The Legion of the Damned

Magnus roared as he hacked another of the foolish ponies to pieces. They were stubborn, but ultimately ineffective in stopping his advance.

He glanced up towards the castle where the portal presumably stood, wondering how a race this primitive could have built a city over one of the most valuable objects in the galaxy.

Turning his attention back to the street from his mind's useless wanderings, Magnus noticed that the dark blue pest was continuing to follow him, but not attacking.

I'll leave it alive, for now. Someone needs to witness my glories, after all.

Pulling his cleaver from the corpse of the pony, Magnus continued his slow march towards the castle, and his prize.

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Ahriman sighed lazily. This lone Legionary thought he could stop him? The master of sorcery? The mortal must be taught a lesson, it seems. he thought as warpfire flickered along the black-hafted length of his staff.

The Damned Legionary moved first, aiming to decapitate the Sorcerer with one great swing of his chainsword.

Ahriman slammed the chainsword away with the head of his staff before conjuring a ball of fire in his right hand and slamming it into the Legionary's helmet.

The ball of fire was met by a spear of pure force, slamming Ahriman's arm backwards and destroying the ball of magic.

Ahriman growled beneath his helmet. Maybe I underestimated this one...

If they were equally matched in psychic power on the physical plane, how would his opponent fare on the mental?

Sending your mind out through the Warp was never a pleasant experience for any psyker, but Ahriman had learned to stomach the constant feeling that you were about to vomit violently.

He immediately focused on the psychic light that was the Legionary and his mind began to slowly approach that of the Legionary as he swung his staff to block another attack by the Legionary in the Materium.

His mental advance was soon halted when a chainsword butt smashed into his helm, disorientating him and bringing him crashing back to the material realm.

Ahriman roared in anger and lashed out with a massive wave of pure force in front of him, ripping up stones and hurling them along with the Legionary up the road into a wall.

He pushed himself up with the staff, using it like a crutch to get to his feet as he watched the cloud of smoke and dust settle on the ground, revealing...

A dent.

The growling of the chainsword firing up was the only warning Ahriman got before the blade slammed into the seam on his thigh armour, easily splitting the weaker armour and biting into his flesh.

Ahriman swung the bottom of his staff into the Legionaries head as he turned before electricity began to course through his hand, waiting to be directed.

The Legionary fell to the floor, chainsword knocked well out of reach as Ahriman placed the horns of his staff around the Legionarys neck, pinning him.

"You were brave, lapdog. But ultimately trying to challenge me was foolish. One such as you can only aspire to defeat the likes of me..." Ahriman gloated.

"Hey, mister!"

Ahriman turned towards the direction the voice had come from, revealing a bright pink pony with something resembling a cannon.

There was a small spurt of flame as the cannon's fuse was lit and various party objects were blasted at Ahriman, causing him to recoil in surprise and weaken his hold on the staff.

Centurius took immediate advantage of the distraction, grabbing the staff with both hands and pushing back on the staff, slamming the gold-plated end into the back of Ahriman's head, sending him sprawling to the ground, face first.

He leaped to his feet, placed one power-armour boot onto the Sorcerer's back and extended the skull towards Ahriman, who was trying in vain to push the Sergeant's boot off of his back.

Faint tendrils of light snaked out from the glowing skull, weaving their way closer and closer towards Ahriman's prone form before they began to coil around him, trapping him.

The tendrils began to pulse, faintly at first before growing larger and brighter as Ahriman began to scream louder and louder as his soul was devoured by the holy artifact.

The skull flashed brightly, returning a Legionary to the realm of the living from the Warp.

Centurius stepped back from Ahriman's body, mind reeling not from what he had done, but what he had to do. A Space Marine could never defeat a Primarch. The mass volleys of the entire Legion's bolters might stand a chance, but many of his battle brothers would have fallen before the Traitor Primarch.

"Hey, Walking-Moving Statue thing! Are you even listening?"

Centurius recoiled in surprise as the bright pink pony he had drop-kicked out a window earlier bounced up to his eye-level before falling.

"You're not going to let a S10, T10 Gargantuan Monstorous Creature romp around the player's deployment zone are you?"

"That made no sense, xeno." Centurius whispered into the pony's mind, before recoiling at what the levels of chaos he found within.

If that pony were a psyker, this world would be immune to anything. By the Emperor, if it becomes one...

"What's the fun in making sense silly? Did you never learn to never use combat squads? Just follow me and we'll save Equestria from whatever that blue giant thingy is called!" With that the pink pony bounced up the street towards the castle, occasionally glancing back to see if he was following.

Thought for the day: heresy grows from idleness. Spurred on by faith, Centurius ran after the bouncing pony.

The pony stopped, looked up into the sky and pointed a hoof at something. "What's that?"

Centurius spotted the falling, dagger-like object and activated his helmet's zoom optics, zooming in on the hull of a falling battle barge.

By the Emperor...