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

by SFaccountant

Dead Space

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 14

Dead Space

****

Ork Space Hulk Deffbringa

"Zoggin' monstaz iz in da fyool room, now!" grumbled a Nob as he marched through the dimly lit hallways of the space hulk. "Dis iz gettin' reel old."

A dozen Slugga Boyz following behind him grunted in general agreement as they followed their boss. Blood slicks slashed across the walls and floors, and dismembered Gretchin could be found every few meters. Some were new, while others had been there for more than twenty-four hours. The Orks ignored all the signs of carnage, uninterested in the general slaughter of their crew.

At first the appearance of the daemons had been a welcome relief from months of tiresome and mostly violence-free void travel, but they had worn out their welcome (which was choppas to the face) quickly. The damned monsters rarely ever appeared more than one at a time in any given place, so they were usually dogpiled and hammered into Warp dust too quickly for the warriors to really enjoy it. The only things the daemons really threatened were the Grot slaves. And while watching the scrawny little greenskins flee in terror from the howling beasts and get run down had also been fun at first, the deaths were starting to pile up. While the concept of protecting the ship's workers from being butchered hadn't yet penetrated the Ork psyche, they'd noticed that the chores were starting to accumulate along with the body count. Especially what with all the fresh corpses to be cleaned up.

"YEEEEEK!" the high-pitched, intensely annoying shriek of a terrified Gretchin brought the mob to a halt, and the Nob grimaced as a Grot stumbled into the hallway and sprinted toward them. A second later a man-shaped creature covered in rubbery, pallid skin and bearing razor-like claws jumped out as well, blinking eyes of gleaming ebony.

"FIYAH!" the Nob barked, raising his slugga.

The daemon flinched and staggered as it was shredded by bullets, its flesh tearing open and spilling pink vapors from the wounds. It screeched as it collapsed onto the floor and then curled up into a ball.

The same thing happened to the Grot, incidentally, but whatever.

"Ya fink we'z gonna be at dat hoss planet soon, Boss?" asked one of the boyz as he watched the daemon's body evaporate.

"Eh, I dunno," the Nob scoffed, approaching the doorway, "jus' shut yer trapz. I'z tiyahed o'heerin' 'Boss, iz we dere yet?' e'eryday."

The Nob looked into the auxiliary fuel storage room, and was unsurprised to see another monster, this one resembling a bright red wolf-thing with gills, chewing on another Grot.

"A'roight, c'mere ya ugly zoggin' pees'o spess trash," the Nob snarled, pointing his choppa at the beast.

The daemon whipped toward him, snarling.

"Oh, you'z gettin' fresh wit me?" the Nob chuckled as he put away his slugga and switched to a two-handed grip on his axe. The other boyz clustered around the doorway, watching and chuckling.

The inter-ship comms suddenly crackled with static.

"FROM IRON COMETH STRENGTH."

The Orks stopped chuckling. The Nob froze. Even the daemon jerked its head back.

"FROM STRENGTH COMETH WILL."

"Wot? Hoozat?" mumbled one Slugga Boy as he stared up at the vox caster built into a corner of the hallway.

"FROM WILL COMETH FAITH."

"Dat ain't da Boss. Or da Meks," the Nob announced, completely flummoxed. The daemon gnashed its teeth as it lowered itself to the floor, quivering.

"FROM FAITH COMETH DARKNESS."

The floor started shaking as something disturbed the hull. Bits of dirt and highly corroded bolts fell from the walls.

"FROM DARKNESS COMETH IRON."

"Wot'z goin' ON heah?!" snarled the Nob, whirling back around to face the daemon. It was trembling on the floor, shielding its face with its claws.

"THIS IS THE UNBREAKABLE LITANY. LET IT FOREVER BE SO."

The shaking increased to such a magnitude that it was starting to tear apart the bulkheads. The Orks could hear something ripping through the ship, but had no idea what.

"IRON WITHIN. IRON WITHOUT."

The end of the hallway came apart with a tremendous screech, throwing shrapnel and metal plating into the nearest Orks as the mob stumbled back.

A massive metal tendril, easily matching the hallway in girth, burrowed through the hole in the bulkheads and came to a stop just a few inches in front of one of the boyz. The Orks watched, bewildered, as the banded, worm-like length of metal twitched and throbbed within the hall. It almost seemed like a living thing. The Nob turned his back on the daemon and rushed to the doorway to investigate.

"Wot in da naym o'Gork..."

Then the tendril opened, splitting apart at the head.

"Die, greenskin," came a vox-distorted growl.

Bolter fire thundered into the Slugga Boyz as Iron Warriors marched into the hallway with guns blazing. The Chaos Space Marines were bearing boarding shields as they pushed into the space hulk, each one a curved black wall with the Star of Chaos printed on it in gold.

"SPIKIES!!" bellowed a Slugga Boy before a grenade exploded at his feet, blasting them off. The Orks rushed forward, scrambling over the backs of their dead and dying, but the press of warriors moving in the other direction battered them aside. Choppas scraped uselessly against the shields as a second rank of Iron Warriors gunned chainswords.

"YES!! Now DIS iz a fight!" the Nob cheered as his mob died. He brandished his heavy choppa and lunged forward, smashing aside one Marine's boarding shield.

The Iron Warrior let his shield go, staggering, but the man right next to him rammed his own shield into the Ork to knock him off-balance. The first Marine plunged his combat knife into the Nob, and then turned away to let another soldier finish off the Ork. Chainsword met flesh, and the alien shuddered under the savage mercies of the blade before the Iron Warrior kicked him away.

"Area secure," barked the unit Champion as a wounded Slugga Boy groaned beneath him. He lifted up a leg and crushed the Ork's head under his greaves. "Advance. Hammer formation. Set charges on anything that looks important."

The crimson daemon poked its head through the doorway, whimpering while the march of metal-clad feet rang through the hallway. The Iron Warriors glanced at the beast in passing, glaring down at it through visors of seething red and dismissing it with a contemptuous snort.

The comms system crackled again.

"Oi, wot wuz dat? Sumfin' messed wit da signul!"

The hull rumbled and groaned as more tendrils burrowed into it.

"Izzat... iz we undah attack? But we'z in da Warp!"

A metal tentacle crashed through the wall of the fuel storage room, knocking over drums and prompting the hound-like daemon to flinch away. The tendril pushed through the room to the other wall, spinning and grinding through the bulkheads as it went.

"OI! We'z got boardahs! Up and at 'em, ladz!"

More bolter fire echoed through the hallway. More marching of metal boots. More Ork battle cries and cheering.

More death, reaching for the green horde with claws of flame and iron.

"No, I meen NEW boardahs! Da spikies is heah! We'z gotta fight, boyz!"

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - barracks complex 219

"C'mon, ladz! Stepp it up! Dere's fightin' ta do!" shouted a Flashgit as he wrenched his kustom shoota from the rack on the wall.

All through the barracks, Orks were rolling off of their bunks and readying themselves for combat. Shootas were loaded, stikkbomb bandoleers secured, and armor donned.

The bulkheads shook even as they rushed to prepare, loosening wall trophies and knocking down some of the more rickety pieces of furniture.

A crash came from an adjacent hall, followed by the sound of tearing metal. Some of the greenskins froze, fairly stunned that battle had come to them so quickly and unexpectedly.

A new assault tendril, even larger than the others, ripped through the wall and started thrashing about the room. Orks were smashed off their feet and bunks were crushed into crumpled wads of metal and bedding as the tentacle writhed like a furious metal serpent. The Orks opened fire on the invader, although the small arms hardly made a dent in the armored appendage.

The assault tendril nonetheless drew back, calming its flailing and settling near the wall it had breached. Then it opened up, revealing its cargo to the aliens.

It's big, heavily armored, pink cargo.

"Surprise invasion party!" Pinkie boomed from within her Dreadnought shell with her close combat arm aimed to the left. Applejack stood between her legs, aiming her heavy flamer to the right. "Start up the barbecue!"

Both their heavy flamers opened up on the clustered soldiers, sweeping over the Orks from each side toward the middle and then crossing over each other. The aliens fired back enthusiastically, but the intense volley of bullets barely unsettled Applejack and was hardly even noticed by Pinkie.

As the initial flamer bursts dried up, two Nobs in mega armor charged the tendril mouth from either side, roaring almost as loud as their machine guns. Pinkie backhanded one with her Dreadnought fist, utterly flattening the heavy armor suit as the Ork went bouncing away. Applejack snapped her gravity lash at the other warrior, grabbing its leg and promptly tripping it up so that the Nob stumbled right in front of her. With a surprisingly swift motion that had her armor servos squealing, Applejack whirled around and hammered her back legs into the Ork while it tried to get up. The Nob was sent flying just as his partner had been, crashing through the scattered bunks and burning greenskins.

"Spread out! Aim for the unit leaders!" Twilight shouted as she and Rarity stepped out from behind the earth ponies. Rarity's plasma gun turned on another Ork in mega armor that was charging at them, while Twilight magically returned a pair of stikkbombs that had been tossed their way.

"Yeah! How y'all like that?!" Applejack crowed as she blasted another tongue of flame into a cluster of Shoota Boyz. "Not very fun when some alien weirdo drops in on yer turf an' starts wreckin' the place, is it?!"

"Awroight! A gud scrap! 'Bout time!" crowed a Nob as he and his boyz started pouring into the room.

"Ha ha ha! It'z da hosses! Git 'em, ladz!" shouted another to his own units coming in through the other side.

Applejack growled in frustration as new waves of bullets started pelting her armor. A photon grenade landed in front of one of the reinforcing groups, blinding them, while a string of lightning blasts bombarded the other.

"Hold them back!" Twilight shouted, her horn casing wrapped in purple light. "Just a little bit more!" Her next spell reached out to the streaks of fire burning on the floor around them, and the flames suddenly jumped up to surround the ponies and keep their foes at bay. Despite their weapons, the Orks had a combat advantage in such close quarters, and outnumbered them severely (as usual).

Pinkie stomped through the fire with impunity, swinging wildly at any Ork that didn't duck out of the way in time. Rainbow Dash landed on her shoulder, mag-locking her greaves onto the walker's hull and spraying shuriken into the mob.

"Twilight? Did we have a plan, exactly?" Rarity asked nervously as a slugga impact pitched her head to the side. "They don't seem to be giving up!" Her plasma gun hissed as it sprayed a trio of sizzling green bolts into another Nob, reducing him and the nearest boyz to cinders. Her power sword was already drawn and wrapped in her magical aura, but Rarity was hoping she wouldn't have to use it in a melee so badly tilted against them.

"They don't need to!" Twilight's horn burst with purple light, and a lance of magical power speared through several Orks trying to push their way through the flames. "Just a... little... longer..."

The space hulk's hull rumbled and groaned, and Twilight heard the tell-tale sound of bulkheads being pierced through. "Yes!"

A new assault tendril ripped through the wall next to the first and slithered through the entire room, ramming through nearly a dozen Orks and cutting off half the room from attacking the equines. From the next room over, they could hear the sound of bolter fire mixing with shoota fusillades that weren't aimed at them.

"Spikies! We gotz spiky boyz!" yelped a Slugga Boy standing in the doorway as he twisted his head around to see where the new commotion was coming from. He was still wondering which fight he should join when giant metal fingers closed around his body.

"Time to go attend that big party in the sky!" Pinkie chirped before slamming the Ork into a bulkhead wall. The alien was reduced to a messy paste of red and green, and the wall itself bent horribly under the impact.

"All right! Clear!" Twilight shouted as she watched Applejack buck the last standing Ork into the wall. "Next room! And check your armor seals, girls! Between the fire and all the hull breaches, we can't take our oxygen for granted! Pinkie, you have point! Everypony else, prioritize anti-armor weapons!"

Applejack grunted as she stepped over several burning corpses, ignoring both the flames and the bones snapping under her hooves. "Ya know, it really sours mah apples the way they're so happy 'bout all this," the farmer griped, "even when they're runnin' away and gettin' pelted with lasers, they're STILL havin' fun doin' it. It's like the only thing you can do to get under their skin is lay down and let 'em kill ya without a fight."

"Orks are surprisingly hard to spite, true," Twilight agreed as the gunfire in the next room intensified, "we'll have to settle for killing them all, I guess." Her force harmonizer trembled in the air as motes of purple energy swirled around it. "Next room! Go!"

The ponies charged after Pinkie, who was already ripping through a large mob who were in turn pressing against a wall of Iron Warriors with boarding shields. The chaos of battle rang through the halls as choppas hammered ceramite, pistols fired at point-blank range, and chainswords shredded thick green flesh.

Soon the green horde was being smashed from both sides as the ponies crashed into them. Applejack was like a wrecking ball, bowling the greenskins over while thrashing and bucking wildly, while Rarity, in stark contrast, singled out warriors separated from the larger crush of battle before cutting them down. Twilight formed an utterly lethal mean between the two, with her telekinesis wrenching choppas to the floor or firing short blasts knocking them into each other. All the while the force harmonizer cut into the mob in devastating arcs, cutting down two or three warriors with every crackling swipe.

"C'mon, spikies!" the unit Nob jeered, kicking a boot into a boarding shield hard enough to knock the Chaos Marine holding it onto his back. "You fink ya can tayk our spess hulk? HA! Wen I'm dun wif you, you's gonna-"

A loud crack came from the Nob's shin as Applejack bucked it from behind, although the Ork remained impressively grounded while much of his leg shattered into tiny pieces.

With an agonized groan, the Ork stumbled onto his knees, and he teetered back and forth as the Iron Warrior champion stepped forward from the barricade of Marines.

"I'll give you the dignity of dying to a real warrior," the Aspiring Champion rumbled before smashing the Nob's chest with his power fist. The impact blasted the Ork's torso apart, peppering his mob with scorched and dismembered limbs. "You're welcome."

The other Iron Warriors surged forward at seeing the Ork leader dispatched, and the green mob started to disintegrate under the crush of armored bodies and their rapidly mounting losses. After a few more seconds, and another few jets of flame blasting through the horde, the Orks turned and ran.

"Catch them!" snapped the Aspiring Champion, blasting a greenskin in the back with his plasma pistol. "No mercy for the xeno!"

"No mercy, got it," Twilight mumbled as her horn glowed. Next to the blast doors leading on to the next section, a panel suddenly glowed before a lever switched down. A set of heavy armored doors slid closed ahead of the escaping Orks, and one warrior who was faster than he was lucky ended up smashed to a paste between the reinforced plates.

"Oh, wow, the doors can just close on you and crush you? That's a serious safety hazard," Pinkie Pie noted as she plucked a fleeing Ork off the ground and then squashed him in her Dreadnought's power fist, "I don't think this mass of lumped-together space ships is up to code."

The moment the last Ork had been scythed down with bolter fire, the unit champion started barking orders. "Secure the left passage! Open those blast doors and give me a properly defended perimeter!"

The hull groaned and shook as another tendril burrowed into it nearby. The Aspiring Champion glanced to the side.

"The reinforcements are bringing an auger buoy. After we've identified the largest local power sources, we'll move to disrupt them!" the squad leader announced.

Twilight flinched as bolters started roaring from the passageways. Apparently the Orks were already counter-attacking. "Do we have any other information on what's calming the Warp storm?"

The Iron Warrior paused and glanced down at her in that way that nearly every Chaos Space Marine did before they reluctantly came to terms with holding military conference with a talking horse. "We believe it's a mechanical device, of some sort. The Orks do not deal in rituals of any scale to still a Warp storm, nor would their usual assortment of crude totems be effective. We're operating under the assumption that such a device demands a prodigious energy supply." He turned away as more Iron Warriors rushed into the room carrying a large machine, followed by a Dark Acolyte. "Anyway, you're a psyker. Can you not sense it on your own?"

"Not that easy, I'm afraid," the armored alicorn sighed.

"It never is," the Astartes agreed.

As she left the soldiers to their work, Twilight was suddenly hailed by a familiar voice over her unit frequency.

"Warsmith Solon!" she announced immediately. "Do you have new orders for us?"

"Indeed I do, Mish Shparkle. The Iron Warriorsh will hunt down the major power shourcesh and draw the bulk of the enemiesh' attention. I want you to head up to sheal off sheveral alternate attack routesh to prevent them from being flanked and overrun."

"All of these corridors have blast doors. If we shut them and destroy the controls, that should take some pressure off the guys here," Twilight said.

"All right! We get to break stuff!" Pinkie Pie cheered.

"Quite. After we have shome more readingsh I'll head in myshelf and shee if we can't pin down the caushe of thish mesh."

"Oh, you're coming too?" Rarity interjected, sounding surprised.

"I would have been down there already, actually, but there wash a problem with the Dreadnought deployment." The vox line was cut.

"Huh. Wonder what problems they're having with the Dreadnoughts," Twilight wondered aloud as she led her team down a hall.

"It's probably getting them through the tentacle thingies," Pinkie said, "it's kind of a tight fit. I mean, I can't think of any other reason the Dreadnoughts wouldn't want to help!"

****

Harvest of Steel - frontal assault deployment deck

"Release me, you fools!" Sirius roared as he struggled against his containment clamps. "She'll destroy me! I'm not getting anywhere near that little pink monster!"

Solon stared critically at the Contemptor Dreadnought as it strained against the huge, reinforced deployment claws that had carried the walker to the deck. They were currently holding him by the shoulders, suspending the assault walker nearly a meter off the ground and thankfully keeping its siege drill from tearing the interior apart.

"Honorable Sirius has been rapidly deteriorating in logical stability since planetfall," remarked a Dark Techpriest as the claws shook and released a shower of sparks on the deployment platform, "he's taken to ranting about pink ponies and wailing about our impending demise."

"Don't speak as if I'm mad!" Sirius shouted. His butcher cannon clanked loudly within its locking brace as he tried to shift its aim. "You know exactly who I'm talking about! I'm not making this up!"

"I really don't shee what you're sho jittery about. Mish Pie ish no threat to you, even if she wanted to be," Solon said, looking up at the walker.

"No threat? NO THREAT?!" Sirius shook within his bonds, and the deployment claws released another burst of sparks as they struggled to keep a grip. "The pink fiend has already taken Kellian! And then Hett! And now she has slain Kairon! Don't you imbeciles see? I'm NEXT!! Her shell will be torn asunder within the Space Hulk, and then she will claim mine!"

The Dark Techpriests stared at Solon, who was the only non-Techpriest in the room who could properly interpret how annoyed they were by the Contemptor's cries.

"Mish Pinkie explained that thoshe shellsh were loaned to her," Solon said calmly.

Sirius shook again, his massive helmet visor glowing brightly. "Don't tell me you BELIEVE such a ridiculous story?!"

"Not really," the Warsmith admitted, "but it ish far more plaushible than the idea of a shingle, unarmed earth pony mare neutralizing and unsheating the pilot of an active Dreadnought. I have obsherved Mish Pie, and have not sheen any evidence that she can puncture reinforced adamantium with her bare hoovesh."

"We don't know she was unarmed!" Sirius growled. "She could have... I mean, she might have used..."

The mighty Contemptor stumbled over his own words for a bit, and then tried again to wrench his arms free. "MY UNIT IS DEAD!!"

"We can't actually prove that," a Dark Techpriest pointed out, "we have not located any of their sarcophagi."

"YOU HAVEN'T LOOKED, YOU WORTHLESS VERMIN!!"

Solon groaned as he turned his chassis around. "Thish ish a washte of time. He'sh obvioushly not combat-ready. Return him to hish resht bay."

The Dark Techpriests bowed. "At once, Warsmith."

Sirius stopped struggling as the deployment claws started moving backward on their rails, carrying him deeper into the ship and away from the battle in progress. "You mock me, but she won't stop with me! When my shell is ruined, where next will she turn?! She'll start killing all of you!"

"Right. Of courshe," Solon said dismissively as he marched into one of the tendril ports.

"She will wear your flesh as the Tech-clergy wear robes! She will inhabit your armored vessel like a mollusk, and discard your devastated husk when she is done with you!" Sirius howled as the access doors shut behind him.

"Sad," remarked a Dark Techpriest while shaking his head. "For so many centuries Honorable Sirius has displayed an uncommonly resilient psyche despite his imprisonment. To think that his sanity has failed now..."

"The irony, of courshe, ish that in hish current hyshteria I rather WOULD prefer Mish Pie to control the Contemptor walker," Solon sighed, "ah, well. Prepare the lasht wavesh of reinforcementsh. I have a mission to finish."

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - walker maintenance

"Ugh. Disgustin'," grunted a Mek as he watched a daemon slowly boil away to vapor, its material body undone.

The floor was littered with spent bullet casings and Gretchin viscera, testament to the level of disruption by the daemon pack. Most of the remaining Grots were hiding in the nooks and crannies of the cavernous bay, quivering in terror.

Though the daemons had been dispatched quickly, their behavior this time around was noticeably different. They had appeared four at a time and had immediately ambushed the workers and Orks within the maintenance bay rather than simply appearing in a snarling, confused daze. Something had changed; it was almost as if the Warp itself was fighting them now.

None of that particularly mattered to the Meks trying to hammer together the assault walkers laying around the maintenance bay. The sudden and unexpected assault on the Deffbringa had brought new urgency to the task of fixing up old and damaged vehicles; a boring job that had been mostly ignored for years as the number of damaged walkers piled up. Coggz had tried to instill better work ethic in the Mekboyz, but had little sway with the dunderheads for being so new to this warband. So it was that they had only started welding arms back onto hulls and fixing breaches when the inter-ship vox shouted at them that they were being attacked.

And now the damn daemons were getting uppity, too.

A door at the far end of the room opened loudly, and the Meks quickly turned their weapons toward the entrance.

"C'mon, c'mon! Stepp it up, ya puny grot-lovahs!" growled a Flashgit as his mob sprinted through the maintenance bay. The Nob stopped to point at the Meks as the heavily-armed Orks rushed by. "Oi, you bettah git dese Kans runnin'! Dere'z fightin' ta do!"

"Yeh, yeh, I noh," grumped a Mek as he tapped a welding torch against a hull, "we'z workin' on it. Youz gitz go haff fun."

The Flashgitz chuckled as they reached the other end of the bay, exited through the blast doors, and then shut the doors behind them.

"Oi! Git owt heah, ya puny runts!" another Mek shouted as he yanked a Gretchin from its hiding place. "We'z got work ta do!"

"B-But Boss!" the diminutive greenskin wailed, "da monstahs iz-"

"Da monstah iz ded! An you iz too if ya don' git-"

Suddenly, the sound of a nearby shoota fusillade interrupted the two, and all the Orks in the maintenance area whirled toward the origin of the noise.

It had come from the hallway that the Flashgitz had entered. And, ominously enough, it had ended very quickly.

"... Wot? Did dey kill sumfin' arreddy?" wondered one Mek aloud.

A ferocious impact crashed into the blast doors, bowing them outward and startling the Grots back into hiding.

"Wot'z goin' on?! Wheah'z da boyz?" demanded another Ork technician angrily.

Another impact created a minor breach between the doors, and a crackling noise came from the barrier as something forced its way into the gap.

"Git dose Kans loos!" the Mek shouted, pointing toward a pair that were sitting under a set of cargo-moving claws. Those walkers had pilots and active weapons, but had damaged legs. They were still strung up with cables and chains, but their arms twitched as the pilots within sensed violence.

A terrible shriek came from the blast doors as a pair of heavy black gauntlets slowly pulled them apart. The gears within the closing mechanism stuttered and snapped apart, and jets of sparks blasted from the door tracks. With a final, echoing groan, the doors were ripped open, and a large pony in ebony armor strode wordlessly into the maintenance bay.

Luna seemed to pay no attention to the workers in the room, walking forward at a perfectly calm pace with her visor fixed on the next set of blast doors.

"I really don't see why you keep doing that, Princess," quipped a smaller armored pony that followed her in, "none of these doors are locked. The controls were right there." Phage Squadron was right behind Luna, walking behind the dark Princess in escort.

The Meks in the room quickly tired of the equines conversing as if they weren't there. "KILL 'EM!!" shouted one of them, pointing at Luna dramatically with a wrench.

The Iron Gage turned a palm toward the shootas being aimed, and a screen of force flickered into being over its fingers just ahead of the storm of bullets.

Luna halted as the Meks pelted her shield, looking over the combatants as if just noticing them.

"Thou art not warriors. We would hast let thee be, to perish when our task was complete and victory assured," Luna advised the greenskins as the other gauntlet was swallowed in a haze of bright red power.

"All Orks iz warriors!" a Mek retorted as his kustom shoota rattled in his grip.

"Ah. So be it." The Iron Gage sent a beam of screaming crimson into the pair of partially-restored walkers, gutting one immediately and knocking the other on its side in the explosion. Flaming bits of shrapnel rained over the greenskins, and the frightened shrieking of the Gretchin briefly rose above the reports of the machine guns.

"Slay the aliens," the alicorn said softly as her horn pulsed.

Phage Squadron jumped into action, and Breezy and Blossom promptly gunned down a Mek each with their leg-mounted boltguns.

Poison Kiss leapt for the nearest Grot instead, knocking over a workbench and smashing a boot into the slave's chest.

"As a pony, I feel it's morally repugnant to prey upon the weak," Kiss explained as she levitated her knife into the Grot's stomach, "but speaking as a scion of Chaos, it's just bomb!"

An explosion tore through the room as Luna detonated a fuel canister, and Kiss waited for the fireball to recede before her own horn lit up.

The dead Grot started to swell up like a balloon being slowly inflated with air, and its skin started to become mottled as patches of it grew much darker.

With a sadistic giggle, Poison Kiss levitated the bloated corpse into the air and then flung it toward several Orks covering behind another work bench. "Here, lads! You can have this back, now!"

The Orks ducked away, believing the body at first to be some kind of grenade. Which it was, really. The Grot burst open on contact with the floor, spraying the alien mechanics with diseased viscera and toxic fumes. The Meks scrambled out of their hiding spot, retching painfully and clawing at new sores rapidly growing on their skin.

"Be a dear and say hi to Grandfather for me!" Kiss chirped as she snapped her bolter up, joining the rest of her team in blasting apart the engineering crew.

Luna glared up at the heavy servo arms hanging above a partially disassembled Deff Dread. One of them was promptly wrapped in the magic of her telekinesis, and it swiveled around and then speared a Mek with its drill head.

"Thou wastes our time," Luna declared, idly stamping a hoof onto a Grot that had gotten brave enough to try to stab her. A battery of crimson magic bolts were loosed from her horn, and they whirled about in the air and zig-zagged around wrecked war machines in order to strike at the Orks taking shelter from her wrath.

As the last of the larger aliens staggered to the floor in agony, Luna started walking toward the door again. "These wretches art no further threat. Let us proceed."

Rot Blossom stopped gnawing on a dying Mek's arm, and then reluctantly spit out the limb. "Yes, Princess." The Ork coughed painfully as she walked away, trying to stem the flow of blood from his bolter wounds. He didn't seem especially concerned with his arm, although that would surely change when the eggs started hatching.

"Just a sec, love," Kiss said as she spread her legs apart and lowered her head. Her horn pulsed again, and seams of rust started crawling over the surface of the metal floor, coalescing into the Mark of Nurgle.

The nearby corpses started trembling, and Kiss giggled to herself as small, horrific, ball-shaped daemons started tearing their way out of the dead bodies. Green pools of pure energy started appearing around the Mark, and hands of rotting flesh emerged from them before pulling misshapen, bloated bodies up out of the puddles of magical filth. These daemons had guts spilling out their rotting, decomposed bodies, and carried dull, dirty knives as weapons.

"Just a little something to take out the trash, yeah?" the unicorn said before racing to catch up with the others. "As long as the storm's bringing in the beasties, we may as well call some in from team Nurgle!"

The Nurglings and Plaguebearers ignored the ponies, spreading out toward the wounded Orks and cowering Gretchin.

Luna plodded onward, largely ignoring the massacre happening behind her. The Iron Gage shot forward into the next set of blast doors as she approached the hall, and soon the shrieking of metal joined the shrieking of dying aliens.

"Does it bother you, Princess?" asked Kiss suddenly.

Luna didn't stop wrenching the doors open, but she regarded Poison Kiss with a sidelong glance. "Doth what bother us?"

"The daemons," Kiss asked as she stopped next to the larger mare, "the poisons. The parasites. Our cult. Any of it? It unsettled Princess Sparkle and her crew quite a bit. I'd be surprised if you didn't have anything to say."

The Iron Gage pulled the blast doors apart, opening the way for the mares to continue into the hallway.

"... Sparkle is somewhat... sheltered, despite her experience and record in defying the powers that hath threatened Equestria in the past. Sister raised a champion, but not a warrior," Luna said calmly, "We hast seen war at its most terrible. We art not so quick to judge thy methods, so long as they art used with prudence."

A squeak of fright came from a stack of metal crates to the left as the ponies walked past them. Luna casually wreathed the pile of containers in flame, cooking the Gretchin hiding under it.

"Well, that's some REAL love and tolerance, right there!" Breezy said happily as she trotted ahead.

Luna made a vaguely frustrated sound. "We hast... understanding. We ourselves art hardly pure of heart and soul."

"Please, Princess, you needn't deprecate yourself to us," Kiss said earnestly, "we're not the same. You submitted to your own feelings, not the Dark Gods. In your corruption, you lost yourself; in ours, we have found ourselves instead."

Luna halted entirely. The other mares stopped as well, standing around her.

"Chaos is not a part of you. It's like your armour; something to be used when necessary and stripped away and forgotten when it isn't. A wall to stand between you and the enemy. A mere tool."

The alicorn twisted her head to stare at Poison Kiss through the glare of her visor. "... 'Tis not untrue," she said coldly, "and what of it?"

"I just wonder, is all," the unicorn said as she started walking forward again, "what do you think when you see a pony who has taken up the cult? Who has embraced the evil that you were rescued from? Do you feel angry? Disgusted? Sad? Or maybe even... wistful, for what could have been?"

Luna didn't respond right away, and Poison Kiss reached out with her telekinesis toward the control panel for the next door. If nothing else, she was glad that she had diverted Luna from needlessly wrecking the place further.

She rather regretted that decision when it became apparent there was a mega-armored Nob waiting immediately behind the blast doors.

"BLIMEY!" Kiss yelped, her horn sparking even as a power klaw snapped forward toward her head.

The Iron Gage slammed into the Nob's shoulder, throwing the Ork back just enough for his klaw to miss Poison Kiss's face. The second gauntlet followed the first, punching squarely into the Nob's chest and throwing him onto his back.

The twin fists hovered over the stumbling Ork briefly, trembling and sparking as energy crackled over their fingers and seeped into their palms. Then the Iron Gage dove down, hammering the Ork into the floor and crushing him within his heavy armor suit.

"We THINK that now 'tis not the proper time to discuss our feelings and philosophies," Luna declared as she walked past the Nurgle-marked mares, "proceed with thy mission."

"Q-Quite!" Kiss stuttered as the lunar Princess turned and walked down a separate corridor. "Thanks for the escort!"

"Well, that could have gone much worse," Rot Blossom remarked as Phage Squadron trotted up to another door.

"I was just trying to make conversation," Kiss pouted as she took the lead again. This door wasn't armored or reinforced, as it didn't close off a separate part of the ship. There was a label written in Gothic, but it had been written over with Orkish scrawl: "Air machines. Important gear. Do NOT loot!"

None of the ponies could read Ork glyphs, of course, but they knew what the room was for. That's why they were here.

"Huh. This one IS locked," Kiss mumbled as she observed the door, "just a minute, girls." Her horn glowed, and then a green aura surrounded the hinges of the door. Almost immediately, they started to rust over and corrode before the unicorn's magic.

Breezy Blight shifted her position to defend their squad leader, and then she activated her vox.

"Lord Warsmith! We've reached the life support system! All the boys are going to want to keep their helmets on tight!"

"Excellent. Proceed ash planned. Shome bad air should hamper the Orksh' ashaultsh againsht our defenshive linesh," Solon replied.

"Well, if we're poisoning the ship's air, why don't we just lock ourselves in and wait for it to kill all of them?" Rot Blossom interjected.

"Unlikely to do sho. There are shix other life shupport enginesh within the shpace hulk that contribute to the atmoshpheric control. It could take daysh of fighting to reach and shabotage all of them."

"Seriously?! And I thought you humans were compensating for something," Breezy grumped.

A heavy chuckle came from the vox. "Good work, Phage Shquadron. After your tashk ish complete, fall back to the defenshive perimeter and await further ordersh."

"Cheers!" Kiss said before the vox was cut. Then she stepped away from the door. "All right, this thing's a good tap from falling off. Blossom?"

The earth pony walked up and then turned around to position herself.

"Once we get inside, I'll need some dead bodies to prepare. Then we just need to cram them into the ducts and Bob's your uncle!" Kiss said.

Rot Blossom bucked at the door hard, and true to form the corroded hinges snapped right off. The door collapsed inward, and Breezy quickly jumped in with her wrist-bolter at the ready.

"Pleez! Don' shoot!" begged a squeaky voice from within.

The interior of the life support control room was littered with large, rumbling engines, tubing that crawled over the ceiling, and old metal crates. And behind nearly every obstruction was one or two quivering green bodies.

"Ugh. Gretchin," Breezy spat, lowering her weapon, "I'm not wasting ammo on these shrimps."

Rot Blossom perked up. Breezy hated fighting small, weak creatures, but her parasites rather liked them. And Gretchin hides were much easier to chew than Orks, too.

"We soorendah!" squealed one of the greenskin slaves as he walked out into the middle of the room, his arms up and his body trembling. "We'll do wotevah yah want! Jus' don' kill us!"

Kiss smiled as she beheld the creature. "Well, that's right handy, innit?"

Her horn lit up, and her sword lifted up off of her flank.

"Now we don't have to go back down the hall to get corpses!"

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - one of a million pretty much identical passages

"... And that's nineteen!" Twilight said as the force harmonizer plunged into a control panel. The crystalline purple blade crackled and sizzled as it ripped through the machine's internals, and then the blade fizzled away as its job was complete.

Twilight turned around toward her squad. Pinkie Pie was standing at the end of the hall, at an intersection, guarding their rear. The others were standing among some dozen Orks scattered around the floor in states ranging from mortally wounded and comatose to what Rainbow referred to as "super-duper double dead". The sounds of distant gunfire echoed through the halls, carried along by the labyrinthine corridors and permeating the ancient bulkheads.

"Well then, that's another corridor blocked. How many more?" Rarity asked. She had found a halfway clean rag from somewhere and was magically buffing her armor.

Twilight brought up the local-area map briefly in her visor display. "Twenty-one."

The rest of her team groaned.

"Yer kiddin'," Applejack grunted.

"On this side of our defensive perimeter, I mean," Twilight explained further, "if they want us to get the other side too, and then access from the deck levels above and below, then we have about-"

"Don't. Please. It's too depressing," Rarity grumbled as she dropped her rag on the face of a fallen Nob.

"Why is this thing so HUGE?!" Rainbow Dash griped. "It's going to take days to explore it! Actual DAYS! We'll have to find safe places to sleep and find food and water and draw out maps so we don't get lost! It's like a Daring Do expedition, except that it's real, so it's a huge hassle rather than an awesome adventure!"

Twilight grimaced as she looked up. "Well, I don't think we're going to be here for days..."

The others glanced over at the air duct she was staring at, and they each felt slightly queasy as a cloud of visible green fumes started seeping from the vent.

"All right, girls. Activate your air supplies, hard vacuum mode," the Princess ordered as her visor started feeding her data on the new contaminants. Unsurprisingly, many of the readings returned rows of question marks. "Unlike the zombie plague in Ponyville, this is made to hurt the living, and probably isn't picky about its targets. Our mask filters SHOULD be able to handle it, but I'd rather not take chances. I don't want to transfer any of you to Phage Squadron."

Applejack shuddered. "Ah hear that."

"So now we have until we run out of air rather than until we run out of energy or bullets. Great," Rainbow complained as she stared at the counter that appeared on her visor. It was counting down from three hours.

"So, onto the next hallway?" Pinkie's voice boomed from within her Dreadnought helmet.

"Unless we suddenly get new orders," Twilight said with a shrug.

The vox crackled with static, and each of the ponies saw Solon's signal connect.

"Thank Celestia!" Rainbow Dash gushed immediately.

"For what? If it were up to her, you wouldn't even be here," Solon remarked, "really, I don't know what you're all alwaysh sho thankful to her for. Ashide from not ruining the sholar cycle, I shupposhe..."

"It's a pony thing," Twilight said quickly, "how can we help, Warsmith?"

"Between the poishoning of the air shupply and the fortification of our breach point, we have a sholid foothold on the Shpace Hulk. We've alsho had time to analyze the auger readingsh."

"And you've found the machine you're looking for and want to send us in a super-important assault to take it out?!" Rainbow Dash said, her flight pack flaring briefly.

"That would be great, but thingsh are not sho shimple. We've located numerous high-level energy readingsh that we can't properly identify, but that meansh little on a Shpace Hulk. This blashted thing ish riddled with redundant shyshtemsh, unknown devicesh, and abnormal machinesh of Orkish deshign. I've deployed on the Shpace Hulk myshelf and have shent teamsh of Iron Warriorsh to inveshtigate shome othersh, but we're shtill shearching for a rivet in an munitionsh dump."

"So ya want us to search some o' these energy sources?" Applejack guessed.

"If neceshary. But I would prefer that Princesh Shparkle utilize her apparent pshychic mashtery to help locate the machine we're looking for, if that'sh poshible. Mish Trixie did the shame in Canterlot when the Tau controlled it."

Twilight winced. "I've actually been trying to do just that since we got on board, but it's no use." She sighed. "Between the sheer energy saturation of being in the Warp and the unpredictable feedback from the Warp storm, my magic senses are almost useless."

"Really?" Solon asked. "I'm shurprished. The pshionic manifold doeshn't mitigate the interference?"

There was a long pause.

"The... The psionic what?" Twilight asked.

"The pshionic manifold. Your shuit'sh shecondary combat shyshtem," Solon explained over the vox.

Another pause. Twilight gulped loudly.

"Oh, for the love of Nurgle, sherioushly?"

Twilight started sweating in her armor as the other mares stared at her. "I don't recall you mentioning that when the power armor was installed the first time..."

"It wash in the shuit inshtruction documentation," Solon said incredulously, "you very nearly broke into shong when I gave it to you. And you didn't even read it?"

"Wait, really? Twilight didn't read the instruction dataslate?" Rainbow Dash asked, completely stunned. "I mean, WE didn't read ours either, of course, but I figured Twilight would have!"

"You are all imbecilesh," Solon noted.

Twilight chuckled nervously. "Well, of course I read it! You know... part of it. But I kept running into unfamiliar terms and really interesting constituent technologies, so then I kept stopping to read these other dataslates to learn about those, and, well, the actual manual just kind of slipped down my reading list..."

Rarity sighed, shaking her head. "Warsmith Solon, would you be so kind as to inform us as to what this machine does?"

"The pshionic manifold shieldsh the usher from pshionic dishruption," Solon explained, "it will protect you from any attempt to interfere with your pshychic powersh, shuch ash you experienced in Canterlot. Or are apparently experiencing now. Try it."

Twilight pursed her lips as she searched her visor icons. "Okay... is this it?" She blink-clicked an unfamiliar rune, and the words "psionic manifold engaged" appeared on her visor. The circuit threading of her horn plating flashed, and a soft white glow encompassed her helmet.

"Yeah, Ah reckon that's it," Applejack said, "how's it feel?"

Twilight almost felt dizzy at having her magic suddenly separated from the wild currents of energy that had permeated the ship. The passive Warp corruption that covered Ferrous Dominus and the Warp storm that had unsettled the currents of mana around the world had become a sort of white noise to her; background disruption that she had adjusted to with time. But now, everything that had seemed to fade in and out of her extrasensory awareness snapped into focus, and for the first time in over a month her mind felt perfectly clear.

"... Warsmith, you are a GENIUS," the alicorn said breathlessly.

"Obvioushly. Sho, what have you got?"

The lavender mare took a deep breath, settling her mind and well-honed senses to the task at hand.

The tides of magic - or Warp energy, as it were - surged through the ship in great currents, although even this was a stray trickle of the power that roared outside the ship's hull. Before, her mind had been stuck within the torrent, like a pony being carried along by wild river rapids, and making any sense of the streams of power was futile. Now, she stood apart from the energies, like a pony observing those same rapids from atop a boulder perched in the middle. The difference was enormous.

"... I can feel it," Twilight hissed as her eyes squeezed shut, "I think... I can feel many other minds. Ork minds, probably, but still powerful." She frowned as she turned her head to the side. "It's like they're... driving a wedge through the Warp, over and over, clearing a path and turning away the currents... they should have faltered a long time ago, but..." Twilight opened her eyes again, growling in frustration.

"Not entirely helpful, but thish ish progresh. Can you get me a location?" Solon asked.

"No. It's not that clear. The energy is too... spread out. Too pervasive. I can get a direction, but that's it."

"It will do," crackled the vox, "I'll have sheveral unitsh join you, and-"

"Wait, hold on," Rainbow Dash interrupted, "why don't we just go on our own?"

"What? Why would we do that?" Fluttershy yelped.

"Ah'm wonderin' that too. Ya know Ah can hold mah own, RD, but there's too much green 'round here fer just us."

"Yeah, obviously!" Rainbow said. "But we can sneak past them if we're on our own!"

"Sneak past them? Have you forgotten that Pinkie Pie is in a DREADNOUGHT?" Twilight asked sarcastically.

"I swear, it seemed like a great idea at the time," Pinkie noted, "and the other two times, after the first two great ideas exploded."

"Actually, I think Rainbow Dash has a point," Rarity interjected, "and I do NOT say that lightly."

"Yeah!" Rainbow cheered. Then she processed the second statement. "Hey!"

The unicorn ignored her. "Right now the Orks are rushing from all over the ship right into your guns. The defensive perimeter is the biggest, most obvious fight around. The more soldiers we bring along with us, the more Orks we're going to attract. And it will be very easy to be surrounded the deeper into the ship we go."

"Yeah, okay," Applejack agreed, nodding her head, "an' if we get into hot water or hit a wall, Twi can use her teleport if it's just us!"

Twilight shook her head. "Sorry, but I can't. Ever since the Warp storm has been affecting my magic, my teleports and many other spells have been-" she froze mid-sentence, her eyes growing wide.

"... Uh, Twilight?" Applejack asked. "Somethin' wrong? Ah thought the sy-onny whatsit kept yer magic in order."

"AND I HAD IT THE WHOLE TIME!!" Twilight suddenly shouted, collapsing onto her side and flailing her legs. "GAAAAAAAH!! STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUUUUUUPIIIIIIIIIIID!!"

The other ponies exchanged awkward glances as the alicorn freaked out on the floor, hoping that any nearby Orks were more interested in the distant gunfire than the agonized howling.

Rainbow nudged Applejack's shoulder pad. "You know, I'd make fun of her for this, but it's actually really sad that she made a mistake because she didn't READ enough."

"Crazy space armor makes fools of us all," the apple farmer said solemnly.

Another burst of static came from the vox, followed by gunfire. "Look, I have enemy contactsh here. When Shparkle finishesh acting like an idiot, let her know that your shtratagem ish approved. I'll be monitoring your life shupport and location sho that I can shend another team in that direction if you all die." The link was cut.

It only took about half a minute longer for Twilight to stop rolling back and forth over the floor and finally fall still.

"Are you okay, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked gently.

"Good thing you didn't start banging your head against the wall. That might have damaged the psionic manicure," Rarity commented.

"Psionic manifold," Twilight corrected automatically.

"Egghead's back!" Rainbow Dash said brightly.

Twilight slowly stood up, and her force harmonizer floated over her before clamping onto her back. "Yes, I am. Sorry about that, girls."

"Nah. Best to get it all outta yer system," Applejack assured her, "so, where to?"

Twilight took a moment to bring up the local-area auger readouts. "We have a heading, we have a map, and I can teleport accurately again." Her eyes narrowed. "Whatever's causing all this is DONE FOR. Bunch up, everypony."

Equinought Squadron surrounded their Princess, and Twilight Sparkle took in the fierce (except Fluttershy), mechanical, crimson gazes of the five helmets around her. Her horn casing flooded with purple light.

"Let's finish this," the alicorn growled as her magic energy expanded.

And expanded some more.

And then continued to expand.

As the expansion went on, Twilight came to regret her mistimed expression of aggression and determination.

"Seriously, Pinkie Pie, this would be SO much easier if your wargear wasn't some fifty times the mass of the rest of us," Twilight grumbled.

"Or twice the mass, in AJ's case," Rainbow Dash quipped before she could stop herself.

Just as a heavy boot was thrust toward Rainbow's helmet, Equinought Squadron vanished in a flash of purple light.

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - Hazarr's workshop

Hazarr "Coggz" Wrencha snored loudly as he laid sprawled out on his bunk face-down. The Big Mek, like most Orks that had managed to acquire a suit of mega armor, was practically grafted to many of the interior components by now and anyway found removing the suit was too long and cumbersome a process to do every time he wanted to nod off. So he slept atop the nearly obliterated mattress of his bed like a big mechanical turtle, with his head and arms mostly tucked within the large lump of metal. His servo claw hung overhead, twitching and occasionally snapping open and closed without conscious reflex.

A flare of Warpflame blazed to life in the middle of the workshop, opening up into a pool of darkness. From that otherworldly shadow came a creature of fangs and talons. A snarling, thirsting monstrosity whose only impulse was to extinguish mortal life.

It made it about halfway out of the portal.

Big shootas attached to ceiling turret mounts swiveled toward the daemon in an instant, immediately firing a long, devastating burst that could have shredded an entire pack of the beasts. The lone creature screeched as its material form was undone, and it seemed to slip back into the pit of darkness as if it had lost its footing.

Coggz shifted slightly in his sleep.

After a few more minutes of snoring that was only slightly softer than the shoota gunfire, a loud banging noise came from the door.

"Oi! Coggz! Open up, ya lazy Grota-lovah! OI!!"

Hazarr stirred, and the Big Mek slowly pushed himself up.

"Uuungh... wot'z wit' all da noyz?" grunted the engineer as he staggered to the door.

"Coggz! COGGZ!! I sweahz ta Gork, if ya don' open up..." the angry voice was suddenly interrupted by a violent coughing fit, which also interrupted the constant pounding on the blast doors.

Hazarr reached the door control panel, and he pulled up the lever. The doors slid apart, revealing one of Kahg Krushah's lesser Warbosses, and his escort of two Nobs in mega armor.

The Warboss was panting, and his face looked unusually pale. Both of his guards also seemed somewhat unwell, with one of them glassy-eyed and drooling (much more than usual, that is), and the other groaning softly and swaying from side to side.

"Whatcha wan' now?" Hazarr grunted, heedless of their suffering. "I'm tryin' ta sleep."

"Coggz, you git! Dis ain't da tym fer sleep!" snapped the Warboss after catching his breath. "We'z got a fight!"

"Wot, da monstahs?" the Big Mek replied. "Dey ain't-"

"No, not da monstahs ya idjit! Spikies!" the Warboss snarled. "We'z got spikies on da Deffbringa!"

This came as a genuine surprise to the Big Mek. "... Jus' how long did I sleep?"

"Dey jumped us in da Warp! Brohk inta da lowah dekks, neer da enjins!" the Warboss stopped again to cough violently. "But, lissen! Dey... Dey did sumfin' down dere! Da monstahs iz gettin' all rowdy, an' da ayr down dere ain't no gud! Da boyz iz rechin' an' hakkin', an' can't fight propah!"

Hazarr tilted his head to the side, thinking. "Da ayr heah's gud. Dey musta messed wit da sub-dekk lyff s'port in sekshun six. I c'n fiks it."

The Warboss swayed slightly as he backed away. "Yeh... ya... ya go do dat."

Hazarr flipped the switch again to close the doors, and then stomped over to his lockers. Inside, he found his void-rated helmet, and withdrew the head gear.

He was distracted, though. The Big Mek was very surprised and impressed that the Chaos Space Marines had ambushed them in Warp space. The high-energy, physics-bending nature of the Warp made most shipboard weapons and sensors almost useless, and the constant barrage of psychic energy could easily render troops insane in the fury of combat. Not that he expected spiky boys to be troubled by that second hazard, but still.

"HWAAARGH!!" an enraged scream from outside was followed by a burst of gunfire, and Hazarr almost dropped his helmet.

Several heavy impacts sent tremors through the bulkheads, and then the shouting and gunfire stopped.

Hazarr quickly checked the pressure on his welding (and unwelding) torch, and then walked back to the door controls. Hesitating only briefly, he pushed the lever up to open the doors again.

What was standing outside his workshop was not another Ork, nor was it an Iron Warrior.

"HOSS!" Hazarr shouted, snapping his torch up.

A black gauntlet flew through the air, grasping the Big Mek by the shoulder and foiling his aim. Hazarr's torch cut a burning swath across the wall as he was thrown back, missing his assailant completely.

Luna's eyes narrowed behind her visor as she looked over her newest target. "We remember thee," she hissed, "t'was thou who laid us low during our first engagement with the green horde!"

Hazarr struggled against the shockingly powerful metal hand slowly squeezing his arm, and then saw that he was still close to the door controls. He reached his power klaw for the lever, only for a second gauntlet to seize his wrist and pin him fully against the wall.

"Dost thou remember us, Ork? The dark equine that thou bested beside the ruin of the Tau space craft?" Luna growled, stepping forward.

Hazarr struggled under the grip of the Iron Gage, feeling the interior banding of his armor buckle under their grip. "I remembah a dumm bloo hoss hoo don' tokk right. Dat you?" The servo claw on Hazarr's back shifted slowly to the side.

A vein throbbed on Luna's head as her horn casing flared red. "Art those thy last words, alien?"

Hazarr's servo claw lashed downward, and Luna tensed. She was somewhat confused, however, when the mechanical limb didn't reach for the Iron Gage but instead snatched a lever on a control panel and pulled it down.

"Wherefore art-" was about as far as Luna got before the blast doors slammed closed over her head.

Sparks blasted from the door frame, and a terrible grinding noise came as the barrier fought to completely crush the obstruction and properly seal the passageway. Unintelligible noises sputtered from Luna's vox grille, and Hazarr felt the Iron Gage stop crushing him.

He used his servo claw to pull the control lever back up, and the pony armored in black staggered as her head was suddenly released from the overwhelming pressure trying to flatten her cranium. She tried to focus on her magic immediately, but her head was spinning and pain surged through her skull.

Then Hazarr switched the lever back down, and the twin plates of metal crashed back into her head again.

"Gyugh!" Luna yelped as her vision exploded into stars and a crack ran through her visor lens.

Hazarr switched the door open again. And then closed again. And again. And again.

The fifth time that the barriers slammed closed, the pain and shock of the repeated impacts finally overwhelmed the alicorn Princess. The hands of the Iron Gage slipped away to the floor, and when Hazarr opened the door again, so did Luna.

Her last thought before lapsing into blissful unconsciousness was that the doors on this Space Hulk were a serious safety hazard.

"... Well. Dat went ohkay," the Big Mek mumbled, kicking away the giant black hands.

He walked over to the unconscious alicorn, looking over her armor. Hazarr was quite impressed to find that despite the extremely heavy abuse, the helmet was still intact. It wasn't quite the same shape as before, but aside from the visor breaking, the plating hadn't breached.

"Dat'z sum gud stuff," Hazarr said, reluctantly impressed. His torch started warming up.

The Big Mek grabbed Luna's comatose body by its flight pack and held it up, deciding how to go about removing the armor from its (former) owner. He decided to cut the flight pack off first, and then work from there. His torch-arm let out a chemical hiss as the tip blazed orange.

"I wondah how dis hoss tastes," the Ork engineer mused. He did have to do something with the body after he got the armor off, after all.

Hazarr stabbed the torch into the armor's wing plating, and then flinched as a howl of pain and fury boomed within his head, echoing within the psychic currents that permeated the ship. Hazarr pulled the torch away quickly and dropped the body, taking a wary step back.

A metallic scratching noise came from behind him, and Hazarr glanced back to see the fingers of the Iron Gage twitching even as the gauntlets remained on the floor.

"Damm spikies and deir nutty geer," the Big Mek growled. He disliked machines that snarled at him on principle; all a piece of wargear had to do was perform function A when subject to input B, with some allowance for unexpected explosion C, and he wasn't going to take any lip from an uppity hunk of metal.

He shut off his torch and grabbed Luna by her leg. "Ferget it. I'll jus' toss it." The room immediately adjacent to his workshop was a bigger workshop used by the numerous Gretchin and Meks that Kahg had put under Hazarr's command. It contained an incinerator, which would do just nicely in ensuring that the linguistically challenged mare didn't pop up to bother him again.

Hazarr started dragging Luna across the workshop floor, stepping around a large puddle of blood and viscera. Hazarr was guessing that it used to be the Warboss and his retinue that had woken him up, although it was impossible to tell for sure with their heads reduced to charred husks.

"Boss Krushah needs ta git sum bettah help," Hazarr grunted, "da only reeson I caym wit' him wuz cuz' my own boyz coodn't beet da dumm hosses."

Hazarr reached the wall with the incinerator, and he dropped his equine cargo to open up the access shaft.

Then came the footsteps.

Not light, equine steps, or the armored, purposeful tread of the Astartes. This was a heavy, mechanical gait, akin to assault walkers and space-borne monstrosities.

Or perhaps a Warp-fueled cyborg hybrid of the two.

The blast doors to the main shop slid open, and Warsmith Solon lumbered into the room. The Chaos Lord's mechanized legs were spattered with gore, his servo claw dribbled blood along the floor behind him, and the heavy rotary cannon mounted on his right arm was still warm and slowly spinning from its most recent exertion.

"Oh, zog," Hazarr cursed as he quickly adjusted the gas pressure on his torch.

Solon took a leisurely sweep of the room with his optics, barely even seeming to notice the Big Mek. Instead, it was Luna that his attention eventually settled on, her comatose body encircled by targeting reticules and boxed in by data readouts.

Finally, Solon's gaze shifted to the alien.

"That belongsh to me, Ork," Solon said calmly, walking forward again. His cannon started spinning up, and his optics flashed.

"Sod off!" Hazarr snarled, cranking his torch up to maximum range and firing a blast at the newcomer.

At Solon's current distance the heat ray was largely ineffective, and the Chaos Lord continued crossing the room as a wave of blazing orange scorched his abdominal plate. Hazarr leapt behind the unfinished hull of a Mega Dread as Solon's weapon retaliated, filling the room with a shrieking howl. Bright red fist-sized munitions tore across the wall, punching deep holes in the reinforced bulkheads that spat puffs of Warpflame after impact. One such bullet ripped into the incinerator access hatch, breaking it off its mounting and knocking it into the withering flames within.

"I musht shay I'm shurprished," Solon admitted as he started strafing to the side, "how did you manage to dishable the Princesh with sho little apparent damage?"

Hazarr growled as he fumbled with a remote control from his tool belt. "I owt-smahted her, dat'z how!"

Solon paused. "Huh. Okay, yesh, I can shee how that would catch one off-guard."

"Lessee if it wohks on you!" Hazarr shouted as he pressed a button on his remote.

Six auto-turrets dropped down from the ceiling, each one rattling dangerously as they swiveled about toward Solon.

"Outshmart me, hmm?" the Warsmith mused aloud.

The big shootas opened up on the Chaos Lord, the cramped quarters and large target compensating for their lackluster sensors and targeting programs. Bullets hammered Solon from all sides, and sparks sprayed across his armor in great showers from dozens of ricochets.

Solon surged toward one of the turrets, all but ignoring the constant rain of munitions buffeting him. His legs shifted to lift up his chassis, and the Warsmith grabbed onto the auto-turret with his free hand and ripped it clean off its servo mounting.

Hazarr peeked out from behind his cover, watching as the Chaos Lord dropped the sputtering gun and then stuck his hand up into the mess of sparking cables and shredded metal left behind. The Big Mek didn't know what he was trying to do, but the important thing was that the Iron Warrior's weapons were diverted elsewhere. Hazarr darted out of his hiding spot, running as quickly as his heavy armor allowed toward one of the weapon assembly tables.

Solon's multi-optics spotted the movement, but he let the Big Mek be as bullets continued scraping against his chassis and hammering dents into his smokestacks. His hand shifted carefully through the sundered cables and gearwork, stopping as his fingers grazed the particular wire he was looking for. Threads of energized mercury seeped from the palm of his gauntlet, crawling over the damaged electronics and wrapping around the metal contacts.

Hazarr grabbed a kustom mega blasta from a workbench and then turned around, bracing the hefty weapon's weight with his servo claw. To his delight - and mild confusion - Solon was still standing in place, his hand stuck up in the ceiling.

Also, the auto-turrets had stopped shooting, for some reason.

Weird.

Realization dawned on the Ork as the automated guns swiveled around to face him.

"ZOOOOOOG!!" Hazarr cursed as both he and the turrets opened fire.

One of Solon's legs flipped a metal table up just ahead of the mega blasta's discharge, and a brilliant flash of light filled the workshop as the energy bolt detonated and consumed the furniture uselessly.

The combined fire from the turrets, however, battered Hazarr and staggered him. Though his mega armor was more than adequate to deflect the barrage, the crushing volume of fire was much harder to ignore for the Ork than it was for the Iron Warrior. Hazarr shielded his face with his klaw and the mega blasta as he stumbled back, searching for a safe haven.

"Kwit it! Ya damm hunks o'junk! I'm gonna rip ya all ta scrap an-" a plume of pressurized gases burst from the mega blasta as the shootas ripped a hole in the volatile weapon, and this time Hazarr didn't even get a chance to curse before disaster struck.

Hazarr's gun exploded, throwing the Ork hard into the wall. Solon approached and gestured to the side, and the rumbling auto-turrets stopped shooting as they powered down.

"YOU thought to outshmart ME, Ork? Know your place. You shtand before Warshmith Sholon, Lord of the Machine. Your abshurd devicesh and banal wit are ushelesh before me."

Hazarr coughed as his armor smoldered around him. His servo arm was gone, as was his power klaw.

"Why... can't anee o'you gits... tokk roight?" the Ork groaned.

Solon paused in his approach. "Touché. Initiating rebuttal." He slammed a leg into Hazarr's chest plate, and the Big Mek howled in pain as his armor folded inward into his chest.

Solon's servo claw reached over and seized the gasping Ork around the waist, digging deep and painfully into his torso as it picked him up. "I admit you barbariansh gave ush a good shtruggle, at leasht. I really didn't expect sho much trouble from you. In fact, I'm shtill not shure how you shtabilized the Warp shtorm."

Hazarr gasped and coughed as he was lifted up and carried to the side. "You... metuhl... idjit! It wuz... eezy! Don' ya... noh hoo... I am?"

Solon halted, his optics zooming in on his opponent. "Actually, no. Who are you?"

The Big Mek gathered his strength briefly, managing to draw enough air from his collapsing lungs to form an unbroken sentence. "Da naym's Coggz! Hazarr Coggz Wrencha! Da bestest, biggest Mek dere is!"

Solon's optics flickered for a few seconds as he searched his databanks.

"Never heard of you," he admitted. Then he shoved Hazarr into the incinerator.

The Mek howled in pain as Solon drew his servo claw out, but those cries were silenced once he pressed a large, obtrusive button on the incinerator controls. A fresh blast of super-heated gases were injected into the machine, and Hazarr's body and armor suit was utterly disintegrated.

"That'sh a shame, really," Solon admitted as he stepped away from the surging heat, "for a moment I thought I might have actually beaten shomeone important for once."

He swiveled about on his chassis, and then scuttled over to Luna's unconscious body.

"I shupposhe everybody getsh into trouble once in a while, eshpecially on the battlefield. I certainly have no room to criticize. But I do hope thish ishn't going to become a trend, Princesh." Solon picked Luna up by her flight pack, depositing her more-or-less gently on his chassis behind him.

"Fatherrrr... Tia keeps raising the sun an hour earlyyyyy..." Luna moaned, "tell her to wait her turrrrrrrn..."

"The shad thing ish that thish ish my mosht usheful and shucceshful combat experience in about a decade," Solon grumbled as he picked up the Iron Gage and headed back to his ship.

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - some other corridor; for real there are so many corridors you have no idea

A set of blast doors slammed shut, sealing off the connecting hallways with an airtight, armored seal.

Ten Orks in 'ard armor slumped in front of the barrier, all in varying states of misery as they hacked and coughed. Some had bits of skin peeling off in places, and others were spitting up blood. Orks were exceptionally hardy creatures, able to tolerate any number of hazardous environs and diseases, but Nurgle's contaminants were a cut above mundane infections.

"A'roight... less jus'... tayk a breethah," gasped the unit Nob as he stared at his mob in a fevered haze, "den we can go bakk and krump dem... ugh..." the larger Ork fell back against the wall and slid into a seated position, his lungs burning.

"Da ayr iz bettah in heah," remarked one of the less infected boyz, "can't we jus' wayt fer da spikies ta come to us?"

"Sumwun'z gotta tell Boss Krushah wot'z goin' on," gasped another 'Ard Boy, "da boyz can't fight in dat!"

"Yeh, oh-kay... mebbe we c'n get a Mek ta fikks da ayr masheen," the Nob mused. "... Oi. You gits heer dat?"

They did indeed hear that: the sound of very heavy footsteps approaching the other side of the blast doors.

"I fink it'z da Nobz. Dey'z comin' bakk too," sputtered a boy before coughing.

A different 'Ard Boy nodded wearily and pulled the lever on the door controls.

The blast doors cracked open, and the Orks recoiled uneasily as a puff of green fumes seeped into the hallway.

Then they recoiled again as a Stetson poked its way in, followed by a suit of quadrupedal terminator armor.

"Hey there fellers! Takin' a break?" Applejack asked pleasantly as she primed her heavy flamer. "Here, lemme warm y'all up. Some o'ya look like ya got the chills."

The Orks all started taking up their weapons, groping for choppas or dizzily trying to hold sluggas straight. It was such a pathetic sight that Applejack actually considered waiting a few seconds longer until they were ready, just so they could at least die with SOME dignity.

She decided against it.

Pinkie Pie's Dreadnought followed Applejack through the doorway, trailing by several meters. "Hey, AJ! Need any help?"

"Nah, Ah'm good," Applejack said as she trotted over the burning bodies, "these guys weren't in any shape to give us trouble."

After the others walked in, Twilight levitated the control lever down and shut the blast doors once more.

"All right, it looks like this section uses a different environmental support engine. The contaminant levels are very low and falling," the alicorn announced, "give it a few minutes and then you can switch back to external air supplies."

"Well, that's two likely causes of death evaded, for now: suffocation and infection. Lovely. Where to, Twilight?" Rarity asked.

The alicorn concentrated briefly, squeezing her eyes shut. Then she turned slightly to the left, sensing their objective through the currents of the Warp. "We're close. Very close. The... machine, or whatever it is, is a deck above us and then..." she grunted in frustration. "I still can't get a good reading on the distance. And my visor isn't picking up any particularly large energy signatures that way, either. Whatever it is definitely isn't as power-hungry as many of the other ship systems."

"Well, I'm getting a Cool reading of 4.1 from that direction. Does that help?" Rainbow Dash asked.

The pegasus looked around and saw her friends staring at her silently.

"All right, fine. Didn't think so," she grumbled, "so where's the elevator?"

The sound of shoota fire and Orks shouting suddenly had the ponies all at attention, whirling to face down the hall for any opposition.

"... Too far away," Twilight said, relaxing slightly, "it must be another daemon pack appearing."

"They're, uhm, kind of in our way, though," Fluttershy said softly, noting that the current corridor went straight toward the sounds of combat with no alternate routes.

"That's fine. We're not taking the elevator," Twilight assured them as her horn casing flashed again, "vertical teleport, five meters. Three... two... one!"

****

When the purple light faded, the mares found their crimson-tinted visors locking onto the back of two Nobs in mega armor.

"Wot da-" the Orks had just started turning around when Rarity gunned down one of them, her plasma gun burning easily through the thick sheets of layered plating. The other was smashed aside by Pinkie's power fist, having been unlucky enough to be within swatting range when the ponies materialized.

"More over there!" Rainbow shouted, still perched on Pinkie's shoulder.

Half a dozen more mega-armored Nobs stood at the other end of a largish room littered with scrap metal and loose munitions. The Orks were clearly surprised at their appearance, although these ones at least had the good fortune to be facing the right direction.

"Oi! Inn-troodahs!" barked one Nob as he started spraying wildly with his shoota arm. "Krump 'em!"

A spray of shuriken sailed back at them as the warriors rushed forward, although the razor-edged projectiles did very little to harm or hinder them. The same could not be said of the photon grenade that landed in front of the charging aliens. The blinding flash had them stumbling in their advance, and one of them tripped over a munitions crate. It also made their shoota bursts less accurate, although it was difficult for the ponies to discern a real difference.

"Twilight, could you be a dear and keep those deadly power weapons away from us?" Rarity asked as she put down another Nob with a flurry of plasma bolts.

"On it!" Twilight had been inspired by seeing one of the Orks spill bullets all over the floor, and she spotted a metal barrel crammed beyond any safe capacity with spare rokkits.

A simple nudge of telekinesis sent the barrel crashing to the ground and the warheads rolling across the room at the Nobs' feet. "Applejack, Pinkie! We need fire, now!"

Twin jets of flame rushed through the room, parting around the Nobs' well-protected legs.

As well-protected as they were, that protection was severely tested when the floor began exploding under them. Nobs tumbled to the ground as their feet were knocked out from under them, or, in a few particularly nasty cases, blasted off entirely. Only one Nob survived the wave of detonations with his armor and weapons still intact and ready, and even he staggered unsteadily as he emerged from the smoke.

"Got him," Pinkie chirped before spearing him with her multimelta.

"And THAT is why you don't store live, unstable munitions in a room where you expect to see combat!" Twilight lectured before plunging her harmonizer blade into a wounded Nob. "This entire ship is a mess! It's a wonder any of you survived long enough for us to come kill you!"

Rarity stood further off from the dazed Orks with her plasma gun floating over her head, calmly putting them out of their misery one shot at a time. "Speaking of rooms that expected to see combat, this is some rather heavy gear to find so far from the main fighting, isn't it?"

Twilight nodded. "You're right. These Orks weren't here by chance, they were standing guard. Which means..."

She looked around the room. It had a set of blast doors on each wall, but one was particularly large and heavy, covered over with glyphs and skulls hanging from chains.

"There. Behind that door," Twilight said darkly. Then she tapped into her vox. "Company Command, this is Twilight Sparkle. We've reached the device. Get everyone ready to fall back and leave the ship in a hurry, because I'm not sure how much notice we'll be able to give you before it's down."

Rainbow Dash frowned.

"Acknowledged. Perform your duty, Sparkle," came a gruff reply through the vox before it was disconnected.

"Hey, uh... how are WE gonna get outta here, exactly?" Applejack asked. "Kind of a long walk back to the assault tendrils."

"I don't know," Twilight admitted with a sigh, "we'll have to see what this machine looks like and what our options are for taking it down. But, well... we might not be able to make it back in time."

Rarity cringed, and Fluttershy whimpered.

"No, no, no..." Rainbow Dash mumbled, her head turning left and right.

"I hope it won't come to that, Dash," Twilight said, "but even if we have to sacrifice-"

"Not that!" Rainbow yelled. "The room with the thing is only clocking in at 3.4!"

"... What?" The question came from more than one vox grille.

"Its Cool factor! Weren't any of you listening to me before?" Rainbow shouted.

"No." Once again, Twilight's blunt admission had plenty of company.

"That means the higher Cool factor is from something else! And it's coming from-"

The set of blast doors that Rainbow Dash was facing groaned as they slid open. The rest of Equinought Squadron whirled around, their nerves on edge and their weapons primed.

"... Da ZOG iz dis?!"

The Ork standing in the doorway was big. Very, very big. Twilight decided immediately that they had stumbled upon the head Warboss of this vessel, mostly out of a fervent hope that there wasn't an even BIGGER Ork waiting to challenge them nearby. He had a suit of mega armor on, complete with huge tusks jutting out the front, a sparking backpack generator, and a rod-shaped weapon strapped onto one wrist. Unlike most other suits of the same type, this one had a normal gauntlet instead of a power klaw, and in that hand the Ork carried an enormous maul. Also unlike the other suits she'd seen, this Ork had an enclosed helmet; a feature that had proven surprisingly rare for a space-faring species operating on a rickety space ship.

Behind the Warboss was a Weirdboy and a Mekboy, with the latter hauling a massive weapon over his shoulder that hardly looked like a weapon. Rather than having a barrel, it boasted a propeller-like array of three sphere-tipped rods at the end, and the entire machine was covered in dangerous-looking cabling and sizzling fuses.

For a few tense seconds, neither side spoke or moved.

Then Warboss Kahg Krushah looked over at his Weirdboy. "You seerius? Dis iz da 'powahfool magiks' dat'z been cozzin' trubbel? Izza buncha HOSSES!"

"Dey gots a big stompy fing," the Mek pointed out, gesturing over at the Dreadnought.

"It'z PINK!" the larger Ork retorted.

"Hey! You got something against pink?" Pinkie asked, taking a heavy step forward.

"Somewhat appropriate," Rarity quipped as she snapped a fresh fuel cell into her plasma gun, "because I cannot abide GREEN."

A burst from her plasma gun and Rainbow's shuriken catapult were the starting shots of the fight. The fusillade splashed against a defensive barrier in front of the leader, casting a bleak blue glow over the greenskins.

"Reely? Dis iz reely happenin'?" the Warboss asked as his Weirdboy and Mekboy lumbered forward.

The Weirdboy's exposed brains flashed over with green energy as his mind lashed out, but the Ork was quite surprised when his attack was met with a similar lash of purple coming from Twilight.

"Pinkie! Get them!" the alicorn shouted as she held back the tide of psychic power.

"MECHA PIE SMASH!!" Pinkie boomed in a highly exaggerated roar as she surged forward.

At the same time, the Mek's shokk attack gun started turning as the generator rods flashed with energy. All around the Mek's feet, tiny greenskins even smaller than gretchin clamored and cackled, gnawing on loose wires and climbing on the Mek's tool belt. Several of these tiny creatures - called Snotlings by the larger Orkoids - were suddenly sucked up into a pipe as the shokk gun whined and buzzed.

"A pink power fist hurts just as much as any other color, bozo!" Pinkie shouted as she lunged for the Orks.

The shokk gun flashed, and the Mek staggered back. A strange cascade of light briefly surrounded Pinkie's Dreadnought, and the walker froze mid-charge.

"Whoa, trippy," the bubbly mare said. Then she yelped in pain. "OW! Hey! What? Where did you come from?!"

"Pinkie?!" Rainbow Dash yelled as the Dreadnought - and thus her perch - suddenly lurched backward. "What's wrong?!"

"There's - gyah! - little green things in here! Ow! Quit it! Let go of my tail!"

Rarity blurred across the floor as as she powered up her time dilation engine, skipping around the largest of the Orks as her power sword left a blue streak behind her.

Kahg glanced to that side as his Mek tried to snap at the armored unicorn with his klaw, but swiped too high. The floating power sword cut across his chest, and then stabbed up into the shokk gun.

Rainbow Dash blasted by on his other side, and Kahg turned his head to watch as the flying pony smashed into his Weirdboy, toppling the psyker. The pegasus jumped off as soon as her target hit the ground, and then twisted in the air to fill the fallen Ork with shuriken.

Kahg faced forward again, his gaze settling on a pony charging straight for him. It was wearing a hat.

"This is fer mah orchard, yah ugly green sonuva mule!" Applejack cried as she galloped toward the Warboss.

"... Yeh, I'm dun wif dis," the massive Ork grunted.

His hand shot out and grabbed Applejack just as she was about to ram into his leg, seizing her by the head. The apple farmer was stopped instantly, her helmet creaking from the unexpected impact.

"What in the-HEY!" Kahg lifted Applejack up by her face, and she started flailing her legs and tail to try to break free.

Rarity dodged to the side as her Mek opponent swung desperately at her, all the while smacking aside the squealing Snotlings with quick jabs of her hooves. With barely a glance at her power sword, it drew itself out of the damaged shokk gun and then stabbed down into the Ork carrying the weapon, sending him to his knees.

"There! We'll have no more of your ridiculous weap-"

And then suddenly she had a whole lot of Applejack in her face.

The two ponies skidded painfully across the floor, kicking up a trail of sparks before slamming into a crate full of ammunition belts. Loose bullets were scattered all over the floor, along with much of the mares' dignity.

"Applejack! Rarity!" Twilight shouted in shock. Then she was forced to dodge to the side as Pinkie's Dreadnought nearly stepped on her.

"Stop! Get out of the kitchen, you little monsters!" Pinkie cried as her walker reeled back and forth at random. The sound of crashing porcelain followed her demand, prompting a howl of anguish from the party pony. "NO!! Not the good china!"

Rainbow Dash slammed her back hooves into the badly wounded Weirdboy, finishing off the psyker before she turned her attention to Kahg. "You're mine, fatso!"

The Warboss swiped a hand at her, but the pegasus proved more agile than Applejack was. Rainbow Dash zipped out of arm's reach, and then bounced in the air to avoid a swing of Kahg's maul.

"What? Can't hit me? Are you stupid AND blind?" Rainbow cackled, swooping to the side to avoid a punch. Honestly there was very little Rainbow could do to hurt a heavily armored foe in such close quarters, but distracting him for her better-armed teammates was the best option she had.

Kahg growled in frustration as he swung his maul in tight arcs and threw the odd jab at the flying equine, only to have her bob and twirl away from his attacks.

A humming noise came from his side, and Kahg twisted about as a sizzling purple blade crackled against his personal shield. He snapped his gun-arm toward Twilight, and the zap-blasta sparked dangerously as he leveled his aim.

That proved futile as Rainbow came back around and kicked at his wrist, spoiling the shot.

"Hey! Did I say I was done with you, yet?" she cried as the Ork growled deep in his throat.

The Warboss turned the zap-blasta on Rainbow instead, and a jolt of lightning lashed out at the pegasus. She hit her impulse blasters at just the right moment, jolting backward and barely avoiding electrocution.

And then Rainbow Dash remembered why it's a bad idea to use those devices indoors.

"GAH!" Rainbow slammed her head on the ceiling, and then pitched to the side as one of her wings scraped against a bulkhead beam. She was sent spiraling into the floor, bouncing off of her shoulder and eventually crashing into a barrel in what Kahg felt was a fitting conclusion to her hubris.

Pinkie accidentally kicking her after that was unrelated to her hubris, but he enjoyed that, too.

"EEEK!! They're in the den! Somepony help!" Pinkie shouted as her Dreadnought fired a multimelta blast that cut a long, hot groove into the wall. "Not the holovid player! ANYTHING but the holovid player!"

A loud crack followed the pony's plea. "NOOOOOOOOO!!"

Kahg felt the tingling sensation of his shield bubble breaking as the force harmonizer cut across it again. He jumped to the side with shocking speed for something his side and weight, and the harmonizer blade spun wildly from the missed swipe.

"The shield is down!" Twilight shouted as Kahg stepped up to some crates and pulled his maul back. "Now to finish-"

Kahg struck a crate on the side, pitching it at Twilight with stunning accuracy. Stunning in the sense that the Princess was sent reeling when the crate smashed into her and knocked her off her hooves.

"Ya noh, I cood be fightin' spikies roight now," Kahg grumbled, his voice bubbling with resentment as he stomped toward Twilight, "but 'ere I am, beetin' on hosses eensted. I'm 'ardly even haffin' fun."

A photon grenade suddenly shot at him out of nowhere, soaring straight for his helmet. Kahg swatted it away with his gun-arm without even thinking about it, and the explosion flashed off to his side uselessly.

The Warboss narrowed his eyes as he considered the source of the grenade. Then he charged forward, swiping his hand near the floor.

Fluttershy squealed as she was seized by her wing, and the flight pack kicked on as she scrambled desperately to escape the Ork's grasp. "No! Stop! I'm invisible! That means you can't-"

"SHADDUP!!" Kahg roared, slamming the meek pony face-first into a wall. The visor cracked apart loudly, and she screamed as parts of the helmet plating folded and popped off. Fluttershy's armor flickered into view as the stealth field broke down, and the Ork hesitated briefly to observe his victim before snorting in contempt.

Kahg reared his arm back to finish flattening the pegasus, only to roar in pain as the force harmonizer shot in from the side and sunk into that same arm. Fluttershy fell from his twitching fingers, crashing limply onto the floor.

"Leave her alone!" Twilight snarled, her armor only slightly battered from her earlier spill. "You're not done with me yet!" The force harmonizer drew itself from Kahg's arm in order to strike again, but the Warboss smacked it aside with his own weapon, throwing it across the room.

"Pinkie! Get your act together and help me!"

The pink Dreadnought was swaying side to side uneasily, although it had stopped thrashing about. "All right. Okay. I locked them in the bathroom. I think I'm okay," Pinkie said, sounding out of breath, "so, what's going on?"

Kahg's maul smashed into the walker's shin, and the war machine started flailing again as pieces of its leg plating was torn off. The Warboss swung around Pinkie's side, hammering the war machine in the back with another devastating blow.

"Augh! No fair!" Pinkie shouted in distress as she crashed onto the floor, lying on her chest plating. A moment later Kahg stomped onto her back, pinning the walker down with his own impressive mass.

Kahg's zap-blasta started whining loudly as he jammed it into the Dreadnought's reactor shielding. Arrows of magical power pelted his arm and back, burning through his mega armor, but he brushed aside the pain to focus on removing the most obvious threat in the room.

The zap-blasta discharged loudly, and a sharp keening noise filled the room as the Dreadnought's reactor went critical.

"I am not a good Dreadnought pilot," Pinkie observed just before her walker exploded.

Twilight flinched away as fire and shrapnel rolled through the room.

"Pinkie! Pinkie Pie!" Rainbow Dash howled as she stood up. The smoke parted around the hulking body of the Warboss, who glared down at the ponies through a flat bar visor of warm yellow.

"You monster! You killed our friend!" Rainbow shouted. Then she turned toward Twilight. "Right, Twi? He killed Pinkie! Blew her right up! He'll pay for that! Right?!"

Twilight didn't answer right away. "... Why are you trying to convince me that Pinkie Pie is dead when she survived the last two times this happened?"

"Because it would really help out right now if you got super mad and magically insta-killed this guy!"

Kahg released a rumbling sigh as he started plodding toward Twilight. "Wotta wayst o'tym."

Then a snapping noise came from behind him, and he felt himself being tugged back.

"Oh, no y'don't!" Applejack growled. Her greaves glowed violet and her tail plating quivered as the gravity lash held the Warboss firm. "Rares! Blast him now!"

Rarity, who was still lying against the wall with many very deep dents in her armor, groaned pitifully and twitched slightly.

"Oh, fer land's sakes! Ah ain't THAT heavy!"

Kahg grabbed a metal crate and flung it at the apple farmer, knocking her aside and breaking the beam. "You'z can't beet me," growled the Ork as he stomped forward toward Twilight again, "I'm Warboss Kahg Krushah, an I don' luz to no hoss!"

Twilight's force harmonizer hovered back to her, and the blade appeared once again as her horn flared with power. "There's a first time for everything!" she shouted back as Kahg lunged.

Twilight teleported behind him, and then stabbed forward with the harmonizer. Kahg jumped to the side, causing the floor to shake from his dodge.

"You may have size on your side!" Twilight teleported out of the way again as Kahg swung at her, again appearing on the other side of the Ork. "But I have my friends!"

Kahg whirled to block her next attack, and the harmonizer blade crackled fiercely as it bit into the thick, reinforced metals of Kahg's weapon.

The Ork pushed the harmonizer away, and Twilight's horn casing glowed once more as she saw him preparing another massive swing. "And FRIENDSHIP... IS..." Once again, she vanished in a flash of purple, reappearing behind the Warboss.

Just in time to catch Kahg's maul in her side at full power.

"AAAGYAUGH!!" shards of ceramite and bands of plating scattered across the room as Twilight went flying, her body spinning end over end before she crashed painfully in a bulkhead wall. Her visor cracked before her eyes, and a fresh jolt of agony rolled through her body as she bounced off and hit the floor.

"TWILIGHT!!" Rainbow Dash screamed, launching herself at Kahg.

The Ork managed to time his response correctly this time, connecting a vicious backhand that swatted the pegasus out of the air. Aside from that, he hardly acknowledged the other pony, walking straight toward Twilight's fallen body without a word.

"Consarn it! Git back here!" Applejack shouted angrily as her gravity lash snapped forward and took hold of the Warboss again. "Rares, ya feel like shootin' him now?"

"Uhnnhng..." the unicorn twitched some more.

Kahg shuddered to a stop, and then snapped his zap-blasta toward the apple farmer.

Applejack screamed as a whip of lightning struck her, causing the tractor beam attached to her tail to fizzle out. After a few seconds of quivering under the extremely high voltage, she collapsed onto the ground with smoke pluming from her armor joints.

"Twilight? Twilight, please tell me you're okay!" Fluttershy whimpered as she limped up to the battered alicorn.

"F-Flutters? Oh... hello!" Twilight replied in a rather high-pitched voice. "My visor keeps beeping at me. Do you... Do you think it's mad? Please tell it I'm sorry."

Fluttershy cringed at hearing the other mare's deranged tone. She lifted up a foreleg, and a needle popped out of the narthecium brace. "Okay, uh, my helmet is gone so I can't tell if anything's broken, but-"

"My visor is!" Twilight interrupted. "Do you think that's why it's mad? It keeps flashing 'teleport homer engaged'. I'm sorry, visor. Don't be mad."

"What? Twilight, I-" Fluttershy yelped as a massive boot kicked her in the side, splitting the main abdominal plate and flinging her into a munitions barrel.

"I gotta say, yer geer iz roight 'ard if'n yer tokkin still," Kahg said as he grabbed Twilight by her rear leg. "Wondah why da spikies giff dis stuff ta you gitz. Eh. Wotevah. It'll be gud lootin' aftah I get all da hoss bitz owt." He held Twilight up higher by her leg so that she was on eye level with him, and he stared into the cracked, flickering lens of her helmet. "You'z a talky liddel runt, so ya prolly got sum las' words. Go on, den."

Twilight's head swayed unsteadily from side to side as she considered this boon. Eventually, she went with: "Do your gums itch? Because my gums itch. A LOT."

Kahg frowned. "Well... now dat ya menshun it-"

The crack of a teleport flare sent Kahg into motion immediately. In the blink of an eye he let Twilight go and swung his maul around, intent on smashing the new target appearing behind him just as he had done to the Princess.

His maul slammed into the haft of a great hammer, and the Warboss was briefly stunned as his blow was turned aside.

"Greetingss, Ork," snarled a massive, terminator-armored warrior as Kahg was shoved back, "I would have a word with you."

The head of his hammer crackled with deadly energy.

"Perish."

Kahg brought his maul around in time to block, but the strike still hit with enough force that the Warboss staggered back for a crucial moment. A huge shoulder pad crashed into the Ork while he was off-balance, knocking him off his feet and onto his side.

"... SLIVER?" Rainbow Dash asked, gaping in disbelief.

"That'ss Lord Ssliver to you, worm," the Chaos Lord growled as he dodged back from a wild swing, "why have you faltered? You wasste time with thiss wretch when your misssion lay right in front of you!"

Kahg got up and roared, firing his zap-blasta into Sliver's chest. If the sizzling bolt of lightning even annoyed the Nurglite, he didn't show it.

"W-Well that ain't really fair," Applejack stuttered weakly as she pushed herself up, "we tried-"

Ork and Astartes crashed into each other, and the ponies felt the floor quiver as the opponents deadlocked.

"I did not intervene to lissten to your excussess!" Sliver snarled as his boots screeched across the metal flooring. "Hurry up and GO!"

Kahg smashed his helmet into Sliver's face plate, but it did little besides dent their respective visors. "A'roight! Now DIS iz wot I'm tokkin' abowt!" the Warboss howled in glee. He pushed away from Sliver and then brought his maul around in another series of devastating swings, only to find each one smashed aside or dodged by a foe as inexplicably nimble as he was. "Lessee wotcha got, spiky!"

Twilight's eyes widened as she felt a hot tingle spread through her body, and the fog in her head started to clear rapidly.

"Wha-What? What's going on?" she shouted, scrambling to her hooves. Her body throbbed something awful, but a strange rush was bringing her to her senses. Her helmet was also badly cracked and mostly useless, and Twilight took a moment to remove the remaining twisted plates of metal.

"Thank Celestia, it worked," panted Fluttershy as she drew the needle back into her narthecium brace. The caretaker pony was a shambles, with her armor severely damaged and blood sheeting down the side of her head.

"C'mon sugarcube, we gotta job to do." Twilight looked to her other side, seeing Applejack's badly scorched form standing next to the door. Rarity was leaning against her, still looking horribly mangled.

"Sliver's keeping the big guy busy! We have to go!" Rainbow Dash said from behind. Pinkie Pie was standing next to her and nodding rapidly.

"I'm not dead, by the way," Pinkie noted in an unusually serious tone.

"What a twist," Twilight replied dryly.

A crate suddenly flew overhead, and Twilight yelped as it crashed against the wall and showered her with loose slugga rounds.

"SSTOP TALKING AND LEAVE, YOU WORTHLESSS CRETINSS!!" Sliver roared as his hammer collided against Kahg's side. He took a retaliation to the shoulder, and a deep crack split his shoulder pad apart.

Twilight glanced over to the door that held the mystery device, and then back to the duel. Her eyes narrowed, and her force harmonizer floated off the floor where it had fallen. "Let's finish off Kahg!" she decided.

Sliver grunted as he missed a strike and then took a savage, quaking blow in the leg. "I am giving you an ORDER, Ssparkle!"

"But together we can beat him!" Twilight shouted. Her harmonizer reached her, and once again the crackling purple blade appeared. "We can win! Friendship will see us to-"

The blast doors on two other walls slid open, and the rest of Twilight's sentence trailed off into a horrified croak as she saw some forty or more Ork boyz start to pour into the room.

"RightwellyouseemtohavethisundercontrolsoI'lljustgofinishthemissionlikeyouasked," Twilight's horn flashed as magical energy surrounded her and her squad.

A moment later, they vanished in a flare of purple light.

****

Space Hulk Deffbringa - brayn enjin

"Gyah!" Twilight sucked in air through her teeth as she materialized, feeling a hot surge of magic run over her horn. "Ponyfeathers! That was the worst one yet! The psionic manifold must be broken! Good thing the target area was so close!"

"Yeah, it did the job," Applejack gulped as she looked up at the room interior, "we're here."

Twilight panted as she looked up, finally seeing for herself what this mysterious "device" was that had nearly doomed them all.

Her eyes nearly burst from their sockets.

"By Celestia..." Rarity breathed, backing up nervously until her rear plating banged against the wall.

"Are... Are those really...?" Rainbow Dash stuttered as Fluttershy shivered next to her.

"Brains. It's full of... BRAINS," Twilight said with a disgusted wince.

In the center of the room was a large machine of the sort that seemed to specifically defy having any obvious function. It was surrounded with bundled cables, bulky fuses, heat sinks, and all manner of tubes full of brightly colored ooze.

But attached to the device was a network of tubing that ran up to the ceiling and then spread out across the room. Each tube hung from a ceiling hook, and then led to a jar. Each jar was filled with fluid and a disembodied brain.

"What... IS this?" Rarity asked. Between her recent concussion and the horrifying sight before her, it was taking every shred of her ladylike poise not to vomit.

"These are... psyker brains," Twilight said, her voice hovering between awe and terror, "there must be at least a hundred here... they cut them out of their own soldiers and hooked them up to the central machine to make them plow a tunnel through the Warp constantly, without any rest or distraction!"

"Creepy," Pinkie sniffed in disapproval.

"So... do we... break it?" Rainbow asked, slowly turning to face Twilight.

A heavy impact came from the room adjacent, followed by the sound of Orks cheering loudly.

"We break it," Twilight said as her jaw set, "I don't know what will happen after this, girls. I'll do what I can... but..."

"Good enough fer me!" Applejack shouted, raising her heavy flamer. "Time to end this rodeo!"

"Let's finish this!" Rainbow Dash said with a grin. "I'm sure you'll think of something. And if not, hey, at least this'll make for the most awesome obituary ever, right?"

Pinkie Pie produced a baseball bat from nowhere. "Time to break more stuff!"

Twilight brought up the force harmonizer, and it started glowing as she charged up its beam weapon. "One more target, then. I don't know if machine spirits are real, Twiblade, but thanks for all your help out here."

"Twilight, that ain't what-"

"WE'RE PROBABLY ABOUT TO DIE AND I CAN CALL IT WHAT I WANT SO DEAL WITH IT."

The beam opened fire.

****

Sliver shifted backward as his chest plating folded inward, and his boots cut a smoldering groove in the floor from the motion.

As one of Nurgle's chosen warriors he didn't feel pain, but he still felt what the Ork was doing to his body. If their match continued on as the slow grind that currently characterized it, Sliver doubted he would survive.

Kahg circled the Iron Warrior warily, his helmet cracked and his armor a shambles. Bolts and scraps of plating tumbled to the floor with every step, revealing cords of iron-hard green muscle. The Ork's breath came in long, heavy pants, and the metal of his gauntlets squealed against the grip of his maul.

Suffice to say, Kahg Krushah was LOVING this.

"Git 'im, Boss!"

"You c'n tayk da spiky git!"

"He don' luk so tuff!"

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

It was to Sliver's great relief that the new Orks had been so enthralled to see their leader in combat that they stopped to cheer him on rather than helping or pursuing the equines. Typical Ork strategic awareness. The lesser xenos were forming a tight combat ring, though, which did keep him from using his short-range teleports in combat. Annoying.

"WAAAAGH!!" Kahg's roar struck Sliver with tangible force, and he swore his armor shook slightly as the Warboss surged forward for another exchange. Their weapons clashed, and to Sliver's frustration his own steel started folding before the might and fury of the Ork. He twisted sharply, smashing the haft of his hammer into Kahg's arm.

"You fight pritty gud, spiky!" Kahg laughed as he was pushed back. He swung again before Sliver could defend, smashing a shoulder pad off and revealing the heavy servos and inner plating below. "I'm gonna giv yer hed a nyss spot on me boss pole!"

Sliver released a jet from the Viral Scourge into the Warboss, splashing a blast of green slime over him. The other Orks recoiled from the discharge, but Kahg simply slapped the weapon aside even as the tainted fluids burned at his exposed skin and ate at his open wounds.

"C'mon now, le's keep dis fight cleen," the Ork said conversationally as he punched Sliver directly in the vox grille. The Chaos Lord reeled from the blow, and one of his drum filters was torn off from his mask.

Sliver steadied himself quickly, standing at defense even as a thick rope of bile seeped from his broken helmet.

"Say, I nevah got yer naym," Kahg said suddenly, signaling a pause in the combat, "I didn' cayr 'bout da hosses, but wen I tell da boyz 'bout krumpin' you, I wanna noh hoo ya wuz. I'm Warboss Kahg Krushah."

"My name... is Lord Ssliver... and I owe you a debt, Ork," Sliver said solemnly. Kahg tilted his head to the side, and Sliver went on. "Eighty-two. That'ss how many of my brotherss in iron have perished to your wretched ssoldierss. How many gravess I've had to fill due to your abssurd gamess. Today they will be avenged, greensskin. One way or another."

Kahg made no further move to attack. He was completely stunned. "Aytee-two? AYTEE-TWO?! Youz cozzin all dis fuss fer dat? Dat'z Grot piss! I looz mo' boyz'n dat cleanin' da drops e'ery week!"

A sudden tremor shook the room, and a loud groan came from the surrounding bulkheads. The Orks all fell silent, briefly entertaining the possibility that something was happening that was more important than their Warboss smashing a Marine's head in.

A crashing noise was heard from nearby. The Orks looked over at the only set of blast doors that were still closed.

"Die, you freaky brain things!"

"Ugh, this is disgusting!"

"It's like a piñata game, except instead of candy you get unrelenting horror showering down on you!"

Kahg turned back to Sliver. "I fink I'm fergettin' sumfin'... wot did Coggz say 'bout da brayn enjin gettin' smashed?"

A Mekboy raised his arm. "I fink he sed we wuz all gonna die, den."

"Oh. Well. Zog," Kahg mumbled, scratching at the back of his helmet.

Sliver chuckled darkly as the room's shaking intensified. The bulkheads had started distending, and he could hear the distant sounds of tearing metal. "Orkss. Alwayss sso eager to win the battle, even if it cosstss you the war."

Kahg growled as long tears started appearing in the walls. A howling noise seemed to fill his head without reaching his ears, calling for his blood. He ignored it.

"Yeh, speekin' o'wich." He readied his maul. "Mebbe we'z gonna byt it soon, but 'fore we do, at leest I get ta smash yer ugly soddin' fa-"

Sliver disappeared in a flash of light and crackling energy, his teleporter carrying him away from the tides of psychic power that were quickly devouring the ship.

"........." Kahg Krushah stared silently at the plumes of smoke where the Chaos Lord had been, his maul slipping from his fingers. All around him his warriors were descending into a panic, with many of them going insane on the spot and attacking each other wildly, fleeing in a panic, or simply dissolving into puddles of green and red. The voices in his mind got louder and more numerous, until they were a shrieking cacophony.

"Zoggin' HOOOOSSESSSS!!!" the Warboss screamed defiantly as the storm of souls washed over him.

****

???

Twilight's breath was weak as she floated within the Warp, her horn ablaze with power.

Being here in the flesh was far different from visiting as a mental projection, she'd found. It was more painful. More unsettling. More... real.

Her friends floated around her, each of them staring out at the currents of the Empyrean. Swirls of color and bubbles of non-light swam about them, and a thousand screaming faces - human, equine, and many they could not easily identify - pushed forward relentlessly to devour the mares.

A great lavender bubble surrounded them, keeping the wall of psychic horror at bay and keeping a pressurized atmosphere around them. Rather important, seeing as three of them didn't have helmets and even those that did probably had a few holes in their armor by now.

"Girls... I don't know how long I can keep this up," Twilight gasped.

The other ponies twisted around toward their leader.

"I'm sorry things had to end this way. But... what we did here was important. Very important. Equestria is safe. The 38th Company has won. They'll survive. The Orks won't. We did it."

"Twilight-" Rainbow Dash started speaking, only to be cut off.

"No, this is important. No more false bravado, okay? I'm scared. Really scared. I feel guilty, too, because I know you were all counting on me to see you home safe. I hope that you'll all forgive me."

"But, Twilight-" Rainbow began again.

"Please, it's okay. It was my responsibility. It still is. Maybe if I was stronger, or smarter, things wouldn't have turned out like this." Twilight took another deep, shuddering breath. "But thank you all so much for coming with me. For being here with me now. For not giving up until we did what we had to do. Our friendship is what got us this far, not just Solon's weapons." She paused, pursing her lips.

"Okay, but Twilight-" Rainbow tried to interject again.

"WHAT?!" the alicorn snapped suddenly, causing her friends to recoil. "What is it, Dash? What is SO important that you have to make sure you say it before we die, even if it means interrupting somepony else when they're trying to say something meaningful and touching in our last moments?! SPIT IT OUT!"

Rainbow Dash gave her an annoyed look and pointed a hoof over Twilight's head. "Assault tendril."

Twilight whirled around, and she immediately spotted a large metal tentacle snaking toward them through the clouds of energy. The Warp currents parted around it, and as it approached her barrier the tendril's mouth split open.

Twilight turned back around, an unreadable expression on her face.

"We all saw it," Applejack confessed, "but ya sounded like ya were havin' a moment. The rest of us didn't wanna interrupt."

"Why do I even bother?" Twilight grumbled as the assault tendril passed through the wall of her atmospheric bubble.

Their respective vox systems crackled to life as the tentacle engulfed the floating ponies, connecting on the Company-wide frequency.

"Thish ish Warshmith Sholon to all unitsh. All objectivesh achieved. Mission complete."

The tendril snapped shut.

Author's Note:

I can't believe I finally made it to the end. This project ended up at over a MILLION words. Dark Gods help me

Epilogue is up next. Time to wrap this up.

Comments

[SPudRum]

Well done. Now we wait for epilogue then I wonder what the next book will be about? Will the Imperium found them? Will the Tyranids found them? Will the Iron Warrior of 18th Company finally found their home? Will Pinkie Pie get her own Dreadnought? Will Twilight finally accept all the insanity? Will the author finally do his accounting?
Next time on FimFiction.

[Phantom_Eclipse]

Oh what?! its over?!?!?! only an epilogue left?!?! Nooooooo!!! book 6 maybe? lol, this better be one hell of an Epilogue...but it probably will be.

[DracoDarastrix]

6301046
6301236

Sorry but the author confirmed to us all this will be the last book. Unless the author has chanced his mind this will be the last story of these series. Needless to say I really enjoyed the entire story arcs from the beginning till the end.

[Heitomos]

Holy shit that was awesome! I can't believe you got the 1 million word mark! That makes it one of the longest stories in pony history! And one of the longest crossovers in crossover history! I think. Not many get this crazy long. And it'll get longer with the epilogue! This story has been amazing... and I can't wait to see what you do next with it. It's been a ride and a half.

[SFaccountant]

6301046
Hey! I'm ALWAYS doing my accounting!
Good thing, too. If I didn't have that long commute to work every day, there's no way I would have the time to do all of this.

6301236
Eh, not really. More of a "final round of jokes just to show everyone's in good humor after being nearly obliterated" type of deal to ease everyone off the last chapter's constant plague and bloodshed.
I'm think of doing a credit sequence, too!

6301650
I don't especially regret breaking it into five segments, but it's too bad it won't get the million-word distinction directly.
As for what I'm doing next with it, I'm going to call this fanfic setting "Age of Iron" and try to set up a group, like the Lunaverse and Fallout: Equestria series. That way anybody else can use it for their own 40K/MLP crossovers if they want to.
It has indeed been a trip, but only on one little part of one measly planet. There's a whole galaxy of people out there, just waiting to be murdered by space ponies.

[Totally Emo]

Nice...When will the epilogue be up?

[SFaccountant]

6302124
Sometime next week.
Tuesday or Wednesday, if I don't let it stretch into a 10,000 word deal... but, well... I do have a bit of a history...

[EverfreeSparkle]

"I'm not dead, by the way," Pinkie noted in an unusually serious tone.
"What a twist," Twilight replied dryly.

I can't stop laughing!

This chapter was great! So many moments that were just great!

[Phantom_Eclipse]

6302104

i know, but i cant believe its over. it still seems like so much is left undone...so many orks too mop up, applejack daniels, adjusting to life under the new rule of chaos, all sorts of stuff!

[SFaccountant]

6302206
Well, sure, but all of that is quite underwhelming and non-dramatic compared to what Equestria just survived.
So rather than going into "Book 6: Things Kind of Cool Down for a While", I'm ending the series here and setting it up as a background for other stories.

[Mix-up]

so the end is rely here well it was a fun ride, just wish that is could go further with a the louse end that there are left. it was so funny and so 40k at the same time. I hope that your next project will be also just as good.

[Phantom_Eclipse]

6302275

Hahaha "Book 6: Things Kinda Cool Down for a While" , that'd be hilarious. But I suppose it I a good place to end, I just like all the small back stories, I feel like they make the drama more worthwhile. But I suppose I'll have to look foreword to that in some side stories. There's still "visions of darkness" to tide me over

[The Warmaster]

And even now. Not a SINGLE. HORSE. WAS KILLED. SERIOUSLY HOW ARE THEY SO DAMN LUCKY?

.......I wonder how The cults are doing back in equestria. I'm a go there now.
*walks off*

[Hey its that Pony]

What a spectacular end to an incredible war.

As much as I like Coggz, I am quite satisfied with how he ended. And that final Ork Boss was pretty fun as well.

I have actually been working on a little spin-off of sorts for this series. Though more of a series of side stories for fun.

[Heitomos]

6302104

Oh, that sounds like a great idea! I'd love to see other people's take on your universe, though yours will be the only real cannon I consider! :P (Mostly cause no ponies died, woo! That was something that made the story for me above the rest.)

[nothing_to_see_here]

And now nothing else could possibly go wrong for them, right? Right? Anyone?

[ABitterPill]

6303737

The Tyranid Hivefleet that the ork waaagh was supposed to encounter.

[ABitterPill]

6302104

Eh, not really. More of a "final round of jokes just to show everyone's in good humor after being nearly obliterated" type of deal to ease everyone off the last chapter's constant plague and bloodshed.

Mmm. I was kind of hoping for a timeskip of sorts. A few months to years later after things cool down a bit and we see how everyone's adjusted to the new world. Kinda surprised that Changelings never made it into it in any way, shape, or form.

[SFaccountant]

6305358
The Tyranid hive fleet is far, far away, and not headed toward the Centaur system. From Book 3 Epilogue:

"Display: the sections of the Ultima Segmentum which comprise the region considered 'Tau space'."
The hololith flickered into view, displaying numerous stars and nebulae in a large box. Twilight immediately leaned forward, her ears perking up.
"Notation: Centaur system."
A red box appeared and boxed in a particular star at the edge of a sparse arc of stars on the edge of the projection.
"Notation: Tyranid Hive Fleet Eumenides." A patch of the galactic view was flooded with red, such that it looked like a coil of tendrils were drilling through the void between star systems. "Expansion: a collection of massive bio-vessels containing armies of extremely destructive predator-soldiers."
Another red area appeared in the hololith, this time manifesting as a large red circle.
"Notation: unnamed Ork warfleet, threat rating six. Expansion: a massive congregation of alien armies driving a path through populated systems seeking enemies to conquer."
Twilight frowned. The two red spots weren't anywhere near each other, nor were they anywhere near the Centaur system. "Okay... so, what does this have to do with us?"
"Explanatory: each of these alien forces are moving deep into Tau space, and destroying their new colonies. Both are of a scale that makes stopping either of them difficult, and can only be done at a severe cost to the Empire's army. Together, they represent an existential threat to the integrity of the Tau's supremacy in this region of space."
The Dark Magos paused. "Extrapolation: in facing two nearly unstoppable forces, the Lamman Sept considered the simple stratagem of letting Tyranid and Ork fight each other, and then destroying the victor. To this end, they have designed and placed several Warp beacons along a string of uncolonized worlds to lead the Ork warfleet on an expedited path directly into the Tyranid hive fleet. Notation: Warp beacon system placement."
Several new green lights appeared over the stars on the edge of the hololith, and Twilight felt a distinct tightness in her chest as one of them flickered into place over the Centaur system. Their system.

So the Tyranids aren't heading toward Equestria (at least immediately, given that the 'Nids do intend to devour literally EVERY system), but moving into the Tau's core space. Furthermore, while Kahg's warband met up with Coggz and launched toward Centaur, most of the Orks turned away from the Warp storm and continued along the beacon path. So the Tau's plan worked, and at present there are no more obvious threats to the planet.

Unless you count the Orks that were scattered over the countryside, the Tyranid DNA that's being used to make apples, the embittered remnant of a Tau battle force well-practiced in sabotage and subterfuge, and, of course, our heroes, who are deliberately spreading Chaos and intend on mining the planet dry.

6305436
Why did you expect changelings?

[ABitterPill]

6305822

Fair enough on the Nids. Thought they might show up eventually.... not sure what effect their shadow in the warp would have on the warp storm though.... or if the nids would consider it worth the effort to try going through it.

On the lings:
Well, it's a planetary-scale epic of invasion and such. Globally effecting. There are the griffons, minotaurs, and such as well, but canon-wise we've had more impact/interaction with the changelings. I just kinda figured it was inevitable for them to turn up at some point. It's certainly in their interest to see the Orks contained. Orks love fightin' but I don't think that's exactly edible to the lings.

Plus lings are just cool, IMO.

[nothing_to_see_here]

6305822
I was going to say they still have the Blue Moon Apple/ripper things to deal with but then I remembered that the farm got destroyed... again.

[SFaccountant]

6305870
Ah. I had a feeling there was some species favoritism in there. SOMETHING about your profile just seems to say "I like villains".
No idea what. Just a feeling. Could totally be off the mark.

6306126
Actually, the apple spines are okay. The Ork Landa came down on the part of the farm that HADN'T already been wrecked.
Besides, if a measly void ship crash was all it took to kill the damn towers, 'Nid invasions would be cake.

... Also, there are no ripper things. You just made that up.


*Cough*

[nothing_to_see_here]

6306204
Well I just assume rippers because they're the smallest type of nid unless you count fleshborers (which I don't, they're more ammunition than anything). and even if tiny piece of nid DNA is on a world... well... you know the old saying. Life finds a way. Doubly so if it is nid life.

[ABitterPill]

6306204

Hmmm... Couldn't imagine what gave you that impression. But frankly lings don't even have to be villains. They're perfectly capable of being neutral, or uneasy allies. They'd certainly be no worse than chaos marines.

aaaaah. So that's now the nid invasion starts. Flesh eating apples! Suddenly, Applejack has to beat her own farm back!

Speaking of the Apple Clan, I can't help but wonder when Crabapple is going to Hijack something like a titan....

[DracoDarastrix]

6302104

As for what I'm doing next with it, I'm going to call this fanfic setting "Age of Iron" and try to set up a group, like the Lunaverse and Fallout: Equestria series. That way anybody else can use it for their own 40K/MLP crossovers if they want to.

Speaking about the Lunaverse, I do hope you will one day as writer make a story for that verse. I really like your humour that you throw in and is really curious what you can do in the Lunaverse setting. So far my favourite story is "Tittle Match." mainly because of the humour. Like your entire "Age of Iron" series it always cracks me up reading humorous stories that I read them more then once.

[Liqwidice]

Personally I am hoping someone picks up the pony space pirate idea and runs with it. Ponies raiding for the 30th would be cool.

[Hey its that Pony]

6306556
In the Luna Vers, the Iron Warriors and 38th Company would still be loyal and following the Dorian Heresy story line with that universes Twilight Sparkle actually getting along great with her Serith and taking the place of Trixie at his side.

[Aziraphael]

"That'sh a shame, really," Solon admitted as he stepped away from the surging heat, "for a moment I thought I might have actually beaten shomeone important for once."

Oh, Solon... If you only knew.

[the other sans]

Don't tell me you BELIVE such a ridiculous story
A great lavender bubbled surrounded them, keeping the wall

1. Believe.
2. Bubble.

[Dusk Raven]

Well, surprisingly, a precision strike into a space Hulk was much faster.

Also, Coggs meets a fairly ignominious end, after nearly delivering such an end to Luna. But at least Solon didn't get defeated this time.

6315176 This is bizarrely appealing. While the Dornian Heresy verse has some flaws, "Mirror Universes" always interest me... particularly the type where heroes and villains flip without much in the way of actual personality changes.

[Daralyn]

wait a sec... MILLION WORDS? this is almost as long as Fallout: Equestria? I didnt even realized it

what is it saying about any of us to read a million word long fanfic crossover between My Little Pony and Warhammer 40K?

[SFaccountant]

9554260
It says you're awesome!

[verypeeved]

9557110
good answer.

[boronium]

SIEGE!

enjoying rereading for the 3rd time

However I don't remember this typo

"Mish Pinkie explained that thoshe shellsh were loaned to her," Solon said calmly.

Sirius shook again, his massive helmet visor glowing brightly. "Don't tell me you BELIVE such a ridiculous story?!"

[Animatorsnake]

You know I expected some epic duel with Coggz... but yep this was expected when involving Orkz, they want an epic bloody fight... but a quick sudden death is probably worse - from their perspective.

[PonyList]

"We can't actually prove that," a Dark Techpriest pointed out, "we have not located any of their sarcophagi."

Man Blueblood really didn’t pull any stops on hiding his sarcophagus

[Nightweaver]

So, when's the Visions of Darkness chapter for Coggz coming out? : )

[SFaccountant]

11688626
Dear Tzeentch, no D:
I've had enough of writing scenes from the Orks' perspective! Mucking up the spelling on everything while still making it legible is a pain!