“Die heretic!” Apple Bloom roared, as she filled the soon-to-be-pile of meat with bolter rounds.
Scootaloo’s bike screeched across the warzone, with the pegasus driving it laughing all the way. Her tires squealed as they bit dirt, and she leaned out to the side, power klaw extended. “Come on, boyz! Let’s ‘ave some fun!”
She gunned it, cranking the throttle, and sending the bike, and the open, waiting jaws of her klaw flying forward.
Sweetie Belle growled as she loosed another shot at a noise marine, before Scootaloo’s klaw snapped down on another marine, forcing the bike to spin to a halt. The sudden stop jolted her, and if it were not for the gyrostatic arm she would have missed entirely.
“Scootaloo! Slow down!” Sweetie cried. “If you keep speeding around like this, this trukk bed’s going to turn into a blender!”
Scoots looked up, a crushed head in her power klaw. “Slow down?” she asked.
“Belay that!” Apple Bloom yelled, smiling. “Greater speed means faster justice! For the Emperor!”
Sweetie gave a long-suffering sigh.
“Die dogs!” a chaos marine roared, firing into trukk side.
A blue streak of blue-hot las energy tore out his throat. “We’re ponies!” Sweetie yelled.
Apple Bloom laughed. “That’s the spirit, Sweetie Belle! We can turn you into a proper soldier yet!” She roared, before her bolter unleashed a line explosive ammo into another soldier of Chaos.
“There it is!” Scootaloo guffawed. “Something to agree on! Kill ‘em ‘arder!”
Sweetie sighed again. “Why is it that I have a feeling that if Chaos doesn’t kill me, you two will?”
Scootaloo laughed, before she gunned the throttle again, throwing the front of her bike upwards in a crazed wheely. "'Ere We Go, 'Ere We Go, 'Ere We Go!"
The battle field was a mess. Large pockets of ork, Blood Raven, and Eldar all fought hard against the Emperor’s Children, destroying them at every turn. Even still, the forces of Chaos were fighting well, throwing grenades and explosive rounds into the large crowds of the allied forces.
Allied, but not together.
Even the thickest of orks could see that the armies were divided. The Blood Ravens stood with the Blood Ravens, the orks, with the orks, and the Eldar with the Eldar.
At the very least, they were not shooting at each other, and that was far better than everyone really expected.
Apple Bloom suddenly yelled. “Scootaloo! The left!”
The pegasus checked to where the Space Marine pointed, and saw a 72-ton-tank breach the forces of Chaos like a whale breaches water. Gabriel Angelos stood proudly upon the roof, swinging his hammer, and crushing the enemy before him. Of course the real problem was the twin-linked lascannon was pointed directly at them, charging.
“Left!” Scootaloo screamed, before turning hard, Sweetie almost flew from the trukk bed, and would have certainly gone airborne if not for the supports of wraithbone she had made for herself, although the broken bed did creak, groan, and bend beneath Apple Bloom’s magnetic soles.
A scorching las shot thundered less than a foot away from Scootaloo’s bike and her makeshift trailer, and Sweetie yelped as the metal beside her began to heat up. It was gone in less than a second, and that was the only thing that kept the three ponies from burning alive.
“Oi! Watch where yer shootin’!” Scootaloo growled.
Gabriel roared, before leaping down from the Land Raider, and bringing God-splitter, his hammer, down onto the skull of another Chaos marine. He smirked before stepping forward. “Sister Apple Bloom, I must say I am surprised see you. I thought you would have returned home by now.”
“Sir!” Apple Bloom said. “When we heard the forces of Chaos were attempting to summon a Daemon Prince, we decided it was best to warn you.”
“A parting thanks to those who spared our lives,” Sweetie explained.
He nodded. “This I can understand,” he said. “I merely hope your efforts have indeed kept the monster at bay.”
“Of course we did!” Scootaloo said. “We’re awesome like that!”
Gabriel raised his eyebrow, before turning back to Apple Bloom. “Have you lost your chance to return to your Princess?”
“No sir, we still have three days, sir,” she answered.
“Excellent,” Gabriel said with a nod.
The ground suddenly shook beneath them, and the trukk groaned once more. “I don’t think this is terribly sturdy,” Sweetie said, before Apple Bloom gasped.
“Chapter Master!” she yelled, pointing at the top of the ridge.
Gabriel turned, and he cursed. A massive figure was appearing on the ridge. A massive, silhouette crested above the horizon, and a hideous head glared into the fray. “I have come!” the monster laughed. “This world shall drown in blood!”
Gabriel growled. “Sindri…”
Scootaloo sighed. “Zoggin’ ‘ell…”
“I agree with your sentiment,” Apple Bloom noted.
“Sister Apple Bloom,” Gabriel ordered.
“Sir!” she answered, saluting.
“I need to take the fight to the beast,” Gabriel said, holding up God-splitter. “Clear the way for me.”
Apple Bloom nodded. “Sir, yes sir! Scootaloo?”
“Ah ‘eard him!” she yelled, before she opened the throttle. The tires squealed again, and it kicked up dirt as it shot forward.
“Is this a good idea?” Sweetie asked as the trukk bed groaned beneath them.
“The Chapter Master wields a Daemon hammer,” Apple Bloom explained. “It is our most effective weapon against him. What of the Eldar?”
“Our weapons are wraithbone,” Sweetie said. “They will cut warp flesh as well as any.”
“Excellent, what of the orks?” Apple Bloom asked.
“We’z got choppas,” Scootaloo said.
“And…?”
“And gunz.”
Apple Bloom blinked. “Alright, well...if the orks want to fight the Daemon, we’ll let them.”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, before taking another shot at a Chaos Marine.
“Just drive towards it, Scootaloo.” Apple Bloom said, as her mechadendrites took aim at the enemies around them. “We’re going to bring him down.”
---=][=---
It would be him.
After all these years, it could only be him.
Gabriel gripped God-splitter in his hands, and the blessed thunder hammer almost hummed in his armored hands. “Sindri…and here I thought that Daemon took you from me.”
Somehow Sindri escaped the Maledictum daemon, somehow saving his soul from the monster’s appetite. Only a sorcerer as twisted and devious as him could find a way to escape even the machinations of a daemon.
But he would not escape justice this day.
“Sindri!” Gabriel yelled, as he stood on his the mighty Land Raider. “It is time to meet your end!”
The Daemon Prince looked up at him.
Maybe he heard Gabriel.
Maybe his psychic field had felt an old, familiar presence. The presence of the man who defeated him once before.
Gabriel gripped his hammer, even as the Daemon began to stomp forward, and as he did, he whispered a prayer to the God-Emperor.
And then, his prayer completed, he whispered two small words. “For Isador.”
---=][=---
“We’re almost there, Scootaloo. The Daemon will taste the wrath of the Emperor today!”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes, and kept driving, grabbing anyone that got to close with her mighty power klaw.
Sweetie was taking aim once more, before a resounding las shot tore through the air. “How much further?” she asked, before she checked the ammunition counter.
“Two hundred meters,” Apple Bloom answered.
“I’d say more two hundred and twelve,” Scootaloo said with a smirk.
Apple Bloom glared at the back of her head, before her eyes caught the sight of a new figure on the horizon. Far smaller than the Daemon, the massive, hulking figure ambled toward them, unleashing deafening blast after blast of sound. There was no mistaking it, it was most certainly an infernal engine of Chaos. “Dreadnought!”
“It’s not enough!” the Sonic dreadnought yelled, as the Dirge Casters on its armor played an eternal loop of shrieks, screams, wails, and propaganda. “It’s not enough!” It’s massive sonic weapon then turned on a poor, unfortunate ork that had wandered too close to the interred warrior, and got caught in the sonic discharge of his weapon.
Scootaloo watched in horror as his eyes burst.
“Turn!” Apple Bloom ordered.
Scoots threw all her weight behind the handlebars, and the bike went sliding. It went almost flat as the bike’s momentum carried it sideways, and the entire right side was scratched by the dirt beneath them.
And with that sudden turn, the trukk could take it no longer. The hook of twisted metal, the one that Scootaloo had made into a makeshift trailer hitch, snapped in half, and the trukk went soaring forward, going airborne as hit a stone ramp.
Apple Bloom cursed, instinctively drawing her knife, and Sweetie Belle leapt out of the trukk bed entirely, flying through the air like a wraithbone spear. Both ponies flew forward, straight towards the Sonic Dreadnought.
“We will not be found wanting!” Apple Bloom roared, before both she and Sweetie Belle slammed into the armored sarcophagus. A wraithbone blade, powered by psychic might, sliced through the armor, and Apple Bloom’s knife slammed straight through the Sonic Dreadnought's visor.
“At last!” the Dreadnought laughed. “Feeling at last!”
“You will only feel death!” Apple Bloom roared, before she stabbed him once more.
Sweetie Belle followed suit, her wraithbone blades slicing through the tainted armor with surprising ease.
A sudden explosion rocked to their left.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle both looked over, and saw a Chaos Marine with a smoking missile launcher.
They also saw Scootaloo sitting over a crumpled mess of metal rubble.
“My bike!” Scootaloo cried, before turning to the Chaos Marine. “I’ll zoggin’ kill ya!”
Apple Bloom sighed, even as Scootaloo tore the man to shreds.
Once the chaos marine lay in pieces, she called out. “Scootaloo!”
“Whatcha want?” the pegasus asked, obviously trying not to cry as she held the decapitated, and heavily damaged helmet of the late heretic.
“We can mourn your bike later, now we have job to do,” Apple Bloom told her.
Scootaloo sniffed, before standing. “I’m gonna kill all of dem.”
Apple Bloom smiled. “Then help us bring down the big one.”
She nodded. “I can do that.”
The three ponies stood together, armed with blades, hooves, and klaw.
“Attack!” Apple Bloom yelled, as the they charged back into the fray, swinging blades, and kicking with their hooves.
Scootaloo’s power klaw ripped through armor, tearing ceramite plates and flesh apart with ease. Sweetie Belle followed behind, a whirlwind of wraithbone death, and the occasional shot from the long rifle. Not far behind came Apple Bloom herself, a charging bull of a Space Marine, her knife slashing through flesh, and the Left Hand of Gabriel spitting fire.
---=][=---
Vulek the Debaucher cursed.
He had not moved since Sindri took the field, instead choosing to lead from the hill. Now, he simply watched as the Daemon Prince lumbered towards the Blood Raven’s Land Raider. And he also watched as three, strange, four-legged xenos cut through his ranks like a power sword through armor.
Whenever he saw them, he just felt rage boil through him. Who did they think they were? Who were they to come against the Great Slaanesh? Who were they to unite these enemies? And where were the Alpha Legion?!
Vulek growled, before he yelled into his own vox relay. “The first one to kill those four-legged xenos gets a double portion of narcotics, and first choice of the prisoners! Kill them now!”
---=][=---
Sindri stomped forward, crushing any fool that stood beneath him. Gabriel Angelos was here, and that was more than enough reason to destroy everything in his way.
“Sindri!” Gabriel yelled, staring up the Daemon Prince, gripping his hammer tightly. “I will end you this day as ended you on Tartarus!”
“I will bathe the galaxy in your blood!” The Daemon roared, before he charged the two.
Gabriel’s Land Raider opened fire with both the two twin-linked lascannons, and the twin-linked Heavy bolters at Gabriel’s feet.
The Las blasts, that same that would evaporate a Chaos Marine’s unarmored head, simply slapped the Daemon’s flesh. The bolts exploded against him, small shots of shrapnel flying off upon impact, but not a shot penetrated his skin.
Sindri’s power sword, on the other hand, was eager to bite through the adamantium of the Land Raider’s armor, and if it were not for a single leap on Gabriel’s part, both of them would be dead.
The tank was ripped open, the armor gave easily to the Daemonic blade, and the Land Raider now lay dead, completely destroyed. The Machine Spirit could not survive the blow.
The hexagrammic sigils on God-Splitter glowed softly, reacting to the Daemon’s presence. “I shall bring you to justice!” Gabriel yelled.
“You will die!” Sindri growled, swinging his massive, clawed hand. The power that radiated off his claw sparked and shot off in purple lightning, arcing across the sky before striking the ground with power. “You will all die!”
“All units!” Gabriel yelled into his vox. “Focus fire on the Daemon!”
“I will end you!” Sindri roared, before his massive hand came up, ready to strike once more.
A sudden, psychic blast rocked upward and Sindir stumbled backwards a step, two steps, before falling backwards.
Gabriel checked his side, and was surprised to see the blue and yellow armored figure of an Eldar. She wore an impressive cloak, and in her hands rested a wraithbone spear. When she spoke, Gabriel could almost hear her smile. “I will not let you take all the victories this day, Space Marine.”
Gabriel smirked in answer. “Then you will need to take if from me, Eldar.”
“Oi!” a voice called behind them, and both turned to see an ork with a bionic arm and leg stomp toward them, with a two-handed Big Choppa in his hands. “Are you two da bosses?”
Both Gabriel and Elahina blinked. “Um...yes?” she answered.
“We are,” Gabriel nodded.
“Den lay off da big one! ‘E’s mine!” Grimthrasha grunted.
Elahina blinked. “Excuse me?” she asked.
“‘E’s mine, cuz Ah want ‘is choppa!”
Gabriel blinked, before looking back to the recovering Daemon. “His sword?” he asked.
“Roight! Ah want da choppa, so Ah foights ‘im, and Ah’ll get da loot!” Grimthrasha told them.
“But…” Elahina began, “but the blade is a part of his manifestation, it cannot anchor itself to the material realm without—”
Gabriel raised a hand. “Eldar, if the ork wants the blade, he can keep it.”
Elahina looked to him, before slowly nodding. “Of course he can…”
Gabriel nodded. “You see ork? The loot is yours.”
Grimthrasha laughed. “Yous a so easy!”
“Either one, or one thousand,” Sindri said, finally regaining his foot, “it matters not! You will all die!”
Gabriel grinned as he gripped his hammer. “And if we take you with us, then so be it!”
---=][=---
The Bolt pistol in Apple Bloom’s mechadendrite clicked empty, and she growled just long enough to switch weapons. “I’m running low on ammunition,” she yelled.
“Join the club!” Sweetie Belle answered, the long rifle slung across her back.
“Klaws don’t need bullets!” Scootaloo laughed, slicing through yet another Chaos Marine. “But my Shootas aren’t ‘ere.”
“You have firearms?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I left them back at camp this morning!” Scootaloo said, before she grabbed onto a Chaos Marine’s arm, and began to squeeze. “Flyin’ quiet ain’t easy with them on!”
“So why didn’t you pick them up when we got your bike?” Sweetie asked.
A beat.
“Scootaloo?”
The Pegasus glared, the remains of an armored arm in her Klaw. “Not a word out of you. Understand?”
Sweetie rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless.
“You are also low on ammunition, Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Yes,” she groaned in answer, “that’s what I said! I should have grabbed Oraban’s extra power cells.”
“You should have,” Apple Bloom said, before her bolter roared once more.
They were surrounded on all sides, fighting a new swarm of Chaos Marines as they flooded around them. Yet despite the sea of enemies around them, they stood. An island of justice, the three ponies attacked with klaw, blade, and bolt, destroying those who approached. Between the multiple blades of Sweetie Belle, the intense training of Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo’s years of living amongst some of the most violent aliens in the galaxy, not a single Chaos Marine could touch them.
They stood, back-to-back-to back, Apple Bloom firing with her bolter while Sweetie skewered the fools that charged them, and all the while, Scootaloo ripped men to shreds. With long, medium, and short range covered, there was nothing that they could not destroy.
And somewhere, in the back of her mind, Apple Bloom could feel something coming alive again, a word that echoed from her life before. It wiggled and niggled in her mind, begging to be remembered once more.
Her eyes wandered from the sea of Warp-addled minds, directly up the the Daemon, who struck with his blade as blasts of Warp energy, and a crazed, jumping ork shot past him.
“We need to aid the Chapter Master!” Apple Bloom yelled.
“Who?” Scootaloo asked. “More importantly, we need to ‘elp Grimthrasha! Ah worked too hard to make him Boss only for ‘im to die by a Daemon.”
“I sense the Farseer there as well!” Sweetie said. “They will need our help!”
“We’re agreed then? We must go to the Daemon?” Apple Bloom asked.
They both answered the affirmative.
“Then Scootaloo, grab Sweetie Belle and fly for him, I’ll be behind you!” the Space Marine said.
“You want me to carry her?” the pegasus asked.
“We need someone to distract him!” Apple Bloom answered. “And nothing will distract him more than a face full of wraithbone!”
Sweetie nodded. “She has a point.”
Scootaloo groaned. “Fine, but let’s hurry!”
Apple Bloom nodded.
Ah, yes…
That was the word…
“Crusaders! Charge!”
---=][=---
Gabriel’s hammer swung hard against the Daemon’s flesh, and Sindri roared in pain. The massive blade swung around, trying to catch the Chapter Master and end his miserable existence. The blade was then caught, somehow, by the whining Big Choppa that Grimthrasha held in his hand.
Not to say that he left unscathed.
The very presence of the daemonic blade burned the air around it, and the skin along Grimthrasha’s arms began to boil. Yet even then, the ork didn’t so much as scream, instead, he only gave a pained grunt. And that was all the old ork was going to give the daemon, that, and the blade of his choppa.
Warp blasts shot into Sindri’s back, and he turned his attention to the Eldar Farseer.
The energies of the Warp surrounded Elahina, and her eyes glowed brightly as she faced her enemy. Blasts of purple fire and lightning shot forward, while pure energy spiralled about her. “Return to the Warp, beast. Go, and return to your masters.”
Sindri growled. “I will destroy you all.”
Grimthrasha laughed. “'Ere We Go, 'Ere We Go, 'Ere We Go!”
“You will try, heretic,” Gabriel said.
Elahina floated beside him, energy crackling about her. “Yet you will fail.”
Sindri’s face twisted in rage. “Be silent, fools!” he roared, before sweeping his arm above them. A wave of energy washed over the three leaders, and despite their best efforts, they fell backwards, stumbling as thousands of pounds of force pushed against them.
“You will all die!” he roared.
“Waaaaaagh!” a voice yelled behind them.
Sindri turned.
And there, an orange streak across the blue sky, was Scootaloo.
And right beneath her, gripped in her forelegs was Sweetie Belle.
Sindri had enough time to blink at the strange creatures, before Scootaloo threw the unicorn with all her might.
Sweetie Belle flew forward, spreading out four wraithbone legs before latching onto Sindri’s face.
“Ah! What is this?” the Daemon roared, before a sudden burst of warp-fire erupted from Sweetie Belle’s horn.
He roared in pain once more, before he moved to push her off his face.
She scurried away, crawling out of the way just as Sindri’s massive, gauntleted hand slammed into his own face.
He staggered back, even as Sweetie Belle ran across his horned head, like a spider across a wall. Shortly behind, came Scootaloo, gliding down, and klaw outstretched. She roared as she slammed into him, and her klaw crackled with energy, even as it bit into Sindri’s flesh.
And right behind them came Apple Bloom, charging even as the power generators in her legs began to whine. Her bolter thundered as shot after shot slammed into Sindri’s legs.
Sweetie Belle scurried around his head once more, distracting him as Scootaloo’s klaw bit into his sword arm.
And that’s when Apple Bloom kicked.
Her hooves struck true and struck hard, and Sindri tried, but failed to keep upright.
He slammed into the ground, and the Crusaders were on him in an instant.
“Attack, Crusaders! Attack!” Apple Bloom yelled.
And they leapt.
---=][=---
“What nonsense is this?” Sindri thought.
The daemon had answered his summons, and was eager to bring about his revenge. It was to be such a simple thing. Just a little warm up before he burned the planets to ash.
And yet this happened.
These three xeno had hit him with a strength he had never before felt.
He could hardly see them, half shapes in the materium, and voids in the warp, the only reasons he knew they were upon him was the force with which they struck, and the glowing rainbow of color in their eyes.
Something was very wrong here.
He tried to get up, tried to regain his feet, but an overwhelming strength slapped him back down. “What is this?”
All three of these creatures stood on him, glaring down with power and color in their eyes.
This was wrong.
Their eyes held the red of Khorne. The rage, anger, and strength of the Blood God turned and focused into righteous fury. It had the blue of Tzeentch, the cunning and plotting of the god of change harnessed into wisdom and strategy. Nurgle’s green was also there, the cycle of life, death, and stagnation finding balance for a single, hopeful moment. Even Slaanesh’s purple shone there, her passion and love finding an odd purity that he had not thought was not possible.
They were all there. Together. In harmony.
It didn’t matter. Even if he were to fall here, he would live. Daemons could not be killed, only banished.
He tried to raise his blade once more, tried to kill them where they stood.
“Oi! Dat choppa’s mine!” a voice said beside him, and he turned to see an ork grab his hand.
He should have been able to toss the ork aside, but...he felt so...weak.
His other hand moved, before he felt a hammer strike slam into his palm.
A force, that cursed Eldar held his feet.
And the three creatures stood on his chest.
And then a single word echoed in his ears.
“Crusaders!”
And then the world exploded in color.
---=][=---
In the depths of the warp, deep in the Blood God’s Domain, the Brass Citadel stood proud in the Cracked Lands. Khorne heard and felt the Wave, pass over him and his skull throne. Slowly, the constant din of fighting began to fade in the blood god’s fortress.
In the Realm of the Sorcerer, the Impossible Fortress loomed over the crystal labyrinth. Tzeentch had planned and plotted in his tower since the dawn of time, but as the Wave passed over it, the wheels in his mind began to slow.
Nurgle stood in his garden, looking over his boiling cauldron. The foul diseases and plagues that had emerged from that pot had ravaged the galaxy for years, but as the Wave passed over his land, his mansion and his garden, Grandpapa Nurgle looked up, and blinked. He then turned to Isha, the Eldar goddess of healing, locked in her cage, and blinked once more, even as she smiled with hope.
Even Slaanesh, who sat in her palace, and stared down into the Six Circles of Seduction, paused in his debauchery as the Wave passed over him. The moans and groans of pleasure and pain quieted as the poor souls in her palace felt the Wave.
And then, for a single, solitary moment, the Warp was perfectly, completely silent.
The world had changed in that moment.
A Daemon was dead.
Really, truly dead.
Harmony had come to the Galaxy.
---=][=---
Vulek cursed.
Something had happened.
Something beyond explanation had ruined everything. Those cursed xenos had somehow defeated the Daemon Prince, and some strange, multicolored power had washed over the entire planet.
And now something had happened to the enemy.
What was once three separate, allied armies, had somehow become a single, unified force. Ork, Space Marine, and Eldar all, stood side by side by side, united in a single force. The orkish viciousness, paired with Eldar accuracy, was a dangerous combination to begin with, but furthered bolstered by the Space Marines, they had formed a force that simply couldn’t be stopped. “Retreat!” Vulek yelled. “Retreat to the fortress!”
Ork choppas and Astartes chainswords tore through the retreating ranks of the Emperor’s Children, all the way up the crater ridge.
“Keep running you fools!” Vulek yelled as his tentacle wiggled wildly.
Eldar las blasts and Astartes bolts shot past them, peppering them from behind.
“Get to the fortress! Close the gates!” he yelled as his army began to push and shove their way into the open gate of the ancient ruins.
“Waaagh!”
“Get in there, you fools!” Vulek cried, before he began yelling into his vox. “Kraagan! Kraagan, I need your help!”
No answer came.
Vulek’s forces had taken massive casualties now. He only had a handful of squads left. “Close the gate! Close the gate!”
They moved as quickly as they could, working ancient mechanism to close the gate shut. A portcullis of wraithbone began to fall, ready to slam down on the fresh earth, and begin a long, tiring siege.
Only for a pair of green hands to grab it.
“Waaaaagh!” the ork yelled, as he began to lift the portcullis, keeping the gate open.
“Shoot him! Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him!” Vulek roared.
The Chaos marines leveled their weapons, ready to unload into the straining ork.
And then the Striking Scorpions ran through. Their silent chainswords cut through the enemy with ease, keeping the ork alive even as more troops began to pour into the fort.
“Kill them! Kill them!”
The Chaos forces turned on the Striking Scorpions, trying to take down something, only for Space Marines to fill both sides of the ork, laying covering fire as they protected the Eldar.
“No! No! Kraagan, where are you!”
Still no answer came.
The allies quickly filled the courtyard, and the Emperor’s Children fell quickly to the ork, Eldar and Astartes.
“Kraagan! Kraagan!” Vulek roared.
“Kraaaaaaagan!”
---=][=---
“Victory needs no explanation; Defeat allows none.”—Imperial Thought of the Day.
Alright, guys, the battle is over.
The day is saved.
Next time, it's time to go home.
"See you then!"
Bye!