The Tomb World of Equestria

10 Days Later...

The ponies had complied at the first round of questioning. Geopolitical details, cultural values, and more were all obtained from the groups of captives, major geography was done before with scanners, able to show more general information. Those that were not compliant (not many) or far too insane were thrown to the Flayed Ones to sate their eternal hunger.

The ponies that had died in the attack and the living captured were respectively dissected or scanned. Interestingly, they all had a current of warp energy running through them, the unicorn psykers having the most, concentrated in their heads, the pegasi having a medium amount built up in their wings, and the earth ponies having the least, but still some in their muscles.

Maldrakh was currently running diagnostics on the Tomb ships from a console on his throne, and the results so far were not very good. He then checked the reports from the wraith scouts, over the past ten days they had spotted only three other smaller settlements and a village in a mountain pass, they were going to move out soon. The Spyders had recently recovered his wrist-mounted Tachyon Arrow, and the Lord had eagerly equipped his new secondary weapon to his left arm.

After turning off the console, he suddenly remembered he had stashed something long ago for safekeeping. Maldrakh made sure he was alone, and reached into a hidden compartment inside of his throne, typed in a code, and retrieved a flat, black necrodermis square. On this square was a holo-pict of....his family......before. He remembered flashes of his children, love, and life He stared at it for a long time, "If only I could join you someday" he said forlornly. The Lord then hung his head down low, before slowly returning the square to its hiding place

However, Maldrakh then noticed someone walking towards his throne and stop, without looking up,he said "What do you need Cryptek?" he mechanically sighed.

"My lord, we believe we have found a viable specimen with the gene" the Cryptek said.

Maldrakh looked up before replying, "Are you certain?"

"Yes, I am one hundred percent positive" the Cryptek replied.

"Bring it in" the Lord ordered while thanking fate that the biological experiments had worked.

After a few minutes, the doors to his throne room opened and two crypt warriors, plus one earth pony, entered. They made their way to the throne before the warriors dumped the pony in front of Maldrakh, then turned and left. The pony was male and had a black coat and a silvery gray mane, he also had several scars across his face, and his mark was that of...nothing. The Lord was interested, usually the adults had those strange picture marks on their hindquarters. The pony looked up with a surprisingly unnatural and familiar aura before speaking.

"What do you want?" he said in an emotionally dead and cold tone of voice.

"What is your name, pony?" Maldrakh asked

"Obsidian Arrow, now what do you want?" Obsidian deadpanned.

Maldrakh was slightly amused by his nature, it reminded him of other Necrons. "You posses the pariah gene, and that makes you very useful to us" he said

"What is the 'pariah gene'?" Obsidian asked, confused

"The complete and utter severance of a being from the warp, and any psychic, or as you call, magical power" the up until now silent Cryptek replied "With you being the greater of two levels, a pariah, which means you have a space of negative magical energy surrounding you, basically an anti-magical shield of a sort".

Obsidian then looked down to his flank then back to the lord "Guess that explains why my damn cutie mark never showed up"

For the first time since even before his transformation, eons of waging war for the whims of the deceitful C'tan, and sleeping for millions of years, the Lord was speechless "What is a.....'cutie mark'?" he said after a long and confused pause.

"A cutie mark magically appears when you find your special talent in life, dumbass" Obsidian stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world

"Silence!" Maldrakh said as he stood up "I will not tolerate your insolence fleshbag!, so help me I will turn your skin into a spare cape!"

He sat back down and observed the pony, expecting to find a shivering wreck begging for mercy. However, he saw a pony not even slightly perturbed. "Was that supposed to scare me?" Obsidian replied with a dark chuckle, his voice growing louder , "I had to raise myself after my parents abandoned me in the woods, suffer through starvation that made me look like a walking skeleton and run from giant predators in the wild for a few measly berries" He continued,

"Got tortured by sadistic bandits, I later killed, over a few measly bits, then was ostracized from that buckhole village because everypony thinks I'm some crazy freak, and then this damn crap!, so if you think you can scare me, you can go buck yourself and die you metal assed freak!" Obsidian concluded loudly as he slumped down on the floor, steaming.

Maldrakh then observed the ball of repressed emotions and rage in front of him, and made his decision

"Obsidian, I do not consider you a freak" Maldrakh said plainly

Obsidian did a double take and opened his eyes wide before stuttering out, "W-what?" he said in shock as Maldrakh stood up.

"I see only a mortal being who has endured many hardships, I also see a mortal being blessed with the potential for greatness, for power" Maldrakh began as he slowly walked forward "I knew loss and other hardships more than you could imagine, I can grant you an end to this mortal suffering".

"I can harness the true potential within you and make you something more than you are, a new form and new power to forever end your miseries, I have but one thing to ask of you Obsidian Arrow, join me, and I will make that power a reality" Maldrakh finished as he reached his hand out towards the ebony stallion.

Obsidian stared at his hand for a long moment before firmly placing his hoof in and shaking it "I'm half doing this because I want that power,and half because you'd probably force me to do it anyway, or maybe kill me" He said coldly.

"I said those exact same words once, child" Maldrakh said, chuckling

The Cryptek and Maldrakh then started to lead the stallion out of the throne room. Their destination was the workshops where the Cryptek enclave repaired,reactivated, and studied the ancient and powerful technologies of the Necrons. Their journey was a relatively short one, and they entered into a large, cavernous area. Various Tomb Spyders and Repair Scarabs were assisting the Crypteks of the tomb, about five of them in all including the one next to him. The group then made their way over to a black altar below an assortment of vicious looking operating arms, next to it was a pool of silvery-blackish liquid necrodermis. The Cryptek then ordered Obsidian to lay down on the operating table.

"Obsidian" Maldrakh said as Obsidian looked up at him "Now, you shall join us in everlasting death". Obsidian's eyes shot open, but before he could protest, a mask was affixed to his face.

Ice saw nothing but black, a swirling mass of indiscernible darkness floating around her. Then a small white light broke through the haze, then another as she opened her eyes. Her gaze came to rest upon a white curtain, thick and heavy looking. A large bed and several beeping medical monitors surrounded her. The telltale smell of disinfectant was the final detail she needed to make a confirmation. 'I made it' she thought as she closed her eyes and sighed tiredly. However, her moment of personal reflection was broken as the curtains were slid aside and parted. A pink unicorn wearing a nurse hat, probably doing her morning rounds, was apparently checking up on the patients. 'Wait...PATIENTS!'

Suddenly, her eyes shot open in realization. "Blizzard!" she exclaimed anxiously, catching the nurse's attention. "Oh my, you're awake!" the nurse said, startled. She turned and ran out of the enclosure quickly, probably to get a doctor.

"No wait, is he safe!?" Ice yelled after the mare. She got no reply, and in her jumbled state of mind, she tried to get up. Pain was all that greeted her as she groaned, it lanced over her body as she finally got a good look at her injuries. Bandages covered a good portion of her body, from the neck down she looked like some sort of mummy. One of her wings was in a cast, the other was heavily bandaged. She also had several visible stitches. During her self-assessment, a golden brown unicorn stallion trotted quickly into her enclosure.

"Ah, Nurse Pharma Ceutical told me our mystery patient had finally woken up" he said cheerfully. "First things first though, who are you?"

"My name is Ice Heart, is Blizzard okay!?" she said worriedly

"You mean the little colt?, well he's right as rai-" he nearly finished before a young voice interrupted her

"Icey, you're awake!"

Ice turned her head towards the sound of the voice, she gasped and her jaw hit the floor. What caught her attention was not only the A-okay Blizzard, it was the ponies around him. Blizzard was right next to none other than Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria. Next to her was her sister, the returned mistress of the night, Princess Luna. Further still, in front of the rulers of the heart of Ponykind were the six famed Elements of Harmony, defenders of Equestria. Everypony, including Ice, knew their names by heart, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle and Pink-.

A pink blur shot in front of her face and started speaking at breakneck pace, causing her to jerk backwards. Ohmygoshomygoshyou'reokaynowthatssuperduperandwowyourlittlefriendherelovestopartyalotandwhywereyouallbangeduplikethatand-HMMPHMH! An orange hoof blocked the pink pony's mouth before she could talk any more.

"Sorry bout Pinkie Pie, she can get mighty rambunctious" The orange pony chuckled out as she pulled Pinkie away from the bed.

"Icey!" Blizzard called as he scrambled onto the bed, breaking her out of her celebrity induced trance. He rushed over and hugged her, causing Ice to wince slightly,she smiled and embraced him anyway. "Hey kiddo, I'm glad your alright too" Ice said as she hugged the little colt closer.

"How long have I been out?" Ice asked tiredly, looking up.

"The young one was awake within a day, you however were unconscious for ten days, due to blood loss and trauma" The doctor said, "Also, may I ask why two gravely injured snow ponies were this far north?"

Then it all rushed back to Ice in an instant. The screaming, the dying, the horrid black skeletons, and the destruction of her home. She remembered the metal bugs, and how they tore into her like a swarm of biting locust. Ice began to hyperventilate and tremble slightly, before a heavenly voice called out to her as a hoof was put on her shoulder. "My little pony, you are safe now, please calm yourself"

Ice turned to see the princesses smiling warmly. "Now, can you tell us how you were wounded, or why you are here in first place?" Princess Luna asked curiously

"I-we are from a village in the south, it was just any other normal day and then," Ice started, as her voice cracking .

"Then, some kind of Tartarus spawned, two-legged, metal skeleton monsters came out of nowhere!" Ice choked out, "They started killing or capturing everypony for no reason, and they used some sort of lightning magic that burned everything it touched!" Ice cried out as Blizzard hugged her tighter "Then just after I saved Blizzard and escaped, some kind of swarm of metal insects started tearing into me, I don't even remember how I made it here!", "And the worst part", Ice said as her voice took on a silent and terrified tone "The worst part was their eyes, there was no emotion, remorse, pity, or anything behind those soulless green eyes".

Ice then began to console the whimpering form of Blizzard. The assembled ponies were all either in tears or wide-eyed with shock. Twilight turned towards the princesses to see that they were completely speechless. Before Twilight could voice a question, two guards burst into the room. They both turned to the monarchs, "My princesses, there is trouble at the southern border!, Iron Rock was attacked by some unknown force, and no survivors came through the pass" one said. The Princesses eyes opened wide, the miners of Iron Rock had recently sent a shipment of gems and ore not even three days ago.

"Girls, we will need to leave soon to deal with this threat, we will be bringing along the elements" Celestia said, "We do not know what these things are, or what they are fully capable of, so I need you to be careful" She said concernedly.

The girls looked at each other and nodded "You can count on us" Twilight said surely.

Luna then stepped forward "We will also take a retinue of our Night Guard sister, and head to the Southlands with you to help deal with this threat" She said.

"Please be careful, they killed so many" Ice said worriedly.

Rainbow Dash looked into her eyes "Don't worry, we'll be okay, I mean we just saved a whole ancient empire ten days ago" She said in a hopeful voice

The two monarchs then hurried out of the room, calling servants to ferry orders to and fro and preparing their departure. The girls looked at each other, "Pinkie", Twilight said anxiously as they walked forward, "this may be a bit more than a doozy".

Iron Rock Village, Population 1,223 0

"That bad?" Maldrakh asked the Cryptek anxiously. The Lord was currently walking through the devastated streets of the mountain village. His army of deathless warriors had recently destroyed all the of the pony settlements in the immediate proximity of the tomb, and his engineers had begun to raise dormant constructs and build fortifications. Slave camps had already been set up, and the captured ponies were forced to preform several menial tasks such as clearing debris or helping with construction, those that were not compliant were made examples out of by the Flayed Ones.

"Yes my Lord" The Cryptek droned back "While the upper levels of the tomb fared generally well, the lower sections had no such luck, we currently have only 720,267 total combat units available, the other 2,961,924 are either damaged or currently unreachable due to rocks, It should be resolved over the course of a few weeks piece by piece." the Cryptek continued, "Four out of our seven Monoliths have some type of major damage, one of our two Tomb Stalkers has major damage to it's internal systems, and the other has its' weapons nearly non-functional", "As you know, eight out of our ten tomb ships were severely damaged by geologic shifts and will take at least a month to repair", "Thankfully, one Shroud-Class light cruiser and one Jackal-class Raider suffered only moderate damage, they should be combat operational in three or more weeks" The technomancer then walked off to oversee the repair constructs.

Maldrakh was worried, he knew that his forces had vastly superior technology and eons of experience, but there were still grounds for concerns. This was not a large Tomb World to begin with, even before the Great Sleep, and he barely knew how many of the living there were. These upstart primitives of Equestria learned about from captured merchants, while generally peaceful, had a very large standing army and a very experienced border defense force, one such fort uncomfortably close.

The ponies in this village had a local guard force that had actually fought back before inevitably dying, and demonstrated the fighting capabilities of their species. The earth ponies buck could knock a warrior's torso off (he loved the looks on their faces when they crawled right back into the fight anyway) if hit hard enough in the right place, and could even damage an Immortal . The pegasi dive bombed and harassed his forces from above while somehow manipulating clouds to fire disruptive bolts of lightning. And the unicorn psykers could conjure searing bolts of warp energy that acted like small plasma bolts.

His thoughts were interrupted by a breaking sound a few feet in front of him. A metallic hoof had just come down on a charred skull of a pony. The owner of the hoof hoof was an unholy fusion of life and death. It looked like a pony covered in necrodermis plating, although looking vastly different from a warrior's body. The face revealed its' teeth, which were locked in an emotionless grimace. Mounted on both sides of the pony's body was a small gauss blaster, and embedded in its' chest was a special retractable phase spear. The Pariah then turned it's attention to the lord and bowed.

"My lord, the last of the living have been exterminated", The former-living droned.

Maldrakh looked on with pride at his new personal bodyguard. After his conversion, the Pariah's abilities were put to use to defend the lord from psykers. "Good, good...set the engineers to work constructing a new forward base" Maldrakh ordered. The once-pony then trotted off to relay commands to his subordinates. Maldrakh then turned around to face an uncloaked Canoptek Wraith, it had a very important scouting report judging by the large amount of data it contained. The Lord then transferred it to himself and played back the video recording in his head.

From on top of a small cliff, the Wraith observed a force of over two hundred armored ponies in a large fort. Ones with slightly more decorated armor were directing the rest into square formations, probably based on regimental organization. Out of the sky to the north came two large chariot transports, bearing two interesting occupants. When they landed, he got a clearer look. They both appeared to be some sort of hybrid between all three variants and were wearing silver and gold regalia, probably the famed princess sisters. The high-ranking soldiers bowed and started to speak to the apparent rulers. Behind the hybrids came six ordinary ponies, probably servants. Then from the large transport that had accompanied the blue one, another group of twenty ponies emerged.

They had gray fur, bat-like wings, and yellow cat-like eyes, and were clad in dark blue armor. 'How many types of these ponies are there?' Maldrakh thought to himself. The commander finished talking to an officer, who then gave an order to an assembled squad of about ten ponies, the Wraith observed them as they started their way towards the mountain path on a probable scouting mission. The Wraith then turned around and started back towards the village as the video cut out. The Lord then checked what particular units were available in that area to intercept them, and mentally smiled.

Sergeant Black Shield was officially and undoubtedly freaking the buck out. At first, the scenic mountain vista and calming atmosphere helped ease their tensions slightly. That ended when they came upon a charred husk of a pony, mouth frozen open in a scream, and judging by the position of the body, had been running away from something. Along the road, they came upon similar charred bodies and rocks that had unnatural grooves and clean holes burned through them. The privates were trembling but the three sergeants held firm and rallied the group further. All of them including Black stopped dead in their tracks when the next group of bodies greeted them.

About fifteen bodies were scattered around a circular and open clearing in the pass. This time, the ponies had apparently died painfully and gorily. All of them were completely skinned and their bodies torn apart,nearly unrecognizable as belonging to a pony. Several soldiers pitched over and vomited at the bloody sight. Gradually, they recollected themselves and slowly moved forward. Black noticed that the earth here seemed disturbed in a way, as if digging had been going on, but paid it no further attention,there were several large mines and gem quarries throughout the area.

16 minutes earlier...

Twilight and the rest of the girls exited the large carriage behind princess Celestia. A chilly blast of southern polar air greeted them, they had scarves and light coats however. The girls then looked around to find themselves in a large border fort. This was the first time Twilight had ever seen actual soldiers in full combat armor, completely different looking than the ornate dress armor of Celestia's guards. The commander of the fort, signified by his decorated helmet was discussing tactics with the two monarchs while the troops ordered themselves into formation.

"Commander, what is the situation?" Celestia asked tersely

"Last night, we heard what appeared to be very faint sounds of fighting or a commotion of some sort in the town, but couldn't be sure your highness, due to the mountains blocking the sound" He said "We couldn't investigate due to the border crossing laws, so we decided to leave it alone" He paused as he sighed "This morning however, thick smoke could clearly be seen rising and we then contacted you"

Celestia looked towards the distant pass and a worried expression grew across her face. "We need to asses the situation as soon as possible, we can't send in pegasi due to the strong headwinds coming up from the mountains, so I will need you to organize a small reconnaissance team to scout the first part of the pass"

"With pleasure your majesty, Black Shield! I need you and your squad" He started as he moved towards a sergeant. Celestia then turned her attention to her sister. "Let us hope that this foe is just another pack of dimwitted monsters, and not an organized force" Celestia said as she looked towards the mountains.

"And if they are not and we have a pitched battle on our hooves, my military expertise and Night Guard will surely aide us" Luna said hopefully. Luna had been an excellent military strategist during the dark days, and had won many seemingly hopeless battles. Celestia then turned her attention to the girls. "Here are the elements, I fear we will have to use them soon", she said as she levitated a familiar blue chest and retrieved its contents,they quickly adorned their individual jewelry.

"So from what Ice Heart said, the monsters were basically bipedal skeletons made out of metal" Twilight said, "So could we be facing some mad and powerful unicorn using magical golems of some sort?"

"A good theory Twilight, but a unicorn that powerful would have attracted my attention already, and nopony besides an alicorn is powerful enough to animate that many-"

"AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

Everypony in the fort stopped and froze like a block of arctic ice. Faint sounds of more screams could be heard through the echoes off of the pass walls. Those screams had undoubtedly come from the scouting party. Celestia looked at the commander, he was mumbling to himself despondently as he stared at the pass. Everypony's thoughts were interrupted when a low thudding sound began to materialize, they were the sounds of a marching force. As it got louder and louder, the troops ordered themselves into defensive positions within the fort. The girls were terrified but moved with Celestia and Luna to the top of the stone wall.

The thudding reached a crescendo before abruptly halting. The silence was broken by a small echo off of the walls of a being walking. The silhouette of a tall and dark figure then emerged from the entrance, it was too far away to make out any more details other than it's bipedal nature. Suddenly, it raised a staff of some sort into the air and slammed it on the ground. A green flash and an eerie chiming sound occurred as the creature vanished. The assembled ponies tensed up as the same flash appeared several yards away from the formation.

The girls gasped at what rose up as the green energy cleared up. It stood at a solid nine feet, easily two and a half feet taller than princess Celestia. It had an ornate, yet slightly tattered cape and wore a mask over its' face. Its mechanical body was skeletal in appearance, a metal spine of a sort rising out of its back and over its' head. The staff it had used earlier had a large, wide blade at the top, with a glowing tube in the center. The most unnerving part was the eyes, just like Ice Heart had said. That was not light, just a pale mockery of it. Real light exudes warmth and safety, this light was cold and unfeeling. It drove an icy spike through the hearts of the defenders.

After several tense seconds, the being spoke in a tone to match it's eyes, looking at Celestia. "Surrender and die"

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