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A long time ago, In a galaxy far, far away...
Order and Chaos, chapter one.
Aurelia
In the grim darkness, of the far future, there is only war. The Blood Ravens were departing Aurelia, having just finished mopping up a recent infestation of the black legion. Omnis Arcanum, the battle barge in the system that happened to double as their fortress-monastary, was preparing to warp jump back to a recruiting planet.
And one particular 10th company scout, was almost about to shit himself.
Latinus Nameicus was to deliver the field report to their commander directly, and he had no idea what could happen. Some of the 1st company vets were talking to him about even for the most hardcore marine, it was difficult to stand in his presence. He had no idea what this meant, but the smirks they were wearing weren't in the least comforting. It was as if he was about to do something horribly foolish, and he couldn't avoid it. Assholes.
He entered the bridge, and there he was. Head shining like the astronomican itself, was force commander Indrick Boreale. Latinus had heard the legends, he who single-handedly crushed an ork "WAAAGH!", the forces of chaos, two renegade imperial factions and countless other foes during the campaign on Kaurava IV. The greatest and baldest of them all. He thought he shoud probably speak up and get this over with, he was an astartes after all, what peril could he not face?
"Commander Boreale, the mission went smoothly. The forces of chaos were completely destroyed."
"Wur tehre any surhvivores?"
"E-excuse me sir?"
"I sed wur tehre any surhvivores."
He was appalled, force commander boreale had a speech impedement! It was all latinus could do not to break down in nervous giggling, but to laugh at a superior officer, he shuddered at the consequences.
"Ahem, there was one chaos marine who survived sir, we are tracking his position across the planet's surface."
"Ohnley one?
"Y-yes sir."
"Hmmm, teh shituashion dictates dat deep strike would be inappropriate to deel wif teh current threat."
"Uh, what do you suppose we do?" barely containing himself.
"Cohntacht de Ashashinorum. We ahre duhploying an evashore."
Planetary surface
Mordecai was not pleased. The plan to engulf the planet in a warp storm had failed. All his battle brothers were dead, their shrines and summoning circles destroyed. He was alone. He was alone and he had nothing to work with. He made his way across the icy wasteland, passing the bodies of his fellow traitor marines.
"Maybe if I made a sacrifice to tzeentch, I could open a warp portal and escape." he thought. "But I'm going to need something to-"
He heard a crack! There was someone, or something , nearby. Mordecai whirled around, preparing his bolt pistol and chain-sword. He heard a sound.
"Wryyyyyyy."
There were few things an astartes feared, and once they embraced chaos, even less so; but if there was one thing in the materium that could scare a chaos space marine, it was an eversor assassin. Efficiently designed to brutally eviscerate anything in it's path, the mindless agents of the eversor temple were true work's of art, beautiful in their "I'm going to gut you like a fish" kind of way. The thing charged, power sword and executioner pistol in hand. Mordecai responded by letting off a few rounds from his bolt pistol.
"Die mindless toilet worshiper!" he roared.
Eversors didn't care about insults however, all they wanted was to kill, maim, and burn their assigned target and everyone around that target with a brutality that would shock even some khornate berserkers. The deadly bolt rounds whizzed past it and blasted into the ice, detonating and spraying shrapnel everywhere. It took a swipe with it's power sword, which was immediately blocked by a parry with Mordecai's chain-sword. Adamantium teeth met energized steel with an impressive display of sparks. The monster garbled and screeched as it did when it was about to kill something graphically, and began attacking even more furiously than before. Mind you, the creature wasn't angry, don't misunderstand. It just loved it's work oh so very, very much. Barely parrying the furious onslaught, Mordecai managed to get in a lucky shot in where he struck the thing across the face with the back of his armored hand, sending it flying over a large chunk of ice. Not wasting time, he grabbed the body of a nearby blood raven marine and got to work. In what most would consider an impressive display of swordsmanship he cut the icy surface into a sacrificial circle, incomprehensible to most. As blood dripped down filling the channels and making a red ritual circle, he drew runes and symbols in what remained of the marines blood.
"Now if I work quickly, this will probably send me to a friendly daemon world." he said to no one.
Mordecai began chanting in a low mumbling voice, and the circle began glowing with warp energy. As the ritual was almost complete however, the recovered eversor came around the ice chunk, intent on ripping him apart. This distraction broke Mordecai from his trance, and he whirled around and cast a quick pyromancy blast, intent on incinerating his opponent. The warp however, was a fickle thing, and the new spell disrupted his ritual.
"No! You fool!"
A ball of energy collected, enveloping Mordecai as he was rendered immoble. The assassin didn't understand what was going on and only saw that his target was disabled. Using the "opportunity", the assassin lunged, knocking both it and Mordecai completly into the portal.
"No! don-" but he was cut off as the warp ball disappeared, taking with it it's deadly cargo. And deep within the warp, Tzeentch observed the entire affair, smiling to himself as he mumbled.
"Just as planned."
Canterlot
Mordecai tried opening his eyes, the bright yellow sun hurt temporarily, but soon died down as he adjusted and tried assessing where he was and what his surroundings were like. As he finally creaked open his eyelids, a blurry pink blob came into focus. As he tried to assess what was going on, he realised that he was on his back, and the, thing, was standing over him.
"Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie!"
"Gah! Get off me xenos scum!" Mordecai leaped onto his feet and looked around. There were multiple xenos, all roughly resembling the biology of terran equines. He counted how many there were, seeing there to be twenty-nine of the creatures, twenty of which were seemingly an armed guard of some sort, as they all sported the same armor. The three closest to him seemed to be the biggest threat. The largest was stark white, standing at least twice as tall as any other, "pony" in the room, excepting the two that accompanied it. That seemed to be what they were, ponies. The big one had a long horn protruding from its forehead, with large powerful looking wings. the other two shared the same features, with different coats and manes. There were six behind it, one was the pink one standing on him earlier. She(He assumed they were female) had no outstanding features physically, along with an orange one that shared that plain physiology. the other four were split into a yellow and blue one who had wings and a white and purple one that had horns. Maybe they were sub-species or something.
The other two who flanked the leader were probably high-ups as well, as they shared the big ones physiology, Wings and a horn. The pink one looked slimmer than the other two and less aggressive, pegging her at a lower threat evaluation, not going to underestimate if it comes to that, but it never hurts.
Then he got to the blue one, and stopped. He didn't know what it was, her starry mane, her armor or what, but when he looked at that blue one, he got the same feeling he got when he first looked upon his primarch, Horus. This didn't make any sense! She-she didn't even resemble Horus in the slightest! But something about her, that serious demeanor, that tactical gaze, the way she carried herself, somehow Mordecai was stunned.
"Who are you, all of you! And where am I!?"
The tall white one stepped forth. "We were about to ask the same of you, visitor. As for your location, you are in the throne room of canterlot, capitol of the nation of equestria."
Mordecai analysed this. He was probably on some undiscovered world where-no, no that cant be it. This didn't look right. He still looked the same, but he was different. The tones, the colors, they were less, gritty. Even just the natural colors of things, they were softer, cartoony. This cant be reality, this, this must be some different dimention! Curse the warp and it's tricks! After a long silence, he spoke.
"I am Mordecai, space marine of the black legion. favoured servants of the ruinous powers."
The blue one stepped forth defensivly. "These, "Ruinous powers" you speak of, do they have hostile intent?
Mordecai sighed, this was going to be a looong day.
EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!
Canterlot
Mordecai sighed, "You fools, you have no idea with what you are dealing!"
The blue one seemed to have dissaproved of this course of action(Well no shit genius), her form tensing as she prepared to do battle. The others didn't seem to share her eagerness. The leader stayed her with her hoof.
"Now sister, we must pick our battles carefully. We do not know what he is capable of."
He knew he had to escape. Mordecai looked around the tall marble throne room for the door. And there it was! It was right, behind... everyone in the room. Shit.
"You filthy xenos will never have me!" he bellowed, and he took off directly at the center of the group. His thick metal boots pounded on the ceramic tile floor as he barreled towared the entrance. The group responded immediatly, the blue pegasus with a rainbow mane to boot shot off at him, headbutting him in the gut. By the gods Mordecai had never seen anything so fast! Regardless that the horse just glanced off the thick ceramite plates surrounding his body, Mordecai felt as if he had just been hit with a bolter shell. He stumbled, but not enough to break his charge. As he was about to crush the group underfoot, the blue one that mystified him so threw up a defensive ward of blue energy. Mordecai collided with the barrier, bringing around a resounding crack that could be heard throughout canterlot. It had sounded as if the very earth had been torn asunder.
The smoke from the blast cleared, and Mordecai was still standing. Well, standing would be generous. He had been brought down to a knee, his massive shoulder pauldron had protected him from most of the damage, but no armour in the world would have softened such an impact. Mordecai was stunned for the moment, and a moment could prove fatal. While most would prefer not to admit it, space marines, chaos or otherwise, were still human. Geneticly enhanced, nigh invulnerable super humans, but humans none the less. Despite what the commisiars may tell you, he still could pull a muscle, he could still overexert himself, and evidently, he could still break his shoulder. Mordecai tried to shake off his daze and rise, but as he did so a golden yellow aura surrounded his body, levitating him and rendering him powerless. He whipped his head around, trying to find the source of his incarceration. His eyes fell upon the stark white leader, seemingly generating the field from her horn.
"Wha-what did you do!? These are no warp tricks! What sorcery is this!?!"
The blue one spoke up, "Mere Telekinesis barbarian," she said, "a simple enough trick to stop a beast such as thee."
Mordecai was furious. "Unhand me, allow me to leave this instant!" Threads of pain shot through his arm and torso.
"And simply release you upon the hapless citizens of the empire that we had laboured so hard to raise? I think not. You will be imprisoned, untill we can decide your fate and learn more about you and your kind."
"You will do no such thing!"
"And pardon my confusion, but who may we ask, is going to stop us? The big bad wolf in spikey armor? You don't seem to be going anywhere fast." That smirk proved she was just mocking him now.
The white one spoke. Her voice was smooth, yet resonated with centuries of wisdom. The voice of a mother, a leader. If the xeno wasn't female, she would have reminded him of the emperor. "Where would you suggest we keep him? I have a hard time beliveing that our regular cells will hold him."
"Do we still have the old manticore cages?"
"Indeed we do, perhaps you would like to escort him there?"
"I think I shall." and the aura surrounding him changed from a golden yellow to a moderate cobalt blue.
Mordecai reached for his bolter, biting his lip at the grinding pain of his shoulder, hoping that a few well placed rounds could free himself. Only to his shock did he find that his bolter was gone! Along with his chainsword and bolt pistol, and a few grenades!
"WITCH! WHERE IS MY EQUIPMENT!?"
"We took the liberty of consficating it while you were unconscious."
Mordecai just crossed his arms and grumbled, wincing at his broken shoulder. No amount of shouting and posturing was going to free him so he might as well conserve his energy. Genocide was going to have to wait.
As they descended into the bowels of the castle, the tension between the pair grew. The musky darkness was only broken by the occasional torch lining the walls. His shoulder had reset itself, it would be a few days before he was back to full capacity, but chaos had its regenerative benefits. It was a surprise in itself that the tunnels were capable of accomodating him. Mordecai was allowed to walk now, his heavy boots echoing off the granite floor, making everypony aware of the eerie silence. Finally it was the heretic knight's turn to break the silence.
"You never told me your name."
The group stopped, the four gaurds and luna staring at him.
"If I am to be imprisoned here, I should at least be allowed to know my captors name."
". . . Luna." she said.
This took him by surprise. "Liar! You jest with poor gullible Mordecai!"
"Tis a lie! We most certainly do not kidd thee!"
Mordecai's mind drifted back, long ago. Even before the horus heresy, when his legion was known by a different name...
"What would provoke the notion that we would jest about our own name?" Luna asked.
"Tis nothing really, just a memory."
The gaurds groaned as they sat through this session of old english and trudged on.
"It matters not, we have arrived." Luna said.
Mordecai looked around the massive chamber, the walls lined with dungeon cells. They were not built to look fancy, just a 12x12 by 8 ft tall hole dug into the wall with a bed, sink, and curtain that which he assumed hid the lavatory facilities. There seemed to be several hundred lining the room. The room itself, was wide enough for someone to do doughnuts in a baneblade on it, and tall enough to accomodate a warhound titan if it crouched. Mordecai was appalled that the whole room was underground. Parts of the room itself, seemed to be occupied my multitudes of different torture devices and cages, one of which had to be the "manticore cage" they referred to earlier.
"Big dungeon." he remarked.
"Your deductive skills are astounding, mortal." Luna snarked back.
He decided to leave out the fact that chaos made him immortal too and he was roughly ten thousand three hundred and seventy two years old, and just get on with the tour.
"Here is your cell." Luna said.
Mordecai entered the cage and sat on the bed, they evidently had stocked it with the same basic furniture that decorated the other cells before he got here. He looked up at Luna and spoke, "Why do you try so hard to uphold order? All things fall into chaos eventually."
"The universe is a two sided coin, while the nature of chaos is to throw the universe into disarray, it is the natural order of all that inhabit it to resist chaos and impose order."
"Chaos can never die, the struggles of so many will perish with time." he retorted.
While chaos will always be there to conquer all existance with its madness, order acts as an equilizing force, and order will always be there to resist it. Ironicly, it is always the same chaos, the same threats that deem to overthrow us, while those who impose order are always aging, dying, and being replaced by others to bear the heavy cross. Always changing, the force that resists change, And stagnant is the force that seeks to uproot it."
Mordecai fell silent.
Luna giggled softly to herself. "No matter, we will return tomorrow to check up on you and fate willing, decide your sentence."
And with that, Luna left Mordecai alone. there was a lamp next to a small table at the end of the bed, providing him light in the dark dungeon. Mordecai pondered the alicorns words and wondered.
"What side am I truly on?"
Author's Note
I am so so sorry! I havent been on in forever and I just had so much work to do that I never had any time to work on this!
Well, didn't see THAT coming...
Well, didn't see THAT coming...
Mordecai sat in his cage, contemplating his situation. His shoulder was fully healed but he could really use some good old fashioned training before he was back to one-hundred percent. As he sat pondering what luna had said, Mordecai couldn't help but notice deep, almost inaudible rumbling in the back of his head. He stood up and listened, trying to determine where the almost seismic rumbling was coming from.
Judging by my position, it seems as if it is coming from deeper withing the mountain! he thought.
He continued to listen, and with every passing second he came closer to deducing the nature of the disturbance. Now an average man of learning may have passed it off as seismic disturbances or internal magma, it was a mountain after all. Now Mordecai however, was a veteran of the first company, honor guard to Horus himself! As such Mordecai had plenty of experience with heavy machinery and knew damn well what an activating plasma reactor sounded like. This of course, didn't make any sense in the slightest, as that kind of technology didn't exist here yet. Made even more improbable by the idea that the reactor, if it existed, was buried deep within the mountai-BOOM!!!
Suddenly the entire mountain shook with incredible force, throwing Mordecai's cage, and the space marine occupying it, back against the adjacent wall. Mordecai twisted with acrobatic grace as he tried to land without killing himself, but alas he could not. When he recovered, he found that the cage had been split open like some great egg. Taking the opportunity to escape, he squeezed out of the cage and bolted up the stairs with superhuman speed, his armor seething with effort and a swiftness that put eldar aspect warriors to shame. His boots cracked the stone steps as he barreled up the seemingly endless stairwell. He reached the top of the stairwell, crashing through the wooden doors like they didn't exist, and looked out in horror.
The entire city was shifting! ponies screamed and ran as the city blocks raised and moved with industrial efficiency, gleaming towers and spires unlocked and rotated, revealing Vulcan mega-bolters, quake cannons, and turbo laser destructors. The city was unfolding into a war zone.
Kaboom!
Mordecai raced to the nearest railing and looked off the side of the mountain. What he then saw was that there WAS no side of the mountain! The entire mountain was gone! Millions of tons of granite fell away like dust to reveal something Mordecai could never have conceived. The entire city was resting on the shoulders of an imperator titan!
"By the gods! But that's impossible! THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST!"
Luna teleported behind him, she was clearly scared. "Mordecai! " Luna shouted in the royal canterlot voice, so as not to be drowned out by the god-machine's rumbling "What's going on?! "
"I DON'T KNOW!" he shouted above the roar of the engines.
This was impossible! Even if someone had managed to bring an emperor class titan to this world, there is no way it could have gone unnoticed! And beyond that, the chassis seemed to have been grafted to the city itself! How in the name of the four chaos gods could someone physically manage to hide, insert, and arm a titan under the mountain! Whoever they were they were defying not only physics, but logic itself. Even Tzeentch would be incapable of an act of trickery on this scale. No matter what caution was taken, what lengths one had gone to, someone would have noticed weapons being installed. This was too big! This had to be the work of a...
the work of a...
Tactical genius...
Mordecai had seen many things, participated in many black crusades, and was old enough that he had met many great figures over the millenia. This wisdom was sombering, and had taught him a deal of self control to compliment his proffesionalism. None of that had any effect on what happened next.
Mordecai roared, with such volume and thunderus power that windows shattered, tiles vibrated, and the entire city shook as it fell silent from his resounding, all consuming rage. Even the engines were drowned out by his titanic bellowing. His rage was felt in the immaterium as well, billowing shockwaves of emotion that caught, no, DEMANDED the blood gods attention. Raving daemons were silenced, psykers screamed with agony, and for all but a moment, the galaxy was still as they heard this warriors cry to the heavens. It was a name, a name that would echo on throughout the heavens and had been since its birth, a sign of damnation to any and all who heard its tones. Mordecai had only said but a word, but the word was all that was nessesary to emulate the warriors struggle.
And down, deep within the bowels of the god-machines controls, sat two individuals. One, a pony. An alabaster goddess amongst her people. And the other, a human man, wearing a large coat with a ridiculisly large collar and smoking an old cigar. And as they sat there, preparing to burn ponyville to a smoking ruin, they looked up.
And they both smiled
CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!
Author's Note
Yes, yes, this was a joke chapter. Not in any way professional and in no way serious. Thats why I didn't waste a perfectly good sci-fi refrence on the title. I am working on the next chapter as we speak and just wanted to throw the tactical genius meme in there. Hope you all had a lol.
