Chapter 1: My Little Renegade: Violence is Magic
Duty and honor to the Space Marine is the food and water of the mortal man. Sustaining him, strengthening him, none but those in this fraternity truly understand the sacrifice they make so that they can continue every day. But when they fall from that, they only fall in the eyes of their comrades. Brothers, guilt on what we have done is the canker within our hearts. If we truly wish to move on, we must remove it. But remember, as long as we keep ourselves from guilt, we will not be without allies. - Vestus Benedicto, Captain, Mantis Warriors, 10th Company
The demand upon our souls is beyond that of any creature in the galaxy. She gnaws at us, feeds on us, never-ending, never-ceasing. While you try to keep us from our goal I'll remind you once more. I'll have what I want." Le'ukras Armatharn, Archon of the Kabal of the Ninth Tide to Captain Benedicto
+ Aboard the Vengeance Class Grand Cruiser Plight of Fury, Location: Gheist Rift, Segmentum Ultima +
Vestas Benedicto sat on the command throne of his battle barge Mantis Fury and stared into the endless abyss of space. He was an outcast, a traitor, a renegade, and nothing could compensate for what he had done. The Badab War had left a terrible shadow on the marines of the Mantis Warriors. When Chapter Master Khosian Neotera decided to side with Lugft Huron and his Astral Claws, he couldn't have comprehended how if would leave his chapter. His ears open to Huron's intoxicating words, he fought against the Imperium in a bloodied war that saw Huron and his allies defeated, the Mantis Warrior's world in the hands of the Carcharodons Chapter, and many of its battle brothers slain.
The Mantis Warriors were able to get the Emperor's Mercy from the loyalists after the war, but it left a terrible shadow on their honor. They were ordered to go an a redemptive crusade for their sins, and were forbidden for recruiting. Benedicto could remember the fighting on Zalax. How the other Captains sneered and looked at his marines as if they were the worst of filth. They sent their battered companies to the hardest fighting, breaking the bodies of the Mantis Warriors on the heavy defenses of the Black Legion.
Traitors once, traitors forever, said a Captain of the Carcharodons over the vox to the Mantis Warriors after his marines broke through the citadel that the Mantis Warriors broke open. Claiming all honors for the battle.
Benedicto himself was armored in the light jade of the Mantis Warriors. The yellow and black sigil of the Mantis Warriors was engraved on his right shoulder pad, and a cape of velvet sat on his back. He wore his gold-trimmed battle helm, refusing to take it off until he thought he could present himself to his men in the appropriate fashion. To Benedicto, the fighting at Badab was still fresh to them, and Benedicto, he could remember a battle in particular. One he would never forget.
The skies were afire, as Stormtalons and Stormravens zoom through the sky. A Land Speeder in the light green and yellow of the Mantis Warriors flashes inches overhead and pulls a sharp turn up, its multi-melta flash-burning the fuselage of a passing Stormtalon in the deep green of the Raptors. The Stormtalon explodes in a spectacular explosion, showering the sky and ground with burned and rent metal.
Captain Benedicto watched the event from a shallow trench dug into the muddy earth, marveling at the sight. A few close bolter shots snapped him back to reality. He glanced over his huge shoulder pauldrons through the dust and smoke to see a squad of jade Raptors moving toward his position. He looked back to his own squad. Battered, muddy, and battle-scarred, the squad of twelve Tactical Marines he accompanied had seen the worst the war had to offer. The yellow and green paint on his warriors was mostly chipped and burned off, and many had discarded their helmets after they became too damaged for continued use. Sargent Geras shuffled over to Benedicto, his un-helmeted head down careful not to expose himself to the enemy.
"Captain."
"Sargent."
Benedicto looked back over towards the advancing Raptors and was greeted by more bolter fire, more accurate, given the decreased distance between them.
"Brothers, hostiles at our twelve!" shouted Benedicto over the sounds of fresh bolter fire. The Mantis Warriors got to the mouth of the trench and returned fire to the Raptors. Brother Eurydice hefted his heavy bolter over the trench and sent chugging tracers into the oncoming squad. The Raptors displaced in the face of the Mantis' fire, the ones stopping or slowing to shoot falling to bolter fire. At once, the enemy squad dropped down to the ground, and before Benedicto could fathom why, new forms emerged from the smoke. The Space Marines behind the Raptors powered up their jump packs and sprang towards Benedicto and Squad Geras, chainswords revving.
Only the superhuman reaction time of the Space Marines allowed the Warriors to fire off a few shot at their attackers before they were among them. Benedicto pulled himself up after a Raptor smashed into him at a bone-shattering speed. He swung his power sword in a perfect right arc at the Raptor bearing down on him, and the assault marine was knocked back as his chainsword met the savage blow. Benedicto allowed no respite, springing toward the marine with a speed that only those with the Khan's blood flowing through their veins could manage.
He shot his plasma pistol at the assault marine as he jumped, the shot burning straight through his warplate just beside his navel. The marine grunted in pain, and before he could bring any of his weapons to bear, Benedicto's power sword opened the top of the space marine's helmet at the eye level. Benedicto side-stepped the falling corpse, looking down in disgust as the warrior's trodden-on brain got fowl muck all over his boot.
Returning his attention to the melee, Benedicto ran back into the fray and thrust his sword through a warrior that was about to decapitate a Mantis Warrior who fell, surprising the marine with an anguished howl and a meaty crunch as Benedicto twisted the sword inside the near-dead warrior. Before he could see his reaction, Benedicto was beset by a new foe, who used his jump pack to smash into Benedicto, sending him sprawling in the mud for the second time. He shot his bolt pistol at Benedicto at the ground, and his armor splintered at the torso as the explosive shell was just barely deflected. Benedicto swung his sword out of instinct and was able to deflect a chainsword strike. He tried to get up quickly, but a swift kick to his helmet brought him down, one of his eyepieces shattered at the blow.
Benedicto was able to turn just in time to see the deep-jade marine raise for another swing. Benedicto had dropped his sword when he was kicked, and it was too far for him to reach. He could see the marine's sword go down in slow-motion as he tried to bring his pistol up. The marine stopped mid swing and was hurled violently to the side, a red rain misted the air and Benedicto's muddied torso. He looked over to see the marine dead, a red gash across his lower back deep enough to put his arm into. A hilt was lowered toward his face and looked up to see Sergeant Geras holding his power sword by the blade near Benedicto, and his chainsword in the other, still revving and spattered in the gore of it's latest victim.
Benedicto nodded his helm in thanks, and took the sword from Geras as he helped him stand up.
"Need any more assistance Captain?" Asked a grinning and bloodied Geras. The captain looked around at the rest of his squad. He counted eight of his slain, a poor showing. He saw the rest of the marines take up their previous positions at the mouth of the trench. Unceremoniously tossing the Raptor's bodies out like so much scrap.
One marine peeked over the trench, and his helmet was blown out in a red slush as the mass-reactive of the bolter round detonated his head on impact. Benedicto swore and went to the end to the trench. In the melee, he had forgotten about the tactical marines that had advanced, and the remaining survivors were beset by new foes who stood at the top of the trench and fired down on the bloodied survivors. Benedicto launched himself towards a marine, swinging his sword as he went an severing the marine's legs in the process. He brought his plasma pistol to bear on the second marine, but an explosive impact on the side blew open his armor plate, and he fell to the muddied ground once more. Out of the side of his eye, he could see the Raptor who he had crippled pointing his bolter at the fallen Benedicto.
The sounds of immediate gunfire faded as the Raptors eliminated the last Warriors. A blood-stained marine in olive power armor walked over to Benedicto, behind the glowing red eyepieces he could feel the hate burning through them and his own reflected in them.
"Captain, sector 4 is cleared of all traitors," said the Raptor through his vox. "We have eliminated all but an enemy captain, further orders?" A second passed, and the Raptor raised his head and aimed his bolter at the disabled captain. Benedicto waited for him to-
The pain he felt in the millisecond of consciousness made him black out immediately. Benedicto was thrust in a night world or searing pain and darkness alike. He spent ether an eternity, or a minuet, in this state of limbo before he could feel himself miraculously rising out of unconsciousness. As if in a dream, Benedicto was rising in the muddied trench, the Raptor's around him oblivious to his survival.
Benedicto's barely functioning mind put the pieces together. He had somehow survived the shot, and descended into the Battle Haze while unconscious. The Battle Haze was a unique gene-seed mutation to the Mantis Warriors, where a marine will descend into a state where they make extremely fast movements in battle and become massively stronger.
But it came with a price, once a marine descended into the Battle Haze they couldn't go back. Their vision becomes extremely tunneled, and spend their lives in a catatonic state.
Benedicto could see the Raptor closest to him, and he hadn't picked up his weapons, but that was fine. He could kill him with or without. He jumped at the warrior with such speed that he didn't even notice, and knocked him to the ground. But almost an instant later, Benedicto rose, the meaty tube of the Raptor's neck in his bloody jaw.
The other Raptors turned towards their brother's demise, but could barely raise their bolters in disgust before Benedicto was upon them. He smashed his fist into the exposed Raptor's neck, and broke it instantly. The other tried to bring his gun around in the unexpected situation, but it looked to Benedictio as if it were flowing through syrup, and he simply yanked the bolter out of his hand and shot him in the head. The other Raptors were horrified to see this walking dead marine slaughter their brethren with such speed, and attempted to exit the trench to get a good shot on the monster, but Benedicto could only feel a burning hatred for those who killed his own, and they never got the chance.
Benedicto emptied the rest of the bolter's clip into the sergeant who foolishly charged him, and swung the empty bolter in a perfect right cross, breaking the ceramite on the next marine's helm. The bolter shattered against the speed and strength of the attack, but Benedicto's hands quickly finished the job and he stared at the other marines that managed to put some distance between him.
"Die abomination," said one of the marines as the opened fire. Again, the world moved through syrup, and Benedicto walked passed the shells that would have been perfectly accurate, but they had not factored in the unnatural speed that those with the Battle Haze possess. The marines had no time to react to their demise, as Benedicto finished them fast enough. As Benedicto stood over the last body of the slain, he fell to his knees, and the sank to the ground. Hearing a few muffled voices before he blacked out.
"Captain, we have reached our destination." The voice of a tech-adept shook the captain out of his flashback, and he proceeded to read the information on the terminal of their chosen planet.
In the Gheist Rift, a desolate band of warp-realspace overlap, the fleet chose to evade capture and look for a suitable base of operations. Explorator fleet reports from M40 detail a single system close to Imperial-held space, but was deemed uninhabitable by the explorators due to strange energy readings coming from their primary star, and unusual planet rotations. The explorators feared the star would become a warp-star, but recent long-range scans from the Mantis' fleet show that the star is standard, and some of the planets are ripe for habitation. The planet chosen was a life-sustaining world, with a strong atmosphere and regular amounts or oxygen content. Scans show a 80% similarity to Terra, which surprised most of the fleet, expecting barren orbs and warp-ridden plains.
"Bring us closer to the designated planet. I want more information." The captain sat back into his throne, he rubbed his head as a arcing headache spread through his cranium. The mechanical augments from his eye through the back of his skull gave him quite the head pains.
+ Equestria, Location: Golden Oaks Library, 4:32 AM Terra Time +
Spike was woken up with a start, as another stack of books, reports, and papers fell over as the whizzing purple pony passed by them with amazing speed. He rubbed his eyes and tried to close his eyes again, but was awakened as the same happened a minuet later.
Well, I guess I'd better get up, before Twilight runs me over. He got out of his bed and looked out the window, Celestia hadn't even raised the sun yet, and Twilight was still causing a ruckus downstairs as if it was one of Pinkie's parties.
"Twilight, we might as well throw out your bed, because by now its just a waste of space." Spike frowned as his joke went unanswered, and he reached out and caught Twilight as she tried to run past him.
"Spike! What are you doing! You know I have a very important experiment I'm working on! The princess herself is coming to Ponyville to see it and I only have nine hours, thirteen minuets, and forty seconds to get everything prepared!" She said all of this very fast, and her bloodshot eyes and disheveled mane showed that she hadn't slept the previous night, again.
"Twilight, you need to calm down! I haven't seen you sleep in three days, I'm sure it'll be fine." He spoke with a cal reassuring tone, but apparently that was exactly what not to say.
"Fine, FINE! Spike, we could be discovering a whole new dimension and you think it'll be FINE?" She got her tail out of Spike's grip and trotted down to a drawing board strewn with equations, spells, and observations. "
"Spike, I don't think you grasp how bis this discovery could be. We could find a whole new detention that could help us explain, well, ANYTHING! We could even come in contact with," She turned back to Spike with a deranged smile. "Extraterrestrial life!" She turned back to her board and Spike went down the stairs to make some breakfast for him and Twilight. When he was finished, the sun was starting to rise, and Twilight was face-first in a pile of papers, snoring very loudly. Spike sat down in a chair and watched the snoring Twilight.
Well, you can't say she doesn't deserve a little rest here and there, he thought to himself.
A few hours later, Twilight was up and running again. This time, the library no longer looked like a blast-zone, and was now resembling how it normally looked, albeit the metal ring device in the middle of the room being a little out of place. Twilight was adjusting the ring like device when the door of the library was opened, and the rest of the Mane 6 walked in.
"Heya Twilight!" said Pinkie Pie as she hopped through the door.
"Hi guys!" said Twilght, turning her attention to he friends to greet them before returning her work on the device.
"We reckoned we'd come over to see how the big experiment would go," said Applejack. "We heard that Princess Celestia was coming down to see it too." Spike walked over to them as Twilight was too busy to even talk to her friends.
"Sorry she's a little, antisocial, at the moment. Its just that this experiment is really important, and this device has to be very exact. She's been working on it for a month."
"We understand darling," replied Rarity, and Spike's eyes glazed over her. "But, what exactly, is, it?" she asked cringing at the ugly runes inscribed along the side.
Spike snapped out of his trance with the shake of the head.
"Well, Twilight was looking through some of her books when she found one from Canterlot about trans-dimensional magic. Knowing Twilight when she finds a book she hasn't read yet, she discovered that, in theory, she could use runes in this book and spellwork to contact different dimensions. " The ponies had confused looks on their faces, and Spike sighed as he gave them the simple version.
"She's trying to contact another world with this weird ring," Spike said, and the ponies collectively oooooh-ed.
"Is she trying to get to the Cake World?" asked Pinkie Pie. "L'd love to go to the cake world!"
"Come on Pinkie, I do you really think there could really be a 'cake world'?" asked a skeptical Rainbow Dash. "If anything, I bet there's a world full of monsters, and I can totally kick their flank!"
"Oh, please, no monsters," replied a timid Fluttershy.
"In reality, it could be all of those," said Twilight as she walked over to them. "For all I know, it could be a world of party cake monsters." Dash quickly placed her hoof over Pinkie's mouth to silence her endless stream of questions to Twilight as her imagination went wild with visions of cake monsters.
"What are ya gonna do with this here contraption?" asked Applejack. "Well, Iron Bender made me this ring out of some of the best metal in Equestria, and I took it upon myself to put the runes on there and a few other things the book said to to, and it says after I preform the spell, the ring will become a portal to the other dimension. In fact, the book gives instructions to actually portal to different dimensions.
But it says that this was only attempted once, and the overall results were unknown. But it does state that it managed to 'damage' the other dimension in the process, but it doesn't state the kind or severity of the damage. Or the dimension contacted, or the nature of the damage to the demension, or-" She trailed off into a ramble of more variables.
"Can you say that last bit in non egg-head speech?" asked Dash.
"We can go there but we might break something," replied Twilight dully. She turned back to the ring. It was standing vertically to the floor, about seven feet tall, and hooked up to various machines with numberless cables.
"As soon as the princess arrives, I'll be able to turn it on, and we'll be the first ponies to see something beyond our own world, maybe other life." A silence fell across the ponies.
"You mean, aliens?" asked Dash.
"Yeah, aliens." replied Twilight, staring at the cold metal of the ring.
The Princess arrived later, the trumpet salute from the Canterlot Guard projecting her arrival to all nearby. The Princess greeted Twilight and her friends, before Twilight gave her a running commentary on the ring's mysterious purpose and how she had come about ordering such a big experiment.
"Twilight, I know you would only ask for me in person if it was a big matter, and it certainly seems that it is. But are you sure that it will work, and if you are, are you sure it is safe?" asked the Princess to Twilight.
"Princess, as your prized pupil, you can count on me to have factored all of that in to my planing, and you have nothing to fear," assured Twilight.
"That's not all I'm fearing," said the princess gravely. " What you discover here could change Equestria, for good or for ill, I cannot know." Twilight shared worried looks at her friends, and for the first time ever, considered not doing an experiment for knowledge.
"Well princess," said Twilight after a moment's silence. "We'll never know unless we try, and that is one of the most important things you have taught me." Celestia nodded, and Twilight moved towards the ring.
"Ladies, and princess, I would like it if you moved beyond the white tape to observe the experiment for safely purposes, and the wall too." Twilight had erected two makeshift walls with a glass strip, one for observers, and one for herself unless something went wrong and things become dangerous. Celestia and the ponies trotted behind their barrier, and Twilight walked over to her own.
Come on, don't get nervous, you're just doing the most important experiment you've ever done in front of you best friends and the leader of all of Equestria, no big deal, right?
She exhaled shakily and began the spell. The runes on the ring began to glow, and the background of the ring wasn't clear, and started to morph an gyrate. She looked at the spell on a just to her right, an began reciting the words of the spell. But as soon as she started to speak, the sound like a gale of wind erupted from the ring, and the inside turned a glowing white. As soon as the incantation was complete, the gale stopped, and the ring was still white. No that wasn't right, it was white, but she could see reflections, and angles, as if it were structures. She looked more, and saw that not all of these organic looking structures were white, but shades of grays could be seen. The rings entrance to the dimension were surrounded by more of these organic structures, acring downward around the ring's entrance as if it was at the epicenter of these structures.
Twilight and the other ponies were in awe at this amazing looking dimension, but their looks of amazement soon turned to horror. Out of the void, areal blots blocked out the eerie light of the structures. Looking like sharp, angled ships, they were painted a chipped brown with a grey trim, and were bedecked with spikes and chains. Among these flying boats, things were moving. They appeared like Diamond Dogs, as they stood on two legs, but were slimmer, and were wearing spiked and form-fitting armor. Their heads were spiked and flowing, and their eyes were piercing green dots. In the same colors as the boats, they carried slender rods with them, as they went about their business on the ships, the closest to the portal, who were only about thirty yards feet from the portal, finally noticed Twilight and the rest of the ponies.
Twilight felt her heart stop as the beings stopped and stared at the equine intruders. Before Twilight regained her wits, the other things started to bustle around, grabbing their rods and aiming them at the portal. Before anything else could happen, Twilight ended her magic to the portal and the others disappeared, only showing the back of one of her bookshelves.
Twilight slumped to the floor, her brain trying to come up on what just happened. The other ponies behind her were similarly stunned. After a minuet of silence, Applejack spoke.
"W-what was that Twilight?" asked Applejack in a shocked voice.
"I, don't really know, but if it was anything, it was-"
"Alien life," interrupted Celestia.
"A-aliens?" asked Rarity in amazement. Pinkie Pie had stopped hopping after the portal opened, and Fluttershy had her head buried in her hooves and hair at the sight of the aliens.
"Twilight," asked Celestia as she walked out from the barricade. "You have observed, what is your data?" Twilight snapped out of her shack and went over to the many machines she had set up to record this experiment, ripping off the reports as she went. She read all through the numberless reports in a heartbeat.
"Princess, from what I can gather, we didn't contact the dimension we we're trying to. The book describes it as 'hitting a ball in a hole, it doesn't always land where you want to too' and we missed. That's all I know."
"Do you know why?" asked Celestia.
" No princess, the book describes no known alternate dimension, but it says that the spell is a, um 'hit-or-miss.'" Twilight wish she had a better term, but the princess nodded and turned towards the door.
"Girls, you know what you saw, and I want nopony, nopony at all, to repeat what she saw here. I want this thing destroyed as soon as possible. And now I must be going, I must talk to my sister." Celestia calmly left the library, and the distant sound of many pegasi flying away could be heard after. The rest of the ponies regained their senses, and trotted over to Twilight where they began they're barrage of questions and commentary.
"What were those wretched creatures? Absolutely no sense in style," said Rarity with a huff.
"Rarity, we could really care less what they were warin'. Those are aliens, and we should be concentrated on what they want with us," replied Applejack.
"It doesn't matter what those things were, but if they were lookin' for a fight, I could totally hand it to them," said Rainbow.
"Those things were awful, just awful. They had spikes all over and a bunch of other things on their boats. I just hope they don't come here." said a worried Fluttershy.
"Guys, I don't think it matters about what we saw now. But what we need to do now is figure out what to do with this." The ponies looked at the ring, looks of amazement now replaced with fear.
"Princess Celestia told us what to do, so... What are we waiting for?" asked Rainbow Dash. Twilight walked over to the ring, starring at it.
"Waiting for them I guess," said Twilight while the others looked in amazement.
"What do you mean? i mean come on, the couldn't be really..."
"Why else would they be there? I mean did you see any houses? Or any place they could inhabit!? No, no no, they use it for transportation, they were using it to come here." Twilight said hysterically, pacing around the ring. The other ponies shared apprehensive looks, but Rarity mustered up the courage to comfort her friend.
"Come on darling, don't jump to conclusions. We barely know anything about these aliens, they could be using this, thing, for anything."
"Like a cake factory, or a party place, or a toilet, eeeewwww," Pinkie went on to list more possibilities but Rainbow silenced her. Rarity put her hoof on Twilight's shoulder.
"See dear, we don't know anything about them."
"Yeah, you're right," said Twilight silently. "We don't know anything about them."
"So I guess I better learn about them." The ponies exchanged horrified looks.
"Twilight-" they started.
"Spike! I need all my books about extraterrestrial life, space anomalies," Twilight listed many subjects in quick succession as Spike scribbled it down. Twilight started running around, grabbing things and rearranging them.
"Girls, as much as I would love to stay and chat, I have a lot of studying to do, so I must ask you to leave." She used a spell to slowly push them towards the door as they tried to protest.
"Twi I-"
"We should really think about this-"
"I think you're overreacting-"
"We didn't even find the party dimension yet-"
Twilight stuffed them through the door and gave them a deranged 'Twilight's nervous' smile and slammed the door shut.