A miscast spell sends Twilight and her friends to a place where war and friendship are kind of the same thing
After a spell goes haywire, Twilight Sparkle and her friends find themselves on a strange planet infested with alien bugs. Lost, annoyed, and just a little sleep deprived, the six ponies seek help in the form of green creatures who love war and hate friendship.
Lesson 1: Please Do Not Cast Spells While Sleep Deprived
The entire Equestrian map pulsed with an even, white light that filled the spacious throne room and all but blinded the six ponies sitting round it. From Manehatten in the northeast to the San Palomino Desert in the southwest, not an inch of Equestria was free of danger. Twilight Sparkle gestured at it with an awkward, full-body movement, and Applejack had to reach over to steady her. The Princess of Friendship wore thick bags under her eyes. Her cutie mark glowed in time with the map.
“It’s not a friendship problem but an entire friendship crisis!” she cried.
“We know, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said from her end of the table. She glanced at her own, glowing cutie mark. “We’ve been flashing for a week now. I think the map is just broken.”
“The map cannot be broken!”
“Have you slept at all, hun?” Rarity asked. “You look … not well.”
Twilight slammed her hoof onto the table. “There’s no time for sleep! We’re in the middle of a friendship crisis!”
“You can’t solve every problem with brute force,” Applejack said. “Remember what happened last time?”
Five of the six ponies nodded at that. Fluttershy’s ears fell, though Pinkie Pie offered a giggle. Spike wandered into the room, the scales on his head bent askew, his body covered in yellow and orange paint. He wore sunglasses and carried a trey of coffees for everypony. Rarity cocked an eyebrow as the little dragon quietly handed out the drinks and left.
“You really need to get some sleep, Twi,” Rainbow Dash said. “Like, really really.”
Twilight jumped onto the map, slipped, and righted herself with an awkward flap of her wings. Her face burst into a smile that was both triumphant and crooked. “That’s where you’re wrong, Rainbow Dash. And why I called you all here.”
“Uh oh,” Apple Jack said.
“Here here!” Pinkie Pie cheered with a short hop.
“I devised a new spell this morning,” Twilight continued, walking over the glowing map. Her body cast an eerie shadow over Equestria. “Did you all bring what I asked?”
Applejack looked at everypony in equal parts worry and defeat. “Sure, but maybe we should wait until tomorrow. After you’ve slept.”
“Nonsense!” Twilight offered the map another stomp. “Spike,” she called. “Bring the bucket!”
“Bucket?” Rarity asked.
With a mirrored look of defeat, and still covered in glops of yellow and orange paint, Spike dragged a large, beat-up tin bucket into the throne room. He handed it over, yawned, and left without saying a word.
“Sugarcube,” Applejack said, “This is getting ridiculous. We need to—”
“This is a magic bucket!” Twilight said. “It’s got dirt from every country in Equestria.”
“Even the Crystal Empire?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Because I don’t think there’s dirt there.”
“Oh there’s dirt there!” Twilight grabbed the bucket and hugged it close. “I then cast every spell of finding I know, and a few I don’t.” She laughed. “Did you know there are books in Cellestia’s library she doesn’t want me to read? Did you know I found a way to check them out? It’s not breaking the rules if you’re a librarian!”
“You’re not a librarian,” Fluttershy whispered.
“Yes I am!” Twilight held out the bucket. “Everypony, put your items in. Remember, it has to represent what you think this friendship problem is. The more we desire, the better the bucket will search!”
“This is a bad idea,” Applejack said. She shook her head, but when Twilight thrust the beat-up piece of tin into her face, the orange pony dropped a guitar pick inside. “Songs are soothing. Maybe that’s the answer.”
“Here,” Rainbow Dash said. She threw a copy of Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone, at Twilight, who caught it with a quick dash of magic. “Daring Do had to find treasure in this one, and maybe that’ll help.”
“I also think this is a bad idea,” Rarity said before dropping in a rock.
“A rock?” Applejack scowled. “Ya only brought a rock?”
“You just said it was a bad idea!” Rarity spat back. “This whole thing is simply ridiculous. Twilight darling, you need to go to bed. Equestria will still be here tomorrow morning, I promise.”
“Agreed,” Fluttershy said, though she offered a yellow teacup all the same. “Discord likes this tea cup. Maybe his magic will help, too.”
“That’s a fantastic idea!” Twilight said. “And so are rocks, Rarity. I didn’t think of bringing rocks, just dirt. We got this, everypony.” She turned to Pinkie Pie. “Just you left.”
“No!” Applejack shouted. “No, we’re done. Twilight, you’ve gone crazy, and we need to stop this.” She glared at Pinkie Pie. “Do not put anything into that bucket!”
“Nothing will probably happen,” Rainbow Dash muttered. Fluttershy nodded.
Pinkie Pie giggled, jumped onto the map and, glowing from nose to tail like a Hearth’s Warming Tree, gave Twilight Sparkle a big hug. “Twilight, it’ll be okay.”
“You think so?”
Pinkie Pie nodded. “Yup. Because I wasn’t sure what to bring, since I wanted to bring my party cannon but you said small objects only. Then I thought, ‘well, what’s like a party cannon but smaller?’”
“One of those little pull-string confetti poppers?” Fluttershy asked.
“Nope!” Pinkie Pie pulled out a brown paper bag. “Gunpowder!”
Rarity’s eyes went wide, and Applejack leapt onto the table, already shouting, “No!” at the top of her lungs. Fluttershy tried to run, and Rainbow Dash took to the air. Twilight smiled so big her head threatened to split in half.
Pinkie Pie dumped the gunpowder into the bucket.
The bucket cast its spell.
Lesson 2: Every Problem is a Friendship Problem if you Pretend Hard Enough
Explosions mixed with howls of alien rage as thunder rolled over the landscape, not from weather but monsters made of bone. The swarm of bugs stretched from horizon to horizon, moving like a tidal wave, their feet all claws, their mouths all teeth. Purple shells decorated their shoulders and heads while yellow eyes glared from deep sockets.
Everypony screamed. Rainbow Dash took to the sky only for Applejack to yank her back down, just as a red wave of magic threatened to burn her to a crisp.
The bugs crashed into another group of monsters, an army of bipedal creatures with green skin and the word, “whaag!” at the tips of their tongues. They had stubby, round heads and wore crude clothing that, despite all the armor plates, did not stop the bugs from clawing, stinging, or biting. Many of the green monsters held metal wands that only knew one kind of spell: loud and fiery. Those not carrying wands swung large axes and other cutting tools.
Eyes wide, Twilight Sparkle cast a barrier around everypony. They all huddled together as the two groups met.
The green monsters drove into the large bugs without finesse, many laughing and knocking over their teammates to get to the front of the line. Magic explosions tore both groups apart, the bugs falling by the dozen yet not caring, the green creatures delighting in the carnage. Axe met claw, magic met magic, and the air itself seemed to quake in fear.
“What in Equestria is going on?” Applejack shouted, plugging her ears with her hat to muffle the sounds.
“A friendship crisis!” Twilight Sparkle beamed. “The bucket worked!”
“Forget the stupid bucket, Twi!” Rainbow Dash roared. “Get us out of here!”
“Uh,” Twilight said. She kicked at a loose stone. “I can’t.”
“You what?” five ponies demanded.
A loud roar stole their attention as a mammoth bug with four tree-stump legs barreled into the green monsters, too big to stop yet quickly surrounded all the same. The green monsters threw themselves at the thing, their wands rattling fire until the large bug was more explosion than creature.
“Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said. “I don’t think I like this place. Are you sure you can’t take us home?”
“Yes Pinkie. We have to solve the—”
The magic dome buckled. A stray bug pressed against it, first with its face and then with its claws. A crack appeared in Twilight’s magic.
"Someone do something!” Rarity whined.
“Do you think it wants to be friends?” Twilight asked.
With a gulp, Fluttershy stepped forward. Her body quivered with fear, but she stood her ground and said in an even voice: “Mr. Monster, do you … uh … want to be friends?”
The bug paused.
“That’s a good monster. See, you don’t have to be mad. Just tell me—”
Fluttershy’s eyes went wide, and she shrieked so loud the shield fell. “Kill it! Someone kill it now! Make it go away!”
As if responding to her call, a green monster leapt into the fray, swung his axe in a clean chop, and sent the bug’s head spinning from its body. Purple blood puddled onto the ground.
“Waaahg!” it shouted. Broken teeth fell from its mouth, and a thousand cuts covered its body. It smelled like sweat and a thousand dead rats. “Kill it! Kill it nah!” Then it tore off, laughing at the top of its lungs and swinging its axe at the empty air.
“What was that?” Rainbow Dash shouted. “What is any of this!”
Rarity rushed to help Fluttershy while Applejack turned to Twilight. “Twi, if you can’t get us out of here, at least take us away from this brouhaha before we wind up killed.”
“No,” Fluttershy said. With Rarity’s help, she stood. Her eyes were still wide, and her body still shook. Her pink mane lay disheveled around her face. “We have to stop the bugs.”
“Fluttershy dear,” Rarity said, her left eye twitching, “I think you must have hit your head. We have to hide.”
The yellow Pegasus shook her head. “No. You don’t understand. The bugs are a hive, like ants or bees. And when I talked to the one, it … it spoke to me.”
“What did it say?” Twilight asked. She magicked paper and quill into her hooves.
Fluttershy turned to watch the fight. The green monsters were now driving around in strange contraptions that seemed to be more fire than car. Explosions fell from them like raindrops in a storm, and the bugs crumpled in their wake. Yet the bugs continued to pour in from the horizon. Their numbers were endless.
"That it wants to eat everything. Everything in the universe.”
*
“That’s crazy talk,” Rarity said. She ran a hoof through her mane. “This is all crazy talk. Like a bad dream.”
“Maybe not,” Twilight said. She shook the tin bucket, and frowned when nothing fell out. “The map showed us a friendship crisis, and the bucket sent us here for a reason.” She gave it another shake. “Can bugs learn friendship?”
The sound of an approaching engine ended the conversation. Hopping, exploding, and barely held together with tape, a familiar green creature waved from the steering wheel of a beat-up truck. Its six wheels bounded over the uneven landscape, none of them the same size, and four thick lances jutted out the front bumper. Bug parts decorated each one. A giant rocket rounded out the rear, along with two little fins with flames painted on them. The rest of the truck was painted blue.
Before coming to a stop, the green monster leapt out of the vehicle, his arms full of wands. He looked like a pile of walking metal, from the smaller wands attached to his hips and back to the bundle in his arms. Even his shoulders held big, dented plates painted blue. A golden skull sparkled as a belt buckle, which held up a pair of pants so faded and torn they threatened to fall off.
“Kill it nah!” he barked. His voice sounded like six pounds of gravel stuck together with chewing gum. “Waagh!”
“Listen here you,” Pinkie Pie said, aiming her party cannon at the creature. “I don’t know what kind of parties you throw, but we’re not interested.”
The monster clapped, sending all of his wands crashing to the ground. “Dat’s a good gun. Lets mount i’ ter the boostah stabbah an’ go kill sum, bugs!”
“Uh,” Rainbow Dash said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What in Equestria is going on!” Rarity shrieked.
“Daan’ ya knah? It’s waagh!” The creature hopped up and down before pointing to Fluttershy. “The bloomin’ Snakebite critter says ter kill ‘em aw, so you’re on our team, even tha I’m Deathskull. Ya an’ ya. Blue critters.” He pointed to Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. “You're Deathskulls ta. Sneaky sneaky!”
Rainbow Dash looked herself over and shrugged. Twilight eyed the creature up and down. Her horn flashed pink, and she levitated him into the air, spun him around, and then set him back. The creature accepted this with good graces, like this sort of thing happened to him fairly often and it was better to just enjoy the ride. He pointed to his head and winked.
“Sneaky sneaky.”
“Well, he doesn’t appear to be a bug or a hive mind,” Twilight said.
“Good job, Twi,” Rainbow Dash said. She rolled her eyes. “Glad we solved that.”
Done being inspected, the green creature picked up Pinkie’s party cannon “Hey!” Pinkie yelled, but before anyone could stop him, the monster began hammering it to the back of his truck with the butt of his axe.
“Now hold on just a dang minute,” Applejack said, but the green monster ignored her.
“Na it’s a boostah shootah! Ya.” He smiled at Pinkie Pie, and one of his teeth fell out. “Yer. Blood Axe critter. Get in, and when ya clock some bugs, shoot ‘em dead.”
“Absolutely not!’ Rarity hissed. “You will give Pinkie her cannon back, and we are—”
“I think we should go with him,” Fluttershy said. She hunkered low to the ground. “I know it’s scary, but he’s right. We need to stop those bugs before they destroy everything.”
“Wahg!” the monster agreed.
Twilight nodded. “The only way we’re getting home is if we solve the friendship crisis. It’s why we’re here.”
“Or,” Rainbow Dash said in a slow, soft tone. “You could cast a spell and send us home, and we could just live with glowing cutie marks forever.”
“I’m fine with that,” Applejack said.
“Spell?” The green monster rubbed at his chin so hard another tooth fell out. “I know spells. Ya. I can take ya to the wierdboyz. Get in da boostah shootah, and you, blood axe critter, start shootin.’”
“Okay,” Twilight said before anyone could stop her.
At the insistence of the monster, an Ork whose named turned out to be Doomer, everypony picked up a metal wand, which he either called a gun or a shootah depending on its size. The weapons were heavy, their triggers not suited for hooves, but the Ork would not let them continue unless they were “armed an ready ter waahg.” Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight all carried smaller guns with round barrels while Rainbow Dash and Applejack both grabbed larger shootahs. Applejack’s came with a backpack, which Rarity helped her put on.
“Well, it’s certainly not high fashion,” she said. “But it matches your hat.”
“Least of our problems, Rare.”
Rainbow Dash pressed the trigger on her weapon and spun through the air as it sprayed metal slugs into the ground. “Oh my gosh!” she said.
“Ya!” Doomer said. “Only daan’t shoot at the bloomin’ earf, ya mental critter!”
“What’s this trigger do?” Rainbow Dash asked. The gun had a secondary barrel that ended in a red cone with fins. Someone had gone to the painstaking effort to paint a skull on it.
“Boom!”
They funneled into the truck, with Doomer taking the controls despite Rainbow Dash’s offer to try and drive. Doomer would hear none of it. Both Rarity and Applejack agreed with the green creature. Together, they squealed into a melee of swarming bugs, charging Orks, and magical fire. Screams and body parts rained from the sky.
Doomer put them on a collision course with a group of bugs. Twilight’s teeth chattered in her head as she tried to aim her gun, and everypony else struggled to do the same. The truck sped up, rattling so hard it sounded like it was about to fall apart without any help.
“Stop!” Rarity shrieked.
“Go!” Doomer cried.
He smashed into a bug so hard it exploded. Rainbow Dash fired her weapon, the bullets scattering in uneven bursts. Rarity closed her eyes and shot at the sky. Bugs closed in. Twilight took aim and fired her own weapon, yelping at the feel and heat but happy to have hit her mark. The bug jerked and twisted as bullets tore its arms from its body and its jaw from its face.
“Ya!” Doomer cried. “Na do it again!”
The bugs regrouped, and one cast its own spell. A red ball of lightning struck the truck and sent it spinning. Everypony screamed. Fluttershy and Rarity both closed their eyes and returned fire, mostly hitting the ground but startling the oncoming monster long enough for Doomer to right the truck. Once it was back on its six wheels and only jumping somewhat, Pinkie Pie lined up a shot and fired her party cannon.
A twisting wall of fire exploded from the party toy, striking the bug and melting it into a pool of glass.
“Twilight!” Pinkie cried. “He broke my party cannon!”
“Oooooh,” Twilight said. She flew to the gun and stuck her head in the barrel. It looked like a party cannon and not a shootah. “I wonder how.” Her voice echoed hollow around her ears.
“What if I can never shoot confetti again? What if I accidentally blow up every house in Ponyville? What if—”
“Shut up and help!” Applejack said. She took aim at the remaining bug and fired. Her weapon spat a gout of flame far across the battlefield, engulfing the bony monster and continuing on to two more much further behind. They screamed and fell, their legs twitching in the air.
With another cry of “Waahg!” Doomer sped away from the encroaching horde of bugs to an equally-sized horde of Orks. The green-skinned creatures waved as they drove by, many shooting randomly into the sky or making lewd gestures with their hands. Doomer laughed, though none of the ponies quite understood what was so funny. Most of the Orks that waved wore blue clothing in some fashion, though the shade never quite stayed the same. Light blue shoulder pads paired with dark blue wrists and teal pants. A few wore purple and walked as if no one could see them. Those that offered rude gestures tended to prefer red or yellow. The different gangs all stuck together, and when fights broke out, the brawls were always color-coded. Smaller, ugly creatures ferried weapons and ammo between the groups, not part of any one color yet beneath all of them. The entire army smelled like if every bad smell in Equestria was somehow left to mold over in a swamp.
“Ugh,” Rarity said. “This is dreadful.” It was hard to tell if she was talking about the smell or Ork fashion sense.
“What are those things?” Applejack asked, pointing to the smaller creatures. They shambled around on skinny bodies with long arms and even longer, bat-like ears. Those that wore clothes looked dirtier than those without.
Doomer cocked a green eyebrow. “Why daan’t ya know your own critters, critter? They’re grots!”
“Excuse me?”
Doomer laughed. “Ya an’ ya,” he pointed to Rarity and Applejack, “are Grots. Ugly ta.”
Dirty, and hair a mess, Rarity adopted a look of pure indignation. “I sir, am not ugly!”
The Ork shrugged. He poked Twilight on the shoulder, who jumped and almost unleashed a storm of bullets into a passing group of red-clad orks. “Deathskull. ‘Ow come ya ‘ang aahht wif aw these ugly critters when ya could beat ‘em and take their teeth?”
“What?”
“Deathskulls daan’t like Snakebites or Blood Axes.” Doomer offered Fluttershy a strained smile. “Except ya. You’re alweigh’.”
Fluttershy flushed. “Thank you, Mr. Doomer.”
Eyes bloodshot and glazed over, Twilight laughed so hard she almost fell off truck. “Oh my gosh, Doomer! I get it!” She turned to look at all her friends, who offered less-than-enthused expressions. Twilight’s smile mimicked the one she wore before her magic bucket left them stranded. “I know why we’re here, everypony!”
“Why?” Applejack asked.
“These Orks have a friendship problem!”
Lesson 3: I Can't Understand what my Ork Friend is Saying
The Ork army thickened into a roar of strange contraptions as Doomer drove to the rear guard. Some stomped on legs while others sped across the ground, each with more weapons than anypony cared to count, and each heading for the front lines. It was time to waahg. Doomer called the bugs Tyranids, prompting a dozen questions from Twilight and a few groans from her friends, but the Ork wasn’t much help. What he did know wasn’t useful, and what he didn’t know was pretty much everything. The best she got out of him was that the red machines moved faster than the blue and yellow because they were painted red.
“Red is da fastest,” he said, which was both the most and least sensible thing he had uttered yet.
Doomer led them to what could best be described as a metal boat on even larger metal wheels. It had a thick body filled with windows, most plugged with gun barrels, and a flat top where Orks clustered about. Clouds of heavy smoke spewed from chimneys the size of trees. Its wheels churned over the earth, slow moving yet determined to rend everything they touched into dirt.
“Wow,” Twilight said, fluttering off the ground. She craned her head for a better look. “This is amazing!”
“I don’t think that’s the word I would use,” Fluttershy said.
“Don’t you see!” Twilight gestured to the ship. “This shouldn’t exist! It doesn’t make any sense!”
“We know,” Rainbow Dash said. “None of this does.”
“Twilight, we want to go home,” Pinkie Pie said. “And I want my party cannon fixed!”
“Home,” Doomer agreed. He jerked the steering wheel, and the truck zoomed on ahead, aiming for a loose ramp hanging off the rear of the land ship. Orks scattered as he rolled into the cargo hold.
Groans and howls turned into clanks and zaps as Orks roved between tool chests, many carrying hammers alongside their axes and shootahs. Some hauled pieces of metal while others fired up torches and welded bent shapes into other bent shapes that looked suspiciously like car parts. Dark chemicals stained everything, and sour smells collected around barrels. The creatures seemed to prefer chaos, because no one worked together, and many fought over materials and tools. In the time it took to drive from one end of the cargo bay to the other, the ponies witnessed three fights and one accidental stabbing. The only time the Orks seemed to agree on anything was when a yellow-clad creature stubbed his toe and shot it off in a fit of frustration. No matter what color they wore, they all found that very funny.
“I could write a friendship dissertation on this!” Twilight said.
“Do you think,” Rarity whispered to Applejack, “do you think we could just, lightly tap her on the head and maybe she’d fall asleep?”
Applejack frowned. “We’re not knocking our friend unconscious, Rarity.”
“But this place is filthy!” The white unicorn wrinkled her nose. “It smells worse than … than … than I don’t know what!”
“It smells worse than a bad attitude,” Pinkie agreed.
The truck skidded to a shaky halt, and Doomer shooed everypony out. He then threatened half a dozen Orks away with a point of his gun.
“This is mah boostah shootah, and if ya take it, I’ll knock yer teeth aahht.” Satisfied with his threat, he turned to the six ponies. “Ya and ya,” he pointed to Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. “Yer wif me. We’ll see da weirdboyz. Deathskullz only.”
“I believe you are mistaken,” Rarity said, but Doomer cut her off with a grunt.
“Grots stay ‘ere. Unless ya wanna work in the bloomin’ grub hall.”
Fluttershy shook her head. “Sorry Mr. Doomer, but we’re together. We’re friends.”
“Na.” Doomer said. “Blood Axes go ova ‘ere, and Snakebites ova ‘ere.” He gestured to two separate areas of the cargo hold. “The weirdboyz are Deathskullz, ya rathead critters.” He gave Fluttershy a lopsided grin. “Ya alwigh’ for a Snakebite though.”
In a mad rush, Rarity grabbed Twilight by the shoulders and gave her a rough shake. “Do something! Get us out of here!”
“It’ll be fine, Rarity,” Twilight yawned. The bags in her eyes drooped so low they almost touched her chin. “Besides. I trust Doomer.”
“We are doomed,” Pinkie said. She blew a balloon and popped it, which sent the nearest grot into a panic. “Doom da doom doom doom.”
Rarity dropped Twilight and rushed to Rainbow Dash. “Dashie, I need you to do me a favor.” She grabbed the blue Pegasus by the face and pulled her in close. “Ask this … this weird wizard how to get us home, and write down everything he says.”
“Okay!” Rainbow Dash shoved Rarity away. “Okay. I can do that.”
“I’m not much for magic, but maybe I can cast the spell.” Rarity’s horn flashed light blue. “If it isn’t too hard.”
“What should I do with Twilight?”
Applejack sighed. “Just don’t let her do anything crazy.”
“Hey!” Twilight said. “I’m right here!”
Rainbow Dash gave Rarity a salute and then a hug. “Got it. We’ll get out of here, I promise.”
Doomer scratched his head. “Yer not supposed ter ‘ug grots, yer supposed ter kick ‘em.”
With reluctant looks and ears low, the ponies split into three groups, with Twilight and Rainbow Dash following Doomer. They marched into the heart of the fortress. Hallways zigged and zagged like a bad maze, one where every path wound up at a weapon barracks. Most of the hallways were just small enough to make passing other Orks a challenge, which led to clogs and fights. Others opened wider, presumably to make it easier to move weapons from one place to another.
"Do you have a map, Doomer?” Twilight asked.
“A wot?”
The princess of friendship fluttered into the air. “You know. A map. Organization. Charts. Graphs and numbers. You can’t run a kingdom without a map.”
Doomer laughed. “Yer a funny lil’ critter, ya kna?” He ran his hand along one wall and pulled it away covered in metal splinters. He plucked one out and ate it, though he did so slowly, like he was savoring the taste or maybe the ship itself. “This is the bloody bes’ stompa in the whole worl’. ‘Umans fink we’re rathead dumb ya kna, but we made dis. And den we killed ‘em.”
“I could organize the rathead out of this place,” Twilight said.
Twilight yawned, but kept her questions to a minimum as the group climbed two uneven staircases, veered outside to a walkway that overlooked the ship’s wheels, and approached a door with a Tyranid skull nailed to it. Doomer pushed the two ponies into a dark room filled with potions, cauldrons, various sticks, and a full weapon’s rack. Two Orks dressed in purple sarongs took turns slapping each other. Both were naked from the waist up, and both wore steel crowns that looked like someone had welded the tip of a rake to a headband. The older of the two had various pieces of metal bolted into his skin.
“Dis is Zigdek and Ol’ Zogdek,” Doomer said. “Dey kna everytin’ about everytin’.”
Ol’ Zogdek stopped the slapfight to look at the two ponies, and Zigdek took the opportunity to slug his elder in the jaw. The older Ork’s two front fangs flew into their cauldron, which turned teal. Someone screamed from the floor above.
“Haha,” Ol’ Zogdek said. “Tol’ ya!”
Zigdek nodded. Doomer did too.
“Na ‘oo ‘re those glue critters, and wot ‘orrible fin’ ‘appened ter make them butcher’s so butters?”
Rainbow Dash flew to the older of the two Orks and held out a hoof. “Uh. Hi? I’m Rainbow Dash and this is Twilight, and we’re trying to find our way home. We do not belong here.”
“You have a friendship problem,” Twilight said. She rubbed eyes. “And an organizational problem, but that’s easier to fix.” She clapped her hooves. “Would you like me to make a list?”
“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “We need to get out of here!”
“But the bucket took us here for a reason!” Twilight magicked the piece of broken tin into her hooves and hugged it close. Three Ork chins dropped open. “We have to solve the friendship problem, or we can’t go home. The best way to do that is to make a list.”
“Wuzat?” Zidgek asked. He rubbed his head, and his trident crown fell to the floor with a spark of electricity. “Why, dat’s warp magic, dat’s wot dat is.”
“Warp,” Ol’ Zogdek agreed. “Take ya anywhere.”
“Oh thank goodness,” Rainbow Dash said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” She darted to the nearest table and pushed all the strange objects aside until she found what she hoped was paper and a quill. The paper was a bit on the thick side and tinted green, and the quill wrote with red ink instead of black. She shuddered but pressed on. “Tell me how to get us home.”
“Yes,” Twilight agreed. “Tell me about this warp.”
*
Engines rumbled and Orks waved spiked weapons as Fluttershy flew over the rocky landscape, doing her best to keep up. Dark clouds traveled across the sky. Some threatened bad weather, most war, and yet a seldom few twisted into pictures of places the yellow Pegasus would rather be. She missed Ponyville. She missed Angel, and her animals, and her peaceful cottage next to the Everfree Forest, where the worst thing was a timberwolf with a wounded leg. She tried to explain that to the four Orks, who were named Gar, Ger, Gore, and Gerk, but they took one look at her and insisted she come along. Snakebites had choppas to ride and settlements to raid!
“I don’t know,” Fluttershy had said. “That sounds scary.”
That suited the raiding party just fine, who preferred scary to a fault. Their two-wheeled choppas, all decorated with spikes, skulls, and guns, chugged over the uneven ground, belching fire like a dragon with a tummy ache. It was all, if Fluttershy was being honest, a bit much.
“Almos’ der,” Gore said, a ferocious creature with a dirty ponytail and a spiked club, which he carried around much like a filly would a security blanket. “I clock i’ up ahea’.”
“Ya daan’t clock aahht, ya idgjit,” Gar said.He weaved back and forth, not because he wanted to but because he had shot himself in the foot before they left and had trouble keeping his choppah even. “I daan’t clock aahht.”
“I’ll clock yaah,” Gore returned. He waved his club.
Fluttershy gulped. “Let me see.” She flew higher, trying her best to keep her head low in case any stray bursts of magic tried to burn to her a crisp, and scanned the area. It didn’t take long to spot what Gore was talking about: four shallow buildings with domed roofs and a torn-apart windmill. The ground around the homes was flat and scorched, but otherwise the place looked abandoned.
She returned to her companions. “Gore is right, there is something up ahead. So you see, you don’t have to fight about it.”
“Yah!” Gore said, and not to be outdone, the others quickly agreed.
Despite their ferocity and almost uniform lack of front teeth, the Snakebite Orks had all taken a liking to the yellow Pegasus, who was the first Ork they had ever seen with wings that weren’t made of metal or explosions. She also talked funny, agreed with everyone even if they were wrong, and had the longest hair of any of them. This was apparently quite important.
The raiding party reached the edge of the settlement, and Fluttershy calmly asked everyone to slow down. “It might be dangerous,” she said. The Orks all smiled and nodded. “We should go in quietly, so we aren’t seen.”
“Dat’s for cowards and Deathskulls,” Gerk complained. He stuck a dirty finger into the hole where his ear used to be and tore out a hunk of something a little too red to be wax. “Let’s charge!”
Fluttershy shook her head. “No. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.” She gulped. “It might be a trap.”
Once again, the four Orks nodded. Gar hopped off his choppah, already swinging a large butcher knife, and stumbled to the ground with a howl of pain. The other Orks laughed. Gar tried another step and repeated the fall and his howl of pain. His fellow Orks repeated their laughter.
“Here,” Fluttershy said. She flew over to Gore and tugged on a dirty tear in his shirt. “May I have this?”
“Wuzat?” Gore asked.
Deciding that was close enough, Fluttershy tore a long strip of cloth from Gore’s shirt and flew to Gar, who was now sitting on the dirt and looking at his foot and his cleaver like they were a math problem he knew how to solve but didn’t want to. Fluttershy knocked the weapon from his hands.
“Hey!” he complained. “I was usin’ dat!”
“No!” She said. “That’s not how we solve our problems.”
The other Orks gathered around the yellow Pegasus as she bandaged Gar’s mangled foot. They oohed and aahed once they realized what she was doing, and Gar even laughed when she scolded him for not cleaning it right away. He didn’t seem to understand the word, but he did clap when she said “infection.”
She sighed. “You’re worse than Angel.”
In truth, Fluttershy didn’t expect the Ork to walk, but he surprised her by hopping to his feet and stomping around on the uneven rocks. He didn’t even wince. When Gore shoved him, he shoved back. Both balled their hands into fists until Fluttershy flew between them.
“Stop!” she yelled. “We’re here to … to raid, remember?”
Gerk nodded. “The painboy critter is wite. Let’s kill sum bugs and loot a gaff.”
They filtered into settlement. Up close, the scorch marks were filled with dozens of scattered bones. Fluttershy shuddered. Ger picked up a blue helmet and shrugged.
“‘uman.” He tossed it back and gave it a hearty stomp. Of the four Orks, he was the largest, with dozens of red tattoos covering his arms and neck. “‘umans ave good shootahs. Maybe we can find sum.”
“I daan’t like—” Gar began, but had to stop when a dozen pink monsters squirmed out the nearest building, each with four arms and wide, gaping mouths filled with yellow teeth.
Fluttershy screamed. Ger and Gerk both opened fire. With a roar, Gore charged in with his club, and Fluttershy huddled low. She did her best to watch but kept putting her hooves in front of her eyes and wishing she was back home. The new monsters howled worse than the Orks. Gunfire filled the air.
The ground shifted, and Fluttershy looked up, hoping to see Gore or Gar and instead almost fainted. A monster towered over her, its head lolling to one side, its tongue drooling a long hiss of saliva. Its skin was covered in glowing blue sores. Fluttershy fumbled with her gun as the monster lumbered towards her, raising a crude hunk of metal.
It stared Fluttershy down with two, pinprick yellow eyes, and Fluttershy stared back.
“No!” she hissed.
The monster stopped.
“No you won’t hurt me or my friends anymore!” Fluttershy flew up and poked the monster in the chest. “Now stop being bad.”
The monster turned, stumbled, and headed for its closest friend. Fluttershy crossed her hooves but almost fainted again when the monster swung its club at its brother. The heavy weapon made short work of the smaller monster, which crumpled to the ground in a broken pile.
Gore jumped on the monster’s back and swung his club so loud it sounded like a gunshot. The monster fell, and the Orks all gathered around Fluttershy, screaming in triumph and calling her “the bes’ painboy we eva saw!”
They spent the next half hour looting what was left of the compound while Fluttershy wondered if her staring powers worked on bugs.
*
Covered in dirt, slime, and caustic chemicals, the cargo bay managed to be cleaner than what the Orks called their kitchen. Rarity took one look at the garbage-pile of mold and dirty dishes, turned right around, and screamed so loud all the Orks fled from her in terror. By the time she found Applejack again, disgust had simmered into a loud, obnoxious rage that kept most of the green monsters from bothering them. Rarity glared at the strange creatures walking passed, most arguing, some fighting, others building contraptions that didn’t make any sense. When they saw her, they scurried away.
“Can’t believe you scaring them away is more helpful than you actually helping,” Applejack said. She heaved a piece of metal onto a cart and waved it ready to go. A group of grots, all very worse for wear, tugged and pulled. “Can’t believe how bad these fellas are at building.”
“That’s what you can’t believe?”
“Well.” Applejack took off her hat and wiped her brow. Instead of removing sweat, she added more dirt, which Rarity removed with a bit of magic. “I’ve built plenty of barns in my day, and they go faster when you’re not arguin’ every five minutes.”
“I prefer a cleaner workspace, myself.”
Applejack shook her head, sighed, and then burst into strained laughter. She gave Rarity a hug, which the unicorn returned with a squeeze so tight Applejack gasped.
“There,” Rarity said. “Now we’re the same amount of dirty.”
Applejack laughed. “That’s rich. Pretty sure I’m doing all the work.”
Rarity scowled at a passing Ork dressed in red. He made a rude gesture but retreated, and a smaller blue-clad Ork gave her a nod of approval. “I like to think of it as delegating,” she retorted with a flick of her mane. The effect was lessoned given how split the ends were.
The oddboyz, such as they were, existed to supply all the other Orks with weapons and machines. They knew their way around tools and schematics, and they knew how to wire a stompah without frying themselves to a crisp. At least most of the time. Their current project: a thick-plated mech dubbed a Deff Dread, equipped with blastahs, flamahs, shootahs, missiles, and three pinchy hands not made for holding things but tearing them apart. It also had a pointless amount of skulls and spikes for decoration. Rarity found it rather garish; Applejack took one look at the instructions and dubbed it worthless.
Nothing connected together properly! There were no measurements, no lines to follow or weld allowances. The Orks didn’t even plan to wire half of it for power! When Applejack pointed this out, she was told to, “Get back ter work, ya idgit grot,” and threatened with a screwdriver.
Now they were almost done, mostly thanks to Applejack’s brute strength and Rarity’s directed anger, both of which kept everyone in line, or at least, in something resembling a line. If friendship couldn’t make the Orks work together, fear would.
Of course, fear could only go so far. The Deff Dread was almost done, and every Ork clan in the land ship helped build it. They all wanted to drive it.
“Uh oh,” Rarity moaned.
“Don’t think you can mean-look your way out of this,” Applejack agreed.
A lean Ork carrying a red screwdriver hopped into the Deff Dread, and a larger Ork climbed after him. The larger creature grabbed the first one by the wrist and yanked him free while a third Ork bit the second one in the boot. The first Ork stabbed with his screwdriver; the third Ork watched all his teeth tumble from his head. Both were thrown to the ground. As more Orks turned to fight each other, the second hopped into the Deff Dread and slammed the hood shut, locking himself inside a metal orb with a skull twice the size of Applejack on the front.
Not to be outdone, every Ork in the cargo bay leapt onto the mech with weapons drawn. Angry shouts of, “It’z mine!” intermingled with sparks, yelps, and moving gears as the mech raised an arm.
Rarity shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know about this. Can he even see where he’s going?”
“He can’t!” Applejack spat. “Tried to tell ‘em. Need glass or somethin’. He disagreed.”
“Do you think he knows all his friends are there?”
Applejack slammed a hoof into their work bench. “‘Course he does! Been like this all day!”
“Should we hide?”
“Na. The legs don’t have power.”
Rarity took a few steps away in retreat anyways, but Applejack just smirked. Any minute now it would fizzle to a halt. It’s not like it could just run on spite. Yet the mech stomped forward, almost crushing a poor grot, and swung on its waist. Orks flew off in droves. One metal claw snagged into a yellow war wagon and bent it to shreds. The Snakebites howled, and the Blood Axess howled, and soon both were slugging each other. The Deff Dread twirled one of its shootahs and put four holes into the hull of the land ship. The Deathskulls opened fire.
“Oh dear,” Rarity said.
“But how!” Applejack exclaimed. “I don’t get it!”
While the Orks fought, the mech stumbled on unsteady legs, threatening to crush everyone. It took all of five seconds for it to trip over a battle wagon. A growing shadow fell over the fighting Orks, who stopped just long enough to consider it before returning to their brawl.
Applejack yelled, and Rarity yelled, and then Rarity’s horn burst with light. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. A crystal-shaped shield formed around the Orks. It looked like glass, and when the Deff Dread fell into it, it splintered. Rarity’s legs buckled. She groaned, and the light in her horn faded, but the giant mech stayed put. Dozens of Orks scrambled out of the way. When they were all safe, Rarity let her magic fade. The war machine collapsed, and so did she.
The Orks cheered. Applejack helped her to her hooves.
"Uh oh,” Applejack said. "Now what?”
Orks of every color surrounded the two ponies, many grinning, all shouting, “Weirdboy grot! Weirdboy grot!” It was the first time any of the ponies had seen the three clans celebrating together.
“Oh my,” Rarity said. She wanted to both blush at the attention and gag at the smell. “Now what do we do?”
Applejack smiled. “Now we do what we should have done a long time ago: Show ‘em how to build a barn!”
*
“Help!” Pinkie Pie cried in one long, never-ending syllable that sounded more like a siren than a voice. She scrambled down corridors and leapt over Orks, many of which dove out of the way or scratched their heads. One offered the pink blur a gun. Pinkie bounced off him like a spring, trying to find her friends or a familiar path, but the land ship preferred confusion and was good at it. Metal lights sparked with electricity, and the strange smells in one room matched the strange smells in another. Worst of all, there weren’t any balloons! And her party cannon was broken, and her friends were gone, and she just wanted to cry.
She was lost.
Still running at the top of her lungs, Pinkie felt her mane straighten into a sad curtain of pink. It was all so hopeless.
And then she rounded a corner and crashed head-first into an Ork. The creature grunted, cocked an eyebrow, and offered her a blue-gloved hand.
“Doomer!” Pinkie shouted. She never thought she’d be this happy to see an Ork! She hopped up and gave him a hug. Then she shook him until more teeth fell out of his head. “Doomer you have to hide me!”
“Wuzat?”
“Hide me!”
“There she iz!” a red-clad Ork shouted. He wore a thick pair of welder’s goggles on his head and no shirt. Metal chunks covered his chest like zebra stripes. “Someone catch ‘er!”
Pinkie Pie dove behind Doomer. She fumbled with one of the shootahs in his belt and managed to yank it free just as the Bloodaxe clan converged on them both.
“Wuzat?” Doomer asked again.
The red oddboy sighed as if he were talking to a child throwing a tantrum and not the barrel of a gun. “Nah nah. We’re just tryin’ ter ‘elp. ‘Onest”
“They want to cut off my arm!” Pinkie shouted. “I need my arms!”
“Only the wahn.”
“I need both of them!”
“We’ll replace it wiff a powa klaw.” The Ork made a grabbing motion with his hands. “Iz much betta, ‘onest.”
Doomer nodded at that. “Powa klaw iz much better. Ya can tear bugs real good.”
Pinkie’s ears fell. She adjusted her aim, but now the weapon felt heavy. She was tired. Her friends were gone. Even Doomer was going to abandon her.
“I can’t bake with a power claw,” she mumbled. “Or hold Gummy. Or make balloon animals.” She sniffed. “Or hug my friends.” Pinkie wanted nothing more than to hug her friends.
The oddboy scowled. “Aw dat stuff aint important.” He made that grabbing motion with his hands again, and his Bloodaxe brothers nodded. “Powa klaw is for waahg. We gotta waahg!”
“Waahg!” they cried.
Satisfied with that answer, the Orks converged. Green shadows fell over the pink pony, who huddled behind Doomer and tried to imagine living in Ponyville with a metal claw made for tearing things apart. Well, she could become a gardener. Or be a sad, lonely character in a 90’s movie named Edward. Or maybe, just maybe if she put some googly eyes on it, she could travel the land as Equestria’s worst puppeteer! That might be fun. Or maybe—
“Stop!” Doomer cried. He dug out his axe and waved the Orks back. “If this lil idgjit critter doezn’t want a powa klaw, she doezn’t need a powa klaw, see?”
“Thank you!” Pinkie shouted. Her hair exploded back into a puffy mound of frizz as she gave Doomer another hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Wuzat?” the oddboy said. “Why’re ya doin’ dat?”
Pinkie frowned. “I always hug my friends. See?” She gave Doomer another. The blue-clad Ork scratched at the top of his head, but he did smile.
The oddboy looked around. Orks shrugged. Doomer did too. “Then wot should we do wif it?”
“Wif what?” Doomer asked.
“Da powa klaw, ya idjit!”
Doomer sheathed his axe. “Give it ter Grog. ‘E lost ‘is arm a few ‘ours ago from weirdboy magic.”
All the Orks dressed in red shrieked in protest. The oddboy spat on the ground. “Grog’s a Deathskull! Dis iz a Bloodaxe powa klaw!”
“Den give i’ ta a Bloodaxe!”
“We’re tryin!” the oddboy stomped his foot and gave Pinkie Pie a glare. “Da bleedin’ idgit don’t want it!”
“So give it ter Grog!”
“No!”
The few Bloodaxe orks not holding weapons drew them, and Doomer grabbed his axe again. A light flickered in the hallway. Pinkie pointed her shootah at everyone then dropped it. She gulped, and ears low, hopped between the two parties.
“Listen,” she squeaked, and all the Orks turned their attention her way, which included their axes, guns, knives, and one grenade. “You Orks like to party, right?”
“Wuzat?” Doomer asked.
Pinkie nudged him in the ribs. “You know. Party. ‘Waahg!’”
“Waahg!” they all shouted.
The pink pony giggled. She finally understood them! “See,” she turned to the oddboy who really wanted to give someone a metal hand. “You. You want to go outside and stomp on bugs, right?”
“Yah!” the Ork said. He stomped on the ground. “Crush ‘em dead.”
“And you,” Pinkie said, returning to Doomer. “Want to go outside and stomp on bugs, right?”
Doomer nodded. “Wahg.”
Pinkie Pie stretched her hooves out wide and drew both Orks close together. They smelled like moldy flower that had been sitting at the bottom of a swamp. “Don’t you see,” she grinned. “You both want to party in the exact same way! Why not do it together?”
“Eh?” Doomer asked. “‘Ow?”
“Yah,” the oddboy said. “‘Ow?”
Pinkie Pie smiled until her face hurt. “Why, with friendship of course!”
The metal ship rocked with an explosion so loud it hurt to breathe. Rainbow Dash darted into the cargo bay, her main a colorful shock of anxiety, her eyes wide. Everything was breaking at the exact same time! She scanned the room for her friends, hoping to find a bright color in a sea of green, while Orks hurled guns at each other and fired up choppas and mechs. Twilight, meanwhile had her nose in a book of childishly-drawn pictures. Cellestia help them all, the princess of friendship had found a library.
Rainbow Dash spotted a speck of white. “This way,” she said. “I think found Rarity.”
“Did you know—”
“This way!”
Unlike their previous journey through the cargo bay, which consisted of fights and accidental stabbings, this one passed without incident. The war—waahg—had found the land ship. Or rather, the Orks had found the war. Tyranids infested everything, blanketing the barren planet and crawling over the hull of the moving fortress like ants at a picnic. They were outnumbered ten thousand to one.
“This way!” Rainbow Dash begged.
She almost fell over when Applejack jumped out of the biggest mech in the cargo bay and wiped a line of grease from her brow. Weapons covered the metal monster from top to bottom, as did buckets of sloppy paint, mostly red, blue, and yellow. A haphazard rainbow puddled at the thing’s feet.
“It’s done,” Applejack said. “Ready to party.”
“Not my choice of words,” Rarity said. “But it does look … Orkish.”
Applejack laughed. “Blame Pinkie Pie.”
“You guys!” Rainbow Dash barreled her friends to the ground in a half-hug, half tackle. “What is going on!”
Rarity wore a strained smile. “Well, it’s a bit of a story, but the long and short is I made them repaint the mech.”
“That is not the long and short of it,” Applejack said. She looked at the mech and let out a whistle. “Well, maybe it is.”
Rarity nodded. “They worked together.”
“Finally.”
“Guys!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “We’re under attack!”
Applejack watched Orks storm out of the cargo bay. Bursts of gunfire worked their way through the metal hull, muffled but still loud enough to make her teeth chatter. Rainbow Dash ducked, and Twilight turned the page in her book. Rarity tossed a jewel-like shield around them.
“Have you seen Fluttershy?” she asked.
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “No. I haven’t seen Pinkie Pie either.”
"Pinkie’s with Doomer,” Applejack said. “But I haven’t seen Fluttershy. I thought she was with you.”
“Great.”
Rainbow Dash shoved a piece of what she hoped was paper to Rarity. “I wrote everything the weirdboyz said about getting us home, but I don’t know if it makes any sense.”
Twilight looked up from her book. Her mouth split into a wide smile, and her eyes drifted in different directions. “We can’t get home until we solve the friendship problem.”
“That’ll never—” Rainbow Dash began, but Applejack cut her off.
“We did!” She gestured to the Orks. “See. They’re working together now. The magic of friendship wins again, so can ya take us home sugarcube? I’m homesick.” She grimaced. “And regular sick. No one eat the food.”
“I need six baths and then a seventh for luck,” Rarity mumbled. She sniffed and made a face.
Twilight looked at her flank. Her cutie mark did not glow. She pulled the tin bucket from her bag and stuck her head inside, but whatever broken magic had taken them to this world did not fix itself. Rainbow Dash yanked it away.
“Twilight!”
“Hmm,” she said. She opened her book and flipped to a picture of a green monster. Rarity gagged. Unlike the Orks, this one was huge, a sloppy mound of flesh and bones with a leaking hole for a stomach. It looked like it might be bigger than the entire planet. “I think this is the real friendship problem.”
Rarity’s eyes narrowed into daggers. “Twilight Sparkle!” she hissed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into that neurotic thing you call a head, but you will—”
“Excuse me,” a soft whisper broke in. Everypony stopped. Fluttershy tiptoed between Rarity and Twilight, blushing from nose to tail and avoiding eye contact with her friends. Four Snakebite Orks stood guard behind her, their arms crossed. “But I think I know what we need to do.”
The yellow Pegasus wore her mane in a state of distress. Bleached-yellow skulls acted as decoration, and a black belt wound around her torso, the buckle ending with a snake’s head. Red paint covered her body in awkward splashes.
“Great,” Rarity said. “Now we’re adopting Ork fashion.” She forced her mouth into a grin. “I … love … it.”
“Fluttershy!” Applejack said. “Are you okay?”
The yellow Pegasus nodded. “Oh yes. Gore and Gar are simply sweethearts when you get to know them.”
“Right,” Rarity said. “Of course.”
Fluttershy turned to Twilight, who was in a constant state of falling asleep. She yawned. Little clouds of magic burst from her horn, the color a bruised purple. “I think we—” the princess of friendship began.
“Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “I know this is alarming, but we need to help our Ork friends. If we don’t, the bugs will destroy everything. Not just the Orks, but everything.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. Everything!” She jumped into the air. “The warp was right, everypony! I looked inside, and it taught me all the rules!” She picked up her book and flipped to another page. A pale, naked creature with blades for arms grinned at them, her tongue a blood-red slug. “This is Slanaash. She thinks we can solve every friendship problem in the galaxy if we—”
The picture winked from its page, and everypony screamed. Twilight shoved her face deeper into the book.
“Nope!” Rainbow Dash said. She grabbed the moldy book and hurled it across the room. It struck an Ork, who stomped on it and then shoved it into his mouth before returning to his weapons.
“Rainbow Dash,” Applejack whispered. “What exactly happened with them magic Orks?”
"You don’t want to know.”
“We told you not to let her do anything crazy!”
Rainbow Dash flew into the air and gestured at Twilight, who was digging out another book. “Well it’s not my fault she reads as fast as I can fly!”
“Well,” Rarity said. She performed a sad burst of magic to bring the bucket back to the group. “If it helps, I think I understand this spell. Well, it’s not much of a spell, but I think I understand it.”
“So you can get us home?” Applejack asked.
“We’re supposed to avoid … Nurgle.”
“But he loves us!” Twilight said.
Rarity shrugged. “The rest isn’t difficult.”
“Excuse me,” Fluttershy said. She took a deep breath, winced, and looked to her group of Snakebite Orks for encouragement. They all grinned. Gar gave her a thumbs up. “I don’t know what Twilight is talking about, but we can’t leave until the Tyranids are stopped.”
“Uh,” Rainbow Dash said.
Twilight nodded. “Of course. We have to show them friendship!”
“No.” Fluttershy stomped her hoof and glared at the four ponies. Twilight flinched, and Rarity almost fell over. “They don’t want to be friends. They want to eat everything in the galaxy, including Ponyville. We have to stop them for good. And I know how.”
“Well that’s good,” Pinkie Pie said, hopping beside Doomer, who supported an old, beat-up Deathskull Ork with a metal arm. A group of Bloodaxe Orks followed close behind. Everyone wore dozens of weapons and wild looks in their eyes. “Because my friends here want to party, and this is the only way they know how!”
“Oh boy,” Rainbow Dash sighed.
“Oh no,” Rarity moaned.
“Great,” Applejack said. “Just great.”
*
The perk to being a weirdboy grot, other than bossing Orks into something resembling sophistication, was that Rarity now owned the Deff Dread. She still didn’t know why. Applejack had done all the heavy lifting and really deserved to sit in the pilot seat, but the Orks insisted with a manic belief that forced Rarity inside. Now she stared out a skull-shaped windshield and puzzled over a dozen levers. None were labeled, and half didn’t seem to connect or do anything. The magic bucket rested on her lap.
“Oh my,” she said. She flicked a lever, and the mech stomp forward. A Tyranid popped under its foot. “Oh my.”
“It’s not fair!” Rainbow Dash moaned from overhead. She lined up a shot and sent a torrent of bullets into a lumbering monster with a fleshy gun for arms. “I wanted to drive it!”
The Tyranid collapsed, and Doomer drove over it in his boostah shootah, waving both arms and steering with his knees. Pinkie Pie manned her party cannon. While she fired pulses of angry, green energy, Applejack sat in the passenger seat, launching her own flames. Both reduced bugs into dark scorch marks.
“You didn’t help build it,” Rarity said. She pushed another button and fired a rainstorm of missiles into the sky. They flew up, up, up, and then plummeted to the ground in massive explosions. Tyranids fell by the dozens.
“Yeah but I’m the cool one!”
“Darling, I don’t think the cool one says they’re the cool one.”
“Ugh.” Rainbow Dash dodged a globe of fire and responded in kind. The weapon’s kick sent her spinning through the air.
“Big bug, up ahead,” Applejack called. Doomer roared, and instead of driving away from the four-legged creature the size of a house, sent them on a collision course with it. Pinkie Pie turned it into a flaming crater before they could hit it at full speed and explode.
“That was close,” she said.
Another monster took its place. Applejack turned it into a fire pit, and yet another bug stepped into the fray, ready to sting and bite. The Tyranids outnumbered them ten thousand to one.
The entire planet had become one large colony of the angry monsters, distorted and broken from their weapons only to be rebuilt with their fallen brethren. Spires of purple and grey jutted from the ground like horns. Black tentacles hovered in the air, covered in hairs and looking down at the battlefield with the desire to annihilate everything. Fluttershy was right: The bugs wanted to eat the entire universe.
Thankfully, the Orks weren’t bothered. They stormed out as a single unit, working together for the first time in their lives and tearing into the Tyranid army like Applejack to her orchards back home. When the land ship opened fire, the entire planet rocked with an earthquake. A twisted spire fell in slow motion, blue and orange flames consuming it from the inside.
“This way,” Fluttershy called. She weaved her way to Rarity. “Gore found a brood lord.”
Rarity gave a nervous laugh. “Of course that’s what it’s called.”
“I don’t think they know nice words here,” Fluttershy said. “I tried telling Gore about Angel, but he didn’t understand.”
“Probably for the best, dear.”
A four-armed bug thicker than an Ork mech burst from the ground, each hand ending in a massive stinger. It stomped Gar’s choppah into pieces and spied Rarity as its next target. The white unicorn screamed. The monster prepared to charge, but stopped when Fluttershy poked it in the chest. The yellow Pegasus looked it square in the eyes.
“Stop!” she ordered.
The monster stopped. It cocked its head, scratched at its chin with a stinger, and nodded. It then rounded on its closest friends and began stabbing. When it was done turning bugs into bug pieces, it looked to Fluttershy for more orders.
“Go,” Fluttershy said. “Help the Orks as best you can.”
The monster left.
“You really do have a way with animals,” Rarity said.
Fluttershy shuddered. “They’re just … they’re just so bad! But we can stop them.”
Rarity sighed. “To the … brood lord.”
Fluttershy’s plan, backed by her Snakebite friends who didn’t understand it but liked the yellow Pegasus which mattered more, was to find the bug most connected to the hive and ask it nicely to stop. Because the hive worked in sections: The queen controlled her lords, who controlled her generals, who controlled her soldiers. Breaking a soldier’s connection to the hive made it stop, but if they could break a lord’s connection, it would take all of the Tyranids under it. They could end the war in one sentence!
It wasn’t friendship exactly, but in a way, it was diplomacy. Everypony preferred that to war.
With another earthquake, the land ship opened fire, this time not at any particular target. Storms of metal and fire rained onto the battlefield, all finding bugs because the two had become one. The hair-covered tentacles in the sky grew larger.
“Guys,” Applejack called from Doomer’s truck, “I think we gotta hurry this along. I don’t trust them clouds.”
“Agreed,” Pinkie Pie said. “Also, this is the worst party ever.”
“Waahg,” Doomer corrected.
“Have ya seen Twilight?”
Rainbow Dash dodged a pair of flying bugs. Rarity turned one into body parts with a quick burst of fire, and the blue Pegasus shot the wings off another. It crashed into the ground, where Doomer drove over it, his boostah shootah rocking up and down.
“She’s just up ahead,” Rainbow Dash called. She winced as Twilight rendered a dozen bugs into purple vapor. “Casting some really scary spells.”
“Uh oh,” Fluttershy said.
“Yeah,” Applejack agreed. She dropped her spent flame thrower and grabbed another one, this one bigger and painted red. “Uh oh.”
The five ponies sped towards their friend, rolling and stomping over bugs. Bullets and fire preceded them. It was as if the entire planet were becoming one giant hive decorated with teeth and bones. Every crevice, every strange jut of living rock, looked like a Tyranid waiting in ambush. When one exploded from the ground, the ponies almost screamed in relief before sending it to its doom. The bugs though, were getting bigger. The closer they got to the brood lord, the more legs their enemies possessed, and each leg always ended in a stinger. Those that weren’t bigger were now stranger, twisting around like snakes with giant hoods or dragging themselves over the ground with poison tentacles.
Fluttershy stared one down, and everypony watched it tear dozens of its friends limb from limb until something meaner returned the favor. Pinkie Pie opened fire with her party cannon and melted the legs off the new monster, and Rainbow Dash flew in close and blew its face apart with a spray of bullets.
They found Twilight Sparkle standing atop a broken battle wagon, her jaw clenched, purple smoke pouring from her horn. Bugs fell all around her. Ger and Gerk stood back to back, shooting and stabbing and bleeding.
“Oh no!” Fluttershy cried. She rushed for her friends.
“Fluttershy wait!” Rarity called. “We need to go together!”
“So go faster!” Rainbow Dash called, already putting on a burst of speed. She zoomed past Fluttershy and opened fire.
Twilight staggered. She closed her eyes and fell limp into the air, magic twisting and turning around her horn. Purple smoke blanketed the battlefield. Dark shadows moved within.
“Stop!” Applejack shouted.
Doomer did not. He sped towards Twilight, and Rarity heard Pinkie Pie say, “I have a bad feeling about this,” before they became another shadow inside the purple smoke. Blasts of party-cannon energy flashed within, followed by the muffled cries of dying bugs.
The smoke formed a wall. It tumbled and shook with a physicality that made it seem almost like goo, and Rarity stopped her mech in front of it. She looked around. She was alone.
Rarity waited, begging her friends to come out. She fumbled with her mane. Sweat caked it to her face. Despite the tears and dents, the Deff Dread retained its paint job: red, blue, and yellow. The Orks were fighting together. But from her vantage point, Rarity could see that they were losing. There were too many bugs. All the friendship in Equestria couldn’t stop them.
A distorted wail tore a hole in the sky. Where clouds and smoke once swirled now throbbed a bleeding scar, and for a moment, Rarity understood the warp. Creatures flew within, so horrible her eyes refused to see them. Orks screamed. The floating tentacle pulsed with red energy. And above them all, Slaanesh grinned. The chaos god was gorgeous, every beautiful thing put together yet twisted in terrifying ways. Her naked spikes dripped with perfect blood. She turned her gaze upon Rarity, and her smile was so radiant that the white unicorn could only yearn to be that pretty. And she could too, if she simply waited and let her friends die. They weren’t good enough for her. No, Rarity was a pony of decadence, of gorgeous dresses and smells and perfect hair. She was—
The scar closed.
The tentacle fired its weapons.
Rarity fled into the purple smoke. She had to save her friends.
*
The brood lord stood atop a chitin pillar, dark smoke billowing from the vents in its back. Wrinkles covered its bald face, and red crevices bruised its arms and body. It looked shriveled, the smallest bug in a planet filled with monsters, yet it tore Ger apart like the Ork weighed nothing. Fluttershy howled. She took to the air, her eyes weapons, an order on her lips.
The brood lord howled back. It sounded like someone tearing a piece of metal in half, and it pierced the battlefield with a physicality that sent the Orks scattering and the purple haze into a flurry of small tornadoes. Doomer’s boostah shootah split in two. Pinkie Pie put her hooves to her ears, and Applejack dropped her weapon. Rarity felt the Deff Dread go limp. Bugs leapt onto the mech as she pulled at levers and twisted knobs, but the machine refused to move.
Meanwhile, Twilight continued to float.
Unphased, Rainbow Dash flew in a wide arc, peppering the battlefield with lead. The bugs swiped and shot, but to the Wonderbolt, they moved in slow motion. She put on another burst of speed, and mini rainbooms appeared in her wake, the blasts of color staggering the bugs. Even the brood lord stopped his screech. Everyone got back to their feet to resume the party.
“No you don’t!” Fluttershy roared as she zoomed for the brood lord. The monster swung a claw, missed, and the yellow Pegasus stared it down. “I’ve got you!”
“Look out!” Rainbow Dash bellowed. She barreled into Fluttershy just as a spear of dark magic pierced by the two ponies and took Gore’s arm from his body. The Ork howled; the brood lord waved more bugs into the fray.
A new creature emerged, this one blood-red and more mouth than body. It arched up on a slender tail and grinned. Pinkie Pie fired at it with her party cannon but missed while Applejack took aim with her flame thrower. The monster made a slight twitch with its tail, and Applejack flew through the air as if struck by a battering ram. She landed hard. Bugs swarmed her.
“Applejack!” Rarity screamed, but her mech still wouldn’t move. There were too many bugs on it.
“Twilight, help!” Rainbow Dash bellowed. She fumbled with her gun, finding the trigger Doomer had told her not to push when they had first met. The monster turned its gaze to her. Power surged behind its eyes. Rainbow Dash fired.
The rocket whistled as it traveled, and the creature had just enough time to roar before it exploded. A dozen more bugs popped in its wake. The rest of the Tyranid army shivered, distracted long enough for the Orks to beat them back with axe and fist alike. With Gerk’s help, Applejack stood and the two cleared Rarity’s mech of swarming monsters with a few precision bursts of fire.
Rarity put a shield around all of them.
Then Twilight was there, floating above the two ponies. Black lighting sparked from her horn. She was both awake yet not, her eyes open yet unseeing. Lightning traveled from bug to bug, popping them into chunks of bone confetti.
“Go!” Rainbow Dash said to Fluttershy. The yellow Pegasus took off for the brood lord.
“Nurgle,” Twilight said in a voice that was not hers, “You festering wound. Don’t you see I’ve won here?”
Before Fluttershy could stare the brood lord down and make her request, the creature expanded with green light. Fluttershy screamed. The brood lord vanished.
It appeared in front of Twilight.
“Child,” it gurgled. “I never lose.”
“The bugs fit you.” Twilight’s head lolled to one side. “They’re revolting, as are you.”
The brood lord laughed. “And you team with Orks! Finally you realize your inner beauty.”
Twilight let out a burst of angry magic, and another group of Tyranids exploded. “Wrong, fool! I team with these creatures! They are,” Twilight blinked, shook her head. She seemed confused, and then she was gone again. “Cute.”
“What is goin’ on?” Applejack begged. Even the Orks shrugged. Doomer let his weapon drop.
“I don’t know,” Pinkie Pie said. “But I don’t like it.”
With a groan and a hiss, the top of the Deff Dread broke off, and Rarity jumped out. She breathed hard, her horn glowing bright blue in a struggle to keep her barriers held.
“They’re,” she stumbled, and Pinkie Pie helped her up. “Chaos monsters.”
“Like Discord?” Applejack asked.
Rarity shook her head. The draconequus was chaos, but he was not evil. “I saw her,” she pointed to Twilight Sparkle. “In the sky. She promised me things if I didn’t help.”
With a wet, slopping sound, the brood lord’s arm decayed and fell. The creature didn’t seem to notice. “I outnumber you ten thousand to one, child. This planet will decay and die, as will your army.”
Twilight laughed. “Ah, but in desire, I outnumber you. And I live in the desperate. Free your creature, and watch them all fall.”
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew over. The battlefield had simmered to a standstill, the Tyranids waiting on their lord for directions, the Orks walking from stalled monster to stalled monster and yanking their teeth out.
“Are they …” Rainbow Dash looked back and forth between Twilight and the Tyranid lord. “Are they arguing?”
“It’s a game,” Rarity said. “That’s what this is. Just a silly game.” She sniffed, and tears welled in her eyes. “All of this dreadful fighting because these two don’t like each other.”
“Oh!” Pinkie Pie said. She jumped at Twilight’s floating body and wrapped her in a hug. “Well that makes this easy, doesn’t it?”
“Unhand me!” Twilight said in a voice that wasn’t hers. “Pinkie Pie?” she asked in one that was.
“Twilight, silly,” Pinkie said with a laugh. “I wish you would have told us sooner that this was a friendship problem!”
Twilight brushed herself off with her wings. She yawned, frowned, and then tilted her head as if she was listening to someone whisper into her ear. “No.” She made a face. “No that’s wrong. See, this is why I wanted to make a list.”
With sighs of relief, the five ponies pounced on their friend in a group hug so tight it bordered on dangerous.
“How dare you!” Twilight roared in a voice that was not hers.
The brood lord laughed. “Having problems, my dear Slanaash?”
“Now what’s going on?” Applejack asked.
“Twilight, please wake up,” Fluttershy said. “We miss you.”
“I cannot—”
“Slanaash,” Rarity said. She ran a hoof through her mane. “You’ve really misunderstood us.”
“Yeah,” Twilight said, back in control “Once I read that book, I knew what the real friendship problem was. You and Nurgle. Now, I think if we just sit down and talk, we can—”
The brood lord burst into a fit of wet, gurgling laughter. A spark of black rage simmered behind Twilight’s eyes, and her horn lit up, but the five ponies hugged her all the tighter. Slanaash could no longer take control.
“The most decadent thing in the world, darling,” Rarity said. She tried not to sound smug and failed. “Is friendship.”
“I hear it’s magic,” Applejack said. She grinned at Doomer, who took his axe to a stunned bug. Applejack waved, and the Ork waved back. “Er. Well, something like that.”
“Exactly!” Twilight said. She yawned. “Now—” her voice cracked back into Slanaash’s. “Never!” The chaos god sighed with Twilight’s body. “Nurgle, I concede. This time.”
“The desperate always lose,” Nurgle said through the brood lord. “The hungry always win.”
“I think those two things are kind of the same,” Pinkie Pie said. She hopped around the five ponies. “Especially if you’re desperate for food. But then, I could just bake you two a cake.”
With a slimy green pop, the brood lord returned to itself. It shook its head and then screamed at its missing arm. All around them, the Tyranids regained their senses.
“Yeah,” Applejack agreed. “Let’s show these two how we solve problems in Ponyville.
“My pleasure.” Fluttershy fluttered to the brood lord and stared it down. The creature tried to look away, but she forced its gaze. Its yellow eyes drooped, and every bug on the planet lulled into a stupor.
“Mr. Monster,” Fluttershy whispered. “Could you please stop?”
The brood lord nodded.
“It would be awfully nice of you,” Fluttershy continued. “If you went back to your home and told your queen that war really isn’t the answer. We could accomplish so much more with a little kindness.”
The brood lord nodded again.
The war was over.
*
To the Orks, the Tyranids left the same way they came: as an uncontrollable wave of skittering shell and bone. To the ponies, it was like watching the land itself fly away. The bugs took the clouds with them, and for a moment, a small, red sun gazed upon the planet. And then the bugs blocked it out. Night fell as they flew into space, towards a bleeding red scar that was the warp. Twilight frowned and yawned and shook her head. The warp had left her eyes and replaced its promises of power with exhaustion.
“I don’t understand,” she said. She swayed on unsteady hooves, and Fluttershy leaned against her for support. “We could have helped them.”
“Twi,” Applejack said. “Ya can’t solve every problem with friendship.”
“Yeah but—”
“The important thing,” Rarity said. “Is that you tried.”
Rainbow Dash took to the air. She looked around for stray bursts of magic that might burn her to a crisp, but other than a group of Orks celebrating by shooting at the ground, had nothing to worry about. “The next important thing is that you take us home!”
“I dunno,” Pinkie Pie said. Five sets of eyes rounded on her in an equally-divided mix of shock and outrage. “I think the Orks are getting ready to party.”
“Let them party without us,” Applejack said. “I don’t think you’d like their cake.”
“Agreed,” Fluttershy said.
With a flourish of her mane and a sway in her hips, Rarity dragged out the magic bucket. The theatrics were lost, both because she was filthy and because the bucket was nothing more than a twisted hunk of tin. Its handle dangled from one end, barely attached and just as tired as Twilight.
“Here,” Rarity said. “I kept it safe.”
“Hmm?” Twilight levitated the item. “Oh. I don’t need it. Getting us back to Ponyville should actually be pretty easy now that I—”
“Are! You! Kidding me!” Rarity roared. She got into Twilight’s face, huffed, and then deflated. “Oh never mind. Just take us home. I need about six baths.”
“Make that seven,” Rainbow Dash snickered.
“Or eight,” Applejack offered.
Rarity’s mouth fell open in horror. “I do not!”
“Um, excuse me,” Fluttershy whispered. She was still decorated with Ork jewelry. “But have you seen yourself lately?”
The six ponies shared their first laugh in what felt like a very long time. Tired, bruised, filthy, and in need of a proper meal, they huddled together while the princess of friendship prepared their ticket home. It only took her a few seconds, and even less for them to vanish. The last words the alien planet would ever hear from an Equestrian creature came from Pinkie Pie:
"Wait, shouldn’t say goodbye to Doomer?”
Then they were back in Twilight’s little castle, sitting around a map of Equestria that no longer pulsed with a friendship crisis.
“We did it!” Twilight beamed. “We actually did it! I was a bit …” she yawned. “Worried there, for a second.”
“You and everyone else,” Applejack said.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Not me. We had that under control. We—”
The door opened, and Spike wandered in. He no longer wore paint, and the stubby spikes on his head were back in their proper shape and place. He paused, sniffed, and cocked an eyebrow.
“Uh … I have so many questions,” he said.
“Spike, darling!” Rarity smiled. “I’m so happy to see you!”
“And to be back,” Fluttershy said. She pulled a small skull ornament from her mane. “I hope Angel is okay.”
“Do I even want to know?” Spike asked. The six ponies shook their heads. “Well, in that case, I fixed the friendship map while you were gone.”
Twilight’s mouth fell open. Pinkie Pie giggled. Rainbow Dash took to the air once more, and Applejack offered a, “Ya what now?”
Spike nodded. “Yeah. It was broken. Turns out we needed to unplug it and plug it back in. There’s a cable underneath.”
