Chapters Chapter 1 - A burning Sky
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It was a typical peaceful night over Ponyville, Luna had just started raising the moon and everypony was heading to bed except for one purple unicorn who was staring up at the night sky through her telescope.
“Twilight, why are you still awake and what are you looking at?”, said a voice coming out of nowhere causing Twilight to jump up startled.
“Oh.. Pinkie Pie you scared me. How did you get in front door without me noticing?”, asked Twilight
“I didn't use that front door silly”, replied Pinkie Pie while bouncing up and down in her usual fashion.
“Then how did you get in?”, said Twilight even more curious about the intrusion.
“Well...”, said Pinkie then paused for a while trying to remember how she had gotten inside in the first place, ”I don’t actually remember but who cares anyway because I don’t care anymore, do you care twilight? I don’t think you care still what are you looking at? Please tell me? Please? Please? Pleeeaaaaasse?”.
“Fine Pinkie”, twilight said to just stop her friend’s nonstop talking, “What I am looking at is this weird space anomaly that appeared a couple of hours ago. I have been looking through my books to find out what it is but I cannot find anything about it. I have even sent Princess Celestia a letter about it but she hasn't replied back yet”.
“Don’t look sad, you will find what that thing is eventually. You’re like the brainiest pony I know”, Pinkie said in a reassuring voice.
“Thanks Pinkie”, Twilight said while turning back around and staring back into the telescope, “Now what are you”.
“I’m a pony silly, jez Twilight haven’t you been sleeping or is there something broken in your head?”, said Pinkie while tapping her hoof on Twilight’s head.
“Ow! No I wasn't talking to you Pinkie, I was talking to myself”, Replied Twilight while rubbing her head and thinking about how anypony have an actual conversation with her, “Can you please give me some quiet time to study this thing?”
“Okie dokie lokie.”, replied Pinkie, “But can I still watch?
“Of course you can Pinkie, but remember to be quite”, said twilight, Pinkie just nodded her head and actually zipped up her lips with a zipper, “Thank you Pinkie, now I can get on with my research”.
About 30 minutes later Pinkie Pie couldn't hold her mouth any longer.
“Why is this so BORING?”, protested Pinkie, “And why haven’t we heard anything back from the Princesses yet? Maybe the letter got lost in the mail or even worse... they were abducted by vicious race of pony eating ALIENS!!!”.
“Pinkie just calm down”, replied twilight trying to stop her friend from waking up everypony during the night, “I don’t think that has happened to the Princesses. Now can you please be quiet?”.
Twilight then looked back into her telescope to see something different about the anomaly; it looked like something was coming out of it. When she looked more closely she noticed that the thing coming out looked like two giant metal boxes, but one of them was cut in half and the other was missing nearly the entire right side and most of its rear. Looking at it for a few more seconds she also noticed lumps of metal floating around the two boxes and something that looked like fires all over the strange objects. But the thing about all this that scared Twilight the most wasn't that some weird alien thing came out of nowhere, it was that the objects were relentlessly heading straight towards Equestria.
“OH, NO!”, Twilight yelled out.
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“Aarg..”, said Angus while grabbing his left arm and trying not to let the pain get to better of him, “ Thank the Emperor we’re still alive”.
Looking around the command deck he noticed that everyone was still alive and that the only injuries were a few broken bones and bruises. A quick look around the deck, Angrus could see many of the control systems were either damaged beyond repair or were on fire.
“You four”, ordered Angrus point to four officers who seemed to be the least injured, “Put out these fires and get me a report of what systems are still operational”.
“Yes Sir”, said the four officers before saluting and quickly going off to their duties.
“Umm... Sir, I think you should see this?”, said Lieutenant Astrine.
“What is it?” replied Angrus.
“I don’t think we are orbiting Hyperion IV anymore”, said Astrine while pointing at a circular in the distance between all the scattered debris.
“What?”, replied Angrus, then looking in the direction of where she was pointing, “Well then, let’s hope that there is an imperial settlement there so that we can find out where the fuck we are”.
“And what if there isn't a settlement? And even if there was a settlement there, how are we even going to contact them or even land for that matter, this ship is a wreck?”, argued Astrine.
“I don’t know that yet”, said Angrus, “But we are the Imperial Guard, the hammer of the Emperor, and the Emperor will show us the way”.
Just after the last of the officers had been patched up, the four officers that Angrus sent came with their report but when they handed Angrus the data slate it was grim news. The only systems that were working were still operational on the ship were emergency lights, the oxygen recycling system, some the holo-screens, the ships short ranged scanners, the short ranged vox-network mainly used for contacting other ships in the general area, and one defensive turret which was out of ammo. Everything else was either destroyed or non-responsive.
“So all that we can do then is sit here and orbit around this unknown planet until we starve to death”, said Angrus.
“I don’t think that we are in orbit around the planet”, said Astrine, “It looks more like we are plummeting toward is”.
“Well then, change of plans, we’re not going to starve to death, we are all going to die in a fiery inferno of scrap metal. Well that is a more exciting way to go than starving to death and kill each other for food”, said Angrus sarcastically.
“Something doesn't seem right about this planet either”, said Astrine, “The sun and moon are smaller than the planet, and they also appear to be going around it as well”.
"I have seen the warp so strange things to a planet but this has to be the weirdest of them all”, said Angrus, “We might as well wait for us to crash then, wonder how long it will take”.
As the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes turned to hours, that felt like an eternity, everyone on the command desk were just sitting there waiting to crash into the planet and die. Because of this everyone felt reluctant to talk but instead just sat there listening to the sounds of creaking metal and the occasional ‘thud’ when the debris outside crashed into each other. Currently Angrus was thinking of the only good thing about this scenario, that he didn't have to see or work with another filthy xenos every again. Suddenly the silence was broken when the vox-network came to life with the voice that seemed to be another guardsman.
*Bshhhhh* Is anyone th *Bshhhhh* This is *Bshhhh* If anyone ca *Bshhhh* Please Respond *Bshhhh*
Quickly, Angrus run over to the vox-network and replied, “This is Captain Angrus of The Righteous Vengeance. I can barely hear you, there is too much interference”.
*Bshhhh* Same here, Si *Static*
“Someone, try and get a signal from those Guardsmen”, ordered Angrus.
Meanwhile on deck 4, the Guardsmen who first sent the signal were also frantically trying to get the signal working again from the badly damaged vox-caster that they had. About ten minutes later they finally get a decent signal where they could at least understand each other without the signal dropping out every so often.
“How many are of you are there?”, asked Angrus
“26 of us, we are all fine except for a few bruises and scratches”, replied the guardsman.
“Try to make your way to the command deck”, said Angrus, “Also bring any other you find on the way”.
“Will do, Sir”, said the guardsman before closing the link and turning to the other guardsmen, “Well we have our orders, let’s move out”.
It had been twenty-five minutes of navigating through the endless passages of what was left of The Righteous Vengeance, sometimes having to turn back when they reached a blocked door or structural collapse, before they reached the command deck. The group of 26 now turned into 34 plus a commissar and for all that they could tell they were the only survivors of the exploding Warp Drive.
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Twilight hadn't gotten any sleep since the two objects had appeared in sky three hours ago, she had looked through every book she could find about strange space anomalies, space magic and anything that she thought could help, but found nothing. She got even more frustrated every time she looked into the telescope and saw the objects getting closer and closer. Suddenly the door swung open and Pinkie Pie bounced right in.
“Hi, Twilight, I brought friends to help you solve your end of the world problem”, said pinkie, “Wait… End of the world... END OF THE WORLD!!”
“Pinkie!”, said four other voices from behind her.
“What if it is going to be the end of the world”, said Pinkie.
“Honestly Pinkie, I don’t think it’s going to be the end of the world”, said Rarity.
“I agree with Rarity”, said Rainbow dash, “If these things were here to kill everypony wouldn't they of done that by now?”
“It could still happen though”, argued Pinkie.
“I think you should see this”, said Fluttershy in her usual soft voice but no pony could hear her over the argument Pinkie was making about how it could still be the end of the world.
“Maybe this is all a distraction to stop us finding out their true purpose here. Or maybe it is an invasion”, continued Pinkie.
“I doubt it could be an invasion, Pinkie”, said Twilight, “The objects look as if they’re in ruins and I haven’t seen any more come out of the anomaly”.
“Hello, I think you should see this”, said Fluttershy trying to get the attention of the others but without success.
“Maybe they want us to believe that their...”, Pinkie was suddenly interrupted by herself when she started uncontrollably bouncing around the room. Everypony quickly got to the edge of the room and tried desperately not to be taken out by the bouncing vortex of pink. This lasted for the next two minutes and stopped as suddenly as it started, exhausted and dizzy, Pinkie collapsed onto the floor.
“Wow!”, exclaimed Pinkie in-between her panting, “That was a doozie”.
“What in Celestia did that one mean?”, asked Applejack.
“It meant that we are going to say hello to aliens and something big is going to fall out of the sky”, replied Pinkie, “Do you think that they will like pink or blue icing on their cupcakes at their welcome to Equestria party?.”
“Pinkie, how big is the falling object?”, asked Fluttershy finally getting the attention of the others.
“Pretty big”, said Pinkie, “Why do you ask”.
“Because I think I can see it”, said Fluttershy, she then quickly walked out of the door and then pointing to the sky.
Everypony quickly went outside and looked up. What they saw both shocked and amazed them. Above them were thousands of burning pieces of metal falling towards the ground but were quickly disintegrating from the heat of re-entry. Half of Ponyville was outside to see what was going on and were all hypnotised by the stunning display of falling debris. It was about thirty minutes later The Righteous Vengeance and the two halves of The Nighthunter finally reached the atmosphere. Each part of the massive ships were heading for a different part of Equestria, the front half of The Nighthunter was currently heading towards the Crystal Mountains while the back half was heading for the desert near Applelossa.
The Righteous Vengeance however was currently however heading straight for Canterlot. As the ship was on its collision course with the capital, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had ordered all the unicorns in the city to use their magic to stop the strange object from killing them all. They all lined up on the castle gardens, each of their horns lit up in a magical aurora trying desperately to slow down and divert the object.
“What the fuck is happening”, said Angrus looking around the deck which was now surrounded in a strange colourful aurora.
“We are slowing down”, replied Astrine.
“How?”, asked Angrus.
“I don’t know”, said Astrine, “But from the aurora around the ship, I would say that the natives have psychic powers”.
“Well then, let’s hope they are human”, said Angrus.
Back in Canterlot some of the unicorns had collapsed under the massive strain they were putting on themselves but it was working, the object was slowing down and had started moving towards the left of Canterlot. When the Righteous Vengeance crashed into Equestria it just missed Canterlot by a couple of meters and instead crashed into the bottom of the mountain. The impacted left a creator two times bigger than what was left of the Righteous Vengeance and the front was now looked like a burning piece of abstract art. Thankfully, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and the unicorns had slowed down The Righteous Vengeance just enough for everyone on the command deck to survive.
“That was close”, said Celestia dropping to the ground exhausted. Everypony was also lying on the ground exhausted but they had managed to save Canterlot from inevitable destruction.
“We believe it best to investigate what that was.”, suggested Luna, “Maybe after we have all recovered”.
Chapter 2 - Friendly Xenos?
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Angus was lying on the floor of the command deck, it had been a few minutes since The Righteous Vengeance had its assisted crash landing and everyone was out cold by the force of it. When he woke up the only thing he could see was blinding whiteness and a few blurry lines, he also had a splitting headache and ringing ears.
“Emperor is that you?”, said Angrus, “Have I finally made it to your grace”.
A few second passed and Angrus realized that he wasn't in the emperor’s grace when his eyes finally adjusted to the surprisingly bright sunlight of this world. He slowly picked himself up and noticed that everyone else was either out cold or just waking up.
“Well, I don’t want to go on this ride again”, Angrus said to himself, “But thank the emperor we are alive”.
When everyone finally woke, Angrus debriefed them on what they were going to do next.
“So our primary objective is to set up a base and salvage whatever we can off this junk heap. After that we will try to regain contact with command. Our secondary is to get some Intel about where we are and whether or not the natives are friendly, even if they are filthy xenos. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir”, replied everyone.
“Good. If it turns out that they friendly I don’t want any of you killing them because they will probably severely out number us and based on the previous events, it looks like some of them have strong psychic powers”, said Angrus, “Let’s go and find whatever will be useful and get off this wreck”.
“Yes, Sir”, everyone said while saluting and walking off to the storage areas to find any equipment that was still of use to them.
“You two”, said Angrus randomly pointing to two guardsmen, “What are your names?”
“Sergeant Jenkins, Sir”, replied the slightly taller of the two guardsmen.
“Corporal Heston, Sir”, replied the other guardsman.
“Well Jenkins and Heston, I have a different assignment for you two. I need you two to go and find a way of getting off this ship, I doubt we can get off the normal way”, said Angrus
“Yes, Sir we will quickly get on to that”, said Jenkins before they both run off down a dark hallway.
Angrus walked up to the front of the deck and gazed out of a massive hole where the window used to be. ‘Something about this place is wrong’, Angrus thought, ‘It looks... cartoony. Well at least it doesn't smell of pollution and you can at least see further then 500 meters’.
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It took Jenkins and Heston twenty minutes to find a safe pass down to the part of The Righteous Vengeance that was closest to the ground, currently the two were standing in a large misshapen room which use to be the hanger. All around them the room was littered with flipped and destroyed Valkyries, Vendettas, Avengers and Thunderbolts.
“ Couldn't at least one of them be not be damaged beyond repair”, said Heston.
“Yer they would be useful, especially the Valkyries”, said Jenkins, “Better see if we can get the hanger doors open”.
“Remember don’t shoot unless they attack”, said Jenkins.
Outside the hanger doors the two guardsmen were aiming their lasguns at a group of about 20 strange looking creatures that looked surprisingly like small horses back home. Each one of them looked as if they were covered in silver armor and also holding medieval looking weaponry, somehow in their hooves, which were all pointed at the two guardsmen but two of them stood out from the others. One of them was twice the height of all the others and was covered in golden armor while the other one was about one and a half times taller than the others and was wearing midnight blue armor.
“Who are you? Why have you come to Equestria?” asked the taller one.
The two guardsmen lowered their lasguns and looked at each other, then back to the creatures.
“You can talk”, said Jenkins with a confused look on his face.
“Of course we can talk”, said the tall one, “But you still haven’t answered my questions”.
“Umm..”, said Jenkins trying to think of what to say, he looked at Heston and whispered, “What should we do? We kind of haven’t trained to talk to xenos instead of shooting them”
“Don’t think any guardsmen has”, whispered Heston, “Just answer the question”
“I’m Sergeant Jenkins and this is Corporal Heston of the Imperial Guard. Who are you?”
“I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, this is my sister Princess Luna”, replied the tall one, “But you still haven’t answered my other question, why are you here?”
“Do you want to speak with our leader”, said Jenkins still trying to comprehend what the fuck was going on in front of him.
“That would be acceptable”, replied Celestia.
“Give us a few minutes”, said Jenkins to the ponies before turning to Heston, “Quickly get a message to the captain, tell him that we have found an exit and what has just happened”.
Heston nodded and quickly removed the Vox caster from his back and put it on the ground.
“Sir we have found an exit point”, said Heston, “It is in hanger bay 4”
“Good”, replied Angrus, “Are any of the aircraft operational”
“No”, said Heston, “But we have encountered a problem”.
“What is this problem?”, asked Angrus.
“Well we have made contact with the native population”, said Heston, “The problem is that they are neither human or xenos, and they speak low Gothic”
“What are they then?”, asked Angrus.
“Ponies, sir. Colorful ponies in armor and carrying primitive human looking weapons”, said Heston, “Two of them said that were the rules of this land they called Equestria and they what to see you, sir”
“Well then”, replied Angrus, “Tell them I am on my way”.
“Will do, sir”, said Heston.
Angrus quickly headed down the hallway with six other guardsmen towards hanger bay 4. ‘Ponies’, he thought to himself, ‘How can ponies slow The Righteous Vengeance down, let alone talk or have psychic powers’. The small group run through the winding corridors, following markers left by Jenkins and Heston to show the safe routes through the wreck. When they arrived everyone suddenly stopped and stared at the ponies, not believing their eyes. ‘Well he wasn't lying when he said that they were colorful and primitively armed’, thought Angrus, ‘I never have really dealt with talking to xenos, just liked blowing them out of the sky’. Angrus broke the stillness and walked up to the two ponies covered in different looking armor to the rest, the one in golden armor stood up to his shoulders while the one in midnight blue armor stood up to the middle of his waist. Angrus got off out of The Righteous Vengeance and walked up to the two taller ponies.
“Greetings xenos”, said Angrus in his most calming voice that he could do, which didn't sound calming, “I am Captain Angrus”
“What did you call us?”, asked Celestia angrily, “Why did you call us xenos?”.
“That is what we call anything that isn't one of us”, replied Angrus nervously, then thinking, ‘Think, Angrus, think. You don’t want to make new enemies, even if they are xenos that should be purged from existence’.
“And what is...us?”, asked Luna.
“We are the Imperial Guard, soldiers of the human race”, replied Angrus, “What about you xenos? I mean some of you have wings, horns, or neither and you two have both?”
“Well the ones with wings are called Pegasus, the ones with horns are call Unicorns and the ones with neither are called Earth Ponies”, said Celestia, “As for Luna and I we are called Alicorns”
“Why did you come here?”, asked Luna.
“Well by accident really”, replied Angrus, “All of us are suppose to be dead”
“Why?”, said Celestia, “What happened?”.
Angrus started telling his story about what had happened above Hyperion IV. The two Princesses stood there, shocked by the amount of violence and destruction that was happening to the alien planet. Angrus was suddenly interrupted.
“Why?, asked Celestia still with her horrified expression, “Why so much death and destruction”
“Because they are the enemies of the Emperor and they are also filthy xenos that should be purged from existence”, replied Angrus, “Also they are much worse than us”
“How much worse?” asked Luna
“Well the Tyranids are a race of bio-engineered killing machines that are all under the control of by a psychic essence called The Hive Mind, which orders them to devour entire planets and galaxies”, replied Angrus, “And the Sons of Midnight were a chapter of superhuman demi-gods that were on our side until they were corrupted by the dark powers of chaos. Now they go around bringing death to those that worship the Holy Emperor”.
Celestia and Luna just stood there staring out Angrus, both looked like they were going to faint from what they had just heard.
“Can I continue my story of how we got here”, said Angrus, both Luna and Celestia just continued to stare at Angrus with their horrified looks on their face, “I will take that as a yes then. Now where was I?. Are yes, getting sucked into the horrors of the Warp”.
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On board The Righteous Vengeance just after being sucked into the Warp.
“Gellar Fields down” said a metallic voice through The Righteous Vengeance, “Multiple daemonic forms detected”.
Outside of The Righteous Vengeance there were thousands of daemons, from small nurglings to gargantuan Lords of Change, all trying to rip their way into The Righteous Vengeance.
“Multiple Breaches”, said the metallic voice again, “Daemons detected of levels 3 to 16. The Emperor Protects”.
Suddenly the most of the control boards on the command deck suddenly exploded or went dead.
“What just happened?”, asked Angrus.
“Daemonic attacks, sir”, replied Astrine, “They appear to have destroyed the Machine Spirit. Everything is basically dead”.
“Ready your lasguns”, ordered Angrus, “It is time to give our lives to the Emperor”
All round The Righteous Vengeance thousands of guardsmen were all doing their best to repel the daemonic invaders but knew that they were all going to die to the daemonic hordes. Currently on deck four a group of two-hundred guardsmen were all in defensive positions in one of the cargo bays, waiting for their inevitable death from the horrors of chaos.
“This is it guardsmen”, said Sergeant Jenkins, “Time to live the main roll of a guardsmen, DIE STANDING!”
There was a short pause before the guardsmen could hear daemonic chanting and the breaking of metal, before too long one of the walls was ripped in half and an endless horde of Pink Horrors started pouring through the gap. Jenkins started firing his lasgun at a group of Pink Horrors that had just ripped their way through the ship’s hull. His shots ripping several holes into one of the horrors but to his surprise the horror didn’t die, instead it split in half and reformed into two smaller versions of itself. All around him every other guardsmen was firing their lasguns at the oncoming Daemons, killing many of them but not doing much to slow down the incoming tide. The Pink Horrors returned fire, using magical blasts of Warp Fire straight out of their many hands, each shot incinerating several guardsmen at once. The sounds of screaming guardsmen and daemonic chanting was suddenly drowned out when the auto-cannon and heavy bolter heavy weapons teams started to open fire. The massive wall of fire from the weapons started ripping through several ranks of Pink Horrors, ripping any Horror in the way to shreds by the massive shells.
“KEEP FIRING MEN!”, yelled Jenkins, “WE MUST KILL AS MANY OF THESE DAEMONS BEFORE WE DIE IN THE SERVICE OF THE EMPEROR”
Suddenly the floor underneath several guardsmen ripped upwards, flinging any guardsmen above it around the area, what came out of the torn floor was a massive creature made of brass being ridden by a red daemon wielding a massive serrated blade surrounded in fire and blood burst through the floor. The new Daemon started charging around the cargo bay crushing several guardsmen underneath its brass hooves and impaling several others on the numerous spikes that covered the Juggernaut. While the Bloodletter on top swung his massive Hellblade cutting several guardsmen, who managed to get out of the way of the juggernaut, in half. When the Bloodcrusher was finished with tearing apart the gunners of the heavy weapons it turned to face Jenkins, with fiery rage in its eyes, and stated to charge. Jenkins stood there and waited for his quickly approaching fate, when all of a sudden, the entire daemon horde started howling in pain and only seconds later all of them vanished in a fiery ball of multi-colored flames.
All the surviving guardsmen looked around the cargo bay confused in what had just happened.
“What... the...fuck... just... happened?”, asked Jenkins with a happy and confused face.
No guardsmen replied but instead cried out in pain and put their hands on their heads, Jenkins was also doing this when the quick and sudden amount of pain rushed into his head. Unable to cope with the pain everyone left on The Righteous Vengeance passed out simultaneously.
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“And then we ended up here”, said Angrus finishing his story, “Probably if we didn't end up here the daemons certainly of finished us off”.
Luna and Celestia were both grateful that the horrific story was over but still stood there shocked at what happened to them.
“We have had chaos spread through our lands before”, said Celestia, “But not as evil and murderous as that”
‘I didn't know that there was another kind of chaos’, thought Angrus before asking, “Can I ask you something?”
“Certainly”, replied Celestia.
“Do any of you have psychic powers?”, asked Angrus.
“What is psychic powers”, said Celestia with a confused look, “Do you mean magical powers”.
“Sure lets go with that”, said Angrus, “I just wanted to know if it was you lot who slowed down our ship with that strange aurora”
“Well all the unicorns and us two have magical powers”, said Celestia, “We really only slowed your ship down because it was about to crash into Canterlot”
“And how many of you are unicorns?”, asked Angrus.
“About one third”, replied Celestia.
“One other question”, said Angrus, “Is there anywhere where we can make a base? We are kind of stuck here now”.
“I know a spot”, said Celestia, “But I will only let you lot make a base after you accept my conditions”.
“Of course”, said Angrus with a concerned look on his face, “What are your conditions"
“Firstly, I want to have some of my guards to keep an eye of you lot. Secondly, I don’t want you killing any creatures unless my guards say it is OK to."
Angrus thought for a couple of seconds before replying, “Those conditions are acceptable"
“Very well then, Luna and I will leave you now”, said Celestia, “Ask my guards when you are ready and they will take you a spot where you can set up a base”.
Angrus walked back onto The Righteous Vengeance with only one thought in his mind, ‘How can one third of the population be Psykers and not have any corrupted by the ruinous powers of chaos’.
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Currently somewhere in the deserts near Applelossa a lone Chaos Marine was sitting on some of the wreckage of The Nighthunter. His armour was the colour of midnight blue and he was wearing a large black cape.
“Lord Erzerum”, said a metallic voice from behind him.
“What is it, brother”, replied Enzerum.
“We have been trying to make a warp portal but something is causing interference”, said the marine, “It is coming from these strange creatures all over the planet”.
“Well then you know what we must do”, said Enzerum, “We must change them with Tzeentch’s gifts of mutation”.
“I will prepare the remaining brothers my lord”, said the marine before turning around a stated to walk off.
“And brother”, said Enzerum, “Next time you interrupt me when I’m listed to the words of Tzeentch, I will not hesitate to kill you”
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Twilight and the rest of the Elements of Harmony were all currently on a train towards Canterlot. Just nearly an hour ago Twilight received a letter from Princess Celestia, summoning them all for an important assignment but didn’t give them too many details.
“What do you think they would look like”, wondered Rarity, “Hopefully they don’t look hideous”
“Why do ya'll always obsess over a creature's looks?”, asked Applejack, “Ah'm only more concerned with the assignment we're gonna' been given”.
“Yeah”, agreed Rainbow Dash, “My bet is that is has something to do with those falling objects”.
“Of course it does Rainbow”, said Twilight while face hoofing, “What else could this be about?”
Rainbow Dash started to think and used one of her hooves to rub her rainbow mane. She opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted.
“Do you think that they like parties? Maybe we should throw them a party? Ooo... I hope that they like parties? What kind party should we have? A welcome to Equestia party or a first contact party maybe a we want to be friends party?”, said Pinkie Pie at hyper speed but before anypony could respond she vanished into the overhead compartments.
“Should ah even ask”, said Applejack to the rest of the group still looking up at the compartments.
“I think it would be best not too”, replied Twilight.
“I just hope that they are friendly”, said Fluttershy.
Pinkies head suddenly appeared from under the table scaring everypony and making them fall of their seats, “I hope that they're not big meanies either.”
“Pinkie don’t scare us like that”, said Rarity getting back onto her seat.
“Ok”, replied Pinkie with a big grin on her face. She then pulled the rest of body and four large crates out from under the table.
“What are those?”, asked Twilight pointing at the crates.
“These”, replied Pinkie also pointing at the crates, “These are one of my piles of emergency party supplies that I have stashed over Equestria. Can’t be too careful when it comes to parties”
“Pinkie can you take a situation seriously for once in your life”, said Twilight annoyed, “We are about to come into contact with the first alien race ever and all you can think about is parties”.
“But Twilight, a party could be a good idea”, said Rarity, “It could show them that we are a peaceful race”.
Suddenly the train started to slow down with a low screech of the brakes. A few seconds later it had stopped outside Canterlot Station. When the six ponies got off the train they were immediately greeted by two royal guards.
“We’re here to take you to the Princess”, said one of the guards, “Follow us”.
The two guards turned around and started walking towards to castle. The six mares followed closely behind them, what surprised them the most was that everypony was going around minding their own business like nothing had happened.
“I’m glad you all could make it on such short notice”, said Celestia.
“What is going on?”, asked Twilight slightly confused, “Does it have to do with the falling objects?”.
“Yes is does, Twilight”, replied Celestia, “Luna and I have already been to see what it is”.
“Did you find anything awesome?”, asked Rainbow Dash with excitement in her eyes.
“No Rainbow”, said Celestia causing the excitement in Rainbow’s eyes to quickly vanish.
“What did you find?”, asked Twilight, curious now.
“We found Bipedal creatures. They call themselves the Imperial Guard and we spoke to their leader, Angus, about how they got here”, said Celestia, “He also said that the object was a spaceship”.
“How did they get here?”, asked Rarity.
“He told us that it was by accident and that they should all be dead”, said Luna.
“Dead”, replied the six mares startled by the last part of the sentence.
“Well their spaceship was badly damaged during a battle they were in over a planet”, said Celestia, “So they decided to sacrifice themselves to destroy one of their enemies spaceships”.
“And how did that make them arrive here?”, asked Twilight.
“Well they said that their Warp Drive had exploded causing a rip in space and time”, replied Celestia, “Sucking both their spaceship and an enemy spaceship in with it”.
“That would a rip in space and time would explain that space anomaly I saw last night”, said Twilight, “But what do you need us for?”
“I want you six to go and stay with them and try and become their friends”, said Celestia, “But do be careful with what you do to them”.
“Why do we need to be careful?”, asked Twilight puzzled.
“Angrus told us that they hate anything that isn’t one of them”, replied Celestia, “And he also said that if they weren’t in their current situation they would all be killing us without a seconds thought”.
The six gasped at what they just heard, Fluttershy is particular nearly fainted.
“W-Why would they do such a thing?”, asked Fluttershy nervously still trying not to faint.
“Angrus said they come from a galaxy that has been at war for the past ten-thousand years”, replied Celestia, “He also said that survival was no birth right and had to be fought for”.
The reply pushed the timid mare over edge, Fluttershy fainted but before she hit the floor Rarity and Applejack quickly caught her.
“She’ll be alright”, said Applejack gently lowering Fluttershy to the ground, “She always faints at that kind of subjects”
“Ok then”, said Celestia, “I already have several guards keeping an eye on them. And you will need this”.
Celestia’s horn started glowing and suddenly a scroll appeared in front of her. The scroll levitated over to Twilight before she caught it in her own purple aurora.
“What’s this?”, asked Twilight.
“It is a message for Angrus telling him that I want you lot to be staying with them”, replied Celestia, “You will leave tomorrow morning and I wish you the best of luck, my little ponies”.
With that the six mares left with Applejack carrying the fainted Fluttershy on her back.
++++++
The sun was beginning to set when the guardsmen finally started bringing all the supplies to the area that Celestia is allowing them to stay. All of the guardsmen were following a white unicorn with a blue mane and encased in purple armor. It took them several hours to reach a small clearing between a forest and the steep mountain slope where there was a large cave entrance. Directly above them they could see the city of Canterlot coming out of the mountain, defying all lore’s of physics.
“Were here”, said the white unicorn stopping at the entrance of the cave.
“Right then”, said Angrus to the unicorn them turning back to the guardsmen, “Men set up a perimeter and a fire, after that well all need nights rest. Jenkins, I want you and four other guardsmen keeping a lookout, alternating with other guardsmen every hour.”
Every guardsman saluted before they all split up to get on their duties. Angrus walked over to the commissar who was looking up at the city of Canterlot.
“This is a fine mess we have gotten into this time”, said the commissar not taking his gaze away from the city, “Trapped on a world far from the emperor with no way of escape and having to live with xenos”
“Well at least they are not trying to kill us, commissar Vrax”, said Angrus also looking at Canterlot, “Well, not yet”.
“There is one thing that still troubles me”, said Vrax turning his head to Angrus.
“And what is that?”, questioned Angrus also turning his head.
“If we managed to survive, then how many of the blasted heretics did to?”, said Vrax.
Angrus started to think. He never really thought about it until now.
“Let’s just pray that it isn’t any at all”, replied Angrus after a few seconds, “But as we know that won’t be true”.
“Indeed”, said Vrax.
“Is there anything that my men can help you with?”, asked the white unicorn behind them.
“We don’t need help from you xenos”, said Angrus calmly.
“Ok then”, said the unicorn, “And can you stop calling me xenos? Just call me Shining”
“I will call you whatever I want, xenos”, replied Angrus with a slightly angered tone in his voice.
“I still don’t trust them”, whispered Vrax so that Shining couldn’t hear it.
“I know you don’t”, whispered Angrus, “But we have to if we want to survive”
“They’re too friendly in my opinion”, whispered Vrax glancing back to Shining, by now Shining started to wonder what all the quiet taking was actually about, “How can any xenos be so willing to let aliens live with them”
“I don’t know why they are so friendly but let’s just use this fact to our advantage”, whispered Angrus, “Now it looks like it is getting late we be getting some rest”
Commissar Vrax nodded in agreement before saluting Angrus and walking off to where his sleeping arrangement were, which was nothing more than a sleeping bag and an old pillow on the cave floor.
‘This is going to get much weirder’, thought Angrus while walking to his sleeping bag.
++++++
Nightfall had descended on Appleloosa. Most ponies were sound asleep or just about to go to bed. Scattered on the outskirts of the town several ponies were walking around.
“I hate being on night watch”, said a blown stallion earth pony with green hair, “Nothing interesting ever happens and I have to sleep through the day”.
“Take this more seriously Slowstride, at least it is better than you sitting on your ass doing absolutely nothing”, said a grey stallion earth pony with dark red hair.
“Come on Nightrunner, I like being lazy”, said Slowstride, “Besides all that we are doing is just walking around the town. Nothing ever-”
“What’s that”, said Nightrunner cutting off Slowstride and pointing into the thick expanses of the night desert.
In the low light of the moon Nightrunner and Slowstride could see the outlines of black bi-pedal silhouettes with glowing red eyes, moving quickly towards the town. All of them looked identical for two of them, the first one looked like the others but only a bit bigger while the other looked like a gargantuan spider.
“Do you think it is a stampede?”, asked Slowstride.
“Don’t think so”, replied Nightrunner, “There isn’t enough of them and they look more organized”.
“What do you think it is then?”, worried Slowstride.
“Don’t know”, said Nightrunner, “But I think that you should go and rin-”.
Before Nightrunner could finish there was a flash of light from the spider looking silhouette. Suddenly they were sent flying when the bell tower behind them exploded into pieces of shrapnel. Everypony quickly ran outside to see what the loud noise was but this just made them more vulnerable.
Just as somepony went to help the two ponies up more banging noises started, but not as loud as the first. Before anypony could find where it was coming from a silhouette jumped out of the shadows towards the nearest ponies. It grabbed a mare around the neck with its left hand and brought the pony up to his eye level, everypony else just froze in shock at the sudden attack. The mare looked into the creatures glowing red eyes and could feel its warm breath coming from a metal grate where its mouth should be. Feeling its cold grip on her slowly tighten she started to struggle, seeing this the creature just started laughing at the mare’s despite attempts to get it to release its grip.
Its laughing suddenly stopped when it brought a weird looking sword, which was boxy on one side and had metal teeth coming out of the other, up to the pony’s stomach. The creature pressed a button on the side causing the teeth to start spinning with a loud never-ending screech and then forced the sword onto the dangling pony. The mare started screaming in pain as the spinning teeth started ripping through her stomach and internal organs, splattering blood and shattered bones over the creature’s face and chest. The raging teeth tore through the other side of the mare and the lower half of her body fell to the floor, already by then the mare had died, the creature then flung the top half away and started looking at the frozen ponies.
When the mare’s body hit the floor everypony stopped staring and where now chaotically running around trying to escape from the bipedal horror but by now others had stepped out of the shadows. Some of them charged in like the first but others were standing back holding weaponry that looked like some sort of gun.
One stallion was looking behind him to make sure that none of the horrors were chasing him when he ran straight into one of the ones standing back. The impact knocked the stallion back a little bit, it felt like running into a stone wall. When he looked up the creature it was holding the weapon down at his head, the stallion could only blackness up the guns barrel and the creatures gazing red eyes. The creature pulled the trigger, firing the rocket propelled shell into the stallion’s eye. In a blink of a second of entering his eye, the stallions head and most of his upper body exploded into small pieces of red mush, leaving nothing but an empty space where the front of his body once was.
“Are you alright?”, asked Nightrunner trying to help Slowstride up.
“No”, replied Slowstride in a pain, he had one of his front hooves grasping his chest where a giant blood covered splinter from the tower sticking out of him, “What are those things?”
“I don’t know. I have never seen anything like it before”, replied Nightrunner carefully lifting Slowstride onto his back, “But I know one thing, we have to get the buck out of here.
Nightrunner quickly started galloping towards the edge of the town, trying to be careful not to cause any more injury to Slowstride. The creatures were too busy violently killing the other ponies to notice their escape.
Nightrunner stopped behind a couple of boulders a fair way away from Appleloosa, he carefully laid Slowstride against a boulder. Looking back at the town he could see many of the building had been destroyed or were currently on fire, he could also hear the distant sound of their attacker’s weapons and screaming ponies.
“How many other do you think made it out?”, asked Slowstride weakly.
“I don’t know”, said Nightrunner sadly, “We have to tell the Princesses about what has happened and get you fixed up”.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The sun shone through the glazed window onto Twilight’s face, causing her to slowly wake up. Slowly getting up and rubbing her eyes wake, see looked around the room seeing every one of her friends still asleep. With a sigh she got out of her bed, she knew that this way going to be a very hard day for all of them. She slowly started pacing nervously around the bedroom, trying not to create so much noise to wake the others.
“M-Morning Twilight”, quietly said Fluttershy just loud enough for Twilight to hear and blinking her eyes to the brightness of the sunlight. This was the first time she had awoken since fainting yesterday.
“Oh, Morning Fluttershy”, replied Twilight with a small smile coming to her face, “Nice to see you awake again”
“Sorry about that” said Fluttershy slowly dragging her body out of bed.
“Don’t worry about it”, said Twilight trying to comfort her, “We have dealt with this situation many times before”.
The sun was slowly getting higher. The last of the six ponies was slowly getting out of bed and preparing for the assignment ahead, Rarity of cause took the longest of the six. Everypony was extremely nervous to what would happen when they meet the so called Imperial Guard, especially Fluttershy who was visibly shaking.
“I’m sure everything will be fine”, reassured Twilight to the shaking pony, “I don’t think the princess would of sent us on a life threatening assignment. Well I don’t think the Princess would”.
“Y-You... think... so?” mumbled Fluttershy, shaking a little less than before.
“Absolutely!”, exclaimed Twilight, “Now come on, let’s get some breakfast before we go”
“O-Ok, if you say so”, said Fluttershy, she had finally stopped shaking and started to slowly following Twilight to the Canterlot kitchens.
++++++
When Angrus woke up many of the guardsmen had already set up a large tent as a makeshift mess hall and were currently indulging themselves in a low level chat in small groups. Angrus decided that it would nice to finally get some food, he hadn’t really eaten since yesterday morning. Walking into the one of the two lines made for officers and high ranking personnel it didn’t take him long to get to the front of the line, well he was the only one in the line. Picking up a metal bowl, out of a crate that they had brought off The Righteous Vengeance, he handed it to the guardsman next to a large pot full of a pale yellow looking paste.
“Sir”, said the guardsman handing back the pilled bowl, Angrus just nodded and walked off to find an empty table to sit at.
When Angrus found an empty table he just sat down and started to prod the pale yellow paste with his spoon. He really didn’t like this shit, well no guardsman did, it was tasteless, thick and it fell like your mouth has been stuck together when you start chewing. But he, as well as every other guardsman, had gotten used to it, it was their daily supply of protein, vitamins and other stuff that your body needed to function and it doesn’t go off if you leave it out, so you could have been eating some that was nearly a year old.
“Do you mind if I join you?”, said the familiar voice of Commissar Vrax from behind him. Angrus just nodded and immediately Vrax took a seat on the opposite side of the makeshift table.
There was a quick moment of silence between the two while they just sat there eating their pale yellow paste. Vrax by now had already finished at least half of his meal.
“What’s going to be our main objectives today?”, asked Vrax before putting another spoon full of paste in his mouth.
Angrus paused in thought for a moment before replying, “Well we need to learn more about them but they don’t seem to be inclined to really talk to us”.
“I know ways to get them to talk”, suggested Vrax, the suggestion was met with a burning gaze from Angrus.
“We are certainly not doing any of that”, said Angrus slightly angered, “They'd definitely would start a war against us, we are severally low on manpower and supplies”.
“What do you suggest we do to get them to talk them?”, asked Vrax putting his left elbow on the table and putting his head against his fist while still eating what was left of his meal with right hand.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this”, said Angrus shaking his head, “But I’m suggesting that we have to become… ‘Friends’… with the xenos”
A small smile fell onto the commissar’s face; it looked as if he was trying to suppress himself from laughing out loud, which he was.
“You can't be serious”, Vrax finally said after finally controlling his urge to laugh, “You know how many Departmento Munitorium rules you would be breaking if you go ahead with this. You will be condemned as a heretic”.
“I know”, replied Angus, “But we have got no other option”
“Even if I have my objections to it, you are my commander. So hope that it this plan works”, said Vrax with a sigh before leaving the table and walking out of the tent.
“So do I”, Angrus said to himself.
++++++
The Six mares were following the two guards that had escorted them from the train down a windy path down the mountain. From the path they were walking on the six mares started to figure out the enormity of the situation, well the enormity of the crashed wreckage of The Righteous Vengeance, it was nearly one fifth the height of the mountain and so long that it was nearly sticking out of the forest. From their height advantage they could see where the ship had touch the ground, just outside of the forests boundaries, leaving a large trail of dug up dirt and destroyed trees before finally stopping at the mountain. The impact was so hard that the mares could see large cracks in the mountain side, spreading in all directions, one of the larger cracks had nearly made its way to Canterlot. They could also see large plumes of light grey smoke coming out of different places of the wreckage and started to wonder how on equestria that they didn’t see that from the train.
They continued walking in silence down the mountain path; they really didn’t speak because they were all looking in amazement at the wreckage. It took them twenty minutes before they reached the base on the mountain.
“How long now”, asked Pinkie Pie with a wide grin on her face to the two guards finally breaking the long silence.
“Not long now”, replied one of the guards. He stopped and pointed a hoof into the forest and added, “Just a five minute walk that way”
“YAY!”, exclaimed Pinkie bouncing up and down, well much faster than she usually does, “Can’t wait to meet them”
“Twi, do ya have a fancy spell in ya head to remove hyperactivity”, whispered Applejack to Twilight.
“Sometimes I wish that I did”, Twilight whispered back with a small giggle.
The rest of the walk was relatively easier that going down the mountain, it was virtually flat with plenty of room in-between each tree for the ponies to walk through. They finally reached the clearing and greeted with a barricade, which was the height of an average pony, circling around the clearings perimeter.
The small group of followed the barricade until they found a small entrance. When they entered the makeshift base they could see four large tents of to the sides, one of them was filled with tables and chairs while the other three were filled with hundreds of crates of varying in sizes. Also scattered around the base were the so called ‘Imperial Guards’ they weren’t doing much, a large majority of them were in the tent with the chairs and tables while some others were patrolling the barricade.
In the centre of the area Twilight saw a surprisingly familiar looking unicorn wearing purple armour. It took her only a few second to realize that this pony was actually her brother, Shining Armour.
“Shining!”, yelled Twilight as she was running towards her brother.
“Hey Twilly. What ar-OOMF“, Shining was abruptly interrupted when Twilight hugged him with something that looked more like a spear tackle, “Not so rough Twilley, I’m on duty”
“Sorry”, said Twilight letting go of her brother, “It is just that I haven’t seen you in a while”
“It’s alright”, said Shining with a small grin, “What brings you and your friends here anyways?”
“Well we are kind of on a special assignment for the Princess”, said Twilight, suddenly she started going through her bags with her magic for a few seconds before pulling out a scroll, “And before I forget, I need to give this message to someone called ‘Angrus’. Do you where he is?”
“Um… I think I last saw him go into that tent there”, answered Shining while pointing at the tent designated as the mass hall, just as he finished saying that Angrus appeared out of the tent’s entrance, “Ah, here he is right now”.
Noticing that the xenos was pointing at him Angrus decided to see what all the fuss was about.
“Why are you pointing at me xenos? Who’s this lot? They don’t look like they are guards”, asked the slightly angered Angrus.
“W-were here on an… assignment from the Princess”, Twilight said nervously, “She told me to give you this message”.
She held the scroll up to Angrus who just snatched the scroll out of her hoof and began to read it.
Angrus I have instructed my apprentice Twilight Sparkle and her five friends to stay at your base. They are there to gather more info about you lot and in return you can gather info about us. Their secondary assignment is to get a more peaceful relation between our two species. If anything happens to these six you will regret doing it. Princess Celestia
Angrus rolled the scroll and put into one on his many uniform pockets
“Welcome to our base then, xenos”, said Angrus slightly pissed.
++++++
Nightrunner was panting heavily, he was tired and exhausted. The grey fur on the left side of his back and stomach were now the colour of a deep red from all the blood that was coming out of the unconscious Slowstride’s injury. He just been running nonstop all night and he just arrived in a small town halfway between Appleloosa and Canterlot. Now too tired now to keep on running, Nightrunner slowed to a struggling walk down the main street. Everypony in the main street just looked at the two with wide eyes and opened mouths. Reaching the middle of the street, Nightrunner came to a sudden stop and fell down to his knees.
“Please… help us”, Nightrunner said weakly before closing his eyes and letting the rest of his body collapse to the ground with a thud.
Several ponies quick run over the help the two unconscious ponies and quickly carrying them to the local hospital. No one knew what happened to the two ponies, just that one of them had a large piece of wood sticking out of his stomach while the other was completely excused from carrying the other on his back for a long time. The two reached the hospital within a few minutes of arriving in the lone town on the outskirts of the desert.
The hospital was surprisingly empty besides a stallion unicorn doctor and two mare pegasus nurses, they had nothing better to do but play monopony, nopony had come in to the hospital for the past two days. So the three were surprised when the doors suddenly flung open and Nightrunner and Slowstride were brought in.
“What happened to these ponies?”, asked the doctor to the ponies carrying Nightrunner and Slowstride.
“We don’t know”, replied the pony carrying Nightrunner, “This pony was carrying him on his back when he suddenly collapsed in the middle of the road”.
“Quickly follow me then”, ordered the doctor.
The two ponies followed the doctor into a long corridor passing a door every five steps or so. The doctor stopped at one of the doors.
“Place him on the bed in here”, ordered the doctor to the pony carrying Nightrunner. He then turned to one of the nurses, “I want to look after him while I deal with the injured one”
The nurse just nodded and followed the pony with Nightrunner inside while the doctor and the other nurse lead the other pony carrying Slowstride onto a surgery room. The pony placed Nightrunner carefully on the bed and left the nurse to do her job. The nurse found out that there wasn’t anything wrong with the patient besides being dehydrated and worn out. So just let him rest there and decided to clean off all the blood from him.
“You must have been carrying your friend for a long time”, her thoughts said out loud while she was cleaning the dried blood.
She finished a few minutes later so she left him to get some rest while she went to see if she could help the doctor. When she reached the surgery room the doctor had started stitching up the other ponies wound. On a tray next to the table was a two foot long piece of blood stained timber.
“Is he going to be alright?”, asked the nurse concerned.
“He’s going to be fine. The piece of wood didn’t hit any vital organs”, replied the doctor not taking his eyes off the brown pony, “What about his friend?”
“He is just sleeping”, said the nurse, “Tired and dehydrated, that’s all”
“Just keep an eye on him until he wakes up,” said the doctor finishing the final stitch, “When he does, ask him what happened”
“ OK”, replied the nurse before walking out of the door and back down the corridor towards the other patient.
It was a couple of hours before Nightrunner started to wake up. He felt sore all over and a little dizzy when he slowly sat himself up.
“Here drink this”, said the nurse holding a glass of water in front of him.
Nightrunner grabbed the glass and quickly started gulping it all down. Putting the finished glass down, he asked the nurse, “Where am I?”
“You’re in Hoofsand Hospital”, answered the nurse, “May I ask what is your name?”
“Um… I’m Nightrunner”, he replied while starting to remember what had happened in the last twelve hours, “Where’s Slowstride? He was badly injured. Is he alright? I need to get to the Princesses”.
“Your friend is fine. He is just resting in another room”, replied the nurse calmly, “And what’s this about needing to get the Princesses?”
Nightrunner started shaking a little; he really didn’t want to remember what he had seen happen to the other ponies, many of which were some of his closest friends.
“A-Appleloosa was… attacked”, mumbled Nightrunner.
“Attacked? Who attacked you?”, asked the nurse surprised and very worried with what she just heard. The nurse had some family staying there during the summer and was now hoping that they were all right.
“Monsters! Giant Blue Metal Monsters!”, exclaimed Nightrunner starting to cry with having to remember what happened, “They walked on two legs and had strange weapons. They started laughing at us. They started killing us. Killing all my friends, my family. For all I know us two were only survivors”.
The nurse looked distressed with what she was hearing from Nightrunner. She had never heard anything like this before, hundreds of ponies killed and an entire town destroyed by metal monsters. But what distressed her most of all was the fact that some of her family was now most likely dead, killed by metal monsters.
She quickly ran out the door of the room and headed towards the reception hoping the find the doctor. When she entered the reception the doctor and the other nurse turned their heads to her. What they saw was a deeply panicked mare and started to worry that something really bad had happened.
“Everything all right?”, worried the doctor, “Is he awake yet or did something happen?”
“He’s fine”, replied the nurse who looked like she was about to cry, “But Appleloosa isn’t”
Before the doctor or the other nurse could respond she had already ran out of the hospital. The doctor decided to chase after and try and find out what on equestria was going on.
“Wait for me!”, yelled the doctor chasing after the nurse, she started to slow down to let him catch up, “What the hay is going on? What did he tell you?”
“He said that he needed to tell the Princesses something”, said the nurse crying.
“What did he need to tell them?”, asked the doctor puzzled.
“He told me that Appleloosa was attacked by metal monsters”, said the nurse still crying.
“Attacked? Metal monsters?”, repeated the doctor now extremely worried.
“Yes, he said that they killed everypony, they destroyed Appleloosa”, said the nurse now pointing her head down to the ground and crying more heavily, “I had family there”
“I’m sorry”, said the doctor trying to comfort the nurse, “The Princesses do have to be told about this. Go back into the hospital and I will go and send the message”.
The nurse just nodded and just started walking back to the hospital. The doctor started running to the town's post office, it didn't take him long to get there of course, it was just a small town after all just half the size of Ponyville or Appleloosa. When the doctor entered there was a unicorn mare standing behind the counter.
“Morning Doctor”, greeted the mare with a smile, “What can I do for you today?”
“I need to send a urgent letter to the Princess”, said the doctor with a worrying look on his face, “How quickly can you deliver it?”
Seeing the look on his face the mare quickly looked under the counter and pulled an old looking wooden box.
“About five minutes”, she said while placing the box on the table, “What’s the important message?”
++++++
Everything had been going well for Twilight and her friends, Angrus had order two of his soldiers to stay with them and answer any question that they were given. The two guardsmen had just finished telling the six mares about the God Emperor and the Horus Heresy.
When suddenly a slightly pissed looking guardsmen walked up to the six mares and punched Rainbow Dash as hard as he could into her muzzle and caused her to start bleeding. The two other guardsmen quickly restrained him from beating up any of the others.
“Why are you telling them all this!”, shouted the angry guardsmen before spitting on the ground, “They’re filthy xenos, we should be killing them not talking!”.
The angered guardsman was struggling against the two restraining him. He managed to free himself and started charging at the six ponies. Before he had a chance to start beating up any of the other a red beam of light passed through the side of his head causing him to fall to the ground , dead, in front of the six.
“Are you alright?”, asked Commissar Vrax to the injured Rainbow while putting away his laspistol.
“NO!”, exclaimed Rainbow while holding her nose in her fore hooves, “I think he broke my nose and I don’t think that you had to kill him!
“He was disobeying a direct order from the Captain”, said Vrax gazing at the now dead guardsman, “Disobeying orders comes with severe consequences”.
Shining had seen the whole thing happen, the attack, breaking free from the other men, the abrupt execution but happened to fast and he was too far way to do anything about it. He ran as fast as he could over to the six mares.
“Are you alright?”, Shining asked worryingly to the six mares.
“We fine”, Replied Twilight helping Rainbow back onto her hooves, “Rainbow probably has a broken nose that’s all”
“If you say so”, said Shining unsure.
Shining made a scroll and a quill appear in front of him, he wrote down a few things before rolling the scroll up. He handed it to one of the pegasus guards, “Get this message to the Princess as fast as you can”
The pegasus saluted before quickly flying off into direction of Canterlot.
++++++
Celestia was sitting in her throne looking through countless piece of paper that she had levitating in front of her with her magic. Doing paperwork wasn't her favorite part of her royal duties but it was one that needed to be done no matter how boring it was.
“Why is there always more paperwork to be filled out”, said Celestia to herself.
Before she could say more stuff to herself the doors to the throne room burst open and one of her guards came running through. He stopped in the middle of the large throne room before bowing to Celestia and pulling out a scroll from under his wing.
“Message of major importance, your highness”, said the guard.
Celestia gave the papers floating in front of her assistant next to the throne before using her magic to bring the massage over to her. She opened it up when it had got to her and read it several times to make sure that she had gotten everything.
“We leave immediately”, ordered Celestia with a slightly angered tone, “Assemble some of the guards”.
“Yes, your highness”, said the guard, bowing before turning and running back through the doors of the throne room.
++++++
Author's Note
Mmmmmmm...
Don't worry people there will be lots of gore coming up in the next few chapters
FOR THE GREATER GOOD!!!
Interlude - Immaterium and Contact
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The Shas’Kai was slowly being dragged towards the warp rip created by The Righteous Vengeance. Even having the engines at full power was doing nothing to change their course.
Kor’El was standing on the bridge slowly watching the rip as it started, one by one, devouring other ships, he knew that they couldn’t escape the rip’s clutches. He continued watching as a Tyranid Hive ship, which was just a head of his own, was slowly sucked into the-
I -the writer- was suddenly flung backwards, causing him to fall onto the wooden floor with a loud ‘thud’. What caused him to get flung back was a surprisingly familiar pink pony when her head suddenly smashed through the computer screen.
“What you doing?” asked the pink pony with an enormous grin that defied all possibility.
“Pinkie Pie!” said the writer picking himself off the ground and putting the chair back into place.
“What did I do wrong?”
Before I could even respond Pinkie’s head did an entire 180 degree twist. I just looked at her perplexed by the action.
“What’s this you’re writing? What’s a Tyranid Hive Ship? Is it friendly? Please let it be friendly? Please? Please?”
I twist Pinkie’s head so that it is around the right way before I answer her.
“I am writing about what happened to the Shas’Kai after The Righteous Vengeance imploded and what he does when he ends up in the Equestrian Universe and what the Princesses point of view of their first encounter. Hang on, why am I telling you all this”.
“I don’t know but can I write something?”
But before I could say ‘No’, Pinkie flicks the keyboard up with a hoof. The keyboard slammed into my chin, knocking me back onto the floor.
“Sorry”
Pinkie Pie starts pressing down on the keyboard with a hoof while I get up, again.
Cf6c5565hy7juh890hyj nmhg ,njkyf8 ncb xvhb njmhbvugbojki7
“Why are the button thingies too small? Why can’t they be hoof sized? It is alright for you because to have hands. Hey I just had a super-duper amazing idea. You should come with me so you can show Lyra your hands. She would love them”
I quickly grab the keyboard form Pinkie and place it somewhere out of her reach.
“Hay! I was using that you big meanie. Give it back”
“Nope! You, little filly are going back into my story where you came from”
I put one hand on Pinkie face while the other grabs onto the computer screen to hold it still. I start trying to push as hard as I can. A few minutes later and I’m still trying to push her back it.
“Why is this not working?”
“Well der! It isn’t working because you wrote me breaking through your computer screen. You have to write to get me back into the story”
I just stare at her for a few seconds. I slowly release my grip from the screen and her face. I pick the keyboard, look down at it and type ‘Pinkie Pie returns back through the screen and back into my story’ . When I look up I give a sigh of relief, she had finally gone.
“Next time I am definitely paying the extra $74.95 for the unbreakable 4th wall security system”
Now that I have gotten the urge to break the 4th wall out of my system, where was I? That’s it; the Shas’Kai was just sucked into the warp.
All the Tau on board the Shas’Kai were extremely confused with what was happening to them right now. None of them had physically been in the warp before. Well that have reverse engineered Imperial Warp Drives but because they don’t feel the presence of the Warp they have never been able to phase completely into it.
All of them could feel the endless chaotic sea of emotion flying around them. What the Tau didn't realize is that they were really lucky right now. If it was not for the Shadow in the Warp from the various Hive Ships that entered the rip, all the Tau on board would have currently been going became insane. The Shadow also caused fewer daemons to attack the Shas’Kai, making the ship easier to defend. Another thing that was also in their favor was how they were riding the Warp currents.
When the Shas’Kai finally entered the new universe. Even though a dozen other ships where sucked in before the Shas'kai, the Warp currents somehow made the shipi come out 3rd, a few hours behind The Righteous Vengeance and The Nighthunter. The length of the trip itself was somehow different for every one of the Tau, for some it was only five minutes while for others it took 2 months.
Looking around the command deck, Kor’El could see that everyone else was just as confused as he was. He quickly ordered a report of casualties and damages. To his surprise and good fortune nothing on the Shas’Kai had suffered major damage and that they had only lost a few Fire Warriors from the small groups of daemons that they encounter. The only thing that was a real problem was that it took nearly an hour to restart all the ships systems.
++++++
The two Princesses had just finished recovering from the magical strain they have put on themselves. Many other unicorns were still unconscious from the effort that they put into diverting the objects course away from Canterlot.
Celestia had ordered Shining Armour to assemble a group of guards to accompany them to the mysterious object. In front of her stood twenty of Canterlot’s finest royal guards all standing at attention.
“You all probably know why you’re all gathered here today,” addressed Celestia, “You are all wondering what that strange object is and that is why you a gathered here today. In a short moment my sister and I will teleport as all next to the object. Your main mission is the secure whatever that thing is and try to figure out if it is a threat to Equestria. Is everything clear?”
“Yes Princess”, replied all the guards in unison.
Celestia turned her head to Luna then nodded. Both their horns started glowing with magic. An aurora of gold and midnight blue engulfed the two princesses and the guards. With a sudden ‘Puff’ the two princess and all the guards were gone.
They reappeared as suddenly as the vanished but this time they were standing next to the crashed object. All of them looked at it in total awe and open mouths. The object was massive, incredibly massive, it dwarfed everything other than the mountain that it was now half buried into. Just looking at the object hurt their eyes it was so detailed; more detailed than everything else on the planet. It smelled to, the smell was so strange to them that they couldn’t even name it.
“Luna, take some guards and head towards the mountain,” ordered Celestia, “I will go in the other direction. See if we can find a way into this thing”
Luna nodded at the order and started choosing some guards to take with her. Before she could leave there was a loud screeching noise and something that appeared to be a door of some sort, began to open.
“We found one”, said Luna with a small grin on her face, Celestia just shook her head in response.
As the supposed door began to open the guards formed up and pointed their weapons at the inside of the object. The doors opened to reveal a substantial open space and two bipedal creatures pointing strange objects at them. They just stood there staring at the two creatures for a few second before Celestia finally spoke.
“Who are you? Why have you come to Equestria?”
++++++
Spoiler This Gif will happen later in the story Go Lyra and Bon Bon You peoples can come up with your own ideas about how these two got their hooves on a heavy bolter
Author's Note
Because Pinkie is in this strory I just had to add a 4th wall breach
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A Tau ship was hovering above a clearing deep within a dark forest. Two Air Caste drones helped guide the ship as its four engines slowly lowered it into the center of the clearing. There were three smaller Tau craft already there, they had been sent to scout the forest and look for a place to make a forward base on this new planet. On one side of the clearing was a large ravine separating the open area from the tree line, while on the other side was a large abandoned stone structure that the could use as a command centre.
Once landed several Tau started hauling out the ship’s cargo. One by one large boxes full of equipment they needed came out of the Tau Orca. The shipment was mostly power generators and tactical equipment like long range scanners and a communications array.
The Orca left shortly after it was unloaded, heading back to the Shas’Kai to collect more supplies. Most of the ground team sat back and relaxed after the Orca left, they really couldn’t do anything until more supplies arrive which was about two hours away. The next shipment was being brought in by a Manta, seeing as it is the only ship that could easily carry the larger and heavier equipment that they needed for the base. The Manta was also bringing in a few members of the Fire Caste to set up a defensive perimeter even though they haven’t seen any life in this planet yet.
++++++
Celestia and fifteen of her royal guards appeared in a flash of golden light. They appeared in an unnatural fog that was covering Appleloosa. The only things that they could see through this fog were the faint outlines of ruined buildings.
The Princess of the Day could sense that this fog was unnatural. She had been too busy trying to find the cause of this fog that she didn’t realise that she was standing in something wet and sticky. After a few moments her horn started glowing and the fog started slowly moving away. The princess gasped in horror at the sight the fog was hiding.
Littered around the town where the shredded corpses of the appleloosan population. Most of the town was literally painted red with the vast quantities of blood and pony insides. The ground was a virtual sea of broken bodies.
Finally feeling the strange sensation on her hooves, the princess looks down toward the ground. Beneath her hooves were multiple incomplete remains of several Earth Ponies.
“What could do such a thing?” asked one of the unicorn guards.
“It doesn’t look like any monster I have seen,” replied another guard while examining one of the corpses, “These wounds aren’t like anything I have seen before. They don’t look like they were caused by a sword, they are too rough. There is also nothing that indicates teeth or claws were used either. Some of them have holes going straight through them, which could be a spear, but the holes are too large for any spear that I have seen”.
“Well whatever did this shall definitely be punished,” growled Celestia while stepping off of the corpses she had landed in, “Let’s see if we can find whatever did this”.
Celestia and her guards started walking through the now ruined Appleloosa, stepping over the scattered limbs of ponies. There was a low buzzing noise coming from the horde of flies that were attacking the dead ponies. They continued walking slowly down the main street, passing several spikes with impaled ponies, their faces were distorted beyond recognition.
The closer the group got to the centre, they started to see more and more dead and dismembered ponies. The group stopped in the middle of the town. Right in front of them was a large pile of pieces of dead ponies and a large pool of blood radiating from the mound.
“Search for any evidence of what has caused all this,” ordered Celestia, “I doubt there are any survivors still here”.
The guards just nodded before heading off in different directions. The princess felt like crying over the death of her subjects, she had never seen anything like this before. The only thing that she really wanted to do now was find and severely punish who or what ever had done this to her subjects. And when she mean severely punish, she means torture them and then banish them to the sun for an eternity.
“What do you think these symbols mean?” asked one of the pegasus guards looking at a half destroyed wall.
On that wall was a brown earth pony, his hooves were spread out and nailed in with rusted metal. His chest was cut wide open and around him were large symbols written blood, most likely that pony’s blood.
“It doesn’t look like they are used for enhancing magic”, said one of the unicorn guards examining the symbols around the rotting pony.
The princess just sensed something. Something evil. Something that she should’ve sensed earlier. A presence, wait multiple presences. Then it hit her. One creature didn’t do all this, multiple creatures did, and they are still here.
“Everypony get back!” yelled Celestia, “The creatures that did this ar-”
Celestia was cut off when a large blue metallic creature burst through the wall that had the brown earth pony pinned to it. The two guards that were looking at the wall were knocked to the ground with the large creature towering above them.
The pegasus quickly regained focus and rammed his spear into the creature’s chest. Instead of going right this creature, as the guard hoped for, the spear did nothing, nothing at all. The blue creature just laughed at the pegasus puny attempt of an attack and raised its own weapon to strike at the two guards. The creature pressed a button on the side causing the jagged teeth along it to start spinning.
Before the creature swung its weapon down, Celestia shot a bolt of lightning out of her horn. The bolt collided with the creature’s right shoulder, ripping straight through it. The creature’s arm plus its weapon fell to the floor. Using this distraction to their advantage the two guards quickly got away from the blue giant and regrouped with the princess.
The creature though didn’t seem fussed that it had just lost its right arm, it seemed pissed more than anything. The blue giant pulled out a large serrated knife from its hips with its left hand and began charging at the princess. Each of the creature’s steps caused a small tremor in the earth and it was quickly closing the gap with its long strides.
The princess started charging up her horn, trying to add as much magic as she could into the next attack. When she couldn’t hold any more power she released it, a large beam of golden light shot out of her horn. The beam of light struck the creature dead centre in the chest and passed right through as if nothing was there. The blue creature collapsed to the floor shortly after the beam ripped a large hole into its chest.
“Quickly! Form up on me,” ordered Celestia, “I can sense more of them out there and from what I have seen these things can only be affected by magic”
The fifteen royal guard formed up around their princess, forming a tight circle around her. Each one of the guards were facing out in every direction giving the princess three hundred and sixty degree coverage.
“How many can you sense?” asked an earth pony guard to the princess.
“Nine of them,” replied the princess, “Their hiding in the shadows themselves and they are slowly surrounding us”
All the guards were whipping their heads from side to side trying to spot any incoming attackers before they could strike. Their spears were held out straight in front of them and the unicorns also charged up their magic. They all stood there waiting for the incoming attackers.
Celestia could sense them all around them, drawing closer and closer. she knew it wouldn’t be long before they attack. Something changed, the nine just stopped. Celestia didn’t understand why they had stopped.
“They’ve stopped,” said Celestia confused, “Why are they just staying in the shadows of the ruins?”
A large thudding sound started up in the distance, getting louder and louder. Celestia and her guards turn their attention to the direction of the noise. Above some of the ruins they could see the top of a square object moving with black smoke billowing out from behind it. Its six large metal legs slowly moved the beast into the main street. The blue and black metal behemoth started hauling itself towards the group of ponies, each step it took caused the ground to shake beneath it.
A large flash and ear shattering boom came from the centre of the metal beast. The shell of the battle cannon impacted a few meters away from the ponies. Three guards were killed as shrapnel lacerated through their armor and flesh, while the others quickly jumped for cover.
Celestia raised a magical shield over her guards. The princess knew the shield wouldn’t last long. With each shot from the metal behemoth, larger and larger cracks started appearing in it. She also knew that they couldn’t stay there forever, eventually the metal beast would reach them.
Celestia didn’t know what to do to do now. They were all stuck in the diminishing shield and the metal beast was getting closer. With the shield nearly gone, Celestia noticed something different, a new noise. Her ears flicked up to better identify the new sound. It was a low metallic hum, coming from behind her.
Before she could look around her magic shield finally gave in as another shell struck it. The impact knocked everypony to the ground. Celestia took a few seconds to recover but it was too late, standing directly in front of her was the defiler. The large battle cannon was directly aiming at Celestia’s face, preparing to fire.
Celestia knew that she couldn’t do anything to the metal behemoth, she just closed her eyes and waited for her death. It felt like an eternity for her, why couldn’t this monster just kill her right now. With her eyes closed, her other senses began to heighten. While she waited for her death she focused on that metallic humming she had heard earlier, it was louder now and much more clearer.
The princess quickly covered her ears when a sonic boom rang out from behind her. Opening her eyes she saw the beast rearing up with half of its supposed head missing. Another sonic boom came from behind Celestia. Everything went too fast for Celestia to understand what just happened, this second she heard the second sonic boom a large part of the bottom left side of metal beast vapourized into a fiery ball. Now missing two of its legs, the defiler collapsed to the ground.
A third sonic boom rang out. The shot impacted the centre on the wrecked defiler and caused it to explode into a fiery ball of shrapnel. Celestia reacted quickly enough to raise another magic shield to protect her guards from the explosion.
The princess looked up just as a gargantuan yellow ship flew over head, it’s wingspan was at least fifty meters possibly more. Her eyes tracked the ship’s flight as it slowed down and landed behind the wrecked metal beast. Several already ruined building were crushed underneath the ship’s four massive landing pads and once landed the metallic humming began to die down.
Celestia continued staring as a large door flipped open from the back. Twenty bipedal creatures, about the same size as Angrus and his men, came running out of the back. They were clad in yellow and brown armour covering their entire bodies and held weapons that looked similar to the ones that the Imperial Guard use. Well not vaguely similar but they looked like they were used for a similar purpose. The new creatures quickly surrounded Celestia and her remaining guards, pointing their long weapons at them.
“Hold your fire”, ordered a male voice coming from the direction of the ship. All the creatures surrounding Celestia obeyed the order and lower their weapons.
Celestia turned her head to see who had given to order. She noticed one that stood out from the others. He was wearing very little armour compared to the others and a red cape which exposed most of his blue skin. In his right hand was a golden staff with a very complicated pattern running all along it. At the top of the staff was a giant round red stone, supposedly a ruby, if it was a ruby it would've been the biggest one that she had ever seen.
The creatures surrounding Celestia quickly parted to allow room for him to enter. He stood in front of Celestia for a few seconds, examining her, before breaking the silence.
“Greetings, I am Kor’El. Ethereal of the Tau and commander of the Shas’kai. And who might you be?”
“I am Princess Celestia,” she replied with a small bow, “I am the co-ruler of this land we call Equestria”.
Kor’El nodded his head in response to Celestia’s bow.
“This planet would definitely make a fine edition to the Greater Good”, stated the ethereal.
“The Greater Good?” asked Celestia a little confused with his statement, “What’s that?”
“The Greater Good is our main principle in life,” answered Kor’El, “We use it to bring peace and order to our society. Seeing as you are to ruler of this place then I would have to ask you if your citizens are willing to join the Greater Good”.
“Mmmm... what benefits do we get if we join this Greater Good?” wondered Celestia.
“Well if you do decide to join the Greater Good then your species will gain many new things,” replied the ethereal, “We can give you new technology and intelligence. We can even give space travel so that you can trade with other planets”.
“What do you want if we do join?” asked Celestia.
“The only things that we want is peace between our races and to set up a few colonies on your planet”, aid Kor’El.
“Let me have some time to think about it. I will have to talk to my sister about this proposal of yours,” said Celestia, “And I first have to deal with what has happen here earlier”.
“We could help you with that. We know what did this to this village,” offered Kor’El. He pointed the the creature that Celestia had killed earlier, “They are a warband of Chaos Space Marines called the Sons of Midnight, they worship the four gods of chaos and bring death and destruction to those who oppose the dark gods. They are enemies of the Tau and the Greater good, so we could help you to get rid of them”.
“I would be most grateful if you could help me dispose of them,” said Celestia, “I will need to go and inform my sister of what has transpired here”.
“As you wish,” said Kor’El with a small nod of his head, “We are also heading behind schedule too. Our ship was supposed to be at our base that we set up in one of your forests by now”.
“Which forest?” asked Celestia getting slightly angered with the idea that more off worlders have made their home in her kingdom.
“In a forest that is about four hundred and fifty kilometers north-northwest from here. It is at the location of some abandoned stone structure”, replied Kor’El.
Celestia knew of the structure he was talking about, well it was one of the only stone structures left in Equestria, everything was either made of wood or steel now days. She also knew the dangers that were lurking in that dark forest but this didn’t really concern her, from what she has seen these beings can easily defend themselves. At least they were in an isolated spot where the chances of stumbling onto another pony was very unlikely.
“Well, I must get going,” said Celestia, “I will let you keep the base for now. I will leave my guards to help you if needed”.
“I will see you later later than,” said the ethereal, “Hopefully you have made your decision about joining the Greater Good”.
Celestia turned her attention away from Kor’El and to her guards, The alicorn only spoke with her guards for about half a minute. Just after she finished her horn started to glow a golden light. The sudden action caused most of the fire warriors surrounding the group of ponies to point their rail rifles at her but she vanished entirely before any of them had the chance to pull the trigger.
“What did she just do?” asked Kor’El to one of the pegasus guards with a very confused look.
“Our Princess just teleported away. Can’t you lot teleport where you are from?” replied the dark red pegasus, “Well enough of that. I think that we should get going. Our Princess has ordered us to to accompany you to your base”.
Kor’El didn’t like the idea of allowing these ponies into their base but it was probably something that he would have to do in order to gain the trust of this new race. He gestured to the guards that they could board the Manta. The guards nervously bordered to craft, all of them were wondering how this thing could fly with fixed wings. The area that they had just walked into was roomy, despite the three oversized crates sitting inside the flying round box with wings.
They carefully followed the blue off-worlder up to an area just above the one with the crates. In front of them were four rows of seats designed for bipedal creatures. The guards just stood there and watched as the off-worlders took a seat and strapped themselves in. Seeing the aliens waiting on them to take a seat, guards carefully took a seat.
“How the fuck do these creatures sit like this,” said the dark red pegasus to himself while trying to adjust into a more comfortable position, “This is really starting to make my flank sore”
Once all the guards got into their uncomfortable seating positions the Manta’s engines started up again. Slowly the ship lifted off the ground and headed for the Tau base.
++++++
Celestia appeared in the middle of her throne room. She called for one of her castle staff, who quickly ran in through the doors to her throne room, stumbling as he entered.
The dark green unicorn bowed in front of Celestia, “Yes, Princess”.
“Where is my sister?” asked Celestia.
“She left the castle about a half-hour ago,” answered the unicorn, “She received a message from Shining Armour and left immediately”.
“Thank you. You may go now”, said Celestia.
The unicorn gave a bow to the princess before turning to leave. Once the unicorn left the room, Celestia’s horn started to glow again with another teleportation spell. There was a bright flash as the Princess’ body disappeared into nothingness.
Celestia re-appeared in the center of Angrus’ base, her sudden appearance and bright flash caused some of the guardsmen to aim their lasguns at her. They quickly lowered them when they realised who they were pointing their weapons at. The first thing she heard was her own sister yelling at Angrus in one of the many tents.
The two were interrupted from their arguement when the princess of the sun barged in. She noticed the dead guardsmen and the bandage over Rainbows nose.
“What in tartarus is going on here?” yelled Celestia while directing an angered stare towards Angrus.
++++++
Author's Note
It took me 15 god dam tries to get the conversation between Celestia and Kor'El to work.
I just realized that this story is going to be long, 18000 words in and the Tau have just made contact with Celestia.
Prologue - Hyperion IV (Edited)
_____________________________________________________________________
Prologue – Hyperion IV (Edited)
Hyperion IV is an isolated mineral rich world just in the eastern expanses of the galaxy but for the past 34 years, Hyperion IV has become a hell hole with the never ending battle between the Imperial Guard and the Tau Empire. Recently the Tau and the Guard have put aside their differences to fight more deadly threats, the chaos forces of the Sons of Midnight and the Hive Fleet Gorgon.
Hyperion IV’s surface has become an apocalyptic wasteland with the non stop bombardment of ordnance weapons, orbital bombardments from the ships above and the falling debris of destroyed vessels. Already the casualty rate has become more than a million a week from all four armies.
On Hyperion’s surface everyone was quickly running out of ammo and soldiers because all their drop ships were being quickly shot down by a hail of anti-air and ordnance fire. The fleets of the Tau and the Guard above Hyperion IV aren't faring much better, the combined fleets were barely holding up to the non stop assault of Tyranid bio-ships and Chaos battle barges.
As the war goes on the combined forces of the Tau and Guard losing the battle, but being despite in the middle of the hammer of Hive Fleet Gorgon and the anvil of the Sons of Midnight; both the Tau and Guard knew that there is no hope of survival.
++++++
Currently above the Hyperion IV there is a massive space battle between all four armies, the Guard and Tau desperately trying to stop the invaders from reinforcing their ground forces while the Tyranids and Chaos were just destroying any ship that wasn't theirs.
On board the command deck of the Imperial Oberon-classed Battleship called The Righteous Vengeance stood a tall slender man in a long black coat covered in imperial symbols and badges in the middle of the deck. Around the room there were twenty or so officers of varying ranks all looking at different holo-screens calling out targets, damage reports, and a few other things.
“Captain Angrus, Sir”, said one of the officers while walking up to the tall man.
“Report”, replied the captain in low booming voice.
“We have gotten response back from command and that they are sending us re-enforcements and 6 companies of Legion Astartes from the Ultramarines as well as Salamanders Chapters, but...”, there was a short pause and a sigh from the officer before he continued, ”they won’t be here for another 2 months”.
“Fuck!”, Captain Angrus shouted to no one in particular, “We’re not going to last that long”.
Before the captain could continue, another one of the officers shouted out, “Tyranid Hive Ship, collision
“Fire all port side batteries, destroy that Hive Ship before it tears us apart”, ordered Captain Angrus.
The Righteous Vengeance started firing all port side cannons at the incoming living ship, dismembering some of the many long tentacles spawning out the front of the creature. Without any success in killing the creature the cannons provided to piss it off and make it more eager to wrap its eager tentacles around The Righteous Vengeance and rip it apart piece by piece.
“30 seconds to impact”, said one of the officers.
“By Throne, this is the end”, Said Angrus.
But just before the Hive Ship reached The Righteous Vengeance three massive beams of light hit the Hive Ship one after another, the first two causing sizable holes in the centre and the third beam went right through its head causing it brain to explode out the other side, killing it instantly.
Trying to find where the beams came from; Angrus looked out his holo-screen displaying all the ships that are currently around The Righteous Vengeance. Zooming in on a Tau ship and bringing its details. ‘Why did we have to get saved by filthy Xenos’ Angrus.' thought to himself, he could put up with having to work with them, he knew it was the only hope they all had to defeat the Sons of Midnight and Hive Fleet Gorgon, but being saved by one just make him feel sick, ‘If I survive this,
The holo-screen started to bring up the details of the Tau vessel.
+Tau Or'es El'leath (Custodian)-class Carrier
+Vessel Name : Shas’Kai
+Commander : Kor’El
+Primary Weapons :
+Secondary Weapons
+Current Transport Status : Full
Angrus closed window of the ships details and replaced it with a communications link to the Shas’Kai. When he got a reply there was a skinny blue alien wearing a red commander outfit, the aliens face looked like someone had merged the genes of a human and a fish together. The sight of the Tau commander at first made two thoughts go into Angrus’ head, ‘why in the emperor’s name are working with filthy Xenos instead of blowing them out of the sky with the entire Emperor’s wrath’, and the second one being ‘what the fuck happened to his face?’ He only thought of the second one because he actually had never seen a Tau without a mask on before. The first time he saw an actual Tau was only a couple of years ago, just before the Sons of Midnight and Hive Fleet Grogan arrived, when his ship was transferred to this sector by the Departmento Munitorium as re-enforcements.
“Greetings Captain Angrus”, said the Tau Commander in a weird kind of robotic sounding voice.
“Greetings Xenos, thanks for the save, but next time don’t try and save us again” said Angrus.
“Very well then, we will sit back here then and let you lot do all the fighting”, said Kor’El, just before cutting the link.
Kor’El was a very respected amongst the Tau, he had brought several victories to the Tau during the Damolcles Crusade a few years before Hyperion IV, but he also hated the idea of working with aliens unless they had joined the Greater Good.
++++++
As the day turned to night on the broken planet all sides were sustaining heavy losses and by now most of the ships could hardly move more than 100 meters before running into the debris of some destroyed ship. The Righteous Vengeance and the Shas’Kai both have suffered some damages but both were still fully operational and were currently severely outnumbered. The Righteous Vengeance and the Shas’Kai were trying all their best to stay alive against the increasing despite odds.
Angrus stood in the middle of the command deck barking out orders to the other offices.
“Fire Forward cannons at The Nighthunter. I want the chaos flagship dead”, barked Angrus.
“Yes sir”, said several of the officers in unison.
When The Righteous Vengeance finished locking on to The Nighthunter, the ship started charging up its forward cannons but before they could fire something unexpected happened. The Righteous Vengeance shook violently as a deafening explosion coming from the starboard side, causing Angrus plus everyone on the ship was flung onto the floor.
“Damage Report”, ordered Angrus just after getting up from spending the last 5 seconds with his face on the floor.
“Engines 5,6,7 and 9 are destroyed, engines 1,3 and 8 severely damaged”, replied one of the officers, “Also levels 6 through to 19 are gone on the starboard side plus all starboard batteries are spaced and shields are at 12 percent." the officer paused. "What hit us sir?”
“I don’t kn-”, Angrus started but before he could finish the command deck started flashing red as hazard lights started going off. A mechanical voice started saying, “Warning. Warp Drive Reactor breach reaching critical levels”.
Without hesitation Captain Angrus barked out a new order, “Commence Primary Code Destra on the chaos command ship. May the Emperor protect us.”.
“Yes Sir”, replied a female officer, “May I say it has been an honor serving under your command."
“As has it has been an honor to command such loyal crewmen.” replied Angrus, “Thank you, Lieutenant Astrine”.
Everyone on the command deck knew the severity of the breached Warp Drive and what Primary Code Destra meant. It meant that The Righteous Vengeance was doomed and the only way to go out in true untainted honor was to use what was remaining of the ship as a giant missile.
“Collision course set, setting all remaining engines to full power, using forward batteries to clear debris”, said Lieutenant Astrine.
As The Righteous Vengeance was halfway to its impact, the chaos crewmen started firing all canons at The Righteous Vengeance but doing nothing to deviate the rampaging ship from its collision course. As the prow of was about to make contact, Angrus ordered the ship to fire the forward batteries at point blank range, blowing a hole straight through the other side and blowing apart a small chunk out of the front end of The Righteous Vengeance. A few seconds later the hole was filled with the front of The Righteous Vengeance and stopping with a loud metallic thud and crumpling of metal.
Unable to hold the high amount of energy for any longer and the damaged Warp Drive imploded into a small rip in space and time, sucking in the two vessels into the terrors of the Warp. The two ships weren't enough for the hungry warp rip, it wanted more, suddenly most of the ships in that battle were moving slowly but gaining more and more speed the closer they got to the warp rip. One by one, the Shas’Kai and most of the ships in the battle were sucked into the unknowns of the warp. The Warp Rift now satisfied with its meal started to close behind them, trapping them with the daemons of the warp.
Hi fellow bronies
This story will be paused for a little while. I am going to get people to help me get better descriptions and other stuff into my story. Also get more proofreaders. When I post Chapter 6, I will also re-post all the other chapters with all the stuff that gets edited. I don't know how long this will all take but I will get there in the end. If any of you would like to help me with this please PM me, Thx.
I will be back
For The Greater Good
CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!
