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Dark Scribe of the 38th Company, Iron Warriors Legion, come to bring the glory of Chaos to the realm of Pony.

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This story is a sequel to Iron Hearts: Book 4 - Emerald Dawn


An MLP/Warhammer 40K crossover, part 5.

With their plan established and put into motion, the 38th Company begins the long and unwieldy task of planetary defense, fueling the arcane energies that may yet unsteady the Empyrean and spare their fleet from an enemy without number or mercy. The inhabitants of Centaur III and even the abandoned aggressors help where they are able, but as their foes grow in number and destruction spreads across the planet, the war for the Centaur system has become a bloody race against time.
All the while, the grim culture of the Chaos marauders continues to mingle with the enlightened benevolence of their equine allies. Tempers fray and allegiances blur. But the die has been cast: Equestria and the Company will survive together, or be snuffed out together.
And even should they succeed, what future awaits these unlikeliest of friends?
For there is no peace among the stars. Only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

ALL THE EXPLOSIONS. JUST, ALL OF THEM.

(Cover art by Ahrimatt)
(This series now has its own TVtropes page!)
(This series is a contestant in the Tournament of Canterlot, a charity event to raise money for Syrian refugees! Go here for details and donations!)

Chapters (15)
Comments ( 719 )

GERMAGHED!

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

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

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

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

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

We love you!

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

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

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

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

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

Does that sentence sound strange to anyone else?

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

An amazing start to what will be an amazing story.

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

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

5487175
It was good for her, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Also, 6 downvotes already? Blasphemy!

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

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

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

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

Also, 6 downvotes already? Blasphemy!

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

5490613

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

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

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

5491914

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

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

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

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

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

5492429

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm just throwing this out there but it would be hilarious if they found a Titan long forgotten their for some awkward reason, presumably an Emperor Class Titan:derpytongue2:

5526761

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

Twilight: Um, Gaela? Are you ok?

Gaela: I am experiencing some strange sensations Sparkle.

Twilight: Oh? What kind?

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

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

Gaela: Joy?

Twilight: (Smiling) Yup! It must be.

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

5526983 praise the omnissiah

The Emperor. . . spoke:pinkiegasp:
Well done good sir, well done indeed!

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

Agreed: the ending of chapter 2 was a good twist. It also opened another facet of Solon's character, who might I add, is already very strongly nuanced and interesting.

The overall goodness of your story aside, I've noticed a few segments so far that felt like filler. This chapter seemed to have more of it than others, so I'd like to point them out before they become recurrent (see username).

Canterlot Castle - (former) royal gardens, present day
Canterlot City - Sparkle household

These two sections in particular could be excised or severely compressed without losing anything of important. The events of the Sparkle household were not as entertaining as the others and certainly did nothing to advance the plot.

Sweet Apple Acres

This portion could have been compressed, though not necessarily to the same degree as the former two. Braeburn's interactions with the CMC contained elements we've seen before and perhaps could been sped up.

This being said, I squealed like a little girl when I saw you posted a chapter. And then again when I saw the picture in chapter one.

Please keep up the good work.

5566541
That's new. See author's note in Chapter 2.

5566817
It is filler, mostly. I could say that it's part and parcel of all the world-building and managing a large cast of characters... but I'll be honest and admit that I refuse to post chapters of less than 15,000 words.
I also felt a break was warranted between battles, and I don't have anything important for the characters to do until the next combat.
So, yeah. Filler. :applejackunsure:

I loved the sections regarding Dusk Blade, Luna's welcome to Canterlot, Twilight's visit home, and the problems at Sweet Apple Acres. I was surprised, and I dare say that Solon was even more surprised, that the Emperor deigned to take direct notice of him. Both that exchange and the Apple Towers (Spore Trees?) to come leave me wondering where things will go from here.

I regret that your new art piece doesn't fit, because it is indeed bitchin'.

Wait... HOLD THE FUCKIN' PHONE! That wasn't the dream simulation? That was THE Emperor? Holy shitzu!

Oh wow. That's all I can say. So much happened in this chapter, I can't wait to see what happens from here on out. Especially what's going to happen with Solon and Luna. At first I was worried Luna's slip in the Canterlot gardens was a hint at some sort of Chaos corruption, but with that bit at the end, it seems more an indication of how she views Solon. And the way Solon himself talked about his dream sequences and how they used to be before Luna started interrupting them makes it almost seem like he enjoys the company, even if he won't admit it.

Watching the Iron Warriors change over the course of the story is one of my favorite parts of this series.

Also, I was totally rooting for Dusk to seduce Twilight up until that scene with the slave. He really doesn't stand a chance now. And he'd better pray that Fluttershy never sees him treating anyone like that.

5567186
Nah, I'm pretty sure it was still the dream. That was Solon's perception of the Emperor, the trauma that made him who he is given voice by his mind. He was basically yelling at himself, which says an awful lot about Solon and how he perceives himself and his role in life. It makes a lot more sense why he lets his underlings get away with a lot of the things they do, despite his obvious power.

You are tearing me good remembrancer... between your great story and my allegiance to the Lord Emperor.(meaning i'm starting to stop bein a Techmarine and bein an ANGRY MARINE!!!!!1!!1! CAUSE A HERESY!)
Wuv woo :pinkiehappy:

But hey sure as hell helps it's my favorite Chaos Legion.

5567186
No, that was still a dream simulation. It just included personality data for the Emperor.
Then again... it isn't exactly beyond the realm of possibility that, in his dream, while speaking to his image of the Emperor, some sliver of the genuine article's immortal presence and undying soul leaked into his mind from the Warp, now is it?
I guess we'll never know for sure. :rainbowwild:

5567248
Dusky's not going to let a little thing like being a morally abhorrent pony ruin his shot at Princess snuggles. He'll be back.

A rather interesting chapter! The meaty character development is always my favorite parts! Filler or no. :P

The Emperor speaking was interesting, though I'm curious as to what happened in the simulation there. This leaves me with so many questions that I can't help but wonder about...

Also, ponies can be savants when it comes to their special talents. I wonder what would happen if a pony got a Gene Seed cutie mark. :P

5568234
I'm not sure what you mean by "what happened" in the simulation. Solon asked the computer representation of the Emperor a question, and the virtual Emperor responded. It wasn't meant to be anything more than that.
If Solon seemed surprised and perturbed by Big E's response, it's just because he's never talked to the guy during any of his dream simulations before.

A pony receiving a gene seed mark would probably go something like this:

"Eww, gross! What's this thing?"
"Explanatory: that is the genetic legacy of the Adeptus Astartes, referred to as the 'gene seed'. It contains the organs and biological materials necessary to turn humans into Space Marines."
"Eugh. Wait, what's this bit here on the side? It looks weird. I mean, weirder than the rest, anyway."
"Analyzing... conclusion: that is an aberrant cyst. It must be removed immediately to prevent contamination of the rest of the sample. Interrogative: how did you locate this without prior instruction or specialized equipment?"
"I don't know. It just looked... wrong to me. I mean, I guess-"
"Incidental interrogative: are you aware that you now possess an image on your rear extremities approximating the current specimen?"
"MOTHERBUCKER!!"

5568302

Well, I was aiming more towards a pony who could help with the gene seed and gene seed related things, like implanting and improvement/regeneration, but yours is significantly more amusing and therefore wins. :P

5566843

Thanks for considering my feedback.
Quantity has a quality of its own, I suppose, but I really hope the filler doesn't become more noticeable or present.

Dusk Blades conversations are rather interesting and amusing. I like this character a little more now. Also intrigued about Twilight's love life now. Thought her time at home was a thoroughly enjoyable bit.

I like these little segments between the more serious stuff. Especially since you make them all the more interesting with the Imperial March for Luna.

We finally get to see Celestia eat a little humble pie, or at least try her best at it. I think the descriptions of the battle were appropriate. Didn't need to go into great detail apart from visuals since Solon didn't feel like pointing every little thing out. Just reading about the Princesses reactions to everything they were seeing was pretty fun and drew me in.

When I read the scene with the Emperor's simulation, I took it in as part of it coming from Solon's subconscious and that this was perhaps how he viewed himself and the Iron Warriors deep down. The simulations in the cogitator banks come from his memories right? Some of them at least I guess. I do find it kind of funny that the simulations would have a psych profile on the big E. Considering that The Emperors soul/consciousness is fragmented and spread about, I was wondering if one of those fragments may have actually influenced the simulation for just a second what with the psychic might of the two princesses present possibly attracting it. Even if that's not the case, the scene is still touching and emotional.

Ah, before i forget. Messing with Nid bits has never led to terrible things right?

I feel like Solon really wasn't expecting what he took for a recreation to talk to him. I don't think it shook his faith so much, just... unsettled him. Or at least as unsettled as one can be serving the gods of chaos.
Let me also just say that you've made me like the Iron Warriors very much. You have also made me pity them. I understand their grievances, they constantly got the hard and frankly shitty assignments during the crusade, and little to no thanks for it. Then when they finally get to do something worthwhile, they get fucked over in favor of the other Legions.
It legitimately makes me sad, because I hate when the people who do all the work get no credit.
And I just think 'had they simply held out and stayed loyal, would they be as vaunted as the rest of the space marines?' I know likely not, but I suppose that is why we have the Dornian Heresy. To show us the what ifs.

When Fluttershy gonna become Khorne Berserker? I can say she is a right material for this kind of life.

5569376
Actually, experiments using Tyranids have a pretty decent track record.
Putting aside the Tau's thing that I made up for this story, there was this one operation I recall where an Imperial Inquisitor diverted a bunch of genestealers to an Ork empire to get a hive fleet to take a detour, and it worked. I have not, however, heard of any Tyranid experiments going horribly awry, with specimens breaking free of containment and overrunning everything.
So, obviously, it now falls to ME to do that.
As for Celestia, I feel like she's eaten enough humility desserts; the fate of her kingdom is completely out of her hooves, reliant on terrible people she would nominally consider her enemies, and her sister and student have already joined them. That's some pretty bad medicine to swallow. So I don't think that being generally rude to Solon is worth taking her down a notch.

5572084
Not the way I write her. I tend to invest more into that "Kindness" thing she has going on.

5578370

When you put it that way, then yeah, she has been pretty calm about it all. Hadn't really considered all that. I think I was just focused on how relatively polite and non aggressive Solon has been the whole time, considering his office. He's just so dang likable.
I just recently realized how much I've been viewing Celestia as the always calm mother figure she gets written as in a lot of fan stories as opposed to the way she actually is in the show so that probably has something to do with it as well. Bit of a failing on my part as I consider myself a Celestia fan.

As for the Nids, being the biological terrors they are, I always tend to view them as a force of nature out of control that probably shouldn't be poked at with anything non-lethal. Was not aware anyone had success with experimenting on them.
Not sure what you have planned but I'm still going to have images of Applejack growing a set of chitin-covered claws out of her back and going "WHAT WAS IN THOSE TREES?"

5567543
Oh, I have no doubt that he'll keep trying. But he might need a bit of a mentality adjustment if he plans to actually succeed.

In (possibly) unrelated thoughts: Where has Tellis been this whole time? Did he die when I wasn't looking? Or is he off doing something that everyone will regret?

Chaos messing with genetics of Tyranids? Why do I have the feeling that we suddenly are going to see "Ripper Apples." and Apple Gaunts? :facehoof:

5578637
I imagine Celestia is quite multi-faceted in character; she plays the role of mentor, protector, statesman, as well as planetary light switch. The calm mother figure characterization is quite plausible, but the flip side of that coin is the defensive and protective guardian that lashes out at anything that might threaten her children. While Twilight has quite explicitly been trying to make the most of a bad situation, Celestia sees the alliance with Chaos as the lesser of two disasters (if not the lesser of two evils; were it possible, she'd honestly rather ally with the Orks).
Regarding the Tyranids, I would argue that humanity's greatest advantage in that struggle is its capacity to understand and manipulate an enemy that is incapable of doing the same to us (all aliens are just food to the hive mind), but in this case it's a moot point. Even if it's a terrible idea to experiment on the Tyranids, these are the guys who saw the horrors and obvious dangers of Chaos and thought "So if I pull this off, I can get immortality? Yeah, I want me some of that."

5586316
I more or less forgot to put him in the first chapter, and he didn't really have a role in the second. The character roster is pretty long at this point, so it's hard to check in with everyone. But he is quite alive, and frankly, much happier than everyone else about all the greenskins raining from the sky (literally, in Cloudsdale's case).

5586546
That's silly. I wouldn't do something exactly like that.

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