//------------------------------//
// Apres Moi, Le Deluge 
// Story: Strange Bedfellows 
// by BRBrony9 
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The smoke was thick and cloying, irritating to the lungs and the eyes. Sergeant Argan pushed on anyway, his squad behind him. The enemy could be anywhere in the dim light that filtered through the smoke, or they could be nowhere, laid low by the rocket or missile that had struck the building they had occupied. The street was littered with debris, shattered brick and bent metal. 

Farther down the street, the smoke finally thinned, carried by the breeze and disbursed somewhat. Several corpses lay in the road, tossed from the ruins by the explosion that had brought down the building. There was no sign of any living enemy. Delta Company moved up in support, clearing the building and finding nobody alive.

All across town, the Guard was advancing, sweeping and clearing the ruins and those few buildings that were intact. They came across the locations of the deaths of their fellows in the 4th Hydraxians, who had made the first landing and had defended the town against the predations of the Archenemy, the first incidence of Guardsmen protecting the horse-aliens, though mostly out of a survival instinct. But among many of the landing forces since then, things had developed into, at the very least, a grudging respect for the bravery and tenacity of these Xenos against the marauders who had come to despoil their world. To Argan's surprise, he found himself in just such a situation, but especially towards the Xenos princess, who had fought to protect him and his squad twice before. Though she was not present here, Argan felt that it was somehow right for him to be trying to retake a town that her fellows called home. The Imperium had come to conquer, but a far greater and more noble goal was to prevent others falling to the darkness and predations of Chaos.

Liberating a Xenos town from the forces of the Ruinous Powers, however, was exactly like clearing a human town. There was death and decay in the streets, evidence of rape and ruin and destruction, of foul rituals and disturbing practices. Obscene graffiti was daubed on walls, sigils of Chaos and symbols that would make a man's stomach turn. The town had clearly been defaced by its occupiers, and in a more insidious way than in Manehattan, where most evidence of Chaos occupation could be found in the form of broken windows and shattered monuments. Here, for some reason, the enemy had gone particularly mad with their horrific graffiti and the detritus of their particular brand of Daemon-worship, perhaps because it was the first town they had encountered after invading. Here and there, horrendous shrines and idols had been erected, daubed in blood; perhaps from the pony inhabitants, perhaps from the bodies of their own dead, or perhaps from willing volunteers cut open to serve as a sickening tribute to a particular Dark God or Daemon.

Other than that, and other than the peculiar architecture of some of the Xenos buildings, the scene in the town resembled any battlefield; it could have been any one of a thousand worlds across the Imperium where Guard was fighting the traitors. Argan and his squad pushed on. Now that the linkup was complete, they were called back to rejoin the rest of Gamma Company. Their next objective that had been assigned in the briefing, together with Delta Company, was to capture a building designated as the town's rail transit station, according to the street maps and plans they had been shown. 

Smoke wafted across the streets in several places, but overall there was relatively little enemy resistance. The armour had completed its flanking move around to the east of the town with ease, encountering only a few scattered minefields and emplaced weapons. It seemed likely that the enemy had pulled back the bulk of their forces to defend the much larger city of Baltimare to the south, where a similar meatgrinder slog might be expected to that which had worn down the Imperials in Manehattan. 

Two Leman Russ tanks had been assigned to support the push on the station, a low building of mostly wood and brick. Two tracks headed away both north and south, most likely servingCanterlot and Baltimare respectively. There was a lot of open ground to cover in front of the station building, which was why Delta Company had been assigned to flank through buildings just to the east of it and provide a heavy barrage of covering fire while Gamma Company moved up, supported by the tanks. To the west of the station lay more open ground, where Eta Company was pushing toward the other side of town.

Argan's squad reached the jump-off point and had to wait for Delta to get into position. The pair of tanks idled just behind them, out of sight around the corner. Argan took a look up ahead at the station building through his binoculars, peering through the wheel slats of a market cart. There were gun barrels protruding from each window, with sandbags piled high at the doorway. A train was in the station and more men could be seen peeking from the carriages with rifles ready.

At the signal, the tanks rolled out into the open as Delta Company let loose with a hail of fire upon the station building, the train, and the platforms. Lieutenant Albrecht ordered Gamma Company to move, and Argan led his men into the street. The main guns of the two tanks blew holes in the outer wall of the station, disregarding Celestia's desire to limit collateral damage as there was relatively little of the town remaining intact anyway. The men moved up, using market barrows, crates and statues for cover. The Equestrians seemed to share a fondness for statuary and monuments with the Imperium, as every town and city Argan had fought through contained a good number of them. No statue would commemorate their efforts to defend this world, however; not unless the Xenos decided to erect one, at least.

A piercing beep sounded over the vox, an alert tone audible even over the din of battle and with Merkev some few feet away with the set. It repeated twice more; the emergency retreat! Argan ducked down beside Merkev to listen in.  

'All units, all units, flash override. This is ops command to all units on this net; retreat, retreat, retreat. I say again, retreat, retreat, retreat.'

What the hell was going on? Perhaps a mass enemy airstrike was inbound. Perhaps some evidence of impending Daemonic activity; perhaps an enemy fleet had returned to orbit and threatened annihilation from above. Argan ordered his squad back as scattered enemy fire whizzed around them. The two tanks threw themselves into reverse gear and began backing out of the square. Above the noise of their engines, Argan could hear something else.

A low, distant roar, building steadily, like an aircraft spooling up to takeoff thrust. He had no idea what it was; could it be related to the evacuation call? The alert tones and the emergency retreat was sounded once more over the vox. The call meant any forces receiving it were to cease combat activities at once and perform break-contact maneuvers, and fall back as soon as possible to the initial jump-off point for the operation, in this case several miles north towards Canterlot. It was only to be used in the case of an imminent danger to the operation as a whole.

Argan rounded the corner with his squad, heading back down the street towards the bridge and the ford where they had waded across the river. Men from across the town were pulling back, vehicles too, though the bridge could only take one at a time. All the while the rumbling that had started to form a background noise to proceedings was getting louder and louder.

Argan and his squad made their way down the street at a jog. Up ahead, men crossing the bridge behind a tank began to run, to sprint. They abandoned their weapons. The tank gunned its engine and raced ahead, crushing several of the unfortunate men who, in their haste, had strayed into its path on the narrow bridge. Argan did not know what they were running from, but the rumble was now a vast, echoing roar, all but filling his ears. Other men near the river turned in terror to run for their lives, and the reason why became clear a moment later.

A huge wall of water, some twenty or thirty feet high, was surging down the river, reaching almost to the tops of the few buildings near the banks that remained intact. It was moving at a terrifying speed, following the course of the river but spilling out over the banks, flooding everything alongside, burying the land under millions of tons of liquid. Men farther upstream were swept away like twigs carried on a hurricane wind.

'Son of a bitch...!' Argan exclaimed. 'Back! Back into the town, go, go!' he screamed to his men, and where they had stood transfixed by the spectacle, they turned almost as one, running as fast as their legs could pump and their lungs could suck in oxygen. The water swept down past them, carrying away the temporary bridge and the tank still trying to cross it. It filtered through the streets and alleys of Ponyville, not content to follow the river's course as the flow of water from upstream should. Argan and the squad made it to the next street, and an alarmed cry came from the point man as he looked to his right and saw the deluge closing in. They carried on running straight, following the same principle as to escape an avalanche; trying to outrun it is an exercise in how to leave a tired corpse, but running perpendicular to the direction of its flow might just get you to the side of the torrent in time to escape its deadly clutches.

They ran into men coming the other way, retreating as per orders, unaware of the danger they were heading into. Shouts for them to turn back were sometimes heeded, sometimes ignored; some men pressed on to their certain deaths, preferring to listen to the retreat commands, as they were both entitled and trained to do, despite the cries, warning of the waters coming to claim them.

Argan saw water bursting through the windows and doorways of a building to his right. An alleyway was ahead, and there was the water again, flowing out, crossing his path like a waterfall. He pounded on through it, risking a glance back. Some of his squad were still with him, while others had pulled up short at the sudden appearance of the water before them. A road was ahead, and he reached it at a tired sprint, but it was too late anyway.

The water flowing down the wide thoroughfare was towering a good ten feet over the heads of the men, and there was no escape from it now. Argan just had time to take a deep breath before it was upon him, submerging him in a different world, a world of darkness, confusion, pressure. He felt himself tumbling aimlessly, end over end, unable to do anything to correct his trajectory or fight against the astonishing power of such a mass of flowing water. Debris battered him, striking him roughly; branches, rocks, parts of buildings, other unfortunate souls caught up in the flow, who could say? He knew nothing but water, everywhere, all around him.

His lungs were burning, empty. His vision was fading out. Surely this was the end for him. He had thought many times of the ways in which he might envisage dying in the Emperor's service; shot down by las-fire, run through by an Eldar blade, crushed beneath debris, left tumbling adrift in the void of space; drowning had never really crossed his mind as a likely option. His earlier thoughts in Griffonstone about the Emperor abandoning him seemed to finally be playing out. There had been deliverance before; the arrival of the fleet through the storm, the Princess protecting them in Manehattan. But nothing could help him now except blind fate and luck.

Which was exactly what he got. Something bumped into him, then something else, then a quick surge in pressure, and he slammed into something, but fresh air assaulted him. He opened his mouth and gasped, breathing deeply, sucking in air, coughing. He opened his eyes, as well, finding himself slumped, almost comically, on a wooden stairwell, head barely above water, inside some unknown building. Providence had seen fit to grand him deliverance, or at least a temporary reprieve. HIs lasgun was gone, washed away somewhere, as was his helmet and much of his gear. Of his squad, there was no sign. He was alone in the stairwell. Argan hauled himself fully onto the landing. Everything below him was filled with water; swirling, turbulent, still flowing and full of debris. The building creaked and groaned as it was buffeted from without and within by the torrent. 

Argan had no idea of how far he had been carried, or of how sturdy the building might be. All he knew was that disaster had struck the attacking force. A huge gush of water like that could only have come from a dam breach or a tsunami, and they were a long way from the sea. He headed up the stairs in the hopes of reaching a roof or balcony from which he could survey the town. He did not know his position, the position of friendlies, or the position of safe ground. The staircase ended at a metal door which he was able to force open. It led onto a flat rooftop, and revealed the unfolding devastation.

The building was only three stories high, but the few streets Argan could see had become rivers. They were choked with detritus, carried away by the mad torrent. Uprooted trees, furniture, doors, fences, carts, barrels, bodies. Everything loose or weakly fastened had been collected by the uncontrollable power of millions of tons of water cascading down the hillside and into the unprotected town below. Here and there, entire buildings had been torn from their flimsy foundations and floated along with the current, bobbing almost comically and bumping into other, more sturdy structures as they passed. There were dead men, here and there, clad in both the dark red of the enemy and the more sombre colours of the Parvians, or the multi-toned camouflage of the Kharians. Argan had no desire to count how many, but he could see at least a dozen at a glance. There must be hundreds, perhaps thousands, who had not been able to flee in time and had been swept away by the waters.

Valkyries circled overhead, passing damage reports and looking for survivors, either friendly or enemy. Argan removed his sodden tunic and waved it high above his head in a circular motion, to attract the attention of one of the craft. One Valkyrie was performing a rescue of two men from the rooftop of a nondescript building that didn't help Argan find his bearings. He tried looking for the transit station, but either it wasn't visible from his position or it had been submerged beneath the waters. The course of the river itself was no longer discernible either. It had gone from a gently flowing stream to a distressingly wide lake of water that seemed to blanket the whole town. He couldn't see the dam from his position, but he knew it was tucked away in the hills to the east. Something must have happened to it; an accident, sabotage, an enemy airstrike, the cause didn't matter much to him at the moment.

Another Valkyrie waggled its wings in his direction, signalling that it had seen him. Argan looked around to see if the roof was big enough for a landing; it wasn't. The Valkyrie would have to hover, either just to the side so he could step into the passenger bay, or just above so the door gunners could haul him aboard. He waved his tunic at them again, and the aircraft turned, steadying itself above, its jets turned vertical and kicking up spray from the water below, making crazed patterns on its surface as the VTOL maneuvered towards Argan. 

The downdraft blew him back and he steadied himself. But it also pushed down on the rooftop, on the building whose structure was compromised; below the waterline, the sudden impact of such a heavy force had weakened the walls, tearing the doors and windows away, seeping in through the wooden fabric of the building. Debris had been pummeling it as it flowed past, and the building was at the breaking point. The sudden surge of air being forced down upon it from above by the Valkyrie's jets was the last straw, and the building gave a groan.

Argan felt the roof sagging. The Valkyrie came in lower, and he tried to wave them off as he felt the building shift. But the downdraft had already had its effect. The Valkyrie dipped down lower, the port door gunner reaching out a hand to grab the Sergeant and haul him to safety. The roof sagged and shook as walls down below gave way, water leaping on the weakness and tearing the wooden planks and panels away from their moorings. Losing their support, the roof beams bent and groaned. As he stepped towards the Valkyrie, Argan felt himself dropping away. The gunner leaned out, straining his harness to try and reach Argan, but the roof was going, collapsing under him. Argan stumbled, recovered, and with his next step, felt his boot go straight through the roof. He gave a cry of anguish as the entire building fell away with a crash of splintering wood, the debris being immediately carried into the stream of water and rushing away. Argan fell with it, splashing into the torrent once more.

Immediately his world returned to the underwater tunnel he had been in only minutes earlier. Water swirled around him, bubbles and debris and darkness. He felt himself being carried along, and after a few moments he burst through the water to the surface, taking a deep drag of oxygen as he bobbed along like a cork. Buildings passed him by; another was up ahead. He tried vainly to swim to the side, but slammed into the corner of the structure and bounced off, robbing him of most of his breath, winding him and setting him spinning. The waters were deep and he was almost at the roof level of most of the buildings that sailed by. There was something floating next to him- a log or a tree branch of some kind. He scrabbled desperately for it and grasped it like a life preserver, keeping himself stable, letting himself rest. The water was carrying him through the town where he had expected to be fighting street by street. If the dam had failed before the attack was launched, it would have done the Guardsmen's job for them, flushing the enemy from the town. But it had not failed, it had, surely, been destroyed, though whether by accidental tank or artillery fire from misdirected Imperial gunners, or through deliberate detonation by the enemy, he did not know.

He passed another building where several guardsmen stood on the roof, watching him sail by, unable to help. The disaster had unfolded within ninety seconds of the retreat signal being sounded, nowhere near enough time for the Guard to evacuate the town. Those that had tried had mostly run straight into the water roaring toward them down the formerly placid river. Whether the enemy had planned to drown their own men or not would probably never be known, but the town's defences, while breached, were not destroyed, and the bodies of the enemy dead floated along with Argan, popping up here and there among the foam and the churning surge of water. 

He could not escape it as it continued to take him through the town. Something banged into his legs below the water, and he found himself suddenly dragged down once again, beneath the surface, without warning. He held his breath and looked down. Through the murk and silt churned up, he could just about see that his foot was trapped, caught in something long and thin that he could not quite identify- vines, rope, power lines. Something was hooked around his boot. He tried to pull away but could not. Nor could he remove his boot. He reached down and began the desperate struggle, to get the thing off of his foot before he ran out of air. The loop of whatever it was tied around his foot prevented him from unlacing his boot. He tried to unhook it, pulling at it, but it was resistant, tightly pulled around him. He tried to tear it, but it was far too strong. He tugged at it, straining to slip it over the toe of his boot, but his air was dying away. He tried again, and again, and again, his eyesight fading, his strength waning with every pull. Thoughts of the past weeks ran through his mind. Thoughts of his squad, thoughts of the princess, thoughts of Marla coming through from the past, reminding him of what he had lost. What was there in his future? Nothing. There was no future. He was going to drown.

He was floating up, towards the light. The Emperor, waiting to welcome him into His holy throng, those who had given their lives in His service. He opened his eyes to see the angels and cherubs, to see the Imperial Saints, to see the God-Emperor himself.

Instead he saw clouds, scattered and ragged, strewn across the blue sky. He found himself reflexively breathing and coughing, gasping for air, swallowing it in great gulps. He was floating once more atop the water. Whatever had been ensnaring his boot had come adrift, either through his actions or through the stirring and churning of the water and the debris as it struck whatever obstacles lay in its path. He felt something grasp him, and he started to move, nor forward, but laterally this time, to his left. He could hear something, something other than the ominous rushing of the water around his ears. He could hear voices.

'Lieutenant! I've got one, he's alive!'

'Medic! Medic! We have a survivor here!'

Strong hands pulled him ashore. He felt solid ground beneath him once again, at last. Panting and shaking, Argan looked around. Men with weary faces, men who had seen combat many times and knew of only death, looked down at him, having a chance, finally, to know the saving of life as well as the taking of it.

'Easy, son...sorry, Sergeant,' one man addressed him, seeing his stripes. 'We got you. Just relax, you'll be fine.' Argan nodded, half dazed by his near drowning. A medicae hurried over, checking him. These were not Parvians. These were not even infantrymen. These were men of the Manrovians, the armoured regiment assigned to the eastern flank of the push, who had been swinging round to encircle the town. Had he been carried that far by the floodwaters?

Argan let the tankers take care of him, his unexpected saviours fussing as though he were a small child rescued from a shallow pond after pressing his luck a little too far towards the deep end. He may have survived, but many had not, claimed either by the enemy before the disaster, or the raging waters after it. The offensive was disrupted, halted. The enemy may have lost the town, but they had won a victory of sorts nonetheless. 




At the same time, many miles to the north, a scout airship of the Royal Equestrian Air Corps hung motionless in the cool air. Floating with the top deck of its gondola just peeking over a rocky ridge, the airship held a silent position in the sky. From a distance its silvery gasbag could be mistaken for a cloud. There was no wind to make it drift, a relatively rare condition in the mountains. All eyes, telescopes and spotting glasses were trained on a peak some twelve miles north. A search revealed all they needed to know. A single pony took to the wing, flying south, through the remainder of the day, through the night, arriving at the capital completely spent, her wings barely carrying her, for she had a message to deliver.

While the Imperial forces in the valley below licked their wounds and recovered from the surprise and the shock of the dam failure, while the soldiers slept or sat around campfires in the small hours just before dawn, few of the Guardsmen noticed the drone of engines. Most of those who did dismissed it as a supply flight or medevac heading out to the main landing zone to the west. Not many watched the pre-dawn departure of the Las Pegasus, the Fillydelphia, the bombardment airship Starswirl and the Royalty-Class monster, the EAS Luna. The Air Corps were heading north. The Air Corps were heading to war.