The Legion of the Damned

The strange object that the statue held out towards Cadence began to glow a bright, almost blinding, fiery light as faint tendrils of magic lanced out towards Cadence, ensnaring her.

Everypony stared at the scene for a few seconds before realisation struck.

The statue had defeated Celestia.

It was now doing something to Cadence.

The two Royal guard at the back of the hall charged forwards, horns lit, before the statue turned.

The guards screamed as the magical glow from their horns vanished, and small cuts appeared on  guard's sides, leaking the strange, multi-coloured liquid that Rarity had.

The five ponies took one look at each other before they came to a horrorible conclusion- they couldn't do anything.

The statue had beaten Celestia in a magical duel, so Twilight wasn't too eager to try her luck.

Rarity was injured, so the Elements of Harmony were unusable.

The only option left was brute force.

"Rainbow, AJ, see if you can knock it down. Pinkie..."

"Yes?"  Pinkie piped up as she brought one of her trademark Party Cannons out of nowhere.

"Hit it with that."

"Okie doke!" Pinkie bounced around happily, ignoring the fact that a seven-foot monster was about to kill Cadence.

"Fluttershy..." Twilight looked around the panic-filled hall, no sign of Fluttershy anywhere.

"Leave her, Twi, let me an RD take this fella down."

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Centurius watched with satisfaction as the Animus began to strip away the daemon's illusion. Soon these foolish and gullible ponies would see what they had been harbouring in their midst.

His audio receptors picked up the sound of movement behind him, but these ponies couldn't harm something that wasn't technically alive.

A loud clang rang off the back of his skull helmet. If he could have, he would have smiled. These ponies had determination.

He turned his head round, revealing a light blue pegasus and a orange regular pony battering away it various parts of his body, trying to slow him down.

He watched as the pink began to slowly turn to a black, the wings becoming faint and green. Soon they would see the truth.

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Twilight watched as Rainbow and Applejack bucked away ineffectually at the statue while Cadence's pink coat was stripped away, revealing a...

Black, insect-like shell.

Wait, what?

Twilight did a double-take on the situation. Instead of Cadence standing there, a hideous, insectoid pony stood there.

"AJ, Rainbow, stop! It's trying to help us!" Twilight shouted but her words were lost in the panic of the crowd.

"Oh, please. It can't do anything to me." The black pony strode forward. "It very kindly disposed of Celestia for me, and my army of Changelings will soon take over Equestria. For I am Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, and they hunger for your love."

"You can't! Shining Armour's protection spell will stop you!" Twilight shouted back at Chrysalis.

"No, I think not." Her horn glowed green as she threw Shining Armour at the statue with her magic. "Easily dealt with."

The statue dropped the spherical object so it could catch Shining in it's massive left hand before it layed the knocked out pony behind him.

"You will not deal with me so easily, daemon. I have fought the Blood Crusade, the Great Devourer, the servants of the Ruinous powers. And I find your powers lacking compared to theirs." The words resonated throughout the mind of everypony in the room.

"My powers lacking? How will you deal with my army?" Chrysalis laughed as a small group of Changelings burst in through the window behind her.

"With the Emperor's holy fire."

Pinkie ran out of the crowd, and layed her Party Cannon down, pointed straight at the statues face.

The statue brought its foot back, before kicking Pinkie out the window with one massive sweep, Party Cannon following, while Pinkie shouted "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee as she flew out into the city.

Rainbow cursed under her breath before she set of in pursuit of the falling pony.

"Still, statue, I do not see any dragons with you with which you can 'purge' me." Chryalis smiled thinly as a group of Changelings charged in through the door at the rear of the room. "Checkmate."

"I think you underestimate me. Checkmate to you, daemon..."

A loud roar sounded from behind Chrysailis as the Dreadnought's engine awoke.

The armoured behomoth brought one fist down on Chrysalis's group, smashing several Changelings into a bloody pulp as Chrysalis hovered up.

A stream of assault cannon fire from the dreadnought followed, adding more holes to her legs and wings.

"You may have beaten me here, but what of the city?" Chrysalis flew out of the room with a laugh as she decended towards the streets of Canterlot.

"Brothers, into the city. Purge these daemons from it with the Emperor's holy fire."

"It will be done."

Throughout the castle, Legionarries awoke, eyes ablaze with righteous fury. The sound of bolter fie echoed throughout the city as Legionarries began to exterminate the Changeling swarm.

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Chrysalis stared from her tower perch as she watched her swarm being destroyed. She could feel her subjects dying, each death a pain in her mind, both literally and figuratively as her subjects were ripped out of the synapse web.

Everything had been planned, down to the last detail.

Yet still she was ruined.

Flying off back towards the empty plains, she entertained herself thinking of schemes of revenge with the Changelings who she had had remain back at the Hive.

She cut the rest off from her web. They could face the statues alone.

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In Spess...

Iophan coughed up blood. The ships systems were failing after a thousand years of non-stop operation and no Tech-priest to bless the engines in the holy words of the Omnisah.

And the ships systems affected the state of their controller.

Looking up into the sensor readings that surrounded the command throne on decayed screens, two blips appeared.

Two blips.

Had humanity returned to salvage the Damned?

Or had Chaos come to blight the system?

He received his answer as nova cannon fire struck the ship's reactor, sending it into a plummeting trajectory towards Canterlot.

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Ahriman smiled under his gold helm as the Imperial ship began to plummet towards the planet. Magnus was already here, and the two of them would have a reckoning.

No Imperial dogs would get in their way.