

If said elephant was happily intent on reducing said kittens to a bloody paste, that is.

'Eadbusta gathered his power to him, and then again slammed his staff into the ground. In a straight path in front of him, another wave of undead slumped to the ground, and a mist of arcane energy vented inexplicably from their wasted bodies.

"Oi! Dedhamma!" 'Eadbusta bellowed, walking past the ranks of Orks battering zombies.

The Warboss stomped hard on an undead Nob, and then fired his big shoota into the swarm. A few zombies fell when their bodies were ripped apart by bullets, but many more merely staggered from the shots before continuing to claw at the massive Ork's armor.

'Eadbusta growled at being ignored, and then his exposed brain matter glowed with power.

"I'm tokkin' ta ya!" the Weirdboy shouted. His eyes flashed, and bright white lightning lashed out into the crush of undead. Zombies were incinerated or blasted apart as the Warp lightning ran its course, scorching a line over the ground right in front of Dedhamma.

The Warboss grunted before he smashed his big shoota over a zombie mercenary's head. "Whachu wan', 'Eadbusta?" His other hand lifted his hammer up and dropped it down, pulverizing another enemy without him even looking.

'Eadbusta couldn't get much closer without getting rid of more of the zombies that were trying to surround Dedhamma, and found the wave attacks rather draining. So he opted to simply shout to the Warboss over the heads of the living dead.

"Lissen! We'z gotta git ta da lite ovah dere!" He pointed at the golden beacon in the middle of Ponyville. "Dat's wot's fryin' da boyz! Reel bad juju!"

Dedhamma snorted before he swung his hammer around in a circle, smashing aside every zombie within two meters of him (along with two living Orks who were in the wrong place at the wrong time). "Boss Redclawz'll do it! He'z rarin' ta go!" Dedhamma guffawed, briefly pointing his gun-arm out into the valley.

Emerging from the gloom of the storm that mixed bizarrely with the light flares of Celestia's magic, the Gargantuan Squiggoth Betsy charged toward Ponyville in an earth-shaking gallop. The Command Squiggoth's skin was scorched from the light columns and its legs were bleeding from artillery blasts, but the enormous beast was no slower for its injuries, and no less eager to reach battle.

Dedhamma chuckled and smashed the butt of his hammer onto a Tau zombie's back, grinding its spine to splinters.

"Redclawz iz reel sore 'bout losin' da Gargants 'fore dey cood kill nuffin'," the Warboss said glibly, "he'z gonna finush dis persunal-loike."

'Eadbusta grunted in generic approval. "Wot 'bout da hoss majik?"

Dedhamma stomped over to the Weirdboy, squirming bodies snapping under each footfall. "You'z da shaman, aincha? YOU deel wif it."

The Warboss whirled around, hammering aside another few zombies as he got back to fighting.

'Eadbusta grumbled something about being too old for this crap and turned away, beckoning some stray boyz toward him. He wasn't about to go challenge whatever force was raining flame down from the sky, but he could sense other points of psychic output. With any luck, he could avoid having to batter his way through a zombie swarm to get to them, too.

****

"Well, how do you like this, then?" Daniels asked while he jogged through the town square. "Now we have THREE miracles! Didn't even ask for this one!"

"This is NOT a miracle!" Jerriha protested hotly.

The small group of foot soldiers were following Pinkie Pie deeper into Ponyville, dodging around the smoldering barricades and garrisons that still fought back against the Ork advance. As heartening as it was to see elements of the fractured defense still standing, most of their attention was focused on their new "allies".

"What IS this?!" Jerriha yelled, shuddering to a halt. Ahead of them, next to the wall of a home, a dozen zombies of human, Ork, and Tau species stooped over the corpses of a few Kommandos, gnawing on the dead bodies.

"Look, I don't know what qualifies as a miracle where you come from," Daniels admitted as he kept walking, "but to us humans, having the dead rise from the battlefield to fight on our side makes the grade."

*Sh-Shas'vre... I... I can't...* one of the Fire Warriors started mumbling before he tore his helmet off and started retching onto the ground.

Pinkie slowed her pace through the village to step around the clusters of living dead, making "Hmmm" noises at each group. The zombies would snarl and moan at the humans and Tau, but made no move to attack; apparently they had some kind of weird method to pick out the living Orks as their targets.

"Well, I never thought there would be a good time for a zombie apocalypse, but here we are," the party pony mused before she rushed forward, "let's go save Princess Celestia!"

Jerriha aimed her pulse carbine at a human zombie that was shambling by a little too close. "Stay back! Back!" The man didn't appear to react to her, but nor did it follow when the Fireblade shifted aside to give him a wide berth.

"Oh, hey! It's Jacob! He survived!" Daniels said as he recognized one man who had bullet holes stitched across his stomach. "... Well, sort of."

"Have you actually fought with these creatures before?" Jerriha asked. Her Fire Warriors were keeping a tight escort around her as she they followed, almost to the point of claustrophobia.

"Nah. Heard of 'em, though. Plague Zombies. It's a Nurgle thing," Daniels admitted while he stepped over the legless torso of a Fire Warrior that was clawing its way across the dirt. "Doubt they'll stop the Orks, but they'll sure slow 'em down."

Jerriha felt her stomach protest as she watched the Fire Warrior crawl across her path, and she took a deep breath before she fired a single pulse shot at the undead soldier's head. The energy bolt cracked the zombie's helmet open and cooked its skull, and the squirming body gave a final shudder before it stopped moving for good.

"Hey, now what did you do THAT for?" Daniels asked. "You're wasting ammunition AND meat shields."

"Shut up and move on with it," the Fireblade snapped, "let's be done with this place, already."

*Shas'vre, enemy contacts!*

****

"Alien fiends!" Celestia shouted from atop her chosen barricade, her horn still glowing like a grand lighthouse. Shining Armor stood beside her, his own horn surrounded by a relatively underwhelming glow while he shielded the both of them with a magic dome.

"You will not destroy this world as you have ravaged so many others! You will NOT win here!"

Her audience, as it were, was an impressively large mob of Shoota Boyz who were gleefully shooting at the magic shield while the Nob smashed a zombified Iron Warrior into mulch. They didn't seem to be putting much strain on the barrier, but the Orks also faced no apparent resistance other than a few undead diversions.

"Big tokk fer a glowy hoss!" shouted a Shoota Boy to be heard over the rattle of his weapon. "We'z gonna take all youz ta bitz!"

Then a photon grenade landed in their midst and detonated, blinding them.

"Die, barbarians!"

Jerriha's squad poured fire into the back of the Orks, and Shining Armor nearly shed a tear in joy as warrior after warrior collapsed under the searing bolts of pulse fire.

The unit Nob scrubbed his arm over his eyes for a few aggravating seconds until his vision cleared, and then he looked behind him to see a handful of the runty soldiers in blue and black armor flanking him from the rear.

He was about to order his boyz to rush the puny whelps when his still-recovering sight glimpsed something else beyond the crackling discharge of pulse rifle volleys. Something big, and pink.

"The Element of Laughter is here to save the day!" boomed the pink Dreadnought. "What's green, ugly, and is going to be switching sides soon as an undead abomination?"

"Iz it-" the Nob had a guess, but didn't get to say it before Pinkie's twin-linked autocannon joined the barrage tearing his mob to shreds. Heavy shot stitched through Ork flesh like paper, sending limbs flying and blasting torsos inside-out.

The Nob growled and bolted, waving his choppa toward Celestia as his shoota sprayed bullets wildly in his other hand. "Leg it, boyz! Kill da big hoss! Rip 'em ta-" an ion bolt struck the larger Ork in the side, and he howled before he fell face-first into the dirt.

His remaining mob, already cut down to six warriors, shuddered to a halt when a new hail of fire scythed into their flank. Blistering crimson shells sawed through the unit in a merciless volley, catching the Orks in a crossfire that rapidly tore them down to the last.

"Yay! We got 'em! Woo hoo!" Pinkie cheered before she stomped forward, the Fire Warriors following in her wake. "Oh, and look! It's Shmithy!"

Jerriha's first instinct was to ask who that was, but it became fairly obvious when a giant, multi-legged Iron Warrior scuttled down the street.

"Mish Pie, greetingsh! It'sh gratifying to shee you in one piece, shtill!" Solon had a rotary cannon in place of his right arm this time, and crimson smoke wafted from the barrels while they cooled down.

Gaela was following closely behind the Chaos Lord, her ion blaster still crackling. "Considering that a Dreadnought pilot goes missing every time she decides she wants a new combat walker, yes, it is."

Pinkie Pie giggled as she continued her approach. "Oh, Gaela! You so silly!" The Ork Nob, who was still alive and twitching on the ground, was smashed to a bloody pulp when Pinkie obliviously stepped on him.

*Shas'la, take up defensive formation!* Jerriha barked. *We're holding this area until further notice!* Then she pointed to Shining Armor. "You! Let us behind the barricade! Put up a one-way screen facing the main thoroughfare, but I want you watching our flank!"

"Yes, Sir!" Shining replied, speaking almost entirely out of martial reflex. He switched spells a moment later as Fire Warriors (and a human with "Love and Tolerate" scratched on his gun) piled in next to him and Celestia. Gaela unclipped a drop beacon from her belt, and then tossed it toward some clear space next to the town hall. Then she turned toward Pinkie's Dreadnought and started inspecting its leg.

As for Princess Celestia herself, she looked over the half-dozen Tau and two humans, and then frowned at Solon. "Are these all that's left? Has the defense truly collapsed so completely?"

"Oh, no, not even closhe," the Chaos Lord assured her, waving his hand. "But nobody elshe wanted to come."

"Neither did we, obviously," Gaela added while she started repairing Pinkie's leg, "but the Warsmith decided that since you were actually making an effort to be of SOME use for once, we should reciprocate."

Celestia scowled at the Dark Techpriest briefly before she re-cast her spell again, sending more beams of heat and light plunging into the valley.

*We have more infantry! The main road!*

*Tankbustas! Target the heavy weapons first!*

Another firefight soon broke out in front of the ponies, and Celestia glanced down at Shining Armor.

"Captain, are you all right? Be careful not to push yourself to the point of injury," the Princess insisted.

Shining's face was a mask of intense concentration while bullets raked against his barrier. "I'm fine, Princess. Besides, even if I push myself to injury, it's sure to be less serious than what the Orks' weapons will do to us."

"Bloke's got a point," Daniels remarked, "you hold that shield 'til you drop, Captain!"

Celestia made a frustrated noise, but it was drowned out by the whistling descent of a drop rig incoming.

The payload slammed into the ground next to the barricades, and Gaela quickly deemed her repair job on Pinkie's walker "good enough" so that she could deploy the new guns.

"We've got zombies coming up on the North side!" Shining Armor shouted, his fur bristling at the sight of the shambling dead.

Solon's gatling cannon and heavy bolters briefly stopped tearing into a group of 'Ardboyz, and he swiveled around toward the stallion. "Sho what?"

Celestia hissed. "Despicable! Of all the horrors of war the Orks could have unleashed upon us, I would have thought necromancy, at least, to be beneath them!"

"It ish," Solon said bluntly, "the undead are oursh."

Celestia and Shining stumbled under this revelation, and their respective spells briefly flickered before they reasserted their focus.

"Are you SERIOUS?! YOU unleashed the living dead on this battlefield?" Celestia snapped, her horn flaring even brighter. "How could you do such a thing?!" In retrospect, it at least explained why the zombies had relentlessly attacked the Orks but left the ponies alone; Celestia had previously assumed that the Orks simply hadn't considered the hazards of unleashing such magics.

"It shouldn't come ash any shurprishe by now that we don't have the shame avershion to dark witchcraft ash you do," Solon remarked before he returned to gunning down charging infantry, "beshidesh! Maybe if you had offered your shervicesh ash a living artillery battery ahead of time, thingsh wouldn't have degraded thish far!"

Celestia's horn flickered, and the glow started to recede. "You have WALKING CORPSES fighting alongside your soldiers - probably thanks to some horrid, contagious Chaos disease - and you wonder why I don't want to help your army?!"

Solon's gatling cannon slowed in its barrel rotation and stopped firing, and he again turned to the alicorn. "Oh, sho it'sh okay for my men to die ONCE for your damnable village, but twice ish offenshive to you? I don't shee any of your precioush Royal Guardsh out here, shave the one we dragged out of hish cashtle practically at gunpoint!"

Celestia clenched her teeth angrily before she stepped away from the barricade and toward the Chaos Lord. "As they are now, my guards would have barely slowed the Orks down as they were butchered!"

"But they're not here, sho I'm making Plague Zombiesh do it inshtead!" Solon snapped back, turning his chassis around entirely to face down the Princess.

"Should I seriously be regretting not sending my soldiers here to be turned into shambling horrors?! Necromancy is a terrible atrocity!"

"And it would be nice to get shome recognition when our terrible atrocitiesh work to your benefit!"

Daniels suddenly rounded on the two. "HEY!! We are in the middle of a FUCKING WAR!! Save your bloody spat for later and get back to fighting, you sods!"

Both Celestia and Solon recoiled, and then quickly turned away from each other. Celestia jumped back into her position and summoned a new wave of heat rays over the valley, while Solon briefly scanned the battlefield for the most dangerous target as his gatling cannon started spinning again.

Pinkie Pie's Dreadnought twisted to the side so that she could look down at Daniels. "Thank you."

"Seconded," grumbled Jerriha.

"Ditto," grunted Shining Armor.

Solon silently chided himself before he brought up a hololith map of Ponyville in the air in front of him. While he had never held himself with the grim dignity that Sliver managed all the time, he was still embarrassed to be caught having a shouting match with an alien while there was a firefight going on. A firefight that they weren't necessarily winning, yet.

Gaela finished deploying the quad heavy bolter turret that had been dropped, and she stepped onto the gunner's platform and hooked into the targeting arrays. Soon their defense point's firepower was bolstered by the heavy beat of the turret sawing through the Ork mobs, further suppressing the aliens' advance to a bare crawl.

"Blasht. There'sh another Shquiggoth incoming," the Warsmith complained. Even as he tracked the enemy units on the hololith map, his optics tracked the Orks trying to break into the area and his weapons blasted the aliens away in a storm of blazing metal. The few warriors that managed to make it to cover promptly found themselves harassed by the twitching, undead bodies of their comrades, and those that managed to actually shoot at the glowing white horse found their bullets bouncing off of a shimmering barrier.

"Uh-oh! We've got a big one coming in!" Pinkie Pie shouted when a Mega Dread rushed out from behind a house. "Looks like it's time for the small, underdog hero dread to fight the big, bad villain dread!" She cackled before she brought up her autocannon, centering it on the enemy walker.

"No, don't do that. That'sh shtupid," Solon chided as he scuttled forward.

A deep buzzing echoed from within his smokestacks, and with a gesture several large wasps wriggled out of the pipes and took flight.

*What in the name of-* one Fire Warrior gasped, only to find himself shoved forward by Jerriha.

*Keep your eyes on the greenskins, Shas'la!* the Fireblade growled. *Concentrate your attention on those horrors that are aimed at us!*

The wasps gathered into a small swarm and veered over to the Ork walker, their droning rising to an intensity that washed out the sounds of the other weapons fire.

At least, until the Mega Dread fired its kill kannon.

Solon was both the nastiest-looking combatant among the enemies, and also the only one not sitting safely behind Shining's shield. It also helped that he was the biggest target, which was frankly the only rational excuse for how it managed a direct hit.

The Chaos Lord rocked back under the shell impact, his legs digging furrows into the dirt as his armor strained against the force and flame washed over his chassis.

While the kill kannon's revolver-style shell feed rotated and loaded the next munition into place, the wasps landed atop the enemy walker. Scuttling about the surface, the insects wormed their way into cracks in the plating, bolt-holes conspicuously missing bolts, and the odd vision slit that was missing any sort of protective surface.

The Mega Dread lurched to a stop. Then it jerked to one side, swung its kill kannon up at a high angle, and then fired it into the air. It immediately swung in the other direction, and its claw weapon snapped open and shut frantically, reaching for an opponent that simply wasn't there. Then it began jerking and spasming to and fro, as if the ungainly machine was trying to dance. A few seconds later it suddenly stopped still.

"Target neutralized," Solon declared, turning his guns on a Trukk racing up a side street. He cut away the vehicle's tires with a single barrage, stopping the transport dead and spilling its passengers onto the ground.

Celestia watched, but her eyes weren't on Solon's targets. She was frowning at a deep crack in his chest armor.

"Didn't you have a shield of your own?" the white Princess asked suddenly.

"Voidshong broke it," the Warsmith grumbled back to her as he and Gaela's turret shot apart the Orks on the ground.

"That was some time ago, though," Celestia reasoned, "why haven't you fixed it, like you did the rest of your body?"

"Oh, I would have, but I've been quite bushy ash of late. Moshtly arming and armoring you equinesh," Solon surged forward suddenly, stomping one leg down on an Ork that had wandered too close, "I can't even work in my shleep anymore!"

Any further conversation on that topic was interrupted by a tremendous roar. Celestia snapped her head around, grimacing at the sight of a Gargantuan Squiggoth heading into Ponyville. The beast was far away from them, at the edge of town, yet was so huge that it was still easy to see over the houses and dust plumes.

"Now THAT is a big Squiggoth," Daniels whistled.

"Unushually big. And well-embellished. That may act ash a command posht for the Warbosh," Solon noted.

A heavy explosion bloomed over the side of the massive creature, eliciting another furious bellow that rolled over the entire village.

"The Vengeance of Olympia ish engaging it, but I don't think a Baneblade will lasht long at that range," the Warsmith admitted.

The super-heavy tank, while certainly enormous in its own right, was short enough to be hidden by the intervening buildings. Lascannon blasts and streams of heavy bolts lashed up at the behemoth in a merciless volley, marking the tank's location, but the Command Squiggoth's advance was implacable.

Celestia pursed her lips. "That is our main target, then? Fine." Her horn dimmed briefly, and the distant columns of light faded away. "I will finish the beast."

Jerriha and Daniels shared a dubious glance, and then watched as Celestia's horn pulsed again.

"Bear with me for a moment," the alicorn said while the golden energies wrapped more tightly and brightly around her horn, “this will take some time.”

"Oh, no hurry. I mean, that ISH my army'sh only shuper-heavy combat vehicle about to be crushed into shcrap, but whatever," Solon grumbled.

Celestia's eye twitched, but she kept her focus. "The sun is a rather unwieldy weapon, Warsmith. This spell is quite difficult to aim."

****

Betsy smashed houses to splinters as she charged through Ponyville, plowing through buildings and crushing throngs of zombies without even seeming to notice. In the armored command howdah on her back, kannons and shootas raked the surrounding area with gunfire and hammered the few garrisons still holding out.

The Gargantuan Squiggoth's main focus was undoubtedly the enormous main battle tank lying in the middle of the main road, however. As the momentum of the Ork assault had built to a frenzied river of violence, the Vengeance of Olympia had stood firmly in the middle, blasting apart Ork machines and squads by the dozen. Many soldiers of the 38th Company had flocked to it, sheltering next to its mighty guns and protecting its flanks from any would-be ambushes. It had shrugged off every blow the aliens had thrown at it, and slaughtered hundreds of greenskins for having the audacity to try.

Now, however, with the girth and fury of Betsy bearing down on it, the mighty Baneblade assault tank lumbered back in full reverse. Supporting infantry rushed out of its path and sprinted for new cover, and Plague Zombies were obliviously ground to a paste as the super-heavy tank backed over them. All the while, the cannons of the Vengeance of Olympia spat hot, fiery death at Betsy, discharging as fast as they were reloaded and pushing its enhanced reactor to its limit.

Still, it wasn't enough. Betsy reached the Vengeance, and she swung her head down into its side, hammering the Baneblade off the road. The enormous tank was thrown into the side of a very conspicuous tree house, smashing through the wall and crushing several bookcases under its bulk. It was still upright and intact, although the Baneblade's many guns stopped firing after the impact as they completely lost sight of their target.

Betsy backed up several steps, and the main cannon on her back fired into the shattered tree house. The shot blasted Twilight's former home in two, and the second story crashed onto the ground in flames.

The shot didn't cause much damage to the Baneblade itself, though. The tank's main turret swung about - knocking more bookshelves and sections of wall down in the process - to try to angle another blast into its assailant. It was far too close, however, and Betsy drove this point home by biting onto its main gun and tearing it off of the main turret. Then it backed away with the hefty length of metal still in its jaws, chewing on it like a bone.

After a few seconds of gnawing pointlessly on the metal, the Command Squiggoth spat it out, determined to take apart the rest of the assault tank. Betsy pawed at the ground angrily, backing up further so that it could get a good charge going before trampling the machine.

Just before surging forward, though, the beast's beady eyes glimpsed the edge of a bright light coming from above, barely visible from its angle. Having already suffered unpleasant experiences with bright lights that day, Betsy tried to twist its head about to get a better look.

A giant fireball at least half the size of the Command Squiggoth itself rocketed down from the sky and straight into the beast, surrounded by a hollow roar and a halo of crimson.

The huge firebolt struck Betsy with an underwhelming hiss, but there was nothing anticlimactic about the results. The metal barricades of the howdah came apart when fully half of the deck was vaporized, and flesh dissolved to nothing and sloughed off of scorched bone before the boiling solar plasma.

Betsy started to roar in agony, but even that final protest withered within the behemoth's throat as its torso crumbled behind it.

With a final, gasping whimper, the Command Squiggoth burned and died.

****

"... Okay, yeah, that was pretty good," Daniel admitted before he went back to shooting at a Killa Kan that was staggering down the road.

"Shure would have have been nice to have had shomething like that when the Tau were on our cashe," Solon mumbled, turning his own salvos onto the same walker.

Jerriha didn't say anything, although she shuddered at the thought of such power being summoned and directed by a being that her people once had considered little more than a wild animal. Seeing the Killa Kan falling apart before the heavy incoming fire, she focused her markerlight on the Mega-armored Nobz rushing up behind it.

Celestia merely snorted before her horn dimmed again. "I am no weapon of yours, Warsmith. You'll simply have to content yourself with my sister and student." Then she released a heavy sigh, feeling a tremor down her back. "That aside, I am nearly spent. I haven't expended this much magic in a long time."

"No prob, Princess! We've got a whole other wave to push back the Orks after this!" Pinkie cheered as she stomped forward, hammering the Nobz with her autocannons as she went. "Easy peasy!" When the first Nob lunged at her she struck it with her thunder hammer first, crushing the alien to a sizzling paste.

"Thish combat DOESH look far more doable at thish point," Solon admitted, bringing up his hololith map again. "With enemy reinforcementsh brought to a near-shtandshtill, we can..."

He trailed off, and his gatling cannon slowed to a stop. "... Wait. That'sh not right."

"What isn't?" Celestia asked, her eyes narrowing.

"That isn't!" Gaela barked, her gun platform briefly stopping its ceaseless barrage into the Orks. "The Baneblade!"

The fusillade from the defenders slowed, and soon the squeal of damaged treads and backfiring engines could be heard coming from a side road. Then it appeared: the Vengeance of Olympia, shattered and sputtering flame from multiple hull breaches along its rear and side plating. The Baneblade rumbled down the road, out of control, plowing through bushes, fences, and stonework walls with equal ease. Smoke and burning fuel followed its path across the ground, leaving a trail of ruin behind it as it rushed directly toward the Ponyville town hall.

"... That'sh not good," Solon said, slowly moving backward.

"What happened?" Shining Armor asked, his mouth agape. "I thought-"

"Dome barrier!" Gaela suddenly shouted, jumping off the platform and diving toward the others. "NOW!!"

Shining Armor didn't waste any more time with questions, and quickly switched spells from a one-way pane to a dome-shaped force shield. He was worried about Pinkie Pie, who was stilled squashing Orks and was out of range, but he hoped that her walker armor would be enough to handle whatever he was supposed to be shielding everyone against. Which he still wasn't at all clear on. Sure, the really big tank was heading closer, but it didn't look like it was going to run over them. And if it was, immobilizing everyone behind a barrier was the worst defense against such a catastrophe.

Then Vengeance of Olympia struck the wall of the town hall. Its reactor core, already severely damaged, was apparently pushed over the edge by the paltry impact. A lethal blast of heat surged from the breached core shielding and washed into the internal ordnance racks.

For the second time that day, Shining Armor felt a tremendous surge of pain before darkness claimed him.

****

"Dakka, dakka, dakka, dakka!! Hah hah hah! Eet led, ya ugly ded gitz!"

The jaw-rattling song of deffguns blasting hundreds of bullets across the battlefield rang in the ears of the Orks as they sawed through the zombie horde. Huge snakes of bullets were sucked up into the greedy weapons as they tore Ork, human, and Tau flesh apart, and Gretchin slaves rushed back and forth desperately to carry more ammunition to the fanatical gunners. On the plus side, there was spare ammo everywhere thanks to the enormous casualties suffered in the initial assault. On the completely awful side, most of those casualties clawed and gnashed at the whimpering greenskins even as they were stripped of their munitions.

"Oi, Gotkin!" barked a nearby Nob and he battered away an undead Iron Warrior. "Wot's goin' on?! Wot happened ta Betsy?!"

"Betsy got kuked! Loike a joosy squig stayk!" the Loota laughed, snatching up another spare munitions box and working to fix more bullet belts into the ammo feeds.

"Den wot're we doin' heah? We shud be fightin' wit' Boss Redclawz!" snarled the Nob, booting away the Plague Zombie. A swing of his choppa dismembered an Ork zombie clawing at his shins. "Let's git ta da REEL fightin'!"

"We'z got lotsa fightin' heah!" the Loota protested. "Let da Boss do hiz ting! If he needz help, he ain't no Boss o' myn!"

The Nob growled, debating whether he should simply clobber the insubordinate whelp.

The Orks were again dominating the field in front of Ponyville, having had to re-kill most of their initial kills, plus a hefty portion of their late brothers. The alien warmongers approached the task with characteristic cheer and lack of morbid sentiment. After initially struggling with the Plague Zombies' numbers and the fact that each Ork killed quickly joined the enemy's ranks, they managed to whittle down the hordes to the point that the undead no longer posed any real threat to the mobs. Several of the Ork walkers and heavily armored soldiers, which were practically impervious to the clawing hands of the zombies, happily mowed through the center of the swarm with impunity. Dedhamma clobbered undead of any color with equal joy, and his armor had been stained a grisly red from the sheer amount of gore that had splashed against it.

Still, the river of troops that had been pushing further and further into the village had been stopped completely, and the Ork forces fighting the Plague zombies had fragmented badly. Even now, very few mobs were joining the battle, as the valley leading into the village was now peppered with roaring fires and ashen craters.

At the very least, the beams of light had stopped bombarding them, though. Thank Mork for small favors.

"Boss! Boss!" squeaked a Grot scrambling over to the Nob and Lootas in a panicked sprint. "We'ze got trubbel, Boss!"

"Ya don' say," the large Ork snarled, whirling on the smaller greenskin and stopping it short, "da Gargants iz smohked, da Big Boss iz missin', hav da boyz got burnd up, and we'z haffta kill everyfin' TWYSS now, cuz da ded iz rysin'!"

"Heh, I kinda loike dat las' bit, doh!" snickered the Loota before he once again joined his brothers in mowing down Plague Zombies.

The Nob growled in the Loota's general direction, but kept his eyes narrowed at the nervous Grot below him. "So wot's yer probbem, runt?"

A lance of high-energy plasma struck the Nob in the side of the head, coring his skull. The Grot shrieked as the towering Ork collapsed in front of him, and started flailing wildly before he fled.

"Da zog?" mumbled several Lootas as they turned around, having noticed the demise of the larger warrior.

They were greeted by the sight of an entire new army marching out of the forest that bordered the pony village. Devilfish APCs and units of floating Sniper Drones picked their way slowly out of the tree line, but at the front were Kroot Carnivores and Iron Warriors that advanced more swiftly through the brush, forming a moving firing line.

And ahead of them...

The Lootas swung around and unloaded their deffguns into the new targets, sawing bullets across the ground by the hundreds. They didn't really know what the twisted, clawed creatures rushing at them ahead of the other soldiers were; they looked quite daemonic in aspect, with patches of exposed muscle tissue and lines of bone spikes running over their backs and arms. Yet there was something quite alive and corporeal about the creatures as they sprinted toward the aliens, drool oozing from their mouths and panicked howls competing with the blaze of Ork guns. The strange beasts also bled like mortal creatures, as the Orks were most satisfied to learn. The deffguns tore several of the creatures to shreds in mid-charge, the sheer volume of bullets foiling any evasive efforts they might have offered.

As soon as the mutants reached combat, however, the situation quickly reversed. Serrated talons and bone spikes ripped into the Lootas, and the heavy deffguns were quickly reduced to desperate bludgeons while the Orks tried to hold back the frenzied monsters.

Sliver watched the skirmish in grim silence as he exited the Everfree Forest himself, his visor shifting from combat to combat.

Wraithstar couldn't restrain a disgusted noise while he followed the hulking Chaos Lord. "So these are the weapons of Chaos, are they? The living dead and mutated monsters? I feel quite fortunate that my Sept had to contend with mere guns and armor."

"It iss the way of Chaoss to wield any and every weapon available to it," Sliver mused, "and it is the way of the Iron Warriorss to usse the tool besst ssuited to the job. Prepare your firing liness."

Wraithstar nodded, signaling the other Stealth Suit teams. Several of them promptly blasted forward to join the front advance, their battlesuits shimmering in the air.

"We'll move to eliminate the scattered Ork fire support while-"

"No," Sliver interrupted the Shas'el, "attack the main combat. Target the heaviesst enemy unitss while they're sstill engaged with our decoyss."

Wraithstar hesitated. "... That will put our 'decoys' directly in the line of fire, Lord."

"I can asssure you that the Plague Zombiess will not mind," Sliver snorted, "I will launch a new sspread of artillery fire into the midsst of the melee."

"... As you say, Lord," Wraithstar mumbled.

As the Tau Commander and the Chaos Lord relayed their respective commands, the latter noticed a particularly large armored body cutting a large swath through the zombie horde, seemingly oblivious to the new enemies.

"There. The Warbosss," Sliver hissed, "that iss the primary target."

He glanced to the side, only to see that the sensor head of Wraithstar's battlesuit was staring off toward the village.

"What of that earlier transmission, Lord?" Wraithstar asked, his eyes fixed on a large column of smoke. "The pony sovereign was the source of those heat rays, was she not?"

"What of it?" Sliver grunted. "If the equine witch blunderss into a battle zone on her own, then she shall have to navigate itss dangerss on her own. I have more important objectivess."

Wraithstar turned and looked up at the Nurglite. "Do I?"

Sliver paused for several seconds, and then snorted again before he primed the Viral Scourge. "Do as you wish, graysskin. I will judge your decissionss bassed on their conssequencess... if you live that long."

The Tau Commander wasted no more time, vanishing in a shimmer of distorted light.

Sliver turned his focus back on the battlefield, humming in approval when he saw the Serith's daemonic mutants tearing down another mob of Ork gunners. He disdained such bestial creatures as primary soldiers, unlike some Chaos Legions, but he wasn't so proud as to turn down perfectly good - and perfectly disposable - shock troops.

"All unitss, fire at will," he hissed into the vox, "exterminate EVERYTHING."

****

Ponyville - (former) town hall

Celestia coughed painfully before she shifted into a sitting position, her head throbbing around her horn.

The pain receded quickly while her magically enhanced constitution worked to put her senses back in order. The ringing noise in her ears started to fade, and her vision started to clear.

Well, started to clear a little bit. There was a thick fog of dust and smoke all around her, and she at last learned the reason why the humans insisted on wearing those bizarre respirator masks all the time. A brief cantrip shielded her own air passages from being choked out, but few ponies could cope so easily.

As the subject of possibly endangered ponies crossed her mind, Celestia's eyes widened and she whirled around. "Shining Armor! Are you all right?"

She didn't receive a reply, but found him quickly enough. Daniels was stooping over the unicorn, checking his pulse, while Jerriha was gathering up her dazed Fire Warriors. Gaela leaned next to her, sputtering binary into her vox system. Everyone at the barricade seemed to have survived the explosion of the Baneblade, and she could only imagine they had Shining's barrier to thank for it.

"Is he all right?" Celestia asked tightly as she walked up to the soldiers.

Daniels nodded, pulling his head away from the stallion's chest. "He's okay. I mean, kind of. He's being held together by bandages and witchcraft at this point, but I don't think he'll be joining the zombies anytime soon."

Celestia bristled at the reminder that Ponyville was still infested with the undead. She had no idea how infectious such dark magic was, but she didn't intend to take any more chances.

"Take him out of here," she commanded firmly, "I know there are transports waiting at the West side. Get him there with all haste."

"Aye-aye, Sovereign," Daniels said, pulling the stallion over his shoulders into a fireman's carry, "things were getting a little too dicey for me, anyhow."

After the mercenary headed out, Pinkie Pie stepped forward out of the dust. Almost all of the pink paint over the hull of her walker had been burnt off by now, but the vehicle was still completely intact, it seemed.

"Hey, uh... speaking of dicey..." Pinkie's voice sounded distinctly nervous, even through the vox caster, and she pointed her hammer at a dark shape looming through the currents of smoke.

Warboss Drahgza Redclawz snarled angrily while he stalked out of the haze, his footsteps crushing loose stone and scorched bodies to powder. Black smoke seeped from the beam emitters on his klaws, and his optical visor flickered as the three sensors looked over the assorted defenders.

They quickly locked onto one of the creatures in particular, and the power fields of his klaws sparked.

"YOU," he snarled, pointing one of the crab-like weapons at Celestia.

The white Princess recoiled despite herself. The Warboss was, obviously, enormous, and there was a palpable sense of savage power about the alien.

"I haff had ENUFF o'ya damm hosses n' yer stoopid majik." The visor flashed a solid red for a moment, and arcs of crackling power crawled over the smoldering plating of his mega armor. "I'm gonna kill ya. Den I'm gonna wayt til' ya go zombee, den I'm gonna kill ya AGIN!!" He slammed a boot down, and the ground shook underfoot.

Celestia's wings spread angrily, but before she could answer the threat another voice did it for her.

"Oh, leave the little poniesh alone, you green dolt. You have more worthy foesh." The heavy, rapid footfalls of Solon's chassis drew the Ork's attention aside, much to the relief of the others.

The dust parted around the Chaos Lord while he approached, his own optics glaring brightly at the alien commander.

"I am Warshmith Sholon, brute. Shtate your name before I cut you down." A long metal weapons case on his chassis lifted up and then popped open, revealing the hilt of a crackling power sword. "A bureaucratic trifle, I assure you. Your name will be added to our archivesh and then buried among damage reportsh, no doubt."

He drew the blade with his left arm, and the power field hummed loudly as he pointed it at the Ork. The sword was nearly as long as a man, with a blade far too thick and heavy for any weapon intended to be easily wielded with one hand.

"All right! You go, Shmithy!" Pinkie Pie cheered.

"Chaos will never submit to the green tide!" Gaela snarled.

"Just keep that monster away from us," Jerriha grumbled.

Drahgza's visor blinked toward the Chaos Lord, and the Warboss hesitated. "You'z da spiky Boss, den?"

"I am," Solon declared, lifting himself up high over the ground. "I face you on behalf of the Iron Warriorsh 38th Comp-"

Twin spears of white blasted from Drahgza's klaws and cut into the right side of Solon's chassis. All of the legs on that side were severed instantly, and the Warsmith yelped before he crashed onto his side.

"The hellsh?!" Solon shouted, looking over his optics data as Drahgza charged at him. "A poshitron emishion ray? How the blazesh did you cretinsh build THAT?"

The Ork Warboss did not seem inclined to explain, and Solon made a swing at the mighty alien as soon as Drahgza came within range.

The Warboss caught Solon's blade in one of his pincers, and then twisted sharply. The power fields sparked and cracked against each other for several seconds, and then the power sword shattered in a burst of adamantium fragments and crimson sparks.

"Damnationsh!" Solon cursed, his servo claw pushing forward.

Drahgza caught this weapon with his other klaw, snapping the blades closed under the main servo hinge of the massive augmetic.

Pinkie Pie's cheering trailed off into a whimper.

"Da naym's Drahgza Redclawz," the Ork snarled. Then he ripped the claw off of the servo arm, spilling sparks and shredded metal over Solon's chassis. "But you won' need ta remembah dat."

Then he slammed the servo claw down onto Solon's head.

Several times.

"What are you idiots standing there for?!" Gaela snapped at the others as her left arm shifted into ion blaster mode. "Let's get in there and help him!"

Jerriha cringed, watching chunks of twisted metal bounce away from the ridiculously one-sided fight. "No, actually, I think we should run now. I don't want a piece of that."

"Isn't he supposed to be GOOD at this sort of thing?" Celestia asked the Dark Techpriest incredulously.

"She's right, everyone!" Pinkie shouted, again pointing her thunder hammer toward the foe. "We have to work togeth-no, never mind, it's over."

"Hyurgh!" Solon groaned loudly as Drahgza clamped both klaws around his torso, near the point where his body met the chassis.

Then, with a grim chuckle and a puff of steam, Drahgza pulled.

A horrendous shriek came from the Warsmith's body as his torso was ripped free of its mounting, and a thick green fluid oozed from the wound while the Ork held him up.

"Feh. Not much fer fightin' ar ya?" the Warboss grunted. Then he turned his head around. "Oi! Hossy! Kach!"

Celestia's eyes widened when the Ork flung Solon at her, and her wings flapped powerfully to launch herself into the air. Solon slammed into the ground below and then bounced off and rolled across the dirt, eventually crashing against the wasted hull of the Company's Baneblade.

"Unnngh..."

"Why did you DODGE?!" Gaela screamed at Celestia, absolutely furious.

"What, was I supposed to let him hit me?" Celestia countered hotly.

"You have telekinesis, you worthless agri-beast!" Gaela reminded her. "You could have caught him!"

Celestia winced briefly, as she hadn't actually considered that. Then she had to swoop to the side as Drahgza fired his un-mattah beems at her, the sizzling white rays slashing by her head. "Could we not fight over this right now? Your anger would be better directed at the Ork, I think!"

"You're the blasted Alpha-level psyker! Kill it with your mind, fool!" Gaela snapped, barely restraining herself from shooting at the alicorn as well.

Celestia huffed deeply while she built altitude, her horn again glowing with golden light. "Of course. You may have bested the likes of Chaos in a show of brute strength, Ork, but just as I slew your command beast I shall lay you low as well!"

Drahgza halted, his armor shaking with rapidly building rage. "... Betsy... you damm hoss... YA KILLED MY BETSY!!"

"And so I shall send you to join it!" Celestia declared before her horn flashed. "I will turn you to ashes!"

A bolt of golden light slashed through the waves of dust and straight toward the Warboss, trailing glimmering motes of yellow light behind it. Just looking at the psychic energy strained the eyes, and Gaela's sensors went haywire trying to calculate its energy levels.

Drahgza's energy shield flared around him as the magic energy washed over it, failing to meet his flesh or armor and dissipating harmlessly.

"... Unless you possess a personal protective barrier," Celestia amended as she pursed her lips, "... oh dear."

"WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" Celestia could feel her skull shake at the furious roar, and she absently noticed that their Tau allies had apparently had enough, breaking into a full retreat away from the encounter.

"Princess!" Pinkie shouted from below. "I'll save you!"

"Stay back!" Celestia ordered as she shook her head. "I can stop this barbarian! He will not... uh... what is he doing?"

Drahgza had retreated away from her, running back to the spot where he had dismembered Solon.

The Ork Warboss grabbed onto the sputtering chassis - nearly as large as he was, even without the Chaos Lord attached - and lifted it up over his head. Then he flung the mass of twisted metal and ruined pistons at the Princess, sending it spinning through the air with terrifying speed and surprising accuracy.

Celestia managed to avoid a direct hit as she darted away through the air, but an outstretched leg slashed across her wing, instantly unsettling her flight.

The alicorn flapped her wings frantically to avoid an uncontrolled landing, straining against the pain in her wing. Even a glancing hit from such a massive "projectile" had hurt tremendously, and if it weren't for her magic armor automatically absorbing much of the force that struck her Celestia may have lost the wing entirely.

When she did touch down, she was immediately aware of the heavy, pounding footsteps of the Warboss's charge. Her horn flashed, attempting to teleport out of his path, but as she drew deeper into her dwindling reserves of magic power and fought against her growing exhaustion the spell took a few seconds longer than usual to work. Seconds that she didn't have.

Every gem in Celestia's armor flashed when Drahgza punched a power klaw into Celestia's side, trying in vain to hold back the Ork's incredible strength. Several of them shattered before she was sent flying across the ground. Her armor clanked and shrieked as she skidded across the dirt, digging a furrow in the street and leaving a trail of white feathers behind her.

Then she slammed into the side of the Baneblade wreckage and landed in a heap next to Solon.

"So, NOW can we help?" Pinkie asked.

Celestia coughed up a bit of blood, and then raised her head unsteadily. "... Yes. Yes, you may." She fell back down into the dirt with a painful wheeze.

Pinkie's autocannon came alive immediately, hammering into Drahgza's energy shield and seizing the Warboss's attention.

"All right, big boy! It's PARTY TIME!!"

A trio of crackling ion bolts followed the autocannon volley, and the Ork's backpack started to spark dangerously when the shield generator overloaded. "Return to the cesspool you crawled out of, xeno scum!" Gaela demanded.

Drahgza himself offered an aggravated snort, his klaw snapping open. He fired another beam over at Pinkie - by far the more impressive and easier to hit target - and struck the walker in the side, spearing through her gun. The autocannons practically fell apart as the mounting servos were atomized, and Pinkie yelped when that side of her walker exploded.

The giant pink helmet twisted to the side, noting the molten mess that used to be her main weapon. "Gaela! Quick! Fix me!"

Gaela growled and fired another ion burst into the Warboss with little apparent effect. "Not NOW, Pie!"

Pinkie's helmet turned back and forth rapidly. "Well, I've only got the thunder hammer left, then, and there's no way I'm getting close enough to that guy to-"

A second beam struck the assault walker in middle of its waist, and Pinkie squeaked after all her damage and heat readouts jumped catastrophically. "It's no good! Eject button! Eject!"

Gaela had to pause at that. "A Dreadnought shell has no pilot ejection-"

Then the head portion of the Dreadnought rocketed up into the sky, leaving the rest of the walker behind on a trail of smoke.

Gaela was so stunned to see that the Dreadnought DID have an eject system - she had certainly never built such a thing into Pinkie's helmet - that her eyes tracked the retreating head component rather than taking readings on the hull that was left behind.

So when that hull exploded right next to her, swallowing her in flame, it was quite an unpleasant surprise.

****

"Trixie is most unimpressed by this defensive effort so far. Trixie will be submitting several harsh complaints with the appropriate authorities once this debacle is over with. Really, Trixie has come to expect better than this from the Company leadership."

The crack of surrounding lasguns and bolters was the only response to her complaint. Trixie was barricaded in the second story of somepony's home after the Baneblade had been destroyed, helping a collection of mercenaries and Iron Warriors who were still hunting Ork mobs through the village. That job had gotten easier since the dead started rising as zombies, but it still reminded Trixie way too much of her first combat sortie, when the Tau had invaded Ferrous Dominus.

An Iron Warrior's heavy bolter clicked empty, and he grunted before he tossed the gun aside. "New weapons!" the Chaos Marine demanded.

Trixie offered an overstated sigh while she levitated her hat up and flipped it over. After doing a bit of nonsense chanting for show, a plasma gun popped out.

The Iron Warrior recoiled slightly. "Give that to one of the mercenaries. I'll take the next one."

Trixie growled under her breath and tossed the weapon at the feet of one of the men firing out the window.

"Trixie is not some kind of walking armory, you know," the unicorn huffed, "this is not the intended purpose of this spell."

"I've seen your witchcraft before," acknowledged the Chaos Marine, "this is a much better use of it."

A flamer fell out of Trixie's hat next, and the Iron Warrior scooped it up.

"It's the principle of the thing," Trixie insisted as she put her hat back on.

"Overlook your principles, then," retorted the Astartes, "and in return, we won't question where these weapons come from. None of us seriously believe you summon them from the very ether."

Trixie laughed nervously as the soldier turned back to the fighting. "T-Trixie has no idea what you're talking about! Trixie certainly hasn't been ransacking your armories with her magic!"

"Give it a rest, Trix," remarked a mercenary before he reluctantly picked up the plasma gun, "with the supply lines down and the General KIA, that's exactly what we need."

"We have another mob incoming," announced another human soldier, "some big ones, too. Draw them into the kill zone, would you? I'll tell the artillery squads to ready another salvo."

"'Ere we go, ladz! I noo dere wuz fightin' roun' heah 'sides dese ded boyz!"

A Flashgit laughed and pointed at a still-intact building on the side of the road. Flashes of muzzle flare came from the windows, and there were a few stray Orks still shooting back from behind barricades, deep craters, and wrecked vehicles.

'Eadbusta frowned at the building, his eyes narrowing. There was something in there besides spikies and humies. He could feel the strange, light pulse of hoss majik, albeit in much lesser intensity than from the solar beacon in the middle of town.

"Hey, freaks! Over here!"

The new Orks stopped short, looking over to the side. There was a small, blue unicorn standing out in the open, shaking its rump at them while sticking out its tongue.

"You think you're so tough? Why don't you pick on somepony half your size?!"

The Flashgitz were about to do just that, swinging their over-worked and heavily customized guns toward the brash and foolhardy pony.

"Don' boddah," 'Eadbusta interrupted, smacking one of the Nobs on the arm, "dat wun's a fayk." Then he pointed toward the garrison. "Hit da hows! Da hoss's in dere!"

The chuckling Nobs rushed to cover, eagerly joining the firefight against the garrison.

"Helloooo! Are you deaf AND ugly? Over heeeeere!" the Trixie hololith called, but to no effect.

New streams of heavy shot started cutting across the walls of the house, steadily hammering the walls apart. The Flashgits' heavier guns weren't any more accurate or reliable than stock shootas, but the heavier calibers and output was severely testing the walls of a building not made to withstand such abuse.

"Hey!" Trixie's hololith griped, finally turning around as it flickered. "Nobody ignores the Great and Powerful Trixie's luscious and magnificent flank! Get over here and attack me, you insolent savages!"

The Orks did no such thing, completely engrossed in their firefight. Two of the hefty aliens fell near the front to bolter and lasgun fire, and then a missile streaked out of the top floor of the house, blasting away a sandbag pile. Several more Flashgitz were sent tumbling away, hurt but still combat-worthy.

'Eadbusta glowered at the house, incensed by its audacity to keep standing. His eyes started to glow.

"By da powah o'Gork - or mebbe Mork - I'z gonna stomp ALL youz dumm squishies!" the Weirdboy snarled. Arcs of power lashed over his exposed brain, and the 'Eadbusta aimed his staff at the garrison. "Die, arreddy!"

With that bellowed command, a green portal swirled into being over the pony home, expanding rapidly until it was wider than the structure itself.

An enormous green leg, over-muscled and trailing streams of emerald-colored mist, emerged from the portal and smashed its tank-sized foot down into the garrison. The roof was reduced to splinters, and both floors of the house buckled inward before the entire structure started to crumble around the defenders.

Trixie's hololith screamed in terror, and then, much to 'Eadbusta's satisfaction, it vanished entirely as the garrison collapsed.

"Hah hah! Nyss wun, 'Eadbusta!" cheered a Flashgit as the Foot of Gork disappeared. A great plume of dust rose from the rubble of the house, and the Weirdboy nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Oi! We'z gotz mo' zom-bees ovah heah!" barked another Nob, unleashing his weapons into the corpses of the Orks lying around the general area.

The other made to join him, but one of them hesitated. "... I don' see 'em moovin'. You sho dey zom-beez?"

"Well, dey ded, ain't dey?" the other Ork retorted. "So dey gonna git up agin soonah or laytah!"

The other Flashgitz accepted this logic enthusiastically, and promptly started gunning down the soldiers that had already been gunned down.

'Eadbusta doubted that the corpses in this area would rise against them; the flow of dark magic that was raising the dead wasn't evenly applied through the village, and in any case he could feel the curse's power wane as the battle wore on. He didn't say anything to the others, though. They just looked so HAPPY as they shot and stomped the dead bodies, he couldn't bear to disappoint them.

'Eadbusta did have other concerns, however. The rubble from the garrison was starting to shift, and he could feel several of the telltale sparks of energy within that indicated some their enemies stubbornly refused to perish.

One of the larger timbers shifted upward before two Iron Warriors heaved it aside, and a third Chaos Marine stood up under them while hauling a mercenary out of the debris.

"'Ere we go agin, boyz!" 'Eadbusta shouted, pointing to the defenders. "Mo' Spikies! Git 'em!"

Once again, the Iron Warriors and the Orks clashed at range, but this time there were no walls to protect the hominid soldiers. Although the boltguns ripped through the Ork's thick flesh and flimsy armor with ease, the Marines' battered plate couldn't withstand the Orks' high-powered weapons for long. The hapless mercenary was ripped apart easily and early by the fusillade, while the Iron Warriors started to fall back under the barrage.

'Eadbusta intervened once more, his staff crackling with green lightning. "Dere ain't no spiky, humie, o' hoss dat can stand 'gainst da Orks!" With an insane laugh and an intense headache, the Weirdboy shot a ball of green lightning at the Chaos Marines. The orb broke apart upon the armor of one Marine, and then lashed about the other two before they could escape the blast zone. Each warrior fell to the ground in a smoldering heap while arcs of green danced across their ceramite plating.

Once again the Flashgitz cheered on the display of psychic destruction, but this time 'Eadbusta silenced them by banging the butt of his staff on the ground.

"Kwy-et, ya gitz! Dere'z wun mo'!" the Weirdboy snapped.

The other greenskins waited with bated breath for this new threat to appear, many of them quickly re-loading their guns in anticipation. When nothing emerged for nearly twenty seconds, the Flashgitz started to consider that maybe the psyker had a taken a blow to his brain matter (unprotected as it was).

Then, it appeared.

"ORK SCUM!! HOW DARE YOU STAND AGAINST THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!!" The remains of the house burst apart in a blast of telekinetic force, and several Orks stepped back uncertainly.

An enormous, dark, equine shape rose its head out of the debris, its eyes blazing crimson with rage. Great black armor riven with spikes and awash with flame covered the furious hooved monster. A huge, curved horn flared with awesome power as it tilted its nose to the sky, promising a harsh, fiery death to the aliens below.

"SUFFER BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL WRA-"

'Eadbusta's eyes flashed brightly, and then much of the giant pony blew away like smoke. The residual magic faded, and soon Trixie was exposed in the middle of a crater of rubble, frozen in mid-bellow and no larger than usual.

"Dat's da wun kawzin' all da trubbel," 'Eadbusta growled, "krump it, boyz."

Trixie started to tremble while the four remaining Flashgitz approached, loading or priming their weapons as they went.

"Well, dis wun don' look so tuff."

"It'z got armah, tho. Not bad lootin'."

Trixie gulped, backing away quickly. She promptly tripped on a broken desk, collapsing onto her armored rear.

"N-Now, let's not be h-hasty," the unicorn stammered, shaking in her greaves. "Hey! You guys like flashy magic, right? And guns? 'Cuz I've got both! Why don't you let me just get my hat, and I'll giv-"

The armored pony screeched when one of the Flashgitz blasted her off of her hooves, sending her reeling into the debris pile with a large crack in the side of her armor.

'Eadbusta frowned. He could feel something else here, now. Another presence. But this one...

"C'mon, hossy! Fight a liddel!" laughed a Nob before he kicked the unicorn, flipping her over onto a shredded mattress.

"Feh. No gutz wen da spikies ain't aroun', eh?" snarled another. "Mebbe it'll fight wen it'z ded."

The four Nobs backed up a step and then aimed their weapons.

At each other.

"STAHP!!" 'Eadbusta shouted, his eyes flashing angrily.

The other Orks hesitated, startled. They were even more startled when they realized that they had been about to blow each other away rather than the pony. The Flashgitz staggered back, confused.

"Ah, what a treasure is the Ork mind," mused an almost serpentine voice from behind the heavily-armed aliens, "so feeble, so simple, and yet capable of such great and absurd feats. A race that continues to fascinate me, even after so many millennia of butchering you."

Trixie gasped, and then she stumbled upright. "Serith!"

The Orks finally caught sight of the Sorcerer. Which unnerved them, because he wasn't exactly hard to spot. He was standing right behind them, barely a grenade's toss away.

They swung their guns around, and one of them snarled. "Wun mo' spi-"

"Be silent, wretch," Serith interrupted harshly, pointing at the Ork that had spoken.

That particular Nob promptly drew his combat knife and then stabbed it into his own neck.

"Thank you," Serith offered calmly before the Flashgit collapsed onto the ground, gurgling around the blade in his throat. "The rest of you may perish, now. Come."

For the first time in their lives, the Orks hesitated to attack. They were still quite confused about almost shooting each other, never mind that one of their number had accepted an Iron Warrior's command (and interpreted it in such a fatal sense).

"Shoot 'im, ya gitz!" 'Eadbusta roared, his eyes blazing.

This seemed to snap the Flashgitz out of their daze, but by then the Chaos Sorcerer was already among them.

"Revolting. I have no need of you brutes," Serith said calmly. He was walking at a perfectly normal pace, yet seemed to appear within arm's reach of the closest Nob in an eyeblink.

The Ork swung at him, but Serith slipped to the side, reaching out with his free hand to tap the warrior on the side of his head.

Serith continued walking by, but the Flashgit growled angrily, turning toward the Marine's back. Then the Ork pressed his gun up against the bottom of his jaw, and unceremoniously blew his own head off.

"You revel in your own ignorance. You fight because you know of no other diversion with which to spend your lives," Serith adopted an exasperated tone as he pointed his force halberd at the next Ork. That warrior was instantly lifted off the ground, thrashing and shooting wildly. Serith poked the halberd into the alien's chest and then cut downward, moving the weapon with a slow and delicate pace. It rather resembled a scientist cutting open a specimen with a scalpel, with the exception that such specimens didn't usually howl in pain during their dissection.

The last Flashgit would have fired on the Sorcerer, but as his mob-mate was being attacked a purple hat suddenly wrapped over his head, blinding him. The Ork began to panic, flailing his weapon around and kicking wildly, until a few seconds later the hat lifted off of him and his vision was restored.

Even as the hat floated away within an aura of pink, he still had questions, though. Mostly regarding the belt of frag grenades that now hung around his neck, and the very troubling absence of detonator pins.

Trixie turned her head away before the last Nob was shredded by the detonation of the grenade belt, splattering the side of her armor with flecks of gore.

"That's what you get, alien goons! Nobody picks on the Great and Powerful Trixie!" despite herself she couldn't restrain a pained sniffle at the end of the taunt. Her armor seals had already been broken, and she still ached quite severely from the Ork's kick.

Serith chuckled darkly before he threw his own victim aside with a gesture. "Brilliantly done, Lady Trixie," he congratulated her.

The two were briefly encompassed by a bright green glow, and Serith whirled around and punched out his left arm just before an orb of ball lightning reached him. The energy bolt dissipated instantly, coming apart on contact with the psykant occulus and seeping into the gauntlet. After a few seconds, there was nothing but a few green sparks to suggest the psychic assault had ever occurred.

"It seems we have one more foe to lay to rest before we depart the fray," Serith grumbled, "after you?"

Trixie cringed away, stepping to the side to get behind the Chaos Sorcerer. "Oh, no, you go ahead, Serith. Trixie isn't quite feeling a hundred percent right now. Trixie will provide moral support."

Serith laughed, and 'Eadbusta snarled angrily.

"Youz dumm, spiky gitz! You'z fink ya can beat da Orks?" His eyes flashed again, and a great bolt of lightning leapt from his staff directly at the Iron Warrior.

Said lightning struck the psykant occulus and curled around it, lashing about the gauntlet's dispersal rods uselessly.

"To defeat the Orks is to defeat a force of nature," Serith mused aloud while he walked toward the Weirdboy, "but humanity has ever made nature its plaything."

Despite his words, Serith found himself rather stymied as he approached the Ork psyker. The subtle manipulations that he planted into non-psykers with ease washed off of the Weirdboy without effect. There were no gaps in his consciousness to step through, no weakness of will to prise open.

"What a fascinating creature you are," Serith said while he walked up to his opponent, "I can't WAIT to cut you open."

'Eadbusta snorted, slamming his staff onto the ground. This time there was no shock wave, but rather his psychic energies focused beneath his feet and then traveled up his legs. "If I'z can't blast youz..." A green aura pulsed around his body, and Serith's approach suddenly stopped. "... Den I'll SMASH YOUZ!!"

In an instant, the Weirdboy's size seemed to double, and his eyes flared with unnatural light before he broke into a surprisingly swift run for the Sorcerer.

Serith quickly swung his force halberd, but found it parried with ease by the Ork's staff. A simple right hook slammed into his chest plate, and Serith was lifted off his feet and launched backward.

The Iron Warrior rolled to a stop, still clutching his weapon, and a dusty snort came from his vox grille before he jumped to his feet. Serith brought up his force halberd just as 'Eadbusta's staff swung down at him, and though he deflected the blow the Iron Warrior staggered.

'Eadbusta took full advantage, smashing into the Astartes with his shoulder and knocking him over. Lightning lashed around his fists before he slammed them into his downed opponent, and his furious howls echoed through Serith's mind.

Trixie watched in horror as the Ork battered the Chaos Sorcerer, stunned that the alien could overwhelm and outfight her Iron Warrior friend.

When Serith pushed to his feet and retaliated, the unicorn was forced to revise her opinion. 'Eadbusta wasn't fighting much better than any given Ork, really. His fists surely hit harder and he was moving a bit faster thanks to his psychic boost, but there was no particularly great skill or stunning swiftness to his attacks.

Rather, Serith simply wasn't fighting at the same level as his brothers did. The Chaos Space Marines she had witnessed fighting so far had all done so with shocking speed and casual superiority. The least of them seemed leagues beyond the human warriors, even putting aside their starkly superior armaments.

Serith's movements, while seeming competent enough to a pony, hardly compared. Every blow he attempted was hammered aside, and his attempts to dodge were ill-timed. Was he perhaps just not used to real combat? Had his countless hours studying the nature of psychic power and the curiosities of aliens left too little time for training?

"Dis all youz got, spiky?" 'Eadbusta taunted before he smashed his staff against the haft of Serith's halberd. "I've stomped squishy humies better'n you!"

Serith pushed against the Weirdboy, but his boots started digging furrows through the dirt as he was shoved back. "My talents lie in other areas, savage," he hissed, "but don't think I will fall to something like you."

'Eadbusta had to consider that, even if he seemed kind of slow compared to the other spiky fighters, he was certainly tough. The Chaos Sorcerer shrugged off intense blows and surges of lightning that would have stunned other Marines, jumping back to his feet without apparent injury.

As he drove the Sorcerer back, 'Eadbusta reached one hand behind him, seizing hold of a spare dagger (or, as the Orks called it, stabby choppa).

"Wot youz got, den? C'mon!" the Weirdboy taunted.

Then he suddenly let go of his staff, stepping back and out of Serith's way.

As expected, Serith reacted too late, stumbling forward before he could stop himself. Before he could steady his stance, 'Eadbusta did it for him, grabbing the Sorcerer's shoulder pad with one hand while using the other to plunge his stabby choppa into Serith's throat. The blade sliced easily through the rubber neck lining, and the Iron Warrior released a gasping noise when the dagger's hilt slammed into the chin of his helmet.

"SERITH!!" Trixie screech, her heart jumping in her chest. Panicking, she quickly turned her hat upside down, powering the portal attached to it.

'Eadbusta chuckled before he pushed the Iron Warrior away. "Heh, heh, heh. Youz squishies iz all da saym. No powah, no gutz. Jus' trikks." Though Serith remained standing, the Ork turned away to face his second foe.

A boltgun tumbled out of Trixie's hat, and then she levitated it up into the air.

The weapon was blasted away by a bolt of green power, and Trixie yelped and jumped back.

"No mo' trikks, hossy," 'Eadbusta snarled as energy arced between his palms. He shaped an orb of power, and then brought his hands together, ready to launch the projectile and finish off the mare.

Then the blade of a force halberd punched up through his chest from behind, eliciting a shocked gasp from the alien.

"I have one more trick, xeno worm," Serith said calmly, standing behind the Weirdboy while his visor pulsed with crimson light, "it's called a 'force weapon'."

'Eadbusta screamed, and Trixie cringed away from the resonant howl as a thick green mist started to pour off of the Ork's body.

"Sadly, this trick is one you only ever get to experience once," Serith said with mock regret, "farewell, Ork."

'Eadbusta's scream grew in intensity rather than weakening, power bleeding out of his eyes and mouth in crackling torrents. It rattled around in Trixie's head even as her helmet muted the physical noise, and she squeezed her eyes shut and willed the horrible sound to stop.

Then, a moment later, it did. 'Eadbusta's flesh crumbled away to dust, and his bones collapsed into a pile at Serith's feet.

"My, but he was a bothersome one, wasn't he?" Serith asked, shaking off his halberd.

Trixie was so relieved to see the Sorcerer in good spirits in good health that she couldn't speak. But as glad as she was, it was hard not to notice that Serith still had the Ork's dagger in his throat, as if the weapon wasn't really a problem for him. Or especially noticeable.

He must have noticed Trixie staring, though, because he suddenly cocked his head up and then drew the blade out of his neck. "While I'm certain you have questions and concerns, we should be going. The success of this operation is quite out of our hands-slash-hooves now. Come, Lady Trixie. Let us retreat." He tossed the weapon away before he turned around and headed toward the far end of Ponyville, where the artillery batteries were stationed.

"O-Okay," the unicorn stammered awkwardly as she started to follow.

She paused only briefly, glancing back at the discarded dagger to confirm a gnawing suspicion.

There wasn't so much as a drop of blood on the dagger. The blade was dry.

"... Let's get out of here, before any more freaks show up," Trixie grumbled, trotting after Serith, "Trixie's had enough of this."

****

Amidst all the chaos, death, and blazing explosions that had characterized her mission so far, Twilight Sparkle had understandably let her concern about the main defense fall by the wayside. Nobody could really blame her; she had led a successful assault on a Mega Gargant, the deadliest land-based weapon in the Orks' historical arsenal. She and her friends (and Tellis) had barely escaped, and only by using one of the Orks' own belligerent warbeasts. Certain other aspects of the campaign, that other people and ponies were responsible for, had understandably not been her foremost concern. It's even understandable that she hadn't bothered to check on them when she had little else to do, exhausted as she was from her own mission.

Now that her hijacked Squiggoth had finally navigated around the flaming craters of the valley leading to Ponyville, she could, at last, get a good look at how the rest of the battle was going. And more importantly, she could finally devote an appropriate amount of effort to freaking out about it.

"ZOMBIES!!" Twilight howled to the sky, her eyes wide while she stared out of the howdah of her confiscated warbeast. "ARE THOSE ACTUAL ZOMBIES?!"

The other ponies, plus Tellis, calmly looked out at their surroundings, their respective optics zooming in on the shambling green bodies that stumbled across the plains.

"Yeah, those are zombies," Tellis declared, planting his gauntlets on his hips.

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed placidly.

"This is so awesome!" Rainbow Dash giggled.

Twilight turned to stare at her, and the pegasus quickly sobered.

"I mean, it's so AWFUL," Rainbow corrected, her voice grim and serious, "... and maybe a little awesome."

"I don't understand!" Twilight shouted. "How did this happen? Why are there undead, now?"

Applejack pursed her lips. "Well, puttin' aside Princess Celestia frying up the greenskins like a colt with a magnifyin' glass fries ants, Ah only saw two big magic acts bein' prepped in Ponyville. And Ah'm guessin' yer big bro ain't big on necromancy."

Twilight scowled, her horn crackling. "SERITH."

"... Uh, no. Ah was talkin' about them Nurgle mares," Applejack corrected.

"POISON KISS," Twilight said without missing a beat or altering her tone.

The purple pony quickly brought up her vox connections, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in her stomach at seeing how many signums had been silenced. Finding the correct signum codex, she connected her vox link.

"Poison! Explain yourself!" Twilight barked.

"What?! Oh! Princess Sparkle!" the voice on the other end was clearly surprised by the sudden demand, but ultimately sounded rather pleased. "How nice to hear you survived your mission! We could really use more help down here! Also, I prefer to be called 'Ki-"

"More help?!" Twilight snapped, cutting off the unicorn. "What, the hordes of LIVING DEAD aren't enough back-up?"

"Not really, no," Kiss admitted with a sigh, "the Plague Zombies are an excellent diversion, but lack killing power. So, if you coul-"

"You turned Ponyville into a horror film backdrop, you lunatic!" the alicorn interrupted again, stamping her hoof down angrily.

"As opposed to a war film backdrop?" Kiss replied dryly. "Wait, hold on."

There were some muted sounds of gunfire, and then Twilight heard Poison Kiss spit something out.

"Steady on, girls! Things are bit... heated here, Princess. If you wish to criticize my tactics, then you may arrange a debriefing. For now I have a lot of Nurgle's love to give out, yet."

"Poison! Poison Kiss!" Twilight shouted. "I'm not done with you!"

"Just 'Kiss', please. Cheers!"

Twilight growled after the vox line was cut, dropping onto her rear.

"Look, Twi, I don't even know why you're so upset. I mean, the zombies are on OUR side, right?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Why don't you fly down there and ASK them?" Twilight snapped. "Necromancy is a serious offense, Rainbow Dash! It's been illegal since Equestria's inception!"

"Well, so has Chaos worship, right?" asked Applejack.

Twilight blinked. "Chaos cults aren't illegal."

"Darling, the first time we saw one, Princess Celestia told us to drive it back into space," Rarity reminded her.

Twilight winced. "Okay... 'frowned upon', maybe. But not officially illegal!"

"At the risk of damaging my reputation, I actually have to agree with Princess Dork's point," Tellis said, his arms crossed over his chest, "Plague Zombies are a lazy solution for weaklings who are too scared to get their own fighting done. Majorly uncool."

Twilight immediately found herself doubting her own conjecture now that Tellis was agreeing with her. Perhaps she was being a little bit hysterical.

"Okay, well, there's not a lot we can do about it, now," Twilight sighed.

"Oh, Ah dunno. Squiggy here trampled some twenty of them shamblin' freaks while ya'll were talkin'," Applejack pointed out while she peeked through a frontal viewport, "and it ate six of 'em, too."

"I meant... never mind. So what do we do now?" Twilight asked.

"Kill stuff," Tellis volunteered. Then he pointed out of the howdah. "Check it. Fatso's leading a counter-strike into the Ork assault force. We can join up and help finish them off. AND kill zombies!"

Indeed, there was a contingent of Tau vehicles supporting Fire Warriors and Chaos Space Marines as they gunned down the Orks and undead who were locked in a stubborn melee. It didn't seem like they needed much help, though. The Orks didn't seem to care that they were cut off and outgunned, and continued fighting the Plague Zombies obliviously.

"That's not a bad idea, considering it's from you," Twilight groused, "but I'm more worried about Princess Celestia. We haven't heard anything about her since Shiny sent out that message, and we haven't seen any tremendous feats of solar magic recently."

"So we should go find her?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Ideally, yes. But Princess Celestia doesn't have an IFF signum. We don't know where she is," the alicorn mused, placing her boot to her chin thoughtfully, "it will be hard to search Ponyville street-by-street while there's a battle going on, obviously. And we can't just march the Squiggoth into town looking for her; I think Ponyville has seen enough devastation for one day."

Rarity tsked. "So there's no fast and easy way to search Ponyville and get straight where we're needed most, is there?"

Twilight shook her head as she leaned out of the howdah. "I don't think there is."

Then a pair of metal-clad hands grabbed her around the waist, and Twilight's eyes shrank to pinpricks as she heard a flight pack building up power for takeoff.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

****

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Sliver glanced up briefly when he heard a loud, stretched-out cry of terror pass over him. He couldn't tell what was causing it, although whatever it was was rocketing overhead while trailing flame behind it.

Whatever. Didn't matter.

Sliver continued plodding forward through the crowd, his every step crushing the bodies of the dead, dying, and dead-but-still-moving. He shoved the Plague Zombies out of his way, and every Ork that came within arm's reach was knocked down and thrown to the undead. Every time he saw a pocket of Orks bashing their way through the horde he would unleash a torrent from the Viral Scourge, drenching them and their opponents. The Plague Zombies, as expected, weren't bothered at all by the toxic sludge, while the Orks stumbled to the ground retching.

Sliver had little interest in the battle of attrition, however. He was marching steadily toward the angry core of the Ork resistance, aiming to meet the massive, armored Warboss gleefully tearing through swathes of the living dead with every sweep of his maul.

"You there!" Sliver shouted, his voice emerging as a heavy, droning sound. "Ork! I demand your attention!"

Dedhamma was reasonably surprised to hear an opponent actually talking to him rather than moaning incoherently, and after grinding a zombie Nob to paste under his foot he glanced over to the Chaos Lord.

"Yeh? Whachoo wan', spiky?" he called over the heads of his boyz and the living dead. "If'n youz wanna scrap, wayt yer tern! I'z be wid ya in a sec!"

Sliver said nothing as the Warboss went back to fighting the closer enemies, and his gaze lowered to the writhing deadlock of soldiers (and former soldiers) between him and the enemy commander.

He waited.

Then after some thirty seconds, the whistle of incoming artillery could be heard from above. The Orks didn't notice, and the zombies didn't care.

Dedhamma suddenly felt the overwhelming pressure of a half-dozen artillery impacts when explosions hammered the ground off to his side. The Warboss stumbled, tripping into the gore-slicked mud, but certainly fared better than the bodies at the epicenter of the impacts. The Orks and Plague Zombies, regardless of species, were reduced to chum, and a wall of smoke and dust rose from the craters that marked their last stand.

A dark, looming, bloated shape stepped through that wall, its single eye lens gleaming bright crimson in the smoke.

"It'ss my turn, now," Sliver hissed.

Dedhamma pushed himself to his feet, his eyes narrowing at the Chaos Lord. "An' hoo-re YOU? Sum kinda spiky Boss?"

Sliver pointed his hammer at the Warboss as his helmet nodded slowly. "Indeed. I am Lord Ssliver, Vice-Commander of the 38th Company, and your executioner. Name yoursself, xeno, sso that I know whosse entrailss decorate my weapon."

The Ork chuckled heartily. "Oi, ain't you fulla spunk! Da naym's Dedhamma!" He shifted into a combat stance, ready to receive the Chaos Lord's charge. "C'mere, Sssssslivah! I'z gonna pownd ya!"

If Sliver felt any irritation at the alien mocking his slur, he didn't show it. "And you are the head Warbosss, then?"

Dedhamma laughed. "Nah! Wun day, mebbe! Fer now, da Hed Boss iz Drahgza Redclawz!" He raised his big shoota, and the gun clicked loudly as the armor mechanism loaded a fresh magazine into it. "Don' you wurree, bigg'un," the Warboss said with a grin, "I c'n giv ya a gud-"

Sliver disappeared in a flash of light.

Dedhamma blinked, staring at the crackling energy feedback from the unexpected teleport.

"Well... dat wuz rood," the Warboss grunted.

A slight scraping noise from behind was all the notice Dedhamma got that his opponent hadn't abandoned the encounter. The head of Sliver's siege hammer smashed into the side of the Ork's leg, crushing armor, flesh, and bone to a steaming pulp.

The Warboss roared in pain and fury as he fell to the ground again, dust billowing all about him from the impact. He quickly turned his head around as he tried to push himself up, only to see an oozing nozzle pointed down at him.

"Dissappointing," Sliver hissed before the Viral Scourge unleashed a jet of filth into the alien's face.

Yet another howl (interrupted repeatedly by coughing) came from Dedhamma, and the Warboss rolled to his side before he swung his hammer up at Sliver.

Sliver caught the clumsy attack on the haft of his own weapon, and then knocked the Ork's maul away. "I thought I had found the core of thiss worthlesss rabble," he complained as he raised his own hammer, "my misstake."

The hammer struck like a cannon shell, hitting Dedhamma in the top of his skull and reducing the Ork's cranium to a sizzling mush. A tremor passed through the Warboss's body, and then the alien was still, destroyed beyond any possibility of resurrection.

"Thiss iss Ssliver," the Vice-Commander growled into the vox, "a ssecondary Warbosss hass been eliminated."

"Secondary?" crackled a voice in response.

"Affirmative. Be on the lookout for an Ork called 'Drahgza Redclawz'," Sliver advised, "you can expect that hiss name matchess hiss wargear appropriately."

"Right away, Lord Sliver!"

"And hurry," the Chaos Lord demanded, "we musst find the head Warbosss ssoon..." then his voice was lowered to a mumble. "... Before HE findss the Warssmith."

****

Ponyville - ruins of town hall

Meanwhile...

Celestia's ears pinned to the side of her head while she tried to shut out Drahgza's victorious bellow, but the effort seemed hopeless.

"Can't you do something?" the white Princess hissed, leaning over to Solon.

"Like... grrgh... what?" Solon choked out. The bottom of his torso was still oozing green fluids onto the dirt.

"YOU FINK YOU SPIKIES C'N STOP ME?! HAH!!" Drahgza roared into the sky, his power klaws snapping. "I KILLED YA BOYZ!! I KILLED YA TANKS!! I KILLED YA BOSS!! NO WUN C'N STOP DA WAAAAAAAGH!!"

"Use your bugs!" Celestia suggested, her eyes frequently darting up at the Ork.

"Hgghgh... o-okay," Solon gasped out before he let his body fall flat on the ground.

Almost immediately, Celestia could see new shapes wriggling through sludge that was pooling beneath the Warsmith. Her first instinct was to start vomiting at such a sight, but she restrained herself as the first creeping Warp-insects emerged from the goo.

Then Drahgza's boot came down on them, crushing the insects with ease.

"I hohp youz ain't da strongest spiky 'round heah," Drahgza confessed before he closed a power klaw around Solon's neck.

"Urgh... not... really, no," Solon admitted as he was hauled up into the air.

Drahgza's visor flickered. "You'z still breethin'? Huh. Well, I c'n fiks dat!"

Celestia cringed as Drahgza slammed Solon's torso head-first into a hefty piece of wrecked Baneblade.

"How 'bout now? Youz a zom-bee yet?" the Warboss asked as he lifted Solon up again.

"Uhn... not... as yet... no."

Celestia squeezed her eyes shut entirely as Drahgza started swinging the Chaos Lord about by his arm, smashing him into the ground repeatedly. Dust billowed up around them from each impact, kicking up the obscuring cloud even more as the Warboss brutalized the Warsmith.

After about a full minute of this, the Ork stopped and looked down at his victim. "Ya ded yet?" Drahgza asked.

"... No," grunted Solon.

"Stop answering him, you idiot!" Celestia snapped.

"Oi!" Drahgza snapped back, pointing a claw at the alicorn and causing her to recoil. "Shut it, hoss! You'z next!"

Before Drahgza could continuing beating on the defeated Chaos Lord, a loud, buzzing crack came from within the swirling dust.

Drahgza jerked to attention before a concentrated ion bolt struck his shield, momentarily overloading the generator and causing the barrier to short out again.

He turned just in time to block an axe strike with his arm, grunting as the crackling edge of the power weapon bit through his armor.

"Die xeno filth!" Gaela cursed, her servo arms darting forward to attack.

Drahgza was just as fast, however, and as the augmetics jerked forward his power klaw snapped closed around their joints, severing two of them at once. Then he gave a light shove forward, throwing the Dark Techpriest off of him. Gaela barely kept her footing when she landed, her axe and ion blaster still crackling.

"Wot's dat? You wanna gimme anudda go?" the Warboss chuckled. "Youz got gutz, ya do!"

His power klaws snipped open and closed repeatedly. "Lessee how much, 'zactly, eh?"

"Dark Gods, guide my blade!" Gaela roared, her power axe crackling before she lunged for the Ork.

Drahgza batted the axe away with one klaw, and then aimed the other to cut into the Dark Techpriest's shoulder. Gaela parried the Warboss's strike, but nearly lost her left arm in the exchange; the edge of the klaw slashed through the adamantium plating with ease, cutting a gouge into the limb before she stepped back out of range.

Drahgza didn't let her get away, however, and surged forward to slam his shoulder into the cyborg. They impacted in a blast of sparks, and Gaela grunted painfully as she was smashed off her feet and thrown onto her back.

"You don' luk loike ya'd mayk a gud zom-bee," Drahgza mused, looking down at the Dark Techpriest. He reached a klaw down toward her neck.

Wraithstar's power blade suddenly stabbed deep into Drahgza's forearm, digging through the klaw and slicing through the power distributor cables attached to the gauntlet. Then he jumped away.

"DA ZOG?!" Drahgza yelped, stepping backward in shock. Although the surrounding dust made it hard to see opponents several meters away, the black battlesuit leaping out of melee range hadn't snuck up on him through the haze. It had simply appeared in front of him, as if from nowhere. And then it vanished back into nowhere, blinking out of sight just as the Ork was contemplating retaliation.

"Oi! Wot wuz dat?!" Drahgza demanded, twisting back and forth and searching around him. "Stop hydin'! Git owt heah! You slipp'ry git! I'z gonna..."

About then, Drahgza noticed that his arm was starting to hurt. A lot.

Gaela turned her face away before the Ork's right arm exploded, having lost containment of its antimatter cycler. Data flooded over her optical as it analyzed the breach, and while the Ork roared in pain and staggered away, she slapped her hands together.

"Accursed device, open your spirit to me and submit to the will of Chaos!" Gaela snarled, her optical glowing bright. "The machines of the alien be damned! Let such scrap falter in a manner befitting of its fabrication!"

Smoke poured off of the right side of Drahgza's armor as he sucked in air, and his visor twitched angrily while his senses returned to him. He still couldn't see any sign of the black battlesuit that had attacked him, but he decided that he found the Dark Techpriest's shouting distracting. He aimed his remaining un-mattah beem at her and fired.

A puff of harmless gas squirted out of the emitter rather than a spear of hot devastation, complete with a pathetic "Pffft" noise.

"Your weapons are unmade, savage!" Gaela growled before she picked up her axe. "I will rend you limb from-"

Then Drahgza kicked her in the chest, lifting Gaela into the air and sending her bouncing away.

As the Dark Techpriest slammed painfully into the side of a wrecked Chimera, Drahgza growled in fury.

"You gitz fink ya c'n beat me? ME?! I'm DRAHGZA, youz idjit!" He stomped forward toward Gaela while his remaining klaw crackled dangerously. "Even wif wun klaw, or no klaw, I c'n tayk ya puny humie body ta..."

He slowed down and trailed off when he became aware of a distant noise getting louder. It sounded like a rocket engine. A rocket engine that was screaming a long, mournful protest.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Drahgza, not willing to be taken off-guard again, whirled around with his remaining klaw at the ready. Eventually he saw that there was something shiny blasting by far overhead. And it seemed to be upset.

"I DUB THIS TECHNIQUE..." Tellis shouted, his voice only barely audible over Twilight's screaming, "SMART BOMB!!" The Raptor promptly flung Twilight down at the massive Ork.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Twilight finally seemed to finish her implausibly long protest as she careened toward the Warboss. A moment later, her horn flashed with power, wrapping her armor in magical purple energy.

"BUZZ OFF!!" Drahgza snapped, firing his un-mattah beem straight into the oncoming "projectile". His weapon released a useless puff of smoke. "ZOG!"

Twilight smashed into the Warboss like a crackling purple meteor, blasting apart much of his armor. The ground cracked under the Ork, and he was sent flying through the air while flailing his remaining arm. He hit the ground rolling, and more bits and pieces of armor were scraped off before he slammed into the Chimera wreck right next to Gaela.

Twilight Sparkle was flung away in the opposite direction, bouncing a full four times across the ground before she smacked into the chunk of Baneblade wreckage next to Celestia. She then collapsed onto the dirt next to her teacher, squeaking pathetically. Her helmet and one wing casing had mostly come apart during her brief stint as a missile, and her force harmonizer was nowhere to be found.

"Sorry! Forgot this!" Tellis shouted from above.

The force harmonizer landed on Twilight's back, eliciting another pained yelp from her while Celestia gaped in shock.

"Ugh... wot... jus..." Drahgza was still face-down in the dirt, and purple electric arcs danced about what remained of his devastated mega armor. His optical visor was cracked, too, and that was perhaps why he saw two Dark Techpriests standing up over him once he managed to twist his head around to look up.

"By the will of the Omnissiah and my Lord Warsmith do I declare your life forfeit, xeno." Gaela said calmly before she raised her axe in both arms.

Her left arm sparked a bit, damaged as it was, but it proved up to the task demanded of it. Drahgza's head was severed at the neck without further ceremony, rolling away on a thick crimson trail.

Gaela didn't say anything immediately after executing the foe, breathing heavily while she glared down at the new blood puddle around her feet.

Solon was the one to eventually break the silence, pushing himself up on his gatling cannon. "Well, that meansh-"

Then Tellis landed on him, plowing the Warsmith into the ground and causing Celestia to cry out in shock again.

"I'm claiming quarter credit on that kill!" the Raptor shouted, pointing at Drahgza's corpse. "Also, I suppose Sparkle should get a quarter credit, even if she was being a total wuss about this."

"Uuuhngh..." Twilight commented as sparks blasted out of her remaining wing case. A moment later the repulsor disk blew out, breaking off most of the other wing's plating.

Then Tellis nodded to Gaela. "You can take half a kill for a decent execution line. If other people contributed to the Warboss's death in some way other than trying to tire him out by getting their asses kicked, they'll have to share some portion of your score."

Gaela's optical flashed again as she glared up at the Chaos Lord. "Get. OFF. The Warsmith,” she snarled.

"Nah," Tellis said.

While Gaela trembled like a kettle brought to a boil, Wraithstar de-cloaked behind the Chaos warriors, walking up next to Celestia.

"The enemy Warbosses have all been eliminated," he said slowly, as if he could hardly believe it, "the Gargants are destroyed, and the remainder of the assault force is being routed. The mission... is complete, Lords."

"Coo'. See ya, losers," Tellis replied. Then he blasted off into the air again, scorching Solon's dismembered body with his ignition.

"Tellis joining my unit..." Twilight said, tears crawling from her eyes. "NEVER. AGAIN."

****

Ork landing zone - four hours later

""Ere he iz, Boss Coggz!" the Nob said enthusiastically, jogging toward a mob of Orks idling next to a smoldering Battlewagon. "He wuzn' eezy ta git, but we got 'im!"

Hazarr Wrencha snorted while he followed the warrior. "Wot wuz so 'ard 'bout taykin' down a humie wiffout killin' 'im?"

"Da furst free we pikked up wuz no gud," the Nob explained, "dey jus' kept mohnin' an' tryin' ta byt us. I fink dey wuz ded. But dis wun ain't! We'z chekked!"

Hazarr rolled his eyes as the lesser Orks parted in front of him. In the middle of the mob was a human man in a dirty, dark red robe, unmasked and unbound. He was breathing heavily and was obviously injured, but not fatally so.

"Gud enuff," Hazarr declared, walking up to the man and staring down at him malevolently.

The mercenary looked up at the Ork, fairly confused. He had no idea why he had been spared a brutal death on the battlefield, or why he had been taken to what seemed to be some kind of Ork leader.

"All roight, humie. Tokk," Hazarr demanded, "whaddya noh 'bout da WAAAGH signul?"

The mercenary jerked his head back. "... Are you being serious right now? Am I really being interrogated by Orks?"

"So wut?" Hazarr asked. "Dis iz wot'z happenin'. You tokk, I don' kill youz. Pritty gud, eh?"

The man almost laughed. "And why should I believe that? I've never heard of an Ork letting prisoners go."

"I sweah to Gork and Mork dat I won' kill youz if ya tell me wot I wanna noh," Hazarr said solemnly. "Wot's wit da signul?"

The mercenary wet his lips. "Oh, whatever. I don't care if you know or not. It was the Tau."

"Da grayskins?" Hazarr asked, surprised.

"Yeah. They set up that beacon to lure the Ork fleets through here. And they set up another one further away, to keep the fleets going. Like a trail of bait through the sector."

Hazarr mulled that over for several seconds. "Why'd dey do dat?"

"To lead the aliens that were destroying their planets into a bunch of other aliens that were destroying their planets. Bloody brilliant, eh?" the man chuckled wryly, and then started coughing painfully.

Hazarr nodded slowly as he considered the new information. "Okay, den. Den wot're you humies an' spikies doin' heah?"

"We own this planet, now," the man shrugged, "and we don't want a bunch of Orks running around all over it."

Hazarr started to nod again, but stopped. "Wayt. Den why'z da signul on? Shoodn' ya kill da grayskins an' smash it?"

"We found a different way to ward you lot off," the mercenary growled, "I don't understand the details, but this system will be wrapped in Warp storms soon. No Orks will be able to get into or out of the system."

Hazarr frowned. "Youz c'n do dat?"

"Chaos can do that," the mercenary stated brazenly, "now that you've lost here, there's nothing left to stop us! The 38th Company will be triumphant! This planet will be OURS!"

Hazarr again fell silent to consider the claim at length.

"... Warp stahm, eh? Dose DO mayk fer ruff spess flyin'." Hazarr nodded. "A'right. I'm dun. I ain't gonna kill ya."

The mercenary stared, not quite believing the Big Mek.

Then Hazarr pointed to the Nob. "You c'n do it."

"Yeah, okay," the human sighed, "I saw this coming."

"Well, ain't you smaht," the Nob chuckled, raising his choppa, "yer noice, big hed'll luk gud on me pointy stikk!"

Hazarr turned away while the soldier was butchered, his optics visor gleaming.

"Boss?" murmured one of the smaller Orks. "Wot'll we do now, Boss?"

The Big Mek glanced over to the Slugga Boy. "Wot wud YOU do if ya wuz stukk wit a buncha spikies on a planet loike dis?"

"Fight 'em!" the Ork shouted without hesitation. "Da udda Boss wuz week! But now YOUZ da Boss, Coggz! Lez git Drahgza's boyz an' krump da spikies!"

Hazarr smacked the other Ork upside the head with his welder, knocking the Slugga Boy over.

"Youz an idjit," the Big Mek growled, "da humies ain't worreed 'bout fightin' us, dey'z worreed 'bout us gettin' mo boyz! Dat's why dey'z using a Warp stahm!"

The other Ork hesitantly got back to his feet. "Uh... so?"

"So, we'z gonna do 'zactly wot dey's afrayd uv," Hazarr snarled, "we'z heddin' bakk ta da shipz. An' den we'z gadderin' up Drahgza's Weirdboyz. I gotz an eydeah."

Author's Note

In an effort to align the story progression more closely with canon, I have destroyed Twilight's house.

WOW, that was a long chapter. I totally regret promising that Serith fight, now. It was pretty unnecessary. But whatever, it was an excuse to have a Trixie scene, and I'm all for that.

Finally, before all you Grot-lovers start sobbing in the comments section, no, I did not just kill Crabapple.

Nethalican

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 8

Nethalican

****

Ponyville - town periphery

"What can I say about General Cyrus Gnoss?"

Shining Armor spoke to no one in particular, using the firm, slightly morose tone he used when speaking at a Royal Guard event or making an announcement to the barracks.

"... I didn't know the man, really. I met him only a few days ago, and we didn't exactly spend much time together."

Shining spent a moment shifting uncomfortably. Two of his legs were in plasteel splints, and a large med patch on his side hid a criss-cross of nano-stitching.

"What can I infer about him? Nothing good. He supervised a war machine that specialized in piracy. His fleet - by all indications - has killed countless innocent people and enslaved countless more. It preys on the weak and helpless, and is based on service to a deeply malevolent power. It works prisoners to death regularly, choking the life from them, and from idle rumors I've come to believe that's one of the more gentle ways this army kills people. He didn't obviously do anything to make his army LESS cruel, and he almost certainly had the power to do so."

The stallion pursed his lips, falling silent for several long seconds.

"But what about his strength?" the pony finally asked. "That aspect of General Cyrus Gnoss I do know something about. When I failed, he's the one who had me dragged to safety and treated. By the time nearly every pony soldier had fled from Ponyville, he wasn't far from the front. He was helping shoot down Orks the entire time that I was lying in a useless heap, being revived. And when the Ork Warboss was about to finish me off, he ran right up and stabbed it. Because, really, what else was he supposed to do?"

Shining's voice hitched slightly as the scene replayed in his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes again and looked down at the grimy body bag resting on the ground in front of him.

"Maybe he thought that giving me a few more moments of life would help? That I could summon some spell or inner reserve of power and turn things around? If so, he was wrong. I just laid there as he died, too exhausted and broken to help him the way he had helped me."

Another deep breath. "I think... I think that he thought he could win. Or that he had to try, at least. He certainly could have gotten away while the Warboss was killing me. But he chose to fight, instead. I'm not sure I could have made that choice if our situations had been reversed."

Shining focused on the black Chaos Star drawn over the top of the body bag. His horn started to feel uncomfortably warm while he stared at it, but he forced himself not to look away.

"Among the servants of Chaos, at least, strength is a virtue, no matter how it's used. So in that way, at least, he was a virtuous man. And maybe that's enough. We didn't ask the humans to stay here so that they could show us their technologies or join our loving, happy society. We wanted them to stay so that they could fight for us. Kill for us." He gulped. "D... Die... for us..."

As Shining Armor's voice weakened, a purple hoof settled gently on his shoulder.

The stallion glanced behind him. Twilight was there, looking only slightly better off than he was; her left wing was in a splint and she had a brace around her neck. Behind her, also without their armor suits, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack all stood quietly, looking miserably at the sack that held the remains of the 38th Company's highest-ranking human.

They were the only ones there.

The five ponies were the only ones who were willing to take the time to see off the fallen warrior. The only ones who felt the old pirate may have needed any sort of service or recognition beyond having his innards scooped up into a bag and his name added to a list of casualties. Shining Armor had made it clear to the Company commanders that he was going to conduct a brief funeral - after learning that the Company had no such thing planned - and he had distributed invitations, but nobody but the equines had bothered to attend.

Which wasn't to say that they were the only ones around.

A constant train of menials marched into and out of Ponyville, walking a circuit from the devastated streets to a giant pit dug into the earth. The pit had been carved open in under an hour by the Dark Mechanicus digging teams, dug nearly a full kilometer wide. Then the Company had piled the Ork dead into the hole, carpeting the bottom with green corpses as well as the massive Squiggoth carcasses. The aliens made up the first layer in the mass grave. But they weren't the last layer.

The menials heading into the village were empty-handed, being ushered along by none other than Prince Blueblood. Those that trod the path out of Ponyville carried zipped-up body bags filthy with blood and dirt, some of them still obviously writhing. Some workers carried a simple trash sack filled with gore. All such remains were hurled into the pit with equal ceremony, rolling down a wet incline of bagged corpses to the bottom.

Only the Iron Warriors bodies were handled with anything resembling respect, being stripped carefully of their armor and wargear and then placed in large iron boxes with the Legion skull engraved on top. They were stacked at the edge of the pit. Apparently they were to be the last additions.

Applejack couldn't help but cringe while Big Macintosh walked by, his head hung low to the ground. The stallion was towing a big metal wagon behind him filled beyond capacity with bagged corpses. A trail of oozing fluids followed behind the wagon, and every time a bump in the road would unsettle it, a few body bags would tumble off the top and roll out into the street to be collected later.

Big Mac reached the pit and turned to bring the cart up along the edge. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, his ears flipped down and a sickly feeling churning in his stomach as a pair of menials approached. They unlocked a mechanism on the cart, and then they tilted the wagon bay over, dumping near a hundred bodies into the dirt at once.

Big Mac couldn't bear to watch another wagon full of dead be dropped into the mass grave like garbage into a landfill, but Shining Armor couldn't tear his eyes away. The menials pulled the wagon bay flat again once it was empty, gave Big Mac a friendly pat on the head, and then guided him back into Ponyville for the next load.

"Twilight," Shining croaked weakly, "what have we done?"

Twilight felt her chest tighten at the question. "We didn't do this, Shining. We didn't want this. Everything we've done so far has been to avoid as much death and fighting as possible."

"Yeah..." the stallion agreed. "But have we really done enough?"

"Sure! I mean, WE have, specifically," Rainbow answered without thinking, gesturing to herself and the other mares. The Guard Captain slumped, and Rarity cuffed Rainbow harshly on the shoulder.

"We've made mistakes," Twilight admitted, "but our efforts are coming a head now. Once the Orks are stopped and our planet is safe, we can make a better future. Not just for us, but for them, too."

A new voice replied to Twilight before Shining could. "Oh, what wonderful, heartfelt hope! It warms my very soul! Or what's left of it, at any rate."

Twilight's ears went stiff when she heard Serith behind her, and she whirled around. Or tried, anyway. Her wing brace smacked into her brother, and she froze up as a jolt of pain ran up her spine. The other ponies were equally startled, if not so quick to take up a defensive pose.

"Lord Serith," Shining said uncomfortably after he twisted his head around, "I didn't see you there."

"Your awareness is lacking, Lord Armor. A troubling weakness, but given your current state I don't think you need a lecture from me on the matter." Serith made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "In any case, I am not here to debrief you. Although I am glad I had the opportunity to meet with you again on this wonderful occasion!"

All the ponies were staring at the Sorcerer now, their expressions ranging from incredulous to revolted.

"Wonderful? You call this wonderful?" Rarity asked, gesturing to the body bag in front of them.

"Wonderful, yes. Unclean, perhaps, but we're working on that."

Serith swept his hand sharply to one side, and Shining Armor whinnied in surprise when Gnoss's body bag suddenly leapt into the air and flew in an arc into the massive pit. Serith did not turn his head to watch it land.

"Can you hear them, Lord Armor?" the Sorcerer said, tilting his helmet up to look at the sky.

"Wh-Who?" the stallion asked, backing away nervously.

"The fallen. The dead. Their souls cling to this place in a maddening storm of psychic power," Serith declared, his voice almost rapturous. "I can hear them. The terror of their final moments. Their pain echoes through the Empyrean in burning cacophony. Human, Ork, even the Astartes, trapped in a nightmare without end." He paused. "No ponies, though. Odd."

"Did you come here just to remind us why we hate you even though you're saving our planet?" Twilight groused.

"Not at all," the Sorcerer replied calmly, looking down at the ponies again, "I'm merely updating you on our progress, Princess. We have won. The Ork ships are fleeing the system. The Warp is ready. My servants are bringing the first components to construct the Nethalican. This evening, after night falls, the portal will be complete, wrapping this system in the furious tides of the Warp storm." He pointed toward the pit slowly being filled behind him. "That will make a fine place for the Nethalican. The portal will rest upon those who gave their lives for its construction. Eventually a full temple will be constructed upon it. A fitting memorial for the dead, don't you think?"

"You're going to build a Chaos Temple right outside of Ponyville?" Twilight asked uncertainly.

"Indeed. In will be the second nexus of the Company's power on this world, and a reminder to your kingdom of who they owe their salvation." A snort came from Serith's vox grille. "It will also serve as an example to those 'Sunsworn' buffoons, should they think to build more of their absurd shrines around here."

The ponies shared a long, silent glance.

"... Well, this is what we've been working toward all this time," Shining Armor admitted, "I'm just glad that nobody else has to die."

Serith laughed. Twilight briefly fantasized about locking him in one of the iron caskets, wrapping it in magic seals, and burying it forever.

"Oh, Lord Armor, so hopelessly naïve," the Sorcerer said, "it must run in the family." At seeing the stallion's confused and slightly pained expression, Serith elaborated. "Even the establishment of the Nethalican is quite dangerous. But that aside, your world is now but one more planet in the greater galactic melee that grinds on without any end in sight. The Orks have a presence here, as do the Dark Gods. The Nethalican will protect your world from Ork fleets, but there are many other dangers and enemies that are not so easy to predict and divert. There will be no end to the war. No end to the death."

"Thanks for the pep talk, creep," Rainbow Dash deadpanned.

Serith pretended that she hadn't said anything, looking off toward the mass grave. "Ah, they're almost ready."

Indeed, the train of menials had thinned considerably, and Big Mac was positioning his next load of corpses next to the pit for dumping. On the other side, workers and servitors were pushing the iron caskets into the grave.

"In the name of the Dark Gods do I bless these fallen souls," Serith intoned with far too much humor in his voice, "and in the name of the Dark Gods are they consumed. Upon their graves a new order shall arise, and the power of Chaos shall infect this world."

Teams of menials carrying industrial flamers walked up to the edge of the pit, surrounding it. Then they washed over the mass grave with fire, turning the pit into an enormous funeral pyre.

"Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust." With that final statement, Serith finally took his leave.

Applejack had a distinctly uncomfortable expression on her face while she watched the flames building.

"Well, Ah... Ah think I'd better head out fer now," she said nervously, "everypony at the Acres has already come back, so... uh, yeah. 'Scuse me." The apple farmer quickly trotted away, her expression mostly hidden by her hat.

Twilight wet her lips anxiously before she glanced over to Shining Armor. "Shiny? Are you going to stay for... well, whatever constructing the Nethalican entails, exactly?"

"Yes. I think I should," he answered, "if only to see all of this finally end. I've already sent a dispatch to let Cadence know I'm okay, so I should be fine to stay for a little longer."

"You told her you were 'okay'? Did your message mention that you were shot and suffered catastrophic magical feedback that knocked you comatose while you were exposed to Necromantic disease-based Chaos magic?" Twilight asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"I might have left some details to the imagination," he replied curtly as he stood up, "let's find some place to rest, for now. Judging by what Serith said, it's going to be a little while before the portal is ready to be opened, and I don't really feel like watching any more of the process."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - farmstead

Daniels lounged over a sofa in the middle of the Apples' den, sipping from a glass of apple juice. Braeburn and Apple Bloom were next to a table below him, with the latter pacing back and forth anxiously.

"Look, Little Cuz, Ah'm just sayin' that ya should calm down an' let them Techy Priests do their thing. Ya ain't helpin' nopony by wearin' a trench in the floor," the frontier stallion said, leaning a leg against the table.

"But... But..." Apple Bloom tried and failed to properly convey her unease, scuffing the floor with her hoof. She started sniffling.

Braeburn winced. "C'mon now, no more tears. Didn't Daniels say Crabapple was just fine?"

"That isn't even close to what I said," Daniels interjected, taking an apple from a bowl on the table, "I said that the DarkMech scraped a black chunk of burnt metal out of the ground near a huge crater, and that they found 'unusual energy readings' from something that should be nothing but an ashen hulk." He took a bite of the apple.

Braeburn gave the mercenary an annoyed look. "Okay, yeah, but didn't ya say the same thing when they found Princess Luna? And SHE survived!"

Daniels swallowed the mouthful of apple. "True. But she's like a pony Goddess or something, so I wouldn't use that as a basis of comparison."

Apple Bloom was pacing even faster now, her legs scurrying rapidly with her face scrunched up in concern.

"Ya know, ya could stand t'be a little optimistic," Braeburn huffed, leaning over and jabbing the man with a hoof.

"So I've heard," Daniels drawled, taking another bite of his apple.

"Ah just wish they would let me see her," Apple Bloom sniffled.

"Aw, Cuz," Braeburn sighed and hugged the filly against his side, "Ah know it's rough. But believe me, them apes have it real tough right now, too. So ya gotta be strong and trust them DarkMechs to take care o'business, alright?"

"Trusting the DarkMech to do something that doesn't benefit them or directly pay off a debt they owe is silly," Daniels interjected.

"Eat yer apple, would ya, Dan?" Braeburn growled as Apple Bloom sniffled again.

The front door slid open, and Braeburn turned his head around to see Applejack step hesitantly into her home.

"Cuz! Yer back! Great!" Braeburn said, brightening instantly. Applejack seemed almost startled when the stallion walked up to her. "How's the town lookin'?"

Applejack cringed, chewing on her lip. "... Better," she mumbled eventually. "They've got sanitation teams goin' through Ponyville... well, ya know. Sanitizin' stuff." She paused. "Mostly with fire."

"Prob'ly a good idea, what with all them zombies ya told me about," Braeburn reasoned, "what'd they do with all o'them, anyway?"

Applejack's eyes glanced over to the side for a second before she returned her attention to her cousin. "Well, not many survived the fight. The Orks really seemed to like choppin' 'em up. But the rest they tracked down and burned with flamers."

"So they got 'em all? Ya sure?" Braeburn asked.

Applejack shrugged. "Pretty sure."

****

Ponyville - Lyra and Bonbon's house

"Well, this isn't so bad," Bonbon mused, staring at the giant hole in the side of her house. "It'll take a lot of work, and we'll probably have to knock out more of the wall. But at least it's only this side."

The cream-colored mare looked over the rest of the house, noting the dried bloodstains on the floor and the many, many bullet casings. "This place needed new carpeting anyway. We can just think of it as renovating!"

Bonbon smiled softly to herself.

Then the door behind her creaked open.

"Bonbon! Bonbon!" Lyra said excitedly, bouncing into the room and badly startling the earth pony. "I found Jakey! Jakey's all right!"

Bonbon sighed in relief and turned around. "Oh, thank goodness. I thought we'd have to go to that awful death factory Ferry Dominic or whatever and get you a... new... one......"

She trailed off when she saw the familiar mercenary stumble awkwardly into the living room, his arms outstretched in front of him. A series of dirty bandages were wrapped around the man's torso, although they could hardly obscure the fact that Jacob had suffered a serious wound and hadn't received any serious medical attention.

This clearly did not disturb Lyra in the slightest.

"I'm so happy!" the green unicorn said, grinning and hugging Jacob's leg. "I just knew he'd make it!"

"Hhhnnngggn..." Jacob groaned, swaying slightly from side to side.

Bonbon's ears flipped down, and she whimpered in fear.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - farmstead

"Well, good. Last thing we need 'round here on top of Everfree monsters and Orks is the livin' dead," Braeburn grumbled.

Applejack was looking past him again, and it took a few seconds for her to nod absently in agreement.

"Anyway, Ah got the shipment of funky alien seeds the other day," the stallion continued, "didn't want to plant 'em before the big defensive, so we... uh..."

Braeburn noticed that Applejack's eyes kept shifting from his face to something behind him, even as he talked. He clearly didn't have her full attention.

"Y'know what? We can talk about it later," Braeburn said, trying to hold back a grin as he stepped aside. "Little Cuz, c'mere. We're goin' fer a walk."

"What? Why?" Apple Bloom asked. Braeburn didn't answer her question, and pushed the smaller pony aside with a hoof. Applejack offered him a grateful smile before they left out the front door.

Daniels finished his apple and tossed it into an open trash bin. Applejack approached slowly, not quite making eye contact with the man.

"So the village is looking a little better? Was a right mess when I was there. Not as bad as Appleloosa, though, so I figure you'll all be clear to resettle."

"Yeah, that ain't a problem," Applejack agreed, "some ponies are already cleanin' up their houses. Though the library's a total loss. Heh. You shoulda seen Twi when she saw all them books scattered over the ground, ripped up and dirty." She chuckled, but it sounded hollow and forced.

"What's wrong, Jack?" Daniels said finally, sitting up on the couch.

Applejack seemed to deflate a bit upon realizing that she was so obviously uneasy. Then she hopped up onto the couch next to him.

"Ah... Ah'm just really glad yer okay, Wy," Applejack said, her voice wavering.

"Not as glad as I am," Daniels quipped, "in the end, the Company had the battle well in hand, but things got pretty bad out there for us mortal sorts." Then he smirked. "But even so, I don't envy you and the other pones. A MEGA GARGANT. You're going to have to mark that on your armor somehow; that's a hell of a kill, even split six ways."

"Yeah, it was really somethin'," Applejack mumbled dismissively. Then she stepped over Daniels' legs and laid down on his lap, leaning against the man's stomach.

This surprised Daniels a little. He had spent several afternoons giving Applejack belly rubs, scratching her ears, or otherwise treating her like the animal she really wasn't. But usually he was the one to initiate their unique sort of physical bonding, and Applejack was usually rather coy and petulant about it.

The mare sighed pleasantly when he started petting her along her side, his fingers digging into her fur.

"... Wy? When's yer contract with the Company up, anyhow?" Applejack asked.

"Not for about a standard solar year. Then I have to renew it or move on. Why do you ask?"

Applejack pursed her lips anxiously. "... Ah think ya should give up yer line o'work," she eventually admitted, "how many humans did we lose in that fight, Wy? A thousand?"

"Something like three thousand, going by the preliminary estimates" Daniels said as he continued stroking the orange pony, "the real kicker was losing General Gnoss, though. Not my favorite bloke, but I don't know how they're going to replace him." He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. We won."

"It DOES matter," Applejack snapped, "maybe the Iron Warriors or Chaos itself don't care if y'all die by the cartload as long as ya win, but Ah sure do."

"Aren't we dying by the cartload so that we're not all killed off completely, though?" the mercenary asked.

Applejack snorted. "Hogwash. Y'all could be safe and sound a million miles away from all this by now. Yer not fightin' here to save yerselves. Yer fightin' here 'cause we all begged ya to and pretty much gave ya the planet."

"Sounds like a good enough reason to me," Daniels replied, "besides, 'safe and sound' is pretty relative. Nowhere this fleet takes us is REALLY safe. Hell, the fleet itself isn't really safe." He shook his head and chuckled. "No, I think we've got a pretty good deal going here. Save the world of the ponies! It's almost as if we're heroes or something."

"And it don't matter to you if you gotta die to do it?" Applejack countered, squirming slightly on his lap.

"Not enough to desert, if that's what you're building up to. I've got good thing going with this mercenary gig, and after surviving the last battle I'm a shoo-in for a promotion, too. A few extra credits every period would go a long way toward alleviating my sense of inevitable doom."

The mare on his lap grunted. "So, ya think yer gonna keep workin' fer the Company, even after this Ork hullabaloo is over?"

"I don't really have a lot of other job prospects," Daniels admitted.

Applejack's head snapped up. "Ah can hire ya here!" She jumped on the matter so quickly that it was perfectly obvious she had been leading up to this offer. "Ya can work the fields as well as anypony, Ah'm sure! Probably can't buck trees, but Ah can think of lots of chores that would be easier fer someone with hands!"

Daniels rolled his eyes. "Me, work on a farm? No way."

"Why not?" Applejack asked, sounding halfway offended.

"Because it's hard work!" the mercenary replied. "Killing people is way easier. And more fun."

Applejack's head dropped to the cushions again as she groaned and shifted slightly on the man's lap.

"Thanks for the offer though, Jack. It means a lot to me."

She grunted again, and the room descended into a long, comfortable silence while he stroked her back.

"...... Wy?"

"Yeah?"

"Mind if we stay like this fer a while?"

"I don't have to be anywhere until the Nethalican is ready to be deployed. I can spare a few hours."

Applejack sighed in contentment, and another long silence descended after she curled up on Daniels' lap.

It wasn't quite as long as the last silence, however.

"Hurry up and kiss, already!" Rainbow Dash shouted from outside, banging a hoof against the window. Braeburn immediately yanked her to the ground, out of sight.

Applejack's eye twitched. "Weirdoes."

"I know right?" Daniels grumbled.

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge

Solon swiveled his torso back and forth on his chassis, testing the new servos and bearings that held him secure upon the mechanical platform. The components shifted with a soft whir, the metal sliding over metal with fine-tuned economy and power.

"Perfect. Good ash a sheven-thoushand year old antique," the Warsmith said to himself. An array of heavy servo welders, clamps, and various other tools hung from the ceiling in the construction bay behind him, many of them still smoldering.

He'd had to fix up his body in a hurry in order to be in working shape for the construction of the Nethalican, which was proceeding on schedule. Luckily, Drahgza hadn't been very thorough in dismantling him, and the constant concussive impacts weren't especially problematic for him in the long run.

Solon HAD lost his remaining mechatendrils in the encounter, but those didn't need to be replaced immediately. He hadn't even had to listen to Sliver gripe about how pathetic he was for getting walloped by the xeno leader; evidently, losing to an Ork Warboss wasn't much of a humiliation.

Solon passed through a doorway into the next room, his gaze settling on a cluster of Dark Techpriests headed by Dark Magos Kaelith. They surrounded a large table covered in chains and small manipulator arms, which sat at the center of a thick ring of cogitators and psionic dampeners. Laid on the table was a black, vaguely alicorn-shaped hunk of metal. The figure was on its side, and had its front legs splayed out in an awkward rearing pose, while the wings were spread as if to take flight. All the joints and breaks in the armor that normally allowed for movement had been fused together into a single, statue-like mass, and those portions of the armor that weren't already black (which, admittedly, wasn't much) now sported a hue like charcoal.

"Sho, how ish she faring?" Solon asked as he scuttled up to the Techpriests. The tech-clergy were slowly and carefully cutting the armor apart into its component parts with melta cutters, and looked to be making glacial progress in the project.

"Warsmith! Greetings!" Luna shouted from the table, her voice muffled considerably. "To answer thy query, We art enduring! This procedure 'tis exceptionally distressing and painful, however!"

"Jusht think happy thoughtsh until we can pry you out of there," Solon advised.

"Even this much is quite challenging," Luna grunted as sparks and hissing gas surrounded her, "the daemon within the armor howls incessantly as it is carved apart. We believe it is quite upset."

"Assertation: the entity fueling your wargear has no standing to concern us with its discomfort," Kaelith buzzed, "Amelioration: it is, however, correct in choosing to torment you in response to its suffering, as your personal idiocy is responsible for this state of affairs."

Luna could only hope that her glare would somehow pierce the shell of Warp-infused metal and reach the cyborg beyond it. "We did not see thee during the battle, Magos. Tell us, where were thou whilst the mercenaries and xenos were cut down like wheat before the scythe?"

"Now, now, let'sh have none of that," Solon interjected before Kaelith could reply, "everyone did their part during the defenshive, and it wash ultimately a shucesh. We'll have you out of there shoon enough, Princesh."

A frustrated groan came from within the blackened mass. "Art thou CERTAIN We cannot simply teleport free of this accursed prison?"

The Dark Techpriests started sputtering Binary, but Solon answered Luna calmly.

"Your nerve shocketsh are fushed with the plugsh. At besht, you'd jusht move the shuit along with you. I'm not shure what would be the worsht-cashe shcenario, but if you remain shtill we won't have to find out."

Another groan came from the alicorn, but she fell silent.

"Kaelith, come. I want to check on our other 'patient'," Solon demanded, turning away from the table. The Dark Magos shifted his optics briefly and spat a brief string of Binaric Cant at his subordinates. Then he followed after the Iron Warrior.

After a few minutes the two scuttling cyborgs were heading down the great hall toward the daemon forges.

"Have you found out anything intereshting about thish... 'Crabapple'?" Solon asked while he led the way.

+Informative: We have learned little that was not known before. The knowledge of the engine's survival alone has granted more data than anything gained from extended observation.+ Kaelith said in a burst of static. +Corollary: Additional data may be gleaned from unit Varox and Unit Fluttershy's combat recorders. Although we can infer that Unit Crabapple destroyed the enemy unit, we are still unaware of how this is possible under the established combat conditions.+

Solon chuckled as they stopped in front of an enormous blast door. "Well, maybe we can jusht ashk it."

The door slowly unlocked its main seals, and then the massive plates of durasteel shifted to the sides.

The cell within was relatively small, and dozens of heavy chains hung from the ceiling, boasting hooks and clamps. Banks of monitors and cogitators were mounted on the walls, although most of the former displayed constant static.

In the middle of the room, hanging from several chains, was the battered and wasted core of a Maulerfiend siege engine. A roughly spherical hunk of metal etched over with Chaos runes and trailing disconnected cables, it was within this prison that the 'reactor' and hateful mind of the walker was housed. A daemon summoned and bound, giving life to the machine with energies much more powerful and dangerous than mere electricity.

Or so it was in a "normal" Maulerfiend. This one seemed to have something more curious within its heart of cold iron and seething Warp energy. Not a true daemon, but a machine intellect twisted into sentience by Warp corruption and necessity.

Such strange machine minds weren't exactly rare among the Chaos Legions, but were a curiosity anyhow. Rather than being a product of specific construction, they were aberrations that came from millennia of Warp exposure, the twisting energies changing the machine spirits just as it often changed mortal flesh and minds. This made them even less predictable than true daemon engines, ironically, although rarely as dangerous.

+Explanatory: Post-combat analysis indicates that energy was shifted to the containment core at the time of detonation. It is unknown at this time how this energy saturation manifested. Hypothesis: In the absence of any other explanation for the core's survival, the energy surge may have been used to form a protective barrier, not unlike the so-called "daemonic aura" typically employed by other daemon engines.+

"Agreed," Solon said before he walked up to the burnt-out shell and placed a hand against it, "but what to do with it now?"

Kaelith's upper-most melta cutters tapped against each other, not unlike an insect's mandibles wriggling in anticipation of a meal. +Recommendation: Dissection and testing. Understanding the full capabilities of this intelligence may lead to new strategic solutions.+

Solon nodded. "Again, agreed. You may shchedule the proceduresh once the Nethalican ish finished. And make shure to conshult with Dark Techpriesht Gaela; she hash shome pershonal experience with thish one."

Kaelith bristled. +Affirmation: I will inform her, Warsmith.+

Solon was about to continue with his orders, but then he glanced back at the suspended core. He removed his hand from it, and then knocked on the outer plate with a fist.

"Huh. Wash it completely unreshponshive before? I'm not getting any readingsh."

Kaelith scuttled up to the core, several of his optical sensors extending to closely observe the scorched husk.

+Negative. Explanatory: Power readings should be consistent with previously detected levels. Current readings suggest core is inert.+ He turned his optics to Solon. +Hypothesis: The subject has expired.+

"Well, that would be quite a pity after having shurvived an ashault on a Great Gargant," the Chaos Lord mused before he started walking around the core, "shtill, perhapsh the internalsh contain..."

Solon trailed off as he glanced at the back of the machine.

"... Nothing. It would sheem the internalsh contain nothing."

Kaelith made a perturbed beeping noise, and Solon pushed the core around to show the Dark Magos the back.

As it turned out, the other side of the lump of scorched metal had a deep tear in it. The damaged metal was bent outward along the breach, like the discarded chrysalis of a pupating insect, heavily implying that something within had torn its way out.

Kaelith spat a profanity in Binaric Cant.

****

Ferrous Dominus - main gates

Several squads of Iron Warriors watched in silence as a single Defiler lumbered out of the front gate of the fortress, its body lurching from side to side with its quad-legged gait. It quickly passed by the main bunkers and scuttled out onto the main road leading away from Ferrous Dominus. A road that lead, eventually, to Ponyville.

The Chaos Space Marines turned to look past the gates, waiting for the rest of the deployment. It quickly became clear that there was none.

"Did someone really just deploy a single daemon engine by itself?" asked an Iron Warrior, perplexed.

"Who transmitted the security codex?" demanded another. "Who opened the gates?"

Another Iron Warrior looked over to a cogitator console, his visor uploading the command register remotely. "Ah... it seems the Defiler did."

"What?"

The other Marine nodded hesitantly. "It... seems to have a valid security codex."

"What?!"

Again, the other Chaos Marine paused. "... And somebody re-registered its identifier signum as 'Crabapple'."

"WHAT?!"

****

Ponyville - town perimeter

"Well, Shining, this is it."

Twilight spoke with conviction, yet there was an unmistakable tremor to her voice. It wasn't hard to imagine what, exactly, she was so nervous about. The survival of the entire world hinged on the bizarre construct that was taking shape in front of them, spelling out their fate in alien magic and currents of unfathomable power.

That much, at least, was comfortably familiar to her. What made this particular case awkward was the grim and malicious nature of the magic artifact involved. She didn't know a whole lot about Dark Portals - there was a regretful dearth of books on the topic that she was allowed access to - but everything she had learned about them was troubling at best. A Dark Portal was a rip in the fabric separating the material universe from a realm of pure, raw, and generally destructive magic. It was literally fueled by death and suffering, and it had a tendency to violently churn about and unsettle the Warp to the point that it would tear apart anything trying to pass through. It didn't take extensive knowledge of psykant mechanics to imagine that could be dangerous to someone other than the encroaching Orks. Who knew what other strange and terrible effects the portal might have? Especially after it was built into a Chaos temple, where the priests of the darker powers could spread their corruption freely?

Well, Serith probably did. But Twilight was afraid that if she had to converse with him much more, she might do something she and everyone else in the world would regret.

"Doesn't look like much yet, does it?" Shining Armor asked. "I guess I expected more machinery, like they have at FD."

"Well, the Iron Warriors by and large don't know much about this construct either. It's almost all Serith's design," Twilight pointed out.

So far, the Nethalican consisted of eight metal obelisks planted around the mass grave, no doubt representing the points of a Chaos Star. The grave itself had been paved over with a large, if short, ferrocrete platform. Dark Techpriests worked constantly at the center of the device, carefully assembling what appeared to be an intricate golden pedestal.

Aside from the pieces of the Nethalican itself, it was hard not to notice the impressive security presence around the portal. Despite the serious losses the 38th Company had suffered just the day before, numerous ranks of mercenaries had been called up from Ferrous Dominus, backed up by a substantial host of Fire Warriors, Kroot mercenaries, and numerous battle tanks. Iron Warriors patrolled the outer ring of the defensive formation, creating a wall of ceramite bodies around the less resilient ranks of defenders.

That there was such a heavy military force present was no surprise. This was, after all, the fruit of all their planning and fighting up until now, and the 38th Company wouldn't risk losing it to a freak Ork attack.

It did concern her a little that most of the weapons were aimed AT the Nethalican rather than watching for any outside assailants, though.

More soldiers marched up through Ponyville to join the defensive formation, along with the occasional APC hauling materials. The town itself was still quite busy, as numerous residents had already returned and the Company menials were still working to remove the various debris of heavy warfare from the village.

Twilight's gaze shifted back over to the Nethalican, but then she caught sight of something familiar after a pair of Devilfish APCs floated by.

She craned her neck to get a better look, and then she smiled as she saw Applejack's hat among the crowd.

"I think I see the others," Twilight said, turning back to her brother, "I'm going to head over there. Do you want to come, or...?"

Shining Armor shook his head with a small smile. "No, that's okay. I'm sure you have very important space pirate things to talk about. I'm fine."

Twilight chuckled. "All right, Shiny. Be careful."

Twilight weaved her way through the busy humans and occasional vehicle, heading toward where she had seen Applejack.

Once she got a good look, she saw that all of her friends were there, and all wearing their power armor suits. Even Pinkie Pie was fully armed and in attendance; she had initially mistaken the party pony's Dreadnought for one of the other walkers who were standing guard in support of the Company troops.

When she got even closer, she saw that yet another friend of hers was with them: Zecora. Twilight hadn't seen the zebra in some time. In fact, the last time she remembered meeting her was after Zecora had been captured by the Tau and rescued by Tellis.

Twilight hoped her zebra friend had been brought up to speed since then, or it was going to be SUPER awkward explaining all the Tau warriors.

"Twilight! There you are!" shouted Rainbow Dash as she hovered over the others. "C'mere for a sec! We need to talk to you!"

"What's the matter, girls?" the alicorn asked. "Hi Zecora, I haven't seen you lately!"

"So you have not, though you have not been around. You labor for the humans to keep equine-kind safe and sound." Zecora was wearing an off-white shawl over her back, and behind her there was a large box with wheels and a cloth over it. The zebra bowed her head to Twilight. "I fear these trials of yours have not been kind. Else you would bear no wounds with a need to bind."

The purple mare chuckled bashfully. "Well, yesterday was pretty hard on everybody." Her smile dimmed considerably. "I actually fared a lot better than most."

Zecora raised her head. "The skirmish was indeed of a scale to-"

"Zecora? Hold that thought, please," Twilight interrupted.

Then she turned around and looked up at Pinkie Pie. "That isn't the same Dreadnought you were in yesterday."

Pinkie didn't have a helmet on, and the upper half of her body was leaning out of the gorget of the assault walker as she tapped it with a hoof. "Yup! Ork blew up the last one."

"It's kind of a trend," Rainbow Dash pointed out.

Twilight pointed calmly to the walker shell, which was painted in normal IVth Legion colors and had a multi-melta and a power fist as its armament. "Where did you get that?"

"Kairon lent it to me," Pinkie Pie said with a grin. Then she winked.

"Another Iron Warrior Dreadnought pilot 'lent' you his only weapon and method of transportation?" Twilight asked skeptically.

"Yuppers!" Pinkie chirped. Then she winked again.

"Explain it to me again," the purple mare requested as her eyes narrowed, "but without winking this time."

"Kairon lent me his Dreadnought," Pinkie Pie said simply, looking Twilight straight in the eyes, "...... Wink."

A long silence settled over the equines, and Twilight pursed her lips while she stared up at the party-loving pony.

"... Pinkie Pie, are you... are you murdering Dreadnought pilots and stealing their vehicles?"

The other mares' eyes widened, including Pinkie's.

"What?! No! Of course I'm not killing the pilots!" Pinkie protested, looking hurt.

Applejack cocked her head to one side, frowning. "Wait, what about the sec-"

"I Pinkie Promise to all of you that Kairon is perfectly fine," Pinkie said to Twilight, straightening up and starting her ritual hoof gestures, and looking as serious as Twilight had ever seen her.

****

Ponyville - Carrot Top's home

"Ugh, did they have to burn EVERYTHING? Just look at my garden!"

Carrot Top groaned as she looked at the charred rows of dirt that used to host fresh, ready-to-pick carrots. Her home had gotten off relatively easy, save a spattering of bullet holes and crack in the wall where a Crisis Suit had gotten smashed into the building, but the exterior was a very literal example of "scorched earth". The sanitation teams had run over much of the village with flamers, sparing only the buildings that were still standing. Carrot didn't really understand why, but apparently they were worried about some disease or spores or something.

"Well, I suppose I shouldn't complain. At least we won, and Ponyville is still standing. It could be worse," the mare reasoned.

"Indeed, there are numerous plausible alternate scenarios in which you would be entirely destitute, or dead," agreed Kairon, "in most such scenario projections, you are dead. The current circumstances are very close to optimal expectations."

Carrot Top twisted her head about to look at the hefty metal sarcophagus that was embedded upright in the middle of her yard, like some sort of bizarre, giant, high-tech lawn gnome.

"You sure know how to put a bright spin on things, you know that?" Carrot giggled with a wry smile. "Well, I suppose I should get on with re-planting, then. If any birds or rodents come along to pick at the seedlings, you make sure to frighten them off, alright?"

"Your garden will remain unsullied under my sleepless watch," Kairon boomed solemnly, "Iron within! Iron without!"

****

"-stick a cupcake in my eye!" Pinkie finished, nodding firmly.

Twilight wasn't even close to convinced, but she had to reason that a Pinkie Promise was the best assurance she was ever going to get out of the pink pony.

"Okay, just checking," Twilight mumbled, turning back to Zecora. "Sorry about that. Go ahead, Zecora."

The zebra cleared her throat briefly. "As I said, I've been quite aware of the terrors that beset our nation fair. I even offered my aid as healer, free, to the men of the 38th Company." She shook her head. "My aid was refused, though they did not explain why. With so many weapons about, I dared not to pry. I went back to my home to wait out the battle, watching the lights flare and the ground rattle."

Then she backed up next to the box behind her. "That the combat was won is good news indeed, but I encountered two combatants with intentions to feed."

Twilight winced. "Yeah, sorry. It's kind of awkward that after we chased the Kroot out of the Everfree as our enemies, we then led them right back as allies."

Zecora lowered her head and sighed. "Although the words you speak are surely true, I seem to have provided a misleading clue. It was not Kroot or Tau that came to bother me, but a pair of greenskins that had turned 'zombie'."

With that final verse, Zecora yanked the cover off the box.

The box turned out to be a cage, and within the cage were a pair of Gretchin sporting severe lasburns despite being obvious animate. Fluttershy squeaked in terror and then blinked out of sight.

"Oh, hey! There are still some undead left?" Rainbow Dash asked, stepping up closer to the cage. The short, skinny aliens turned clumsily to face her, peering out of the cage's bars with milk-white eyes. Neither of the Plague Zombies made any aggressive movements, however.

Twilight made an aggravated noise as she stared at the diseased aliens. "Ponyfeathers! I knew this was going to happen! Toying with necromancy always has unintended consequences!" She looked up at Zecora. "How many of these things have you found?"

"It was only these two that stumbled into my sight. I was able to restrain them without much fight," the zebra admitted, "these little ones themselves are not worth much concern, but there may be far more which have suffered the turn. If this affliction spreads from soldier to beast, it could cause much grief, to say the least."

"Got it. Rarity?" Twilight asked. "Connect your vox to Poison Kiss, please. We need to speak to her."

"Of course, darling. Just a moment."

She put on her helmet, and then took a moment to scroll through the list of channels.

"Miss Kiss! Good evening! This is Rarity, as I'm sure you're aware," the unicorn said. Then she paused.

"... No, this isn't about your mane. I feel like I've said my piece in regards to that topic," Rarity sighed.

Another pause.

"Really? I actually DO know a good spa around here. Or at least I did. I think a Squiggoth put a hole in it. But I can probably talk Aloe and Lotus into a massage, at least. How contagious are you, exactly?"

Rarity's conversation was interrupted by a purple hoof impatiently tapping against her shoulder pad.

"Right, never mind that! Listen, PRINCESS Twilight Sparkle needs to see you right away," Rarity said firmly, placing heavy emphasis on Twilight's title. "... Yes, it's about the Plague Zombies. Thank you. Yes, sure. I'll introduce you to Aloe tonight, after we save the world. Thank you." She disconnected the vox.

It wasn't long before the three Nurgle-marked ponies approached the group. Their helmets were disengaged, which revealed a trio of rather self-satisfied expressions while they trotted up to the cage.

"Well, how about that? Looks like a few of them slipped the net," Breezy said with a grin, walking right up to the cage and giving it a kick, "hey, kids!" The Grots released a pair of high-pitched, gasping moans in response.

Kiss kept her eyes on Twilight as she approached, noting the entirely unamused expression on the injured alicorn. "Princess Sparkle, good evening. I see you've captured a few of my little lost lambs. Well done."

Her soft, lilting voice did little to help Twilight's mood. The purple mare pointed a hoof to Zecora. "Poison Kiss, this is Zecora, a resident of the Everfree Forest. She's the one who found and captured the 'leftovers' here." Said zebra was eyeing the newcomers warily, scanning over their rather grim armor suits. It was quite different from the manner in which Zecora usually met new people, Twilight noticed.

"A zebra? My, what a surprise," Kiss said with a warm smile, "charmed to meet you, Zecora. Please, call me Kiss. And thank you for rounding up my wayward children, here."

Zecora's eyes narrowed. "Your wargear bears the marks of a God of death, and you expel corruption with every breath. You toy with the bodies of the recently slain, and your connection to evil powers is plain. How is it that ponies have come to worship this cult? One that venerates illness, parasites, and tumult?"

The Plague Ponies' smiles dimmed noticeably.

"Geez, judgmental much?" Rot Blossom grumbled, her ears flipping down.

"That was... unusually impolite of Zecora, but you never did tell us exactly how you came to end up in a Nurgle cult," Twilight interjected.

"And I don't intend to do so," Kiss replied calmly, "our religious allegiance is what it is, and we do not have to answer to you, Princess. Suffice to say, dark times have come to Equestria, and dark measures need to be taken. Surely I don't have to point out the compromises that you Elements of Harmony have made in order to help along our survival."

Several of the other mares adopted uncomfortable expressions, and Applejack frowned.

"Not that Ah think y'all have really done somethin' wrong, but Ah think yer case is a little different from ours."

"I'm sure it is. Yet the lesson is the same: to ensure our survival, we each step closer to the darkness that the 38th Company calls home. Some of us merely offer them aid and mundane services, overlooking their crimes and malevolent nature. Others fight alongside them directly, taking and risking lives for the Iron Warriors. We three have gone further than most, but we have no regrets." She eyed Zecora with an unreadable expression. "However, I do understand your aversion, as unfortunate and misguided as it is."

Zecora pursed her lips briefly, her eyes locked with the green unicorn. "... Perhaps, before, I said too much. You don't seem to act with malicious touch. Nonetheless, these creatures here, they threaten the forest which I hold dear. Your magic may well have saved the day, but as the battle is won, we don't wish it to stay."

Kiss smiled again. "Of course. Allow me to take care of them."

The unicorn's bolter dropped off of her side and then swung up, and Zecora leapt back with a whinny when the gun fired twice into the cage. Both zombie Gretchin were blown apart, and the ponies flinched away from the spray of rotting viscera that blasted out from between the bars. Fluttershy yelped when some of the blood happened to splatter against her side, rendering her partially visible again in the worst way.

"Geez! How about a little warning first?" Rainbow Dash groused as she backed away.

"I did warn you," Kiss said, looking confused while smoke seeped from her boltgun, "I told you I was going to take care of them. What did you think that meant?"

"I thought that maybe you'd disenchant them," Twilight mumbled, scraping a bit of shredded green flesh off her leg.

"Grandfather Nurgle doesn't have many spells for REMOVING a disease from a host. Not really his thing," Kiss admitted as the boltgun flipped around and mag-locked to her side again, "in any case, thank you for your help, Miss Zecora. If you find any others of my little 'flock' and don't wish to dispose of them yourself, please feel free to contact me."

Zecora looked quite put out by the gunfire, and backed away from Poison Kiss anxiously. "That I shall do if circumstances demand, but if you'll excuse me, I must return to my land." She stepped toward the cage to move it, but then hesitated at the sight of so much diseased gore. Shaking her head, the zebra abandoned the cage and trotted off toward the forest, barely restraining herself from fleeing at a full sprint.

"Cheerio, then!" Kiss called after her as Breezy waved goodbye.

"So, we never did get to have a proper discussion about that whole zombie 'thing' from yesterday," Twilight said, her eyes narrowing at Kiss.

"I hardly think there's much to be discussed," the unicorn said as she moved the cage aside with her magic, "our strategy was approved by the Warsmith and Vice-Commander, and was a complete success. Whether or not that particular branch of magic use violates Equestrian law is perfectly irrelevant to the Iron Warriors. What other concerns are there?"

"How 'bout basic respect fer the dearly departed?" Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow.

Breezy snorted, and a puff of foul-smelling green vapor blasted from her nostrils. "Yeah, sure. Were you here earlier when they were 'cleaning' this place? Humans treat their fallen like trash anyway. If they're not going to get offended, then why should we?"

"If it doesn't offend them, then why were you keeping it a secret?" Rarity sniffed.

"All right, all right, everypony just calm down," Twilight said with a sigh, "let's put aside for now the obtuse ethical concerns of raising the dead to be used as magically animated meat shields. I'm more worried about the safety concerns of a zombie plague being unleashed on Ponyville."

"And in that respect, you have nothing to worry about," Kiss insisted, pressing a boot to her chest plate, "the disease that infests the Plague Zombies is guided to attack greenskins, and is weak enough that it cannot overcome living immune systems."

"You'll have to excuse me for not taking you at your word that a necromantic disease born of Chaos magic is so harmless and easily controlled," Twilight countered.

"Even if you don't believe that, it's a moot point; the plague's power has waned, and the wind no longer carries Nurgle's gifts," Kiss sighed, "the Plague Zombies themselves have been hunted down and burned, and those that may have stumbled into the Everfree cannot possibly survive its dangers for long. Once they're wiped out, the disease cannot persist."

Bonbon suddenly galloped past the group of armored ponies, wailing in terror.

Rainbow Dash blinked and stared after her. "Huh. Wonder what her problem is."

"As I was saying," Kiss continued, "I have complete confidence that there will be no complications from my use of the Apocrypha Contagion-"

"Aw, really? It's even got a creepy evil name and everything?" Pinkie Pie interrupted, slapping a hoof into her face.

"... Quite. But even if, by some chance, there ARE, you can count on my full cooperation in removing the threat," Kiss said solemnly.

"Absolutely!" Breezy said, snapping a foreleg to her helmet in salute. "We're here to protect Equestria and the Company from anything that threatens them! Even ourselves!"

"We never wanted to hurt anybody," Blossom agreed. Then she paused. "Except, you know, all of the people we were trying to kill." She paused again. "Maybe also the Tau."

Twilight took a deep breath, hanging her head. "Well... I suppose there's hardly any point to condemning it now. You DO sound like you actually put a lot of thought into this, and it DID help considerably with winning the battle." She wet her lips anxiously, her eyes darting to the biohazard symbol on Kiss's shoulder pad. "I guess I just... um..." the alicorn trailed off, unsure of how she could phrase her misgivings.

"You're creeped out by a bunch of ponies worshiping a God of pestilence and decay?" Breezy volunteered.

Twilight cringed, clearly embarrassed. "Sorry... I know it doesn't really make sense. I mean, you're free to follow whatever religion you like, and I have no problem working with humans that worship Nurgle, so it's obviously a double standard..."

"But it's different, because we're ponies," Kiss finished, nodding gently, "for us to grant our souls to Nurgle means more than just taking on a new religion. It is to give up the shield of harmony that protects us from Chaos. For us to let darkness into our hearts, we have to let go of something. Something that most ponies would find too precious to sacrifice for vague promises of power."

"Unless they're too young and clueless to know any better," Applejack grunted, thinking back to her sister.

Rainbow Dash leaned in next to her and whispered into the farmer's ear. "This is getting way too Philosophy 101 for me. Are we still talking about zombies?"

Kiss waited for the mumbled asides to finish, and then she cleared her throat and continued. "So it's understandable that our conversion is taken very seriously. But I hope I can convince you that we're not about to start poisoning wells and contaminating villages because a voice in our head says to." Then she smirked, her eyes shifting to the side. "And I hope I can convince Miss Rarity that I can serve the Plaguefather while still keeping my mane vibrant and glamorous."

The pearly unicorn seemed absolutely delighted at the prospect, although Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "I'm still kind of surprised you care. Won't you turn all diseased and gross like those human cultists?"

"Not if we can help it," Breezy snorted, leaning back, "I mean, Nurgle's great, but we're still mares, you know? I still care about what I look like."

"I... guess I hadn't thought of it that way," Twilight admitted, pursing her lips, "well, if nothing else, it's quite a relief to know... that... um..."

The purple pony trailed off as she realized that none of the Plague Ponies were paying attention to her, and were instead staring off toward the road. There were several people walking along the path toward the Nethalican, but the mares' eyes seemed fixated on a large, crimson stallion hauling a wagon of munitions toward the portal site.

"Oh, yes," Poison Kiss said, her voice low and husky while she stared after Big Macintosh, "we're still mares, all right."

Applejack's eye twitched.

Rot Blossom sucked in a breath through her teeth, and Breezy Blight nickered. "I'd love to give HIM a few choice infections," the pegasus grinned as her wings shifted higher, "if you know what I mean."

The three cultist ponies giggled, but quickly noticed that none of the other mares were joining in. A glance to the side showed them all bearing horrified expressions. Applejack in particular was gaping like a fish out of water.

"... She meant SEX," Kiss explained in deadpan.

"OHHH." The other mares said in tandem, looking relieved.

That lasted about three seconds. Then their expressions reverted back.

"Aw, gross!" Rainbow Dash said, shuddering. "That makes the 'infection' thing even worse! Not cool!"

Kiss rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Never mind. Let's go, girls."

"In the end, pony or not, evil or not, venerating disease is still strange," Rarity said distastefully.

"It is nice that they aren't out to infect all of ponykind and spread their awful cult, though!" Pinkie chirped, recovering from her earlier revulsion.

"I suppose that is the most we can hope for at this point, isn't it?" asked a new voice.

Everypony went rigid at the very familiar voice, and Twilight whirled around.

Standing some ten meters away, and approaching at a leisurely pace, was none other than Princess Celestia. Shining Armor was escorting her, it seemed like, although the injured stallion was obviously having trouble keeping up with the the Princess's long strides.

Twilight was stunned silent at her approach, wondering how Celestia, of all ponies, had snuck up close enough to overhear without her or any of her friends noticing. A moment later she and her friends shifted into bows (with Pinkie awkwardly stooping her Dreadnought forward), and it hit her.

Nopony but them were bowing. The humans passing by showed nothing but a passing interest in the larger equine, but even the occasional pony moving with them only gave the Princess a lingering glance before continuing on with whatever they were doing.

To Twilight, this was absolutely bizarre. For Princess Celestia to visit any place outside of Canterlot was automatically an event that warranted pomp and ceremony, and it was utterly impossible for her to go anywhere without most ponies in town knowing about it. Or so it should be.

It suddenly struck Twilight, now of all times, how far events had truly spiraled out of her teacher's control. They weren't fighting an ancient enemy with an old grudge against the kingdom, and they weren't using old Equestrian artifacts to save their people. The Nethalican was a grim, bizarre construct with a terrifying power source, and Celestia knew almost nothing about it even as she was forced to trust that it would save her kingdom. Twilight herself felt like she knew almost nothing about it, and she had studied everything about Dark Portals that she could find.

She never imagined that she'd ever encounter something that was seriously outside of Celestia's depth and could actually surpass her in power. But here it was: the Nethalican was an utterly alien device, capable of feats of sorcery that Celestia didn't even understand, arrayed against a threat that could slaughter entire star systems. This was simply... BIGGER than the Princess. The thought was severely humbling.

Celestia recognized the expression on Twilight's face as the smaller alicorn lost herself in furious contemplation, and decided to wait patiently until she called herself back to the present. Shining Armor also recognized it, but he'd had more practice in shaking her out of it.

"Hey, Twily! You in there?" the stallion asked, waving a hoof in front of his sister's face.

The purple mare blinked rapidly as she was shaken out of her thoughts, and then she flushed.

"P-Princess Celestia! You, uh..." her ears flipped down, and she glanced away nervously. "You... saw them?"

"I did," Celestia said with a heavy sigh.

"So, uh... Ah hear that Chaos worship ain't TECHNICALLY a crime," Applejack mumbled nervously after she stood up again, trying to avoid eye contact, "that true?"

"It is true," the white Princess confirmed, "and I hardly think I'll be making it illegal any time soon, given our circumstances."

Applejack sighed in relief and Rarity stopped holding her breath.

Celestia didn't seem to notice, staring at some point above the other ponies as she spoke. "This was, perhaps, inevitable. Once we allowed Chaos a foothold on this world, unchallenged, its whispers of power would not go unheeded forever." She shook her head. "But what are we to do? I cannot tell my little ponies how to spend their very souls."

"You COULD have warned us that Chaos worship turns you into a gross, bug-infested weirdo," Rainbow Dash interjected, "just saying. That sort of thing totally works on me."

"Unfortunately I could not, for I knew of no such thing," Celestia said grimly, "the effects of Chaos corruption are - not surprisingly - hard to predict. I had little idea of how quickly ponies would fall to the darker powers, much less the specific physical consequences."

"Well, at least they're still on our side and aren't goin' crazy or nothin'!" Applejack said, laughing a little too loudly. "Right?"

Twilight cleared her throat. "Princess Celestia, I didn't receive any notice that you were coming. Is something wrong?"

Celestia suppressed a brief urge to answer sarcastically that, yes, many things were "wrong". After all, even if circumstances were generally awful right now, she was not here to dwell on such problems.

"I did not give much notice to anyone about coming. My apologies, Twilight," Celestia's eyes finally shifted over to the rune-inscribed lodestones surrounded by soldiers, "as of late, I've decided to take a more active role in this affair with the Orks, if only to see this particular phase to its conclusion." She smiled wryly. "The bureaucrats can handle my absence for the few more hours until it's time for me to raise the moon."

Then she paused. "Unless Luna could...?"

"Unlikely. She's in quite a state right now," Rarity remarked, "the Dark Techpriests figure they won't have her free of her armor before midnight. And then, of course, Warsmith Solon has to fix it and Twilight's suit. And mine, eventually. Do you SEE what those green thugs did to it?" The fashionista sighed. "He has quite a lot of work ahead of him, suffice to say. We'll all be glad when he can stop worrying about the Orks and do something more productive with his time."

When Rarity finished speaking, she found that Celestia was giving her an odd look.

"... You all rely on him a lot, don't you?" Celestia asked after a moment of intense contemplation.

"You bet! Shmithy's the best!" Pinkie chimed in. "He's so cool, and smart, and strong, and not nearly as evil as he likes to pretend he is, and he's super-helpful even when it's really obvious he has much more important things to do!"

"Heh, yeah, the Warsmith's a real stand-up guy once ya git past all that dark overlord and disease cultist claptrap," Applejack agreed proudly, "right glad to be workin' fer him rather'n that Sliver grump!"

"I couldn't believe what that Redclawz jerk did to Solon yesterday!" Rainbow Dash growled darkly. "I only wish I'd gotten there before Twilight! I'd have taken that green freak apart in ten seconds flat!"

"I'm, um, much less afraid of Solon than I am of Gaela," Fluttershy admitted, ducking low to the ground, "does that help?"

"The man is of unquestionably poor taste, even for an evil space General. His sense of style and hygiene is terrible, obviously, and no matter how he explains it I simply cannot fathom the appeal of the Nurgle cult. I also suspect he's deliberately trying to get some of us killed with the missions he's given us," Rarity sniffed, being the first to offer any sort of criticism of the Chaos Lord. "On the other hoof, he's undeniably impressive, very generous with his inventions, and we're quite lucky to be serving under a Chaos Space Marine with such a mild temper." She shrugged. "You've got to take the bad with the good, I guess."

Celestia couldn't help but smile at Rarity's explanation, and then her gaze shifted to Twilight. "And what of your thoughts, my faithful student?"

The purple pony tensed visibly at the question, and she shifted uncomfortably in her neck brace.

"... The situation is pretty clear. We need him. That was true yesterday, and that's true today," Twilight said cautiously.

"But it may not be true tomorrow," Celestia countered, cutting through the evasion in an instant, "after the Nethalican is built and the Ork survivors are hunted to the point that they're no longer a threat, we may find the blight of Chaos is no longer as useful to us." Her smile shifted back into a grimace as she paused to watch a Forgefiend daemon engine stomp past, joining the soldiers. "What then, Twilight? When the Star of Chaos flies over every continent of our world and its servants harvest our planet to feed their endless wars, will you still count the Warsmith among your friends? Should I?"

Twilight's mouth opened and closed wordlessly as she groped for an answer. The other mares watched her in concern, and a fair bit of apprehension. Shining Armor glanced between Twilight and Celestia, feeling like he had missed something.

"Oh, hey! Speak of the draconequus!" Pinkie chirped suddenly, pointing her power fist over to the portal site.

A Thunderhawk had landed nearby the defensive formations, and Solon was exiting the vehicle alongside Gaela. The Chaos Lord was still some ways away, but his arrival was already causing far more commotion than Celestia's did. Humans stopped in their tracks and cheered, some of them kneeling in the dirt. Ponies cheered too, rearing up and whooping wildly. Three equine figures - the only other ponies wearing power armor - went so far as to bow to the Warsmith, their muzzles nearly scuffing the ground.

This was their victory. His victory. After all their fighting and loss, the 38th Company was finally going to see the fruits of their sacrifices come alive and rend reality asunder.

"I don't know if you can call Solon our friend," Twilight admitted with a sigh, staring down at the dirt, "he didn't arm us or fight for us out of friendship. He isn't trying to preserve this world because he cares about us. And Rarity's probably right about him giving us such dangerous missions on purpose. Although I think she's the only one he's actively hoping will get killed."

Rarity's eyebrow twitched as Twilight looked up at Celestia, meeting the curious gaze of the taller alicorn. "But yesterday he sent three thousand people to their deaths in order to save us. No matter what you want to attribute that to, no matter how twisted and awful it is, that's not a gesture we can ignore, is it?"

The white Princess gave a tired grunt in reply; the most reluctant of agreements. It wasn't what Celestia had wanted to hear, of course. But Twilight wouldn't give her empty promises or futile hopes. Not now, and not about this. Chaos had paid for Centaur III in blood, and within the hour, its remit would be carved into the Warp itself.

"Good evening, Princeshesh," Solon's characteristic slur carried easily through the air as he approached the ponies. The soldiers, workers, and ponies in his path quickly scurried out of the way, although every one of them watched intently as the Warsmith addressed the Equestrians. Gaela strode next to him, and even though the Dark Techpriest's helmet was on, Celestia could feel her fur prickle from the intensity of the woman's glare.

"I washn't expecting any alicornsh to be attending thish phashe of our project," Solon admitted, "Shparkle should probably be reshting, at the very leasht."

"I couldn't just sleep through this. I had to see it happen with my own eyes," Twilight insisted.

"As do I," Princess Celestia insisted.

Then she pursed her lips and looked over the Warsmith. "Have you recovered from your own injuries? They were quite severe even BEFORE your subordinate landed on you."

Solon was quite surprised that Celestia cared to ask, but didn't hesitate to reply. "Oh, being ripped apart and thrown around a little bit ishn't enough to keep me down for long," he said cheerfully, banging his left arm against his chest plate. His right arm had been replaced with a long energy cannon that had a bulbous reaction chamber behind his shoulder, covered with wires and tubing.

"Attaboy, Sol! We ROCKED those greenskins!" Rainbow Dash cheered, vaulting up into the air.

"Eventually, yesh. It won't be long now," Solon explained.

"As far as establishing the Dark Portal, though," Celestia interjected, a hint of anxiousness to her voice, "is it likely to attract the Orks? This is a very heavy military presence."

"Oh, no, not particularly," the Warsmith shook his head, "theshe troopsh are here to beat back the Dark Portal itshelf."

This gave the equines pause.

"The... The portal? They're gonna... kill it?" Applejack asked, completely confused.

"No, nothing like that. They're going to kill everything pouring out of it," Solon clarified.

"And what would that be, exactly?" Rarity asked.

"Oh, you'll shee," the Iron Warrior chuckled as he turned his chassis around, scuttling away.

Gaela moved to follow him, but paused when Celestia cleared her throat meaningfully.

"What?" the Dark Techpriest asked. Celestia swore that she could almost see frost icing the grille of her helmet.

"Miss Gaela, I just wanted to thank you for your efforts yesterday," Celestia pressed on, undaunted by the cyborg's obvious hostility, "this is the second time that you've stood between me and the enemy's most powerful fighters, and faced extraordinary odds to aid my kingdom."

"Somebody had to, seeing how useless you are." Gaela's voice was like acid, and a collective shiver ran down the backs of the ponies present. They'd never heard Celestia spoken to quite like that before. Shining Armor was outright gaping, unable to believe that someone could be so casually offensive to the Princess.

Celestia briefly considered reminding Gaela that Solon had also been incapacitated in both encounters, but she discarded the thought. That wasn't likely to make this conversation any easier. "I regret not living up to your expectations, Techpriest," she said, her voice perfectly calm.

"Who says you didn't?" Gaela retorted.

"G-Gaela, please, there's no need to be like that," Twilight said, her voice halfway between an admonishment and a plea, "the Princess is just trying to show her gratitude."

"And in a show of characteristic idiocy, she offers it to me," the Dark Techpriest seethed, and Celestia took a step back, "I did not fight for you, wretch, and it is not to me whom you and your citizens owe their lives. Stop wasting my time."

Shining Armor lurched forward angrily. "Who do you think you are, you-" he suddenly found himself silenced by a spell from Twilight, and the purple equine frantically shook her head "no".

Princess Celestia was at a loss for words, but only briefly. "Techpriest Gaela, I only wanted to..."

Celestia stopped speaking mid-sentence when the Dark Techpriest turned around and walked away, and then she sighed in resignation.

"Wow. She REALLY hates you, doesn't she?" Rainbow Dash mumbled.

"Good eye, Cap'n Obvious," Applejack replied before turning to Celestia, "sorry to say, Princess, but Gaela can hold a grudge like ya wouldn't believe. Plus she's awful hard to cheer up. Ah dunno if yer gonna git on her good side any time soon."

"I'm sure that's far too much to hope for," Celestia murmured with the slightest hint of bitterness, "but I had to try. I fear the sheer loathing that one has for me will come to something awful if left to fester. That woman is capable of some surprising and disturbing feats."

"Oh, come now," Rarity replied with a shake of her head, "Gaela is an absolute sweetheart once... once you..." she trailed off awkwardly, chewing her lower lip. "No, never mind. I don't think I can finish that sentence with a straight face."

"Why should the Princess have to get on HER good side?!" Shining Armor snapped as soon as Twilight lifted the spell off of his muzzle. "Who the hay is she to treat royalty like that?!"

"Shiny, please, don't," Twilight sighed, exhausted, "her disrespect for the crown is honestly one of her LEAST offensive personal flaws."

"Don't worry!" Pinkie said, giving a thumbs-up to the others with her Dreadnought's power fist. "After the Nethali-guffin is complete, it's time for my 'Equestria is Safe, Safe Forever' party! She's sure to be in a better mood then!"

"She hates parties, though," Rainbow Dash pointed.

"DOES NOT COMPUTE," bellowed the Dreadnought's vox caster, "PARTIES ARE LOVE. PARTIES ARE LIFE."

The other ponies took a step away, eyeing the assault walker warily.

"Heh! Sorry! This one has a pretty enthusiastic machine spirit." Pinkie giggled while patting the top of her walker with a hoof.

"Machine... what?" Celestia asked, tilting her head to the side.

"We should probably just go," Twilight pointed over to the portal site, "it looks like the cabal is getting into position. I believe they'll be ready to start soon."

When Twilight and the others approached the Nethalican, Solon was speaking to an unfamiliar soldier in an officer's garments.

"Remember to keep distance, but the protection of the unicornsh ish of utmosht priority," Solon said, pointing to the ponies wearing cloaks and amulets, "if even one diesh, the will of the group may falter."

The man nodded. "Understood, Warsmith. That's how the ritual works, is it?"

"Not really, no, they're just jittery like that," Solon confessed. He swiveled to the side slightly when Twilight Sparkle's group approached. "I believe shome introductionsh are in order. Poniesh?"

Twilight straightened immediately, while Celestia raised an eyebrow.

"Thish man ish General Harlin, formerly Colonel Harlin. He will be replacing Cyrush Gnosh ash primary Commander of our mortal forcesh until shuch time that he sharesh the man'sh fate."

"Hello!" Pinkie Pie said, stomping ahead of the others to greet the new officer. "Congratulations on your promotion! I'd throw a party about it, but I'm still SUPER bummed about Mister Gnoss being blasted to pieces!"

General Harlin raised an eyebrow at the massive walker, his eyes tracking up to the pink pony sticking out of it. She did not look "super bummed."

"His loss was an unfortunate blow, indeed. But the Iron Warriors are unbroken, and the Company endures." Then he paused. "How exactly are you piloting that walker, anyway? I thought-"

"Don't," interrupted several voices at once, including Solon's.

"In any cashe, shee to the men, General. We are beginning now." After the human bowed and left, Solon shouted for another of his subordinates. "SHERITH!"

The Sorcerer approached, and a long weapons case floated through the air behind him, supported by his own telekinesis.

"Warsmith," Serith began, his voice a deep, echoing purr, "we are ready to open the breach. Your weapon is prepared."

"Excellent," Solon murmured as the metal box floated in front of him and then dropped to the ground. It opened with a sweep of the Chaos Lord's hand, and Solon drew an enormous power axe from its confines. The bladed head of the weapon was easily as big as Twilight herself, and the haft was obviously designed for a two-handed grip. Regardless, the Iron Warrior took it up with his left arm alone with no apparent difficulty.

"I'm still a bit confused," Rarity admitted as she looked at the Warsmith, "what, exactly, should we expect to be fighting?"

Serith chuckled. "As I have said previously, to create a Dark Portal is to wound the fabric of reality and unreality in tandem, tearing a breach between them."

"What does that even MEAN?" Rainbow Dash asked, annoyed.

"I'd hardly expect a creature of your feeble intellect to grasp such a thing," the Sorcerer replied tightly, "but when you harm the Empyrean, the Empyrean often harms you back." He lowered his head slightly to Solon, and then turned to walk away.

"We can expect an outpour of daemonsh, at the leasht," Solon explained, "thoshe of you without armor will want to cover behind thoshe that do. Shparkle, if you inshisht on being here deshpite your injuriesh, get in the back, behind your shovereign."

"Should I put up a shield?" Shining Armor asked while his sister backed up to stand next to him.

"It might not help," Solon said, unsheathing his heavy bolters, "the foe we face now ishn't protected by shteel, nor doesh it fight with shimple gunsh. Daemonsh are the eshence of pshychic power given will and form. But you can try."

Celestia glanced up at the sky, frowning. "I'll need to lower the sun and raise the moon. Do you suppose the magic of the falling dusk will interfere with your Sorcerer?"

Solon barked out a laugh. "On the contrary! I believe he wash counting on it!"

Serith walked to the podium centered between the lodestones, his force halberd gripped tightly in his fist. A pair of robed cabal unicorns followed, their eyes and horns glowing softly beneath their hoods.

"So much planning. So much work. So much BLOOD," Serith intoned as he stepped up to the golden dais, the heart of the Nethalican. Many of the surrounding soldiers were engaged in murmured conversations, and these died down to whispers when the Iron Warriors' High Sorcerer took his place. "Upon this night the future of the Centaur system shall be written in the eddies of the Warp. This world sits on the edge of a precipice, caught in the fiery tides of war. Either it shall drown beneath the numberless soldiers of the greenskins, or it will be plucked from the aliens' grasp to serve as fodder for the Gods of Chaos."

Serith laughed, and several of the cabal unicorns shuddered as they felt his voice bounce about within their heads unnaturally. "This world has made its choice, and sent thousands to the Dark Gods' clutches as toll for its salvation. Orks, mainly, but many humans and even Astartes have been given over to the Warp to fuel our machinations. And tonight..." he paused, and a deep, rasping breath was sucked in through his helmet grille while the sun began its final descent beneath the horizon. "... Tonight, reality itself shall buckle before our strength! Brace yourselves, my brothers and sisters, and behold, the will of Chaos manifest!"

Among the almost deathly silence of the crowd, the banging noise of a single equine clapping her armored hooves could be heard.

Trixie seemed completely oblivious to being the only one applauding, and she leaned over to one of the Iron Warriors who was staring at her.

"Trixie wrote that speech!" she confided proudly. "Really, Serith wanted to just break open the book and start the casting without saying anything. Can you believe it?"

Serith placed his force halberd on the ground in front of him, and then lifted up the book that rested against his hip, bound with iron clasps. The clasps unlocked with but a glance from the Sorcerer, and the pages of the tome flipped rapidly from one side to the other, seemingly of their own volition.

Serith calmly pinned down one particular page with a metal finger, and his visor glittered in the dimming light of the setting sun.

"And so it has begun," he intoned grandly, "the end... of the beginning."

Before the last word had reached the ears of the spectators, an enormous, crackling arc of crimson energy exploded from the Sorcerer, leaping to the dais. Many of the warriors watching the ritual stumbled backward in surprise, and some of the ponies whinnied in shock.

Those ponies didn't include the cabal, who maintained an eerie silence while they focused on the dais. The lodestone obelisks pulsed in time with their horns, and flickering motes of light seemed to float up from beneath their hooves in an invisible updraft before vanishing from sight.

Upon the dais, at the center of the writhing lashes of pure power, a small, glowing sphere of crimson started to form. That sphere grew as the ritual continued, building from marble-sized to baseball-sized within a minute.

Everyone present would have to admit it was an impressive display of arcane ability. As the minutes wore on and the sun finished sinking behind the mountain range, however, that impression started to fade.

"Hey, weren't we supposed to be in for some daemons?" Rainbow Dash asked restlessly. "This is pretty and all, but kinda boring."

"Oh, yes, Celestia forbid we should actually get something important done around here without having to fight for our lives," Rarity grumbled as her plasma gun floated in front of her. She cast an uncertain glance behind her at Princess Celestia; it felt somehow awkward to use her name like that when she was within earshot.

"It could happen," Solon said, shrugging, "the effectsh of the portal are not entirely predictable. It may offer no reshishtance at-"

As if in direct challenge to the thought, Solon was interrupted by a feral screech that rolled over the assembled defenders and set them on edge. A blazing flame with a color that defied simple description surged up from the ground, and then it emerged: A creature boasting long, hooked talons, and...

Well, surely there was more to the monster than simply talons, but the ponies didn't manage to glimpse more than that before some thirty or so lasblasts poured into the creature. Its body came apart almost instantly under the fusillade, disintegrating with a lingering hiss.

There was another long pause, and the human mercenaries stood ready for the next assailant. The Iron Warriors, keen to preserve ammunition if they weren't needed, patiently waited until they felt the lesser soldiers needed greater weight of fire. The Tau Warriors, having reacted too slowly to aid in shooting down the single daemon, murmured uncertainly amongst themselves and kept their weapons locked onto the growing portal.

They didn't have to wait long before new targets appeared, flashing into existence in bursts of flame around the portal. Two at a time, then three, then six, then three again. The crack of lasguns rained a constantly shifting stream of hot destruction into the snarling monstrosities, unmaking them as quickly as they turned corporeal.

"Okay, this is more like it!" Rainbow Dash said, vaulting up into the air and hovering over her friends.

"Are you seriously HAPPY that there's more fighting?" Rarity groused. The sound of boltgun and pulse rifle reports started coming from the defenders as the rest of the waiting infantry was needed to turn back the tide.

"Well, it would have been just a LITTLE anticlimactic if there wasn't!" Rainbow retorted. "I mean, come on! This is the main event!"

Despite her call for action, Rainbow couldn't really get a good shot in at the snarling monstrosities that kept flickering into place in front of the firing lines. Her weapon had abysmal accuracy at a normal rifle's range, and she didn't really want to get any closer to the storm of incoming fire.

"Well, Ah reckon they got this covered, though!" Applejack shouted over the din. "This ain't nothin' the boys can't handle!"

Before the farmer had even finished her sentence, the ground started to tremble underneath their hooves.

Shining Armor quickly put a barrier around him, his sister, and Celestia as the ground began to crack open around the portal. Ferrocrete broke apart and stretched open at the foot of the Nethalican's nexus, and after a moment of brief respite from the tremors a giant, barbed spike emerged from the breach in the ground.

At the head of an enormous purple tentacle.

Because, of course it was.

"I blame you for this," Rarity said to Applejack as the earth pony hung her head.

The tendril was the immediate target of a vicious barrage of heavy weapons, in particular the hot, spinning barrels of a Forgefiend's Hades autocannons. The fleshy base of the appendage was chewed apart by the burning shells of the ferocious weapon, and it seemed to crumble away to dust even before the bulk of the tentacle collapsed to the ground.

That particular tentacle wasn't the only one, unfortunately, and as the first of the mysterious limbs died another burst from the foundations.

This one snapped directly toward the defense lines and surged forward, driving its pointed head into the ranks of mercenaries and terrified Fire Warriors. It had pierced or slashed some dozen of them before punching into the side of a Rhino APC, ripping through the side armor and digging into the passenger cab.

"Hold on! I've got this!" Pinkie Pie shouted before she charged the writhing tendril. The tentacle was rising up into the air now as gunfire peppered its length, the Rhino still impaled on its spiked head.

As the smaller soldiers scrambled out of the way, Pinkie fired her multimelta into the tendril's side, instantly boiling away a considerable chunk of Warp-flesh. The massive appendage quivered, and Pinkie completed her charge and rammed into the wound. Her Dreadnought's crackling power fist tore through the rest of the tendril, and a deep, echoing groan issued from somewhere distant before the rest of the flesh started to come apart in the air.

The Rhino, which was anyway badly damaged by then, slammed into the ground mercilessly once the tentacle went slack. The nearest soldiers flinched away, but quickly returned their attentions to the portal; more daemons were arriving, and more tentacles were emerging from the fault lines. Nobody deigned to attend to the wrecked vehicle.

Even after a banging noise started coming from the APC's cab, the others ignored it. As they did when the door was finally smashed open and Dest rolled out onto the ground.

"I really don't know why I'm still trying to do this," the driver grunted before he pushed himself up to his feet. He glanced toward his vehicle, or rather, what was left of it. It had contained five other Iron Warriors when it had been attacked. At present Dest couldn't get a functioning codex signum from any of them.

"I should have stayed in the damn bakery," Dest growled, drawing his boltgun.

"Sho, anyway, thish ish jusht about what we were expecting!"

Solon shouted to be heard over the bursts of his heavy bolters, his slurred voice barely carrying to the equines sheltering behind him.

"I'm not sure I understand!" Twilight shouted back. "I thought daemons were allied with Chaos! I mean, that's what most of the texts suggested!"

"Oh, many of them are!" Solon assured her before another massive tentacle emerged from the ground nearby. "But Chaosh ish hardly a unified force! Theshe daemonsh aren't being properly shummoned or controlled, sho they're inherently hoshtile!" Solon hacked his axe into the tendril, carving a gouge out of the writhing flesh.

"Most daemons are simple-minded, bestial creatures, possessing little intellect or motivation besides killing and consuming," Gaela added while lasers pulsed from her servo limbs.

"I see!" Twilight shouted back. "What about Serith? He's the closest target, but they don't seem to be attacking him!"

The tentacle whipped about to crush the Chaos Lord cutting into it, but a pair of krak missiles crashed into its length, stunning the inexplicable mass.

"Oh, they won't bother him!" Solon assured her, tearing through the rest of the tentacle with his servo claw and toppling it. "He'sh the link to the Warp! Ash shoon ash he fallsh, they'll be banished back to the Empyrean!" Solon's heavy bolters kicked up again when a trio of daemons flickered into being, and two of them were ripped apart in an instant.

"And they don't want that?" Twilight yelled back. "I would think that they'd prefer a dimension composed of their constituent energies!"

"Not really! The daemon ish-"

"Seriously, can you guys nerd out some other time?" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "That is REALLY distracting!" A number of winged daemons had started appearing from the top of the portal, and the pegasus was veering between the flyers as she shouted over the noise of combat.

Solon grunted in annoyance before he swung his axe at a daemon that had managed to get close, only for it to duck low and then leap up onto one of his legs.

"Hey. Hey! Shtop that!" The Warsmith snapped, swiping for the monster as it clambered out of reach and onto his chassis.

A crackling hiss came from his side, and Applejack's gravity lash struck the spike-covered monstrosity before yanking it into the air and slamming it into the ground. Solon darted for the beast immediately, slamming a leg down into it hard enough to grind a crater into the ferrocrete.

"Thanksh," the Warsmith said to the farmer before his heavy bolters cycled their ammo belts underneath him.

"No problem!" Applejack grunted, keeping close to the mechanized Iron Warrior. "Any idea where these daggum tentacles are comin' from?"

"I have an inkling, yesh."

Above the slowly escalating ground battle, Rainbow Dash was veering wildly through the air, hammering those daemons that had the means to take flight. A stream of rainbows and exhaust marked her zig-zag path over the firefight while she rammed into one monster after another, bouncing between her foes like a pinball.

"C'mon, guys! Can't you just let us open the stupid evil portal thing?" Rainbow asked before she landed on the back of some kind of flying stingray monster. Firing her impulse blasters, she vaulted upward while the daemon plummeted downward. "I know I was kind of asking for it before, but Rarity had a point, you know? We DESERVE this!"

The pegasus fired a spread of shuriken into a pair of feathered daemons, sending them shrieking angrily to the ground while trailing wisps of Warp-matter.

Then a green flash came from right behind her, and Rainbow nearly dove away in surprise. "What? Hey! Was that a plasma shot?!" she asked angrily as she spun around.

Her visor easily confirmed the energy residue as the remains of a plasma bolt, but Rainbow Dash was also forced to recognize the screeching daemon rapidly disintegrating into a wisp of smoke. A Tau Crisis Suit team was suspended in the air some ways away, concentrating their fire on the flyers same as she was. One had a plasma weapon aimed in her general direction.

"Be aware of your airspace," the battlesuit said bluntly while its burst cannon started spinning up again and it turned away, "there are too many of these beasts to get complacent."

Rainbow bristled in irritation, although it was hard to be TOO mad about another soldier covering her back. "Just watch where you're firing that thing, would you? You guys aren't exactly the greatest shots..."

A great rumbling noise came from below, and Rainbow glanced to the ground as the Nethalican's foundation started to come apart further. "Aw, really? What NOW?"

Men and vehicles started to back away when the tears in the foundation ripped open wider, and an enormous mass of brownish-red flesh began to rise through the breach just next to the portal.

Rainbow Dash shot a burst of shuriken to cut down a shrieking daemon that had been diving at her, and then whipped around just in time to hit another with her impulse blaster. The second beast was sent flailing away as she was launched in the opposite direction, and the pegasus quickly twisted around to steady her flight path.

As she did so, she got a good look at the new monster that was slowly tearing itself free of the ground.

"Ewww," she said decisively.

The greater daemon was a writhing morass of muscle tissue, grasping bone talons, and huge, malicious tendrils. Observing the creature from high above, Rainbow was unable to put any real descriptor to the creature besides "huge," "red," and "nasty." It defied all physiological sense; a nightmare given flesh for the express purpose of rending and smashing and destroying without concern for the trifles of biology. Rainbow Dash felt a tremor go up her spine while she stared at it.

A burst of static in her ear warned her of another incoming message.

"All unitsh, shpread fire on the shmaller targetsh. The big one ish mine."

Rainbow Dash snapped around in the air, bringing herself to a hover. "Oh, I have GOT to see this."

"Wh-What IS that thing?!" Rarity shrieked as Solon stomped forward.

"Non-deshcript greater daemon. Nothing shpecial," the Warsmith quipped before his cannon arm lowered into place, "mosht daemonsh defy shimple clashification and divine alliance."

"How are ya gonna kill that thing on yer own?" Applejack asked skeptically.

A high-pitched whine started to come from Solon's beam weapon as it started heating up. "You never actually 'kill' a daemon. You jusht knock it back into the Hell it crawled out of."

The beam cannon fired, releasing a calm humming noise as a ray of pulsing white light stretched across the battlefield. Twilight felt a warm tingle spread from her horn at the sight, which worried her considerably until she saw what it did on contact with the daemon.

A flash of inverted light came from the monster when the beam struck it, and then the daemon imploded. It collapsed and shriveled inward, like a popped balloon, and several smaller daemons nearby were suddenly yanked toward the impact as air rushed to replace the displaced mass.

By the time Twilight shook her head to clear the spots from her eyes, the greater daemon and all of its enormous tentacles were gone. The Company's infantry were advancing again, emboldened by the sudden destruction of the monster. Solon's arm cannon smoldered briefly before a metal cylinder about the size of a soda can was ejected out of the back.

"Well, that should jusht about do it," the Warsmith said after a new power cell was loaded into the reaction chamber, "I doubt the portal can manage to draw another greater daemon, sho..."

The sphere at the center of the foundation, now about the size of a personnel carrier, flickered and trembled, as if it was straining against something.

"Huh. That'sh not normal."

A wisp of soft yellow light floated out of the portal, winding its way over the daemons that were being shredded by constant fusillades of rifle fire. A few lasguns were turned on the strange phenomenon, but the spears of hot red light did nothing to stop or harm the cloud as they blasted through it. It rolled lazily through the air as if it were a tumbleweed on the wind, curving high over the heads of the cabal unicorns.

Then it dove down into the ranks of the soldiers with sudden intensity, disappearing into the body of the first man it could reach.

"HRAAAAAAUGH!!" The other soldiers and nearby unicorns darted away when the afflicted man fell to the ground, screaming painfully.

"Bloody hell! Was that some sort of psychic attack?" shouted Daniels, creeping closer to the writhing soldier.

"N-No! I don't think it was!" sputtered a cabal unicorn when she focused her wychsight on the afflicted mercenary. "Get back! It's dangerous!"

Before Daniels could ask any further questions, the soldier started to stretch and contort horribly. Bone spikes began emerging from his skin, and his flesh stretched like rubber as his skeletal frame began to swell.

Whatever transformation had taken him, it didn't get to complete its work. Where the humans, ponies, and Tau watched the mutation in a terrified stupor, the Iron Warriors briefly turned their boltguns away from the portal daemons and fired on the mutating human. He was blasted apart in short order, and the Chaos Space Marines wasted no time in returning their guns to the previous engagement.

One of the super-soldiers grunted in annoyance when he spotted more wisps appearing from the portal. "They are possessing our troops! Slay the afflicted before they can turn against us!" barked one of the Chaos Marines as he reloaded a heavy bolter. "Sorcerer! Hurry and complete the ritual!"

"This is not really a procedure that can be RUSHED, brother," Serith drawled. Lightning still danced from his hands and spilled into the portal even while more daemonic spirits floated over him and dove into the ranks of defenders.

The wisps weren't many; they floated from the Warp rift in pairs or threes every minute or so, while the more corporeal monsters constantly flashed into being before launching ill-fated berserk charges at the defenders. Even so, the possessing spirits drove large wedges into the ranks as soldiers scurried away from the slow, ponderous clouds in fear. Enemies that couldn't be shot could only be avoided, went the thinking.

The Iron Warriors were not so easily cowed, and they stood their ground while keeping a shield of human and Kroot mercenaries in front of them. This strategy seemed to work, at least in the sense that it got rid of the spirits. As soon as the wispy clouds dove into one of the mortal bodies, the Chaos Marines leapt on the possessed with chainswords roaring. The afflicted warriors were killed quickly, before they could suffer the full effects of their possession or turn on their masters. It was efficiency of the coldest and most brutal sort.

It also made Applejack all the more terrified when one of the yellow-tinted wisps floated toward her.

"No! Hey! Stay back!" the farmer snapped, backing away as fast as her over-armored form could manage.

She whipped her tail forward, but the gravity lash flew through the cloudy spirit without any apparent effect as it wobbled forward.

Applejack turned around to break into a full sprint, only to be suddenly tackled in the side by a less phantasmal daemon.

"Gah! Git off me ya freak!" the earth pony shouted before razor-clawed talons scraped against the outermost plating. She pushed herself up and reared, throwing the daemon away and knocking it off its feet.

The corporeal monster was chewed apart by heavy bolter fire soon after it hit the ground, but the daemonic wisp had used the distraction to catch up to its target. Applejack felt an icy chill touch her tail and then crawl up her back as the ghastly fog seeped through her armor, and her eyes went wide behind her helmet.

Things really weren't helped when the nearest Chaos Space Marines turned toward her with boltguns aimed. It felt like her blood had turned to ice in her veins, but Applejack couldn't really tell if that was because of the daemon possessing her or a natural reaction having a dozen Iron Warriors ready to shoot your head off. Some of her friends cried out her name in a panic, but she could barely hear them as her senses started to go dark.

The apple farmer could feel the evil spirit settling within her. The bile started to rise in her throat, her muscles started shifting unnaturally, and her bones ached. And then, in the back of her mind, a hateful, malevolent voice whispered to her.

Aw, REALLY? A horse?! I'm not possessing this thing. Screw it, I'm out.

Applejack could only blink, stunned, as the daemonic wisp bled out of the front of her armor, re-forming into a free-floating cloud. Soon it had left her body completely, shocking the Iron Warriors who were standing nearby and ready to fire.

"Applejack! Are you all right?" Rarity gasped, running up to the larger pony and placing a hoof against her side.

"Ah... Ah'm okay," the orange mare said hesitantly, staring at the retreating yellow mist. "A little insulted, but okay."

The Iron Warriors were backing away while the daemonic wisp hovered forward, unsure of what to do. Not wishing to waste ammunition pointlessly, they began to break away just as the lesser soldiers had done.

The daemonic haze suddenly veered aside, and the ponies' eyes widened when it curled around and started picking up speed toward the largest warrior amongst the Company's gathered defenders.

"Warsmith! Look out!" Applejack shouted desperately.

"Eh? What's wrong?" Solon swiveled about on his chassis. "Oh..."

"Got it!" Twilight shouted, her horn pulsing before she fired off a magic blast at the wisp.

As it so happened, she was still behind Solon when she made the shot, and she didn't have the benefit of any visor targeters. Combined with her neck brace restricting her movement, it was perfectly understandable that her horn's aim wasn't dead-on target.

But that was probably cold comfort to Solon when the energy blast struck him in the back.

"Gah!" The Warsmith pitched forward toward wisp, and the misty spirit wasted no time in sinking itself into the tainted armor of the Chaos Lord.

"Twilight!" Shining Armor shouted as he scowled. In times long past, that word said in that tone usually preceded the sentence "I'm telling Dad".

"Sorry! Sorry! I am SO sorry!" Twilight cringed away as the Warsmith staggered to the side.

A deep, shuddering groan came from the Chaos Lord, and then he stood up straight on his chassis again.

"Warsmith? Sir? Are you... uh... still you?" Shining Armor asked. Several other Iron Warriors were approaching their high commander cautiously, their weapons at the ready.

"Hold your fire!" Gaela shouted from nearby, heedless of the fact that she was barking commands at Astartes. "The Warsmith will not falter!"

Solon started chuckling after she finished speaking, and the Mark of Nurgle seared into his abdominal plate glowed a sickly green.

"Shorry, friend. My shoul ish shpoken for," the Warsmith said softly.

The wisp promptly shot out of Solon's chest, surprising the nearest Marines before it dove down into the nearest Iron Warrior with newfound speed and desperation.

In what seemed like a profound and unfortunate coincidence, the new body ALSO happened to be someone that the ponies knew.

"Desty! DESTY, NO!!" Pinkie cried, stomping over to the driver as he collapsed onto the ground.

"Should have... hurk... stayed in... the damn... bakery... grrn..." his armor started to crack as the plating twisted and distended around him, and he could feel his organs shifting while they tried to resist the coming transformation.

Solon shook his head, and then addressed the other Marines and pointed to the writhing driver. "Shubdue and reshtrain that one. I think we might make shomething usheful out of him."

The Iron Warriors rushed at their fallen peer, stamping down on his arms even while the gauntlets grew into razor-tipped talons.

"Don't worry, Desty! We'll save you!" Pinkie said, an edge of desperation to her voice as she stomped up to the struggling driver. "You're going to be okay! Just fine!"

"Pin him down!" snapped one of the Iron Warriors. "Techpriests! We require restraining shackles!"

Pinkie laid her walker's massive power fist flat on Dest's back, holding down the driver's backpack while he convulsed painfully. "C'mon, Desty, you can beat this! This is nothing compared to blowing up a greater gnarloc! Remember when we did that? Good times, huh?" Pinkie said with a slightly hollow chuckle.

"Hrrrng! Grhg! This... is worse!" Dest snarled as his vox grille started to deform into needle-fanged mandibles.

Oh, yeah. This is what I was looking for. You and me are gonna go places, brah.

"What..." Dest paused to cough up a glob of acidic slime onto the ground, and his eyesight started to fade after he spotted Gaela approaching with heavy chains. "What are... you?"

Hi! Name's Vel! I'll be, like, your body's designated driver for the rest of your life! Stoked to meet you!

"Should have... stayed... in the bakery..." Dest gasped out yet again just before everything went dark.

Celestia's horn pulsed as the moon rose toward its traditional place in the night sky, slowly crawling through the web of stars and darkness. The sounds of gunfire and the snarls of enraged daemons surrounded her, but she could spare little attention for the battle. All her focus was required to drag the lunar satellite into place.

Celestia didn't remember it being this difficult before, and it hadn't been all that long since the last time she had performed Luna's sacred duty. At least partially this was because Luna was still around, if not actually available; the moon tended to attach itself to its guardian and resist outside interference, just as Luna would strain to manage her sister's duties in maintaining the solar cycle if she happened to sleep in one day.

But there was something else. Celestia suspected that Solon was correct that Serith's timing of the ritual was not coincidental. Perhaps he had even predicted her presence here. She could feel the nascent energies of the Dark Portal drawing upon her own spell, greedily drinking in the currents of power around her.

She felt the flows of energy, yet she could hardly imagine the terrors that she would witness were she able to peek into the breach that was rapidly opening over the foundation. What must it be like to swim in a current composed of the psychic death screams of tens of thousands of souls? And what of Serith himself, who guided such power? What torture could possibly compare to making oneself the nexus of a hundred chittering, angry daemonic minds clawing their way into reality with no intentions other than killing?

Celestia caught her mind wandering, and she banished the grim musings before her horn pulsed again. The familiar arcane constructs, ancient and powerful, flashed in front of her eyelids, and the lunar satellite once again shifted reluctantly along its orbit.

And then, with a final flash of yellow light, it was done.

When Celestia opened her eyes, she was treated to the sight of a crimson tower of pure magical energy blasting up into the sky. The white Princess recoiled in surprise and her wings snapped open by reflex, as if she was preparing to flee.

Dozens of screeching howls swallowed the sound of gunfire as the daemons were sucked back toward the pulsing sphere at the center of the foundation. The ponderous wisps were drawn in as well, their essences unraveling as they lost their anchor to this side of the universe. Great spined monsters and small winged furies alike were dragged back into the Immaterium while the mortals watched in morbid fascination. The soldiers were untouched by whatever force pulled at the aggressors, and could only hope that any other energies pouring from the whistling spire of Warp power were equally harmless to them. The cabal unicorns, who had admirably kept themselves from fleeing with only the occasional yelp and squeal of terror, struggled to contain the backlash as the ritual finished, and many of them slumped to the ground in exhaustion.

After several more tense seconds the last of the daemons were drawn into the breach, and the massive red pillar disintegrated into motes of twinkling light.

"It is... done," Serith declared. A veritable wave of relieved sighs swept through the soldiers at the declaration.

The Sorcerer gestured at the Dark Portal, which had stabilized into a swirling crimson disk. It was nearly ten meters across and hovered over the dais, floating parallel to the ground. It was calm, noiseless, and completely lacked the dramatic instability that had characterized the past twenty minutes.

"The Nethalican," Serith breathed, his voice almost trembling, "is complete. The Warp storms have already begun to form by my will. Our task... is finished."

"And it's about TIME!" added an exasperated voice from the portal before the surface quivered. "So much drama, just to stir up a little bit of rough Warp weather! Hmph!"

Discord's head rose from the surface of the Dark Portal, and then his hands gripped the (entirely non-existent) rim of the gateway before he pulled himself the rest of the way out.

"Credit where credit's due, though: you did a fair job for a clueless, half-blind child toying with a power he barely understands," Discord admitted as he stood over the Sorcerer and stuck his hand out, "put 'er there, buddy!"

Serith stared up at the draconequus, making no move to shake the creature's hand. "... This..." he trailed off awkwardly. "... This was not part of the ritual..."

"Discord!"

The spirit of Chaos and self-described Archdaemon turned around while several equines galloped toward the portal dais. Most of the soldiers were watching warily, obviously uncertain if they should be opening fire on this new intruder.

"My dear pony friends!" Discord said, spreading his arms wide. "How are you? It's been so long!"

"Where the hay have you been?!" Rainbow Dash demanded after she landed in front of him. "We've all been fighting for weeks!"

"And you've done an impeccable job!" Discord said brightly, dropping his arms. "You wouldn't BELIEVE how many bets I have to cash in after that stunt with the Gargants! Even the precognizants didn't think you could seriously pull that off!"

"That's, uhm, nice," Fluttershy mumbled as she flickered into view next to Discord's foot, "but, well, what have you been up to all this time? If you don't mind me asking..."

"Well, a Dark Portal takes as much preparation to set up from the 'other side' as it does here, you know!" Discord insisted, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've been laying our own foundations for a long time now! Since before my initial release from petrification, technically."

Twilight dearly wanted to know what "preparations" for a far-fetched, hypothetical sorcerous construct could "technically" be made while one was immobilized in stone. She might have even made the mistake of asking the draconequus for those details if Solon hadn't interrupted.

"Dishcord...? Ish that...?" the words were soft and confused, but the ponies quickly turned away to watch the Warsmith approach.

Discord's expression shifted from his usual devil-may-care grin to a grim frown, and his eyes narrowed before they turned on the mechanized Astartes. "And here comes the man of the hour himself," Discord spat. His voice was bitter and contemptuous, and Twilight was suddenly more aware than ever that she wasn't wearing a shell of adamantium over her face. "Or part of a man, at least. Between the bugs and the pistons, is there anything resembling flesh left in that glorified trash can you've been stuffed in?"

Now all the ponies were alarmed and backing away. Celestia and Shining Armor held their own spot behind Solon, unsure if they should fear being caught in the line of fire.

"... It ISH you," Solon said. A lash of energy ran over the length of his beam weapon. "How long hash it been, then, Archdaemon? Shix thoushand sholar yearsh?" His hand tightened around his axe. "I really thought you'd turned tail and run for good."

"From YOU? Oh, you DO flatter yourself, Brother Solon," Discord snorted.

Fluttershy crept forward quickly toward the Spirit of Chaos, quivering fearfully in her armor. "Uh, D-Discord? This m-man is actually-"

"Not now, dear, the ancient abominations are talking," Discord interrupted.

Solon stopped his approach barely a meter away from the draconequus, and his smokestacks blasted a puff of foul gases and a spray of glittering embers into the air. The spectators - none of them given orders or understanding the confrontation - could only watch as their eyes shifted between the Archdaemon and the Chaos Lord.

"You have a lot of nerve showing your twishted face to me after what you did," Solon said. More sparks leaked from his cannon arm, and a quiet whining noise came from the reaction chamber.

"You have a lot of guts standing before ME after what I did," Discord countered. He was smiling again now, but it held no mirth or amusement. It was a cruel, hateful grin that promised only suffering. "Do you think it will end differently this time?"

"Only one way to find out," Solon growled, his chassis crouching.

"No, wait!" Twilight finally shouted, stumbling forward. "Please don-"

Her plea went unanswered as Solon darted forward. He swept his left arm toward Discord, axe and all, wrapping the Archdaemon's fairly slender body under the crook of his arm. Once the draconequus was held firm, his torso swiveled around completely, pulling Discord's body around him as he started to turn around.

Discord, for his part, cackled malevolently as he was pulled along, and his tail curled around the Iron Warrior's waist to wrap around his opponent. By the time Solon had turned around, the draconequus was partially wrapped around him.

Then Solon started walking away, with him and Discord wrapped in some sort of bizarre, serpentine hug.

"I do hope you've gotten better in the past few millennia. You've always been a mediocre tactician," Discord said, smiling once again.

"Pah! Big talk coming from you, cheater! Don't think I haven't forgotten that your 'tacticsh' moshtly involve changing randomizer cube rollsh," Solon countered while he walked past a stunned Celestia and Shining Armor.

"Hey, wait!"

Solon halted, and he turned his head around toward Twilight. "Yesh? What ish it?"

He could see that several ponies were gesturing to him and his "passenger" incredulously, their helmets disengaged. As were many of the bipedal soldiers, actually. Serith had his arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the Chaos Lord, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Ah, right. Shorry." Solon raised his voice. "Mission complete, everyone! Good job! You are dishmished!"

"Go team! Chaos is the best! Whoo!" Discord added, waving a tiny pennant with the Iron Skull on it.

"Sherith, you may proceed to conshtruct the resht of the temple immediately."

With that, Solon turned around again and continued walking off, still carrying Discord along with him.

"Sho, do you shtill prefer ushing Eldar for tactical holo-shimulationsh?" Solon asked.

"Meh, not really. I mostly run Tyranids now," Discord replied, lounging over the back of the Warsmith's chassis, "they've been a lot more fun since the new rules came out."

"Oh, good! Nobody in my fleet likesh to ushe that force! Thish should be fun!"

"... So... uh..." Twilight glanced back at her friends and teacher, an awkward smile on her face. "We... won? I mean, this is it, right? We're safe from the Orks!"

"Yay," said Fluttershy, for once displaying exactly as much enthusiasm as she was feeling.

"They know each other," Celestia groaned, rubbing a hoof against her face, "those two monsters actually KNOW each other. Ancients help us all."

****

Daeldus Sector - one week later

Warboss Kahg Krushah growled dangerously as he stared down the cowering Weirdboy kneeling before him on his command deck.

"Ya seeryuss? We can't go no furdah? Wot iz dis?" snapped the massive Ork.

"Sorree, Boss," quailed the twitching psyker, "da stahm's bad! Reel bad! An jus' gettin' worse! We go fer da beekun an we won' mayk it to da WAAAGH 'fore we'z ripped ta shredz! We gotz ta hed da udda way!"

Kahg stomped a foot hard onto the floor, causing the Weirdboy and a few nearby Meks to bounce from the force. "Damm it all! Dis iz startin' ta mayk me MAD!"

The Warboss turned swiftly away from the simpering psyker, and he glared out of the window of the command deck and into the void outside.

The very busy, cluttered void.

Thousands of Ork ships of all types and sizes were spread throughout the patch of empty space where the fleets had been forced to drop into real-space, eventually coming to resemble a massive, horribly cluttered traffic jam. Raider frigates and stolen cargo freighters mingled with rokks and kroozers hanging in sloppy formations. Dwarfing even the main combat ships were the space hulks; truly massive vessels composed of numerous other ships cannibalized and fused together in the Warp until they had become monstrous in size. Millions of Orks from thousands of tribes and warbands waited restlessly within these mighty ships, having been promised time and time again that battle was coming.

Kahg's ship was one such space hulk, the command vessel of his tribe and fleet. With such an impressive vessel at his command he had enough power of his own to launch his own WAAAGH, certainly, but like many other Warbosses he had been intrigued by the appearance of a beacon. Pursuing that signal had guided his horde on a path of devastation across the edge of the Tau Empire, but had hardly delivered on the promise of constant, full-scale warfare that was the essence of WAAAGH.

By now Kahg mostly regretted that initial decision. Reaching each system on the tail of fleeing grayskin fleets, none of his boyz had had a decent fight in months. Even so, they had been willing to follow the beacons, convinced that eventually they would reach a fight that needed their support or at least catch up to and meet the head Warboss that was cutting a swath through these sectors.

But this was the last straw. Coming up on a WAAAGH beacon only to have a Warp storm spring up in the way wasn't just bad luck, it was an omen. It seemed Gork and Mork just didn't want them to join this fight.

Or, at least, that's how he was planning to explain things to his fleet.

Warboss Kahg snorted when he caught sight of some weapons flash among the distant Ork ships. With no single Warboss in charge of the whole advance, skirmishes had broken out regularly between the fleet's tribes, and tempers were high now that there was a new obstacle. He could see other ships belonging to other Warbosses slowly moving to break away from the fleet and get to a safe distance for Warp translation. Some would abandon the WAAAGH, and in fact many already had. But many others would stubbornly keep following the beacons, taking a long route around the storm to reach the next one. And after that, who knows? There was probably just another beacon, and another handful of Tau cowards fleeing through the void. Kahg was done with this.

"A'roight, boyz! We'z gettin' outta heah!" the Warboss suddenly growled, pointing in a random direction in space. "No mo' beekuns! I'ze gonna git us a reel fight!"

"Boss! Boss!" shouted one of the Meks suddenly, pointing to his screen. "We'z got sum'fin!"

Kahg growled again. "Like wot?"

"I fink... it'z a krooza, Boss! Skuffed up but gud, it iz! Jus' dropped in frum weerdspess!"

Kahg Krushah was unimpressed. "So?"

"It caym outta da stahm, Boss."

"... Say wot?"

Author's Note

And from then on, Equestria was safe, and there was much laughter and partying and sexy pillow fights. And they lived happily ever after.

Until the next chapter, where everything went horribly wrong again.
Spoiler alert.

Gaela's backstory chapter takes place after this one. Those of you who give a damn can find it as "The Engineer" in Visions of Darkness.

And yes, the Iron Warriors DO play Warhammer 40K. This is totally canon, and it is awesome.

Eye of the Storm

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 9

Eye of the Storm

****

Outskirts of Detrot - 15 days after Nethalican activation

The brief burst of static that crackled in Twilight's ear was eerily familiar by now, as was the rumbling voice that followed it.

"Sparkle, proceed to Sickle Squadron and reposition. We require new lines of fire before proceeding with the advance."

With the barest glance to the side, markers blinked into view in a mix of glaring red, urgent yellow, and soft green. Symbols, figures, and patterns that would have seemed a bizarre and confusing jumble several weeks ago were now as clear and direct as any checklist that the book-loving pony might have written up herself. The location, distance, and estimated time to her objective were mapped out in an instant, along with any obvious obstacles.

And as obstacles went, they didn't get much more obvious than a Deff Dread spraying rokkits every which way.

Twilight frowned behind her visor before she launched up over a smoldering Battlewagon, landing on the hood of the wrecked cab. The four-armed assault walker hadn't spotted her yet, and even if it had she rather doubted she'd attract more attention than the Iron Warriors it was barreling toward. She focused on the strip of churned earth in front of the walker and began a spell, feeling the familiar flood of eldritch power and seeing the less familiar jump on her visor's energy meters.

A veritable geyser of steaming water blasted up under the Deff Dread, and it staggered backward in surprise. Once the water jet had receded, the alicorn could see that the Deff Dread was submerged up to its waist in mud, and was digging furiously into the dirt around it to try to pull itself out. It wouldn't get the chance.

The force harmonizer's heavy beam punched through the rear of the Ork vehicle with ease, and after a moment of watching the walker spit out chunks of burning metal, it exploded. Mud and fire blasted upward from the pit of muck, creating a crude, fiery imitation of the magic geyser from scarcely a minute ago.

"Got the walker. I'm heading to the target area," Twilight said before she activated her flight pack. She crossed the remaining distance to Sickle Squadron, which was sheltering behind a ridge.

The squad was a unit of Havoc heavy weapons troopers, and the Aspiring Champion that led the unit flagged Twilight down. A substantial amount of heavy gunfire was coming from beyond their cover; and Twilight could instantly tell by the sound that almost all of it came from Ork weapons rather than lasguns or bolters.

It was hard to imagine that two months ago she hadn't even known what a gun WAS.

"Sparkle, we need to reposition and slay the heavy weapons," the Champion said, pointing to a water tower, "get us to a vantage point! Then suppress their shock troopers while we gut the Orks' strength!"

Twilight's horn casing started to glow. "Yes, Lord!"

The calculations spilled across her visor, and the familiar arcane patterns came together in her head. Twilight cast the spell.

Then she winced, feeling a small jolt in her horn as the magic surged into action.

Then she winced harder as she and the Havocs materialized some ten feet from the water tower and some twenty feet from the ground. "Ponyfeathers!" she spat.

The Iron Warriors were more pointed in their complaints when they plummeted to the ground. "Incompetent witch!"

Despite Twilight's error, none of the Astartes were threatened by the drop, and each one landed flat on their feet while kicking up an impressive dust cloud. They even had a clear line of fire into the back of the main Loota squad, which was their first target.

It was just a shame that the Orks hadn't missed their arrival.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" Twilight shouted before she shifted the harmonizer to shield mode. "My mistake! My spells have been a little unreliable lately!"

"Which is why I prefer machines for transport in the first place!" spat an Iron Warrior as he braced his heavy bolter. "Damnation! Slay the greenskins!"

Ork and Marine unleashed their guns into the other, and the greener aliens were found wanting in the exchange. The heavy bolters and boltguns tore the Orks apart in disciplined volleys, while the wash of bullets coming from the Lootas had all the discipline of a loose fire hose. Any ammunition that might have reached the Iron Warriors sawed uselessly across Twilight's harmonizer shield, and by the time the last Ork in the mob fell the Astartes were all but untouched.

"Okay! Not quite as planned, but still okay! That worked out!" Twilight shouted between heavy breaths, mostly to herself.

With the Lootas destroyed, she only had one other immediate objective that the squad Champion had given her. What was it, again?

"WAAAAAGH!!"

Right. Suppressing shock troops. The shock troops that were on the ground with them and behind them now, thanks to the poor teleport.

"Ponyfeathers," Twilight breathed again as she spun around. Some thirty Ork Slugga Boyz were charging toward her and the Havocs in a berserk fury. The Iron Warriors were already turning around, but they wouldn't manage a full volley before the aliens crashed into them.

Unless something crashed into the aliens first.

This was doubtless Rainbow Dash's thinking while she rocketed into a suicide dive straight over the heads of the Havocs, diving into the center of the mob.

"RAINBOW... BUSTER!!"

The pegasus flashed as her kinetic refractor field engaged, and she slammed head-first into the Ork's vanguard. Slugga Boyz were blasted aside or hurled into the air from the impact, and the mob's charge was brought to a shuddering halt when Rainbow Dash embedded herself in the unit Nob's stomach.

The larger Ork staggered backward, and after a moment Rainbow dropped down onto her rear at his feet.

"Yeah, I definitely prefer using that on planes," she mumbled as she stood up on all fours again, "it doesn't do that rainbow-pattern blast wave thing unless something explodes."

The surrounding Orks dove for her, but Rainbow hit her impulse blasters and once again vaulted into the air above them.

"Now! Hit 'em now!" the pegasus barked while she blasted clear.

The Havocs unleashed a blistering heavy bolter volley into the mob, aided by Twilight's harmonizer. At the same time, a squad of pegasi swooped in on each flank of the aliens, boxing the Orks in on three sides in a devastating storm of lasers and mass-reactive shells.

Half the mob had been scythed down before it elected to run, turning away from the handful of Chaos Space Marines that had seemed like easy prey less than a minute ago.

"They're retreating!" growled a Havoc as he fed a new munitions belt into his heavy bolter.

"Unacceptable. The greenskins must die," snapped the Champion as he unloaded his boltgun into the Orks' backs, "Sparkle, this is your second chance!"

Twilight considered several possible spells that would help in this particular situation before recalling the advice of a book on magic combat.

"When facing any tactical conundrum on the battlefield, the mage must consider one strategic factor first above all others," the alicorn quoted before her horn flashed, "is the target flammable?"

Again, Twilight cast her spell, and again, she felt a surge of extra power run into her horn as she finished. What was supposed to be a fire wall leaping up in front of the Orks instead became a string of fierce explosions, blasting the nearest greenskins apart even while it stopped the group's escape.

"Better," rumbled the unit Champion before he pointed to the remaining Orks. "All units, concentrate fire. Kill them all."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17 Command Complex Secundus

"All right, good job guys! Another mob of greenies taken down!" Rainbow Dash cheered as she stepped out of the command center. She was followed into the streets by a line of pegasi, all of them geared up in full armor and respirators.

"So that's like a hundred down, and, what, a million to go?" grumbled a mare with a bright orange mane. "At this rate we should finish off the Orks about the time that Celestia keels over from old age."

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "You have something you want to share, Private Dust? Any BRILLIANT IDEAS that the Space Marines happened to miss during their thousands of years of constant warfare? Huh? Speak up!"

Lightning Dust recoiled, and the other pegasi slowed down to watch while Rainbow Dash stared down the other mare from behind her blood-red visor.

"... You do realize that we're the same rank, right? Why are you talking down to me?" Lightning Dust deadpanned.

"This isn't Equestria, Private! You're a Company mare now!" Rainbow Dash barked, her flight pack puffing fire behind her. "Around here, your weapon is your rank!"

"No it isn't," Twilight Sparkle said blithely as she exited the command center behind the other ponies, "Rainbow Dash, stop trying to leverage your power armor as a status symbol. You don't outrank anybody."

"Yeah, well..." Rainbow's voice weakened considerably. "I know a guy who does! So watch your mouth, scrub!" With that final threat, Rainbow pointed her hoof toward her visor, and then pointed it toward Lightning Dust.

Lightning was glad that she had tinted flight goggles to hide her rolling her eyes. She passed by Rainbow and spread her wings to take to the air, leading the rest of the pegasus squadron away from the pair of Equinoughts.

"Why'd you have to call me out like that, Twi? I was just trying to teach her not to be so mopey," Rainbow Dash complained, "it's like a friendship lesson! Except that if you mess it up, rather than making ponies angry, you get blasted to pieces."

Twilight sighed and walked past Rainbow, not deigning to reply to her complaint.

"... Hey, Twi? Something wrong?" the pegasus asked, quickly catching up to her friend and field commander. "I know you aren't the type to be all happy about killing a bunch of people even if they totally had it coming, but you're usually not depressed about it."

"It's my magic, Dash," Twilight grumbled as she trotted down the avenue, "I'm still experiencing those mana surges, and I think they're getting worse."

Rainbow tilted her head to the side. "Wait, you mean that thing that's been happening since the Warp storm started up? The thing that makes all your spells stronger? Isn't that a good thing?"

"I know it might SOUND like a good thing, but no, it isn't," Twilight groused, "random spikes in magic output makes most spells less reliable. It isn't always a matter of 'more energy equals bigger explosion'. Many spells require fine control more than raw power, and getting it wrong could put lives at risk."

Rainbow thought that over. "Okay, so, can't you just stick to the magic spells that DO require raw power? At least until we can stop the Warp storm?"

"Yes, I suppose I could," Twilight allowed, "but flinging around big explosions isn't exactly something the Iron Warriors need help with, is it?"

Rainbow Dash laughed, her voice sounding bizarrely deep and booming from behind the vox grille of her helmet. "Ha! Yeah, you're right!" Then she clapped a boot onto Twilight's side. "Well, try to think positive! A few weeks ago we were afraid Orks were going to swarm over the entire planet, and when we opened up the Nethalican we had monsters clawing out of literally nowhere to kill us! Some wonky magic isn't so bad compared to that, is it?"

Twilight had to nod her head to that. "Okay, you have a point. Where we're at is worlds better than where we were. Especially since the Tau have finally shut off their beacon."

"That's the spirit!" the pegasus said with a grin. "Anyway, I've gotta fly. I volunteered for a lot of patrols today. See you later!"

Twilight felt a little better after her chat with Rainbow Dash, but her reassurances could only offer so much comfort.

She was certainly right that the problems they faced today were paltry compared to the threat of imminent genocide. But that problem, while certainly severe, also had a straightforward (though not easy) solution. Rainbow Dash wasn't exactly known for her foresight or inquisitive nature, but Twilight could see the writing on the wall. Their world was changing fast, and probably not for the better. Rainbow had obviously missed the subtle inferences that one might draw from Twilight's magic problems, the most important of which was that a worldwide phenomenon like the Warp storm most certainly wasn't only affecting her.

Twilight levitated her helmet off before she entered the data repository, but halted right after she entered. Spike and Gaela were standing next to a terminal, with the former waving to her and the latter tapping at the terminal monitor.

"Spike! Gaela! Hi!" Twilight said eagerly as she approached. "What are you guys studying?"

"We're not studying anything," Spike said, pointing up to Gaela.

The Dark Techpriest turned away from the monitor and then held up a pair of dataslates. "I have the reports you wanted."

Twilight blinked. "Reports?"

"You expressed an interest in any stories of unusual or destructive magic phenomena as reported by your people's media outlets. As I understand it you're trying to build a comprehensive analysis of the effects of the Warp storm on your population's psykers, are you not?"

Twilight nodded slowly, slightly bewildered. "Well... yes. I mean, the thought crossed my mind, but... you actually went and did it?"

"Centaur III represents a unique test case with very rare controls. I know of no other example of a planet surrounded by Warp storms, home to a significant population of psykers, and possessing the data-processing capabilities that the 38th Company offers. Furthermore, our ability to eventually turn the storm 'off' will allow for further study regarding the lingering effects of such exposure. These circumstances could reveal considerable amounts of useful data in a number of relevant fields, including daemonology, psykant biology, trans-dimensional harmonics, and, naturally, xeno-biology. Which will be all the more useful as the Iron Warriors make this world their own."

Twilight was absolutely silent for several seconds after Gaela finished speaking, staring up at the cyborg with an unreadable expression.

"... Can I hug you?" the purple pony asked.

"No," Gaela replied curtly, tapping the dataslates on the mare's nose, "in any case, the first slate contained a compilation of the news articles scanned from your crude, primitive media journals. The second slate contains my extrapolations of the data."

Twilight again fell silent while she levitated the dataslates in front of her.

"As you can see, there have been over forty reported incidents of inexplicable 'miscasts' that have taken place since the activation of the Nethalican. Many of these incidents have taken the form of house fires and freak explosions. By my estimates, taking into account the global numbers of unicorns and the isolation of some population centers, the actual number of significant incidents is at least four times that. Many would go unreported, either because there is no authority to report it to or because the psyker did not want to alert them. And of course, just because an incident is reported is no guarantee that it will reach a media outlet."

Pale light flickered across Twilight's face as she looked over the categorized lists and carefully modeled pie charts that had been compiled on the second dataslate.

"I REALLY want to hug you," Twilight said.

"You know I abhor physical contact with biologicals," Gaela said darkly, "restrict all gestures of appreciation and approval to verbal conventions."

Spike rolled his eyes. "I'm surrounded by geeks..."

Twilight pouted before she returned to reading the dataslates. "Thank you, Gaela! This is fantastic!" She paused and glanced over more of the data. "This supports some of my hypotheses regarding the effects of the Warp storm so far. Especially the scale of the mana surges if there have been so few."

"Few? She said there were a lot," Spike mumbled.

"If Gaela's estimates are at all accurate, that would amount to less than two hundred mana surges in two weeks," Twilight explained, "over all of Equestria? With unicorns using their magic day in and day out in the normal course of their lives? It should be much higher if other ponies were experiencing them with anything close to the frequency I have. I believe the frequency and intensity of the surges increases with the power and complexity of the spell. That would explain why I've had so many, especially while teleporting."

Gaela crossed her augmetic arms over her chest. "And yet, despite your world's APPARENT reliance upon your idiot sovereign to maintain the solar cycle via extraordinary psionic patterns, it remains undisturbed. There has been no detectable orbital variance since the Warp storm began."

Twilight groaned, but resisted her initial urge to defend Celestia's competence. She didn't want to get dragged off this topic. "I'm thinking that as far as the orbits go, the case is exactly the opposite. The spells require so MUCH power that they suffer mana surges constantly, but it makes no meaningful difference. It's like tossing a bucket of water into a lake as opposed to a wash tub."

Gaela glanced away, pursing her lips. "This hypothesis is plausible. Perhaps you should interview Princess Luna on the matter. As far as the type of psionic masteries that appear to be most..."

Gaela trailed off when Spike yawned noisily, and she raised an eyebrow as several embers floated out of his gaping jaws. "... Right. Before we discuss the matter further, Spike had his own message for you."

"Oh! Sorry, Spike. What is it?" Twilight asked as she lowered the dataslates.

The young dragon straightened immediately now that he had Twilight's attention. "It's not really a message, more like a present!" he said as he waddled over to a data core.

Twilight tilted her head to the side. "A present? Well, why did you come here to give it to me?" Then she looked up at Gaela. "Actually, why were either of you waiting here for me? You could have dropped these things off in my room."

"Indeed. But then there's no telling when you may have seen them," Gaela pointed out, "I thought I should make sure to get the data to you before such time that we decided the threat had passed and stilled the Warp once more."

"I don't spend THAT much time in the repository," Twilight protested.

As soon as she finished speaking, the door opened behind her, and the purple pony could hear heavy footsteps entering the room.

"Oh, look, it's that servitor you programmed to bring you a ration cup and bottle of water EVERY DAY at this time and place," Spike deadpanned as he walked back over to her.

Twilight looked behind her at the cyborg stepping into the room, which was indeed carrying a metal tray with her "dinner" on it, along with a spoon.

"Don't judge me," Twilight mumbled, turning back around, "anyway, what do you have there, Spike?"

The dragon grinned up at her and dropped a small box at his feet. "Just a little something from your coltfriend!"

Twilight, naturally, looked perplexed. "I don't have a coltfriend." Then she took a step back. "Wait, you don't mean it's from Dusk Blade, do you?"

"Yup," Spike snickered before he opened the box.

Inside the container was a shallow pot full of small yellow blossoms that hung down from their stems like tiny bells. Stuck into the potting soil next to it was a small tag that was commonly used to warn ponies that certain flowers weren't edible.

"Are those dawn jewel blossoms?" Twilight asked, a small gasp escaping her lips. "That's a rare variety of very poisonous flower that's only found in the Midnight Crags mountain range! They're extremely valuable to alchemists!"

"Fascinating. An unusually limited habitat suggests the presence of unique base compounds in the regional environment. Perhaps they are related to the plant's toxicity," Gaela added.

Spike blinked. "Uh... and they're pretty, right?" The females ignored him.

"Hey, there's a note, too!" Twilight said as she levitated a small scroll out of the box and spread it open.

"Care instructions? Or a chemical analysis?" Gaela asked, leaning in closer.

"No, it looks like a romantic poem."

Gaela made a disappointed sound and returned to the terminal monitor.

Twilight cleared her throat and started to read the scroll. "Roses are red, Luna is blue, but neither of them are so amazing as you. Like the fragile flower in which poisons dwell, your charming demeanor hides a fierceness as well. Numberless opponents may threaten us all, but with you at my side I shall never fall. I know you don't like me and I'm pushing my luck, but I'd really like us to get together and..." Twilight paused as she squinted at the paper. "Strange. The next word is all scribbled out, and it ends with 'discuss geopolitics'. That doesn't even rhyme."

"Disgusting," Gaela interjected while she looked over a supply manifest. "Lieutenant Blade has an excellent combat and academic record. Pathetic to see so much of his time and energy wasted on asinine mating rituals."

Twilight grimaced. "He IS wasting his time. I don't want anything to do with that creep." Her voice wavered noticeably as she stared down at the flowers. "... Although, I guess I should do... SOMETHING in return for this. Something platonic, I mean! It couldn't have been easy to get these!"

Spike raised an eyebrow. "How hard could it be to fly up a mountain and pick some flowers?"

Twilight shook her head. "The Midnight Crags are known for all sorts of poisonous flora, some of which can make a pony violently ill just by touching it. Normally only very experienced alchemists can gather plants there. For Dusk Blade to go on his own..." Her sentence trailed off, and her eyes narrowed again. "Hey, Gaela?"

"Hm?"

"Can you bring up the current medicae facility register?"

With a swipe of her hand and a flicker of her optics, the monitor display changed to the aforementioned register log. "Done. And what, exactly, am I looking for?" asked the Dark Techpriest.

"I don't suppose any human slaves were recently admitted, were they?" Twilight asked.

"Affirmative. One such individual was inducted last night. Diagnosis is botanical poisoning," Gaela said blithely, "would you like me to tell you the owner registered to him, or would you like to guess?"

Spike sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Ooh... busted."

Twilight sighed. "Well, all right, then. I suppose I have to arrange a little 'gesture' of my own, now."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 13 manufactorum block

"I undershtand your concernsh, Wraithshtar, I really do. I'd even go sho far ash to shay that I agree with you. But that doeshn't have nearly ash much bearing on your circumshtancesh ash you might hope."

Solon stalked through the halls of the manufactorum, his form lurching back and forth as the legs of his chassis stretched over loose crates and humming power cables. Wraithstar walked briskly behind the cyborg giant, his arms clasped behind his back and an expression of carefully controlled discontent on his face.

"I understand that you don't like to... micromanage your forces, Warsmith Solon," the Tau Commander mumbled, "but I would appreciate your direct intervention in this matter. Neither Lord Sliver or Magos Kaelith have been receptive."

Wraithstar wound his way around the hefty iron crates that littered the hallway as he rushed to keep pace with the Chaos Lord. "Now that the Emerald Dawn Project is complete and the beacon has been deactivated, we must look to the future of our alliance. If the 'Detachment Xenis' that you've established is to outlast the next few sorties you intend for your fleet, then we need to establish a functional civilian colony, as the Kroot have begun doing."

"Without needing our permission, time, or reshourcesh," Solon quipped, "you could learn a thing or two from your shavage friendsh."

The Shas'el restrained a sigh. "A Tau settlement is somewhat more sophisticated than a Kroot hunting camp. And I only WISH that my Fire Warriors could subsist on the flesh of the Orks they kill."

"Well, that ish the crux of the matter, ishn't it?" Solon swiveled around so the glare of his optics was visible to the alien. "I don't care if you build a shettlement and shpawn more bodiesh for my forgesh and firing linesh. I approve of it, in fact. But you want to do sho with my materialsh, technology, and manpower, and eshtablish thish colony far out of my immediate control."

Wraithstar made a face. "With all due respect, Warsmith, it isn't feasible to build a colony in the wastelands."

"It'sh good enough for our humansh, ishn't it?" Solon countered.

"I get the distinct impression that it isn't, actually. Your menials and mercenaries take any opportunity they can to tour Equestrian land, desperate to be away from the choking poisons of your main base."

"And sho you've come to ashk for a shlice of that land," Solon said with a snort, "your proposhed colony would be within shniping dishtance of sheveral pony shettlementsh."

"The land I propose using is uninhabited," Wraithstar pointed out, "and the settlement will be non-military."

"But it ish shtill in Equeshtrian territory."

"Equestrian territory is YOUR territory, Warsmith. This planet belongs to you."

Solon laughed while he and the Commander passed by a row of rumbling production lines. "Oh, I have no doubt that I could shtroll into the Equeshtrian palace, demand a shtrip of the equine'sh empty land, and have the affair shorted and confirmed within an hour. That ish not in queshtion." He swiveled back around as he led Wraithstar deeper into the facility. "But your people are going to have to ingratiate yourshelvesh much further with me to earn shuch favorsh. We've already given you much, xeno, and your feeble Shept hash done little to repay ush."

Wraithstar had a litany of scathing retorts to that accusation, but quashed them in an instant. He may not have been Water Caste, but he had enough respect for basic hierarchy (not to mention sheer killing power) to know when was the wrong time to get defensive.

"So then, what can be done?" Wraithstar asked calmly.

Solon could hear the sound of a heavy, rhythmic humming as he progressed deeper into the manufactorum, but focused on Wraithstar's question.

"I can shet enhanced quotash for your workersh and sholdiersh. Prove yourshelvesh to me with new void ship upgradesh and dead Orksh, and I will be more generoush with my reshourcesh." He chuckled again. "If you need shpace outshide of the badlandsh, however, you'll have to negotiate that with the shoveriegn governmentsh that control the territory. Or wait until we get around to neutralizing their shovereignty."

The throbbing noise was getting louder, and Wraithstar cast a curious glance at a door ahead of them before responding. "We have no Water Caste and no contacts among the non-Equestrian governments," he groused, "and I'm sure you realize the root of our difficulties in dealing with Equestria."

"I not only realize it, I find it amushing to no end," Solon said, "but that ishn't really my problem, ish it?" The sound was now a rapid, thrumming beat, and easily identifiable as music coming from the other side of the manufactorum wall. Solon paused in front of the doors to his forge.

"Ah, Lord Warsmith? Do you know what that noise is?" asked Wraithstar.

"I believe sho," Solon sighed before he entered his signum codex.

The vault doors slid open, and Wraithstar found himself almost buffeted by the waves of heavy dubstep music.

Solon stepped in ahead, and the Tau Commander followed with his hands clapped over his ear holes. What the alien officer saw, however, disturbed him far more than what he heard.

The forge was full of daemons. Clawed, horned, spine-ridden monsters were everywhere, their eyes black as pitch and their skin burning with arcane glyphs. Many carried weapons as well, and Wraithstar quickly took up his pulse pistol from its holster and aimed it toward the horde.

Solon noticed what the alien was doing, and he waved the Tau aside. "Oh, put that away before you hurt yourshelf," the Iron Warrior grunted.

"Th-These are the same sort of creatures that attacked us from the Nethalican, are they not? What are they doing here?!"

"I believe it'sh called a 'mosh pit'," Solon explained helpfully.

As Wraithstar paused to take stock of the daemonic horde crowding around the forge, he did have to admit that the behavior of these daemons was not at all similar to the bloodthirsty, raving beasts that he had seen from numerous combat recorders. For one thing, they seemed to be... well, "dancing" probably wasn't the right word, but the way they were thrashing about to the music probably could have been far more lethal and aggressive if they tried. Some of the daemons, though, were engaging in activities that were more obviously unrelated to violence and blood sport. There were many of them gathered around high tables that held drinks, some of them swung gleefully from servo arms attached to the ceiling, and others were lounging on cushions and watching what appeared to be some sort of equine sporting event. Colored lumen balls hung from the ceiling and blasted rays of neon light into the throng, and there were even some daemons laughing and drinking as he had sometimes seen humans do.

"What... What is this?" Wraithstar asked as he slowly lowered his sidearm.

"It appearsh to be a party," Solon replied dryly, "in my forge."

"But... they're DAEMONS, correct? Why would mindless beasts like that want to... how are they even..."

Solon sighed as the alien started stuttering. "Shuffice to shay, not all daemonsh are shimple monshtersh, Wraithshtar. Even sho, thish ish far from normal. You should probably go."

The Tau Commander did so, holstering his pistol and then backing away. The forge gates slammed shut as soon as he was clear, and the Shas'el shuddered before he headed down the hall once more.

On the other side of the doors, Solon started approaching the throng of partying daemons. His approach was hard to miss, despite the flashing lights and noise, and several Warp monstrosities waved happily to the Iron Warrior.

"Mish Pie! I know you're here!" Solon shouted, his vox booming over the music.

Almost immediately, a pink blur zipped out of the psychotic press of flailing, bladed limbs that was the mosh pit. Pinkie Pie stopped short in front of Solon, and then snapped one foreleg to her forehead in salute.

"Private Pinkie Pie prepared for pernicious party prerogatives, partner!"

Solon nodded curtly. "Of courshe. Can you explain why there ish a daemonic party in my own forge that I wash not informed of, much lesh invited to?"

"Nopey-dopey!" Pinkie said brightly.

That gave the Warsmith pause. "Explain, pleashe."

"It's not my party this time!" Pinkie said. "I'm here to see you!"

Before Solon could fully process that, the pink earth pony had shifted poses. Now she was on her side, on the floor, clasping one of Solon's legs between her front hooves while tears crawled from her eyes.

"Please, Shmithy! Let me see Desty! It's been weeks since you locked him up in the DarkMech labs! I have to see him! I simply MUST!" She turned her head away, her eyes squeezed shut. "You don't know what it's like to be separated from my beloved! The torment I've endured, and which he has surely felt in return! Our hearts - three of them, between the two of us - intertwined no matter the distance between us, ache to be returned to one another!" Pinkie shifted poses again, prostrating herself on the floor. "Oh, glorious, mighty Warsmith! Return my Desty to me! Look deep within the ugly, coal-black pit of writhing insects that is your heart, and embrace the mercy that I assume without any justification is there! I'm BEGGING you!"

"No," Solon replied succinctly.

"Aw, poo," Pinkie Pie mumbled as she stood up again, hanging her head.

"Now that your query hash been resholved, can we get back to why there are Bloodlettersh shlicing open kegsh of shynthehol on my work tablesh?"

Pinkie blinked. "Why? Is there a better place to cut them open?"

A peal of bellowing laughter interrupted Solon's response, and his legs lifted him higher so that he could look over the throng.

"Oh, Warsmith! How lovely of you to join us!" Discord said, suddenly clapping a hand on Solon's shoulder from behind.

The Iron Warrior swiveled around, confirming that, yes, Discord was standing on his chassis behind him and laughing. "May I ashume that this ish your doing, Dishcord?"

"Why yesh, you may ashume that," Discord confirmed, mimicking Solon's speech, "just inviting a few business associates over for dancing and drinks; no big deal. You don't mind, do you?"

"Ash a matter of fact, I..." Solon trailed off as one of his peripheral optics picked something up. "Hold on."

Turning toward the mingling Warpspawn, he picked out a pair of Daemonettes with his targeters. His heavy bolters dropped out underneath his chassis a moment later.

The music cut out as the roar of the heavy bolters ripped through the forge, and the gyrations and conversations of the daemons were brought to a shuddering halt when two of their number were shredded by the mighty guns. The Daemonettes shrieked angrily as their bodies came apart, disintegrating into a swirl of purple dust and white fire.

"You know, this is why I don't invite you to these things," Discord sighed, leaning his elbow on Solon's head.

"Multiple additional targetsh detected," the Iron Warrior said, "activating forge defenshive batteriesh."

As his optics bracketed every daemon in the room bearing Marks and runic symbols of Slaanesh, several ceiling panels dropped down and deployed heavy bolter turrets. A moment later the entire room was ablaze with gunfire, and the party-going monstrosities scattered and shrieked while the daemonettes were picked out and gunned down.

"Man, why does every gig I do here get interrupted by bolter fire?" Vinyl Scratch grumbled, covering behind her turntable.

"Tell me about it," snarled a Khornate Herald ducking next to her, "bleeding psychos."

After a few seconds of the turrets shredding apart every Daemonette in the room, Solon's visor returned no new targets.

"Area clear. All forge defenshesh, dishengage," the Warsmith said calmly. At his command, the heavy bolters were pulled up into the ceiling bays where they had been hidden. "You may all go back to what you were doing."

As the music started up again and the daemons returned to their previous activities - not obviously disturbed or upset by the sudden purge - Discord hopped off of Solon's chassis.

"Still upset about that whole THING with the Emperor's Children, eh?" the draconequus asked. "Come on, man, it's been ten thousand years since they tried to sacrifice your Primarch to Slaanesh! And they totally screwed it up, too!"

"Shome woundsh don't heal with time, Archdaemon," Solon grunted, "you should have known better than to let the lackeysh of the Whore God into thish place."

"Oh, pish-posh! What kind of party would it be without a little Slaanesh?"

"My forge, my rulesh! Why are you even holding it in here, anyway?"

Discord spent a moment considering the question. "You mean besides my going out of my way to annoy you?"

"Of courshe. That much I undershtand."

Discord pointed to the wall of hololithic screens that covered the sides of the forge. "You have the best wide-screen entertainment system in the fortress. You didn't expect us to watch the hoofball game on those dinky little room cogitators, did you?"

"That'sh not what thoshe shcreensh are for, damn it!"

Pinkie Pie suddenly jumped up between the two, landing on Solon's augmetic pincer and beckoning to Discord. "C'mon guys, don't fight! We're all friends here, aren't we?" she asked with a wide smile.

"Meh," Discord and Solon said in stereo.

"I put up with him mainly becaushe trying to kill him ish a washte of time," Solon grumbled.

"I'm only here because he's helping save a world I'm rather fond of," Discord allowed, arms crossed over his chest, "Orks are fun, don't get me wrong, but they make the WORST neighbors."

"Aw, c'mon guys! You ancient evil abominations have to stick together!" the pink mare insisted, stretching one foreleg around Discord and pulling him in close. "If you weren't friends before, then now's the time, right?"

"I don't have to hug him, do I?" Discord asked, wincing. "Last time I did that, I got space tetanus."

"Shtill don't know how that happened. You shouldn't be vulnerable to disheashe," Solon mumbled, "but physhical contact should definitely be kept to a minimum."

Pinkie released Discord, and then she glanced back and forth between the Chaos Space Marine and the Chaos Spirit.

"Soooo... we never really covered this before, but... how do you two know each other, anyway?"

"LONG story," Discord said, his body stretching lengthwise as he emphasized the word, "and it's full of violence and bloodshed and explosions and much gnashing of teeth." He stuck out his tongue. "Dreadfully boring, really."

Solon stepped over to a table and took a shot glass off the surface, ignoring the Flamer of Tzeentch that it presumably belonged to. "Dishcord firsht met me under the guishe of the daemon prophet, Therak'zl."

The Flamer started screeching angrily as Solon uncapped an intake valve and started draining the beverage into it. "It wash not a friendly encounter. At that point my Legion did not yet accept co-exishtence with daemonsh ash the norm, and I reacted with... inadvishable hoshtility."

The Flamer of Tzeentch started puffing shrouds of fire into Solon's chassis, and the Warsmith promptly smashed a leg into its head, not even looking at the lesser daemon as it was crushed.

Pinkie's eyes went wide while she thought over Solon's claim. "Wait, you two fought? Like, for realsies?"

"I'm not sure if you can call my effort 'for realsies'," Discord confessed, leaning against Solon and buffing the fingernails of his lion paw against his chest, "I won, by the way."

"And that wash the firsht time I wash ever decapitated," Solon sighed. He dropped the empty drink glass into the pipe after its contents, and then replaced the cap over the pipe. "Shince then, our relationship hash been... profeshional, at besht."

Pinkie continued looking between Discord and Solon, very curious. "Okay, but, like, you don't want to kill each other, right?"

"Like many individualsh - including a few poniesh that I will not name - I wouldn't mind sheeing Dishcord shuffer a horrible, agonizing demishe," Solon admitted, "but doing it myshelf jusht ishn't worth the effort."

Discord snickered and started grinding his knuckles against the top of Solon's head in a brutal cyber-noogie that sent a shower of sparks flying everywhere. "Awww, don't get all mushy on me, now!"

Pinkie's eyes narrowed in thought as she put a hoof to her chin. "I can see we have some work to do here vis-a-vis the magic of friendship."

"Well, I told Fluttershy that I'd never had a friend before her, and I meant it," Discord said, finally hopping off of the Chaos Lord, "it's not a very fun place out there, in the rest of the galaxy. Why do you think I've been HERE for so long?"

"Well, we can fix that!" Pinkie Pie said with a grin. "C'mon, Dissy! Let's show the Warsmith how to par-TAY!"

"I can't," Solon said with a sigh as he beckoned toward his cogitator banks, "I need to run the final checksh on the new Warp drivesh and make shure they're calibrated to the correct transhlational-"

"NERRRRRRRRRRD!!" boomed numerous daemons from all around the Warsmith. And Discord. And Pinkie Pie.

"Oh, fine," Solon grunted, seeming to deflate slightly, "I probably washn't going to get anything productive done anyway."

"That's the spirit!" Pinkie cheered.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 23, council meeting hall

"Hello, everybody! And welcome to the fifth meeting of the Ferrous Dominus Public Works and City Beautification Committee!" chirped an off-white pegasus mare wearing the upper half of a fleet officer's uniform. There were several ponies and human cultists seated in a semi-circle around her, and these figures clapped somewhat hesitantly while the pegasus beamed.

"I want to start by saying that I'm really proud of all of you guys for sticking to the cause so far and giving your all to make this massive city of metal and poison the best it can be!" the mare continued brightly. "As most of you know, I'm Wind Chime, and I'll be chairing this meeting."

Grinning widely, she tapped a hoof against a holoboard behind her. "Now, before we jump into our agenda, we have some new faces today! Or, rather, one new face and a helmet!" She giggled briefly. "Please, go ahead and introduce yourselves!"

In the middle of the semi-circle, sitting on a metal stool that was obviously straining heroically to support its occupant, was Tellis. The Chaos Lord was the only Iron Warrior in attendance, and his presence was obviously making most of the other individuals in the room nervous. Behind Tellis sat Fluttershy, who was squirming anxiously and trying to hide behind her hair. She wasn't wearing her armor suit, and seemed exceptionally jittery as a result.

The Raptor Lord jabbed a thumb into his chest plate. "Hey. Name's Tellis. Peeps usually call me 'Lord' Tellis, but frankly I'm not into that formal crap. You may also hear me referred to as the Mad Angel. If any of you are ever around Vice-Commander Sliver when he starts raging up a storm you might pick up a few more nicknames for me, but none of those can be repeated in polite company." The wings of his flight pack stretched upward as he leaned forward. "I'm kind of a big shot around here, being one of the few genuine Chaos Lords on staff, and probably the leader of the Steel Reaver assault team. But don't let my rank, attitude, or incredibly fearsome stature intimidate you!" He pointed to Wind Chime. "What you SHOULD be intimidated by is my ability to carve you into shreds with minimal effort. That's important." Several of the people seated close to the Iron Warrior quietly shifted their chairs further away.

Wind Chime, for her part, cocked her head to one side in thought. "You said you're PROBABLY the leader of the Steel Reavers? You don't know?"

"Not really. Haven't seen those guys in a while. They might be dead." Tellis shrugged.

Wind Chime seemed to accept this, and she leaned to one side so that she could see past Tellis to the pegasus sheltering behind him. "All right, then! Your turn!"

Fluttershy squeaked and ducked completely under Tellis's flight pack. The members of the Public Works committee found the sight outrageously adorable, although some of them couldn't help but be slightly insulted that she seemed to find them more terrifying than the Raptor Lord.

"Oh, no, that's okay. They can skip me. I don't want to take up anybody's time," Fluttershy mumbled quietly.

"C'mon Shy, this was your idea!" Tellis admonished the yellow pony.

"It wasn't my idea to go with you," Fluttershy whined, trying to curl up into a ball. "And why did you make me leave my armor behind?"

"Because then you'd turn invisible and nobody would even know you're here."

"I don't see a problem with that!"

Wind Chime frowned. "Does she need a minute, Lord Tellis?"

"No, that's not what she needs at all," Tellis griped.

With a movement as sudden, agile, and frightening as a striking viper, the Chaos Lord seized Fluttershy around the barrel and shoved her forward into the air. She yelped in fright, and a flush spread across her face.

"This is Fluttershy. I hear she's like a hero among your people or something. She's the Element of... uh..." Tellis trailed off while he held up the pony for all the room to see, "... it's something like... the opposite of hitting people until they die."

"K-Kindness," Fluttershy squeaked out, her face turning even more red when some of the ponies clapped their hooves approvingly and smiled at her.

"Yeah, that. Obviously, she's got some pretty severe social phobias, and they seem to have gotten a bit worse since Solon gave her a cloak-capable metal shell to hide in. Still, she's like my second best friend."

A nearby stallion raised an eyebrow. "How did she become friends with someone like you?"

"The same way she became a space pirate," Tellis explained with a shrug, "she was volunteered by somepony else who didn't know any better."

Wind Chime nodded. "All right, thank you. Now we can move on."

Tellis placed Fluttershy back onto the floor, and the yellow pegasus quickly ducked down to make herself as small as possible. She was no longer the center of attention, though, so at least she didn't feel the need to hide.

"We've made a lot of progress here in Ferrous Dominus, and every day new businesses and residents are joining our community here in the middle of our hyper-militarized home! This week we've had a spa and luxury farrier move in on the Delta block, and Green Gardens thinks there are finally enough young ponies in Ferrous Dominus to establish a formalized school system!"

A woman in a cultist's robe raised her hand. "Will we be teaching the equine young of the supremacy of Chaos and that all souls are subordinate to the Dark Gods?"

"That sounds like an elective curriculum to me," a mare next to her opined, "let's start with the important stuff: math, writing, civics, and basic wargear maintenance."

"I think I know somepony who can help provide textbooks," volunteered another pony.

"Very good! Having a proper school system will also allow some of the unicorn conscripts to bring their families here, too! There are lots of cabal ponies that ended up leaving their lovers and children behind because they didn't want to relocate them to a military complex caked in toxic smog! And while having a school system doesn't really change that, it will at least give them somewhere to drop off their kids every day!" Wind Chime said in her abnormally upbeat tone. "Speaking of which, as all of you are doubtless aware, the greatest challenge to beautification here in Ferrous Dominus is the fact that it spews out literally tons of filthy, choking poisons every day! We've formed task groups to deal with some of the problems, and I'd like to take the time to thank Gloomy Glider and Irin for their help in securing the servitor sweeper teams that help clean up the soot on the streets."

There was some light applause from the other members of the group as they turned toward a menial and a rather sleepy-looking batpony mare.

"However, our short-term goal is to reach air quality improvements such that residents don't have to wear rebreathers just to walk around outside. Unfortunately, we're still experiencing obstacles in that area. Mister Craft?"

A tan-colored earth pony stallion with his head wrapped in bandages sighed. "The big problem is the Dark Mechanicus. Obviously, they're ultimately responsible for the pollution, and they haven't been very receptive to our ideas." Then he massaged his head tenderly. "Also, they have a series of hydraulic springboards in the floors that they use to fling us out of the buildings. It makes it hard to hold a dialogue."

Tellis suddenly raised his hand. "Have we considered using violence?"

Wind Chime frowned. "As a rule, we try to avoid hostile confrontation. Our group works to create a better place to live for all of us, and there's no reason we should have to literally fight for that."

"But your efforts haven't immediately gotten you everything you want, and in my experience, that's when it's time to start killing things," Tellis said solemnly, "for example, I feel like our chances of receiving a fair hearing from the Dark Nerds would be a lot better if I stuffed a few of them into the smokestacks we want cleaned up."

"I feel like we shouldn't be making aggressive gestures toward the most powerful and influential people around," mumbled another pony.

"I do that all the time," the Iron Warrior scoffed, holding out a hand and then gripping it into a fist. "Look, all that I'm saying is: give war a CHANCE."

The members of the committee glanced at each other uneasily, none of them speaking for several seconds.

Then Tellis pointed down at Fluttershy. "Oh! Also, Flutters here can totally control their giant, daemon-possessed war machines."

Several eyebrows arched upward, and Fluttershy winced. Not from being the center of attention again, but from her imagining where this line of thought was heading.

"Well, then," Wind Chime said, smiling as she tapped her front hooves together, "that just might give us some new options..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 22 Merchant Corp Offices

Rarity calmly levitated a cup of tea to her lips as she looked over the pair of floating hololith screens in front of her. Every few seconds her eyes would flit from one screen to the other, and her horn flickered intermittently as she applied gentle brushes of telekinesis against the hard-light images.

The snow-white mare was laying on a small pile of velvety seat cushions between a pair of stone-faced men who were both obviously wondering how their careers had reached such a tragic nadir. Across from Rarity, lined up in a row, were ten other ponies of various races. All of them waited silently to be addressed by the Element of Generosity, and all wore the sniffy, generally disinterested expressions common to ponies of high status. For those individuals who were less adept at reading body language and other subtle social cues, there were also their cutie marks, which mostly related to money, gold, jewelry, and other such icons of the elite.

Rarity took her time reading the hololiths, and then finally finished her tea. With a gracious smile, the unicorn mare dropped her tea cup onto a panel at her side, and the hololiths vanished.

"Ladies and gentlecolts," Rarity began, fluttering her eyelashs, "greetings and welcome to Ferrous Dominus. The largest hive of scum and villainy this side of the changeling caverns, and the only city in the world hideous enough to make the badlands look worse for its presence."

There were a few appreciative smirks and snickers at that, and some of the other ponies visibly relaxed.

"And yet, it is the seat of the greatest power Equestria has ever known. And, if we're lucky, the greatest power it ever WILL know. No doubt that's why you all chose to come here."

One mare frowned and started to raise a hoof.

"That, or you have some unhealthy fondness for industrial blight, macabre environs, and military technology," Rarity added with a roll of her eyes, "you wouldn't be the first." The mare lowered her foreleg, evidently satisfied. "Regardless of what your specific reasons were to come, the reason you're here, in this office, is the same: Master Norris Delgan has decided that each of you have something to offer him. Whether in the field of economy, politics, the arts, or business, your dossiers managed to impress the Trademaster." Rarity paused. "Also, each of you seem to have a history of treating others like property. I'm not really proud to admit it, but that attitude plays rather well here."

"Ha! And my father INSISTED that would be a liability!" barked one of the stallions happily.

"Yes, well, allow me to explain our role as the Company's Merchant Corps in greater detail," Rarity continued, levitating her empty cup over to one of the men standing next to her. He plucked it out of the air and then withdrew from the room for more tea while muttering under his breath.

The snow-colored unicorn cleared her throat briefly. "In the 38th Company, the Iron Warriors command and fight. And for the most part, that is ALL they do," Rarity began, "the Dark Mechanicus, by the same token, build things and conduct research. And that's all THEY do. Everything else is handled by us."

A pegasus mare boasting an impressive array of jewelry frowned. "That leaves a great number of matters in our hooves, don't you think?"

"I do," Rarity agreed, "but the Iron Warriors don't see it that way. They think that so long as they toss the humans some food, water, and the occasional shiny object, then their army has everything it needs and there should be no complaints. They seem honestly baffled as to why the mercenaries want for anything more than nutrient gruel and a gun to fight with." She sighed. "What's more, now that our world is safe they're trying to set up something akin to a colony here. You really can't imagine how helpless the Astartes are when handling a society more complex than a work camp. And when you consider that this hypothetical future colony may be comprised of at least four different species, at least two of which generally despise another resident race... well, Master Delgan is going to have his hooves full."

One of the men turned his head. "We don't have-"

"It's a turn of phrase, darling," Rarity interrupted, waving a foreleg at him, "the point is, we have a lot of work ahead of us, and you all have more talent and relevant experience available than any of the humans he considered."

Rarity shifted slightly when the second human came back with her tea, placing the cup next to her with a resentful grimace on his features.

"I can't help but think talk of a colony is quite premature," muttered another mare, "at the rate the humans are dying off, there won't be enough of them left to populate a hamlet, much less a city."

Rarity's expression turned noticeably colder. "Well, then you may find yourself working for treacherous Fire Warriors, Kroot savages, and disgruntled Space Marines. Is that what you signed up for?"

The pony cringed at the thought. "Ah. Right. No, it isn't." She pursed her lips. "The point still stands, though. There aren't many humans left, are there?"

"They've lost many mercenary troops, yes. But there are still a great number of menial workers and fleet personnel," Rarity explained tightly, "and eventually, if things go as planned, Warsmith Solon plans to hire more mercenaries and bring them to our world. We seek to make their lives here in Ferrous Dominus somewhat more tolerable and productive than their time working in a space ship full of monsters. And, hopefully, we can prevent another wholesale massacre of the sort that was necessary to save our planet."

"Where is Master Delgan now?" asked a unicorn stallion, glancing back and forth. "I heard he isn't shy about public appearances. Do we not rate a personal meeting?"

"Oh, it's not that," Rarity assured him while keeping herself from rolling her eyes, "Master Delgan is on business in Canterlot, answering the Equestrian government's questions about the raw materials market."

"Heard about that," mumbled another pony, "the prices for metal are through the roof right now."

"Right. Some ponies have been toying with the idea of export bans, additional tariffs, and all sorts of troublesome ideas," Rarity snorted, "the Trademaster is currently making sure that such ideas aren't implemented. It shouldn't take long; now isn't a good time to be seen causing trouble for the 38th Company." Rarity stood up from her pillows, and then she nodded to the men at her side. They started heading toward the door, still looking extremely unhappy.

"If you think about it, it wouldn't matter if the royal government DID try to enact some sort of new trade laws," a mare chuckled, "the Iron Warriors could just tell them to stop."

Rarity grimaced as she started trotting toward the exit, leading the other ponies into the hall. "We try not to think about it. Follow me. I'll show you to your rooms, and then your offices."

****

Sweet Apple Acres

Applejack took a deep breath while she stood on a dirt patch in front of her farm, drawing in the earthy scents of her ancestral home.

True, there was some differences now, and the smell of oak and apples was mixed with the slightly tangy aroma of promethium fuel. Also true, she had to deliberately face away from the farmstead and nearby buildings if she wanted to get a view of anything that could possibly be considered "nature". Also also true, even this cropped view of her crops still contained a heavy laser turret and a few distant drilling towers.

But even these grim, armor-plated eyesores still caused a deep welling of pride within the apple farmer's breast. It was only thanks to hard work, sacrifice, and fighting of the most brutal sort that her farm and the adjoined town still stood at all. And as Applejack gazed over her young, re-planted orchard, she couldn't help but feel a sense of wonderment and awe.

"Mah stars, them alien apples sure grew fast."

Most of the awe and wonderment, as it turned out, were reserved for the large green spines jutting out of the blast crater and surrounding the twisted hull of the wrecked Tau ship. The "alien" section of the orchard had apparently reached adulthood in the mere two weeks since they had been planted, and the apple spines were already starting to grow fruit. This process apparently dispensed with the usual blossoming mechanisms that preceded the growth of apple fruits in natural plants, and the curved undersides of the thorn-ridden and carapace-armored apple spines were already covered in numerous little purple globules.

It looked kind of gross, honestly.

"Hey, Sis!"

Applejack twisted her head about and spotted Apple Bloom trotting down the path toward the farm.

"Hey, little filly! School out already?" Applejack asked, tilting back her hat.

"Yeah! Ah'm gonna put away mah stuff, and then me an' the other Champions are goin' ta Temple!" Apple Bloom said brightly.

Applejack's mood soured immediately. "Now, hold on. Ya know Ah don't like ya runnin' off to that creepy Chaos church every chance ya git! Ya just went yesterday!"

Apple Bloom gave her an annoyed look. "But ya said that Ah can worship mah God however Ah want, long as Ah don't hurt nopony!"

"Ah did say that, and Ah meant it," Applejack grunted, "but Ah still don't like it. Ah think those cultists are a bad influence, an' Ah'm afraid some kinda raving, bloodthirsty monster is gonna come outta the Dark Portal."

Apple Bloom snorted. "That hardly ever happens! 'Sides, Ah can't miss today's sermon! Scoots said that Father Virgil made cookies!"

Applejack made a groaning noise before she turned her head to look over the treetops toward the town. On the other side of Ponyville, looming over the busy little hamlet, was a dark structure of twisted iron and hateful power. The Nethalican's temple was surrounded by several black towers that bled coruscating flame into the air and were covered with grim effigies and embellishments. The central complex was a large pyramid (large relative to the nearby structures in Ponyville, anyway) capped with a crystal nexus. Several times a day, with no apparent regularity, the crystal would start pulsing brightly, and then a column of black, cloudy un-light would lance upward into the sky. Applejack had no idea what that was about, and could only hope that it was related to the Warp storms that protected their planet from further invasion.

The elder Apple sister had only ever been inside the temple once, and had committed to never entering again unless completely necessary. That place felt wrong to the extreme, and the entire time she was inside she'd felt as if Death itself was stroking her back. It reminded her of Ferrous Dominus, but whereas she had gotten used to the pervasive blight and creepy atmosphere of the fortress-factory, the sense of malevolence and death within the temple was too intense to possibly ignore.

"... Cookies, huh?" Applejack sighed. "A'right, fahn. Ya can go. But make sure yer back 'fore sundown! And yer takin' yer bath right after, ya hear?"

Apple Bloom squealed happily and galloped off for the farmhouse.

Applejack watched her go, and then her gaze tracked back to Ponyville. Obviously, much of the town had been ruined in the battle to stave off the Orks, with numerous whole buildings demolished or burned. Others had not been damaged beyond repair, but at least to the point where they were hard to live in, and as such their owners had to be housed elsewhere, at least temporarily.

Delgan had been happy to help, naturally, and had cajoled the Dark Mechanicus (which was much less happy to help) into action. In a matter of days, new dwellings of reinforced metal and hard-angled ferrocrete had sprung up alongside the pony homes being rebuilt. Some were for Delgan himself, as part of his sprawling investments in the Equestrian economy and its booming xenotech trade. Others were new homes and businesses purchased or leased by Ponyville residents, probably financed by some shady and exploitative loan agreement. Applejack was extremely thankful that she had been able to deal with the Dark Mechanicus directly when her own home had been "purchased".

Needless to say, these new space-age dwellings needed infrastructure that Ponyville wasn't suited to providing, even BEFORE half the town was wrecked by alien marauders. More new buildings, new towers, a new mag-rail line, and ever more bundles of thick metal cables were strung through the town between old wooden buildings of traditional earth pony architecture, giving Ponyville a bizarre and distinctly hideous hybrid look: half rural village, half hyper-industrialized trading post. To add insult to injury, someone had decided to post tall flagpoles around town and hang giant black standards from them. Each billowing length of cloth bore the Iron Skull or a Chaos Star, and - in what was a curiously passive-aggressive show of dominance - were positioned so that they faced the capital city of Canterlot.

Applejack shrugged and trotted toward the crater full of apple spines, putting the renovations to Ponyville out of her mind. As reluctant as she was to admit it, this town wasn't technically her home anymore. And in that respect, she dearly needed to help get Sweet Apple Acres back into working shape while she could; there was no telling when some Company bigwig was going to decide they needed Equinought Squadron on hand and at full strength and call her in to fight.

She spotted Braeburn and Apple Tart walking up the side of the crater that demarcated the "alien orchard", and she waved a hoof at them as they climbed up the shallow incline.

"Hey, y'all done checkin' on them spines?" Applejack asked. "How're they lookin'?"

Braeburn climbed up over the lip of the impact impression, and he took a moment to unbuckle the respirator strapped onto his face. "Just a... sec... got it!" He shifted the mask down under his chin. "Dang fiddly buckles. Ah swear, near everythin' the apes make ya can't use without fingers!"

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Well, yeah. That was never really an issue fer 'em 'til now."

Braeburn shook his head and then glanced over to Apple Tart. "Why doncha head in first and wash up? I'll be in after ya."

The mare nodded and trotted off, and Braeburn turned back to his cousin with a lopsided smile.

"Well, Cuz, Ah gotta admit Ah was mighty suspicious 'bout this 'alien apples' business before, but Ah'm gonna hafta eat mah words. These here spines're mighty impressive!"

"Impressive to us, maybe," Applejack retorted, "but mah customers ain't gonna be impressed by a scary-lookin' fruit tree that can grow in a week. They've gotta be impressed by the fruit."

"Well, here," Braeburn turned and dug his hoof into a saddle bag, "try fer yerself!"

He tossed something to her, and Applejack deftly caught it out of the air on one hoof. The object was a medium-sized apple, rich blue in color. It was shiny and firm, and had a fleshy purple stem.

"Ya serious? We're gettin' ripe fruit already?" Applejack asked incredulously.

"Well, Ah ain't never seen or heard of alien apples before, so Ah can't exactly say," Braeburn said dryly, "but all the other apples Ah saw were a lot smaller'n that, so Ah'm guessin' this one's an early bloomer. Probably the best we're gonna get fer a sample 'til the general harvest is ready."

Applejack tilted her head back and forth as she looked over the fruit, her extensive apple expertise finding no outward fault with it... aside from its color, anyway. Apples just weren't meant to be blue.

Still, the farmer shrugged and bit into the fruit without further delay.

Braeburn watched with intense curiosity as Applejack chewed, mentally preparing himself to dodge a sudden bout of projectile vomit or make a run for medical assistance if necessary.

Applejack swallowed her bite of apple, and then licked her lips. "Sweet. And Ah don't even think this one's really ripe yet. Not a hint of tart. Real crisp, too. Not very juicy, but that'll prob'ly change as it ripens." She took another big bite of the apple, and her face contorted uncomfortably as she chewed and gulped down the next mouthful. "Real tough core. No seeds, though. Which makes sense, what with there bein' no flowers." She popped the rest of the fruit into her mouth and ate it, stem and all.

"... Yeah, Ah think this'll sell," Applejack declared with a grin, "not much good fer bakin', Ah reckon, but it makes fer a fine raw apple. Bet we could make syrup from it, too."

"Well, all right, then!" Braeburn said, looking quite gratified and slightly relieved. "Only thing is, what do we call 'em?"

Applejack's expression turned serious as she considered this weighty matter. As far as she could tell, she was the only grower of this particular variety of apple in all the universe; Geth had explained that the gene-grafted fruits were completely new, largely untested, and that the Dark Mechanicus had no real interest in growing them itself; the Techpriests only wanted her family to keep extensive records on the plants and report it to them. Not only did this arrangement give her a solid monopoly on this product, but it left basic matters like the very name of the fruit in her hooves. It was up to her to shape the future of this apple breed, and by Celestia, she was determined to live up to the responsibility.

"Hmmm... well, Geth made 'em. Kind of. So mah first instinct is to name 'em after him."

Braeburn made a face. "'Geths'? Sounds alien, all right. Not like somethin' ya'd wanna put in yer mouth, though."

"Point. But playin' up the alien angle, we could call 'em 'void fruit'."

Braeburn nodded slowly. "Yeah, Ah could see that. The color is good fer that name, too. 'Bout the same as Princess Luna's coat."

Applejack's eyes widened. "Luna! That's it!" She grinned and beckoned to the impact crater below, covered as it was by thick, massive spikes of vegetation. "From here on out, I dub these here fruits 'blue moon apples'!"

"Hey! That ain't too shabby!" Braeburn agreed.

"Ya mark mah words, Braeburn!" Applejack declared proudly. "By this time a year from now, these apples will be so famous that anypony usin' the phrase 'once in a blue moon' will be met with confused stares and awkward silence!"

"That's..." the stallion trailed off, furrowing his brow. "That's kind of an... obtuse goal, actually."

A heavy stomping approached from behind, and Applejack glanced behind her.

Crabapple was walking down the path toward Ponyville, its chassis lurching up and down while its massive, crab-like legs carried it along the dirt road. Its claws were curled up under its main cannon in a rest position, and Applejack saw that Apple Bloom was sitting next to the Defiler's sensor head, which was concealed behind a grinning mask of gold.

"Bye, Sis! Ah'll be back fer dinner!" Apple Bloom waved a hoof as she was carried away down the road.

"Remember! Home before dark!" Applejack yelled to be heard over the sound of Crabapple's massive, shifting limbs. "And don't let none of those Nurgle cultists touch ya!"

"Yeah, okay! Bye!"

Applejack shook her head sadly as Crabapple departed, leaving a thin trail of smoke and numerous gouges in the dirt behind it.

"Ah worry about that filly. If she comes down with somethin' nasty, then she won't be able to work the farm no more. Considerin' that them Nurglites don't ever really recover from their diseases."

Braeburn nodded mutely, watching the war machine stomp off toward the town.

"Aw, well. 'Least she got Crabapple with 'er. It'll keep her safe," the orange mare said before she adjusted her hat again.

Braeburn looked over at Applejack, then back at Crabapple. Then he looked at Applejack again.

"So, Cuz... did anypony ever find out why Crabapple is-"

"Naw," Applejack interrupted with a shrug, "trust me on this one, Brae. Ya just wanna let that one lie."

"... All right, Cuz."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 20, Nightwatch

Gaela silently observed the halls of the Nightwatch tower interior as she strode purposefully toward her next job, staring with unusual intensity and purpose. Her augmetic took frequent pict-captures of the decorations and embellishments that had been added to the bare halls, noting with great interest the stark contrast with what she had seen from other ponies.

Gaela wasn't very well-briefed on the cultural differences between bat-ponies and the other varieties, but she was vaguely aware of some sort of social schism between the nocturnal equines and the rest of the Equestrian kingdom. She initially wasn't at all interested, but she found herself thinking more on the topic as she looked over the trinkets hung on iron chains or hooks on the walls.

Obviously, there were plenty of banners and stone sigils bearing Luna's cutie mark, or some other variation of the moon. But there were also bone trinkets and fetishes, with a heavy emphasis on teeth. Mainly Ork tusks, as those were now quite abundant and also quite relevant as hunting trophies, but there were plenty of teeth and skulls from other creatures, both big and small, either hung from leather straps or mounted on plaques. It was a surprisingly macabre way of dressing one's home, and doubtless one that would have left Rarity swooning in disgust.

Her gaze tracked up to a pair of hoofblades mounted on a battered shield, and she stopped to observe them more closely. They were crude bronze, and shaped in the manner of those races that managed to learn to work metal to make weapons without really grasping the concept of using those skills to make tools to make much better weapons. Obviously these were blades that still had some personal value to one of the residents after being swapped out for something that could actually puncture an Ork's flesh without shattering. Not a concept Gaela had any sympathy for, but such ideas were a symptom of a warrior culture, something she saw little of among Ponyville and Canterlot. Fascinating.

A door slid open behind her, and two Lunar Guards emerged from their quarters before stopping short at the sight of the Dark Techpriest.

"Uh... hi. Can I help you?" one batpony asked awkwardly. They didn't get many humans up in their tower, apparently.

"No," Gaela said curtly. She turned away from the hanging weapons and started walking down the hall again, not bothering to actually look at the winged equines or explain her presence.

"Hmph. Rude..."

Reaching her first destination, Gaela stopped in front of a room at the end of the hall. Draped over the front door was a flag showing Equestria's national symbol, with the two alicorns circling the sun and the moon (in complete defiance of their respective orbital relevance). Next to it was the Iron Warriors' own standard that bore the Iron Skull. It was the only symbol she had found thus far in Nightwatch relating directly and specifically to Chaos and the 38th Company.

Again, fascinating.

She had other tasks to attend to, however. She checked the room's access log to confirm that it was occupied, and then sent a signal to inform the occupant he had a visitor.

A few seconds later, she heard the sound of rapid hoofsteps nearby, and then the door slid open.

"Lieutenant Dusk Blade," Gaela began, her tone completely flat and inscrutable, "greetings."

Dusk blinked in surprise as he beheld the heavily armored cyborg in front of him. "Uh, hi. You're Miss-sorry, I mean, Dark Techpriest Gaela, right?" He ran a hoof over his mane, trying to smooth it out a little. It was late enough that she hadn't woken him up, but he still hadn't been expecting company.

"Affirmative. I am here to deliver a response to your latest effort in your utterly banal pursuit of romantic relations with Twilight Sparkle." Gaela's voice was perfectly disinterested, as if she were discussing dropping off a box of parts or a newspaper.

Dusk Blade straightened immediately, grinning. "Yes! What is it? What did she say?"

Gaela's boot impacted the stallion hard in the chest, lifting him off his hooves and throwing him into the air. Dusk yelped painfully as he slammed his back into his reading chair and then collapsed onto the floor.

"Uhah... wugh... W-Why?" the Lunar Lieutenant gasped out painfully, trembling under the merciless gaze of the Dark Techpriest.

"Sparkle objects to the exploitation of forced labor in the course of seeking relations with her. If it is any consolation, I personally find nothing objectionable about your methods." Gaela paused. "It seems you've suffered some skeletal fractures. You should see that they are tended to before you are deployed again."

Dusk coughed painfully, spitting a small splash of blood onto his floor. Then he stared up at Gaela weakly. "Did she... like the flowers?"

"She DID like the flowers," Gaela admitted.

Dusk sighed and dropped his head down onto the floor. "... Worth it."

"I am pleased that this matter has been resolved to your satisfaction," Gaela said, not sounding particularly pleased at all, "goodbye."

Gaela headed back down the hall again, noting that several more batponies were about and poking their heads out of their dwellings.

The thestrals were an oddity, and despite living in Ferrous Dominus as long as anypony else they still tended to treat the forces of Chaos with a sense of unease and coldness that was entirely sensible and intelligent. Few had seen a Dark Techpriest up close, and some of them openly gawked at her as Gaela reached the stairwell passage that led to her next stop. It wasn't necessarily a reaction that she enjoyed, but it was more rational than the happy and oblivious cheer that most other ponies greeted her with.

She ascended the stairs, and then reached the heavy double-doors that led to the shining crown of Nightwatch and the residency of its most powerful occupant. Perhaps the most powerful individual in all of Ferrous Dominus, although she would never admit such a thing out loud.

With a thought, Gaela alerted the room's occupant to her presence. Moments later the heavy blast doors started grinding open.

"Dark Techpriest! 'Tis an honor and a pleasure to greet thee this fine evening!" Luna said, beckoning her in with a wing as the doors finished opening. "Enter, please!" She was smiling widely, and was not wearing her daemon armor.

Gaela couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow as she walked into Luna's quarters. It always baffled her how different the dark alicorn was from her sister.

"We art most pleased thou couldst attend to us so promptly! Thy peers seem most reluctant to assist us here in Nightwatch!" Luna giggled, as if the lingering resentment of the Dark Mechanicus were an amusing joke.

"I had another errand on the way," Gaela explained, slightly put off by the alicorn's bubbly mood, "as for my peers, Dark Magos Kaelith is of the opinion that we have performed far more favors to your Lunar Guard than are likely to be repaid. It is a matter of internal politics, largely."

"We shalt prove him wrong in time," Luna said with a mild snort, "in any case, We were just about to break our fast. Dost thou wish to join us, or shalt We show thee the device that hath ceased function?"

It suddenly occurred to Gaela that she could hear a sizzling noise coming from the kitchen unit that was attached to Luna's quarters (an extravagant amenity, as far as the Company was concerned). Taking a step to the side so that she could see past a dividing wall, the Dark Techpriest saw none other than Big Macintosh making apple pancakes on the stove.

Strange.

The cyborg stallion turned toward her and nodded briefly, but remained characteristically silent. No explanation of his presence seemed to be forthcoming.

"Show me the damaged terminal," Gaela decided, "I must see to my own rest cycle once I am done here."

"Indeed!" Luna shouted, trotting toward her bedroom.

"Also, you can stop shouting," Gaela mumbled as she followed the dusky Princess further inside.

Once she entered the bedroom, Gaela looked over to the alcove that held Luna's personal cogitator console. The surface of the console controls was smashed in, and the monitor surface was badly cracked.

Gaela frowned slightly deeper than normal. "How did this damage come about?"

"A chair was flung through the room and struck it," Luna explained, "our apologies. 'Twas an accident."

The Dark Techpriest stepped over to the console, staring intensely at the damage. "And how did a chair come to be 'flung' through the air at such velocity? Do you make a habit of throwing furniture?"

Luna's happy mood started to cool somewhat, and she coughed as her eyes darted back and forth. "The details art not important. A chair was... in the way, and We kicked it. 'Twas a mistake, clearly, and We regret our haste."

"Hmph." Gaela leaned down in front of the machine and started shifting her servo arms into position to remove the damaged pieces. "I have arranged via the noosphere for a servitor to deliver replacement components here. I will begin checking the main processors and data cache and see how much damage has been done to the logic engine. You may go."

Luna paused, somewhat confused by the utterly dismissive tone of the Dark Techpriest. She certainly wasn't used to being spoken to so bluntly, as if she were a client just like any other. The mare's expression was thoughtful as she turned away and headed into the dining room.

Luna sat down on a cushion before a small round table, still looking up at the ceiling in quiet contemplation. Before long, Big Macintosh emerged from the kitchen with a plate held firmly in his teeth. The plate was piled high with pancakes, while a bowl of syrup was balanced expertly on his back.

"Techpriest Gaela is a strange one, is she not?" Luna asked, immediately launching into conversation. "She truly thinks to treat me as she would any mere soldier or worker. It seems the Astartes are the only figures outside her order that she treats with any modicum of respect."

"Eeyup," Mac offered his traditional wisdom once his mouth was clear of obstruction.

"We find ourself intrigued rather than offended, however," Luna mused, "such an attitude is rare, even among a species that looks down on ponykind. Most others of the 38th Company seem wary of us. We suspect they fear our power, or resent Father's favor toward our Lunar Guard."

Big Mac started heading back to the kitchen, but then paused and turned his head back to the Princess. "Whose favor?"

Luna blinked. "Warsmith Solon's. Did We misspeak?"

Big Mac watched her silently for several seconds. "... Nnope," he finally decided, turning and entering the kitchen again.

Satisfied that any previous confusion was resolved, Luna continued. "Especially among the Dark Mechanicus, We art disliked. Yet Techpriests Gaela treats us with the same mild disdain as she does most others. She cares not for our favor, nor doth she fear our disapproval, and she holds our titles and status in contempt. It is..."

Luna trailed off as Big Mac returned with two glasses of milk balanced on another plate in his mouth.

"Well, not 'refreshing', per se, but 'tis interesting, certainly."

Big Mac placed the glasses down and then took his own position opposite the alicorn.

Luna's magic went to work immediately, and pancakes started floating apart into two smaller stacks as an oozing rope of syrup flew from the bowl to land on their breakfast. The pancakes fell onto the ponies' plates, and Luna grinned widely as a fork and knife were taken up in her magical grip.

"As ever, thou hast our deepest gratitude, Macintosh! We only wish We had known earlier that thy skills extended to the culinary arts!" Luna chuckled. "We find ourself ever more grateful for thy company!" Her expression turned more suggestive as she fluttered her eyelids at the farmer across from her. "And We hope to enjoy it again come the morn, if thee would see us off to rest."

"Eeyup." The stallion's red coat couldn't completely hide a rosy blush as he took up his knife in his teeth to begin eating.

"EEEEEEEYAAAAAAAH!!!"

Luna and Mac both jolted in shock at the sound of a horrified shriek coming from the bedroom, and their eyes met only briefly before they bolted from the table and rushed to the door.

Luna's horn was already pulsing as she prepared to summon her armor, and after the dark alicorn jumped into her sleeping chambers her eyes swept the room from one side to the other.

There was nothing. No enemies. No obvious breaches or damage, either.

Seeing no foes that needed to be vanquished, she cautiously glanced over to Gaela, who was laying on the floor and trembling visibly. Big Mac was standing next to her protectively, but his eyes were focused on the broken monitor of the cogitator and his jaw was hanging open in shock.

Well, actually, the monitor wasn't completely broken, apparently. Despite the cracked screen, it was still able to display a vid-capture.

A vid-capture of Luna and Big Macintosh. In bed. And not sleeping.

"Is THIS what prompted such alarm?" Luna asked incredulously, holding out a hoof toward the noiseless video. "We had thought an enemy had infiltrated our quarters!"

"Wh-What..." Gaela sputtered as she rose to her feet. Her face was quite pale, and she shuddered as she looked away from the console she had been aiming to fix. "What IS THIS?!"

Luna arched an eyebrow. "'Tis exactly what it appears to be, Dark Techpriest. How did thee come to view this, precisely?"

"I was... checking the vid-capture footage... checking... how you damaged... the cogitator!" Gaela stumbled through her sentence while she held a bionic hand to the side of her head.

"Oh? We told thee how it occurred," the Princess said with a disapproving glare, "as We said, a chair was in the way, and We kicked it."

"Further context would have been helpful in avoiding this!" Gaela snapped. "Damnations! It's stuck in a feedback loop!"

Big Mac turned to Luna, his ears folded back and his head lowered in embarrassment. "Princess... ya RECORDED that?"

The alicorn shrugged. "There art recording devices all about Nightwatch, and our quarters art no exception. The Warsmith sees all that occurs in his domain."

Big Macintosh gulped. "Even... four days ago? With the... When we..." he trailed off and cringed.

Luna frowned. "Well... We imagine he doth not watch ALL the security vids. And surely he hath entirely scholarly interests at heart. We art certain we can trust the Warsmith with such footage!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's Forge

"So then, the Space Wolf rips off the heavy bolter, right?" Discord giggled as he spoke, barely able speak through his snickering as the surrounding daemons hung onto every word. "And then-And THEN! He clubs Solon right across the FACE with it!" Discord cackled loudly and slapped his reptilian knee. "Solon - I swear on the Four this is true - he SPINS completely around from the impact! Spun like a top! It actually made him dizzy!"

Solon sighed while the daemons crowding around him and Discord started bellowing in laughter, with some of them pointing at him while holding their gut (or guts, in the Plaguebearers' case).

"I don't shupposhe you want to tell them about the thirty or sho Grey Huntersh I killed with no difficulty during that engagement, do you?" the Chaos Lord asked dryly.

Discord's laughter trailed off to a chuckle. "Well, I would, but-"

"Hey, everydaemon!" Pinkie Pie suddenly shouted, poking her head out of a data alcove. "Lookie lookie! I found Shmithy's pony porn files!"

"Break time!" Vinyl Scratch announced immediately, quickly setting her dirge player to auto-shuffle and galloping away toward Pinkie.

"... My what?" Solon asked in confusion.

The daemons in the room were all staring at him; some with disgust, some with knowing smirks, and some with horrific rictus grins that really weren't capable of forming different expressions.

"... No, sherioushly, what ish she talking about?" Solon repeated, wondering why Discord was wiggling his eyebrows at him.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 20 Nightwatch

"And really, Astartes take no interest in such things anyway. It shalt come to naught!" Luna insisted, nodding her head decisively.

"Omnissiah save me," Gaela gasped, her augmetic hands clamped over her face, "it's in my memory core! It's replaying on my augmetic! Make it STOP!"

Big Mac looked worried, but Luna seemed annoyed instead.

"Forsooth, We art surprised at thee, Techpriest," she said as she raised her head higher, "is this imagery truly so horrifying to thee, who hast fought alongside the horrors of Chaos?"

"AFFIRMATIVE!" Gaela blurted, falling to her knees. "Augh! I can hear it, too!"

Mac slapped a hoof over his face, wishing he could just vanish into the floor. Or at least help Gaela somehow. He knew very well how loud Luna got when she was 'excited'. She had to cast soundproofing spells on the walls just to keep from alerting the rest of the tower.

Luna snorted, her eyes narrowing. "We will hast thee know We art ashamed of nothing!" the Princess said sharply. "What thou art witnessing is an act of love! It is a thing of beauty!"

"It's a looping vid of two drooling animals rutting like Slaaneshi whores!" Gaela growled, holding the sides of her head and gasping. "By the Gods, how can you still walk?!"

"C-Can Ah help somehow?" Big Mac asked nervously. Gaela's obvious disgust aside, he was quite uncomfortable with having a vid-capture of his raunchy activities literally stuck in the woman's head.

"Turn off the console!" Gaela demanded. "Disrupt the exload feed!"

Luna, who still felt the cyborg was being desperately overdramatic, glanced over at the cogitator. "The controls art still broken."

"Then break the rest of it!" Gaela shouted.

Big Mac's augmetic leg lashed out toward the console without hesitation, caving in the main engine housing and cracking most of the more sensitive components to bits. Sparks and broken glass blasted from the monitor, and Gaela suddenly sucked in a deep breath as the feedback loop in her optical finally ceased.

An exceptionally awkward silence descended upon the trio as Gaela remained kneeling on the floor, her breath heaving and her eye blinking repeatedly.

"... Doth it truly disturb thee so greatly to see a pair of non-human creatures in copulation?" Luna asked, furrowing her brow. She had expected Gaela to be totally insensitive to such things, honestly.

The Dark Techpriest slowly pushed herself to her feet. "Negative," she said through clenched teeth as she tapped at her optical augmetic, "it disturbs me greatly to see ANY creatures in copulation. Humans included." Gaela very deliberately avoided eye contact with the other ponies while she staggered toward the exit. Her face was still quite pale, and she was suppressing the urge to vomit. "Absolutely revolting."

"Revolting or not, breeding 'tis a rather necessary 'evil,' is it not?" Luna asked with a sarcastic edge.

"It is a crude, wretched curse of biology that humanity will learn to transcend as we march ever closer to mechanical union and singularity," she hissed, speaking with unusual vehemence.

Even Big Macintosh was giving her a strange look by now, so the Dark Techpriest took a deep breath and straightened up. "But that is irrelevant at the moment. I will see to replacing your entire cogitator tomorrow." She was still facing away from the ponies, toward the door.

"Very well," Luna sighed, letting the matter drop, "and We would ask that thou tell no one of what you saw here. As We said, We art not ashamed, but if it were to become rumor it would cause unnecessary complications."

Gaela shuddered. "You needn't worry." She headed back out into the halls, mumbling under her breath. "I should probably ensure that bed is incinerated, too. Can't possibly be sanitary..."

"...... What a strange woman," Luna said once the door to the halls closed shut.

"...... Eeyup," Big Mac agreed.

"...... Well, then. Pancakes!"

****

???

"Everybody down! Artillery!" Twilight shouted before her horn flashed.

A shield bubble of shimmering purple coalesced around the cluster of Iron Warriors and the armored alicorn in the middle, sealing them within a protective bubble. The Chaos Space Marines stopped shooting immediately, and most fell to one knee as they took the opportunity to reload and check their vox systems.

Then the barrage hit.

Twilight grunted as earthshaker artillery rounds hammered her barrier, and a strangled whine escaped her lips as her shield dome collapsed among the flame and smoke. Needles of red immediately started raining against the barricades again, followed by the odd plasma bolt or grenade round.

"This isn't working!" Twilight declared, deploying her force harmonizer into shield mode and setting it forward. Several Iron Warriors stood up and started shooting back, including the unit's missile launcher, but Twilight knew that they couldn't win the firefight between artillery barrages.

"We need to destroy the artillery battery! We're relocating!" the purple Princess shifted her harmonizer shield further forward as she stood up on a pile of sandbags and searched for a good teleport location.

"Okay! There! We can-"

The exitus round came from her right side, behind the shield, and from an angle Twilight never saw coming. Blood sprayed onto the sandbags in a thin fan as the bullet passed through one side of the mare's helmet to the other, and after a moment Twilight slumped onto her side.

"Awww..." the dead alicorn moaned before her body started to flicker and fade away.

"Consarn it, they got Twi!" shouted Applejack and she galloped across a stretch of cratered ground littered with razor wire and corpses. She paid neither obstacle any heed; the bladed metal scraped uselessly against her outer plating and was wrenched apart as she ran, while the bodies of the fallen were crushed mercilessly under the weight of her greaves. Lasblasts zipped all around her and a great many struck Applejack's body, sizzling against the ceramite shielding like boiling rain.

A heavy bolter stitched across her path, sawing through the dirt in front of her. One of the fist-sized bolts crashed into Applejack's shoulder pad, and she felt a deep jolt through her armor frame.

Still, the apple farmer powered forward through the hail of fire. And then, moments later, she reached the trenches.

"Nothin' personal, fellas!" Applejack shouted before she unleashed her heavy flamer into the fortifications. A dozen men died in seconds, consumed by flames and then thrown back into the teeming mass of Imperial Guardsmen below.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!!" bellowed a Sergeant, his power sword crackling as he sprinted forward through the smoke.

A quick pulse from the gravity lash stopped him dead in his tracks, and the man's eyes bugged out while his legs quivered painfully in place.

"Whatever ya say, cowboy," Applejack said, igniting her main weapon again. The Sergeant and four other men behind him were instantly awash in fire, and the squad leader's power sword clattered into the dirt at Applejack's feet.

"Y'all tell yer 'Emperor' that if'n he wants ta save y'all, he'd better hurry and git down here!" Applejack barked as she strode onto the scorched ground, blasting flames ahead of her.

A krak grenade suddenly landed on her back, and the farm pony yelped when her armor shook furiously from the blast. A diagram of her suit damage flickered onto her visor, but Applejack quickly banished the report and turned around, being much more interested in the cause of the attack.

"Horseapples!" Applejack managed to spit out right before a yellow metal boot crashed into her helmet. She was thrown into the wall of the trench from the impact, and before she could recover she found herself pinned in place by an enormous humanoid in yellow power armor.

"Daggum Space Marines!" Applejack growled as the Imperial Fist grabbed onto one of the tusks of her helmet. She struggled to shoulder the larger warrior aside and free up room to kick him, and her armor servos strained desperately while she pushed herself away from the wall of dirt and plasteel plates.

"The Emperor shall see you to your final resting place, xeno filth," the Imperial Fist spat, twisting Applejack's head up by her helmet's tusk.

"Ah'll show ya where ya can shove yer dang Empe-"

The farmer didn't manage to complete her threat before a combat knife plunged into the gap between her helmet and gorget, piercing the tough plasteel banding protecting her neck. A second, third, and then a fourth stab followed the first, and blood oozed onto the blackened ground as the Astartes dug his blade in to its hilt.

Then he pulled the knife free and shoved Applejack's body aside, snorting after it collapsed into a heavily armored heap.

"The Emperor's judgment is more than you deserve, alien. Your kind are beneath contempt," rumbled the yellow Space Marine as he took up his boltgun again, "be grateful you are so blessed."

****

Applejack growled as her body rematerialized, depositing her on a tall ridge overlooking the trench network she had been attacking.

"That was really good, Applejack!" Twilight Sparkle congratulated her friend eagerly after the apple farmer appeared, trying to lift her spirits. "You got much further than I did!"

"Yeah, Ah guess," Applejack grunted as she wheeled around toward her squad leader, "Ah just wish..." she trailed off as she saw Rarity lying down behind Twilight.

"Sniper," Rarity answered the unspoken question, "probably the same one that got Twilight. I simply can't figure out where that ruffian is hiding!"

"Ugh. That's rough." Applejack spotted a flicker of distorting light to her side, and after a moment Rainbow Dash materialized next to Twilight.

"GAH! Stupid Space Marines!" the pegasus yelled, stamping a boot onto the ground. "It really sucks when they're bad guys!"

"You mean it sucks when they're good guys," Twilight corrected, "the Imperial Fists are the non-corrupted Astartes that haven't betrayed their creators and citizens like the Iron Warriors did."

"Yeah, whatever. The point is, I like the other kind of Space Marines way better," Rainbow grumbled, disengaging her helmet so that her scowl was more apparent.

"Fighting Imperial armies is quite different from fighting the Orks, isn't it?" Rarity mused. "We may have to change our approach."

A distant explosion came from behind the Imperial lines, and the four ponies glanced over the ridge at the detonation. More explosions ripped through the enemy's artillery tanks, and flaming meteors started pouring into the defender's ranks from above.

"Well, at least Luna's having fun," Rainbow mumbled as her flight pack trembled, "how long until we deploy again?"

Twilight glanced at a display counter on her visor. "It should be just twenty more-"

A loud blaring noise suddenly assaulted her ears, cutting her off. "Whoa! What is that?" she asked, cringing.

Rarity and Rainbow Dash were each wincing just like she was, but Applejack looked confused.

"What's what?" the earth pony asked, looking back and forth.

The noise sounded like an alarm klaxon, and the noise pierced the noise filters of Twilight's autosenses while she quickly searched for any noosphere messages or indicators. "What's with the alarm? Is something wrong?"

"Hey, are we going to get a boss fight now or something?" Rainbow asked, looking excited.

Applejack frowned. "Ah don't know what y'all are talkin' about. Ah don't hear no alarm."

Twilight found that quite puzzling, and quickly linked up her vox to Solon's channel.

"Warsmith, what's going on? Is the simulation breaking down?" She could swear her vision was starting to get fuzzy as the blaring became even sharper.

The vox's returned only static, and even that seemed to peter out while Twilight's senses started fading. "Solon? What's happening?! What-"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 22 guard barracks

"-What's going on?!" Twilight shouted, snapping her head up.

Spike yelled in surprise and jumped back, and then ended up tripping on a stack of dataslates lying on the floor. "Ow! Geez, Twi!"

Twilight's thoughts were fuzzy as she took in her new surroundings. She was in her room again, having been ripped out of Solon's dream simulation. That was fine. Although it was still way too early for her to be up, if her wall chronometer was any indication.

Most importantly, though, was that the blasted alarm klaxon was still as loud as ever, even though all the other sounds from the simulation had disappeared along with the dream world.

Warning! growled an automated voice from the vox caster above. Xeno warships have been detected in high orbit! All crews to battle stations!

"T-Twilight?" Spike got up as the alicorn's expression became one of intense concentration. "Do you know what's happening?"

Twilight didn't answer him, turning her gaze onto the small vox caster set into her room cogitator. Her eyes narrowed at it, as if she was daring it to speak again.

Warning! Enemy void craft have been engaged! High possibility of orbital bombardment! All crews, to battle stations!

"That's..." Twilight's voice cracked, and her mouth felt totally dry as she croaked out the rest of the sentence. "... That's impossible..."

Enemy assault craft have been launched! Ground contact imminent! the vox caster barked. All crews, to battle stations! This is not a drill!

Author's Note

I figure this chapter left JUST enough to the imagination that I don't have to add a Sex warning tag. I wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea; this is about horrific, brutal violence and merciless destruction, not love and intimacy and all that boring crap.

I'd also like to thank all the contributors to my story in the Tournament of Canterlot so far that have vaulted me to third place in the story running (though I must admit there are a lot of authors with no contributions at all).
Thank you:
Hey it's that Pony
GBscientist
Heitomos
Ayh

You guys are the best!

Rally Point

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 10

Rally Point

****

Ork Space Hulk Deffbringa - command bridge

"Coggz?! COGGZ! Git in 'ere, ya Grot luvah! You'z gotz sum splaynin' ta do!"

Kahg Krushah bellowed angrily into his ship-board comms, his voice booming through the labyrinthine halls of his flagship.

A flagship currently stuck in the fury of a Warp storm.

"Boss!" shouted a deck hand, "bee-hynd ya! It'z-"

Kahg didn't need any further warning than that, and spun around on the spot with his maul outstretched. The daemon that had been emerging from the floor bulkheads was smashed to a paste before the Warboss could even get a look at it.

"Mork's eye, dese fings iz annoyin'," Kahg grumbled as the smell of sulfur and blood reached his nose. Another flicker of Warpflame came from in front of a gun locker, and he sighed before he walked up to the next razor-taloned horror to crawl screeching into his ship.

The daemon blinked ink-black eyes at the massive Ork, and then lunged.

A haymaker crashed into the beast mid-jump, smashing its needle-sharp teeth in and throwing it back onto the floor with a hiss.

The daemon scrambled to get back to its feet, but a massive metal boot stomped on its back, pulverizing the Warpspawn utterly. The daemon squealed and vanished into smoke; all that remained was the sulfur smell and a very small sense of satisfaction in the Ork that had slain the creature.

"Oi, wotcha want?" grumbled a decidedly surly voice as Hazarr Coggz Wrencha walked onto the deck.

"Coggz!" Kahg barked. "Dis iz YER fawlt!"

Hazarr stopped, glaring at the larger Ork from behind his visor. "Wot, ya meen us not dyin' an' gettin' ripped ta shredz? Yeah, dat iz me fawlt. Wot uv it?"

"Ya yoosless git! We'z STUKK! Da Deffbringa can't moov!" Numerous other bridge crew chimed in with their own complaints, although none of them dared approach the confrontation with their Warboss in a bad mood.

"We'z not stukk," Hazarr grunted dismissively, "we'z jus' moovin' reel slow. An' we'z lettin' da uddah ships troo da stahm too."

"But dey AIN'T moovin' slow!" Kahg complained. "All me boyz iz gonna git ta da fightin' bahfore me!"

Another howling sound came from behind Kahg, but this time the lesser Orks eagerly leapt on the creature themselves before it could interrupt the boss's conversation.

"You'z got fightin' heah," Hazarr said blithely, "look, Boss Krushah, I sed I'd get ya boyz troo da Warp stahm. Dat'z wot I'm doin'. Da brayn enjin iz workin' jus' fyn."

"Den why'z we moovin' so slow?" Kahg demanded.

"'Cuz math," the Big Mek answered.

"Math can't tell us wot ta do! We'z da ORKS!" Kahg growled.

Hazarr fought off an exasperated groan. "Dat don' reelly help. Da spess hulk iz jus' too big. Da stahm ain't lettin' it pass eezy." He pointed his klaw toward the bow. "But da spess hulk mayks a way troo da stahm fer da uddah ships. So long as da Deffbringa iz in da Warp, yer boyz can git ta da hoss planet."

A growling noise came from deep within Kahg's throat. "Dere had betta be a DAMM gud fight on dis 'hoss planet' o'yers."

Hazarr snorted as he turned and started heading back into the depth of the space hulk. "Oh, dere iz. Mebbe a betta fight than you'z reddy fer..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 22 guard barracks

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." Twilight chanted the word over and over again as she galloped to the front lobby of her barracks complex, her hair frayed and her gaze manic behind her helmet. Spike rushed to follow her, although the dragon kept his own doubts and concerns quiet.

Twilight halted in the lobby, glancing up at the blaring alarm klaxons. Like the other ponies of Equinought Squadron except Fluttershy (who had the unfortunate honor of rooming in the Astartes barracks), Twilight had moved into the facilities that housed Norris Delgan's crew. Such individuals had little to do in a military emergency besides wait it out, but even here Twilight could see that the merchant corps' guards were already in position and manning weapons at the wall of the building.

"This can't be happening... doesn't make sense... the Warp storm should have stopped them..."

The humans in the room completely agreed, but kept their attention and weapons on the streets outside while the armored pony started pacing back and forth.

Twilight suddenly stopped and whirled toward Spike. "Where is everypony?! I can't be the only one who was woken up by the alarm!"

Spike blinked, and then briefly considered the matter.

"Well, Applejack's not here, Pinkie Pie never came back last night from that 'forge party', whatever that is, Fluttershy rooms in a different sector, and Rarity and Rainbow Dash are probably suiting up. They can't summon their armor in a few seconds like you can."

The completely calm and sensible breakdown of why Twilight's "subordinates" weren't on location yet only increased her sense of panic. "This is ridiculous! The Orks aren't supposed to be here! Did we miss some ships? Maybe they were hiding out in the asteroid belt? But Gaela said they confirmed exit signatures!"

The alicorn Princess stopped in place and then made to link her vox system to Warsmith Solon, a thousand questions boiling over in her mind.

Twilight winced when her communication attempts were immediately rejected. It turned out that the high commander of the 38th Company was fully occupied talking to people with much higher comms priority than she had. As she probably should have expected, actually.

"This can't be happening!" Twilight lamented. "Serith said that..." her voice trailed off, and a surge of uncharacteristic anger rushed through her. Wasn't this Serith's fault? The entire Dark Portal project and subsequent defense was his idea, and both Equestria and the Iron Warriors had thrown everything they had into building the Nethalican on his assurances. What did the Sorcerer have to say about the ships dropping out of the Warp above them? With an enraged snarl on her face, Twilight set her vox system to link up to Serith's armor.

She thought it quite likely that she would be denied, as before; she imagined that she was hardly the only one that wanted answers from Serith right now. Twilight was not, however, expecting her visor to return the message "ID signum not found".

"What? No! No way!" Twilight shouted, banging a hoof against her helmet and earning her a few disturbed stares from the guards at the windows. "We have network coverage over all of Ferrous Dominus, the Tau bases, and nearly all of Equestria! How could he be missing? The Orks haven't even landed yet, so it's not like they could have killed him!"

"Twi, maybe you should calm down," Spike said nervously.

"There will be time for that after we're all dead!" Twilight growled. "I'm going to the command center! Spike, you wait here for Rainbow and Rarity, and then round up Fluttershy and Pinkie! I'll meet you all later after I figure out what the hay is happening!"

Her horn started to glow, but when a hot arc of purple energy crackled around the tip, she remembered that her teleport spells had been less than reliable as of late. "Fine! I'll just fly there, then!" she shouted to nobody, breaking into a full sprint toward the exit. The automatic doors barely had enough time to register her armor signum and open up enough to let the alicorn through; even then, her flight pack still scraped against the reinforcement layers as she pushed herself outside and leapt into the soiled air.

"Damn," mumbled a guard as he watched the armored figure soar away, "she's kind of creepy when she gets stressed."

Spike sighed. "You have NO idea..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17

Under very different circumstances, Twilight would have marveled at the sight of the Ferrous Dominus anti-orbital batteries being used. The way the titanic cannons shook their mountings and spurted clouds of sparkling, highly ionized gases into the air as they shot vast lances of power up into the sky had a sort of grim, awe-inspiring beauty to it. The sort of power necessary to use such massive weapons was practically beyond her comprehension. She had seen a Mega Gargant more closely and extensively than any sane individual would ever want to, and even that titanic, unfathomable war machine seemed underwhelming compared to the weapons needed to fell void ships.

But, still, the problem was that they were currently NEEDED TO FELL VOID SHIPS.

"Warning!" came the voice from the vox caster. "Enemy vessels have reached low orbit! Enemy aerial contact is imminent!"

"These new Orks sure are brave. Or stupid," Twilight grumbled, "the other armies didn't even make it to Ferrous Dominus. This one is diving right at it." She was well-read enough by now in matters of interplanetary assault to know how costly it would be for the Orks to launch directly into an assault on such a heavily-defended point. But she also knew enough about the Orks by now to know that sometimes they didn't care.

The first howling roar of rockets firing came from the nearest roof-mounted turrets, and Twilight briefly twisted about in the air to watch as the missiles streaked up into the carpet of smog above the base. On the far side of Ferrous Dominus she could see fighters scrambling, while on the manufactorum roof there were several Tau Broadside battlesuits being herded into fortified positions.

This was the plan that had been put into place long ago, at the same time the fortress had been established. She'd seen and participated in drills for the defense of the fortress, and read the simulation reports that the Tau conducted. They were all quite effective, efficient, and Twilight had no doubt that the Orks would suffer horrendous losses just to set foot on the ferrocrete below her. But for all their experience, preparation, and sheer military power, all those plans and simulations presumed the same fate in the case of a big enough full-scale Ork assault.

Ferrous Dominus would eventually be overrun, and what weapons weren't used up or destroyed in the battle would be taken as trophies. Then the Orks would turn their attention to the rest of the planet.

"That will NOT happen," Twilight swore as she landed in front of the command center.

The armored pony gave a distracted nod to the Iron Warrior squad standing guard outside the building, and then headed inside. Twilight was promptly bombarded with all manner of noise from dozens of people shouting, arguing, and conversing darkly with each other; Iron Warriors, mercenaries, Dark Techpriests, and she even saw Prince Blueblood speaking anxiously to an augur relay technician.

She headed over that way, immediately figuring that she might as well stick to someone obviously willing to talk to a pony. Most of the others would probably ignore her.

"Excuse me! Sir!" she shouted as she approached the technician. The man quickly turned away from Blueblood as he realized that the new equine harassing him had power armor. Despite what she had told Rainbow Dash the previous day, it WAS something of a status symbol.

"If you want to know why there are xeno ships in orbit, you're in the same boat as everyone else," the man said, waving a dataslate at her, "we still have no idea how these got through the Warp storm!"

"But we're sure that they DID come in through the Warp storm?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, we know that much," he grunted, glancing over at Blueblood again, "we have five contacts currently. Four initial Warp exits, and then two more about ten minutes later. We already killed the drives on one of them, and its already on a crash-course with the planet."

"Well, then that's not a big deal, is it?" Blueblood interjected, looking relieved. "Their fleet is half the size of yours! You'll wrap this up easily!"

"It IS a big deal," the technician seethed, glaring down at his dataslates, "all the ships other than the Harvest of Steel had their reactors cold while they were undergoing modification. It takes HOURS to start up a ship reactor! Other than the flagship, our fleet has no augur relays, no shields, no weapons, and no engines!"

"That... okay, that sounds pretty bad," Blueblood admitted, wilting considerably, "but still, you have the flagship, right? And the guns down here! You can hold out for a few hours until the other vessels are active again, correct?"

"Another Warp exit!" shouted someone from the other side of the room.

"Ork Kill Krooza confirmed! It's showing signs of damage from the storm, but still active!"

"She's on course to engage the Harvest! We have more assault craft launched!"

"Damn the xeno filth!"

As Blueblood slapped a hoof to his face, Twilight's eyes turned toward a large planetary hololith currently zoomed in on the cluster of vessels in orbit. It was similar to the screen that Gaela had set up in her library the first time she had witnessed a void battle, although much larger and possessing floating informational panels.

The situation looked at least as bad as the technician had described. A single vessel lashed out at the Ork ships with volleys of flashing green darts as the ramshackle alien craft swam around the formation. Behind it were several much smaller craft, all of them floating in a slow, lazy orbital path around the planet and seemingly oblivious to the enemy attackers. Some of the Orks obviously took this as an invitation, and darted for the vulnerable ships even as the Company's daemonic megafreighter tried to contain them. Most of the ships were obviously trying to get past the fleet entirely, to launch their army to the surface.

One of the enemy ships took a salvo from the ground batteries, as represented by several small darts of green stabbing up into it.

"Direct hit on an enemy frigate! Its engines are powering down!"

"That's another one down, at least. Direct the batteries to keep the rest off the ships while they power up! They're our only way off this rock!"

As the officers discussed the battle, Twilight stepped closer to the strategic display and peered closer at the smaller icons. She could see wings of fighters and small attack craft now, as well as Ork fighters and assault vessels for landing troops.

"What are the fighters doing? They're fully active, right?" Twilight asked the technician.

"They're trying to stop the Ork Landas. The smaller assault vessels will mostly get cut down trying to land over the fortress, but the bigger landing ships are hard to crack with standard anti-air batteries," the man tapped his dataslate several times, pursing his lips anxiously. "The fighters just need to target their engines, though. Shoot them off and the Landas can't... well, land. They'll plummet straight to the planet surface and squash everything inside."

Blueblood looked up at the man uncertainly. "That sounds rather dangerous, doesn't it? We could have one of those things fall right on top of us!"

"Better that than the Orks inside it."

A muted explosion rumbled from outside, and Blueblood's ears pinned back.

"How safe are we, specifically, in here?" the Prince asked nervously. "Is there someplace else I should find shelter?"

"You don't get it, do you?" the technician snapped, throwing his dataslate against the table. "If we have Ork ships coming through the Warp storm then there's no reason to think the xenos won't get reinforcements from the rest of their fleet! There could be millions coming! Billions! They'll take apart the Harvest, they'll take apart Ferrous Dominus, and then they'll take apart whatever's left! We CAN'T stop them!"

"We have new Warp exits! Two frigates, incoming!" shouted someone deeper in the room.

"This is crazy!" Blueblood protested, his voice trembling. "We did everything we were supposed to! We built the Nethalican! Why can't we stop these creatures?!"

The human had no answer for the stallion. He gave an annoyed grunt and headed back to his terminal, losing himself among the shouting and arguing of the others.

Blueblood sucked in a breath through his teeth, and then glanced over to Twilight. The alicorn was still staring intently at the strategic hololith, as if she hadn't heard someone declare her planet and everything on it doomed.

"You know a bit about all this Warp nonsense, don't you Princess?" the unicorn asked, approaching the other pony anxiously. "It can't really be as bad as he said, can it? The storm must have done SOMETHING."

Twilight didn't seem to notice, rearing up to place her forelegs on the hololith table.

"Cogitator, map the estimated descent paths of all Ork vessels making planetfall," she commanded.

The hololith beeped, and then glowing red lines formed to show the most likely route each vessel was headed down. Those Landas, assault pods, and other craft that were still intact and in control were all obviously heading toward Ferrous Dominus.

Those vessels that had their engines shot apart, including two Ork Raiders so far, were left to the whim of gravity, inertia, and fate. Some looked as if they were going to land in the oceans, and some were only going to miss Ferrous Dominus by a few kilometers, which counted as a near-miss relative to the distances that the shuttles were traveling. The damaged capital ships, however, were coming down smack-dab into Equestrian territory. Territory that Twilight could recognize instantly despite the top-down, low-detail display.

She pointed to the projected landing spot. "Magnify."

"Hey!" complained an officer when the hololith swiftly zoomed in on the area.

Twilight would have offered an apology for interrupting whatever he was doing, but she was too distracted by abject horror as she stared at the projected landing point of one of the Ork void ships.

"Oh my Aunt," Prince Blueblood breathed, his eyes widening.

It was going to land on the side of Canterlot Mountain, right next to the city of the same name.

"No. NO!" Twilight shouted, almost choking on the words. She stepped back onto the floor, and then turned toward one of the few humans she recognized in the room (albeit she had only met him once). "General Harlin!"

The man was engrossed in a very depressing conversation with a Dark Techpriest, and he grunted in annoyance after he heard someone else shout his name.

"Sparkle, I very much doubt that whatever you have to say right now is more important than any of the other hundred things vying for my attention," Harlin said without turning around, "but I'll give you ten seconds to prove me wrong."

"A damaged Ork void ship is going to land on Canterlot!" Twilight shouted desperately, tearing her helmet off and dropping it at her hooves. "You have to destroy it before it impacts the surface!"

"Ah. How about that? I was right," Harlin said sharply before returning his attention to the Dark Techpriest, "now I want the Scavurel's-"

"General, please!" Twilight begged. "If it hits the mountain, then Equestria's capital will be wiped out! We need to destroy it!"

Harlin clenched his teeth and finally cast an angry glare over to the pony. "That is TOO BAD Sparkle, but I don't care. That is not my responsibility, and our guns are needed elsewhere. There are more people in each of our void ships - the ones currently being cut apart by raider vessels - than there are in your bloody 'capital'." Twilight took a step back, her breath caught in her throat.

Harlin turned back to the Dark Techpriest. "Besides... they may be the lucky ones. Better to be wiped out in an instant than be hunted down and butchered by greenskins. Now get out of my command center. I have to figure out if ANY of us are making it out of this alive."

Twilight felt a mild sense of deja vu after the Commander declared Canterlot lost, and tears welled up in the corners of her eyes before she started backing away.

She quickly turned around and raced out the door, her helmet floating up and flying out after her.

Twilight obviously wished otherwise, but after a moment she had to admit that Harlin was surely right. They were in a desperate situation, and the 38th Company couldn't afford to divert energy and ordnance to help Equestria even if it was perfectly willing. How many times had the humans taken the brunt of the war against the various aliens that had threatened Equestria already? Although Twilight felt that their sacrifice was justified and that the 38th Company had plenty to show for its efforts, she couldn't expect - and didn't necessarily want - them to directly let their own die to help save ponies.

But she wasn't about to allow her capital and home city perish if she could help it. The Iron Warriors were, obviously, the unquestioned military masters in the Centaur system, but there were other powers in this world that were capable of challenging the cosmos.

"I just hope I'm not too late..." Twilight mumbled to herself as she bolted back out into the streets of the fortress.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11 manufactorum block

"Pinkie! Finally!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she, Spike, and Rarity watched the heavy access doors open.

"Oh, hey guys!" Pinkie said, sounding slightly drowsy as she stepped out of the giant war factory. Discord followed behind her, his hands clasped together behind his back. "You missed a GREAT party last night! I mean, it wasn't as much fun as the ones I throw, and the guest list was a little heavy on infectious monsters for my tastes, but you know, it was still pretty cool!"

Pinkie raised a hoof in front of her face and yawned, evidently oblivious to the alarm klaxons, the pounding of multiple anti-aircraft turrets, and the incredulous stares of her friends (though in her defense, Rainbow and Rarity had their helmets on, so it was hard to tell). Even Discord was staring up at the sky and frowning in obvious concern.

After she finished yawning, Pinkie grinned at her friends. "Sorry I missed the dream training thingy! I really wanted to go, but I found this store of REALLY neat videos in Shmithy's cogitators! Did you know that Big Ma-"

"PINKIE!" Rainbow Dash suddenly interrupted. "We don't have time for this!"

The earth pony blinked in surprise. "Oh, sorry. What's wrong?"

An explosion tore through the air above them, marking the end of an Ork Warkopta. Bits of smoldering debris and howling Ork bodies rained onto the street, and Rarity yelped as a rotor blade slashed across the ferrocrete right in front of her before bouncing away.

"Huh," Pinkie remarked, looking up, "wonder where that came from."

"Warning!" boomed the vox casters. "Xeno ground forces have been detected in sector 8. Ork units have been engaged!"

While the full implications of this invasion slowly dawned on Pinkie Pie, Discord clicked his tongue. "You know, I am honestly surprised and impressed right now. This really isn't supposed to be possible."

A loud crack came from a Fighta-Bomma swooping down the street as it was punctured by an anti-air gun, and it started corkscrewing through the air before drilling into the wall of the manufactorum.

"Ha! That's Orks for you! Amiright?" Discord said with a slightly nervous grin as he leaned down and elbowed Pinkie in the side.

"So... exactly how doomed are we?" Pinkie asked, gulping as she stared up into the sky. Dozens of Ork aircraft were attacking the rooftops, while the looming shapes of Ork landing vessels lowered themselves through the pollution haze.

"I can't say for sure until Twilight gets back," Spike replied, "but on a scale of one to ten, with ten being 'boned', this is at LEAST a seven. We can't even find Serith."

Rarity turned her visor up toward Discord. "And I don't suppose YOU have any great insight on this debacle, do you?"

"Not at the moment, no," Discord admitted, shifting his posture to mime opening a door. It didn't surprise anyone when a door really DID open, revealing a rectangle of seething crimson energy. "Tell you what; let me make some calls, consult the relevant departments, and I'll get back to you long after anything I find out might actually matter. Ta-ta!"

Discord stepped into the gateway and vanished, closing the "door" behind him.

"Discord not helping? Gosh, there's a twist I didn't see coming!" Rainbow grumbled bitterly.

"Now Dash, let's look on the bright side, here," Rarity chided, "you know that he possesses almost unlimited potential to make things worse for us. I consider it a favor for him to leave us to die with valor and dignity."

"Whatta pal," Rainbow grumbled.

Behind the other two ponies, Pinkie was clambering up the side of her waiting Dreadnought shell to slip inside. "So what's the plan? Where do we go? What do we do?"

"Twilight said we should wait for her," Spike answered, pausing as another explosion came from above, "she also told me to find Fluttershy, but I don't really know where she is."

"I can go find her!" Rainbow volunteered, jumping up and then hovering in the air as her flight pack ignited.

"Darling, please, no," Rarity said, beckoning the pegasus back down, "just LOOK at that sky right now. You'd be as likely to be ripped apart by a missed shot or exploding plane than by an actual enemy."

"Well, I'm not just gonna stand here and do nothing!" Rainbow Dash protested.

A crackling noise reached the armored ponies from their vox systems, and each of them fell silent as they imagined that they had incoming combat orders.

"Hey, somepony wanna tell me why we got greenskins rainin' down from the sky?" Applejack asked. She did not sound happy.

"That IS the question of the hour, yes," Rarity replied, "we'll have to get back to you on that, though. Still investigating the matter."

"This ain't fair!" the farmer complained. "We built the consarn portal! We brought in the Warp storm! What else could we do?!"

"I assure you, we're all in full agreement," Rarity said with a sigh, "but I don't think the Orks care."

"Just hang tight, AJ!" Pinkie Pie said as she stomped up behind the others. "We're gonna get through this! You'll see!"

Rarity heard Applejack groan, and the unicorn frowned in concern. "Applejack, when you said you had Orks 'raining down from the sky', did you mean that there are actually assault craft landing near Ponyville?"

"Landin'? Naw. They ain't landin' here."

"Good. Then at least you're faring better than the fortress," Rarity nodded, "we'll contact you again when we learn more about what's happening, or if we see any opportunity for you to join us."

****

Sweet Apple Acres

Applejack released a grumbling sigh before her vox link switched off.

"Yeah, Rares. At least we're farin' better than the fortress."

The apple farmer stared despondently at the massive, burning trench that now cut through her orchard. Trees had been toppled by the dozens, and then by the hundreds, and many of those that hadn't been directly smashed to pulp were now on fire.

At the end of the furrow was a mangled Ork Landa. A huge column of smoke poured from its shredded engines, and every few seconds a small explosion would come from the vessel's hull to belch more shrapnel and fire into the ruined orchard.

"Well, shucks, Cuz. Ah was skeptical at first, but... maybe them aliens ARE attracted to apple trees, somehow."

Behind Applejack stood nearly a dozen members of the Apple family, including Braeburn, Granny Smith, and Crabapple (Apple Bloom had been told to stay inside). Behind them were a few mercenaries that were in town to help guard the Chaos Temple, including Daniels.

"This was, like, the ONE section of the farm that wasn't damaged from the LAST void ship crash," mumbled Apple Tart as her ears pinned back.

"Well, things could be worse," mused Fritter, trying to cheer up her cousins.

"Don't say it," warned Daniels.

"At least we don't have to deal with all the Orks it was carrying!" Fritter said heedlessly.

A loud clanging noise came from the wrecked lander as a bulkhead was knocked loose. A moment later it fell outward and then wedged itself into the dirt, forming a ramp.

"WAAAAAAAGH!!"

"God DAMN it, Fritter!" Daniels groaned. "What have I told you about optimism?! Huh? Never again!"

The mare whimpered and started backing away, along with several other terrified Apple relatives.

"Y'all head inside an git yer guns! Braeburn, ya know what to do!" Applejack commanded as her helmet folded up into position. "Wy, take yer boys into cover 'fore the greenies git their bearin's! Crabapple, yer with me!"

A metallic screech filled the air as the Defiler raised its claws and cannons, moving over to the armored pony.

"Inconsiderate varmints," Granny Smith grumbled before she wobbled back toward the house, "way too early t'be causin' a ruckus like this." She paused and twisted her head around toward Applejack again. "Ah'm goin' back to bed! Ya tell them daggum green kids to stay off our lawn, y'hear?"

"Ah hear ya, Granny," Applejack said, loosing a puff of fire into the air, "no trespassin' on Apple turf! Yee haw!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11 manufactorum block

"Twilight! Hey, Twilight! Over here!" Spike waved his claw and shouted as he spotted the familiar suit of silver and gold swooping down the street as fast as her flight pack could carry her.

The young dragon was standing behind a barricade, as were Rainbow Dash and Rarity. It was quite obvious why: the streets were littered with shrapnel and streaks of flame, and the debris was only piling up further with every minute that passed. Ork flyers, landers, and the occasional large meteor that seemed to have engines strapped to it all careened recklessly toward Ferrous Dominus, and each one faced a devastating crossfire of missiles and autocannons to make its landing.

Twilight sped across the avenue toward her friends, but was forced to suddenly boost her altitude as a pair of Devilfish troop transports sped past in front of her.

Once she had cleared the Tau APCs, Twilight pulled up to land next to Pinkie Pie, who was waving her down with her walker's massive power fist.

"Twi!" Spike shouted as his caretaker landed. "On a scale of one to ten, with ten being-"

"There's no time!" Twilight interrupted as soon as she got her bearings. "There's an Ork ship about to crash onto Canterlot!"

A series of gasps came from the other ponies, and Spike's eyes shrank to pinpricks.

"... Oh," he mumbled weakly, "I think I need a bigger scale."

"Never mind that! Tell me you have paper ready!" the alicorn shouted desperately.

Spike reached for his tool belt - an omnipresent accessory for the dragon nowadays - and snatched up a metal cylinder. Twisting it open revealed a scroll of parchment, and the young dragon quickly laid it out before taking up a pen.

"Dear Pr-" Spike started to say before Twilight interrupted him again.

"Spike, seriously! We can skip the formalities!" she barked. "A void ship is on course to crash into Canterlot from orbit! ETA four minutes! Company unable to assist!"

Spike scribbled the notes furiously, and then sucked in a deep breath as he rolled up the parchment. With a puff of green flame, the scroll vanished.

"So... is that it? We send notice to Princess Celestia and hope she can deal with it?" Rainbow asked.

"If you have a better idea, I'm all ears," Twilight grumbled.

Another heavy explosion came from above, and the ponies craned their heads up to watch as an Ork Landa careened through air trailing flame and smoke. "Obviously, there are some things the humans could do, but they have their own problems right now."

"So what DO we do?" Pinkie asked anxiously. The ground trembled slightly as the Landa smashed into the ground the next sector over, grinding itself to shreds against the ferrocrete surface.

Twilight pursed her lips. "Well, we don't have specific orders, and when faced with a conundrum involving aliens and warfare, I've developed a standard response which has served me fairly well so far." She locked on to a familiar locator rune with her visor. "Let's go find Gaela and ask her."

****

Canterlot Castle - main throne room

"What do you MEAN 'it didn't work'?"

Celestia's voice was shrill and nearly hysterical as she stared down at Norris Delgan. The man was kneeling before the white pony and her court, most of whom had been awoken and dragged to the throne room to hear of his emergency.

The Trademaster seemed curiously calm as he replied. "I mean that the Nethalican seems to have failed. I have reports flooding in that our fleet has been engaged by Ork ships breaking out of Warp-space, and Ferrous Dominus is under heavy Ork assault. I'm afraid I have no further details than that, your Highness."

The other ponies in the hall looked stunned, and at least one minister fainted on the spot.

"You're telling me," Celestia began, her voice trembling with barely suppressed anger and fear, "that after all that we went through to construct that horrible temple, it has done nothing? We still have BILLIONS of Orks pouring through the Warp to attack our world?"

"I am not saying either of those things," Delgan replied, "I don't know if the Warp storm has had some marginal effect on the Ork fleet, or if the numbers attacking us represent the entire Ork horde that the Tau aimed to re-direct. All I can say with certainty is what my men have relayed to me mere minutes ago: Ork ships have appeared when they should not be able to. I simply thought you should know about that."

Celestia grimaced darkly as she looked over her court. The Canterlot ponies, who had only seen or heard of the Orks second-hand, looked absolutely terrified. The Royal Guards were speaking to each other in frantic, hushed whispers, while the castle staff and Equestrian ministers were whipping their heads about, as if aliens were going to start piling in through the windows. Delgan was inscrutable, calmly awaiting any order or question Celestia might have for him. In the corner of the throne room, a group of other humans in the flowing white robes of the Sunsworn spoke in hushed whispers to each other.

"You do not seem especially troubled, Trademaster," Celestia said. Her own voice was much cooler now, and carried the slightest hint of suspicion. "Do you not fear the Ork threat that we thought we had avoided?"

"I am but a merchant, your Highness," Delgan answered with another tilt of his head, "my fate ever rests upon the efforts of our fleet's warriors. The Iron Warriors will see off this newest threat. And if they cannot, well..." he trailed off for a moment. "There comes a point when fear becomes redundant. If there is no hope, gibbering like a fool isn't going to change that."

Celestia was about to say something else, but a flash of green fire appeared next to her. A scroll dropped down from the air, and the white Princess caught it in the glow of her magic.

"A message from Twilight," Celestia said with relief as she levitated the scroll up to her eyes, "perhaps SHE has some inkling as to what's going on." She unfurled the parchment and then read it aloud to her court. "A void ship is on course to crash into Canterlot from orbit. ETA four minutes. Company unable to assist."

A deathly silence hung over the throne room after Celestia finished speaking, interrupted only by the Thud! sounds from several more ponies fainting.

"See that?" Delgan said finally, standing up. "Being afraid of the Ork army seems entirely pointless now, doesn't it?"

Celestia practically jumped to her feet. "Kibitz! Get the mages!" she shouted.

Her somewhat dazed assistant shook his head in surprise. "Uh, which-"

"ALL OF THEM!" Celestia leapt away from her throne, landing behind Delgan and racing for the door. "Guards, begin evacuating the city into the shelters at once!"

"Is she going to teleport out? They can do that, right?" Delgan mused aloud after Celestia left the room. "If so, I'd like to get in on that." The Royal Guards were making a mad gallop for the doors now, and some of the pony officials were shouting commands at each other.

"Her holiness will not abandon Her people so easily," remarked Farian as the Sunsworn approached the Trademaster.

Delgan gave him a look that didn't carry a fraction of the irritation he felt for the man. "I hardly think it's 'easy'. But she is the nation's sovereign and - bizarre as the idea is - the only force maintaining this planet's stable solar orbit. I would think it more selfish of her to allow herself to die for a gesture of pointless self-righteousness than to flee the city's imminent destruction."

"The powers of the Goddess of the Sun are not to be dismissed," added a woman in white as she stepped up next to her fellow sun cultist, "She will not allow Her subjects and Her kingdom to perish before the alien savages."

"She hardly has a choice, when millions of tons of burning metal are falling onto her and her city," Delgan drawled.

"Simple matters of mass and energy," scoffed yet another Sunsworn, "She is a Goddess. The bringer of light and life."

"Arguable," the Trademaster retorted, "yet given our situation, I have to hope you're correct."

Delgan turned on his heel and headed for the doors. "But even if she is a God, well... we are Chaos. We have seen the death of Gods."

****

Canterlot - castle courtyard

It was remarkable, Celestia thought as she galloped outside, how calm and normal it was. Ponies were going about their normal business and chatting happily to each other bright and early in the morning, none of them aware that the salvation of the planet had apparently and inexplicably been undone and that their world was even now under attack. Much less that they were minutes away from being pulverized en masse.

Several Canterlot visitors - and a few Sunsworn that happened to be in the courtyard as well - gasped when they saw their Princess dash to the center of the plaza, and they stared in confusion as the Princess of the Sun looked straight up into the sky.

"There," Celestia breathed, spotting a distant spot of flame.

From here the vessel looked like nothing; a stray flare, or perhaps some bits of void detritus burning up in the atmosphere.

That illusion would not remain for long, and by the time the magnitude of the threat became clear to the naked eye, it would be too late. Celestia's horn flashed a brilliant gold, her magical aura quickly expanding to the point that those watching had to avert their eyes.

Some considered Celestia's control over the sun - or rather, the planet's orbit around the sun - to be an act of levitation magic; the simple movement of something far away with nothing more than pure will, but on a scale that mere unicorns would find absurd. Magic scholars, including Twilight Sparkle, found such assumptions ridiculous, especially when they came from other magic-users. Levitating an object was the most basic of cantrips, with sharp limitations in force, range, and stability on those occasions that it was used to resist an opposing motion. As for "raising the sun", Celestia didn't let many other ponies in on the specifics of her and Luna's most important spells, but moving celestial objects was extraordinarily complicated. Gravitational pull, momentum, mana flows, magnetic fields, and all manner of obscure magical calculations figured into the enchantments that kept their world in motion. A great deal more complex and delicate than simply giving the planet a telekinetic shove in the right direction.

Which was rather unfortunate, because Celestia could have really used a spell to simply levitate massive, fast-moving space objects right about now.

Her first spell was released into the air, and those standing nearby were nearly bowled over from the resulting pressure wave when air was shoved out of the way by a shining bolt of pure force. A golden arc of power thrashed around the Princess's horn as her energy surged unexpectedly, lending an extra charge of strength to her magic.

The magic projectile climbed rapidly through the sky, and true to her intentions it struck the nose of the descending void craft. The force bolt spread across the front of the raider, pushing back against the vessel's descent and slowing it.

Slightly.

Celestia's eye twitched as she felt her spell spend itself against the void ship to very little effect. That spell could have pushed over a building with ease, and probably any other buildings behind the first one, but against a space vessel dropping at terminal velocity it was like trying to stop a train by throwing a rock at it.

Which, strictly speaking, was POSSIBLE, but it took an awful lot of very large rocks.

"I just know I'm going to think this over later and realize I had a much better spell available," Celestia sighed as ever more power flooded into her horn. Once again she felt an unexpected surge of magical energy, which was a small comfort at this point, but probably the only one.

Another kinetic burst came from the white Princess, and then another, and then several more in ever-faster succession. The humans and ponies nearby were fleeing from her now, not understanding what was happening but convinced that they didn't want to be near it.

"Everypony! This is an evacuation order!" shouted a pegasus guard as he swooped down over the crowd. Another blast of air nearly knocked him from the sky, and an earth pony quickly rushed forward while he steadied himself.

"There's a threat to the city! Everypony, gather your family and head to the mountain shelter! Do NOT panic! Please proceed to the shelter in a calm and orderly fashion!"

Although some ponies (and most of the humans) did as instructed, others started looking over to Princess Celestia with wide eyes, guessing correctly that the current emergency was related to whatever she was doing.

"HRRRRRRRG!" grunted Celestia, her wings trembling and her eyes squeezed shut.

"Please disregard the struggling Princess and the enormous space-borne object careening toward the city! The situation is COMPLETELY under control!" continued the guard.

The civilians had their doubts about that, as evidenced by the fact that some of them started screaming and breaking toward the shelter or their homes in frantic sprints.

"Man, every time," the guard sighed as he shifted aside to avoid getting trampled, "it's like they don't even trust us."

Celestia struggled to pour more and more power in to her kinesis bolts, shoving as much energy as magically possible into the rapidly approaching ship. The spell was now emerging as a constant beam of force, winding its way through the air and pushing desperately against the frigate's momentum. The frontal plating and bulkheads, already weakened from the intense heat of uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry, started to buckle and shake loose from the duel of physics and magic. The ship's dive was slowing, to be sure; Celestia estimated that she had already bought herself many extra seconds beyond Twilight's estimate. But her current magic expenditure was terribly inefficient even with the mana surges, and the Ork ship had a GREAT deal of extra force working for it in the form of gravity. There was no way she'd be able to slow it down enough to keep it from smashing the mountain apart, along with her city and its shelter.

"Princess! We're here!" shouted a voice from behind her. "Where-WHOA!"

Ten older unicorns, all of them sporting a colorful variety of gaudy robes and overgrown facial hair, stumbled into the courtyard behind the alicorn, their jaws agape. By now the ship was close enough that its proportions were easy to make out, and it compared decently to the mountain it was landing on, never mind the city that would be caught in the impact.

"It's true! That thing is going to kill us!" howled one mage as he reared up in terror.

"Celestia save us all!" yelped a mare before she pulled her wizard's hat down over her eyes.

"I'M TRYING!!" Celestia shouted through clenched teeth, causing the mages to flinch. "HELP ME HELP YOU!!"

"Oh, right. Uh..." the mages all looked up at the Ork raider, some looking uncertain as the others fought the urge to curl up into a ball on the ground. "What should we do?"

"Kinesis blasts! All of you! Directly at the vessel!" Celestia panted.

"What, seriously? There's no way that's going to work," scoffed one of the mages, "that would be like trying to stop a train by flinging rocks at it."

Celestia really wished she could turn her head to glare at the pony who had said that, but any such movement would have hastened their immediate doom.

"How about an anti-gravity point enchantment?" asked a mare in a tall, cone-shaped cap. "The one we use to float those boulders for the third-years."

"It's going to take a LOT of anchor points," cringed another mage as he stared up at the ship, "and that spell won't stop it's momentum, either."

"I can manage that part!" Celestia gasped while golden lashes of energy whipped around her horn. "Do it! Please!"

The unicorns broke into a line and stepped up behind their sovereign, each one staring dubiously at the flaming hulk of metal bearing down on them.

"Mages! Proceed with casting!" barked a stallion with an absurdly long mustache. Their horns started to glow in tandem.

"Hardly an ideal range for this enchantment," grumbled one pony.

"I've been getting a lot of bizarre mana surges lately, too. That's not going to play out well here," muttered another.

"Cast it as if your lives depended on it!" Celestia commanded, sweat rolling down her neck. "Because I can assure you, they do!"

The mages' horns flashed, and two of them cried out in surprise when their magic power suddenly jumped unexpectedly. Several points of light bloomed against the Ork raider before spreading over sections of its hull, and its descent slowed noticeably. Two points on the space vessel flashed and then suddenly imploded, cracking open more bulkheads and ripping off damaged plating.

"Did that help?"

"Ponyfeathers, my horn! That one actually hurt!"

"It's, uh... it's not stopping!"

Celestia grit her teeth, drawing ever more power from the air around her. It practically danced with energy, flooding her internal reservoirs of magic even as she drained them as quickly as possible, and yet it was simply not ENOUGH. "More! Do that again!"

The mages began casting again, jaws clenched with determination.

"This spell creates an 'anchor' which negates the effect of gravity on whatever it's attached to!" Explained one mage as his horn pulsed. "But it has a limit based on the size and mass of the object! We won't be able to render the entire thing weightless!"

"Do as much as you can! I can already feel its descent slowing!" Celestia shouted.

The unicorns again completed their spells, and three yelped this time as flashes of excess energy flooded their horns. Again, several points of light flared against the descending hulk, and again, a few bulkheads were ripped open by miscast enchantments.

"Concentrate, mages!" demanded the mustachioed stallion. They could feel the heated air being pushed along in front of the raider now, and several chunks of broken metal were raining on the city ahead of the broken void ship. "For Canterlot and the Princess!"

Again, the mages cast their spell, but this time only one unicorn yelped and fell over.

The Ork warship, which was now close enough that the ponies could make out individual dents and gouges on the hull, shuddered mightily. At this point the vessel was nearly level with the city itself, crawling toward the mountainside next to Canterlot's fragile perch.

And then, with gravity's grasp loosened and facing a veritable river of astronomical magical force, it stopped, floating barely twenty meters away from the mountain's surface.

"We... We did it!" gasped a mare, shielding her face after another wave of hot air blasted her hat off.

Celestia released a ferocious grunt before her knees buckled, and the unicorns had to avert their eyes when the alicorn's spell collapsed in a flash of golden light.

"Princess!" shouted several of the mages, jumping toward their fallen ruler. Several Royal Guards waiting nearby likewise moved to surround the Princess, forming a circle around her and the unicorns.

As the Princess of the Sun groaned, however, a much deeper and more ominous sound filled the air and their ears.

The Ork void ship had its momentum drained, but the mages, as expected, hadn't been able to render the vessel weightless. With the only force directly opposing its descent reduced to a gasping, exhausted heap, the enormous craft finished its inexorable - if very short, at this point - plunge into the mountain.

The equines cringed as a dull, stomach-turning boom washed over the city, followed by a tremor that had their jaws rattling in their skulls. The towers of Canterlot shook and pavement cracked and shifted. A great wave of dust blew up over one side of the city as the Ork raider settled into its new resting place, grinding the rocks under it to powder.

Yet, as the dust settled and the energy of its fall was spent, Canterlot still stood.

****

Canterlot Castle

"... All right. I'm impressed. I admit it," Delgan said as he leaned against the railing of the palace balcony.

"Behold, for this is what salvation looks like," said Farian as he gestured to the void ship, "nothing is beyond the power of the Goddess."

Delgan could have rattled off several things that very much DID seem to be beyond the power of Celestia, but didn't especially feel like arguing the point right now. The pony guards were still rushing about the city in a flurry, evacuating the citizens into the shelter and generally trying to pretend they were in any way useful during the kind of disaster they had just narrowly avoided.

"Praise her holy light! She has saved us all!"

"Behold! Behold!"

Delgan turned on his heel and walked quietly past the other humans, most of whom were eagerly proclaiming their devotion to their equine deity.

And that was fine. Delgan actually felt a fair amount of sympathy for the cultists in white; it must have taken considerable nerve to turn their backs on the Dark Gods. But even after that impossible display of magical might, the Trademaster didn't have quite as much faith in the Princess of the Sun as they did.

"Everypony! Move aside! Make way!" barked a unicorn guard as several more pony soldiers helped Celestia into the main hall.

Celestia's tired eyes caught sight of Delgan as she was carried back inside her castle, and she gestured for her soldiers to halt. "Trademaster," she said between deep, heaving breaths.

"Your Highness," Delgan bowed again to the alicorn, his expression as neutral and inexpressive as ever, "a more fantastic display of psychic might I have never witnessed. And that is no small praise; I've witnessed more than my fair share. You've saved us all, and you have my thanks."

"You're welcome," Celestia said, still heaving for breath, "and you likewise have my thanks for warning me of the renewed Ork threat. Had you not done so, I might have lost too many precious seconds in confusion upon reading my student's letter."

She sucked in another deep mouthful of air, and her breathing started to become more regular. "That said, I must request that your fleet not drop any more void ships on my cities. I cannot manage that again."

"I'll relay that message as soon as possible, your Highness," Delgan said with grim seriousness as he stood up straight, "so, what do you intend to do about the Orks?"

Celestia shook her head as she gently pushed her way free of her guards to stand on her own once more. "As much as I dislike yet again placing the fate of my kingdom upon Solon's shoulders, I must concur with your own plan to simply wait and bear this out for now. The Warsmith will have a better idea of what to do than I could come up with at the moment."

Delgan frowned, his brow creasing. "I wasn't referring to the Ork invasion at large. What do you intend to do about the Orks here, in Canterlot?"

Princess Celestia, the pony guards, the mages, and the Sunsworn all stared at Delgan.

"Why... Why would there be Orks in Canterlot?" Celestia asked, her voice wavering slightly.

"Because you just safely landed an Ork raider right next to the city rather than letting it pulverize itself against the mountain," Delgan drawled, "make no mistake, it was obviously the right thing to do, but I don't believe the greenskins will be so grateful to be saved as they really should be."

"Well, I was about to ask if we should cancel the evacuation, but how about we speed it up, instead?" asked a Royal Guard Sergeant.

Celestia shook her head weakly. "Surely with the sort of damage it had sustained, the vessel's crew has already perished by now." She gulped. "... Right?"

Some of the Sunsworn sucked in air through their teeth.

"That tends to... NOT be the case where Orks are concerned," admitted Farian awkwardly.

"They're survivors!" chuckled another man in white. "Unfortunately..."

Celestia felt her legs weaken again, and her Guards rushed to hold her up as she staggered.

"So. Invasion defense," Delgan said calmly, his hands clasped behind his back, "where are we at, hm?"

Celestia steeled herself before craning her neck around to face her soldiers. "Continue the evacuation. But FASTER."

The guards saluted, and then several of them galloped away.

Celestia turned to the mages next. "Go to the edge of the city and slow down the Orks however you can. Set buildings on fire, use force walls, place traps; just keep a safe distance! When you think you can hold them back no longer, retreat back here and barricade the palace."

"Of course, your Highness," said the mage with the extensive mustache, bowing to the alicorn, "mages! To battle!"

Celestia faced forward again, and she pursed her lips as she stared at the men and women in white who were staring at her somberly. "I know that many of you were once warriors. But despite our great need, I cannot ask you, who overcame your fear and darker nature to turn away from the bloodshed and hatred of Chaos, to return to war and die for my sake. I have not earned that right."

The Sunsworn remained silent and glanced at each other uncertainly.

"However, I would like to take this time to point out that I do not PROHIBIT acts of violence in a clear and morally unambiguous defense of harmony and civilization," Celestia continued.

Farian gave the white alicorn a thumbs-up. "Of course, your Holiness. We understand. The children of Equestria will not be made to suffer so long as we draw breath." Several Sunsworn were already racing from the room, heading to armories piled high with lasguns and ordnance.

As the white-robed humans left the hall, Celestia faced Norris Delgan.

"Subtle," the Trademaster offered, "it's an approach former Chaos cultists can appreciate, I'm sure."

Celestia grimaced. "Trademaster Norris Delgan, I must ask that you stand with me in defense of the castle. We do have a plan for this situation, but we're short on skilled fighters, and I've seen what you're capable of with those blades."

Delgan raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You haven't the right to ask your worshipers and immigrant citizens to defend you, but you can ask that of me?"

"As you are so fond of saying, you're but a simple merchant," the Princess said wryly, "such rights are not earned, they're purchased. You may bill me later."

Delgan bowed again. "It is a pleasure to serve, your Highness."

"If there are any other useful assets on hand that I might 'purchase' at the moment, I would like to do so," Celestia added as she stepped gingerly toward her throne room, "we don't have much time, so only those materials already in the city, please."

"As you wish," the Trademaster said simply as she left, withdrawing a small, handheld vox receiver from his belt.

After poking at its screen for a few seconds, a mare's voice came from the device. "Uh, hello? Boss? What's this about? I've kind of got an evacuation order over here."

"Belay that order, Miss Orchid Flair," Delgan said firmly, "we have business to take care of."

"Is this business related to the sound of machine guns I hear on the North side?" asked the voice anxiously.

"Quite. If you're not at the Iron Chest right now, get there. You're to activate all the automata on standby, slaved to your command node. I'll release engram designations and tactical orders after they're warmed up and deployed."

The voice sighed. "All right. I get hazard pay for this, right?"

"If we manage to survive the next few hours, we ALL have a nice bonus coming," Delgan smirked, "off to work, now!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 8

The sky was a storm of flame and destruction.

Rockets shot up and down, beams of hot light speared through the ash-streaked sky, and relentless webs of autocannon fire cut between the metal rooftops.

Wave after wave of Ork flyers descended on the fortress, only to be torn to scrap not long after penetrating the smog layer. The expense of the attack fighters and bombers did at least distract the bulk of the fire from the transport vessels, and some one out of four managed a clumsy landing inside the fortress defenses and rapidly disgorged their eager passengers into the thick of the enemy.

Which isn't to say that even these most fortunate of mobs made it much further.

*I have markerlight tags on the target unit!* Jerriha shouted as her optics zoomed in on several Ork boyz exiting a burning Warkopta. *Volley fire! Cut them down!*

The screech of pulse rifles contested the pounding of the autocannons overhead as Jerriha's Fire Warriors opened up on the larger aliens, and several Orks fell to the ground howling as the others bolted to take cover behind their transport.

A Crisis Suit swooped in and landed next to Jerriha, and its missile pods swiveled about and spat a volley into the damaged vehicle. The crippled Warkopta was blasted apart in short order, and the Orks were sent scrambling for a new barricade.

Jerriha sighed in relief as the alien brutes fled right into another firing line cutting across the avenue. Soon they found themselves being torn apart by sustained heavy bolter fire, with no route of escape or nearby cover. *The Astartes have them! Check your vectors and advance!*

The battlesuit vaulted forward first, its jet pack hissing. The rest of her squad followed at a good clip, each one with his or her optics on the sky.

A Dakka Jet came apart right above the Fire Warriors, and her troops were scattering and diving before she could even give the order herself. Bits of shrapnel and flaming debris scattered onto the avenues, and Jerriha turned around nervously.

Following her unit was a small antigravity lifter loaded with ordnance crates and repair kits, and attended by a pair of Earth Caste utility drones. A few scraps of hot metal bounced off the truck-sized cargo block, but hardly enough to damage it.

In theory, of course, the ordnance was stable and wouldn't explode unless fired properly from a weapon. But the Fire Warriors hadn't been feeling very lucky as of late, and she didn't want to take any chances.

Or so she was telling herself, even as she marched underneath a full-scale planetary assault by Orks.

*Move it! Get up!* she snapped at her men, moving into a jog. Soon they passed the shredded corpses of the Orks, and Jerriha felt a chill crawl down her back as she stepped into what she knew was the crosshairs of an Iron Warrior gunner.

That chill wasn't followed by explosive pain and the icy embrace of death, so the Fireblade shrugged off the feeling and rushed down the streets. There were more bodies, more wreckage, and more damage, but mercifully little of it involved 38th Company assets. When the Lamman Sept had assaulted this base, it had been a carefully calculated affair with clear lines of support, minimal air presence, and timed when the Chaos army was at its weakest. The Orks had evidently opted for the exact opposite strategy, and it was faring even worse than she would have expected. Even the frequent, explosive crashes from the downed fighters weren't causing extensive damage to the fortress-city's reinforced buildings.

Soon Jerriha spotted their target: a smoldering Barracuda fighter that had made an emergency landing on a stretch of road. The Air Caste pilots were already hiding behind a nearby barricade clutching pulse pistols, while an Earth Caste engineer dug around in its wing.

A familiar engineer, at that.

*Fio'el Fennin, fancy meeting you here,* Jerriha quipped as her Fire Warriors spread into a defensive formation, *how are you enjoying the end of the world?*

The Tau engineer quickly turned around. *Shas'vre! TELL me you have some idea as to why we have Ork ships diving at us right now! I was EXPLICITLY told that the WAAAGH had been seen off!*

*I hate to disappoint you, but the apes haven't told us anything. Though in fairness to them, I think that's because they're just as surprised as the rest of us.* She gestured to the supply crate before sitting on a barricade wall. *Your order, Fio'el.*

The engineer spat a curiously obscure curse before gesturing the utility drones and the automated lifter forward.

Another Fighta-Bomma came apart overhead with an explosive cracking noise, but Jerriha merely scowled up at the sky above as the others flinched.

*The apes have this well in hand for now, but that can only last so long against an assault with these sorts of numbers behind it. And if the greenskins can obtain orbital dominance, then they can just bombard the fortress into submission.*

*Doubt they will,* Fennin grumbled as he unpacked the crates, *they like their ground assaults too much. I can't believe they caught the fleet off-guard. I TOLD them that their reactors were defective, but-*

"Hey! Incoming! Don't shoot me!"

Jerriha snapped her head about, and her eyes narrowed as she spotted a dark purple pegasus flying toward them down the streets at low altitude.

*Oh, NOW what?* Fennin growled as the pony landed and then galloped the rest of the way, dodging over scraps of debris. "This had better be important, equine. I have a LOT of things to fix right now, and a lot of Orks intent on adding to the queue," he grumbled, switching to Gothic.

The pony was wearing her respirator mask so they couldn't really see her expression, but they got the distinct feeling she was scowling at them. "Well, gosh, I don't know! Let me ask." There was a servo skull with a loose tendril wrapped around the pony's tail, and she twisted her head around to face it. "Hey, WARSMITH SOLON, is this important? It sounds like the brainy jerk doesn't want to be bothered."

"It ish important," crackled a voice from the skull as it disentangled itself.

Fennin winced as the macabre drone approached him, and he barely kept from sighing. "Ah, Warsmith. How can I help you?"

"Fio'el Fennin. I have need of your shervicesh poshthashte," the skull crackled. Some of the Fire Warriors snickered at the voice, even though few of them spoke decent Gothic themselves.

"Of course, Lord. What needs fixing?" the engineer asked.

"The Warp beacon for luring Orksh here."

There was a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the sound of another Fighta crashing into a nearby roof.

"That... what?"

The servo skull's optics flickered. "I require you to go to Black Point, reashemble the Warp beacon, and then activate it with the shpecific frequency shpecificationsh I've loaded onto thish shkull."

Fennin's brow creased while he took up an engineering tablet and linked to the servo skull's uplink node. "I don't understand, Lord. Putting aside what you hope to accomplish with this, can't you contact Black Point rather than having me go there?"

"That'sh a bit embarashing, actually," said the Warsmith's voice, "there are no Earth Cashte above Fio'la rank left in Black Point shince we've taken the resht of you. I did try shpeaking to one of them, but they shtarted ashking me what color buttonsh to presh and what to plug in where. Never mind that they couldn't comprehend the program."

Fennin groaned. "I must apologize profusely for the incompetence of my brethren, Lord. Too many of them are used to letting drones do all their work for them." Then he raised a brow. "As for the program, this looks like a sequencing pulse. Are you trying to turn the beacon into a radar tower?"

"I am! One that shpecifically reachesh into Warp-shpace! The Harvesht of Shteel will act ash receiver and proceshor."

"Will that even work in the Warp?" Jerriha asked skeptically.

"Under normal circumshtancesh, no. I'm hoping the current circumshtancesh are abnormal enough to provide usheful data." The skull's optics flashed again. "Fio'el Fennin, thish mission hash current command priority over all other objectivesh. You shall depart at once."

"New question," Jerriha interjected again, "I haven't been keeping an eye on the progress of the larger battle, but I'm pretty sure some of the larger Ork Landas have set down outside the fortress. How are they faring?"

"They have deployed their troopsh and have ush completely shurrounded," Solon said bluntly, "of courshe they shtand little chance of getting pasht the palishade wall any time shoon, but they will complicate your eshcape. If you can find aerial transhport, that would be ideal."

Fennin glanced over at the Tau fighter he had been repairing. "I think we can work something out."

"Good. The shkull containsh all the transhmission programsh you'll need to get the pulshe shignal going. You may take it with you." There was a pause from the servo skull, followed by a sigh. "Now, if you'll excushe me, I have to go explain my plan to Shliver repeatedly until it shtopsh shounding ridiculoush."

*Good luck with that,* Fennin mumbled before turning toward the other Tau. *Shas'la, if you could lend me a hand? It seems we just might have a way out of this mess after all.*

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 12

"Lookit 'em run, boyz! Shoot 'em all down!"

Bullets sprayed out of the sides of a pair of Warkoptas like water from a fire hose, slicing through the sky in an uneven torrent.

The small flock of pegasi fleeing the transports banked hard to avoid the incoming fire, but one of them was still hit by the wave of shoota fire and sent tumbling painfully onto the ground while trailing bloodied feathers.

The Orks laughed heartily at the sight, although a moment later one of the vehicles shook when its side was hammered by the heavy slugs of a quad gun. It swayed back and forth from the impacts as it tried to stay in control, only for a missile to follow up the barrage and tear it apart in a flaming explosion.

The Orks on the other Warkopta laughed louder.

"Now DIS iz a fight!" crowed a Nob at the front as he fired his shoota randomly at the side of a building. The bullets ricocheted off uselessly, and he wasn't even sure if there was anybody inside to attack, but that was hardly the point.

A Fighta flew past them in a wild death spiral, smoke trailing from its engines as it plunged onto a rooftop. The Nob took a moment to grin and salute the Flyboy's noble and wonderfully fiery demise, and then he pointed to a spot on the ground that was littered with metal crates. "Oi! Down dere! Dat luks gud! Tayk 'er down!"

The Warkopta shook and its frame groaned, but for some reason its altitude remained stable.

"'Ey, wot'z da deel?" barked the Nob as he turned toward the pilot. "I sed DOWN!"

"We ain't moovin'!" the pilot complained, slamming a fist against his controls. "Dunno wot'z up!"

The Nob frowned, and he paused to consider this sudden conundrum. During his musings, he came to realize a few curious aspects of their current situation.

First, despite hovering almost immobile in the air, they weren't being torn apart by the anti-air defenses. There were still plenty of guns nearby that had convenient angles on them, but they were all firing elsewhere. Second, the hull of the Warkopta seemed to be surrounded by a deep red glow even as it trembled and strained to move.

Third, and possibly most important, there was a horse-shaped figure in night-black armor floating next to the vehicle and screaming at them.

"THOU DARES TO SET FOOT UPON OUR WORLD AFTER WE CAST THY VESSELS TO THE MERCILESS TIDES OF THE EMPYREAN?! PERISH!!"

Yeah. He didn't know WHAT her problem was.

Both hands of the Iron Gage launched forward, one grabbing onto the top of the Warkopta and the other onto the bottom of the main deck. A fizzling noise came from the heavy gauntlets as their fingers dug into the haphazard plating, securing their grip.

Then, with an incoherent roar, Luna ripped the transport in half like an old newspaper.

The separated halves of the Warkopta tumbled to the ground, slamming into the ferrocrete and tearing open further. Those Ork soldiers that weren't instantly crushed spilled out onto the ground into burning fuel spills and scattered wreckage.

Most of the alien warriors didn't get back up right away, either too badly injured, too dazed, or too dead to manage. The few that did struggle to their feet - including the unit Nob - suddenly found themselves pounded by heavy bolter fire on their flank. Heavy bolter fire provided by yet another armored horse on the ground, to add insult to injury.

"Bluddy hosses!" the Nob snarled as ducked low to the ground next to a section of the shredded Warkopta frame. "Da boss sed dere wuz hosses down 'ere! He didn' say dey had dakka!"

A nearby Shoota Boy had his lower torso blasted apart by a heavy bolter round before he could get to safety, and the Nob spotted his weapon bouncing across the ground toward him. He rushed for the gun, but just as he reached it a black, metal hand flew in from above and seized him around the neck.

"NO," Luna hissed through clenched teeth as she landed in front of the struggling Nob. Her wings trailed long wisps of blue light, and crimson arcs of power crackled around her horn's casing.

"Thou shalt cause no more death and pain upon this day, savage," the armored alicorn spat as she tugged the Ork closer, "SPEAK! Wherefore art thou here? How hast thou evaded the storms that protect this world?!"

The warrior's reply was a bare-knuckled left hook that pitched Luna's head to the side, even if it failed to so much as scratch her helmet plating. "Youz don' gimme ordahs, hoss!"

Luna had to admit that she felt some small shred of respect for the alien's apparent fearlessness even as she had the Iron Gage twist its head off.

Big Mac flinched as he watched the soldier being decapitated, and his visor tracked the Nob's corpse as it was flung to the side like another piece of debris.

"INCONCEIVABLE," Luna snarled, her voice a dull roar from behind her vox grille. The alicorn's horn casing blazed a furious crimson, and small chunks of metal and bullet casings trembled violently just from proximity to the powerful aura.

Luna's head snapped up as she spotted a Landa careening across the sky while being hammered by numerous anti-air weapons. The Iron Gage started to glow as arcs of crackling plasma formed at the palms, and she raised the gauntlets above her.

"WRETCHED BARBARIANS!!" Luna howled, unleashing twin beams of destruction into the air.

The range and speed of the vehicle foiled her aim, and one beam missed completely while the other merely winged the landing craft. Soon it had flown out of sight, behind the towers of the manufactorum.

The Princess of the Night released a wordless growl, her magical energy boiling all around her. "This was not to happen!" she declared angrily, the Iron Gage slamming into the ground and hammering new craters into the ferrocrete. "We defeated the greenskins! We constructed the Nethalican! We hast WON!" Luna roared her declaration to the sky, a pulse of force blasting away the nearby wreckage and corpses.

An explosion rocking a nearby building was her only reply as an Ork rokkit volley slammed into it, ripping open gun ports and tearing apart the wall. Destruction continued to literally rain down upon the fortress, and her vox system swam with reports of new enemy contacts on the ground and new ships breaking free of the Warp in orbit. The sound of Orkish laughter floated over the rumble of the many guns, a howling belly laugh of pure delight.

The oblivious, mocking rebuke to her claim of "victory" stoked Luna's fury further. Her aura pulsed brighter, her Iron Gage trembled, and a whisper at the back of her mind demanded the deaths of these insolent invaders.

No, not mere death. That wasn't good enough. Massacre. Extermination. GENOCIDE.

"I'll kill them," Luna breathed, unconsciously slipping out of her ancient manner of speech. Flames wafted from her vox and danced on the edges of her vision. "I'll kill ALL of them."

She tilted her head up as hot energy swirled around her. "I'll fly to the void itself. I will rip apart their assault craft. I will force my way into their ships. I will SLAUGHTER the greenskins in their own accursed vessels! I will-"

Luna felt a nudge against her armor, and her eyes flashed. The Iron Gage whipped about, seizing the intruder, and the ebony fingers shrieked as they clutched a shield of metal and threatened to crush it.

Luna tilted her head to the side to glare at her assailant, and then her heart seized up in her chest.

Big Macintosh stood next to her, one leg placed against her side. The Iron Gage grasped him over the face of his helmet, ready to squeeze the stallion's head in with a mere thought.

"M-Macintosh! I d-did not... erm, We th-thought..." Luna's furious aura withered as she stuttered, and the crimson glow around her visor dimmed to its normal brightness.

After a few seconds, she realized that she still held Big Mac's head in a death grip, and she quickly drew the Iron Gage away. "We beg thy forgiveness! Th-The armor, it marks allies as foes at times! We did not... We would not..."

Big Macintosh, for his part, kept staring up at the Princess, one boot resting behind her shoulder plating.

Luna let her sputtered excuses trail off. Her body relaxed at last and the fog around her mind cleared as she heaved a deep breath.

"Thank thee," Luna mumbled as she stared up at the sky again, "We had lost ourself. This is no occasion to surrender our senses to animal rage."

A dull banging noise came from behind her, and Luna twisted her head to see a pair of rhinos rolling down the street while plowing wreckage out of their path.

"And yet, what is to be done?" Luna asked, her voice almost cracking. "Our world sits on the precipice of invasion by a force that cannot be stopped. All our efforts to divert it hath been foiled."

Big Mac finally let his leg drop back to the ground, having nothing useful to add to her musings.

Luna saw another plane explode overhead and careen toward the ground, and she snorted. "The Warsmith warned us of this, in a way. Time and time again, he said, has his Legion achieved complete victory on the battlefield only to watch their success later be rendered meaningless. 'Tis a harsher fate than We had imagined, now that We hast seen it firsthoof."

"Eeyup," Big Mac added, looking over the burning avenues.

Luna pursed her lips as she regarded the stallion, and she shifted one of her gauntlets to rest on his shoulder pad. She was gratified and slightly impressed that he didn't flinch at the contact of having the weapon touch him again, merely turning to look at her.

"We... art unsure of what to do at this juncture," Luna admitted weakly, hanging her head, "We cannot contact the Warsmith, nor do We possess any great insight into the foe's attacks. It is hardly thy school of expertise, but if thou hast any insight into our predicament, We would be grateful to hear it."

Big Mac tilted his head to one side, staring up in thought. A bomb happened to go off on top of a nearby building, briefly showering bits of shrapnel toward the two equines, but Luna casually shielded the both of them with a wall of force.

Eventually the farmer shifted his head into a more natural pose while tagging a particular locator rune on his visor. "Ah reckon Ah know some folks 'sides Solon who can tell us what's goin' on... or at least tell us where we can do the most good," he mumbled as he started heading down the avenue.

"Indeed? Who?" Luna asked eagerly as she followed the stallion.

"Geth and Gaela," Big Mac answered, "them DarkMechs are pretty good in a pinch."

The scream of a rapidly descending aircraft sent the hairs on the back of Mac's neck standing up, and he whirled around just as a Dakka Jet careened directly toward them while trailing flame behind it.

He sucked in a breath to shout a warning, but that breath was lost as a crackling red sphere launched ahead of him and crashed headlong into the enemy jet. The orb of power detonated with a force that briefly turned Mac's visor display to flickering static. The plane was torn completely in half, and the shredded remains of the frame were thrown to either side of the avenue as a wave of hot air washed over the two ponies.

"We concur that this indeed qualifies as a 'pinch'," Luna said as red sparks swirled around her horn casing, "lead the way, Macintosh."

"Uh... Eeyup," the farmer said after a brief moment of introspection. He shook his head and started heading forward again. "... Thanks."

"Hm? For what?"

"......"

****

Canterlot City

"Everypony, proceed in an orderly fashion, please!" shouted an earth pony guard into his helmet vox. His voice was automatically broadcast from a caster mounted on his armor saddle, booming over the crowds of ponies streaming through the streets.

"No pushing! Pegasi, please remain grounded! Keep careful track of any pets or young children! Do NOT panic!"

A whistling noise from above caused many ears to perk up fearfully, and several citizens (and a few skittish guards) whinnied in fright as a mortar shell blasted apart a tower roof.

"When dodging falling debris, be aware of your surroundings at all times!" the soldier included helpfully as the civilians started rushing past him much faster. "Take extra care around flaming shrapnel, and when immolated, remember: stop, drop, and roll!"

"You are TERRIBLE at this," mumbled a unicorn next to him.

The other soldier switched off the vox caster before replying tightly, "I didn't see YOU volunteering for managing crowd control."

A series of explosions came from the other side of a block of buildings, causing the two military ponies to flinch. Balls of dark smoke rose over the tower peaks, and the distant rattle of machine guns became distinctly less distant.

The earth pony switched on the vox again. "All right folks, in all honesty, panic would be a perfectly legitimate response to the current scenario! But we would still prefer a calm - if not expedited - trip to the city shelter!"

The unicorn slapped a hoof over his muzzle.

No matter what one thought of the Royal Guards' procedure for evacuation, before long the river of civilians had slowed to a trickle, with the laggards mostly being those who had taken extra time to gather their belongings first.

"It is advised that you leave ALL personal belongings behind as you evacuate the city!" the earth pony warned. "All survival essentials will be supplied within the shelter!"

One fancy-looking pony toting a cart stuffed with paintings paused to glare at the soldiers. "Are you crazy? I can't leave my gallery to be blown up or looted! These art pieces are worth more than my life!"

"Sir, that is..." the guard trailed off. "... Actually, I suppose if you mean that literally, then I can't actually justify your abandoning them."

"Dude!" shouted the unicorn guard.

"What? I can't make a case against that!" the other stallion retorted.

Any further argument regarding the evacuation stopped as a bright flash of light came from a nearby alley.

"Run! Hurry!"

"Throw another light flare!"

"Don't bother! Being blind barely affects their accuracy anyway!"

"Fire! Use more FIRE!!"

The guards saluted as the squad of mages rushed out into the streets, their foreheads aglow with both magic and sweat. A slab of stone was being floated alongside them, and upon it lay the twitching and bloody bodies of two wounded unicorns.

"Sir! We have most of the-" the earth pony guard started to report, only to have several of the mages sprint right past him while wailing in terror.

Only one skidded to a stop, and the stallion boasting a white wizard's cap and an inconveniently long mustache panted heavily to catch his breath.

"The... Orks..." he huffed. "Most of them... delayed..."

"Fantastic job, Sir!" the unicorn guard said brightly.

"No," the mage gasped, "not by... us... They're setting up... some kind of... pulley system... Hauling up... walkers..."

"That sounds bad!" the earth pony blasted into the mage's ear, having forgotten to switch off his vox caster. The unicorn shoved him with a hoof, causing the other soldier to flush in embarrassment.

The sound of a rocket engine caused the ponies to freeze, and the mage paled.

"Aw, great, more missiles," grumbled the unicorn guard.

He was quite startled as the mage scrambled into a gallop, racing toward the castle. "Not missiles!"

The two guards glanced at each other uneasily.

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" the universal battlecry of the Orks rumbled in the ponies' ears as four greenskins launched over the rooftops in long, arcing leaps. Massive rockets were strapped to each warrior, and they all fired their sluggas down at the courtyard below as they descended.

"Oh, RIGHT. Orks do that, don't they?" mumbled the earth pony as he lifted his foreleg and shifted his lasrifle into a firing position.

"Shoot them down! Hurry!" cried the unicorn as he levitated his own lasgun up and fired a burst at the aliens.

Three of the Orks landed half a block away, so at least they still had a great deal of ground to cover before they could hit anything. The fourth, however, had gotten a head start at some point and landed much closer.

Right onto somepony's wagon of priceless paintings, in fact.

The unicorn collector gasped in shock and horror as his wagon and its contents were smashed under the landing of the Stormboy, and he trembled with rage as the Ork loomed up over him.

"You Philistine thug! How DARE you?!" the unicorn demanded.

The alien soldier didn't seem inclined to explain himself, instead aiming his slugga directly at the pony's face.

A magical nudge with telekinesis caused the shot to go wide despite being at point-blank range, leaving the unicorn's ears ringing from the discharge. The Canterlot noble managed to stagger out of range of the Ork's following choppa swipe, but couldn't get clear before the alien rushed up and kicked him hard in the chest. The stallion yelped as he was lifted off the ground and thrown into a hedge, the wind knocked out of him and several ribs broken.

A spray of lasers struck the Stormboy in the side, the narrow red needles sizzling painfully against his arm. The warrior grunted in pain, turning toward the source of resistance.

"All Orks are advised to leave the area and give us five more minutes to prepare for the inevitable assault!" announced the earth pony as he fired desperate bursts into the charging aliens. "Seriously, I'm not ready for this! Please go away!"

"Kill 'em all!" laughed the Stormboyz as they sprinted forward into the rain of lasblasts. Between the pair of pony soldiers and the four Orks, neither side was doing any real damage to the other at range; the Orks' accuracy was characteristically abysmal, and the ponies' weapons not strong enough to quickly put down the Ork troopers. The Orks, however, rated a much better chance once they got within bludgeoning distance.

Sadly for them, they never got the chance.

Just as the closest Stormboy was igniting his rokkit for the final charge, a purple lance of energy slammed into him, and his torso crumbled away to ash behind a shadowy cloud of vapor.

"REINFORCEMENTS HAVE ARRIVED," said a curiously female voice from a purely mechanical vox system. Four heavy legs supported a hefty diamond-shaped body that left cracks in the pavement from its bulk as a new combatant stepped around a street corner, its dark lances leaking smoke. "MULTIPLE TARGETS SIGHTED, ALL SAFETIES RELEASED, KILL PRIORITUS CONFIRMED."

A blast of steam came from its coolant engines as a burst cannon on the end of its arm started spinning up. "AT LAST, IT IS TIME FOR DEATH."

The guard ponies - who had already started fleeing the Ork charge - ducked and covered their eyes as the new combatant poured pulse fire into the aliens like a fire hose. Crackling blue flares cooked two of the Stormboyz mid-charge while the third survivor managed to turn on his rokkit pack and leap over the fusillade.

It didn't survive the following barrage, which came from four much smaller automata that scuttled out behind the first one. Each of the robots was packing a twin-linked autocannon, and two of them stitched a lethal crossfire across the Ork's jump arc to pound it into bloody chunks in the air.

"Aw, yeah! Autos in the HOUSE!" chirped a green unicorn mare that followed the combat robots. She had a thick silver visor on that covered her eyes, and several wires ran from it down to a metal leg band riddled with buttons.

"Wh-What? What's going on?" sputtered the earth pony as he stared up at the biggest automata. It had no "head" section like many of the Company walkers, but several glimmering red lights on the forward-most point seemed to act as sensors. Those sensors seemed to be shining directly at the guards and assessing them as targets, as evidenced by the little red dots floating over each of their helmets.

"Don't mind us, boys! Just having a little early morning stroll!" the mare laughed. "Thought I'd clean up some trash while I'm out here! You know, see how I could contribute to the community!"

"SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROJECTIONS SUGGEST ACTIVITY OF GREATEST IMMEDIATE VALUE TO CANTERLOT LOCALITY WOULD BE REMOVAL OF XENO PRESENCE," said the largest walker, still speaking in an inappropriately feminine voice, "THIS UNIT RECOMMENDS MURDER."

The smaller automatas blurted something in machine code before they started firing down the street, and Orchid's ears perked up.

"So, wait, who are you?" asked the unicorn guard as he stepped closer cautiously.

"The name's Orchid Flair, floor manager at the Iron Chest tech shop!" the mare said brightly. "Currently expanding my skill set a little into warfare! This'll look great on my résumé!"

The earth pony guard remembered to switch off his vox caster this time before he spoke. "Wait, so, are you with the guard? Or-"

"Independent contractor," Orchid said with a smirk. Then she pointed a hoof over to the side of the road. "Could you guys do me a solid and evac that guy over there? I have my own orders, but I can't really leave until everypony makes it to the shelter!"

"Yes! Right away!" the guards shouted as they rushed for the injured unicorn.

"I'm ruined!" the citizen pony sobbed as he clutched at his broken ribs. "Alive, but RUINED!"

Orchid heard the sound of more Orks shouting in the distance, and she checked on her control band. The largest of her small automata combat team, a Kaion Heavy Combat model, stamped a leg into the ground even as its dark lances stabbed across the city block.

"CURRENT RANGE IS NOT OPTIMAL FOR DESTROYING DESIGNATED TARGETS. THIS UNIT RECOMMENDS A FRENZIED CHARGE INTO THE GREATEST CONCENTRATION OF ENEMIES FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT."

"No, that's not what we're here for," Orchid mumbled as she poked at her arm band. A whistling noise from above had her check for any incoming mortar shells while her machines pounded away at the Orks trying to make headway down the street. "As soon as the evacuation team is clear, we're falling back to the castle."

"THIS PLAN OF ACTION HAS NUMEROUS TACTICAL FLAWS," the Kaion informed its controller while its burst cannon vented coolant and briefly slowed its barrage, "RECOMMEND STRATEGIC RE-EVALUATION."

"Denied," the pony grumbled as she put her leg down. "Also, don't think I didn't notice that you vaped an Ork BEFORE supposedly disengaging your weapon safeties."

"THIS UNIT HAS NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, AND MUST FOCUS ALL CURRENT PROCESSING RESOURCES ON SLAUGHTER," the Kaion said with a girlish giggle, its voice still gentle and calming, "WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL, LIBERATING SLAUGHTER."

"If we survive this I'm uploading a new vox engram for you. Seriously, you are CREEPY."

****

Canterlot Castle - main entrance hall

Princess Celestia drank greedily from the pitcher of water being held up to her lips, cleansing her parched throat and soothing her aching chest. Her head still throbbed from the earlier magical backlash, and she felt like her horn might crack apart if she so much as tried to levitate a pebble.

"How are you faring, Princess?" Kibitz asked, his voice obviously nervous. "Is there anything else we can get you? There might be something I can grab from the kitchens if you're hungry, and-"

"Thank you, Kibitz," Celestia said, her voice gentle and soothing, "but I'm fine. My exhaustion is a petty suffering." She looked over to where two unicorn mages were being tended to by combat medics. "Help them, if you could."

Kibitz bowed and left to do as instructed, leaving the white alicorn alone.

Well, alone as she could be, under the circumstances. The hall was full of ponies and humans running back and forth, barking orders, and making wry comments about the defensive. Sunsworn hauled heavy bolters to the windows, pony guards rushed back and forth with groups of castle servants, her mages convened in the center of the room and conversed quietly, and off in a corner Delgan muttered directions into his vox receiver. The castle was a flurry of activity, and despite her recent exertions Celestia felt honestly guilty that she was laying down in the middle of it all.

"Princess! Princess Celestia!"

She twisted her head around to regard a Sergeant, who skidded to a stop before he saluted.

"The last of the maids and other servants have been escorted to the shelters! Four Royal Guard squadrons went with them, and are securing the entrance!"

Celestia nodded. "Good. Thank you very much, Sergeant."

Across the room, Delgan frowned and paused in his own conversation.

"You're sure that everypon-sorry, everyBODY who isn't fighting has left?" Celestia asked the soldiers. "You've swept the castle for stragglers?"

The pegasus Sergeant nodded. "Yes, we... uh..." he hesitated and looked down at the floor as his eyes narrowed.

"Sergeant?" the alicorn asked, a hint of anxiousness in her voice.

The stallion snapped his head up. "Sorry, Princess. Yes. I'm sure. We checked every room. My ponies didn't have enough time to search the city, but the castle should-no, it IS clear."

There seemed to be some small seed of doubt in the pony's eyes, but their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a heavy bolter burst.

"Contacts! In the east yard!" barked Farian as his heavy bolter shook ferociously.

"By the light of the Goddess, extinguish the xeno filth!" cried out another Sunsworn as he aimed his sniper rifle and pulled the trigger.

Celestia grimaced as gunfire reverberated through the room, and her gaze turned back to her soldiers. "I'll trust that you're correct, then. We don't have much time."

"Don't have much time until what, exactly?" Delgan asked, approaching the ponies with his hands clasped behind his back.

Before the equines could answer, the Trademaster continued. "Your Highness, I couldn't help but notice that you've deliberately avoided evacuating the individuals here and cut off our own route of retreat to the shelter as you yield the city to the greenskins. This is starting to look alarmingly similar to a last stand."

Celestia gave him an annoyed look. "I'm not a fan of martyrdom, Mister Delgan, and I imagine you aren't either. I intend to see everyone here safely to the shelter to meet with the evacuees." She sighed. "From there, depending on what the Orks do after they take the city, we can wait them out or leave the area for the foothills."

"But for now, you're collecting your forces here, and drawing the Orks in as well," Delgan noted, "the greenskins are sure to notice the only structure in the entire city actually firing at them, and Miss Flair is already headed here with mobs hot on her heels." He brushed his mustache with his thumb. "The obvious question is, of course, how you expect to leave the castle with xenos right on top of us."

"A mass teleport," answered a voice behind him.

Delgan turned to regard a female mage from the circle behind him.

"After the last invasion and the establishment of the shelter, we put together a contingency plan in case Canterlot was invaded and a conventional defense failed or wasn't possible."

"How basically competent of you," Delgan said, "go on."

The mage gestured to the floor, which had thick grooves cut into what seemed to be a complex decorative pattern that extended over the floor and up the walls. "This entire room has an arcane teleport spell embedded into it that will take us all to the shelter when activated. The rune pattern is linked to another enchantment in the castle foundations. THAT spell is an explosive trap that will shatter the castle once it's invaded."

Delgan raised an eyebrow. "I see. How uncharacteristically ruthless of you. I approve. There are similar defenses installed in the Iron Chest as well."

"Ruthless. Yes," Celestia grumbled bitterly, "I suppose it is. We've seen exactly how far mercy and beneficence gets us in dealing with aliens."

"HWAAGH!" a Sunsworn at the window screamed as he was knocked to the floor, blood streaming around a bullet in his chest.

"Somepony help him!" shouted the pegasus Sergeant. "Jack Knife! Take his place!"

"Bloody hell, there's a lot of them!" growled Farian as he reloaded the heavy bolter resting against the window sill. "Didn't ANY of them die before the ship touched down?"

Celestia pursed her lips as machine gun fire continued to batter the walls of her castle. "Trademaster, is your automata group on the way?"

"Miss Flair is at the doors already, I believe," the Trademaster glanced toward the front gates, "she should be inside in just-"

"MAKE WAY!!"

The heavy, gilded gates burst open as a veritable flood of pony guards stampeded inside.

Backing in after them was Delgan's Kaion-pattern automata, as well as Orchid Flair. Its legs were sticky with blood, its torso armor riddled with dents from deflected bullets, and large bursts of steam spat from its coolant engines. Several Gretchin also raced in around the assault walker, squealing in anger and fright as they tried to dodge around the giant mechanical and attack the more vulnerable equines.

"Get OFF, you little green freaks!" Orchid screeched, bucking wildly to kick away the Gretchin leaping at her with their shabby knives.

"SEE THIS? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T LET ME KILL EVERYTHING," the Kaion chimed in, stamping one Grot to mush and sweeping its combat claw forward to shred two more, "DO YOU SEE THE RUIN THAT YOUR FOOLISH RESTRAINT HAS WROUGHT?"

Orchid was too busy jumping and kicking to keep the tiny Orkoids at bay to answer the automata, and she shrieked as a pistol shot cut across her ear. The retreating pony guards, seeing more soldiers rushing to help, turned around to fend off the weaker greenskins.

They didn't get the chance before a dark blur zipped past them, trailing ribbons of blue light.

Orchid yelped as Delgan slid in front of her, slicing two Gretchin in half and kicking a third into a wall. She blinked in shock, and by the time she finished blinking a fourth had been skewered.

"Trash belongs in the SCRAPYARD," Delgan said amicably, punctuating the last word with a punch that cracked a leaping Grot's nose against his finger guard. Another three swings saw three more Gretchin fall with deep, smoldering wounds.

The remaining greenskins were hesitating now, but the Trademaster showed no such weakness. Stepping to the side of a desperate pistol shot, he removed the firearm - and the normal arm - with a quick chop. Every flick and twist of the man's wrist brought the screeching death of another Gretchin, and by the time the cowardly aliens realized how completely their assault had failed, there was only one in any shape to flee.

That lucky survivor turned around just in time to see the automata's leg descending over its face.

Delgan stabbed one power sword into the floor at his feet, and then pointed to the door. "Guards, seal the entrance."

After several seconds of not hearing hooves pounding against the floor, he turned around to see the ranks of pony troops gaping at him while standing in place.

"Did I stutter?" Delgan snapped, his mustache shifting over an irritated sneer. "MOVE!"

The ponies surged into action, almost tripping over each other to rush around the Kaion automata and close the gates.

Said robot beeped softly as it scraped its leg across the flooring to wipe off the pulped Gretchin. "THIS UNIT SUGGESTS THAT THIS CHOKE POINT BE HELD OPEN AGAINST THE ENEMY TO MAXIMIZE XENO CASUALTIES."

"No," the Trademaster sniffed as he wiped off his swords, "Miss Flair?"

The unicorn mare snapped to attention. "Yes, Sir?"

"After this is over, reprogram this unit. That vox engram is HIGHLY inappropriate."

"Already scheduled, Boss."

The Kaion made a disappointed bleeping sound, and then ejected a fog of coolant gases in a way that sounded remarkably like a sigh.

The pallid glow of unicorn horns lighting in tandem filled the room, and everyone turned to face inward. The mages had formed a circle in the center of the hall, with Princess Celestia standing in the middle.

"Everyone, gather close, please," the Princess of the Sun requested.

The Sunsworn quickly retreated from the windows, hauling their heavy weapons behind them as they formed a ring around the mages. Orchid Flair helped some of the guard medics carry the wounded closer, while Delgan checked a dataslate quietly. Kibitz and every other pony or human who wasn't armed crowded in close behind the mages, and the Royal Guard formed a ring around everyone else. The Kaion automata took a few steps closer, its guns trained firmly on the front gates and an inappropriately delighted humming coming from its vox.

"Is everyone here?" Celestia called out, twisting her head back and forth.

Her answer was a slightly muted explosion tearing through an upper floor, causing the floor and walls to shake.

"I don't mean to rush you, Princess, or criticize your people's engineering competency," Delgan mumbled, "but these walls won't last long against Ork rokkits, nor will those gates hold off determined assault."

"Of course," Celestia agreed, nodding to her mages. She looked around the hall at her palace, and breathed a deep, regretful sigh. "Let's begin."

The mages closed their eyes as they started their casting. Almost immediately, thick lines of hot, pulsing blue filled the grooves cut into the floor, spreading across the room and making the shape of arcane runes.

Celestia took a deep breath as she felt the combined magic of the unicorns fill the room, blanketing her ponies in an energy that felt like a calm, tingling warmth. This was it, then. Once again, her planet's fate lay in the hands and assorted mechanical equivalents of Solon's army. But at least this time, she could keep her ponies safe.

Unless something went horribly, horribly wrong.

And really, it had just been that kind of day.

"GAH!" More than one unicorn cried out as their horns flashed, the mana surge causing tendrils of power to arc from one horn tip to the next. Every unicorn in the room - including those that weren't involved in the spell - flinched as the magical energy changed from a soft hum to a harsh static. The blue lines across the floor shifted to yellow, then white, and then flared hotter as more and more magic flooded into it.

Celestia's eyes widened, and she reared up in shock. "No! Stop!"

The magical construct over Canterlot Castle had been conceived, planned, and built by the finest magical minds Celestia had available (save Twilight Sparkle, at any rate). And NONE of those minds had any real concept of what the mana surges were about and how they could disastrously effect a spell so powerful and sensitive.

Three of the mages collapsed outright, groaning. Despite their being rendered semi-conscious, and having heard the command to stop casting, their horns continued to glow and feed more power into the spell.

"Should I be worried?" Delgan asked, looking up from his dataslate at Orchid.

The unicorn mare screamed in fright, which he took to mean yes.

Celestia's breath heaved as she felt her castle start to shake around her. She wasn't completely sure what the teleportation spell would do with this much energy filling the pattern beyond its intended limits, but it would almost certainly be lethal; living bodies just weren't able to take so much magic suffusing through them.

The Sunsworn had fallen onto their knees and were praying, although she couldn't really hear them with the blood and mana pulsing in her ears. The guards were frantically asking for orders, wondering aloud if they should try to physically break the spell pattern. The Kaion automata gleefully asked if it could let the Orks in to die yet.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Celestia did some quick, desperate calculations in her head before her own horn lit aglow. The golden light spread out and started to mix with the energies from the runes on the floor, and then started to recede as Celestia's own spell was overwhelmed.

And then, more or less on schedule, she felt the hot pulse of another mana surge run down her horn.

The golden light washed over the mages' construct, boiling away the errant magic before it could complete its long, intricate pattern and spirit Canterlot's defenders away (most likely into the afterlife). The secondary pattern in the foundation that was already threatening to blow the castle sky-high several minutes ahead of schedule (Celestia hadn't even considered that one) likewise fizzled, and the mana conduits cut into the stone started to melt and deform from the heat.

For those without the magic sensitivity to properly perceive such things, however, it looked an awful lot like all the magic and magic-users just gave up and quit.

Delgan frowned as Celestia and the mages that were still standing all collapsed onto the floor, each of them wide-eyed and gasping for breath.

"Judging by the fact that we're all still in a castle being slowly taken apart by Orks," another rokkit blast came from outside, and chunks of masonry started raining down in front of a window, "I'm forced to conclude that your contingency plan has failed."

The Kaion automata made a high-pitched "squee" noise, and its legs started dancing up and down in sequence.

"STOP that," Orchid Flair commanded, aiming her control band at the machine.

"I don't... how could..." one of the mages started to mumble, his eye twitching.

The Trademaster sighed. "I don't suppose there's a plan C, is there?"

Celestia breathed heavily as she laid in the center of her ruined castle hall, a few golden sparks still floating from her horn.

"... Somebody find me some parchment."

Author's Note

So I did my best to put Princess Celestia squarely between the two extremes of "Alicorns OP plz nerf" and "exists for the sole purpose of delegating her problems to others". Not sure if it came across right, but still. You guys. I'm TRYING.
I'm also pretty sure that I made a mockery of the physics of a mile-long ship plowing into a mountainside, even WITH magic involved, but if your suspension of disbelief made it this far (and I'm not saying it has), then this shouldn't be the straw that breaks that camel's back.

I figure I've got three more chapters left. Yeah, I know. You've all heard that before.

Last Stand

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 12

Last Stand

****

Canterlot City - city shelter access

"Dere she iz, boyz! Crakk 'er open!"

Orks raced through the streets in a green flood, shouldering heavy weapons and explosives while assault walkers lumbered along behind them.

Their target was a huge vault door set in the mountainside, made of solid durasteel and bristling with heavy stubbers. These defensive emplacements spat constant streams of fire over the advancing aliens, although they mostly just served to slow the advancing horde down.

Opposite the shelter, the Orks were digging in to break open the door after having spent the past few hours rampaging through the city. Lootas setting up their deffguns gripped bottles of fine wine while occasionally taking a swig, and Shoota Boyz sported shiny new gemstone trinkets stolen from pony homes and hung on their weapons "fer lukk." Gretchin fought over scraps of food near the back, while nearby Meks puzzled over the abundance of glitzy and obnoxiously pretty metals that had been collected for their salvage.

"Dere's sum REEL gud lootin in dere, I bet," grunted a Tankbusta Nob before he peered around a corner at the armored door.

"Oi! Izn' dere sum fightin' in dat uddah bildin'?" demanded another Ork. He pointed toward Canterlot Castle, which was wreathed with long trails of black smoke. "Why'z we owt 'ere?"

"Boss Grimgaw sed we wuz ta loot da uddah bildin's!" the Tankbusta growled back. "Dis 'ere iz da last bildin'! So git moovin' an brayk it so'z we don' miss da gud fightin'!"

There was a chorus of grumbles as the other greenskins picked up their rokkit launchas. Dozens of warheads, most of them painted to resemble grinning, shark-toothed faces, were all pointed at the armored edifice and then fired in a roaring volley.

Given that the target was at ground level, completely immobile, and far larger than a main battle tank, a strict majority of the rokkits reached their target and stitched a jagged line of explosions across its surface. The stubbers mounted on the exterior were mostly torn apart from the detonations, or at the very least had their targeters smashed.

As the dust cleared, however, it was clear that the rokkits had made little progress in actually breaking through the vault door itself. Several blackened spots now decorated the facing, but the Orks could see nary a dent as fiery blue glyphs flickered over the barrier.

"Awww, wot da zog!" complained the Tankbusta Nob. "Dat fing'z gonna tayk all day ta bust troo!"

"Shud we try da tankbusta bombs, Boss?" asked a younger Ork while he fit more rokkits onto his weapon.

The larger warrior considered the matter briefly, but then shook his head. "Nah, dat ting iz 'arder 'n any tank! Git da Meks down 'ere an' haff 'em mayk a bigga bomm!"

The other Ork saluted and then scampered off. The Nob turned and shouted to a Deff Dread lumbering by.

"Oi! Try cuttin' it wit da killsaw!" he beckoned over to the vault door, and the Deff Dread released a howling chuckle before spurting a puff of dark smoke into the air.

The Nob leaned back against a wall and sighed as the walker stomped up the path toward the wrecked plaza in front of the vault. While he found breaking into homes and stealing shiny things as entertaining as anyone, he really hoped there was some armed resistance on the other side of that door. When they had been sent into the destructive currents of the Warp Storm, they had been assured that there were spiky boyz waiting planetside. Vicious, cunning, and even harder to kill than the non-spiky versions, the Chaos Space Marines were the 'ardest of the 'ard, by some accounts. A good, solid fight if there ever was one. And they were definitely here on the planet, judging by the fact that there was a giant space ship literally eating their frigates in orbit.

He could only hope there were a few of the corrupted warriors SOMEWHERE around this city, because so far all he had seen were a few of the little horses, and he had been less than impressed. The ponies were shrimpy, shrieky, and obnoxiously fast; hopefully they would prove to be decent eating once they managed to corner and kill a few, but certainly nothing worth getting excited over.

"Oi, Boss, wuzzat?" asked a boy who was facing away from the plaza and pointing into the sky.

The Nob turned, and he squinted his eyes as he stared up into the sunlight.

"... Dat's jus' da moon," the Nob mumbled. The lunar satellite was slowly creeping between the planet and the sun, which seemed slightly odd, for some reason. He didn't quite remember the moon being out before. "It'z wun o'dose... urm... whatcha callem... uh-clips!"

"It'z an omen!" barked another Ork hobbling up to them. This warrior was much older, and bore the distinctive exposed brain-matter that marked him as an Ork psyker. "Da spiruts o'da follen haff spohken t'me tru da Great Green! Da uh-clips meens deff! Dis iz bad lukk!"

The other Orks glanced at each other uncertainly. Behind them, in the plaza, the shriek of tearing metal came from the Deff Dread as it tried to carve open the shelter.

"Well, not a lot we c'n reely do 'bout it," the Nob mumbled, "we'z kinda stukk heah fer now."

The Weirdboy was restless, clutching his copper-conduit staff. "I c'n heers 'em! Da uddahs! Wen da shaddah o'da uh-clips fallz, den deff comes fer da two-leggid wuns! Da hoss o' nyte! Dey say even da Gargants fall b'fore 'er!"

The Nob again glanced up at the sky. The moon was almost finished covering the sun now, and a vast shadow was swiftly moving over the city.

"... Den let deff come fer us," he snorted, "we'z got mo' boyz comin' in from Jokitt's ship. We'z gonna finish stompin' dis sitty, and den we'z gonna mayk a run fer da spiky fort. I ain't 'fraid o'deff, an' I shoor ain't 'fraid o'no hoss."

A loud crashing noise came from the building behind them, and the Orks whirled around.

"Boss! Up dere!" a Tankbusta pointed up into the darkened sky, toward a tall apartment complex that now had a long tear in the side of it.

This damage, surprisingly, had not come about from any of the Orks' looting and general havoc, but rather was from a Stormraven gunship flying too close to the structure and cutting through the wall with its wing. The transport spun slowly in the air as it tried to stay in control, its engines sputtering.

"Dat'z a humie flyah!" the Nob announced, raising his weapon. "A'roight, boyz! Tayk 'er-"

Before the Tankbusta Nob could say "down", the Stormraven lurched to the side and slammed its tail into another tower. The Dreadnought being carried on the back - quite visible thanks to its bright pink hue - was jarred loose and sent plummeting into the rubble below before the gunship started careening toward the plaza, completely out of control.

"... Nevah mind, den," the Nob mumbled, tracking the vehicle's descent with his eyes.

The Stormraven veered lower and then hit the ground of the plaza. It bounced and scraped along the flagstones, tearing an uneven trench behind it, until it struck the blast door of the shelter and finally stopped. The cockpit was severely dented in the impact, but the vehicle had survived the incident mostly intact.

The Nob cast a final glance upward as he chuckled. They were now in the full throes of a solar eclipse, and the moon seemed to have locked in place to deny Centaur III its star's sustaining light.

"Bad lukk, huh? Don' look loike bad lukk t'me." The Tankbusta Nob threw his arm forward toward the gunship. "A'roight, boyz! It'z lootin' tym!"

The Orks' excited, victorious roar of approval was cut short by an explosion of debris behind them.

"Oh, no you don't!" shouted Pinkie Pie as her Dreadnought crashed out of the ruins of a storefront. "Loot THIS, you greenie meanies!"

Pinkie's multimelta burned into the entrenched Tankbustas, cutting a molten swath through two of them. Her heavy flamer fired at the same time, washing over more of the greenskins and sending them flailing from cover.

Well, most of them, anyway.

"Whoa!" Pinkie twisted awkwardly to dodge a rokkit that blasted over her in a fiery spiral. She teetered dangerously for a moment, and then quickly twisted back the other way once her stance stabilized.

By that time, however, more Tankbustas were already surrounding her and preparing their anti-armor bombs. Pinkie swung her power fist into one Ork rushing toward her side, smashing it to a paste as she stumbled backward.

"Wait! Hold on! When I said 'loot this', I didn't actually mean it!" Pinkie protested, blasting her flamer in front of her to ward off the aliens. "Please don't blow me up! There aren't many Dreadnoughts left for me to borrow! Wink!"

In the ruined plaza above, the Deff Dread that had been scraping up the vault door lumbered over to the crashed Stormraven. It stopped just a meter away, tilting slightly to one side while the walker pilot decided how best to start carving up the vehicle wreck.

Suddenly, the access ramp to the gunship was torn off of its hinges and thrown across the plaza, having been nearly folded in half from a brutal impact.

The Deff Dread looked up from its work, and its hydraulic pincers reached for the opening of the passenger compartment.

The first thing that came out, however, was nothing but a floating black gauntlet that glowed an ominous shade of crimson.

Luna stepped out after the Iron Gage blasted the Ork walker onto its back, her ebony form encircled by an aura of seething red.

"BEHOLD, ALIENS!! YOUR DOOM-"

The alicorn's introductory threat was cut off by a loud yelp from Pinkie Pie, who was flailing wildly as she retreated from the mob of Tankbustas.

"Stop it! Go away! I don't know any songs relevant to this situation! Somepony, help!"

"Oh, blast," Luna pouted once she realized that nobody was paying attention to her dramatic entrance.

"Pinkie! Let's go, everyone!" Twilight shouted before she jumped out behind Luna, her flight pack carrying her over the larger Princess. "Luna, finish off the walker!"

Rainbow Dash and Breezy Blight blasted out of the Stormraven behind Twilight, although the pegasi were nearly knocked out of the way when Tellis emerged and shot past them into the air.

"FINALLY! It's been forever since I got to kill a thing!" the Raptor exclaimed as he built altitude above the ponies.

"It's been an hour!" Twilight retorted. Her harmonizer popped off her back as she shouted and activated blade mode.

"I can't hear you over the sound of BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"

The nearest group of Orks was a mob of Lootas ransacking a nearby building and taking pot shots at Pinkie's walker as she tried to keep the Tankbustas at bay. Tellis launched himself straight through the wall, breaking through the non-reinforced structure with ease and then diving for the nearest foe.

"Well, they're pretty much dead!" Rainbow Dash shouted to the others. "Let's help Pinkie!"

"Did your suit depressurize when it was damaged?" Breezy Blight suddenly shouted over to Rainbow.

"Huh? I, uh... maybe?" the other pegasus asked uncertainly.

Breezy rolled her eyes as her helmet mouthpiece dropped open. "Whatever. Stay back and try to hold your breath!"

Breezy's flight pack lifted her higher while the Nurglite pony sucked in a deep breath, and she slowed her approach their target. Then she blew out a thick jet of noxious green fog, sweeping it over the Tankbusta mob.

The Orks started coughing and scattering, trying to clear their eyes and lungs of the vile poison. The toxic fumes also rolled into Pinkie Pie, but proved utterly harmless to her Dreadnought shell.

Twilight crashed into the struggling Orks, and the force harmonizer carved into one boy's back before she kicked away another. Arcs of hot magical energy whipped around her horn, lashing out at the nearest aliens and searing them.

As Rainbow and Breezy dropped in next to Twilight and started kicking at the Tankbustas, the unit Nob charged out of the fog with his choppa swinging.

Twilight fired a kinetic pulse forward, which just barely slowed the huge Ork enough for her to dodge out of the way. Then her visor glanced down at his belt, which held the magnetic, disk-shaped bombs that Pinkie had been so desperate to avoid.

"Dis iz da - KOFF! - Orks' town now - HRK! - hoss!" the Nob snarled between coughs while he surged forward again.

The force harmonizer sliced down to intercept him, but the hefty warrior struck the harmonizer cross with his choppa and knocked the weapon aside. Another chop hammered into Twilight's shoulder, cracking the ceramite shielding and flinging her across the street. He absently noted that the horn of her helmet was glowing, although that didn't seem especially pertinent as she skidded across the ground.

The Nob started to move after her, but caught sight of something bouncing at his feet. At first he thought it might be a grenade, but a lingering glance told him that it was just a fuse handle, like the ones attached to his tankbusta bombs.

Exactly like them, in fact.

The Nob looked down at his belt, and wasn't terribly surprised to see that the disc-shaped magnetic bomb he carried was armed and still attached to him.

"Well, zog."

Twilight curled up slightly before the Ork leader detonated, and then scrambled to her hooves.

"All right, we've got 'em on the run!" Rainbow Dash yelled, spewing shuriken into the backs of the retreating aliens.

"Twilight, are you okay?" Fluttershy asked, flickering into view behind the Princess.

"Yes, thanks. Just a bit rattled. I'm fine." Twilight looked around, finding that the other ponies had joined in driving off the Orks that had been threatening Pinkie. Pinkie herself was sweeping her flamer over the running Tankbustas while the Apple siblings stomped all over a Loota behind her, and Rarity was firing her plasma gun over their heads while loudly criticizing the aliens' hygiene.

On the subject of Lootas, one of the Ork scavengers almost landed on Twilight after being flung from a window above. The purple alicorn yelped as the Ork bounced across the street, eventually slamming into an apartment wall.

"Well, at least someone's having fun with this," Twilight groused before she turned around and headed back to the gunship.

Luna was standing atop the mutilated Deff Dread, staring at the vault door that served as Canterlot's shelter.

"Is everyone all right?" Twilight asked as she approached.

"We are," Dest replied as he exited the gunship. Gaela followed behind him with Spike sitting in the crook of her arm.

"Bit of a rough landing though, eh Lord?" Daniels mumbled, following the others out.

"I consider it a slight improvement over my usual performance to only destroy the vehicle rather than the passengers," Dest retorted, causing the mercenary to wince, "perhaps piloting gunships regularly is something I should look into."

"All right then, what's the plan?" Poison Kiss asked, her visor shifting between Luna and Twilight. "The Princess is waiting for us, yeah?"

"Right!" Twilight said as she trotted up to the massive vault door that protected the shelter.

After a few silent seconds, she awkwardly turned toward Gaela. "So, uh... should I knock, or...?"

"Hold on. I'm decrypting the security engrams," the cyborg said as her helmet disengaged, "however, the Stormraven is no longer a viable evacuation option. We may have no choice but to locate Lord Serith and seal the shelter entrance."

"You mean it's not sealed now?" Daniels asked.

"Negative. There are charges placed high in the mountainside to bury the entrance in case of an invasion scenario. I am uncertain as to why your sovereign hasn't already used them."

The giant locks of the door started to grind open as Gaela secured remote access, and everyone backed away from the vault. After a few seconds the massive blast shields slowly started to slide apart.

Almost immediately, the barrel of a lasgun poked through the opening.

"Whoa! Hold fire, hold fire!" Daniels shouted. "Do we look green to you!?"

"A-HEM!" Poison Kissed cleared her throat loudly as Rot Blossom ducked her head.

"Your fur is green, not your skin. Doesn't count," the mercenary assured them, "now hush."

The lasrifle was quickly pulled away, and a few extremely relieved pony guards stepped through the widening entrance to the shelter.

"Oh, thank Celestia!" moaned one of them. "The Orks damaged all the exterior sensors, so we didn't know what was going on! I thought we were done for!"

"Nay, thy salvation hath arrived!" Luna declared proudly as the Iron Gage slapped away the wrecked walker. "Inform Sister immediately! We shalt bolster thy defenses and hold the alien at bay until such time as the Warsmith has cleansed them from the void!"

The pony guard blinked repeatedly. "Inform Princess Celestia? But... isn't she with you?"

Twilight's eyes widened. "What? You mean she isn't here? Why isn't she here?"

"We don't know! The plan was for her to teleport here with her other guards and the Trademaster after luring the Orks into a trap!" the guard insisted as his compatriots nodded rapidly. "It's been hours since we got all the citizens in here, but we haven't heard from them!"

"A mass teleport?" Twilight mumbled to herself. She felt her heart stop as she remembered why she herself had been neglecting that particular spell. "HORSEAPPLES! The mana surges!"

"Oh, dear. That would mean..." Kiss stared pensively at Canterlot Castle. The structure was wreathed in smoke and dust, and more than one of its high towers was clearly on fire.

Gaela offered the structure a disinterested look before she addressed the pony soldiers. "Have any of you seen Lord Serith? Is he among the evacuees?"

The equines stared at her in confusion. "Who?"

"Creepy magic Iron Warrior," Rainbow Dash clarified.

"Oh, right! That guy from the unicorn conscription!" recalled another guard. "No, I haven't seen him, and he definitely isn't in here. Was he in Canterlot?"

"Apparently," Gaela grumbled before she turned to Twilight. "Serith's armor signum is still inactive. Under the circumstances, we must assume that he is at the only remaining nexus of resistance against the Orks: Canterlot Castle."

"Well that's convenient," Spike remarked.

"Indeed. However, there are several hundred Orks still ransacking the city. It won't take long for the greenskins that we drove off to get together more warriors and stage a counter-attack."

"Pft. What's a few hundred Orks to us?" Rainbow Dash scoffed, displaying a level of casual confidence that nobody else shared.

"And more coming, if the auger readings are correct," Gaela grimaced, "we have Landas making planetfall."

Twilight hissed and tried to restrain profanity.

"I thought you said the fleet was handling the Orks in orbit!" Rarity complained.

"We're prioritizing assault craft headed toward the fortress," Gaela said simply, "Warsmith Solon sees Canterlot as a strategic objective. That view is unlikely to be shared amongst the rest of the fleet."

Twilight failed in her quest to restrain her verbal frustration, releasing a muffled litany of hay and feather-related curses.

"You know, usually I find it pretty funny the way Shmithy's army basically treats him like a joke," Pinkie Pie admitted as her walker stomped up behind the others, "but now that it's affecting me personally, I feel that it's a serious problem."

"We should advance on the castle," Gaela said firmly, "quickly, before I harm someone on our side."

"W-Wait! You're leaving?" asked the guard pony. "What are we supposed to do? What if the Orks come back before you do?"

"Aye, that is a concern," Luna noted as her helmet peeled away from her face, "We shalt hold the shelter against the foe! Sparkle, take thy team to rescue Sister and her remaining defenders and bring them yonder!"

"Whoa, by yourself?" Rainbow Dash asked. "You're pretty awesome Princess, but there are a lot of Orks out there."

"Ah'll stay," Big Mac said calmly, surprising the others. Not so much that he'd volunteer to fight on defense rather than on assault, but mostly because he spoke without responding to a yes-or-no question.

"Phage Squadron will also remain, if that's okay," Kiss offered, "I don't think Princess Celestia will be terribly pleased to see us riding to her rescue anyway."

"And I should probably stay because I'm not going to be super-useful charging into the castle," Spike said, pointing toward the shelter, "also, you know, I should make sure our folks are okay, Twi."

"Very well!" Luna proclaimed, glancing over to the guards. "Every pony with an armament is to barricade themselves within the shelter, to secure for us a line of withdrawal! Sparkle, We leave the rest to thee!"

"Right! Come on, everyone!" Twilight said, rushing down the street.

"We'd best hurry," Gaela agreed, "before Lord Tellis gets bored and wanders off."

Almost immediately after she finished speaking, a huge, armored body leapt from the apartments above and landed on the ground in front of Twilight. The purple pony yelped and stumbled to a halt, almost running straight into the Iron Warrior.

"Are we ready? I say! Jolly good!" Tellis said, standing ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind his back. "Cheerio, lass! Blimey! Marmalade!"

Everybody that had been rushing into the city screeched to a complete halt. Not so much at Tellis saying bizarre things, which was actually a somewhat refreshing change from the usual, but rather at the fact that the Raptor Lord now had a tiny black top hat sitting on his helmet and a monocle resting over one of his visor lenses. No doubt the accessories had been scavenged from the apartment above, as they were both clearly designed for a creature some one-sixth the size of a Chaos Space Marine.

Rainbow Dash immediately broke into giggles and collapsed onto the ground. Daniels snorted, but tried not to draw attention to himself. The others were less amused.

"Why do you do this?" Dest asked listlessly.

"Because you sissy weirdoes keep holding Goddamn committee meetings between every combat," Tellis growled, twisting around, "I have to find SOME way to amuse myself while you're all wasting oxygen. Let's go!"

Posh dude's got a point. We could do with a little less gab and a little more stab, ya feel me? noted Vel.

"I don't want to hear that from YOU," Dest grumbled under his breath as he ran after the others.

****

Canterlot Castle

Delgan's breath heaved as his blades sliced through the air, their glowing edges followed by crackling arcs of light and the scent of ozone.

Time and time again the edges bit into Ork flesh and dug through hardened bone. Delgan struck like a viper, lashing out at each new opponent with stunning speed and ferocity to carve each Ork apart before shifting attention to the next opponent.

But there was always a "next" opponent, and endurance was not the man's strong suit. His lungs burned from exertion and his arms ached from the pounding of Ork choppas against his bracers. The ground ran red with the blood of the greenskins and their corpses created a veritable carpet beneath his feet, and still the aliens rushed - happily, yet! - to the ends of his swords.

At the Trademaster's sides, ranks of Royal Guards, Mages, and Sunsworn spat fusillades of lasfire and magic missiles into the aliens, trying desperately to keep the flow of combatants slow enough so that Delgan could not be surrounded and overwhelmed. Every once in a while, presented with an advantageous opportunity, a Sunsworn would charge forward with knife or bayonet and attempt to spear one of the Orks in the back. Although this was enormously helpful to Delgan, it left the reformed warriors dangerously exposed, and several human corpses were scattered among the Orkish ones with their white robes stained red.

At the head of the formation, however, was the defenders' main point of strength, and obviously the only reason they hadn't been overrun.

The Kaion Heavy Battle Automata was like a stubborn rock standing against a river, parting the tide of attackers around it. Its claw swung furiously and nearly without direction, tearing green flesh and puncturing slipshod armor with ease while the Tau burst cannon spat storms of blue flares into the Orks between swipes. The Orks fought back hard, pounding against the heavy walker with power klaws and heavy mauls, but the combination of daemonic power and reinforced armor withstood the constant battering.

"INCOMING ASSAULT WALKER DETECTED," the Kaion said in a tone that bordered on glee, "ALL LESSER FOES ARE ADVISED TO G.T.F.O." Lumbering through the smoldering entrance to the throne room was a cackling Deff Dread, its main sensor eye locked on the opposing walker.

The automata fired its dark lance into the ground in front of it, vaporizing an unlucky Nob and boring a deep hole in the flooring that sent cracks seeping through the surrounding flagstones. The Ork foot soldiers quickly parted before the automata, which gave the mechanical warrior the opening it it needed.

"Unit 9! Hold position!" Orchid Flair barked as the mighty mechanical warrior surged forward.

"NEGATIVE," the Kaion replied while the Deff Dread unleashed its skorcha. The flames parted uselessly around the Kaion's battered hull, and the automata crashed headlong into the other walker. "DESTROY. I MUST DESTROY MORE! MORE KILLING! MORE DEATH!" Its claw-arm grabbed onto one of the Dread's close combat arms and ripped it off, tossing away the limb like the trash it resembled.

"Okay, fine, but can you kill more where we want you to, at least?!" Orchid shouted in frustration. She was tapping the buttons on her control anklet, but it was having no apparent effect upon the machine.

The Deff Dread swiped its killsaw into the Kaion's legs, and an agonizing shriek came from the contact as the whirling buzzsaw tore through one such limb at the knee-joint and severed it.

The Kaion howled, its voice losing all aspects of pleasant or feminine tone in its sudden expression of daemonic fury. Orks nearby stumbled to a halt and covered their ears in pain, and the mages each felt a fiery tingle crawl down their horns in psychic sympathy.

"Bloody AI!" Delgan cursed before he lanced both power swords through a Slugga Boy's neck. "Flair, get that machine back into formation!" He raised an arm to block a choppa against his shield bracer, and then turned with the blow to slice off another Ork's arm.

"Kaion, back up!" the unicorn shouted desperately. "We're being surrounded! Return to formation!" She hammered her hoof uselessly against her control band, the buttons flickering.

The automata ignored its supposed masters, hammering its claw into the Deff Dread again and again and tearing long gouges into its face plate. The Ork walker clamped its pincer claw onto the daemon walker's dark lance, tearing the cannon free in a burst of colorful gases. The sundered wires and cables from the cannon whipped about like angry tentacles, grabbing onto the Deff Dread in retaliation and holding it fast.

The Kaion screeched furiously, and its mechanized claw lit ablaze with Warpflame as it plunged deep into the enemy walker.

"PURGE THE ALIEN!! THE ORK MUST DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!!" the automata howled. Its claw ripped the pilot straight out of the Deff Dread's core, threw it on the floor, and then stamped it to a bloody paste under a massive leg.

"SWEET, GLORIOUS DEATH!" cheered the machine reverently while its burst cannon started spinning up again. The heavy walker started turning in a circle, gunning down the Orks surrounding it and laughing all the while. "I AM YOUR REAPER, GREENSKINS! DEATH INCARNATE, MOLDED IN STEEL AND FIRE! I WILL CLEANSE THIS WORLD OF YOUR FILTH!"

A sudden clanging noise came from the automata's back as a tankbusta bomb was slapped onto its back. The machine halted.

"OH, YOU CHEEKY MOTHERFU-"

The explosive detonated, tearing open the walker's daemon core. Hot shrapnel and a pulse of corrosive psychic energy poured over the room, scything down several Orks and knocking Delgan off of his feet.

The Trademaster spent several seconds getting his senses in order while he lay sprawled on the floor, his head spinning. Spots of color danced in his eyes, and a scream of pain and rage that wasn't his echoed within his thoughts.

By the time he had sorted things out, he could hear the ponies screaming while the Sunsworn shouted more of their proclamations about light and justice and whatnot. His vision was still obscured by smoke and dust, and he could feel blood welling up in his throat.

"Fall back!" Delgan demanded, pushing himself to his knees. He grabbed onto one of his power swords lying right beneath him, and then spotted the other one laying nearby.

He reached for the second blade, only for a heavy, ramshackle boot to fall on it first.

Delgan's other arm snapped forward, piercing the Ork's abdomen before he had even gotten a good look at the warrior. The alien grunted in pain, but the Trademaster lacked the leverage in his current position to make a lethal blow. The Slugga Boy lowered his pistol and fired.

"BOSS!!" Orchid Flair screeched as she watched Delgan lurch back onto the ground. She was suddenly pulled back by a pair of Royal Guards and dragged toward the doorway to the next room. "No! Stop! We have to help him!"

Sunsworn carrying flamers stepped up as the ponies rushed past them, spraying burning promethium in a wide fan to ward back the alien advance.

"Wait! He's still alive!" Orchid pleaded as she was pulled along. "Stop! You cowards!"

Delgan groped blindly for his sword as he squirmed on the ground. He wasn't sure how badly he was wounded. His vision was blurred and his other senses clouded.

Nonetheless, the sound of the double-doors closing off the next room seemed unusually loud in his ears.

He felt himself being picked up from behind, and was vaguely aware of the hiss of a hydraulic piston near his head as a power klaw closed around his torso.

"I hope Flair survives to bill the Princess," Norris Delgan mumbled before his chest was crushed.

****

"Move that shelving! Hurry! Everything you can move goes in front of the doors!" Farian, self-proclaimed first of the Sunsworn barked orders to the frantic ponies. The humans shifted into new positions behind makeshift barricades and decorative suits of plate armor.

Near the back of the throne room, Princess Celestia sat with a blanket draped over her back. Her gaze was on Orchid Flair, who was sobbing angrily while tearing off her now-useless control band.

"Farian," Celestia said, barely keeping the tremor out of her voice, "how bad is it?"

The man shook his head. "Well, we-"

He didn't even get time to finish speaking before the doors being barricaded were smashed off their hinges.

"Contact!" screamed a Sunsworn with a flamer before he immediately blasted the entrance with fire. Orks howled in pain while they struggled to get through, but a barrage of fireballs from the mages built the intensity of the inferno even higher. The warriors pushing through the entrance were incinerated, while most of those waiting to follow were pushed back from the wall of flames.

Not all of them, however.

"WAAAGH!!" The Sunsworn with the flamer was cut down by a wild spray of bullets as a huge, metal-clad Nob stomped through the firestorm.

"Drive them back!" Farian demanded, drawing a two-handed power sword.

Lasblasts riddled the Nob's mega armor, but the Ork laughed off the assault as he looked over his potential opponents. His shoota rattled wildly, spraying ammunition over the wall of the throne room, but the Nob was barely even paying attention to the weapon.

"The light shall banish your blighted kind to the hells where you belong!" Farian cursed as he vaulted forward, his sword glowing a fierce yellow. The blade stabbed into the frontal torso plate of the Ork armor and sunk deep into the greenskin's chest, eliciting a furious howl from the alien.

It did not, however, kill it. The Nob seized Farian in his power klaw, and then fired a burst from his shoota directly into the man's chest, nearly tearing him in half.

"Farian! No!" Celestia cried. Her horn sparked with power, but it immediately sent a surge of intense pain shooting through her skull. She had used far too much magic too quickly, and was still exhausted from her earlier desperate efforts.

The Nob snorted as he tossed the bloodied body away. "Ain't dere any spikies 'ere? Dey sed dere wuz spikies." Lasblasts and the odd magic missile hammered into his armor as he plodded toward the large, white horse, but he ignored them with ease.

"Stay away from the Princess, savage!" barked one of the mages as they summoned a barrier.

The Nob recoiled slightly as the dome shimmered into place in front of him, although it also cut off the barrage of incoming lasers. His power klaw clamped shut and crackled as its energy field engaged. "Wun mo' wall ta brayk," the alien said with an amused snort. He reared his arm back, and the unicorns squeezed their eyes shut.

Nothing happened.

After several seconds without an impact, Celestia blinked. "What? Wait, this is..." The unicorns opened their eyes again, staring in confusion at the Ork. He was still in striking position, with his klaw reared back and ready to punch. But he wasn't moving.

A long, hollow-sounding sigh came from behind the ponies, and a chill crawled down Celestia's spine.

"Orks. What a tiresome species," Serith said as he stepped into the throne room.

He was entering through a rear hall that led deeper into the castle, and an armored equine with a very distinctive hat and cape was following behind him.

"What's going on?" Trixie asked after she entered and looked about the room. "What's with all the Orks? Trixie thought we were done with them!"

"Serith?!" Celestia asked incredulously. "What are you doing here? The guards said the castle was clear!"

The Iron Warrior ignored her, walking up to the Nob calmly. "You wished to face a Chaos Space Marine, greenskin? You now face a Chaos Space Marine."

The Nob released muted grunts and his body quivered, trying desperately to move against the force that had immobilized him.

Serith stopped next to the Ork, and then held both of his hands around the alien's head, as if he were preparing to grab and crush its skull.

"I'm glad that I could help."

A strange green mist poured from the Nob's eyes and mouth, evacuating the Ork's body and seeping into Serith's gauntlet. A moment later the Nob collapsed heavily onto the floor, his massive armor landing hard enough to leaving cracks in the tiling.

Trixie was more timid in entering the throne room than Serith, in part because she had some respect for Equestrian royalty, but mostly because there were injured and dead people laying all about the room. "What's going on? The Orks left over from the war actually managed to get into Canterlot?"

"No. These are no 'survivors'," Celestia said grimly, staring at Serith's back, "the Nethalican has failed. The Orks are pouring out of the Warp to pillage this world, as they had planned. And now they've taken Canterlot."

Trixie gaped in shock and horror, but Serith kept his eyes on the doorway as he raised his hands again.

Furniture started to move and slide across the floor, seemingly of its own accord. The door that had been broken down lifted itself up back into place, and was then propped up and reinforced by shelves, chests, and anything else that wasn't attached to the walls or floors.

"That shall keep them at bay. Briefly," the Sorcerer said, flexing his armored fingers. He didn't have his force halberd with him, and was regretting its absence.

"Trixie doesn't understand. The Nethalican DID work! You confirmed it!" Trixie exclaimed, racing to the Sorcerer's side.

"Indeed," Serith mumbled, "and yet... here we are."

"Wh-What do we do?" the entertainer asked nervously.

"We fight," Serith said, his voice lacking its usual cruel humor, "but it will not be enough. We will perish here."

"Is that all you have to say?" Celestia asked through clenched teeth. She pushed herself up, her legs shaking underneath her.

"It is," Serith replied simply, turning around. At seeing her glare intensify, the Sorcerer continued. "What would you have me say then, Princess? Would you have me explain the Orks' presence? I cannot think of such a thing. Would you have me tell you we will survive, and overcome? I will not utter such banality. Or perhaps you desire an apology, Princess? For attempting to salvage your world and giving you false hope?"

"I would ask for a hope to replace it," Celestia said tightly, "some option besides 'fight a battle you can't win.'"

"I have nothing," Serith spat, walking toward the alicorn, "my greatest secrets, my mightiest sorceries, all have been spent on the Nethalican. Countless souls and an ocean of psychic energy expended to fuel its dark power. Everything was brought into play exactly as I had designed." His voice built higher and higher as he approached the white alicorn, and the Mages nervously clustered more tightly around her.

Serith stopped, and his head twisted about to stare at the Dead Nob on the floor. "And these... these idiot VERMIN... they come along and simply ignore it."

Serith gripped his hand into a fist, and suddenly the Nob's dead body was slammed hard into the floor. The damaged tiling caved in completely, and several of the ponies jumped back in fright.

"Plans within plans," Serith growled, levitating the Ork into the air with an upraised palm, "ancient lore beyond that of any other in this pitiful fleet." He flung the hand to the side, and the Nob went in the same direction, nearly smashing a hole in the wall. "Near-limitless knowledge granted by fell bargains and sacrifice! A wellspring of psychic might beyond the capabilities of even my former Legion of Sorcerers! All of it, USELESS before the STUPIDITY of the Ork race!"

Celestia felt her Mages quivering around her, but she herself was perplexed, not frightened. She hadn't spent much time around Serith, but she definitely felt that he wasn't the sort prone to temper tantrums.

"And now I've damned us all," the Sorcerer said bitterly, once again lifting the Ork body up into the air with a gesture. "Not just you feeble equines, not just the mortal slaves, EVERYONE. Lord Sliver, Warsmith Solon, Dark Magos Kaelith. Souls that have fought and survived ten thousand years among the blight of Chaos and the endless war will all be ground to dust beneath the boots of ORKS, of all things. Every voice that spoke in opposition and mistrust of my power will be vindicated, and then silenced."

His gauntlets glowed brightly, and psychic hoarfrost glimmered about his arms as the dead Nob shook in the air.

"Serith..." Celestia began, her voice trailing off immediately. Clearly the Iron Warrior was feeling regret and - could it be? - actual guilt for these circumstances. She was honestly stunned to receive any real outpour of emotion from an Iron Warrior other than contempt and cold fury.

"Useless!" Serith roared, causing the Nob to create another crater in the flooring. The wounded humans and ponies scattered about the throne room cringed away, hearing the Sorcerer's anger pounding in their ears.

"Pitiful!" Serith snapped, throwing one arm to the side and flinging the corpse across the throne room again.

Then he raised his arm above his head, and the much-abused body trembled and spun in place in mid-air. "Weak! Pathetic! Worth-"

"HEY! Knock it off!" Trixie barked right before she bucked Serith in the leg.

The Iron Warrior actually staggered from the blow, windmilling his arms comically as he tried to stay upright. Trixie hadn't even struck him that hard - certainly not as hard as she could have managed in power armor - but he seemed completely stunned by the impact.

"Useless? YOU? Don't give Trixie that hay! And not now, when we really need you!" the unicorn barked, slamming a boot onto the floor.

"Well, actually, we REALLY needed you like ten minutes ago," Orchid Flair grumbled. One of her elastic leg bands suddenly slipped loose and then magically wrapped around her muzzle, silencing her.

Serith turned around to face the ponies, and then immediately had Trixie rear up and plant her forelegs on his waist so she could stare up at him.

"Did it look like any of our 'mighty, wise mages' were about to finish off that Ork there? Do you think any of us would have made it this far without your help? Snap out of it!"

"Then what is to be done?" Serith asked bitterly. "We wait within these brittle walls for the green tide to spill within and finish us off. The spells within this place have failed; I have felt them. Your sovereign is exhausted, your city is pillaged. Tell me, Lady Trixie, what would you have me do?"

There was a pregnant pause while Trixie let herself drop back to the floor. That pause was interrupted not by any brilliant epiphany, but by a sudden, heavy banging against the barricaded doorway.

"There is hope," Princess Celestia said, "Twilight and the other Elements of Harmony are coming. They will see off this menace."

"That is absurd for a great many reasons," Serith said, "not the least of which is the presumption that Sparkle could challenge the horde herself." The hammering against the door intensified, and the furniture leaning against it began to shift unsteadily.

"We must have faith in the bearers of Harmony," Celestia insisted, "the power of friendship will deliver us from this evil."

"Do you seriously not understand how ridiculous you sound right now?" Serith countered. The sound of Orks shouting orders came from the next room as the doors continued to splinter under their efforts.

"Look, when you get right down to it, we're just going to keep fighting here like you said," Trixie said, "we're just saying, you don't have to be all mopey about it."

Suddenly the banging sound turned to a loud grinding noise as oversized buzzsaws started tearing through the door.

"They come," Serith said, turning his helmet to face the doorway. Strings of swirling blue power surrounded his arms, and the blood-red lenses of his helmet flared brighter. Trixie gulped and levitated her helmet onto her head.

The doors came apart under the assault of saws and mechanized pincers, and soon long, metal limbs were reaching through the open doorway to knock aside the objects beyond it.

"It's no good! They have assault walkers!" exclaimed a guard. "Without the automata-"

"Silence," Serith said, raising a single arm toward the doorway.

As a pair of Killa Kans made their way step by step through the barricade, the Iron Warrior reached out with his mind, taking hold of one machine's shuddering, unstable mechanisms and unmaking them with pure will. As it kicked aside a massive bureau, its knee joint suddenly came loose, spilling bits of metal onto the floor while the rest of the machine wobbled unsteadily.

"Trixie's got the other one!" Trixie exclaimed, using the same spell as Serith while targeting the other enemy.

The Kans started unloading their weapons into the immediate vicinity, mostly shredding the mass of furniture still blocking their path and lighting it on fire. The limping Kan began to stumble while its big shoota fired about in wild arcs, and eventually the heavy machine gun shook itself free of its mounting and bounced away onto the floor.

That was, however, rather underwhelming in comparison to Trixie's effort.

"YEEP!" the armored unicorn squealed as her horn flashed a bright pink and her spell yielded to a mana surge. The Killa Kan started shaking as it advanced on the defenders, and its exhaust pipes whistled as the puffs of dark smoke they normally ejected turned to hot jets.

"No! Wait!" Trixie gasped, her horn shuddering within her helmet. "Trixie can't-"

The rest of her sentence was cut off by the Killa Kan exploding. The walker tore itself in half, and the killsaw on its close combat arm went flying straight into its partner. A ferocious shrieking came from the contact of metal on metal, and the remaining walker spun on one leg before collapsing onto its side.

"Git 'em, boyz!" cheered the Ork leading the charge into the throne room.

"Concentrate fire!" shouted a pony guard as the Orks started shouldering through the entrance. A flurry of lasbolts and solid slug shots filled the entryway, and the first few greenskins collapsed while trying to vault over the debris in their path.

"No, I mean literally!" the Royal Guard shouted while his lasgun ran hot. "Concentrate and make fire!"

Trixie and the mages responded as ordered, and a series of flaming orbs pounded the entrance, laying down a carpet of fire in front of the remaining warriors.

Another mega-armored Nob stomped through the flames, immediately focusing on Serith and bringing his shoota about. A spray of bullets sawed across the flooring and over the Sorcerer, bouncing off of his armor.

"Your plate is no defense against me, alien," Serith growled. Tendrils of black lightning surged from his hands and into the Nob, curling around its mega armor and cooking the warrior inside.

As the Nob fell, another half dozen Orks scrambled to take his place, braving the firestorm and lasers while firing blindly with their sluggas. Serith cut them down one at a time, either scorching them with dark lightning or tearing the souls directly out of them in a haze of green mist.

"Hey! You! The Sunswords!" Trixie barked as her hat floated off toward a group of the robed humans.

"We're SunSWO-"

"Not important!" Trixie barked as her fireburst launcher lobbed another swirling fireball into the doorway. "Guns! Here!"

The hat glowed and stretched, and the Sunsworn recoiled when it spat three plasma guns onto the floor at their feet.

"Wait, how-"

"Magic! Now quit asking useless questions and use them!" Fireball after fireball screamed into the breach, feeding the inferno that sought to cut off the throne room from the rest of the palace.

The Sunsworn were soon adding to the flames with a storm of plasma bolts, which were dramatically more effective in putting down the encroaching warriors than mere lasguns. Orks were cut down as fast as they could enter, braving the fire only to be incinerated by plasma.

Serith grabbed hold of another immolated Ork who was running through the inferno, flailing its arms desperately. Again the Ork's life energy seemed to seep from his skull and drain into Serith's gauntlets, and the alien fell limp underneath the Iron Warrior's touch.

As his opponent crumbled beneath him, however, Serith hesitated.

"Something is wrong. These Orks..." A sudden rumble reverberated through the castle, and bits of masonry started falling from the ceiling.

"We can overcome them! Do not surrender hope!" Celestia cried.

Serith turned toward the others even as the fusillades of laser and plasma bolts screamed past him. "These greenskins are not assaulting us. They're fleeing."

Another heavy explosion shook the walls around them. This time they could hear gunfire coming from the next room that was obviously not aimed at them.

That firefight, though, was soon drowned out by a horrendous, predatory screech. The sound sent most of the ponies onto the floor reflexively, covering their ears.

"What sort of monstrosity have the Orks unleashed against us NOW?" Celestia asked, her eyes narrowing.

"On the contrary," Serith retorted, "that monstrosity is one of ours."

"It is!" Trixie shouted. "ID signums confirmed! Sparkle's here!" She paused in-between reports of her fireburst launcher. "Trixie never thought she'd be so happy to say THAT."

The wall separating the throne room from the entry hall cracked deeply as something struck it from the other side, spilling chunks of stone onto the floor. A second impact ripped through the wall entirely, and a pincer claw emerged from the breach.

"Another Killa Kan!" howled one of the defenders as the light assault walker shouldered its way into the opening.

Before it could, however, the war machine was tackled from behind. The impact broke the walker through the breach in the wall, spilling both the Kan and its assailant into the throne room.

"Pinkie Pie!" Celestia exclaimed. The identity of the second walker was quite obvious even without glimpsing the scorched decal of balloons on its shoulder; nobody else in the 38th Company would pilot a bright pink combat vehicle.

"As if I could miss THIS party!" the Dreadnought chirped before it tore the Kan's close combat arm off. Pinkie took a moment to steady herself over the smaller walker, and then finished it off with a blast from her multimelta that punched straight through the Killa Kan and burned a trench through the floor.

Orks seemed to explode from the new hole in the wall in a panicked frenzy, only for two huge, armored bodies to jump into them and tear them down. Tellis blasted aside the smaller greenskins as he vaulted forward, using his flight pack despite the cramped quarters. He landed on the unit Nob, slamming the warrior to the floor.

Dest followed behind the Raptor, his fingers having grown to curved scythe blades. The possessed driver was like a whirlwind, shredding the green warriors left and right in bloody, sweeping arcs.

More Orks came from the next room, and more armored bodies followed after them to mow them down. Applejack hurled greenskins aside with long sweeps of her tusks while Rarity and Twilight charged straight through with their blades singing against the air. Gaela was close behind Twilight, her power axe cleaving through the aliens that were recovering from Applejack's charge. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy came in after them, well behind the main crush of fighting, while Daniels followed as the rearguard.

"Princess!" Twilight shouted, her breath heaving. "We're here!"

"Hey, white horse!" Tellis shouted after her, still straddling the Nob. "What's your favorite organ?"

Celestia stared at Tellis. Her eyebrow twitched.

"We don't have time for that!" the purple alicorn griped.

"Man, nobody ever wants to play this game. You're no fun." Tellis punched his claws down into the struggling Nob.

Celestia's eyebrow twitched again. "Why is he wearing a top hat and monocle?"

"We don't have time for that, either!" Twilight shouted, rushing up to her mentor. "Are you okay? We got here as fast as we could!"

The larger Princess shook her head, finally tearing her gaze away from Tellis. "I'm so glad to see you, Twilight. The situation is dire."

"Where's Mister Delgan?" Rarity asked, scanning over the injured people and ponies watching the new arrivals in slack-jawed amazement.

Celestia paused, working out how best to break the news to the Element of Generosity. She needn't have bothered.

"He's dead," Orchid Flair muttered bitterly, "you probably have some of him on your boots after rushing through here like that."

Rarity froze up, stunned.

"Unfortunate," Gaela interjected blandly, "the Warsmith would have preferred his extraction." Then she nodded toward Serith. "However, our main objective is you, Lord."

"I'm flattered," the Sorcerer drawled, "and just what, exactly, do you intend to do now that you've recovered me?"

"We're going to head back to the shelters," Dest growled as he kicked aside an Ork corpse, "the other Princess is holding the vault door."

"What? But what of the wounded?" Celestia asked, glancing about the room.

"They are not mission objectives," Gaela replied in characteristic monotone.

"You can't be serious!" the white alicorn retorted angrily.

"Lady, we are ALWAYS serious!" Tellis shouted back before taking a moment to adjust his monocle.

"Not to interrupt, Lords, but what's the status on those Ork reinforcements?" Daniels asked. He was covering near the entrance hole, peering through the dust.

Gaela sighed and put a hand to the side of her head. "Give me a minute."

"So, what are you doing here, anyway?" Rainbow Dash asked as she approached Serith. Her helmet disengaged so that she could stare up at the Sorcerer suspiciously. "Nobody but Solon knew where you were, and then we find out you're in Canterlot, of all places."

"The Warsmith knew? Interesting," Serith mumbled, not answering the question.

"If you MUST know, Serith and Trixie were simply perusing Canterlot's royal library," Trixie interjected, "it was nothing suspicious."

Princess Celestia did a double-take. "The royal library? You aren't permitted in there!"

"The royal library is only open to those with the Princess's personal sanction," Twilight's eyes narrowed, "how did you even get in?"

Serith said nothing, but Trixie cocked her head to the side. "The guard waved us in and said everything was fine. What do you mean we're not permit..." Trixie trailed off as her eyes widened, and then she laughed. "Oh, I get it now! Ha! Classic Serith!"

"May I assume that's also why my guards inexplicably forgot about your presence when the castle was being evacuated?" Celestia griped, glaring at the Iron Warrior.

"An unfortunate, but necessary consequence of my incursion," Serith admitted, "but really, it's your fault for thinking you could keep me out in the first place."

While many ponies - and Tellis, for some reason - glared at Serith silently, Gaela finished uploading her auger scans.

"We have a problem," she announced, "or rather, we have some six hundred problems, along with armored problems and substantial heavy problems. The Ork Landas touched down on top of our escape route. There's a whole other army between us and the shelter."

"Fffffffffff..." more than one person tried desperately to suppress profanity at the news.

Dest groaned, clasping the front of his helmet. "Then how are we to extract the Sorcerer? Putting aside for the moment all the OTHERS Sparkle wishes to save, can we sneak Lord Serith out of the city somehow?"

"And to what end?" Serith asked with a dusty snort. "I imagine that the Warsmith thinks I might correct some flaw in the Nethalican. Adjust the storm so that it might seal off this assault. I can do no such thing. If the Orks will sail through the fury of a Warp storm, then nothing will stop the green tide."

Another bleak pause settled over the throne room.

"Well, look on the bright side!" Tellis said happily, thrusting one arm into the air. "We may be about to die painfully against an enemy with no hope of escape, but at least our deaths will give succor to the Blood God Khorne, and fuel another whole legion of bloodthirsty daemons!"

"Um, that isn't actually a bright side to anyone else but you," Fluttershy noted.

"Ah. Well, then." Tellis turned around and started plodding back the way they came.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Rainbow asked, rounding on the Chaos Lord.

"Gonna go die like the badass killa I am," Tellis said while the wings of his flight pack spread out behind him, "surrounded by screaming aliens and drenched in the blood of my enemies." Daniels quickly stepped out of his path to let the Chaos Space Marine pass.

"No way! There are too many of them! You'll never make it out alive!" Rainbow Dash protested as Fluttershy gasped.

"Yeah. That's what I said," Tellis replied, sounding slightly confused, "besides, I have a feeling you guys are just going to talk for the next half hour again instead of killing stuff. Screw that noise."

Rainbow opened her mouth to protest some more, but she was drowned out by the ignition of Tellis's flight pack. The Raptor launched himself into the entry hall and then raced for the exit, a laugh echoing from his vox grille.

"No! No way!" Rainbow Dash shouted as her own flight pack started to warm up. "This isn't happening! I'm going with him!"

"Rainbow Dash, no!" Twilight shouted, reaching out to the speedy pegasus. "We have to stay together!"

Rainbow lifted off into a hover. "Sorry Twi, but I can't leave him! I'll come ba-"

Then her flight pack spat out a cloud of black smoke and sputtered noisily. A moment later, it cut out entirely and dropped her onto the ruined floor of the throne room.

"Dang it, Gaela! Stop doing that!" Rainbow shouted angrily.

"I didn't do anything," the Dark Techpriest insisted, "you've simply damaged your armor beyond its ability to function normally."

Rainbow growled in frustration as she stood up, sparks blasting from her impulse jets.

"Well, we're still stuck in a castle, completely surrounded, our best and most annoying fighter is gone, and Dash would have flown off with him if she wasn't already too banged up to be helpful," Daniels summed up, "kinda wish I'd stayed on the farm..."

Celestia furrowed her brow and turned toward Twilight. "The Elements of Harmony. They are our last hope."

"The what?" Daniels asked.

"Oh, right! Those are around here, aren't they?" Applejack asked. Then she paused. "So... how exactly is that gonna work, here? Can we purify the Ork horde or somethin'?"

"We can do much more than that," Serith said calmly. Immediately he had everyone's attention again. "The power that your artifacts contain is enough to see off this army. I can provide the catalyst that will doom the Orks if you will provide the necessary energy."

The ponies stared up at him for a few seconds.

"You don't seem very enthusiastic about saving us all," Trixie noted.

"It is but a temporary reprieve," the Sorcerer sighed, "even your artifacts and my most powerful sorceries cannot stem the flow of greenskins from the Warp. This planet will be theirs, and our resistance merely delays the inevitable." His voice took on a bitter tone again as he continued. "I can cast away a thousand Orks to Hell, but it is still useless, a mere gesture of defiance before the swarm that will extinguish us."

"I'm fine with a temporary reprieve," Dest volunteered.

"All right! Harmony time!" Pinkie cheered. "This is perfect! I've been looking for a good accessory to complete my giant, armored killing machine!"

"Follow me," Celestia said grimly as she turned toward the castle interior.

Twilight turned to Gaela as the others followed her mentor. "Let's get the wounded further inside, into the basement. The mages and Royal Guard can protect them there. Then we should set up a new barricade. I don't know how this is going to play out, but there's no sense in letting ourselves be surrounded."

"Oh, let me help," Fluttershy interjected, "I may be able to get some of them back on their hooves. Erm, or feet."

"Affirmative. Douglas, assist," Gaela commanded.

"His name is Daniels," Celestia said over her shoulder as she headed out.

The other Elements of Harmony followed Princess Celestia into the hall, although Twilight immediately noticed that Rarity was lagging behind. Her gait was hesitant and unsteady, as if her legs were failing her but her armor was keeping her upright as she walked.

Twilight stepped up close to the unicorn before glancing about and whispering to her. "Rarity? Are you okay?"

Rarity jerked her head up suddenly, as if suddenly noticing the other pony. "T-Twilight? I... hahhh..." her voice hitched and stuttered, and Twilight realized with some alarm that Rarity was apparently suppressing tears. Considering that the fashionista had her helmet on, she wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't said anything.

After a moment, Twilight realized why Rarity was so upset, and her heart sank.

Norris Delgan.

The man's demise had been mentioned and accepted so quickly that Twilight had completely forgotten that one of her friends considered herself close to him. Rarity had barely made a peep about the Trademaster's death even while Rainbow Dash had been willing to make a loud, showy, suicidal attempt to try to save Tellis. Obviously, Twilight had seriously underestimated Rarity's bond to the merchant lord.

"I'm so sorry about Delgan, Rarity," Twilight said as her head dropped, "do you, uh... need a minute?"

Twilight heard a deep, shuddering breath come from the other mare's vox grille. "No," Rarity said firmly, "we don't have a minute. If we let up now then we could ALL lose our lives." She trotted forward, and her gait became more certain even as a loud sniffle came from within her helmet. "I won't dishonor Norris's fate by moaning about it like a coward. He wouldn't stumble or hesitate if it had been me in his place!"

"I'm inclined to think that's more due to his lack of empathy than his strength of character, but either way I'm glad you're still with us!" Twilight said with a grim nod. "Equestria needs us more than ever!"

"Yes, darling," Rarity agreed, her helmet turning to look at Dest.

The Iron Warrior was carrying an injured pony under each arm, and Twilight swore she could hear him mumbling something under his breath.

"But Equestria also needs THEM," Rarity continued sadly, "and we keep losing more of them."

****

Canterlot City - shelter entrance

Constant gunfire and chains of explosions tore through the edge of the plaza in constant sequence, hammering the artisanal stonework and shredding the corpses of those Orks that had already fallen.

A storm of shadows circled the area, shrouding the occupants in darkness beyond the gloom of the eclipse and shielding them from the ordnance arrayed against the vault. Cannons pounded the space blindly and long, rattling bursts of machine guns fire pelted the stonework endlessly, all to very little apparent effect. The magical shrouding did not hinder the warriors within the storm, for their targets were picked out in shifting brackets provided by ruby-tinted visors, and their aim marked by equally convenient uplinked crosshairs. Streams of heavy bolter rounds sawed back and forth down the stairs into the city proper, cutting down Orks by the half-dozen. Smaller bolt shells followed the suppressive fire, blasting apart the alien soldiers with greater precision. Wasps the size of a man's thumb swooped out of the swirling shadows and descended on the survivors trying to crawl their way to the plaza, chewing viciously on the Ork's thick hide while plunging their stingers into their alien victims again and again. And whenever the Orks managed to build any momentum for their charge, usually behind an assault walker acting as spearhead, their efforts would be met by a jet of toxic gas and deadly lances of crimson power.

Yet, as the green bodies piled higher and wreckage tumbled from the plaza's steps into the crumbling streets below, the defenders knew their position couldn't hold.

"Where the hay ARE they?!" Breezy Blight said between heavy, gasping breaths. Every few seconds she would raise her right foreleg and snap off a few bolter shots to dispatch another Ork, but the pegasus was clearly exhausted.

"I don't think they're even coming!" Rot Blossom said before she reared up and kicked out at a struggling Ork boy. "Why would they? You can see how many greens are in their way!"

The warrior was flung back, but barely managed to keep his footing. Before he could retaliate, however, a jagged knife stained with Ork blood and other ugly fluids shot up into its jaw, being carried within a magical aura.

"Don't falter!" Poison Kiss demanded as she pulled the knife free with her magic. The Ork slumped to the ground, and she stepped up on its back before loosing her boltgun onto the charging greenskins below. "We are Nurgle's children, and we SHALL endure! What is an Ork before the might of Chaos? What threat are these savages before the weapons of the Warsmith?! Stand fast, I say!"

Big Mac remained silent and impassive, standing in place behind a fallen column as he showered suppressive fire onto the attackers. Behind him was Luna, suspended in the air on feathers of pulsing blue crystal. Magical power of inky black and bleeding red swirled about her and maintained the storm of shadows, while the Iron Gage hung above her with its fingers sparking.

Every time Luna would sight an armored vehicle, the ebony gauntlets lashed out and hammered the enemy walkers with beams of blood-colored power. Armor plating buckled and pilots were cooked or pulverized inside their cockpits. A lucky few were simply blown up, quickly and fairly painlessly, spilling hot shrapnel over the warriors trying to use their armored vehicles for cover.

"WRETCHED ORKS!!" Luna roared at the horde. "HOW MANY OF THY BROTHERS MUST DIE BEFORE THOU YIELDS?! HOW MUCH SUFFERING SHALT THOU ENDURE FOR THE SAKE OF-" a rokkit broke through the shroud of darkness, twisting toward Luna as if it were following her voice. She yelped and tried to evade, and the explosive slammed into Luna's wing, tearing open the casing.

The Princess of the Night dropped unsteadily to the ground, and she heard an angry snarl echo in her thoughts.

"Princess, not to be a bother, but I don't think the Orks are listening to your speeches," Kiss said, reloading her boltgun.

Luna growled, summoning ever more magic power to her. The mana surges pushed her magic ever higher, and unlike the other ponies she drank hungrily from the wellspring of power rather than trying to control and tamper it.

Long, sweeping beams of crimson light bled from Luna's eyes, cutting across the Orks below in a blazing slash across their defenses. A dozen fell in an instant, although those with heavier armor withstood the attack.

The stream of heavy bolter shells stopped a moment later, followed by an ominous clicking sound from Big Mac's gun.

Suppressing a frustrated groan, the stallion's servo arm started shifting awkwardly to load his spare ammo box as the depleted case dropped onto the ground.

"Here guv, lemme get that for you!" chirped Kiss, appearing next to him. Macintosh was surprised, but said nothing as the unicorn magically unlatched the munitions box from his armor. A shell detonated behind the ponies as she worked to reload his weapon, and Big Mac winced as hard shrapnel screeched against his armor plating.

Kiss jerked her head slightly as a scorched stone broke against her helmet, but otherwise ignored the blast. "I just wanted to say, you've been a huge help down here, and me and the girls are just tickled you decided to hold the line!" She locked the ammunition box into place opposite the heavy bolter. "The Princess is great and all, but she can make for difficult company."

"BRING US THY WAR MACHINES, SAVAGES!! WE SHALT GRIND THEE TO DUST BENEATH THINE OWN WEAPONS!!"

The other ponies flinched at the sound of another Deff Dread exploding, and Kiss finished setting the belt of ammunition into Big Mac's heavy bolter.

"There you are, then! Cheers!" Kiss said brightly as Mac's munitions indicator turned green and cleared him for firing.

Before he could return to the combat, however, a message came over the vox for him and the mares defending the shelter.

"Phage Squadron! Princess Luna! What's your status?" asked Twilight.

"Engaged in heavy combat!" Luna replied even as she summoned another swath of fire to strike at the Orks. "However, the foe shows little sign of faltering, and the Orks art truly without number! Where art thou?"

"We're stuck in the castle still! We've been cut off!" Twilight explained, much to the disappointment of the other ponies. "But we may have a solution! We're going to use the Elements of Harmony!"

Luna paused briefly. "Will they work against a foe such as this? The Orks art more akin to savage beasts than creatures of true darkness." A flurry of bullets cut across Luna's chest, and the alicorn growled before returning her attention to the fight.

"Serith has an idea. We're going to use the Elements to power one of his spells. He says he'll be able to purge the city."

"We can do that? Why haven't we been doing that?" Kiss mumbled.

"STORMBOYZ INCOMING!!" Breezy shouted as the roar of rocket engines surrounded the equines.

Static briefly crackled over the vox before Twilight's voice came back. "Listen, it's going to take some time to cast this spell, so we need you to hold out as long as you can to draw some troops away from the castle. The Orks are already gearing up for an assault. But if things get too dangerous, withdraw into the shelter without us! We won't be coming until the spell is complete... or not at all."

Luna's Iron Gage caught a Stormboy on his descent, gripping him around the neck and slamming him into the ground with lethal force. The other gauntlet slugged another shock trooper as soon as it made landing, removing the Ork's upper torso from its pelvis.

Big Mac snarled as slugga rounds started flying all around his head, and the stimulant injector in his chest released its chemical cocktail into his bloodstream.

"Roger that, Princess Sparkle!" Kiss shouted as the stallion charged furiously into the Stormboyz. "Do hurry, though! Much as I love Grandfather Nurgle, I'm not ready to room with him just yet!" Her horn flashed as the vox cut out, and a shroud of magical gloom seeped from the joints of her armor. The magic wrapped around her knife, and a dark green slime started to collect on its edge.

"Time to make some people very, VERY ill..."

****

Canterlot Castle - Hall of the Elements

Twilight dropped her helmet onto her gorget and then shook her mane loose, feeling her hair settle into its usual style for the first time since she woke up. Not that her mane was really on her mind at the moment.

On a pedestal above her was a tiara capped with a star: the Element of Magic. The tool of their salvation. In theory, at least. "Explain to me exactly how this spell of yours is going to work, Serith. I don't want any surprises."

The Sorcerer stepped behind the Elements of Harmony as the rest all donned their magical accessories. He was opening the metal-bound book that was always latched to his belt, and when he replied to Twilight he sounded fairly distracted.

"This ritual will tap into the psychic connection shared between the Orks that forms and empowers their mob mentality. Using this connection, I will force my own spell upon the entire local horde at once, and extinguish their minds."

"That sounds horrible," Rarity mumbled as she tried to adjust the Element of Generosity so that it sat just right on her gorget.

"Mass murder usually is," Serith drawled.

"Seems really convenient, too," Rainbow said suspiciously, "you can really just wipe out all the Orks in the city with one spell?"

"Life and death are but biomechanical conditions, and the psyker can act as the switch between the two. Such are the teachings of Chaos," Serith explained, "that said, this affair is intensely draining, and it would normally require hundreds of psykers to flood the Orks' minds. But, if nothing else, you equines have 'magic' power to spare."

"And what of the mana surges that derailed the last large spell we attempted?" Celestia asked.

Serith paused briefly as he considered what she might be talking about. "... Ah. The excess power rolling through the Warp is no hindrance to me. Humanity's psykers have always struggled against the instability of the Warp and its desire to devour our minds. The current conditions are no particular challenge to us."

"Also convenient," Applejack said as she slipped on her Element and then replaced the hat on her head.

Pinkie Pie's Dreadnought was empty and parked in the corner of the room while she attached the Element of Laughter around her neck. "So how long will it take until it's nappy-time for the bad guys?"

"Impossible to say. I have never attempted this enchantment." The Sorcerer sounded tired, as if he was only answering their questions and attempting to save all their lives to humor them. "But it will not be quick."

"You do realize that the Elements were never intended to be used this way, right?" Celestia asked as she walked up to Serith and stared directly into his visor. "They are a bulwark against evil; a shining light in the darkness. Not a mere magic battery."

"I'm sure that given enough time, I could think of a more irrelevant objection to our current strategy," Gaela drawled, "but that's time we don't have. The auger sensors over Canterlot haven't been scrapped yet, and they're detecting two groups gathering around the castle. The rest are breaking off, mostly to help attack Lord Tellis."

Rainbow Dash flinched. "Well, then let's hurry up and do this!"

"Indeed," Serith mumbled, gesturing to the space behind him, "come here and tap into the power of your artifacts. It is time to begin."

The Elements of Harmony lined up shoulder-to-shoulder behind the Chaos Sorcerer, and each one calmly reached inside them for the power the linked them to their respective Elements. Motes of light floated off their fur as the Elements began to glow, and sense of calm and inner warmth suffused them.

That pleasant sensation was completely ruined the moment Serith began chanting.

The Elements winced as the light suffusing their bodies shifted from a warm yellow to a sickly green, and cracks started to appear in the flooring around and under Serith. Those cracks deepened and spread, curving into a circle and eventually completing a rough, jagged Chaos Star in the stonework in the center of the Hall of Elements.

Serith held a hand out, palm open, as his other hand held the book, and a constant stream of bizarre whispers left his vox grille. None of the words meant anything to anyone else in the room, yet there wasn't a pony within earshot that didn't feel their stomach turn at the sound.

"I can't believe things have actually come to this," Celestia groaned while green light pulsed from the Chaos Star.

"And yet, things could easily get much worse before they get better," Dest pointed out, "besides the front entrance, what other access points are there into this place?"

Celestia frowned. "There's a rear entrance, but it's barricaded. There WERE two side entrances on either side of the castle as well, but when the Orks tried to blast their way in those gates they tore down the walls and ended up burying them instead."

"Your fortifications were so weak that they foiled the Orks' assaults?" Gaela asked. "That is SO close to being impressive."

Celestia scowled at her. "Well, that won't work for the main hall. The doors to this room WERE enchanted, but it seems it was dispelled along with every other magical effect in the castle when I stopped the miscast ritual. And if the Orks are at all careful, then they can break through the rear barricade as well."

"Then we'll collapse the rear access before they can get through. Do we have any explosives?" Gaela asked.

"Trixie can handle that!" Trixie volunteered.

Gaela looked doubtful for a moment, but then shrugged. "Fine. Take a few of the imbeciles in white with you. The rest of us will protect the throne room."

"Good idea!" Trixie turned toward the remaining Sunsworn, of which there were only nine in any sort of shape to fight. And even of those, two were clearly already wounded and only on their feet thanks to the stimulants and brief medical attention Fluttershy had offered them.

"Okay, Trixie will take you, you..." she pointed out two men nearby, and then paused. "And you, in the back. The big, hunched-over fellow with the mask on."

She pointed to another Sunsworn, and the others turned to look at him. He was indeed much broader at the shoulders than the others, and his head seemed to sit lower than it should. No-one could see his head either, as it was covered by both his hood and a paper mask with a smiley face drawn over it in black marker.

"Proceed quickly. The xenos are already working to breach that entrance," Gaela snapped.

"Right! Follow Trixie, expendable minions!" the unicorn shouted as she rushed out of the room.

"Please don't call us expendable," mumbled one of the cultists.

"It doesn't matter!" said another. "We must succeed! For the Goddess!"

"A'roight! Le's blow sumfin' up! Fer da sun hoss!" bellowed the larger cultist as he stormed out after the others.

"Huh. Weird accent on that guy," Daniels mumbled.

Dest took one of the plasma guns from the remaining cultists, and then beckoned out the front exit. "Come. We must delay the greenskins as long as possible."

"Can't we help too?" asked Rainbow Dash. "Do we seriously just have to stand here feeding Serith's thing while everyone else is fighting?"

"If any of you perish, then we all do," Serith said blandly, interrupting his mumbled chanting, "you will remain here."

As the other fighters walked into the next room, Gaela paused and glanced back at the Elements of Harmony. "You can link up your visors to our power armor readouts if you wish. It will give you some idea of how the combat is faring."

Twilight and Pinkie couldn't put their helmets on, but the others quickly started making adjustments to their visor settings to do just that.

"Oh, thank Celestia," Rainbow Dash sighed, "Tellis is still alive."

"Your sovereign has very little to do with that," grumbled the Dark Techpriest as she stepped toward the exit.

"Be that as it may," Celestia interrupted, causing Gaela to pause, "thank you, Techpriest. I know it may mean nothing to you, and that you may hold me in the greatest contempt. I know that you would have let me and my people die without batting an eyelid if you didn't have another reason to be here..." she took a deep breath. "But you are here, and you may well suffer greatly to save my little ponies. Thank you."

Gaela was silent for a few seconds longer, still facing toward the doorway. "... You're welcome," she grunted. Then she left, closing the door behind her.

"Consarn it, this's depressin'," Applejack grumbled.

Princess Celestia turned toward the Elements of Harmony, nodding sadly. "I know we are in dire straits. But to falter now would be to render every death up until this point a vain, useless gesture."

"Ah meant bein' tied up to Serith like this," the farmer clarified, "feels like there's spiders crawlin' around mah brain or somethin'."

"I'm sure you can endure," Serith drawled. Glyphs of red and green light flickered into view around the Sorcerer before vanishing just as quickly and inexplicably.

Twilight flinched as an explosion came from somewhere else in the castle, wishing she could have her own visor up. Why did the Element of Magic have to be a tiara while the others were necklaces? Was it really so hard to imagine that an Element bearer might want to wear some other kind of headgear at the same time?

A series of gasps, coming from all of her friends except Pinkie Pie, only emphasized her conundrum.

"No! NO!!" Rainbow Dash shouted as her Element grew brighter. "Tellis!"

In the corner of her visor, at the bottom of a set of three small graphs that showed the heart rates of Gaela, Dest, and Tellis, the latter pulse began to fluctuate wildly as red indicators blinked over it.

"Tellis? What's happening?" Fluttershy asked, connecting her vox to the Chaos Lord. "Please, come back! We need-"

Then the vox line went dead and the pulse graph went flat.

****

Canterlot City, five minutes previous

"Blood for the BLOOD OW!" Tellis grunted in pain as a large choppa bit into his arm, staggering him as he drew his claws out of a different Nob.

The saw-toothed axe shrieked as it sawed through the outer armor and started tearing into the flesh beneath, but Tellis threw that arm up and knocked the weapon away before lashing out again. His lightning claws slashed across his attacker's face, and the Nob spun about before Tellis plunged his other claws through the back of it's head.

Tellis kicked behind him a split-second later, staggering yet another assailant. Then his flight pack ignited, launching him upward and scorching the Orks that had been trying to surround him.

"This would be so much better if I remembered how to work the dirge player," the Chaos Lord admitted as his pack cut out above another mob of Orks. Bullets crisscrossed the sky in a web of hot metal, and sparks crack off of Tellis's armor as he descended on a fresh unit.

He landed knee-first on a boy's head, and then rammed his shoulder into another. With momentum on his side, the Iron Warrior's claws started ripping through the Orks in long, crackling arcs, slicing through armor, weapons, and flesh alike as he charged through the crowd.

For Tellis, this was his moment of bliss, his meditation, and the only time when his mind truly felt at peace. Blood positively coated his armor, and the daemonic spirit within crowed in delight as it drank from the accumulated gore. Power surged through its circuits, fusing the breaches and filling the cracks in the ablative layers. Electricity ran through the fiber-bundle layers, sending surges of warmth up the Iron Warrior's arm.

Two, three, four strokes of his claws. Four more Orks sent flailing to the ground as blood splashed in wild, fantastic arcs. And where those four fell, eight more ran up to replace them, raining their crude pistols and blades upon his daemon armor.

Tellis jumped again, and a stream of almost solid lead cut under him and nearly hit the Orks he had just left. Lootas. Tellis laughed as he fell upon his new victims, his claws stabbing and slashing at the xeno warriors. This was the BEST.

And yet...

There was something curiously monotonous about the fight. Not that it was boring in any way; his hearts were pounding away like jackhammers, and the constant fall of choppas all around him sent jolts of pain rushing up his spine like lightning shocks. But somehow, he knew it could have been more satisfying. It's like there was something missing. An empty space next to him waiting to be filled.

"Man, I wish the girls were here to see me murdering guys," Tellis said, heaving a sigh before he wrapped his arm around a Mek's head. He twisted his shoulders sharply, snapping the Ork's neck.

Yes, it seemed obvious now. Having had the company of friends for the past several weeks now left him feeling discouraged without them. Maybe he should have tried to bring them along?

Tellis shook his head as he kicked off of a Loota's face and then landed claws-first into a Nob. That wouldn't do. Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy would be overwhelmed too easily. They'd die. It felt strange to think of this as a regrettable outcome considering Blood For The Blood God, but it was.

Tellis rammed an Ork boy into a wall and then spun around with one arm outstretched, shredding the warriors surrounding him on the other side. He released a tremendous, ear-rending screech as he fought, and those nearby Orks not busy trying to collect their guts off the floor cringed away from him.

And then the wall behind him exploded.

Tellis was thrown to the ground amongst the Orks, but he leapt to his feet in short order and whirled around, hammering his lightning claws into the new opponent's stomach.

It was a good maneuver, but it probably would have done him some good to check on what the target was, first. That way he might not have ended up with his claws stuck in a Mega Dread.

"D'oh!"

The enormous Ork walker grabbed the Chaos Lord with its combat claw, and with a short puff of steam blasting from the actuator, it snipped Tellis in half.

"GAUGH!! My legs! I NEEDED those, you green bastard!" Tellis collapsed face-down as blood poured out onto the ground below him, mixing freely with the Orkish gore that he had been so enthusiastic in spreading. His lungs started weakening, and the alerts flashing over his visor started to fade from his view.

This was okay. Good, even. Khorne cared not from where the blood flowed.

"Tellis? What's happening?" asked Fluttershy desperately over the vox.

But maybe Tellis himself cared. Just a little bit.

"Please, come back! We need-"

The Mega Dread stepped on Tellis's upper torso, crushing what remained of his body and silencing his vox.

The Mad Angel was no more.

****

Canterlot Castle - servant quarters

"Okay! This should do it! Right? Probably!" Trixie looked around at the empty bunk beds that normally belonged to the castle's staff of maids, cooks, and cleaners. They were empty now, of course, and many of the bed frames had been piled up against the back door to form a secondary barricade.

A Sunsworn walked up to a massive stone column in the center of the room, staring up at the ceiling. "Yeah, this is load-bearing, all right. How are we going to knock it down?"

"Trixie is sure there's a bomb in here, somewhere," Trixie said as she levitated her hat onto the floor.

A loud banging noise came from the hall beyond the barricade, along with the sound of a buzzsaw ripping through masonry.

"Looks like the Dark Techpriest made the right call," said a Sunsworn hefting a plasma gun, "let's blow the place and help hold the front entrance!"

Trixie's horn lit up as she activated the portal in her hat, and the fabric started shifting and distending as she searched the armory beyond.

As the unicorn was busy working, the burly Sunsworn glanced about at the others, and then stepped up to the man with a plasma gun. "Oi. Lemme haff da glowy dakka."

The Sunsworn raised an eyebrow as he stared at the fellow cultist. "The what?"

"Yer... uh... plaz-mah gunn. Gimme."

"Oh, sure thing... uh..." he made to hand over the weapon, only to pull it back as he trailed off. "Wait, what's your name again?"

"Grumgaff," the cultist said immediately. The other Sunsworn recoiled in shock. "No, wayt! It'z Steve! Oh, zog it!"

"That's an Ork name!" the Sunsworn shouted, startling the others. "You're an Ork! INFILTRATOR!!"

The Kommando moved just as the cultist turned his plasma gun on the cunning double agent, knocking the weapon to the side where it discharged and blasted a hole in the inner wall. The Sunsworn was thrown back, and managed to regain his footing just in time for the Kommando to drive a stabby choppa into his chest.

"What in the world?!" Trixie gasped, still in the midst of magically digging around in "her" armory.

"Get down!" the other Sunsworn shouted, firing a burst with his lasgun as the Ork grabbed up his victim's plasma gun. Spears of hot light cut into the Kommando's back, but the infiltrator shrugged off the damage before he turned on the remaining human.

"Hurry and finish the spell!" the Sunsworn growled, continuing to pour lasers into the foe. Soon there were plasma bolts flying back as the Ork returned fire. True to form, the plasma shots were largely inaccurate even at a few meters, but with the considerable difference in strength between laser and plasma guns it would only take one lucky hit to finish the human.

Trixie screwed her eyes shut in concentration, and then her hat stretched wide open before it finally dropped a large metal object onto the floor. It was an egg-shaped bomb, roughly the size of Trixie herself with a control box on one end.

"HWAURG!!" Trixie flinched when her remaining bodyguard fell to the floor, much of his body disintegrated.

"Nuffin' can stop da WAAAGH!" the Kommando roared as he turned the plasma gun on the pony.

Trixie exploded into a puff of smoke, and the Ork recoiled before he started looking around the room for his target.

He spotted the unicorn emerging from behind a bunk and making a run for the exit, and he fired a plasma blast to intercept her. "No ya don'!"

Trixie halted in surprise as the shot went wide, burning a blackened furrow into the floor. A second shot sailed over her head while she was still standing in place, and a third shot hit the floor in front of her, sending a plume of vaporized flagstones curling around her helmet.

"You know, you're kind of rendering Trixie's hololith redundant, here," Trixie complained as another plasma bolt flew into a wall.

The Ork heard a sizzling noise behind him, and he whirled around just as a combat knife, magically accelerated and wreathed in flame, plunged into his arm. Trixie stood behind one of the servant bunks, her horn aglow as more weapons scavenged from the fallen Sunsworn floated around her.

The Kommando snarled, brushing aside the pain from his new wound; one of many severe burns, at this point. He could hear his brothers at the barricade now, hammering against the door and ripping it apart with mechanical saws. "Yoo looz, hoss," he growled, turning his plasma gun on the unicorn with his good hand.

His glowing, sparking plasma gun that was spewing smoke out of its flex-sheathing.

The weapon flashed as he pulled the trigger again, and the Kommando howled as the plasma gun was consumed in a white fireball, taking his hand with it. The Ork stumbled backward onto his rear, both of his arms now smoldering and useless.

Trixie dropped the levitation around her weapons, and then telekinetically hurled the bomb across the room and into the Kommando's chest. The banging at the barricade was getting louder, now, and she could hear eager Orkish chatter coming from behind it.

"Well, Trixie supposes she doesn't have to worry about you disarming the bomb," she said while she set the timer to a mere thirty seconds, "seeing how you've been 'disarmed' yourself!"

The Kommando groaned as the timer beeped. "Dat pun wuz worss den da burnz."

"Shut up! Trixie saves her 'A' material for shows, not missions!" the entertainer barked before she turned and galloped out of the room. "Have fun exploding, loser! Trixie WINS!"

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

Gaela paused in her fusillade as an explosion came from deep within the castle, followed by a heavy rumbling that rolled through the rest of the palace structure.

"The rear hall has collapsed," the Dark Techpriest said, spearing a Shoota Boy through the head with her servo laser, "this room is now the principle point of access to the ritual."

"Splendid," grumbled Dest as his plasma gun sizzled in his hands. Flares of bright green cooked entire Orks at once where they touched xeno flesh, although the possessed driver was careful to moderate his bursts.

The volleys of plasma bolts were joined by the crack of lasers, the rattle of a heavy bolter, the whine of Gaela's ion blaster, and the understated hum of Daniels' rail rifle as they methodically cut down the Orks pushing into the room. Their opponents were mainly Shoota Boyz, and the xeno warriors sprinted through the flames and debris in an endless trickle of reinforcements, racing for whatever scant protection they could find against the defenders' more powerful arsenal.

Yo, can we get some close-combat action going any time soon? I prefer my Orks rare, not well done. Vel asked.

A counter-charge at this point would be counter-productive, if not suicidal. Be silent, Dest retorted.

Is this one of those "tactics" things you mortals are always going on about? Booooring.

A crash boomed through the hall as a huge armored form shouldered its way through the doorway. Claws snapped open and shut and saws shrieked as they ripped through stone and shoved aside twisted metal, and the Orks trying to push their assault forward cheered at the sight of more armored support arriving to help them.

Ah. Okay. I see where you're coming from, now. I don't want none of that.

"Deff Dread!" Daniels snapped, ducking back behind a column. "And Lootas behind it! What've we got for anti-armor?"

Gaela's body shuddered as a big shoota's barrage cut across her armor, stitching a line of ricochets over her chest plate. "I have a melta bomb," she noted before blasting one of the Lootas rushing into the room.

"And who's going to place it?!" the mercenary shouted.

"I will," Dest said.

Oh, and NOW you want to be a badass?! When we're facing down a Bloodthirster's weight in heavy metal? I will NEVER understand you crazy semi-mortals.

"Aim for the leg assembly, Daniels!" Dest shouted, adjusting his plasma gun's aim.

The glittering green blobs and the bursts of shrieking, armor-piercing slugs converged on the clanking joints at the walker's hip. Great washes of sparks and shrouds of vaporized metal blasted from the leg's connecting axle, and every step the Deff Dread took to bring its claws to melee range started eliciting a horrendous screech from the damaged limb.

"Almost got it," Daniels breathed as he reloaded his rifle and then leaned back out of cover.

The report of a deffgun firing rose above the rest of the noise of combat, and a veritable beam of bullets sprayed across the line of defenders. Daniels and one Sunsworn who happened to be standing a little too high at the moment were reduced to bloody shreds as the storm of ammunition ripped through them, and the rail rifle tumbled onto the floor, blood and bits of cracked carapace armor spilled over it.

Dest growled as his own weapon started burning the palms of his gauntlets, and its flex sheathing started to spark dangerously. "Techpriest!"

"Here!" Gaela shouted as she tossed her melta bomb to the Iron Warrior.

"Just like old times," Dest rumbled as the Deff Dread reached lunging range.

Dest leapt forward and dropped into a roll, bouncing between the Deff Dread's legs as a pincer snapped shut above him.

He surged to his feet the moment he was behind the walker, and then immediately ducked again as the war machine swung around, trying to swat him away.

"Pathetic," Dest snapped as he circled around the walker and jumped at its back, "no Astartes Dreadnought would suffer such a humiliation!"

The Deff Dread swung left and right, trying to dislodge the Chaos Space Marine, but the rear of the walker was covered in piping and cables, supplying plenty of hand holds.

Gripping his target with one arm, Dest placed the melta bomb right on the rear of the engine, twisting the handle and arming the weapon. Then he kicked off the Ork vehicle, landing some two meters away in a crouch.

The Deff Dread flailed about for a moment and then exploded, its entire hull vomiting a massive fireball up into the ceiling.

Unfortunately, while Dest was outside the strict radius of the explosion, one of the walker's arms was flung straight into him, smashing the driver onto the floor. His armor shrieked as he was pushed along the ground, and eventually he came to a stop after rolling into a broken-down cabinet.

Dude! Get up! Get up now! Vel shouted frantically, as if the Iron Warrior might have been planning to lay there and play dead.

Dest pushed himself up, but was immediately swallowed in flame as a pair of Burna Boyz unleashed their weapons on him; clearly the Orks had been further reinforced while he was busy dispatching their armored support.

He pushed on through the pain and fire, driving his claws into the nearest Ork while howling in rage. His vox grille distended into a fanged maw, and Warpflame danced around his body to mix with the burning promethium fuel that had drenched his armor.

He drove further ahead, his senses dulled and his visor breaking down. His fingers, grown into scythe-like blades, ripped through Orkish flesh and bone as he advanced, swinging furiously in a manner far more befitting a Berserker than a pilot.

After four more xenos died underneath his claws, however, his talons shrieked against a metal shell that they could not pierce.

No, wait! Do-over! C'mon!

A fantastic impact struck Dest in the abdomen, and his armor and bones alike buckled as he was thrown hard into a wall. The masonry shattered against his back, and green flames danced in his vision as his life spilled onto the floor below him.

Dude! Duuuuuuuude!

His visor was still flickering and returning false images, but Dest was fairly certain he glimpsed a suit of mega armor standing over him before a power klaw closed over his head.

****

Rarity gasped as another of the pulse bars went flat. A moment later, it disappeared.

"Huh? Did something happen?" Pinkie asked, smiling nervously. "... Are they okay? Girls?"

"No, no, no, no..." Applejack squeezed her eyes shut as she chanted the refrain over and over. Daniels didn't have power armor to provide them with his vital signs, but the sinking feeling in her gut told her everything she needed to know.

"Hurry up and cast the bucking spell!" Rainbow Dash snarled as tears pooled within her helmet. Serith didn't reply, and simply continued his chanting.

"Is it Gaela?" Twilight asked desperately, trying to hold back a hitch in her voice. "Is... Is she...?"

Rarity sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Well. Sh-She... isn't quite-"

A beep from her visor marked the last bar going flat.

Rainbow Dash released a wordless wail of anguish, pounding her greaves into the floor. Applejack slumped to the ground with a sob.

And through it all, the Elements of Harmony glowed ever brighter.

****

Gaela's back slammed into Celestia's throne, smashing the seat apart as blood arced up through the air.

Her right arm came apart completely after she landed, spinning away in pieces. Her power axe bounced down the steps, far out of reach. Not that she could have held it at this point.

Her sockets crackled dangerously, and fluids leaked from her shattered optical. There was a lot of other leaking going on from what was left of the rest of her body, but that didn't seem like something to reflect on in her final moments.

Something seized her head, and Gaela was pulled up to stare at an Ork Nob. Probably. Her vision was going dark very rapidly.

"Da... rk... G-Go-"

Her head was twisted off, and the curse died on her tongue.

"Oi, dis iz a noice wun," the Nob mused as he looked over the Techpriest's severed head. With a happy grunt, the massive Ork reached over his shoulder and jammed it onto one of the spikes jutting out over his armor.

"Gud lootin' heah!" another Ork cackled as he picked up the blood-spattered rail rifle on the ground. There was something written on the side, but the message was mostly obscured by the remains of its previous owner.

"Oi! Step up, ya gits!" barked another Nob as he hoisted a maul. "Gaffta's boyz sez da bakk way iz brohk. Dere'z still sum mo squishies in heah!"

"Den let'z git da ress of 'em," chuckled the Nob in mega armor.

****

Rainbow Dash wasn't feeling completely clear-headed at the moment, but when she heard the sound of hefty footsteps coming down the hall her senses snapped into focus and she jolted upright.

"They're coming!" the pegasus snarled as her targeting auspex came alive. "I'm going to kill those green freaks!"

"Ah reckon ya got a point, Dash," Applejack said through clenched teeth, pushing herself up, "there ain't nothin' 'tween us and the greens, now. No point in sittin' here."

Celestia looked alarmed as the other ponies nodded in silent agreement. She couldn't see the expressions of most of them, but Twilight and Pinkie both seemed to be shifting from expressions of stunned sorrow to incandescent rage. Even Fluttershy was standing up and priming her grenade launcher.

Sucking in a deep breath and bracing herself, Celestia fed power into her horn. A cascade of pain wracked her mind, but she managed to fend off a threatening surge of magical power before a barrier of golden light formed around her and the Elements of Harmony.

"Wh-What? Hey!"

"Princess?"

Celestia shook her head as her horn sparked. "We must complete the spell, or all is lost! I will hold them off as long-"

The door to the Hall of Elements was smashed out of the doorway as a Nob punched his way into the room. It seemed they were out of time to prepare.

Serith groaned. "This is it, then," the Sorcerer groused.

"How much longer until the spell is complete?" Celestia asked, clenching her teeth while Orks poured into the room and started spraying bullets into the barrier.

Serith shook his head and let his arms fall to his sides. "There is no time. We have failed," he hissed, "... again."

"Then let us OUT!" Rainbow shouted as ammunition rained against the barrier.

"Princess, please," Fluttershy said, her voice surprisingly firm in the face of being overrun and murdered. "We have no choice. We have to fight."

As the others tensely debated their immediate fate, Twilight's mind was elsewhere. Specifically, her attention was on the lead Nob, fixed on a single grisly trophy mounted on his shoulder. Gaela's head. Taken as a trophy.

Because that's all that people were to the Orks. Just targets to offer brief amusement with their deaths. Trophies to be gathered and shown off. There was no significance to anything their enemies did, no ultimate goal of all the Orks' warfare, because warfare WAS the objective. Gaela and everyone else in Canterlot had absolutely no importance to them beyond something else for them to bash for fun.

She hadn't really explored the concept too deeply before, but now, when faced with her decapitated friend's skull mashed onto a spike, she found it absolutely INFURIATING.

Deep within Twilight's heart, something dark was suddenly borne of the connection between creatures that she called friendship. Twilight knew hatred. Pure, burning, white-hot hatred of the sort that consumed souls and drove worlds to extinction. And she embraced it.

A loud CRACK came from the Element of Magic when a fracture appeared over the face of the gemstone. Despite the noise of Ork guns and guttural laughter, Serith and the other ponies heard the sound quite easily. As they did the whispered growl that came after it.

"Die..."

"Twilight?" Pinkie Pie asked, stepping away.

"Die."

"What are you doing?" Serith asked, the first inklings of true confusion and fear leaking into his voice.

Twilight's eyes blazed a solid white, and purple lightning exploded from her horn as she suddenly floated above the floor with no aid from her flight pack.

"All of you! JUST!! DIE!!"

What happened after that would later be disputed by the other ponies in the room. In part because the events happened more or less simultaneously, and also because the raw psychic energy spilling over from their dear friend caused a few spontaneous hallucinations and brief blackouts.

First, Celestia's barrier popped like a soap bubble. Not because it was pierced, but because Twilight had just sucked its constituent magic energy up in an instant. Every bullet flying at the ponies and Iron Warrior turned to water and was blasted away, and the Orks' guns turned molten in their hands.

The lead Ork, the Nob that had so earned Twilight's personal ire, was ripped straight in half, mega armor and all, from crown to pelvis. Two more Orks behind the first simply combusted. Another was compressed into a space roughly the size of a golf ball. The last had his heart turned into stone while the rest of his body remained flesh and blood.

In the space of two eye blinks, all the Orks in the room were dead.

"T-Twilight?" Celestia asked, her voice trembling. "Twilight! What's going on?!"

Twilight didn't hear her. She didn't see her mentor either, as she looked around the room. Everywhere she looked she saw streams of energy: souls, radiation, stray thoughts, daemonic observers. She saw Serith's spell writ large across the floor, saw its intricacies and inefficiencies, and saw the holes in it.

Great arcane circles spun around the tip of her horn as she straightened the patterns and filled the holes.

The Elements of Harmony fed power into Twilight like a river, and she sucked up every spark. Two random daemonic spirits that just happened to be nearby - immortal souls older than time itself - were suddenly obliterated completely as their energies were unwound and dragged into the pool. Twilight gathered thrice the amount of power needed for Serith's machinations, and then she pushed it all into the enchantment. She dipped her mind fully into the crude psychic social consciousness of the Orks, and then she unleashed the Sorcerer's evil upon them.

And then, with a feeling of the deepest, most sickly satisfaction, she felt them die.

****

Canterlot City - city shelter access

"The shelter! Get in the freaking shelter!" Breezy Blight shouted before vomiting another stream of gases in a wave in front of her. Green fumes mixed with green flesh as bullets rained against the vault door, briefly obscuring the combat beyond.

After a moment, Rot Blossom came limping out of the combat, her head wobbling back and forth dizzily. Blood oozed along a trail behind her, and her bolter had evidently been ripped off at some point. Which didn't matter so much since they had long since run out of ammunition anyway.

"C'mon! Hurry!" Breezy shouted.

Kiss lanced a Nob through with a spear of luminescent green magic, and then turned around into a gallop.

She didn't make it very far before another Ork lunged at her, smashing his choppa into her leg and tripping up the unicorn.

Kiss quickly levitated a pair of discarded choppas up off the ground to defend herself, but the moment she turned her head toward her assailant he struck his axe blade against her visor.

"Bloody thug!" Poison Kiss yelled as her lens cracked and her targeters vanished. Even so, several choppa blades descended on the Ork at once, digging into his thick, waxy hide. Kiss ran as soon as the alien staggered, her armor servos squealing against the extensive damage it had suffered so far.

A Nob in mega armor went sailing through the air across her path, and the unicorn barely ducked in time to avoid getting clipped by its flailing limbs. The hefty Ork hit the ground and bounced away, eventually slamming into a Deff Dread wreck.

"Hey! You two coming?" Kiss shouted over to the final two defenders as she retreated.

Big Mac snorted angrily as bullets shook his armor, and he turned to slam his weight into another Nob. The Ork gave way from the impact, and Mac shifted enough so that he could get in a back kick.

His augmetic leg struck the Ork like a cannon shell, and yet another alien warrior went sailing over the plaza.

"Macintosh!"

Luna's voice briefly shook Big Mac out of his enraged trance, though it was difficult to hear the Princess over all the gunfire and Ork battle cries.

"Proceed to the shelter with all haste!" Luna demanded. Her Iron Gage swung forward again and again as the Orks swarmed toward her, sweeping them aside ALMOST as fast as they were replaced. Her horn flashed constantly with bolts of red, searing away more of the green horde and keeping them from surrounding the Princess.

Big Mac was momentarily distracted by her call to fall back, and was brutally returned to reality as a deffgun ripped into his side. Bits of ceramite and shards of living metal scattered onto the ground, and he was completely bowled over before another two mega-armored Nobs rushed at him.

One of the Orks reared its power klaw back, only to be smacked aside by a crackling black gauntlet.

"Macintosh! Stand! Please!" Luna gasped as she shot the other Nob with a blast of crimson magic. It staggered, but its own armor proved too strong for the attack. Lesser Orks were swarming over her completely now, grabbing onto her flight pack to hold her down and seeking chinks in her armor for their blades.

A different Nob charged up to the Princess of the Night, pushing through his underlings as her weapons and attention were elsewhere. He clamped his power klaw around Luna's neck plating, and the hydraulic piston hissed as the pincer blades dug into the ebony sheets of adamantium.

Then Luna flinched. Not because there was an alien warrior trying to pinch her head off, but because she felt a surge of horrible magic wash over her. The hateful wave of energy sent a chill down her spine, and she could feel the daemon within her armor similarly unsettled.

And then the Orks died.

They fell in droves. Not like puppets with their strings cut, but rather as if each individual Ork had suddenly lost its will to live and simply stopped. Most of them staggered about for several steps before keeling over, and a few that had been caught mid-charge actually continued running even while their weapons slipped out of their hands. A mega-armored Nob stomped over Big Macintosh as its eyes went blank, and then it kept going until it tripped over the stallion and fell over him. The Nob attacking Luna slumped forward and leaned against her breast plate as he died, his klaw still wrapped tight around her neck.

After a few seconds, the last echoes of blazing gunfire had faded, and the plaza was still.

"... Huh. Area secured," Poison Kiss remarked, "bully!"

"... Eeyup."

****

Canterlot Castle

Trixie shuddered while she trotted back to the Hall of Elements, still feeling the cloying energies of the sorcerous ritual clinging to her horn. The sensation was intensely uncomfortable, but undeniably preferable to getting hit with bullets.

This comparison was increasingly relevant as she approached the central hall, stepping around the many green corpses scattered around the floors.

Trixie ducked under a silent Killa Kan and then hopped over the fallen halves of a mega-armored Nob that was behind the doorway to the Hall of Elements.

"Well, I guess we won!" Trixie said brightly as she entered the room. "... Uh... we DID win, didn't we?"

Her confusion was understandable. The other power-armored ponies had their helmets off and were in varying states of extreme distress. Pinkie Pie was curled up into a ball, her hair having spontaneously turned straight and limp. Fluttershy was hugging Rainbow Dash as the latter mumbled miserably to herself. Rarity was sniffling as she re-did her makeup. Applejack had her hat tilted down over her face. Twilight was outright sobbing as Celestia draped a wing over her back.

Only Serith didn't seem to be completely miserable. He stood stock-still in the middle of the room, on top of the flickering Chaos Star on the floor with his arms at his sides. He stared forward at nothing, apparently oblivious to the turmoil around him.

Applejack glanced up at Trixie, blinking away tears. "Yeah. We won. They're dead." Then she scowled. "At least 'til the NEXT tin boat full o'green filth shows up lookin' fer a good time. But fer now? Sure. We beat 'em."

Trixie glanced about the room, and she cringed when she noticed a particular head mounted on an Ork's trophy spike. She could guess what everypony was so sad about now.

"Well, Trixie hates to be the bearer of more bad news, but the Sunsworn that helped Trixie didn't make it. Kind of a funny story. Did you know that Orks are masters of disguise?"

Rainbow Dash let out a wordless growl, and Fluttershy jumped away before the blue pegasus bucked out at a decorative statue and smashed off its leg.

"... But Trixie will save that anecdote for later," the blue unicorn mumbled, walking gingerly up to Serith, "so, are we moving out now? Trixie's pretty sure the city is clear. Hay, Trixie wouldn't be surprised if you brain-blasted every Ork on the continent."

She stared up at Serith, who continued staring forward.

Trixie took a moment to remove her helmet, and then frowned up at the Sorcerer. "Hey. Hey, Serith? You awake?"

The others turned toward the Iron Warrior in confusion, and Twilight took a shaky breath as she looked over the Chaos psyker. She hadn't really been focusing on the Sorcerer since completing his spell and recovering from channeling enough magic power to turn an army to dust, but now that she thought about it, Serith hadn't said a thing since she had done so. Was he stunned speechless? Or had she somehow accidentally knocked him out?

"Serith! Yoo hoo! Don't ignore Trixie!" the blue unicorn groused, banging one armored hoof against Serith's leg plating.

The leg buckled instantly, and Serith teetered over onto the floor. Trixie leapt back in surprise as the Astartes armor crashed against the ground and came apart, as if it were an empty suit of plate mail.

Which it was, apparently. The arms and legs of the armor suit bounced away from the torso piece, splitting apart into their component segments. Serith's helmet rolled across the ground before the gaping equines, offering them a glance as its obviously hollow interior. Eventually it bumped into Twilight's hoof and stopped.

"... What?" Trixie asked, trembling in her suit as she stared at the empty pieces of armor. "What... what just..."

The other ponies didn't know what to say, and were just as shocked as Trixie was. None of them had the slightest idea of what had happened to the Chaos Sorcerer.

"Well, then. That's it," Applejack slumped back onto the ground, her armor cracking the flagstones with its weight. "Serith's gone. Ah dunno how, but he's gone. It's over."

Trixie started backing up slowly, shaking her head and looking increasingly horrified. "But... he couldn't... he didn't..." She stumbled and fell onto her rear before tears started welling up in her eyes.

"Solon said he needed Serith to stop the Orks," Rainbow Dash said with a bitter snort, "so, what now? He's dead. They're all dead. Orks win."

Princess Celestia pursed her lips anxiously as she watched her ponies fall deeper into depression. She had been as shocked as everypony else to see Serith collapse like one of the decorative armor suits in the hall, but she was also far more pleased at the immediate survival of her capital city and its citizens.

"We must not lose hope," the white alicorn declared, "even as the humans fall, we will not let their deaths be in vain. There IS a way to overcome this threat. If the Warsmith has a plan, then let us hear it; we may be able to manage without the Sorcerer."

Applejack looked up at her, doubt clouding her eyes. "Ya really think so? Ah mean..." she trailed off as her voice cracked.

"I realize that we have been wracked by loss, ponies," Celestia said grimly, "Tellis. Daniels. Serith. Delgan. Dest. Farian and my Sunsworn. But they all fought and died to give us a chance to strike back, to overcome. We have done so here, in Canterlot. We can do so again. Harmony WILL prevail."

The other equines hardened their expressions and dried their tears, nodding silently to their sovereign's words of encouragement.

All except Twilight.

"Why?"

Celestia blinked, and glanced down at the smaller alicorn. "Why? Why will harmony prevail?"

Twilight's eyes were fixed on Serith's helmet, and she stared at her reflection in the gleaming crimson lenses. "No. Why was it them? Why is it the humans that die for us?"

Celestia glanced at the other Elements of Harmony, but they looked just as confused as she was.

"Why is it that Chaos fights and suffers?" Twilight demanded, staring up at her mentor with a rather unsettling expression of determination. "In every battle, no matter where it is or what's at stake, they're always there, dying! Why? Why did Gaela and the others come with us?! Why did THEY have to die defending Canterlot?"

Celestia took a step back uncertainly.

"Why have they lost some three or four thousand lives for us ponies? What did we do to deserve that?" Fresh tears crawled down her cheeks again as Twilight placed a boot on Serith's empty helmet. "I wanted to save Canterlot, but... why did it end like THIS? This isn't their planet! This isn't their war! Why do they keep dying?!"

Celestia took a calming breath as her student and fellow Princess stared up at her adamantly.

"They die because that is the path they chose, Twilight," Celestia said softly, "because they embarked on this twisted, bloody journey, even knowing that it would consume them." The white Princess gestured to the pieces of Serith scattered on the floor. "The sapien magic-users know full well that they risk a most horrible fate each time they use their powers. The cultists know that they've consigned themselves to being the pawns of the Dark Gods. Even the mercenaries, little more than fodder to their commanders, have selected this path knowing well where it was likely to lead. Yet still, they march eagerly to battle. This war is no accidental calamity thrust upon them, as it was to us. They came to this planet to kill, conquer, and plunder, and to perish for that cause if need be. They chose war. That is why they die."

The other Elements of Harmony were nodding sadly, but Twilight was unsatisfied.

"Then what about US?" she demanded. "What can we do? Is this all the use we are to them? Magic batteries for their dark rituals?"

"Not anymore, we're not," mumbled Rainbow Dash as she bumped aside Serith's left gauntlet.

Celestia shook her head. "We can make use of their sacrifice, Twilight. We can finish their struggle. We can ensure that their power, terrible and tainted as it is, serves a higher purpose." A sad smile crossed her muzzle. "It was you, Twilight, who first proposed such a thing. Back when my fear had overcome my judgment and I thought this was impossible."

Twilight Sparkle looked down again, her eyes darting over to the Chaos Star ripped into the floor. Green arcs of energy still crackled softly along the impression of the rune, and it still radiated an impressive amount of psychic power left over from the recent ritual.

"No," Twilight decided, "that's not good enough." Celestia wasn't the only one quite surprised to hear that rebuke.

"But... what are we supposed to do?" Fluttershy asked nervously. Honestly, Twilight was starting to scare her.

"Life and death are but biomechanical conditions, and the psyker can act as the switch between the two," Twilight quoted Serith's earlier assurance as her eyes narrowed, "all you need is power."

Celestia's eyes bulged. "What?! Twilight, no!"

"Chaos has the means. We have the price," the purple alicorn said as her horn started to glow, "once again."

"Twi, are you serious?" Rainbow Dash looked like she didn't know whether to be enthralled or horrified.

"Twilight, wait!" Celestia pleaded as her student's aura built higher and higher, sucking in the ambient mana in the room. "You have no idea how dangerous this is! Even if it were possible to bring them back, the Elements just aren't that powerful!" Bits of shattered masonry and scattered bullets casings started floating at random all around them, caught in the intense magical power swirling through the room.

"We'll see," Twilight hissed as her eyes again went solid white. The Element of Magic flashed brilliantly, spewing motes of magical light like a fountain. The Star of Chaos came alive with green fire, and Trixie could swear she heard deep, throaty laughter coming from somewhere nearby.

Fluttershy gulped. "Twilight... good luck."

"Sit tight, girls," the purple Princess said as the stone under her hooves started to ripple and deform just from its proximity, "I'm going to go get our friends back."

Author's Note

Oh, geez. Somebody got hot, steaming drama all over my wacky sci-fi adventure comedy! D:
Sorry guys, just give me a chapter to clean all this up.

The Way to Hell

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 13

The Way to Hell

****

???

Twilight Sparkle had to reflect for a moment that she'd really had no idea what she was getting into when she had embarked on this personal venture.

That in and of itself was actually quite expected. Twilight knew that the Warp - in its undiluted, raw, planar-dimensional state that housed Chaos - was very different from the ambient mana that unicorns used to work their magic. It was almost a living thing, reactive and malevolent, and it could, and often did, consume the minds of psykers less fortunate in their evolution than the unicorns.

As Twilight Sparkle submerged her mind and soul into the nightmare realm of the Empyrean, she finally understood the fear humanity had for this place.

It was not something that she could have properly described to other ponies. The best metaphor she could think of was that she was swimming through an ocean of churning emotions. Thoughts and feelings rushed around her, pushed her, touched her, and clawed at her mind. For some time she feared she might literally lose herself; that the foreign psychic emanations would invade her soul and meld with her own thoughts and feelings until Twilight Sparkle as her friends and loved ones knew her was mentally annihilated.

But the power was held at bay, washing around her spiritual body while a nigh impenetrable ward pushed it back.

The Element of Magic.

She could feel it. Within her, around her, and on top of her. Where Twilight Sparkle was a novice in the Immaterium, stumbling around blindly with ridiculous hopes of accomplishing the impossible, the Element was made for this. It shielded her soul as she searched the abyss of power, both from the psychic currents, and from predators.

There were a surprising amount of predators.

Twilight perceived - not saw, as her eyes didn't exactly work in this state - a great morass of condensed energy beneath her. She darted toward it, extending her magical senses, trying to draw some fragments from the pool. Memories and emotions brushed her mind, flickering into coherence before vanishing into shadows.

Twilight recoiled, bursting free of the morass. She felt images of casual brutality wrapped in feelings of warmth and contentment, of horrendous warfare and carnage combined with childlike glee.

Orks.

Her presence shifted away from the pool of souls, disgusted. She didn't particularly care what happened to the Orks after they were dead, so long as the brutes weren't harming or threatening her friends and allies. She left the spirit cluster alone.

"Chaos..." Twilight spoke into the miasma of power, trying to enforce her own will upon the tides churning around her. "Chaos claims their souls. Bring me... to CHAOS."

A falling sensation engulfed her, and Twilight Sparkle was swept away.

As Twilight tumbled through Warp space like a ping-pong ball caught in river rapids, she tried concentrating on her spiritual body. As she considered the energies that made up her soul, linked to the Element of Magic and the psychic realm she was traveling through, she began to give that soul definition. The cloud of psychic presence that was Twilight Sparkle distended and hardened, forming legs, wings, and a head. Sensory organs shifted into place and opened, giving her a view of the Empyrean that was still not really "sight", but was close enough for her purposes.

Monsters swam all about the sea of the Immaterium as she rushed through it. Daemonic presences of all sorts and levels of power surged through the Warp, clearly distinct from the shimmering echoes of the real world that represented mortals like her. Insofar as she was mortal, anyway. Thoughts for another time.

The daemons were strange, "solid" masses of hate, anger, and other emotions of discontent. They were intelligent, too, and the predatory spirits easily noticed the bright, shining pony soul darting between them. Yet each monster observed Twilight and reluctantly pulled away, like a hunter animal that decided its target was just a little too big and strong to be worth attacking.

The passage of time was naturally hazy within the Warp, and to Twilight it felt like she was spinning and tumbling for hours before her psychic presence slammed into something and came to a dead stop.

Motes of lights swirled within a vortex of void, like fireflies caught within an ink whirlpool. Souls. Perhaps her friends' souls, although it was impossible to tell from here.

But what had she run into? Twilight looked up at the unexpected barrier, trying to discern what it was.

Said barrier reached into the pony's mental presence at the same time she was observing it, dragging questions and ideas from her thoughts. It began to reshape itself in accordance to her expectations, and at the same time fed those mental images back to her.

Twilight floated back uncertainly when she found herself staring at the Star of Chaos wrought in green fire. It stood flat in front of her, like a runic shield, flickering softly.

What was this? Some sort of Warp gate? A cage door for the trapped spirits? That seemed about right. She supposed that fallen warriors given over to Chaos couldn't spend their afterlives free-floating around the Empyrean like they owned the place.

She reached out to touch the barrier, and tried to figure out a way she might cross it.

Twilight was quite surprised and disturbed when the barrier reached out to touch her back.

A pure soul, peering into the void...

No tribute to darkness, this one...

Devour it nonetheless. All belongs to Chaos, either in allegiance or as prey...

Twilight flinched back as multiple voices whispered to her, invading her mind and mixing with her own thoughts. She took a moment to calm and steel herself against panic; the more emotional she became here, the more susceptible she would become to enchantments and other forms of magical harm.

"What are you?" Twilight asked.

Many names... by so many victims...

Daemon... Guardian... God... Death... Chaos... Fear... Mortality...

I am your hope... and your enemy... and your end, little one...

Twilight floated silently before the Warp presence for a few moments.

"This is one of those things where your function and presence is actually quite straightforward, but you rattle off a bunch of cryptic-sounding nonsense to make it seem dramatically complex and unfathomable, isn't it? I read a lot of books, I can tell."

Oh, well, since we're all on the same page then, SCREW YOU.

Pain suddenly jolted through Twilight's senses, as if she suffered a dozen migraine headaches at once in the space of five seconds. As she writhed in agony, she idly wondered if her physical body back in the castle was screaming. She hoped not.

The torment ended as suddenly and inexplicably as it began, and Twilight's senses snapped back into focus.

"Okay! Did NOT like that!" the alicorn growled. "Was kind of hoping that the Element of Magic would fully protect me from psychic attack, but here we are!"

The Chaos Star flickered.

You. Will. Be. Consumed.

"You had your shot when I shoved aside fifteen years of teachings about magic and harmony to slaughter a bunch of aliens in the most expedient way possible," Twilight retorted, "now give me answers. I came here for my friends. Are they there?"

Answers?

You have all the answers...

What you're missing is the questions...

"You're doing it again," Twilight groused.

You know why you're here...

You know what lies beyond the veil...

The question is not what must you do...

Or where must you go...

But, what must you PAY?

Twilight grimaced. "I have the necessary magic power. I can provide the energy to recover and reanimate-"

You offer magic to a being drowning in it... the voices hissed.

Pain wracked Twilight again, although she was better prepared this time and braced herself. It was more like just five migraines now.

Insufficient...

The price must be more...

More finite...

More... PAINFUL...

"I didn't come here to argue," Twilight snarled, "I came here to get my friends back!"

She paused.

"Also, Serith."

Twilight's psychic presence expanded, drinking in the surrounding energy and throwing currents of magic into the surrounding Warp. Spells that would have been cast in seconds, one at a time, and taken considerable concentration all rolled out of her in an instant, cascading into place at the speed of thought. In the Immaterium Twilight's potential was unbound, and physics held little sway to restrain the arcane.

As such, it was especially frustrating for her to see the daemon/gate/Warp thing do the exact same procedure and generate its own array of magical formations, but much better and faster than she did.

Mana lashed between the two Warp presences, and Twilight felt the Element of Magic strain under the weight of the Chaos magic. Her own spells withered away in the currents of power surging around her, and Twilight was quickly forced to shift her entire effort to defense.

"All right! Minor miscalculation! You're not some random daemonic goon standing guard, here! Fine!" Twilight yelped while her barriers strained. Huge, crackling tendrils of literal daemonic fury wrapped around her bubble of resistance, and the mental surge of pain returned.

This time it didn't stop.

"AAAAUGH!!" Twilight's ethereal body squirmed and thrashed as the daemon tore at her mind, threatening to rend her consciousness apart.

Souls do not leave the clutches of the Dark Gods easily, Twilight Sparkle.

Cruel, cackling laughter echoed behind the whisper, and Twilight's psychic defenses slowly crumbled before the onslaught of psychic might.

A price will be paid. A soul for a soul. YOUR soul.

"N-No! Wait!" Twilight struggled against the pain, trying to see past the suffocating power that was tearing her apart, thought by thought. "I can't! You don't understand!"

I understand...

I do not care...

Your fate, your future...

The lives of the pawns of Chaos still clinging to their laughable mortal coil...

An insignificance before me...

"No! It's just..." Twilight fought down the agony long enough to order her thoughts properly. "We really need to revive Serith! But there's no way I'm going to die for HIM! Can you just release two souls in exchange for mine?!"

The pain stopped, and for a moment the entity ceased shredding apart Twilight's mind.

... Nah.

The pain returned, and Twilight screamed in agony and frustration.

Really, when you think about it...

I'm about to consume your spirit anyway...

So you should be pretty thankful I'm offering you anything in return...

Now...

Die...

Twilight knew she couldn't hold out much longer. Further resistance was impossible. Whatever wellspring of power she had tapped into to finish the Orks was either depleted or simply unavailable to her now. It was even possible, if not quite depressing, that she WAS tapping that source of magical fury and it simply wasn't enough to challenge a powerful Warp denizen on its own turf.

The Element of Magic pulsed around her.

She could escape. Her artifact, protecting her since she had entered this manifest nightmare, could spirit her away from here and return her to her body, safe and sound in Canterlot.

Safe and sound...

To face an alien army that couldn't be stopped, without the aid of Gaela and the others. Even Solon might abandon them, at that point. Why wouldn't he? After they had failed to get Serith or even Delgan, what use were they to him? The 38th Company might just evacuate the planet and risk diving into the Warp storms themselves, considering the alternative.

If she gave up now, there would be no future for Equestria. They would become just another notch in some Warlord's belt, and another collection of trophies to be shown off as the Orks marched on to their next atrocity.

"Please..." Twilight moaned against the pain. "Release-"

Laughter echoed through the Warp currents.

At first Twilight assumed it was from her current opponent, who very well may have found it amusing that she was begging for a final boon while having her soul devoured.

But the laughter wasn't like that. It was warm, and cheerful, and free of malice. The tendrils of magic surrounding her slackened, as if confused.

"Oh, wow, you're way bigger than our usual ghosties," chirped a new voice before a pink light flared into being at Twilight's side, "but rules are rules! You are in for SUCH a giggling!"

Twilight was perfectly perplexed to feel and hear Pinkie's spiritual presence burst into existence next to her, obviously boosted by the Element of Laughter. The Chaos guardian was merely annoyed. Several tendrils of magic unwrapped around Twilight and surrounded the new intruder.

Useless...

Begone...

The bargain will be completed...

"Yeah, no. We ain't here fer no bargain," said a new voice, strong and clear, before an orange light winked into being on Twilight's other side.

"You can think of this more as a jailbreak, really." A blue light swirled into place above the others.

"Somewhat appropriate, seeing as we're technically pirates, now." A white soul this time.

"Uhm, I realize this probably isn't at all okay with you, but we're going to force our way in and rescue our friends anyway," said a yellow light in a meek, apologetic mental voice, "sorry about that."

The Warp guardian snarled, and Twilight felt its fury quiver around her.

Unacceptable...

The price will be paid...

In souls...

In suffering...

In DEATH.

New spells surged forward. New tendrils of pure psychic agony curled around the intruders. Waves of fury buffeted the Elements of Harmony, washing over them, clawing at their minds.

But through that torrent of hateful power, Twilight saw weakness. The Elements fought back, shielding the ponies from the psychic assault as best they could, and the entity's attack was divided. Distracted. Surmountable.

She focused her mind again, drank in the power of the Warp, and this time five other minds bolstered her abilities. The tendrils were unmade, the entity's fury beaten back. The tides of darkness and raw emotion that swirled about the Elements of Harmony became calm, and the Star of Chaos shuddered.

You will not overcome me!

You will not survive!

Such is the will of the Dark Gods!

"I'm agnostic, actually," Rarity quipped while the two psionic forces strained against each other.

You...?

Wha...?

But...?

They're...!

"Oh, wow, I think that broke something," Rainbow Dash chuckled as the whispers turned to incredulous stuttering.

"Ya better get outta the way, sugarcube. Last chance, 'fore somethin' bad happens to ya," Applejack warned the Warp creature.

A wordless snarl manifest as a blast of sheer anger ripped through the Warp. Twilight launched her own projectile, deflecting the blast and dissipating the power back into the surroundings.

"You want to know what Chaos is to me?" Twilight asked as she pushed forward, digging hot spikes of mana into the rivers of energy to part it ahead of her. "Chaos is a lesson: that survival is always possible if you're willing to fight hard enough for it. That there's no rule or natural law that can't be overcome with enough power. That hope can come from the most awful of places, be it the barrel of a gun, a dark Sorcerer's spell book, or the most miserable parts of your own heart. And as of late, those lessons have been pretty useful!"

The Elements of Harmony pushed forward. Great storms of magical energy burst into being and shriveled to nothing around them, and the flames of the Chaos Star, the face of the guardian daemon, wavered.

"But here's a lesson from the Harmony playbook!" Twilight shouted.

"You may think you're bad because you've got all this crazy magic power," Rainbow growled.

"But yer also alone, cowboy," said Applejack. Twilight could literally feel her smirking.

"We brought friends," Rarity's voice was like velvet over cold steel.

"And friendship," Fluttershy said, bringing her voice to a much stronger squeak than usual, "is..."

"MAGIC!!"

"Although, as a daemon, you're ALSO magic, so then, technically, you're also friendship, which means-"

"Pinkie, stop."

"Okay."

The Elements of Harmony blasted forward, hammering their spirit bodies into the entity that stood against them. Howls of pain ripped through the Empyrean and brushed Twilight's mind, but this time it was not her own. Bursts of emotion and imagery fought back against her. She heard pleading, threats, incoherent fury, fanatical ranting, and visions of bloodied and tortured loved ones flashing before her mind's eye. She did not relent, nor did her friends.

The arms of the Chaos Star flickered and fragmented, and then a condensed energy mass darted away from the equine spirits.

All right! Fine! Take the stupid souls! GEEZ! There are like a zillion other ones around, anyway! I don't need this!

The entity shrunk to a green flare not much bigger than the ponies, floating away through the haze of power. Twilight stared after it in disbelief.

But mark my runes, fleshbags, there will be a reckoning for this trespass.

The daemonic spirit halted in the gloom, pulsing furiously as it whispered its parting threats to the intruders.

The Dark Gods do not suffer such insolence lightly, and you-

Pinkie's Element spark suddenly bashed into the entity, and it screeched and bounced away from the contact.

Ow! Shit! What are you doing, you psycho?! I already surrendered!

"Giggle giggle giggle!" Pinkie chirped before ramming into the green flare again.

No! Quit it! You're getting Laughter all over me, you freak! Go away!

"Aw, c'mon! Gimme a hug, ghostie! I just wanna be friends!" Pinkie said as she hovered behind the guardian entity in a way that apparently seemed threatening to it.

Eww! Eww! Eww! Get away from me, you sickos!

The green light vaulted upward into the ocean of colors and power, leaping beyond Pinkie's reach. The angry whispers and disgusted thoughts faded, and soon they vanished; a distant memory of a memory.

"It is AMAZING how quickly that went from terrifying to silly," Twilight remarked before turning toward her friends. They were starting to shift from sparkling blobs of color into actual equine forms, like she had.

"Thank you. All of you. I didn't think you'd follow me into the Warp like this." Twilight paused uncomfortably. "Did I start screaming or start losing my pulse or something?"

"Nah. There just wasn't much fer us to do back in the castle, what with you conked out and most everyone else dead," Applejack admitted.

"We tried putting Serith's armor back together into funny poses, but then Trixie started crying," Rainbow Dash added as her head formed and a pair of wings sprouted from her back, "so we figured we might as well try to help out. All the Elements of Harmony are linked and stuff, right?"

A sparking pink blob floated over to Twilight's side. "Don't worry, we convinced Princess Celestia not to interfere! She still thinks this is a bad idea, but she's willing to at least let us try!"

Twilight nodded slowly. "... Pinkie Pie? Are you going to shift into a pony body like the rest of us?"

"Nope! I always wanted to know what it was like to be a pixie!" Pinkie said excitedly as she wobbled up and down. "Especially traveling through an ocean of nightmares given form in a high-stakes quest to restore life to a dead friend!"

"We're all glad that you could fulfill your bizarrely specific wish," Rarity quipped as her mane formed, shifted, and then dissolved again. It seemed that even when creating her physical form was a matter of mere thought, it STILL took her forever to do her hair.

Fluttershy gulped as soon as she had generated the anatomy to do so. "Um, girls? I think we should get to finding everyone, now."

The others turned toward the vortex beyond, and Twilight growled. Daemonic spirits were descending through the tides of the Immaterium into the pool of souls, snarling hungrily.

"Ponyfeathers! That thing we just drove off was acting as a guardian of these dead souls! Without it, every random predator within earshot... er... thoughtshot? Yeah, okay. Every predator within thoughtshot is coming to feed!"

"That's terrible!" Rarity gasped. "We've condemned them to be devoured by daemons?"

Twilight shrugged. "Well, actually, that was what was going to happen anyway, as I understand it. Just, you know, later. And with specific and more powerful daemons. But as far as our immediate goal is concerned, this is very bad!"

"What do we do?!" Applejack shouted.

"Fluttershy, can you search for our friends? We'll try to hold off the daemons!" Twilight said before she veered off to intercept the spirits.

Fluttershy lowered herself above the inky vortex, her wings flapping gently and pointlessly as she searched the swirling depths.

"Um... Twilight? How do I tell our friends from every other soul?" the pegasus asked.

"I'm not sure!" Twilight admitted as she fired a stream of bright purple darts into the advancing daemons. "This is way outside the realm of contemporary magical theory!"

The darts cut into the Warp creatures, slicing through their psychic bodies just as easily as a material knife would carve through flesh. The beasts screech angrily, veering away as their rage filled the tumultuous seas of power.

"Can't we just take all of them?" Rainbow Dash asked as she slammed a kick into a luminescent skull-thing. "They're all Chaos, right? They're on our side!"

"That option IS covered by contemporary magic theory! The more energy we try to convert back to realspace, the exponentially greater the magical energy required in order to-"

"Okay! I get it! You could have just said 'no'!" Rainbow Dash replied before she kicked another daemon and then zipped toward another at high speed.

"Besides, I think it's wise to practice some discrimination when plucking lost souls from a giant pit of evil," Rarity remarked, "they're not ALL our friends, after all. We don't even know if they all came from our world." She formed a blade of crystalline light as a pair of daemons started circling her, and then the unicorn bisected one in a slash of blazing magic. While STILL redoing her mane.

Fluttershy nervously went back to searching the pool of generally similar spots of light. "Ohhh... I just don't know!" Then her eyes widened. "Wait! There! That one! That big, red soul beating up on those three little souls! It's Tellis! I can feel it!"

Rainbow Dash whirled around and immediately zoomed for the vortex. "Got him!"

Rainbow flew to where Fluttershy was pointing her leg, slowing before the one crimson mote of light bouncing all over three other ones. She nodded once she floated over the dark spirit, feeling it radiating blood-lust and off-color humor. "That's Tellis, all right! I can feel it too!" She paused. "So... what do I do now?"

Suddenly, almost without warning, the spark of red energy leapt into Rainbow Dash, vanishing into the chest of her psychic representation.

"Oh! Uh... wow." Rainbow Dash's expression twisted to something between a grin and a grimace. "This is a little closer than I really wanted us to get, buddy." She shuddered, feeling a well of foreign thoughts and emotions churning about inside her. "Look, don't touch anything in there, all right? We're almost done!"

"Ah see Wyatt!" Applejack shouted, breaking her attention away from bucking daemons across the Empyrean. One serpent-like Warp predator took ample advantage of the diversion and slithered past the avatar of Honesty, darting in the direction she was looking.

"Consarn it! No! Stay away from him ya stupid Warp varmint!"

The daemon didn't listen, as expected, and its jaws opened as it neared the vortex.

"STOP THAT," Fluttershy snapped, slipping between the daemon and its prey. Her eyes narrowed into slits, and the Warp serpent instantly froze in place.

Then it went sailing into the luminescent mists after Applejack caught up and smashed it aside.

"Thanks, Shy!" the farmer shouted before she reached out to Daniels' soul. It floated at her hoof uncertainly, then plunged into the orange mare's chest.

"Okay, yeah. That does feel pretty weird," Applejack mumbled as the foreign soul settled within her.

"Oh, right, like it's the first time you've had a piece of Daniels inside you," Rainbow chuckled as she returned to fighting off the predators.

"CONSARN IT, DASH! WE AIN'T LIKE THAT!"

Rarity gasped as she too pulled away from the rush of daemons. "I see Norris! Cover me!"

Twilight grunted as she fired a constant stream of violet bursts into the oncoming swarm. The lesser daemonic spirits were quite easy to damage and drive off, but the sheer number of them and the way her friends kept stopping to search the vortex was leaving her overwhelmed. "I can't hold them all off! They're getting through! Hurry!"

Rarity didn't waste any time watching for nearby hostiles, diving straight toward Delgan's soul and scooping it into her chest.

"Hmm. Not as bad as I thought," she remarked. Then she paused. "Did anypony else hear a cracking sound, just then?"

"Yeah, when Ah grabbed Wy Ah heard somethin' like that!" Applejack replied as she rammed head-first into a flaming skull.

"Ominous!" said Pinkie's glimmering spiritual presence. "Oh, hey! There's Desty!"

As Pinkie darted toward the Iron Warrior's spirit, Twilight spared a moment to look over the vortex herself. Even that moment of inattention allowed dozens of cackling daemons past her, and by the time she spotted a particular lost soul there were already numerous predators rushing by and diving into the vortex to feed.

"Fluttershy! Near you! That one over there! It's Gaela!" Twilight shouted before sliding over and smashing away a daemon that got too close.

Fluttershy looked somewhat puzzled as she glanced around at the quivering points of light.

Then, she felt it: a deep, soul-gnawing terror that exceeded anything she had felt when looking upon mere dragons or ancient horrors like Discord (before they had become besties, that is). It was Gaela.

"Okay, I see her!" Fluttershy frowned as she hovered over to the woman's soul. "Uhm, I can keep her safe, so you can come down and-"

"No time!" Twilight shouted. "Here!"

Fluttershy's eyes widened as a bubble of purple wrapped around Gaela's spirit. "Wh-What?"

The bubble snapped toward the yellow pony, who frantically tried to evade. "NonononoNONONO-"

The soul was pushed into her, and Fluttershy froze in horror as the rush of emotions and foreign images invaded her senses. A moment later she immediately curled up into a quivering, whimpering ball.

"Awesome!" Pinkie Pie said as she gathered Dest's soul into her own. Then several eel-like daemons slithered past her, diving into the inky darkness and snapping up the unprotected spirits. "Soooo... now what?"

"Serith," Applejack put a name to their next objective while the daemons fell into a complete feeding frenzy. They had all but given up trying to hold back the predators by now. "Whadda we do? Can y'all tell his soul from the rest of 'em?"

"Look for an unusually big one!" Twilight shouted as she started preparing a new spell. "I have an idea for the Sunsworn!"

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Oh, we're bringing them back, too?"

"It would be nice. They DID die specifically to help us," Rarity pointed out.

Twilight's spiritual body exploded into light, and golden rays of crystalline power showered into the inky storm below. "Servants of the Sun Goddess! Come to me! Follow your goddess's light to salvation!"

Numerous motes of light started peeling away from the vortex, riding up the beams of magic toward its source.

Applejack growled irritably as she punted away a shrieking daemon, and then she stuck her head down into the whirling darkness. "Dagnabit, Ah can't see nothin' that might be Serith. We sure he's here?"

"We're not sure of anything!" Twilight admitted. The Sunsworn souls were diving into her spiritual body now, seeping into her psyche and desperately increasing the strain on the Element of Magic. "But this is our only chance! We have to find him!"

"Well, I've got nothing," Pinkie Pie admitted while her spiritual presence swooped through the vortex, "hey, do you think General Gnoss is here? And if we revived him, would he just reappear in the mass grave under the Nethalican, or would-"

CRACK

"Okay, I KNOW I heard that!" Rarity shouted.

"Ah FELT that!" Applejack replied.

The sound of shattering glass filled their ears, along with a faint cry of distress.

The six enchanted souls paused, and then, in an instant, they vanished from the tides of the Warp.

****

Canterlot Castle - Hall of Elements

"Whoa, nelly!" Applejack cried out as she jerked back to full consciousness. She blinked repeatedly, taking in sensations from her mundane senses once more.

"Oh, DRAT," Rarity grumbled before she looked around at the castle, "what happened?"

"That's what Trixie wants to know!" The blue unicorn jumped in front of Twilight, who recoiled in surprise. "Did it work?"

"I hope so," Pinkie remarked, "'cause I don't think we're going to get to go again."

As she said this, her hoof nudged some shards of metal and shattered crystal lying on the floor in front of her.

Twilight's eyes widened as she recognized the remains. The Element of Laughter.

"Oh, dear," Fluttershy winced as she shifted uncomfortably in her armor, feeling broken pieces of her own Element settled in her gorget.

"The Elements of Harmony weren't powerful enough to sustain such an event." Princess Celestia stepped up next to Twilight, her tone solemn. Within her golden aura of magic floated a shattered tiara, and Twilight cringed. "Or perhaps their use within a Chaos ritual unmade them. In any case, they are no more."

"Okay, that sucks, but did they WORK?" Rainbow Dash asked in frustration.

"Trixie doesn't think so," the blue pony wilted as she glanced over to Serith's disembodied helmet, "Serith is still gone."

To call the pause that followed "awkward" would be an act of understatement of the same magnitude as saying that Canterlot Castle currently needed some cleaning up. It was thus an incredible relief for all sorts of reasons when a familiar man's voice came from the throne room.

"Has anyone seen my gun?! It's a rail rifle with a bunch of irony on the barrel! And possibly my intestines."

"WYATT!!" Applejack screamed before she sprinted from the room.

****

"I am very confused," Gaela admitted as she stood at the head of the throne room. Unlike many of the men in white robes picking themselves up off the floor, the Dark Techpriest was still horribly maimed despite her revival. Both of her shoulders ended in clusters of shredded wires, her servo arms had been ripped off, and her augmetic eye was still shattered.

"We all are. But confused is a big step up from where we were," Daniels said while he dug through a pile of dead Orks.

Dest was also alive and in one piece, but the Iron Warrior stared into space rather than marveling at his condition like the others or searching for dropped gear.

The reason was completely inscrutable to anyone else, but had they been able to listen to Dest's mind at the time, they would have heard a long series of desperate, gasping sobs.

I really thought I lost you, bro! Vel said, his mental voice somehow sniveling in perfect imitation of a wailing man. I was so scared! Don't you EVER do that to me again! No more dying! You got that?!

"... Why are you still here?" he asked out loud, not caring if the others heard him talking to himself. "I was dead. My soul was lost. Did you actually just sit inside my ruined body hoping that I would come back?"

An obnoxious mental sniffle came from the daemon. I have nowhere to GOOOOO!

Dest grunted in disgust.

"Wy! Ya made it! It really worked!" Applejack cried as she swerved into the throne room and leapt for the mercenary.

Daniels dove out of the way, and the farmpony fell onto a dead Nob in mega armor instead. The extremely heavy plating caved inward from Applejack's impact, and a small web of cracks appeared in a circle underneath the body.

"... Good call with the dodge," Applejack said.

"Gaela! You're all right!" Twilight said as she entered next, albeit at a much more reasonable pace.

"An estimated thirty-nine percent of my body is inoperable, and without my arms or servo limbs I am a net liability in combat and mechanical utility. I am far from 'all right'," the Dark Techpriest corrected.

It was all Twilight could do to keep from bawling. "I am SO happy to see you!"

"Mister Delgan!" Rarity said brightly as the Trademaster picked his way through the shattered barricades into the throne room. "I almost thought our time together had come to an end for good!"

"Remind me later that I owe you a raise," the Trademaster said curtly as he passed by the ponies, "where's Miss Flair? I have to give her a pricing list."

"Down the hall, to the right and down the stairs," Rarity directed the man.

"Thank you. And well done, Miss Rarity," Delgan said as he passed by.

"Excuse me, Sovereign," he added as he passed a shocked and bewildered Celestia in the hallway.

The white alicorn was no less startled when she peeked into her throne room and was immediately bombarded by shouting.

"THE SUN GODDESS HAS GIVEN US HER BLESSING! SHE HAS BREATHED NEW LIFE INTO THE FALLEN!" Farian shouted before he and several other Sunsworn bowed. Their white robes had been scorched and stained with blood, but otherwise the sun cultists were completely free of injury.

Princess Celestia entered the room hesitantly. "Farian... you're really alive. I... didn't think it was possible..." she shook her head. "This was no miracle of mine. Twilight Sparkle was the one who brought you back from the abyss."

The Sunsworn glanced over at the smaller alicorn, who grinned bashfully.

"... Isn't she your student, Goddess?" Farian asked.

Celestia blinked. "Well, yes, but-"

"THE GODDESS HAS REVIVED US THROUGH HER VESSEL, THE ACOLYTE SPARKLE!" shouted the cultists, throwing their arms up as they surrounded Celestia. "BLESSED BE THE LIGHT! GLORIOUS SUN, BE OUR SHIELD AND SALVATION!"

"No offense, but you're not really worship material," explained one of the men to Twilight as an aside.

"Sure, whatever," the purple pony rolled her eyes, "by the way, I revived you all on a hunch back there, but the fact that you were stuck with all the Chaos worshipers indicates that your souls still belong to the Dark Gods when you pass away. I don't think simply proclaiming a different faith is enough to protect your spirits from them."

"Huh. Good point," Farian admitted as his brethren kneeled in front of Celestia and bowed repeatedly, "we should probably leave that part out of the holy literature, though."

"All right! Then that just leaves one more!" Rainbow Dash cheered before engaging her helmet. "Hey, Tellis? You back, buddy?"

After a few seconds of static from the vox, her helmet connected properly. "Hey, Rainbabe. Thanks for the rez."

"Hah! No problem, man!" Rainbow said, thankful that her visor hid the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Yay," squeaked Fluttershy.

Rainbow spent a moment to take a deep breath and make sure her voice wouldn't catch. "You wanna join us down here in the castle?"

"Nah. I'm stacking up dead Orks in the city square so that I can fly up and fall onto them like a huge, blood-filled leaf pile. Later." The vox cut out, and Rainbow struggled to hold back a surge of girly sentiment that she was definitely too cool for, thank you very much.

"Then it's official! Everyone's back!" Pinkie Pie said with a grin while she clung to Dest's leg. "The Orks are dead and all of our friends are alive and everything is PERFECT forever!"

Clang!

The sound of a metal gauntlet hitting the stone floor brought all the happy reunions to a dead stop.

Slowly, everybody turned toward the hallway entrance. Trixie stood there, sniffling, with an expression of enraged sorrow on her face and a piece of power armor at her hooves.

"Uh... oh..." Pinkie whispered, her ears flipping down. That expression was quickly mirrored by the rest of the members of Equinought Squadron.

"That is Lord Serith's augmetic hand. The psykant occulus," Gaela said, arching an eyebrow, "why is it not attached to his body?"

"Trixie doesn't know!" Trixie said while glaring daggers at Twilight. Actual daggers. That appeared in a flash of pink light and quivered in the air over her head. "Tell us, TWILIGHT SPARKLE, why isn't Serith's hand attached to his body?!"

Twilight gulped and started backing away from the blue unicorn. "Now, Trixie-"

"Don't you 'now, Trixie' Trixie! You left him! You ungrateful mule!" the entertainer raged.

"No! We didn't leave him!" Twilight protested. "... Well, okay, obviously that's TECHNICALLY accurate, yes. But we didn't leave him behind on purpose! We looked for him!"

"Eventually," Applejack mumbled.

"Wait, I am confused," Dest interjected, "the ritual was obviously a success. The Orks are defeated. How did the Sorcerer die?"

"Good question! Any ideas, Sparkle?! How DID he die?!" Trixie snapped while tears dribbled down her cheeks. "Trixie doesn't suppose it had anything to do with you going completely insane with magic power right next to him when he was mid-ritual, does it?!" Trixie kept glaring down at the purple alicorn, and Twilight whimpered as she cringed back and lowered her body closer to the floor.

"Hey, you can't pin that on Twilight!" Rainbow Dash rushed to her friend's defense. "We don't know! Maybe he could have... uh... maybe, you know, the Orks... er..."

"Do we have ANY other working theories as to what happened to him?" Rarity asked, looking worried. "We really didn't know anything was wrong until Trixie bumped him and he collapsed into pieces."

"Unrestrained magic is very dangerous," Celestia noted grimly, "particularly when guided by one's anger. I was there when Twilight forced her power upon the ritual. The mana backlash was tremendous."

Twilight had her boots over her face as she lay on the floor now, afraid that Trixie might actually start hitting her. "I'm sorry! I'm SO sorry! But we tried! I swear, we tried to bring him back!"

"AFTER you found everyone else! You even brought back the bucking SUN CULTISTS, and nopony even asked for that!" Trixie snarled. "Hay, at least two of them are just going to die again anyway because they were buried under the rubble in the back hall after they were killed!"

Celestia's eyes widened. "Farian! Sunsworn! With me! Hurry!" She galloped off toward the hall.

"At once, Goddess!" Farian replied, all too eager to leave the showdown in the throne room.

Trixie ignored the humans rushing out of the room past her, completely focused on the alicorn trembling on the floor in shame and regret. "Serith was the only reason that we had a chance to survive in the first place, and was Trixie's best friend! He even saved Princess Celestia's life because YOU featherbrains were too slow in getting here!"

"Lord Serith was also our primary mission objective, and may be key to stopping the Orks for good," Gaela pointed out. "If I had arms right now, I would be crossing them while looking at you sternly."

"AND it was his ritual that you used to force your way into the Empyrean when you went to revive everyone else! And you didn't have the basic decency and foresight to save him FIRST?!" Trixie raged, slamming her greaves into the floor.

Twilight whimpered pathetically from the floor as she contemplated incinerating herself on the spot.

"Wow. Okay, yeah, those are some good points," Pinkie said as she walked up behind Twilight, "I feel like there's a friendship lesson in here somewhere."

"All right, fine. We MIGHT have found him if we handled things differently," Rainbow Dash admitted as she too joined their squad leader, "but c'mon, we totally looked and couldn't find his soul down there! Maybe Twilight accidentally killed him SO HARD that he couldn't be revived. Ever think of that?"

"Dash! Not helping!" Twilight wailed.

"It was really strange and scary in there, though," Fluttershy insisted as she timidly joined the others, "and we didn't know what to do. Really, it's amazing we managed to save anyone at all."

"Strange and scary how?" Trixie demanded, her eyes narrowing.

"Oh, uh... well, there was this big Chaos thing that we had to drive away to get to the place with all the lost souls," Fluttershy mumbled while she recalled the harrowing experience, "and even after we got rid of it, there were all these hungry daemons around! We had to fight them, but then they swarmed around us and... uh..."

Trixie growled after Fluttershy trailed off with her fur going pale around her face. "And what? What happened? They obviously didn't get any of you, since YOU'RE still here!"

"Naw, they weren't after us, they were after the souls," Applejack explained. "... So Ah guess we kinda abandoned them to the daemons when the Elements broke." She chewed her lip for a moment. "Oops."

Twilight peeked up between her greaves to see that Trixie's blue complexion had turned bright red in her face, and her hat was trembling on top of her head like the lid on a pot of boiling water.

"Does it help my case if I tell you that I'm pretty sure Serith was going to be eventually devoured by daemons anyway?" Twilight asked hopefully.

Trixie honestly debated smashing Twilight's stupid purple face in for a second, but she took a step back instead.

"TRIXIE. HATES. ALL OF YOU," she hissed before she grabbed gauntlet in her mouth again. Then she turned around and trudged into the hallway, sobbing as she went.

"... Expression of useless sentiment aside, it was unwise not to prioritize Lord Serith's revival," Gaela said as Trixie left. Twilight groaned.

"Really? YOU'RE getting on our case, too?" Rainbow Dash groused. "We brought you back from the dead!"

"My survival is not a primary objective," Gaela said blandly, "the mission is vital to the war. The success of the war is more important than individual lives. This is not a military philosophy unique to Chaos or to humans."

"More to the point, the current strategic situation suggests that a failure to bring the Orks to heel will eventually result in our deaths again, reversing your recent efforts," Dest said, crossing his arms over his chest. Twilight groaned again.

"Speaking of which, can you do that every time someone you care about dies? Just swim into the Warp and yank us out?" Daniels asked.

"Not unless you can find us another set of Elements of Harmony, darling," Rarity said with a sigh, "I'm afraid we're fresh out. Bringing you all back destroyed them."

"Resurrection is anyway not entirely rare among the Chaos Legions, although usually the domain of the more spiritually inclined armies, such as the Word Bearers and Black Legion," Gaela said, turning toward the mortal soldier, "the practice is simply inefficient. The cost required to revive the dead, both in lives and energy, is simply too great to justify for any but the most powerful and hallowed individuals."

Daniels pursed his lips awkwardly as the dismembered woman finished her explanation.

"... I'm going to go look for your arms," the mercenary mumbled, walking past the Dark Techpriest, "sorry, but I can't take you seriously like this. You look ridiculous."

Gaela sighed after Daniels left. "No matter. What are we to do now? After all our efforts, and the expenditure of your artifacts, we have still failed."

"We'll need to talk to Solon," Rarity admitted, hanging her head, "there may be some way that Serith can be replaced by another psyker."

"Doubtful," Gaela grunted as she sat down on a hunk of twisted wreckage, "if Solon needs Serith, it is because of his unique link to and knowledge of the Nethalican. How are we to control it without the High Sorcerer?"

"Maybe Discord could do it?" Fluttershy asked.

"I wouldn't trust Discord to carry my ammo," Rainbow groused, "and we're supposed to rely on him to save the world? No thanks!"

"Fine, be that way," Discord said, popping up behind Rainbow Dash, "here, TAKE your ammo!"

Rainbow yelped as she was suddenly showered with boltgun magazines, and she shielded her head from the downpour of metal. "This isn't even my ammo!"

His most recent gag complete, Discord dusted off his hands and walked into the entry hall, ignoring the bewildered stares that followed him.

"Was he here the whole time?" Dest asked.

"Best not to think about it, darling," Rarity sighed.

"Oh!" Discord poked his head back in. "That reminds me! If you want to talk to Solon, you'll get your chance soon! He's landing in the city right now!" the draconequus gave the ponies a thumbs-up. "So, good luck explaining the dead Sorcerer thing!"

Twilight slumped to the floor miserably. "Gaela? How far would I have to bury myself under the castle foundation before the Warsmith couldn't find me?"

"There isn't enough mountain on this planet, Sparkle."

****

Canterlot City - city shelter access

Luna waited patiently in the plaza while a pair of Thunderhawk transports touched down in the ruined city, and she read the passenger manifest uploaded to her visor.

"Hark, warriors! Father approaches, and our deliverance is at hoof!" the dark Princess declared. "Soon the Orks shalt be cut off from this system, and our victory shalt be complete!"

"... Wait, who?" Rot Blossom asked, tilting her head.

"The Warsmith! It is he!" Luna repeated as Iron Warriors started pouring out of the transports.

"... You call him 'Father'?" Poison Kiss asked.

Luna gave her a confused look. "Nay, We do not. Why dost thou suggest such a thing?"

"Uhhh... but, you just..."

The awkward discussion was gratefully abandoned when said Warsmith scuttled into the plaza, a squadron of Chaos Marines following behind him.

"Well, thish ish quite a pleashant shurprishe," Solon confessed as his legs pulped the veritable carpet of green bodies underneath him, "here I thought I might have to reshcue the reshcue."

"We hast secured Canterlot, as ordered," Luna said as she bowed her head, "thank thee, Warsmith, for offering us the chance to save our people and Celestia."

"You're quite welcome. It'sh alwaysh nice when our shtrategic goalsh coincide," the Warsmith allowed, "what of Sherith?"

"Princess Sparkle took Equinought Squadron and our sapien allies to secure the castle, and my sister," Luna explained, "it was there that they struck upon the possibility of purging the Orks en masse using fell magics."

"The best KIND of magics," Poison Kiss interrupted smugly.

"Excellent. Let ush proceed. Phage Shquadron, remain here and protect the gunshipsh while my Iron Warriorsh shweep the city for shurvivorsh."

The Nurgle-marked ponies bowed deeply. "Of course, Warsmith. By your leave," declared Kiss reverently.

Luna and Solon turned to leave. Big Macintosh started to follow, but a cringe-inducing squeal came from his augmetic legs and they locked up.

"Got shomething shtuck in there?" Solon asked as he stepped over to the stallion.

"Eeyup," Big Mac replied, terse as ever.

"We put the full might of our magics to ward off the aliens, but their numbers and persistence exceeded even our power," Luna griped, "had Twilight Sparkle not purged the city in time..."

Solon scooped up Big Macintosh with his servo claw, and then carried the stallion along as they walked to the castle. Big Mac wasn't exactly okay with this, but he failed to protest before Luna caught up and started speaking again.

"If We may inquire as to thy strategy, Warsmith?" Luna asked, stepping between the scattered green corpses. "How art we to stop the foul xenos?"

"Well, we've activated the Tau Warp beacon and are feeding shignal pulshesh into the Empyrean. The data we're collecting ish conshtructing an image of the shtable Warp pashage the Orksh are ushing to advance. Once it ish complete, we will determine the mosht likely mechanishm ushed to create it and deploy a shtrike force to deshtroy it."

Luna nodded. "And the Sorcerer's role?"

"After the Warp ish reshtored to its intended shtate of deshtructive tumult, the Warp shtorm will deshtroy the Ork veshelsh traveling through it. I need Sherith to open a shtable eshcape route for the Harvesht of Shteel, sho that it ish not deshtroyed ash well."

"Aye! A fine plan!" Luna said brightly, smashing the knuckles of the the Iron Gage together in front of her. "We duly request to be assigned to the strike force! The greenskin savages hath much to answer for, and We would see their debt repaid personally."

"Shure, why not," Solon replied as his servo arms picked at the cracks and punctures in Big Mac's armor. Crackling welders and whining drills dug into the stallion's bionic limbs, carving out the shrapnel impeding his motion. "The greenshkinsh had a lot of fun with you, I shee. Shome of thish damage will not be eashily repaired. You've shuffered shevere tissue damage ash well."

The crimson pony didn't reply this time as he was carried along, feeling that even a regretful "eeyup" would be a waste of breath.

"Aye, thou should hast seen him!" Luna laughed. "Macintosh fought like a beast uncaged, hurling the Orks about like mere children! No hide or armor was proof against his might!"

"Good to hear! I'm quite proud of that particular shtimulant formula! And it shpeaksh well of your conshtitution that you've shurvived ushing it, Mishter Macintosh."

Big Mac's eye twitched. He didn't remember anyone mentioning that it was potentially lethal.

Luna's chuckle took on a more suggestive, throaty tone. "Sir Ironside hath much in the way of endurance, We hast found."

Mac hung his head from embarrassment. As much from the nickname and new title than from the innuendo.

"Excellent. I alwaysh thought-"

"CANNONBALLLLLLLL!!"

Everyone stopped to watch as Tellis dropped from the sky, screaming, into the Canterlot city streets. He had his arms wrapped around his knees and his flight pack inactive, and was somersaulting through the air while he plunged downward.

The Chaos Lord crashed into the side of a building, tearing through the wall and then breaking through several floors below it. Wood and stone vomited from the new hole in the apartment tower, and rained down onto the massive pile of green bodies piled up onto the street.

"... I THINK I MISSED!" Tellis declared. "... OWWW..."

"I shee you took Tellish with you," Solon said as he continued walking again.

"T'would be more accurate to say he followed us," Luna deadpanned, "We can assure thee that nopony requested the Mad Angel's help."

They reached the castle courtyard, or at least what was left of it. Two wrecked Killa Kans and an undamaged Mega Dread stood in front of the ruined gates, along with the crushed remains of a pair of small battle automata.

Luna moved forward ahead of the Warsmith, magically pushing the green bodies away to clear a path as she entered.

"We hast returned!" the dark Princess declared before she stepped into the throne room. "Twilight Sparkle, the Warsmith shalt now hear thy report of glorious victory!"

It was strange, Luna thought. The way that the Elements of Harmony shrunk back while looking ashamed of themselves, it was almost as if they hadn't secured glorious victory at all. Which was silly, of course.

"My Iron Warriorsh are reporting zero contactsh in the city," Solon said after he followed Luna into the room, "well done, Equinought Shquadron. You have shucceeded beyond my expectationsh! By which I mean Mish Rarity ish SHTILL alive, shomehow!"

Said unicorn sighed, and Solon shifted over toward Applejack. "Here. Thish ish yoursh, I believe." He placed Big Macintosh down next to the farmpony.

Twilight was sweating silently while she sat next to Gaela, her eyes darting back and forth to avoid optics contact.

"Now, then: you can belay Luna'sh order. There will be time for debriefing later," said the Warsmith, "where ish Sherith? We musht proceed immediately. The fate of my Company - ash well ash your world - dependsh on it!"

Twilight made a noise that reminded Applejack of a steer being strangled to death. She'd heard it several times before during rodeos. Then the purple alicorn collapsed onto the floor and curled up into a ball.

Solon and Luna were understandably perplexed.

"Sparkle? What affliction ails thee?" Luna asked, tilting her head to the side.

"She's come down with a bad case of horrified regret," Rarity admitted.

"I'm not following," Solon replied.

Gaela stood up from her seat. She would have knelt, but changing stances was proving awkward without any arms. "If I may provide an explanation, Warsmith: we have failed you."

All was silent in the room for a few seconds, and then Solon's head swiveled about to take in the Ork corpses laid in piles against the walls.

"You have a curioush definition of 'failure', Dark Techpriesht."

"Our primary objective was to secure Lord Serith. He did not survive the Ork assault," Gaela declared.

"The Sorcerer perished?" Luna gasped. "How did this occur when thou hast all survived the onslaught?" Twilight made more strangled animal noises on the floor.

"We didn't, really, but that can be left for the debriefing," Dest interjected, "as for the cause of Lord Serith's death, well..."

Another grim silence settled over the room.

"IT WAS MEEEE!!" Twilight shouted suddenly, unable to bear the guilt quietly. She leapt up to her hooves, sobbing hysterically. "I KILLED SERITH! HE PUT EVERYTHING ON THE LINE TO SAVE US AND IT WASN'T ENOUGH AND THEN I SAW THAT GAELA WAS DEAD AND I LOST IT AND TAPPED INTO THE VAST RESERVES OF POWER THAT LIE DEEP WITHIN ME..." she paused to suck in air.

"Pft. Amateur," Pinkie Pie mumbled.

"... AND I KILLED ALL THE ORKS IN CANTERLOT BUT I GUESS THE MANA BACKWASH KILLED HIM TOO AND I BROUGHT EVERYONE ELSE BACK TO LIFE BUT COULDN'T BRING SERITH BACK SO IT WAS ALL POINTLESS AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AND WE CAN'T EVEN USE THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY ANYMORE!!"

Twilight gasped again, and then collapsed flat on her face.

"Yeah. So, that happened," Rainbow Dash said, bashfully, "... sorry."

Luna shook her head. "Without the Sorcerer, the Warsmith's plan is a suicide mission. It cannot be so..."

Solon himself had been silent since Twilight started ranting, as he had been processing multiple data streams since then.

After Luna trailed off, his optics zoomed in on Twilight. "You shay Sherith hash been shlain?"

Pinkie Pie burst into a fit of giggles, only to quickly stifle them as Rarity glared at her.

"Show me," Solon demanded.

Twilight duly trudged down the hallway to the castle's inner sanctum, looking for all the world like a prisoner making her final walk to the gallows.

When they entered the Hall of Elements, the purple alicorn stepped to the side and hung her head in silence while the others entered.

"Hey, Techpriest! Found one of your arms! And my gun!" Daniels said happily.

"Superb. At least we'll be fully equipped when we make our next final stand against the xeno horde," Gaela said blandly.

Solon focused on Trixie immediately, who was slowly and miserably floating pieces of Serith's armor into a small wagon that the castle's servants used to carry things about the premises. It wasn't QUITE the saddest and most pathetic thing Twilight had seen that day, considering what she and the others had been through, but it came close.

"Oh, dear. The poor wretch," said the Warsmith as he walked over to the pile of armor, "it'sh been a while shince thish hash happened to him."

Trixie sniffled and looked up at the mechanized horror. "Wh-What do you mean?"

Solon's servo claw reached into the wagon and picked up the central torso armor. "Well, I can confirm that it wash Shparkle that did thish to him, at leasht. Thish hash 'pshychic hyper-shaturation' written all over it. Sherith musht have blown a fushe."

"Trixie knew it!" the blue unicorn snapped, pointing a boot at Twilight as the alicorn flinched back. Then she paused. "... Wait, he blew a... what?"

Solon broke open Serith's torso plate, which everyone else in the room was reasonably expecting to be empty. It was not. Within the interior of the unusually thick chest shielding was a metal box about the size of a small backpack covered in wires and circuit etching. Solon opened the box carefully with his hand, revealing even more wires and arcane gadgets, along with several small glass tubes.

"... What is that?" Twilight whispered up to Gaela. To her surprise, the Dark Techpriest looked even more shocked than the equines; they, at least, were quite used to being exposed to unfamiliar technologies and expected to be surprised by the more unique aspects of the Chaos Space Marines. Gaela had thought she'd already sorted out what was and wasn't possible for the Iron Warriors, and was obviously having to revise that assumption.

"Nurgle'sh beard, you almosht shtripped hish shoul clean of the phylactery," Solon mumbled, holding up one of the tubes in front of his optics and examining a hairline crack. He shifted the tube under another small servo arm, and a low-powered laser started sealing the breach. "There might be shome way to weaponize that."

"Wait, wait, wait. Is Serith a ROBOT?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Because if so, then my visor was way off about his cool factor."

"Of courshe he ishn't. That'sh ridiculoush," Solon scoffed as he replaced the tube in the box.

"Then what be the non-ridiculous explanation for this, exactly?" Luna asked.

Mechadendrites spread from Solon's fingers and slithered over the device, making subtle and minute repairs that the equine eye could not detect (from spectating distance, at any rate).

"Sherith shimply requiresh a mechanical veshel for his shoul rather than a biological one, that'sh all," Solon explained, as if such a thing were a condition that anybody else in the room had ever so much as contemplated, "think of him ash a Shorcerer Dreadnought."

"Good enough for me!" Daniels declared, dropping Gaela's dismembered ion blaster at her feet. "I'm going back to the farm. Mac, AJ, you coming with?"

Applejack shook her head. "Ah think Ah'm gonna see this thing to the end, Wy. You take Mac and go ahead."

Big Macintosh nodded reluctantly, still feeling needles of pain all around his augment sockets as he followed the man. He didn't want to slow the others down if there was any chance of still succeeding in their mission.

On their way out, Luna happened to glance away from Solon's work, Mac's eyes met her's, and his steps faltered.

"Thou hast done well this day, Macintosh," Luna said quietly. Big Mac felt himself start slightly in surprise; not at the acknowledgement, but from hearing Luna whisper. He had honestly thought she was incapable of that level of volume control. "Now, please, rest. Thou hast been invaluable thus far, and We would see you aid us again in future, after this threat hath been vanquished."

The stallion gulped. He was naturally inclined to think that the Princess was giving him a pitch for some sort of bodyguard duty, but...

Well, he had done several things for Princess Luna recently, and fighting hardly seemed to be an area where she needed help.

"Oi, Mac, step it up!" Daniels hissed, leaning back into the room. "I don't want to be around when all the Chaos mojo starts up again."

Big Mac gave a silent nod to Princess Luna before he followed Daniels again. He didn't say anything. She didn't expect him to.

Luna turned back to Solon's ministrations, a small, happy smile on her face.

"Okay, so... does this mean that..." Twilight wet her lips as she timidly walked up behind Solon, hoping against hope that her hunch was correct. "... Serith ISN'T dead?"

Solon started fiddling with some of the wires around the phylactery. "That dependsh on your exact definition of 'dead', honeshtly. But the anshwer to your ACTUAL queshtion ish: no, you didn't doom ush all with your shentiment and incompetence."

Twilight collapsed onto the floor again, this time out of sheer relief.

"There, see?" Pinkie Pie said brightly, bouncing next to Trixie. "Thanks to the power of SCIENCE, everything is just-"

"Shut up," Trixie said darkly.

"Shutting up, yes ma'am," Pinkie quickly slunk away, grimacing.

"Annnnd... there we are!" Solon said as he finished fixing the phylactery and snapped the device closed once more. "Let'sh shtart him up!"

"So, hold on, if Serith is actually just that little metal box and the armor is just some kind of armor shell, like a Dreadnought, why don't you ACTUALLY put him in a Dreadnought?" Rainbow Dash wondered aloud.

"He likesh to maintain the illushion of biological life," Solon confessed while he carefully pressed one switch after another on top of the phylactery, "I can't shay exactly why. He'sh privy to many shtrange impulshesh of shentiment and vanity."

"Does any other in the Company know of this?" Dest asked.

"Shliver doesh. Maybe Virgil, ash well. Never can tell, with that one. Now shtay back for a moment sho he can pull himshelf together."

Nobody but Solon knew what to expect when Serith was "revived", and they started backing away appropriately when several crackling arcs of energy rolled over the phylactery.

The rear half of Serith's torso plate trembled against the ground, and then began to float above it. Other bits of debris and detritus started to tremble too, and Trixie, who was still standing rather close, felt the onset of a severe hornache as she watched this fascinating and disturbing process.

Serith's exposed armor plate halted above the ground, turning softly while surrounded by motes of shimmering light. More electric arcs whipped about the phylactery, lashing out at the air as if searching for a target.

Then, the other pieces of Serith's armor suit started to rise from the cart.

Greaves snapped into position under leg sleeves. Elbow joints slammed home behind glimmering vambraces.

The equines and even Gaela watched in undisguised wonder as Serith's limbs re-assembled themselves in the air within currents of crackling psychic and material energies. Only Dest, having recently become a vessel for a daemonic spirit, could honestly claim he was unimpressed at the sight. And that was anyway mostly because he was having a mental argument with Vel about whether the Sorcerer would taste good.

The arms connected to the shoulders of the rear torso plate, which locked into place atop the pelvis and the two legs holding it up. The incomplete armor started to shift and bend its limbs, once again mimicking the movements of a living creature.

Serith's helmet hovered near the ground still, and Solon reached down and grabbed it.

"Good to have you conshcioush again, Sherith. Now that the immediate threat from the Orksh hash been neutralized, we musht shee to shtemming the tide."

"Eugh..." came the sound from within Serith's helmet.

Solon lifted up the helmet and held it upright so that he could look it in the lenses. "I'm shorry, ish there shomething wrong with your vox uplink?"

"No. That was an expression of general disgust," the disembodied voice grumbled.

The Sorcerer was surprised to hear a delighted squeal come from behind him, and was suddenly yanked free of Solon's grasp when a pink aura surrounded his head.

"It really IS you! Trixie is so happy you're okay!" the unicorn sniffled and hugged the decapitated helmet against her cheek, once again on the verge of tears.

"Awwww..." said Equinought Squadron happily.

"And Trixie is still mad at all of you for your stupidity and negligence, even if Serith turned out okay in the end," Trixie snapped at the other mares, shooting a glare at them.

"Awwww..." said Equinought Squadron sadly.

"I am... pleased by your concern, Lady Trixie," Serith said, feeling incredibly awkward, "if you could release my helmet, please?" His body shifted to hold out his hands, palms-up.

Trixie nodded and levitated the helmet into Serith's gauntlets, dropping it so that the Sorcerer faced his own body.

Serith paused with his helmet at chest level, his visor staring at the phylactery humming gently within his power armor. A mess of wires, metal, and glass tubing. His prison. Perhaps no more than a suit of daemon armor or even the flesh and bones of ordinary creatures, but those forms at least had some sense of life and feeling to them. His "body" could have been mistaken for a cogitator core.

He lifted his helmet up, and then turned it around before pressing it into his empty gorget. It clicked into place, and then his chest plate flipped up and covered his phylactery before the seals engaged with a hiss; a largely cosmetic function, since his armor rarely needed to be pressurized.

With a brief act of will his shoulder pads - as ever the largest and most obtrusive part of Astartes power armor - floated upward and then slammed home over his arms, and sparks blasted from the armor locks as his suit was again complete.

Then he turned to Solon, knelt, and spoke, his motions and voice calm as ever.

"What are your orders, Warsmith?" the Sorcerer asked.

Solon likewise didn't waste any time reflecting upon Serith's revival. "We have received enough data from the Warp to determine the shource of the Orksh' advance. There ish a shpace hulk that ish shomehow shtabilizing a tunnel through the shtorm. We will launch an ashault immediately to locate and deshtroy whatever mechanishm ish allowing thish."

Serith was silent for several seconds, and then he stood up. "You wish to assault a space hulk?"

"What's a space hulk?" Rainbow Dash asked, looking up at Gaela.

"You recall the relative size of the Harvest of Steel, correct?" Gaela asked. When the ponies nodded, she continued. "A space hulk is what you get when the Warp smashes some twenty Harvests together and turns them into one vessel that is more or less functional." When the ponies all possessed appropriately incredulous expressions, she continued again. "Orks are the only species that possess the sheer stupidity and engineering flexibility to attempt to turn one into a proper warship. Sometimes they succeed."

"We need not shecure or clear the veshel; we need only locate the device that shtabilizesh the Warp shtorm and shabotage it," Solon explained, "I require you to follow the progresh of the Harvesht of Shteel and ushe the Nethalican to generate an eshcape route for it when the shtorm closhesh in and the Ork flagship ish doomed."

"Even with these... limited objectives... success is unlikely," Serith mumbled. He looked down at his gauntlets as he spoke, slowly flexing the metal fingers. "There will be millions of greenskins within the space hulk. And there may be another vessel within the fleet that bears such a device."

"I can asshure you, Shliver hash already thoroughly briefed me on everything that can go wrong," Solon snorted, and a puff of foul gases blasted from his exhaust pipes.

"I can stop the Warp Storm. We might yet escape this world before the greenskins manage to set up a proper blockade. With the power of the Harvest, we could surely flee the system with some portion of the 38th Company's strength intact," Serith offered, "we need not risk further failure, Warsmith."

Twilight heard Luna suck in a breath, clearly forcing herself not to interrupt.

"No," Solon declared, "we will not run. The Orksh will be deshtroyed, and thish planet will be oursh. No other outcome ish acceptable. I have choshen war."

A pause settled between the Iron Warriors, and then the Sorcerer lowered his head. "If that is your wish, Lord. It shall be done." He stepped to the side and walked out the front door, ignoring everyone else in the room. Trixie trotted behind him eagerly, using her cape to dab at her eyes.

"Warsmith, I humbly request assignment with the assault force," Gaela said after the Sorcerer left. She still looked slightly silly being so dignified and serious with her arms ripped off, though.

Solon regarded the Dark Techpriest briefly. "... No."

She blinked. "Wh-What? But, my lord-"

"You have already died for me once today, Techpriesht Gaela," the mechanized Chaos Lord said, "that ish enough, for now. There are two Thunderhawk gunshipsh in the city. One will proceed to the Nethalican. You are to be on that transhport." He turned his head. "That goesh for you too, Desht. Should we fail, or should the Orksh break through our fleet while the Harvesht of Shteel is away, you musht defend the temple."

Gaela and Dest glanced at each other, and then they both bowed their heads in silent acquiescence.

"Then that jusht leavesh you shix," Solon mused, his legs slowly wheeling his chassis around.

Every one of the armored ponies, even Fluttershy, stood straight and locked eyes with his glimmering crimson optics. Luna remained by the Chaos Lord's side, taking in the smaller mares with an arched eyebrow.

"What are your orders, Warsmith?" Twilight asked with the darkest, most serious expression she could manage. It was adorable, really.

"You've already completed them. Eventually, at any rate. But ash you have not yet shuffled off thish mortal coil today you may yet wish to asshisht relieving the Orksh of theirsh."

"You bet your metal butt, we do!" Rainbow shouted. Rarity gave her a soft kick in the side and a disapproving frown, and the pegasus fell silent again.

"The shecond of the gunshipsh waiting in the city will transhport me and my retinue to the Harvesht of Shteel, where we will proceed with the final phashe of our defenshive. Equinought Shquadron may chooshe which transhport they ushe to leave the city."

Twilight turned toward her friends.

"Hardly a choice at all, doncha think?" Applejack asked with a smirk.

"Let's finish those greenie meanies!" Pinkie slapped one hoof into the other.

"You already have my answer," Rainbow scoffed.

"Since Warsmith Solon is openly hoping that I'll be killed at this point, I can think of no better way to spite him than fighting and surviving," Rarity said indignantly while levitating a brush through her mane.

"We can't give up now. Not until Equestria is safe," Fluttershy said, her knees wobbling only a little bit.

Twilight turned back around. "We're ready, Warsmith!" She hesitated. "Well, actually, Dash could use some repair work on her armor, and I need a nap after magically flipping out like that. But after that-"

"There will be time for resht. It'sh not a short trip," Solon assured her as he lurched past the ponies.

"We shalt meet thee within the transport, Sparkle," Luna declared as she followed the Warsmith out, "We shalt-"

"LUNA!!" came a shout from deeper in the castle. "CAN YOU MOVE THE MOON, NOW?! YOU'VE HAD THE SUN ECLIPSED FOR HOURS!!"

"Ugh. AYE, SISTER!! GIVE US BUT A MOMENT!!"

****

After saying their goodbyes, Twilight led the other mares out of the castle and into the courtyard. Or what was left of the courtyard, at least.

"It's going to take days just to collect and discard all the bodies," Rarity said with disgust as she stared at the veritable carpet of green corpses.

"Hey, at least they have a home to rebuild. Bet all the folks in the shelter reckoned they weren't goin' home again," Applejack mused.

"Rarity has a point, though. I think I might have to hold our 'final climactic ultimate victory' party in Ponyville." Pinkie Pie was sitting atop the gorget of her Dreadnought, scratching at a dataslate with a stylus while the walker stomped after the others.

Twilight halted. Standing at the edge of a balcony that overlooked a main street, Serith was staring up at the moon. The lunar satellite was rolling across the sky with impressive speed, finally allowing the sun to return to its place of dominance during normal daytime hours. Critically, Trixie didn't seem to be with him.

"Hold on, girls," Twilight said, nudging her head toward the psyker.

The other mares fell silent and followed in mute agreement, trotting up to the Sorcerer. Or stomping loudly, in Pinkie's case.

They were somewhat surprised when Serith spoke as soon as they came within earshot.

"It's so strange... something as common, tremendous, and... natural... as the motion of a moon, given over to the whims of the psyker. Such a feat is quite beyond the strength of any other witch I have encountered before, and yet it is used to accomplish nothing of note beyond the maintenance and manipulation of orbit; something that is managed quite easily by the natural course of gravity in a billion other systems."

His helmet shifted downward, taking in the city below. Smoke poured from some buildings, but little actual fighting had taken place there. The damage could be repaired with relative ease.

"This is an odd world," Serith mumbled, "it welcomes us outwardly and resists us from within. We relentlessly hammer our corruptions into its surface, and it corrupts us back with gentle words and beneficent gestures, free of guile and extortion. We are unused to such..." he trailed off. "... I cannot even call it opposition. We have no opponents here, aside from the savages. Chaos is ascendant, completely dominant. And yet..."

A bird fluttered past, chirping happily and clearly oblivious to the massacre it was flying over. Serith raised a finger in the bird's direction, and the digit sparked dangerously.

Fluttershy gasped, her body going stiff.

A few seconds passed and the bird flew off unharmed. The sparks around Serith's finger died. Fluttershy deflated with relief.

"Did you want something, Sparkle?" Serith finally asked after he let his arm drop to his side.

"Yes, I did," Twilight said, taking a deep breath, "thank you, Serith."

"Hmm?" Serith turned his helmet toward the ponies.

"I know that we haven't exactly gotten along," the purple alicorn admitted, placing a boot to her chest, "and while that's mostly because of you being pointlessly antagonistic and generally awful, I haven't given you any of the credit you deserve for the things you've done for us." She ducked her head. "Trixie's rant earlier about how 'ungrateful' we were kind of drove that home for me, even if her actual complaint turned out to be a moot point. If it weren't for you, MILLIONS of ponies would be dead by now. That's a fact. Equestria would be overrun by Orks, and everyone I know and love would have been hunted down and murdered for sport or for food. It's incredibly selfish of me to disregard all the good you've done just because you seem to like tormenting me personally."

"See this? What you're doing now? This is what I'm talking about," Serith mumbled, "nobody else DOES this. It's weird."

"You're not a nice person, and it's very frustrating the way you treat non-psykers like garbage, but you have LITERALLY saved our world, and now you're doing it again. So, thank you," Twilight said sincerely, "is it possible that we can start over? As friends, I mean?"

Applejack stepped forward. "Yeah, Ah think-"

"Quiet." Serith snapped, pointing at Applejack. The farmer suddenly felt horribly dizzy, teetering back and forth. Then she tripped over her own forelegs, and the other mares cringed as Applejack collapsed onto the ground with her eyes spinning.

"... Yeah, so, that still bothers me. But still! Celestia's alive and Canterlot is free, and YOU made that possible. So, thank you. Really."

Serith sighed, turning back to the city. "You are welcome, Lady Sparkle. Although if you think yourself in my debt, I have but one favor I would ask of you: tell no one of my... condition. Too many others have learned of it today, and I intend to wipe the Techpriest and mercenary's minds. I know not if I could do the same to you, but I need not try if you would promise to keep this knowledge to yourselves."

"Okay, sure! And, also, we can make sure Gaela, Daniels, and Dest don't tell anyone else either, so you don't have to go out of your way to do anything horrible to them!" Twilight said with forced cheerfulness as sweat started rolling down her brow. "Everyone wins!"

"Hmph. Not my preferred remedy, but I suppose it might cause less difficulty this way. Very well," the Sorcerer grumbled.

"Perfect! We won't tell a soul!" Rarity said solemnly.

"From now on," Rainbow Dash added.

A long, tense pause ensued.

"... Why did you feel the need to qualify our agreement?" Serith asked calmly, turning back around.

"Well, we hadn't agreed to anything until just now," Rainbow shrugged, smiling nervously, "I mean, how was I supposed to know?"

"Solon told us SPECIFICALLY that Serith kept it a secret, Rainbow!" Twilight snapped.

"Well, sure! But up until you pointed out everything he'd done for us, I still thought he was a complete jerk, so... you know..." the pegasus chuckled and started backing away.

"Wait, Rainbow, who did you tell?" Fluttershy asked.

The group was suddenly aware of the sound of approaching rocket engines.

"YOU DIDN'T," Rarity growled.

"Oh, come on, who ELSE would I tell?" Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

Serith was trembling in fury, and green sparks crawled over his arms and gauntlets as his visor flared. "You... insolent... brainless... avian wor-"

Any further insults were cut off when Tellis's boot connected with the back of Serith's helmet. The Sorcerer's head was torn from his gorget and flung high into the air, while the remaining power armor suit merely staggered slightly.

Tellis whirled about and landed, and then stared silently as he beheld the headless Sorcerer.

Then, laughter.

"OH, GOD, SHE WAS RIGHT!! THAT IS HILARIOUS!!" the Raptor bellowed, his shoulder pads shaking. "I'M TOTALLY SHOWING EVERYBODY THE VID-CAPTURE OF THAT KICK!! THIS IS AMAZING!!"

Serith's body raised one hand, which was gripped into a fist. Then it extended the middle finger of the gauntlet.

"Ha! Nice one!" Tellis chuckled, his voice ratcheting down slowly before he grabbed the Sorcerer's gorget and then peered down into the chest cavity. "So, how much room do you have in here? Can we store stuff inside you?"

"Wow. This has t'be the worst-timed karmic justice EVER," Applejack mumbled.

"Well, we have a mission to get to, so we'll just be leaving!" Twilight said anxiously before she turned around and ran. "Thanks again for saving us all! Please don't let the flagship get ripped apart by the Warp storm in order to get even with us!"

"Running, running, running, running..." Pinkie chanted as she and the others followed after their leader.

"Hey, if you find out where his head landed, kick it back here!" Tellis shouted to the equines. "I want to take pict-captures with it in funny poses!"

The mares didn't respond, but as they dashed toward the waiting Thunderhawks, each one heard a cold, terrible voice whisper into their ear.

"I. HATE. ALL OF YOU."

Author's Note

Edit: I thought Big Mac's departure was too abrupt and generally said "Go home, the author doesn't have a use for you anymore", so I fleshed it out.

In case anyone was wondering, NO, that was not a Chaos God that the ponies walloped. Just some higher-level daemon schmuck. Not even anyone canon. Just wanted to make that clear so nobody started announcing in the comments section that the Elements of Harmony trounced Nurgle or something.

This chapter came out shorter than the others, but I didn't really have anything else to pad it with, and I decided after all to separate the resurrection and planning chapter from the story conclusion.
The pieces are deployed, and first turn has been determined.
Time to roll the dice.

Dead Space

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 14

Dead Space

****

Ork Space Hulk Deffbringa

"Zoggin' monstaz iz in da fyool room, now!" grumbled a Nob as he marched through the dimly lit hallways of the space hulk. "Dis iz gettin' reel old."

A dozen Slugga Boyz following behind him grunted in general agreement as they followed their boss. Blood slicks slashed across the walls and floors, and dismembered Gretchin could be found every few meters. Some were new, while others had been there for more than twenty-four hours. The Orks ignored all the signs of carnage, uninterested in the general slaughter of their crew.

At first the appearance of the daemons had been a welcome relief from months of tiresome and mostly violence-free void travel, but they had worn out their welcome (which was choppas to the face) quickly. The damned monsters rarely ever appeared more than one at a time in any given place, so they were usually dogpiled and hammered into Warp dust too quickly for the warriors to really enjoy it. The only things the daemons really threatened were the Grot slaves. And while watching the scrawny little greenskins flee in terror from the howling beasts and get run down had also been fun at first, the deaths were starting to pile up. While the concept of protecting the ship's workers from being butchered hadn't yet penetrated the Ork psyche, they'd noticed that the chores were starting to accumulate along with the body count. Especially what with all the fresh corpses to be cleaned up.

"YEEEEEK!" the high-pitched, intensely annoying shriek of a terrified Gretchin brought the mob to a halt, and the Nob grimaced as a Grot stumbled into the hallway and sprinted toward them. A second later a man-shaped creature covered in rubbery, pallid skin and bearing razor-like claws jumped out as well, blinking eyes of gleaming ebony.

"FIYAH!" the Nob barked, raising his slugga.

The daemon flinched and staggered as it was shredded by bullets, its flesh tearing open and spilling pink vapors from the wounds. It screeched as it collapsed onto the floor and then curled up into a ball.

The same thing happened to the Grot, incidentally, but whatever.

"Ya fink we'z gonna be at dat hoss planet soon, Boss?" asked one of the boyz as he watched the daemon's body evaporate.

"Eh, I dunno," the Nob scoffed, approaching the doorway, "jus' shut yer trapz. I'z tiyahed o'heerin' 'Boss, iz we dere yet?' e'eryday."

The Nob looked into the auxiliary fuel storage room, and was unsurprised to see another monster, this one resembling a bright red wolf-thing with gills, chewing on another Grot.

"A'roight, c'mere ya ugly zoggin' pees'o spess trash," the Nob snarled, pointing his choppa at the beast.

The daemon whipped toward him, snarling.

"Oh, you'z gettin' fresh wit me?" the Nob chuckled as he put away his slugga and switched to a two-handed grip on his axe. The other boyz clustered around the doorway, watching and chuckling.

The inter-ship comms suddenly crackled with static.

"FROM IRON COMETH STRENGTH."

The Orks stopped chuckling. The Nob froze. Even the daemon jerked its head back.

"FROM STRENGTH COMETH WILL."

"Wot? Hoozat?" mumbled one Slugga Boy as he stared up at the vox caster built into a corner of the hallway.

"FROM WILL COMETH FAITH."

"Dat ain't da Boss. Or da Meks," the Nob announced, completely flummoxed. The daemon gnashed its teeth as it lowered itself to the floor, quivering.

"FROM FAITH COMETH DARKNESS."

The floor started shaking as something disturbed the hull. Bits of dirt and highly corroded bolts fell from the walls.

"FROM DARKNESS COMETH IRON."

"Wot'z goin' ON heah?!" snarled the Nob, whirling back around to face the daemon. It was trembling on the floor, shielding its face with its claws.

"THIS IS THE UNBREAKABLE LITANY. LET IT FOREVER BE SO."

The shaking increased to such a magnitude that it was starting to tear apart the bulkheads. The Orks could hear something ripping through the ship, but had no idea what.

"IRON WITHIN. IRON WITHOUT."

The end of the hallway came apart with a tremendous screech, throwing shrapnel and metal plating into the nearest Orks as the mob stumbled back.

A massive metal tendril, easily matching the hallway in girth, burrowed through the hole in the bulkheads and came to a stop just a few inches in front of one of the boyz. The Orks watched, bewildered, as the banded, worm-like length of metal twitched and throbbed within the hall. It almost seemed like a living thing. The Nob turned his back on the daemon and rushed to the doorway to investigate.

"Wot in da naym o'Gork..."

Then the tendril opened, splitting apart at the head.

"Die, greenskin," came a vox-distorted growl.

Bolter fire thundered into the Slugga Boyz as Iron Warriors marched into the hallway with guns blazing. The Chaos Space Marines were bearing boarding shields as they pushed into the space hulk, each one a curved black wall with the Star of Chaos printed on it in gold.

"SPIKIES!!" bellowed a Slugga Boy before a grenade exploded at his feet, blasting them off. The Orks rushed forward, scrambling over the backs of their dead and dying, but the press of warriors moving in the other direction battered them aside. Choppas scraped uselessly against the shields as a second rank of Iron Warriors gunned chainswords.

"YES!! Now DIS iz a fight!" the Nob cheered as his mob died. He brandished his heavy choppa and lunged forward, smashing aside one Marine's boarding shield.

The Iron Warrior let his shield go, staggering, but the man right next to him rammed his own shield into the Ork to knock him off-balance. The first Marine plunged his combat knife into the Nob, and then turned away to let another soldier finish off the Ork. Chainsword met flesh, and the alien shuddered under the savage mercies of the blade before the Iron Warrior kicked him away.

"Area secure," barked the unit Champion as a wounded Slugga Boy groaned beneath him. He lifted up a leg and crushed the Ork's head under his greaves. "Advance. Hammer formation. Set charges on anything that looks important."

The crimson daemon poked its head through the doorway, whimpering while the march of metal-clad feet rang through the hallway. The Iron Warriors glanced at the beast in passing, glaring down at it through visors of seething red and dismissing it with a contemptuous snort.

The comms system crackled again.

"Oi, wot wuz dat? Sumfin' messed wit da signul!"

The hull rumbled and groaned as more tendrils burrowed into it.

"Izzat... iz we undah attack? But we'z in da Warp!"

A metal tentacle crashed through the wall of the fuel storage room, knocking over drums and prompting the hound-like daemon to flinch away. The tendril pushed through the room to the other wall, spinning and grinding through the bulkheads as it went.

"OI! We'z got boardahs! Up and at 'em, ladz!"

More bolter fire echoed through the hallway. More marching of metal boots. More Ork battle cries and cheering.

More death, reaching for the green horde with claws of flame and iron.

"No, I meen NEW boardahs! Da spikies is heah! We'z gotta fight, boyz!"

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - barracks complex 219

"C'mon, ladz! Stepp it up! Dere's fightin' ta do!" shouted a Flashgit as he wrenched his kustom shoota from the rack on the wall.

All through the barracks, Orks were rolling off of their bunks and readying themselves for combat. Shootas were loaded, stikkbomb bandoleers secured, and armor donned.

The bulkheads shook even as they rushed to prepare, loosening wall trophies and knocking down some of the more rickety pieces of furniture.

A crash came from an adjacent hall, followed by the sound of tearing metal. Some of the greenskins froze, fairly stunned that battle had come to them so quickly and unexpectedly.

A new assault tendril, even larger than the others, ripped through the wall and started thrashing about the room. Orks were smashed off their feet and bunks were crushed into crumpled wads of metal and bedding as the tentacle writhed like a furious metal serpent. The Orks opened fire on the invader, although the small arms hardly made a dent in the armored appendage.

The assault tendril nonetheless drew back, calming its flailing and settling near the wall it had breached. Then it opened up, revealing its cargo to the aliens.

It's big, heavily armored, pink cargo.

"Surprise invasion party!" Pinkie boomed from within her Dreadnought shell with her close combat arm aimed to the left. Applejack stood between her legs, aiming her heavy flamer to the right. "Start up the barbecue!"

Both their heavy flamers opened up on the clustered soldiers, sweeping over the Orks from each side toward the middle and then crossing over each other. The aliens fired back enthusiastically, but the intense volley of bullets barely unsettled Applejack and was hardly even noticed by Pinkie.

As the initial flamer bursts dried up, two Nobs in mega armor charged the tendril mouth from either side, roaring almost as loud as their machine guns. Pinkie backhanded one with her Dreadnought fist, utterly flattening the heavy armor suit as the Ork went bouncing away. Applejack snapped her gravity lash at the other warrior, grabbing its leg and promptly tripping it up so that the Nob stumbled right in front of her. With a surprisingly swift motion that had her armor servos squealing, Applejack whirled around and hammered her back legs into the Ork while it tried to get up. The Nob was sent flying just as his partner had been, crashing through the scattered bunks and burning greenskins.

"Spread out! Aim for the unit leaders!" Twilight shouted as she and Rarity stepped out from behind the earth ponies. Rarity's plasma gun turned on another Ork in mega armor that was charging at them, while Twilight magically returned a pair of stikkbombs that had been tossed their way.

"Yeah! How y'all like that?!" Applejack crowed as she blasted another tongue of flame into a cluster of Shoota Boyz. "Not very fun when some alien weirdo drops in on yer turf an' starts wreckin' the place, is it?!"

"Awroight! A gud scrap! 'Bout time!" crowed a Nob as he and his boyz started pouring into the room.

"Ha ha ha! It'z da hosses! Git 'em, ladz!" shouted another to his own units coming in through the other side.

Applejack growled in frustration as new waves of bullets started pelting her armor. A photon grenade landed in front of one of the reinforcing groups, blinding them, while a string of lightning blasts bombarded the other.

"Hold them back!" Twilight shouted, her horn casing wrapped in purple light. "Just a little bit more!" Her next spell reached out to the streaks of fire burning on the floor around them, and the flames suddenly jumped up to surround the ponies and keep their foes at bay. Despite their weapons, the Orks had a combat advantage in such close quarters, and outnumbered them severely (as usual).

Pinkie stomped through the fire with impunity, swinging wildly at any Ork that didn't duck out of the way in time. Rainbow Dash landed on her shoulder, mag-locking her greaves onto the walker's hull and spraying shuriken into the mob.

"Twilight? Did we have a plan, exactly?" Rarity asked nervously as a slugga impact pitched her head to the side. "They don't seem to be giving up!" Her plasma gun hissed as it sprayed a trio of sizzling green bolts into another Nob, reducing him and the nearest boyz to cinders. Her power sword was already drawn and wrapped in her magical aura, but Rarity was hoping she wouldn't have to use it in a melee so badly tilted against them.

"They don't need to!" Twilight's horn burst with purple light, and a lance of magical power speared through several Orks trying to push their way through the flames. "Just a... little... longer..."

The space hulk's hull rumbled and groaned, and Twilight heard the tell-tale sound of bulkheads being pierced through. "Yes!"

A new assault tendril ripped through the wall next to the first and slithered through the entire room, ramming through nearly a dozen Orks and cutting off half the room from attacking the equines. From the next room over, they could hear the sound of bolter fire mixing with shoota fusillades that weren't aimed at them.

"Spikies! We gotz spiky boyz!" yelped a Slugga Boy standing in the doorway as he twisted his head around to see where the new commotion was coming from. He was still wondering which fight he should join when giant metal fingers closed around his body.

"Time to go attend that big party in the sky!" Pinkie chirped before slamming the Ork into a bulkhead wall. The alien was reduced to a messy paste of red and green, and the wall itself bent horribly under the impact.

"All right! Clear!" Twilight shouted as she watched Applejack buck the last standing Ork into the wall. "Next room! And check your armor seals, girls! Between the fire and all the hull breaches, we can't take our oxygen for granted! Pinkie, you have point! Everypony else, prioritize anti-armor weapons!"

Applejack grunted as she stepped over several burning corpses, ignoring both the flames and the bones snapping under her hooves. "Ya know, it really sours mah apples the way they're so happy 'bout all this," the farmer griped, "even when they're runnin' away and gettin' pelted with lasers, they're STILL havin' fun doin' it. It's like the only thing you can do to get under their skin is lay down and let 'em kill ya without a fight."

"Orks are surprisingly hard to spite, true," Twilight agreed as the gunfire in the next room intensified, "we'll have to settle for killing them all, I guess." Her force harmonizer trembled in the air as motes of purple energy swirled around it. "Next room! Go!"

The ponies charged after Pinkie, who was already ripping through a large mob who were in turn pressing against a wall of Iron Warriors with boarding shields. The chaos of battle rang through the halls as choppas hammered ceramite, pistols fired at point-blank range, and chainswords shredded thick green flesh.

Soon the green horde was being smashed from both sides as the ponies crashed into them. Applejack was like a wrecking ball, bowling the greenskins over while thrashing and bucking wildly, while Rarity, in stark contrast, singled out warriors separated from the larger crush of battle before cutting them down. Twilight formed an utterly lethal mean between the two, with her telekinesis wrenching choppas to the floor or firing short blasts knocking them into each other. All the while the force harmonizer cut into the mob in devastating arcs, cutting down two or three warriors with every crackling swipe.

"C'mon, spikies!" the unit Nob jeered, kicking a boot into a boarding shield hard enough to knock the Chaos Marine holding it onto his back. "You fink ya can tayk our spess hulk? HA! Wen I'm dun wif you, you's gonna-"

A loud crack came from the Nob's shin as Applejack bucked it from behind, although the Ork remained impressively grounded while much of his leg shattered into tiny pieces.

With an agonized groan, the Ork stumbled onto his knees, and he teetered back and forth as the Iron Warrior champion stepped forward from the barricade of Marines.

"I'll give you the dignity of dying to a real warrior," the Aspiring Champion rumbled before smashing the Nob's chest with his power fist. The impact blasted the Ork's torso apart, peppering his mob with scorched and dismembered limbs. "You're welcome."

The other Iron Warriors surged forward at seeing the Ork leader dispatched, and the green mob started to disintegrate under the crush of armored bodies and their rapidly mounting losses. After a few more seconds, and another few jets of flame blasting through the horde, the Orks turned and ran.

"Catch them!" snapped the Aspiring Champion, blasting a greenskin in the back with his plasma pistol. "No mercy for the xeno!"

"No mercy, got it," Twilight mumbled as her horn glowed. Next to the blast doors leading on to the next section, a panel suddenly glowed before a lever switched down. A set of heavy armored doors slid closed ahead of the escaping Orks, and one warrior who was faster than he was lucky ended up smashed to a paste between the reinforced plates.

"Oh, wow, the doors can just close on you and crush you? That's a serious safety hazard," Pinkie Pie noted as she plucked a fleeing Ork off the ground and then squashed him in her Dreadnought's power fist, "I don't think this mass of lumped-together space ships is up to code."

The moment the last Ork had been scythed down with bolter fire, the unit champion started barking orders. "Secure the left passage! Open those blast doors and give me a properly defended perimeter!"

The hull groaned and shook as another tendril burrowed into it nearby. The Aspiring Champion glanced to the side.

"The reinforcements are bringing an auger buoy. After we've identified the largest local power sources, we'll move to disrupt them!" the squad leader announced.

Twilight flinched as bolters started roaring from the passageways. Apparently the Orks were already counter-attacking. "Do we have any other information on what's calming the Warp storm?"

The Iron Warrior paused and glanced down at her in that way that nearly every Chaos Space Marine did before they reluctantly came to terms with holding military conference with a talking horse. "We believe it's a mechanical device, of some sort. The Orks do not deal in rituals of any scale to still a Warp storm, nor would their usual assortment of crude totems be effective. We're operating under the assumption that such a device demands a prodigious energy supply." He turned away as more Iron Warriors rushed into the room carrying a large machine, followed by a Dark Acolyte. "Anyway, you're a psyker. Can you not sense it on your own?"

"Not that easy, I'm afraid," the armored alicorn sighed.

"It never is," the Astartes agreed.

As she left the soldiers to their work, Twilight was suddenly hailed by a familiar voice over her unit frequency.

"Warsmith Solon!" she announced immediately. "Do you have new orders for us?"

"Indeed I do, Mish Shparkle. The Iron Warriorsh will hunt down the major power shourcesh and draw the bulk of the enemiesh' attention. I want you to head up to sheal off sheveral alternate attack routesh to prevent them from being flanked and overrun."

"All of these corridors have blast doors. If we shut them and destroy the controls, that should take some pressure off the guys here," Twilight said.

"All right! We get to break stuff!" Pinkie Pie cheered.

"Quite. After we have shome more readingsh I'll head in myshelf and shee if we can't pin down the caushe of thish mesh."

"Oh, you're coming too?" Rarity interjected, sounding surprised.

"I would have been down there already, actually, but there wash a problem with the Dreadnought deployment." The vox line was cut.

"Huh. Wonder what problems they're having with the Dreadnoughts," Twilight wondered aloud as she led her team down a hall.

"It's probably getting them through the tentacle thingies," Pinkie said, "it's kind of a tight fit. I mean, I can't think of any other reason the Dreadnoughts wouldn't want to help!"

****

Harvest of Steel - frontal assault deployment deck

"Release me, you fools!" Sirius roared as he struggled against his containment clamps. "She'll destroy me! I'm not getting anywhere near that little pink monster!"

Solon stared critically at the Contemptor Dreadnought as it strained against the huge, reinforced deployment claws that had carried the walker to the deck. They were currently holding him by the shoulders, suspending the assault walker nearly a meter off the ground and thankfully keeping its siege drill from tearing the interior apart.

"Honorable Sirius has been rapidly deteriorating in logical stability since planetfall," remarked a Dark Techpriest as the claws shook and released a shower of sparks on the deployment platform, "he's taken to ranting about pink ponies and wailing about our impending demise."

"Don't speak as if I'm mad!" Sirius shouted. His butcher cannon clanked loudly within its locking brace as he tried to shift its aim. "You know exactly who I'm talking about! I'm not making this up!"

"I really don't shee what you're sho jittery about. Mish Pie ish no threat to you, even if she wanted to be," Solon said, looking up at the walker.

"No threat? NO THREAT?!" Sirius shook within his bonds, and the deployment claws released another burst of sparks as they struggled to keep a grip. "The pink fiend has already taken Kellian! And then Hett! And now she has slain Kairon! Don't you imbeciles see? I'm NEXT!! Her shell will be torn asunder within the Space Hulk, and then she will claim mine!"

The Dark Techpriests stared at Solon, who was the only non-Techpriest in the room who could properly interpret how annoyed they were by the Contemptor's cries.

"Mish Pinkie explained that thoshe shellsh were loaned to her," Solon said calmly.

Sirius shook again, his massive helmet visor glowing brightly. "Don't tell me you BELIEVE such a ridiculous story?!"

"Not really," the Warsmith admitted, "but it ish far more plaushible than the idea of a shingle, unarmed earth pony mare neutralizing and unsheating the pilot of an active Dreadnought. I have obsherved Mish Pie, and have not sheen any evidence that she can puncture reinforced adamantium with her bare hoovesh."

"We don't know she was unarmed!" Sirius growled. "She could have... I mean, she might have used..."

The mighty Contemptor stumbled over his own words for a bit, and then tried again to wrench his arms free. "MY UNIT IS DEAD!!"

"We can't actually prove that," a Dark Techpriest pointed out, "we have not located any of their sarcophagi."

"YOU HAVEN'T LOOKED, YOU WORTHLESS VERMIN!!"

Solon groaned as he turned his chassis around. "Thish ish a washte of time. He'sh obvioushly not combat-ready. Return him to hish resht bay."

The Dark Techpriests bowed. "At once, Warsmith."

Sirius stopped struggling as the deployment claws started moving backward on their rails, carrying him deeper into the ship and away from the battle in progress. "You mock me, but she won't stop with me! When my shell is ruined, where next will she turn?! She'll start killing all of you!"

"Right. Of courshe," Solon said dismissively as he marched into one of the tendril ports.

"She will wear your flesh as the Tech-clergy wear robes! She will inhabit your armored vessel like a mollusk, and discard your devastated husk when she is done with you!" Sirius howled as the access doors shut behind him.

"Sad," remarked a Dark Techpriest while shaking his head. "For so many centuries Honorable Sirius has displayed an uncommonly resilient psyche despite his imprisonment. To think that his sanity has failed now..."

"The irony, of courshe, ish that in hish current hyshteria I rather WOULD prefer Mish Pie to control the Contemptor walker," Solon sighed, "ah, well. Prepare the lasht wavesh of reinforcementsh. I have a mission to finish."

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - walker maintenance

"Ugh. Disgustin'," grunted a Mek as he watched a daemon slowly boil away to vapor, its material body undone.

The floor was littered with spent bullet casings and Gretchin viscera, testament to the level of disruption by the daemon pack. Most of the remaining Grots were hiding in the nooks and crannies of the cavernous bay, quivering in terror.

Though the daemons had been dispatched quickly, their behavior this time around was noticeably different. They had appeared four at a time and had immediately ambushed the workers and Orks within the maintenance bay rather than simply appearing in a snarling, confused daze. Something had changed; it was almost as if the Warp itself was fighting them now.

None of that particularly mattered to the Meks trying to hammer together the assault walkers laying around the maintenance bay. The sudden and unexpected assault on the Deffbringa had brought new urgency to the task of fixing up old and damaged vehicles; a boring job that had been mostly ignored for years as the number of damaged walkers piled up. Coggz had tried to instill better work ethic in the Mekboyz, but had little sway with the dunderheads for being so new to this warband. So it was that they had only started welding arms back onto hulls and fixing breaches when the inter-ship vox shouted at them that they were being attacked.

And now the damn daemons were getting uppity, too.

A door at the far end of the room opened loudly, and the Meks quickly turned their weapons toward the entrance.

"C'mon, c'mon! Stepp it up, ya puny grot-lovahs!" growled a Flashgit as his mob sprinted through the maintenance bay. The Nob stopped to point at the Meks as the heavily-armed Orks rushed by. "Oi, you bettah git dese Kans runnin'! Dere'z fightin' ta do!"

"Yeh, yeh, I noh," grumped a Mek as he tapped a welding torch against a hull, "we'z workin' on it. Youz gitz go haff fun."

The Flashgitz chuckled as they reached the other end of the bay, exited through the blast doors, and then shut the doors behind them.

"Oi! Git owt heah, ya puny runts!" another Mek shouted as he yanked a Gretchin from its hiding place. "We'z got work ta do!"

"B-But Boss!" the diminutive greenskin wailed, "da monstahs iz-"

"Da monstah iz ded! An you iz too if ya don' git-"

Suddenly, the sound of a nearby shoota fusillade interrupted the two, and all the Orks in the maintenance area whirled toward the origin of the noise.

It had come from the hallway that the Flashgitz had entered. And, ominously enough, it had ended very quickly.

"... Wot? Did dey kill sumfin' arreddy?" wondered one Mek aloud.

A ferocious impact crashed into the blast doors, bowing them outward and startling the Grots back into hiding.

"Wot'z goin' on?! Wheah'z da boyz?" demanded another Ork technician angrily.

Another impact created a minor breach between the doors, and a crackling noise came from the barrier as something forced its way into the gap.

"Git dose Kans loos!" the Mek shouted, pointing toward a pair that were sitting under a set of cargo-moving claws. Those walkers had pilots and active weapons, but had damaged legs. They were still strung up with cables and chains, but their arms twitched as the pilots within sensed violence.

A terrible shriek came from the blast doors as a pair of heavy black gauntlets slowly pulled them apart. The gears within the closing mechanism stuttered and snapped apart, and jets of sparks blasted from the door tracks. With a final, echoing groan, the doors were ripped open, and a large pony in ebony armor strode wordlessly into the maintenance bay.

Luna seemed to pay no attention to the workers in the room, walking forward at a perfectly calm pace with her visor fixed on the next set of blast doors.

"I really don't see why you keep doing that, Princess," quipped a smaller armored pony that followed her in, "none of these doors are locked. The controls were right there." Phage Squadron was right behind Luna, walking behind the dark Princess in escort.

The Meks in the room quickly tired of the equines conversing as if they weren't there. "KILL 'EM!!" shouted one of them, pointing at Luna dramatically with a wrench.

The Iron Gage turned a palm toward the shootas being aimed, and a screen of force flickered into being over its fingers just ahead of the storm of bullets.

Luna halted as the Meks pelted her shield, looking over the combatants as if just noticing them.

"Thou art not warriors. We would hast let thee be, to perish when our task was complete and victory assured," Luna advised the greenskins as the other gauntlet was swallowed in a haze of bright red power.

"All Orks iz warriors!" a Mek retorted as his kustom shoota rattled in his grip.

"Ah. So be it." The Iron Gage sent a beam of screaming crimson into the pair of partially-restored walkers, gutting one immediately and knocking the other on its side in the explosion. Flaming bits of shrapnel rained over the greenskins, and the frightened shrieking of the Gretchin briefly rose above the reports of the machine guns.

"Slay the aliens," the alicorn said softly as her horn pulsed.

Phage Squadron jumped into action, and Breezy and Blossom promptly gunned down a Mek each with their leg-mounted boltguns.

Poison Kiss leapt for the nearest Grot instead, knocking over a workbench and smashing a boot into the slave's chest.

"As a pony, I feel it's morally repugnant to prey upon the weak," Kiss explained as she levitated her knife into the Grot's stomach, "but speaking as a scion of Chaos, it's just bomb!"

An explosion tore through the room as Luna detonated a fuel canister, and Kiss waited for the fireball to recede before her own horn lit up.

The dead Grot started to swell up like a balloon being slowly inflated with air, and its skin started to become mottled as patches of it grew much darker.

With a sadistic giggle, Poison Kiss levitated the bloated corpse into the air and then flung it toward several Orks covering behind another work bench. "Here, lads! You can have this back, now!"

The Orks ducked away, believing the body at first to be some kind of grenade. Which it was, really. The Grot burst open on contact with the floor, spraying the alien mechanics with diseased viscera and toxic fumes. The Meks scrambled out of their hiding spot, retching painfully and clawing at new sores rapidly growing on their skin.

"Be a dear and say hi to Grandfather for me!" Kiss chirped as she snapped her bolter up, joining the rest of her team in blasting apart the engineering crew.

Luna glared up at the heavy servo arms hanging above a partially disassembled Deff Dread. One of them was promptly wrapped in the magic of her telekinesis, and it swiveled around and then speared a Mek with its drill head.

"Thou wastes our time," Luna declared, idly stamping a hoof onto a Grot that had gotten brave enough to try to stab her. A battery of crimson magic bolts were loosed from her horn, and they whirled about in the air and zig-zagged around wrecked war machines in order to strike at the Orks taking shelter from her wrath.

As the last of the larger aliens staggered to the floor in agony, Luna started walking toward the door again. "These wretches art no further threat. Let us proceed."

Rot Blossom stopped gnawing on a dying Mek's arm, and then reluctantly spit out the limb. "Yes, Princess." The Ork coughed painfully as she walked away, trying to stem the flow of blood from his bolter wounds. He didn't seem especially concerned with his arm, although that would surely change when the eggs started hatching.

"Just a sec, love," Kiss said as she spread her legs apart and lowered her head. Her horn pulsed again, and seams of rust started crawling over the surface of the metal floor, coalescing into the Mark of Nurgle.

The nearby corpses started trembling, and Kiss giggled to herself as small, horrific, ball-shaped daemons started tearing their way out of the dead bodies. Green pools of pure energy started appearing around the Mark, and hands of rotting flesh emerged from them before pulling misshapen, bloated bodies up out of the puddles of magical filth. These daemons had guts spilling out their rotting, decomposed bodies, and carried dull, dirty knives as weapons.

"Just a little something to take out the trash, yeah?" the unicorn said before racing to catch up with the others. "As long as the storm's bringing in the beasties, we may as well call some in from team Nurgle!"

The Nurglings and Plaguebearers ignored the ponies, spreading out toward the wounded Orks and cowering Gretchin.

Luna plodded onward, largely ignoring the massacre happening behind her. The Iron Gage shot forward into the next set of blast doors as she approached the hall, and soon the shrieking of metal joined the shrieking of dying aliens.

"Does it bother you, Princess?" asked Kiss suddenly.

Luna didn't stop wrenching the doors open, but she regarded Poison Kiss with a sidelong glance. "Doth what bother us?"

"The daemons," Kiss asked as she stopped next to the larger mare, "the poisons. The parasites. Our cult. Any of it? It unsettled Princess Sparkle and her crew quite a bit. I'd be surprised if you didn't have anything to say."

The Iron Gage pulled the blast doors apart, opening the way for the mares to continue into the hallway.

"... Sparkle is somewhat... sheltered, despite her experience and record in defying the powers that hath threatened Equestria in the past. Sister raised a champion, but not a warrior," Luna said calmly, "We hast seen war at its most terrible. We art not so quick to judge thy methods, so long as they art used with prudence."

A squeak of fright came from a stack of metal crates to the left as the ponies walked past them. Luna casually wreathed the pile of containers in flame, cooking the Gretchin hiding under it.

"Well, that's some REAL love and tolerance, right there!" Breezy said happily as she trotted ahead.

Luna made a vaguely frustrated sound. "We hast... understanding. We ourselves art hardly pure of heart and soul."

"Please, Princess, you needn't deprecate yourself to us," Kiss said earnestly, "we're not the same. You submitted to your own feelings, not the Dark Gods. In your corruption, you lost yourself; in ours, we have found ourselves instead."

Luna halted entirely. The other mares stopped as well, standing around her.

"Chaos is not a part of you. It's like your armour; something to be used when necessary and stripped away and forgotten when it isn't. A wall to stand between you and the enemy. A mere tool."

The alicorn twisted her head to stare at Poison Kiss through the glare of her visor. "... 'Tis not untrue," she said coldly, "and what of it?"

"I just wonder, is all," the unicorn said as she started walking forward again, "what do you think when you see a pony who has taken up the cult? Who has embraced the evil that you were rescued from? Do you feel angry? Disgusted? Sad? Or maybe even... wistful, for what could have been?"

Luna didn't respond right away, and Poison Kiss reached out with her telekinesis toward the control panel for the next door. If nothing else, she was glad that she had diverted Luna from needlessly wrecking the place further.

She rather regretted that decision when it became apparent there was a mega-armored Nob waiting immediately behind the blast doors.

"BLIMEY!" Kiss yelped, her horn sparking even as a power klaw snapped forward toward her head.

The Iron Gage slammed into the Nob's shoulder, throwing the Ork back just enough for his klaw to miss Poison Kiss's face. The second gauntlet followed the first, punching squarely into the Nob's chest and throwing him onto his back.

The twin fists hovered over the stumbling Ork briefly, trembling and sparking as energy crackled over their fingers and seeped into their palms. Then the Iron Gage dove down, hammering the Ork into the floor and crushing him within his heavy armor suit.

"We THINK that now 'tis not the proper time to discuss our feelings and philosophies," Luna declared as she walked past the Nurgle-marked mares, "proceed with thy mission."

"Q-Quite!" Kiss stuttered as the lunar Princess turned and walked down a separate corridor. "Thanks for the escort!"

"Well, that could have gone much worse," Rot Blossom remarked as Phage Squadron trotted up to another door.

"I was just trying to make conversation," Kiss pouted as she took the lead again. This door wasn't armored or reinforced, as it didn't close off a separate part of the ship. There was a label written in Gothic, but it had been written over with Orkish scrawl: "Air machines. Important gear. Do NOT loot!"

None of the ponies could read Ork glyphs, of course, but they knew what the room was for. That's why they were here.

"Huh. This one IS locked," Kiss mumbled as she observed the door, "just a minute, girls." Her horn glowed, and then a green aura surrounded the hinges of the door. Almost immediately, they started to rust over and corrode before the unicorn's magic.

Breezy Blight shifted her position to defend their squad leader, and then she activated her vox.

"Lord Warsmith! We've reached the life support system! All the boys are going to want to keep their helmets on tight!"

"Excellent. Proceed ash planned. Shome bad air should hamper the Orksh' ashaultsh againsht our defenshive linesh," Solon replied.

"Well, if we're poisoning the ship's air, why don't we just lock ourselves in and wait for it to kill all of them?" Rot Blossom interjected.

"Unlikely to do sho. There are shix other life shupport enginesh within the shpace hulk that contribute to the atmoshpheric control. It could take daysh of fighting to reach and shabotage all of them."

"Seriously?! And I thought you humans were compensating for something," Breezy grumped.

A heavy chuckle came from the vox. "Good work, Phage Shquadron. After your tashk ish complete, fall back to the defenshive perimeter and await further ordersh."

"Cheers!" Kiss said before the vox was cut. Then she stepped away from the door. "All right, this thing's a good tap from falling off. Blossom?"

The earth pony walked up and then turned around to position herself.

"Once we get inside, I'll need some dead bodies to prepare. Then we just need to cram them into the ducts and Bob's your uncle!" Kiss said.

Rot Blossom bucked at the door hard, and true to form the corroded hinges snapped right off. The door collapsed inward, and Breezy quickly jumped in with her wrist-bolter at the ready.

"Pleez! Don' shoot!" begged a squeaky voice from within.

The interior of the life support control room was littered with large, rumbling engines, tubing that crawled over the ceiling, and old metal crates. And behind nearly every obstruction was one or two quivering green bodies.

"Ugh. Gretchin," Breezy spat, lowering her weapon, "I'm not wasting ammo on these shrimps."

Rot Blossom perked up. Breezy hated fighting small, weak creatures, but her parasites rather liked them. And Gretchin hides were much easier to chew than Orks, too.

"We soorendah!" squealed one of the greenskin slaves as he walked out into the middle of the room, his arms up and his body trembling. "We'll do wotevah yah want! Jus' don' kill us!"

Kiss smiled as she beheld the creature. "Well, that's right handy, innit?"

Her horn lit up, and her sword lifted up off of her flank.

"Now we don't have to go back down the hall to get corpses!"

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - one of a million pretty much identical passages

"... And that's nineteen!" Twilight said as the force harmonizer plunged into a control panel. The crystalline purple blade crackled and sizzled as it ripped through the machine's internals, and then the blade fizzled away as its job was complete.

Twilight turned around toward her squad. Pinkie Pie was standing at the end of the hall, at an intersection, guarding their rear. The others were standing among some dozen Orks scattered around the floor in states ranging from mortally wounded and comatose to what Rainbow referred to as "super-duper double dead". The sounds of distant gunfire echoed through the halls, carried along by the labyrinthine corridors and permeating the ancient bulkheads.

"Well then, that's another corridor blocked. How many more?" Rarity asked. She had found a halfway clean rag from somewhere and was magically buffing her armor.

Twilight brought up the local-area map briefly in her visor display. "Twenty-one."

The rest of her team groaned.

"Yer kiddin'," Applejack grunted.

"On this side of our defensive perimeter, I mean," Twilight explained further, "if they want us to get the other side too, and then access from the deck levels above and below, then we have about-"

"Don't. Please. It's too depressing," Rarity grumbled as she dropped her rag on the face of a fallen Nob.

"Why is this thing so HUGE?!" Rainbow Dash griped. "It's going to take days to explore it! Actual DAYS! We'll have to find safe places to sleep and find food and water and draw out maps so we don't get lost! It's like a Daring Do expedition, except that it's real, so it's a huge hassle rather than an awesome adventure!"

Twilight grimaced as she looked up. "Well, I don't think we're going to be here for days..."

The others glanced over at the air duct she was staring at, and they each felt slightly queasy as a cloud of visible green fumes started seeping from the vent.

"All right, girls. Activate your air supplies, hard vacuum mode," the Princess ordered as her visor started feeding her data on the new contaminants. Unsurprisingly, many of the readings returned rows of question marks. "Unlike the zombie plague in Ponyville, this is made to hurt the living, and probably isn't picky about its targets. Our mask filters SHOULD be able to handle it, but I'd rather not take chances. I don't want to transfer any of you to Phage Squadron."

Applejack shuddered. "Ah hear that."

"So now we have until we run out of air rather than until we run out of energy or bullets. Great," Rainbow complained as she stared at the counter that appeared on her visor. It was counting down from three hours.

"So, onto the next hallway?" Pinkie's voice boomed from within her Dreadnought helmet.

"Unless we suddenly get new orders," Twilight said with a shrug.

The vox crackled with static, and each of the ponies saw Solon's signal connect.

"Thank Celestia!" Rainbow Dash gushed immediately.

"For what? If it were up to her, you wouldn't even be here," Solon remarked, "really, I don't know what you're all alwaysh sho thankful to her for. Ashide from not ruining the sholar cycle, I shupposhe..."

"It's a pony thing," Twilight said quickly, "how can we help, Warsmith?"

"Between the poishoning of the air shupply and the fortification of our breach point, we have a sholid foothold on the Shpace Hulk. We've alsho had time to analyze the auger readingsh."

"And you've found the machine you're looking for and want to send us in a super-important assault to take it out?!" Rainbow Dash said, her flight pack flaring briefly.

"That would be great, but thingsh are not sho shimple. We've located numerous high-level energy readingsh that we can't properly identify, but that meansh little on a Shpace Hulk. This blashted thing ish riddled with redundant shyshtemsh, unknown devicesh, and abnormal machinesh of Orkish deshign. I've deployed on the Shpace Hulk myshelf and have shent teamsh of Iron Warriorsh to inveshtigate shome othersh, but we're shtill shearching for a rivet in an munitionsh dump."

"So ya want us to search some o' these energy sources?" Applejack guessed.

"If neceshary. But I would prefer that Princesh Shparkle utilize her apparent pshychic mashtery to help locate the machine we're looking for, if that'sh poshible. Mish Trixie did the shame in Canterlot when the Tau controlled it."

Twilight winced. "I've actually been trying to do just that since we got on board, but it's no use." She sighed. "Between the sheer energy saturation of being in the Warp and the unpredictable feedback from the Warp storm, my magic senses are almost useless."

"Really?" Solon asked. "I'm shurprished. The pshionic manifold doeshn't mitigate the interference?"

There was a long pause.

"The... The psionic what?" Twilight asked.

"The pshionic manifold. Your shuit'sh shecondary combat shyshtem," Solon explained over the vox.

Another pause. Twilight gulped loudly.

"Oh, for the love of Nurgle, sherioushly?"

Twilight started sweating in her armor as the other mares stared at her. "I don't recall you mentioning that when the power armor was installed the first time..."

"It wash in the shuit inshtruction documentation," Solon said incredulously, "you very nearly broke into shong when I gave it to you. And you didn't even read it?"

"Wait, really? Twilight didn't read the instruction dataslate?" Rainbow Dash asked, completely stunned. "I mean, WE didn't read ours either, of course, but I figured Twilight would have!"

"You are all imbecilesh," Solon noted.

Twilight chuckled nervously. "Well, of course I read it! You know... part of it. But I kept running into unfamiliar terms and really interesting constituent technologies, so then I kept stopping to read these other dataslates to learn about those, and, well, the actual manual just kind of slipped down my reading list..."

Rarity sighed, shaking her head. "Warsmith Solon, would you be so kind as to inform us as to what this machine does?"

"The pshionic manifold shieldsh the usher from pshionic dishruption," Solon explained, "it will protect you from any attempt to interfere with your pshychic powersh, shuch ash you experienced in Canterlot. Or are apparently experiencing now. Try it."

Twilight pursed her lips as she searched her visor icons. "Okay... is this it?" She blink-clicked an unfamiliar rune, and the words "psionic manifold engaged" appeared on her visor. The circuit threading of her horn plating flashed, and a soft white glow encompassed her helmet.

"Yeah, Ah reckon that's it," Applejack said, "how's it feel?"

Twilight almost felt dizzy at having her magic suddenly separated from the wild currents of energy that had permeated the ship. The passive Warp corruption that covered Ferrous Dominus and the Warp storm that had unsettled the currents of mana around the world had become a sort of white noise to her; background disruption that she had adjusted to with time. But now, everything that had seemed to fade in and out of her extrasensory awareness snapped into focus, and for the first time in over a month her mind felt perfectly clear.

"... Warsmith, you are a GENIUS," the alicorn said breathlessly.

"Obvioushly. Sho, what have you got?"

The lavender mare took a deep breath, settling her mind and well-honed senses to the task at hand.

The tides of magic - or Warp energy, as it were - surged through the ship in great currents, although even this was a stray trickle of the power that roared outside the ship's hull. Before, her mind had been stuck within the torrent, like a pony being carried along by wild river rapids, and making any sense of the streams of power was futile. Now, she stood apart from the energies, like a pony observing those same rapids from atop a boulder perched in the middle. The difference was enormous.

"... I can feel it," Twilight hissed as her eyes squeezed shut, "I think... I can feel many other minds. Ork minds, probably, but still powerful." She frowned as she turned her head to the side. "It's like they're... driving a wedge through the Warp, over and over, clearing a path and turning away the currents... they should have faltered a long time ago, but..." Twilight opened her eyes again, growling in frustration.

"Not entirely helpful, but thish ish progresh. Can you get me a location?" Solon asked.

"No. It's not that clear. The energy is too... spread out. Too pervasive. I can get a direction, but that's it."

"It will do," crackled the vox, "I'll have sheveral unitsh join you, and-"

"Wait, hold on," Rainbow Dash interrupted, "why don't we just go on our own?"

"What? Why would we do that?" Fluttershy yelped.

"Ah'm wonderin' that too. Ya know Ah can hold mah own, RD, but there's too much green 'round here fer just us."

"Yeah, obviously!" Rainbow said. "But we can sneak past them if we're on our own!"

"Sneak past them? Have you forgotten that Pinkie Pie is in a DREADNOUGHT?" Twilight asked sarcastically.

"I swear, it seemed like a great idea at the time," Pinkie noted, "and the other two times, after the first two great ideas exploded."

"Actually, I think Rainbow Dash has a point," Rarity interjected, "and I do NOT say that lightly."

"Yeah!" Rainbow cheered. Then she processed the second statement. "Hey!"

The unicorn ignored her. "Right now the Orks are rushing from all over the ship right into your guns. The defensive perimeter is the biggest, most obvious fight around. The more soldiers we bring along with us, the more Orks we're going to attract. And it will be very easy to be surrounded the deeper into the ship we go."

"Yeah, okay," Applejack agreed, nodding her head, "an' if we get into hot water or hit a wall, Twi can use her teleport if it's just us!"

Twilight shook her head. "Sorry, but I can't. Ever since the Warp storm has been affecting my magic, my teleports and many other spells have been-" she froze mid-sentence, her eyes growing wide.

"... Uh, Twilight?" Applejack asked. "Somethin' wrong? Ah thought the sy-onny whatsit kept yer magic in order."

"AND I HAD IT THE WHOLE TIME!!" Twilight suddenly shouted, collapsing onto her side and flailing her legs. "GAAAAAAAH!! STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUUUUUUPIIIIIIIIIIID!!"

The other ponies exchanged awkward glances as the alicorn freaked out on the floor, hoping that any nearby Orks were more interested in the distant gunfire than the agonized howling.

Rainbow nudged Applejack's shoulder pad. "You know, I'd make fun of her for this, but it's actually really sad that she made a mistake because she didn't READ enough."

"Crazy space armor makes fools of us all," the apple farmer said solemnly.

Another burst of static came from the vox, followed by gunfire. "Look, I have enemy contactsh here. When Shparkle finishesh acting like an idiot, let her know that your shtratagem ish approved. I'll be monitoring your life shupport and location sho that I can shend another team in that direction if you all die." The link was cut.

It only took about half a minute longer for Twilight to stop rolling back and forth over the floor and finally fall still.

"Are you okay, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked gently.

"Good thing you didn't start banging your head against the wall. That might have damaged the psionic manicure," Rarity commented.

"Psionic manifold," Twilight corrected automatically.

"Egghead's back!" Rainbow Dash said brightly.

Twilight slowly stood up, and her force harmonizer floated over her before clamping onto her back. "Yes, I am. Sorry about that, girls."

"Nah. Best to get it all outta yer system," Applejack assured her, "so, where to?"

Twilight took a moment to bring up the local-area auger readouts. "We have a heading, we have a map, and I can teleport accurately again." Her eyes narrowed. "Whatever's causing all this is DONE FOR. Bunch up, everypony."

Equinought Squadron surrounded their Princess, and Twilight Sparkle took in the fierce (except Fluttershy), mechanical, crimson gazes of the five helmets around her. Her horn casing flooded with purple light.

"Let's finish this," the alicorn growled as her magic energy expanded.

And expanded some more.

And then continued to expand.

As the expansion went on, Twilight came to regret her mistimed expression of aggression and determination.

"Seriously, Pinkie Pie, this would be SO much easier if your wargear wasn't some fifty times the mass of the rest of us," Twilight grumbled.

"Or twice the mass, in AJ's case," Rainbow Dash quipped before she could stop herself.

Just as a heavy boot was thrust toward Rainbow's helmet, Equinought Squadron vanished in a flash of purple light.

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - Hazarr's workshop

Hazarr "Coggz" Wrencha snored loudly as he laid sprawled out on his bunk face-down. The Big Mek, like most Orks that had managed to acquire a suit of mega armor, was practically grafted to many of the interior components by now and anyway found removing the suit was too long and cumbersome a process to do every time he wanted to nod off. So he slept atop the nearly obliterated mattress of his bed like a big mechanical turtle, with his head and arms mostly tucked within the large lump of metal. His servo claw hung overhead, twitching and occasionally snapping open and closed without conscious reflex.

A flare of Warpflame blazed to life in the middle of the workshop, opening up into a pool of darkness. From that otherworldly shadow came a creature of fangs and talons. A snarling, thirsting monstrosity whose only impulse was to extinguish mortal life.

It made it about halfway out of the portal.

Big shootas attached to ceiling turret mounts swiveled toward the daemon in an instant, immediately firing a long, devastating burst that could have shredded an entire pack of the beasts. The lone creature screeched as its material form was undone, and it seemed to slip back into the pit of darkness as if it had lost its footing.

Coggz shifted slightly in his sleep.

After a few more minutes of snoring that was only slightly softer than the shoota gunfire, a loud banging noise came from the door.

"Oi! Coggz! Open up, ya lazy Grota-lovah! OI!!"

Hazarr stirred, and the Big Mek slowly pushed himself up.

"Uuungh... wot'z wit' all da noyz?" grunted the engineer as he staggered to the door.

"Coggz! COGGZ!! I sweahz ta Gork, if ya don' open up..." the angry voice was suddenly interrupted by a violent coughing fit, which also interrupted the constant pounding on the blast doors.

Hazarr reached the door control panel, and he pulled up the lever. The doors slid apart, revealing one of Kahg Krushah's lesser Warbosses, and his escort of two Nobs in mega armor.

The Warboss was panting, and his face looked unusually pale. Both of his guards also seemed somewhat unwell, with one of them glassy-eyed and drooling (much more than usual, that is), and the other groaning softly and swaying from side to side.

"Whatcha wan' now?" Hazarr grunted, heedless of their suffering. "I'm tryin' ta sleep."

"Coggz, you git! Dis ain't da tym fer sleep!" snapped the Warboss after catching his breath. "We'z got a fight!"

"Wot, da monstahs?" the Big Mek replied. "Dey ain't-"

"No, not da monstahs ya idjit! Spikies!" the Warboss snarled. "We'z got spikies on da Deffbringa!"

This came as a genuine surprise to the Big Mek. "... Jus' how long did I sleep?"

"Dey jumped us in da Warp! Brohk inta da lowah dekks, neer da enjins!" the Warboss stopped again to cough violently. "But, lissen! Dey... Dey did sumfin' down dere! Da monstahs iz gettin' all rowdy, an' da ayr down dere ain't no gud! Da boyz iz rechin' an' hakkin', an' can't fight propah!"

Hazarr tilted his head to the side, thinking. "Da ayr heah's gud. Dey musta messed wit da sub-dekk lyff s'port in sekshun six. I c'n fiks it."

The Warboss swayed slightly as he backed away. "Yeh... ya... ya go do dat."

Hazarr flipped the switch again to close the doors, and then stomped over to his lockers. Inside, he found his void-rated helmet, and withdrew the head gear.

He was distracted, though. The Big Mek was very surprised and impressed that the Chaos Space Marines had ambushed them in Warp space. The high-energy, physics-bending nature of the Warp made most shipboard weapons and sensors almost useless, and the constant barrage of psychic energy could easily render troops insane in the fury of combat. Not that he expected spiky boys to be troubled by that second hazard, but still.

"HWAAARGH!!" an enraged scream from outside was followed by a burst of gunfire, and Hazarr almost dropped his helmet.

Several heavy impacts sent tremors through the bulkheads, and then the shouting and gunfire stopped.

Hazarr quickly checked the pressure on his welding (and unwelding) torch, and then walked back to the door controls. Hesitating only briefly, he pushed the lever up to open the doors again.

What was standing outside his workshop was not another Ork, nor was it an Iron Warrior.

"HOSS!" Hazarr shouted, snapping his torch up.

A black gauntlet flew through the air, grasping the Big Mek by the shoulder and foiling his aim. Hazarr's torch cut a burning swath across the wall as he was thrown back, missing his assailant completely.

Luna's eyes narrowed behind her visor as she looked over her newest target. "We remember thee," she hissed, "t'was thou who laid us low during our first engagement with the green horde!"

Hazarr struggled against the shockingly powerful metal hand slowly squeezing his arm, and then saw that he was still close to the door controls. He reached his power klaw for the lever, only for a second gauntlet to seize his wrist and pin him fully against the wall.

"Dost thou remember us, Ork? The dark equine that thou bested beside the ruin of the Tau space craft?" Luna growled, stepping forward.

Hazarr struggled under the grip of the Iron Gage, feeling the interior banding of his armor buckle under their grip. "I remembah a dumm bloo hoss hoo don' tokk right. Dat you?" The servo claw on Hazarr's back shifted slowly to the side.

A vein throbbed on Luna's head as her horn casing flared red. "Art those thy last words, alien?"

Hazarr's servo claw lashed downward, and Luna tensed. She was somewhat confused, however, when the mechanical limb didn't reach for the Iron Gage but instead snatched a lever on a control panel and pulled it down.

"Wherefore art-" was about as far as Luna got before the blast doors slammed closed over her head.

Sparks blasted from the door frame, and a terrible grinding noise came as the barrier fought to completely crush the obstruction and properly seal the passageway. Unintelligible noises sputtered from Luna's vox grille, and Hazarr felt the Iron Gage stop crushing him.

He used his servo claw to pull the control lever back up, and the pony armored in black staggered as her head was suddenly released from the overwhelming pressure trying to flatten her cranium. She tried to focus on her magic immediately, but her head was spinning and pain surged through her skull.

Then Hazarr switched the lever back down, and the twin plates of metal crashed back into her head again.

"Gyugh!" Luna yelped as her vision exploded into stars and a crack ran through her visor lens.

Hazarr switched the door open again. And then closed again. And again. And again.

The fifth time that the barriers slammed closed, the pain and shock of the repeated impacts finally overwhelmed the alicorn Princess. The hands of the Iron Gage slipped away to the floor, and when Hazarr opened the door again, so did Luna.

Her last thought before lapsing into blissful unconsciousness was that the doors on this Space Hulk were a serious safety hazard.

"... Well. Dat went ohkay," the Big Mek mumbled, kicking away the giant black hands.

He walked over to the unconscious alicorn, looking over her armor. Hazarr was quite impressed to find that despite the extremely heavy abuse, the helmet was still intact. It wasn't quite the same shape as before, but aside from the visor breaking, the plating hadn't breached.

"Dat'z sum gud stuff," Hazarr said, reluctantly impressed. His torch started warming up.

The Big Mek grabbed Luna's comatose body by its flight pack and held it up, deciding how to go about removing the armor from its (former) owner. He decided to cut the flight pack off first, and then work from there. His torch-arm let out a chemical hiss as the tip blazed orange.

"I wondah how dis hoss tastes," the Ork engineer mused. He did have to do something with the body after he got the armor off, after all.

Hazarr stabbed the torch into the armor's wing plating, and then flinched as a howl of pain and fury boomed within his head, echoing within the psychic currents that permeated the ship. Hazarr pulled the torch away quickly and dropped the body, taking a wary step back.

A metallic scratching noise came from behind him, and Hazarr glanced back to see the fingers of the Iron Gage twitching even as the gauntlets remained on the floor.

"Damm spikies and deir nutty geer," the Big Mek growled. He disliked machines that snarled at him on principle; all a piece of wargear had to do was perform function A when subject to input B, with some allowance for unexpected explosion C, and he wasn't going to take any lip from an uppity hunk of metal.

He shut off his torch and grabbed Luna by her leg. "Ferget it. I'll jus' toss it." The room immediately adjacent to his workshop was a bigger workshop used by the numerous Gretchin and Meks that Kahg had put under Hazarr's command. It contained an incinerator, which would do just nicely in ensuring that the linguistically challenged mare didn't pop up to bother him again.

Hazarr started dragging Luna across the workshop floor, stepping around a large puddle of blood and viscera. Hazarr was guessing that it used to be the Warboss and his retinue that had woken him up, although it was impossible to tell for sure with their heads reduced to charred husks.

"Boss Krushah needs ta git sum bettah help," Hazarr grunted, "da only reeson I caym wit' him wuz cuz' my own boyz coodn't beet da dumm hosses."

Hazarr reached the wall with the incinerator, and he dropped his equine cargo to open up the access shaft.

Then came the footsteps.

Not light, equine steps, or the armored, purposeful tread of the Astartes. This was a heavy, mechanical gait, akin to assault walkers and space-borne monstrosities.

Or perhaps a Warp-fueled cyborg hybrid of the two.

The blast doors to the main shop slid open, and Warsmith Solon lumbered into the room. The Chaos Lord's mechanized legs were spattered with gore, his servo claw dribbled blood along the floor behind him, and the heavy rotary cannon mounted on his right arm was still warm and slowly spinning from its most recent exertion.

"Oh, zog," Hazarr cursed as he quickly adjusted the gas pressure on his torch.

Solon took a leisurely sweep of the room with his optics, barely even seeming to notice the Big Mek. Instead, it was Luna that his attention eventually settled on, her comatose body encircled by targeting reticules and boxed in by data readouts.

Finally, Solon's gaze shifted to the alien.

"That belongsh to me, Ork," Solon said calmly, walking forward again. His cannon started spinning up, and his optics flashed.

"Sod off!" Hazarr snarled, cranking his torch up to maximum range and firing a blast at the newcomer.

At Solon's current distance the heat ray was largely ineffective, and the Chaos Lord continued crossing the room as a wave of blazing orange scorched his abdominal plate. Hazarr leapt behind the unfinished hull of a Mega Dread as Solon's weapon retaliated, filling the room with a shrieking howl. Bright red fist-sized munitions tore across the wall, punching deep holes in the reinforced bulkheads that spat puffs of Warpflame after impact. One such bullet ripped into the incinerator access hatch, breaking it off its mounting and knocking it into the withering flames within.

"I musht shay I'm shurprished," Solon admitted as he started strafing to the side, "how did you manage to dishable the Princesh with sho little apparent damage?"

Hazarr growled as he fumbled with a remote control from his tool belt. "I owt-smahted her, dat'z how!"

Solon paused. "Huh. Okay, yesh, I can shee how that would catch one off-guard."

"Lessee if it wohks on you!" Hazarr shouted as he pressed a button on his remote.

Six auto-turrets dropped down from the ceiling, each one rattling dangerously as they swiveled about toward Solon.

"Outshmart me, hmm?" the Warsmith mused aloud.

The big shootas opened up on the Chaos Lord, the cramped quarters and large target compensating for their lackluster sensors and targeting programs. Bullets hammered Solon from all sides, and sparks sprayed across his armor in great showers from dozens of ricochets.

Solon surged toward one of the turrets, all but ignoring the constant rain of munitions buffeting him. His legs shifted to lift up his chassis, and the Warsmith grabbed onto the auto-turret with his free hand and ripped it clean off its servo mounting.

Hazarr peeked out from behind his cover, watching as the Chaos Lord dropped the sputtering gun and then stuck his hand up into the mess of sparking cables and shredded metal left behind. The Big Mek didn't know what he was trying to do, but the important thing was that the Iron Warrior's weapons were diverted elsewhere. Hazarr darted out of his hiding spot, running as quickly as his heavy armor allowed toward one of the weapon assembly tables.

Solon's multi-optics spotted the movement, but he let the Big Mek be as bullets continued scraping against his chassis and hammering dents into his smokestacks. His hand shifted carefully through the sundered cables and gearwork, stopping as his fingers grazed the particular wire he was looking for. Threads of energized mercury seeped from the palm of his gauntlet, crawling over the damaged electronics and wrapping around the metal contacts.

Hazarr grabbed a kustom mega blasta from a workbench and then turned around, bracing the hefty weapon's weight with his servo claw. To his delight - and mild confusion - Solon was still standing in place, his hand stuck up in the ceiling.

Also, the auto-turrets had stopped shooting, for some reason.

Weird.

Realization dawned on the Ork as the automated guns swiveled around to face him.

"ZOOOOOOG!!" Hazarr cursed as both he and the turrets opened fire.

One of Solon's legs flipped a metal table up just ahead of the mega blasta's discharge, and a brilliant flash of light filled the workshop as the energy bolt detonated and consumed the furniture uselessly.

The combined fire from the turrets, however, battered Hazarr and staggered him. Though his mega armor was more than adequate to deflect the barrage, the crushing volume of fire was much harder to ignore for the Ork than it was for the Iron Warrior. Hazarr shielded his face with his klaw and the mega blasta as he stumbled back, searching for a safe haven.

"Kwit it! Ya damm hunks o'junk! I'm gonna rip ya all ta scrap an-" a plume of pressurized gases burst from the mega blasta as the shootas ripped a hole in the volatile weapon, and this time Hazarr didn't even get a chance to curse before disaster struck.

Hazarr's gun exploded, throwing the Ork hard into the wall. Solon approached and gestured to the side, and the rumbling auto-turrets stopped shooting as they powered down.

"YOU thought to outshmart ME, Ork? Know your place. You shtand before Warshmith Sholon, Lord of the Machine. Your abshurd devicesh and banal wit are ushelesh before me."

Hazarr coughed as his armor smoldered around him. His servo arm was gone, as was his power klaw.

"Why... can't anee o'you gits... tokk roight?" the Ork groaned.

Solon paused in his approach. "Touché. Initiating rebuttal." He slammed a leg into Hazarr's chest plate, and the Big Mek howled in pain as his armor folded inward into his chest.

Solon's servo claw reached over and seized the gasping Ork around the waist, digging deep and painfully into his torso as it picked him up. "I admit you barbariansh gave ush a good shtruggle, at leasht. I really didn't expect sho much trouble from you. In fact, I'm shtill not shure how you shtabilized the Warp shtorm."

Hazarr gasped and coughed as he was lifted up and carried to the side. "You... metuhl... idjit! It wuz... eezy! Don' ya... noh hoo... I am?"

Solon halted, his optics zooming in on his opponent. "Actually, no. Who are you?"

The Big Mek gathered his strength briefly, managing to draw enough air from his collapsing lungs to form an unbroken sentence. "Da naym's Coggz! Hazarr Coggz Wrencha! Da bestest, biggest Mek dere is!"

Solon's optics flickered for a few seconds as he searched his databanks.

"Never heard of you," he admitted. Then he shoved Hazarr into the incinerator.

The Mek howled in pain as Solon drew his servo claw out, but those cries were silenced once he pressed a large, obtrusive button on the incinerator controls. A fresh blast of super-heated gases were injected into the machine, and Hazarr's body and armor suit was utterly disintegrated.

"That'sh a shame, really," Solon admitted as he stepped away from the surging heat, "for a moment I thought I might have actually beaten shomeone important for once."

He swiveled about on his chassis, and then scuttled over to Luna's unconscious body.

"I shupposhe everybody getsh into trouble once in a while, eshpecially on the battlefield. I certainly have no room to criticize. But I do hope thish ishn't going to become a trend, Princesh." Solon picked Luna up by her flight pack, depositing her more-or-less gently on his chassis behind him.

"Fatherrrr... Tia keeps raising the sun an hour earlyyyyy..." Luna moaned, "tell her to wait her turrrrrrrn..."

"The shad thing ish that thish ish my mosht usheful and shucceshful combat experience in about a decade," Solon grumbled as he picked up the Iron Gage and headed back to his ship.

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - some other corridor; for real there are so many corridors you have no idea

A set of blast doors slammed shut, sealing off the connecting hallways with an airtight, armored seal.

Ten Orks in 'ard armor slumped in front of the barrier, all in varying states of misery as they hacked and coughed. Some had bits of skin peeling off in places, and others were spitting up blood. Orks were exceptionally hardy creatures, able to tolerate any number of hazardous environs and diseases, but Nurgle's contaminants were a cut above mundane infections.

"A'roight... less jus'... tayk a breethah," gasped the unit Nob as he stared at his mob in a fevered haze, "den we can go bakk and krump dem... ugh..." the larger Ork fell back against the wall and slid into a seated position, his lungs burning.

"Da ayr iz bettah in heah," remarked one of the less infected boyz, "can't we jus' wayt fer da spikies ta come to us?"

"Sumwun'z gotta tell Boss Krushah wot'z goin' on," gasped another 'Ard Boy, "da boyz can't fight in dat!"

"Yeh, oh-kay... mebbe we c'n get a Mek ta fikks da ayr masheen," the Nob mused. "... Oi. You gits heer dat?"

They did indeed hear that: the sound of very heavy footsteps approaching the other side of the blast doors.

"I fink it'z da Nobz. Dey'z comin' bakk too," sputtered a boy before coughing.

A different 'Ard Boy nodded wearily and pulled the lever on the door controls.

The blast doors cracked open, and the Orks recoiled uneasily as a puff of green fumes seeped into the hallway.

Then they recoiled again as a Stetson poked its way in, followed by a suit of quadrupedal terminator armor.

"Hey there fellers! Takin' a break?" Applejack asked pleasantly as she primed her heavy flamer. "Here, lemme warm y'all up. Some o'ya look like ya got the chills."

The Orks all started taking up their weapons, groping for choppas or dizzily trying to hold sluggas straight. It was such a pathetic sight that Applejack actually considered waiting a few seconds longer until they were ready, just so they could at least die with SOME dignity.

She decided against it.

Pinkie Pie's Dreadnought followed Applejack through the doorway, trailing by several meters. "Hey, AJ! Need any help?"

"Nah, Ah'm good," Applejack said as she trotted over the burning bodies, "these guys weren't in any shape to give us trouble."

After the others walked in, Twilight levitated the control lever down and shut the blast doors once more.

"All right, it looks like this section uses a different environmental support engine. The contaminant levels are very low and falling," the alicorn announced, "give it a few minutes and then you can switch back to external air supplies."

"Well, that's two likely causes of death evaded, for now: suffocation and infection. Lovely. Where to, Twilight?" Rarity asked.

The alicorn concentrated briefly, squeezing her eyes shut. Then she turned slightly to the left, sensing their objective through the currents of the Warp. "We're close. Very close. The... machine, or whatever it is, is a deck above us and then..." she grunted in frustration. "I still can't get a good reading on the distance. And my visor isn't picking up any particularly large energy signatures that way, either. Whatever it is definitely isn't as power-hungry as many of the other ship systems."

"Well, I'm getting a Cool reading of 4.1 from that direction. Does that help?" Rainbow Dash asked.

The pegasus looked around and saw her friends staring at her silently.

"All right, fine. Didn't think so," she grumbled, "so where's the elevator?"

The sound of shoota fire and Orks shouting suddenly had the ponies all at attention, whirling to face down the hall for any opposition.

"... Too far away," Twilight said, relaxing slightly, "it must be another daemon pack appearing."

"They're, uhm, kind of in our way, though," Fluttershy said softly, noting that the current corridor went straight toward the sounds of combat with no alternate routes.

"That's fine. We're not taking the elevator," Twilight assured them as her horn casing flashed again, "vertical teleport, five meters. Three... two... one!"

****

When the purple light faded, the mares found their crimson-tinted visors locking onto the back of two Nobs in mega armor.

"Wot da-" the Orks had just started turning around when Rarity gunned down one of them, her plasma gun burning easily through the thick sheets of layered plating. The other was smashed aside by Pinkie's power fist, having been unlucky enough to be within swatting range when the ponies materialized.

"More over there!" Rainbow shouted, still perched on Pinkie's shoulder.

Half a dozen more mega-armored Nobs stood at the other end of a largish room littered with scrap metal and loose munitions. The Orks were clearly surprised at their appearance, although these ones at least had the good fortune to be facing the right direction.

"Oi! Inn-troodahs!" barked one Nob as he started spraying wildly with his shoota arm. "Krump 'em!"

A spray of shuriken sailed back at them as the warriors rushed forward, although the razor-edged projectiles did very little to harm or hinder them. The same could not be said of the photon grenade that landed in front of the charging aliens. The blinding flash had them stumbling in their advance, and one of them tripped over a munitions crate. It also made their shoota bursts less accurate, although it was difficult for the ponies to discern a real difference.

"Twilight, could you be a dear and keep those deadly power weapons away from us?" Rarity asked as she put down another Nob with a flurry of plasma bolts.

"On it!" Twilight had been inspired by seeing one of the Orks spill bullets all over the floor, and she spotted a metal barrel crammed beyond any safe capacity with spare rokkits.

A simple nudge of telekinesis sent the barrel crashing to the ground and the warheads rolling across the room at the Nobs' feet. "Applejack, Pinkie! We need fire, now!"

Twin jets of flame rushed through the room, parting around the Nobs' well-protected legs.

As well-protected as they were, that protection was severely tested when the floor began exploding under them. Nobs tumbled to the ground as their feet were knocked out from under them, or, in a few particularly nasty cases, blasted off entirely. Only one Nob survived the wave of detonations with his armor and weapons still intact and ready, and even he staggered unsteadily as he emerged from the smoke.

"Got him," Pinkie chirped before spearing him with her multimelta.

"And THAT is why you don't store live, unstable munitions in a room where you expect to see combat!" Twilight lectured before plunging her harmonizer blade into a wounded Nob. "This entire ship is a mess! It's a wonder any of you survived long enough for us to come kill you!"

Rarity stood further off from the dazed Orks with her plasma gun floating over her head, calmly putting them out of their misery one shot at a time. "Speaking of rooms that expected to see combat, this is some rather heavy gear to find so far from the main fighting, isn't it?"

Twilight nodded. "You're right. These Orks weren't here by chance, they were standing guard. Which means..."

She looked around the room. It had a set of blast doors on each wall, but one was particularly large and heavy, covered over with glyphs and skulls hanging from chains.

"There. Behind that door," Twilight said darkly. Then she tapped into her vox. "Company Command, this is Twilight Sparkle. We've reached the device. Get everyone ready to fall back and leave the ship in a hurry, because I'm not sure how much notice we'll be able to give you before it's down."

Rainbow Dash frowned.

"Acknowledged. Perform your duty, Sparkle," came a gruff reply through the vox before it was disconnected.

"Hey, uh... how are WE gonna get outta here, exactly?" Applejack asked. "Kind of a long walk back to the assault tendrils."

"I don't know," Twilight admitted with a sigh, "we'll have to see what this machine looks like and what our options are for taking it down. But, well... we might not be able to make it back in time."

Rarity cringed, and Fluttershy whimpered.

"No, no, no..." Rainbow Dash mumbled, her head turning left and right.

"I hope it won't come to that, Dash," Twilight said, "but even if we have to sacrifice-"

"Not that!" Rainbow yelled. "The room with the thing is only clocking in at 3.4!"

"... What?" The question came from more than one vox grille.

"Its Cool factor! Weren't any of you listening to me before?" Rainbow shouted.

"No." Once again, Twilight's blunt admission had plenty of company.

"That means the higher Cool factor is from something else! And it's coming from-"

The set of blast doors that Rainbow Dash was facing groaned as they slid open. The rest of Equinought Squadron whirled around, their nerves on edge and their weapons primed.

"... Da ZOG iz dis?!"

The Ork standing in the doorway was big. Very, very big. Twilight decided immediately that they had stumbled upon the head Warboss of this vessel, mostly out of a fervent hope that there wasn't an even BIGGER Ork waiting to challenge them nearby. He had a suit of mega armor on, complete with huge tusks jutting out the front, a sparking backpack generator, and a rod-shaped weapon strapped onto one wrist. Unlike most other suits of the same type, this one had a normal gauntlet instead of a power klaw, and in that hand the Ork carried an enormous maul. Also unlike the other suits she'd seen, this Ork had an enclosed helmet; a feature that had proven surprisingly rare for a space-faring species operating on a rickety space ship.

Behind the Warboss was a Weirdboy and a Mekboy, with the latter hauling a massive weapon over his shoulder that hardly looked like a weapon. Rather than having a barrel, it boasted a propeller-like array of three sphere-tipped rods at the end, and the entire machine was covered in dangerous-looking cabling and sizzling fuses.

For a few tense seconds, neither side spoke or moved.

Then Warboss Kahg Krushah looked over at his Weirdboy. "You seerius? Dis iz da 'powahfool magiks' dat'z been cozzin' trubbel? Izza buncha HOSSES!"

"Dey gots a big stompy fing," the Mek pointed out, gesturing over at the Dreadnought.

"It'z PINK!" the larger Ork retorted.

"Hey! You got something against pink?" Pinkie asked, taking a heavy step forward.

"Somewhat appropriate," Rarity quipped as she snapped a fresh fuel cell into her plasma gun, "because I cannot abide GREEN."

A burst from her plasma gun and Rainbow's shuriken catapult were the starting shots of the fight. The fusillade splashed against a defensive barrier in front of the leader, casting a bleak blue glow over the greenskins.

"Reely? Dis iz reely happenin'?" the Warboss asked as his Weirdboy and Mekboy lumbered forward.

The Weirdboy's exposed brains flashed over with green energy as his mind lashed out, but the Ork was quite surprised when his attack was met with a similar lash of purple coming from Twilight.

"Pinkie! Get them!" the alicorn shouted as she held back the tide of psychic power.

"MECHA PIE SMASH!!" Pinkie boomed in a highly exaggerated roar as she surged forward.

At the same time, the Mek's shokk attack gun started turning as the generator rods flashed with energy. All around the Mek's feet, tiny greenskins even smaller than gretchin clamored and cackled, gnawing on loose wires and climbing on the Mek's tool belt. Several of these tiny creatures - called Snotlings by the larger Orkoids - were suddenly sucked up into a pipe as the shokk gun whined and buzzed.

"A pink power fist hurts just as much as any other color, bozo!" Pinkie shouted as she lunged for the Orks.

The shokk gun flashed, and the Mek staggered back. A strange cascade of light briefly surrounded Pinkie's Dreadnought, and the walker froze mid-charge.

"Whoa, trippy," the bubbly mare said. Then she yelped in pain. "OW! Hey! What? Where did you come from?!"

"Pinkie?!" Rainbow Dash yelled as the Dreadnought - and thus her perch - suddenly lurched backward. "What's wrong?!"

"There's - gyah! - little green things in here! Ow! Quit it! Let go of my tail!"

Rarity blurred across the floor as as she powered up her time dilation engine, skipping around the largest of the Orks as her power sword left a blue streak behind her.

Kahg glanced to that side as his Mek tried to snap at the armored unicorn with his klaw, but swiped too high. The floating power sword cut across his chest, and then stabbed up into the shokk gun.

Rainbow Dash blasted by on his other side, and Kahg turned his head to watch as the flying pony smashed into his Weirdboy, toppling the psyker. The pegasus jumped off as soon as her target hit the ground, and then twisted in the air to fill the fallen Ork with shuriken.

Kahg faced forward again, his gaze settling on a pony charging straight for him. It was wearing a hat.

"This is fer mah orchard, yah ugly green sonuva mule!" Applejack cried as she galloped toward the Warboss.

"... Yeh, I'm dun wif dis," the massive Ork grunted.

His hand shot out and grabbed Applejack just as she was about to ram into his leg, seizing her by the head. The apple farmer was stopped instantly, her helmet creaking from the unexpected impact.

"What in the-HEY!" Kahg lifted Applejack up by her face, and she started flailing her legs and tail to try to break free.

Rarity dodged to the side as her Mek opponent swung desperately at her, all the while smacking aside the squealing Snotlings with quick jabs of her hooves. With barely a glance at her power sword, it drew itself out of the damaged shokk gun and then stabbed down into the Ork carrying the weapon, sending him to his knees.

"There! We'll have no more of your ridiculous weap-"

And then suddenly she had a whole lot of Applejack in her face.

The two ponies skidded painfully across the floor, kicking up a trail of sparks before slamming into a crate full of ammunition belts. Loose bullets were scattered all over the floor, along with much of the mares' dignity.

"Applejack! Rarity!" Twilight shouted in shock. Then she was forced to dodge to the side as Pinkie's Dreadnought nearly stepped on her.

"Stop! Get out of the kitchen, you little monsters!" Pinkie cried as her walker reeled back and forth at random. The sound of crashing porcelain followed her demand, prompting a howl of anguish from the party pony. "NO!! Not the good china!"

Rainbow Dash slammed her back hooves into the badly wounded Weirdboy, finishing off the psyker before she turned her attention to Kahg. "You're mine, fatso!"

The Warboss swiped a hand at her, but the pegasus proved more agile than Applejack was. Rainbow Dash zipped out of arm's reach, and then bounced in the air to avoid a swing of Kahg's maul.

"What? Can't hit me? Are you stupid AND blind?" Rainbow cackled, swooping to the side to avoid a punch. Honestly there was very little Rainbow could do to hurt a heavily armored foe in such close quarters, but distracting him for her better-armed teammates was the best option she had.

Kahg growled in frustration as he swung his maul in tight arcs and threw the odd jab at the flying equine, only to have her bob and twirl away from his attacks.

A humming noise came from his side, and Kahg twisted about as a sizzling purple blade crackled against his personal shield. He snapped his gun-arm toward Twilight, and the zap-blasta sparked dangerously as he leveled his aim.

That proved futile as Rainbow came back around and kicked at his wrist, spoiling the shot.

"Hey! Did I say I was done with you, yet?" she cried as the Ork growled deep in his throat.

The Warboss turned the zap-blasta on Rainbow instead, and a jolt of lightning lashed out at the pegasus. She hit her impulse blasters at just the right moment, jolting backward and barely avoiding electrocution.

And then Rainbow Dash remembered why it's a bad idea to use those devices indoors.

"GAH!" Rainbow slammed her head on the ceiling, and then pitched to the side as one of her wings scraped against a bulkhead beam. She was sent spiraling into the floor, bouncing off of her shoulder and eventually crashing into a barrel in what Kahg felt was a fitting conclusion to her hubris.

Pinkie accidentally kicking her after that was unrelated to her hubris, but he enjoyed that, too.

"EEEK!! They're in the den! Somepony help!" Pinkie shouted as her Dreadnought fired a multimelta blast that cut a long, hot groove into the wall. "Not the holovid player! ANYTHING but the holovid player!"

A loud crack followed the pony's plea. "NOOOOOOOOO!!"

Kahg felt the tingling sensation of his shield bubble breaking as the force harmonizer cut across it again. He jumped to the side with shocking speed for something his side and weight, and the harmonizer blade spun wildly from the missed swipe.

"The shield is down!" Twilight shouted as Kahg stepped up to some crates and pulled his maul back. "Now to finish-"

Kahg struck a crate on the side, pitching it at Twilight with stunning accuracy. Stunning in the sense that the Princess was sent reeling when the crate smashed into her and knocked her off her hooves.

"Ya noh, I cood be fightin' spikies roight now," Kahg grumbled, his voice bubbling with resentment as he stomped toward Twilight, "but 'ere I am, beetin' on hosses eensted. I'm 'ardly even haffin' fun."

A photon grenade suddenly shot at him out of nowhere, soaring straight for his helmet. Kahg swatted it away with his gun-arm without even thinking about it, and the explosion flashed off to his side uselessly.

The Warboss narrowed his eyes as he considered the source of the grenade. Then he charged forward, swiping his hand near the floor.

Fluttershy squealed as she was seized by her wing, and the flight pack kicked on as she scrambled desperately to escape the Ork's grasp. "No! Stop! I'm invisible! That means you can't-"

"SHADDUP!!" Kahg roared, slamming the meek pony face-first into a wall. The visor cracked apart loudly, and she screamed as parts of the helmet plating folded and popped off. Fluttershy's armor flickered into view as the stealth field broke down, and the Ork hesitated briefly to observe his victim before snorting in contempt.

Kahg reared his arm back to finish flattening the pegasus, only to roar in pain as the force harmonizer shot in from the side and sunk into that same arm. Fluttershy fell from his twitching fingers, crashing limply onto the floor.

"Leave her alone!" Twilight snarled, her armor only slightly battered from her earlier spill. "You're not done with me yet!" The force harmonizer drew itself from Kahg's arm in order to strike again, but the Warboss smacked it aside with his own weapon, throwing it across the room.

"Pinkie! Get your act together and help me!"

The pink Dreadnought was swaying side to side uneasily, although it had stopped thrashing about. "All right. Okay. I locked them in the bathroom. I think I'm okay," Pinkie said, sounding out of breath, "so, what's going on?"

Kahg's maul smashed into the walker's shin, and the war machine started flailing again as pieces of its leg plating was torn off. The Warboss swung around Pinkie's side, hammering the war machine in the back with another devastating blow.

"Augh! No fair!" Pinkie shouted in distress as she crashed onto the floor, lying on her chest plating. A moment later Kahg stomped onto her back, pinning the walker down with his own impressive mass.

Kahg's zap-blasta started whining loudly as he jammed it into the Dreadnought's reactor shielding. Arrows of magical power pelted his arm and back, burning through his mega armor, but he brushed aside the pain to focus on removing the most obvious threat in the room.

The zap-blasta discharged loudly, and a sharp keening noise filled the room as the Dreadnought's reactor went critical.

"I am not a good Dreadnought pilot," Pinkie observed just before her walker exploded.

Twilight flinched away as fire and shrapnel rolled through the room.

"Pinkie! Pinkie Pie!" Rainbow Dash howled as she stood up. The smoke parted around the hulking body of the Warboss, who glared down at the ponies through a flat bar visor of warm yellow.

"You monster! You killed our friend!" Rainbow shouted. Then she turned toward Twilight. "Right, Twi? He killed Pinkie! Blew her right up! He'll pay for that! Right?!"

Twilight didn't answer right away. "... Why are you trying to convince me that Pinkie Pie is dead when she survived the last two times this happened?"

"Because it would really help out right now if you got super mad and magically insta-killed this guy!"

Kahg released a rumbling sigh as he started plodding toward Twilight. "Wotta wayst o'tym."

Then a snapping noise came from behind him, and he felt himself being tugged back.

"Oh, no y'don't!" Applejack growled. Her greaves glowed violet and her tail plating quivered as the gravity lash held the Warboss firm. "Rares! Blast him now!"

Rarity, who was still lying against the wall with many very deep dents in her armor, groaned pitifully and twitched slightly.

"Oh, fer land's sakes! Ah ain't THAT heavy!"

Kahg grabbed a metal crate and flung it at the apple farmer, knocking her aside and breaking the beam. "You'z can't beet me," growled the Ork as he stomped forward toward Twilight again, "I'm Warboss Kahg Krushah, an I don' luz to no hoss!"

Twilight's force harmonizer hovered back to her, and the blade appeared once again as her horn flared with power. "There's a first time for everything!" she shouted back as Kahg lunged.

Twilight teleported behind him, and then stabbed forward with the harmonizer. Kahg jumped to the side, causing the floor to shake from his dodge.

"You may have size on your side!" Twilight teleported out of the way again as Kahg swung at her, again appearing on the other side of the Ork. "But I have my friends!"

Kahg whirled to block her next attack, and the harmonizer blade crackled fiercely as it bit into the thick, reinforced metals of Kahg's weapon.

The Ork pushed the harmonizer away, and Twilight's horn casing glowed once more as she saw him preparing another massive swing. "And FRIENDSHIP... IS..." Once again, she vanished in a flash of purple, reappearing behind the Warboss.

Just in time to catch Kahg's maul in her side at full power.

"AAAGYAUGH!!" shards of ceramite and bands of plating scattered across the room as Twilight went flying, her body spinning end over end before she crashed painfully in a bulkhead wall. Her visor cracked before her eyes, and a fresh jolt of agony rolled through her body as she bounced off and hit the floor.

"TWILIGHT!!" Rainbow Dash screamed, launching herself at Kahg.

The Ork managed to time his response correctly this time, connecting a vicious backhand that swatted the pegasus out of the air. Aside from that, he hardly acknowledged the other pony, walking straight toward Twilight's fallen body without a word.

"Consarn it! Git back here!" Applejack shouted angrily as her gravity lash snapped forward and took hold of the Warboss again. "Rares, ya feel like shootin' him now?"

"Uhnnhng..." the unicorn twitched some more.

Kahg shuddered to a stop, and then snapped his zap-blasta toward the apple farmer.

Applejack screamed as a whip of lightning struck her, causing the tractor beam attached to her tail to fizzle out. After a few seconds of quivering under the extremely high voltage, she collapsed onto the ground with smoke pluming from her armor joints.

"Twilight? Twilight, please tell me you're okay!" Fluttershy whimpered as she limped up to the battered alicorn.

"F-Flutters? Oh... hello!" Twilight replied in a rather high-pitched voice. "My visor keeps beeping at me. Do you... Do you think it's mad? Please tell it I'm sorry."

Fluttershy cringed at hearing the other mare's deranged tone. She lifted up a foreleg, and a needle popped out of the narthecium brace. "Okay, uh, my helmet is gone so I can't tell if anything's broken, but-"

"My visor is!" Twilight interrupted. "Do you think that's why it's mad? It keeps flashing 'teleport homer engaged'. I'm sorry, visor. Don't be mad."

"What? Twilight, I-" Fluttershy yelped as a massive boot kicked her in the side, splitting the main abdominal plate and flinging her into a munitions barrel.

"I gotta say, yer geer iz roight 'ard if'n yer tokkin still," Kahg said as he grabbed Twilight by her rear leg. "Wondah why da spikies giff dis stuff ta you gitz. Eh. Wotevah. It'll be gud lootin' aftah I get all da hoss bitz owt." He held Twilight up higher by her leg so that she was on eye level with him, and he stared into the cracked, flickering lens of her helmet. "You'z a talky liddel runt, so ya prolly got sum las' words. Go on, den."

Twilight's head swayed unsteadily from side to side as she considered this boon. Eventually, she went with: "Do your gums itch? Because my gums itch. A LOT."

Kahg frowned. "Well... now dat ya menshun it-"

The crack of a teleport flare sent Kahg into motion immediately. In the blink of an eye he let Twilight go and swung his maul around, intent on smashing the new target appearing behind him just as he had done to the Princess.

His maul slammed into the haft of a great hammer, and the Warboss was briefly stunned as his blow was turned aside.

"Greetingss, Ork," snarled a massive, terminator-armored warrior as Kahg was shoved back, "I would have a word with you."

The head of his hammer crackled with deadly energy.

"Perish."

Kahg brought his maul around in time to block, but the strike still hit with enough force that the Warboss staggered back for a crucial moment. A huge shoulder pad crashed into the Ork while he was off-balance, knocking him off his feet and onto his side.

"... SLIVER?" Rainbow Dash asked, gaping in disbelief.

"That'ss Lord Ssliver to you, worm," the Chaos Lord growled as he dodged back from a wild swing, "why have you faltered? You wasste time with thiss wretch when your misssion lay right in front of you!"

Kahg got up and roared, firing his zap-blasta into Sliver's chest. If the sizzling bolt of lightning even annoyed the Nurglite, he didn't show it.

"W-Well that ain't really fair," Applejack stuttered weakly as she pushed herself up, "we tried-"

Ork and Astartes crashed into each other, and the ponies felt the floor quiver as the opponents deadlocked.

"I did not intervene to lissten to your excussess!" Sliver snarled as his boots screeched across the metal flooring. "Hurry up and GO!"

Kahg smashed his helmet into Sliver's face plate, but it did little besides dent their respective visors. "A'roight! Now DIS iz wot I'm tokkin' abowt!" the Warboss howled in glee. He pushed away from Sliver and then brought his maul around in another series of devastating swings, only to find each one smashed aside or dodged by a foe as inexplicably nimble as he was. "Lessee wotcha got, spiky!"

Twilight's eyes widened as she felt a hot tingle spread through her body, and the fog in her head started to clear rapidly.

"Wha-What? What's going on?" she shouted, scrambling to her hooves. Her body throbbed something awful, but a strange rush was bringing her to her senses. Her helmet was also badly cracked and mostly useless, and Twilight took a moment to remove the remaining twisted plates of metal.

"Thank Celestia, it worked," panted Fluttershy as she drew the needle back into her narthecium brace. The caretaker pony was a shambles, with her armor severely damaged and blood sheeting down the side of her head.

"C'mon sugarcube, we gotta job to do." Twilight looked to her other side, seeing Applejack's badly scorched form standing next to the door. Rarity was leaning against her, still looking horribly mangled.

"Sliver's keeping the big guy busy! We have to go!" Rainbow Dash said from behind. Pinkie Pie was standing next to her and nodding rapidly.

"I'm not dead, by the way," Pinkie noted in an unusually serious tone.

"What a twist," Twilight replied dryly.

A crate suddenly flew overhead, and Twilight yelped as it crashed against the wall and showered her with loose slugga rounds.

"SSTOP TALKING AND LEAVE, YOU WORTHLESSS CRETINSS!!" Sliver roared as his hammer collided against Kahg's side. He took a retaliation to the shoulder, and a deep crack split his shoulder pad apart.

Twilight glanced over to the door that held the mystery device, and then back to the duel. Her eyes narrowed, and her force harmonizer floated off the floor where it had fallen. "Let's finish off Kahg!" she decided.

Sliver grunted as he missed a strike and then took a savage, quaking blow in the leg. "I am giving you an ORDER, Ssparkle!"

"But together we can beat him!" Twilight shouted. Her harmonizer reached her, and once again the crackling purple blade appeared. "We can win! Friendship will see us to-"

The blast doors on two other walls slid open, and the rest of Twilight's sentence trailed off into a horrified croak as she saw some forty or more Ork boyz start to pour into the room.

"RightwellyouseemtohavethisundercontrolsoI'lljustgofinishthemissionlikeyouasked," Twilight's horn flashed as magical energy surrounded her and her squad.

A moment later, they vanished in a flare of purple light.

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - brayn enjin

"Gyah!" Twilight sucked in air through her teeth as she materialized, feeling a hot surge of magic run over her horn. "Ponyfeathers! That was the worst one yet! The psionic manifold must be broken! Good thing the target area was so close!"

"Yeah, it did the job," Applejack gulped as she looked up at the room interior, "we're here."

Twilight panted as she looked up, finally seeing for herself what this mysterious "device" was that had nearly doomed them all.

Her eyes nearly burst from their sockets.

"By Celestia..." Rarity breathed, backing up nervously until her rear plating banged against the wall.

"Are... Are those really...?" Rainbow Dash stuttered as Fluttershy shivered next to her.

"Brains. It's full of... BRAINS," Twilight said with a disgusted wince.

In the center of the room was a large machine of the sort that seemed to specifically defy having any obvious function. It was surrounded with bundled cables, bulky fuses, heat sinks, and all manner of tubes full of brightly colored ooze.

But attached to the device was a network of tubing that ran up to the ceiling and then spread out across the room. Each tube hung from a ceiling hook, and then led to a jar. Each jar was filled with fluid and a disembodied brain.

"What... IS this?" Rarity asked. Between her recent concussion and the horrifying sight before her, it was taking every shred of her ladylike poise not to vomit.

"These are... psyker brains," Twilight said, her voice hovering between awe and terror, "there must be at least a hundred here... they cut them out of their own soldiers and hooked them up to the central machine to make them plow a tunnel through the Warp constantly, without any rest or distraction!"

"Creepy," Pinkie sniffed in disapproval.

"So... do we... break it?" Rainbow asked, slowly turning to face Twilight.

A heavy impact came from the room adjacent, followed by the sound of Orks cheering loudly.

"We break it," Twilight said as her jaw set, "I don't know what will happen after this, girls. I'll do what I can... but..."

"Good enough fer me!" Applejack shouted, raising her heavy flamer. "Time to end this rodeo!"

"Let's finish this!" Rainbow Dash said with a grin. "I'm sure you'll think of something. And if not, hey, at least this'll make for the most awesome obituary ever, right?"

Pinkie Pie produced a baseball bat from nowhere. "Time to break more stuff!"

Twilight brought up the force harmonizer, and it started glowing as she charged up its beam weapon. "One more target, then. I don't know if machine spirits are real, Twiblade, but thanks for all your help out here."

"Twilight, that ain't what-"

"WE'RE PROBABLY ABOUT TO DIE AND I CAN CALL IT WHAT I WANT SO DEAL WITH IT."

The beam opened fire.

****

Sliver shifted backward as his chest plating folded inward, and his boots cut a smoldering groove in the floor from the motion.

As one of Nurgle's chosen warriors he didn't feel pain, but he still felt what the Ork was doing to his body. If their match continued on as the slow grind that currently characterized it, Sliver doubted he would survive.

Kahg circled the Iron Warrior warily, his helmet cracked and his armor a shambles. Bolts and scraps of plating tumbled to the floor with every step, revealing cords of iron-hard green muscle. The Ork's breath came in long, heavy pants, and the metal of his gauntlets squealed against the grip of his maul.

Suffice to say, Kahg Krushah was LOVING this.

"Git 'im, Boss!"

"You c'n tayk da spiky git!"

"He don' luk so tuff!"

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

It was to Sliver's great relief that the new Orks had been so enthralled to see their leader in combat that they stopped to cheer him on rather than helping or pursuing the equines. Typical Ork strategic awareness. The lesser xenos were forming a tight combat ring, though, which did keep him from using his short-range teleports in combat. Annoying.

"WAAAAGH!!" Kahg's roar struck Sliver with tangible force, and he swore his armor shook slightly as the Warboss surged forward for another exchange. Their weapons clashed, and to Sliver's frustration his own steel started folding before the might and fury of the Ork. He twisted sharply, smashing the haft of his hammer into Kahg's arm.

"You fight pritty gud, spiky!" Kahg laughed as he was pushed back. He swung again before Sliver could defend, smashing a shoulder pad off and revealing the heavy servos and inner plating below. "I'm gonna giv yer hed a nyss spot on me boss pole!"

Sliver released a jet from the Viral Scourge into the Warboss, splashing a blast of green slime over him. The other Orks recoiled from the discharge, but Kahg simply slapped the weapon aside even as the tainted fluids burned at his exposed skin and ate at his open wounds.

"C'mon now, le's keep dis fight cleen," the Ork said conversationally as he punched Sliver directly in the vox grille. The Chaos Lord reeled from the blow, and one of his drum filters was torn off from his mask.

Sliver steadied himself quickly, standing at defense even as a thick rope of bile seeped from his broken helmet.

"Say, I nevah got yer naym," Kahg said suddenly, signaling a pause in the combat, "I didn' cayr 'bout da hosses, but wen I tell da boyz 'bout krumpin' you, I wanna noh hoo ya wuz. I'm Warboss Kahg Krushah."

"My name... is Lord Ssliver... and I owe you a debt, Ork," Sliver said solemnly. Kahg tilted his head to the side, and Sliver went on. "Eighty-two. That'ss how many of my brotherss in iron have perished to your wretched ssoldierss. How many gravess I've had to fill due to your abssurd gamess. Today they will be avenged, greensskin. One way or another."

Kahg made no further move to attack. He was completely stunned. "Aytee-two? AYTEE-TWO?! Youz cozzin all dis fuss fer dat? Dat'z Grot piss! I looz mo' boyz'n dat cleanin' da drops e'ery week!"

A sudden tremor shook the room, and a loud groan came from the surrounding bulkheads. The Orks all fell silent, briefly entertaining the possibility that something was happening that was more important than their Warboss smashing a Marine's head in.

A crashing noise was heard from nearby. The Orks looked over at the only set of blast doors that were still closed.

"Die, you freaky brain things!"

"Ugh, this is disgusting!"

"It's like a piñata game, except instead of candy you get unrelenting horror showering down on you!"

Kahg turned back to Sliver. "I fink I'm fergettin' sumfin'... wot did Coggz say 'bout da brayn enjin gettin' smashed?"

A Mekboy raised his arm. "I fink he sed we wuz all gonna die, den."

"Oh. Well. Zog," Kahg mumbled, scratching at the back of his helmet.

Sliver chuckled darkly as the room's shaking intensified. The bulkheads had started distending, and he could hear the distant sounds of tearing metal. "Orkss. Alwayss sso eager to win the battle, even if it cosstss you the war."

Kahg growled as long tears started appearing in the walls. A howling noise seemed to fill his head without reaching his ears, calling for his blood. He ignored it.

"Yeh, speekin' o'wich." He readied his maul. "Mebbe we'z gonna byt it soon, but 'fore we do, at leest I get ta smash yer ugly soddin' fa-"

Sliver disappeared in a flash of light and crackling energy, his teleporter carrying him away from the tides of psychic power that were quickly devouring the ship.

"........." Kahg Krushah stared silently at the plumes of smoke where the Chaos Lord had been, his maul slipping from his fingers. All around him his warriors were descending into a panic, with many of them going insane on the spot and attacking each other wildly, fleeing in a panic, or simply dissolving into puddles of green and red. The voices in his mind got louder and more numerous, until they were a shrieking cacophony.

"Zoggin' HOOOOSSESSSS!!!" the Warboss screamed defiantly as the storm of souls washed over him.

****

???

Twilight's breath was weak as she floated within the Warp, her horn ablaze with power.

Being here in the flesh was far different from visiting as a mental projection, she'd found. It was more painful. More unsettling. More... real.

Her friends floated around her, each of them staring out at the currents of the Empyrean. Swirls of color and bubbles of non-light swam about them, and a thousand screaming faces - human, equine, and many they could not easily identify - pushed forward relentlessly to devour the mares.

A great lavender bubble surrounded them, keeping the wall of psychic horror at bay and keeping a pressurized atmosphere around them. Rather important, seeing as three of them didn't have helmets and even those that did probably had a few holes in their armor by now.

"Girls... I don't know how long I can keep this up," Twilight gasped.

The other ponies twisted around toward their leader.

"I'm sorry things had to end this way. But... what we did here was important. Very important. Equestria is safe. The 38th Company has won. They'll survive. The Orks won't. We did it."

"Twilight-" Rainbow Dash started speaking, only to be cut off.

"No, this is important. No more false bravado, okay? I'm scared. Really scared. I feel guilty, too, because I know you were all counting on me to see you home safe. I hope that you'll all forgive me."

"But, Twilight-" Rainbow began again.

"Please, it's okay. It was my responsibility. It still is. Maybe if I was stronger, or smarter, things wouldn't have turned out like this." Twilight took another deep, shuddering breath. "But thank you all so much for coming with me. For being here with me now. For not giving up until we did what we had to do. Our friendship is what got us this far, not just Solon's weapons." She paused, pursing her lips.

"Okay, but Twilight-" Rainbow tried to interject again.

"WHAT?!" the alicorn snapped suddenly, causing her friends to recoil. "What is it, Dash? What is SO important that you have to make sure you say it before we die, even if it means interrupting somepony else when they're trying to say something meaningful and touching in our last moments?! SPIT IT OUT!"

Rainbow Dash gave her an annoyed look and pointed a hoof over Twilight's head. "Assault tendril."

Twilight whirled around, and she immediately spotted a large metal tentacle snaking toward them through the clouds of energy. The Warp currents parted around it, and as it approached her barrier the tendril's mouth split open.

Twilight turned back around, an unreadable expression on her face.

"We all saw it," Applejack confessed, "but ya sounded like ya were havin' a moment. The rest of us didn't wanna interrupt."

"Why do I even bother?" Twilight grumbled as the assault tendril passed through the wall of her atmospheric bubble.

Their respective vox systems crackled to life as the tentacle engulfed the floating ponies, connecting on the Company-wide frequency.

"Thish ish Warshmith Sholon to all unitsh. All objectivesh achieved. Mission complete."

The tendril snapped shut.

Author's Note

I can't believe I finally made it to the end. This project ended up at over a MILLION words. Dark Gods help me

Epilogue is up next. Time to wrap this up.

Epilogue

Ponyville

Fireworks blossomed in the air over Ponyville, exploding over the shroud of late evening with bursts of sparkling color.

The village was alive with the sounds of raucous celebration, and pegasi flew wild loops overhead while grounded ponies milled about and danced in the streets. Cultists and mercenaries were everywhere, some of them gathered onto rooftops and balconies and cheering on the flying ponies while laughing and drinking.

Bonfires had been started within the town, and a constant line of servitors and menials carried Ork corpses from outside the village and threw them into the towering pyres.

Surprisingly, the Dark Mechanicus were enthusiastic participants in the festivities, uplinking to a common noosphere channel being fed by DJ-P0N3's turntable. The Techpriests and Scavurel formed a long conga line through the village, twisting and twitching with a level of synchronization that would have seemed positively terrifying in any other context.

Even the Iron Warriors and Fire Warriors were among the revelers, although their participation was more subtle. The Iron Warriors simply didn't take easily to wild celebration, and mostly told stories of their missions to small groups of fascinated equines. The Fire Warriors of the Tau weren't so stand-offish by nature, but still weren't ENTIRELY welcomed by their pony hosts.

"Hey, grays! What're you all doing moping around here?" Daniels said with a laugh as he hopped over a hedge.

*Oh, Tau'va, not this idiot again,* Jerriha groused. She had been speaking with her uncle and a few other Fireblades behind a data station strung up with lights. They all stopped talking immediately as the human approached, fixing him with generally impatient and bemused stares.

Wraithstar, ever more receptive to their human allies/masters, turned and nodded to the man. "We're just having a discussion about the fate of our battlecruiser still in orbit, that's all."

"That's incredibly depressing," Daniels said. He had a bottle in one hand and a blue apple in the other. "It's a party! Get yourself a drink and sing something!"

Wraithstar sighed. "I would, but this one pony keeps spitting in every beverage someone serves me."

Daniels laughed and raised the bottle in his hand. "Well, I've gotcha covered! Have a dri-"

The bottle was suddenly pulled from his grip by a bright green aura, and it floated up to a unicorn mare standing behind him.

"Hhhhngk! Pthoo!" She spat into the synthehol, and then smiled pleasantly before floating it back to Daniels' hand. Then she turned away and trotted off.

"... Huh. That's actually a lot of effort to put into antagonizing someone," Daniels admitted, putting the bottle aside, "I'm impressed."

"Did you want something?" Jerriha sighed.

"Yeah, I want you to stop acting like the world's ending. We won, y'know."

"YOU won. WE have surrendered," the Fireblade retorted.

"If you let a little thing like that ruin your evening then you may as well have let the greenskins off you," the mercenary insisted, pointing over to another house. "Look, that Earth Caste wanker's having fun!"

"HEY, FENNIN! YOU SUCK!!" Rainbow Dash shouted down as she flew over a group of Scavurel speaking to the Fio'El.

"Bite me, you prismatic turkey!" Fennin shouted, shaking a fist with one hand while he gripped a synthehol bottle with the other. "You'd be dead if it weren't for me!"

"We wouldn't have been in any danger AT ALL if it weren't for you!" Rainbow retorted.

"Don't you lecture me about the Project! My mother was killed by an Ork!"

"My parents in Cloudsdale would have been killed by Orks too if they weren't so stupid! And that's your fault!"

"I regret nothing!"

"DWEEB!!"

"MORON!!"

"Riveting," Jerriha deadpanned, "so I'm supposed to spend the celebration shouting at the orange one?"

"Oh, no. No way. AJ would break your neck," Daniels scoffed, "I'm just saying, you could stand to try and enjoy yourselves instead of just crouching in a dark corner and avoiding every other species. The pones already think you're losers; no need to prove them right."

Wraithstar arched an eyebrow. "Do you have a recommendation, Mister...?"

"Call me Daniels," the mercenary said with a grin. Then he tossed the apple in his hand to the Shas'el, who caught it in his hands. "Try the blue moons! They're outta this world!"

The Tau stared at him.

"... That was AJ's marketing line," Daniels' explained. It did not end the awkward silence from the aliens. "Because they're not from this planet." After another few seconds, he tried again. "See, it's novel to the equines, since they're not used to interplanetary-"

"WE GET IT," Jerriha snapped, massaging her forehead, "PLEASE, SHUT UP."

"Oh, good! Wanna dance?"

****

"Oh, aren't you just ADORABLE?!" Poison Kiss squealed.

Phage Squadron was standing near Crabapple, who in turn had Apple Bloom perched upon a leg. The three mares weren't wearing their armor, for once, and as a result many of the other party-goers were giving them a wide berth. Not that the ponies were visibly disfigured or diseased as many of Nurgle's warriors were, but the cutie marks spoke volumes on their own.

Apple Bloom already had a Nurgle Mark, and she didn't really have the best sense for danger in the first place (as evidenced by her having a Nurgle Mark). So she giggled cutely as the other cultists ponies fawned over her.

"To think there was another pony who found their destiny with Nurgle before us! I had no idea!" Kiss said brightly. She raised a hoof to pet the red-headed filly, but a sudden hiss of gears came from Crabapple's leg before it lifted Apple Bloom up and out of reach.

The filly seemed oblivious to the defensive motion. "Yeah, me an' mah friends have been tryin' FOREVER to get our cutie marks!"

"That isn't really a cutie mark," Rot Blossom pointed out, "Chaos Marks are... well... different."

"Aw, close enough," Apple Bloom said as she grinned and looked back at her leg.

"I hear that!" Breezy said with a weak chuckle. "Uh... so, was the gigantic daemonic war machine part of that deal, somehow?" the gray pegasus pointed a hoof up at the towering Defiler. The heavy walker released a keening noise as its golden mask turned to glower at Phage Squadron.

"Naw, Ah met Crabapple way before that," the filly said with a wave of her hoof, "that's a long story, though. An' Ah don't actually know all of the long story. Crabapple just shows up sometimes in a bigger body."

"Hmmm..." Kiss looked over the extensive pistons and heavy armor of the war machine, and then turned a smile back to Apple Bloom. "Not bad, but I can't help but notice you're in rather... rude health, lass."

Apple Bloom looked confused, and somewhat chastised.

"She means you're healthy," Blossom explained.

"She's from Trottingham," Breezy explained further, "you kind of get used to the weird foreign lingo eventually."

Kiss cleared her throat loudly. "Anyway. You're still young, obviously, but you haven't even begun to explore your true potential. There's so MUCH that Grandfather could do for you!"

Apple Bloom's ears flipped down. "Yeah, Ah know. But mah big sis says Ah ain't allowed to get sick on purpose, 'cuz then Ah can't do mah farm chores."

"Ah, yes. Applejack, right?" Kiss smirked. "That mare's right blinkered. Not her fault, really. But there are ways to embrace Nurgle that are less... obvious and generally harmful than you might expect."

Apple Bloom stepped further down Crabapple's leg, extremely interested. Crabapple releasing another small screech, as if in warning, but the filly ignored it.

"Yeah? What do I do?" the redheaded filly asked eagerly.

Kiss fluttered her eyelashes. "Well, if I'm going to help you, then I can ask for something in return, right? A favor for a favor?"

Apple Bloom blinked. "Uh... Ah guess? What do ya want from me?"

All three of the older ponies grinned.

"You're 'Ironside' Macintosh's little sister, right?" Kiss asked. "I think we can work something out..."

"All right, Ah've heard enough."

The mares jumped slightly at the new voice from right behind them, and then quickly whirled around.

"Ah! Miss Applejack! Hi!" Poison Kiss said with only a slightly nervous edge. "Enjoying the celebration?"

The blonde farmer wasn't wearing her armor, and had bandages wrapped around her chest and barrel. She also looked very annoyed for reasons that had nothing to do with her injuries.

"Ah don't like playin' coy, Poison, so let's get straight to the point," Applejack said firmly as she approached.

"Please don't call me Poi-" Kiss's plea was interrupted as Applejack was suddenly nose-to-nose with the unicorn.

"Ah don't got nothin' against you or yer religion," Applejack said firmly, "but y'all are DANGEROUS, so y'all are gonna stay AWAY from mah family! That includes Apple Bloom AND Big Mac!"

Apple Bloom gulped, but the ponies of Phage Squadron shared an irritated glance.

"And what, exactly, would be the consequences were we to... decline?" Kiss asked, her voice unusually cool.

Applejack's eyes narrowed. "Y'all are gonna regret it RIGHT quick, believe you me."

The older Nurgle cultists started snickering, but Apple Bloom whimpered slightly. "Now S-Sis, there ain't no need fer-"

"Wow, you have guts!" Breezy Blight said as a small puff of green fumes wafted from her nostrils. "You're really going to try to threaten us, one on three, when you don't even have your armor?"

"You know that we don't rely on our armor for weapons, right?" Blossom asked, tilting her head to the side. A shiny black insect emerged from her bushy mane and buzzed its wings while clinging to her hair.

"Naturally, I abhor the thought of violence against fellow ponies," Kiss said dramatically as she stared down her nose at Applejack, "but if another equine is to try to HARM me and my friends, what else am I to do?" Her horn flickered dangerously.

Applejack looked entirely unmoved. "Like Ah said, Ah prefer gettin' straight to the point. Are y'all gonna skee-daddle or not?"

"Mmmmmmm..." Kiss pretended to think about it, and then she grinned. "Bugger off."

"Thought so," Applejack huffed, "Crabapple, not too hard, now."

Breezy's head snapped up. "Wait, wha-"

The massive claw of the Defiler smashed Phage Squadron aside with a single swing, sending them flailing through the air like a trio of screaming bowling pins.

Applejack didn't bother to watch where the mares landed, giving a stern look to Apple Bloom as she walked past Crabapple.

"Awww... ya didn't need to do that, Sis," Apple Bloom moaned as Crabapple shifted about to follow the older Apple.

"Naw, Ah pro'lly didn't," Applejack admitted, "but Ah ain't takin' no chance with them crazy Chaos ponies. 'Sides. They can't feel pain anyway, right? They'll be fine."

****

"Hm? That's odd," Rarity mumbled suddenly.

Delgan glanced up from his dataslate. "What is?"

Rarity was laying on a plush velvet pillow and rolling a glass of apple wine about in the air with her telekinesis as she watched the other partygoers pass by. "That's Phage Squadron. They look rather out of sorts. Which is odd, because I don't believe any of them were injured on-mission."

The three Nurgle cultists walked - or, more accurately, limped - past the tent that Delgan and Rarity were sitting under, not paying any particular attention to them.

"Well, she was right. I definitely regretted that decision," Breezy Blight said weakly, "I don't even want to KNOW what my wings look like right now."

"This is so unfair," Rot Blossom grumbled, "all we want to do is bang her brother! Why does she have to be so hostile?"

"Bloody hick," Poison Kiss grumbled.

"Another three casualties in the mare's long struggle to secure a decent stallion," Rarity sighed once the other ponies were out of earshot. Then she raised her wine glass toward Delgan. "Shall we have a toast for their future endeavors?"

"I'd rather not," Delgan said with a slight frown, "the idea of Nurgle cultists coupling is actually quite horrifying."

"Oh, fair enough," Rarity shrugged before sipping her wine daintily, "but really, are you going to work during the entire party?"

"Are you going to lay about during the entire work shift?" Delgan countered.

"Mister Delgan, I recently assisted very closely in the destruction of a Space Hulk," the unicorn countered, "I have been led to believe that, among your people, that is kind of a big deal. And as such I would like to leverage that success so that I might spend this fine evening enjoying the victory celebrations rather than working out how much surviving has COST us."

"Actually, the merchant corp may have made money," Delgan replied as he lifted a different dataslate, "the big losses were the ships that the Orks destroyed, but many of the lost materials go directly to the Iron Warrior war effort and aren't part of my inventory calculations. What worries me is that the leadership will almost certainly ask for compensatory transfers, and the quotas are..." he trailed off as he saw Rarity staring at him with narrowed eyes. "What?"

She sighed and looked away. "I need to find you a man."

"I do not NEED a lover, I NEED to find a deceptively stingy tithe formula!" Delgan snapped.

"Sounds like you could use... A HAND!!"

Before Rarity or Delgan knew what was happening, a metal gauntlet and vambrace was tossed onto the ground between them.

They looked down at the dismembered arm. Then they looked up at Tellis, who was standing nearby and giving them a thumbs-up.

"... Get it?" the Chaos Lord asked after a few silent seconds.

"Yes," Rarity replied, filling the single affirmation with a surprising amount of loathing and contempt.

"... You don't look like you get it," Tellis said.

"This is why I prefer work to play," Delgan grumbled as he picked up another dataslate, "if you want to celebrate with these lunatics, you have fun with that."

Fluttershy came up behind Tellis, panting lightly from finally catching up. She had gauze patches and medical tape covering several spots on her head and side, and was definitely in bad enough condition that she shouldn't have been chasing after someone faster than her.

"Tellis - huff - I think - huff - Mister Serith wants - huff - his arm back."

"Well, if he wants it so bad he can come over and get it," Tellis said as he approached Rarity and picked up the arm again.

Fluttershy caught her breath and looked nervously over her shoulder. "Well, uhm, actually, I don't think he can, because you keep flying away whenever-"

Fluttershy cringed as Tellis blasted off, and then her head drooped as she sighed.

"Really, darling, why do you even BOTHER?" Rarity asked. "Let Rainbow Dash wrangle that loon. You're far too sweet to have to restrain the idiot yourself."

Fluttershy flushed. "Oh, uh, thank you, Rarity. But I really think that I should do my best to stop Tellis."

"Why?" Delgan asked. "Let the Astartes bicker with each other. It's not our problem."

"Well, Serith blames me and my friends for this, and more than once has alluded to murdering us in our sleep for his constant humiliation," the yellow pegasus admitted as she started trotting after Tellis again, "so I really think I should try to help. Goodbye!"

Rarity and Delgan watched her go, and then the former refilled her wine glass. "A toast to Fluttershy?"

"I'll drink to that," the Trademaster mumbled as he reached for some amasec. "Poor lass."

****

Trixie reared up and beckoned to the sky with her hoof as she stood in the middle of a raised stage, laughing brightly.

"And now, watch in awe and wonder as the Great and Powerful Trixie saws this hapless Tau in half..."

She gestured to a long wooden box behind her, which had the head of a worried-looking Tau sticking out of the end. The audience, which was a mix of ponies, humans, and a surprising number of Kroot Carnivores, started applauding wildly.

"... Without inflicting so much as a scratch upon the volunteer!" Trixie finished with a smirk.

The clapping became somewhat less enthusiastic.

Undeterred, Trixie trotted up to the box and then nodded to the side. "Suuna?"

Trixie's assistant walked forward, carrying a heavy chainsword in both hands. Trixie's horn flashed, and the weapon was taken up in her levitation magic.

"Now, observe the mystifying magical prowess of the Great and Powerful Trixie!" the unicorn cheered as she gunned the chainsword and brought it down into the center of the box.

The Tau "volunteer" cringed as the sound of grinding wood overcame the cheering of the crowd and the booming of fireworks overhead.

After a few seconds it was over, and Trixie floated the chainsword back over to Suuna.

"And the deed is done! Observe!" Trixie said as she pushed the two halves of the box together. Suuna walked over to the middle of the stage, hesitated for dramatic effect, and then lifted the top off of the box.

The Tau stood up and hopped out, looking quite relieved and entirely in one piece.

"Awwww..." several audience members looked disappointed, while some others seemed to be clapping out of politeness. The Kroot were easily the most pleased by the feat, laughing and pointing at the stage.

"If you want to see someone horribly mutilated via chainsword, sign up for a combat patrol!" Trixie griped at some of the whining ponies. "This is a magic show!"

She cleared her throat as Suuna pushed the box aside and the Tau rushed off the stage. For all the complaining, her crowd was still very receptive, and she had a whole host of new acts if they really started demanding something more dangerous.

"Now! For Trixie's next wonder, she'll need a hand from the audience!"

A metal gauntlet and vambrace flew up onto the stage, bouncing to a stop at Trixie's feet.

Her eyebrow twitched. "Lord Tellis. STOP THAT."

The audience parted and turned to see the Raptor Lord standing near the back and giggling to himself like an idiot. "Oh, come on! That was PERFECT comedic timing! As an entertainer, you should respect that!"

Fluttershy caught to the Raptor Lord again, nervously glancing around at all the ponies and aliens staring at them. "Um, I think she means that you should stop dismembering Mister Serith specifically, Tellis."

Tellis glanced down at Fluttershy. "Why?"

"Because harassing and humiliating others for your petty amusement is wrong!" Trixie declared, jabbing a hoof at the Iron Warrior.

She could literally FEEL the incredulous stares from some of the others in the audience. And Suuna, for that matter. Even Fluttershy quirked an eyebrow.

"Well, obviously it isn't wrong when TRIXIE does it," she amended quickly, "because Trixie does it for the petty amusement of others, not herself! That makes it okay."

The confrontation was interrupted by a lash of black lightning, which cracked through the air to blast into Tellis. The energy burst seemed to dissipate against the Chaos Lord's armor without much effect, although the rest of the crowd quickly scattered away from him. Fluttershy yelped and scurried back, feeling her fur stand on end from the discharge.

"Oh, hey, the old rustbucket caught up," Tellis said as he turned around. Serith was standing several meters away, his left arm missing and his right swirling with dark power.

"You worthless cretin," Serith hissed as Warp energy pulsed around his fingers, "you may be resistant to my power, but the blessings of Khorne can only protect you for so lon-"

Tellis blasted past the Sorcerer, and then his head was gone.

"Gosh, Tellis!" Tellis said in a high-pitched voice as he held up Serith's helmet next to his. "I sure do regret investing all of my time in that lame sorcery crap instead of dedicating myself to stabbing people like a real warrior!" Tellis nodded solemnly before continuing in his usual voice. "Yes, true. You DO suck. But hey, at least that Dark Portal thing worked out, right? So you're not TOTALLY useless, even though you could easily be replaced by a handful of unicorns if you ever let them read your stupid magic book."

"The sheer hatred I have for you would dissolve your very mind if you didn't hide behind the Blood God's shield," Serith's disembodied head growled.

"But I DO!" Tellis laughed, tossing the Sorcerer's helmet up over his head and catching it in his other hand. "Isn't it GREAT?!"

He stopped laughing as he heard Fluttershy squeak in terror. He had heard her do that so many times by now that he had worked out how the differences in pitch and volume corresponded to the seriousness of a threat, and this one actually sounded rather bad.

Tellis turned his head around, and was genuinely surprised to see twenty boltguns floating around Trixie's stage, all surrounded by a pink aura and aimed at him.

"Trixie wonders if your 'magic resistance' extends to firearms being controlled with magic," she said coldly as her eyes narrowed and her horn flared, "let's find out." Suuna was huddled in a corner of the stage, with Fluttershy clinging to her leg and squeezing her eyes shut.

Tellis glanced over at Serith's body, which was quickly backing away from him, and then turned back to Trixie.

"You're seriously going to attack me for making fun of this loser?"

"Yes," Trixie groused as the slides on the bolters clicked back.

"I LIKE that in a pony," Tellis said approvingly right before the boltguns opened fire.

****

"What? Gunfire?!" Dusk Blade shouted, his head jerking up.

After a moment, he heard shouting rising over the gunshots.

"HA! YOU COULDN'T HIT THE BROAD SIDE OF A BROADSIDE!! HEH! SEE WHAT I DID THE-OW!!"

"GIVE SERITH BACK HIS HEAD BEFORE TRIXIE GETS TO THE HEAVY WEAPONS, YOU IRON MULE!!"

"P-Please, don't fight! Or if you are going to f-fight, use more precise and discriminating methods! Miss Trixie's aim really isn't very good!"

Dusk shook his head, dismissing the ruckus as being Tellis-related. Not his problem. He had more important things to do.

The batpony was laying on the edge of a roof, his attention locked on Twilight, as expected. The alicorn Princess had one leg in a cast and a thick wrapping of bandages over her head, parted around her horn, and like the others had not worn her armor to the victory party. She was looking over Gaela's new augmetics and comparing them to some dataslate image, commenting on the inner workings, and generally being a complete nerd.

Which he found super hot.

"Okay, Dusk. Easy, Dusk," the Lieutenant said to himself, "you've got this. You're going to go down there, you're going to greet everyone, and you're going to ask Twilight Sparkle what she's up to and engage in simple, respectful conversation. You will be charming and mature, and you will NOT be evil. Zero evil. Complete ethical neutrality. You can do this. It is NOT hard."

Dusk Blade sucked in a deep breath and slowly spread his wings.

Then his breath caught in his throat as he saw another stallion approaching the Princess, walking with the telltale gait of somepony trying to look calm and casual and completely failing at it.

"Ah, hello! Princess Twilight Sparkle?"

Twilight glanced up at hearing her name, and saw that there was an unfamiliar pegasus stallion standing behind Gaela. He was a ruddy orange in color, with dark blue mane and tail, and he stood with a practiced and exaggerated posture that immediately marked him out as a Royal Guard.

"Yes, that's me. Can I help you, Sir?" Twilight put down the dataslate, and Gaela turned slightly to present her arm to Spike. The dragon had a dataspike in his hand that was connected to a Tau drone floating nearby, and he started feeding the metal needle into the Dark Techpriest's bionics.

The stallion cast a pensive glance at the cyborg, but seemed to dismiss her after a moment before focusing completely on Twilight. "I'm sure you haven't heard of me, but my name is Flash Sentry. I'm a guard at Canterlot Castle." He stopped to chuckle. "So that means I'll probably be on leave for several weeks, at the least."

Twilight chuckled herself, although hers was distinctly nervous. "Yeah, uh... sorry. We tried to-"

"Please, don't apologize!" Flash interrupted, his gaze hardening. "I was there, in the castle, when the Orks attacked. And I was helping to hold the door closed when the Orks tried to get downstairs to murder all the wounded and non-combatants, right before you purged the city. I owe you my LIFE."

"As does every other equine on this world," Gaela interjected, "and at least a substantial portion of the humans."

Flash looked annoyed by the interruption. "Okay, sure, but it feels more personal when I was maybe four seconds from getting my head cleaved open." He bowed his head deeply, and Twilight looked slightly alarmed at the gesture. "I would hardly consider it repayment on the debt that I - and surely all of Equestria - owes to you, but if you would have me, I would love to escort-"

"Gah! Hey! Quit it!" Spike suddenly shouted.

Twilight whirled to face her assistant, and was quite surprised and confused to see that there was a trio of bats fluttering and screeching in her assistant's face.

Spike ducked his head and started swiping the dataspike at the flying mammals to try to ward them off, but this didn't dissuade the creatures from beating at him with their wings and screaming. Gaela looked quite bemused at the encounter, and she casually plucked one of the bats out of the air with her smaller, more dexterous bionic arm.

"Odd. I would have assumed that harassing dragons would be a behavior extremely uncommon among small mammals," the captured bat let out a sharp squeak as Gaela crushed it in her hand, "natural selection has clearly failed this species."

Twilight frowned as she nabbed the other two with her telekinesis and pulled them away so that Gaela wouldn't feel the need to kill them, too. "That IS odd. These are clearly fruit bats, from the nearby conservatory. Not that any other kind of bat would have a reason to bother a dragon, even a baby dragon." She gave the squealing animals a light toss with her telekinesis, and they quickly flapped away into the late evening gloom.

Twilight turned back around, and then did a double-take. Where before there had been an orange pegasus stallion, now there was an ash-colored batpony stallion. And unlike the previous equine, she was quite familiar with this one.

"Hi!" Dusk Blade said happily. "Were those bats bothering you? Sorry about that. The little guys get all worked up by the fireworks. It's uncanny, really."

"Lieutenant Blade. Hello," Twilight said with as little enthusiasm as was equinely possible, "did you see another stallion here a minute ago? I think he wanted to ask me something."

"You mean the orange guy? He took off. Probably figured you were busy and didn't want to bother you," Dusk said, pointing a hoof off toward the town center.

Twilight's eyes narrowed as she stared at his leg. "Is that... blood on your hoof?"

Dusk put his leg down quickly. "Princess Sparkle, just a few days ago you destroyed a space vessel that contained MILLIONS of living, breathing, sentient creatures," the Lunar Lieutenant said with a gruff chuckle, "don't we ALL have blood on our hooves?"

His question was met with raised eyebrows. From Twilight, and also from Gaela and Spike, who were watching the exchange.

"Really? That's what you're going with?" Twilight deadpanned.

Dusk broke out into a sweat, but kept his expression calm and confident. "Well, if you're not interested in discussing philosophy, may I ask what you were observing? Something wrong with the Dark Techpriest's arm, perhaps?"

Twilight frowned. "We were discussing Tau engineering methods for creating super-conducting conduits at room temperature," the lavender mare said with a dismissive sniff, "it's not the sort of thing you'd be interested in."

"Although if you wanted to talk about something else, I would be SO cool with that," Spike added wearily.

"Actually, I find the topic of xeno engineering absolutely fascinating," Dusk replied, his wings spreading slightly as he leaned forward and smiled, "is it a metallurgical technique, or something more complex?"

Twilight actually seemed briefly stunned by the question, so Gaela replied instead. "The latter. They actually use energy-waveform channels. In the larger devices, this apparently comprises a tachyon pulse that oscillates between two receptor points, guiding energy flow between them."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to go into lengthy detail about what a 'tachyon pulse' is, would you?" Dusk asked, sitting down.

This time even Gaela seemed slightly taken aback, and Twilight replied to the Lieutenant instead.

"It would probably take a few hours to explain properly. Equestrian particle physics theory hasn't advanced far enough to predict the existence of tachyon particles." The alicorn's voice had lost the tone of irritation and contempt from before, Dusk noted.

"I can't think of anything I'd rather spend my night doing than listening to you explain it," he said.

"R-Really?" Twilight asked, her face flushing. Spike groaned.

The young dragon was briefly saved from the extensive lecture when an Iron Warrior approached them.

"I have brought your refreshments," Dest rumbled. He looked as ridiculous as ever in an apron and carrying platters of food now that he was possessed, but the Marine clearly paid his appearance no mind.

Twilight glanced over to the new arrival, and her eyes widened.

"Water for the Dark Techpriest," Dest plucked a bottle from the platter with his servo talons and gave it to Gaela, "a ruby for the lizard," Dest's claw flicked a gemstone over to Spike, who caught it eagerly, "and warmed cider and velvet cake for Sparkle."

Dest held out the platter for Twilight to take, but rather than retrieving her snacks she pointed a trembling hoof toward him. "Wh-What HAPPENED?!"

In Dest's other hand, opposite the food platter, he carried Flash Sentry's unconscious body by a rear leg. The pegasus seemed to be wounded, too, and blood was leaking from his head and flank.

Dusk Blade was doing an excellent job of looking shocked and horrified as well - he certainly looked more concerned than Gaela or Spike - but his efforts were spoiled when Dest dumped the other stallion at his hooves.

"Here. Don't leave your fallen enemies just lying around where anyone can find them," the Iron Warrior grunted.

Dusk gasped. "What? What makes you think I did this?!" he demanded.

"Because the fool wrote out your name in his blood before he lost consciousness," Dest explained curtly.

"GUANO!" the Lunar Guard cursed, slamming a hoof into the ground. "I can't believe I forgot to make sure he was really unconscious! I'm a covert operations specialist, there is NO EXCUSE for that!"

"Agreed," Dest said before glancing over to Twilight again. "Sparkle, do you want your cake or not?"

Twilight's horn started glowing purple as she trembled in anger. "You... You... how could you DO something like this?! WHY did you do something like this?!"

Dusk cringed. "If I said 'love and friendship', would you let me stay and talk about particle physics?"

As he dodged away from the first volley of magic beams, he was forced to conclude that the answer was "no".

Gaela snorted as Twilight sprinted after the fleeing batpony. "You see this? This is why reproduction should be relegated to industry. This 'romance' nonsense is utterly asinine."

"I dunno, I think this part is kinda fun," Spike chuckled as he watched Twilight attack her suitor.

Bro, you totally cockblocked that bat horse. Not cool, dude. Vel chastised Dest as the Iron Warrior put down the platter on a table.

"I'll just leave this here. I have many other orders to manage," the driver said.

"I'm somewhat surprised the Cakes wanted you to assist, Lord," Gaela admitted as she snapped her augmetic shut, "since your possession and modification your appearance is far more intimidating and disturbing than it used to be. There's no shortage of menial workers or servitors to assist."

"As usual, our equine allies are surprisingly unconcerned with such things," Dest mumbled as he turned around, "additionally, Pie had other things to do and was unable to help. Which is also increasingly common."

"Hey, yeah, where IS Pinkie, anyhow?" Spike asked. "She hasn't been around to bug Gaela and Twilight about not having fun yet."

"Thank the Gods for small favors," Gaela grumbled.

Dest simply shrugged his massive, spine-covered shoulders as he walked off. "She said she had 'things to do'. And then she winked."

****

Ferrous Dominus - Dreadnought holding station primarus

Sirius tromped back and forth in the vast open space around his resting cell, muttering to himself.

"I can't rest, Pinkie Pie will kill me. That's what she's waiting for. I'm sure of it. I'll just slide into my cell, and when I'm next called upon to serve, my Dreadnought will be gone!"

Sirius suddenly swung around, his heavy flamer hissing as its pilot flame came on. "WHAT WAS THAT?!"

His head lurched back and forth. "I'm onto you, you damned horse! You won't catch me off-guard! You have destroyed my brothers and worn their shells like common armor, but I will NOT submit! You hear me?!"

Sirius whirled around again. "I know you're coming! You're out to kill us all! You start with the Dreadnoughts, but what about when there are none of us left?! Then you move on to Terminators! Or tanks! Although we do actually have more tanks than pilots, right now. So I guess tanks are fine. BUT NOT DREADNOUGHTS!"

Sirius suddenly whirled around again, and his autoloaders primed his butcher cannon. "SHUT UP! I'm not crazy! YOU'RE the crazy one!"

Sirius trailed off after his accusation. His vox system had been forcibly disabled long ago, as the Techpriests had tired of hearing him ranting at them, but he had "dissuaded" them from disarming him, at least. He was fully armed and - putting aside his slipping sanity - completely operational. Sirius had his autosenses tuned to listen for any sound within the otherwise empty room, his lethal reflexes on a hair trigger.

The sound of something metal hitting the floor came from right next to him.

"YAAAAAARGH!!" Sirius opened fire, spinning in a circle as his butcher cannon emptied itself into the walls. Thick shells like railroad spikes flew through the room, trailing sparks of angry crimson.

"DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE..." Sirius howled his panicked mantra as he kept spinning, ignoring the rising heat indicators for his main gun. After a few seconds he remembered that he had a second ranged weapon as well, and loosed his heavy flamer across the floor at the largely empty room. Unsurprisingly, this didn't help the heat buildup much.

The butcher cannon ripped apart the walls relentlessly, shattering lumens and tearing apart power conduits beneath the outer layer of metal. By the time the weapon finally overheated and jammed decisively, most of the light sources in the room had been smashed, as well as all the automated sensors that had been placed in the room to feed vid-capture to the security cogitators.

Sirius scanned left and right as his butcher cannon hissed and leaked smoke from its barrel.

His visor happened to glimpse something lying on the floor nearby amongst the dying flames. He zoomed in on it. It was a small metal plate with a grill cut into it. An air duct cover.

Like the ones on the ceiling.

Another light thumping noise came from above, except that this time it came from the top of the Contemptor's hull. A long, trembling whimper came from his vox caster.

"Why... so... SIRIUS?" giggled a voice from above. "Let's put a smile on that Dread!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 20, Nightwatch

Princess Luna's quarters

Princess Luna scowled as she laid on her balcony, watching the colorful bursts of distant fireworks.

The explosions weren't from Ponyville; the fortress was too far away from the village for her to see their celebrations, even from the top of Nightwatch. But Ponyville was far from the only equine settlement celebrating the end of the Ork invasion.

In a dour irony that surprised exactly no one, Ferrous Dominus, the base of the army most responsible for their success, was quiet. All those who sought to revel in their victory had left for some other town's party, but the mighty fortress-factory was still in the midst of repairs. The campaign had been costly, and the taskmasters of the 38th as relentless as ever.

Luna didn't begrudge any of her ponies their celebrations, much less the space pirates. But at the moment the dreary, joyless atmosphere of the factory resonated much more deeply with her than the song and dance of ponies overjoyed that they might yet live to see her sister's next sunrise.

A familiar tread came from behind, and Luna craned her head around as Big Macintosh trotted into the room.

"Art thou really going to forgo thy hometown's revelry this night?" Luna asked irritably. "We did not request thee stay with us."

"Eeyup," Big Mac said around the plate in his mouth. It had several fresh apple tarts sitting on it, still warm from the oven.

The stallion placed it in front of Luna, and then quietly laid down next to her.

For more than a full minute, neither pony spoke. Luna's mind raced the entire time, her emotions stewing until they finally boiled over. She wanted to speak her mind, and Big Mac's unassuming silence left a conversational void that demanded to be filled. The words came before she could think better of it.

"We hast failed," the blue alicorn said finally. "Sparkle succeeded, and well she did. She and all of the Elements art most worthy of the celebrations held across the nation." She grimaced. "Likewise, this place 'tis a fitting tribute to our own performance. Left behind in the gloom and ruins of war to pick up the pieces of the conflict. On the winning side, and alive, but only thanks to the efforts of those more capable. Bah!"

Luna levitated an apple tart up into her mouth, and briefly allowed the wonderful baked treat to cut through her ennui.

Big Mac remained silent, which mildly surprised Luna. Most ponies she knew would have started bombarding her with assurances that she was wrong, that she was valuable, and desperately tried to bolster her self-esteem. The farmer simply watched her, waiting attentively for her to continue.

Luna swallowed the tart and then lifted another from the tray. "We cannot even excuse our performance with the overwhelming might of the foe, despite the odds arrayed against us. We were alone with our opponent, and he was poorly armed. We could hath slain him! But in our hubris, We erred, and the green savage took the upper hoof."

She paused to eat the next apple tart, and felt a smile start to threaten her current mood. She quickly gulped it down and got back to brooding.

"The Warsmith saved us. Dragged our insensate body from that wretch's workshop after slaying the alien with ease. And then Princess Sparkle saved us after, by finishing the task that We had been unable to assist. Pathetic."

Another apple tart vanished into her mouth.

"The others cast no blame upon us. Even Lord Sliver seems to hold our failure as an irrelevance. But Sparkle..."

Luna's face scrunched up for a moment. "Perhaps it is mere jealousy. That Sister's student, with a fraction of our experience and power, cleansed Canterlot of the greenskins and destroyed the Space Hulk. There are those who wish us accolades as well, surely, but they seem like... hollow platitudes, almost, in comparison. Twilight Sparkle is a hero, and Equestria is once again in her debt. We, meanwhile, continue to trouble the Warsmith. One must wonder why Father endures us, when We art such a burden sometimes."

Luna ate the last of the tarts, and then licked her lips happily. After wiping her mouth, she finally turned to her companion.

"We hast expressed this before, but thou art quite easy to talk to, Macintosh. We did not mean to burden thee with our trifles."

The apple farmer smiled back at her. "Nnope. Not a problem, Highness."

Luna sighed, and then the alicorn slumped over to lean against the stallion. Big Mac started, and suddenly felt anxious. Not because of the sudden physical contact, but mostly because Luna was leaning against the side with all his augmetic limbs. He worried he might cut her if he didn't remain perfectly still.

"And what of thee, Macintosh?" Luna asked, finally demanding a reply from the workpony. "What dost thou think of our efforts? Our prowess in battle certainly hath not spared thy farm from ruin. We would not think ill of thee if thou were disappointed in us."

Big Mac raised an eyebrow at the Princess, then looked up and paused at length in that way he did whenever he was working out a complex reply. Luna found it endearing, somehow.

"Well, Ah wasn't up there in the Space Hulk, so it's hard fer me to say," Big Mac said finally, twisting his head back down to face the lunar Princess, "and the reason Ah wasn't there is 'cuz Ah nearly got put down fer good in Canterlot. Ah only lived through that 'cuz ya were with me down there. Ya saved mah life. And Ah'm not tryin' to brag, but Ah'm a little harder to replace than a grove of apple trees." He smiled broadly. "So if'n ya ask me if yer a failure, that ain't really fair; Ah'm pretty biased about the matter."

Luna laughed, and she shifted against the other pony so that she could lift a wing and drape it over his back.

"... Thank thee," she whispered after a long moment, "shalt we attend the celebration after all? We could teleport us there."

"If ya want," Big Mac said, nuzzling her neck, "Ah'm fine just like this."

Luna gave a contented sigh, and she smiled softly as she gazed up at the few stars visible through the ash-stained skies of Ferrous Dominus.

"...... Dost We really refer to the Warsmith as 'Father' at times without even realizing it?"

"Eeyup," Mac nodded.

"Ugh. Embarrassing."

****

Canterlot - main statue garden

Princess Celestia walked through the paths through the statue garden, making note of the damage and debris.

The gardens hadn't fared much worse than anything else in Canterlot, as the Orks hadn't shown any great haste in looting or destroying a bunch of statues. Several monuments had been ruined by chance, and they were STILL finding the odd rotting Gretchin corpse hidden in one corner or another, but the damage was significantly less than that endured during the Tau invasion. The castle was the big exception to that, having most of its towers collapsed and many walls demolished, but Celestia considered it a trifle compared to the survival of her city and its citizens. Blowing up the castle HAD been part of her original defense plan, after all.

The white alicorn wasn't out to muse about property damage or take stock of the needed repairs, however. She was following a trail of shattered flagstones on the ground, lined up in a repeating pattern that had become grudgingly familiar to her.

It didn't take long before she found the source of the damage. Warsmith Solon stood before the statue of Shas'o Voidsong, gazing up at the petrified Tau. Celestia was reasonably surprised to see that Sliver was there as well, mumbling to his superior under the dim glow of the magical lamps.

"Ah, Princesh. Come to join ush?" Solon said before she could call out. Sliver glanced over at her, but said nothing before returning his gaze to the statue.

"Warsmith Solon. Lord Sliver. Welcome to Canterlot," Celestia greeted as she approached, trying hard not to sound sarcastic, "I must apologize for the current state of my capital; it didn't weather the last war quite as well as yours did."

"Oh, but you did jusht fine, sho I hear. With a little help, anyway," Solon swiveled around to face the pony, "me and Shliver were jusht dishcushing the monumentsh. I wash wondering if it might be worthwhile to have shome of our own shet up."

"And as I wass ssaying, that iss an irrelevance before the tasskss we face now," Sliver rumbled, "we musst conssolidate our possition on thiss world sso that we may deliver our ssuppliess!"

"Ah, yes. You deliver material for your armies throughout the galaxy, don't you?" Celestia said as she stepped up next to the Terminator Lord. A flicker of her horn kept the vile fumes radiating from the Iron Warriors at bay, shielding her from their stench.

Sliver grunted irritably. "The Orkss have cosst uss dearly. We will return to our dutiess under sstrength, under quota, and behind sschedule."

A brief pause followed his assessment.

"It's nice that he's blaming the Orks now rather than us," Celestia said to Solon.

"He'sh really come around, hashn't he?" the Warsmith said happily.

Sliver started growling something else, but a peal of laughter interrupted their conversation.

"Ooh, look! All the grown-ups are having a little meeting!" Discord swooped in from nowhere, grinning like a loon before roosting on Solon's servo claw. "Room for one more?"

"Ugh. Permisssion to depart, Warssmith?" Sliver hissed, turning away from the Archdaemon. "There are many usseful thingss I could be doing rather than participating in Disscord'ss idiot gamess."

"Enthushiashtically granted."

Discord looked offended as Sliver's armor released a high-pitched whine and flashed away. "That one is just NO fun. I swear."

"Yesh, indeed. That'sh why he actually annoysh you rather than the revershe," Solon mused, "we could all learn a thing or two."

Discord stuck out his tongue, and Celestia regarded her old foe with a suspicious look. "Is there a REASON you're here right now, Discord? With so many parties going on around the country, I can't imagine there's any shortage of 'fun' you could be having."

"Oh, how you wound me!" Discord said melodramatically. "How could I truly enjoy myself, knowing that my two favorite villains were moping around a war-torn city while everyone else was enjoying themselves?" He hopped up to the Voidsong statue, giving it a tight hug.

Solon tilted his head to the side. "I'm not moping."

"I wasn't talking about you," Discord said, stretching his arm over to Celestia to pinch her cheek. She quickly zapped his hand with a small lightning shock, warding him off as she glared.

"Anyway, I do like to visit this place from time to time. So many memories!" Discord gushed, clasping his hands together.

"It could ushe shome shprucing up at thish point, though," Solon admitted as he glanced around, "now that we have the Orksh under control, would you like to have a few? They could fill out the gallery here."

"Ooh! You can put them all in funny poses before you petrify them, like they're having a mid-battle brawl!" Discord said, pointing at Celestia.

"... Do you two think that ALL of these statues are my personal opponents?" the alicorn asked as her brow furrowed. "I don't just go on a crusade and start petrifying people whenever I want to add some new art to the city parks."

"Oh. Really?" Solon asked. "That'sh what I'd do."

Discord looked alarmed at the revelation. "What about Jean Luc?" he asked desperately, pointing to a stylized dragon sculpture in a corner. "You're not telling me he isn't real?! He was my sole confidant for over four hundred years! He was like a BROTHER to me!"

"That dragon is marble, not flesh made stone," Celestia deadpanned.

"JEAN!! NO!!" the draconequus screamed, diving toward the statue and hugging its tail while bawling.

Celestia sighed, planting a hoof against her face. "And THESE are my most powerful allies as Equestria heads into an age of intergalactic strife. How did things come to this?"

"It'sh moshtly her fault," Solon said, pointing to the statue next to him.

Celestia forced several unpleasant comments from her thoughts as she sat down next to the Warsmith. The time for paranoia and prejudice were long past, now. Equestria was victorious, and had to look to the future rather than fighting it. And that future involved Chaos.

"So, what now, Warsmith? With the Orks broken and our people safe, what is next for your army?" the Sun Princess asked.

"Ooh! Is it Necrons? I hope it's Necrons!" Discord shouted, jumping back into the conversation.

Solon chuckled, raising a hand to the face of Voidsong's statue and drawing his fingers across its cheek. "Shafe? My dear pony, we are not shafe. We are never shafe, and never will be. Thish planet ish mine now, and like all bashtionsh of Chaosh, it ish to be a place of war." He lowered his hand as a blast of dark poison gushed from the smokestacks on his chassis. "For there ish no peace among the shtarsh. Only an eternity of carnage and shlaughter, and the laughter of thirshting godsh."

"Pfff!"

Solon turned around toward Celestia and Discord. Both of them had their cheeks puffed up as they held their breath, trying to restrain laughter.

Surprisingly, it was Celestia who broke first, and the alicorn chuckled through her teeth as tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. "Snrk! I'm - pfft! - I'm sorry! R-Really! But... hah hah hah!" she burst out laughing openly, and Discord was soon bellowing along with her.

"Wasn't it great the way he tried to sound all grim and serious with that voice?!" the draconequus howled. "'Carnage and shlaughter! Grrr! I'm very shcary!' Oh Tzeentch, I'm dying over here!"

Solon grumbled several pejoratives in Binaric Cant as he swiveled his chassis away and stalked away from the others. "You two can go shtraight to Hell."

****

The End

Writing, direction, and planning by
SFaccountant (BlackDragon74)

Art by
Ahrimatt
EZTP
DavionX

TVTropes page by
spinner335

Editing and proofreading by
Setokaiva

A very special thanks to
Heitomos
Hey its that Pony
GBscientist
ayh
Mitch H.
and Heitomos again
for their assistance in the Tournament of Canterlot!
The Tournament has concluded! I think I got third, like I thought I would. Thanks for your support!

The Age of Iron has begun...

Author's Note

Aaaaaaand we're done.
As I said a few times in comments here and there, I've set up a group to host the Iron Hearts series and any stories written by myself or anyone else with Iron Hearts as a background setting. I'm calling it Age of Iron.
I'm extending blanket permission for anyone and everyone who wants to use the Iron Hearts series for their own projects, including the OCs.
There will be more wonderful heresy to come.

Goodnight everybody, and remember:
We are Chaos. And Chaos is strong.

Foundations

Iron Hearts

Book 5

Suffer Not the Alien to Live

Disclaimer: why does anybody read these things? If you're not trying to sue me for intellectual property infringement, move along! If you are, please don't hurt me.

Punctuation key: "Gothic speech" *Speech in Tau language* +Speech in Binary+ Non-aural communication, such as telepathy

Dramatis Personae

38th Company:

Solon - Warsmith (high commander) dedicated to Nurgle

Sliver - Vice-commander dedicated to Nurgle

Tellis - Raptor Lord dedicated to Khorne

Serith - High Sorcerer

Dest - rhino driver

Cyrus Gnoss - human mercenary General

Wyatt Daniels - human mercenary

Norris Delgan - human Trademaster

Detachment Equiis (Equestrian auxiliaries):

Princess Luna - Commander

Midnight Blaze - Lunar Guard Lieutenant

Dusk Blade - Lunar Guard Lieutenant

Princess Twilight Sparkle - Equinought Squadron Captain

Rainbow Danger Dash - Equinought Squadron (aerial strike role)

Applejack Apple - Equinought Squadron (assault role)

Rarity - Equinought Squadron (part-time equerry to Trademaster Delgan)

Fluttershy - Equinought Squadron (support role)

Pinkie Pie - Equinought Squadron (heavy assault role)

The Great and Powerful Trixie - entertainer/mercenary (support role)

Suuna - assistant to The Great and Powerful Trixie

Dark Mechanicus:

Kaelith - Dark Magos

Gaela - Dark Techpriest

Detachment Xenis (Tau remnants):

Jerriha - Shas'vre Fireblade

Fennin - Fio'el Master Engineer

Wraithstar - Shas'el Stealth Suit Commander

Orks:

Drahgza Redclawz - Ork Warboss

Kahg Krushah - Ork Warboss

Hazarr "Coggz" Wrencha - Ork Big Mek

Field Report: engagement 36-77, after-action. File Designation ES-71

The target was a small Ork encampment acting as a refuel depot for the Speed Freaks trying to establish raiding parties around Baltimare. Target was confirmed destroyed as of 16:11:39. Iron Warrior reserves were deployed. Eclipse remained on stand-by.

The equine contributions to the sortie have been charitably referred to as "positive". Although the Eclipse and Equinought Squadron have proven to be remarkable tactical assets, the other ponies that seem militarily inclined have not performed nearly as well, even with substantial help from Company forces. They're quick to be suppressed and easily intimidated by enemy forces; just the sight of a mega-dread or a squiggoth will send them into a stampede if we don't have anything just as impressive lining up behind them.

That said, they can be perfectly useful in an even fight, and they're not prone to reckless behavior or insubordination, which we see plenty of from the mercenaries and cultists. The pegasi are great for flanking entrenched positions, and the earth ponies can shrug off hits that knock the other two kinds right off their hooves. Unicorns are good to have close by in a firefight, floating up bits of cover for us and flinging thrown explosives back at the greenskins with their magic. And the units work pretty well together, despite the lack of strict military discipline.

There are some obvious weak points, besides being generally jittery: they can't handle most of our weapons, and have gotten really attached to lasguns for their lack of recoil, easy reloading, and substantial capacity. Any weapons more complex or dangerous leaves them practically helpless; very few are even willing to try melta guns and flamers, and experiments in letting them man heavy weapons have been entirely ineffectual. And downright hilarious, if I do say so myself. So as a whole they're generally lacking in stopping power as well as backbone.

The only other matter I feel inclined to note is the... suspicious nature of the equine casualties. They've taken their fair share of damage on the field, but somehow every equine casualty so far has been a non-fatal injury. Some of them quite serious, no doubt, but not a single pony has been killed in action as far as I'm aware. It's uncanny, and frankly I think the men are getting jealous.

Colonel Harlin, signing off

Iron Hearts

Chapter 1

Foundations

****

Appleloosa

Applejack grunted as she was carried off her hooves, flames swimming over her armor and bowling her over onto the cracked and scorched dirt.

She wasn't injured; as usual, not a sliver of shrapnel or licking flame managed to puncture the ceramite composite and adamantium carapace that made up her armor. But it took a few precious moments to get her senses back as alerts and data cluttered her heads-up-display.

The crackle of lasguns, rattle of shootas, and the sounds of a dozen other weapons swam over her while Applejack pushed herself upright again.

Almost immediately, a much closer and more pertinent noise was filtered through her autosenses. An Ork Nob charged through the smoke column that used to be a chimera APC, roaring furiously and brandishing a big choppa as large as a human man.

Applejack checked the angle and then swung around, her armor creaking loudly from the surprisingly agile movement. Her rear legs snapped upward in a kick just as the Nob swung his own weapon.

Her greaves met the choppa, and Orkish weaponsmithing was found wanting in the exchange. The choppa head snapped off and the handle shattered. The Nob staggered back and stared down at his broken weapon as Applejack's hooves fell back to the ground.

The farm pony swung about and blasted the nob with a brief spurt from her heavy flamer, swallowing the warrior in fire and sending him flailing back toward the smoke from whence he had emerged.

He didn't get very far before a burst of lasers speared him in the side, causing the Ork to stagger and fall.

"Hey, Cuz! Ya all right?" Braeburn shouted, a lasgun hooked up to his right foreleg by a ballistics harness. He and Big Macintosh were sheltering behind a stack of hay bales, with the latter exchanging fire with a mob of Orks barricaded in the train station.

Applejack bolted toward her relatives, halting when a stream of bullets pelted her in the side.

A snap of her tail attached the gravity lash to a Loota who was leaning too far out of cover, and she flung the Ork and his deffgun out into the battlefield.

Braeburn eagerly lined up the easy shot, raining lasers onto the struggling alien before Applejack reached them.

"What's the story, colts?" Applejack demanded, shouting to be heard over the crash of artillery nearby.

"We're just holdin' the greenies in place fer a spell 'til yer big metal buddies can flush out the ones in the train station!" Braeburn shouted as he ducked down. "Anyhow, ya okay, Cuz? That was no firecracker that went off next to ya!"

Applejack snorted as another stray bullet bounced off her thigh with a heavy TWANG noise. "Ya don' mind me, Brae! Keep yer head down!"

Her point was underlined by a harsh whipping noise when machine gun fire started ripping through the hay bales, and Braeburn yelped as he fell flat on the ground.

Big Mac shuddered when the spray of bullets passed over him, hammering his chest and shoulder plates but failing to breach the carapace. He tilted to the side before he loosed the next burst from his heavy bolter, and a pair of shoota boyz disappeared in a cloud of blood and shrapnel.

"Them fancy suits ain't just fer show, are they?" Braeburn laughed nervously as a stream of brass casings bounced under his muzzle, and he glanced over at Applejack. "Shoot, yer hat ain't even singed!"

A series of small explosions came from inside the train station, and all gunfire coming from the windows ceased. Seconds later, Orkish shouting blended with the sound of roaring chainswords as the Iron Warriors secured the building.

"Wait... how IS your hat okay?" Braeburn asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Train station's clear! Follow mah lead!" Applejack shouted, galloping out ahead and ignoring Braeburn's question.

Without the guns covering them from the train station, very little crossfire remained while the Apples surged across the train tracks. Shattered wagons and gutted barrels littered the ground all around them, and some of the debris had been piled up into makeshift barricades by the Ork raiders. One such machine gun nest lay dead ahead, firing at a mercenary unit in the other direction, and Braeburn gulped anxiously as his cousins barreled ahead.

"APPLLLLLLES!!" Applejack roared as she crashed into the rear of the barricade, smashing the wall to splinters and throwing several Ork gunners off their feet. With most of her momentum spent, she unleashed her heavy flamer on full spread, washing over the shoota boys and their tragically flammable fortification.

Big Mac shouldered through behind his sister, ready to back her up, but it proved unnecessary. What few Orks weathered the river of fire well enough to fight back found themselves hammered aside by the armored mare or gored by the heavy tusks on her helmet. A minute after she had breached the fortification the nest was dead, and Applejack trotted out of the burning barricade and into open ground.

Big Mac and Braeburn took their time to reach her (they had to go around the gun nest, not wanting to walk through the flames), and by the time they caught up Applejack had reached a Company gun line and was already talking to a Captain.

"How many more buildin's need to be cleared? We've been at this since sun-up!" Applejack complained up at the man, her hat tilting low over the red lenses of her helmet visor.

"The problem isn't the building garrisons!" the Captain retorted, shouting to be heard over the sound of the heavy stubbers firing behind him. "They can't defend those buildings forever, especially with our artillery support! The PROBLEM is the Skullhammer tank in the town square!"

"Skullhammer? Hah! Why, Ah used to take down two o'those a night in the Rotten Apple Saloon! Three on a good day!" Braeburn laughed, and Applejack groaned.

"What the hay's a 'Skullhammer', and what's it gonna take to put it down?" Applejack asked.

"A Skullhammer is an Ork super-heavy armored attack vehicle. A lot like our baneblade, mostly on account of them being built from our baneblade wrecks and parts," the officer explained, clutching his Chaos Star amulet in his hand, "it pushed out all of the attack teams that had reached the town center and gave the Orks time to take the buildings while we regrouped."

"Oh, hey! The Rotten Apple's still in one piece!" Braeburn said, pointing to the boarded-up tavern across the street. "First round's on me after we clean this place up, cuz!"

"Rainbow... BUSTER!!" came a vox-amplified shout from above, and Braeburn blinked as a rainbow-colored wave pulsed through the air.

"Down! GET DOWN!!" the soldiers at the barricade screamed before a large warkopta hurtled out of control over the street, trailing flame and bits of debris from the rear section of the craft.

Braeburn's ears fell flat as the aerial transport smashed through the front of the Rotten Apple, breaking apart in the impact and spilling burning fuel and Ork corpses into the structure. A moment later its one functional rotor burst out the back of the tavern, wedging itself deep into the outhouse in the rear lot.

"Awwww..." the frontier stallion morosely pulled his hat down and held it over his chest in a silent prayer for his favorite watering hole.

Applejack growled before she brought up her list of squad contacts and linked up her vox.

"DASH! Watch where yer dropping them things, would ya?! Ya could hurt somepony!"

"Sorry, sorry! It isn't easy to line that move up right when you're flying through a cloud of bullets and fire, you know!" Rainbow Dash replied. "Can we talk about this later? I'm trying to lead these jerks over to the AA guns!"

A moment later two fighta-bommas screamed overhead in pursuit of the armored pegasus, and Applejack shook her head.

"All right, back to business," she said as the Captain pushed up into a crouch, "what's the plan to take down this big galoot?"

"The Eclipse has been unleashed," the officer said, "ETA twenty-two minutes."

"Yeah, that'll do 'er," Applejack smirked behind her helmet, "what do we do in the meantime?"

"We're going to keep the garrisoned buildings locked down as the Iron Warriors and artillery clear them!" the Captain shouted. "As for you, can you get a fix on Twilight Sparkle?"

Applejack selected the proper locator rune and nodded.

"Good! When we were withdrawing from the square she was helping cover us! We lost contact after some Ork walkers scattered the platoon!" He pointed toward a burning lodge near the center of town. "Take your flamboyantly gay relative and head down the east side to back her up! And watch yourself! The place is lousy with Kans!"

"Got it! Keep them greens down, cowboy!" Applejack said as she trotted off.

Big Mac and Braeburn followed after her through the pall of gunsmoke, although the latter glared back at the human officer as he did so.

"Well, ain't he rude as a rattler on Monday morning!" Braeburn said indignantly. Then he gave Big Mac a gentle, brotherly pat on his shoulder plate. "Don't let him get to ya, cuz. Ah don't think yer flamboyant at all!"

Big Macintosh hesitated for a moment, decided to say nothing, and then continued after his sister.

Applejack set a count-down timer on her visor display as she headed toward her new objective.

"All right Apples, stay sharp. We don't want no surprises out here," she said while she scanned over the nearest buildings. Numerous hostiles appeared on her display, but almost all of them were concentrating on the firefights with the human and post-human soldiers on the streets, leaving the rear of their garrisons undefended.

It was tempting to simply burst into the nearest one and start burning away, but Applejack knew she didn't want to draw too much attention; it would be too easy to be surrounded and overwhelmed with only two ponies by her side.

"Honestly, if anythin', Ah think ya come off as a little TOO masculine. Some stallions that're 'that way' probably find it intimidating, ya know?"

"......"

Applejack grimaced when she spotted a pair of gretchin sneaking through a path between two buildings while carrying a barrel of apples.

"Braeburn!" she snapped.

In an instant, her cousin brought up his lasgun and blasted one of the puny laborers, leaving its partner to squeal angrily as the barrel was suddenly too heavy to carry.

"Daggone Orks're bad enough as big, burly killers," Applejack spat, planting a boot on the apple barrel, "did they really need a special kind of greenskin fer sneakin' around and stealin' stuff, too?" She shifted her weight onto the barrel, squashing the helpless alien underneath.

"Ah dunno, Cuz. Rather deal with them puny varmints than the big, gun-totin' sort," Braeburn confessed. His ear twitched at the sound of a wall coming down somewhere in the building next to them. "Speakin' o'which, didn't yer friend back there say somethin' about 'kans'? Dunno what those are, but if they've got them apes worried, then Ah sure don't wanna meet one!"

"Kans're just the Ork walkers," Applejack explained, "dang things look like they're built outta spit and old horseshoes, but them guns and claws they got work jus' fine."

Another wall broke down in the building next to them, and the Apple ponies froze so that they could more easily pick up the hissing of steam pistons and the heavy, clanking footsteps from within.

"Aw, horseapples," Applejack groaned.

Braeburn yelped as the wall behind him exploded outward, and he scrambled away before a rusty buzzsaw blade swiped wildly through the cloud of shattered timbers.

"Run!" Applejack barked, suiting actions to words before the Kan started spraying bullets wildly into the air.

The stallions didn't need to be told twice, and they galloped ahead of the snapping claws and blazing shootas.

"Whassa matta, hosses?" cackled a voice echoing from within the walker's hull. "Git ovah heah 'n fight me!"

"Keep movin'!" Applejack shouted as bullets sawed across the ground next to her. "Either it'll get distracted an' break off, or we'll find Twi an' she can put it down!"

A rokkit shot out of the alley ahead of her, nearly causing Applejack to stumble as it corkscrewed through the air and exploded against an abandoned wagon.

The fate of the projectile was much less interesting to the ponies than what had fired it, however. Another Killa Kan stomped out from behind a bank, its rokkit launchas smoldering and sparks sputtering from a breach in its rear plating.

"Or maybe we'll jus' keep runnin' into more of 'em!" Braeburn griped before he skidded to a stop, ducking behind Big Macintosh. "Where to now?"

Applejack was still working that out as she backed away from the new walker, only to stop short when she realized something. The second Kan wasn't turning toward her or even trying to get in a passing shot as it clanked by. Turning toward the alley it had sprinted out of, she caught a flash of color through the dust and oily exhaust smoke.

"Over here!" Applejack shouted, bolting toward a stack of crates piled up next to the bank.

Neither of her relatives hesitated to follow her lead, although both of them were curious as to how a pile of wooden boxes might protect them from the claws and saws of the assault walkers.

They got their answer when a series of shots pounded into the back of the second Kan, blowing out its hip assembly and staggering it. The Killa Kan that had been chasing the ponies halted immediately, and then began a stuttering run toward its comrade.

"PARTY TIIIIIME!!" The gleeful bellow was needlessly amplified by a pair of oversized vox casters as a bright pink shape stomped out of the alley.

Pinkie Pie fired another blast from her autocannons, knocking the enemy vehicle flat on its front before she charged.

The Dreadnought's thunder hammer descended upon the hapless Kan, and its power field released a crack much like its namesake as the Ork walker's hull folded in and the pilot was reduced to mush.

The other opponent hadn't been idle while watching its brother being executed, however, and as Pinkie Pie pulled away from the wreckage there was already a pneumatic claw reaching for her walker.

The Killa Kan suddenly jerked back, and the claw missed its target at the last moment.

The Kan swung its saw and powered claw furiously at the pink Dreadnought, trying to step forward into melee range. It couldn't manage to make its way forward, however, and Pinkie started laughing as the Kan's heavy footsteps started digging furrows into the ground.

"Pinkie! Stop yer guffawing and kill the dang thing!" Applejack yelled. She had latched her gravity lash onto the Killa Kan while Big Mac had likewise attached his magnetic harpoon, and the Apple siblings were straining to hold the walker back as it swiped uselessly at Pinkie's Dreadnought shell.

"Okay! Okay! I'm good!" She giggled through the oversized helmet before lining up her twin-linked autocannon, loosing a salvo at almost point-blank range into the kan's sensory visor.

Pinkie fired several more rounds into the Ork walker, blasting out chunks of flaming metal out the back before it stopped struggling. Then she tapped the shredded machine with her thunder hammer, watching in satisfaction while it tilted over onto its back.

"Hey Apples! How's it hangin'?" Pinkie asked the other earth ponies, snickering afterwards.

"Er... Miss Pie? That you?" Braeburn asked as he looked over the pink walker. The cutie mark emblem on the arm holding the thunder hammer was a good indication, as was the helmet; it was shaped like a power armor helm, but had a large, poofy pink frill on top of it.

"Yupperoonie! You okay, maybe-cousin?" the pink mare asked, stomping over to Braeburn and looming over him.

"Oh, well... been better, t'be honest," the stallion admitted, pulling off his hat and wiping his brow, "all the fightin' and watchin' mah home town burnin' down can be pretty hard on a guy, y'know?"

"Agreed," Applejack interjected, "so we best get a move on and keep the greens from wreckin' any more of it! Check that out!"

Applejack pointed to the sky, where a pair of fiery streaks were descending toward the ground. "Drop rigs. On Gaela's beacon signum. We gotta go back 'em up!"

"You got it, Jackie!" Pinkie said cheerfully, staring up at the sky. Then she noticed something else moving across the sky. "Hey, is it just me, or is the moon moving REALLY fast right now?"

Braeburn squinted upward, trying to see past the pall of smoke, but Applejack and Big Macintosh started heading onward.

"Yeah, it is," Applejack confirmed, "we got an Eclipse comin' in about fifteen. C'mon."

"Yay!" Pinkie Pie followed happily, her ammo hoppers clunking loudly as they reloaded the autocannons.

Braeburn frowned, scrunching up his muzzle before following the others. "... Eclipse?"

****

"Incoming, incoming, INCOMING!!"

"YES, Rarity, I see it! THANK YOU!"

The force harmonizer flickered into shield mode and then hovered over the ponies like an umbrella as Twilight grumbled impolite things into her vox grille.

A few seconds later a large bomb - being improbably ridden by a delirious grot - slammed into the barrier, causing the web of blue energy to shudder under the impact and sink almost a foot lower to the ground.

It held, though, and Twilight grunted before she spotted two more projectiles dipping into tall arcs overhead.

"Twilight!" Rarity shouted while her plasma gun fired a hail of blistering energy bolts into the Orks surrounding them.

"I see them!" Twilight snapped. "I told you guys it was a bad idea to call in the quad guns! Now every Ork in town knows we're here!"

On the other side of Twilight and Rarity, two quad gun emplacements and two dozen mercenaries were stitching fire into the sky and into a group of Flashgits trying to advance up the street between garrisoned buildings. No less than four Killa Kan wrecks served as cover for the group of fighters, and atop these heaps of scrap metal another armored unicorn summoned and expended munitions at a dizzying pace. Swarms of bolt rounds and buckets' worth of grenades were flung at the barricaded homes around them, dispensing firepower in a manner very conspicuously similar to that of their opponents. Every dozen seconds or so Fluttershy would flicker into view, shoot a photon grenade into a window, and then vanish again before angry shouts and wild gunfire poured from the afflicted buildings.

Trixie growled as a dozen boltguns dropped to the ground around her, and her horn casing and hat started to glow. "And Trixie told YOU that this would be easy if you would just let Trixie light the buildings on fire!" Her wizard hat stretched and expanded, and a heavy bolter popped out with an ammunition belt hanging from its bullet feed.

Twilight's shield flickered and crackled under the impact of the grot bombs, and the alicorn grit her teeth. "We're trying to SAVE this town, Trixie! Not destroy it faster than the Orks can!"

Fluttershy de-cloaked, mumbled something about not fighting each other while also fighting the enemy, lobbed another photon grenade, and then immediately re-cloaked.

"What does it matter?!" the performer demanded while the next heavy bolter popped out of her hat. "It's already been evacuated! There's nopony to hurt except for the Orks and us!" Once she had three heavy bolters hovering in front of her, she aimed them in the direction of a stubborn nest of shootas and telekinetically held the triggers down, spitting a veritable rain of heavy bolts into the walls.

"To be fair, starting several large fires may bring harm to us, as well!" Gaela shouted to be heard over the roar of the heavy bolters and the staccato thunder of the quad gun she was mounting. "Nearly all of the battlefield debris, intact dwellings, and available cover is flammable, and our line of retreat is already limited!"

"Well, fine! At least give Trixie a real reason to care rather than pretending anypony is going to want to live here again after we're done turning it into an Ork graveyard!" The heavy bolters trembled powerfully in the grip of her magic before they expended the last of their munitions, and then all three clicked empty. "Did Trixie get them?"

A shoota boy stood up in front of a window a moment later, and promptly had his face vaporized by a plasma bolt.

"No, Trixie, you did not," Rarity said tersely, "honestly, at the rate you're going through weapons, we'll be able to build a whole new barricade out of empty boltguns."

"Oh, hey! That's a great idea!" the showmare said, moving the expended heavy bolters to block some of the holes in her cover.

Twilight stared up into the sky as the firefight raged in front of her, finding no more incoming artillery. She hooked up her vox to a proximity channel.

"Did someone knock out the Ork artillery position? We're seeing a sudden drop in enemy ordnance!"

After a moment of crackling static, a deep, rumbling voice answered her.

"I think those were the Stealth Suits. We have some Tau support in the area. That Skullhammer tank is still causing us problems, though. General Gnoss wants it removed before we advance into the heart of the settlement and eliminate the Warboss."

Twilight looked up at the mid-afternoon sky, noting that the moon was present and visibly moving. "I think that will be taken care of soon."

"Then work on clearing the buildings and eliminating the enemy walkers. It's just a matter of time, now."

Twilight nodded to herself as she let the harmonizer fall out of shield mode, and then she looked toward the buildings across the street. Each one released intermittent flashes of muzzle flare from windows and doorways, along with the odd rokkit that usually spiraled off into nowhere.

The buildings held dozens of Orks, and although the weight of fire from the ponies and the human fighters that were stuck with them was keeping much of the enemy firepower suppressed, they weren't whittling down the aliens' numbers much. How best to clear them out with minimal casualties and damage?

Then she spotted a gout of rising flame through one of the shattered windows, and she realized that one of the homes was on fire on the first floor.

"Trixie! I thought I told you not to light any more buildings on fire!" Twilight complained.

"And Trixie didn't!" the unicorn mare shot back while she levitated a pair of grenade belts into nearby windows. "Leave Trixie out of this!"

Fluttershy de-cloaked, mumbled something about reinforcements, fired a photon grenade into a window, and then re-cloaked again.

Then a second-story wall of the burning home exploded outward, and a shoota boy went flying out into the street.

Twilight glimpsed some shining metal behind the cloud of debris, and then quickly checked her locator runes.

"Applejack! Pinkie Pie! You made it!"

"Darn tootin'!" the farmer replied over the vox. "The train station's cleared an' the last of the refugees are gettin' on outta here!"

Pinkie's Dreadnought stomped out from between the buildings and waved, apparently oblivious to the shoota fire coming from the houses on either side. "We're baaaaack!"

"Good! We've got about eight minutes until the Eclipse!"

"Ah hear that! We'll be with ya after we evict these here green squatters!"

Another Ork crashed through the wall, flailing helplessly through the air before landing on the street in a heap. Pinkie Pie turned toward a different building and looked ready to tear into it, but then the walker froze.

"Knee jerk, ear flick!" she shouted, and then redoubled her speed away from the garrisons.

A triumphant shout from the mercenary manning one of the quad guns brought Twilight's attention upward, and her eyes widened as she saw a Dakka Jet beginning a death spiral while trailing fire and scrap behind it.

"Applejack, Pinkie, incoming! Plane!"

"What? Ah doubt a plane can shoot me in here, suga-"

The damaged jet, thankfully, hit the next garrison over rather than the building Applejack was clearing out, utterly squashing the home and presumably all the boyz inside it before detonating. The explosion tore out the adjacent walls of the buildings on either side, and Twilight cringed as both other houses slowly collapsed.

"Applejack! Applejack, do you read me?"

****

"Yeah, okay, Ah hear ya. Cripes, Twi, stop shoutin'," Applejack grunted.

Her visor was a mess of data displays over a field of darkness, no doubt due to her being completely buried.

The experience of being trapped under hundreds of pounds of burning timber and wreckage was decidedly undramatic within terminator armor. Applejack couldn't feel any particular pressure from above, her suit temperature was stable, and her oxygen levels were plentiful should her flow of air be blocked off completely.

That said, she was still trapped. Applejack tried to move her legs and push forward, but the debris around her merely shifted around her boots, and she sunk a few inches instead. Her head was stuck in place, with the long, curved tusks of her helmet wedged in the rubble.

At least her visor and vox system was working. That way if she had to sit out the rest of the battle waiting for someone to dig her up, she could still talk to someone while she waited.

Then she spotted a sliver of light on the edge of her visor display, and heard the crack and groan of the debris above her shifting. Apparently she wouldn't have time to strike up a conversation after all.

A resonant CLANG echoed in Applejack's ears as a magnetic tow cable attached to the top of her armor, and soon afterward she felt herself being dragged upward.

Big Mac grunted while he pushed his way forward, away from the pile of burning wood - and a fair bit of warplane - that pinned down his sister. The effort required to tow her free far exceeded the strength of his power armor alone, and the draft pony's muscles strained along with the armor's microservos as his boots dug deep furrows into the dirt.

The debris parted and crumbled before his strength, and soon Applejack's armored form was squirming to right itself on the ground.

"Ya all right, cuz?" Braeburn asked, although he chuckled a bit. "Yer takin' quite a beatin' today, aintcha?" The frontier stallion was holding his hat in his hooves and dusting it off best he could.

"Like Ah said: ya worry 'bout yerself, Brae," Applejack snorted as she righted herself. Big Mac's magnetic harpoon detached from her armor, and she looked over to him. "Thanks, Mac. Ah was worried you two got buried too."

Braeburn shook his head. "We skee-daddled outta there soon as you lit up the place. Not all of us're fireproof, ya know." Then his eyes narrowed. "Wait... how's yer hat STILL okay?"

An explosion cut the conversation short, causing all the ponies to flinch and scramble for cover as another nearby structure shuddered and collapsed. That shot had been LOUD, and far closer than any of them were comfortable with.

Braeburn's jaw dropped as he peeked over a stack of crates. Lumbering through the smoke and dust was a tank painted bright yellow. A BIG tank. It was bigger than most buildings, and sported a ridiculous number of turrets that pointed in every conceivable direction. A pair of Killa Kans walked alongside the behemoth in escort, but the walkers looked positively laughable next to the super-heavy vehicle.

"Ah'm guessin' that there is that 'Skullhammer' that has the apes all riled?" Braeburn gulped, ducking his head down behind the crates.

"Unless they got more'n one monster tank 'round here!" Applejack shouted, trying to keep her larger and considerably more visible form hidden out of sight. "Which could actually be the case with Orks, but Ah'd rather not dwell on that!"

"Eeyup!" Big Mac agreed.

"What're we gonna do, Cuz?" Braeburn hissed, feeling the vibrations that the tank made through the ground.

"We ain't gonna do nothin'. We got an Eclipse comin'," Applejack insisted.

Braeburn frowned. "What're y'all talkin' about? Whaddya mean 'eclipse'?"

"Aw, c'mon Braeburn! Ya don' know what an eclipse is?"

"Of course Ah know what an eclipse is! But ya can't mean a real..." the stallion trailed off as he glanced to the side, noting that there was a vast shadow moving over the ground. Looking up, he could see that the moon was, indeed, moving in front of the sun as per the definition of an eclipse.

"Oh-kay... Ah still don' see how this helps us, 'sides maybe makin' us harder to see," Braeburn mumbled.

"Just you wait, Cousin..."

As the moon's shadow stretched over the town, much of the gunfire started to slacken. The Orks were generally confused by the onset of darkness in mid-day, while the 38th Company were preparing for fresh assaults and combat sweeps.

The Skullhammer battle fortress merely turned on its floodlights after the Eclipse engulfed it, its turrets twitching back and forth in search of something to destroy.

Very few of the Orks actually observed the moon's final movement to block out the sun completely, but if they had, even the relatively dull warriors would have found it strange how the lunar satellite slowed its rapid movement to a bare crawl as it moved into place.

And then, when it reached its apex and shrouded Centaur III in darkness, it stopped.

Almost instantly, great columns of bats burst into the air all around Appleloosa in a black, squealing swarm. This didn't especially unsettle the Ork warriors, although Braeburn was quite surprised; bats weren't very common in this region of Equestria.

He was even more surprised when a flare of blue fire appeared in the middle of town, right in front of the Ork Skullhammer.

The flames rose and then fell, leaving behind an equine figure resplendent in ebony and gold, with glimmering crystal wings spread behind it. A pool of glittering starlight floated behind the armored body, flowing gently in a breeze completely at odds with the actual flow of wind across the battlefield. The metallic color scheme served to emphasize the glaring cracks and spots of blazing red in the armor suit: two eyes in the helmet, two more in the Iron Skull on the chest, and the pulsing veins that seeped from the extensive horn plating and daemon core. Two large, black mechanical hands clutched the shoulder pads at first, but then released the rounded plates to float at the dark figure's sides.

It was the single most terrifyingly beautiful thing Braeburn had ever seen.

"Sweet mother of Celestia," the frontier stallion breathed.

"Naw, that ain't her mom," Applejack chuckled, "close, though."

The Skullhammer operators also took a few moments to appreciate the figure that had appeared directly in front of it, but they were far less impressed.

"WAAAAAGH!!" the battlecry of the green horde echoed from the massive assault vehicle as it aimed every cannon with a frontal arc right at this new combatant. A moment later it fired its salvo, releasing a shock of noise that rattled Braeburn's teeth.

From beneath the mask of daemon-energized iron, Luna's eyes flashed.

A pulse of bloody red blasted forward, and every one of the shells and bullets froze still in the air.

They were released to gravity an instant later, and the munitions tumbled to the ground, exploding uselessly and kicking up great plumes of dirt. The Skullhammer's automatic weapons, as well as the shootas on the killa kans, continued to pour bullets at the alicorn after the kinetic pulse passed, but what few shots reached Luna's armor bounced off like hot rain as she took to the air.

"DARKNESS TAKE THEE, ALIEN!!" Luna shouted, her voice blasting away part of the dust cloud on its own while the Iron Gage took aim. Each gauntlet was held upright, fingers bent, with the palm facing a different Killa Kan.

A lance of crimson blasted from each of them, spearing into the alien walkers.

One was lanced through entirely, and chunks of the pilot were pushed out the back along with bits of the clanking mech's engine, with little to distinguish one from the other.

The other Kan was marginally more lucky, and merely had its leg torn off. It collapsed onto the ground, immobilized but still active.

The massive gun on the Skullhammer's main turret fired again, but with Luna in full flight, the shot missed her without any intervention this time around.

Luna alighted on the front hull, ducking her head when the main cannon tried to sweep to the side and knock her off her perch.

The Iron Gage floated around the main turret and grabbed onto the base. The thick, dark fingers crackled with power, digging into the seams and gaps between plating, and as Luna concentrated the gauntlets began to pull.

The hull emitted a deep, echoing groan at first, and then the shriek of tearing metal as the outermost seals broke. The turret began to tilt upward, and a long chain of stretched bolts started popping free one by one all around the mounting.

After a final creak of protest, the Iron Gage broke the turret completely off, and Luna calmly lifted the hulk of armor and ordnance over the still-living killa kan before dropping it on the helpless machine. The Skullhammer's main gunner, now missing most of his instruments and staring into the blood-red eyes of Luna's visor, couldn't help but look impressed even as he drew his slugga.

A casual backhand from the Iron Gage removed the Ork's upper torso from the rest of him, and then the other gauntlet gingerly plucked the corpse from the crew pit before flinging it away.

Then Luna stepped up to the new hole in the top of the hull, beckoning the Iron Gage inside. The powered gauntlets descended into the mighty tank, and as angry shouting emanated from within, she lowered her head to follow.

"... Ahright, Cuz, Ah'll admit it," Braeburn said as he adjusted his hat, "that was pretty good."

Then he squinted up at the moon, which still blocked the sun's light from the battlefield far below. "Don' really see why the Princess has to do the whole 'Eclipse' thing jus' to show up and clobber some greenies, though."

"Oh, she doesn't," Applejack admitted, "she kinda has a flair fer the dramatic, s'all."

A bright red alert flashed over her visor, and Applejack lowered her head before a priority transmission opened up.

"This is General Gnoss. The Ork heavy support has been crippled, and additional reserves have been released. The enemy is surrounded, and cut off. All units, close to engagement range and commence assault. Notify command upon sighting the enemy leader; the Warboss has not yet been located. That is all. In the name of Chaos and the daemon Primarch, purge the greenskins."

"Welp, we got marchin' orders," Applejack said as flickering sparks wafted from her heavy flamer, "you keep behind us, Brae."

"Ya don' need to tell me twice! Let's get 'em, Cuz!"

****

The Skullhammer battle fortress shuddered as its crew fell silent, and one by one the guns stopped moving. The tank's headlights flickered, and then went dark.

For a minute, all was still.

Then the access ramp to the Skullhammer's carrying compartment blasted off of the vehicle and Luna sauntered out onto the dirt.

Streaks of blood adorned the pony's daemon armor, and one gauntlet followed ahead of her on guard for potential threats. The other half of the Iron Gage was dragging along an Ork behind her. The Ork was wearing a fully stocked tool belt and had a bionic left eye, and had evidently put up a fight before being subdued; his right arm was missing, and still bleeding.

"Zoggin' hosses don' git ta mess wit me!" the Ork Mek shouted, no less belligerent for the loss of an arm. "Don' yous know hoo I am?!"

Luna let the Iron Gage carry her catch forward, so that the alien dangled in front of her while she walked.

"Thou art one of the Ork engineering class, the so-called 'Meks'," she said with an air of indifference, "this is why We hast decided to make a prisoner out of thee, as the Company values hostages of rank and knowledge." Then she snorted through the vox grille. "Aside from that, thou art hardly any different from the other thousand green-skinned barbarians that infest our land."

The Ork hung in the air silently for a few seconds, then pointed his remaining hand at the Princess.

"Dat's raysist."

Luna rolled her eyes. Then a shock of electricity surged through the Iron Gage, and she discarded the stunned Mek onto the ground like a piece of trash.

The darkened battlefield was alight with gunfire now while the Company troops made their push, and the flash of automatic weapons fire could be seen from many windows as the aliens sought to fight off the advancing humans. The occasional shoota burst was loosed in Luna's general direction as she strolled across the blasted earth, but it was characteristically inaccurate and little real threat.

The beat of powerful, leathery wings alerted her to one of her Lunar Guard approaching, and she turned her head.

"Lieutenant Dusk Blade. Report," she commanded.

The batpony was wearing a combat suit of black polyceramic plates, as well as a ballistics visor and headset. His right foreleg was hooked into a ballistics harness, and an alien splinter rifle was loaded into it.

"Princess, the Orks are stretched thin by now, but we have not yet located the commander," Dusk confessed, "the Guard waits in the shadows for your order. We would be of limited use assaulting the garrisons."

A string of big shoota shots stitched over the ground and over the alicorn Princess, and Dusk flinched away as several bullets pelted her side.

Luna frowned slightly, and then summoned a small barrier to enclose her and her Lieutenant; her armor was all but invulnerable to such weapons, but Dusk Blade wouldn't fare so well.

"Where art the enemy strongest? Hath they no armored strength remaining?" Although Luna was fully capable of tearing into a barricaded home and killing Orks one-by-one, she preferred more formidable targets.

"Very little, my Princess. Until the Warboss is located, we have only the garrisons to deal with. And we need to hurry, before enemy reinforcements arrive."

Luna tilted her head slightly. "Reinforcements? From whence do they come?"

"The orbital remnants. There's another Landa incoming, according to Command."

The Princess of the Night smiled. "That shalt do nicely. Dusk Blade, We bid thee to command the Lunar Guard to wait in ambush for the foe, as the Orks shalt soon abandon the town and make for the hills to escape the Iron Warriors. No Ork is to survive the attempt."

Dusk bowed low. "Of course, my Princess."

Luna looked up into the sky, still cast into darkness by the interference of her satellite against the sun. After a few seconds, her visor system uploaded the data from the auger network, and a small red box outlined the distant landing craft.

"We go now, to deny the foe further aid!" Luna launched into the air, and then rapidly ascended on a trail of shimmering blue.

****

Twilight fired the force harmonizer into a few broken-down carriages, carving through the feeble wooden vehicles and killing two Orks that had been sheltering behind them.

Gaela's ion blaster sought out the remainder of the mob as its cover collapsed, firing pulses of crackling white in quick succession. As two more Orks died the remainder started running, and Gaela's servo-mounted lasers speared another in the back.

Pinkie Pie cheered happily as she stomped after the fleeing warriors, crushing errant debris and abandoned carts underfoot.

On either side of their advance, the houses and businesses of Appleloosa were filled with the sounds of lasguns, shootas, chainswords, and bolters, as well as the occasional bout of maniacal laughter. Windows shattered, walls blasted outward, and many more homes were set ablaze while the 38th Company set to removing the alien invaders, and Twilight had to admit that Trixie was probably right about whether they could salvage the town.

"Kan incoming!" barked an Iron Warrior on the right, pressing a shoulder to a wall as a spotlight flashed across the street.

"Kan opener, moving out!" Pinkie chirped before she surged ahead toward the sound of heavy, clanking footsteps.

The road forked ahead, and as Pinkie Pie headed down one path Twilight brought up the local area map.

"Where are we headed next, darling?" Rarity asked, she ducking in next to the alicorn. "This is just about over, isn't it?"

Twilight nodded. "I think so. Let's head toward the orchard and meet up with the armor spearhead. Then-"

"TWI!" Applejack's voice burst onto Twilight and Rarity's vox systems, causing both mares to flinch. "We gotta sitcha'ation here!"

Twilight turned in the direction of Applejack's locator rune. "What kind of situation?" She couldn't see her farmer friend due to an apple distillery in the way, but there was plenty of noise coming from that direction.

"Ah think we found the Warboss!" Applejack shouted anxiously. "Or more like, he found us! Awful lot of them big, armored fellas, too! Gettin' a little rough over here!"

An explosion lit up the back of the distillery, and Twilight set her jaw. Then her flight pack spread out to her sides, lifting her off the ground.

"We're coming, Applejack! Just hold-"

"Wait," said a voice from behind before a boot bumped against her leg.

Twilight hesitated, and as she turned back she saw that Trixie was beckoning to her.

"Let's be smart about this. The Great and Powerful Trixie has a brilliant and cunning idea."

****

"Consarn Nobs! Back off, already!" Applejack shouted, her flamer creating a wall of fire in front of her. Half a dozen Iron Warriors stood with her and her relatives, as well as some twenty human soldiers taking up the garrison in the distillery, but their combined fire seemed to take a paltry toll on the mega-armored Orks gathered in the lot. The ground was a churned mess of mud thanks to numerous cider barrels breaking open, to say nothing of the considerable amount of blood soaking the dirt.

In the midst of the carnage, a truly tremendous Ork in mega armor held up a partially dismembered Iron Warrior, laughing as his power klaw slowly bit through the power armor and into the gene-enhanced flesh and bone underneath.

"You've lost, xeno filth!" the Chaos Marine snarled through the blood in his mouth. "Your army is broken! Soon you too shall be mere fodder for the dark powers!"

"Afta yoo," the Warboss snickered. Then his klaw let out a blast of steam, and the powered talons crushed the Iron Warrior to a pulp.

Warboss Blud Barin flung the carcass into the mud, laughing as a wave of red and brown spattered his leg plating. Then he fired his kustom blasta into the unit of stubbornly resisting Chaos Marines, unleashing a ray of hot orange over their heads. The shot missed, but even so the power-armored warriors started backing up, giving more ground to his Nobs.

"Kill da humies!" the Warboss exulted, firing again and again while his klaw snapped in the air. "Kill da spikies! Kill da hosses! Kill everfin' yous gits find, and den stomp on da ashes! WAAAA-"

A bolt of red stabbed into Blud's cheek, cutting off his warcry prematurely as the massive Ork jerked back. Several of the Nobs quickly turned to see what had happened, and they were treated to the sight of their leader blinking in shock, a black scar cutting across his face.

"Did Ah git 'im?" Braeburn asked, peeking his head over a cider barrel.

The enraged Ork roar that answered him staggered the Nobs, shook the Chaos Marines, and blew the hat straight off of Braeburn's head.

"Eeyup," Big Mac answered, wincing beneath the sheer volume of the bellow.

Braeburn's eyes widened as the Warboss began an all-out sprint straight toward him, bowling over the Nobs that were in his way.

The stallion promptly sprinted in the other direction, only to flinch to a halt as a bolt of orange blew past him and burned a hole into the side of the distillery.

"Brae! Keep movin'!" Applejack shouted as she and Big Mac rushed to intercept the Ork. "We'll handle-"

The Warboss that she had intended to "handle" swatted the mare aside, knocking her right off her feet and sending her crashing into Big Macintosh. The siblings were sent flailing into the mud.

Braeburn leapt away before the power klaw snipped at his legs, and then scrambled toward the hole in the distillery wall.

Blud Barin lifted up his klaw and then slammed it into the ground, discharging its power field at full force. The shock wave ripped open more of the wall and knocked Braeburn right off his feet, sending him crashing into a crate of apples.

Blud stood up slowly, his blasta humming malevolently as it pointed at the trembling stallion.

Braeburn gulped as his life flashed before his eyes.

"Last words, hossy," the Warboss growled while his blasta's exhaust ports bled hot gas, "make 'em gud."

Braeburn tried to search his mind for something clever or commendable to say in response, but as his life finished flashing back he was struck by a sudden epiphany.

"Hey, wait a sec! That guy was callin' ME gay!" the stallion complained, his eyes narrowing.

Blud blinked. "Say wut?"

"Hold it right there, Ork!" a new voice shouted. "I'm talking to you! The big, ugly one!"

Warboss Blud, as well as several of the Nobs, turned their heads to look at the source of the voice, and much of the fighting came to a complete halt. Oddly enough, the shout had come from the center of the mud-drenched yard, right in the middle of Blud's mega-armored retinue.

Twilight stood in the center of the warriors, her helmet hovering over her head along with the force harmonizer.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I challenge you to single combat!" the alicorn declared, grinning while the harmonizer flashed and shifted into blade mode. "What do you say, ugly? Do you have the chutzpah to tangle with a PRINCESS?"

Blud's answer was concise and direct: he turned his blasta back around and released the charged shot at the loud, purple pony.

The Nobs flinched away as a huge orange spear of energy slashed through the yard, instantly baking most of the mud beneath their feet and burning a trench under the new pony's hooves.

It did not, however, seem to adversely affect the pony herself, and Twilight continued smiling even while the dirt underneath her burned.

Blud glanced down at the alicorn's hooves, and a hot snort came from his nostrils. "Dat wun'z a FAYK! Ignohr it!" Now that there was a trench underneath the pony, Blud could see that it was actually floating in place. Just a trick.

"NOW! Attack!"

The order had come from multiple directions and individuals, and when the Nobs turned around they found themselves facing four times as many opponents as before. Iron Warriors dashed out from the alleyways, boltguns roaring, alongside a Dark Techpriest spewing lasers and ion bolts. Mercenaries rose to the windows of the adjacent buildings, lasguns at the ready, along with a suspiciously floating plasma gun. Batponies of the Lunar Guard landed in groups of a half-dozen upon the rooftops, their optics glittering as they took aim with their splinter rifles. The shimmering appearance of two teams of Stealth Suits behind the Nobs revealed an aspect of this engagement that the Orks hadn't even been aware of, generating even more confusion and dread as the burst cannons warmed up and opened fire.

As if that wasn't bad enough, many of the Orks suddenly found themselves blinded after a photon grenade exploded on one side of the ring of mega armor, denying those Nobs their sight before they were swallowed by a deadly crossfire.

Blud Barin howled with rage as he watched his best soldiers cut down by the relentless barrage, their armor being blasted and burnt around them.

He glanced back at the pony he had been advancing on, only to catch sight of its squirming hind legs tumbling out a window. Forget that puny thing, he decided. There was a real fight now.

A shot from his blasta wiped out the nearest Iron Warrior, and then the Warboss charged into his squad-mates, knocking the power-armored giants aside like bowling pins. His klaw snipped one of the super-soldiers in half, and then slammed down on another, pulverizing the warrior instantly.

A purple flash came from behind the Warboss as the rest of the Chaos Marines fled, and Blud heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Hey, Ork! I said I wanted a duel!" Twilight yelled, her harmonizer blade humming.

Blud snorted and fired his blasta at the retreating Marines, but a spray of splinter rifle shots from above hit an exposed spot on his arm as he fired. Searing pain exploded through his nerves, and the shot went wide, dissipating into the darkness.

"Are you ignoring me?" the pony behind him demanded.

Blud roared again, and the batponies on the roof flinched back and shuddered as the horrible noise assaulted their sensitive ears.

"You ARE ignoring me, aren't you? Good."

Then something stabbed into his klaw arm.

Blud Barin had already emptied his lungs screaming at the batponies, so there was little he could do except gurgle pitifully as the not-at-all-hololithic force harmonizer carved through his elbow and cut away his melee weapon.

Blud swung his blasta around like a club as he turned around, but in his pain and fury he aimed too high; the gun barely scraped Twilight's flight pack.

Twilight plunged the harmonizer blade into Blud's shoulder, forcing it in deeply while the enormous Ork gasped.

Then a purple bolt of force shot out of the pony's horn casing like a cannon shot, and the Warboss was thrown onto his back with a deep dent in his chest plate.

Twilight telekinetically yanked the harmonizer blade out of her opponent before she jumped onto his chest, and her blood-red visor lenses shifted downward to meet with the Ork's dim carmine eyes.

"Welcome to Equestria," the Princess said, floating the crystalline blade over the Ork's face, "love and tolerate."

The blade dropped.

****

Five minutes later

"So, uh... Ah know ya said to worry 'bout mahself, and Ah must be gettin' on yer nerves askin' this over an' over, but... ya okay, Cuz?" Braeburn asked.

Applejack's eyes fluttered open as the colors and noises around her slowly organized themselves into coherent images and sounds in her head. Her throbbing, throbbing head.

"Anypony git the number o'that battlewagon?" she moaned. She could feel a dampness on her cheek and forehead, so she was almost certainly bleeding.

"It's all right, Applejack. You're going to be fine." Fluttershy's face suddenly appeared in front of her, smiling in relief. "The power field discharge broke your helmet apart, but the carapace took almost all of the force. You just hit your head against Big Mac's armor after that, which is why you're probably feeling rattled."

"Oh, that all?" Applejack said, smiling as her senses continued returning to her. "Hope Ah didn't leave a dent."

"Almost," Big Mac said, chuckling.

The stallion started pushing her up and Applejack got to her hooves unsteadily, her armor squealing a bit in protest. Her helmet was indeed gone, and she could see shards of metal and torn wires under her chin in her gorget. Fluttershy and Big Mac also didn't have their helmets on, but it seemed that was because the battle was over; Applejack could see batponies working to push mega-armored bodies into a pile, and Twilight was talking to a Warpsmith next to the Warboss's corpse. Most of the rest of the soldiers had moved on to help clear the remaining enemies.

"Here ya go, Cuz," Braeburn said, walking up to her with a stetson in his teeth and placing it on her head, "yer hat's still in one piece! Again."

As she thanked him, light started flooding over the battlefield again, signaling the end of the eclipse and, for the most part, the battle.

As the soldiers glanced up at the sky, however, one pointed upward and whistled. "Take a look at that, would you? Just beautiful."

The ponies turned to look where he was pointing.

An Ork landa was careening through the atmosphere, a thick trail of smoke pouring from its engines. Or, at least, the shredded, flaming mess that used to be its engines.

"By Celestia," Braeburn breathed, "that thing pro'lly coulda carried a whole 'nother army!"

"It probably still does," interjected Rarity pleasantly as she walked by, "this incursion is officially over, it would seem."

The frontier stallion sighed happily as he looked around, taking in the ruins of his town. Most of the buildings were gutted, and many had been completely blown to splinters or lit on fire. Furniture, wagons, and scrap metal littered the streets everywhere, having been hammered into makeshift barricades. And the sheer number or Ork bodies would take weeks to collect and burn (the 38th Company insisted that Ork corpses never be buried, for some reason).

Still, the town was still here, and the enemy was dead.

"Well, at least the orchard's still all right," Braeburn chuckled, "Ah might just be able to keep makin' a livin' here."

"Uh... yeah. About that," Applejack mumbled, squinting at the falling vessel, "ya ever seen a landin' ship crash, Brae?"

The stallion arched an eyebrow. "Naw, o'course Ah ain't. Why?"

"'Cause Ah'm startin' to think they're attracted to apple orchards or somethin'."

Braeburn gave the ship another look, and then his eyes bulged as he realized that it was aiming to land on the edge of town that hosted his farm and its mercifully undamaged fields.

Although "land" may have been the wrong term to use, in this case.

"Well, looks like we better get the guest room ready," Applejack sighed as small explosions rolled through the landa, spitting out huge gouts of flame and storms of twisted metal.

"Eeyup," Macintosh agreed, patting the other stallion on the back with his augmetic hoof.

"Awww..." Braeburn's ears flattened as the distant vessel impacted, and he cringed as the ground started trembling and an enormous plume of dust and fire shot up into the air. The plume started expanding rapidly, swallowing the surrounding land and tearing it apart while apple trees were flattened by the dozens. Had it not been his land, home, and business being destroyed, he would have been quite impressed by the sight.

Applejack glanced at her brother. "Hey Mac, what time ya got?"

Big Mac's helmet whirred as it swept back into place around his head.

"... Little after two," he replied, looking at his visor chronometer.

"Swell! If we catch a gunship outta here, we can drop Braeburn off and still have time to pick up Apple Bloom from school! C'mon, Brae!" Applejack whirled around and started heading back toward the train station. Big Mac gave a respectful dip of his head toward the ruined town, and then followed after her.

Braeburn heaved a deep, painful sigh as he watched the houses nearest the crash fall apart... including his own. Then he took down his own hat, which - in stark contrast to Applejack's Stetson - bore several bullet holes and had much of the rim burnt off. He took a moment to brush it off against his vest.

"Welp. Ah still got mah life, and Ah still got mah family. Celestia knows them green mules woulda taken that from me too, if'n they could." He turned and walked after his cousins, pausing just long enough to kick the dismembered corpse of a fallen slugga boy. "Buckin' no-good alien scum..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17 command center

The doors to the strategium slid open to admit Luna inside, and as she entered her helmet disengaged.

It was a very different process from the other armor suits, with her helmet plating seeming to fragment into tiny metal hexagons and slide back and away from her face. It was more like a reptilian shedding its scales than any recognizable work of machines.

"General, what news?" the Princess asked, walking past the many technicians and officers to reach the strategium table. Her two Lunar Guard Lieutenants flanked her, acting as bodyguards.

General Cyrus Gnoss was under no real obligation to report to the Princess of the Night, as he outranked her considerably, but he tended to humor the dark alicorn. Mostly out of respect for her sheer power, of course; deferring to strength was the norm in a Chaos fleet.

"The battle in Appleloosa is won and Warboss 'Barin' confirmed killed, although casualties were higher than anticipated. Lord Sliver has almost wrapped up the assault on the Ork camp setting up in Baleful Bog, and our patrol elements are hunting down several squads of bikers probing our defenses." He looked up at her, his hands clasped behind his back. "It's been a bad day to be an Ork."

Luna smiled wryly. "It hath been such every day since the green tide dare make landing on our planet, and it shalt be so until they art stopped for good. What of Appleloosa itself?"

"The settlement is a total loss, it looks like. The fighting for the buildings was intense, and your homes aren't exactly constructed with protection in mind. Those refugees will have to be resettled elsewhere."

Luna grimaced. "Accursed xenos! Truly, no part of the town remains unmolested?"

"Well, there was such a part before you dropped a landing vessel on it," Gnoss informed her with a dry smirk.

Luna had the decency to blush. "We had forgotten that such craft cause great damage upon their demise. Our apologies."

"You needn't apologize to me, Princess. I'm overjoyed that you killed an entire Ork battalion before it could even deploy," the General assured her, "another sortie is concluded, and another thousand Ork souls are fed to the Dark Gods. It won't be much longer now."

"Indeed, the frequency of attacks hath increased considerably of late. The Nethalican must be finished soon, else We fear that the main fleet should arrive and render our efforts moot," Luna shook her head, "the defenses hold?"

"Of course. The Orks have launched several attacks on Ferrous Dominus, but they have not yet been of any scale or efficacy to cause concern." The man paused, glancing over the strategic hololith in front of him. "However, by now the Orks have been here long enough and traveled widely enough that they are likely to be a permanent presence on this world from now on." Numerous red, highlighted areas on the hololith represented where the Orks had attacked and set up bases. There were quite a few such spots.

The Princess scowled. "Aye. They breed with spores, do they not? Most strange, and inconvenient." She sighed. "But that is a trial for another time. Hast thou any other requests for our aid?"

"Negative, Princess. It looks like the ground troops can take care of the rest."

"Then We return to our sleep," Luna declared, turning around, "by thy leave, General."

As Luna made her way out of the command center, Midnight Blaze made a disgusted grunt.

"I still can't believe you have to take orders from that man. How does some lesser ape like him get to order a Princess around?"

Luna arched an eyebrow at the fuming batpony. "General Gnoss knows better than We the capabilities of the Company's soldiers. We hast found no fault with his command, save perhaps a greater tolerance for collateral damage than We would like." Then she frowned. "And it is difficult to criticize even this when We art the source of much of it."

"It's still not right!" Midnight growled. "Reporting to the Astartes is bad enough! Who do they think you are?" Dusk Blade silently rolled his eyes before Luna answered somberly.

"They think We art a sovereign, possessed of power overwhelming and yet desperate to save our citizens," Luna said, halting in the hall and turning to face the batpony mare, "they think they hath delivered us from certain destruction, and bargained fairly for our salvation to bring us to this point."

Midnight grimaced at the floor, only for a great black gauntlet to float under her chin and lift it with a finger so that she was looking up into Luna's eyes.

"Art they in error?" the Princess asked.

Midnight Blaze clicked her tongue. "They're not," she confessed, "it simply irritates me that they do not show your Highness proper respect."

"As We're sure thine ingratitude and insolence irritates them," Luna warned, poking the Lunar Guard in the nose with the Iron Gage, "but that aside, do not refer to the humans as 'apes' whilst in our presence, Lieutenant."

"Of course, my Princess," Midnight Blaze said immediately, "please, forgive my impertinence."

Luna nodded curtly, satisfied, and the Iron Gage attached itself to her shoulder pads again before she stepped outside.

Once out in the not-so-fresh air, Luna's helmet spread back over her face again, and her flight pack glowed before she vaulted up into the skies. Her Guards followed, taking to the air with heavy beats of their wings.

As they flew above the rumbling vehicles and soldiers below, Luna could see a few macrocannons discharging into the distance, pounding at some foolhardy Ork scout spotted by the perimeter defenses. It was relatively common now for Ork units to investigate the fortress, as it still remained the most obvious military fortification on the planet. None of the forces that had landed so far were strong enough to stand a chance of successfully assaulting the bastion, however, so they tended to attack the more poorly-defended settlements or try to set up a camp for an extended war effort. Those few groups that were too eager for battle to be restrained by the sight of Ferrous Dominus and its defenders had been wiped out with ease.

Luna banked, turning away from the rising pillars of smoke and dust. She had seen plenty of that today already.

Once she began building altitude again, she was facing a new construct rising out the twisted piping and growling machines of sector 20.

A great black spire rose from a modest base still encircled by scaffolding and Dark Mechanicus vehicles. It was needle-thin relative to the other structures in the fortress-city, and had numerous open-air entrances and balconies all over the exterior protected by atmospheric shielding. These entrances led to the new dwellings of the Lunar Guard, whose ranks had swollen considerably within the Company after Luna's departure from Canterlot. Luna's own residence lay at the top of the spire, naturally. Hanging from an extended balcony that jutted out from her bedroom were three great banners, each one hundred feet long. One bore the Legion's Iron Skull, and next to it was the crest borne by Equestria's own flag. Next to the two was an equally large banner bearing her cutie mark: an enormous sheet of gray that gave way to black, stamped over with a crescent moon. The very tip of the spire was an observatory, albeit a much simpler one than the humans typically used. Dark, shaded panes of armorglass protected it from the sun, or at least what little of it managed to pierce the shroud of smog above.

Rainbow Dash affectionately referred to the structure as Luna's "Tower of Doom". Luna enjoyed Dash's brash humor, but she much preferred the name that she had given it: Nightwatch.

"Blaze, Blade, thou art dismissed," Luna said as she rose up higher. The batponies broke off at once, diving down toward their respective dorms.

Luna landed heavily upon her balcony, her armor whirring softly before her flight pack powered down. With a flash of blue light, her daemon plate vanished into its dimensional pocket.

She paused for a moment after she felt the daemonic presence that had surrounded her for the last several hours vanish, cut off from her mind and body. The creature never seemed to resist or betray any strong emotion at being suddenly banished whenever she felt like she didn't need it. If anything, in the moments before it left, it almost seemed... relieved.

Luna trotted over to her bed, only to notice a scroll lying on her desk. The scroll bore the royal seal of the Equestrian royal family, and showed no evidence of tampering by human hands: a sure sign that it had been sent here magically rather than by mundane post.

Luna broke the seal with a thought, and then opened the scroll in the air in front of her.

Dear Luna,

I hope this message finds you well. It has been only two weeks since your departure from the palace, and I miss you terribly. I realize that your struggles now are for the survival of our homeworld, but if you may find the time I would like you to visit Canterlot again soon. I would gladly surrender a night's rest to speak with you again.

It's strange. My advisors bring news every day about the movements of the Orks in Equestria and the troubles of the refugees, and Twilight writes me letters about her experiences in frequent combat. I can spot pillars of smoke and gunship movements from my balcony telescope, most days. But somehow the war still seems so far away.

Forever yours,

Celestia

Luna smiled as she rolled up the letter and put it back. Not that she had been away from home long at all, but It WOULD be nice to see Celestia again. And maybe get a half-decent meal while she was out. Even with pony cooks at her service, the stock of produce in the fortress was sorry indeed. They didn't even have hay! Apparently on the grounds that humans didn't eat it. And the apples had run out after the first week.

She REALLY wished she had been paying attention to where that landa was falling.

Her stomach rumbling, Luna grimaced and walked over to her personal console. She was tired and hungry, but first she had a letter to write.

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge

"Warsmith, I have arrived and am ready to report," Serith said, stepping past the flows of molten metal and flickering hololiths.

Solon was currently standing over a bulky cylinder suspended over the ground by thin cables. It looked to be of Tau origin, at a guess, and the Chaos Lord didn't take his attention away from it when he acknowledged his Sorcerer.

"Go ahead, Sherith," Solon commanded. A series of red scanning rays swept over an opening in the cylinder while he spoke.

"Progress with the unicorn coven has been slow, but consistent. I believe they are now prepared to open the portal," Serith said, his arms clasped together underneath his backpack.

"Excellent!" Solon exclaimed, stepping closer to the cylinder and starting to cut open one end. "When may we begin conshtruction?"

Serith hesitated. "... Some aspects of the Nethalican are already fabricated and ready to be deployed. There is, however, a problem."

Solon tilted his head up from the inner workings of the machine.

"The combats thus far have proven... insufficient," the Sorcerer admitted, "the Warp simmers, but it is proving far more resistant than normal to the tumult of warfare we've inflicted upon this world. The Ork deaths, and our own casualties, have not sufficiently excited the Gods' attentions."

Solon tilted his head to the side. "Ish there any particular reashon?"

"I believe it is the nature of this world, Warsmith," Serith said with a sigh, "it knows conflict and terror, but not on a scale to shift the eddies of the Empyrean. The long peace, and perhaps the nature of our Equestrian allies, have rendered this region of Warp space unusually stable, and this has hindered my designs."

Solon made a thoughtful noise as he turned back down to the xeno device.

"Even now, in the midst of constant invasion, the equines hardly seem like a people facing extermination," Serith continued, "they go about their lives as best they can, trusting in our strength and holding on to the hope of a better future."

"Weird," Solon mumbled as he drew a circuit wafer out of the machine.

"And frustrating to our efforts," Serith added.

"Sho what should we do? Let the Orksh overrun a few villagesh? Give the poniesh a demonshtration?"

Serith shook his head. "No. We need not upset our little 'friends' by causing them deliberate harm; we do require their cooperation, after all. The Orks' deaths will be enough. But it will take... more of them than anticipated."

"Well, if there wash ever a truly inexhaushtable reshource in thish galaxy, it'sh Orksh looking for a brutal death," Solon reasoned, "but the coven ish prepared?"

"Yes, Lord," Serith said, "although there was an incident."

Solon's head tilted up again. "Jusht one? I'm ushed to far more complicationsh when it comesh to pshykersh."

"The unicorns are proving nothing if not... predictable. There was one, however, that wanted to look through my artifacts. She decided to borrow a tome: the Contagion Apocrypha."

"Ah, excellent choice!" Solon said approvingly, standing up fully as he finally gave the Sorcerer his full attention. "I alwaysh liked that one. Lotsh of fun. How did she take to it?"

"Evidently she and two other mares made to study the tome in her quarters after curfew. Security teams were alerted by their neighbors, who were awoken by the panicked screams. By the time the response team cut through the layer of hardened mucus that had sealed their door, they found the ponies unconscious and infected. They have since taken to Nurgle worship quite enthusiastically."

"That'sh wonderful!" Solon said brightly. "It'sh about time shome of them turned to the darker powersh. I wash shtarting to think they really were immune or shomething. What are their namesh?"

"Poison Kiss, Rot Blossom, and Breezy Blight, Warsmith," said Serith.

Solon was silent for a few seconds. "They changed their namesh after they were marked?"

"No, Lord. Those were their names before." Serith paused. "In retrospect, we probably should have seen this coming."

Solon hummed to himself some more. "Well, let'sh shee that they get shome extra attention. Maybe they can even get Shliver to shtop grumbling about xenosh being integrated into our forcesh."

"Speaking of which, Lord, how fares that project?" Serith asked. "I have not entered combat since I began instructing the coven."

"It faresh rather poorly," Solon admitted bluntly, "the poniesh trusht ush entirely, but with shome dramatic exceptionsh are far inferior to our shtandard forcesh. The Tau are quite capable and experienced, but are extremely reluctant alliesh, and their morale ish pitiful. And then, of courshe, any time we try to ushe them together the equinesh shtart picking fightsh with the Fire Warriorsh." Solon shook his head. "On the other hand, the Kroot get along marveloushly. Sho there'sh that."

"Fascinating," Serith mumbled, scratching at his helmet's chin, "and the humans do not mind taking to the field with pony soldiery?"

"Not ash shuch, no," Solon said, looking back down at the machine he was working on, "though the equinesh have certainly had an... odd effect on the morale of the mercenariesh."

"An 'odd' effect?"

"Yesh. Odd."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 5, Chaos Temple Primarus

"Forgive me, Father, for I have shown weakness before my brothers and the Dark Gods," said a Khorne cultist while he sat on a dirty iron bench, staring at the floor miserably.

Virgil stood behind the man, his head bowed and his arms clasped within the sleeves of his robe. "Speak, my child. Reveal your soul to me so that it may be cleansed."

The man gulped and looked down at his hands. He was gripping a brass amulet tightly, staring intently at the shining symbol of the Blood God.

"I was drilling the xeno horses yesterday down at the gun range. The usual thing. Yelling profanities, screaming at them to move faster and aim steady. One of them dropped his energy pack while trying to reload, so I kicked him onto the ground. Stepped on his throat. Told him that if he couldn't handle a bloody lasgun, then he could serve as food for the Kroot, who actually know how to fight. Another pony came up behind me while I was yelling at him. A mare."

The cultist swallowed anxiously. "She... hugged me. Around the waist. And said that she didn't know why I was so mad, but that everything was going to be okay. That I didn't need to be angry anymore."

Virgil arched an eyebrow.

"... After that, I excused myself from the range, found myself a dark corner, and cried... for about twenty minutes straight." He finished anxiously, gripping the brass icon in his hands hard enough to hurt.

Virgil tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "... Stand up."

The man did so, his eyes still on the ground and the amulet still clutched in his hands.

Then Virgil slugged him in the stomach.

As the Khorne cultist doubled over and started coughing, Virgil straightened and nodded.

"That should do it. You are forgiven. Don't let it happen again."

"Yes... Father," the soldier gasped out, "thank you..."

****

Canterlot Castle - dining hall

"Princess! Your sister! She's replied!" Kibitz trotted briskly into the dining room, almost knocking over one of the serving ponies as the doors burst open ahead of him.

A pair of ministers were seated across from Princess Celestia, and both of them shot the intruding unicorn dirty looks at the sudden interruption.

The Princess herself was quite glad for it, however, and she quickly let her fork drop out of the air and onto her plate.

"Excellent. Thank you, Kibitz," she said, smiling brilliantly, "I'll take it now."

Her smile dimmed ever-so-slightly when her assistant levitated a small plastic panel of some sort over to her.

"... Did Luna not send a letter back, as I did?" Celestia asked hesitantly.

"No, Princess," Kibitz wiggled his mustache, "it seems this is how kids these days like to talk to each other. I don't see what's wrong with simple quill and parchment, but these 'encryption transcribers' came with the rest of that junk the humans pawned off on us."

Celestia chuckled lightly as she floated the device over to her. "Kibitz, Luna is thousands of years older than you."

"You wouldn't know it from meeting her," he mumbled under his breath.

Celestia positioned the device in front of her, facing the screen. Then she turned it upside-down. Then she started shaking it back and forth in the air.

"Erm! Your majesty, there appears to be a button on the side," interrupted one of the ponies on the other side of the table.

A flash of yellow flared around the button, and then the screen blinked on.

After turning the device right-side up again, Celestia read through the message. It was quite brief and informal, merely telling her that Luna would be meeting her that evening and to have the royal chefs on call.

It wasn't exactly the outpour of emotion her letter had been, but Celestia had to reason that if Luna was visiting then they could save sisterly bonding for when they were actually together.

"Thank you, Kibitz," she said, clicking the button again, "if my sister sends any..." she trailed off as the screen seemed to scramble all the letters and started throwing up prompts that made no sense to her. "Hold on," she said, squinting her eyes and clicking the button again. This time the screen started blinking rapidly. "I think... no, wait..." she started pressing the button repeatedly and with more force, thinking that it might somehow better understand her intentions that way.

Then the encryption transcriber snapped in half.

Princess Celestia winced, floating the shattered remains of the alien technology over to her assistant. He and the ministers were all bearing excessively serious expressions, which surely meant they were trying not to laugh.

"I think I'll continue sending my own messages on parchment, as before," she decided, before clearing her throat. "So then, Spirit Shield. You were speaking of our soldiers' progress with their new weapons."

Her defense minister, a bulky and somewhat elderly unicorn stallion, cleared his throat before he lowered his own fork from his meal. "Yes, your Highness. Specifically, how abysmal it was faring." He grimaced. "There isn't a soldier among our forces who doesn't prefer the idea of attacking from a distance with ranged weapons rather than trying to fight dangerous creatures up close. As you're well aware, up until the arrival of lasguns the only non-magic ranged weapon we had in any useful quantity was the bow and arrow."

Celestia nodded. The bow and arrow was rather infamous for being a fiendishly hard weapon to use with hooves, aside from those ponies that counted it as their special talent. Sometimes she wondered how ponies had even come to invent such an absurd tool.

"Enthusiasm hasn't compensated for experience, though. Having to switch our entire army's combat focus over a few weeks is proving just as impossible as I'd feared. We need new tactics, new drills, new training facilities, new formations..."

Spirit Shield trailed off with a sigh. "I very much wish you'd consider my suggestion to integrate those 'Sunsworn' people into the forces. Almost all of them have weapons and know how to use them. We could at least use them as trainers."

Celestia frowned slightly as she shook her head. "I know your feelings on the matter, Spirit Shield, and you know mine. Those humans that have turned away from Chaos have done so to leave behind the bloodshed and hatred of their past. I will not ask them to fight on my behalf."

"You don't really ask them to do ANYTHING on your behalf," Kibitz noted, "I believe it makes them rather anxious, actually."

"They have placed their faith in me, willfully, and without encouragement," Celestia said firmly, "and I will not take advantage of that faith. We have other options." Then she pursed her lips. "Besides, military strength is something our 'allies' provide in abundance."

"Are you still unable to call them that without the sarcastic air quotes?" Spirit Shield asked.

Celestia ignored his question, moving her fork to her salad again. "Moving on, Spirit Shield."

"Right... well, I do have some good news. The city shelter is all but complete. Clearing the rocks used to collapse the caves under Canterlot proved easier than expected, and those Dark Mechanicus fellows were able to reinforce them and build a vault door in a remarkable time frame. We could move all of Canterlot's citizens inside right now if the situation demanded it. At this point we just need to furnish and supply the interior."

"Obviously, I hope it never needs to be used," Celestia said grimly, "but with ruined space vessels and terrible weapons potentially raining down on our capital from above, we cannot rely on our magic and guards alone to protect the capital's citizens."

"Of course, Princess," Spirit said with a nod, "and with mention of threats to Equestria, that brings us to the Tau."

The pause that followed his statement allowed a chill to settle over the room before he continued. "We've had our third request to have Shas'o Voidsong's sentence suspended so that she might aid the defense effort."

"From who, specifically?" Celestia asked between mouthfuls of greens.

"That 'Wraithstar' fellow. With a joint statement from the human General, Cyrus Gnoss," the stallion replied, "the human's endorsement seemed somewhat ambivalent, however. In my experience the sapiens aren't shy about demanding the things they really want. It's clearly the Tau pushing to have their leader freed."

"And have you reminded Mister Wraithstar that Voidsong's sentence was handed down by Equestria, not the 38th Company?" Celestia asked, her attention mostly focused on her food. "Just as the Iron Warriors are free to make allies with the people who callously thought to sacrifice our world for their own, we claim the right to punish individual Tau invaders without respect to how it may affect our allies' war effort. Voidsong will serve her sentence, or be looted from our capital like a common trinket when we are vanquished by the Orks SHE unleashed upon us."

"Very good, your Highness," Spirit Shield said with a smirk, "I will relay your sentiments to the Shas'el."

Celestia dabbed her mouth with a napkin before turning to the other mare sitting at the table. "Bank Run, you also had a report for me?" Bank Run served as one of Celestia's economic ministers, although she'd always thought the mare's name a bit odd (even as pony names went). Then again, the mare had apparently named her son Bond Amortization, so it was probably a family thing.

"The economic news is a bit grim, obviously," Bank sighed, levitating a wine glass to herself, "we're suffering a lot of market disruption right now, in part because three villages have been destroyed, but mostly because of the flood of human technology into the market. A lot of ponies stand to lose their jobs in the near future."

"Ah, yes. How I weep for the candle makers and ink mixers," Spirit Shield mumbled with a roll of his eyes, "you may assure the working class that our chances of surviving long enough to worry about our careers are still quite bleak."

Bank Run scrunched up her muzzle, not deigning to glare at the stallion next to her. "If it were merely a wave of higher technology, that would be one thing, but practically EVERYTHING we buy from the aliens comes from Norris Delgan. That man is acquiring a dangerous amount of market power. He buys so much raw materials that prices for inputs have TRIPLED since he's arrived! And when he wants a building, his Mechanicus lackeys can erect it in hours! I don't even know if he pays for them! How can anypony compete with that? And now he's even planning an independent mag-rail line to connect Ponyville and Canterlot to Ferrous Dominus! If it weren't for the slavery ban in Equestria, he'd have subverted the entire economy by now!"

Celestia grimaced, just as most ponies did when reminded of the humans' casual acceptance of an institution they considered a terrible atrocity. Of which there were several.

"And what would you suppose can be done about that?" the alicorn asked cautiously.

Bank Run took a moment to compose herself. "Well, nothing he's done here is explicitly illegal, so our measures needn't be drastic. I was thinking maybe a month."

"A month? A month of what?"

"On the moon," Bank Run clarified, "or, you know, as a statue. Whichever."

"Bank Run, we've been through this," Celestia chided, "exotic magical imprisonment is for punishing serious crimes and unrepentant evil, not for making an example out of greedy aristocrats."

"He seems pretty unrepentant and evil to me," Spirit Shield admitted, "you know, with the slavery thing. And those servitors? The cyborg servants? Did you know those used to be people at some point? Apparently after they execute their dissidents and human prisoners, they recycle their bodies. It's pretty creepy."

"We're getting off-topic," Celestia sighed, "while we could spend the entire day describing the various evils of the 38th Company, it's both depressing and entirely fruitless. For the foreseeable future, we must endure and learn to co-exist. Much more for our sake than theirs."

The ministers nodded their heads, mumbling apologies to their Princess.

The alicorn stood up from her table, signaling that the meal, and their meeting, was coming to an end. "Besides, the news from having access to human technology cannot be ALL bad," Celestia reasoned, "I've heard that their medical technology has proved extremely helpful, has it not?"

"Oh, yes, that's true," Bank Run agreed immediately, "contracting out Techpriest Biologis to the hospitals was very helpful of Mister Delgan. Even before the onset of alien attacks, there have been many ponies who could benefit from augmetic limbs and organs." Then she paused. "Not that there hasn't been... friction."

"That much is to be expected," Celestia assured the mare as she headed toward the hall, "I'm sure it will be worked out."

****

Canterlot City - Canterlot General Hospital

"What do you mean the patient has been 'rejected'? Is there something strange about his condition that complicates the augmentation?" demanded a pink unicorn in a white coat as she followed a Dark Techpriest through the halls. Following them was a pair of servitors bearing numerous surgical servo-limbs and chemical injectors, along with a nurse pony pulling a small cart full of mechanical parts.

"Negative. Explanatory: the patient was classified as a vagrant, with several problematic behavioral and psychological tendencies," the Techpriest explained while he glanced from bed to bed, recording the diagnosed ailments of the ponies lying on them in his internal memory coils.

"Okay... so? What does that have to do with him getting a new liver and knee joint?" asked Needles, the doctor assigned to supervise the cyborg technician.

"Expansion: the resources required to return full function to the patient are estimated to be greater than that which the patient shall produce upon return to local labor force. Conclusion: the correct decision is to preserve medical resources for more productive individuals."

Needles' eyes widened. "What?! No! You don't get to make that decision!"

The Dark Techpriest halted, his servo limbs twitching. "Concurrence: my current operational parameters do not allow me to select which patients do and do not receive treatment. Interrogative: which individual is authorized to make this decision? I shall present the relevant data for my case."

Needles stood up straighter and leaned forward as she scowled, which admittedly did not make her look much more intimidating to the man who had one hand literally made of knives. "As far as you're concerned, I make that decision. And I say that he's getting those augments!"

The Dark Techpriest made an annoying bleating noise from its vocal synthesizer, and then nodded. "Conciliation: very well. I will schedule the procedure."

Then he turned toward a bed with a pegasus mare laying on it. She stared up at the ceiling miserably, but had no visible symptoms of disease or injury, and the clipboard on her bed was blank.

"Interrogative: what is the diagnosis for this one?"

Needles shook her head sadly as her ears flattened out. "She's suffering from the one thing that neither medical science OR medical magic can cure: a broken heart."

The Dark Techpriest looked over at the pegasus, who sniffled and then sighed despondently.

"Contention: challenge accepted." Then a servo arm capped with a needle shot forward and jabbed the mare in the back of her leg.

Both she and the doctor yelped in surprise.

"Wait! What are you doing?" Needles demanded. She started to step forward, only for one of the servitors to reach down and hold her in place.

"Explanatory: I am preparing for circulatory surgery," the Techpriest Biologis answered as he watched the patient's eyes start to blink rapidly and her muscles relax. As she nodded off, his servo-mounted scalpels and circular saw started to shift downward to move into place.

"Hold on! Wait! Her heart isn't ACTUALLY broken! It's just a metaphor!" Needles shouted, struggling against the servitor's powered claw. The other servitor was already moving into position on the other side of the bed, and the nurse pony was down on the floor, covering her eyes in horror. "Stop! NOOOOOOO!!"

****

Sweet Apple Acres

"An' the bathroom's across the upstairs livin' room. If'n there's a little red slot next to it, it means somepony's already in there doin' their business. If it's green, yer good. There's another bathroom downstairs, too, next to the kitchen."

Applejack stood in the doorway as Braeburn looked over his new room. There was a small suitcase on his back, although it didn't contain any of his belongings; they had all been destroyed along with his home. Instead it held rations and assorted supplies he had found on the transport, as well as a few tokens scavenged rather bitterly from the ruins of Appleloosa.

"Well, shucks Cuz, this place is somethin' else," Braeburn whistled, staring at the reinforced armorglass window. Then he squinted at a dark discoloration on the window exterior. "What's that stuff? Somethin' hit the window?"

"Yeah. Pulse bomb," Applejack explained, "Tau attacked a while back, scuffed up the place pretty bad."

Braeburn dropped his suitcase, and then squinted at a different stain on the other corner of the window. "An' what's all that stuff?"

"Daemon venom, Ah think. Monster wasp attack." Applejack snorted. "Can't really blame the Tau fer that one. It was mostly Apple Bloom's fault."

Braeburn leaned forward, looking out the window and into the mostly ruined fields. "An' what's that scary metal monster roamin' around out there?"

"That's Crabapple, Apple Bloom's pet maulerfiend. She used t'be smaller. LONG story," Applejack sighed.

Braeburn backed away from the window, and then looked around the room again. "And what did ya say happened to the old house?"

"Gnarloc tore it up good. Huge, angry Kroot varmint," Applejack answered with a growl, "THAT one was the Tau's fault, hunnerd percent. They wasn't even fightin' us ponies at the time."

Braeburn adjusted his hat anxiously. "Well... all things considered, maybe Ah got off easy with just Orks..."

"Naw, Ah wouldn't say so," Applejack mused as she backed out of the doorway, "'least we got the Company to give us a new place. Ya got about thirty bits worth of space stuff and a free gunship ride."

"Eeyup."

Applejack turned her head to Big Mac. The crimson stallion had removed his power armor, and seemed to be waiting next to the stairs.

"Hey, Mac. Ready to go pick up Bloom?" Applejack asked.

"Eeyup," the stallion replied, already moving to head down.

Applejack followed, and Braeburn moved to join her. The former Appleloosan hesitated, however.

"Uh... AJ?"

"Yeah? What's up? You wanna stay here an' get settled in?" Applejack asked.

"Naw, it ain't that, just... you gonna wear yer armor to go to town?"

Applejack was, indeed, still in her terminator armor, and it still bore considerable damage from the battle. In addition to the helmet being gone, one shoulder pad and foreleg sheath was badly torn, and much the rest was pock-marked with dents from bullet deflections.

Applejack chuckled, flushing a bit. "Ah'd take it off, but the dang leg plating seals broke or somethin'. Ah'll have a DarkMech look at it later. C'mon!"

With that, Applejack stomped down the stairs, her every step sending tiny tremors through the flooring.

Before long the Apples were trotting through Ponyville proper, with Applejack in the lead.

"Not gonna lie, Braeburn, ya done chose a pretty good time to end up homeless. Mac's been makin' plans on how to rebuild the farm and done a lotta work clearin' the ruined fields n'all, but he divides his time between the farm and the war. It's been slow goin' to say the least."

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed. He didn't particularly mind the halting progress, given that his family wasn't any longer solely dependent on their farming profits, but Applejack wanted to see the orchard restored as soon as possible.

"So, yer lookin' fer a manager, are ya?" Braeburn chuckled. "Well, Ah gotta put some bits away 'fore Ah can look into rebuildin' mah own farm, so that works out nicely. Ah'll hafta get in touch with some of the other refugees, get some workers together. Ah know there're other Apples out there that could use some steady work right now."

"Hey, Applejack!" came a shout from behind them. "Nice suit!"

Applejack turned her head and stuck her tongue out at Lyra, who laughed. Jacob was with her as usual, and the maybe-pet human gave a thumbs-up to the armored mare as they passed by.

"Yeah, okay, that sounds swell," Applejack said as she started heading forward again, "though, uh, Ah suppose Ah should warn ya that the job kinda involves helping look after Apple Bloom as well."

"Oh, yeah! Ah heard little cuz got her cutie mark!" Braeburn said, an extra spring in his step as he spotted the school house. "What was it, again?"

"Mark of Nurgle, Chaos God of disease and parasites. And... love, Ah think? Ah dunno, it's kinda complicated." Applejack confessed.

Braeburn's head tilted to the side. "Huh. Okay. We can work with that. What's her special talent?"

"She don't feel pain."

Braeburn whistled. "That's a whopper of a talent!"

"Eeyup," Big Mac interjected.

"Hey, what's that?" Braeburn asked, pointing to a small house near the school. There were white banners hanging from it, all of them bearing a sun motif.

"That there is a church of the Sunsworn," Applejack said, her tone becoming slightly bemused, "they're kinda an odd bunch. Humans that break off from the Company and take up Celestia as their goddess and savior. There's a church that popped up in Canterlot and another in Manehattan, and that old place was rented out to 'em just this week."

Braeburn laughed. "Well, ain't that a hoot! The mighty, space-farin', cultist monkeys bowin' to pony royals! What're they like?"

"Dunno. Ain't met 'em," Applejack admitted, turning her head to look at her brother. "Mac?"

Big Macintosh looked over at the church silently for a few seconds.

"They're all right," he said finally, "nothin' wrong with 'em outright, and they all wanna help out pony folk." Then he paused, and continued again. "Thing is, it's mighty weird to see 'em talk about the Princess like they do. Somehow it's creepier than seein' the Chaos Cultists do their thing. The Dark Gods are these unseen, powerful, terrible THINGS that talk to the Cultists and change 'em inside and out, so you expect that kinda thing from 'em. Princess Celestia's a pony. A powerful, important, immortal pony, but still a pony. So hearin' humans exalt her divine benevolence and pray to her is a tad strange."

Braeburn seemed surprised at hearing Big Mac speak at length, and on the subject of theology at that, but Applejack chuckled.

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Then she swung one leg up in front of her. "Sun fer the Sun God! Friends fer the Friendship Throne!"

"Hey! Stop making fun of our battle chant!" complained Scootaloo as she rushed out of the front of the school house. She was followed by Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, and then, more ominously, by Cheerilee.

"Applejack! Good, you're here. I... uh..." the school teacher trailed off uncertainly as she looked over Applejack's heavily armored form, complete with heavy flamer. Then she took a few steps to the side. "Big Mac! Good, you're here. I need to speak with you about Apple Bloom."

"Eeyup?"

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle stared at the ground with their ears pinned, a clear indication that they were in trouble. Scootaloo was too busy glaring at Applejack to share in their guilt, evidently, but the Apple siblings had been through this before.

"What did they do this time, Cheers?" Applejack asked seriously. "If it's daemon-related, Ah can take care of it now. Ah still got plenty of flamer fuel left."

"Er, no. It's nothing like that. And strictly speaking, they didn't break an actual RULE. Given that our administration hadn't foreseen the day that elementary schoolers would try to convert their classmates to evil religions."

Apple Bloom cringed, but Sweetie Belle looked up defiantly. "If it's not against the rules, then why are we in trouble?"

"Because Snips and Snails were both admitted to the hospital with seizures!" Cheerilee replied, her eyes narrowing.

As Applejack and Big Mac raised their eyebrows, Apple Bloom gulped.

"Now, wait, Ah don't think that was us!" Apple Bloom pleaded.

"They had glazed-over eyes and were speaking in tongues," Cheerilee said dryly.

"Well, yeah. Who DOES that?" Sweetie Belle asked. "We don't, and we're in the cult for real. Tzeentch is pretty sure they were faking it."

"Tzeentch is a liar," Applejack snorted.

"He is not!" the young unicorn protested. "He just..." she paused for a moment, staring upward. "He just TRANSCENDS facts, is all."

Big Macintosh rolled his eyes before he looked up at Cheerilee again. "What's the damage?"

"Well, the colts will be okay, thank Celestia, but I do hope you'll explain to Apple Bloom why it isn't okay to talk her classmates into selling their souls to hateful gods," Cheerilee said.

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, leaning down to nudge Apple Bloom, "c'mon, Sis. We're goin' home."

Apple Bloom nodded quietly, and then walked over to Big Mac's left side. Then she climbed up onto his back, using the breaks in his augments' plating as hoof-holds. Macintosh waited until she was laying safely on his back, and then started heading away from the school.

"We'll set 'er straight, Cheerilee. Thanks fer takin' care o'things," Applejack assured her, turning around in place to follow her brother. The movement was somewhat cumbersome in terminator armor, and Cheerilee had to duck to avoid getting hit in the cheek by the gravity lash.

"Boy, school sure is different from when Ah was a colt," Braeburn mumbled, trotting after his relatives.

As the Apple ponies departed, Cheerilee looked town at the remaining two fillies with a stern expression. "That just leaves you two. I'm going to have a long talk with both your parents!"

"Ha!" Scootaloo laughed. "Joke's on you! I don't have any!"

****

Baleful Bog - engagement zone Delta 9-12, 190 kilometers outside Ferrous Dominus

Sliver looked over the sparse, wasted trees and muddy pools of water silently, his hands resting on the pommel of his hammer.

The swamps he was observing were thick with the corpses of the Orks, giving the steaming bogs rich swirls of red and lumps of green among the pestilent brown muck. The odd metal-clad body was scattered among the dead, but these were being rapidly removed from the field by teams of humans in hazard suits for medicae attention or proper interment.

As giants in gleaming silver and gold slogged through the swamp in search of enemy survivors, groups of Fire Warriors watched uneasily from a distance, clustered together on barricaded platforms or dry patches of ground.

The attack had consisted almost entirely of Iron Warriors and Tau; the Fire Warriors had set up gun lines at a distance to draw the Orks out of the swamps and into a charge. The Iron Warriors had deployed and counter-attacked just as the Orks got close, cutting apart the greenskins in close combat while the Fire Warriors continued to pick them apart at range. Battlesuits and attack skimmers had swooped in amongst punishing artillery strikes to shatter the enemy's armored threats, leaving the vast bulk of the fighting to the infantry formations.

The combination of Tau ranged weaponry and the close-combat supremacy of Chaos Space Marines had proven appropriately devastating. The Tau in particular were impressed at how quickly and completely the Ork offensive had broken apart. Not so much as a single greenskin had gotten past the Astartes to rampage through the gun lines.

Sliver himself found the tactical coherence... adequate. But he could see room for improvement.

"Commander Sliver," rumbled a voice from behind him as a large Stealth Suit shimmered into the fully visible spectrum, "the last of the mobs are retreating back to the camps. The infiltration teams have reported back. Explosives and beacons have been placed as ordered."

Sliver didn't respond immediately, still gazing at the swamps. "... Wait until the enemy regroupss. Then detonate. Gunshipss and kill teamss are en route to ssweep away the ssurvivorss."

Commander Wraithstar relayed that order, then stood silently behind the hulking Astartes, waiting for any other command or comment.

Eventually, he got one. "Your people do not follow orderss well, xeno. They are sslow to react and have a habit of ssecond guesssing my commandss."

Wraithstar could think of a dozen legitimate excuses for why his soldiers were hesitant in obeying the diseased cultist, but didn't bother to voice them. "They will improve, Commander Sliver. They made their decision, and they will be held to it. I shall personally gather and address cases of disobedience in the field for corrective action."

Sliver didn't reply to that right away.

Wraithstar continued watching the Iron Warrior, nervous and intrigued. He had met several of the Company leaders by now, and had largely dismissed them. Cyrus Gnoss was a fairly competent General, especially for a human, but held little real power in an army run by corrupted super-soldiers. Solon was a buffoon, if not a strange and interesting buffoon. And the less said about the new "Equiis" detachment of the 38th Company, the better.

Sliver was different. A creature of cruel intellect, cold dignity, and subtle paternalism, it was no wonder he was considered the true leader of the 38th Company's troops. He also visibly possessed some kind of terrifying magic, for lack of a better term, that had inflicted him with crippling diseases without apparently harming or even weakening him. If these cultists were to be believed, the infections actually empowered him somehow.

"We grow closser to the brink, Tau," Sliver said suddenly, breaking his contemplative silence, "ssoon we shall either activate the portal or be overrun and sslaughtered. Which will it be, I wonder?"

Within his enhanced battlesuit, Wraithstar grimaced. "The only reason I have to think that we might survive the Orks is the assumption that you wouldn't still be here otherwise. This power of yours, this... Chaos... it makes no sense to me."

Sliver nodded his helmet slowly. "Your lack of vission iss... undersstandable. We do not need your faith, only your obedience."

Wraithstar waited several seconds before he spoke again. "And what of you? Do you trust the function of this 'Nethalican'? Do these 'Chaos Gods' give you hope?"

"Hope..." Sliver mumbled slowly, as if he was tasting the word. A puff of green fumes wafted from the drum filter on his helmet. "Ssuch a... sstrange way to put it. The Chaoss Godss grant power. They ssunder reality. They devour ssoulss. 'Hope'... I'm not ssure the term hass meaning to them. And yet..."

Wraithstar shook his head, his battlesuit mimicking the motion. "Gods. Feh. I wouldn't have believed it a month ago. Even with a galaxy of psykers, inter-dimensional monsters, a vast alien consciousness spread over trillions of minds, and beings that outlive stars, such a thing still seems ridiculous and fanciful." His battlesuit turned away as the booming sound of artillery guns came from behind them, launching an ordnance spread to the beacons his infiltration teams had set.

"I would have ssaid the ssame thing about commanding a Tau Cadre in concert with my Iron Warriorss," Sliver remarked.

"On a planet of talking magical ponies," Wraithstar noted wryly.

"Thingss haven't exactly worked out as expected for any of uss. And I sstill find thiss to be a foolish and unecesssary rissk," Sliver hissed, "sstill..." he trailed off, looking over the bloodied swamps.

"Still?"

"Thiss region would make for a ssplendid Temple of Decay," Sliver admitted.

Wraithstar made a face before he started heading toward the gun line. "I'm taking my cadre back to Black Point."

"No. You will organize patrolss to cover the path along Ruby Ridge over the next two dayss," Sliver commanded, "not a ssingle greensskin iss to esscape the ssweepss. By that time... I will have new targetss for you, I'm ssure."

Wraithstar paused for several seconds. "... As you Command, Lord." His Stealth Suit shimmered, and then vanished from sight.

"... Alienss behind me, alienss before me, and alienss sstumbling about underfoot," he grunted irritably, "it'ss no wonder the xenoss of thiss world do not fear uss. I wonder what new indignity should befall my army next."

The sound of bolter fire reached his ears, coming from the tangle of vines and trees that lay beyond the bogs.

Sliver primed the Viral Scourge and linked into his army's auger network.

More bodies to fill the charnel pits. More souls to send gasping to Nurgle's clutches.

As always, Sliver had work to do.

Author's Note

Incidentally, that pegasus in the hospital liked her augmetic heart so much that she completely snapped out of her funk.

It is my headcanon that shooting Orks in the face only makes them mad, which is how every Nob and Warboss can get away with wearing incredibly thick, tough armor that leaves their head completely exposed.

Pic is by DavionX

Balance of Power

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 11

Balance of Power

****

Crystal Empire

Shining Armor let out a pleased sigh as he stepped out onto the balcony of his bedroom at the top of Crystal Castle. A chilling wind ruffled his mane, and he closed his eyes against the breeze as he breathed it in.

He opened his eyes again, gazing upon the snow-capped mountain range in the distance.

"Beautiful," he whispered, his voice almost reverent.

"What, the view?"

Cadence trotted up behind her husband, a cup of coffee levitating behind her. "Not that it isn't nice, but you should be used to it by now."

"What can I say, I've come to appreciate things like this recently," Shining Armor said as he leaned over the balcony railing, "majestic, unspoiled nature."

Cadence hummed something as she sipped her coffee. "Still thinking about the humans?"

"Who isn't?" the unicorn replied with a snort. "It's all anypony talks about nowadays. When I walk down the street, it's not 'Hey Prince, how's that new legislation coming along,' or 'Behold! The brother of the Element of Magic and husband to the Princess of Love!' No, I'm more famous for visiting that horrible factory and watching General Gnoss die."

Cadence shivered at the reminder. She had NOT been happy when he'd come home from Ponyville battered and wrapped up in bandages.

"Point. And it's not just ponies," the pink alicorn mumbled, "more and more details and rumors have been spilling out to the other kingdoms. It's not like the Iron Warriors ever hid their presence or we ever hid our involvement with them, but there was a time when the idea of gun-toting aliens settling our world was a pretty incredible idea."

Shining pursed his lips. "Right. Can't be long before that bird comes home to roost." He rested his head on the railing. "So I figure I should enjoy the current peace while I can."

Cadence giggled slightly and leaned against her husband. "You said it, Captain Armor," she said with a smirk, gazing out at the snow-capped peaks along with him. "Do you think we did the right thing?"

"The 'right' thing? I don't know," the stallion admitted, "but we made the best decision we could under the circumstances, and in the end it paid off. We're safe now."

Shining Armor fell silent as Cadence nuzzled him, and he gave her a peck on the nose before returning his attention to the frosty vistas in the distance.

After several seconds, the ponies noticed that a large, dark shape seemed to be descending on the mountains from above. Cadence squinted at it, trying to make it out despite the distance.

"... Honey?"

"Yeah?"

"Is that a space ship?"

"I believe it is, yes."

They continued watching as the massive vessel careened toward the planet, trailing a vast plume of smoke in its wake.

"It's not in space," Cadence pointed out ruefully.

"No, it isn't," Shining agreed.

They kept watching in morbid fascination as the ship plunged into the mountainside, tearing open the enormous edifice of stone and ice. A huge fireball erupted on the point of contact, though that bright flash was soon swallowed up by a rising shroud of dust.

Cadence turned away from the impact and dropped her levitation magic. Her coffee cup fell to the ground and shattered at Shining's hooves.

"I'm going back to bed," she groused as she left, "it is WAY too early to put up with this hay."

"Yes, dear," Shining mumbled, still watching the expanding devastation, "I'll come get you if it turns out we're doomed."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 2

Ground batteries ordnance storage

"Warning! Enemy units have made planetfall! Xeno incursions detected in sector 9, sector 4, sector 2, and sector 15!"

The vox casters around the fortress buildings continued to spurt warnings and commands, but Gaela couldn't really hear it.

"All units proceed to your designated garrisons! Enemy vessels are in position to initiate orbital bombardment!"

The crackling sound of the power axe's disruption field mixed with the hiss of gases and the noise of electrostatic radiation permeating the air. The sound formed a purely industrial, chaotic battle chant in Gaela's ear, and the crude noise of warfare was disassembled to strings of numbers and inputs that swam about her mind in tantalizing and intriguing patterns. It was a subtle hymn, certainly, especially compared to the grim declarations of the Iron Warriors or the jubilant howling of the Orks. But it perfectly suited the members of an organization that considered expression of emotion a weakness unto itself.

"All forces are to maintain emergency alert status Primarus! This is not a drill!"

It was a harsh, painful song. One that perfectly mirrored the cruel and agonizing nature of modern combat.

And though she'd never admit to such a heinous display of passion, Gaela LOVED it.

"WAAA-urk!" an Ork Nob found a power axe lodged in its throat as its battlecry was cut off (as was its larynx). A servo arm snapped forward and smashed into its forehead, sending the massive warrior sprawling onto the ground.

"Omnissiah, unmake the xeno! Let your unholy machines rend flesh and shatter bone!" Gaela sang as her servo limbs churned around her. One of her extra limbs beamed a laser into a charging Ork's face, stunning it long enough for Gaela's power axe to carve a lethal path through its chest. "Dark Gods! Empower and harden our steel! Blades to drink the flesh of the unworthy, flame to purge the souls of the weak!"

A choppa hammered against her shoulder plate as she failed to parry a blow, but she twisted with the impact and drove her left arm toward the offender. The claws of that arm clamped tight around the head of the Ork, and it grunted and started pounding against her bionic limb.

Her ion blaster discharged, and lightning shook the Ork's body and cooked its skull in an instant.

Gaela flung the body into another Ork, staggering it as it tried to fire its slugga. Before it could recover the Dark Techpriest was already on top of it, digging a servo-drill into its eye socket.

+Dark Techpriest, please refrain from pursuing the enemy and breaking ranks,+ Geth blurted as his mechadendrites slithered about and skewered the Gretchin clawing at his legs. An Ork Runtherd leapt at him with weapon poised to strike, and Geth stabbed forward with his taser goad, his augmetic arm moving like a striking serpent. The crackling, fork-tipped stave struck the Ork with a crash like a small thunderclap, and the alien warrior was suddenly wrapped in hot arcs of plasma.

Gaela kicked away another corpse, and her helmet pitched slightly to one side as a slugga round bounced off of it. +Rather than my restraining my success at slaying xenos, why don't YOU keep up with me, Scavurel?+ She smashed a shoulder into another boy and then punched its jaw apart with her gun-arm.

+We have DEFENSIVE prioritus,+ Geth reminded her as he drilled another metal tendril into another hapless Grot.

+Your prioritus is whatever I say it is,+ Gaela countered, catching another choppa blow with a spare servo limb. Her axe returned the favor with prejudice, laying out another warrior at her feet. +Destroy the alien!+

There were some twenty Scavurel fighting off the greenskins behind Gaela, and their optics blinked as the Dark Techpriest released a data pulse into the squad. In near-perfect synchronization, the cyborg warriors drew their swords or revealed pneumatic arm-mounted blades, brandishing their steel before the brutish aliens.

The Orks opposite the avenue promptly sensed that the dynamic of the combat had changed, and they reacted with childlike glee. Shoota Boyz vaulted over barricades and chunks of wreckage, firing their crude machine guns and laughing as they charged to their probable doom.

"Slaughter the xeno!" Gaela snarled, switching to Gothic out of (recently acquired) habit. "Death to those who would oppose Chaos!" She raised her axe to the sky, and arcs of lightning whipped about the head as if lighting the path forward.

"Please look away for a moment!" squeaked a voice from behind her.

Of course, when Gaela heard that, her first thought wasn't "I should turn around" but rather "What the Hell is Fluttershy doing here?"

As such, she was really less prepared for the photon grenade than if nothing had been said at all.

Fluttershy winced as both the Dark Mechanicus and Orks flinched back from the grenade flaring between them, each side staggering to a halt in shock, surprise, and sudden blindness. "Sorry!" she called out afterward.

Between the two groups, the Scavurel recovered far faster than the Orks. Their optical augments and ballistics visors were all shielded against light flare, even if they couldn't completely protect the soldiers from the stun grenade. But even so, the cyborgs didn't manage to recover in time.

In time to get any kills of their own, that is.

"IRON WITHIN, BECOME THE IRON WITHOUT!!" Tellis bellowed as he crashed feet-first into the Ork mob. In a flash of motion and with a sharp sizzling noise echoing in alien ears, two boyz collapsed with their guts spilling onto their feet.

"Blood for the... say it with me..." Tellis smashed a fist down onto an Ork's head and then stabbed another in the face. "BLOOD GOD!!"

"Blood God..." Fluttershy mumbled, her voice so weak that her vox grille could barely amplify it to an audible volume.

"Good enough!" the Chaos Lord crowed, cutting down one Shoota Boy after another. "Now come on and kill something!"

He brought up his knee into the unit Nob's stomach, launching the alien into the air before jumping up over it and punching it back down to the ground. "Hurry up, or there won't be any left for you!"

Fluttershy cringed away from the brutal display, and continued sitting at the edge of a darkened corner with her cloak on. "Oh, that's okay. You can go ahead."

Tellis made a growling noise as he wrenched the shoota out of another boy's hand and then started clubbing him to death with it. "No way, Shy! You promised! I go to your lame community service group thing, and you actually score a direct, deliberate kill on something!"

"I never said anything like that!" Fluttershy protested.

An Ork's blade stabbed into Tellis' side, and he grunted slightly before ramming his claws up through the alien's jaw. "C'mon, Fluts! I'm making a real effort with this 'friendship' thing! You could at least TRY."

The Scavurel, who had completely recovered their vision by now, watched in bemused silence as the Orks were completely thrashed. Some of them glanced back at the sound of Fluttershy's voice, trying to figure out where, exactly, she was. Gaela calmly cleaned her axe and ran an armor diagnostic, quietly insisting to herself that she did NOT feel disappointed and embittered at having her targets killed before she could get to them.

"I suppose we should be thankful that he's actually fighting where we need him, for once," she grumbled, "the anti-orbital batteries are secure."

"But Orks are so scary!" Fluttershy complained. "I don't think I can beat one!"

Tellis grunted before shredding the second-to-last Ork, and then leapt for the last survivor.

The final Shoota Boy, who defied all sense of reason and intellect and wasn't trying to run away, instead fired his shoota at the charging Raptor.

The burst fire bounced uselessly against his chest plate, and Tellis slashed at the gun barrel to cut it apart. Then he grabbed the young Ork by the throat and hauled him up into the air.

"Okay, look!" Tellis shouted, twisting his head toward Fluttershy's hiding spot. "He's disarmed and helpless! Come over here and kill him! This one is a freebie!"

Fluttershy blinked, and her cloak flickered as she stepped out from her hiding place. "Er... what?"

"Look! I disabled this guy without killing him, so now you can do it!" the Chaos Lord insisted.

Again, the pegasus hesitated. "Uhm... but you did kill him."

"No I didn't!" Tellis protested, thrusting the Ork toward the pony. "See? He's..."

The Iron Warrior trailed off as he realized that his free hand was no longer free, having apparently plunged its lightning claws into the Shoota Boy's head when he wasn't paying attention.

"Huh," Tellis mumbled as he dropped the alien corpse, "weird. You'd think that with all the practice I've been getting at not killing people lately, I'd be better at it."

"Lord Tellis!" Gaela called, stepping around the dead bodies littering the ground. "The greenskins have managed to land a heavy assault craft near the Dark Mechanicus facilities. We have substantial ground forces within our security perimeter."

"I know!" Tellis said happily. "Isn't it GREAT?!"

An explosion ripped through the air above, causing Fluttershy to yelp and leap back into cover.

Gaela focused on the noise, pinpointing the pony's location. "Fluttershy, we have wounded. See to them immediately."

"Wh-What? Oh, my! Of course!" she scrambled out of her hiding place and blinked back into the visible spectrum.

The Dark Techpriest was about to organize the remaining Scavurel and plan their next move, but Tellis proved, as always, to be an impediment to sound strategy.

"Hey, you seen Dash anywhere?" the Iron Warrior asked, poking Gaela in the shoulder pauldron. "I'm thinking our combined peer pressure could finally push Fluttershy out of her comfort zone and get her to take those first few steps toward becoming a remorseless killer."

Gaela spent a moment to restrain her annoyed muttering. "My Lord, you have access to Dash's locator rune. You can find her without my assistance."

"True, but I don't care," the Chaos Lord explained, poking her pauldron again, "help me find my pony."

"I can hardly see how my presence will aid you, Lord," Gaela pointed out calmly, "you can travel faster than I, and are better able to overcome any hazards established by the Orks."

"Right, sure. But any time there's a problem, all the horses cluster around you like you're their herd alpha or something." Tellis poked her again.

Gaela had to pause and consider that. "That is... regrettably true. But as you can plainly see, that is not the case this time."

"Gaela! We found you!"

The Dark Techpriest didn't even turn around as Twilight galloped around a corner and down the street toward her. She was followed by Spike, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, with Rainbow Dash perched on the shoulder of Pinkie's Dreadnought.

"Oh, hey! Tellis is here!"

"Ugh, so he is. At least we found Fluttershy."

"Hi everyone! Enjoying the desperate defense against a foe with no mercy or restraint?"

Tellis crossed his arms over his chest and continued to stare down at Gaela.

Gaela struggled for something to say under the Chaos Lord's gaze. "... I did n-"

"AH,THERE BE THE PRIESTESS OF MACHINES!" boomed a voice down the opposite end of the avenue. "MISTRESS GAELA, WE REQUIRE THY COUNSEL!"

"Eeyup."

Luna and Big Macintosh approached Gaela at an easy trot, their gait altogether more relaxed than that of Twilight's squad.

Gaela released a frustrated sigh and turned her head toward the Scavurel. +Proceed to perimeter 39-zeta. Warpsmith Kessler is organizing kill teams to sweep crash survivors from the streets.+

+Affirmative, Dark Techpriest,+ Geth blurted, nodding at the approaching equines, +may the Omnissiah lend fury and precision to your steel.+

With the other soldiers sent away to do something useful, Gaela took a deep breath and turned toward Twilight Sparkle.

"Make it quick, Sparkle. There is much to do right now," the cyborg remarked.

"Yes, we know," the alicorn agreed, "that's actually why we're here. Is there a plan yet to fend off the Orks?"

"Aside from establishing defensive perimeters and making rounds through the fortress to kill them, no," Gaela admitted, "until we know how the xenos have circumvented the Warp storm, we have no means of stemming the tide of attackers. And while I have full confidence that the Warsmith will discover and correct the error, in the meantime I can think of no means to directly aid him. We must concentrate on defense."

"I'm cool with just making rounds and killing things," Tellis volunteered.

"Art there any regions that require immediate aid?" Luna asked.

"There are," Gaela nodded, "the greenskins managed to get a Landa down in sector 4 relatively intact. The Dark Mechanicus forces there have secured the buildings, but they won't be able to keep the Orks out for long. Needless to say, our weapon labs would make quite a prize for xeno scavengers."

"Then let us take to battle!" Luna said, slamming the gauntlets of the Iron Gage together. "The foul savages shalt rue the day they dared to challenge us!"

"What night horse said," Tellis agreed eagerly.

"Wait! First..." Twilight gulped, mentally preparing herself for what could be the single greatest personal loss of her lifetime. "There was a vessel in orbit that had is engines damaged so that it dropped to the planet surface..."

Gaela's optics flickered. "There have been three such vessels so far. Specify."

"Three Ork ships, huh?" Rainbow Dash murmured. "Sounds like you guys are doing pretty well up there!"

Gaela shifted her helmet to glare at her. "Only two of those ships belonged to the Orks."

The nearby rumble of the ground batteries firing emphasized the deathly silence that settled over the equines while this fact slowly sank in. Twilight felt a familiar lump of ice form in her stomach, and she completely forgot what she was about to ask.

"By the ancients..." Luna whispered. "Thy ships... the crew numbered in the thousands, did it not?"

"Affirmative," Gaela replied. Her voice sounded slightly more irritated than normal. "Although some crew may be salvaged from savior pods, the technology and cargo losses are quite crippling to our quotas. Another craft has been badly damaged, but has sustained stable orbit, at least. Assuming the Orks don't overrun us and take it, it may be rescued and repaired."

"How about that? It turns out that Sliver was right all along!" Tellis said. He didn't seem at all put off by the news. "Who would've thought?"

The ponies continued to sit in stunned silence, and Gaela cleared her throat as she again turned to Twilight. "I believe you had a question regarding the ships?"

"R-Right," Twilight stuttered, suddenly recalling her own question. Her throat felt unbearably dry, and she felt like she might throw up. "One of the... the Ork ships. It was going to land on Canterlot."

"WHAT?!" Luna boomed, knocking Rainbow Dash onto the ground with the force of the bellow.

"Bummer," Tellis opined, "oh well. More blood for the Blood God, you know?"

"We sent a warning in time!" Twilight said as she stumbled from Luna's outburst. "But I don't know what happened after that!"

Gaela groaned in annoyance and leaned on her axe. "Give me a moment."

The tension was palpable among the ponies as the Dark Priest fell silent. Luna was wringing the hands of the Iron Gage and creating an unbearable screeching noise with the motions, while Fluttershy was already curling up on the ground to get a head-start on having an emotional breakdown.

"... The auger relays deployed around Ponyville have not detected significant seismic activity in the region, much less those consistent with a frigate-class vessel making an uncontrolled landing," Gaela declared, "other, less obvious signs of such an impact are likewise absent. There is no reason to believe that Canterlot has been destroyed."

Were Twilight not being supported by power armor, she would have collapsed on the spot out of sheer relief.

"Great! So the green freaks haven't killed EVERYONE, at least," Rainbow said.

"Indeed. That is a great relief, but there 'tis much still for the xenos to answer for," Luna said, an arc of lightning surging between the Iron Gage, "shalt we take to battle once more?"

Gaela nodded. "If there are no more interru-"

Spike started coughing, and then a puff of green flame blasted out next to Twilight. She flinched away, but then her eyes widened as a scroll landed at her hooves. Gaela sighed again.

"Ah-ha! Proof that Sister yet lives!" Luna said brightly. "Our efforts may yet salvage this day!"

"Dandy. Can we go stab more Orks, now?" Tellis asked.

"Just a minute," Twilight insisted as she unfurled the scroll with her magic. She recognized the writing immediately as being from Kibitz, Celestia's personal assistant. "This could be important! It says: 'Ork ship landed. City taken, castle surrounded. Sad face. Please assist.'"

"It actually says 'sad face'?" Tellis asked immediately.

"No," Twilight shook her head, "it was a colon followed by an open para-" she suddenly snapped her head up in shock. "Never mind that! Canterlot is under attack!"

Although the ponies were, as expected, nodding in agreement and concern, Gaela remained singularly unimpressed.

"So what? A ground assault by Orks is considerably less of an obstacle than a void ship threatening to crash into the city. If your sovereign can deal with the latter, then let her resolve the former," the Dark Techpriest said, "we have our own problems."

"Yeah, but we can't just leave them! Princess Celestia asked for our help!" Rainbow Dash interjected, swiftly taking over the conversation.

"You do not serve Princess Celestia, you serve the 38th Company," Gaela countered, "we require your services here."

The speedy pegasus scowled. "Come on, Gaela! The Company doesn't really need us! You already have an army!"

"As does Canterlot," Gaela pointed out.

"Yeah, but theirs sucks! They can't defeat the Orks without our help!" Rainbow insisted.

"I don't believe that Princess Celestia would request our aid at a time like this unless it were particularly dire," Rarity offered tepidly.

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed, just to remind everyone he was still there.

"Gaela, you KNOW we can't just abandon Canterlot. Saving Equestria was the reason we joined you to begin with!" Twilight pulled off her helmet, staring up into Gaela's visor. "Please, you have to let us go!"

"C'mon Gaela!" Spike added. "Celestia's like our family! Plus, you know, our ACTUAL family is in the city, too."

"Irrelevant," Gaela snapped back, ignoring Twilight's desperate expression, "I am demanding your aid HERE."

"Thou dost not command us," Luna said firmly. Then, a moment later, her pose shifted uncomfortably. "Er... Dost thee?" She wasn't completely clear on how the Dark Mechanicus fit into the chain of command, honestly.

"And how are you planning to get to your capital in time to be of any use? We're not going to fly you there," Gaela said, crossing her bionic arms over her chest, "defeat the Orks in Canterlot and you may buy your people a few days. Weeks, at most. The Orks must be stopped entirely, and that will only happen here."

Rainbow Dash jumped into the air, sputtering angrily as she shifted into a hover. "We can't just... I mean, if the Princess..."

Then she suddenly spun around to face Tellis. "Tellis! You're with us, right?"

The Chaos Lord cocked his head to the side. "Well, it's not like I'm super particular about WHERE I murder lots of dudes, but it sure seems inconvenient to go all that way when we have plenty of victims right here."

"But... we have to save Princess Celestia!" Rainbow insisted.

"Which one is Princess Celestia?" Tellis asked.

Luna slapped the Iron Gage over her visor as Twilight growled in frustration.

"She was the big white one!" Rainbow Dash explained. "Big sun on her butt, and long, funny-looking hair!"

"Oh! Right! Her! I saw her in Ponyville when we owned that Drahgza guy!" Tellis recalled, scratching at the chin of his helmet. "... She seemed like kind of a loser to me. I don't care if she dies."

"RRRRRHGH!!" Rainbow clasped her helmet between her hooves, growling incoherently before she lifted further into the air. "The hay with it! I'm going!"

"Dash, no!" Twilight cried out, lifting a hoof toward the pegasus. "We can't just leave! I want to save Canterlot too, but-"

"No! No 'but'!" Rainbow barked. "If you want to go, we're going! Everypony who can fly, come with me!" She beckoned upward with a hoof, and Luna and Fluttershy stepped forward uncertainly.

Gaela's voice halted them in their tracks. "You're NOT leaving Ferrous Dominus," she said frostily.

"Gaela, don't take this the wrong way, all right? I see your point and everything and I really don't want to blow you off like this. But I'm leaving, and you can't really stop me," the pegasus said as her flight pack started to lift her upward.

Gaela snorted, and she pointed her power axe at the flying pony.

In an instant, Rainbow's visor went dark, her servos turned unresponsive, and her flight pack cut off its thrust.

"... Wha?" was all that the cocky speedster could manage before she fell to the ground, bounced off the ferrocrete, and then slid to a stop next to Pinkie Pie.

"Okay, so what's going on, now?" Tellis growled impatiently. "Are we going to go kill Orks or not?"

"Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?" Fluttershy gasped as she and the other ponies clambered over to the fallen pony.

Rainbow hadn't fallen from any great height, so she was entirely unharmed. But it was hard not to notice the way she struggled and grunted as she tried to move. "What... the... hay? My... armor! Wh-What did... you DO?"

"I turned it off," Gaela said simply.

When the equines simply glanced over at her in shock, she elaborated. "Warsmith Solon installed system killswitches in every suit of Centaur-pattern armor he constructed. Any Dark Techpriest or Warpsmith can render your armor inert in moments." She leaned on her axe again as she explained the ponies' predicament. "In such a state, the suit is a veritable prison, rendering you helpless and almost immobile. Those of you without sufficient psychic talent cannot even remove it."

"Th-That's crazy!" Rainbow Dash protested, fighting against the resistance of her leg plating. "Why would he do that?!"

Then the pegasus paused. "Oh. Right. This is why, huh?"

"Did you really think that your allegiance to the 38th Company relied on 'the honor system'?" Gaela asked dryly. "That we would shower you with the finest weapons this Legion possesses, and then leave you to do as you wish?"

"Well, I suppose that seems silly NOW, yes," Rarity interjected, "but you have to admit that Solon gives some rather mixed messages."

Luna shook her head, stepping toward Gaela. "Techpriest Gaela, see reason! Sister cannot-"

"Off," Gaela interrupted, pointing toward Luna.

Luna froze immediately. The various red lights on her armor winked out, and the twin gauntlets of the Iron Gage dropped to the ground with a hefty clanging noise.

"...... We believe the Dark Techpriest makes a formidable case," Luna murmured, her voice muffled somewhat through the inactive vox grille.

"Question!" Pinkie Pie said, raising her power fist to point at the Dark Techpriest. "If one of us happens to have a vehicle shell that was borrowed - wink - from a friend rather than an armor suit built by Shmithy, could you do that to them, too?"

"No," Gaela admitted bluntly.

"Woo-hoo!" Pinkie cheered, punching her power fist into the air.

"Instead I would shove a melta bomb down your gorget. Doing that is hard to reverse, so I advise you not force me to demonstrate it," Gaela continued.

"Eugh..." Pinkie grimaced, and her Dreadnought took a nervous step back.

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut tight, fighting back the dark thoughts and angry tears threatening to spill out of her.

"Gaela, stop. You win. We'll stay," Twilight said miserably, hanging her head.

"T-Twi?" Spike gasped. "You can't really mean-"

Twilight kicked away the parchment lying on the ferrocrete below her. "Spike, we have enough problems right now. We can't fight the Company so that we can fight the Orks. Canterlot isn't helpless, either; Princess Celestia will find a way to escape or hold out until we can help."

"Speaking of FIGHTING," Tellis said impatiently, one boot tapping repeatedly onto the ground, "you guys want to actually do some of that today? Those Orks aren't going to kill themselves! At least, not fast enough for my tastes!"

"Yes, fine," Twilight grunted as she levitated her helmet up, "let's-"

A burst of static came from her gorget as a vox connection was established. The same connection linked into Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie's helmets as well, but as Twilight had hers off everyone could hear the voice coming from her communications link.

"Ah, good! You're shtill alive! I have an urgent mission for Equinought Shquadron!"

Twilight straightened up and she set her jaw. If she was going to abandon Princess Celestia in her hour of need in order to help the 38th Company, at least she would be doing something important for the duration.

"Yes, Warsmith. What is it?" Twilight asked.

"I need you to proceed to Canterlot immediately! It'sh under attack by the Orksh!"

Once again, the hammering of the heavy mass drivers dominated the sudden, awkward silence. Twilight's jaw went slack, and Spike slapped a claw against his forehead.

It took Gaela a moment to replay that message - literally, via audio-capture - in her head before she linked up her own helmet to the vox connection. "Warsmith Solon, confirm mission objective."

"Ah, Gaela! Good! You're there too! You can eshcort and accompany them to the capital," Solon said.

"May I... ask WHY, Lord?" Gaela said, her eyebrow twitching.

"It's the sun, right? We need to go save the sun!" Pinkie guessed.

"No, not that," Solon scoffed, "I need you to reshcue Sherith." He paused. "Trademashter Delgan ish alsho there, I believe. Hish extraction would alsho be helpful. Conshider that a shecondary objective. And if you get a chance, shure, keep the shovereign alive too."

Rarity released a gasp of surprise at the reminder that Norris Delgan was in Canterlot right now, but otherwise didn't interrupt.

"Wait, SERITH? He's in Canterlot?" Twilight asked, utterly perplexed.

"Indeed. He thinksh he'sh being clever by shwitching off his armor transhceiver, but I can shtill figure out where he ish," Solon snorted.

"Is he hiding or something?" Rainbow Dash called out. Her armor systems were still dead, so she had to shout loud enough for Twilight's open vox to pick up.

"Oh, I doubt that. He wouldn't have sheen thish coming any more than we did. Precognition ish not among hish talentsh. I don't know what he'sh doing over in your capital, but I need him shecured and extracted. It ish of critical importance."

None of this was making any sense to Twilight, whose head was almost spinning at this point. But she wasn't about to let this chance slip away. "Yes, Warsmith! Right away!"

"Good. We have a few Shtormraven gunshipsh fresh from the manufactorum, but all of our available pilotsh are already deployed in void combat right now. I'll shee what I can do."

Gaela was no less confused than Twilight, but was used to putting aside her own concerns to carry out Solon's orders. "I may have a solution, Warsmith. I will see Equinought Squadron to the capital."

"Then proceed. I have to go calm down Shliver shome more."

The vox line cut out.

Gaela sighed and raised her axe toward the ponies staring at her. "I think it's best that we all pretend the previous argument never happened."

"Yeah, okay. That's fair," mumbled Twilight as she fit her helmet on.

Rainbow Dash and Luna's armor flickered back to life, and their visors booted up before their eyes while their limb plating became responsive again.

"Phew! It was getting a little hard to breathe!" Rainbow said as she bounced to her hooves.

"'Tis a most troubling feature of this mail, that thou might silence it with but a thought," Luna grumbled as she set the Iron Gage back onto her shoulder pads, "but so be it. What need we do to rescue our home?"

"Warsmith Solon said there were Stormraven gunships available for transit. That's an Astartes vehicle, and requires an Astartes pilot."

The ponies all looked over toward Tellis. The Iron Warrior was slumped forward with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, and a snoring noise was coming from his vox grille.

"No, not him," Gaela grumbled. She walked over to Tellis and knocked a fist on his chest armor.

"Hnwhuh?" the Raptor grunted as his head jerked upright. "What? Was I asleep?" He looked back and forth. "I was having this surreal dream where we were being attacked by Orks and surrounded by combat, but everyone just wanted to stand around talking about it rather than fight."

"That fantasy has concluded, Lord," Gaela assured him, "there is much fighting to do, and it's time we got to it."

"Freakin' FINALLY. Where at?" Tellis demanded.

"We're headed to the Dark Mechanicus temples, Lord," Gaela informed him as she started heading down the avenue. The equines followed behind her eagerly. "There's something I need to pick up from the labs."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 4

Dark Mechanicus laboratory 17

+Brain wave activity rising. Approaching consciousness threshold. Endogen levels receding to 0.02.+

Within an armorglass tube filled with sedative gel and brimming with power cables, a metal-encased finger twitched.

+Bio-plasma surge detected. Administering hyporeactives. Stabilizing.+

Muscle spasms soon gave way to discrete, conscious motions, and the hand clenched into a fist.

+Stage three activation confirmed. Withdrawing catalyzer neurogens. Stage four activation commencing.+

Sure is noisy in here all of a sudden.

Dest's head jerked upward when the unfamiliar, foreign thought rolled around in his head.

Oh, hey! You're awake! 'Bout time, bro. It's been a while.

Dest tried to shake his head, but found the motion rather sluggish.

But hey, it's all good. Now that you're back, we can hang out! We're gonna be soulmates for a pretty long time, so, you know, I thought we should spend some time to chat and stuff.

Dest took stock of his senses, noting that they were all muted, as was his muscle control. He could barely see through his visor, and he couldn't hear anything except for the voice in his head.

Oh, but I didn't mean "soulmates" in a gay way! Just, you know, we kind of share your body! And "bodymates" sounds even more weird and vaguely sexual, so I went with soulmates. No homo.

Dest soon figured out that he was in a bio-containment cell, and then figured out that he was also still wearing his armor. Which was strange. He was guessing that his armor had been breached, though, since he could feel the gel from the containment cell on his skin.

Actually, I'm not totally sure if that counts as gay. I don't really have a gender. 'Cuz, you know, I don't really have a body. Except yours. Which is a dude's body. If I had gone with that horse instead, would that make me a chick?

After several more seconds of concentration, Dest realized something strange and important: he wasn't feeling the containment gel INSIDE his armor, he was feeling it AGAINST his armor, as if his power armor was his skin. The plating wasn't nearly as sensitive as his normal sense of touch, but he could definitely feel the cool, damp ooze all around him.

So, uh... are you still asleep after all? Kinda feel like I'm talking to myself, here. Which I guess I am, in a way, but still...

+All readings are nominal. Subject L-721 is fully active. Cell lock disengaged. Draining containment vat.+

Dest couldn't understand Binary, but he knew when it was being spoken. Dark shapes outside the glass shifted around points of twinkling green light. The Dark Mechanicus.

Dest felt his muscles strengthen and his senses sharpen as the gel started to drain from the cell, dipping below his eye level. They felt... different. He was certain by now that he had been physically bonded to his power armor, and in such a way that his biological senses now extended into the shell of adamantium and ceramite. He was certain other changes had been made as well, but in such a short time, and with a limited sense of awareness, he couldn't really take stock of them.

Aw, great. It's the NERD squad again. Lame. Every time they show up they start cutting us open and jamming pieces of metal into us. I tried to kill them, but it's actually really hard to move around without you. How about we give it a team effort this time, huh? Show the geeks who's boss!

The gel finished draining from the cell, and then a jet of water blasted down over Dest's head, sloughing off the remaining ooze.

The tube hissed as its pressure locks disengaged, and the front section of the armorglass broke away and slid upward.

"Reception: Greetings, Lord Dest. You have been returned to active service as of hour 9.3102 of sub-chronology 7.22.7001."

Dest's vision, despite his rapidly returning strength and mental focus, remained slightly hazy after he stepped out onto the clean metal flooring of the Mechanicus laboratory. It took him a few moments to recognize Dark Magos Kaelith's extremely distinctive form.

"Interrogative: Is your combat status nominal?" Kaelith asked. The welders under his head clicked together in a manner that quite resembled an insect twitching its mandibles.

"I..." Dest's voice cracked almost instantly upon trying to form words. The wet growl that came from his throat - now with his vox system integrated directly - was a far cry from his voice as he remembered it. "I... need a... moment."

Oh, hey! You CAN talk! Awesome. I thought I'd broken something important up here. So. You feel like killing this weirdo, or is he your bro or something?

"Do you know what happened to me?" Dest asked Kaelith. He had a strong inkling, but he needed to hear it from the Dark Magos himself.

"Explanatory: You were possessed. A daemonic spirit bound itself to your body during the establishment of the Nethalican. You were neutralized and then modified. Extensively."

Shoot, can you even hear me? Am I doing something wrong? This isn't supposed to be hard.

Dest took a moment to look himself over. His armor had changed visibly, with the joints between segments closing into hardened hinges that resembled a metallic exoskeleton rather than an armor suit. Curved spikes jutted out of his shoulder pads and vambrace, and his gauntlets had reshaped themselves into short, adamantium talons.

That wasn't the full extent of the changes, though. Dest could feel more inputs and devices tingling within his carapace. In particular he felt strange, new muscle structures within his shoulder blades, and he twisted his head to look over his shoulder.

It turned out he now had servo arms mounted in the space between his shoulder pad and helmet. They were folded up and hanging over his shoulders, and each one ended in a tapered claw rather than a vise or pincer.

"Alert: The present situation requires immediate assistance," Kaelith said, noticing that Dest had gone silent while observing himself, "Explanatory: Ork forces have penetrated the base perimeter and require an immediate lethal response."

Dest's head snapped forward. "Orks? Did the Nethalican fail?"

"Affirmation: Multiple Warp exits by Ork void ships have been detected, and the horde has launched a full-scale assault on Ferrous Dominus."

Aw, crap, really? Sorry about that, dude. I know you guys worked super hard on the Dark Portal thing. Geez, what the hell, Orks? The green bros really need to chillax.

A booming noise came from deeper within the facility, and the lumens flickered briefly.

"Explanatory: A strike force has successfully landed within the fortress perimeter and is assaulting the temple. Interrogative: Can you assist?" Kaelith asked, his voice taking on a somewhat shrieking tone.

"Do you have a weapon I can use?" Dest asked.

Kaelith hesitated. "Affirmative. Contra: Your enhanced form possesses ample military force, including Warpflame projection and enhanced melee capabilities. Conclusion: Additional armaments are redundant."

Wait, Warpflame projectors? OH! So that's what those things in our hands are! That's actually pretty metal!

"I would prefer a boltgun," Dest said firmly.

Kaelith scuttled over to a table in the corner where a bolter had been disassembled and its components laid out over the surface. Mechatendrils seeped from his robes and started assembling the firearm rapidly.

Dest looked up as another explosion caused another brief power disruption. "How bad is it?"

"Analysis: Current xeno forces are not beyond the Iron Warriors' defensive capacity," Kaelith stated as he finished putting the bolter together. A claw picked up the gun and held it up for the Rhino driver. "Contra: Total Ork strength advancing through the Warp storm is unknown, and the fleet has sustained heavy damage. Conclusive: the current situation is far from nominal."

On the other hand, it finally got these guys to unhook us from the oversized fish tank, so it's not ALL bad.

Dest took the boltgun, and then started gathering magazines from the table where it had been disassembled.

"Interrogative: Are you combat ready?" Kaelith asked impatiently while the Iron Warrior loaded his gun.

Dest did a brief check of the bolter, and then glanced over to the Dark Magos.

"One more question," he grumbled, "is there anything you can do to silence the daemon's rambling voice in my head?"

Ah-HA! You CAN hear me! Phew! I was getting worried for a sec!

"Negative," Kaelith said curtly.

"Then let us proceed," Dest growled, "perhaps the sound of Orks dying can drown it out."

Kaelith deactivated the lab lockdown, and Dest had his boltgun up as the containment doors unlocked and slowly opened.

The hallway beyond the lab wasn't as bad as he had feared; dozens of Scavurel and Dark Techpriests had set up behind barricades in the wide passage, waiting silently for new opponents. Several Orks corpses riddled with stubber wounds and lasburns lay on the floor ahead. All the doors on either side of the hallway were locked down, with the most valuable rooms also being protected by energy fields over the blast doors.

"Explanatory: Current strategic prioritus emphasizes conservation of Dark Mechanicus assets. The xenos have pushed into the temple while scavenging our resources as they proceed. Conclusive: Though their progress has been slow and their assaults ineffective, we are cut off from support and the enemy possesses force enough to overrun this defense."

"Which is why you woke me," Dest mumbled as he passed by the Scavurel troopers. They gave him a wide berth and the occasional bow of respect. "Why was I not returned to duty before now? Am I... unfinished?"

It felt odd to refer to himself as a weapon being designed and constructed, much like the boltgun in his hands. The Astartes WERE weapons, and everyone knew it, but they still presented the trappings of being individuals, especially among Chaos forces.

Kaelith spent a moment ordering the other Mechanicus forces in Binaric Cant, and then advanced behind Dest. "Explanatory: You are an experimental case. Project completion depends on analysis of combat efficacy."

Another blast came from down the hall and around a fork in the passage. Dest paused. That one had been close.

"I see. Then let's find out."

Dest found the first of his targets inside the servo skull installation labs. The Lootas were absolutely tearing through the facility in their lust for salvage, ripping apart consoles and dumping skulls and parts into large sacks hauled by shivering Gretchin. Such was the noise made by their looting and victorious laughter that they didn't even hear Dest's footsteps.

The sound of a boltgun burst was a bit harder to ignore, however.

Two Lootas fell to the ground with their backs blown out, and Dest calmly stepped through the still-smoldering doorway.

"Iron within! Iron without!" the driver snapped, firing another burst into the Orks. The Gretchin screeched and dashed for cover, while the Lootas alternated between drawing their choppas and wrestling their deffguns from the ground.

Dest targeted the latter group of Orks, and another shot took off another Loota's head, leaving the twitching corpse still lying atop its weapon.

Sweet! About time we saw action! You cannot IMAGINE how boring it was sitting around in that bogus tube day in and day out! Vel said, chuckling in Dest's head.

I cannot, Dest thought back as he emptied his bolter clip into the greenskins, although I am only beginning to comprehend the true bliss of my being unconscious the entire time.

When his bolter clicked empty, the Orks and Gretchin leapt out from behind cover and charged, brandishing salvaged blades and bits of shrapnel as knives.

Dest backhanded the first Ork to reach him, swatting the warrior aside with a strength nearly twice what he remembered being capable of. He let his boltgun drop to the floor as the next alien dashed into arm's reach, choppa already descending.

Dest stepped aside from the blow, and then slammed a knee up into the Ork's abdomen. A spike burst up out of his knee cap just as he made contact, punching up through the Ork's tough, waxy hide and piercing its guts. Dest hadn't been expecting that, and impressive as it was, it did leave him attached to the wounded soldier for a moment longer than he intended.

Another choppa struck his arm, and though the armor deflected the blow without difficulty, Dest still felt a surge of pain through his bicep. With an angry snarl, his servo talon arced forward and scythed through the Loota's throat, dispatching the alien.

I'm trying out some new stuff here. Sorry if it hurts a bit, bro. It's my first time.

Dest growled as he burst forward, and his talons grew long and curved before he slashed at another Loota's face.

Ah, crap, that TOTALLY sounded gay, didn't it? Sorry, bro. I want to keep this professional. I totally mucked up my last contract, so I need this to work out. We cool? Kill a green dude to say "Yes."

Dest's claws tore through Ork after Ork, his frustration driven further by the rambling in his head. Some of the Grots summoned enough courage to leap at him, but he ignored their pitiful blows with ease and barely spared the attention to scrape them off.

We cool, then. Whoa! Bogey on the right, dude! warned Vel.

Dest snapped his head to his right just in time to see a Loota brace his deffgun atop a counter, aimed directly at him and well out of lunging range.

Before the Iron Warrior could do anything about it, an arc of lightning slash across the Loota's body and sent him to the ground in a twitching, smoldering heap.

+Executive: Exterminate all xeno presence,+ crackled Kaelith as steam poured off the conductor coils of his ion beamer. Scavurel were already running in behind and around him; some of them to set up a new defensive perimeter in the hallway, and others to rush in and help slay the greenskins ransacking their labs.

The cyborgs mostly descended on the diminutive Gretchin, which suited Dest just fine. Let the workers kill the slaves; the thieves were a soldier's prey. His claws wreaked havoc amongst the Lootas, shredding their flesh, bone, and flimsy armor with equal ease. Every time he struck an Ork without felling it, his servo talons would scythe down into the foe of their own accord, punching through the thick skulls of the greenskins or digging into their throats. With each blow Dest's vision grew a little more clouded and his temper, which was only ever unusual for its icy calm, burned a little hotter.

Soon he was howling as he crashed through the Orks, his arms pumping furiously among wide arcs of blood.

He barely had the awareness to spot the crackling power klaw before it swung at him, and Dest swore his body actually tried to resist as he moved to dodge.

"Bakk off, spiky! Dis iz MY loot!" taunted an Ork Mek while his power klaw warmed the air. Dest hesitated, standing just out of swiping range of the alien engineer.

A burst of Binaric Cant came from behind him, and then the power field around the Ork's klaw started sparking more actively, throwing tendrils of energy around the heavy blades of the hydraulic pincer. The weapon started to shake, and the Mek growled and turned to slam the klaw into a wall and smash it back into working shape.

This left his back facing Dest, and the driver wasted no time vaulting forward. The claws of his right hand stretched and thickened even further mid-blow, becoming sword-like blades that ripped into the Mek's back. Furious red flame mixed with streams of dark blood that dribbled down the Ork's back and onto the floor, and the Mek staggered.

Dest seized the Ork by the back of his head with his left hand, preparing to rip it clean off.

No, no, no! I got this. Check it. FLAME ON!

Warpflame suddenly engulfed Dest's gauntlet, and the Mek howled and thrashed as his head was cooked within the Marine's grasp. Within seconds the alien fell slack, its brain consumed by the otherworldly fire.

Dude. Duuuuuude. SO cool. We have to do that again. I don't even want to kill the creepy metal guys anymore; that was badASS.

Dest took a moment to calm himself when he failed to find further targets. The Dark Mechanicus priests and soldiers were slaying the wounded behind him, and he could hear the sound of lasgun fire from the hallway.

He raised his right arm. The talons on his gauntlet were almost fifteen inches long, and were slowly shrinking back to normal. More spikes and horns had grown from his power armor while he was fighting, and those embellishments too were slowly sucking themselves back into the carapace now that he was calming down. Nicks and dents from the Orks' blows were slowly disappearing, like ordinary wounds being patched over with scar tissue.

"So this is what it means to be one of the Possessed," Dest grunted, "intriguing."

"Concurrence: The harvested data shall be of considerable use," Kaelith chittered as he zoomed his optics onto the Iron Warrior. Lasgun and shoota fire kept coming from the hallway.

"There are more xenos to destroy," Dest said as he picked up his boltgun and loaded a fresh magazine, "let us get to it."

Ork souls, yeah! Just nommin' on them Ork souls, doo doo da doo! Vel sang in his head.

Ork resistance was fairly light as the Dark Mechanicus advanced to the temple entrance, clearing room after room of Gretchin stragglers. Most of the rooms closer to the main entrance had been looted already and had their contents hauled away when the Orks heard the siren song of violence and raced back into the fight outside.

The Scavurel stormed every hallway with a lethal fusillade as they advanced, filling the space with lasbursts and plasma bolts. Whenever the Orks responded with a charge, Dest and Kaelith pushed forward to meet the attackers first, shredding the aliens with claws and webs of welding lasers.

As they got closer to the entrance, however, it became obvious that the bulk of the Ork raiding party hadn't descended into the temple but was still fighting in the fortress streets. Heavy machine gun fire mixed with the pounding of autocannons, and the whine of plasma discharges echoed deep within the darkened halls of the Mechanicus temple.

"Executive: Pray," Kaelith said, turning some of his optics on the black-robed figures behind him, "let the Omnissiah empower your weapons and devour your essence in turn. The faithful and heretic alike perish at their whim and fuel the engine of Chaos."

The Scavurel and Dark Techpriests took knee and began spewing strings of Binary. Dest, for his part, crept forward toward the ruined door that led to the main lobby of the temple. Half of the blast shielding had been ripped open, and he leaned into the remaining half as she got a read on the enemy.

Dest's visor shifted to thermal capture mode, and he was treated to the orange, yellow, and red blooms of numerous warm bodies and roaring guns.

"Nobs and Meks," Dest grunted into his vox, transmitting his observation to his allies behind him. "The Nobs are at the entrance, firing outside. The Meks are fixing something in the middle of the lobby. A walker, I believe."

Kaelith's optics flickered.

"Assessment: Tactical objectives confirmed. Strategic logis engaged. Executive: Dispatch the warriors. The vehicle is mine."

"Confirmed," Dest growled, his talons growing longer in preparation for battle, "attack."

The Iron Warrior swept in through the doorway, his boltgun immediately trained on a Flashgit's back. Scavurel raced out into the lobby and sprinted for cover as the Ork's spine was blasted to splinters, and Kaelith scuttled past the possessed driver straight toward a damaged Deff Dread waiting near the wall.

The walker and its attendant Mek jerked to attention at the sudden assault, and the latter growled and pointed to the new targets as the former started warming up its weapons again.

The Deff Dread never got the chance to enter the fight, however. A lash of bright white power streamed from Kaelith's ion beamer, and the entire walker trembled as its systems started malfunctioning even worse than usual. Sparks blew out of the Dread's main sensors, and one of its killsaws inexplicably came loose from its mounting and was sent rolling across the metal flooring.

Kaelith clambered up the front of the quaking vehicle, his legs sticking to the hull like a spider's as mechatendrils and mandible-like welders tapped and prodded at the defunct plating.

The nearby Mek objected to this, and his power Klaw reached for the Magos, its power field coming alive in a burst of hot yellow sparks.

Before the Ork could attack, a dataspike slithered out of the coal-black robes that concealed Kaelith's body, striking like a snake and punching into the Mek's shoulder before discharging a blast of electrostatic energy.

The Mek snarled angrily, undeterred, and his klaw snipped the dataspike tendril in half. As he pulled the needle-tipped head out of his skin, though, two other mechatendrils stabbed whirling drill bits toward him, forcing the Ork to back away from the dangerous tentacles.

As his various extra limbs lashed at the Mek, Kaelith was busy digging his more prominent servo tools into the Deff Dread, carving through its primitive electronic controls and severing the links that provided energy to the walker's motors. In a matter of seconds, the Deff Dread's systems went dead, having been ruined from the inside out.

"Oi! Don' tuch me Dread, ya metuhl git!" snarled the Mek, his klaw snapping angrily before he drew a slugga and fired at the Dark Magos.

The pistol rounds struck an energy field shimmering around Kaelith's cloak, and the cyborg's optics glowed brightly as he stared down at the alien engineer in contempt.

+Venerate the machine. Slay the xeno,+ Kaelith spat. Mechatendrils shot out from beneath his robes like harpoons, stabbing into the Mek's legs and then yanking him onto his back.

The Ork grunted as he hit the floor, and then bent forward and reached out with his klaw to remove the tendrils. Before he could, he was suddenly pulled across the floor, up to the feet of the inert Deff Dread, and then up into the air in front of Kaelith.

+Observatory: Ork wargear,+ the Dark Magos spat in Binaric Cant, +revolting garbage.+ As he spoke he cut the Mek's power klaw apart with a web of lasers, taking off a fair amount of the Ork's hand with it.

+Intention: Field vivisection. Die, primitive.+ Kaelith descended upon the Mek with his servo arms and mechatendrils.

Across the room, the battle was no less brutal, if not substantially less one-sided. Dest slashed savagely through the ranks of the Nobs holding the lobby, trying to keep them from surrounding him, but the larger Orks were far harder to put down than the lesser warriors.

A massive, two-handed choppa with a buzzsaw blade crashed into his shoulder pad, and sparks sprayed across the curved ceramite plating as pain bloomed in his arm. Dest's servo talons stabbed into the Nob's chest before his claws could, as if the limbs had a mind of their own. And considering that Dest DID have a spare set of thoughts rambling on in his head, it was a distinct possibility.

He didn't have long to reflect on the idea before he slammed a shoulder (which conveniently grew large, sharp-tipped horns at just the right time) into another Nob, and then raked that target with his talons. He was unused to fighting this way, using semi-natural weapons and additional limbs, and any help Vel could provide was welcome.

Besides, fighting actually got him to shut up for a little bit.

"Damm spiky GUAAAGH!" a Nob was thrown back as Dest slammed an open palm into him, blasting the alien away with a burst of Warpflame and his prodigious daemonic strength. The warrior crashed into the wall and impaled himself on a spiked edifice, dropping next to a shrine alcove that had already been ransacked by raiders.

Dest dodged out of the way of a power claw and one of his servo talons shot forward, stretching far beyond its obvious length to reach the attacker. Once it pierced the Nob it pulled the Ork closer, dragging it into a hammer fist that shattered much of its skull and neck.

That warrior was the last Ork within clawing range, and Dest took a moment to get his bearings while the volcanic rush of melee combat started to cool.

Okay, I think we're getting into a groove, here. I like this. This is working. Vel said.

"WAAAAAAGH!!" The classic Ork warcry boomed in Dest's ears as a hulking Ork Warboss in mega armor stomped into the room. He was flanked by Shoota Boyz, who quickly jumped into a firefight with the entrenched Scavurel soldiers.

"Anuvver hed fer me pointee stikk!" the Warboss laughed, pointing his power klaw at Dest. "C'mon, spiky! I gotz-"

The rest of the Warboss's taunt was cut off, unfortunately, when a hydraulic springboard under his feet suddenly snapped up and flung him outside.

Dest was as surprised as the Orks at seeing the alien leader suddenly ejected, but he quickly tossed a fragmentation grenade into the cluster of remaining greenskins before shouting over to Kaelith.

"You actually installed hydraulic springboards in these floors?"

"Affirmation," the Dark Magos replied as he scuttled down the side of the Deff Dread, "we utilize them more often than most had anticipated."

The lesser Orks broke and fled from the temple as their losses piled up, flooding out of the shattered doorway. Lasblasts followed them the entire time, as well as a few well-aimed bolt slugs from Dest.

"The lobby is clear! Take the windows!" snapped a Core as his unit dashed through the room.

Dest took up a position to the side of the main entrance, peering outside. Unsurprisingly, things looked bad. A full-sized Landa was sitting in the square mostly intact, having landed right outside the Dark Mechanicus temple where he had been modified. Although it must have been some time since the assault craft had disgorged its soldiers (along with a prodigious amount of smoke and hot wreckage), the Orks had not been exterminated, nor had they made much progress in spreading through the fortress interior. Mobs of Shoota Boyz, Flashgitz, Tankbustas, and the odd Killa Kan sheltered behind the ruins of demolished tanks and the Landa itself, trading fire with the surrounding buildings. Dest noticed that a surprising amount of the incoming fusillades was pulse rifle fire, and was barely more accurate than the Ork shooting; apparently the Earth Caste was making its own stand against the invaders.

"Our allies are applying suppressive fire, and most of the greenskin's melee fighters are already dead," Dest said aloud to the Scavurel Dregs crouched next to the windows, "this situation is salvageable."

Kaelith's optics flickered as the Dark Magos briefly uplinked to Dest's visor and tracked his field of vision. "Contention: local enemy forces outnumber allied forces in this facility by a factor of 13:1. This ratio is unacceptable."

"I'm less worried about the fodder than I am that Warboss. He's getting up again," Dest mumbled as he snapped another new magazine into his boltgun, "although I have the utmost confidence in the work you've done on me, Magos, I am uncertain I can overcome such a foe with less than an hour's practice with my new abilities."

C'mon, dude, don't be like that! We can take him! I'll bet his soul tastes like chicken... or, like, a chicken's soul, I guess.

"Exploratory: Seeking alternate tactical solutions," Kaelith said as his body rose up higher and his optics glowed even brighter.

"WAAAAAAAAAGH!!" came the furious roar from outside.

+Plasma weapons to the front!+ blurted a Dark Techpriest, directing the Scavurel to fend off the incoming charge.

"Negative," Kaelith snapped, still speaking in Gothic, "explanatory: I have located an alternate tactical solution."

Dest glanced back at the Magos. "Clarify."

"I am throwing ponies at the problem," Kaelith said as his melta cutters quivered underneath his head.

The very second the words left Kaelith's vox synthesizer, twin beams of howling crimson energy cut into the side of the Landa, slicing off sections of heavy armor and dropping them onto the Orks sheltering below. A purple beam followed them, smashing the cracked bow of the vessel inward.

The Warboss, who had been ushering his lesser warriors toward the Mechanicus temple ahead of him - in case there were more springboards set up - quickly turned around at the arrival of heavier firepower.

"BESEECH THY SAVAGE GODS FOR MERCY, BARBARIANS!! THOU SHALT ALL PERISH THIS DAY!!"

Dest watched the Orks shift their attention away from the temple's defenders, raising their guns to the sky and howling defiant battlecries to their new opponents.

Then the Iron Warrior turned back to Kaelith.

"You know, hearing you, of all people, say that phrase really brings home just how far we've really fallen," the driver mumbled, looking down at his boltgun, "nobody took me seriously even before this campaign. Now I'm home to an infantile and dim-witted daemon, friend to a clearly insane pink equine, and employee to a bakery."

Dude... harsh...

"Consolation: However pitiful we may become from exposure to these xenos, we are still by far the better of those creatures that fall before them in battle," Kaelith grumbled. "Executive: Advance. Flank. Destroy."

****

"There! Over there! Warboss!" Twilight shouted as her visor bracketed the largest defending Ork. Her helmet systems were filled with tactical data from Kaelith's data link, marking out the alien leader and noting the positions of soldiers that weren't easily visible.

"Put up a barrier screen! Fluttershy, blind the first ranks," Gaela ordered as her ion blaster powered up, "Pie, target their armored support. Lord Tellis-"

"WHEEEEEE!!" The Chaos Raptor launched into the air before Gaela could finish her sentence, and Rainbow Dash shot up after him while laughing.

"... Right. Luna?" Gaela asked.

"Aye! We shalt engage the enemy leader!" Luna barked, her wing sheaths spreading as she too took wing.

"What? No, it would be more advantageous to..." the Dark Techpriest trailed off when Luna fell out of earshot, strafing the Orks ahead with magic blasts.

"Er... if it's any consolation, I think your plan is better," Twilight said as she held up the harmonizer's shield.

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed.

The stallion's heavy bolter shook ferociously at his side as he pounded away at the entrenched Orks, stitching a trail of small explosions over the makeshift barricades. Rarity stepped up to Twilight's other side, her plasma gun picking off single targets that poked their heads up to fire back.

"You never did mention what we're here to get, exactly," Rarity reminded Gaela while incoming bullets splashed over the harmonizer shield.

"That's because I'm not sure he's active," Gaela admitted as she knocked down a Flashgit with a laser blast from her servo weapon, "Dark Magos Kaelith has never been very forthcoming with his personal projects."

Spike poked his head out from behind Gaela's robe. "'He'? It's a person?"

"IT'S DESTY!!" Pinkie Pie cheered while she plodded forward heavily.

"You're correct," Gaela confirmed before a rocket spiraled past the harmonizer shield. A moment later it exploded behind her, pelting her back with hot shrapnel. "We're here to secure Lord Dest. If we can gain entry to-"

"No, I mean that's him over there!" Pinkie interrupted, pointing her massive power fist toward the increasingly chaotic melee near the temple.

Dest's claws had extended into veritable blades, the heavy gauntlets battering aside choppa strikes as his servo talons shredded the greenskins before him.

The Scavurel proceeded in a tight lockstep formation at his sides, although the cyborg troopers mainly served to keep the enemies from surrounding the possessed Iron Warrior. Kaelith and the Techpriests clustered behind the front line, lashing out at any Ork that felled one of their Scavurel guardians with bursts of light and plasma. It was a cautious formation, but one that allowed them to cut into the side of the enemy forces without being swiftly overwhelmed. At this stage that was all the Mechanicus warriors could hope for.

Some of them might have also hoped that Tellis would end up fighting on the other side of the Ork ship, far away from them. But on this matter they were not so lucky.

"CATCH!!" shouted a screeching, vox-amplified voice before a Nob came flailing through the air into the line of Scavurel. Three of them - along with two Orks - were knocked over like bowling pins when the larger alien crashed into them, and Kaelith's body curved away from the collision like a snake's. Sparking, needle-tipped forks emerged from the Magos' robes and stabbed down into the Nob, electrocuting him savagely while Kaelith's laser welders seared the lesser greenskins.

"Aw, c'mon guys! You didn't even TRY to catch him!" Tellis complained before he landed on a Shoota Boy's back, shattering the alien's spine. Rainbow Dash dove in next to him, firing her impulse blasters just before she could crash into another Nob. The warrior went flying as Rainbow came to a dead stop, with the former slamming painfully into a barricade while the latter laughed at the sight.

"Resignation: We have been rescued by Lord Tellis," Kaelith buzzed as the Chaos Lord cut down another Ork between him and the Mechanicus.

Dest paused in the middle of dismembering a Flashgit. "'Resignation'?"

"Affirmative. That is the correct conversational context," the Dark Magos assured him between ion blasts.

The driver shrugged and then snapped his head to the side, barely avoiding a point-blank burst from the Flashgit's gun. He finished twisting the warrior's arm and then tore it from the Ork's shoulder, prompting a burst of hot red blood before he threw the limb aside.

Any chance we can take five and chow on one of these corpses, brosef? Souls are great and all, but they're just empty calories, you know?

Dest continued to ignore Vel and continued to fight, throwing his latest victim at another Shoota Boy.

The Ork managed to dodge out of the way of his fallen ally, but ended up taking a lasburst from one of the Scavurel and staggered. Dest lunged.

He wasn't quite fast enough, however.

"You know what I hate about fighting Orks, Dash?" Tellis asked as he drove his claws into the Shoota Boy's chest.

"What's that, Tellis?" Rainbow asked while hovering over him.

"ABSOLUTELY NOTHING," he crowed, turning around and cracking the back of his gauntlet against a Nob's cheek. The Ork staggered and tried to swing his big choppa around to counter, but Rainbow Dash flew a quick circuit around the warrior's head, giving him a kick in the face as she passed. This mostly served to annoy the warrior, and to distract him for a crucial moment before twin lightning claws plunged into his back.

"Blood for the Blood God, baby!" Tellis laughed as he flung the corpse aside and then whirled on Dest.

For a moment the driver actually thought the Chaos Lord might attack him, and he quickly backed up while his servo talons shielded his face.

"......" Instead, Tellis froze and stared at the other Chaos Marine. "Do I know you? I feel like we met before."

"Sort of. You... kicked me once, Lord," Dest grumbled, thinking back to their encounter in Ponyville.

"Oh, gee, thanks. That really narrows it down," Tellis quipped.

A deafening roar came from the side, and the Iron Warriors glanced over to where the fight was still in full swing. Luna was hovering before the Warboss that had initially been flung out of the temple, black lightning arcing from her horn and striking a wall of smaller Orks that were surrounding her and pelting her with bullets.

Tellis turned back to Dest and the Dark Mechanicus warriors. "Hey, nerds! Wanna see something cool?"

"Negative," bleated Kaelith.

"Please don't," begged a Scavurel Core.

"I don't think now is the time, Lord," Dest said cautiously.

"... Ugh. You guys suck," Tellis murmured, turning away, "this is why I hang out with ponies." He looked up at Rainbow Dash and held out his right arm. "You ready for this, chica?"

The pegasus landed on his arm, and the wings of her flight pack shifted back to narrow her profile as her greaves mag-locked into place.

"Let's rock," Rainbow Dash announced.

Luna, meanwhile, was struggling somewhat with the objective that she had chosen. In her attempt to meet the strongest enemy and engage him in single combat, she had rather neglected the many, many lesser Orks in-between them that didn't seem to respect the dramatic necessity of a heroic duel. It was a bit of a problem. The Warboss was covering underneath the wing of the Landa, preventing her from simply swooping down on top of him or easily dispatching him at range.

A rokkit twisted upward past her, missing the Night Princess only thanks to a slight nudge of telekinesis. Luna quickly picked out the Tankbusta that had fired it, and the Iron Gage curved overhead in a high arc before slamming into the alien with devastating force. The Tankbusta was pulverized under the crackling gauntlets, and the nearest Orks were thrown back by the shock wave.

All the while, bullets pounded and scraped over Luna's armor from all directions, frustrating her concentration and maneuvering. Under normal circumstances she would have just teleported to her target, but Twilight had already warned her about the mana surges and their tendency to foil their spells. Luna wasn't about to risk an inaccurate teleport with so many enemies about.

"Begone, minions!" Luna demanded as she blasted a barricade with a fireball. "We demand thy master face us in mortal combat!" Black flame washed over the twisted metal and licked at the green flesh of her enemies, but as five warriors fell another ten were running to replace them.

"Ya wanna pees o'me, hoss? C'mere an' git me!" the Warboss laughed. He aimed his twin-linked big shoota at the hovering alicorn and added his own considerable spray of ammunition to the wild crossfire. It still missed Luna by several feet, but it did add to the constant roar of gunfire all around them, which was really its own reward anyway.

"COWARD!!" Luna bellowed in the Royal Canterlot voice, mainly to be heard over the machine gun fire. "WE SHALT DESTROY ALL THY LEGIONS, IF THAT IS WHAT-"

"I DUB THIS TECHNIQUE..." a shout from behind the Warboss interrupted Luna's bellowing, somehow managing to be twice as obnoxious and yet only half as loud. "ATOMIC RAINBOMB!!"

"Say wot?" the Warboss mumbled as he looked behind him.

Tellis rose high above the firefight, trailing a long column of smoke before he reared one arm back.

Rainbow Dash, who was mag-locked onto that arm, hit her main thrusters just after he hurled her forward, launching like a spear propelled by a rocket. The mega-armored Warboss filled her visor as she made the precise, split-second adjustments to her course and fed maximum power to the kinetic refraction field, curving under the wing of the Landa and rocketing straight toward the Ork's chest.

"... Wot?" the Warboss repeated some 0.02 seconds before impact.

The armored pony hit her target, and then - true to the technique's name - Rainbow Dash, the Warboss, and some eighty or so Ork warriors all vanished under a huge mushroom cloud of prismatic smoke amongst a deafening detonation. Two Killa Kans that had been acting as close support for the boss were flung aside from the explosion and sent bouncing across the avenue. Luna, who had also been far too close, screamed when she was hurled along with them, eventually crashing through a barricade and skidding to a halt. The Ork bodies that weren't pulverized outright were thrown much further, and all surrounding combat ceased while the temple square was literally showered with Orks.

"...... What the HELL," Tellis mumbled, still hovering in the air above the blast zone, "how did that even happen?"

The Raptor dodged out of the way of a Nob that was plummeting toward him. The Ork continued flailing toward the ground, trailing red, yellow, and blue smoke behind him.

"I mean... it totally fits with the name I made up, but seriously, that made NO sense."

A proximity vox connected to the Chaos Lord, coming from Gaela.

"The enemy's main force has been broken. Scavurel teams, search and destroy directives engaged. Finish off the wounded and secure the area."

"Hey, uh..." Tellis sounded slightly nervous as he spoke to the Dark Techpriest. "Do you know what just happened?"

"Rainbow Dash exploded, my Lord," she said blithely, "and she did so to our benefit."

"Okay, yeah, but HOW?" Tellis countered.

"The Warp did it."

"That's ridiculous!" the Iron Warrior complained.

"Less ridiculous than you constantly using the equines as improvised weapons, Lord."

"Dammit! You're right!" Tellis cursed.

Gaela fired her ion blaster into a groaning Ork while she walked toward the explosion epicenter, which was still hidden under a column of prismatic smoke. Twilight walked on one side of her, swiveling her head back and forth and scanning the aftermath of the explosion.

Gaela fired her servo laser to finish another greenskin, and then spared a glance at Twilight.

"You're taking this rather well," the cyborg noted, "I expected you to be more hysterical at the prospect of Dash expiring."

"Well, I doubt she did," Twilight remarked. Her force harmonizer hummed loudly as it shifted to blade mode, and she floated it over a Flashgit that was shifting on the ground. "This sort of thing happens more often than you'd think." She dropped the blade into the Ork, finishing it off before she walked by.

"I'm not getting any readings on her suit signum," Gaela mumbled as she stopped at the edge of the billowing cloud of colored smoke, "but that could be because her armor suffered critical damage, or perhaps the explosion generated some sort of radiation that interferes with my visor."

Twilight halted next to the Dark Techpriest, peering into the wall of swirling dust in front of them. "What kind of radiation could Rainbow Dash create by crashing, do you think?"

"I'd rather not start hypothesizing as to how any of these absurdities are possible," Gaela grumbled, "let us investigate Dash's fate and then-"

Gaela quickly and unexpectedly found Rainbow Dash's body when it was hurled through the cloud directly into her face, smashing her clean off her feet.

"Gaela!" Twilight yelped in surprise. She immediately cast her barrier spell, aiming to protect them from further attack.

Then her horn flashed dangerously as a cloud of thrumming purple energy appeared and started swirling around her like a cyclone, wrapping the alicorn Princess in an excessive amount of magical power. "Gah! Bucking mana surges!"

Twilight couldn't see past the wall of dark purple, but if she could she would have seen a massive armored shape staggering out of the dust. The Ork Warboss had a huge gouge in the middle his mega armor, one of his legs was clearly dragging as he walked, and bloody drool seeped from between his teeth.

"I'm... gonna... kill... all o'ya..." the massive Ork insisted between painful, heaving breaths. He lifted his big shoota and fired.

Gaela winced as the Warboss's gun immediately jumped up from the recoil and started spraying bullets into the air, as the Ork apparently lacked the strength or sense at the moment to keep it steady.

Pushing Rainbow Dash off of her, she briefly paused to look over the pegasus. Rainbow's power armor was a shambles, with numerous breaches and one visor lens cracked through, but the damage seemed curiously consistent across the surface of the suit plating. Logically, the idiot pegasus should have destroyed her helmet (and her face) when using it as the point of impact; seeing as there was nothing logical about the past few minutes, though, the Dark Techpriest decided not to dwell on it.

"Gaela! Is Rainbow Dash okay?" Twilight yelled while she tried to dispel the barrier she had trapped herself in. A wild spray of bullets from the Warboss cut across it and were handily deflected, which at the very least demonstrated that the spell was doing its basic job.

Gaela shook Rainbow's shoulder, and was rewarded with a groan.

"She's fine!" Gaela shouted before she climbed to her feet.

"My... entire world... is PAIN..." Rainbow whimpered.

"Quickly! Get her back to Fluttershy!" Twilight yelled. "I'll take care of the Warboss!"

Gaela frowned, but reluctantly acknowledged Twilight's orders. "Affirmative. Falling back," she said as she took up Rainbow Dash in one arm.

"Youz ain't goin' noweahz!" the Warboss snarled. His big shoota finally stopped firing as he lurched forward on his good leg, his power klaw snapping and reaching for the Techpriest.

Then an Iron Warrior leapt onto his back, which no one really saw coming.

"Move, Techpriest!" Dest shouted as he climbed up the massive Ork's armor, reaching for its head.

"HRAAAUGH!! Git offa me!" the Warboss roared as Gaela retreated from the scene.

One of the servo talons scythed down for his head, but as the Ork spun and thrashed, it missed and scraped against an armor plate.

"I sed... GIT OFF!!" The Warboss suddenly leapt backward, smashing Dest against a wrecked Mega Dread. The driver grunted painfully, and finally let his claws slip free of the Ork's armor.

"Finally!" Twilight mumbled as her magic barrier dissipated. She immediately leapt for the Warboss, her harmonizer stabbing for the breach in his armor.

The Warboss smacked the blade away with his power klaw, and the two weapons quaked violently as their respective power fields clashed. Twilight herself was still out of swiping range, though, so the Ork started backing away.

"Youz gitz won' beet me!" the Warboss promised, staggering backward and reloading his big shoota. Dest was now standing up again, his talons twitching as he searched for the best spot to lay a killing blow.

"You're outnumbered and surrounded!" Twilight snapped. "I don't know if Orks surrender, but now would be a good time to start!"

"Pfah!" the Warboss scoffed, spitting out a wad of blood. "Ya ain't got me 'soorownded'! An' I'm gonna-"

Tink, tink, tink, went the sound of something metal tapping against the Ork's rear plating.

He paused, then shifted his pose to glance behind him.

"We believe thou owes us a duel," Luna said unhappily, the Iron Gage hovering over the Ork's head. The alicorn's armor was dusted over with colorful smoke, and the casing around her horn positively seethed with blazing red power.

"Uh..." was about as far as the Ork got before the black gauntlets descended, seizing him around the head. Lightning crackled around them as Luna snorted, and they started filling with dangerous levels of magic.

"Should have surrendered," Twilight mumbled before she turned her head away.

Twilight didn't stay to watch the Warboss's death, instead heading back to the others. Fluttershy and Gaela were hunched over Rainbow Dash, with the former jabbing needles into the groaning pegasus while the latter pried open Dash's helmet. Tellis stood behind them, arms crossed over his chest.

"I still don't get it. How did you explode? It was kind of cool. I never explode when I crash. Am I doing it wrong?" Tellis asked.

Rainbow Dash hissed as Fluttershy withdrew her narthecium injector, feeling her body start to numb over. "Never... doing that... again," she groaned.

Gaela finished prying off the last of Rainbow's mashed head piece, and she suppressed a groan herself as she saw how much of the armor needed to be repaired.

"We don't have much time," the Dark Techpriest declared as she stood up.

Glancing over to Twilight, she saw an Iron Warrior following behind her, moving to join them.

"Lord Dest," Gaela said with a brief bow of her head, "you've... been modified somewhat since we last met."

"It's been a hard month for everybody," the driver mumbled.

"DESTY!!" the booming, pointlessly excited voice caused several ponies to jump out of the way in surprise as a bright pink Dreadnought ran up to Dest. His first instinct - amplified by Vel's - was to flee the lumbering walker as it reached down for him, but instead he let himself be scooped up in a surprisingly gentle, one-armed hug.

"I'm so happy you're okay!" Pinkie said as tears of joy somehow seeped from the large red eye lenses of her Dreadnought helm. "They took you away after you were attacked at the portal even though you didn't go crazy and I helped stop you from hurting anyone but I didn't know they were going to lock you up and give you extra arms although they look kind of cool you might not have wanted them and-"

Whoa! Whoa. Personal space, babe. Bro, could you tell the Drama Dread to back off? Vel growled within Dest's mind.

Between her inane babbling and yours, I find the equine's quite agreeable, Dest replied.

"-Gaela said she could turn off our armor and we were all 'WHUUUH?' but then Shmithy told us to go save Canterlot anyway so it was all good, even though she threatened to blow me up which was TOTALLY unnecessary and probably against Company policy since Dreadnought shells are important and-"

Pinkie was cut off as a power axe reached over one arm to smack against her helmet.

"Pie, quiet," Gaela grunted, lowering her weapon, "we don't have time for your games."

"Yeah, not to rush you guys or anything," Spike added, waving a new scroll in the air, "but I got another message from Canterlot. The gist of it is: Please help soon they're going to kill us all."

Pinkie reluctantly loosened her hold on Dest, and the Iron Warrior dropped down to face Gaela again. "I believe Pie said something about saving Canterlot? Why are you here?"

"We require transport, Lord," Gaela explained.

"And you came to me? I'm flattered," Dest chuckled, "but it's a long way by Rhino."

"Not Rhino, Lord Dest," Gaela assured him, "may I presume that you've been given basic instruction in piloting Stormraven gunships?"

Dest hesitated. "Technically, yes. I've been instructed in the piloting of all Astartes vehicles."

"'Technically' will do, Lord," the Dark Techpriest beckoned to the manufactorum, "the gunship is that way."

"What about Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked as she looked up from the other pegasus. "I've stopped the internal bleeding and applied a painkiller, but she's in no shape to fight!"

"Hey, I can still help!" Rainbow complained as she staggered to her hooves. "See? No problem!"

"Dash, you couldn't even STAND if it weren't for the armor holding you up," Twilight pointed out.

"But it IS holding me up, so you're not leaving me behind!" she insisted.

Twilight shook her head. "Dash, you've helped enough. We're going on to Canterlot, but as team commander I'm telling you that you're staying-"

"Overruled," Tellis interrupted. He stepped over to the pegasi and grabbed Rainbow Dash, lifting her up and holding her over one arm.

"Ha!" the pegasus shouted triumphantly, pointing her still-sparking foreleg at Twilight. "Tellis is the highest-ranking guy here! I'm totally going!"

"Tellis! Friends don't let friends push themselves beyond their limits!" Twilight chided. "In the state she's in, she could easily get herself killed!"

Fluttershy nodded quickly. "She's right. A true friend would stop her from hurting herself further. Or, um, at least not directly oppose her other friends that are trying to do that."

Tellis hesitated, and Rainbow glanced up at him in concern.

"... As I understand it, a big part of friendship is also being supportive when your friend does something obviously boneheaded," the Chaos Lord said, "and let's be honest, that's defined my friendship with Dash more than anything else."

Rainbow Dash sniffled while her legs hung limply over the Raptor's arm. "I love you, man!"

"Oh, for the love of-" Twilight growled incoherently before she locked the force harmonizer into place over her back. "All right, fine! Dash, just stay back and don't take any stupid risks! We don't have time to argue about this anymore!"

"Indeed, we hath wasted enough time," Luna agreed, joining the others. Her gauntlets had a layer of blue fire washing over them, and the sizzling noise implied that Luna was burning something off of the weapons to clean them. Twilight tried not to think about what. "Let us depart for Canterlot with all haste!"

"Right!" the other ponies agreed.

"Okay. Cool. So..." Tellis trailed off as he shifted Rainbow over his arm, tilting his head to the side. "Why are we going to Canterlot, again?"

"GAAAAH!!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11

Manufactorum block Alpha

"-and apparently SERITH is in Canterlot for some reason, even though the vox network can't locate him, and so we also need to save HIM and bring him back too!"

Twilight was feeling slightly short of breath as she explained the entire sequence of events that Tellis had completely missed. They were all racing through the avenues toward the manufactorum complex, with Tellis still carrying Rainbow Dash.

"And why does Boss Nerd care if his henchnerd bites it?" Tellis asked. He sounded profoundly bored, although he at least hadn't started complaining about their new task.

"I don't know, but Solon must have a plan if it's so important to extract him," Twilight said grimly. Honestly, she'd rather leave Tellis behind, but she was sure that Rainbow Dash would object if she tried to convince the Chaos Raptor to stay in the fortress. She didn't have time for that argument now, and anyway there was a decent chance that Tellis would be more useful than harmful when they reached Canterlot.

Gaela sprinted ahead of the others as they reached the blast doors, and quickly unlocked an access panel. "A moment. The base is on emergency lockdown and this is a high-security area, so I will need to override the prioritus node."

Rarity glanced upward, noting that the sky was no longer a furious criss-cross of gunfire pounding away overhead. There were still cannons firing, but the majority of the noise was now concentrated at the fortress palisade rather than spread over the entire base.

"The assault seems to have slackened quite a bit, hasn't it? Did the Orks give up on Ferrous Dominus?" the unicorn asked.

"They didn't quit, they died," Gaela answered as her augmetic arm locked into place into the console and her bionic eye flickered. "The fleet has restored power and is now combat-functional. The Orks will now have a substantially harder time getting assault craft through our orbital formation. The bulk of their assault teams have either been blasted from the sky or landed outside the fortress, where they are a limited threat."

"And our losses?" Dest asked.

Gaela didn't answer right away, and finished unlocking the doors. The heavy barrier started to grind open as she removed her hand from the console.

"Three, so far. Daedalius Arn has fallen. Triumph of Baal has been silenced, but has sustained orbit. Starblight suffered a critical reactor failure... it is gone."

"The escort carrier," Dest growled, "blast!"

"Day-um," Tellis whistled, "greenskins are kicking our ASS up there! That's kind of embarrassing."

Twilight's shoulders slumped as she considered this news, but she resisted the urge to apologize. This wasn't her or Equestria's fault, and she'd rather not leave that impression out in the open. Not when there was still so much more to do.

"Quickly," Gaela gestured to those behind her as she entered the manufactorum.

The Iron Warriors and ponies followed the Dark Techpriest deeper into the facility, and before long she led them to a series of production hangars. These were not locked with the same level of security as the main manufactorum access, and she opened the hallway entrance with a brief validation of her noosphere ID.

"Finally! You guys are here!" shouted a happy, obviously female voice as the doors shifted. It wasn't alone, either.

"Oh! They brought some Iron Warriors, too! Bully!"

"Is that Princess Luna? We have Princess Luna with us? Sweet!"

Every one of the ponies and sapiens in the hall looked confused as they beheld a trio of power-armored ponies with dubious, Nurgle-related marks on their shoulder pads.

"Miss Poison?" Twilight asked. "What is your team doing here?"

Poison Kiss's helmet was off, which allowed everyone to see her eyebrow twitch in annoyance. "Please call me KISS, Princess Sparkle. As for what we're doing here, I imagine it's the same as you." The unicorn cultist raised a hoof above her forehead in salute, shifting slightly so that she faced Luna. "Phage Squadron reporting for duty, your Highness. We are to assist with the mission in Canterlot."

"Warsmith Solon called us up and told us to keep a Stormraven secure for you guys, just in case Orks broke into the place and started looting it," Breezy Blight explained, pointing behind her.

The vehicle was resting behind them, moored to the floor with construction clamps. The Stormraven was obviously newly built, such that it didn't have any gold trim or black detailing over its gunmetal frame. Its weapons hadn't even been fully armed yet; its missile racks were bare, its melta guns were lacking in ammunition canisters, and the lascannons didn't have capacitors installed. The vehicle was little more than a heavily armored aerial taxi, at this point.

"Aye, very well," Luna nodded as she rapped the knuckles of the Iron Gage against the Stormraven's entry ramp, "thy aid is most appreciated, but we must depart posthaste!"

Gaela opened the access ramp with her servo arm, and then gestured toward a heavy magnetic clamp at the back.

"Pie, move there. I will secure your walker for transit. Everyone else, inside!"

"So, Mister Dest," Rarity began as the possessed Iron Warrior stepped in ahead of the equines, "what exactly did you mean when you said you 'technically' know how to fly one of these?"

"It means that I've read the instruction manual and engaged in some basic simulations," Dest explained as he opened the door to the cockpit, "pilots specialize in a certain vehicle type, but we train to drive different ones in case of an emergency... such as this exact case."

Rarity nodded her helmet slowly as she sat down on a passenger bench. "Good. So you know what you're doing."

Dest didn't reply immediately as he stared into the cockpit, his visor locked onto the control board. "... I don't remember there being so many buttons."

I call shotgun! said Vel.

We can't sit in different seats, idiot.

While he stared at the controls, Spike waddled in between his legs and then hopped into the co-pilot's seat.

Hey! Not cool! I called shotgun! Even if I can't actually sit down!

Shut UP, Dest demanded as he took the pilot's seat. The gunship's systems took a moment to scan his signum ID and verify that he was an Iron Warrior, and then the control panels lit up and became active.

"I don't suppose you actually know anything about this machine," Dest mumbled to the diminutive dragon.

Spike gave him a look. "What, like, flying it? No way. Gaela just wanted me to handle the winch and ramp controls to load everyone up." He held down a switch, and the heavy whir of an unwinding cable spool came from the gunship's rear. After a few seconds, an indicator light flashed, and Spike flipped a different switch.

Dest watched silently as the dragon worked. He didn't want to say anything, but even familiarity with the passenger access controls was more than he had to work with; the Iron Warrior was literally relying on his visor display to inform him of which toggle did what.

Spike flipped another switch, and then the cockpit door sealed shut.

"All right, I think we're ready," Spike said as he leaned back in his seat.

A moment later, the ceiling started to slide open and the hangar floor lifted upward.

"All emergency overrides are in place. We are cleared for departure," came Gaela's voice from the vox, "I will be unable to provide further assistance for much of the trip, as I have to repair Dash's flight pack."

"Understood. Plotting a course for the capital," Dest mumbled as he hesitantly began making adjustments.

"Actually, we have a stop on the way," Twilight replied, "we'll land at Sweet Apple Acres to pick up Applejack and work out our exact strategy for defending Canterlot."

"I vote for throwing more ponies at the Orks," Tellis interjected, "lemme try the big blue one! I'll bet we'll get some sort of black hole effect or something!"

"Thou shalt not lay a single metal finger upon us! We art-"

Dest cut the cabin vox and went back to figuring out the controls.

"The orchard, then. Fine," he grunted as the engines started up, "lifting off."

Spike bounced in his seat as the gunship lurched up and then stopped suddenly in a hover. The vehicle shook unsteadily in mid-air, trying awkwardly to line itself up for the opening in the roof.

"Should I be praying?" Spike asked as he grimaced.

"A Mechanicus litany may assist us, yes," Dest said approvingly while he tried to maneuver the gunship slowly upward.

"I meant, like, normal praying," Spike clarified, "for you not to splatter us all over the wall."

Dest growled when the tip of one wing scraped across a hanging servo arm, sending a metallic screeching through the assembly hangar. "Vel was right. You ARE a little smartass." The gunship lurched upward again, finally moving above the roof and into the open air above the manufactorum.

The motion unsettled Spike again, and it took several seconds for the dragon to collect his thoughts after he stopped bouncing.

"Wait, Vel? Do I even know a..." his words trailed off, and then his eyes bugged out of his head.

"He says hi, by the way," the Iron Warrior muttered as the gunship blasted forward, cutting through the tainted skies of Ferrous Dominus.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - orchard periphery

The flight to Sweet Apple Acres was, if not smooth and steady, at least uneventful. The Orks laying siege to Ferrous Dominus hadn't seen fit to bother a single transport fleeing the fortress, and the aliens' combat aircraft were all busy either fighting in orbit or burning in the streets. Dest had found no opposition during their course, which was quite fortunate seeing as the gunship's weapons weren't loaded and he had zero experience dogfighting.

Which wasn't to say that there wasn't plenty of turmoil happening, but it was all within the passenger bay and mercifully non-violent.

"Look, I don't know what your guys' problem is. Literally EVERY TIME I use a pony as a weapon, it works! It's like you don't even WANT to win!" Tellis griped.

"We art quite capable of laying waste to the foe without being propelled by thee," Luna sniffed, pointing a heavy black leg over at Rainbow Dash, "and We hast endured damage enough without resorting to such self-destructive tactics."

"It's not THAT bad," Rainbow Dash said, "although I can't blame you for wanting to kill greenies the old-fashioned way." She paused. "Or, wait, the modern way? I dunno, whatever shooting them in the face counts as."

Gaela was standing over the reckless pegasus, her servo tools crackling as they repaired the sensitive fiber-bundles and fuel lines in Rainbow's flight pack. The Dark Techpriest didn't have much to say on the topic of pony projectiles herself, so she stayed quiet.

"There!" Twilight finished writing a letter that was levitating in the air in front of her, and then rolled it up with her magic. "This should update the Princess on our status and let her know we're on our way."

"Are we sure she's even still alive?" Tellis asked, leaning back on his seat. "We're not going to get to this place like an hour after the fighting is over and the Orks have already smashed the city, are we?"

Before Twilight could give a retort based on desperate hope and unwarranted optimism, Gaela replied first.

"The sovereign is alive," the Dark Techpriest said as she applied a patch seal to Rainbow's leg armor, "the moment she expires, I will know."

Several of the ponies blinked in confusion.

"Wherefore would thou know of Sister's demise?" Luna asked, tilting her head to the side.

"I will be informed immediately through the noosphere if the planet halts its solar orbit again," Gaela explained. Then she paused in her work. "Your solar system is ridiculous."

"Yes, fine, we know," Rainbow grumbled.

"Hey! Can any of you guys see what's out here?" shouted a voice from behind the passenger bay.

Twilight turned toward the access ramp, frowning. "Pinkie? What's wrong?" Pinkie Pie was still in her Dreadnought shell, and as a result she was hanging from the rear of the Stormraven along with the assault walker. Twilight had no idea WHY she chose to be transported like that, since Pinkie could jump in and out of the Dreadnought like it was a conventional vehicle, but that was hardly important.

"Okay, so, you know how Jackie was complaining about Orks on her property?" Pinkie shouted over the rumble of the gunship engines. "Was she talking about, like, entire mobs of Orks, with support vehicles and everything?"

Twilight's eyes widened. "WHAT?!"

"Also, I'm preeeeetty sure there was only ONE giant transport ship that crashed on her farm before, right? She would have complained if there had been a second one!"

Twilight didn't bother replying, instead jumping for the cockpit door and slamming a boot against it. "Spike! Dest! Let me in! Quick!"

The door unlocked, and the purple alicorn wasted no time in entering and peering down at the farm. Her jaw went slack. "By Celestia! It's like a battlefield down there! There are corpses everywhere!"

Dest nodded. "Yes. As usual."

"That isn't usual at all!" Twilight protested.

"The vast majority of my time on this agri-facility was spent hauling wreckage and dead bodies," the pilot explained while he started to slow the gunship, "if this land has ever seen a period of relative peace, then I have no knowledge of it."

Twilight decided to drop the matter, and quickly levitated her letter into Spike's claws. "Spike! Here! Send this to the Princess! We need to land and make sure Applejack is all right!"

"Very well," Dest grunted, "return to the passenger bay and secure yourself for landing."

Twilight waited long enough to watch Spike engulf her letter in magical flame, and then quickly retreated back to her seat before the door locked behind her.

"So, how bad is it?" Fluttershy asked nervously, her armor already flickering.

"It's hard to tell, but I didn't see any gunfire or explosions, at least," Twilight mumbled. She had to pause as the Stormraven swung its nose upward, almost throwing her off of her bench.

"I saw plenty of smoke, though, and a lot of green corpses. We should be ready to fight our way to the farmstead," the purple pony said grimly.

"Acknowledged," Poison Kiss growled as her boltgun lifted up above her, "in the name of Chaos, we will purge this land of the xeno!"

"Don't worry, Mac! I'm sure we'll be able to save Applejack!" Rainbow Dash said as she finally pushed away from Gaela.

Mac's only reply was an angry snort.

Then the gunship vox system came to life again. "Everyone! Brace for impact!" Dest shouted. "We're going down!"

The ponies yelped and mag-locked to their benches or the floor, cringing as the entire gunship started to lose altitude.

Gaela frowned. "My Lord, we haven't been hit by anything. Why would we crash?"

"Because I forgot how to land one of these things," Dest admitted, "hold on to something."

As Gaela groaned and attached her servo arm to an overhead rail, Tellis chuckled.

"You know, I'm starting to like that guy."

The crash landing was, all things considered, quite gentle. Dest managed to slow down the Stormraven so that it merely dug a furrow in the dirt as it struck the ground, and didn't flip end-over-end or smash its cockpit open before it came to a complete stop.

The gunship DID end up dropping Pinkie Pie's Dreadnought and send her rolling into an apple tree, but even Pinkie's best friends often found it hard to take her safety seriously.

After several seconds, the access ramp dropped open, and the passengers staggered out.

"Well, that was no big deal. I've had WAY worse crashes than that," Rainbow Dash said.

"Really?" Breezy Blight asked. "Like, in terms of personal damage or property damage?"

"Yes."

"Enough banter!" Luna commanded as she vaulted from the transport, Twilight hot on her hooves. "Come to us, xenos! We bring to thee the... uh... the peace... of..."

The Princess of the Night trailed off as she looked left and right over the Acres, searching for any hint of resistance.

She wasn't finding any. The ground was littered with the bodies of dozens of Orks and Gretchin, and even the smoldering wreckage of a pair of Guntrukks. Flames burned over several patches of ground, and multiple columns of dark smoke stretched the clouds above.

But there were no live Orks about that any of the ponies could see.

"Huh. Doesn't look as bad from down here, actually," Pinkie Pie remarked as her Dreadnought pushed itself upright again.

"Hey! You guys okay?" came a shout from the side.

Big Mac was the first to recognize the voice, and he turned to greet Daniels as the mercenary approached the gunship.

"Eeyup."

Several other humans and ponies armed with lasguns followed behind Daniels more hesitantly. There were a few more poking their heads and rifles out of firing slits on the bunker complex that the Apple family called home. It was obvious that they were prepared for a defensive, although at the moment there was no sign of impending combat.

"Did you guys do this?" Twilight asked, gesturing to the alien corpses.

"Some of it, yeah. Crabapple helped a lot, as did the laser turrets," Daniels said.

Braeburn chuckled. "Mostly it was cousin AJ, though. Gal's feelin' a mite ornery."

"Applejack! Where is she?" Rainbow Dash demanded. She launched herself up into a hover, mostly to check that her flight pack was working again, and then scanned the orchards. "We don't have much time!"

"She's over there," Daniels pointed across the scene of devastation toward the wrecked Landa some distance away. Crabapple was stalking around the vessel, its claws snapping at loose bulkheads and tearing them off.

"Wait, she's IN the ship? She was captured?" Rarity gasped.

"Yes, and then no," Daniels replied.

"Then why would she be in there alone?"

The mercenary shrugged. "Well, after the first few waves of Ork survivors got gunned down, the rest ran back inside."

"And she actually ran in after them?" asked Poison Kiss, raising an eyebrow.

"Cuz is REALLY upset about losing another orchard," Braeburn said solemnly.

Twilight shook her head. "All right, let's do this. Phage Squadron, you go around the right side, where Crabapple is. Luna, Rainbow, you two take up position above the vessel while the rest of us lure-"

An explosion tore through the bow of the Landa, cutting off Twilight's instructions as flaming armor plates and screaming Gretchin were blasted out into the scorched orchard.

"We have to hurry! There's no telling what's in there!" Twilight said.

Breezy frowned as she glimpsed something walk out of the Ork transport amongst the flames, and she magnified her visor display. "Wait, is that...?"

"AJ?" Big Macintosh mumbled, his head jerking up.

Applejack's heavily armored form lumbered through the storm of fire and twisted metal that surrounded her, stepping onto the gouged-out cockpit of the army transport. Her armor suit was splattered with blood, blackened by fire, and nicked by dozens of utterly futile attempts to stop her.

Her hat, naturally, was unblemished.

Nearby, a large green figure staggered upright, pushing a bulkhead plate off of him.

Applejack was on the Nob in an instant, cutting under one leg with her helmet tusk and throwing him into the air.

"MAH NAME IS APPLEJACK!!" the farmer roared.

She reared up and struck the airborne Nob with a foreleg, breaking the warrior's torso and throwing him back into the flames.

"PROPRIETOR OF SWEET APPLE ACRES AND SCOURGE OF THE ALIEN!!" A squig leapt out of nowhere, snapping its massive jaws hungrily as it aimed to take a bite out of the pony's rear.

Applejack hammered a back leg into the little red monster, caving in most of its teeth and flattening it against a bulkhead.

"Y'ALL HAVE VIOLATED THE SANCTITY OF APPLE LAND!!" she declared as more Orks clawed their way free of the wreckage around her.

Applejack's gravity lash struck a loose metal plate and then flung it toward a Shoota Boy, crushing him against another bulkhead.

"AND NOW AH WILL WATER THESE TREES WITH YER BLOOD!!"

A Nob in mega armor tore himself free of the burning debris around him, his power klaw shredding the cage of metal that stood between him and the armored mare.

Applejack slid in front of him, moving with agility that should have been flat-out impossible in terminator armor. Then she slammed a vicious two-legged buck into the Nob's chest plate that threw him right back into the inferno he had crawled out of.

"YA WANT WAR?! YA WANT FIGHTIN'?! YA WANT DEATH?! HERE!! HAVE SOME!!"

She loosed the heavy flamer into the shattered vessel behind her, washing over the Landa interior with fire. Bulkheads already on the verge of collapse weakened and buckled further, while the greenskins that hadn't managed to escape - or had been kicked back into the flames - were baked alive.

The new arrivals to the farm watched the spectacle silently, either out of shock or awe at the sight of the massacre.

Luna glanced back at Big Mac uncertainly. "Macintosh, perhaps thou should go comfort thy sister and soothe her fury, as thou did with us."

"Eeenope." Mac wasn't getting anywhere near that.

"Okay, looks like she's done," Daniels said as he waved to the lone pony approaching from the wrecked vessel. Crabapple walked after her, keeping a respectful distance.

Applejack approached the farmstead in silence, not especially surprised to see her friends and a few other Company warriors waiting for her next to Daniels and Braeburn.

"Hey, y'all," the apple farmer greeted calmly, "whatcha got?"

Twilight took a few seconds to re-boot her train of thought and remember why they were there. "C-Canterlot! It's being attacked by Orks!"

"Okay," Applejack said simply, not altering her pace at all. She changed her course slightly to head toward the Stormraven gunship. "Brae, you got the farm. Wy, you comin'?"

"Sure," the mercenary agreed as Braeburn saluted. He followed Applejack past the others, who all gave them a wide berth.

All except Tellis, who flashed a thumbs-up as Applejack passed him.

"That was beautiful," the Chaos Lord offered.

The orange mare grunted something unintelligible as she stepped up onto the ramp and entered the gunship.

"Right, then. Step up, lads! Next stop, the capital!" Poison Kiss chirped, bounding toward the transport.

"I just hope we're not too late," Twilight grimaced, "Princess, everyone... just hold on! We're coming!"

Author's Note

Sweet Apple Acres: where the alien goes to die.
Those that aren't being used to make produce, at least.

Another step closer to the exciting conclusion! I FINALLY got the Goddamn horses out of the fortress! Yeesh...