Iron Hearts: Book 5 - Suffer Not the Alien to Live

by SFaccountant

Breaking Point

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 6

Breaking Point

****

Ork horde - 2.3 kilometers from Ponyville

"Awrite, boyz! We'z got ordahs!" boomed a Nob as he stood atop an idling Battlewagon, his shoota firing wildly into the air. Rain pounded the Ork's body from above, while behind the mighty warrior the form of the Great Gargant loomed high above.

A mighty whip of lightning struck the enormous war machine, and the Nob paused to let the booming thunder cease. Far from doing any actual damage to the super-heavy walker, the arcs of boiling plasma simply lashed around the Gargant's massive eyes, giving it the appearance of a huge, metal God.

"We'ze gonna git togeddah wit Hikkut's boyz! He's puttin' da Grot-bommas and Supa-kannons ta work on braykin' da spikies! If any o'da humies try an bust 'em, we'z gonna stomp 'em flat!"

Despite the heroic imagery he presented, the Orks promptly lost enthusiasm for the battle when they heard their main task was going to be guard duty.

"Oi, why ain't we fightin'?" demanded one Slugga Boy, waving his choppa angrily.

"Yeah! We'z got da Great Gargant, don' we? Let's 'ead to da REEL fight!"

The Nob took a deep breath. "SHUT IT, YA DUMM GITZ!!" he roared. A fortunately-timed blast of lightning struck behind him, and the lesser Orks flinched back.

"My ordahs're strayt from Boss Redclawz 'imself! He wants da Great Gargant ta stay bakk 'til dey need it! An' he wants YOU idjits ta garrd da dakka! Ya gotta probem wif dat, ya can tayk it up wif me choppa!"

The other greenskins grumbled in irritation, but none offered further protest.

"Gud! Any kwesjuns?" the Nob shouted.

One particularly brave - or perhaps just disgruntled - boy raised his hand. "Can we 'ave sumfin to keep off da rayn? It'z cold owt heah."

The Nob just laughed. "Wot? You'z boddahed by a liddel rayn? Is you an Ork, or a Grot?" He hammered a fist against his chest. "You'z an Ork, ain'cha? Den deel wif it! A liddel stohm nevah kill nobody!"

As if in direct response to the claim, a patch of storm clouds above suddenly split apart as the blanket of gray was pierced from the sky.

A lance of black lightning plunged into the Battlewagon, and the vehicle instantly buckled into the mud before it detonated horrifically. Flame, shrapnel, and bits of the contemptuous Nob battered the stunned aliens in the first few moments after impact. After a few tense, confusing seconds had passed, the warriors shifted and pushed closer to see what had happened.

As the crowd of Orks watched, a pair of large, black wings spread from the smoking crater.

"THY END HATH COME, ALIEN," Luna boomed in the Royal Canterlot voice as she reared up, her horn casing sparking crimson, "THE GREEN TIDE SHALT BREAK UPON-"

And then Luna learned what it felt like to be hit by one hundred bullets in three seconds.

The Princess of the Night yelped and staggered. Her entire body was shaking violently from the impacts all around her, and her legs slipped out from under her before she could do anything about it. She hit the ground on her side, and her eyes widened as damage alerts started to flash over her visor.

"Barrier!" she shouted desperately, her ears ringing while bullets continued hammering her armor. Abysmal Ork accuracy, it seemed, was not a great hindrance at very close range, and not when there were some two hundred soldiers firing upon a single target.

Luna reflected upon that crucial oversight as her shield dome snapped into place. This immediately brought a different kind of pain to bear when she felt the magic feedback of resisting such volume of fire, but at least Luna could see and think straight for a moment without being knocked around.

Climbing to her feet and shaking her head, the Dark Princess looked up to take stock of her main target, the Great Gargant.

As it turned out, her main target was aiming its huge arm cannon at her and her shimmering barrier barely five meters away.

"We humbly request a do-over," Luna said, her head ducking in embarrassment.

The explosion that resulted from the soopaguns' discharge knocked the nearest Ork soldiers off their feet, while the rest whooped and cheered at the sight of such intensity of destruction. A hot, dusty wave emanated from the center of the impact, which was now quite evidently devoid of any armored ponies.

****

Several tendrils of liquid darkness coalesced behind the Great Gargant as the Orks roared in laughter and glee, and in a flash of dim light, Luna reappeared again.

"... Aye. We much prefer this side of the foe," she mumbled before she raced forward toward the massive walker's back. Bullets immediately started whizzing by her from all directions again, but the intensity was much, much weaker than before. Still, she summoned a personal shield to protect her flanks as she leapt toward her target, well aware that her armor had suffered grievous abuse already.

Her greaves mag-locked against the surface of the Great Gargant's hull after she landed near its waist, and Luna began searching for anything that might allow for entry inside.

A sudden crackling noise in her helmet surprised her, however, and she saw a familiar vox link establish itself.

"Princesh, ish everything going all right out there? I'm sheeing shome very concerning readingsh from your armor readout."

"Aye! The strike is proceeding at speed!" Luna shouted while she clambered up the back of the Gargant. The Ork gunfire from below hadn't slackened at all, but was now being absorbed by the Great Gargant's own defense shielding before it could reach her damaged armor. "There was some small difficulty with our deployment, but it hath been overcome!"

A loud whirring noise came from above, and Luna's eyes narrowed when she saw a pair of machine guns covered in wires and haphazard sensors pop out of a concealed gun port. The Iron Gage lifted off from her shoulders and flew upward, palms flat, and then slapped together over one of the weapons, crushing it in a spray of sparks and metal scrap. The other gun started shooting, but its wild burst proved just as inaccurate as true Ork gunners.

"There should be a hatch near the bottom, and another accesh point in the center of the back," Solon advised, "whichever entrance you ushe, troopsh will flood into the Gargant from the bottom entry ramp to shtop you once you shtart to kill the crew."

The Iron Gage ripped the second gun from its mountings and flung it aside, allowing Luna a few moments to get her bearings without being shot at.

The respite proved short-lived; an Ork-sized hatch above her, identifiable by the big metal wheel attached on the outside, let out a squeal as it unlocked. Then the hatch flipped down, acting as a firing platform for the Ork who stepped out while toting a rokkit launcha.

Luna was genuinely surprised when the alien soldier aimed his weapon down at her, peering into a bent and dirty scope. Never mind that she was attached to the Orks' own war machine, but at this range the warrior could easily be caught in the explosion.

Both hands of the Iron Gage leapt upward before the Ork could fire, and Luna snorted in contempt as the dark gauntlets pried the rokkit launcha away from its owner.

"Such gross incompetence! We art relieving thee of thy weapon for thine own good!" the Princess declared. "Thou may hurt thyself!"

Then she blasted him with a magic bolt, sending the Ork hurtling to his death.

With the next obstacle overcome, Luna fed power to her wings and launched herself upward, locking onto the Gargant's hull again when she was right next to the open hatch.

"You can expect a deshperate and extremely claushtrophobic melee once you affect entry," Solon chimed in again over her vox, "if you have any witchcraft to aid your ashault, you'd besht deploy it now."

A deep shudder ran through the hull as the Great Gargant started moving again, and Luna spared a glance toward the ground. Orks were gathering in a thick crowd around the super-heavy walker, most of them pointing at her angrily or pouring small arms fire uselessly into the Gargant's defense shields.

Shaking her head, she recalled the Warsmith's advice and began drawing her magic to her.

She was still deciding on which spells to use when a power klaw reached out of the hatch, grabbed her by the leg, and then dragged the surprised pony into the Gargant.

Luna was smashed headlong into a bank of electric fuses, her body rattling around painfully in her armor. Then the fuse box started to spark dangerously, and she felt a howl of pain that was not her own bellow within her mind as her suit was electrocuted by a catastrophic discharge.

The Nob who had pulled her in chuckled heartily at seeing the dark equine thrash and squirm under the tendrils of energy. The lights illuminating the Gargant interior flickered, and dozens of other boyz crowded around to watch and wait for their own turn to strike.

Soon a loud BANG came from the fuse bank, and the lights went out entirely. The only illumination came from the rear hatch, casting a ray of light onto the Nob's back as smoke wafted through the maintenance bay interior.

"Princesh?" crackled the vox. "Ish everything all right?"

The light from the hatch was suddenly obscured when the Iron Gage flew inside through the opening and seized the Nob by the head.

"One attack is all thou gets," Luna hissed before her weapon crushed the Ork's skull to a sizzling pulp.

The other warriors surged forward, but as the dark alicorn stood up a whirlwind of liquid shadows swirled around her, slashing at the Orks and battering away their weapons.

Even so, more than one choppa forced its way through to hammer against Luna's armor, and the Princess of the Night felt the furious howls of her daemon plate echo louder and louder in her mind.

"WRETCHED CREATURES!! WE HAST HAD ENOUGH OF THEE!!" Luna boomed, rearing up in front of the mob. Almost instantly, the black tendrils swirling around her - practically invisible with the lights out - turned to a bright, bloody red before they started swirling faster and with greater intensity.

"Princesh?" mumbled Solon over the vox.

Luna's forehooves hit the floor with a tremendous crash, blasting the crowd of Orks back and smashing them into the other devices that filled this area. Metal cracked and folded, bones splintered, and sparks blasted from a dozen different machines that had to contend with the sudden impact of an Ork's face.

"PERISH, SAVAGES!!" Luna roared, her Canterlot voice almost bowling over the warriors climbing to their feet. "THOU THINKS TO DEFY US?! DARKNESS TAKE THEE!!"

"You shound like you're in the middle of shomething," Solon said as a shrieking howl filled the room, "I'll get back to you later."

The crimson energy that circled around Luna expanded, filling the entire room with the slashing tendrils of pure magical destruction. Orks were cut open and had limbs severed as they tried to fight back, but there was no escape or protection to be had against the pony's wrath.

Soon Luna added to the maelstrom of death with the Iron Gage, and the gauntlets crackled dangerously before crashing into the nearest warriors in wide, devastating swings. Some greenskins had their entire chest cavities smashed in, while others had the dubious fortune of merely being blown off their feet to be impaled on a hunk of torn metal or shredded by the strange red wind.

Luna herself surged forward when there were but three Orks left, and the magical energy that filled the maintenance bay seeped back to her before swirling around her horn. It speared an Ork boy through the abdomen as she charged, and the Princess flung the Ork into a wall with the merest toss of her head.

Another of the surviving warriors jumped at her with his choppa, but he was intercepted in mid-leap by the Iron Gage, which shoved him head-first into a damaged monitor.

The last Ork limped for the door, hoping that the others would divert the pony's attention long enough for him to open the hatch to the Gargant's left shoulder section.

He had just grabbed onto the wheel that would unseal the door when an energy beam punched through his back, vaporizing most of his body and partially melting down the lock mechanism.

Luna huffed deeply as her head twisted back and forth. The Iron Gage gently smoldered as its power fields cooked away the Ork viscera that coated the plating. The deep, ethereal howling of the daemon armor weakened to a gentle growl.

With no more enemies in sight, the dark alicorn released a long, shuddering sigh. That had been a great deal more vicious and draining than she had expected, and her body throbbed from the heavy impacts she had suffered so far.

"... Sho, ish now a better time? I'm sheeing your activity levelsh drop shubshtantially," asked Solon over the vox.

Luna raised her head immediately, adopting a stance of dignified indifference even though there was no one around to impress. "We hast forced entry into the enemy war machine!" she proclaimed. "We shalt now find the heart of this device and crush it!"

"Wonderful! The main reactor core ish further below. You may accesh it through either shoulder shectionsh, which should drop into a munitorum deck, and-"

Luna snapped her head around as she heard the squeal of heavy gears moving. Another hatch was opening, no doubt to admit a new wave of enemies.

Quickly running through her spells, Luna summoned a bolt of freezing cold and launched it at the door, covering it in a sheath of ice that completely sealed the locking mechanism in place.

The Lunar Princess nodded approvingly as angry banging noises started coming from the other side of the hatch, but then considered her situation. Now the passages to both shoulder sections were sealed, while the only other exit was the hatch that led outside. She could breach the sealed hatches easily enough if she wanted, but at this point she rather wished to avoid slugging her way through every half-wit alien on her way to the reactor. Besides, if she recalled Solon's earlier words correctly, the crew trying to get rid of her would be constantly reinforced by the massed infantry outside. Surely there was a better way.

"Warsmith," Luna began, "thou believes the reactor room is below? Where, exactly?"

"Right under you. Why?"

The Iron Gage stabbed into the floor fingers-first, splitting apart the seams between the floor plating as the power fields ate away at the metal. "We art making our own passage!"

The floor plates shrieked as they tore away, and strings of bolts popped loose and rolled away.

The Iron Gage tossed aside the heavy paneling, revealing a grid of bulkhead supports and several very surprised Meks.

"Now, remember Princesh: when you reach the core, be careful not to damage it outright," Solon warned.

Luna fired both hands of the Iron Gage down into the reactor room, ripping through the supports still in her way and vaporizing one of the Ork technicians. The beams cut deep, smoldering grooves into the floor below, and Luna wasted no time in dropping down into the smoke.

"Ork power generatorsh are highly unshtable, sho you'll need to turn the reactor off before deshtroying it."

The Iron Gage grabbed a Mek around the throat and slammed him into the reactor core. The crackling fist hammered the alien straight through the outer housing, splitting it open, and an enormous blast of steam poured into the room from the breach.

Another Mek raced for a control panel, but Luna struck him in the back with a bolt of dark lightning. The Ork was slain in an instant, but the lash of black magic ripped through the panel and the adjacent coolant tower, setting both machines aflame.

"Ah... Princesh?" Solon asked over the vox again. "I'm getting shome very dubioush readingsh from your vishor uplink. Ish shomething wrong?"

"Nay!" Luna declared as she stamped on a grot helper. "We art proceeding without difficulty!" Another two grots died in a magical fireburst, adding another blaze to the room.

"That was the last of them, for now!" the alicorn declared, standing in the middle of a ring of fire, scalding steam, and frenzied electric discharges. "Our apologies, Warsmith! We were in the midst of battle as thou spoke! What did thou wish of us?" A loud banging noise came from the reactor core as several valves broke open, but Luna gave her full attention to her commander.

She heard a sigh. "Shieldsh up, Princesh."

Luna didn't hesitate to raise her barrier, and the Iron Gage floated in front of her defensively even as she glanced around in confusion. "We do not understand. There art no foes left in-"

****

Ponyville

"WOW. Now THAT'S an explosion," whistled an earth pony guard. The light flare from the distant detonation - whatever it was, exactly - was so intense that it was fully visible despite the distance and the storm. The shining fireball persisted for several seconds, and then the light was finally swallowed by the rain.

The pony was one of a pair who were hooked up to a cart to ferry ammunition supplies to the main defense lines. Both had paused while crossing the bridge that went over the river, briefly distracted.

"You think that's a good sign?" asked the second pony nervously.

"Of course it was! Any explosions happening that far away are taking place among the greens, right? We are OWNING this!" her partner said confidently.

The other pony was about to reply, but she suddenly caught sight of something strange in the river. She didn't recall any reeds growing in this part of the river, but there were several thick ones standing up out of the water. They even seemed to be slowly moving, and didn't match the pace of the river's flow.

"Hey, you coming? Those heavy stubbers aren't going to reload themselves," the other pony said as he stepped off the bridge.

"Right. Yeah," the mare mumbled, putting the incident out of her mind. It was probably nothing. She had a job to do.

****

Valkyrie Gunship Delta Primarus

"This is General Gnoss to all units," the vox caster boomed suddenly, "we have a confirmed kill on a Great Gargant!"

"ALL RIGHT!!" Rainbow Dash shouted, rearing up and throwing one leg forward in a punch.

"Way ta go, Princess!" Applejack cheered, stomping a boot on the floor in celebration.

"Not bad," Tellis admitted.

Twilight released a heavy, relieved sigh.

Big Macintosh smiled quietly.

"Ah, one other thing," the vox continued, "if any units in any other attack groups see a smoldering black mass hit the ground nearby, flag it for retrieval. The Warsmith estimates a sixty percent chance that the Princess survived the explosion, but either way her body should be mostly intact."

"EeWHAT?!" Big Mac exclaimed, snapping his head up.

The other ponies in the passenger compartment probably would have been shocked by his unusually vocal surprise, but were themselves stunned by the announcement.

"What a way to go, though," Tellis mused, "blown up while taking down a Gargant. Bad-ASS."

"Well, hold on. He said there was a sixty percent chance she survived, right?" Rainbow Dash asked anxiously. "So that's... you know, pretty good, right?"

Twilight didn't really know what to tell her, but was anyway distracted as their transport started to shake violently.

"We have incoming enemy fire!" the pilot shouted over the internal vox. "Hang on! We've reached the engagement zone!"

****

The 38th Company's aerial attack force poured into the side of the Ork army, spearheaded by the pirates' Hellblade fighters. The strike craft picked out the light vehicles for their attacks, their reaper autocannons punching through the poorly armored Wartrakks and Big Trakks. The fighters also took the majority of the retaliatory fire, dodging around the Orks' furious response as the aliens came to grips with this unexpected assault.

Flakk tore through the sky, knocking the lightly armored aircraft aside before rokkits spiraled through the air by the dozen. A few Hellblades fell into blazing death spirals from the response, but most of the fighters peeled away from the Ork horde as the next wave of attackers swooped down below the storm clouds.

Tau Sunshark bombers veered for the infantry mobs, letting loose their pulse bombs into the heaviest concentrations. Entire units were gutted in an instant by the crackling discharges, mostly while the Orks were still trying to gun down the Chaos fighters.

Along with the bombers came the gunships, strafing the heaviest targets with lascannons and missiles. The Flakkatrukks that had shredded the other aircraft with their salvos were picked out and cut apart, and soon the Orks' most effective anti-air weapons were smoking hulks of wreckage.

Throughout the unexpected assault, towering over the Orks shooting and dying on the ground, stood the Mega Gargant. Surrounded by carnage and flame yet untouched by it, the massive walker had been completely ignored by the assailants as it lumbered about to face the waves of attackers.

As soon as a wing of Tau bombers passed in front of the behemoth, its numerous belly guns fired, and the very ground shook from the might of the salvo. Two of the aircraft were sent to the ground in flames, digging long, scorched trenches into the ground. The Mega Gargant's eyes glowed brightly for a few seconds, and then another Sunshark vanished in a flash of fire and steam, almost vaporized on the spot.

****

"Come on! We need more clearance to deploy! I can't dump the strike team into that mess down there!"

"I just lost half my bomber wing! We can't afford another run in front of the Gargant!"

"And if we don't get this mission going, you'll lose the other half, too! Make another run on the infantry mobs, you xeno cowards!"

"This is Delta-Three, we've sustained heavy damage! We are withdrawing from the mission area!"

"Crine Wing, we have Deffcoptas coming in at eight o'clock! Clean them off!"

"Aft engine is gone! We're going down!"

Twilight cringed at the furious exchange of vox traffic booming within her helmet, indicating the progress of the battle around them.

For the rest of the ponies, as well as Tellis, the only indications of how the battle was faring was the intermittent shaking of the passenger bay, as none of them were linked to the squadron comms feeds.

"Hey, uh, Ah don't mean t'be a nervous nellie, but shouldn't we have landed by now?" Applejack asked as she chewed her lip.

Something impacted the side of the Valkyrie, suddenly pitching the entire vehicle to one side. Rainbow Dash slammed visor-first into the wall, while Rarity yelped and wrapped her legs around her bench.

"What's going on?!" the unicorn asked desperately as sparks showered over her from above.

The internal vox crackled briefly. "We're still airborne, but that was too close! We're scrubbing the mission! Repeat, we are aborting mission!"

Twilight's eyes bulged. "What? No! You can't! If the Mega Gargant reaches Ponyville it will tear the entire town apart!"

"And if I try to drop you at its feet right now, you won't fare any better!" the pilot snapped back. "Resistance is just too heavy!"

Tellis snorted and moved over to the rear of the passenger bay. "Whatever. We'll just fly there."

The Raptor Lord grabbed the manual override lever next to the access ramp and wrenched it to the side. The passenger bay depressurized almost instantly, and the ponies all braced and mag-locked themselves before the access ramp dropped open.

This afforded them their first good look at what was happening outside, and the equines winced. The ground below seemed to be a veritable carpet of green flesh and muzzle flares, and rokkits cut through the rainfall in clusters of four or five at a time, leaving long, twisted trails of smoke in the air.

Tellis hammered a hand onto the bulkhead next to him. "Hey, pilot! Don't fly off just yet! We're getting off here!"

"What?" the vox replied in confusion.

"Hey, Telly, you forget that some of us can't fly?" Applejack asked wryly. "Unless y'all wanna carry us..."

"I call Rarity!" Rainbow Dash said quickly, not wanting to be responsible for lifting either of the Apple siblings.

"No way! I'm taking the bombs!" Tellis declared as he stepped up next to Big Mac. "You guys can chicken out with the pilot!"

Big Macintosh took a cautious step back, glancing at Twilight for permission to give up his cargo.

"Okay, wait! I have an idea!" Twilight shouted.

Another projectile struck the Valkyrie in the side, and the gunship again shook violently as the outer armor tore.

"Whatever you're doing, do it QUICK! Those Lootas are tearing us apart, here!" Another gunship plummeted to the ground in full view of the passenger bay, punctuating his plea with a blazing crash.

"Okay, I can teleport us onto the Gargant's body!" Twilight shouted as sweat started dripping down the sides of her head. "Pilot! Face directly away from the Gargant and hold steady! Just for a few seconds!"

"If you want us steady, perhaps you'd like to ask the greenskins to stop shooting at us?!"

"That is a direct order!" Twilight snapped, her horn flashing. "Turn this gunship around or Celestia help me I will MAGICALLY HURL the whole thing into the target instead!"

A frustrated growl came from the internal vox as the transport banked.

"Is it too late to vote for being magically hurled at the Gargant?" Tellis asked as the vehicle swung around. "That actually sounds pretty boss."

"Quiet!" Twilight shouted as the side of the Mega Gargant came into view. Data started pouring across her visor as it measured the distance to target, and her breaths grew short while she began making calculations in her head.

A stream of bullets poured into the passenger bay interior and stitched across the ceiling, ripping off one of the storage compartments and bouncing it off of Big Mac's helmet.

"Uh, Twilight?" Applejack said nervously as she stared out of the passenger bay. A rokkit flew past the opening close enough for its engine to scorch the edge of the embarkation ramp.

"QUIET! Just a few more seconds!" Twilight insisted as her horn pulsed.

Rainbow Dash gulped as she watched the Mega Gargant turn its head to face them, its giant eyes glowing ominously and sparking with energy. "Twilight! Seriously!"

"Almost..." the alicorn hissed, expanding the magical energy to cover the others in the passenger bay.

But her magic faltered as it tried to seize the sixth member of their group, slipping away as if she was trying to grip something soaked in oil. She tried again, her teeth clenching hard enough to hurt.

"TWILIGHT!!" Rarity screamed as the Gaze of Mork fired.

The stream of burning red energy slashed across the left wing of the Valkyrie, shearing it off and melting most of that side of the gunship. The transport immediately went into a spin before it dropped toward the ground.

The surrounding Orks cheered as the Valkyrie crashed in a flaming mess, carving a trench into the dirt before slamming into a wrecked Guntrukk. The last of the 38th Company's aerial assault units started gaining altitude as swiftly as possible, seeking the protection of the storm clouds from the remaining gunfire below. The brief skirmish was over, and though the raid had exacted a bloody toll, the Orks wasted no time mourning their losses.

The Mega Gargant lurched forward, its massive treads churning deep furrows through the mud. Within minutes, the survivors were on the march again, as eager as ever to see battle once more.

****

"Holy apples, that was close," Applejack gasped as she stared down at the flaming wrecks behind her.

On the back of the Mega Gargant, jutting up from its back and looming high over its head, was a narrow tower that vaguely resembled an antennae, but with a small metal shack on top. Twilight had no idea what that piece of the walker was for, as it had no apparent weapons; unlike, say, every other part of the war machine. However, it boasted a platform around the shack that was big enough to hold her and her friends, and it seemed to be out of the reach of all the Gargant's other weapons and massive limbs.

Rarity let out a shuddering sigh as she leaned against the small building. "Oh, but that poor pilot, though..."

"Pilot? PILOT?!" Rainbow snapped, startling the unicorn. "What about Tellis?!"

"What about... Tellis?" Applejack mumbled as she glanced around. Big Mac was behind her, and Twilight was lying in front of her, panting, but she saw no sign of the Iron Warrior.

Twilight pushed herself up even as she huffed desperately through her helmet grille. "I tried... I couldn't..." she gasped out, shaking her head. "I don't know why... my magic just wouldn't work on him." She hung her head. "I'm sorry, Dash..."

"So you left him behind?!" Rainbow growled. "What the hay, Twilight?! You could have at least said something!"

"I didn't realize it until the last moment," the alicorn said miserably, "it was either save us, or save no one."

A torrent of emotions surged through Rainbow's head at that claim. She even considered, however briefly, that Twilight may have left the Chaos Space Marine behind on purpose just so that she wouldn't have to deal with him.

Looking at Twilight now, though, with her helmet facing the floor in shame while rain pounded over her armor, Rainbow promptly discarded the accusation.

"... These green freaks are gonna pay for this," the pegasus hissed through clenched teeth as she bucked the side of the metal shack behind her.

"They will, Dash. They will," Applejack growled, looking around, "first things first, though: where are we, and where are we headed?"

Twilight tilted her head to the side to get a better look at the tower they were standing on. "... Judging by the energy distribution readings, I think this antennae generates the Mega Gargant's defensive barriers."

"Should we knock it out?" Rarity asked, glancing up at the small building next to them.

"No," Twilight said decisively, "damaging this part won't really stop it. Also, the Orks don't seem to realize that we're here yet. If we can get down to the cockpit without-"

The door to the structure behind them swung open, bumping to a stop against Big Mac.

A pair of Gretchin stared out at the armored ponies, their eyes wide and their pistols quivering in their hands.

Rainbow Dash was, naturally, the first to move, cracking a forehoof against the closest Grot and smashing its face in.

The other greenskin stumbled backward, tripping on a loose wire before he shrieked a warning. "Hosses! We gotz hosses on da sheeld dekk!" Its screaming was cut short when a flurry of shuriken ripped it apart.

"Wot? Hosses?" bellowed a voice from within the hut. The ponies groaned before an alarm klaxon started blaring a moment later.

"Nothing can ever be EASY with these savages, can it?" Rarity growled.

Applejack stomped forward into the shack. "Well, no point in leavin' 'em alive now. A fire in the shield deck sounds like a good start to takin' this thing apart, yeah?"

****

Ponyville - town square

Shining Armor wondered if it would breach some sort of human battlefield etiquette if he were to ask one of the ammo supply ponies for a glass of water. It probably didn't, but he was pretty leery of asking for their time. The ammo supplies were critical to fending off the Orks and the survival of everyone on the front line; he wasn't exactly in danger of dying of thirst.

Really, a parched throat was the only hazard he had endured so far for the sake of the defense. It felt almost surreal. On one side of him was the crack of rifle volleys and heavy weapons, along with the occasional detonation. On the other side, the rumble of artillery fire reverberated with almost perfect regularity.

And then there was Shining and his cabal of unicorns, sitting patiently in the middle of town and waiting for the fighting to end.

The only way he had to track the battle's progress was by the louder explosions and the numerous pinpricks of feedback pain from the barrier. Every time one of the heavier weapons started hammering the shield a dull ache would build in his head, near the base of his horn. Occasionally the Orks would hit the barrier in volley - probably by sheer chance - and the ache would briefly surge, causing many of the unicorns to grunt or grimace in discomfort.

The pain was brief, though, and entirely tolerable. The barrier held, and the unicorns showed no signs of faltering. And the Orks continued to charge uselessly into the barricades and die.

He was still pretty thirsty, though.

Shining Armor saw a pony galloping past the ritual circle who wasn't hitched up to a supply cart, and he opened his mouth to request a canteen.

"CONTACTS! We have enemies from the South side!" shouted the pony frantically as she raced by.

Shining Armor closed his mouth without saying anything. That sounded pretty important; he shouldn't stop her just so he could-

Wait.

"The SOUTH side?" asked Fleur de Lis, her eyes losing their ghastly white glow and flickering back to normal. "Aren't all the Orks attacking from the East?"

"All right, nopony panic," Shining said, his voice practically radiating authority and calm.

That authority and calm was severely challenged when gunfire suddenly came from the houses immediately behind him, followed by shouting and a few small grenade blasts.

"Wh-What are the Orks doing HERE? How did they get past the b-barrier?" stuttered a stallion before he started backing away from the ritual circle.

Shining Armor grit his teeth as he felt some of the cabal's magic fray and disconnect from his own. The difference was immediate: the pinpricks became needle jabs, and the impacts of rockets and cannon shells sent pulses of agony shooting through his skull.

"Ponies! Get it together!" Shining commanded, rearing up briefly. "If the barrier falls, then we're going to have a lot more Orks to deal with than a few-"

A shotgun report came from behind him, and then the world flipped upside-down.

Shining Armor was knocked clean off the iron platform, and he tumbled into the dirt as the unicorns started screaming. He rolled along the ground limply, a long streak of blood marking his path, until he finally came to rest in a twitching heap far outside the ritual circle.

His horn, which had pulsed constantly with magic for nearly five hours so far, finally went dim.

****

Ponyville - main defense line

Daniels reloaded his rifle as laser fire crackled all around him, his optics scanning the battlefield for a target worth his time and ammunition.

There weren't many. The killing grounds ahead of the barricades were thick with smoke, wreckage, and corpses, which mostly served as makeshift cover for the advancing mobs of boyz. Either wielding choppas and sluggas or the clumsy machine guns they simply called shootas, the infantry charges were each stopped and repulsed by torrents of laser and pulse rifle crossfire without needing support from the heavier weapons. Heavy bolters, stubbers, mortars, and the odd frag missile were used to hammer the aliens sheltering at the edge of the storm, keeping them from contributing to the battle in any useful way.

"Hey! Stop running into the mines, you little runts!" shouted the unicorn stallion next to him as a floating lasgun showered energy bolts onto a mob of Gretchin. "Those things are expensive! You're just wasting them!"

"Incoming bombs!" yelped the mare on the other side of him.

A pair of hefty explosives, each one "guided" by a cackling Grot, sailed out of the storm toward the defensive lines. They exploded against the purple barrier with little effect, although Daniels had to resist his ingrained reflex to drop his head below the barricades.

"Remind me to thank Captain Armor when all this is over!" Daniels shouted as he shot down the Ork slaver driving the Gretchin into the minefield.

"I know, right?" the unicorn laughed. "With the barrier up, the Orks don't stand a chance! It almost seems TOO easy!"

The huge wall of sparkling purple magic rippled, like a pond disturbed by a thrown pebble. Then it vanished completely.

Just as when the shield had been first put into place, the firefight was brought to a shuddering halt as both sides stopped to assess the new situation.

"...... FUCK," Daniels spat, perfectly summarizing the defenders' feelings about this new development.

A Kill Bursta tank, already leaking smoke from several devastating lascannon hits, fired its main cannon into the earthwork defenses, breaking the spontaneous cease-fire. The massive shell landed atop a Leman Russ's main turret, pulverizing the battle tank utterly before the Orks released a roaring cheer.

The defense lines lit up once again with volley fire, and Daniels put a rail through a Shoota Boy's chest as he decided that he couldn't be picky about his targets anymore.

"Did... Did I do that?" asked the unicorn next to him, sounding completely stunned. "Is this my fault?"

"Doubt it, mate! But you should probably keep any smug optimism to yourself from here on!" Daniels replied over the roar of gunfire.

"Don't worry!" the mare next to him declared as she fixed an energy pack into her lasgun to reload it. "We've still got our defenses! We can handle this! We can beat them!"

"You really think so?" the stallion murmured uncertainly.

"Yes! The Elements of Harmony will take care of the Gargants! You'll see!" she insisted. "And if they can take those down, then the greens have nothing that can get past us!"

"INCOMING HEAVIES!!" screamed a voice from one of the bunker battlements.

"WHAT KIND?!" demanded a voice back.

"ALL OF THEM!!"

Daniel took a moment to extend the range of his optics, peering into the obscuring rain covering the valley. Large, dark shapes were charging out of the storm in a single wave, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, stretching pretty much all the way across the breadth of the valley. Squiggoths, Battlewagons, and the profiles of a few Ork super-heavy tanks all rumbled toward the barricades at once in a titanic wave of screeching metal and rolling flesh.

Daniels turned his head to stare down at the mare next to him.

"I'm sorry," she sniffled, her ears pinning back beneath her helmet.

"Fire, fire, FIRE!!" howled the commanders above and around the barricades. Lascannons and autocannons and krak missiles lashed out desperately, boxing in the Squiggoths and Battlewagons and trying to cut them down at range. Two of the enormous beasts staggered to a halt and keeled over, while one Battlewagon broke down as the combination of impacts and mud finally proved too much for its tracks to handle. But there were still many more targets.

"Run! Back up! Behind the garrisons!" Daniels snapped as he bolted away from the defensive wall. The ponies didn't bother with silly questions such as whether the mercenary had any authority to order them to fall back. Not when the ground was starting to tremble from the Orks' charge. They were hardly the only ones; a great many of the humans abandoned the defensive walls to flee into town, well aware that their rifles wouldn't help stop the oncoming assault.

The sound of the advance became deafening as the attackers reached the main killing field in front of the defenders. The Orks that were valiantly keeping up their assault were smashed under foot and tread for their trouble, and the heaped piles of green corpses were ground to a paste before the charge pushed into the minefield.

The mines themselves proved little impediment to the Orks. The deffrollas mounted in front of the Battlewagons shook and bounced as the explosives blasted at them from below, leaving the heavy transports untouched. The Squiggoths roared in anger as the ground erupted painfully under their feet, but this only seemed to spur them on toward the bunkers and walls.

The addition of bolter and plasma gun fire to the defensive barrage felled another two Squiggoths, and a Skullhammer tank at the center of the charge ground to a halt as a concentrated barrage of battle cannons tore apart its treads.

Still, the charge pressed on, and the first of the Battlewagons smashed the barricade walls flat as it reached the defenses and rolled right over them.

The first line had been breached.

****

Mega Gargant

"Lite 'em up, boyz! Kill 'em kwik!"

"Oi! I can't see nuffin in alla dis rayn!"

"Stop whinin' and keep SHOOTIN'!"

Ork soldiers crowded up onto the Mega Gargant's shoulders as it advanced through the storm, their guns rattling ferociously and their tracer rounds cutting bright arcs through the gloom.

Rainbow Dash cut around the defenders, firing a spread of shuriken into their flanks before buzzing by the "face" of the Gargant.

Twilight circled around the other side, and her force harmonizer slashed an energy beam across the aliens that cut down three in an instant.

As his fellows staggered and died, the remaining Ork let out an enraged roar and pulled out a stikkbomb. He charged directly at Twilight as he pulled the pin out, looking as if he was actually going to try to bludgeon the pony with the grenade.

Rainbow came back around behind him, however, and her flight pack burned hotter before she slammed into the Ork's back, knocking him clean off the Gargant entirely. His stikkbomb clattered to the ground at Twilight's hooves, and was discarded with a brief pulse of telekinesis.

Twilight glanced up at the tower behind her. Big Macintosh was slowly climbing down to the shoulder level with his magnetic harpoon attached to the platform above, like a rappel line. Applejack and Rarity were both clinging to the stallion awkwardly as he descended, using the mag-locks on their boots.

A whirring noise diverted Twilight again, and she groaned when several automated machine guns popped up out of hidden turret hatches.

"Rainbow, a little help?" the alicorn asked as she fired the force harmonizer at the nearest one.

The armored pegasus wasted no time or breath (Twilight noticed that she had been much quieter since they lost Tellis), slamming into one of the guns and breaking its main actuators. Bouncing off, she landed in front of the auto-turret and hammered it with a back kick, tearing the gun off its mountings entirely.

A few of the turrets lasted long enough to open fire on the ponies, including one that apparently selected the three descending equines as the best target and cut through the pouring rain with a long, rattling burst.

"Yeek!" Rarity squealed as three bullets stitched across her back in a row, shaking her armor suit dangerously. Her plasma gun dropped off from her side a moment later, snapping up into a hovering position before the unicorn turned her head to look down.

"Stop that at ONCE, you thick-headed, unwashed ruff-never mind, it's a machine." Rarity sighed as she blasted the automated weapon with a plasma shot, having wasted all that indignant shouting. The turret let out an obnoxiously loud hiss as it vaporized, and a thick puff of steam blew outward from the surrounding rain superheated by the blast.

Big Mac glanced down to check how far up they still were, and then he pushed off from the shielding tower as he let his harpoon control the rest of their descent. His hooves hit the bulkhead with a mighty clang, and the mares attached to him grunted before letting go.

"Well, that was a trip. Now what?" Applejack asked aloud as she steadied herself on the extensive puddle that covered the top of the torso's hull. She kept her boots mag-locked whenever she wasn't moving, too. She didn't like the idea of crawling around on a huge, lumbering behemoth, like a fly on a cow. It reminded her of how easy it was for her to swat the insects flat.

Twilight twisted her force harmonizer, digging the humming energy blade deeper into a turret and tearing it apart. Then she ripped the weapon free in a spray of sparks.

"Is everypony okay?" she asked as she turned toward the others. Receiving a few mute nods (and proceeding before Rarity could think up a complaint), she pointed the thrumming purple blade of the harmonizer at the back of the Mega Gargant's head. "There's the cockpit. If we can take out the pilots, then we can disable the Gargant's movement and weapons and maybe even turn it on the Orks."

Rainbow Dash reared up and hammered her forelegs together. "NOW we're talking," she growled, "let's do this!"

"Be nice to get outta the rain fer a spell, at least," Applejack mused, pushing the water-logged rim of her hat away from her visor. She turned to Big Macintosh. "You wanna do the honors, Mac?"

The outer access point to the head was, obviously, heavily reinforced. It had a frame large enough to let a Terminator through and a seal thick enough to resist most of the weapons that such a warrior may carry. Partially to protect the Gargant controls from barrage fire from above, but also to protect them from this exact scenario, rare as it was. The head itself was as big as a Rhino APC, and from the back of the "head" there was no way to gauge what was inside.

Big Mac stepped up to the main hatch and pressed the side of his head against it. He could hear Orkish shouting within the cockpit, but such was the armoring on the door hatch that he couldn't make any of it out (and most of the time it was pretty hard to understand even when he could).

The stallion pulled back his head, and then tapped the two thick, heavy vault hinges.

"You need those loosened?" Twilight asked.

"Eeyup."

The alicorn lifted her head, and the force harmonizer rose above the hatch, angled down at the indicated points.

"All right. Applejack, after Mac takes down the hatch, you make a sweep with your heavy flamer and back off. We'll assess what we're dealing with in there and then decide on how to attack."

"Gotcha, Twi," the farmer said grimly, stepping up next to Big Mac as he turned away from the door.

Macintosh lifted his augmetic leg, and the actuator wheel releasing a low-pitched whine while it began to spin rapidly. Soon the hip joint started steaming as it boiled away the water dripping over it, and Big Mac nodded once again.

The force harmonizer crackled loudly and stabbed into the first of the massive hinges, carving apart the metal and then ripping itself free to tear into the next one.

Twilight sucked in a deep breath and magically pulled the blade free. "NOW!"

The hatch door blew off its shredded hinges as a power klaw crashed into it, slamming into Big Mac and bowling him over. Applejack reared back in surprise, and was treated to the sight of an Ork burna poking out of the cockpit at her.

This was rather the exact opposite of how things were supposed to be going, something that Applejack noted angrily as her armor was engulfed in flames and steam.

"Hey! Quit it! We're s'posed to be doin' this to YOU!" she screamed as she backed up.

Big Mac shoved the massive hatch door off of him with a snort and a heave, throwing it off the side of the Gargant. He was then treated to a faceful of bullets as some half-dozen Orks fired their shootas out of the cockpit.

"No, no, no!" Twilight chanted in a panic as the Apple siblings staggered away from the door, their armor straining against fire and steel. She and Rarity didn't have an angle to attack past the two earth ponies, so she quickly shifted the harmonizer to shield mode and dropped it between the Orks and her friends.

"Okay! New plan!" Twilight shouted frantically as the aliens hammered the barrier with their guns.

"Great! What is it?" Rarity asked with her power sword and plasma gun hovering over her at the ready.

"I don't know yet! Give me a minute!"

"We don't HAVE a minute!" Rainbow shouted. "Incoming!"

Twilight glanced behind her, and her fur paled several shades when she saw several rockets shooting up around the Mega Gargant, the noise of their ascent dampened by the storm. It wouldn't have mattered much to her if the Orks were attacking their own war machine to try to stop her, but these rockets were the sort that delivered soldiers into the enemy, not explosives.

Rainbow Dash managed to shoot down one of the incoming Stormboyz before they landed on the Gargant's shoulders, surrounding the ponies with nineteen more warriors firing their sluggas (uselessly) through the pounding rain.

"Th-There's too many!" Rarity shouted as her plasma gun sizzled, turning another pair of Orks into steaming corpses. She had to bring up her power sword a moment later, blocking a choppa from cutting into her neck.

"Keep it together, ponies!" Rainbow shouted, hovering above the melee while she tried to guide the attacking Orks away from the others. The Apple siblings were back in the fight now, but they were still badly outnumbered. "We can do this!"

A spray of bullets cut across her flank, momentarily distracting the pegasus. That moment was enough for her to see an Ork Warkopta approaching quickly through the storm. Its passengers already had their shootas sticking out of the passenger bay and searching for targets, but the aircraft definitely looked like it was aiming to land.

A choppa gouging out part of her leg plating brutally snapped her out of her observations. "Ow! Hey!"

Rainbow fired her impulse blaster, throwing the Stormboy and herself back. "Reinforcements! Twi, do something!"

"Like what?!" Twilight shouted, jumping up and kicking a Stormboy in the face before a slugga round pitched her head to the side. "Gugh! Seriously, I'm open to suggestions!"

"How about BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD?!"

Rainbow's eyes widened.

The melee briefly ground to a halt when an ear-rending screech cut through the sound of pouring rain, followed by the blast of a daemon-powered flight pack.

Tellis crashed into the side of the Warkopta like a living missile, knocking it off of its intended flight path. The transport pitched toward the Mega Gargant's shield tower, and the rotor blades broke apart as they struck the reinforced antennae.

Tellis hung onto the Warkopta just long enough to stab two passengers in the face, and then leapt off before the aircraft began its out-of-control death spiral. The Warkopta hit the surface of the Gargant's shoulder and skidded across its rain-slicked surface before sliding off the edge, taking several Stormboyz with it back to the ground below.

"I'M HERE TO KICK ASS AND STAB FACES!!" Tellis screeched as he landed a flying kick onto another Ork. "AND I'M ALL OUT OF... no, wait." He slashed open another Stormboy's chest, and then deflected a choppa strike from the side. "Damn it, I screwed that one up. Oh, whatever." The Raptor Lord disarmed the Ork that had tried to bludgeon him by cutting off his arm. Then he twisted his head to look at Twilight. "Hey, Princess Dork! Your powers suck!"

"Yeah, sorry about that!" Twilight hovered over a struggling Ork as the force harmonizer buried itself in his chest. A choppa strike from the back knocked her onto the floor again, but before the Stormboy behind her could capitalize on the advantage he found himself seized around the throat by adamantium fingers.

"Yeah, so it looks like you guys have been busy," Tellis said conversationally before he threw the Ork onto the bulkhead plating below, "what'd I miss?" He raised his leg and then stomped the Ork's head into a gory mulch.

"Oh, this n'that," Applejack grunted as she bucked a Burna Boy in the chest, shattering his rib cage. "Lucky ya showed up when ya did! Few more minutes and we'd be fresh out of Orks fer ya to kill!"

"HA!" Tellis launched forward to plunge his claws into another greenskin, and then threw the wounded alien at another Stormboy chasing after Rarity. Both warriors were sent flailing off the edge of the Gargant's shoulder, allowing the unicorn a moment to shift back into the normal flow of time and catch her breath.

"Annnnd that's combat," Tellis said before he clashed his claws against each other, generating long showers of red sparks that sizzled in the rain.

Suddenly his face was full of metal as something flew into his head and wrapped around his neck.

"TELLIS!! You're okay!" Rainbow Dash gasped out, her voice hitching as she tried to keep from bawling. "I... I thought you... you were..."

"Hey, knock it off," the Iron Warrior said, rapping the knuckles of his gauntlet against Dash's helmet, "Khorne would never forgive me if I died in something as lame as a transport wreck, and I don't think you would, either. Now stop crying like a mare, you big wuss."

Twilight blinked. "But... she IS a-"

Rarity placed a boot on her shoulder plate, stopping the Princess mid-sentence. "Let it go, darling. You'll spoil the moment."

In the end, however, it was the sound of a big shoota that spoiled the moment. A stream of bullets coming from the open cockpit of the Gargant sawed across the bulkhead floor, and the ponies yelped and scattered out of the line of fire.

"All right! Getting back to the previous obstacle!" Twilight said, summoning a reflective plane so that she could look into the cockpit hatch without eating any incoming bullets. "It looks like we've got another eight or so barricaded in there! I see some mega armor, too, so watch out!"

Applejack was looking over her brother as Twilight ruminated on their assault plan. Big Mac's neck plating had been cracked open at some point in the earlier struggle, and at least some of the blood washing off of his armor was his own.

"Look, ya just stay back from the fightin' and stay SANE, ya got me?" the orange mare demanded, tapping Mac's vox grille with her boot. "Ah don' want ya runnin' off all hopped up on space drugs 'round here!"

Big Mac started to nod reluctantly, but then his visor tilted up to look at something above Applejack's head.

"Hey! Look at me when Ah'm talkin' to-" Applejack paused suddenly when she felt something grab hold of her shoulder pads.

"Okay, I've got it!" Twilight shouted, trying to be heard over the sound of shoota fire. Not having any targets in their line of sight didn't discourage the Orks' fusillade one bit, it seemed. "Tellis, you have grenades, right? We'll start by-"

"HEY! Put me down, ya Iron galoot!"

The other ponies recoiled when they saw Tellis hugging Applejack against his chest plate, holding her up by her shoulder pads. The apple farmer flailed her boots and thrashed her tail, but she was clearly just as surprised and confused as anypony.

"I dub this tactic: Apple Shield!" Tellis declared before his flight pack spread narrowly behind him.

Then he charged into the cockpit of the Mega Gargant, holding the screaming, heavily armored pony in front of him like a battering ram.

Rainbow Dash barely managed to suppress a sniffle as a tear leaked from her eye. "I missed him so much..."

Bullets rained against the flailing pony as Tellis charged directly into the line of fire, and another Burna Boy managed to unleash a burst of flame before the Chaos Marine sprinted past him.

Tellis slammed Applejack into the mega-armored Big Mek in the middle of the formation, knocking him back into a control panel. Then he immediately jumped onto the Burna Boy, claws raking for the alien's throat.

The other ponies, stunned and dismayed as they were - except Rainbow Dash, anyway - rushed in behind the Chaos Marine to back up the Raptor. Twilight's harmonizer blade cut through barricades and Ork flesh alike, while Rarity's power sword made long, sweeping slashes over the metal tables and piping the enemies were sheltering behind. Big Mac displayed no such discretion, plowing directly into one such table and knocking over the Orks behind it. Rainbow Dash swooped in over him, barreling headlong into another Mek that was trying to get Applejack off of the group leader.

As for the apple farmer herself, she found herself staring right into the dazed eyes of the Gargant's pilot as the huge Ork sorted out what had happened.

"Git OFFA me, ya dumm git!" the Big Mek snarled as he started to shift under her. His power claw seized her rear leg, and the mechanism hissed before the power field crackled to life.

"Git offa mah PLANET, ya xeno freak!" Applejack snarled back, activating her gravity plating. The Mek grunted as the pony on top of him became several times heavier, and his armor servos squealed uselessly as he tried to heave her off.

Applejack raised a foreleg, a trail of gloomy purple hanging from the sole. Then she hammered it into the face of the Big Mek, shattering his bionik eye.

"Ah'm just a daggum apple farmer!" she snapped, raising the hoof and slamming it down again. "Ah shouldn't hafta put up with this hogwash!" Again her boot smashed into the Ork's face, relieving him of most of his teeth. "GIMME BACK MAH ORCHARD, YA DIRTY GREEN VARMINT!!"

The fourth blow finally pulverized the alien's skull, and Applejack cringed away after blood splattered over the face of her helmet. The klaw around her leg went slack, and after a few moments, her visor informed her that the area was secure.

Applejack stepped off of the bulky armored form and then turned around, only to find that everyone was staring at her.

"Dude," Tellis said, giving a thumbs-up, "that was HARDCORE."

"Wasn't it the Tau that damaged your farm, though?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Same difference!" Applejack shouted. Then her helmet snapped toward Tellis. "And you! What were ya thinkin', ya blood-crazy loon?!"

"What? It worked fine," Tellis pointed out.

"Ya got yer own armor! Don't be usin' mine!" Applejack growled. "If'n Ah wasn't soaked by the rain, Ah mighta caught fire when that flamer hit me!"

Tellis stared down silently for several seconds as he considered this.

"... How is your hat okay?"

Twilight directed Big Macintosh to drag away the body of the Big Mek, and then she stepped up into small and gore-splattered control alcove.

"So now we get to turn this beast on the greens, right?" Rainbow Dash asked, her helmet hissing before it disengaged. "Let's DO this!"

Twilight nodded quietly as she looked over the controls. Some three dozen assorted buttons and switches stood at the ready, plus five joysticks and two levers. Ork glyphs were attached to each control input, some of them written onto little yellow slips of paper and secured to the console with tape.

"... I feel like there should be more controls than this," Twilight mumbled as her brow furrowed, "this machine is ENORMOUS. Its control systems must be maddeningly complex."

"So what? Let's just start pressing stuff." Rainbow insisted, walking up to the console herself. "Unless you think there's a 'Mega Gargants: for Dummies' book lying around."

"There is, actually, but it's all in Orkish anyway," Tellis remarked, kicking away a small yellow booklet that was on the floor, "besides, reading is for geeks."

Twilight shook her head and blocked Rainbow's path to the controls. "Well, call me paranoid-"

"I prefer 'Princess Dork', if it's all the same to you. That nickname's here to stay," the Chaos Lord interrupted.

Twilight briefly wondered how hard it really would have been to fight off the Ork reinforcements and take the Gargant cockpit without any Astartes help. "... Sure. But as I was saying, I feel like pressing buttons and switches at random in a massive, poorly-built, walking artillery battery is a bad idea. Let's try to figure this out."

"OR..." Rarity drew the word out as she scrolled over the available vox links. "... We can ask a friend of ours who has experience with alien technology." Then she cleared her throat and linked in the rest of the ponies. "Hello, Warsmith!"

The vox caster in their helmets crackled briefly. "I shwear, if you're contacting me to complain about the rain ruining your armor finish, I will melt it down with you inshide it!"

The unicorn jerked her head back slightly. "Oh, come now! Do you really think I would bring such an ASININE complaint to the Company Warsmith?"

"Yesh."

"Yeah."

"Prob'ly."

"Eeyup."

"I don't even remember your name and even I think that would be in-character."

Twilight decided to seize control of the conversation while Rarity fumed indignantly. Also, that way she wouldn't be tempted to chime in herself. "Warsmith Solon, we've secured the cockpit of the Mega Gargant! I think we can use it against the Orks themselves before we completely disable the war machine!"

"Really? That'sh wonder-"

The ponies all cringed when a static-distorted explosion boomed in their ears. It wasn't painfully loud, but it was rather unexpected.

"Shorry, hold on." There was a rapid-fire booming noise, followed by a less noisy detonation. "That'sh wonderful! The operation ish half-way complete!"

"Uh... everythin' okay up there, Warsmith?" Applejack asked. "Ah didn't know ya were fightin' at the barricades with the others."

"Oh, I'm not." More booming noises. "Anyway, what did you need, exactly?" A loud, Orkish howl followed his question.

Twilight frowned, but pushed her doubts out of her mind. She had her own job to do. "I don't suppose you can give me a purely verbal crash-course on Ork pictography, can you?"

The sound of tearing metal filled the background as Solon replied. "No, I'm afraid not. Literacy being rather rare among Orksh, they don't have well-documented or shtandardized writing shyshtemsh." There was a heavy clanging noise. "But if you want to pilot an Ork vehicle, then you jusht have to think like an Ork."

"I haven't suffered any head injuries this mission, so I don't think I can do that," Twilight deadpanned.

"Well, then try ashking Mish Dash. She'sh had enough to lasht three mortal lifetimesh."

"Hey!" Rainbow shouted into her gorget receiver. "Okay, I know I'm not a total genius egghead loser like you guys, but just because I..." she trailed off, and then her head snapped over to Twilight. "Wait, does that mean I get to press the buttons?"

Twilight backed away from the console. "For the record, I still think this is a bad idea, but now it's Solon's bad idea," she said.

"I'm willing to take full reshponshibility for your untimely deathsh in the line of duty," Solon stated with no hesitation or irony, "do watch the heat levelsh, though; Ork coolant shyshtemsh are fragile at besht. Ash Princesh Luna ish now painfully aware."

Then another heavy clanging noise rang loud in the vox system. "All right, wash that all? Becaushe I'm rather occupied at the moment."

"That's all. Thank you, Lord," Rarity said with huff before she cut the link.

Rainbow Dash grinned maliciously as she reared up and planted her forelegs on the control console.

"Okay, so what are we working with, here?"

Twilight chewed her lip anxiously. "Well, I suppose the logic goes: if YOU were building a giant death machine, how would you arrange the controls?"

The pegasus wet her lips as she raised an eyebrow. "Well, I'd make it so that you could fire all the guns at once by pressing one big, obvious button." She paused. "It'd probably be painted in a bright color to make it stand out."

Her eyes tracked to the side, where there was a big, obtrusive yellow button sitting to the side of many smaller and less intriguing black buttons. "In fact, it'd be just like this one, here."

She paused again.

Click.

The Mega Gargant shook as every single gun and missile system discharged at once, sending massive explosions rolling over the hordes of Orks marching alongside and below the walker. The numerous belly cannons threw a staggered ordnance volley into the valley ahead, stopping the Mega Gargant in its tracks when the recoil briefly proved too much for its engines.

Rainbow laughed as the Gaze of Mork fired a searing energy beam straight forward, briefly filling the cockpit with bright light. "Oh, wow! This thing is WAY more fun from the inside!"

Twilight winced when a few alarm systems started ringing. "Okay, can you figure out aiming, next? We should try to break any high-value targets nearby."

"It's probably these," Rainbow declared, nudging one of the joysticks. Outside, the upper-right arm groaned and budged to the side in response. "I don't know how useful they're going to be, though," the pegasus grunted and stared at her boot critically, "why are we, like, the only species around without fingers, anyway?"

Twilight chose not to embark on any of her theories as to the origin of certain intergalactic cross-species evolutionary traits; the battle probably wouldn't last long enough. "Here, let me do it." Her horn lit up, and the soft purple aura tilted one of the joysticks to the side. Once again the superstructure rumbled as the arm moved, and a deep, creaking groan issued throughout the bulkheads.

Twilight frowned, staring up at the monitors on the sides of the cockpit. "I don't understand. Where's the targeting monitor? None of the screens are reacting to the joystick."

"Monitor? Why would we need that? We have a window," Rainbow pointed out, gesturing toward the large armorglass panels that made up the face of the cockpit.

"That's ridiculous!" Twilight retorted. "... So, of course that's how this was designed." She sighed.

"Hey, Twi, Ah'm gettin' worried," Applejack interrupted from where she and Big Mac guarded the cockpit entrance, "Solon sounded like he was in a whole heap o'trouble back in Ponyville. Ah think we should deep-six this rustbucket and git home."

"Why break the Gargant? We can ride this thing all the way to Ponyville!" Rainbow Dash said as she started fiddling with more switches. "We'll run down the entire enemy army in this thing!"

"Yeah, that could work," Tellis mused, "as long as none of the other hundred or so Orks on this heap don't do anything to stop us."

The very moment the Iron Warrior stopped speaking, the cockpit lights flickered. A dull whine came from the monitors and control panels as they powered down, going dark one by one. Finally, the trembling of the Gargant's movement receded and then stopped, the engine having bled away the last of its momentum.

"I just knew they were going to be uncool about this," Tellis grumbled before his visor switched to low-light mode.

A creaking noise came from below, and the team glanced down as a floor hatch opened up, spat out a stikkbomb, and then slammed shut.

"SO uncool," Rainbow Dash agreed.

Twilight quickly teleported the stikkbomb outside, wincing as the explosive peppered the cockpit with shrapnel. "Okay! It looks like the joyride is over! Let's get further down and disable this thing for good!"

"Can't we just blow up the controls here?" Rainbow Dash grunted, smashing a boot against the now-inert buttons.

"We don't know if they have some other means of controlling the Gargant, or if the Orks can jury-rig something to get it working again," Twilight refuted, "we have to cause PERMAMENT damage, here."

"On it," Tellis said as he grabbed onto Applejack.

"Oh, no ya don't!" the apple farmer growled, turning on her gravity plating immediately. "Yer not usin' me as a weapon again!"

"But it worked so well last time! C'mon hat horse, be a team player!"

Twilight grimaced. "Applejack, while I certainly don't think you should be used as a LITERAL shield, I would like you to take point. Your heavy flamer should work best in clearing a path."

"Oh, fine. Be that way," Tellis let go of the farmer, and then took a grenade off his belt as the team circled around the floor hatch. "Let's see if this works on them better than it works on us."

He pulled the pin, and then lifted up the hatch panel before rolling the grenade into it.

Panicked shrieks issued from below, followed by a muted detonation.

"Eeyup," Big Mac confirmed. He attached his harpoon to the panel and pulled it open completely, clearing the path for the others.

Applejack was the first to drop down into the hall below, inadvertently finishing off a wounded Ork by landing on his back.

Ignoring the cracking noise underneath her, Applejack immediately turned to face a half-dozen terrified Gretchin. They were all wielding tools rather than shabby knives and guns, and looked torn between dogpiling the pony or fleeing the scene.

The mare showed no such hesitation. "BURN, ya pesky varmints!"

A single burst from the heavy flamer incinerated the lot of them, as well as lighting a few exposed panels and cords on fire. Undaunted, Applejack took a few steps forward and searched for more enemies.

"All right, we're clear fer now!" she shouted upward.

Twilight dropped down after her, followed by Tellis, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Big Mac at the rear.

"All right, all these guns must require an enormous munitions stockpile," Twilight reasoned, "there should be extra ordnance supply rooms everywhere. If we arm those to blow, we can gut the entire Gargant without having to fight all the way to the reactor core."

"Sounds like a plan," Applejack said, "ya want to-" she was interrupted by a string of ricochets off of her chest plating, and she snarled at a Shoota Boy peeking around the corner ahead. "Incomin'!"

Applejack led a charge forward, and Rainbow Dash managed to squeeze past Tellis and swoop over Twilight's head to race after her.

The Ork loosed another burst down the hall, but the advantage in aiming offered by the narrow corridor couldn't compensate for the mare's heavy armor. Applejack reached the corner and swung one of her helmet tusks under the Ork's leg, throwing him onto his side. Rainbow Dash hit the wall at the end of the corridor hooves-first, mag-locking onto the bulkhead just over Applejack's head.

The next hallway, it turned out, was full of more Ork Boyz and Grots, with the former angrily trying to corral and control the latter. Rainbow loosed a high spread of shuriken into the group, and two of the larger greenskins dropped to the floor while clutching their faces.

"AJ! Cook 'em!" barked the pegasus.

"Like a fresh apple turnover!" Applejack agreed, stepping over the Ork she had knocked down. Bullets hammered her legs and shoulders, but the incoming fire wilted quickly once a tongue of outgoing fire poured into the mob. Those Gretchin that weren't incinerated bolted down the hall screaming, rushing around the legs of the Orks trying to goad them forward and knocking several down.

Rainbow Dash targeted the Orks that were still standing, ignoring the fleeing aliens. "Hey, Tellis! You gonna come help? There won't be any targets left for you at this rate!"

"I would if your Princess would move her giant purple butt! There's no room in here!" the Iron Warrior complained.

"Be quiet! The dimensions of my posterior are entirely within a healthy average range!"

"You tell yourself that, leadflank."

Applejack snapped her gravity lash forward, pulling another warrior off his feet and yanking him within kicking distance. "Whatever, we got this handled!" She pinned down the Ork with one foreleg, and then smashed down on the staggered alien with the other. "Y'all can take yer time!"

The last Ork struggling to limp away got a back full of shuriken for his efforts, and Rainbow Dash hopped down from the wall next to Applejack.

The ponies, being of narrow profile in general, could fit shoulder-to-shoulder in the relatively cramped corridor. An Iron Warrior boasting an enlarged flight pack proved to be a tighter fit, as was apparent when Twilight and Tellis rounded the corner.

"Stop kicking me!" the alicorn complained as she advanced. "Trying to shove your way forward while the others are fighting is probably going to do more harm than good!"

"That's not why I'm kicking you," Tellis confessed before booting the Princess in her armored rear.

Twilight grunted in annoyance as her hind legs bounced up off the floor. "You know, if you're getting BORED, I can always teleport you outside."

"No, apparently you CAN'T," the Chaos Lord retorted.

Twilight frowned. "Oh, right. I-" Boot. "QUIT IT!"

Rarity and Big Mac followed after Tellis, although it was hard for them to even see past the Chaos Marine, much less hope to contribute to anything going on at the front.

"Any progress on finding a room full of important, breakable things?" Rarity called out, reminding the others of why they were there.

"There's a door at the end of this hall," Applejack noted as she lumbered forward, "let's see if..."

She trailed off when a heavy pounding reverberated through the floor, and then rapidly got louder. "Hold on, Ah think somethin's comin'!"

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" Something was indeed coming.

The mega-armored Nob rounded the corner directly into the path of a stream of fire and shurikens, and plowed straight through it in a furious shoulder charge.

"NO! Look o-" was about as much warning as Applejack managed before the Nob slammed into her, shoving her back into the hovering Rainbow Dash.

"Gurk!" was all that the pegasus had to offer before the wing of her flight pack caught Twilight in the chest and carried her along.

"Aaaaah!" Twilight wailed as she was suddenly crushed from both her front and her rear.

Tellis had much faster reflexes than most ponies, and as such pushed forward to meet the inevitable pile-up rather than letting Twilight bowl him over. It wasn't quite enough to stop the momentum of the Ork's charge, however, and his greaves squealed as they were pushed along the bulkhead floor. Right into Rarity.

"This is the VERY WORST THING!" the unicorn howled as her face was mashed against what could only be considered Tellis' butt plate.

Big Mac managed to brace himself for the impact, thanks to Tellis slowing the Ork's charge down, and the collection of mangled armor suits came to a dead stop when Rarity's backside collided with his chest. Then, with a fierce snort, he began to push back.

"OW! OW! OW!" screamed Twilight, being in the exact middle of the crush of metal. "Stop it! Everybody, stop this right now! OW!"

"You'z gitz fink ya can hy-jakk our dakka?" laughed the Nob, his armor creaking while he continued pushing forward. On the one hand, he couldn't really use his weapons in this position, but on the other, none of the ponies had the leverage to attack him, either.

"No, no, we gave up on that," Tellis said, "we're just trying to destroy it now."

"Wot?! Well, dat ain't happenin', Spiky!"

"TWI!" Rainbow Dash grunted as her armor strained around her. "Do something magical! Now!"

"OW! OW! SERIOUSLY! I FEEL LIKE MY NECK IS ABOUT TO SNAP!!" said Princess screeched.

Rainbow quickly reconsidered their situation. "Tellis! Do something awesome! Now!"

"'Kay." Tellis reached behind him, and Rarity's eyes bulged as he seized her around the leg plate.

"What are you doing?! No! Stop!" the unicorn shouted desperately.

"Yo, mute pony, ya wanna shift a bit? I need the prissy white one," the Iron Warrior asked.

Big Macintosh groaned and moved to place more of his weight against the Raptor himself. Then Tellis pulled, and Rarity's armor shrieked (as did she) as he tore her free of the crush of armored bodies.

"No! No! No! NO!!" Rarity's denials swiftly rose in volume and pitch to match Twilight's complaints as Tellis bounced her up into the air to hold her under the abdomen on one hand.

"I dub this technique: Pearl Javelin!" the Chaos Lord proclaimed before launching the unicorn forward.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Despite her (loud) protests, Rarity did at least activate her magic before impact. Her horn casing struck the Nob in the forehead with a tremendous flash of light and crackle of power, briefly overloading Applejack's visor system. The Ork keeled back instantly, tumbling onto his massively armored back into a heap.

The ponies previously being crushed were immediately spilled onto the floor, much to their relief.

"I should go on these small-squad pony missions more often. This is fun!" Tellis said happily.

"Hate... you... SO... much..." whimpered Rarity. The unicorn was splayed out on top of the Ork Nob, her helmet splattered with scraps of the alien's head.

Twilight chose not to address the continuing use of ponies as improvised wargear. "Okay, everybody, just... calm down and catch your breath. We need-"

A clattering noise came from the next corner, and another stikkbomb bounced off the wall and landed at Applejack's hooves.

"Oh, give it a rest!" Twilight shouted before she magically sent the stikkbomb back on the exact same trajectory. It exploded a moment later, followed by a shout of agony.

"Think we don't have time fer a break," Applejack grumbled, stepping forward and nudging Rarity, "ya gonna be okay, sugarcube?"

"There are BRAINS splashed over my visor," Rarity informed her as she shuddered.

"Wow, who knew that greenskins had those?" Rainbow snickered before she leap-frogged over the other ponies and landed in front of the door they had been inspecting.

"Knock, knock!" Rainbow mag-locked three of her boots and then pressed her fourth against the door before triggering her impulse blaster.

The door burst off its hinges and was flung into the room, slamming into a far wall.

"Whatcha got, Dash?" Applejack asked as the rest of the team approached.

Rainbow fired a burst of shuriken into the room, but didn't bother seeking cover or otherwise moving out of the doorway. "Just a couple Grots."

"Well, what're they doin' in there?"

"Having a tea party," Rainbow chuckled as she fired another burst, shredding another two Gretchin while she walked into the room.

"Ya don't need to get all sarcastic with-" Applejack entered the room herself, and then halted just inside the doorway. "Oh. They really were havin' a tea party." There was a small metal table set up in the middle of the room, complete with a tea set and stale crumpets. This was especially odd given that the rest of the room was full of stacked shells, belts of bullets, and a cluster of massive missiles in the back.

Twilight came next, blinking past Applejack and releasing a sigh of relief after she looked around. "Okay, perfect! This is the munitions deck!"

Tellis peeked in after her. "Looks like a break room to me."

"Then what's with all the ordnance?" Applejack asked of the Iron Warrior.

"They cram ammunition into EVERY room. But not every room gets a tea set."

Twilight shook her head as Big Mac entered. "Whatever! It'll do! Let's get these charges placed before-"

"Dis way! Dey're in 'ere!" came a shout from down the hall.

"... Before this happens," Twilight groused, "all right everyone, let's pick up the pace! I want melta charges on everything that looks like it might explode! Tellis, you cut down anything that tries to stop us!"

"Can I use you as a weapon?" the Chaos Lord asked as Big Mac opened up the case of melta bombs.

"No!" Twilight snapped, levitating two bombs out of the case and over to the missiles.

"Aw, c'mon! I have the best name for it, though! 'Smart Bomb'!"

"Why aren't you busy stabbing greenskins?" Rarity asked tightly before she levitated a few melta bombs out for herself.

"Good question," the Iron Warrior mumbled, looking away.

Then an Ork came charging into the room, choppa raised and slugga bucking in his hands. The first slash took off his pistol arm, and then Tellis rammed his lightning claws up into the warrior's jaw.

He let that Ork drop, and then another came rushing into the doorway, choppa already swinging. Tellis cut away the weapon mid-shaft, and then smashed his elbow into his opponent's throat.

"Still feel like I could be doing better if I could throw a pony at them," he said before he clashed his claws together, blocking the next attacker.

Rainbow Dash twisted the handle of a melta bomb with her teeth, and then tossed it into a pile of stikkbombs. "All these things are on signum detonators, right?"

"Eeyup."

"Uh, hey, anypony give any thought as to how we're gettin' outta here 'fore this thing blows?" Applejack asked.

"There's an opening near the back for the ammo hoppers!" Twilight explained as she affixed more melta bombs to more missiles. "They have to have a way to get all these munitions to the guns, after all!"

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" The ponies cringed at the ear-splitting roar behind them, followed by the sound of grinding ceramite.

"Hey, knock it off!" Tellis snapped as he held back a two-handed choppa with a whirling buzzsaw for a blade. While the weapon started chewing through his shoulder pad, the Chaos Marine punched his claws into the stomach of the Nob advancing on him. Repeatedly.

Applejack bit onto the handle of another melta bomb to arm it, and then re-engaged her helmet. "All right, Ah think that's the last of 'em! Let's ditch this carrot stand!"

On the far wall of the room was a large armored shutter, situated next to a wooden cabinet hosting a diverse collection of herbal and breakfast teas. Twilight rushed over to a control panel boasting a single button on it mounted next to the shutter.

"I really do have to give the Orks credit for making these things simple," Twilight admitted, jumping up and bashing the button.

The metal hatches started to grind open, releasing a rush of air and water into the room. Outside was a huge servo claw, presumably for loading munitions into the ammo hoppers and launchers.

"Okay, so now what?" Applejack shouted as she rushed over to the open slot in the bulkhead. "We just gonna jump and hope we can push through the thousand or so Orks down there? 'Cuz Ah think we rate a better chance where we are!"

Twilight chewed her lip anxiously. "I'm thinking! Hold on!"

"No pressure over here," Tellis shouted as he slammed both fists down onto an Ork's head, "I think the piled-up bodies should seal this entrance soon!"

Then a stikkbomb flew over his shoulder and bounced along the floor.

"Ugh, this again?" Rarity magically flung the stikkbomb back where it came from, eliciting a howl from the Orks clustered around the entrance right before it exploded. "I suppose I shouldn't complain, but really, they don't learn!"

"I THINK that's probably because every guy that tries that, or is around when another guy tries that, dies right away," Rainbow reasoned, "makes it hard to get the word out."

"Okay! I know what to do!" Twilight suddenly shouted as thunder crashed outside. "I see a Squiggoth passing by!"

"Uh, okay. So?" Applejack asked.

"So, we're going to hijack it!" Twilight decided. "I'll teleport us ponies over, and Tellis can join us after that!"

Rarity winced. "Well, I suppose we don't have any better options..."

Tellis raised his hand.

"We are NOT letting you hurl us onto the Squiggoth one-by-one!" Twilight snapped.

"Man, you guys are NO fun," the Iron Warrior snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. Then a slugga round hit the back of his leg, staggering him.

"Damn it! We're done with you, now! Go away!" He plunged his claws into the head of the Ork boy climbing over the pile of bodies, returning his attention to the warriors trying to push into the room.

"All right! Get ready!" Twilight shouted as her friends clustered behind her. The giant, dinosaur-like beast was a dim shadow in the rain, and seemed to be struggling slightly with a wound that slowed its long march to the main battle. The armored fort built into a howdah on its back had a large gouge taken out of it, probably from a lucky artillery strike. The gap was easily big enough for all five ponies to fall into, but the Squiggoth was quite a distance away and in motion, which complicated the spell.

"This is going to be close..." Twilight warned as her visor zoomed in on the beast and listed the relevant calculations for her. She would never even attempt a group teleport with this little room for error without assistance. But even with her suit cogitator doing the math for her, the timing was going to be dangerously tight.

"Uh... would it help if I just flew there with Tellis?" Rainbow asked. "Because I can totally do that. You don't need to-"

"Too late! Now!"

Applejack's senses went fuzzy when the teleport engulfed her. Then they suddenly snapped back into focus, and she was instantly aware of the stomach-turning sensation of a free-fall.

Luckily for her, there was a nice, firm landing pad beneath her that cushioned her impact with the howdah floor. It wasn't ideal, seeing how her cushion immediately started yelling at her, but it was better than nothing.

"Guh! Git offa me, ya fat lunk-hed! Yer loik a zoggin' trukk!" shouted the straining Ork underneath her.

"Hey!" Applejack snapped as she righted herself atop the alien's back. "Ah ain't fat! Ah've just got farmer's muscles!"

She paused. "Also, shut up n'die!" A heavy stomp square in the back splintered the Ork's spine.

A choppa slammed into the side of Applejack's helmet, alerting her to the fact that a general melee had broken out behind her. Rarity's power sword spun and stabbed as she tried to keep out of clubbing range of the Orks, while Rainbow Dash and Big Macintosh were blasting and kicking the Orks out of the hole in the howdah (respectively).

A sharp crackling noise came from the center of the chaos, where Twilight's harmonizer blade was sparking dangerously while it squirmed in the grip of an Ork power klaw.

"This transport is ours, now!" the alicorn snapped, her horn flaring with power.

"Dis iz owr Squiggoth!" snarled the Nob, swinging a kick at the armored Princess. "We wuz heah furst!"

"Valid points!" Twilight conceded as she dodged back. "I'd like to refer you to a counter-argument I call 'your face is on fire'!"

True to the name of the technique, a firebolt lashed out from the alicorn's horn and immolated the Nob's head. The giant Ork reeled back in pain, and Twilight wrenched her harmonizer blade free from his klaw before stabbing it into his chest.

"All right! Everyone who doesn't have a confirmed mammalian evolutionary ancestry, this is your stop!"

Before Rainbow Dash had the chance to ask if that meant she was being kicked off the Squiggoth, Twilight started firing concentrated telekinetic bursts into the remaining Orks. One by one the warriors were blasted off their feet and off of the howdah, spilling them into the mud below.

Applejack bucked an Ork in the same direction, sending him flailing through the air in a much more impressive arc than his brothers. "Okay! We clear?"

"Just about, yes," Rarity grumbled, shoving her sword down into the back of a prone alien, "if one doesn't count the hundreds of other soldiers surrounding us." Her armor was rather badly dented and gouged by now, not to mention stained with Ork blood.

Not that the others were much better. Big Mac's visor was badly cracked and his heavy bolter had been ripped off, while Rainbow Dash's flight pack was leaking sparks all over her back. Applejack's armor appeared to be the worst off in terms of being scorched, hammered, and nicked, but was at least in fully functional shape thanks to its far heavier construction.

Plus her hat was completely undamaged, somehow.

"All right, when do we blow the Gargant?" Applejack asked.

Twilight paused to cut away the ladders that allowed access to the howdah, and she smirked when she heard angry howls and wet impacts coming from below. "Well, the brief said that Gargant reactors cause enormous damage upon destruction, so we probably have to get further away before we detonate the charges."

Rainbow cleared her throat. "ALSO, we need to wait until Tellis gets back."

"I don't see why," Rarity sniffed, "he survived the last exploding vehicle without a problem. Let's have a little faith in the psychotic monster!"

"Where IS he, anyway?" Applejack asked, looking up at the towering behemoth they had been sent to destroy. "Shouldn't take that long to break outta there and fly down here."

****

Mega Gargant - engine room

"DOUBLE KILL!" Tellis boomed as he raked his claws across an Ork's throat.

"MULTI KILL!" he said in an equally deep, reverberating voice as he stomped on a Grot.

"ULTRA KILL!" next came a Mek, which got his lightning claws to the chest before Tellis punched him in the face.

"KILTROCITY!" his flight pack blasted a Slugga Boy with flame, sending him howling onto the floor.

"KILAMAJ... KILLA... shit, what was the next one, again?" Tellis asked, pausing suddenly in his rampage.

A slugga round deflected off his chest plate, and he responded by stomping on the head of the wounded Ork that had shot him, spreading his skull - and its contents - out over the blood-soaked floor.

Then he paused and looked around. "Wait, what was I doing?"

The massive, grinding engines next to him suddenly started humming as power was restored. Then the lights flickered on overhead, and Tellis smacked a fist into his palm.

"Right! Retreat and escape! Totally forgot."

He turned around and dashed back toward the break room, dodging over the numerous corpses he had left on the way through the walker.

****

Mega Gargant exterior - Squiggoth

"Well, regardless of what happens to Tellis, we need to figure out a way to control this animal," Twilight decided, stamping a foot down on the floor.

The armored fort that made up the Squiggoth's howdah shook with every step the creature took, but the shaking was receding noticeably as the Squiggoth seemed to figure out that something had happened to its riders. They had barely passed by the Mega Gargant by now, and the massive beast had already slowed to a calm walk.

Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue. "What a time to be separated from Fluttershy. She would be perfect for this!"

"Yeah, she would, but she has her own job," Applejack mused as she walked to the end of the howdah. "Let me take a crack at it. Ah have mah own way with critters."

"Ah, Applejack?" Rarity said, pointing a hoof in the opposite direction. "The beast's head is on that end."

The farmer ignored her, reaching the end of the howdah and finding an opening in the floor. Looking down, she could see the leathery, rolling flesh of the Squiggoth's hindquarters under the rickety floor plating.

"Hold on to yer hats! Er, helmets!" she stuck the mouth of her heavy flamer into the gap.

The Squiggoth groaned as the flamer started to scorch its rear, and that rumbling protest became a ferocious roar as the stream of fire got hotter. The howdah shook dangerously, and the Squiggoth accelerated to an angry sprint.
Rainbow Dash cheered. "All right! We'll be back at Ponyville in no time!" Then she stopped to think about that eventuality. "I hope they don't shoot us 'cause we're on a Squiggoth."

"We can contact them when we arrive to let them know we're aboard," Twilight assured her.

"And how do we keep the Squiggoth from rampaging through our allies, if they can't kill it?" Rarity asked. "We don't exactly have a tight reign on this abominable creature."

"Er..."

Their conversation was interrupted by the report of possibly hundreds of shootas discharging from the mobs around them. All the ponies hit the deck, afraid that the Orks had decided to gun down their transport beast.

As the shooting continued, it became clear that this wasn't the case. They couldn't hear any ricochets against the howdah plating, and honestly even Ork gunners could usually hit the broad side of a Squiggoth.

"Incoming! Ow!" Tellis swooped into the hole gouged into the Squiggoth howdah, staggering on his landing and falling to his knee.

"Tellis! You made it!" Rainbow said, running up to the Iron Warrior and extending a leg toward him.

Tellis bumped her boot with his gauntlet knuckle, although his breath was heaving. "Yeah. Got a little caught up murdering. You know how it is." His armor was badly scored by numerous bullet impacts, and deep red cracks had formed where the plating had split open.

"Well, take a seat and get some rest," Twilight advised, "at this rate it will take us at least twenty minutes to get back to Ponyville, I figure."

"Oh, right! Also, the Mega Gargant is moving again," Tellis said, pointing over his shoulder, "thought you should know."

The ponies' eyes widened, and they rushed to the firing slits in the rear of the howdah.

"They must have gotten more troops into the cockpit after we left!" Twilight growled. The Mega Gargant was indeed moving again, its giant tracks grinding a slow path forward through the mud.

"Yeah, guess so," the Chaos Lord agreed, "also, they totally saw me fly here, and they're probably REALLY pissed off."

Twilight paled while the arms and cannons of the gargantuan war machine started to orient themselves downward.

"Detonator! Detonator! NOW!!"

Big Mac started fumbling with his servo arm to open the munitions box, but Rarity practically pounced on the stallion and pried it open with her sword instead.

"Faster! Faster! FASTER!!" Twilight demanded as the glow of the Gargant's eyes glimmered through the sheets of rain.

"Got it!" Rarity declared before she magically lifted the detonator up and squeezed the button.

The Mega Gargant rocked back as the first explosions blasted through its superstructure, vomiting flame out of the loading bays. Then new chains of explosions tore through it as the detonating ordnance blew up other stored munitions, blowing out big chunks of armor from the inside. An arm fell off after an ammo hopper exploded, and most of the cannons sticking out of its belly were ripped apart when fireballs erupted from the gun ports in quick succession.

The super-heavy walker shuddered to a halt, smoke and flame pouring from dozens of armor breaches.

Then the reactor finally detonated, and the very earth shook as it bore witness to the death of a mechanical God.

****

Ponyville - town hall

Shining Armor gasped and coughed as his eyes fluttered open. "Wh-Wha... What..."

"Yes! He's alive! Awesome work, Doc!"

"Oh... Oh dear... that was close..."

Shining was distantly aware of ponies talking above him, but was rushing to get his jumbled thoughts in order as consciousness spilled into his aching skull.

First order of business: body. He felt AWFUL. He was clearly lying down, yet every muscle that wasn't aching felt like it was on fire. Not a good start.

Second: mind. His thought process seemed to be coming along nicely, but he was having some trouble recalling what he was doing before he had lost consciousness. Wasn't there a battle or something? He had a distinct sense that he hadn't fallen asleep, and being forcibly rendered comatose was bad as a general rule.

Third: environment. Yeah, okay, there was definitely a battle going on. Like, right now, all around him. Full of the roar of gunfire, booming explosions, screams of the dying, etc. He was inside right now, but he could hear a pair of Iron Warriors shouting orders to each other in their growling, vox-distorted voices, and outside Orks were cackling with laughter and roaring battle cries in their own crude, Gothic-derived language.

That was rather alarming.

"Hey, Cap, you with us?" asked one of the ponies leaning over him.

There were two unicorns watching him. One was a stallion, and clearly a doctor, even if he was wearing a flak helmet. One was a mare, and just as clearly part of the unicorn cabal that had...

Wait. The cabal...

"Aw, PONYFEATHERS," Shining Armor hissed as he recalled what he was SUPPOSED to be doing right now, "what the hay happened?"

"The Orks got a bit clever, it would seem!" replied a voice from the window. Craning his neck over, Shining could see General Cyrus Gnoss at the window, firing a bolt pistol out of it. "They managed to sneak a force of Kommandos behind our lines, and somehow even knew to target you! I'm a bit impressed!"

Shining started to shift to get up, and then stopped as more pain surged through his body.

"As for you, you got shot. Badly," said the unicorn medicae, "your armor prevented most of the projectiles from penetrating, but the sheer force of the blast caused quite a bit of damage. I can't even guess at the moment how many of your bones are broken, but you aren't bleeding to death anymore."

"And the cabal?" Shining grunted.

The unicorn mare, a white pony with a multi-toned blue mane and magenta eyes, chewed on her lip briefly. "Probably about halfway to Canterlot, by now. Most of us bolted as soon as you hit the ground. The General over there managed to stop some and got us to drag you out of there while his dudes fought off the greens."

Shining Armor sighed as he nodded. "All right. How much longer do we figure the front line can hold without my shield?"

The ponies looked away, wincing.

"... Oh. I see. We're in trouble, aren't we?" the Captain asked nervously.

"I realize that you were on death's door just moments ago," Gnoss interjected as he ducked and reloaded his pistol, "but is there any chance you can manage another barrier in short order?"

"A small one, maybe," Shining grit his teeth as his horn flickered, "with the help of Miss..."

"Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch," the mare replied, saluting nervously.

"With the help of Miss Scratch, here, it might be able to hold back an Ork mob, but nothing like the earlier shield," he finished.

"Well, that's-"

The General was interrupted by a shrieking, metallic noise from the opposite wall, and the soldiers in the town hall whirled around as a giant buzzsaw started tearing through the building.

"Kan! Kan incoming!" shouted a human soldier as he started scrambling for new cover.

While the cackling walker tore through the wall, one of the Iron Warriors switched the setting on his combi-melta and took aim. After a few seconds the Ork vehicle crashed through the weakened wall and into the building proper, its saw whirling and its pincer claw snapping.

The jet of super-heated melta gas stopped the walker in its tracks, dissolving much of the front armor and leaving a gaping hole in the vehicle.

With an annoyed snort, another Chaos Space Marine tossed a krak grenade into the hole. Then he turned back to his previous firing point, gunning down passing Orks while the Killa Kan staggered.

"Well I can see that you're doing just fine so I suppose my work here is done!" the doctor pony said breathlessly as the walker collapsed. "Lot of other wounded to take care of behind the front lines! Busy, busy, busy!" The stallion leapt over a table that had been refashioned into a barricade and sprinted out the door, wailing in fear the entire time.

Shining Armor sighed, and then looked up at Vinyl. "You're handling this pretty well, all things considered."

"Oh, I've completely broken down by now!" she replied with perfectly hollow cheer. "I'm literally too terrified to move! Or else I would be long gone!"

"Well, as long as your legs are locked into place, do you mind if lean on you for a bit?" Shining asked. "Mine aren't in the best shape right now."

"Knock yourself out, Cap!" Vinyl said. "But not literally, please. That shield thing sounds like a really good idea right now."

"Damned Squiggoths!" Gnoss cursed as a giant, badly wounded beast trampled over a Chimera outside. "The bloody things don't last long in heavy crossfire, but they keep knocking over garrisons and guard towers!" An echoing roar followed his complaint, and then the floor trembled as one such enormous beast fell onto its side.

Shining Armor took a few deep breaths as Vinyl Scratch helped him up, and then he gingerly wrapped his foreleg over her withers. "All right, level with me, General: how bad is it?"

Cyrus Gnoss flinched away from the window as a line of bullets stitched across it. "Hard to say, honestly," he admitted after he stepped aside, behind the wall. "If I were running this defense alone, I'd consider this a rout and call the retreat. However, our Astartes masters are not so easily overcome. The Iron Warriors have exacted a fantastic toll on the greenskins as they've poured into town and assaulted the garrisons, and they have back-up plans in place for this sort of scenario." He shrugged. "But I don't think it needs to be said that we're outnumbered and see little prospect of breaking the enemy's advance!"

A scream came from the adjacent room, along with the crashing of furniture being knocked over.

"Hold your position, you grayskin whelps!" shouted one of the Iron Warriors at the door. "There will be no further retreat!"

As the bloodied body of a Fire Warrior was flung into the room, smashing the door to splinters, it became clear that the choice between fight and flight had already become moot.

A Burna Boy burst out from the next room, and Shining's horn flashed before the laughing alien discharged his signature weapon into the defenders.

The laughter gained a rather confused tone as the flame collided with a pinkish-purple wall, blocking its spread to the enemy warriors.

As soon as the burst of fire stopped the shield disappeared, and the Burna Boy was promptly gutted by bolter fire. The two Iron Warriors rushed to the doorway after he fell, one tossing a grenade into the next room.

"We will hold the North side! Secure reinforcements as soon as you can!" declared one of the Chaos Marines as the grenade exploded. He and his partner drew their chainswords and rushed into the fray a moment later.

"So what do we do now?" Shining Armor asked as the grisly buzz of chainblades faded behind the walls.

"We hold position and keep begging for more troops every few minutes," General Gnoss said with a grimace, "assuming the tactical situation doesn't change."

A heavy clang came from behind the wrecked Killa Kan that was currently blocking entry through the hole it had made in the wall. Then a stikkbomb bounced into the room from between its smoldering legs.

"The tactical situation has changed!" Shining shouted, again summoning a barrier. This time it was a small dome placed around the explosive, and the stallion winced painfully when the Ork grenade detonated.

"We've got incoming!" the remaining human troopers shouted as the hulk of metal was shoved aside.

Shining Armor quickly put up another barrier in front of the hole in the wall, squeezing his eyes shut in concentration. As such, he didn't get a good look at the figure stepping in behind the shield, although he did catch Vinyl's terrified whimper next to him.

The Ork currently standing behind the glimmering magic shield and sizing it up was HUGE. Compared to an average-sized mare like Vinyl Scratch, the mundane Orks were big, but this greenskin dwarfed even the massive Nobs by no small measure. He wasn't wearing mega armor, but was hoisting a massive shotgun and had a belt loaded with more stikkbombs. The Ork was also covered with splashes and stripes of purple war paint, for whatever reason.

"'Ello, hossy," the Ork said with a grin as he stood in front of the barrier, "ya didn't fink ya'd git away frum me so eezy, did ya?"

Shining Armor snapped his eyes open, and aside from finally seeing for himself how unreasonably big this new enemy was, he was extremely perturbed to see that the alien was staring down at him. Not the humans, who arguably posed a much greater potential threat to the enemy, but HIM, specifically.

"Wh-What? Who...?"

"I'm Zoktoof," the Ork Warboss cocked his scattagunn as he introduced himself. This ended up sending a perfectly usable shell bouncing away over the ground, but he felt it was worth it for the intimidating "ch-chak" sound. "I'm heah ta givv ya a messuj frum Warboss Redclawz."

The stallion gulped. "Wh-What message?"

The Ork infiltrator chuckled. "Boom."

All at once, three explosions blasted new holes in the wall from outside. The remaining mercenaries quickly turned their guns on the new breaches as Ork Kommandos rushed into the room, spraying burst fire and shouting battlecries.

"G-General! What should I do?!" Shining asked. His eyes were locked on the Warboss - who seemed content to wait behind the barrier - but he could already hear the gut-wrenching sounds of blades carving into flesh right behind him.

Gnoss fired his bolt pistol into the nearest Kommando, and as the Ork staggered back he darted forward and slashed the warrior open with his power sword. "Keep the Warboss constrained! We'll deal with this!"

He turned and side-stepped a choppa swing, cutting another Ork across the shin as he passed.

Zoktoof calmly tapped his knuckles against Shining's barrier as his boyz dueled with the human soldiers.

"So dis iz ya hoss majik, eh?" He snorted. "Dis all ya got? 'Eadbusta wud eet ya fer lunch."

"You mean that... figuratively, right?" the unicorn asked nervously.

Rather than answer the pointless question (and admit that he had no idea what "figuratively" meant), Zoktoof reared an arm back and hammered a fist into the barrier.

"Hgyaugh!" Shining Armor felt a surge of pain from the impact, and if he wasn't already leaning most of his weight on Vinyl he probably would have collapsed. He knew that Orks were strong, and was aware that he was exceptionally weak at the moment, but even with that in mind the blow had been disturbingly powerful.

"Scratch," he gasped, "get out of here... run! I can't hold him off!"

"Cap, it is taking everything I got just to keep from fainting right now," Vinyl said, her entire body trembling and silent tears running down her cheeks, "I'm not going ANYWHERE."

Zoktoof punched the barrier again, and then a third time. Each blow caused an agonizing energy flare to surge through Shining's horn, and the shield started flickering weakly by the time the Warboss aimed a fourth blow.

Shining Armor let the barrier fall rather than letting the Ork bash through it, and at least got some small satisfaction out of seeing the alien stagger forward in surprise.

That little victory shriveled rapidly as the Warboss drew a serrated machete-like choppa as long as he was.

"Whatever you do to me, let the mare go!" Shining Armor growled as the Ork walked up to them.

"Nah," Zoktoof casually refused as he raised his choppa over the ponies.

Then he suddenly shifted to guard his face with his arm, and two reports of a pistol put two mass-reactive rounds in his forearm.

"Xenos scum!" Gnoss roared as he charged across the room, power sword crackling. Blood streamed down the side of his head - both his and that of his previous foes - but the old warrior didn't seem at all phased as he sprinted toward a foe thrice his size.

Zoktoof laughed as he met the new challenge, completely ignoring the bloody gouges in his arm. He swung his choppa at the charging General, but the man changed direction at an intuitive moment, letting the blade pass by his shoulder. Then he lanced his sword forward, stabbing the cracking point of his weapon into Zoktoof's abdomen.

The Ork was reluctantly impressed. Rather than admitting such a thing, or really acknowledging the wound in any meaningful way, he instead clubbed the General over the head with the scattagunn in his off-hand.

A resounding CRACK came from the pirate's skull before he was slammed onto the ground, and Cyrus Gnoss promptly lost his grip on both his weapons.

"Dark Gods... c-curse you," Gnoss spat, speaking through the blood pooling in his mouth.

"Sho, humie. Wotevah ya say." Zoktoof aimed his scattagun at the man's back and pulled the trigger.

Shining Armor had to figure that he had been much farther away when this weapon had been used on him, and that the distance had weakened the shot. At the current range between the gun muzzle and General Gnoss, the officer's entire torso was pulverized, and any armor he might have been wearing was a moot point. The man was reduced to a blood slick.

Smoke wafted from Zoktoof's scattagunn as he cocked it, ejecting a shredded, fist-sized shell casing. "In da end, hoss majik and humie tek ain't no mach fer gud ol' Orky fightin' powah."

Shining Armor's horn flared, and the power sword stuck in Zoktoof's gut thrust itself an inch deeper.

The Warboss grunted irritably while he loaded his smoldering weapon with another shell, but otherwise ignored the blade in his stomach as he turned a dark gaze on the ponies. "If youz gonna be a payn 'bout dis, I'z gonna kill youz sloh."

This threat apparently pushed Vinyl Scratch past her limit. Her legs buckled and she swooned, dumping her and the pony Captain onto the floor.

"No mo' juju," Zoktoof mumbled, aiming his sizzling gun straight at Shining's head.

Then he paused when the first few creeping sensations of pain finally made the long trek from his hands to his head. His scattagunn was literally cooking the skin of his palms. It was getting so hot, in fact, that it was starting to glow. That wasn't normal.

"Wot da zog?" Zoktoof dropped the massive shotgun, taking a step back. As soon as it hit the floor, the weapon stock burst into flames, and the metal started to deform.

About that time, the Warboss became aware of a bright light coming from behind him where he had entered through the hole in the wall. He turned around.

"... Anudder hoss?" he mumbled in confusion. This one was bigger than the one inside, though. And it was wearing golden, bejeweled medieval-era plate armor. And its eyes were glowing a solid, angry yellow.

Zoktoof had the feeling it was upset about something.

"P-Princess Celestia!" Shining Armor stuttered, his eyes wide.

The Ork, for his part, didn't waste any more time and rushed the white alicorn. As he charged, his choppa was pointed forward for a quick, satisfying throat stabbing.

That didn't happen.

A searing bolt of light blasted from Celestia's horn, stopping the Warboss in his tracks when it plunged into his chest and then seemed to vanish into his skin.

"I overheard that you have an interest in our magic, Ork," Celestia said darkly as her eyes and horn pulsed with destructive energies, "you have seen Captain Armor's skills. Now witness mine."

Seams of golden power slowly ran through Zoktoof's flesh from the point of impact, and the infiltrator grunted painfully while his fluids literally started to boil inside him.

The Ork screamed in pain and fury, but the howl quickly withered to nothing as his flesh crumbled away to ashes. Gnoss's power sword tumbled onto the ground at Celestia's hooves, smoke curling around its blade.

"... Princess?" Shining mumbled, fairly stunned to have seen Celestia dispatch an enemy like that. Or at all, really.

"Captain Shining Armor," Celestia said regally, nodding slightly as her horn dimmed. "It is good to see you again, and still alive. The battle is faring worse than I'd feared."

"Yeah, I kind of dropped the ball on this one," the Captain admitted with a wince, "but... what are you doing here?"

Celestia formed a grim, slightly sad smile as she turned her head toward the sounds of more explosions and gunfire.

"Let's just say I heard a cry for help."

Author's Note:

Boy, am I glad that nobody asked for a Cyrus Gnoss chapter in Visions of Darkness.
It should be obvious by now that I've completely failed in my quest to not make this engagement into a giant three-part extravaganza. I'm sure my readers are absolutely devastated, but I pray that you all may contain your disappointment while I wrap up this fiasco.

Also, for those of you with a few dollars to spare, please be aware that I am a contestant in the Tournament of Canterlot! The tournament page can be found here, while my donation page is here. Regardless of whether you contribute or not, thank you as always for your support!

Comments

[Hanh17]

You Just make my day

[Marenteius]

This battle is GLORIOUS!

[Mix-up]

absolutely epic, this battle should be listed in the next Apocalypse edition

[Heitomos]

Nooooo! General Gnoss! D: I shall miss you dearly...

Also, yay! Celestia! Might I refer you to Celestia's Battle Form from the comics for inspiration? http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140730143923/mlp/images/3/3c/Comic_issue_20_Solar_Flare.png

I have to say, I really enjoyed this chapter. With Celestia, they'll hopefully be able to recoup some losses! In a sort. But hot damn are the humans going to need to restock their forces after all this!

[nothing_to_see_here]

So Gnoss is dead? Well I suppose he had a good run.
And at the end of the last chapter I thought Celestia was about to do something stupid, like, attempt to kill Solon, stupid. Glad to see she just finally worked the pole out of her ass and is now using it to beat orks to death.

[spinner335]

Yes we're all very disappointed that you have to put out another well thought out hilarious epic battle. For shame. But seriously great chapter.

[lebowski42]

Awesome chapter! , I had a big smile as soon as I read that there where deceptively long reeds moving against the current.

I don't get how Zoktoof & the commandos got close enough to shoot shining in the back with a shotgun , then vanished while most of the other ponies ran off, then Shining had time and space to get medical attention. Then had time for a little chat with Vinyl . And only after the killa kan attacks and they make a bunch of holes that they didn't need to shoot him the first time. Zoktoof turns up again; "ya didn't fink ya'd git away frum me so eezy, did ya" . He didn't go far, you shot him point blank with a shotgun practically dead. you should have been right there!

media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/3/2055/1297982262144.jpg

[SFaccountant]

5846377
That looks less like a "battle form" than an "OMG I am SO pissed you have NO IDEA" form. XD

5846486
She wouldn't do that!
... At least, she wouldn't do that in the middle of a desperate battle to save her planet and kingdom from a common enemy. If Celestia wants to back-stab Solon she'd definitely wait until the Chaos forces have constructed the Nethalican and are at their weakest from expending so much manpower. Let's give her THAT much credit.

5849290
I'm merely honoring a noble WH40K storytelling tradition of heroes losing engagements with nigh-unstoppable foes and then somehow getting pulled to safety by their allies and subordinates before actually suffering a fatal wound.
Ha, no, but seriously: Zoktoof nailed Shining when he and his unit had already been spotted and were being attacked. Shining was rendered unconscious and bleeding by the attack; as far as an Ork is concerned, that's a kill. And at the time his Kommandos were attacking the cabal, they were completely surrounded by enemy soldiers and had no support nearby as Gnoss had Shining Armor rescued and dragged away to a more fortified location (when Shining was shot, he was out in the open, not in a building). If anything, Zoktoof showed exceptional cognizance and foresight in actually considering that his target might not be dead and tracking him down later once the battle was going better for the Orks.

[Aziraphael]

God I love Tellis... Everything is better with Tellis around. And I won't lie, as soon as Solon started telling Luna to go for the reactor, I already imagined what was gonna happen. But just because I expected it didn't make it any less hilarious.

And I feel like the orks are gonna have a bad time. Celestia is not happy right now, two of their gargants are down, and we still haven't seen what the plague ponies are cooking up. Really the only things that the orks still have on their side is that last gargant and whatever Coggz is planning. I really have a bad feeling about him...

[Heitomos]

5849773

That it does! She uses it to fight against her evil doppleganger in another (mirror) dimension. Get's the s**t kicked out of her the first time, so the point where she's all cut up, bruised, and she's drawn with a few suspiciously red marks. And this is against another one of her, so how much that gauges her strength is up in the air.

Can't wait to read more! ^^

[SFaccountant]

5850091
And overwhelming numbers. And more heavy units. And good old Ork stubbornness.
And then there's Boss Redclawz. He may not be as clever as Coggz, but he IS da biggest and da strongest.

[Aziraphael]

5850668
Ehhhh... I don't know that a lot of those are really advantages at this point. I'll concede that the heavy units might be troublesome, but the Iron Warriors aren't out of tricks of their own. And the orks' numbers are exactly what Serith needs, even if they'll be annoying to put down.

As for Redclawz, I'm hoping he'll run into Solon. Solon needs a one on one win. Bonus points if he does it because Redclawz beats Luna. Solon's big problem is that he doesn't give a crap because he thinks everything he does is doomed to fail anyway, and she might be the one thing that can actually make him care enough to win.

[GBscientist]

I always like Tellis-heavy chapters, and his new special attacks were especially amusing. They should get added as special circumstance attacks in the 38th Company Codex, with the drawback that the pony in question has to be in close proximity to Tellis on the board for the attack to be attempted.

I really don't mind that this battle grew to three parts (at least, it could end up as four parts) because you write battle sequences very well.

Alas, poor Gnoss, I knew him, Pinkie. A fine man, of absolutely no jest. Maybe you could still do a Visions of Darkness chapter on him, and use his funeral as the framing device and flashbacks to actually tell his story.

[SFaccountant]

5852599
I can think of plenty of drawbacks to a model using another model as a ballistic attack besides limitations of proximity

5851948

As for Redclawz, I'm hoping he'll run into Solon. Solon needs a one on one win.

[GBscientist]

5852650 I'm sure you can, I was just going off the top of my head and working towards the Rule of Funny.

[Mix-up]

what tea were the Gretchen drinking?

[Slip Kid]

5853296

Earl Green.

[Mix-up]

5853318 thanks

[lebowski42]

5849773

The commando's still get the drop on them whilst they aren't expecting it, the big bad Ork who is smart enough to target him specifically and close enough to shoot him lets him get dragged away in the gaps between the paragraphs we don't get to see. -

I think i'd be much better if we got to see that bit of heroics saving Shining from the sneaky assassination attempt.

As is, The location changes after Shining is shot and where told "oh my god it was so close" without anyone seemingly putting any effort into rescuing him. - I wanna see how that terrified Vinyl made it over with him after that first shot when the cabal bolted and all hell presumably broke lose.

I don't think you'll have a better time to have the first death. bumping off shining there would have really raised the stakes on this fight Plus he could always end up being the first proper Equine Dreadnought; then there is still no dead ponies, sort-of.

[lebowski42]

5850091

Always remember;

Orkses is never defeated in battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fighting so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!

[SFaccountant]

5853835

The commando's still get the drop on them whilst they aren't expecting it, the big bad Ork who is smart enough to target him specifically and close enough to shoot him lets him get dragged away

Yes. That is exactly what happened. But Zoktoof wasn't "smart enough to target him", rather, he saw a glowing unicorn on top of an inexplicably floating arcane symbol during his mission to eliminate important enemy psykers (that was assigned to him by Drahgza). There was nothing about that setup that didn't scream "primary target".
And while I'm sure it would have been neat to see him get rescued (that would have been a good scene for Pinkie-dread, now that I think about it), this chapter was long enough as it was and there were more important matters to attend to. Besides, it would have totally ruined the surprise of his sudden resuscitation if I made a big show about him being carried out of danger.

[EverfreeSparkle]

Damn. Took Celestia long enough to buck up and fight. Even Fluttershy has more kills than Celestia for pony's sake!

[Hey its that Pony]

I love how nonchalant Tellis is. Just adds to his charm so much.
"Tellis! Do something awesome!" "Kay."

The battle scenes are an exciting read as always. You descriptions and pacing are amazing.

Poor General Gnoss. Why didn't we give him fan support when we had the chance?! Oh well. At least he died as a soldier defending an objective. As that is what Shining Armor was, an item used to create a beneficial shield for the company. It should never be implied that Gnoss died defending some lowly mutant Xeno as a show of companionship, because that's just ridiculous and would surly stain his image (To anyone outside the 38th company and it's affiliates).

Happy to see Celestia on the field.
"Boss! Dey's got a new Hoss!"
"Yeah? So whut?"
"Well, it'z a bigga hoss. An it'z shootin' deff-rayz outta it'z face!"
"Really? I betz it would look real nice on me pointy stik den!"

And then Luna learned what it felt like to be hit by one hundred bullets in three seconds.

Only a hundred? Them Boyz is slakking.

[SFaccountant]

5868098
Naturally, I take lukewarm reader response to certain characters as invitations to kill them off.
Think of Iron Hearts as a high-octane version of "Survivor", where any OC that isn't popular or useful enough gets voted off the island (or in this case, the mortal coil).
Sirius had better watch his back.

Only a hundred? Them Boyz is slakking.

It is a distinct curiosity of the Warhammer 40K rules that range has no effect on weapon accuracy. You can be assured that the Orks fired a lot more than one hundred bullets in those three seconds.

[Nightweaver]

Finally gotten all caught up on this series, and I must say, this is the best 40K crossover I have ever come across. (Also, one of the only. These things don't seem to be an easy find...)

I'm kinda hoping to see Celestia take on the last Greater Gargant herself, that would be cool as hell.

[Nightweaver]

5869967
Nooooooo! I like Sirius!
Think of the puns you'll be missing out on

[ayh]

Wow, a great series of chapters and amazing action.

But General Gnoss! No! A named character was killed, does this mean ponies will die as well? Did the plot armor get smashed by the orcs reality warping?

Still, hope this gets Shining Armor to really re-evaluate himself. His last minute with Gnoss involved him asking what he should do and being made a target. Not a great day for a former Captain of the guard. He hasn't had nearly the same field experience as the main six, but he really needs to be brought up to speed in this war if this is not to happen again. Let's hope that he takes Gnoss's sacrifice as a reason to be more active in the war.

As for the side stories you have going on, maybe after this battle you can have Celestia approaching Sliver. Asking him why, why a soldier like him who has such open disdain for his commander is still so loyal to Solon. After all, she must be curious as to why Twilight and the rest, why Luna, why so many other ponies not only not fear Solon, but seem to adore him. What is it about Solon that draws them to him. This could be the framing device for Sliver, he may not know about the others, but he knows why HE follows Solon and we could then see the early life of Sliver.

[SFaccountant]

5876108
I'd say the plot armor got smashed by the Ork's guns, not any fancy reality mojo on the greenskins' part.

I'm not sure what Shining Armor is supposed to take away from his experience to make him a better soldier; it's not like a human merc or even necessarily an Iron Warrior in the same role would have performed much better. Twilight would have, but she's an alicorn, the Element of Magic, and decked out in top-class, high-tech space armor.

And on the subject of armor, it's no mystery to Celestia or anypony else why ponies think Solon is so cool: he gives them great stuff and lets them walk all over him. I think she finds Solon's appeal less mysterious than the utter contempt in which the other Chaos Marines hold him.
And while Celestia could certainly ask Sliver (kudos on getting his name right, BTW) why he's such a jerk to the guy who gave him all his awesome wargear, she really could not care less. Luna, maybe, but not Celly.

[ayh]

5876682
Yeah, it only took me 4.5 books to finally notice what I thought was a spelling error. Looking back through the chapters I found out that it was consistent and that his name really is Sliver and not Silver.

Too bad it's too late to start a running joke where the ponies keep thinking his name is Silver.

[the other sans]

I THINK that's probably because every guy that that tries that

1. Extra That

[Dusk Raven]

"do watch the heat levelsh, though; Ork coolant shyshtemsh are fragile at besht. Ash Princesh Luna ish now painfully aware."

I wonder if, after that explosion, Luna will need to constantly use the Royal Canterlot Voice just to hear herself speak...

the pegasus grunted as she stared at her boot critically, "why are we, like, the only species around without fingers, anyway?"
Twilight chose not to embark on any of her theories as to the origin of certain intergalactic cross-species evolutionary traits; the battle probably wouldn't last long enough.

Ah, if only. Theoretical ramblings like that interest me sometimes, depending on the topic.

"Solon sounded like he was in a whole heap o'trouble back in Ponyville. Ah think we should deep-six this rustbucket and git home."

"Deep-six" sounds like a wonderful expression, even if I don't care for "six feet deep" sayings in general.

Rarity and Big Mac followed after Tellis, although it was hard for them to even see past the Chaos Marine, much less hope to contribute to anything going on at the front.

On a narrative note, I was really confused about the "marching order" in this section, during the pile-up.

Rainbow fired a burst of shuriken into the room, but didn't bother seeking cover or otherwise moving out of the doorway. "Just a couple Grots."
"Well, what're they doin' in there?"
"Having a tea party," Rainbow chuckled as she fired another burst, shredding another two Gretchin as she walked into the room.
"Ya don't need to get all sarcastic with-" Applejack entered the room herself, and then halted just inside the doorway. "Oh. They really were havin' a tea party." There was a small metal table set up in the middle of the room, complete with a tea set and stale crumpets.

Emperor knows they need some relaxation time. Sadly even the ponies won't give it to them. Man, they need a break. Maybe Pinkie or Fluttershy can adopt a couple. I think them referring to one of the ponies as "boss" while doing usual Gretchin stuff would be amusing.

Meanwhile, reading about AJ killing yet another Ork, I honestly have to wonder - most of the Mane Six ponies have taken to killing with disturbing quickness, but so far they've been fighting threats to their friends, family, and world - how will they fare when they go with the 38 Company and have to fight enemies they don't have raging hard-ons for?

Also: No! General Gnoss! Also - so that's why I've never seen someone use an emote with spoiler tags...

5854122

Besides, it would have totally ruined the surprise of his sudden resuscitation if I made a big show about him being carried out of danger.

You've mentioned the astounding pony survival rates too often for it to be a surprise.

[Easysnuggler]

Never to enjoy germane chocolate cake ever again. So sad. One of my favorite characters. :(

[Animatorsnake]

Guess General Gnoss is out of the count, was actually liking his character

[Crensler]

"I THINK that's probably because every guy that that tries that, or is around when another guy tries that, dies right away," Rainbow reasoned, "makes it hard to get the word out."

Just a typo

[SFaccountant]

11102424
Thanks for the corrections!

[Scratchpad]

"Ah'm just a daggum apple farmer!" she snapped, raising the hoof and slamming it down again. "Ah shouldn't hafta put up with this hogwash!" Again her boot smashed into the Ork's face, relieving him of most of his teeth. "GIMME BACK MAH ORCHARD, YA DIRTY GREEN VARMINT!!"

So, I've heard orks use teeth as currency... Does that mean Applejack just robbed the ork?

[SFaccountant]

11184396
I think it's technically a "mugging" if you incapacitate them in the process.

[Wydril]

Poor Gnoss. Man, screw Celestia at this point. I genuinely hate this Celestia. She shows up about five to six hours after the start of the final battle to save the planet, after sitting out the previous sixteen battles with literal alien invaders trying to kill everyone on her planet. Rather than showing up when all the force multipliers were in effect and she could maximize her contribution, she waits for more people to die so she can play up being the Big Damn Hero to her ponies.

I hope one of the Chaos Lords slaps her, or something, because I'm sure she's still going to look down on everyone fighting and dying, trying to do her job because she couldn't be bothered.

[SFaccountant]

11412063
I didn't try to make Celestia seem like such a villain, but that seems to be what a lot of people came away with

[Wydril]

11416966
To be fair, I don't see her as a villain but as more of someone acting too preachy and self-righteous at the expense of everyone else. The 38th Company could have just sailed away and let the Orks wreck the planet, and if it had been up to Celestia they would have done exactly that in order to prevent Chaos from spreading across her soon-to-be dead citizenry. So, good for your principles Celestia, but everyone's dead in that scenario. Even after Twilight and Luna manage to convince them to stay and fight, Celestia still sequesters herself from the world-ending calamity and its realities and has committee meetings. Everyone suffers as a result of her actions and decisions.

That's my take on it, at least.