I. Spin-off Babies
“A story: A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armoury, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper; his hands remember the rifle.”
-Anthony Swofford, ‘Jarhead’
Why?
It was one of the simplest of all questions. It was, in some ways, the query from where everything else was drawn. But what did the question even mean, really? In all of history, before history had folded in upon itself and been warped to be scant more than the plaything of demented Gods, had any question been simultaneously so probing and so vague?
The question of why, that desperate desire to make sense of a world that no longer bothered to do so itself, in turn posed all other queries. But, at the end of the day, it proved scarce little.
It was why Adamant Tower did not bother to ask the question as he ran. Well, one of two reasons – the other was that he had done so countless times before. He had stayed up all night, the whispers clawing at the edge of his perception and denying him the healing hours of sleep, and so he had thought and he had questioned. He had tried to be analytical, to set aside the depthless scorn he felt for those who had caused this desecration, to consider rationally every decision from every guilty soul that had led to this point. He couldn’t do it. And, in the end, it didn’t matter. Every morning he awoke, and the Crystal Empire still stood at one minute to midnight.
Adamant Tower had been a Guard in the Crystal Military, though that felt like a lifetime ago. Perhaps it had been; time, in this new world order, was as malleable and driven by whim as everything else, it felt sometimes. His sea-green coat had once rippled with the hard, magical gleam that rendered every citizen of the Empire akin to the crystalline rock for which it was named. But it had been a long time since any of them had looked like that, and now that coat was dirty and covered with a mixture of grime and drying blood. Old wounds, from encounters he was lucky just to escape. Such was life.
His amber eyes darted around the eerily quiet street as more unwelcome recollections wormed their way into his head. He had been in the throne room, the day the fire had started and Princess Cadence – last true ruler of the Crystal Empire – had been taken from them. He remembered with all-too-vivid clarity the beast that had done it. That he had not died that day was a source of constant shame, and his primary reason for leaving the Guard, but all that had already come to pass. Forward, pressing onwards, surviving each day; these were the things that mattered now. He looked up, grimacing as he did so, wondering what the sky would do today.
There was no moon, and no sun, anymore. That had been one of the most bizarre things to adapt to in the aftermath of…everything. That life even persisted on the remnants of Equestria at all was nothing short of a dark miracle, but it did, protected under a sky that eternally ran the colour of spilled vitae. As Adamant Tower looked up, a dark shape passed through the clouds; it was impossible to make out exactly what it was, and with what he knew of the things that now plagued the land, Tower guessed it rarely bothered to keep to a single form at all, but the outline of two huge bat-like wings flapping through the ruined sky was starkly apparent. He gasped, eyes widening, ducking into the cover of an abandoned house’s doorway until he was sure whatever it was had left.
The pony poked his head out from his hiding spot, casting a furtive look up and down the street. In this new, post-apocalyptic world, the Crystal Empire had stood against all odds and expectations as a bastion of sanity and order, even if both those things were crumbling more and more with the passing of each day. In another moment of unintentional introspection, the former Guard wondered if it was because this was the place where that first betrayal had taken place; the eye of the hurricane of insanity that had followed, as it were. The fact that he was wasting time even considering this twisted the angry knife in the Crystal Pony’s gut. Taking a deep breathe, he bolted from the alcove, galloping across the street before ducking into a similar hiding spot on the other side.
The reason for his stealth was that, even in the Crystal Empire, the world was far from a safe place. Even after the execution – no, not execution, assassination – of the Princesses, whatever rent in the fabric between worlds had been opened was only widening. Things stalked the street, especially in this district, for reasons none had quite been able to determine. Daemons, the remnant of Equestria had taken to calling them – not Daemons like those found in Tartarus, though surely that infernal realm must have been overflowing by now, but beings from a far more sinister and disturbing place.
Concentrate. That was all pointless conjecture, what mattered was what was happening now. Taking a deep breathe, Adamant Tower darted from cover, still-strong hooves carrying him across the cracked cobblestone street. He skidded into a similarly protective shadow of another building; this one had been some sort of bazaar, by the look of it, though the elegant fabric canopies were torn and ripped without exception. Those canopies blew in the unsettling wind that always whistled through these streets now, the same wind that caused the hardened stallion to shiver. He told himself that it was because he was cold. Not even he believed that.
Normally, the stallion wouldn’t have risked crossing this district of the city. The other ways were safer, from the Daemons at least – most of the time. But that day had seen an event of particular intensity, if the word ‘event’ could truly be used to describe the sheer side of a building mutating and twisting into a leering, pus-dribbling eyeball. The worst part about it was that, in this new world order where chaos apparently reigned, such a thing was hardly an unusual occurrence. But the fact that it’d happened within the grounds of the Empire’s main streets themselves had been calls for alarm, and whilst the council that now tried its best to rule the shattered remains of the kingdom frantically debated how to react, the Guards had taken matters into their own hands by cordoning off the area. Anypony who passed was liable to be called on to present some form of identification, and he could do that without that right now. The last thing he needed was his history in the Guard himself to be discovered, not when they were borderline conscripting new members.
So he had chosen to come this way, risking the streets of the haunted district. It might even have been a slightly quicker route, had he not been taking cover and biding his time every second minute. A noise scratched at the edge of his perception, causing the ponies’ ears to flick up and down nervously. Was it real, or just a figment of his imagination? With Daemons clawing their way into reality more and more with every passing day, were those two things still mutually exclusive? He was motionless for a while longer, the pony’s heart slamming against his ribcage. Eventually though, it seemed his fears were unfounded, or if the Daemon was there it was waiting for him to make the first move at least. Taking a deep breathe, Adamant Tower glanced up into the crimson sky again. The shape he’d seen before had gone, which was a small mercy, he supposed. Licking lips that had suddenly gone dry, the pony lowered his head, galloping out once again.
He was nearing the end. The end of this particular gauntlet, at least. Before long, Tower knew, the street would start to curve round, eventually opening out back into the habitation of the Crystal Empire proper. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. He didn’t even bother to hide now, relying on speed rather than caution to protect him. The stallion paid the nagging notion at the back of his mind that he was being watched no mind – in these times, you always felt like you were being watched.
He was close. Oh yes, he was very, very close. His breathe was coming in short little gasps, trying to feed oxygen to muscles that were being strained in an attempt to get out of here as quickly as possible. He didn’t look back over his shoulder, not yet, which was probably the smart thing to do – it would merely have slowed him down. But when the shrill cackling came, it was even more of a surprise to the poor pony. He practically skidded to a halt, the muscles that were burning before locked with icy dread. He felt sick to his stomach already, as much due to his own nervousness as it was the sheer, perverse wrongness of what Adamant Tower knew was standing behind him.
As he turned, body shaking, ears pressed flat against his skull, he wasn’t disappointed. The creature was standing about 20ft down the street, eyeing him with feral amusement. It was bipedal – at least, it was choosing to appear bipedal – but the natural grace of its forms was starkly contrasted by the pincers it had in place of hands. They opened and closed, snapping at the air, whilst taloned feet scratched at the cobbles. Black eyes, like a doll’s eyes, peered deep into him as if searching for and enjoying the taste of every secret and vice he’d ever had. And yet…and yet, he could not bring himself to find the beast repulsive. Something in it spoke to Adamant Tower, undeniably beguiling. It was every soft touch he’d ever felt, every kiss from a lover, every fleeting moment of pleasure. His conscious mind rebelled against such weakness…but his body seemed almost eager to give in.
The effect wasn’t lost, even as the creature charged, an undulating shriek tearing from its throat whilst the pincers slashed through the air. It didn’t even fade when the daemonic maiden was steps away, soporific musk burning the stallion’s nose and filling his lungs as he stared in awe. But the sound of guns…yes, that was enough.
The beast was punched off its feet as the bolts slammed into it, each mass-reactive round exploding deep within the warp-forged flesh, bursting it out. The Daemon landed in a crumpled, dismantled heap, tainted blood steaming as it seeped into the ground. As it did, the haze lifted from the stallion’s mind; he let out a shuddering gasp, eyes widening as he stumbled backwards away from the corpse. It eventually sent him tumbling onto his plot, but that was hardly the biggest concern facing the ex-guard right now. Near death experience aside, the fact that something had just saved him from that fate should have been a lot more reassuring than it was.
Adamant Tower had never heard that gun fire before. But somehow, he knew. He knew there was only one breed of warrior in all the cosmos that would employ such machines of death.
“And now it taints even the ground itself.” The voice was a baritone rumble, impossibly deep, as if the voice was being dragged and amplified through a powerful form of microphone. Seconds later, the owner of that voice stalked from the shadows. Adamant Tower’s breathe caught in his throat. The being was huge, at least as tall as three stallions his size standing atop one another’s shoulders, and the smoking gun he carried across his chest was similarly oversized. He whirred and hummed quietly, audible even at the distance, and over the blood pumping through the ponies’ head. The towering creature took a few more heavy steps forward, sheathed sword at his side clattering against the rest of his armour. Eventually, he seemed to notice the pony cowering beside him. The head swivelled, looking down with curious disdain, two red eyes burning beneath a scorched and tattered hood. The stallion stared back, eyes trembling, body fighting for breathe that would not come. Even so, despite his fear being perfectly justified, Adamant Tower was wrong in one respect. Before, when he’d seen a creature such as this, it had been a steel-clad devil.
Now, though, he looked upon an Angel.
***
“Come on, Bon Bon, pick up the pace!”
Normally, Bon Bon would have come up with some witty retort in answer to her friend’s insistence. It was usually the way her and Lyra’s friendship worked, anyway – the latter would come up with some ‘brilliant’ idea, leaving it to the former to point out the many and varied ways it would crumble upon contact with the real world. Today, though, Bon Bon had a headache, and was finding it very difficult to do anything besides grumble. The sharp ringing of the final bell at Canterlot High, driving more nagging spikes of dull pain into her mind, didn’t help that.
So instead, the girl just grit her teeth and mumbled something quite unladylike under her breathe. Holding one of the straps of the rucksack she wore on her back tighter, Bon Bon nevertheless set off after her mint-green coloured friend. Lyra was negotiating the wide corridors of the school with an irritating ease, humming happily to herself, the little harp symbol braided on her skirt occasionally catching the light as it swayed.
Bon Bon wished she could say the same for herself. Perhaps it was just the pain ringing in her head, but she almost felt like she was stumbling through the brightly-lit halls. In truth, the girl wanted nothing more than to get home, turn off the lights, and lay down, but she knew her friend wouldn’t be letting her off that easily. Her focus stolen for a moment, as she rubbed her aching temple and growled softly in annoyance, Bon Bon couldn’t help but let out a yelp of annoyance as she was nearly knocked flat by a blur of motion.
“Hey, watch it!” She snapped, having to raise her voice to painful levels over the sound of ambient chatter and rolling wheels. The little blur of orange, black hoodie, and camo shorts looked over its shoulder.
“Sorry!” Scootaloo called back, her voice only half-sincere before she banked her scooter to the left sharply and rounded a corner. Bon Bon’s glare deepened, another agitated noise leaving her as she started to walk again, eyes still focused on where the freshman had been moments before. In truth, she didn’t really understand how scooters were allowed at school in the first place.
She was so distracted that she nearly caused a collision of her own. She stopped just before she hit the girl, face immediately softening on seeing who it was. She stooped down, crouching as she helped pick up the leaflet’s the near-miss had left scattered over the floor.
“Sorry, Fluttershy…” She apologised, wincing a little. The shy girl was dressed in the white vest and green skirt she always seemed to wear, pink hair covering one eye. She held the recovered animal shelter leaflets to her chest, feet pointed inwards, one visible teal eye staring at the floor.
“O-oh…t-that’s okay, I should have been paying more attention…” It was regrettable, really. Despite the brief wave of popularity she and her friends had rode after the events of the last Fall Formal – though in truth, no-one was really sure what had happened there, Bon Bon included – things had eventually more or less gone back to normal, and the animal shelter was struggling for volunteers once again, though through no lack of effort on its greatest advocate’s part. For a moment Bon Bon wondered whether she should stay, try to help the girl. It would have been the right thing to do, but she wasn’t in the mind-set for it right now. Plus, for every second she fell behind, Lyra would tease her for it later. Wincing apologetically once again, Bon Bon got back to her feet and set off at as brisk a pace as she could manage.
Yes, ‘back to normal’ was certainly the way to describe it. All around her, the students and faculty of Canterlot High went through the everyday motions; Vinyl leaning on a wall, arms folded over her chest as she nodded along to the beat undoubtedly blaring in her headphones, boys virtually lining up to catch a glimpse of Rarity at her locker, Trixie getting yet another packet of peanut butter crackers from the vending machine. All expected…all boring.
She caught up with Lyra outside the front door, negotiating her way awkwardly through a veritable tide of freshmen. She was sat on one of the walls by the front steps, legs kicking idly. Lyra couldn’t help but smirk as her friend emerged, taking note of the sour expression worn.
“What took you so long?”
“Shut up.” Bon Bon snapped, folding her own arms. After a moment, she exhaled, face softening a fraction. “C’mon, let’s just get going, I’ve had enough of this place for one day…” It was unlikely to work, she knew that, but it was worth a try anyway. To Bon Bon’s amazement, it almost seemed to be successful – that is, until they got onto the street by the road.
“Umm…Lyra?” She asked, stomach dropping in despair as they began to walk in different directions. “We both live…this way?” Bon Bon pointed out, jerking a thumb over her shoulder for emphasis. In response, Lyra’s grin widened, her golden eyes seeming to twinkle a little.
“Apparently this truck or something tipped over on the other side of town earlier, spilled paint all over the road.” She explained, merrily skipping most of the details that didn’t really make sense. “C’mon, I wanna go check it out before they clean it up!”
Bon Bon’s face was unmoved for a moment, blinking dumbly as she tried to fight through the haze of dull pain and decipher what her friend had just said. When she did, the girl’s face instantly grew more wary. “The other side of town? Lyra, you know that’s not a nice neighbour-“
“Oh, c’mon.” She responded, rolling her eyes with a giggle. “It’s like, the middle of the day! What’s the worst that’s gonna happen?”
“Actually, it’s like three o’clock.” Bon Bon corrected, frowning in annoyance. “And…I don’t know, but I really don’t think it’s a good idea to just go wandering around there...”
Lyra, of course, was already walking, her more…’air-headed’ tendencies creeping to the fore as she ignored her companion’s protests. “Yeah, yeah, are you coming or not?” Bon Bon’s mouth dropped open in disbelief, one eyebrow twitching a little.
“But…it’s like, forty minutes’ walk!” She whined at last, the only protest she could think of in the heat of the moment.
“Look, I’m going, with or without you.” Lyra called over her shoulder, not slowing down. “And if I get murdered, or abducted by aliens, or whatever you think is gonna happen, then you’re gonna feel really guilty.” She said no more, but as Bon Bon silently seethed in frustration at her friend, she had to admit that Lyra did have a point. Hands bunching into fists for a moment, before relaxing grudgingly, she moved to walk alongside her companion once more.
“Hey, you’ll enj-“ Lyra began, smiling.
“Don’t talk to me.” Bon Bon cut her off, not looking round at her.
Lyra did at least keep to her word, not even trying to initiate conversation as they walked. Their route led them through the suburbs, down the main street, past Sugercube Corner, the public library, the town playing fields. Eventually, the quality of the buildings around them began to decline more and more, as they moved from the centre of the town – where Canterlot High was located – towards its outskirts. It was startling in a way, how quickly the disparity between the two areas came on. Graffiti, mostly unintelligible, started to cover the walls of the sidewalk. The shops were all distinctly lower-value, most having some sign of break-in, and litter covered the streets. People passed with angry glares at the two, clearly out of place girls, keeping themselves drawn close. Even the sky seemed to turn a metallic shade of grey.
“Lyra…” Despite her earlier snapped command, it was Bon Bon that broke the quiet. “I…my head’s really hurting…I think we should go back…” Instinctively, she drew a little closer to her friend, anger on her face turning to nervousness as she cast furtive looks around.
“Relax, will you?” Lyra retorted, seemingly more comfortable. She didn’t sound as brave as before, though. “It’s just in your imagination…it can’t be far now.”
Apparently, though, it was. Bon Bon’s shoes hadn’t been chosen for walking in, and they were clamped tight around her aching feet. Her head felt just as tight, but it was her nagging fear about all this that was providing her the most discomfort. They were being stared at now, she was sure of it, something about them drawing onlookers like predatory sharks. “Lyra…seriously, it’s not going to be worth it, and it’ll be getting dark by the time we start walking back anyway…”
Lyra, finally, came to a stop – for a second, looking like she might agree with her friend. She grimaced, looking around them, giving an involuntary shiver.
“This place is a bit of a dump…” She admitted, at least having the common sense to keep her voice down. “I didn’t know it was this bad…but we’ve gotta be close.” She paused for a moment, and Bon Bon could have sworn she saw the cogs in her brain turning as Lyra thought. “Okay, what about this…you wait here, I’ll go scout on ahead? And if I don’t see anything, we can go.”
What?!” Bon Bon asked, before realising how loud her outburst had been. She dropped her voice, now a hissing whisper. “Don’t you dare leave me here, Lyra!”
“I’ll be gone literally for five minutes.” Her friend insisted, holding up a placating hand. “I’ll be right back, I promise.” She gave Bon Bon a quick hug, cutting off any argument, before turning and walking away. Bon Bon considered calling out for a moment anyway, but didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped.
So she stood there, where she’d been told to, hugging herself close, and wondering how she’d let Lyra talk her into another situation like this. She wasn’t stupid, and knew better than to make eye contact with anyone, but the feeling of unease still persisted, gnawing away in her gut. Seconds slowly dragged on, surely coming together into minutes, and still Lyra didn’t come back…and the area seemed to grow more and more hostile. Already, she could hear sirens blaring in the distance.
Eventually, it all got too much for her. She was going to find Lyra, and then she was going to go home, and then she was never going to come here again as long as she could avoid it. Bon Bon set off, walking briskly at first, but soon progressing into a small jog without thinking. She could hear her phone and books rattling around in her backpack, but that was a concern for later.
“Lyra?” She called out, mumbling an apology as she accidentally clipped someone walking past. “Lyra?” No response. She bit her lip and stopped a moment in the middle of the sidewalk, gaining a few dirty looks as people had to walk round her, trying to think like her friend. It was that that led her jogging through a twisting maze of back-alleys, stepping awkwardly over discarded boxes and under rusting fire escapes.
When she eventually emerged, back onto a street of some kind, what she saw surprised her. Across the road was what could only be a school…a crappy school, by the looks of it. There was none of the towering, refined elegance of Canterlot High; the front gates were rusting, graffiti scribbled over those walls too, the slab sides of the building making it look more like some war foundry than a place of learning. Still, it was odd. She hadn’t even realised there was another school in town, though in retrospect, perhaps she could have.
It occurred to Bon Bon that she could, and should, have just phoned her friend. She put it down to the headache, and resolved to do that now…or at least, after she’d retraced her steps to where she’d been left. Even so, she couldn’t help but stare for a moment from across the street, intrigued in spite of herself. The girl assumed that most of the students had already gone home, but there were still a few of them congregating in the front yard. All boys, from what she could see, and all about her age, most of them with grey skin – though there were some bronzes, and even a few dirty yellows. They stood in little groups, all talking quietly amongst themselves.
Then, as if alerted by some secret signal, one raised his head and looked straight at her.
Bon Bon gasped, eyes widening in fear. He wasn’t doing anything immediately threatening, nothing besides meet her stare, but still she knew it was time to leave. Turning away quickly, and subconsciously aware of the boy’s cold eyes on her back, Bon Bon began to walk with her head down…going face-first into a lamppost. It seemed that the pain was deliberating her more than she would have liked to admit.
She fell onto her back, groaning as she covered her face with her hands, blood seeping out her nose. Her backpack opened and spilled its contents, books and personal possessions now cluttering the sidewalk. Her first thought was ‘not here’ – not in this part of town, not with what was across the street. She tried to rise, but couldn’t, the stinging sensation too pronounced for the moment.
Even so, and despite the fact that her hands still covered her eyes, Bon Bon could feel the shadow loom over her. That it belonged to someone, and that that someone wasn’t Lyra, was obvious. She didn’t look, fear locking her joints, body starting to shake a little. Whoever it was didn’t speak, not straight away. Instead, they just looked down at her, observing Bon Bon as if she was some kind of invasive animal species.
“Hello there, my dear lady.” He said at last, voice…surprisingly friendly. A slurping sound reached her ears, as if he’d just taken a drink of something hot, giving a small sigh of satisfaction. “I…do believe you’ve accidentally found yourself within the wrong neighbourhood.”
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It's back, and as good as ever.
Although this chapter needs more Astartes.
It seems you haven't lost your touch for writing excellent fiction, brother! I look forward to reading more.
Huh.
Dear Pert,
Keep writing stories, because they're good and while ever you're writing you're not doing treacherous crap.
From the desk of
Roboute Guilliman
4911161
I may dislike your chapter, but I have to agree with you. Pert's good at this thing.
4913527
Surely you mean my legion, you fool.
4915346
Not since you divided the legions into chapters.
YES.