Entrenchment

by SFaccountant

Rip and Tear

Entrenchment
An Age of Iron story

Chapter 12
Rip and Tear

****

Medrengard
Bastion Complex Kel-Teth

“Jusht a moment, Princesh. Let’sh get thoshe bondsh looshe.”
Twilight hissed when the servo arms holding her legs suddenly opened, finally feeling the sensation of full muscle control once again. It didn’t feel very good.
“How long… have I been out for?” Twilight mumbled. There was something tugging lightly at her skull, followed by a gentle clicking noise. The sensation passed, and then the brace clamps around her head snapped open.
“It’sh been shome fifty hoursh shince you were lasht conshioush,” Solon said. “I’m sure you’re hungry and thirshty, aren’t you?”
Twilight groaned in a generally affirmative-sounding way. The bands stretched across her barrel and waist opened up and slipped away. Finally, the clamps pinning down her wings opened and retreated, freeing the alicorn entirely from the array of restraining mechanisms.
She squirmed for a moment, and then rolled onto her belly. Or rather, she rolled off the edge of the surgical bed she was resting on to land painfully on the floor. Onto her belly.
“Careful,” Solon’s voice warned. “I jusht finished piecing your shkull back together. Give the bondsh time to harden before you shtart banging yourshelf about.”
Twilight craned her head up. Warsmith Solon stood just a meter away, looking exactly as she remembered him before she blacked out.
“Warsmith, you’re… you’re okay,” Twilight mumbled.
“I’m fine. You’re not.” Solon made a gesture with his hand, and a ceiling-mounted servo arm shifted toward Twilight. “Here. Eat.”
The servo arm was carrying a bucket. An honest-to-goodness plain steel bucket, just as one would find in Applejack’s barn. The bucket was full near to the brim with nutrient paste, neatly completing the imagery of being a livestock’s feed slop.
The Equestrian Princess spent a full second holding an expression of righteous indignation before she dropped her muzzle straight into the bucket. She slurped up the gruel with desperate speed, eating it so fast that she started choking several times. Each time she stopped to cough just long enough to clear her windpipe, and then dunked her face right back into the slime.
The servo arm moved away, and then returned a minute later with a second bucket full of water. It dropped it unceremoniously next to the first container, and Twilight immediately switched; she pulled her head from the ooze with a gasp, and then plunked her face directly into the precious liquid.
This went on for several minutes, and Solon waited wordlessly above the pony while she filled her belly and bladder. Eventually the feed bucket ran low enough that Twilight had to decide whether to lick the nutrient gruel from the bucket’s bottom, and she irritably kicked the container aside instead. Then she levitated the water bucket up and dumped it over her head. The bits of paste stuck to her fur – as well as a fair amount of dirt that had collected in her mane since she last washed – ran down her legs and onto the metal flooring at her hooves.

Twilight sighed deeply, letting the bucket fall onto the floor at her side. Then she looked back up at Solon.
“We have some things to talk about,” she said. Her tone was cool and emotionless.
“I’m sure we do. But firsht…” Solon gestured again with his hand, and more servo arms approached Twilight. “Hold shtill, Princesh.”
The alicorn did as she was told. A blunt-edged pincer claw grabbed her leg, holding her gently but firmly. A second arm levered into position above her shoulder, boasting a large syringe.
“Now that you have shome caloriesh in you, thish regenerator sholution should help you along. The damage hash been shevere, but thish should have you in top form quickly enough.”
The needle plunged into Twilight’s shoulder, but she barely noticed the puncture among all her other bodily aches. “So… what happened? I remember talking to… who was it… Kataris. Warsmith Kataris. And then… nothing, really.”
“He shot you,” Solon said simply. “In the face.”
Twilight’s ears pinned back, and she grimaced. “Ah. I was afraid of that. So then, that explains… this?” She tenderly raised a hoof and pressed it against her left cheek, sliding up across her fur until it touched metal.
Solon nodded. “Thankfully, you were wearing your helmet at the time.”
“It didn’t really seem to have helped,” the mare retorted bleakly.
“On the contrary; it shaved your life.” He held up a palm, and a hololith display of several visor-shaped cut-outs appeared along with a flurry of diagnostic text. “I conshtructed your helmet vishorsh with Eldar diodenyne jewelsh, reinforced by a layer of glashine for extra durability and impact diffusion. The bolt shell from Katarish would have penetrated anything lesh, and the bolt would had detonated in your shkull. That would have made your revival far more unlikely, obvioushly.”
Twilight squirmed at the mental image.
“Inshtead, the bolt detonated on impact, tearing the vishor lensh looshe and driving it into your eye. Shtill quite a shevere trauma, but entirely shurvivable!” He paused. “It alsho took out about two cubic centimetersh of brain, though. That complicated thingsh. I’m confident the neural core I inshtalled in the gap will compenshate adequately, but you may experience shome temporary mood shwingsh ash it’sh integrated into your prefrontal lobe.”
“Yes… like, for example, I’m feeling a lot of my confusion turning into anger right now,” Twilight growled.
“That’sh mosht likely jusht a normal shide effect of being shot in the face, honeshtly,” Solon shrugged. “I have inshtalled a comparable replacement for your losht eye, and inshtalled a few usheful engramsh in the nano-engine.”
Twilight’s horn flashed, and a silvery plane appeared in front of her to show her reflection. The augmetic eye was a green lens set in a thin metal plate that seemed to sit over her cheekbone and stretch back under her ear. The fur around the seam had apparently been shaved before her surgery, so she could clearly see that the metal strip tapered to a point and disappeared before it reached the back of her skull. There were a few small metal circles that she recognized as hidden input sockets for cabling, as well. As for the optical itself, it was a simple rectangle of emerald-colored glass smaller than her natural eye. It was compact and obviously unobtrusive; a far cry from the blocky, modular augmetics that the Iron Warriors or Mechanicus usually favored.

She dropped the reflector pane to check the eye’s fidelity, and was more than impressed. The difference between her organic and augmetic sight was negligible at a glance. Only once an object was suddenly bracketed and highlighted in a green outline – similar to the way her helmet visor tagged things – or when text started scrolling across it did the difference become obvious.
As she tested out her eye, however, she couldn’t help but notice that their surroundings were unfamiliar. She turned back toward Solon.
“Where are we, anyway?”
“We’re in my workshop,” Solon replied.
“Back on the Harvest of Steel?” Twilight sounded surprised.
Solon hesitated awkwardly. “Well… no. My NEW workshop. In my new bashtion, Kel-Teth.” He sighed, swiveling around on his chassis. “Apparently it belonged to shome Warpshmith that sherved Katarish who perished on one of hish shipsh. It’sh not perfect, and they haven’t shtarted moving my thingsh from the Harvesht, but I’ll make proper ushe of it.”
Twilight gaped up at the Iron Warrior. “… Wait, you actually did it?! You gave them your ship?! You gave them your army?!”
Her voice sounded accusatory, and Solon recoiled slightly. “It’sh lesh that I ‘gave’ them anything and more that I accepted the pittance they offered me.”
“Why?!” Twilight demanded, her eye narrowing at the Chaos Lord. “Why would you accept that?”
“What wash I to do? Fight them?”
“Yes! Or… Or escape, somehow! Rally the troops and shoot your way back to the ship! Or something!” The purple pony stamped her hoof on the floor, a tear welling up in her remaining eye. “Why would you let them do this to you?!”
“To defy the Conclave would mean to dishcard my title of Warshmith and any legitimacy in the eyesh of my Legion. I would become outcasht, and force my warriorsh to turn againsht their Legion brothersh for my benefit.” He shook his head. “I will not do that. Putting ashide that mosht of my army would probably defect and my ship ultimately be shiezed anyway.”
“I just don’t understand,” Twilight mumbled, sitting down and hanging her head. “These Warsmiths can just come together and seize someone else’s forces whenever they want?”
“In theory, yesh. It almosht never happensh, though. Thish wash a mashterful bit of political maneuvering by Warshmith Honshou, the bashtard.” Solon chuckled ruefully. “Warshmithsh do not eashily concede to shtripping each other of rank or ashetsh in Conclave. They recognize that it could jusht ash eashily be ushed againsht them. Thish wash very unushual. I can’t help but wonder what Honshou promished my peersh for their help.”
Twilight looked up at him. “So you DON’T think they did this because it’s best for the Legion?”
“Of courshe not. Honshou all but admitted ash much,” Solon snorted. “He’sh already revealed hish gambit to me: He intendsh to keep me here, working on hish key projectsh that the Mechanicush cannot complete for him. If I provide him hish devicesh – a labor that will take shome decadesh, I imagine – then he hash promished to change hish mind about how important the 38th Company’sh mission ish.”
“So… all of this was just a ruse to trap you here so you can build this jerk some new guns?!” Twilight asked incredulously.
“Shome gunsh, shome armorsh, a new pattern of Titan core, a few capacitorsh the shize of Land Raidersh, and a usheable interface for a Necron shuper-weapon. That one looksh like it’sh going to be an exceptional chore.” He grunted in annoyance. “Ashuming thish whelp Katarish doeshn’t get himshelf killed, I should have my ship back within a shtandard sholar century.”
Twilight’s ears perked up. “… If he isn’t killed? You mean if he dies, you get the Company back?”
“That’sh how theshe thingsh tend to work, yesh. In theory, Honshou could arrange to give my army to shomeone elshe, but he’d have to bribe the other Warshmithsh again and enshure shuch toolsh would not be ushed againsht him. That’sh not a shimple matter.”
“Then you’ll be back in charge within a month!” the alicorn said, finally cracking a smile. “When Luna finds out what happened, she’s going to rip Kataris in half!”
Solon again focused his gaze on Twilight. “I would think you, of all poniesh, would know better than to undereshtimate the power of an Iron Warrior.” This succeeded in removing the mare’s smirk, but he continued. “A revolt by the Equeshtriansh can only end with your people’sh extermination. Sho it was under my command, sho it will be under Katarish. Even if Shliver’sh men shtayed their handsh, thish pup hash hish own army that will not heshitate. You musht shtop the other poniesh from doing anything of the like.”
Twilight was again surprised. “Wh-What? Me? How am I supposed to warn them from here? Did you manage to recover Spike?”
“No. You will not be shtaying here, Princesh Shparkle.” Solon’s optics flickered, and a new hololith appeared in front of the confused pony.

The hololith expanded, turning into a three-dimension projection of numerous corridors, walls, and rooms. Twilight recognized it immediately as a facility map, similar to the ones in Ferrous Dominus.
“The Harvesht of Shteel ish shtill berthed. It will be for at leasht another shtandard week, shince the change in ownership hash dishrupted our normal activitiesh. You musht go back and shtow away on-board.”
Twilight gaped. “That… But…”
“Sho far, it sheemsh Katarish ish unintereshted in your home planet. He wash incenshed to learn that critical shuppliesh, pershonnel, and even a ship wash left behind in the Centaur shyshtem. It ish too far from the Eye of Terror for hish liking.” Solon snorted. “Shuch a feeble imagination, for one of the sho-called ‘new generation’ of Warshmithsh! A Dark Portal and thoushandsh of pshykersh lay at hish fingertipsh, but no, he deshiresh only our shtocksh of artillery and gunmen. Bah.”
Twilight again started stuttering, and Solon again interrupted her. “Katarish will bring the Harvesht to Centaur III and take every man and weapon he can find. He ish likely to leave without sho much ash shpeaking to Celeshtia or bothering any of the other equinesh. Hish ire lay with our old enemy the Imperium of Man, and xenosh are a tireshome dishtraction from thish.” The hololith shifted, stretching away from the surface level and up into orbit. “Get on board the Harvesht of Shteel, go home, and keep your people from interfering. The 38th Company will depart your world for good.”
Twilight took a step back. “… I don’t… I don’t understand. What about you? I’m not leaving you here!”
“I can’t even leave thish room without Honshou knowing about it,” Solon snorted. “There’sh no poshibility for me to eshcape. But I didn’t revive you to keep me company, Princesh.”
“Then why DID you revive me?” Twilight demanded, her voice rising to a growl. “You carried me to safety, rebuilt my brain, and gave me a new eye just to send me back to Equestria and never see me again?!”
Solon hesitated, looking away. A sigh came from his vox grille. “Conshider it a… gift, Princesh.”
“A gift?”
“Affirmative. Back in the Conclave chamber…” he trailed off, and his hand clenched into a fist. “… Honshou sheparated me from my advishorsh on purposhe. You shpoke for me in their shtead. But a xeno’sh wordsh carry no weight among Ashtartesh. You knew ash much, yet you shtill defied them. When faced with certain retaliation for your insholence, you defended me. And shuffered for it. All in vain.” He turned again toward the map. “Sho thish ish my lasht offering to you, Princesh. To correct my mishtake, and give you a final chance at shurvival. You sherve me no longer.”
Twilight’s ears drooped again, and she stared at the hololith.
“The way to the Harvesht will not be eashy,” Solon advised. “I have uploaded a number of usheful decryption codicesh to your new neural core, ash well ash updated IFF shignumsh that will not reveal your poshition to shimple vishor shcansh. You will be able to bypash the pashive and automated defenshesh that bar your path, but I cannot force the Iron Warriorsh or other sholdiersh that you may encounter here on Medrengard to let you go. Once you reach the Harvesht, it ish my hope that my former shubordinatesh chooshe to overlook your preshence. But I cannot even guarantee thish much.”
He gestured to the walls. “I have a few weaponsh here, courteshy of the previoush owner. A pitiful shtock, frankly; he musht have died with hish besht equipment. Take what you’d like. Unfortunately, I don’t have your armor; Katarish had hish men shieze it while I wash working on you, and he evidently gave it to Magosh Kaelith ash a gift. He sheemsh to be shoring up hish command in a hurry.”
Twilight looked over to the wall. Numerous boltguns, lasguns, and a few chainswords and chainaxes hung on bolts attached to a weapons rack. “… Kaelith wanted my armor? Why?”
“He collectsh shuch trinketsh. Alsho, I wouldn’t tell him how the shecondary shyshtemsh worked.” Solon chuckled. “You may have to shtop him from taking the armor shuitsh from your friendsh ash well. Or you can jusht give them to him. He’sh more reashonable than you think and you could probably make a usheful deal out of it.”
“You really want me to do this? Go back to Equestria and let Kataris get away?” Twilight asked.
“What I want you to do ish no longer your concern,” Solon retorted. “I’ve losht my right to claim you ash my shervant. What I am deshcribing to you now ish shimply the besht poshible courshe of action to protect your people. You alone among your kind have shown an enlightened pragmatishm in dealing with the forcesh of Chaosh and navigating our temperamentsh. The mosht recent incident notwithshtanding, that ish.”

Twilight walked up to the weapon rack. Two boltguns lifted off of their holding pegs. Next to the munitions table, a length of chain slithered from a crate into the air, flowing behind a pulsing orb of purple.
“Solon, may I ask a few questions before I depart?”
If the Chaos Lord was surprised or dismayed at being addressed without his title, he didn’t show it. “Of courshe. What do you wish to know?”
“Does Mark III pattern Astartes armor – I believe that’s the ‘Iron Armor’ model – have any particular weaknesses? Like, a serious flaw that necessitated another version and rendered it obsolete?” The chain wrapped over Twilight’s shoulder and then over her back, crossing its own length over her chest and between her wings. A flash of heat came from her horn, quickly fusing the chain’s ends together.
Solon puzzled over the question for a few seconds. “Ash a matter of fact, that power armor pattern wash built to enhance boarding actionsh, and hash additional plating on the frontal facingsh. In order to balance the production requirementsh, the armor in the back wash made much thinner. In particular the plating on the back of the legsh ish weak. Why do you ashk?”
Twilight levitated one of the bolters in front of her. Her augmetic highlighted it, confirming its combat readiness. Her magic carried a sickle magazine from the munitions table.
“If I recall correctly, that’s the base pattern of Kataris’s armor.” The magazine clicked into place, and then the slide pulled back on a streak of purple.
“Oh.” Solon’s chassis suddenly lurched higher. “Wait! Princesh, what are you planning to do?!”
“I’m going to find Warsmith Kataris. I’m going to isolate him. Then I’m going to kill him.” She loaded the other bolter.
“No. Shtop. You can’t do that,” Solon insisted.
“I think I can,” Twilight disagreed. “Let’s see who’s right.” Her horn crackled with energy, and then a purple light briefly engulfed the chain wrapped around her body. A moment later it magnetized, and the bolters attached to the chain.
“Okay, I think thish reaction might be due to the brain damage,” Solon mumbled. “Princesh, thish ish foolish. He’ll kill you if he sheesh you again.”
“He’ll try,” Twilight agreed. Multiple bolter clips flew through the air and attached to the chain, and the mare grunted at the weight. “Blast, these things are heavy… I’d cast a weight change spell, but that might hurt their penetrating power…”
“Shparkle, lishten to me,” Solon demanded, his voice shifting into the tone he used to lecture Serith or Tellis.
“You explicitly said that I don’t have to listen to you anymore,” Twilight reminded him. She disconnected a few of the clips and put them back, testing the drag on her body. “The boltguns’ weight is almost unbearable, but I’ll be levitating them most of the way…”
“You don’t have to obey me, but I want you to lishten!” Solon said firmly.
Twilight turned around, looking up at the ancient Chaos Lord attentively.
“There’sh no need for you to do thish. The rishk ish too great. If you attack Warshmith Katarish, there’sh no telling what he’ll do when he reachesh the Centaur shyshtem.”
“If I attack Warsmith Kataris, he isn’t going to make it that far,” Twilight assured him. A pair of krak grenades attached to the chain from a nearby crate of munitions.
“More than jusht your own life may shuffer for your arrogance,” Solon warned. “I do not know Katarish well, but we are a vengeful Legion by nature. Thish plan putsh your people at much greater rishk!”
The alicorn stopped to consider that. “… It almost sounds like you care what happens to us.”
“I DO care!” Solon snapped. “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I would much prefer you shimply leave thish place and presherve Centaur III. It ish not your place to intervene in the politicsh of Ashtartesh, Princesh.”
Twilight bobbed her head. “I understand. But I’m going to do it anyway.” She turned around and started trotting to the exit blast doors.
“Why?!” Solon demanded, stomping after the purple pony. “Why are you sho damned eager to return to shervitude? Why are you rishking sho much for shuch an ashinine purposhe?”
The blast doors started creaking open, and Twilight stopped for a moment to wait for them. While she stood she lifted her hoof and tapped it gently against the lens of her new augmetic.
“Because I want to, obviously. I don’t need another reason. I’m no one’s ‘pet’ anymore,” she replied with a wry chuckle. “I’ll see you again soon, Solon. Goodbye.”

Twilight raced out into the next room, and the doors promptly began sliding closed. Solon watched her go, searching for something to shout out to her. Some heartfelt appeal or thread of logic that would turn the mare away from her foolhardy mission. Nothing came to mind that he hadn’t already tried, and before long, the doors were shut again.
Solon turned away, his chassis squealing on its bearings.
“Tireshome creature… You poniesh are never going to leave me alone, are you?”

****

Bastion sub-complex

Twilight dropped down through the access hatch, stopping only briefly to search below her for hazards. A few quick flaps of her wings rendered her landing sufficiently gentle, and then she looked up at the hatch again. Her augmetic beamed a signal to the micro-cogitator, and the hatch slid shut and locked behind her.
Her rearguard secure, Twilight gazed into the tunnel beyond. It was a wide, dimly-lit hallway with the floors and walls built of plate metal. The ceiling, most notably, was raw burrowed stone. Numerous objects had been placed along the ceiling alongside the standard facility lumens. Twilight stared for a moment, and the objects were highlighted by her optic.
Demolition charges. K-CC199 standard pattern. Kartex base. Electronic fuse detected.
Twilight nodded grimly and trotted into the gloom. These tunnels were secondary passageways used to connect the Iron Warriors’ fortresses to one another and maintain resource pipelines. During ordinary operations, there was an abundance of shuttles and open ground between bastions for the movement of troops and equipment (although proper roads were notoriously rare). During a siege, the tunnels would be the only way to move supplies or troops. As this was as much a liability as an advantage, the tunnels were rigged to be destroyed at the owner’s convenience.
An unidentified, armed alien racing from one fortress to another could very well trigger such a reaction. She was probably safe from augers due to Solon’s enhancements, but if someone managed to spot her and spread an alarm, there was no telling how severe the security response would be. At the very least, they could swarm the fortress with angry Chaos soldiers, but a particularly impatient Warsmith might very well just collapse the tunnel on her.

Twilight Sparkle crossed through the hall, and through the set of blast doors that marked the exit. Then she moved through the next tunnel. And then the next. Dim hallways, grimy metal corridors, and thick shielded doors engraved with the Iron Skull drained much of the tension from what surely should have been a nerve-racking passage. Still, she kept her pace quiet and her senses on high alert, ready to fling herself into action as soon as she sighted anything that wouldn’t seek to judge her by the processors lodged in her brain.
It was in the fifth corridor that she finally saw the first signs of life.

The tunnel was slightly different from the others, in that it had more piping running through the ceiling and numerous other passageways branched off from it. Some of these tunnels didn’t seem to be planned by the builders; huge holes had been ripped through a few of the hefty metal plates shielding the walls. These holes descended into tunnels that were far beyond the reach of the weak ceiling lumens, as well as any obvious relevance. The results of an old war, perhaps? Or some sort of subterranean daemon monster?
She supposed she could have asked the man down at the other end of the hall what his opinion was, but that probably wouldn’t end well.
She spotted him before the doors even opened; her augmetic picked out a life sign in the distance and warned Twilight ahead of time. He was a man in a shoddy environmental suit, busy scraping rust off some machine lodged in the wall. He didn’t notice the door opening down at the other end of the corridor, and he didn’t look up while Twilight crept into the room and hid behind a stack of bulkhead plates.

“Okay. Options. I can wait until he leaves. I can make a noise in one of the tunnels to distract him. I can try to teleport past. I can try to knock him out…” Twilight mumbled quietly to herself.
The man stopped scraping the device, and then started flipping switches on the front. He checked something on top, and then grabbed onto an attached lever.
“It looks like he’s almost done,” she whispered, leaning her head out further.
A clunking noise came from above, and Twilight ducked back immediately. In that instant, every lumen in the hall suddenly went out, plunging the tunnel into absolute darkness.
Twilight didn’t light her horn, as she would have given herself away immediately. The man at the end of the passage grunted and started fumbling with his helmet to activate the head lamp.
“HYURK! Hhgk…”
The sudden shout provoked Twilight into peeking out again. Her right eye was useless in the dark, but her augmetic instantly switched to an alternative detection mode. A swift, inhuman shape presented in bright white and purple blobs darted through the gloom, disappearing into an intersecting corridor.
Movement detected. Warp psyogen traces at 19.3 meters.
“Daemons,” Twilight said under her breath.
A second later, another clunk came from the ceiling, and the lights flickered back on.
The man who had been working at the other end of the corridor lay in two pieces, his body neatly sliced apart just above the waist. His blood was splashed across her path now, and his murderer was nowhere in sight.
“Did… Did that daemon just HELP me?” she wondered, grimacing. It certainly seemed convenient that the most obvious obstacle would suddenly be removed through no action of her own.
Additional Warp convergence points detected. Daemonic presence confirmed. Enemy contact imminent.
“Oh. Okay, yeah, it actually makes more sense this way,” Twilight deadpanned while a counter in her augmetic blinked into view. Four. “You didn’t kill him to keep him from calling an alarm on me, you did it to prevent an alarm on you.”
The sound of talons scraping across stone and metal came from the intersecting tunnels, and Twilight levitated her boltguns free of the chain around her chest.
Contact read her optical, outlining a loping, wolf-like body through the wall ahead of her
“Contact!” Twilight shouted as she fired her first rounds.

The bolters bucked fiercely from the shot, lurching back through the air on trails of glittering purple light. As soon as the daemonic beast appeared, twin bolts drilled into the side of its head, blasting its exposed, horned skull apart. The headless body promptly stumbled and collapsed in the middle of the hall, and the counter switched to three.
She jumped forward, wings flapping, and another daemon appeared behind her. This one was bipedal, with long, thin limbs that ended in vicious sickles. It stared at its airborne prey for a moment, and then started accelerating into a run.
Twilight hit the floor in a gallop, the boltguns floating in fixed positions above her. When another monster leapt at her from a shadowed tunnel, she was already shifting her weapons into position.
A single shot from both weapons annihilated much of the daemon’s chest cavity and eliminated its forward momentum, causing it to fall just short of its prey. The daemon fell into a puddle of its own blasted flesh and entrails, and then raised its head just in time to get a rear hoof to the face.
Twilight lined up a shot on the sickle daemon even while the ambusher went flipping away. It was picking up speed now, dragging the tips of its arm-blades over the floor and leaving long gouges in the plating. She fired, and the creature suddenly skipped to the side in a dodge. She fired the other bolter and it hopped the other way, neatly avoiding the next shot while closing critical distance. In that split second, while both guns were reeling from their recoil, the daemon bunched up its legs to pounce.
Twilight’s horn flashed before it could, and a lash of purple lightning arced into her opponent. The daemon shrieked and quivered, standing more or less in place just long enough for Twilight to take its head off with a bolter round.

“Okay, what’s next?” the mare breathed while the booming report of her weapon echoed in her ears. The counter on her augmetic blinked from two to one.
Then, after a second of silence, it became two again.
“Wait… did one of them recover? I mean, I guess they’re not truly dead, since they’re daemons. But how does that…” Twilight started to turn, her optic only barely catching a glimpse of highlighted energy bleed below her.
She shrieked and reared when a small drainage vent burst open below, not even a meter away. Something leapt out of it in a blur, clawing clumsily for her wings and latching onto her chain. Feathers and blood flew through the air while she tried to shake off the snarling creature, and then she felt fangs puncturing her shoulder.
“GET! OFF!!” One of the boltguns swung toward her like a bludgeon, smashing into her side and stunning the goblin-like daemon clinging to her. She knocked the creature down with her wing, and then started trampling it underhoof.
“I already lost one major organ on this trip! I do NOT want to drag myself back to Solon to be fitted for an augmetic leg!” Hooves hammered the diminutive monster, shattering its thin, twisted limbs and splitting its fanged, eyeless skull.
A guttural laugh filled the hall, and the purple pony jumped back from her latest target. She almost stumbled due to the pain in her leg, but she kept her focus locked on the sound.

From one of the broken lengths of wall plating it emerged, slow and lumbering, with no apparent fear of the alicorn it hunted. It was a large, fat, pot-bellied monster, with a ruddy red hide, a set of curved horns atop its skull, and a single huge eye.
Twilight levitated her boltguns into position and the daemon stopped. Its mouth – a giant, toothy pit oozing with drool – stretched into a grin. Then it spoke.
The sound that came from the daemon’s mouth couldn’t be perceived as words, from Twilight’s perspective. It sounded like a cacophony of tortured, broken instruments and growls, so discordant and senseless that she couldn’t have discerned any kind of sensible pattern that would even lead her to consider it might be a language.
Luckily, her augmetics knew better.
The Lost Marauder walks the halls of flame and iron. Like a lamb to the slaughter.
More guttural noises came from the monster, and her optical flickered with static snow for a moment before more words appeared.
Do you fear death, Spirit Thief? Now that you walk the hallowed halls of the Slaves of Chaos? You will die here, and your wretched light will die with you.
Twilight blinked as the last of the words passed. The daemon still wasn’t approaching her, and the contact counter was fixed at one.
“Okay… so… since we can communicate and you’re not really getting in my way, do you mind if I ask some questions? You know, in regard to this multi-dimensional grudge you guys have against me? Because I really feel that you-“
The lumens went out again.

With an undignified yelp, Twilight fired the boltguns on full burst, emptying the remaining clips into the shadows. The guns went wild from the recoil, kicking upward and shaking violently until they unloaded their last few bolts into the ceiling above. Luckily this section of the tunnels wasn’t rigged to explode – at least, not in such an obvious way – and one lumen box detonated after a bolt round punched through its casing, showering Twilight with glass.
The lumens came back on.

Twilight blinked in shock. The big demon was gone. The counter in the corner of her optical was at zero, and after a second it vanished.
The confused but relieved mare was about to turn around and go on her way, but then she realized something else was missing: the small daemon that she had stamped to death was gone as well. There was no sign of the blood smear she had made of its body. Nor any sign of the other two corpses.
She was about to write it off as a case of some sort of hyper-enhanced decay or dimensional reset, but more details started jumping out at her. The vent where the little one had jumped out at her was back in place. The long cuts that the sickle daemon had scraped into the floor were gone. The passageway that the big daemon had emerged from was now just a plain bulkhead.
Whirling around, Twilight saw that the body of the human was gone. There was no corpse. No blood. No sign that his life had been restored like the condition of the décor. The only remnant of the panicked battle she’d just had were the spent bolt casings lying in the hall and a single shattered lumen over her head.
Twilight idly contemplated the possibility that she was going insane while she shook her wings to clear out the bits of glass. In doing so, she felt new surges of pain run up her spine, and the Princess clenched her teeth.
“… Not a hallucination,” she hissed to herself as she shook the glass off her. She turned to look at the wing that the goblin-beast had attacked, confirming an unpleasant permanence among the temporal chaos. Long tears ran through her wings, and blood stuck to some of the feathers. Her shoulder was also bleeding, although that didn’t seem to be as bad; probably the lingering effects of Solon’s regenerator serum.
“It seems Gaela was wrong about me being beyond the reach of daemons here. I hope she was also overselling the benefit of traveling in groups, because that isn’t happening.”
Her horn flashed, and she set a spell on her wing and shoulder to stop the bleeding and prevent infection. Then the alicorn turned toward the exit and remotely unlocked the blast doors.
The empty magazines fell from her boltguns, and she levitated two new ones into place, setting them with a click. “One thing I’m pretty sure she was right about, though…”
Warp anomaly detected. Daemonic presence confirmed.
“If the harm is real, then the threat is real.”
The blast doors started to crack open, and a rumbling growl came from the next corridor.
“If the threat is real…”
Enemy contact imminent.
“Then it can be killed.”
A charcoal-black claw reached through the gap between blast doors, and a furious roar boomed through the tunnels under Medrengard.

****

Harvest of Steel – Bridge

“Is this vessel more daemon than machine? Was there no way to control it with conventional crew?”
Sliver turned from a diagnostic panel to face his new Warsmith. Kataris was in the center of the bridge, staring up at the eye in the middle of the ceiling. He carried a dataslate in one hand, while his other hand rested on his sword hilt. A pair of Terminators stood behind him as his bodyguards, each of them taking in the sight of the Harvest’s bridge.
“Yess. And then, no,” Sliver replied simply.
Warsmith Kataris lowered his gaze to regard the Nurglite. “I suppose I should have expected as much. Still, as a flagship I would have much preferred a true battleship. This vessel is badly undergunned, for a warship.”
“The Harvesst iss not a warship,” Sliver retorted.
“ALL vessels in service to Chaos are warships, Commander,” Kataris countered, “and I expect them to function as such. Some may perform specific roles aside from combat, but they are all pieces of the sword aimed at the Imperium’s throat.”
Sliver didn’t respond, staring at the Warsmith. Then he turned back to the console. “The Harvesst cannot be refit, Warssmith. If it iss to lead your fleet, then it will do sso as it iss now.”
Kataris stepped down from the command platform. “You sound irritable, Commander. Is there something the matter?”
“I am sstill ssurprissed that my Warssmith and misssion changed over the coursse of a ssingle cycle, yess,” the Chaos Lord growled. “I am mosst disspleassed to have my army’ss fate ssorted out by the Conclave behind my back.”
“I realize that these circumstances are… unexpected, Commander,” Kataris began.
“Unexpected to uss, indeed. There wass no ssurprisse among thosse of you arrayed againsst Ssolon.” Sliver turned back around, green fumes puffing from his mask filter. “I know treachery when I ssee it, Warssmith. Do not think me a fool like the man you’re replacing.”
The Terminators serving as Kataris’s guards stepped in front of the Warsmith menacingly, prepared to savage the Chaos Lord at their master’s command. Kataris merely tilted his head to the side.
“… I see. Your reputation is well-deserved, commander. You are too good for this fleet.” His pale lips pressed into a slight smirk. “Perhaps too good for this Legion.”
A grunt came from the Nurglite, followed by another puff of fumes.
Kataris let his smirk fade. “Whatever concerns you have over this change of leadership will soon be forgotten in the churn of battle, Commander Sliver. I intend to return you and your men to WAR. At last, you will match wits and arms against true warriors and earn glory rather than salvage!”
“The prosspect… doess not disspleasse me,” Sliver grumbled. “But thiss fleet will not be sso eassy to command as you ssupposse.”
Kataris glanced back up at the giant eye set in the ceiling. It squinted back at him, its pupil shrinking and its iris glowing red. “You refer to the ship?”
“The Harvesst can be guided. It will misss itss masster, but I know how to usse thiss ship.” Sliver walked past the Warsmith, his heavy greaves nearly shaking the deck. “It iss the resst of our force that will be a true tesst of leadership, Warssmith.”
“Ah, you mean the dregs left back on this worthless planet you found?”
Sliver stopped walking.
Kataris chuckled and held up the dataslate in front of him. “I’ve read a little bit about it, and with every word I grow more perplexed. Situated on the edge of Tau space, infested with Orks, and colonized by feeble equine mutants. THIS is the world that Solon – supposedly a Warsmith of GREAT intellect – chose to make his home bastion?”
Sliver hesitated, his feelings torn. “… The location… becomess irrelevant sso long as the Dark Portal-“
“Ah, yes. The Dark Portal. Consider me unimpressed with your Head Sorcerer’s workmanship,” Kataris sneered. “I see here more than one note complaining of the unreliability of sorcery in maintaining our security… a few of them are yours, I believe.”
Kataris snorted and dropped the dataslate on a console. “I’ve heard more than enough about this tiresome hovel. My blade seeks the blood of MEN, not weakling aliens! When my forces have reorganized, we will go to this world, take whatever weapons and armsmen we left there, and return to Imperial space with all haste!” He walked toward the bridge entrance, passing by the other Chaos Lord. “If Solon hadn’t abandoned a ship, I wouldn’t even bother. No Iron Warrior worthy of the title would be left to guard a hold full of mortals and useless horses.”
Sliver watched the Warsmith leave the bridge, followed by the Terminator bodyguards. He turned to glance at the dataslate Kataris had left, and then, submitting to an impulse of curiosity, swiped a grimy finger across the surface. The next data package on the slate was the battle report regarding the Imperial cruiser Heart of Vengeance.
“… Not quite as usselesss as they sseem,” Sliver mumbled, turning to follow Kataris.

****

Medrengard
Tunnel network – exact location unknown

(Recommended listening)
“I do NOT need this right now! Get out of my way!”
The thunder of boltguns and the flash of muzzle flare filled the darkened tunnels while Twilight fought through the daemons in her path. Twisted nightmares covered in spikes, claws, hooks and vile tendrils crawled from tunnels and vents to challenge her. Most were hurled back to oblivion with the bark of a bolter, while others were simply left behind as their target galloped onward to the next set of doors.

“SCREEEEEEEEEE!!” A bird-like monster hurled itself toward the alicorn, swooping past the thundering bolters. Its jaws yawned open as it dove for the pony’s back, only for a purple hoof to slam into it.
One of the boltguns tilted to the side after the monster hit the ground, and then it fired a single shot. Twilight took off into a gallop immediately, not waiting to confirm her kill.
“Why are there so many of you?! This is ostensibly an Iron Warriors facility, and-“
A drain on the floor opened up, and a multi-limbed horror stuck its head out. It started to emit an enraged scream, but promptly found a boltgun jammed into its mouth. The weapon fired, and the daemon’s head fell apart in a puff of gore and smoke.
“-And this daemonic presence is DEFINITELY sufficient to warrant an aggravated security response!” Twilight continued, her breath heaving.
She galloped around the headless body on the floor, only for a larger humanoid daemon with skeletal features to emerge from another intersecting tunnel. The mare hit the ground and rolled, slipping between the monster’s nearly fleshless legs. Her boltguns followed an arc over the daemon, and one flipped over in mid-flight to blast it in the back of its skull.
A wolf-like daemon leapt, and Twilight barely summoned a magical kinetic burst in time to knock it off-course. Once she had her footing again she leapt into the air, and a flap of her wings saved her from being tackled from behind.
The first bolter clicked empty when she pulled the trigger, but the second pulverized the monster’s back, staggering the beast. Twilight dropped onto the wounded daemon, stamped its head into the floor, and then bounded away.
“Just a little… further…” the alicorn gasped while rushing for the blast doors. Her augmetic locked onto the cogitator and started submitting its access signum.
Then a massive, bone-like blade ripped through the wall.

Twilight yelped and skidded to a stop. The claw was huge; bigger than she was, and curved like a raptor’s talon. It wasn’t so big that it covered the entire width of the tunnel, but the way it kept thrashing and stabbing made it too dangerous to approach.
She glanced behind her. A small army of groaning and snarling daemons were following in her wake, like a tide of claws, spikes, and twisted flesh. Some were lumbering giants, slow and ponderous in their gait, while others were lithe, agile killers that had the misfortune to get stuck behind first sort. There was no possibility of fighting off so many daemons at once, and more seemed to be joining the crowd constantly.
Twilight glanced to the side, which led into the complete darkness of an earthen tunnel.
She looked up, spotting an air vent that had not yet spat out a Warp-spawned horror.
Then her horn flashed, and she just teleported past the giant claw.

“All right, you animals,” Twilight growled while she activated the doors. “You want me?” Her empty boltgun swapped its magazine in a blur of purple light. “COME GET ME!”
She spun around.
The tunnel was empty.
Twilight blinked in shock, thinking at first she had gotten her teleport coordinates wrong. There were no daemon bodies, no displaced vent covers, and the hole in the wall where the giant claw had emerged was gone as if it had never happened. Only her strained muscles and the bolt casings littering the floor – some of them still smoking – gave any indication that the combat had actually happened.
Despite having experienced this exact phenomenon already, Twilight still found it extremely jarring when things suddenly stopped obeying the rules of object permanence, like reverse peek-a-boo. She couldn’t help but wonder if there was a specific name for this sort of thing; she resolved to look it up after Kataris was dead and Solon was back in charge of the fleet.
“If there’s no name for it, I think I’ll call it a ‘Pie Shift,’” she mumbled to herself. “Or ‘Pink Shift’ maybe? The first one sounds like it has to do with math, so that might be better.”
The mag-lock disengaged, and the blast doors opened.

Twilight’s vision was immediately flooded with red light. Her optical adjusted first, revealing a glowing runic circle on the floor in front of her. A circle composed of blood, judging by the human corpses lying against the wall, and a very active one, judging by the large crimson daemon emerging from the center.
“Ohhh, no! Not happening!” the mare snarled, her horn pulsing with magic. The ritual circle stuttered to a stop, and purple energy started feeding into the bright red glow.
The daemon, which had barely emerged up to its shoulders, suddenly flinched and dropped back down several inches. It started clawing at the ground around its emergence point, scraping claws like scythe blades against the flooring.
“NO! NO! GO AWAY!” The bolters swung up into firing position and unloaded into the daemon’s face, exploding against the armored shell around its skull.
The monster roared, thrashing back and forth under the barrage, and eventually its grip failed. The claws slipped free of the flooring, and the monster was sucked back into its own summoning gateway.

Twilight’s breath heaved while the blast doors closed shut behind her. This room was large and circular, with several different heavy machines built into the walls for controlling resource and power flow. There didn’t seem to be any access points aside from the doors behind her and the doors opposite that point, which would lead into the next fortress.
“WAS THAT IT?!” Twilight screamed up into the ceiling. “THAT’S ALL YOU HAVE?! I WAS ALONE, UNARMORED, AND LOW ON AMMUNITION, AND YOU BARELY SCRATCHED ME!! YOU FILLED THE TUNNELS WITH MONSTERS AND PLAYED A FEW OBNOXIOUS TRICKS WITH MY PERCEPTION, AND NOW YOU’RE GIVING UP?! THAT’S YOUR BEST?! THE ORKS PUT UP MORE OF A FIGHT THAN YOU!!”
Her horn pulsed, and the rune circle was suddenly cut through with runs of purple flame. She crossed the threshold of the ritual area, her head craned up toward the ceiling.
“THE NEXT TIME YOU WORTHLESS MONSTERS CHASE ME FROM ONE END OF THE GALAXY TO ANOTHER, YOU’D BETTER BRING YOUR ‘A’ GAME, YOU HEAR ME?! BECAUSE NEXT TIME, I’M GOING TO HAVE AN ARMY WITH ME!!”
She paused to take a few gulps of air and then spread her wings, rearing up in the middle of the circle.
“I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU QUASI-SUBSTANTIAL, SEMI-SENTIENT PSIONIC DETRITUS WANT ME DEAD SO BADLY, BUT YOU FAILED!! YOU WON’T KEEP ME FROM KATARIS!! NO ONE WILL KEEP ME FROM KATARIS!!”
Her optical beeped, and two bright green outlines appeared in the distance.
Iron Warrior IFF signums confirmed. 20 meters and closing.
“Meep.” Twilight’s ears flipped down, and the boltguns broke out of her levitation spell and dropped onto the floor.
She started looking for a hiding place immediately, and her heart rate surged when the mag-locks of the bastion access doors started to disengage.

“What is this? A daemonic circle?”
The Iron Warriors stepped into the room the moment the blast doors cleared, immediately spotting the tattered circle of blood on the floor. The second thing they noticed was the boltguns lying on top of it, and the third was the corpses heaped against the walls.
“Blasted Cultists,” snarled one of the Marines, marching up to the ritual icon. “It looks like they summoned something.”
“But what was that shouting? I see no one here,” mumbled the other. “And where is the daemon?”
“Perhaps it vanished already. Or it may have been wounded and fled. They put up a fight, apparently.” The Iron Warrior mag-locked his own weapon to his hip, and then leaned down to take the boltguns lying on the floor. “Idiots.”
Then he proceeded to the tunnel blast doors and disengaged the lock. “Let’s search the corridors. One of the slaves was doing a maintenance check. I don’t see an environmental suit amongst the bodies.”
“It’s strange…” mumbled the other Marine. “This doesn’t look like any summoning accident I’ve seen.” His gaze shifted over to the piled corpses. “It looks like these fools were butchered to create the ritual circle, not killed in combat by the summon. And they… hmm?”
He paused mid-sentence, his gaze fixing on a spot of color lying under a bloodied body’s hand. It appeared to be a feather. A purple feather.
The blast doors opened. “Cover me,” barked the first Astartes.
“… Yes, Brother.” The second Iron Warrior turned away, and then followed his partner into the gloom.

Twilight didn’t dare move until she clearly heard the sound of the mag-locks re-engaging. The pile of dead bodies shifted, and then the mare burst free of the corpses.
“Ugh… that… was terrible.” she landed unsteadily on her hooves, her head spinning and her stomach turning. Her fur and feathers were covered with splotches of partially dried gore, and the stench of death had invaded her nostrils in a way that would persist long after she had left this room.
Squeezing her eyes shut, a wave of purple magic swept over her body; starting at the tip of her horn and moving all the way to the end of her tail. The rancid fluids and flaking blood peeled away from her, but Twilight still felt like she’d need a dozen long showers before she’d feel remotely clean again.

Kicking out each leg briefly, the Equestrian Princess shook herself. The chains around her body rattled, reminding her that she was still carrying several pounds worth of ammunition and had no guns to fire them with.
“Well, so far so good… kind of,” she mumbled, detaching the magazines and dropping them onto the floor. “This is the next bastion. There should be a shuttle here that I can use to get to the Harvest of Steel… but I’m sure it also has a garrison. Still, it seems like the daemons aren’t working with the Iron Warriors, so at least I won’t have to deal with Warp ambushes.”
The blast doors opened into an impressively fortified wider hall that led deeper into the complex. Twilight immediately recognized many of the innovations of the Iron Warriors, including hidden kill slits in the bulkheads, an extra set of blast shields tucked into the ceiling, and an inactive mine field. No soldiers manned the defenses, although she took some extra time scanning with her optical to make sure.
Behind the assorted barriers and hazards was an alcove with a logic engine, and Twilight’s ears immediately perked up. Pausing to check again for anyone in earshot, she then rushed up to the console.
“Okay, let’s see this decryption key in action,” she mumbled, tapping the screen with her hoof. The input screen blinked on, and then raised a prompt for an access code.
Security bypass engaged… Primus Admin access node decrypted. Processing…
The access code filled with indecipherable runes, and then vanished. New screens appeared. Twilight cackled with malicious glee.
“Hmm… it looks like this facility’s owners aren’t here right now. Maybe even dead, like the adjacent bastion. That explains the light security. So much to do!” she cooed, looking over the wealth of facility functions available to her. “First… let’s seal the tunnel blast doors and disengage the manual override.”
With a sweep of her hoof, it was done. The window vanished, and the cogitator next to the heavy blast doors turned off.
“Next… I think the local noosphere and vox-net might be a problem, so let’s shut down the local data-streams and alarms.” A few more taps and swipes of her hoof, and several windows opened and closed. “That probably won’t go unnoticed for long, though. What else do we have… Ah! Facility map!”
A wire-frame hololith appeared over the console. Twilight was slightly disappointed she couldn’t simply download the data into her optical (or, at least, that she didn’t know how to do so) like she could with her helmet visor, but reasoned that she wouldn’t be spending much time here anyway.
“… Okay, I think the sub-level below this one would be the safest route. It stretches to the other end of the fortress and to the launch pads.” She looked back at a heavy gate that led to an entry ramp. “There we are.” Slapping a hoof onto the console, the gate started to creak open.

Twilight deactivated the cogitator and trotted over to the ramp, peering down into the dim lights. The entrance was unusually large, with an especially high ceiling and a path wide enough for two Rhinos to fit side by side. She descended slowly, her optical scanning constantly for any “friendly” signums.
As she reached the bottom of the ramp, she picked one up. A targeting reticule appeared off to the side, and a large outline highlighted a huge, bipedal body with ridges sticking up out of its back. Twilight recognized the shape even before the augmetic spelled it out for her.
Target identified: Maulerfiend.
Designation: Seth’rehl.
Status: Not deployed. Unit under restraint.
“Ah. So. I’m in the Daemon Engine pits… Good to know,” she mumbled under her breath. “Probably should have checked that when I was looking at the map.” The Pits weren’t the safest place in an Iron Warriors fortress, but that was a fraught comparison under the circumstances. The important things, as always, was that there didn’t seem to be any Iron Warriors or mortal humans around.

There were many different facilities making up the Daemon Engine Pits, resulting in huge corridors and heavy tracks attached to the ceiling for transportation of materials. There were also numerous dents, divots, and burn scars on the walls and floors, suggesting that the war machines kept here occasionally got rowdy.
Twilight Sparkle walked through the central hub, which offered a straight path over a raised causeway to the other end of the facility. Adjacent to the causeway were the Engine pens.
Maulerfiends lay curled within cells reinforced with thick metal walls covered over in runic circles. Huge shackles bound the machine-beasts by their arms and legs, and small puffs of smoke leaked from their exhaust pipes in time with a quasi-mechanical heartbeat. Further down the path laid the Forgefiends, standing at attention with their massive rotary cannons held firmly by augmetic clamps. The daemonic machines turned their heads at the gentle tapping of hooves and rattle of chain links, staring at the purple equine intruder through lenses of bloody red. Snarls and electric growls came from the Daemon Engines, but they made no move to free themselves or test their restraints.
Twilight continued onward down the causeway, trying not to stare at the metal behemoths that surrounded her. Her focus was on the consoles, nooks, and small platforms that would hold the slaves, servitors, and Techpriests that tended to the Engine Pits. It was they who could recognize her as an intruder and inform the rest of the fortress. Luckily, there seemed to be no one. Even a skeleton crew to watch over the walkers seemed to be absent.
It was getting a little suspicious.

Thanks to her intense vigilance, Twilight managed to spot something out of place on the path ahead. Behind a large stack of metal crates was the end of a segmented metal tube with a trio of claws at the tip; a common mechatendril. She paused, looking over the area with her augmetic, and frowned when it detected nothing. No signum, no life signs, and no heat signature of any note.
The alicorn crept forward, her movements more akin to a panther than a pony. The Forgefiends watched her pass from their nearby prisons, snorting blasts of hot sparks at the sight. Eventually she reached the crates and peered closely at the mechatendril, as if it were a snake and she was attempting to test its life signs. Her telekinesis gave it a brief tug, which did nothing; apparently it was attached to something of considerable weight.
She stepped around the stack of crates. She wasn’t at all surprised to see a Dark Techpriest lying against the crates. She was slightly surprised that he had a hole punched in his sternum and was sitting in a pool of fresh blood, but frankly it was the only explanation for his being invisible to her sensors.
“That’s a daemon’s wound. Even here… did the daemons manage to take the bastion?” She shook her head. “No, of course not. They’re here for me. Fighting off the Iron Warriors, even a leftover garrison, just to get to me is-“ A sudden shriek came from behind her, sounding like tearing metal. The purple mare jumped in surprise, yelping.
Warp anomaly detected. Daemonic presence confirmed.

Twilight whirled around, her horn already crackling with power. On the causeway behind her, barely ten meters away, was the cyclops daemon from before. The nearby Maulerfiends were in a frenzy at the monster’s presence, snarling and yanking at their bindings. Quite a different reaction than she had prompted.
The cyclops started speaking its nonsense horror-language again, and her augmetic dutifully translated.
You run. You fight. You kill. But you do not die. Where is your fear, Marauder? Why does your soul not sing to me?
“My fear?” Twilight barked a short laugh, her horn sparking again. “I’m on my way to kill someone much, much scarier than you, monster. You’ll have to do better than sudden teleports or playing with the lights.”
A rumbling noise that might have been a laugh came from the daemon.
You hope the Men of Iron will save you.
“The Men of Iron already saved me. Now it’s my turn to save them.”

A sizzling bolt of purple blasted from Twilight’s horn, striking the daemon in its pot belly. It groaned, lurching backward, and a few droplets of green slime leaked from its mouth onto the floor. The droplets sizzled loudly and bubbled on contact, warning Twilight of their corrosive nature.
“Acid spit, huh? Okay, why not?”
The daemon grunted and closed its mouth. Its throat started to bulge, and its loose, hanging jowls inflated like balloons. Twilight summoned a bubble shield, silently regretting that she had lost her boltguns.
She was fully expecting the creature to vomit a jet of acid at her, but instead it turned its head and let loose into the nearest Engine pit. The Maulerfiend locked down in the pit turned its head away, roaring furiously as droplets of searing venom splattered across its head and neck. The surface armor layers started bubbling and leaking smoke into the air, but the siege walker itself wasn’t the true target of the attack.
Twilight dropped her shield and recoiled, her eyes bulging. The daemon had sprayed the massive chains shackling the Maulerfiend to the walls. The bindings had been swallowed in a cloud of noxious gases, and the sound of the metal dissolving reached a fiery pitch.
“What are you doing?! You can’t let the Daemon Engines free! They’ll destroy you, too!” the pony shouted. The Maulerfiend pulled its arm away from the wall, and the chain strained to resist even as the links thinned.
The daemon spun to face her again, its jowls flapping loosely and acidic drool dribbling down its chest. It’s face stretched into a grin, and it burbled more of its nonsense language.
Now. Now you know fear. Your heart sings terror. Good. Now you will die.
“WHAT is your problem?! Why are you doing this?!” the mare shrieked.
The cyclopean daemon leaned forward, leering at her. It opened its mouth wide, and the first few horrible noises of its nonsense language emerged.
Then the Maulerfiend seized it by the head.

Twilight jumped back again as the daemon was yanked into the Engine pit, carried along by huge adamantium claws. The Maulerfiend snarled at its catch briefly, and then it smashed the Warpspawn against the wall, smearing it across its prison while its power fist thrummed with energy.
All the while, two words floated across the mare’s optical, translated from the daemon’s abortive reply.
Hope will
The Maulerfiend growled and reached its free hand down toward its belly, where its magma cutters were locked together. It seized the durasteel bands and its fingers sparked, shredding the restraint in an instant.
Twilight turned and bolted down the causeway. “Okay, time to exit! Please don’t follow me, I’m on your side, technically!”
With an ear-rending howl, the Maulerfiend broke free of the last of its restraints, slicing through the remaining shackles rapidly with its magma cutters. The siege walker clambered out of the pit and into the causeway, free at last.
“It probably won’t even chase me,” Twilight gasped while galloping for the blast doors. “I mean, I have an IFF signum, and-“
A roar boomed through the facility, followed by the sound of enormous metal feet pounding the causeway. Twilight yelped in fright, and her horn started to glow.
“Must get out, must get out, MUST GET OUT.” She squeezed her eye shut, and a moment later the mare vanished in a flash of purple.

Twilight reappeared in the next corridor. Her optical went fuzzy with snow for a moment, and then swiftly recalibrated and reset. Her heartbeat took a moment later to start up again once she confirmed there was nobody in the immediate area.
“Okay. That went… pretty well, actually,” she mumbled to herself nervously. She began walking forward slowly. “I think I regret disabling the alarms now. If the Iron Warriors knew that a Maulerfiend was loose without its deployment rites, they wouldn’t have any time to bother with me.” The purple Princess chuckled nervously to herself.
Then a sizzling noise came from the blast doors.
Twilight froze when she heard the sound, and then slowly turned her head around. Sure enough, there was a thin spike of melta gas burning through the barrier near both edges, slowly moving up from the ground in a wide arc.
“… Oh. Right. You’re kind of made to get past these obstacles, aren’t you?” she squeaked. Then she turned around and bolted.

Twilight galloped through the hall, searching desperately for a hiding spot or an air vent large enough to accommodate a pony. Unfortunately, the vents were much too small, and the only object around large enough to hide her was a crate of battle cannon shells. The hall stretched on ahead and then turned sharply, but the distance was too great and her pursuer was too fast; she’d never be able to outrun a Maulerfiend. The ceiling was too low for her to fly out of reach. Teleporting would move her along the path faster, but it would exhaust her magic quickly and soon leave her trying to outrun the walker anyway.
“Ponyfeathers! Isn’t there another connecting tunnel? Somewhere I can lose it?” She wasn’t sure if Maulerfiends had any capacity to track prey beyond sight and signum augers, but she was fast running out of options.
A loud crack boomed through the hall, followed by the sound of an enormous chunk of metal hitting the floor. After that came the sound of metal limbs racing through the corridor, announcing that it was time for her decision.
“Okay, then. I guess I’m fighting a Maulerfiend,” the alicorn sighed miserably. Her horn lit up, and a stream of purple energy reached for the crate of cannon shells. She lifted one out of its pocket and turned it on its side, pointing it toward the Daemon Engine barreling down the corridor.
“Here! Catch!” the mare taunted, hurling the shell with a strong pulse of telekinetic force.
The Maulerfiend screeched to a halt, twisting its head slightly as the projectile arced toward it.
Then it reached its hand up and snatched the shell out of the air.
Twilight blinked, and then started backing away. “I, uh… I didn’t mean it literally.” Her horn started glowing again, preparing a barrier spell.
It was very much needed when the Maulerfiend hurled the battle cannon shell not at Twilight, but at the munitions crate. A string of rapid detonations ripped through the hall, and a crushing wave of pressure slammed into Twilight’s shield. It collapsed almost instantly, and the alicorn screamed as she was bowled over and hurled across the hall.

Twilight spent a few seconds on the ground, lying on her side. Her ears pinned to her head, still ringing from the detonation, and her eye was squeezed shut against the pain. Her augmetic didn’t have an eyelid, though, so it continued transmitting while the Maulerfiend walked up to her through the smoky haze left by the explosion.
“I’m usually better at this, I swear,” Twilight mumbled up at the siege walker. “It’s just, usually you guys are on my side, and it’s hard to put my heart into this.”
The Maulerfiend lifted a hand, clenched it into a fist, and swung it down onto the purple pony.

Twilight appeared behind the Daemon Engine in a burst of purple, still lying on her side against the floor.
The Maulerfiend lifted its fist out of the dent it had made in the ground. There was nothing there, and the siege walker started whipping its head around in confusion.
Twilight watched the war machine silently, scanning it with her optical. She had two krak grenades still attached to her chain, but the munitions had limited damage potential against such a large target. Only a detonation at a weak point had any hope of stopping the siege walker. Numerous joints, bearings, gaps, and exposed cable bundles were highlighted as viable targets, but none of them seemed remotely easy to get to. Teleporting the grenades would be difficult too, since the Maulerfiend kept moving around.
Said walker suddenly turned around, its thick tail of bundled wires and cables whipping over Twilight’s prone body. The Maulerfiend spotted the pony on the floor, and puffs of angry black smoke blasted from its smoke stacks while it snarled.
“Idea!” Twilight suddenly chirped, her horn flashing again. She vanished in another flash of purple just before the Daemon Engine swiped at her, its fingers tearing molten gouges in the floor.
She re-appeared behind the walker and jumped to her hooves. Then she had to jump again, and a little more desperately, as the daemonic machine tried to swat her with its tail. She took to the air, dodging desperately out of the way when the walker turned and swung its giant fist at her again.
“Would you back off for a minute? I’m trying to do a thing!” the mare demanded, firing a magic blast with her horn.
The magic bolt struck the Maulerfiend in the face. It didn’t detonate explosively or release an energy pulse, but rather released a burst of a black ink-like substance over its eyes and snout. The walker shook its head and screeched, its voice like a buzzsaw scraping steel.
Twilight swooped forward over her opponent and landed on its back, between the rows of smoke stacks. She stumbled almost immediately, as the Maulerfiend was still moving and the footing on its back was poor. Fighting to stay steady, her telekinesis removed the pair of krak grenades from her munitions chain and levitated them toward the smoke stacks.
“Here goes everything!” The krak grenades were stripped of their arming pins, and then she sunk them into an exhaust pipe on each side.
The Maulerfiend growled, and then sharply leaned to the side. Twilight was thrown off her hooves and slammed against the row of smoke stacks, stunning her. Then she tumbled painfully down the armored ridges of the siege walker’s back. She barely avoided slicing herself open on the blades sticking out of the armor, but as soon as she rolled onto the base of the tail it whipped it to the side, swinging her into the wall.
Twilight squeaked painfully and collapsed onto the floor, blood dribbling from beneath her mane.
The Maulerfiend whirled about to finally finish off its prey.

The two krak grenades detonated with laughably understated popping noises, such that Twilight couldn’t even hear them over the loud ringing in her skull. The effect on the Maulerfiend, however, was appropriately devastating. The red seams over its chest plating swiftly went dark, its legs quivered, and jets of fire rather than exhaust blasted from its smoke stacks.
The Maulerfiend quailed pitifully, its voice emerging as a near-whine, and the lights in its eyes flickered. A moment later its legs failed, and the war machine collapsed on its side.
Twilight looked over at the Daemon Engine, feeling some of her dizziness clear. A single giant hand reached over to her, claws like massive swords. The arm quaked from the effort, sparks blasting from the power cabling in the bicep.
Twilight scooted away. The Maulerfiend’s hand fell short, slamming onto the floor with a grim finality. Its eyes went completely dark, and the last plumes of smoke drained from its exhaust pipes.
Twilight laid where she was for several minutes, panting heavily.

“What the blazes is going on down here? Did one of the Engines really get loose?”
Twilight’s ears perked up. That voice didn’t come from behind a vox grille. The sound of footsteps were coming from behind the Maulerfiend’s body, further down the hall.
“I don’t hear anything anymore… Khorne’s teeth, a Maulerfiend broke free?! I think it’s dead!”
Twilight slowly pushed herself up off the ground. She gently removed the chain from around her body and placed it on the floor; with no more munitions to carry, all it did was weigh her down and make noise.
“…Yup. It’s dead. How’d it even get free? You think it’s responsible for the vox-net going down?”
“Doubt it. Let’s find Techpriest Goran. He can get it up and running again.”
Twilight checked the position of the approaching Chaos armsmen with her optical, marking both of them. Then she sucked in a breath, and her horn filled with magic.

The two men cautiously approaching the slain Maulerfiend suddenly heard a gentle pop behind them, and they went stiff. A second later their hands darted for their laspistols, only to grasp empty air.
The rogues made eye contact, their chests tightening. They turned around.
“Hi. I realize that this is extremely unconventional, even for individuals that make their living on an evil monster planet, but I need to get to one of the ships in orbit. I’d really appreciate it if you could help me.”
The laspistols that previously rested in the men’s holsters floated in the air, surrounded by a shimmering purple glow and aimed squarely at their heads. Twilight sat behind and below the levitating weapons, her horn aglow and a weak, long-suffering smile on her face.
“So, do either of you know how to operate a transport shuttle? I PROMISE I won’t kill you, regardless of how you answer.”
The two men glanced at each other, then back at Twilight. One slowly raised his hand.
“I know how to fly the shuttle. But-“
Before he could finish the sentence, the other soldier’s head was suddenly wrapped in a magical glow. He shouted in surprise, and then found himself shoved forcefully toward the wall. His forehead slammed against the metal bulkhead, and he collapsed in a heap.
“You treacherous xeno,” the other soldier growled, his eyes fixed on his floating gun.
“Not treachery! I said I wouldn’t kill him, and I didn’t! Really, you guys treat concussions like skinned knees anyway; he’ll be fine.” Twilight paused to clear her throat. “Now, please lead me to the shuttle and fly me to the Harvest of Steel. I promise that after you do, I will not kill you OR slam you into something to knock you out for my convenience!”
The man blinked, frowning. “… Been a long time since anyone asked me to do something with a ‘please.’”
“Politeness is important,” the mare said with a gracious nod. “I mean, I’m asking you to do me a favor under threat of severe bodily harm. It’s the least I could do.”
“Look. I don’t really care what happens to you or the ship, but if I take you anywhere, I’m as good as dead. Better to take a lasbolt here and now; at least it’ll be a clean death.” The soldier clenched his jaw and crossed his arms over his chest, fully expecting the pistol to fire.
Twilight shook her head. “No, not at all! In fact, if you help me, I can guarantee you’re not punished! You’ll get a better posting!” She paused. “Assuming I survive, that is. So it’s maybe… let’s give it a sixty percent chance.”
“Even if you’re telling the truth, it’s not a good idea to tie my fate to a xeno I found skulking around the bastion,” the soldier replied.
“You live on a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror,” Twilight deadpanned, “I don’t think you get to lecture anyone about poor decisions.”
The man dropped his head, grimacing. “Well… uh…”
“Also, there’s no reason I have to give you a so-called ‘clean’ death if you refuse. Just saying.” The two laspistols tilted down to aim at the man’s knees.
“All right, all right! Have it your way, you bloody animal!” the soldier snarled, moving down the hall. “Good chance we’ll just get vaporized by a defense turret anyway; that’s about as quick a demise as you can get.”
Twilight followed after him, still levitating the laspistols. “Don’t worry; I have the access codex to let us dock. We won’t die. Not in that particular way, at least.”
“Why are you even doing this? To get off Medrengard?”
“No. Well, I mean, YES, but that’s just a happy side-effect. I’m actually boarding the ship to assassinate someone.” The mare’s voice lightened considerably as she followed her hostage through the halls.
The man twisted his head around to regard Twilight with an arched eyebrow.
“It’s for friendship, though,” she assured him.
He turned his head back around and sighed.

****

Harvest of Steel
Embarkation deck CT-9

The trip to the Harvest of Steel was completed, as Twilight had hoped, without incident. Her access codex had been accepted and auspex scans had triggered no alerts. The shuttle hadn’t even been hailed on its way from the planet up into the orbital rings.
After bidding her unwilling pilot goodbye and making sure he understood that triggering an alarm would dramatically decrease her – and by extension, his – chances of survival, she left the shuttle and crept onto the daemon ship once more.

The embarkation deck was empty, save for several servitors moving equipment and cargo. Most likely because the ship was docked; almost everyone boarding or leaving the Harvest would go by way of the orbital rings. Still, Twilight felt a chill down her back.
Just a few days ago, this had been her ship. She had made it a second home, despite all the problems and miseries that had entailed. Now it was someone else’s fief, and she didn’t know if she’d be greeted with indifference or gunfire.

Twilight crept into the next corridor, waiting for something, anything, to register on her optical. And then the next corridor as well. And the intersection hall beyond that.
In each area, spots of color indicating automated turrets blinked at her from the ceilings. Servitors occasionally walked by, taking no notice of the equine skulking the decks. But no sentient creature crossed her path; not a human, post-human, or other sort unique to Chaos vessels.
It put her even more on edge. Planetside, such an absence of troops had been a prelude to vicious daemon attacks. Was that more or less likely within the Harvest of Steel?
“Where IS everyone?” the alicorn hissed, leaning her head around a corner bulkhead.
Her optical beeped, and Twilight was half relieved, half exasperated to see an Iron Warrior’s signum appear in the next hall. Followed by several others. There appeared to be eight of them; far more than she had any hope of getting past.
She quietly stepped up to the bulkhead door to consider her options. A large Chaos Star done in gold was emblazoned on the barrier, and she stared at the emblem even while her attention was on the bodies behind it.
“Let’s see… can my augmetic tell the difference between 38th Company and 63rd Grand Battalion?” she asked under her breath. “If not, the ship cogitators should be able-“
One of the signals on her optical winked out, and she gasped mid-sentence. Then another, and then another. There were no sounds on the other side of the bulkhead door that suggested sounds of combat.
The view from her optical augment suddenly exploded into static, and Twilight recoiled. The lumens above and around her went out, plunging the corridor into darkness. The Chaos Star in front of her inexplicably remained visible; everything else fell away to complete black. A sensation like a claw made of ice touching her spine crawled down her back.
“You cannot hide from us.”
The voice was a hissing, malicious whisper coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Twilight quickly cast a light spell, but to her shock the bright glow only illuminated the Chaos Star better. The rest of her surroundings were still completely black; an empty, inexplicable void.
“You cannot stop us.”
Twilight’s horn started to itch and heat up while her eyes were fixed on the Chaos symbol. She had gotten fairly used to the sensation before, but now it returned with new intensity.
“We will hunt the light within the darkness from now unto eternity, and we will extinguish your hope.”
The Chaos Star started to glow. The golden light built brighter and brighter, and the feeling in Twilight’s horn grew painful. The mare turned her head away, squeezing her eye shut.

When Twilight blinked her eye open again, she was looking at a bulkhead wall. Her optical flickered on a moment later, its function restored. She quickly turned back toward the doorway.
… And found herself staring at the greaves of an Iron Warrior.
“Gah!” Twilight lurched back, and in an instant the Chaos Space Marine had his bolter up and aimed at her face. Deciding that she’d had enough bullets to the head lately, the alicorn froze in place and nervously awaited the soldier’s judgment.
“... You actually made it,” the Iron Warrior grumbled. He reached down and seized Twilight by the back of her neck, hauling her up to carry her.
The rough handling was somewhat painful, obviously, but Twilight didn’t struggle or say anything. She was carried into the next corridor, past several other Iron Warriors. All of them stopped whatever they were doing to turn and stare at the pony being hauled through their midst. Her optical, apparently functioning on her earlier request, tagged the Astartes as belonging to the 38th Company and listed their names. That was good, then. Or at least, not nearly as bad as it could be.

The Chaos Marine holding her opened a door on the side of the corridor and tossed the mare inside. He closed the door behind her, and then turned away and left.
Twilight was quite gratified to see that the room she had been flung into was not a cell. She wasn’t precisely sure what it was for, and didn’t get much time to look it over. The only other occupant was another Iron Warrior, and he held her full attention immediately.
This Iron Warrior, as it happened, was familiar to her. The plasma gun and power maul attached to his hips was a fairly unique selection of wargear, along with the warrior’s distinctive bionic arm.
“Armsmaster Tolken?” Twilight asked, finally breaking her nervous silence.
Tolken approached the mare wordlessly, and then leaned down onto a knee to look her in the eyes. His bionic hand took a relatively gentle hold of her chin and tilted her head to the side, giving the Chaos Space Marine a better look at her new augmetic eye.
“Warsmith Solon’s work, no doubt,” Tolken mumbled. “I can only imagine what that device is truly capable of.” He chuckled. “That ancient fool.”
“… Armsmaster?” Twilight asked cautiously.
Tolken let go of her and stood back up. “We received word that we may be receiving ‘very friendly cargo’ and were asked to ensure it remained safe during transit. I don’t know what transpired on Medrengard, but since I find myself serving a new Chaos Lord and you find yourself missing an organ, I expect the events were quite turbulent.”
Twilight bristled, and her wings quivered in anger. “… Yes. Yes, you could say that.” She shook her head. “Warsmith Honsou arranged all of this to trap Solon here. The entire fleet is just a bargaining chip for his power play.”
“Ugh. Politics,” Tolken grumbled, turning away. “It is no matter. I’ve arranged for a room in the underdecks for you until we return to Centaur. I will attempt to secure your dragon slave, but there are those who have taken an interest in his unique abilities. He may end up serving the Legion without you.”
“Spike is NOT-“ Twilight bit her tongue to stop herself, and then took a deep breath. “Okay. Three things, if I may, Lord Armsmaster?”
The Armsmaster glanced back at her. “What?”
“One: There’s a man waiting in a shuttle on the embarkation deck who needs a new posting. I would really appreciate it if he could come with us. Two: If you know where my power armor is, I really need it back. Three: Just asking, no real reason, but is Kataris on the Harvest right now?”
Tolken turned completely around, staring at the alicorn.
“I’m just wondering… because… it would be SUPER AWKWARD to run into him right now. The last time we met I kind of snapped at him and he shot me, and I feel like there could be some bad vibes.” She smiled widely, completely failing to make a remotely sincere expression.
“You’re going to assassinate Warsmith Kataris?” Tolken asked.
“What? Me? I never said that!” Twilight started to flop-sweat on the spot.
Tolken ignored her denial. “Don’t be ridiculous. You escaped Medrengard with your life. Many greater warriors have been less fortunate. Don’t think to turn against us, xeno.”
Twilight grimaced, realizing that her protests were useless. “I wouldn’t really consider that turning against the Iron Warriors as opposed to restoring the 38th Company to its rightful leadership…”
“You would be wrong,” Tolken said firmly. “You are reputedly quite intelligent. Do the smart thing and leave us when the time is right.”

Twilight Sparkle lowered her gaze to the floor and wet her lips. “If I… If I leave this room, on my own, and don’t head to my underdeck room, will you stop me?”
“Sparkle, don’t be an idiot,” Tolken growled. “Warsmith Kataris is a Chaos Lord. He will gut you alive, power armor or no. No wargear made by Solon or any other can make one of you feeble equines the equal of an Astartes.”
Twilight looked up him, her eyebrow arched. “So your concern isn’t that I’m betraying anybody, it’s that I’ll probably fail?”
“MY CONCERN is that the next time I come back to this Warp-blasted rock, I’ll be returning that augmetic to its maker as the only scrap of your body that yet remains!” Tolken snapped. “I could hardly care less about you worthless horses, but after being stripped of his army and made to be Honsou’s slave smith, Warsmith Solon does not need to learn that even this small, meaningless effort was in vain!”
Twilight backed up a few steps, surprised by the heat of the reply. “So… you’re not okay with this arrangement, then?”
The Armsmaster hesitated. “… What I like is irrelevant. I have my orders. I serve my Warsmith.”
“But surely you must have an opinion of the difference between two Warsmiths…” the pony mused aloud.
A snarl came from Tolken. “Warsmith Kataris looks upon the Company with contempt, like all the others. He has refused to integrate us fully into the 63rd Grand Battalion, so we will remain a lowly sub-division of his attendant fleet. Meanwhile, his army is to be rearmed with our weapons and wargear.” His voice was low and hot, like boiling magma threatening to erupt. “Our Warpsmiths, who should be replenishing our ranks, have instead been tasked with stripping our Company of its heavy equipment and artifacts for use by Kataris’s other soldiers. Like the Harvest of Steel, the rest of Warsmith Solon’s creations are being lavished upon a whelp who has earned NONE of them!”
Tolken suddenly snapped up his plasma gun, drawing the weapon so quickly that Twilight reflexively jumped in terror. If the Iron Warrior noticed, he didn’t show it, but instead continued his furious rant.
“This plasma weapon, forged for me over 200 standard solar cycles ago, is a relic created as thanks for saving Warsmith Solon from an Eldar witch! It has been fired thousands of times, and never once overheated!”
Twilight looked like she was about to speak, but he pre-empted her. “Yes, he lost a duel and I intervened before the xeno could land a killing blow. Not the point. Now Warsmith Kataris has demanded my wargear be pooled with other relics in his personal inventory, to be handed out to his favored troops. He treats the most prized possessions of our cursed Company as loot earned from a glorious conquest!”
Tolken seethed, his grip tightening around the gun in his hands. “… But it is not my place to dictate how the Legion should allocate its ‘resources,’” he spat. “With time, perhaps I can convince my new Warsmith that I am worthy of MY weapon.”
Twilight stepped up to the Iron Warrior. “You don’t deserve this, Tolken. Solon doesn’t deserve it. Let me fix it!”
Tolken started laughing. Twilight blinked in shock and stepped away again, surprised by the sudden change in mood.
“I’m suddenly struck by the complete absurdity of this meeting,” the Armsmaster said between chuckles. “The noble and righteous Princess of Harmony, attempting to sway an Iron Warrior to mutiny!”
Twilight just looked confused. “I’m not sure I understand…”
“You wouldn’t. You creatures are far too earnest. Even your betrayals reek of hope and innocence,” Tolken said, his voice returning to its normal almost-but-not-quite-angry tone. “It takes great courage to stand against an Astartes, Sparkle. It takes great foolishness to stand against a Lord of Chaos.”
“I think I’ve proven I have plenty of both,” the mare retorted. “All you have to do is not stop me, Armsmaster.”
“I will not,” Tolken snorted. “Your power armor is in Magos Kaelith’s private quarters, among his personal collection. Warsmith Kataris is on board the Harvest of Steel, touring its facilities. Go. My men will hinder you no longer. Throw your life away as you wish.”
Twilight Sparkle bowed her head. “Thank you, Armsmaster Tolken. I’ll be leaving now.” She started to turn around.
“Wait,” Tolken said, stopping her.
The Iron Warrior suddenly tossed his plasma gun at Twilight. Her eye widened, and she quickly stopped it mid-air with her levitation magic to keep it from striking her nose.
“Wh-What are you-“
“Since you’re set on meeting our new Warsmith again, you may as well deliver my plasma gun to him personally,” Tolken growled.
Twilight spent several seconds gaping, and then tilted the gun onto its side. It was longer than the other plasma guns she had seen, with several small cylinders jutting out from under the flex-sheathing. The casing was chased in gold, with the Iron Skull stamped on the fusion micro-reactor shell. A switch near the back flipped, and the energy cell popped out of the injection crucible with a hiss. Twilight pushed it back down, and it clicked shut before emitting a pleasant hum and a rush of heated air.
“… I’ll make sure he gets it, Armsmaster,” Twilight said, trying hard not to smile.

****

Harvest of Steel
Dark Mechanicus penitent cell block

+Pain is corollary to sentiment.+
Kaelith’s various welders and cutters clicked together like an insect’s chittering mandibles.
+Expansion: When the goals of the Dark Mechanicus and a Techpriest’s private attachments conflict, prioritization is necessary. Conclusive: In accordance with these parameters, you have failed.+
Standing in front of him was Dark Techpriest Gaela. She was nude, having been stripped of her servo harness, her armor, her robes, and even the skin-tight bodysuit that normally protected her under that. Metal plates, sockets, and loose tubing decorated her naked body, along with a ridged arc of silver metal protruding from her back along her spine. Her bionic arms had been removed from their sockets, and chains had been bolted into the augmetic ports in her shoulders and stretched to the walls of the cell. Her legs, waist, and neck were shackled as well, attached to thick, dark chains that were anchored to several motorized reels.
Despite her situation, Gaela stared into the green optics cluster of her superior with disinterest. “I see no error in my calculations, Magos. My loyalty to Warsmith Solon serves a higher purpose than my own preservation. This usurpation of his army is an affront to our long contract with the Iron Warriors, and we will suffer for having him stuck in Honsou’s workshops.”
+Contra: Your analysis suffers from limited vision. Many opportunities are open to us now with a superior leader. Addendum: Former Warsmith Solon’s efforts will better serve his Legion and the Dark Mechanicus in his new capacity,+ argued the Magos. Despite Gaela’s irritating insistence on using Gothic, Kaelith spoke entirely in Binaric Cant.
“Absolute slag,” Gaela retorted calmly. “In addition, you may wish to restrain your vocalizer, Dark Magos. Warsmith Solon is still, in fact, a Warsmith.”
+Contra: The title of Warsmith is meaningless to one without an army. Hypothetical: It would be highly beneficial if Warsmith Honsou were to strip him of rank to better dominate his production.+
“I’m beginning to think your disdain for Warsmith Solon has some origin other than his bearing and leadership,” Gaela drawled. “Won’t you miss it, Magos? The wonders that he rolls out of his forge on the merest whim?”
+Negative,+ Kaelith replied in a burst of static. +Explanatory: Warsmith Kataris has promised us much, Dark Techpriest. He sees the Dark Mechanicus – correctly – as a greater asset than the Iron Warriors within the 38th Company. Our division is to be given a greater share of his spoils in return for combat and logistics assistance, and he has promised to conquer forge worlds in search of artifacts.+ The welders and cutters clicked together in sequence, rolling down Kaelith’s elongated belly like a wave. +Conclusive: These conditions are superior to our previous configuration, in which we were assigned to looting battlefield scrap and had to beg Solon for any technology of worth.+
“I really had no idea how much it grated on you,” Gaela sighed. “It’s eaten away at your cores, hasn’t it? Having to serve a superior technologist? Having so many secrets hidden away so close, and yet-“
With a silent signal, the chain securing Gaela’s collar shackle suddenly reeled in. She immediately choked and lurched backward, her neck stretching back painfully and her breathing cut off. Her neck would have broken if not for the tritanium reinforcement of her spinal column.
“Hey! What’s going on over there?! Gaela? Gaela, are you all right?” Spike’s voice came from the adjacent cell, but Kaelith ignored him.
+Executive: Do not accuse me of irrational bias, Techpriest. Our new Warsmith would not miss you were you to expire.+ He sent another signal, and the chain let out some slack. +Ultimatum: You will be restrained until you come to properly rationalize our reorganization. If this process exceeds two megacycles in duration, you will be declared unrecoverable and be liquidated.+
Gaela gasped and coughed for a few seconds, trying to ease the pain in her throat. Then she looked up at Kaelith again. “I serve Warsmith Solon,” she said simply.
+Cautionary: Those whose loyalty proves inflexible will find themselves without a role under Warsmith Kataris.+
Kaelith’s robes rustled as his mechatendrils shifted something around that was hidden under the cloak of black rubber. After a few seconds, the object was pulled out of its hiding place and then dropped on the floor at Gaela’s feet.
Gaela’s jaw tightened, and her organic eye twitched. Laying in front of her was Twilight Sparkle’s power armor helmet. The left visor lens was missing, and the slot it had been set into was cratered in a manner consistent with a mass-reactive bolt impact.
+Reiteration: Two megacycles, Dark Techpriest Gaela.+

Kaelith scuttled out the cell entrance. Once he was out, the cell door slammed shut, and the thick adamantium bars electrified.
“What did you do? Is Gaela okay?” Spike’s voice came from the next cell over, and Kaelith regarded him with a few peripheral optics.
The young dragon was in a cell like Gaela’s, albeit his shackles were far smaller and simply chained to a metal stake welded into the middle of his prison. Unlike Gaela, he hadn’t been imprisoned for defiance.
“Explanatory: Her fate is none of your concern,” buzzed Kaelith, finally speaking in Gothic. “Cautionary: Your own immediate future is far less certain than hers. Your survival depends on the transfiguration of your trans-Warp communication ability. Conclusive: Your worth to your new masters is in great doubt regardless of your allegiance, xeno.”
Spike glared up at him angrily. “Forget it! Even if could, I wouldn’t! Where’s Twilight? What did you do with her?!”
Kaelith didn’t answer, turning away. Bickering with a Dark Techpriest was enough of a hassle, but arguing with some xeno child was entirely beneath him.
“You know you’re not going to get away with this! Even if Solon isn’t charge anymore, Twilight will come back! She’ll teach you a lesson!”
Kaelith scuttled toward the exit, not giving the dragon another glance. As he left, a strange, repetitive buzzing came from the Dark Magos. It sounded almost like laughter.

Kaelith ascended the hallowed halls of the Mechanicus decks, scuttling past huddled groups of black-clad Techpriests and darkened laboratoriums. In truth, Gaela was far from the only Techpriest unhappy at the sudden change in leadership; there was more than one tech-cultist who would have gladly opted to join Solon’s new, empty workshop rather than serve under their new master. Kaelith had assured his division quite clearly that this was not an option. The Dark Mechanicus had made its deal with the 38th Company, and that Company now served Kataris.
The other Dark Techpriests weren’t motivated by personal loyalty, though, which was why Gaela’s only co-prisoner was Spike. The others would complain, but they would also rationalize and obey. Loyalty was a more stubborn, illogical trait, and Kaelith wasn’t very good at navigating his subordinate’s ridiculous emotional conundrums. He had shown off the pony’s helmet to display the price of defiance, and even left it with her so that Gaela had a prop with which to better visualize her fate. If fear would not sway her, then better she just be disposed of.
Eventually Kaelith reached his personal quarters and entered. His home on the Harvest of Steel was largely stereotypical of a Dark Magos: small, personal forging facilities, data stacks, and an experimental reactor replaced amenities such as a bed, washroom, and kitchen. A raised platform was set in another room, surrounded by logic engines set in towers that thrummed with energy even while not in use. Another room was set aside with a stasis barrier, locking a mysterious, twisted, spherical thing in an eternal temporal prison.
Beyond these rooms dedicated to research and production, however, was another hall with a less conventional purpose. Dark Magos Kaelith naturally considered his trophy hall to be an extension of his research collection; within were numerous pedestals and armorglass cases that contained suits of armor and weapons from a variety of foes of Chaos. And to be sure, all had been studied extensively and some had even been partially cannibalized for components.
The aesthetic nature of the hall was undeniable to any observer, though. Suits of Astartes power armor and tactical dreadnought armor had been cleaned and detailed before being set in poses of un-Space Marine-like submission. Eldar armor, always a prime example of form over function, were displayed with elaborate battle damage, often next to an example of the munition or weapon that struck down the bearer. Tau battlesuits of various patterns had been carefully restored to their original state, and then posed and even partially powered so that their optics were active; it was not difficult at all to imagine the suits suddenly gaining independent mobility and breaking free of their prison. In fact, their weapons had been replaced by useless model replicas for exactly that reason, as such a bizarre incident would not be out of place in the Warp.
The Dark Magos continued down the hall toward his newest prize. A type of armor that was patently absurd in its design and ultimate purpose: to augment the abilities of creatures that clearly had no place on a battlefield. The Centaur pattern armor was an absolute affront to the artificer’s craft. To create wargear on par with that of the Space Marines for tepid, weakling xenos was a heresy even most Dark Techpriests couldn’t stomach. On top of the sheer wrongness of it, the design itself was nearly impossible to replicate. The Centaur armor somehow compressed all the necessary components into the armor shell without need of a full-sized power pack AND still maintained armor integrity equal to a suit five times as large. It was in equal measure a treasure chest of knowledge and a detestable abuse of resources. Chaos in a nutshell, really.
It was also missing. That wasn’t right.

Kaelith froze in place, his optics locked on the empty platform to his side. A blast of steam came from his cranial assembly.
The armor had been left in a headless heap, as he intended to dissect the artifact entirely once the fleet departed Medrengard. Still, even if it hadn’t been posed, the suit had been secured behind an armorglass casing locked with an encryption cipher that would have alerted him – and numerous automated turrets – if it had been broken into. That the case was open suggested that someone had unlocked the case without access to his decryption codex, which bordered on the impossible.
The Dark Magos snapped out of his stupor, practically vaulting toward the logic engine that controlled the security locks. He submitted his signum identifier with a glance, and the primary vid-screen flickered on.
Kaelith was fairly shocked to find his view of the screen obstructed by a note stuck to the screen. He paused, absorbing the note’s contents in an instant.

Dark Magos Kaelith,
By the time you read this I expect you’ll have noticed that I took my power armor back. I realize that this turn of events may seem unfair to you. After all, you didn’t steal the suit from me, and as I understand it it’s a legitimate practice for leaders to give gifts to their commanders.
Still, I needed my wargear back, and since I was neither dead nor under Kataris’s command when it was taken from me, I feel my claim is stronger. I’ll be happy to discuss the matter with you at a later time if necessary so we can come to a proper agreement. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Twilight Sparkle

Kaelith kept staring at the note, puzzling over its contents. None of this made sense. Not only was Twilight Sparkle supposed to be dead, but she was stuck on Medrengard. Even if she had survived, how had she gotten onto the Harvest and into his quarters? She had psychic abilities, obviously, but using such powers to enter and recover her power armor would have triggered the security alerts. The thief had unlocked his systems directly. It simply wasn’t possible that the pony had done this.
Unless she had help.
+Solon…+ Kaelith buzzed, another steam burst shooting from under his cowl. +You meddling, insipid wretch…+

****

Harvest of Steel
Reactor core

“It iss a marvelouss thing, iss it not? The Warp calefactor iss another of Warssmith Ssolon’ss mosst treassured creationss. The beating heart of the Harvesst of Ssteel, and the ssource of itss power.”
Sliver stood within the reactor room of the ship, standing ahead of Kataris and his bodyguards. In front of him was the Warp calefactor that served as the main power source for the Harvest.
The calefactor wasn’t much to look at, really. It was a large pit at one end of the reactor room that glowed faintly and had several extended arrow-shaped metal segments shielding its contents from view. No doubt it was somewhat more impressive in an open state, but as it stood now it could have been mistaken for a garbage chute with strange lighting.
The reactor room itself was another story. Ordinarily such rooms were titanic, and overrun with pipes, Techpriests, and servitors tending to the primary power source. In comparison, this room was bafflingly small. A giant eye in the ceiling immediately reminded one of the bridge, as did the only engineer present.
Rather than a small army of crew to handle this reactor, the Harvest had one minder watching over its daemonic heart. A Techpriest was wired into the ceiling above the calefactor, held upside-down in a prison of extensive piping that seemed to have replaced his lower body and wormed directly into his abdomen. Like the other “crew,” the Techpriests seemed ancient, broken, and withered. His augmetic components were weathered, burnt, and rusty, mirroring the degraded state of his desiccated flesh.
“The construction here is more… subtle than I had anticipated,” Kataris mumbled. His Terminator bodyguards were at his sides, their weapons aimed up at the entombed Techpriest. “And you fuel this ship with souls?”
“That iss… practically correct,” Sliver replied. “The reactor iss remarkably efficient; a ssingle, ordinary human can fuel the entire ship’ss normal non-combat operationss for almosst a full sstandard cycle. An Ork lasstss longer, perhaps one and a half cycless. Tau are nearly usselesss, providing barely an hour of energy. Eldar are her favorite.”
“How long would an Astartes last?” Kataris asked.
Sliver hesitated. The Techpriest twisted his head to one side, and then the other. Then he spoke.
“The Harvest of Steel has never tasted an Astartes spirit,” the Techpriest informed the Warsmith.
“Really?” Kataris turned toward Sliver, a slight smirk on his face. “You’ve truly had no occasion on which to sacrifice a Space Marine?”
Sliver sighed. “Warssmith Ssolon forbade the ssacrifice of Sspace Mariness. He felt that ssuch a fate wass unacceptable, even for thosse whosse crimess warranted death.”
“Such a weak man. It’s no wonder his men disrespect him,” Kataris chuckled. “But what about other Astartes? Our enemies? Surely you’ve fed the odd loyalist or Emperor’s Child into the forge?”
“We have not,” Sliver admitted. “Warssmith Ssolon… thought it besst that the Harvesst not acquire a tasste for our ssoulss.”
“A weakling AND a coward,” Kataris snorted. “Living in fear of his own tools.”
The Warsmith craned his neck up, looking into the eyeball set in the ceiling. It shifted to look back at him, its iris dilating and the veins around it pulsing.
“What do you think?” he asked, smiling. “Do you want your first taste of Astartes?”
“Warssmith?” Sliver asked, suddenly taking a step away from the calefactor.
The eye squinted, and the Techpriest shuddered.
“The Harvest… is uncertain. She has never devoured one such as yourself. It is forbidden!” the minder howled.
“I am your new master, and from this point on, it is not,” Kataris said, pointing to the eye. “I prefer my dogs with some bite to them. And I intend to fuel many excursions with the lives of the False Emperor’s slaves.”
Then he tilted his head to the side. “Commander Sliver.”
“… Yess, Warssmith?”
“Find me an Iron Warrior that will not be missed and bring him here. Tell him nothing except that I demanded an audience. I wish to see this vessel feed,” Kataris commanded.
“An Iron Warrior? Why?!” Sliver shouted, suddenly incensed. “We have hundredss of Orkss, humanss, and-“
“Commander Sliver, I gave you an order,” Kataris said blithely. “If you wish me to explain it, very well: your Company has a reputation for incompetence and unruly foolishness. I intend to correct this, and that starts by making an example.”
“An example of what?! You’re not handing down a ssentence, you’re jusst demanding a body to ssacrifice!” Sliver protested.
Kataris turned fully toward the Nurglite, his features drawing into a scowl. “Surely you can find me a suitable sacrifice, Commander. If you can’t think of think of a soldier that committed a sufficient error, then I suppose I could settle for an increasingly insubordinate officer…”
Sliver’s shoulders quivered, and his grip on his hammer tightened. The Terminators next to Kataris shifted their stances, and their power fists started charging up.
“I… will ssee what I can do,” Sliver said, his voice emotionless. He turned on his heel and stomped toward the exit.
“Don’t take too long,” Kataris commanded. “This… thing on the ceiling does not look to be enjoyable company.”
“… Were you referring to me, or the Harvest’s eye?” asked the withered Techpriest.
“Take your best guess,” the Warsmith snarled.

Sliver said nothing as he left the reactor core. The warded blast shielding locked shut behind him with grim finality. He paused briefly after that, thinking over his orders.
There were, in fact, Iron Warriors that he could recommend for a sudden death sentence. And Sliver wasn’t strictly against killing insubordinate Space Marines in the first place; he had done so himself in the past. Why, if anything, his wrath had been unduly restrained up until now. He’d have disposed of Serith and Tellis already if such matters had been entirely up to him.
But like this… everything about it set the Chaos Lord ill at ease. This wasn’t to be a punishment for a specific infraction, but a gesture to display the casual cruelty of their new Warsmith. Kataris had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t care who the victim was, or what he had supposedly done. He could bring the Warsmith a skilled and perfectly obedient Iron Warrior and he’d be just as doomed. The thought made Sliver’s blood boil.
Sliver raised a hand to the side of his helmet, preparing to open a vox link to one of his quartermasters. To his surprise, the link failed to connect.
He tried searching for a different vox signum, only to find none open at all. He had been cut off from the vox-net, and, if his visor indicators were correct, his local noosphere datalink was off-line as well.
Sliver grunted and marched down the reactor hall, keeping his hammer at the ready. He was neither especially surprised or bothered by the sudden paralysis of his helmet systems. They were in the Eye of Terror, and such phenomena were common and relatively harmless.
Assuming that an outage was the extent of the effects, of course.

Sliver turned the corner, heading into the next hall. He saw what was waiting for him, and he stopped.
“… I wass under the impresssion that you had not ssurvived your vissit to the Conclave, Princesss.” Sliver’s voice was glib and conversational, and he rested the head of his hammer on the floor. “For all Warssmith Katariss talkss of sstrength, it would sseem he iss lax in hiss killing.”
Twilight Sparkle sat in the corridor. She was wearing her power armor, sans helmet, and a strangely familiar plasma gun was carried on her back between the wings of her flight pack. Her exposed expression was uncertain; whether she had been expecting this encounter or not, she wasn’t at all sure where she and Sliver stood right now.
“I ssee you’ve been repaired, as well. Iss the current sstate of the vox-net your doing?”
Twilight wet her lips anxiously. “It is, Lord Sliver. I need to speak to Warsmith Kataris. Alone.”
“Ah. And I asssume you want me to move along and pretend I don’t know what you’re intending to do with that plassma weapon?”
Twilight’s expression soured. “I would… appreciate that, yes.”
“No. Turn back, xeno,” Sliver said, waving a hand in a shooing gesture.
“Lord Sliver, I don’t believe that the current leadership is-“
“Sspare me your naïve, usselesss ssquawking, Ssparkle,” Sliver interrupted. He started lumbering forward as he spoke. “I know why you’re here. It’ss not going to happen. Warssmith Katariss controlss thiss army now.”
Twilight frowned. “Because Honsou decided it was in the ‘best interest of the Legion?’”
“Commanderss command. Ssoldierss obey. It iss not for you or I to determine leadership bassed on our own whimss and impulssess. Go, Ssparkle. Return to your quarterss. That iss an order.”
Twilight started to take a deep breath, and then almost choked. Sliver had nearly crossed the distance between them, and the stench was getting stronger. She wished she had been able to find her helmet, even if it did have a hole in it.
“I don’t take orders from the Company officers anymore,” the alicorn announced. “I refused to serve Kataris. The bolt shell he put into my eye suggests he accepts my resignation.”
Sliver finally stepped within a meter of the pony and stopped, staring down at her through the single blood-red lens of his helmet.
“Of coursse. You sstill sserve Warssmith Ssolon. That’ss why you’re here, after all,” he mused.
“Incorrect,” Twilight replied. “Solon released me from his service too. He told me to make my way to the Harvest, hide away, and escape back to Equestria when we reached the Centaur system again.”
Sliver hesitated, surprised. That DID actually seem more characteristic of his previous Warsmith than the idea of him sending a magic alien assassin to remove his rival. Treachery was not Solon’s strong suit. It was one of the traits Sliver actually admired about the man.
“Then what are you doing here, like thiss?” the Iron Warrior demanded. “To survive an encounter with a Chaoss Lord with nothing losst but an eye iss too rare a mercy, Ssparkle. You have taken on ridiculouss misssionss in the passt on our orderss, but thiss...”
Twilight shook her head. “I can’t leave him here, Sliver. I won’t.”
“You’ll die,” Sliver scoffed.
“That’s a risk I’ve faced down before. I’m doing it on my own this time, but I have a plan. Kind of. I WILL beat Kataris.”
Sliver leaned forward slightly, his massive, armored bulk towering over the purple pony. “And what do you intend to do if I sstop you?”
Twilight gulped. She leaned to the side, looking past the Chaos Lord, and then back up at him. “Well, I guess I’d try to teleport past you… uh… and maybe the door seals would hold against you for… what, thirty seconds? Forty? It would make this a LOT more complicated, for sure.”
A disgusting snort came from the Iron Warrior. “Ssuch hopelesss conviction. You’re not as clever as you pretend, Princesss.”
He stepped forward, and Twilight clambered to the side nervously to get out of his way. Sliver walked past her, heading further down the corridor. He made no move to attack or restrain the equine.
“Warssmith Katariss hass demanded the ssacrifice of an Iron Warrior to the ship’ss core,” Sliver said while he walked away. “Sspecifically, ssomeone who would ‘not be misssed.’ Perhapss you can think of ssuch a Sspace Marine.”

He didn’t turn around again, stomping off down the corridor and then turning at the intersection. Twilight watched him go pensively, and then sucked in a deep breath once he had passed and the pervasive aura of filth had gone with him. Then she turned her gaze toward the reactor core.
Iron Warrior signums detected. Designation: 63rd Grand Battalion.
Identifier codices received.
Terminator Gulren.
Terminator Khar’hrel.
Warsmith Kataris.
Target locked. Enemy contact imminent.

****

Harvest of Steel
Reactor Core

“To have a void ship that hungers and has a will of its own, like a living beast… it seems there could be many disadvantages to such a creation,” Kataris mused.
“The daemon ships are most often the products of the more fanatical Legions,” remarked a bodyguard. “If that is the price to navigate the Eye of Terror at will, perhaps it is worth it.”
“The Harvest speaks,” hissed the Techpriest above. “She does not like how you speak of her as if she isn’t here.”
“Be silent, wretch,” Kataris sighed, turning his head up toward the mummified engineer. “I also find these bizarre conduits distasteful. I prefer a conventional crew.”
The Techpriest suddenly snapped its head to the side, and its mechatendrils twitched. “How strange. She is here? But why?”
Kataris frowned. “I told you to be sil-“

The slight popping noise behind him caused Kataris to pause, and a feeling of dread that had served him reliably for over a century alerted him to the threat. He whirled behind the bodyguard to his left, putting the Terminator's armor-clad hulk between him and the door.
The scream of a plasma gun’s discharge vindicated his decision, and a burst of howling energy bolts splashed over Terminator Gulren. A agonized howl came from the Iron Warrior as the plasma ate through his plate and burned through his body, cooking him within his armor.
Kataris and his remaining guard descended on the perpetrator with their full fury. Neither gave any immediate thought to the horned equine in power armor, and they unloaded their guns – a bolt pistol and combi-bolter respectively – into the assassin. The shots splashed over a purple energy barrier rather than removing the pony’s head, and at this the Chaos Space Marines paused to regard their foe.

“… You? I thought I dealt with you already,” Kataris snarled, his eyes narrowing.
The Terminator tilted his head to the side, being much more shocked than his Warsmith to see a purple horse-xeno brandishing a floating plasma gun. He glanced over to Kataris, and then trained his gun back on the equine.
Twilight kept her eyes fixed on Kataris through the shimmering haze of her magic shield. “I’m here to renegotiate the terms of my release from the 38th Company.” Her optical locked onto a pedestal console next to the wall, and the Techpriest flinched.
“You. What are you doing?” the entombed Techpriest demanded.
Kataris dared not look away from the alicorn. “Shut up, wretch.” He pushed aside the smoldering corpse of his bodyguard, stepping further from his surviving soldier. “You took me by surprise, little one. You cost me a good soldier.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’d really rather let them live, but you dodged the shot,” Twilight explained. “I mean, I don’t know them; they could be nice guys.”
The other bodyguard apparently aimed to prove her wrong, and his combi-bolter opened fire again. A punishing double salvo of mass-reactive shells spilled over Twilight’s barrier, and a painful throbbing like dozens of tiny hammer-blows assaulted her skull.
Command sequence confirmed. Calefactor iris shielding disengaged.
“This is in violation of safety protocols!” warned the entombed Techpriest, trying to lift his voice of the thunder of boltguns. “Both the opening of the shielding AND the use of firearms in the reactor area!”
This finally got Kataris’s attention, and he spared a glance at the reactor’s minder. “What shielding?”
A deep, pulsing crimson light appeared from below, illuminating the desiccated cyborg. Kataris turned his gaze down, and saw that the arrow-shaped plates of warded metal were retracting, revealing a pit of seething red. This was strange, but not entirely out of line with what the Warsmith expected, or particularly threatening. It didn’t become obvious what the immediate danger was until a hook connected to an ebony chain snaked out of the calefactor and shot toward him.
Kataris drew his sword in an instant, slashing it at the incoming threat in a sweep of crackling lightning. The chain was severed under the hook, and the remaining length suddenly jerked back, like a wounded serpent.
The other Iron Warrior had his back to the calefactor, and didn’t realize anything was wrong until a chain hooked onto the cowl of his armor and pulled. Taken off-balance for a split-second, the Chaos Terminator pushed forward to steady himself, only to find a second chain wrapping around his leg.
“Damnation!” Kataris jumped away from the pit, firing his bolt pistol at Twilight to keep the mare’s defenses up. “Techpriest! Close the shielding at once!” The chains that previously sought to latch onto the Warsmith veered away once he was out of reach, darting toward his bodyguard instead.
“I cannot. Unit Twilight Sparkle possesses superior access codices. Override is impossible.”
The Terminator grunted, struggling to move forward while more chains wrapped around his arm and legs. “Foul vessel! Release me! I am your master, daemon!” His power fist crackled with energy, and he ripped off a chain binding his leg. Two more attached to his shoulder pads in the meantime.
The entombed Techpriest shuddered. “The Harvest has been permitted to consume Astartes souls. The Harvest can taste your will. It is… satisfying.”
With a screech of metal sliding against metal, the Chaos Terminator was ripped backwards off his feet, the chains finally breaking his mag-locked greaves from the deck. The bulk of the Iron Warrior was pulled into the calefactor, his dying scream echoing in the minds of those present.

Both Twilight and Kataris staggered from the tortuous Warp echo, and the former dropped her shield and her plasma gun as her organic vision exploded into stars and her optical began stuttering. Kataris weathered the backlash better, having suffered such things frequently, and he swiftly started firing again while his vision was still hazy.
The bolt shells crashed against Twilight’s shoulder armor and then her hip, and a shard of shrapnel sliced through her ear. This helped to bring her immediate survival into greater focus, and the mare bounded away from another bolt that crashed into the deck, using her flight pack to assist the jump.
Kataris heard his pistol click empty, and moved to reload. “USELESS! The damned ship, the damned crew, this entire Company!” He leaned out of the way of a howling plasma bolt, and then fired again at his equine foe’s head.
The bolt shells hit Twilight’s barrier again, and the mare permitted a smirk to cross her muzzle. “Now it’s just you and me, Kataris… And the giant, hungry, monster ship mouth, I guess.”
A gurgling shriek came from the Calefactor, causing both combatants to wince. The eye in the ceiling snapped back and forth between the combatants, and several chains hovered over the mouth of the calefactor like waiting serpents.
“The Harvest has a name, and she does not appreciate being addressed in this manner,” pointed out the Techpriest. “Also, while the Astartes was quite filling, the Harvest of Steel greatly desires to eat the purple thing. That would make her very happy.”
Kataris pointed his blade at Twilight. “No. This xeno pest has slighted me, and it will die by my hand. The damnable vessel will have to be sated by its cries of agony.” He sneered. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, creature? You wish a personal conclusion to our grudge?”
Twilight blinked. “Grudge? Over what? My eye? Solon made me a better one. I don’t even miss it.” She shrugged. “I guess I do resent you taking me out of action for a few days and making me sneak back onto the ship from Medrengard, but that’s hardly worth anything like this.”
Kataris retracted his blade, turning to a combat stance. “Then why are you here, scum? Surely you don’t think you can kill me now, after squandering your surprise attack.”
“I do. And I will,” Twilight said, her horn glowing brighter. “As for why… you probably wouldn’t understand. It’s a friendship thing.”

Twilight disappeared in a flash of purple light. Kataris vaulted to the side, twisting on one leg to face behind him. Twilight was already there, the light from her teleport still receding, and her magic choice quickly switched from offense to defense before her opponent took aim.
“You cower behind your feeble sorcery!” Kataris snarled while his bolt shells slammed against the quivering purple barrier. “How long do you think it will save you from my steel?”
“Just long enough!” the mare growled.
Twilight knew she was at a disadvantage, despite her magic. She couldn’t fire the plasma gun while her shield was up, and very few of her spells would work on the Chaos Lord directly. If Kataris managed to catch her with one good shot or strike without her barrier, then she would die. She couldn’t count on the Space Marine falling as easily.
But she did have one other edge, as long as she could keep finding uses for it.
Reactor coolant system diagnostic engaged. Emergency coolant venting active.
Twilight’s augmetic blinked, and several nozzles lining the walls appeared in bright green.
Initiating emergency coolant flush.

Kataris lunged, letting his spent pistol clip fall to the floor while his power sword stabbed for Twilight’s barrier. Crimson lightning coursed across the blade edge, whipping at the purple shell of magic and increasing its energy feedback exponentially. Twilight screamed through clenched teeth, all her focus and power devoted to holding the Iron Warrior at bay for a few more precious seconds.
Loud hissing noises came from above, and the coolant valves in the reactor walls released. Jets of snowy white gas blasted onto the floor, and then rolled up into the pair of warriors. The gas parted around and over Twilight’s barrier and then swirled around Kataris, blasting up into the Chaos Lord’s face and wrapping around his armor like a cloak of mist.
Kataris went on the defensive instinctively, lurching backward and trying to clear away the coolant dust blinding him. His augmetic eye reset to track thermal bloom, wary of his opponent’s plasma weapon more than any potential sorcery.
“More tricks and diversions! Cowardly alien!” Kataris snarled, briefly detecting an energy flare in front of him. He swept to the side in a dodge before slashing his sword down, ripping a swathe through the blinding mist and cutting a molten streak into the floor.
The entombed servitor shook his head. “Warsmith Kataris, please refrain from using or discharging weapons in a reckless and indiscriminate manner. The damage-“
“SILENCE, FOOL!” Kataris roared, whirling around. “Clear this room at once, or you will die before the xeno worm!”
A brief hum came from the corner, and a flash of thermal bloom appeared. Kataris leapt to the floor into a rolling dodge, clearing the pair of screaming plasma bolts that cut through the obscuring coolant mist.
“Acknowledged. Active ventilation purge engaged,” the Techpriest blurted while the plasma shots splashed into the wall and started cutting into the bulkheads. “Unit Sparkle, please refrain from-“
“I said SILENCE!” Kataris roared, hopping back to his feet and side-stepping another plasma bolt. The Chaos Lord was shockingly nimble for a warrior in full armor, even taking into account Astartes reflexes and power armor functionality.
A rumble came from overhead, and the overhead atmospheric engines came to life. The coolant mist started to swirl into small, upside-down funnels that seeped into the ceiling.
Kataris sprinted through the reactor room while it cleared, darting past another missed plasma shot. His path briefly took him too close to the calefactor, and a chain darted out to meet him. He severed it with an almost contemptuous flick of his power sword, and then dropped into a crouch to avoid the raking plasma fire.
The plasma gun hovered above the remaining dust, wrapped in a highly visible shroud of purple light while it sought its target. Rather than waiting for the weapon’s user to be revealed, Kataris took aim at the gun itself, snapping off a shot with his bolt pistol.
The first bolt hit the gun squarely on the nose, tearing open the magnetic stabilizer and knocking the weapon to the side. A second and third shot blasted apart the heat sinks arranged under the gun’s flex sheathe. An inky blue mist seeped from the shredded metal and plasteel, and intense white light came from the exposed reaction chamber.
“I have you now, ‘unit Sparkle,’” Kataris sneered, vaulting forward once he could make out a dark shape past the diminishing mist.
Twilight gaped up at the shredded plasma gun, and then her eye darted toward the Iron Warrior dashing across the room. She had barely two seconds to escape with a teleport or put up a barrier to try to extend the battle a little longer.
She vouched for option 3.

Twilight’s plasma gun swung forward through the air toward Kataris during his charge, like a floating club, while still leaking coolant, plasma, and steam. Kataris swatted it out of the way with his pistol hand. Twilight telekinetically pulled the trigger.
The plasma gun wasn’t even aimed at the Iron Warrior at that precise moment, but Twilight’s gamble didn’t need it to be. As soon as the trigger depressed the plasma gun accelerated the fusion reaction in its core, and then immediately destabilized. The weapon exploded, briefly emitting a flash of light and heat with the intensity of a star. Twilight turned her head away from the glare, and that simple reflex probably spared her face another remodeling as droplets of raw plasma splashed over her. Her power armor’s ceramite shielding absorbed the worst of the heat, although several drops burned through the thinner armoring of her flight pack and seared her wings.
The effect on Kataris was far more dramatic. His pistol hand was gone; the weapon and extremity had vanished into a vaporous cloud. His left forearm now ended in a molten stump, and the rest of his armor was badly scarred by the superheated shrapnel. The golden Chaos Star beaten onto his breast plate glowed defiantly against the heat of the plasma, briefly enveloping the Iron Warrior in a halo of howling green power. Kataris had stumbled and fallen to one knee, but the Astartes was not beaten.

The light receded, and the hiss of plasma faded. The last of the coolant dust was sucked up into the ventilation engines. A deep, mournful wail came from the mouth of the calefactor, followed by the rattle of chains.
Kataris and Twilight stood several meters apart from each other. The former’s breath was heavy, but even, and his expression was intensely focused and calm for someone who had just had his hand burned off. Twilight’s breathing was more ragged, and her organic eye darted from side to side, trying to find another object to use to her advantage.
“I must inform you that the Harvest of Steel is greatly perturbed,” the Techpriest said, breaking the tension again. “The bulkheads seethe with pain. The calefactor tastes hatred in the air. This is sub-optimal, and she wishes you to cease this senseless violence.”
Kataris creased his brow, and his remaining hand seized his combat knife by his belt. Twilight’s horn flickered, and she crouched her front legs.
“If you do not wish to stop fighting, the vessel is willing to devour you bo-“
The combat knife sliced through the air, and then punched into the reactor engineer’s neck. The entombed crewman screeched, his vocalizer wailing even while his throat was shredded. His ancient, disused mechatendrils quivered and thrashed like wounded snakes, but within moments they fell limp along with the cyborg’s body.
“… Why? Why would you do that?” Twilight whispered, the glow of her horn fading. She had been certain that the knife had been meant for her.
“I warned him. He disobeyed. He’s dead now,” Kataris said. “This is what it means to command. This is why your erstwhile master failed.”
Twilight narrowed her remaining eye. Her optical was starting to bring up strange warnings, flashing text at her in cryptic and rapid patterns that flickered and vanished in moments.
“You’re not nearly smart enough to lead this army. For everyone’s sake, you have to die here.”
“Again, you think to cast judgment on me,” Kataris growled. “And again, you will fall, wretch.”

Kataris bolted forward, keeping his injured arm tucked close while his blade lanced ahead. Twilight’s horn pulsed with magic, firing a wave of kinetic power in a swirling violet ray at the Iron Warrior.
The spell could have ripped open a brick wall with its sheer force, but against the Chaos Lord it only served to slow his approach. His pulsing aura quivered around his power armor, and the Chaos Star against his chest shined bright in angry sympathy.
“How long do you think you can evade my wrath, alien?!” Kataris shouted against the waves of force. He took a step forward against the tide of magic, sparks screeching from his greaves the moment they touched the floor. “Your sorcery, your tricks, your diversions, they all merely delay the inevitable! My sword will taste your heart, and no technology of Solon’s will restore you again!”
“Just… a little… bit longer…” Twilight grunted, squeezing her eye shut. She was drawing out her spell as long as she could, but the Iron Warrior refused to break stride.
Kataris took another step, and then another, each footstep being accompanied by a jet of sparks. Violet lightning lashed about the Chaos Lord, washing against his own aura generated by the Chaos Star and his own sheer will. He raised his power sword, and the weapon howled against the stream of force like an enraged daemon.
Exactly like an enraged daemon, in fact.
After a tendril of searing pain spiked into the combatants’ brains, like a red-hot mechadendrite worming into their ears, Kataris and Twilight began to think it wasn’t his sword.
Twilight’s spell broke as the pain rapidly jumped past her point of tolerance, shattering her concentration and sending her stumbling onto her side. Kataris swung his blade down, but it was more an effort of gravity than his arm. The power sword struck Twilight’s shoulder pad and carved a glowing tear down through it, slicing across the mare’s flank before stabbing awkwardly into the deck surface. The Iron Warrior struggled to stay upright, teetering precariously against his own momentum and the paralyzing noise.
Again, Kataris recovered before Twilight, his senses rapidly returning to normalcy. His grip was still on his power sword, but when he saw the cringing alicorn before him he didn’t waste time pulling it from the deck. Kataris raised a foot to stomp on the mare’s head and dash her skull upon the deck.
Instead, he almost lost his balance again when something tugged backward on his shoulder.
“What? The chains! Damnation!” Kataris roared.
One of the chains from the Warp calefactor had hooked onto his backpack, pulling the Iron Warrior back. Ever since the mysterious tendrils had appeared, he had given the mouth of the daemonic reactor a wide berth, assuming that they had a limited reach. Up until this point, it had seemed he was correct. Had something changed?
His eye darted toward the Techpriest’s corpse dangling over the calefactor. Blood oozed down the cultist's flickering opticals, dribbling steadily into the hazy furnace below. Overhead the Harvest’s eye quivered, its veins bulging and its iris a bloody red.
“Well, then.”
His power sword wrenched free of the deck plating in a streak of carmine, and then sliced behind him in a crackling arc as he turned. The chain was severed, the shorn links tumbling to the floor and the beheaded length flinching back. A gasping bellow issued from the mouth of the calefactor; a strange, confused moan that seemed to press against Kataris with angry confusion.
And yet, behind the wounded appendage, more chains slithered across the deck like ebony vipers or floated through the air like swimming eels. Four, five, six reached for the Chaos Lord, with more metal hooks and claws peeking out of the blistering soul furnace.
Kataris faced the encroaching chains with a sense of annoyed contempt. His power sword flashed in short, precise strikes, severing each chain from the hook at its head and sending its length reeling back into the pit from whence it came. His wounded arm remained clutched tight to his side, out of the way, and no apparent hindrance to the warrior. For every chain he severed, more emerged from the infernal light of the calefactor, but it seemed they could not touch him.
Kataris jumped forward and stabbed his power sword down, tearing through yet another chain and briefly sheathing his weapon in the floor again. With all the nearby tendrils incapacitated, the Iron Warrior reached for his belt and withdrew a fragmentation grenade.
“Despite my initial interest, you’ve proven yourself a tiresome and unworthy opponent, xeno witch,” he said conversationally, flicking the pin away with a finger. “Die on the ground like the useless dog you are. I must discipline my property.” He tossed the grenade behind him and then wrenched his sword from the floor, not once looking over his shoulder at his equine enemy.

Twilight blinked almost sleepily as the grenade bounced across the floor toward her. Her horn began to glow, and a spell configuration that had recently become reflex to her coalesced in her mind. Her magic took hold of the bouncing explosive, and it vanished with a gentle pop mere inches from her nose.
The grenade reappeared in a puff of purple right behind Kataris and dropped toward the floor. The Chaos Lord began to move, hearing the strange sound of the magical effect, but it was too late. It exploded before it even landed, sending dozens of hot razor shards into the Iron Warrior’s back. The shrapnel punched through the thinner plating in his armor’s rear, sinking into his legs and knee tendons. Blood spilled to the deck, and Kataris shuddered and dropped to his knee, snarling an ancient Olympian oath through clenched teeth.
A slinking chain from the Warp calefactor suddenly darted ahead of the others, shooting forward in the brief moment the Warsmith was distracted by his wounds. It latched onto his shoulder pad and then wound around his sword arm, severely restricting the limb while the other ebony tendrils doubled the pace of their approach.
Kataris remained calm, wrenching his blade to the side to get the necessary angle to cut away at his bonds. Then he heard the sound of iron-clad hooves racing across the deck.

“This is for Solon and Equestria, you conceited, puerile thug!” Twilight screamed, whipping around in mid charge and bunching up her back legs.
She bucked him directly in his hind plating, launching the Iron Warrior forward with a tremendous crash of metal. Kataris landed awkwardly on the deck, unable to roll or control his fall properly with his legs still full of sharpened metal and his free hand missing. He did manage to hold on to his power sword, though, which seemed ever more important as several new chains latched onto his prone body.
“You will NEVER rule this army, Kataris!” Twilight taunted, panting from her mounting exhaustion. “If you want to contribute to the war effort, do it as fuel!”
Kataris stabbed his power sword into the floor again, wrapping his wounded arm around it as an anchor. Then he used his free hand to snatch one of the hooks that was reaching for his gorget.
With phenomenal effort against the tendrils trying to immobilize him, Kataris twisted around and flung the chain straight toward Twilight. She reared in surprise, but nonetheless the chain bounced around her legs and then snapped up around her wing casing, entangling her.
“Hey! What are you doing?!” the mare demanded. Twilight tried to use her telekinesis to unwrap the chains, but was surprised and dismayed to find even her simplest magic slipping off the ebony metal without any effect.
“If I go down, I’m taking you with me!” Kataris growled, struggling against his own bonds.
“Oh, the hay you are,” Twilight grumbled. Her horn started to glow again, and she calculated a teleport to take her out of the reactor room. She had intended to stay and make sure Kataris was dragged into the core, but there were other ways to confirm his fate.
Then the chains against her shifted of their own volition, and the hook at the head of the tendril latched onto her horn. Twilight felt the magic instantly drain from her, and her spell collapsed.
“Wh-What?” the mare mumbled, a creeping sense of dread wrapping around her heart while the chain wrapped tighter around her legs.
Her optical flickered.
At last… You’re mine.

The chain pulled hard against the pony, and Twilight screamed as she was wrenched off her hooves. She stumbled across the deck, sparks flying from the scrape of metal against metal. She got as close to the calefactor as Kataris – although well out of arms’ reach of the Astartes, luckily – before she managed to stabilize her tumble with her flight pack and mag-lock her boots to the deck.
Your flesh, your power, your spirit, your mind, your… terror…
“No! Wait! Let me go! Stop this, please!” Twilight shouted, trying to fling away the hook around her horn. Another chain slithered past Kataris and latched onto her leg, and her boots started squealing against the deck as she was dragged further toward the core.
“I see fear seizes your heart at last, xeno filth,” Kataris snarled. He himself was clutching his power sword desperately against a dozen chains trying to drag him back. “Your trickery spared you from my blade again and again, but this is the price you pay for your hubris. Rather than a clean death at the hand of a warrior, you will suffer the ignominious torment of being a daemon’s fodder.”
Twilight tried to back up and kick at the chains, but it merely unbalanced her. She almost fell flat on her face when the tendrils tugged sharply, drawing her closer to the hissing mouth of the calefactor than Kataris was.
Struggle. Fear. Cry. Hate. Let me hear the song of your doom as I feast.
Aside from the words blinking across it, Twilight’s optical had completely turned to snow by now, eliminating any chance of accessing the core systems. And even if she could, what could she do that would free her and not Kataris? Even with one hand, wounded legs, and a new wariness of using grenades, the Iron Warrior was still easily as great a threat as the Harvest of Steel.
If magic was useless, force was insufficient, and technology was inoperable, what was left?
“Harvest! Harvest of Steel! You have to let me go!” Twilight shouted, staring up at the eyeball that peered down from the ceiling. The chains pulled, and her greaves squealed across the floor. “I’m your ally! I want to help you!”
Her optical displayed more text among the crackling static.
Meaningless. Come to me, fleshborne. Let me feed.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle! Not ‘fleshborne’ or ‘purple thing!’ I am not fodder or raw meat for your reactor! You have to stop!”
Another pair of chains wrapped around Twilight’s wings, and Kataris laughed.
“Begging a daemon for mercy… You’re not as clever as you first seemed, xeno.” The chains drew tight around his wounded arm and reeled back, and the Iron Warrior grunted as it was slowly pried off of his power sword. “Surely you didn’t expect to leave this encounter alive, whether or not you were successful.”
Another chain slithered around Twilight’s neck, and she knew that she only had seconds left before she wouldn’t even be able to speak.
“Harvest! This is for Solon! You have to stop! For Solon!”
For the first time, the chains stilled. Twilight tried tugging herself back to absolutely no success, but she was no longer being pulled. The tendril that had been reaching around her throat had gone slack. The ever-roaming eye in the ceiling focused on Twilight, and its pupil shrank.
Solon. Smith. Creator. Master.
Where… Where is the master?
“I can bring him back to you! I’m here to save him! Let me go!” the alicorn pleaded.
Kataris sensed an immediate change in the vessel’s mood. Twilight’s boots had stopped shrieking from being pulled across the deck, and even his own bindings ceased pulling as hard.
“You wretched fools,” the Iron Warrior snarled. “I am your master now! You would stand against me and tear apart this army for that addle-minded coward?!”
The eye in the ceiling shifted, its gaze snapping to Kataris. A rumbling growl came from the calefactor, and the flooring trembled.
“For my friend? Yes.” Twilight took a few steps back, and this time her chains didn’t resist, slackening enough to allow her to move.
“Friend? You’re nothing but his pet psyker! A glorified attack dog dressed up like a prized beast!” the Warsmith snapped. “A dog with more loyalty than sense, to bring low the mighty so that the weak can rule over you!”
The floor trembled again. The chains around Twilight started to slide away, while the chains around Kataris wrenched tighter than ever.
“Mighty? YOU?” the mare sneered. “You didn’t even last a day doing Solon’s job.” The hook around her horn came loose, and the chain slid away from her. “Really, it’s better you just die here and now, before you meet Tellis. Trust me.”
“RAAAAAAUGH!!”
With an enraged roar, Kataris pulled himself upright against the force of the chains around him. Hooks snapped free of his armor, and the other metal tendrils strained against his surging strength as he ripped his power sword from the floor. Blood gushed from his wounded legs, drooling into a puddle on the floor, but his injury didn’t stop him. The Chaos Lord lunged across the room, stabbing his blade at his tormentor.
Twilight Sparkle vanished with a flash of purple light. The power sword struck the deck at a poor angle, bouncing off, and then tumbled from Kataris’s grip when a chain around his elbow pulled back. The Chaos Lord fell to the floor, and his armor squealed against the metal surface while he was dragged toward his doom. He made no protests and spoke no oaths, simply staring up at the Harvest’s quivering eye with an expression of angry contempt.

Seconds later, all that remained of the mighty Warsmith was a blood slick that stretched across the reactor room, past the corpse of a fallen Terminator. Jets of crimson fire puffed from the Warp calefactor, cremating the dead Techpriest hanging above it and delivering his ashes into the heart of his charge.
The Harvest of Steel howled, begging its master to return.