Iron Hearts: Book 2 - Ferrous Dominus

by SFaccountant

The Iron Within

Iron Hearts: Book 2

Chapter 3

The Iron Within

***

4 kilometers outside of Sweet Apple Acres

"Hey! Ah think Ah see smoke!"

Scootaloo glanced up at Apple Bloom, who was standing unsteadily on top of Crabapple as the daemonic machine advanced through the trees and brush.

"Are you sure? I don't see anything." She was on her scooter with Sweetie Bell riding along with her, although the rough terrain made it difficult. Her lower vantage point also made it hard to see, with much of the surrounding foliage at pony head-level.

+Surface scans indicate downed units within reach. Advise caution. No enemy units have been detected within attack range.+

The three fillies waited patiently for Crabapple to finish its discordant blurt of Binary, and Apple Bloom lowered her head toward her friends. "Don't worry, we're almost there! Crabapple knows what she's doin'!"

Scootaloo shrugged, pushing her scooter through another patch of overgrown vines that Crabapple had simply stepped over.

It had been almost an hour since the probe automata had started wailing at them in machine-code, trying to gesture as best it could that it sensed something and wanted them to follow it.

Apple Bloom had wanted to go right away, while Sweetie Bell was more reluctant, and she had mentioned that they should probably get Big Macintosh to come with them. The stallion was quite busy with their new farm, however: taking stock of the different areas, moving their animals back where they belonged, and making a list of where he'd need to paint and how much. Apple Bloom had convinced Sweetie that he wouldn't mind if they took a little hike to get out of his way.

As the three fillies and corrupted machine stepped up to a patch of uprooted and shredded trees, the fillies had to admit that this trip no longer qualified as a "little hike".

Beyond the devastated woodland was one of the container transports, or at least the wreck that used to be a container transport. It had tumbled end over end after coming to a stop, and the empty container it had carried had been utterly crushed from the impact.

The three young ponies stared silently at the scene for several seconds before Apple Bloom glanced down at her friends again.

"Girls, ya know what this means?" They nodded solemnly in response.

+No life signs detected. The crew did not survive the crash. Advise unit Apple Bloom-+

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER RESCUE WORKERS! YAAAAY!!"

With that, Crabapple ended up spending the better part of half an hour trying to keep the three young ponies from skewering themselves on pieces of smoldering metal. Chunks of debris were hastily kicked away and at times the automata had to physically plant its leg in their paths to warn them away, but eventually the fillies gave up after finding nothing around the wreck but fire and ruin.

As soon at it had their attention again, the automata waited for Apple Bloom to climb on top and then headed out for the next crash.

"Well, that was useless," Scootaloo grumbled as she pushed off after Crabapple again.

"I hope there wasn't anyone still in there after all," Sweetie Bell mumbled, "we couldn't open the front part."

"Sweetie, the front part was on fire. If there was anyone still in there, I don't think we could help them," Scootaloo pointed out.

"Hey, there's another one! Boy, these things are just lyin' all over the place. Whaddya think happened?" Apple Bloom asked, pointing a hoof toward a glimmer of gunmetal that she could see between the tree branches.

"Well, either something got them, or they're REALLY lousy fliers," Scootaloo opined.

"They made it all the way to the farm without crashing into anything, and while carrying those huge crates, so this probably isn't an accident," Sweetie Belle chimed in, "do you think it's those 'Tau' people that hurt Crabapple?"

Apple Bloom's expression soured, and Crabapple released an irritated burst of Binary detailing exactly what he thought of the alien creatures. It was not a glowing review, and each of the girls giggled as they imagined all the heated things that the automata was trying to say to them.

A minute later, however, their expressions turned serious again as the wreckage of the Scavurel gunship came into view.

Unlike the last one, this craft wasn't lying at the end of a long strip of devastation, and it looked as if it had simply dropped down from the sky with its engines burning and its crew compartment caved in. There was smoke coming from the interior, but altogether there was less flame around the cockpit, too.

+Scanning... functional system ID's confirmed. Bio-signs suggest immediate assistance is necessary.+

"What's that girl? Ya say there's somepony alive in there?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Oh, don't act like you can understand her." Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell dismounted the scooter as Apple Bloom dropped down from on top of Crabapple.

"Hello? Is somepony in there?" Apple Bloom shouted, trotting up to the main body of the aircraft while stepping around the scattered bits of flaming debris.

She didn't get a response from the vehicle wreck, but Crabapple released an urgent Binaric wail and stabbed a leg into the main access ramp. It started levering the ramp free, and the shriek of metal filled the air as the locks refused to give.

Apple Bloom stared at the smoldering hulk for several seconds, and then turned to the others. "Scootaloo, can ya head back to the farm without us?"

The pegasus blinked. "What? Why?"

"To get mah brother," Apple Bloom explained, pointing a hoof at the wreck. "Crabapple seems pretty sure there's somethin' in there, and even if we get to it, we can't really do much about it on our own. Tell Big Mac to bring the wagon. It's an emergency."

Scootaloo saluted sharply and then hopped back on her scooter, taking off at a much greater speed without Sweetie Bell.

****

Ferrous Dominus - fortress command center

"Bring the units on the West side around the mining facilities. Move slowly! Clean them out but don't overextend yourselves!"

"Squad Delta Nine has reported that they could not prevent enemy action in the area. The power relays and dropship beacon have been destroyed, and the enemy has moved on."

"We've lost the pumps too? Why would they even target those?"

"Dammit! Fight harder, you cowards! Throw everything you've got at them!"

The strategium of a military base was always buzzing with activity in a sudden crisis, and that of Ferrous Dominus was no different. While the cult leaders rounded up their men and led from the front, the rest of the 38th Company's substantial human soldiery were part of a strict military hierarchy quite similar to that of a loyalist Imperial regiment. The primary difference being, of course, that loyalist Imperial Guard regiments didn't take orders from Space Marines.

Then again, at the moment, neither did the mercenary and rebel commanders poring over hololiths and barking instructions at the vox officer. There were only two Iron Warriors in the room, and they were only there to serve as guards. No Chaos Space Marine had come to take his place in the command balcony above the strategium in this time of disaster. Not because the Iron Warriors lacked officers of rank, but rather because those same Chaos Space Marines had all been caught away from the command center when the Tau had struck. Unlike the humans, whose careers and, indeed, lives hinged on the keeping of protocol and the flawless execution of their duties, the Iron Warriors had little incentive to keep to the command centers when there was no immediate need.

That did mean, unfortunately, that sometimes they were not there when such a need arose unexpectedly.

"General Gnoss, the Tau units in sector 2 and 11 have moved out of engagement range. Our men just can't keep up with them."

The ranking human officer was an unimpressive man at a glance, not tall or intimidating and largely unaugmented. He boasted a number of tattoos across his weathered face that spoke of long years as a pirate before turning to Chaos and the armies of the Iron Warriors, and an Iron Skull on the back of his black overcoat that spoke of talent enough to impress his dour masters.

"Keep them back. Move the Russes over here to support, and have them join the barricade at the artillery yards. I don't want a single grayskin in the yards!" growled the General, his hands drawing lines over the shimmering hololith that described the fortress interior.

"Sir, the artillery corp are in their tanks and awaiting orders. Shall we give them firing coordinates?"

Gnoss glared at the man who had asked. "Fire artillery? In our own base? Do you think the xeno filth aren't causing enough damage?"

"N-No, Sir, I just thought-"

"The crews are to keep ready to deploy smoke and fall back if the grayskins advance on the yards. They may fire secondary weapons ONLY, until such time that the enemy falls outside the base perimeter again. I will not gamble on heavy ordnance so close to my own men and structures!"

The General turned back to the hololith, silently making a mental queue of which units needed orders immediately.

Then he noticed that nearly everyone else in the strategium had gone silent as well.

Looking up, he saw his officers rushing to put on their respirator masks, and he realized what was happening. His hand pulled up the mask hanging from his belt and he fixed it in place as heavy footfalls echoed through the room, coming from behind him.

As soon as they were masked, most of the officers went back to what they were doing, albeit more quietly and with their speech muffled by their masks. General Gnoss, on the other hand, turned to greet the new arrival in the strategium, forcing the bile down his throat as he so often had to do when conversing with the 38th Company's Vice-Commander.

"Lord Sliver, welcome," the General said with a bow, "do you desire a situation report?"

The hulking, rusted figure stomped up to the hololith slowly, although every man in that room knew of the devastating and effortless speed the Astartes was capable of. The Nurglite was also armed for combat; on his left hand was a high-pressure liquid chemical nozzle, the Viral Scourge, which was fed by numerous hoses that were connected to a pair of large tanks on his back and a few that fed into the Chaos Lord directly. His right hand gripped a scorched and pitted hammer that was nearly the size of the General himself, its haft decorated in a faded and worn motif of yellow and black warning stripes.

"Sspeak," slurred the Iron Warrior, as if through a mouthful of phlegm.

"Our damage reports are merely prelim-"

"Not the damage, General," Sliver interrupted, "we deal with that after combat. The enemy. Sspeak."

Gnoss adjusted his priorities instantly. "The Tau have taken the quadrant of the base near the salvage site, my lord. They're using that area as a muster point and launching strike missions throughout the entire fortress, prioritizing infrastructure and construction equipment. They've left the mining and trainings sectors practically untouched, while we had to head off an attack on the manufactorum."

Sliver did not interrupt this time, which Gnoss took as an indication that he was saying the right thing. He pointed to several clusters of blue icons on the hololith.

"You can see that I've established a number of defensive hardpoints, and it's keeping the xenos away from the manufactorum entrances, the armories, and the Astartes barracks. The problem is that the Tau move so quickly that they simply avoid the hardpoints and run rampant over the rest of the base, killing anything they can. When teams are sent in to flush them out, they're either destroyed by the xenos suddenly converging on them in ambush, or the blasted grayskins just fly off before we can cause any damage."

Gnoss pointed to the part of the hololith with a disturbing number of speedy red blips. "The only sectors that they seem absolutely determined to take are 2 and 15. We've managed to keep them away from the ground batteries so far, but they keep reinforcing and coming back. The vehicle lots, on the other hand, are taking more damage the longer the fighting goes on, regardless of who's winning. We can't get our crews to their vehicles, which is starving the rest of our forces of armored support."

"Our men. The human resservess. Where are they?" Sliver asked.

"Keeping their head down, mostly. They're banding together and putting up resistance wherever they can, but they have few heavy weapons to deal with all the xeno armor. They're keeping the grayskins out of some of the buildings, though."

General Gnoss then pointed toward a few friendly units that were massing on the exterior of the palisade wall, just short of the breach. "I've asked our security cordon to mass here and then create another hard point to block off enemy retreat. With that in-"

"Recall them. Now. Have the cordon file in through the front gate and then form combat teamss to ssweep the basse," Sliver ordered, his enormous cyclopic eye snapping toward the human officer.

Gnoss hesitated, well aware that the phrasing of his next question could mean the difference between life and death. "We are to leave the enemy a route of retreat, then?"

"The xenoss are not here to take Ferrouss Dominuss... they are here to cripple it. If we trap them here they will drag uss down with them..." a slow, painful-sounding breath came from the heavy-duty mask filter built into Sliver's helmet. "I care not if the graysskinss die today or tomorrow; their defeat is asssured. But I want them OUT of my basse. Iss that clear, General?"

"Yes, Lord Sliver, of course." General Gnoss took another look at the hololith. "If these armor groups head to sector 9 and branch out, they can link up with the soldiers barricaded in the buildings. They could lend enough manpower to allow them to split into larger fire teams too big to ambush."

"Do it," Sliver commanded, turning on his heel, "I am alsso placing the Iron Warriorss under your direct command, ssince the Warpssmithss sseem to have better thingss to do than lead their troopss."

This surprised General Gnoss, but he recovered quickly and snapped a salute at the Vice-Commander's back. "You won't be taking command then, Lord?"

"No," Sliver confirmed as he stomped out the strategium's main doorway, leaving steps of gooey ichor behind him, "I'm going to go introduce Grandfather to ssome new friendss."

A minute later saw the hulking terminator-armored Nurglite stomping into the a separate room of the command center where his men awaited.

There were but four of them, but the four together made up a force as deadly as several squads of more mundane Iron Warriors. One wouldn't know it by looking; although clad in terminator armor like their leader, the Iron Warriors of the Rusted Brotherhood, Sliver's personal retinue, kept their gear in the same state of apparent disrepair and constant decay as he did. Armor was pitted and cracked, hoses bore holes that oozed poisonous slime, and flies constantly crept over the foul plate to the complete indifference of the men who wore it.

"Do we deploy, Lord?" rasped the first of the brothers, his power fist crackling eagerly.

"We do. To ssector 15. There are pilotss that need a path to their vehicless." Sliver paused as he set the coordinates using his heads-up display, locking on to the teleport beacon placed to aid an emergency coordination just like this.

The advanced teleporters in the suits of tactical dreadnaught armor, each one forged by Warsmith Solon himself for Sliver's use, kicked into gear and locked on to their target.

"Iron within," Sliver intoned.

"Iron without," his retinue snarled back.

"Kill the alien," the Nurglite Lord said simply as the teleporter engaged.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 15

A combat teleport was always disconcerting for those teleported, but if used properly, was still far more unnerving to the enemy.

Such it was that while it took Sliver a good two seconds to shake off the effects of being vomited through space and time, it took a few fatal seconds longer for the Pathfinders to recover from having five grotesque terminator-armored Iron Warriors flash into being right next to them.

The Rusted Brotherhood ignored them and turned away, deeming the aliens already dead. Sliver was closest.

A low-pressure spurt from the Viral Scourge loosed clammy green ichor all over the nearby scouts, and each one promptly collapsed screaming as the chemical slurry slipped through their armor plating and began turning their flesh to jelly.

One Pathfinder managed to dodge out of the way as the burst ended, and Sliver finished him off by walking briskly into and over the alien. He didn't bother to swing his hammer or make any sort of martial maneuver; he simply bowled the alien over and then crushed its helpless body underfoot with sheer mass.

The Rusted Brotherhood was already moving on a unit of Fire Warriors with drone support, their armor cracking and shuddering as the Tau poured a desperate fusillade into their diseased bulk. The return fire was sparse, due simply to the small size of the squad, but the unit's combi-meltas left their mark as gun drones broke apart and Fire Warriors were blown asunder, all while the Rusted Brothers closed to melee range.

Sliver had another target. A Hammerhead gunship was peeling off from an attack run nearby, having just executed a Vindicator siege tank.

Its burst cannons swung into the appropriate firing arcs and unleashed a spray of searing energy into Sliver, the crackling blue sparks washing over the ruined plate and leaving angry trails of electric arcs behind.

Sliver grunted and adjusted the Viral Scourge for range.

The spray of filth that spewed forth shot directly into the turbine vents of the hammerhead's engine, making a mockery of its disruption pod as the Nurglite Lord trailed the jet spray across the turret mount.

The Hammerhead strafed to the side, apparently unaffected by the toxins. It tried to line up its heavy railgun against the single small target, but the current range was far from ideal.

The hover tank shuddered, its engines squealing suddenly. Within the vents of its engine block, the chemical sludge of the Viral Scourge hardened around the assembly's moving parts and spilled into sensitive reactant chambers where the voracious and largely unnatural viruses started consuming fuel.

The Hammerhead gunship trembled in the air as it swung to the side, one of its engines having lost power entirely. Its railgun turret likewise froze in place as chemicals hardened in the turret servos, robbing it of its arc of fire as one side of the vehicle started dragging across the ground.

Sliver was lining up a shot into the other engine block when a bolt of searing plasma cut into his back, striking one of the chemical tanks.

Fire bloomed from the rupture as the chemical mix ignited, and within seconds a thick, foul smoke was vomited into the air from the breach, completely obscuring the terminator suit within the oily cloud.

The Crisis Suit that had fired stepped back behind a smoldering wreck of a Rhino APC, its fusion blaster cycling to fire as it plotted a path to the other Iron Warriors.

That plan was stymied as the shattered hull of the Rhino was smashed aside, sending a chunk of hull plating scraping across its arm. The Crisis Suit turned with weapons charged, but Sliver was already on top of it, trailing smoke behind him.

The hammer struck the battlesuit's torso plating head-on in a burst of sickly green energy, and the hefty armor cracked and splintered as the suit structure fought to protect the pilot compartment from the catastrophic shock of the weapon. The Crisis Suit was knocked clean off its feet from the impact, scraping across the ferrocrete ground and slamming into another Rhino.

Sliver advanced in step with the impact, already winding up another blow.

This time the hammer fell on the suit's head, grinding the sensor assembly to so many splinters. Impact shocks traveled down the battlesuit, pulping the pilot's skull and body within.

Sliver turned away without a word, searching for a new target.

His retinue was carving the enemy apart as the Company forces trying to push into the lots took advantage of the break, and crews made mad dashes for their tanks while Chaos Space Marines broke cover and started laying down hails of fire with their bolters at the drone gun squadrons.

"Vehicle crewss, to your armor," Sliver growled into the vox as he stomped toward another unit of Fire Warriors trying to outmaneuver his men, "prioritize the main battle tankss and then contact command for deployment orderss."

His suit's internal generators hummed noisily as the teleporter locked on to new coordinates.

"May Nurgle... hnnn... protect you and cripple the weakling foe," Sliver intoned.

Then his teleporter activated again, dropping him in front of the sprinting Tau warriors. They quickly stumbled to a stop, almost tripping over the massive Chaos Lord.

"Ssuffer for me, xeno. Let Nurgle hear your pleass sso that he may grant you deliverance," he said as he loosed the Viral Scourge once again.

And suffer they did.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 6

*New orders, Shas'la! We're to join Shas'vre Jerriha for an assault on the main facility!*

The Fire Warriors in the unit were quite occupied at the time, deployed behind a barricade and trading fire with a great number of human soldiers garrisoned inside a barracks complex.

Unlike the dormitories, these buildings were made for the residents to occupy during a siege and fire out of, and as such they were proving quite an annoyance to the Tau forces that were tasked with keeping the soldiers locked down where they can do minimal harm. Lasers poured from the tiny windows, deliberately constructed like firing slits, onto any exposed infantry below. Although the Fire Warriors' weapons were far more lethal, and there was little the embattled humans could do about the Devilfish APCs spewing burst cannon fire across the structure, it had still become an ugly stalemate.

*We're going to abandon the barracks?* one soldier asked, ducking his head after a lasblast cracked against his shoulder plate.

*The Shas'vre has the reserves pushing up to assist the general retreat, but yes; if this area cannot be taken, then we're going to pull out. We'll do it one unit at a time, and then...*

The squad leader paused, watching the smoking hulk of a nearby Chimera. There were birds flying out of the wreck in a steady stream, the pure white of their feathers creating a startling contrast to the dark smoke spilling out of it.

The sight was absurd, spontaneous, and, if he was being honest, quite pretty.

And then a bolter round took the head off of the squad leader, which completely ruined the unexpected tranquility of the scene.

*Where did that-*

*On the side! We've been flanked!*

*I don't see any Space-*

Another bolter round struck a Fire Warrior in his chest plate, knocking him off his feet as his squadmates scrambled for new cover.

They were understandably confused by the lack of visual contact with an Astartes; the Space Marines rarely had a great affection for stealth or camouflage, and these ones in particular had a gleaming color scheme that was hard to miss alongside their imposing stature and heavy equipment.

There were some Tau who thought they glanced a bolter hovering in the air and surrounded by blue energy, but that was just silly.

*Behind the wrecked transport! Quickly! Someone get our Devilfish to come about!*

The Fire Warriors raced to move, and one more warrior fell to a mass-reactive shell in the back, and another to the volleys of opportunistic laser fire from the building garrison.

And that was all before they turned the corner of the wrecked hull and found another boltgun floating in front of them.

Twilight grimaced as she heard the sound of more boltgun bursts, making sure to keep her head down behind the barricades. "I think Trixie's right. You've adapted to this a little too quickly."

Rarity licked her lips as her scavenged bolter hovered overhead, snapping off a shot at any patches of blue and black that she spotted over her cover. "I'll take that as a compliment. Spikey, dear, do you know how those 'grenades' work?"

"Oh, sure! Daniels explained them to me! You pull those little metal pins and then they explode!" the young dragon explained eagerly. The mercenaries had been very forthcoming on their first night on-planet, and their weaponry had been the most obvious topic of interest that night.

Rarity smiled in way that made Spike's heart melt and Twilight's heart freeze. "Splendid!"

At another barricade down the avenue, where another group of Fire Warriors were waiting for their APC, a dead grenadier lying on the ground was briefly encompassed by blue magic. Then every pin in its grenade belt spontaneously popped out.

Twilight lowered her head again, her ears pinned while she waited for the explosions to come. The wait was tortuous, and the sound of Rarity clicking her tongue once the booming did start didn't help.

"Drat. Some of them got into the vehicle already," the snow-colored unicorn sighed, dropping down once more.

Twilight winced as she watched the APCs pick up altitude and move away. "Rarity, those soldiers were leaving! You didn't have to hurt them!"

"Twilight, darling, have you considered that even after the humans leave, we're going to have to oust the Tau as well?" Rarity asked as she lowered her boltgun next to Spike. The dragon immediately took the firearm and went about reloading it, which was no quick feat considering that the battle rifle was almost as big as he was.

"Well... sure, probably," Twilight admitted.

"Then we may as well help the humans take their toll now. As far as we know, the Tau couldn't even leave the planet if they wanted," Rarity pointed out, taking a cloth from her saddlebag and using it to wipe away some of the gunsmoke from her coat and mane.

"I'm skeptical that's your actual reason," Twilight deadpanned, her eyes glancing at the scorched length of purple hair coming from Rarity's rear.

"I deplore bloodshed," the unicorn insisted, levitating the boltgun up again before she stuffed her cloth away, "but if we must fight to preserve Equestria against the alien menace, then I will do my part. And your part too, since you seem determined to cling to that 'neutrality' nonsense."

A puff of white smoke burst behind Twilight, and Trixie quickly trotted up to the other ponies with her own boltgun floating along behind her.

"Trixie needs more ammunition," the unicorn said to Spike, snapping the lever that detached the bolter magazine.

"But this is the last one!" Spike protested as Trixie's magic enveloped the clip in his hand and started tugging on it.

"Trixie, dear, you don't have to expend all the bullets every time you fire the weapon," Rarity drawled, "I'm in no hurry to find more dead Space Marines, much less dig around their bodies again."

Trixie growled and was about to argue her case further when she noticed one of the blue and black pulse rifles lying on the ground in the middle of the avenue. "In that case, Trixie will take one of these!"

She levitated the rifle up over to their barricade, and then inspected the weapon as if she had any expertise in such things. "Trixie doesn't like the length, but they seem to make much less noise and move around less than the Astartes weapons when shooting."

She aimed the rifle upward and magically pulled the trigger. Nothing happened as the trigger clicked and a soft buzzing noise came from the ionization chamber.

"... But the fact that nothing comes out of the painful end is a definite drawback," Trixie decided blandly.

"Maybe that one's out of ammunition? Or energy, or... whatever?" Spike guessed.

Trixie levitated up another rifle laying next to the wrecked chimera.

Click.

Then another one on the other side of the wreck.

Click.

Finally she tried a few more dropped weapons near the large black spot where the grenadier corpse had been.

Click. Click. Click.

"Well, Trixie is calling it now: Space Marine weapons are way better than Tau ones," she grumbled bitterly, glaring at Spike again, "now give Trixie that ammunition!"

Twilight rolled her eyes as Spike reluctantly relinquished the bolter ammo. "Actually, from a strategic perspective, creating a weapon that your enemy can't pick up and use on their own is a brilliant idea."

"From a Trixie perspective, such an idea is currently making Trixie's survival much harder, and therefore YOU'RE WRONG," the blue unicorn snapped as she reloaded the boltgun, "now where are we heading next?"

Rarity glanced at the building on the other side of the avenue. "Well, that's the menial dorms, right?"

"Right. Probably. All the signs around here shut down in siege lockdown, apparently," Trixie grumbled.

"Then we should head inside while things have calmed down around here," the other unicorn advised.

"Got it," Twilight said, her horn flaring with magic, "everypony keep close to me. I'm bringing us in!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - barracks complex gamma

"They left? Are you sure?"

Daniels raised a hand to his optics to adjust the zoom, peeking through the firing slit that doubled as a window. It was barely a foot wide and merely three times as tall, which gave them excellent protection from incoming fire but reduced their field of view terribly.

"I watched the APC leave, and I don't see anything else down there. Think they ran into some trouble; I saw some explosions."

Daniels turned to shout across the bunk room. "Howard! You got a line on anything?"

"Negative. I think that team is still on the observatorium roof, though; I didn't see any transport pick them up."

"Then we still have snipers covering us. Not fun," Daniels grumbled through his rebreather.

"Let's go for it! Push out and teach the grayskins a lesson!" barked another mercenary.

"Fight Tau barricade-to-barricade? Are you Warp-addled, soldier?" Daniels asked, smacking a hand against the wall. "They have their run of the base! We don't even have mobilization orders!"

"Well, what if they can't give us orders because of the attack?"

"Then I say holding the building against the enemy is all anyone can expect of us," Daniels said firmly, "if I'm going out there, I want armored support."

The other soldier snorted. "Yeah, and I want a unicorn."

Then there was a flash of light, and between them stood two unicorns, an alicorn, and a baby dragon.

Absolute silence dominated the room for a few seconds until the soldier looked up at the ceiling.

"Wait! I take it back! I want a starship! A working starship! With a harem deck, if possible! Hello?"

The ponies gave the man odd looks, but Daniels dismissed him. "Miss Sparkle, lovely of you to join us! How are you enjoying your stay at the fortress?"

Rarity sighed and levitated her boltgun to rest against her shoulder in imitation of some of the (mostly flabbergasted) human soldiers. "Despite the 38th Company priding itself on security, there's some very unpleasant rabble mucking about out there. It's going to take hours to get the smell of blood and gunpowder out of my coat." Then her eyebrow twitched. "To say nothing of my tail."

"Seriously, say nothing of the tail," Spike warned them.

"The Company apologizes sincerely to our honored guests," Daniels drawled as other soldiers started wandering toward the bizarre encounter, "this whole affair is extremely embarrassing. Putting aside the massive casualties and widespread destruction."

"Is that the Great and Powerful Trixie?" one of the other men mumbled, honestly a bit awed at seeing a psyker flash into the room with a floating boltgun. "You're going to help us?"

Trixie smirked and placed a hoof against her chest. "But of course! The Tau rubbish have encroached on Trixie's territory, and harmed her devoted fans! Trixie will save you all!"

"Seriously? We have psyker support?"

"Hot damn! We might have a shot to make it out of this!"

Twilight mostly ignored all of this as she searched the room. There were dozens of human soldiers, all of them armed with lasguns and their usual assortment of useless armor and masks. There was a small pile of dead in the corner, the bodies having been cooked thoroughly by the pulse rifles, and there were a few live wounded lying on the bunks. There were no signs of other ponies.

"Where are the others? Daniels, have you seen Applejack?"

"Not since we separated yesterday. I've been in here ever since."

"Why are there so many soldiers in the menial dormitories?" Rarity asked. "'Menial' means 'laborer', right?"

"Well, that would be because you're not in the menial dorms. You're in the barracks. You're a few sectors away from any menial housing."

Twilight and Rarity groaned. "Trixie!" they shouted in stereo.

"Well, SOR-EEE! Trixie has only been here for a day, you know!" the blue unicorn snapped back. "The lizard suggested asking the humans, but NOOOO..."

"You don't want to go down that way anyhow," Daniels said, "the way that the Tau movements are through the fortress, that sector is seeing heavy vehicle traffic. You won't be able to get far without a gunship strafing you, and none of us are equipped to handle something like that. We've got quite a number of boys here that were fleeing that sector."

"But the others are down that way! What if something happened to them?" Twilight asked, clearly distressed.

"I have to level with you, Miss Sparkle: I'd be devastated if anything happened to AJ or Pinks, but that isn't our top priority right now," Daniels admitted as he pointed outside.

Twilight winced as she realized how such a comment must have sounded to the mercenary, especially with a pile of dead soldiers heaped in the room. "R-Right. Sorry. We just aren't sure what to do..."

"Where is the Warsmith in all of this?" Rarity asked suddenly, glancing about at the human soldiers with an eyebrow quirked. "Isn't he your leader?" Twilight's ears perked up, and she gave silent thanks that she had gotten lost with Rarity by her side.

"That's a bit complicated, but the short answer is yes," the mercenary said, sitting down on a bunk with a sigh as cannons boomed in the distance, "but like I said, I don't know much about the bloke. I'd say he's probably in the manufactorum somewhere."

"Yeah, I've heard a lot about that guy since I work with the aspirants," another soldier said, "if the Warsmith isn't actually fighting, then he's probably slaving away at the forges, even as the aliens bring the fort down around us."

"The manufactorum..." Rarity mused, "well, that sounds like a much safer place to be than here, doesn't it?"

The mercenaries glanced at each other.

"Pretty sure it'll be much better defended than the barracks."

"It'll have weapon caches too."

Daniels shook his head. "Right. Well, problem is, we have a sniper team on the rooftops that'll pick us off down in the streets." He moved over to one of the firing slits. "Over there. We won't be able to avoid them without going around behind the barracks and then doubling back. Which means we'll have to deal with whatever ELSE is around there; the longer we spend running around trying to avoid trouble, the more likely we are to stumble into it."

Trixie stepped up to the firing slit and stood up on her hind legs to look outside. "Trixie doesn't see anything."

"No, but they're there. Took apart the poor sod that actually stashed an autocannon away down here. They're on that roof."

Rarity looked up at Daniels. "So you can't see the target from here, but you can see a spot adjacent to the target?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Rarity smiled back at Twilight, who gave a sigh of resignation.

****

Ferrous Dominus - observatorium roof

Daniels hadn't been sure what to expect when their strategy had become "teleport behind the enemy and shoot them down on the roof". He had seen plenty in the way of sorcery, but had been lucky enough not to have such power used on him in the past. He had been hesitant to allow himself to be subjected to a magic teleport, and he had hardly been the only one. Many of his fellow soldiers had outright refused, deciding that they had to stay and help the wounded or hold the barracks against the enemy. He might have joined them, but he felt somewhat responsible for the ponies after he had been so quick to abandon them to Serith the previous day.

That said, the process was surprisingly easy and painless, creating only a slight turn of his stomach that was comparable to a dropship descent.

And then he had the backs of Tau soldiers in front of him. A sniper team was on the left, the drones beeping noisily with their network operator on his big floating control console thing, and a Pathfinder team on the right, one of its men glancing back as he heard something odd.

Daniels put a lasbolt through the side of the alien's head, and the rest of the unit promptly opened fire, pouring lasers into the aliens' unprotected backs. Rarity and Trixie, who apparently used boltguns now, added their own firepower mainly to the sniper drone team, blowing apart the floating gun bots with mass-reactive rounds.

"Why the long face, Miss Sparkle?" Daniels shouted over the lasgun fire, pouring a burst onto the sniper drone operator. "You don't look like you're having fun!"

Twilight grimaced and looked away at the sight of the massacre. "I don't really enjoy watching things die. Ponies are a loving, peaceful race."

A materials crate that had been left nearby smashed one of the Pathfinders off the roof, sending him screaming toward the ground below as blue magic swirled around it.

"Die, alien scum! It's YOUR fault I look like this! DIE!!"

"Rarity's had... a tough morning," Twilight amended quietly.

"So I can see." Daniels mumbled as he lowered his weapon. "All right, this lot's dead! Stay frosty and keep to cover lads; we've still got an awful lot of armor out there!"

He turned toward Twilight. "Well, all the same, thanks for your help, Miss Sparkle. Could you take us down to street level now?"

"Sure," the alicorn mumbled awkwardly as her horn lit up again, "what are friends for?"

****

Ferrous Dominus - daemon engine kennels

Fluttershy decided that she had made a good decision by coming here after all.

She had been worried that, in a fit of terror from being separated from her friends and surrounded by heavy gunfire, she might have made a bad call in diving into the first broken pipe she had found and scrambling into a random building. But so far she liked this part of the factory-fortress much better than the few other sections she had seen so far. Sure, the air was dank and hot, it was cramped in the water pipe, she could hear some kind of distant growling noises, and the only light was the creepy red glow of the emergency lumens from up ahead. But at least there were no irritable super-soldiers or hired killers skulking about with their glowing visors and mechanical tendrils and such.

Reaching the end of the pipe, she was relieved to see that there was no grate on the end, but rather that it emptied out into a large metal container set near the wall of the room.

Spreading her wings briefly, she hovered over the container and landed unsteadily on the hard metal floor.

There was nopony - or nobody, she revised - around, and the room was otherwise full of big industrial machinery and control consoles with purposes she couldn't even begin to fathom.

Fluttershy considered calling out for anyone nearby, but thought better of it. If there were any humans in here with her, they probably weren't anyone she knew, and they might be unhappy about her sheltering here while the battle raged on all around the building.

Finding a large metal door nearby, she walked up to it cautiously, pausing briefly to check that she still had her access badge.

"Warning! Unauthorized access request detected!" barked an automated, vox-scrambled voice from nowhere, which pinned the pegasus to the floor in terror. "This is a restricted area! Redirecting..."

Fluttershy blinked as a door on the other side of the room opened up, and then she hesitantly stepped toward it.

"Uhm, th-thank you, Mister... Door?" Fluttershy shrugged off the encounter as she wandered into the next room, idly wondering why the Iron Warriors had to give voices to their mundane devices and why they couldn't choose nicer ones.

This new room was much larger than the last one, and largely uncluttered by machines. It was also much, much darker; there was minimal emergency lighting here, and rather than really illuminating the room it merely cast an ugly red pall on everything close enough for Fluttershy to see in the negligible light.

For now that was pretty much the floor and nothing else, so she stared at the floor as she walked forward.

Which was fine, since the floor was actually rather interesting. It was made of reinforced space-age metals, just like the superstructures of all the Iron Warriors' buildings, but this one was badly scuffed up, for some reason. Long gouges and deep cuts had been carved into the metal, seemingly at random, and Fluttershy had to slow her pace slightly so that she didn't step on any sharp edges and cut herself.

There were sounds reverberating through the darkness, but the meek pegasus couldn't really make any sense of them; the hum of flowing energy and the creak of passively turning gears and rotors were unfamiliar and inexplicable to her.

She was far more familiar with the sound of heavy footsteps, however, and when those started up she froze in horror appropriately.

The floor shook with every footfall, accompanied by a soft hiss of escaping steam and the grinding of servos, and Fluttershy realized even through her paralyzing fear that she wasn't being approached by a Chaos Space Marine. The Astartes were big, but what was approaching her was enormous, more on the scale of full-grown dragons.

A snort blasted hot air over her trembling wings, bringing with it the scent of burning sulfur. Another heavy footstep landed barely a meter behind her, close enough that Fluttershy bounced slightly from the impact with the floor.

Slowly turning her head around, the pink-maned pegasus saw a long metal maw staring down at her. The face was actually better illuminated by its own pair of glowing crimson eyes than the dim lights far above. Behind the toothy iron face, the hulk's body was just barely outlined by the glow of the emergency lighting, thanks mostly to the reflective qualities of its armor.

Then a hollow clunking noise came from behind her, and Fluttershy's field of vision flooded with light.

Some small, distant part of her mind marveled at the way the machine-thing's eyes dilated at the sudden influx of light, its dark pupils shrinking suddenly and its face flinching back.

Most of her thoughts were busy taking in its horrid appearance. The daemon engine was covered in segmented armor plates, and its belly held several glowing red seams of seething energy. On its back were rows of smokestacks, and a bundle of power cables and dripping hoses whipped lazily about behind its body like a tail.

Besides the curiously draconic head, the war machine had legs and arms that were rather bestial in form. The front limbs in particular were like an ape's, each one ending in a tremendous hand bigger than a human.

The Maulerfiend was done up in the traditional Legion colors of brushed steel with beaten gold trim, and had its top-most armor plating patterned with the more stylistic warning stripes. Besides being a horrifying mechanical monster, it also seemed genuinely confused by the winged pony, moving its head to and fro to take in details of the creature.

Fluttershy said nothing and didn't move a muscle for a full ten seconds, and then she finally started to wonder where the sudden light had come from. So she faced forward again.

The daemon engine standing on the other end of the kennels was an entirely different beast from the Maulerfiend, and stood even bigger than the first mammoth daemon engine. Bearing a chassis like a crab, but with only four legs covered in steel blades along with a pair of armored claws, any resemblance to the animal kingdom ended at its torso. A huge, boxy turret that held a cannon large enough for Fluttershy to crawl into dominated the upper body, with an autocannon and a heavy flamer mounted on the sides. Sitting atop the crude mash of wargear and primordial terror was the Iron Skull of the Legion painted in gold and bolted over the main sensor array, with its eyes casting the floodlights over Fluttershy's position.

More ground-shaking footsteps came from all sides as more daemon engines wandered from their quarters to investigate the intruder, their eyes gleaming in the darkness before their faces moved into the light. These all shared the form of the first machine, the Maulerfiend, although there were some that boasted enormous rotary cannons or flex-sheathed plasma emitters rather than hands.

Fluttershy looked back and forth, her head turning constantly as she was surrounded by the hulking engines of destruction. Hisses of steam and shrieking gears filled the air all around her, accompanied by the throaty, metallic growls of the disturbed war machines.

And yet, Fluttershy's trembling had ceased. Her muscles relaxed. She turned back toward the first Maulerfiend, which was still inspecting her curiously, and raised a hoof to run it against the underside of its maw.

"Hello there. My name is Fluttershy. Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you."

The Maulerfiend tolerated the stroke of a hoof against its plating, although it was questionable if it could even feel such a thing. The other daemon engines continued to watch, interested but apparently not agitated by the intruding pegasus.

The groan of stressed metal filled the air as the Defiler in the back of the kennels raised itself on its chassis, sounding distressed. Fluttershy turned toward it immediately.

"Is something wrong? You sound upset," Fluttershy said in concern, taking to the air and approaching the massive daemon engine so that she could get close without having to walk around its enormous claws and legs.

The Defiler made a new sound, a shriek of metal twisting against metal, and it shook its weapon mounts before it turned to face the wall.

Fluttershy placed a hoof against her chin in thought. "You want to go outside?"

A pounding noise came from behind her, and she could see a pair of Maulerfiends slamming their fists against the ground as they crowed fiercely in agreement.

Numerous other growls and aggressive snarls came from the surrounding war machines, and a Forgefiend started spinning its guns irritably.

Fluttershy knew, objectively, that she should have been terrified by being surrounded by combat machines that snarled and roared like animals. But something about the war machines' behaviors instead excited her caretaker instincts; the daemon engines reminded her immediately of the bears and wolves that she would sometimes care for among her many animals. Behind their masks of ablative plating and extensive wiring lurked a distinctly bestial nature that she recognized almost instantly, and which apparently recognized her intentions as well. It was instinctive and emotional, and completely unique from the cruel intelligence of (most) dragons or the calculated malevolence of (most) humans and post-humans.

Beasts did have some unpleasant tendencies though, and right now she could tell that these ones wanted to go out and play.

"It's not a good idea to go out right now. There's a lot of fighting and it's very, very scary," Fluttershy advised the daemonic walkers.

This only excited more growls from the machines, and the Maulerfiends started clawing their fingers against the floor as the energy disruption fields in their hands sparked to life in anticipation.

Fluttershy winced. There was no doubt about it; the machines wanted to go out precisely BECAUSE of the sounds of gunfire and carnage rattling the walls around them. Something within them could sense violence, and whether a matter of programming or daemonic urges (Fluttershy didn't really know just what they were, after all) they wanted to join in rather than stay away.

Fluttershy sighed. "Well... all right, fine. I'll see if I can get you out. But you all have to stay with me, okay? I don't want anypony getting hurt. Oh, and we should probably avoid hurting the humans too. I think."

Fluttershy still wasn't clear on whether the space men were friends or enemies or when that was going to change, but she was content to leave such complex matters to her friends to figure out; and last she had seen, her friends were perfectly willing to assault the Tau to defend a bunch of humans they didn't even know.

The daemon engines made affirmative noises and started moving in preparation for deployment. The Forgefiends drooled blazing plasma from their maws as targeting arrays were shifted from passive to combat mode, and the Defiler woke the autoloaders that fed its chest-mounted battle cannon.

Fluttershy looked around for an exit, but was slightly discouraged by the general lack of light. She turned to the Defiler again.

"Excuse me, Mister Crabby?" she asked, naming the daemon engine on the spot, "could you use your light to help me find the exit, please?"

Fluttershy pointed a hoof at a random facing, and the Defiler dutifully aimed its floodlights in that direction.

"No, that's the place I came in from... and the door wouldn't listen to me," Fluttershy mused, turning slightly in the air with her hoof still pointed.

The floodlights followed her as she turned, spilling across the kennel cells and illuminating the cranes and heavy shackles that lay within each one to prepare and bind its occupant.

"By Celestia, what have they been doing to you here?" Fluttershy said disapprovingly. "I'm going to have some stern words for this 'Solon' fellow when I meet him!"

The searchlight continued to slowly sweep over the walls of the kennels, and eventually it reached a set of steps that, like everything else in Ferrous Dominus, were enormous in scale.

They didn't go up very far, and Fluttershy saw that there were a set of blast doors at the top. She repositioned her hoof upward and the Defiler moved its gaze in tandem, revealing an unlit control console next to the exit.

"There it is! Hold the light there, Mister Crabby! I'll get us out!"

Fluttershy landed on the floor and then galloped to the exit, making flight-assisted jumps to traverse the obnoxiously large steps leading upward.

Then she stepped up to the console, plucking her access card from her saddlebag with her mouth and placing it against a scanner on the side of the screen. The console flickered to life immediately, and the hum of energy filled the system cogitator.

"Uh, hello? I'd like you open the doors, please. If it's not too much trouble," Fluttershy mumbled, feeling slightly silly for talking to a piece of glass.

She didn't feel so silly when the console emitted a rude buzzing noise.

"Access denied," droned the console, "insufficient security access detected. This is a restricted area."

Fluttershy frowned. "Yes, well, can I LEAVE the restricted area, please?"

"A security alert has been issued to system command," the cogitator continued, evidently unwilling to argue the point, "all unauthorized personnel are advised to await detention."

"What? I'm just trying to get out!" Fluttershy complained, beckoning back to the daemon engines. "Come on, they want to go out too! Don't they have security access?"

Another rude buzz suggested that no, they did not. "Access denied. A security alert has been issued to system command..."

Fluttershy's cheeks puffed up and her eyes narrowed as the cogitator spat the same meaningless nonsense at her.

"Now look here Mister Machine!" she barked suddenly, her teeth gritting. "Me and my new friends don't want to be locked in this dark, awful place all day until the humans decide to let us out! Now you stop buzzing at me like that and open these doors, understand?"

She glared hard at the console, but the stare that had cowed fierce and terrible beasts to her will didn't have any effect whatsoever on a simple machine.

"Access denied," the console buzzed.

Fluttershy pursed her lips in irritation, her wings spreading behind her and a few feathers shaking loose as they trembled in fury.

Then she seemed to calm herself, and her wings folded back up again as she turned away from the console and back toward the half-dozen daemon engines waiting in an uneven line behind her.

"Fine, then," the yellow pegasus said evenly as she hopped down the massive steps, "we'll make our own way out."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11

"Yes, like I said, we're fine. No, Sir. No, Sir. Yes, I can see the bloody xenos kicking up dust just a block away, but we can't hit them from here. No, Sir."

The squad Sergeant mumbled into the vox speaker at the end of the barricade, giving his report to his commander.

Next to him were four squads of mercenaries manning heavy weapons on barricade walls, a pair of Leman Russ battle tanks with engines rumbling, and a full squad of Dark Mechanicus holding the center.

Behind them was one of the many entrances to the manufactorum complex, itself armed with heavy bolter turrets and with blast doors sealed against entry.

While the Scavurel waited in stony, unflinching silence for targets to move within combat range, the human soldiers were thoroughly on edge, twitching their guns toward every distant explosion or dark shape that they could glimpse between the half-constructed buildings facing them.

That was simply a function of the tactical situation, and their Sergeant felt the same. He hated being constantly out of reach of the enemy, waiting for them to slip into the teeth of his guns by accident or fit of madness.

But he outright pitied the ones that had ventured out into the base to seek out targets, even if they had been mostly Iron Warriors. It was like a shark tank out in the streets of the fortress, and practically any soldier that wasn't protected by two inches of ferrocrete and a lascannon or three was bait waiting to be ripped apart.

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir. We'll hold position. Glory to the dark gods and to the Company."

The Sergeant hit the switch on the receiver, letting out a breath. The Iron Warriors were making a counter-push, and finally driving the Tau back. All he had to do was hold his barricades until the siege lockdown ended.

Simple orders, so long as the aliens didn't get brave.

And that was when a heavy railgun round slammed into the Leman Russ next to him.

The sheer force of the shot lifted the front of the tank up off the ground slightly as sparks spewed from the frontal plating of the chassis, but miraculously the armor held and the tank fell back to the ground a full two seconds later, shaken but entirely functional.

The Hammerhead that had launched the gutsy attack was almost instantly speared by lascannons in return as nervous trigger fingers finally found release. The disruption pods caused several misses, but there were already smoking holes in the hover tank when a battle cannon shell punched into its reactor compartment, blasting the gunship apart in a spectacular explosion of smoldering polyceramic plating.

Which was a thrilling achievement, even in light of all the other Tau armor that was converging on them in a swarm of blue and black.

Autocannons thundered and multilasers flared as a wing of Piranhas descended on the barricades. Their burst cannons roared as they made a fast strafing run into the teeth of heavy weapons fire. Most of the riflemen, denied a target soft enough for small arms, dove behind the barricades, and thus missed the sight of Crisis Suits leaping down from the construction site on jet packs to seek targets.

The Sergeant practically dove for the vox again. "Command! This is Sergeant Raymes of squad C-9! We are under heavy attack! We have tanks, light skimmers, battlesuits, everything they have is being thrown at us!"

The Sergeant gaped at the downpour of armor as the vox crackled. "Roger that, squad C-9, reinforcements are en route. Hold position at all costs!"

The Sergeant cringed as he saw massive shapes stomping around the half-built structures, being flanked by several Devilfish APCs.

"RIPTIDES! They have bloody Rip-"

The Leman Russ closest to him suddenly exploded from a fusion cannon blast to the side, and the detonation swallowed his next words before the shock wave knocked him flat onto his back.

"There are too many!"

"Stay down! Down! Wait until they get closer, at least!"

"Tagith's down! Somebody pick up that goddamned plasma gun!"

Sergeant Rayme's head swam as he recovered his senses, his vision returning to the sight of the Scavurel aligning themselves for maximum protection while they filled the air with laser blasts. The Dark Techpriest with the squad was trying desperately to fix the turret on the other Leman Russ, and the Black Praetor assigned to them was roaring as heavy burst cannons turned his armor into a molten mess against his chest.

The Sergeant looked back to where the other Leman Russ had been. It probably shouldn't have been the foremost thought in his mind at the moment, but among all the enemies flying at them he had no real idea what had killed the battle tank.

The answer dawned on him as he saw the air behind the wreck shimmer, and an outline of something bulky briefly appeared in front of him before vanishing like a mirage.

"Stealth Suits, too?" were his last words before one such suit turned its burst cannon toward him, briefly flickering into full view with its optics glaring an angry red.

The Devilfish were quick to unload their squads as the heavier units took apart the barricade, and as the last of the Fire Warriors stepped onto the ferrocrete ground the APCs immediately moved into support position to add their own burst cannons to the storm that was washing against the defenses.

Snapping her rail rifle up, Jerriha fired a quick shot at one of the manufactorum turrets as her squad advanced, spearing the actuator clean through and gouging out the targeting cogitator. The turret spewed sparks and bits of metal before the heavy bolters dropped their muzzles to the ground and its sensors went dark.

The other Leman Russ fell apart as the massive Riptide battlesuits pounded it with missiles, and the first two lines of defense crumbled completely once the Stealth Suits got in position to flank them.

Not the third, though. Annoying.

The cybernetically enhanced humans - whoever they were - had erected some kind of shield and were cutting down the Piranhas with startling efficiency. In addition, the really big cyborg was somehow still alive and charging at the Crisis Suits.

With a snort underneath her helmet, Jerriha fired a burst at the Praetor's leg, cutting it wide open and causing the daemonic cyborg to stumble. The Fire Warriors added their fire to it a moment later, and the mighty guardian was practically washed away in pulse fire.

Snapping her weapon up toward the sky, Jerriha took stock of her squads while the heavy units encircled the Dark Mechanicus defenders, smashing their shield and cutting them down to the last.

*Too few. Far too few,* the Fireblade groused. The attack had gone well, very well, but losses were still heavy. She hadn't even gotten the squad of Pathfinders she wanted to help paint the barricade for the assault.

Within seconds the Crisis Suits were sweeping the heaps of human dead for survivors, and the massive Riptide battlesuits had taken up a defensive position using the battle tank wrecks as cover. The Stealth Suits had vanished, their mission complete and their energy reserves low.

Jerriha sighed. *Form up on me, Shas'la! Someone melt us a hole in those blast doors, fast! We can't expect the humans to tolerate a push like this!*

*Shas'vre, do you think this position will hold for long enough?* asked a Fire Warrior as the remaining Piranhas and Crisis Suits with fusion blasters positioned themselves to burn an entrance into the factory. *The gue'la Astartes are beginning to hit us back. It can't be long until they reach this point.*

*We've already completed our mission here, Shas'la,* Jerriha answered, *we've caused the gue'la twenty-fold the damage we've sustained. Much of their fortress is in ruins and we've gutted their work force. The final blow, as it were, would be a strike to their reactor core buried under this facility. If we can destroy that, then the enemy will not be able to recover fully.*

The Fire Warrior listened patiently, noting that his commander did not answer the question. *So escape is... unlikely.*

*The Greater Good demands that we cripple the gue'la here. That is our responsibility,* Jerriha said, resting her rail rifle against her shoulder, *survival just depends on how good we are.*

Her communicator crackled in her ear as the Crisis Suits stepped back from the door.

*The factory has been breached, Shas'vre. The hole is big enough for a battlesuit, I think. Orders?*

*Exactly as I explained earlier, hold this entrance against the enemy until we return. Or until the general retreat is called. Move out, Shas'la! Today the gue'la feel the sting of Lamman!*

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 4

Gaela's head snapped up suddenly as new tactical data was fed into her optical display.

"They've... damn! They've entered the manufactorum!"

She was currently on top of a Rhino, cutting open doors that had been melted into their frame by a fusion blaster. The other Dark Acolytes barely glanced at her before returning to their work, disinterested in the particular tactical details of the battle.

Gaela jumped off the Rhino immediately, however, taking up her plasma pistol into her free hand.

"Whoa, are you heading out there?" Rainbow Dash said, clapping her hooves together. "Because if so, I'm going with you!"

Pinkie and Applejack, who had been lying nearby watching the Rhinos being fixed, likewise got up, eager to help.

"I doubt you want any part of this," Gaela insisted, walking past the Equestrians, "I'm going to see about joining a counter-attack. It's going to be very dangerous."

Unsurprisingly, this didn't seem to sway them.

"Dangerous? I'm Rainbow Dash! I LAUGH in the face of danger!" the pegasus said with a grin. "Those Tau losers can't touch me!"

"Ah'm not sayin' we're up to snuff with yer boys," Applejack said as she followed along next to Gaela, "but we've held our own against these varmints so far, and ya seem like ya could use all the help ya can get."

Gaela shrugged her armored shoulders. "Suit yourselves. But you follow at your own risk."

Considering the matter closed, Gaela activated a vox link to the command center.

"This is command and... Dark Acolyte? Is something wrong?"

The voice on the other end sounded confused, probably because she was being contacted by a Dark Mechanicus unit that wasn't yet involved in a combat. They had their own hierarchy and didn't take orders from the mercenary branches of the Company unless they wanted to.

"This is Acolyte Gaela requesting assignment to the counter-attack on the manufactorum."

The line on the other end paused for several moments, doubtless going over strategic data.

"That's a negative, Acolyte," the voice on the other end returned.

Gaela frowned. "Explain. There are sufficient Mechanicus resources here to care for the damaged vehicles."

"There is no counter-attack being prepared to remove the xeno from the manufactorum. We have been instructed to treat the Tau invaders as casualties."

"What? But the Warsmith is in there!" Gaela barked.

Applejack's ears perked up, and her gaze met Rainbow's.

"Y'all thinkin' what Ah'm thinkin'?" the farmer asked, lowering her voice as she got up and moved closer to the pegasus.

Rainbow recoiled. "What? You want to go fight that guy now? Without Twilight?"

"No, Ah don't wanna jump the Warsmith or nothin'," Applejack said in a hushed whisper, "but it wouldn't hurt to scope 'im out for Twi until we can meet up with her again."

Rainbow Dash nodded slowly. "Okay, yeah... that sounds like a good idea."

Pinkie seemed less sure and remained quiet, as was usual whenever she was reminded of their mission here.

"Damnation!" Gaela shouted as she slammed the butt of her power axe into the ground, startling the ponies out of their conspiratorial circle.

"What's wrong, cowgirl? The Tau break anything important?" Applejack asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Plenty. But that's not it," the Dark Acolyte growled, "the Company isn't dispatching a counter-attack. They think the aliens over-extended themselves and will get themselves killed."

Rainbow Dash frowned. "But you said your boss is in there, right?"

"Yes. I believe that's why they're content to leave the situation alone," Gaela said darkly, "and while I fully expect Warsmith Solon can handle the xenos on his own, I think we've underestimated the grayskin whelps too often already to let them scurry about the manufactorum at will."

Rainbow nodded slowly. "Soooo... you wanna go in there with us and save him? You know, since we have nothing better to do?"

Gaela turned her optics mask toward the pony, staring for several seconds. "You won't have a screen of human soldiers between you and the enemy this time. The xenos will fire on anything that moves in there. If we run into them on our own, before the automated defenses or the Warsmith take their toll, we could be swiftly overwhelmed and destroyed. Why would you take such a risk?"

"Hey, what did I tell you?" Rainbow Dash said. "You have danger? I laugh. If you're willing to go for it that's good enough for me."

Applejack and Pinkie glanced at each other warily. Gaela's face was masked, so they couldn't see her expression, but they had to assume it was calculating and generally irritated, as usual.

"Fine. But if you're going to walk into a battle zone naked, at least follow behind me. I actually have a fair chance of surviving a pulse rifle round," the Dark Acolyte said.

Pinkie sniffled and glommed onto her leg again, much to Gaela's annoyance. "You're the best friend ever!"

Gaela started walking toward the barricades that protected the manufactorum entrance, her gait largely unaffected by the extra weight on her left leg. "Sure. Just don't complain if I punt you at the enemy as a diversion."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11

"Who thought it would be a good idea to make a run for the manufactorum again?!" shouted Daniels as he crouched next to a gun barricade, his head ducked down as flares of blue energy flew by overhead.

"That would be me, darling!" Rarity shouted back, lying in a similar position. Her bolter hovered in front of her as she waited for the opportunity to fire back, but the fusillade didn't seem to be slowing. "I'm sure it's much safer once we get past all the aliens!" Spike was at her side, as expected, although the young dragon didn't seem to have any ideas on what to do.

"Well, Trixie's gun is empty already, so it looks like it's time for some magic!" the other unicorn said.

"Fine! Magic is fine! Just do it, already!"

"Twilight, you teleport over behind that wreck, okay? Trixie will create a diversion and drive them back!" Trixie barked to the purple alicorn behind her.

Twilight grimaced - partially at having to take part in another skirmish and partially at having to listen to Trixie - but nodded reluctantly before crawling over toward Daniels, Rarity, and Spike.

The roar of rockets taking off nearby caused her to pause, and the alicorn yelped in surprise as explosions pounded the defensive wall, blasting deep cracks in the ferrocrete.

On the other side of the barricade, the trio of Crisis Suits that had cornered the squad slackened their burst cannon fire slightly as a plume of dust and scattered debris bloomed from the missile impacts, obscuring the area.

*Restrain missile use. Target value negligible,* crackled one of the suits as it spewed blasts of plasma at the wall in shallow bursts. The human soldiers were putting all their efforts into defense, and the only return fire they had to deal with was the occasional fool blind-firing their rifle in useless bursts over the barricade.

In addition, they had a Hammerhead gunship moving in to flush the squad out, so it wasn't as if there was any pressure to remove the threat. Insofar as a handful of humans soldiers and a few ponies were a threat when the Tau controlled the area with heavy armor.

*Unknown energy wavelength detected. Energy surge originating at eight o'clock,* said another suit in an electronic growl, turning toward a wrecked macro-crane that laid across much of the avenue.

*Incoming!* barked another, settling into a defensive stance as bolts of light suddenly shot up from behind the barricade. Shield drones hovered forward to protect the battlesuits as the projectiles swirled about and then surged toward the alien warriors, each one flaring brightly with magic.

And then they exploded. Festively.

The Crisis Suits paused for only a moment as the magic-generated fireworks burst in front of them, causing light blooms to flash on their sensors before being dimmed and removed by their optical sensors. The effect was such that not only were the suits not blinded by the light, but they didn't even get to appreciate the colorful beauty of Trixie's pyrotechnics.

And they weren't especially diverted when the mercenaries popped up behind the barricade and fired at them.

Trixie gasped as the soldier next to her reeled backward, everything upward of his shoulders almost vaporized by a stream of burst cannon fire.

"It didn't work!" shouted another man as he ducked again along with the rest of the squad.

"I think I saw a Hammerhead coming in, too! What're we going to do about THAT?!"

Sweat trickled down Trixie's forehead, and not for the first time she wished she had her cape and hat. "One life-or-death crisis at a time! Now all of you, drop your weapons!"

The soldiers turned to look at her as screaming blue bolts flew overhead. "What?"

"All your weapons!" Trixie shouted, her horn glowing brighter. "Rifles, smaller guns, grenades, knives, whatever! Put them on the ground! Hurry!"

*Bio-signatures confirmed,* said one Crisis Suit as it started stomping off toward the macro-crane wreck, its burst cannon already spinning and ready to fire, *hold position, Shas'la. I will eliminate the-*

All the battlesuits halted as a new energy wavelength flared on their sensors, concentrated behind the barricade. They weren't especially worried after the last display, however.

They became a little more worried when numerous lasguns, stub pistols, knives, grenades, and even the odd pointy piece of debris floated up over the top of the barricade, all of them surrounded by a pink energy field.

*What in the name of the Ethereals is that?* blurted ones of the suits.

*Doesn't matter! Fire!*

*Fire at what? The guns? Can they even-*

The conversation was cut short as the weapons spontaneously opened fire on the Tau first, sending a veritable shower of lasers and metal slugs firing blindly at the heavy armor suits.

The battlesuits staggered back, unsure of what to do. The fire was quite inaccurate, naturally, but there was an obscene amount of it and they were fairly large targets. One shield drone was shuddering in the air already as its energy shield managed to catch enough lasblasts to overload it, and a few of the wild shots managed to score weak and useless hits on the battlesuits searching for a real target.

That was when a bolt shell hit one of the suits in the arm, blowing open its burst cannon and giving them their target.

*Behind the wreck! Move!*

The suits turned on the ruined macro-crane and broke into a run toward it, and Rarity quickly ducked her head back behind the wreckage.

"Now! They're distracted!"

The human soldiers that were left stood up and seized their rifles from the air, breaking the spell of telekinesis from those weapons and suddenly sending much more accurate lasfire at the enemy. The grenades hovering in the air shed their pins and then surged forward through the air along with chunks of ferrocrete, knives, and even Trixie's empty boltgun.

The battlesuits staggered briefly as a few fragmentation grenades exploded at their feet, scraping at the ablative armor paneling at about the same time as their last shield drone fell to lasgun fire.

*Let our gunship handle the barricades! Destroy the flankers!* shouted the lead suit as lasblasts started striking his armor and cracking the outer layering.

They turned around the smoldering engine compartment of the wreck, weapons ready.

A snapping noise came from above, and the suits paused unwisely right before some scorched crane scaffolding collapsed on them from above, courtesy of some quick magic work.

The first Crisis Suit jumped forward as the second became pinned beneath the debris, and the third took a step back as lasfire and hurled projectiles bounced off its rear plating.

"Surprise, bastards!" Daniels shouted as he jumped in front of the first battlesuit, spearing its neck with the bayonet of his rifle.

He had to abandon his gun as the suit punched at him, and he dodged away from the hulking alien machine as it stomped forward with a lasrifle still stuck in its neck segment.

"Shoot! I thought that's where the head was!" Daniels complained as he tried to run around the suit. "How are you supposed to kill these things?"

The roar of a jet pack was heard behind him, and the last Crisis Suit landed on top of the wreck unsteadily, promptly spotting a bright white unicorn peeking out from a behind the crane's ruined treads.

Its burst cannon took aim, and the weapon was already spinning when a bolt of black lightning speared it through the chest.

Rarity's head snapped up at the crack of armor plating above her, and the unicorn gasped when she saw a Tau battlesuit tumble forward off the wreckage, black electric arcs crawling around the hole in its torso.

"Good shot, Twilight! I didn't see that one. But what spell was that?" Rarity asked as she glanced back at the purple alicorn.

"That wasn't me," Twilight said uneasily, "but anyway, help me stop the one trying to smash Daniels!"

Said mercenary was quite literally running rings around the Tau war machine as it swung its powered fists about awkwardly, although the mercenary didn't seem to have any opportunity to attack back, much less any means of actually harming the massive thing.

As the Crisis Suit struggled to land a hit, however, it was suddenly enveloped in magical energy, halting its movements.

Daniels paused cautiously to catch his breath while the Crisis Suit twitched and squirmed, its mechanical muscles straining to move against the magic holding it back. Twilight and Rarity stepped out into the open with their horns aglow, and the latter started looking over the alien for any vulnerable points to attack.

"Thanks, girls. Thought I was a goner for a minute there!" Daniels huffed. He could still hear burst cannons firing on the other side of the wreck, however.

Seizing his lasgun, which still had its bayonet stuck in the battlesuit's "throat", he held the rifle steady and fired a burst at point-blank, cooking the bundles of wiring that fed into the suit's sensor array.

"That ought to do 'im," Daniels said before he pulled his rifle free.

"I disagree," opined a smooth, deep voice that set every hair, man and pony alike, on end.

Black lightning curled and writhed through the air like a living thing, lashing out of nowhere to stab deeply into the immobilized battlesuit.

The magical auras from the ponies broke apart as a scorching un-light came from the hole burnt into the front suit plating, and the Tau war machine shuddered mightily before it keeled over.

Rarity and Twilight turned to look at the source of the awful magic only reluctantly, already aware of who it was. Daniels was more curious, although he was already getting a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that he felt whenever he saw an Astartes who was too dangerous to be around, even as an ally (an unfortunately common feeling).

Serith stepped through the smoke wafting through the avenues, the blood red of his optics glaring and his hand raised as if to strangle something.

"Do not stop until the alien is dead. Mercy is a blasphemy of war," the Sorcerer intoned, his heavy greaves crushing rubble underfoot as the eyes set in his shoulder pad and between his horns glowed brighter.

A loud creaking noise came from behind Daniels, and the soldier whirled around to see that the Crisis Suit that had been pinned by collapsed scaffolding was trying to get a clear shot. It had fallen such that its burst cannon was trapped under wreckage, but its shoulder-mounted missile pod was merely blocked by a few metal bars that had fallen in front of it.

The battlesuit snapped these metal rails apart with its moderately free hand to clear its line of fire, its targeting reticules centering on the Iron Warrior calmly approaching the area.

"Bloody hell! Move aside! Look out!" Daniels shouted as the hiss of miniature rocket engines heralded the barrage to come. He took his own advice, hitting the ground prone next to the dead Crisis Suit as Twilight put up her shield.

Serith didn't break stride, still holding a hand out. The missiles twisted through the air straight toward him on bright white contrails.

Then the warheads wavered in their path, curving around in wide arcs before sailing directly back to their origin.

Objectively speaking, Twilight couldn't help but be impressed by the fine control and concentration necessary to levitate four warheads of that size and moving at that velocity around and send them back to their firing point. And - again, objectively speaking - she was enormously glad that the Chaos Sorcerer was fighting in their defense.

Subjectively speaking, as the battlesuit exploded in front of her and brought down the collapsed scaffolding even further in a burst of flame, she really wished they were still on their own.

"Lady Twilight. Lady Rarity. You are unharmed?" Serith asked, halting and dropping his free hand as bits of polyceramic plating bounced across his feet.

The ponies nodded silently and reluctantly.

"Good. I sense Lady Trixie is being harassed by the xeno mongrels up ahead. Wait just a moment," the Sorcerer implored, again moving forward and raising his halberd in the air.

He chopped the weapon down, and the shattered metal of the macro-crane hull released an ear-rending squeal as it split apart and peeled away, parting before the Iron Warrior to make a rough path through the wreckage.

Serith let the halberd fall onto his shoulder again as he walked up into the breach, his free hand crackling with power.

"Well... that could have gone worse," Twilight said awkwardly.

Daniels probably would have responded with something dark said in a light-hearted tone, as he was wont to do, but the mercenary was clambering to his feet and moving to run in the opposite direction as the Sorcerer.

He didn't manage to build up speed before Rarity seized the back of his coat telekinetically, stopping him in his tracks.

"Oh, no you don't! You're not leaving us alone with that monster again!" Rarity insisted.

"You have four psykers now, you don't need me!" the mercenary shouted, struggling to shed his coat.

Twilight again felt her unease grow as Daniels argued the point, his fingers trembling as he tried to escape.

That same man had just tried to STAB a Tau Crisis Suit, a war machine thrice his size, bristling with weapons, and entirely devoted to his destruction. Even Tellis hadn't inspired this sort of wild terror in him. And judging by his reaction upon their arriving in Ferrous Dominus, he didn't even know the Sorcerer by his personal reputation. What kind of monstrous feats earned someone this kind of fear?

On the other side of the wreckage, Serith continued plodding along the avenue, barely managing a brisk walk toward the Hammerhead gunship that was spraying burst cannon fire into the barricades ahead. The soldiers on the other side kept their heads down, incapable of harming such heavy armor with their weapons, and Trixie having no spells that could stop something that size.

The Hammerhead's main turret swung around as it detected an approaching enemy, its crew having probably determined by now that the Crisis Suit team had been defeated.

Serith stretched his free hand toward the hover tank and then flexed his fingers inward, as if he were squeezing something.

The Hammerhead started shaking, and its ion cannon turret froze in place as the servos moving the gun ground to a halt.

"No matter how far the science of attaching sharp rocks to bits of wood progresses, it's still the same crude, pitiful handicraft," the Sorcerer mused as the vehicle's trembling intensified, "you are but curious savages playing with bits of dirt, xenos. Let me show you a kind of power you shall never possess."

Parts of the vehicle went dark as power relays vaporized and circuit boards began warping. The burst cannons, having long ago lost a targeting solution on the barricades, started literally disassembling themselves on the spot; seams came undone and parts rattled free and fell onto the ground. The ion cannon began leaking smoke as its power regulators dissolved, and the engines sputtered as fuel turned to water. A dozen inexplicable, entirely impossible mechanical problems befell the hover tank at the Sorcerer's will over several seconds, and the vehicle slowly collapsed onto the ground as its systems went dark.

"Okay, Trixie has to admit that was pretty cool," Trixie said, her front hooves up on top of the scorched barricades while she watched the tank slowly die in front of her.

Then she let out a tense breath, turning toward the human soldiers that were with her. "All right, it looks like we're... safe?"

All Trixie saw of the surviving mercenaries were their backsides as the men made a mad dash away from the barricades, some of them abandoning their weapons on the ground in the process.

"Wait! You're running NOW? Seriously?" Trixie asked, looking annoyed.

"Uh, I'm still here," Spike said meekly, raising a hand as he huddled next to a pile of smashed ferrocrete.

Trixie frowned down at the young dragon. "Why did Sparkle leave you behind?"

"I think she forgot. I've been keeping a pretty low profile since we got here," Spike mumbled, scratching the back of his head.

"Whatever. Follow Trixie so you don't get lost," the blue unicorn ordered, bounding through the hole that had been blasted in the defense wall and trotting out to meet Serith.

The Iron Warrior was already walking toward them, a polearm resting over his shoulder pad. "Ah, Lady Trixie. It warms the approximate spot where my hearts should be to see you unharmed."

Trixie smiled, as always quite appreciative of the Sorcerer's odd pleasantries. "And Trixie is quite happy to see you as well, Serith. Especially with these other space men running about and shooting up the place. Are you here to escort Trixie to safety?"

"That is entirely up to you, my lady," the Sorcerer answered, resting his force halberd on the ground.

"Pardon?" Trixie raised an eyebrow.

"I am here to see to your survival, nothing more," Serith explained with an amused chuckle, "if you decide that I shall guard you behind the safety of our battle lines, or if I shall slay the grayskins as we advance through the streets, is up to you. I will issue no orders."

Trixie rubbed a hoof against her chin. That sounded strange to her, but at the same time quite convenient. And it was certainly nice of the mighty Sorcerer to give her the luxury of command after she had just watched him break down a tank with a single spell.

"I do advise that you take the time to coordinate with Lady Sparkle and Lady Rarity over there, however," Serith said, pointing his weapon toward the wreck, "I am also responsible for their safety, and even my power does not allow me to be in multiple places at once."

"Ah! Of course! Just give us a minute to talk it over!" Trixie said brightly, stepping past the Iron Warrior and flashing him a nervous smile. "You just wait here! Trixie will call you when we've decided!" the blue unicorn galloped off toward the macro-crane wreck, and Spike scurried after her silently.

"Hold, lizard," Serith hissed.

Spike froze in place, and he suddenly looked dizzy as his thoughts became cloudy and indistinct.

"I wish to have a brief word with you," the Sorcerer whispered, stepping up to the dragon, "alone."

"How many times do I have to say it? I'm not sticking around with you lot if that Sorcerer is nearby! Now let me go!"

Rarity grimaced, quite put off by Daniels' sudden attitude. She could only complain about it so much, however; admittedly the mercenary had no responsibility whatsoever to help them.

"Don't be like that. We won't let Serith hurt you," the white unicorn chuckled, as if she was speaking to a young colt.

"Do you seriously think the pair of you could stop him?" Daniels snapped back. "The freak just slaughtered those battlesuits like it was nothing and then put down a tank without so much as a pistol!"

Twilight was equally annoyed, but in her case all of her ire was reserved for the Sorcerer; even if Daniels seemed to be overreacting, she perfectly understood his fear.

"Okay, look, what if we leave Serith behind?" Twilight asked. "We got past these Tau, and there can't be many more between us and the manufactorum, right? Let's just move on."

"Move on without Serith? For somepony who hasn't killed a single alien so far, you're getting pretty cocky, Sparkle!"

Twilight groaned as she turned toward Trixie. The blue unicorn was picking her way through the rough path that Serith had made in the wreckage, apparently intent on joining their brief planning session.

"I haven't harmed the aliens yet because-"

"Yes, yes, we know why not," Rarity interrupted, rolling her eyes, "but anyway, if we have to choose between the soldiers or the creepy, blatantly evil Chaos Sorcerer, then I don't mind sticking with the soldiers."

"Soldier. Singular," Trixie corrected blandly, "the others ran off the moment they saw Serith. Exactly like this other one is trying to do."

Rarity snapped her head around, and a piece of rebar rose up and stabbed through the edge of Daniels' coat to pin it to the ground.

"Why are you doing this to me?!" the gunman complained.

"Take it as a compliment," Rarity insisted, "there aren't any humans here that we trust more than you, Mister Daniels. And right now we'd rather have your companionship and experience than that Iron Warrior's powerful magic."

"Speak for yourself," Trixie scoffed, "no offense to your friend here, but Trixie will be sticking with the guy that can rip apart Trixie's enemies with his mind and has eagerly volunteered to do so. He's also agreed to escort us wherever we want while the fortress is still under attack. So Trixie believes we'd have to be foolish to turn him away when he's all but guaranteed our survival."

Twilight chewed her lip nervously. Trixie had a very good point, but they still had a whole host of reasons not to want the Sorcerer around as they sought out Warsmith Solon. Putting aside that the Iron Warrior was just plain unpleasant.

An explosion several blocks down briefly attracted her attention, and new plumes of smoke rose from behind bombed-out buildings as another skirmish broke out nearby.

"Well, it sounds to Trixie like we have got more trouble ahead. As usual," the blue unicorn grumbled, "Trixie is NOT heading into that without an Iron Warrior along."

"We can go around!" Twilight insisted. "The manufactorum is huge, right? There must be several entrances."

"Wait. Wait, hold on," Daniels said, pulling down his optics mask so that he could look the magic equines in the eyes properly, "something's off about all this. Weren't we headed to the manufactorum because it's supposed to be SAFER than the barracks?"

The ponies all shared neutral looks, their minds racing for something to say.

"First with the sniper team, then the suit team, hooking up with the Sorcerer and now getting to the entrance, you've all been way too eager to press on if this is all about NOT getting being fried by alien ray guns," Daniels glared at them suspiciously, and Rarity chewed her lip as Twilight's ears fell flat against her head.

"That... is... because..." every word out of Twilight's mouth was almost painful to say. In part because she knew she had to lie to their most "trusted" human friend, but mostly because she couldn't think of a convincing one.

As she trailed off, however, the sound of heavy boots stomping over burnt metal returned, and Twilight's hackles rose as Serith approached again.

"So sorry to intrude before being called, but this is a precarious situation," the Iron Warrior said as he approached, "have we decided on a course of action?" Spike was following behind him, keeping a wary eye (and at least a meter distance) between him and the Astartes psyker.

Daniels flinched at the Sorcerer's entrance, but kept his gaze firm on Twilight. "I want an answer, Miss Sparkle. Why do you want to get to the manufactorum so badly, and why should I risk getting vaporized to help you get there?"

Serith halted, his visor sweeping toward the mercenary. "Ah, I see you kept one of the mortals from leaving!" he crowed before Twilight could continue not answering the man's question. "Excellent. I do so dislike fighting without a company of expendables to shield me. Just give me a moment to make some modifications."

Twilight and Rarity were plenty annoyed by hearing the Sorcerer insult Daniels on the spot, but their irritation turned to alarm as Serith raised his free hand toward the human soldier.

"What are you-hrrg! Ghk!" Daniels stumbled immediately as runic circles appeared on the ground beneath his feet and started spinning. Light poured out of his eyes like they had become floodlights, and the man clutched at his chest as he cried out in pain.

"What are you doing? Stop that at once!" Rarity shouted.

Serith did not. "His current form is too feeble to offer us any great protection. I will ensure that-"

The Sorcerer's enchantment broke suddenly in a flash of magical energy, and the Iron Warrior actually took a step back in surprise.

"Knock. It. Off," Twilight growled, her horn flaring brightly as the magic circles around Daniels flickered and vanished. The man immediately collapsed onto the ground, rasping for breath.

Serith didn't respond immediately, surprised and intrigued by the defiance as Twilight and Rarity glared at him.

"Is there a problem? I only mean to assist our efforts here," Serith finally said, clasping his free hand behind his back as Daniels panted weakly.

"Of course there's a problem! You can't treat your allies like this! No wonder every human in this place is terrified to be near you!" Twilight barked, her wings spread in fury.

Serith merely tilted his helmet to one side as he considered the complaint, unconvinced. Then a hoof clanged lightly against Serith's armored leg, and he looked down to meet Trixie's gaze.

"Trixie hates to say it, but Miss Sparkle does have a point. It would have been pretty handy to have those other soldiers around, but they ran away the moment they saw you. Trixie thinks you could stand to be a LITTLE less hated and feared."

As Serith mulled that over, Rarity removed the length of metal that had pinned Daniels in place, walking up to the human soldier.

"I am SO sorry, dear. What was he doing to you?"

Daniels staggered to his feet, still shaking from his brief experience with Chaos Sorcery. "I... I don't know. My skin felt hot, like it was about to melt off, and... and then..."

"Yes, all right. You have made your point," the Iron Warrior said regretfully, "soldier, you will accompany us to the manufactorum. And thanks to the ponies, you will have the privilege of dying as a human rather than Warp-spawn."

"All I ever... asked for..." Daniels gasped, gripping his rifle tightly to his chest.

"Excellent. Shall we proceed?" Serith asked. "There are but a few blocks left to the nearest entry point, and a considerable enemy presence."

Rarity and Twilight shared an awkward glance, but they nodded silently as Serith took the lead walking down the avenue, Trixie in tow.

"Don't mind Sparkle. She's real big on self-righteousness. Oh and you have GOT to show Trixie how to do that thing with the tank," the blue unicorn said, not at all perturbed by the confrontation.

Twilight probably would have defended herself, but the alicorn was preoccupied with other thoughts.

Serith's timing had been perfect, and his interference had both silenced Daniels and gotten the mercenary to follow them. He had then pushed for them to continue onward to their goal, without voicing any of the quite reasonable concerns that Daniels had come up with.

Just what was Serith trying to do?

****

Ferrous Dominus - manufactorum smelters

The sizzling blast of a pulse rifle marked the destruction of yet another servitor, and the bio-droid keeled over as its chest cavity was cooked and its internal hydraulics melted.

*Turret around the next bend,* said a Crisis Suit, its sensors glaring brightly.

*Got it,* Jerriha said, crouching low before she moved behind a smelting pot.

Standing up, she fired a single shot at a ceiling-mounted bolter turret, spearing it through and demolishing it.

*... Is that it? We're clear already?*

Jerriha frowned under her helmet as she stared at the shower of sparks coming from the shredded turret. *It would seem so.*

Behind her were a full thirty Fire Warriors, another six demolition engineers, and six battlesuits, all with guns primed and ready for battle.

It was quite a bit of force to bring against the dozen-odd servitors and five automated gun turrets they had encountered so far. The servitors weren't even geared or programmed for battle; they merely wandered about performing their menial tasks as the Tau approached, and were destroyed at the invaders' leisure.

If it weren't for the forbidding interior of the manufactorum, Jerriha would actually be concerned about her soldiers getting bored. Thrumming machines were everywhere, and the air was thick with the scent of chemicals and fuel. There were also a few scattered shrines here and there, although Jerriha couldn't help but notice that the glyph-covered alcoves looked very different from the usual examples from the Imperial cult or the Adeptus Mechanicus.

*I don't understand, Shas'vre. Where is the enemy? Are they truly content to let us wander through their factory for as long as we wish?*

Jerriha shook her head as she pressed forward. *I don't know, Shas'la, but we've made excellent progress so far. If the gue'la concentrates on our forces outside, then it's to our benefit. Do we have a positive confirmation on our target?*

*Aye. Ahead is a power relay station. It should sit atop one of the reactors, although the core is further underground,* said a Crisis battlesuit, *it's difficult to get much more out of these readings, though. The closer we get, the less sense my instruments make.*

*Good enough. There should be a lift inside leading to the core. Let's get past these blast doors.* Jerriha stepped aside, and one of the Fire Warriors stepped up toward the control console.

In his hand was a hand. Specifically, a dismembered augmetic gauntlet from one of the Scavurel warriors that had held its access ID. It had been jury-rigged with a power supply to keep the IFF indicators active, and had allowed for their passage so far through the manufactorum so that they didn't have to demolish every door in their path.

Upon sweeping the macabre key over the console, the blast doors slowly slid open as the grind of heavy gears filled the hall.

Jerriha and all the Fire Warriors had their weapons up and ready as they stepped into the next section, but like before, they met no resistance. Not even a servitor, this time.

This part of the massive factory had numerous towers of energy relays - each one as big as a battle transport balanced on its rear facing - that fed into huge bundles of cables that spread upward into the ceiling. The entire room hummed with power, and Jerriha resisted the urge to take off her helmet as her optical display flickered from the energy distortions.

*Are we clear?* the Fireblade asked.

*Difficult to tell. Sensors are useless with all this interference. I can barely see straight,* rumbled one battlesuit.

*Well, nothing's shooting at us,* mumbled a Fire Warrior, his eyes glancing upward. *Ethereal's blood... how do the gue'la manage to build so much in such a short span of time?* He was marveling at one section of the ceiling in particular, in which a crane hung down from some sort of mechanical assembly that clung to the ceiling with spider-like legs.

*The gue'la are just as devoted to their asinine religion and hateful Imperium as we are to the Greater Good. Do not underestimate them under any circumstances,* the Shas'vre commanded as she nodded toward a lift on the far side of the room.

*The religion is quite interesting, actually. You're spot-on about the Imperium, though. We don't like those guys either.*

The statement had been spoken in perfect Tau, and honestly the vox distortion wasn't all that different from a Crisis Suit's external speakers anyway.

As a result, it took a few seconds for anyone to wonder who, exactly, had said that. By the time Jerriha had considered that the speaker's words suggested it came from an enemy, the "crane" from the ceiling was already plummeting toward the floor.

Warsmith Solon landed hard, his legs releasing bursts of steam as they slammed into the iron floor to relieve the tremendous pressure of the fall. One leg landed on a Crisis battlesuit, and that machine was gouged in two almost instantly.

The rest of the Fire Warriors were almost knocked off their feet from the impact shock, and even the battlesuits, which were stable enough to endure the shaking, were plenty stunned as a claw pincer lunged forward and seized another of their number.

*Welcome to Ferrous Dominus, xenos!* Solon said cheerfully, slicing the sensor head off another battlesuit with a power sword in his flesh-arm. Even as he did so, the rotary cannon that made up his augmetic arm started spinning as a pair of heavy bolter turrets on his chassis clicked into firing position.

*Here, let me show you some of our wares!*

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11

"Up ahead. It would seem the xenos have set up a defensive perimeter," Serith said as he halted at the corner of another unfinished structure.

The three ponies and human mercenary halted, each of them listening to the sounds of heavy gunfire coming from the other side of the building. The Iron Warriors were coming down hard on this area, evidently, but the Tau were holding their ground and it sounded like both sides were locked in stalemate at the moment.

Daniels would have remarked that this seemed like a very odd place for the aliens to make a stand, but had kept strictly silent around the Sorcerer except to answer questions.

"How do we proceed?" Trixie asked, deferring immediately to the combat psyker.

"That depends on how much risk you wish to take in our entry. Lady Sparkle could teleport us past the enemy, or we may launch a strike from our advantageous position to assist the Company forces in removing this little obstacle."

"Wouldn't you want to help out the other Iron Warriors? You know, to keep casualties on your side lower and help them reach their objective?" Twilight asked with a scornful look.

Serith chuckled. "That decision rests with you, Lady Sparkle. I am dedicated to YOUR defense. My brothers can fend for themselves."

Twilight had never been so unhappy to have someone volunteer themselves to her cause.

Then Serith suddenly turned his head, a groan issuing from his vox. "Feh, never mind. We have been detected. Lady Sparkle, a barrier?"

Twilight put up her shield just as a Devilfish transport rounded the corner, its burst cannon cycling to fire.

Serith made a circling motion with his hand, and the hover tank started to spin across the ground, losing its targeting solution almost immediately. It continued spinning wildly, out of control, until the APC slammed into a pair of blast doors, bouncing off.

"Bwa ha ha! That's great!" Trixie laughed, pointing a hoof at the vehicle as it smashed through a wrecked lifter.

Daniels moved out of the shield to cover behind yet another barricade, pleased as always that the Iron Warriors built as many defensive walls as sidewalks. Rarity joined him a moment later, her boltgun hovering in the direction of the Devilfish.

"What do you think, dear? Should we go join the battle?" the snow-colored unicorn asked.

Daniels gave her an uncertain look, wondering why the pony asked him when there was an Iron Warrior around.

"I don't know how we can help, honestly. Just aren't enough of us," Daniels admitted, "and while I'm obviously no expert on witchcraft, it seems to me that Lord Serith can only deal with one or two units at a time."

Rarity pressed a hoof against her chin. "I see. But perhaps we could-"

The roar of a heavy jet pack interrupted them both, and even Serith growled in annoyance as a massive figure in blue and black vaulted out in front of them, followed by several smaller ones.

"Well, I suppose we could always help by drawing away some heavy reserves," Daniels groused, "head down, Miss Rarity."

The ponies recoiled. This battlesuit was many times the size of the others, complete with oversized burst cannons and missile launchers. Its Crisis Suit escort hovered above it, armed mostly with short-ranged weapons. Their targeting sensors swept back and forth over the area, searching for any targets of worth among the handful of enemies.

"Most discouraging," Serith mumbled. He freed the Devilfish from his grip, letting the vehicle finally slow its wild rotations.

Then the Riptide battlesuit turned its guns away from the Iron Warrior and toward the barricade, where Daniels and Rarity were ducking with their heads covered.

"What? What is it-?" Twilight started to ask, only for Serith to interrupt.

"Ssh. This trick will work for but a moment. Or however long it takes for them to vaporize the barricades." the Sorcerer admitted, his hands gripped tightly to his halberd as the eye above his helm glowed, "I am accepting suggestions on a course of action, by the way."

"But what about Rarity?!" gasped Spike. "Go save Rarity!"

"Except that one."

Twilight let her shield vanish as her mind raced, searching for an appropriate spell while the war machines surrounded Daniels and Rarity. They were apparently oblivious to her and Serith for the moment; she only had a few seconds, and probably would only get one chance.

And that was when the pounding started.

The battlesuits, which were taking their time to unleash their considerable firepower on the pair of puny bio-signatures huddling behind a ferrocrete wall, halted at the noise.

The deep clanging sound of metal smashing into metal with tremendous force rang through the streets, and every soldier turned toward the source as new energy signatures appeared on sensor displays. The Devilfish, battered but still mobile, took up a position behind them, ready to add its minimal fire support or flee the area if necessary.

The source was a building that lay just behind the Tau soldiers. It wasn't obvious to the casual observer what it was for, but it did possess a pair of super-heavy blast doors at the front of it, as well as an ominous-looking warning sign for anyone who could read Gothic.

"What's a 'daemon engine'?" Trixie asked. Nobody answered her.

The clanging noises continued, and the blast doors shook and strained as huge bulges were hammered into the durasteel barrier.

The battlesuits started backing away after growling noises started coming from the other side, like those of angry dogs attempting to escape their cages. None fired, not wanting to assist in freeing whatever was trapped in there, but neither did any of the soldiers dare turn their back on the doors to engage the few soldiers and ponies that they had come to engage in the first place.

"Is that... a good thing?" Rarity whispered to Daniels as they both peeked over the barricade.

"Hard to say, honestly. Daemons are a tricky lot," the mercenary mumbled as the hammering continued and the blast doors shook, "but I'll take the ambiguous interruption over a firefight that we're sure to lose."

"Point taken."

All at once, the hammering stopped.

The Tau suits made some brief communications with each other as their sensors swept over the area again and again, and soon the formation agreed that whatever was inside the structure had been contained by the walls that had obviously been purpose-built to the task.

The Riptide battlesuit snapped an arm up, aiming its heavy burst cannon at the barricade again as the barrels began to spin.

Once again it was interrupted, this time by a sudden energy spike coming from within the building that brought its sensors deep into the red.

The blast doors, already much abused from the beating given to it from the other side, blasted outward as man-sized orbs of energy smashed into them from within. A thick pall of cooling plasma and vaporized metal spilled into the air from the detonation, and once again the doors were the focus of a dozen Tau weapons.

The smoke around the new hole started to thin, and the Riptide took a cautious step forward.

"Should we be running?" Twilight asked. "Or..."

"Oh, no. I don't think you'll want to miss this," Serith answered with a chuckle.

A muffled cannon report came from behind the doors, and suddenly the Riptide battlesuit was thrown backward as a shell slammed into its front with devastating force. The blow knocked out its defense shielding immediately, although the barrier at least saved the suit from any real damage as it was briefly swallowed by the explosion.

Enormous metal hands reached out to seize the softened metal of the blast doors, and the ponies watched with wide eyes as a Maulerfiend shouldered its way into the breach, its iron jaws snapping while a pair of auxiliary melta cutters stabbed at the surrounding metal and helped carve a path to freedom.

This did, however, give the Tau plenty of time to retaliate, and one group of Crisis Suits hovered over to optimal range as they aimed their fusion blasters at the struggling war machine.

One of the weapons reached its trigger point in its firing cycle before the others, discharging a spear of power comparable to the surface of the sun.

Directly into the back of the lead battlesuit.

Serith lowered his hand as he watched the armor suit disintegrate before the intense energy, savoring the brief surge of shock and fear from the shooter before the aliens all turned their guns on him and away from the daemon engine.

"A twitch of a finger, the press of a button... it can make all the difference in a few heated moments," he whispered as the Maulerfiend finally forced its way through the hole in the blast doors, "let the show begin, puppets."

The first Maulerfiend immediately tackled the Crisis Suits as they tried to escape with their jet packs, still stunned by the recent incident of friendly fire. The second smashed through the hole with considerably greater ease, its many metal tendrils whipping about its body as it sprinted past the first siege walker.

The Riptide, back on its feet, spat a salvo of heavy pulse fire and missiles into the daemon engine, blasting off great chunks of neck plating and cracking open the smokestacks on one side before it was tackled to the ground. Massive claws crackling with energy raked the suit's armor and tore at its arms, and the lasher tendrils wrapped around the battlesuit's limbs to spoil its desperate counter-attacks.

Behind the second daemon engines came two more Maulerfiends, and these ones pried the doors open wider as they forced their way into the streets, hissing and snarling violently.

The Devilfish was already moving to escape back to the defensive formation, accelerating quickly to stay ahead of the siege walkers.

It was nonetheless foiled as the first of the Forgefiends stomped through the breach, its hades autocannons already spinning in eager preparation for destruction. A stream of blazing red shot smashed into the side of the APC and gouged out the hull, sending the hover tank into the ground in a shattered mess.

Before long all the fiends were shrieking battle cries into the air as the surviving battlesuits fled on their jet packs, and the first Maulerfiend finish smashing its targets to crumbling shards before turning its head toward fresh bodies.

"Okay, so, remember what I said about daemons being tricky?" Daniels said as the Maulerfiend stared directly at him.

"What about it? They seem to be doing an excellent job," Rarity watched with approval as one daemon walker tore the arm off the Riptide battlesuit and flung it into the air triumphantly.

"Sure. But the hard part about deploying daemon engines is getting them to recognize friend from foe," the mercenary said uneasily. The Maulerfiend was plodding toward them now, although it was moving at a pace that spoke of curiosity rather than anger.

Rarity bit her lip. "Well, how does one do that?"

"It takes extensive preparations ahead of time," Serith explained as he walked up to them with Trixie, Twilight and Spike close behind, "programming is key, but the imperatives of the machine spirit can only bind a daemonic will so well. Rituals of binding and offerings must be made in order to keep the daemon's urges subordinate to the machine aspect."

Twilight gulped as the massive siege walker approached, its jointed metal tongue snaking out from between its jaws. "So, should I be ready to teleport us out?"

"That would be wise, yes," Serith confirmed as the Maulerfiend gripped the top of the barricade with its arms and leaned over it, glaring down at the assorted creatures below.

"Mister Whipley, come down from there, please. They aren't food."

The voice was so soft that they could barely hear it over the hiss of shifting pistons and squealing metal. Its effect was impossible to miss, however. The Maulerfiend immediately backed away, turning toward the kennels from where it had emerged.

"That... was that...?" Twilight started, her gaze moving to the damaged blast doors.

Massive metal pincers peeled away the reinforced barrier as yet another walker struggled to leave the kennels, making way for blade-covered, crab-like legs and a torso that stood a great deal taller than the other daemon engines.

The Defiler was easily as terrifying as any of the other war machines, but invariably everyone's attention was locked on the yellow winged pony that stood next to the grinning gold mask.

Fluttershy waved briefly as she spotted her friends down below, but then turned toward the fiends ripping apart the Riptide suit and stamping on the dismembered parts.

"All right, I think that one's had enough, actually. Do you still want to go play?"

The daemon engines turned away from their recent kills and crowed happily in the affirmative, some of them pawing at the ground with their feet. The Defiler released a noise like a buzzsaw grinding against steel, and its pincer claws snapped eagerly.

"All right, but be careful. Make sure to stay together for safety, and remember to keep some distance from the humans to prevent accidents, okay?" Fluttershy instructed calmly, pointing a hoof toward the sounds of heavy weapons firing just around the corner, "Mister Crabby, could you stay with me, please? I need to talk to my friends."

"All right, somebody's going to have to explain this one to me," Daniels said, resting an arm over the barricade.

"I think it's exactly what it looks like, dear," Rarity said blithely, "Fluttershy stumbled upon your collection of terrifying monster-machines and grew attached to them, and now they're acting like her pets."

"That's ludicrous," Serith opined, his voice sounding unusually spiteful.

"Yes, it is," Rarity conceded.

The Defiler turned back toward them, its legs pounding rapidly against the ground to do so, and Fluttershy gently climbed down from the torso segment onto one of the claws.

"It's so good to see you two!" Fluttershy said to Twilight and Rarity. "I got separated from the others and ended up in that building with all these poor, trapped... uh..."

"Daemon engines. They're all daemonic war machines," Daniels mumbled.

"Yes, those. The door wouldn't let us out though, so I got Mister Sparks to help open it."

"And by 'help open it', you mean blast the door open," Twilight said with an arched brow.

"Trixie finds it less strange that she melted open the door and more so that she named all the scary walkers."

Fluttershy looked embarrassed all of a sudden, raising a hoof to her mouth. "Well, we couldn't find any other way out! I spent a long time searching for another door."

"There is no other door. And there's a good reason why we shielded that one to withstand a Maulerfiend's claws," Serith snapped, "these machines are weapons, not pets."

Fluttershy was considerably less terrified of the Sorcerer while riding upon a powered claw bigger than he was, but she still replied meekly as she bowed her head.

"I'm sorry Mister Serith, but they wanted to leave so badly! How could I refuse?"

"Is that a serious question?" the Sorcerer drawled.

"Fluttershy, what about the others? Are they okay?" Twilight asked to change the subject.

"I think so. We were looking for Gaela when I got separated from everypony else," Fluttershy explained. Puffs of steam blasted from the defiler's leg joints around her, causing her tail to billow upward briefly like a pink shroud.

"Enough. Let us make for the manufactorum now, while we can," Serith demanded, walking past the Defiler. He swatted the heavy walker on a leg with his halberd as he passed, and the entire machine jerked backward at the gesture, almost shaking Fluttershy off.

"Uh, please don't do that to Mister Crabby. I think you scared him," Fluttershy complained quietly. The others were quite surprised that she seemed to be right.

Serith turned his head toward the pegasus in passing. "It's designation is Ignis Ferrox. And if you're to follow us to the manufactorum, you'll have to leave the walker behind; the interior does not have sufficient ceiling clearance."

As Serith walked off - Trixie joining him immediately - Fluttershy looked back toward Twilight. "Wait, we're going where?"

"The manufactorum, it's just a little further up ahead," Twilight explained.

"Well, most of the fighting noise has died down over there," Daniels pointed out, "being flanked by daemon engines must've done a number on the grayskins. We should be free and clear."

"Uhm... and why are we following Mister Serith into this place, again?" Fluttershy asked weakly, lowering her voice in the hope that the Iron Warrior wouldn't hear.

"That's what I want to know, too," the mercenary grumbled.

Twilight took a deep breath. "We're doing it because I want to meet the Warsmith."

Fluttershy's eyes widened as she understood immediately. Daniels was wearing his mask, so the ponies couldn't see his expression, but Twilight had to assume it was appropriately incredulous.

"You want an audience with the Warsmith? NOW? In the teeth of a xeno attack?"

"Yes, well, since we seem to have an opportunity," Rarity said quickly, smiling nervously as she trotted off to follow Trixie, "come on now, we should move quickly!"

Twilight and Spike followed silently, sharing a meaningful glance with each other as the latter shifted his backpack.

The Defiler turned to follow after them, Fluttershy still perched on its claw. Daniels sighed before he trudged after the massive walker, its metal bulk bobbing up and down in front of him.

"Ah, well. I've faced worse odds for worse reasons, I suppose. Still wonder what this is all about, though..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - manufactorum munitions finishing

Applejack whistled as she looked over the stacks of the ammunition that lined the wall of the long hall they were in. Big boxes of heavy bolter shells made uneven towers and were themselves laden with belts of the fist-sized bullets.

"That's a lotta gunpowder, all right. How long has this place been workin' again?"

"Thirty-two point-nine-seven hours, not counting the period of time since siege lockdown," Gaela answered, "making ammunition is easy, so this part of the manufactorum was put into operation as soon as possible using materials from the fleet."

The Dark Acolyte's heavy footsteps echoed through the empty halls, completely obscuring the sound of Applejack's hooves on the hard iron flooring. Rainbow Dash was hovering just behind Gaela, so she barely made any noise as she stared at the many machines in idle curiosity.

Pinkie was still clinging to Gaela's leg, so she didn't make any noise walking either, but she absolutely insisted on humming a tune while they traveled through the halls; she said it was "theme music".

Gaela stopped as her optics picked something up, and her pace quickened slightly when she noticed the burnt-out corpse of a servitor lying on the ground next to a dropped crate of bolter magazines.

"Aw, now that just isn't right," Rainbow Dash growled as she hovered over Gaela's head, "those servitors are harmless! Why'd they have to kill them? It's like shooting somepony's pet!"

"It's nothing like that," Gaela refuted, walking past the body and stepping more cautiously, "the servitors are an essential component of our work force, and are as valid a target as any if they wish to inflict serious damage."

"But yer still gonna whup 'em for doin' it, right?" Applejack asked.

"Oh, yes, absolutely," Gaela confirmed, "speaking of which: be quiet for a moment."

Gaela remained still, her head turning toward a hallway that intersected with theirs directly ahead.

"You too, Pie," Gaela insisted after a few seconds.

"Okay, fine, but I get to sing a battle song later," Pinkie mumbled after she stopped humming.

Without the background music or their own talking, each of the ponies could hear the sound of boots beating against the floor nearby and rapidly approaching.

Applejack looked up at Gaela, but the Dark Acolyte didn't pay her any attention. Rainbow Dash looked ready to charge in, however, so the farmpony quietly withdrew her rope from her saddlebag and prepared for the worst.

The first Fire Warrior to sprint into the hall was vaporized almost instantly and entirely by Gaela's plasma pistol, leaving only a hot mist and a few scraps of smoldering armor for the second Tau soldier to stumble into.

The second alien, following close behind his squadmate, got a face full of Pinkie Pie as Gaela kicked her foot at him, and the warrior staggered backward as the pink pony clung to his face and started humming a fast-paced combat tune loudly.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth Fire Warriors actually managed to slow down before they sprinted out into the open, but their attention lingered on their squadmate shouting and trying to pry off Pinkie a little too long.

Gaela rounded the corner and promptly cleaved one of the aliens from shoulder to groin, her axe crackling with energy and her bionic arm blasting steam out the elbow.

Her servo arms moved toward the next target immediately, seizing a rifle and crushing it to shards before the other servo limb stabbed a whirling drill bit into the Fire Warrior's neck.

Rainbow Dash continued hovering back where she had been waiting for some kind of attack order or signal. "... So... uh... do you need some help? There are a lot of those guys, right?"

Applejack hung her lasso loose around her neck as she watch another Fire Warrior vanish in an explosive plasma discharge. "Naw, Ah think she's got this."

The sixth Tau smashed a fist into Gaela's face, successfully shattering his hand against her armor and accomplishing little else.

Gaela sunk her axe deep into the alien's chest and then let them both fall against the wall, her attention returning to the second of the aliens that had emerged.

Said Fire Warrior had finally pried Pinkie off of his head, and he flung the humming pony away before searching around for his pulse rifle.

He spotted it next to a stack of ammo crates, but he barely took a step toward his weapon before Gaela dashed up to him, seizing the alien soldier around the throat with her bionic hand.

"You have one chance to earn a quick death, grayskin," Gaela said coldly, holding the alien up above the floor as he gasped and kicked at her, "tell me where the rest of your wretched force is."

*I don't... speak... gue'la...* the Fire Warrior gasped out. One arm reached for the combat knife in his belt, and in an act of desperate defiance he stabbed it toward the Dark Acolyte's neck.

Her servo arm caught the Tau's regular arm, leaving the alien's blade twitching bare millimeters from the vulnerable tubing material that sealed her neck.

"Wrong answer." Gaela didn't bother tightening her grip, waiting patiently as the Tau warrior's struggling became weaker and weaker.

"Well, ain't this a bit gruesome?" Applejack asked distastefully. "Come on sugarcube, just finish him off fast like the other ones."

"I warned him," Gaela said simply.

"Preeeetty sure he didn't understand a word you said," Rainbow said, grimacing at the alien's choking gasps.

Gaela rolled her eye under her helmet. "All right, fine. Have it your way."

The whirring of servos came from her augmetic as she snapped the Fire Warrior's neck sharply, and then the Dark Acolyte flung the body away like a piece of garbage.

Pinkie promptly changed her tune to a "battle victory" theme.

"Well, you were worried about it earlier, but it doesn't look like there were that many after all," Rainbow Dash noted, hovering up to Gaela while the Acolyte pried her axe free from the corpse where she had left it.

"This was but a small part of the group, I'm sure. A mere six soldiers would have trouble even carrying enough charges to destroy anything of value, and would struggle against the automated defenses."

She activated the power field on her axe, and then watched as the blood coating the blade was cooked away.

"But it would seem we arrived a bit late. These six were running from something, not searching for targets."

"Runnin' from what?" Applejack asked.

"Let's go find out," Gaela said simply, resting her axe against her shoulder before she turned to head down the path the Fire Warriors had taken.

She had to stop briefly as Pinkie attached to her leg again.

"Do you find it fun riding down there?" Gaela had to ask as she stomped down the hall.

"Yuh-huh! I especially liked the part where you kicked me at that guy's face!" Pinkie said brightly. "That was funny!"

"I'm glad you take so well to being used as a projectile. I'll endeavor to accommodate you as much as possible."

"And save one or two bad guys for me next time!" Rainbow Dash said, flying an orbit around the armored woman.

Gaela turned her head to follow the pegasus silently, her mask optics rotating.

"You think the Tau are 'bad guys'?" the Dark Acolyte asked after a long pause.

Rainbow seemed surprised at the question, and she hesitated to answer. "Well... they're our enemies, right?"

"And that places them in the wrong? Ethically?" Gaela asked. "I'm just asking out of curiosity, mind you. It's been some time since I've heard someone attach a moral imperative to a combat mission."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "What, so ya don't care if yer doin' right or not when yer fightin'?"

"No. I don't," the Dark Acolyte confirmed casually. Applejack waited for her to elaborate, but was disappointed to find that she did not.

She was still mulling over that conversation when Gaela's footsteps stopped.

"Incoming. Just a few targets, but they're moving slowly," she whispered harshly, moving to put her back against the wall just ahead of the next turn. They could already hear the distant sound of heavy footsteps through the halls, obviously from a heavy unit.

"All right, this time I'm gonna get one for sure!" Rainbow Dash whispered, having apparently discarded the discussion earlier about whether she was fighting bad guys or not.

"This time I'm gonna do a somersault!" Pinkie whispered back, not having bothered with the previous conversation at all.

Soon they could all hear lighter footsteps approaching, along with unintelligible whispering.

They waited several seconds in silence, and then Gaela nodded to the others before swinging out into the hall, plasma pistol humming.

She made the understandable mistake of having the pistol aimed at shoulder level, however, and as such would have certainly lost the duel with the boltgun hovering in front of her face without a body holding on to it.

"Gaela, darling! What a relief!" Rarity said as she raised the bolter muzzle up to the ceiling. Twilight brightened immediately as well.

Gaela was understandably confused for a moment as she took in the sight of the bolter wrapped in blue, and needed a moment to absorb the situation. That did mean, however, that she didn't immediately stop her companions from charging forward.

"Attaaaaaaaaaack-oh, hey guys! It's you!" Rainbow Dash peeled off from her assault dive, swooping low over Daniels' head and swatting the surprised mercenary with her tail.

"FACE GRAPPLE!" Pinkie was more invested in the attack, apparently, and leapt from Gaela's leg into a full somersault. She deftly latched onto Twilight's head and wrapped her legs around her neck, immediately dragging the shocked alicorn onto the floor.

"Hey, y'all are all right!" Applejack said happily as she trotted around the corner behind the others. "Ya even found Fluttershy!"

"Oh yes, we've had quite the adventure out there," Rarity said with a tinge of bitterness, levitating the boltgun closer to her as she sighed.

"Whoa, what's with your tail?" Rainbow Dash asked, floating over next to the singed length of purple.

The sound of a boltgun's hammer pulling back and locking into place came from Rarity's weapon, although it was still aimed firmly at the ceiling.

"QUITE an adventure, if I do say so myself," the white unicorn said through clenched teeth.

"Well, this is actually quite a fortunate turn of events," Gaela admitted, "putting aside that Pie seems to have disabled Sparkle for no reason whatsoever..."

"Hmmph mrf hnnmph!"

"Ha ha ha! Nothing can escape my final technique!"

"... We have extra psykers and another soldier on hand," Gaela continued, "and Fluttershy, whatever she does."

"Apparently she commands daemon engines," Daniels informed her as Fluttershy peeked out nervously from behind his legs.

"That's absurd."

"No kidding. It's actually harder to believe when you see it in person, somehow," the mercenary mumbled, scratching the back of his head.

Gaela's optics finally worked their way to the back of the other party. "And you must be the Great and Powerful Trixie. I uploaded several pict-captures of your 'show' on a recommendation from one of my superiors."

"And you must be Dark Acolyte Gaela," Trixie said with casual indifference, "Trixie hears your name every time Sparkle or the others need to convince someone of authority not to throw them out on their flanks." Trixie had several boltguns floating around her head, courtesy of one of the countless weapons crates lying about. Behind her, Spike was now carrying a case in his arms as well as on his back, grunting under the weight of the additional ammunition.

"Indeed. Now that formalities are out of the way, Warsmith Solon should be deeper in, toward the energy cores. We were going to make sure he does not need reinforcements," Gaela explained.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea! We should go along with them! Right, Twilight?" Rarity asked brightly.

"MMMHN!"

Gaela sighed through her vox grille. "Pie. Get down."

Pinkie promptly let go of Twilight's face, rolling away and then bouncing to her hooves.

"Y-Yes, good," Twilight said as she gasped for breath, "Serith, could you go first? Me and Trixie will stay with you. The others-"

"SERITH? Ya mean that creepy jerk is here too? Where?" Applejack's head was whipping back and forth rapidly, and her tail was sticking straight out.

Daniels and the ponies from Twilight's group looked confused, given that the Chaos Sorcerer wasn't exactly hard to spot, but as they glanced back behind them each one came to realize that the Iron Warrior wasn't with them anymore.

"Hmmm... maybe Trixie should learn that trick, too. He seems to get good results with it," the blue unicorn mumbled.

"How the blazes did he sneak off? His footsteps make more noise than the rest of us put together!" Daniels complained.

Gaela frowned under her mask. She had heard someone approaching with them with a gait noisy enough to be an Iron Warrior, but she didn't see him when she had rounded the corner. Inexplicable. And yet, quite typical of the High Sorcerer.

"Irrelevant. He's not here now, which means we will not be relying on his support. Are you ready to proceed?"

"Heck yeah!"

"As you say, dear."

"Ah'm with ya, sugarcube."

"Twilight, guess what! We saw a human naked!"

"Why is THAT the first thing you have to say to me?"

"Trixie believes the first thing she said to you was 'face grapple,' actually."

"Do we REALLY need to do this?"

"Orders are orders, Miss Shy. Just stay behind me if things get dicey, all right? Locked and loaded, Acolyte."

The walk up to the next set of blast doors was done in silence, every human and unicorn aiming their weapon straight forward toward the seam between the heavy barriers.

They passed by a servitor corpse, but paid it no mind.

They gave a deal more attention to a dead Fire Warrior lying outside the blast doors, his rifle missing and a trail of blood leading back to the doors, but they didn't slow their quiet approach.

"Ah can hear something back there," Applejack mumbled, her ears twitching.

Gaela walked up to the security panel and swept her bionic arm over the scanner.

The light turned green, and the doors started to grind open.

Daniels stepped forward first, his lasrifle up and his optics mask scanning the area in low-light mode while the doors finished opening behind him.

Then he lowered the rifle. "Well, then... I guess we won."

It was hard to imagine otherwise. There were Tau bodies everywhere, and the alcove in front of the power relay towers was awash with long streaks of drying blood and pitted from streams of automatic fire. Several battlesuits had been torn apart; some crushed and mangled, while others had been ripped apart by explosive shot. One was even lying on the floor with a power sword stuck into its pilot compartment. The entire area was a charnel house of blue and black stained with alien blood, and there wasn't a single sign of any Company soldiers, Iron Warrior or mortal.

"Wait. Do y'all hear that?" Applejack whispered, looking off toward the relay towers.

Really, it was hard NOT to hear it. A loud, rapid clanging noise was coming from somewhere out of sight, almost obscuring the sound of a roaring jet pack.

"Guns up, ladies. You too, Dahmer," Gaela commanded, her plasma pistol aimed.

"His name is Daniels," Trixie said as she magically pulled back the bolters' slides.

"Whatever. Anybody without a firearm stay on the sides and get ready to pounce. Sparkle, prepare to immobilize the target. Attack on my order. Three..."

The roar of the jet pack got closer, although the bulky relay towers severely restricted their line of sight. The clanging noise got closer, too.

"Two..."

Looking up at the cable bundles that stretched up to the ceiling, Rainbow glanced a bit of blue speeding between the bulk of the towers. Then she glanced a spot of dull metal moving behind it at almost the same height.

"One..."

Gaela's sensor readings flashed in her optical display.

"Hold fire."

Daniels lowered his rifle immediately, but the ponies seemed startled at the command.

They didn't get the opportunity to question it before a Crisis Suit appeared from behind the relay tower, its jet pack burning as it sped over the floor.

And then came Solon.

Everyone except Gaela and Trixie leapt back in shock as the six-legged Warsmith dashed out behind the suit, snatching the Tau warrior out of the air with a huge pincer claw.

Those ponies that had seen the Defiler from before drew parallels immediately with the chassis design and the claw as they watched the Warsmith recover from his pounce. Or rather, Twilight did; Fluttershy was instantly frightened into a state of complete shock, while Rarity was too disgusted at the sight of the Iron Warrior to think straight.

"What in Sam Apple's name is THAT?!" Applejack cried, backing away with Rarity in horror.

"I'll make introductions in a moment," Gaela said calmly as she set her plasma pistol against her thigh, "for now, watch."

Solon raised up the servo claw that held the struggling Crisis Suit, and his many mechatendrils started snapping and biting at the armor, picking away its weapons and disassembling the armor plates.

*You're hard to catch, little one! Was that a ploy to let your squad escape?* Solon asked before the battlesuit's fusion blaster was stripped off and dropped onto the floor.

*You will not win, you gue'la monster! The Greater Good will always prevail!* the suit barked back, struggling within the iron grasp of the servo claw.

*Yes, yes, I'm sure. But until then, I think you can be of use to me.* Solon chuckled as the mechatendrils with melta cutters started carving away at the armor seams, and the other snake-like appendages clamped onto various polyceramic plates in order to peel them off when they came loose.

The spectators watched, fascinated and horrified, as the Tau battlesuit was slowly taken apart piece by piece. The servo claw eased up pressure as the suit's limbs and torso plating fell away, and then it opened up entirely to drop the collapsed frame of the battlesuit cockpit on the floor.

The Tau pilot spilled out onto the ground and began crawling away desperately, halting only when he noticed that there were a number of new individuals blocking his path.

"And what have we here?" Solon asked, switching to Gothic as he approached the alcove.

Every pony except Trixie took a step (or in Rainbow's case, a flap) backward for every dull clang of Solon's leg hitting the floor. Even Pinkie looked terrified, Gaela noted with considerable amusement.

Trixie was feeling quite smug about not freaking out, although she vividly remembered having the exact same reaction the first time she had met the Warsmith.

"Hello, Mister Solon. Trixie was just heading in to see if you needed help with anything." She lowered her boltguns to aim at the disarmed Tau, who seemed stunned into immobility.

"Ash a matter of fact, I do, Mish Trixie. But it ish not your job," the Warsmith said before turning toward Daniels.

The mercenary had reacted quite well to seeing the high commander of the 38th Company in the flesh(metal), in that he had restrained any screams and kept himself rooted to one spot rather than fleeing.

"Sholdier! One of the grayshkinsh got away and made a break for the liftsh. Go run down and shtop her for me, will you?"

Pinkie's eye twitched.

Daniels saluted sharply and then sprinted across the room, all too eager to leave.

"Acolyte Gaela, it'sh sho good to shee you again!" Solon barked, his attention moving to the Dark Acolyte. "And I shee you've brought gueshtsh! I musht apologize for the mesh, I'm afraid. There were a few grievoush mishcalculationsh on our part, and now we're paying the price."

Pinkie snorted and clamped a hoof over her mouth, completely breaking her expression of horror.

"Allow Trixie to introduce our acquaintances here," Trixie said, earning an annoyed look from Gaela that was lost behind her helmet, "in order from left to right, we have Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie. There's also a yellow one named Fluttershy hiding around here somewhere, I'm sure. They're from Ponyville."

Solon tilted his head to one side, his multi-optics glimmering. "I shee. Unfortunately I have little time to shtay and greet you all. Thish ish quite a dishashter we have on our handsh, ash I'm shure you've noticed."

Pinkie Pie now had both hooves covering her mouth, fighting to retain her sniggering.

"Oh, that's quite all right! We were just followin' Miss Gaela around, is all! We can come back later! Wouldn't want to get in your way!" Applejack said, her voice cracking only slightly as she stiffly turned to face Twilight. "Right, Twi?"

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but found it painfully dry. Looking back at her friends, she could see that aside from Pinkie, they were all casting desperate glances at the blast doors behind them. She could also see Fluttershy's tail sticking out from behind a battlesuit corpse, apparently finding that less horrifying than than the hulk of metal and terror in front of them.

She couldn't even put her hoof on what exactly was so scary. Sure, he was huge, armored, and had at least three guns she could see that were bigger than she was, but she hadn't felt fear this intense when facing the daemon engines or when she had seen the Riptide battlesuits, which were hardly less dangerous. It was something primordial... instinctive, perhaps. Everything in her heart and soul screamed at her to get away as fast as possible.

Solon's chassis lowered closer to the floor so that Solon could reach his free hand down and seize the helpless Tau by his shoulder and haul him up. "That'sh fine. Jusht be careful. The Tau sheem to be in retreat, but there could shtill be ambushesh, and many sholdiers will be-"

And that was when the dam finally broke.

"HA HA HA HA HA HAAAH! That's... I can't... HAAAH HAH HAH!!"

Everyone seemed quite startled as Pinkie Pie burst out laughing, landing on her back and kicking her feet wildly.

Gaela's head snapped toward the howling pony. "Pie, be silent. You stand before the Warsmith."

It didn't seem to help, and Pinkie started rolling back and forth between her guffaws.

"Ish she... okay?" Solon asked, turning his gaze toward Trixie.

"No, not really," the blue unicorn said with a shrug.

"Ish she shick or shomething? We have medical shuppliesh available."

Pinkie's laughing somehow came even harder, and she pointed a shaking hoof at Solon.

"HA HA HA! That voice! I can't - HAAAH!"

Gaela pounded the butt of her power axe on the floor. "PIE! Restrain yourself at once!"

"CAN'T! HA HA HAAA! TOO FUNNY!"

"Ish there shomething shtrange about my voice?" the Warsmith asked, glancing around at the others.

Most of the ponies were staring incredulously at Pinkie, but Trixie shrugged.

"It's the slur. I guess she finds it funnier than the rest of us."

Solon tilted his helmet to the side. "What shlur?"

Gaela twitched. "Trixie. Stop."

"Your slur. You know, the way you pronounce S's," Trixie explained, ignoring the Acolyte.

The Warsmith stared down at Trixie again, and then glanced at Pinkie Pie, whose laughter seemed to be tapering off into panting gasps.

Then he stepped toward Gaela and held out the Tau prisoner. "Acolyte Gaela, take the alien."

"At once, Warsmith," Gaela said, seizing the weakened Tau pilot with her bionic arm and positioning her servo tool to execute the xeno if he started struggling.

"And then repeat after me," Solon continued, "sherious shetbacksh can neceshitate shupply shortagesh."

Gaela's wince was fully visible despite her head being completely covered, and she hesitated for several seconds as Pinkie's chuckling started up again.

"... Serious setbacks can necessitate supply shortages," the Dark Acolyte said reluctantly.

Solon immediately recoiled, his legs shaking the floor as they scrambled backward. "Nurgle'sh beard! Why didn't anybody ever tell me? I shound like an idiot!"

Pinkie's leg was twitching as she gasped desperately. "No more... can't take it... dying..."

"It is of no consequence what you sound like, Warsmith," Gaela insisted, her grip tightening on the Tau prisoner painfully, "such mannerisms are an irrelevance."

"Actually... Trixie has to admit that it makes it way harder to take you seriously," Trixie chimed in.

"Who the blazes do you think you're talking to?!" Gaela demanded, pointing her axe at the unicorn.

"What? Trixie is just being honest! Trixie doesn't care either way, but he should at least know!"

"All right, both of you, calm down," Solon drawled.

As Pinkie's chest heaved to try to get air into her lungs, Rainbow Dash eventually turned to Twilight.

"You know, it's kind of weird, but... this Solon guy doesn't seem that scary anymore, does he?" she whispered.

"Uh... yeah, actually, yer right," Applejack mumbled.

Rarity grimaced. "I don't really know what you're talking about. I find him just as detestable as before. And that SMELL! What is he burning in those smokestacks of his?"

"Twilight? What do you want to do?" Fluttershy asked, peeking out from behind the dead battlesuit.

Twilight almost smiled. The same aura of terror that had nearly sent them all galloping away at a glance had been completely washed away by Pinkie's laughing fit.

Warsmith Solon was still scary, obviously; the man was a Space Marine that towered over other Space Marines, and had butchered a great many Tau in this very room, apparently with ease. But the fear was now an intellectual one, a measurement of his strength against theirs.

And that measurement wasn't so far out of their favor. Aside from Gaela, Solon was alone. There were no more troops searching the manufactorum. They had the Elements of Harmony. The army of the 38th Company was busy fighting off the Tau, and looking carefully at the Warsmith's dull and oil-stained armor, he even seemed to have sustained some damage in his own fight. They would likely never get a better chance than this.

"Spike. Get ready. Girls?"

Spike took the backpack off and then opened it up, withdrawing the wooden box within. The other ponies silently formed up behind Twilight, although Pinkie looked exhausted and Fluttershy was trembling.

"Warsmith Solon! I wish to speak with you!"

Solon looked up from where Gaela was glaring at Trixie. "Doesh it have to do with the Tau attack?"

Twilight frowned as she stepped forward. "It does not. It has to do with your army's presence here in Equestrian lands."

Solon waved his biological hand in a dismissive gesture. "Then it can wait. I have to take shtock of the damage done to-"

"It CAN'T wait," Twilight interrupted, "I will speak to you now."

Solon took pause, and Gaela almost fell right over in shock. Trixie sensed where this was going and took the opportunity to slowly creep away toward the blast doors.

"I shee. Very well, then." Solon's chassis hissed as he walked up to Twilight, and it stopped less than a meter away from the alicorn. Both forelegs of the chassis stopped on either side of her, penning her in, and Twilight found herself craning her neck to look almost straight up in order to meet the glittering light of Solon's helmet optics. "Then shpeak, little one."

Twilight once again found herself unable to form words as the terror from before rushed back with full force.

"Go on, Twi," Applejack said, stepping up next to the alicorn and rubbing their shoulders together.

"You got this," Rainbow Dash assured her as she floated above at Solon's eye level.

"Ugh, the smell gets worse the closer you get," Rarity moaned.

Twilight had to fight back a chuckle as she felt her friends crowd in behind her, shoring up her confidence against the Warsmith's imposing presence. She took a deep breath.

"Warsmith Solon, I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia, who is ruler of the Equestrian nation!" Twilight shouted firmly into the glimmering red that had long ago replaced Solon's eyes. "Your army has sunk its fortress into our world and within our borders and brought war to our people! You've seeded these lands with the corruption of Chaos, and your war machines drive freely through our peaceful villages!"

"Indeed. And your point?" the Warsmith asked.

"By the order of the Princess, I must demand that you and your army leave our world and return to your fleets in orbit! We do not wish to fight you, but we cannot allow this awful power you bear to infect our lands! Please! Leave us in peace!"

Gaela stood silently on the sidelines, almost stunned as all the pieces came together. Of course the ponies hadn't been oblivious to the nature of Chaos, and they had used their relationship with her and Daniels to walk right to the heart of the 38th Company at its most vulnerable hour.

She felt her respect for the ponies rise considerably even as she began drawing targeting reticules over them for her servo laser.

Solon took a long moment to mull over Twilight's plea, the optics array on his helmet rotating and glimmering in the dim light.

"All right, that'sh fine," he finally answered.

Spike unlocked the box that held the Elements as Applejack drew out her lasso from the rope hanging around her neck. Rarity aimed her boltgun at the Warsmith, but also cast her levitation over to the plasma pistol mag-locked to Gaela's thigh. Rainbow Dash slowly circled the grimy Astartes, wondering if there was any place she could hit him without simply breaking her neck against his armor. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie didn't have any immediate ideas on how they could help, but they steeled themselves to look for any opportunities to assist their friends in the storm of destruction sure to come.

Twilight's horn flared with magic, and her wings spread as she prepared to unleash her full power against the titan of metal and dark power.

"...... Wait, what?"

Author's Note:

Tzeentch's eye, I HATE writing Solon's voice.
I imagine him speaking like Bane from Dark Knight Rises, with the same kind of extremely silly what-do-you-mean-it's-not-intimidating muffling to his words, but that voice is hard to get across in writing.
So instead he just sounds like a drunkard. OH WELL!

Comments

[unknown2]

So if the element of laughter counters Nurgle and his followers, that means that kindness and generosity should empower them...

[Heitomos]

I don't see his voice as being drunk. Whenever I read it, I read it as the blue guy's voice from Final Fantasy 10. "Imposhibibble!"

[SFaccountant]

3696300
Nah, it's nothing so formulaic as "X Element is strong again Y cultist".
Solon just happens to sound so stupid that it erodes the effect of his fear aura very quickly, and having Pinkie almost laugh herself into a coma made him seem even less threatening.

[GiftedMonster]

Slippery sluts slander syrupy Slaaneshian servitors.

*Grins*

Loved this chapter, good to see the Tau actually kicking some ass. Shame about the Tau commander though.

Can't wait for more!

Cheers
GM

[SFaccountant]

3696991
The Iron Warriors do not approve of Slaaneshi alliterations. All literary devices that promote the whore-God are punished by firing squad.

And the Tau Fireblade is the one that got away, actually. She might end up losing, but I wasn't going to have her die off-screen after giving her a name and everything!

[GiftedMonster]

3697465 That may be so, but a Slaaneshi cultist would enjoy it so they would in turn be serving the Whore-God, no?

Shame. Were this a true and proper Expeditionary force then they'd have the Crisis Suits with Void Shields.

[SFaccountant]

3697683
Now there's something to puzzle over. If a Berserker kills a Noise Marine, but the Noise Marine enjoys it, does the kill still go to Khorne?

And is there actually a Crisis Suit (not a Riptide or anything bigger) equipped with actual void shields in canon or in the game?

[GiftedMonster]

3697745 I suppose whichever occurs more. Blood or pleasure. If there is more blood than pleasure then Khorne.

As an amusing little tidbit, Khorne and Slaanesh aren't that different. Slaanesh is the Chaos God of excess. Khorne is the god of blood and demands it. His followers seek an excess of combat and slaughter and blood.

Now other stuff.

I am surprised we saw no Broadsides. Those could have really laid down the hurt on the enemy. Or a few R'varna type battlesuits. They could have quite literally shredded any Space Marine or possibly Daemon Engine.

XV9 'Hazard' Close Support Armour could have quite simply curb-stomped a lot of the enemies, but I have to assume that the Tau aren't operating with the full resources of the Empire and are more along the lines of a splinter sept in terms of resources.

Made a mistake, wasn't void shields but Riptide Shields.

Part of me, a small dark part of me, is very curious if Equestria is a Tomb World.

[SFaccountant]

3699103
I dunno about that. Khorne's single-minded ferocity and emphasis on bloodshed seems pretty different from Slaanesh's depravity to me. It's hard to think of them as being alike simply by terming Khorne's violence "excessive".
The lack of broadsides was a necessity of the speed of the attack. They have no jet packs, and can't fit in standard transports, so they would have gotten there late and then gotten left behind after they arrived. The Tau were hopelessly outgunned from start to finish, but when every vehicle you have is a skimmer then you have other options.
Thanks for clarifying the shield type.
And while I'm not yet planning on making Centaur III a tomb world, who knows what the future holds?!
Besides Tzeentch, I mean.

[Bast]

Love this chapter good sir <3 , best part was Serith's reaction to Fluttershy taming his army of deamon warmachines as pets and even naming them LOL . Nothing flusterd the Chaos Sorc as much as him seeing brutal murderous machines listening to the orders of a adorable pink haired shy little Pegasus Pony. Daniel's reaction was spot on, it is disbelieving to tell it, even more so to see it for first hand. Love Solon's and Pinkie Pie's interaction as well and the surprising agreeing from him followed by the "...... Wait, what?" Though I can think of why solon wouldn't mind as he is all about efficiency and conserving munitions / manpower. To go to war with the local inhabitants would take a toll on his supplies as well trying to cover the planet right after their fortress being assaulted. At least that is what I think his reasoning is besides having to fight the Tau.

[Bast]

3699103

Why do you think it would be a Tomb World?

[GiftedMonster]

3699723 Well, a few reasons.

Firstly, there was that world, a former Eldar exodite world that had a shield on it that fooled the Necrons into thinking that the universe was still dominated by the Eldar and Ork's.

Equestria could be the next level in that kind of strategy, utilizing a peaceful psychic race to keep the Necrons buried. Could be because there is the worst Necron Lord ever to rise there.

[Bast]

3701264

Makes a lot of sense, No Tomb would wake with something as peaceful as the ponies living on the surface. Though I fear for the mane 6's psyche, being tarnished by war and killing/death. Hope Trixie doesn't get to involved with Serith, already bad enough. As much as some don't like trixie , no pony deserves to die or get corrupted. Think that is what Serith wants to do or try to keep them to play with/experiment on.

[SFaccountant]

3701642
But Chaos is so much fun! All the cool ponies are doing it!

[Bast]

3707363
I'm sure Khorn and Tzeentch will be proud :P

[EverfreeSparkle]

I know this may seem like a little thing, but when you say "viruses that consume fuel" it kind of makes me go huh? Viruses cannot do anything outside of a living body since they require a host cell to reproduce and don't eat anything, that I know of. You should say Bacteria since those are known to have strains that eat strange things and don't need a host to reproduce. Just a thought.

[EverfreeSparkle]

Somehow I saw him saying "sure whatever, we were not staying anyways", I guess I was close.

[Aziraphael]

Actually, all I hear in my head when Solon speaks is Sean Connery from the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketches........

[Ninjab33z]

I'm slightly sad that you didn't put a life of brian reference

[Von Voctavia]

Warsmith Solon... good evening. As a duly designated representative of the City, County and Country of Equestria, I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.

That oughta do it. Thanks very much, Twilight.

[edit]
Are you a God?
Yes. I think so. I mean Celestia's never actually mentioned if I'm Immortal like she is or not but

[DarkLightDisciple]

YES! Be accomidating and make twilight go crazy!

[Bugsydor]

"Nurgle'sh beard! Why didn't anybody ever tell me? I shound like an idiot!"

*Joins Pinkie in ROFLing into an early grave*

[shadowblitz13]

honestly, I've always thought of Solon's voice more like a slightly-higher pitched, heavily accented German man's than Bane's voice.

[Flick Mare]

I'm really enjoying these new developments. I notice with some amusement Trixie is steadily taking on the 'More Dakka' school of combat, I like how she seems to be getting in deeper and deeper with the 38th Company. I'm eager to see more of Solon, since his character seems kind of unpredictable at the moment. I was reading his dialogue in exactly the same way Bane speaks, and I'm just waiting for his affable demeanour to change at any moment, since he's clearly very capable of handling himself.

[SFaccountant]

6504654
Yes, Solon is...
Uh... well...
I mean, he's no pushover, exactly. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. Trixie will indeed be getting in deep with the Iron Warriors. Much deeper than she'd bargained for.

[Gamer guy 42]

I read Solons voice similarly to the tentacle's voice from Halo 3. I loved that game so much.

[goldfencer]

the pink pony clung to his face and started humming a fast-paced combat tune loudly.

Pinkie Pie is best facehugger.

[Skyshield501]

Love warsmith solon

[the other sans]

and have them join the barricade at the artillery yards. I don't want a single grayskin the yards
fell back to the ground a full two seconds later, shaken but entire functional

1. I don't want a single grayskin in the yards.
2. Entirely.

[Dusk Raven]

I have to admit, it took a little while, but I was eventually able to fit a voice for Solon in my head that was fairly harsh and intimidating despite the slur and distortion. Of course, he still winds up being funny and oddly endearing because of what he says:

""Nurgle'sh beard! Why didn't anybody ever tell me? I shound like an idiot!""

To say nothing of his excitement over Tau weaponry and interaction with Derpy in the last book.

Oddly enough, his Tau seems to be impeccable.

[the other sans]

7485124 Still here as well. No problem about the notification flood but there's another way to check quickly. Set comments to newest first then you should see my comments for the first 10 at least, then you can highlight the sentence and ctrl+f it.

[A Wild Magikarp]

Ferrous Dominus - daemon engine kennels

See, I was scared for dear Flutters when I saw that she was entering a Daemon Engine. That last word there though? That retargeted the concern towards the Tau.

"Hello there. My name is Fluttershy. Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you."

And this is why. Who needs a Warpsmith when you have Kindness?

The second alien, following close behind his squadmate, got a face full of Pinkie Pie as Gaela kicked her foot at him, and the warrior staggered backward as the pink pony clung to his face and started humming a fast-paced combat tune loudly.

Picturing her humming E1M1.

Pinkie promptly changed her tune to a "battle victory" theme.

It’s Final Fantasy now.

Pinkie snorted and clamped a hoof over her mouth, completely breaking her expression of horror.

Oh please, Pinkie, no...

Twilight almost smiled. The same aura of terror that had nearly sent them all galloping away at a glance had been completely washed away by Pinkie's laughing fit.

NEVERMIND! Giggle at those ghosties Pinkie!

[Animatorsnake]

To be honest I was kinda expecting this

[EveningShadows]

You did good with the voice, I've been imagining his voice as a slurring bane with a higher pitch

[Akira Dragonborne]

The second alien, following close behind his squadmate, got a face full of Pinkie Pie as Gaela kicked her foot at him, and the warrior staggered backward as the pink pony clung to his face and started humming a fast-paced combat tune loudly.

"...Don't question it!"

[Crystonian]

I always thought he sounds upbeat and dorky the Warmaster