For the Empress!

For the Empress: A MLP and Warhammer Crossover
Chapter 3: In Times of Yore

God I’m lazy. I refuse to let this die, but to prevent confusion, possessed or demonic creatures will not speak like this, while any other emphasis will be whatever I think is appropriate. And I’m sorry to those of you who think Starswirl is awesome...
There are male and female Mareines because of genetics. SOMEPONY tried mixing the genes of two Primarchs, and it made the legions gender-equal.
Oh, and if someone’s got a GOOD name for Luna and Celestia’s legions, I’d appreciate it.

Equestria’s Western Border, 8956 AD
“Horus? Horus! Horus you lazy oaf wake up!”
“I shall only be a few more minutes...”
Sanguine kicked his brother’s head with the strength of a strong human. Horus grumbled and opened his eyes.
“Daemon!”
“Relax Horus, it’s me! Sanguine! You got turned into a pony too, so don’t think about it too hard.”
“Oh.” Horus rolled over on his bed of rocks and moss, before suddenly rolling back over. “WHAT?!”
The Warmaster stood up, looking over his body to see if his brother was joking. He wasn’t.
“Oh man, Dad’s gonna kill us.”
“Hey, it’s not like that time Fulgrim came home with that demonic sword of his. THIS TIME, we didn’t take anything that didn’t belong to us.”
“You just had to mention that, didn’t you?” Horus snarled at Sanguine. “Can you try not to rub it in anymore?”
Sanguine paused for a few seconds, mouth open. “Sorry.”
“I should hope so. Were it not for this infernal form I might come over there and beat you over the head! How am I supposed to walk like this!?”
Sanguine nudged his brother’s side, shoving him over into his feet. “Try to walk and find out.”
Grumbling, Horus tried to stand up. Pushing up with his hind legs, he tried to stand up.
Like a human. Which made him fall backwards and hit his head on more rocks, which the idiot had failed to notice.
“What in the name of-!”
Sanguine burst out laughing. “Very good Warmaster! Ahaha! I see you have the perfect mastery for this sort of occasion!”
Horus growled and rolled over to stand on all fours. “Well then Sanguine, perhaps you’d rather be on EQUAL FOOTING!”
Standing on all his legs, Horus attempted a pounce at Sanguine, only managing to jump a few feet and completely missing his brother. Sanguine fell on the floor, laughing hysterically.
“Mercy brother, mercy! I yield to your superior psychological warfare!” The Primarch finally managed to blurt out, before collapsing on the ground and entering hysterics again. Giving up on attacking for now, Horus began to dedicate himself to getting up.
“Be still! Declare your name and rank!”
Sanguine abruptly stopped laughing, and Horus, on the verge of being able to run, fell over in shock. A group of armoured ponies, all smaller than the Primarchs, all with wings and horns of varying sizes, stood facing them, all wielding bolters and weapons in varying states of repair. Sanguine stood up, assuming a tall, confident pose, and spread his wings.
“I am Sanguinus, Primarch of the Blood Angels Legion, the Angel, Son of the Emperor of Mankind. The other pony you see before you is Horus, Primarch of the Lunar Wolves, Warmaster, and another son of the Emperor of Mankind. I ask that you state your names and ranks.”
One of the ponies stepped forward and bowed his head.
“Forgive us Primarchs, we have not seen any in person but our own, Celestia and Luna. Could you please come with us? They will want to greet you personally, I’m sure.”
Horus, who was carefully standing up again, looked up again, startled. “Luna!?”
He fell over.
Sanguine snickered under his breath. “Perhaps you could give Horus a hand, he hasn’t quite mastered walking yet.”
Horus grumbled as two of the armoured ponies walked over and carefully lifted him onto their backs, “And I used to be Warmaster.”
“Don’t worry brother,” Sanguine patted his brother on the back, wobbling slightly as he did, “You still are.”

“What was the point of that?”
Cog looked at Celestia blankly. She shrugged.
“I thought it was an interesting story. Proof, I suppose.”
Cog sighed and shook his head. “You know, out of all of Kid’s children, you confuse me the most. Go on, skip to the important bit. You shouldn’t stay here for too long.”
Celestia tilted her head sideways and looked up at the ceiling.
“Alright then.”

“Luna! Take off the armour!”
“No! You merely wish to attain the level of power the I have!”

“Alright, I get it, now stop pissing around and tell me how Luna got hold of Chaos corrupted armour.”
Celestia smiled.
“Thank you. You should understand that the armour Sanguine had been wearing got torn from him in the crash, and that Horus’ armour was already stored in a very secure place in the ship.”
“Of course, I put it there myself,” Cog pointed out, “Until I could destroy and purge it as I saw fit.”
“Naturally.” Celestia stopped smiling for a few seconds. “I wondered though, did you know of the presence of Chaos before the sword was found? Did you know what the sword did?”
“Had I seen it, maybe. But I had only ever heard rumours, and the first time for decades that I left the Golden Throne complex was when Magnus... Well.” Cog shuddered. “Gods we may be, but immortal we are not.”
“I see...” Celestia spaced out for a few seconds, before shaking herself into concentration. “Returning to my story, even a safe built by your hands is not indestructible. A ship crash, for example...”

“Bring more water!”
Celestia, armoured in the brilliant white and yellow of her half-formed legion, charged into the burning wreckage of the spaceship. It had formed a huge crater, and the shrapnel had flown out over a huge distance. Ponies, Mareines and Techpriests alike fought to control the fire as the four Primarchs charged around the wreckage looking for survivors. Horus forced a blast of cold air through the interior with what little magic he knew, but managed nothing, as he raced through to the engine room. Sanguine, on the other side of the ship, struggled through wreckage to find the bridge, while Celestia and Luna searched for the armoury and cargo bay.
Celestia ran down a corridor, only to find the way blocked by collapsed girders and a roaring flame.
“Luna! I can’t reach the armoury from my position! You’ll need to go there instead!”
“Gotcha!
From her side of the ship, Luna ran left down a corridor, heading quickly towards the vault. Celestia took off towards the cargo bay to cover for her sister.
“If you’re behind that door, move it or getta whole lotta Primarch!
Horus smashed down the door to the engine room with his body, sending the already weakened door flying. A group of Space Marines stepped from the side of the door, carrying Tech Priests on their backs. Horus pointed back the way he’d come.
“Run out! This place is going to blow up far too soon for my liking!”
As the Space Marines ran outside, Horus ran INSIDE the engine room. He looked around the room, with no idea what he was looking for.
“What would Cog make a safe like!?”

Sanguine, in the bridge, luckily did not have to worry about the same thing. He did, on the other hand, have to worry about what seemed to be an awful lot of explosive jelly and gummy bears of all things. Sanguine cursed the thing that had caused all the problems and began looking for his father and the two tech gods he’d been travelling with. They weren’t there, and neither were their bodies. He turned around and began to run out of the ship again, ignoring the earth-covered windows, cursing their unseen adversary at the top of his lungs.
“Son of a bitch!”

Luna jumped as her brother’s profanity came through the commlink, but quickly started running again. Coming to the heavily reinforced door of the armoury, Luna sped up.
In one swift movement, she swung around, planting her hooves on the ground in front of the door, and bringing the other pair around to smash through. They stayed in contact with the door as it burst open, her other hooves lifting off the ground as she spun around again, landing inside the room in a surfer style pose on the bucked door.*
The inside of the armoury was... Well... An armoury. One side was lined with suits of power armour (transformed by the world’s unusual Majiks** to the shapes of ponies,) another with guns of varying strength and power, and one that was fitted with tools and workbenches that looked capable of covering everything.
“What am I here to take again?” Luna asked through her link.
“Tools mainly, then weapons, then armour. In that order.” Came Celestia’s voice, calm as ever, “Nothing else.”
Luna grabbed as much as she could with her magic. Drawing all the tools together into a ball, she realised she had picked up a box with them. An experimental smack with her hoof did nothing to it, so she resolved to keep it, even though it was rather large. Grabbing the cache of weapons, taking sword in her teeth for ease, she decided to take two suits to carry the tools and weapons, and began running outside. The box came too.

“You’re kidding,” Cog put his head near to the floor, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“It came open with the aid of a Lascannon. A rather impressive move, but a waste of a charge, I always thought.”
Celestia patted Cog on the back as he hit his head on the floor.
“Shall I skip the slow decline into semi-madness?”
“Please do.”
Celestia nodded and took a sip of a glass of water that had been placed next to her. Cog looked around in shock to find that he had a glass of apple juice placed next to him.
“DAMN he’s a good butler.”
Celestia smiled.
“In abbreviated form, Luna had built up a chaos-aligned army and made a fortress in the area known as the Everfree Forest. It was un-infiltrate-able by any pony.
“But we aren’t ponies by birth.”

“LUNA! SURRENDER OR SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF ONE WHO HAS SEEN THE LIGHT!”
“I don’t think that will be happening any time soon Horus. It is a lovely piece of armour.”
“VERY WELL! THEN WE SHALL BRING THE FIGHT TO YOU!”
“That isn’t possible you foals.”
“NOT BY A MORTAL PONY!”
Horus, Sanguine and Celestia flew over the ravine separating the castle from the rest of the forest. A bolt of thunder from Celestia’s horn as they got close was enough to create a hole in the shield Luna had set up. And the trio’s incredible strength was enough to withstand the sudden hail of bullets that they encountered as they passed through.
And then they dropped it.****
The three passed through the corridors of the otherwise unpenetrable fortress, mowing down traitors left right and centre. Celestia made her way up, Horus made his way down, and Sanguine made his way straight ahead. If anything, they sped up as they split.

Sanguine came to a room guarded-
Make that PREVIOUSLY guarded by a full squad of traitor Mareines. He smashed down the door with ease and checked inside.
The hideously mutated form of Luna’s second most powerful (The most being Luna) mage stood in front of him. It smiled.
“Sanguine, how good to see you.”
“Starswirl. You always were ambitious.”
The blue twisted form of Starswirl the Bearded, Traitor Space Mareine, chuckled.
“I don’t suppose you would rather work with your sister rather than force me to kill you, would you?”
Sanguine chuckled in turn, drawing an assortment of weapons and forming a ball of fire.
“Bitch, please.”
Eventually, having torn Starswirl into pieces for his heresy, Sanguine looked over the rest of the room. At the back was an orb that pulsed with energy, standing on a pedestal. There were also several bookcases. Sanguine idly shot the orb, causing the magic to explode through the ley-lines sending it through the castle. Having achieved the first part of his mission, Sanguine picked up a group of books and began searching them for any diaries or magic journals.

Outside, the forcefield shattered, losing major areas of its protection. Various explosive went out, only for even more to be hurled back in. Sister-Captain White Burst grinned, standing on the edge of the crevice. She’d always wanted to punch Star Swirl’s smug face into oblivion, and she was FAR too good a pony to take it out on his children. She began ordering pegasi and unicorns into making a firm bridge that they could cross...

Horus shot several bullets through several heretic’s face’s as he descended to the lowest point of the castle. Luna was being cocky. In staying in the highest point of the castle, Celestia had to do more work, but Luna was more at risk of being attacked. It was a trick that was meant to show she had the upper hand, and Horus admired her guts.
She was wrong about the upper hand though.
Horus smashed another group of heretics aside, his current target in sight. An orb, twice the size of the one Sanguine had been going after, lay on a pedestal, surrounded by more guards who towered over it. From his chance Vantage point, Horus shot the orb with a bolter round, making it explode and rousing the guards. They turned to look at the orb, then over to Horus. As one big, ugly group, they snarled. Horus laughed.
“More fun for me!”

Outside, the Mareines charged across a magic and stone bridge, taking the Chaos Horde head-on. Their battle cry was one, and their strength was tenfold from it.
“FOR THE EMPORER!”

Celestia ascended the last level of stairs in a flash, tearing yet more guards into pieces as she went. She burst through the door to the stairwell, sending the door flying off its hinges.
“LUNA!”
“Celestia.”
Luna sent a black magical missile towards her sister, nearly nailing her straight in the head. She tutted.
“Trying to be difficult, are we?”
“Only to the demon that tries to copy my sister. This isn’t the way she would act out of choice, and I know it.”
“So narrow minded. Don’t you believe that your sister can act of her own free will? That she can make her own life decisions?”
“That’s not a life decision, that’s forced possession.”
“You’re just shallow minded.”
“I AM A FOLLOWER OF THE IMPERIAL TRUTH!”
“Shallow lies of a false god.”
“WILL YOU SHUT UP YOU ARROGANT LITTLE RAT!”
Celestia gritted her teeth and drew her own sword. It had six gems set into the hilt, and crackled with magical energies.
“I CHALLENGE YOU! HERE! NOW! TO RECLAIM MY SISTER! BY SWORD AND BY GUN!”
Swinging the sword to point at Luna, she raised her head.
“WILL YOU FIGHT ME AS AN EQUAL? OR SHALL I USE MY OWN TRICKS TO BEST YOU DEMON?”
Luna, or the thing calling itself Luna, smirked and drew its own sword. It had no gems, but crackled with raw power all the same.
“Very well. I shall accept your challenge. By sword or by gun, one of us shall fall tonight.”
And the two clashed, in a confrontation that would scar the landscape for millennia.

NO EPIC BATTLE FOR YOU! Possibly ever. I just want to get this up before I go to bed, it’s kinda late and I’ll only do the entire battle if I need to. I’ll tell you if I’ve changed it when I put the next chapter up.

*A technique that would be forgotten and unused by ponykind for a VERY long time afterwards.
**Yeah, Majiks***. They’re that messed up.
***I even wrote it in bold and italics. With a capital letter. You get it?
**** No idea what ‘it’ literally is, but ‘it’ blew stuff up.