Steel grey halls had turned a muted golden yellow as I walked to the dormitory of the warhammer inspired group that were crashing in my home. I was quite sure a lot of the adornments were different than I had left them, as new iconography decorated the walls alongside what I had left out for the well armored troop that Yoko had called her friends.
For my own sake, I gave myself a rundown, having been ages since I had touched even a fragment of warhammer lore aside from the very literal giant man of an ork. Because unlike orks, the rag tag barbarians who screamed a warcry that would send shivers down the spines of the most stalwart morale officer, and made colors have an actual tactical effect beyond camouflage. The Marines were a very different story altogether.
The zealous symbol of a large emblem in the shape of the letter I with wings on it was the primary symbol of interest of which I could reverse engineer from the lore of gaming workshops and old game manuals. It was the icon of an Inquisitional force. One who sought the truth, and interrogated those who would be hiding it. I held the hope however, that Yoko had enough common sense to change the system a bit to fit more of Equestria's morale standards.
A mild bead of sweat formed underneath my mask. Warhammer was anything but merciful to its own subjects. Perhaps because the human race numbered countless billions across hundreds if not thousands of stars, but a lot of the time the Warhammer lore in the book had a policy of dealing with those who went against their empires wishes. Most of those had been a swift ending of all life on the planet by calling in the most drastic measures, an exterminatus. Though nowhere on the same scale as sending Celestia's sun into the planet, it was still a great tragedy that an entire world had to be extinguished let alone the other worlds Yoko had casually mentioned shortly after I had dragged her and her squad into my own dimension.
It came to be then that these were ponies, not just space marines in my quarters. These ponies had witnessed their entire world die, black armor or no, everything the new and love was gone, and replaced by these steel halls. Morale must of been low. I paused before reviewing their armor in my head. It had been black with silver trimming, which put the pieces together as members of another chapter of Warhammer lore. The Deathwatch. The best marines from any chapter who proved themselves exceptional were often recruited into another chapter by that name.
Those who were, were ones who had already seen hell itself and outlived it and strive to stay in their lords good standing without falling to chaos or the enemies weapons. While luckily I doubt they had to face even more of the lore filled monsters beyond the Orks of a warrgh, but it did give me shivers to be entering the room full of war veteran super soldiers now, puppet master or no. These were the true Emperors- or I guess in this case, Celestias Finest. How would I appear to them? One of them did call me a chaos daemon initially before Yoko cleared it up. However she did give me the persona of Inquisitor Deargon and said that she had 'filled them up' with stories of those old gaming adventures.
A new wave of dread hit me, just what had Yoko told them about Inquisitor Deargon? In a gaming element like tabletop one could get away with an act of role playing someone you weren't and taking risks one would normally not take in their sane mind. If she told them about even a third of what Deargon did back in those days they may think I had a thing for grandstanding and beating odds no sane man, could ever beat and the charisma of a king. To my horror I remembered that I had named Deargon after the very thing that had inspired his character concept, the proud and mighty dragon.
I almost turned around, had my body not been frozen in place with all these realizations I probably would of sprinted in the other direction. I needed Yoko right now to explain EVERYTHING she had told those marines. But to my own surprise and internal screaming the door opened on its own accord, with a masculine noise of a stallion emitting a small snort of surprise, and as I looked up to the towering stallion I recognized that it was Private Lion, who cheerfully added in after his snort, "Ah Inquisitor Deargon, what a surprise to see you around here."
My unchanging face which was currently frozen stiff, as well as my lack of response encouraged him to add on, "Please, come inside, was actually about to try searching for you to get some questions answered."
I managed to break my own icy silence by the surprising overall friendliness in his tone, these were ponies after all, no need to overly worry. Calming down, I spoke up, "Ah, two minds of a feather, guess we can share each other's questions then and find answers."
I took two steps forward and found myself pushed ahead with great speed by a large hoof to the center of my back, meant as a pat on the back most likely but it nearly sent me stumbling as I entered the rather well decorated barracks.
I could see that they had taken their liberties with redecorating the place, having been given access from the treasure storage that I had funneled the dragon's horde into, they had given the barracks a rather religious feeling with the shrines and altars that had been rather well made to pictures of a far more skeletal version of Celestia. At first glance one could spot the signature rainbow hair of the Alicorn princess in the few pictures that had been emblazoned into metal, but then the skeleton attached to the mane, enhanced with cybernetic life support made her nearly unrecognizable.
The other members of Yoko's squad bid greetings in their own ways, some saying hello, others giving a simple nod before going back to maintaining weapons or armor. In case of Needles and Circuit, they were ignoring the rest altogether and in their own deep discussion. I bid them my own greetings in response before taking a spot in the center of the room, standing there as confidently as I could, clasping my hands behind my back and looking towards Private Lion but addressing them as a whole, "I heard you have some questions that needed answering, and that I was the one to give them, as well as ask my own."
I said it as if I had known in advance, which I sort of did, but with Private Lions remark earlier just reinforced it, as the space marines turned from their various tasks and turned their attention towards me, A somewhat eerie silence fell over the crowd, as my statement was left unresponsive aside from the stares.
...and more stares...
...and more...
...
This was starting to get uncomfortable.
Finally a voice spoke out, among the back row , "Inquistor Deargon, seems too much to be true, are you really him?" The voice had belonged to the Commissar, Cipher, "That you really took on a campaign against the worst that the universe had to offer? From Necrons, to Orks, Eldar, and Tyranids?"
All of those had various stories behind them, and suddenly I had the grim feeling that my initial fears had been correct. To remember the metal skeletal tombs of the endlessly reviving Necrons, the unending tides of Orks, the flesh walls of Tyranids, and the tricksters of the essentially jerk version of elves that were Eldar. How much of that had existed in Yoko's world? What should I say? Something evasive, but still true? I gave a seconds pause, cautiously responding, "My experience with the horrors may of been blown out of proportions Commissar, though if you've all been around as long as I've had, I bet you've had no end of others bringing things up to being bigger then they are. As Inquistor Deargon, my experiences with the menaces have been..."
I reviewed my thoughts on the endless campaigns of small plastic figures and paper cutouts of my youth.
"... an Educational..."
Then I remembered the companies constant updates on the factions, some which completely changed how certain factions worked, often causing the entirety of the lore and mechanics of the species to be messed up. As well as authors of various books playing favorites.
"...and horrifying experience. One that I do not wish to dwell on for too long."
As much as I enjoyed this series, it was also one that could drive someone to madness, Mass scale combat versions of the series existed, but I had preferred the individual series like Rogue Trader to keep things sane. It was nothing against the game, the lore was my favorite aspect of it, but the fighting aspect of the games it had felt clunky at best when dealing with armies at a time.
Judging from my expression the others took my face as having seen too many horrors to recount instead of being troubled over the sheer amount of material the universe had for rules. "What were the Tau like?" The question had come from Hawkens, who was gazing at me intently, with the intent of sizing me up by my decisions rather than appearances, "Were they worth protecting?"
"As a xenos species, they are undoubtedly one of the nicest ones to exist in my point of view." I said without hesitation, "Many disagree with the statement, calling them ignorant to the true darkness of the universe, but they are a species of progress not stagnation. With a proper guiding hand they could of become the greatest allies one could ever have." It was true, despite the flawed religious principle of the Greater Good that many people had an issue with, which pretty much made the Tau arrogant enough to disregard the individual for the sake of 'The Greater Good'. However the king of mankind had a similar philosophical idea it seemed with the obsession of mass sacrifice for the greater good, "After my efforts to save their colonies in the campaigns, I was given the honorary rank of Shas'El, and spent the remaining time among them until retirement from their forces."
The game master had been particularly stubborn with the xenophobia tendencies of Warhammer humans, and eventually that lead to the retirement of Inquisitor Deargon as he had left the party to try and convert Tau to the Imperium of Mankind. A futile effort since the lore wouldn't change, but still remembering that long drawn out section that the Game Master had only planned to be a short 'kill them all' scenario instead of a proper unification of one sector of the Inquisition suddenly committing pro-xenos heresy.
"Shas'el?" Lion asked out of very visible curiosity.
"Shas, refers to the caste of fire, where the Tau's primary military force is drawn from, while the El indicates rank within the cases, in this case, Shas'El refers to 'Knight' which is comparable to a Commander in a military, being one short of the highest rank in the fire caste; Shas'O which the change in the later letter refer to the highest ranks of command within the Tau empire."
"I see..." Said Lion, the rest of them began asking their own questions, and before I knew it, I had lost track of time.
Far later on, I finally found myself free of a near endless barrage of questions, many of which I had to spend a good deal of time trying to remember on the fly, Yoko had gone all out with these guys, and I was beginning to wonder what she left out of our childhood fun rather than what she had put in. From what I could tell only out of character conversations and a scarce few in character ones had been left out. All in all though it had helped ease the lingering tension between now and the last time we had met upon the other world. I even had a chance to throw a few jabs at Yoko to embarrass her to her squad later about her characters stories since she had told them oh so much about 'me' already. That had been a kicker, though I had to mention her in the context of her current role rather than the priest of technology she had been playing during those games. However most of the context was about the same and it offered some new views for them to ponder on.
The next morning however, I was awoken to a roar that shook the mountain.