//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: The Call of Chaos // Story: Is Brotherly Violence Magic? // by Sanguine Eyes //------------------------------// His breath left his lungs as he left his brother's mighty knee. He fell to the ground and rolled once before his horned armor prevented him from rolling any further. Fractured and splintered his once mighty armor shed fragments of ceramite, though with the shattered bones that had once been his spine stirring about inside him he did not notice his armor. He just breathed deeply staring out at the world with blank eye. He could see Russ raise his runed blade as Prospero burned around him. Everything he ha crafted with his own hands turning to ash under the boots of Leman and his wolves. The blade aimed at his throat and raised. He watched whispering his apologies into the ethereal to his father, to his other brothers, to his people, to his world, to friends long gone. The blade began to fall, ready to claim his head. It was then he heard the slivering voice creeping into his head as time itself slowed to a crawl. The voice, he knew it. It was the same voice again and again. He refused to acknowledge it was the same voice even though he knew it in his heart. The voice that took his eye, the voice that made him betray his father, the voice that was the very tune he had fallen to dance to. "Shame.... shame shame.... to lose something as you will surely destroy your father's imperium... Mankind itself will be lesser. Though, perhaps.... maybe... no... no... you wouldn't... but... maybe... I have the power... perhaps for you, for humanity... I can save you... Save you from the very people you served happily... the very family you loved before they turned on you with blades flashing. I can give you freedom from them, freedom from the dangers of the warp... I can give you the secrets you crave... I can give you everything, it will cost only your subservience to me... so then... red king... what do you say?" Magnus could feel the sliming filth defiling his senses with its temptations. But even with that, he had only tried to save his father's imperium, save humanity, save his brothers. Yes, he was played, yes he was not wise enough to see through it, yes his father was right. But was his path to hell truly to be paved with his own good intentions? He opened his mouth and his soul ready to speak, cringing at the terrible pain of knowing he was played, knowing that he was just the toy to this immense entity. He would call it an apex warp predator but he knew better, this thing could only be truly described as a God. His soul screamed the name and as such it was the first word from his mouth. "Tzeentch..." "Tzeentch..." He froze. It was not just his own voice he heard. To his surprise the sleek and deceptive seducing voice of darkness let out a very long and aggravated sigh. "Aren't you supposed to be busy not existing Malal?" The voice was thick in anger and outright annoyance. "I got bored of not existing.... well I got bored a few thousand years ago... So I went exploring, but long story short, a bunch of stuff happened and I have to take this one from you..." "Um... no.... no you don't... this one is mine! I have had my eyes on him since his creation..." Magnus was tempted to speak up but he did not have anything he could say in the face of this event. It was first destroying him that he had to hand himself over to this darkness, but now it was having a children's argument with some other entity. There was a snapping sound, as if coming from a set of fingers. Almost instantly he could feel the impossibly complex injury of his spine warp and repair itself instantly. Time was still just barely crawling by as he could feel himself lift off the ground, hefted by something he could not quite explain as he watched it walk around picking things up and changing reality around him. Turning Russ's sword into a hammer, placing another hammer on a fulcrum before tearing a hole in reality and throwing Magnus, now completely frozen in time and space into the back of what looked to be an old 20th century pickup truck. Tzeentch's voice roared in anger. "HE IS NOT YOURS TO TAKE MALAL!" "Oh I know, but hes not yours either... and by the way... I don't go by that anymore ole buddy... call me.... Discord." The hole snapped shut and the entity began to drive off with Magnus in the back of the truck. Back on Prospero the thousand sons were very confused that they were promptly placed in old canine carry on kennels they were incapable of escaping as they floated helplessly along a conveyor belt along with the contents of all the libraries of Tizca through various portals. Very few watched time unfreeze and Leman's shiny new hammer drive the other hammer into his own balls, outright shattering the cerimite crotch of his armor. All the while the angry chaos God of change roared and savagely tore open space around prospero taking his anger out on it all. Daemons rained from the sky and the wolves of Russ found themselves fighting a whole new enemy. "I ... I don't understand..." Magnus stood in the gardens of Canterlot, his magestic wings spread wide as he looked down at the creature that saved him along with faces he was overjoyed to see again. "We checked up on you..." Luna beamed happily. "And when we saw you were in danger, we employed the only individual we knew could make the trip..." Celestia sipped her tea and smiled warmly. But around his neck, Twilight happily sniffled hugging him tightly. "I was so worried... I thought I'd never see you again, and when I heard you were in trouble I wanted so badly to come to your rescue..." He placed a hoof on her head as he still stood rather in shock. The whole pony thing was still not something he thought he could get used to. "I... I don't know what to say..." "Well a thank you would be great, any time really... I mean it... Do you know how hard it is for me to drag somepony of YOUR power through the warp into here along with an entire world's worth of libraries and all of your Thousand Sons?" "um.... Thanks?... " Magnus looked back at the herd of outright traumatized ponies in Ceramite armor. "Really... thanks, I know this is better than dying. But I still want you to know that this is going to take a LOT of getting used to. I will have to explain to my children for months... in the meantime. I don't suppose..." He hesitated a bit as Twilight let go and stepped back. Magnus smiled a bitter sweet smile. He knew he would never see his father or brothers again, it was likely he would never even know the fate of the imperium. But one thing on his mind he could not let go. He drew a book from his cloak. "Here... I borrowed it before I left... it will be hard never going back. But.... Princess, thank you... thank you so much. Freedom for me and my children.... Thank you!" His smile was warm and happy, put off only by Discord gagging as he sighed, hopping back into the pickup truck and driving into the sunset. "I am home." ~~the end~~