Nightwatch: The Elements of Destruction

by SFaccountant

Portents

Nightwatch – The Elements of Destruction
By SFaccountant

Chapter 1
Portents

Ferrous Dominus sector 12
Smelter facility 9

The labor horn blared, announcing the end of the shift.

Dusk Blade jolted at the noise, his drooping eyelids snapping open and his ears perking. On the streets below menials were already flooding out of the smelting complex, eager to get home after a day’s hard labor. The chatter was a rising cacophony below the anti-air turret that he was perched on, creating a stream of echoes that sketched the world around him to his sensitive ears.

As it so happened that sketch was currently scribbled rubbish. As soon as the horn stopped blowing and he adjusted to the noise from below, the same old memories returned and again demanded his attention. He just couldn’t focus, albeit he couldn’t claim to be putting great effort into it. Patrols in Ferrous Dominus were not typically exciting affairs and he was still exhausted.

Down below, most of the menials had already departed and the slaves were being transported out. A long chain gang of minotaur and diamond dogs were being marched into the streets, their coats darkened with soot and char. Unlike the menials, who were issued respirators and protective cloaks of varying make and quality, the forced labor usually had mere bandannas and towels to filter the soot and toxins that filled the manufactorum and constantly spilled into the air. The air condition inside the smelter was considerably worse than the city’s general quality, to the point that some of the menials took off their respirators and cloaks in the streets to cool themselves off after having endured the choking heat and poisonous fumes all day.

Dusk looked over the prisoners in passing interest, but it was a brief distraction before his mind returned to the dream of that ridiculous glade again.

“Good evening, Lieutenant! You look a little lonely!” came a voice from behind him.

A bat pony stallion slightly bigger than Dusk swooped down above him, landing on one of the barrels of the quad cannon. He briefly glanced over at the crowd below, but immediately dismissed them; clearly he was here for the other thestral.

“Hello, Gloomy,” Dusk mumbled, not bothering to look at him.

Gloom Fang wore the same night-blue armor that Dusk had, complete with the same moon patch and squadron designator, and a similar tactical respirator to protect him from pollution in the city and gaseous hazards in the field. The armor and mask mostly obscured his coat, which was a mix of dull purple shades; the color was darkest along his wings, which had a thick, sharp claw on each peak. His mane was a wave of pale blue with darker blue stripes that hung on one side of his face.

“The sector patrol is complete. Two irregularities. Crates with broken seals. Pretty innocuous, but we reported it anyway and checked for any hazards. Nothing serious,” Gloom Fang said, slowly walking out to the very end of the cannon barrel.

“Hmmm,” was Dusk’s reply.

Gloom paused, and then he hopped down to land on one of the cannon barrels closer to the Lieutenant. “You seem… lethargic. Is it the dreams again?”

Dusk’s eye twitched. “Yeah. They’re getting worse. It’s basically every day now.” He still didn’t turn to face the other bat pony.

“Sounds bad. You’re not the only one, either.”

Dusk whipped his head around. “What? You too?” he asked.

Gloom chuckled. “Heh, no. I still sleep like a rock. Nacht, on the other hoof…” his expression turned more serious. “She hasn’t had a good day’s rest in weeks. And three days ago, Neuron had one, too.”

Dusk blinked. “Did Nacht say what hers were about?”

“Yeah, kind of. They’re all different each day, unlike yours,” Gloom explained, settling down to lounge on the cannon barrel. “Mostly they’re about us, but she says that sometimes a dream starts and she thinks it’s one of our missions or memories but then at some point she’ll turn around and all the ponies are different.” He paused. “She even got one like that where it turned out she was dreaming about the Elements of Harmony. Everything was perfectly recalled, like a vid-capture, and none of it from what she’s read or seen in her waking hours. Really weird stuff.”

Dusk silently thought that over, and then he frowned. “What was Neuron’s about?”

Gloom’s expression darkened. “She dreamt about… her. She wouldn’t say anything more about it.”

Dusk Blade grimaced, and then went back to staring at the crowd below. There was some shouting going on now between one of the chain gangs and the menials.

“… You know what this means, don’t you?” Gloom Fang asked.

“No, of course I don’t know what it means,” Dusk snapped. “I know what YOU think it means, but you’re always wrong.”

“I am not!” Gloom huffed. “Look, Dusk, I get that you actually-“

“Do NOT start with this again, Gloomy,” Dusk warned. “It’s not happening. Not for me, not for you, not for the others. Magic is real. Gods are real. The army of fusion-powered primates toting laser guns and chainswords are real. But prophecies? Prophecies are fake. We’ve been down this road too many times to keep chasing after fate like this.”

Gloom didn’t look impressed. “Oh yeah? If gods are real, why haven’t you joined a cult?”

“Listen here, you smug little-“

A scream came from below, startling the thestrals from their argument. A minotaur slave had seized an earth pony worker by his leg and was hauling him up into the air. The other slaves and menials were backing away, and down the street a pair of Dark Mechanicus Scavurel were alerted to the situation.

“I’ve had enough of you!” barked the slave, his voice on the edge of a wheeze. He seized the stallion by the mane and then hauled him up, wrapping his meaty, soot-blackened arms around the pony’s rear legs and neck.

“Let me go! Are you crazy?! I didn’t do anything!” the equine shrieked.

“Take off these chains, now!” the minotaur bellowed. “I’ll break this pony’s neck! Don’t test me!”

“They’re not going to let you go to save me!” the stallion protested desperately. He tried to kick his legs free, but the minotaur’s grip on them was as unyielding as the metal shackles on the slave’s hooves. “They’re going to kill us both, you maniac!”

A growl rose in Dusk’s throat. The Scavurel were pushing through the pedestrians and workers rushing the other way. He could hear their lascarbines charging already; the capacitors releasing a high-pitched whine that was discernable to him above the rest of the noise. It would only be some ten seconds until they had a clear line of fire.

“We should probably do something,” Gloom said, his blue eyes narrowing. “I’ll try to-“

Dusk dove off the platform.

“Help! Somebody help! Please don’t shoot me!” the pony wailed, only for the arm hooked around his throat to tighten and silence him.

“The chains! Now!” the minotaur bellowed, his eyes darting back and forth wildly at the spectators backing away. “I know one of you can remove them! Get back here! I’ll, uh, wuh?”

A dark streak descended from above and the minotaur tensed, ready to break the equine in his arms. Much to his confusion, however, rather than flying at him it dove into the empty rockcrete in front of him. The curious phenomenon passed through the ground instantly, vanishing underneath the surface without leaving a trace or making a sound.

The minotaur blinked repeatedly, completely flummoxed. Another bat pony began a dive toward the slave worker during his moment of diversion. The Scavurel pushed through the last of the laborers in their way.

Dusk Blade shot up from the ground and punched his hoofblades into the arm holding the stallion around the neck. It flinched, but did not pull away entirely until Dusk kicked off of the minotaur’s stomach, prying it off of his hostage.

The minotaur didn’t have a chance to react to the assault before Gloom Fang reached him, biting hard into the other arm. Teeth like paring knives sunk through the leathery flesh and steely muscle, and a wash of crimson splashed across the legs of the hostage before he was finally released.

The minotaur staggered backward, wrenching his arms away from each of the thestrals that had cut them open. Gloom Fang let go immediately, flapping his wings to get some distance. Dusk stayed close, bouncing up in the air and then spinning around.

Both his rear legs lashed out, smashing into the minotaur’s jaw. The slave reeled and fell backwards, overwhelmed by the speed and ferocity of the assault. The stallion he had seized scrambled away, his coat spattered with blood that was not his own.

Dusk and Gloom hovered in the air over the minotaur, glaring silently. Gloom licked his fangs, which were still wet with the slave’s blood. Dusk didn’t say anything as the minotaur stood back up, his attention fully focused for the first time all day.

Behind the thestrals, a pair of lascarbines suddenly opened up. A storm of red beams filled the space between the bat ponies, and after about two seconds of rapid fire, they stopped. Gloom Fang detected the distinct scent of burning meat as he replaced his mask, which he had removed in order to attack.

“Labor disruption neutralized,” buzzed the Scavurel enforcer, lowering his carbine.

The two soldiers of the Dark Mechanicus were short and rather thin compared to the ordinary human soldiers and cultists, but they were no less intimidating for their paltry frame. Dark cloaks of charcoal black covered their bodies and heads, such that all that was visible of their faces were a few bright green lights peering out from the shadows of their hoods. Their arms were long and it was not clear among the wrappings, clothing, and tubing how much of them was still flesh.

Gloom Fang started building altitude and Dusk swung around to join him, but a sudden command from one of the cyborg soldiers stopped him immediately.

“Designation: Lieutenant Blade. Remain stationary and submit to interrogative,” the Scavurel said. The charge on his lascarbine was still quite audible to Dusk; clearly this one was still ready to shoot something.

“Yes, Scavurel? Is there a problem?” Dusk asked, hovering in the same spot while the cyborgs approached. He wasn’t especially nervous, but dealing with Dark Mechanicus personnel was always an unpleasant prospect (with one very specific exception).

“Query: At time of engagement ident-signum was non-responsive for 2.71 seconds. Chronometric register 911571. Visual contact was lost shortly after impact with rockcrete surface with no apparent disruption to physical matrix. Chronometric register 911586. Visual contact was re-established 2.31 seconds after this register stamp, with ident-signum re-established immediately after. The velocity and vector of ascent from exit point defies conventional explanation.” The Scavurel walked a circuit around Dusk while he spoke, his optics fixed on the bat pony. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t really know what that means,” Dusk mumbled. The dream was already starting to come back, distracting him from the enforcer’s words.

“Alternate descriptor: you appeared to fly into the ground,” the enforcer said, still slowly circling the thestral. “Then you appeared to fly back OUT of the ground. Electro-aura scans confirm this was not an illusory projection. Explain.”

Dusk held back a groan. “It’s an ancient bat pony technique. Very secret stuff. Can’t share any more than that, sorry.”

The other Scavurel stopped in front of Dusk Blade opposite its partner, and a bleating pulse of static erupted from its mask. The other enforcer replied, his response equally unintelligible to anyone without a cogitator drilled into their brains. Dusk had no idea if the soldiers were mad, confused, or just bored. Mechanicus cyborgs often lacked expressive facial structures and body language in addition to preferring a mode of speech that sounded more like a vox malfunction than a language. It was one of the reasons dealing with them was so unpleasant, in addition to the tech-cultists having all the social graces of a pit viper.

Eventually the Scavurel turned away sharply and walked toward the dead slave to flag the body for removal. Neither of them addressed or dismissed Dusk now that they decided he was no longer relevant. The bat pony glared at their backs and then gained altitude, flying away from the streets to rejoin Gloom Fang on the turret.

“Not bad. Not bad at all.” Gloom licked some of the blood that had splashed on his vambrace, a grin plastered on his face. “Minotaur blood is real savory and lean. Heavy on the iron. I think the slaves actually taste better than the soldiers.”

“Gross,” Dusk remarked, taking his perch opposite the vampiric stallion. “Anyway if you want to drain the body you’d better wait until the Scavs leave.”

Gloom looked up at the other stallion cautiously. Without his mask on, one could see that Gloom Fang’s eyes had two dark slashes running under them that bent along the curve of his cheeks. At a glance they would have been mistaken for war paint, but on closer inspection it almost seemed like a pair of slits were cut into the skin.

“It was kind of risky doing that in the middle of the troops, don’t you think?” Gloom asked. “Those Scavs probably recorded the whole thing.”

“Maybe. They don’t care,” Dusk retorted. “I’m just one more weirdo with bizarre powers and a bad attitude as far as they’re concerned. What’s it matter?”

“You’re, uh, usually more concerned about it,” Gloom said carefully. “I think the lack of sleep is getting to you.”

“I agree. What am I supposed to do about it?”

“I think they have some serums for that. I hear they’re pretty popular with the mercs. Lot of shell shock and PTSD out here and not much in the way of treatment options other than ‘become a servitor.’ Plus all the Warp nightmares, although that’s mostly from people who sleep on their daemon ship.”

“Drugs, huh? Not the worst idea.” Dusk jumped into the air again and started flapping his wings. “I’m gonna do a route through sector 4. Catch you later.”

“A ‘route?’ You’re always loitering around sector 4 these nights,” Gloom complained.

“And I don’t plan on stopping! Later, bloodsucker!”

Ferrous Dominus – sector 4
Mechanicus forge temple Delta 3-8

Dusk Blade silently alighted on a coolant pipe, searching the room below. The temple was a cavernous hall littered with scrap metal and machines, most of which had been salvaged from various battle zones. The devices among the salvage were used to disassemble, machine, and reassemble the other materials. Lathes, welders, solders, carvers, and data-engravers were scattered about the walls and alcoves, some of them built into dedicated shrines or integrated with an assistant servitor.

There was a single occupant down below. A stallion dressed in the standard uniform used by the 38th Company’s Dark Mechanicus contingent: a black cloak of vulcanized rubber. A respirator mask was affixed over his muzzle so completely that it completely concealed his flesh a shell of armaplas, and a hose extended from the snout only to loop back and vanish under the folds of his robe. The rest of his face had likewise been replaced by Mechanicus artifice, with a dark screen built over the mask and extending up to his hairline. The screen had about a dozen aqua-colored lights visible on it, scattered across the surface from one end to the other. The lights shifted, changed shape, and even vanished or multiplied frequently; perhaps according to need, but Dusk suspected it had more to do with emotional expression. On the pony’s back was a long servo arm, while his tail had been replaced by a segmented metal tendril capped by a dataspike.

Gear Works of the Dark Mechanicus. The only pony Techpriest in all the galaxy.

Dusk Blade stepped off the pipe he was standing on, dropping down to another closer down. Then he glided lower, alighting upon a larger servo claw that was mounted in the wall.

Gear Works was surrounded by a series of holo-screens, most of them filled with streaming data screed that Dusk couldn’t hope to read. One of the screens appeared to have a bionics schemata on it, and the thestral crept closer to the very end of the servo claw to get a better look. It was a leg, as far as he could tell, but the diagram kept shifting perspectives rapidly and breaking the model into constituent parts.

Gears, for his part, was completely absorbed with his work. A metal part was clamped into a table vise while he carved away at it with a series of lasers built into the work bench. Several other parts were already scattered around the table surface, while others had been discarded into a nearby bin to be recycled.

Dusk Blade dropped onto the ground, his wings slowing his descent. He touched down with barely a tap against the steel flooring; a veritable alarm bell to his sensitive ears, but it was otherwise lost in the noise of Gear’s labors.

Smirking, Dusk lifted one wing and crept closer. Taking his time to line it up perfectly with Gear’s biological leg, he suddenly slapped it across Gear’s flank while screeching loudly.

“AAAAAAAAGH!!” Gear Works howled in terror, stumbling forward and smashing his head into the laser array. The holo-screens flickered chaotically for a moment, and then winked out of existence.

His tail whipped about like a snake, coiling high and pointing at Dusk Blade. In an eye blink it struck, stabbing for the bat pony’s chest. Dusk slapped it down with a hoof mid-strike, not even bothering to evade. The spike struck the floor and sliced a long scar into the metal plating, a wash of sparks blooming along behind it.

“Hi, buddy! Keeping busy?” Dusk asked happily, stepping on Gear’s tail to keep it from trying to kill him again.

“GAH! Lieutenant!” Gears tried to whirl around to confront the other stallion, but missed a step when his tail went taut. The Dark Acolyte slipped and crashed onto his side, his head impacting the floor with the clang of metal striking metal.

Dusk’s smile quickly transformed into a wince. There was a long black mark that cut across Gear’s visor and mask from the laser tool, and one of his leg servos was making a strange grinding noise as he tried to stand back up.

“Wow, okay, sorry. Didn’t mean for you to be quite THAT surprised,” Dusk mumbled, stepping off of Gear’s tail and also backing out of convenient stabbing range.

“What are you doing here?!” Gear Works huffed, finally standing back up and facing the Lieutenant. His servo arm hovered overhead threateningly, the pincer yawning open as if to grab at Dusk, but as a rule it was a much slower and less dangerous tool than his tail.

Dusk grinned again. “Just checking up on my favorite Techpriest! Whatcha working on?”

Gears bleated something aggravated in Binaric, and then turned back to the workbench to switch off the laser cutter and check on the device on the table.

Dusk heard the grinding noise again, and his ear twitched. “Yo, is your shoulder still acting up? I can hear something rough in there.”

“Yes, well, the spill on the ground didn’t help,” Gears grumbled, his servo arm pushing the lens array for the laser aside. “There’s a bad bearing in there but I haven’t broken the shoulder assembly open yet to fix it. I’ve been very busy.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Dusk mumbled. Lying on the workbench was a metal frame of some sort. Probably a bionic leg, given the schemata he had glanced earlier. “Is this normal DarkMech stuff? I thought they had you cooking up more Striders.”

“This is not part of my Mechanicus duties, no,” Gear Works admitted. “This is a bit of a side project. After constructing more-or-less workable bionics for miss Shrike I decided to expand my knowledge of the field.”

“’More-or-less’ nothing,” Dusk scoffed. “Those wings were great! I know you hoped to do even better, but take the win.”

“I cannot consider a wing prosthesis that cannot sustain flight to be a success,” the cyborg pony grumbled. “Anyway, soon after I began studying more components, that layabout Capper started selling them on my behalf. Also without my permission. So now I have ‘clients,’ apparently. And deadlines.”

“Couldn’t you just… say ‘no?’ Like, just explain that they were ripped off by an unscrupulous cat and that you don’t owe them anything,” Dusk suggested.

“YOU try telling a mare with two legs left that she spent three month’s wages on nothing and will be discharged in a week,” Gears retorted.

“… Okay, sure. I’ll do that. Is she nearby? I can do it now.”

“No. Never mind. My fault.” Gear Works sighed and shook his head. “Anyway, if I can manage to build workable bionics, I would like to help these clients. Using the technology I’ve studied for the benefit of ponykind is the entire point of my membership in the Dark Mechanicus. So here I am.”

“It’s really cool you’re willing to help them out, Gears! I just think the stray cat-person you picked up in the desert shouldn’t be able to profit off of your good will,” Dusk explained. “Somepony should probably track him down and break a few ribs so that he understands what the problem is.”

“Lieutenant, while I appreciate your enthusiasm for harming people who annoy me – aside from yourself of course – I must decline this offer,” Gears replied wryly, turning over the frame and inserting a shaped plate.

“Okay, fine, but if I see that smirking weasel on my own don’t be surprised if he has a little ‘accident,’” the thestral snorted. Then he slapped a hoof onto Gear’s bionic shoulder. “Also, let’s fix this thing right now, while you have some help. That grinding noise is getting on my nerves.”

“How would you know how to fix a bionic leg?” Gear Works asked, his servo arm reaching for the laser welder.

“I don’t. You’ll need to talk me through it,” Dusk replied. He lifted up his left wing, which was partially wrapped around the handle of a screwdriver.

“Or you could leave,” the tech-cultist grumbled, guiding the laser array in a brief, highly precise pattern to weld the pieces together.

“We both know that’s not happening,” the Lunar Lieutenant chuckled. “So how do I open the shoulder casing? Can I just wedge this thing in the well and sort of pry it out?”

“Ugh… there’s an access bolt on top of the shoulder. Here,” Gear’s servo arm reached over and tapped the correct spot. “That holds the exo plate, with another four bolts holding the servo well in place. I’ll disengage the mag link.”

“Got it. You just lock that thing down and pretend I’m not even here.” Dusk fixed the screwdriver in place and then used his wing to twist it, pressing his hoof against the joint.

The two ponies worked in silence for some time after that, the only noise coming from the crackle of the laser welder and the creaking of Gear’s leg while it was gradually disassembled.

Dusk removed the outer servo frame and then started poking around inside the servo housing. Gear Works glanced over at him with a single sensor light in the corner of his optics visor, and then summoned a new holo-screen over the workbench.

“Here. The bearing is within the shoulder joint. You’ll need to remove the limb to get to them,” Gears explained. “Go ahead, I disengaged the mag-seal and I’m braced for it.”

The screen showed a part-by-part dissection of the bionic, with the assemblies slowly moving away from the rest of the mechanism and back again to show how they fit together. Dusk squinted at the holo-screen, and then shifted to get a better angle to pry the servo apart.

“Huh. You know, this is… kind of nice,” the bat pony mumbled while bracing a hoof against Gear’s side.

“Well it’s not a class IV ligament but it gets the job done,” the Dark Acolyte replied.

“No, no. It’s just… uh… my thoughts… are… it’s…” Dusk trailed off, uncertain how to explain it or of he should even try. “Never mind. Got it!”

Using his wings, Dusk wrenched the bionic leg free. Gear Works barely budged as the limb was removed, and only briefly paused in his work. Dusk Blade dropped the leg on the floor and then flipped it over, inspecting the shoulder assembly.

“Ah ha! Found it!” Dusk plucked the malformed sphere of metal from the assembly, squinting. “Yeesh, something ground this up good. You training for a marathon or something?”

“No,” Gears replied, “just the everyday wear of working around violent sociopaths.”

“The other Acolytes really doing a number on you, huh?” Dusk frowned, his lip curling subconsciously to expose his fang.

“No. I was not referring to anyone in the Mechanicus.”

Dusk Blade coughed and turned away, walking up to a canister with ball bearings of numerous sizes. He started picking through them, picking up one sphere after another with his wing and squinting at them.

“What were you thinking about earlier that had you flustered?” Gears suddenly asked.

Dusk hesitated for a few seconds. “Well… I’ve had a lot on my mind recently, that’s all.”

“I imagine you do. The fleet is due back within the week. Princess Sparkle will be with them, assuming nothing happened to her on deployment.”

Dusk plucked a particular bearing out of the container and then almost dropped it. “What? She is?!” He tried to recall the date. “SHE IS!!” he suddenly announced, looking stunned.

“…… Then it would seem something else is bothering you,” Gears mumbled.

“No, no! I mean, yes! But that’s not important now!” Dusk returned with the bearing, quickly spit on it for lubrication, and then jammed it into place. “I completely forgot! I’ve gotta find some kind of gift!”

“Why? Didn’t she tell you off quite decisively last time?”

“Yeah, but so what? If I quit now then I never deserved her to begin with!” Dusk Blade reasoned. “Besides, I’m still allowed to show my appreciation even if we’re not dating, aren’t I?”

He propped up the leg and then pushed it back into place. Gears wobbled a bit as he fought to stay upright, but once the servo assembly clicked into place Dusk relented. The mag-seal engaged, and a hum came from the servo micro-motor.

“Hmm… not terrible,” Gear Works admitted, using his servo arm to close the assembly case. “Install the securing bolts, please.”

“Sure, sure.” Dusk retrieved the screwdriver and got back to work, now even more animated. “Say, who owns that big room in the back of the temple? The one with the really hefty blast doors?”

“That used to belong to Warpsmith Kessler,” Gear replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Used to? Did he move out?”

“Warpsmith Kessler was killed fighting a dragon during the last assault on Ferrous Dominus,” Gears explained with a sigh. “The Mechanicus has already picked through his creations and belongings, but my understanding is that a suitable replacement has not yet been named. When there is a Warpsmith promoted to his office, that will be his personal forge.”

“Oh, so nobody’s even using it, huh? Wow that is SUPER interesting.” Dusk Blade couldn’t keep a smile off his face as he finished tightening the bolts, and then he slapped his hoof onto Gear’s shoulder. “All right! Fixed it!”

Gear Works stopped and stood up, wheeling about and taking a few experimental steps. There was still some friction in the shoulder joint, but it was minimal and quiet. The Dark Acolyte nodded.

“Well… thank you,” Gears said after a moment of hesitation. “That’s much better.”

“Anything for you, buddy!” the bat pony said brightly.

“Then I would like to ask an additional favor: do not break into and/or loot Lord Kessler’s forge,” Gears said bluntly.

Dusk recoiled, blinking rapidly. “What? Me? Would I do something like that?”

Gear Works did not have to speak in response to that, simply staring at Dusk with his optics lights narrowed slightly.

“… Okay, point taken. But there’s no way I could break into a place like that! Security is WAY too tight! Even if it is abandoned!” Dusk assured him.

“I would prefer a straightforward assurance that you will not steal from the temple rather than an explanation of why you wouldn’t try it,” Gears insisted.

“All right, all right, have it your way,” Dusk patted the cyborg on the head with his wing. “I promise I won’t steal anything from Kessler’s forge.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Gears said. He was still suspicious, of course, but felt better now that he had a promise he could directly refer to if Dusk broke his word.

“No problem, man! I’ve gotta go, but it was nice checking in on you.” Dusk Blade turned and trotted toward the exit, waving a wing and grinning the whole time.

The doors to the salvage forge slammed shut behind him, and Dusk Blade took a moment to stare at the huge, empty hallways of the Mechanicus temple. The halls were mostly wide and bare, allowing for transport lifts to easily navigate the space. Massive reliefs were carved into the walls, forming looming cyborg skulls or circuits that formed eight-pointed stars. At the end of the hall was a statue of a daemon standing on a dais, carved from glassy obsidian. Its arms were wrapped in chains that fed into the walls, and around its neck was a big cog that resembled a slave collar.

Dusk Blade lifted off into the air, took off the Chaos Star amulet that hung around his neck, and tossed it over one of the demon’s horns. Then he zipped down the hall the other way, making sure to stay as high as possible and fly as quietly as he could. At the end of the hall was an especially large vault door, flanked by two suits of Iron Warrior power armor holding a broadsword point-down. Dusk was reasonably sure they weren’t actual Space Marine guards, but beyond that it wasn’t possible for him to tell if they were actual suits of power armor, decorative facades, or something more insidious. He decided to keep his distance.

He landed on one of the pipes that ran along the ceiling, carefully creeping across it toward Kessler’s forge. The piping ran straight into the wall over the vault door, and he crept all the way to the end and pressed a hoof against the wall.

Dusk’s face broke into a smirk, and his body suddenly changed. A shroud of inky darkness seemed to seep out of his coat, totally wrapping around him. His eyes became glowing orbs of amber, and then shifted into bright streaks as he surged forward into brushed steel surface.

Dusk emerged on the other side of the wall and then dropped down onto a storage locker, touching the surface with barely a sound. The dark shroud around him vanished, and his eyes gleamed as he looked down on the Warpsmith’s forge. There were many empty containers, open lockers, and cells that had been forced open with melta cutters; no doubt the work of Techpriests who had gotten to Kessler’s belongings soon after his death.

The missing artifacts didn’t matter to Dusk. He didn’t want to take anything TOO valuable and important that might get Twilight in trouble if she were caught with it. Numerous mechanical wonders still littered the room, apparently beneath the notice of the first wave of looters: servo skulls, optical bands, mag-cores, arc capacitors, and a collection of data wafers with very unambiguous warning labels on them. The walls held numerous weapons, from various bolt pistols to much larger machines that looked too heavy and power-hungry for even a Space Marine to carry into combat. There were even a few dataslates on a central desk that had been largely stripped bare and even had the memory coils torn from its integrated cogitator.

Dusk Blade reached up for the optics visor that usually rested on his forehead, and slipped it down over his eyes. A few clicks of a button enabled the electromagnetic filtering, and much of his vision turned to a nonsensical mesh of blue panels. Very few of the devices were actively channeling enough current to show up on the scan, and he looked over the walls.

You don’t deserve victory.
You don’t deserve supremacy.

“Aw, c’mon, not now,” Dusk huffed as the strange whispers reached his ears. “Concentrate!”

You don’t deserve hope.

A careful scan of the walls revealed a single vid-capture unit feeding data through a relief of the Dark Mechanicus emblem carved high on the wall, above the weapon racks. There were two others like it in the forge, but the observer sensors currently had no power; Dusk assumed that the other Techpriests had disabled them before looting this place for the most valuable artifacts. This one they had neglected for some reason, or they had turned it back on after leaving.

“All right. Smash and grab, just like old times,” Dusk said under his breath, crouching and flipping open the saddlebag under his right wing. “Three, two, one.”

Leaping from his perch, he sped toward the carving, hugging the wall as best he could to stay out of its area of observance. As soon as he could reach it he punched a hoofblade into the ruby red lens, and a blast of sparks burst from the device. Dusk leapt off the wall, gliding down to the table in the middle of the forge.

“Showtime,” he whispered, landing on the table surface.

The inactive servo skull went first, plucked from the meat hook it was hanging on and stuffed into the bag upside-down. The cables that trailed under it hung out the side, dragging behind Dusk as he moved to a series of thick vials with labels written in some tech-cult script he couldn’t even identify. He snatched them up with his wing, one by one, and slipped them into his pack.

Next came the data wafers, and he opened the saddlebag on the other side in preparation to stuff that one full as well.

The sound of heavy metal footfalls slamming against the flooring came from the hall outside.

“What? Already?!” Dusk hissed, scooping all the wafers into his bag. “What’s with this response time? Nobody even works here anymore!”

The footfalls were getting louder quickly, and the power cores were on the other side of the room. Dusk quickly grabbed the only loose items still in immediate reach – the dataslates on the desk – and then dove underneath a table as the forge blast doors unlocked.

A bright green ray of light poured through the crack between the blast doors as soon as the mag-lock disengaged, and a moment later the barrel of a heavy lasblaster stuck through the opening, already whining with its ignition charge. It did not open fire, luckily, and the detector ray started sweeping back and forth across the forge interior as the doors opened fully.

A heavily armored Dark Techpriest Secutor, as big as a Space Marine and holding a weapon in each of its four arms, stepped into the room. Crackling intonations came from its mask while multiple green rays of energy swept the room, searching for targets. One ray scanned up and stopped over the broken vid sentry.

+Analyzing damage pattern… complete. Expanding search.+ A string of harsh, deep Binaric came from the iron mask of the Secutor, and the detector rays started sweeping down across the desks and lockers in the forge.

One such ray swept over the table Dusk was hiding under. The Secutor’s optics suddenly turned from green to red, and it surged forward.

+ANOMALY DETECTED. HUNTER-KILLER PROTOCOLS ENGAGED,+ it bleated, throwing the table aside the moment it was in reach.

Spare parts were scattered all over the floor, and the table landed against an empty munitions locker. There was nothing underneath. The Secutor twitched left and right, detector rays sweeping the empty floor.

After several seconds of this, the Dark Techpriest stood up fully and continued its search. Detector rays and infra-readers covered every bare inch of the forge, seeking any signs of movement, heat, electro-aura disruption, or breach in the building superstructure that could have been used as a method of entry and exit. After that the Techpriest connected to the local noosphere register, recalling the coordinate logs of all ident-codes within the last several minutes and searching for any that could be triangulated to this room.

Nothing. There were many ident-codes active in the temple, including one from an obnoxious visitor from the Lunar Guard. However, the stallion’s ident-marker had been detected in the hall the entire time during the alert, and was still there even now. The only signum identifier that had ventured into the forge was the Secutor’s.

+Target not found. Search inconclusive. Escalating investigation.+

Ferrous Dominus – sector 20
Nightwatch, Lieutenant Dusk Blade’s quarters

Dusk staggered through the doors, quickly slamming a hoof into the switch on the inside to close them. He looked exhausted, although there was little sign of physical strain. His mane was askew, his eyelids drooped, and his expression was miserable.

“Dang it, I got so comfortable talking to Gears that I completely forgot to ask about the sleeping drugs,” Dusk grumbled to himself.

The dream was already clawing at the back of his mind, trying to draw his focus away from the waking world. He dreaded the prospect of falling asleep, but his body demanded it. The intrusive vision had completely sapped his energy, and it wasn’t even midnight yet.

With a grimace, Dusk trotted over to a coffee table and then flipped up the top with his wing. It opened up to reveal a padded cavity inside; there was already a small pouch and a vox-recorder inside, but they were soon buried as Dusk unloaded his saddlebags into the hidden storage space.

He picked up one of the vials he had taken, wrapping it in the tip of his wing. He squinted at the indecipherable string of markings on the label, and then shifted it around. There was another sticker with a skull surrounded by lightning bolts.

“Ominous. Still confusing, but ominous,” he mumbled to himself before dropping the vial into the storage space. Then he crammed the servo skull in on top of it, stopping briefly to ensure it was deactivated fully and not in some kind of standby mode that could track and transmit information.

After the servo skull, he withdrew the data wafers. These weren’t labeled at all, and he worried about how he was going to find a way to identify them for gifting, sale, or personal use without letting Gears knew he had them. A plan for another time.

With only the dataslates left, Dusk flipped his secret stash closed and dumped his final acquisitions onto the top of the coffee table. There were four slates, none of them possessing any external markings or labels. They also didn’t have gene-encoders or any other sort of obvious security device, suggesting their contents weren’t locked, or at least not locked very securely.

Dusk lifted up one slate and flicked the button on the side with his wing.

“Hmmm… looks like a technical report from the orbital. Useless.” He dropped it and activated the next one. “A letter from somepony named ‘Hope Springs.’ ……… Dang... I don’t think I’d have the gall to talk to an Iron Warrior with that kind of tone. Wasn’t she supposed to be a diplomat?”

The next one was some kind of technical readout that was completely unreadable to him. The characters were all familiar, but seemed to be jumbled up at random. Encrypted. There was almost no chance of getting it deciphered then, as anyone with the key would also know he wasn’t supposed to have it.

Images of a monstrous bat pony started to crystallize as his concentration faltered. Eyes of deep crimson and fangs like carving knives loomed large in his thoughts, and his vision started to blur. Voices started rushing to the fore, spouting dialogue he had heard dozens of times already.

With a disgusted grunt, Dusk Blade put down the dataslate and turned away, leaving the fourth device without turning it on. He walked up to the cogitator on the side of his room and flicked the power switch with his wing. Once the vid-screen turned on, he swiped a hoof up to the corner of the control screen.

The vid-screen flickered, and Dusk sat on his haunches as the image rapidly crystallized.

“Such was the slaughter that came of the Southern interdiction that NO prisoners were captured to grant further intelligence as to their activities! LORD KHORNE IS PLEASED!! MANY MORE SKULLS WILL GARNISH OUR LORD’S THRONE THIS DAY!!”

The familiar face – or rather the burlap mask covering his face – of Kilroy the CNN anchor filled the screen while the man shook his fist in the air angrily. His co-host, Scoops the pegasus, waited patiently for his shouting to peter out and then held up a wing.

“Although the string of victories have ensured Company dominance of the Badland regions, military analysts remain stumped by this force of resistance fighters known as the Keepers,” Scoops explained, her tone grim. “It’s not so strange that a reasonably advanced species lived on our world in such isolation that Equestria had never encountered them as a civilization. The badlands have always been known as a dangerous frontier, and the lands beyond have never been subjected to any serious exploration. But even so, these creatures are puzzling!”

“They are small and WEAK!” Kilroy snarled, pounding a meaty fist on the table. “Look at them! Pitiful!”

The screen behind the CNN hosts switched graphics to show a short, four-armed creature with dark, bristle-like hair and thin eyes. It wore a set of goggles and a bandanna over its face, along with extensive protective clothing; not quite armor, but adequate enough to easily protect it from the elements.

“As of yet, it is not publicly known what these Keepers want or why they’re attacking the 38th Company. Their aggression toward human soldiers, Mechanicus automata, and even the Iron Warriors themselves is remarkable, as they are one of the few species on our world who have not been contacted or obviously affected by the incursion and occupation by alien life so far! Kilroy, do you have any insights?”

“DEATH TO THE XENO SCUM!!!” he screamed, standing up and kicking his chair away. It crashed off-screen, and the vid display flickered.

“… Anything more specific?” Scoops asked.

“We have captured a handful of these creatures and subjected them to interrogation,” Kilroy said, standing up straight and absently adjusting his tie. “Our use of psychic examination of prisoners is faster and more reliable than simple torture, but it is not flawless. It is possible the captured Keepers have some sort of unique defenses or do not know the information we want from them. It is also possible, of course, that our leaders have extracted the necessary intelligence but not made it public. Perhaps they are awaiting the return of the Astartes regiments before launching a higher-intensity offensive.”

Dusk Blade felt his ears and eyelids droop as the cultist continued, and he laid down on the floor fully to get more comfortable. He dozed off almost as soon as his belly touched the floor.

???

“One thousand years?! Outrageous! Do you really think our order will survive that long unaided?”

“With Starsong Ebony at the head I might have thought it possible. But the wretched mule even took that from us.”

“The Bloodborne’s betrayal must be punished. If an attack on the order of the Moon Mages isn’t answered-“

“Answered?! Answered with WHAT?! You want to try shooting your little glittery darkbolt arrows at the legion of bloodthirsty warrior mares led by the Element of Carnage?!”

“Well… no, but… maybe a curse would-“

“The Bloodborne know of all of our alcoves and shrines. In our eagerness to curry favor with the strongest thestral tribe, we bared our throat to them and now we’ve paid the price. We must relocate and rebuild now. We cannot afford to show weakness OR provoke retaliation.”

“The other tribes surely see this debacle as a weakness already. Right now the bat ponies are nursing their shock from the betrayal, but they may eventually decide the Bloodborne have a point if we cannot provide a path to their salvation.”

“It’s BECAUSE of the Bloodborne that we can’t help!”

“Correct. How long that will matter to ponies scrambling to survive under the constant threat of extermination is anypony’s guess.”

“ENOUGH.”

A glow from a horn lit the room, finally illuminating the setting. Five unicorn mares were sitting on cushions and blankets around a large wooden table. They varied in age from teenagers to middle-aged ponies, and all of them were dressed in elaborate sorcerer’s robes with numerous lunar-themed ornaments. Incense candles burned away on the table, filling the dark room with a heady aroma, but they did little to ease the tension. The Moon Mages were scared, exhausted, and uncertain.

“We must act, but the timetable is now set. A thousand years is the Nightmare’s sentence, so for a thousand years we shall keep our existence hidden from the hated sun. Equestria knows that Princess Luna possessed sympathizers, but they still think the only substantial opposition is the thestrals. It is necessary this deception continue. Secrecy or annihilation. Now… what of the remaining Elements?”

“The tribes still have them. They are apparently treating them like treasured artifacts, but Eisenwing has reached out to ask if the fruits… spoil. I’m not sure what to tell them, although I’m leaning toward ‘no.’”

“I don’t understand. Why haven’t they eaten the fruits and commanded their power?”

“Caution. They are not so bold as Queen Norn as to toy with powerful magics, and they know less of what we were doing with the Tree of Turmoil. They have many questions about the side effects of consuming such a thing, and whether there is still hope to use them for a greater purpose.”

“A greater purpose?”

“Yes. The tribes have little desire to go to war with the Bloodborne, and less still to challenge the supremacy of Equestria without them. They hold out hope that something else can be done. With some effort, we may yet give them that. I have a plan.”

“And why should we give them hope? Do you think they deserve it?!”

“What?! What are you saying?”

“I’m saying those insipid rodents just stood there gawking as Queen Norn killed the Matron! They flailed uselessly at a cohort half their number while she consumed the Element of Carnage! The blasted thestrals have delivered to us DISASTER AND BETRAYAL, and I for one-“

A buzzer cut through the voices, and the scene suddenly blurred into a white void.

“Hwuh? Wha…” Dusk jolted upright in alarm, shifting to combat readiness with his wings spread and his ears perked.

“I’m sorry Sir, but we don’t really have any, uh, weapons or mechanical industry in Silver Meadows. We mostly cater to tourists and flower merchants.” An earth pony mare was rubbing her hooves together anxiously, sweating. Kilroy was seated on a stool with an interview card in his hand, looming over her.

“PATHETIC. Why do your people not answer the call to war?! Do you wish the Orks to claim supremacy over your labors?!”

“W-Well, no, we don’t, but I just don’t see how our primary export of buttercups can help…”

The door buzzer went off again, snapping Dusk out of his distraction. He turned away from the cogitator and trotted over to the door console. With a tap and a swipe, it displayed the ident-codes of the individuals on the other side. A worthwhile habit for someone who had recently burgled the Dark Mechanicus, even if he hardly expected an angry Techpriest to use the doorbell (unless it was Gear Works of course, the sap). Dusk opened the door.

“Hey Lieutenant! Hiding anything interesting while we were waiting for the door?” greeted Nacht.

In the hall were two bat pony mares, one slightly taller and one shorter than average. The shorter one, Nacht, had a coat and hair of black, her body only slight lighter than her pitch-dark mane. Aside from her eyes, which were a rosy pink color, Nacht also had a few magic tattoos singed into her coat in the color of ash and the tips of her mane were dyed a variety of wild pastel colors to add some color to her body. They lent her some eye-catching variety, although as a tactical officer Dusk would have preferred the plain black for the camouflage.

The other pony was a drab purple in color, with a mane that was split between light and dark pink. Her eyes were bright red, although a closer look would reveal them to be bionic replacements. Her iris had layered striations like a camera shutter, and the pupils would occasionally pulse with light when something caught her attention.

“Can this wait? Like, until next evening? Or maybe never? Never’s good, too,” Dusk grumbled.

“Are you really going to just turn away two lovely mares who showed up at your front door?” Nacht asked, smirking.

“This probably can wait, though,” mumbled the other pony.

“No it can’t, be quiet Neuro,” Nacht quickly retorted, slapping her wing over the other mare’s mouth.

Neuron Dialect didn’t object, waiting silently until Nacht removed her wing. Where the smaller thestral was cheerful and mischievous, Neuron was subdued and deeply introverted. Some ponies – usually of other pony breeds – often mistook her quiet behavior for anxiety or apathy. Dusk knew better; Neuron had nerves of steel and could be quite intense when motivated, and he had a feeling that she was behind this encounter and not Nacht.

“Gloomy said you’ve been having weird dreams again,” Nacht said while stepping past Dusk into the room, uninvited. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Dusk said immediately.

“Okay. We’ve been having some funny dreams too, so we can talk about those instead.” Nacht sat down next to the coffee table and tapped the floor next to her.

Dusk growled, but he didn’t protest. “Fine. Neuro, get in here,” he commanded, gesturing with a wing. Neuron promptly slunk past him, her ears pinned. It was the only indication of her concern, but he took such subtle indicators seriously. Whatever this was about, she was worried.

“Oh! Is that Kilroy? I thought he died!” Nacht said brightly, watching the vid-screen on the wall while the other Lunar Guards took their seats around the table. The cultist anchor had finished with his interview and was now jabbing at a large vid-screen full of patrol deployments.

“Nah, he had medical leave for two weeks but he survived,” Dusk replied. “Well, that’s what the station says, anyway. I guess it could always be a clone, but do you really think anyone would bother to replace him?”

“A clone? Wait, the Company can CLONE people?” Nacht asked, alarmed.

“No, actually that’s a pony magic thing. But enough about CNN.” Dusk leaned forward, one foreleg on the table. “What’s this about? You don’t usually stop by for social visits.”

“We would if you didn’t always act so eager to get rid of us as soon as we’re off-duty,” Nacht retorted, pouting.

“No, I really prefer it this way. Now what do you want? Let’s move it along.”

“We’ve been having dreams,” Neuron said, her tone subdued. “Strange dreams. Like before. Playing clear as a holo-vid and perfectly memorized upon awaking. Often they feature places we’ve never seen and ponies we’ve never met, but the imagery leaves no doubt that they’re real.”

Dusk grimaced. “Yeah, that sounds familiar.”

“I’ve been having them every night. A lot of variety to them, which is nice, I guess.” Nacht huffed. “I’ve kind of gotten used to them, honestly. But a few nights ago Neuro had one.”

Neuron Dialect nodded slightly. “Lieutenant… I dreamt about Banshee.”

“Well that’s somepony you’ve definitely met, so it’s not really as spooky, is it?” Dusk said, his voice tense.

“I talked to her,” Neuron continued. “She said-“

“I don’t want to hear it,” Dusk interrupted.

Neuron’s ear twitched. “… No?” Her expression didn’t shift much, although Nacht seemed taken aback by the comment.

“No. I don’t want to hear the conversations you had with a dead pony that may or may not be related to the stupid magic dreams I’m having,” Dusk growled. “I’ll be straight with you girls: I’m over the whole dark prophecy thing. I’m not doing it again! But whatever’s beaming weird, excessively detailed imagery into my brain while I sleep needs to cut it out, so if anypony has any bright ideas on how to find it and stop it that would be super. Did the pony ghost have any insights on that?”

Neuron looked down at the table, avoiding eye contact.

“I didn’t think so,” Dusk huffed. “Was there anything useful in any of these dreams, or are we done here?”

“Yeesh, you sure woke up on the wrong side of the stalactite this evening,” Nacht mumbled, her ears pinning back.

“I haven’t been getting the best sleep lately, as a matter of fact,” he griped, “but honestly the dreams are more annoying while I’m awake.”

The mares blinked.

“I’m constantly having images and dialogue from my dream running through my head during my waking hours,” Dusk confessed. “It’s driving me crazy! I can’t concentrate! I feel like I might go insane if this keeps up!”

“Perhaps it’s the influence of Chaos. It wasn’t quite like this when you had them before, in Canterlot,” Neuron pointed out.

“Decent theory. Maybe an extended patrol circuit outside the city would help,” the stallion mused.

Nacht and Neuron made eye contact briefly, and then the latter arched an eyebrow. Nacht grimaced and steeled herself.

“Okay, so… one of my dreams, I think, was about the future,” Nacht began. Her earlier mood of impish cheer was gone now, and her voice was nervous. “It was about us. Us three, plus Gloomy.”

Dusk didn’t interrupt, but his expression was quite scathing on its own.

“In the dream, we… we returned to the Vault of the Ancients. We were searching the wasteland together.”

“Why would we go back to the vault?” Dusk asked, tapping his hoof on the table surface in agitation.

“I think it was to find the last Element,” Nacht asked. “In the dream we made it there, but…”

“But what?” Dusk pressed impatiently.

“We were attacked. Or, I was, at least. Everything went dark and the dream ended.” Nacht looked away, grimacing. “The dream is still very clear, but the… well, actual imagery wasn’t. I think there was an explosion of some kind, and there was smoke everywhere. The sound was overwhelming and everyone was panicking. Then I woke up.”

“So it was a bad dream with a bad ending. So what?” Dusk asked.

“So what?! Are you serious, Dusk?!” Nacht barked, suddenly standing up with her front hooves on the table. “You can’t seriously think this is all just a big, empty coincidence! These visions MEAN something!”

“Of course they do,” Dusk agreed. “And I ask again: SO WHAT?” He got up and stood his own legs on the table, which left him almost a head taller than Nacht. “What do you want me to do, Nacht? What is the upshot of all of this? Do you want to journey into the badlands to make your deadly ambush a reality? Is that it?”

The black thestral grimaced, looking down at the table. “No, I guess I don’t. But… I just feel like we should DO something! Like last time.”

“Why? You know what happened last time,” Dusk was visibly angry now, his teeth bared and his amber eyes glowering. “You want to go through that again? FOR WHAT?!”

“The prophecy may yet be fulfilled,” Neuron answered.

Dusk’s wings shot up, his rage building further. He started sputtering in anger, but she didn’t let him interrupt.

“I know you despise it Lieutenant, but fate is calling to us. You ignore it, and it presses on your mind all the harder.” Neuron shook her head.

“There’s no such thing as fate,” Dusk spat through clenched teeth.

“You know that’s not true,” Neuron retorted calmly. “We live among thousands of ponies running on the leash of destiny every day, even if they don’t think of it like that. We’ve listened to tales of gods weaving and rending time and reality to fit mysterious purposes. We’ve seen precognition.”

“Not the same!” he shouted, slamming a hoof on the table. One of the dataslates was unsettled by the impact, and it slid off the edge and onto the floor.

Neuron Dialect pursed her lips, trying to decide on her words. “… Maybe prophecy is a lie. Maybe it’s some other kind of foresight disguised as divine vision. I want to find out. But we need you.”

“Need me to do WHAT?!” Dusk demanded angrily. “Lead you on another expedition to disappointment and misery? If you two believe in this prophecy garbage shouldn’t you be viewing all this as a warning and not an invitation?! You’re talking to dead mares and dreaming up futures where our squad gets jumped; why would you want to pursue that?!”

Neuron wilted, but Nacht was distracted. She was looking at the dataslate that had fallen off the coffee table, and her forehead creased in growing concern. She looked up at Dusk Blade, lifting the slate in her wing.

“Hey Lieutenant, are you planning a mission? What’s this for?”

“That’s classified, Nacht,” Dusk said without his angry and stubborn mood slipping one iota. “You shouldn’t be reading mission briefings you find lying around your superior’s room.”

Nacht arched an eyebrow. “This isn’t a mission briefing. It’s a patrol report. From the 11th Mech Infantry, looks like.”

Dusk scrunched up his muzzle. “I… I didn’t actually read that one yet,” he admitted, reaching his wing across the table and snatching away the dataslate. “What’s so interesting about it?”

“It said they were doing a follow-up on a scouting unit that went missing. A Sentinel and a Chimera. They found them. Everyone was KIA,” Nacht said.

She sounded fascinated, which Dusk thought was strange. They had all faced their fair share of grisly deaths and horrifying casualty reports among the Company’s human soldiers, and this didn’t seem to be remarkable by comparison. Dusk held up the dataslate and started scrolling through it.

“What’s weirder is that the vehicles weren’t badly damaged or taken. There was no clear projectile damage on any of the corpses. Definitely not an Ork attack!” Nacht said, nodding her head grimly.

Neuron cocked her head to the side, which the smaller mare interpreted as deep interest. “They recovered the bodies and the vehicles, but the corpses were totally shredded. I didn’t see where they found it though,” Nacht continued.

“It was in the badlands,” Dusk interjected, scrolling down further through the file. “Looks deep enough in that it could have been Keepers, I guess.”

“Would Keepers shred the infantry and crew and just leave the equipment?” Nacht asked.

“No idea. Guess we’ll never know,” the stallion mumbled, scrolling faster through the content as his boredom grew and his dreams threatened to creep back to the forefront of his mind. “Anyway, if you don’t-WHAT THE HAY?!?!”

The dataslate slipped from his wing and fell flat onto the table. Nacht and Neuron glanced at Dusk in surprise, and then down at the dataslate. Nacht’s eyes bulged, while Neuron’s eyes pulsed red and started rotating, suggesting that she was switching vision modes. All three bat ponies leaned in over the table to get a better look at the screen, which featured a pict-capture attached as part of the patrol’s report. The resolution was terrible, and the pict itself was rendered in low-light mode, displaying everything in crude patches of green.

Despite the abysmal quality, the thestrals were able to at least clearly identify the form of the subject. It was a bat pony, rearing up in front of the transport, its wings spread as if it was landing from a dive. It was very big for a thestral, perhaps even bigger than Empyra, and its hoof was aimed to punch into the front of the vehicle’s hull (to what effect, Dusk could not guess). The creature’s head was mostly obscured by a halo of light erupting from one or both of its eyes, making it impossible to discern any details around the face. However, it was possible to make out a curved, pointed protrusion coming from its forehead that was itself wrapped in a coil of visible light.

A horn. The bat pony had a unicorn horn.

The three soldiers were silent for several breathless seconds. Then Nacht suddenly gasped and slapped a hoof down on the table.

“Changeling! It’s gotta be a changeling!” she announced.

Neuron arched an eyebrow. “Those are bat wings…”

“A changeling can have any kind of wings it wants! It’s a shape-shifter! And what better way to ambush a Company patrol than to turn into one of their trusted pony allies?” the smaller mare reasoned.

“There are no pony allies that have bat wings and a horn, that doesn’t make sense,” Dusk shot back, picking up the dataslate again. “This is all wrong. The changelings are on our side now!”

Neuron arched her other eyebrow.

“… Kind of. They will be, I mean. If we ever let them out of the labs.” Dusk coughed and went back to studying the dataslate . “ANYWAY. I don’t think it’s changelings. But whatever it is, how come this is the first I’m hearing about it? Did the Company really uncover pict-captures of an actual bat alicorn and not even ask anypony about it?”

Nacht furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? They sent you this report, right? Isn’t that why you’re hearing about it now?”

Dusk didn’t answer, still reading the dataslate. Nacht’s confusion faded.

“You stole that dataslate, didn’t you?” the black thestral asked bluntly.

“Could we FOCUS, please?” Dusk griped, scanning back up to the top of the file to find the date stamp. “So this is… uh… stupid space calendars… I think this is from back during the changeling attack on Ferrous Dominus! No wonder this hasn’t been seen until now!”

The mares didn’t quite understand the significance of this, and Dusk groaned as he set the dataslate down. “Something like two thirds of the Company command died in that attack when the Tau turned on us, and they even killed the Warpsmith high lord. This report must have been submitted around the same time, and it was ignored in the aftermath. Everyone who knew about it before now is either dead or wouldn’t care.”

“So… you think it’s the real deal, then? A bat alicorn? A thestral Princess?” Nacht asked, her eyes widening in wonder. “We’ve gotta meet her!”

Neuron’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

“To find out what her deal is! Duh!” Nacht was standing up on the table now, her wings fluttering in excitement. “Is she another Nightmare? Or is she like the other alicorns that have an associated profile? Like how Cadence is the Princess of love and Celestia is the Princess of the sun and Twilight Sparkle is the Princess of… uh… violence, I guess.”

“The Princess of WHAT?” Dusk jolted upright, his wings spread straight out. “You take that back! She is NOT the Princess of violence!”

“She doesn’t have a profile really, but if I were to pick one for her it would be violence.”

“She would be a Princess of knowledge! Or wisdom!” Dusk retorted firmly.

“Yeah, sure, the knowledge and wisdom of how to rip the souls out of a thousand Orks at once,” Nacht snickered, “anyway I really want to meet this bat Princess! I’ll bet her profile is really hardcore, like the Princess of revenge or murder or something!”

“Speaking of murder: it’s a slight wrinkle that whoever this pony is it’s a hostile,” Dusk explained. “Not that I’m real sentimental over the human casualties, but there aren’t many ponies out there these days who would rip apart a Company squad without understanding who they were dealing with.”

“So what are you going to do? Give this over to the new garrison command so they can hunt her down?” Nacht quirked an eyebrow at that and crossed her forelegs over her chest.

“That WOULD be the smart thing to do, but I’d rather not. All the same, I really feel like we need to figure out who the hay this is.” Dusk sighed, reaching a wing up onto his head to massage his temples. “I guess that only leaves one option. I’m going to have to ask the Moon Mages.”

Ferrous Dominus
Sector 20 – sub-level B-9

The Lunar Guard seemed like a very baroque and mysterious leg of the 38th Company war machine, but Dusk Blade figured that was mostly a reflection of its physical characteristics. The Lunar Guard was composed of nocturnal creatures with an obscure cultural history led by the Princess that had been corrupted and imprisoned for a thousand years. Lunar Guard soldiers tended to be cagey and defensive, and were very different from the other ponies that populated Equestria in their mannerisms and their diet (Dusk believed eating insects and blood was a serious driver of mistrust, minor as it seemed). In Canterlot they were known as a shadowy cabal of enforcers who seemed to serve Princess Luna exclusively. In Ferrous Dominus they stood out less but also possessed a massive black tower that loomed above the rest of the city.

There were secrets within the Lunar Guard, of course. Dusk himself carried many. But the mystery of the bat ponies were dramatically overstated. Their cultural hoofprint was hollow because they had not been part of a productive society for generations, which incidentally also made them hesitant to trust others and far less cheerful than the average Equestrian. Overwhelmingly the bat ponies that had come to follow the purified Princess of the Night did so because she was willing to vouch for them as a race and it was the easiest path to joining a modern society where they didn’t struggle to survive.

The Moon Mages were… different.

“Ident-code registered. Access granted. Welcome, Lieutenant Blade.”

The vox caster above the door growled its cheery recorded greeting in the distinct tone of an Iron Warrior snarling into a vox recorder, and Dusk grimaced while the doors slowly yawned open. By now most of the recordings for automated messages had been changed to the pleasant, syrupy voice of Spice Sunrise, an earth pony singer who inexplicably left Manehattan make her living in the fortress city. Some still used the old vox packets, however, either because they found it funny or genuinely preferred the angry, static-laced growls.

The Moon Mages were the latter.

The hall beyond the doors was as strange as any you’d see outside of the temple district. Bones and charms hung from strings and chains suspended from the ceiling. The walls were painted with messy glyphs in a luminescent yellow material, mostly featuring moons and stars. The paint was almost certainly radioactive, and Dusk took a moment to put on his respirator mask before he ventured inside.

After he stepped a few feet inside, the vox caster above crackled to life again. This time, however, the voice that emerged was very different.

“Why, Lieutenant! What a wonderful surprise! Here, let me make you more at home!”

The doors slammed shut behind Dusk, and the lumens switched off. The hall was cast in darkness, illuminated only by the strange paint on the walls.

“So, my precious little bat… are you here for business… or pleasure?”

Dusk felt his hair stand up along his neck at the question. The voice was sweet and cloying, and such a tone was not at all enhanced by the distortion of the vox system.

“Business,” Dusk responded firmly before trotting forward.

A sigh came from the vox caster above. “You NEVER choose pleasure,” the voice griped.

“You run a magic cult, not a red light district,” the stallion barked back, already extremely annoyed.

The dreams were already back, tugging at his attention. The last time he had fallen asleep had featured a new addition to the saga, albeit a short one without any meaningful imagery. The argument the dream had exposed to him seemed to echo that much louder here; as it should, he supposed. Why wouldn’t the debates of ancient Moon Mages be on his mind while he consulted their descendants?

Reaching the end of the hall, Dusk was presented with three sets of blast doors, each one carved with a relief of daemonic faces. None of them opened at his presence, and there weren’t any obvious mechanisms around with which to open them manually. This was not a place in which others were free to wander.

The door to the left beeped, and then unlocked. The barrier yawned open, and light seep into the hall from the opening. Dusk Blade stood there in front of the opening, staring into the next room.

And why should we give them hope? Do you think they deserve it?!

Dusk growled, baring his fangs.

“Did I do something wrong, Lieutenant? That’s a rather scary face you’re making.”

Dusk Blade quickly schooled his features. He had completely zoned out for a moment, and was standing in the doorway while glaring at nothing. Taking another few steps to get inside, the door closed behind him and he took stock of the room.

There was a round table in the middle that hosted an array of candles, cards, and scrolls. Around the table were three unicorn mares seated on colorful plush pillows decorated with beads and charms. Two of them were young; barely teenagers. The third was an older mare, although she was hardly elderly. She wore fine silks that wrapped around her body, and a silver circlet was perched on her head. A pair of wire-rim glasses of the same material sat on her snout, which clashed somewhat with the tarnished iron amulet bearing the Star of Chaos that hung around her neck. A polished copper pipe was clenched between her teeth, leaking a wisp of smoke up into the air; he didn’t recognize the smell, but it was different from the herb she had been smoking the last time he was here.

“Welcome Lieutenant! Welcome!” the older mare said, grinning happily. “Young ones, that will be all for today’s lessons. Me and Mister Blade have much to discuss!”

The younger unicorns quickly stood up and gathered their things, each of them sneaking coy glances at the stallion on their way out. Dusk Blade ignored them, walking up to the table and taking off his saddlebags. Soon they had vanished into an adjacent room, the doors sealing shut behind them.

“Good evening, Miss Shard. I was advised by my colleagues to consult you,” Dusk said evenly, sitting down on the cushion opposite the Moon Mage.

“Please Lieutenant, call me Penny,” requested Penumbra Shard.

“No,” Dusk said flatly.

“Are we already done with polite niceties? You just got here,” Penumbra pouted.

“I haven’t been having a great week, and I’m not expecting this visit to make it better,” Dusk grunted. “Let me cut right to the chase: have you ever heard of a bat pony alicorn?”

Penumbra cocked her head to the side, taking a few quick puffs from her pipe. “You mean a bat pony becoming an alicorn? As Princess Sparkle ascended from a unicorn?”

“Close, but not quite,” Dusk clarified. “I mean an alicorn with bat wings. Or a bat pony with a horn, I guess.”

“Ah, that is different. Or maybe that’s the form a thestral like yourself would take if you were granted that power,” Penumbra mused. “We don’t know, as our history – and therefore yours – doesn’t contain a bat alicorn. Baticorn? Hm. Might have to workshop that a little.”

Dusk frowned as she continued. “There are stories of that kind, of course; myths and fairy tales to lull children to sleep within the damp recesses of the caverns. Dreams of thestrals spontaneously obtaining the power to challenge Canterlot or rescue Nightmare Moon from her imprisonment. Stories of heroes arising from the depths, usually told by word of mouth for want of writing materials or scribes.” Penumbra shook her head. “All fiction. There has never been a thestral that ascended.”

“You’re sure?” Dusk pressed. “The Moon Mages spent a thousand years trying to cook up magic powerful enough to challenge Equestria while Nightmare Moon was imprisoned. It never occurred to you guys to try and turn us thestrals into super-ponies?”

“Well of course it did. We pursued that and a hundred other desperate and unlikely ideas. But no, we never uncovered the secrets of the alicorns, much less how to create them ourselves. Nothing but dead ends and wasted lives.”

“Practically the order’s motto,” Dusk interjected.

The Mage twitched in annoyance, but quickly continued. “We did have some successes, as you’re quite aware, but our research on alicorns wasn’t one of them. The closest we got to anything useful – and it wasn’t very close – was the blasted alicorn amulet.” A thick puff of smoke came from her pipe as she huffed irritably.

“Oh yeah, whatever happened to that thing?”

“Astra Lumines lost it in a card game two hundred years ago,” Penumbra sighed miserably. “For the most part I say good riddance, but it’s obviously another black mark on our order that half our weapons have been lost or stolen away over the millennium.”

“But no chance this is one of them, huh?” Dusk asked, withdrawing a dataslate from his bag and sliding it across the table.

Penumbra blinked, taking the pipe out of her mouth while she stared at the pict-capture. “……… Well. That’s new.”

“And you and your cult had nothing to do with it, huh?” Dusk asked flatly.

“No, we did not.” Penumbra levitated the dataslate closer, and then touched a hoof against it to scroll up to the attached text. “Hmm. Attacked a Company patrol? That’s not good.”

“Yeah that part’s gonna be a problem,” Dusk sighed. “It’s got human blood on its hooves. If we take this to the officers then they’re going to want it dead or in a Mechanicus vivasection pod.”

The Moon Mage blinked. One of her eyebrows arched higher. “Take it to the officers? This is a recon report. YOU’RE an officer. What are you talking about? Aren’t you investigating this creature to complete a termination order?”

Dusk coughed into his hoof. “Due to extraordinary circumstances, most of the 38th leadership isn’t aware of this report. Or… any of the leadership, probably. I’m still working out what to do about it.”

“Wait, then how did YOU get it? None of the people marked on this file are involved with the Lunar Guard.”

“I have my sources.”

“So you stole it.”

“Shut up Shard.”

Penumbra snorted and put her pipe back in her mouth. “Well, aside from not having the slightest clue where this Princess came from or who it is, I also have no idea why it would be attacking Company troops. Equine-kind is on very good terms with the humans, obviously. That’s why we’re here now.”

“Right, but there are still bat ponies out there that haven’t returned to Equestria,” Dusk pointed out. “Not many, but is it possible that a hidden enclave of Moon Mages have a new plot to take down Equestria?”

“No,” Penumbra said flatly. “It is not possible. Me and my sisters are the last of the cult, and we all live here now, training the next generation of battle magi and diviners for the forces of Chaos. It’s all we can do, really.” She snorted again, puffing her pipe. “The ancient dream of usurping the sun is dead, twice over. First they purified the Nightmare and took her away from us. And then, when the forces of darkness descended from the very stars on mighty chariots of steel, carrying the will of the Dark Gods with them, Equestria co-opted them as well.”

The Moon Mage took a deep drag on her pipe, and then released the smoke with a weary sigh. “If there were, hypothetically, some band of hidden Moon Mages that discovered something so monumental, I can’t imagine what they would hope to accomplish by making an enemy out of Chaos. I would expect they’d bypass the Company entirely and make war on Equestria.”

“Is that what you’d do in their place?” Dusk asked.

“If I were in their place I’d be hunting greenskins or maybe preying on the grays,” Penumbra replied, clicking her tongue. “The Moon Mages and what’s left of the thestral tribes have surrendered our old grudges and now work to combat a greater threat.”

“Sure we did, after your last ploy failed,” Dusk grumbled.

“Yes, yes, I know. Our bond with Chaos and the Company is a result of weakness, not conviction. We are just ponies after all, and it’s a big, scary galaxy out there.” She chuckled and slid the dataslate back across the table. “This baticorn doesn’t change that calculus. Ugh, that really is a terrible name.”

Dusk Blade stood up and took the dataslate with his wing, slipping it back into his saddlebag. “Well, thanks for absolutely nothing, Shard. Guess we’re done here.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’re done just yet,” Penumbra Shard replied, grinning. “Isn’t there something else you wanted to ask me? Something more… personal?”

“Are you hitting on me again?” the stallion asked defensively, his ears flipping down.

“No, not this time,” Penumbra said, her voice clearly regretful of the fact. “Private Gloom Fang visited me yesterday.”

Dusk frowned. “I take it he was also not here to make out with you.”

“Obviously,” Penumbra said wryly. “He spoke of his troubled dreams, as well as those of the rest of you.”

“What?!” Dusk recoiled slightly, and then scowled. “He said he didn’t have any dreams!”

“He lied,” the unicorn said flatly. “And I, in turn, lied that I would not tell you or the mares of his troubled visions.” She chuckled around the pipe in her teeth. “You’ve all been having the dreams. Vivid memories that are not your own.”

Dusk reluctantly sat back down, looking somewhat defeated. He didn‘t really want to have to discuss this, but at this point it would be foolish not to hear her out. “Okay, fine. Lay it on me. What’s going on with these dreams and how can we get them to stop?”

“There are two likely possibilities. One is that the threads of-“

“If you say ‘threads of fate’ and then start going on about your stupid fake prophecies I WILL flip this table over and flatten you with it,” Dusk interrupted, his eyes narrowed to slits.

Penumbra pursed her lips, and beads of sweat started appearing on her face. “Okay… well the OTHER possibility is that the Element itself is calling to you.”

Dusk’s ears pinned back, and he grimaced.

“The Warp storms that constantly surround our planet has leant great power to stray artifacts and magic constructs that lay hidden across the world. That power does not rest easily, and demands release. The Element is not really sentient, of course, so it seeds your sleeping hours with echoes of the past that it carries imprinted upon its creation.” Penumbra tapped her pipe on the edge of an ash tray to empty its smoldering remains and then set it there. “That’s my theory, anyway. Ferrous Dominus being what it is, the veil between realms is thin and frequently pierced by questionable magics, so it may reach you more easily here too. If you want a more sophisticated scrying, I can tell you more. For a price.” She grinned.

“And what would that price be?” Dusk asked, sounding doubtful.

“I want you, my precious bat,” Penumbra said, her tone turning sultry.

A telekinesis field took hold of the mask under Dusk’s chin and slowly pulled it forward across the table. Penumbra got up and stood her front legs on the table, her horn pulsing in tune with her heartbeat.

“Take a tour of my bedchambers, Lieutenant, and I will give you all the knowledge you require,” she cooed, lifting a hoof aside her head and throwing back her mane.

“No,” Dusk said flatly. He took his mask between his hooves and yanked it back, breaking the magic hold on it. Then he placed it over his snout and started to secure it in preparation to leave.

“Don’t be so shy,” Penumbra said, stepping up onto the table and walking toward the stallion. Her hips and tail swung with every step, and her tongue emerged and slid over her lips. Her horn lit up with a pale turquoise halo, and threads of similarly colored magical energy started snaking through the air toward Dusk.

Dusk took a deep breath, a sharp hiss coming from his respirator mask before he shifted his expression fully into a glare. “Shard, if you don’t knock it off I WILL write you up and you’re going to be taking the regiment’s sexual harassment training again.”

Penumbra Shard froze in place and her muzzle scrunched up. Then the glow of her horn faded away and the magical ribbons vanished.

“So it’s the Element, huh? Fine. I can work with that.” Dusk Blade stood up from his pillow and stretched out his wings.

“Okay, maybe I came on a little strong. My fault,” Penumbra said anxiously. “How about a kiss? One kiss! A hug, maybe? Second base, that’s all I ask!”

“Open the door, Shard.”

The unicorn slumped, and then climbed down off the table while her horn glowed again. Dusk didn’t see precisely what the magic did, but after a few seconds the door to the hall slid open again. Penumbra Shard looked away and crossed her forelegs with a sour expression.

“Why does an evil space army even HAVE a sexual harassment policy?” she griped.

“I asked the Colonel about that, actually! They said it’s good for catching Slaanesh cultists. He wouldn’t explain what that is, but the humans are REALLY nervous about the Iron Warriors finding any before they do.” Dusk stepped out into the darkened hall, leaving the Moon Mage behind. “Goodbye, Shard.”