The Unquestionable Perfection, Apothecarion

Casimiria stared down at the basket in his hands, loaded with fruit he’d managed to scavenge from the Everfree. Inadequacy-fueled rage simmering in his heart; he couldn’t help but feel that he was effectively saying “sorry we just sat back and let a bunch of psychotic chaos-worshipping killing machines go to town on all your friends and family, here’s a consolatory fruit basket”. These poor, innocent xenos needed the servants of chaos who were rampaging their way across her world dead and gone, not some locally sourced fresh fruit!

Casimiria sighed; the fruit would have to do for now. He reached down with his servo-arm, the device touching a panel on the wall and causing the door in front of him to slide open.

Beyond was the xeno he’d rescued last night, sitting on the bed with all her attention on the stumps her wings had been reduced to. An eldritch glow had enveloped her horn, violet in color, and a similar glow enveloped the aforementioned stumps.

Casimiria froze in the doorway, eyes going wide at the sight of the unnatural light. This xeno is a psyker?! But I’m not feeling the characteristic chill I usually feel in the presence of a psyker using their twisted powers…

Casimiria was stirred from his thoughts by a terrified yelp. The xeno had noticed him, the otherworldly glows vanishing into thin air as she dropped down to the mattress, pressing her against the bed’s mattress and looking up at him with those huge, uncannily expressive purple eyes.

“It’s okay,” Casimiria reassured her, his suit’s vox taking his low gothic and translating it into her kind’s strangely musical language. He raised his hands to show that they carried no weapons as he stepped up to the bed, whatever witchcraft its occupant had been engaged in forgotten for the moment. “It’s just me.”

The xeno didn’t respond; she just stared at him, trembling in silence, too terrified to even speak. Seeing that terror in those purple eyes made Casimiria’s two hearts ache; he wanted nothing more than to charge out, find the sick bastard who’d given the order that had shattered her quiet, peaceful life, and frakking murder him, to impart upon him some small measure of the pain and fear that he’d conspired to inflict upon this poor, innocent creature. But he couldn’t. All he could do was this.

“Here. I brought some fruit from the surrounding forest.” Casimiria dropped to one knee in front of the bed, setting the basket down on it, within reach of the xeno. She flinched backward at first, before slowly creeping forward, sniffing tentatively at the fruit. Eventually, she reached out with a trembling hoof, slowly lifting up an orange-like fruit and taking a hesitant bite. Apparently reassured that the fruit was safe to eat—Casimiria’s enhanced sense of smell meant he’d been able to avoid picking any poisonous fruits—the xeno quickly scarfed down the rest of the orange, skin and all.

“...I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. My name’s Casimiria. You have a name as well, right?” The Chief Apothecary offered.

The xeno nodded as she helped herself to more of the basket’s contents. “Twilight. Twilight Sparkle.”

“...that’s a very strange name, in my opinion, but then again, you’d probably say the same about the name ‘Casimiria’.”

“Yeah.” ‘Twilight Sparkle’ glanced up at the Apothecary. There was still fear in her eyes, but it was less intense than before, and now fought for dominance with curiosity. “...what are you? And when did you learn ponish?”

Casimiria paused for a long moment, trying to figure out how best to explain what he was to Twilight. “...I am a member of the Adeptus Astartes, the genetically modified supersoldiers of a galaxy-spanning empire. And I actually haven’t learned your language; my armor merely serves as a translator.”

“Really?! It can do that? Can you tell me how?” Twilight Sparkle brightened up immediately, her tail and ears flying up as she darted forward, rearing up on her hind legs and placing her front limbs

Casimiria chuckled slightly; Twilight’s excitement over the prospect of learning something new called to mind Chief Librarian Magnus and his insatiable curiosity. “The specifics of how it does that are beyond me, unfortunately. You’ll have to ask some of my more technologically-inclined friends for details…” He trailed off into silence as he noticed the crestfallen look blossoming into existence on Twilight’s face. “What’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

“...not really.” Twilight’s ears and tails drooped back down as she slumped down against Casimiria’s chest. “It’s just… I miss myfriends. I… I hope they’re okay…”

…oh. All of a sudden, Casimiria was fighting back tears again. “...I hope so too…”

Black Legion Base of Operations, Canterlot's Former Location

The latest in a long succession of bone-chilling screams reached Fluttershy’s ears, and she awoke with a jolt. A terrified whiny slipped from her throat as she leaped to her hooves, trying to scramble away from the noise, only to collide with a wall of cold, hard iron bars.

The yellow pegasus’ heart began to race as her eyes darted around, taking in the distressingly tiny cage she was trapped within, the cold, unfeeling steel walls visible just beyond the bars, the gloomy, menacing red lighting. All of a sudden, the collar around her neck felt unbearably tight, her throat pressing up against the band of metal and making her feel like she was going to suffocate. The tips of her feathered wings flared, the limbs pressing against the cruel metal band clamped around her torso, almost as if they were begging to be free, begging to spread wide and carry her away from this nightmare made real.

To say that Fluttershy was not okay would be the understatement of the century.

“D-d-dashie?” Fluttershy glanced to her right, toward the only other cage in the chamber. But the cage was empty. It took her a moment to remember what had happened to its occupant.

“Be brave, flutters…” Fluttershy blinked back tears, dropping to the floor of her cage and burying her face in her belly as she recalled the last thing her friend had said before their captors had dragged her off to do Harmony knows what to her. She didn’t feel brave; just small, lonely, helpless, and completely, utterly terrified. But that didn’t stop her from trying anyway.

“W-w-when I was a l-little filly a-and the sun was g-going dooown…” Fluttershy’s voice was so low she could barely hear herself singing, and the lyrics came out trembling, stuttering and blatantly off-key, but she kept singing softly to herself anyway. Maybe if she did, she could forget that the things here that were scaring her were all too real, that they couldn’t be held back by laughter, the Stare, or anything else that she had access to, that she’s completely at their mercy and there’s nothing she can do about it. And maybe Discord would swoop in any second now to be the big damn hero for once and rescue her from this horrid place.

It was unrealistic, but it couldn’t hurt to hope, right?

“T-the darkness and the s-s-shadows t-they would a-always make…” It was at that exact moment that Fluttershy heard it; a muted, repetitive clonk, clonk, clonk, slowly growing louder. At this distance, the sound of one of her captors approaching was so quiet it was outright imperceptible if Fluttershy didn’t know what to listen for, but she did. Only a few days at most spent languishing in this cage, and she already knew that sound all too well.

“m-m-m-me…” The rest of the lyrics promptly died on her tongue, panic seizing her heart as the massive footfalls came closer, and closer, and closer.

All thoughts of trying to be brave promptly flew right out the window, followed in very short order by every other thought in her head, rational or otherwise. “SOMEPONY! ANYPONY! HELP!” She scrambled to her hooves and practically threw herself at the door to her cage, banging her hooves against it to no avail. “LET ME OUT! SOMEPONY HELP ME-“

The sound of metal scraping on metal filled the chamber, some kind of sliding door opening up to make way for a huge, minotaur-like silhouette, its glowing-red gaze locking on Fluttershy and bathing her cage in sanguine light.

The yellow pegasus reared backward, losing her balance and falling onto her back, the loop around her withers letting loose a clang as it collided with the floor. “P-p-please…” She whimpered, every single muscle in her body trembling like a leaf, her eyes burning from oncoming tears.

“Good; you haven’t died from a heart attack yet.” The creature spoke in static-laden Ponish, its voice even, smooth, and calm, yet also loud enough to make the bars of the cage vibrate. It began to stomp toward her cage, and Fluttershy pushed herself to the back of it, pressing herself against the cold, hard bars, as if that would save her from it. As if anything could. “That means I get to have a little fun with you.”

The creature came to a stop right in front of the cage, looming over the trembling pegasus, its glowing red gaze boring into her. Fluttershy was sobbing uncontrollably now, her face and muzzle utterly drenched in the tears streaming down her cheeks. “N-no… please d-don’t… you can’t…” She somehow managed to choke out in between her sobbing.

“Oh, relax. I’m not going to kill you.” One of its huge, five-digited appendages reached down, undoing the latch on the cage. A wail of despair slipped from Fluttershy’s throat as the creature reached for her, its metal-plated digits wrapping around her torso and neck, pinning her legs to her sides and pressing against the metal loops tight around her withers and neck hard enough to make breathing a struggle. “Where would the fun be in that?”

She tried to thrash, to squirm her way free of its grip, but its steel fingers held her fast as it dragged her out of the cage, turned around, and stomped out of the room, carrying her with it. Not knowing what else to do, Fluttershy just went limp in her captor’s grip, squeezing her tear-filled eyes tight as she struggled to breathe. “D-don’t kill me, don’t kill me…”

The creature chuckled cruelly, cutting Fluttershy off. “Didn’t you hear what I just said?” A single digit reached up, gently stroking Fluttershy’s mane. The unwanted affection made Fluttershy recoil, made her squirm weakly in her captor’s unyielding grasp as a miserable, helpless whimper slipped from her throat. “I’m not gonna kill you. Granted, the thing you’re about to meet might, but not if you kill it first. Oh, and speaking of which… we’re here.”

A fresh scream tore itself free from the yellow pegasus’s throat as her captor suddenly threw her forward, off the edge of some kind of balcony. Without use of her wings, she couldn’t slow her fall and landed hard, but she did her best to ignore the pain as she scrambled to her feet, her wide, terrified eyes darting around as she tried to figure out what horror her captor had just thrown her into.

She was in some kind of large, square chamber, somehow even more dimly-lit than the rest of the steel monstrosity that these chaos-worshipping invaders had replaced Canterlot with. Torches alight with red flames were the only light source, their flickering glow making the long shadows they cast dance and writhe. Those torches were the only decoration the chamber had… aside from the morbid, nightmarishly life-like sculpture in the center of the chamber, looking like some sick, twisted cross between one of those monkeylike “chaos cultists” and a heap of cruel-looking metal bits-

The sculpture took a step forward. And then another. And then another.

Some part of Fluttershy recognized that she should be running, looking for a place to hide, doing something, anything except simply standing there and staring at that twisted, monstrous thing approaching her, but she just couldn’t tear her wide, horrified eyes away from it. She’d initially assumed it was a sculpture, but only because recognizing that it was a living, breathing a creature meant recognizing that someone had made it into that, had shoved all those cruel, painful-looking devices into a living, thinking, feeling creature’s body. And now, that creature was advancing on her, presumably to beat her to death with those horrible-looking pincer claws it had as forehooves, leaving her no recourse but to acknowledge the horrific truth.

The creature was moving faster now, sprinting toward him at a speed that ought to have been impossible with its mangled, half-metallic frame. “S-s-stay away!” Fluttershy exclaimed, Staring deep into its eyes… and froze.

The creature didn’t stop, didn’t even slow. Not because it could just resist The Stare, the way those metal-plated creatures could. No; if anything, the creature had the opposite problem. It had no will of its own, no mind for the stare to affect; trying to use The Stare on it was like trying to use The Stare on a rock.

One of the creature’s pincer-like appendages came flying toward her. Fluttershy broke eye contact, a wail of horror slipping free from her throat as she bolted, narrowly dodging the creature’s blow. Her eyes darted around the chamber, searching for an escape, a hiding spot, something, anything-

Something struck Fluttershy’s left leg, a sickening crunch ringing out as searing pain flooded through her. A fresh scream tore itself from her throat as the injured limb gave out on her, sending her tumbling painfully to the floor. She stole a glance at it, and instantly regretted doing so; the limb was bent at a horribly unnatural angle, blood and marrow dripping onto fragmented, exposed bone.

A shadow fell over her, and she looked up at it, at the half-mechanical, corpse-like thing that was hellbent on killing her. She didn’t know why it was trying to do that to her, why her minotaur-like captor had thrown her into this thing’s reach knowing full well it wouldn’t suffer her to live, why the world she once knew had suddenly become so unbearably cruel. But she did know one thing.

If she wanted to walk away from this alive, if she wanted to ever see her friends again, then this creature—if it could even be called that—had to die.

Bile rose up in her throat as she slowly pushed herself back onto her feet. Try as she might to contain them, hot tears began to well up in the corners of her eyes, streaking down her cheeks. The creature’s arm lifted up, its pincers gleaming in the flickering light…

And Fluttershy lunged.

One moment, and her hoof had collided with the thing’s chest, knocking it off its feet and onto its back. Another, and her other hoof had flown forward, snapping its neck so hard it’s head nearly came clean off, black, half-clotted blood gushing from its veins and splashing all over her chest and face. Another, and all was still, Fluttershy’s heart thundering in her ears as the enormity of what she’d just done slowly but surely sunk in.

And then, sound came rushing back into Fluttershy’s ears, and with it, uproarious laughter loud enough to make her bones ache.

“You- You actually did it! You actually killed something!” The monster who’d tossed her into this makeshift arena exclaimed between bouts of laughter, clutching at its chest as it struggled to draw breath through its mirth. “And here I thought you were too much of a cutesy-wootsy pussy to do it! Ha ha ha HAHA!”

Fluttershy’s coat suddenly felt like it had been dunked in freezing cold waters. The room spun around her head and her heart hammered in her ears. Between the sobbing and the horrified gasps, she could barely catch her breath. Her gorge steadily rose, until it could no longer be denied.

Fluttershy puked, what little remained in her stomach splashing all over her and mixing with the blood soaking into her coat. She collapsed to the floor and curled into a sobbing ball, too distraught to notice the slowly-spreading pool of blood beneath her… or the tall, gangly figure that had just entered the room, its tattered red robes billowing behind it as it gazed at her and her surroundings with an expression of pure, unmitigated disgust on her face.

Author's Note

Sorry progress with this has been so slow. School has been keeping me really busy as of late. On the plus side, I've been working on typing up statlines and rules for the Scions.

Yep, that's right; starting this chapter, I’m going to include homebrew 40k 10th edition rules for the Scions of the Konic and their equine soon-to-be-allies in the Author's Notes. Keep in mind that I'm more focused on making a fun and interesting faction than a balanced one; if you want to use a Scions of the Konic army list during an informal match, have the people you're playing with look over the rules and stats, and make sure they're okay with them. Especially the rules regarding the quirkier models, like Pinkie Pie (her abilities are really wacky). Also, I am not liable for any emotional or reputational damages that result from trying to bring a Scions of the Konic army list to a Tournament.

Anyway, here's the first Army Rule for the Scions. This replaces the Oath of Moment Army rule for a Scions of the Konic Space Marine Detachment. I'll post the unique Detachment Rule the Scions of the Konic can use. An Army Rule pertaining to the magical abilities of the ponies once they pick up more pony allies. Until then you can use any of the standard Adeptus Astartes Detachment Rules provided by the 10th edition Space Marines Codex besides the 1st Company Task Force Detachment Rule.

Friendship Is Strategic (Aura):

Scions’ lax discipline and minimal unit cohesion may make them the subject of much condescension, but it is also their greatest strength. The informal, undisciplined atmosphere of the Chapter allows Scions to form close bonds with each other, and while these bonds won’t turn aside enemy fire, they can still inspire individual Scions to defy the odds.

Scion models within 6” of a friendly model are said to be within Friendship range of that model. Scion models that are within Friendship range of another model roll 3d6 rather than 2d6 on Battle-Shock tests, and use the best Leadership characteristic of all the models in their unit and any units within Friendship range of that model.