//------------------------------//
// Counter Strike 
// Story: Iron Hearts: Book 5 - Suffer Not the Alien to Live 
// by SFaccountant 
//------------------------------//

Iron Hearts: Book 5
Chapter 7
Counter Strike


****


Ork army - 0.7 kilometers outside of Ponyville


"Izzit troo, den?"
"Yah, it iz. Dat 'sploshun wuz da biggun. Dere ain't nuffin' left. Da Sole o'Gork is nuffin but scrap."
"Unpossibul! How'd da humies do it?"
"Wuzn't dere a buncha playns 'n wutnot?"
"Yah, dere wuz. Dat ain't wot killed it, doh..."


Sheltering next to the hull of a broken-down Battlewagon, three Nobs huddled close to the vehicle to shelter from the rain. The transport had suffered a partial hit from an earthshaker cannon and had its tracks shredded, and the Ork mob that had been packed inside was milling about restlessly while a Mek saw to fixing the vehicle.


"No way!" snarled one of the Nobs, his brow creasing angrily. "You'z lyin'!"
"Sweah ta Mork, dat's wot I 'eard," grumbled another. "Dere wuz a mob o'Stormboyz dat wuz sent ta git sum hosses offa da Sole o'Gork. An' now?"
The Nob pointed off into the distance. There wasn't really anything visible past the storm, but the other Orks knew full well what he was referring to. The explosion that had marked the end of the Mega Gargant had been visible for miles around. The heat and wind currents had been so intense that the storm clouds above what they presumed was now a smoking crater had been burned away, forming a large break in the rain. If the boys catching up from the rear of the horde were to be believed, anyway.
"You'z sayin' HOSSES killed da Mega Gargant?" the third Nob said in a near-whisper.
The Nob divulging this tidbit snorted and glowered. "Dunno. Wot's yer Boss, Redclawz say?"
"He ain't sed nuffin'," mumbled the second Nob.
"Dat's roight!" barked the first Ork. "We'z not even ta da humie fort, an' Boss Redclawz gits two Gargants stomped! Wot kinda boss izze?"
"Dat ain't da boss's fawlt!" claimed another. "Mebbe Coggz jus' mayks lowsy dakka!"
"Bah! Coggz ain't da wun lettin' hosses blo up da big gunz!" the first Nob growled.
The third Ork peeked out in the storm, staring up at the looming figure of the third - and evidently last - Gargant in their army. The massive war machine was slowly lumbering along down the valley, in no obvious hurry to reach combat.
He shook his head and pulled back. "Ya fink da hosses'll kill dis wun, too?"
"Onlee if ya dum gitz let 'em!" the second Nob snarled.
"Wot kinda Warboss can't stop a cuppel hosses frum braykin' da big dakka?" the first snapped back. "Noh wut I fink? I fink Redclawz ain't no gud as Boss!"
"'Ey!" the other Nob barked, shoving the insubordinate Ork in the chest. "Boss Redclawz got us a fight, didn' he? Youz gonna let sum liddel hossy scayr ya? We ain't even seen a humie yet, an' dey alreddy got ya runnin' scayrd!"
The other Ork shoved back. "If'n dis keeps up, den we'z gonna LOOZ. Orks don' looz!"
"An we ain't gonna, neethah!" the Nob insisted, turning around and walking out into the pouring rain. He pointed his choppa dramatically at the Great Gargant. "We'z got biggah dakka an' mo' boyz dan da Spikies! Dey can't stop us! We'z da Orks! An' no-wun fights bettah!"
"An' if da hosses sho up ta kill da las' Gargant?" asked a skeptical Nob.
The other Ork snorted, pounding a fist into his chest as the rain washed down his shoulders. "Hah! Any hosses sho deir dumm fayss 'round heah, I'll bash 'em meself!" The Ork warrior laughed, relishing the thought of encountering the small, spineless equines on the battlefield.
Then a Maulerfiend stepped on him.


The other Orks stared mutely as no less than five siege walkers sprinted by, splashing a wave of mud - and bits of their fellow Ork - over their boots. They even thought they could hear a voice squeaking "Excuse us!" while the war machines thundered past.
"Da zog did dey com frum?" yelled one Nob in disbelief, glancing back at the walker's path. There was nothing over that way except mountains and a few more mobs of equally surprised boyz. Unless the walkers had materialized from thin air, he couldn't figure out how machines so large had gotten so close without any Orks noticing.
The other Nob was less concerned with where they came from, and more worried about where they were going. The daemonic machines weren't leaping at their vehicles, thrashing at their mobs, or even trampling their poorly armored artillery squadrons nearby. They were making a mad dash straight for the biggest and deadliest weapon in the field.
"Ah, zog. Dere gohs da las' Gargant..."


The Maulerfiends shrieked as they cut across the valley at top speed, rushing over scattered Ork infantry and leaping over stunned vehicles in their path. Fluttershy meekly shouted apologies while she rode by on the back of the Maulerfiend Hierix, the armor plates shifting and shaking underneath her. She considered firing off a photon grenade to try to hinder some of the Orks that may fight back, but ultimately decided against it. She wasn't at all confident in her accuracy under the best of conditions, much less while being carried along at breakneck speed. Besides, the Orks didn't seem to be shooting at her at all.
And then, seemingly all at once, they did.


Shocked as the aliens were to find a sudden incursion of daemonic walkers, the Orks advancing toward the front lines ground to a halt and started bellowing battle cries. Tanks churned through great swaths of mud and Trukks pulled into tight, barely-controlled turns. The first few mobs started opening fire gleefully, and Fluttershy squeaked in fright as bullets started bouncing off her walker's armor with loud, ringing ricochets.
While the volleys of shootas may have been loud and frightening, they were barely a threat to Fluttershy and no threat at all to the Maulerfiends. Soon, though, the fusillade was joined by spiraling rokkits and pounding kannon fire, and the frightened pegasus squeezed her eyes shut as the detonations echoed through the constant roar of the storm and the intermittent bursts of machine gun fire.
Then she snapped her eyes open, her forehead creasing. No. She couldn't afford to flinch away now. Not when so much depended on her. Not when her friends, her Princess, and her... friends' friends were all fighting and suffering for Equestria's sake.
She checked a small window in the upper corner of her visor that showed that the Maulerfiends were starting to scatter. Between the storm and the incoming munitions coming at them (with accuracy comparable to the raindrops), the daemon engines were starting to get distracted.
"Stay together, everyone!" Fluttershy called, her voice amplified to an authoritative shout. "Don't get distracted! Remember what we're here to do!"
The daemon engines that were starting to stray from their attack path corrected themselves, again rushing directly for the huge walker. The Maulerfiend Varox staggered after a rokkit smashed into its leg, almost tripping into the mud. Crabapple shifted his path instantly, shouldering aside a looted Leman Russ that was about to follow up the attack. Crabapple quickly grabbed the tank's battle cannon and squeezed its barrel closed, and then dashed off once again while Varox regained its own pace.
The Great Gargant itself, of course, was hardly vulnerable during all of this. Although the Maulerfiends started their charge into the behemoth's rear, as soon as the shooting started the lumbering walker began turning around to add its own contribution.
The soopagun fired first, impacting right next to the Maulerfiend Tritus and knocking it onto its side. With the target immobilized, the Great Gargant followed with its lifta-droppa, and an arc of yellow lashed out from the Gargant's claw arm. The energy swirled and wrapped around the smaller walker, and Tritus started flailing angrily as it was hauled up into mid-air by the energy tether.
Then it was flung away through the rain, and the Orks watching bellowed and laughed as it spun and thrashed.
The Maulerfiend hit the side of a Guntrukk, caving in the Ork vehicle with its bulk before it bounced off into the muck. Dazed, but not critically damaged, the daemon walker started to squirm on the ground and dig through the mud with its limbs.
The Orks offered it no such chance to recover. Tankbustas sprinted through the mud with their explosive payloads, pouring clusters of rokkits into (and around) the downed machine. Detonations pounded the hapless war machine, and before long the death scream of the daemon engine ripped through the storm.


The Great Gargant had gotten rid of one of it foes, but the other four siege walkers closed the distance while Tritus died, intent on slaying their objective. The super-heavy walker fired the enormous cannon sticking out of its armored belly, but the cluster of shells missed badly, exploding far behind the lead engine.
Hierix leapt at the Gargant first, its fist crackling as it punched through the first layers of armor. Adamantium claws wrapped in a thrumming disruption field dug thick furrows into the Gargant's armor, while the melta cutters stabbed jets of super-heated gas into the shallow breaches.
The other Maulerfiends started hammering at the behemoth's legs, digging under the thick metal "skirt" of the hull and wrapping their lasher tendrils around its cannon arm. Soon the Ork walker was being literally ripped apart plate by plate while powered claws tore at it from all around.
A long howling noise issue from the Gargant's warhorn, which Fluttershy at first thought was the massive war machine's way of calling for help. Or maybe the machine was expressing panic and pain, somehow? It seemed strange, but as the one riding a daemon walker, she didn't have much right to judge.
A hefty kick from the Gargant slammed into Varox, throwing it aside into the mud. Then the claw that boasted its lifta-droppa swung downward and seized Hierix by its rear leg, hauling the entire walker - and its lone passenger - into the air.
The Great Gargant wrenched its cannon arm free of the Maulerfiends' tendrils, ripping most of the metal tentacles apart. Then it pressed the soopagun against the walker flailing desperately in its grip, and fired at point-blank range.
Fluttershy screamed as her "mount" was blown apart right under her, and she was flung away into the mud along with a prodigious amount of smoldering metal debris.
That left three Maulerfiends to tear through the Great Gargant, but when a small, pegasus-shaped body splashed into the mud, two of them hesitated.
Varox, which was already battered and knocked away from the target, saw more enemies rushing for their meek and adorable Mistress. It twisted around and bolted for Fluttershy. Tiberian, which still had one hand gripping the Gargant's leg, hammered one fist into the enemy machine out of spite before it pushed away and bolted after its fellow daemon engine.
Needless to say, Crabapple was not terribly happy about this.
Another blast came from the Gargant's warhorn after most of the siege walkers harassing it broke and ran, and then the Ork goliath shifted to flatten its remaining foe. Its foot came crashing down with surprising swiftness, trying to smash the remaining walker's head. Crabapple darted away just in time to avoid getting crushed, and then bolted around the Great Gargant in a circle. The larger machine twisted about, but it struggled to turn fast enough to face the siege walker.
As soon as Crabapple was directly behind the larger walker it leapt onto its back. Powered claws bit deep into armor plates and lasher tendrils quickly wrapped around any available protrusion to support Crabapple's weight.
The Great Gargant rang its warhorn again as it shook and flailed, and Crabapple began experiencing all-new emotions at the prospect of having to tear down this monstrosity alone. A review of its archives correctly identified the sensation as "resentment".


Fluttershy moaned in pain as she laid in the mud on her side, her head spinning. Her visor was blaring angrily at her, flashing numerous warnings and showing where her armor was breached, but she found it grossly redundant; she could FEEL where her armor had been broken through just fine. Despite the hot, searing pain, however, she did eventually get her faculties sorted.
Her faculties informed her that she was in trouble.
"WAAAAAGH!" the crude bellow of Orks on the charge rang in her ears, and when the pegasus twisted her helmet up she saw warriors sprinting at her through the mud.
Panicking, she activated her cloaking device. This did not seem to discourage the Orks one bit, and they continued rushing toward her.
As the first slugga round slammed into her armor pad, Fluttershy figured out why they weren't confused: she was covered in mud, and thus the cloaking field didn't help hide her much. The rain would eventually wash off the coat of wet soil, of course, but not before the Orks took her apart.
Fluttershy shrieked as a choppa descended onto her helmet, slamming her head back into the muck. The kick that followed threw her back, sending the pegasus rolling away before more slugga rounds followed after her.
Then a giant, metal hand fell before her, halting the rain of clumsy pistol shot (as well as the rain of rain).
"Oi, dat's a biggun!" proclaimed one of the Slugga Boyz irritably as the Maulerfiend hunched over the fallen pony, snarling. "Git da kannonz ovah heah, ya grot-lovahs!"
The heaviest nearby weapons, a pair of Wartrakks, didn't get the chance before Tiberian barreled into them, slamming one vehicle aside before mashing a fist onto the other. After reducing the nearest machines to a pulp it crowed fiercely to its fellow daemon walker.
"Wh-What? What's going on?" Fluttershy asked in a daze as she was picked up in a giant metal hand. Fingers that had torn through the thickest armor with ease handled the pegasus like a piece of broken porcelain, holding her gently under the siege walker's neck even as deffguns pounded against its back and sides.
"Wait..." Fluttershy coughed a few times before the Maulerfiend started to run. "The Gargant..."
The Maulerfiends ignored her feeble protests, charging into the storm with renewed intensity. Varox cradled Fluttershy close, shielding her from the relentless volleys of bullets that followed them. Tiberian acted as spearhead, pouncing on the heaviest vehicles that barred their path back to the mountains.
Rokkits, deffguns, and kannons tracked their escape, but the siege walkers' armored bodies practically danced with daemonic energy, folding the very space around them. Bullets struck plating with a fraction of their usual power and some warheads that found their mark inexplicably failed to detonate. Combined with the obscuring gloom caused by the storm and their considerable speed, the pair of Maulerfiends managed to escape the fusillade intact and make it to the mountain base once more. Even then, as they clambered up the crags to the relative safety of the peaks, the Orks may well have pursued. The daemon engines were badly battered, and were entirely vulnerable during their climbing escape.
Alas, the Orks were preoccupied with a much more interesting conflict.


Crabapple's claws continued to rip and tear at the Gargant's back, wrenching off plates of armor and flinging them aside. All the while the Great Gargant continued to shake and circle around, its warhorn bellowing in rage.
The next blow from the siege walker punched into the hull interior, and the disruption fields sparked brightly as Crabapple forced his hand inside to tear apart whatever was in the room.
Then the Gargant stopped moving.
For a moment Crabapple hesitated, thinking that it had perhaps crippled a vital system. A brief scan of its prey suggested otherwise, however; the Ork war machine had not lost power or suffered any great disruption to energy transmission. It had simply stopped moving around.
And turned off its defense shielding, for some reason.
A rokkit slammed straight into Crabapple's back, cracking the heavy shield between its shoulders and revealing the Orks' strategy. Where before the aliens had refrained from firing upon their own walker to remove the enemy clinging to it, it seemed that a lack of other distractions or obvious options had led them to simply hope the Gargant was sturdier than the siege walker on its back.
The problem was, they were right.
Lines of bullet ricochets sawed across the Gargant's back when a mob of Lootas opened fire with their deffguns, adding to the barrage. The large, customized heavy machine guns slashed a veritable beam of hot lead across Crabapple's arms and back, and dark crimson vapor seeped from the cracks where the armor buckled.
Crabapple knew then and there that it would not be able to tear apart the Great Gargant before the other Orks finished it off; there were simply too many enemies. It would have to either finish off the behemoth quickly, or leap away and flee with the other Maulerfiends.
Its instincts told it to flee. The spark of sentience, the churn of nascent emotions deep within its processors, led it to fear its imminent demise and seek to avoid it even if that meant failing its mission objective. The cold, mechanical logic that dominated its corrupted mind, however, presented a different case. If the Ork Gargant survived the battle, no weapon that the 38th Company possessed would be able to stand against it. Ponyville would be overrun and flattened, and Sweet Apple Acres would be razed along with it. Once again the Apple family, and Crabapple's mistress, would have their home and business devastated. Never mind the horrors that may come after that, if the defense of the planet were to crumble entirely.
But this time, Crabapple could do something about it.
Another rokkit slammed into the Gargant's shoulder, and then another spiraled away just over Crabapple's head before its eyes flashed brightly with renewed determination and ever-rising fury.
The siege walker shifted downward, gripping the edge of the hole it had torn into the enemy's back and peering into the breach.
Then Crabapple stabbed its head into the opening, punching its narrow jaws through the sundered armor and forcing its way into the room face-first.
There was, of course, no way for the entire Maulerfiend to fit inside a single room in a Great Gargant; just its head alone took up nearly a third of the space in wherever it had broken into. Gretchin ran screaming out of the room as their Ork masters finally lost control of the terrified slaves, understandably upset at seeing the toothy maw of a giant, metal daemon-machine break into the vehicle.
Crabapple took no interest in the crew, its eyes sweeping the room and looking over the machines even while heavy weapons fire continued pounding its back. Finding a control panel, its metal, serpentine tongue lashed out from its mouth and stabbed into the device, extending quite a bit further than the walker's design had ever intended.
The Maulerfiend's tongue was never intended to be used as a data uplink, and Crabapple's corrupted machine intelligence had never before had to deal with the utter absurdities of Ork electric transmission controls. It could literally TASTE the duct tape holding the systems together, despite never having a sense of taste and having no point of reference for the flavor.
Another rokkit tearing its right smokestack cluster off focused Crabapple's mind. As strange and awkward as these systems were, they still followed some basic principles of mechanical and electrical theory. Crabapple could still detect the flows of energy flooding from a power source practically quaking with instability.
So, with a force of sheer daemonic will and Chaos-fueled reversal of several immutable physical laws, Crabapple stopped the energy flows and sent them running back where they came from, inciting a catastrophic overload of the reactor.
A brief burst of discordant static briefly issued from every speaker in the Gargant, utterly confusing the crew just before various indicator needles and control meters suddenly veered dangerously into the red.
+Mission complete, Apple Bloom...+


****


Ponyville - town hall


Celestia stepped into the town hall, her golden shoes stirring the patch of hot ashes that used to be an Ork Warboss.
"Captain Armor. You're gravely wounded."
Shining Armor gulped and weakly pushed himself away from Vinyl Scratch's unconscious body. "Yeah, a little. That Ork there got me pretty good." A nervous chuckle sent pulses of pain surging through his chest.
Shining Armor knew Celestia well enough that he wasn't usually awe-struck or intimidated by her presence. But then, he'd never seen her reduce an enemy to a pile of hot dust before.
"I see. A moment, please." Celestia's horn flooded with soft yellow light, and then Vinyl Scratch vanished as she was teleported away. "I sent her to the West side of town. She'll be safer there as we turn aside the aliens."
Then Shining Armor felt Celestia's magic fill him. It was warm and gentle, yet almost smothering in its power. Like a blanket that was just too big and heavy to sleep comfortably with.
As the magic washed over him, though, the ache in his body started to subside.
"That spell will not truly repair your injuries, but it will numb the pain and keep you from aggravating them," Celestia explained before her magic faded, "Captain Armor, you've done more than enough here to defend your nation and your world, but I would ask that you continue to aid me as I purge the aliens from Ponyville."
The unicorn blinked. "You mean... the ORK aliens specifically, right? Because as much as I dislike the Iron Warriors, the General kind of died defending me, so..."
"Yes, I meant just the Orks," Celestia replied with some exasperation.
"Great! Perfect! I'm in!" he announced before he scrambled to his hooves. "What do you need me to do?"
"Defend me as I take to the field, Captain. The spells I plan to wield now will preclude me from summoning a personal barrier."


The white Princess stepped out of the hole in the wall and back outside, and Shining Armor followed. Their ears were immediately assaulted by all the sounds of battle echoing through the village. The laughing of Orks, the shouting of men, the ricochet of bullets, and the detonations of ordnance.
There were no fighters in the immediate area, though, and Celestia gingerly stepped around a pair of power-armored bodies on the ground before standing her forelegs atop a barricade wall. She looked over the columns of smoke and smashed homes of Ponyville, and her eyes narrowed.
"The Orks come to this planet seeking carnage and destruction for its own sake," Celestia growled through clenched teeth, "so that is what we shall give them."
Her horn flashed with magic.


The explosion that flared in the distance forced Shining to turn his eyes away, so great was its intensity. Even after the light faded somewhat within the gloom of the storm, the stallion could only just stand to glimpse the blinding fireball in the distance, and his jaw went slack at the sheer size of it. Seconds later the noise of the detonation reached them, washing over Ponyville in a dull echo of the fantastic act of destruction.
"That... That was..." Shining gasped out, his words momentarily failing him. "Princess, that was incredible! With a spell of that power, the Orks don't stand a chance! Even the Iron Warriors couldn't stand against you! You could flatten their entire fortress without them even seeing you!"
Princess Celestia held her regal, determined pose for several silent seconds before awkwardly pursing her lips. "That... wasn't me, actually..." The glow around her horn dimmed slightly.
The Guard Captain quickly snapped his jaw shut. "Ah. I see. Uh... sorry."


Celestia took a deep breath before she continued her previous casting, and the soft, golden glow slowly built around her horn until Shining Armor could no longer bear to look directly at the Princess.
"The sun is the bringer of light and life. It nurtures our world and gives its energy freely to us."
Shining squinted so that he could again glimpse the Princess of the Sun, and saw that her mane was whipping about wildly in a wind he couldn't feel. Her eyes were solid, shining windows of white light, and the jewels of her armor pulsed in gentle sympathy with her horn.
"But a star is a raw, destructive thing, and life is quite fragile. With but a nudge of our orbit, its sustaining energy could scour the surface of our planet entirely. Ork, human, Tau, pony. Even the dragons would boil alive."
Shining Armor wet his lips, trying not to look too anxious. "But, you're not going to do that... right?"
"Of course not," Celestia scoffed, "but I have more subtle ways to express the wrath of the sun."


****


"MEGA DREAD!! Move it! Run!"
Daniels panted heavily as he leapt out the window of somepony's cottage, his rail rifle clutched to his chest. He wasn't sure if there were others following him, but it seemed likely. He had passed at least a few friendlies that weren't dead yet.
The Mega Dread crashed through the wall behind him, its claw-arm tearing through the home's timbers with ease. Its kill kannon fired a round seemingly at random, doing no important damage but making a sufficiently impressive booming noise to rattle the fleeing humans further.
Daniels dodged behind a Predator battle tank that was busy tearing apart the Orks who were trying to advance down the street. The tank started to back up just after he leapt clear, which was lucky for him but didn't save the vehicle. The Mega Dread seized the edge of the Predator's turret with its claw, and then tore the weapon off of its chassis before a puff of steam blasted from its arm piston.
Daniels didn't turn around to watch the depressingly one-sided battle of mighty armor. He kept running and leapt a short wall of sandbags that protected the doorway of another home on the other side of the street.


The inside of the house was a swirling melee of Slugga Boyz and Chaos Space Marines, with chainswords chewing through Ork flesh and choppas clattering loudly against ceramite. The Iron Warriors were dominating the battle, but the Orks were filing inside as fast as they were being killed, rushing into the room in an endless stream of reinforcements.
Daniels did not let this discourage his immediate goal of surviving this battle. "Excuse me! Coming through! Whoa, little close there! Nice hit, my Lord! Go Chaos!" The mercenary ducked around power packs and jumped past staggering greenskins as he weaved his way through the room, trying best he could to keep to a route that put power armor between him and the alien warriors.
One Ork went flying back toward him as an Iron Warrior knocked it aside, and Daniels thrust his bayonet forward mostly out of reflex. The Slugga Boy roared in anger after the adamantium blade punched through its back, but didn't get the chance to further express its fury before its Astartes opponent slashed his chainsword across its chest.
Daniels cringed as Ork gore splattered over his respirator mask and optics, but recovered quickly and drew his bayonet free of the corpse. "Good show, Lord! Later, then!"
With the sound of the wall behind him coming down, Daniels jumped over a broken dinner table, vaulted off a wounded Ork's back, and then leapt out the window.


Daniels groaned after he rolled across the ground, but knew he couldn't afford a moment's rest. There wasn't a single safe place in Ponyville right now, and he was pretty much in the general area that currently constituted the "front lines".
The first thing he saw when he came to a stop was bullet casings rolling across the ground. Twisting his head around to look at where they were coming from, he was treated to the unfortunate sight of a half-dozen Ork Flashgitz piled behind a barricade and dueling a watch tower full of Fire Warriors.
Well, unfortunate to a point. None of the greenskins were facing him, and they seemed quite intent on their firefight. Having a clear shot at the backs of a group of enemy troopers was something of a tactical boon.
He would have preferred a safe haven, though.
Daniels shifted into a crouch and flung over his last fragmentation grenade. Then he let loose with his rail rifle, and between the two weapons a full three Flashgit Nobs collapsed onto the ground.
As the Orks died, though, their compatriots turned to the new threat angrily, not obviously impressed.
They stood up in front of the barricade before they loosed a wild burst in Daniel's direction, only for two more to get scythed down from pulse rifle fire.
"Meet your end, be'gel savage!" barked a crackling electric voice from above. A Crisis Suit landed on the roof of an adjacent building just as the last Flashgit was considering a retreat. The battlesuit's burst cannon finished off the Ork in a flurry of blue flares, digging a furrow of scorched ground in front of the barricades. Then the Tau heavy trooper bounded away, its jet pack carrying it over the rooftops to the next engagement.


Daniels rushed to his feet and then sprinted for the watch tower, diving behind the defense lines built around its base.
"Just to let you know," he shouted up to the Tau manning the tower, "there may or may not be an Ork Mega Dread behind me!"
An explosion issued from within the garrison, and Iron Warriors started rushing out from within its confines.
"Don't lead the heavy units here, you stupid ape! We can barely contain the foot soldiers!"
Daniels looked up at the tower, and then he waved when he spotted a familiar face among the dark helmets and glittering optics. "Hey, Jerri! Nice to see a friendly face out here!"
"Hurry up and die so I can get my rifle back!" Jerriha retorted.
A loud crash momentarily overwhelmed the other noise from combat when the Mega Dread emerged from the pony home, an Iron Warrior gripped in its close combat claw.
It flung the Astartes away into a wall, and then turned its kill kannon onto the watch tower.
Daniels felt a wave of heat wash over him as the kannon shell clipped the edge of the tower, tearing through two of the supports. The tower squealed before it began to collapse onto its side, but secondary struts snapped into place before the fortification fell over completely, holding it up at an awkward angle without dumping its occupants right onto the ground.
Jerriha grunted as she and the Fire Warriors slid toward the side of the tower, and she soon found herself being squished between her subordinates and the guardrail.
As the cackling walker advanced, however, she aimed her pulse carbine steady at the clanking monstrosity while a small red light blinked on the weapon sights.
+Authorizing seeker missile strikes on my markerlight, designation Ten'lan, high ballistic arc!+
The Mega Dread lumbered forward, claws snapping eagerly while its kill kannon loaded the next shell into the barrel. It didn't see the seeker missiles diving down on it from above, and frankly, even if it did, it's doubtful it could have done anything about them. The missiles slammed into the top of the heavy walker, and the vehicle staggered briefly before its kannon arm exploded, ripping the Dread's ranged weapon off in a flurry of hot metal.
As smoke bled from the wounded Mega Dread, though, it was obviously still active. A burst of steam blasted from is claw arm, and the assault walker began to march again toward the watch tower.
"Can you do that again? Like, three more times? I think that should do it," Daniels advised helpfully.
"The missile gunships are re-loading! There's a lot of demand for ordnance right now!" Jerriha barked before she dropped down from the crippled tower. "You're supposed to be the resourceful race! You come up with something!"
"We could try avoiding fights until we find something strong enough to help," Daniels suggested.
"Is that what brought you to us?" the Tau asked wryly.
"Don't knock it 'til you try it, Jerri."


The Mega Dread kept advancing on the barricades, but slowed upon spotting another piece of falling ordnance. It appeared to be a mortar shot, although it was falling rather more slowly than expected.
Then the mortar shell exploded in mid-air, right in front of the Ork walker, sprinkling it with confetti.
That was weird.
"What in the name of Aun'va..." Jerriha mumbled as she and Daniel watched the unfolding incident from behind cover. Sparkling bits of foil, party favors, loops of silly string, and the odd disco ball all bounced away from the "impact", covering the Mega Dread with extremely festive debris. This didn't do any harm to the vehicle, but did succeed in bringing it to a complete and utter standstill while it stooped over to look at the bizarre munitions.
The butcher cannon suddenly tearing into its side was a harsh reminder that the war machine was still in a combat zone. The Mega Dread lurched to one side before it rapidly swung about, spotting two enemy walkers approaching on opposite sides of the adjacent house. One was an obnoxiously pink Dreadnought suspiciously lacking in chains and skulls among its armor embellishments. The more obvious danger was a larger Contemptor-pattern Dreadnought that kept pumping high-caliber cannon shot into its damaged side. The Mega Dread stumbled into a clumsy run for the larger walker, an enraged battle cry echoing from within its hull.


"See? What'd I tell you?" Daniels stood up as Jerriha sighed. "Pinks! You're still around! Good to see you!"
Pinkie's Dreadnought shell had large patches of its paint job stripped away from enemy fire, and seemed to be moving with a slight limp, but the assault walker didn't hesitate to shake its thunder hammer at Daniels in imitation of a wave. "Hey, Danny! Don't you worry about a thing! We have some SIRIUS firepower on our side now!"
"I hate ALL of you," Sirius proclaimed while the Mega Dread closed the distance.
In contrast to the frantic Ork machine, the Contemptor seemed to wait patiently for the enemy to come close enough, only deigning to move once the enormous, hydraulic claw was reaching out for him.
Then Sirius surged forward, punching his siege drill squarely in the middle of the enemy's hull. The whirling teeth of the drill tore through the frontal plating with ease, digging into the cockpit and then breaking through the rear plating as well. Bits of components, armor, and Ork were all ejected out of the Mega Dread's back in a single gory spray of detritus before the crippled walker lurched to a stop.


"Trash belongs in the scrapyards," Sirius growled before he drew his siege drill out of the Mega Dread. Then he shouldered the wrecked walker aside and started firing on another Ork mob rushing up the street.
"Well, that worked out. What now?" Daniels asked rather breathlessly.
Jerriha scowled. "How would I know? This defense is a shambles! The Orks reinforce endlessly, and half our support is missing! What are your commanders doing?"
"C'mon, grayskin scum! Don't be like that!" Pinkie boomed, her insult standing in stark contrast to her tone. "It sounds like you could use a little morale boost! Gimme a hug!"
Jerriha stared up at the pink assault walker, its autocannon and thunder hammer spread apart as if it really was preparing for an embrace.
"What the blazes IS this thing, anyway?!" the Fireblade demanded, taking a step back from the bizarre war machine. "It's nothing like your other walkers!"
"THANK YOU," Sirius grumbled, pausing briefly between salvos from his butcher cannon. "At least somebody else in this damned army realizes that."
"Not important," Daniels said, waving down Pinkie Pie, "we may have stumbled a bit, but we can still win this."
"Stumbled 'a bit'? Have you been asleep the past hour?!" Jerriha snapped. "If I were running this defense I would have withdrawn long ago! Only a miracle can turn this battle around!"


The distant explosion that immediately followed this statement momentarily put all complaints and discussions on hold as everyone turned their eyes away from the fantastic bloom of light. Even Sirius had to pause in mowing down Orks as his optical filters were briefly overloaded.
The Contemptor waited patiently for his sensors to reset, but when they did he received a strategic alert from the auger network.
"The last Gargant has been eliminated," the assault walker growled, "the only strategic advantage the greenskins hold now is mere numbers." Sirius twisted around enough so that he could glare at his allies behind him. "You all would do well to aid in degrading that advantage, as I am."
"WOO HOO!" Pinkie Pie cheered, jumping into the air. She landed heavily enough to unsettle the Fire Warriors nearby. "You GO, girls!"
Daniels turned to Jerriha, who seemed to stunned by the news. "Well, we got our miracle. Happy?"
The Fireblade was, evidently, not happy, and her expression quickly returned to a scowl. "Call me defeatist, but the Orks outnumber us, what? Ten to one? Twenty? That is no 'mere' advantage when our defensive line has broken already!"
"So, what, you want another miracle before we give this a go?" the mercenary asked.


Then huge columns of light lanced down from the sky.


****


The Orks pouring into Ponyville, already confused about the sudden explosion of their last Gargant, were understandably spooked even further when big yellow beams struck the ground from above. The columns burnt through the storm cover that had been layered over the Ork's advance, and many mobs of warriors were caught within the rays of light. There were dozens of such columns, each one some fifty meters or so in diameter, and they seemed to be scattered through the valley completely at random. Those that were under them flinched back, blinded, but were pleasantly surprised that they weren't subsequently vaporized or hammered into the ground.
"Huh. Dis ain't so bad," mumbled one Ork while he shielded his eyes. He was sopping wet from the trek out of the storm, and the sunlight warmed his chilled flesh almost instantly, evaporating the clinging moisture in seconds. "Feelz kinda gud."
Some mobs started moving toward the light, eager to dry off and warm up before they got to killing. Those Orks within the beams of light and heat mostly stopped where they were in order to scrape the rapidly drying mud off their boots.
After a few dozen seconds, however, their skin darkened noticeably, and the grass under their feet withered from the unrelenting heat.
And then things started lighting on fire.
"Dis don' feel gud no mo'!" cried an Ork when a blaze jumped up from the shriveling grass underfoot. A few seconds later his top knot lit on fire as well. As he made a mad sprint with the rest of his mob out of the light, toward the damp safety of the storm, his clothes eventually lit aflame while the metal plates scalded his skin.
The Ork, like most of his unit, never made it to safety. He was cooked alive, his body shriveling and his senses fading before he, too, was swallowed by fire.


****


"... Subtle, huh?" Shining Armor asked with a quirked eyebrow.
Princess Celestia gave him a wry smile. "That is about as subtle as solar attacks get, yes." Her horn continued to pulse, fueling the building flames as hundreds of alien soldiers were consumed by light and fire.
Then Shining Armor frowned. "We should be careful. The Orks somehow knew that I was making the barrier to protect our soldiers. They might be able to figure out that you're the source of this new attack." Looking up at the way Celestia's horn pulsed and crackled like a beacon, the unicorn chewed his lip briefly. "Yeah, actually, I'm pretty sure they'll figure this one out."
"I expect as much. I am relying on you, Captain Armor," the white alicorn said firmly.
Shining straightened, a fierce snort blasting from his nostrils as he saluted with his hoof. "Absolutely, Princess! I won't fail!"
Then his eyes darted away, and then shifted back to Celestia. "Fail again, I mean." Then he began looking around. "Although, really, I feel like we should get some more help back here anyway. You know, just in case."
"How does one rally these human soldiers?" Celestia said, glancing down at the Captain. If it were her own Royal Guards, they would already be rushing to protect their Princess, drawn by the light of her magic. But she doubted soldiers in thrall to Chaos would be especially moved.
Shining looked over to the town hall, where he had woken up. Then his horn lit up, and he placed a dome barrier around Celestia. "This will do for now. Let's see what I can figure out."


****


"There. Two miracles. What's your excuse now, Jerri?" Daniels asked before he shot down a Nob sheltering behind a hedge.
Jerriha's Fire Warriors were already pressed against the barricades, taking apart the Orks at range while Sirius kept the aliens from advancing. The Fireblade herself was staring blankly toward the sky, unable to fully comprehend what had just happened.
Finally, she turned to Daniels. "So... does that actually work? Can we just keep asking for miracles, and then watch as inexplicable acts of destruction tear apart the enemy?"
A Grot bomb slammed into a house behind them, causing her to duck back down behind cover on reflex. Moments later, terrified shouting came from within the house before the structure started to fall apart, burying the mercenaries within under flaming timber.
"We may be fresh out of miracles by now. The Dark Gods don't do ALL our work for us, you know!" Daniels reasoned.
"Right. So what exactly are we supposed to do? Just sit here and keep shooting greenskins until we run out of ammunition and get trampled?" Jerriha beamed her carbine markerlight at the incoming Orks as they spoke, feeding enhanced targeting data to the Fire Warriors around her.
"Well, we already used my strategy, so if you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear them!" the mercenary quipped.
"I'm not the one in charge of this defense!" Jerriha shot back. "Our organization has fallen apart! What is your General doing, anyway?"
Then her comms system crackled to life in her ear.


"Uh, hello? Is anybody receiving this? I never really got a crash course on using these vox things."
Jerriha blinked. She was currently receiving a wide-spectrum signal that simultaneously carried on all Company frequencies. Only the 38th Company commanders were able to use such a signal, and the voice on the other end certainly wasn't from any of them.
She wasn't the only one who noticed, either. A second voice promptly answered the first over the same signal, and this one she recognized easily.
"Yesh, everyone ish receiving thish. Who are you, and why do you have the General'sh vox relay?"
Jerriha switched her comms unit so that it would project outside her helmet, and Daniels turned aside to listen as the first voice came back.
"Oh! Warsmith! Good! Listen, everybody's PROBABLY noticed by now that there are beams of hot, burning sunlight bombarding the Orks. Princess Celestia is here to help, but I need help defending her from any Ork counter-attacks. I need anyone you can spare to come to the town hall!"
"What the hellsh ish your shoveriegn doing here? And where ish General Gnosh?"
There was a long pause over the vox. "General Gnoss... didn't make it, Warsmith."
"See that?" Daniels said to Jerriha. "He had a good excuse after all." The Fireblade sighed in response.
"The Orksh got him? Blasht," Solon continued speaking over the vox.
"Yes, but we can still win! Please, send help as soon as you can!"
"Hmmm... well, okay. I'll shee what I can do."


The vox signal cut out, and Jerriha looked up at Daniels.
"Well, it looks like we have a new objective."
"Hooray!" Pinkie cheered, waving her thunder hammer in the air. "We're gonna save the Princess!"
"Then you will do it without me," Sirius growled, his butcher cannon still pounding away at the sheltering aliens, "I will have no part in this absurd diversion."
Daniels, for his part, looked over in the direction of the town hall.
There was a brilliant halo of light floating over it, pulsing brightly and generally letting anyone in town know that there was something strange and important going on over there.
"Yeah, see..." Daniels sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I don't really want to go over there. Nor do I have any orders to that effect. So I think I'll stay here with the Contemptor."
"Boo!" Pinkie shouted, briefly lifting the giant helmet up off her head so that she could frown at the mercenary. "Come on, Danny! Help us out! Princess Celestia needs you!"
"I don't really like her, though," Daniels admitted, "and as far as I can tell, the feeling's mutual."
Pinkie decided to switch tactics. Her ears flipped down while she held the helmet up, and she pursed her quivering lips as her eyes shimmered. "... PWEEEEEASE?"
The man grimaced. "I know when I'm being manipulated, Pinks." Then he hefted his rifle again. "But I'll be damned if it doesn't work anyway. Fine. Lead the way."
"Yes! You're the best, Danny!" Pinkie dropped her helmet back down and then turned to head down the street. "I'll tell AJ all about this! I'm sure she'll give you tons of sexy snuggles!"
"What do y-Damn it, not you, too! We're not a couple!"


Jerriha and the other Fire Warriors mutely watched Pinkie and Daniels leave the area, completely stunned.
*Was... Did...* one Fire Warrior tripped over his words as he pointed to the back of the pink Dreadnought. *... Did that assault walker have a PONY inside it?*
*Yes. Yes it did,* Jerriha admitted with a deadpan tone.
*But... I thought that the Dreadnoughts were-*
*Let's not dwell on it too much,* Jerriha replied, holding a hand to her head, *the rampant insanity of our allies is the least of our concerns at the moment. Half of you, with me. The rest of you stay and support the walker, and gather up any reinforcements fleeing through here.*
The unit Shas'ui nodded sharply, reloading his pulse rifle. *For the Greate...* the words came as a reflex, but died bitterly on his tongue. *... Good luck, Shas'vre.*
*You too, Shas'ui. At the very least, luck is something we seem to have left.*


****


Everfree Forest


Beneath the darkened canopy of the Everfree Forest, the reserve forces of the 38th Company milled about restlessly, awaiting orders.
In stark contrast to the village being overrun nearby, the mood in the gloomy forest was calm, and almost bored. The forces waiting there consisted mostly of Kroot mercenaries with a few units of Stealth Suits and Iron Warriors for close fire support. Hefty Krootox beasts walked slow patrols around the area to stave off the urge to sleep, while at the detachment's flank a pair of Greater Gnarlocs feasted on a manticore that had the calamitous luck to stumble upon the small army.
At the front of the group, within earshot of the explosions rolling through Ponyville, stood the detachment's commanders: Shas'el Wraithstar stood on one side of a tactical hololith within his customized prototype stealth suit, while Chaos Lord Sliver stood across from him.
Neither of the officers had said anything for ten minutes.
Occasionally Wraithstar would look up at the Iron Warrior, or silently gesture toward the hololith, but the Astartes ignored him. The single, glaring red lens of Sliver's helmet was locked onto the strategic display.
That display showed a fairly detailed image of the valley and was centered on a large, red skull. The skull marked the spot where a Great Gargant had stood about ten minutes ago, advancing to engagement range. At the edge of the hololithic map, two similar skulls were positioned in front of arrows, marking their respective deaths off-screen.
Wraithstar looked up at Sliver. A cough came from the external speaker of his battlesuit.
Sliver ignored him and continued staring at the red skull.
After a few more minutes of silence - which represented an equal number of minutes of complete pandemonium in Ponyville, Wraithstar recalled - the Tau Commander moved over next to the Iron Warrior.
"My Lord, the reserve detachment is ready to deploy," Wraithstar said quietly, "should we attack?"
Sliver ignored him, and kept staring at the red skull.
With an annoyed grunt, Wraithstar started waving his arm in front of the hulking Chaos Lord, trying to elicit some response from him.
Sliver grabbed onto the battlesuit's sensor head and then effortlessly shoved the prototype suit onto the ground. And kept staring at the red skull.
"Lord Sliver!" Wraithstar snapped, jumping to his feet. "Your soldiers are DYING! We must act!"
This, at last, seemed to stir the Chaos Lord out of his dumbfounded trance. "... Indeed. The misssion..."
Sliver trailed off again, his visor lingering on the hololith. "... The misssion to desstroy the enemy Gargantss hass been an unqualified ssuccesss," he finally admitted out loud, tearing his gaze away from the map, "no doubt thankss to the Warssmith'ss creationss. Yess... ssurely even a defunct grox could have claimed victory with ssuch weaponss at itss disspossal."
With the ponies' success fully rationalized, Sliver finally began to ease back into the role of commander and tactician. He had received the vox conversation between Shining Armor and Celestia along with everyone else, but at the time had been too stunned to care. "It sseemss the Ork advance hass not been sslowed by our ressisstance, and thiss new witchcraft iss unlikely to completely stop the tide, either. We will sstrike ssoon."
Then he linked his helmet vox to a special channel.
"Poisson Kisssss..." he said, drawing out the pony's name, "you may begin. Unleash your horrorss upon the xeno wretchess."
The reply over the vox was rather breathless, and came with plenty of background noise that suggested the mare was in the midst of battle. "Yes, Lord! Right away!"


With that counter-measure deployed, Sliver turned on his heel, searching behind him.
Among the forces awaiting the order to deploy, a set of three large durasteel cargo containers had been dragged into the forest. Only one person knew exactly what was in them, but everyone nearby could hear the sounds of grunting, scraping, and the occasional dull growl from within the reinforced boxes. Each one had a familiar type of heavy lock on the front keyed to the Iron Warriors' IFF signals; any Chaos Space Marine of the 38th Company could open them.
And yet, the one Chaos Space Marine who knew whether opening them would be a good idea was conspicuously absent. Sliver released a deep growl as he scanned his surroundings.
"Where iss Sserith?" the Chaos Lord demanded.
One of the Iron Warriors standing sentinel in front of the containers grunted a reply. "He left some time ago after fiddling with the cages. I believe he felt he was not needed here, Lord." 
"And I would ssurely agree," Sliver hissed, "except that he left uss thesse... thingss, and no word on what to do with them." The container walls were heavy enough to prevent a simple visor scan from getting a good reading, although whatever was inside at least wasn't explosive or radioactive.
The Chaos Space Marine on guard gave the container an experimental kick, and he got an enraged, bestial snarl in reply.
"Multiple creatures. They don't sound very big," the Iron Warrior opined, "but we're still dealing with sorcerous weapons in the absence of a sorcerer. We don't even have one of the horse psykers on hand."
It bothered Sliver somewhat that it even occurred to the Chaos Marine to have a unicorn substitute for the 38th Company's head Sorcerer, but he let it go. "The Ssorcerer hass ever been... unreliable. But he hass never openly endangered hiss alliess." The Chaos Lord picked up his hammer. "Back away and prepare to open the vesssel on my ssignal. Ssoon, we move."


****


Ponyville - Altar of Nurgle


Poison Kiss swung her bolter about through the air as the Ork Nob rushed her, and the weapon bucked wildly and churned out mass-reactive shells in a blind scatter.
The Ork battered the floating gun away harmlessly, but the diversion gave Kiss precious extra seconds to prepare. Her horn glowed a sickly yellow as she fed her magic into the foe, and the alien warrior visibly shuddered. His assault faltered immediately afterward when his muscles cramped and his vision swam, and the Nob's next attack swung so far wide of his target it hardly seemed like he was aiming at her.
The jaw section of Kiss's helmet clanked open, exposing the mare's snarling muzzle before she reared up onto her hind legs.
With a sharp puff of breath, Kiss spat some half-dozen shards of bone at the Ork, each one trailing luminescent green fluids behind it. Whatever pain caused to the Ork before by the unicorn's spell increased tenfold after the darts punctured his flesh, and his choppa fell from numb fingers as he staggered.
Poison Kiss swung around and hammered the Nob's quivering leg with a back kick, grinning when she felt the weakening bones shatter. The Ork was down, and there seemed to be no enemies rushing to replace him.


That said, the area that had been cleared for her altar was still a mess... insofar as she considered its previous state not a mess. The Nurgle cultists sang praises to the Plaguefather while they hacked away at the Orks with filthy, rusted blades and lunatic fervor, but it would have been a losing battle if the fighting had been kept to conventional combat.
Luckily, it wasn't.
"Choke and die, alien freaks!" Breezy Blight shouted while she hovered over the melee, sucking in her breath. The pegasus then blew a fan of noxious green vapor into the combat, blanketing friend and foe alike.
The Nurgle cultists, free from the suffering of such toxins and anyway wearing extensive protective clothing, easily ignored the gas. The Orks, on the other hand, began convulsing and choking, making them much easier targets for the cultists' blades.
"The book!" Kiss shouted as she galloped to the altar, ducking through the mayhem. "It's time to use the spell!"
"Well, duh!" Breezy retorted before she swooped over the unicorn and then kept pace just above her. "I think it was time some half an hour ago!" She fired her leg-mounted bolter to cover her squad leader, gunning down a few retching Orks that were trying to crawl free of the melee.
"Lord Sliver didn't tell us to proceed until now, so we haven't," Kiss shouted harshly over the din of combat, "if he wanted your opinion, he would have asked for it!"
Poison Kiss jumped onto the altar, and quickly levitated the Apocrypha Contagion in front of her.
"Blossom! Come here! We need your help!"


The rather meek earth pony was fighting like a mare possessed, bucking wildly and shoving her way through the carnage with a strength that belied her unimpressive frame. A cloud of dark flies and needle-legged wasps followed her movements like a dark, buzzing tendril, flying into the faces of her targets and blinding them. The sting of the insects was inevitably followed by the impact of a bone-crushing adamantium boot, and one Ork after another collapsed onto the ground in her wake.
Rot Blossom heard the generic, universal war cry of the Orks roar to her right, drowning out Kiss's command entirely. An Ork Nob with a power klaw was howling victoriously while he held up the dismembered torso of his latest victim, firing his slugga into the air.
Blossom leapt onto the alien's back, growling after her helmet's jaw opened up. As she wrapped her forelegs over the Nob's shoulders, a chittering centipede shot out of her maw and bit into the Ork's neck, chewing rapidly into the waxy green flesh.
The Nob snarled and threw his head back, slamming the back of his skull onto the nose of Blossom's helmet. It fared unreasonably well in the impact, too.
With an enraged whinny (which was reduced considerably thanks to the giant centipede crawling through her throat), Blossom slammed her helmet forehead into the back of the Ork's head.
The Ork growled angrily at the retaliation, and then slammed her back. There was a distinct cracking noise as his skull impacted the helmet again, but he was fairly sure it was the pony's head and not his. He certainly couldn't FEEL his head breaking open.
Actually, the Nob couldn't feel much of anything at the moment.
The centipede started to draw back out of the Ork's neck, having finished delivering its paralyzing venom directly into his spinal column. The Nob's legs finally buckled a few seconds later, and he collapsed face-first onto the ground with Rot Blossom on his back.
The Plague Pony quickly swallowed the centipede back up, and then licked her lips before biting into the twitching body beneath her. Her teeth - optimized by natural selection over so many millennia for NOT tearing through skin and muscle - struggled to cut through the thick flesh of the Ork, but as she bit ever harder she could feel more creatures wriggling and crawling up her throat, eager to reach a new host.
Those new parasites burrowed into the bloody breaches in green skin, digging further into the still-living body to gorge themselves on fluids and propagate. Rot Blossom felt a warm pride swell in her heart after she released her victim, knowing that the vile insects, her parasite children, would soon found new generations within his organs and further spread the same love that Nurgle had given her. The love that had-
"OI, BLOSSOM!!" barked an irritated Trottingham accent, startling the earth pony out of her thoughts. "Stop reveling in your horrific new Chaos powers and get over here!"


Breezy snorted a puff of green vapor when she and Kiss were finally joined by the third pony in their unit.
"Sorry! Sorry! I'm here!" Rot Blossom apologized profusely, pausing to wipe some blood off of her muzzle.
"Yes, quite," Kiss sniffed, levitating the book open before her. "Now, concentrate."
The jaws of the Plague Ponies' helmets snapped closed, and the three mares closed their eyes. Including Poison Kiss, who immediately began to recite the passage before her despite being unable to see the page. She spoke in a tongue that nopony should know or even recognize; from Pipsqueak to Princess Celestia herself, the words would sound like nothing but feverish, mumbled nonsense. Yet to the three ponies and the human cultists, the words were as clear and familiar as their mother tongue.
The Orks understood none of it, but gladly took the initiative against the humans again now that the three figures in power armor had stopped bombarding them with their powers. To their growing frustration, however, the cultists themselves started fighting even harder than before. The filthy, robed warriors - who were surprisingly hard to cut down to begin with as they ignored their debilitating wounds - struck faster and more precisely as the ponies chanted. More and more Orks fell howling to the blood-strewn ground, and motes of gloomy yellow light started to rise from the earth.
Poison Kiss's horn attracted the magic flares, sucking them up into the tip while her magic built to a catastrophic peak. Her words echoed in her ears as the Apocrypha trembled before her, translated by her own feverish mind to simple Gothic.
"Let them see, oh great Lord, the truth of the Destroyer! That death is merely one aspect of the great cycle! One creature dies, and births a colony within its cooling body! To glow and writhe with life anew! Warm, teeming, filled with wonder and new love!"
The other ponies giggled somewhat hysterically, and the altar underneath them pulsed brightly in time with Poison Kiss's magic.
"Let them see, Plaguefather! Show them the glorious life within death! And then let them kill, and die, and spread life anew!"
The magic sphere around Kiss's horn casing collapsed, spilling away from her in a big, thick cloud of murky yellow gas.
Breezy quickly shifted her wings up, and then turned on her turboprops in reverse right in front of the cloud. The gas was promptly picked up in the rush of air, and then spread over the ground and out into the streets of Ponyville.


"Ah! That felt good!" Kiss chirped before she levitated her boltgun back up and snapped a fresh magazine into place. "Cheers! Back to killing, then!"


****


'Eadbusta chewed his lips calmly while he looked to the sky, his eyes tracing the distant columns of light.
Every few minutes, the columns would dissipate and fade away. Only to be replaced seconds later by new lances of heat in a different pattern streaming down from above. The beams never landed close to the village, but stuck to the valley along the Ork horde's approach. VERY inconvenient.
At least the boyz knew to avoid and run from them now, rather than using the amplified sunlight to dry off. Still, those caught in the beams didn't always make it to safety before being baked by the magically enhanced heat, and anyway the beams were disrupting the flow of troops. The flood of Orks into the village had become a trickle, and they still hadn't managed to shut down that blasted artillery yet.
'Eadbusta glanced toward Ponyville, his mind throbbing with a familiar ache. The battle-lust of his fellow Orks flowed over and through him, like a river, threatening to sweep him away in the tides of power. That was simply the way of the WAAAAGH, the power of the Orks as mirrored in the Warp's malevolent ocean of energy.
But that wasn't his greatest concern now, as he stared at the brilliant halo of golden light sticking up above the town. It seemed this ocean had a dragon.
And there was something else, too. A dark feeling suddenly creeping through the village. It created a frankly bizarre contrast with the punishing sunlight raining from the sky, but its malicious intent was unmistakable.
"Ugh! Youz gitz smell dat?" complained a Mek nearby. His Lootas were digging through the bodies, stuffing guns and ammunition into sacks while Trukks rolled by to deliver more Orks into battle.
The Mek slapped a hand over his face at the arrival of a new stench that impressively managed to overpower the smell of smoke and gunpowder. 'Eadbusta's eyes narrowed.
"Dis playss iz cursed, I tell ya," the Weirdboy grunted. The old Ork tapped his misshapen metal staff against the gutted remains of a Battlewagon.
"Cursed? Cuz o' spikies, or cuz o' hosses?" asked a Loota, looking up from his work.
'Eadbusta didn't answer immediately. A few lashes of bright green power sparked over his exposed brain.
"Oi, gimme wun o'dem tings da humies got on deir dumm fayses," the Mek demanded, pointing to one of his soldiers, "dis brees iz worss den da Squiggoth dens."
The Loota nodded in agreement before he stooped over a dead mercenary, prying off the man's respirator mask.
The mercenary, surprisingly, seemed to take exception to this, and started clawing at the Loota's arms. Unusually assertive for a corpse, the Ork noted.
"Oi! I dun fink dis wun is ded yet!" the Loota complained.
"Den mayk it ded!" the Mek barked back, annoyed that he had to instruct his mob on such a basic thing.
The Loota duly started bashing the mercenary's head in with a spare autogun, and the groaning soldier eventually fell away into a twitching heap. But then two MORE pairs of bleeding arms reached up from the ground to seize his own.
There might have been some greater pattern to this, the Loota considered.
"Wot da zog?!" the Mek staggered back, his head twisted back and forth. All around him, the dead were pushing themselves to their feet, blood still oozing from blatantly fatal wounds. The fallen humans were rising first, standing up clumsily, but the Tau, Orks, and even the few dead Iron Warriors were starting to squirm.
"Oi! We killed youz all-reddy!" growled a Nob before he stomped on a writhing mercenary's head. "Stay DED!"
Several mobs opened fire on the rising dead, shouting somewhat hesitant battlecries. The transports and infantry moving into Ponyville quickly reversed course and leapt onto the new enemies, hacking into the undead with gusto. Gretchin shrieked and fled from the terrifying creatures. Armored vehicles started turning to bring guns to bear or simply rolled forward to run down the undead horde. The battle had taken an unexpected turn, but the Orks were, as ever, ready for a new fight.


'Eadbusta growled deep in his throat as he watched the veritable carpet of dead Orks climb to their feet by the dozens. They were currently at the barricades that had made up Ponyville's first line of defense, and in this particular area the dead Orks outnumbered the living ones by a hefty margin. As more and more of his fallen brothers were filled with foul magic and resurrected, the living could yet find themselves overwhelmed.
"Youz boyz been sent ta Gork n' Mork, you haz. Youz dun heah. Dis Spiky curse ain't gonna stop us!" With an unearthly howl, 'Eadbusta slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.
A shock wave of emerald light blasted outward from his staff, washing over living and dead alike. The living Orks felt nothing but a warm, electric tingle crawl up their spines, energizing them further. The zombies struck by the wave all collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, falling to the ground in a wave of wet thuds.
The psychic pulse had a limited range, however, and more and more dead soldiers kept rising further away.
In truth the zombies were faring quite poorly against the Ork warriors, and the few Killa Kans that happened to be nearby were cutting through the undead swarm with complete impunity. But the flow of troops that had already been much reduced had halted to a complete standstill. 'Eadbusta didn't know what the situation looked like further in the village, but whatever was casting huge rays of light and flame into the horde needed to be stopped.
"Kill 'em wunss, an' den kill 'em agin! WAAAAAAGH!!"
The Ork psyker turned as he heard a gleeful shout from behind him, and then had to duck as several bodies flew through the air overhead.
Warboss Dedhamma plowed through the ranks of dead, mowing through the zombie horde like a combine through a wheat field. His mega armor boasted a big shoota on the wrist of the right arm, but unusually did not have a power klaw on the other left. Instead, Dedhamma stayed true to his namesake, holding a massive hammer with a spiked head.
This weapon made an absolute mockery of the undead swarm, and zombies of all races went flying into the air as the Warboss swung wildly through the press of enemies.
At least the larger Ork seemed to be enjoying himself, laughing gleefully while he smashed and stomped the groaning plague zombies. The undead beat and clawed at his armor, trying to drag the warrior down, but they may as well have been kittens clawing at an elephant.
If said elephant was happily intent on reducing said kittens to a bloody paste, that is.
'Eadbusta gathered his power to him, and then again slammed his staff into the ground. In a straight path in front of him, another wave of undead slumped to the ground, and a mist of arcane energy vented inexplicably from their wasted bodies.
"Oi! Dedhamma!" 'Eadbusta bellowed, walking past the ranks of Orks battering zombies.
The Warboss stomped hard on an undead Nob, and then fired his big shoota into the swarm. A few zombies fell when their bodies were ripped apart by bullets, but many more merely staggered from the shots before continuing to claw at the massive Ork's armor.
'Eadbusta growled at being ignored, and then his exposed brain matter glowed with power.
"I'm tokkin' ta ya!" the Weirdboy shouted. His eyes flashed, and bright white lightning lashed out into the crush of undead. Zombies were incinerated or blasted apart as the Warp lightning ran its course, scorching a line over the ground right in front of Dedhamma.
The Warboss grunted before he smashed his big shoota over a zombie mercenary's head. "Whachu wan', 'Eadbusta?" His other hand lifted his hammer up and dropped it down, pulverizing another enemy without him even looking.
'Eadbusta couldn't get much closer without getting rid of more of the zombies that were trying to surround Dedhamma, and found the wave attacks rather draining. So he opted to simply shout to the Warboss over the heads of the living dead.
"Lissen! We'z gotta git ta da lite ovah dere!" He pointed at the golden beacon in the middle of Ponyville. "Dat's wot's fryin' da boyz! Reel bad juju!"
Dedhamma snorted before he swung his hammer around in a circle, smashing aside every zombie within two meters of him (along with two living Orks who were in the wrong place at the wrong time). "Boss Redclawz'll do it! He'z rarin' ta go!" Dedhamma guffawed, briefly pointing his gun-arm out into the valley.


Emerging from the gloom of the storm that mixed bizarrely with the light flares of Celestia's magic, the Gargantuan Squiggoth Betsy charged toward Ponyville in an earth-shaking gallop. The Command Squiggoth's skin was scorched from the light columns and its legs were bleeding from artillery blasts, but the enormous beast was no slower for its injuries, and no less eager to reach battle.


Dedhamma chuckled and smashed the butt of his hammer onto a Tau zombie's back, grinding its spine to splinters.
"Redclawz iz reel sore 'bout losin' da Gargants 'fore dey cood kill nuffin'," the Warboss said glibly, "he'z gonna finush dis persunal-loike."
'Eadbusta grunted in generic approval. "Wot 'bout da hoss majik?"
Dedhamma stomped over to the Weirdboy, squirming bodies snapping under each footfall. "You'z da shaman, aincha? YOU deel wif it."
The Warboss whirled around, hammering aside another few zombies as he got back to fighting.
'Eadbusta grumbled something about being too old for this crap and turned away, beckoning some stray boyz toward him. He wasn't about to go challenge whatever force was raining flame down from the sky, but he could sense other points of psychic output. With any luck, he could avoid having to batter his way through a zombie swarm to get to them, too.


****


"Well, how do you like this, then?" Daniels asked while he jogged through the town square. "Now we have THREE miracles! Didn't even ask for this one!"
"This is NOT a miracle!" Jerriha protested hotly.
The small group of foot soldiers were following Pinkie Pie deeper into Ponyville, dodging around the smoldering barricades and garrisons that still fought back against the Ork advance. As heartening as it was to see elements of the fractured defense still standing, most of their attention was focused on their new "allies".
"What IS this?!" Jerriha yelled, shuddering to a halt. Ahead of them, next to the wall of a home, a dozen zombies of human, Ork, and Tau species stooped over the corpses of a few Kommandos, gnawing on the dead bodies.
"Look, I don't know what qualifies as a miracle where you come from," Daniels admitted as he kept walking, "but to us humans, having the dead rise from the battlefield to fight on our side makes the grade."
*Sh-Shas'vre... I... I can't...* one of the Fire Warriors started mumbling before he tore his helmet off and started retching onto the ground.
Pinkie slowed her pace through the village to step around the clusters of living dead, making "Hmmm" noises at each group. The zombies would snarl and moan at the humans and Tau, but made no move to attack; apparently they had some kind of weird method to pick out the living Orks as their targets.
"Well, I never thought there would be a good time for a zombie apocalypse, but here we are," the party pony mused before she rushed forward, "let's go save Princess Celestia!"
Jerriha aimed her pulse carbine at a human zombie that was shambling by a little too close. "Stay back! Back!" The man didn't appear to react to her, but nor did it follow when the Fireblade shifted aside to give him a wide berth.
"Oh, hey! It's Jacob! He survived!" Daniels said as he recognized one man who had bullet holes stitched across his stomach. "... Well, sort of."
"Have you actually fought with these creatures before?" Jerriha asked. Her Fire Warriors were keeping a tight escort around her as she they followed, almost to the point of claustrophobia.
"Nah. Heard of 'em, though. Plague Zombies. It's a Nurgle thing," Daniels admitted while he stepped over the legless torso of a Fire Warrior that was clawing its way across the dirt. "Doubt they'll stop the Orks, but they'll sure slow 'em down."
Jerriha felt her stomach protest as she watched the Fire Warrior crawl across her path, and she took a deep breath before she fired a single pulse shot at the undead soldier's head. The energy bolt cracked the zombie's helmet open and cooked its skull, and the squirming body gave a final shudder before it stopped moving for good.
"Hey, now what did you do THAT for?" Daniels asked. "You're wasting ammunition AND meat shields."
"Shut up and move on with it," the Fireblade snapped, "let's be done with this place, already."
*Shas'vre, enemy contacts!*


****


"Alien fiends!" Celestia shouted from atop her chosen barricade, her horn still glowing like a grand lighthouse. Shining Armor stood beside her, his own horn surrounded by a relatively underwhelming glow while he shielded the both of them with a magic dome.
"You will not destroy this world as you have ravaged so many others! You will NOT win here!"
Her audience, as it were, was an impressively large mob of Shoota Boyz who were gleefully shooting at the magic shield while the Nob smashed a zombified Iron Warrior into mulch. They didn't seem to be putting much strain on the barrier, but the Orks also faced no apparent resistance other than a few undead diversions.
"Big tokk fer a glowy hoss!" shouted a Shoota Boy to be heard over the rattle of his weapon. "We'z gonna take all youz ta bitz!"
Then a photon grenade landed in their midst and detonated, blinding them.
"Die, barbarians!"
Jerriha's squad poured fire into the back of the Orks, and Shining Armor nearly shed a tear in joy as warrior after warrior collapsed under the searing bolts of pulse fire.
The unit Nob scrubbed his arm over his eyes for a few aggravating seconds until his vision cleared, and then he looked behind him to see a handful of the runty soldiers in blue and black armor flanking him from the rear.
He was about to order his boyz to rush the puny whelps when his still-recovering sight glimpsed something else beyond the crackling discharge of pulse rifle volleys. Something big, and pink.
"The Element of Laughter is here to save the day!" boomed the pink Dreadnought. "What's green, ugly, and is going to be switching sides soon as an undead abomination?"
"Iz it-" the Nob had a guess, but didn't get to say it before Pinkie's twin-linked autocannon joined the barrage tearing his mob to shreds. Heavy shot stitched through Ork flesh like paper, sending limbs flying and blasting torsos inside-out.
The Nob growled and bolted, waving his choppa toward Celestia as his shoota sprayed bullets wildly in his other hand. "Leg it, boyz! Kill da big hoss! Rip 'em ta-" an ion bolt struck the larger Ork in the side, and he howled before he fell face-first into the dirt.
His remaining mob, already cut down to six warriors, shuddered to a halt when a new hail of fire scythed into their flank. Blistering crimson shells sawed through the unit in a merciless volley, catching the Orks in a crossfire that rapidly tore them down to the last.


"Yay! We got 'em! Woo hoo!" Pinkie cheered before she stomped forward, the Fire Warriors following in her wake. "Oh, and look! It's Shmithy!"
Jerriha's first instinct was to ask who that was, but it became fairly obvious when a giant, multi-legged Iron Warrior scuttled down the street.
"Mish Pie, greetingsh! It'sh gratifying to shee you in one piece, shtill!" Solon had a rotary cannon in place of his right arm this time, and crimson smoke wafted from the barrels while they cooled down.
Gaela was following closely behind the Chaos Lord, her ion blaster still crackling. "Considering that a Dreadnought pilot goes missing every time she decides she wants a new combat walker, yes, it is."
Pinkie Pie giggled as she continued her approach. "Oh, Gaela! You so silly!" The Ork Nob, who was still alive and twitching on the ground, was smashed to a bloody pulp when Pinkie obliviously stepped on him.
*Shas'la, take up defensive formation!* Jerriha barked. *We're holding this area until further notice!* Then she pointed to Shining Armor. "You! Let us behind the barricade! Put up a one-way screen facing the main thoroughfare, but I want you watching our flank!"
"Yes, Sir!" Shining replied, speaking almost entirely out of martial reflex. He switched spells a moment later as Fire Warriors (and a human with "Love and Tolerate" scratched on his gun) piled in next to him and Celestia. Gaela unclipped a drop beacon from her belt, and then tossed it toward some clear space next to the town hall. Then she turned toward Pinkie's Dreadnought and started inspecting its leg.
As for Princess Celestia herself, she looked over the half-dozen Tau and two humans, and then frowned at Solon. "Are these all that's left? Has the defense truly collapsed so completely?"
"Oh, no, not even closhe," the Chaos Lord assured her, waving his hand. "But nobody elshe wanted to come."
"Neither did we, obviously," Gaela added while she started repairing Pinkie's leg, "but the Warsmith decided that since you were actually making an effort to be of SOME use for once, we should reciprocate."
Celestia scowled at the Dark Techpriest briefly before she re-cast her spell again, sending more beams of heat and light plunging into the valley.
*We have more infantry! The main road!*
*Tankbustas! Target the heavy weapons first!*


Another firefight soon broke out in front of the ponies, and Celestia glanced down at Shining Armor.
"Captain, are you all right? Be careful not to push yourself to the point of injury," the Princess insisted.
Shining's face was a mask of intense concentration while bullets raked against his barrier. "I'm fine, Princess. Besides, even if I push myself to injury, it's sure to be less serious than what the Orks' weapons will do to us."
"Bloke's got a point," Daniels remarked, "you hold that shield 'til you drop, Captain!"
Celestia made a frustrated noise, but it was drowned out by the whistling descent of a drop rig incoming.
The payload slammed into the ground next to the barricades, and Gaela quickly deemed her repair job on Pinkie's walker "good enough" so that she could deploy the new guns.
"We've got zombies coming up on the North side!" Shining Armor shouted, his fur bristling at the sight of the shambling dead.
Solon's gatling cannon and heavy bolters briefly stopped tearing into a group of 'Ardboyz, and he swiveled around toward the stallion. "Sho what?"
Celestia hissed. "Despicable! Of all the horrors of war the Orks could have unleashed upon us, I would have thought necromancy, at least, to be beneath them!"
"It ish," Solon said bluntly, "the undead are oursh."
Celestia and Shining stumbled under this revelation, and their respective spells briefly flickered before they reasserted their focus.
"Are you SERIOUS?! YOU unleashed the living dead on this battlefield?" Celestia snapped, her horn flaring even brighter. "How could you do such a thing?!" In retrospect, it at least explained why the zombies had relentlessly attacked the Orks but left the ponies alone; Celestia had previously assumed that the Orks simply hadn't considered the hazards of unleashing such magics.
"It shouldn't come ash any shurprishe by now that we don't have the shame avershion to dark witchcraft ash you do," Solon remarked before he returned to gunning down charging infantry, "beshidesh! Maybe if you had offered your shervicesh ash a living artillery battery ahead of time, thingsh wouldn't have degraded thish far!"
Celestia's horn flickered, and the glow started to recede. "You have WALKING CORPSES fighting alongside your soldiers - probably thanks to some horrid, contagious Chaos disease - and you wonder why I don't want to help your army?!"
Solon's gatling cannon slowed in its barrel rotation and stopped firing, and he again turned to the alicorn. "Oh, sho it'sh okay for my men to die ONCE for your damnable village, but twice ish offenshive to you? I don't shee any of your precioush Royal Guardsh out here, shave the one we dragged out of hish cashtle practically at gunpoint!"
Celestia clenched her teeth angrily before she stepped away from the barricade and toward the Chaos Lord. "As they are now, my guards would have barely slowed the Orks down as they were butchered!"
"But they're not here, sho I'm making Plague Zombiesh do it inshtead!" Solon snapped back, turning his chassis around entirely to face down the Princess.
"Should I seriously be regretting not sending my soldiers here to be turned into shambling horrors?! Necromancy is a terrible atrocity!"
"And it would be nice to get shome recognition when our terrible atrocitiesh work to your benefit!"
Daniels suddenly rounded on the two. "HEY!! We are in the middle of a FUCKING WAR!! Save your bloody spat for later and get back to fighting, you sods!"
Both Celestia and Solon recoiled, and then quickly turned away from each other. Celestia jumped back into her position and summoned a new wave of heat rays over the valley, while Solon briefly scanned the battlefield for the most dangerous target as his gatling cannon started spinning again.
Pinkie Pie's Dreadnought twisted to the side so that she could look down at Daniels. "Thank you."
"Seconded," grumbled Jerriha.
"Ditto," grunted Shining Armor.


Solon silently chided himself before he brought up a hololith map of Ponyville in the air in front of him. While he had never held himself with the grim dignity that Sliver managed all the time, he was still embarrassed to be caught having a shouting match with an alien while there was a firefight going on. A firefight that they weren't necessarily winning, yet.
Gaela finished deploying the quad heavy bolter turret that had been dropped, and she stepped onto the gunner's platform and hooked into the targeting arrays. Soon their defense point's firepower was bolstered by the heavy beat of the turret sawing through the Ork mobs, further suppressing the aliens' advance to a bare crawl.
"Blasht. There'sh another Shquiggoth incoming," the Warsmith complained. Even as he tracked the enemy units on the hololith map, his optics tracked the Orks trying to break into the area and his weapons blasted the aliens away in a storm of blazing metal. The few warriors that managed to make it to cover promptly found themselves harassed by the twitching, undead bodies of their comrades, and those that managed to actually shoot at the glowing white horse found their bullets bouncing off of a shimmering barrier.
"Uh-oh! We've got a big one coming in!" Pinkie Pie shouted when a Mega Dread rushed out from behind a house. "Looks like it's time for the small, underdog hero dread to fight the big, bad villain dread!" She cackled before she brought up her autocannon, centering it on the enemy walker.
"No, don't do that. That'sh shtupid," Solon chided as he scuttled forward.
A deep buzzing echoed from within his smokestacks, and with a gesture several large wasps wriggled out of the pipes and took flight.
*What in the name of-* one Fire Warrior gasped, only to find himself shoved forward by Jerriha.
*Keep your eyes on the greenskins, Shas'la!* the Fireblade growled. *Concentrate your attention on those horrors that are aimed at us!*
The wasps gathered into a small swarm and veered over to the Ork walker, their droning rising to an intensity that washed out the sounds of the other weapons fire.
At least, until the Mega Dread fired its kill kannon.
Solon was both the nastiest-looking combatant among the enemies, and also the only one not sitting safely behind Shining's shield. It also helped that he was the biggest target, which was frankly the only rational excuse for how it managed a direct hit.
The Chaos Lord rocked back under the shell impact, his legs digging furrows into the dirt as his armor strained against the force and flame washed over his chassis.
While the kill kannon's revolver-style shell feed rotated and loaded the next munition into place, the wasps landed atop the enemy walker. Scuttling about the surface, the insects wormed their way into cracks in the plating, bolt-holes conspicuously missing bolts, and the odd vision slit that was missing any sort of protective surface.
The Mega Dread lurched to a stop. Then it jerked to one side, swung its kill kannon up at a high angle, and then fired it into the air. It immediately swung in the other direction, and its claw weapon snapped open and shut frantically, reaching for an opponent that simply wasn't there. Then it began jerking and spasming to and fro, as if the ungainly machine was trying to dance. A few seconds later it suddenly stopped still.
"Target neutralized," Solon declared, turning his guns on a Trukk racing up a side street. He cut away the vehicle's tires with a single barrage, stopping the transport dead and spilling its passengers onto the ground.
Celestia watched, but her eyes weren't on Solon's targets. She was frowning at a deep crack in his chest armor.
"Didn't you have a shield of your own?" the white Princess asked suddenly.
"Voidshong broke it," the Warsmith grumbled back to her as he and Gaela's turret shot apart the Orks on the ground.
"That was some time ago, though," Celestia reasoned, "why haven't you fixed it, like you did the rest of your body?"
"Oh, I would have, but I've been quite bushy ash of late. Moshtly arming and armoring you equinesh," Solon surged forward suddenly, stomping one leg down on an Ork that had wandered too close, "I can't even work in my shleep anymore!"


Any further conversation on that topic was interrupted by a tremendous roar. Celestia snapped her head around, grimacing at the sight of a Gargantuan Squiggoth heading into Ponyville. The beast was far away from them, at the edge of town, yet was so huge that it was still easy to see over the houses and dust plumes.
"Now THAT is a big Squiggoth," Daniels whistled.
"Unushually big. And well-embellished. That may act ash a command posht for the Warbosh," Solon noted.
A heavy explosion bloomed over the side of the massive creature, eliciting another furious bellow that rolled over the entire village.
"The Vengeance of Olympia ish engaging it, but I don't think a Baneblade will lasht long at that range," the Warsmith admitted.
The super-heavy tank, while certainly enormous in its own right, was short enough to be hidden by the intervening buildings. Lascannon blasts and streams of heavy bolts lashed up at the behemoth in a merciless volley, marking the tank's location, but the Command Squiggoth's advance was implacable.
Celestia pursed her lips. "That is our main target, then? Fine." Her horn dimmed briefly, and the distant columns of light faded away. "I will finish the beast."
Jerriha and Daniels shared a dubious glance, and then watched as Celestia's horn pulsed again.
"Bear with me for a moment," the alicorn said while the golden energies wrapped more tightly and brightly around her horn, “this will take some time.”
"Oh, no hurry. I mean, that ISH my army'sh only shuper-heavy combat vehicle about to be crushed into shcrap, but whatever," Solon grumbled.
Celestia's eye twitched, but she kept her focus. "The sun is a rather unwieldy weapon, Warsmith. This spell is quite difficult to aim."


****


Betsy smashed houses to splinters as she charged through Ponyville, plowing through buildings and crushing throngs of zombies without even seeming to notice. In the armored command howdah on her back, kannons and shootas raked the surrounding area with gunfire and hammered the few garrisons still holding out.
The Gargantuan Squiggoth's main focus was undoubtedly the enormous main battle tank lying in the middle of the main road, however. As the momentum of the Ork assault had built to a frenzied river of violence, the Vengeance of Olympia had stood firmly in the middle, blasting apart Ork machines and squads by the dozen. Many soldiers of the 38th Company had flocked to it, sheltering next to its mighty guns and protecting its flanks from any would-be ambushes. It had shrugged off every blow the aliens had thrown at it, and slaughtered hundreds of greenskins for having the audacity to try.
Now, however, with the girth and fury of Betsy bearing down on it, the mighty Baneblade assault tank lumbered back in full reverse. Supporting infantry rushed out of its path and sprinted for new cover, and Plague Zombies were obliviously ground to a paste as the super-heavy tank backed over them. All the while, the cannons of the Vengeance of Olympia spat hot, fiery death at Betsy, discharging as fast as they were reloaded and pushing its enhanced reactor to its limit.
Still, it wasn't enough. Betsy reached the Vengeance, and she swung her head down into its side, hammering the Baneblade off the road. The enormous tank was thrown into the side of a very conspicuous tree house, smashing through the wall and crushing several bookcases under its bulk. It was still upright and intact, although the Baneblade's many guns stopped firing after the impact as they completely lost sight of their target.
Betsy backed up several steps, and the main cannon on her back fired into the shattered tree house. The shot blasted Twilight's former home in two, and the second story crashed onto the ground in flames.
The shot didn't cause much damage to the Baneblade itself, though. The tank's main turret swung about - knocking more bookshelves and sections of wall down in the process - to try to angle another blast into its assailant. It was far too close, however, and Betsy drove this point home by biting onto its main gun and tearing it off of the main turret. Then it backed away with the hefty length of metal still in its jaws, chewing on it like a bone.
After a few seconds of gnawing pointlessly on the metal, the Command Squiggoth spat it out, determined to take apart the rest of the assault tank. Betsy pawed at the ground angrily, backing up further so that it could get a good charge going before trampling the machine.
Just before surging forward, though, the beast's beady eyes glimpsed the edge of a bright light coming from above, barely visible from its angle. Having already suffered unpleasant experiences with bright lights that day, Betsy tried to twist its head about to get a better look.


A giant fireball at least half the size of the Command Squiggoth itself rocketed down from the sky and straight into the beast, surrounded by a hollow roar and a halo of crimson.
The huge firebolt struck Betsy with an underwhelming hiss, but there was nothing anticlimactic about the results. The metal barricades of the howdah came apart when fully half of the deck was vaporized, and flesh dissolved to nothing and sloughed off of scorched bone before the boiling solar plasma.
Betsy started to roar in agony, but even that final protest withered within the behemoth's throat as its torso crumbled behind it.
With a final, gasping whimper, the Command Squiggoth burned and died.


****


"... Okay, yeah, that was pretty good," Daniel admitted before he went back to shooting at a Killa Kan that was staggering down the road.
"Shure would have have been nice to have had shomething like that when the Tau were on our cashe," Solon mumbled, turning his own salvos onto the same walker.
Jerriha didn't say anything, although she shuddered at the thought of such power being summoned and directed by a being that her people once had considered little more than a wild animal. Seeing the Killa Kan falling apart before the heavy incoming fire, she focused her markerlight on the Mega-armored Nobz rushing up behind it.
Celestia merely snorted before her horn dimmed again. "I am no weapon of yours, Warsmith. You'll simply have to content yourself with my sister and student." Then she released a heavy sigh, feeling a tremor down her back. "That aside, I am nearly spent. I haven't expended this much magic in a long time."
"No prob, Princess! We've got a whole other wave to push back the Orks after this!" Pinkie cheered as she stomped forward, hammering the Nobz with her autocannons as she went. "Easy peasy!" When the first Nob lunged at her she struck it with her thunder hammer first, crushing the alien to a sizzling paste.
"Thish combat DOESH look far more doable at thish point," Solon admitted, bringing up his hololith map again. "With enemy reinforcementsh brought to a near-shtandshtill, we can..."
He trailed off, and his gatling cannon slowed to a stop. "... Wait. That'sh not right."
"What isn't?" Celestia asked, her eyes narrowing.
"That isn't!" Gaela barked, her gun platform briefly stopping its ceaseless barrage into the Orks. "The Baneblade!"


The fusillade from the defenders slowed, and soon the squeal of damaged treads and backfiring engines could be heard coming from a side road. Then it appeared: the Vengeance of Olympia, shattered and sputtering flame from multiple hull breaches along its rear and side plating. The Baneblade rumbled down the road, out of control, plowing through bushes, fences, and stonework walls with equal ease. Smoke and burning fuel followed its path across the ground, leaving a trail of ruin behind it as it rushed directly toward the Ponyville town hall.
"... That'sh not good," Solon said, slowly moving backward.
"What happened?" Shining Armor asked, his mouth agape. "I thought-"
"Dome barrier!" Gaela suddenly shouted, jumping off the platform and diving toward the others. "NOW!!"
Shining Armor didn't waste any more time with questions, and quickly switched spells from a one-way pane to a dome-shaped force shield. He was worried about Pinkie Pie, who was stilled squashing Orks and was out of range, but he hoped that her walker armor would be enough to handle whatever he was supposed to be shielding everyone against. Which he still wasn't at all clear on. Sure, the really big tank was heading closer, but it didn't look like it was going to run over them. And if it was, immobilizing everyone behind a barrier was the worst defense against such a catastrophe.


Then Vengeance of Olympia struck the wall of the town hall. Its reactor core, already severely damaged, was apparently pushed over the edge by the paltry impact. A lethal blast of heat surged from the breached core shielding and washed into the internal ordnance racks.
For the second time that day, Shining Armor felt a tremendous surge of pain before darkness claimed him.


****


"Dakka, dakka, dakka, dakka!! Hah hah hah! Eet led, ya ugly ded gitz!"
The jaw-rattling song of deffguns blasting hundreds of bullets across the battlefield rang in the ears of the Orks as they sawed through the zombie horde. Huge snakes of bullets were sucked up into the greedy weapons as they tore Ork, human, and Tau flesh apart, and Gretchin slaves rushed back and forth desperately to carry more ammunition to the fanatical gunners. On the plus side, there was spare ammo everywhere thanks to the enormous casualties suffered in the initial assault. On the completely awful side, most of those casualties clawed and gnashed at the whimpering greenskins even as they were stripped of their munitions.
"Oi, Gotkin!" barked a nearby Nob and he battered away an undead Iron Warrior. "Wot's goin' on?! Wot happened ta Betsy?!"
"Betsy got kuked! Loike a joosy squig stayk!" the Loota laughed, snatching up another spare munitions box and working to fix more bullet belts into the ammo feeds.
"Den wot're we doin' heah? We shud be fightin' wit' Boss Redclawz!" snarled the Nob, booting away the Plague Zombie. A swing of his choppa dismembered an Ork zombie clawing at his shins. "Let's git ta da REEL fightin'!"
"We'z got lotsa fightin' heah!" the Loota protested. "Let da Boss do hiz ting! If he needz help, he ain't no Boss o' myn!"
The Nob growled, debating whether he should simply clobber the insubordinate whelp.
The Orks were again dominating the field in front of Ponyville, having had to re-kill most of their initial kills, plus a hefty portion of their late brothers. The alien warmongers approached the task with characteristic cheer and lack of morbid sentiment. After initially struggling with the Plague Zombies' numbers and the fact that each Ork killed quickly joined the enemy's ranks, they managed to whittle down the hordes to the point that the undead no longer posed any real threat to the mobs. Several of the Ork walkers and heavily armored soldiers, which were practically impervious to the clawing hands of the zombies, happily mowed through the center of the swarm with impunity. Dedhamma clobbered undead of any color with equal joy, and his armor had been stained a grisly red from the sheer amount of gore that had splashed against it.
Still, the river of troops that had been pushing further and further into the village had been stopped completely, and the Ork forces fighting the Plague zombies had fragmented badly. Even now, very few mobs were joining the battle, as the valley leading into the village was now peppered with roaring fires and ashen craters.
At the very least, the beams of light had stopped bombarding them, though. Thank Mork for small favors.


"Boss! Boss!" squeaked a Grot scrambling over to the Nob and Lootas in a panicked sprint. "We'ze got trubbel, Boss!"
"Ya don' say," the large Ork snarled, whirling on the smaller greenskin and stopping it short, "da Gargants iz smohked, da Big Boss iz missin', hav da boyz got burnd up, and we'z haffta kill everyfin' TWYSS now, cuz da ded iz rysin'!"
"Heh, I kinda loike dat las' bit, doh!" snickered the Loota before he once again joined his brothers in mowing down Plague Zombies.
The Nob growled in the Loota's general direction, but kept his eyes narrowed at the nervous Grot below him. "So wot's yer probbem, runt?"
A lance of high-energy plasma struck the Nob in the side of the head, coring his skull. The Grot shrieked as the towering Ork collapsed in front of him, and started flailing wildly before he fled.
"Da zog?" mumbled several Lootas as they turned around, having noticed the demise of the larger warrior.


They were greeted by the sight of an entire new army marching out of the forest that bordered the pony village. Devilfish APCs and units of floating Sniper Drones picked their way slowly out of the tree line, but at the front were Kroot Carnivores and Iron Warriors that advanced more swiftly through the brush, forming a moving firing line.
And ahead of them...
The Lootas swung around and unloaded their deffguns into the new targets, sawing bullets across the ground by the hundreds. They didn't really know what the twisted, clawed creatures rushing at them ahead of the other soldiers were; they looked quite daemonic in aspect, with patches of exposed muscle tissue and lines of bone spikes running over their backs and arms. Yet there was something quite alive and corporeal about the creatures as they sprinted toward the aliens, drool oozing from their mouths and panicked howls competing with the blaze of Ork guns. The strange beasts also bled like mortal creatures, as the Orks were most satisfied to learn. The deffguns tore several of the creatures to shreds in mid-charge, the sheer volume of bullets foiling any evasive efforts they might have offered.
As soon as the mutants reached combat, however, the situation quickly reversed. Serrated talons and bone spikes ripped into the Lootas, and the heavy deffguns were quickly reduced to desperate bludgeons while the Orks tried to hold back the frenzied monsters.


Sliver watched the skirmish in grim silence as he exited the Everfree Forest himself, his visor shifting from combat to combat.
Wraithstar couldn't restrain a disgusted noise while he followed the hulking Chaos Lord. "So these are the weapons of Chaos, are they? The living dead and mutated monsters? I feel quite fortunate that my Sept had to contend with mere guns and armor."
"It iss the way of Chaoss to wield any and every weapon available to it," Sliver mused, "and it is the way of the Iron Warriorss to usse the tool besst ssuited to the job. Prepare your firing liness."
Wraithstar nodded, signaling the other Stealth Suit teams. Several of them promptly blasted forward to join the front advance, their battlesuits shimmering in the air.
"We'll move to eliminate the scattered Ork fire support while-"
"No," Sliver interrupted the Shas'el, "attack the main combat. Target the heaviesst enemy unitss while they're sstill engaged with our decoyss."
Wraithstar hesitated. "... That will put our 'decoys' directly in the line of fire, Lord."
"I can asssure you that the Plague Zombiess will not mind," Sliver snorted, "I will launch a new sspread of artillery fire into the midsst of the melee."
"... As you say, Lord," Wraithstar mumbled.
As the Tau Commander and the Chaos Lord relayed their respective commands, the latter noticed a particularly large armored body cutting a large swath through the zombie horde, seemingly oblivious to the new enemies.
"There. The Warbosss," Sliver hissed, "that iss the primary target."
He glanced to the side, only to see that the sensor head of Wraithstar's battlesuit was staring off toward the village.
"What of that earlier transmission, Lord?" Wraithstar asked, his eyes fixed on a large column of smoke. "The pony sovereign was the source of those heat rays, was she not?"
"What of it?" Sliver grunted. "If the equine witch blunderss into a battle zone on her own, then she shall have to navigate itss dangerss on her own. I have more important objectivess."
Wraithstar turned and looked up at the Nurglite. "Do I?"
Sliver paused for several seconds, and then snorted again before he primed the Viral Scourge. "Do as you wish, graysskin. I will judge your decissionss bassed on their conssequencess... if you live that long."
The Tau Commander wasted no more time, vanishing in a shimmer of distorted light.
Sliver turned his focus back on the battlefield, humming in approval when he saw the Serith's daemonic mutants tearing down another mob of Ork gunners. He disdained such bestial creatures as primary soldiers, unlike some Chaos Legions, but he wasn't so proud as to turn down perfectly good - and perfectly disposable - shock troops.
"All unitss, fire at will," he hissed into the vox, "exterminate EVERYTHING."


****


Ponyville - (former) town hall


Celestia coughed painfully before she shifted into a sitting position, her head throbbing around her horn.
The pain receded quickly while her magically enhanced constitution worked to put her senses back in order. The ringing noise in her ears started to fade, and her vision started to clear.
Well, started to clear a little bit. There was a thick fog of dust and smoke all around her, and she at last learned the reason why the humans insisted on wearing those bizarre respirator masks all the time. A brief cantrip shielded her own air passages from being choked out, but few ponies could cope so easily.
As the subject of possibly endangered ponies crossed her mind, Celestia's eyes widened and she whirled around. "Shining Armor! Are you all right?"
She didn't receive a reply, but found him quickly enough. Daniels was stooping over the unicorn, checking his pulse, while Jerriha was gathering up her dazed Fire Warriors. Gaela leaned next to her, sputtering binary into her vox system. Everyone at the barricade seemed to have survived the explosion of the Baneblade, and she could only imagine they had Shining's barrier to thank for it.
"Is he all right?" Celestia asked tightly as she walked up to the soldiers.
Daniels nodded, pulling his head away from the stallion's chest. "He's okay. I mean, kind of. He's being held together by bandages and witchcraft at this point, but I don't think he'll be joining the zombies anytime soon."
Celestia bristled at the reminder that Ponyville was still infested with the undead. She had no idea how infectious such dark magic was, but she didn't intend to take any more chances.
"Take him out of here," she commanded firmly, "I know there are transports waiting at the West side. Get him there with all haste."
"Aye-aye, Sovereign," Daniels said, pulling the stallion over his shoulders into a fireman's carry, "things were getting a little too dicey for me, anyhow."
After the mercenary headed out, Pinkie Pie stepped forward out of the dust. Almost all of the pink paint over the hull of her walker had been burnt off by now, but the vehicle was still completely intact, it seemed.
"Hey, uh... speaking of dicey..." Pinkie's voice sounded distinctly nervous, even through the vox caster, and she pointed her hammer at a dark shape looming through the currents of smoke.


Warboss Drahgza Redclawz snarled angrily while he stalked out of the haze, his footsteps crushing loose stone and scorched bodies to powder. Black smoke seeped from the beam emitters on his klaws, and his optical visor flickered as the three sensors looked over the assorted defenders.
They quickly locked onto one of the creatures in particular, and the power fields of his klaws sparked.
"YOU," he snarled, pointing one of the crab-like weapons at Celestia.
The white Princess recoiled despite herself. The Warboss was, obviously, enormous, and there was a palpable sense of savage power about the alien.
"I haff had ENUFF o'ya damm hosses n' yer stoopid majik." The visor flashed a solid red for a moment, and arcs of crackling power crawled over the smoldering plating of his mega armor. "I'm gonna kill ya. Den I'm gonna wayt til' ya go zombee, den I'm gonna kill ya AGIN!!" He slammed a boot down, and the ground shook underfoot.
Celestia's wings spread angrily, but before she could answer the threat another voice did it for her.
"Oh, leave the little poniesh alone, you green dolt. You have more worthy foesh." The heavy, rapid footfalls of Solon's chassis drew the Ork's attention aside, much to the relief of the others.
The dust parted around the Chaos Lord while he approached, his own optics glaring brightly at the alien commander.
"I am Warshmith Sholon, brute. Shtate your name before I cut you down." A long metal weapons case on his chassis lifted up and then popped open, revealing the hilt of a crackling power sword. "A bureaucratic trifle, I assure you. Your name will be added to our archivesh and then buried among damage reportsh, no doubt."
He drew the blade with his left arm, and the power field hummed loudly as he pointed it at the Ork. The sword was nearly as long as a man, with a blade far too thick and heavy for any weapon intended to be easily wielded with one hand.


"All right! You go, Shmithy!" Pinkie Pie cheered.
"Chaos will never submit to the green tide!" Gaela snarled.
"Just keep that monster away from us," Jerriha grumbled.


Drahgza's visor blinked toward the Chaos Lord, and the Warboss hesitated. "You'z da spiky Boss, den?"
"I am," Solon declared, lifting himself up high over the ground. "I face you on behalf of the Iron Warriorsh 38th Comp-"
Twin spears of white blasted from Drahgza's klaws and cut into the right side of Solon's chassis. All of the legs on that side were severed instantly, and the Warsmith yelped before he crashed onto his side.
"The hellsh?!" Solon shouted, looking over his optics data as Drahgza charged at him. "A poshitron emishion ray? How the blazesh did you cretinsh build THAT?"
The Ork Warboss did not seem inclined to explain, and Solon made a swing at the mighty alien as soon as Drahgza came within range.
The Warboss caught Solon's blade in one of his pincers, and then twisted sharply. The power fields sparked and cracked against each other for several seconds, and then the power sword shattered in a burst of adamantium fragments and crimson sparks.
"Damnationsh!" Solon cursed, his servo claw pushing forward.
Drahgza caught this weapon with his other klaw, snapping the blades closed under the main servo hinge of the massive augmetic.
Pinkie Pie's cheering trailed off into a whimper.
"Da naym's Drahgza Redclawz," the Ork snarled. Then he ripped the claw off of the servo arm, spilling sparks and shredded metal over Solon's chassis. "But you won' need ta remembah dat."
Then he slammed the servo claw down onto Solon's head.
Several times.


"What are you idiots standing there for?!" Gaela snapped at the others as her left arm shifted into ion blaster mode. "Let's get in there and help him!"
Jerriha cringed, watching chunks of twisted metal bounce away from the ridiculously one-sided fight. "No, actually, I think we should run now. I don't want a piece of that."
"Isn't he supposed to be GOOD at this sort of thing?" Celestia asked the Dark Techpriest incredulously.
"She's right, everyone!" Pinkie shouted, again pointing her thunder hammer toward the foe. "We have to work togeth-no, never mind, it's over."


"Hyurgh!" Solon groaned loudly as Drahgza clamped both klaws around his torso, near the point where his body met the chassis.
Then, with a grim chuckle and a puff of steam, Drahgza pulled.
A horrendous shriek came from the Warsmith's body as his torso was ripped free of its mounting, and a thick green fluid oozed from the wound while the Ork held him up.
"Feh. Not much fer fightin' ar ya?" the Warboss grunted. Then he turned his head around. "Oi! Hossy! Kach!"
Celestia's eyes widened when the Ork flung Solon at her, and her wings flapped powerfully to launch herself into the air. Solon slammed into the ground below and then bounced off and rolled across the dirt, eventually crashing against the wasted hull of the Company's Baneblade.
"Unnngh..."


"Why did you DODGE?!" Gaela screamed at Celestia, absolutely furious.
"What, was I supposed to let him hit me?" Celestia countered hotly.
"You have telekinesis, you worthless agri-beast!" Gaela reminded her. "You could have caught him!"
Celestia winced briefly, as she hadn't actually considered that. Then she had to swoop to the side as Drahgza fired his un-mattah beems at her, the sizzling white rays slashing by her head. "Could we not fight over this right now? Your anger would be better directed at the Ork, I think!"
"You're the blasted Alpha-level psyker! Kill it with your mind, fool!" Gaela snapped, barely restraining herself from shooting at the alicorn as well.
Celestia huffed deeply while she built altitude, her horn again glowing with golden light. "Of course. You may have bested the likes of Chaos in a show of brute strength, Ork, but just as I slew your command beast I shall lay you low as well!"
Drahgza halted, his armor shaking with rapidly building rage. "... Betsy... you damm hoss... YA KILLED MY BETSY!!"
"And so I shall send you to join it!" Celestia declared before her horn flashed. "I will turn you to ashes!"
A bolt of golden light slashed through the waves of dust and straight toward the Warboss, trailing glimmering motes of yellow light behind it. Just looking at the psychic energy strained the eyes, and Gaela's sensors went haywire trying to calculate its energy levels.
Drahgza's energy shield flared around him as the magic energy washed over it, failing to meet his flesh or armor and dissipating harmlessly.
"... Unless you possess a personal protective barrier," Celestia amended as she pursed her lips, "... oh dear."
"WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" Celestia could feel her skull shake at the furious roar, and she absently noticed that their Tau allies had apparently had enough, breaking into a full retreat away from the encounter.
"Princess!" Pinkie shouted from below. "I'll save you!"
"Stay back!" Celestia ordered as she shook her head. "I can stop this barbarian! He will not... uh... what is he doing?"
Drahgza had retreated away from her, running back to the spot where he had dismembered Solon.
The Ork Warboss grabbed onto the sputtering chassis - nearly as large as he was, even without the Chaos Lord attached - and lifted it up over his head. Then he flung the mass of twisted metal and ruined pistons at the Princess, sending it spinning through the air with terrifying speed and surprising accuracy.
Celestia managed to avoid a direct hit as she darted away through the air, but an outstretched leg slashed across her wing, instantly unsettling her flight.
The alicorn flapped her wings frantically to avoid an uncontrolled landing, straining against the pain in her wing. Even a glancing hit from such a massive "projectile" had hurt tremendously, and if it weren't for her magic armor automatically absorbing much of the force that struck her Celestia may have lost the wing entirely.
When she did touch down, she was immediately aware of the heavy, pounding footsteps of the Warboss's charge. Her horn flashed, attempting to teleport out of his path, but as she drew deeper into her dwindling reserves of magic power and fought against her growing exhaustion the spell took a few seconds longer than usual to work. Seconds that she didn't have.
Every gem in Celestia's armor flashed when Drahgza punched a power klaw into Celestia's side, trying in vain to hold back the Ork's incredible strength. Several of them shattered before she was sent flying across the ground. Her armor clanked and shrieked as she skidded across the dirt, digging a furrow in the street and leaving a trail of white feathers behind her.
Then she slammed into the side of the Baneblade wreckage and landed in a heap next to Solon.
"So, NOW can we help?" Pinkie asked.
Celestia coughed up a bit of blood, and then raised her head unsteadily. "... Yes. Yes, you may." She fell back down into the dirt with a painful wheeze.


Pinkie's autocannon came alive immediately, hammering into Drahgza's energy shield and seizing the Warboss's attention.
"All right, big boy! It's PARTY TIME!!"
A trio of crackling ion bolts followed the autocannon volley, and the Ork's backpack started to spark dangerously when the shield generator overloaded. "Return to the cesspool you crawled out of, xeno scum!" Gaela demanded.
Drahgza himself offered an aggravated snort, his klaw snapping open. He fired another beam over at Pinkie - by far the more impressive and easier to hit target - and struck the walker in the side, spearing through her gun. The autocannons practically fell apart as the mounting servos were atomized, and Pinkie yelped when that side of her walker exploded.
The giant pink helmet twisted to the side, noting the molten mess that used to be her main weapon. "Gaela! Quick! Fix me!"
Gaela growled and fired another ion burst into the Warboss with little apparent effect. "Not NOW, Pie!"
Pinkie's helmet turned back and forth rapidly. "Well, I've only got the thunder hammer left, then, and there's no way I'm getting close enough to that guy to-"
A second beam struck the assault walker in middle of its waist, and Pinkie squeaked after all her damage and heat readouts jumped catastrophically. "It's no good! Eject button! Eject!"
Gaela had to pause at that. "A Dreadnought shell has no pilot ejection-"
Then the head portion of the Dreadnought rocketed up into the sky, leaving the rest of the walker behind on a trail of smoke.
Gaela was so stunned to see that the Dreadnought DID have an eject system - she had certainly never built such a thing into Pinkie's helmet - that her eyes tracked the retreating head component rather than taking readings on the hull that was left behind.
So when that hull exploded right next to her, swallowing her in flame, it was quite an unpleasant surprise.


****


"Trixie is most unimpressed by this defensive effort so far. Trixie will be submitting several harsh complaints with the appropriate authorities once this debacle is over with. Really, Trixie has come to expect better than this from the Company leadership."
The crack of surrounding lasguns and bolters was the only response to her complaint. Trixie was barricaded in the second story of somepony's home after the Baneblade had been destroyed, helping a collection of mercenaries and Iron Warriors who were still hunting Ork mobs through the village. That job had gotten easier since the dead started rising as zombies, but it still reminded Trixie way too much of her first combat sortie, when the Tau had invaded Ferrous Dominus.
An Iron Warrior's heavy bolter clicked empty, and he grunted before he tossed the gun aside. "New weapons!" the Chaos Marine demanded.
Trixie offered an overstated sigh while she levitated her hat up and flipped it over. After doing a bit of nonsense chanting for show, a plasma gun popped out.
The Iron Warrior recoiled slightly. "Give that to one of the mercenaries. I'll take the next one."
Trixie growled under her breath and tossed the weapon at the feet of one of the men firing out the window.
"Trixie is not some kind of walking armory, you know," the unicorn huffed, "this is not the intended purpose of this spell."
"I've seen your witchcraft before," acknowledged the Chaos Marine, "this is a much better use of it."
A flamer fell out of Trixie's hat next, and the Iron Warrior scooped it up.
"It's the principle of the thing," Trixie insisted as she put her hat back on.
"Overlook your principles, then," retorted the Astartes, "and in return, we won't question where these weapons come from. None of us seriously believe you summon them from the very ether."
Trixie laughed nervously as the soldier turned back to the fighting. "T-Trixie has no idea what you're talking about! Trixie certainly hasn't been ransacking your armories with her magic!"
"Give it a rest, Trix," remarked a mercenary before he reluctantly picked up the plasma gun, "with the supply lines down and the General KIA, that's exactly what we need."
"We have another mob incoming," announced another human soldier, "some big ones, too. Draw them into the kill zone, would you? I'll tell the artillery squads to ready another salvo."


"'Ere we go, ladz! I noo dere wuz fightin' roun' heah 'sides dese ded boyz!"
A Flashgit laughed and pointed at a still-intact building on the side of the road. Flashes of muzzle flare came from the windows, and there were a few stray Orks still shooting back from behind barricades, deep craters, and wrecked vehicles.
'Eadbusta frowned at the building, his eyes narrowing. There was something in there besides spikies and humies. He could feel the strange, light pulse of hoss majik, albeit in much lesser intensity than from the solar beacon in the middle of town.
"Hey, freaks! Over here!"
The new Orks stopped short, looking over to the side. There was a small, blue unicorn standing out in the open, shaking its rump at them while sticking out its tongue.
"You think you're so tough? Why don't you pick on somepony half your size?!"
The Flashgitz were about to do just that, swinging their over-worked and heavily customized guns toward the brash and foolhardy pony.
"Don' boddah," 'Eadbusta interrupted, smacking one of the Nobs on the arm, "dat wun's a fayk." Then he pointed toward the garrison. "Hit da hows! Da hoss's in dere!"
The chuckling Nobs rushed to cover, eagerly joining the firefight against the garrison.
"Helloooo! Are you deaf AND ugly? Over heeeeere!" the Trixie hololith called, but to no effect.
New streams of heavy shot started cutting across the walls of the house, steadily hammering the walls apart. The Flashgits' heavier guns weren't any more accurate or reliable than stock shootas, but the heavier calibers and output was severely testing the walls of a building not made to withstand such abuse.
"Hey!" Trixie's hololith griped, finally turning around as it flickered. "Nobody ignores the Great and Powerful Trixie's luscious and magnificent flank! Get over here and attack me, you insolent savages!"
The Orks did no such thing, completely engrossed in their firefight. Two of the hefty aliens fell near the front to bolter and lasgun fire, and then a missile streaked out of the top floor of the house, blasting away a sandbag pile. Several more Flashgitz were sent tumbling away, hurt but still combat-worthy.
'Eadbusta glowered at the house, incensed by its audacity to keep standing. His eyes started to glow.
"By da powah o'Gork - or mebbe Mork - I'z gonna stomp ALL youz dumm squishies!" the Weirdboy snarled. Arcs of power lashed over his exposed brain, and the 'Eadbusta aimed his staff at the garrison. "Die, arreddy!"


With that bellowed command, a green portal swirled into being over the pony home, expanding rapidly until it was wider than the structure itself.
An enormous green leg, over-muscled and trailing streams of emerald-colored mist, emerged from the portal and smashed its tank-sized foot down into the garrison. The roof was reduced to splinters, and both floors of the house buckled inward before the entire structure started to crumble around the defenders.
Trixie's hololith screamed in terror, and then, much to 'Eadbusta's satisfaction, it vanished entirely as the garrison collapsed.


"Hah hah! Nyss wun, 'Eadbusta!" cheered a Flashgit as the Foot of Gork disappeared. A great plume of dust rose from the rubble of the house, and the Weirdboy nodded his head in satisfaction.
"Oi! We'z gotz mo' zom-bees ovah heah!" barked another Nob, unleashing his weapons into the corpses of the Orks lying around the general area.
The other made to join him, but one of them hesitated. "... I don' see 'em moovin'. You sho dey zom-beez?"
"Well, dey ded, ain't dey?" the other Ork retorted. "So dey gonna git up agin soonah or laytah!"
The other Flashgitz accepted this logic enthusiastically, and promptly started gunning down the soldiers that had already been gunned down.


'Eadbusta doubted that the corpses in this area would rise against them; the flow of dark magic that was raising the dead wasn't evenly applied through the village, and in any case he could feel the curse's power wane as the battle wore on. He didn't say anything to the others, though. They just looked so HAPPY as they shot and stomped the dead bodies, he couldn't bear to disappoint them.
'Eadbusta did have other concerns, however. The rubble from the garrison was starting to shift, and he could feel several of the telltale sparks of energy within that indicated some their enemies stubbornly refused to perish.
One of the larger timbers shifted upward before two Iron Warriors heaved it aside, and a third Chaos Marine stood up under them while hauling a mercenary out of the debris.
"'Ere we go agin, boyz!" 'Eadbusta shouted, pointing to the defenders. "Mo' Spikies! Git 'em!"


Once again, the Iron Warriors and the Orks clashed at range, but this time there were no walls to protect the hominid soldiers. Although the boltguns ripped through the Ork's thick flesh and flimsy armor with ease, the Marines' battered plate couldn't withstand the Orks' high-powered weapons for long. The hapless mercenary was ripped apart easily and early by the fusillade, while the Iron Warriors started to fall back under the barrage.
'Eadbusta intervened once more, his staff crackling with green lightning. "Dere ain't no spiky, humie, o' hoss dat can stand 'gainst da Orks!" With an insane laugh and an intense headache, the Weirdboy shot a ball of green lightning at the Chaos Marines. The orb broke apart upon the armor of one Marine, and then lashed about the other two before they could escape the blast zone. Each warrior fell to the ground in a smoldering heap while arcs of green danced across their ceramite plating.
Once again the Flashgitz cheered on the display of psychic destruction, but this time 'Eadbusta silenced them by banging the butt of his staff on the ground.
"Kwy-et, ya gitz! Dere'z wun mo'!" the Weirdboy snapped.
The other greenskins waited with bated breath for this new threat to appear, many of them quickly re-loading their guns in anticipation. When nothing emerged for nearly twenty seconds, the Flashgitz started to consider that maybe the psyker had a taken a blow to his brain matter (unprotected as it was).
Then, it appeared.
"ORK SCUM!! HOW DARE YOU STAND AGAINST THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!!" The remains of the house burst apart in a blast of telekinetic force, and several Orks stepped back uncertainly.
An enormous, dark, equine shape rose its head out of the debris, its eyes blazing crimson with rage. Great black armor riven with spikes and awash with flame covered the furious hooved monster. A huge, curved horn flared with awesome power as it tilted its nose to the sky, promising a harsh, fiery death to the aliens below.
"SUFFER BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL WRA-"
'Eadbusta's eyes flashed brightly, and then much of the giant pony blew away like smoke. The residual magic faded, and soon Trixie was exposed in the middle of a crater of rubble, frozen in mid-bellow and no larger than usual.
"Dat's da wun kawzin' all da trubbel," 'Eadbusta growled, "krump it, boyz."
Trixie started to tremble while the four remaining Flashgitz approached, loading or priming their weapons as they went.
"Well, dis wun don' look so tuff."
"It'z got armah, tho. Not bad lootin'."
Trixie gulped, backing away quickly. She promptly tripped on a broken desk, collapsing onto her armored rear.
"N-Now, let's not be h-hasty," the unicorn stammered, shaking in her greaves. "Hey! You guys like flashy magic, right? And guns? 'Cuz I've got both! Why don't you let me just get my hat, and I'll giv-"
The armored pony screeched when one of the Flashgitz blasted her off of her hooves, sending her reeling into the debris pile with a large crack in the side of her armor.
'Eadbusta frowned. He could feel something else here, now. Another presence. But this one...
"C'mon, hossy! Fight a liddel!" laughed a Nob before he kicked the unicorn, flipping her over onto a shredded mattress.
"Feh. No gutz wen da spikies ain't aroun', eh?" snarled another. "Mebbe it'll fight wen it'z ded."
The four Nobs backed up a step and then aimed their weapons.
At each other.
"STAHP!!" 'Eadbusta shouted, his eyes flashing angrily.
The other Orks hesitated, startled. They were even more startled when they realized that they had been about to blow each other away rather than the pony. The Flashgitz staggered back, confused.


"Ah, what a treasure is the Ork mind," mused an almost serpentine voice from behind the heavily-armed aliens, "so feeble, so simple, and yet capable of such great and absurd feats. A race that continues to fascinate me, even after so many millennia of butchering you."
Trixie gasped, and then she stumbled upright. "Serith!"
The Orks finally caught sight of the Sorcerer. Which unnerved them, because he wasn't exactly hard to spot. He was standing right behind them, barely a grenade's toss away.
They swung their guns around, and one of them snarled. "Wun mo' spi-"
"Be silent, wretch," Serith interrupted harshly, pointing at the Ork that had spoken.
That particular Nob promptly drew his combat knife and then stabbed it into his own neck.
"Thank you," Serith offered calmly before the Flashgit collapsed onto the ground, gurgling around the blade in his throat. "The rest of you may perish, now. Come."
For the first time in their lives, the Orks hesitated to attack. They were still quite confused about almost shooting each other, never mind that one of their number had accepted an Iron Warrior's command (and interpreted it in such a fatal sense).
"Shoot 'im, ya gitz!" 'Eadbusta roared, his eyes blazing.
This seemed to snap the Flashgitz out of their daze, but by then the Chaos Sorcerer was already among them.


"Revolting. I have no need of you brutes," Serith said calmly. He was walking at a perfectly normal pace, yet seemed to appear within arm's reach of the closest Nob in an eyeblink.
The Ork swung at him, but Serith slipped to the side, reaching out with his free hand to tap the warrior on the side of his head.
Serith continued walking by, but the Flashgit growled angrily, turning toward the Marine's back. Then the Ork pressed his gun up against the bottom of his jaw, and unceremoniously blew his own head off.
"You revel in your own ignorance. You fight because you know of no other diversion with which to spend your lives," Serith adopted an exasperated tone as he pointed his force halberd at the next Ork. That warrior was instantly lifted off the ground, thrashing and shooting wildly. Serith poked the halberd into the alien's chest and then cut downward, moving the weapon with a slow and delicate pace. It rather resembled a scientist cutting open a specimen with a scalpel, with the exception that such specimens didn't usually howl in pain during their dissection.
The last Flashgit would have fired on the Sorcerer, but as his mob-mate was being attacked a purple hat suddenly wrapped over his head, blinding him. The Ork began to panic, flailing his weapon around and kicking wildly, until a few seconds later the hat lifted off of him and his vision was restored.
Even as the hat floated away within an aura of pink, he still had questions, though. Mostly regarding the belt of frag grenades that now hung around his neck, and the very troubling absence of detonator pins.


Trixie turned her head away before the last Nob was shredded by the detonation of the grenade belt, splattering the side of her armor with flecks of gore.
"That's what you get, alien goons! Nobody picks on the Great and Powerful Trixie!" despite herself she couldn't restrain a pained sniffle at the end of the taunt. Her armor seals had already been broken, and she still ached quite severely from the Ork's kick.
Serith chuckled darkly before he threw his own victim aside with a gesture. "Brilliantly done, Lady Trixie," he congratulated her.
The two were briefly encompassed by a bright green glow, and Serith whirled around and punched out his left arm just before an orb of ball lightning reached him. The energy bolt dissipated instantly, coming apart on contact with the psykant occulus and seeping into the gauntlet. After a few seconds, there was nothing but a few green sparks to suggest the psychic assault had ever occurred.
"It seems we have one more foe to lay to rest before we depart the fray," Serith grumbled, "after you?"
Trixie cringed away, stepping to the side to get behind the Chaos Sorcerer. "Oh, no, you go ahead, Serith. Trixie isn't quite feeling a hundred percent right now. Trixie will provide moral support."
Serith laughed, and 'Eadbusta snarled angrily.
"Youz dumm, spiky gitz! You'z fink ya can beat da Orks?" His eyes flashed again, and a great bolt of lightning leapt from his staff directly at the Iron Warrior.
Said lightning struck the psykant occulus and curled around it, lashing about the gauntlet's dispersal rods uselessly.
"To defeat the Orks is to defeat a force of nature," Serith mused aloud while he walked toward the Weirdboy, "but humanity has ever made nature its plaything."
Despite his words, Serith found himself rather stymied as he approached the Ork psyker. The subtle manipulations that he planted into non-psykers with ease washed off of the Weirdboy without effect. There were no gaps in his consciousness to step through, no weakness of will to prise open.
"What a fascinating creature you are," Serith said while he walked up to his opponent, "I can't WAIT to cut you open."
'Eadbusta snorted, slamming his staff onto the ground. This time there was no shock wave, but rather his psychic energies focused beneath his feet and then traveled up his legs. "If I'z can't blast youz..." A green aura pulsed around his body, and Serith's approach suddenly stopped. "... Den I'll SMASH YOUZ!!"
In an instant, the Weirdboy's size seemed to double, and his eyes flared with unnatural light before he broke into a surprisingly swift run for the Sorcerer.
Serith quickly swung his force halberd, but found it parried with ease by the Ork's staff. A simple right hook slammed into his chest plate, and Serith was lifted off his feet and launched backward.
The Iron Warrior rolled to a stop, still clutching his weapon, and a dusty snort came from his vox grille before he jumped to his feet. Serith brought up his force halberd just as 'Eadbusta's staff swung down at him, and though he deflected the blow the Iron Warrior staggered.
'Eadbusta took full advantage, smashing into the Astartes with his shoulder and knocking him over. Lightning lashed around his fists before he slammed them into his downed opponent, and his furious howls echoed through Serith's mind.


Trixie watched in horror as the Ork battered the Chaos Sorcerer, stunned that the alien could overwhelm and outfight her Iron Warrior friend.
When Serith pushed to his feet and retaliated, the unicorn was forced to revise her opinion. 'Eadbusta wasn't fighting much better than any given Ork, really. His fists surely hit harder and he was moving a bit faster thanks to his psychic boost, but there was no particularly great skill or stunning swiftness to his attacks.
Rather, Serith simply wasn't fighting at the same level as his brothers did. The Chaos Space Marines she had witnessed fighting so far had all done so with shocking speed and casual superiority. The least of them seemed leagues beyond the human warriors, even putting aside their starkly superior armaments.
Serith's movements, while seeming competent enough to a pony, hardly compared. Every blow he attempted was hammered aside, and his attempts to dodge were ill-timed. Was he perhaps just not used to real combat? Had his countless hours studying the nature of psychic power and the curiosities of aliens left too little time for training?


"Dis all youz got, spiky?" 'Eadbusta taunted before he smashed his staff against the haft of Serith's halberd. "I've stomped squishy humies better'n you!"
Serith pushed against the Weirdboy, but his boots started digging furrows through the dirt as he was shoved back. "My talents lie in other areas, savage," he hissed, "but don't think I will fall to something like you."
'Eadbusta had to consider that, even if he seemed kind of slow compared to the other spiky fighters, he was certainly tough. The Chaos Sorcerer shrugged off intense blows and surges of lightning that would have stunned other Marines, jumping back to his feet without apparent injury.
As he drove the Sorcerer back, 'Eadbusta reached one hand behind him, seizing hold of a spare dagger (or, as the Orks called it, stabby choppa).
"Wot youz got, den? C'mon!" the Weirdboy taunted.
Then he suddenly let go of his staff, stepping back and out of Serith's way.
As expected, Serith reacted too late, stumbling forward before he could stop himself. Before he could steady his stance, 'Eadbusta did it for him, grabbing the Sorcerer's shoulder pad with one hand while using the other to plunge his stabby choppa into Serith's throat. The blade sliced easily through the rubber neck lining, and the Iron Warrior released a gasping noise when the dagger's hilt slammed into the chin of his helmet.
"SERITH!!" Trixie screech, her heart jumping in her chest. Panicking, she quickly turned her hat upside down, powering the portal attached to it.
'Eadbusta chuckled before he pushed the Iron Warrior away. "Heh, heh, heh. Youz squishies iz all da saym. No powah, no gutz. Jus' trikks." Though Serith remained standing, the Ork turned away to face his second foe.
A boltgun tumbled out of Trixie's hat, and then she levitated it up into the air.
The weapon was blasted away by a bolt of green power, and Trixie yelped and jumped back.
"No mo' trikks, hossy," 'Eadbusta snarled as energy arced between his palms. He shaped an orb of power, and then brought his hands together, ready to launch the projectile and finish off the mare.
Then the blade of a force halberd punched up through his chest from behind, eliciting a shocked gasp from the alien.
"I have one more trick, xeno worm," Serith said calmly, standing behind the Weirdboy while his visor pulsed with crimson light, "it's called a 'force weapon'."
'Eadbusta screamed, and Trixie cringed away from the resonant howl as a thick green mist started to pour off of the Ork's body.
"Sadly, this trick is one you only ever get to experience once," Serith said with mock regret, "farewell, Ork."
'Eadbusta's scream grew in intensity rather than weakening, power bleeding out of his eyes and mouth in crackling torrents. It rattled around in Trixie's head even as her helmet muted the physical noise, and she squeezed her eyes shut and willed the horrible sound to stop.
Then, a moment later, it did. 'Eadbusta's flesh crumbled away to dust, and his bones collapsed into a pile at Serith's feet.


"My, but he was a bothersome one, wasn't he?" Serith asked, shaking off his halberd.
Trixie was so relieved to see the Sorcerer in good spirits in good health that she couldn't speak. But as glad as she was, it was hard not to notice that Serith still had the Ork's dagger in his throat, as if the weapon wasn't really a problem for him. Or especially noticeable.
He must have noticed Trixie staring, though, because he suddenly cocked his head up and then drew the blade out of his neck. "While I'm certain you have questions and concerns, we should be going. The success of this operation is quite out of our hands-slash-hooves now. Come, Lady Trixie. Let us retreat." He tossed the weapon away before he turned around and headed toward the far end of Ponyville, where the artillery batteries were stationed.
"O-Okay," the unicorn stammered awkwardly as she started to follow.
She paused only briefly, glancing back at the discarded dagger to confirm a gnawing suspicion.
There wasn't so much as a drop of blood on the dagger. The blade was dry.
"... Let's get out of here, before any more freaks show up," Trixie grumbled, trotting after Serith, "Trixie's had enough of this."


****


Amidst all the chaos, death, and blazing explosions that had characterized her mission so far, Twilight Sparkle had understandably let her concern about the main defense fall by the wayside. Nobody could really blame her; she had led a successful assault on a Mega Gargant, the deadliest land-based weapon in the Orks' historical arsenal. She and her friends (and Tellis) had barely escaped, and only by using one of the Orks' own belligerent warbeasts. Certain other aspects of the campaign, that other people and ponies were responsible for, had understandably not been her foremost concern. It's even understandable that she hadn't bothered to check on them when she had little else to do, exhausted as she was from her own mission.
Now that her hijacked Squiggoth had finally navigated around the flaming craters of the valley leading to Ponyville, she could, at last, get a good look at how the rest of the battle was going. And more importantly, she could finally devote an appropriate amount of effort to freaking out about it.


"ZOMBIES!!" Twilight howled to the sky, her eyes wide while she stared out of the howdah of her confiscated warbeast. "ARE THOSE ACTUAL ZOMBIES?!"
The other ponies, plus Tellis, calmly looked out at their surroundings, their respective optics zooming in on the shambling green bodies that stumbled across the plains.
"Yeah, those are zombies," Tellis declared, planting his gauntlets on his hips.
"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed placidly.
"This is so awesome!" Rainbow Dash giggled.
Twilight turned to stare at her, and the pegasus quickly sobered.
"I mean, it's so AWFUL," Rainbow corrected, her voice grim and serious, "... and maybe a little awesome."
"I don't understand!" Twilight shouted. "How did this happen? Why are there undead, now?"
Applejack pursed her lips. "Well, puttin' aside Princess Celestia frying up the greenskins like a colt with a magnifyin' glass fries ants, Ah only saw two big magic acts bein' prepped in Ponyville. And Ah'm guessin' yer big bro ain't big on necromancy."
Twilight scowled, her horn crackling. "SERITH."
"... Uh, no. Ah was talkin' about them Nurgle mares," Applejack corrected.
"POISON KISS," Twilight said without missing a beat or altering her tone.


The purple pony quickly brought up her vox connections, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in her stomach at seeing how many signums had been silenced. Finding the correct signum codex, she connected her vox link.
"Poison! Explain yourself!" Twilight barked.
"What?! Oh! Princess Sparkle!" the voice on the other end was clearly surprised by the sudden demand, but ultimately sounded rather pleased. "How nice to hear you survived your mission! We could really use more help down here! Also, I prefer to be called 'Ki-"
"More help?!" Twilight snapped, cutting off the unicorn. "What, the hordes of LIVING DEAD aren't enough back-up?"
"Not really, no," Kiss admitted with a sigh, "the Plague Zombies are an excellent diversion, but lack killing power. So, if you coul-"
"You turned Ponyville into a horror film backdrop, you lunatic!" the alicorn interrupted again, stamping her hoof down angrily.
"As opposed to a war film backdrop?" Kiss replied dryly. "Wait, hold on."
There were some muted sounds of gunfire, and then Twilight heard Poison Kiss spit something out.
"Steady on, girls! Things are bit... heated here, Princess. If you wish to criticize my tactics, then you may arrange a debriefing. For now I have a lot of Nurgle's love to give out, yet."
"Poison! Poison Kiss!" Twilight shouted. "I'm not done with you!"
"Just 'Kiss', please. Cheers!"


Twilight growled after the vox line was cut, dropping onto her rear.
"Look, Twi, I don't even know why you're so upset. I mean, the zombies are on OUR side, right?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Why don't you fly down there and ASK them?" Twilight snapped. "Necromancy is a serious offense, Rainbow Dash! It's been illegal since Equestria's inception!"
"Well, so has Chaos worship, right?" asked Applejack.
Twilight blinked. "Chaos cults aren't illegal."
"Darling, the first time we saw one, Princess Celestia told us to drive it back into space," Rarity reminded her.
Twilight winced. "Okay... 'frowned upon', maybe. But not officially illegal!"
"At the risk of damaging my reputation, I actually have to agree with Princess Dork's point," Tellis said, his arms crossed over his chest, "Plague Zombies are a lazy solution for weaklings who are too scared to get their own fighting done. Majorly uncool."
Twilight immediately found herself doubting her own conjecture now that Tellis was agreeing with her. Perhaps she was being a little bit hysterical.
"Okay, well, there's not a lot we can do about it, now," Twilight sighed.
"Oh, Ah dunno. Squiggy here trampled some twenty of them shamblin' freaks while ya'll were talkin'," Applejack pointed out while she peeked through a frontal viewport, "and it ate six of 'em, too."
"I meant... never mind. So what do we do now?" Twilight asked.
"Kill stuff," Tellis volunteered. Then he pointed out of the howdah. "Check it. Fatso's leading a counter-strike into the Ork assault force. We can join up and help finish them off. AND kill zombies!"
Indeed, there was a contingent of Tau vehicles supporting Fire Warriors and Chaos Space Marines as they gunned down the Orks and undead who were locked in a stubborn melee. It didn't seem like they needed much help, though. The Orks didn't seem to care that they were cut off and outgunned, and continued fighting the Plague Zombies obliviously.
"That's not a bad idea, considering it's from you," Twilight groused, "but I'm more worried about Princess Celestia. We haven't heard anything about her since Shiny sent out that message, and we haven't seen any tremendous feats of solar magic recently."
"So we should go find her?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Ideally, yes. But Princess Celestia doesn't have an IFF signum. We don't know where she is," the alicorn mused, placing her boot to her chin thoughtfully, "it will be hard to search Ponyville street-by-street while there's a battle going on, obviously. And we can't just march the Squiggoth into town looking for her; I think Ponyville has seen enough devastation for one day."
Rarity tsked. "So there's no fast and easy way to search Ponyville and get straight where we're needed most, is there?"
Twilight shook her head as she leaned out of the howdah. "I don't think there is."
Then a pair of metal-clad hands grabbed her around the waist, and Twilight's eyes shrank to pinpricks as she heard a flight pack building up power for takeoff.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"


****


"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"


Sliver glanced up briefly when he heard a loud, stretched-out cry of terror pass over him. He couldn't tell what was causing it, although whatever it was was rocketing overhead while trailing flame behind it.
Whatever. Didn't matter.
Sliver continued plodding forward through the crowd, his every step crushing the bodies of the dead, dying, and dead-but-still-moving. He shoved the Plague Zombies out of his way, and every Ork that came within arm's reach was knocked down and thrown to the undead. Every time he saw a pocket of Orks bashing their way through the horde he would unleash a torrent from the Viral Scourge, drenching them and their opponents. The Plague Zombies, as expected, weren't bothered at all by the toxic sludge, while the Orks stumbled to the ground retching.
Sliver had little interest in the battle of attrition, however. He was marching steadily toward the angry core of the Ork resistance, aiming to meet the massive, armored Warboss gleefully tearing through swathes of the living dead with every sweep of his maul.


"You there!" Sliver shouted, his voice emerging as a heavy, droning sound. "Ork! I demand your attention!"
Dedhamma was reasonably surprised to hear an opponent actually talking to him rather than moaning incoherently, and after grinding a zombie Nob to paste under his foot he glanced over to the Chaos Lord.
"Yeh? Whachoo wan', spiky?" he called over the heads of his boyz and the living dead. "If'n youz wanna scrap, wayt yer tern! I'z be wid ya in a sec!"


Sliver said nothing as the Warboss went back to fighting the closer enemies, and his gaze lowered to the writhing deadlock of soldiers (and former soldiers) between him and the enemy commander.
He waited.
Then after some thirty seconds, the whistle of incoming artillery could be heard from above. The Orks didn't notice, and the zombies didn't care.


Dedhamma suddenly felt the overwhelming pressure of a half-dozen artillery impacts when explosions hammered the ground off to his side. The Warboss stumbled, tripping into the gore-slicked mud, but certainly fared better than the bodies at the epicenter of the impacts. The Orks and Plague Zombies, regardless of species, were reduced to chum, and a wall of smoke and dust rose from the craters that marked their last stand.
A dark, looming, bloated shape stepped through that wall, its single eye lens gleaming bright crimson in the smoke.
"It'ss my turn, now," Sliver hissed.





Dedhamma pushed himself to his feet, his eyes narrowing at the Chaos Lord. "An' hoo-re YOU? Sum kinda spiky Boss?"
Sliver pointed his hammer at the Warboss as his helmet nodded slowly. "Indeed. I am Lord Ssliver, Vice-Commander of the 38th Company, and your executioner. Name yoursself, xeno, sso that I know whosse entrailss decorate my weapon."
The Ork chuckled heartily. "Oi, ain't you fulla spunk! Da naym's Dedhamma!" He shifted into a combat stance, ready to receive the Chaos Lord's charge. "C'mere, Sssssslivah! I'z gonna pownd ya!"
If Sliver felt any irritation at the alien mocking his slur, he didn't show it. "And you are the head Warbosss, then?"
Dedhamma laughed. "Nah! Wun day, mebbe! Fer now, da Hed Boss iz Drahgza Redclawz!" He raised his big shoota, and the gun clicked loudly as the armor mechanism loaded a fresh magazine into it. "Don' you wurree, bigg'un," the Warboss said with a grin, "I c'n giv ya a gud-"
Sliver disappeared in a flash of light.
Dedhamma blinked, staring at the crackling energy feedback from the unexpected teleport.
"Well... dat wuz rood," the Warboss grunted.
A slight scraping noise from behind was all the notice Dedhamma got that his opponent hadn't abandoned the encounter. The head of Sliver's siege hammer smashed into the side of the Ork's leg, crushing armor, flesh, and bone to a steaming pulp.
The Warboss roared in pain and fury as he fell to the ground again, dust billowing all about him from the impact. He quickly turned his head around as he tried to push himself up, only to see an oozing nozzle pointed down at him.
"Dissappointing," Sliver hissed before the Viral Scourge unleashed a jet of filth into the alien's face.
Yet another howl (interrupted repeatedly by coughing) came from Dedhamma, and the Warboss rolled to his side before he swung his hammer up at Sliver.
Sliver caught the clumsy attack on the haft of his own weapon, and then knocked the Ork's maul away. "I thought I had found the core of thiss worthlesss rabble," he complained as he raised his own hammer, "my misstake."
The hammer struck like a cannon shell, hitting Dedhamma in the top of his skull and reducing the Ork's cranium to a sizzling mush. A tremor passed through the Warboss's body, and then the alien was still, destroyed beyond any possibility of resurrection.


"Thiss iss Ssliver," the Vice-Commander growled into the vox, "a ssecondary Warbosss hass been eliminated."
"Secondary?" crackled a voice in response.
"Affirmative. Be on the lookout for an Ork called 'Drahgza Redclawz'," Sliver advised, "you can expect that hiss name matchess hiss wargear appropriately."
"Right away, Lord Sliver!"
"And hurry," the Chaos Lord demanded, "we musst find the head Warbosss ssoon..." then his voice was lowered to a mumble. "... Before HE findss the Warssmith."


****


Ponyville - ruins of town hall


Meanwhile...



Celestia's ears pinned to the side of her head while she tried to shut out Drahgza's victorious bellow, but the effort seemed hopeless.
"Can't you do something?" the white Princess hissed, leaning over to Solon.
"Like... grrgh... what?" Solon choked out. The bottom of his torso was still oozing green fluids onto the dirt.
"YOU FINK YOU SPIKIES C'N STOP ME?! HAH!!" Drahgza roared into the sky, his power klaws snapping. "I KILLED YA BOYZ!! I KILLED YA TANKS!! I KILLED YA BOSS!! NO WUN C'N STOP DA WAAAAAAAGH!!"
"Use your bugs!" Celestia suggested, her eyes frequently darting up at the Ork.
"Hgghgh... o-okay," Solon gasped out before he let his body fall flat on the ground.
Almost immediately, Celestia could see new shapes wriggling through sludge that was pooling beneath the Warsmith. Her first instinct was to start vomiting at such a sight, but she restrained herself as the first creeping Warp-insects emerged from the goo.
Then Drahgza's boot came down on them, crushing the insects with ease.


"I hohp youz ain't da strongest spiky 'round heah," Drahgza confessed before he closed a power klaw around Solon's neck.
"Urgh... not... really, no," Solon admitted as he was hauled up into the air.
Drahgza's visor flickered. "You'z still breethin'? Huh. Well, I c'n fiks dat!"
Celestia cringed as Drahgza slammed Solon's torso head-first into a hefty piece of wrecked Baneblade.
"How 'bout now? Youz a zom-bee yet?" the Warboss asked as he lifted Solon up again.
"Uhn... not... as yet... no."
Celestia squeezed her eyes shut entirely as Drahgza started swinging the Chaos Lord about by his arm, smashing him into the ground repeatedly. Dust billowed up around them from each impact, kicking up the obscuring cloud even more as the Warboss brutalized the Warsmith.
After about a full minute of this, the Ork stopped and looked down at his victim. "Ya ded yet?" Drahgza asked.
"... No," grunted Solon.
"Stop answering him, you idiot!" Celestia snapped.
"Oi!" Drahgza snapped back, pointing a claw at the alicorn and causing her to recoil. "Shut it, hoss! You'z next!"


Before Drahgza could continuing beating on the defeated Chaos Lord, a loud, buzzing crack came from within the swirling dust.
Drahgza jerked to attention before a concentrated ion bolt struck his shield, momentarily overloading the generator and causing the barrier to short out again.
He turned just in time to block an axe strike with his arm, grunting as the crackling edge of the power weapon bit through his armor.
"Die xeno filth!" Gaela cursed, her servo arms darting forward to attack.
Drahgza was just as fast, however, and as the augmetics jerked forward his power klaw snapped closed around their joints, severing two of them at once. Then he gave a light shove forward, throwing the Dark Techpriest off of him. Gaela barely kept her footing when she landed, her axe and ion blaster still crackling.
"Wot's dat? You wanna gimme anudda go?" the Warboss chuckled. "Youz got gutz, ya do!"
His power klaws snipped open and closed repeatedly. "Lessee how much, 'zactly, eh?"
"Dark Gods, guide my blade!" Gaela roared, her power axe crackling before she lunged for the Ork.
Drahgza batted the axe away with one klaw, and then aimed the other to cut into the Dark Techpriest's shoulder. Gaela parried the Warboss's strike, but nearly lost her left arm in the exchange; the edge of the klaw slashed through the adamantium plating with ease, cutting a gouge into the limb before she stepped back out of range.
Drahgza didn't let her get away, however, and surged forward to slam his shoulder into the cyborg. They impacted in a blast of sparks, and Gaela grunted painfully as she was smashed off her feet and thrown onto her back.
"You don' luk loike ya'd mayk a gud zom-bee," Drahgza mused, looking down at the Dark Techpriest. He reached a klaw down toward her neck.
Wraithstar's power blade suddenly stabbed deep into Drahgza's forearm, digging through the klaw and slicing through the power distributor cables attached to the gauntlet. Then he jumped away.
"DA ZOG?!" Drahgza yelped, stepping backward in shock. Although the surrounding dust made it hard to see opponents several meters away, the black battlesuit leaping out of melee range hadn't snuck up on him through the haze. It had simply appeared in front of him, as if from nowhere. And then it vanished back into nowhere, blinking out of sight just as the Ork was contemplating retaliation.
"Oi! Wot wuz dat?!" Drahgza demanded, twisting back and forth and searching around him. "Stop hydin'! Git owt heah! You slipp'ry git! I'z gonna..."
About then, Drahgza noticed that his arm was starting to hurt. A lot.


Gaela turned her face away before the Ork's right arm exploded, having lost containment of its antimatter cycler. Data flooded over her optical as it analyzed the breach, and while the Ork roared in pain and staggered away, she slapped her hands together.
"Accursed device, open your spirit to me and submit to the will of Chaos!" Gaela snarled, her optical glowing bright. "The machines of the alien be damned! Let such scrap falter in a manner befitting of its fabrication!"
Smoke poured off of the right side of Drahgza's armor as he sucked in air, and his visor twitched angrily while his senses returned to him. He still couldn't see any sign of the black battlesuit that had attacked him, but he decided that he found the Dark Techpriest's shouting distracting. He aimed his remaining un-mattah beem at her and fired.
A puff of harmless gas squirted out of the emitter rather than a spear of hot devastation, complete with a pathetic "Pffft" noise.
"Your weapons are unmade, savage!" Gaela growled before she picked up her axe. "I will rend you limb from-"
Then Drahgza kicked her in the chest, lifting Gaela into the air and sending her bouncing away.
As the Dark Techpriest slammed painfully into the side of a wrecked Chimera, Drahgza growled in fury.
"You gitz fink ya c'n beat me? ME?! I'm DRAHGZA, youz idjit!" He stomped forward toward Gaela while his remaining klaw crackled dangerously. "Even wif wun klaw, or no klaw, I c'n tayk ya puny humie body ta..."
He slowed down and trailed off when he became aware of a distant noise getting louder. It sounded like a rocket engine. A rocket engine that was screaming a long, mournful protest.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
Drahgza, not willing to be taken off-guard again, whirled around with his remaining klaw at the ready. Eventually he saw that there was something shiny blasting by far overhead. And it seemed to be upset.

"I DUB THIS TECHNIQUE..." Tellis shouted, his voice only barely audible over Twilight's screaming, "SMART BOMB!!" The Raptor promptly flung Twilight down at the massive Ork.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Twilight finally seemed to finish her implausibly long protest as she careened toward the Warboss. A moment later, her horn flashed with power, wrapping her armor in magical purple energy.
"BUZZ OFF!!" Drahgza snapped, firing his un-mattah beem straight into the oncoming "projectile". His weapon released a useless puff of smoke. "ZOG!"


Twilight smashed into the Warboss like a crackling purple meteor, blasting apart much of his armor. The ground cracked under the Ork, and he was sent flying through the air while flailing his remaining arm. He hit the ground rolling, and more bits and pieces of armor were scraped off before he slammed into the Chimera wreck right next to Gaela.
Twilight Sparkle was flung away in the opposite direction, bouncing a full four times across the ground before she smacked into the chunk of Baneblade wreckage next to Celestia. She then collapsed onto the dirt next to her teacher, squeaking pathetically. Her helmet and one wing casing had mostly come apart during her brief stint as a missile, and her force harmonizer was nowhere to be found.
"Sorry! Forgot this!" Tellis shouted from above.
The force harmonizer landed on Twilight's back, eliciting another pained yelp from her while Celestia gaped in shock.


"Ugh... wot... jus..." Drahgza was still face-down in the dirt, and purple electric arcs danced about what remained of his devastated mega armor. His optical visor was cracked, too, and that was perhaps why he saw two Dark Techpriests standing up over him once he managed to twist his head around to look up.
"By the will of the Omnissiah and my Lord Warsmith do I declare your life forfeit, xeno." Gaela said calmly before she raised her axe in both arms.
Her left arm sparked a bit, damaged as it was, but it proved up to the task demanded of it. Drahgza's head was severed at the neck without further ceremony, rolling away on a thick crimson trail.


Gaela didn't say anything immediately after executing the foe, breathing heavily while she glared down at the new blood puddle around her feet.
Solon was the one to eventually break the silence, pushing himself up on his gatling cannon. "Well, that meansh-"
Then Tellis landed on him, plowing the Warsmith into the ground and causing Celestia to cry out in shock again.
"I'm claiming quarter credit on that kill!" the Raptor shouted, pointing at Drahgza's corpse. "Also, I suppose Sparkle should get a quarter credit, even if she was being a total wuss about this."
"Uuuhngh..." Twilight commented as sparks blasted out of her remaining wing case. A moment later the repulsor disk blew out, breaking off most of the other wing's plating.
Then Tellis nodded to Gaela. "You can take half a kill for a decent execution line. If other people contributed to the Warboss's death in some way other than trying to tire him out by getting their asses kicked, they'll have to share some portion of your score."
Gaela's optical flashed again as she glared up at the Chaos Lord. "Get. OFF. The Warsmith,” she snarled.
"Nah," Tellis said.
While Gaela trembled like a kettle brought to a boil, Wraithstar de-cloaked behind the Chaos warriors, walking up next to Celestia.
"The enemy Warbosses have all been eliminated," he said slowly, as if he could hardly believe it, "the Gargants are destroyed, and the remainder of the assault force is being routed. The mission... is complete, Lords."
"Coo'. See ya, losers," Tellis replied. Then he blasted off into the air again, scorching Solon's dismembered body with his ignition.


"Tellis joining my unit..." Twilight said, tears crawling from her eyes. "NEVER. AGAIN."


****


Ork landing zone - four hours later


""Ere he iz, Boss Coggz!" the Nob said enthusiastically, jogging toward a mob of Orks idling next to a smoldering Battlewagon. "He wuzn' eezy ta git, but we got 'im!"
Hazarr Wrencha snorted while he followed the warrior. "Wot wuz so 'ard 'bout taykin' down a humie wiffout killin' 'im?"
"Da furst free we pikked up wuz no gud," the Nob explained, "dey jus' kept mohnin' an' tryin' ta byt us. I fink dey wuz ded. But dis wun ain't! We'z chekked!"
Hazarr rolled his eyes as the lesser Orks parted in front of him. In the middle of the mob was a human man in a dirty, dark red robe, unmasked and unbound. He was breathing heavily and was obviously injured, but not fatally so.
"Gud enuff," Hazarr declared, walking up to the man and staring down at him malevolently.
The mercenary looked up at the Ork, fairly confused. He had no idea why he had been spared a brutal death on the battlefield, or why he had been taken to what seemed to be some kind of Ork leader.
"All roight, humie. Tokk," Hazarr demanded, "whaddya noh 'bout da WAAAGH signul?"
The mercenary jerked his head back. "... Are you being serious right now? Am I really being interrogated by Orks?"
"So wut?" Hazarr asked. "Dis iz wot'z happenin'. You tokk, I don' kill youz. Pritty gud, eh?"
The man almost laughed. "And why should I believe that? I've never heard of an Ork letting prisoners go."
"I sweah to Gork and Mork dat I won' kill youz if ya tell me wot I wanna noh," Hazarr said solemnly. "Wot's wit da signul?"
The mercenary wet his lips. "Oh, whatever. I don't care if you know or not. It was the Tau."
"Da grayskins?" Hazarr asked, surprised.
"Yeah. They set up that beacon to lure the Ork fleets through here. And they set up another one further away, to keep the fleets going. Like a trail of bait through the sector."
Hazarr mulled that over for several seconds. "Why'd dey do dat?"
"To lead the aliens that were destroying their planets into a bunch of other aliens that were destroying their planets. Bloody brilliant, eh?" the man chuckled wryly, and then started coughing painfully.
Hazarr nodded slowly as he considered the new information. "Okay, den. Den wot're you humies an' spikies doin' heah?"
"We own this planet, now," the man shrugged, "and we don't want a bunch of Orks running around all over it."
Hazarr started to nod again, but stopped. "Wayt. Den why'z da signul on? Shoodn' ya kill da grayskins an' smash it?"
"We found a different way to ward you lot off," the mercenary growled, "I don't understand the details, but this system will be wrapped in Warp storms soon. No Orks will be able to get into or out of the system."
Hazarr frowned. "Youz c'n do dat?"
"Chaos can do that," the mercenary stated brazenly, "now that you've lost here, there's nothing left to stop us! The 38th Company will be triumphant! This planet will be OURS!"
Hazarr again fell silent to consider the claim at length.
"... Warp stahm, eh? Dose DO mayk fer ruff spess flyin'." Hazarr nodded. "A'right. I'm dun. I ain't gonna kill ya."
The mercenary stared, not quite believing the Big Mek.
Then Hazarr pointed to the Nob. "You c'n do it."
"Yeah, okay," the human sighed, "I saw this coming."
"Well, ain't you smaht," the Nob chuckled, raising his choppa, "yer noice, big hed'll luk gud on me pointy stikk!"


Hazarr turned away while the soldier was butchered, his optics visor gleaming.
"Boss?" murmured one of the smaller Orks. "Wot'll we do now, Boss?"
The Big Mek glanced over to the Slugga Boy. "Wot wud YOU do if ya wuz stukk wit a buncha spikies on a planet loike dis?"
"Fight 'em!" the Ork shouted without hesitation. "Da udda Boss wuz week! But now YOUZ da Boss, Coggz! Lez git Drahgza's boyz an' krump da spikies!"
Hazarr smacked the other Ork upside the head with his welder, knocking the Slugga Boy over.
"Youz an idjit," the Big Mek growled, "da humies ain't worreed 'bout fightin' us, dey'z worreed 'bout us gettin' mo boyz! Dat's why dey'z using a Warp stahm!"
The other Ork hesitantly got back to his feet. "Uh... so?"
"So, we'z gonna do 'zactly wot dey's afrayd uv," Hazarr snarled, "we'z heddin' bakk ta da shipz. An' den we'z gadderin' up Drahgza's Weirdboyz. I gotz an eydeah."