Harmony at Mind

Chapter 6

Dust/Cabal/Discovery

Manehattan

        Hathor Maat stood on the outskirts of the city. It had been approximately two days since the cabal and Ahriman had separated. Only thirty sorcerers stuck on an alien planet. They could have annihilated Equestria, but something was different about this place, it was calm and peaceful, it did not carry the cries of anger as in the Imperium, no.

        The cabal had stayed together. In an abandoned building they resided. It was a place unfit for beings of this magnitude. There was a small store of food and the relics were intact. Now, know that the cabal consisted of Rubric marines as well as sorcerers. Thirty lived in a dusty old house, they couldn’t do much, maybe start a war.

        Acheron sat in a corner, meditating with two Rubric marines at his side. It was lonely, the sun was just past its peak. If there were souls within those suits of Power Armor, they could be given the ability to think for themselves again. That wasn’t such a bad idea, if he could, he could talk to his old friends again. He was there when the Rubric was cast, he remembered every scream just as they turned to dust, and the armor sealed.

        It was noon, and Acheron was unsure of the next few moments, even with his precognition. The Great Ocean was raging today, something must have happened in the Imperium of Man, maybe a crusade. It would be good to take a break from sitting in this cave of a room, it would be good to go outside.

        “Maat, I’m going out, going to find a job as a navigator on a ship.” he said.

        “What?! You’ve been here two days and you want to be a navigator, we don’t even know the stars on this world! How would you navigate?” asked Maat.

        “I can navigate through the Great Ocean can I? If I can do that I’ll navigate the seas.”he said. And he slammed the door as he left.

        On the streets ponies eyed him. although he was no longer wearing his armor, he left it at the abandoned lot. He arrived at the docks at nightfall. To take six hours to get from one end of Manehattan to another was quite slow, but he had stopped in a park, observing the foals as they played, and couples sitting together. Every now and then he was looked at by a foal. One had even called him Luna. Luna, the Moon Wolves. Horus the Warmaster. Something about that puzzled him.

        At the docks, there was another figure, equal in size to him, beside it was a being of white light. And trailing the duo were six mares?

It was dark, Luna’s night had begun. Ahriman, Celestia, and the Mane 6 were at the docks of Manehattan. Something moved about the shadows. To the left and to the right. Must have been some workers. They continued on until a dark figure similar in physique to Ahriman was spotted. It turned its head. It moved closer, and a blue light flashed. And out came a heqa staff. Was this a rogue sorceror? A bolt of lightning came at him!

The rest of the ponies took cover behind the crates. Ahriman donned his staff as well. This was obviously a rogue. He strafed to the left as as bolter shell detonated just inches away. Wanting to know who this rogue was he tore open a rift and went through a Warp tunnel. On the end of the tunnel. He opened another rift to find a heqa staff smashing into his helmet, breaking the right lense.

It was Acheron.

“Don’t shoot! It’s me, Ahzek!” he cried.

“Ahriman! Wasn’t expecting to find you so soon.” Acheron said as he helped his friend up.

“My apologies for attacking you, old friend. I thought you were a rogue.” he said.

“I had thought the same of you.” said Ahriman.

“Where are the others, I’ve found jobs for all of you, we could lead new lives!” he said.

“You must be lying, for all of us including the Rubicae?” he asked.

“Yes, we could start tomorrow if we wanted.” said Ahriman.

“Scootaloo, your butt is on my face!” cried an unknown voice, it was that of a foal. And down came stack of crates. Behind a trio of three foals.

“Applebloom, thought I told you to stay on the farm!” scolded her sister.

“Sweetie Belle, how many times have I told you not to go out at night, you could get hurt, just like now in a crossfire.” Rarity said as she dragged the sister towards her using her magic simultaneously.

        And the third, a orange filly, a pegasus by the wings was picked up by a hug from Rainbow Dash, a third embrace in the contrast of two scoldings in the midst of nine.

“Come on don’t don’t scold them, they were here because of their curiosity, something I don’t see coming from you all,” said Ahriman he turned to face Acheron, “so, could you take us to Callisto, and the others.”

Acheron took them down to the abandoned lot where Celestia and others had disgusted looks on their faces after seeing what great beings, human and pony had to live through. Nonchalantly opening the door, Acheron slammed it closed once the group was inside the building. Dust fell from the ceiling. All was dust. There was nothing but that.

In the main room the Rubicae, stood silent whilst in the other room, the ponified sorcerers ate their supper. It consisted mostly of the foodstuffs they’d brought with them to Equestria, and some old water.

When Ahzek Ahriman entered the room all of them stood, but it was no glorious occasion for there were only two other sorcerers in the cabal, and twenty-nine Rubric Marines!

“We are back and better than ever!” Ahriman shouted in his hearty tone.

Hathor Maat said, “Well, what did you do in the two days you were gone?”

As if coincidence the Equestrian natives entered the room, but there are no coincidences, only reasons, this they heard the conversation. And again they were introduced. Had a meal, as crappy as it would have been, it was only polite to eat.

After dinner, they hung around in the living room. Not Twilight, however, she was in the main room eyeing the Rubric Marines. They were speechless, thoughtless, only obeying orders, automatons, if you will.

Why were they like this, why? Were they created like robots? Or perhaps were they were dead men.

“Twilight,” came Ahriman’s voice, “I see you’ve found interest in the Rubric Marines, ah yes, my creation, ten-thousand years ago, after the battle of Prospero, when Magnus, my former-mentor had teleported the Legion to the Planet of the Sorcerers, the Legion was going through mass mutations, I rounded up a cabal similar to what you see now, actually Maat was in it to cast a spell I call the Rubric to stop the mutations. Storm clouds swept the planet blue lightning struck down every warrior brother of the Thousand Sons whose psychic potential was deemed too low. The lightning turned every warriors body into dust, and trapped their souls within their power armor until the suit itself be broken.”

“So you killed all your friends?” asked Twilight, a worried look growing on her face.

“I saved their souls, young one.” he replied, “I know what you’re thinking, if they are automatons and can’t have their own will, you will bring them back to life.”

“How did you know!?” she asked.

“I am a telepath as well as many other things.” he returned, “you think you have a spell that could?”

“There’s a solution for everything.” she said. Her horn began to glow as a grin formed under Ahriman’s face. There and then came a squeak coming the Rubric Marines’ mouth grilles. They were alive again!

“WE ARE RETURNED!” came from one the marines. Their hooves raised up and began to remove their helmets. It seemed as if all Thousand Sons looked like Luna without their helms.

Celestia and the other five mares came into the room, all gasping at the Rubric Marines. Especially the sun mare(the dirge of Molestia or Slaanesh).

“What have you done?” exclaimed Maat, he removed his helm in respect of Ahriman.

“It was not I who brought back our brothers, it was Twilight you should praise her instead.” Even the Rubric Marines bowed.

The conversations continued after that about the counselorship the Thousand Sons were offered in Canterlot, one of the highest positions, only second to that of the princesses. And just below that was the Lord General, Shining Armor. It had been only contemporary discussion, but there was enough information going around and enough auras read to convince the sons of Magnus to take up the offer.

        One particular marine, Darius felt a tug at his armor. He looked down and saw three foals. They had introduced each other with the other marines as well.

        “Mr. Darius, we want to know about where you came from, if you could tell us that, it’d be awesome, if you couldn’t that’s okay.” said the orange one, the one called Scootaloo.

        “If you want to hear a touching story then have a seat,” he said, looking around there were no chairs, so he held them up by the energies of the Great Ocean. In fact he had transported them into the Great Ocean, surrounding them in a protective field. And as they entered another body entered the Empyrean, it Ahriman, Maat, and several of the Rubicae. They had no corporeal form there. And around the protective field, their auras shone. Darius with that of gold serpent, “Why, thank you Lord Ahriman, what would we do without you, transporting three foals into the Great Ocean, when I could have told an entire tale in the living room.”

        He continued, “Ahriman probably, has you here so y’all could truly experience the tale of a Thousand Sons, am I right, Lord?”

        “Yes, you don’t have to be so damn rude.” replied Ahriman.

        “It is the first time I’ve spoken in ten thousand years, so pardon my Nordafrik.” said Darius.

        Around the field casted by Ahriman, predators attacked, but were cast off by the Thousand Sons’ auras. The CMC looked up at the Astartes with anticipation of such a tale, if only they had some popcorn, because an image began to form on the surface of the bubble, the first showed an image of a planet, covered in water, and green land. And so Darius began.

        “Long ago, about ten thousand years ago there was a man, he had power, power beyond imagination, beyond even that of your princess Celestia. He could shatter stars at will, and forge empires with a snap of his fingers, now with that power came responsibility. When our race stepped into the stars, there were hostile aliens, we fought and colonized an entire galaxy. Our technology became so great that we became arrogant and waged war on all other species, gradually killing off many. The Great Ocean, as you are in now seethed with energy, and then came the rise of psykers, just like us, but they didn’t know how to use their powers, and some went insane , some enslaved entire human colonies, worlds became cut off by Warp storms. Technology regressed. And our homeworld became a battlefield as people fought for resources.” Then came an image of Terra, humans fought humans, “Out of hiding came the Emperor who had guided humanity through its years, this was during the Age of Strife. He lead armies of super soldiers called Thunder Warriors to reunite Terra, our homeworld. Now these soldiers were unstable, but they got the job done. With the planet conquered came the rest of the solar system.” There was image of starships with aquilas emblazoned on the sides bringing worlds into submission. “Now, during the conquest of the solar system, came the creation of the Legiones Astartes, us. There were twenty. We were the pinnacle of evolution. The Emperor created the Primarchs, demigods in the eyes of mortals lead the Twenty Legions.” he finished and paused for any questions.

        “Mr. Darius, are you from Terra,” asked Applebloom.

        “No little one, but Ahriman, Maat, and the others were.” he answered.

        “Now continuing, this is where we come into the picture. We were the XV Legion of the Emperor, we started out with a thousand Astartes. And therefore we were named the Thousand Sons. And our Primarch was Magnus the Red, a psyker almost as powerful as the Emperor.” the images shifted to a picture of the Primarch of the Thousand Sons in combat with the fifteenth and the scattering of the Primarchs. “The Great Crusade took us to Prospero on a quest to reunite humanity’s lost empire, my home planet where we found Magnus. Now, on our way there, there was a disease called the Flesh-Change that afflicted the Legion, it turned us into mutants. This was because a majority of the Legion were psykers, and our gene-seed was highly unstable, even more so of the Emperor’s war dogs. Now when we embarked for the Great Crusade form Terra, we had over a hundred thousand Astartes, by the time we got to Magnus, our father, we only had a thousand marines left, then we truly were the Thousand Sons! Magnus found a cure, but the cure was a bargain, our souls for just a few hundred years of life without mutation. He loved us, Ahriman here was his favored-student as were all the captains of our Legion. Finally we recovered our numbers and went to nine-thousand Astartes, we never went higher than that. The crusade went on and we found on thousands of planets with our brother Legions. Then came the Horus Heresy, when Horus the greatest of all Primarchs gathered half the Legions in civil war against the Emperor. Now Horus was influenced by Chaos Gods who reside in the Great Ocean, we are in their realm now! But don’t be afraid, we can protect you from them. Now Leman Russ, Primarch of the Space Wolves was persuaded by Horus to attack Prospero. He actually remained loyal. Prospero was bombed and Wolves set foot on Prospero like the mailed fist of the Emperor, burning our libraries and cities, and killing the innocent. To escape our doom we teleported to the Planet of the Sorcerers.” Lastly came an image of a world wracked by Warp energies. And the Tower of the Cyclops. “There Ahriman cast the Rubric which stopped the Legion mutations, turning legionaries not powerful enough to dust and sealing out armor, rendering guys like me walking suits of armor. We have been launching raids on the Imperium out of vengeance ever since, but we have finally repented upon our arrival here, ten thousand years after Prospero. The end.” Darius finished.

“Now a lot of this stuff, if we had gone deeper you would go insane just thinking about it, so be moral of the story, know what you’re doing, or you could end up like us.” said Ahriman as a reminder.

The foals exited the Warp back into the living room. It was near midnight. They would soon return to Ponyville. Everyone wanted to go. So they boarded the train for a second time. Returning to Canterlot with the CMC for they had earned their way their. And so would become the greatest of Prosperity in the history of Equestria.