"I still think this is a bad idea."

"Oh come on, what is the worst that could possibly happen?"

"We get turned into souless metal constructs by hungering deiti- Oh wait THAT ALREADY HAPPENED!"

"You give one race of reality warpers physical forms and suddenly no one trusts you with anything. I'm going through with this, do you know how long it took for me to get all these shards?"

"Where did you even get these these shards from?"

"Mars mostly. A few were floating around in the outer rims too"

"I repeat, I think this is a bad idea."

"Once again, what's the worst that could possibly happen?"

Princess Celestia walked down the wide and awe-inspiring Equestrian National Museum located in the great capital of Everfree. The grand structure had been built two centuries ago on the thousand and fiftieth year of the Celestial Era to promote public interest in Equestria's history. Each and every possible space within the building's ivory walls had something to show, panoramas of important events, weapons from lost ages sheltered in glass cases, a copy of the Parliamentary constitution. murals and statues... Of famous heroes.

This never gets easier, she thought as she looked at the statue before her. There immortalised in stone were two Unicorns, two Earth Ponies and two Pegasi grouped together. The plaque at its base was simple:

"In memory of the Elements of Harmony, heroes of the Second Celestial Era."

She let out a sigh and for a brief moment let her face crease into a saddened frown before quickly putting her mask of unflappable benevolence back on. "Come along now everypony, there's still much left to see!" She made her way down the hall a group of twenty foals in tow oohing and ahhing at the many exhibits on display, of that group one filly stopped and looked at a hall branching away from there with many elaborate setups.

To the side of the entrance was a statue of a mare, sitting upon a throne looking down at her, almost through her with a content smile upon her face, to the other side was pony with a similar build, but her look was colder, uncaring as if she would keep you around as long as you were useful then cast you out with the rest of the trash. Inside the hall were a series of paintings, artifacts and dioramas of several battles, cities being built, and images showing the transition of these cities to becoming more industrialised sectors. She drank it all in every detail of each and every display moving from one to the next to see what she could find. Then she stopped at the end of the hall. There on the great wall was a map stretching from the west coast of the Griffon Kingdoms to the Kirin lands in the east, there between them were the borders of hundreds of kingdoms and city states bearing names like New Griffonstone to the west, The Swarmlands to the east, Dome near the centre cutting into a great river, these were all dwarfed by three larger lands each larger than Equestria, bearing the names The Tsaran Theocracy, The Hooviet Union and one nation simply named N.S.S.G. The filly looked down at the frame holding the map and read out the words embossed on its surface.

"The...Petty Imperiums?"

"Say, aren't ya supposed to be with the group?" The filly gasped and spun around trying to run away only to bump into a minotaur. "Now now, no need to get all frightened now, I won't hurt ya. Strange that a filly would be interested in all this though."

The filly turned looked up to face him. "Um..Actually I'm not really sure where I am, what is all this?"

"This." the grey minotaur said with a wave of his hand "Is the eventful and tragically short history of the Grand Imperium, the whole thing was built by Empress Jennifer Tsara back'in the days b’fore the Second Celestial Era during her Great Crusade." The filly looked around the hall and back at the map, amazed that so much had happened only two lifetimes ago.

"Wh-What happened?"

He turned around and pointed to a pair of statues "First Empress went mad, almost lost her daughter to the Changelings and tried to wipe them out, or at least that’s what Equestria says, can’t really blame her, but after she tried ta blow Equestria to kingdom come durin’ the War she hadda be sealed away." He then nodded to the second statue "Her daughter was no better, plunged the whole world into another war near the end of her reign, tried to blow up Equestria too." Despite the rather morose topic at hand he still chuckled "Grandpa Stone Wall always said if she'd had a kid they'da tried to blow up Equestria too. Gramps always thought it was genetic or something." He looked down to see the beginnings of a frown on the filly's face. "Hey now, don't be so glum, the Imperium was a great place before that, the Tsaras were all about progress, ammonia production, assembly lines, power stations, most of the tech we use was thought up by people in the Imperium." He reached down and hoisted the little filly onto his back. "I'll show you around the halls." he went into a light run showing her every last exhibit he could find on the Imperium before placing her down at the front gates of the museum an hour later.

The filly thanked him for showing her around and promised she'd try to visit again next week, she made her way out the museum then stopped.

"Um, mister..."

"Stone Wall, Stone Wall Junior."

"Mr Wall, are the Tsara's gonna break out like all those other times?"

"Break out?" Stone Wall broke out into a fitful laughter "Empress Jenny's locked up tighter than um...Tighter than a... Shoot don't think I got's any isms for something like this, gotta make sure to fix that. Anyways, she couldn't break herself out even if she tried, someone would have to break her out and really, who in the right mind would break out a Tsara?"

"Vessel?"

"Check."

"Summoning structure?"

"In place sir."

"Throne?"

"Green across the board."

"Shards?"

"Gonna have to wait till those agents can get their hooves on them."

"Very well then. Gentlecolts, let’s summon us a Tsara!"

Before the grey ageing stallion was what to some outside their land would be a familiar sight, a throne standing at ten feet from base to top, the soft hum of arcane technology filled the air as energy flowed through the web of cables, tubes and amplification runes all linked up to the centerpiece of the display. Seated on the throne hands grasping onto the armrests was an black female human shape clad in ornate black steel armor of the highest craftsmanship highlighted with lines of white. Upon each shoulder plate the imperial eagle was present, the knee length greaves and shoulder length gauntlets had upon them human skulls shaped from steel placed on their surface. The twelve foot colossus towered over them all the very materials of its 'flesh' echoing strange cries that flooded the room and itched at the back of the minds of the workers that made their way around the great sanctum.

But despite how much effort had been clearly placed into the creation her head was completely blank, merely a shimmering, seemingly living blank space where hair and a face would be. but these details were unimportant to the group of scientists and engineers that swarmed around the great work of engineering.

"So Dawnstar, are you absolutely sure that this will work?" The stallion turned to face his... Benefactor, a red coated white maned and tailed earth pony of medium build, she wore light steel armor bearing the Imperial Seal of a burning blade pointed downwards marking her as a member of the Tsaran Hunters. The mare turned to face him in no small part insulted by what he had implied.

"Director, do you really think I'd put my life on the line by abandoning my order, sink my life's savings into a mountain base worth enough money to inflate a small Zebrafrican economy and help you build this entire damn organisation if I didn't think this would work?" the stallion gave grumbles of denial and looked back to the work at hand. "Good, now then–" She turned to the technician that the Director had been speaking to "are the pods in place?" the technician nodded "Well then everyone, let's summon a Tsara!"

"I already said that!"

"Who's funding this project?" Another grumbled reply "I thought so."

Dawnstar watched the technicians leave the room as the last steps of the plan began.

"Ma'am aren't you going to head to the bridge with the Director?"

"No, though I think you should." The air crackled and hummed, the room flooding with sickly green light as chaotic energies flowed from the pods and into the golden throne and into the frame seated upon it. After five tense minutes the entire process wound down with a fading screech, for a brief moment she thought that she had failed. She had failed her order, she had failed her nation and she had failed her goddess in this hopeless and obscenely expensive venture.

Then the room filled with screams, they were quiet at first. But then they got louder.

And louder.

And louder.

The air bent and twisted and split tearing a great maw of a hole. Dawnstar's view of what lied beyond was brief but it was enough for her to know what lay there. It was place that was close yet so far away forming and eroding away at itself in places unknown as vile creatures of thought and power tore apart at the legions of others to the sound of eldritch war-horns who’s sound echoed throughout the darkness as the creatures chanted in praise of their eldritch patron. Then from the dark madness something… Bright was seen, it hung suspended from great chains releasing great pained groans as they were pulled and by their captive echoing along with the dark hymns of the creatures that surrounded it.

Then the world seemed to go still, for the chains had broken.

The captive raced across the alien expanse towards her burning through the legions with its blinding light as it raced across the tear into the Materium.

Silence reigned again in the sanctum, only ever briefly broken by the heavy panting of the Hunter's breathing. The sanctum door slid open and guards ran in to see to Dawnstar's well being. The whole group stopped when they heard another, slightly metallic voice.

"Urgh... Stupid biotransference, stupid headaches, stupid Materium..."

Where once there had been a blank space was now white glowing hair and white voids where the eyes should have been on the flat surface, other than these minor details however the face of the summoned being was almost completely blank as it had been before.

"Well Dawnstar," said the Director, "seems your plan worked, we have a Tsara in our base."

"Heh, w-was there any doubt about it?" she replied as she struggled back to her hooves. "Well... *Ahem* I think I should explain things to the Empress, you all just go back to whatever else you have to do." She shooed them all out as quickly as possible then sealed the door. "Is that the last of them?" The silence was the only answer the received. She looked back at her achievement. She was here. She was here, the person who since she was a little girl had revered had returned! "Yesyesyesyesyes!"

"*Ahem*" Dawnstar stopped her honestly adorable little dance at the sound of the Tsara's voice.

"Oh, um... Sorry my liege." She said kneeling before her goddess. "I hope that the body we gave you is too your liking my spir"

"Please, call me Tsara… My subjects called me that."

"Now your gra- I mean Lady Tsara, I'm sure you must have a lot of questions and I've been assigned to fill you in on recent events."

"Chosen?" If Tsara had eyebrows they would have been raised. "Seemed to me like you gave yourself the position."

"You... Saw that?"

"Of course I did because I'm the mother-fucking Empress, I can know these kinds of things."

Dawnstar simply stared in quiet disbelief. "The Divine didn't describe you as being so... Crass."

"And I bet she said that I 'descended to this putrid world from on high upon a bridge of light' too?" Dawnstar tried her absolute best to avoid eye contact, which was difficult to do when the other person lacks pupils. "...Okay then that raises a lot of questions which I will probably be pretty mad about but for now settle down." Dawnstar did as she requested. "Now here's how it really happened. Like many stories involving sealed evils it began with a place called Ponyville... Oh wait I do have one complaint about my body!"

"What is it? I will have it fixed immediately!"

"I'm paralysed." Dawnstar's eyes twitched and spasmed with barely content rage looking for some way out. "That can wait though, anyway where was I? Oh yes it all began in Ponyville..."

Ponyville, Equestria a quaint little town home to only a few thousand ponies at most despite being near the Capital. Source of the world's greatest cider and bordered on one of the single most hostile ecosystems located on the planet as well as getting front row seats to the end of the world as they had known it... Twice. Yes, Ponyville was most definitely Equestria's weirdness magnet seeing monster attacks on an almost weekly basis. But today that was not happening, no monster attacks, no sealed evils returning and no general anarchy being cause by the local librarian.

After all it wasn't even Monday yet.

On a gravel path three little fillies were making their way to discussing what they might learn today but more importantly what hair-brained scheme they would cook up this time in their quest to find their talents.

"Cutie Mark Crusader Space Explorers?" Scootaloo suggested. Sweetie Belle ever the voice of reason reminded her that they weren't allowed near explosives or anything flammable ever since the Hearth's Warming Incident.

"'Kay then, how 'bout Cutie Mark Crusader Prospectors?"

"But how where are we supposed to find gold anyway?" Sweetie Belle replied.

"Well then what d'ya recommend then? Or are you just gonna keep–"

BOOM!

A wave of air and dust pushed them to the ground as... Something fell into the Everfree Forest, the tell tale signs of the beginnings of a small and likely to be short-lived forest fire were there for all to see.

Applebloom pulled herself to her hooves, wondering what could have possibly caused that blast. She quickly concluded it was most likely a meteor or something. Then she remembered something she'd learn't while reading. Meteors can contain large amounts of gold. Then she had an idea, a dangerous idea, a dangerous and profitable idea, a dangerous, profitable idea that would affect people two hundred and fifty years from now.

"Girls, you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" The group looked at each other with a conspiratorial gaze.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER SPACE PROSPECTORS YAY!"

Meanwhile in the Everfree something was spurring itself back into the waking world. A cube, barely the size of a fist was embedded in the centre of submerged partly in a black liquid metal that shimmered in the light of the small fires around it and the small arches of green lightning bounding across its surface. There in a secluded part of the ever free someone was hard at work.

"Okay Tsara lets try this again." she muttered to herself as she tried to mold the metal into something resembling a functioning body. This time however it was actually working, the body she'd made was a blank human shape, but other than that lacked any noticeable features. Once it was in a functional state then she get to more important things. Like starting a cult! Welll... Once she could think of what the cult would be for.

"Hi!"

"Ah!" The meager attempt at a body collapsed back into a puddle, before reforming itself into something more recognisable as human.

"Hi, I'm Sweetie Belle and these are my friends, Scootaloo and Applebloom. What's your name?" She didn't reply, her eyes were too focused on the great glowing aura of inhuman and inequine cuteness burning a hole through her blank eyes. So borderline painful was the aura before her that all she could do was stare for two minutes. "Uh.. Hello? Are you okay?" she said waving hoof in the strange creature's face.

Think girl, think! They'll probably run if you say your name is Tsara! They'll think I'm the Outsider or something she thought to herself. I just have to think of a fake name like Twinkleshine or Starseeker, they'll think those are normal.

"My name's Jenny." she said.

What the fuck brain?

"Jenny? That's a funny name." The group giggled softly. "So what are you doing out here? The Everfree's very dangerous!"

'Jenny' crossed her arms over her chest. "Then why are you here?" They tried their best to avoid eye contact.

"Uh... Ya see... Oh no we're gonna be late for school!" Applebloom exclaimed with false horror as she grabbed her friends and ran off. "Bye Jenny, we'll come visit later!"

So I'm on a planet of sentient ponies... At least there aren't any Demonettes she thought with a small shudder going through her spineless form. Once again left alone she turned her focus to the small cube that had arrived with her.

"Now what are you hiding in there little box?"

Endless walls and rooms lined with unknown devices all with the same sickly green colour associated with the Necron Dynasties. Lining these walls was technology beyond what any other one race had ever developed for it did not depend upon the energies of the Empyrean in any measure.

Jenny looked at the great expanses of the vast pocket dimension the Necrons had built and only one thought entered her mind:

"Technology! Technology everywhere! Also this would make a nice house, but all this technology!" She let out a childish squee of excitement, checking everything she could find and seeing what it did, a task made much easier as everything had been labeled. She ran from one part of the Tesseract to another memorising the locations of as many interesting devices as she could, after all you never know when you might need to phase through solid objects or throw around the power of a dying sun at something. Then watch as they bow before you!\ No that didn't sound right... Possibly. With only her thoughts as company she realised something.

It was very quiet, not just in the sense that there was no sound in what she had claimed as her new home, that was a given. What was odd was how she didn't feel... Anything in the Warp, Empyrean, Immaterium whatever you wished to call it, all that she knew was that it was quiet almost... Calm.

On that note she began to think more about her situation, why was she here? When she woke up she hadn't seen anyone that could have possibly summoned her, if the fillies (or at least that's what she would call them until told otherwise) were anything to go off of the planet may not even have psykers. Which as an added bonus meant one less thing to worry about for her. Why were there ponies of all things? Had Tzeentch been involved somehow? And why was the warp so calm?

She felt a soft thudding noise in the back of the head like a child tapping the fish tank even when the sign clearly stated not to.

"Jenny! Come on, I know you're in there! I want you to meet Rarity." said Sweetie Belle as she continued to poke the cube.

"Sweetie, you've been doing this for the last two minutes. Are you sure you didn't imagine this... Jenny was it?" Rarity looked at the cube that Sweetie Belle had her to. It was small and showed signs of being well crafted. She took a moment to look at her surroundings. "And how pray tell were you even in the Everfree?"

"Well... Uh... Well we were going to school-" Before she could finish her explanation the cube rose from the ground as the familiar black metal flowed out of it to form a humanoid shape. This one was, in Jenny's opinion, a very good attempt. It still lacked a lot of detail, and legs which in their place was a pillar of liquid metal supporting her smooth frame, the addition she liked the most however were the glowing white eyes she had added onto the surface of her face.

"Sweetie Belle, I would very much appreciate it if you stopped tapping the Tesseract," she folded her arms "its annoying." She then turned to face the frozen white unicorn standing next to Sweetie Belle. "Oh, you must be Rarity, I'm Jennifer, but you can call me Jenny!" She waited for a response, any response other than frozen mortal terror. Great I think I broke her.

"Sweetie Belle?" Rarity squeaked out in a mixture of fear and nonchalant tone. "Could you be a dear and run back to Ponyville and get the girls?" Sweetie attempted to voice her doubts and was met with a louder repeat of her request. With any chance of discussion gone Sweetie Belle ran off back home. Rarity, once assured that Sweetie Belle had left she charged up her horn and getting into a battle-stance, large stones surrounding her also began to glow, the stones rose, the stones spun, and the stones were chucked by Rarity one at a time at the, from her perspective dangerous creature.

"What are yo- WOAH! Can you please stop- AGH! Okay I'm giving you once last chance to- GAK! Enough!" After having had to dodge three more of Rarity's attempts at dispensing high mineral defeat upon her she finally struck back, one sweep of her hand and the first stone was split in half, a wave of her other hand and it crumbled to dust before shattering the third and last stone by clasping it between her hands. With the rocks destroyed Jenny stretched out a limb of metal to enclose Rarity covering everything except her head. She leaned in close enough that they met eye to eye, close enough to hear Rarity's panicked breathing and rapid heartbeats. "Are you quite done?" she asked calmly even as her hair was violently whipping around in an ethereal breeze.

Rarity looked her in the eyes unable to even tremble in fear, her response was short: "Please be gentle..."

Jenny immediately calmed down as she backed up ever so slightly. "What? Gentle with what?"

"Well... I'm the damsel in distress."

"Uh huh."

"And you're the hideous beast..."

"I take offense to that, but I follow."

"So... Aren't you going to ravish me?"

Jenny stood there for a moment, processing what she had just been asked, not exhibiting any emotion whatsoever she turned around and went back into the crater.

"Where are you going? You can't just leave a lady like this!"

"Yes, I very much can!" Jenny replied from within the crater. "Now I'm just gonna stay here for now and re-evaluate my life choices."

"What, am I not good enough for you?"

"I am not gracing that with a response!"

Meanwhile not far from what may have been one of the most awkward moments ever to occur near the town border, The Elements of Harmony, sans Rarity along with Spike were racing to perform what they thought would be a rescue mission.

Oh no, this is bad, if we don't get there fast enough who knows what that thing might do to her! Twilight thought as she raced at the front of the group blasting any stray branches and fallen trunks that had the poor luck to be in the path of the most magically powerful unicorn on the planet. With every second she got more panicked, imagining increasingly horrible fates that may have fallen upon one of her few friends. It might have devoured her, or torn her apart, or... No it was too horrible for her to even imagine, it might have done something involving casadias!

Twilight Sparkle had issues.

She could have spent all day trying her hardest to imagine the countless perils that may face Rarity if not for the conversation not that far from where Sweetie Belle said she had left her.

"Do you think I'm unsightly then?" As she moved forward to investigate she heard another, completely unfamiliar voice respond.

"No, I think its just off putting that someone is angry at me for not sexually assaulting her!"

"Well when you put it that way it does seem... Odd." Rarity replied with an awkward giggle. The situation diffused and an understanding established the two reintroduced themselves to each other, and promising to never bring up the last ten minutes ever again, an empty promise as five ponies and a dragon had been privy to the end of their discussion.

With no sign of anything else happening Twilight dashed into the clearing ready to confront whatever creature awaited her. As she burst through the foliage she ground to a halt. Her heart raced, her mind froze and her breath ceased. What she saw was a tall black creature but what she felt, that was something else. It was a light subtle presence for like a dim bulb in the sunlight it was almost impossible for most ponies to detect. But despite it all it was clear to her that Jenny was something else, something alien and other. She could not tell simply by looking at her what her nature was but it was clear to her that she was not from her world.

Jenny took a quick look at the mare frozen in place in front of her. She snapped her fingers in front of her trying to get any sort of reaction from her to no success. She picked her up and shook her a little, once again to no success. She tustled her mane and wove it into a tangled mess.

“Shit, I think I broke her.” She waved a hand in front of Twilight’s face once again trying to get any response. “Hello? Alien entity with potentially world changing knowledge here, pretty big find…” She immediately regretted saying that as an eager spark appeared in Twilight’s eyes followed by her teleporting to the ground with scrolls and quills in her magical grasp and a string of questions each following the other as soon as they were said. Jenny quickly calmed her down with a semi-truthful reason to deny answering at that time, those reasons being:

One, she was lost and confused and needed time to get acclimatised.

And two, she couldn’t conceivably describe upwards of ten millenia of history in such a short span of time.

With her eagerness calmed for the time being, Jenny took a moment to introduce herself and explained to the best of her ability why Rarity was currently encased in metal and the subsequent argument they’d had much to Rarity’s embarrassment. With the current issue resolved and Jenny being assured that they would not try to harm her again she stopped to take a proper look at the creatures in front of her.

Two of them had wings with one of them in flight, two had horns and as she’d seen were capable of some form of sorcery, the smallest of them was round, purple and pudy which she deduced was a child. The last two lacked any trait that the other ponies had, a birth defect maybe? She reached out and lifted Twilight from the ground again and took a closer look at her, all of her body was coated in a thin layer of fur, her shape indicated a spinal column, she clearly had herbivorous teeth but that did not rule out the possibility of opportunistic carnivorous tendencies.

I can probably copy it.

Jenny focused, dragging excess metal back into herself, shaping what was left into an equine shape, beneath its surface metal shaped into bones and fibrous muscles, pale yellow followed by black and grey fibres formed along the metals surface forming her coat and mane respectively, two rows of white flat teeth formed in the black shapes mouth followed by a layer of skin over what little black could be seen. After two short minutes there before the group was a normal looking pale yellow mare with a mess of black and grey hair for a mane.

“Okay,” she said doing some test stretches and looking over herself, “ready to go, uh… Twilight?” She waved a hoof in Twilight’s face only to find her frozen in horror...Again.

“Shit, I broke her again.”

“Really?” Dawnstar said with in the flattest possible tone.

“Oh, I’m so sorry that my story wasn’t to your liking, would you like me to add a segment where I induct them into my cult and dethrone Celestia?”

“No, it’s just...” Dawnstar waved her hoof in a ‘I’m having trouble describing this’ motion “I really expected you to be...Different is all.”

“Well that’s what being stuck in the warp for… How long was I gone?”

“A hundred and fifty years as of today.” Dawnsta replied.

“Look at me, breaking the thousand year trend. Anyways, being stuck in the darkest pit of Hell with only daemons for company can change you. A lot”

“Um...Tsara, what was it like, being imprisoned that is?”

“Oh it wasn’t so bad, I learnt to make my own fun...”

“Nine hundred thousand bottles of beer on the wall, nine hundred thousand bottle of- Wait, are those Tyranids? Oh Tyranids!” Tsara called out into the webway. “There are some yummy Eldar over there just waiting for you to eat them!” She said as she pointed out towards the craftworld. “Come and get it!”

“Yeah, making my own fun.” Tsara said with a wistful tone. “Messing with Khornish daemons was always enjoyable, but there’s nothing quite like watching those sick bastards getting what’s coming to them.” Tsara took a moment to laugh, Dawnstar confused and in no little part scared decided to laugh along with her. “Anyways, so that’s how I ended up in Equestria, now onto the present.” Tsara’s tone shifted to one that was much more serious as she looked down at Dawnstar. “How bad are things in the Imperium?”

“You might want to sit down for this.” she looked back at Tsara. “No pun intended.”

Author's Note

Nothing quite like hitting that submit button knowing that you are now at the internet's mercy...