“Sis’, wah are there Cutie Marks on thar shoulders?”
“Hush now, AB.”
“Yeah, and why do they all have the same one?”
“You too, Scoots.”
“Aww…” the little orange Pegasus’ face dropped as she glumly padded the ground with her hoof. Applejack didn’t allow herself to mellow, instead turning her head and gently picking Applebloom of her back, placing her on the stone floor of the castle’s interior. AJ sighed; she hadn’t wanted the Cutie Mark Crusaders to come and watch this, but those fillies seemed to have an ability to find their way into any trouble they wanted to. At least Rarity seemed to be keeping a close eye on Sweetie Belle, but Rainbow hadn’t come to get Scootaloo. Applejack decided to have a word with her friend about burdening her with that responsibility later, but given the circumstances, she supposed she could make an exception.
She looked around. The great hall of Canterlot’s Royal castle was packed with ponies; mostly the capital cities’ elite, but there were also some residents of Ponyville in attendance besides her and her friends. She spotted Mayor Mare chatting with several city Unicorns, her face cheerful despite the grim events of the past few days. A little further on, Mr and Mrs Cake were doing their best to aid the servant ponies frantically rushing around attending to the needs of the hall’s guests. AJ was momentarily surprised that Pinkie Pie wasn’t there helping them, before reasoning that she was probably still comforting Fluttershy. The yellow Pegasus was still despondent after the destruction of her house and the murder of Angel bunny; it had taken the combined friendship of all the Element bearers to stop her sliding into Depression proper. Applejack felt her blood boiling, grinding her teeth together involuntarily. Were it down to her, she’d have bucked the offender’s heads clean of, and damn all the decrees of non-violence.
But, it wasn’t down to her. It was down to the Princess, and in her benevolence she had agreed to subject the strange creatures to a trial. In all honesty, the farm pony suspected that Celestia was as intrigued to learn exactly what they were as much as anyone else in the chamber; herself included. Originally, the trial was supposed to be a secluded and private affair, dealt with only by the high end of the Government-perhaps the element bearers also. However, once word had got out of the location the invaders were being held, as well as the extent of their crimes, there had been very little chance of keeping it quiet.
The offenders were stood in a disorganised rabble at the centre of the hall, still encased in one of Shining Armour’s magical shields. There were a fair few of them now-around twenty two of the ones wearing armour, and three of the big fellas-but here, in this helpless and disarmed state, they seemed a lot less scary than when three of them had been coming to kill AJ and her friends. A wide berth had been given to them, the Ponies encircling them yet not getting too close. Admittedly, the wall of Royal Guards keeping the crowd pressed into the sides of the rooms might have had something to do with that, but that was beside the point.
As if the seriousness of this event wasn’t apparent enough, Applejack noted with a sense of awe that they were blessed with the presence of not one but two Royal Sisters. Celestia sat upon the principle throne, the sun’s radiance glaring behind her as it rose over the hills. Her face was impassive, betraying nothing of her emotions, and what was going through her mind AJ could only guess at. Beside her, the second sister made much less effort to hide her feelings on the matter. Luna’s face was twisted in a vicious scowl. The shadows coiled around her, casting her into a gloom that contrasted heavily with the beacon that was her sister. On the left of the throne, Twilight Sparkle stood, casting her eyes around the room nervously, whilst on the right Shining Armour continued to power the spell. Sweat could faintly been seen trickling down his brow, and Applejack knew he couldn’t hold it much longer. Maybe that’s why Twilight had been called in-the last thing they needed was these monsters having free reign of Canterlot.
Applejack’s thoughts were brought to a halt as an abrupt and expectant silence began to fall on the room. She dipped her hat respectfully as the white-coated princess stood, judgement hanging in the air around her.
“By order of their Imperial highnesses, princess Celestia of Equestria’s bright sun, and princess Luna of Equestria’s deep night, we hereby proclaim the sentencing of the invaders formally begun!” The equine who Lorkhan assumed was functioning as the assemblies’ Clerk concluded his little speech, looking quite pleased with himself as he sat back down. Within his helmet, the Warsmith rolled his eyes; even for an Astartes, used to pomp and ceremony even of the most basic kind, that had sounded ridiculously childish.
“This is ridiculous. They’re bloody horses, warp take them.” He hissed into his helmet’s vox. He had ordered all of his men to set it on the general channel, allowing the Iron Warriors to communicate amongst themselves despite their makeshift trial. It didn’t appear their captors were able to access it, allowing the Marines relatively free communication.
“It’s better than lounging in that dungeon for the past week. Besides, look around you. Their whole society is based on friendship. Somehow, I doubt they’ll be executing us.” Zuko commented. He rubbed his right wrist awkwardly-the xenos had taken his Power fist. From the looks of things, he felt naked without it.
“Remind me why we didn’t just break out of there again?” Lorkhan asked.
“Because Mordecai insisted we ‘stay put’, and ‘see how things pan out’. Because he has no balls.” That was from Aleksos, another Marine from Zuko’s squad. A chuckle came from nearby, presumably Basikor. The two were fairly close.
For his part, the Sorcerer merely sighed, his arms folded over his chest plate. It surprised Lorkhan it had taken him this long to speak up.
“Brothers, please. I went through the same initiation rituals as all of you, I am sure, and am in possession of all my genital organs. And I am merely suggesting that we do not rush into anything we might not be able to get out of, that is all.” He answered, voice as smooth as ever. It put Lorkhan’s teeth on edge.
“Besides,” he went on. “In the interest of politeness, I would advise planning our daring escape later. I do believe our host has just posed us a question.”
Lorkhan turned, slightly embarrassed despite himself as he realised that they were being spoken to. The white horse thing was looking at them expectantly, one eyebrow raised. Behind, its sibling was almost seething.
At least the ambient chatter in the room had faded. That was something.
“Erm…false?” Not the Warsmith’s most intelligent response ever, he reflected, but given the circumstances he didn’t see what else he could really have done. Evidently though, it wasn’t the answer their captors were looking for. The dark blue pony-princess practically leapt from its seat, the dark enveloping her spreading to cover the whole room in a manner that momentarily reminded Lorkhan of his cousins in the VIII Legion. He hated them as well.
“Our Sister hath commanded that thou speaketh thy identity and purpose in this realm, knave!” It shouted. It seemed to be female-then again, most of the xenos here did. Whilst they were incarcerated, Zuko had raised the point of how a breeding population
was managed given the male to female ratio. They had moved swiftly on, deciding that they didn’t really need to know.
“Oh…right.” The Warsmith looked to his left at Zuko, who merely gave a shrug, and then to his right at Mordecai, who made a raised an upward facing hand as if to say “go on sir, you’re the boss, you talk to the magical space pony.” He paused a moment, trying to think of a good answer that would extract them all from the proverbial shitter.
“We are horrible horrible pirates, and brutally methodical killers, my Lady.” Behind him, Mordecai slammed a palm into his armoured forehead with an audible thump, and shook his head slightly.
The room erupted into noise again; the crowds of xenos stood around the room nervously chatting amongst one another, although some lost control completely and fainted with exaggerated gasps. The Guards lowered their spears with such synchronisation that Lorkhan couldn’t help but admire them a little. Admittedly, as far as answers go, that too had been far from his best effort, but he was still a Warsmith of the Iron Warriors Legion and he’d be damned before he started kissing the arse of some Pony queen, or whatever she was.
“I see.” The queen finally spoke, bringing silence once again. She did not look as angry as her sister, but for whatever reason, Lorkhan found himself more intimidated by her. Curious. He was about to offer a rebuttal, when Mordecai cut across him.
“My good lady, forgive my…blunt colleague here. He is a more than competent leader, yet I regret that public speaking had never been his talent.” Lorkhan bit his tongue. Well, that at least was accurate.
“The essence of what he says is true; I am not ashamed to admit it, nor would any of my brothers be. We are warriors from a distant world who were reduced to the status of petty marauders and brigands. However, it was not always so.” Mordecai took a couple of steps, presumably for dramatic effect. It looked ridiculous to the Warsmith, but on the other hand it did appear some elements of the audience were beginning to take an interest in the story.
“Once, long ago, we were the champions of our species, much as I assume you are the champion of yours. We were forged upon a planet named ‘Terra’ to conquer the galaxy in the name of a conceited madman who was concerned for naught more than his own self-aggrandisement. For two hundred years, I regret to say that we followed him, breaking our backs taking the Iron to the stone and tearing down the palaces of his enemies. But then, our eyes were opened to his lies, and we with our righteous brethren rose up against him.” The story seemed to be gathering momentum now. It appeared the Xenos trusted easily, in any case. Perhaps that would come in useful. Here Mordecai stopped his pacing, looking at the ground and clenching his fists. Lorkhan swore quietly when he realised he wasn’t going to continue-memories of the Old War no doubt burning in his skull.
“What happened?” a lilac Pony who sat beside the throne asked, her face a mask of wonder despite her obvious distaste for the Iron Warriors. Lorkhan remembered her from the photograph they’d found at the cottage. Maybe it was her house-then again, he reasoned that someone who was obviously so valued by the Monarchy would not be reduced to living to what equated to a tree, surely.
“We were betrayed.” To Lorkhan’s surprise, it was Rorke who spoke up. The Champion was usually quiet when there wasn’t something glaringly stupid that needed saying.
“We were betrayed,” he repeated, “by our brothers who climbed aboard the crazy train and went straight to the front cabin. We lay siege to the Betrayer’s palace, but…we were defeated. We’ve had to run constantly to survive since then.” A pause. “Hence the whole maiming and killing for plunder thing.”
That was surprisingly intelligent. Lorkhan was almost impressed.
“That wasn’t completely awful, Rorke.” The Warsmith said over the vox. The Champion straightened a little, basking in his praise. Lorkhan heard Zuko growl.
“I still say we just burst out of here blasting!” Barbus’ hissed over the network. “Mord’ could get us out, you’ve defeated sorcery more powerful than this!”
“Even if ve could, I think zat vould not be un gut idea Herr Barbus.” Vortun finally spoke up, his voice a deep rumble. “Zere are more of them than us, zis is their land, und ve don’t know vere ve are.”
Barbus growled more in frustration than anger, but fell silent. A word from the Obliterator was usually enough to close a matter.
“That’s all well and good.” The white Xenos queen spoke up again, shushing the Astartes. “But you are, by your own admission, creatures designed for violence that stand wholly against the principles this land was founded upon.” Lokhan heard Zuko swear quietly as the pronouncement hung heavily in the air.
“Well...yes.”
“Very well.” She did not look happy. A few beats of awkward silence passed. “You still have not answered our second question. What brought you here in the first place, and what exactly possessed you to tear one of my loyal subject’s houses to the ground?”
“And kill my poor, defenceless bunny!” A shrill squeal emerged from the crowd, drawing the attention of Pony and Post-Human alike. A yellow Xenos, with pink hair and wings, had tears streaming down her face and was sobbing weakly. She turned and bolted from the room, still crying her eyes out. Around three others ran after her, calling out “Fluttershy, wait!”. One of them, a white creature with purple hair, turned to look back at the Marines and glared at them fiercely, before turning and following what Lorkhan assumed were her friends.
“What’s her problem?” Rorke muttered.
“I believe she was the owner of the property that Zuko, ‘Kor and Barbus reduced to rubble when we first arrived. If we get out of this with all our faculties intact, we really should make it up to her.” Mordecai observed. Rorke grunted with irritation.
“Go fuck yourself, witch.”
Lorkhan wasn’t listening. He turned back to the Pony staring at him.
“To answer your question, we were ambushed by a band of our magical dustbins, and our ship was…well, you saw what was left; it’s pretty much fucked. We had to escape into the Warp-which is always a calculated risk-and, well, here we are.”
He kept staring at the Queen-thing. She was staring at him with incomprehension.
“The Warp?...ringing any bells?” Still silence.
“You can’t be fucking serious.” Lorkhan shook his head. They didn’t even know about the Warp, by the Power’s. No wonder everything was so sickeningly sweet and friendly here.
“And the reason for the defilement of our vassal’s dwelling?” the dark blue Pony asked. She still looked enraged.
“Oh, that.” The Warsmith shrugged. “Force of habit. We got our reputation as Siege warfare specialists for a reason…sorry, if it helps.”
The atmosphere in the chamber was becoming more and more hostile to the Iron Warriors as every moment passed-and it hadn’t been particularly friendly to begin with. Zuko flexed his right hand reflexively; Mordecai let out a disappointed sigh; Vortun tensed slightly, the tell-tale signs of the beginnings of weapon formation showing through. The Ponies gritted their teeth and muttered under their breath, a couple stamping their hooves. A couple of the Guards moved to try and suppress the crowd, but for the most part their spears were still lowered at the Iron Warriors. Lorkhan didn’t honestly believe they’d hurt, but without his weapons and with no knowledge of what the Xenos were really capable of, he wasn’t overly eagerly to find out.
“Enough.” Even the Legionnaires turned at the authority carried in that voice. It was not shouted, yet still hung heavily with the weight of command. The Queen-or whatever she was, Lorkhan remembered she’d been referred to as a Princess, not that he really cared-cast light around the chamber, causing both Pony and Marine to shield their eyes. As the light faded, she spoke up again, voice still enthused with command.
“I think we have gathered all we need to from this debate. I must take a short while to deliberate upon this matter with my Sister. We shall reconvene this council and pass sentencing within the hour.” She walked from the throne, the blue princess and some of the most ornately armoured guards following behind. The rest began to escort the Iron Warriors to temporary holding cells, the Captain accompanying them so as to keep their prisoners still contained within the shield of purple force. For their part, the Marine acquiesced with little resistance, although there was the usual amount of grumbling. Lorkhan said nothing, eyes facing downwards as he considered his options. As far as he could see, they weren’t exactly looking good.
“Well, I think that went well.”
“Shut up Zuko.”
“There there Darling, don’t fret. I’m sure the Princess will deal justly with those horrendous brutes for…executing poor little Angel.” Rarity cursed herself for not being able to express that fact more tactfully. She ran a hoof across Fluttershy’s back, caressing her shoulder gently as she tried to calm her friend down. The yellow Pegasus had buried her head in the carpet and was still sobbing ferociously, staining the rug with her tears. Applejack, Pinkie, and Rainbow had followed her out; Rarity didn’t know where Twilight was, but assumed she’d be joining them shortly. From the increased number of Ponies milling around the foyer, she could assume the initial stages of the trial had been concluded.
“I…I…I just…why did they do it?” Fluttershy sobbed. She looked up, wiping her eyes slightly. Pinkie moved in, giving a sad smile and taking her into a gentle embrace. For once, the Party pony wasn’t bouncing around like a maniac.
“Cheer up Flutters, everything’ll be okay. Right guys?” Pinkie asked looking around. Rarity and AJ smiled.
“Absolutely, Sugacube.”
“Of course, Darling.” Rarity looked at Rainbow. The Pegasus was hovering in the air, her hooves folded over her chest and a pugnacious expression plastered across her face. “Don’t you agree, Rainbow?”
Rainbow as quiet for a moment. “Celestia should just kill them.” She didn’t make eye contact with any of her friends. “I’m serious.”
“Rainbow…surely you’re not serious? I mean, what they’ve done is deplorable. But…outright killing them...a lady has standards to maintain, after all.” Rarity stuttered. AJ kept quiet, as Pinkie maintained her hug with Fluttershy. Rainbow still didn’t look at them.
“So?” She finally spat, rounding on the other Element bearers with a furious expression. “Look at what they did to Fluttershy! What have they done since they got here that isn’t destroy! That’s all they can do, destroy things. I don’t care about the whole peaceful thing, they broke the rules, and they should pay the price.”
Rarity was about to reply, when Twilight appeared through the archway. She looked exhausted, but that was probably to be expected. The Princess was a kind soul, but she had a tendency towards working to her hard-and that went for her aides too.
“Oh, hi girls.” She said wearily, moving over to help Pinkie with Fluttershy. The Pegasus had begun to calm down now, although she still looked distraught.
“Howdy Twi.” AJ said, happy for the distraction. “How’s it going?”
“Not good, from our guest’s point of view anyway.” The Unicorn replied. “The Princess is not exactly pleased with them blundering in here and wrecking things. I don’t know exactly what she’s going to do, but…well, I’ve only ever seen her this angry when talking about Discord.”
They shivered. None of them needed to be reminded of that incident.
“Well…I say good.” Rainbow said, still defiant. “We ought to kick their arse and send them packing.”
“I don’t know, Rainbow…” Twilight said, looking at the ground. “I don’t disagree that they need to be punished…but, we still don’t really know what they ARE. I think if we just throw away this chance to study about them, we won’t know what to do if this ever happens again.”
“You can’t be serious.” Rainbow spat, through gritted teeth. Twilight shrugged jadedly.
“Knowledge is power.”
Tension crackled for a moment, and for a moment Rarity felt like they were going to kick off. Before they could, however, one of the Guards emerged at the edge of the rooms.
“Ladies, the Princesses have requested your presence in the chamber. The sentencing is about to begin.”
Rainbow cast one more, angry look at Twilight, before making her way back toward the room.
“Just relax. We’re getting out of this.” Lorkhan said, as they were led back before their accusers. The Iron Warriors couldn’t entirely hide the tension they were feeling-the result of 10’000 years of paranoia, one could suppose.
“I’m serious; we’re getting out of this. They’re magical friendship ponies. What are they really going to do?”
They stood before the throne, trying to maintain an imposing presence. True, they’d never been particularly imposing in the first place, but there was no harm in trying.
“Yes, my lady?” Lorkhan asked, giving a theatrical bow. Several of his brothers chuckled. To their surprise, it was the Clerk who spoke.
“For their crimes against the sovereign nation of Equestria, and its inhabitants, their royal highnesses Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna, do hereby sentence those identifying themselves as the ‘Iron Warriors’ to execution. May Harmony have mercy upon your souls.”
Lorkhan didn’t rise from his bow. He just stared at the floor. None of the Iron Warriors spoke either; none of them could.
“Well…” Mordecai finally managed. “That was unexpected.”