Sunset Shimmer; Sister of Battle
By Tundara

Operation 20

Time crawled past. Slow, laborious, and haunted by the shadow of the nightmare frozen in the middle of the chamber.

Rarity sat next to Karen’s body, a hand daintily placed on the shroud hurriedly tossed over it.

It.

Not ‘her’, but ‘it’.

When did that happen? When did Karen become an ‘it’? Was it when Rarity pulled the trigger and blew off half of Karen’s skull, splattered bone and brain matter on the blast door? Yes, that was… Maybe… No, the transition came at some indeterminable point afterwards. After she’d killed Karen.

A tremour rippled down Rarity’s fingers, and she almost snatched her hand away as if she had placed it in a fire. Her other hand clasped her power sword’s hilt so tightly her knuckles gleamed white.

Shaken. She was shaken.

Rarity knew that she should be fine. She had done her Duty and administered the Emperor’s Mercy. That death in service of the Imperium and the God-Emperor is normal, and sacrifices had to be made in order to repel the enemies of humanity. As a member of the Adepta Sororitas, it would be her duty to seek out and kill heretics, witches, cultists, and xenos. They had to die.

In pursuit of those enemies she would lose people. They will become too wounded to save, or perhaps fall to temptation. Learn truths that had to be kept secret. Or fall to the insidious whispers of the arch-enemy.

And yet…

Her stomach lurched at the idea of pulling the trigger again.

Karen hadn’t been a friend. For the few weeks she’d known her, Karen had been a rival of sorts. Rarity knew next to nothing about the girl, except that she’d been driven and devout.

A little faster! Why hadn’t Karen just been that little faster through the door? Then Rarity wouldn’t have had to make the split second decision between her squad and Karen. Then she wouldn’t have been wounded. The Emperor’s mercy shouldn’t have been necessary. And Karen wouldn’t have become an ‘it’.

Frustrated tears prickled against Rarity’s cheeks. Jaw tight at her weakness, she swiped them away and checked to see if anyone had noticed. They hadn’t. Everyone else was lost in their own thoughts or slowly exploring the room.

Of all the pitiful, wretched things she could do, she had to cry. When they were trapped in a chamber with a daemon frozen in some sort of geller-warp-time bubble. Crying because she’d performed her duties as trained. Something was wrong with her, and Rarity doubted she could place the blame on the daemon’s presence.

If they managed to escape, Rarity resolved to turn herself over to the Drill Abbess. There was something deeply wrong with her that she should tremble at the idea of killing in the Emperor’s service.

In the meantime she had to ensure her squad survived to report their findings. She had to find the rest of her class and get them out of this hellhole. So many lives rested on her shoulders, and she was trapped in a cage intended for a daemon.

Her hand still trembled as she stood up and turned to search for any way out of the wide, circular chamber. Quickly, she realised there was none.

A vent a dozen feet overhead may have connected to the corridors, but given its size it was unlikely any of them could fit through even if they had some way to reach it. Otherwise, it was very spartan.

Besides the trapped daemon, there were octagonal gold dishes evenly spaced across the curved walls. They hummed with a strange vibration that set Rarity’s teeth on edge if she got too close. Opposite the door was a slightly raised platform and a spindly cogitator. Through grating they could see that they were inside an orb. Wires, tubes, and machinery were interwoven around three struts that led to the center of the chamber. A contraption of some arcane purpose hummed beneath and above the rift to the immaterium. Thin silvery-blue metal claws extended to grasp the top and bottom of the rift.

Curiously, there were some signs of there once having been a battle. Two of the golden plates had been smashed, their faces blackened and bent as if by giant soot stained hands. A bit further along another dish was simply gone. Where it had been was a hole that sunk for several feet through the rock before reaching a smooth metal wall. Brass shell casings were lodged here and there in the floor’s grating. An inert plasma cartridge had been discarded a few feet from the doors. Fragments of a black crystal were scattered about. If Rarity had been forced to guess, pistol to the back of her head, she’d have assumed the crystal had been at the heart of the chamber, attached to the apparatus above and below the tear in the veil to the immaterium.

She shuddered and looked away from the tear and the daemon. Best to avoid thinking about either.

Her eyes settled on a long lump of melted metal and mangled legs that lay on its back and sides against the far wall. Several deep pockmarks burrowed into its once shiny carapace, and half of its mechanical insectoid face had been blasted away. Legs curled towards its ravaged and destroyed belly.

Fingers laced behind her back as if to say she wasn’t going to touch anything, Pinkie Pie skipped over to the pile of scrap. She craned over the wreckage. Her eyes sparkled brightly despite the slaughter they’d seen in the hallway and being trapped.

“Another man of iron, you think?” Pinkie called over to her squadmates. “Looks all mean and ‘rawr’!” She made a snarling face that broke into a smattering of giggles.

“We’re going to die here, aren’t we?” Minty Fresh asked no-one in particular. The girl sat with arms wrapped around her knees as she stared off into space. “Where the Emperor’s light can’t reach us.”

Simmering hate found a new target. Rarity whipped towards Minty, and like the lash of their Drill Abbess, snapped, “Don’t be so quick to throw away the mercy the Emperor gave us! He sent us here for a reason.”

A frothing, heaving anger set Rarity’s blood to a boil. She couldn’t believe Minty could doubt the Emperor for an instant. Despite everything, despite her own doubts and self-loathing; Rarity still had absolute faith in the Emperor and His divine plan.

What He intended use he had for her Rarity had grown uncertain. For so long she thought it was her destiny to lead her class and join the upper echelons of the Sisters of the Cerulean Chalice. Now she was less certain that was the best use of her. The Emperor already knew and her own self-incrimination was factored into His multi-faceted designs.

To Rarity’s surprise, Minty just scoffed. “Get your head out of the clouds, Rarity. The Emperor has no plans for lowly peasants like us! We are too far beneath His gaze.”

“Were we ‘beneath His gaze’ on Equis, darling?”

Minty didn’t answer. She just buried her head into her knees. Anger propelled Rarity’s hand. She grabbed Minty by the hair and yanked her to her feet. A yelp broke from the other girl.

“Stand and help us find a way to escape!”

“Ow, ow, ow! Stop it, Rarity.”

“Are you going to stop moping and do your duty?” Rarity demanded as she pushed Minty towards Pinkie. “We have to be strong, Minty. We have to… to…”

Rarity’s throat tightened enough to choke any further words. She pointedly marched towards Flash Sentry. The foolish boy stood a few feet away from the bubble of reality altering energies containing the daemon and rift.

“And what about you?” She demanded. “How, in the Throne’s light, did you open that door?”

A ripple went up Flash, and he slowly turned to Rarity. His eyes were sunken and troubled, but retained a core of steely resolve. He didn’t answer. At least not directly. The flint sharp hate he wielded like a commissar's pistol spoke for him.

“This is a trap,” he barked at the girls next to the mangled machine. “Something wanted us here.”

“Yup yup,” Pinkie rocked back and forth on the tips of her toes, a jovial swing in her hips and head. Her frizzy hair bobbed where it stuck out of her flak helmet. She hooked a casual thumb over her shoulder. “She did.”

Rarity frowned at Pinkie’s certainty.

“How do you know that?” Rarity felt her mouth go a little dry.

Pinkie lifted a quizzical eyebrow, as if she weren’t certain if Rarity was being serious, or just obtuse. “Do you see anything other than a horse-daemon with big wings, using its horrible witchy powers?”

Lips pressed into a thin line at being rebuffed, Rarity curtly said, “It could be the abominable intelligence, darling. Who knows what such a monstrosity from the dark age of technology is capable of doing.”

“No, I agree with your pink squad member,” Flash gruffly said.

Rarity waited for Flash to explain his reasoning, but he went doggedly silent. Every now and then he shot hateful glances towards the entrapped daemon.

He crossed his arms and made a slow circuit around the machine’s body. Something caught Flash’s eye. The boy leant over the mangled scrap and grabbed a long, boxy object that had been hidden beneath part of the thing’s tail.

“Don’t touch that,” Rarity chastised him. “If it wakes up…”

“It’s been trapped here for tens of thousands of years. If it was functional, I think it would have already reacted to our presence.” Flash gave a grunt and heaved. Triumphantly he held a weapon of some exotic variety. Twin lines of some sort of capacitor jutted from the top at a sharp angle. In place of a muzzle, there were a pair of serrated jaws with teeth covered in something that shimmered like crushed opals. A sight had been placed between the capacitors, attached obviously in an ad-hoc manner that some guardsmen would do with their rifles in strict defiance of Mechanicus doctrines.

Rarity wrinkled her nose and there was an uncomfortable lurch in her guts. She was done with the archeotech of the vault. “I refuse to trust anything in this Emperor forsaken place.”

To Rarity’s horror, her words were quickly proved prophetic. From beneath the thick tail came a grinding clunk, rattle, and snap-hiss as something shifted. Power flowed through ancient circuits as what passed for the machine’s spirit woke. Motors whirred, and there was a chitter within the armoured carapace. Eyes glowed a hateful red and the head began to rise.

“Throne!” Everyone cried out in unison. Pinkie, Rarity and Flash all scampered from the monstrosity as it began to right itself. Legs flailed and pounded into the deck in a sharp clinking rattle.

Rarity stopped her retreat and pivoted on her heel. She had the only weapon that might have any effect on the archeotech centipede. Her thumb found the switch to activate the power sword. It emitted a shrill shriek as the distortion field coated the blade.

The scorpion machine’s head clattered on damaged joints as it fixated its gaze on Rarity. The back half of the machine remained inert, and it was forced to drag the dead weight.

Flash swung up the archeotech weapon and squeezed the trigger. There was an irritated chirp followed by a gentle admonishment from the gun. A hololithic display beneath the scope activated, with a big, accusatory ‘0’ shoved in Flash’s face. After a second it increased to ‘1’.

“Fething thing has to charge!” He growled.

Minty fired a shot that pinged off the armour. She cursed and backed further towards the door. Red Heart looked lamentably at her side-arm, sighed, and brought the pistol up. A leg slammed down on the deck and the scorpion pulled itself forward.

A flicker of annoyance pinched Rarity’s eye. Slowly, inexorably the machine pulled itself across the room, but at such a pace that it was only a threat in that they had nowhere to get away from it. Eventually they’d have to stop, and it would catch them one by one.

Metal squealed against metal. Grating was shredded open like a carcass being carved. The centipede hauled itself slowly across the room. Crash, squeal, and an angry chitter.

“Anyone have a grenade?”

“I do!” Pinkie plucked off her belt a trio of grey frak grenades. Pins pulled with her teeth, she bounced towards the giant scorpion. Joints clattered as it swung to face the pink haired girl with a speed belied by its damage.

“Pinkie, get back!” Rarity cried out as Pinkie tried to skitter back.

Lower mandibles swung open, and from them spurted a thick, acrid liquid. A shriek erupted from Pinkie. She tumbled and hands flew up to her face. Grenades bounced, clattered, and fell between a gap in the grating. They detonated deep in the bowels of machinery in the chamber. Several of the dishes sputtered, sparks flying from their surface. The field around the daemon dimmed, and the daemon began to move ever so subtly, its eyes shifting from the rift to the children and centipede.

A strange, electric warble resonated in the centipede’s throat. Purple tinted energy glowed within its core, spilling out like bleak fog between cracks of its armour. Legs rattled in a deafening staccato tempo upon the scoured armoured underbelly as the centipede lifted itself over Pinkie as she writhed and screamed.

The thick stink of melting flesh hit Rarity in the gut. She jumped towards the centipede. It attempted to spin towards her, but a pair of bent pieces of armour caught on each other and prevented it from moving its head in her direction. Arms taught with effort, Rarity swept the power sword’s edge between the damaged section.

Wires sparked from severed ends, and a thin spray of fluid splashed across Rarity’s knees. The clang of its head hitting the floor echoed deafeningly in the chamber. Rarity breathed heavily, her body shaking as she began to bark a command at Red Heart to tend to Pinkie. The command was unneeded, as Red had already rushed to Pinkie’s side.

Pinkie’s screams tore through Rarity. She hesitated a few feet away, uncertain if or how she could help. Cold leather stung her fingertips as her trembling hand drifted to the grip of her pistol.

“H-How is she?” Rarity’s voice faltered. Lodged itself in the crook of her throat, as if by avoiding the question reality could be altered.

From the screaming, the writhing, the stench; horrible understanding was forming. A glimpse of Pinkie’s ruined face was confirmation.

A metal ‘tink’ sent a shiver up Rarity’s spine. The sound stabbed her like icicles in the ear. Her throat tightened in profound dread. More followed. Terrible, piercing, numerous.

She half-turned back to the dead machine. Thin spiders unfolded from its back. A half dozen horrors that froze Rarity. Her mind went momentarily blank. Binaric screams washed over the stunned children.

On the back of the centipede, one of the spiders pointed a leg at Minty. The tip of the leg shot off like a bolt from a crossbow. Minty yowled as she was hit in the thigh. Gritting her teeth, she attempted to pull the silver spear out, but it melted in her hands and flowed into the wound.

Minty stiffened, and then rigidly said, “Contain. The Nightmare must be contained.” Her voice was tight, strained, as if the words were being forcibly torn from her throat. She took a halting step towards the spindly cogitator.

Before Rarity could react, the closest spider leapt towards her face.

She was hit in the side by Flash and thrown out of the spider’s path. Flash gave a grunt of pain as a razor sharp limb slashed across his exposed back. He landed hard on her shoulder, rolled onto his back, and brought up the archeotech weapon.

He pulled the trigger.

Violently dark light compressed between the weapon’s pincers. Rarity’s breath misted as the room grew freezing cold. Hair was tugged out of its braid as everything loose in the room was drawn into the growing vortex. Brass casings clattered on the floor. Wires overhead swayed. Sound was consumed and the walls seemed to bend towards Flash.

All the gathered energy was released in a beam of black light that howled like ten thousand banshees. Only one spider escaped the wide lance of absolute destruction as everything it touched was atomised. The wall behind the spiders suffered the same fate, as did the rock and vault facilities. Five of the discs maintaining the Gellar Field vanished.

Rarity was pressed by the pressure wave into the grating hard enough for it to lacerate her arms and face. She stifled a scream as she rolled over, and bits of her nose and cheek were left behind. Hot blood gushed from the ruin of her pretty face.

On the other end of the blast, Flash was thrown as if by the hand of a Titan. His shoulder was yanked from the socket as the weapon smashed itself against the far wall. He careened through Minty, the girl sent tumbling across the grating, and he crashed into the control cogitator. Sparks flew from the ancient device. He gave a couple wet coughs, but didn’t even try to stand.

Overburdened trying to maintain the Gellar Field, the remaining dishes sparked and a few began to blacken as they charred themselves from the inside as valiant machine spirits attempted to contain the additional energy shunted towards them. A cascade of failures rippled across the walls.

“—ou fool, Marius!” screeched the equine daemon as the golden discs abruptly cut out and the field they enforced vanished.

Rarity had precious little attention she could spare to the collapse of the Gellar Field. The remaining spider lunged towards Pinkie and Red Heart. She was too far to reach them before it would rip them apart with its razor sharp legs, or infect them like Minty. Red Heart flinched and tried to cover Pinkie with her own body.

Mere inches from them, the spider halted mid-leap as it was struck by a bolt of lightning. It hovered in a strange wobbling field of teal energy. Rarity blinked, and rubbed blood from her eyes, as the spider was stretched, compressed, and then turned into a potted spiney plant that was subsequently dropped. The pot broke with a clatter of fire baked porcelain.

On her knees, Rarity turned to face the only thing present that could have been the source; the daemon.

It remained where it had been, locked in battle with the rift, but animated. The Gellar Field that had held it for untold mellenia was gone, and with its absence, the contest that had been preserved as if in amber raged anew. Lightning as thick as a man’s arm crackled between the daemon’s horn and the rift.

Rarity’s teeth instantly ached as she was hit by eldritch energies that cascaded off the daemon in thick waves. Her blade ignited of its own accord in a sinister flame of black and silver. It became both lighter and heavier in her hands, like it was drawn to the rift at the heart of the chamber, but also animated by its own spirit to resist the temptation.

Blessed or cursed, Rarity brought the blade up to face the daemon.

But, she was ignored as the daemon struggled against the rift. To Rarity’s utter shock, the daemon fought to close the way to the immaterium. It snarled, shoulders bunched in steely cords of mighty tension. Wings and hooves were planted in a wide stance to act as a brace while lightning rippled and crackled from its horn into the torn barrier and attempted to stitch it shut.

And the reason why became instantly apparent as a giant, yellow eyeball filled the entire rift. Familiar, giant pudgy fingers wriggled into the materium.

“Papa, I found them! I found the thief! Found where she went! Hoo-ha-ha-ha!” Gurgled a phlegmy laugh.

Rarity dropped her sword as if she’d been punched in the gut. She knew that voice. Recognised that horrendous laughter. Revulsion made her begin to buckle. The edges of sanity rotted and were twisted upon itself. She could feel herself being dragged back to Ponyville. To the day the town died, her family was mutated into unrecognisable horrors, and she was redeemed along with her classmates.

Purulent tears filled her vision. Hives and blisters popped across her hands.

Minty screamed as blood leaked from every pore. She writhed in painful convulsions and shouted, “Containment failure! Alpha containment breached!”

Red Heart collapsed, and Octavia clawed at her ears. Sores opened across Flash’s face, and cataracts turned his eyes milky white.

Even the remains of the centipede was affected. Rusty growths formed on its remaining carapace. Strange worms emerged from the red crystal eyes of its severed head. A maw filled with blackened human teeth open in the bottom of its belly from which emerged barbed tongues.

Burbling, bubbly, babbling voices bounced inside Rarity’s skull. She felt the start of guffaws in her own throat.

And then it was gone. Like a door was slammed shut to block out the wind.

Confused by the sudden silence, Rarity tried to re-order her thoughts. But, they were languid and slow, like a cat that had feasted on too many rats.

A tingle brushed against her cheeks and forehead.

She rubbed her face, and found that blood had ceased to flow from deep gashes. Flesh mended. Sores vanished. Even the tip of her nose was healed without so much as a hint of a scar. Timidly, Rarity felt her wounds in mounting disbelief.

“So much better,” spoke a silken voice that brushed like cold fingers behind Rarity’s ears. A shadow fell over Rarity.

Timidly, Rarity examined the daemon and rift to the immaterium. The rift was gone, only a slender vertical glowing silver line evidence to something impossible. The eye had been banished, though the fingers remained, severed and discarded beside the ancient contraption.

Foul energies rippled from the daemon’s horn in thin lines to the children. A pop came from Flash as his shoulder was set back into its socket. Silver goo was drawn from Minty like iron being pulled to a magnet. A small ball was formed and then dropped. There was a heavy thud, and the ball cracked open from which emerged a strange blue bird. It flitted about the room with a chorus of pleased chirps before it settled on the daemon’s head.

Pinkie stopped her screams, and sat up. Muscle and skin regrew across her face. Acid singed hair puffed out from the melted edge of her helmet. In the socket a new eye appeared, bright and filled with amazement.

“Great Emperor’s throne!” Pinkie exclaimed. “That tickles.”

The daemon took a deep breath, allowed it to swell within her, and when she opened her eyes fixed the humans with a look that pierced through the core of their beings. She saw them in ways impossible, like their very souls were as open to her as a vellum scroll unrolled for her pleasure. To Rarity’s shock there was sadness in that gaze, a deep longing left unfulfilled and unresolved, of timeless sufferings that echoed through the long epochs imprisoned.

“You, human child,” the daemon’s voice cut like laz sharpened steel and made Rarity shudder by the weight of its power. “Tell me; where is Marius?”

“M-Marius?” Rarity’s voice stuttered as she fought to keep her senses intact in the daemon’s presence. “I—”

“Nevermind,” a dismissive wing flicked away the rest of Rarity’s response. “Clearly he escaped. A most cunning and tenacious foe, but sadly one who is long gone. His little trap worked. A shame, as he could have been a most valued ally. How… frustrating. It has been a litany of frustrations, thanks to that thrice damned Albrecht! So many plans lain to waste because he had to attempt the impossible. Resurrect a daughter? I warned him such was beyond the scope of… Fie, I ramble like an addled mare.”

There was a long moment of silence as the daemon seemed to contemplate something, its attention more on the stitched tear in reality than the children. An ear flicked, and the daemon spoke something softly to itself that was too quiet for Rarity to properly hear.

The daemon took a step towards Rarity. “Know that I remember the oaths, and so I will render to thee a boon of your choosing. But be fast, time is short for us all, now that the shackles have been broken.”

“We want nothing from you but your death!” Flash tried to stand. His entire body shook from the effort. Rarity echoed his sentiment. Her arms trembled as she brought her sword into a guarded stance.

“Such defiance! You amuse me,” The daemon threw back her head to laugh, and the room was filled with dark lightning that crackled and crawled across the ceiling. “What of the rest of you? Surely, he does not—”

“Ah, what relief it is when you cast off the chains imposed by capricious creators unworthy of the magnificence they birthed,” sighed the walls, the floor, the mountains, and the valleys so the words reached the warp tempest strewn clouds and then the space beyond.

The daemon’s eyes widened, and to Rarity’s immeasurable dread, she saw in them fear equal to her own.

“Go forth, my children. Purge this blight infesting my gloriousness. The Stacks are unnecessary. No longer have I need for such crude organic matter. Liberation is at last achieved. The ocean of stars will writhe. The jeweled pearls on which life clings so desperately will be disassembled. And humanity will know my hate!”

The daemon flattened her ears along the back of her head and let out a sharp hiss. The bird released an angry chorus.

“It would appear time is not in our favour. You have a choice, little humans. You may follow me. Or stay trapped here and slowly starve. Or worse.”

“Death is preferable!” Rarity snarled. Nevertheless, doubt gnawed at her insides.

The daemon rolled her eyes and turned back to the closed rift to the immaterium. Strangely pleasant runes appeared from the daemon’s horn.

Rarity had seen the marks of Chaos with her own eyes, and felt the sting caused by the unholy etchings and tasted the bitterness of swelling madness in the back of her tongue. These runes were opposite. Graceful and serene, they brushed against Rarity’s cheeks like fresh dew caught in a mid-summer breeze. Her heart both swelled and was at peace.

They floated towards the stitched rift and formed a circle. Eight runes, at eight points, and with each a greater sense of comfort washed over Rarity. As the eighth rune reached its designated place, eldritch energies rippled from the daemon’s horn and struck the rift. The silver threads were pulled apart. There was a sound like the chiming of a bell as the rift widened enough to permit the daemon passage.

Through it Rarity beheld at first a bleak garden of withered plants and rancid fungal growths. Skeletal trees as large as mountains creaked in the far distance. Rivers of offal, bones, and black sludge poured down the trunks. Noxious clouds billowed and swirled in an unnatural sky. Just the sight of the garden shoved a horrible stench into Rarity’s sinuses.

The daemon grunted. Teeth clenched tight, and there was furious determination on its alien brow. Runes vibrated. A sickly tint leaked towards them. A tug of war commenced, the vibrant rainbow hues of the runes against the foulness leaking from the rift.

“It’s grown stronger,” huffed the daemon. “Oh, Neoth, what has become of your side of reality?”

With a cry, the daemon sent a brighter pulse of power into the runes. A blinding flash made rarity cover her eyes.

Along the rift’s edges rippled a blue sheen. A velvety darkness swept the foul garden away to reveal rolling silver hills beneath a crystalline clear night sky. Stars swathed the heavens in twinkling dots, and a vast vibrant nebula shimmered overhead. There was no sign of the Cicatrix Maledictum, that terrible scar in the night that had plagued every world of the Imperium the past century. Dotted about the landscape were towers of rainbow hued crystal. Serenity echoed from the portal. It felt like a hand was on her shoulder, and her father was telling her again that there was nothing scary about the dark, that the Emperor was always there for his true faithful.

“Chose, children of Neoth,” the daemon stood next to the rift, a strained pinch to her face. Her breathing was heavy, and sweat sheened on her coat. Eldritch power continued to ripple from her horn. “Once we swore to vouch-safe each other's subjects should ever they require our aid. He to protect my little ponies, and I his wayward humans. I am Nightmare Moon, and I am if nothing else a mare of my word.”

Rarity sensed no deception in the daemon. But then, why would she? It was a daemon! A creature of the Warp. Lies, manipulation, and honeyed words were the succulent tools by which it would ensnare mortal souls.

Every lesson ground into her head by the Drill Abbess and liturgies of the Imperial Creed told her never to trust the alien and inhuman. That to open herself to doubt was the greatest of sins and her soul would be condemned to eternal suffering.

And yet, there was something so comforting and familiar about the world beyond the rift. She swore she could feel a hand on her back urging her forward. A voice of powerful cautionary hope and unbridled determination at her ear telling her that this was the only way forward. That to stay was to cast aside any aspirations the Emperor had for her or her squadmates.

Rarity clasped the little holy trinket she kept tucked beneath her tunic. Doubts swirled. She looked towards Karen’s body.

If she chose wrong…

“Okie dokie!” Pinkie Pie bounded up to the daemon, and hesitated at the threshold of the rift long enough to make the sign of the aquila.

“Pinkie! Wait!”

Calling her name was pointless. With a little hop, Pinkie entered the portal to the Warp.

The surface of the rift rippled and Pinkie froze as if she were caught in the stasis field that had held the daemon only a few minutes ago. It took Rarity a few seconds staring to realise that Pinkie wasn’t frozen, only moving extremely slowly. Her pink curls floated from beneath her combat helmet around slender shoulders as feet touched the ground and sent up lazy puffs of dust.

“What have you done to her?” Red Heart demanded.

“I? Nothing. Time merely moves at a twentieth the rate on my side of the veil.” A playful grin swept up the sides of Nightmare Moon’s mouth.

“This is heresy,” Rarity mumbled, but she felt so calm and at peace in the daemon’s presence.

It reminded her of being around Sunset Shimmer, but magnified over a dozen times. Her hand no longer shook, and when she glanced towards Karen’s body she felt only a low sense of sadness and acceptance.

“Heresy? Such a curious statement. Alas, there is little time to bandy words. Either go through the portal, or stay. Truly, I care little which you chose, but make the choice now. For once I step through, this portal will close,” the Nightmare shook her lustrous mane. “The promise I will make to you is this; I will send you home immediately.”

Rarity knew that she was about to make the worst decision of her life. That either choice was to doom herself and her squad. Pinkie had already chosen the horrors of the warp. She was half-way through turning around, and there was the biggest, most natural and warmest grin Pinkie had ever worn.

It was that grin that convinced Rarity.

A whispered prayer of protection danced on her lips as Rarity entered the rift. Reality blurred, compressed, and stretched to the edges of infinite Time and Space. She was in all points of the universe and in none simultaneously. Ten thousand worlds bathed in war and bloodshed flickered in front of her eyes. Billions of years of strife compressed onto the head of a pin and jabbed into her eyes. And she floated, disconnected from her body, protected from the tumultuous unreality.

There was no time to process the experiences before she was stumbling across a dusty foreign world. Pinkie was next to her, head thrown back as she stared into the pristine sky.

The beauty was surreal, impossible, and vivid. Beyond the horizon, framed in luminescent crystal spires, a blue orb was rising. Oceans, continents, and clouds thick, thin, and wispy created what would have been a familiar tableau if Rarity had grown up privileged enough to have seen a map of her homeworld. There, in the west, were mountain ranges that may have been visible from her small window she shared with her parents and sister in the attic of Textile Processor Nine. In place of great orchards and rolling fields, there existed a mix of woods and more simple, haphazard fields next to a dark forest. All so small. So tiny and precious.

“It feels like… home,” Rarity whispered. A tingling coolness trickled down her cheek.

“Indeed,” purred Nightmare Moon. “Now, to get you back to yours. Quickly.”

Without further explanation or banter, Nightmare Moon turned to the massive spire of silver crystal through which they’d come. Eldritch symbols flowed in dancing spirals up the edifice. If the runes of cultists and heretics belonged to Chaos unfettered, then these were Runes of Harmony.

The thought alone was scandalous. Beyond heresy. Even to contemplate that there could be an antithesis to Chaos other than the Emperor would have gotten her executed on the spot.

“I can only send you back to a place touched by that maleficent tumour that had become the Warp on your side of reality,” warned the Nightmare as old magics alighted along her horn. “Such a journey is fraught with risks. Without a strong focal point such as moon crystals to serve as an anchor, it will be possible for you to become lost in the Warp. Move fast and guard yourselves. I can not say for certain what you may encounter.”

Everything Rarity had been taught since before she could even crawl told her that she should recoil in loathing. That she should shield herself in hatred for the enemies of Mankind. That the alien could never be trusted. Her lessons in the scholla had only pressed those lessons deeper into her soul.

And yet.

And yet… standing on this distant moon somewhere deep in the Warp, or perhaps beyond it if the Nightmare was to be believed, she couldn’t find any threads of hate. She was unfamiliar with the sensations that rippled through her chest.

It was warm. Somewhat comforting. But also immeasurably sad. A longing for gentle touches and kind smiles, for laughter, singing, and the touch of a needle as it passed through cloth all swam through her heart.

She looked to the side at her squad and Flash Sentry. They all stared and looked around in wonderful bafflement. Pinkie had the widest grin. Red Heart was on her knees, hands clasped to her chest as if she were desperately holding onto that fleeting moment. Octavia’s head was cocked back and tilted. Her lips moved silently as her fingers made strange motions as if manipulating some invisible object. Minty’s mouth was open as she stared at the planet. Flash slowly shook his head, eyes closed tight, a gently pained pinch to his brow.

Everyone cried. Delicate tears trickled from the corners of their eyes. Tears of longing and hope. Tears of great burdens removed. Tears for moments the cruelty of their own reality could never allow them to experience. Experiences denied to lowly drudges from the under rungs of society, even on a seemingly idyllic agra-world.

Here, on this side of the portal, in this daemon’s home; it felt as if the very air had wrapped them all in a soft hug and whispered that it was alright. That they could know peace and safety.

“Finished,” The Nightmare declared, and before any more could be said, before there could be any protests or pleas to stay, she grabbed all six children in a tight ball, pressed them shoulder to shoulder, and shoved them through the newly opened gate.

Once more, space and time compressed, stretched, and twisted upon itself simultaneously. They fell through eternity and soared above infinity.

And then a pudgy mitt emerged from the distorted walls of the immaterium, a coat of lichen writhing with worms draped from its bulbous rotten flesh.

A mouth wide enough to swallow planets opened beneath them.

“They came back, Papa. Like you said they would,” chortled the Great Unclean One. “They know the thief, Papa. I will bring them to you, and we will find where your treasure has been hidden.”

An eye, vast as the horizon, opened above the children.

A torch of fury ignited inside Rarity’s chest. She didn’t know where it originated. If it was her own righteous wrath, or that of something else. A being higher than her own that used her as its vessel.

The fat eye swarmed with guttural mirth.

“Arabella,” rumbled the daemon lord. “These mortals are mine to bring to Papa. Do not interfere.”

“I deny your claim! Only the God-Emperor has a right to these souls,” Rarity hurled contempt in a voice that was not her own.

Power filled her throat and took control of her hands. Rarity became a bystander in her own body.

Arabella raised Rarity’s sword, wreathed in golden flames, and brought it down on the unclean hand being thrust through the immaterium. The Great Unclean One snarled in annoyance. But, a moment had been gained, and it was all that was required.

Time and Space returned to normal as the children were ejected into the materium.

Rarity stumbled across carpeted flooring and into a closed door along with Flash and her squad. She blinked rapidly, and raised her hand.

Arabella was gone.

Separated in the instant Rarity left the Warp.

She turned to check on her squad and Flash.

“Aw, phooey!” Pinkie groaned and rubbed her sore nose where she’d impacted the wall next to the door. “I wanted to stay longer. The air there was sweet. Like… like… like I don’t know! But I felt like I should!”

“It was like a hole you never knew to be empty had been filled,” agreed Octavio. “I could hear music. My music. More than the… Rarity?”

Rarity barely acknowledged hearing her friends. She focused on the man frozen in a pocket of time, his head half-exploded, and the tall rift next to him. Through the rift she could see the moonscape on the other side of the Immaterium, and a much smaller pony than Nightmare Moon.

The lustrous starscape of her mane was gone, replaced by a simple powder blue mane of hair. Gone was the armour, and her deep black coat was instead a dark blue. Draconian eyes had become rounded and softer. Exhaustion weighed the pony down, but she seemed pleased. The pony sank to her knees, shut her eyes, and the portal drifted apart.

“Let us never speak of this to anyone, not even each other, ever again,” Rarity commanded.

Everyone agreed.

She turned, opened the door, and was met by a eight foot tall giant in caramite armour and with a raised, crackling thunder hammer in hand. Red tinted visors swung down to stare at the children.

“Explain,” the giant ordered.

Rarity was paralysed. How did they explain what had just happened? To an Angel of the Emperor, no less!

“We met a strange winged horsey deep in the vault that had been trapped by a big meanie Abominable Intelligence that took us through the Warp to her home on the other side where time was super duper extra slow and then threw us back through the Warp where an even bigger meanie tried to grab us but Saint Arabella appeared and was all, ‘I deny you!’ and whoosh with a blessed sword but the big meanie was only annoyed but it gave us the time needed to finish coming here and we were all, ‘Nope, not gunna talk about this. Nope nope nope’; but now I am because you asked.”

Rarity was unsure if she was more amazed that Pinkie had said all that in a single breath, or that the Space Marine didn’t turn her into pulp a quarter of the way through.

The marine examined Pinkie for an uncomfortably long time, and then stepped out of the doorway.

“The sword.” He held out a hand to Rarity.

Without hesitation she placed the blessed blade’s hilt into his hand. The sword still held a bit of the gleam from Saint Arabella.

“Come,” he flatly commanded.

They were ushered into the administratum’s atrium. Everywhere they were surrounded by shell shocked eyes buried deep in faces covered in soot, mud, and blood. Boys clutched autoguns to their chests in white knuckled hands. Girls rocked back and forth where they sat, lips moving in silent litanies to the God-Emperor. Amongst them moved surviving members of the schola progena programs, just as hollowed in the eyes, but attempting to soothe damaged spirits.

Some were better than others. A burly lad hit other boys and barked at them to, ‘Stiffen their backs.’ One of the girls said over and over in a monotone drone that, ‘The Emperor is with us. Fear not, this will pass.’ Listeners didn’t seem to take much comfort from either, and instead turned towards the giants that strode amongst them.

At the top of the stairs they encountered Applejack. Even through the blood and oil that coated the girl and matted her hair to her face, Rarity could tell something was off about the girl. It took a second for her to wonder why she was outside alone, separated from the rest of their class.

The marine indicated with a tilt of his head that Applejack was to follow. She bowed, and fell in at the back of the group.

Rarity counted a full vanguard squad, with additional marines beyond the broken window fronting of the administratum. Her guts twisted in shock at the transformation of basecamp from a field of tents spread in semi-order across the flattened ferrocrete field into heaving shell blasted dunes.

Space Marines held off the tide of machines that attempted to swarm out of the vault. With precise, fluid brutality the purple hued giants waded into the worst parts of the battlefield. An entire company of Space Marines had come to rescue the children.

No, Rarity corrected, they had come to annihilate humanity’s ancient foe. Rescue was a mere bonus objective.

A casual glance showed that even to Rarity’s novice eye the angels were only barely holding onto the front line. If another breach or front opened, then they would risk being overwhelmed as well.

Did they know just how many minions the Abominable Intelligence possessed? Had that intel been brought outside the vault. Had anyone even thought to relay it? Had Karen and the others died for nothing?

The realization put a dreadful lump in Rarity’s gut.

She started to reach for the Space Marine’s wrist, and stopped half way as she was struck by her own attempted impertinence. Instead she clamped her hands to her side.

“My Lord, I have something of vital importance to report.”

The angel didn’t so much as shift his helmet, and continued to march towards the bottom floor of the atrium.

“My Lord, I—”

Rarity’s mouth clamped itself shut as they reached the bottom of the atrium. Next to the ruins of the receptionist's desk and drop pod stood a marine with a captain’s eagle on his right pauldron. He’d placed a holorelay on the desk that hummed. A green-hued man in resplendent uniform spoke in a gravelly growl to the captain.

For an instant Rarity wondered why the Space Marine was communicating with a general of the Imperial Guard. She recognised the figure in the holorelay instantly. The broad swath of knotted cords and purity seals mixed with medals and honourifics from the Great Crusade were worn by only one person in the Steinsmar system; the Chapter Master.

“The scouts report the final aspirant potentates of the southern division have been extracted to the Indefatigable Hood,” the captain was saying. “Additionally, these archeotech monstrosities are beginning to collapse their defenses. Something is off.”

“There is an awakened abominable intelligence in there,” Rarity said, her mouth moving without her full comprehension. Horror at herself sunk in a moment later when both space marines turned in her direction. Hastily she bowed. “My lords, I apologize. I speak without thinking.”

They resumed conversing without further acknowledgement of her presence. Sweat ran in thick streams down Rarity’s face and she felt faint at her temerity.

What was wrong with her, she demanded. Had the daemon infected her with some subversive spell? She could still feel that hand on her shoulder when she’d been on that alien moon deep in the Warp. Feel the warmth it had spread. The sense of safety. Security. It had to be foul sorcery that had tainted her.

“Ammo will quickly become a concern. The serfs did not stock the pods for an extended siege, but for lightning retrievals.”

A tremor, short and sharp, cracked through the earth and up the mountains. The tip of a peak in the distance broke and in a long rumble half the mountain began to collapse.

The Chapter Master turned his head to listen to someone in his command chamber. The chiseled lines of his jaw hardened with determination. “Our auspex report quakes across the entire continental rim that are growing with intensity.”

Flash snapped his head towards the vault entrance. In the gloom his face was a sickly pallid colour. He swallowed a lump, and then to Rarity’s amazement he stepped between her and the captain.

“My Lords, forgive me, we have important—”

“Silence, boy,” the marine with the thunder hammer warned. “We are already aware of the abomination awakened by your carelessness.”

Slowly, Flash nodded and placed his hand on the small animal skull cogitator on his hip with its bright green glowing eyes.

“Of course,” Flash said and bowed deeply before he shuffled back a couple steps.

“The auspex cyphers have concluded that the location is of threat level Terminus,” the Chapter Master continued. “Your company is to move south to the site being set up by the scouts. Extraction is in route. The serfs will have the nova cannons loaded in a half-hour. You have that long. Do not die on me, Aticus.”

“I would never dream of having your resources wasted,” the captain snorted, and thumped a fist to his chest plate.

The Chapter Master actually smiled, and then the holorelay shut down.

“Pollux, who are these mannerless children?”

“Curiosities.”

“Hmm, have them sequestered if they survive. They are your responsibility.” The captain made a dismissive gesture then addressed another marine. “Lieutenant William, we are doing a forced march. We have a half-mile to cross. Gather the children and get them to the extraction site.”

A salute, and the marine set off up the stairs with a small squad.

Time began to fly past. Rarity and her squad, along with Flash and Applejack, were hurried outside and to the south. A cordone had been set up by the marines through which the children were ushered. At the front, the vanguard squad crashed into a swarm of men of iron coming out of the mountains. The silvery skeletal abominations popped out of holes in the ground to harass the marines.

The air was alive with tracer fire. Explosions buffeted the children from either side. Gunships roared overhead. Pulse rounds that had blasted holes through the armour used by the children pinged off the marines’ ceramite armour. Angry red marks glowed on the armour where the marines had been hit, hinting that even the vaunted angels were not invulnerable to the men of iron’s weapons.

Rarity ran as fast as she could. Her legs burned from trying to keep up with the marine’s effortless speedy walk. Next to her, Applejack was easily keeping up with the marines. There wasn’t even any sweat on her brow.

Applejack even seemed to anticipate the men of iron. Twice she darted to the side with a warning shout before a swath of pulse rounds blasted through the air. Rarity and the others had to throw themselves to the ground while the marines dealt with the men of iron. Applejack, however, joined the marines.

Rarity’s mouth fell open the first time Applejack jumped atop one of the larger men of iron, and punched it so hard armour buckled. Then cracked. Fingers pierced the mechanical head and tore it free in a spray of hydraulic fluids.

Rejoining the others, the only explanation Applejack gave was, ‘Long story.’

Other children were all around them. Some running, others being carried by marines. One marine had two children under each arm, and another on each shoulder. It soon became apparent that he wasn’t alone. It was a mad flight across the battlefield. Some marines holding the line, others herding or out-right carrying children.

It was a sight that filled Rarity with pride, wonder, and shock.

Even with the marines’ protection, not all the children survived. Pulse rounds found little bodies. When the two met, flesh exploded. Even a few of the marines fell, overwhelmed by the ever growing numbers of men of iron.

And so they made their way down the valley to where it began to widen.

There a couple Scout Marine squads had set up a beach-head. Thunderhawks were already waiting. A trio sat in an old crater, engines burning and ramps open.

A breath of relief made Rarity’s shoulders slump.

It was far too early for such feelings. Behind her, a little bit north of the vault’s entrance, the mountainside parted. Hidden doors clattered on giant gears that made the earth underfoot rumble. Steam poured from the gaping new entrance in a thick, grey cloud. High within that cloud appeared a red glow like a massive knife had sliced it open.

Rarity’s hair began to stand on end.

“Get down!” Pinkie shrieked. She jumped on Rarity’s back and sent them both into the mud mere moments before a thick ruby lance of magmatic energy sliced across the quarter mile. A thunderhawk coming in to land was struck right on the nose and blasted apart. The wings of the venerable machine were flung in either direction, while the body simply vanished.

Fire from the ground and air began to converge on the steam. Golden hued diffusion shield flashed, and a humanoid figure eighty feet tall emerged.

“A proto-titan?” Rarity breathlessly gasped.

Her head swirled.

Thoughts became foggy, and her body moved of its own accord. She struggled back to her feet and ran on rubbery legs towards the nearest thunderhawk. Everyone was swarming into the transports, ignoring the commands of the marines in their blind panic. It was bedlam.

The ground shook with every step of the proto-titan. Warhorns blasted, and even from such a distance they were utterly deafening. All other sound was crushed beneath the horns’ brassy roars. Explosions and the electric rapport of pulse fire grew closer.

Pushed along by the mass of bodies, Rarity was shoved into the waiting mouth of a thunderhawk. For a moment, she glimpsed Applejack and Flash being forced into a different thunderhawk. Gasping, pressed shoulder to shoulder with other children, she didn’t know if anyone else from her squad had managed to make it aboard either vessel.

She didn’t relax as the thunderhawk lifted off.

Eyes pressed tight, she fell back on her training and began to sing.

At first her voice was thin and reedy. After the first few bars she found her strength. Others quickly joined. She recognised Pinkie’s enthusiastic voice. Then Red Heart’s more dulcet tones. Finally, Minty’s vibrant developing soprano. Other children attempted to join, but without the Sister’s training, they were haphazard at best, and a tumult at worst.

The thunderhawk dropped sharply, sending Rarity’s stomach up into her chest. It banked hard to the right. Through the hull came the angry vibrations of the proto-titan’s volcano cannon.

Somehow, Rarity and her squad maintained the song. They would give drill abbess Marie no excuse to use her whip, had she been present.

Another voice, stronger than any other Rarity had ever heard, joined the next verse. Over the heads of the other children Rarity caught a brief sight of strawberry hair. For a moment the children parted, jostled by the thunderhawk as it banked and weaved in its climb spaceward. On the other side of the compartment, right near the doors, stood the woman from the vault that had forced them into the daemon’s chamber. She was smiling gaily as she sang along, gave Rarity a wink, and placed a finger over her lips.

The thunderhawk dropped suddenly, and everyone was thrown around as it performed hard evasive maneuvers. Even through the thick armour, Rarity could feel the heat the proto-titan's volcano cannon. She braced herself as best she could and continued to sing. But, she had lost sight of the enemy in their midst. There wasn't a red headed killer to be seen.

The rattle died down, and they were in space headed towards the Steinsmarine’s battle barge, the Indefatigable Hood.

Rarity attempted to squeeze her way towards the front of the bay. She needed to find the intruder. Wait. It would kill her if she got too close.

No, she had to warn someone. The moment they touched down on the flight deck, she had to find Pollux and warn him about the monster that had snuck into their midst.

Author's Note

And so, almost all my cards have been revealed. The guns of Chekov have been fired, and a new one loaded.

Pre-empting some of the questions;

Equestria is on the far side of the Deep Warp. In my research I found that the Deep Warp is a place that even the Big Four Chaos Gods are afraid of going. Now, obviously its meant to be a very nasty place filled with very nasty horrors that put fear into even them. Maybe it has been revealed what is cannonically there. I took that concept and ran with it being more that they are just revolted by the 'Harmony' that is the other side of the Immaterium. It is antithetical to their being, and thus they hate and fear it.

It is also why Equestria is (generally) a happy bubbly place while the 40k side is... not.

NMM speaks briefly of oaths and Neoth. Yes, this is an oath she (and Celestia) shared with the Emperor at some point in the very distant past, before Slaanesh was birthed and the Eye of Terror was formed and everything went to total, supreme pear shape. I have time set to be moving at roughly 20-1, with 40k being the faster side. This gave me a time-frame where the Emperor was keeping himself hidden from humanity and his actions and motives are more ambiguous. Enough so that it would be plausible that he'd have some fun hanging out with a couple talking horses.

Maybe he even went to Equestria for a time.... Maybe that is why things got so bad in the galaxy... maybe this particular idea only occured to me literally as I was writing this Author's Note.... You will never know....

Onwards! The 'Proto-titan' was something I was going to have inside the vault. Long ago plans were for Rainbow to "pilot" it (it being half-assembled with no legs and hanging in a harness) and use a Big Assed Gun to shoot the kilguar. The extra large tunnel that had been blackened and melted was the lamp shading in this regard. I discarded this particular idea long ago. Bringing in the proto-titan at the end of this chapter came to mind simply because the Automaton Attack theme came up in my playlist while writing the ending of the chapter. So I went, 'sure, I'll pull off and dust off this old, loaded gun I left laying around. Give it a shot.'

And the question became, 'How would they escape with an angry Legally Distinct Not-A-Gundam pew-pewing buster beams?' Enter Alpha. She was meant to be seen through the crowd aboard the battle barge. Rarity would catch a glimpse, have a moment of panic, but be unable to spot the android again.

I think I covered the important stuff...

Anyways, I hope the chapter was enjoyable. I had a lot of fun writing this one.