Entrenchment
An Age of Iron Story
Chapter 17
Apex
****
Ferrous Dominus – sector 6
“Okay, this… This is getting bad. Really bad.”
A squad of griffons were resting on a roof, taking a pause from the battle still raging in the streets below.
A battle, it seemed, that was escalating catastrophically for both sides. One griffon lay prone near the edge of the roof, watching the streets below. Company tanks rolled down the avenue, spitting destruction into a retreating horde of Orks. Soldiers marched alongside the tanks in a supporting formation, pausing after each cannon shot. Those aliens merely wounded or knocked down by the blast wave were cut apart by laser fire with disciplined precision while the armored units rumbled on, preventing the mob from regrouping. The fleeing Orks were the survivors of several mobs and hundreds of warriors. There was no reason to think any of them would get out of Ferrous Dominus alive.
Another griffon stared toward the opposite end of the roof, his raptor’s eyes doing much to pierce the polluted gloom of the city. A massive, dark body wreathed in smoke, decked in metal, and covered in stars crossed through a breach in the palisade. Gunfire bloomed all around the ursa major, drowning out the laughter and war cries of the aliens cheering from its ramparts.
Between the two seemingly unstoppable forces sheltered the griffons. Formerly a unit of ten warriors, the insurgent squad had been cut down to four, and one of them lay on a blanket in the middle of the roof nursing a lasburn through his wing. Their armor was battered, their lasguns nearly out of power, and their other munitions spent. They were also exhausted from choking on smog; the griffons fought at the highest altitude possible to minimize counter-fire, which placed them in the worst of the particulate filth that covered the city’s skies. None of the hybrid avians had thought to bring respirators, and they were in no position to scavenge some anymore.
“What are we still doing here? Do we have a plan? What are our targets?” asked one warrior, checking the charge status on her las-packs.
“We only had two objectives: take down the pylons in this sector, and support the Orks causing havoc in the streets. We already took down the pylons…”
“Well, shouldn’t we be helping the Orks, then?” demanded another.
The other griffons shook their head firmly.
“Oh, come on! They have a giant… bear? That’s a bear, right? They could still win this!”
“Do you seriously think you can get in las range of that monster without eating a dozen bullets? They’re shooting at everything that moves!” snarled the injured griffon. “For that matter, if the Orks DO win, what do you think will happen to us afterward? We should have never allied with them! Curse Nox for agreeing to this!”
“Without the Orks we never would have survived this far or caused this much damage!” the other rebel protested, pausing briefly to cough. “The Company would have organized a counter-attack long ago if it weren’t for the greenskins! There’s no way we’d make it out alive!”
“You featherbrain,” the wounded soldier spat. “You still think we’re making it out of this alive?”
“B-But… But we-“
“We took them by complete surprise. Cracked their wall. Smashed their vox machines. Killed their leaders. Slaughtered their civilians. We did everything we were asked. And now look at us.”
An explosion came from the building across the street, and fire blasted from one of the windows. At street level below, a pair of ragged-looking diamond dogs were marched out the main entrance behind a pair of Cultists bearing autoguns. Just minutes ago the structure had been filled with the crack of small arms and the explosions of grenades, but now it was almost silent.
“We gave it everything we had. It didn’t work. We still can’t break them. All we can do is clear the way for those wretched greenskins, so that they can kill everything in sight. Even then, the imbeciles will probably fail, and we’ll be right back where we started,” the injured griffon growled. “And to think, we never even laid eyes on an Iron Warrior…”
A distant roaring sound came from overhead.
“… Does… Does anyone else hear that?” asked one of the soldiers, his talons tightening around his gun.
The sound had been barely audible at first, due to the firefight in the streets below, but it was quickly getting louder. The griffons looked up toward where it was coming from, but could see little beyond the greasy brown clouds.
Then Tellis the Mad Angel dropped out of the sky.
The impact of artificer greaves against the roof nearly knocked the griffons over, and they stumbled back with a fearful squawk. One soldier drew a sword and two others raised their lasguns, but the act was perfunctory. Every one of them was completely stunned to see the gleaming giant land right in front of them, and their hearts seized in their chests.
Tellis stood up straight, the wings of his flight pack stretching outward briefly before folding against his back. Electric arcs coursed down the length of his lightning claws, dancing in-between the blades. His helmet slowly tilted forward, and eventually the sword-bearing griffon was staring straight into the bloody red glare of its lenses.
“Yo, Kessler! I need you to fix my helmet. It’s not picking up any targets.” Tellis reached up and knocked his knuckles against his own helmet. “I’m getting a ton of friendly marks, but nothing red. That can’t be right.”
The griffon in question blinked. Twice. “I… I, uh…”
“Also, you’re in charge now, right? Gimme a priority target and I’ll stab it first,” the Raptor demanded.
The griffons gaped in confusion, slowly turning to stare at each other. One of them lowered his rifle and raised a talon, like a student in class wanting to be called on.
“So… if we… tell you what to kill… you’ll go kill it?”
Tellis snorted. “Ha! No! I was just messing with you. I’mma go cut up the very first greenskin I see. But I really do need my visor fixed so it can detect greenskins like before.” He banged on his helmet again. “Chop chop! Get to work, Nerd Marine!”
The griffons continued staring, perplexed beyond words.
“…… Hey, wait a minute. You’re awfully short and feathery for a Warpsmith,” Tellis pointed out.
“M-My name is G-Garry,” the insurgent in question stuttered.
“No, your name is Kessler,” Tellis retorted, pointing down at the terrified soldier. “Just because you’re small and fluffy now doesn’t mean you get to change your name on us.”
“Maybe it’s, uh, better if you went by Kessler from now on?” ventured one of the other griffons, slowly creeping around the side.
“See? Scootaloo agrees with me!” Tellis said, briefly checking the other soldier’s ident-codex. “… Hold on… Something ain’t right here.”
Rainbow Dash rocketed overhead, dipping down below the smog clouds and then whirling about in the air.
“Hey, what’s going on?! All these enemies are marked as our guys!” she complained while her flight pack slowed into a hover. “When did we pick up griffon soldiers?! There’s no way this is right!” Rainbow Dash grimaced, and then noticed something near the edge of the roof, behind Tellis.
“Okay, okay. I have an idea,” Tellis declared. Then he pointed at the griffon with the sword. “Griffon Kessler, I don’t know if you were turned into a xeno through wacky magic shenanigans or if you’re just tagged wrong due to the very problem I’m asking you to fix, but here’s the plan: either you repair my helmet or I’ll kill you. I’ll probably kill all your buddies too. I mean, if they can’t fix my helmet eith-“
“TELLIS, BEHIND YOU!!”
The Chaos Lord whirled around with impossible speed, lashing out his lightning claws before Rainbow had completed the second word of her warning. Talons wrapped in destructive energy fields scraped across enchanted metal, and a sharp crack issued from the contact. The initial attack was deflected, and Tellis homed in on the source with his other claw; his Chaos-fueled blood lust detected a heartbeat and pinpointed it before anything else registered through his autosenses.
Yet again, lightning claws crashed into a blade fortified by magic power, and again the two weapons burst apart in an ear-piercing shriek. The source of the attack was thrown backward, squawking in alarm, while Tellis paused.
His attacker was another griffon. Unlike the others, this one didn’t bear stolen Company wargear. Dark ebony plate armor covered the warrior’s torso, and he had two metal sheathes on the upper edges of each wing. The griffon carried a pair of scimitars as weapons, and they were clearly enchanted; the metal had a slight blue glow to its polish, and there was no other explanation for having parried power blades with little more damage than a scorch mark.
The newcomer flew back out of immediate lunging range, and then crossed his swords in front of him. “So there IS one of you Astartes monsters left here… good.” His beak twisted into a sneer. “No matter how this assault eventually ends, I’m glad I’ll be able to send one of you to the ground!”
Tellis laughed. “Ha! You were really looking to fight an Iron Warrior? YOU?! You’ve got guts, Tolken!”
The griffon blinked. “Tolken? My name is Gestalt, former Captain of the Royal Army of Griffonstone!”
“No, the helmet says Tolken, so you’re Tolken now,” Tellis said.
“I… What?”
A lasburst came from behind, splashing over the Raptor’s back. The griffon firing into Tellis instantly got an adamantium hoof planted in her own back as Rainbow Dash crashed into her, and she screeched in pain as she bounced across the roof.
Rainbow Dash tilted hard, and she skimmed away just before another insurgent lunged for her with his sword. Her impulse jets fired, jumping her up into the air above a spread of lasblasts. “Tellis, these guys are the invaders! We’ve gotta stop ‘em!”
Tellis looked over, watching Rainbow Dash zip around the building while a griffon wildly sprayed lasers into the air. Then he turned back to Gestalt. “Okay, I’m kind of getting the sense you guys aren’t going to fix my helmet.”
Gestalt rose upward with a few rapid flaps of his wings, and then dove. His scimitars flashed a bright white, and he slashed both weapons in a long overhead swing.
Tellis moved, spinning on one foot to avoids the blow and stabbing his claws into Gestalt’s side. The claws struck his wing sheathe, shrieking and flashing while eldritch disruptor fields battled against magic-infused metals. Gestalt was thrown through the air from the impact, and the Captain hit the ground rolling before a wing flap brought him upright.
Tellis was already on top of him, his flight pack puffing smoke and his lightning claws whistling against the air. The Iron Warrior stabbed down, and his claws crashed against the flat of a scimitar. Gestalt stumbled back, overwhelmed by the force despite having blocked the attack entirely.
The point was driven home when Tellis smashed a boot into the griffon’s chest, blowing through Gestalt’s guard. The Captain was sent flying off the edge of the building, and both his scimitars clattered to the roof. The Captain stabilized himself in the air quickly, coughing from the pain in his chest but thankfully still mobile.
“Heh! You’re pretty fast!” Tellis chuckled, his flight pack spreading. “A few broken bones should fix that.”
“FOR GRIFFONSTONE!! FOR THE LOST PRINCE!!” bellowed another of the griffons behind him, dashing across the ground with his sword aimed at Tellis’s back.
The Chaos Lord barely moved, tilting his shoulders slightly to one side. One of the talon-like engines of his flight pack stretched up, and then slammed down onto the insurgent mid-charge. The griffon gasped in pain and fell forward, landing in front of Tellis’s greaves while his sword bounced along the roof uselessly.
“Hey, Tolken! What’s your favorite organ?” Tellis reached down and picked up the griffon below him, hauling him up by his neck.
“My name… is Gestalt!” Gestalt seethed. One hand slipped down to a pouch near his hip, withdrawing a trio of vials. “And your days of butchering griffons are over, tyrant! Even if only yours, Astartes blood WILL paint the streets of your wretched city!”
“Okay, yeah, sure. Organ? Any preferences at all?” He held up the struggling insurgent. “C’mon, man! Nobody ever wants to play this game! Be cool!”
Rainbow Dash zipped through the air, her boosters sweeping sharply from side to side. She cut a dizzying series of spins and banking turns over the roof, neatly avoiding the converging laser fire from the other griffons.
She moved near kicking range of one, but then hit her impulse blasters rather than ramming into him hooves-first. She jolted upward at an angle, launching into a back flip. The insurgent was blasted back across the roof, screaming in shock. His lasgun tumbled in a different direction.
“Wretched ponies…” The wounded griffon who had already been laying down when Tellis arrived slowly pushed himself upright, one hand clutching a laspistol and the other holding his stomach. “After all they’ve done, you little pests are still allies to these monsters?”
“After all they’ve done, you guys aren’t?” Dash countered, boosting up higher in the air. “This is your last chance to give up, bird brain! Tellis won’t…“
Rainbow’s head twitched to the side, spotting Tellis holding up one griffon while Gestalt hovered in the air just off the roof. The Captain, holding three glass vials containing bright red, blue, and silver fluids, tilted his head back and poured the vials’ contents into his beak. Rainbow’s eyes widened behind her visor, and her body swiveled about in the air.
“Tellis! Stop him! Those are magic potions!” the pegasus shouted. A lasblast cracked against her side, and Rainbow Dash reflexively boosted upward again to evade. “Take him out now! Quick!”
Tellis immediately hurled the griffon in his hand at the griffon in the air. Gestalt caught his ally with his free hand, his wings flapping harder to compensate for the added weight. Almost simultaneously, Tellis launched himself forward, his flight pack blasting flame across the roof.
The disruption field from his power claws whistled against the air as they cut a neon red arc toward the insurgents. Claws met flesh, sinking into one side and punching out the other. The sheer force behind the blow nearly tore the griffon in two, even putting aside the blades, and when Tellis swung about to stabilize himself he had one very dead griffon stuck on his fist.
It was not Captain Gestalt, however.
“His swords! He’s going for his swords!” Rainbow Dash bolted forward, chasing the silvery streak descending from the air over Tellis’s head. Gestalt hit the roof in a roll, snatching up one scimitar in his right hand.
He raised one wing, and a burst of shuriken shrieked against the enchanted shield attached to it. Some of the ultra-thin blades stuck into the armor, while most bounced off with a small jet of sparks. Stray projectiles sliced off bits of feathers and grazed fur, slicing through anything that wasn’t armored with disturbing ease.
Tellis threw the corpse on his claw, flinging it at Gestalt yet again as a projectile. The Captain jumped, flipping over his fallen subordinate, only to see Tellis rocketing up after him to seize advantage of the diversion.
Lightning claws met scimitar, and a thundering crack issued from the duel of energies. Tellis swung his other arm, but the griffon had already bounced higher into the air and the Iron Warrior blasted underneath him.
Tellis hit the roof with one foot and spun to face his opponent again. Gestalt had reached his other sword, and was calmly taking up a dueling stance.
“Watch it, Tellis! You have no idea what those magic potions can do!” Rainbow Dash warned. She descended on one of her own targets, slamming her boot into the center of its lasgun and knocking the insurgent over in addition to breaking the weapon in half.
“Why? What can they do?” the Raptor asked curiously.
“I don’t know either! But nobody drinks those things in the middle of a fight because they’re thirsty!” the griffon below her stood up, and she was forced to evade a surprisingly deft attack from a combat knife.
Gestalt’s eyes narrowed, and he lifted off into a hover. “Tellis, is it? I’ve heard of you. The Mad Angel of the Iron Warriors. The most fanatical, insane murderer in an entire army of fanatical, insane murderers.”
“And I’ve heard of you, Armsmaster Tolken,” Tellis replied solemnly. “You’ve lost a lot of weight, though.”
“MY NAME IS GESTALT, YOU-“ the griffon Captain cut himself off with an angry squawk. “Enough of this! I’ll shut you up for good!”
Gestalt darted to the side, flying in a wide circle around Tellis with his swords held loose in his claws. He was flying faster than before he had imbibed the potions, certainly, but Tellis was far from impressed. That kind of speed might have been crucial to an aerial retreat, but on the attack it would barely make a difference against the Adeptus Astartes.
“Okay, let’s make this quick. I wanna have a go at that giant bear thing before someone comes up with a clever, desperate plan to put it down.” Tellis spread his flight pack and reared one arm back. “Iron within, become the iron without! BLOOD FOR TH-“
Gestalt briefly touched his foot on the roof, and his speed trebled in an eye blink. He blasted toward Tellis like a bolt of lightning, trailing a wash of white sparks and releasing a predatory screech. Griffon met Iron Warrior with a tremendous crash, and Tellis was pushed back a few feet from the impact with his catch phrase still dying on his lips. A horrendous squeal came from his lightning claws as they struggled to hold back the sword wedged between the talons, but Tellis had only one arm ready to guard.
The other scimitar plunged into his breastplate, piercing the ancient metal with a white-hot flash and a jaw-rattling thunderclap.
Then it exited out the other side amidst a jet of blood, tearing through the Chaos Lord up to its hilt.
****
Ponyville – Nethalican
“I suppose you thought this would be easy, didn’t you? This far from our seat of power and hidden amongst our little equine pets, a being such as yourself could have gotten quite far. Most unfortunate for you.”
Oscillating orbs of power circled Serith’s halberd, leaking sparks of glimmering light in a mesmerizing spiral. Chrysalis stood at the other end of the temple, her horn aglow and an unhurried expression of contempt on her features. The priests and acolytes of the temple watched and whispered and prayed.
Their voices created a constant stream of mixed, incoherent gibberish that Chrysalis quickly pushed out of her mind. There were many distractions that kept tugging at the threads of her consciousness; the physical, the magical, and a few odd sensations that seemed to be bizarre echoes of her personal mental connection to her brood. The changeling that had died had not done so peacefully, and its final moments seemed to flicker before her eyes as if demanding prominence even while she was threatened with a similar fate.
“I was unlucky to find you here, Serith, but it is an easily corrected problem,” Chrysalis mused, “I won’t take up much more of your time.”
Chrysalis swung her head forward, and a swirling beam of green energy blasted across the temple.
Serith raised his left hand, and his vambrace split open. The beam swerved in mid-air and seeped into the palm of the psykant occulus, and dispersal rods stuck out of the gauntlet’s wrists to hum vigorously against the eldritch power.
“Adorable,” Serith remarked. Then he swung his halberd lazily in the Changeling Queen’s direction. The hovering spheres rocketed toward her, screaming through the air like men in their death throes.
A bare flicker of magic sent a pew jumping in the path of the orbs, and they detonated against the temple’s seating. The pew was reduced to splinters, burning under a shadowy flame that seemed to drink in light rather than generate it.
Chrysalis hardly spent a moment observing the curious blaze before she attacked again. A green pulse of magic leapt from her horn into the ground, zipping toward Serith through the flooring. Furniture rattled with its passing, but the Sorcerer seemed unworried.
Serith slammed his hand onto the floor, meeting the projectile directly. Green light pulsed in a halo around him, and the dispersal rods in the psykant occulus crackled and released jets of ionized gases.
“If you haven’t picked up on this yet, your arcana will not work on me,” Serith mused, summoning more power to him. Psychic hoarfrost swirled around his force halberd, coalescing over his gauntlet.
Chrysalis smiled. “My, you humans do have some impressive toys, don’t you?”
“I am very, VERY far from human, insect queen,” Serith chuckled.
He thrust his halberd toward Chrysalis, and her horn flashed to launch another beam straight into it. The two projectiles met above the pews, blasting against each other ferociously. The massive iron chandelier rattled above, and several pews were blown away from the impact.
Chrysalis froze one of the long seats in mid-air, and with a thought she flung it straight at her opponent. Serith didn’t seem to be expecting such an attack, and he clumsily tried to dodge to the side. The pew struck his shoulder and bounced off, almost knocking the Space Marine over.
He steadied himself quickly, laughing. “Surely you don’t think you’re going to bludgeon me into submission with stray furniture,” he chuckled. “More effective than your witchfire, perhaps, but only barely.”
“If that is what it takes to end you, then I will,” the Changeling Queen retorted. “But surely there are faster ways.”
Serith lashed out again with a whip of lightning, and Chrysalis met the psychic assault with her own. Black lightning crashed against green, and the Iron Warrior’s bolt was swiftly overwhelmed.
“You may be able to spot a changeling, but your power is disappointing for one of the vaunted Astartes,” Chrysalis sneered while her magic attack dissipated. A moment later her eyes flashed, and one of the acolytes praying nearby shuddered. “Let’s make this more interesting, shall we?”
With another pulse of magic, the cultist was yanked off his feet and thrown into the middle of the temple, landing right in front of Chrysalis.
“Now, then…” Chrysalis smiled, and lashes of neon green power snaked from her horn around the hapless man’s wrists. “Let’s see if-“
A lance of black lightning blasted the acolyte, and Chrysalis jumped back in surprise. The cultists screamed, and his body writhed in agony for several seconds before he collapsed onto the floor.
“… I feel like that was a bit hasty,” Chrysalis remarked, frowning at the column of smoke rolling off of the scorched corpse.
“Feel free to try again,” Serith said cheerfully, pointing his halberd at the dead body. “There are plenty more souls where he came from.”
A disquieted murmur rose among the remaining clergy. Virgil sighed. “This is why no one likes you, Lord.”
“Go tend to your pawns, Priest,” Serith snapped, a bit of heat entering his voice. “Your droning pleas to the Gods are not needed at present.”
As Virgil turned away – still holding three young fillies in his arms – energy thrummed through Serith into the force halberd. The dead body started to rise, and a pale, mist-like energy started seeping from its smoldering skin. That energy twisted together into tendrils, snaking over the floor toward the Iron Warrior’s weapon.
Chrysalis watched silently, her horn flickering absently. She found the armored alien’s magic irresistibly fascinating despite the current combat and obvious danger to her life. Here she was, awash with mana, so full of power that it was hard to even concentrate, and yet the Sorcerer… wasn’t. She could feel the interaction of energies between his gauntlets, his weapon, and the magic around them, and how different and inefficient it was compared to her own. The process of drawing the soul from a dead man, which would be a terrifying and pointless chore for her or just about any unicorn, seemed to empower the Sorcerer somehow in a way that she couldn’t fathom.
Serith lifted his force halberd, and the mist-like power seeped into a crackling orb floating bare millimeters from the weapon’s tip. “A soul for a soul. Let death’s echoes carry you to oblivion, Insect Queen.”
The sphere quivered and distended, and then reshaped itself into a skull. Serith swung his halberd down, and the skull released a soul-chilling scream before rocketing forward.
A beam of green magic lashed out, striking the skull. It was instantly obliterated, and its scream briefly intensified, echoing around the temple interior before fading away with an embarrassing hiss.
“I do hope this is all part of some clever ploy to lower my guard or convince me to spare you out of pity, because otherwise this is starting to look sad,” Chrysalis remarked. She grinned, and her wings buzzed. “You can’t use it, can you?”
Serith hesitated, rather annoyed that his skull-projectile had been so easily nullified after he had invested a dramatic monologue into it. “Can’t use… what, precisely?”
“The portal. This power. The veritable OCEAN of energy we’re swimming in,” Chrysalis replied, her eyes flashing green. “I’m up to my wingtips in magic, lapping it up as quickly as I can expend it, and yet I can see you straining with every cantrip. Quite ironic, as it’s your temple…” Her lips curled back, revealing long fangs that glinted in the light.
“Fascinating. I was truly unaware that this was such a boon for you,” Serith raised the occulus to the chin of his helmet, scratching at it with a metal digit. “However, I’m afraid I’m not the one at a disadvantage here.” He strode forward at a leisurely pace, his force halberd resting against one shoulder. “Your psychic skills are powerful indeed, but still useless against my wargear. If I must cut you open like a common trooper, it is no great chore.”
“You think so?” Chrysalis asked, tilting her head to the side. Her blue-green mane swung around her neck. “You’ve miscalculated, tin man. Badly.”
“Be silent, insect,” Serith replied, holding up his free hand into a fist. The dispersal rods around the psykant occulus whirred and clicked, ready to absorb whatever deadly energy was flung its way. Once the Sorcerer was only a few meters away, his stance shifted slightly to a proper combat pose. “Your lies cannot sway me. Your magic cannot touch me. And your fangs cannot pierce me.”
“Mmm, true. I’ll need some bigger fangs,” Chrysalis said, still smiling. Serith stopped short, moving to a defensive pose.
A corona of green magic burst around her, and emerald flame swirled around her horn. “I wouldn’t try something like this as a mere battle tactic under normal conditions… but with this much raw power at my beck and call, certain magic limitations are less… onerous.” The streams of magic fire swarmed over her carapace, expanding rapidly and hardening into sharp, angular crags. Her neck swelled and her muzzle expanded, and needle-sharp fangs became thick, knife-like shards of razor crystal. Wings vanished, legs bulged, and what used to be a fringe of sea-green hair became a thick stone tendril.
“A… crocodile. Made out of... rocks,” Serith said. He tried to sound flippant and dismissive, but Chrysalis had gone from less than half his size to maybe three times larger. He’d been told that the changelings were sharply restricted in the sorts of things they could mimic; that was probably the “limitations” she spoke of.
Chrysalis opened her jaws, like a jagged stone crevice cracking open during an earthquake. Then she lunged.
****
Nethalican – Virgil’s chambers
“This could take some time, and is likely to be extremely hazardous. Especially if the changelings are victorious. Because then they’ll probably kill the rest of us.”
Virgil pushed his way through the door into his personal quarters, still holding Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo behind his arm. His voice was as bland and disinterested as ever, but the fillies couldn’t help but notice the Priest’s curiously pro-active retreat from the main temple.
“Whaddya mean if the changelin’s are victorious? Ya don’t think Chrysalis can win, do ya?” Apple Bloom asked.
Virgil shrugged, still moving across the room. It was small and spartan, containing little more than a bed and a rack full of scrolls. On one wall, mounted above his bed, there was an air vent.
“You should leave. Your deaths will not serve the Gods. Not yet,” Virgil explained. He reached down behind his bed with his free hand.
“Wait, we’re leaving? Why? How?” Scootaloo asked.
“This vent serves as an emergency escape tunnel when necessary. You can use it to leave the temple. There are more of the creatures guarding the entrance, but they cannot attack you openly outside this place.”
Virgil’s hand found a button behind his bed, and he pushed it. The vent over the duct slid upward on a magnetic track, leaving an opening that was barely wide enough for a man to crawl through.
“I don’t get it. Why are we leaving? Do you really think Chrysalis can stand up to Serith?” Sweetie asked.
A loud crashing noise came from the temple, along with a ferocious roar.
“… It is possible,” Virgil said. “Now go. The sermon is over.” He raised his arms, and the young ponies clambered into the crawlspace one by one.
“Okay, hold on a minute,” Scootaloo said once she was in the duct, “you have a plan for this, right? You acted like you weren’t surprised at all, and you told Chrysalis everything she wanted to know, and even sent out all those people before when-“
While Scootaloo was speaking, Virgil reached down and pushed the button again. The vent suddenly slid shut, and Scootaloo stopped speaking with a gasp.
“Hey! Whoa! Aren’t you coming with us?” she exclaimed.
“No.” Virgil turned away and headed back to the door.
“Wait! Wasn’t this tunnel for you, too? Chrysalis will kill you!” Sweetie shouted.
“Likely.” Virgil reached the door and opened it.
“But-! You-! We-!” Before Apple Bloom could complete a sentence, Virgil stepped out and the door closed behind him.
“Ah… Ah don’t get it. What’ll we do now?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing. Serith’s got this,” Scootaloo scoffed.
Sweetie Belle frowned. Then a voice in her head snickered.
The Sorcerer is weak. He underestimates the Queen. He will fail. As usual.
“I don’t think we can count on Serith, girls,” Sweetie mumbled while she started walking down the duct.
“Then what do we do?” Scootaloo asked, sounding annoyed. “We have to tell some soldiers somehow! We can’t just go home!”
Apple Bloom frowned, and then brightened. “Yeah, we can! And we WILL!”
“Erm… what?”
****
Ferrous Dominus – sector 6
“Tellis? TELLIS!!”
A gasping wheeze came from the Chaos Raptor, and his flight pack shuddered and blasted puffs of discolored gas behind him.
“A quick death is far more than you deserve,” Gestalt snarled, his eyes glaring into the blood-red visor above him. “You’re welcome.”
Tellis still had a claw free, and he punched it toward the griffon. Gestalt caught the awkward swipe on his wing sheathe, quickly turning the blow away.
Then he jumped up and kicked off of the Chaos Lord, tearing both his swords free and back-flipping out of reach. Hot blood gushed from the breach in the daemon armor, and Tellis wobbled unsteadily.
“AAAAAAAAAAAARGH right in the ticker,” the Iron Warrior groaned, slapping a gauntlet over the wound. His blood started clotting almost instantly, staining the gunmetal plating a brilliant red.
“Tellis! Tellis, stay with me, man!” Rainbow Dash swooped past the Iron Warrior to hover between him and Gestalt.
“You’re next, pegasus,” Gestalt clashed his wing sheathes together above his head, and then shifted his stance again.
Rainbow, as expected, started with a burst from her shuriken cannon. Gestalt darted forward, twisting his body to swat away the projectiles with his armored wing and lead into a swing. The movements were a blur, leaving silvery streams of light behind while the blade sang against the air.
Still, Rainbow Dash was faster, and fully prepared for the griffon’s stunning agility. She rocketed to the side, evading the swing before her boots touched against the roof. Her impulse blasters launched her skyward again, leaping over a sword thrust aimed straight at her forehead.
Gestalt spread his wings, intending to give chase, but caught movement out of the corner of his eye. In a flash the griffon turned, sweeping both blades around and barely knocking away the lightning claws that had been stabbing for his flank.
He twisted around to dodge another slash from the glowing claws, and then leapt backwards and took to the air. “You’re still moving? How?! I got you! Straight through the heart!” he growled, pointing a scimitar toward Tellis.
Tellis straightened. Blood was still trickling from the thick breach in his chest plate, and the Iron Warrior’s movements were clearly more sluggish and hesitant than before, but he wasn’t obviously close to death.
“It’s cool. I have two,” Tellis said with a chuckle. He gasped slightly at the end, and then drew his claws close together. “We’re not really made to run on just one heart though, so it’d be super helpful if you came closer and didn’t make me chase you around a lot.”
Gestalt’s eyes narrowed, and he crossed his swords in front of his beak. “One down, one to go, then. I WILL see you die today, alien.”
“Blood for the Blood God, Tolken,” Tellis retorted, parting his claws and blasting forward.
The Iron Warrior, despite his injury, wasn’t much slowed in his flight, and he now had a better idea of what the Griffon Captain was capable of. Tellis stabbed straight for his feathered foe, and caught a scimitar lancing for his chest again when Gestalt deflected and countered.
“My NAME is GESTALT!!” Gestalt shouted before he kicked at Tellis’s vambrace, wrenching his blade free. The scent of ozone mixed with the more common smell of smoldering metals, and a blinding flash briefly obscured the combatants.
Rainbow Dash swooped around behind, trying to find an angle to fire a burst of shuriken into Gestalt’s back. The griffon swung this way and that, curving and swinging around Tellis in the air while his swords scraped armor in great silver arcs or crashed against lightning claws in sizzling electric bursts. Her targeting reticule bounced across the length of her visor, constantly beeping warnings that she was targeting a friendly unit.
Rainbow growled in frustration and switched off her external vox. “Tellis! Break for a sec! if I can get one good shot at his wings, he’ll be grounded!”
A burst of static filled her ears before Tellis replied. “Not really in a position where I can break off whenever I want! This guy is fast! How long do those potions even OW! BLEEP! My arm! BLEEPing magic bullBLEEP weapons!”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but spend a moment wondering why he was still auto-censoring his vox, but quickly disregarded it. “Okay, fine, on the count of three, I’ll charge his back with a Rainbow Buster!”
“Okay, no way you’re going to hit just him with that if you hit him at all. I’m like five times his size. Rainbabe, just leave this to me, all right? Go finish off the other bird thi-OW! BLEEP! BLEEP-BLEEP-BLEEEEEP!!”
Rainbow growled, listening to the crackle of feedback within her helmet. Looking over the roof, she could see the other surviving griffons fleeing the scene, carrying their wounded comrade. They were flying slowly; it would be foal’s play to intercept them and cut them down mid-flight. They weren’t a threat any longer. In fact, the way they were visibly hacking up smoke, they might very well drop dead if they flew any higher into the smog layer…
Rainbow Dash tilted her head up, staring up at the clouds of ash and soot above. Tiny informational windows popped up, sensing her focus and providing information such as chemical content, temperatures, and particulate grain size. She ignored all of it, and her eyes slowly grew wider.
“Tellis!” she barked into her vox. “I’ve got a new plan! Keep him busy for a little bit! When I’m ready, drop down onto the roof!”
“What? Why? What’re you doing?”
“It’ll be awesome!” Rainbow assured him. Her flight pack opened wider, and she blasted straight up into the air. “Trust me!”
Tellis stabbed again and again in rapid sequence, building his momentum to push Gestalt on the defensive. His arms became a series of rapid, neon-red blurs, clashing explosively against the magic alloys of Gestalt’s blades or missing entirely when the griffon bobbed away. Small fans and wild curls of blood splashed against the roof, draining from the cuts in his armor.
Gestalt dodged away from one jab and then dove under another, flying a tight curve around the Iron Warrior. The wings of Tellis’s flight pack twisted and roared, and a great ceramite boot smashed into Gestalt’s side before even his magic-enhanced reflexes could react. The griffon Captain was hurtled toward the roof with a dent in his torso plate.
The second Gestalt touched down he jumped away, moving just millimeters ahead of the humming blades sweeping for his wing. A wild sword swing clipped the side of his foe’s abdomen, tearing a gash through a power cable and earning him another splash of blood.
“Gah! Quit it you BLEEPing BLEEP!!”
And then Gestalt was on the defensive again, his entire focus and straining muscles dedicated to keeping the lightning claws at bay. His scimitar crashed against one stabbing blow, and he leapt above another. A thrust toward the Iron Warrior’s head ended with his blade again lodged between the disruptor fields of adamantium talons, crackling ferociously.
Had Gestalt been any less focused on the battle, he would have been terrified at how fast and deadly Tellis remained after having lost a major organ. Despite the distracted grunting and obnoxious censoring noises from his helmet, the Raptor’s spatial awareness and control was nearly perfect and his attacks were only slightly weaker than before. Gestalt had faced many skilled aerial combatants over his career, but absolutely nothing he had faced before combined such speed and power with such casual skill. The Astartes truly were ultimate weapons.
Gestalt kicked off of Tellis once more, twisting about with his swords cutting blindly around him. The shriek of metal met his ears, and one of Tellis’s thrusters hit the roof in a puddle of flame.
The loss of a piece of his flight pack actually stunned the Iron Warrior briefly, and a cascade of alerts flashed across his visor. It took merely a second for Tellis to regain his balance in the air and re-route the flight pack’s pitch control, but by that time Gestalt was already speeding toward him. Both scimitars crashed into his lightning claws, barely being pushed out of their original trajectory straight toward the Marine’s helmet. The claws on the left gauntlet shattered, falling away to the roof in twisted pieces while their disruption field burst into a spray of prismatic sparks.
Tellis whirled around, but with his flight pack damaged Gestalt was faster. The griffon lowered his aim beneath the great burning wings of the daemon armor and attacked, plunging a scimitar into the back of the Iron Warrior’s thigh. Daemon-forged metals shrieked and parted before the blazing white edge, and the sword point punched through armor and flesh before lodging itself in iron-hard bones.
In an instant Tellis retaliated, throwing his other foot back while Gestalt was briefly immobile. The griffon blocked with his free sword, sparing his beak from the ceramite greaves. His scimitar was wrenched free from his grip, however, and was sent spinning away to the roof below.
“Tellis!” Rainbow Dash’s voice burst into the Chaos Lord’s helmet as pain surged up his leg. “Separate! Now! Get lower than him! I don’t know if you can survive this if it hits you too!”
Tellis obeyed without question or hesitation. His flight pack suddenly went dead, and gravity quickly claimed the armored giant. He plummeted downward, and Gestalt, still gripping the blade stuck in his thigh, was carried down with him.
Gestalt was most alarmed at his opponent suddenly becoming dead weight in the air, and had only a split second to consider his options. He released his sword grip and kicked off his enemy’s back, clearing as much distance between him and the Iron Warrior as he could. He assumed this was some sort of ploy, which meant the hybrid warrior was quite puzzled when Tellis crashed gracelessly onto the roof.
“RAINBOW BLASTER!!” boomed a voice from above.
A condensed pollution cloud boiled with energy high above the building, positively writhing with glowing red veins within the grimy dust.
Then, in an instant, it popped like a balloon, and a molten orange bolt of energy lanced downward. It made a hollow, roaring noise against the air, like a blooming inferno, rather than the more traditional thunderclap. But even if Gestalt had been able to properly identify what was coming, it was doubtful he could have done anything to evade it.
The bolt struck his wingtip, right on the guard of his right wing sheathe. The flash of light was blinding, and the wing underneath the enchanted metal was instantly burned away to a few smoking cinders of bone. Gestalt barely understood what was happening before he began plummeting. His right side was unresponsive, and most of the afflicted nerves had been scorched down to the roots. He slammed hard into the roof, trailing acrid smoke through the air behind him.
Rainbow slowly descended to the battlefield below, cringing at the wild splashes of blood across the metal roofing. One such puddle lay under Tellis, and was slowly growing wider as he wrenched a scimitar out of his leg. “Tellis! You all right? Did he get any organs you don’t have spares for?”
“Nah. But GEEZ that last one stings! All the way to the marrow!” Tellis hissed before tossing the sword away. “This is why Khorne hates magic! It SUCKS!” He pushed himself upright, and then stretched his flight pack out behind him. “What even was that?”
“Eh, just a lightning bolt.”
“A lightning bolt?”
“Yeah. Kinda. I mean, I used the smog cloud the same way I’d use a thundercloud. The result was… different. There’s a lotta weird energy in those things I’m not used to. Worked, though!”
Tellis spared a glance over to the corpse of the griffon he had crushed earlier, and then back to the crippled Captain. Gestalt was slowly moving away, pushing himself across the roof despite the molten cavity where his right shoulder used to be.
“Hmmm…”
Gestalt knew the battle was over even before he heard the heavy footsteps of power-armored greaves approaching behind him. He was crawling toward one of his swords, but even if he reached it he hardly had an idea of how it would help. He was defeated, and almost certainly mortally wounded. The pegasus could have ended him with a single burst from her shuriken weapon. When the footsteps stopped right behind him and he heard the sound of powered armor shifting into a kneel, Gestalt dearly wished she would hurry up and do so.
He was expecting talons to pierce his back. Or a crushing stomp to break his spine. Or any number of smaller torments while he was wounded and helpless. Instead, a metal gauntlet carefully – almost tenderly – took him around the head, fingers loosely parted around his beak.
“Last words. You earned ‘em,” Tellis said. His voice was cool and almost subdued. It was such a departure from his lunatic screeching or stupid jokes that Gestalt wasn’t sure it came from him at first.
Regardless, after a few seconds, Gestalt inhaled deeply and steeled himself. “My last words are for the pegasus, not you.”
Tellis shifted his body out of the way and tilted the griffon’s head to face up toward Rainbow Dash. The armored mare was hovering overhead, staring down at the defeated Captain in morbid puzzlement.
“You think you saved us. You think you spared this world from annihilation. You probably even think we should be grateful, and submit ourselves peacefully to the horror that’s swallowing our planet.” He coughed several times, and when his throat was clear again he continued. “You’ve merely doomed us to a slower, crueler death than the Orks offered us. Chaos will consume this world down to its heart and soul.” He took a weak, shuddering breath. “I won’t live to see it… but you will. And I pity you for that.”
“Eh. 6/10. Needed more friendship,” Tellis replied, pre-empting anything Rainbow Dash had to say in response. “Goodbye, Tolken.”
“MY NAME IS GES-“
The sound of bones cracking briefly filled the air.
****
Ferrous Dominus – sector 19
“Heavy weapons, at last! Get them to the back! Behind the front firing lines! If any of you can unlock that sentry’s tower, then do it! We could use some more autocannon fire if they show up with another armored vehicle!”
Norris Delgan shouted to be heard among the constant whistle of multilasers and the understated whine of pulse rifles. The defensive at the lander lots had been a resounding success so far, and his soldiers had raised emergency barricades to create entrenched gun lines between the Chimeras. Heaps of dead Orks lay on the avenues approaching the sector, along with the odd scorched yak and minotaur.
Despite the mounting losses, the greenskins had not yet broken. They had assembled their own ramshackle barricades from loose scrap, salvaged metal, and occasionally their own dead. Several of the aliens had also forced their way into the buildings adjacent to the lander lots, turning the fortified structures against their owners. Bursts of hopelessly inaccurate gunfire spat from various windows, only to fall silent once a spray of lasers and pulse bolts answered them. Behind the improvised bulwarks Orks scraped up whatever weapons and ammunition they could find, desperate to keep the pressure up in the face of steadfast resistance.
“I generally don’t expect a great deal from Orkish leadership, but even by their sorry standards this is miserable,” Delgan mused, peeking out from behind an APC. “They’re not retreating or regrouping. I can’t see them mustering for another assault. They’re just… fighting until they die.”
“Well, that is the default Ork tactic!” a mercenary shouted while he reloaded his pulse rifle. “And their entire life philosophy, come to think of it!”
“More or less. And yet it’s so far beneath the strategic prowess it must have taken to get here. Has their Warboss already been slain?”
Several mercenaries turned to each other and shrugged. “Ork plans aside, what are our own? We can probably hold this area, but pushing out is going to be risky, Lord!”
A flash of light appeared in the distance, obscured partially by the smog blanketing the city. A vast, shaking roar like a peal of thunder rolled through the streets, and many of the soldiers stopped firing and shifted uncomfortably.
Delgan frowned. “That’s the third discharge of that magnitude we’ve heard so far. What IS that? It can’t be one of ours.”
“I’ve heard a macrocannon blast before, but this was something else. Gotta be Orkish; they like their weapons loud.”
“I don’t get it; how did the Orks sneak a heavy cannon in here?” Breezy Blight asked sourly. “They dug in from underground, right?”
“That’s the most likely explanation, yes. Although the battle has been going on long enough that we can’t discount other avenues of attack. With our defenses down and command crippled, it would be easy to breach the palisade,” Delgan mused. “Regardless, I have no intention of launching an assault. Be ready to withdraw on my order and make for the nearest village!”
“Withdraw?! Seriously?!” Poison Kiss complained. “You have plenty of guns! We shouldn’t give up the ghost yet!”
“YOU may do as you like, Miss Kiss. I will not die on these ramparts in some misbegotten gesture of fealty to the Iron Warriors.” Delgan turned on his heel. “I’m only holding for now because I’ve little reason to believe the route outside the fortress is safer. And to provide a haven to other evacuees, of course.”
“Speaking of evacuees!” A pegasus in combat armor pointed a hoof to the massive lander sitting behind the defensive line. “Are we really not going to do anything about all the Tau locked up in your space ship?”
Delgan cast a cool glance up at the pony. Then he tapped a power sword against the ground. “First, get down from there before you get yourself killed. You’re making a target of yourself.”
The pony quickly complied, dropping down at a controlled pace before landing at Delgan’s feet.
“Second, no, we’re not. I have neither the manpower nor the inclination to fight two bands of treacherous aliens at once. If the Tau flee, it is not my responsibility to stop them.”
“What IS your responsibility?” Rot Blossom asked.
“To secure as many assets as possible and protect them from the enemy,” Delgan replied curtly.
Kiss scowled. “Really? The Iron Warriors are away, we have rebels popping out of the woodwork, a bleeding Ork horde is swarming through the streets, and the grayskin tossers murdered most of our leadership before locking themselves in the only boat off this planet! All that and you’re telling me your job is to grab your dosh and book it?”
“My ‘dosh?’ Hardly.” Delgan didn’t turn to face the infected mares, instead gazing across the lots at something out of their line of sight. “There are many assets of value within the fleet, Miss Kiss. Raw metal is difficult to move but also difficult to destroy beyond recovery, and weapons can always be recovered later. Some assets, however… are more fragile.”
Kiss perked up suddenly when she saw the glint of metal coming from between two rows of buildings, which quickly turned into a silvery blur. “The train! The mag-lev is here!”
“Of course. It’s the most obvious transport to the evacuation zone, so long as the enemy doesn’t destroy the track,” Delgan said. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. “I need a full squad to see to the unloading of the civilians. Take them around the far side of the lander, along the palisade. Any who wish to depart the fortress immediately may do so, although I can’t personally recommend it. Then hold position and guard the extraction zone.”
“Yes, Trademaster!” one heavily armored man jumped to his feet, and then he started slapping other soldiers on the shoulder to join him.
“Phage Squadron, accompany them,” Delgan commanded. “You’ve sustained considerable injury, and you’re not terribly useful so long as we keep the Orks at this range. Go.”
Kiss grimaced, but nodded her assent. The other power armored mares pulled away from their spots on the barricades and trotted over to join the collection of mercenaries and Fire Warriors jogging away toward the train station.
“All right, listen up! As this is the entry station, the train is locked down for security sweeps and augur scans before the doors open! Patem, you’ve run security detail, yeah? Get inside the control kiosk and open ‘em up.”
“And the rest of us?” asked Breezy Blight.
“Take up some cover just in case, and enjoy not getting shot at for a few minutes. Who knows if it’ll last,” the man grunted before speeding into a run.
The train was a dozen cars long, and seemed to have endured at least some small-arms fire on its journey through the city. Lasburns and dents decorated the exterior, but like most objects in the city the passenger rail was constructed with enough armor to be used as a battle platform; not a single breach was evident among the cars.
“Our exit clear?”
“So long as that lander doesn’t start spitting out Fire Warriors,” Breezy growled, turning to glare at a Tau soldier that had tagged along.
That same soldier evidently spoke excellent Gothic, and he recoiled in surprise. “Fire Warriors? Why would it be a problem if we had more Fire Warriors?”
“Are you asking that seriously?” Blossom demanded, her voice a near-growl.
“Oi! Girls! Pack it in!” Kiss snapped. “Like the Trademaster said, there’ll be plenty of time to drub the grays when we don’t have a thousand greenies breathing down our throats!”
The other mares reluctantly peeled off, walking off to join their squad leader in a sulk. The other soldiers remained confused, but were more focused on their objective.
“All these windows have their emergency shutters down. I can’t make anything out. Is there even anything in there?” one mercenary demanded.
“Aye,” Kiss replied, her visor switched to thermal imaging. “Packed in right snug, too.” The passengers from each train appeared as a massed bunch of yellow-orange blobs within the shell of duralloy and armaplas, shifting only slightly while they waited to be let out.
Except for the last car, for some reason. “Hmm? What’s that?” the unicorn mumbled and started backing away from the train to get a better look.
“Patem! You got those doors up yet?”
“Gimme a click! I never worked these controls before, and there’s blood all over the fragging cogitator!”
The other soldiers dutifully took up defensive positions, relaxed but still alert. One of the men stepped up onto the rail platform and banged his knuckles on one of the shuttered windows.
“Hey! You all still alive in there?!” he shouted.
There was an immediate barrage of noise from within the car, causing him to recoil. There was banging on the window, hammering on the door, and a great deal of yelling muffled by the train’s impressive exterior shielding.
“Okay! Still alive! Great! We’ll have you out in a moment, but you’re safe for now!” he patted the window, slightly unnerved by the rising intensity of the noise.
Poison Kiss walked up to the last car, peering uncertainly through her visor. The last car wasn’t empty, as it first seemed, it just wasn’t packed end-to-end like the others. There were bodies inside, but they seemed… different. It was rather hard to tell one cluster of orangish blobs from another, though, and she wasn’t used to using the alternative vision modes of her visor.
Suddenly, one of the external vox casters on the train crackled to life.
“-can’t even hear us! Does this work? Hello? Is this thing on?!” A feminine voice came from the caster, booming across the train station and causing the soldiers to wince.
The man that had been knocking on the train before did so again, but more sharply.
“I’ll take that as a yes! Listen, we have to get out of here! They’re on the train! We think they forced their way on three stops ago but they only board-“
The electric system suddenly went haywire, and hot sparks blasted from the vox caster. The men were instantly at attention, scanning the area for any sign of intruders.
“… They’re on the train? Who’s on the train? Orks?” the mercenary mumbled, searching for any obvious signs of forced entry. “They’re being awfully quiet, then. Can we run an auspex scan on these cars first?”
“Auspex? I don’t know how to work that thing!”
“Then go back to the Trademaster and find someone who does! We’re not in any hurry so long as those doors are secure!”
Poison Kiss recoiled a few steps as the heat blobs she was observing started moving more quickly. One of them stood up straight, facing her, and a gasp escaped her lips as the orange silhouette formed a shape she could finally recognize.
“MINOTAUR!! ON THE LAST TRAIN, THERE’S MINO-“
The security door was smashed out of its frame by a ferocious kick, and Kiss yelped as the twisted hunk of metal – all but invisible in her current view mode – slammed into her and threw her over the edge of the platform.
“Contact! Contact! On the right!”
A mangled Dark Acolyte was hurled from the last train car, her servo arms ripped from their sockets and her optics shattered. A moment later a massive, muscled beast leapt from the car and landed on her, crushing the cultist’s skull under armored hooves the size of anvils.
“At last. Warriors,” Killer Instinct grunted, brandishing a pair of axes. One was a cog-toothed power axe stripped from a dead Techpriest, while the other seemed to be a more conventional power weapon taken from an armory stash. Both were chipped and scorched from heavy use and minimal care from a wielder who didn’t particularly appreciate the technical nuances of disruptor power fields.
A pair of huge, thick gauntlets covered the minotaur’s hands and forearms with thickened plating to act as shields. Even a Space Marine would have struggled to wear such a thing without power armor, but Killer Instinct carried them like mittens. A much less obtrusive breast and abdominal plate protected the insurgent’s body, thick enough to absorb a lasbolt but little else. Iron-shod hooves and knees completed the outfit, wrapping the horned warrior in enough metal to immobilize a lesser minotaur from its weight.
And he was not alone.
Two more minotaur charged out behind Killer Instinct, each one carrying a heavy bolter and laden with ammo belts. The first lasbolts and pulse shots streaked by them while they turned, but the train station’s defenders were already shrinking back behind cover by the time the first salvo was unleashed. Heavy bolters tore across the train station, hammering barricade walls and sawing across the ground. Hot shrapnel exploded across the ferrocrete, clouding the air and cutting into a few soldiers at more vulnerable angles. More minotaur leapt out behind the others, each one boasting a heavy weapon; most with heavy stubbers and Astartes chain weapons, and a few others carrying missile launchers and multimeltas clearly stolen more recently.
Killer Instinct raised an arm to block an incoming pulse blast, and the bright blue flare sizzled to nothing against the thick metal shield of his gauntlet. “Spread out and tear through their defenses! These are merely an escort. There are more foes beyond this voidcraft.”
He beckoned to the massive lander, and a blast of steam puffed from his nostrils. Then he stopped suddenly, and his eye fixed on the damaged door panel he had kicked out.
The door suddenly blasted toward him, propelled by a burst of powerful magic. He jolted forward rather than back, slamming a fist into the metal debris and flinging it to the side.
“Rot and die, you horned sods!” Poison Kiss snarled. Her horn pulsed with a sickly yellow glow, and her much-abused boltgun swiveled about in the air. Killer Instinct paused, sensing a sickening darkness welling up within the enraged mare.
Arrows of venom blasted from the armored unicorn, shooting out of her horn in several random directions before curving sharply to hunt for targets. Her boltgun thundered to life a second later, as soon as Kiss could spare the concentration to keep the weapon aimed properly on burst fire. Spears of vile toxins punched into muscled flesh and burned through plates of scrap metal. The boltgun’s shots mostly went wide, but one lucky round drilled into a minotaur’s knee, blasting apart his leg and dropping him in an instant.
Kiss quickly darted away after the attack, wary of several heavy stubbers being turned on her while minotaur roared in anger and clutched at rotted patches of flesh. The noise of heavy weapons doubled in volume behind her, and a jet of hot melta gas ripped a trench into the ferrocrete just off to her left.
“Easy! Easy! I don’t think Grandfather is going to give me another mulligan today!” Kiss gasped, retreating behind a building.
Killer Instinct narrowed his eyes, and then spared a glance at the firefight going on behind him. The armored mare hadn’t done severe damage to the others, and most of the soldiers were still staying low behind cover. The sheer volume of fire the minotaur were capable of laying down kept the defenders firmly pinned, although he knew that wouldn’t last.
As if to illustrate the point, a pulse shot struck one of the beasts in the arm, throwing off his aim and very nearly turning his entire bicep into a charred husk. A pair of lasblasts quickly filled the gap in the suppressive fire, and the minotaur slumped to the ground in a smoldering heap.
“Sox! Get out here and help put these apes down! I have other prey!” Killer Instinct bellowed. He stomped after Poison Kiss, dismissing the rumble of gunfire behind him.
Sox poked her head out of the train car, grimacing. She wasn’t especially happy to be so close to heavy combat (even if her side had the bigger guns), but there was hardly anywhere else to go from here. It had been hard enough to keep Killer Instinct from leading them into a suicidal charge THIS long.
“Keep them down!” she shouted, lifting her own heavy bolter and adding a wild spray to the thunderous barrage. “Use the melty guns! Hit the barricades directly! It will go right through it!”
Two more minotaur marched up, hoisting the double-barreled multimeltas over their shoulders. They paused briefly to aim the unwieldy weapons, and then fired.
Two men vanished into a flash of light and smoke, along with their barricades. A plume of glowing ash swung up into the air over the molten remains of their cover, and for a moment the suppressive fire slackened.
The instant it did, one of the mercenaries rose and fired a shot with his pulse rifle, tagging one of the melta gunners in the abdomen.
“Hey! Alert the Trademaster! We need another squad to flank!” He ducked back down before a heavy bolter sawed across his position again, hammering a line of smoking dents in the barricade he was hiding behind.
“How?! All the vox networks are down!” complained the soldier in the station control center.
“Well do SOMETHING! We’re pinned down!” A jet of melta gas blasted across the ground, scorching the end of the barricade and barely missing the soldier.
“Do something? Like what? There are no active defenses and they already have plenty of cover,” Patem griped, staring down at the switchboard.
A spray of bullets hammered the armorglass windows, and they shook furiously from the impact. The mercenary flinched, but the panes held; only a stitch of small, circular craters marked the stubber burst.
“Well… how about this, then?” He reached down to a covered dial and then flipped the cover up. It was labeled “Emergency Override.” He didn’t know what it would override, but since this seemed like an emergency he grabbed the dial and turned it anyway.
The hiss of compressed gas and the clanking of unlocking gears were easily drowned out by the roar of heavy bolters and stubbers. When every door on the train suddenly snapped open at once, however, the combatants were startled enough that the gunfire actually slackened for a few seconds.
“What the blazes was that? Why did you open the bloody train doors?!”
“I… I dunno! You told me to!”
“That was BEFORE the minotaur showed, you Warp addled son of a-“
That soldier vanished in a flash of hot smoke when another multimelta fired, this time finding its mark perfectly. The man was incinerated before he even knew what was happening, and the soldier next to him fell over from the wave of dusty heat.
“Forget this! We can’t hold here! Fall back!”
“You’re kidding! Against these savages?!”
“Against these savages and their heavy fragging bolters! Come on!”
Sox laughed, lowering her weapon so that she could get a better look at the enemy. They crawled for safety beneath a constant hail of explosions, dragging along the wounded or making short rolls from barricade to barricade. It was a pathetic sight, and she briefly considered ordering the minotaur to charge. Surely the enemy would get away otherwise, but she ultimately decided against it. It would be too easy to overextend her little army or make a misstep and get them all killed.
“Chase them away and then reload, quickly!” the changeling spy barked.
“Sox, the trains have opened. The passengers are exposed as well,” grunted a minotaur behind her.
“… Yes. So?” Sox turned toward him. “Did you want to stomp on more hapless workers? I don’t mind, but we have better things to do.”
“Not that,” snarled the horned beast, pulling back the slide on his heavy bolter. “I ask because the evacuees could be hiding tools or weapons among themselves.”
“Hiding weapons? Like what?” Sox scoffed. “We just fought off a squad of actual warriors; what sorts of things do you think a bunch of worker rabble will have to fight with?”
“Magical floating boltguns,” the minotaur replied, his eyes widening.
Sox barked a laugh. “Hah! That’s ridicu-“
“No, there’s magical floating boltguns behind you!” he grabbed Sox by the shoulder and then threw both of them behind a metal wall. “LOOK OUT!”
One by one, bolters floated out of a train car on beds of sparkling pink. They hovered in a parallel line at first, muzzle to stock, forming a chain of guns that stretched across the platform. One boltgun was struck by a heavy bolt round and was blasted from the line, spinning across the ground. Another was removed by a multimelta blast, reduced to a molten slurry in mid-air and splashed across the ground.
But there were still a good eighteen boltguns in the air once they turned toward the minotaur and opened fire.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha haa!” A feminine laugh, amplified and distorted by a vox grille, boomed over the roar of the bolters. “You goons think you can march into Trixie’s city and start tearing up the place?! Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?!”
The minotaur scrambled for cover, leaping behind barricades or dropping flat onto the ground. The boltguns were firing completely blind, with only the general direction of the minotaur to guide them, but without a real target to fire back on the insurgents could do little but seek protection from the storm. A few of the bolts even hit out of sheer chance – minotaur were fairly large targets – blasting craters in muscled flesh or cracking apart shabby armor plates.
“What are you doing, you cowards?!” Sox shouted. “It’s obviously a unicorn doing that! Stand up and go get her!”
“But… with that much incoming fire, we-“
The soldier next to her was cut off when Sox grabbed his horn and twisted his head to look her straight in the eyes.
“Stand up and kill the pony,” Sox said firmly, her eyes flashing green.
She released the minotaur, and he immediately pushed himself upright, heedless of the wild spray of bolt shots zipping around him. Turning the flat side of his heavy bolter to face in front of him, he held the gun up like a shield and jumped over the barricade.
“Follow me! Into the train car!” he roared, his eyes gleaming with residual magic. “Kill everything you see! Ape, pony, Iron Warr-“
A pair of pulse blasts cracked against his leg, cooking the flesh down to the bone. He stumbled immediately, falling onto his side while his heavy bolter slipped from his twitching fingers. The fog around his mind cleared in an instant, purged by agonizing pain.
“Regroup! We have supporting fire! Settle in and take them down!” shouted a mercenary crouching next to the command room. The other soldiers were already taking up their briefly abandoned positions, adding volleys of aimed pulse fire to the blind spray from the boltguns.
“Hit the melta gunners! Quick, before those bolters run dry!”
Alas, almost as he said the words the hovering boltguns shuddered to a stop. Their hammers clicked ominously in staggered sequence, and then the glow around them vanished. The battle rifles fell to the ground, leaving the minotaur and Company soldiers facing each other directly once more.
Until a power armored pony leapt out of the train car and landed on the passenger platform.
“Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!” Trixie laughed and popped off her helmet, ensuring that the musclebound insurgents could see the smirk stretched across her muzzle. “Is this really the kind of enemy that managed to outwit the mighty Iron Warriors? Trixie is honestly embarrassed for them!” She laughed, throwing back her head while both sides’ warriors stared dumbly.
Sox furrowed her brow while she peeked out at the unicorn. Something about the pony felt wrong to her senses, and that was before she considered that Trixie was standing in front of a squad of heavily armed minotaur.
One such minotaur hoisted a rocket launcher and fired. Trixie vanished under a plume of flame, smoke, and hot shrapnel as the frag warhead exploded, and several of the empty bolters were flung away across the platform. A pair of pulse blasts found the shooter in retaliation, staggering him, and then a hot-shot lasgun beam struck him in the forehead and sent the horned beast to the ground.
Sox peeked out from behind her barricade, and her teeth clenched angrily. “… Nothing. It’s an illusion, you fools! Stop wasting time and attack! Killer Instinct, where did you run off to?”
“Yeesh, really? A missile? Overkill much?” Trixie grimaced at the plume of dust rising from where her hololith used to be.
She took a step back into the train car, pushing into the crowd of civilians still packed tightly into the interior. Her hat floated above her, held upside down while magic spiraled around her helmet’s horn casing.
“All right, everyone step on up! Take a weapon and get out there while we still have the advantage!” Boltguns started popping up out of the hat, dropping to the floor at Trixie’s hooves.
“What? Why? They’ll cut us apart!” complained a menial.
“Not if you shoot them first!” Trixie chirped, levitating the weapon up into the man’s hands. “Now go out there, snap off a burst, and then flee for safety!”
“Not the worst plan, I guess, but can’t you just float the guns out there and fire them like before?” asked a woman nervously picking a bolt pistol off the floor.
“Trixie has a hard enough time firing twenty bolters even when Trixie can see what she’s shooting at! And you heard them order an attack! We have to get out of here!” the magician protested.
“We won’t give up the city without a fight!” barked a unicorn stallion, levitating a bolter into the air next to his head. “Let’s lock and load!”
Trixie’s horn pulsed, and a burst of force knocked the weapon out of the air and sent it into the arms of a surprised menial behind the unicorn.
“Leave the fighting to the humans before you get yourself killed,” the armored mare drawled. “Everybody who isn’t armed, break for the station buildings as soon as you clear the crossfire!”
Trixie’s horn casing pulsed again, the geometric threading practically steaming from the amount of energy surging through it. A trio of humans flickered into view next to the train exit, and then they bolted out into the firefight. It only took a few seconds exposed before the suppressive fire started training on them, drawing the heavy weapons fire away from the train.
“Go! Go! Go!”
“Oh, NOW what?” Sox growled when she saw armed humans fleeing the train. Heavy bolter shells quickly centered on the escapees and cut across their path, but with no discernible effect. “It’s an illusion! Like I said before! Stop shooting at decoys and get to the train car!”
A burst of bolter fire scattered into the minotaur, and one of them staggered to his knees. Pulse salvos quickly sought him out, and he keeled over with an agonized groan.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Sox grumbled under her breath. More people were flooding from the train car now; those with guns fired desperately at the insurgents before diving behind barricades, while those without simply sprinted away from the crossfire or started crawling under the train for cover.
Another minotaur slumped to the ground next to Sox with smoke pouring from his chest. This battle was turning against her, and the changeling knew she didn’t have much scope for survival if she had to face the humans without a gang of hulking warrior-beasts in tow. If only Killer Instinct hadn’t gone chasing after that damn pony!
Of course, those weren’t the only tools she had at her disposal. Probably the best ones, strictly speaking, but she was quick running out of options.
“Time to stop fighting like a minotaur and start fighting like a changeling,” she mumbled. Then, louder, she shouted “ROX!! YOU’RE UP!!”
“And here’s a gun for you, and a flamer for you, and a grenade belt for you, and a gun for you…”
Trixie’s hat shook up and down in the air, spilling a steady stream of weapons onto the floor. Men and women picked them up reluctantly before running out into the fray, creating a steady stream of armed humans into the battle zone. Soon the train car was almost empty, with the only remaining civilians being Trixie, her assistant Suuna, and a handful of ponies who decided it would be safer to cower in the train than run for cover.
“Should I get people from the next car, Miss Trixie?” Suuna asked anxiously. “There may be many more who can still fight.”
“Yes! Good idea!” Trixie chirped, shaking her hat again. “Just give me a minute to summon more weapons!”
The muzzle of a plasma gun slipped out of the hat. Curiously, the rest of the gun didn’t fall out, but instead remained stuck halfway and wiggled back and forth.
“Hmm? C’mon, c’mon,” the performer grumbled, shaking the hat up and down again. “Trixie doesn’t have time for this! Is something wrong with the portal?”
She levitated her hat higher and then brought it down, slamming the gun directly onto the floor. Then the hat jumped up again, spilling the plasma gun onto the ground along with a very surprised Grot.
“Oh, are you serious? We have greenskins in the armory?!” Trixie groaned.
The Grot tried to stand up and hoist the gun, but Trixie turned away and slammed a single armored hoof into him. The diminutive alien was flung across the train car with a pained yelp, landing flat on his face.
Then Trixie flipped the plasma gun up into the air with a pulse of magic and fired a single shot, vaporizing the Grot in an instant.
“Welp, that does it for Trixie’s hat trick,” she sighed, letting said hat drop back onto her helmet. “Here Suuna, you take this.”
Suuna, who had remained admirably stoic during the appearance and casual annihilation of the greenskin, squeaked in surprise when the plasma gun flew toward her on a trail of glittering pink. She grabbed it awkwardly out of the air, and then immediately held it out at arm’s length.
“Me? But, uhm… aren’t these plasma guns supposed to be dangerous?” she asked, tenderly handling the weapon as if it might explode at any moment.
“Plasma guns are USUALLY far more deadly to the target than to the shooter,” Trixie assured her, “and definitely less determined to kill you than an angry rebel minotaur. So on balance Trixie thinks you’re safer with that gun than without it.”
The unicorn turned around to face the exit. “Trixie’s going to create another hololith to give the clods more targets, and then Trixie will make a break for it. You cover Trixie from the exit, and when Trixie reaches the security kiosk then Trixie will do the same for you. Understand?”
“Okay, Miss Trixie. I’m ready,” Suuna agreed, not feeling ready at all.
“Good!” Trixie concentrated, and a hololith of Twilight Sparkle in her power armor appeared next to the entrance. “I’ll bet THIS will attract some crossfire! Now-“
With a ferocious snarl, a minotaur jumped in front of the exit wielding a roaring chainsword. Trixie screeched and jumped back, which accidentally caused the hololith to recoil as well. The minotaur’s weapon came down on the illusory pony, and the teeth of the blade hammered against the metal flooring with an angry squeal and a wave of sparks.
The insurgent was surprised for a moment, but quickly got his bearings when a pair of plasma shots hit the wall of the car next to him. With an enraged snort, he jumped up into the train.
“Suuna, how could you miss at this range?!” Trixie complained. Her fireburst launcher engaged, and the barrel pushed aside the cape that covered Trixie’s back. “Here’s your encore, ha-“
The minotaur advanced quite a bit faster than Trixie had hoped, and she was cut off by a savage chainsaw slash. The teeth of the blade hardly got a chance to dig into her armor, as the sheer force of the blow knocked the unicorn off her hooves and threw her into the far wall of the train. With a pained squeak, she bounced onto the floor and collapsed into a heap of metal and shredded fabric.
Suuna recoiled, the plasma gun shuddering in her hand. Her back hit the wall of the train, and the minotaur’s gaze turned to her. The plasma gun began to whine and its flex sheathing glowed white, as Suuna had accidentally clutched it over the cycler charging key. The ionizing chamber began quivering, and a thin puffs of coolant spat from the barrel.
The minotaur moved, sweeping forward in a stab. The chainsword growled, it teeth turning into a silvery blur while they reached for the young woman. Suuna squeezed the trigger without uttering so much as a gasp.
The plasma gun practically vomited energy, blasting into the insurgent’s shoulder with a flare of light that briefly blinded its wielder. The chainsword, with hairy forearm still attached to the grip, dropped next to Suuna’s feet. Its teeth briefly scratched at the flooring before the disembodied hand fell away, and then the engine sputtered into silence. The minotaur himself wobbled to a halt, the shock of having a good portion of his body atomized understandably leaving him somewhat stunned.
“Ah! Hot!” Suuna tossed the plasma gun away as it sizzled against her skin, and she clutched her burnt hand against her chest. Even so, she kicked away the minotaur’s dismembered arm and took up his chainsword in her good hand.
The weapon was too large and heavy for someone of her frame, but years of forced labor lent her the desperate strength she needed. She thrust the chainsword into the insurgent’s stomach and pulled the handle. The engine roared to life, and the quaking of the chainsword as it tore through flesh and viscera almost ripped it free from her grip. She refused to let go, and her teeth rattled in her skull until the horned beast finally keeled over into a puddle of his own blood.
“G-Good job, S-Suuna,” Trixie said uneasily as she walked back to her assistant. “He got in a lucky hit! Trixie would have handled him!”
“Are you all right, Miss Trixie?” Suuna dropped the chainsword onto the floor with a sigh. It was painted over with blood now, and more than a few splashes had reached her. She still clutched her burnt hand to her chest, although her face betrayed little more than a slight grimace.
“Yes! Trixie is well. Mostly. A little rattled, actually. Obviously this armor saved Trixie from the worst of it, but it could really use a little more padding in the helmet.” She shook her head. “Enough of that, though! Let’s stick with the plan and get out of here, and then we can get that hand looked at! Ready… GO!!”
****
Poison Kiss’s pulse roared in her ears while she galloped under the cargo lander, her greaves scraping the ferrocrete beneath her.
The pounding of much heavier hooves followed close behind her. Killer Instinct had a much longer stride, but Kiss had a four-legged gait and armor that assisted her movement rather than hindering it. Even so the beast seemed to be slowly gaining, and she couldn’t slow down enough to even snap off a quick bolter shot or distracting spell at her pursuer.
“Just… a little… further…” she hissed to herself. Micro-sensors detecting her body stress sent extra surges of energy to the joint motors in the legs and raised the oxygen content of the air pumped into her helmet. Many of the normal functions of her visor were effectively useless due to interference, but the visual zoom and navpoint tag kept her focused on her destination. The only safe place nearby was the defensive strongpoint held by Delgan and his cronies; with advance warning, they could sweep the train station with ease.
Without warning, they would probably be taken by surprise just as she had been.
Kiss turned around a refueling tower that jutted up from a metal well in the ground and connected to a vast wing above her. Ahead were the massive landing skis of the lander. A series of huge metal slats, supported by webs of reinforced supports and heavy hydraulics that allowed the lander to make planetfall on surfaces less forgiving than the broad landing lots of the Ferrous Dominus. In the current ideal conditions, only a few of the supports needed to be deployed to hold up the vessel’s tonnage and allow for maintenance, one of which was dead ahead. The spaces between the criss-crossing bars that made up the vessel’s legs looked appealingly hard to squeeze through for anything bigger than she was, and the unicorn made a desperate leap as soon as she was close enough.
Ceramite scraped loudly against durasteel edging, but she managed to get her head and front legs out the other end before she screeched to a stop. Kiss squirmed her way out, noting that the heavy hoofsteps behind her had stopped. Once she was free she dropped down onto the edge of the landing ski, finally getting enough space to think.
She promptly heard the minotaur move again, but more quickly, and in a different direction.
“Barricade’s that way… but the horned wanker’s going to be in my path. Maybe if I can reach the other landing leg, I-“
Several bright red lumens winked on across the underbelly of the lander, and the clanking and grinding of various gears and mechanisms filled the air. Kiss froze nervously, and then looked up at the voidship looming over her.
The vessel had numerous thrusters on its underside to account for a variety of different conditions during landing and liftoff. High gravity, excessive load, and unusual atmosphere could increase the amount of energy necessary to achieve basic lift by a factor of hundreds as compared to ideal Terran-standard scenarios. Poison Kiss didn’t understand any of the particular engineering nuances of flight, of course, but she did notice that many of the thrusters above her seemed to be warming up.
“No, no, no! Not now, you gray pillocks!” she shouted, whirling about in a panic. “Aren’t there any safety sensors on this thing?! Manual shutoff?! COME ON!”
Her visor responded by shuffling through various relevant but ultimately unhelpful points of interest on the cargo lander. In the meantime, the thrusters in front and behind her began a slow burn, swallowing the mare in blasts of hot air.
The jets weren’t hot enough to melt her armor, though, and soon they shut off. Several other thrusters activated elsewhere on higher power, searing the ground with jets of bright blue. The vessel creaked and groaned overhead, but the thrust wasn’t anything close enough for lift-off.
“The blazes are you twits doing up there?!” she screamed up at the bulkhead. “Is this a test firing? Are you seriously trying to learn to fly that thing NOW?!”
Honestly it made sense. The lander was the only way to get a small army off-planet, and the pilots might be unwilling to cooperate. Under those circumstances, what option did they have but try to figure out how to fly it on the spot?
They really could have started BEFORE she ran under the ship for shelter, though.
The thrusters powered down, letting the blasts of white-hot plasma recede upward into the thruster nozzles. As the jet in front of her fizzled, it revealed a certain armored minotaur patiently waiting on the other side, axes held loosely at his sides.
“NURGLE TAKE YOU!” the unicorn screamed. In a flash of magic her boltgun jumped off of her back and into the air.
It didn’t get to fire a single shot before Killer Instinct hurled a power axe through the air. The blade cleaved through the gun in a flash of sparks, slicing it in two before the axe embedded itself in the ferrocrete behind Kiss.
Poison Kiss was understandably upset about the loss of her weapon, but didn’t have time to shout further complaints. Killer Instinct charged, and she shifted spells on the fly. The minotaur warrior was surrounded by an aura of green gloom, and he stumbled noticeably before reaching melee range. Cramps, nausea, and inexplicable pain flared across Killer Instinct’s body, as if a dozen minor diseases had taken root at once. His vision blurred with tears, and an irritated snort spat phlegm across his chest.
Even so, when Killer Instinct made his swing, Kiss only barely evaded. The axe’s edge grazed her flank, biting through the ceramite with a hot screech but failed to reach the armor’s frame. Kiss landed her jump and her helmet’s jaw snapped open as she whirled on the minotaur.
A trio of diseased bone darts shot from her snarling maw, but her opponent was already recovering his senses. He snapped one of his gauntlets up, letting the spines bounce off uselessly. Then he kicked out at the mare, taking her by surprise and slamming an armored hoof into her helmet.
Poison Kiss was flung across the ground, her world spinning and her right visor lens shattered. She was so overwhelmed that she didn’t notice that several thrusters overhead were powering up again.
Killer Instinct backed away as one such thruster ignited just ahead of him, cutting off a direct route to finish off the unicorn. The thrusters weren’t burning as hot as before, but more of them were igniting, heating up the entire landing pad at once.
“… This is a less than ideal arena,” the warrior grumbled, wiping his nose against his arm. The feeling of illness was starting to subside already as his body fought against the corruption, but it would probably be several minutes until he finally shook off her spell.
Ducking low under the roar of the thrusters and weaving around the plasma flares, Killer Instinct jogged toward his second axe and snatched it from the ground. Glancing over at the unicorn, he saw her pushing herself up, helmet broken, but without obvious injury. Even considering the mare’s armor, he was slightly impressed.
Her horn flashed, and a large knife slotted into her leg armor was drawn by a pulse of magic. It was rusty and pitted, and its blade was wet and filthy in such a way that suggested its condition was a consequence of its care rather than a lack thereof.
“Good. Die with your blade bared, equine,” Killer Instinct said as he approached.
“Die with your guts rotting from the inside out, you horned muppet!” Kiss snarled in reply. Her plague knife hovered near her helmet, ready to launch forward with a thought.
Killer Instinct stopped, and his large ears twitched. With the sound of the lift thrusters all around him and his focus on the unicorn, it was hard to hear other nearby noises. But armored hooves galloping over ferrocrete had a very loud and distinctive ring to them.
He whirled, bringing up one of his massive gauntlets to shield his face. Just in time, apparently, as a string of mass-reactive rounds pounded against them.
“Suck boltgun and die, maggot fodder!”
“Kiss! Are you okay? We had to go around the station to follow you!”
Breezy Blight and Rot Blossom stood at the edge of the cargo lander’s wing, outside of the ring of thrusters threatening to cook the combatants underneath. The former was firing her wrist bolter with abandon, hoping a shot would land on a vulnerable point.
Within a few seconds, however, the weapon clicked empty, and a puff of gunsmoke leaked from the twin barrels.
“Ponyfeathers! I’m dry! Blossom, shoot him!” the pegasus snarled.
“We’ve been fighting for hours without resupply. I ran out a while ago,” Blossom retorted, shaking her head. A pair of bloated flies crawled from the crevices of her armor and jumped into the air, buzzing straight for the minotaur.
The insects surely should have been beneath his notice, but Killer Instinct’s senses were on a razor’s edge. He flicked an axe at one, popping it instantly against the crackling power field. The other axe he tossed into the air before lashing out with the free hand like a snake. He squashed the fly within his fist, and then reached up to grab his other weapon on the way down.
“Gotcha!” Kiss snatched up the axe with her levitation magic, and then sent it spinning toward the minotaur at a different angle. Killer Instinct dodged awkwardly to avoid taking the edge in his face, and ended up losing part of his horn instead. The power field snapped ferociously as it ripped through the thick, iron-plated bone, and then the power axe flew over his shoulder to bounce across the ground.
Kiss expected an enraged howl or other reaction to the loss of a horn, but the minotaur warrior was surrounded and not so easily diverted. When Breezy Blight hopped close enough to use her breath weapon Killer Instinct whirled and charged, rushing directly into the stream of foul gas.
He emerged with eyes tearing and lungs rasping, and Breezy dodged away with a surprised cry and a forlorn wish that she still had both her wings. The humming power axe missed, slashing down, but a mostly blind backhand found its target. With a seismic clang of metal against metal, Breezy was sent spinning across the lots.
Killer Instinct moved to follow, but then his right ear twitched. He whirled again, lashing out with his free hand and grabbing the neck of the giant centipede that had been snaking toward his back. He tugged on it, ripping it out of Rot Blossom’s throat, and then threw it on the ground. A quick stomp of his armored hooves turned the venomous creature into a yellow stain on the ground, and the minotaur started advancing on Blossom.
“Your vile blessings are useless before a real warrior.” His voice was hoarse and cracked, and blood leaked from his nostrils from inhaling Breezy’s toxins. If any serious disease had taken hold in the minotaur’s body, though, it wasn’t working nearly fast enough. “Face me with steel and die properly, scum.”
Blossom wordlessly tapped her front hoof on the ground twice, and then a blade like a raptor’s talon flipped out of her boot. Kiss slowly advanced from the other side, her plague knife levitating near her head. Breezy Blight was still gathering her senses from the last impact, but she rushed to get upright and only stumbled a little while flanking from another angle.
“You want more of Nurgle’s love, ya horned nancy? I’ll give it to you,” Poison Kiss snarled. “For Nurgle! For Chaos! FOR THE IRON-“
“What the blazes are you fools doing?!”
All four combatants were reasonably surprised to be chastised from a third party, and the shout broke the violent tension between pony and minotaur. Trademaster Delgan was standing near a refueling pylon, his arms crossed over his chest.
“… Uh… is something wrong, Trademaster?” Breezy asked.
“Aside from the hostiles behind our defensive perimeter,” Kiss added hastily. “We’re working on that, my Lord.”
“I can see that, Miss Kiss. I was referring to your proximity to the lander.” He pointed up at the void ship, its thrusters still sputtering to life in seemingly random patterns. “I left the defensive line when I saw that they were test-firing the takeoff thrusters. Why are you lot fighting under there? If they try to take off you’ll all be incinerated. What would your combat be in aid of, then?”
The mares hesitated, and then stared up at the minotaur standing between them.
“So… how… how do we do this?” Blossom asked nervously. “Like, do we mark a point and then start fighting again when we reach it, or-“
Killer Instinct suddenly sprinted forward, eliciting a yelp of surprise from the earth pony. She tried to leap out of the way, but only barely managed to keep her head out of the path of the descending axe blade. The power weapon chopped into her back, sinking through plates of ceramite and adamantium to slice into the flesh and bone below. He didn’t stop running even as his axe got stuck, kicking away both the pony and his remaining weapon.
“AAAAAAAaaaawww right in the spinal cord,” Blossom moaned as she limply bounced and scraped across the ground.
“HEY!! Get back here!” Breezy barked. She ran after the insurgent immediately, puffs of dark gas blasting from her nostrils.
Kiss looked like she was ready to follow, but hesitated and glanced over at Rot Blossom. With a pained grimace, she rushed to help her fallen teammate while the thrusters behind and around her begin another test cycle.
Killer Instinct sprinted toward the axe that Kiss had discarded, snatching it off the ground while he ran away from the lander. Breezy galloped after him, mumbling angry curses under her breath while she summoned up another toxic cloud within her lungs.
The minotaur suddenly slammed a hoof against the ground, braking hard against the ferrocrete. He reared the axe back and then hurled it like a tomahawk, sending it straight at his pony pursuer. Breezy barely had time to realize the danger, much less dodge; the power axe sunk into her shoulder plate, biting through the armor with a scorching hiss. She stumbled immediately, spitting out a cloud of vile gas before falling onto her side and scraping to a stop.
“OOF. Okay, yeah, that hit bone,” she said while she twitched on the ground. “They can fix that, right? Or do they have to take the whole leg off now? I hope not. I already lost a wing today!”
Killer Instinct stomped up to the pegasus, and then slammed a plated hoof onto her flank. The armor creaked, the frame straining against the sheer weight being pressed against it. The minotaur grabbed his axe and wrenched it free, grimacing at the spray of sparks and the smear of brackish blood left behind.
“Excuse me! You there!” Delgan spoke again, and Killer Instinct glanced over to him. The Trademaster was walking closer, his stride calm and unhurried. “Two things: One, you’re still a few meters closer than advisable to a cargo lander readying for takeoff. Two…” He laid a hand on the hilt of his power sword. “… I would recommend you leave the mares be. They are injured and exhausted from a day of fighting, and you’ve bested them. Take your victory and go.”
Killer Instinct narrowed his eyes. The human looked weak; fit, perhaps, and obviously armed, but it was hard to gauge any possible threat level. He also couldn’t imagine why the alien was making a plea for his withdrawal under the circumstances. There were soldiers at either end of the lots, and this Trademaster person was going to stand here and make requests?
The minotaur reached down, grabbing Breezy by the rear leg. “Such vile, cursed creatures your band employs. What were they like before, I wonder,” he growled, hauling the mare up into the air upside-down. She began thrashing her legs and remaining wing about, trying to kick herself free, but the horned warrior simply held her at arm’s length. “You aliens brought this blight here. Wars and magic and cults from bloodstained stars, slowly devouring our planet and people. Infesting them. Turning them into… this.” Killer Instinct tightened his grip on Breezy’s leg, and the ceramite creaked under the pressure.
Delgan stopped walking and stood up straight, crossing his arms over his chest. “And you think you can stop us?”
“I do.” The minotaur glowered, and a series of snaps came from the armor’s frame. A pressure seal popped, and a plume of toxic gases blasted out of the cracks. Breezy Blight winced; not all of the cracking noises had come from the armor frame.
He held the pegasus up higher, and then reared back his axe, aiming to decapitate the mare before he turned his full attention to the human interloper.
For a split second, all became a blur. Killer Instinct leapt back out of sheer, inexplicable reflex. Breezy went flailing away, landing with a dull clang and an exhausted grunt. Delgan’s power sword hissed, its particle disruptor fields eating through metal and a few precious millimeters of flesh before blade and meat parted.
Killer Instinct slid backwards, leaning forward in a combat stance with his axe at the ready. He was visibly shaken, his pose extremely defensive and his eyes darting between the cut on his abdomen and back to the Trademaster. Delgan had crossed the distance between them in an eye blink, and drawn his blade just as fast. If Killer Instinct hadn’t moved, he’d probably be trying to tuck his intestines back in his stomach.
“… Tch. I missed,” Delgan grumbled, slowly pulling back his arm. He calmly drew his second power sword with an expression more suitable to a deckhand preparing his mop for work. “You’re faster than you look, beast. But then, I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”
“Trademaster! Keep him busy a tick, yeah?” Poison kiss had Rot Blossom draped over her withers – still with a Techpriest’s power axe lodged in her back – and was running away from the cargo lander. “I’ll be right back!”
Killer Instinct shook off his surprise, and then shifted his stance to something more aggressive, but still unusually guarded. “Humans may occasionally impress. But your kind bleed like anything else. My name is Killer Instinct, human. What is yours?”
“You may refer to me simply as ‘Trademaster,’ although when begging for one’s life it’s customary to use the more polite term ‘Lord,’” Delgan explained. He ran one sword blade over the other, and a arc of coruscating energy crackled around the contact. “Let’s begin.”
****
Train station
“On the left! The left! He’s going for the multimelta!”
“I got ‘im! You handle the damned stubbers!”
“Oi! Stay out of the crossfire, you daft horses! We’re going to be scraping up your remains with a spade!”
The battle against the minotaur had leveled out considerably once a few of the insurgents had been dispatched. There were only four of the horned goliaths left in fighting shape of the original assault team of twenty. Flames and spent casings littered the barricades between dead bodies, and those warriors that remained had to keep scouring their fallen for ammunition belts in order to reload. The Company garrison fared better thanks to the sudden intervention of a certain unicorn, but only barely; only six human soldiers were left trying to hold back the minotaur. All others were dead, badly wounded, or had fled the scene with the many civilians from the train.
“Hey, Miss Great and Powerful! Help us out a little, would you?!” screamed one man as stubber rounds shook his barricade.
Trixie, who was ducking behind a cargo crane next to Suuna, poked her head out. “Trixie already did that! You got this far with Trixie’s help, stop whining and put your back into it!”
A heavy bolter round slammed into the side of the crane, and she recoiled as shrapnel screeched against her helmet. “Look, Trixie can’t summon a bunch of guns anymore, okay? And it’s not like Trixie’s weapon is any better than yours!”
“If you could use the bloody fireballs to drive them out of cover, then we could cut them down easily!”
“No way! They’re already mad about the illusions! Trixie is a civilian! You deal with it!”
“A civilian?! You have frakking power armor!”
“A Great and Powerful civilian, but still a civilian!”
While pony and mercenary bickered over their combat strategy, Suuna waited patiently with her hands clamped over her ears, tracking possible avenues of escape. Most of the civilians had already escaped the crossfire one way or another; Trixie was only waiting for the firefight to break because her armor and earlier fighting – despite her protests of her status – made her an obvious target. If the trajectory of the battle continued along its current course, it wouldn’t be much longer until the minotaur were wiped out. They had spoiled their initiative too easily, and Delgan’s guards were quite tenacious in addition to being exceptionally well-armed.
“Hmm? Who’s that?” Suuna mumbled to herself, spotting a woman in flak armor and a red coat creep around the back of the train. Women were fairly uncommon among the mercenaries, and she was sure she hadn’t spotted any soldiers board the train in uniform. Had this one gotten on before she had, in a different car? Maybe she had fled here from a different sector?
Either way, it seemed strange that a mercenary who had abandoned her post was heading for a battle zone rather than away from one. Not that such a thing mattered to Suuna. They needed all the help they could get.
The woman ducked low and rushed toward the tail end of the formation, sliding into place next to a man reloading his pulse rifle. She flinched and huddled lower behind the barricade wall when a heavy bolter round thumped against it; evidently one of the gunners had picked out her brightly-colored uniform as a target.
“What’s this, then? Reinforcements?” asked the soldier next to her. “You part of a squad, lass?”
“NO SIR! ROX ALONE NOW, SIR!” the woman bellowed.
He didn’t find it that odd that she was shouting, necessarily. The din of the firefight was considerable, and it was easy to be rendered near-deaf on the battlefield. It was more strange that she was speaking in the third person, but things were still hectic enough that he didn’t give it a second thought.
“If you need a gun you can take Saliff’s! He’s the blood smear behind the barricade ahead of us, and I’m pretty sure he’s done with it!” He took a few shots over the top of the metal shielding, and was rewarded with a minotaur’s bellow. “Got ‘im! Only a few left!”
The woman tapped him on the shoulder. He glanced over, peering into the respirator mask and green-tinted goggles that covered her face. The lenses of said goggles flashed, and an inexplicable mental fog consumed the mercenary’s attentions. His vision spun and his body felt numb, and all of his muscles seemed to relax at once.
Then the woman drew his laspistol and shot him in the head.
“Behind you! There’s one behind you!” Suuna shouted, suddenly pointing to the rear of the formation. Trixie jumped in surprise, and several men glanced over in confusion.
Rox cursed under her breath and hit the ground, concealing herself entirely behind the barricade. A green flash washed over her, and the Guardian’s dirty red coat was replaced by what appeared to be clean, angled armaplas. Having taken on the image of the soldier, she quickly grabbed his pulse rifle and prepared her voice to mimic his.
“WAIT! DON’T SHOOT!” Rox shouted, poking her head up while waving one arm in the air. “IT ME!”
Trixie blinked repeatedly, and then tilted her head to look at Suuna. Her assistant was stunned, her eyes wide and her shock evident even through her rebreather. Most of the soldiers quickly went back to the combat still in progress, but one of them kept looking between Suuna and Rox.
“But, I… I saw… there was this woman in red… I saw her shoot him!” Suuna insisted.
“SHE… SHE TRIED TO KILL RO-erm, ME! I WON, THOUGH. EVERYTHING FINE NOW!”
Suuna seemed to shrink back uncertainly. That wasn’t what she remembered seeing, but the man behind the barricade obviously wasn’t dead, and the current circumstances were generally stressful and confusing enough that she began to doubt herself.
Trixie frowned behind her helmet. “Hey, you!” she called out to the noisy soldier. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“NAME… THAT… NAME IS… UM…” Rox stumbled over the question for a few seconds, and then started fumbling around underneath her. “MOMENT, PLEASE… NAME IS…” She pulled up an iron Chaos Star amulet, and then flipped it over to read the inscription on the back.
Then a fireball struck the barricade, forcing her to recoil from the scorching flames.
“That’s a changeling!” Trixie shouted. Her horn flashed, and the fireburst launcher clicked upward to a higher firing angle. “Take it down!”
Sox slapped a hand over her face, teeth clenched and curses threatening to emerge.
“Rox, you moron,” she seethed under her breath. Now that her fellow Guardian had been exposed, their last hidden advantage had been played. She couldn’t even help with her magic, as her minotaur squad mates would surely balk if she revealed her true identity. Minotaur held changelings in the greatest contempt, and knowing that a spy had led them into this conflict would turn the entire team against her.
As another minotaur slumped to the ground on top of his weapon, she wondered how much longer that would be a problem.
Rox hissed as pulse fire battered her cover, striking the reinforced plating with a low sizzle. The human squad’s attention was now split between the remaining minotaur and her position, but both sides were a rapidly diminishing threat. Unlike the other changelings, she had been disguised as a yak and thus hadn’t gotten any practice with firearms, either. She estimated her chances in a gunfight only slightly better than changing forms again and trying to talk her way out of this.
She shoved the barrel of the pulse rifle up over the barricade and pulled the trigger, releasing a spray of pulse shots in a blind fan. She held the trigger down until a bizarre, low-pitched whine came from the weapon and it stopped firing. Then she tossed it aside with a growl.
“ROX TIRED OF THIS! TIME FOR ROX TO SHOW YOU HOW CHANGELINGS FIGHT!” she shouted. The goggles of her mask pulsed bright green, and emerald flame swallowed her yet again.
Trixie largely ignored the creature’s bellowing, and a pair of fireballs spat from her cannon and arced up into the air.
Before the projectiles landed, however, Rox dashed from behind the barricade. Twisted, hole-ridden hooves raced over the ferrocrete and thin, gossamer wings buzzed frantically to speed her along. The Guardian emerged in a green blur, darting across the open and behind an armored mantle with such speed that it startled the soldiers trying to gun her down and spoiled any potential shots. Swirling bolts of emerald light curved away from the changeling while she ran, rocketing toward one such man and smashing into him.
The mercenary screamed and fell amidst a wash of magical, glittering flame. His allies scattered, and one of them reached for his grenade belt.
“Frag out!” he shouted, flinging the explosive to land behind his target’s cover.
“No, wait! Don’t use those!” Trixie protested.
Sure enough, the grenade was halted in mid-air by a green aura, and started moving back in the opposite direction. Before it could get very far, though, Trixie’s horn flashed and tugged it the other way. Green and pink light swirled together around the cylinder, struggling against each other in a duel of arcane will.
Then the grenade exploded, ending the contest.
Rox clicked her tongue and made another jump, using her wings to flit from behind the armor mantle to the security station. It was a large enough building for her to easily hide behind it and possibly – or rather, hopefully – come up with another angle of approach.
She heard the sound of armored greaves banging against the ground, and her lip curled up above her fangs. It seemed one of her targets didn’t want to wait.
“You’re not going anyWHOA!” Trixie turned the corner only to find herself subjected to a beam of green force that cut across her legs. Her armor cracked and her footing failed, and the showpony spilled forward to land face-first on the pavement.
“STUPID CREATURES. THE HUMANS GIVE YOU SOME FANCY TOYS AND YOU THINK YOURSELVES WARRIORS!” Rox barked. Magic pulsed and swirled around her horn, and her wings buzzed threateningly. “PERISH!”
A pulsating globe of magic launched toward Trixie, crackling with raw power. The unicorn barely had enough time to stand up again before lashing out with her own magic, jabbing a small spike of force into the projectile. It would have barely broken skin against most creatures, but it was enough to at least detonate the opposing spell early.
The magic bomb exploded, blasting the ground underneath and lashing out at random with bright green whips of destruction. The pressure wave slammed into Trixie, knocking her over again, and her visor display briefly turned to static when one of the energy bolts struck her shoulder pauldron. Immediately she begin scrambling to stand, but a blanket of green magic suddenly fell on top of her, pushing her down onto the ferrocrete.
Rox’s jagged horn pulsed with ever-greater intensity, pinning her equine foe firmly to the ground. “YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ROX! YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE FATE THE CHANGELINGS HAVE CHOSEN FOR YOU! WE RULE THIS WORLD NOW! PONY, HUMAN, ORK! ALL WILL SERVE THE CHANGELINGS OR DIE!!”
“Why are you yelling? Trixie is right in front of you,” Trixie complained, wincing. “You do know you’re still in a battlefield, right?”
Rox bristled. “YOU NOT MAKE FUN OF ROX’S ACCENT!!”
“Shouting all the time is not an ‘accent!’” Trixie protested. “What, were you infiltrating the yaks or something?”
Rox’s cheeks puffed up indignantly, and she flushed.
“… Wait, Trixie was right? Seriously? Ha! That’s hilarious!” She broke into giggles despite still being pinned against the ground. “You idiots really planted a spy with the yaks?! Why? We were pretty much guaranteed to have to fight them anyway!”
Rox clenched her jaw, her lips curling up over her curved, razor-edged teeth.
Then Trixie stopped laughing. “What? Suuna! No! Don’t come any closer!” she shouted.
Rox snorted. “ROX KNOW YOUR STUPID PLOY, PONY! YOU USE ILLUSION AND MISDIRECTION! ROX NOT FALLING FOR-“
Then a piece of duralloy rebar slammed into her side, tearing off a wing and throwing her across the ground.
Trixie started scrambling to her feet before Rox even landed from the blow, desperate to get some mobility back. She had rather severely underestimated the Guardian just because said changeling hadn’t been willing to face down more than one Company soldier at a time, but it seemed like she would have to end this struggle quickly or draw it out long enough for the mercenaries to help.
Trixie began powering up her fireburst launcher again. Rox was staggering upright at the moment and entirely vulnerable, but the unicorn wasn’t a very good shot. There was a reason she preferred summoning dozens of weapons and blindly emptying them in the general direction of the enemy, and it wasn’t just because she had a flair for the dramatic.
Trixie fired her main weapon, and then growled in frustration when the sizzling projectiles went wide, exploding behind the changeling and barely singing her in the process. Rox came to her senses from the near-miss, whirling on her opponents with her horn aglow again.
Suuna, apparently taking Trixie’s lead, held her improvised weapon like a javelin while she backed away from the wounded changeling. Trixie noticed her posture and gasped in surprise.
“Wait! No! Don’t throw-“
The rebar pole flew through the air like a spear, and to Suuna’s credit it flew on target, too. Surely it would have skewered Rox if the changeling wasn’t paying attention. But with a flash of her horn the rebar pole shuddered to a stop, and with a slight grunt of effort it started speeding back where it came from.
“Suuna, NO!” Trixie activated her own telekinesis, and a swath of pink slowed the rebar’s path back toward its source. “How does everyone not get this yet? Do NOT throw things at magic users!”
Trixie’s efforts bought Suuna enough time to dodge out of the way, and the rebar pole hit the ground harmlessly, bouncing away after the levitation magic broke. Rox panted, tired and injured, but quickly fed more power into her horn. Trixie turned to face her again, pausing only slightly when her visor display flickered.
The magician blinked. All the annoying, redundant, and misleading information had been cleared from her display. Rox was outlined in bright, angry red, and a targeting reticule fed Trixie the exact firing angle necessary for her main weapon.
“WRETCHED PONY! USELESS HUMAN! ROX FINISH YOU!” Howling needlessly, Rox unleashed a bolt of green straight toward Trixie.
Trixie fired back at the same time, her fireburst launcher sending a screaming fireball sailing low over the ground.
Rox’s projectile hit, slamming into Trixie’s helmet on the left cheek. A hairline crack split up and down the impact, sundering the ceramite and nearly shattering the visor lens, and Trixie was again thrown to the ground from the force of the blast.
Trixie’s projectile also hit, and Rox shrieked as flames bloomed all around her. The changeling Guardian was completely consumed within the inferno, her death cry booming and then rapidly withering to a pitiful squawk. The fires rose for several seconds, and then turned a bright, eldritch green color.
And then the fire receded, guttering to a few embers sitting atop a heap of ash.
“Miss Trixie! Are you all right?” Suuna rushed over to the fallen unicorn and then grabbed on to her shoulder pad, trying to help hoist her upright.
Trixie released an exhausted grunt and stood up. “Figures that as soon as the stupid visor starts working right the bug goes and breaks it. Ugh.” She grimaced at the web of cracks and wild static that made up her left eye lens. With a thought she shut it down, leaving a badly distorted and cracked plate of bare, translucent crimson.
“You said your visor is working again? So that strange glitch where it misidentified people is gone?”
“Yes, meaning the targeting system is working again. Trixie is quite embarrassed that she missed so many easy shots; more practice with the launcher may be in order.” She snapped her head toward Suuna. “Tell no one.”
Suuna drew a finger across her lips with a solemn expression, and then they both walked around the security station back toward the train.
It didn’t escape their notice that the sound of gunfire had stopped entirely. When they peeked out at the platform, they saw four soldiers still standing among the various dead bodies. One was treating a wound on his leg. Another was gathering Chaos amulets from the dead men. The other two were on guard, watching for any further signs of resistance, and one of them immediately sighted Trixie and pointed to her.
“Oi! There she is! Did you get the bug?”
Trixie and Suuna emerged from behind cover, and the former nodded.
“Of course Trixie did! You don’t seriously think a mere changeling could challenge the Great and Powerful Trixie, do you?” the mare said, laughing. A shard of her visor lens popped loose and dropped to the ground at her hooves.
“Well, Sergeant Barrun’s dead. What do we do now? Should we head back to the defensive line or-“
Trixie suddenly cleared her throat loudly, interrupting him. Once she had everyone’s attention, she pointed a metal-clad hoof at the nearest soldier. “Names!”
“What?”
“Tell Trixie your names!” the unicorn insisted.
“Ryain Holdt.”
“Trav Geer.”
“Patem Vellin.”
“I’m Sox.”
Everyone slowly turned to face the last soldier. The soldier stared back silently, expression hidden behind an iron mask with a Chaos Star etched onto the face. Pulse rifles were readied.
“… It’s more of a nickname, though,” Sox said casually. “My real name is Donal Ryza.” Trixie relaxed immediately.
The mercenaries didn’t.
“You got that name off of his amulet, I take it,” said another soldier, pointing a pulse pistol at Sox’s chest, “since I watched Don get wiped by a multimelta.” He reached forward and snatched away the scorched Chaos Star hanging around Sox’s neck. “Thanks for finding it, xeno.”
The other soldiers wordlessly aimed their weapons. Sox groped for something clever or disarming to say, but found herself at a loss for ideas.
“So, uh… you guys… take prisoners, ri-“
The pulse weapons fired.
****
Lander lots
Power fields buzzed and crackled, singing their understated song of molecular annihilation against the air.
Sword blades whipped and jabbed, each movement accompanied by a suddenly rising hum and shuddering hiss. The axe blade, like its wielder, was more deliberate and prudent, cracking gently in anticipation of grasping its prey.
Delgan walked calmly around Killer Instinct, their eyes locked, and only deigned to move faster when the minotaur attacked. The larger biped lurched forward with a chop, and the Trademaster hopped back out of reach. Killer Instinct reached after the man with his free hand, and Delgan spun on one heel, his power sword flashing like a bolt of lightning. The blade nicked Instinct’s arm, but the horned warrior didn’t pull back.
Another axe swing chopped at chest level, and with sufficient force to hew the Trademaster in half. Delgan back flipped, touching one hand on the ground before bouncing to his feet with some extra space between him and his target.
“Is this how humans fight? Are you the best that you apes have to offer?” Killer Instinct growled, sternly marching forward.
“Oh, no. Not at all. For starters, most humans would have just shot you,” Delgan explained. He stabbed one sword into the ground, and then shook off his jacket. “As for being the best we have to offer, you HAVE caught us at an awkward time. We would have countless soldiers of more fearsome countenance to face you if you withdrew for now and returned… say, perhaps two weeks from now?” He tossed his jacket to the side where it caught on an augur antennae and hung there.
“You’re not funny,” Killer Instinct snarled.
Delgan actually recoiled slightly, looking somewhat offended. “Come on then, cow. See if you find my blades any sharper than my wit.”
Killer Instinct charged, his massive, armored hooves almost shaking the ground at a sprint. Delgan sidestepped, moving in short, brief hops to get to his opponent’s flank.
When the minotaur slowed to turn, Delgan jumped in to skewer him, one sword darting in like a striking viper.
Blade met flesh with a hiss and a crack, but to Delgan’s surprise, the flesh didn’t yield. Killer Instinct had grabbed his sword by the blade, and his giant, callused hands sizzled and bled against the sword’s edge and the molecular burn of the disruption field.
He pulled on the blade, and Delgan let go immediately, not willing to be dragged closer to the horned rebel. Killer Instinct snorted, and then flung the power sword away. The weapon flew an impressive distance, landing underneath the hijacked lander in the adjacent lot. It bounced several times after that, scraping across the ferrocrete ground and through a few of the thrusters that were actively test-firing.
“That… That weapon was a gift from the Warsmith, you horned oaf!” Delgan snapped. His expression was mostly hidden behind his respirator plate, and still seemed too mild for a life-or-death combat, but the man was obviously very upset.
“It should have been granted to a more deserving swordsman,” Killer Instinct grunted. “You’re no warrior. Such weapons are wasted on you.”
“Your kind constructs huts of mud and wood as mine cleanses the stars of alien life,” Delgan sniffed. “Your entire world is an idyllic pond in a galaxy soaked in blood. You wouldn’t have even gotten this far without the Orks on your side. What know you of war?”
Killer Instinct swiped at him again, and Delgan smoothly slid out of the way, nicking the minotaur across his chest armor with his remaining sword. Despite his failure to land a blow, the horned beast was grinning.
“Pitiful. You dance away like a coward, unwilling to commit to a blow. You’ve had a dozen chances to finish me. Were you a real warrior, this fight would be over by now,” chuckled the minotaur.
“Were I a ‘real warrior’ I would have no doubt been smeared across a patch of rocks on some misbegotten planet ages ago,” Delgan quipped. He hopped backward to evade another axe swing, and then darted to the side when his foe threw a punch to follow it. “I’d be one of however many millions of lost souls who are expended and forgotten with every sunrise across the galaxy, sent to their doom at the bidding of their betters. Just as you will be, once the sun falls.” He ducked under another swing, slicing a shallow gash across the minotaur’s leg before shifting out of range. “I’d rather be one of the betters.”
“You’ve no one to hide behind now, Trademaster. It’s too late for that.” A puff of steam blasted from Killer Instinct’s nose.
“I beg to differ,” the Trademaster retorted, right before an unearthly howl filled the air.
Arrow-shaped bolts of foul magic screamed toward Killer Instinct’s back, and the minotaur turned sharply to catch the projectiles against his gauntlet. The arrows hissed and bubbled against the heavy iron shields attached to his wrist armor, corroding them and seeping through the cracks to eat at the flesh below.
Delgan was inside his guard in an instant, and his blade plunged into the minotaur’s weapon arm, punching through muscle and bone to completely pierce the forearm. Killer Instinct snarled, throwing his arm to the side with the power sword still stuck in the vambrace. Delgan ducked away yet again, losing his last sword but avoiding a blow that could have ripped his head off.
“You ready for round two, you hairy git?!” Poison Kiss screamed, galloping across the ground. Her plague knife hovered beside her head, and her helmet opened around the jaw. “Die! Die and rot!”
Darts of sharp, infected bone shot out of her mouth, peppering the insurgent’s backside. Most of the spines bounced off of thick armor plating or the warrior’s obnoxiously thick hide, but a few found purchase and broke skin. Muscles spasmed painfully and blisters started to swell in seconds.
Still, the infections weren’t QUITE fast enough to cripple Killer Instinct entirely before Kiss reached him.
A quick backhand swatted the plague knife out of the air mid-stab, and Kiss barely avoided a metal-clad hoof almost as large as she was from stomping on her. Her horn blasted the minotaur in the chest, but he barely flinched. Another swipe struck Kiss in the shoulder, and she was sent flailing across the ground after a metallic crash.
Snarling, Killer Instinct rounded on Delgan, who was trying to work out a good angle of approach to take his sword back. With his weapon arm barely able to keep clutching his remaining axe, he leapt forward and punched with his free hand, trying to cave the Trademaster’s head in.
Delgan dodged backward, but Killer Instinct raced after him and finally caught the merchant off-balance. The minotaur’s shoulder crashed into Delgan and sent him sprawling onto the ground.
Blood oozed from a dozen wounds. Sores and infections burned away at his legs. His weapon arm was in agony, almost useless for anything aside from keeping Delgan’s weapon out of his reach. And still the minotaur charged forward, each injury only stoking his fury.
Delgan rolled away, gasping painfully, just before a huge hoof smashed onto the ground where his head had been. He flipped back to his feet in an instant, but his chest burned from what he was sure were some fractured ribs and his opponent was already reaching for him again.
“Hey!” Kiss shouted, sounding somewhat dizzy. “I think that weird interference is gone! My visor is working right again!”
Delgan ducked again, scrambling to stay out of reach of the massive beast. “Does that mean you can stop this creature?!” He started sprinting away, but Killer Instinct sped after him, unrelenting.
“Uh… well, no. If I had a gun…” Kiss mumbled in embarrassment.
The shriek of a heavy laser weapon came from behind her, and Kiss almost jumped as bright red spears of light flashed over her head. One, two, and three such bolts struck Killer Instinct in the side, drilling through armor and boiling flesh underneath. The minotaur stumbled, one leg simply unresponsive, and with a drawn-out growl the warrior crashed onto the ground.
Delgan nearly collapsed with relief at seeing his pursuer dispatched. He stopped to lean on a fueling pylon, panting, and fished around in his pocket for a hydrator tablet. At the same time, he searched out the source of the laser attack and was surprised to see a tall, four-legged machine trotting through the gloom.
“Is that a… a Strider? Thank the Dark Gods, it seems someone in the Mechanicus decided to manufacture them after all!” the Trademaster proclaimed.
“Not quite, darling,” the stilt-legged battlesuit replied, shocking the man further. The radio-like voice quality of the suit caster rendered the voice almost indistinguishable, but there was only one pony who referred to Norris Delgan as “darling.”
“Miss Rarity! So good of you to join us, then! And you brought some more of my hardware as well!” Delgan laughed while Poison Kiss marveled at the approaching machine.
“Oh, yes! It was quite an adventure, too! But that’s for another time. It seems our little Fio’el friend made it to the drone controller.”
“The drone controller? Fio’el?”
“Oh, that reminds me! If you see a bunch of Tau skulking about without obvious orders, they’re probably traitors.”
“Smidge late for that warning, Miss…”
Breezy Blight and Rot Blossom watched the exchange in miserable silence, lacking the current motor function to even walk over and join the others. Blossom was paralyzed from her barrel down, courtesy of the cog-toothed power axe STILL lodged in her spine. Breezy was even worse off, with a severed wing, wrecked helmet, and two broken legs. The pair of them had been dragged next to a pylon that Kiss had deemed probably safe, and then dropped off next to each other like a set of cargo cells.
“I hope they don’t forget about us,” Blossom moaned.
“I hope they can find my lost wing,” Breezy muttered in reply. “I’m sure a Dark Techpriest could make a replacement, but I really liked that wing. Do you think they can re-attach it if they do? It’s not like we have to worry about infections…”
“I think they-“ Blossom suddenly stopped, her eyes locked onto the smoldering minotaur body behind Delgan. “Hold on… Is that thing still ALIVE? I’m getting a heartbeat!”
“Er… can’t back you up on that, Blossom. My helmet’s gone. And even yours took a beating today, so…”
“He’s moving! HEY!” Rot Blossom screamed, banging her front hooves on the ferrocrete. “WATCH OUT! He’s not dead yet!”
Delgan moved like a cat, bouncing away from the minotaur in an instant. Poison Kiss was more sluggish, stumbling around with her horn flickering into action.
“Oh, bother,” Rarity sighed, warming up her Strider’s multilaser. “Just get clear and I’ll-“
A power axe whipped through the air in a blazing crimson circle, striking the battlesuit’s head right in the center and ripping straight through it. The power axe fell to the ground, followed by a good chunk of the sensor head and its attached weapon. A blast of garbled static came from the battlesuit, and it wobbled slightly out of sheer surprise.
“Miss Rarity, NO!” Poison Kiss shouted.
“No kill, no respite.” Killer Instinct was on his knees, panting, and struggling to push himself up. Injuries covered every part of his body, and much of what hadn’t been ravaged by blade or laser was suffering virulent infection. He was also out of weapons, aside from the power sword that was still stuck in his right arm.
Delgan darted in again, grabbing onto his weapon and kicking against the minotaur’s shoulder to dislodge it. The power sword ripped free of Killer instinct with a spray of blood a fierce series of pops from its disruption field. The warrior beast grunted slightly from the gaping wound in his arm, his breath uneven and strained.
“Here you are, then.” Delgan circled around behind Killer Instinct, taking his remaining sword in both hands. “It’s been a pleasure to be of service.”
The power sword swung hard for the minotaur’s neck, its blue disruption field sparking brilliantly as it burned through muscle, flesh, and bone. It didn’t quite make a decapitating strike, due to the sheer amount of muscle mass it was attempting to cut through, but this time when Killer Instinct collapsed with a power sword lodged in him it was clear he wouldn’t be rising again.
“Miss Rarity! Are you okay? Do you need help?” Kiss asked, pawing frantically at the legs of the Strider battlesuit. “I’ve never seen one of these thing before! Was that her head in there?”
With a hefty clunk of machinery, a hatch on the Strider’s back popped open. Rarity popped her head out, grimacing at the damage to the sensor head.
“Oh, dear. And with none of my Techpriest friends around to fix it!” She clicked her tongue. “While I can appreciate the Tau design philosophy that my head doesn’t belong in the suit’s most vulnerable point, I don’t think I’ll be replacing my power armor with a scout walker. These machines are absolutely beastly.”
Delgan wrenched his power sword free once again and began to clean the blade. “Are there more coming? Did you arrive as part of a combat force?”
“I did not. I arrived as part of a desperate ploy to foil Shas’o Voidsong’s gambit for revenge. Gears’ little Tau friend knew how to reverse the signal baffling that plagued the fortress. It appears we were too late, though,” Rarity sighed.
“Not quite! With signum integrity restored, all of our autoweapons are working again! The servitors and defense turrets can help us push back the remaining infiltrators!” Poison Kiss exclaimed. “Then we can concentrate on cracking that lander!”
As if on cue, the thrusters from the nearby cargo lander suddenly trebled in output. A low roar filled the air just ahead of a wave of hot air, and the transport ship finally lifted up off the ground. It hovered in place for a few seconds, as if uncertain what its next move should be. Then the landing skis quickly flipped up and the vessel started to turn.
“Well, bugger me,” Poison Kiss grumbled.
The lander shuddered into motion, and slowly blasted off into the soot-stained skies.