//------------------------------//
// Balance of Power 
// Story: Iron Hearts: Book 5 - Suffer Not the Alien to Live 
// by SFaccountant 
//------------------------------//

Iron Hearts: Book 5
Chapter 11
Balance of Power


****


Crystal Empire


Shining Armor let out a pleased sigh as he stepped out onto the balcony of his bedroom at the top of Crystal Castle. A chilling wind ruffled his mane, and he closed his eyes against the breeze as he breathed it in.
He opened his eyes again, gazing upon the snow-capped mountain range in the distance.
"Beautiful," he whispered, his voice almost reverent.
"What, the view?"
Cadence trotted up behind her husband, a cup of coffee levitating behind her. "Not that it isn't nice, but you should be used to it by now."
"What can I say, I've come to appreciate things like this recently," Shining Armor said as he leaned over the balcony railing, "majestic, unspoiled nature."
Cadence hummed something as she sipped her coffee. "Still thinking about the humans?"
"Who isn't?" the unicorn replied with a snort. "It's all anypony talks about nowadays. When I walk down the street, it's not 'Hey Prince, how's that new legislation coming along,' or 'Behold! The brother of the Element of Magic and husband to the Princess of Love!' No, I'm more famous for visiting that horrible factory and watching General Gnoss die."
Cadence shivered at the reminder. She had NOT been happy when he'd come home from Ponyville battered and wrapped up in bandages.
"Point. And it's not just ponies," the pink alicorn mumbled, "more and more details and rumors have been spilling out to the other kingdoms. It's not like the Iron Warriors ever hid their presence or we ever hid our involvement with them, but there was a time when the idea of gun-toting aliens settling our world was a pretty incredible idea."
Shining pursed his lips. "Right. Can't be long before that bird comes home to roost." He rested his head on the railing. "So I figure I should enjoy the current peace while I can."
Cadence giggled slightly and leaned against her husband. "You said it, Captain Armor," she said with a smirk, gazing out at the snow-capped peaks along with him. "Do you think we did the right thing?"
"The 'right' thing? I don't know," the stallion admitted, "but we made the best decision we could under the circumstances, and in the end it paid off. We're safe now."
Shining Armor fell silent as Cadence nuzzled him, and he gave her a peck on the nose before returning his attention to the frosty vistas in the distance.
After several seconds, the ponies noticed that a large, dark shape seemed to be descending on the mountains from above. Cadence squinted at it, trying to make it out despite the distance.
"... Honey?"
"Yeah?"
"Is that a space ship?"
"I believe it is, yes."
They continued watching as the massive vessel careened toward the planet, trailing a vast plume of smoke in its wake.
"It's not in space," Cadence pointed out ruefully.
"No, it isn't," Shining agreed.
They kept watching in morbid fascination as the ship plunged into the mountainside, tearing open the enormous edifice of stone and ice. A huge fireball erupted on the point of contact, though that bright flash was soon swallowed up by a rising shroud of dust.
Cadence turned away from the impact and dropped her levitation magic. Her coffee cup fell to the ground and shattered at Shining's hooves.
"I'm going back to bed," she groused as she left, "it is WAY too early to put up with this hay."
"Yes, dear," Shining mumbled, still watching the expanding devastation, "I'll come get you if it turns out we're doomed."


****


Ferrous Dominus - sector 2
Ground batteries ordnance storage


"Warning! Enemy units have made planetfall! Xeno incursions detected in sector 9, sector 4, sector 2, and sector 15!"
The vox casters around the fortress buildings continued to spurt warnings and commands, but Gaela couldn't really hear it.
"All units proceed to your designated garrisons! Enemy vessels are in position to initiate orbital bombardment!"
The crackling sound of the power axe's disruption field mixed with the hiss of gases and the noise of electrostatic radiation permeating the air. The sound formed a purely industrial, chaotic battle chant in Gaela's ear, and the crude noise of warfare was disassembled to strings of numbers and inputs that swam about her mind in tantalizing and intriguing patterns. It was a subtle hymn, certainly, especially compared to the grim declarations of the Iron Warriors or the jubilant howling of the Orks. But it perfectly suited the members of an organization that considered expression of emotion a weakness unto itself.
"All forces are to maintain emergency alert status Primarus! This is not a drill!"
It was a harsh, painful song. One that perfectly mirrored the cruel and agonizing nature of modern combat.
And though she'd never admit to such a heinous display of passion, Gaela LOVED it.


"WAAA-urk!" an Ork Nob found a power axe lodged in its throat as its battlecry was cut off (as was its larynx). A servo arm snapped forward and smashed into its forehead, sending the massive warrior sprawling onto the ground.
"Omnissiah, unmake the xeno! Let your unholy machines rend flesh and shatter bone!" Gaela sang as her servo limbs churned around her. One of her extra limbs beamed a laser into a charging Ork's face, stunning it long enough for Gaela's power axe to carve a lethal path through its chest. "Dark Gods! Empower and harden our steel! Blades to drink the flesh of the unworthy, flame to purge the souls of the weak!"
A choppa hammered against her shoulder plate as she failed to parry a blow, but she twisted with the impact and drove her left arm toward the offender. The claws of that arm clamped tight around the head of the Ork, and it grunted and started pounding against her bionic limb.
Her ion blaster discharged, and lightning shook the Ork's body and cooked its skull in an instant.
Gaela flung the body into another Ork, staggering it as it tried to fire its slugga. Before it could recover the Dark Techpriest was already on top of it, digging a servo-drill into its eye socket.
+Dark Techpriest, please refrain from pursuing the enemy and breaking ranks,+ Geth blurted as his mechadendrites slithered about and skewered the Gretchin clawing at his legs. An Ork Runtherd leapt at him with weapon poised to strike, and Geth stabbed forward with his taser goad, his augmetic arm moving like a striking serpent. The crackling, fork-tipped stave struck the Ork with a crash like a small thunderclap, and the alien warrior was suddenly wrapped in hot arcs of plasma.
Gaela kicked away another corpse, and her helmet pitched slightly to one side as a slugga round bounced off of it. +Rather than my restraining my success at slaying xenos, why don't YOU keep up with me, Scavurel?+ She smashed a shoulder into another boy and then punched its jaw apart with her gun-arm.
+We have DEFENSIVE prioritus,+ Geth reminded her as he drilled another metal tendril into another hapless Grot.
+Your prioritus is whatever I say it is,+ Gaela countered, catching another choppa blow with a spare servo limb. Her axe returned the favor with prejudice, laying out another warrior at her feet. +Destroy the alien!+
There were some twenty Scavurel fighting off the greenskins behind Gaela, and their optics blinked as the Dark Techpriest released a data pulse into the squad. In near-perfect synchronization, the cyborg warriors drew their swords or revealed pneumatic arm-mounted blades, brandishing their steel before the brutish aliens.
The Orks opposite the avenue promptly sensed that the dynamic of the combat had changed, and they reacted with childlike glee. Shoota Boyz vaulted over barricades and chunks of wreckage, firing their crude machine guns and laughing as they charged to their probable doom.
"Slaughter the xeno!" Gaela snarled, switching to Gothic out of (recently acquired) habit. "Death to those who would oppose Chaos!" She raised her axe to the sky, and arcs of lightning whipped about the head as if lighting the path forward.
"Please look away for a moment!" squeaked a voice from behind her.
Of course, when Gaela heard that, her first thought wasn't "I should turn around" but rather "What the Hell is Fluttershy doing here?"
As such, she was really less prepared for the photon grenade than if nothing had been said at all.


Fluttershy winced as both the Dark Mechanicus and Orks flinched back from the grenade flaring between them, each side staggering to a halt in shock, surprise, and sudden blindness. "Sorry!" she called out afterward.
Between the two groups, the Scavurel recovered far faster than the Orks. Their optical augments and ballistics visors were all shielded against light flare, even if they couldn't completely protect the soldiers from the stun grenade. But even so, the cyborgs didn't manage to recover in time.
In time to get any kills of their own, that is.
"IRON WITHIN, BECOME THE IRON WITHOUT!!" Tellis bellowed as he crashed feet-first into the Ork mob. In a flash of motion and with a sharp sizzling noise echoing in alien ears, two boyz collapsed with their guts spilling onto their feet.
"Blood for the... say it with me..." Tellis smashed a fist down onto an Ork's head and then stabbed another in the face. "BLOOD GOD!!"
"Blood God..." Fluttershy mumbled, her voice so weak that her vox grille could barely amplify it to an audible volume.
"Good enough!" the Chaos Lord crowed, cutting down one Shoota Boy after another. "Now come on and kill something!"
He brought up his knee into the unit Nob's stomach, launching the alien into the air before jumping up over it and punching it back down to the ground. "Hurry up, or there won't be any left for you!"
Fluttershy cringed away from the brutal display, and continued sitting at the edge of a darkened corner with her cloak on. "Oh, that's okay. You can go ahead."
Tellis made a growling noise as he wrenched the shoota out of another boy's hand and then started clubbing him to death with it. "No way, Shy! You promised! I go to your lame community service group thing, and you actually score a direct, deliberate kill on something!"
"I never said anything like that!" Fluttershy protested.
An Ork's blade stabbed into Tellis' side, and he grunted slightly before ramming his claws up through the alien's jaw. "C'mon, Fluts! I'm making a real effort with this 'friendship' thing! You could at least TRY."


The Scavurel, who had completely recovered their vision by now, watched in bemused silence as the Orks were completely thrashed. Some of them glanced back at the sound of Fluttershy's voice, trying to figure out where, exactly, she was. Gaela calmly cleaned her axe and ran an armor diagnostic, quietly insisting to herself that she did NOT feel disappointed and embittered at having her targets killed before she could get to them.
"I suppose we should be thankful that he's actually fighting where we need him, for once," she grumbled, "the anti-orbital batteries are secure."


"But Orks are so scary!" Fluttershy complained. "I don't think I can beat one!"
Tellis grunted before shredding the second-to-last Ork, and then leapt for the last survivor.
The final Shoota Boy, who defied all sense of reason and intellect and wasn't trying to run away, instead fired his shoota at the charging Raptor.
The burst fire bounced uselessly against his chest plate, and Tellis slashed at the gun barrel to cut it apart. Then he grabbed the young Ork by the throat and hauled him up into the air.
"Okay, look!" Tellis shouted, twisting his head toward Fluttershy's hiding spot. "He's disarmed and helpless! Come over here and kill him! This one is a freebie!"
Fluttershy blinked, and her cloak flickered as she stepped out from her hiding place. "Er... what?"
"Look! I disabled this guy without killing him, so now you can do it!" the Chaos Lord insisted.
Again, the pegasus hesitated. "Uhm... but you did kill him."
"No I didn't!" Tellis protested, thrusting the Ork toward the pony. "See? He's..."
The Iron Warrior trailed off as he realized that his free hand was no longer free, having apparently plunged its lightning claws into the Shoota Boy's head when he wasn't paying attention.
"Huh," Tellis mumbled as he dropped the alien corpse, "weird. You'd think that with all the practice I've been getting at not killing people lately, I'd be better at it."
"Lord Tellis!" Gaela called, stepping around the dead bodies littering the ground. "The greenskins have managed to land a heavy assault craft near the Dark Mechanicus facilities. We have substantial ground forces within our security perimeter."
"I know!" Tellis said happily. "Isn't it GREAT?!"
An explosion ripped through the air above, causing Fluttershy to yelp and leap back into cover.
Gaela focused on the noise, pinpointing the pony's location. "Fluttershy, we have wounded. See to them immediately."
"Wh-What? Oh, my! Of course!" she scrambled out of her hiding place and blinked back into the visible spectrum.
The Dark Techpriest was about to organize the remaining Scavurel and plan their next move, but Tellis proved, as always, to be an impediment to sound strategy.
"Hey, you seen Dash anywhere?" the Iron Warrior asked, poking Gaela in the shoulder pauldron. "I'm thinking our combined peer pressure could finally push Fluttershy out of her comfort zone and get her to take those first few steps toward becoming a remorseless killer."
Gaela spent a moment to restrain her annoyed muttering. "My Lord, you have access to Dash's locator rune. You can find her without my assistance."
"True, but I don't care," the Chaos Lord explained, poking her pauldron again, "help me find my pony."
"I can hardly see how my presence will aid you, Lord," Gaela pointed out calmly, "you can travel faster than I, and are better able to overcome any hazards established by the Orks."
"Right, sure. But any time there's a problem, all the horses cluster around you like you're their herd alpha or something." Tellis poked her again.
Gaela had to pause and consider that. "That is... regrettably true. But as you can plainly see, that is not the case this time."
"Gaela! We found you!"
The Dark Techpriest didn't even turn around as Twilight galloped around a corner and down the street toward her. She was followed by Spike, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, with Rainbow Dash perched on the shoulder of Pinkie's Dreadnought.
"Oh, hey! Tellis is here!"
"Ugh, so he is. At least we found Fluttershy."
"Hi everyone! Enjoying the desperate defense against a foe with no mercy or restraint?"
Tellis crossed his arms over his chest and continued to stare down at Gaela.
Gaela struggled for something to say under the Chaos Lord's gaze. "... I did n-"
"AH,THERE BE THE PRIESTESS OF MACHINES!" boomed a voice down the opposite end of the avenue. "MISTRESS GAELA, WE REQUIRE THY COUNSEL!"
"Eeyup."
Luna and Big Macintosh approached Gaela at an easy trot, their gait altogether more relaxed than that of Twilight's squad.
Gaela released a frustrated sigh and turned her head toward the Scavurel. +Proceed to perimeter 39-zeta. Warpsmith Kessler is organizing kill teams to sweep crash survivors from the streets.+
+Affirmative, Dark Techpriest,+ Geth blurted, nodding at the approaching equines, +may the Omnissiah lend fury and precision to your steel.+


With the other soldiers sent away to do something useful, Gaela took a deep breath and turned toward Twilight Sparkle.
"Make it quick, Sparkle. There is much to do right now," the cyborg remarked.
"Yes, we know," the alicorn agreed, "that's actually why we're here. Is there a plan yet to fend off the Orks?"
"Aside from establishing defensive perimeters and making rounds through the fortress to kill them, no," Gaela admitted, "until we know how the xenos have circumvented the Warp storm, we have no means of stemming the tide of attackers. And while I have full confidence that the Warsmith will discover and correct the error, in the meantime I can think of no means to directly aid him. We must concentrate on defense."
"I'm cool with just making rounds and killing things," Tellis volunteered.
"Art there any regions that require immediate aid?" Luna asked.
"There are," Gaela nodded, "the greenskins managed to get a Landa down in sector 4 relatively intact. The Dark Mechanicus forces there have secured the buildings, but they won't be able to keep the Orks out for long. Needless to say, our weapon labs would make quite a prize for xeno scavengers."
"Then let us take to battle!" Luna said, slamming the gauntlets of the Iron Gage together. "The foul savages shalt rue the day they dared to challenge us!"
"What night horse said," Tellis agreed eagerly.
"Wait! First..." Twilight gulped, mentally preparing herself for what could be the single greatest personal loss of her lifetime. "There was a vessel in orbit that had is engines damaged so that it dropped to the planet surface..."
Gaela's optics flickered. "There have been three such vessels so far. Specify."
"Three Ork ships, huh?" Rainbow Dash murmured. "Sounds like you guys are doing pretty well up there!"
Gaela shifted her helmet to glare at her. "Only two of those ships belonged to the Orks."
The nearby rumble of the ground batteries firing emphasized the deathly silence that settled over the equines while this fact slowly sank in. Twilight felt a familiar lump of ice form in her stomach, and she completely forgot what she was about to ask.
"By the ancients..." Luna whispered. "Thy ships... the crew numbered in the thousands, did it not?"
"Affirmative," Gaela replied. Her voice sounded slightly more irritated than normal. "Although some crew may be salvaged from savior pods, the technology and cargo losses are quite crippling to our quotas. Another craft has been badly damaged, but has sustained stable orbit, at least. Assuming the Orks don't overrun us and take it, it may be rescued and repaired."
"How about that? It turns out that Sliver was right all along!" Tellis said. He didn't seem at all put off by the news. "Who would've thought?"
The ponies continued to sit in stunned silence, and Gaela cleared her throat as she again turned to Twilight. "I believe you had a question regarding the ships?"
"R-Right," Twilight stuttered, suddenly recalling her own question. Her throat felt unbearably dry, and she felt like she might throw up. "One of the... the Ork ships. It was going to land on Canterlot."
"WHAT?!" Luna boomed, knocking Rainbow Dash onto the ground with the force of the bellow.
"Bummer," Tellis opined, "oh well. More blood for the Blood God, you know?"
"We sent a warning in time!" Twilight said as she stumbled from Luna's outburst. "But I don't know what happened after that!"
Gaela groaned in annoyance and leaned on her axe. "Give me a moment."
The tension was palpable among the ponies as the Dark Priest fell silent. Luna was wringing the hands of the Iron Gage and creating an unbearable screeching noise with the motions, while Fluttershy was already curling up on the ground to get a head-start on having an emotional breakdown.
"... The auger relays deployed around Ponyville have not detected significant seismic activity in the region, much less those consistent with a frigate-class vessel making an uncontrolled landing," Gaela declared, "other, less obvious signs of such an impact are likewise absent. There is no reason to believe that Canterlot has been destroyed."
Were Twilight not being supported by power armor, she would have collapsed on the spot out of sheer relief.
"Great! So the green freaks haven't killed EVERYONE, at least," Rainbow said.
"Indeed. That is a great relief, but there 'tis much still for the xenos to answer for," Luna said, an arc of lightning surging between the Iron Gage, "shalt we take to battle once more?"
Gaela nodded. "If there are no more interru-"
Spike started coughing, and then a puff of green flame blasted out next to Twilight. She flinched away, but then her eyes widened as a scroll landed at her hooves. Gaela sighed again.
"Ah-ha! Proof that Sister yet lives!" Luna said brightly. "Our efforts may yet salvage this day!"
"Dandy. Can we go stab more Orks, now?" Tellis asked.
"Just a minute," Twilight insisted as she unfurled the scroll with her magic. She recognized the writing immediately as being from Kibitz, Celestia's personal assistant. "This could be important! It says: 'Ork ship landed. City taken, castle surrounded. Sad face. Please assist.'"
"It actually says 'sad face'?" Tellis asked immediately.
"No," Twilight shook her head, "it was a colon followed by an open para-" she suddenly snapped her head up in shock. "Never mind that! Canterlot is under attack!"
Although the ponies were, as expected, nodding in agreement and concern, Gaela remained singularly unimpressed.
"So what? A ground assault by Orks is considerably less of an obstacle than a void ship threatening to crash into the city. If your sovereign can deal with the latter, then let her resolve the former," the Dark Techpriest said, "we have our own problems."
"Yeah, but we can't just leave them! Princess Celestia asked for our help!" Rainbow Dash interjected, swiftly taking over the conversation.
"You do not serve Princess Celestia, you serve the 38th Company," Gaela countered, "we require your services here."
The speedy pegasus scowled. "Come on, Gaela! The Company doesn't really need us! You already have an army!"
"As does Canterlot," Gaela pointed out.
"Yeah, but theirs sucks! They can't defeat the Orks without our help!" Rainbow insisted.
"I don't believe that Princess Celestia would request our aid at a time like this unless it were particularly dire," Rarity offered tepidly.
"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed, just to remind everyone he was still there.
"Gaela, you KNOW we can't just abandon Canterlot. Saving Equestria was the reason we joined you to begin with!" Twilight pulled off her helmet, staring up into Gaela's visor. "Please, you have to let us go!"
"C'mon Gaela!" Spike added. "Celestia's like our family! Plus, you know, our ACTUAL family is in the city, too."
"Irrelevant," Gaela snapped back, ignoring Twilight's desperate expression, "I am demanding your aid HERE."
"Thou dost not command us," Luna said firmly. Then, a moment later, her pose shifted uncomfortably. "Er... Dost thee?" She wasn't completely clear on how the Dark Mechanicus fit into the chain of command, honestly.
"And how are you planning to get to your capital in time to be of any use? We're not going to fly you there," Gaela said, crossing her bionic arms over her chest, "defeat the Orks in Canterlot and you may buy your people a few days. Weeks, at most. The Orks must be stopped entirely, and that will only happen here."
Rainbow Dash jumped into the air, sputtering angrily as she shifted into a hover. "We can't just... I mean, if the Princess..."
Then she suddenly spun around to face Tellis. "Tellis! You're with us, right?"
The Chaos Lord cocked his head to the side. "Well, it's not like I'm super particular about WHERE I murder lots of dudes, but it sure seems inconvenient to go all that way when we have plenty of victims right here."
"But... we have to save Princess Celestia!" Rainbow insisted.
"Which one is Princess Celestia?" Tellis asked.
Luna slapped the Iron Gage over her visor as Twilight growled in frustration.
"She was the big white one!" Rainbow Dash explained. "Big sun on her butt, and long, funny-looking hair!"
"Oh! Right! Her! I saw her in Ponyville when we owned that Drahgza guy!" Tellis recalled, scratching at the chin of his helmet. "... She seemed like kind of a loser to me. I don't care if she dies."
"RRRRRHGH!!" Rainbow clasped her helmet between her hooves, growling incoherently before she lifted further into the air. "The hay with it! I'm going!"
"Dash, no!" Twilight cried out, lifting a hoof toward the pegasus. "We can't just leave! I want to save Canterlot too, but-"
"No! No 'but'!" Rainbow barked. "If you want to go, we're going! Everypony who can fly, come with me!" She beckoned upward with a hoof, and Luna and Fluttershy stepped forward uncertainly.
Gaela's voice halted them in their tracks. "You're NOT leaving Ferrous Dominus," she said frostily.
"Gaela, don't take this the wrong way, all right? I see your point and everything and I really don't want to blow you off like this. But I'm leaving, and you can't really stop me," the pegasus said as her flight pack started to lift her upward.
Gaela snorted, and she pointed her power axe at the flying pony.
In an instant, Rainbow's visor went dark, her servos turned unresponsive, and her flight pack cut off its thrust.
"... Wha?" was all that the cocky speedster could manage before she fell to the ground, bounced off the ferrocrete, and then slid to a stop next to Pinkie Pie.
"Okay, so what's going on, now?" Tellis growled impatiently. "Are we going to go kill Orks or not?"
"Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?" Fluttershy gasped as she and the other ponies clambered over to the fallen pony.
Rainbow hadn't fallen from any great height, so she was entirely unharmed. But it was hard not to notice the way she struggled and grunted as she tried to move. "What... the... hay? My... armor! Wh-What did... you DO?"
"I turned it off," Gaela said simply.
When the equines simply glanced over at her in shock, she elaborated. "Warsmith Solon installed system killswitches in every suit of Centaur-pattern armor he constructed. Any Dark Techpriest or Warpsmith can render your armor inert in moments." She leaned on her axe again as she explained the ponies' predicament. "In such a state, the suit is a veritable prison, rendering you helpless and almost immobile. Those of you without sufficient psychic talent cannot even remove it."
"Th-That's crazy!" Rainbow Dash protested, fighting against the resistance of her leg plating. "Why would he do that?!"
Then the pegasus paused. "Oh. Right. This is why, huh?"
"Did you really think that your allegiance to the 38th Company relied on 'the honor system'?" Gaela asked dryly. "That we would shower you with the finest weapons this Legion possesses, and then leave you to do as you wish?"
"Well, I suppose that seems silly NOW, yes," Rarity interjected, "but you have to admit that Solon gives some rather mixed messages."
Luna shook her head, stepping toward Gaela. "Techpriest Gaela, see reason! Sister cannot-"
"Off," Gaela interrupted, pointing toward Luna.
Luna froze immediately. The various red lights on her armor winked out, and the twin gauntlets of the Iron Gage dropped to the ground with a hefty clanging noise.
"...... We believe the Dark Techpriest makes a formidable case," Luna murmured, her voice muffled somewhat through the inactive vox grille.
"Question!" Pinkie Pie said, raising her power fist to point at the Dark Techpriest. "If one of us happens to have a vehicle shell that was borrowed - wink - from a friend rather than an armor suit built by Shmithy, could you do that to them, too?"
"No," Gaela admitted bluntly.
"Woo-hoo!" Pinkie cheered, punching her power fist into the air.
"Instead I would shove a melta bomb down your gorget. Doing that is hard to reverse, so I advise you not force me to demonstrate it," Gaela continued.
"Eugh..." Pinkie grimaced, and her Dreadnought took a nervous step back.


Twilight squeezed her eyes shut tight, fighting back the dark thoughts and angry tears threatening to spill out of her.
"Gaela, stop. You win. We'll stay," Twilight said miserably, hanging her head.
"T-Twi?" Spike gasped. "You can't really mean-"
Twilight kicked away the parchment lying on the ferrocrete below her. "Spike, we have enough problems right now. We can't fight the Company so that we can fight the Orks. Canterlot isn't helpless, either; Princess Celestia will find a way to escape or hold out until we can help."
"Speaking of FIGHTING," Tellis said impatiently, one boot tapping repeatedly onto the ground, "you guys want to actually do some of that today? Those Orks aren't going to kill themselves! At least, not fast enough for my tastes!"
"Yes, fine," Twilight grunted as she levitated her helmet up, "let's-"
A burst of static came from her gorget as a vox connection was established. The same connection linked into Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie's helmets as well, but as Twilight had hers off everyone could hear the voice coming from her communications link.
"Ah, good! You're shtill alive! I have an urgent mission for Equinought Shquadron!"
Twilight straightened up and she set her jaw. If she was going to abandon Princess Celestia in her hour of need in order to help the 38th Company, at least she would be doing something important for the duration.
"Yes, Warsmith. What is it?" Twilight asked.
"I need you to proceed to Canterlot immediately! It'sh under attack by the Orksh!"
Once again, the hammering of the heavy mass drivers dominated the sudden, awkward silence. Twilight's jaw went slack, and Spike slapped a claw against his forehead.
It took Gaela a moment to replay that message - literally, via audio-capture - in her head before she linked up her own helmet to the vox connection. "Warsmith Solon, confirm mission objective."
"Ah, Gaela! Good! You're there too! You can eshcort and accompany them to the capital," Solon said.
"May I... ask WHY, Lord?" Gaela said, her eyebrow twitching.
"It's the sun, right? We need to go save the sun!" Pinkie guessed.
"No, not that," Solon scoffed, "I need you to reshcue Sherith." He paused. "Trademashter Delgan ish alsho there, I believe. Hish extraction would alsho be helpful. Conshider that a shecondary objective. And if you get a chance, shure, keep the shovereign alive too."
Rarity released a gasp of surprise at the reminder that Norris Delgan was in Canterlot right now, but otherwise didn't interrupt.
"Wait, SERITH? He's in Canterlot?" Twilight asked, utterly perplexed.
"Indeed. He thinksh he'sh being clever by shwitching off his armor transhceiver, but I can shtill figure out where he ish," Solon snorted.
"Is he hiding or something?" Rainbow Dash called out. Her armor systems were still dead, so she had to shout loud enough for Twilight's open vox to pick up.
"Oh, I doubt that. He wouldn't have sheen thish coming any more than we did. Precognition ish not among hish talentsh. I don't know what he'sh doing over in your capital, but I need him shecured and extracted. It ish of critical importance."
None of this was making any sense to Twilight, whose head was almost spinning at this point. But she wasn't about to let this chance slip away. "Yes, Warsmith! Right away!"
"Good. We have a few Shtormraven gunshipsh fresh from the manufactorum, but all of our available pilotsh are already deployed in void combat right now. I'll shee what I can do."
Gaela was no less confused than Twilight, but was used to putting aside her own concerns to carry out Solon's orders. "I may have a solution, Warsmith. I will see Equinought Squadron to the capital."
"Then proceed. I have to go calm down Shliver shome more."
The vox line cut out.


Gaela sighed and raised her axe toward the ponies staring at her. "I think it's best that we all pretend the previous argument never happened."
"Yeah, okay. That's fair," mumbled Twilight as she fit her helmet on.
Rainbow Dash and Luna's armor flickered back to life, and their visors booted up before their eyes while their limb plating became responsive again.
"Phew! It was getting a little hard to breathe!" Rainbow said as she bounced to her hooves.
"'Tis a most troubling feature of this mail, that thou might silence it with but a thought," Luna grumbled as she set the Iron Gage back onto her shoulder pads, "but so be it. What need we do to rescue our home?"
"Warsmith Solon said there were Stormraven gunships available for transit. That's an Astartes vehicle, and requires an Astartes pilot."
The ponies all looked over toward Tellis. The Iron Warrior was slumped forward with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, and a snoring noise was coming from his vox grille.
"No, not him," Gaela grumbled. She walked over to Tellis and knocked a fist on his chest armor.
"Hnwhuh?" the Raptor grunted as his head jerked upright. "What? Was I asleep?" He looked back and forth. "I was having this surreal dream where we were being attacked by Orks and surrounded by combat, but everyone just wanted to stand around talking about it rather than fight."
"That fantasy has concluded, Lord," Gaela assured him, "there is much fighting to do, and it's time we got to it."
"Freakin' FINALLY. Where at?" Tellis demanded.
"We're headed to the Dark Mechanicus temples, Lord," Gaela informed him as she started heading down the avenue. The equines followed behind her eagerly. "There's something I need to pick up from the labs."


****


Ferrous Dominus - sector 4
Dark Mechanicus laboratory 17


+Brain wave activity rising. Approaching consciousness threshold. Endogen levels receding to 0.02.+
Within an armorglass tube filled with sedative gel and brimming with power cables, a metal-encased finger twitched.
+Bio-plasma surge detected. Administering hyporeactives. Stabilizing.+
Muscle spasms soon gave way to discrete, conscious motions, and the hand clenched into a fist.
+Stage three activation confirmed. Withdrawing catalyzer neurogens. Stage four activation commencing.+
Sure is noisy in here all of a sudden.
Dest's head jerked upward when the unfamiliar, foreign thought rolled around in his head.
Oh, hey! You're awake! 'Bout time, bro. It's been a while.
Dest tried to shake his head, but found the motion rather sluggish.
But hey, it's all good. Now that you're back, we can hang out! We're gonna be soulmates for a pretty long time, so, you know, I thought we should spend some time to chat and stuff.
Dest took stock of his senses, noting that they were all muted, as was his muscle control. He could barely see through his visor, and he couldn't hear anything except for the voice in his head.
Oh, but I didn't mean "soulmates" in a gay way! Just, you know, we kind of share your body! And "bodymates" sounds even more weird and vaguely sexual, so I went with soulmates. No homo.
Dest soon figured out that he was in a bio-containment cell, and then figured out that he was also still wearing his armor. Which was strange. He was guessing that his armor had been breached, though, since he could feel the gel from the containment cell on his skin.
Actually, I'm not totally sure if that counts as gay. I don't really have a gender. 'Cuz, you know, I don't really have a body. Except yours. Which is a dude's body. If I had gone with that horse instead, would that make me a chick?
After several more seconds of concentration, Dest realized something strange and important: he wasn't feeling the containment gel INSIDE his armor, he was feeling it AGAINST his armor, as if his power armor was his skin. The plating wasn't nearly as sensitive as his normal sense of touch, but he could definitely feel the cool, damp ooze all around him.
So, uh... are you still asleep after all? Kinda feel like I'm talking to myself, here. Which I guess I am, in a way, but still...
+All readings are nominal. Subject L-721 is fully active. Cell lock disengaged. Draining containment vat.+
Dest couldn't understand Binary, but he knew when it was being spoken. Dark shapes outside the glass shifted around points of twinkling green light. The Dark Mechanicus.
Dest felt his muscles strengthen and his senses sharpen as the gel started to drain from the cell, dipping below his eye level. They felt... different. He was certain by now that he had been physically bonded to his power armor, and in such a way that his biological senses now extended into the shell of adamantium and ceramite. He was certain other changes had been made as well, but in such a short time, and with a limited sense of awareness, he couldn't really take stock of them.
Aw, great. It's the NERD squad again. Lame. Every time they show up they start cutting us open and jamming pieces of metal into us. I tried to kill them, but it's actually really hard to move around without you. How about we give it a team effort this time, huh? Show the geeks who's boss!
The gel finished draining from the cell, and then a jet of water blasted down over Dest's head, sloughing off the remaining ooze.
The tube hissed as its pressure locks disengaged, and the front section of the armorglass broke away and slid upward.


"Reception: Greetings, Lord Dest. You have been returned to active service as of hour 9.3102 of sub-chronology 7.22.7001."
Dest's vision, despite his rapidly returning strength and mental focus, remained slightly hazy after he stepped out onto the clean metal flooring of the Mechanicus laboratory. It took him a few moments to recognize Dark Magos Kaelith's extremely distinctive form.
"Interrogative: Is your combat status nominal?" Kaelith asked. The welders under his head clicked together in a manner that quite resembled an insect twitching its mandibles.
"I..." Dest's voice cracked almost instantly upon trying to form words. The wet growl that came from his throat - now with his vox system integrated directly - was a far cry from his voice as he remembered it. "I... need a... moment."
Oh, hey! You CAN talk! Awesome. I thought I'd broken something important up here. So. You feel like killing this weirdo, or is he your bro or something?
"Do you know what happened to me?" Dest asked Kaelith. He had a strong inkling, but he needed to hear it from the Dark Magos himself.
"Explanatory: You were possessed. A daemonic spirit bound itself to your body during the establishment of the Nethalican. You were neutralized and then modified. Extensively."
Shoot, can you even hear me? Am I doing something wrong? This isn't supposed to be hard.
Dest took a moment to look himself over. His armor had changed visibly, with the joints between segments closing into hardened hinges that resembled a metallic exoskeleton rather than an armor suit. Curved spikes jutted out of his shoulder pads and vambrace, and his gauntlets had reshaped themselves into short, adamantium talons.
That wasn't the full extent of the changes, though. Dest could feel more inputs and devices tingling within his carapace. In particular he felt strange, new muscle structures within his shoulder blades, and he twisted his head to look over his shoulder.
It turned out he now had servo arms mounted in the space between his shoulder pad and helmet. They were folded up and hanging over his shoulders, and each one ended in a tapered claw rather than a vise or pincer.
"Alert: The present situation requires immediate assistance," Kaelith said, noticing that Dest had gone silent while observing himself, "Explanatory: Ork forces have penetrated the base perimeter and require an immediate lethal response."
Dest's head snapped forward. "Orks? Did the Nethalican fail?"
"Affirmation: Multiple Warp exits by Ork void ships have been detected, and the horde has launched a full-scale assault on Ferrous Dominus."
Aw, crap, really? Sorry about that, dude. I know you guys worked super hard on the Dark Portal thing. Geez, what the hell, Orks? The green bros really need to chillax.
A booming noise came from deeper within the facility, and the lumens flickered briefly.
"Explanatory: A strike force has successfully landed within the fortress perimeter and is assaulting the temple. Interrogative: Can you assist?" Kaelith asked, his voice taking on a somewhat shrieking tone.
"Do you have a weapon I can use?" Dest asked.
Kaelith hesitated. "Affirmative. Contra: Your enhanced form possesses ample military force, including Warpflame projection and enhanced melee capabilities. Conclusion: Additional armaments are redundant."
Wait, Warpflame projectors? OH! So that's what those things in our hands are! That's actually pretty metal!
"I would prefer a boltgun," Dest said firmly.
Kaelith scuttled over to a table in the corner where a bolter had been disassembled and its components laid out over the surface. Mechatendrils seeped from his robes and started assembling the firearm rapidly.
Dest looked up as another explosion caused another brief power disruption. "How bad is it?"
"Analysis: Current xeno forces are not beyond the Iron Warriors' defensive capacity," Kaelith stated as he finished putting the bolter together. A claw picked up the gun and held it up for the Rhino driver. "Contra: Total Ork strength advancing through the Warp storm is unknown, and the fleet has sustained heavy damage. Conclusive: the current situation is far from nominal."
On the other hand, it finally got these guys to unhook us from the oversized fish tank, so it's not ALL bad.
Dest took the boltgun, and then started gathering magazines from the table where it had been disassembled.
"Interrogative: Are you combat ready?" Kaelith asked impatiently while the Iron Warrior loaded his gun.
Dest did a brief check of the bolter, and then glanced over to the Dark Magos.
"One more question," he grumbled, "is there anything you can do to silence the daemon's rambling voice in my head?"
Ah-HA! You CAN hear me! Phew! I was getting worried for a sec!
"Negative," Kaelith said curtly.
"Then let us proceed," Dest growled, "perhaps the sound of Orks dying can drown it out."


Kaelith deactivated the lab lockdown, and Dest had his boltgun up as the containment doors unlocked and slowly opened.
The hallway beyond the lab wasn't as bad as he had feared; dozens of Scavurel and Dark Techpriests had set up behind barricades in the wide passage, waiting silently for new opponents. Several Orks corpses riddled with stubber wounds and lasburns lay on the floor ahead. All the doors on either side of the hallway were locked down, with the most valuable rooms also being protected by energy fields over the blast doors.
"Explanatory: Current strategic prioritus emphasizes conservation of Dark Mechanicus assets. The xenos have pushed into the temple while scavenging our resources as they proceed. Conclusive: Though their progress has been slow and their assaults ineffective, we are cut off from support and the enemy possesses force enough to overrun this defense."
"Which is why you woke me," Dest mumbled as he passed by the Scavurel troopers. They gave him a wide berth and the occasional bow of respect. "Why was I not returned to duty before now? Am I... unfinished?"
It felt odd to refer to himself as a weapon being designed and constructed, much like the boltgun in his hands. The Astartes WERE weapons, and everyone knew it, but they still presented the trappings of being individuals, especially among Chaos forces.
Kaelith spent a moment ordering the other Mechanicus forces in Binaric Cant, and then advanced behind Dest. "Explanatory: You are an experimental case. Project completion depends on analysis of combat efficacy."
Another blast came from down the hall and around a fork in the passage. Dest paused. That one had been close.
"I see. Then let's find out."


Dest found the first of his targets inside the servo skull installation labs. The Lootas were absolutely tearing through the facility in their lust for salvage, ripping apart consoles and dumping skulls and parts into large sacks hauled by shivering Gretchin. Such was the noise made by their looting and victorious laughter that they didn't even hear Dest's footsteps.
The sound of a boltgun burst was a bit harder to ignore, however.


Two Lootas fell to the ground with their backs blown out, and Dest calmly stepped through the still-smoldering doorway.
"Iron within! Iron without!" the driver snapped, firing another burst into the Orks. The Gretchin screeched and dashed for cover, while the Lootas alternated between drawing their choppas and wrestling their deffguns from the ground.
Dest targeted the latter group of Orks, and another shot took off another Loota's head, leaving the twitching corpse still lying atop its weapon.
Sweet! About time we saw action! You cannot IMAGINE how boring it was sitting around in that bogus tube day in and day out! Vel said, chuckling in Dest's head.
I cannot, Dest thought back as he emptied his bolter clip into the greenskins, although I am only beginning to comprehend the true bliss of my being unconscious the entire time.
When his bolter clicked empty, the Orks and Gretchin leapt out from behind cover and charged, brandishing salvaged blades and bits of shrapnel as knives.
Dest backhanded the first Ork to reach him, swatting the warrior aside with a strength nearly twice what he remembered being capable of. He let his boltgun drop to the floor as the next alien dashed into arm's reach, choppa already descending.
Dest stepped aside from the blow, and then slammed a knee up into the Ork's abdomen. A spike burst up out of his knee cap just as he made contact, punching up through the Ork's tough, waxy hide and piercing its guts. Dest hadn't been expecting that, and impressive as it was, it did leave him attached to the wounded soldier for a moment longer than he intended.
Another choppa struck his arm, and though the armor deflected the blow without difficulty, Dest still felt a surge of pain through his bicep. With an angry snarl, his servo talon arced forward and scythed through the Loota's throat, dispatching the alien.
I'm trying out some new stuff here. Sorry if it hurts a bit, bro. It's my first time.
Dest growled as he burst forward, and his talons grew long and curved before he slashed at another Loota's face.
Ah, crap, that TOTALLY sounded gay, didn't it? Sorry, bro. I want to keep this professional. I totally mucked up my last contract, so I need this to work out. We cool? Kill a green dude to say "Yes."
Dest's claws tore through Ork after Ork, his frustration driven further by the rambling in his head. Some of the Grots summoned enough courage to leap at him, but he ignored their pitiful blows with ease and barely spared the attention to scrape them off.
We cool, then. Whoa! Bogey on the right, dude! warned Vel.
Dest snapped his head to his right just in time to see a Loota brace his deffgun atop a counter, aimed directly at him and well out of lunging range.
Before the Iron Warrior could do anything about it, an arc of lightning slash across the Loota's body and sent him to the ground in a twitching, smoldering heap.
+Executive: Exterminate all xeno presence,+ crackled Kaelith as steam poured off the conductor coils of his ion beamer. Scavurel were already running in behind and around him; some of them to set up a new defensive perimeter in the hallway, and others to rush in and help slay the greenskins ransacking their labs.
The cyborgs mostly descended on the diminutive Gretchin, which suited Dest just fine. Let the workers kill the slaves; the thieves were a soldier's prey. His claws wreaked havoc amongst the Lootas, shredding their flesh, bone, and flimsy armor with equal ease. Every time he struck an Ork without felling it, his servo talons would scythe down into the foe of their own accord, punching through the thick skulls of the greenskins or digging into their throats. With each blow Dest's vision grew a little more clouded and his temper, which was only ever unusual for its icy calm, burned a little hotter.
Soon he was howling as he crashed through the Orks, his arms pumping furiously among wide arcs of blood.
He barely had the awareness to spot the crackling power klaw before it swung at him, and Dest swore his body actually tried to resist as he moved to dodge.
"Bakk off, spiky! Dis iz MY loot!" taunted an Ork Mek while his power klaw warmed the air. Dest hesitated, standing just out of swiping range of the alien engineer.
A burst of Binaric Cant came from behind him, and then the power field around the Ork's klaw started sparking more actively, throwing tendrils of energy around the heavy blades of the hydraulic pincer. The weapon started to shake, and the Mek growled and turned to slam the klaw into a wall and smash it back into working shape.
This left his back facing Dest, and the driver wasted no time vaulting forward. The claws of his right hand stretched and thickened even further mid-blow, becoming sword-like blades that ripped into the Mek's back. Furious red flame mixed with streams of dark blood that dribbled down the Ork's back and onto the floor, and the Mek staggered.
Dest seized the Ork by the back of his head with his left hand, preparing to rip it clean off.
No, no, no! I got this. Check it. FLAME ON!
Warpflame suddenly engulfed Dest's gauntlet, and the Mek howled and thrashed as his head was cooked within the Marine's grasp. Within seconds the alien fell slack, its brain consumed by the otherworldly fire.
Dude. Duuuuuude. SO cool. We have to do that again. I don't even want to kill the creepy metal guys anymore; that was badASS.


Dest took a moment to calm himself when he failed to find further targets. The Dark Mechanicus priests and soldiers were slaying the wounded behind him, and he could hear the sound of lasgun fire from the hallway.
He raised his right arm. The talons on his gauntlet were almost fifteen inches long, and were slowly shrinking back to normal. More spikes and horns had grown from his power armor while he was fighting, and those embellishments too were slowly sucking themselves back into the carapace now that he was calming down. Nicks and dents from the Orks' blows were slowly disappearing, like ordinary wounds being patched over with scar tissue.
"So this is what it means to be one of the Possessed," Dest grunted, "intriguing."
"Concurrence: The harvested data shall be of considerable use," Kaelith chittered as he zoomed his optics onto the Iron Warrior. Lasgun and shoota fire kept coming from the hallway.
"There are more xenos to destroy," Dest said as he picked up his boltgun and loaded a fresh magazine, "let us get to it."
Ork souls, yeah! Just nommin' on them Ork souls, doo doo da doo! Vel sang in his head.


Ork resistance was fairly light as the Dark Mechanicus advanced to the temple entrance, clearing room after room of Gretchin stragglers. Most of the rooms closer to the main entrance had been looted already and had their contents hauled away when the Orks heard the siren song of violence and raced back into the fight outside.
The Scavurel stormed every hallway with a lethal fusillade as they advanced, filling the space with lasbursts and plasma bolts. Whenever the Orks responded with a charge, Dest and Kaelith pushed forward to meet the attackers first, shredding the aliens with claws and webs of welding lasers.
As they got closer to the entrance, however, it became obvious that the bulk of the Ork raiding party hadn't descended into the temple but was still fighting in the fortress streets. Heavy machine gun fire mixed with the pounding of autocannons, and the whine of plasma discharges echoed deep within the darkened halls of the Mechanicus temple.


"Executive: Pray," Kaelith said, turning some of his optics on the black-robed figures behind him, "let the Omnissiah empower your weapons and devour your essence in turn. The faithful and heretic alike perish at their whim and fuel the engine of Chaos."
The Scavurel and Dark Techpriests took knee and began spewing strings of Binary. Dest, for his part, crept forward toward the ruined door that led to the main lobby of the temple. Half of the blast shielding had been ripped open, and he leaned into the remaining half as she got a read on the enemy.
Dest's visor shifted to thermal capture mode, and he was treated to the orange, yellow, and red blooms of numerous warm bodies and roaring guns.
"Nobs and Meks," Dest grunted into his vox, transmitting his observation to his allies behind him. "The Nobs are at the entrance, firing outside. The Meks are fixing something in the middle of the lobby. A walker, I believe."
Kaelith's optics flickered.
"Assessment: Tactical objectives confirmed. Strategic logis engaged. Executive: Dispatch the warriors. The vehicle is mine."
"Confirmed," Dest growled, his talons growing longer in preparation for battle, "attack."


The Iron Warrior swept in through the doorway, his boltgun immediately trained on a Flashgit's back. Scavurel raced out into the lobby and sprinted for cover as the Ork's spine was blasted to splinters, and Kaelith scuttled past the possessed driver straight toward a damaged Deff Dread waiting near the wall.
The walker and its attendant Mek jerked to attention at the sudden assault, and the latter growled and pointed to the new targets as the former started warming up its weapons again.
The Deff Dread never got the chance to enter the fight, however. A lash of bright white power streamed from Kaelith's ion beamer, and the entire walker trembled as its systems started malfunctioning even worse than usual. Sparks blew out of the Dread's main sensors, and one of its killsaws inexplicably came loose from its mounting and was sent rolling across the metal flooring.
Kaelith clambered up the front of the quaking vehicle, his legs sticking to the hull like a spider's as mechatendrils and mandible-like welders tapped and prodded at the defunct plating.
The nearby Mek objected to this, and his power Klaw reached for the Magos, its power field coming alive in a burst of hot yellow sparks.
Before the Ork could attack, a dataspike slithered out of the coal-black robes that concealed Kaelith's body, striking like a snake and punching into the Mek's shoulder before discharging a blast of electrostatic energy.
The Mek snarled angrily, undeterred, and his klaw snipped the dataspike tendril in half. As he pulled the needle-tipped head out of his skin, though, two other mechatendrils stabbed whirling drill bits toward him, forcing the Ork to back away from the dangerous tentacles.
As his various extra limbs lashed at the Mek, Kaelith was busy digging his more prominent servo tools into the Deff Dread, carving through its primitive electronic controls and severing the links that provided energy to the walker's motors. In a matter of seconds, the Deff Dread's systems went dead, having been ruined from the inside out.
"Oi! Don' tuch me Dread, ya metuhl git!" snarled the Mek, his klaw snapping angrily before he drew a slugga and fired at the Dark Magos.
The pistol rounds struck an energy field shimmering around Kaelith's cloak, and the cyborg's optics glowed brightly as he stared down at the alien engineer in contempt.
+Venerate the machine. Slay the xeno,+ Kaelith spat. Mechatendrils shot out from beneath his robes like harpoons, stabbing into the Mek's legs and then yanking him onto his back.
The Ork grunted as he hit the floor, and then bent forward and reached out with his klaw to remove the tendrils. Before he could, he was suddenly pulled across the floor, up to the feet of the inert Deff Dread, and then up into the air in front of Kaelith.
+Observatory: Ork wargear,+ the Dark Magos spat in Binaric Cant, +revolting garbage.+ As he spoke he cut the Mek's power klaw apart with a web of lasers, taking off a fair amount of the Ork's hand with it.
+Intention: Field vivisection. Die, primitive.+ Kaelith descended upon the Mek with his servo arms and mechatendrils.


Across the room, the battle was no less brutal, if not substantially less one-sided. Dest slashed savagely through the ranks of the Nobs holding the lobby, trying to keep them from surrounding him, but the larger Orks were far harder to put down than the lesser warriors.
A massive, two-handed choppa with a buzzsaw blade crashed into his shoulder pad, and sparks sprayed across the curved ceramite plating as pain bloomed in his arm. Dest's servo talons stabbed into the Nob's chest before his claws could, as if the limbs had a mind of their own. And considering that Dest DID have a spare set of thoughts rambling on in his head, it was a distinct possibility.
He didn't have long to reflect on the idea before he slammed a shoulder (which conveniently grew large, sharp-tipped horns at just the right time) into another Nob, and then raked that target with his talons. He was unused to fighting this way, using semi-natural weapons and additional limbs, and any help Vel could provide was welcome.
Besides, fighting actually got him to shut up for a little bit.
"Damm spiky GUAAAGH!" a Nob was thrown back as Dest slammed an open palm into him, blasting the alien away with a burst of Warpflame and his prodigious daemonic strength. The warrior crashed into the wall and impaled himself on a spiked edifice, dropping next to a shrine alcove that had already been ransacked by raiders.
Dest dodged out of the way of a power claw and one of his servo talons shot forward, stretching far beyond its obvious length to reach the attacker. Once it pierced the Nob it pulled the Ork closer, dragging it into a hammer fist that shattered much of its skull and neck.


That warrior was the last Ork within clawing range, and Dest took a moment to get his bearings while the volcanic rush of melee combat started to cool.
Okay, I think we're getting into a groove, here. I like this. This is working. Vel said.
"WAAAAAAGH!!" The classic Ork warcry boomed in Dest's ears as a hulking Ork Warboss in mega armor stomped into the room. He was flanked by Shoota Boyz, who quickly jumped into a firefight with the entrenched Scavurel soldiers.
"Anuvver hed fer me pointee stikk!" the Warboss laughed, pointing his power klaw at Dest. "C'mon, spiky! I gotz-"
The rest of the Warboss's taunt was cut off, unfortunately, when a hydraulic springboard under his feet suddenly snapped up and flung him outside.
Dest was as surprised as the Orks at seeing the alien leader suddenly ejected, but he quickly tossed a fragmentation grenade into the cluster of remaining greenskins before shouting over to Kaelith.
"You actually installed hydraulic springboards in these floors?"
"Affirmation," the Dark Magos replied as he scuttled down the side of the Deff Dread, "we utilize them more often than most had anticipated."


The lesser Orks broke and fled from the temple as their losses piled up, flooding out of the shattered doorway. Lasblasts followed them the entire time, as well as a few well-aimed bolt slugs from Dest.
"The lobby is clear! Take the windows!" snapped a Core as his unit dashed through the room.
Dest took up a position to the side of the main entrance, peering outside. Unsurprisingly, things looked bad. A full-sized Landa was sitting in the square mostly intact, having landed right outside the Dark Mechanicus temple where he had been modified. Although it must have been some time since the assault craft had disgorged its soldiers (along with a prodigious amount of smoke and hot wreckage), the Orks had not been exterminated, nor had they made much progress in spreading through the fortress interior. Mobs of Shoota Boyz, Flashgitz, Tankbustas, and the odd Killa Kan sheltered behind the ruins of demolished tanks and the Landa itself, trading fire with the surrounding buildings. Dest noticed that a surprising amount of the incoming fusillades was pulse rifle fire, and was barely more accurate than the Ork shooting; apparently the Earth Caste was making its own stand against the invaders.
"Our allies are applying suppressive fire, and most of the greenskin's melee fighters are already dead," Dest said aloud to the Scavurel Dregs crouched next to the windows, "this situation is salvageable."
Kaelith's optics flickered as the Dark Magos briefly uplinked to Dest's visor and tracked his field of vision. "Contention: local enemy forces outnumber allied forces in this facility by a factor of 13:1. This ratio is unacceptable."
"I'm less worried about the fodder than I am that Warboss. He's getting up again," Dest mumbled as he snapped another new magazine into his boltgun, "although I have the utmost confidence in the work you've done on me, Magos, I am uncertain I can overcome such a foe with less than an hour's practice with my new abilities."
C'mon, dude, don't be like that! We can take him! I'll bet his soul tastes like chicken... or, like, a chicken's soul, I guess.
"Exploratory: Seeking alternate tactical solutions," Kaelith said as his body rose up higher and his optics glowed even brighter.
"WAAAAAAAAAGH!!" came the furious roar from outside.
+Plasma weapons to the front!+ blurted a Dark Techpriest, directing the Scavurel to fend off the incoming charge.
"Negative," Kaelith snapped, still speaking in Gothic, "explanatory: I have located an alternate tactical solution."
Dest glanced back at the Magos. "Clarify."
"I am throwing ponies at the problem," Kaelith said as his melta cutters quivered underneath his head.


The very second the words left Kaelith's vox synthesizer, twin beams of howling crimson energy cut into the side of the Landa, slicing off sections of heavy armor and dropping them onto the Orks sheltering below. A purple beam followed them, smashing the cracked bow of the vessel inward.
The Warboss, who had been ushering his lesser warriors toward the Mechanicus temple ahead of him - in case there were more springboards set up - quickly turned around at the arrival of heavier firepower.
"BESEECH THY SAVAGE GODS FOR MERCY, BARBARIANS!! THOU SHALT ALL PERISH THIS DAY!!"
Dest watched the Orks shift their attention away from the temple's defenders, raising their guns to the sky and howling defiant battlecries to their new opponents.
Then the Iron Warrior turned back to Kaelith.
"You know, hearing you, of all people, say that phrase really brings home just how far we've really fallen," the driver mumbled, looking down at his boltgun, "nobody took me seriously even before this campaign. Now I'm home to an infantile and dim-witted daemon, friend to a clearly insane pink equine, and employee to a bakery."
Dude... harsh...
"Consolation: However pitiful we may become from exposure to these xenos, we are still by far the better of those creatures that fall before them in battle," Kaelith grumbled. "Executive: Advance. Flank. Destroy."


****


"There! Over there! Warboss!" Twilight shouted as her visor bracketed the largest defending Ork. Her helmet systems were filled with tactical data from Kaelith's data link, marking out the alien leader and noting the positions of soldiers that weren't easily visible.
"Put up a barrier screen! Fluttershy, blind the first ranks," Gaela ordered as her ion blaster powered up, "Pie, target their armored support. Lord Tellis-"
"WHEEEEEE!!" The Chaos Raptor launched into the air before Gaela could finish her sentence, and Rainbow Dash shot up after him while laughing.
"... Right. Luna?" Gaela asked.
"Aye! We shalt engage the enemy leader!" Luna barked, her wing sheaths spreading as she too took wing.
"What? No, it would be more advantageous to..." the Dark Techpriest trailed off when Luna fell out of earshot, strafing the Orks ahead with magic blasts.
"Er... if it's any consolation, I think your plan is better," Twilight said as she held up the harmonizer's shield.
"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed.
The stallion's heavy bolter shook ferociously at his side as he pounded away at the entrenched Orks, stitching a trail of small explosions over the makeshift barricades. Rarity stepped up to Twilight's other side, her plasma gun picking off single targets that poked their heads up to fire back.
"You never did mention what we're here to get, exactly," Rarity reminded Gaela while incoming bullets splashed over the harmonizer shield.
"That's because I'm not sure he's active," Gaela admitted as she knocked down a Flashgit with a laser blast from her servo weapon, "Dark Magos Kaelith has never been very forthcoming with his personal projects."
Spike poked his head out from behind Gaela's robe. "'He'? It's a person?"
"IT'S DESTY!!" Pinkie Pie cheered while she plodded forward heavily.
"You're correct," Gaela confirmed before a rocket spiraled past the harmonizer shield. A moment later it exploded behind her, pelting her back with hot shrapnel. "We're here to secure Lord Dest. If we can gain entry to-"
"No, I mean that's him over there!" Pinkie interrupted, pointing her massive power fist toward the increasingly chaotic melee near the temple.


Dest's claws had extended into veritable blades, the heavy gauntlets battering aside choppa strikes as his servo talons shredded the greenskins before him.
The Scavurel proceeded in a tight lockstep formation at his sides, although the cyborg troopers mainly served to keep the enemies from surrounding the possessed Iron Warrior. Kaelith and the Techpriests clustered behind the front line, lashing out at any Ork that felled one of their Scavurel guardians with bursts of light and plasma. It was a cautious formation, but one that allowed them to cut into the side of the enemy forces without being swiftly overwhelmed. At this stage that was all the Mechanicus warriors could hope for.
Some of them might have also hoped that Tellis would end up fighting on the other side of the Ork ship, far away from them. But on this matter they were not so lucky.
"CATCH!!" shouted a screeching, vox-amplified voice before a Nob came flailing through the air into the line of Scavurel. Three of them - along with two Orks - were knocked over like bowling pins when the larger alien crashed into them, and Kaelith's body curved away from the collision like a snake's. Sparking, needle-tipped forks emerged from the Magos' robes and stabbed down into the Nob, electrocuting him savagely while Kaelith's laser welders seared the lesser greenskins.
"Aw, c'mon guys! You didn't even TRY to catch him!" Tellis complained before he landed on a Shoota Boy's back, shattering the alien's spine. Rainbow Dash dove in next to him, firing her impulse blasters just before she could crash into another Nob. The warrior went flying as Rainbow came to a dead stop, with the former slamming painfully into a barricade while the latter laughed at the sight.
"Resignation: We have been rescued by Lord Tellis," Kaelith buzzed as the Chaos Lord cut down another Ork between him and the Mechanicus.
Dest paused in the middle of dismembering a Flashgit. "'Resignation'?"
"Affirmative. That is the correct conversational context," the Dark Magos assured him between ion blasts.
The driver shrugged and then snapped his head to the side, barely avoiding a point-blank burst from the Flashgit's gun. He finished twisting the warrior's arm and then tore it from the Ork's shoulder, prompting a burst of hot red blood before he threw the limb aside.
Any chance we can take five and chow on one of these corpses, brosef? Souls are great and all, but they're just empty calories, you know?
Dest continued to ignore Vel and continued to fight, throwing his latest victim at another Shoota Boy.
The Ork managed to dodge out of the way of his fallen ally, but ended up taking a lasburst from one of the Scavurel and staggered. Dest lunged.
He wasn't quite fast enough, however.
"You know what I hate about fighting Orks, Dash?" Tellis asked as he drove his claws into the Shoota Boy's chest.
"What's that, Tellis?" Rainbow asked while hovering over him.
"ABSOLUTELY NOTHING," he crowed, turning around and cracking the back of his gauntlet against a Nob's cheek. The Ork staggered and tried to swing his big choppa around to counter, but Rainbow Dash flew a quick circuit around the warrior's head, giving him a kick in the face as she passed. This mostly served to annoy the warrior, and to distract him for a crucial moment before twin lightning claws plunged into his back.
"Blood for the Blood God, baby!" Tellis laughed as he flung the corpse aside and then whirled on Dest.
For a moment the driver actually thought the Chaos Lord might attack him, and he quickly backed up while his servo talons shielded his face.
"......" Instead, Tellis froze and stared at the other Chaos Marine. "Do I know you? I feel like we met before."
"Sort of. You... kicked me once, Lord," Dest grumbled, thinking back to their encounter in Ponyville.
"Oh, gee, thanks. That really narrows it down," Tellis quipped.
A deafening roar came from the side, and the Iron Warriors glanced over to where the fight was still in full swing. Luna was hovering before the Warboss that had initially been flung out of the temple, black lightning arcing from her horn and striking a wall of smaller Orks that were surrounding her and pelting her with bullets.
Tellis turned back to Dest and the Dark Mechanicus warriors. "Hey, nerds! Wanna see something cool?"
"Negative," bleated Kaelith.
"Please don't," begged a Scavurel Core.
"I don't think now is the time, Lord," Dest said cautiously.
"... Ugh. You guys suck," Tellis murmured, turning away, "this is why I hang out with ponies." He looked up at Rainbow Dash and held out his right arm. "You ready for this, chica?"
The pegasus landed on his arm, and the wings of her flight pack shifted back to narrow her profile as her greaves mag-locked into place.
"Let's rock," Rainbow Dash announced.


Luna, meanwhile, was struggling somewhat with the objective that she had chosen. In her attempt to meet the strongest enemy and engage him in single combat, she had rather neglected the many, many lesser Orks in-between them that didn't seem to respect the dramatic necessity of a heroic duel. It was a bit of a problem. The Warboss was covering underneath the wing of the Landa, preventing her from simply swooping down on top of him or easily dispatching him at range.
A rokkit twisted upward past her, missing the Night Princess only thanks to a slight nudge of telekinesis. Luna quickly picked out the Tankbusta that had fired it, and the Iron Gage curved overhead in a high arc before slamming into the alien with devastating force. The Tankbusta was pulverized under the crackling gauntlets, and the nearest Orks were thrown back by the shock wave.
All the while, bullets pounded and scraped over Luna's armor from all directions, frustrating her concentration and maneuvering. Under normal circumstances she would have just teleported to her target, but Twilight had already warned her about the mana surges and their tendency to foil their spells. Luna wasn't about to risk an inaccurate teleport with so many enemies about.
"Begone, minions!" Luna demanded as she blasted a barricade with a fireball. "We demand thy master face us in mortal combat!" Black flame washed over the twisted metal and licked at the green flesh of her enemies, but as five warriors fell another ten were running to replace them.
"Ya wanna pees o'me, hoss? C'mere an' git me!" the Warboss laughed. He aimed his twin-linked big shoota at the hovering alicorn and added his own considerable spray of ammunition to the wild crossfire. It still missed Luna by several feet, but it did add to the constant roar of gunfire all around them, which was really its own reward anyway.
"COWARD!!" Luna bellowed in the Royal Canterlot voice, mainly to be heard over the machine gun fire. "WE SHALT DESTROY ALL THY LEGIONS, IF THAT IS WHAT-"
"I DUB THIS TECHNIQUE..." a shout from behind the Warboss interrupted Luna's bellowing, somehow managing to be twice as obnoxious and yet only half as loud. "ATOMIC RAINBOMB!!"
"Say wot?" the Warboss mumbled as he looked behind him.
Tellis rose high above the firefight, trailing a long column of smoke before he reared one arm back.
Rainbow Dash, who was mag-locked onto that arm, hit her main thrusters just after he hurled her forward, launching like a spear propelled by a rocket. The mega-armored Warboss filled her visor as she made the precise, split-second adjustments to her course and fed maximum power to the kinetic refraction field, curving under the wing of the Landa and rocketing straight toward the Ork's chest.
"... Wot?" the Warboss repeated some 0.02 seconds before impact.


The armored pony hit her target, and then - true to the technique's name - Rainbow Dash, the Warboss, and some eighty or so Ork warriors all vanished under a huge mushroom cloud of prismatic smoke amongst a deafening detonation. Two Killa Kans that had been acting as close support for the boss were flung aside from the explosion and sent bouncing across the avenue. Luna, who had also been far too close, screamed when she was hurled along with them, eventually crashing through a barricade and skidding to a halt. The Ork bodies that weren't pulverized outright were thrown much further, and all surrounding combat ceased while the temple square was literally showered with Orks.


"...... What the HELL," Tellis mumbled, still hovering in the air above the blast zone, "how did that even happen?"
The Raptor dodged out of the way of a Nob that was plummeting toward him. The Ork continued flailing toward the ground, trailing red, yellow, and blue smoke behind him.
"I mean... it totally fits with the name I made up, but seriously, that made NO sense."
A proximity vox connected to the Chaos Lord, coming from Gaela.
"The enemy's main force has been broken. Scavurel teams, search and destroy directives engaged. Finish off the wounded and secure the area."
"Hey, uh..." Tellis sounded slightly nervous as he spoke to the Dark Techpriest. "Do you know what just happened?"
"Rainbow Dash exploded, my Lord," she said blithely, "and she did so to our benefit."
"Okay, yeah, but HOW?" Tellis countered.
"The Warp did it."
"That's ridiculous!" the Iron Warrior complained.
"Less ridiculous than you constantly using the equines as improvised weapons, Lord."
"Dammit! You're right!" Tellis cursed.


Gaela fired her ion blaster into a groaning Ork while she walked toward the explosion epicenter, which was still hidden under a column of prismatic smoke. Twilight walked on one side of her, swiveling her head back and forth and scanning the aftermath of the explosion.
Gaela fired her servo laser to finish another greenskin, and then spared a glance at Twilight.
"You're taking this rather well," the cyborg noted, "I expected you to be more hysterical at the prospect of Dash expiring."
"Well, I doubt she did," Twilight remarked. Her force harmonizer hummed loudly as it shifted to blade mode, and she floated it over a Flashgit that was shifting on the ground. "This sort of thing happens more often than you'd think." She dropped the blade into the Ork, finishing it off before she walked by.
"I'm not getting any readings on her suit signum," Gaela mumbled as she stopped at the edge of the billowing cloud of colored smoke, "but that could be because her armor suffered critical damage, or perhaps the explosion generated some sort of radiation that interferes with my visor."
Twilight halted next to the Dark Techpriest, peering into the wall of swirling dust in front of them. "What kind of radiation could Rainbow Dash create by crashing, do you think?"
"I'd rather not start hypothesizing as to how any of these absurdities are possible," Gaela grumbled, "let us investigate Dash's fate and then-"
Gaela quickly and unexpectedly found Rainbow Dash's body when it was hurled through the cloud directly into her face, smashing her clean off her feet.
"Gaela!" Twilight yelped in surprise. She immediately cast her barrier spell, aiming to protect them from further attack.
Then her horn flashed dangerously as a cloud of thrumming purple energy appeared and started swirling around her like a cyclone, wrapping the alicorn Princess in an excessive amount of magical power. "Gah! Bucking mana surges!"
Twilight couldn't see past the wall of dark purple, but if she could she would have seen a massive armored shape staggering out of the dust. The Ork Warboss had a huge gouge in the middle his mega armor, one of his legs was clearly dragging as he walked, and bloody drool seeped from between his teeth.
"I'm... gonna... kill... all o'ya..." the massive Ork insisted between painful, heaving breaths. He lifted his big shoota and fired.
Gaela winced as the Warboss's gun immediately jumped up from the recoil and started spraying bullets into the air, as the Ork apparently lacked the strength or sense at the moment to keep it steady.
Pushing Rainbow Dash off of her, she briefly paused to look over the pegasus. Rainbow's power armor was a shambles, with numerous breaches and one visor lens cracked through, but the damage seemed curiously consistent across the surface of the suit plating. Logically, the idiot pegasus should have destroyed her helmet (and her face) when using it as the point of impact; seeing as there was nothing logical about the past few minutes, though, the Dark Techpriest decided not to dwell on it.
"Gaela! Is Rainbow Dash okay?" Twilight yelled while she tried to dispel the barrier she had trapped herself in. A wild spray of bullets from the Warboss cut across it and were handily deflected, which at the very least demonstrated that the spell was doing its basic job.
Gaela shook Rainbow's shoulder, and was rewarded with a groan.
"She's fine!" Gaela shouted before she climbed to her feet.
"My... entire world... is PAIN..." Rainbow whimpered.
"Quickly! Get her back to Fluttershy!" Twilight yelled. "I'll take care of the Warboss!"
Gaela frowned, but reluctantly acknowledged Twilight's orders. "Affirmative. Falling back," she said as she took up Rainbow Dash in one arm.
"Youz ain't goin' noweahz!" the Warboss snarled. His big shoota finally stopped firing as he lurched forward on his good leg, his power klaw snapping and reaching for the Techpriest.
Then an Iron Warrior leapt onto his back, which no one really saw coming.
"Move, Techpriest!" Dest shouted as he climbed up the massive Ork's armor, reaching for its head.
"HRAAAUGH!! Git offa me!" the Warboss roared as Gaela retreated from the scene.
One of the servo talons scythed down for his head, but as the Ork spun and thrashed, it missed and scraped against an armor plate.
"I sed... GIT OFF!!" The Warboss suddenly leapt backward, smashing Dest against a wrecked Mega Dread. The driver grunted painfully, and finally let his claws slip free of the Ork's armor.
"Finally!" Twilight mumbled as her magic barrier dissipated. She immediately leapt for the Warboss, her harmonizer stabbing for the breach in his armor.
The Warboss smacked the blade away with his power klaw, and the two weapons quaked violently as their respective power fields clashed. Twilight herself was still out of swiping range, though, so the Ork started backing away.
"Youz gitz won' beet me!" the Warboss promised, staggering backward and reloading his big shoota. Dest was now standing up again, his talons twitching as he searched for the best spot to lay a killing blow.
"You're outnumbered and surrounded!" Twilight snapped. "I don't know if Orks surrender, but now would be a good time to start!"
"Pfah!" the Warboss scoffed, spitting out a wad of blood. "Ya ain't got me 'soorownded'! An' I'm gonna-"
Tink, tink, tink, went the sound of something metal tapping against the Ork's rear plating.
He paused, then shifted his pose to glance behind him.
"We believe thou owes us a duel," Luna said unhappily, the Iron Gage hovering over the Ork's head. The alicorn's armor was dusted over with colorful smoke, and the casing around her horn positively seethed with blazing red power.
"Uh..." was about as far as the Ork got before the black gauntlets descended, seizing him around the head. Lightning crackled around them as Luna snorted, and they started filling with dangerous levels of magic.
"Should have surrendered," Twilight mumbled before she turned her head away.


Twilight didn't stay to watch the Warboss's death, instead heading back to the others. Fluttershy and Gaela were hunched over Rainbow Dash, with the former jabbing needles into the groaning pegasus while the latter pried open Dash's helmet. Tellis stood behind them, arms crossed over his chest.
"I still don't get it. How did you explode? It was kind of cool. I never explode when I crash. Am I doing it wrong?" Tellis asked.
Rainbow Dash hissed as Fluttershy withdrew her narthecium injector, feeling her body start to numb over. "Never... doing that... again," she groaned.
Gaela finished prying off the last of Rainbow's mashed head piece, and she suppressed a groan herself as she saw how much of the armor needed to be repaired.
"We don't have much time," the Dark Techpriest declared as she stood up.
Glancing over to Twilight, she saw an Iron Warrior following behind her, moving to join them.
"Lord Dest," Gaela said with a brief bow of her head, "you've... been modified somewhat since we last met."
"It's been a hard month for everybody," the driver mumbled.
"DESTY!!" the booming, pointlessly excited voice caused several ponies to jump out of the way in surprise as a bright pink Dreadnought ran up to Dest. His first instinct - amplified by Vel's - was to flee the lumbering walker as it reached down for him, but instead he let himself be scooped up in a surprisingly gentle, one-armed hug.
"I'm so happy you're okay!" Pinkie said as tears of joy somehow seeped from the large red eye lenses of her Dreadnought helm. "They took you away after you were attacked at the portal even though you didn't go crazy and I helped stop you from hurting anyone but I didn't know they were going to lock you up and give you extra arms although they look kind of cool you might not have wanted them and-"
Whoa! Whoa. Personal space, babe. Bro, could you tell the Drama Dread to back off? Vel growled within Dest's mind.
Between her inane babbling and yours, I find the equine's quite agreeable, Dest replied.
"-Gaela said she could turn off our armor and we were all 'WHUUUH?' but then Shmithy told us to go save Canterlot anyway so it was all good, even though she threatened to blow me up which was TOTALLY unnecessary and probably against Company policy since Dreadnought shells are important and-"
Pinkie was cut off as a power axe reached over one arm to smack against her helmet.
"Pie, quiet," Gaela grunted, lowering her weapon, "we don't have time for your games."
"Yeah, not to rush you guys or anything," Spike added, waving a new scroll in the air, "but I got another message from Canterlot. The gist of it is: Please help soon they're going to kill us all."
Pinkie reluctantly loosened her hold on Dest, and the Iron Warrior dropped down to face Gaela again. "I believe Pie said something about saving Canterlot? Why are you here?"
"We require transport, Lord," Gaela explained.
"And you came to me? I'm flattered," Dest chuckled, "but it's a long way by Rhino."
"Not Rhino, Lord Dest," Gaela assured him, "may I presume that you've been given basic instruction in piloting Stormraven gunships?"
Dest hesitated. "Technically, yes. I've been instructed in the piloting of all Astartes vehicles."
"'Technically' will do, Lord," the Dark Techpriest beckoned to the manufactorum, "the gunship is that way."
"What about Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked as she looked up from the other pegasus. "I've stopped the internal bleeding and applied a painkiller, but she's in no shape to fight!"
"Hey, I can still help!" Rainbow complained as she staggered to her hooves. "See? No problem!"
"Dash, you couldn't even STAND if it weren't for the armor holding you up," Twilight pointed out.
"But it IS holding me up, so you're not leaving me behind!" she insisted.
Twilight shook her head. "Dash, you've helped enough. We're going on to Canterlot, but as team commander I'm telling you that you're staying-"
"Overruled," Tellis interrupted. He stepped over to the pegasi and grabbed Rainbow Dash, lifting her up and holding her over one arm.
"Ha!" the pegasus shouted triumphantly, pointing her still-sparking foreleg at Twilight. "Tellis is the highest-ranking guy here! I'm totally going!"
"Tellis! Friends don't let friends push themselves beyond their limits!" Twilight chided. "In the state she's in, she could easily get herself killed!"
Fluttershy nodded quickly. "She's right. A true friend would stop her from hurting herself further. Or, um, at least not directly oppose her other friends that are trying to do that."
Tellis hesitated, and Rainbow glanced up at him in concern.
"... As I understand it, a big part of friendship is also being supportive when your friend does something obviously boneheaded," the Chaos Lord said, "and let's be honest, that's defined my friendship with Dash more than anything else."
Rainbow Dash sniffled while her legs hung limply over the Raptor's arm. "I love you, man!"
"Oh, for the love of-" Twilight growled incoherently before she locked the force harmonizer into place over her back. "All right, fine! Dash, just stay back and don't take any stupid risks! We don't have time to argue about this anymore!"
"Indeed, we hath wasted enough time," Luna agreed, joining the others. Her gauntlets had a layer of blue fire washing over them, and the sizzling noise implied that Luna was burning something off of the weapons to clean them. Twilight tried not to think about what. "Let us depart for Canterlot with all haste!"
"Right!" the other ponies agreed.
"Okay. Cool. So..." Tellis trailed off as he shifted Rainbow over his arm, tilting his head to the side. "Why are we going to Canterlot, again?"
"GAAAAH!!"


****


Ferrous Dominus - sector 11
Manufactorum block Alpha


"-and apparently SERITH is in Canterlot for some reason, even though the vox network can't locate him, and so we also need to save HIM and bring him back too!"
Twilight was feeling slightly short of breath as she explained the entire sequence of events that Tellis had completely missed. They were all racing through the avenues toward the manufactorum complex, with Tellis still carrying Rainbow Dash.
"And why does Boss Nerd care if his henchnerd bites it?" Tellis asked. He sounded profoundly bored, although he at least hadn't started complaining about their new task.
"I don't know, but Solon must have a plan if it's so important to extract him," Twilight said grimly. Honestly, she'd rather leave Tellis behind, but she was sure that Rainbow Dash would object if she tried to convince the Chaos Raptor to stay in the fortress. She didn't have time for that argument now, and anyway there was a decent chance that Tellis would be more useful than harmful when they reached Canterlot.
Gaela sprinted ahead of the others as they reached the blast doors, and quickly unlocked an access panel. "A moment. The base is on emergency lockdown and this is a high-security area, so I will need to override the prioritus node."
Rarity glanced upward, noting that the sky was no longer a furious criss-cross of gunfire pounding away overhead. There were still cannons firing, but the majority of the noise was now concentrated at the fortress palisade rather than spread over the entire base.
"The assault seems to have slackened quite a bit, hasn't it? Did the Orks give up on Ferrous Dominus?" the unicorn asked.
"They didn't quit, they died," Gaela answered as her augmetic arm locked into place into the console and her bionic eye flickered. "The fleet has restored power and is now combat-functional. The Orks will now have a substantially harder time getting assault craft through our orbital formation. The bulk of their assault teams have either been blasted from the sky or landed outside the fortress, where they are a limited threat."
"And our losses?" Dest asked.
Gaela didn't answer right away, and finished unlocking the doors. The heavy barrier started to grind open as she removed her hand from the console.
"Three, so far. Daedalius Arn has fallen. Triumph of Baal has been silenced, but has sustained orbit. Starblight suffered a critical reactor failure... it is gone."
"The escort carrier," Dest growled, "blast!"
"Day-um," Tellis whistled, "greenskins are kicking our ASS up there! That's kind of embarrassing."
Twilight's shoulders slumped as she considered this news, but she resisted the urge to apologize. This wasn't her or Equestria's fault, and she'd rather not leave that impression out in the open. Not when there was still so much more to do.
"Quickly," Gaela gestured to those behind her as she entered the manufactorum.
The Iron Warriors and ponies followed the Dark Techpriest deeper into the facility, and before long she led them to a series of production hangars. These were not locked with the same level of security as the main manufactorum access, and she opened the hallway entrance with a brief validation of her noosphere ID.
"Finally! You guys are here!" shouted a happy, obviously female voice as the doors shifted. It wasn't alone, either.
"Oh! They brought some Iron Warriors, too! Bully!"
"Is that Princess Luna? We have Princess Luna with us? Sweet!"
Every one of the ponies and sapiens in the hall looked confused as they beheld a trio of power-armored ponies with dubious, Nurgle-related marks on their shoulder pads.
"Miss Poison?" Twilight asked. "What is your team doing here?"
Poison Kiss's helmet was off, which allowed everyone to see her eyebrow twitch in annoyance. "Please call me KISS, Princess Sparkle. As for what we're doing here, I imagine it's the same as you." The unicorn cultist raised a hoof above her forehead in salute, shifting slightly so that she faced Luna. "Phage Squadron reporting for duty, your Highness. We are to assist with the mission in Canterlot."
"Warsmith Solon called us up and told us to keep a Stormraven secure for you guys, just in case Orks broke into the place and started looting it," Breezy Blight explained, pointing behind her.
The vehicle was resting behind them, moored to the floor with construction clamps. The Stormraven was obviously newly built, such that it didn't have any gold trim or black detailing over its gunmetal frame. Its weapons hadn't even been fully armed yet; its missile racks were bare, its melta guns were lacking in ammunition canisters, and the lascannons didn't have capacitors installed. The vehicle was little more than a heavily armored aerial taxi, at this point.
"Aye, very well," Luna nodded as she rapped the knuckles of the Iron Gage against the Stormraven's entry ramp, "thy aid is most appreciated, but we must depart posthaste!"
Gaela opened the access ramp with her servo arm, and then gestured toward a heavy magnetic clamp at the back.
"Pie, move there. I will secure your walker for transit. Everyone else, inside!"
"So, Mister Dest," Rarity began as the possessed Iron Warrior stepped in ahead of the equines, "what exactly did you mean when you said you 'technically' know how to fly one of these?"
"It means that I've read the instruction manual and engaged in some basic simulations," Dest explained as he opened the door to the cockpit, "pilots specialize in a certain vehicle type, but we train to drive different ones in case of an emergency... such as this exact case."
Rarity nodded her helmet slowly as she sat down on a passenger bench. "Good. So you know what you're doing."


Dest didn't reply immediately as he stared into the cockpit, his visor locked onto the control board. "... I don't remember there being so many buttons."
I call shotgun! said Vel.
We can't sit in different seats, idiot.
While he stared at the controls, Spike waddled in between his legs and then hopped into the co-pilot's seat.
Hey! Not cool! I called shotgun! Even if I can't actually sit down!
Shut UP, Dest demanded as he took the pilot's seat. The gunship's systems took a moment to scan his signum ID and verify that he was an Iron Warrior, and then the control panels lit up and became active.
"I don't suppose you actually know anything about this machine," Dest mumbled to the diminutive dragon.
Spike gave him a look. "What, like, flying it? No way. Gaela just wanted me to handle the winch and ramp controls to load everyone up." He held down a switch, and the heavy whir of an unwinding cable spool came from the gunship's rear. After a few seconds, an indicator light flashed, and Spike flipped a different switch.
Dest watched silently as the dragon worked. He didn't want to say anything, but even familiarity with the passenger access controls was more than he had to work with; the Iron Warrior was literally relying on his visor display to inform him of which toggle did what.
Spike flipped another switch, and then the cockpit door sealed shut.
"All right, I think we're ready," Spike said as he leaned back in his seat.
A moment later, the ceiling started to slide open and the hangar floor lifted upward.
"All emergency overrides are in place. We are cleared for departure," came Gaela's voice from the vox, "I will be unable to provide further assistance for much of the trip, as I have to repair Dash's flight pack."
"Understood. Plotting a course for the capital," Dest mumbled as he hesitantly began making adjustments.
"Actually, we have a stop on the way," Twilight replied, "we'll land at Sweet Apple Acres to pick up Applejack and work out our exact strategy for defending Canterlot."
"I vote for throwing more ponies at the Orks," Tellis interjected, "lemme try the big blue one! I'll bet we'll get some sort of black hole effect or something!"
"Thou shalt not lay a single metal finger upon us! We art-"
Dest cut the cabin vox and went back to figuring out the controls.
"The orchard, then. Fine," he grunted as the engines started up, "lifting off."
Spike bounced in his seat as the gunship lurched up and then stopped suddenly in a hover. The vehicle shook unsteadily in mid-air, trying awkwardly to line itself up for the opening in the roof.
"Should I be praying?" Spike asked as he grimaced.
"A Mechanicus litany may assist us, yes," Dest said approvingly while he tried to maneuver the gunship slowly upward.
"I meant, like, normal praying," Spike clarified, "for you not to splatter us all over the wall."
Dest growled when the tip of one wing scraped across a hanging servo arm, sending a metallic screeching through the assembly hangar. "Vel was right. You ARE a little smartass." The gunship lurched upward again, finally moving above the roof and into the open air above the manufactorum.
The motion unsettled Spike again, and it took several seconds for the dragon to collect his thoughts after he stopped bouncing.
"Wait, Vel? Do I even know a..." his words trailed off, and then his eyes bugged out of his head.
"He says hi, by the way," the Iron Warrior muttered as the gunship blasted forward, cutting through the tainted skies of Ferrous Dominus.


****


Sweet Apple Acres - orchard periphery


The flight to Sweet Apple Acres was, if not smooth and steady, at least uneventful. The Orks laying siege to Ferrous Dominus hadn't seen fit to bother a single transport fleeing the fortress, and the aliens' combat aircraft were all busy either fighting in orbit or burning in the streets. Dest had found no opposition during their course, which was quite fortunate seeing as the gunship's weapons weren't loaded and he had zero experience dogfighting.
Which wasn't to say that there wasn't plenty of turmoil happening, but it was all within the passenger bay and mercifully non-violent.


"Look, I don't know what your guys' problem is. Literally EVERY TIME I use a pony as a weapon, it works! It's like you don't even WANT to win!" Tellis griped.
"We art quite capable of laying waste to the foe without being propelled by thee," Luna sniffed, pointing a heavy black leg over at Rainbow Dash, "and We hast endured damage enough without resorting to such self-destructive tactics."
"It's not THAT bad," Rainbow Dash said, "although I can't blame you for wanting to kill greenies the old-fashioned way." She paused. "Or, wait, the modern way? I dunno, whatever shooting them in the face counts as."
Gaela was standing over the reckless pegasus, her servo tools crackling as they repaired the sensitive fiber-bundles and fuel lines in Rainbow's flight pack. The Dark Techpriest didn't have much to say on the topic of pony projectiles herself, so she stayed quiet.
"There!" Twilight finished writing a letter that was levitating in the air in front of her, and then rolled it up with her magic. "This should update the Princess on our status and let her know we're on our way."
"Are we sure she's even still alive?" Tellis asked, leaning back on his seat. "We're not going to get to this place like an hour after the fighting is over and the Orks have already smashed the city, are we?"
Before Twilight could give a retort based on desperate hope and unwarranted optimism, Gaela replied first.
"The sovereign is alive," the Dark Techpriest said as she applied a patch seal to Rainbow's leg armor, "the moment she expires, I will know."
Several of the ponies blinked in confusion.
"Wherefore would thou know of Sister's demise?" Luna asked, tilting her head to the side.
"I will be informed immediately through the noosphere if the planet halts its solar orbit again," Gaela explained. Then she paused in her work. "Your solar system is ridiculous."
"Yes, fine, we know," Rainbow grumbled.
"Hey! Can any of you guys see what's out here?" shouted a voice from behind the passenger bay.
Twilight turned toward the access ramp, frowning. "Pinkie? What's wrong?" Pinkie Pie was still in her Dreadnought shell, and as a result she was hanging from the rear of the Stormraven along with the assault walker. Twilight had no idea WHY she chose to be transported like that, since Pinkie could jump in and out of the Dreadnought like it was a conventional vehicle, but that was hardly important.
"Okay, so, you know how Jackie was complaining about Orks on her property?" Pinkie shouted over the rumble of the gunship engines. "Was she talking about, like, entire mobs of Orks, with support vehicles and everything?"
Twilight's eyes widened. "WHAT?!"
"Also, I'm preeeeetty sure there was only ONE giant transport ship that crashed on her farm before, right? She would have complained if there had been a second one!"
Twilight didn't bother replying, instead jumping for the cockpit door and slamming a boot against it. "Spike! Dest! Let me in! Quick!"
The door unlocked, and the purple alicorn wasted no time in entering and peering down at the farm. Her jaw went slack. "By Celestia! It's like a battlefield down there! There are corpses everywhere!"
Dest nodded. "Yes. As usual."
"That isn't usual at all!" Twilight protested.
"The vast majority of my time on this agri-facility was spent hauling wreckage and dead bodies," the pilot explained while he started to slow the gunship, "if this land has ever seen a period of relative peace, then I have no knowledge of it."
Twilight decided to drop the matter, and quickly levitated her letter into Spike's claws. "Spike! Here! Send this to the Princess! We need to land and make sure Applejack is all right!"
"Very well," Dest grunted, "return to the passenger bay and secure yourself for landing."
Twilight waited long enough to watch Spike engulf her letter in magical flame, and then quickly retreated back to her seat before the door locked behind her.
"So, how bad is it?" Fluttershy asked nervously, her armor already flickering.
"It's hard to tell, but I didn't see any gunfire or explosions, at least," Twilight mumbled. She had to pause as the Stormraven swung its nose upward, almost throwing her off of her bench.
"I saw plenty of smoke, though, and a lot of green corpses. We should be ready to fight our way to the farmstead," the purple pony said grimly.
"Acknowledged," Poison Kiss growled as her boltgun lifted up above her, "in the name of Chaos, we will purge this land of the xeno!"
"Don't worry, Mac! I'm sure we'll be able to save Applejack!" Rainbow Dash said as she finally pushed away from Gaela.
Mac's only reply was an angry snort.
Then the gunship vox system came to life again. "Everyone! Brace for impact!" Dest shouted. "We're going down!"
The ponies yelped and mag-locked to their benches or the floor, cringing as the entire gunship started to lose altitude.
Gaela frowned. "My Lord, we haven't been hit by anything. Why would we crash?"
"Because I forgot how to land one of these things," Dest admitted, "hold on to something."
As Gaela groaned and attached her servo arm to an overhead rail, Tellis chuckled.
"You know, I'm starting to like that guy."


The crash landing was, all things considered, quite gentle. Dest managed to slow down the Stormraven so that it merely dug a furrow in the dirt as it struck the ground, and didn't flip end-over-end or smash its cockpit open before it came to a complete stop.
The gunship DID end up dropping Pinkie Pie's Dreadnought and send her rolling into an apple tree, but even Pinkie's best friends often found it hard to take her safety seriously.
After several seconds, the access ramp dropped open, and the passengers staggered out.
"Well, that was no big deal. I've had WAY worse crashes than that," Rainbow Dash said.
"Really?" Breezy Blight asked. "Like, in terms of personal damage or property damage?"
"Yes."
"Enough banter!" Luna commanded as she vaulted from the transport, Twilight hot on her hooves. "Come to us, xenos! We bring to thee the... uh... the peace... of..."
The Princess of the Night trailed off as she looked left and right over the Acres, searching for any hint of resistance.
She wasn't finding any. The ground was littered with the bodies of dozens of Orks and Gretchin, and even the smoldering wreckage of a pair of Guntrukks. Flames burned over several patches of ground, and multiple columns of dark smoke stretched the clouds above.
But there were no live Orks about that any of the ponies could see.
"Huh. Doesn't look as bad from down here, actually," Pinkie Pie remarked as her Dreadnought pushed itself upright again.
"Hey! You guys okay?" came a shout from the side.
Big Mac was the first to recognize the voice, and he turned to greet Daniels as the mercenary approached the gunship.
"Eeyup."
Several other humans and ponies armed with lasguns followed behind Daniels more hesitantly. There were a few more poking their heads and rifles out of firing slits on the bunker complex that the Apple family called home. It was obvious that they were prepared for a defensive, although at the moment there was no sign of impending combat.
"Did you guys do this?" Twilight asked, gesturing to the alien corpses.
"Some of it, yeah. Crabapple helped a lot, as did the laser turrets," Daniels said.
Braeburn chuckled. "Mostly it was cousin AJ, though. Gal's feelin' a mite ornery."
"Applejack! Where is she?" Rainbow Dash demanded. She launched herself up into a hover, mostly to check that her flight pack was working again, and then scanned the orchards. "We don't have much time!"
"She's over there," Daniels pointed across the scene of devastation toward the wrecked Landa some distance away. Crabapple was stalking around the vessel, its claws snapping at loose bulkheads and tearing them off.
"Wait, she's IN the ship? She was captured?" Rarity gasped.
"Yes, and then no," Daniels replied.
"Then why would she be in there alone?"
The mercenary shrugged. "Well, after the first few waves of Ork survivors got gunned down, the rest ran back inside."
"And she actually ran in after them?" asked Poison Kiss, raising an eyebrow.
"Cuz is REALLY upset about losing another orchard," Braeburn said solemnly.
Twilight shook her head. "All right, let's do this. Phage Squadron, you go around the right side, where Crabapple is. Luna, Rainbow, you two take up position above the vessel while the rest of us lure-"
An explosion tore through the bow of the Landa, cutting off Twilight's instructions as flaming armor plates and screaming Gretchin were blasted out into the scorched orchard.
"We have to hurry! There's no telling what's in there!" Twilight said.
Breezy frowned as she glimpsed something walk out of the Ork transport amongst the flames, and she magnified her visor display. "Wait, is that...?"
"AJ?" Big Macintosh mumbled, his head jerking up.


Applejack's heavily armored form lumbered through the storm of fire and twisted metal that surrounded her, stepping onto the gouged-out cockpit of the army transport. Her armor suit was splattered with blood, blackened by fire, and nicked by dozens of utterly futile attempts to stop her.
Her hat, naturally, was unblemished.
Nearby, a large green figure staggered upright, pushing a bulkhead plate off of him.
Applejack was on the Nob in an instant, cutting under one leg with her helmet tusk and throwing him into the air.
"MAH NAME IS APPLEJACK!!" the farmer roared.
She reared up and struck the airborne Nob with a foreleg, breaking the warrior's torso and throwing him back into the flames.
"PROPRIETOR OF SWEET APPLE ACRES AND SCOURGE OF THE ALIEN!!" A squig leapt out of nowhere, snapping its massive jaws hungrily as it aimed to take a bite out of the pony's rear.
Applejack hammered a back leg into the little red monster, caving in most of its teeth and flattening it against a bulkhead.
"Y'ALL HAVE VIOLATED THE SANCTITY OF APPLE LAND!!" she declared as more Orks clawed their way free of the wreckage around her.
Applejack's gravity lash struck a loose metal plate and then flung it toward a Shoota Boy, crushing him against another bulkhead.
"AND NOW AH WILL WATER THESE TREES WITH YER BLOOD!!"
A Nob in mega armor tore himself free of the burning debris around him, his power klaw shredding the cage of metal that stood between him and the armored mare.
Applejack slid in front of him, moving with agility that should have been flat-out impossible in terminator armor. Then she slammed a vicious two-legged buck into the Nob's chest plate that threw him right back into the inferno he had crawled out of.
"YA WANT WAR?! YA WANT FIGHTIN'?! YA WANT DEATH?! HERE!! HAVE SOME!!"
She loosed the heavy flamer into the shattered vessel behind her, washing over the Landa interior with fire. Bulkheads already on the verge of collapse weakened and buckled further, while the greenskins that hadn't managed to escape - or had been kicked back into the flames - were baked alive.


The new arrivals to the farm watched the spectacle silently, either out of shock or awe at the sight of the massacre.
Luna glanced back at Big Mac uncertainly. "Macintosh, perhaps thou should go comfort thy sister and soothe her fury, as thou did with us."
"Eeenope." Mac wasn't getting anywhere near that.
"Okay, looks like she's done," Daniels said as he waved to the lone pony approaching from the wrecked vessel. Crabapple walked after her, keeping a respectful distance.
Applejack approached the farmstead in silence, not especially surprised to see her friends and a few other Company warriors waiting for her next to Daniels and Braeburn.
"Hey, y'all," the apple farmer greeted calmly, "whatcha got?"
Twilight took a few seconds to re-boot her train of thought and remember why they were there. "C-Canterlot! It's being attacked by Orks!"
"Okay," Applejack said simply, not altering her pace at all. She changed her course slightly to head toward the Stormraven gunship. "Brae, you got the farm. Wy, you comin'?"
"Sure," the mercenary agreed as Braeburn saluted. He followed Applejack past the others, who all gave them a wide berth.
All except Tellis, who flashed a thumbs-up as Applejack passed him.
"That was beautiful," the Chaos Lord offered.
The orange mare grunted something unintelligible as she stepped up onto the ramp and entered the gunship.
"Right, then. Step up, lads! Next stop, the capital!" Poison Kiss chirped, bounding toward the transport.
"I just hope we're not too late," Twilight grimaced, "Princess, everyone... just hold on! We're coming!"