Iron Hearts: Book 5
Chapter 8
Nethalican
****
Ponyville - town periphery
"What can I say about General Cyrus Gnoss?"
Shining Armor spoke to no one in particular, using the firm, slightly morose tone he used when speaking at a Royal Guard event or making an announcement to the barracks.
"... I didn't know the man, really. I met him only a few days ago, and we didn't exactly spend much time together."
Shining spent a moment shifting uncomfortably. Two of his legs were in plasteel splints, and a large med patch on his side hid a criss-cross of nano-stitching.
"What can I infer about him? Nothing good. He supervised a war machine that specialized in piracy. His fleet - by all indications - has killed countless innocent people and enslaved countless more. It preys on the weak and helpless, and is based on service to a deeply malevolent power. It works prisoners to death regularly, choking the life from them, and from idle rumors I've come to believe that's one of the more gentle ways this army kills people. He didn't obviously do anything to make his army LESS cruel, and he almost certainly had the power to do so."
The stallion pursed his lips, falling silent for several long seconds.
"But what about his strength?" the pony finally asked. "That aspect of General Cyrus Gnoss I do know something about. When I failed, he's the one who had me dragged to safety and treated. By the time nearly every pony soldier had fled from Ponyville, he wasn't far from the front. He was helping shoot down Orks the entire time that I was lying in a useless heap, being revived. And when the Ork Warboss was about to finish me off, he ran right up and stabbed it. Because, really, what else was he supposed to do?"
Shining's voice hitched slightly as the scene replayed in his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes again and looked down at the grimy body bag resting on the ground in front of him.
"Maybe he thought that giving me a few more moments of life would help? That I could summon some spell or inner reserve of power and turn things around? If so, he was wrong. I just laid there as he died, too exhausted and broken to help him the way he had helped me."
Another deep breath. "I think... I think that he thought he could win. Or that he had to try, at least. He certainly could have gotten away while the Warboss was killing me. But he chose to fight, instead. I'm not sure I could have made that choice if our situations had been reversed."
Shining focused on the black Chaos Star drawn over the top of the body bag. His horn started to feel uncomfortably warm while he stared at it, but he forced himself not to look away.
"Among the servants of Chaos, at least, strength is a virtue, no matter how it's used. So in that way, at least, he was a virtuous man. And maybe that's enough. We didn't ask the humans to stay here so that they could show us their technologies or join our loving, happy society. We wanted them to stay so that they could fight for us. Kill for us." He gulped. "D... Die... for us..."
As Shining Armor's voice weakened, a purple hoof settled gently on his shoulder.
The stallion glanced behind him. Twilight was there, looking only slightly better off than he was; her left wing was in a splint and she had a brace around her neck. Behind her, also without their armor suits, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack all stood quietly, looking miserably at the sack that held the remains of the 38th Company's highest-ranking human.
They were the only ones there.
The five ponies were the only ones who were willing to take the time to see off the fallen warrior. The only ones who felt the old pirate may have needed any sort of service or recognition beyond having his innards scooped up into a bag and his name added to a list of casualties. Shining Armor had made it clear to the Company commanders that he was going to conduct a brief funeral - after learning that the Company had no such thing planned - and he had distributed invitations, but nobody but the equines had bothered to attend.
Which wasn't to say that they were the only ones around.
A constant train of menials marched into and out of Ponyville, walking a circuit from the devastated streets to a giant pit dug into the earth. The pit had been carved open in under an hour by the Dark Mechanicus digging teams, dug nearly a full kilometer wide. Then the Company had piled the Ork dead into the hole, carpeting the bottom with green corpses as well as the massive Squiggoth carcasses. The aliens made up the first layer in the mass grave. But they weren't the last layer.
The menials heading into the village were empty-handed, being ushered along by none other than Prince Blueblood. Those that trod the path out of Ponyville carried zipped-up body bags filthy with blood and dirt, some of them still obviously writhing. Some workers carried a simple trash sack filled with gore. All such remains were hurled into the pit with equal ceremony, rolling down a wet incline of bagged corpses to the bottom.
Only the Iron Warriors bodies were handled with anything resembling respect, being stripped carefully of their armor and wargear and then placed in large iron boxes with the Legion skull engraved on top. They were stacked at the edge of the pit. Apparently they were to be the last additions.
Applejack couldn't help but cringe while Big Macintosh walked by, his head hung low to the ground. The stallion was towing a big metal wagon behind him filled beyond capacity with bagged corpses. A trail of oozing fluids followed behind the wagon, and every time a bump in the road would unsettle it, a few body bags would tumble off the top and roll out into the street to be collected later.
Big Mac reached the pit and turned to bring the cart up along the edge. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, his ears flipped down and a sickly feeling churning in his stomach as a pair of menials approached. They unlocked a mechanism on the cart, and then they tilted the wagon bay over, dumping near a hundred bodies into the dirt at once.
Big Mac couldn't bear to watch another wagon full of dead be dropped into the mass grave like garbage into a landfill, but Shining Armor couldn't tear his eyes away. The menials pulled the wagon bay flat again once it was empty, gave Big Mac a friendly pat on the head, and then guided him back into Ponyville for the next load.
"Twilight," Shining croaked weakly, "what have we done?"
Twilight felt her chest tighten at the question. "We didn't do this, Shining. We didn't want this. Everything we've done so far has been to avoid as much death and fighting as possible."
"Yeah..." the stallion agreed. "But have we really done enough?"
"Sure! I mean, WE have, specifically," Rainbow answered without thinking, gesturing to herself and the other mares. The Guard Captain slumped, and Rarity cuffed Rainbow harshly on the shoulder.
"We've made mistakes," Twilight admitted, "but our efforts are coming a head now. Once the Orks are stopped and our planet is safe, we can make a better future. Not just for us, but for them, too."
A new voice replied to Twilight before Shining could. "Oh, what wonderful, heartfelt hope! It warms my very soul! Or what's left of it, at any rate."
Twilight's ears went stiff when she heard Serith behind her, and she whirled around. Or tried, anyway. Her wing brace smacked into her brother, and she froze up as a jolt of pain ran up her spine. The other ponies were equally startled, if not so quick to take up a defensive pose.
"Lord Serith," Shining said uncomfortably after he twisted his head around, "I didn't see you there."
"Your awareness is lacking, Lord Armor. A troubling weakness, but given your current state I don't think you need a lecture from me on the matter." Serith made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "In any case, I am not here to debrief you. Although I am glad I had the opportunity to meet with you again on this wonderful occasion!"
All the ponies were staring at the Sorcerer now, their expressions ranging from incredulous to revolted.
"Wonderful? You call this wonderful?" Rarity asked, gesturing to the body bag in front of them.
"Wonderful, yes. Unclean, perhaps, but we're working on that."
Serith swept his hand sharply to one side, and Shining Armor whinnied in surprise when Gnoss's body bag suddenly leapt into the air and flew in an arc into the massive pit. Serith did not turn his head to watch it land.
"Can you hear them, Lord Armor?" the Sorcerer said, tilting his helmet up to look at the sky.
"Wh-Who?" the stallion asked, backing away nervously.
"The fallen. The dead. Their souls cling to this place in a maddening storm of psychic power," Serith declared, his voice almost rapturous. "I can hear them. The terror of their final moments. Their pain echoes through the Empyrean in burning cacophony. Human, Ork, even the Astartes, trapped in a nightmare without end." He paused. "No ponies, though. Odd."
"Did you come here just to remind us why we hate you even though you're saving our planet?" Twilight groused.
"Not at all," the Sorcerer replied calmly, looking down at the ponies again, "I'm merely updating you on our progress, Princess. We have won. The Ork ships are fleeing the system. The Warp is ready. My servants are bringing the first components to construct the Nethalican. This evening, after night falls, the portal will be complete, wrapping this system in the furious tides of the Warp storm." He pointed toward the pit slowly being filled behind him. "That will make a fine place for the Nethalican. The portal will rest upon those who gave their lives for its construction. Eventually a full temple will be constructed upon it. A fitting memorial for the dead, don't you think?"
"You're going to build a Chaos Temple right outside of Ponyville?" Twilight asked uncertainly.
"Indeed. In will be the second nexus of the Company's power on this world, and a reminder to your kingdom of who they owe their salvation." A snort came from Serith's vox grille. "It will also serve as an example to those 'Sunsworn' buffoons, should they think to build more of their absurd shrines around here."
The ponies shared a long, silent glance.
"... Well, this is what we've been working toward all this time," Shining Armor admitted, "I'm just glad that nobody else has to die."
Serith laughed. Twilight briefly fantasized about locking him in one of the iron caskets, wrapping it in magic seals, and burying it forever.
"Oh, Lord Armor, so hopelessly naïve," the Sorcerer said, "it must run in the family." At seeing the stallion's confused and slightly pained expression, Serith elaborated. "Even the establishment of the Nethalican is quite dangerous. But that aside, your world is now but one more planet in the greater galactic melee that grinds on without any end in sight. The Orks have a presence here, as do the Dark Gods. The Nethalican will protect your world from Ork fleets, but there are many other dangers and enemies that are not so easy to predict and divert. There will be no end to the war. No end to the death."
"Thanks for the pep talk, creep," Rainbow Dash deadpanned.
Serith pretended that she hadn't said anything, looking off toward the mass grave. "Ah, they're almost ready."
Indeed, the train of menials had thinned considerably, and Big Mac was positioning his next load of corpses next to the pit for dumping. On the other side, workers and servitors were pushing the iron caskets into the grave.
"In the name of the Dark Gods do I bless these fallen souls," Serith intoned with far too much humor in his voice, "and in the name of the Dark Gods are they consumed. Upon their graves a new order shall arise, and the power of Chaos shall infect this world."
Teams of menials carrying industrial flamers walked up to the edge of the pit, surrounding it. Then they washed over the mass grave with fire, turning the pit into an enormous funeral pyre.
"Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust." With that final statement, Serith finally took his leave.
Applejack had a distinctly uncomfortable expression on her face while she watched the flames building.
"Well, Ah... Ah think I'd better head out fer now," she said nervously, "everypony at the Acres has already come back, so... uh, yeah. 'Scuse me." The apple farmer quickly trotted away, her expression mostly hidden by her hat.
Twilight wet her lips anxiously before she glanced over to Shining Armor. "Shiny? Are you going to stay for... well, whatever constructing the Nethalican entails, exactly?"
"Yes. I think I should," he answered, "if only to see all of this finally end. I've already sent a dispatch to let Cadence know I'm okay, so I should be fine to stay for a little longer."
"You told her you were 'okay'? Did your message mention that you were shot and suffered catastrophic magical feedback that knocked you comatose while you were exposed to Necromantic disease-based Chaos magic?" Twilight asked with a quirked eyebrow.
"I might have left some details to the imagination," he replied curtly as he stood up, "let's find some place to rest, for now. Judging by what Serith said, it's going to be a little while before the portal is ready to be opened, and I don't really feel like watching any more of the process."
****
Sweet Apple Acres - farmstead
Daniels lounged over a sofa in the middle of the Apples' den, sipping from a glass of apple juice. Braeburn and Apple Bloom were next to a table below him, with the latter pacing back and forth anxiously.
"Look, Little Cuz, Ah'm just sayin' that ya should calm down an' let them Techy Priests do their thing. Ya ain't helpin' nopony by wearin' a trench in the floor," the frontier stallion said, leaning a leg against the table.
"But... But..." Apple Bloom tried and failed to properly convey her unease, scuffing the floor with her hoof. She started sniffling.
Braeburn winced. "C'mon now, no more tears. Didn't Daniels say Crabapple was just fine?"
"That isn't even close to what I said," Daniels interjected, taking an apple from a bowl on the table, "I said that the DarkMech scraped a black chunk of burnt metal out of the ground near a huge crater, and that they found 'unusual energy readings' from something that should be nothing but an ashen hulk." He took a bite of the apple.
Braeburn gave the mercenary an annoyed look. "Okay, yeah, but didn't ya say the same thing when they found Princess Luna? And SHE survived!"
Daniels swallowed the mouthful of apple. "True. But she's like a pony Goddess or something, so I wouldn't use that as a basis of comparison."
Apple Bloom was pacing even faster now, her legs scurrying rapidly with her face scrunched up in concern.
"Ya know, ya could stand t'be a little optimistic," Braeburn huffed, leaning over and jabbing the man with a hoof.
"So I've heard," Daniels drawled, taking another bite of his apple.
"Ah just wish they would let me see her," Apple Bloom sniffled.
"Aw, Cuz," Braeburn sighed and hugged the filly against his side, "Ah know it's rough. But believe me, them apes have it real tough right now, too. So ya gotta be strong and trust them DarkMechs to take care o'business, alright?"
"Trusting the DarkMech to do something that doesn't benefit them or directly pay off a debt they owe is silly," Daniels interjected.
"Eat yer apple, would ya, Dan?" Braeburn growled as Apple Bloom sniffled again.
The front door slid open, and Braeburn turned his head around to see Applejack step hesitantly into her home.
"Cuz! Yer back! Great!" Braeburn said, brightening instantly. Applejack seemed almost startled when the stallion walked up to her. "How's the town lookin'?"
Applejack cringed, chewing on her lip. "... Better," she mumbled eventually. "They've got sanitation teams goin' through Ponyville... well, ya know. Sanitizin' stuff." She paused. "Mostly with fire."
"Prob'ly a good idea, what with all them zombies ya told me about," Braeburn reasoned, "what'd they do with all o'them, anyway?"
Applejack's eyes glanced over to the side for a second before she returned her attention to her cousin. "Well, not many survived the fight. The Orks really seemed to like choppin' 'em up. But the rest they tracked down and burned with flamers."
"So they got 'em all? Ya sure?" Braeburn asked.
Applejack shrugged. "Pretty sure."
****
Ponyville - Lyra and Bonbon's house
"Well, this isn't so bad," Bonbon mused, staring at the giant hole in the side of her house. "It'll take a lot of work, and we'll probably have to knock out more of the wall. But at least it's only this side."
The cream-colored mare looked over the rest of the house, noting the dried bloodstains on the floor and the many, many bullet casings. "This place needed new carpeting anyway. We can just think of it as renovating!"
Bonbon smiled softly to herself.
Then the door behind her creaked open.
"Bonbon! Bonbon!" Lyra said excitedly, bouncing into the room and badly startling the earth pony. "I found Jakey! Jakey's all right!"
Bonbon sighed in relief and turned around. "Oh, thank goodness. I thought we'd have to go to that awful death factory Ferry Dominic or whatever and get you a... new... one......"
She trailed off when she saw the familiar mercenary stumble awkwardly into the living room, his arms outstretched in front of him. A series of dirty bandages were wrapped around the man's torso, although they could hardly obscure the fact that Jacob had suffered a serious wound and hadn't received any serious medical attention.
This clearly did not disturb Lyra in the slightest.
"I'm so happy!" the green unicorn said, grinning and hugging Jacob's leg. "I just knew he'd make it!"
"Hhhnnngggn..." Jacob groaned, swaying slightly from side to side.
Bonbon's ears flipped down, and she whimpered in fear.
****
Sweet Apple Acres - farmstead
"Well, good. Last thing we need 'round here on top of Everfree monsters and Orks is the livin' dead," Braeburn grumbled.
Applejack was looking past him again, and it took a few seconds for her to nod absently in agreement.
"Anyway, Ah got the shipment of funky alien seeds the other day," the stallion continued, "didn't want to plant 'em before the big defensive, so we... uh..."
Braeburn noticed that Applejack's eyes kept shifting from his face to something behind him, even as he talked. He clearly didn't have her full attention.
"Y'know what? We can talk about it later," Braeburn said, trying to hold back a grin as he stepped aside. "Little Cuz, c'mere. We're goin' fer a walk."
"What? Why?" Apple Bloom asked. Braeburn didn't answer her question, and pushed the smaller pony aside with a hoof. Applejack offered him a grateful smile before they left out the front door.
Daniels finished his apple and tossed it into an open trash bin. Applejack approached slowly, not quite making eye contact with the man.
"So the village is looking a little better? Was a right mess when I was there. Not as bad as Appleloosa, though, so I figure you'll all be clear to resettle."
"Yeah, that ain't a problem," Applejack agreed, "some ponies are already cleanin' up their houses. Though the library's a total loss. Heh. You shoulda seen Twi when she saw all them books scattered over the ground, ripped up and dirty." She chuckled, but it sounded hollow and forced.
"What's wrong, Jack?" Daniels said finally, sitting up on the couch.
Applejack seemed to deflate a bit upon realizing that she was so obviously uneasy. Then she hopped up onto the couch next to him.
"Ah... Ah'm just really glad yer okay, Wy," Applejack said, her voice wavering.
"Not as glad as I am," Daniels quipped, "in the end, the Company had the battle well in hand, but things got pretty bad out there for us mortal sorts." Then he smirked. "But even so, I don't envy you and the other pones. A MEGA GARGANT. You're going to have to mark that on your armor somehow; that's a hell of a kill, even split six ways."
"Yeah, it was really somethin'," Applejack mumbled dismissively. Then she stepped over Daniels' legs and laid down on his lap, leaning against the man's stomach.
This surprised Daniels a little. He had spent several afternoons giving Applejack belly rubs, scratching her ears, or otherwise treating her like the animal she really wasn't. But usually he was the one to initiate their unique sort of physical bonding, and Applejack was usually rather coy and petulant about it.
The mare sighed pleasantly when he started petting her along her side, his fingers digging into her fur.
"... Wy? When's yer contract with the Company up, anyhow?" Applejack asked.
"Not for about a standard solar year. Then I have to renew it or move on. Why do you ask?"
Applejack pursed her lips anxiously. "... Ah think ya should give up yer line o'work," she eventually admitted, "how many humans did we lose in that fight, Wy? A thousand?"
"Something like three thousand, going by the preliminary estimates" Daniels said as he continued stroking the orange pony, "the real kicker was losing General Gnoss, though. Not my favorite bloke, but I don't know how they're going to replace him." He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. We won."
"It DOES matter," Applejack snapped, "maybe the Iron Warriors or Chaos itself don't care if y'all die by the cartload as long as ya win, but Ah sure do."
"Aren't we dying by the cartload so that we're not all killed off completely, though?" the mercenary asked.
Applejack snorted. "Hogwash. Y'all could be safe and sound a million miles away from all this by now. Yer not fightin' here to save yerselves. Yer fightin' here 'cause we all begged ya to and pretty much gave ya the planet."
"Sounds like a good enough reason to me," Daniels replied, "besides, 'safe and sound' is pretty relative. Nowhere this fleet takes us is REALLY safe. Hell, the fleet itself isn't really safe." He shook his head and chuckled. "No, I think we've got a pretty good deal going here. Save the world of the ponies! It's almost as if we're heroes or something."
"And it don't matter to you if you gotta die to do it?" Applejack countered, squirming slightly on his lap.
"Not enough to desert, if that's what you're building up to. I've got good thing going with this mercenary gig, and after surviving the last battle I'm a shoo-in for a promotion, too. A few extra credits every period would go a long way toward alleviating my sense of inevitable doom."
The mare on his lap grunted. "So, ya think yer gonna keep workin' fer the Company, even after this Ork hullabaloo is over?"
"I don't really have a lot of other job prospects," Daniels admitted.
Applejack's head snapped up. "Ah can hire ya here!" She jumped on the matter so quickly that it was perfectly obvious she had been leading up to this offer. "Ya can work the fields as well as anypony, Ah'm sure! Probably can't buck trees, but Ah can think of lots of chores that would be easier fer someone with hands!"
Daniels rolled his eyes. "Me, work on a farm? No way."
"Why not?" Applejack asked, sounding halfway offended.
"Because it's hard work!" the mercenary replied. "Killing people is way easier. And more fun."
Applejack's head dropped to the cushions again as she groaned and shifted slightly on the man's lap.
"Thanks for the offer though, Jack. It means a lot to me."
She grunted again, and the room descended into a long, comfortable silence while he stroked her back.
"...... Wy?"
"Yeah?"
"Mind if we stay like this fer a while?"
"I don't have to be anywhere until the Nethalican is ready to be deployed. I can spare a few hours."
Applejack sighed in contentment, and another long silence descended after she curled up on Daniels' lap.
It wasn't quite as long as the last silence, however.
"Hurry up and kiss, already!" Rainbow Dash shouted from outside, banging a hoof against the window. Braeburn immediately yanked her to the ground, out of sight.
Applejack's eye twitched. "Weirdoes."
"I know right?" Daniels grumbled.
****
Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge
Solon swiveled his torso back and forth on his chassis, testing the new servos and bearings that held him secure upon the mechanical platform. The components shifted with a soft whir, the metal sliding over metal with fine-tuned economy and power.
"Perfect. Good ash a sheven-thoushand year old antique," the Warsmith said to himself. An array of heavy servo welders, clamps, and various other tools hung from the ceiling in the construction bay behind him, many of them still smoldering.
He'd had to fix up his body in a hurry in order to be in working shape for the construction of the Nethalican, which was proceeding on schedule. Luckily, Drahgza hadn't been very thorough in dismantling him, and the constant concussive impacts weren't especially problematic for him in the long run.
Solon HAD lost his remaining mechatendrils in the encounter, but those didn't need to be replaced immediately. He hadn't even had to listen to Sliver gripe about how pathetic he was for getting walloped by the xeno leader; evidently, losing to an Ork Warboss wasn't much of a humiliation.
Solon passed through a doorway into the next room, his gaze settling on a cluster of Dark Techpriests headed by Dark Magos Kaelith. They surrounded a large table covered in chains and small manipulator arms, which sat at the center of a thick ring of cogitators and psionic dampeners. Laid on the table was a black, vaguely alicorn-shaped hunk of metal. The figure was on its side, and had its front legs splayed out in an awkward rearing pose, while the wings were spread as if to take flight. All the joints and breaks in the armor that normally allowed for movement had been fused together into a single, statue-like mass, and those portions of the armor that weren't already black (which, admittedly, wasn't much) now sported a hue like charcoal.
"Sho, how ish she faring?" Solon asked as he scuttled up to the Techpriests. The tech-clergy were slowly and carefully cutting the armor apart into its component parts with melta cutters, and looked to be making glacial progress in the project.
"Warsmith! Greetings!" Luna shouted from the table, her voice muffled considerably. "To answer thy query, We art enduring! This procedure 'tis exceptionally distressing and painful, however!"
"Jusht think happy thoughtsh until we can pry you out of there," Solon advised.
"Even this much is quite challenging," Luna grunted as sparks and hissing gas surrounded her, "the daemon within the armor howls incessantly as it is carved apart. We believe it is quite upset."
"Assertation: the entity fueling your wargear has no standing to concern us with its discomfort," Kaelith buzzed, "Amelioration: it is, however, correct in choosing to torment you in response to its suffering, as your personal idiocy is responsible for this state of affairs."
Luna could only hope that her glare would somehow pierce the shell of Warp-infused metal and reach the cyborg beyond it. "We did not see thee during the battle, Magos. Tell us, where were thou whilst the mercenaries and xenos were cut down like wheat before the scythe?"
"Now, now, let'sh have none of that," Solon interjected before Kaelith could reply, "everyone did their part during the defenshive, and it wash ultimately a shucesh. We'll have you out of there shoon enough, Princesh."
A frustrated groan came from within the blackened mass. "Art thou CERTAIN We cannot simply teleport free of this accursed prison?"
The Dark Techpriests started sputtering Binary, but Solon answered Luna calmly.
"Your nerve shocketsh are fushed with the plugsh. At besht, you'd jusht move the shuit along with you. I'm not shure what would be the worsht-cashe shcenario, but if you remain shtill we won't have to find out."
Another groan came from the alicorn, but she fell silent.
"Kaelith, come. I want to check on our other 'patient'," Solon demanded, turning away from the table. The Dark Magos shifted his optics briefly and spat a brief string of Binaric Cant at his subordinates. Then he followed after the Iron Warrior.
After a few minutes the two scuttling cyborgs were heading down the great hall toward the daemon forges.
"Have you found out anything intereshting about thish... 'Crabapple'?" Solon asked while he led the way.
+Informative: We have learned little that was not known before. The knowledge of the engine's survival alone has granted more data than anything gained from extended observation.+ Kaelith said in a burst of static. +Corollary: Additional data may be gleaned from unit Varox and Unit Fluttershy's combat recorders. Although we can infer that Unit Crabapple destroyed the enemy unit, we are still unaware of how this is possible under the established combat conditions.+
Solon chuckled as they stopped in front of an enormous blast door. "Well, maybe we can jusht ashk it."
The door slowly unlocked its main seals, and then the massive plates of durasteel shifted to the sides.
The cell within was relatively small, and dozens of heavy chains hung from the ceiling, boasting hooks and clamps. Banks of monitors and cogitators were mounted on the walls, although most of the former displayed constant static.
In the middle of the room, hanging from several chains, was the battered and wasted core of a Maulerfiend siege engine. A roughly spherical hunk of metal etched over with Chaos runes and trailing disconnected cables, it was within this prison that the 'reactor' and hateful mind of the walker was housed. A daemon summoned and bound, giving life to the machine with energies much more powerful and dangerous than mere electricity.
Or so it was in a "normal" Maulerfiend. This one seemed to have something more curious within its heart of cold iron and seething Warp energy. Not a true daemon, but a machine intellect twisted into sentience by Warp corruption and necessity.
Such strange machine minds weren't exactly rare among the Chaos Legions, but were a curiosity anyhow. Rather than being a product of specific construction, they were aberrations that came from millennia of Warp exposure, the twisting energies changing the machine spirits just as it often changed mortal flesh and minds. This made them even less predictable than true daemon engines, ironically, although rarely as dangerous.
+Explanatory: Post-combat analysis indicates that energy was shifted to the containment core at the time of detonation. It is unknown at this time how this energy saturation manifested. Hypothesis: In the absence of any other explanation for the core's survival, the energy surge may have been used to form a protective barrier, not unlike the so-called "daemonic aura" typically employed by other daemon engines.+
"Agreed," Solon said before he walked up to the burnt-out shell and placed a hand against it, "but what to do with it now?"
Kaelith's upper-most melta cutters tapped against each other, not unlike an insect's mandibles wriggling in anticipation of a meal. +Recommendation: Dissection and testing. Understanding the full capabilities of this intelligence may lead to new strategic solutions.+
Solon nodded. "Again, agreed. You may shchedule the proceduresh once the Nethalican ish finished. And make shure to conshult with Dark Techpriesht Gaela; she hash shome pershonal experience with thish one."
Kaelith bristled. +Affirmation: I will inform her, Warsmith.+
Solon was about to continue with his orders, but then he glanced back at the suspended core. He removed his hand from it, and then knocked on the outer plate with a fist.
"Huh. Wash it completely unreshponshive before? I'm not getting any readingsh."
Kaelith scuttled up to the core, several of his optical sensors extending to closely observe the scorched husk.
+Negative. Explanatory: Power readings should be consistent with previously detected levels. Current readings suggest core is inert.+ He turned his optics to Solon. +Hypothesis: The subject has expired.+
"Well, that would be quite a pity after having shurvived an ashault on a Great Gargant," the Chaos Lord mused before he started walking around the core, "shtill, perhapsh the internalsh contain..."
Solon trailed off as he glanced at the back of the machine.
"... Nothing. It would sheem the internalsh contain nothing."
Kaelith made a perturbed beeping noise, and Solon pushed the core around to show the Dark Magos the back.
As it turned out, the other side of the lump of scorched metal had a deep tear in it. The damaged metal was bent outward along the breach, like the discarded chrysalis of a pupating insect, heavily implying that something within had torn its way out.
Kaelith spat a profanity in Binaric Cant.
****
Ferrous Dominus - main gates
Several squads of Iron Warriors watched in silence as a single Defiler lumbered out of the front gate of the fortress, its body lurching from side to side with its quad-legged gait. It quickly passed by the main bunkers and scuttled out onto the main road leading away from Ferrous Dominus. A road that lead, eventually, to Ponyville.
The Chaos Space Marines turned to look past the gates, waiting for the rest of the deployment. It quickly became clear that there was none.
"Did someone really just deploy a single daemon engine by itself?" asked an Iron Warrior, perplexed.
"Who transmitted the security codex?" demanded another. "Who opened the gates?"
Another Iron Warrior looked over to a cogitator console, his visor uploading the command register remotely. "Ah... it seems the Defiler did."
"What?"
The other Marine nodded hesitantly. "It... seems to have a valid security codex."
"What?!"
Again, the other Chaos Marine paused. "... And somebody re-registered its identifier signum as 'Crabapple'."
"WHAT?!"
****
Ponyville - town perimeter
"Well, Shining, this is it."
Twilight spoke with conviction, yet there was an unmistakable tremor to her voice. It wasn't hard to imagine what, exactly, she was so nervous about. The survival of the entire world hinged on the bizarre construct that was taking shape in front of them, spelling out their fate in alien magic and currents of unfathomable power.
That much, at least, was comfortably familiar to her. What made this particular case awkward was the grim and malicious nature of the magic artifact involved. She didn't know a whole lot about Dark Portals - there was a regretful dearth of books on the topic that she was allowed access to - but everything she had learned about them was troubling at best. A Dark Portal was a rip in the fabric separating the material universe from a realm of pure, raw, and generally destructive magic. It was literally fueled by death and suffering, and it had a tendency to violently churn about and unsettle the Warp to the point that it would tear apart anything trying to pass through. It didn't take extensive knowledge of psykant mechanics to imagine that could be dangerous to someone other than the encroaching Orks. Who knew what other strange and terrible effects the portal might have? Especially after it was built into a Chaos temple, where the priests of the darker powers could spread their corruption freely?
Well, Serith probably did. But Twilight was afraid that if she had to converse with him much more, she might do something she and everyone else in the world would regret.
"Doesn't look like much yet, does it?" Shining Armor asked. "I guess I expected more machinery, like they have at FD."
"Well, the Iron Warriors by and large don't know much about this construct either. It's almost all Serith's design," Twilight pointed out.
So far, the Nethalican consisted of eight metal obelisks planted around the mass grave, no doubt representing the points of a Chaos Star. The grave itself had been paved over with a large, if short, ferrocrete platform. Dark Techpriests worked constantly at the center of the device, carefully assembling what appeared to be an intricate golden pedestal.
Aside from the pieces of the Nethalican itself, it was hard not to notice the impressive security presence around the portal. Despite the serious losses the 38th Company had suffered just the day before, numerous ranks of mercenaries had been called up from Ferrous Dominus, backed up by a substantial host of Fire Warriors, Kroot mercenaries, and numerous battle tanks. Iron Warriors patrolled the outer ring of the defensive formation, creating a wall of ceramite bodies around the less resilient ranks of defenders.
That there was such a heavy military force present was no surprise. This was, after all, the fruit of all their planning and fighting up until now, and the 38th Company wouldn't risk losing it to a freak Ork attack.
It did concern her a little that most of the weapons were aimed AT the Nethalican rather than watching for any outside assailants, though.
More soldiers marched up through Ponyville to join the defensive formation, along with the occasional APC hauling materials. The town itself was still quite busy, as numerous residents had already returned and the Company menials were still working to remove the various debris of heavy warfare from the village.
Twilight's gaze shifted back over to the Nethalican, but then she caught sight of something familiar after a pair of Devilfish APCs floated by.
She craned her neck to get a better look, and then she smiled as she saw Applejack's hat among the crowd.
"I think I see the others," Twilight said, turning back to her brother, "I'm going to head over there. Do you want to come, or...?"
Shining Armor shook his head with a small smile. "No, that's okay. I'm sure you have very important space pirate things to talk about. I'm fine."
Twilight chuckled. "All right, Shiny. Be careful."
Twilight weaved her way through the busy humans and occasional vehicle, heading toward where she had seen Applejack.
Once she got a good look, she saw that all of her friends were there, and all wearing their power armor suits. Even Pinkie Pie was fully armed and in attendance; she had initially mistaken the party pony's Dreadnought for one of the other walkers who were standing guard in support of the Company troops.
When she got even closer, she saw that yet another friend of hers was with them: Zecora. Twilight hadn't seen the zebra in some time. In fact, the last time she remembered meeting her was after Zecora had been captured by the Tau and rescued by Tellis.
Twilight hoped her zebra friend had been brought up to speed since then, or it was going to be SUPER awkward explaining all the Tau warriors.
"Twilight! There you are!" shouted Rainbow Dash as she hovered over the others. "C'mere for a sec! We need to talk to you!"
"What's the matter, girls?" the alicorn asked. "Hi Zecora, I haven't seen you lately!"
"So you have not, though you have not been around. You labor for the humans to keep equine-kind safe and sound." Zecora was wearing an off-white shawl over her back, and behind her there was a large box with wheels and a cloth over it. The zebra bowed her head to Twilight. "I fear these trials of yours have not been kind. Else you would bear no wounds with a need to bind."
The purple mare chuckled bashfully. "Well, yesterday was pretty hard on everybody." Her smile dimmed considerably. "I actually fared a lot better than most."
Zecora raised her head. "The skirmish was indeed of a scale to-"
"Zecora? Hold that thought, please," Twilight interrupted.
Then she turned around and looked up at Pinkie Pie. "That isn't the same Dreadnought you were in yesterday."
Pinkie didn't have a helmet on, and the upper half of her body was leaning out of the gorget of the assault walker as she tapped it with a hoof. "Yup! Ork blew up the last one."
"It's kind of a trend," Rainbow Dash pointed out.
Twilight pointed calmly to the walker shell, which was painted in normal IVth Legion colors and had a multi-melta and a power fist as its armament. "Where did you get that?"
"Kairon lent it to me," Pinkie Pie said with a grin. Then she winked.
"Another Iron Warrior Dreadnought pilot 'lent' you his only weapon and method of transportation?" Twilight asked skeptically.
"Yuppers!" Pinkie chirped. Then she winked again.
"Explain it to me again," the purple mare requested as her eyes narrowed, "but without winking this time."
"Kairon lent me his Dreadnought," Pinkie Pie said simply, looking Twilight straight in the eyes, "...... Wink."
A long silence settled over the equines, and Twilight pursed her lips while she stared up at the party-loving pony.
"... Pinkie Pie, are you... are you murdering Dreadnought pilots and stealing their vehicles?"
The other mares' eyes widened, including Pinkie's.
"What?! No! Of course I'm not killing the pilots!" Pinkie protested, looking hurt.
Applejack cocked her head to one side, frowning. "Wait, what about the sec-"
"I Pinkie Promise to all of you that Kairon is perfectly fine," Pinkie said to Twilight, straightening up and starting her ritual hoof gestures, and looking as serious as Twilight had ever seen her.
****
Ponyville - Carrot Top's home
"Ugh, did they have to burn EVERYTHING? Just look at my garden!"
Carrot Top groaned as she looked at the charred rows of dirt that used to host fresh, ready-to-pick carrots. Her home had gotten off relatively easy, save a spattering of bullet holes and crack in the wall where a Crisis Suit had gotten smashed into the building, but the exterior was a very literal example of "scorched earth". The sanitation teams had run over much of the village with flamers, sparing only the buildings that were still standing. Carrot didn't really understand why, but apparently they were worried about some disease or spores or something.
"Well, I suppose I shouldn't complain. At least we won, and Ponyville is still standing. It could be worse," the mare reasoned.
"Indeed, there are numerous plausible alternate scenarios in which you would be entirely destitute, or dead," agreed Kairon, "in most such scenario projections, you are dead. The current circumstances are very close to optimal expectations."
Carrot Top twisted her head about to look at the hefty metal sarcophagus that was embedded upright in the middle of her yard, like some sort of bizarre, giant, high-tech lawn gnome.
"You sure know how to put a bright spin on things, you know that?" Carrot giggled with a wry smile. "Well, I suppose I should get on with re-planting, then. If any birds or rodents come along to pick at the seedlings, you make sure to frighten them off, alright?"
"Your garden will remain unsullied under my sleepless watch," Kairon boomed solemnly, "Iron within! Iron without!"
****
"-stick a cupcake in my eye!" Pinkie finished, nodding firmly.
Twilight wasn't even close to convinced, but she had to reason that a Pinkie Promise was the best assurance she was ever going to get out of the pink pony.
"Okay, just checking," Twilight mumbled, turning back to Zecora. "Sorry about that. Go ahead, Zecora."
The zebra cleared her throat briefly. "As I said, I've been quite aware of the terrors that beset our nation fair. I even offered my aid as healer, free, to the men of the 38th Company." She shook her head. "My aid was refused, though they did not explain why. With so many weapons about, I dared not to pry. I went back to my home to wait out the battle, watching the lights flare and the ground rattle."
Then she backed up next to the box behind her. "That the combat was won is good news indeed, but I encountered two combatants with intentions to feed."
Twilight winced. "Yeah, sorry. It's kind of awkward that after we chased the Kroot out of the Everfree as our enemies, we then led them right back as allies."
Zecora lowered her head and sighed. "Although the words you speak are surely true, I seem to have provided a misleading clue. It was not Kroot or Tau that came to bother me, but a pair of greenskins that had turned 'zombie'."
With that final verse, Zecora yanked the cover off the box.
The box turned out to be a cage, and within the cage were a pair of Gretchin sporting severe lasburns despite being obvious animate. Fluttershy squeaked in terror and then blinked out of sight.
"Oh, hey! There are still some undead left?" Rainbow Dash asked, stepping up closer to the cage. The short, skinny aliens turned clumsily to face her, peering out of the cage's bars with milk-white eyes. Neither of the Plague Zombies made any aggressive movements, however.
Twilight made an aggravated noise as she stared at the diseased aliens. "Ponyfeathers! I knew this was going to happen! Toying with necromancy always has unintended consequences!" She looked up at Zecora. "How many of these things have you found?"
"It was only these two that stumbled into my sight. I was able to restrain them without much fight," the zebra admitted, "these little ones themselves are not worth much concern, but there may be far more which have suffered the turn. If this affliction spreads from soldier to beast, it could cause much grief, to say the least."
"Got it. Rarity?" Twilight asked. "Connect your vox to Poison Kiss, please. We need to speak to her."
"Of course, darling. Just a moment."
She put on her helmet, and then took a moment to scroll through the list of channels.
"Miss Kiss! Good evening! This is Rarity, as I'm sure you're aware," the unicorn said. Then she paused.
"... No, this isn't about your mane. I feel like I've said my piece in regards to that topic," Rarity sighed.
Another pause.
"Really? I actually DO know a good spa around here. Or at least I did. I think a Squiggoth put a hole in it. But I can probably talk Aloe and Lotus into a massage, at least. How contagious are you, exactly?"
Rarity's conversation was interrupted by a purple hoof impatiently tapping against her shoulder pad.
"Right, never mind that! Listen, PRINCESS Twilight Sparkle needs to see you right away," Rarity said firmly, placing heavy emphasis on Twilight's title. "... Yes, it's about the Plague Zombies. Thank you. Yes, sure. I'll introduce you to Aloe tonight, after we save the world. Thank you." She disconnected the vox.
It wasn't long before the three Nurgle-marked ponies approached the group. Their helmets were disengaged, which revealed a trio of rather self-satisfied expressions while they trotted up to the cage.
"Well, how about that? Looks like a few of them slipped the net," Breezy said with a grin, walking right up to the cage and giving it a kick, "hey, kids!" The Grots released a pair of high-pitched, gasping moans in response.
Kiss kept her eyes on Twilight as she approached, noting the entirely unamused expression on the injured alicorn. "Princess Sparkle, good evening. I see you've captured a few of my little lost lambs. Well done."
Her soft, lilting voice did little to help Twilight's mood. The purple mare pointed a hoof to Zecora. "Poison Kiss, this is Zecora, a resident of the Everfree Forest. She's the one who found and captured the 'leftovers' here." Said zebra was eyeing the newcomers warily, scanning over their rather grim armor suits. It was quite different from the manner in which Zecora usually met new people, Twilight noticed.
"A zebra? My, what a surprise," Kiss said with a warm smile, "charmed to meet you, Zecora. Please, call me Kiss. And thank you for rounding up my wayward children, here."
Zecora's eyes narrowed. "Your wargear bears the marks of a God of death, and you expel corruption with every breath. You toy with the bodies of the recently slain, and your connection to evil powers is plain. How is it that ponies have come to worship this cult? One that venerates illness, parasites, and tumult?"
The Plague Ponies' smiles dimmed noticeably.
"Geez, judgmental much?" Rot Blossom grumbled, her ears flipping down.
"That was... unusually impolite of Zecora, but you never did tell us exactly how you came to end up in a Nurgle cult," Twilight interjected.
"And I don't intend to do so," Kiss replied calmly, "our religious allegiance is what it is, and we do not have to answer to you, Princess. Suffice to say, dark times have come to Equestria, and dark measures need to be taken. Surely I don't have to point out the compromises that you Elements of Harmony have made in order to help along our survival."
Several of the other mares adopted uncomfortable expressions, and Applejack frowned.
"Not that Ah think y'all have really done somethin' wrong, but Ah think yer case is a little different from ours."
"I'm sure it is. Yet the lesson is the same: to ensure our survival, we each step closer to the darkness that the 38th Company calls home. Some of us merely offer them aid and mundane services, overlooking their crimes and malevolent nature. Others fight alongside them directly, taking and risking lives for the Iron Warriors. We three have gone further than most, but we have no regrets." She eyed Zecora with an unreadable expression. "However, I do understand your aversion, as unfortunate and misguided as it is."
Zecora pursed her lips briefly, her eyes locked with the green unicorn. "... Perhaps, before, I said too much. You don't seem to act with malicious touch. Nonetheless, these creatures here, they threaten the forest which I hold dear. Your magic may well have saved the day, but as the battle is won, we don't wish it to stay."
Kiss smiled again. "Of course. Allow me to take care of them."
The unicorn's bolter dropped off of her side and then swung up, and Zecora leapt back with a whinny when the gun fired twice into the cage. Both zombie Gretchin were blown apart, and the ponies flinched away from the spray of rotting viscera that blasted out from between the bars. Fluttershy yelped when some of the blood happened to splatter against her side, rendering her partially visible again in the worst way.
"Geez! How about a little warning first?" Rainbow Dash groused as she backed away.
"I did warn you," Kiss said, looking confused while smoke seeped from her boltgun, "I told you I was going to take care of them. What did you think that meant?"
"I thought that maybe you'd disenchant them," Twilight mumbled, scraping a bit of shredded green flesh off her leg.
"Grandfather Nurgle doesn't have many spells for REMOVING a disease from a host. Not really his thing," Kiss admitted as the boltgun flipped around and mag-locked to her side again, "in any case, thank you for your help, Miss Zecora. If you find any others of my little 'flock' and don't wish to dispose of them yourself, please feel free to contact me."
Zecora looked quite put out by the gunfire, and backed away from Poison Kiss anxiously. "That I shall do if circumstances demand, but if you'll excuse me, I must return to my land." She stepped toward the cage to move it, but then hesitated at the sight of so much diseased gore. Shaking her head, the zebra abandoned the cage and trotted off toward the forest, barely restraining herself from fleeing at a full sprint.
"Cheerio, then!" Kiss called after her as Breezy waved goodbye.
"So, we never did get to have a proper discussion about that whole zombie 'thing' from yesterday," Twilight said, her eyes narrowing at Kiss.
"I hardly think there's much to be discussed," the unicorn said as she moved the cage aside with her magic, "our strategy was approved by the Warsmith and Vice-Commander, and was a complete success. Whether or not that particular branch of magic use violates Equestrian law is perfectly irrelevant to the Iron Warriors. What other concerns are there?"
"How 'bout basic respect fer the dearly departed?" Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow.
Breezy snorted, and a puff of foul-smelling green vapor blasted from her nostrils. "Yeah, sure. Were you here earlier when they were 'cleaning' this place? Humans treat their fallen like trash anyway. If they're not going to get offended, then why should we?"
"If it doesn't offend them, then why were you keeping it a secret?" Rarity sniffed.
"All right, all right, everypony just calm down," Twilight said with a sigh, "let's put aside for now the obtuse ethical concerns of raising the dead to be used as magically animated meat shields. I'm more worried about the safety concerns of a zombie plague being unleashed on Ponyville."
"And in that respect, you have nothing to worry about," Kiss insisted, pressing a boot to her chest plate, "the disease that infests the Plague Zombies is guided to attack greenskins, and is weak enough that it cannot overcome living immune systems."
"You'll have to excuse me for not taking you at your word that a necromantic disease born of Chaos magic is so harmless and easily controlled," Twilight countered.
"Even if you don't believe that, it's a moot point; the plague's power has waned, and the wind no longer carries Nurgle's gifts," Kiss sighed, "the Plague Zombies themselves have been hunted down and burned, and those that may have stumbled into the Everfree cannot possibly survive its dangers for long. Once they're wiped out, the disease cannot persist."
Bonbon suddenly galloped past the group of armored ponies, wailing in terror.
Rainbow Dash blinked and stared after her. "Huh. Wonder what her problem is."
"As I was saying," Kiss continued, "I have complete confidence that there will be no complications from my use of the Apocrypha Contagion-"
"Aw, really? It's even got a creepy evil name and everything?" Pinkie Pie interrupted, slapping a hoof into her face.
"... Quite. But even if, by some chance, there ARE, you can count on my full cooperation in removing the threat," Kiss said solemnly.
"Absolutely!" Breezy said, snapping a foreleg to her helmet in salute. "We're here to protect Equestria and the Company from anything that threatens them! Even ourselves!"
"We never wanted to hurt anybody," Blossom agreed. Then she paused. "Except, you know, all of the people we were trying to kill." She paused again. "Maybe also the Tau."
Twilight took a deep breath, hanging her head. "Well... I suppose there's hardly any point to condemning it now. You DO sound like you actually put a lot of thought into this, and it DID help considerably with winning the battle." She wet her lips anxiously, her eyes darting to the biohazard symbol on Kiss's shoulder pad. "I guess I just... um..." the alicorn trailed off, unsure of how she could phrase her misgivings.
"You're creeped out by a bunch of ponies worshiping a God of pestilence and decay?" Breezy volunteered.
Twilight cringed, clearly embarrassed. "Sorry... I know it doesn't really make sense. I mean, you're free to follow whatever religion you like, and I have no problem working with humans that worship Nurgle, so it's obviously a double standard..."
"But it's different, because we're ponies," Kiss finished, nodding gently, "for us to grant our souls to Nurgle means more than just taking on a new religion. It is to give up the shield of harmony that protects us from Chaos. For us to let darkness into our hearts, we have to let go of something. Something that most ponies would find too precious to sacrifice for vague promises of power."
"Unless they're too young and clueless to know any better," Applejack grunted, thinking back to her sister.
Rainbow Dash leaned in next to her and whispered into the farmer's ear. "This is getting way too Philosophy 101 for me. Are we still talking about zombies?"
Kiss waited for the mumbled asides to finish, and then she cleared her throat and continued. "So it's understandable that our conversion is taken very seriously. But I hope I can convince you that we're not about to start poisoning wells and contaminating villages because a voice in our head says to." Then she smirked, her eyes shifting to the side. "And I hope I can convince Miss Rarity that I can serve the Plaguefather while still keeping my mane vibrant and glamorous."
The pearly unicorn seemed absolutely delighted at the prospect, although Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "I'm still kind of surprised you care. Won't you turn all diseased and gross like those human cultists?"
"Not if we can help it," Breezy snorted, leaning back, "I mean, Nurgle's great, but we're still mares, you know? I still care about what I look like."
"I... guess I hadn't thought of it that way," Twilight admitted, pursing her lips, "well, if nothing else, it's quite a relief to know... that... um..."
The purple pony trailed off as she realized that none of the Plague Ponies were paying attention to her, and were instead staring off toward the road. There were several people walking along the path toward the Nethalican, but the mares' eyes seemed fixated on a large, crimson stallion hauling a wagon of munitions toward the portal site.
"Oh, yes," Poison Kiss said, her voice low and husky while she stared after Big Macintosh, "we're still mares, all right."
Applejack's eye twitched.
Rot Blossom sucked in a breath through her teeth, and Breezy Blight nickered. "I'd love to give HIM a few choice infections," the pegasus grinned as her wings shifted higher, "if you know what I mean."
The three cultist ponies giggled, but quickly noticed that none of the other mares were joining in. A glance to the side showed them all bearing horrified expressions. Applejack in particular was gaping like a fish out of water.
"... She meant SEX," Kiss explained in deadpan.
"OHHH." The other mares said in tandem, looking relieved.
That lasted about three seconds. Then their expressions reverted back.
"Aw, gross!" Rainbow Dash said, shuddering. "That makes the 'infection' thing even worse! Not cool!"
Kiss rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Never mind. Let's go, girls."
"In the end, pony or not, evil or not, venerating disease is still strange," Rarity said distastefully.
"It is nice that they aren't out to infect all of ponykind and spread their awful cult, though!" Pinkie chirped, recovering from her earlier revulsion.
"I suppose that is the most we can hope for at this point, isn't it?" asked a new voice.
Everypony went rigid at the very familiar voice, and Twilight whirled around.
Standing some ten meters away, and approaching at a leisurely pace, was none other than Princess Celestia. Shining Armor was escorting her, it seemed like, although the injured stallion was obviously having trouble keeping up with the the Princess's long strides.
Twilight was stunned silent at her approach, wondering how Celestia, of all ponies, had snuck up close enough to overhear without her or any of her friends noticing. A moment later she and her friends shifted into bows (with Pinkie awkwardly stooping her Dreadnought forward), and it hit her.
Nopony but them were bowing. The humans passing by showed nothing but a passing interest in the larger equine, but even the occasional pony moving with them only gave the Princess a lingering glance before continuing on with whatever they were doing.
To Twilight, this was absolutely bizarre. For Princess Celestia to visit any place outside of Canterlot was automatically an event that warranted pomp and ceremony, and it was utterly impossible for her to go anywhere without most ponies in town knowing about it. Or so it should be.
It suddenly struck Twilight, now of all times, how far events had truly spiraled out of her teacher's control. They weren't fighting an ancient enemy with an old grudge against the kingdom, and they weren't using old Equestrian artifacts to save their people. The Nethalican was a grim, bizarre construct with a terrifying power source, and Celestia knew almost nothing about it even as she was forced to trust that it would save her kingdom. Twilight herself felt like she knew almost nothing about it, and she had studied everything about Dark Portals that she could find.
She never imagined that she'd ever encounter something that was seriously outside of Celestia's depth and could actually surpass her in power. But here it was: the Nethalican was an utterly alien device, capable of feats of sorcery that Celestia didn't even understand, arrayed against a threat that could slaughter entire star systems. This was simply... BIGGER than the Princess. The thought was severely humbling.
Celestia recognized the expression on Twilight's face as the smaller alicorn lost herself in furious contemplation, and decided to wait patiently until she called herself back to the present. Shining Armor also recognized it, but he'd had more practice in shaking her out of it.
"Hey, Twily! You in there?" the stallion asked, waving a hoof in front of his sister's face.
The purple mare blinked rapidly as she was shaken out of her thoughts, and then she flushed.
"P-Princess Celestia! You, uh..." her ears flipped down, and she glanced away nervously. "You... saw them?"
"I did," Celestia said with a heavy sigh.
"So, uh... Ah hear that Chaos worship ain't TECHNICALLY a crime," Applejack mumbled nervously after she stood up again, trying to avoid eye contact, "that true?"
"It is true," the white Princess confirmed, "and I hardly think I'll be making it illegal any time soon, given our circumstances."
Applejack sighed in relief and Rarity stopped holding her breath.
Celestia didn't seem to notice, staring at some point above the other ponies as she spoke. "This was, perhaps, inevitable. Once we allowed Chaos a foothold on this world, unchallenged, its whispers of power would not go unheeded forever." She shook her head. "But what are we to do? I cannot tell my little ponies how to spend their very souls."
"You COULD have warned us that Chaos worship turns you into a gross, bug-infested weirdo," Rainbow Dash interjected, "just saying. That sort of thing totally works on me."
"Unfortunately I could not, for I knew of no such thing," Celestia said grimly, "the effects of Chaos corruption are - not surprisingly - hard to predict. I had little idea of how quickly ponies would fall to the darker powers, much less the specific physical consequences."
"Well, at least they're still on our side and aren't goin' crazy or nothin'!" Applejack said, laughing a little too loudly. "Right?"
Twilight cleared her throat. "Princess Celestia, I didn't receive any notice that you were coming. Is something wrong?"
Celestia suppressed a brief urge to answer sarcastically that, yes, many things were "wrong". After all, even if circumstances were generally awful right now, she was not here to dwell on such problems.
"I did not give much notice to anyone about coming. My apologies, Twilight," Celestia's eyes finally shifted over to the rune-inscribed lodestones surrounded by soldiers, "as of late, I've decided to take a more active role in this affair with the Orks, if only to see this particular phase to its conclusion." She smiled wryly. "The bureaucrats can handle my absence for the few more hours until it's time for me to raise the moon."
Then she paused. "Unless Luna could...?"
"Unlikely. She's in quite a state right now," Rarity remarked, "the Dark Techpriests figure they won't have her free of her armor before midnight. And then, of course, Warsmith Solon has to fix it and Twilight's suit. And mine, eventually. Do you SEE what those green thugs did to it?" The fashionista sighed. "He has quite a lot of work ahead of him, suffice to say. We'll all be glad when he can stop worrying about the Orks and do something more productive with his time."
When Rarity finished speaking, she found that Celestia was giving her an odd look.
"... You all rely on him a lot, don't you?" Celestia asked after a moment of intense contemplation.
"You bet! Shmithy's the best!" Pinkie chimed in. "He's so cool, and smart, and strong, and not nearly as evil as he likes to pretend he is, and he's super-helpful even when it's really obvious he has much more important things to do!"
"Heh, yeah, the Warsmith's a real stand-up guy once ya git past all that dark overlord and disease cultist claptrap," Applejack agreed proudly, "right glad to be workin' fer him rather'n that Sliver grump!"
"I couldn't believe what that Redclawz jerk did to Solon yesterday!" Rainbow Dash growled darkly. "I only wish I'd gotten there before Twilight! I'd have taken that green freak apart in ten seconds flat!"
"I'm, um, much less afraid of Solon than I am of Gaela," Fluttershy admitted, ducking low to the ground, "does that help?"
"The man is of unquestionably poor taste, even for an evil space General. His sense of style and hygiene is terrible, obviously, and no matter how he explains it I simply cannot fathom the appeal of the Nurgle cult. I also suspect he's deliberately trying to get some of us killed with the missions he's given us," Rarity sniffed, being the first to offer any sort of criticism of the Chaos Lord. "On the other hoof, he's undeniably impressive, very generous with his inventions, and we're quite lucky to be serving under a Chaos Space Marine with such a mild temper." She shrugged. "You've got to take the bad with the good, I guess."
Celestia couldn't help but smile at Rarity's explanation, and then her gaze shifted to Twilight. "And what of your thoughts, my faithful student?"
The purple pony tensed visibly at the question, and she shifted uncomfortably in her neck brace.
"... The situation is pretty clear. We need him. That was true yesterday, and that's true today," Twilight said cautiously.
"But it may not be true tomorrow," Celestia countered, cutting through the evasion in an instant, "after the Nethalican is built and the Ork survivors are hunted to the point that they're no longer a threat, we may find the blight of Chaos is no longer as useful to us." Her smile shifted back into a grimace as she paused to watch a Forgefiend daemon engine stomp past, joining the soldiers. "What then, Twilight? When the Star of Chaos flies over every continent of our world and its servants harvest our planet to feed their endless wars, will you still count the Warsmith among your friends? Should I?"
Twilight's mouth opened and closed wordlessly as she groped for an answer. The other mares watched her in concern, and a fair bit of apprehension. Shining Armor glanced between Twilight and Celestia, feeling like he had missed something.
"Oh, hey! Speak of the draconequus!" Pinkie chirped suddenly, pointing her power fist over to the portal site.
A Thunderhawk had landed nearby the defensive formations, and Solon was exiting the vehicle alongside Gaela. The Chaos Lord was still some ways away, but his arrival was already causing far more commotion than Celestia's did. Humans stopped in their tracks and cheered, some of them kneeling in the dirt. Ponies cheered too, rearing up and whooping wildly. Three equine figures - the only other ponies wearing power armor - went so far as to bow to the Warsmith, their muzzles nearly scuffing the ground.
This was their victory. His victory. After all their fighting and loss, the 38th Company was finally going to see the fruits of their sacrifices come alive and rend reality asunder.
"I don't know if you can call Solon our friend," Twilight admitted with a sigh, staring down at the dirt, "he didn't arm us or fight for us out of friendship. He isn't trying to preserve this world because he cares about us. And Rarity's probably right about him giving us such dangerous missions on purpose. Although I think she's the only one he's actively hoping will get killed."
Rarity's eyebrow twitched as Twilight looked up at Celestia, meeting the curious gaze of the taller alicorn. "But yesterday he sent three thousand people to their deaths in order to save us. No matter what you want to attribute that to, no matter how twisted and awful it is, that's not a gesture we can ignore, is it?"
The white Princess gave a tired grunt in reply; the most reluctant of agreements. It wasn't what Celestia had wanted to hear, of course. But Twilight wouldn't give her empty promises or futile hopes. Not now, and not about this. Chaos had paid for Centaur III in blood, and within the hour, its remit would be carved into the Warp itself.
"Good evening, Princeshesh," Solon's characteristic slur carried easily through the air as he approached the ponies. The soldiers, workers, and ponies in his path quickly scurried out of the way, although every one of them watched intently as the Warsmith addressed the Equestrians. Gaela strode next to him, and even though the Dark Techpriest's helmet was on, Celestia could feel her fur prickle from the intensity of the woman's glare.
"I washn't expecting any alicornsh to be attending thish phashe of our project," Solon admitted, "Shparkle should probably be reshting, at the very leasht."
"I couldn't just sleep through this. I had to see it happen with my own eyes," Twilight insisted.
"As do I," Princess Celestia insisted.
Then she pursed her lips and looked over the Warsmith. "Have you recovered from your own injuries? They were quite severe even BEFORE your subordinate landed on you."
Solon was quite surprised that Celestia cared to ask, but didn't hesitate to reply. "Oh, being ripped apart and thrown around a little bit ishn't enough to keep me down for long," he said cheerfully, banging his left arm against his chest plate. His right arm had been replaced with a long energy cannon that had a bulbous reaction chamber behind his shoulder, covered with wires and tubing.
"Attaboy, Sol! We ROCKED those greenskins!" Rainbow Dash cheered, vaulting up into the air.
"Eventually, yesh. It won't be long now," Solon explained.
"As far as establishing the Dark Portal, though," Celestia interjected, a hint of anxiousness to her voice, "is it likely to attract the Orks? This is a very heavy military presence."
"Oh, no, not particularly," the Warsmith shook his head, "theshe troopsh are here to beat back the Dark Portal itshelf."
This gave the equines pause.
"The... The portal? They're gonna... kill it?" Applejack asked, completely confused.
"No, nothing like that. They're going to kill everything pouring out of it," Solon clarified.
"And what would that be, exactly?" Rarity asked.
"Oh, you'll shee," the Iron Warrior chuckled as he turned his chassis around, scuttling away.
Gaela moved to follow him, but paused when Celestia cleared her throat meaningfully.
"What?" the Dark Techpriest asked. Celestia swore that she could almost see frost icing the grille of her helmet.
"Miss Gaela, I just wanted to thank you for your efforts yesterday," Celestia pressed on, undaunted by the cyborg's obvious hostility, "this is the second time that you've stood between me and the enemy's most powerful fighters, and faced extraordinary odds to aid my kingdom."
"Somebody had to, seeing how useless you are." Gaela's voice was like acid, and a collective shiver ran down the backs of the ponies present. They'd never heard Celestia spoken to quite like that before. Shining Armor was outright gaping, unable to believe that someone could be so casually offensive to the Princess.
Celestia briefly considered reminding Gaela that Solon had also been incapacitated in both encounters, but she discarded the thought. That wasn't likely to make this conversation any easier. "I regret not living up to your expectations, Techpriest," she said, her voice perfectly calm.
"Who says you didn't?" Gaela retorted.
"G-Gaela, please, there's no need to be like that," Twilight said, her voice halfway between an admonishment and a plea, "the Princess is just trying to show her gratitude."
"And in a show of characteristic idiocy, she offers it to me," the Dark Techpriest seethed, and Celestia took a step back, "I did not fight for you, wretch, and it is not to me whom you and your citizens owe their lives. Stop wasting my time."
Shining Armor lurched forward angrily. "Who do you think you are, you-" he suddenly found himself silenced by a spell from Twilight, and the purple equine frantically shook her head "no".
Princess Celestia was at a loss for words, but only briefly. "Techpriest Gaela, I only wanted to..."
Celestia stopped speaking mid-sentence when the Dark Techpriest turned around and walked away, and then she sighed in resignation.
"Wow. She REALLY hates you, doesn't she?" Rainbow Dash mumbled.
"Good eye, Cap'n Obvious," Applejack replied before turning to Celestia, "sorry to say, Princess, but Gaela can hold a grudge like ya wouldn't believe. Plus she's awful hard to cheer up. Ah dunno if yer gonna git on her good side any time soon."
"I'm sure that's far too much to hope for," Celestia murmured with the slightest hint of bitterness, "but I had to try. I fear the sheer loathing that one has for me will come to something awful if left to fester. That woman is capable of some surprising and disturbing feats."
"Oh, come now," Rarity replied with a shake of her head, "Gaela is an absolute sweetheart once... once you..." she trailed off awkwardly, chewing her lower lip. "No, never mind. I don't think I can finish that sentence with a straight face."
"Why should the Princess have to get on HER good side?!" Shining Armor snapped as soon as Twilight lifted the spell off of his muzzle. "Who the hay is she to treat royalty like that?!"
"Shiny, please, don't," Twilight sighed, exhausted, "her disrespect for the crown is honestly one of her LEAST offensive personal flaws."
"Don't worry!" Pinkie said, giving a thumbs-up to the others with her Dreadnought's power fist. "After the Nethali-guffin is complete, it's time for my 'Equestria is Safe, Safe Forever' party! She's sure to be in a better mood then!"
"She hates parties, though," Rainbow Dash pointed.
"DOES NOT COMPUTE," bellowed the Dreadnought's vox caster, "PARTIES ARE LOVE. PARTIES ARE LIFE."
The other ponies took a step away, eyeing the assault walker warily.
"Heh! Sorry! This one has a pretty enthusiastic machine spirit." Pinkie giggled while patting the top of her walker with a hoof.
"Machine... what?" Celestia asked, tilting her head to the side.
"We should probably just go," Twilight pointed over to the portal site, "it looks like the cabal is getting into position. I believe they'll be ready to start soon."
When Twilight and the others approached the Nethalican, Solon was speaking to an unfamiliar soldier in an officer's garments.
"Remember to keep distance, but the protection of the unicornsh ish of utmosht priority," Solon said, pointing to the ponies wearing cloaks and amulets, "if even one diesh, the will of the group may falter."
The man nodded. "Understood, Warsmith. That's how the ritual works, is it?"
"Not really, no, they're just jittery like that," Solon confessed. He swiveled to the side slightly when Twilight Sparkle's group approached. "I believe shome introductionsh are in order. Poniesh?"
Twilight straightened immediately, while Celestia raised an eyebrow.
"Thish man ish General Harlin, formerly Colonel Harlin. He will be replacing Cyrush Gnosh ash primary Commander of our mortal forcesh until shuch time that he sharesh the man'sh fate."
"Hello!" Pinkie Pie said, stomping ahead of the others to greet the new officer. "Congratulations on your promotion! I'd throw a party about it, but I'm still SUPER bummed about Mister Gnoss being blasted to pieces!"
General Harlin raised an eyebrow at the massive walker, his eyes tracking up to the pink pony sticking out of it. She did not look "super bummed."
"His loss was an unfortunate blow, indeed. But the Iron Warriors are unbroken, and the Company endures." Then he paused. "How exactly are you piloting that walker, anyway? I thought-"
"Don't," interrupted several voices at once, including Solon's.
"In any cashe, shee to the men, General. We are beginning now." After the human bowed and left, Solon shouted for another of his subordinates. "SHERITH!"
The Sorcerer approached, and a long weapons case floated through the air behind him, supported by his own telekinesis.
"Warsmith," Serith began, his voice a deep, echoing purr, "we are ready to open the breach. Your weapon is prepared."
"Excellent," Solon murmured as the metal box floated in front of him and then dropped to the ground. It opened with a sweep of the Chaos Lord's hand, and Solon drew an enormous power axe from its confines. The bladed head of the weapon was easily as big as Twilight herself, and the haft was obviously designed for a two-handed grip. Regardless, the Iron Warrior took it up with his left arm alone with no apparent difficulty.
"I'm still a bit confused," Rarity admitted as she looked at the Warsmith, "what, exactly, should we expect to be fighting?"
Serith chuckled. "As I have said previously, to create a Dark Portal is to wound the fabric of reality and unreality in tandem, tearing a breach between them."
"What does that even MEAN?" Rainbow Dash asked, annoyed.
"I'd hardly expect a creature of your feeble intellect to grasp such a thing," the Sorcerer replied tightly, "but when you harm the Empyrean, the Empyrean often harms you back." He lowered his head slightly to Solon, and then turned to walk away.
"We can expect an outpour of daemonsh, at the leasht," Solon explained, "thoshe of you without armor will want to cover behind thoshe that do. Shparkle, if you inshisht on being here deshpite your injuriesh, get in the back, behind your shovereign."
"Should I put up a shield?" Shining Armor asked while his sister backed up to stand next to him.
"It might not help," Solon said, unsheathing his heavy bolters, "the foe we face now ishn't protected by shteel, nor doesh it fight with shimple gunsh. Daemonsh are the eshence of pshychic power given will and form. But you can try."
Celestia glanced up at the sky, frowning. "I'll need to lower the sun and raise the moon. Do you suppose the magic of the falling dusk will interfere with your Sorcerer?"
Solon barked out a laugh. "On the contrary! I believe he wash counting on it!"
Serith walked to the podium centered between the lodestones, his force halberd gripped tightly in his fist. A pair of robed cabal unicorns followed, their eyes and horns glowing softly beneath their hoods.
"So much planning. So much work. So much BLOOD," Serith intoned as he stepped up to the golden dais, the heart of the Nethalican. Many of the surrounding soldiers were engaged in murmured conversations, and these died down to whispers when the Iron Warriors' High Sorcerer took his place. "Upon this night the future of the Centaur system shall be written in the eddies of the Warp. This world sits on the edge of a precipice, caught in the fiery tides of war. Either it shall drown beneath the numberless soldiers of the greenskins, or it will be plucked from the aliens' grasp to serve as fodder for the Gods of Chaos."
Serith laughed, and several of the cabal unicorns shuddered as they felt his voice bounce about within their heads unnaturally. "This world has made its choice, and sent thousands to the Dark Gods' clutches as toll for its salvation. Orks, mainly, but many humans and even Astartes have been given over to the Warp to fuel our machinations. And tonight..." he paused, and a deep, rasping breath was sucked in through his helmet grille while the sun began its final descent beneath the horizon. "... Tonight, reality itself shall buckle before our strength! Brace yourselves, my brothers and sisters, and behold, the will of Chaos manifest!"
Among the almost deathly silence of the crowd, the banging noise of a single equine clapping her armored hooves could be heard.
Trixie seemed completely oblivious to being the only one applauding, and she leaned over to one of the Iron Warriors who was staring at her.
"Trixie wrote that speech!" she confided proudly. "Really, Serith wanted to just break open the book and start the casting without saying anything. Can you believe it?"
Serith placed his force halberd on the ground in front of him, and then lifted up the book that rested against his hip, bound with iron clasps. The clasps unlocked with but a glance from the Sorcerer, and the pages of the tome flipped rapidly from one side to the other, seemingly of their own volition.
Serith calmly pinned down one particular page with a metal finger, and his visor glittered in the dimming light of the setting sun.
"And so it has begun," he intoned grandly, "the end... of the beginning."
Before the last word had reached the ears of the spectators, an enormous, crackling arc of crimson energy exploded from the Sorcerer, leaping to the dais. Many of the warriors watching the ritual stumbled backward in surprise, and some of the ponies whinnied in shock.
Those ponies didn't include the cabal, who maintained an eerie silence while they focused on the dais. The lodestone obelisks pulsed in time with their horns, and flickering motes of light seemed to float up from beneath their hooves in an invisible updraft before vanishing from sight.
Upon the dais, at the center of the writhing lashes of pure power, a small, glowing sphere of crimson started to form. That sphere grew as the ritual continued, building from marble-sized to baseball-sized within a minute.
Everyone present would have to admit it was an impressive display of arcane ability. As the minutes wore on and the sun finished sinking behind the mountain range, however, that impression started to fade.
"Hey, weren't we supposed to be in for some daemons?" Rainbow Dash asked restlessly. "This is pretty and all, but kinda boring."
"Oh, yes, Celestia forbid we should actually get something important done around here without having to fight for our lives," Rarity grumbled as her plasma gun floated in front of her. She cast an uncertain glance behind her at Princess Celestia; it felt somehow awkward to use her name like that when she was within earshot.
"It could happen," Solon said, shrugging, "the effectsh of the portal are not entirely predictable. It may offer no reshishtance at-"
As if in direct challenge to the thought, Solon was interrupted by a feral screech that rolled over the assembled defenders and set them on edge. A blazing flame with a color that defied simple description surged up from the ground, and then it emerged: A creature boasting long, hooked talons, and...
Well, surely there was more to the monster than simply talons, but the ponies didn't manage to glimpse more than that before some thirty or so lasblasts poured into the creature. Its body came apart almost instantly under the fusillade, disintegrating with a lingering hiss.
There was another long pause, and the human mercenaries stood ready for the next assailant. The Iron Warriors, keen to preserve ammunition if they weren't needed, patiently waited until they felt the lesser soldiers needed greater weight of fire. The Tau Warriors, having reacted too slowly to aid in shooting down the single daemon, murmured uncertainly amongst themselves and kept their weapons locked onto the growing portal.
They didn't have to wait long before new targets appeared, flashing into existence in bursts of flame around the portal. Two at a time, then three, then six, then three again. The crack of lasguns rained a constantly shifting stream of hot destruction into the snarling monstrosities, unmaking them as quickly as they turned corporeal.
"Okay, this is more like it!" Rainbow Dash said, vaulting up into the air and hovering over her friends.
"Are you seriously HAPPY that there's more fighting?" Rarity groused. The sound of boltgun and pulse rifle reports started coming from the defenders as the rest of the waiting infantry was needed to turn back the tide.
"Well, it would have been just a LITTLE anticlimactic if there wasn't!" Rainbow retorted. "I mean, come on! This is the main event!"
Despite her call for action, Rainbow couldn't really get a good shot in at the snarling monstrosities that kept flickering into place in front of the firing lines. Her weapon had abysmal accuracy at a normal rifle's range, and she didn't really want to get any closer to the storm of incoming fire.
"Well, Ah reckon they got this covered, though!" Applejack shouted over the din. "This ain't nothin' the boys can't handle!"
Before the farmer had even finished her sentence, the ground started to tremble underneath their hooves.
Shining Armor quickly put a barrier around him, his sister, and Celestia as the ground began to crack open around the portal. Ferrocrete broke apart and stretched open at the foot of the Nethalican's nexus, and after a moment of brief respite from the tremors a giant, barbed spike emerged from the breach in the ground.
At the head of an enormous purple tentacle.
Because, of course it was.
"I blame you for this," Rarity said to Applejack as the earth pony hung her head.
The tendril was the immediate target of a vicious barrage of heavy weapons, in particular the hot, spinning barrels of a Forgefiend's Hades autocannons. The fleshy base of the appendage was chewed apart by the burning shells of the ferocious weapon, and it seemed to crumble away to dust even before the bulk of the tentacle collapsed to the ground.
That particular tentacle wasn't the only one, unfortunately, and as the first of the mysterious limbs died another burst from the foundations.
This one snapped directly toward the defense lines and surged forward, driving its pointed head into the ranks of mercenaries and terrified Fire Warriors. It had pierced or slashed some dozen of them before punching into the side of a Rhino APC, ripping through the side armor and digging into the passenger cab.
"Hold on! I've got this!" Pinkie Pie shouted before she charged the writhing tendril. The tentacle was rising up into the air now as gunfire peppered its length, the Rhino still impaled on its spiked head.
As the smaller soldiers scrambled out of the way, Pinkie fired her multimelta into the tendril's side, instantly boiling away a considerable chunk of Warp-flesh. The massive appendage quivered, and Pinkie completed her charge and rammed into the wound. Her Dreadnought's crackling power fist tore through the rest of the tendril, and a deep, echoing groan issued from somewhere distant before the rest of the flesh started to come apart in the air.
The Rhino, which was anyway badly damaged by then, slammed into the ground mercilessly once the tentacle went slack. The nearest soldiers flinched away, but quickly returned their attentions to the portal; more daemons were arriving, and more tentacles were emerging from the fault lines. Nobody deigned to attend to the wrecked vehicle.
Even after a banging noise started coming from the APC's cab, the others ignored it. As they did when the door was finally smashed open and Dest rolled out onto the ground.
"I really don't know why I'm still trying to do this," the driver grunted before he pushed himself up to his feet. He glanced toward his vehicle, or rather, what was left of it. It had contained five other Iron Warriors when it had been attacked. At present Dest couldn't get a functioning codex signum from any of them.
"I should have stayed in the damn bakery," Dest growled, drawing his boltgun.
"Sho, anyway, thish ish jusht about what we were expecting!"
Solon shouted to be heard over the bursts of his heavy bolters, his slurred voice barely carrying to the equines sheltering behind him.
"I'm not sure I understand!" Twilight shouted back. "I thought daemons were allied with Chaos! I mean, that's what most of the texts suggested!"
"Oh, many of them are!" Solon assured her before another massive tentacle emerged from the ground nearby. "But Chaosh ish hardly a unified force! Theshe daemonsh aren't being properly shummoned or controlled, sho they're inherently hoshtile!" Solon hacked his axe into the tendril, carving a gouge out of the writhing flesh.
"Most daemons are simple-minded, bestial creatures, possessing little intellect or motivation besides killing and consuming," Gaela added while lasers pulsed from her servo limbs.
"I see!" Twilight shouted back. "What about Serith? He's the closest target, but they don't seem to be attacking him!"
The tentacle whipped about to crush the Chaos Lord cutting into it, but a pair of krak missiles crashed into its length, stunning the inexplicable mass.
"Oh, they won't bother him!" Solon assured her, tearing through the rest of the tentacle with his servo claw and toppling it. "He'sh the link to the Warp! Ash shoon ash he fallsh, they'll be banished back to the Empyrean!" Solon's heavy bolters kicked up again when a trio of daemons flickered into being, and two of them were ripped apart in an instant.
"And they don't want that?" Twilight yelled back. "I would think that they'd prefer a dimension composed of their constituent energies!"
"Not really! The daemon ish-"
"Seriously, can you guys nerd out some other time?" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "That is REALLY distracting!" A number of winged daemons had started appearing from the top of the portal, and the pegasus was veering between the flyers as she shouted over the noise of combat.
Solon grunted in annoyance before he swung his axe at a daemon that had managed to get close, only for it to duck low and then leap up onto one of his legs.
"Hey. Hey! Shtop that!" The Warsmith snapped, swiping for the monster as it clambered out of reach and onto his chassis.
A crackling hiss came from his side, and Applejack's gravity lash struck the spike-covered monstrosity before yanking it into the air and slamming it into the ground. Solon darted for the beast immediately, slamming a leg down into it hard enough to grind a crater into the ferrocrete.
"Thanksh," the Warsmith said to the farmer before his heavy bolters cycled their ammo belts underneath him.
"No problem!" Applejack grunted, keeping close to the mechanized Iron Warrior. "Any idea where these daggum tentacles are comin' from?"
"I have an inkling, yesh."
Above the slowly escalating ground battle, Rainbow Dash was veering wildly through the air, hammering those daemons that had the means to take flight. A stream of rainbows and exhaust marked her zig-zag path over the firefight while she rammed into one monster after another, bouncing between her foes like a pinball.
"C'mon, guys! Can't you just let us open the stupid evil portal thing?" Rainbow asked before she landed on the back of some kind of flying stingray monster. Firing her impulse blasters, she vaulted upward while the daemon plummeted downward. "I know I was kind of asking for it before, but Rarity had a point, you know? We DESERVE this!"
The pegasus fired a spread of shuriken into a pair of feathered daemons, sending them shrieking angrily to the ground while trailing wisps of Warp-matter.
Then a green flash came from right behind her, and Rainbow nearly dove away in surprise. "What? Hey! Was that a plasma shot?!" she asked angrily as she spun around.
Her visor easily confirmed the energy residue as the remains of a plasma bolt, but Rainbow Dash was also forced to recognize the screeching daemon rapidly disintegrating into a wisp of smoke. A Tau Crisis Suit team was suspended in the air some ways away, concentrating their fire on the flyers same as she was. One had a plasma weapon aimed in her general direction.
"Be aware of your airspace," the battlesuit said bluntly while its burst cannon started spinning up again and it turned away, "there are too many of these beasts to get complacent."
Rainbow bristled in irritation, although it was hard to be TOO mad about another soldier covering her back. "Just watch where you're firing that thing, would you? You guys aren't exactly the greatest shots..."
A great rumbling noise came from below, and Rainbow glanced to the ground as the Nethalican's foundation started to come apart further. "Aw, really? What NOW?"
Men and vehicles started to back away when the tears in the foundation ripped open wider, and an enormous mass of brownish-red flesh began to rise through the breach just next to the portal.
Rainbow Dash shot a burst of shuriken to cut down a shrieking daemon that had been diving at her, and then whipped around just in time to hit another with her impulse blaster. The second beast was sent flailing away as she was launched in the opposite direction, and the pegasus quickly twisted around to steady her flight path.
As she did so, she got a good look at the new monster that was slowly tearing itself free of the ground.
"Ewww," she said decisively.
The greater daemon was a writhing morass of muscle tissue, grasping bone talons, and huge, malicious tendrils. Observing the creature from high above, Rainbow was unable to put any real descriptor to the creature besides "huge," "red," and "nasty." It defied all physiological sense; a nightmare given flesh for the express purpose of rending and smashing and destroying without concern for the trifles of biology. Rainbow Dash felt a tremor go up her spine while she stared at it.
A burst of static in her ear warned her of another incoming message.
"All unitsh, shpread fire on the shmaller targetsh. The big one ish mine."
Rainbow Dash snapped around in the air, bringing herself to a hover. "Oh, I have GOT to see this."
"Wh-What IS that thing?!" Rarity shrieked as Solon stomped forward.
"Non-deshcript greater daemon. Nothing shpecial," the Warsmith quipped before his cannon arm lowered into place, "mosht daemonsh defy shimple clashification and divine alliance."
"How are ya gonna kill that thing on yer own?" Applejack asked skeptically.
A high-pitched whine started to come from Solon's beam weapon as it started heating up. "You never actually 'kill' a daemon. You jusht knock it back into the Hell it crawled out of."
The beam cannon fired, releasing a calm humming noise as a ray of pulsing white light stretched across the battlefield. Twilight felt a warm tingle spread from her horn at the sight, which worried her considerably until she saw what it did on contact with the daemon.
A flash of inverted light came from the monster when the beam struck it, and then the daemon imploded. It collapsed and shriveled inward, like a popped balloon, and several smaller daemons nearby were suddenly yanked toward the impact as air rushed to replace the displaced mass.
By the time Twilight shook her head to clear the spots from her eyes, the greater daemon and all of its enormous tentacles were gone. The Company's infantry were advancing again, emboldened by the sudden destruction of the monster. Solon's arm cannon smoldered briefly before a metal cylinder about the size of a soda can was ejected out of the back.
"Well, that should jusht about do it," the Warsmith said after a new power cell was loaded into the reaction chamber, "I doubt the portal can manage to draw another greater daemon, sho..."
The sphere at the center of the foundation, now about the size of a personnel carrier, flickered and trembled, as if it was straining against something.
"Huh. That'sh not normal."
A wisp of soft yellow light floated out of the portal, winding its way over the daemons that were being shredded by constant fusillades of rifle fire. A few lasguns were turned on the strange phenomenon, but the spears of hot red light did nothing to stop or harm the cloud as they blasted through it. It rolled lazily through the air as if it were a tumbleweed on the wind, curving high over the heads of the cabal unicorns.
Then it dove down into the ranks of the soldiers with sudden intensity, disappearing into the body of the first man it could reach.
"HRAAAAAAUGH!!" The other soldiers and nearby unicorns darted away when the afflicted man fell to the ground, screaming painfully.
"Bloody hell! Was that some sort of psychic attack?" shouted Daniels, creeping closer to the writhing soldier.
"N-No! I don't think it was!" sputtered a cabal unicorn when she focused her wychsight on the afflicted mercenary. "Get back! It's dangerous!"
Before Daniels could ask any further questions, the soldier started to stretch and contort horribly. Bone spikes began emerging from his skin, and his flesh stretched like rubber as his skeletal frame began to swell.
Whatever transformation had taken him, it didn't get to complete its work. Where the humans, ponies, and Tau watched the mutation in a terrified stupor, the Iron Warriors briefly turned their boltguns away from the portal daemons and fired on the mutating human. He was blasted apart in short order, and the Chaos Space Marines wasted no time in returning their guns to the previous engagement.
One of the super-soldiers grunted in annoyance when he spotted more wisps appearing from the portal. "They are possessing our troops! Slay the afflicted before they can turn against us!" barked one of the Chaos Marines as he reloaded a heavy bolter. "Sorcerer! Hurry and complete the ritual!"
"This is not really a procedure that can be RUSHED, brother," Serith drawled. Lightning still danced from his hands and spilled into the portal even while more daemonic spirits floated over him and dove into the ranks of defenders.
The wisps weren't many; they floated from the Warp rift in pairs or threes every minute or so, while the more corporeal monsters constantly flashed into being before launching ill-fated berserk charges at the defenders. Even so, the possessing spirits drove large wedges into the ranks as soldiers scurried away from the slow, ponderous clouds in fear. Enemies that couldn't be shot could only be avoided, went the thinking.
The Iron Warriors were not so easily cowed, and they stood their ground while keeping a shield of human and Kroot mercenaries in front of them. This strategy seemed to work, at least in the sense that it got rid of the spirits. As soon as the wispy clouds dove into one of the mortal bodies, the Chaos Marines leapt on the possessed with chainswords roaring. The afflicted warriors were killed quickly, before they could suffer the full effects of their possession or turn on their masters. It was efficiency of the coldest and most brutal sort.
It also made Applejack all the more terrified when one of the yellow-tinted wisps floated toward her.
"No! Hey! Stay back!" the farmer snapped, backing away as fast as her over-armored form could manage.
She whipped her tail forward, but the gravity lash flew through the cloudy spirit without any apparent effect as it wobbled forward.
Applejack turned around to break into a full sprint, only to be suddenly tackled in the side by a less phantasmal daemon.
"Gah! Git off me ya freak!" the earth pony shouted before razor-clawed talons scraped against the outermost plating. She pushed herself up and reared, throwing the daemon away and knocking it off its feet.
The corporeal monster was chewed apart by heavy bolter fire soon after it hit the ground, but the daemonic wisp had used the distraction to catch up to its target. Applejack felt an icy chill touch her tail and then crawl up her back as the ghastly fog seeped through her armor, and her eyes went wide behind her helmet.
Things really weren't helped when the nearest Chaos Space Marines turned toward her with boltguns aimed. It felt like her blood had turned to ice in her veins, but Applejack couldn't really tell if that was because of the daemon possessing her or a natural reaction having a dozen Iron Warriors ready to shoot your head off. Some of her friends cried out her name in a panic, but she could barely hear them as her senses started to go dark.
The apple farmer could feel the evil spirit settling within her. The bile started to rise in her throat, her muscles started shifting unnaturally, and her bones ached. And then, in the back of her mind, a hateful, malevolent voice whispered to her.
Aw, REALLY? A horse?! I'm not possessing this thing. Screw it, I'm out.
Applejack could only blink, stunned, as the daemonic wisp bled out of the front of her armor, re-forming into a free-floating cloud. Soon it had left her body completely, shocking the Iron Warriors who were standing nearby and ready to fire.
"Applejack! Are you all right?" Rarity gasped, running up to the larger pony and placing a hoof against her side.
"Ah... Ah'm okay," the orange mare said hesitantly, staring at the retreating yellow mist. "A little insulted, but okay."
The Iron Warriors were backing away while the daemonic wisp hovered forward, unsure of what to do. Not wishing to waste ammunition pointlessly, they began to break away just as the lesser soldiers had done.
The daemonic haze suddenly veered aside, and the ponies' eyes widened when it curled around and started picking up speed toward the largest warrior amongst the Company's gathered defenders.
"Warsmith! Look out!" Applejack shouted desperately.
"Eh? What's wrong?" Solon swiveled about on his chassis. "Oh..."
"Got it!" Twilight shouted, her horn pulsing before she fired off a magic blast at the wisp.
As it so happened, she was still behind Solon when she made the shot, and she didn't have the benefit of any visor targeters. Combined with her neck brace restricting her movement, it was perfectly understandable that her horn's aim wasn't dead-on target.
But that was probably cold comfort to Solon when the energy blast struck him in the back.
"Gah!" The Warsmith pitched forward toward wisp, and the misty spirit wasted no time in sinking itself into the tainted armor of the Chaos Lord.
"Twilight!" Shining Armor shouted as he scowled. In times long past, that word said in that tone usually preceded the sentence "I'm telling Dad".
"Sorry! Sorry! I am SO sorry!" Twilight cringed away as the Warsmith staggered to the side.
A deep, shuddering groan came from the Chaos Lord, and then he stood up straight on his chassis again.
"Warsmith? Sir? Are you... uh... still you?" Shining Armor asked. Several other Iron Warriors were approaching their high commander cautiously, their weapons at the ready.
"Hold your fire!" Gaela shouted from nearby, heedless of the fact that she was barking commands at Astartes. "The Warsmith will not falter!"
Solon started chuckling after she finished speaking, and the Mark of Nurgle seared into his abdominal plate glowed a sickly green.
"Shorry, friend. My shoul ish shpoken for," the Warsmith said softly.
The wisp promptly shot out of Solon's chest, surprising the nearest Marines before it dove down into the nearest Iron Warrior with newfound speed and desperation.
In what seemed like a profound and unfortunate coincidence, the new body ALSO happened to be someone that the ponies knew.
"Desty! DESTY, NO!!" Pinkie cried, stomping over to the driver as he collapsed onto the ground.
"Should have... hurk... stayed in... the damn... bakery... grrn..." his armor started to crack as the plating twisted and distended around him, and he could feel his organs shifting while they tried to resist the coming transformation.
Solon shook his head, and then addressed the other Marines and pointed to the writhing driver. "Shubdue and reshtrain that one. I think we might make shomething usheful out of him."
The Iron Warriors rushed at their fallen peer, stamping down on his arms even while the gauntlets grew into razor-tipped talons.
"Don't worry, Desty! We'll save you!" Pinkie said, an edge of desperation to her voice as she stomped up to the struggling driver. "You're going to be okay! Just fine!"
"Pin him down!" snapped one of the Iron Warriors. "Techpriests! We require restraining shackles!"
Pinkie laid her walker's massive power fist flat on Dest's back, holding down the driver's backpack while he convulsed painfully. "C'mon, Desty, you can beat this! This is nothing compared to blowing up a greater gnarloc! Remember when we did that? Good times, huh?" Pinkie said with a slightly hollow chuckle.
"Hrrrng! Grhg! This... is worse!" Dest snarled as his vox grille started to deform into needle-fanged mandibles.
Oh, yeah. This is what I was looking for. You and me are gonna go places, brah.
"What..." Dest paused to cough up a glob of acidic slime onto the ground, and his eyesight started to fade after he spotted Gaela approaching with heavy chains. "What are... you?"
Hi! Name's Vel! I'll be, like, your body's designated driver for the rest of your life! Stoked to meet you!
"Should have... stayed... in the bakery..." Dest gasped out yet again just before everything went dark.
Celestia's horn pulsed as the moon rose toward its traditional place in the night sky, slowly crawling through the web of stars and darkness. The sounds of gunfire and the snarls of enraged daemons surrounded her, but she could spare little attention for the battle. All her focus was required to drag the lunar satellite into place.
Celestia didn't remember it being this difficult before, and it hadn't been all that long since the last time she had performed Luna's sacred duty. At least partially this was because Luna was still around, if not actually available; the moon tended to attach itself to its guardian and resist outside interference, just as Luna would strain to manage her sister's duties in maintaining the solar cycle if she happened to sleep in one day.
But there was something else. Celestia suspected that Solon was correct that Serith's timing of the ritual was not coincidental. Perhaps he had even predicted her presence here. She could feel the nascent energies of the Dark Portal drawing upon her own spell, greedily drinking in the currents of power around her.
She felt the flows of energy, yet she could hardly imagine the terrors that she would witness were she able to peek into the breach that was rapidly opening over the foundation. What must it be like to swim in a current composed of the psychic death screams of tens of thousands of souls? And what of Serith himself, who guided such power? What torture could possibly compare to making oneself the nexus of a hundred chittering, angry daemonic minds clawing their way into reality with no intentions other than killing?
Celestia caught her mind wandering, and she banished the grim musings before her horn pulsed again. The familiar arcane constructs, ancient and powerful, flashed in front of her eyelids, and the lunar satellite once again shifted reluctantly along its orbit.
And then, with a final flash of yellow light, it was done.
When Celestia opened her eyes, she was treated to the sight of a crimson tower of pure magical energy blasting up into the sky. The white Princess recoiled in surprise and her wings snapped open by reflex, as if she was preparing to flee.
Dozens of screeching howls swallowed the sound of gunfire as the daemons were sucked back toward the pulsing sphere at the center of the foundation. The ponderous wisps were drawn in as well, their essences unraveling as they lost their anchor to this side of the universe. Great spined monsters and small winged furies alike were dragged back into the Immaterium while the mortals watched in morbid fascination. The soldiers were untouched by whatever force pulled at the aggressors, and could only hope that any other energies pouring from the whistling spire of Warp power were equally harmless to them. The cabal unicorns, who had admirably kept themselves from fleeing with only the occasional yelp and squeal of terror, struggled to contain the backlash as the ritual finished, and many of them slumped to the ground in exhaustion.
After several more tense seconds the last of the daemons were drawn into the breach, and the massive red pillar disintegrated into motes of twinkling light.
"It is... done," Serith declared. A veritable wave of relieved sighs swept through the soldiers at the declaration.
The Sorcerer gestured at the Dark Portal, which had stabilized into a swirling crimson disk. It was nearly ten meters across and hovered over the dais, floating parallel to the ground. It was calm, noiseless, and completely lacked the dramatic instability that had characterized the past twenty minutes.
"The Nethalican," Serith breathed, his voice almost trembling, "is complete. The Warp storms have already begun to form by my will. Our task... is finished."
"And it's about TIME!" added an exasperated voice from the portal before the surface quivered. "So much drama, just to stir up a little bit of rough Warp weather! Hmph!"
Discord's head rose from the surface of the Dark Portal, and then his hands gripped the (entirely non-existent) rim of the gateway before he pulled himself the rest of the way out.
"Credit where credit's due, though: you did a fair job for a clueless, half-blind child toying with a power he barely understands," Discord admitted as he stood over the Sorcerer and stuck his hand out, "put 'er there, buddy!"
Serith stared up at the draconequus, making no move to shake the creature's hand. "... This..." he trailed off awkwardly. "... This was not part of the ritual..."
"Discord!"
The spirit of Chaos and self-described Archdaemon turned around while several equines galloped toward the portal dais. Most of the soldiers were watching warily, obviously uncertain if they should be opening fire on this new intruder.
"My dear pony friends!" Discord said, spreading his arms wide. "How are you? It's been so long!"
"Where the hay have you been?!" Rainbow Dash demanded after she landed in front of him. "We've all been fighting for weeks!"
"And you've done an impeccable job!" Discord said brightly, dropping his arms. "You wouldn't BELIEVE how many bets I have to cash in after that stunt with the Gargants! Even the precognizants didn't think you could seriously pull that off!"
"That's, uhm, nice," Fluttershy mumbled as she flickered into view next to Discord's foot, "but, well, what have you been up to all this time? If you don't mind me asking..."
"Well, a Dark Portal takes as much preparation to set up from the 'other side' as it does here, you know!" Discord insisted, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've been laying our own foundations for a long time now! Since before my initial release from petrification, technically."
Twilight dearly wanted to know what "preparations" for a far-fetched, hypothetical sorcerous construct could "technically" be made while one was immobilized in stone. She might have even made the mistake of asking the draconequus for those details if Solon hadn't interrupted.
"Dishcord...? Ish that...?" the words were soft and confused, but the ponies quickly turned away to watch the Warsmith approach.
Discord's expression shifted from his usual devil-may-care grin to a grim frown, and his eyes narrowed before they turned on the mechanized Astartes. "And here comes the man of the hour himself," Discord spat. His voice was bitter and contemptuous, and Twilight was suddenly more aware than ever that she wasn't wearing a shell of adamantium over her face. "Or part of a man, at least. Between the bugs and the pistons, is there anything resembling flesh left in that glorified trash can you've been stuffed in?"
Now all the ponies were alarmed and backing away. Celestia and Shining Armor held their own spot behind Solon, unsure if they should fear being caught in the line of fire.
"... It ISH you," Solon said. A lash of energy ran over the length of his beam weapon. "How long hash it been, then, Archdaemon? Shix thoushand sholar yearsh?" His hand tightened around his axe. "I really thought you'd turned tail and run for good."
"From YOU? Oh, you DO flatter yourself, Brother Solon," Discord snorted.
Fluttershy crept forward quickly toward the Spirit of Chaos, quivering fearfully in her armor. "Uh, D-Discord? This m-man is actually-"
"Not now, dear, the ancient abominations are talking," Discord interrupted.
Solon stopped his approach barely a meter away from the draconequus, and his smokestacks blasted a puff of foul gases and a spray of glittering embers into the air. The spectators - none of them given orders or understanding the confrontation - could only watch as their eyes shifted between the Archdaemon and the Chaos Lord.
"You have a lot of nerve showing your twishted face to me after what you did," Solon said. More sparks leaked from his cannon arm, and a quiet whining noise came from the reaction chamber.
"You have a lot of guts standing before ME after what I did," Discord countered. He was smiling again now, but it held no mirth or amusement. It was a cruel, hateful grin that promised only suffering. "Do you think it will end differently this time?"
"Only one way to find out," Solon growled, his chassis crouching.
"No, wait!" Twilight finally shouted, stumbling forward. "Please don-"
Her plea went unanswered as Solon darted forward. He swept his left arm toward Discord, axe and all, wrapping the Archdaemon's fairly slender body under the crook of his arm. Once the draconequus was held firm, his torso swiveled around completely, pulling Discord's body around him as he started to turn around.
Discord, for his part, cackled malevolently as he was pulled along, and his tail curled around the Iron Warrior's waist to wrap around his opponent. By the time Solon had turned around, the draconequus was partially wrapped around him.
Then Solon started walking away, with him and Discord wrapped in some sort of bizarre, serpentine hug.
"I do hope you've gotten better in the past few millennia. You've always been a mediocre tactician," Discord said, smiling once again.
"Pah! Big talk coming from you, cheater! Don't think I haven't forgotten that your 'tacticsh' moshtly involve changing randomizer cube rollsh," Solon countered while he walked past a stunned Celestia and Shining Armor.
"Hey, wait!"
Solon halted, and he turned his head around toward Twilight. "Yesh? What ish it?"
He could see that several ponies were gesturing to him and his "passenger" incredulously, their helmets disengaged. As were many of the bipedal soldiers, actually. Serith had his arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the Chaos Lord, tapping his foot impatiently.
"Ah, right. Shorry." Solon raised his voice. "Mission complete, everyone! Good job! You are dishmished!"
"Go team! Chaos is the best! Whoo!" Discord added, waving a tiny pennant with the Iron Skull on it.
"Sherith, you may proceed to conshtruct the resht of the temple immediately."
With that, Solon turned around again and continued walking off, still carrying Discord along with him.
"Sho, do you shtill prefer ushing Eldar for tactical holo-shimulationsh?" Solon asked.
"Meh, not really. I mostly run Tyranids now," Discord replied, lounging over the back of the Warsmith's chassis, "they've been a lot more fun since the new rules came out."
"Oh, good! Nobody in my fleet likesh to ushe that force! Thish should be fun!"
"... So... uh..." Twilight glanced back at her friends and teacher, an awkward smile on her face. "We... won? I mean, this is it, right? We're safe from the Orks!"
"Yay," said Fluttershy, for once displaying exactly as much enthusiasm as she was feeling.
"They know each other," Celestia groaned, rubbing a hoof against her face, "those two monsters actually KNOW each other. Ancients help us all."
****
Daeldus Sector - one week later
Warboss Kahg Krushah growled dangerously as he stared down the cowering Weirdboy kneeling before him on his command deck.
"Ya seeryuss? We can't go no furdah? Wot iz dis?" snapped the massive Ork.
"Sorree, Boss," quailed the twitching psyker, "da stahm's bad! Reel bad! An jus' gettin' worse! We go fer da beekun an we won' mayk it to da WAAAGH 'fore we'z ripped ta shredz! We gotz ta hed da udda way!"
Kahg stomped a foot hard onto the floor, causing the Weirdboy and a few nearby Meks to bounce from the force. "Damm it all! Dis iz startin' ta mayk me MAD!"
The Warboss turned swiftly away from the simpering psyker, and he glared out of the window of the command deck and into the void outside.
The very busy, cluttered void.
Thousands of Ork ships of all types and sizes were spread throughout the patch of empty space where the fleets had been forced to drop into real-space, eventually coming to resemble a massive, horribly cluttered traffic jam. Raider frigates and stolen cargo freighters mingled with rokks and kroozers hanging in sloppy formations. Dwarfing even the main combat ships were the space hulks; truly massive vessels composed of numerous other ships cannibalized and fused together in the Warp until they had become monstrous in size. Millions of Orks from thousands of tribes and warbands waited restlessly within these mighty ships, having been promised time and time again that battle was coming.
Kahg's ship was one such space hulk, the command vessel of his tribe and fleet. With such an impressive vessel at his command he had enough power of his own to launch his own WAAAGH, certainly, but like many other Warbosses he had been intrigued by the appearance of a beacon. Pursuing that signal had guided his horde on a path of devastation across the edge of the Tau Empire, but had hardly delivered on the promise of constant, full-scale warfare that was the essence of WAAAGH.
By now Kahg mostly regretted that initial decision. Reaching each system on the tail of fleeing grayskin fleets, none of his boyz had had a decent fight in months. Even so, they had been willing to follow the beacons, convinced that eventually they would reach a fight that needed their support or at least catch up to and meet the head Warboss that was cutting a swath through these sectors.
But this was the last straw. Coming up on a WAAAGH beacon only to have a Warp storm spring up in the way wasn't just bad luck, it was an omen. It seemed Gork and Mork just didn't want them to join this fight.
Or, at least, that's how he was planning to explain things to his fleet.
Warboss Kahg snorted when he caught sight of some weapons flash among the distant Ork ships. With no single Warboss in charge of the whole advance, skirmishes had broken out regularly between the fleet's tribes, and tempers were high now that there was a new obstacle. He could see other ships belonging to other Warbosses slowly moving to break away from the fleet and get to a safe distance for Warp translation. Some would abandon the WAAAGH, and in fact many already had. But many others would stubbornly keep following the beacons, taking a long route around the storm to reach the next one. And after that, who knows? There was probably just another beacon, and another handful of Tau cowards fleeing through the void. Kahg was done with this.
"A'roight, boyz! We'z gettin' outta heah!" the Warboss suddenly growled, pointing in a random direction in space. "No mo' beekuns! I'ze gonna git us a reel fight!"
"Boss! Boss!" shouted one of the Meks suddenly, pointing to his screen. "We'z got sum'fin!"
Kahg growled again. "Like wot?"
"I fink... it'z a krooza, Boss! Skuffed up but gud, it iz! Jus' dropped in frum weerdspess!"
Kahg Krushah was unimpressed. "So?"
"It caym outta da stahm, Boss."
"... Say wot?"