Word reached the Imperial garrison beneath Cloudsdale of the fall of Ponyville late that afternoon, a few last, desperate vox-messages having been sent out by the defenders inside the town hall as the Chaos troops closed in for the kill. They relayed the messages to Cloudsdale itself using Pegasi messengers. The knowledge that Canterlot had also fallen sent a wave of panic through the garrison- with Canterlot to the northeast, and Ponyville to the south, in Chaos hands, Cloudsdale itself was surrounded, caught in a huge pincer movement. There was now nothing to stop the waves of Chaos troops moving up from the south from advancing all the way to the floating city. So far as its defenders knew, however, there was still no way any of the invaders could actually land in Cloudsdale, so the panic among the pony inhabitants was not as frantic. Plus, Celestia and Luna were in the city, and were they not the most powerful creatures in Equestria?
The Pegasi assault troops and the Cloudsdale militia manned the city walls unceasingly, staring out across the plains with binoculars and telescopes, watching the dust being churned up by hundreds of tracks and wheels and thousands of marching feet. There were nearly five thousand Equestrian troops in the city, and very little they could do about the situation. The Air Assault Division possessed several pack howitzers, lightweight, field-assembled artillery pieces that could be carried aboard their airship transports along with the rest of their equipment, but ammunition was limited- the division had been moved to Cloudsdale with little warning, and had no time to stockpile their supplies. The Vanhoover and Canterlot hovered nearby, but their ammunition was also limited. The Starswirl, being a specialised ground attack airship, had a rather more ample supply of ammunition for its bombardment cannons, but that too was being saved until the enemy closed in.
Below the city, the Imperials had set up a defensive position on top of a hill that lay in the shadow of Cloudsdale. Four hundred men sat in their trenches, waiting, row upon row of lasguns jutting out, interspersed with the occasional heavy bolter or lascannon barrel. But their position was weak- they had no minefields, no wire. Their trenches were shallow, just a few feet deep, whatever they could accomplish with their entrenching tools- there was no heavy earthmoving equipment. The Hydra flak tanks and Manticore SAM launchers were hastily dug in behind thin earthen berms thrown up from the earth removed from the trenches. They could expect no reinforcements- the other troops on the ground were heavily engaged with Chaos forces, protecting other towns and cities. It seemed unlikely that they would last very long, but they were prepared to sell their lives dearly, in the vain hope that the fleet could break through the warp storms before Chaos could consume the entire planet.
The Chaos troops attacked at dusk, deploying straight from the march, from the east, knowing the setting sun would blind the defenders. Expecting an attack from the south, the Imperials were caught off step. They hastily redeployed most of their heavy weapons to the eastern flank, along with some of their limited supply of tanks. It was not long after this that their spotters aboard the EAS Starswirl reported a large armoured column advancing from the southwest. Now the Hydraxians were in trouble- they were quickly being outflanked. Shells and las-fire smashed into their lines. Low-level strike jets raced in to drop their loads of incendiary bombs, spreading flame and death across the trenches. The flak tanks and fire from the Vanhoover and Canterlot brought down several, but still they came. They were atmospheric-only aircraft; evidently the Chaos forces had already had time to clear and grade a forward airstrip somewhere to the south.
A sudden thrust from the east poked through the outer defence line. Armoured carriers poured through the gap, disgorging squads of bloodthirsty infantry. The Imperials fought back, hand-to-hand, and threw them out once, then again half an hour later. The heavy cannon of the Starswirl lobbed screaming shells down onto the heads of the attackers, annihilating whole platoons with each blast. Lascannons and meltas burned through tank armour and cooked off titanic explosions. Las-fire flickered in the dying light, tracers whickering across the battlefield. Another breach was forced on the western flank, and again the Hydraxians threw the enemy back with heavy losses. But their own casualties were mounting, and when the final attack came from both sides at once, it was too much for them.
Dozens of tanks and carriers rolled over the outer trenches. The Imperials fell back, tightening their lines, their hilltop position like a hedgehog rolled up in a spiny ball. The Manticore crews, out of missiles, jumped into the trenches to fight as infantry. The Hydras were repurposed, their quad autocannons scything down waves of Chaos troops as they ran screaming at the defences. Briefly they hurled them back once more, before a new wave swept in, their fury greater than before. A rain of grenades killed dozens of defenders. They voxed their last messages up to the spotters on the Starswirl, screaming for support, calling in danger-close artillery fire on their own positions. The pony gunners responded, loading and firing, loading and firing, as fast as their practised hooves allowed. Heavy shells plunged almost straight down on the enemy, killing hundreds, destroying even their heavily armoured tanks. But it was too late to save the position. The gunners kept firing long after the last vox had gone dead. Streams of gunfire from captured Hydras flashed skyward, but the airship's magical shields kept it safe. Under the rain of shells, the Chaos troops hastily pulled back from their newly captured position, leaving not a single Imperial soldier alive. Cloudsdale was alone.
The Elements watched the Starswirl's bombardment with mixed emotions. Rainbow Dash, despite the situation, was enthused with the firepower it was displaying, even more so when she heard from the guards that the enemy was retreating from its barrage. Rarity and Fluttershy sat in their room trying to comfort each other, and failing miserably. With the fires of Ponyville visible to the south, Pinkie was attempting to cheer Applejack up, but was having similarly little success. Twilight, along with the Princesses, were still in the ad hoc war room that had been set up on the ground floor of the city hall. The night outside suddenly went silent as the Starswirl ceased firing, all its targets out of range. Twilight sat in a sumptuously upholstered chair, watching Celestia, Luna and her brother direct what plans they could for the defence of the city. With the Imperial garrison destroyed beneath them, the ponies were on their own. The situation was grim; there was nowhere else to run to. The Cloudsdale militia had rounded up every able-bodied mare and stallion in the city and shoved rifles into their hooves, trying desperately to bolster the numbers of defenders lining the walls. Most of them had never fired a gun before, and would probably be useless in a fight, but at least it gave them hope, however forlorn it may have been.
'When will they come again?' Celestia asked Shining, who merely shrugged in response.
'I have no idea, Your Highness. I do not know what kind of tactics these humans will employ. I suspect we will see more of those aircraft since it seems that they cannot land troops on Cloudsdale itself. I have ordered the airships to maintain a full all-round watch at all times. If they do somehow manage to land infantry on the city, then we should be able to throw them back. We have five thousand troops and another ten thousand civilian conscripts. They would need to attack us in overwhelming numbers to take the city.'
'And what happens when we run out of ammunition?' Celestia asked. 'There are few unicorns among your soldiers, and they cannot be everywhere at once.' He nodded grimly.
'I have considered the possibility of erecting a magical shield over the city. There are very few unicorns in the city, mostly the members of your own honour guard, but it should be possible, and it will protect us from any more attempts to land troops in Cloudsdale.'
'But those beams...las-weapons, the humans call them...they punch right through our shields as if they were made of paper!' Luna announced. 'They seem to be the primary weapon of the humans; how do we defend against them, Commander?' Shining shook his head.
'We cannot, Your Highness. All we can do is try to target those weapons as a priority, and hope they do not inflict too much damage.'
'And what if they attack us from orbit again?' Celestia interrupted. 'Our shields cannot withstand such a powerful bombardment for more than a few minutes.'
'It is clear that the enemy do not wish to simply destroy our cities, Your Highness,' Shining replied. 'If they did, then they would have simply struck from orbit as soon as they arrived. They want something. They want to capture something. Resources, prisoners, I do not know, but whatever it is they want, it at least negates their greatest advantage over us. We have no counter to their space weaponry and no protection against it.' Celestia nodded grimly.
'Indeed. I wonder if it was mere coincidence that the first attack on Cloudsdale came so soon after the arrival here of our party? Perhaps the enemy is searching for us. Perhaps they wish to take our leaders alive so as to have a bargaining chip, to force our troops to stop fighting?'
''Perhaps it's the Elements...' Twilight said quietly, drawing the attentions of the three other ponies in the room. She had not spoken for quite some time. 'Perhaps they want the Elements. Perhaps the Elements can hurt them more than any of our conventional weaponry ever could?'
'That is also a possibility,' Celestia said. 'In which case, we must continue to keep the Elements, and their bearers, as safe as possible. Twilight, I suggest you stay with your friends from now on, at all times. If an attack comes, you will be as safe as we can make you here. But if they break through, if they reach you, then do not hesitate to use the Elements to their full potential. It may be our only way of stopping them.' Twilight nodded, a wash of thoughts running through her brain. She hoped Celestia was right, but also that she was wrong- could the enemy, whoever they truly were, be after her and her friends? Had they really traveled billions of miles through the void, a species that they had never had any contact with before, just to capture her? Or to kill her?
The powers of Chaos are nothing if not fickle and perfidious, and their ways and methods not confined merely to the physical world. It was a few hours before dawn, the moonless horizon a faint, shimmering band of phosphorescence, when the dark mind of Parthax the Infidel and his yet darker patrons began to hatch their plans. Most of the citizens of Cloudsdale were trying to snatch a few fitful, terrified hours sleep. The watchers on the walls kept a constant vigil, scanning the skies for the glowing embers that would indicate the powerful engines of another wave of attack craft and dropships. On the ground below, hundreds of small fires burned, the campsites and laagers of the ground forces that had wiped out the Imperial position. More were arriving with every passing hour, long strings of dipped headlights running along the road from the south. Trucks and tanks in their hordes, rolling into position, impotent and toothless with no ground targets left to attack. Nonetheless it was still an intimidating sight. With it came intimidating sounds; cries of raucous, bestial laughter, rhythmic chants, the beating of a thousand tuneless drums. None of it meant anything to the ponies, but it sent chills down their spines anyway.
On the eastern city edge, looking out towards the valley edge, a cluster of troopers from the Pegasi Assault Division occupied one of the dozen buttress towers that were evenly spaced along the eastwall. Built, like most of the rest of the city, from the sturdy, Pegasi-magic cloud, the tower was a miniature fortress, designed as such when the city was originally built a thousand or more years earlier. Linked to the battlements at its middle level, the tower protruded above the wall another two stories. The top floor was open, lined on all sides with crenelated cloud, with firing embrasures spaced every two metres. When the defenders arrived, each tower had been outfitted with a trio of heavy gatling cannons, quad-barreled rotating guns that could put out a storm of bullets. Two were mounted on the top floor, facing outwards, with another at the battlement level. A platoon of ponies from the Assault Division manned each tower, the walls between them lined with soldiers, militia and now, in places where the line was thinnest, the civilian conscripts.
On the top floor of the tower, Southern Cross, a squat, powerful white Pegasus with a brilliant red mane, peered through the viewing periscope fitted into the battlement, searching the eastern sky. The craggy peaks of the Foal Mountains could just be seen, faint, ghostly silhouettes in the darkness. The skies were clear, and yet there was no moon, and no stars were out- when he glanced up, Southern Cross could see nothing in the veil of darkness, save for a cluster of slowly blinking lights that seemed to be moving across the heavens. He had no idea what they were, but some of the others had been talking about that...thing that had crashed from the sky the day before. They said there were more of them up there, that they were how the humans had come to this world; giant airships that hung in space, using magic or technology far beyond his comprehension. Perhaps that was what he was looking at- another one of these starships, orbiting their planet, like a predator stalking its prey. From what some of the other troopers had been saying, that was all these tainted humans saw ponies as- prey.
He shook the disquieting thoughts from his mind and returned his gaze to the horizon, straining in the gloom to spot the flickering trails of an incoming attack. They had seen nothing all night, neither he nor his two companions manning the tower roof, Nimbus and Sea Breeze. The platoon commander, Lieutenant Oak, had just descended back into the bowels of the tower after one of his routine checks. Most of the rest of the platoon were down there, in the barracks level, waiting, sleeping. If the alarm were to be sounded, they would rush to their positions on the wall and at the firing ports carved into the outer face of the tower.
Part of him wished he was down there with them. Another part of him was glad he was on watch, away from the rumours and the stories that seemed to be endlessly spawned whenever two or more soldiers were in close proximity to each other. Another part of him just felt sick, for some reason he could not discern. He adjusted his armour a little, his rifle clutched in his hooves, having moved away from the viewing periscope. His hooves were sweaty. In fact, he felt clammy all over. He was starting to get a headache, too- too long straining his eyes through the viewfinder? If he were still a foal, his overprotective mother would have confined him to bed if he felt like this, he reasoned. The air suddenly felt unseasonably cold for midsummer. Something was nagging at him; it felt like somepony was watching them. Watching him. He quickly glanced around the towertop, seeing nothing but his two squadmates, who were still scanning the darkness beyond the city.
At least, that was what he should have seen. What he actually saw was two hulking monstrosities, great sacks of bulging flesh, staring at him with evil, red-lit eyes, their slavering jaws lined with vicious, serrated teeth. He screamed, fumbling with his rifle. He completely forgot proper procedure, forgot to shout the alarm. He kept screaming as he raised his rifle at the nearest monster and fired.
At the sound of the first scream, Nimbus swung round, tearing his eyes away from the dark skies. Private Southern Cross was screaming for no apparent reason, a look of pure terror in his blue eyes.
'Cross? What...what's wrong, buddy?' he asked, taking a concerned step forward. Southern Cross continued to babble as he raised his rifle, and he was still panicking when he put a bullet through Sea Breeze's head. The blue Pegasus collapsed to the floor as Nimbus's mouth gaped open in surprise.
'Cross! Wh...what...cease fire!' he screamed, swinging his own rifle up. He just had time to shout the alarm before Southern Cross worked the action on his rifle and fired again.
Searing pain flared through his neck and he slumped hard against the parapet, sliding slowly to the ground. He clutched at his throat as hot blood squirted from the wound, soaking his hooves. He let out a strangled gurgle, writhing in agony as his heart pumped his life out through the ragged hole in his neck, his jugular severed by the bullet. Alarmed by the shots, Lieutenant Oak appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by a cluster of troopers all wearing the dark-grey body armour of the Assault Division. They stared in confusion for a few moments.
Southern Cross was about to step forward and finish the second monster, which was squirming and bellowing up against the battlements, when another of the foul creatures strode into view at the top of the staircase, followed by another, and another. He swung his gun round, bellowing wordless gibberish at the top of his lungs, firing again until he had emptied his magazine. By the time he had done so, Lieutenant Oak and another trooper lay dead, crumpled up on the stairs. Other troopers charged up, seeing the carnage, and gunned the delirious private down where he stood trying to reload. They called the platoon medic up, but it was too late. The Lieutenant and Sea Breeze had died instantly, and by the time the medic arrived Nimbus and the other trooper had bled out. As the wary, stunned troopers fanned out to secure the rooftop again, one of their number began to scream. Clawing at his eyes, assailed by terrors only he could see, the soldier flung himself from the tower, forgetting about his wings entirely, plummeting thousands of feet to the solid earth below. Another began to convulse violently, spasming like an epileptic. Two more wheeled away, blood pouring unbidden from their noses. A strange taste hung in the air and caught in their throats, heavy, metallic.
Alerted by the gunfire, the garrisons of the other towers nearby had rushed to their positions, searchlights probing the darkness. Here, too, madness gripped some of the defenders. Without provocation, two of the ponies on the adjacent tower placed their rifle barrels under their chins and committed suicide. Others turned their guns on comrades, while some merely collapsed in gibbering heaps, chattering and moaning. Officers looked on in confusion, unable to regain control of their ponies. Whole platoons devolved into mass brawls, stabbing, kicking and biting in frenzied attacks. One tower erupted in a shattering blast of orange flame as a crazed trooper ignited the stack of shells for one of the heavy defence cannons.
Panic spread across the city as the alarm went up. The chaos was not confined to the eastern wall- all around the city, ponies turned their guns on each other, and on themselves. Not everypony succumbed- the majority of defenders were unaffected, but the confusion and disruption sown by the madness tore apart any notion of a coherent plan for the defence of the city. Gibbering maniacs, their minds undone by the foul treacheries of Chaos, ran through the streets, setting fire to whatever they came across. Patrols of militia had to be diverted from the walls to put a stop to the insanity, with orders to shoot to kill. Inside the city hall, surrounded by a ring of steel, Twilight stared out of the window of the room she was sharing with Applejack and Rarity. The crackle of rifle fire could be heard above the mournful moaning of the emergency sirens. In the square outside the building, a platoon or more of militia sat behind their cloud barricades, and behind them stood most of the Princesses' Honour Guard, their rifles held at the ready in wary hooves. For whatever reason, the area around the city hall seemed to be a bastion of relative calm, and the guards kept a steady watch for any signs of trouble. Twilight watched a squad of assault troopers rushing through the square at a gallop, heading off to one of the many trouble spots that had flared up. At the first gunshots she had hurried downstairs to the war room. Messengers had been scurrying to and fro, reporting outbreaks of 'fratricide' and 'blue-on-blue incidents,' in the euphemistic parlance of the military. They had reported madness, suicides, the collapse of sanity among some units, and among the civilians, too. Celestia and Luna had shared worried, troubled glances with each other at the news. They clearly knew something. Twilight thought she did, too- there was a strange taste in the air that stuck in her throat, and a strange feeling in her head, like something was clawing at her brain, trying to get inside. She feared what it might be, but she was sure that, whatever it was, it was causing the chaos in the city.
From somewhere a thick pall of smoke was rising. Even as Twilight watched, two militia ponies burst from the shadows at the edge of the square, galloping towards the city hall. The guards shouted a challenge, which was answered with nothing more than insane gibbering from the two ponies. Twilight stared in horror as the guards cut them down as they charged.
'It's bad enough we have to fight these humans...but now pony is fighting pony?' she sighed exasperatedly. 'What is going on? How do we stop this...this madness?'
Applejack and Rarity looked over at her from where they sat on one of the beds. Their expressions showed they had no more insight on the problem than she did. Twilight sighed and looked back outside. Three of the militia were checking the bodies of their two dead former comrades. Twilight shook her head sadly. How could they defend the city if they were fighting among themselves? Clearly, this was all part of some enemy plan. The worrying thing was that it seemed to be working.
Another hour passed before they returned. The southern horizon began to glow with pinpricks of light, first dozens, then hundreds, engines and thrusters flaring as the enemy dropships closed in again. The alarm went up from the scattered defenders on the wall, who were hastily reinforced by those units unaffected by the madness gripping so many of their comrades. Anti-aircraft fire began to fill the sky as the airships opened fire. Without the missiles and heavy concentrations of flak from the Imperial positions below, the defenders were only able to down a few of the approaching tide of dropships. A few, larger craft kept a safe distance, circling to the south of the city with their white anti-collision lights blinking. Grim-faced, the ponies manned the cloud walls of the city as the drophips swung into position overhead. A few shots pinged off their underside armour, met by a hail of las-fire in return that scythed down a dozen or more militia ponies. Ropes dropped from their open hatches and once more the soldiers of Chaos descended. This time, however, they did not fall. They landed soundly on the cloud, as if they were Pegasi, much to the surprise of the ponies. After a few moments disbelief, they opened fire. Hundreds of rifles, supported by the few gatling machine guns the assault division had brought with them, cut down the first wave in moments. But more men came down the ropes, and still more followed them.
A platoon of men landed in the square outside the city hall. The guards crouched behind their cloud barricades and opened fire. Half a dozen men died in the first salvo, puffs of blood squirting from their bodies where the bullets found their marks. One of the few unicorns in the city, a member of the royal guard protection detail, fired off a blast of magic that immolated another four men as they tried to find their feet. his second shot caught one of the dropships square in the cockpit, and it spiraled away, burning, dropping away from sight over the edge of the city. Those soldiers who had made it down the ropes began to return fire. The two unicorns in the city hall's defence line threw up magical shields, but the las-fire punched straight through, and straight through the cloud barricades. Two of the militia ponies went down screaming. Twilight peered out of the window, now joined by Applejack and Rarity, who was clinging to the farmpony. More rifle shots rang out and the Chaos troopers, caught in the open of the square, began to fall. Shouted orders could be heard from the ponies below as they protected their royalty, but more Chaos troops were coming in. Searchlights from the airships focused on the square, providing illumination for the Guard and militia forces. More humans were appearing, coming out of the darkness, pouring from every side street, all with one target. Anti-air fire from the Vanhoover and Canterlot struck down a number of the lumbering dropships as their fighter escort blazed away with ineffectual cannon fire at the airships in reply. With the defenders occupied, the larger bulk landers hovering around the perimeter risked making their runs.
Each of the larger craft held several hundred guardsmen, and they came in low over the city's airship mooring station, which offered a large and fairly open expanse of cloud. With their rear ramps open, they hovered down as low as they could, and the slavering hordes within began jumping and dropping the few feet to the surface below. Rifle and machine-cannon fire from the defenders pinged off of the craft and picked off a few soldiers as they disembarked. As each lander emptied itself, its jets throbbed and it climbed away, being replaced by the next in line, more eager troops leaping into the fray. All of them raced through the city, linking up with others from the dropship forces, all heading for the same location.
Twilight turned away from the windows, unable to watch the slaughter any longer. Dozens of enemies were cut down by accurate rifle fire, but in return, ponies were dying. Machine-cannon fire from the gondola of the Starswirl pummeled the square, ripping men apart as they charged, but for each one who fell, two more loomed from the shadows, baying and chanting rhythmically, brandishing an astonishing array of weaponry, from rifles and lasers to axes, knives, clubs and even, in one or two cases, ceremonial spears carried by the Canterlot Royal Guard. A bright flash lit the sky as one of the dropships exploded, struck by a shell from one of the airships. Celestia and Luna entered the room, along with Cadence and the other Elements.
'It seems we are their target once again,' Celestia commented. 'They know we are here. Somehow, they sense us...the Elements, our magic, I do not know.' An explosion rang out along with a few screams.
'What do we do, Princess?' Twilight asked, casting a nervous glance at her fellow elements. They were once again being dragged into harm's way and it hurt Twilight to see them so afraid- though she knew her own face betrayed similar emotions. The princess, however, bore a hardened grimace.
'We fight,' she replied simply. Rarity and Fluttershy looked at her quizzically. Though they had seen Celestia duel with Queen Chrysalis and knew the stories of her struggles with Nightmare Moon, 'fighting' was simply something the princess did not do. It was not in her nature, so far as any of them knew. She was benevolent, not violent, peaceful, not bellicose. But sometimes, circumstances dictated that those qualities be discarded.
'Keep your friends here,' she cautioned Twilight. 'If the Elements are what they seek, then they will not fire upon you.'
'Wait, where are you going, Princess?' Twilight gasped. 'You can't go out there!' She risked another glance at the carnage outside.
'What I cannot do is stand idle any longer while my subjects die to protect me,' Celestia replied. 'It should be the other way around, no?' She nodded grimly to her sister, who returned the gesture, before the elder sibling simply disappeared in a flash of white light, eliciting gasps from the six young mares. Twilight looked around frantically for her mentor.
'Outside!' Applejack gasped suddenly. 'She's outside!' Despite her earlier reluctance, Twilight bounded over to the window, quickly joined by her friends.
On the steps of the town hall below, among the guards, among the common militia of the city, stood their princess. Her ethereal mane and tail flashed and fluttered in the breeze, dancing under the glare of the searchlights. The red beams of death flickered across the square, a new target presenting itself, but even as Twilight gasped, she saw that they had no effect. Fire able to slice through the barriers of any other unicorn, of any airship crew, even of the Canterlot shield, simply flashed brightly and harmlessly, seemingly against nothing, a few inches from the princess. A ragged but hearty cheer went up from the surviving defenders at the sight of their leader. An equal roar of bloodlust and hatred arose from the traitor guardsmen in the square, the last sound they would ever make.
Celestia's horn glowed, first white, then gold. The Chaos troops charged in, weapons raised.
Lieutenant Atter, of the the 4th Hydraxian Regiment, peered through his magnoculars at the battle raging for the floating cloud city, a concept he had never encountered before. Though across the Imperium there were countless worlds with aerostats, high-buoyancy airborne hab-balloons and low-orbit helium extraction platforms floating within the atmospheres of gas giants, they were all constructed with metal, plastic, composites- yet somehow these ponies had managed to make water vapour solid enough to build structures upon. The city stretched out below him, lit by fires and flashes of gunfire. The spotlights along the rails of the upper deck of the ENS Starswirl were blazing beside him, mostly focused on the city's central square. As the human spotting team assigned to the airship, he and his deputy, Sergeant Mons, had a bird's-eye view of the battle raging. Or should that be Pegasus-eye view, he mused. Equipped with magnoculars, viewing scopes, range tables and a vox set, the two-man team had been directing fire onto the enemy positions below the floating city, but now sat helplessly, as there were no friendlies still alive at ground level, and the airship's bombardment cannons couldn't be used against air targets. The pony anti-air gunners, however, were proving surprisingly effective, and the Lieutenant heard Mons give a small grunt of approval as another Chaos dropship blew itself apart.
'Looks like they got another,' he commented. Atter nodded. 'Uhuh, uhuh...' He hadn't noticed, as his attention had been drawn back to the town square. 'Hey, look at this. In the square, steps of the city hall.' He gestured for his deputy to take a look with his own scope, as a large, white pony had appeared, standing almost twice the height of those around it. 'What's that? Where did he come from?'
Mons checked out the situation through his magnoculars. 'I dunno...huh, you sure it's a he? Looks more like a she to me...either way, what the hell's she doing? Just standing there like that?'
Atter had a funny feeling. 'I think...I think that must be their princess. The airship crew said she came here when the capital fell, right?'
'Yes sir...is she trying to get herself killed?' Mons questioned. 'Don't tell me she's trying to negotiate with these scum?' He snorted derisively. 'What kind of leader won't fight for their...'
His thought was cut short as both men observed a sudden glow from the large pony's horn. Before either of them could question it, a sudden burst of golden lightning erupted from it, leaping instantly across the square. it struck the nearest Chaos trooper and he immediately turned to fire. The crackling energy didn't stop there, instead jumping violently from man to man, spreading like a spider's web across the square, entire platoons of charging fiends being struck and immolated in a heartbeat.
'By the Emperor...!' Mons gasped. 'What sorcery is this?'
She's a psyker, Atter thought. And a powerful one, it would seem. While a few Imperial sanctioned psykers, after years of training, could achieve somewhat similar effects, most of them were driven to gibbering lunacy in the process, and certainly none but the hardiest Space Marine Librarian or Grey Knight could focus their attack in such a way, to skip from enemy to enemy while entirely avoiding those around them whom they did not wish to harm.
Nor would many be able to immediately follow it up the way the pony princess did. A strong beam of golden light poured forth from her horn and smashed straight into the side of a bulk transport that was climbing out from the mooring field. It smashed straight through the plasteel and ceremite plating and burst forth from the other side, all but bisecting the lumbering craft. Flames blossomed from within as fuel lines and plasma conduits were severed, and the vessel simply dropped from the sky, leaving a trail of smoke behind. Another blast from the princess struck a dropship and melted its tail, and was immediately followed by another, and another, and another. Each potent psychic shot brought down another Chaos craft, sending dozens of men spiralling away to their deaths.
'Emperor preserve us...!' Mons muttered, watching the sudden slaughter. 'Be glad she's on our side...at least for now.'
Atter could only nod, both surprised and concerned by the apparent psychic outburst. He peered through his magnoculars back in the direction of the white pony. There she still stood, as seemingly unmoved by her actions as a statue of her might appear to be. Chaos troops were in sudden retreat, not something often conducted by the forces of the Dark Gods, yet both around the square and in the skies above, they were running away. He was snapped back to reality by a shout from Mons.
'Sir! Sir!' he called urgently. Atter looked round. Mons was holding up the vox handset.
'I'm getting something on the vox, sir, it's faint but it's there! A message!'