Harmony's Call

by LostGuardianNexor

Chapter 3

Day 1/1 of Operation Bugzapper
Frodias Minor, Lower Atmosphere

Twilight was terrified as the air inside the room became more and more choked with toxic parasites - the order from Pinkie to the troops to put on their gas-masks went without hesitation, everypony know completely unidentifiable under the full-covering armor of the Steel Legion. Twilight's own mask was working properly, which was more than she could say about that huge white pegasus beside her who was now hacking and coughing blood on the floor - all attempts to help him were met with a swift smack on the head with Pinkie's hoof and a good shouting-at. "You REALLY wanna risk catching what he's got?" She'd tell us, and we'd obey in fear of the strange virus that was killing him.

Glancing at Fluttershy, who know manned the hole in the hull all by herself, Twilight smiled softly. The pegasus seemed like a whole new pony, happily following the once callous (toward her, at least) commissar and blowing apart whatever paranid did show its face. Looking to the other ponies, she noticed Pinkie acting strangely - strange for Pinkie, at least. She was looking around, almost like she was paranoid, until what Twilight assumed the commissar was expecting slammed into the ship.

Everypony inside was thrown around violently as a massive maw ripped through the hull and snapped at the ponies. The sick pony slid across the floor into its path and the sharp jaws of the paranid clamped down on his torso and cleaved right through his flak-armor. The xeno ripped its head back, pulling a huge portion of the soldier free of his own body, leaving him to scream only for a moment before the beast bit down and swallowed the rest. All the soldiers opened fire except for Pinkie, who seemed to have suddenly come down with a case of the willies and ran for the door out of the hold, grabbing two soldiers on her way out - Twilight and Fluttershy.

Twilight was terrified and confused to no end, but followed her commissar without hesitation. The sound of lasgun fire bounced across the wall, filling Twilight's ears despite the increasing distance to the hold. Amongst other noises, she could hear the sound of her friend's hoofsteps and Pinkie's heavy breathing as she panicked.

"Come on, ladies!" Pinkie screamed at them, her eyes wild with terror. Obviously, the thought of dying in this fight had only now struck her. "We have to get to the escape-pod's before that gargoyle's friends arri-"

Pinkie was cut off when exactly that happened. Five thunderous explosions rocked the ship, one of the punching through the hallway and giving Twilight more than a scare when the massive head of a gargoyle reached in to snap at her. She spun around and fired several rounds down its throat, making the chitinous alien roar in agony and spew ichor from its throat; It would need much more than a lasgun's fire to kill something of that size, but it sure left it hurting. Twilight smirked at her work before galloping after her commissar and best friend.

Turning a corner, Pinkie finally saw the sign she had so longed for: ESCAPE. "We're here!" Pinkie seemed overcome with glee - glee that quickly vanished when she turned again down the hall the sign pointed. There were strange shaking masses of chitin and sharp teeth everywhere, screeching and clawing slowly toward the ponies. "A ripper swarm on a ship? This is one crazy brood!" Pinkie cried out in exasperation, drawing her pistol and blasting the rippers that drew too close for her comfort - she wanted to keep her organs INSIDE her body, thank you very much.

Fluttershy started shooting at the tiny (almost cute) paranids, her eyes narrowed in hatred as a fury filled her similar to earlier. On a whim even Pinkie would call insane, Fluttershy bit down hard on her tongue to the point where blood dribbled from it. Pulling a grenade from her belt, she spat some of the blood on the oblong egg of death, pulled the pin and threw it toward the rippers.

The xenos followed the bloodied explosive, swarming over it to lick up the precious biomatter covering the baited trap. The three ponies dove behind the corner before a explosive crash was heard and dozens of monsters squealed in pain before growing silent. Glancing around the corner, Twilight saw a wall with splinters of chitin stabbed into them, bright-pink fluid dripping down from the ceiling along with grey flesh. Gulping nervously, she stepped out and walked through the hall to the end, a door meeting her. Pinkie and Fluttershy joined her shortly, the commissar congratulating the pegasus on her quick thinking.

"And the look on their faces must have been priceless!" Pinkie giggled, patting her on the back. The commissar trotted past Twilight and opened the door, rubbing her hooves together happily when a cozy-looking cabin met them, along with a steering panel for navigation. Cantering in, Twilight looked around in amazement at how luxurious it was for an escape pod. "This seems like the makers wanted the ponies escaping to be comfy while they flew back home. Why's that, Pinkie?" Twilight asked curiously.

"The pilot's very proud of her escape pod. I'm sure she won't mind us taking it, though. Or she'll mind it a lot." Pinkie shrugged before she approached the navigation panel, trying to locate the ignition. Twilight raised an eyebrow, taking her mask off after Fluttershy entered the room and closed the door behind her.

"The pilot's pod?"

"Yup!" Pinkie threw her mask aside, a grin on her face. "She probably knew about this in advance, so she made sure to make her escape-craft comfortable so she could relax while she abandoned us."

"ABANDON us?" Fluttershy squealed, the xeno-killing fury leaving her a timid pegasus once more. Twilight smiled a little, the thought of having her normal friend back being one that pleased her. Pinkie nodded again, finding the ignition and pressing it. The other ponies almost fell over when the feeling of the pod's rockets shook the cabin. Looking out a side window, Twilight saw the craft detach from the carrier that was now little more than a mass of swarming paranids. "They're all going to die!" Twilight realized in terror, her mouth agape in horror.

"And be happy it wasn't you on that ship, Night Light!" Pinkie grimaced, pulling up on the steering and increasing the craft's pitch.

"Twilight." The lavender unicorn corrected.

"Whatever!"

Fluttershy looked at the two arguing ponies concerningly. "We shouldn't be fighting like this." She whimpered, pouting when she realized they hadn't heard her."

"What's going on here, Pinkie!?"

"We're escaping with our lives, soldier! Those paranids were going to rip apart the ship; just as planned, I'm sure."

"Just as planned?"

"The Friendquisition! They had ordered me on a suicide mission! Me! Just for that little insubordination on Gralizio!"

Both Twilight and Fluttershy seemed confused by the commissar, looking at each other momentarily before meeting Pinkie worried gaze. "What are you talking about, Commissar Pie?" Fluttershy asked, a little scared by the thought that the Friendquisition - the keepers of order in this war - would order a distinguished commissar such as Pinkie to mount a suicide mission.

Pinkie sighed. "Four days ago, I was given orders from Friendquisitor Tenderheart to lead my newest troop of guardponies into the atmosphere of Frodias where the paranids were laying siege. The ship was supposed to be ripped apart, the pilot escaping to tell tale that the soldiers died honorably for the Empress." Pinkie seemed deeply disturbed by the tale, very similar to the terrified ponies she told this to.

Fluttershy seemed like she was going to cry, disgusted by the fact that an Friendquisitor had ordered for Pinkie's death and her own. Twilight felt similarly frightened by such news, the excerpt from the Codex Equestratum coming back to her memory.

Only in death does service end.

If she had found it ominous then, it seemed like a threat now. Pinkie seemed to understand the haunting expression on the unicorn's face, nodding solemnly.

Fluttershy stomped her hoof angrily. "They wanted to make martyrs of us! The nerve!"

Twilight looked out the window again. The ship was now a blip in her field of vision, barely visible as the craft started to pierce the atmosphere. As the coldness of the void of space surrounded, she realized now that her life would be like this. She may live, but she lived without the Equestrium. She had followed her commissar and broke the order of the Friendquisition. She had betrayed the direct order of the Equestrium's most powerful organisation beside the Empress herself.

"Fluttershy."

"Yes?"

"We're heretics now, aren't we?"

"Not as bad as you thought, eh?" Pinkie interrupted, smiling warmly at the fact that she had avoided death. "I thought I would have felt something, but I feel terriffic!"

"No, it feels like I just spit in Faust's face. And called her mother a Zekorrian Plague-Fiend."

Fluttershy nuzzled Twilight gently, hopping to console her best friend. "Don't feel so bad, Twilight." She smiled sheepishly.

"And why should I?" Twilight asked upset, looking questioningly at the pegasus.

"Faust's mom WAS a Zokkerian Plague Fiend!" Their commissar chimed in, chuckling at the two ponies cuddling behind her.

"PINKIE!" The two ponies shouted, grimacing at the laughter bursting from the pink earth pony.

---

Battlebarge Empress' Fury, Harmonia Obscure

Applejack and Rarity skidded to a halt in front of the door to the battlebarge's bridge. They had already found several Discord Mareines along the way, so they knew they had already breached the hull, but the sound of Macintosh's shouting from the other side filled Applejack with the bravado to force open the door. Her smile only widened when she saw the massive herd of Apple Strikers peppering heretics with bolter-fire. Macintosh was currently the head of the rush, the chainhorn atop his helmet currently buried in a Discord Mareine's helmet, firing a bolt into its chest to force it off when he found the heretic's skull had jammed the blade.

"Applejack! Help the scouts!" Barked her cousin Braeburn, who was fighting a pegasus heretic that then attempted to dive-bomb him. Firing a round into its hip, he bucked it hard to completely sever the torso. Applejack stomped on the half that slid over to her, still screaming and snapping fang-filled jaws like a headless wolf. Leaving the Discord Mareine no more than a bloody mess, Applejack rushed to the group of scouts firing at the various daemon-spawn scrambling toward them. The creatures, little more than gibbering masses of chitinous armor, tendrils and horns, snapped at the faces of the scouts and spat daemonic curses.

Applejack shot one of the spawn in its back, the round causing the vicious beast to explode from the inside. Grimacing at the blood that stained her visor, Applejack spun to kick the head off a daemon about to bite Rarity's leg. The white unicorn nodded in silent thanks before firing at a spawn jumping toward an unaware scout. The scout, a young mare Applejack recognized as Apple Bumpkin, gave them an embarrassed 'thank you' before leaping back into the fight.

"Take this, you ruffians!" Rarity narrowed her eyes in fury before releasing a volley of bolter-fire into the swarm of daemonic monsters. The few beasts the bullets connected with gave their friends a healthy coat of inky-black blood.

Suddenly, the room shook and the Discord Mareines started to fight in an unpredictable fury. Applejack turned her head to see a scout screaming as a heretic drug his chainhorn down the poor pony's chest, their organs spilling onto the floor. Wincing and looking away, Applejack noticed sparks of orange emerging from the energy-burnt wall of the ship. "Macintosh, another portal's opening!" She cried out, and the Chapter Master barely had enough time to react before a rift of crackling orange energy opened and dozens of heretics poured through to cleave the scouts apart with their blades, bolter fire rippling through the Mareine beside Rarity and covering her with a coat of red hard to see against her crimson and orange armor.

From the back of the newfound flood of gore flew a fireball that crashed into the center of the room, the mere force sending everypony into the surrounding walls. Applejack winced as she crashed into the back wall, her armor cracking from the force. Looking up, her jaw dropped in shock.

The pony standing in the center was an orange pegasus witha fiery mane and tail, literally ablaze with licking flames that lit up the room. Her wings were the same, feathers waving with the heat flowing from their orange embers. The pegasus' eyes had a haunting fire in them - the eyes of a creature thirsting for carnage and blood, not caring from where it flows.

"Greetings, everypony!" The pony flung her hooves up happily, sparks and smoke following them, thin smoke spewing from her lips with each word. The smoke began to make the room wretched, and Applejack and Rarity became glad they had rebreathers in their helmet. "I'm sure my warband gave you a warm welcome, eh?" Her voice was deeper than it should, obviously tinged with that of a daemon's. A cackle rattled her armor frame, the bright gold metal glimmering under the fires dancing across it.

"T'wasn't no more than a pestering, ya mangy traitor!" Macintosh shouted, his anger getting the best of him before he charged with his chainsword roaring. The pony smirked, baring her fangs, before swinging her own sword to connect with his, the two ending in a powerstruggle with their roaring weapons.

"A traitor? No, my dear Macintosh, you're the traitor! You said you would join my band. We were going to serve his Deliriousness together!" She seemed to be winning, her mouth pulled back in an angry sneer.

"Only a heretic like yerself would think Ah'd betray the Apple Strikers! Ah'd never betray my family!" The red stallion hissed back through gritted teeth, his bolter firing and blowing the two away from each other. Macintosh landed on his hooves, but the pony tumbled in a heap of fire.

"I want be shaken so easily, Macintosh!" She spat in fury, her fire growing hotter as she scrambled to her feet. "I am Spitfire, Champion of Diskhorde! I will have you as my servant, or I shall have your skull!" She looked at her troops. "Kill them! All of them!" She barked, gripping a Mareine and ripping her head off with her own hooves in rage. "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"

It was like she had lit a fuse, the heretics rising in a guttural roar that shook the room. Fire spewed in a cone of death from Spitfire's mouth, burning through ceramite and melting bone to molten slag. Bolters splintered bodies, and blades spilled blood. It was a carnival of death, and one Applejack knew she had to escape. Even now, she watched as Macintosh struggled to stop Spitfire, wrestling her and trying to silence her flames with his chainhorn. The champion roared and struck him, flinging him off before pinning him with her fiery wings. A feral glow filled her eyes. "If I can't have you alive, I'LL TAKE YOU AS A TROPHY!" She bellowed, her voice nor truly demonic as her features began to stretch into a horrid maw with four piercing eyes. The fire began to glow white, hot enough to start melting the walls surrounding her, and energy started to crackle and roar around her until everypony felt paralyzed by its power.

The field of power shot off from the champion, enveloping everypony and Applejack stared in horror as the warp-blast disintegrated many of the ponies around her, their souls going straight to the dark realm itself. She too felt her being slip from herself, her body disappearing into the world of Discord.

For what seemed like minutes she was in the darkness of death. Looking about, she saw nothing but a limp white unicorn without her bloodied armor. Rarity opened an eye slowly, groaning in pain as her nerves kicked back to life.

"Applejack, where are we?"

The orange pony looked around, confused by the icy world that surrounded until a light started to become clear. A ship, it seemed, huge and painted black so Applejack had a hard time seeing it. As it drew closer, she saw the insignia (Empress Faust's cutie mark, a planet surrounded with a plume of gold) and was filled with hope of salvation.

The Friendquisition was here.

She was then filled with terror at that realization. She wasn't dead, neither was Rarity, and they were floating in space. Spitfire's blast had warped everything about willy-nilly and the two Mareines were left here minus their armor. Thankfully, their organs were built to allow them to live in the vacuum, so they had nothing to fear except for one final thought that passed through the earth pony before she fainted.

Big Macintosh was gone.

---

"A strong heart beats for battle and weeps for the loss of family.
A Space Mareine has two hearts. Their brother's deaths brings them eternal anguish." - Chapter Master Sandstorm

Author's Note:

My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro.

Warhammer 40,000 belongs to Games Workshop.

--

Hope you enjoyed.

Comments

[Bronyhood of steel]

not bad