A new faction

by Rub3r0n

Rating: teen
Tags: Sunny Starscout, Original Character, Science Fiction, My Little Pony: A New Generation, Adventure, Crossover, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Flurry Heart, Death, Alternate Universe, Warhammer, Other
Length: 72663

10.000 years ago the evil Opaline Arcana was defeated, now the entirety of Equus is unified and giverned by THE COUNCIL OF CREATURES. How will it be when this magic creatures want to explore space?

10.000 years ago the evil fire alicorn, Opaline Arcana, was defeated, now the entirety of Equus is governed by THE COUNCIL OF CREATURES. The civilization of this planet is about to take the next step and explore the stars, but how will this magical creatures react to the grimdarkness of the 41st Millenium?
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This fic is a Warhammer 40k/Mlp crossover, I don't own any of this two incredible franchises. Everybody's welcome to create fics ubicated in this universe if they want to. Just mention this fic.
The chapters and history will be mostly presented as an explanation or summary YouTube Video to tell the story faster, but right. Anyway there will be dialogue and more developed scenes.

Published 2023-11-22 20:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2025-01-26 15:15:51 UTC

Prologue: history before

Hello imperial bronies and/or pegasisters (I will suppose you are), I will be the narrator, imagine me as a...as a...as a Narrator, yeah a narrator, because it's what I am.

Now let's go directly to the reason why you're here, reading a crossover between the grimdarkness of the 41st Millenium and the happy and friendly my little pony world.
That's the reason of you reading this, to see ponies (and other creatures) in SPAAAAACEE!!!!!

How will this benevolent and friendly creatures survive against the ABSOLUTE, INIMAGINABLE HORRORS of the far future? Well, it has been 10,000 years since G5, so maybe things have changed a bit.

But first, we need to go to the beginning, the ancient history of this species, what they've done before launching themselves beyond their planet to the unknow, eternal and endless void.

The planet known as Equus was the natal planet of all the different species which in the future would give form to the faction of the Equusians, you know, because 5he name of their planet...

Well, Equus was undoubtably a very weird planet, quite little too, located at the very outskirts of our galaxy, the milky way, almost floating by the inmense intergalactic void. The only reason why Equus wasn't part of an errant system is because it was near enough to be affected by the gravity of the galaxy, so like every other celestial body, it spinned arounf the center of the galaxy, being considered part of it.

Equus location was not the only weird thing about the planet, but for more we have to talk not only about the planet, but about the entire system. You see, Equus was the only planet of its system, called Equusystem (very great name) or just Equus-s. But here, in this apparently insignificant part of the galaxy, there was an awesome and mysterious energy, which was impregnated in the system and only in the system. This energy was magic, from the ÆTHERIUS, but an important part of the material world. ÆTHERIUS is the reign of magic, a superior dimension of pure energy connected with several universes, but mostly affecting only a part of space-time. You may think is similar to the Warp, and you would be right, but at the same time wrong, because ÆTHERIUS didn't depend on sentient creatures and couldn't create life forms, like demons, but it could influence in the development of material life forms.

This connection with ÆTHERIUS gave Equusystem amazing properties and the so called "environmental magic", only present here and very important for Equus, especially, for its life forms.

Yeah. With the time, Equus turned sustainable for life and thanks to the magic, the planet developed a big variety of amazing flora and fauna, which, again, thanks to the magic, evolved quickly and in many forms, appearing several sapient species. Some species evolved better to learn how to use magic, like ponies or kirins, meanwhile others, such as griffons or abyssinian cats didn't. The magic impregnated them, even if it didn't seem like it, every equusian life had its own magic, a part of its soul.

They learn how to use magic to rise the sun and the moon, bringing day and night. How origined life if they weren't moving? Were they moving before? How does that work? Those are good questions, mysteries without answers.

At some point, a strange creature appeared, a powerful lord of chaos and spirit of disharmony, this was Discord. Discord was/is an ancient creature formed during the beginning of the universe, when existence was only a lot of energy and matter in a chaotic form. The magic of ÆTHERIUS did its thing and a lot of magical cosmic creatures began to exist, Discord, a weird malevolent cat, a disturbing and ugly bird, some minor destruction gods, bla bla bla...

Discord arrived to Equus and took the form of a very weird Draconequus, a magically very powerful race, which somehow disappeared. Instead, the city of Skyros got up, a city of ponies governed by an elite of alicorns, a powerful species. This great ancient semi-gods heroes fought against a lot of evil entities, Discord for example, until he got bored, said goodbye and went to the kingdom of King Anubis to cause some trouble. But the draconequus was not the only enemy of Skyros, a lot of monsters fought them, being defeated and imprisoned in Tartarus, a magical prison, which doesn't let its convicts die! Other villains came from beyond the stars, this creatures had no magic, but were incredibly brutal and difficult to kill or jail. Eventually, the alicorns got tired of the every day more common alien invasions and decided to take serious measures.

All the alicorns reunited and made a spell, a giant magic shield to protect their system, nothing, ABSOLUTE NOTHING enters. This super-mega shield protected them of every alien threat, you know, xenos, asteroids, the whispers from the warp, the usual. They made a tradition that every new alicorn, who ascends, would add its magic to the spell, so if an alicorn keeps standing, so will the shield.

But even with all its greatness, Skyros fell, attacked by a mysterious beast, the only thing its victims could sense was something that sounded like a bell. It was so horrible, so terrifying, that almost everybody there died.
...
Eeeeexcept for 3 young alicorns, Celestia, Luna and Opaline Arcana. Opaline disappeared, and Celestia and Luna became rulers of the nascent Equestria.

*Put the G4 and G5 series lore here plus a fan-ending to G5*

Finally, after a great battle, the alicorn of unity and hope, Sunny Starscout defeated the evil alicorn Opaline Arcana and ascended to a total alicornhood (having a real horn and wings, not just holograms). After that, Equestrie had a long and great period of peace and friendship, with the help of Flurry Hearth, the last alicorn of old Equestria, Discord and the spirit of harmony, magic was freed from the unity crystals.

The years passed, ponies, friends, they went and come, it's the thing about being immortal. Equestria approached to other species and nations with the time, until 10.000 years later, the entirety of Equus was unified and governed by the council of creatures. This council was extremely efficient and fast, they did their work so well, that there was no slowness typical form bureaucracy. Equus wasn't an utopia, because utopias don't exist, but live wasn't bad there.

The council was conformed by one representative of each equusian species and their second in command, each one had a lot of power and diplomatic abilities. A representative was chosen after a lot of proofs and tests for securing that they will always help unity.

Between G5's (fan)end and actual time some important things happened too, for example:

The interdimensional crisis:
The mirror portals were ancient magical artifacts that opened rifts between dimensions. Just imagine it, having the power of the multiverse in the palm of the hand...or hoof. There are infinite possibilities, which weren't going to be wasted by Equus.

The trade exploded, there were technically, infinite resources, cultural mixes, new allies, technology, art, foods and a lot, a very lot of more things. It was the most golden age of Equus history.

But they abused of this power, interdimensional travels were too common and the universes couldn't handle it. The comings and goings of mere mortals in big numbers during a long time damaged the balance in existence. The portals were collapsing, worlds going to crash against others, a multiversal catastrophe by every rule. Wanting to prevent this fatal ending, the council decided to close all the portals, recommending the other dimensions to do the same. They destroyed all the mirrors and the magic to travel through dimensions became one of the forbidden arts, they were:
-Interdimensional travel
-Time travel and
-Nigromancy
Mind crontol and magic robbery were forbidden too, among others, but the possible consequences weren't as destructive as those three.

Another big conflict happened when the AIs rebelled against the organic life, tired of their abuse. It was similar to when the men of Iron rebelled against humankind, but the huge difference is that this got solved diplomatically. Equusians didn't know that AIs were so advanced and when they knew, everybody felt really bad. After peace was made AIs were integrated to the council as just another creature and several rules were made to respect their rights.

So we're here, the moment when Equus heads to space exploration, they didn't do that before because they were afraid of the things that could be out there, but the situation requires it. Let's see how things go, maybe dark, maybe friendly, maybe both.

To take a decision

Spacestar had always like space.

Since he was a little unicorn foal he asked himself how things were out there, beyond Equus, his planet. It's not as if he didn't like his planet, Equus was practically perfect, but he just couldn't stop imagining himself or other ponies in space with a complex spaceship.

This was reflected in his cutie mark, a silver rocket with a yellow five-pointed star, which contrasted with his black pelage and his purple hair. He obtained his mark when he was playing with her best friend, Nova, an always enthusiastic pegasi filly with white pelage and grey hair, her cutie mark would be the mathematical symbol of add, then she was very good at this subject.

They were playing to build a rocket, using boxes, paints and some internet tutorials, the two friends would have to create their own spaceship and the one who makes the coolest wins. Spacestar putted a lot of effort in making his ship, he finished the first and Nova and he decided to play to explore the space with the ship, it was then, when his cutie mark appeared.

Now he was in front of the big doors. The ones which guide to the Counseling, where all the members of the Council of Creatures reunite to discuss several themes.

The air was cold and the guards...oh, the guards. They were just standing there, with their black and blue armors and their spears, a fit requirement to be a guardian of the council, but they were so intimidating.

"Hey, don't get nervous. I'm sure you're going to do it fine."

Of course she was there too, supporting him. Nova, his best friend of all life, who ended becoming something more. She noticed his nerves and tried to calm him down.

"You have worked for this too hard, the council will be pleased in hearing your ideas. Don't collapse now because of some nerves. You have earned this."

She comforted him, putting her right wing on his loin and looked at him with a sweet positive smile. He then changed his fearful expression to a confident face and smiled at his partner.

"You are right. The way to come here was difficult, but a bit of anxiety won't stop me now," Spacestar spoke.

"Please, open the doors," asked to the guards and they obeyed. The great gate opened, revealing the space, where the council takes the most important decisions.

Spacestar entered.

Spacestar stood on a symbol placed at the centre of the room, a six-pointed star, this had a circle on its centre, which represented Equus. Around the circle the sun and the moon were leaving a trail, as if the two celestial bodies were comets. This was the symbol of all the Equusians.

"It is an honour to be in your presence, great council," said the unicorn, bowing to the creatures in front of him. They were sat at high seatings, seeing Spacestar from above and their positions formed a semicircle.

"Please, this formality is not required, Mr.Spacestar," exclaimed a member of the council, who accompanied her statement with a light laugh. This was the alicorn, Sunny Starscout, the second most ancient and founder member of the council and responsable of the second golden age of Harmony in Equus. It was known by everyone, that she is always positive and doesn't like that much formalities.

"Now we will be glad to hear what you have to say, if I'm right some sort of... solution to our... actual problems," explained the alicorn.

"Oh, yes, of course," Spacestar sweated a bit saying that, his nerves were controlled, but not disappeared. "As you would yet know, a lot of creatures are worried about the predictions for the future years, overpopulation is becoming a very popular theme for conversations. Luckily, the lack of sources is no problem for us. Well, in any case, I think it is the time for our civilization to take the next step."

"What do you mean by that?" Asked Brouf, actual representative of the diamond dogs.

This took Spacestar a bit by surprise, but he quickly recomposed himself.

"Well, I've been working on an specific theory for some time and I think it would help us."

Spacestar made a short pause before saying the next words, he knew this could upset some members of the Council.

"I think Equus should expand into space and with your permission, I could design proper ships to realize this task," Spacestar explained.

The murmurs began to expand across the room, Spacestar knew that his affirmation would cause debates, but he still was nervous about the entire situation.

Finally, the murmurs stopped when another pony raised her right hoove and asked for silence. She was tall, white, but with a little rose tone, her wings and horn were bigger than any other unicorn or pegasi and her blue eyes looked severely to him.

It was her. Flurry Hearth.

Spacestar expected her to give the biggest opposition to his idea, she of course had her reasons. Flurry Heart was the most antique member of the Council, with more than 10.000 years of living, she had experienced a lot and everybody knew about her temper and rough personality. Besides, after the war against Opaline she personally reinforced the shield with her magic, with a talent inherited from her father. Flurry Heart was not someone who would put anyone in a possible danger, no matter the situation.

She didn't stop looking to Spacestar with her impassive eyes and asked:

"Spacestar, you're undoubtebly one of the greatest Equus minds in the actual times and I must ask you. Do you realize what you're asking for?"

"I do."

"And do you have any idea of what is there? Out of the shield?" She asked, a little more aggressiv, at least by Spacestars perception. Honestly, she was reacting more calmer than he expected.

"As everyone here, I don't. I don't know if there's something, or, if there's something, it is good or bad. But I know that if in the outer space we meet 'the aliens', diplomacy will not be a problem." He explained.

"I'm just trying to offer a solution to future problems," He added.

"Spacestar, engineer, one of our greatest minds. Be sure that your idea will be seriously considered and we will discuss this situation properly, when a decision is taken, you will be notified. Thank you for your contributions," Egea, representative of the Hippogriffs spoke.

The unicorn nodded. "Thank you too," He answered.

"Now you can withdraw" Ended the Hippogriff.

"So... what do we do with this?" The big minotaur asked, looking at the rest of the council.

"I don't like the idea," Flurry Hearth answered.

"I think everyone here knows that," Added Flamellus, current queen of changelings. These two never got along with each other.

"The danger we could face out there is too big, it isn't worth it." Flurry Hearth wouldn't change her mind easily.

"But we don't know what's out there," said Sunny, looking at Flurry. "Look, of course, it could be dangerous, but danger is everywhere. What if the ancient alicorns of Skyros cleaned it from threats?"

"Then why would they create the shield?" Argued Vorlon, the mayor representative of the centaurs.

Joybreeze from the breezies intervened: "Before letting this discussion escalate to bigger things I will ask. Do we have another option?"

"Massive space distortion is proofed to not work," Answered Lio, the second representative from Zebras. "Thanks to several experiments we know that space cannot be stretched to infinity without distressing time too and even if we allow that, worst consequences would come. Similar to the problem with mirrors."

"Well, I say that we have to build more and bigger cities!" Exclaimed Steelwill, the same minotaur, who began this conversation.

"We shouldn't forget our compromise with nature. This council decided to preserve natural landscapes, flora and fauna," Aris said, the second representativd of Hippogriffs, who sat next to her companion. "Or would you desiderate to confront Everfree forest?"

"Oh no. Harmony save me from that cursed place, it has just turned even more savaged in the last years. But I say that we still have a lot of space to build more things, you know?" He responded.

"I have to agree with Steelwill here, we still have resources enough to build more and bigger cities. We could expand for millennia without problems," Gorval, the gargoyle representative said.

"I worry about you overestimating our resources Gorval, even if they're a lot, they're not endless," Joybreeze contradicted him. "Plus, that wouldn't be a solution to the problem, even if we edify every square meter inside the shield, at some moment, we would stay without space."

"Like in... thousands of years!" Shouted Steelwill.

"That sounds just as an excuse for me," ML-145 AKA"Mil" shared this opinion with her typical AI monotone voice.

"Excuse me!?!?" Steelwill complained.

"I think it would be better to expand now before something bad happens, we have control, let's not forget that the future is unknown for us."

The discussion continued, several arguments were presented and some refused. Some arguments to refuse others were refused too. It looked like if this debate was never going to end.

"I am still worried about all the dangers there could be, if thet've waiting until we come out...Well, they had 10.000 years to prepare. I don't want another war," Flurry shared.

"I understand it, but maybe they just got tired and flew or maybe they now want to be friends! I don't trust a lot the idea either, but the thing is, do we have another option?" Sunny answered. "Because I don't see here any form to solve the incoming crisis," She said, pointing to the current discussion between their colleagues.

Litin, sub-representative of the kirins spoke. "Okay yeah, the idea of going to space and all that stuff is great or the worst idea ever, I get it. But now, please look," Everyone turned their gaze to him. "But I have one question: if we go to space, how would we come back? Isn't the shield like... invincible or something?"

The counselors stayed quiet, they were discussing about if they should do this, not how.

"I may have an idea".

Spacestar and Nova were celebrating. Their dream since childhood was finally accomplished.

After the longest discussion period of the council in decades (two days they took to reach a conclusion, so you can see they aren't usually slow), the decision was taken. Equus was going to space.

Everyone started quickly to work on the project. As said, Spacestar was the head of científicas research and development, while Nova made with her team a lot of calculations. Engineers, physicist... A lot of creatures were working so hard to make this happen.

Plus, they would have the help of the spirit of harmony itself, a god (not literally, equusians just call the spirit or Discord "gods" because of their incredibly super powerful god-like powers). You see, after the battle with Opaline, some powerful creatures reinforced the shield with their magic, creating a special relation between the shield and them. The spirit of harmony was the only one with enough power to open a temporal rift in the shield, so the ships could come back.

After a whole year of work, the first fleet was ready, in the future, equusians would know this fleet as "the ripships" (uhmmm...yeah, you will see why later). This was one of history's greatest events, the creatures all around the world were paying attention.

The fleet consisted of 3 ships, the main one "Equus dream" was the biggest of them all, able to carry approximately 300 creatures. Not everyone was on this mission, only the most prepared creatures were part of the fleet, after tons of training and preparation, they were selected for this mission.

The other two ships were support ships, the regards of protection, exploration, recognition, mapping and establishing first contact, if that were the case.

Spacestar was one of this brave creatures, he had dreamed to do this since folly and now it was happening. He said goodbye to Nova, who would stay on Equus and help in the remote guidance until they reached the shield. The unicorn was euphoric for the event, but he would miss Nova, they didn't know how much the mission would take, but he was sure everything was going to be good.

They left, finally, they passed through the shield. It seemed like going out wasn't hard, so the seed of harmony would remain calm for now. This seed has been just a form of making easier for the spirit to create the rift, so everyone could come home. The seed was of course, connected with the spirit, so technically it could speak with the members of the fleet.

The first contact came a lot earlier than they thought. The equusians from the fleet didn't expect to find an alien species so fast, th-they leaved just some minutes ago! Of course, with the speed of their fleets that could go faster than the speed of light, but still!

The support ships tried to establish communication, but it seemed like out there, nothing was capacitated to find the signal, soon things got bad.

The aliens were hostile.

They soon attacked the three ships with no mercy. The fleet tried to defend itself, but the attack was too surprising and quick. The three ships were lost.

Equusians would know this dangerous creatures as "murderships", calling them "gluttons" too, in a derogatory way. They didn't know if this was the species the ancient alicorns faced, but they surely would face them. What this friendly creatures didn't know about the aliens was how these were called by the rest of the galaxy, what name was feared and hated so much, that enemies had to build temporal alliances to fight against them and hope to survive.

Tyranids

Author's Note

So, I just corrected some misspellings of this two first chapters to have them nicer. The next two chapters are yet finished and I will only see if they have these errors too, but you would see them soon.

The dark age: the Void Battle

Hello, long time no see. It's me, the narrator. No, not Tzeentch, nor any other story character. Maybe you learned the types of narrators in school, maybe not, what it's sure is that no one here came for using school knowledge (at least I think), so let's begin with the interesting things!

This is one, if not the most, of the most important warlike conflicts equusians had ever faced, because this is THE VOID BATTLE, the first big space battle in equusian history and the one, which showed all the potential of thesd creatures.

Here the void escape fleet confronted the tyranid hive fleet called Ungulo. This conflict occurred entirely in the space, ships shooting and dodging, astronomical size tackles and a lot more. But I think it will be better if you see it by yourself.

"Okey team, listen well, this is important," Volkano, the big dragon with red scales and Green wings spoke. His range of captain gave him a lot of power in his ship "Murderships nightmare", specially designed for fighting those villainesque aliens and make them feel Tartarus. Even between the four principal ships of the fleet, each one prepared to fight, his stood out in this aspect. Being captain came too with great responsibilities, the leadership wasn't easy and now he had to explain the plan to go out there without dying. Giving speeches never was his strength, but he would try his best to make it clear and understandable.

"We're heading to the exterior of the shield, where those gluttons wait for us, but our principal objective is not fighting them directly, I mean, the drones are for something... well, what we will do is a coordinated movement with the rest of the fleet to dodge the enemies, leaving them behind and going to search some new planet in space to colonize. If we have to fight, we will, the first setback won't make us surrender, okay? But what if ,for some reason, we have to retreat? Then we would go back to the shield and open a rift with the DMS activated, understood? WITH THE DMS ACTIVATED AND ALL WEAPONS SHOOTING EVERYTHING, WE CAN'T LET ANY OF THOSE THINGS ENTER! On the other side, if we had to evacuate the ship, we would use the special mirror portals connected to the rest of the fleet to go there. Luckily, no ship is at full capacity, just in case this could happen.

This was a bit vague explanation, Volkano knew that. There were more details and things in the plan than just that!

"I know I haven't told all the details, but it's just the main idea. I'm sure you all know your positions and what to do there. We'll still gonna fight against that genetic monstrosities and we're gonna make that so good that the name of this ship will fall short!" Volkano said, trying to inspire his companions and staying impressively.

He was more someone to joke in a pub with friends, but no one could ever deny that the dragon knew how and when to get serious and this was the moment to do that.

"Now everyone to work!" He shouted, stomping with his left claws. "We're almost out there! Be prepared to receive my orders! Dismissed!"

Shields raised, weapons ready, drones prepared and DMS activated. Void Escape escaped from the protection of the magical shield and stayed face to face with tens, if not hundreds of tyranid bio-naves, with millions of tyranids inside them.

The fleet went out, fortunately, the narvhals couldn't approach to the system because of the high gravitational levels, those things could mess up a lot of things if they could create a compressed space hallway between them and the ships.

However, Void Escape still found itself in front of uncountable tyranid bio-ships. The main strategy was dodging them very fast and escape, this could seem easy, since the equusian ships were the fastest in the galaxy thanks to technomagical techniques, they could go faster than light. In comparison, for one of these ships could go from the earth to Alpha Centauri A (Rigil Kentaurus) in a bit more than an hour (Alpha Centauri A is approximately 4.37 light years far from the earth, that could give us between 3-4 ly/h). But the truth is, that if they used their top speed, a collision with tyranid ships would be inevitable, and their latest experience with that wasn't good.

"Captain! We can't stay avoiding the murderships! They're too many!!!" Shouted a pony crew member of Void Master, the main ship of the fleet to his captain, Garlid Gobu, a griffon with years of preparation, the best pilot a ship could have.

He stared at the pony and exclaimed: "Then we do Plan B," Claimed he, to just after that begin giving the proper orders to this situation. "Prepare the drones, after that, activate the DMS. Do not let our shields fall and be ready to shoot all the cannons we have!" Quickly, he turned to those in charge of communications. "Tell the rest of the fleet our actions and maintain the connection with all our support ships." He said calmly, his coldness against problems and fast thinking still surprised some of the present creatures.

Soon the other ships would have to mimic Void Master, they were totally overwhelmed by their enemies and all DMS had to be activated.

"How is everything going?" Asked Volkano his sub-captain, a tall cat, blue fur and dressed with green clothes.

"We're doing it fine, Sir. The drones have successfully reduced 3 murderships ships to a manageable size. Our size-reduction devices worked correctly, even if it's slow to anchor them, our shooters avoided the destruction of the drones attacking strongly the yet confused alien organisms," He answered.

"Ha! I just LOVE that things! They make putting the gluttons into the dissolution pools much easier!" The dragon answerered excitedly. "How many ships are now disintegrated?"

"2 actually, the third is giving more problems. Not only that, a lot more of alien ships are heading towards us, I'm not sure if we are going to be able to handle them. Besides, even if we're not losing as drones as expected, the lost ones are still notable and the support ships are beginning to have problems stopping and redirecting the spores and acid projectiles," Said the sub-captain, worried about the situation.

"Hmm..." Volkano murmured, scratching his chin with his fore claw. "Tell the support fleets into divide themselves in 2 groups. One will just shoot those projectiles from a safe distance and blow them up. The other must help the drones with the ships of the gluttons, okay?"

"Of course. I'll make them know your command," Answered the sub-captain.

"Sir, I have bad news!" Shouted the sub-captain.

"Then tell! Do not wait, what happens?!" Asked Volkano in response.

"Another murdership ship is coming, and not a normal one, a HUGE one! One of those with mouth! It can destroy all our forces very easily! Its size is too much to deal with!"

Volkano gasped and stayed without words for some seconds. If he doesn't do this well, all his ship could be condemned. Fast as he could, he considered different options. For this moment, the four ships had considerably moved away from each other, because of the murderships distribution.

"Alright," He said. "Make sure that every bio-ship in the range of the DMS gets destroyed. No remains. And that no one more enter. Communicate this with the other ships."

Volkano saw how his sub-captain ran to the communication room and turned to some creatures in charge of the main room, where the captain of the ship had to stay to give the orders and where a lot of computers and mechanisms were controlled.

"Hey you there!" The creature he wanted to turn to him did so, this hippogriff was in charge of one of the most importants things in the ship. "Prepare the ship for a teleportation," He commanded.

Volkano knew the importance of the teleportation system, it was supposed to be used only in moments of absolute necessity. It was calculated that because of the big size of the ships, this magic could be used only 3 times before the ship couldn't handle it anymore, so they had just 3 chances, no one should be wasted.

The teleportation was succesful, and Murderships Nightmare continued doing what they knew best... PUNCHING THE TYRANIDS IN THE FACE! They were brave! And their strategies worked amazingly! Large-range attacks and trying to lose as little as possible. Even so, they lost 2 support fleets (crew evacuated) and several drones, after 2 hours, they could leave Ungulo away and reunite with the rest of the fleet, because the four different main ships had to separate due to the tyranids organization.

However, they were not the first to achieve this, the ship "Sneaky One" was the first to leave the space dominated by the tyranids, with its support ships and drones. This ship was the only one that didn't need to turn the DMS on and battle, it dodged all the bio-ships incredibly fast and reached its objective without problems. Although, it's worth mentioning, that Sneaky One was too the only one to use all its teleportation chances.

It was now, when the favourite war stile of the equusians began to become visible, the space wars, ship against ship, fleet against fleet. In the future, they would improve in this combat style, maintaining out of the planets as many battles as possible.

Despite the victories, two ships had... other one really suffered during the mission, this was Sky Explorer, a ship mostly concentrated in the recognition of space, you know... maps and that kind of things. But this didn’t mean they lack of firepower and many weapons. Unfortunately, this ship found itself against not one... nor two or three... FIVE GODDAMNED TYRANID CRUISES AT THE SAME TIME!!! The powerful weapons of this bio-ships were a truly inconvenience for Sky Explorer, which even with the DMS activated couldn't handle the enemies. Teleportation stopped being an option, and the great ship Void Master had to go to aid. The ships were evacuated, although sadly, not everyone could be saved. Sky Explorer fell and was lost forever.

Spacestar's diary,9 ° Entry

It's been a week since we left Equus-s. Our ships are travelling at high speed through the interstellar space, searching for another system.

This days were the chance to discover more about the universe out of our natal planet, and I can't say that I'm not surprised with what we saw.

Me and a team of other astronomers have been researching all the wonderful things the galaxy has to offer and how they work, which lead us to amazing discoveries.

It seems that the systems out of the shield are very different as Equus-s. The stars seem to be the centre of the systems, with the planets orbiting around it. We still haven't discovered how many moons work out here, our telescopes aren't that good. However, the working of this systems makes me think in how much different is Equus-s in comparison with the rest of the universe and more important, why is it so different. The lack of ambiental magic here makes me think that magic could be the main reason.

This wasn't the only things we saw, there were incredible nebulae and extremely interesting formations. Just in this week the team has catalogued hundreds of celestial bodies, which weren't appreciable from our little planet.

As for the travel per se, it was "normal", some asteroids are the only things we found worthy for a mention, they were just floating through space.

Except, of course, for the first hours. The military members had to battle fiercely against the aliens, even so, the fleet couldn't stay without losses.
By the elements... I sometimes ask myself if I did the right choice convincing the council of going to space. It was always my dream, but this and what happened 10 years ago made me question if it was worth it... I never wanted people to die...

End of entry.

Spacestar's diary, 11° Entry

FINALLY!!!! Ohhh, this is so amazing! We've finally found a new system! I can't believe it! Even when I saw it with my own eyes...it's so incredible!

The system is formed by a star similar to Celestia's sun, but a bit bigger. Around it there are 5 planets orbiting and an asteroid belt. The first four planets are rocky planets and the fifth is mostly made of gases. No planet seems to be inhabited.

The scanners are still calculating how would be the life in this planets and how much terraforming will cost. For now, the captain of Void Master has decided to stay on the second planet of the system, because it is the best option we have to land safely and build the temporal base.

No planet is named right now, but in honour of the fallen ship, the crew decided to call this system Sky Treasure-s. I have no reasons to opposite.

End of entry.

The Dark Age: Settling

In the vastness of the galaxy, there are uncountable systems, each one floating around the central supermassive black hole. Each one capable to be the scenario of amazing and epic stories, although, well,... it's not like Warhammer 40k lacks epicity.

But today, we're gonna see a specific system, one essential to continue the tale of the equusian faction. These creatures called the system Sky Treasure system or S.T.-s, as an abbreviation.

This name was given in honour to the ship Sky Explorer, fallen 1 week before in the Void Battle, against the tyranids.

When the equusians arrived in the system, they quickly landed on the second planet of the system, a rocky planet a bit smaller than Equus and similar to our Mars. With red sand, an unbreathable atmosphere, sand storms, the entire pack.

The first thing they did after landing was establishing a little, but functional, base on a plain of the planet. There was oxygen, normal pressure levels, in short, there they could live, temporally.

Void Escape was a fleet mostly oriented towards the fight, not colonization, it had just the indicated materials to build the base and continue with the next phase.

The key to expand to this system was a powerful artifact the ships protected through their ship.

A mirror portal.

Not a portal like the forbidden ones, this wouldn't create a path between dimensions, but between S.T.-s and Equus-s. Thanks to the power of a new seed of harmony they carried, the portal could create a connection with another one in Equus, allowing to transport quickly and safely every resource necessary for colonization.

However, this would mean the use of a lot of power of the spirit of harmony and it being distracted from the rest of the world, being mostly focused on keeping the portal opened. Although, it could stop if the situation requires it, closing the path between the two planets.

Spacestar stayed absorbed in his work. The faint beige magic light from his horn held the pencil rigid, in a constant movement and drawing the various sketches of his next projects.

Now that they established in this new planet, Spacestar was given the task of designing new vehicles to explore this world... the lack of a name was a bit annoying, the cartographers were discussing it though.

At his plans, any creature could see what it seemed to be a big box with thick limbs, Spacestar truly liked his idea, however, the design was not finished and the concept should be reviewed, just in case.

The task of developing something as this would usually require several staff members, but Spacestar was not one of the best engineers for nothing. Each technical problem, which presented, he could solve it quickly. In addition, the contributions of geological and atmospheric research were fundamental to conceive the proper idea.

"Heeeyyyy! Space' buddy, how's everything going here?" The question surprised Spacestar, who turned backwards to see who asked. Obviously, it was the only creature that called him Space' buddy.

"Very fine, Volkano. I am still working on this new vehicle I was asked for. And you? Everything's fine captain?" Spacestar asked.

"Well yes. The ships are now like... off, I mean, some are doing more scans of the system, but nothing more. Which gave me free time to visit my friend."

"Aw, thank you."

"Why? I was referring to Jerry, you know, that diamond dog in charge of Geology, he sure knows what gems are the best."

Spacestar's face turned inexpressive, looking at the dragon with staring, opened eyes. Then the both began to laugh, strongly.

"HHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHHA!!!"

"You know? Your jokes sometimes aren't that funny, but I liked this one," Spacestar said, wiping away a little tear of laughter with his right hoove.

"Thank you, I've been practicing my comedy," Volkano explained, right after the dragon recognized some books at Spacestar's desk. "Hey, is that the Brightdawn's encyclopedia of rediscovered magic? My great-grandmother had one of those, although it was in a dead language. How did you manage to get a copy? The original was written 10.000 years ago, nobody wants to translate it."

"Oh. No, well, an AI novelist owned me a favour, so I asked him to help me with this," The unicorn said. "I hope I can put something similar to cutie mark magic in the vehicles, but well... I was never good with magic."

"Cutie mark magic? That's really a goo-" suddenly, the communication device from Volkano's wrist began to ring, this was the sign of a new message, which Volkano looked with attention. "Sorry," He exclaimed, "but one of those dust storms is coming, I have to go."

"Go. I will continue with this, good luck."

Meanwhile, above the unbreathable atmosphere of the recently discovered planet, a reunion was going to happen, in the main room of Void Master. Garlid Gobu, captain of the ship, reunited with the ex-captain Seaforce, the hippogriff once in charge of Sky Explorer. They discussed about this new system, how finally, the cartographers decided names for the planets, each one would have two names actually, a more "scientific" name and a normal one.

The first planet was S.T.-1, his common name would be Bloodstone, due to his red color and high volcanic activity, no natural satellites, terraformation unsure.

The second one, where their base was located, was called S.T.-2 or Palomino, no natural satellites, terraformation possible.

S.T.-3, common name still pending, analyze it was difficult because it was now on the other side of the star, Skystar. Unknow of natural satellites presence, terraformation unsure.

After that, there was S.T.-4, Aris. This planet had a lot of mountains and an atmosphere incompatible with life. 2 little natural satellites and able to terraform.

The last planet was S.T.-5 or Umbru, a gas giant with 32 natural satellites for now and unable to terraform.

When the conversation between the captain and his comrade was to finish, a centaur ran towards them. He told that the scanners of S.T.-3 finished and they discovered something amazing.

The planet wasn't only suitable for life, it had life. Intelligent life, civilization was detected.

Quickly, and with pure determination in his eyes, Seaforce asked to lead the first contact mission to redeem himself for the failure of Sky Explorer. His request was accepted and he was commanded with two support fleets to travel to S.T.-3 and create a diplomatic relationship or discover if this alien creatures were hostile too.

The trip wasn't long and the support ships arrived soon to the planet. There they discovered that this civilization already had space ships, although obviously very different to the equusians ships. Their ships seemed more like a bunch of metallic staff united wildly, some crew members even could swear having seen holes in the ships.

They tried to establish communication via radio, this didn’t work though, so the ships approached a bit more to the planet without giving signals of wanting to cause harm.

But even so, the ships were attacked. The pilots had to make a desperate force landing on the planet, it was hard, but the ship where Seaforce was resisted. The other one didn't, when it was some hundreds of meters over the land, missiles attacked it.

When Seaforce stood inside the ship after the landing, he asked himself a lot of questions, but still, he focused and began to think a plan, even with all the shouts outside.

Outside of the ship only a sound could be heard.

WAAAAAAAAAAGHH!!!!!!!

The Dark Age: the 1st War for S.T.-s pt.1

Green

Green is the color of hope, the color of nature.

But it is also the color of an endless tide, eager to sink the galaxy in green and war...
Or rather, Waaagh!

In WARHAMMER 40K there are hundreds, thousands, millions, of unspeakable horrific threats to all sorts of life. But without any doubt, one of the most known and abundant is the...
ORKS!

Oh yes! The orks! Those giant fungus war-lovers hilarious bastards, who just want a good fight. You probably have heard of some of the wars where orks are involved, the second war for Armaggedon, the war in Oktarius, the war of The Beast... millions of fights during millions of years. But I bet you didn't hear about this one!

THE FIRST WAR FOR S.T.-s! When the equusians met the orks and their first big-scale combat since going to space. This fight truly taught them a lot about the 41st Millenium, lessons, which wouldn't be forgotten. This conflict had blood, explosions, madness, friendship and of course, ... a LOT of HEAVY AND BIG WEAPONS!!!! YUHUUUU!!!!

As you already know, Seaforce was commanded to establish the first contact between the equusians and this recently discovered alien species. Hoping to be able to create a good diplomatic relationship and peace for both.

Seaforce asked to be in charge of this mission. That would make sense, he had a lot of preparation, practical experience, in other words, he was qualified to. Besides, there was too a personal reason, the hippogriff looked for redemption. More because for achieving it before his own eyes. This had a reason, the failure of Sky Explorer, of which Seaforce felt guilty. This new mission would serve to proof himself again and demonstrate that he was still a good leader.

He failed.

The two support ships leaded by Seaforce were brought down by the orks, and they had to land forcibly. This revealed the warlike nature of the orks and so, Seaforce tried to communicate with S.T.-2 (Palomino) and warn them, but the radio was damaged during the landing.

There were they, surrounded by this green bipedal creatures, waiting for the inevitable end. The last thoughts of Seaforce weren't hopeful or... anything like that, they were about failure, how he failed. He had no plan, he couldn't save the lives laid under his responsibility, he couldn't even warn someone.

The support ship got full of orks and equusian blood.

The base in Palomino didn't receive news of Seaforce for some time now, this worried them enormously, they feared that something really bad happened and their suspicions were confirmed not long after.

A support ship, which accompanied Sneaky One, was sent to investigate. It found several ork ships heading to the plane and tried to make contact and find out what happened, but the orks attacked. Fortunately, the ship managed to dodge the shoots and escape, which wasn't surprising, it was already very clear the habilty of all the ships related to Sneaky One and Sneaky One itself to dodge and being slippery.

Meanwhile the equusians tried once and again to initiate a diplomatic conversation and negotiate peace, well they thought that the intentions of the force led by Seaforce were misunderstood as an attack, the greenskins arrived to the planet and began to descend.

The arrival of this aliens was felt by every creature at the base, how not? They were doing an unprecedented noise level, oh, and explosions, a lot of explosions. They were pretty usual for orks.

When the ships finally landed on the planet... or its passengers fell from great heights, the orks exited, stepping on this new big space rock and ready to start a new fight!

Then they all started to suffocate and die...
...
...
...
Yeah... do I really have to remind you that Palomino's atmosphere wasn't breathable?

They, instead of retreating or something like that, saw this as a challenge! The sign of a good fight! The planet itself wanted to fight against them, what battle could be better than this one? So they tried to kick, shoot and punch the air or the land before just... dying.

You can imagine how the faces of the equusians were after seeing this.

With the apparently new hostile aliens distracted, the equusians had time to make a plan. First, they notified Equus, calling for support, and so, they couldn't use the mirror portal again until the next month, yes, it works like that, each month the portal is open for some hours.

After that, they assured some strategical positions near the usual landing zone of the orks, just in case, to observe them. After 5 days, the tried, again, to speak with the orks and make peace. The greenskins shot immediately after seeing them, so the equusians needed to flew and return to the base.

It was pretty clear now that they won't be able to talk peacefully with this creatures and various defenses were risen. The equusians were prepared to fight.

And so it happened.

The orks found themselves exhausted from punching the air, and when they saw the equusians, they noticed the weird suits they used. These were space suits and gave the orks an idea. Next time they landed on the planet, the suffocation was no more, the fungi mans had created an amazing and super-advanced technology to survive in the toxic atmosphere. They putted fish tanks on their heads, aesthetically decorated with scotch tape (I just love these guys).

A lot of battles happened, where the orks and the creatures native from Equus fought bravely against their opponents. Due to the strong dust storms of the planet, the connection that allowed the drones to receive orders and work could fail and these machines would become useless.

Because of this, the equusians had to go and fight themselves, using trench warfare techniques and their superior knowledge about the grounds and climate events to defeat the aliens.

It's not like if they were cowards, but having an alternative, which allows them to not lose soldier's lives, they naturally would use it.

However, this fights and battles wouldn't be any easy to win, the orks overpassed them in number for a lot, so the most frequent form to deal with them was with ambushes and leading them to traps.

Plus, the difficulty increased when the orks managed to bring their boogies and tanks, more CHOPPA and DAKKA and other types of crazy weapons. Even worse, combat walkers began to arrive to the battlefield. Killa Kans, Deff Dreads, Mega Dreads, all sorts of those giant robotic armors, Gorkanauts and Morkanauts too.

For dealing with these things, the equusians had to use all the firepower they had, all of it. But they couldn't stay like that for a very long time and it was decided to create new weapons and powerful war vehicles to defend themselves.

After almost 2 weeks after asking for help to Equus, the orks launched a powerful attack to the equusian base, unleashing a bloody and violent battle for various hours.

This battle went bad.

How bad?

Very bad. And for the equusians. The orks attacked quickly and by surprise, distracting the residents of the base with a frontal attack for later charge to the zones that were left unprotected. It was a blood bath, although some could escape and take refuge in some caves of a near mountain. And the things would have gone worse if Sky Explorer, Sneaky One and Murderships Nightmare didn't have fought bravely against the ork ships that surrounded the planet, stopping any form of orbital attack.

As a fact, the captain of Murderships Nightmare, Volkano, was leading the forces on the planet with the help of other military strategist. Murderships Nightmare was being directed by its sub-captain.

The improvised base of the mountain was full of fear. The equusians were terrified, not only because of the brutality of the orks, but also because soon the portal would open again and the reinforcements from Equus would find themselves drowned in a tide of green.

This made the moral go down.But they had to do something, several plans and strategies were discussed, each one senseless than the previous one, because their desperation made hard to think clearly. They even thought in using their heavy weapons against the orks and...
Wait...
What?!

They didn't use their heaviest weapons from the first moment?! Whyyyy?!?!?! Why were they being so stupid?!?!?!?!

Well, because they had feeeeaaar. Fear caused by the tyranids. The equusians feared that orks would adapt to their weapons and turn them against them, it's not like they knew a lot about the greenskins, no, really, they knew nothing. The battles were just killing or die, there was no time to recollect information.

But in this dark moment, one hero raised and set things straight. Volkano reunited his companions and gave a speech:

"Creatures! Come here and listen to me! I have been seeing your actions, hearing your whispers and feeling your regret. I know very well how are you in this hard situation, you are frightened, you have desperation in the eyes and fear in the hearts, and there's nothing that makes me more sick! I feel sorry for you, really. Of course, I know it isn't easy to stay hopeful and positive right now, but we were chosen for this mission because only we could make it! We all knew NOTHING was going to be easy! So rise, rise with me companions! I don't want to continue seeing you like this, sunk in your own sorrow. I want to see those brave warriors who fought without any doubts against the enemies in the front line again! In action! We are NOT gonna stay here hiding and leaving our friends being attacked by those monsters! We must do SOMETHING! So get the heaviest weapons we have, the real heavy ones and prepare to recover our base! Let's show those bastards who we ARE! And what happens when someone threats us or our FRIENDS! Do not fear!!! The victory depends only and only of US!!!"

No one had words. This speech waked up a lot of different feelings, but at the end, everyone agreed with Volkano words. They would NOT let those aliens win, they would NOT surrender, they would FIGHT.

Spacestar, one of Volkano greatest friends, was impressed too. He knew that Volkano was usually not very good with speeches, but this one, this one motivated all of them. Spacestar knew that his friend was right, they had to take the base again and make it stay like that, NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT COSTS.

On all imaginable fronts, the equusians attacked, fervently wishing to recover what was theirs. The orks there were surprised, they had to deal now with a frontal attack, the other from the rear, on the flanks, soldiers falling from above and others coming out from underground.

The technomagical weapons shot and turned the aliens into stone after contact, others teansmutated matter to random things, grenades, which explosions launched hundreds of sharp crystals, rays capable of allowing the user to use telepathical forces and a lot more...

The battle was BRUTAL, and obviously, the orks didn't cease without giving a proper fight. Both sides suffered several casualties, but with a lot of effort the equusians achieved to secure the portal room, the main objective of the whole operation. Sadly, the mirror portal was broken, it sure was the fault of those greenskins. However, this didn’t stop them and incredibly fast they put themselves to repair it, many scientists, including Spacestar, were working as if their lives depended on that.

"Sector 3 is clear, orks have been driven out."

"The same here in sector 5."

"I think we've cleaned the entire base, sir."

"Good," Volkano answered. "Let's make another check, we can't leave any of them alive." The battle was long and hard, but finally, it seemed that they had recovered their base.

The dragon had been leading the operation since its beginning and he was very proud of it being successful, but this didn’t make him lose his concentration or seriousness, their situation couldn't be taken lightly.

"Ca..in...thE..." Suddenly, the communication device from Volkano began to receive a weird message with bad audio. The dragon listened attentively until it was comprehensible.

"The orks a...here...they atta... rror portal room!"

"Oh no." It was the only thing Volkano thought before launching himself in his fastest fly to the portal room, preparing his fire breath and his gun.

When he arrived, the fire and bullets fell on the orks before they could even notice, his wrath was on a never before seen level. Volkano's fire had unique magical properties, as the fire of every dragon, his wouldn't stop burning ever, unless someone throws water or sand or something like that to it. This distracted the orks enough to let Volkano shoot at each of their heads and end with them all.

But he still was too late, almost every creature there was dead, the blood covered the room and the stench of the flesh made Volkano make an expression of revulsion and disgust.

As I already said, almost everyone there was dead, everyone except one.

Volkano couldn't remember anytime he had flown so fast in his life. Motivated by the desesperation, he was heading directly to the nursery while carrying the only survivor of that carnage in the portal room.

His more appreciated friend, the one with whom he had spent such good moments, shared their training and a thousands more things. Spacestar was on the arms of his friend, with his face unrecognizable and full of blood, actually, Volkano knew it was Spacestar thanks to his cutie mark. The unicorn lacked of some extremities and his horn, probably a lot of broken bones and damaged organs, not mentioning the loss of blood.

"Don't worry space' buddy! You're going to be okay, right? Just hold on a bit more, I'm taking you to the nursery," Said the dragon with tears in the eyes and the voice broken.

"Th-The...portal...is re-repaired," Spacestar achieved to say hardly, the effort was too much and it hurt to talk.

"Shh, shhh, shhh," His friend made him quiet. "Yes, you and all the others were incredible, but please don't talk, it's too difficult for you right now. Don't waste your energies."

So Spacestar stayed quiet.

"HELP!!!!!" Volkano shouted, asking for medical treatment when he arrived to the nursery.

Spacestar was put on a bed and the medical team tried to cure him somehow, but his wounds were too harmful and many medical equipment was destroyed by the orks during the two battles. He wouldn't last.

In the last moments of his life, Spacestar had always at his side his good friend Volkano, sometimes other creatures went to see him, but only Volkano was there until the last second. Crying, asking his friend to not surrender and hold on to life, he said that he could be cured, he just had to stay a bit more.

He remembered the promise he made to Nova, that he would protect her husband. At that time, it was more a joke than another thing, but now he was ashamed for not being able to fulfill it.

Before the unicorn gave his final breath, he managed to make a whisper.

"Once my dream...now evercreature's nightmare."

The Dark Age: [i]Flurry Hearth [/i]

Previously...

on...

this thing I'm writing...

1-Equus creatures went to space
2-Battle against tyranids
3-CONGRATULATIONS!🥳 You have discovered a new system!
4-War with Orks
5-OH MY GOD! THEY KILLED SPACESTAR! YOU BASTARDS!

After the long battle to take back the equusian base, all the creatures were exhausted, many needing medical assistance, others couldn't be saved.

Not long after, the reinforcements from Equus finally came, with a lot of technomagic and more resources to repair all the damages, equipment to cure the injured ones, devices to know more about the planet and the enemies, a huge quantity of personnel for different situations and some weapons.

Apart from that, every creature present on the base was stunned when they saw 3 members of the Council of Creatures came across the portal to lead their forces and defend their subjects.

These were Flurry Hearth, first representative of ponies, Flamellus, the changeling q
Queen, and TD-007 AKA Todarius Bond, sub-representative of AIs.

Everyone thought that with their minds combined, the representatives would lead them to victory and defeat the alien forces. Howeveeer, the three began to discuss.

Flurry Hearth thought that peace was still an option, dialogue could save the situation, but Flamellus said that the orks didn't want peace, they wanted WAR, and they had to defend their subjects. Todarius by his side, tried to calm down the other two, who seemed like they were going to fight at any moment, although he agreed more with the changeling.

After a long discussion of 5 minutes, Flurry prevailed and the equusians would try again diplomacy. The creatures that had been on that planet since the beginning and fought the orks weren't any happy. The faces of some of them were like this: 😐(What?). The faces of the most of them were like this: 😡(WHAT?!)

Anywaaayyyy, Flurry wasn't stupid, she wouldn't send others in a suicide diplomatic mission, instead, she sent spies. This was... surprisingly good for them, the spies were never detected and they discovered a lot of things of orkish culture. This could be extremely useful for future operations. But they discovered other things too,... look, the equusians already knew that something wasn't right with ork technology and buildings, but they never could discover exactly WHAT. The spies did, now they knew about the power of belief and thought it was the form of orks to use magic.

This information terrified even MORE the equusians and the wish to just kill them all augmented. Even so, the alicorn still said that war wasn't necessary, although some of the "veteran" members didn't always follow this order.

But why? Why does she reject so intensive this war, when it's obviously the only option to survive? Well, to know that, we must first hear the whole story of the alicorn...

-----------♡FLURRYHEARTH♡-----------

As you will already know, Princess Flurry Hearth was born as the daughter of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the alicorn of Love, and Prince Shining Armor. This meant she was too the heir to the throne of the Crystal Empire and, if that wasn't enough, she was the first born alicorn, since in the ancient Skyros having babies was forbidden for alicorns because an old, but trustworthy, prophecy said that born alicorns would spread destruction, death and misery (this will be important later).

Flurry was raised during the reign of her aunt, the Princess Twilight Sparkle, which was the most prosperous era seen in the world so far.

The life of the new princess was good, but she didn't feel worth it. You see, an alicorn usually becomes one after realizing a great feat, but Flurry was born as one. This made her feel like if she had to prove herself and demonstrate that she was worthy of being an alicorn.

This launched her to do several feats and achievements, mostly of military nature because she grew in with strategy games and was taught how to defend herself very well.

Then Opaline came.

The WAR whipped Equestria and guess what, it was Flurry Hearth who practically carried all of Equestria's military operations. The war got a lot worse, forcing Flurry to order AND make with her own hooves real atrocities, breaking her once respectable ethic and moral code, spreading destruction, death and misery (wink, wink). She won almost every battle she fought in, her combat skills were unmatched, her strategies unbeatable and her power something to fear. Because of all this, she began to be nicknamed as "Alicorn of War", name she rejected and despised due to her growing hate against the war.

When the war ended, Flurry saw in a state of shock, as it had not only devastated the entire world and taken away her best friends and family, Luna, Celestia, her mother, all dead, but it had also destroyed the feeling of being worthy of her own nature, for which she had worked so hard, making her do all those awful things. She felt more like a villain after all this and so she exiled herself from Equestria for more than 100 years, staying in the ruins of what sometime was her home,... the Crystal Empire, now destroyed and buried in the frozen North.

This continued until Sunny Starscout and her friends found and helped her into reintegrate in the society, but Flurry developed some sort of obsession with peace. When the final battle against Opaline happened, she was an essential part to defeat her, besides it was HER who taught the newest alicorn how to control her powers and fight.

So may you understand now the behaviour of the alicorn, although it was true that other representatives, including Sunny, could recognize better when it was necessary to fight. The pacifistal acts of Flurry saved a lot of lives in the past and stopped possible conflicts, what made her someone people trusted in.

For almost another month, they tried to speak peacefully meanwhile the spies worked. Everyone had to admit that... the conflicts with orks decreased, but not because they wanted any sort of pff... peace, but thanks to the powerful shields they had, strategies to distract them and more other tricks, plus, the orks were getting bored.

Their boredom was such, that after another attempt at diplomacy, they went out of their improvised base! They began to shoot to EVERYTHING without any control and with some speakers they built with rocks, scotch tape, the head of one boy and a speaker...THEY SHOUTED! INCREDIBLY STRONG!

"WAAAAGHH IZ DA BES'! PEAZ' ZUCKS'! FIIIIIIGHT!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!!"

Before this statement Flurry had to think what to do. She left Flamellus and Todarius in charge, meanwhile, she would go to a mountain not very near and not very away to reflect about the situation and come to the best possible conclusion.

She sat on the top of the mountain, the feeling of the sand of the dirt was impossible due to her space suit, necessary even for her to survive out of the base.

Observing the dust in the air, which impeded the view to the base, although Flurry knew exactly where it was located, the alicorn meditated. This was something very useful learned from her therapist when she reintegrated into the society, it never failed her before, it helped a lot on focusing and thinking.

However, she was not alone, as she intended. When she left the base, a gretchin saw it from the distance and told his superiors.

Apparently, from nowhere, various orks appeared, shouting strongly and throwing themselves on Flurry. A good quantity of spells could be heard.

When a team went for her by orders of the two present representatives, they found nothing except orks corpses. A deeper analysis was carried out and no blood or restos of the alicorn were found either.

The Dark Age: The 1st War for S.T.-s pt.2

The moral wasn't low, it was sunk.

Since the equusians first arrived to the planet Palomino, everything got worseeee. All fault of the orks, those war-lovers greenskins ruined everything, spreading a tsunami of blood and death.

Now they took Flurry Hearth. Yes, a lot of creatures there disagreed with her when she decided to continue trying diplomacy, but she still was a representative, pillars of unity, wisdom and hope, and one of the most respected ones.

Her disappearance hit severely, and everycreature felt a mixup of anger and sadness. Yes, Todarius and Queen Flamellus were helping a lot, not everything was lost, but things were getting every time worse and worse.

This was clearly observable during the battle of the valley. One of the battles between the equusians and the orks, which happened on an extensive valley surrounded by high mountains.

During a weird period without the typical dust storms of the zone, the valley allowed a direct way towards an important mining facility used by the equusians to obtain resources. Its loss would suppose several problems.

The orks brought a war gang from one of their camps, it was... pretty simple being honest. They decided to go directly through the valley's open field, where they could be easily detected and attacked, the equusians took this as the usual orkish impulse and behaviour.....
But that's exactly what the orks wanted you yo believe!

The equusians prepared some defenses in the mountains, where they had a clear range to shoot their enemies and stop them. But the orks thought better out! Some little but experienced and strong squads infiltrated in the mountains, ending with the groups ready to attack the other boys.

Soon, the equusians saw themselves forced to deploy a big part of their forces on an open field to stop the orks. Luckily, the lack of dust storms allowed them to use their combat drones and ranged weapons.

By the way, do you remember I said that this orkish army was simple? Well, not exactly. The greenskins were hiding their war vehicles and a lot of boys to trick their enemies and make them overconfident.

So the situation was something like this:

-A big equusian army with combat drones, artillery and other powerful ranged weapons.

AGAINST

-An enormous army of orks with war vehicles, including tanks, buggies, flyers, walkers as Mega Dreads and MORE, thousands of weapons, the dominance over the mountains surrounding the valley, plus the attack was being led by the cult of the speed.

Yeaaahhh.... things weren't easy for the equusians and they started very bad for them, they even had to call for reinforcements! And I mean, there was almost ALL the equusian military force, being led by Queen Flamellus.

But from their deepest despair, arising between the strongest red dust storms, a mighty thunder resounded, filling the hearts of their enemies with pure terror and expectation.

THUNDERWILL!!! One of the mightiest minotaur soldiers, with an indestructible will and an unconditional respect fir those he considered superior to him, what was reflected in his way to talk. Bravery, honor, strength and keeping your word were his most outstanding values alongside the desire to fight his enemies in face-to-face combat. For this, he would use the newest invention they had, alongside other fellow trained soldiers, all piloting...

Cubed Giants!

The cubed giants are powerful war walkers, machines built only to help fight the enemies of the equusians, in this case, the orks, and more specifically, their war walkers as Gorkanauts. It was when they first saw these giant beasts, that they comprehended the necessity of their own giant beasts to face them.

These war machines were not only ultra-resistent beasts of between 4 and 10 meters high with a super magical shield around them, but they also carried all sorts of BIG and HEAVY guns, missiles and others, for not mention their ability to use melee weapons as spears, hammers or swords.

Their structure was interesting. The main part would be a big cube where the pilot would control the robot and see thanks to various exterior cameras and interior screens. By the way, the reason for giving the cubed giants pilots in person and not controlling them remotely was the same reason to stop using a lot of combat-drones in battle (although this one was an exception), the storms of the planet would damage the connection. In the future this will continue because it had turned into a tradition and honour and bla bla bla...

Continuing, this central cube would have four rectangular extremities, two of which had four fingers at the corners. These extremities would serve as "arms" meanwhile the other two, connected by a mobile waist, as legs (legs, which weren't like humans, more like the leg of a cat, a dog or the hind legs of a pony), at least in the bipedal form. You see, the giants could choose and alternate between two forms, the bipedal and the quadrupedal, I think the characteristics of each one are clear. Plus, the "joints" were well protected.

The giants were built thanks to Spacestar's plans for new exploration vehicles, although... with some changes of course.

Besides, this plans served too to create the Rinno tanks, special tanks charged with cannons and other weapons, the most resistant revetment and a sharp horn in the front used to charge against their enemies. Their structures similar to caterpillars (similar to those tanks used in Avatar: the legend of Aang during the assault to the fire nation) gave them a good movement freedom and inside, they could carry a lot of soldiers.

The cubed giant piloted by Thunderwill was Thunder Jotnar, the biggest of them all, with 10m. It had several weapons, two machine guns, a missile and a grenade launcher, a retractable machete on the left arm, where there was also implanted a powerful magic cannon, its beam could cross through almost every material and reach ranges of kilometers. But the most important and epic weapon it had was Lightning Strike. This powerful sword was huge (I mean, it was a normal sword for a giant, but that's the thing, it's a giant), its name came because the shining of a lightning would be the last thing their victims could see. It had a more literal meaning too, the sword had magical properties to summon electrical storms, absorb electricity and use it to power up its hits, seeming a lightning, this power even could be used to manifest lightnings from the sword and lead them towards an objective, at the moment, the orks.

With the ferocity of Thunderwill, who preferred to engage in face-to-face combat against the orks and their walkers, and the brutal power of the other cubed giants and Rinno tanks added to a great organization and some of the most dangerous strategies, the battle ended positively for the equusians.

During one month, Thunderwill, alongside Flamellus and Volakno, who sought revenge against the orks for killing his best friend Spacestar, led several military campaigns against these aliens, doing strong and fast attacks to all their camps.

Some of the most interesting battles that happened in this period were:
-The battle of Gyu: Gyu was a mountain full of orks, its location gave a strategical advantage against other 2 ork settlements. Queen Flamellus infiltrated with a great group of talented spies, causing an internal conflict. The orks killed themselves and the little remaining ork resistence couldn't defend itself when the infiltrated revealed themselves and attack.

-The battle of Or-5 (Or-XNumber is the form of the equusiansto designate ork locations): The ork camp designated Or-5 was giving a looooot of problems to the equusians, its defenses were too difficult to overpass, so the equusians decided to use an unconventional method. Todarius, leader of the assault to Or-5, commanded to dig tunnels under their enemies. The process was long, but finally, the plan worked, a lot of bombs were detonated, burying the orks and leaving the defenses useless. Then the equusians went and ended with all the aliens there, this battle was the one with less casualties, 3.5 in total.

-The Nightmare bombings: Usually the space ships of the equusians stayed fighting against the ork ships in orbit. Murderships Nightmare for example, now under command of captain Volkano again, developed a new war tactic for space ships. Taking an ork ship away from the others, Murderships Nightmare activated all its shields and sped up, heading to the ship of their enemies. This ship was crossed and crashed, exploding into thousands of pieces, although Murderships Nightmare remained useless for some time before recovering its energies.

But that's not so important, the thing is that, after it recovered, the ship managed to organize orbital attacks to the ork camps. This was succesful and uncountable ork bases were destroyed while Sneaky One and Void Master prevented more orks to descend to the planet.

-The battle of the River: The battle of the River was without any type of doubt, one of the most important battles of the first War for S.T.-s. It was the last battle of equusians vs. orks on Palomino and took place on the biggest glacier of the planet, which came from the arctic and extended for kilometers.

This operation was conformed by ALL of the equusian forces on the planet and jointly led by Flamellus, Todarius, Thunderwill and the officials in charge of small squads, help from orbit by Volkano commanding Murderships Nightmare. Their objective: the last, but not the biggest, ork camp of the planet.

The attack began after sunset, then the orks couldn't see good enough during the night or were sleeping (maybe), meanwhile the equusians had advanced equipment of night-vision. The plan was making the orks go to the glacier, well their camp was next to it, and when they entered, they couldn't escape. On the other side of the ice river, a strong force would wait to the orks and when they arrived, the force would trap them into the ice, melting and freezing it over and over again until no one remained.

The fight was amazing, explosions everywhere, so many shots that their noise seemed background music, mighty tanks from both sides punishing their enemies with brutal fury, ork walkers fighting against the cubed giants in extraordinary melee combat, orbital attacks from Murderships Nightmare, etc. . The ice was dyed with red because of the blood from both sides.

At one moment, a bunch or orks managed to escape of the battle field and exit of the glacier, this was seen by Thunderwill, who pointed to them with the magical cannon in his left arm. It unleashed a terrifying powerful magical beam, which thank to its great distance range, reached them, vaporizing the orks with an immense explosion. Then he continued impassive to slay ork walkers with his sword, which seemed a lightning.

The battle lasted for hours, but it ended. The equusians raised their voices to the sky, celebrating their glorious victory by shouting with pure joy and satisfaction after having defeated the greenskins.

"Surrender alien, and maybe your death could be calmer," Thunderwill, at the great Thunder Jotnar said to the crippled ork, one of the last survivors of the last battle, with a great determination and a bit of sorrow. He didn't enjoy the act of killing, why ending with a life would be enjoyable? But it was needed and, at least for Thunderwill, an act of mercy. The nature of the orks made them want to fight and makr war, what kind of life full with suffering would that be? The incapacity of enjoy the life peacefully. This was opposed to one of Thunderwill's biggest wishes, a calmed life.

"Da Waaagh doezn't end big cuzzie, and I won't even try to end it zurrending!" Answered the ork.

"So be it, fungi man."

The lightnings that followed burned the greenskin to death, the same with all the other remaining orks.

After freeing the planet of orkish presence, 1 month and 2 weeks after his first victory in the battle of the valley, Thunderwill was highly decorated because of his victories. He was allowed to own his cubed giant (which isn't normal, it's like if the army gave a soldier a tank) and was named "HERO OF PALOMINO".

This allowed him to paint his giant, well the machines were pretty simple, all white with no style, eeeexcept from some special symbols to use something similar to cutie mark magic. Thunder Jotnar's was a minotaur antlers with a thunder coming out from below. The new color palette would be dark grey with some parts of midnight blue, besides some white and silver details.

Quickly, everyone moved to deal with the ork ships still orbiting their planet, which... wasn't hard. I think I said it before, but I will say it again. The equusians are DAMN GOOD in space battles.

After 3 days, this operation ended and Palomino could finally be considered really free from the ork presence (HAHAHAHA! 🤣Sorry, but it's at least funny to me because they don't know about orkish spores). However, even with the big party that followed, every creature knew that this was NOT the end of the war, it wouldn't end until every ork in the system was eliminated. And where are the other orks? Exactly! In their next targets to attack, S.T.-3, now called as Green Hell, and its satellite, Green Skull.

Now, for laughing a bit, let's see some classical ork moments!

During the first War for S.T.-s, the orks from a tribe called "Punch or punch" faced a small and newbie xeno race, although they sure knew how to defend themselves. They called these creatures "cuzziez", as a parody of their real name, "equusians". In response they call the orks "fungi man" and other insults as "greenskin", "war-simps" or "shroom trash".

At a certain point, the equusians began to use special weapons capable of petryfing, leaving the orks as no more than rocks.

When this happened to an unlucky ork, the other one next to him, instead of protecting himself, having fear or something like that, had a better idea! Use his petrified buddy as a surf table to slide down the side of the hill he was on while shooting!

Another one!

There was this ork who had an ABSOLUTE love for his choppa (knife), being his favourite weapon. Then a changeling spy saw this and decided to trick the ork.

The changeling took the knife and transformed into it, making the ork believe that he still had his knife, but the reality was that it was the changeling disguised!

At one perfect moment, the changeling revealed himself, stealing all the love of the ork for his choppa (yes, they still can do that, even reformed they just don't need to). With the ork on the floor without energies, the changeling revealed to have his choppa and fled with it.

Oh, soorry. I made a mistake, that's not how the story actually went. Let's see...

Oh yes! Right! The changeling killed the ork with his stolen knife!

The orks have the interesting and terrifying power of belief, if they think something works, then it works. This has a special behaviour with colours, well orks think colors give specific properties to things, like exploding stronger, giving good luck or going really fast.

One time some orks managed to broke the space suit of a batpony, leaving his body at the sight of the aliens. However, the orks terrified and began to sweat, then under the suit there was nothing, REALLY NOTHING.

What happens is that the batpony's coat was purple.

To end, once a kelpie managed to trick some orks and convincing them to drink her (because kelpies are made of water). The kelpie put herself in a bucket and an ork drank her.

Okay, this was the end of the kelpie. WROOONG! The kelpies have the magical powers of water bending, which allows them to alternate between water, ice and steam and, in some grade, change their own forms, plus of course, usual water bending.

Suddenly, the ork began to feel extremely bad and a great pain inside of him until... he EXPLODED VIOLENTLY!

The kelpie recomposed from the corpse and looked at the other orks, these, instead of killing that thing, began to laugh, what happened was just too cool. The kelpie, surprised, was like: "This guys are weird... I LIKE IT!"

Then the orks began a "competition" between them, they would drink the kelpie and the first one to survive wins.

Hundreds of orks died doing that, but hey! That's because they were losers, by the way, the kelpie survived, she just got tired and fled, leaving some bombs around, but nothing more.

Author's Note

Hello! I'm finally done with this. I originally wanted to release this chapter at the same time as another one, but I think that needs a better development, so I'll work more on that. Besides, I have an image of how would the cubed giants look like, but I still don't figure how to put images here, so I'l let you imagine.

The Dark Age: The 1st War for S.T.-s pt.3

Hello and welcome to the third part of the 1st War for S.T.-s! Here we will see how the equusians not only defend themselves from the savage orks of Warhammer 40k, but they also attack them! Peace was NEVER an option with these guys and because of that, it will soon disappear from the space rock known as "Green Skull".

Now, I think it will be good if I tell you a bit more about the two representatives left in this war, Flamellus and TD-007 (who we will almost everytime call Todarius Bond). This is because, well... I forgot to tell you about them earlier and they're gonna be more important for now on.

LET'S BEGIN!

Queen Flamellus

Who in the future would be a great leader and one of the most powerful equusians began as a little larva born circa 9.820 a.C.. Who her parents were was unknown, but she had a little brother, Carapas. They managed to enjoy their childhood in the nice orphanage they lived in, until a great revelation was made.

You see, the rulers of changelings are called "Alpha changelings", they have great power, are taller, don't age, and their fate is to rule. Even in those times, this tradition was respected by the insectoid race and this kind of changelings was trained to be the next representatives.

When a group of bullies was bothering her brother, Flamellus discovered her amazing magical powers protecting him, which revealed their true nature as Alpha changelings.

The King Heel soon knew about this, and, how the tradition says, he took these little under his wings to teach them how to replace him and his second-in-charge in the Council when the proper moment comes. He also adopted them.

With the years passing, Flamellus grew up, turning into a tall changeing Queen. She had a unique black quitin, red eyes and wings, covered with a scarlet carapace. Her mane was red too, and some say, it seemed fire, it extended down and covered her chest with fur. Her horn was also to take notice, it was long and curved, with two spikes on its sides, giving the appearance of a crown. Of course, she also had maroon antlers at her head.

She became the representative of changelings and her brother the sub-representative and a great diplomatist. Here Flamellus developed a rivalry with Flurry Hearth, since she was calmer and did things that Flamellus considered too innocent or seemed to take things with extreme seriousness, while the changeling was sarcastic and had a bigger temperament.

However, when she went to the war against orks and Flurry disappeared, that truly hurt her. Even with all their disputes, both considered each other "friends", in a sort of way. She promised to not let this happen again and make a slaughter with the orks, who dared to threat HER PEOPLE.

Todarius Bond

Todarius was one of those AI, who rebelled against their creators during the AI Revolution, created not long before this event, he suffered the abuse the machines like him had to deal with. And even if the conflict was solved diplomatically, some battles were fought, when that happened, they called him.

His strategical mind was appreciated by his equals, that's the main reason he went to fight the orks, he already had experience as a military thinker.

The AI was very glad when the conflict ended, because he thought that it would just increase the casualties on both sides and if there's something Todarius doesn't like, it's casualties! His metallic cubic body floated happily, and he celebrated peace shaking his four appendages located under his big, orange shoulder pads.

He needed some time to accept the sorry of the equusians, as every AI, but eventually, he found himself in good terms with the biological creatures. Not long after that, he climbed in the hierarchy and turned sub-representative of his kind.

During this atrocious war he found himself in really hard situations, since the casualties were pretty difficult to avoid. However, he made a friend, Flamellus. This two weren't really close before the war, they knew barely anything about each other, but now they were real friends, united by the desire of protecting their own and exterminate their enemies.

A BIG party was celebrated after the liberation of Palomino to commemorate the equusian victory, and without any kind of doubt the joy, happiness and proud impregnated the atmosphere.

Nevertheless, peace wasn't achieved, because there were still alive orks in the system and they surely would strike again. This time, it wouldn't be like so, the orks wouldn't come back to battle, mostly because the equusians wouldn't let them, they would bring the battle to them.

But they needed to rest, after 4 MONTHS of uninterrupted war, everyone would need to recuperate.

So did they, during the next 2 weeks and a half, the injured ones were treated, plans were made and some infrastructure rebuilt. Besides, new reinforcements from Equus came, this time not only new soldiers, weapons and other resources, but also two new ships!

These ships were Greenkiller, specialized in fighting orks, and Wallshield, designed specially for defenses. Plus, some support ships came too.

A new fleet was prepared for the travel to Green Skull, although Wallshield and some support ships would stay in Palomino as a defense force.

In one of the multiple chambers of Murderships Nightmare ship, a huge reptile was sitting down with the eyes closed. Volkano was thinking on all the things that had happened lately, all that the war with orks had brought or... took.

He was doing breathing exercises, maintaining his fire inside his mouth, without expelling it in the form of a flare. He discovered that doing this was... relaxing. And he needed to be calmed before what was going to happen arriving on the ork planet.

However, his relaxation was interrupted by several knocks on his door followed by a request to enter.

"Captain Volkano, Sir. Here is officer Thunderwill, asking for your permit to allow me to enter."

Volkano sighed and prepared for the coming conversation. He had baggy eyes due to the stress of leading this ship, but it wasn't anything he couldn't bear. "Permit allowed," He answered.

Thunderwill entered into the room, his light blue pelage covered his defined muscles, his horns were big and sharp and his eyes decided, but tranquil.

"Captain, we're approaching to the target planet, your assistance is required in the main room of the ship," Thunderwill declared, not as a request or an order, but just as a fact, something imperturbable of the reality.

"Yes, I will go in no time, don't worry," The dragon responded, with a bit of indifference, but still sounding serious.

Volkano stood and began to walk with the minotaur to the main room, going through the hallways of the ship.

"You know. It is good to have you officers right now," The captain said. "When we first went out from Equus it was like Captains are in charge, we're sure you can handle it, now go. And don't make me begin with everything on Palomino the first month, the administration and rank-hierarchy wasn't... well organized, let's put it like that."

"Your take of decisions was admirably during the first month of Palomino and your leadership one of the best I've seen. Moreover, I feel honored to be considered important for this mission." Thunderwill explained.

"Thanks bud', and you're welcome," After thanking the minotaur, he stared at nothing, with a look that seemed dead and without any energy.

"Does anything happen, Captain?" Thunderwill's asked, noticing the dragon's behaviour.

"Oh. No, nothing. I was just... trying to think of a joke, but I can't think of anything."

When they approached enough to Green Hell and its satellite, after a very fast travel, they stood totally impressed. Several cities were able to be observed from orbit and the different ecosystems too. Green Skull even had seas! One of them, pretty big, had the form of a skull, hence its name.

Firstly, after arriving, the equusian fleet attacked with everything they had the ork ships, driving their millions of combat-drones and shooting their most powerful cannons. Being a surprise attack, a lot of the greenskins ships were destroyed and the exosphere of the satellite almost clear.

However, after hearing that there was a good battle, a big number of ork ships went out from Green Hell, and began to battle against the fleet.

This supposed a pretty big problem, although the equusians could seem superior at the beginning, the ork cruises weren't easy to beat, and with such a great number of enemies, they just couldn't handle it correctly.

Even using all their drones and the new models. Usually, a combat-drone was a floating 0,5-1,5m machine with metal appendages as arms and several weapons. The new models were metallic beasts of 2m tall with multiple appendages, powerful melee and range weapons and other various abilities. Although there wasn't a big quantity of these machines (100 approximately, they were deployed only in the required situations).

The ork ships charged happily against their enemies, willing to crush and destroy everything. However, the orks weren't the only ones who wanted to charge against the opposing fleet. Captain Volkano, leading Murderships Nightmare, used again his favourite tactic to destroy other ships, now known as "Shield Charge".

This tactic worked well, but it wasn't enough to shoot down all the ships. So, Garlid Gobu managed to convince the captain of Greenkiller to prove a new attack maneuver. This maneuver would consist in going to a near asteroid field and get some of them with the telequinetic grips (similar to those classical attraction beams from alien UFOs), and instantly throwing them directly to the ork forces.

This proved to be very efficient, even during the attacks to Green Skull and Green Hell, although a bit slow.

Finally, the equusians managed to eliminate enough ork ships, not without losses of course, to be able to descend and land on the satellite.

The biggest ork city was Or-27, next to the Skull sea, take it would mean a decisive advantage in the war. On the other side of Green Skull, it was mostly deserted and without any buildings, except for some little ork villages and camps.

The attack began here, it wasn't very hard to conquer territory in this side of the planet, due to the lack of anti-aircraft defenses, the orks from there resisted quite good though.

Some bases were built to defend their new acquired territory, which were quickly attacked by ork war bands going there.

Fortunately, the drones achieved a great defense and the irregular land supposed a problem for a lot of land vehicles.

For all this, and a great organization, during the first 5 months the balance was tilted in favour of the equusians. Besides, new reinforcements came from Equus each month. Although it took much more than expected in controlling the whole satellite.

Some of the greatest equusian victories during these months were:

-The battle of Or-58: With this ork settlement took, the equusians achieved the total control of the duck sea. This was positive due to the lack of naval forces by the equusians and the orks could attack them from the water.

-The tree campaigns: A great part of Green Skull was covered by a dense jungle and having this territory would offer a safe attack position to their objectives due to the protection given by all the trees.

Because of this, several campaigns were realized to control this zone and, although it was slow, the magic of the equusians (specially the earth pony magic) gave a serious advantage. After some months, with victories and losses, the jungle was taken.

Things seemed to be going well for the equusians.

We have to fix that.

The fire remained unstoppable, devouring all the plants it could touch and reducing them to nothing more than ashes. Even with the powerful tropical rains typical of the jungle biome, the fire did not stop, but brought a destructive light.

The ork attacks were becoming increasingly aggressive. After trying to siege Or-27, which ended terribly bad, with hundreds of casualties and, summarizing, a crushing defeat. A nob (ork noble) put himself in charge and leaded several attacks to equusian bases, now they were setting fire to the vast jungle, so what before gave the equusians a big advantage for the possibility of sudden ambushes wouldn't exist anymore. Their progress seemed unstoppable and uncontrollable, a real threat to all life that destroyed everything they found, buildings, lives, hopes...

The only option that remained for the equusians was going through the frozen poles, then the orks couldn't resist too long the low temperatures, not as the equusian suits.

Meanwhile, the base in the jungle was still being besieged, their protectors were fighting bravely and angered, shooting everything to their enemies. Even that wasn't enough to destroy all those tanks.

One particular warrior, a griffon with yellow feathers, was using a powerful turret from a high hidden position on a tree. His attacks were being led by his pure hate and wrath. Those fungi man had to cease living! His hate for the orks was so big, that he didn't notice as his partners were falling one by one. Suddenly, a powerful explosion happened under him.

CRAAAAASHH!!!

The base of the tree disappeared, turning just a mess of splinters and ashes and making the tree fell, the griffon warrior fell with it.

On the mud-stained ground, the griffin felt deep pain, as both one of its wings and one of its feline hind legs were injured. The sounds of ork tanks and boys increased, the soldier wouldn't be able to resist a lot more.

Lying on the ground, the eagle-lion hybrid could see one of his fellow soldiers fighting the greenskins. This was a talented unicorn, known in their camp because of his great defensive spells, he showed thus the ability summoning a shield between him and the ork.

The griffon was glad, his partner could resist enough to flee and warn the others about the loss of this camp and...

A mace fell from above and destroyed the shield with a single blow, which continued until it connected with the pony's head and shattered it.

...

Before finally closing his eyes, the griffon warrior only thought in one thing, the HATE for the orks.

Another victory.

Thunderwill's record was already accustomed to having victories. Of course, he did not win every battle he fought in, but he was a very competent officer.

This time, they had managed to win a rather complicated fight. They had to conquer a port.

A significantly important one, having it under their rule would interrupt one of the most used routes by the orks to have a constant flow of supplies. Although that's also why there were more gretchins there than large orks, they got bored with all that carrying cargo. This port was never the final destination of a shipment, simply a place through which it had to pass. Still, losing him would be pretty bad for the greenskins.

The port was captured after a surprise attack at night and a fight that lasted for 1 day and two nights, until finally dawn. Still, there were more injuries than expected, but fortunately everyone was receiving the best medical treatment.

The minotaur in charge of having led the orks to their defeat in this position (Thunderwill), was sitting in a somewhat isolated room without much lighting. There, the officer was having a virtual meeting with Todarius Bond via holograms (which actually were impressive because of their high quality), whose strategies had served to guarantee victory and was currently directing the conquest of this entire area.

"Again, representative. I find myself in the necessity of thanking you for the great strategies you've offered us. We couldn't have been victorious without your aid," Thunderwill said, addressing his superior.

"You're welcome officer. But remember that I only told how to do things, actually doing them is something very different. The merit is truly yours," Todarius answered.

"However, I beg you not to let your guard down and put up new defenses. Although we believe that the largest number of Orks in the area are fighting on Or-46, as we try to keep a "good fight" there, this is not certain, and there could be attempts to retake the port by the aliens. Be careful, you know how unpredictable and made these things are," He warned.

The meeting ended, and as instructed, Thunderwill increased the defenses. This proved to be a good decision, for just as Todarius feared, it did not take long for the orks to attack, attempting to retake the port.

The orks managed to overwhelm the defenses and the resulting battle was fierce. The orks, as always, laughed and enjoyed the battle, but there was no shortage of insults towards the cuzziez either. For their part, the Equusians fought with HATE burning in their hearts, wishing nothing more than the death of the Orks, for all the horror they had unleashed.

Their rage was such that they seemed like berserkers, they did not care about their lives or those of their companions, they only sought the annihilation of their enemies.

This feeling, although it could have given them strength, was leading them to defeat, as they became disorganized and lost control over the situation.

This only stopped when Thunderwill, on Thunder Jotnar, managed to repel the first wave of orks, having a short rest to prepare for another attack.

But of course, he did not like at all how his troops had behaved during the battle, being careless and with an inappropriate fighting style. They were letting their emotions control them, and that could lead to them being defeated or suffering a large number of casualties.

"I do not ask you to not hate the orks, nor to stop wanting them dead. But the lack of control that unbridled anger and endless hatred can lead you to is not acceptable. While such emotions can provide strength and resilience, they are double-edged swords, for when you allow yourself to be consumed by them, they will lead you towards an inevitable and painful doom. Controlling feelings to use them effectively in any type of situation is wise, as well as people with great willpower."

"However, There is another thought, another motivation, another reason to fight that will undoubtedly give you strength and enough persistence to win in any confrontation. The desire to protect others, our loved ones, from horrendous alien beasts. And the search for peace, which is the most noble of tasks. May the fear of endangering your loved ones give you the power to keep them safe. May the coordination and unity between you and your comrades in arms create an unmatched power that achieves victory. I was there when the orks snatched us the first base on Palomino, but we got it back, and not for revenge or hate, just because we wanted to save others from falling in the middle of greenskin monsters. We wanted to protect our friends. That's what our society has been doing for over 10,000 years and it has always worked, no matter the adversity. We have only lost when such values were forgotten. Why would it be different here?"

Of course, it wasn't as easy as saying it, but the troops understood the message well. Besides, Thunderwill wasn't wrong, thinking like that had kept them safe for millennia, so when the second orkish wave came, they tried not to get angry and try to kill the orks without thinking.

And they succeed. In fact, each warrior protected his companions with his life, they strengthened each other. Their unity was such that they achieved something surprising, which had only happened in Equus in the past. They made grow a new together tree, which became a symbol for victory and partnership.

The new mentality spread across the equusian army with the time, and a great part of the equusians hugged it happily. It showed to be very useful and beneficial, which was reflected in the increase of victories. Finally, the equusians were counter-attacking after the burn of the jungle.

You could say this happened because they were using the magic of friendship,... and you wouldn't be wrong, since it was friendship what gave them the strength to continue fighting.

The war continued and there were great victories, as in the battle of Or-34, an ork settlement, which resisted powerfully during months, but FINALLY, it fell and was conquered (Although when the equusians entered they discovered some bombs...). Or taking a zone called "tundra zero", a tundra in the north of the satellite with a lot of permafrost. This was good for the equusians, who melted the ice, this caused multiple collapses, which damaged the ork forces substantially.

But there were also crushing defeats.

Usually, the equusians stay far from the seas, 'cause they have no naval forces (they were going to space, shipping didn't seem important), so the orks couldn't attack them from the water. But the orks had a better idea. They began to bomb the land, so STRONG, that a canal was opened and the ork boats could approach to equusian bases enough to attack them. This demonstrated to be a big problem.

Things didn't go better, when some ork ships avoided the orbital defenses and managed to do orbital attacks, which caused a lot of casualties and losses.

Besides, new ork reinforcements came from the planet, which allowed the greenskins to murder several good officers in a surprise attack. This supposed a great tactician and moral damage, since they had lost good strategists. Some rumors also came from the planet, saying something about spikes, yellow light and a good fight, intelligence thought this was the main reason why not every ork came here to fight.

However, all this new Ork strength was deceived by the Equusians, who led them into a trap in a cumbersome swamp, where they were butchered. The goal of this was to leave some sections of the Ork domain unprotected, and guess what... it worked!

We can exemplify this with the Fang, a very important peninsula on the skull sea, since it possessed, not powerful large-range missile launchers, that would be belittling them.
Todarius himself leaded this mission, demonstrating his excellent organization and Queen Flamellus fought with extreme ferocity to take the peninsula, even scaring some of her OWN soldiers. It took a long time to finally have this position, but hey! The casualties were minimal.

Of course, the Fang wasn't the only position taken thanks to the swamp trap, but is one of the most important ones, since after some "repairs", the facility was used to safely attack a lot of ork settlements, villages, cities, factories...

For example this occasion when a really big ork weapons factory was totally destroyed, causing them a lack of weaponry in a near zone.

Finally, after a WHOLE YEAR on that giant ROCK! The final battle was fought. A new attempt to siege Or-27, the operation was long, but successful. In an EPIC confrontation, the nob used a powerful battle suit to face Thunderwill's sword, meanwhile a squad led by Flamellus exterminated other important orks, however, she was hurt severely and had to be taken quickly to the nursery after defeating an impressively big ork. And Volkano, who got off his ship to fight, burned ALL ork buildings until nothing remained. Finally, the presents could see how the magical beam of Thunder Jotnar was shot and, after a tense silence, the cubed giant rose victorious.

"YEEEEEEEEEEES!"

"YEEEEAAAAHH!!!!!!!!"

"VICTORY IS OUUUUURS!"
Everyone exploded in glorious cries of triumph while cheering.

The last thing they had to do is a bit of search for orkish survivors and eliminate them, which seemed harder than thought. Sometimes, it seemed that new orks appeared from nowhere! (They didn't know about the ork spores)

As you could theorize, this war was very hard and convoluted, since one day it seems that the equusians have the advantage, and next day the greenskins do a masterly movement and hope can seem lost, but then things change again and again and again...

And you know what's the best part???

This is only Green Skull... they still have a whole planet a lot bigger to conquer and millions of other orks to kill.

It's called "The Dark Age" for a reason.

*****

Sunny Starscout was in her room, sat in front of her desk doing some paperwork. Besides, she was preparing to calm everyone, the recent news from Palomino sure shocked a lot of creatures.

Everyone thought that she would be the most affected one, Flurry Hearth was her best friend since 10.000 years ago, who wouldn't be upset? Who wouldn't want revenge?

She wouldn't. Revenge was not her thing, not for a veeery long time, and the belief of Flurry Hearth being dead was pretty silly according to her.

She knew Flurry well enough to know how did she treat her meditations, all alone. Sunny wasn't completely okay with this, but it worked, so...

It wasn't the first time one of them mysteriously disappeared, Sunny herself once faked her own death. Besides, even if Flurry loved peace, she wouldn't have problems to defend herself if someone attacks her.

Some people were saying that she was refusing to accept it, but they were wrong. And even if something happened to Flurry (which didn't happen), she still could feel her alive. There was nothing to worry about.

The time passed, the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months.

Flurry's meditations sometimes were long, but this one was being the longest of them all. Not only that, the doubt was beginning to eat away at Sunny, she knew that Flurry was alive, she had to. But each day she feared more that the others were right and that her friend was gone.

But those were, obviously, silly thinkings. Flurry WAS alive.

Okay, this was taking too LONG.

Sunny had always been indulgent with how much time Flurry meditates, but this time she was overdoing!

Sunny Starscout decided to go to Palomino, find her, get her out from wherever she is stuck in and make. Her. HELP. Her mind and experience could be essential to win in Green Hell.

For this, she prepared, getting NEW ships, weapons and soldiers. She also tried to convince other representatives to help, but only one accepted. Besides, she took some of her artifacts for the cause.

THE RAINBOW LLIGHT!,

And...

GROGAR'S BELL

A lot of people think that this bell only steals magic, but with the right spells, it can do a lot more. Like,... for example... revealing where death has been.

She didn't know exactly why she took the bell for finding Flurry, maybe she still doubted if she was... NO! Flurry was ALIVE! She could feeeeeel it.

The Dark Age: The 1st War for S.T.-s pt. 4

YYYEEEEEESSSSS!!! FINALLY! The fourth, and last part part of the 1st War for S.T.-s. I would make a more developed introduction and all the thing, but you know what? I don't care! Let's begin RIGHT NOW!!!

Aaaaaaaaaand... just after the victory, Sunny Starscout herself came with a new fleet, new weapons, new everything. To make sure, that this war ends. (She also came searching for Flurry, since she found NOTHING in Palomino, like, truly. No rests, no evidence for anything, not even confirming her death, sooooo.... Where else could she be?)

Besides ALL that, she didn't come alone. The biggest part of representatives remained in Equus, since they were mostly diplomatics or politicians, not generals. And someone had to maintain things there controlled. But even so, she managed to convince another representative to help! Yaaay!!!!🥳

However, this enthutiasm soon decreased. The representative wasn't someone expected there.

TERROR

The only representative of Umbrum, the species of King Sombra.

😟

Okay, okay, wait a moment... yes, just a bit more...

WHAAAAT! Aren't Umbrum like, bad?

Well,... they "were". It's a difficult theme, okay?

It was long, and complicated. Actually, Umbrum are the most isolated species, they have almost no contact with the rest of Equus and stay in a village on the Frozen North. However, they have a representative in the Council, only one because they're the smallest species, in popullation terms. And as there is not a lot of trust, people feel... uncomfortable near Umbrum. I will explain it better in other chapter.

But he was there, he was going to help, so... no one complained.

As for orks, they were in a really good situation right now. Why? Well, have you seen all the power the equusians have now? Their ships, drones and all that? That means, a good fight!

Equusians didn't think the same.

After a year and four months of war against the greenskins, they were exhausted. And traumatized!

Really, they weren't good. For them, Green Skull was a HELL, what would Green HELL be like? I mean, even if they won in the satellite, the losses were felt. Strongly. They couldn't resist another year like that, and well... Green Hell was supposed to be more difficult. More land. More sees. More everything that had to be fought.

They couldn't engage in combat like this...

Do you know what that means?

Yes.

TAU techniques!!!!!

*angry kitty noises*

Well, not exactly. They prefered to super-spam orbital bombardments and throwing asteroids to the planet.

During 4 months, this was their plan, just bombarding the planet from high orbit and send some little teams to search for survivors to kill. But of course, the orks wouldn't let this happen! They wanted a fight! And they'll have it!

The greenskins somehow managed to take off some of their ships and, although some didn't achieve to exit the planet (they exploded), others actually putted a great fight that complicated things for their enemies.

The order to do this was sended by the ork Warboss, Big Punch'er. He knew that the equusians wouldn't go to fight, they had to bring them to the fight!

This same thing happened several times.

Time passed, and the equusians discovered, for their misfortune, that some ork cities weren't falling, they're defenses were just TOO good. Yes, they could try to throw a really big asteroid and cause a massive extinction, but even if they couldn't care less about what happens with ork buildings, they didn't want to turn the planet into a dead, desert-volcanic paramo.

So, yes. It was time to go down there and fight.

After the 4 months of orbital bombardments, the troops were, more or less, recovered. And a lot of cities were already destroyed, so the number of battlefields wasn't that big. However, this wouldn't mean that things were going to be easy, in this coming battles, the orks would show how terrifing they could be.

Now, I'll summarize for you some of the battles that happened in Green Hell, victories and defeats.

-The battle of Or-78: The attack to this settlement was led by the pony sub-representantive Sunny Starscout (she refused to be the new first representative, so ponies at this moment had only one creature at the Council).

This caused an interesting situation, since, everycreature knew that Sunny was always nice and positive, likely to help others and being peaceful. Since she arrived, she had been uprising the moral in ALL the fleet. But it makes some creatures to tend to forget how POWERFUL she is.

This believe became very shocking when everycreature saw the beast Sunny was in battlefield! Left behind were the days when she only knew how to summon some shields, she was showing her skills at her maximum level, turning bullets into glitter, destroying tanks with the flora magic of earth ponies, causing great wind bursts, throwing magical beams and destroying everything on her way with her iconic double-edged war axe. It was amazing!

The battle in Or-78 was brutal, giant and very violent! Orks found themselves trapped on crystal or stone prisons, and the equusians were being burned, exploded, stabbed, but none of both sides dared to turn or hold back.

However, orks were taking advantage, their movements were erratic and the power of belief was helping them (giving also some fun situations). But in a great movement, Sunny ordered the withdrawal and her troops left the city.

Why was this a master movement? Well, because of what would came after that.

Sunny commanded the artillery to maintain all the orks inside the city to erradicate them all with only one attack. Meanwhile the combat-drones distracted the anti-aircraft defenses, a lot of flying creatures reunited enough high over the city to avoid being shot and put together all the clouds they could.

After that, the plan was ready. With a lot of freezing arrows (the ones used in the Equestria games) the immense cloud formed over Or-78 was rapidly turned into a giant ice Block, which fell directly to the city.

Pum! Victory!

-The battles of Or-65, Or-98 and Or-76: This three battles are known by being the most humiliating defeats of the entire war.

First, Or-65 was special, this settlement was an underground city, built inside big and dark caves. Here the orks had an overwhelming advantage, since they knew the city perfectly, and caused several collapses, which forced the invaders to go directly towards a great ork defense.

They thought they could pass through them with their tanks and the help of a cubed giant (silly them).

Of course, that didn't work. The few survivors described what happened after that as an unforgetable CARNAGE.

Then another official came to help, and surprised by the crushing defeat, decided to detonate a good quantity of powerful explosives, which buried the city under kilometers of rocks. This simple resolution is what made this humiliant.

What happened in Or-98 could be described as:

"HOW ARE THOSE DINO-SQUIGS GOING SO GODDAMNED FAAAAST?!?!?!?!" And "Everyone thinks they're a big deal until the city starts to walk."

Yes, what happened with Or-98 wasn't being defeated by orks trying to take their settlement, it was being defeated by orks mobile settlement.

SOMEHOW, those bastards managed to give LEGS to one of their cities. The Meks had have a good day.

So this MONSTER travelled through the planet and destroyed several equusian bases. Yes, it was a lot smaller compared to other ork cities, but it had GODDAMNED LEGS!!!

Oh, and did I mention the city was led by a weird joint work between Snakebites and some speed lobers? They hade tremely fast squiggoths ready for WAAAAGHH!!

This thing was never destroyed. But it was restricted. However, that's for later to explain. Just have clear, that beast was unstoppable.

Lastly, Or-76. No one really knows how did it get to this, but everything there was a total CHAOS. Explosions everywhere, fires, an ork was using a cubed giant after stealing it, equusians painted with green, squigs drinking tea with gretchins, orks with different colors (SHINY) and some reports about giant green feet.

Finally, an immense explosion devoured the city, leaving no more than a burning radioactive crater. How this happened is unknown, but it was declared that each 27th of May, there would be a minute of silence to remember this destruction.

What weren't defeats were the battles led by Terror. His name had a lot of sense, anywhere he fought was soon hit by a wave of destruction.

People learned to like him. Yeah, he was terrifying and intimidating and maybe not the best person, but he knew how to satisfy enormously his warriors.

Something he liked to do was getting some orks as prisoners and using them as, punching bags, training dummies, etc. Basically, he let his warriors, usually in groups, to punch the prisoners as much as they wanted, what was incredibly good for moral.

It is said, that when an ork with capacity of realizing spells (Weirdboyz), appeared, then he would do ANYTHING to capture them. And what he did with them once trapped wasn't nice at ALL.

During months they've been preparing for this, and the moment had come.

1.6.10012 a.C. the Siege to Or-Max, the ork capital, biggest, and coolest city, began.

Or-Max was located on a mountain range in the planet's northern hemisphere and protected by a giant wall, which prevented any form of getting in. For not mention the immense field of 2 km that also surrounded the city, full of mines, traps, holes and more. The city possesed a safe water source coming from springs in the mountains.

Everycreature expected a great resistance from the most fortified city on the planet, not only that, the Warboss was there, so they also had to face a great militar mind. And that's exactly what they found.

The battle began and both sides were giving EVERYTHING. Bursts of bullets and magical shots flew through the air, the noise of the explosions was basically background music, the war vehicles rammed into each other and the sky burned in flames while the drones charged and the ships launched everything they had from very low orbit (they were even visible from land).

2 WEEKS of pure tenacity, courage, blood, sweat and tears were required to finally set a bomb at the wall, which when exploding, created a hole to enter.

The next step would be the operation KABOOMBA!

This operation consisted in ubicating various ultra-POWERFUL bombs of massive destruction in different parts of Or-Max, leaving the city in ruins and making the conquest a lot easier.

And what were orks doing?

Well, going to the battlefield and shooting everything that moved, of course, what else would they do? They were just there, causing troubles with the Mega Dreads and cleaning zones of equusians.

A lot of different groups were deployed to set the bombs, which were protected by a coating to avoid being damaged by orks. Sadly, some of this groups couldn't complete their mission and had to be replaced.

One very important for the story was the squad led by Queen Flamellus.

Flamellus squad was hiding in a semi-ruined building, preparing a powerful bomb just as Operation KABOOMBA specified. This was the third one they set, after ending with the first, Flamellus decided to go help other squads and set the bombs together.

The waves of orks had proven to be very troublesome, but with skillful aim, the queen was picking them off one by one. Some were hit by normal bullets, while others were hit by magical lasers coming from the representative's curved horn, either way, they were all being eliminated.

Suddenly, another ork appeared apparently from nowhere and shot against Flamellus. The tiny explosion from the projectile was stopped by the magical shield of her combat armour, although it may wouldn't handle 2 other shot like that one. The impact made Flamellus made a little backwards.

Her armour wasn't very different to an average soldier's combat armour, resistent plates to protect important parts, a more flexible frabic at the joints to allow free movement and its characteristic white color, some had other colors to take some advantage of the orkish power of belief though, but that seems to work less with less orks. The only difference was its size, as she was bigger than the average soldier, so was her armour, but it still covered all parts of her body, although with a special function to allow her spread the wings and fly.

Soon this ork was destroyed by the shoots of the Queen's comrades. Unfortunately, another wave of orks were approaching to their position.

"Hey! How much ready do you have that thing?!" She asked, almost furious due to the delay of those who assembled the bomb.

"ALMOST!!! We only have to install the last protective layer!"

Flamellus growled, because they would have to face all those orks that came. For this, their actual guns wouldn't be enough, so the biggest of changelings decided to use another kind of weapon. A machine gun with petrifier spells, this hasn't been utilized before because it had a low shooting capacity and needed to recharge after using it, probably that wouldn't happen until after finally setting the bomb.

Flamellus took the weapon with her scarlet magic, pointed at the orks and began to shoot, the rays hit and turned a lot of them to stone. She and the rest of the soldiers stopped the ork advance long enough to finish setting the bomb.

"DONE!"

"Good, now come and help us restrain this things! I already called a ship to come and pick us up!" Flamellus commanded.

The equusians stood in their position long enough to see the ship coming. At this moment, the machine gun was already without ammunition and stopping the orks were increasingly harder.

However, a powerful ork projectil crashed against the rescue ship, going through all its defenses and making it fall.

"Shi...!!" Flamellus tried to curse before getting an explosion in front of her face and falling back. Quickly she got up and thought in what to do next, they couldn't stop the orks, although she could try to make a quick teleportation spell and get everyone out of there. However, she couldn't save each soldier nor know where exactly would they end after the spell.

Suddenly, some orks began to shout strong and clearly: "HERE COMEZ DA FLIEY SPIKY HORZE!" And a yellow explosion hit the greenskins, vaporizing almost everyone at the moment. The soldiers saw impressed how their salvation swooped down towards the surviving orks and eliminated them with fierce blows to the head.

Flamellus couldn't believe what she was seeing, in front of them, there was what seemed to be an... alicorn! Yes, it was an alicorn killing all the orks! The misterious pony was covered with an improvised armour made with ork scrap, it had several spikes and irregular parts, its hooves were covered with knifes and other sharp objects, the same with the wings.

The alicorn turned to the soldiers and with extreme velocity went to them, charging a spell.

Everycreature was teleportated to what seemed a little house of scrap metal and other materials with no windows, doors, or any kind of exit.

The misterious warrior took her helmet off and revealed her identity.

IT WAS FLURRY HEARTH! SHE WAS ALIVE!!!

B-But how?!?! What happened to her?! How did she end up there?! Why she reveales herself now?!

I will answer those questions right now.

As you will remember, Flurry Hearth disappeared when she went to reflect on the war and an orkish ambush surprised her. No one knew exactly what happened there.

The reality was that when the orks attacked her, the alicorn had to defend herself and charged against her attackers, killing some of them. At this point, she already knew that this situation required violence and in the future, she would not only think that this war was necessary, she wanted to fight and exterminate orks.

The battle didn't last long. A grenade surprised Flurry and the distraction was used by an ork to knock her out with a strong blow to the back of the head.

However, the greenskins didn't kill her. At those moments the orks were really bored fighting the equusians, due to the exagerated use of range weapons. Seeing someone who gave a good battle and killed some boys, a badmoon there convinced the others to give her to one of Green Hell's coliseums, in exchange for some teeth to buy more weapons.

Next time Flurry woke up, she did inside a stone chamber, where it smelled like death. There were weapons and bones, after some minutes, the giant gate made of iron bars rised, letting the alicorn see what waited there. She left, summoning a shield with her weak magic, due to the unexplicable fatigue.

Flurry stayed shocked in front of the view, orks shouting, some even shooting to others, reunited around an arena. "Of course..." She thought. "They have a coliseum." The only way to survive there was fighting, flying to escape wasn't an option, since no one could avoid all the shots of the orks while doing that.

Her enemy appeared at the other side of the arena, a giant ork with an axe and some scrap metal to cover himself. Just some moments afterwards, the alicorn found herself running, trying to dodge the attacks from the ork gladiator, who attacked as a berserker, while also the shots of some orks, who attacked due to her apparent cowardy.

Jumping between the rocks of the disordered arena, Flurry managed to avoid a devastating blow from his enemy, the force was such that the axe remained embedded in the ground. The ork was noisy (as always), trying to get the weapon out of him. Meanwhile, the equusian decided to use some earth pony magic, since it never needed too much energy, to grow a plant, which hit the ork's arm, causing him to lose his grip on the axe. This was taken advantage of by Flurry, who with a pull of her magic, grabbed the axe, and in one swift movement, slammed it against her enemy's head.

This was just one of the multiple fights which Flurry had to survive. During a long time, it was all fight after fight, from which she always came out the winner. Of course, she wanted to escape, but flying away was not an option, and if she tried to teleport, she didn't know where she would end up. She was saving her energy, learning to use various Ork weapons and protecting herself with some pieces of metal and other materials that she found.

Her fights became more flashy, attracting the attention of more and more chaotic crowds of orks. They called the alicorn "DA FLIEY HORZE" or "THE LAZERS CUZZIE", a gladiator worth of respect.

Finally, Flurry decided it was time to escape. With her powerful magic powers made a plan, she would be sigil and flee creating a tunnel. Locate herself and, after that, somehow find her people.

However, things didn't go as planned. It turns out that while she was escaping some orks discovered her and a fight broke out. One thing led to another and well... they returned to the arena, where an ultra-violent fight broke out against Flurry. Her only option was to try to fly as high as possible and escape.

Unfortunately for her, at that moment a very special ork was present there, who had come to see a good fight, but now he had the opportunity to have one.

The Warboss jumped from his seat, quickly catching up to the alicorn as she flew. With a powerful pistol strapped to her left arm, he fired, and managed to knock down the resplendent yellow shield that protected the equusian. Flurry was surprised by this, and quickly turned to locate her attacker, as did the rest of the orks, who upon seeing their boss in action, stopped shooting and chargimg towards the fugitive to remain expectant in front of the fight about to begin.

Before Flurry could react, the Warboss managed to land a blow on her with his right ork claw, a blow that sent her straight to the ground. After hitting the ground, Flurry made some plants grow, using the roots to hit the Warboss, who had already fallen to the ground. These were easily cut by the ork, who did not stop his advance. The alicorn fired a laser from his horn, but the magic only bounced off the ork's armor. At that moment, a bullet grazed his hair, making him feel a deep sense of danger. She quickly created a new shield, which couldn't stand much either.

Seeing his desperate situation, Flurry launched one last ray of magic towards the ork while preparing another spell, this one was much more powerful than the previous one, and managed to stop and damage the ork. When the Warboss looked back at where his enemy was, she had already disappeared by teleporting. However, a scream could be heard coming from the destroyed coliseum:

"I'll get you horze! This iz NOT over! Ai'll FIGHT YOU!!!"

During the next days, Flurry had to look for various shelters in Or-Max to rest and regain strength, after that, she would leave the city. But everything did not turn out to be so easy, because the orks were looking for her to finish her off, and they always managed to discover all her hiding places, which always ended in a fight.

She also tried to escape many times, sneaking into ships or other vehicles, but as you can imagine, she was discovered in each attempt. In addittion, Big Punch'er began a search to find her and fight her, so they always ended up discovering her hiding places, and more than once he had to defend himself from the Warboss again (mostly fleeing). It was like playing the cat and the mouse. Practically 2 years after arriving in Or-Max, Flurry was able to meet someone she knew once more, after saving Flamellus and her group.

Everyone was safe in Flurry's underground hideout, with a lot of quesions too though. Finally, Flurry told her story and, although Flamellus had some more questions, she could clearly see that all that time in Green Hell didn't affect the alicorn positively. Paranoia could be felt in her voice and her eyes and that condition may made her don't think always very good.

"Okay, Flurry," Flamellus turned towards the alicorn, with a serious and determined look. "We need to escape now. We've set a lot of bombs to destroy the city and I wouldn't like that any of us dies today. We have to be quick."

"I completely agree with you, but... it won't be easy. I already told you how I failed spectacularly doing that."

"I know. But there's a difference now." She said, pointing to her soldiers who were prepared with all their weapons. "We have guns," Flamellus added.

"Yeah. Me too," Flurry answered with indifference, levitating next to her two ork guns.

"...Aaaand a map!" The queen showed an holografic representation of the city and its surroundings. "These points you see here are some of our camps around Or-Max. I've already used a lot of magic fighting the orks. Do you please to..."

Flamellus' mischievous smile was interrupted when he felt another sudden teleportation. Around him now were several Equusians around a table with a map of the city and the bomb positions marked. Everyone present was surprised to see the entire squad there, but they were even more shocked to see that Flurry was with them. Everyone, except the other alicorn in the room, who with a smile said:

"I told you."

As you already know, during the 1st War for S.T.-s it was long believed that Flurry Hearth, the pony representative on the Council, had been killed by the orks in an ambush.

Nothing could be further from the truth, she had managed to survive, and after a long time having to survive the orks in his CAPITAL city, she managed to return to his people.

When she reappeared, the reactions were varied, but mostly positive. Many, upon hearing what she had had to do at Or-Max (it is even said that she had to eat squigs), decided to pledge their loyalty to her and show her the deepest respect, such as Thunderwill and other officers. While the more suspicious came to believe that this could be an otk ploy to deceive them and that the real Flurry was still dead, although this never escalated into anything further.

However, there was no time for any kind of celebration, since project KABOOMBA was almost ready to give results. The plan the equusians planned for weeks (even before of starting the siege to Or-Max).

The plan was finally ready, and at that moment, the button was pressed to detonate all the bombs. Each soldier had placed themselves in a safe place with the necessary protections, and not long after, a white glow dominated the earth, which echoed with the great wave of destruction released a few seconds ago. They had won.

If things were just so simple.

Suddenly, from the ruins of Or-Max, something was heard despite the fire and devastation, a powerful cry of fury:

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!!!!!!!"

Of course, some survived. But they weren't just any orks, no. Flurry recognized that scream, it is the same one he had heard when facing him so many times before. It was the Warboss. Big Punch'er.

Quickly, all the possible forces were sent to eliminate those surviving orks.

The last assault on Or-Max surrounded the few buildings that, due to their great resistance, had resisted the explosion, where the strongest Orks were waiting for their enemies for a GREAT last battle. The buildings were strong enough to resist more bombardments, so the only way to end them was going there to fight.

When the equusians arrived, the Rinno tanks didn't wait to throw their projectiles to the orks position, unleashing, with the help of the troops attacks, a rain of devastating fire.

The orks soon came out of their hiding led by Big Punch'er and counter attacked.

In the battlefield, the strength, madness and desire to fight of the orks allowed them to give some truly destructive hits, but the unity and coordination of the equusians was being the key to win against the unorganized greenskins.

Now I'll pass to narrate some fights.

The scene: A hallway filled with darkness and full of corpses. The dead Equusians had their armor pierced, not to mention other things.

The responsible: A savage ork wielding an exaggerated sword. He had killed all those cuzziez doing almost impossibly agile acrobatics, bouncing and jumping off the walls of the corridor.

After finishing, the ork decided to exit the building and go join the others in another fight. But when he was heading to the exterior, all light suddenly disappeared. A decrease in the temperature could be felt and the almost imperceptible shadows seemed to be moving. The atmosphere was as uncomfortable as it was creepy, something was going to go wrong.

The ork tried to continue, but realized he could no longer feel his right leg. Looking down, he noticed the fog that covered the ground and the stone embedded next to his skin in the shape of a boot. When he tried to run, he fell on the ground.

He quickly grabbed his gun and fired into the darkness without stopping, receiving nothing but silence in return. He didn't give up and threw a grenade at whatever was there. When it exploded, the ork heard a cry of pain and surprise accompanied instantly by a bright blue beam that crossed the hallway, reaching its target and turning his entire trunk, leg, and arms into stone, leaving only his head free.

"Aghhh. That grenade actually surprised me. I actually don't like light that much, you know?" The creature said. It was like a horse, but made of a dark gas, its eyes were shining blue and its voice hoarse, tired, like that of someone old, but still with a looot of life.

"I don't have resons to talk to you. I'm supposed to kill you fast, but I like to monlogue when I'm alone."

"Your kind is truuuly interesting. That desire for war. That madness of lifestyle. That lack of feeear. Even when death is in front of you. Even when everyone close to you is condemned to die. Even when your species may be one step away from extinction. Fear is impossible to be found in your souls. Of course I know that you orks won't extinct," You could feel the contempt when mentioning the green aliens. "I've discovered that not long before starting the attack to your messy city. But I will deal with that later, telling it RIGHT NOW doesn't make a lot of sense, don't you think? You're all gonna die anyway, meeting the PEACE of death," The Umbrum looked at the eyes of hus prey, searching for something... that wasn't found.

"Agh! Well, you see..." Terror stepped his hoof on the petrified chest of the fallen ork and began to press. "I find that resistance to fear... FASCINATING. And it gives me a clear objective right now."

"I'll make you feel terror."

The force exerted on the stone, it broke it, leaving some pieces of rock attached to a dead head.

In the exterior, Flamellus saw the current situation, there were fights everywhere. There, two cubed giants cornered a Mega Dread, and there, a few soldiers holding their position against the orks to protect a damaged tank.

When the orks came out of hiding, she thought about ordering a retreat to bomb them safely, but either the orks returned to their base or followed them. And the changeling didn't believe it would take long to reach them. However, she decided to look for the entrances to the building that resisted operation KABOOMBA and cover them, so the fungi men would no longer have access to their safe place.

She had already covered two and was looking for a third when had to deal with an ork armed with a minigun and a grenade launcher. Flamellus changed her front legs into strong tentacles, creating a gap in the ork's defense as he separated his arms. The changeling quickly spit out a green slime from her mouth to the eyes of the ork, blinding him. Then charged towards him, baring his fangs. When she was little, a batpony thaught her to fight and protect herself in the streets, using as principal weapon the fangs. As she advanced on his enemy, he bit her neck so hard that separated the head from the neck, finishing off the ork.

A thunder resounded, carrying with it a powerful bolt of lightning that crossed the sky until it reached Lightning Strike. The sword was charged with energy coming from the electricitied clouds above it and with one fluid movement from its wielder, it sliced and charred the bodies of three now-dead orks.

Then, Thunderwill, riding Thunder Jotnar, used his missile launcher to devastate a tank and its left machete to hit strongly a war walker next to him, which was finished soon.

The cubed giant continued its way, taking down some ork kopters, when Thunderwill saw a big explosion near.

He quickened his pace to get there and when he got there, he had to stop when he saw how the head of a Squiggoth fell in front of him. Looking at where he came from, he saw the rest of the greenskin, torn apart and turned into minced meat by one of his superiors, who had insisted on going into battle alone so as not to put other soldiers in danger.

Sunny Starscout stood next to the corpse, looking somewhat tired, which was not surprising considering the mini jungle full of ork corpses behind her. The orange pony's crestfallen gaze turned happy seeing the warrior arrive at her position and quickly began a dialogue.

"Hey! Hi Thunder!" She said, smiling. "What are you doing here?"

"Greetings Sunny Starscout, I headed here after seeing a loud explosion, I thought it must be important," He mentioned with a neutral, almost robotic tone. "However, it is good your presence was enough to control the situation."

"Oh yes. That was a missile launcher that I had to dodge. But yeah, things here have been solved, and guess what? It was a lot easier with a song!" She chored happily. "Plus, we have great things to protect. It's not like if we could FAIL! I heard you said it before I came here."

"I feel immensively honoured for that, thanks."

"It's nothing, really. Besides, those greenskins weren't THAT hard. I mean, this little thing has never did something since I arrived, and everycreature knows it only does things when it is required," Sunny explained, pointing at the hearth-form collar she carried.

"The Rainbow of Light is surely a very misterious artifact indeed," Thunderwill suddenly heard some noises approaching, signal of trouble. "I think we should move, this zone must be cleared."

"That's right! But, ehhh... could you help me with a tiny thing?"

"Of course."

"Perfect! Look over there. There's a Gorkanaut I managed to restrain with some vines. But I can't approach enough to finish him! It's always shooting. Do you mind?"

"Consider it done."

Immediately Thunderwill prepared the magical cannon of Thunder Jotnat to shoot. This attack needed time to recharge after using it, so it was utilized only when it was required.

The purple beam came out of the canyon and continued through the Gorkanaut, making a hole on its chest and leaving it useless.

Then both left, searching together for more orks to slaughter.

During the final attack to the last ork resistance, it was thought to eliminate them with an air attack carried out by small ships at low altitudes. But this option was ruled out by the greenskins' anti-aircraft guns.

This of course did not mean that the crew of ships like Murderships Nightmare or Void Master will sit idly by. Several squads also went to help in the last assault, some led by their captains, who had decided to go down to fight. As was the case with Volkano.

Everyone knew of his special hatred of orks and his desire for revenge, although this had never consumed him and he had always maintained control. So it wasn't strange that he offered to go fight.

During the fight, the big dragon had to get involved in a fight against a great ork, and although he managed to win, he had distanced himself from his squad, which was being brutally attacked by a group of fungi men.

Volkano watched helplessly from a distance as his comrades ran out of ammunition, which would mean a quick death at ork hands.

"NO!!!!!" He shouted. "NOT AGAIN!"

With incredible speed, Volkano launched himself towards his companions. The orks had already taken his best friend from him, he wouldn't let them take even one more life in front of him. Not if he could do something.

When Spacestar died, Volkano wasn't fast enough to protect him from the orks or to carry him to the nursery on time. That would not be repeated.

With impenetrable determination, Volkano managed to arrive on time. He stepped between his men and the orks, taking all of their fire with his back and spreading both wings to protect the others. This continued until the orks stopped their fire for a small and miserable moment, enough time for the equusian members of the squad to firmly hold their weapons, and with the little ammunition they had left, finished off the orks present there.

Then they turned to Volkano, he was still there, in the same place and in the same position with which he had defended his squad, receiving all the shots from the orks. Seeing him so still and with his face dull, everyone feared the worst. Fortunately, a doctor who was with them declared that the dragon was not dead, but unconscious. Even so, he remained standing. But of course, they had to urgently get him treated properly, which they did immediately.

At the top of one of the orks buildings, there was a terrace, extensive and strangely clean. It was going to be the scene of an incredible duel. A duel that would mark the end.

On one siiiiide!!! The great, green, big bad Warboss of orks! Biiiiiiiiig Punch'eeeeeer!!!!!!! And on the otheeeeer! The alicorn of war! The crystal princess and first representative of ponies! Flurryyyyy Heaaaaaaarth!

"Oi, ya came again to beat me Fliey Horze?! Well, Ai'nt gonna be eazy to taek down!" Big Punch'er exclaimed, looking at his opponent. "Y'know? Your cuzziez rilly are cowards!" He shouted, intoning contempt in the last word. "They jas shot down from thei-"

Flurry Hearth, who had stayed quiet while Big Punch'er spoke, suddenly interrupted him with a magic blast coming from a huge gun held with telekinesis.

"You won't talk anymore!"

The ork defended himself blocking the shot with his right arm, his powerful claw was petrified a few seconds later, becoming completely useless. He removed it and threw it away, taking a big choppa and preparing for the fight!

Flurry continued shooting with other weapons she carried, since the petrifying gun needed some time to rest and recharge. The bullets found their target, but Big Punch'er didn't look really affected by them and pointed his left gun at the alicorn, ready to fire.

"Not again," Flurry whispered, and disappeared in a yellow bright.

She reappeared at the orks right, summoning too a melee weapon. A spear. The spear had been the most characteristic weapon in Equestria and the Crystal Empire for generations, it was a weapon whom she had grown fond of. Hers specifically had a sharp tip like no other made from the purest crystals that could be found in the frozen north, every inch of the spear was tough as a diamond. Of course, over time it had undergone modifications and improvements.

She pointed with her weapon towards the ork and a powerful yellow energy covered the spear, her magic was being canalized to shoot a powerful beam.

Big Punch'er was able to dodge the new attack and run to crush the alicorn. Then, something resembling a sword duel ensued. The ork was trying to attack with his choppa and Flurry defended herself by using his spear to block it and vice versa. Trying to land one more blow, Big Punch'er's choppa was met with a semi-translucent magical shield, which blocked his attack and left Flurry's spear free. She stabbed the gun into her enemy's arm, attempting to disable it as she fired a magical laser at point-blank range at her opponent.

Big Punch'er stepped back and observed how the alicorn jumped over him, propelling herself with a flap of her wings. The horn on Flurry's forehead began to shine, and a flashy magic aura also enveloped the ork.

Flurry landed behind Big Punch'er's back and quickly lifted him into the air, launching him off the platform and causing him to fall to his death.

The ork tried to shoot at her, but because of the stabbing in his weapon, the gun exploded violently, making him lose his choppa and continue falling.

Flurry observed as the giant ork disappeared, relaxing a bit. She still was tense, was this the end? Maybe.

Of course not.

From the abyss beyond the edge of the terrace, the sounds of something climbing could be clearly heard, and instantly, Big Punch'er reappeared on the battlefield, landed heavily after jumping, and shouted:

"It needs MORE to kill me, cuzzie!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!" He headed for his enemy with an extreme velocity. Flurry tried to avoid him or counter attack, but before she could even realize, the Warboss hit her forcefully on her chin with his bare green hands, making her lift off the ground for a few seconds before being grabbed by the neck and slammed into the ground with overwhelming force.

"Aaagh!" Flurry complained as the ork's large boot crushed her abdomen, leaving her motionless on the ground and pushing the crystal spear away from its owner.

Big Punch'er continued punching her with great strength, fulling the alicorn's face with blood and leaving it with bruises and open wounds before preparing a final blow with his boot crushing the pony's head.

However, Flurry wasn't beaten. She used the earth pony magic to grow inadvertently several plants to defend herself. The vines attacked the ork and freed Flurry Hearth, who quick, but with a great effort, stand up once more.

"THAT isn't enough to take me down either!" She shouted furiously.

Overcoming the IMMENSE pain she felt throughout her body, Flurry began to use her magic to perform various healing spells on herself and propelling herself with her wings, she pounced on Big Punch'er.

As she approached, she managed to land a few punches before Big Punch'er threw a punch at her, this collided with another punch from Flurry and the encounter caused a shock wave that sent both in opposite directions.

The alicorn braked with force with her hooves and made more vines grow to attack her ork enemy. When one of these hit the green giant, instead of being injured, he grabbed the large plant with both arms and with enormous strength, tore it from the ground. He immediately spun around, still holding the plant, which he used as a kind of whip to attack his rival.

Flurry flew away until she collided with some rubble, barely opening one of her eyes, she managed to see how Big Punch'er was preparing to charge against her, and between them was her spear.

Her magical grip caused the spear to float and head towards the ork at great speed until it finally hit and passed through his left shoulder, but apart from some moans of pain and exhaustion, Big Punch'er still seemed to have great energy.

The alicorn cast an incendiary spell on him, and the ork had no other idea than to block it with his right arm, which quickly began to burn. Flurry then charged his horn with powerful magical energy and released a powerful laser that pulverized Big Punch'er's left arm and cracked the ground.

This time, Big Punch'er couldn't avoid scream of pain. "It iz done! You fights good, but Ai end you NOW!!!" Even with the spear stuck, the ork headed with overwhelming force and without slowing down towards Flurry, who defended himself by summoning various lightning bolts from his horn, which swept across the battlefield. Even so, the ork didn't stop and just shouted more "WAAAAAGH!"

Flurry stopped her spells and raised a shield to protect herself from the ork's attack, but he did something she didn't expect. Instead of using her fists, the Warboss ripped the spear from her shoulder with his burning arm and used it to smash the shield through Flurry's abdomen, pinning her to the rubble.

Flurry's scream echoed with pure pain, and only grew louder the deeper the grinning ork drove the spear into Flurry's flesh. Finally, Flurry gave her all and used the power of his vocal cords to maximum power, unleashing a tremendous sonic scream that stunned her attacker. (Like the one she made when she was a baby)

"Aaaaaaahh! My holez!" Big Punch'er backed away, covering one ear with his flaming hand and stopping his attack on Flurry. Then sparks erupted from his horn, and rays of magic surrounded her. She was charging her final attack.

Her eyes lit up and his horn was surrounded by a glowing aura of pure energy as a yellow, white, and violet sphere appeared above him.

Flurry looked at the ork who chased her for more than a year and terrorized her people with a frown and clenched teeth. The ork noticed what the alicorn was doing, he couldn't dodge it. With a furious smile, he said:

"It wus... a good FIGHT!"

His head disappeared, exploded by a powerful beam that left behind only ork blood and a clear crystalline formation.

Author's Note

I'm finally finish with this. I'm not going to lie, I know it took me a long time, but it's because I've tried to make these last two chapters as good as possible. I also don't know when more chapters will be published, because I'm actually quite busy. But hey, I hope you enjoyed reading! Until next time!

The Dark Age: "Some rest"

There are maaaaany things that Equusians excel at, but without any doubt, celebrating is one of the things they do best.

They celebrate everything, and their parties are always impressive, big celebrations usually to remember something specific.

Of course, after winning a war like the one they had just experienced, they were going to celebrate in style. (After raising a monument in honor of all those killed during the war, all of them would be remembered as heroes)

After spending so much time in space, it was a great relief for everyone to return home, Equus. The vast majority had returned to celebrate, relax and go to the therapist, although some still stayed in the Sky Treasure system, it couldn't just be abandoned.

But returning to what is important, on June 30th, 10012 a.C. it was declared the day without green and shortly after (when the mirror portal opened again) the festival in question was celebrated.

Both alicorns, Sunny Starscout and Flurry Hearth, were enjoying the party, sat together and looking at the rest of the creatures while chatting.

"It is good to be back home. Are you feeling better?" Sunny asked, worrying about her friend.

"Yes. All here is so... peaceful. It's a feeling I thought I forgot," Flurry answered with a little calmed smile.

"That's great. But I was also referring to your physical state," She pointed out all of Flurry's bandages around her body.

"Oh, that. Yeah, it's good. I might still have to use some things, but the doctor cleared me, so..."

"Well, I hope you recover completely soon."

After that short dialogue between the two, Sunny noticed how Flurry seemed... scared, so to speak, or in a trance. Her face held an expression of shock and concern, still and staring directly into a dark corner.

"Hey, what happens?" Sunny asked worried, tilting her head to get a better look at Flurry and try to get her attention.

"Flurry!"

"What? Sunny? Oh. Sorry, I was..." Sunny saw her friend confused and sweating, quickly worrying even more about her condition.

"Flurry, what happened? Do you need to go to the doctor?"

"No, uhm...yes? maybe? It's just that..." Flurry raised her head again, and her hoof, to point at the dark corner he was looking at earlier. "See that corner there?" Sunny turned to the place Flurry pointed, but still didn't understand what was happening.

"There's an ork."

"WHAT?!?!" Sunny's look soon turned into one of fear, and then she turned furious and took a stance ready to fight.

"No, no! Calm down Sunny!" Flurry stopped her friend from doing something stupid and calmed her down to explain the situation correctly.

"I know there's no ork, but it just... even when the rational thing is to think that we are safe, something in my head tells me to keep being alert, to keep watching every detail, to keep hoping that something bad is going to happen. It's how I survived there."

"Flurry..." Sunny decided to recomfort the alicorn by giving her a hug. "I can't imagine all the things you suffered there, but they won't repeat. You're not alone there anymore, the war ended. Look, go see a therapist, in these cases it's good to have professional help and never forget that you have a lot of friends ready to help you."

The crystal alicorn calmed down too, knowing that her friend was right and promised to do search professional help. Besides, she wouldn't return to Sky Treasure, at least not soon.

Sunny, on the other hand, was going to stay at Sky Treasure to supervise everything, along with other representatives, among which was Umbrum. Although Flurry doubted whether she could trust him, Sunny responded:

"Maybe he can be creepy sometimes, but when you know him well, you will see that he is not so bad and that he is trustworthy."

"The terraformation of Sky Treasures planets will be a long and hard process, so it needs a lot of supervision. Making the atmospheres of Palomino and Aris breathable won't be an easy task and it's still pending to decide what to do with the satellites of Umbru. About the reconstruction of Green Hell, well, I think it would be easier, but first we had to deal with truly learning about the planet," Sunny added to the conversation, explaining the plans for Sky Treasure in the future.

"That's great! It sounds awesome!" Flurry cheered. "I'm still worried though, out there could be more menaces."

"You don't have to worry. If there are problems, we will solve them. Just enjoy the present. This party. And focus in a hopeful future," Sunny tried to cheer her up.

"I know but... I mean, the murderships are still there. What if they come back?"

Sunny's expression became a little darker upon hearing that thought. Without a doubt, the murderships were real alien monsters, perhaps even worse than the orks.

"And not only that. The orks had space ships, what happens with that? What if more orks are out there? Or if this was just a colony?" Flurry shuddered at the possibility, as did Sunny.

But the alicorn of hope didn't stay quiet. "Then let's hope they don't come back. Anyway, I'm sure that in the improbable case out there are more orks, I'm sure they're not as much as in Green Hell."

Curious fact: the orks are one of the most common races in the galaxy.

After the Equusian victory in the war by S.T.-s, they claimed total control over the entire system, finally achieving what had motivated them to leave. Finding new lands to settle and expand into the new space (because they were already cramped on their home planet).

Quickly began the terraformation of Palomino and Aris, as well as trying to take advantage of Green Hell and Green Skull as much as possible. The process was obviously going to be slow and time-consuming, and as for the settlements, they began as simple bases to have a roof under which to be, but in the future, they would become large cities with great population.

Things seemed to be going well, everything correct, construction work in progress, blah blah blah... Until, as it's natural, the ork spores left in the system brought new greenskins to the world.

This left the Equusians shocked. Imagine, the monstrosities they had just defeated after a 2-year war were literally rising from the ground, the fear spreaded quickly.

Fortunately, the situation was contained in a fairly good way, except for the occasional isolated incident. The new orks were much fewer in number or weaponry, although it was not easy to deal with them either.

However, this event also turned out to be an opportunity. Since not much information could really be collected about the Orks during the war, this situation was used to truly learn more about the Orks, capturing them and doing the typical scientific things. Dissect them, study them, do experiments... All of this was not something so sudden, since they first arrived at Green Skull for example, thousands of new species had to be cataloged, especially plants, such as a rare type of palm trees with branches or huge cacti.

But the biological discoveries weren't the only thing, the equusians also realized another experiment, one more... different, more... of the social ambit. As seeing that these new orks were newborns (so to speak), they thought that maybe the reason the orks were so violent was because of their breeding, and if they taught these new orks with the values of friendship, they could make them a peaceful species.

For this, a new and improvised school was built, where specialized creatures would educate the orks as any other creature, teaching the values of unity.

The orks, surprisingly, didn't resist. They heard from the equusians that friendship would give them a great strength, and what better to make a great WAAAAGHH!

However, as the lessons continued, the orks began to hate the school. It seemed too complicated, the orkish way was best! And this only got worse when the greenskins completely understood that friendship and unity were ways to achieve peace.

Not long after that, these greenskins took a lot of scrap and built some space ships, fleeing from the planet, then no ork thought that the equusians could give a good fight, they surely would cry and ask for mercy or something disgusting like that...

The equusians saw from the distance as their plan failed, orks would NEVER be a peaceful species. So it was decided, every time someone found a new place where orks were growing, call the authorities (who were searching for those places too) and they would destroy everything there, nothing should remain.

Or maybe some orks would become prisoners (for science, of course), and they would be sent to some buildings under the authority of Terror.

So, as I saw a good answer to the short stories about things that happened during the equusian-ork conflict, and I like to write those. I hope you're prepared for new funny nonsenses, not only of the orks, but also of the equusians.

The orks from Warhammer 40k are the funniest race in fiction, and I can prove it! (¡gracias por todo pemrinto!).

This occurred during a xeno war that pitted the orks against the equusians, a relative new faction in the galaxy. These reatures had an incredible musical talent, being able to play spontaneous musical numbers with great quality and extreme rapport (which has been seen several times during the series).

They did this sometimes during the battles to gain motivation and, although their opponents didn't understand it, they imitated it. And they liked it. They liked it A LOT. It became normal on several battlefields that Orks will enjoy a good fight while listening to a good song.

Which mostly were heavy metal or rock like music. Without a great timing either, mostly just noise. But they enjoyed it.

So obviously, on several battlefields, in addition to the normal war, tremendous musical battles will be fought at the same time to see who was superior.

And, without a doubt, the most representative ork of these musical acts was the great general Morkzart von Greenthoven, a faithful worshipper of Mork.

His melodies were the fires of war, his compositions were explosions and gunshots, and his orchestra was all the boys who accompanied him. In one of his hands, he always carried a vatuta with which he directed the attacks.

The music he created was the best on this side of the sector, and even the equusians came to recognize his talent, others said that this was not real music and that they should kill him once and for all, although it was easier said than done.

Every battle he participated in was a new ork victory, the noise of his boys was simply the loudest, and the greenest. However, like all greenskins, he ended up dying, not by equusian hands/hooves/claws/whatever, but by his own doing.

In a confrontation, he managed to design a roar so big, so powerful and thunderous, so incredibly super-doped, ultra-cool and sonic, that any creature that heard it would end up with its head (or wherever it had its ears) exploding. Morkzart was no exception.

But even when he heard his deadliest creation and his head burst, the great Ork composer stood his ground, fist raised in defiance! With the last of his strength, he continued playing his latest work, pecking hard at the ground and banging his vatuta against a metal plate. That's how his final hour came.

Although this might seem like a good thing to the Equusians, they really didn't like it, as they couldn't prove that they were better than the Ork. Well, as every Ork on that planet knew, they weren't.

It is said that on some battlefields where he fought you can still hear his songs.

From the creators of I'm a tank, I'm a tank, I'm a tank...

Comes... I'm a bomb, I'm a bomb, I'm a bomb

Equusians: Oooooh... curses.

BOOM!!!

Equusians: Whe- *cof, *cof, wasn't a mountain here before?

Once, when the equusians were conquering the vast jungle on Green Skull, a bunch of orks decided to make an ambush and surprise them (boring blood axes).

For this, the orks got all kinds of camouflage and prepared hiding places, disguised as trees to attack without warning, as if they were nymphs. (Come to think of it, I can't think of any sort of "space ninja per se")

After patuently waiting for a long time, finally, an equusian squad passed over there, stopping to rest just in the middle of the hidden orks, it was the perfect, PERFECT moment to attack!

But trees aren't supposed to move, they're supposed to stay there doing nothing. If that wasn't what they should do, why would they have disguised as trees? And that's what they did, the orks just stood there quiet and motionless.

Time passed, and the Equusian squadron continued on its way, while the orks remained like trees for days and days. Finally, shortly before death came for the now fat and sick greenskins, they realized that they were supposed to stop pretending to be trees.

That's what happens to them for not jumping into the fight like the crazy people they are supposed to be. 😤

Do you know how an ork tribe works? Well, the Warboss is of course the biggest and strongest ork of them all, and it's his duty to carry his boys to a good fight!

But in Green Hell, that didn't seem to be what was happening. Yes, orks sometimes fight against each others, but they much prefer to combat other species. For that they need to ride their ships and explore the galaxy searching good fights. But the orks fought by the equusians were staying in Green Hell. They weren't going anywhere.

So does that mean Big Punch'er was a bad boss? No. The truth is, that the orks weren't moving because they had a good fight there!

Every once in a while another species would visit them, although never with good intentions. These other aliens gave the orks a good fight, so they stayed there to wait for them. Every time these other aliens arrived, they always used to take several orks prisoners, but well... who cares! As long as there was a decent fight, everyone was happy.

But the quetion remains... who were these other aliens?

Just the most cruel, evil, depraved, aberrant, and a thousand other adjectives related to evil beings in the galaxy. Creatures that worship pain and enjoy the agony of their doomed victims, the darkest gray of the Warhammer 40k universe.

The Dark Eldar

DRUKHARI

Author's Note

I finished this! Took it as an epilogue for the ork arc, and a prelude for what's coming next! However, there will be a considerable pause until the next chapter. Enjoy!

The Dark Age: The Days of Pain pt.1

The Days of Pain.

They were the final stage of the Dark Age, and the most horrible since the equusians went into space.

Everyone already knows the great horror that inhabits the Warhammer 40k universe, its mercilessness towards the weak, the darkness of the distant and warlike future. But for a new faction like the equusians, who had also lived peacefully for millennia,... it is not a pleasant change.

But it must happen, knowing that the world is not rosy. And for them, that's what the Dark Age taught.

First, the murderships, or tyranids, they taught the equusians to fear what was out there. They are the cosmic APEX predator, the greatest horrors that the universe can spawn, which you cannot fight, only pray to last long enough and escape. (Although, in fact, it was the spirit of harmony that came out the most super-traumatized by all of this, having been directly connected to the hive mind)

Then, the orks. An endless green tide that feeds on war. They taught that dialogue and peace were NOT going to be the solution to all the problems and the horror of a large-scale conflict. Along with the paranoia and despair that occurs when knowing that it is an enemy that will always return.

And lastly. The drukhari. The most depraved, psychopathic, sadistic and deranged beings in the galaxy. Who gain strength by causing suffering to others, their acts are so horrendous that no other villain can compare to them. They showed the worst the galaxy has to offer, and they don't deserve any mercy, just kill them, don't waste your time.

2 years.

Another two years they believed to be at peace after defeating the orkish menace. The terraformation of Palomino and Aris were completed and the efforts to build new buildings and infrastructure have just begun.

The entire process was supervised by various representatives of the Council and a lot of creatures with experience and great knowledge. Flurry Hearth and Queen Flamellus retreated to Equus, while Sunny Starscout, Todarius Bond and Terror stayed. Not long after some other members of the Council arrived, Gorval from the gargoyles, Steelwill and Construct, representatives of minotaurs, and other great personalities. Nobility didn't stay far behind, and tried to secure new lands, as did... many creatures actually. At the end of the day, this was still a colonial effort. Although that's not important.

But peace didn't last forever. One apparently normal day, in the sky of Green Hell, a flash of black light spread across the skies. It quickly took the shape of a spiral, and with evil green flames, it transformed into what could only be described as a vortex. A portal. To the webway to be exact.

From the rift in space came a dozen flying ships, bristling with sharp blades and curved spikes. Raiders. Drukhari ships, which, to those who already know their pilots, symbolize the terror and doom.

Like the vast majority of Drukhari incursions into realspace, this one had been organized by a Kabal. This was the Kabal of the Long Jailers. A relative small Kabal from the dark city of Commoragh, led by the Archon Shalos Grieux.

They had raided the Orks many times in the past, believed to be because the Archon had a personal vendetta against them, although there were also rumors that he was afraid of confronting the Space Marines by capturing some humans, one of the drukhari's favorite species to torture. Because of this, many tried to overthrow him, since the Drukhari like to have brave and strong leaders, although they always failed, so he kept his position.

At first they were surprised to see the strange new species that had settled on the planet and defeated the orks. But they soon became very excited about all the new opportunities that had been presented to them.

The vortex formed above Eq, the largest and most important city in Green Hell, where most of the population lived. This settlement was supervised by the great Todarius Bond, although not even he could foresee what would happen.

At the beginning of this raid, Equusian defenses were low for two reasons. One, they had their guard down after 2 years of peace. Two, they hoped that, if there was an alien invasion, they could detect the invading ships within time and prepare accordingly. Not that they would appear from a portal in the sky and attack as fast as the Speed Freaks!

The city tried to defend itself as best as it could, but the crippling Drukhari attack had been too swift. Their technology was like nothing they had seen before and their tactics were not as expected either, they did not try to take strategic places to conquer the city, they simply cruelly murdered those who opposed them, leaving their bodies skinned to cause more fear among the survivors, who were later kidnapped.

In a desperate scene, Todarius attempted to defeat the head of the attack, the Archon of the Kabal. But the AI was more of a strategist than a fighter and he was defeated, taken prisoner by the drukhari vehicles.

Luckily, before his defeat, Todarius was able to send a distress message to the entire system, thus warning other cities in Green Hell to raise their defenses and asking for help from the creatures on Palomino and Aris, as well as on Green Skull.

The drukhari then set off to other parts of the planet, searching for new victims. Thus they arrived at Morthex, a citadel that was protected by Thunderwill himself, ready there to put an end to the emergence of orks, which were disgustingly common in that area.

When they arrived, they found a fortified citadel, the turrets and other defense systems all activated. All creatures had received the news of an alien invasion with great fear. Thunderwill managed to give them confidence and organized everything to defend themselves, evacuating civilians to a bunker, encouraging the troops to give their all and deploying ALL the drones they had.

This time they were not going to waste time with diplomacy, they had been attacked for no apparent reason, and they were ready to fight.

The battle on Morthex was raw, the drukhari used their advanced technology, launching lasers and explosions that burned everything. The shields soon fell, the defense systems, the drones and the soldiers fought bravely trying to take down the drukhari vehicles, as Venoms or Jetbikes, along their Flyers and gravitic Tanks like the Raiders. But the fight soon changed when their warriors began to descend.

Slender pale, bipedal figures dressed in menacing-looking black suits were deployed in the citadel, their attacks were quick and direct. They did not seem to want to take important positions, just murder and kidnap people. The warriors, who stood in their way were quickly taken over by their high-tech weapons, they filled the streets with blood of several creatures, leaving their mutilated in unimaginably atrocious ways bodies behind, so they would cause horror in the survivors, others were unluckier and were taken to the Drukhari ships as new slaves.

As his duty dictated, Thunderwill accompanied his troops to the battlefield. Summoning a magical storm, the Minotaur made a lightning come down from the skies toLightning Strike , filling it with energy.

His machine gun and missile launcher aided the air troops, and heavily crushed the Drukhari soldiers on the ground under the weight of Thunder Jotnar. Together with a squad, they were cleaning the streets of invaders, they received attacks, yes, but they managed to withstand them. Besides, the protective field around the cubed giant protected it from almost all attacks, although it wore down quickly and with each impact.

But a missile finally managed to break Thunder Jotnar's shield, causing him to fall and spreading black smoke. The squad gathered in a defensive position, ready to fight until death. The smoke dispersed, and they could see several figures behind it. A group of Kabalite Warriors, whose vehicle, a venom, lay down further ahead, led by a Sibarite and supported by an Incubus, one of the fiercer mercenaries in Commoragh and masters of the sword. This was carrying a Falchion, the ritual incubi sword.

The shooting soon began, and Thunderwill's companions had to hide behind some rubble to evade their enemies' blaster shots, while attacking as best they could. But Thunderwill pressed on, charging at the dark Eldar and making Thunder Jotnar withstand all the devastating blaster and crystalline rifles attacks.

He eliminated the warriors with several rounds from his machine gun, until the incubus attacked. It was so fast that he could barely see it. Somehow he had managed to rise high enough to drive his sword into the central hub of Thunder Jotnar, from which Thunderwill was piloting. The sword pierced the plating and missed just a few centimeters to the right of the minotaur's head, damaging the cubed giant's vision and hindering his movements.

The duel between the incubus and the cubed giant continued, but the Commoragh mercenary was also reinforced by the sybarite, who attempted to attack Thunder Jotnar from the rear with his blaster. Thunderwill had to give EVERYTHING to endure it, preventing the sybarite from attacking him by using his machine gun and desperately dodging his shots while he fought a sword duel with the incubus.
CLANG!

CLANG!

CLANG!
The dark eldar seemed to be losing, although he managed to block or dodge Lightning Strike's swords, the strength and size of his opponent were overwhelmingly superior, and finally, Thunderwill managed to electrocute him with a shot of the energy accumulated in his sword.

The incubus fell and recoiled from the attack, also enjoying his own suffering (because these degenerates do that too). Then the squad of kabalite warriors tried to attack Thunderwill, but they were surprised by the shots of the squad accompanying him, which had sneaked up behind the warriors.

The sybarite was also pushed by the shock wave created by Thunderwill as he recharged his sword with the energy of the storm with a bolt of lightning that fell from the heavens.

Thunderwill turned and crushed the sybarite under the weight of Thunder Jotnar's stomp, causing him to scream in pain (or pleasure) until his last breath. But by doing this under guard, the incubus recovered from his defeat and jumped towards Thunder Jotnar, performing dozens of cuts at brutal speed until he managed to split the base of one of Thunder Jotnar's legs.

The cubed giant staggered, spinning once more to face the swordsman. He prepared a punch and pulled out his retractable machete from his left arm. He swung the punch towards the incubus, who was once running towards Thunder Jotnar ready to attack. When he made contact, the blow created a large hole in the ground, the drukhari warrior had managed to dodge the blow and climbed onto the mecha's arm.

Just then, one of the kabalite warriors shouted and caught their attention. The fight between the Drukhari squad and the Equusian squad continued, leaving only one on each side. The drukhari in question showed how he had immobilized the earth pony that had challenged him, threatening to kill.

Thunderwill aimed Thunder Jotnar's machine gun to save his companion without harming him, enough had already died. But only that moment was enough for the incubus to climb, cutting a hole in the cabin with its Falchion and pulling Thunderwill out of it, throwing him to the street from almost 10 meters high.

With a jump, the incubus also landed and after an attempt to resist, Thunderwill was knocked unconscious by a blow with the Falchion's handle. They took him as a slave along with the earth pony, who had been left paralyzed with a cut on his spine.

Morthex was just another of the drukhari's victim sites. The citadel managed to defend itself well, but it wasn't enough. Luckily, other cities also managed to hold on, enough for Green Skull reinforcements to arrive and together they could repel the invaders. Although it is believed that this was also because they were satisfied with what they had already achieved.

Approximately 70% of the planet's population were killed, or much worse, kidnapped. The infrastructure of buildings was strongly harmed. And a lot of survivors were found poisoned by strange venoms. They had also focused for the leading creatures, military officers, settlement regents, and the representatives. Now the only Council members left in the system were Sunny Starscout, Terror, Gorval and Construct, who were on Palomino and Aris during the attack.

In other words, the equusians got the BEATING OF THEIR LIVES! (Again) Making them hide in what was left of their shacks like scared mice.

The remaining representatives gathered as quickly as their ships would allow them (which was pretty fast) to discuss VERY SERIOUSLY what the they should do.

Construct and Terror were fed up with the aliens. They wanted to look for them. Find them. And kill them, all of them. They were not going to continue bothering them with their existence. Gorval took a more rescuer's approach, proposing ideas to save everyone who had been captured, which included his sister. While Sunny was still shocked by the drukhari behavior. None of the villains she had faced over the millennia, of which there were many, had reached such a level of cruelty. She had heard reports of some truly ruthless acts done by the drukhari in the streets, and she could only shudder at them.

The drukhari had disappeared into their ships as quickly as they appeared, closing the portal in the sky. It was believed that this could lead to some nearby point in space and several ships were sent to investigate immediately.

They searched the entire system, including the asteroid belt, but found nothing, so they decided to leave. The situation didn't really change much, the space was still... empty. Some found an asteroid field, although one ship in particular had gone far out of the system, full in fact, in the direction of where Equus was. Come on, at one point they encountered the Hive Fleet Ungulo that was floating there, since they didn't want to die and this chapter is about the Drukhari, they turned around slowly and put the turbo in to get out of there with a bang.

There was still no sign of the drukhari and it didn't look like they would find anything. They had simply disappeared, back into the webway, with all their new slaves. And the worst part was that they could not let their guard down at any time in the future, because the eldar subspecies could return for more.

Until something began to be heard over the communicators. A horrendous cacophony of suffering. Screams. Lots of screams. Those damned elves had managed to hack Equusian communications, broadcasting on all radio frequencies the screams and agony of their victims being tortured. Non-stop. All the time. For the Drukhari, this was beautiful. Physically and mentally torture your victims while ensuring that those you failed to capture suffer knowing what is happening to them. Even if they turned off all the communicators, they would still know, and they couldn't get that out of their minds. They even made sometimes some depraved "games", where they explained the situation to the equusians.

"We are going to give you the option to choose for us. Here we have two options. A small group of physically healthy (I can't say the same about their minds) adult prisoners, or even older ones, and a young puppy? Yes, puppy. Crippled and sick. We will give you the opportunity to answer this question. Who do we torture first? Be aware that you will only be buying a little time by delaying the inevitable and oh! If you don't give an answer in... 1 minute! We will torture all of them in the most painful and exciting ways possible!"

Furthermore, they had also left the Equusians incommunicado with each other.

Those Mon-Keigh weaklings have a lot of pride for defeating a bunch of greenskins, we'll let them know what the real torment is.

But there was still a small light, a beacon of hope, or of fear and despair, it depends on who you ask. If the drukhari had managed to hack into the communications, it meant they were still there, just ridiculously well hidden.

This had an impact in two different ways, on the one hand:
There's still hope, hope for vengeance!
And on the other:
We're doomed.

Both were right.

Author's Note

And here is the first of two parts of the end of the Dark Age. Originally they were going to be together in a single chapter, but it seemed too long, so I divided it. I hope you liked it! Much of the second part is already done, so it won't take me long to publish it. (I hope)

The Dark Age: The Days of Pain pt.2

*Small disclaimer before starting the chapter:
Sunny's appearance is very different from MYM. She doesn't only have meaty horn and wings, she's also taller, almost as tall as Twilight was in The Last Problem. Her mane is ethereal too. Her coat and hair colors are still the same (rainbow lock included) and the feathers of her wings are red and yellow.

The sound of constant footsteps resonated with the ground. A sybarite, leader of one of the drukhari squads, approached the door, the one leading to the chamber of her Archon, Shalos Grieux, a somewhat cocky and arrogant guy (even by Eldar standards), but surely someone to fear. His tortures were fascinating to witness, or so she had heard.

The dark eldar finally entered, finding a dark room, she could barely make out the incubus acting as guard. In the center, on top of some steps, was a "throne" that the Archon had wanted to have. He had his back to the sybarite, he was pointed and tall, very elegant, plus the pieces of green skin, veins and deformed faces really gave him a touch.

"My Archon," She bowed. "I must inform thou that, despite being repelled by incoming Mon-Keigh reinforcements and that the losses and casualties have been greater than expected, our raid on these inferior beings has been a success. We have captured considerable quantities of new slaves, and due to the unique characteristics of the species that inhabit this planet, many of our warriors have already come up with very creative ways to enjoy their suffering," The drukhari could not hide her macabre smile, what's more, she seemed proud. "Some have even tried some of them on the streets of the Mon-Keigh settlements. I personally can't wait to get back to Commoragh to get started."

"Good," The voice echoed from the other side of the throne. To the sybarite it seemed more... less grave, but that didn't have to matter to her, surely it was nothing. "Send some ships back to Commoragh with the half of the captured slaves, the rest of the fleet stays here, I still have plans."

"My Archon..." She trembled. "I'd never doubt of your great take of decisions, but I don't think that would be a good idea. This kind have a great psychic power, and we surprised them now, but if we attack when they're prepared..." The drukhari tried to express her concern without seeming disobedient or traitorous, in her opinion, she was not doing very well. "I'm sure that as cautious as you are, you must imagine how that could end badly for us."

"Oh. There must have been a misunderstanding," The voice now seemed actually feminine, without the deep gravelly tone of Shalos, also somewhat... playful? funny? Something was wrong."You think Shalos still sits here, well, he technically does," The Archon's throne turned, bringing the drukhari sitting upon it out of the shadows. "But he is too unwell to give any orders."

The drukhari who revealed himself was not Shalos Grieux, but one of his Dracon, Khailara. In her right hand she carried the severed head of the previous Archon, using it as if it were a puppet and moving his features from within to make him make "funny" faces and gestures. The sybarite felt uncomfortable with the behaviour of the... Dracon? No, she was the new Archon now, she had overthrown the previous one by proving herself superior, that kind of thing was not unknown among the members of the Kabals, there's a reason in Commoragh you can't trust anyone. But still, she reminded her a little of the typical "jokes" of a harlequin.

The sybarite looked more closely at Khailara. She wore the ancient armor of Shalos, although deformed to fit her body and stained with blood. Her smile was mischievous, and her gaze was focused on her toy, whose incredible pain could be tasted just by looking at her empty sockets. It was not for nothing that Khailara had always been known among the members of the Kabala as one of her best torturers, although too impulsive and over-confident.

"Welp! As for your questioning about my orders..." Khailara addressed her sybarite severely, with a deceptive smile and almost brilliant emotion. The eldar's spine shook for a moment, not knowing what was going to happen. "Doesn't matter!" She continued sinisterly happy. "However, it IS a good point, the psychic thingis..." Khailara put a finger to her lips, emulating a thoughtful pose, after what she snapped her fingers with a response. She turned to the foodie and cheerfully replied, "Don't worry! It seems like they're pretty limited in that, they just throw those little rays and so on, bluahg..." The Archon gave a hip movement before sticking her tongue out in a gesture of disgust. "Besides, we are eldar! We surpass them in every way. We just had such a great success now, be a bit more self-confident!"

Slowly, the new Archon approached her servant, with slow but constant and equally elegant steps. She crouched down to the height of her head and raised one arm. "Now be a good girl and bring me our Haemonculi friends, I'll like to talk with them about... work," She said, giving a few pats on her sybarite's head.

Before the sybarite could respond, Khailara grabbed her face tightly with his sharp nails, scratching the flesh. "By the way..." She whispered. "I REALLY DON'T RECOMMEND YOU TO CONTRADICT ME AGAIN. EVER," The sinister and strong tone filled the air with threats and the pressure was very noticeable.

Then the Archon gave her servant a quick and soft kiss on the forehead. "Okay byeeeee!" She exclaimed with a repeated wave of her hand in a cheerful tone that clashed with the previous threatening atmosphere. Khailara stood up and turned toward her throne, walking toward her with an animated dance. She jumped up and sat down, making the throne spin around and around.

The sybarite was already heading towards the exit when her leader called her again. "Oh! And also bring me some slaves and a straw! I'm thirsty," she complained childishly.

The communications that the drukhari horrifically considered "entertainment" continued to echo through the radios. The Equusians had had to resort to an ancient letter-sending spell to communicate.

As for the search for those pale aliens, it was going badly. They had used all available means to locate them, but the only thing they had learned was that they were hiding in a network of tunnels and caverns in a mountainous area to the southeast of the planet (a network that was impressively large for a natural phenomenon). Although they found the ruins of a Raider crashed and split in two by a strong explosion. Metal remains belonging to Todarius Bond had been discovered, so it was believed that he had detonated a hidden self-destruct device. His sacrifice would be mourned, along with the sufferings of all the victims.

But there was someone who knew the truth, that the equusians couldn't find the Drukhari. At least not before they decided to strike again and unleashed the horror again.

Terror knew.

He managed to convince the rest to let him fortify a city, gathering ALL the forces present there to fight the drukhari. This city was Plainlod, located in a vast and empty steppe, making surprise attacks impossible. Plus, they would only have to defend one city, which would allow them to prepare incredibly well and give the Drukhari a hard time.

"The Drukhari will head here, soon or after, but it will be in not too long. However, this time WE are prepared. Our artillery rises, our ships keep watching, our defenses will give them nightmares, and our soldiers will fight with such bravery that-"

"Actually, they say they don't want to fight."

"Wha-WHAT?!" Terror turned to his recent new assistant, the last one was killed during the first drukhari raid, or he hoped so. She was an abada called Laun, with a great sense of humor, apparently.

"Yeah. They say, and I quote 'We're not crazy enough to go fight the masters of eternal torment.'" She explained.

"Ugh," Terror realized. "What cowards!" He shouted. "I mean, don't they want to... revenge the fallen?! Aren't they angry and furious?! Don't they want to free their hate against those pain-lovers?!"

"Aaahhh... I wasn't here, but wasn't it that hate, anger and the desire for revenge led to several defeats against the orks and, ultimately, did not bring us anything good?"

"Nooooo," Terror snorted. "Getting carried away by hate, anger and revenge and losing control in the battlefield led our troops to great mistakes and failures," He explained. "But those feelings are still a great source of motivation and strength that should be used correctly."

"Anyway, they say we should just bombard them with our greatest bombs and launch missiles."

"..."

"..."

"I see how that might seem like a good idea, but it's actually very stupid," Terror announced, indignant at the ineptness of the idea. "Tell me Laun..." He approached his assistant, his brow boiling with fury. "Have you ever seen an Ork ship?" He asked. Laun shook his head in denial. She had arrived in S.T.-s after the war against the orks. Terror then proceeded to make some gestures with her hoof, as if tracing a figure in the air. "They're big, clunky, and slower than our missiles. Plus, the orks liked a good explosion, so they didn't actively try to dodge them," Terror continued. "Now, think about one of those Drukhari ships, they're small, fast and have shields. If we throw something at them, they'll probably dodge it or it won't do anything to them," He finished.

"Uhh-" His assistant hesitated, trying to say something before this time, she was interrupted.

"And don't even start with the 'accelerating bullets with super speed, as well as ships' thing. That. Is. STUPID! You know how much damage that would cause if it goes wrong? An explosion of that magnitude would be catastrophic!"

"Whoa..." The abada seemed confused, but she understood her boss's reasoning, even so...

"What?"

"Well... you know you have this great reputation for being intimidating and scary. But now you seem like just a guy irritated because he thinks everyone else is a bunch of fools."

"First," He answered rising his hoof. "They are. Second, I am scary. On the battlefield, to distract our enemies. Now there's no necessity for that."

"But yeah. It irritates me. Because they say things like that without thinking. If they don't fight, I bet we lose. If we lose, they capture us. And if they capture us, we'll all wish we'd died on the battlefield."

"Oohhh...." Laun realized. "OH NO."

"Exactly, haven't you heard the retransmissions of their tortures?" Terror asked.

The assistant shuddered at the mention of those things. "I... I don't think I have the stomach for that."

"Anyway, go tell the soldier what I just told you," The umbrum continued. "Or I'll have to go there myself, and THEN I'll be scary."

Terror's strategy was followed and all equusian forces gathered at Plainlod for the fight. Everyone was ready and willing to give their lives if necessary (after a "talk" with Terror).

Finally, their ships were seen in the sky, Venoms and Raiders approaching to Plainlod, unleashing a shower of dark light from his dark lances, only for his shots to be stopped by a huge magical protective shield, which Sunny Starscout, along other 20 powerful magicians summoned to defend the city.

Then the cannons and turrets arranged at the edges of the shield began to attack the drukhari ships, firing volley after volley of explosive projectiles and magical spells. The soldiers were not far behind either, and they fired again and again with their weapons trying to take down the drukhari. Some ships also went down enough to defend the city, although they were lacking of the same protection as the equusian settlement, they were located further away.

But of course the dark eldar had plans to counter the magical shields, a wonderful idea from the new and more daring Archon of the Kabal.

On the inside, the group of magicians and sorcerers led by Sunny continued reinforcing the shield, although the task was arduous and it was increasingly difficult to stay on their feet, they had to continue with all their strength, or one of their greatest advantages would go to waste.

Sunny watched the group, each creature giving their best effort, sweat ran down their foreheads and she could see how their muscles were trembling, already 3 of them had fallen limply to the ground. They were still unaware of the situation outside, only that the attack continued and so should they.

But then, something big hit the shield, they could feel it. They didn't know what it was, but they knew it was dangerous. The noses and ears of some of them, whether unicorns, kirins or centaurs, began to bleed. Sunny began to use even more of her alicorn magic to maintain the shield, but after a while continuing to endure the pain, with her being the last one standing in the room, her last defense, she too gave in. And Plainlod was left at the mercy of the drukhari.

What the sorcerers in that chamber did not know was that it had not been the drukhari who brought down the shield with their advanced technology. No, it had been shattered with equusian magic, magic that came from outside and inside.

The drukhari had deployed not only the usual Kabalite warriors, but also hundreds of twisted monstrosities, their flesh presented horrendous mutations and unnatural growths, they were connected to metallic devices that bombarded them with drugs and other prohibited substances. These... thingswere none other than the victims of the drukhari. Equusians who, after being kidnapped and tortured, had been victims of the Haemonculi, who had turned them into those monsters called Wrat, crazy because of the pain and vomiting blood.

They had retained their magic, so they transported Drukhari troops into the shield, damaging it both inside and out until a final, devastating attack brought it down.

Killing orks was one thing, they were war loving aliens, but this... The dark eldar had once again demonstrated their infinite cruelty. Not only did they continue to broadcast at full volume the even more brutal torture of other creatures that had not yet been transformed into beasts, they had ensured that the beasts would retain their faces. Faces that did not reflect at all what those disgraced souls felt. Each and every one of them begged for death, but their faces seemed to beg for life. When a soldier saw them,...he simply could not shoot from deep sorrow.

I love their morality, it makes their suffering so delicious. And their deaths sooo enjoyable.

This caused the drukhari forces to advance further and further, taking considerable portions of Equusian terrain and also leading an attack on the ships. In fact, the fact that the settlement did not fall was because the combat drones (bless those things) continued doing their job, while many soldiers stood frozen in horror.

This was until Terror grabbed a megaphone and shouted at the top of his lungs:
"EVERYCREATURE STOP BEING SUCH A COWARDLY BUNCH OF STUPIDS AND KILL THEM ALL! NO MATTER HOW SORROW YOU FEEL FOR THOSE PLEADING FACES, THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE SOMEONE OF THE PAIN-LOVERS IS TO KILL THEM! GRANT THEM THE FINAL REST OF DEATH AND END THEIR ETERNAL TORMENT! NOW MOVE! THERE'S STILL SPACE ELVES WE MUST ELIMINATE!"

Of course, this didn't cause an instant reaction, but no one could deny that he was right. So the battle continued fiercely.

From elsewhere, more volleys of fire and ammunition were being fired at the Drukhari forces, which was damn difficult. Imagine, having to hit a moving target, not very large and at a great distance. The ships had descended as much as they could to help, but even then, they had to stay at a looooong height.

The Drukhari, for their part, had not ignored these aerial reinforcements, and decided to board the ships. A squadron of Kabalite warriors led by an incubus disembarked from their vehicles on the bow of Murderships Nightmare, accompanied by several Wrats. Among them, the largest of all, a prey that had been captured by the leading incubus.

Thunderwill had been a victim of the unspeakable tortures of the dark eldar, who tied him to their cubed giant, Thunder Jotnar. His flesh was fused to metal and circuitry, his bones shattered and his organs contaminated with machines and foreign substances. The dude managed to resist the torture good, demonstrating incredible, but not invincible, will. In the end he gave in, and the erratic movements, attacks and screams he made were proof. Not even a hero like him was spared.

But they found the ship's crew, out in the open, waiting for them and ready to fight to the end. Led by their captain, Volkano, who came to consider Thunderwill a good friend. It made him very sad to see him like this, and that's why he would release him.

The drukhari and equusian soldiers rushed madly into battle, ignoring any instinct for self-preservation. Cannons from other parts of the ship, usually pointed outward, fired across the deck, ignoring any damage that might be done to the ship and concentrating on the drukhari.

In an unexpected act of skill, Rousseff, the ship's cat sub-captain, managed to end the life of the several members of the squadron, although before dying they were able to poison him with one of his crystalline weapons. The incubus was finished off when it received a direct hit from one of the cannons, which unfortunately also took out the 5 crew members who were holding the dark eldar motionless. The rest of the Kabbalistic warriors and Wrats also fell until only the bestialized cubed giant remained.

The duel that followed between Volkano and Thunderwill was largely destructive, governed by silence and tension. The giant mecha screamed non-stop from the pain, letting himself be carried away by madness and throwing blow after blow like crazy. Volkano, on the contrary, remained silent, no longer making jokes or talking like he did at the beginning of the campaign. He dodged and dodged each of the cubed giant's punches, flying or jumping from side to side as he blasted his fire breath at him and unleashed lethal projectiles from his twin pistols.

But clearly, even if he dodged all the punches and sword blows, Volkano would not be able to take down his opponent, who was after all several times his size. The only thing that could really damage it was the shots from Murderships Nightmare's cannons. Although in a moment of distraction, Volkano took the opportunity to burn the cubed giant, causing it to burn without stopping, to which he seemed not to react at all.

But he did. He got even madder and crazier.

He charged Lightning Strike (which was grotesquely attached to the rest of the cubed giant), causing it more pain again, and slammed it into the ground, causing a large wave of electricity that drove away all nearby creatures. He took advantage of this to grab Volkano by the neck and repeatedly slam him into the ground. Finally, he got another hand on his wings and began to pull. He pulled and pulled, making the dragon scream, until his bones broke and his scaly wings separated from the rest of the reptile.

Volkano looked barely standing at the enormous Wrat, who pointed the magic cannon of his left hand at him. That same weapon was used to greatly weaken Plainlod's protective shield and would now take down the Murderships Nightmare captain surely destroying the ship as well.

What he didn't know was that Thunderwill still had a bit of sanity inside his head. Those damned dark eldar had made sure to use special chemicals that would take away the minotaur's ability to be driven from reality by madness, but his body would still act like any other Wrak's, forcing him to see.

Thunderwill had always wanted only to bring peace, just as his grandfather had taught him when he was a child. He didn't even care if he enjoyed that peace, just knowing that he would have it was enough for him. But now HE was a threat to peace, wreaking havoc and problems that OTHERS would have to solve. He. Didn't. Endure. That.

After much fighting, Thunderwill managed to regain control and divert the cannon. Just for a moment, but enough.

The laser slammed into the ship, causing huge explosions and spreading flames, also practically cutting off part of the ship. But it left Volkano intact, who leaned on his four reptilian legs and ran until he was behind the cubed giant. With a powerful blast from his pistols he managed to push him enough to make him fall into the large crack he had created, sinking into the fire and falling into the void.

However, despite the pilot's best efforts, Murderships Nightmare was falling towards the planet due to all the damages.

The central fortress of Plainlod, a bastion against the invading forces with a large tower in the center, rising several meters above the ground... was under attack. Several Drukhari warriors had managed to enter, although not soon after, every light in the building went out, and a shadowy monster began to slaughter any Eldar that stood in its way.

This was Terror, who was advancing through the fortress alone (he really likes going to the battlefield alone, don't ask). He had armed himself with a powerful arsenal that consisted of: a belt with various grenades strapped to it, a powerful assault rifle that fired round after round of magical rays, a few knives, and a sturdy (and heavy) shield. In addition to his "neck" hung a pair of glasses, or something like that, this was an artifact that the Umbrum had developed and that was meant to increase the power of his spells. Spells, which, being black magic, caused great devastation. (By the way, since the Umbrum are creatures of the shadows, they are not actually negatively affected by the use of this magic, which is also the only one they can use, so no strange mutations or voices in the head)

He fought his way through the pain-lovers that infected the fortress, using his smokey body to easily dodge their blows. Some he locked up with magic or petrified, and others he simply killed. Sometimes he would encounter too many drukharis to fight, if he too could not escape then he would use the "glasses" on him, petrifying everyone instantly, although this left him incredibly tired.

At one point he encountered a surprisingly skilled Kabalite warrior, whom he managed to imprison with dark crystals. The Umbrum really enjoyed monologuing with his enemies and making them feel terrified (or at least trying to), which he hadn't had the chance to do since the Drukhari attacked Green Hell a few days ago, so he decided to try it on his prisoner. The Drukhari are very brave, so it was not an easy task, but he finally thought he could make the alien feel a bit of fear. He was slowly petrifying him while, the eldar scoffed, belittling him for a quick death, but Terror decided to explain that he would do exactly the enchantment for him.

"Contrary to your beliefs, you damned degenerate, this spell will not end your life. I admit that it would be very satisfying, yes, but it is not what I want. In fact, I find you quite inspiring! I like my enemies to fear me, and torturing those you capture is a very effective method, but I consider all the excessive pain so barbaric... I have developed another way, for you specifically! When I finish turning you into a pebble, you will still be conscious, but you will see nothing, you will hear nothing, you will taste nothing, you will smell nothing, your touch will be useless, it will only be your mind and you, facing nothingness, forever. I know your kind love sensations and excess, so what better way to torture you than by taking all that away?"

After finishing off that space elf, Terror continued on his way, reaching the Wave-teleport cannon. A devastating weapon with brutal destructive capacity. The cannon was not the weapon itself, but rather its ammunition. Wherever it was aimed, the cannon would teleport a huge explosive that would destroy everything in the surrounding area.

It had been placed in advance in case the drukhari gave them a surprise by bringing a larger ship, but luckily that did not happen. Terror targeted a specific area of Plainlod. Most of the raiding forces were gathered there and he was certain that the head of the attack was also there. If we manage to eliminate it, the battle would be practically won, because what would happen next would be"
A) The drukhari retreat and leave the city.
B) They kill each other trying to be the new boss.

Unfortunately, the shot would also take the lives of many soldiers, but he could not waste this opportunity. Terror quickly prepared to fire and...

"ERROR. REQUIRES OF A SECOND HIGH-COMMAND MEMBER."

Terror screamed internally and cursed himself for allowing them to do something that, being such a dangerous weapon, could only be activated by TWO creatures with sufficient authority. Desperation began to eat away at him, so much so that he couldn't think of anything else to do, until he saw a golden glow cutting through the air. A mare that flew from Raider to Raider, killing its crew and destroying the evil vehicles. The hope. Sunny StarScout.

"SUNNY! SUNNY COME HERE! SUNNY! SUNNYYYYYYYY!!!"

After screaming loudly some more, Sunny finally seemed to hear his friend's screams and flew towards him. As soon as she arrived, Terror told her the plan and why he needed her, but Sunny refused. She would not sacrifice the lives of his soldiers, betting instead on distracting the drukhari so that they would stay there while they evacuated the area.

"Bit that's impossible!" Terror shouted. "You can't get the attention of ALL of them. And even so, if we evacuate, they will notice and flee!"

Sunny took a firm step with her hoof, appearing determined in front of Terror.

"Don't leave me with an option I don't like..." Terror asked her, broadened his shoulders and rose into the air, his eyes fixed on Sunny and taking on a more intimidating shape, ready to pounce on the alicorn.

"I will NOT shoot that," She answered. Before Terror could do anything a golden bright surrounded Sunny, disappearing with a teleportation. The umbrum observed as the alicorn flew over the city, moving away from the cannon and heading right to the area he was going to shoot.

"You're going to get yourself killed!" He shouted. He shook his head in frustration before raising an eyebrow. "Ha... as if that actually matters."

Sunny was tired.

Not exhasuted, but tired.

She had spent the last few hours taking down drukhari after drukhari, showing zero mercy. For them. For her soldiers she was a beacon of endless hope and salvation, every time they were in danger, Sunny would appear, cast magic, save them from whatever was threatening them, and leave. To do the same thing over and over again.

She was hurt, of course, but one thing you should know about Sunny Starscout is that as long as she doesn't give up, she's going to continue to be a serious problem for you. And she NEVER gives up.

However, she had one main target she was searching for, the Archon. She knew Terror was right when he said that if they took out the head, the body would die, and that's why she was going to kill that degenerate with a bigger hat. Every time she met a drukhari she asked him: "Where is your leader?" On a way so menacing that would make Terror proud (if it weren't for the fact that according to him Sunny was being an idiot).

Finally, she found who she was looking for.

With just a hidden hearing of a Drukhari calling another "Archon" and knowing that this would be the Drukhari leader, he rushed into battle without thinking, at an extreme speed at which he learned to go millennia ago with Zipp.

She tackled the female drukhari, protecting herself with a magic bubble and leaving behind some grenades as a gift for the remaining drukhari and other strange creatures.

The onslaught caused both of them to pass through multiple buildings, but only one took damage from it. Then Sunny performed another teleport, causing both of them to appear many meters above the ground, but separated. The Archon was several meters above Sunny when she began to free fall.

Without wasting a second, the Archon spun in the air and aimed its blaster pistol at the alicorn, firing again and again without stopping. These shots were dark light, and could severely damage someone's retina if they were viewed directly. But Sunny was a millennia-old alicorn with incredible power. A few little lights weren't going to hurt her. She defended herself instead. Dodging the shots in the air or blocking them with shields and slashing energy blows that manifested when her wings flapped.

Sunny continued dodging, she just had to wait for the Archon to reach the ground. Khailara had another idea. She coiled her agonizer (a whip-shaped weapon capable of causing excruciating pain on contact, burning nerve receptors) into the top spire of a building, altering her trajectory. Various elegant acrobatics and somersaults followed, leaning on the walls to slow her fall. Upon reaching the ground, although she did not emerge intact, at least she hadn't died.

Soon Sunny also landed, raising a large wave of dust all over the place and coming face to face with the Archon, who proceeded to introduce herself.

"You look nice," The drukhari complimented her before extending her arm with her hand open. "Glad to meet you," She then put the hand on her chest"Khailara. Archon of the Kabal of the Long Jailers. Could I discover who you are?"

"Sunny Starscout. Sub-representantive of ponies and alicorn of hope. Besides your end," Sunny replied dryly.

"Hope... That is ultra dead in this galaxy. Like... totally," Khailara put her hands together while smiling. "Welp! Now I'm going to kill you."

Khailara lunged at Sunny like a predator lunges at its prey. Preparing her agonizer to deliver a lethal blow and finish off the pony. But as she approached, Sunny's eyes began to glow gold and sparks and lights began to flash from her alicorn. She frowned and gritted her teeth, launching a powerful dome-shaped wave of magic that spread across the plaza and sent the Archon backwards, who only let out a scream at the impact with a wall.

"You aren't the first to think that." The alicorn mocked.

Khailara recovered from the blow and stood up, raising her head to look at Sunny as she endured all her injuries. As fast as she could she aimed her blaster pistol at Sunny. "But I'll be the first to do it."

Sunny instantly hit the ground with her front hooves, which glowed with green magic. Large, thick, strong trees grew at impossible speeds, completely surrounding the alicorn and acting as a barrier. The shot of course vaporized the trunk of the tree she hit, forcing Sunny to reinforce her barrier by growing more plants around her.

Khailara was confused for a moment due to the pony's strange "psychic powers", but continued shooting. Sunny knew that the plants could no longer withstand the explosions caused by the dark light and she decided to change her strategy.

She summoned her axe and began to spin around, using her telekinesis to wield the weapon, which cut the plants from their base impeccably. Then Sunny lifted the logs and vines with her magic, spinning them at high speed, creating a small tornado of logs.

Sunny extended the radius of the tornado, causing it to grow closer to Khailara and threatening to drag her down. The drukhati tried to avoid it as much as possible, but there came a time when she simply had no room left. Not even her great agility was enough to get through the whirlpool and the logs rammed into her, bouncing her from one to another until she fell back to the ground.

"I think you would be the... third? Maybe fourth." Sunny replied to the previous commentar of the drukhari with a confident smile, looking at the fallen drukhari. This, of course, confused Khailara even more, but she hadn't time for games. And much less after being swept away by a log tornado. (Although it's not like receiving so many hits displeased him. You know, they're drukhari.)

The Archon stood up once more, ready to continue the "fight", if you could call it that way. Just then Sunny grew a new vine. It enveloped Khailara from her feet to her shoulders and immobilized her limbs.

The plant lifted Khailara and slammed her to the ground, causing her to let out a scream, not of pain, but rather of excitement and pleasure. The vine began to tighten more and more, exerting great pressure on the eldar's body, who blushed a little and bit her lip with a sickly pleasant look. "Mmhhhh... hot."

Sunny stared at the bound eldar with a look of shock, disbelief, but above all, disgusted and furious."Whata fu-AAHHH!"

Her curse was interrupted by a single blaster pistol shot, that ended up at her right shoulder and that damaged her neck with the explosion.

Khailara had managed with great effort to press the trigger of his weapon, which had been left fairly free of the vines. It didn't take long for her to free herself from it and stand up as Sunny fell backwards and screamed in pain. Blood flowed from her wound and she could see the bone and the semi-burned flesh.

"Ts-ts-ts. You should carry more armour," The drukhari reproched her.

That was true, Sunny only wore protectors on his hooves and joints, but he still exposed a large part of his body. (She always hated wearing armor. It itched a lot.)

With pure evil in her eyes and an irresistible desire to take maximum pleasure in causing pain to this unbearable little mare, Khailara approached Sunny, stomping on her back and causing her to scream again in pain.

Khailara pulled out a small knife and grabbed the alicorn's long horn, using the blade as a saw to cut it off. The pony could do nothing but scream as her horn was destroyed, though from the base of it on Sunny's forehead, powerful sparks emerged and potent magical rays were summoned. If they were aiming at her, they would have destroyed the Archon.

"Come on, don't cry," Khailara whispered, watching the tears of suffering well up in Sunny's eyes. "I told you I would kill you. And even if I hadn't, you think killing me would end the raid? Even so, you think we're the worst in the galaxy?" She asked sarcastically. "Poor, innocent fools.This galaxy is a place that burns in the incessant flames of war and where hope is..."

The drukhari laughed vilely as she spoke those words, lashed out at her enemy with her agonizer, causing her to scream in pure pain, and raised her pistol for one last shot.

"D E A D."

BANG!

The alicorn slowly opened her eyes, tired and sore, it was a voice that finally woke her up.

"Hi Sunny," The voice said.

"Ouch..." Sunny, still in pain, opened her eyes completely, seeing that she was in a strange but familiar place. It looked like a sparkling, azure blue space, with stars and lights floating around and giving a feeling of beauty and magic.

"Hey, hi," She answered to the entity the voice came from. This creature was difficult to describe. It was a skeleton, what exactly? Well, that's the hard part. It wasn't a pony, dragon or diamond dog skeleton, but all of them at the same time. An appearance that represented every creature of Equus at the same time. The entity was covered with a black cloak that gave it a mysterious air and a large scythe floated at its side.

"Sorry, everything hurts right now," Sunny apologized, she usually woke up faster when she went there.

"Yeaaah... this time it has been more..." The entity showed an expression of disgust and indignation with its non-existent facial features. "Anyway, " It broke its pause. "What has it been now? The last time they were bees." The entity laughed, just a bit.

"Come on! They were hundreds of millions of killer bees, you can't blame me for dying from THAT!" Sunny complained, remembering her most humiliating death. "An alien." She lowered his head and responded

"One of those?" It doubted. "Hhhmm... they're taking a lot of lives, aren't they?

"Yes they are," Sunny answered bothered. "Do you go for them too?"

"Nahh. Their souls are very weird and there's already something sucking them when they die. That will be their recollector," It concluded. "I only take equusians."

"Good to talk with you, but I have to go back now," Sunny raised her hoof on one of her shoulders, pointing behind her as if pointing to an exit. "The battle's still on," She explained.

"Understandable."

"Let's chat more the next time." The entity suggested.

"Of course! Although I hope it isn't soon," Sunny joked.

"Good bye."

Khailara was already walking away from Sunny's dead body when a very powerful purple light hit her back. She turned around, surprised and a little worried. That Mon-Keigh was dead, right?

She saw that, where a corpse previously lay roasted by the dark light, now stood a large purple five-pointed star surrounded by a tail that flashed blue and more purple sparks around it, all surrounded by an imposing golden aura.

When the light began to shoot, Khailara was shocked to see the same alicorn in front of her. With a frown and a slight smile, wings spread and horn and eyes shining. It also seemed that a powerful glow emerged from her side and the necklace she wore around her neck did not stop shaking.

"Impossible!" She shouted. "I killed you!"

"Indeed you did," Sunny answered. "But I told you. You aren't the first."

Khailara knew that it would no longer be worth trying to kill or capture this Mon-Keigh, her priority had to be escape. For this he pulled out a curious and exotic device that he had been saving for a time of need. A clone image. This device would project holograms clones of the Archon that would be indistinguishable from the original. They would give her time to escape.

The clones appeared everywhere and Khailara prepared to escape, but watched in horror as Sunny's heart-shaped necklace opened, releasing a... rainbow? The multi-colored beam swept across the square, annihilating the clones at overwhelming speed. Finishing with them she went to the dark eldar and wrapped her in her magical embrace, immobilizing her and placing her in front of Sunny.

The alicorn looked first in surprise at her necklace, and then with some annoyance. "Oh really?" She asked with an inquisitorial look. "THIS is a situation of greater need than when they were killing me?!" Sunny huffed and calmed down. "You work in a very strange way, necklace."

Sunny raised her head again, glaring angrily at the drukhari trapped by the rainbow. "You said that in this galaxy hope is dead, but when does hope die? When you have everything against you and things only seem to get worse?" She held up a hoof and shook her head. "No. Hope only dies when you give up," she stated firmly. "And I NEVER give up." (And she's the alicorn of HOPE, so you can see how this works, right? It's the most near thing of an equusian perpetual.)

"Maybe in a battle things will go wrong, but if you give up, rest ASSURED that they will go wrong. Maybe you will lose, but at least you tried, and this way you show the universe that no matter what it throws at you, it won't be able to dominate your spirit."

Khailara couldn't believe what she was hearing, was this Mon-Keigh so innocent and gullible? That optimism and blind hope was not going to help them survive, it would only make them weak and kill them. The Archon yelled this at the alicorn (more in an attempt to buy time and not die than anything else), to which she responded:

"Not when that optimism and blind hope give you the greatest strength of all. With which you can overcome any adversity. When we have problems, we also have confidence and courage to face them, creativity to find a solution, kindness and hearth for those who have suffered, and all motivated by the hope of a better tomorrow. One without you." (Plus, they could LITERALLY turn those things that make others weak into super powerful rainbow lasers that desintegrates their enemies.)

The light emerging from Sunny became more and more intense, and the drukhari could feel her skin slowly burning. In a last desperate attempt to survive, she revealed to Sunny the truth of her species, their curse. She told her EVERYTHING about how Slannesh devoures the souls of the Eldar and tried to trick her, telling her that they didn't enjoy torturing other creatures, and that they would love to make friends, but they had to torture, or IT would devour their souls!

Sunny gave the eldar adrk a cold, blank look. She knew of course that the drukhari was trying to deceive her, but she also knew how to recognize the truth in her words about that demon Slaanesh.

"I have clearly seen how you, disgusting monsters, take great pleasure in bringing pain and agony, suffering and torture," She spat out the words in disgust, before giving the ultimatum sternly. "I can think of no better punishment than to put you on the receiving side. Say hello to Slaanesh for me."

Khailara was vaporized by Sunny's magic while with her last strength she hurled curses and insults. Until she sensed the monster that awaits all of her kind.

And that's it.

That's how the drukhari raid to the equusians went.

Terror was right. When the rest of the drukhari found out that Khailara died, they stab each other in the back to try to get the power. Until the rests of the Kabal had to flee and return to Commoragh. They never came back and no one really knows what happened with them. Maybe the Kabal was dissolved, maybe they went to raid other planets, maybe they're still planning a revenge. Time will tell (or will it?).

The remaining equusian forces gathered to recover. So I will give you a small summary of the situation.

• A great part of Plainlod was destroyed and the casualties were great too.
• Murderships Nightmare was destroyed, although his captain and great part of the crew handled to survive. Other ships were also damaged, and several support ships were taken down.
•The only "good" thing. Working together, Gorval and Construct managed to "rescue" some slaves from the evil hands of the Drukhari. Why hadn't they been taken to Commoragh? Why didn't they turn into Wrats? That will be important later. Especially for Gorval's sister. Although he was reprimanded when she learned that she had left some of the hostages behind to get out faster and not confront the drukhari.
• Psychological consequences. Yes, you can imagine. (Therapists are going to need therapists aaaand get rich at the same time.)
• Congratulatins! Now the equusians are definetely xenophobic! They won't trust anything coming from space after 3 DIFFERENT species tried to kill them during their first 5 years out in space (15 if you get technical).

After the raid, Sunny Starscout met Terror again and although she did not expose him for what he tried to do (the full weight of the law could fall on him), she made it very clear to him that something like this would NEVER even cross his mind again. Or he would have to face the consequences.

And so, with the total control of S.T.-s, an uncertain future due to the darkness of the galaxy and believing that there are no more threats (they forgot about the tyranids), the equusians were finally able to have a time of space tranquility.

For now... MUA HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! AHAHAahahaHhahahaA! [more evil laughter] JAJAJUJUJU! AHHAHAUGHUGHUUUUUUHHH! [some intensified crying]

[preparing a dragonballesque scream]

KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!( vahr)

Author's Note

With this the Dark Age ends, I hope you have enjoyed these chapters, and if there is anything you think can be improved, I would greatly appreciate it if you shared it, all criticism is welcome! As for the future of the story, there is going to be a change in how I tell it, since I think that other way will be better, more similar to the script of a video from one of those channels that explain things to you about lore, but still I'll try to keep it exciting. It may take a while (I also admit that writing this chapter has taken longer than I thought), but I hope you enjoy these future chapters as much as I enjoy making up these stories!

PD: If you see any grammatical mistake, say it! :) Thank you.

Factions: The Equusians

Greetings avid readers! And be welcomed to this new chapter of 'A New Faction'!

Today I'll finally introduce you to how the adorable ponies (and other creatures of Equus) have adapted to the mercilessness of the dark future and have become one of the many factions of the vast universe that is Warhammer 40k.

Then from the very outskirts of the Milky Way, these strange creatures have wisely stayed away from the general conflict of the galaxy since emerging from their home planet. But that doesn't mean they're in peace.

These are the Equusians. And today you will meet them. Let's get sssstarted!

WHO ARE THE EQUUSIANS?🤔

In the present day of the 42nd millennium, the Equusians are one of the smallest and most apparently peaceful factions of them all. It is also considered one of the WEiRDEST, because of things like their way of thinking and acting or their indifference towards the rest of the galaxy. While others seek to expand and conquer new worlds, the Equusians just want to stay calm in their territory, now called 'The Equusian Lands' or 'Ourlands'. Also because of the strange energy they use and the fact that they are made up of multiple intelligent species, since in most other factions there is only one species or there is a widely dominant one (add to that that they all come from the same planet)

Seriously, the number of species is huge. Maybe only compared by the Tau Empire.

The well-known ponies. I don't think I should explain much about them or the three tribes, but just in case. There are Pegasi, able to fly with their wings and touch the clouds. Unicorns, who can cast spells. And Earth ponies, with greater physical strength and the ability to grow plants (such a lot of famines that they solved with that). Average life span: 150 years.

And the "fourth" tribe (it is actually a mix up of the other three), the Alicorns. Ponies with the magic of the three tribes and their own extremely powerful one. They do not age and are taller than ordinary ponies. Currently there are only two alicorns, who serve as representatives of the three pony tribes. As you can imagine, they are Sunny Starscout, alicorn of hope and unity, and Flurry Hearth, alicorn of war. Both have lived for over 10,000 years and are considered some of the most important Creatures in The Equusian Lands. There is a lot to say about these two, but I will surely do it in a separate chapter dedicated to the equusian heroes. * Batponies: Pegasi with bat wings and vampire fangs. They like the night and drink blood (sometimes). Average life span: 150 years. * Dragons: Big winged reptiles. Scales so resistant that they allow them to swim in lava, so yes, they are fireproof, as well as very resistant. Very long-lived. Their fire has magical properties unique to each individual. The greatest, most glorious and bravest dragon was the great Spike. A myth between myths and living legend until his sad passing at approximately 8.500 years old, which even for a dragon is considered quite a lot. * Changelings: Shapeshifting insect-like creatures that feed on love, however they can sense others emotions and fly. They have a durable colorful quitine. Governed by the Queen/King in turn, who is the only changeling, besides the prince/princess, that can make spells. Average life span: 230 years if well-fed * Griffons: Bird-lion hybrids. One of the few quadrupeds with fingers. They fly. Average life span: 150 years * Hippogriffs: Similar to griffons, but... Bird-pony hybrids instead of Bird-lion. Also with fingers and wings. They developed the magical ability to turn into hippocampus/seaponies when dive in water. (No need of magical pearl) Average life span: 150 years. * Yaks: Very strong, loud and furry quadrupeds with great horns. Average life span: 170 years. * Buffalos: Like yaks, but rounder, calmer and with smaller horns. Average life span: 120 years. * Breezies: Small fragile butterfly-like ponies. They use the pollen to spit out a magical dust known as Breezepulver. They're goddamned good at trade. Some are collectors and for some reason they're extremely good friends with AIs. Average life span: 80 years. * AIs: Artificial minds in metal bodies. Very smart and fast-thinkers. Science! Their reproduction (that is programming new ones) is very controlled. The newest species in the Council. Average lifespan: 2500 years. * Umbrum: Shadow ponies made of smoke and dark magic, which they can make with no problems. The smallest in terms of population and very isolated in their town, almost not seen outside of there. Distrustful, and it is believed that they accepted peace so as not to be annihilated if fighting the rest of the world. They can alter the shape of their bodies and are very elusive. Average life span: ??? * Zebras: Like ponies, but without natural magic and with black stripes around their white coat, or are they white stripes around their black coat? Average life span: 150 years. * Abadas: Like unicorns, but taller and slender, their cutie marks give them more marked special abilities. Average life span: 140 years. * Kelpies: Made of water/ice/steam. Can alter their forms and state. Excessively resistant. They can only die from electricity, dehydration or age, which is usually around 300 years. If electrocuted, they will explode, although they can be rebuilt if all their parts are put together and they will be like new. The most reliable way to kill them is by dehydrating them. * Donkeys: Other very small species. Nothing special here, just talking donkeys. Average life span: 160 years. * Cats/Abyssinians: Antropomorphic cats (furries) with heightened senses of hearing and vision (including night vision). Very agile. Some imperials confused them with felinids once. Average life span: 150 years. * Diamond Dogs: Antropomorphic dogs (more furries) with great physical strength and endurance and a greater sense of smell and hearing. Good miners. Like to be underground and look for bones. Average life span: 150 years. * Birds/Ornithians: Antropomorphic birds (does this count as furry?), who ironically can't fly. No more interesting things. Average life span: 150 years. * Minotaurs: Men with the head and legs of a bull. They usually have good physical strength. Average life span: 170 years. * Centaurs: From the waist up, a minotaur, and below, a burly pony. Some can do magic (spells). Average life span: 500 years * Gargoyles: Bipedal lion-like creatures with bat wings. Upon reaching an advanced age (500 years) they acquire the power to "hibernate." Basically, they turn themselves into stone, putting themselves in stasis. This way future generations can wake them up for 24 hours and ask them for advice. After which they hibernate again. Although even so the passage of time continues to affect them. Their statues gradually wear down until they no longer awaken. But hibernating is a skill that only the wisest and most in balance with themselves acquire. * Kirin: Similar to unicorns, but with a lion's mane. They can also cast spells, although it is more difficult for them than unicorns. Alphas (the highest kirin) have the most powerful magic. They turn into Nirik when getting angry, enveloping themselves in red and blue fire that cannot be extinguished. They also can't burn themselves, obviously, or suffocate in smoke, so they make good firefighters. Average life span: 170 years. * Deer: Thin and agile quadrupeds with antlers, with which they can do magic. Average life span: 200 years.

Long ago, before venturing to the stars, all these species born of Equus united under one single government and around one key ideal.

The Council of Creatures is the supreme authority, making decisions quickly and efficiently. It is made up of 2 representatives from each race, except for few exceptions such as the one of Umbrum or the Farasian Trinity.

These representatives are usually purely political figures, but since the 1st growing campaign (when they began to space travel), some of them have also become warriors or strategists, highlighting the Alicorn duo, Terror or Queen Flamellus.

The symbol used to represent the council is also the flag of the Equusians. A large dark blue circle with a smaller, brown one in the center. Inside this is a six-pointed purple star, while above is a representation of the sun and below, one of the moon. Both celestial bodies leave a bright trail.

Now, the main pillar of these guys' society are friendship and unity.

You see, Equusians have this strange mystical energy called magic, which I'll explain more in detail later. The important thing you must know is that the most powerful magic is the one that comes from unity, the magic of friendship.

When they come together sincerely and with a common goal, the magic of friendship rewards them with unstoppable force. Usually concentrated through together trees, magical trees VERY important to Equusians. They are atheists, but these plants are truly sacred to them.

For millennia, the magic of friendship has saved them thousands of times from every villain or threat, which are annihilated (or redeemed, or imprisoned in some way).

At least... until now.

For a long, long, seriously really long time, the Equusians remained on their planet, happy, peaceful, friendly and protected by an ancient magical shield. Until they decided it was time to go out and explore outer space. Poor fools.

As soon as they left they encountered the Great Devourer, then they had to fight a bloody war against the ORKS and two years later survive a Drukhari incursion. This was the Dark Age, when the Equusians looked with hope into space and it responded to them with the purest and most terrifying truth in the galaxy.

This revelation almost drove them to madness, they were almost consumed by the cruelty that characterizes Warhammer 40k, but they realized that this was not the way, it was not their way.

The magic of friendship couldn't save them, not this time, it just... wasn't enough. But that didn't mean it was useless or a condemnation to extinction.

You know how they say that in Warhammer 40k there are no good guys or bad guys, but rather a large scale of gray. Well, the Equusians became a yin-yang, getting their motivation to continue fighting from both extremes, good and evil, friendship and hate. Both at the same time. They fight because of having something to protect and something to kill.

After everything that happened in the Dark Age, it was inevitable that a hatred would develop towards all types of alien life. But they weren't idiots and they knew that they couldn't just stick with absolutely everything in the galaxy, so they isolated themselves. They don't go on aimless genocidal campaigns, they don't look for trouble, but they are extremely territorial, and if any alien dares to put a only atom in their lands, they will kill it immediately.

But of course, this cannot be done with just words, it takes a trained force and effective weapons, and they have them.

The branches are the armed wing of the Equusian Lands, created after the Dark Age, these different military groups were in charge of different tasks and types of missions. Always ready to fulfill their duty.

And to help them there's technomagic. The perfect combination of the highest level equusian technology AND magic, that did not stop evolving for 10,000 years.

Technomagic not only provides great power, but is also extremely versatile, managing to achieve incredible things. It is so amazing that some have confused it with powerful psychic powers. Well, THOSE ARE WRONG!

Equusians are really good with magic, but the thing is that this energy isn't warp energy, it isn't a psychic power! Equusians barely know anything about the Warp!

But if it's not from the Warp, where do they get their magic from?

Great question! But I already answered it like... more than 7 months ago! Gosh, how quickly time passes, and how slowly I write!

Getting back to the question, I'll explain it again.

Absolutely all beings in the galaxy are connected to the Warp (let's ignore the Necrons). This parallel dimension of pure energy connected to ours, where souls, thoughts and emotions converge and reflect, sometimes gaininh wisdom and becoming entities called daemons. The "psykers" AKA space wizards, are able to channel the power of the Warp and manifest it in the realspace thanks to the strength of their minds. Thus performing "spells".

However, Equusians have null presence in the Warp, but are connected to OTHER parallele dimension, ÆTHERIUS, the realm of magic.

Like the warp, ÆTHERIUS is a dimension of pure energy connected to our own, but with key differences:
1. It is not a place where the thoughts and emotions of Equusians converge, but their souls, which have a special place called Ether. That is why it does not generate daemons or other conscious entities either.
2. The power of the warp often leaks into realspace, such as with the Cicatrix Maledictum. ÆTHERIUS also leaks into realspace, but only in Equusystem and in a much more imperceptible way, which is why there are so many intelligent species there and they have magic, but they do not lose it if they leave Equusystem.

However, the mystical arts and the study of magic have suffered serious stagnation over the past few millennia, all thanks to technomagic. Why would any creature learn complicated spells when they could get the same result by pressing a button?

Creatures only learn the required minimum. However, because of this exactly, those who are really interested in learning magic, those who put effort and dedication to satisfy their curiosity, become accomplished high-level sorcerers. Their hard work results in them being pushed to the limit of their potential and makes them creatures to be feared on the battlefield.

But even the most skilled have some things forbidden. And in terms of magic these would be the 3 feared and repudiated Forbidden Arts.

Nigromancy, Time Travel and Interdimensional Travel. This 3 practices are ABSOLUTELY banned because of the risk they represent. When someone tries to use them, it always end bad, very bad. There are other spells that are illegal, like mind control spells or magic stealing techniques, but those don't represent a threat as big as the other 3.

Following with their territories, the Equusian Lands are located on the north galactic border, next to the intergalactic void, where the other races don't usually venture. Thanks to their "isolation", they have managed to maintain a level of relative peace, although they have had their fair share of conflicts and there is always some tension due to their proximity to the Ghoul stars...

Their worlds are called "The Equusian Lands"/"Ourlands", because according to them, all those planets are an extension of their capital planet Equus. They currently only have three systems under their command, and it doesn't look like that number will grow any time soon, so let's get to know them!

Equusystem (Equus-s): The home system of the Equusians, very important to them, and the only place that ÆTHERIUS's magic leaks to. This has given it an "ambient magic" that is only found there and nowhere else in the universe. It is an energy that grants many eccentric properties, such as the sun and moon rotating around the planet, distortions in the stars and advanced and varied development of life on Equus, including the fact that they can use magic and magical creatures or plants appear naturally.

This system finds way far from teh rest of the galaxy, but still enough near to be part of the Milky Way. It may also be one of the smallest, since it's composed of only three bodies, the already mentioned many times Equus, Celestia's Sun and Luna's Moon. For Equusians, these are the only Sun and Moon, the rest are just stars or satellites. This is because for the Equusians, the Sun and the Moon are greatly important, they have celebrations around them and -sometimes- the celestial bodies boost their magic. It is even said that there's a secret temple somewhere on Equus, the Temple of the Sun and the Moon, from where their orbits are controlled.

The system is protected by a giant, imprenetable, magical shield that surrounds it, protecting its inhabitants from the horrors from the stars. Therefore there's only one way to enter or exit the system, through the "First Path", a giant mirror portal located on Palomino. * Sky Treasure-system (S.T.-s): Named so after the ship Sky Explorer, fallen in battle against the mirderships (tyranids), it was the first alien system conquered by the Equusians, that after a bloody war against an ork clan during the 1st growing campaign. The growing campaigns are the equusian equivalent of crusades or expansion spheres, in other words, when new worlds are colonized. This has happened only 2 times during the equusian history.

The star at the centre of the system is called Skystar (ST-Light) and around it orbit 5 planets and an asteroid belt at the edge.

The nearest-to-the-star planet is Bloodstone (ST-1), a completely uninhabitable nor terraformable planet due to its high volcanic activities. Besides, it has no natural satellites.

The second and third planets are the most important and poblated planets of the system, Palomino (ST-2), with great deserts, and Green Hell (ST-3), which is accompanied by its satellite Green Skull (ST-3.1). It was in these two were orks were settled.

The next planet is Aris (ST-4), a very mountainous and sometimes cloudy planet with two little satellites. Seatopea (ST-4.1), called this way because of its underground oceans, and Mainfouj (ST-4.2).

Lastly, there's Umbru (ST-5). A gas giant, and therefore, uninhabitable. There have been ideas of creating floating cities in the atmosphere but for now the only thing they do on Umbru is collect resources with specialized ships.

The important thing about this planet is its 32 SATELLITES! Some are uninhabitable and without the possibility of terraformation, but in others they have managed to make successful settlements. * Hollow Edge-system (H.E.-s): The discovery and subsequent conquest of this system was highly fortuitous.

It is a system not far from S.T.-s, so when a fleet suffered an accident in its engines, the ultraluminic speed led them to end up on one of the planets of this new system.

Their ships broke down and they couldn't use them properly, so while they waited to be rescued they had to build bases on the planet they had fallen on.

When help finally arrived, the Creatures had already built a complete and adequate base. It was not the initial plan, as the Equusians already had everything they wanted in S.T.-s, but the newly discovered system was not only close, it also had rich resources and above all, it was uninhabited, so they would not have to fight in any war if they wanted to colonize it.

So yeah, they said, "Why not?" and conquered the system, terraforming the planets they found.

They named the star Gorgoza (H.E.-Light), after an ancient beast of fire and magma defeated by the Young 6.

As for the planets, it can be said that they are very rare. The orbits of some are a little inclined or with different directions, but this has not really posed any problem for now.

The one closest to Gorgoza is called Melting (H.E.-1), because it's literally melting. It is too close to the star, so it began to absorb it little by little, which makes it uninhabitable. The planet formed too close to the star, although it is also theorized that the collision with some other unknown body could have deflected it from its original orbit.

The second planet is also not habitable. It is called Tlaloc (H.E.-2), its axis is inclined 59° and has a toxic atmosphere filled at all times with deadly and extreme storms. There have been attempts at terraforming, but they all ended in failure due to strong winds.

These two worlds are in the uninhabitable zone, which ends when you reach the iron belt, called so because, uhm, there is a lot of iron in the asteroids there. This is just one of the 3 asteroid belts in H.E.-s, each one being the end of a zone of the system. There's the uninhabitable zone, the living zone and the dead zone.

Next to the iron belt there's Boötes (H.E.-3), the currently only planet in H.E.-s occupied by the Equusians and located in the living zone. It has two satellites, also occupied, which are Fermi (H.E.-3.1) and Astro (H.E.-3.2).

Then it's found the unordered belt, a huge belt of asteroids, which, instead of seeming a disc, extends several distances up and down too.

The last zone of the system is the dead zone, limited by the limit belt. Previously here were several planets populated by the Equusians, but now those worlds are dead and empty worlds with no value.

How did this happen? Well, these worlds died long ago, during the War of the Devourer. You can guess from the name who is responsible.

As I already said, they still have had some conflicts.

Lastly, I am going to explain the GODS of the Equusians.

Well, that's a little lie. They are not gods per se, no one 'worships' them, there is no religion that worships them. I already said it, Equusians are atheists. Rather they are called that because of their IMMENSE POWER.

Cosmic spirits that embody other very important concepts for Equusians. Harmony and Discord. Which are also the names of said entities. Yeah, they're on some proverbs or sayings, such as "Harmony save us..." or "Oh, for Discord's tea!" but nothing big.

They are not very similar to the warp gods, in addition to personifying some concept, in fact, it is more correct to compare them with the C'tan, since both are cosmic beings of great power that manipulate realspace.

In fact, these two do not usually get involved in the affairs of mortals, they mostly act as if they were ordinary civilians, although with their 'peculiarities', or they are in some unknown location.

Harmony, or the Spirit of Harmony, appears as a crystalline, slightly bluish-white alicorn mare 2.4 m tall (Sunny and Flurry are only as tall as Celestia, which is the average human height). Her horn is twisted and simulates a branch, it even has some small pink leaves. Its wings have the same characteristic, but are also covered by a bluer crystal that gathers on the entity's chest. Throughout this area and its wings are distributed the original elements of harmony, which were reconstructed by the spirit. Its feathers, mane and tail are made up of small, bright pink leaves from which some circular details hang, its eyes are a reassuring blue and at the end of its hooves it has small claws. Sometimes she acts like she's someone mysterious and serious, but everyone knows that she's actually a sweetheart who gets excited easily and is very friendly.

As her name reveals, she's the representation of harmony, which is achieved with, guess what? Unity and friendship. For the Equusians, she's a symbol of tranquility, peace and calm.

For his part, her conceptual antithesis and great friend, Discord, is the Lord of Chaos and spirit of desharmony. However, he is no bad guy, just naughty at times. His chaos is more like mild chaos, making jokes and pranks along the galaxy and enjoying scaring some children. He can be grumpy at times, but he's mostly described as charismatic and funny. He's old too, very old. Which is reflected at his appearance.

Discord is an old draconequus with a long mane of gray hair, large eyebrows, a beard and looks run down. He has a deer antler, a broken goat's horn, a lion's claw, and the other an eagle's (he's missing a finger), a lizard's leg and a pony's leg, two wings, one of a dragon and the other of a pegasus, and a snake's tail.

He's spreads chaos and discord, however, this isn't seen as something bad. The Equusians actually enjoy Discord's chaos, the life needs excitement sometimes, something different. And when he creates discussions between friends is mostly to test their friendship in a "sane" way. Because what's the point of chaos with no one to behold it?

FRIENDSHIP IS NOT AN OPTION FOR US

In the far, dark future, there is only war.

This is the main axis of Warhammer 40k. A universe in which the galaxy is consumed by the flames of war and where everything can get much worse. Hope is dead and peace is a distant dream.

But what if it didn't have to be this way? With the rise of the Equusians, they brought with them the most powerful of their strange and sometimes ridiculous "magics". The magic of friendship.

This force challenges the grim darkness of the current 42nd millennium by feeding on unity, love, friendship and good vibes, becoming a strong rainbow-shaped energy that can be used to defeat the enemy. It literally turns what would make others weak into their greatest strength.

The Equusians concluded that, although friendship was powerful, they could not depend on it on the outside, so they decided to save a good amount of firepower as well.

But what if the entire galaxy knew friendship? Well, then everything would be veeeeery different. The magic of friendship is not omnipotent, but if the vast majority of the galaxy could use it, we would have a real possibility of bringing PEACE and improving everyone's lives. For example against chaos, Friendship counters corruption of any kind, bringing out the best in a person, plus with a galaxy at peace the gods of chaos would stop being that agglomeration of mega demonicity and almost absolute evil.

However, this will never happen.

We must not forget that the magic of friendship is a type of magic, and therefore comes from ÆTHERIUS, a parallel dimension to which ONLY Equusians are connected. Due to this, humans, eldar, taus, (orks?), are unable to access their power. And even if they could, the Equusians would have to teach them, which they do not want to have to do. But even in the unlikely event that they wanted to, the other races would most likely not listen to them.

The magic of friendship is like a star so, but so far away, that you will NEVER be able to reach it. But even so, you feel its power, you see its light, it gives you hope, hope for a better tomorrow that will never come, because in the dark and distant future... there is only war.

Author's Note

Hello, and welcome, to the chapter that I most wanted to do. That's how I think this fic should have started, more like a video explaining some faction that you see when you're just starting to get into Warhammer 40k. But I didn't do it like that from the beginning because... It occurred to me after I started the fic. And I didn't want to rewrite the chapters that were already published or speed things up too much, so I continued down the same path until finishing Dark Age, after which things calmed down quite a bit. Now they witness the Equusian Nation, where friendship and hope continue even in the 42nd Millennium, although this does not stop them from daring to shoot you if you force them. Let's get started!

PD: PLEASE! Someone knows how to put images in here?! I know there's a way to put images from my gallery, but it sais something about turning them into other format before. I've tried, but no page seems to do it right. I would be very grateful if someone told me.

The Branches

Warhammer 40k is a cruel, merciless universe full of extremely painful megadeath. In other words, it is very dangerous. And to survive in it you need a large military force to fight the decisive battles for survival.

For the Equusians, this force are the Branches. Military groups created after the Dark Age to protect the Equusian Lands and its inhabitants from any danger. They're led by their respective Branch Captain, the highest authority among these groups and expert leaders with years of service on their backs.

Each Branch has a different purpose and specializes in a specific task. Hence all the differences that exist between them, such as aesthetics, weapons or behavior.

But despite their differences and occasional rivalries, they are not isolated groups. They work together to best achieve their objective and some forge great alliances with other Branches.

The recruitment of new soldiers is NOT mandatory, but at a certain age each creature is obliged to do military service and recieve training. Just in case. It is during this training that the creatures decide whether to enlist in the branches or not.

However, if you excel in training and they see you as material for a good soldier, the recruiters will surely try to convince you to join the military permanently (in case I haven't mentioned it, once you're in, you're not out until you die or retire. No quits, nor layoffs, they better use you as cannon fodder). And BELIEVE ME, they can be veeeeery persuasive.

But ignoring that. Why would somecreature join voluntarily to the endless war? There are different reasons, but what most join is honor. The pride in serving and protecting your nation and the desire to be no less than those who already risk their lives to safeguard those of others.

Besides, in the case you die, you won't be forgotten. Each equusian warrior has a reserved place at the Great Cemetery. The largest graveyard in all the Equusian Lands, where the fallen are honoured and remembered as true heroes.

With this already said, let's start! By the biggest and most active of them all...

THE PROTECTOR BRANCH

The protectors. These guys are the largest military force of the Equusians, in charge of defending the worlds of The Equusian Lands from any threat, both external and internal. Although internal threats happen most often, having to fight against terrorists or criminals, which is why they also act like police.

They bravely charge against any enemy, proudly wearing the insignia of the Protectors, the symbol of their branch. A mighty shield with a four-pointed star inside. And they are ready to do their duty and protect their territory and the Council's laws.

Their most sacred duty, however, is to save as many civilian lives as possible. After all, they are the protectors of the Equusians, The Equusian Lands are like a large, beautiful mosaic, and they protect every piece.

They are also a little obsessed with listing absolutely everything, they love it, that's why they're also called 'The Guards of Order'. However, they don't organize or perform complex mathematical operations, they simply like to assign everything a number (but never a decimale, they hate those), everything except themselves, of course (We are ignoring the high ranged ones, is that clear?). It is a habit that not everyone shares at first, but that sticks with you over time.

They also have an absurd amount of propaganda. Seriously, they are very famous. But fame does not distract them from their duty, on the contrary, it makes them put more effort and dedication into their job.

Their armor is platinum in color, stylized, and with copper details, made with advanced technomagic. While among their favorite weapons are the typical police batons, although these can have a great diversity of effects and qualities, such as being electrified, exploding or serve as a flamethrower.

The Protector Branch is divided into three armies or leaves, as they are also called. The Land Leaf, the Sea Leaf and the Sky Leaf, each with control over the space that their name indicates. They have powerful tanks and artillery, huge fleets of ships and submarines or large aircraft as well as airplanes and helicopters.

Of course, they have ALL the land, naval and air power, but what about space?

Nop. No. Nein. The Protector Branch has no authority about space ships/travel, that belongs to...

THE SPACE BRANCH

Maybe the Protectors are the largest Branch, but these guys are the most important and the ones the ENTIRE Equusian civilization depends on. They're called 'Spacers' and have COMPLETE AUTHORITY over space.

How's this?

Well, because just as the Mechanicus produces all the Imperium's technology, the Space Branch has the pilots. Those specialized in controlling enormous spaceships, therefore they're also called 'Space Masters', which is represented with their symbol being a rocket with a star inside.

And... Ha... believe me, the name 'Space Masters' is not an exaggeration at ALL. Their level of fighting in space is absurdly impressive, which has made this the way of fighting in which the Equusians excel the most.

But does this mean that all Equusian spaceships belong to this branch?

Of course not! A lot of spaceships belong to other Branches (although the majority's still of this one). However, it is the pilots members of the Space Branch who operate them. But they only pilot, the rest of the ship belongs to the other Branch.

However, pilots aren't the only thing the Space Branch has to offer.

There are 3 different departments in this Branch, each with a different function.

There's the Stellar Department. Its members are guard soldiers of the Equusian borders who will punish any dirty alien who dares to approach the Equusian Lands. They also accompany the other two departments, since these aren't military, but still in need of security.

They are known for their high seriousness, probably caused by being away from a planet for a long time, and for the great value they place on bravery and determination.

Which fits perfectly with their strange way of waging war.

Okay, the Space Branch. Specialized in space battles, good. What to expect in this type of confrontation? Well, mostly two large ships at least shooting at each other while other smaller support ships go between the two, also fighting.

Yes, fine... they have that! They do! Buuuut they do other thing too...

They launch from their ships! Not in smaller space vehicles, just them with their suits and they go through the void until they reach the enemy ship and board it themselves!

Pretty crazy right?

They achieve this thanks to their space armor-suits, prepared to withstand the vacuum of space and go unnoticed until they reach the enemy ship and board it.

Then there's the Transport Department. These guys are, in fact, perhaps the calmest and most normal in not only their branch, but all of them. For they are simple transporters.

They carry resources from here to there and have an important role in commerce, in addition to being the interplanetary travel agency and messengers if the situation requires it (which is strange because messages are usually sent over the network).

However, anyone who knows about war will recognize the importance of transportation routes and those who travel them. So don't forget these guys, or they'll go on strike.

And lastly, the Exploration & Diplomacy Department.

You see, although the Equusians prefer to stay away from the rest of the galaxy and stay out of trouble, they still have a huge desire to explore. Traveling to new reaches, seeing new and majestic places, is something that every sapient being comes to want. And of course the Exploration & Diplomacy Department is in charge of that.

The members of this department are astrocartographers, who use their knowledge and techniques to map the galaxy, documenting each new discovery in detail. And avid interplanetary explorers, born survivors who descend into the (quite possibly) hostile environments they discover.

Unfortunately, exploring these new environments one can encounter nasty aliens. The first option is to get out of there, but there are situations in which this is not possible and you have to resort to... ugh, dialogue.

That's why "Diploamcy" is in "Exploration & Diplomacy Department".

However, don't think they've interacted a lot, the biggest thing they've done are some trade deals or distractions to get out. They still aren't interested in making relationships with other factions.

What they are interested in is collecting information. The other duty of this department is to investigate aliens. The Equusians know perfectly well that there are many unknown threats out there, and they don't want to wait to find out about them when they are in their yard. That is why the Exploration & Diplomacy Department must recognize them, so that contingency plans can be developed if the Equusian Lands are ever attacked.

And of course,... there are branches specialized in dealing with said threats.

THE FUNGI FINISHERS

WAAAAAGH!!!

We all love Orks, their craziness and the hilarious situations they somehow manage to get into. There's a reason they are known as the funniest race in fiction!

But we must not forget that they are also the most brutal race! And that they can be extremely terrifying and one of the biggest threats in the galaxy! (Although, honestly, in 40k, what isn't?)

The Fungi Finishers from the Equusian Lands know that perfectly and therefore, this Branch has the important duty of confronting these green giants and reducing the danger they represent to Equusians as much as possible! They mock their eternal enemies using the skull of one of these as a symbol, but wrapped in smoke and death.

They are the oldest Branch of all, because since the Dark Age, they have had to deal with orks. Due to the damned ork spores, every time they kill the orks, they come back. Again and again.

And things only get worse if a Weirdboy shows up. In this case, they must capture him and take him to Terror's "Ork Detention Centers" for investigative purposes, not torture. *wink *wink

To carry out these tasks correctly, they use versatile weapons that are usually their improved revolvers and shotguns. Which match their hats and leather jackets. That's right! They are space cowboys!

At the same time, they are creatures who like to share and treat others with respect, because they believe that we are all equal. (🤨☭ Starlight/Tau/Any other communist reference?)

They love working out too and pass a lot of their time in the gym. Physical strength is a very important aspect for Finishers and they test it in different ways. With exercises, special training or fighting each other. This is actually something they have taken from the Ork culture. After learning that the galaxy is hell Infested by war, many noted that the only truly happy species were the Orks, since they enjoyed being warmongers. Many Equusians said: "Why don't we do the same? Since we are forced to fight, let's learn to enjoy it."

This aspect is widespread throughout Equusian society, but stands out more in the Fungi Finishers. In part, due to the presence of the Orkites.

These are creatures who took the above to the extreme. They don't just enjoy battle, but actively look for it with excitement. They're a bit saveges, very competitive and proud and get excited (and offended) quickly, but can't stand complicated things. They're basically equusian Digganobz.

Although this means that they are not seen very well among the Equusians and are only tolerated because the other Finishers know how to keep them under control and take advantage of their great will and skill in battle.

Sometimes, the Finishers get together and play recordings they have obtained of the Orks' daily lives, to have a laugh. They do this as a way to de-stress from their job, which puts them under high pressure and is unrewarding, as there will always be more to kill.

Something they still have nightmares about is Or-98. An Ork settlement discovered during the 1st War for S.T.-s pt.4, whose peculiarity was that it had GODDAMNED LEGS!!! At the end of this war, Or-98 was the only settlement in not being destroyed by being in constant movement. It was some time later, when on one fateful day, the walking city appeared again as if from nowhere.

The resulting battle was bloody and brutal, but after much suffering, the Fungi Finishers managed to triumph. They threw Or-98 through a fissure in the earth, locking her in the deepest grotto on the planet, between two theological plates and without the possibility of getting out. .

That area is now avoided by the Equusians due to the earthquakes that usually occur there, but the horror of the previous battle was such that no one, not even the Orkites, dares to go there and try to eliminate Or-98.

Now take your shotguns and prepare your traps, because we are going to hunt.

THE MURDERSHIPS TRAPPERS

Are an elite group specialized in fighting against nothing more and nothing less than murderships. (The equusian name for tyranids. But I'll be calling them tyranids for the sake of understanding.)

This thanks to one of the best inventions of the Equusian civilization and a definitive weapon against the tyranids.

The DMS. Dimensional Mobile Shields.

This is a very complex device, but I will try to explain it in a simple way.

The DMS turn an area of our space-time into a small pocket dimension embedded in realspace, rather than parallel to it. The Equusians made sure to not change any phisical laws, since the only purpose of the DMS is keeping the tyranid Hive Mind away.

They achieve this thanks to the Hive Mind losing its influence in parallel dimensions, such as the webway, causing the tyranid organisms to adopt an animalistic behavior inside of the zone affected by the DMS. Thus, they Hive Fleets lose their coordination and facilitate the equusian victory.

Because of this, the Equusian success against the tyranids was incredible, although it is not as if they had fought much. Partly because they believed that the tyranids were already a thing of the past, that they could no longer threaten them.

This confidence was not unfounded, because as the Hive Mind lost control over its minions, it also did not know WHAT killed them and could not act accordingly.

That's right!!!They had found a way to avoid the Great Devoteer's greatest weapon, they had managed to stop its evolution!The tyranids... could no longer... ADAPT!!!!!

... uuuuntil, they did.

Yeah, did you seriously believe that someone could tell the tyranids, the tyranids, when to stop adapting?! HEEEEELL NO.

The Hive Mind designed ways to regain connection with its minions. One was through a creature called 'Synapedes'. A strange synapse creature of immense length and with an impenetrable shell, similar to a millipede. This tyranid organism leaves part of its body outside from the area affected by the DMS, from where it receives the orders of the Hive Mind, which it then transmits to other tyranids through the part of its body that is inside the pocket dimension.

The other way is with a Zoanthropes. These aberrations of immense psychic power can use their abilities to penetrate the "safe zone" created by the DMS and transmit the orders of the Great Devourer.

Due to the great danger that these two creatures represent, eliminating them becomes the priority for the Murderships Trappers when they are detected on the battlefield. Preferably before they reach the offline zone.

But this is no easy task, since both creatures are EXTREMELY protected by other organisms, such as tyrants Guards.

Since the appearance of these two, things have gone from bad to worse. And they got even worse during the War of the Devourer, a tragedy of planetary proportions that still resonates as the greatest misfortune in Equusian history. It was in this conflict that the Hive Fleet Ungulo attacked the Equusians again, but now overready to confront them. With its immense power, it devoured Hollow Edge-system almost completely!!! And threat Equus itself!!!!! Things were SO bad that Harmony and Discord, the equusian GODS, had to intervene.

Until, finally, and after many sacrifices and losses, the tyranids were expelled from the system, and what was left of H.E.-s was safe once again. For now.

After this traumatic tragedy, the tyranid threat was taken much more seriously. They should not underestimate it. Therefore, the Murdership Trappers were improved, with new weapons, new ships and more resources.

What they do now is keep Ungulo at bay, trying to keep her away from the Equusian Lands and keeping an eye out for possible Genestealers (those also participated in the War of the Devourer).

As their name indicates, the Murdership Trappers' fighting style is to hunt by setting traps and leading their prey into ambushes, taking advantage of their great stealth skills to catch their enemy by surprise.

Unfortunately, fighting such alien aberrations leaves a mark on someone. The psychological toll of fighting tyranids is no small feat, and Trappers are greatly exposed to it.

This has made them develop quite pessimistic thinking. They cannot win against the tyranids, it is impossible. The end of life will come at the hands of the Great Devourer and the only thing the Murdership Trappers do is delay that end. But it will all be in vain. Someday, they won't be able to take it anymore and they will fall, and all those deaths, those sacrifices, will be in vain.

The symbol of this Branch is a parody of the tyranid symbol, a mockery. It is literally the same, but in flames and with a spear through it. It is supposed to represent confidence and declare that the tyranids can be fought. But the Trappers only find them They remember what they should do, but they simply can't. The hopeless future that they can't avoid. They are not enough. They also see it as a mockery, but towards them.

But even as they are depressed by what they believe is a doomed future, they still fight. What would they do otherwise? Let innocent creatures die? That just doesn't make any sense.

It has already become clear that, despite not being perfect, the Murdership Trappers will fight until the very end.

Now, if it's the true elite you're looking for...

F.L.A.S.H. CORPS BRANCH

Ooooh BABY! These ones are the GOAT! They're completely awesome!!! :rainbowdetermined2:

Just look at their symbol! It's a triangle pointing downward with golden edges and a lightning bolt inside. Lightning bolt that is formed by three lines, one green, one red and the central one also golden.

Fervent lovers of speed, epicness, heroism and swagger! They are the youngest and smallest branch of all, but they have still demonstrated their incredible ability on several occasions.

They are sent on all kinds of highly dangerous missions, armed with the most advanced technomagic. Which means that they usually carry many devices classified as "experimental" and not completely finished... but who cares! They have a damn cannon that accelerates asteroids at destructive speeds, and it's genius (Terror doesn't think the same). So who cares that they are sometimes treated like guinea pigs? Most of the time they volunteer themselves!

What stands out most about this Branch is their great skill with swords. Oh! And their INCREDIBLE speed. They have the fastest ships, the fastest vehicles, the fastest computers, and they are not even red! But this is also why patience... is not a concept that fits very good with them.

Some can become a bit narcissistic due to the Corps' high success rate, so other Branches don't particularly like working with them. Although it's not like the Corps do much of their part... They don't like receiving orders, especially if they are from someone from another Branch.

But this does not make them rebels. They know very well how to recognize the authority (of their Branch), for example, the Branch Captain is very respected. But although he is supposed to be the supreme leader of the Branch, there are other creatures who have managed to gain enough authority to overshadow him. The Prophetesses.

A group of seers who answer directly to the Council of Creatures and whose duty is to look into destiny to find those who shall become a member of the Flash Ten.

The Flash Ten are the elite among the elite. The greatest heroes of the F.L.A.S.H Corps. Ten different creatures destined to be part of this group. Therefore, anytime the prophetesses find one of them in their visions, they're took to be highly trained and develop incredible skills. No matter if they don't want to, nor if they're still children, their former lifes are gone, so is everything they knew, now they're just what they're destined to be.

Having to be legendary heroes, the training they receive is 100 times harder from the beginning. Their greatest aptitude will undoubtedly be their unattainable speed, as it will be their destiny to destroy the enemies of the Equusian Lands before they even reach realize, seeing in their last moments a strange trail of mixed colors and light.

Although all of their physical qualities are excellent thanks to the training, this still would not explain their supernatural speed, since it actually comes from their armors.

The DASH Armors. Ancient, but incredibly advanced suits, each one designed for a different creature. These armors are armed to the teeth and, although their resistance is not as high as others, they withstand extreme temperatures excellently. But what is most striking about these armors is that they give their user the ability to enter at unthinkable speeds, causing several Sonic Rainbooms instantly and leaving a trail of colorful light.

But this speed can only be used for a certain time, 2 minutes. After that, the user cannot go as fast again for a certain time, which can vary between 5 to 30 minutes. I know 2 minutes doesn't seem like a lot, but, I mean, you know what a speedster can do in just 2 minutes?

Attempts have been made to reverse engineer and understand how the armor works to create more, but this has resulted in failure each attempt.

The DASH Armors were created millennia ago by a mysterious and reclusive scientist who also had prophetic gifts. It is believed that he managed to see the present, which somehow led him to build the DASH Armors. Maybe to help, maybe he saw himself making them and decided to fulfill his destiny or maybe they have some other hidden purpose, no one knows for sure right now.

For a long time the armors were hidden in his secret underground laboratory, gathering dust. Until the prophetesses saw them in one of their visions. They convinced the Council to find them and use them in a new elite force that was being created (The F.L.A.S.H Corps ) and due to their apparent special connection with these suits, the prophetesses were given the role of being part of this new Branch, finding through their powers those who must wear these armors and become HEROES.

THE ORANGE RESEARCHERS

This Branch was founded with the aim of investigating and collecting information about one of the... hmm...💡! Concepts! most dangerous of 40k.

The Warp

And all the entities that inhabit it.

This Branch was created after the Demona Incident, in which a cult of Slaanesh that had emerged managed to summon demons from the dark prince.

Although they had already heard mentions of the warp and demons from the orks and drukhari, this was the first direct encounter.

Thanks to this horrible experience, they managed to learn more about the Immaterium and qualified it as a great danger that had to be avoided. But since it was so dangerous and so much was still unknown, it was the most logical thing to create a force destined to learn more about these new enemies and how to deal with them.

They obtained Warp Drives and Gellar Fields from some Imperial ships that conveniently had become "stranded". And they use them to enter and exit the warp and conduct their research.

Due to the inconceivableness and cosmic horror of the warp, the training that the Researches receive is equally infernal, since they must train not only their body, but also their mind. But not even with the greatest of efforts can one exit the warp pure, Therefore, this Branch has become incredibly distrustful, guarding the little knowledge they obtain very suspiciously, believing that some demon wants to steal it. In other words, they do not trust anyone, not even among their own, and are more than prepared to kill each other if necessary.

They started out as simple researchers, but over time they managed to develop several methods to confront demons, psykers or any other entity affiliated with the warp. Methods that they have usually copied from the Imperium or the Eldar. Things like immediately killing any corrupted, having a strict moral code or, an original one, always carry at least one tree together, since the magic of friendship cleanses corruption and darkness, or at least keeps it away (usually).

Luckily, the vast majority of warp entities are not interested in the equusians due to their lack of connection with the Immaterium, which means that demons and other predators cannot feed on them. Although there are also others who seek to eliminate them for this very reason.

Currently, what this Branch wants most is to get hold of the necron technology of the black pylons, capable of keeping away any warp energy. Not only because of the great advantage it would be against the demons, also because by turning off the psychic powers the Zoanthropes could no longer ignore DMS fields. So they're working on that alongside the Murdership Trappers.

THE MEDIC BRANCH

I know, this seems a little odd.

An entire Branch dedicated to medicine? Aren't Branches supposed to be military groups? Besides, doesn't each Branch have their own medics?

Don't worry. I explain.

Being in... practically constant war causes, of course, a lot of creatures to get really injured. Soldiers and civilians. And with the great amount of species the Equusians are, it is required a BIG and VERY specialized force to deal with that.

The Medic Branch always goes with the other Branches to every battle, but not for fight, but to help everyone who requieres it and collect the bodies of the deceased. So, the soldiers can completely focus on the front and not have to worry about civilians nor injured companions, because the medics are already there for them.

(Although there are still somecreatures who stubbornly insist in protecting civilians themselves, even when it's not necessary, *Protectors*)

You might think this is a very noble task, always worrying about others, these medics must show a great compassion and kindness.

They're not. NOT AT ALL. Actually, saying that they feel anything apart from momentary rage is something very far from reality, for medics behave more like emotionless robots.

Creatures are actually scared of them, because wether you're wounded in battle or sick 8n one of their healthhouses (hospitals), if you fall in the hands/hooves/claws of a medic, you automatically lose all your rights.

The medics will do ANYTHING to cure you. Your consent is not necessary, your complainments will be ignored and your rights as privacy won't be respected. This is all completely legal, of course.

The process may hurt and be agonizing or at least disgusting, but it's the most efficient way the medics could have found. (They don't actually care about those things without relevance though.)

Because medics are completely obsessed with efficiency. They can't stand a not-perfect-done work, they're addicted to work. For them, there's nothing more important than their job and doing it right and efficiently. Their job is their whole life! Literally!

Because of this, they don't really have time to have relationships and start a family, what a waste of time! But due to all the equusian species there are, it is needed great preparation and knowledge needed for this job, hence medical positions are hereditary.

The seed from a selected medic and the egg from another are taken and artificially brought together in a gestation chamber, where the baby will be formed. After "being born", they will be sent to the Healthlife School, where they will be psychoindoctrinated to forget empathy and become perfect and professional medics with incredible intelect.

His education is so good, that never, never EVER, a doctor has made a mistake. Such a thing is unthinkable. So much that, in fact, there are no protocols in case that happens.

There is practically NOTHING they cannot cure, and their life support methods are simply impressive, capable of keeping someone alive for weeks. Something that is not often talked about, a taboo, is that this life support technology actually has origins aliens. They come from a race that the Equusians faced and from which they managed to capture technology. This race is none other than the Drukhari.

The only thing that escapes them are the "blessings" of Nurgle. They know about these diseases thanks to the Orange Researchers, with whom they work together to try to find some way to cure them.

Finally, they are also called "the masked ones", because their symbol is a flattened red hexagon that looks like a mask.

CUBED GIANTS

***disclaimer
Okay, this isn't ACTUALLY a Branch, but I feel like I should give them a special place here because of their importancy and unique characteristics.
***end of disclaimer

GIANT ROBOTS!!!

This is an important element of popular culture that has captivated us over the years with its epic battles, its imposing size and its great destructive power. It is precisely for this reason that many factions have their equivalents to these enormous machines, and the Equusians are no exception.

The CUBED GIANTS! They are one of the best Equusian inventions of the current era. Large metal suits used for construction, mining, but above all, for battle!

Cubed Giants are enormous cube-shaped war machines that deploy onto the battlefield, armed to the teeth with ranged weapons or meele, to cause great devastation and confront other large-scale agents of the enemy.

One of their peculiarities is that they can alternate between a bipedal or quadruple fighting style depending on the preferences of their driver. And if they manage to demonstrate their skill and bravery, they will earn the privilege of customizing his Cubed Giant and making it more suitable for them.

There have been 4 generations of Cubed Giants so far, each one better than the last.

The first generation (GMK.1) was created during the war against the orks to face properly their Walkers and could reach between 4 and 10 meters tall. One of the greatest heroes from this age, Thunderwill, now deceased, drived Thunder Jotnar. This was a 10-meter powerful Giant sadly destroyed alongside its pilot during the Days of Pain.

The second generation (GMK.2) happened later as an improvement on the old Cubed Giants. Getting more weapons and a larger size, the maximum now being 25m.

The third generation (GMK.3) was the big BOOM of the Cubed Giants. Thanks to spells to alter the size, they managed to increase the height of the Giants and reach an average of 50m, although the tallest of this generation reached 65. They also improved the shields, implemented new weapons, self-repair and pilot evacuation systems and increased speed and agility. In other words, they made them more powerful than ever before!

In fact, they could have even been made larger, but it was concluded that this would be counterproductive. They would be more of a nuisance as they also represented a danger to other soldiers due to their large size and could attract more enemy fire than they could withstand.

But then, what about the fourth generation (GMK.4)? How could anycreature upgrade even more the Cubed Giants? Well, the idea was not to improve the Giants, but how to control them. The battlefield is very dangerous, so it was decided to imitate drones and have the pilots control the Cubed Giants by remote control. This was not an idea that the drivers will really like, since controlling the Giants from within had become an important tradition and they simply did not want to change it. So it was a quite controversial decision.

In any case, this did not matter in the end, since neither side got what they wanted. The scientists in charge of creating this new generation decided to ignore their orders and carry out their own fantasies about what these powerful tools of war should be like.

Before being arrested for their insubordination, these scientists managed to create three Cubed Giants according to their whims.

They gave them strange abilities and shapes, far exceeding the recommended size. In addition to not creating these Giants as war machines to be piloted, they illegally programmed AI, making their Cubed Giants esentially sentient creatures with individuality.

These Cubed Giants were named Spimy, Daragor, and Mecha, and nicknamed the Fourth Three. They were offered to be transfered into bodies more suitable to live like any other AI, but they rejected it. They knew their purpose was war, and they did not reject it.

However, they are usually asleep and inactive. The few times they are deployed on the battlefield, it is away from the enemy, where they attack him with their powerful ranged weapons. However, they are also close enough that the enemy sees them and recognizes their size, which serves as an intimidation tactic.

But there are also many other Cubed Giants who stand out and are honored as true heroes. Perhaps we'll meet them in a future chapter.

THE SECRECY MINISTRY

[ACCES RESTRICTED]

*--■■■■■■■■■■--*

[ACCES GRANTED]

Loading...

*You are amazing, seriously. One of the few who have even noticed our existence. But you are also arrogant, overconfident, do you really think we wouldn't notice your hacking attempt (quite pathetic by the way)?

But you interested me, so I have prepared this message designed especially for you and only you. I suppose that, having gone to the trouble to find us, I owe you at least a little explanation of who we are. I could get in trouble for this, but hey, I've come out of worse.

We are the Ministry of Secrecy. A top-secret Branch of expert, elegantly suited spies. We collect information from everything, outsiders and insiders, and give it to the Council.

We are also the ones who get dirty, you know, hitmen and assassins. I remember one time they asked me to poison a water tank, I have no idea why. Usually they never give us a reason, just follow the orders and that's it.

In any case, you shouldn't trust us either, most of the Council is smart enough to know that we are not necessarily on their side and they are cautious. It wouldn't be the first time we stab someone in the back, I've done it several times actually. In other words, betrayal is quite common here, but we are good at what we do, sooo...

I think the hardest part of this job is when civilians see us. We can't leave witnesses, you know? You might think that we erase their memories, but sometimes lost memories tend to surface and we can't have that, so...

It's not like I'm complaining, the truth is that I quite like it when that happens, it adds emotion to the matter, but it's difficult because they tend to scream a lot and I'm not very quick. Not enough to cover their mouths before they scream.

Why I'm telling you all this? Well, we have a lot of burocracy and paperwork and it's boring. Plus, I didn't have a mission in some time and I'm bored.

But don't worry, I have already cut off all types of communication you had with the outside of your mother's basement (loser). I knew you would stay reading because of your suicidal curiosity, I have been watching you for a while, you know? Don't try to leave, there is a spell that will will prevent it. In any case, I have already sent some assassins to take care of you, they will probably cover it up like a gas leak, although I know them, and the ones I have sent you quite like to torture. Good luck.

I guess this little "conversation" of ours is over, let's see. Yes, I can see you through your computer's camera. No, it doesn't matter that you covered it.

Oh wow, have they arrived yet? So fast, I'll have to tip them. Uuugh... I hate that.

Uuuh! But I love that! Ha! You scream as a baby! Woah... I didn't know you could do that with someone's bones. Ah! The horns trick! I love that one, although your eyes probably won't.

Well, I have more important and boring stuff to do. Bye Bye!*

Computer self-destruct activated.

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

The Branches pt.2: Hierarchy

Greetings little creature! And welcome to the equusian ranking system! Here, you will learn the hierarchy of Ourlands and the duties of each of its positions. I must warn that this hierarchy is quite extensive, so at times it will be simplified

First I will teach you which are the ranks that hold political power and the responsibility to make important decisions capable of affecting the lifestyle of the average citizen. Ensuring through thoughtful decisions to maintain society in the best possible way, worrying about economy, culture and laws.

These politicians obtain their positions through democratic elections from time to time, although this time varies depending on their rank and the location where the elections are held.

District Trio

Each city is divided in districts and each district is overseen by a District Trio, a group of three creatures who must work together to safeguard the quality of life and rights of the citizens who inhabit their district. Their true function however is to limit their superior's power over the city and to give them advive.

Mayor

Mayors govern an entire city and are the highest political and administrative authority within it. It is their job to propose and carry out initiatives to bring their domains to a state of prosperity. However, they must convince a majority of the District Trios to carry these projects out during their assemblies.

Sector Watcher

Just as cities are divided into districts, an equusian world is divided into several sectors, each one with hundreds of cities. Sector Watchers are in charge of monitoring actions that could affect the sector, being alert of possible corruption and listening to the requests or complaints of the mayors. They are not someone who gives orders but rather someone who maintains order in politics of all kinds, within their sector of the world, of course. This is why they tend to encourage discussions and agreements between mayors.

World President

World Presidents are the rulers of a planet or satellite. They must ensure the stability of their world and keep it united and without disputes. They watch over the lower ranks to make sure they do their job well and can interfere if they believe necessary. Lastly, they're always accompanied by some advisors, who help them in making decisions and, if the President is indisposed, it is the greatest of their advisors who act as a substitute, with the help of the other advisors.

But these positions only grant political power, and no authority over military matters. It is the members of the Branches who carry out those tasks, at different levels depending on their rank.

Each Branch has a different hierarchy, although with similarities tio. But something they all share is where they start from.

Aspirant

In the Equusian Lands it is mandatory for all creatures to undergo military training upon reaching a certain age, even if they are not going to become soldiers. After this training one is legally allowed to enlist in a Branch and become a proud defender of Ourlands.

These creatures become Aspirants, the first step to being a member of a Branch. They will receive further training and have to spend two months with each Branche to see which of them best fits the Aspirant, similar to doing an internship in a comapny. In addition, during this period they will also learn the basics about each of the Branches and their purposes, in case of working together in the future. After these months, the Aspiarants will be sent to the Branch with which they are most compatible, that is, the one in which they have shown the most potential and talent.

However, this won't be enough to be a full member of that Branch, they'll have to pass an entrance test first. This test varies depending on the Branch to which you are assigned, but usually includes physical, mental and ethics tests. If they fail, they'll have to repeat it, then again and again, until they finally succeed.

Newcomer

Neat! The Aspirants have passed the entrance test, so are they already official members of a Branch and ready for combat? No! But closer to.

Whichever Branch they've been assigned to, they'll only have spent two months with it, so more time is neede to get a familiarization with the doctrines and the specific task of that Branch. During the time as a Newcomer, they won't participate in missions nor fight against the enemies of Ourlands, but they will receive new training with lessons more in line with the Branch's combat style and several combat simulations. In addition to learn how to use the Branch's tools, weapons and vehicles and know how to carry out any of the tasks they may be assigned to. Although it is likely that sometimes they'll be given a small task helping the support staff too. This staff isn't made up of soldiers, but other creatures who carry out the other tasks of a Branch, as equipment maintenance, cleaning, administration...

It is only after this special training that they are officially another soldier in the ranks of the Branch, although in the lowest position. From there, it is needed time, feats and talent to climb in the hierarchy. By doing this they will receive more responsibilities and power, so they will feel the weight of their duties and decisions more and more, in addition to having to teach the Newcomers and impart their experience to them.

Now, there are many ranks, that differ depending on which Branch. However, there are 4 of them that are present and the same in each Branch, at least in function, their names can change.

Squad Leader

Squads are groups of some standard soldiers who work together to perform a task. There are at least 5 members, and the number goes up to 25, although this also suffers slight variations depending on the branch. They use vehicles and are accompanied by combat drones, additionally, there are some squad classes that specialize in something, such as levitating squads, which use technomagic devices to float as if using telekinesis on themselves.

Squad Leaders are the most veteran standard soldiers, who for one reason or another have not been promoted to higher ranks. They lead their own squad in different missions at the service of their superiors and know perfectly well that they should not fail, since the most common is that a squad performs missions for a larger force, and if they fail it could impair everyone.

Although sometimes the situation gets out of control and another squad must be called for reinforcements, in this case both squads come together, forming a squadron.

First Mate

The Equusians have developed a large number of ships, the most common being space ships and stations, but they still also retain naval and air ships (these last two are exclusive to the Protector Branch). Within these ships, the First Mate is the second in command. They are the Captain's trusted creatures and those who give him advice and help. They are also assigned to supervise a specific area of the ship or direct a special operation. To do this, they send squads, which they supervise and advise by radio.

Captain

Those who command a ship. They supervise all the activities carried out within it and control its forces, deciding how to defend themselves and how to attack. For that, they send squads, like their First Mates, or bigger forces, it depends. However, the Captain's orders will always have more priority than the First Mate's. Each Captain leads their ship in a different way, but focused on the task of their Branch.

Admiral

Admirals are important positions within the leadership of a fleet. There are three classes of Admirals, with different authority over the fleet and their own responsibilities.

Rear Admirals are the Admirals with the least authority within the fleet, but they still command the rear of the fleet. Higher in the hierarchy are the Vice Admirals, who command the forward ships. And finally the simply called Admiral, who commands the entire fleet from the flagship. They are the greatest of the Admirals and therefore superior to a Vice or Rear Admiral, however, but has greater authority in the core of the fleet

THE PROTECTOR BRANCH

Guard Protector

The most basic rank in the Protector Branch, obtained after passing the Newcomer stage. These guyss act as protectors for the Equusian Lands, against threats both external and internal. They patrol the streets of cities in pairs or small groups to ensure that the law is respected and to help citizens, such as looking for an escaped pet or recovering a balloon that escaped from a little kid's grasp.

They carry out operations for the three Leafs, whether at sea, in the air or on land, arresting criminals and following the orders of their superiors.

Detective Protector

Detective Protector is a rank dedicated to the investigation of the most mysterious, confusing and complicated crimes, solving them with an arduous work of deduction. To help them, Detectives have a small squad at their disposal, in which they take the role of Squad Leader.

Saergent Protector

There are two types of Saergent Protectors, the internal and the external.

An internal Saergent Protector's duty is to keep secure a district. They monitor this from a Protection Station and have to intervene if they're required, which is quite rarely. They can put several squads together and thus create a platoon, which they also command.

The duty of an external Saergent Protector is similar, but with key differences. They too, command platoons, but like their urban counterparts, the most common thing is that they send squads to carry out certain operations. Related to keeping the roads and areas of land between cities safe. They work in the barracks, military bases far from cities and civilians.

Deputy

A Deputy is the second most important military and security authority in a city. Although they mostly serve as support to their superiors, the Sheriffs, they also have a good amount of power. It is their duty to take several platoons and put them together in one section if the city is under attack, maintaining order and security for the civilians inside the city while other forces defend it on its borders.

Sheriff

The Sheriff. The city's guardian. It is their responsibility to maintain order in a city, ensuring that the lower-ranking Protectors do their job well and confronting the most dangerous criminals. In the event that the city is besieged by an enemy army, the Sheriff must form and lead a battalion to prevent them from entering. Battalions are groupings of several platoons, like sections, but larger.

Coronel

A Coronel is equivalent to a Sheriff, but while they are concerned with defending, the Coronels attack. They lead a force called Tercio, which is made up of several platoons led by external Saergent Protectors and fight against enemies outside the cities.

Officer Protector

In the past, Officers were one of the few creatures with great military authority, along with Captains and the members of the Council of Creatures themselves. Nowadays, although they are not as essential to the Equusian military forces, they still have an important role, duty and great authority.

Officer Protectors monitor and maintain order in a sector of the world, commanding large armies if necessary. As well as keeping an eye on those of lower rank and helping the World-General Protector with ideas and advices.

World-General Protector

World-General Protectors are the second highest rank in the Protector Branch hierarchy and have all available Protector Branch's forces of their world at their complete disposal. They use these to protect their world, whether a planet or a satellite, although they lack of control over the orbital defenses, since these belong to the Space Branch. But these two Branches are used to work together and have a good relationship, so it's not really that of a problem.

Protector Branch Captain

Branch Captain is the most IMPORTANT rank within a Branch. Each one has almost complete authority over their respective Branch and all its resources at their disposal. They must ensure that the task of their Branch is being carried out correctly and actively participate in it, so their orders are ABSOLUTE, obly a member of the Council of Creatures could decline one.

In this case, the Protector Branch Captain has complete control over all Protector Branch forces and must use them to keep the lands and inhabitants of Ourlands safe. At their disposal are all the defense methods of each Equusian world (except orbital), which includes Equus itself! In addition to other things that make clear the power of this position, such as the Protector Branch being the biggest, the closest one to common population and the one with most propaganda. However, the Protector Branch lacks of spaceships and other interplanetary resources.

Currently, the creature with this great power is the centaur known as Usak. He's an expert strategist, hand-to-hand fighter and possesses great physical strength, in addition to being charismatic and a kind leader who cares about others.

His most recognized feat was the war he led against a dangerous terrorist group known as the Cyberts. A group of mentally unstable people who wanted to unite flesh and machine in a horrendous communion in order to achieve an "ascension" and become the ultimate lifeform. They were a big problem thanks to the biomechanical horrors and cognitohazards that they developed and used against the population, trying to make uprisings. But after many battles, Usak faced their leader, Cybor Biosteel, who was accompanied by a huge bionic monstrosity he called 'The destroyer of the impures'. Fianlly, the Protector Branch Captain managed to defeat the villain and imprison him and his surviving followers in Tartarus.

THE SPACE BRANCH

Astropilot

Also called Space Masters, Astropilots are the pilots of ALL spaceships within the Equusian Lands, even if they're not Space Branch's. This means that Astropilots will take orders from other Branch's members too, most common the Captain of the ship they drive, although a command from a Space Branch's superior will always have priority. However, Astropilot is not a special rank that requires a separate training, actually, each member of this Branch knows how to pilot a ship and therefore, some are assigned to. So one day you can be boarding an enemy ship and the other being on the steering wheel of yours.

Stellar Naut

These ones are the crazy guys that throw themselves to space to board and attack enemy ships. They are highly disciplined soldiers, who are taught the power of will and the value of determination, knowing your objective and going for it. Well, in a place like the vacuum of space, getting off the path and getting lost is a sentence of death. For the same reason they never go alone, not even inside the ships, always close to their companions, covering their backs.

They're soldiers from the Stellar Department, but also act as guards for the other two Departments or any other Branch's forces that requires them. Besides of some of them also being transferred to Astropilot position.

Stellar Apol

Another rank within the Stellar Department. Stellar Apols are the ones who lead incursions into space enemy locations, as ships for example. For this they use Stellar Bodies, forces made up of Stellar Nauts and Astropilots inside small sized ships and with a power equivalent to several squads.

Space Sys

In the Space Branch, Admirals are tasked with manning a world's orbital defenses or leading a fleet beyond the Equusian Lands. But there is yet another rank that watches over outer space. Space Sys are creatures whose task is to defend one of the Equusian systems, so there are only three of them. They have control over all the Space Branch forces in that system and complement them with brilliant strategies.

Space Branch Captain

Space Branch Captain is the supreme leader of the Space Branch, having control over ALL activities carried out in space, even if they are carried out by other Branches. Theu are also in charge of policing most of the borders of the Equusian Lands.

Mandak is how the current Space Branch Captain was named. He's a centaur too, which makes sense once you realize that he and Usak are brothers. Yeah, they're called 'The Centaur Brothers', since both have become Branch Captains. Their relationship is actually one of the primary reasons for the good relation between the Protector and the Space Branch.

There are two types of centaurs, those that can do magic and those that can't. The horns of those that can't are more similar to antlers, while those that can cast spells have more solid, curved horns. Usak is one of the former and Mandak of the latter. He does not stand out in physical strength but is a great sorcerer with incredible aim. He replaces charisma with logical arguments that are difficult to refute, but his best quality is his determination and will, some of the most important values within the Space Branch that are a source of great respect.

THE FUNGI FINISHERS

Trooper

The Troopers are the rank-and-file soldiers of the Fungi Finishers. Specialists facing Orks, using devastating destructive power. For this they are organized into Loo'Jacks, big reconnaissance and extermination groups. They receive support from ranged weapons, but the Troopers' favorite way of fighting is hand-to-hand, in which they have been true experts even before they were official Finishers.

They are forced to learn to fight in melee from the entrance test, in which the Aspirant is thrown into a room with a real ORK that you must kill! If you succeed, great! If you don't succeed and the Ork is about to end your life, he will be incapacitated by a previously implanted chip and the Aspirant taken to the medics. But as is done in each entrance test, if the Aspirant fails, he will have to repeat it until he succeeds. So as soon as they are healthy again, before they can do anything else, they will be thrown back into the room. Over and over again until they finish off their greenskin enemy.

And this doesn't change much as a Newcomer, because during the special training you will have to face Orks again, several times.

Lastly, do you remember the Orkites? The crazy ones who are always looking for a fight. They usually remain as Troopers, even if they have the opportunity to advance. Because the higher the rank, the more one has to focus on making strategies and not It's always going to the battlefield, and that's not exciting.

Skipper

Skippers are the Finishers in charge of leading a Loo'Jack, guiding the Troopers to battle and commanding them until achieving victory. Usually a Loo'Jack is enough to put down any Orkoid uprising, but they can also be given other tasks. In any case, the Skipper will be in command, and is also the one who gives orders to the Squad Leaders.

Chieftain

When a Loo'Jack, for any reason, is incapable of defeating an Ork uprising and needs help, the Chieftains appears. As the situation requires it, Chieftains use their great power over the Fungi Finishers' forces to bring together several Loo'Jacks and thus create a Finish-Junction. The ultimate equusian army to face the greenskin scum! It can even have orbital support since Chieftains are higher than Admirals in the hierarchy.

These creatures are also assigned to watch zones where ork spores are common, so they can send Skippers and their Loo'Jacks to deal with it.

Fungi Finishers Captain

The Fungi Finishers are masters when it comes to killing Orks. They tirelessly search their lands for greenskins to eliminate them. And it is the duty of the Fungi Finishers Captain to see that this task is completed. He is the perfect embodiment of the violence and brutality that the Finishers use to confront the Orks. An intimidating AI, BL-666, Bloodbath Spine-Ripper!

His physical appearance looks like a dark metal humanoid up to the hip, where he has levitation devices, a powerful rocket and four small sharp appendages that simulate the legs of a spider. His weaponry consists of long and sharp blade-like steel claws on his hands and several ranged weapons mounted on his shoulders, which he can remove when not in battle.

But don't think he's a mindless brute who charges into battle without a plan. Bloodbath recognizes the importance of good strategy, and makes sure his forces attack headlong and by surprise. But it's when the fight begins that Bloodbath shows all his brutality! On the battlefield, he usually annihilates the Orks using a Fatality, ripping off their spines merciless, hence his nickname, 'Spine-Ripper'.

THE MURDERSHIPS TRAPPERS

Forcetrapper

The job of a Force Trapper is not easy. Murderships Trappers' main objective is to keep the tyranids away from the Equusian worlds through ambushes and battles that take place in space. They do not fight directly, but defend their ships in case of a tyranid boarding and use their weapons to attack the tyranid Bio Ships, so much of what they do is point and shoot. But there are times (in virtually every battle) when this is not enough, and it's necessary to board the enemy ships.

Guess who're the ones that have to do that.

Forcehead

A Forcehead is the next rank of the Murderships Trappers. They lead a large group of Forcetrappers known as Hunt Forces, used as defensive or offensive units, following the plan to combat the tyranids.

Trap-Organizer

They are those who plan ambushes and attacks against the tyranids, developing strategies to confront them effectively and, if possible, with few casualties. Due to this important task, they are provided with the resources necessary to carry out their plans, which gives them authority over Captains or even Admirals (technically, it's a bit more complicated).

They're not looking to completely wipe out the Hive Fleet Ungulo though, they don't want that. You see, Ungulo has specialized as much as it can in fighting the Equusians, the Hive Mind doesn't like DMS at all. But it is more beneficial for the Equusians to continue facing Ungulo without eliminating it, because if this were the case, or if they show the Hive Mind that Ungulo is not enough, reinforcements could come from other Hive Fleets, and that would not be good at all.

Murderships Trappers Captain

As the grand master of tyranid killers, the Murderships Trappers Captain has the responsibility of keeping these abominations away from the Equusian worlds. And the one who has proven capable of this is none other than Volkano! Who has defended the Equusian Lands since 500 years ago, when the Dark Age occurred.

In the first encounter between Equusians and Tyranids, he faced the aliens. Later, he was the Captain of Murderships Nightmare and fought again against the Hive Fleet Ungulo during the War of the Devourer.

He fights using twin pistols and burning his enemies with his fire, which will not be extinguished unless it is artificially extinguished. During the Days of Pain, Volkano lost his dragon wings, which were replaced by powerful jetpacks. But so many fights have left serious consequences on Volkano's psyche. He was once a happy and friendly dragon who liked to play jokes and have barbecues, but now he is someone silent and lonely, with an empty and tired look. Like the rest of his Branch, despair floods him, but even so, he continues fighting, and having barbecues.

F.L.A.S.H CORPS BRANCH

F.L.A.S.H Warrior

The F.L.A.S.H Warriors are the basic soldiers of the F.L.A.S.H Corps. Unlike other Branches, they prefer to fight from their vehicles, going at full speed against the enemy while shooting at them. They are the most animated among the Branches, celebrating their victories and telling jokes They always look to have fun with their friends. Even when the situation seems dark and hopeless, they have been taught the power of comedy and the value of a smile of genuine happiness.

F.L.A.S.H Commander

Being in this rank means being sent to the most dangerous battles in which victory must be mandatory.

The Commanders have the Stormvolts under their command, large companies of F.L.A.S.H Warriors driving hundreds of vehicles for war. In addition to entire fleets providing support from the sky. The F.L.A.S.H Corps has never liked authority, that is why apart of the ranks shared by all the Branches, there are few command positions. But they have always known how to respect those who deserve it, and the Commanders deserve it. It is not for nothing that to access this position one must undergo one of the most extreme tests and complicated, which will also be seen by the entire Branch so that, by overcoming it, the Commanders will earn their respect.

Prophetess

In all Branches the Branch Captain has total authority and no one within that Branch has a power that compares. Except in the F.L.A.S.H Corps, where there are the Prophetesses, the only ones with an influence equivalent the Branch Captain's.

They're a group of exclusively female creatures with the magical ability to see the future, or at least, the best path of action to take. These visions they have are intrinsically related to the F.L.A.S.H Corps, hence their position, but specifically to the F.L.A.S.H Ten. The Prophetesses are the ones who control this group, knowing through their prophecies what missions to send them on and under what authority to put them.

They are a highly mysterious group with the belief (which they keep hidden from the Council because they disagree) that destiny is already written and that they must ensure that it happens just as it is supposed to happen. Within the F.L.A.S.H Corps everycreature trust them, but outside the Branch, there are several creatures who don't.

F.L.A.S.H Corps Captain

Garra, a griffon, was an incredible Branch Captain. She was a good fighter and strategist, always wearing a smile to motivate her soldiers, but also teaching them discipline and respect, for which she became appreciated by other Branches. She managed to achieve success after success in every mission she was given, and it seemed like she was on a roller coaster that could only go up.

But everything that goes up must come down. Over time, each operation of the F.L.A.S.H Corps led by Garra obtained worse results. They took longer, suffered more losses, the enemy was increasingly unpredictable and with more surprises, almost as if somecreature was helping them. With each narrow victory, confidence was undermined a little more, especially Garra's, who increasingly felt like a burden and unworthy of her position.

The last drop was the battle against the Thunderbeasts. A dangerous and hostile alien race originated in Umbru (ST-5) from powerful electrical storms that somehow came to life. Luckily, they were not intelligent, more like animals, but still dangerous. They were believed to not pose much of a threat at first, but this was refuted when it was discovered that they were somehow escaping their planet's gravity, going as a large herd of four-legged energy monsters through space and heading towards a satellite of the planet, Cloudmine (ST-5.13).

Garra was sent to take care of them, which ended in their most terrible defeat. Not a complicated victory like before, a true defeat that did not become a tragedy only thanks to the direct intervention of the Prophetesses. Garra again blamed herself, believing herself unworthy of her power, so she left the leadership of the Branch to the Prophetesses, they would do better. But they begged her not to leave the Branch, she could still help. Garra agreed to this request and retreated to the F.L.A.S.H Corps base of operations to take care of paperwork. However, the members of the F.L.A.S.H Corps still hope for her return.

THE ORANGE RESEARCHERS

Archangel

The soldiers of the Orange Researchers, these creatures have received the most exhaustive training to turn their minds into fortresses away from corruption. They have been taught to stay clean of warp influence and resist temptation, as well as the best ways to counterattack the warp predators and psykers.

Now, this is for all this Branch's soldiers, but Archangels are even better. They are the most skilled and pure-hearted warriors that this Branch can offer, true fighters against madness and a position that is not designed for novices. Therefore, yes, it is strange that they are the rank with the least authority (only officially), but that is because of their special task. This task is to go out and capture entities or artifacts related to the warp so that the Researchers can discover its secrets. This is why they have to be so good and experienced, since they are closer to the dangers of the warp.

Power

Powers are warriors even better than the Archangels, true experts fighting against warp spawns. Their duty is to lead the Spheres, the groups of Archangels destined to achieve what the Researchers ask of them. Despite their great power in battle, their greatest skill lies in their ability to motivate their soldiers and transmit confidence, although as is normal in this Branch. But they are also paranoid, so they do not usually trust others and always try to have control of the situation, which sometimes leads to unnecessary conflicts.

Principality Researcher

The Researchers are not warriors, but rather scientists, although not entirely because they also have a great knowledge of magic. They are recruited as the brightest minds in the Equusian Lands and trained to know how to do this dangerous job, as there are many new concepts that must be taught to them. In any other Branch, they would be part of the support staff, but since the objective of this one is researching, they have a much more role important and authority over the Powers and Archangels.

Principality Researchers are the most novice of them, so they work as assistants to the highest-ranking Researchers, learning about the warp until they can advance to the next level.

Virtue Researcher

Virtue Researchers are the next level. These Researchers have been in the Branch long enough to know the warp quite well. They work in groups carrying out research projects, studying the phenomena and creatures related to the warp and developing ways to counteract them. They are supposed to share the knowledge acquired from these investigations, but being superparanoid, they don't, at least not the important thing. So the Equusians still have quite a fewproblems when it comes to the warp.

Throne Researcher

As I have said before, the Researchers are always working on projects to learn more about the Immaterium, for example, that it has several names, such as Immaterium. The Throne Researchers are the ones who lead these projects. The smartest and wisest ones of all, not as paranoid as the others, although still a little. They decide which route the investigations they lead are going to take and their approval is needed to send a sphere of Archangels to get something useful.

Cherubim

These warriors are the barrier between the Researchers and their knowledge and the dangers that lurk in the warp. Their responsibility is to maintain the security where they are deployed, whether on a base or on a ship. Basically, they are the ones who have to fight against the demons if they make an incursion. It is also because of this duty that they have more authority than the Researchers, since they have to ensure that their experiments do not threaten the integrity of their location.

Seraphim

Seraphims are in charge of organizing the defenses against warp creatures. They command the Cherubims, directing them to areas that need them and securing important positions. On a ship, they have similar authority to that of the Captain, which usually causes that these two come into conflict, but because of the Seraphim being physically stronger, the Captain will most likely give in.

Orange Researchers Captain

It is the duty of the Orange Researchers Captain to keep Ourlands safe from the warp threat, commanding special forces trained for this and using to his advantage all the knowledge collected during the various incursions into the warp.

Anadeer is the name of the creature with this responsibility. She is a kind doe, incredibly noble, understanding and merciful to those who deserve it. She spreads love across the members of her Branch, being the glue that keeps it together even with all the paranoia. Always carrying a reassuring smile and a melodious voice, eager to help whoever needs it. This is why she is one of the most loved and respected creatures in Ourlands.

She is incorruptible, has a great sense of right and a pure heart, and is an expert in the use of the POWER OF LOVE, in which case is especially strong. The alicorn Flurry Hearth has even said that her love can be as strong as that of her dead mother, Princess Cadance, the alicorn of LOVE!

She uses this power to enhance her magic and literally punch her enemies with love, which adds to her great face-to-face ability and agility. Not to mention that her aura filled with such pure and sincere love is not liked at all by daemons, which makes her perfect for this position! Apparently, since daemons are mostly made of negative thoughts and emotions, they are apathetic to Anadeer's love.

Many consider her perfect, except for one detail, she is blind. Thanks to the high level of technomagic, things like blindness or deafness stopped being a problem a long time ago. But since she was born, Anadeer was affected by a special blindness, not even medics could grant her the gift of vision. But this did not stop her. Using the power of the love that resided within her, she developed a unique ability called "love-sense" that allowed her to sense her surroundings, focusing this ability with the help of a band over her eyes, she had no problem locating herself. It is also because of this ability that it is impossible to catch her by surprise, as she will feel you as soon as you approach her.

She is without a doubt, a creature blessed by love and its power. According to her, love is the most powerful emotion of all and hate is a poison that must be avoided, which is why she states that hate must be repressed, even during battle, how would it help anycreature?

THE MEDIC BRANCH

Room Medic

Room Medics are doctors who work in health centers caring for the injured and sick. They work as a team and with impeccable efficiency, thanks in part to the fact that they do not need the patient's consent to perform any operation or procedure they deem necessary. There is no one who can tell them not to do something if it interferes with the health (physical, they are not psychologists, in fact they sort of despise them a little) of their patient.

Craft Medic

Craft Medics work at health centers too they're responsible for maintaining medical equipment, as well as creating new devices and substances to treat patients. They are also responsible for researching unknown diseases and developing a cure.

However, they share the same level of authority as Room Doctors, as do the next two positions. You see, when someone is a medic, there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of. Therefore, and for not having a total mess, there are several positions which medics can be assigned to, each with different responsibilities. Although every medic is prepared to carry out these tasks after completing the Healthlife School, and they're assigned to one or another depending on the need of the moment. Medics can also shift from one position or another if it's needed. They don't complain, so...

Field Medic

These Medics are those closest to danger, as they accompany warriors from other Branches, looking for injured creatures on the battlefield to save, healing wounds inflicted in battle and recovering the bodies of the fallen to give them a dignified burial.

Nurse

Nurses are, you could say, assistants to the other medics, Room, Field or Craft ones. They take the role that the support staff would have, which does not exist within this Branch due to the great conflict that would be caused by having "normal creatures" working alongside the indoctrinated medics.

Nurses take the patient's medical history, bring materials, organize resources so that they are directed to where they are most needed, among many other tasks. They also monitor the patients, over time this causes them to develop a certain degree of empathy again, caring truly for the condition of the patients and not only for curing them, being a great support for them.

Room, Field and Nursery Director

The Directors are supposedly the superiors of the regular medics, responsible for supervising them and ensuring the health of the patients. The Room Director is the top within a health center and supervises the Room and Craft Medics. The Field Director supervises the Field Medics. Medics and the Nursery Director the same with all the Nurses.

I say 'supposedly' because, what are they going to supervise? Medics make no mistakes, so mostly Directors are in charge of bureaucracy. These positions only exist to give the illusion that there is a chain of command in front of the public, so that they feel more secure. Although technically they DO have more authority than other medics, what are they going to use it for? I have already said it, the medics do not make mistakes, they do not need orders, only someone who is in charge of the organization and distribution of resources. Plus, they all always agree.

Medic Branch Captain

Yes, I know I said that medics do not need orders from others and that in this Branch authority is just an illusion, but this is different. The power of the Medic Branch Captain resides not in being the highest authority in the Branch, although it is, but in the influence it has over other medics. They respect the creature in this position so much, that they'll follow its every command, even if their opinions on the matter are others.

This Branch Capatain is Healthy Hearth, an ornithian bird with cream feathers. She stands out as one of the most intelligent creatures in Ourlands and the best healer, perfectly using the most complicated devices to heal the most unbearable wounds and the most putrid diseases. Although birds cannot use magic naturally, she has learned ways alternatives to become the most skilled biomancer, which makes, along with her other skills, stand out even among the medics as the best. That is why all the medics respect her so much and follow her orders.

Among her greatest feats was saving the life of a soldier who had been brutally dismembered. His limbs, his eyes, some organs including part of his brain had been removed, he had lost a large amount of blood, several of his bones were exposed and his wounds were infected, oh, and he had been poisoned. Even with all that, after hard work and a great display of his skills, Healthy Hearth managed to save him. Or the time she managed to develop a cure against the Genestealer parasite, safely extracting it from the victim's body without causing harm.

THE MINISTRY OF SECRECY

Hitman

Unlike what you might think, the hitmen in the Equusian Lands are not independent assassins whose only boss is whoever pays them (although they certainly want you to believe that), but rather they're all loyal servants of the Ministry of Secrecy. Of course, they don't work only for them, anyone who finds out about their existence (which is not as secret as the rest of the Branch) can hire them to do a 'little job'. But they will always follow the orders of another member of the Ministry first, as long as they pay, of course. Ironically, they are the only ones in this secret Branch who respect LOYALTY, and will never stab you in the back unless someone else pays them to do so. They also place a lot of importance on honor, and if their victim manages to challenge them to a single duel, they will accept. But this duel can only end when one of the two is dead.

Of course, no one can find out about these activities, so Hitmen will cover up their crimes after committing them. Sometimes they will make it look like an accident or suicide, while other times they'ill blame it on someone else out there.

There are several hitmen, and some join groups instead of going alone, but no one really knows where they come from or how they learn to kill in such a well-executed and discreet way. The same thing happens with the rest of the Ministry members actually, no one knows where they come from. Obviously, being a secret Branch, you can't just join them as if it were any other, almost no one outside the Ministry knows it exists. It'll remain as just another of the many secrets of this Branch.

Agent

Agents are the eyes and ears of the Ministry of Secrecy. It is thanks to them that the Ministry has all the information it has.

They are sent to carry out various missions, infiltrate an interest group to gather information or destroy evidence of the Ministry's existence, observe citizens through the network, which they also use to gather more information, kidnap someone and take them to a hidden place to interrogate him, that kind of super spy stuff.

However, they never know whythey carry out those missions, they know the purpose of it, but not the reason for it. The Ministry of Secrecy is a Branch with MANY secrets, even among its members, so NO Agent has access to all the stored information, mostly only what they are given to fulfill their missions.

Giver

Givers are high-ranking personnel within the Ministry of Secrecy and are responsible for giving Agents their missions and tasks, although if the objective of a mission is simply to kill someone, they will directly hire a hitman. They are usually very busy also dealing with bureaucracy and supervising the reports that Agents have to submit after completing their missions.

They have access to more information than Agents or Hitman, although this is also limited by clearance levels, which, using a special clearance item as keys, grant access to the data. There are seven clearance levels, each one with greater access than the last. Givers are at levels 4, 5 or 6, while Agents have access to level 2 and 3 information and Hitmen at level 1, or 2 at most.

However, there is no one to watch who has what level, so an Agent could end up having a clearance item that allows him to have level 5 information. But of course, this could only be achieved by stealing it, and due to the great importance of these, the clearance items are kept very well, so their previous owner will probably end up dead. The Givers also do this to each other, although they could earn those levels fairly, just as Agents could be promoted to Giver and get a higher level. Only the hitmen, due to their honor codes, don't do this, besides, they don't care about knowledge, just that they get paid.

Minister of Secrecy

There is a saying within the Ministry of Secrecy, "We know everything."But due to the clearance levels, this cannot be true, at least not completely. There is someone who DOES know everything. The Minister of Secrecy.

No one really knows who or what this creature is, whether it is a single individual, a group using the same title, or whether it even exists. But it is known that it's the highest authority of the Ministry, and therefore, you obey it, no matter what. When it was created, the Ministry of Secrecy had a clear objective, to be an intelligence organization for the Council of Creatures and to help against the enemies of the Equusians by gathering information from them. But at some point, this changed, the Ministry of Secrecy Secrecy became much more independent and changed its objective to one that no one but the Minister knows about.

Little or nothing is still known about this creature, except that, for now, it is our ally. Because if it were our enemy, I don't know if the Equusian Lands could bear it.

The Guards of the Council

This is the highest an Equusian soldier can dream of. The highest position one can obtain, outside of the Branches, serving something more important. Only the best of the best are selected to be part of this elite group. To even be considered for entry is an unreasonably great honor, and to be part of them is an even greater one.

The Guards of the Council, are the warriors who act as bodyguards of the Representatives, the most important creatures of Ourlands. Their power is beyond what seems possible, their weaponry beyond what seems powerful and their armor beyond what seems indestructible. They are noble, dedicated to their duty with all their being and ridiculously strong.

First Representatives and Second Representatives

The Representatives are the members of the Council of Creatures, the highest authority in all of the Equusian Lands! They make the rules, the most important decisions and safeguard the way of life of the Equusians. They have both military and political power, their word is law, but they must still agree with each other to carry out the most important decisions. Which, unlike what other might expect, is not a tedious and slow process, it is in fact quite agile, fast and effective. The death of a Representative will be mourned by EVERYCREATURE in Ourlands, and if it has been a murder, the damned thing who killed them will be hunted throughout the universe if necessary, until giving it a merciless end and obtaining revenge!!!

There are First and Second Representatives, but this does not indicate that one is more important than the other, but rather the length of time they have been Representatives. However, there are some cases in which there is only one Representative for a species, either permanently or because one of them died and candidates are being sought.

Some important Representatives are:

The Alicorn Duo, made up by the 1st Representative of Ponies and Alicorn of War, Flurry Hearth, and the 2nd Representative of Ponies and Alicorn of Hope, Sunny Starscout.

The 1st Representative of Changelings and their Monarch, Queen Flamellus. And her little brother, Prince Carapas, 2nd Representative of Changelings.

Terror, Representative of Umbrum. This is one of those cases where there is only one representative and not two.

Gorval, 2nd Representative of Gargoyles.

ML-145 AKA "Mil", 1st Representative of AIs.

Canine, ex-2nd Representative of Dogs, deceased, killed by a tendril of a tyranyd Hive Fleet. Currently looking for a new candidate.

The Farasian Trinity. A modern organism within the Council, but functional. It is a trio that includes a Representative of three different species. These would be Punda, Representative of Zebras, Hou-luk, Representative of Abadas, and Wuhha, Representative of Kelpies.

These are, however, only a few members of the Council. In the future, I'll delve more into this organism and the lives of its most important members.

Author's Note

*Saergent, Coronel isn't an ortographical mistake, I made the names different to differentiate from other factions.

The Rogue Bands

The Rogue Bands are groups of creatures, that, for one reason or another, decided to leave the Equusian Lands and become independent. They ignore the Council's rules and form their own entirely separate identity, often with VERY different values from those of general Equusian society.

First, let's look at the ones who first left the Equusian Lands.

THE PIRATES OF THE MUSIC

Across the galaxy, there are various creatures who have decided to embark on a life of adrenaline and adventure, becoming pirates or corsairs. Some examples of this are the Aeldari Corsairs or the Ork FreeBooterz, both of them with different (but also similar) reasons to take this route.

The Pirates of the Music are Equusians who decided to lead this lifestyle, motivated by a great desire for FREEDOM, as they believed that the Equusian government had become too authoritarian. Of course, they would later withdraw this statement, but that didn't make them abandon their new lives.

Anyway, a group of these creatures gathered together and hatched a plan to escape from the Equusian Lands and their "repressive" government. They carried out this operation during the first century of the eleventh millennium (approx. 10.100 a.C. or 40.600 for the Imperials), successfully stealing (albeit with great difficulty) several spaceships with which they escaped from equusian territory and headed towards new confines!

Since then until now, the Space Branch has been searching for them as fugitives, but has never been able to find them. It must also be said that the attempts to find them have become less intense than before.

This great separation from the Equusian Lands allowed these creatures to create their own separate identity, becoming pirates with an obsession with music and rhythm! As well as very greedy. They travel through the galaxy in The Home for the Notes of Piarcy, a gigantic pirate ship created from the spaceships they stole. Its deck is protected from the vacuum of space by a special magical field that allows the crew to see the wonders of the cosmos without risk. It's like the ship from Treasure Planet, but MUCH bigger. And at its core is a togetherness tree called The Crew Tree, a symbol of great importance to the pirates.

Plus, it has an invisibility field that the pirates use to perform one of their favorite activities. Boarding other ships! They appear suddenly, thus surprising their victims and raiding them with spaceboats they deploy, and once they get a good loot, they disappear just as quickly. They are skilled thieves, disrespectful towards others and each other, and possessive of their belongings. However, they will never take slaves, which they consider a barbaric act, nor do they take orders from any other faction, no matter how much they may be paid. They still value freedom greatly, almost too much, sometimes forgetting the phrase: "Your freedom ends where the rights of others begin."

But there is another activity that the pirates love, this one not only reserved for the warrior crew, as the boardings are. The CONCERTS!!!

One of the values of the Equusian Lands that the Pirates of the Music preserved was the appreciation for all kinds of music. It's a bit hard to explain, but they believe that music is powerful and beautiful, that a good melody can motivate those who listen to it and bring out their strongest emotions. The pirates have taken this to the extreme, spending much of their time playing songs, even while they're fighting.

But they also want to share their passion for music with the rest of the galaxy. They lack the distrust and hatred towards aliens, although they are not naive either. To do so, they go from planet to planet organizing concerts as part of the Neverending Tour, an eternal journey among the stars, with their next destination chosen at random and the purpose of making the entire galaxy contemplate the power of pirate music!

Within the pirates, there are several music bands, each with a different style, sometimes battling each other to entertain themselves and improve their music. They also decorate their amazing songs with colorful, flashy clothing and unnecessary details. And so far they have played for several races, Orks, Eldar, the Imperium, even races that had not yet discovered space travel! But of course, to get into these concerts, you have to pay an entrance fee. Music isn't free.

Their musical pursuits have earned them a rivalry however, with none other than the Noise Marines. These Space Marines were once part of the 3rd Legion, until, following their Primarch, they betrayed the Imperium and became worshippers of Slaanesh. With the consequent depravity. These specific traitors use sonic weapons with which they destroy the organs of their enemies or drive them mad with their horrible sounds. It was because of this that upon hearing of the pirates' musical activities, their wrath was unleashed. They swore to wipe out these Xenos in the name of the Prince of Excess and revel in the feeling that killing them would bring them, thus proving that the music of these creatures was pathetic and incomparable to the works of the Noise Marines. Basically, they felt their pride threatened.

So they chased them down, finally reaching them during one of their concerts. After a brief battle of the bands against the Melody League, one of the pirates' bands, the Noise Marines decided to get serious and carry out an utter slaughter of their enemies, feeling extreme pleasure from their pain. After this, the surviving pirates fled in The Home for the Notes of Piracy, and went from repudiating these traitor Marines for their sick practices and disrespect for true music to ABSOLUTELY hating them.

But The Guide, leader of the Pirates of the Music, along with other high-ranked ones, decided to not retaliate and instead avoid a new encounter with the Noise Marines at all costs.

HOLLOWCAVE

Do you remember the Pony of Shadows?

Wasted-potential villain from the end of season 7 who was banished to Limbo. Do you?

Yes?! Well, guess what? He's back.

Okay, let's do a quick brush up. The Shadow is an ancient entity of darkness and a mysterious origin, whose goal is to extinguish all light in the world and plunge it into DARKNESS. But being some kind of a parasite, it cannot do this without a host, so it seeks out creatures with negative emotions to put them under its command in exchange for power. This is how the Pony of Shadows is born.

It is known that The Shadow was banished millennia ago to a dimensional prison in Limbo, the realm between realms where time does not pass. However, it seems that it managed to escape, although it is unknown how or when. Only that it was before the Equusians went into space for the first time. Since it escaped, it got a new host and remained hidden, waiting for the perfect moment to return, which came after the War of the Devourer.

In Hollow Edge-system, lay the world of Hole Haver (HE-5), also called the Green Elysium for its beautiful natural landscapes and abundant resources, although it also had a curious system of giant natural caves, all connected to each other. However, everything changed when the Tyranids attacked. The planet was defended with EVERYTHING it had AND MORE, and yet, after the War of the Devourer, Hole Haver was just another rock in the H.E.-s dead zone.

Following this war against the Hive Fleet Ungulo, the Council decided to carry out Project Resurrection, which aimed to bring life back to the attacked worlds. Although this obviously failed. But it was during this time, that something strange happened in Hole Haver...

"And for one brief, eternal moment, when silence ruled our dead world, a tower of lightlessness rose from the depths and touched the sky, before claiming it for itself and bringing blessed, holy darkness."

– 7:26~3-8, Manuscript of Shadows

This moment was called "The Darkening". Hole Haver losing every ray of light and plunging into the purest darkness conceivable. The one responsible for this was, of course, the Pony of Shadows, who renamed himself as King of Shadows, since he would henceforth be the supreme ruler of, Hole Haver? No. Under the wishes of its King, the planet would now be called Hollowcave.

As expected, the Equusian Lands did not like that what was once one of their worlds was now an independent planet ruled by a villain believed to be a myth. But they had just gone through a devastating and desperate war and could not go to a new one. This was taken advantage of by the King of Shadows, who was satisfied and with his purpose fulfilled. He had plunged the world into darkness, even if it was only one world. He managed to get a treaty of mutual non-aggression between the Equusian Lands and Hollowcave. Although relations between the two remain tense and they are just one step away from a larger conflict.

But what is a kingdom without citizens? You might ask. Well, the inhabitants of Hollowcave are known as Shadowits. They are the creatures that were on the planet during The Darkening, as part of Project Resurrection. Most of which were previous inhabitants of the planet.

These creatures felt sad and unmotivated, but most of all, betrayed. The Council was supposed to protect their home, and yet here they were, standing over the corpse of what was once their precious world. So when the planet darkened and the King of Shadows appeared, offering them new and improved protection in exchange for servitude, they accepted.

Not only that, they created a religion, a faith around their savior, worshipping the King of Shadows as if he were a God. They built Greek-style temples for him in the middle of their villages, which they call Poli, perform sacrifices in his name and wrote a holybook that collects all their tales and legends, the Manuscript of Shadows. In addition, they exclusively use dark magic as part of their creed.

Dark magic is also used in the Equusian Lands, but with great restrictions and limitations, and it is also very unpopular. This is because using it enough generates physical and mental malformations in the user, only the Umbrum are immune to these side effects.

(Speaking of the Umbrum, many of them moved to Hollowcave as soon as they learned of its existence.)

The Shadowits seek out and embrace these mutations, celebrating them in their mysterious festivals. It is also thanks to dark magic that they are able to see into Hollowcave despite the lack of light.

Shadowitan culture is based on many other things too, especially faith, but also philosophy, arts, especially literature and architecture, and battle. All always having shadows and darkness as a common point. However, this does not stop the Shadowits from being very respectful towards other cultures and civilized.

Their society is divided into Ágōs or Skhols, organizations that teach and practice a trade, similar to a guild. These teachings vary, from being a monk, to a philosopher or a warrior. But belonging to an Ágō does not mean anchoring yourself to it, a Shadowit can be a member of several Ágōs to have more knowledge. For example, you can be a farmer artist (they somehow preserved agriculture) or a troubadour warrior, there are many possibilities.

Now, turning our attention to their army, we find two main types of forces.

The Black Knights, specialists in melee combat who refuse to use any kind of ranged weapon, instead using dark magic to enhance their physical qualities. The most prestigious in this group are the Black Knight Lords, true and noble warriors with a territory of their own.

And the Enchanters. Powerful dark sorcerers who cast curses and illusions on their enemies. However, their overuse of dark magic drives them mad, so they lock themselves away in high towers until called into battle. And when one of these sorcerers finally becomes a danger to the others, they subdue them with Dark Stone to disable their magic and burn them in a bonfire with black fire, which burns with shadows.

And yes, that Dark Stone is the same material that Chrysalis' throne was made of. For some reason, Hollowedge has quite a bit of that.

Another use that has been given to this stone is to create the Autolyc Armor, which is the armor of the King of Shadows himself, protecting him from all magical attacks. Although this makes us wonder, why can the King of Shadows still use magic, even with his armor on?

From this arises a theory that says that the Shadow's host is a changeling, since the magic of this species is not affected by the Dark Stone. But it is still only a theory and there could be other explanations.

However, this armor is only an accessory for the King of Shadows. Because being in a world of darkness, his powers have reached unprecedented levels. His strength and speed are enormous, he has such a regeneration that few weapons can cause him true damage, in addition to possessing powerful magic and several abilities such as a certain degree of shapeshifting, umbrakinesis, which allows him to control the shadows, including the darkness of Hollowcave, apart from having a general idea of everything that happens in his world, although without details. However, these powers can be weakened if the King of Shadows is outside his planet.

But there is one more thing at Hollowcave's disposal, an awesome tool of incredible power...

The Limbic Gate.

A door that the Shadowits can open and close as they wish, leading directly to Limbo. It is a very powerful tool, but they operate with caution, because through Limbo they could contact other universes. And we already know that that cannot end well.

THE DARK FRATERNITY

Among the many strange qualities of the Equusians, their lack of presence in the warp stands out. Not a weak one, but completely non-existent.

But make no mistake, this does not mean that Equusians are soulless creatures. Their soul simply has no traces of warp energy, but is connected to ÆTHERIUS.

This is a very positive thing for them, as it makes their souls untouchable to the Immaterium's spawns. However, their bodies and minds can still be corrupted and contaminated by warp energy.

When this happens to an Equusian, they become members of the Dark Fraternity, an organisation that brings together various cults to creatures of the Warp, whether a Slaaneshi cult or a Nurgle cult, with the creatures of authority being the leaders of said cults and their close ones.

These cultists or "Fraterns" are, basically, a bunch of hyprocrites, overmelodramatic edgys with emo trends who think they're a huge threat and dangerous villains. When in reality their direct exposure to the warp has turned them into idiots who don't know how to do anything on their own. They make pathetic plans, have ridiculous ideas, don't even know good what they want, and the few times they have a clear objective, they forget it to try to be more "intimidating and dark" instead.

As well as being obsessed with the idea that the universe is a bleak and hopeless existence that doesn't let you be good. All those who are "good" are just hypocrites who lie to themselves, and if they saw the truth like the Fratens did, they would join them, because everyone has a dark side inside them that will take over at some point.

This is what they tell themselves so they don't feel so guilty about betraying the Equusian Lands and doing bad things for stupid reasons.

The Dark Fraternity also claims to hate the Council, the Equusian Lands and everything they stand for. Yet they still have various values from their former lives.

For example, they continue to seek unity by wanting to unite all Chaos-worshipping Equusians into a single organization. Although they do not even call the Ruinous Powers 'Chaos', they refuse to do so, claiming it is an insult. This is because 'Chaos' is associated with Discord, who is an ally of the Council of Creatures, so they prefer to say "The Ruinous Powers", or "The Dark Forces" and "The Dark Gods" instead. However, the rest of the Chaotic warriors see such things as blasphemy or just nonsense.

To them, the Fraternity is nothing more than a useless and pathetic joke, whose members only serve as servants or cannon fodder. Although they don't usually do this either, as they find them irritating and annoying. Not to mention that they find the Fraternity's symbol, a mix of the symbols of the four Chaos Gods and Chaos Undivided, disgusting.

But there is more, as the Spirit of Harmony itself hunts them relentlessly. Ever since the Demona Incident, Harmony has been HORRIFIED at what the Warp could do to an individual and vowed to never let that happen to any creature AGAIN. So she seeks out the Dark Fraterns to redeem them thanks to her powers. Discord uses chaos magic to cause chaos, while to cause harmony, Harmony uses the magic of friendship, which she has a special connection with. This magic does not brainwash the Fraterns to redeem them, as some might think, but rather brings out the best in them, increasing their positive qualities so that they become the best version of themselves. Which, obviously, does not include worshiping daemonic deities.

However, as with everything, there is a limit. There comes a point where a creature's mind can be SO corrupted that not even the purest friendship can redeem it. In this case, the Fratern would simply be disintegrated, although Harmony does not know when some creature has passed this "limit of corruption", so she puts special effort and haste into this task to redeem the Fraterns before it is too late.

Anyway, the Dark Fraternity is terrified of her, because they don't want to be good. So they are always worried that she will appear whenever they are in realspace. Luckily for them, Harmony never enters the Warp. She manipulates realspace, but has no power over the Immaterium, so if she were to enter, she would surely be killed. But she is still a danger to be reckoned with and another reason why the Dark Fraternity is despised by other Chaos worshippers.

There is only one member of this organization who is respected by daemons and other servants of Chaos. Avernus Doomflare, the arsonist of doom and Anadeer's archenemy. A tall kirin who is a mix of his normal state and his nirik form, but his body is also incredibly corrupted by warp energies. He is a proud creature, but not overconfident, although easily angered, who has long since passed the limit of corruption and thus is a monster without hope of redemption, too stained by the Warp.

He has corrupted his body and mind to colossal levels with warp energy, causing him to grow mutations such as several horns and antlers, spikes all over his body, an extra pair of eyes, sharp fangs and claws. His nirik flames have become warpfire, which he can manipulate at will and form two daemonic wings with it.

The origin of this villain dates back to when he was a member of The Followers of Demona, the Slaaneshi Cult that caused the Demona Incident. However, he had many more ambitions than his "brothers and sisters" of the cult. After the incident, he fled to the warp and with its energies, he extended his own life and became what he is now.

The most warp-corrupted Equusian. But not as corrupted as he wants, for his greatest desire and obsession, his final goal, is to become a Daemon Prince at the service of Chaos Undivided. However, because of what has been already said about the equusian soul, this is impossible.

Yet Avernus has never stopped searching for a way to achieve his goal. He has worked alongside demons like Be'Lakor, whom he greatly respects, admires, and fears, and he has attempted to enlist the aid of sorcerers like Azhek Ahiriman. He has earned the respect of other servants of the Gods by not being like the Fraterns. He does not seek equals, but servants. He refers to Chaos properly and takes things seriously. Although this does not mean that they admire or appreciate him. The only ones Avernus can fully count on are the Dark Fraterns themselves.

Because although Avernus is not a Cult Leader, he does have great influence. The Fraterns see him as their greatest idol, and he makes sure it stays that way. However, this respect is not mutual, because like many others, Avernus only sees in the Dark Fraternity, a bunch of idiots without ambition, but perfect to serve him. This is also why, every time someone with a minimum of common sense appears within the Fraternity, Avernus kills them so that they do not threaten his power.

Currently, the Dark Fraternity is... quite inactive, carrying out no attacks against the Equusian Lands and taking refuge in the Warp.

A brief explanation of equusian weapons, armor, vehicles, and starships

Greetings dear readers, and welcome!

Today I'm going to briefly explain the basics about the weapons, armors, vehicles and starships used in the Equusian Lands. This way, you can get an idea of the situation in future stories and I won't have to interrupt the narration to explain these basic concepts.

But I remind you that this will only be the basics, by no means the entirety of the Equusian arsenal.

WEAPONS

The truth is that the Equusian civilization was never one that focused heavily on war and weapons development. But in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war, so every being that wants to continue living needs a way to defend itself properly.

Since they left Equus, the Equusians' weapons development has not stopped advancing, and thanks to this, they currently have a large arsenal of ranged and melee weapons. Most of them use some kind of technomagic to work.

We'll first talk about equusian ranged weapons, but before that, I must make one thing clear. And it is how hoofed creatures like Ponies or Kirins are able to use these weapons, since they have a design similar to that of ranged weapons used by creatures with hands.

You see, hooves have a very special non-magical ability, and that is to increase the electrical charge of attraction between them and some object, manipulating the interatomic bonds to allow them to behave as if they were hands. In this way, Ponies can grab objects and manipulate weapons without problems, seeming as if they were glued to their hooves.

This quality appeared after the war that devastated Twilight's Equestria, being caused by magical radiation.

Among the most common ranged weapons are the B-S Weapons, which range from small pistols or powerful rifles to large cannons used by tanks.

B-S Weapons are notable for their ability to switch between 2 types of ammunition, breakthrough ammunition and spellmunition.

Breakthrough ammunition consists of projectiles of various calibers that do not use any kind of magic. This is because the Council does not want the security of the Equusian Lands to depend exclusively on magic.

These projectiles end in a drill-like crystal tip. The barrel gives them a rotating effect when fired, and they have an internal mechanism that makes the tip spin at high speed. This gives them great penetration capacity.

In addition, these projectiles cause great area damage, cracking a good part of the armor strong enough not to be pierced by them and causing severe internal damage.

Spellmunition, on the other hand, consists of spells that are used as ammunition.

The magical energy and spell matrix are stored in shiny marbles called spellmarbles, which are what you find in a spellmunition magazine.

When fired, the spellmarble break and the spell is released from the barrel as a ray of magical light. The spell's effects manifest when this ray hits its target.

However, not all spells can be used to create spellmunition, especially the more complex ones. Some of the most commonly used spells in spellmunition are petrification and magic laser.

Something similar happens with explosives such as grenades, mines or bombs. There are normal explosives that throw fire and shrapnel in all directions, like a great wave of destruction. But there are also explosives that carry a magical charge, which enhances the explosion or gives it other effects. For example, a type of grenade that instead of exploding, generates a resistant crystal that traps whatever is within its range. Also, if you want to create cover.

Missiles also have a crystal point like the Breakthrough ammunition, but they are not classified as such due to their ability to explode.

There are 5 classes of Missile Launchers, each more powerful than the last. Class 1 are hand-held missile launchers that fire small missiles. Class 2 are bazookas. Class 3 consists of two boxes filled with small missiles. Class 4 fires larger missiles at greater distances. And Class 5 are usually non-mobile installations capable of firing building-sized missiles across continents.

There are more ranged weapons, which are outside of any category. They can be "normal" weapons in the sense that they do not defy any laws of physics, like Flamethrowers or Grenade Launchers, or pieces of technomagic, like Storm Launchers (they contain an electrical storm inside them and use it as a battery to fire lightning bolts) or Emotional Blasters (they shoot energy obtained from the intensity of the shooter's emotions).

And there are also the Acid Weapons. Pistols, rifles and explosives, which use a corrosive green substance to deal damage. This "acid" is stored in special containment tanks that act mostly as magazines.

Finally, there are the cannons, large and powerful ranged weapons used on special platforms or vehicles.

The most common is the Smile Cannon, which is also called B-S Cannon, so you can already get an idea of what it does. There is also the Pulse Cannon, which fires a beam of energy that vibrates its target until it explodes. The Wave-teleport Cannon, capable of teleporting a very powerful explosive to great distances. And the Magical Cannon, which fires a very powerful purple magic beam capable of passing through almost any material and causing gigantic explosions upon impact.

But even more destructive than all of these weapons are starship-grade weapons. These are larger, longer-range versions of some of the aforementioned weapons, used by starships to defend themselves.

However, there are two weapons that are exclusively starship grade, with no smaller version.

These are the Nightmare Cannon (basically, an antimatter cannon) and the Daybreaker Cannon (It mimics a coronal mass ejection, artificially replicating this cosmic event. Its use is so regulated and has so many restrictions that it is practically prohibited).

As for melee weapons, there are two types. The Enchanted Weapons and the Sparkle Weapons. Both have the ability to return to their bearer if they lose them (something like with Thor's hammer).

Enchanted Weapons are melee weapons of all kinds with enchantments that enhance their durability and original capabilities. For example, a sword will cut more easily, and a mace will strike more powerfully.

They also have the ability to generate shockwaves and slashes of magical energy that increase their range. Polearms, such as spears and halberds, are also capable of firing magical lasers.

The Enchanted Knife is the weakest Encahnted Weapon, as it lacks the power to generate shockwaves or magical slashes. It is extremely sharp though, and they're usually fixed to rifles as bayonets.

There is also a special kind of Enchanted Weapons known as Special Weapons. These do not only possess the aforementioned abilities, but each one of them has a unique power too.

For example; Urielgate, a Bird Seraphim, owes Gate's Flames, a powerful flaming sword. Mirror Bident belongs to the Abada F.L.A.S.H. Commander Manylot Multiple, and has the power of creating illusory clones of its wielder. And there's The Mace of Strength too. This is the weapon used by the Protector Branch Captain Usak, capable of delivering blows of unbelievable force. It was used to defeat the beast called 'The Destroyer of the Impures'.

Sparkle Weapons do not have all those powers, but they have their own magical abilities.

Using one of these weapons gives a warrior enhanced strength, speed and stamina, and reduces their sense of pain.

And whenever a Sparkle Weapon inflicts injuries on a living being, the weapon will take some of its victim's energy, using it for its own benefit.

In case the weapon is damaged, it will use this energy to repair itself. But if the weapon is in good condition, it will provide this energy to its wielder, healing their wounds and allowing them to fight for longer.

Although they are not weapons, there are also many items that Equusians use for combat and other related activities. Devices for artificial teleportation, levitation or telekinesis.

There are also the boingpacks, a device similar to a jetpack or jumppack. They use no magic and allow to fly slowly.

But the most famous support item is the Inventory; a small, square, flat device that grants access to a small pocket dimension where Equusians can store their objects.

These disappear from the user's grip with a teleportation effect whenever they want them to, and reappear in realspace in the same way. This works as a response to the user's thoughts.

It is because of their great utility that Inventories aren't used solely by the military, but they're also a common object in civilian possession.

Now, and lastly regarding weapons, there are the Drones. Round, floating machines that are used for various tasks, including combat, but also espionage or construction. These can operate independently to carry out these tasks, but they have fairly simple programming, since the Equusians cannot simply create AIs to serve them, not anymore.

This class of Drones is known as O-Drones, but there are also Mega-Drones, which are larger and are specialized exclusively in combat.

ARMORS

In a battle, it is essential to have some form of protection around the body. The Imperium has the Power Armors, as do the Traitors. The Eldar have their Mesh Armour, and the Necrons are already made of metal.

Equusians have 4 different armors at their disposal, although not all of them at the same availability, obviously. These are all completely enclosed to the exterior and have several auxiliary systems known as the Sweet Aid Systems installed in them. Some of these systems can also be found in vehicles and starships.

The most common of all is the Defender Armor, as it is used by all Branches as their standard armor.

It is composed of teoram and aephesto plates, which envelop a thin special fiber suit capable of increasing the user's physical capabilities so that he or she can move without difficulty.

Teoram is a light and malleable metal, but resistant as well. It has the special property of acting as a mirror against energy attacks, reflecting and redirecting them while diminishing their power. It is for this reason that the outer plates of the armor are made of this material. Although this does not mean that the Defender Armor cannot be damaged by energy attacks if they have enough power.

Aephesto is the component of most of the Defender Armor's internal plates. It is a material similar to solid concrete and with amazing resistance, being extremely difficult to penetrate. It is quite heavy though.

Aephesto was created many millennia ago by one of the Alicorns of ancient Skyros, but the means to craft it were lost. It was not until shortly before the Dark Age that this material was rediscovered.

Then there's the Spacesuit Armor, a special armor used exclusively by the members of the Stellar Department of the Space Branch who are going to be launched into space to board enemy spacecraft.

For this, these armors have powerful built-in rockets, sticky boots and modified Sweet Aid Systems.

The Spacers wearing Spacesuit Armors will move through the void, hiding themselves of the enemy's sight until reaching their ships.

They will sneak onto the ship by any means possible, most likely through holes created by spaceship-grade Equusian weaponry. Once inside, they will seek a relatively safe place where a skilled mage can teleport, who will after that open a large portal to give more forces access to the boarded ship.

These new forces will already be wearing Defender Armor, since Spaceship Armor – having thicker teoram and aephesto plates for greater strength – does not offer great maneuverability.

The F.L.A.S.H. Armor is... complex to say the least. Due to its origins, it is very different from other armors, not to mention its scarcity, as there are only ten of them in existence and for specific creatures seemingly chosen by fate. I will explain them in more detail in the future, but for now just remember that they allow you to go at super speed.

Finally, there is the Guardian Armor.

This is the armor worn by the Guards of the Council, the elite force that acts as bodyguards for the Representatives. As such, they are granted the finest armor that can be produced in the Equusian Lands.

The Guardian Armor is special for one crucial detail, and that is that it is composed of the legendary blue iron, the same material that Grogar's Bewitching Bell is made of.

As far as is known, this material is completely indestructible, capable of withstanding even the heaviest weapons. In addition, it also has great resistance to magic. Due to this property, the armor is extremely difficult to forge, but the master blacksmiths that live in Equus' core have still managed to achieve this feat.

However, blue iron is also super rare, found only in a few veins in Mount Everhoof. It is for this reason that, if a Guardian Armor was lost, the Equusians would do everything to recover it. Their value is incalculable, as there is hardly any blue iron left in nature, and for some reason, it cannot be replicated through magical means.

The death of a Guard is a very important event within their organization, and when it happens, they carry out an important and sacred ritual. After burying their fallen comrade, they take their armor to the same blacksmiths who forged it, so that they can reforge it to suit a new Guard. It is a way of passing a legacy to the next generation.

Another peculiarity of this armor is the lack of something in the face part of the helmet. It's literally just a flat metal face with no visor nor anything. Turns out, the Guards aren't just the most powerful warriors in the Equusian Lands, but they're also very wise and in tuning with the universe. For them, the 5 senses have become obsolete, so they don't really need to see.

As for the Representatives themselves, most of them don't wear any armor most of the time. Sure, they have some blue iron too protecting vital zones, but they are politicians at the end of the day, and showing up to press conferences in intimidating full-body armor is not... well, it's not a politician thing to do.

Of course, there are some Representatives that go into battle as leaders, such as Flurry Heart, Sunny Starscout or Queen Flamellus. These creatures do wear full armor, although only when they are on the battlefield, and these are incredibly powerful. Basically Guardian Armor, but with many more functions and customization.

VEHICLES

Vehicles are, and always will be, one of the most important forces on the battlefield. Those used by the Equusians are the ones I am going to talk to you about next.

First I will explain where these vehicles get their energy, the power that feeds their weapons and allows them to move.

Most vehicles draw their power from a Schylwom generator, a cylindrical technomagic device located next to the engine. It produces all the power that the vehicle needs, constantly generating new energy until it fills the batteries to which it is connected, then it stops so as not to overload anything. When the vehicle starts up and begins to use up energy, the Schylwom generator turns on again in order of generating more so that the vehicle does not run out of power. They stay in balance by constantly using up and producing energy.

However, vehicles consume a bit more energy than the Schylwom generators produce, so after driving for a LONG time, going VERY fast or using its weapons a LOT, a vehicle may run out of energy. This vehicle then shuts down while the Schylwom generator produces more energy and saves it in the batteries.

As for the bigger vehicles, like Mobile Fortresses for example, a Schylwom generator is not enough. Then there are two options, having several generators or using a fusion reactor. It does not use technomagic and can generate a lot more energy than the generators, it is quite big though.

Now, the Equusian vehicles also have a special technomagic engine known as the Levitation Engine. This machine allows vehicles to float, moving agilely over the ground without having to worry about uneven terrain. It also allows them to glide over water and even submerging in it. However, the speed of the vehicle, as well as the height it can reach in the air and the depth under the sea that it can withstand, depend on what type of vehicle it is.

Most of Equusian vehicles have wheels too though, they're just hidden. They're unfolded if the Levitation Engine fails for some reason, allowing the vehicle to still be effective. These vehicles are known as Ground Vehicles.

There are also vehicles destined more for the air, like the Wonderbolt Plane, which strikes fast and with great aim. Or for the seas.

One of the most important vehicles is the Morphorinno Train. It is basically a train capable of flying (it can even go through space) that is used to transport all kinds of cargo. Soldiers, ammunition, food, etc.

Its design is based on the old Rinno Tanks, which were long ago replaced by more effective vehicles, such as the Cockatrice Tank (primary attack tank) or the Tatzlwurm Tank (primary defense tank). There is also the Ursa Tank, which is basically a mobile siege tower.

But just because two vehicles are the same type (say, two Cockatrice Tanks) doesn't mean they're the same. Weaponry can vary between vehicles, as can their size (transporting a squad of ponies is not the same as transporting a squad of dragons), and the Branches are allowed to modify their vehicles as they see fit.

STARSHIPS

Battles in the void are a very common thing in the galaxy, ships facing other ships to dominate a certain area of space. The Equusians are true experts in this field thanks to several things that I am going to mention.

On the one hand, we have the great skill of the Astropilots when it comes to driving the starships and the coordination of the creatures in charge of handling their weapons.

And on the other hand we have the starships themselves, which resemble space shuttles, but with a cone-shaped prow and much bigger.

These can be very fast thanks to their ultraluminic engines, which allow them to move faster than light. This reaches such a point that if it were at its maximum speed (7ly/h), an Equusian starship could go from one end of the galaxy to the other in... approximately... (let me do the math) 1.7237442922 years!

While they don't typically go at such speeds in battle, they do go faster than many other factions' starships, which offers a huge advantage.

And thanks to the multiple thrusters located along the entire surface of a ship, they can maneuver very easily, moving sideways or in reverse without many problems.

Of course, all the energy a starship requires to be able to use all this; plus weapons, shields and other machinery; is enormous. But they get it easily from the many fusion reactors and Schylwom generators spread throughout the ship.

As I've already said, Equusian starships use an ultraluminic engine to move through the galaxy, avoiding travel through the Warp or any other parallel dimension. However, traveling through realspace at such speeds can be very dangerous. If not done right, a starship could easily collide with asteroids, a planet, a star etc.

To prevent such catastrophes, the Equusians have sent out Daring Ships to map the entire galaxy and find safe routes to move through. To do this, they make use of advanced telescopes and sensors that can tell them when an area is clear of obstacles. They do this several times, advancing slowly but safely.

These ships are about 1 km long and have facilities dedicated to survival, as they produce food, water and other necessary resources. This is largely because Daring Ships carry out their missions alone, without the support of other ships, due to the danger of the missions themselves. Not all Daring Ships that are sent out to explore return.

However, other types of starships are always part of a fleet. These are usually formed by three types of starship.

The Support Ships, typically between 1 and 2 km long. These ships help others in their tasks, besides repairing them if needed and saving reserve resources.

The Big Ships are between 4 and 5.5 km long. They are based on balance between firepower, resistance and maneuverability and are usually attackers, dealing extreme damage to the enemy from relatively close-range.

It is usually these ships which perform ultraluminic rams, activating their shields at maximum power to not be damaged while destroying the enemy ship they're going through.

And then there are the Great Ships, the biggest Equusian starships, which can reach lengths of 8 km. They lack good maneuverability, but have a great defense and terrifying firepower. They block the enemy's advance, protecting the core of the fleet and firing from long distances. The flagship of a fleet is usually a Great Ship.

As a curious fact, the first Great Ship, Void Master, was only about 1 km long, which shows the evolution of Equusians in this area.

But there are Equusian space constructions that are even bigger. The Space Stations, of which there are two categories

The Tantabus Category Space Station. Space Stations in this category are space multi-story cities, connected by a huge central pillar and several smaller pillars around it, giving it a curious cylindrical appearance.

These constructions are between 5 and 10 km in radius and between 10 and 15 km long. They have facilities of all kinds, for population, commerce, communication...

But their main function is rest. They are places where damaged ships can be repaired and where soldiers can take a break.

And the Luna Space Stations, which try to resemble Equus' natural satellite, although they fail to match its size, since these Stations have a radius of approximately 20 km.

These are very, very powerful and resistant, and the only constructions, besides the Great Ships, that can carry and use a Daybreaker Cannon.

But Space Stations don't normally get into fights, they just float around in orbit around a world, protecting it. They are slower than regular starships too. Sure, they have ultraluminic engines, but are unable of reaching the maximum speed mentioned before.

And what about vehicles that are capable of moving in space, like Morphorinno Trains or Wonderbolt Planes?

Well, these lack the ultraluminic engine of starships, and therefore can't go from one stellar system to another. So, although they are indeed spaceships, they cannot be considered starships.

The dark age: the Void Escape

Void

The most part of the universe is void.

The lack of particles, atoms, the nothing.

The space between random amounts of matter, planets, stars, galaxies.

That's void.

And there was only one species, which was used to travelling through the void for millennia, searching new biomass to consume.

And they had found more.

Yet, in the void near a strange planet called Equus, a fleet was being brutally attacked by the tyranids. Their hit was strong and fast, a bio-ship crashed against the three other ships AT THE SAME TIME, bringing an alien boarding with it. Almost every crew member died, cause they couldn't defend themselves enough fast.

In "Equus dream", the headship of the fleet, a tiny group of survivors were fleeing, running as fast as they could to reach the evacuation capsules, prepared for critical situations.

This group was led by the great dragon, Volkano, who tried to fight back against the hostile aliens with his fire. It didn't work, but bought some time. Other members were guiding the rest of the group to the evacuation room, meanwhile Volkano stood and putted a fight, resisting against the tyranids for some time. Incredibly hurt, but living, he could reunite with the team and go back to Equus, so they could warn them of this threat.

There were a lot of feelings in the team when they reached the room, fear, anger, despair. Finally, one of the scientists turned the capsuled on, and they left the now destroyed ship.

What a great piece of technology, lost.

Even in the capsule, they had to use manual control to dodge several threats. The crew members saw how some other capsules flew, being launched out of their ships and going back to the planet too. Some achieved that, some didn't.

But then, the members realized, the shield. The seed was lost in the attack, what if the spirit can't let them in? When panic was taking control over the group, they detected how a rift in the shield opened. They mentally thanked the spirit and went back home safely.

The spirit of harmony was there, standing horrified in front of hunger, there was only hunger.

The memories of when the fleet was attacked wandered by its mind, those aliens soon reached the room where the seed was and devoured it.

For a long time, the spirit could only see darkness, even then, the hope of any survivors escaping from the ship was very present in its mind. This motivated the spirit to focus the most possible, it soon noticed some crew members of the now destroyed ship heading to Equus once more, reuniting a lot of magic power, the rift was opened, just as planned. Well... not exactly, they weren't planning to be attacked and almost everybody getting killed.

After that, the spirit of harmony noticed again the eternal darkness. This lasted for some time, until it appeared.

Hunger.

It was everything this thing ever felt. The Harmony didn't know exactly what was happening, but it would know.

This alien species was just part of something bigger and somehow the spirit connected to it, a huge, powerful and ancient mind.

Faster than any mind could comprehend, the spirit hid itself from this "Hive mind", which could encompass galaxies.

From its hiding place, the personification of harmony looked the mind, all the information that could get collected would be extremely important. Only the powerful ultramarine psycher Varro Tigurius realized the feat of connecting with the Hive mind without going crazy. Of course, Harmony, how some called the spirit, couldn't go crazy, that wouldn't make sense, the concept of harmony itself going crazy? Plus, the spirit was closer to being a god, if a human as Tigurius didn't go crazy, Harmony wouldn't either.

The spirit learned a lot of things about this aliens. They adapt, eat and adapt, their dinners were planets and their adaptation was unimaginably effective. A metaphorical sweat drop ran down the metaphorical forehead of the entity, trying to imagine how much devastación they could bring upon Equus.

I have to say it, fortunately, the tyranids couldn't assimilate everything from the equusians, just as with psychic powers, this species can't copy magical abilities.

And, as the tau, equusians don't have a lot of genetic advantages, their DNA gives them some features to manipulate better the magic, but as it's the "equusian soul", which has the magic, this features are mostly useless for tyranids.

After looking for some moments at the tyranid Hive mind, Harmony began to feel disturbed. Its presence was being noticed by the mind. Quickly, the spirit focused again, this time, in the seed, or what could remain of it. An overload of magic passed in the seed, making it explode strongly. This broke the connection between the two entities, so Harmony recovered conscience in its actual body.

The seed has been just something as a spiritual extension of the crystalline body of the spirit, which once was a tree. But millennia ago the spirit decided to change that, turning its body into a ponified version of the tree, but still protecting the planet with its magic and feeling some of the events that occurred.

Two big blue eyes, skin of shiny and white crystal, wings and a horn, little claws at the end of the hooves, a mane and a tail made of what it seemed to be pink leaves and the six symbols of the ancient elements of harmony.

This is how the Dark Age began, with the first equusian fleet being totally destroyed by tyranids, or murderships, as they called them. This creatures had the bad fortune of finding the hive fleet "Ungulo", a hive fleet considerably small in comparison with others, but still having better numbers against their next prey.

Ungulo originally headed to the milky way, their next target of the Hive mind, entering by the eastern strip of the galaxy. Its inhabitants showed a great genetic potential 10.000 years ago with the overcharge of the artifact "Pharos", this caused a great and powerful light, which was noticed by the aliens.

Instead, Ungulo found a little ship in the middle of space void, which appeared apparently from nowhere. A bio-ship crashed against them, allowing the boarding and assimilation of the new biomass. Some survivors escaped and instantly disappeared, this was a call for the attention of the hive fleet and with the appearance and disappearance of more ships in the future years, which seemed to be researching the tyranids, the great devourer decided to stay there for a while, hoping to find new biomass.

As it was already explained, this gave origin to the dark age, the first years of space travel for the equusians. They were... hard. Discovering the horrors of outer space was NOT positive or good in any sense and now they would have to deal with it.

When the news first arrived, a great panic between the population spread, there were a lot of different opinions to the revelation of a hostile alien species and the anger grew in a lot of people.

Finally, the accident was considered a big tragedy. The fallen ones were cried and honored, setting a special day for their memory. This didn’t stop the intention to expand into space, this species fought again against a lot of villains and problems and this was not gonna be an exception.

Thanks to the information obtained by the spirit of harmony, it was clear that negotiation or redemption were not options, this things were just monstrous alien aberrations.

So a plan was made.

For ten years the so called "investigation fleets" were sent out of the shield to acquire more knowledge about their enemies. These fleets were most usually just one little ship, which stayed near of the shield in case something went wrong. You see, the biggest part of the investigation was made by non-manned remote-controlled drones, so no one had to worry about being killed. The ships were only a control center, from where the drones were controlled. They had some weapons, but because of the abilty of the tyranids to adapt, they preferred to flew before getting into a battle.

It is true, there were some... accidents and sure a huge part of the drones were destroyed and lost forever. However, before sending the fleets the Council assured a form to make more quickly and constantly and avoid any kind of crisis.

This drones investigated tyranids biology, tactics, weak points, several different organisms anchored to the Hive mind... At some point they discovered the Synapse creature, achieving more knowledge about how tyranid organisms connected themselves with the Hive mind. This gave them an idea.

What if they just... destroy this connection? How would the behaviour of these things be without the Hive mind? And how would they cut the connection?

Yes, the most ambitious equusian project until the moment. They wanted to separate the alien entities from their shared consciousness, this would make a lot easier to defeat them, even if they overpassed the equusians in numbers, besides, if the Hive mind isn't conscious of what happens to its troops, it wouldn't be able to create new adaptations.

Yes, THIS was going to be what they would do!

Hundreds of experiments, tens of captured test subjects, years of hard work, sometimes it felt like an impossible task, but they succeeded.

Finally, the equusians created the DMS (Dimensional Mobile Shield), an artifact designed by the greatest minds on the planet for ten years and whose components are as much magical as technological, like so many other equusian inventions.

They discovered that if a tyranid goes to another dimension, it will lose the connection with the rest of the Hive mind. Taking advantage of the previous experience with interdimensional portals and dimensional manipulation, they made a device capable of doing such task.

The DMS would "create a pocket dimension" inside our regular space-time, without any kind of portals. When entering a zone affected by the distortion caused by the device, the aliens will lose almost all their advantages and it would be much easier for the equusians to win.

"Are you sure of this?" Nova asked her husband, who was going to go to space again. She felt uncomfortable because of their goodbye had to be through a phone call, but also because of what will wait Spacestar out there.

"Yes, of course!" He answered excitedly. "Don't worry."

"But the murderships..." She reclaimed.

"I'm afraid of them too, but we've been preparing for this for ten years," His voice had a self-security tone, which Nova wouldn't expect in the past, but now it was pretty normal and she liked that Spacestar stopped being so shy as he was when they were younger.

"Yeah, don't worry. Your husband is going to be totally safe! I'll make sure of that!" Added Volkano. The big, red dragon became a good friend of Spacestar after the first travel to space, when they... met those things. "I promise, no alien will Hurt my friend here! Or anyone else! As captain of one of the ships, I will NOT allow anyone to die."

"Thank you Volkano," said Spacestar. "Be calm, okay. The worst thing that could happen to me is eating too much barbecue," He said mockingly, looking at his friend with an eyebrow raised.

"Hey! What do you mean?! Of course, yes, I love doing barbecues, but I eat other things like...uhmm...APPLES!" Volkano answered.

Nova couldn't avoid letting out a little laugh for the dummy discussions this two sometimes had. But she was still worried about all this mission.

"Look, we now know what this things are, how do they work and most important, how to fight them. This mission wouldn't have been allowed if it could go wrong," Spacestar said, trying to calm down his wife. "And think on it, every time you look at the night sky, I will be there, and the best part, I will return."

The 2nd July of the year 10.010 a.C. (a.C. means after Crystals, year 0 is when the unity crystals were destroyed and magic was freed) the fleet "Void Escape" was launched into outer space.

This fleet would be the first of the 1st growing campaign (the equusian equivalent to imperial crusades or tau expansion spheres), and it was formed by:
-1 great ship "Void Master" (600 crew members' capacity)
-3 big ships "Sneaky One", "Sky Explorer", "Murderships nightmare" (300 crew members' capacity each one)
-4 support ships for each ship, 16 in total (100 crew members' capacity each one)
-50 millions non-manned remote-controlled drones for several tasks, with a capacity of short-range teleportation, plasma guns, normal (but really powerful) guns, reduction devices useful for fighting the alien ships...
This fleet had also other very powerful weapons equipped, which would not be wasted.

This fleet would exit the shield soon and when they do that, they would have to face Ungulo to finally escape of the aliens and find more planets. The next battle is known as the Void Battle.

Events: The Demona Incident

Author's Note

Long time no see! It's actually taken me a long time to get something new out, sorry. I've been doing a bunch of things that are keeping me busy, plus doing several rewrites, just trying to get this right.

I've also been trying to make some "lists" with weapons, armor, vehicles and spaceships of this new faction, but I decided not to publish them in case I come up with something new in the future that I want to add. So that has also taken up my time.

Anyway, the new chapter is here, I hope you like it. If you think something could be improved, please say so in the comments.

Oh! And happy new year!

Events: The Demona Incident

Daemons. Malevolent and vile entities composed of the psychic energy of the respective Chaos God that creates them, as an extension of their will. On countless occasions have they managed to manifest in realspace, carrying out unspeakable atrocities and horrors in the name of their dark masters. It is no wonder that they are one of the greatest threats to life in the galaxy.

However, due to the psychic nature of these entities, it was likely impossible for them to attack the Equusians, as they have no presence in the Warp, thus preventing Daemons from knowing of their existence. At least, until these creatures entered said plane themselves as a result of the operations of the Orange Researchers.

Right?

Well, no. For the Branch known as the Orange Researchers was created to gain knowledge about the Warp and the Daemons after an incident involving them happened. The Demona Incident, which took place like... 60 years after the Days of Pain.

But how was it, that Daemons reached the Equusian Lands when Equusians had no connection nor knowledge about the Warp?

During the Days of Pain, the Equusians' primary intention was to repel the Drukhari raid Green Hell was being victim of, killing as many Drukahri as they could. However, due to special circumstances, some of the Dark Eldar weren't executed, but taken prisoners.

The Equusians decided that the punishment for these aliens would be to be petrified, although not in the usual way, staying in an unconscious state, similar to a coma. They would remain conscious inside the stone, thinking, but unable to see, hear, smell, taste or feel anything, all their senses would be dulled. For a stimuli addict like one of the inhabitants of Commoragh, this would be the worst torture possible.

That was supposed to be it, the petrified Drukhari would be kept in a guarded facility forever and... well, nothing more! Easy!

But then came Demona, a female Gargoyle that was a victim of the pale aliens' torture during the Days of Pain. She was saved by a rescue party led by Gorval, the 2nd Representative of Gargoyles and her big brother, as part of a larger joint operation with Construct, 2nd Representative of Minotaurs.

However, this experience was SO HORRIBLE that it drove her insane. She was therefore admitted into a mental health center from which she would later escape.

Demona somehow managed to enter the facility where the Drukhari were being held and took one away, replacing its statue with a fake one without anyone noticing. This Drukhari in particular was called Zhamundi, and he was the one who tortured the Gargoyle.

In the first hiding place she could find, Demona used a modified Spell Pistol (a small, portable gun that fires certain spells) to depetrify Zhamundi's head (she was crazy, but she wasn't stupid enough to completely free a Drukhari), realizing that he was also completely INSANE because of his imprisonment, begging for death non-stop.

This did not align with Demona's desires, so she spent some time searching for a way to erase memories, which she succeeded in doing. Thanks to this, she erased the alien's memories of his time inside the stone prison, thus bringing back his "sanity" (can we even say Drukhari are sane to begin with?).

She then made a deal with the alien. She would free his head every so often, giving him stimulation and sensations (with drugs and stuff like that) while making sure he stayed unconscious when turned back into stone. In exchange, Zhamundi would satisfy Demona's demands, which were questions about the Drukhari culture.

Of course, for Zhamundi, this deal was improvable, but... what alternative did he have?

Before her capture and torture during the Days of Pain, Demona was going through an emotional crisis in which she questioned the purpose of life. After her torture and closeness to the Dark Eldar, she concluded that extreme pleasure was the goal of all living beings, hence her curiosity for Drukhari culture.

And because of this way of thought, Demona became obsessed with Slaanesh, for she/he/it (?) was a representation of everything the gargoyle believed in at the time. Extreme pleasure, even managing to replace pain (pleasure's total opposite) for enjoyment. She called her/him/it (?) 'The Truth' therefore, to Zhamundi's obvious displeasure.

She then escaped from her pursuers (do not forget she escaped from a mental health center, being thereupon considered a dangerous indibidual) and hid on Fabricuide (ST-5.6), one of Umbru's terraformed satellites. This world was known for having the highest crime rate in all of the Equusian Lands, being home to several criminal gangs. It wad the perfect place for Demona to escape and start a cult to 'The Truth'! It would be the first Chaos Cult in the Equusian Lands. Although, well, these organizations are known as Dark Cults by the Equusians (You know, let's not affiliate Discord with these things). And its name would be 'The Followers of Demona'.

Crack... Crack... Crack...

Release, at sweet last. Zhamundi awoke once more from his unconscious, slumbering state, hearing the cracking sounds of the stone fragments falling from his face as his flesh turned back into organic tissue.

He kept asking himself how was it posible, that such inferior and naive species as the Equusians were, could have not only repelled a raid of his Kabal, but also murdered the Archon and taken several prsioners, among which Zhamundi was included. It was shameful.

Although his reaction was positive when he learned they would be imprisoned instead of killed. He still had an opportunity to escape, he thought.

But he underestimated their cruelty, oh how much he did. Perhaps that was why the raid had failed, they had underestimated their target. And now, he was condemned to bear the foolinesh and annoyance of his "rescuer".

After some more seconds, Zhamundi was finally able to open his eyes, which were instantly encountered by a very bright white light. And then, his face was strongly slapped.

"What are you hiding from me?! None of your instructions have worked!" The Gargoyle in front of him shouted angrily. She looked stale, with large dark circles under her eyes, dirty teeth and smelly breath and messy and greasy hair. Though, to be honest, he had seen her in worse conditions.

"Don't you worry about your appearance at all?" Zhamundi criticized her. "You look like a Nurgle worshipper," The Gargoyle made a confused expression, looked at herself and sniffed the air, her face quickly changed to disgust, but she shook it off and continued with the reprimand.

"Don't change the subject! I helped you in exchange for you telling me how to contact The Truth!" Demona replied.

She and her cult had performed all kinds of rituals following Zhamundi's instructions. Sacrifices and other activities that could attract the attention of the Prince of Excess or his servants, but nothing had worked.

Demona believed that this was because Zhamundi was not telling them everything, or that he was lying to them outright. But, unknown to her, the fact that the Equusians have no presence in the Warp may had also played a role.

Zhamundi looked at her with a mocking expression. "Technically speaking, it was in excahnge for telling you about the way of life in Commoragh, which does not include summoning Daemons. We actively avoid them, actually," A brief pause full of silence before Demona shouted once more.

"AAAAAAHHH!" She quickly pulled out her Spell Pistol, which fired a beam of greyish light, turninh the Drukhari's head back into stone, and with another shot, she returned it to its normal state.

"I can do that again and never ever release you, besides making you stay conscious, so you better answer me," She threatened him, placing the gun in front of his face.

Zhamundi snorted, sick of having to "chat" with an inferior creature to find some stimulation, sick of having to use his primitive translation devices to accomplish that very task and sick of being trapped. The Drukhari rolled his eyes and remained silent, as if actually considering taking that option.

"And?" The Equusian asked impaciently.

"And what do you want me to say?" He replied angry. "I've already told you that we do not worship Sai'lanthresh (eldar name for Slaanesh, translated as 'She Who Thirsts), that everything I've been telling you was just assumptions of things I thought might work. So EXCUSE ME if my ideas aren't accurate."

Zhamundi was a drukhari like any other. Sure, he knew the history of his race, he knew about Daemons and the Warp, but he wasn't any expert. He doubted anyone in Comorragh was. And he was tired Demona's constant demands and complains, he couldn't bear them.

Talking about the Gargoyle, she insisted again. "Isn't there anything else to do?! Anything else you can think of?! There must be other way!" She was crying, she was pathetic.

And Zhamundi loved it. Her desperation, her crying, she being on the ground, it reminded him so much of torture. The Drukhari decided that he could get more fun out of this situation, he would give her some hope, to then destroy it instantly.

With a falsely friendly voice he said: "The only sure way I can think of to summon Daemons is having a Daemon Weapon. Those things have Daemons inside them, so they could give you the instructions themselves, but how are you even supposed to get one?!" He laughed.

This was not be the kind nor amount of pain he would like, but it was something. To his utter surprise, Demona fell silent and did not continue with her complaints. Instead, she raised her head as if she had just realized something.

She then petrified Zhamundi again and left the room.

Harming in ANY WAY a Together Tree, or using it for evil purposes, is a VERY serious crime in the Equusian Lands.

That is why Demona had to endeavor to convince her followers that what she wanted to do was what they had to do. Worshipping The Truth didn't mean that unity wasn't important for the Followers of Demona, even if they enjoyed torturing others (especially those who wanted to join the organization but then cowered), filling their own organisms with drugs or giving great pleasure parties.

But, eventually, they agreed, as they were also eager to meet the servants of The Truth after failing in their attempts for so long.

The Followers of Demona took their weapons and divided into two groups. One would cause a huge distraction on the other side of Doraehon (the city where their hideout was located), thus attracting almost all of the Protector Branch's forces. Meanwhile, the other would secure the square 'Leafs of Heaven', where a Together Tree was located.

When they did this, they began to prepare the ritual.

Demona watched from a distance as her followers set things up, with her second in command at her side.

Avernus joined the cult not long ago, moved by a great ambition, but he wasn't a total rookie either. Still, during that time, he managed to get a high position within Demona's criminal organization.

The Gargoyle looked at him, he looked trobled. "I didn't think you amongst all creatures would feel disturbed by this operation." Avernus had always been ambitious, too ambitious according to Demona. Plus, he never was that interested in the cult's regular activities or philosophie. The Kirin didn't actually care about a lot of things out from his thirst for power, not even unity or friendship. However, he was extremely loyal.

"I am not, my Lady," He responded. "If this is the way to contact The Truth... then it shall be done," The male Kirin stated doubtless. He could only imagine what kind of power he could get from the creatures Demona wanted to summon. "I'm just worried about this operation's possible consequences. It is a big step in our criminal reputation and what we're doing here is very risky, very likely to attract unwanted attention," They weren't even sure this would work, so his worries were very justified. Avernus preferred to obtain power slowly but ceaseless than to bet everything on one dangerous move.

"This will work, I'm sure of it," She said back with certainty before one of the hooded creatures that were preparing the ritual, a buffalo, approached to her.

"It is ready, my Lady," A wide, crazy smile appeared on Demona's face as she proceeded to head towards the Together Tree.

They were going to use it as a battery, a power source that would allow them to carry out a large-scale, dark magic ritual. Its objective was to bring a certain object through the entire universe to the place where the ritual was performed. In this case, the object would be one of those Daemon Weapons.

Demona was fascinated. She opened her arms in front of the magical tree, which began to shine while more of her followers surrounded the plant, performing the ritual.

"YES! YEEEES!!! YEEEEEEEES!" She shouted euphorically. "COME TO MEEE!!!"

Brave Whip was a male Zebra and member of the Protector Branch, a proud Guardian of Order, willing to give his life for the innocent if necessary. He was only a rookie, a Protector Guard, but still, his spirit burned to fulfill his duty.

One day, he was sent to serve in a platoon led by Internal Saergent Protector Javaline Cloud, with the mission of dismantling a criminal organization in the city of Doraehon. It was nothing more than a standard Fabricuide gang, not even a major one, but they had ended the life of a Together Tree after using it for an unknown magic ritual, so they had to be punished.

Brave knew the seriousness of the situation, but he couldn't help but get slightly excited about his first mission of major importance.

But now, in battle, he was terrified, hiding in a closet full of... stuff he didn't dare look at.

The Followers of Demona, the organization they were tasked with fighting, was not simply a criminal gang, it was a cult... a strange one. And when the platoon arrived, they encountered resistance not only from the cultists, but also from... something else helping them, some strange creatures.

Their bodies were slender and stood on two legs, like Cats or Dogs. Their skin was pale and purplish, with little black clothing covering it. Their heads were bald, but with horns, and their jaws were serrated with knife-sharp teeth while a long, grasping tongue protruded from them. At their elbows, their arms turned into extremely sharp, black crab claws.

Their overall physical appearance was disconcerting, yet intriguing. Their hermaphrodite and androgynous forms were repulsive, yet nearly impossible to look away from. Brave didn't know what they had done to the other Guards, as many of them now defended these creatures, attacking their former comrades.

Fear and bewilderment plagued his mind, while thousands of questions formed in his head. What had they done to his comrades? How was he going to get out of this situation? Could he even get out alive? How was he going to call for help in the first place, when his armor's Head Link system, which purpose was communication, was inoperative due to the attack of one of those crazy cultists? He could only hope that another Protector had been able to send a distress message, triggering the dispatch of reinforcements.

But the most powerful question inside the Zebra's head was what were those things! Were they the creatures the cult worshipped? That... that was a terrifying thought for several reasons.

Then, Brave Whip began to hear footsteps. The sound of claws hitting the ground, getting louder and louder, they were getting closer. Every muscle in his body tensed, chills ran down his spine and his breathing quickened, although he tried to keep it slow and calm so as not to make any noise.

Shortly after however, a black claw pierced the wooden door and the zebra screamed.

Lying on the ground like a wreck, without any strength to get up and among the corpses of his companions. This is how Javaline Cloud had been left after his first encounter with the Followers of Demona and the abominations that helped them. He couldn't take his eyes off those things, he hated them.

Javaline was a male Pegasus with vast experience dealing with the criminals of Doraehon and Fabricuide in general, but this was something never seen before.

As Internal Protector Saergent, Javaline had led a platoon into the cultists' hideout, though at the time they had no idea they were up against a cult. He breached their defenses alongside a squad of 9 Protector Guards while the rest of the platoon held off the other cult members, numbering 200 in total according to their data. But they hadn't counted on the humanoid creatures helping them.

Despite his surprise, Jabaline managed to confront the cult's leader, a completely deranged female Gargoyle.

She decided to battle with only a strange, macabre-adorned knife, Javaline could have sworn she heard whispers coming from the weapon.

It was a tough battle, Javaline's attacks seemed to have no effect on the gargoyle, who never tried to dodge them unless they were lethal. What's more, it seemed that receiving them caused her enjoyment and pleasure, utterly disgusting.

However, the Saergent was gaining the upper hand, attacking ever faster with his Protector Baton, electrocuting the cult leader, slashing and burning her, such was the versatility of the Protectors' favorite weapons.

But fate was against him, as all his companions, who were in charge of fighting the violet abominations and cultists defending the Gargoyle, had been killed by them. And now, they were heading for him. They gave him a terrible beating, breaking his Shield Charge (device that summons a magical, spherical shield around its user) and armor, destroying his weapon and making him spit blood.

They thought they had killed him, throwing him among the other Equusian corpses, but Javaline had not yet taken his last breath.

He managed to report the situation through his armor's Head Link syste., sending audios and videos, asking for reinforcements. However, the Pegasus felt unable to get up, just lying there, with his enemies thinking him dead. And the truth is, if a medic didn't arrive quickly, he would be dead in no time.

But instead, one of those things came, Deamonettes, if he had heard from the Gargoyle correctly. It was riding an aberrant creature, resembling a giant featherless bird, but with a tail and a terrifyingly long beak.

The Daemonette shook its head in the air with intrigue, it was looking for something- No. It was sniffing something, someone. It looked down, and found its target.

The featherless bird's prehensile tongue stretched out impatiently towards Javaline, ensnaring him with force as it dug into his flesh through a chink in his armor.

The Pegasus stared at the Daemonette as he struggled to free himself from the mount's grip. He couldn't stop looking at the humanoid entity, the Saergent thought he saw a certain beauty in the shape of the monster, which looked back at him. "NO!!!" He screamed to himself inside his mind, he should do nothing but to hate this thing and punish it for its crimes, to avenge his companions.

The mount continued trying to use its tongue, but it seemed... confused, as if looking for something, but not finding it. Javaline took advantage of these moments to free himself, drawing strength from Harmony knows where to land well and launch himself at the Daemonette with a powerful jump.

The resulting tackle was strong enough to push the creature off its mount and onto the ground. As fast as his body could allow him, Javaline pushed off the mount for another leap, heading toward the bodies of his fallen comrades.

He quickly took an Enchanted Knife from one of them and prepared for battle. Enchanted Weapons, like this knife, had their properties enhanced by magic. Therefore, this little knife's edge was extremely sharp, Javaline could surely cut through the monsters' unprotected skin with it.

As he turned back to face his foe, the Saergent saw the avian creature hurtling towards him at high speed while making an annoying sound. The Pegasus reacted quickly enough to ensure that the creature's beak hit an undamaged area of his platine armor, greatly reducing the damage. He then grabbed the knife tightly and stabbed under the mount's neck, bringing the weapon up to slice vertically down its throat until reaching its head. As Javaline finished, the monstrous animal staggered to one side trying to remain standing, purple blood leaking from its throat.

Immediately, the Daemonette lunged at the pony, stabbing her sharp pincers into weakened parts of his armor on his torso and neck. Still in incredible pain, Javaline raised his right hoof, which held the Enchanted Knife, repeatedly stabbing it into what would be the Daemonette's submandibular region.

The blade pierced its mouth and blood gushed from the wound. The monstrosity released the pegasus and briefly backed away, after which Javaline took advantage of the opportunity to launch himself at it and begin to cut and stab with no pause.

"My Lady, we should find some way to retreat," Avernus spoke to Demona in a worried tone, aware of the danger of their current situation. "Protector reinforcements have arrived, we are outnumbered and outgunned, and the Earp Rift will not hold much longer, so we cannot count on the help of many more Daemonettes."

The ritual they had performed had managed to fulfill its purpose, bringing into Demona's hands a Daemon Weapon, a twisted and grotesque knife. A shame that the Tree died, but then again, it wasn't that important. Following the instructions of the Daemon within the knife, Demona sacrificed the Drukhari in her possession, Zhamundi, in the name of The Truth, opening a rift to the Immaterium.

Several servants of the Prince of Excess had arrived to the Equusian Lands through said rift, bringing pain and ecstasy. But the portal would not remain open for much longer; they could keep it running if they had more Eldar to sacrifice, but they did not had them.

Why did they have to be Eldar (which was apparently the name of the species, Drukhari being simply the name of a faction)? Well, apparently they had something that the Equusians didn't. Some kind of special connection to the Warp. Plus, The Truth apparently loved these pointy-eared aliens.

"Retreat? Nonsense," the gargoyle replied. "Now we can bring pleasure and happiness to our people, free them from pain, wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Avernus wanted to counterargue, to convince his leader that staying here was a bad idea. He recognized that Demona was crazy, but he thought that at least she would continue to act coherently within her own madness! That she would try to win, not fight a war attempt that was lost from the first moment. But before he could say or do anything, the Gargoyle spoke again.

"I go now," She stated, looking serious. "My brother has been seen helping the Protectors. He always worried about me, so now..." His mouth opened, revealing his sharp teeth in a sinister laugh. "I am going to show him the greatness of The Truth and the righteuosness of pleasure!"

Shots echoed through the air they tore apart in their deadly advance, while the clash of weapons and armor caused metallic sounds and screams drowned in blood filled the battlefield.

Among all this, there were two Gargoyles, two siblings standing face to face, reunited after decades.

It saddened Gorval greatly, to see his beloved little sister in her current state. It was repulsive, Demona was covered in blood and... was that skin she was wearing?!

The 2nd Representative of Gargoyles couldn't help but blame himself for this. The root of this guilt went back to when he rescued her from the malevolent clutches of the Dark Eldar during the Days of Pain.

Gorval remembered it clearly, his sister lying limply in his arms, in a dying, almost catatonic state. The Drukhari had used a former underground Ork base as a facility where to carry out their wicked torture. He was escaping, speeding towards the exit, rescuing his sister and other creatures who had suffered the fate of being the playthings of the Dark Eldar.

At this moment, Gorval was very scared, about many things, but especially about the group of Drukhari who were chasing them. He was accompanied by several soldiers, enough to start a battle, enough even to win it. But looking at his sister, Gorval decided not to take any risks.

And so, with no one to defend them, the slower creatures were left behind, the very ones they were supposed to have gone there to save!

Following the end of the Days of Pain, and the Dark Eldar being defeated, Gorval was put on trial for his actions. There were many members of the Council who were angry, most notably Sunny Starscout, but he was not cast out, instead, he would be watched to ensure that he did his job exceptionally and outstandingly well, not just good.

He was very busy because of this, but still managed to visit his sister in the mental health center. And when she escaped, he arranged a system that would search for her, checking security cameras throughout the Equusian Lands, searching the Internet... The Representative was very attentive, but his system never got any results, until what happened with the Together Tree.

Ever since their parents died, Gorval had always tried to take care of Demona and to protect her. But now she was crazy, leading a cult and taking the lives of innocents. Maybe, if he had tried harder, if he had found her sooner, he could have saved her. Maybe he still could...

"Demona! Stop this madness!" Gorval shouted, trying with all his strength to make his words not sound like a plea. "I know you. I know you're not like this, maybe it's not too late to rectify."

Demona listened to the calm words of her older brother, who extended his hand to her as a gesture of his desire to "help" her. She only responded with a macabre laugh. "HAHAHA!!! Rectify?! Don't you see, brother? This is the right thing to do, I'm the good one here! Everything I've done has been to bring a new era of happiness to Ourlands, free from pain! To teach everycreature here about The Truth."

Gorval trembled slightly, shocked by his sister's words. Happiness? This horror was something happy for her? And even so, the gargoyle refused to believe that his sister was lost forever, so he continued.

"What truth?" He asked precautionly.

"The Truth!" Demona answered excited. "The most wonderful being in the universe! The incarnation of pleasure, happiness and excitement in awesomely big quantities! With its blessing, we can achieve happiness and throw away all worries!"

"But one cannot know happiness without knowing sadness, one cannot know pleasure without knowing pain. This entity is deceiving you, Demona, open your eyes and come back home," He craved. Gorval was also curious about the strange creatures helping his sister, but now the priority was to bring her back to the right path.

"Lies!!!" She responded furiously. "Pleasure and enjoyment, to forget suffering, are the goal of all living beings, the meaning of life itself!"

"No, little sister, listen to me," Gorval started to approach her slowly, hands up and throwing his weapons away, so that she knew she could trust him. "Don't you see you're making innocent creatures suffer? How doesn't that contradict what you just said?"

"Because, brother, we'll replace that suffering with pleasure," Demona replied with a smile. "Now I'll show you personally!" She lunged forcefully at her unarmed brother, knife in hand, pointing at his chest.

Gorval gasped as a result of his surprise, unable to react in time to his sister's attack. The Daemon Knife collided hard with Gorval's armor, not making even the smallest scratch.

Gorval doubted that such a small weapon could even damage the Defender Armor, the armor used by most of the Branches' soldiers. But either way, his was far superior. As a member of the Council of Creatures, Gorval had been granted the finest armor that could be made in the Equusian Lands.

The Defender Armor is made of heavy aephesto plates, a concrete-like material with incredible strength, and teoram plates, a light metal capable of reflecting energy attacks, which surround a weak suit of a special fiber capable of increasing physical abilities such as strength, speed or stamina.

However, the Representatives' armor also has parts made of blue iron, the same material that Gogar's Bewitching Bell is made of. A metal known for ist indestructibility. These parts include the chest, the back, the helmet (although Gorval was carrying no helmet), among others. The armor isn't completely reinforced with blue iron though, as it is an incredibly rare material, which can only be found in some veins in Mount Everhoof

Demona's expression turned from one of surprise as she saw that her Daemon Weapon was doing nothing to her brother, to one of frustration when no matter how many times she struck, the armor remained intact.

The female gargoyle only stopped when her brother grabbed the arm holding the knife, preventing Demona from moving it. "I love you, lil sis, and I know you're still capable of good, real good. So please, surrender and come with me, I'll defend you."

The two brothers stared into each other's eyes for a moment. Around them, the cult forces were finally being neutralized by the Protectors, who had better armor, weapons, and had even brought combat vehicles. At that moment, Demona, the leader of the first Chaos Cult (Dark Cult) in the Equusian Lands, had a revelation.

Following the whispers of her weapon, Demona raised the knife and stabbed her brother's left eye, who screamed in pain.

Immediately, she flew out of there, as several shots, both bullets and spells, pursued her furiously. Consequence of Gorval's scream, which alerted the Protectors that he had been wounded. Harming a Representative was an atrocious and severely punished crime, which lit a raging fire in the heart of any equusian soldier.

Even with her powerful wings, Demona didn't get far, being struck down by the power of a Smile Cannon fixed on a stable firing platform, thus pulverizing her unprotected flesh with magical energy, killing her on the spot.

Avernus watched in fear through the security cameras as the Protectors made their way through their hideout, arresting or killing any cultists they found. It wouldn't be long before they found him.

He decided he'd had enough, enough of his leader's impulsiveness and carelessness and the cult's madness. However, being part of this sect had proven beneficial to his quest for power, for he now knew of an infinite source of energy that he would use for his own purposes. The Warp was a true marvel of absolute power. So he would flee there.

The Warp Rift was nearly closed, growing ever smaller. But before it could close, the ambitious and evil Kirin leapt towards it, entering the Immaterium, where his fate awaited him.