Chapter 1: Well, Frak

“Oh fuck me with Celestia’s forehooves!”1

One would think that, after my whole ordeal on Gravalax2, I, Ciaphas Cain, bearer of the wholly undeserved title “Hero Of The Imperium”, would be able to get a brief respite and have a little R&R time, if only for the duration of the 597th’s trip through voidspace.

One would be dead wrong. I didn’t even get a full day’s rest; I went from settling into my quarters aboard the voidship that would be shipping me and my soldiers off to their next posting and collapsing on the cot in a dead faint to waking up in the latest hellish predicament the Emperor deigned to throw my way overnight, with not the faintest clue as to how that happened.

Of course, when I woke up the following morning, I didn’t know any of that. All I knew was that I had a doozy of a headache, the bed I’d been sleeping on had inexplicably been replaced with earthen, dusty ground, and all my clothes had abruptly become several sizes too large.

“Wh…whuh?” I muttered to myself, cracking my eyes open… and instantly regretting it as fiery light stabbed at my eyes. I flinched backward, my bewilderment growing exponentially as I picked up on several other oddities with regards to the sensory information I was getting. Like how my legs felt like they were folded under my stomach in a way that felt a lot more natural than it should have been. Or how I couldn't feel my fingers or toes. Or how I’d apparently sprouted an extra set of limbs from my back during my sleep…

I forced my eyes open again, blinking back my exhaustion as I tried to reach up and feel my back… and froze when, in doing so, I inadvertently brought my arms into view.

Or rather, the dark-blue, furry, hoof-tipped limbs that my arms had been replaced with.

“...what. The. FRAK!?” I exclaimed, my sleep-addled brain straining to make sense of the sight before me. As I’d stated earlier, I couldn’t remember anything between falling asleep in my cabin and waking up here, let alone anything that would explain where I got this horrible migraine and navy-blue hooves for arms.

“I have to be dreaming…” I groaned to myself while trying to rise, only to stumble as my legs didn't work right. I ended up falling on my face, further aggravating my headache. “Okay, nevermind, this isn’t a dream. This is a frakking nightmare.” I gasped, clutching at my head with the cloven-hoofed stubs that used to be my hands and arms. But my head wouldn’t be hurting so much if this were actually-

Nope. I shut that train of thought down hard before it could go any further. The last thing I needed was to lose my mind, and I had a sneaking suspicion that any further attempts to ascertain precisely what the frak was going on would, in all likelihood, not do very good things to my sanity. I cracked my eyes back open, looking for something else to focus on besides the state of my body… and promptly realized that there were more sanity-shattering things around me than the current state of my body.

I was staring up at an alien sky, straight up into a great mass of clouds rolling and churning above me, the color of the sort of smog you see on a battlefield engulfed by out-of-control wildfires. The unnatural-looking cloud cover wasn’t total; there were gaps here and there. But through those gaps, I could see churning maelstroms of violet and red and blue and other colors I couldn’t even begin to describe, and occasional glimpses of a pair of large, moon-like objects outlined with burning light, almost like suns in the middle of an eclipse. I’d never seen the sky of a Daemon World before today, yet it only took me a handful of moments to recognize it for what it was.

I responded to this revelation the way any sane and reasonable human being would; by screaming in mortal terror and making a beeline to the nearest location that looked even remotely safe.3

In this case, that location took the form of a small, decrepit farmhouse next to a bombed-out barn, both of which wouldn’t have looked out-of-place on a war-ravaged agri-world. I may not have been able to walk like this, but I could still crawl. And crawl I did, all six limbs flailing around wildly as I pulled myself toward the door to the building with a truly surprising amount of speed. Hardly the most dignified means of locomotion, but it got me to, through, and behind that aforementioned door before anything popped into existence from straight out of nowhere and ate me whole, so I wasn’t exactly in a position to complain.

I slumped against the now-closed door, sucking in a few long, deep breaths as I took a long, long moment to sort out my thoughts and kick my survival instincts into gear. I still wasn’t completely sure if any of this was real, but if it was, I didn’t have time for a protracted self-interrogation of my sanity, and assuming that this wasn’t real would be a good way to get my soul munched on by a hungry Daemon.

Okay, first things first; figuring out the condition of my body. Which in this case, meant figuring out what this place had done to it. I mentally braced myself as I wriggled my way out of my clothes and wargear, craning my neck in order to study my new body. Honestly, I’d rather not think about the fact that I’m now an inhuman freak, but I needed to know exactly what sort of inhuman freak I was and why my legs weren’t working properly if I wanted to stand even a fraction of a chance of escaping the next fresh horror I was bound to stumble into sooner or later.

Oddly enough, my body was a lot more, erm… easy on the eyes than I expected it to be, for lack of any better terms. Not in the sexual sense, not really. It’s just that I wasn’t as hideous as the vast majority of chaos-touched freaks I’d dealt with before, which is admittedly a pretty low bar. This was somewhat surprising though, considering the extent of the changes I’d undergone.

My body, as far as I could tell, was now that of a quadruped, animalistic creature nearly identical to a terran miniature horse, aside from a few glaring deviations. The biggest had to be the extra limbs I’d noticed earlier; a pair of feathered wings folded against my sides, the same shade of blue as my coat. Speaking of my coat, that was the next biggest deviation; the positively ridiculous shades of my coat and mane. On top of my coat somehow being the exact shade of navy blue found in the Commissar uniform I usually wore, I also had a mane and tail that were both possessed of an unnaturally garish shade of golden yellow, with multiple fiery red streaks running through both. And finally, there was some kind of sleek, black, rectangular device strapped to one of my front legs, the strap so comfortable I hadn’t even noticed it until now.4

Apparently, according to a small label on the thing, it was a ‘Pipbuck 3000-D’... whatever that was. I tried to pry the thing off of my arm, but the straps on it refused to budge, and I eventually gave up; I had more important things to worry about. Like taking stock of the interior of the structure I’d taken shelter in.

The place had obviously been ransacked; most of the furniture had been tossed about, the shelves were mostly bare, and the floors were covered with broken dishes and garbage. Some old bones and rags had been tossed in one corner, and a few newspapers lay in grubby heaps in another. ‘Princess Luna assassinated, body turned inside out!’ announced one headline, legible because it was somehow in low gothic, or a derivative of it so similar it might as well be the same language.5 ‘On the subject of severed relations, Seaquestria representative declared "So long, and thanks for all the fish!"’, decreed the one beneath, also in low gothic. And there were a few framed photos face down on the floor. I stumbled my way over to one, prodding at it with one of my hoofs, silently lamenting my lack of fingers as I tried to flip it over…

A faint yellow glow flickered to life around the painting as it slowly began to tip up a bit. I leaped backward with a yelp, half-expecting the thing to transform into some otherworldly horror or do something else undesirable… but the aura vanished as quickly as it had appeared, the frame falling to the floor once again. I glanced around frantically, my heart hammering in my chest as I scanned my surroundings for anything that might’ve caused the strange manifestation, but I couldn’t see anything out of place-

Wait… the picture frame only started glowing when I tried to lift it up…

…oh. Oh, frak.

My attention returned to the frame as I focused on it, imagining the frame rising up into the air. This was probably going to draw every daemon in the area to me like Tyranids to easy prey,6 but I needed to know for sure if my hunch was correct…

A yellow glow began to emanate from something jutting from my forehead as a similar glow once again enveloped the frame, flickering as I flinched back a bit but stabilizing once I regained my focus. And then, lo and behold, the thing lifted up into the air, flipping over at my mental command, its position in space now slaved to my whims.

Frak frak frak frak frak! Isn’t being a mutant freak stranded in some insane Daemon Lord’s personal playground enough? Do I really need to be a warp-damned psyker on top of that?! On a planet full of Daemons who eat psyker souls for frakking breakfast, no less?!

The picture frame clattered to the floor, now right side up. Apparently the answer is yes, and I’m even more completely and utterly screwed than I thought I was. I trotted over to my stuff, hastily folding up my clothes, grabbing my wargear, and strapping it all to my back with my belt. With that done, I threw my coat over my body and tied the sleeves around my neck like a child repurposing it as a cape. The end result looked more than a little ridiculous, I know, but I’d rather run the risk of a little embarrassment than wander around naked.

As I made a beeline for the door, I stole a glance at the photo in the picture frame I’d flipped over. The photo of another brightly colored equine like me, albeit with no horns or wings… and some kind of tattoo on her flank… reared up on her hind legs and holding a foal in her hooves… a foal with a bow tie in her hair…

…

…well, that explains all the horse puns in the newspapers, at least. Apparently the Daemon Lord in charge of this place is a big fan of talking technicolor ponies, and I’m the latest victim of his obsession.

*** *** ***

I opened a door on the other side of the house with a gentle push of my hoof, wincing as the old, rusted hinges creaked loudly. Nothing lunged at me, so I poked my head out, surveying the landscape before me.

As you can probably guess, I didn’t like what I saw. Outside, a scorched, fire-ravaged landscape stretched as far as I could see in every direction. Twisted, gnarly black things I hoped were just dead trees jutted from the ground in loose clumps, their limbs waving next to them in an unseen breeze. In the distance, I could see a small column of black smoke that obviously came from some sort of campfire, barely visible in the dim light. And make no mistake; despite what my eyes had been telling me a few minutes ago, it was dark out there. Not pitch black, mind you—I could still see— but dark enough to impair my vision and royally creep me out.

I struggled to repress a shudder. Make no mistake; I did not want to go out there. I am not a hero, despite what Imperial propaganda would have you believe7. In fact, look past all the undeserved glamor and glory heaped on to me, and you’ll find nothing but a sniveling, conniving bastard as cowardly as the Martian day is long.

But while I may be a quivering bowl of terrified self-interest through and through, let it never be said that I let that terror bully me into taking actions inimical to my own chances of survival. And sticking around in a building that’s probably going to be visited by a mob of hungry daemons seeking to feast on my immortal soul sometime soon is pretty frakking inimical to that.

I step the rest of the way out, doing my best to ignore the tingling sensation in the frogs of my forehooves8 as I set out toward the distant pillar of smoke, trying not to think about how I’m a lone commissar, stranded in a body I’m completely unfamiliar with on a world claimed by Chaos, with nothing to defend myself with save a chainsword and laspistol I’m not even entirely sure how to use anymore.

*** *** ***

…I gotta say, I didn’t expect this Daemon World to be this… well, sedate, for lack of a better word. So far, no Daemons had charged at me, no Chaos Space Marines had tried to lop my head off, nothing had interrupted my surprisingly leisurely stroll across its surface. Not that you would have been able to tell by the way I was glancing around like a man convinced everything was out to get him and jumping almost a foot in the air at the slightest sound. To be fair, most every account of a Daemon World I’ve read about is best summed up by the phrase “Everything trying to kill you”.9

Eventually, it got to the point where my curiosity started to override my fear, and I decided to experiment with my wings a little. And promptly discovered that flying is not as easy as birds make it look. The hard way.

On the plus side, I also discovered that the larger feathers in my wings are also very flexible, on top of being prehensile. In layman’s terms, I can hold stuff with them the same way I could hold stuff with my hands… somehow. At least that’s the question of how I’ll use my weapons out of the way…

I was dry firing my laspistol, trying to get used to its weight (I’d loaded a depleted power pack, because I’m not an idiot) when the tingling sensation in my hooves rapidly intensified to a full-on itch. I immediately dove behind a nearby rock, eyes darting across my surroundings. I couldn’t see anything overtly dangerous… but my hooves were still itching. And when I peeked out from behind the rock, I immediately saw why.

I’d reached the source of the thin column of smoke; a campfire, crackling merrily. A heavily modified Taurox with some kind of trailer attached to the end was parked nearby, and a number of shapes were visible gathered around the firelight. If not for the fact that those shapes were obviously xenos with bodies similar to mine, I’d probably have mistaken them for an Imperial Guard squad on some long-distance courier mission or something, having stopped for the night and set up camp.

Needless to say, this screamed “too good to be true” so loud I’d have noticed even if the familiar tingling in the frogs of my hooves wasn’t tipping me off to the fact that something was wrong. But I was lost on a Daemon World, had no provisions, and was getting more than a little thirsty; surely it couldn’t hurt to investigate this a bit, right? Maybe I’d be able to steal provisions or a map?

As I stowed my laspistol and did my level best to discreetly approach the campfire, the itching sensation intensified slightly. It was obvious that something was off. Something about the way one of the xenos gathered around the fire—the one with a black-and-red mane, pale fur, and a short, pointed nub jutting from her forehead—looked like it was squirming in discomfort, some tenseness in a few of the gathered xenos’ body language. But it wasn’t until I was close enough to feel the heat from the fire that I saw that two of the ponies were gagged, the flames glinting against the links of chains binding them in place.

“Ah, a weary traveler. Seems my friend’s hunch was correct.” One of the unbound xenos declared, turning to me. The thing had evidently concealed all the usual sigils that indicated its alignment with one of the ruinous powers beneath its cloak, but it had made no effort to conceal its glowing, slitted, bright blue eyes, and I knew Chaos Mutations when I saw them. “Come. Sit. Nopony here will mind the extra company-”

The struggling xeno finally succeeded in getting the gag out of her mouth. “THEY’RE SLAVERS!” Oh, they’re Chaos Cultists and slavers? Great, just great. “RU-!” The horn of the unbound pony sitting next to her flashed an unnatural shade of pink, a Shock Maul enveloped in the same pink glow emerging from its robes and striking the outspoken captive on the back of her head. Her warning gave way to a cry of pain as she toppled to the ground, rendered unconscious. The rest of the unchained ponies promptly brandished an alarming assortment of blades, clubs, and all sorts of other close combat weaponry, tossing aside all pretense that they were anything other than members of a Chaos Cult trying to lure in anyone too curious or foolhardy for their own good. And in this particular case, that “anyone” was me.

…look, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I was already below peak mental capacity from the shock of getting dumped into an alien body and stranded on a world claimed by the Immaterium! Can you really blame me for walking right into this one?10

“…no, thank you. Now I really must be going.” I responded, my ears drooping. And then I spun on my heels… erm, hooves, and bolted… and then just barely managed to skid to a stop before colliding with the actual, honest-to-throne human who’d just stepped out from behind the Taurox.

“And where, pray tell, do you think you’ll be going?” The blue-cloaked cultist asked sweetly as he brandished his own Shock Maul. Before I could react or even muster a response, he slammed the weapon down onto my muzzle.

I had about a fraction of a second to lament the inherent unfairness of that cultist getting to keep his human body while I was stuck with the body of a quadruped xeno before the electrical shock reached my brain and I lost consciousness.

New Game11

New Perk Added: Alicorn Physiology — So… you’re a pony now. On the plus side, you’re also a natural-born Alicorn, and quite possibly the last one still alive on this planet. You gain 7 additional SPECIAL attribute points you may distribute among your SPECIAL stats as you wish, and gain +10% radiation, poison, and damage resistance. You also have the strength of an Earth Pony, the wings of a Pegasus, and the powerful spellcasting of a Unicorn, all wrapped into a single package. Now you just have to figure out how to use those things…

Level 1, +7 to base Special

SPECIAL Stats
Strength: 3
Perception: 5
Endurance: 3
Charisma: 8
Intelligence: 3
Agility: 3
Luck: 10

1: These quotes appear to be brief excerpts from works Ciaphas Cain has read, penned by both Imperial sources and the xeno inhabitants of Equis I (the Daemon World he had been stranded on, titled as such following its discovery by Imperial forces). Cain was far more well-read than a typical Inquisitor. Why Ciaphas has opted to periodically include quotes from such outside sources is unknown, though their placement throughout this particular entry did make the task of dividing it into distinct chapters far easier for me.

2: For details on this, please see the previous entry in the Cain archive, entitled “For the Emperor”.

3: I cannot find any fault with this assessment. Too bad sane and reasonable human beings are in such short supply nowadays…

4: He also possesses a short horn made of a biological substance similar to keratin, which acts as a focus for the natural psychic abilities a sizable portion of his species seem to possess, though he won’t become aware of its presence for quite some time yet.

5: Aside from a truly obsessive amount of equine-themed puns woven into the language’s dictionary, Ponish, the language ponies speak, is so similar to Imperial Low Gothic as to be outright indistinguishable.

6: Ciaphas Cain was mistaken in this assumption. Admittedly, his conclusions seem logical even with the benefit of hindsight, given what little information he had on the precise nature of his abilities at the time.

7: I would beg to differ.

8: Before his transformation, Cain often demonstrated a knack for sensing trouble, crediting it to an itching sensation in his palms with an intensity that corresponds to the severity of the danger he was in at a given moment. This appears to have translated into the sensation described here following his transformation into a pony.

9: A chillingly accurate summary of literally every Daemon world I’ve visited and/or heard about, with Equis I being the only such world I have found so far that even comes close to being an exception. There’s a reason why forays onto a Daemon World’s surface are rare occurrences for the Inquisition, and are generally as short as possible.

10: I have made even stupider decisions once or twice over the course of my career as an Inquisitor, at times when I lacked any excuse as good as the one Ciaphas presents here, so I’m in no position to judge.

11: These extracts seem to consist of information taken from the “Pipbuck 3000-D” Ciaphas Cain has on. Apparently the things chart the wearer’s relative experience and physical capabilities, and also take note of his abilities and growth over time through the ‘perks’ described; the maxed-out Luck and high Charisma certainly fits what I know about his abilities. Why Pipbucks display this information in a form comparable to a menu interface in a holo-roleplaying game is unknown at this time, however.

Author's Note

Recently stumbled across Fallout Equestria, and I also happen to be a fan of Ciaphas Cain. So why not combine the two?

The original idea for the setting came from Daemon World Equestria by SuperSaiyanDiclonius, a silly short story detailing what Equestria might look like under the reign of the forces of chaos. The hellhole poor Ciaphas has been stranded in borrows far more heavily from the setting of FOE: Project Horizons than Daemon World Equestria, but the author still deserves credit for putting the idea into my head.

Oh, and something you should know about Cain; he's a natural alicorn, not an artificial one. While this means he's slightly more resistant to radiation, he's not immune to its negative effects like artificial alicorns in the original FO:E canon... and he certainly won't get any taller when exposed to lots of it either.

And finally... yes, the Valhallan 597th will appear in this fic, as will Jurgen.