Iron Hearts: Book 5 - Suffer Not the Alien to Live

by SFaccountant

Foundations

Iron Hearts

Book 5

Suffer Not the Alien to Live

Disclaimer: why does anybody read these things? If you're not trying to sue me for intellectual property infringement, move along! If you are, please don't hurt me.

Punctuation key: "Gothic speech" *Speech in Tau language* +Speech in Binary+ Non-aural communication, such as telepathy

Dramatis Personae

38th Company:

Solon - Warsmith (high commander) dedicated to Nurgle

Sliver - Vice-commander dedicated to Nurgle

Tellis - Raptor Lord dedicated to Khorne

Serith - High Sorcerer

Dest - rhino driver

Cyrus Gnoss - human mercenary General

Wyatt Daniels - human mercenary

Norris Delgan - human Trademaster

Detachment Equiis (Equestrian auxiliaries):

Princess Luna - Commander

Midnight Blaze - Lunar Guard Lieutenant

Dusk Blade - Lunar Guard Lieutenant

Princess Twilight Sparkle - Equinought Squadron Captain

Rainbow Danger Dash - Equinought Squadron (aerial strike role)

Applejack Apple - Equinought Squadron (assault role)

Rarity - Equinought Squadron (part-time equerry to Trademaster Delgan)

Fluttershy - Equinought Squadron (support role)

Pinkie Pie - Equinought Squadron (heavy assault role)

The Great and Powerful Trixie - entertainer/mercenary (support role)

Suuna - assistant to The Great and Powerful Trixie

Dark Mechanicus:

Kaelith - Dark Magos

Gaela - Dark Techpriest

Detachment Xenis (Tau remnants):

Jerriha - Shas'vre Fireblade

Fennin - Fio'el Master Engineer

Wraithstar - Shas'el Stealth Suit Commander

Orks:

Drahgza Redclawz - Ork Warboss

Kahg Krushah - Ork Warboss

Hazarr "Coggz" Wrencha - Ork Big Mek

---

Field Report: engagement 36-77, after-action. File Designation ES-71

The target was a small Ork encampment acting as a refuel depot for the Speed Freaks trying to establish raiding parties around Baltimare. Target was confirmed destroyed as of 16:11:39. Iron Warrior reserves were deployed. Eclipse remained on stand-by.

The equine contributions to the sortie have been charitably referred to as "positive". Although the Eclipse and Equinought Squadron have proven to be remarkable tactical assets, the other ponies that seem militarily inclined have not performed nearly as well, even with substantial help from Company forces. They're quick to be suppressed and easily intimidated by enemy forces; just the sight of a mega-dread or a squiggoth will send them into a stampede if we don't have anything just as impressive lining up behind them.

That said, they can be perfectly useful in an even fight, and they're not prone to reckless behavior or insubordination, which we see plenty of from the mercenaries and cultists. The pegasi are great for flanking entrenched positions, and the earth ponies can shrug off hits that knock the other two kinds right off their hooves. Unicorns are good to have close by in a firefight, floating up bits of cover for us and flinging thrown explosives back at the greenskins with their magic. And the units work pretty well together, despite the lack of strict military discipline.

There are some obvious weak points, besides being generally jittery: they can't handle most of our weapons, and have gotten really attached to lasguns for their lack of recoil, easy reloading, and substantial capacity. Any weapons more complex or dangerous leaves them practically helpless; very few are even willing to try melta guns and flamers, and experiments in letting them man heavy weapons have been entirely ineffectual. And downright hilarious, if I do say so myself. So as a whole they're generally lacking in stopping power as well as backbone.

The only other matter I feel inclined to note is the... suspicious nature of the equine casualties. They've taken their fair share of damage on the field, but somehow every equine casualty so far has been a non-fatal injury. Some of them quite serious, no doubt, but not a single pony has been killed in action as far as I'm aware. It's uncanny, and frankly I think the men are getting jealous.

Colonel Harlin, signing off

---

Iron Hearts

Chapter 1

Foundations

****

Appleloosa

Applejack grunted as she was carried off her hooves, flames swimming over her armor and bowling her over onto the cracked and scorched dirt.

She wasn't injured; as usual, not a sliver of shrapnel or licking flame managed to puncture the ceramite composite and adamantium carapace that made up her armor. But it took a few precious moments to get her senses back as alerts and data cluttered her heads-up-display.

The crackle of lasguns, rattle of shootas, and the sounds of a dozen other weapons swam over her while Applejack pushed herself upright again.

Almost immediately, a much closer and more pertinent noise was filtered through her autosenses. An Ork Nob charged through the smoke column that used to be a chimera APC, roaring furiously and brandishing a big choppa as large as a human man.

Applejack checked the angle and then swung around, her armor creaking loudly from the surprisingly agile movement. Her rear legs snapped upward in a kick just as the Nob swung his own weapon.

Her greaves met the choppa, and Orkish weaponsmithing was found wanting in the exchange. The choppa head snapped off and the handle shattered. The Nob staggered back and stared down at his broken weapon as Applejack's hooves fell back to the ground.

The farm pony swung about and blasted the nob with a brief spurt from her heavy flamer, swallowing the warrior in fire and sending him flailing back toward the smoke from whence he had emerged.

He didn't get very far before a burst of lasers speared him in the side, causing the Ork to stagger and fall.

"Hey, Cuz! Ya all right?" Braeburn shouted, a lasgun hooked up to his right foreleg by a ballistics harness. He and Big Macintosh were sheltering behind a stack of hay bales, with the latter exchanging fire with a mob of Orks barricaded in the train station.

Applejack bolted toward her relatives, halting when a stream of bullets pelted her in the side.

A snap of her tail attached the gravity lash to a Loota who was leaning too far out of cover, and she flung the Ork and his deffgun out into the battlefield.

Braeburn eagerly lined up the easy shot, raining lasers onto the struggling alien before Applejack reached them.

"What's the story, colts?" Applejack demanded, shouting to be heard over the crash of artillery nearby.

"We're just holdin' the greenies in place fer a spell 'til yer big metal buddies can flush out the ones in the train station!" Braeburn shouted as he ducked down. "Anyhow, ya okay, Cuz? That was no firecracker that went off next to ya!"

Applejack snorted as another stray bullet bounced off her thigh with a heavy TWANG noise. "Ya don' mind me, Brae! Keep yer head down!"

Her point was underlined by a harsh whipping noise when machine gun fire started ripping through the hay bales, and Braeburn yelped as he fell flat on the ground.

Big Mac shuddered when the spray of bullets passed over him, hammering his chest and shoulder plates but failing to breach the carapace. He tilted to the side before he loosed the next burst from his heavy bolter, and a pair of shoota boyz disappeared in a cloud of blood and shrapnel.

"Them fancy suits ain't just fer show, are they?" Braeburn laughed nervously as a stream of brass casings bounced under his muzzle, and he glanced over at Applejack. "Shoot, yer hat ain't even singed!"

A series of small explosions came from inside the train station, and all gunfire coming from the windows ceased. Seconds later, Orkish shouting blended with the sound of roaring chainswords as the Iron Warriors secured the building.

"Wait... how IS your hat okay?" Braeburn asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Train station's clear! Follow mah lead!" Applejack shouted, galloping out ahead and ignoring Braeburn's question.

Without the guns covering them from the train station, very little crossfire remained while the Apples surged across the train tracks. Shattered wagons and gutted barrels littered the ground all around them, and some of the debris had been piled up into makeshift barricades by the Ork raiders. One such machine gun nest lay dead ahead, firing at a mercenary unit in the other direction, and Braeburn gulped anxiously as his cousins barreled ahead.

"APPLLLLLLES!!" Applejack roared as she crashed into the rear of the barricade, smashing the wall to splinters and throwing several Ork gunners off their feet. With most of her momentum spent, she unleashed her heavy flamer on full spread, washing over the shoota boys and their tragically flammable fortification.

Big Mac shouldered through behind his sister, ready to back her up, but it proved unnecessary. What few Orks weathered the river of fire well enough to fight back found themselves hammered aside by the armored mare or gored by the heavy tusks on her helmet. A minute after she had breached the fortification the nest was dead, and Applejack trotted out of the burning barricade and into open ground.

Big Mac and Braeburn took their time to reach her (they had to go around the gun nest, not wanting to walk through the flames), and by the time they caught up Applejack had reached a Company gun line and was already talking to a Captain.

"How many more buildin's need to be cleared? We've been at this since sun-up!" Applejack complained up at the man, her hat tilting low over the red lenses of her helmet visor.

"The problem isn't the building garrisons!" the Captain retorted, shouting to be heard over the sound of the heavy stubbers firing behind him. "They can't defend those buildings forever, especially with our artillery support! The PROBLEM is the Skullhammer tank in the town square!"

"Skullhammer? Hah! Why, Ah used to take down two o'those a night in the Rotten Apple Saloon! Three on a good day!" Braeburn laughed, and Applejack groaned.

"What the hay's a 'Skullhammer', and what's it gonna take to put it down?" Applejack asked.

"A Skullhammer is an Ork super-heavy armored attack vehicle. A lot like our baneblade, mostly on account of them being built from our baneblade wrecks and parts," the officer explained, clutching his Chaos Star amulet in his hand, "it pushed out all of the attack teams that had reached the town center and gave the Orks time to take the buildings while we regrouped."

"Oh, hey! The Rotten Apple's still in one piece!" Braeburn said, pointing to the boarded-up tavern across the street. "First round's on me after we clean this place up, cuz!"

"Rainbow... BUSTER!!" came a vox-amplified shout from above, and Braeburn blinked as a rainbow-colored wave pulsed through the air.

"Down! GET DOWN!!" the soldiers at the barricade screamed before a large warkopta hurtled out of control over the street, trailing flame and bits of debris from the rear section of the craft.

Braeburn's ears fell flat as the aerial transport smashed through the front of the Rotten Apple, breaking apart in the impact and spilling burning fuel and Ork corpses into the structure. A moment later its one functional rotor burst out the back of the tavern, wedging itself deep into the outhouse in the rear lot.

"Awwww..." the frontier stallion morosely pulled his hat down and held it over his chest in a silent prayer for his favorite watering hole.

Applejack growled before she brought up her list of squad contacts and linked up her vox.

"DASH! Watch where yer dropping them things, would ya?! Ya could hurt somepony!"

"Sorry, sorry! It isn't easy to line that move up right when you're flying through a cloud of bullets and fire, you know!" Rainbow Dash replied. "Can we talk about this later? I'm trying to lead these jerks over to the AA guns!"

A moment later two fighta-bommas screamed overhead in pursuit of the armored pegasus, and Applejack shook her head.

"All right, back to business," she said as the Captain pushed up into a crouch, "what's the plan to take down this big galoot?"

"The Eclipse has been unleashed," the officer said, "ETA twenty-two minutes."

"Yeah, that'll do 'er," Applejack smirked behind her helmet, "what do we do in the meantime?"

"We're going to keep the garrisoned buildings locked down as the Iron Warriors and artillery clear them!" the Captain shouted. "As for you, can you get a fix on Twilight Sparkle?"

Applejack selected the proper locator rune and nodded.

"Good! When we were withdrawing from the square she was helping cover us! We lost contact after some Ork walkers scattered the platoon!" He pointed toward a burning lodge near the center of town. "Take your flamboyantly gay relative and head down the east side to back her up! And watch yourself! The place is lousy with Kans!"

"Got it! Keep them greens down, cowboy!" Applejack said as she trotted off.

Big Mac and Braeburn followed after her through the pall of gunsmoke, although the latter glared back at the human officer as he did so.

"Well, ain't he rude as a rattler on Monday morning!" Braeburn said indignantly. Then he gave Big Mac a gentle, brotherly pat on his shoulder plate. "Don't let him get to ya, cuz. Ah don't think yer flamboyant at all!"

Big Macintosh hesitated for a moment, decided to say nothing, and then continued after his sister.

Applejack set a count-down timer on her visor display as she headed toward her new objective.

"All right Apples, stay sharp. We don't want no surprises out here," she said while she scanned over the nearest buildings. Numerous hostiles appeared on her display, but almost all of them were concentrating on the firefights with the human and post-human soldiers on the streets, leaving the rear of their garrisons undefended.

It was tempting to simply burst into the nearest one and start burning away, but Applejack knew she didn't want to draw too much attention; it would be too easy to be surrounded and overwhelmed with only two ponies by her side.

"Honestly, if anythin', Ah think ya come off as a little TOO masculine. Some stallions that're 'that way' probably find it intimidating, ya know?"

"......"

Applejack grimaced when she spotted a pair of gretchin sneaking through a path between two buildings while carrying a barrel of apples.

"Braeburn!" she snapped.

In an instant, her cousin brought up his lasgun and blasted one of the puny laborers, leaving its partner to squeal angrily as the barrel was suddenly too heavy to carry.

"Daggone Orks're bad enough as big, burly killers," Applejack spat, planting a boot on the apple barrel, "did they really need a special kind of greenskin fer sneakin' around and stealin' stuff, too?" She shifted her weight onto the barrel, squashing the helpless alien underneath.

"Ah dunno, Cuz. Rather deal with them puny varmints than the big, gun-totin' sort," Braeburn confessed. His ear twitched at the sound of a wall coming down somewhere in the building next to them. "Speakin' o'which, didn't yer friend back there say somethin' about 'kans'? Dunno what those are, but if they've got them apes worried, then Ah sure don't wanna meet one!"

"Kans're just the Ork walkers," Applejack explained, "dang things look like they're built outta spit and old horseshoes, but them guns and claws they got work jus' fine."

Another wall broke down in the building next to them, and the Apple ponies froze so that they could more easily pick up the hissing of steam pistons and the heavy, clanking footsteps from within.

"Aw, horseapples," Applejack groaned.

Braeburn yelped as the wall behind him exploded outward, and he scrambled away before a rusty buzzsaw blade swiped wildly through the cloud of shattered timbers.

"Run!" Applejack barked, suiting actions to words before the Kan started spraying bullets wildly into the air.

The stallions didn't need to be told twice, and they galloped ahead of the snapping claws and blazing shootas.

"Whassa matta, hosses?" cackled a voice echoing from within the walker's hull. "Git ovah heah 'n fight me!"

"Keep movin'!" Applejack shouted as bullets sawed across the ground next to her. "Either it'll get distracted an' break off, or we'll find Twi an' she can put it down!"

A rokkit shot out of the alley ahead of her, nearly causing Applejack to stumble as it corkscrewed through the air and exploded against an abandoned wagon.

The fate of the projectile was much less interesting to the ponies than what had fired it, however. Another Killa Kan stomped out from behind a bank, its rokkit launchas smoldering and sparks sputtering from a breach in its rear plating.

"Or maybe we'll jus' keep runnin' into more of 'em!" Braeburn griped before he skidded to a stop, ducking behind Big Macintosh. "Where to now?"

Applejack was still working that out as she backed away from the new walker, only to stop short when she realized something. The second Kan wasn't turning toward her or even trying to get in a passing shot as it clanked by. Turning toward the alley it had sprinted out of, she caught a flash of color through the dust and oily exhaust smoke.

"Over here!" Applejack shouted, bolting toward a stack of crates piled up next to the bank.

Neither of her relatives hesitated to follow her lead, although both of them were curious as to how a pile of wooden boxes might protect them from the claws and saws of the assault walkers.

They got their answer when a series of shots pounded into the back of the second Kan, blowing out its hip assembly and staggering it. The Killa Kan that had been chasing the ponies halted immediately, and then began a stuttering run toward its comrade.

"PARTY TIIIIIME!!" The gleeful bellow was needlessly amplified by a pair of oversized vox casters as a bright pink shape stomped out of the alley.

Pinkie Pie fired another blast from her autocannons, knocking the enemy vehicle flat on its front before she charged.

The Dreadnought's thunder hammer descended upon the hapless Kan, and its power field released a crack much like its namesake as the Ork walker's hull folded in and the pilot was reduced to mush.

The other opponent hadn't been idle while watching its brother being executed, however, and as Pinkie Pie pulled away from the wreckage there was already a pneumatic claw reaching for her walker.

The Killa Kan suddenly jerked back, and the claw missed its target at the last moment.

The Kan swung its saw and powered claw furiously at the pink Dreadnought, trying to step forward into melee range. It couldn't manage to make its way forward, however, and Pinkie started laughing as the Kan's heavy footsteps started digging furrows into the ground.

"Pinkie! Stop yer guffawing and kill the dang thing!" Applejack yelled. She had latched her gravity lash onto the Killa Kan while Big Mac had likewise attached his magnetic harpoon, and the Apple siblings were straining to hold the walker back as it swiped uselessly at Pinkie's Dreadnought shell.

"Okay! Okay! I'm good!" She giggled through the oversized helmet before lining up her twin-linked autocannon, loosing a salvo at almost point-blank range into the kan's sensory visor.

Pinkie fired several more rounds into the Ork walker, blasting out chunks of flaming metal out the back before it stopped struggling. Then she tapped the shredded machine with her thunder hammer, watching in satisfaction while it tilted over onto its back.

"Hey Apples! How's it hangin'?" Pinkie asked the other earth ponies, snickering afterwards.

"Er... Miss Pie? That you?" Braeburn asked as he looked over the pink walker. The cutie mark emblem on the arm holding the thunder hammer was a good indication, as was the helmet; it was shaped like a power armor helm, but had a large, poofy pink frill on top of it.

"Yupperoonie! You okay, maybe-cousin?" the pink mare asked, stomping over to Braeburn and looming over him.

"Oh, well... been better, t'be honest," the stallion admitted, pulling off his hat and wiping his brow, "all the fightin' and watchin' mah home town burnin' down can be pretty hard on a guy, y'know?"

"Agreed," Applejack interjected, "so we best get a move on and keep the greens from wreckin' any more of it! Check that out!"

Applejack pointed to the sky, where a pair of fiery streaks were descending toward the ground. "Drop rigs. On Gaela's beacon signum. We gotta go back 'em up!"

"You got it, Jackie!" Pinkie said cheerfully, staring up at the sky. Then she noticed something else moving across the sky. "Hey, is it just me, or is the moon moving REALLY fast right now?"

Braeburn squinted upward, trying to see past the pall of smoke, but Applejack and Big Macintosh started heading onward.

"Yeah, it is," Applejack confirmed, "we got an Eclipse comin' in about fifteen. C'mon."

"Yay!" Pinkie Pie followed happily, her ammo hoppers clunking loudly as they reloaded the autocannons.

Braeburn frowned, scrunching up his muzzle before following the others. "... Eclipse?"

****

"Incoming, incoming, INCOMING!!"

"YES, Rarity, I see it! THANK YOU!"

The force harmonizer flickered into shield mode and then hovered over the ponies like an umbrella as Twilight grumbled impolite things into her vox grille.

A few seconds later a large bomb - being improbably ridden by a delirious grot - slammed into the barrier, causing the web of blue energy to shudder under the impact and sink almost a foot lower to the ground.

It held, though, and Twilight grunted before she spotted two more projectiles dipping into tall arcs overhead.

"Twilight!" Rarity shouted while her plasma gun fired a hail of blistering energy bolts into the Orks surrounding them.

"I see them!" Twilight snapped. "I told you guys it was a bad idea to call in the quad guns! Now every Ork in town knows we're here!"

On the other side of Twilight and Rarity, two quad gun emplacements and two dozen mercenaries were stitching fire into the sky and into a group of Flashgits trying to advance up the street between garrisoned buildings. No less than four Killa Kan wrecks served as cover for the group of fighters, and atop these heaps of scrap metal another armored unicorn summoned and expended munitions at a dizzying pace. Swarms of bolt rounds and buckets' worth of grenades were flung at the barricaded homes around them, dispensing firepower in a manner very conspicuously similar to that of their opponents. Every dozen seconds or so Fluttershy would flicker into view, shoot a photon grenade into a window, and then vanish again before angry shouts and wild gunfire poured from the afflicted buildings.

Trixie growled as a dozen boltguns dropped to the ground around her, and her horn casing and hat started to glow. "And Trixie told YOU that this would be easy if you would just let Trixie light the buildings on fire!" Her wizard hat stretched and expanded, and a heavy bolter popped out with an ammunition belt hanging from its bullet feed.

Twilight's shield flickered and crackled under the impact of the grot bombs, and the alicorn grit her teeth. "We're trying to SAVE this town, Trixie! Not destroy it faster than the Orks can!"

Fluttershy de-cloaked, mumbled something about not fighting each other while also fighting the enemy, lobbed another photon grenade, and then immediately re-cloaked.

"What does it matter?!" the performer demanded while the next heavy bolter popped out of her hat. "It's already been evacuated! There's nopony to hurt except for the Orks and us!" Once she had three heavy bolters hovering in front of her, she aimed them in the direction of a stubborn nest of shootas and telekinetically held the triggers down, spitting a veritable rain of heavy bolts into the walls.

"To be fair, starting several large fires may bring harm to us, as well!" Gaela shouted to be heard over the roar of the heavy bolters and the staccato thunder of the quad gun she was mounting. "Nearly all of the battlefield debris, intact dwellings, and available cover is flammable, and our line of retreat is already limited!"

"Well, fine! At least give Trixie a real reason to care rather than pretending anypony is going to want to live here again after we're done turning it into an Ork graveyard!" The heavy bolters trembled powerfully in the grip of her magic before they expended the last of their munitions, and then all three clicked empty. "Did Trixie get them?"

A shoota boy stood up in front of a window a moment later, and promptly had his face vaporized by a plasma bolt.

"No, Trixie, you did not," Rarity said tersely, "honestly, at the rate you're going through weapons, we'll be able to build a whole new barricade out of empty boltguns."

"Oh, hey! That's a great idea!" the showmare said, moving the expended heavy bolters to block some of the holes in her cover.

Twilight stared up into the sky as the firefight raged in front of her, finding no more incoming artillery. She hooked up her vox to a proximity channel.

"Did someone knock out the Ork artillery position? We're seeing a sudden drop in enemy ordnance!"

After a moment of crackling static, a deep, rumbling voice answered her.

"I think those were the Stealth Suits. We have some Tau support in the area. That Skullhammer tank is still causing us problems, though. General Gnoss wants it removed before we advance into the heart of the settlement and eliminate the Warboss."

Twilight looked up at the mid-afternoon sky, noting that the moon was present and visibly moving. "I think that will be taken care of soon."

"Then work on clearing the buildings and eliminating the enemy walkers. It's just a matter of time, now."

Twilight nodded to herself as she let the harmonizer fall out of shield mode, and then she looked toward the buildings across the street. Each one released intermittent flashes of muzzle flare from windows and doorways, along with the odd rokkit that usually spiraled off into nowhere.

The buildings held dozens of Orks, and although the weight of fire from the ponies and the human fighters that were stuck with them was keeping much of the enemy firepower suppressed, they weren't whittling down the aliens' numbers much. How best to clear them out with minimal casualties and damage?

Then she spotted a gout of rising flame through one of the shattered windows, and she realized that one of the homes was on fire on the first floor.

"Trixie! I thought I told you not to light any more buildings on fire!" Twilight complained.

"And Trixie didn't!" the unicorn mare shot back while she levitated a pair of grenade belts into nearby windows. "Leave Trixie out of this!"

Fluttershy de-cloaked, mumbled something about reinforcements, fired a photon grenade into a window, and then re-cloaked again.

Then a second-story wall of the burning home exploded outward, and a shoota boy went flying out into the street.

Twilight glimpsed some shining metal behind the cloud of debris, and then quickly checked her locator runes.

"Applejack! Pinkie Pie! You made it!"

"Darn tootin'!" the farmer replied over the vox. "The train station's cleared an' the last of the refugees are gettin' on outta here!"

Pinkie's Dreadnought stomped out from between the buildings and waved, apparently oblivious to the shoota fire coming from the houses on either side. "We're baaaaack!"

"Good! We've got about eight minutes until the Eclipse!"

"Ah hear that! We'll be with ya after we evict these here green squatters!"

Another Ork crashed through the wall, flailing helplessly through the air before landing on the street in a heap. Pinkie Pie turned toward a different building and looked ready to tear into it, but then the walker froze.

"Knee jerk, ear flick!" she shouted, and then redoubled her speed away from the garrisons.

A triumphant shout from the mercenary manning one of the quad guns brought Twilight's attention upward, and her eyes widened as she saw a Dakka Jet beginning a death spiral while trailing fire and scrap behind it.

"Applejack, Pinkie, incoming! Plane!"

"What? Ah doubt a plane can shoot me in here, suga-"

The damaged jet, thankfully, hit the next garrison over rather than the building Applejack was clearing out, utterly squashing the home and presumably all the boyz inside it before detonating. The explosion tore out the adjacent walls of the buildings on either side, and Twilight cringed as both other houses slowly collapsed.

"Applejack! Applejack, do you read me?"

****

"Yeah, okay, Ah hear ya. Cripes, Twi, stop shoutin'," Applejack grunted.

Her visor was a mess of data displays over a field of darkness, no doubt due to her being completely buried.

The experience of being trapped under hundreds of pounds of burning timber and wreckage was decidedly undramatic within terminator armor. Applejack couldn't feel any particular pressure from above, her suit temperature was stable, and her oxygen levels were plentiful should her flow of air be blocked off completely.

That said, she was still trapped. Applejack tried to move her legs and push forward, but the debris around her merely shifted around her boots, and she sunk a few inches instead. Her head was stuck in place, with the long, curved tusks of her helmet wedged in the rubble.

At least her visor and vox system was working. That way if she had to sit out the rest of the battle waiting for someone to dig her up, she could still talk to someone while she waited.

Then she spotted a sliver of light on the edge of her visor display, and heard the crack and groan of the debris above her shifting. Apparently she wouldn't have time to strike up a conversation after all.

A resonant CLANG echoed in Applejack's ears as a magnetic tow cable attached to the top of her armor, and soon afterward she felt herself being dragged upward.

Big Mac grunted while he pushed his way forward, away from the pile of burning wood - and a fair bit of warplane - that pinned down his sister. The effort required to tow her free far exceeded the strength of his power armor alone, and the draft pony's muscles strained along with the armor's microservos as his boots dug deep furrows into the dirt.

The debris parted and crumbled before his strength, and soon Applejack's armored form was squirming to right itself on the ground.

"Ya all right, cuz?" Braeburn asked, although he chuckled a bit. "Yer takin' quite a beatin' today, aintcha?" The frontier stallion was holding his hat in his hooves and dusting it off best he could.

"Like Ah said: ya worry 'bout yerself, Brae," Applejack snorted as she righted herself. Big Mac's magnetic harpoon detached from her armor, and she looked over to him. "Thanks, Mac. Ah was worried you two got buried too."

Braeburn shook his head. "We skee-daddled outta there soon as you lit up the place. Not all of us're fireproof, ya know." Then his eyes narrowed. "Wait... how's yer hat STILL okay?"

An explosion cut the conversation short, causing all the ponies to flinch and scramble for cover as another nearby structure shuddered and collapsed. That shot had been LOUD, and far closer than any of them were comfortable with.

Braeburn's jaw dropped as he peeked over a stack of crates. Lumbering through the smoke and dust was a tank painted bright yellow. A BIG tank. It was bigger than most buildings, and sported a ridiculous number of turrets that pointed in every conceivable direction. A pair of Killa Kans walked alongside the behemoth in escort, but the walkers looked positively laughable next to the super-heavy vehicle.

"Ah'm guessin' that there is that 'Skullhammer' that has the apes all riled?" Braeburn gulped, ducking his head down behind the crates.

"Unless they got more'n one monster tank 'round here!" Applejack shouted, trying to keep her larger and considerably more visible form hidden out of sight. "Which could actually be the case with Orks, but Ah'd rather not dwell on that!"

"Eeyup!" Big Mac agreed.

"What're we gonna do, Cuz?" Braeburn hissed, feeling the vibrations that the tank made through the ground.

"We ain't gonna do nothin'. We got an Eclipse comin'," Applejack insisted.

Braeburn frowned. "What're y'all talkin' about? Whaddya mean 'eclipse'?"

"Aw, c'mon Braeburn! Ya don' know what an eclipse is?"

"Of course Ah know what an eclipse is! But ya can't mean a real..." the stallion trailed off as he glanced to the side, noting that there was a vast shadow moving over the ground. Looking up, he could see that the moon was, indeed, moving in front of the sun as per the definition of an eclipse.

"Oh-kay... Ah still don' see how this helps us, 'sides maybe makin' us harder to see," Braeburn mumbled.

"Just you wait, Cousin..."

As the moon's shadow stretched over the town, much of the gunfire started to slacken. The Orks were generally confused by the onset of darkness in mid-day, while the 38th Company were preparing for fresh assaults and combat sweeps.

The Skullhammer battle fortress merely turned on its floodlights after the Eclipse engulfed it, its turrets twitching back and forth in search of something to destroy.

Very few of the Orks actually observed the moon's final movement to block out the sun completely, but if they had, even the relatively dull warriors would have found it strange how the lunar satellite slowed its rapid movement to a bare crawl as it moved into place.

And then, when it reached its apex and shrouded Centaur III in darkness, it stopped.

Almost instantly, great columns of bats burst into the air all around Appleloosa in a black, squealing swarm. This didn't especially unsettle the Ork warriors, although Braeburn was quite surprised; bats weren't very common in this region of Equestria.

He was even more surprised when a flare of blue fire appeared in the middle of town, right in front of the Ork Skullhammer.

The flames rose and then fell, leaving behind an equine figure resplendent in ebony and gold, with glimmering crystal wings spread behind it. A pool of glittering starlight floated behind the armored body, flowing gently in a breeze completely at odds with the actual flow of wind across the battlefield. The metallic color scheme served to emphasize the glaring cracks and spots of blazing red in the armor suit: two eyes in the helmet, two more in the Iron Skull on the chest, and the pulsing veins that seeped from the extensive horn plating and daemon core. Two large, black mechanical hands clutched the shoulder pads at first, but then released the rounded plates to float at the dark figure's sides.

It was the single most terrifyingly beautiful thing Braeburn had ever seen.

"Sweet mother of Celestia," the frontier stallion breathed.

"Naw, that ain't her mom," Applejack chuckled, "close, though."

The Skullhammer operators also took a few moments to appreciate the figure that had appeared directly in front of it, but they were far less impressed.

"WAAAAAGH!!" the battlecry of the green horde echoed from the massive assault vehicle as it aimed every cannon with a frontal arc right at this new combatant. A moment later it fired its salvo, releasing a shock of noise that rattled Braeburn's teeth.

From beneath the mask of daemon-energized iron, Luna's eyes flashed.

A pulse of bloody red blasted forward, and every one of the shells and bullets froze still in the air.

They were released to gravity an instant later, and the munitions tumbled to the ground, exploding uselessly and kicking up great plumes of dirt. The Skullhammer's automatic weapons, as well as the shootas on the killa kans, continued to pour bullets at the alicorn after the kinetic pulse passed, but what few shots reached Luna's armor bounced off like hot rain as she took to the air.

"DARKNESS TAKE THEE, ALIEN!!" Luna shouted, her voice blasting away part of the dust cloud on its own while the Iron Gage took aim. Each gauntlet was held upright, fingers bent, with the palm facing a different Killa Kan.

A lance of crimson blasted from each of them, spearing into the alien walkers.

One was lanced through entirely, and chunks of the pilot were pushed out the back along with bits of the clanking mech's engine, with little to distinguish one from the other.

The other Kan was marginally more lucky, and merely had its leg torn off. It collapsed onto the ground, immobilized but still active.

The massive gun on the Skullhammer's main turret fired again, but with Luna in full flight, the shot missed her without any intervention this time around.

Luna alighted on the front hull, ducking her head when the main cannon tried to sweep to the side and knock her off her perch.

The Iron Gage floated around the main turret and grabbed onto the base. The thick, dark fingers crackled with power, digging into the seams and gaps between plating, and as Luna concentrated the gauntlets began to pull.

The hull emitted a deep, echoing groan at first, and then the shriek of tearing metal as the outermost seals broke. The turret began to tilt upward, and a long chain of stretched bolts started popping free one by one all around the mounting.

After a final creak of protest, the Iron Gage broke the turret completely off, and Luna calmly lifted the hulk of armor and ordnance over the still-living killa kan before dropping it on the helpless machine. The Skullhammer's main gunner, now missing most of his instruments and staring into the blood-red eyes of Luna's visor, couldn't help but look impressed even as he drew his slugga.

A casual backhand from the Iron Gage removed the Ork's upper torso from the rest of him, and then the other gauntlet gingerly plucked the corpse from the crew pit before flinging it away.

Then Luna stepped up to the new hole in the top of the hull, beckoning the Iron Gage inside. The powered gauntlets descended into the mighty tank, and as angry shouting emanated from within, she lowered her head to follow.

"... Ahright, Cuz, Ah'll admit it," Braeburn said as he adjusted his hat, "that was pretty good."

Then he squinted up at the moon, which still blocked the sun's light from the battlefield far below. "Don' really see why the Princess has to do the whole 'Eclipse' thing jus' to show up and clobber some greenies, though."

"Oh, she doesn't," Applejack admitted, "she kinda has a flair fer the dramatic, s'all."

A bright red alert flashed over her visor, and Applejack lowered her head before a priority transmission opened up.

"This is General Gnoss. The Ork heavy support has been crippled, and additional reserves have been released. The enemy is surrounded, and cut off. All units, close to engagement range and commence assault. Notify command upon sighting the enemy leader; the Warboss has not yet been located. That is all. In the name of Chaos and the daemon Primarch, purge the greenskins."

"Welp, we got marchin' orders," Applejack said as flickering sparks wafted from her heavy flamer, "you keep behind us, Brae."

"Ya don' need to tell me twice! Let's get 'em, Cuz!"

****

The Skullhammer battle fortress shuddered as its crew fell silent, and one by one the guns stopped moving. The tank's headlights flickered, and then went dark.

For a minute, all was still.

Then the access ramp to the Skullhammer's carrying compartment blasted off of the vehicle and Luna sauntered out onto the dirt.

Streaks of blood adorned the pony's daemon armor, and one gauntlet followed ahead of her on guard for potential threats. The other half of the Iron Gage was dragging along an Ork behind her. The Ork was wearing a fully stocked tool belt and had a bionic left eye, and had evidently put up a fight before being subdued; his right arm was missing, and still bleeding.

"Zoggin' hosses don' git ta mess wit me!" the Ork Mek shouted, no less belligerent for the loss of an arm. "Don' yous know hoo I am?!"

Luna let the Iron Gage carry her catch forward, so that the alien dangled in front of her while she walked.

"Thou art one of the Ork engineering class, the so-called 'Meks'," she said with an air of indifference, "this is why We hast decided to make a prisoner out of thee, as the Company values hostages of rank and knowledge." Then she snorted through the vox grille. "Aside from that, thou art hardly any different from the other thousand green-skinned barbarians that infest our land."

The Ork hung in the air silently for a few seconds, then pointed his remaining hand at the Princess.

"Dat's raysist."

Luna rolled her eyes. Then a shock of electricity surged through the Iron Gage, and she discarded the stunned Mek onto the ground like a piece of trash.

The darkened battlefield was alight with gunfire now while the Company troops made their push, and the flash of automatic weapons fire could be seen from many windows as the aliens sought to fight off the advancing humans. The occasional shoota burst was loosed in Luna's general direction as she strolled across the blasted earth, but it was characteristically inaccurate and little real threat.

The beat of powerful, leathery wings alerted her to one of her Lunar Guard approaching, and she turned her head.

"Lieutenant Dusk Blade. Report," she commanded.

The batpony was wearing a combat suit of black polyceramic plates, as well as a ballistics visor and headset. His right foreleg was hooked into a ballistics harness, and an alien splinter rifle was loaded into it.

"Princess, the Orks are stretched thin by now, but we have not yet located the commander," Dusk confessed, "the Guard waits in the shadows for your order. We would be of limited use assaulting the garrisons."

A string of big shoota shots stitched over the ground and over the alicorn Princess, and Dusk flinched away as several bullets pelted her side.

Luna frowned slightly, and then summoned a small barrier to enclose her and her Lieutenant; her armor was all but invulnerable to such weapons, but Dusk Blade wouldn't fare so well.

"Where art the enemy strongest? Hath they no armored strength remaining?" Although Luna was fully capable of tearing into a barricaded home and killing Orks one-by-one, she preferred more formidable targets.

"Very little, my Princess. Until the Warboss is located, we have only the garrisons to deal with. And we need to hurry, before enemy reinforcements arrive."

Luna tilted her head slightly. "Reinforcements? From whence do they come?"

"The orbital remnants. There's another Landa incoming, according to Command."

The Princess of the Night smiled. "That shalt do nicely. Dusk Blade, We bid thee to command the Lunar Guard to wait in ambush for the foe, as the Orks shalt soon abandon the town and make for the hills to escape the Iron Warriors. No Ork is to survive the attempt."

Dusk bowed low. "Of course, my Princess."

Luna looked up into the sky, still cast into darkness by the interference of her satellite against the sun. After a few seconds, her visor system uploaded the data from the auger network, and a small red box outlined the distant landing craft.

"We go now, to deny the foe further aid!" Luna launched into the air, and then rapidly ascended on a trail of shimmering blue.

****

Twilight fired the force harmonizer into a few broken-down carriages, carving through the feeble wooden vehicles and killing two Orks that had been sheltering behind them.

Gaela's ion blaster sought out the remainder of the mob as its cover collapsed, firing pulses of crackling white in quick succession. As two more Orks died the remainder started running, and Gaela's servo-mounted lasers speared another in the back.

Pinkie Pie cheered happily as she stomped after the fleeing warriors, crushing errant debris and abandoned carts underfoot.

On either side of their advance, the houses and businesses of Appleloosa were filled with the sounds of lasguns, shootas, chainswords, and bolters, as well as the occasional bout of maniacal laughter. Windows shattered, walls blasted outward, and many more homes were set ablaze while the 38th Company set to removing the alien invaders, and Twilight had to admit that Trixie was probably right about whether they could salvage the town.

"Kan incoming!" barked an Iron Warrior on the right, pressing a shoulder to a wall as a spotlight flashed across the street.

"Kan opener, moving out!" Pinkie chirped before she surged ahead toward the sound of heavy, clanking footsteps.

The road forked ahead, and as Pinkie Pie headed down one path Twilight brought up the local area map.

"Where are we headed next, darling?" Rarity asked, she ducking in next to the alicorn. "This is just about over, isn't it?"

Twilight nodded. "I think so. Let's head toward the orchard and meet up with the armor spearhead. Then-"

"TWI!" Applejack's voice burst onto Twilight and Rarity's vox systems, causing both mares to flinch. "We gotta sitcha'ation here!"

Twilight turned in the direction of Applejack's locator rune. "What kind of situation?" She couldn't see her farmer friend due to an apple distillery in the way, but there was plenty of noise coming from that direction.

"Ah think we found the Warboss!" Applejack shouted anxiously. "Or more like, he found us! Awful lot of them big, armored fellas, too! Gettin' a little rough over here!"

An explosion lit up the back of the distillery, and Twilight set her jaw. Then her flight pack spread out to her sides, lifting her off the ground.

"We're coming, Applejack! Just hold-"

"Wait," said a voice from behind before a boot bumped against her leg.

Twilight hesitated, and as she turned back she saw that Trixie was beckoning to her.

"Let's be smart about this. The Great and Powerful Trixie has a brilliant and cunning idea."

****

"Consarn Nobs! Back off, already!" Applejack shouted, her flamer creating a wall of fire in front of her. Half a dozen Iron Warriors stood with her and her relatives, as well as some twenty human soldiers taking up the garrison in the distillery, but their combined fire seemed to take a paltry toll on the mega-armored Orks gathered in the lot. The ground was a churned mess of mud thanks to numerous cider barrels breaking open, to say nothing of the considerable amount of blood soaking the dirt.

In the midst of the carnage, a truly tremendous Ork in mega armor held up a partially dismembered Iron Warrior, laughing as his power klaw slowly bit through the power armor and into the gene-enhanced flesh and bone underneath.

"You've lost, xeno filth!" the Chaos Marine snarled through the blood in his mouth. "Your army is broken! Soon you too shall be mere fodder for the dark powers!"

"Afta yoo," the Warboss snickered. Then his klaw let out a blast of steam, and the powered talons crushed the Iron Warrior to a pulp.

Warboss Blud Barin flung the carcass into the mud, laughing as a wave of red and brown spattered his leg plating. Then he fired his kustom blasta into the unit of stubbornly resisting Chaos Marines, unleashing a ray of hot orange over their heads. The shot missed, but even so the power-armored warriors started backing up, giving more ground to his Nobs.

"Kill da humies!" the Warboss exulted, firing again and again while his klaw snapped in the air. "Kill da spikies! Kill da hosses! Kill everfin' yous gits find, and den stomp on da ashes! WAAAA-"

A bolt of red stabbed into Blud's cheek, cutting off his warcry prematurely as the massive Ork jerked back. Several of the Nobs quickly turned to see what had happened, and they were treated to the sight of their leader blinking in shock, a black scar cutting across his face.

"Did Ah git 'im?" Braeburn asked, peeking his head over a cider barrel.

The enraged Ork roar that answered him staggered the Nobs, shook the Chaos Marines, and blew the hat straight off of Braeburn's head.

"Eeyup," Big Mac answered, wincing beneath the sheer volume of the bellow.

Braeburn's eyes widened as the Warboss began an all-out sprint straight toward him, bowling over the Nobs that were in his way.

The stallion promptly sprinted in the other direction, only to flinch to a halt as a bolt of orange blew past him and burned a hole into the side of the distillery.

"Brae! Keep movin'!" Applejack shouted as she and Big Mac rushed to intercept the Ork. "We'll handle-"

The Warboss that she had intended to "handle" swatted the mare aside, knocking her right off her feet and sending her crashing into Big Macintosh. The siblings were sent flailing into the mud.

Braeburn leapt away before the power klaw snipped at his legs, and then scrambled toward the hole in the distillery wall.

Blud Barin lifted up his klaw and then slammed it into the ground, discharging its power field at full force. The shock wave ripped open more of the wall and knocked Braeburn right off his feet, sending him crashing into a crate of apples.

Blud stood up slowly, his blasta humming malevolently as it pointed at the trembling stallion.

Braeburn gulped as his life flashed before his eyes.

"Last words, hossy," the Warboss growled while his blasta's exhaust ports bled hot gas, "make 'em gud."

Braeburn tried to search his mind for something clever or commendable to say in response, but as his life finished flashing back he was struck by a sudden epiphany.

"Hey, wait a sec! That guy was callin' ME gay!" the stallion complained, his eyes narrowing.

Blud blinked. "Say wut?"

"Hold it right there, Ork!" a new voice shouted. "I'm talking to you! The big, ugly one!"

Warboss Blud, as well as several of the Nobs, turned their heads to look at the source of the voice, and much of the fighting came to a complete halt. Oddly enough, the shout had come from the center of the mud-drenched yard, right in the middle of Blud's mega-armored retinue.

Twilight stood in the center of the warriors, her helmet hovering over her head along with the force harmonizer.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I challenge you to single combat!" the alicorn declared, grinning while the harmonizer flashed and shifted into blade mode. "What do you say, ugly? Do you have the chutzpah to tangle with a PRINCESS?"

Blud's answer was concise and direct: he turned his blasta back around and released the charged shot at the loud, purple pony.

The Nobs flinched away as a huge orange spear of energy slashed through the yard, instantly baking most of the mud beneath their feet and burning a trench under the new pony's hooves.

It did not, however, seem to adversely affect the pony herself, and Twilight continued smiling even while the dirt underneath her burned.

Blud glanced down at the alicorn's hooves, and a hot snort came from his nostrils. "Dat wun'z a FAYK! Ignohr it!" Now that there was a trench underneath the pony, Blud could see that it was actually floating in place. Just a trick.

"NOW! Attack!"

The order had come from multiple directions and individuals, and when the Nobs turned around they found themselves facing four times as many opponents as before. Iron Warriors dashed out from the alleyways, boltguns roaring, alongside a Dark Techpriest spewing lasers and ion bolts. Mercenaries rose to the windows of the adjacent buildings, lasguns at the ready, along with a suspiciously floating plasma gun. Batponies of the Lunar Guard landed in groups of a half-dozen upon the rooftops, their optics glittering as they took aim with their splinter rifles. The shimmering appearance of two teams of Stealth Suits behind the Nobs revealed an aspect of this engagement that the Orks hadn't even been aware of, generating even more confusion and dread as the burst cannons warmed up and opened fire.

As if that wasn't bad enough, many of the Orks suddenly found themselves blinded after a photon grenade exploded on one side of the ring of mega armor, denying those Nobs their sight before they were swallowed by a deadly crossfire.

Blud Barin howled with rage as he watched his best soldiers cut down by the relentless barrage, their armor being blasted and burnt around them.

He glanced back at the pony he had been advancing on, only to catch sight of its squirming hind legs tumbling out a window. Forget that puny thing, he decided. There was a real fight now.

A shot from his blasta wiped out the nearest Iron Warrior, and then the Warboss charged into his squad-mates, knocking the power-armored giants aside like bowling pins. His klaw snipped one of the super-soldiers in half, and then slammed down on another, pulverizing the warrior instantly.

A purple flash came from behind the Warboss as the rest of the Chaos Marines fled, and Blud heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Hey, Ork! I said I wanted a duel!" Twilight yelled, her harmonizer blade humming.

Blud snorted and fired his blasta at the retreating Marines, but a spray of splinter rifle shots from above hit an exposed spot on his arm as he fired. Searing pain exploded through his nerves, and the shot went wide, dissipating into the darkness.

"Are you ignoring me?" the pony behind him demanded.

Blud roared again, and the batponies on the roof flinched back and shuddered as the horrible noise assaulted their sensitive ears.

"You ARE ignoring me, aren't you? Good."

Then something stabbed into his klaw arm.

Blud Barin had already emptied his lungs screaming at the batponies, so there was little he could do except gurgle pitifully as the not-at-all-hololithic force harmonizer carved through his elbow and cut away his melee weapon.

Blud swung his blasta around like a club as he turned around, but in his pain and fury he aimed too high; the gun barely scraped Twilight's flight pack.

Twilight plunged the harmonizer blade into Blud's shoulder, forcing it in deeply while the enormous Ork gasped.

Then a purple bolt of force shot out of the pony's horn casing like a cannon shot, and the Warboss was thrown onto his back with a deep dent in his chest plate.

Twilight telekinetically yanked the harmonizer blade out of her opponent before she jumped onto his chest, and her blood-red visor lenses shifted downward to meet with the Ork's dim carmine eyes.

"Welcome to Equestria," the Princess said, floating the crystalline blade over the Ork's face, "love and tolerate."

The blade dropped.

****

Five minutes later

"So, uh... Ah know ya said to worry 'bout mahself, and Ah must be gettin' on yer nerves askin' this over an' over, but... ya okay, Cuz?" Braeburn asked.

Applejack's eyes fluttered open as the colors and noises around her slowly organized themselves into coherent images and sounds in her head. Her throbbing, throbbing head.

"Anypony git the number o'that battlewagon?" she moaned. She could feel a dampness on her cheek and forehead, so she was almost certainly bleeding.

"It's all right, Applejack. You're going to be fine." Fluttershy's face suddenly appeared in front of her, smiling in relief. "The power field discharge broke your helmet apart, but the carapace took almost all of the force. You just hit your head against Big Mac's armor after that, which is why you're probably feeling rattled."

"Oh, that all?" Applejack said, smiling as her senses continued returning to her. "Hope Ah didn't leave a dent."

"Almost," Big Mac said, chuckling.

The stallion started pushing her up and Applejack got to her hooves unsteadily, her armor squealing a bit in protest. Her helmet was indeed gone, and she could see shards of metal and torn wires under her chin in her gorget. Fluttershy and Big Mac also didn't have their helmets on, but it seemed that was because the battle was over; Applejack could see batponies working to push mega-armored bodies into a pile, and Twilight was talking to a Warpsmith next to the Warboss's corpse. Most of the rest of the soldiers had moved on to help clear the remaining enemies.

"Here ya go, Cuz," Braeburn said, walking up to her with a stetson in his teeth and placing it on her head, "yer hat's still in one piece! Again."

As she thanked him, light started flooding over the battlefield again, signaling the end of the eclipse and, for the most part, the battle.

As the soldiers glanced up at the sky, however, one pointed upward and whistled. "Take a look at that, would you? Just beautiful."

The ponies turned to look where he was pointing.

An Ork landa was careening through the atmosphere, a thick trail of smoke pouring from its engines. Or, at least, the shredded, flaming mess that used to be its engines.

"By Celestia," Braeburn breathed, "that thing pro'lly coulda carried a whole 'nother army!"

"It probably still does," interjected Rarity pleasantly as she walked by, "this incursion is officially over, it would seem."

The frontier stallion sighed happily as he looked around, taking in the ruins of his town. Most of the buildings were gutted, and many had been completely blown to splinters or lit on fire. Furniture, wagons, and scrap metal littered the streets everywhere, having been hammered into makeshift barricades. And the sheer number or Ork bodies would take weeks to collect and burn (the 38th Company insisted that Ork corpses never be buried, for some reason).

Still, the town was still here, and the enemy was dead.

"Well, at least the orchard's still all right," Braeburn chuckled, "Ah might just be able to keep makin' a livin' here."

"Uh... yeah. About that," Applejack mumbled, squinting at the falling vessel, "ya ever seen a landin' ship crash, Brae?"

The stallion arched an eyebrow. "Naw, o'course Ah ain't. Why?"

"'Cause Ah'm startin' to think they're attracted to apple orchards or somethin'."

Braeburn gave the ship another look, and then his eyes bulged as he realized that it was aiming to land on the edge of town that hosted his farm and its mercifully undamaged fields.

Although "land" may have been the wrong term to use, in this case.

"Well, looks like we better get the guest room ready," Applejack sighed as small explosions rolled through the landa, spitting out huge gouts of flame and storms of twisted metal.

"Eeyup," Macintosh agreed, patting the other stallion on the back with his augmetic hoof.

"Awww..." Braeburn's ears flattened as the distant vessel impacted, and he cringed as the ground started trembling and an enormous plume of dust and fire shot up into the air. The plume started expanding rapidly, swallowing the surrounding land and tearing it apart while apple trees were flattened by the dozens. Had it not been his land, home, and business being destroyed, he would have been quite impressed by the sight.

Applejack glanced at her brother. "Hey Mac, what time ya got?"

Big Mac's helmet whirred as it swept back into place around his head.

"... Little after two," he replied, looking at his visor chronometer.

"Swell! If we catch a gunship outta here, we can drop Braeburn off and still have time to pick up Apple Bloom from school! C'mon, Brae!" Applejack whirled around and started heading back toward the train station. Big Mac gave a respectful dip of his head toward the ruined town, and then followed after her.

Braeburn heaved a deep, painful sigh as he watched the houses nearest the crash fall apart... including his own. Then he took down his own hat, which - in stark contrast to Applejack's Stetson - bore several bullet holes and had much of the rim burnt off. He took a moment to brush it off against his vest.

"Welp. Ah still got mah life, and Ah still got mah family. Celestia knows them green mules woulda taken that from me too, if'n they could." He turned and walked after his cousins, pausing just long enough to kick the dismembered corpse of a fallen slugga boy. "Buckin' no-good alien scum..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17 command center

The doors to the strategium slid open to admit Luna inside, and as she entered her helmet disengaged.

It was a very different process from the other armor suits, with her helmet plating seeming to fragment into tiny metal hexagons and slide back and away from her face. It was more like a reptilian shedding its scales than any recognizable work of machines.

"General, what news?" the Princess asked, walking past the many technicians and officers to reach the strategium table. Her two Lunar Guard Lieutenants flanked her, acting as bodyguards.

General Cyrus Gnoss was under no real obligation to report to the Princess of the Night, as he outranked her considerably, but he tended to humor the dark alicorn. Mostly out of respect for her sheer power, of course; deferring to strength was the norm in a Chaos fleet.

"The battle in Appleloosa is won and Warboss 'Barin' confirmed killed, although casualties were higher than anticipated. Lord Sliver has almost wrapped up the assault on the Ork camp setting up in Baleful Bog, and our patrol elements are hunting down several squads of bikers probing our defenses." He looked up at her, his hands clasped behind his back. "It's been a bad day to be an Ork."

Luna smiled wryly. "It hath been such every day since the green tide dare make landing on our planet, and it shalt be so until they art stopped for good. What of Appleloosa itself?"

"The settlement is a total loss, it looks like. The fighting for the buildings was intense, and your homes aren't exactly constructed with protection in mind. Those refugees will have to be resettled elsewhere."

Luna grimaced. "Accursed xenos! Truly, no part of the town remains unmolested?"

"Well, there was such a part before you dropped a landing vessel on it," Gnoss informed her with a dry smirk.

Luna had the decency to blush. "We had forgotten that such craft cause great damage upon their demise. Our apologies."

"You needn't apologize to me, Princess. I'm overjoyed that you killed an entire Ork battalion before it could even deploy," the General assured her, "another sortie is concluded, and another thousand Ork souls are fed to the Dark Gods. It won't be much longer now."

"Indeed, the frequency of attacks hath increased considerably of late. The Nethalican must be finished soon, else We fear that the main fleet should arrive and render our efforts moot," Luna shook her head, "the defenses hold?"

"Of course. The Orks have launched several attacks on Ferrous Dominus, but they have not yet been of any scale or efficacy to cause concern." The man paused, glancing over the strategic hololith in front of him. "However, by now the Orks have been here long enough and traveled widely enough that they are likely to be a permanent presence on this world from now on." Numerous red, highlighted areas on the hololith represented where the Orks had attacked and set up bases. There were quite a few such spots.

The Princess scowled. "Aye. They breed with spores, do they not? Most strange, and inconvenient." She sighed. "But that is a trial for another time. Hast thou any other requests for our aid?"

"Negative, Princess. It looks like the ground troops can take care of the rest."

"Then We return to our sleep," Luna declared, turning around, "by thy leave, General."

As Luna made her way out of the command center, Midnight Blaze made a disgusted grunt.

"I still can't believe you have to take orders from that man. How does some lesser ape like him get to order a Princess around?"

Luna arched an eyebrow at the fuming batpony. "General Gnoss knows better than We the capabilities of the Company's soldiers. We hast found no fault with his command, save perhaps a greater tolerance for collateral damage than We would like." Then she frowned. "And it is difficult to criticize even this when We art the source of much of it."

"It's still not right!" Midnight growled. "Reporting to the Astartes is bad enough! Who do they think you are?" Dusk Blade silently rolled his eyes before Luna answered somberly.

"They think We art a sovereign, possessed of power overwhelming and yet desperate to save our citizens," Luna said, halting in the hall and turning to face the batpony mare, "they think they hath delivered us from certain destruction, and bargained fairly for our salvation to bring us to this point."

Midnight grimaced at the floor, only for a great black gauntlet to float under her chin and lift it with a finger so that she was looking up into Luna's eyes.

"Art they in error?" the Princess asked.

Midnight Blaze clicked her tongue. "They're not," she confessed, "it simply irritates me that they do not show your Highness proper respect."

"As We're sure thine ingratitude and insolence irritates them," Luna warned, poking the Lunar Guard in the nose with the Iron Gage, "but that aside, do not refer to the humans as 'apes' whilst in our presence, Lieutenant."

"Of course, my Princess," Midnight Blaze said immediately, "please, forgive my impertinence."

Luna nodded curtly, satisfied, and the Iron Gage attached itself to her shoulder pads again before she stepped outside.

Once out in the not-so-fresh air, Luna's helmet spread back over her face again, and her flight pack glowed before she vaulted up into the skies. Her Guards followed, taking to the air with heavy beats of their wings.

As they flew above the rumbling vehicles and soldiers below, Luna could see a few macrocannons discharging into the distance, pounding at some foolhardy Ork scout spotted by the perimeter defenses. It was relatively common now for Ork units to investigate the fortress, as it still remained the most obvious military fortification on the planet. None of the forces that had landed so far were strong enough to stand a chance of successfully assaulting the bastion, however, so they tended to attack the more poorly-defended settlements or try to set up a camp for an extended war effort. Those few groups that were too eager for battle to be restrained by the sight of Ferrous Dominus and its defenders had been wiped out with ease.

Luna banked, turning away from the rising pillars of smoke and dust. She had seen plenty of that today already.

Once she began building altitude again, she was facing a new construct rising out the twisted piping and growling machines of sector 20.

A great black spire rose from a modest base still encircled by scaffolding and Dark Mechanicus vehicles. It was needle-thin relative to the other structures in the fortress-city, and had numerous open-air entrances and balconies all over the exterior protected by atmospheric shielding. These entrances led to the new dwellings of the Lunar Guard, whose ranks had swollen considerably within the Company after Luna's departure from Canterlot. Luna's own residence lay at the top of the spire, naturally. Hanging from an extended balcony that jutted out from her bedroom were three great banners, each one hundred feet long. One bore the Legion's Iron Skull, and next to it was the crest borne by Equestria's own flag. Next to the two was an equally large banner bearing her cutie mark: an enormous sheet of gray that gave way to black, stamped over with a crescent moon. The very tip of the spire was an observatory, albeit a much simpler one than the humans typically used. Dark, shaded panes of armorglass protected it from the sun, or at least what little of it managed to pierce the shroud of smog above.

Rainbow Dash affectionately referred to the structure as Luna's "Tower of Doom". Luna enjoyed Dash's brash humor, but she much preferred the name that she had given it: Nightwatch.

"Blaze, Blade, thou art dismissed," Luna said as she rose up higher. The batponies broke off at once, diving down toward their respective dorms.

Luna landed heavily upon her balcony, her armor whirring softly before her flight pack powered down. With a flash of blue light, her daemon plate vanished into its dimensional pocket.

She paused for a moment after she felt the daemonic presence that had surrounded her for the last several hours vanish, cut off from her mind and body. The creature never seemed to resist or betray any strong emotion at being suddenly banished whenever she felt like she didn't need it. If anything, in the moments before it left, it almost seemed... relieved.

Luna trotted over to her bed, only to notice a scroll lying on her desk. The scroll bore the royal seal of the Equestrian royal family, and showed no evidence of tampering by human hands: a sure sign that it had been sent here magically rather than by mundane post.

Luna broke the seal with a thought, and then opened the scroll in the air in front of her.

Dear Luna,

I hope this message finds you well. It has been only two weeks since your departure from the palace, and I miss you terribly. I realize that your struggles now are for the survival of our homeworld, but if you may find the time I would like you to visit Canterlot again soon. I would gladly surrender a night's rest to speak with you again.

It's strange. My advisors bring news every day about the movements of the Orks in Equestria and the troubles of the refugees, and Twilight writes me letters about her experiences in frequent combat. I can spot pillars of smoke and gunship movements from my balcony telescope, most days. But somehow the war still seems so far away.

Forever yours,

Celestia

Luna smiled as she rolled up the letter and put it back. Not that she had been away from home long at all, but It WOULD be nice to see Celestia again. And maybe get a half-decent meal while she was out. Even with pony cooks at her service, the stock of produce in the fortress was sorry indeed. They didn't even have hay! Apparently on the grounds that humans didn't eat it. And the apples had run out after the first week.

She REALLY wished she had been paying attention to where that landa was falling.

Her stomach rumbling, Luna grimaced and walked over to her personal console. She was tired and hungry, but first she had a letter to write.

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge

"Warsmith, I have arrived and am ready to report," Serith said, stepping past the flows of molten metal and flickering hololiths.

Solon was currently standing over a bulky cylinder suspended over the ground by thin cables. It looked to be of Tau origin, at a guess, and the Chaos Lord didn't take his attention away from it when he acknowledged his Sorcerer.

"Go ahead, Sherith," Solon commanded. A series of red scanning rays swept over an opening in the cylinder while he spoke.

"Progress with the unicorn coven has been slow, but consistent. I believe they are now prepared to open the portal," Serith said, his arms clasped together underneath his backpack.

"Excellent!" Solon exclaimed, stepping closer to the cylinder and starting to cut open one end. "When may we begin conshtruction?"

Serith hesitated. "... Some aspects of the Nethalican are already fabricated and ready to be deployed. There is, however, a problem."

Solon tilted his head up from the inner workings of the machine.

"The combats thus far have proven... insufficient," the Sorcerer admitted, "the Warp simmers, but it is proving far more resistant than normal to the tumult of warfare we've inflicted upon this world. The Ork deaths, and our own casualties, have not sufficiently excited the Gods' attentions."

Solon tilted his head to the side. "Ish there any particular reashon?"

"I believe it is the nature of this world, Warsmith," Serith said with a sigh, "it knows conflict and terror, but not on a scale to shift the eddies of the Empyrean. The long peace, and perhaps the nature of our Equestrian allies, have rendered this region of Warp space unusually stable, and this has hindered my designs."

Solon made a thoughtful noise as he turned back down to the xeno device.

"Even now, in the midst of constant invasion, the equines hardly seem like a people facing extermination," Serith continued, "they go about their lives as best they can, trusting in our strength and holding on to the hope of a better future."

"Weird," Solon mumbled as he drew a circuit wafer out of the machine.

"And frustrating to our efforts," Serith added.

"Sho what should we do? Let the Orksh overrun a few villagesh? Give the poniesh a demonshtration?"

Serith shook his head. "No. We need not upset our little 'friends' by causing them deliberate harm; we do require their cooperation, after all. The Orks' deaths will be enough. But it will take... more of them than anticipated."

"Well, if there wash ever a truly inexhaushtable reshource in thish galaxy, it'sh Orksh looking for a brutal death," Solon reasoned, "but the coven ish prepared?"

"Yes, Lord," Serith said, "although there was an incident."

Solon's head tilted up again. "Jusht one? I'm ushed to far more complicationsh when it comesh to pshykersh."

"The unicorns are proving nothing if not... predictable. There was one, however, that wanted to look through my artifacts. She decided to borrow a tome: the Contagion Apocrypha."

"Ah, excellent choice!" Solon said approvingly, standing up fully as he finally gave the Sorcerer his full attention. "I alwaysh liked that one. Lotsh of fun. How did she take to it?"

"Evidently she and two other mares made to study the tome in her quarters after curfew. Security teams were alerted by their neighbors, who were awoken by the panicked screams. By the time the response team cut through the layer of hardened mucus that had sealed their door, they found the ponies unconscious and infected. They have since taken to Nurgle worship quite enthusiastically."

"That'sh wonderful!" Solon said brightly. "It'sh about time shome of them turned to the darker powersh. I wash shtarting to think they really were immune or shomething. What are their namesh?"

"Poison Kiss, Rot Blossom, and Breezy Blight, Warsmith," said Serith.

Solon was silent for a few seconds. "They changed their namesh after they were marked?"

"No, Lord. Those were their names before." Serith paused. "In retrospect, we probably should have seen this coming."

Solon hummed to himself some more. "Well, let'sh shee that they get shome extra attention. Maybe they can even get Shliver to shtop grumbling about xenosh being integrated into our forcesh."

"Speaking of which, Lord, how fares that project?" Serith asked. "I have not entered combat since I began instructing the coven."

"It faresh rather poorly," Solon admitted bluntly, "the poniesh trusht ush entirely, but with shome dramatic exceptionsh are far inferior to our shtandard forcesh. The Tau are quite capable and experienced, but are extremely reluctant alliesh, and their morale ish pitiful. And then, of courshe, any time we try to ushe them together the equinesh shtart picking fightsh with the Fire Warriorsh." Solon shook his head. "On the other hand, the Kroot get along marveloushly. Sho there'sh that."

"Fascinating," Serith mumbled, scratching at his helmet's chin, "and the humans do not mind taking to the field with pony soldiery?"

"Not ash shuch, no," Solon said, looking back down at the machine he was working on, "though the equinesh have certainly had an... odd effect on the morale of the mercenariesh."

"An 'odd' effect?"

"Yesh. Odd."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 5, Chaos Temple Primarus

"Forgive me, Father, for I have shown weakness before my brothers and the Dark Gods," said a Khorne cultist while he sat on a dirty iron bench, staring at the floor miserably.

Virgil stood behind the man, his head bowed and his arms clasped within the sleeves of his robe. "Speak, my child. Reveal your soul to me so that it may be cleansed."

The man gulped and looked down at his hands. He was gripping a brass amulet tightly, staring intently at the shining symbol of the Blood God.

"I was drilling the xeno horses yesterday down at the gun range. The usual thing. Yelling profanities, screaming at them to move faster and aim steady. One of them dropped his energy pack while trying to reload, so I kicked him onto the ground. Stepped on his throat. Told him that if he couldn't handle a bloody lasgun, then he could serve as food for the Kroot, who actually know how to fight. Another pony came up behind me while I was yelling at him. A mare."

The cultist swallowed anxiously. "She... hugged me. Around the waist. And said that she didn't know why I was so mad, but that everything was going to be okay. That I didn't need to be angry anymore."

Virgil arched an eyebrow.

"... After that, I excused myself from the range, found myself a dark corner, and cried... for about twenty minutes straight." He finished anxiously, gripping the brass icon in his hands hard enough to hurt.

Virgil tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "... Stand up."

The man did so, his eyes still on the ground and the amulet still clutched in his hands.

Then Virgil slugged him in the stomach.

As the Khorne cultist doubled over and started coughing, Virgil straightened and nodded.

"That should do it. You are forgiven. Don't let it happen again."

"Yes... Father," the soldier gasped out, "thank you..."

****

Canterlot Castle - dining hall

"Princess! Your sister! She's replied!" Kibitz trotted briskly into the dining room, almost knocking over one of the serving ponies as the doors burst open ahead of him.

A pair of ministers were seated across from Princess Celestia, and both of them shot the intruding unicorn dirty looks at the sudden interruption.

The Princess herself was quite glad for it, however, and she quickly let her fork drop out of the air and onto her plate.

"Excellent. Thank you, Kibitz," she said, smiling brilliantly, "I'll take it now."

Her smile dimmed ever-so-slightly when her assistant levitated a small plastic panel of some sort over to her.

"... Did Luna not send a letter back, as I did?" Celestia asked hesitantly.

"No, Princess," Kibitz wiggled his mustache, "it seems this is how kids these days like to talk to each other. I don't see what's wrong with simple quill and parchment, but these 'encryption transcribers' came with the rest of that junk the humans pawned off on us."

Celestia chuckled lightly as she floated the device over to her. "Kibitz, Luna is thousands of years older than you."

"You wouldn't know it from meeting her," he mumbled under his breath.

Celestia positioned the device in front of her, facing the screen. Then she turned it upside-down. Then she started shaking it back and forth in the air.

"Erm! Your majesty, there appears to be a button on the side," interrupted one of the ponies on the other side of the table.

A flash of yellow flared around the button, and then the screen blinked on.

After turning the device right-side up again, Celestia read through the message. It was quite brief and informal, merely telling her that Luna would be meeting her that evening and to have the royal chefs on call.

It wasn't exactly the outpour of emotion her letter had been, but Celestia had to reason that if Luna was visiting then they could save sisterly bonding for when they were actually together.

"Thank you, Kibitz," she said, clicking the button again, "if my sister sends any..." she trailed off as the screen seemed to scramble all the letters and started throwing up prompts that made no sense to her. "Hold on," she said, squinting her eyes and clicking the button again. This time the screen started blinking rapidly. "I think... no, wait..." she started pressing the button repeatedly and with more force, thinking that it might somehow better understand her intentions that way.

Then the encryption transcriber snapped in half.

Princess Celestia winced, floating the shattered remains of the alien technology over to her assistant. He and the ministers were all bearing excessively serious expressions, which surely meant they were trying not to laugh.

"I think I'll continue sending my own messages on parchment, as before," she decided, before clearing her throat. "So then, Spirit Shield. You were speaking of our soldiers' progress with their new weapons."

Her defense minister, a bulky and somewhat elderly unicorn stallion, cleared his throat before he lowered his own fork from his meal. "Yes, your Highness. Specifically, how abysmal it was faring." He grimaced. "There isn't a soldier among our forces who doesn't prefer the idea of attacking from a distance with ranged weapons rather than trying to fight dangerous creatures up close. As you're well aware, up until the arrival of lasguns the only non-magic ranged weapon we had in any useful quantity was the bow and arrow."

Celestia nodded. The bow and arrow was rather infamous for being a fiendishly hard weapon to use with hooves, aside from those ponies that counted it as their special talent. Sometimes she wondered how ponies had even come to invent such an absurd tool.

"Enthusiasm hasn't compensated for experience, though. Having to switch our entire army's combat focus over a few weeks is proving just as impossible as I'd feared. We need new tactics, new drills, new training facilities, new formations..."

Spirit Shield trailed off with a sigh. "I very much wish you'd consider my suggestion to integrate those 'Sunsworn' people into the forces. Almost all of them have weapons and know how to use them. We could at least use them as trainers."

Celestia frowned slightly as she shook her head. "I know your feelings on the matter, Spirit Shield, and you know mine. Those humans that have turned away from Chaos have done so to leave behind the bloodshed and hatred of their past. I will not ask them to fight on my behalf."

"You don't really ask them to do ANYTHING on your behalf," Kibitz noted, "I believe it makes them rather anxious, actually."

"They have placed their faith in me, willfully, and without encouragement," Celestia said firmly, "and I will not take advantage of that faith. We have other options." Then she pursed her lips. "Besides, military strength is something our 'allies' provide in abundance."

"Are you still unable to call them that without the sarcastic air quotes?" Spirit Shield asked.

Celestia ignored his question, moving her fork to her salad again. "Moving on, Spirit Shield."

"Right... well, I do have some good news. The city shelter is all but complete. Clearing the rocks used to collapse the caves under Canterlot proved easier than expected, and those Dark Mechanicus fellows were able to reinforce them and build a vault door in a remarkable time frame. We could move all of Canterlot's citizens inside right now if the situation demanded it. At this point we just need to furnish and supply the interior."

"Obviously, I hope it never needs to be used," Celestia said grimly, "but with ruined space vessels and terrible weapons potentially raining down on our capital from above, we cannot rely on our magic and guards alone to protect the capital's citizens."

"Of course, Princess," Spirit said with a nod, "and with mention of threats to Equestria, that brings us to the Tau."

The pause that followed his statement allowed a chill to settle over the room before he continued. "We've had our third request to have Shas'o Voidsong's sentence suspended so that she might aid the defense effort."

"From who, specifically?" Celestia asked between mouthfuls of greens.

"That 'Wraithstar' fellow. With a joint statement from the human General, Cyrus Gnoss," the stallion replied, "the human's endorsement seemed somewhat ambivalent, however. In my experience the sapiens aren't shy about demanding the things they really want. It's clearly the Tau pushing to have their leader freed."

"And have you reminded Mister Wraithstar that Voidsong's sentence was handed down by Equestria, not the 38th Company?" Celestia asked, her attention mostly focused on her food. "Just as the Iron Warriors are free to make allies with the people who callously thought to sacrifice our world for their own, we claim the right to punish individual Tau invaders without respect to how it may affect our allies' war effort. Voidsong will serve her sentence, or be looted from our capital like a common trinket when we are vanquished by the Orks SHE unleashed upon us."

"Very good, your Highness," Spirit Shield said with a smirk, "I will relay your sentiments to the Shas'el."

Celestia dabbed her mouth with a napkin before turning to the other mare sitting at the table. "Bank Run, you also had a report for me?" Bank Run served as one of Celestia's economic ministers, although she'd always thought the mare's name a bit odd (even as pony names went). Then again, the mare had apparently named her son Bond Amortization, so it was probably a family thing.

"The economic news is a bit grim, obviously," Bank sighed, levitating a wine glass to herself, "we're suffering a lot of market disruption right now, in part because three villages have been destroyed, but mostly because of the flood of human technology into the market. A lot of ponies stand to lose their jobs in the near future."

"Ah, yes. How I weep for the candle makers and ink mixers," Spirit Shield mumbled with a roll of his eyes, "you may assure the working class that our chances of surviving long enough to worry about our careers are still quite bleak."

Bank Run scrunched up her muzzle, not deigning to glare at the stallion next to her. "If it were merely a wave of higher technology, that would be one thing, but practically EVERYTHING we buy from the aliens comes from Norris Delgan. That man is acquiring a dangerous amount of market power. He buys so much raw materials that prices for inputs have TRIPLED since he's arrived! And when he wants a building, his Mechanicus lackeys can erect it in hours! I don't even know if he pays for them! How can anypony compete with that? And now he's even planning an independent mag-rail line to connect Ponyville and Canterlot to Ferrous Dominus! If it weren't for the slavery ban in Equestria, he'd have subverted the entire economy by now!"

Celestia grimaced, just as most ponies did when reminded of the humans' casual acceptance of an institution they considered a terrible atrocity. Of which there were several.

"And what would you suppose can be done about that?" the alicorn asked cautiously.

Bank Run took a moment to compose herself. "Well, nothing he's done here is explicitly illegal, so our measures needn't be drastic. I was thinking maybe a month."

"A month? A month of what?"

"On the moon," Bank Run clarified, "or, you know, as a statue. Whichever."

"Bank Run, we've been through this," Celestia chided, "exotic magical imprisonment is for punishing serious crimes and unrepentant evil, not for making an example out of greedy aristocrats."

"He seems pretty unrepentant and evil to me," Spirit Shield admitted, "you know, with the slavery thing. And those servitors? The cyborg servants? Did you know those used to be people at some point? Apparently after they execute their dissidents and human prisoners, they recycle their bodies. It's pretty creepy."

"We're getting off-topic," Celestia sighed, "while we could spend the entire day describing the various evils of the 38th Company, it's both depressing and entirely fruitless. For the foreseeable future, we must endure and learn to co-exist. Much more for our sake than theirs."

The ministers nodded their heads, mumbling apologies to their Princess.

The alicorn stood up from her table, signaling that the meal, and their meeting, was coming to an end. "Besides, the news from having access to human technology cannot be ALL bad," Celestia reasoned, "I've heard that their medical technology has proved extremely helpful, has it not?"

"Oh, yes, that's true," Bank Run agreed immediately, "contracting out Techpriest Biologis to the hospitals was very helpful of Mister Delgan. Even before the onset of alien attacks, there have been many ponies who could benefit from augmetic limbs and organs." Then she paused. "Not that there hasn't been... friction."

"That much is to be expected," Celestia assured the mare as she headed toward the hall, "I'm sure it will be worked out."

****

Canterlot City - Canterlot General Hospital

"What do you mean the patient has been 'rejected'? Is there something strange about his condition that complicates the augmentation?" demanded a pink unicorn in a white coat as she followed a Dark Techpriest through the halls. Following them was a pair of servitors bearing numerous surgical servo-limbs and chemical injectors, along with a nurse pony pulling a small cart full of mechanical parts.

"Negative. Explanatory: the patient was classified as a vagrant, with several problematic behavioral and psychological tendencies," the Techpriest explained while he glanced from bed to bed, recording the diagnosed ailments of the ponies lying on them in his internal memory coils.

"Okay... so? What does that have to do with him getting a new liver and knee joint?" asked Needles, the doctor assigned to supervise the cyborg technician.

"Expansion: the resources required to return full function to the patient are estimated to be greater than that which the patient shall produce upon return to local labor force. Conclusion: the correct decision is to preserve medical resources for more productive individuals."

Needles' eyes widened. "What?! No! You don't get to make that decision!"

The Dark Techpriest halted, his servo limbs twitching. "Concurrence: my current operational parameters do not allow me to select which patients do and do not receive treatment. Interrogative: which individual is authorized to make this decision? I shall present the relevant data for my case."

Needles stood up straighter and leaned forward as she scowled, which admittedly did not make her look much more intimidating to the man who had one hand literally made of knives. "As far as you're concerned, I make that decision. And I say that he's getting those augments!"

The Dark Techpriest made an annoying bleating noise from its vocal synthesizer, and then nodded. "Conciliation: very well. I will schedule the procedure."

Then he turned toward a bed with a pegasus mare laying on it. She stared up at the ceiling miserably, but had no visible symptoms of disease or injury, and the clipboard on her bed was blank.

"Interrogative: what is the diagnosis for this one?"

Needles shook her head sadly as her ears flattened out. "She's suffering from the one thing that neither medical science OR medical magic can cure: a broken heart."

The Dark Techpriest looked over at the pegasus, who sniffled and then sighed despondently.

"Contention: challenge accepted." Then a servo arm capped with a needle shot forward and jabbed the mare in the back of her leg.

Both she and the doctor yelped in surprise.

"Wait! What are you doing?" Needles demanded. She started to step forward, only for one of the servitors to reach down and hold her in place.

"Explanatory: I am preparing for circulatory surgery," the Techpriest Biologis answered as he watched the patient's eyes start to blink rapidly and her muscles relax. As she nodded off, his servo-mounted scalpels and circular saw started to shift downward to move into place.

"Hold on! Wait! Her heart isn't ACTUALLY broken! It's just a metaphor!" Needles shouted, struggling against the servitor's powered claw. The other servitor was already moving into position on the other side of the bed, and the nurse pony was down on the floor, covering her eyes in horror. "Stop! NOOOOOOO!!"

****

Sweet Apple Acres

"An' the bathroom's across the upstairs livin' room. If'n there's a little red slot next to it, it means somepony's already in there doin' their business. If it's green, yer good. There's another bathroom downstairs, too, next to the kitchen."

Applejack stood in the doorway as Braeburn looked over his new room. There was a small suitcase on his back, although it didn't contain any of his belongings; they had all been destroyed along with his home. Instead it held rations and assorted supplies he had found on the transport, as well as a few tokens scavenged rather bitterly from the ruins of Appleloosa.

"Well, shucks Cuz, this place is somethin' else," Braeburn whistled, staring at the reinforced armorglass window. Then he squinted at a dark discoloration on the window exterior. "What's that stuff? Somethin' hit the window?"

"Yeah. Pulse bomb," Applejack explained, "Tau attacked a while back, scuffed up the place pretty bad."

Braeburn dropped his suitcase, and then squinted at a different stain on the other corner of the window. "An' what's all that stuff?"

"Daemon venom, Ah think. Monster wasp attack." Applejack snorted. "Can't really blame the Tau fer that one. It was mostly Apple Bloom's fault."

Braeburn leaned forward, looking out the window and into the mostly ruined fields. "An' what's that scary metal monster roamin' around out there?"

"That's Crabapple, Apple Bloom's pet maulerfiend. She used t'be smaller. LONG story," Applejack sighed.

Braeburn backed away from the window, and then looked around the room again. "And what did ya say happened to the old house?"

"Gnarloc tore it up good. Huge, angry Kroot varmint," Applejack answered with a growl, "THAT one was the Tau's fault, hunnerd percent. They wasn't even fightin' us ponies at the time."

Braeburn adjusted his hat anxiously. "Well... all things considered, maybe Ah got off easy with just Orks..."

"Naw, Ah wouldn't say so," Applejack mused as she backed out of the doorway, "'least we got the Company to give us a new place. Ya got about thirty bits worth of space stuff and a free gunship ride."

"Eeyup."

Applejack turned her head to Big Mac. The crimson stallion had removed his power armor, and seemed to be waiting next to the stairs.

"Hey, Mac. Ready to go pick up Bloom?" Applejack asked.

"Eeyup," the stallion replied, already moving to head down.

Applejack followed, and Braeburn moved to join her. The former Appleloosan hesitated, however.

"Uh... AJ?"

"Yeah? What's up? You wanna stay here an' get settled in?" Applejack asked.

"Naw, it ain't that, just... you gonna wear yer armor to go to town?"

Applejack was, indeed, still in her terminator armor, and it still bore considerable damage from the battle. In addition to the helmet being gone, one shoulder pad and foreleg sheath was badly torn, and much the rest was pock-marked with dents from bullet deflections.

Applejack chuckled, flushing a bit. "Ah'd take it off, but the dang leg plating seals broke or somethin'. Ah'll have a DarkMech look at it later. C'mon!"

With that, Applejack stomped down the stairs, her every step sending tiny tremors through the flooring.

Before long the Apples were trotting through Ponyville proper, with Applejack in the lead.

"Not gonna lie, Braeburn, ya done chose a pretty good time to end up homeless. Mac's been makin' plans on how to rebuild the farm and done a lotta work clearin' the ruined fields n'all, but he divides his time between the farm and the war. It's been slow goin' to say the least."

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed. He didn't particularly mind the halting progress, given that his family wasn't any longer solely dependent on their farming profits, but Applejack wanted to see the orchard restored as soon as possible.

"So, yer lookin' fer a manager, are ya?" Braeburn chuckled. "Well, Ah gotta put some bits away 'fore Ah can look into rebuildin' mah own farm, so that works out nicely. Ah'll hafta get in touch with some of the other refugees, get some workers together. Ah know there're other Apples out there that could use some steady work right now."

"Hey, Applejack!" came a shout from behind them. "Nice suit!"

Applejack turned her head and stuck her tongue out at Lyra, who laughed. Jacob was with her as usual, and the maybe-pet human gave a thumbs-up to the armored mare as they passed by.

"Yeah, okay, that sounds swell," Applejack said as she started heading forward again, "though, uh, Ah suppose Ah should warn ya that the job kinda involves helping look after Apple Bloom as well."

"Oh, yeah! Ah heard little cuz got her cutie mark!" Braeburn said, an extra spring in his step as he spotted the school house. "What was it, again?"

"Mark of Nurgle, Chaos God of disease and parasites. And... love, Ah think? Ah dunno, it's kinda complicated." Applejack confessed.

Braeburn's head tilted to the side. "Huh. Okay. We can work with that. What's her special talent?"

"She don't feel pain."

Braeburn whistled. "That's a whopper of a talent!"

"Eeyup," Big Mac interjected.

"Hey, what's that?" Braeburn asked, pointing to a small house near the school. There were white banners hanging from it, all of them bearing a sun motif.

"That there is a church of the Sunsworn," Applejack said, her tone becoming slightly bemused, "they're kinda an odd bunch. Humans that break off from the Company and take up Celestia as their goddess and savior. There's a church that popped up in Canterlot and another in Manehattan, and that old place was rented out to 'em just this week."

Braeburn laughed. "Well, ain't that a hoot! The mighty, space-farin', cultist monkeys bowin' to pony royals! What're they like?"

"Dunno. Ain't met 'em," Applejack admitted, turning her head to look at her brother. "Mac?"

Big Macintosh looked over at the church silently for a few seconds.

"They're all right," he said finally, "nothin' wrong with 'em outright, and they all wanna help out pony folk." Then he paused, and continued again. "Thing is, it's mighty weird to see 'em talk about the Princess like they do. Somehow it's creepier than seein' the Chaos Cultists do their thing. The Dark Gods are these unseen, powerful, terrible THINGS that talk to the Cultists and change 'em inside and out, so you expect that kinda thing from 'em. Princess Celestia's a pony. A powerful, important, immortal pony, but still a pony. So hearin' humans exalt her divine benevolence and pray to her is a tad strange."

Braeburn seemed surprised at hearing Big Mac speak at length, and on the subject of theology at that, but Applejack chuckled.

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Then she swung one leg up in front of her. "Sun fer the Sun God! Friends fer the Friendship Throne!"

"Hey! Stop making fun of our battle chant!" complained Scootaloo as she rushed out of the front of the school house. She was followed by Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, and then, more ominously, by Cheerilee.

"Applejack! Good, you're here. I... uh..." the school teacher trailed off uncertainly as she looked over Applejack's heavily armored form, complete with heavy flamer. Then she took a few steps to the side. "Big Mac! Good, you're here. I need to speak with you about Apple Bloom."

"Eeyup?"

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle stared at the ground with their ears pinned, a clear indication that they were in trouble. Scootaloo was too busy glaring at Applejack to share in their guilt, evidently, but the Apple siblings had been through this before.

"What did they do this time, Cheers?" Applejack asked seriously. "If it's daemon-related, Ah can take care of it now. Ah still got plenty of flamer fuel left."

"Er, no. It's nothing like that. And strictly speaking, they didn't break an actual RULE. Given that our administration hadn't foreseen the day that elementary schoolers would try to convert their classmates to evil religions."

Apple Bloom cringed, but Sweetie Belle looked up defiantly. "If it's not against the rules, then why are we in trouble?"

"Because Snips and Snails were both admitted to the hospital with seizures!" Cheerilee replied, her eyes narrowing.

As Applejack and Big Mac raised their eyebrows, Apple Bloom gulped.

"Now, wait, Ah don't think that was us!" Apple Bloom pleaded.

"They had glazed-over eyes and were speaking in tongues," Cheerilee said dryly.

"Well, yeah. Who DOES that?" Sweetie Belle asked. "We don't, and we're in the cult for real. Tzeentch is pretty sure they were faking it."

"Tzeentch is a liar," Applejack snorted.

"He is not!" the young unicorn protested. "He just..." she paused for a moment, staring upward. "He just TRANSCENDS facts, is all."

Big Macintosh rolled his eyes before he looked up at Cheerilee again. "What's the damage?"

"Well, the colts will be okay, thank Celestia, but I do hope you'll explain to Apple Bloom why it isn't okay to talk her classmates into selling their souls to hateful gods," Cheerilee said.

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, leaning down to nudge Apple Bloom, "c'mon, Sis. We're goin' home."

Apple Bloom nodded quietly, and then walked over to Big Mac's left side. Then she climbed up onto his back, using the breaks in his augments' plating as hoof-holds. Macintosh waited until she was laying safely on his back, and then started heading away from the school.

"We'll set 'er straight, Cheerilee. Thanks fer takin' care o'things," Applejack assured her, turning around in place to follow her brother. The movement was somewhat cumbersome in terminator armor, and Cheerilee had to duck to avoid getting hit in the cheek by the gravity lash.

"Boy, school sure is different from when Ah was a colt," Braeburn mumbled, trotting after his relatives.

As the Apple ponies departed, Cheerilee looked town at the remaining two fillies with a stern expression. "That just leaves you two. I'm going to have a long talk with both your parents!"

"Ha!" Scootaloo laughed. "Joke's on you! I don't have any!"

****

Baleful Bog - engagement zone Delta 9-12, 190 kilometers outside Ferrous Dominus

Sliver looked over the sparse, wasted trees and muddy pools of water silently, his hands resting on the pommel of his hammer.

The swamps he was observing were thick with the corpses of the Orks, giving the steaming bogs rich swirls of red and lumps of green among the pestilent brown muck. The odd metal-clad body was scattered among the dead, but these were being rapidly removed from the field by teams of humans in hazard suits for medicae attention or proper interment.

As giants in gleaming silver and gold slogged through the swamp in search of enemy survivors, groups of Fire Warriors watched uneasily from a distance, clustered together on barricaded platforms or dry patches of ground.

The attack had consisted almost entirely of Iron Warriors and Tau; the Fire Warriors had set up gun lines at a distance to draw the Orks out of the swamps and into a charge. The Iron Warriors had deployed and counter-attacked just as the Orks got close, cutting apart the greenskins in close combat while the Fire Warriors continued to pick them apart at range. Battlesuits and attack skimmers had swooped in amongst punishing artillery strikes to shatter the enemy's armored threats, leaving the vast bulk of the fighting to the infantry formations.

The combination of Tau ranged weaponry and the close-combat supremacy of Chaos Space Marines had proven appropriately devastating. The Tau in particular were impressed at how quickly and completely the Ork offensive had broken apart. Not so much as a single greenskin had gotten past the Astartes to rampage through the gun lines.

Sliver himself found the tactical coherence... adequate. But he could see room for improvement.

"Commander Sliver," rumbled a voice from behind him as a large Stealth Suit shimmered into the fully visible spectrum, "the last of the mobs are retreating back to the camps. The infiltration teams have reported back. Explosives and beacons have been placed as ordered."

Sliver didn't respond immediately, still gazing at the swamps. "... Wait until the enemy regroupss. Then detonate. Gunshipss and kill teamss are en route to ssweep away the ssurvivorss."

Commander Wraithstar relayed that order, then stood silently behind the hulking Astartes, waiting for any other command or comment.

Eventually, he got one. "Your people do not follow orderss well, xeno. They are sslow to react and have a habit of ssecond guesssing my commandss."

Wraithstar could think of a dozen legitimate excuses for why his soldiers were hesitant in obeying the diseased cultist, but didn't bother to voice them. "They will improve, Commander Sliver. They made their decision, and they will be held to it. I shall personally gather and address cases of disobedience in the field for corrective action."

Sliver didn't reply to that right away.

Wraithstar continued watching the Iron Warrior, nervous and intrigued. He had met several of the Company leaders by now, and had largely dismissed them. Cyrus Gnoss was a fairly competent General, especially for a human, but held little real power in an army run by corrupted super-soldiers. Solon was a buffoon, if not a strange and interesting buffoon. And the less said about the new "Equiis" detachment of the 38th Company, the better.

Sliver was different. A creature of cruel intellect, cold dignity, and subtle paternalism, it was no wonder he was considered the true leader of the 38th Company's troops. He also visibly possessed some kind of terrifying magic, for lack of a better term, that had inflicted him with crippling diseases without apparently harming or even weakening him. If these cultists were to be believed, the infections actually empowered him somehow.

"We grow closser to the brink, Tau," Sliver said suddenly, breaking his contemplative silence, "ssoon we shall either activate the portal or be overrun and sslaughtered. Which will it be, I wonder?"

Within his enhanced battlesuit, Wraithstar grimaced. "The only reason I have to think that we might survive the Orks is the assumption that you wouldn't still be here otherwise. This power of yours, this... Chaos... it makes no sense to me."

Sliver nodded his helmet slowly. "Your lack of vission iss... undersstandable. We do not need your faith, only your obedience."

Wraithstar waited several seconds before he spoke again. "And what of you? Do you trust the function of this 'Nethalican'? Do these 'Chaos Gods' give you hope?"

"Hope..." Sliver mumbled slowly, as if he was tasting the word. A puff of green fumes wafted from the drum filter on his helmet. "Ssuch a... sstrange way to put it. The Chaoss Godss grant power. They ssunder reality. They devour ssoulss. 'Hope'... I'm not ssure the term hass meaning to them. And yet..."

Wraithstar shook his head, his battlesuit mimicking the motion. "Gods. Feh. I wouldn't have believed it a month ago. Even with a galaxy of psykers, inter-dimensional monsters, a vast alien consciousness spread over trillions of minds, and beings that outlive stars, such a thing still seems ridiculous and fanciful." His battlesuit turned away as the booming sound of artillery guns came from behind them, launching an ordnance spread to the beacons his infiltration teams had set.

"I would have ssaid the ssame thing about commanding a Tau Cadre in concert with my Iron Warriorss," Sliver remarked.

"On a planet of talking magical ponies," Wraithstar noted wryly.

"Thingss haven't exactly worked out as expected for any of uss. And I sstill find thiss to be a foolish and unecesssary rissk," Sliver hissed, "sstill..." he trailed off, looking over the bloodied swamps.

"Still?"

"Thiss region would make for a ssplendid Temple of Decay," Sliver admitted.

Wraithstar made a face before he started heading toward the gun line. "I'm taking my cadre back to Black Point."

"No. You will organize patrolss to cover the path along Ruby Ridge over the next two dayss," Sliver commanded, "not a ssingle greensskin iss to esscape the ssweepss. By that time... I will have new targetss for you, I'm ssure."

Wraithstar paused for several seconds. "... As you Command, Lord." His Stealth Suit shimmered, and then vanished from sight.

"... Alienss behind me, alienss before me, and alienss sstumbling about underfoot," he grunted irritably, "it'ss no wonder the xenoss of thiss world do not fear uss. I wonder what new indignity should befall my army next."

The sound of bolter fire reached his ears, coming from the tangle of vines and trees that lay beyond the bogs.

Sliver primed the Viral Scourge and linked into his army's auger network.

More bodies to fill the charnel pits. More souls to send gasping to Nurgle's clutches.

As always, Sliver had work to do.

Author's Note:

Incidentally, that pegasus in the hospital liked her augmetic heart so much that she completely snapped out of her funk.

It is my headcanon that shooting Orks in the face only makes them mad, which is how every Nob and Warboss can get away with wearing incredibly thick, tough armor that leaves their head completely exposed.

Pic is by DavionX

Comments

[Dramith]

GERMAGHED!

More Chaos Pone, I... need sleep right now. But let me fave and like first.

edit

Augmented ponies in every town will help the transition. And having an amazing augmented heart and a cool scar free has to feel great. or maybe is the anesthesia, that feels great too.

And Luna IS a diva, I actually thought that Cellestia would help with a solar flare or something, I mean eclipses need two celestial bodies.

[Hey its that Pony]

I have not read the first chapter yet. Probably wait till tomorrow to do it.

I just wanted to say, that cover art. Love it SO much.

[crumbydev]

We love you!

I haven't even started reading yet, but I am so looking forward to this.

Also: has anyone done a review of your series? If not, I'd love to put out my two cents on this story's triumphs and failings.

[I NO LONGER EXIST]

I would've named it "Sister Fisters In Space" but...hey...whatever.

[nothing_to_see_here]

So the ponies are having about as much luck as a PDF unit right now.
Chaos is confused by kindness
CMC is spreading the good news of Chaos (I love every single scene that has them in it by the way)
And check if Big E is up and about, Sliver is starting to develop feelings for this world.
INK FOR THE INK GOD! CHAPTERS FOR THE CHAPTER THRONE!

[Darinby]

Solon was a buffoon, if not a strange and interesting buffoon.

Does that sentence sound strange to anyone else?

[Aziraphael]

I was right. Watching Luna murder things while wearing daemon armor was practically orgasmic.

[crumbydev]

An amazing start to what will be an amazing story.

One thing to note though: "rolled his/her eyes". I'm seeing this phrase get used extensively throughout your writing; do you think a different expression could be used sometimes?

[SFaccountant]

5487454
Well, there is a LOT of eye rolling to be done, but if it's become so common to be annoying then I should definitely be finding alternative forms of expressing exasperation.
As for your earlier question about a review, nobody has done anything formal. There are quite a few long and thoughtful comments, but that's about it.

5487175
It was good for her, too.

[ShadowsInTheDark]

yay

[Nephilinae]

not going to lie... lost my shit several times while reading this chapter

[Murder Knight]

I look upon this... and pity the foolish Orks who thought they could take on tiny, magical horses.

[Gideon020]

Of course shooting them in the head only makes them mad. Orks are ded 'ard!

[Hey its that Pony]

Lunas flair for the dramatic is amusing. Though it may work against her later in the campaign.

Seems like we're slowly seeing the appearance of the pony codex units. The fact that they are taking hits like the human soldiers helps add a needed story element, though I think it might help if we read about them actually receiving the injuries in combat occasionally. Like maybe one getting punted by an Ork boot. Something like that.

But as usual, just loved everything. Too much to comment on. Though I suppose if I had to pick, I'd say the hospital scene was the funniest for me this chapter.

[Heitomos]

Before I continue, thank you for the opening mentioning the Pony casualty rate. Very happy to see that. :P

Lil' Spell Check: "You've lost, xeno filth!" the Chaos Marine snarled through the blood in his mouth. "<b>You</b> army is broken! Soon you too shall be mere fodder for the dark powers!"

A very good start to what I'm sure will be a very excellent book! I can't wait to read more! The action is getting quite nice, and it's nice to see some more of Celestia and her take on this. I wonder if the Sun worshippers will start doing acts of Faith A La Sisters of Battle, only with Celestia's firey stuff instead...

Also, 6 downvotes already? Blasphemy!

[GBscientist]

As always, the combat and main plotline are extremely well-written, but it's the little vignettes of side-action that amuse me the most. Things like Solon and Serith in the Forge, the Khorne Cultist at confession, Celestia's meeting with her ministers, Braeburn getting settled in and helping pick up Applebloom, and Slither and Wraithstar in the swamp were all very amusing scenes that shed interesting light on the day-to-day events of the story. I think this series could easily add the Slice of Life tag for all of the oddly normal things that are depicted.

I'll also second the compliment on the cover art. It is appropriate and amusing.

And on the subject of no fatal Pony casualties having occurred, is that some sort of psycher character shield in effect, or just them being really lucky?

[SFaccountant]

5490569
Well, I'm basically making it a running gag to try and cover for how ridiculous it is; even I feel like it's hard to take the Ork threat seriously sometimes when I refuse to kill anything with hooves.

Also, 6 downvotes already? Blasphemy!

I believe you mean:
i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/014/962/HeresyStamp.png
Really though, I think there's a handful of people that downvote each book right away when I release it; most of the downvotes come all at once as soon as the book is published, and hardly increase at all as the chapters keep coming. Besides that, it's just a LITTLE strange that I'd be getting downvotes on the fifth segment of the story. You'd think that anyone who didn't like it would have stopped reading long ago.

[Heitomos]

5490613

You are absolutely right. I wrote that at 3:30AM and forgot the right word. :P

And yeah, that does make sense. Maybe it's some people who are just upset at a story decision?

[SFaccountant]

5491317
If I had to guess, I imagine that some people hate my treatment of the Tau as the antagonists getting their slate-gray butts kicked; there's just enough information in the story descriptions for people to figure that out, and 40K players can get overly passionate about "their" faction. I've gotten at least one comment talking about how the Tau would treat Equestria from someone who obviously hadn't read the story.
But whatevs. People can downvote a story for whatever reason they want.

[Heitomos]

5491914

Makes sense to me I suppose. I like the Sisters myself, but I'm not sure if I'd get upset or not if they got wrecked. I am kinda wanting to see more perspectives from the other races on this whole alliance thing. :P

Also, a lot of mercs and stuff have died so far. Are they ever going to get reinforced?

Finally, I saw you mentioning how it's hard to make the Orks seem like something big and bad when the ponies don't die, but that's just a matter of proxy. If the humans die, the ponies lose outright. So that fact can be used for this.

[SFaccountant]

5492384
Well, I'm not sure how big a 40K fan you are. Like many fandoms, the emotions over the fate of entirely fictional people can get pretty intense.

Getting more mercenaries kind of requires leaving the Centaur system, so that isn't going to happen before all this comes to a head.

[Heitomos]

5492429

That makes sense. Hmm... Necromancy? Twilight Time Travel Spell maybe? As unreliable at the moment it was, she did learn from it. Plus whatever else is in Starswirl's library. What about the other races joining in? Just curious about that. Griffons and Minotaur... Dragons especially.

Heh, sorry for all the talk. I get to brainstorming just what ponies might be able to add. As I was typing this I even thought of the whole massive tornado and storms that the pegasi can do.

[SFaccountant]

5493984
Time travel spell? To do what?
If they were going to use time travel (and they won't; I generally hate time travel as a story mechanism), they'd probably use it to go back, smash the Warp core before the Tau can finish the beacon, and pretty much avert all of Book 4.
There will be more contributions from the ponies in the battles to come besides just being suited up and given lasguns, though. Less so from the other species (I imagine that they might be confused, skeptical, and/or furious that their planet has been effectively sacrificed during a sequence of events they had no knowledge of, to say nothing of Equestria more or less "selling" the planet to the Iron Warriors to get them to stay).
But you know I wouldn't consign the poor pones to being cannon fodder

[Heitomos]

5496210
Yeah, I dislike time travel as well. MLP did it right though. Stable time loop that didn't change the past.

The other races would be awful upset about that... Ooo, maybe Tartarus has something useful in it...

And glad to hear that bit about the cannon fodder. I love the pones and their silliness too much. :P

[unknown2]

Why do I get the feeling that the Sunsworn are an elaborate Dark Souls reference?

[SFaccountant]

5514142
No idea.
Seeing as I don't play it at all, I would be more surprised than anybody else to find out that I had created a clever reference to it.

[Dragon Dred]

I'm just throwing this out there but it would be hilarious if they found a Titan long forgotten their for some awkward reason, presumably an Emperor Class Titan

[Hey its that Pony]

5526761

Gaela: (Stands staring at the silent but intact behemoth. Her Mech-Tendrils clicking and twitching.)

Twilight: Um, Gaela? Are you ok?

Gaela: I am experiencing some strange sensations Sparkle.

Twilight: Oh? What kind?

Gaela: My various fluid pumps are going at a much higher rate than is normal outside of combat and there is this odd sensation of overheating in my chest, though it does nothing to harm me.

Twilight: (Puts a hoof to her chin.) Hmm. I'd say that sounds a lot like joy.

Gaela: Joy?

Twilight: (Smiling) Yup! It must be.

Gaela: I see... Yes, I recall these sensations now. Burning energy I could be using to resurrect this glorious machine spirit. How inefficient.

[Dragon Dred]

5526983 praise the omnissiah

[Hey its that Pony]

OK, went back to check where we left off with chapter twos update. Did I miss that awesome artwork at the bottom or was this added later?

[EverfreeSparkle]

why does anybody read these things?

Because it is in front of our faces and reading is automatic.

[EverfreeSparkle]

So many things that were amazing in this chapter, how can I hope to remember them all? Let's just say this chapter was a... smashing good time.

[Setokaiva]

Oh, wow. Twilight actually got a chance to be badass this time, taking down the Warboss without a scratch. Three cheers for the Twibl--!

(a dozen boltguns point in my general direction)

...TWIBLADETWIBLADETWI--

BOOM-BOOMBOMMB--BOOOMBOMM!

[SFaccountant]

5816473
(Salutes the brave and noble soul Setokaiva, who called the force harmonizer a Twiblade when no one else would)

[Aatxe360]

I don't know how I missed this new chapter of this series.

[SFaccountant]

6249342
So that's why you were chomping at the bit for one in the art blog. And why I hadn't heard from you in Book 5. You thought I'd taken half a year off!
Yeah, this book is actually a chapter away from completion, at this point.
Probably.

[The Warmaster]

I noticed that the image for Luna was unavailable for me. Though you might want to update it so this problem doesn't reappear, so I went to google, and I think I found it. Fits the description, at least.
cs625521.vk.me/v625521130/1472d/zJQFFTF82KI.jpg
Also, good job so far!

[SFaccountant]

6266267
That's strange. It shows up just fine on my computer...
Do you think it would help if I took the URL from a Photobucket address?

[Bugsydor]

I kinda really want to see the Sunsworn get divine boons from their worship of Sunbutt, despite her never having intended to grant them anything of the sort.

You will accept your divinity, Sun Horse!

[Darkly Hooves]

Wraithstar made a face as he started heading toward the gun line. "I'm taking my cadre back to Black Point."
"No. You will organize patrolss to cover the path along Ruby Ridge over the next two dayss," Solon commanded,

Pretty sure that should be Sliver.

Please help, I've been reading from the start for the last five days, I am wasting away because I can't stop reading. Too awesome, can not stop. Halp.

[SFaccountant]

6477012
Oh, hey, good catch! Fixed it.
I'll let the emergency crews know to break into your place and leave you a bottle of water and a Snickers.

[TheTRPony]

Such heresy, so blam-worthy. 10/10

[the other sans]

Almost instantly, great columns of bats burst into the air all around appleloosa and launched into the air in a black, squealing swarm

1. Just forgot to capitalise.

[Dusk Raven]

"...In the name of Chaos and the daemon Primarch, purge the greenskins."

I'm sure I've wondered this before, but I'm curious how Twilight and Perturabo would get along. While he's void of empathy, he's also one of the more intellectual of the Primarchs, and had some interesting ideas prior to getting drafted by the Emperor...

"Uh... yeah. About that," Applejack mumbled, squinting at the falling vessel, "ya ever seen a landin' ship crash, Brae?"
The stallion arched an eyebrow. "Naw, o'course Ah ain't. Why?"
"'Cause Ah'm startin' to think they're attracted to apple orchards or somethin'."

Not Bloomberg!

Luna landed heavily upon her balcony, her armor whirring softly as her flight pack powered down. With a flash of blue light, her the daemon plate vanished into its dimensional pocket.

Found a grammar error for the first time I can recall! Usually someone else spots it first. Anyway, remove either "her" or "the" in the last sentence, your choice.

"Ah, yes. How I weep for the candle makers and ink mixers," Spirit Shield mumbled with a roll of his eyes,

Oddly enough, there seems to be plenty of both in the 41st Millennium, although usually away from the Mechanicus factions...

It is my headcanon that shooting Orks in the face only makes them mad, which is how every Nob and Warboss can get away with wearing incredibly thick, tough armor that leaves their head completely exposed.

If it's low enough on the face, I'm told that's true of humans too. A headshot does not automatically mean brain shot.

[Der Kaiser]

"Tzeentch is a liar," Applejack snorted.

"He is not!" the young unicorn protested. "He just..." she paused for a moment, staring upward. "He just TRANSCENDS facts, is all."

Yes, yes he does

As the Apple ponies departed, Cheerilee looked town at the remaining two fillies with a stern expression. "That just leaves you two. I'm going to have a long talk with both your parents!"

"Ha!" Scootaloo laughed. "Joke's on you! I don't have any!"

Why..Why, would Scootaloo be proud of that?!

[Nevermore777]

8790307
Power of Khorne

[Nevermore777]

5514343
Wait, their not? Huh, explains why none of them are shouting “Praise the Sun” as loud as possible.

[verypeeved]

Alienss behind me, alienss before me, and alienss sstumbling about underfoot

here i am, stuck in the middle with you.

[muchet]

Hey, small thing I noticed in the chapter. Early in the chapter when Luna is speaking with Gnoss, he said Sliver was working in Baleful Bog, later on when we see what Sliver's up to, the scene transition calls it Baneful Bog.

Lord Sliver has almost wrapped up the assault on the Ork camp setting up in Baleful Bog, and our patrol elements are

Baneful Bog - engagement zone Delta 9-12, 190 kilometers outside Ferrous Dominus

[SFaccountant]

10170989
Thanks! Fixed it.