MIASMA
FIVE HUNDRED KILOMETERS SPINWARD FROM REPENTIA POINT
The conflict was open.
Miasma was a gateworld to the deeper sanctum's of the Warp, one of the few known points through which one could enter the Garden of Nurgle. This was a long-standing conflict and the Chaos Gods were content to leave the unending struggle in the hands of lesser Daemons, those limited shards of their essence that had been severed and sent forth to fight their battles mostly in the physical universe. Typically enthralled to or supported by Traitor Space Marines or sizable groups of human cultists.
It was a day for exceptions. The first was Nurgle's choice for champions.
Plaguebearers are not pieces of the God of Decay's limitless essence, they are mortal souls consumed and corrupted by Nurgle's Rot.
Deceased, ascended to Daemonhood, such semantics were irrelevant to them.
Two dozen of them stood their ground against the incoming Slaaneshi army.
The second exception was in the invading army. Not in its composition, but in its size.
The center of the Plaguebearer formation was mowed down under grinding axles.
The device was known as a Hellflayer of Slaanesh and it wasn't so much a chariot as a steed-pulled thresher with a platform for a rider placed as an afterthought.
A phalanx of Seekers trampled the field in the Hellflayer's wake, Daemonettes mounted atop daemonic steeds identical to the ones Rainbow Dash and Blueblood had managed to vanquish. As their serpentine bodies thundered through them the steeds' snouts darted forward, their tongues flicking at the Plaguebearers. The mixture of ecstatic toxins on a steed's tongue would be enough to leave a mortal in a coma, deathlike in every way.
The Plaguebearers were immune to such things. Not-so-much the weapons of the Seeker riders who tore at them with their elongated claws as they passed. The foot troops soon joined in, legions of Daemonettes. Their claws and talons tore through the lumbering horned cyclopses dropping limbs and heads along with miles of intestines.
Something had provoked she who thirsts. Something had drawn Slaanesh's attention. Something had vanquished three of its beasts and sent them back to the deeper recesses of the his sacred pastures.
One of the beast's essence had a taste on its tongue, the taste of power armor. Commonplace enough but under the surface was an aftertaste, a flavor the likes of which nothing within the Empyrean could match.
It tasted of power, magic. And love. Love that resembled but could not match anything the Prince of Excess had experienced in millennia.
He took the essence of the vanquished steed into itself even as he allowed the other steed and the Fiend to rematerialize as their original selves. Her orders to them and every contingent of Noise Marines and Emperor's Children within the system were clear:
"BRING ME THIS NEW EXPERIENCE."
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Twilight sighed. The mental and emotional stress of the last few days had weighed heavily on her.
While the voices had been silent she knew full well that the source was still present.
She saw it every time they tried to plant a morsel of food and found it did nothing.
Perhaps the food was without spore or seed, perhaps the soil was inert.
Even worse, perhaps the soil was full of things that shouldn't be allowed into their food supplies and the Sororitas' song alone kept that clump of dirt inert.
Everything they did reflected that.
Currently Sparkler, Lyra and Roseluck accompanied her.
Lyra had given herself a small break from hard labor: her current creation was a simple metal cart with jagged plasteel wheels.
She avoided whistling but she definitely trotted along happily. Her servo-arms had done most of the labor building the cart, fixing its design, greasing its axles and loading its current cargo.
That cargo was the reason for their current outing; that, and the need to test their armor and familiarize themselves with their surroundings.
Lyra stopped and the cart stopped with her.
"This a good spot Princess Twilight?"
Twilight looked around. The space was out in the open, perfectly visible from all corners.
"No. We're too exposed here. We're going to be out here digging for a while, I don't want to leave any openings."
Lyra nodded and put the cart up again. Rose followed close behind, trailing her eyes to the ground for any unusual movement.
Twilight sighed.
She's been nervous on the ground ever since the Garden.
Twilight's eyes crossed to Sparkler.
There were issues to mend there as well.
"Amethyst Star, do you think you could test the equipment?"
"You don't need to be formal, Princess. Everypony calls me 'Sparkler', I'm used to it. And it's faster to say 'Sparkler' too.
I don't mind because out here we need to be quick."
Twilight nodded.
Sparkler felt the silence uncomfortably.
"What message would you like me to deliver?"
"Confirm our location, we're going to cross a few hills so we're hidden while we dig."
Sparkler adjusted the dials on her power plant without hesitation. Lyra's research had revealed that suits of Space Marine armor were far superior to ordinary power armor, including the armor of the Sisters, because of the type and number of integrated systems within it.
Much of the information she had unearthed had disturbed her (for starters Lyra regretted that she could answer Carrot Top's question of why they seemed to never lack for water), but other bits had proven useful.
Each suit contained a personal vox set. Twilight's magic, for all its benefits reducing weight, supplementing power plants and integrated motion awareness that allowed them to move int heir suits as gracefully as an Astartes did, could never replicate every benefit provided by the black carapice and the helmets they couldn't transform..
For that reason Twilight turned to Lyra and Vinyl and together the two of them tackled the problem through technology:
The vox speakers were sensitive only to noises of a certain volume. A single ear bud provided them with access to their communications channel.
Twilight had understood immediately that such a system if limited to the devices within each suit, while powerful, would be potentially very limited. For this reason Twilight was quick to connect their suits' devices to the Repentia Point network
and because that would not be available to them forever she assigned her research crew to produce a portable version.
She was surprised when Goldwing quickly found one.
The vox system was Guard issue and not particularly powerful. It was, however, a step up. The power source was jury-rigged and hardwired into a Space Marine backpack. The device itself was a small block with a gyroscopic radar dish on top of it.
Both were carried on opposite sides of Sparkler's power armor like saddlebags.
"Understood Princess. R.P. this is Sparkler, do you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, kshhh, Over."
"Pinkie, please put Applejack on the line."
Sparkler said in a tired voice.
"Okie-dokie!"
"AJ here. What you got?"
"Squad is advancing, hills. Confirm."
"Gotcha. Y'all headed to the ruins of that Dropped Pod out there?"
"Maybe. Will call in again once we begin working. Confirm coverage?"
"Sit a spell..."
Sparkler waited. In a few seconds Applejack got back to her.
"Negative. Rarity says she doesn't have line of sight. I've got Cloudchaser and Trixie as quick response on stand-by in case y'all hit trouble."
"Rainbow Dash isn't available?"
"She's... aw heck, I'll tell y'all later. Anything more I can do fer ya Sparkler?"
"Negative. Sparkler out."
Sparkler adjusted the knobs again and turned to Twilight.
"Test complete, your highness."
Twilight nodded, even as she winced internally.
"I heard every word. It looks good."
"Princess, why is Trixie on rapid-response duty?"
Sparkler couldn't keep herself from asking.
"Trixie's been working on teleportation. I don't know that she can get here immediately but it's an alternative to a pegasus if the skies turn hostile."
That was the sort of redundancy and paranoia Sparkler could appreciate.
"I know what you mean. I feel that way about using this 'vox' stuff. It's not ours, we're not experts on it and our enemies are Space Marines who've used it for years. I don't know that we can avoid everything but could we at least agree not to say everything we don't need to if we can help it?"
Twilight considered that.
"You're right. This is exactly the sort of situation where someone could ambush us because they know we're headed towards the Drop Pod and we'll be crossing the hills soon.
Everypony stop."
Lyra and Rose stopped in their tracks
"Turn 180. We're going that way. Sparkler, get me R.P."
"You're on."
"AJ? We're almost there. We're going there the same way Pinkie Pie controls herself in a candy shop."
"Pinkie? Are you saying-"
"No, I'm not saying it. But you still know what I mean. About sixty hooves in the direction of Blueblood's corner."
"Gotcha sugarcube. Holler if you need anything. AJ going quiet."
Sparkler nodded and Twilight was no longer broadcasting.
"If we're being spied on that'll give us a breather as they head to the wrong target.
Rose, keep an eye out in the direction of the wreckage.
Lyra, sorry but you'll be doing all the digging while the rest of us keep guard."
"I was planning on doing that anyway." Lyra beamed.
"Do you think it'll be enough?" Rose asked.
"We've been pretty naive up til now. If this is the one time then I think we can get away with it once."
Lyra stopped and looked to Twilight.
She nodded and Lyra got busy setting her power fist and a pair of mechadendrites to work, snapping off two sections of the cart's plating to dig in the soft sand.
A deep trench was dug and Lyra began the real work, burying the bodies of the traitor Marines from the compound.
In light of the whispers and the dark power of the Chaos gods Twilight had seen no choice but to bury them all far away from their presence.
Throughout the work Rose kept to one side and Twilight to the other.
Sparkler didn't have much option than the stand near the princess.
Twilight appreciated that Sparkler's chosen path meant she carried no weapons and would be completely dependent on others to protect her when things got dangerous.
No, that's not completely right. Twilight thought.
All Sparkler asked was that she not have to kill anyone. There's other ways to protect yourself.
"You know Sparkler, when I met Trixie I don't think she had the first idea about teleportation. It's not an easy spell, mind you, but there's other things ponies do that serve as a basis for future spells."
Sparkler was going to make an angry retort but stopped herself. Twilight was only being nice, maybe making conversation.
She could engage her civilly.
"Yes, I remember the same lessons from magic kindergarten. What did you have in mind?"
"I was curious if you'd ever taken the time to practice force field spells."
"Oh."
Sparkler was caught off guard. She hadn't considered the idea.
"I... I can't say that I have really."
"I know it's maybe a bit presumptuous to say, and you might not want to hear it from me of all ponies, but I was thinking about you and I thought, if you weren't opposed, I'd be happy to help you train the spell. I know you don't want to hurt anypony but I can't tell you the number of times knowing I could conjure a good shield made me feel safer even if there was nothing I could do about everything around me."
They continued talking that way for the half hour it took Lyra to dig and set down the rest of the bodies.
Twilight gave Rose her orders and Rose turned her weapon on the corpses, a full-sized flamer.
When they were charred Lyra scooped the pile of sand onto them and covered the trench completely.
Rose bathed every surface of Lyra's cart with fire as Twilight said a few final words.
"We commend you to the earth and wish you peace. We hope some way, somehow, you all might redeem yourselves and get away from the mistakes you made in life and end up... well, better than what this nightmare place has to offer. Goodbye."
Twilight and the others finished paying their respects and made their way up the hill and into a curving trail within the dunes.
They turned a corner and froze.
Twilight and her retinue found themselves staring eye to eye at a squad of Chaos Marines from the Emperor's Children.
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To their great credit Twilight's friends froze but they didn't freeze.
The ponies' un-helmeted eyes narrowed as they regarded the Chaos Marines.
Astonishingly the traitors had yet to do anything: Their bolters were held in hand and ready to be lifted at any moment.
The squad's faces were covered by helmets and cybernetic modifications that made reading their expression impossible.
Twilight couldn't read their minds but she was positive they were hesitating: They were a half-dozen ponies in featureless power armor wandering the surface of a daemon world, holed up in an Imperial bastion for Celestia's sake. They couldn't possibly have a pre-made plan for this situation.
Anything too hostile would cause a fight to break out immediately... and yet according to the Inquisitor's notes Chaos Marines were not the type to leave anybody alone. One wrong word and they would either be killed, captured for study -because Twilight was certain they were looking at them as if they were the strangest creatures they had laid eyes on, and on this planet that was saying something- or perhaps they might see themselves forcibly inducted to their warband as slave Marines.
Time was slipping. The longer she hesitated the more likely the squad leader would take the initiative.
Trying not to swallow and in doing so suggest a tick that implied fear Twilight barked the order
"Identify yourselves!"
Inwardly Twilight was very satisfied with how that came out. her voice was confident but not so full of bravado it would be dismissed immediately as bravado. The order itself was simple enough and brief; if their squad was low-ranking enough they might respond without thinking. She had considered perhaps letting one of the other ponies take the lead but telepathy was a spell she had yet to mastered, hadn't even researched enough to know for sure that it existed, and if the traitor Marines had been watching them without her friends realizing it then a ruse to disguise who they were and who was in charge would anger them.
Nevermind that she was the only alicorn and while the squad was staring at all of them the little detail of her obviously healthy wings would stand out as much as the greater detail to embellishment and the greater number of trophies and other status markers on the Chaos champion's armor.
And so-
"Are you female?!" His dead voice echoed back.
Twilight blinked. Of all the things they'd focus on she didn't expect it to be the timbre of her voice.
Stupid, stupid. All Space Marines are male. Just because we saw women in power armor doesn't mean they're the same. She thought.
Caught wrong-hoofed Twilight was stumbling to recover. The seconds ticked and the delayed confrontation loomed when the space between the two squads burst with a cloud of smoke and words echoed with the bold proclamation:
"Who dares detain the minions of the Great and Powerful Trixie?!"
Her entrance was flawless, adequately balanced between commanding and challenging and Twilight let the fact that Trixie had their attention give her the chance to both take in the little details she hadn't been able to with the one,two,three, five- Five Chaos Space Marines - and to thank Celestia that Trixie's entrance was shocking or familiar enough that nopony got shot.
Sparkler must have turned the vox on the second we stumbled into them.
Trixie's appearance was astonishing. Her power armor was immaculately painted with images, designs and patterns that brought to mind magical runes. She had found a way to incorporate her flowing cape under the power armor's backpack.
Around her neck wasa perfect replica of the Alicorn amulet, it glowed with swirlinginner light.
The only thing spoiling the effect of Trixie's appearance was her head: The simple cloth wizard hat clashed terribly with the effect created by her power armor.
For the second time the aspiring champion replied in a dull, bored voice: "Tricksie?"
He was off-balance again.
Twilight turned up the pressure. "That's Trixie Lulamoon to you!"
Trixie fed off Twilight's support and boomed "Who dares admit to not know the name of the Great and powerful Trixie? Who claims not to know the most powerful unicorn in... whatever this little backwoods is called. Master of beasts, bearer of the mythical Alicorn Amulet, conqueror of the only Imperial Stronghold this puny planet has."
Twilight was so happy with Trixie she could hug her. Her boasting and bravado was so perfect and the effect she had attributing masculine titles to herself was just icing on the cake.
"Psycher-" One of the Marines stammered.
"Psycher? HA! What a mean, diminutive title. Trixie is the greatest magician on planet by far!"
Acting the adviser Twilight added: "I believe these... lesser minions use the term sorcerer."
Twilight was far bolder than she would otherwise have been. With Trixie's arrival they were no longer outnumbered by the squad- and with their perceived threat from Trixie's magic they also outclassed them.
"Yes, Trixie is pleased to allow ordinary beings to refer to Trixie as Sorceress."
Twilight decided to intimidate. They had the upper hand and they needed answers.
"Or do you call Sorcerers? Answer me, Space Marine. Sorcerer... or Librarian?!"
That got the response she wanted. Only Space Marine Legions loyal to the Emperor used the title Librarian.
Twilight had hoped to goad the Chaos marines into talking. Unfortunately her first insult had gone too far.
"Mutated emasculated fools! You dare call Emperor's Children loyalist?! TEAR THEM APART!"
Without a thought Twilight, Sparkler and Lyra bowed their heads and their horns flared with magic. Rays of light smashed into the Emperor's Children.
Three beams hit their targets squarely in the chest and brought them to the ground. Twilight sweat at the effort; her blasts were powerful enough to send a full-sized pony flying. It was a credit to their strength, or perhaps their mass, that all her power did was knock the Marine down.
A scream made her team turn their heads, not towards the marines but towards Rose.
In the heat of the moment she'd raised her arms in self-defense. After days of practice she'd just lifted the weapon, screwed her eyes shut, and pressed the lever.
When they had first examined the weapons nopony had known what to make of it.
Derpy took over: she'd had experience testing dangerous equipment before.
In the end they'd called them 'firebreathers'. Roseluck took it: the Infantryman's Primer suggested their use for clearing land of ambushers, traps and (she noted with a twinge of memory) man-eating xenos flora.
As soon as the Emperor's Children nearest to her bellowed and charged Rose fired.
The jet of prometheum engulfed two of the bodies whole. They screamed as they fell and - to Rose's horror- their cries mangled agony with irrepressible bliss.
Not just dying, they were dead. Their first real casualties of war.
Rose turned away sick.
Keeping her focus on the three Marines remaining Twilight encased each within a personal shield bubble.
Her heart went out to Rose but she couldn't turn her back on them. At that point Trixie joined in, using her illusionary powers to create several dozen pairs of flying swords. They gleamed as their colors fluctuated in the light, favoring dark orange to subdued purple to bright blue.
Twilight eyed behind her nervously but managed to place her body strategically with Sparkler's and Lyra's to cover the quivering Roseluck from view.
Twilight was conflicted to the point where her judgement was beginning to slip. She'd never intended for anyone to get killed and now Rose-
"Twilight, tell me, is there a reason you desired this lot unharmed?"
Twilight blinked, struggling to answer Trixie, to first come up with an answer.
"If they're not a threat..." she trailed off.
"I see. So, if the great and powerful Trixie has been enlightened alongside you to the fact that your continued existence depends on your being rendered harmless WHY HAVE YOU YET TO YIELD YOUR WEAPONS?!"
She yelled at the Chaos marines, her voice amplified and echoing within their force bubbles.
Twilight narrowed her eyes as she magically pulled for her Storm Bolter.
She wasn't expecting Trixie's newest ploy to work: Space Marines were described as universally resilient, indomitable, fearless. She might have gleamed information out of them through guile. She had no illusions of succeeding through intimidation.
It was a surprise, then, when each of them tossed their bolters aside.
The champion threw his chainsword down as well.
She eyed the holsters that dangled from the hip by chains and boot strapped sheaths.
She was a whirlwind of emotions. later on she would feel remorse and guilt in that moment she chose to focus on her anger.
"I don't repeat myself."
The group hesitated and one of the surviving minions spoke.
"We follow Gelig the Unblemished. Emperor's Children."
The name sounded off, even to Twilight. Without thinking she asked "Where are we?"
"Miasma."
She gave him a look.
"Miasma, the Purge moon. The Purge were rewarded with it as a portal to Nurgle after the beginning of the 13th Crusade."
"Where?!"
"In the Eye! I can't say more, I'm not a warp-cursed sorcerer!"
A world within a world where relative space was meaningless to someone without magic.
She thought, hating the very idea of it. Their escape wasn't going to be anything as simple as leaving the world to reach something distant like a moon, even accounting for greater distance. The universe itself was a pocket of labyrinths that would require magic to travel through. She didn't want to think about what she would need to learn to be able to start. Buying herself time Twilight asked what she hoped would be a pointless question, something that would get the Marines talking.
"When are we?"
"I don't know the date, nobody bothers with them."
He said as if sharing some unfamiliar joke.
"When we exited realspace it was Year 003, Millenium 42."
She hadn't expected to need to think about his response, it was just supposed to drone on and if something he said stood out she'd go from there. She didn't expect something so important, so essential, to be the first thing she heard so casually.
Forty millenia of recorded history?
Princess Celestia was old, her personal history dated back almost to the founding of Equestria as a nation, but even so Twilight suspected a lifetime of maybe five thousand years at the most.
Compared to that was an empire with a recorded history of over forty thousand...
"You have been in the Warp a long time, brother-sister." The champion added.
"I would presume. The Warp showed whimsy, to mutate you and your brothers into equus."
"You are all uncommonly blessed," the same minion as before spoke, "your mutation is stable, your weapons and armor accommodated you, and you have all been blessed with psychic power. Truly you must be Chosen."
"Over my voice already?"
Twilight asked, curious that her gender had been addressed and dropped with such ease.
The two Astartes answered overlapping each other for fear of giving her the change to dismiss their words.
"The coloring of your... fur and manes are rather typical of mutation. We express only our surprise that you have gone so far from Astartes and yet retain your being."
"Spawn dot the wastelands, echoes of those who might once have been worthy. Miasma turns many, the vile plagues and blessing of Nurgle must be responsible, many great champions of renown... powerful... reduced to mewling flesh impossible to recognize.
You are the most changed, the mightiest conscious Marines we have encountered by far."
Twilight's earlier suspicions were proven right. Spawns weren't daemons, just horribly mutated flesh.
The champion continued.
"We meant no offense in your equined... femininity.
The Emperor's Children know better than all what it is to see one's maleness... enhanced-"
"Altered." The chatty minion added.
"Supplemented." The quiet one spoke for the first time.
"-by she who thirsts." The chatty one finished.
For emphasis, the Champion added: "Firsthand."
Twilight's eye twitched and she crossed her hind legs. Off planet. They had to get off planet NOW.
"Trixie grows impatient with you and this interrogation. Answer Trixie. Who leads you, how many are they, and are they fool enough to dare inconvenience Trixie further."
The Chaos Marines exchanged glances.
"Gelig leads his warband into the heart of the forest. He seeks to force passage into the Garden. Rumors abound that the Eldar Goddess Isha lives and is imprisoned within the mansion. The sorcerer Immundus has foreseen his crusade's failure. We are the remnant of the squads that refused to be sacrificed in vain, solely for his ascension."
Twilight cringed at the tragic memory of the event.
"The rumors are true. We have seen her ourselves."
The three survivors turned to each other. The talkative minion turned to Twilight.
"Join us and-"
The aspiring champion's voice overpowered his minion:
"Your personal power overshadows that of the rank and file, your favor crosses the bounds of the warring ruinous powers.
Grant us the Equus curse and together we shall gather the other survivors, rule over the warband's remnants, and sally forth into a crusade that shall see all our ambitions sated."
A sound like thunder snapped in the air. A hole opened in space and the two minions convulsed as gore poured from their knee, hip, elbow and neck joints.
Out stepped the subject of the traitor's previous conversation: the sorceror Immundus, his armor writhing with sigils that changed as one stared into them.
The mouthpiece of his helmet was a circular maw of jagged metal teeth. An impossibly loud whisper escaped from inside it.
"Iebin, I finally find you. You, and what's left of the last of your fellow sacrifices. So bored of life and yet so unprepared to leave its tiresome trappings behind. Worry not, I shall make it easy."
With a jolt the aspiring champion Iebin rose, crushed against Twilight's energy shield until it shattered and he rose completely into the air, his arms flailing helplessly.
"Accept my offering, squirming and unwilling, mighty Slaanesh."
Immundus spoke.
Every molecule of Iebin scattered across existence from that point in space, particles so tiny, moving so fast, they passed between the atomic space of every solid surface for light years in every direction.
Only the dark power that was the active cause of the explosion left a mark upon the living creatures it passed.
The power struck Twilight's magic field like a lance. She wasn't harmed but she felt violated by the residual energy flowing through her.
Twilight, and every one of the Emperor's Children still alive on planet.
Immundus turned towards Twilight and her friends as if noticing them for the first time.
"Now, what might you be?"
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In the distance, closing on the Repentia Point compound, a similar squad reacted.
Their leader, an aspiring champion in his own right, turned to vent his rage on whatever living creature within sight.
Following his auspex to the nearest life signs he noticed a pink horse with an engorged head wearing power armor.
Confused, he noticed it seemed to be staring back at him.
The Noise Marines had come.
Curious. Why do they call even them that if they aren't carrying sonics?
Berry Punch stared them down, depressing a plunger feed on her hoof. The tubing from the inside of her shoulderguards and armored collar began a slow progression to her mouth.
The Marines noticed the way the ruby liquid made its path: a similar feed rose from the backpack of their own champion.
"Kindred."
The champion spoke, removing his helmet and revealing a skull that opened into four maws of razor sharp teeth.
"Is that you, Iebin? Is this the reward you have stumbled upon? What fate your fellow cowards?
Or is your reward the result of slaying your own kin? You are to be commended!"
Berry pulled out her twin blades and activated the power fields, brandishing them at the Noise Marine.
He looked thrilled.
"Yesssssssssss. Yes I respect that. You led a squad of broken reprobates; you sacrificed them all and you have been transformed.
You are worthier, my fearless minions would be right to follow you now. Come, claim me.
Your exalted head is just the sacrifice I need to prove myself before mighty Slaanesh!"
Berry Punch spat out. The wine in her mouth had spoiled into something infinitely worse than vinegar.
The mere mention of the name had been enough to spoil the food within her vial.
The champion produced his own weapon, a power maul adorned with the blood and entrails of vanquished foes.
Berry swayed ever so slightly as she stood. The booze she had already drunk was doing its thing.
Her eyes glazed over.
The enemy Marines understood she was in the sway of whatever substance she was intoxicated with.
The champion activated his own feeding mechanism and uttered a prayer.
"See me, great Slaanesh. Grant me your blessing, I feed you the blood of this champion as sacrifice. For perfection!"
Time seemed to stand still, unfocused, Berry's eyes took in everything in her field of vision. She saw the swinging mace approaching. It wasn't a particularly clumsy swing.
My, it's fast though. She thought.
She swooned backwards, letting herself fall as the Marine's body got close to her.
Unfamiliarity with her anatomy had likely made the human overcompensate. Or was it overconfidence that he would defeat this unworthy alien with a single stroke?
Berry put her hoof down and planted one power sword into the ground to keep her from falling onto her back.
As she did she brought her free sword hoof up to trace the power field across his gradually moving thigh.
The leg stepped forward, its weight shifted and then the body weight fell onto a limb that was cleanly severed.
The champion fell on his face.
Berry pushed off her weight bearing blade and righted herself onto two hooves before diving forward, landing flat on her belly and rapidly crawling forward like a centipede.
Behind her the Slaanesh champion had unholstered his bolt pistol and emptied the magazine into the strange creature in power armor that had killed him. He was certain, bleeding out from a severed leg, that he would be dead or lose consciousness in a few seconds.
His rounds tore into his squad indiscriminately. Several bolts ricocheted off as they failed to pierce power armor, but a few telling rounds detonated inside Marines.
As he died, it never occurred to the Champion that the strange beast with combat drugs would drop to the ground and shimmy rather than charge into the fray on its feet like any Space Marine would, loyalist or fallen.
Berry sprang to her hooves upon hearing the click of the empty bolt pistol she was waiting for.
The Marines were in awe that so bulky a creature was moving as she did. By all rights their blows should have glanced its enormous head. Instead their weapons either failed to make contact or were deflected aside by the pair of power swords, succeeding only in severing portions of her flowing mane.
Their last thoughts before death were of Dark Eldar wyches dancing as they dodged between enemy thrusts until they delivered the death blow.
The last Marine was left standing, to his credit he did not retreat.
He smashed downwards intending to crush the beast with his power fist.
Berry laid down on the ground, flattening her back completely, her head almost directly underneath the Marine's groin. She raised the twin blades.
The first crossed the knuckles of the permanently clenched power fist. Held flat, she pushed the blade lightly. Berry thought if she pushed back too forcefully the power fist would smash the blade into fragments. Pushed back softly it would yield, pushing it down but still slowing.
The tip of the second blade pointed to the space just above the Marine's elbow joint, into the bulk of the power fist's base.
It dug in perfectly. The power fist came to a stop before it touched Berry's body, its owner's attack perfectly parried.
Berry twisted the buried blade sideways and the power field on the fist died.
Seconds later the entire arm fell like a heavy weight onto Berry's chest.
She rolled to the side and got to her feet. The drunken master still swooned, her balance stable yet inelegant.
She heard the grind of metal on metal as what she was sure was a secondary blade was unsheathed.
Footsteps sloshed in the daemon mud behind her.
Without turning completely she fanned her blade sideways.
The body collapsed and a helmeted head crashed to the ground.
Her last attacker was dead.
Berry then collapsed backwards, falling into the mud, her body making a pattern like a snow angel.
She stared up into the sickly colored sky.
She would have a hangover, and it was going to be a bad one.
This stuff the humans drank, vile, unsavory, terrible stuff: No flavor, no aroma, no bouquet... only inebriation.
It was vile... but it was clean, not tainted. She didn't want to imagine the things the fallen ingested.
For now, all she wanted to do was be on her back and stare at the sky, any sky, and wait...
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Closing in on Repentia Point, the army of Daemons came to a halt.
Their tongues salivated as they spotted their prize, a human settlement just as their God had commanded them.
It was possible to make changes, their force in the Warp was in the ascendant.
It would be easy to summon forth additional minions and siege beasts like Soul Grinders.
But the Herald thirsted for the glory of her God's favor.
They would storm the building, breach the flimsy walls with their claws and feast on whatever they found within.
And if the victims were powerless, they would deliver the morsels to the Prince of Excess themselves.
The subtle flavor he had demanded promised to be exquisite; to share such a mortal delight with him - there could be nothing higher.
The Warp tore open behind them anyway.
The Herald turned, expecting to lay her eyes on Daemons of Nurgle or other scavengers, pretenders who would dare to steal the prize she had personally hunted.
Instead a single figure in Terminator Armor emerged from the Warp.
In his right hand a massive power sword glowed within his Storm Bolter-armed gauntlet.
His left was covered by a massive tower shield, its relief adorned with sigils, skulls, a winged sword and an open book.
A terminator cross dangled from the chain across his waist.
On his back was mounted a great banner.
One word read in large script:
DRAIGO