A typical Displaced Story would have our victim be tricked into buying the item that sent them off.
Instead he was given it as a gift the moment his defenses were down.
A typical Displaced Story would have the person cursing the gods above for this sudden turn of events.
The man has instead accepted it calmly, especially since what hopes he had in his old world have died a cruel and pathetic death.
... A typical Displaced Story only has the person become one specially Overpowered being.
This Displaced is coming to Equestria as All Four Chaos Gods, to a time before the events of the show, after Discord's imprisonment, but before the Crystal Empire's Disappearance.
Watch as these newly born deities work together to prove to themselves and the greater multiverse the truth in their hearts:
That Chaos Can be good, the original four were just Cunts.
Rated Mature because… well both Slaanesh and Khorne are involved, why do you think? credit to the cover art goes to: DongGoolTroll
EGX, the biggest gaming event in the UK, delayed due to a certain pandemic, but now, I was finally here, excited for a major announcement from Relic. I had caught word that this was going to be the Con where they’d give to their fans what they wanted out of Dawn of War 3 for so long.
Yes, the game managed to live long enough for it to get an expansion, much like with Dawn of War 2, but unlike the games before, it would be difficult to make them standalone, so I was eager to see if they’re planning on sticking with their older plans for expansions, or if they intended to make it a full upgrade to the game as a whole. That second possibility was exciting, they know the mistakes, and giving it one big fix and adding more into the mix with new factions, units and a whole new campaign was something that made my eyes spark with fantasies of Grimdark carnage.
Of course, the waiting was the worst part, it was going to be another hour before Relic came in to make their special announcements, and I had already passed the time trying out all the new indie-game booths this year, so now I was stuck in the food-court, eating away my boredom so as to not hog one of the games to myself the entire time.
“Quite the appetite you have, Stranger, so much that it risks spreading to another’s own meal.” I heard a voice say jokingly on the opposite side of the table I had sat at, looking over I find a man in an almost uncanny cosplay of the legendary merchant from Resident Evil 4… at first I had assumed it was someone I know I should stay away from, but I waved it off, it was you who was supposed to come to his store, not for him to come to you.
I immediately moved my hand away from the plate of fries that I had absently reached for earlier. “S-sorry, I didn’t realise someone was here, thanks for not taking offence… it’s funny, the Quarantines have all lifted and yet you’re the only one still wearing a mask.” I joked.
Seeming to not want to be outdone, I noticed his cheeks shift upward as he smirked, and he proceeded to open his robe to reveal… rolls of toilet paper. “Got a nice set of rare things still, stranger.”
I lost it, genuine, belly shaking laughter, that shouldn’t have been as funny as it was, but it felt so needed. It's nice to joke about all the chaos people caused during the first days of the disease. After that we just sat back and talked about why we were here, apparently his friend badgered him to sell a bunch of props he made while dressed as that to prank people, and when I mentioned my reasons to be there, the conversation took a turn into Warhammer 40k and its lore.
We talked a lot, about many of the things you’d expect, though it was a bit hard to keep up since the guy seemed to know a lot of the stories that I found difficult to get my hands on.
“Say, Stranger—”
“Eh, call me Ark, not my real name but...”
“...Very well, Ark, I have a rather strange question to ask.”
“Alright, shoot.”
“If you could be a chaos god, which one would it be?”
I blink, and look, that was a very good question. “... To be honest, I don’t think I could pick one, there’s things about all four of them I’d want to fix.”
“Fix?”
“Like, I know it was a rather joking series, but that TTS show put the thoughts in my mind, it kinda makes sense that the Chaos Gods were about following four major aspects of the universe, Survival, Change, Nature’s Cycle, and Experiences both bad and good, I mean I get they might have reasons for why they became asshats, but they have potential for good as well as bad… they just really wanted to be fucking assholes, but I wouldn’t. If I was Khorne, I’d want to have fights for the sake of honor, strength and justice! Not blood for blood’s sake. If I was Tzeentch, well, he’s a god of change, not of inconsistency, people always tend to think Chaos and Change need to be vastly different states, but then even the act of moving your hand from one place to another is change… that and I don’t think I’d care for using lies, even if I was deceiving someone, using the truth the right way is just as good as a fabricated lie. Nurgle… well Nurgle is stagnancy in some aspects, but he’s also of cycles, nature, life. I'd make all kinds of life, and cultivate existing ones, from microbes to fantastical creatures, and have them work within ecosystems or completely remake them! However, the biggest differences I would make would be if I was in the body of Slaanesh.”
“What would you do as… um… them?”
“Well for starters I’d remove that bullshit ambiguity they have, I mean… for fuck sake it’s like the Imperium, and hell, every Xenos race for that matter are actively psychically blocking the concept of Futa Porn! And hell, I’m surprised the original Slaanesh doesn’t have herself use female pronouns, it’s not like she’d have to lose the cock, go exclusively for guys, or be unable to tempt those who are sexually attracted to men considering she seduces beings that have no sex drives to begin with! Plus there’s also the kind of superiority she could’ve lorded over the other three by being the only ‘Goddess’ of the Dark Pantheon! Moving on from that, even if I had to rightfully fuck over the Eldar -- which is fine because fuck the Eldar -- by swallowing up the essence of all of their gods and only just missing out on their goddess Isha, I’d still be a bit more lenient with the whole thing! I’d probably try and be a replacement deity as an “apology” to their race, answer blessings and such, at the very least fix their little reproductive problems so I could keep feeding on their sexual exploits and all the new tasty souls that’d pop up, but other than that, I’d make it a point to be a goddess focused on good experiences, like pleasure, and art and love! It’s a lot easier to get people to worship and do things for you if you have it be things that feel good in the first place and not just things that are an acquired taste.”
“Hm… you’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
I shrugged. “I tend to have a crazy amount of free time, again, I’m not sure what reasons the gods have for what they do, but hey, I don’t want to be like that, just rampaging evil dickbags that only think with their ethereal stomachs and snatch souls for quick power boosts that they could get in far better, more long term ways! I mean, their existence was formed because of the thoughts and emotions of LIVING materium creatures for fuck sake, that’s a pretty big hint that eating souls isn’t the only way to get stronger.”
“I’d believe the ‘crazy amount of free time’ part… so, you’d want to be all four gods and try to be good versions of them.”
“Hey, it’d be difficult, but I’d want to do it, and like I said, Chaos does not have to be evil.”
“And… you’re certain that focusing on only half of the aspects of the dark gods would be stable?”
“Well I mean the normal Chaos Gods do that anyway and they seem fine, so there shouldn’t be a problem with me going for the more positive side of the Empyrean instead, right?”
He clapped happily. “I suppose not, tell you what Ark, take this.” he places down a strange black metal medallion, with golden details and in the shape of the eight-pointed star of chaos. “This has been the nicest conversation I’ve had at one of these conventions in years… sorry for leading you on like that.”
Oh fuck.
With a sigh, I pick up the item and look it over, knowing damn well if I was right, I was already doomed. “... this is the part where I get sent to Another World, innit?”
“Yup.”
“Fuck, okay, was waiting for the announcement even worth it?”
“No, the guys they partnered up with for the expansion got them to introduce Pay to Win and Loot-box mechanics.”
Somehow getting pushed into an alternate universe doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Was the last thing I thought before I blacked out.
The first thing I felt was… well it wasn’t really a headache, rather just this sense of fatigue and confusion, with a feeling of familiarity as I looked upon the strange alternate realm I sat within, the ethereal colors of Red/Blue/Green/Purple surrounding me with pulses of energy that seemed to Flow/Spark/Drift/Pulse through the ‘air’ told me of something unique, especially with the rather colorful yet mystical plane I was resting in, land masses that did yet also did not connect with each other in strange and unique ways, which seemed to reflect a strangely faded overlap of a more physical realm… considering what that Asshole/Merchant/Shitstain/Bitch had said, it wasn’t too hard to figure out that I was in the Warp… however the planet was not something I recognised immediately, yet the brief attempt to see if I could reach anywhere else in the galaxy proved to be a bad idea, as there seemed to be some massive psychic barrier in place, keeping me and the planet in or possibly everything else out, technically making it so the world had never felt the touch of Chaos or the other Grimdark powers… wasn’t exactly fun discovering the wall the hard way.
“Agh! Fuck, my head!” “Agh! Fuck, my head!” “Agh! Fuck, my head!” “Agh! Fuck, my head!”
...Wait a minute… I immediately noted not only was my own voice rather Rough/Echoing/Deep/Female, I could sense three other voices much different from my own. Looking out, I managed to see three other colored realms similar to my own, and sitting in the centre of each, were three of the Chaos Gods staring at everyone else with the same sense of shock and confusion as I had, it seemed all except Khorne/Tzeentch/Nurgle/Slaanesh was present… but that’s when it hit me. Me and the other three deities of the Dark Pantheon immediately raised our right limbs into our view, I managed to get a good sight of the Claws/Tendrils/Stubby Fingers/Soft Womanly Hand that made up my own appendage, making it clear that I was the missing god of the four… and the realizations hit harder.
I looked at the other three beings, their expressions, emotions, epiphanies, they had all been just like my own, so there was no way I was a Displaced among three true Chaos Gods, and then, I remembered how my conversation with the Merchant ended with my decision that I couldn’t really choose between the four, that I would’ve rather been all of them. This revelation was met with a response I found justified, and as expected, the others agreed.
“Alright, the first meeting of the Council of the Dark Pantheon is now in session.” I say, making the move to draw me and my other selves together once our own respective panic attacks managed to subside, with me being in the form of the weaver of fate, it seems my body was quite suited to dealing with major existential changes.
Nurgle thought it best to interject just then. “But… aren’t we literally the only dark gods? Why would we be a council if we’re not overseeing anyone else—”
“Hey, stop nit-picking or you won’t be getting any snacks!”
“We don’t HAVE snacks you Schizophrenic Cephalopod! None of us even have food to begin with!” Khorne argued.
“ENOUGH!!” I yell out, taking a deep breath before looking over my Brothers and Sister -- I did follow through with what I said, after all -- and taking the time to think of what to say. “Look, we can get pissed off over all the little things and begin a major downspiral of arguments that will last unto eternity, just like our predecessors, but I’m fairly certain none of us want that, right? So let’s just move on before we get stuck into a meta-level escalation of ‘stop hitting yourself’, okay?”
“Okay…” “Okay…”
“Thank you, now first order of business, finding out where the fuck we are, and a good start will be an awareness of the world.” I turn to Slaanesh. “Sister, as the only one of us with an appetite for emotional stimulus, both positive or otherwise, can you tell us if there are any sapients?”
“Honestly, the existence of Sapients at all is the best I can do, not only are we all a lot weaker considering we don’t have entire planets or traitor legions to grant us any kind of worship, the planet’s inhabitants don’t really focus on experiencing pleasure, or even excess if I was desperate, enough for me to get a strong taste of it. It wouldn’t really help if there were beings indulging in sex or greed and the like anyway, because there’s just this one big nation in the middle of them all just… radiating a childlike innocence! I can feed off that happiness, friendship, love and stuff no problem, but it’s like just a big raw blanket of that emotion that makes it really fucking hard to make out anything else.”
“Are you trying to tell us that there is a nation so wholesome that not even their own sexual exploits are perceivable?”
“It’s shocking I know, it makes me seriously assume that they’re as naive as children, if I didn’t know biology was important, I’d doubt they even know what sex is!”
“WAIT!” Nurgle spoke up, seeming to have caught something. “Did you just say that one of the big emotions you’re feeling is Friendship?”
“Um… yes? What are you getting at?”
“Well, I’ve been feeling a strong Cultivation of Life upon the planet, so there’s definitely some advancement into farming, but the biggest signature to me are these creatures of Rot and Root in the wilds, beasts born of both Nature Spirits and Decay, who would be minions to me in their own right, though I’m holding off until I can’t get influenced by the ‘decay’ part.”
Hmm, that was interesting. “You had my interest, but now you have—”
“My erection?”
Silence seemed to stretch across the Warp at Slaanesh’s brazen suggestion, until Khorn began to try and prevent himself from laughing, letting out a snort that heralded his failure, which of course sent the rest of us into fits of amusement.
“O-oh my… fuck, girl, that joke is OLD!” I managed between my devilish cackles.
“I try my best, so Nurg, please tell us what plant you speak of.”
“Pfft, o-of course, right… well, hold onto your domains, Lady and Gentleman, for the monsters in question are… Constructs of Dead Wood in the form of beasts, wolves, meaning...”
“Timber-Wolves… Equestria.” The name was almost automatically on our lips, not only were we four of the biggest baddest BBEGs of the 41st Millennium, we were also now trapped in a system with a bunch of innocent, candy colored equines along with a ton of other various, beautiful, unique and fantastical races. “Oh those poor creatures!”
“They’re at least lucky that the Merchant picked someone who didn’t want to be a dick to mortals, but holy fuck, we were NOT made with the power of Friendship in mind, we are Gods of a Grimdark age, now set in a realm of innocence and raw wholesome!” Khorne explained his… partial reasoning.
But to say I knew him better than that would be an understatement. “You’re worried you’re not gonna get a lot of feats of strength and bouts of honorable combat, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am! Almost all of the problems that will come into conflict with ponies are going to end in the ideals of friendship and magic fixing beams! That’s never gonna constitute the idea of honorable battle!”
“Now now, calm down, Brother, I’m sure we’ll be able to work that out, for all we know, we might be before the events of the show, when Equestria was a little more… sensitive to everything. Either way, we’ll have you as a god of justice and war before the week is out.” Our resident Goddess assured softly in a way to placate him, which caused him to give her a… look.
“...I was about to ask if you were doing this to butter me up, but then I realise you’re also technically another version of me, my sister, and the Goddess of sex and pleasure.”
“Hmm… very Alabama…” And thanks to Nurgle we were victims of yet another laughing fit.
{Celestia, Everfree Castle}
The garden was silent this time of night, it was something Celestia was happy for, even if her sister found such quiet and calm to be against her desires. Luna had become saddened that in the wake of Discord’s unleashed rampage, and even now with talk of the Umbrum stalking the edges of the ancient Crystal Empire, that many ponies have moved to shun the darkness itself.
Celestia found such circumstances to be cruel to her younger co-ruler, but could find no way to really argue against it, it wasn’t against the law to have a subjective aversion to Night, and to treat it as such is a gross corruption of authority, one that the nobility in their zealous panic would believe to be an actual corruption from shadow demons or something. The Solar Diarch could do nothing but sigh as she thought of what she could do, she couldn’t allow this to continue, but how would one even begin to dissuade the fears of an entire nation when such fears were clearly justified?
Suddenly, Celestia’s thoughts were shunted away with the sound of rock cracking apart, her head swivelling to see a sight that was very much the last thing she ever hoped to see happen, at least not for thousands of years!
Discord’s seal was breaking!
Not even thinking about it, Celestia let loose a spell, reinforcing the prison with an extreme amount of Order Magic to counter the chaos energy damaging the seal. It worked… for now, but something had allowed Discord the power to start breaking free, and that meant there had to be something incredibly powerful and chaotic to allow the spell created by the elements of harmony to begin breaking.
Celestia could already feel the horror, there was a sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach as she felt that this was not the end of this new threat.
Sure enough, that fear started becoming more and more proven as she began to hear screaming within the castle, coming from the Guard Quarters.
When Celestia arrived, she only found the results of the incident, as a mare, who had been sleeping soundly in the barracks, now laid there with a wide expression of agony…
And what was left of her skull slumped back with the rest now painting the headrest a sickening pink and crimson mix.
{Back In The Warp}
“Hey guys? Was this floating orb always there before?” Nurgle muttered to us.
{Keep Calm And Let’s Look Through The Eyes of Nurgle}
No doubt about it, that right there was a soul, and it looked like a confused one at that. Clearly not an original native of the Immaterium, it found itself flitting about in the centre of the four of us as a shapeless ball of energy, coincidentally dancing between our various domains without rhyme or reason, which was unintentionally allowing us to get a feel for it.
“Hmm, I’m getting the feelings of justice, discipline, strength, it was a warrior.”
“It’s certainly not an idiot or a bumbling oaf, it was an academic, curious, but at least we know this isn’t modern Equestria if this was a Pony.”
“You’re right Tzeentch, it is a Pony, a Unicorn to be precise, I can sense the major genetics of a horn lingering, along with an active exercise of a second energy bonded to the soul.”
“Quite, this must be this ‘magic’, that in turn means that Unicorns are not Psykers like I had originally theorised… of course that doesn’t mean they can’t become Psykers either, this one taking to it too quickly and too violently from sudden warp-flow, probably from our new and sudden introduction to the world.” Tzeentch took a moment to wince in sympathy. “Let’s just hope the others don’t take to it like it did.”
“Could you three stop calling her an ‘it’? She can hear us you know, and now you’re all upsetting her, just because she’s a material, doesn’t mean she needs to be considered a material object.”
“To be fair, we were just worried about getting her pronouns wrong.” I clarified quickly, my two brothers nodding in agreement.
“Well, can we at least stop talking like she isn’t here? Like I said, she can hear us.”
“Ah shit, that’s right.”
As one we moved over to approach the soul, when it shuddered in panic we immediately moved back, and then closed in much slower, non-threateningly… of course it was difficult to do non-threatening when we were absolute titanic powers of raw psychic energy.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay…” Slaanesh cooed softly, almost like a mother, trying to calm the confused spirit. “You’re in a place which turns thoughts into reality, can you… try and make a body? Or at least try and project your words?”
Of course, either method of communication was difficult for a being that wasn’t capable of using Psyker abilities a few minutes ago, the process of her figuring out how to speak had taken days.
Thankfully, we had plenty to preoccupy ourselves with such as how our domains and more importantly, our bodies are perceived, we weren’t our predecessors, we aren’t going to portray ourselves as rot, rage, madness or pain, so there was no need to look the part.
I personally did not want to look like I avoided showering so much that I became a walking fungus culture. Instead I made myself into a walking nature elemental, a full on breathing, living ecosystem, housed within a moving, thinking tree being.
With a big leafy beard, because beards are cool! Plus, I couldn’t really stink when not only is any poop and rot immediately put to purpose within the cycle that was me, but even the minute stench was unable to come through the immense scent of the multitudes of blooming flowers across the fertile soil of my form. “I am Cycle made manifest, death is present but never left to sit, always used to make more life.”
Khorne hadn’t really done much to change the idea of being a big beefy boy in armor, but instead of the raging spiky berserker he once was, he now looked more like a fiery black knight, orange flames of courage dancing across his form in strong, unflinching patterns. He carried himself with a sense of honor, one that truly showed considering he had proceeded to get rid of the throne that had seemingly been brought with him, he probably had a far more nicer and less edgy version in the centre of his territory, but at least now he wasn’t fucking glued to it like the original blood god, because in his words. “A Warmonger idles on a throne, a Warrior makes a stand! The original had one thing right, I won’t grant gifts to those who do not earn them, nor will I accept tribute without proving my own strength first!”
Tzeentch had trouble with what he wanted, he didn’t know exactly what his focus was, sorcery, innovation, knowledge, he definitely didn’t want to use change because then he’d need to make it noticeable, and while he is still going to be of change, he’d at least prefer his form be consistent so it was recognisable and iconic. At that thought, he seemed to finally settle on an idea, when he came to us when we reconvened, he decided that out of all of us, he would be the least organic… I don’t know whether to be jealous or laugh my ass off when I realised how much the Mechanicus would flip their shit when they found out Tzeentch had become the literal machine god, an actual giant robot. “I am the Forge of Knowledge, I will know all, and all will know through me, advancement made manifest, and all will change, improve and grow, be it machine or flesh.”
Slaanesh… well Slaanesh didn’t really need to change anything too much since there was already a vague human shape to her form, she just endeavoured to improve upon her succubus-like visage, only now she had thoroughly worked to have her form be truly attractive, not simply considered hot because the glamour aura made mortals perceive her so… of course it was still there, just rather muted… the energy that very aura gave off also made us sense that this change would be reflected in her own Daemons, once she spawns some… of course, that was a given, considering the rest of us most likely had done the same to ensure we could live up to what we were wanting to be. “Unlike these flowery poets, I’m hot and I don’t need bullshit warp powers to prove it.”
These changes took a long time, like the better part of two weeks, much like the soul’s own personal training, since we were essentially remaking ourselves, so when we got back to meet the soul, we found her taking the shape of a unicorn mare’s silhouette, the fact that this was an Anthropomorphic version was not lost on us, not going further considering not many are able to remember details of themselves easily, though by the looks of it they were humanoid, so Slaanesh thankfully didn’t need to have yet another makeover.
“H-hello?” she said in a meek, nervous voice, having clearly been intimidated by creatures whose pinky toes dwarfed her in size.
“Don’t worry, little soul, we won’t hurt you.” I spoke calmly as the soul’s perception of the warp settled on us, our manifestations now crystal clear to her ethereal senses.
“So… it’s true… I-I’m actually… dead?” Oh us, she sounded about ready to bawl her eyes out.
“Well… yes, b-but don’t worry! Because… um…”
Thankfully Tzeentch came with the save. “We’re new gods! And you just happened to appear when we were born! And we happen to need a follower!”
“You do?”
“We do??” we said in surprise, not really expecting that response.
“Of course we do! And lucky you, you’re the first soul to show up here because… ooh! You have a destiny to become that new follower! And to show our appreciation, we’ll even help by restoring you back to life!”
“YOU WILL?!” she said excitedly, and we would’ve asked, but then we caught on a thought.
I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on in my siblings’ heads, but my thoughts were simply…
We can do that?!
The ecstatic glint in Tzeentch’s eye, followed by a thumbs up towards us in particular told us that, indeed, we can… which caused the rest of us to start grinning, it was very easy to work with and share the desires of your team when the team all originated from one mind, so, suffice to say, we were all on board with helping our new friend, the fact she’s going to be our first follower on the world was just a nice bonus, and a way to ensure that we don’t look to have some secret suspicious ulterior motive.
“With ease, since you are in our realm, you are linked with your body, by becoming our worshipper, we can more safely channel our blessings for you into the Materium, from I, the God Tzeentch of Knowledge and Sorcery, I shall grant you the ability to control your new abilities as a Psyker, a wielder of Warp Power, whose mind is a weapon.”
“You will need a better body than a corpse, I, the God Nurgle of Life and Nature, shall restore it, and indeed bolster your constitution, so you don’t need to suffer any complications, do you have any allergies?”
“Um… yes?”
“No you don’t.” I say with a grin.
“...oh!” she caught my statement’s meaning quickly, and seemed to have a rather excited feeling radiating from her being because of it.
“Well, if you’re giving our new priestess gifts, I’m not gonna be left out. I am Khorne, God of Justice and Combat, and I grant you skill, your body and mind will gain the techniques and skills of many great martial artists such as the legendary Bruce Lee, so that you can better protect those under your watch.”
“Saving the best for last? Of course, I know what a girl wants. As the Goddess of Sex, Arts, and Motherhood, Slaanesh, I will be giving two very special gifts, the first is simple, your race goes through Estrus, right?”
“That’s right, it’s a bit embarrassing to lose control to my lust like that.”
“Well of course you won’t be worrying about that little problem, by my power, your desire will not control you, whether by Estrus, Aphrodisiac or simple overwhelming bliss~.” she stretched in rather erotic ways at that statement. “Your will shall be your own… on top of that, I’m gonna throw in the part where childbirth won’t be painful for you.”
There was silence in the Warp, the little soul just staring up at the Princess of Pleasure who kept that soft, sensual smile on her face.
Then she turned to Tzeentch and asked bluntly. “Can I just worship her instead?”
The Mecha God sounded like he was choking on a lemon while Khorne was losing his shit at the shameless question. I honestly wanted to chuckle a little, but my brother was suffering enough, so I settled for a placating smile.
“Now now, be nice, dear. I don’t want my brothers left out while I’m reaping the benefits… after all the more the merrier~.”
Oh look, now me and Khorne were having trouble.
Oh gods, why did we have to be such a pervert as a human?!
Thankfully, our little soul acquiesced and said no more on the matter, letting us recover.
“*ahem* Well then, with that settled, we’ll begin sending you back… tell us your name, little soul.” Tzeentch asked.
“Shaker, Shaker Stone, Great Tzeentch.”
“Shaker Stone, know that now you worship the four of the Empyrean Pantheon, speak of our name, and prove to all that Discord is the cursed outlier of what our domain truly is! We do not flinch from Harmony, we embrace it, our power does not force Disharmony, but Unity!
Know us, as Chaos Undivided!”
{Shaker Stone, Third Person.}
Shaker’s eyes shot open, finding herself in a closed casket, outside a proceeding was being held for her, many of her close friends were speaking of her character in memoriam, the one she woke up to was the voice of a squadmate, one Silk Striker, a well known stallion with a reputation for being a supposed ‘ladies man’, but she just knew him for being an idiot.
“In moments I find myself looking back and regretting so many things while we were working together. I admit that on several occasions, I had forgotten to pack a lunch, and since I dread to have what the Mess Hall calls food, I had taken to… borrowing from others—”
Suddenly, the door of the coffin burst open, a well-dressed and fully intact Shaker Stone sitting up with triumph and indignation on her face. “AHA! I KNEW YOU WERE THE ONE STEALING MY SANDWICHES!”
Shaker Stone did not originally believe that a stallion was capable of screaming like a little filly, but she couldn’t help but feel an impish glee at Silk proving her wrong, let alone stop her grin at the sight of the entire procession metaphorically shitting themselves at the sudden reveal.
The moment Shaker was back in the Materium once more, we found ourselves feeling the connection to our new servant, it wasn’t as strong as we felt it could be, considering it’s split among us four, it was still powerful.
My mind wandered to the idea of how much power would I gain if she had just been my servant, but unlike the more selfish original Tzeentch, I knew that was a very slippery slope that would’ve led us all to infighting, and I had already established early on how I didn’t want that, and it wouldn’t be hard for my siblings to agree on that front. Since we aren’t going to fight over our first follower and first psyker, from what I gathered from the nods to each other, it was clearly not an issue of contention.
...Of course, that left the elephant in the Warp.
“Okay, so first things first, why are psykers appearing only now exactly? I get already that our power might be how that one was a bit too volatile, but isn’t the Warp connected to souls and thoughts? Unicorns are not psykers by design like the Eldar but they can clearly become them, so why hasn’t this happened before, why is the idea of the Warp so new to her, why does our studious Guard’s memories speak of no history of psychic warriors or witches like Psykers before us?” Khorne asked bluntly.
“I may actually have… a couple theories, on that front.” I said hesitantly, though I suspect the others might have the same.
“Well, it’d be more that there’s two possibilities here, the first one is that before we arrived there was no such thing as the Warp in this universe.” Nurgle suggested.
“Of course such a thing is debunked, there isn’t a limit to the Warp Space, there is literally a psyker-formed wall around this system, like we’re in an enclosed Webway network, possibly of Aeldari make.” I explained.
“Most likely because they don’t care for a race of magical creatures that can alter reality already and receive visions without use of the Warp, being at play in the larger universe… which means only one thing.” Slaanesh added, followed by me bringing up the conclusion.
“Indeed, this system was completely sealed to Warp presence and energies, even those that aren’t aligned with us, they could’ve been pinging the Warp unconsciously without ever getting a ping back, and when we sent a massive burst of Psychic Energy out into their section of the Warp through our manifestation…”
“So there are Psykers, they just don’t know how to use it properly, and Shaker was unlucky enough to have her mind brushing against the Immaterium during one of the biggest bursts of Warp energy in existence… Wait, holy shit that’s what killed off the Eldar! Slaanesh was literally right next to them when she was born, and if brushing the edge caused that, imagine how the burst of a god’s manifestation would affect someone the psyker equivalent of balls deep in it!” Khorne hit the Epiphany.
“While balls deep in everything else, talk about an explosive climax… literally.” there was a collective groan as Slaanesh slowly frowned. “...Okay yeah, that’s fair, it wasn’t really funny when he said it… but the suffering of The Custodes and Magnus was definitely one to be tickled about, especially since it was harmless.”
“Agreed.” All three of us replied to her statement.
“On the subject of Kitten, I’m personally excited to find which 40k universe we and the ponies will soon be subjected to.” she continued, with a rather mischievous grin.
“Will, be subjected to?” Khorne inquired.
“Come on, Khorne, you and I both know we have no intention of keeping us nor the ponies trapped in this accursed bubble.”
“Agreed, but of course we’ll not be hasty, we’re gonna take a very vested interest in the races of this world. We’ll establish ourselves, gain power through their worship while we empower them in turn, so that when all our various ‘friends’ in the universe show up, they’re not gonna get steamrolled like a Tau in an Ork Martial Arts Tournament, all in favour?” I ask.
“AYE!”
“Good, now let’s all go ahead and watch over our new potential acolytes while we all have the various thoughts we’re most likely going to have. I personally am going to revel in the fantasies I plan to do to an unprepared Tau… especially all those vulnerable, soft-skinned females…” Slaanesh murmured, audibly radiating her rather indecent fantasies.
“Okay Sister, you know damn well we still came from the same person, don’t think your sex-drive is mutually exclusive!” Khorne growled out at her.
“Oh I do, that’s why it’s so fun to put all those thoughts in your heads.”
She has us there… FFFUCK.
{Celestia, Everfree Castle, Medical Wing}
“And you are… sure, she’s alive and healthy?” The Princess asked the apothecary on duty.
“It… it’s madness to speak of, Princess, but yes, in fact she’s healthier than ever, she used to have a diagnosed peanut allergy and acute hay fever. Yet now I’ve watched her scarf down around five peanut butter and Dandelion sandwiches, while it is spring. And I haven’t even heard a cough.”
That is… concerning. Celestia did not trust such odd behaviour to happen without outside influence, and so reasonably connected this new phenomena to whatever had caused the changes to Discord’s seal. “Is there anything related to it that I should know about?”
“Yes, when she took her first bite of these sandwiches, which we had attempted to stop, she cried cheers of joy, and promptly declared praise to something called ‘Nerville’, for some reason, I may be wrong, since she said it with her mouth full.”
Well, if the anomalous revival and having her allergies miraculously cured didn’t settle it… “I need to speak with her, I trust she has been deemed stable?”
“Yes, your highness.”
With a nod, and no further conversation, the ruler of Equestria marched forth into the room.
Shaker Stone looked upon the Alicorn and greeted her with a wave. “Warp’s Blessings, Princess!”
That…. That was new. “Um… Thank you, my little pony? That… might actually be why I’m talking to you… could you tell me what the Warp is?”
“Oh that’s right! I’m the first Psyker, nopony knows what it is, the Warp, Empyrean, Immaterium, all these names can be used to describe the realm where the four reside!”
“The…. four?”
“Why the four gods of the Empyrean Pantheon!”
Oh…
Oh no… she’s dealing with gods.
“O-oh… like this… Nerville?”
“Nurgle, he’s the God of life and nature, he works to create, cultivate and nurture entire ecosystems! He’s the one that removed my allergies and health issues!”
“Oh! That’s not so bad… Are the others similar?”
“Not really, they’re all very different, there’s Tzeentch, the God of Knowledge and Sorcery, he made sure I wouldn’t blow my head up again by tapping into the Warp without training, then there’s Khorne, God of Justice and Combat, he gave me training to kick-flank so I’d fight for you better. Finally, Slaanesh, Goddess of Sex, Arts and Motherhood, she was the best! She gave me the ability to no longer lose my mind when I’m horny, and if I ever have a child, pregnancy and childbirth won’t hurt or anything!”
Ignoring the spike of envy that’d be expected from any mare who has experienced Estrus first-hand, and who have heard horror stories about pregnancy and the subsequent birth, her attention was drawn to the fact that not only were they so divergent, they didn’t seem to have a king among them to keep them in line.
This foolishly led Celestia to assume them to be no threat. “Well, that’s strange, but I guess with this ‘Warp’ being its own reality, we would not witness their conflicts.”
“Oh, they don’t fight at all, Princess! After all, they’re called Chaos Undivided for a reason!”
*Insert window breaking noise here*
“I’m sorry… ‘WHAT’ UNDIVIDED?!”
{Back With Tzeentch}
“Ah, Celestia now knows of our existence, just as planned—”
“MOTHERFUCKER you didn’t plan SHIT!” Khorne snapped out.
“Nah, you’re right, but that’s gonna fuck up the people reading this.”
“Wait, you can break the fourth wall?” Our resident Nature God questioned.
“Nurgle, we spent a good chunk of our time reading Displaced Fics, and we got sent to Equestria by the Merchant.”
“...oh shit, yeah I forgot about that, so much shit’s been happening.”
“What The Buck?!”
Immediately all eyes turned to the new voice, and peering out from a fucking doorway in the Immaterium, leading to an expanse of stars and the sensation of millions of minds, was Luna.
There was a long, pregnant silence as I and my brothers stared upon the mare who had breached the Warp in one of the strangest ways possible. The thought among us as a group was that yes, the Warp is technically a place where thoughts and imagination become manifest, but does that truly count it as a dream?
Perhaps it would be interesting to consider this place an Eternal Dream… oh that actually sounds like a really fucking cool name for it! We could call psykers ‘Dreamers’ and have Warp Travel be called ‘Sleepwalking’!
I shook my head and got back to addressing the elephant in the room… the rather shapely, well-toned and decidedly juicy looking elephant—
I was brought out of my musings by a swift blow to my head, one that forced some unexpected clarity, I blinked the daze from my eyes as I took note of Tzeentch holding a—
“Did… did you honestly create an actual ‘No Horny’ bat just to hit me with it?!” The question was rhetorical, obviously, he was holding an actual baseball bat with ‘No Horny’ painted along its side.
“Had to be done, Sis, I had to ensure you didn’t pounce on our guest, what with how attractive she is.”
Thing was… yeah I was totally about to do that, being the one attuned to lust and pleasure really does influence a person. And that’s probably what Tzeentch had realised, the others quickly agreeing… by the Warp was it great to have other versions of you to keep yourself in check.
“Couldst somepony please explain what is happening?! What manner of nightmares are thou?”
Nurgle blinked, and then began seeming nervous. “Okay, who wants to tell her?”
…OH…
“Not it!” “Not it!” “Not it!” “Not— oh fuck you all!” Khorne grumbled angrily as he marched over to meet with the alicorn, already dreading the expected reaction she’ll have.
“Princess Luna, we are not nightmares, we are real gods, and you’re currently peering into our plane of reality.” He stated incredibly politely.
And we had five comparatively blissful seconds, before the mare decided to just shoot moonbeams at us, because the only thing worse than powerful attacks that hurt, are mildly stinging attacks being repeatedly done to you without a way to retaliate.
…okay, without a way to retaliate without rendering her a vegetable.
“Guys, help! It’s getting into my eyes!”
“We aren’t exactly being spared ourselves, Khorne!!” Tzeentch yelled to his brother through the assault.
“The light! It irritates! IT IRRITATES!” Nurgle screamed out.
“Oh come ooooon~! Why are you zapping my ti—IIITS~!!”
It took several hours for her to eventually confirm that yes, we were not dream creatures plaguing the minds of sleeping ponies, and that our claim of being actual deities in a plane of reality linked to the minds and souls of living beings was accurate… all it took was for one of the hardier zaps to get me in the balls and… well at least my brothers weren’t in the way of my ‘ejection’.
Also, apparently my goddess spunk makes materials have multiple orgasms on contact… neat.
Thankfully, being an astral projection, we didn’t need to worry about her being unable to recover, and she was able to shakily get back onto her feet and dissolve the mess with a spell. “... Our apologies, we did not expect beings such as thee to exist without physical avatars, much less share such a realm, please forgive us.”
Tzeentch moved to placate the mare immediately. “It is… quite alright, Princess, we won’t hold such a thing against—”
“Neigh! We cannot accept a mere wave of thine hands on this matter, we hath overstepped our bounds and committed an attack upon thou and thine domains, and must submit myself to your punishment—”
“Slaanesh, I can see you drooling, no.” Khorne immediately barked out.
“But it’s not faaaiiir, she said punish and everything!”
“No raping the Alicorn! She was left incapacitated by you just nutting on her! NO.”
“...Meanie…” I pouted and turned away, all the while Luna appropriately blushed from the overheard conversation.
“...Anyways you didn’t exactly harm us, at least one of us can attest to that, so we are willing to just let bygones be bygones.” The Forge of Knowledge finishes.
“What even are you, to just casually brush off the full might of the moon’s power?”
“I think we’ll let your sister fill you in on that.” Tzeentch adds with a giggle as he looks right at me, deciding to torment me with my already bluing balls. “Just remember the names Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh, and await the fireworks… now trot off before Sister misplaces her self-control.”
Luna really wanted to ask what he meant by ‘fireworks’, although she also did not want her dream-self’s rather radiant chastity to be lost, so she promptly bolted, door slamming shut afterwards.
“...maybe we should work on getting more cultists… ooh! And definitely have them set up a nice round Daemon Gate for reasons!”
The three of them all groaned… no idea why.
{Celestia, Third Person, Everfree Castle Gardens, the next day}
It took a bit more out of the princess today than it did two nights ago, and that was concerning. There was only so much Order Magic she could call upon at any given time, and it seemed that with each morning, Discord’s statue began to suffer another crack, the seal growing ever-weaker. Her only comfort was that the weakening had slowed thanks to her efforts.
“Sister.” Celestia turned to the voice, finding some relief in seeing her sister had arrived, she had been so isolated recently, concerning herself only with watching over the dream realm, maybe with her here, she can finally handle this.
“Luna, thank the heavens, I need your help, we need to use the Elements of Harmony.”
“What? Why would—Discord?!” she shouted in realisation as she saw the state of the Draconequus’ prison. “What… how… how long has this been going on?”
“It started two nights ago, and it’s been attempting to accelerate. If I hadn’t been there to hold back his escape, he would’ve gotten free before the sun had risen.”
“Right, I’ll retrieve them now, I’ll explain last night’s meeting after.”
“Wait… meeting with who?” the Sun Diarch asked carefully.
“Oh, I met these four gods-” oh no… “-who inhabit a plane of reality connected to the realm of dreams,” oh… no… “I believe their names were ‘Corn’ ‘Zinc’ ‘Slanish’ and… ‘Nerville’?”
“Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Nurgle…”
“Yeah, them.”
“Oh… buck, they’re linked to Pony Minds?!” she yelled in panic.
“Sister, I don’t understand why you are troubled, they seem nice!”
“Luna! I just learned of them from a Guard called Shaker Stone, those are the four gods of—”
*CRACK*
That one… was right over one of the eyes.
“...Chaos…”
“Oh, ponyfeathers.”
And then the statue exploded.
{Khorne here! Get your Khorne!}
I blinked as something proceeded to enter the Warp… and then leave?! Like, no, this wasn’t just Warp Travel, this was something’s presence suddenly existing in the Warp, and then it was fucking gone.
“That was weird, didn’t anyone else see that?”
“Whatever it was, it made me… uncomfortable, it seemed to notice us and then leave.” Tzeentch replied.
“Welp, my boner’s gone.” Slaanesh said in a perfect impression of the No-Life King.
“I really wish Shaker was around whatever happened to explain what that even was.” Nurgle commented.
Speaking of… “What’s she even doing now?”
“Well from the looks of it, she’s been preparing to get some of her friends to join her religion.”
“How’s it going?” Tzeentch asked our brother.
“Well…”
{And the Award for first ever first person Pony POV goes to… Shaker Stone!}
I slid over to Silk Striker, who was making his rounds after recovering from my outburst, I smiled slyly. “I’d like to introduce you to my religion.”
“What’s your religion?” he asks, deadpan.
I say nothing, instead simply sliding him a picture I had crafted with my new Psyker Powers.
It was a Pinup of Slaanesh framed in an eight-pointed star, in one of the most scandalous pieces of clothing in Equestria… thigh-high socks.
…
“I’m interested.”
{Back to the Khornefield}
“Pfft.”
“Did you teach her that? You filthy memer!” I accuse the Mech God.
“I have no shame, that was funny.”
“Mmm~, I love how she’s captured my likeness, I might gift her if she’s willing to make copies…” Slaanesh predictably proceeds to admire her artistic rendition through the scrying before Nurgle cut the link so as to not overwhelm Shaker’s brain… much to our sister’s disappointment.
“Well, I think it’s nice that she’s sharing the good word with her friends, our little pony Horus… will her pals choose to worship a single god, or will they follow in her footsteps?”
“Excellent point Nurgle! Quite the worrying prospect, but I’m sure we’ll handle it together.” Tzeentch said confidently.
“Quite! Brothers - and Sister - in arms! Always together! Always united!” I cheer.
“To Chaos Undivided!”
{Discord, Third Person, the Chaos Realm}
The scene began with a tear out of the Immaterium, into the pocket-dimension delicately nestled atop the Material plane, a realm separate from the Warp itself that Discord had exited into, his normally mischievous expression gone in favour of an almost feral and panicked visage.
“What the fuck… what the fuck! I… by the Anathema, I thought I cut this place off from the galaxy back during the Great Crusade!” he said before pulling out a war-room table like it was a picnic blanket. “You think you can get the drop on me and take over my world?! No way, no how! I’m going to save this planet or my name isn’t Discord!”
He then slammed down a miniature of himself onto the map as his appearance became adorned with an interesting military garb.
“And there’s nothing my ‘brothers’ can do about it!”
“Alright, Silk Striker is in Shaker’s room, he’s at the makeshift altar… aaaaand… it’s Slaanesh!” I declare with myself, Tzeentch, and Khorne all clapping for our sister, the Machine of Change even firing off some confetti in celebration.
Honestly, with how he was brought into the Chaos Faith, it was a given, but still cause for celebration nevertheless.
“Oh, thank you! This is all a great honour! I can already feel his devotion inside me~!”
…
“Congratulations, Sis, you’ve ruined it.” Khorne flatly states, walking off back to the depths of his territory.
“Well… guess you should go greet your first follower.” Tzeentch encourages.
“Right! Got it… hmm, but how to do it…?”
“Can’t you just go down and—ah shit yeah, right, god bullshit.” I realise.
“Yeah, only reason our last follower didn’t have their head explode when we directly talked to her was because her head had already exploded.”
“Yeah, this is a problem, we don’t exactly have enough of a Psykic Presence—”
“You just made that up!” I interrupted, making Tzeentch glare at me before continuing.
“—to make our own Daemons on the material plane, so it’s not like we can ask one of them to go down there and explain what’s going on.” he finished.
“And we don’t exactly know how to focus our presence to do that whole thing where the gods would transmit their voices to corrupt people.” I commented.
It was then that, much to our concern, Slaanesh seemed to have an idea. “Wait… everyone that lives, barring Pariahs and Blanks, has a physical presence in the Warp, right? Psyker or not?”
“Yeah, that’s right…” I reply.
“And the only reason we couldn’t really mess around with souls is because they all had some measure of protection, Orks had the “WAAAGH!!”, Tau were too detached from the Warp, Imperials had their Emperor, Eldar had those soul-stones, and so on?”
“Slaanesh, you don’t need to give us a rundown on what we already know… wait, no-one in Equestria has that protection, even their ‘gods’ have only recently discovered that the Warp is even a thing!” Tzeentch blinked, before he proceeded to glare suspiciously at the Princess of Pleasure. “Alright, what the fuck are you planning? I probably already know for obvious reasons, but I still feel I should ask.”
“Oh, I’m just giving my first follower… a taste~.” She said mysteriously, before approaching the soul pulsing in her domain, as opposed to the souls in the neutral space or Shaker’s spirit sitting firmly exactly in the meeting point of our territories.
She licked her lips, and it was then that me and Tzeentch thought it best to take our leave as we immediately realised what she was going to do.
{Let’s Switch To Shaker Stone Cam 5! [Warning: Slaanesh is doing a thing, I don’t think I need to elaborate on what.]}
“Welcome to the church of Chaos, Striker, First of Slaanesh’s Children.”
“Happy to join, so… how does this work, should I be expecting some divine vision or…?”
“I don’t entirely know, sorry. When I came to them, it was as a soul without a body into their own realm, so I don’t know what methods they have to affect the material plane we reside.” I state sadly. “So I have no idea what method they will use, or if they’ll use any at all considering my situation was a special—”
“OOOOOHH~!!” The stallion suddenly moaned out, causing me to blush as his eyes glowed with a purple energy, while his cock became erect and then erupted in the span of several seconds. He came so hard that it shot out through the ceremonial robes, right into the altar’s offering bowl.
“Striker!” I yelled out in shock, and a bit of anger, I had just bought those robes.
“Her tongue! I can’t… BUUUCK~!” he cried out as he unleashed another stream I barely managed to dodge, the spurts of seed quickly filling up the altar receptacle I had planned to fill with books for Tzeentch to gain knowledge of Equestria and its history.
That’s when his words sank in. “did… you say tongue?”
He collapsed to the ground on his plot, the displacement forcing his cock to be freed into the open air, the ghostly signs of something were showing on his member, balls being swirled around, a ring of pressure gliding up and down the shaft, the whole length being moved around by an unseen force. “Tongue, lips, oh b-buck I think I can feel her thro-AAAHH~!!”
By the gods, it was getting… everywhere. It didn’t take much thought to realise which of them was responsible for the mess, but thankfully she saw fit to stop before she risked sucking him dryer than a juice-box.
I breathed a sigh of relief at that as I surveyed the damage, the room was a mess, splatters of semen scattered around, the altar practically painted white as its bowl overflowed with Silk Striker’s foal batter…
Then it was only half full, then a quarter was left, and then nothing, each portion’s disappearance punctuated by a strong. Satisfied. Gulp.
It was, admittedly, hot, as well as pleasant to know the Church had successfully provided an offering to one of the gods.
I looked back to Striker, panting, barely able to keep himself upright as his arms and legs were like jelly from the onslaught he had endured. His eyes seemed glazed over as his mind slowly tried to recover from successive orgasms, and his cock was slowly resheathing itself as the veins throbbed almost painfully, while his balls looked… although still healthy, very much shrivelled from having expended so much so quickly.
It took a moment for him to be able to speak, and the words that came out ended up honestly making me laugh more than it should’ve.
“I… I think she likes me.”
{here comes Celestia’s POV, doo doo doo doo~!}
This was wrong, Discord is free yet he is silent, there’s four new gods that go against the power of Harmony, and now there are… followers beginning to spread.
I can’t let this go on! It was one thing dealing with the spirit of Chaos, now there’s a church of Chaos?! This will not stand!
“Sister… I don’t think this plan is… sound.” Luna said, naive as she was.
“Luna, we can’t afford to face a threat on both fronts, and Discord has hidden himself from us, meaning he has something big planned, our only option is to remove the danger we can perceive.”
“But imprisoning our ponies for their chosen beliefs?!”
“It must be done, sister, we can’t afford to let this faith spread, you know as well as I that those that mark themselves as ‘gods’ always draw strength from their worshippers, and if they are beings linked to the minds of the living, then it’s possible the mere thoughts of those ponies may empower them!”
Luna seems to look concerned at the moment, looking at me. She approached me and proceeded to place a hand on my shoulder in some form of comfort. “Sister, maybe it would be best to calm down, you may be overreacting. You yourself told me that the safety of our ponies should not come at the expense of their freedoms! And you forget, I have encountered these beings before, and they have shown themselves to be friendly… one admittedly more so than the others, but they seem like reasonable entities. Perhaps it’d be easier to simply make peace with them, form an alliance.”
I felt the pit in my stomach form ever deeper as she continued… this…
No, I can’t believe this has happened… to my own Sister.
“They have corrupted you…”
My poor, innocent sister, lost in the whispers of these creatures, looked up at me with widened eyes. “...say again?”
“You’ve been taken in by their deceptions and taken over when your mind was vulnerable!” I declare. “I won’t let you have your way!” I teleport us to her room, the possessed mare looking more frightened as I revealed the illusion they had devised.
“Sister! What are you doing?!” she panicked, trying to use her voice against me.
I didn’t let whatever evil that had enthralled her sway me as I set about my work, before she could even consider the ploy revealed and attempt to retaliate, I had already cast the necessary sealing spells and wards. The last to come active was the door so I could leave. “I am sorry, if some part of you is still awake inside there, I know you will thank me for this.”
“SISTER!” she lunged for me, but a quick step back launched me out of the chamber, the door slamming shut behind me before the magical lock formed over it finalising the seal.
“Do not even attempt to break free, Creature, this seal was designed by Starswirl to keep me and Luna contained during our ‘time-outs’, and like with many of his spells, he over-engineered. It’s perfect for holding even me as I am now, and so something puppetting my Sister’s unaltered form - equal in power or not - doesn’t have the capability.”
“Sister, Please! Let me out! I’m not corrupted! This is madness!”
“I’m sorry, Luna… until this matter is resolved, I will uphold the cycle of Night and Day alone…” I say solemnly as I walk away, closing my ears to the cries of my fallen sibling.
“Sister?! No! Do not do this! Don’t leave me in here! Celestia! CELESTIA!!
I HAVE TO PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!”
{Oh? The Perception Indicator isn’t responding, guess we’re dramatically obscuring this Being’s POV}
So long… my slumber is… disturbed?
Energies… not magic, something else…
They feel… of pain, rage, lies and rot, but yet they deny such…
What?! The one of rot seeks to claim the Everfree?!
That’s how long it took for so many things to go so… SO wrong…
We thought that everything was relatively calm, but we really should’ve taken into account the limitations of only being able to perceive areas holding items or followers connected to us.
It was during times like this that I wonder if I should’ve chosen to not be afraid of my form’s capacity to pierce the veil of time and looked to the future to avoid such a disaster, but then again, my siblings were having similar regrets about their own darker abilities and I could see with them that such restraint was a wise decision, I won’t falter now.
But… maybe I should look back instead, find where we went wrong, so we can work on it going forward.
“Everyone, Pantheon Meeting, now.” I call, pinging each of their now much more confined domains.
One by one the others arrived, each more frustrated than the last.
“This isn’t the time, Tzeentch, I’m not in the mood for whatever escape attempt you have for us this time.” Khorne growled out.
“Not this time, Brother, I’ve decided to peer into the past in hopes of seeing my own failings, I was hoping that you would all accompany me.”
“And why would we do that when you just plan to have us look at the big fuck-up we had and have us all go for some nitpicking?”
“Because sitting here getting all bitter at each other and Celestia for the mess we’re in isn’t doing us any good, we need an outlet… that and…” I take a deep breath. “I want you to see me doing this, so we all have the same information, instead of me hoarding it all.”
“The Great Tzeentch Hoarding Knowledge? The horror.”
Nurgle groaned out. “Oh shut the fuck up, Malal, you’re the reason Celestia was able to catch us to begin with!”
“My name is Discord, Treebeard! I at least have Character Development!”
“THIS AGAIN?!” Khorne yelled out angrily. “We! Are Not! Those! Four! CUNTS!”
“Oh yes, you’re definitely not an embodiment of rage and carnage.”
“Girls! Girls!” Slaanesh said. “You’re both pretty, now can we move on?”
“But—”
“Nurgle, Tzeentch is right about all this stewing in our emotions not being good for us, look at your arm!”
He did so, and we were barely able to stop the collective gasp as what was raised wasn’t the thick, vibrant and leafy log of a limb, but a mass of mold and gooey meat chunks that threatened to slough off his shoulder. He had to actually put some effort to put the appendage back to normal, which was honestly quite terrifying.
Slaanesh kept on. “All this isolation, including from each other, is getting to our heads, we’re getting stir-crazy! Khorne’s been getting more and more standoffish because there’s so little room here, Nurgle, your lethargy has come back full swing because you see no point tending to your garden with no-one to look at it, Tzeentch keeps having to fight himself not to look into the future for the sake of not focusing on our present, and I’ve got Balls more Blue than a Lord of Change bedazzled in Lapis Lazuli at an Eiffel 65 Concert! We need a distraction, and we NEED some bondage—BONDING TIME! Fuck, this place is getting to me.”
“Well then, you can all get on with your Therapy Session, and I will—”
“Ooooh no! You’re watching this too Discord!” she yells, pulling him back by the tail. “You have some mistakes that you need to review just as much as we do!”
“I don’t have to take this! I’m the Lord of Chaos here in Equestria you overgrown mood-swings! You have no power over me, and I won’t be a part of this farce!”
“Oh yes you will!” I said, on board with my sister’s reasoning. “You either sit here with us and take part in some much needed family time, or we will make this prison even more hellish for you.”
“You’re bluffing, there’s nothing you can do to me that I haven’t suffered during my time in the void of the Tyrant Star!”
And for once in a good while, the four of us all seem to have the same thought in glee, and I proceed to start us off.
“Oh my word, this tune is annoying!”
“Yes I know, it’s really annoying!”
“I can’t get this song out of my he-ead!”
“Make it stop, this tune is annoying!”
“I gotta go to work in the morning!”
“Now I’m gonna be hummin’ it in my be-eed!”
It took about 5 minutes non-stop to break Discord, but that was only because we kept trying to outmanoeuvre each-other. He got rid of his ears? We had the song resonate in the flow of the warp. He went to the edge of our prison? We merely sang louder. Found a way to tune out the lyrics? Slaanesh brought in the background music, I added in the subwoofers, Khorne started screaming the song like a raging volcano, and Nurgle got an entire forest to sprout up and vibe with us.
It is truly a terrifying force to behold, the four chaos gods truly working together for a common goal.
“ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT!! I’LL WATCH WITH YOU! JUST STOP!!”
“Yay! Family time!” Slaanesh cheered like an innocent child, causing the rest of us to giggle.
“Oh shut up.” the Draconequus grumbled as we all gathered around a slowly forming blue circle I’m using to mark the window into the past. With the ‘Lord of Chaos’ being funnily enough the smallest of the group, he decided to sit in the front on neutral ground that slowly turned checkerboard at his ambient influence, much to his disdain… that is until the black and white became a rather varied spectrum of opposites, all alternating to an unseen rhythm, blues and reds, pinks and greens, yellows and purples. “At least something here gets my tastes.”
“Everyone good? Great!” I say, proceeding to open a tear through time, even with this power, all I’d get would be a window, since making it a door would only be useful for my daemons, and even then I’d rather not fuck up causality. “Now, let’s take a look-see at everything we missed that caused this mess. I believe it started when Luna unintentionally sent a 'message in a bottle' in the Warp.”
“We all thought she must’ve been real desperate to let people know of us of her own volition.” Nurgle said.
“What, because she knows better?” Discord snarked.
“No, because last time she was here I came on her.” Slaanesh explained. “Turns out attacks that only stimulate whatever nerve-equivalent we have hitting me in the balls is a very good time~.”
“MOVING. ON.” I yelled, and so we began our journey.
{Into The Past, one Day after Luna’s Imprisonment}
“Guys, come over! There’s a new follower!” I heard Slaanesh call us over.
“How can you even tell before we could?”
“Well, the Soul currently sitting in Nurgle’s territory is a good indicator.”
“WHAT?!” Nurgle immediately dropped whatever project he had as we all gathered, finding the little ball of light sitting on top of a grassy knoll within Nurgle’s Garden of Cycles, currently in a state of spring.
Sure enough, there was a little ball of consciousness and individuality nestled right in one of the hollow openings of one of his trees, like a Squirrel.
“It… it’s adorable!” Nurgle said, moving in to appraise the spirit. “Hmm, no surprise that it’s an Earth Pony… seems he’s from… Appleoosa? But that doesn’t make sense!”
“Wait, did you say Appleoosa??” I ask in surprise, rushing over to the soul, ignoring the sluggishness that ran through my form as I stepped out of my domain.
I almost overreacted and used a mind-probe on the creature, but stopped myself just in time. “Wait! No, Materials are squishy. Almost made a blunder and popped the poor thing’s skull, let me just…” I took a few deep breaths, and moved in closely, skimming the surface thoughts instead.
Let’s see here… took to the Nurglite faith for bountiful crops, Apple Trees and desert don’t mix, go figure. What else, prayers to Nurgle, wishing the gift of a green thumb, in return wishes to help us release Luna from—
“Wait, Celestia sealed her sister in her room?!”
As my siblings froze up in shock, I found the scene painted in front of me. Luna came to the guy, Citric Slide, through his dream, spoke of her unlawful imprisonment. Turns out Celestia is a bit too antagonistic towards anything labelled Chaos, so she’s gone on a warpath and has put Luna in timeout for deciding to go the diplomatic option.
“I’m so sad Luna didn’t trust us with her story, she can reach us, and when she was here I’d cuddle and comfort her and maybe slip some tongue—on second thought maybe Luna shouldn’t trust me.” Slaanesh muttered aloud.
We all pointedly decided not to comment.
“...well, I’m going to go ahead and see what I can do for gifting my new follower with those green thumbs… actually…
this gives me an idea.” Nurgle says as I hesitantly left to go research what to do about this new information.
hopefully no-one does anything too extreme and gets ponies freaking out.
{Everypony do the Citric Slide!}
I sighed sadly, looking at the patch of ‘soil’ I was working with. “I really hope you’re right about this Nurgle, Princess…” I patted the rotting bark of one tree. “Poor things don’t have much left.”
Well that won’t do at all.
Before I could question the ‘words’ that went into my mind, I felt my body convulse as some form of energy slammed into my core. It was uncomfortable, it felt like roots were forming and stretching out under my skin, going from my head to my hooves, my fingertips to the tip of my tail, solid and yet not.
And then… the pain was gone, and now all I felt was power, the call of the roots.
I know… water… you need more water!
Without thinking, my hands slammed into the earth, and those roots within lunged out, deep into the sands, to rock and soil lost to time, to caverns full of flowing clean liquid… and I pulled.
I felt relief flood my being as I felt the trees under my watch reached their roots to my own, drinking of the life-giving liquid and returning to strength. My tears of joy flowed as I found myself laughing, the power pulsing inside my veins.
And in that instant, I saw him, a large being formed of a great tree and many flowers, tending to me with a gentle smile, like a farmer with its prized produce, and I felt that warm, parental presence.
“YES! PRAISE BE TO NURGLE! PRAISE FATHER NATURE! THE TENDER OF THE GREAT GARDEN!” I yell to the heavens, the ponies around turning at the sound of my warped voice, looks of surprise and concern.
They soon turned to fear as my flesh felt like it was burning, they screamed when they saw my limbs becoming stiff as my skin became bark, and they fled when leaves began forming on the branches that were once my arms, but I didn’t worry. I smiled and welcomed the change, letting the feeling of peace and life wash over me as I became a new apple tree of the orchard.
After all, Father Nature would tend to me, Nurgle helps all his children grow together.
{Nurgle Fucked Up}
“Oh shit I over-extended! Fuck!”
{Ethereal Comments} Tzeentch: What the fuck, Nurgle?! Nurgle: I was trying to make him a druid, I didn't mean for that to happen!! Discord: who would've thought the slowest of you screwed up first. Nurgle: I don't know whether you're referring to my old-self's penchant for stagnancy, or you're just calling me an idiot. Slaanesh: Either way it makes me want to punch him. Discord: funny, thought it'd only be Khorne that wanted to do that, and you'd want to do something with barbed whips or something. Khorne: it's called Character development you c*nt!
“Um, Stone? Are you sure this place is… safe?” Silk Striker said to me before I shushed him and whispered.
“Safer, I didn’t say safe I said safer, you’re lucky Tzeentch sent a warning to us in time, although it still gives me a headache.” I clutched at my head, soothing the pain from the pounding tides of the Warp rushing over my mind. “Ugh, I can feel the Warp trying to overtake me, it is not a good pain. The point is Celestia is kinda on a murder-spree that looks about twice as bad as whenever somepony says ‘necromancer’ within earshot of her.”
“Right but… in the dungeon??”
“Well yeah, it’s the last place she’d ever expect us to be, if you’re looking for a loose prisoner, the last place you’re going to check is in their cell, and since she’s looking for us to capture, the last place she’ll think we’re hiding is where she wants us.”
“Okay…” Silk said, humming in thought, before eyes going wide. “Stone… this is the last place she’ll look for us… that means she’ll look for us here eventually, we can’t stay here.”
“Right, luckily half of the message I got from Tzeentch was where the headache came from since he got us an escape plan. It’s gonna be a bit of a tricky ritual but since I’m a Psyker, I’ve got enough expertise to walk us through it, you brought the sapphire chalk?”
“Shaker, you saw me snatch it from outside the Mage’s tower.” the stallion huffed, handing a small box to me.
“Perfect!” I grabbed the box in my field before grabbing the gem-infused drawing implement and began scrawling the proper sigils onto the wall, the mark of Tzeentch firmly front and centre around a circle of different runes and glyphs, some the basic foci while the rest were numeric sigils of 0-9 to write down coordinates. The combination I put down, with luck, should put us on the edge of the Everfree forest, on the side closest to Ponyville, where we’d be able to hide out by nature of it being one of the few multi-tribe towns.
“I am so glad one of my tributes was a map of Equestria.” I mutter aloud before finishing the inscription. “Alright, now all we need is a sacrifice, something that I can channel into to weaken the walls between the Material plane and the Warp…”
“Is this like components needed for magic?”
“Hopefully? We can use that instead of an actual sacrifice.” I say before taking a gold coin and an onyx, pressing them together, channelling into them not my magic, but rather Warp Lightning drawn from my psykic (Tzeentch insisted on the spelling) powers, which I channelled further into the wall.
The mana-reactive material suddenly lit up a natural blue as the components crumbled to dust, before twisting into a rather unnatural violet as reality seemed to stretch and deform before collapsing into itself, forming a semi-stable Warp-Rift.
“There, that’s our ticket out, we’ll go in here, travel through the Warp, and then pop out at the coordinates I marked in the circle.”
“Um… I’m not so sure we should—”
“Shaker… Striker… I am not playing your games, Chaos Spawn!!” The rather resonant sound of a furious Alicorn’s voice reverberated through the walls as the echoing scream of gold scraping against rock reached their ears.
“—hesitate for even a second, see you on the other side!” and with that, Silk Striker leapt in, leaving me to blink before I hurriedly followed in, the rift destabilizing behind us, with unknown consequences.
{In The Warp, Third Person}
Suddenly, two ponies popped out of a swirling vortex that quickly closed behind them.
“You know, those two are lucky we’re the only things in here at the moment, no Neverborn here to snack on them, then again I doubt we’ll ever get pony-sized gellar field generators in any capacity.” Tzeentch mused, watching the two bodies looking like they were tripping balls in the rather tame yet still partially raw sea of rampant emotions, before getting a meme-worthy idea.
He then promptly took one metal finger, set it behind the two and…
“SHIT!” I yelled as we launched out of the portal, and slammed into a nearby tree, Silk broke the trunk… and then I toppled the whole thing, leaving us sprawled on the ground in pain. “Ow… my bones.”
{Ladies, Look At Your Man, Then Back To Tzeentch}
“Oh fuck! Um… o-oops?”
{Ethereal Comments}
Khorne: Oops?! Really?? You almost killed our only two followers!! Tzeentch: I said I was sorry, okay! You don’t need to go at me again for what you already knew happened! Slaanesh: frankly I feel we can still judge you for going ‘oops’ at almost murder. Discord: true, true, I expected you to be better than this. Tzeentch: Bruh you expect me to be a duplicitous cunt. Discord: as opposed to a careless idiot going for a meme without thinking? Tzeentch: …FUCK… Nurgle: I hate that he has a point. Tzeentch: how do you think I feel?!
{And Now For Something Completely Discord. 3 Days after Luna’s imprisonment.}
I emerged back into the normal world, shuddering at how subtle I was, my only solace was that I would be inflicting mass amounts of Chaos for whatever plans my siblings had cooked up, if not in general.
With my change into an entirely new state of being, one formed of the more unconditional and forgiving energies of magic rather than the wild thrashings of psychic energy of the Warp, I was made all the more aware of the weaknesses my old manifestation had. It was far more powerful than what I had now, yes, but the problem was that the power given to those of the Warp was fickle at best, subject to come and leave from one second to the next, dependent on the whims of mortal minds.
Now, my mind was truly my own, the power was weaker than my peak but reliable and not subject to disappear at any moment. Knowing such a thing means that I can now exploit that same weakness against my siblings, to maximum effect, unlike the materials that had fortunately up until now have never even brushed the edge of the warp. I could not simply demand all faith be silenced, it was an effort in futility to prevent someone believing in something greater, even if it was faith in mere concepts like hope, and even then with them being darker aspects of the living psyche, simply removing the worship would not stop them.
No, the better solution would be to not deny faith, but focus it towards something that opposes them. That way, not only is their own worship weakened, but the new presence in the Warp would also emerge empowered and able to further incapacitate them on their own playing field. The best news was I had the perfect candidate.
I walk into the town most emotionally vulnerable, the town of Appleoosa, where a resident had fallen victim to the powers of the plaguefather, afflicted with a horrible disease that had turned him into an apple-tree, and no doubt he’s taken inspiration from Swamp Fever and made the apples on him and the orchard just as virulent.
“EVERYPONY!” I call aloud, causing the panicked crowd to stop and turn to me, disguised as an Earth-Pony in monk garb. “I come now in your darkest hour, to warn you of the horrors plaguing our land, neigh, our world!” I speak dramatically, pulling up a crate to stand atop as the ponies gathered.
“Already you see its vile tendrils reach out and take one of our own! Brought down by a horrid disease born of a great enemy to all life!” I stamp my left fore-hoof. “NURGLE! The crafter of wicked plagues and horrific toxins! And he is not alone! For there are three others! Tzeentch, the weaver of lies and the planner of schemes! Khorne, the god of bloodshed and carnage whose followers care not who is innocent or guilty, they shall gut you all the same! And Slaanesh! A vile perverted freak that will find pleasure in your pain, and commit torture in order to satisfy her lusts!”
The ponies hung on my every word, some looking rather green from my colourful explanations. “They wish to destroy all that we have built, whispering sweet lies in our ears so that we may turn on our own family, friends and even the other races we share this world with. But there is hope, for on our side is their great enemy!”
I pull out a banner, their eyes widening at the sight of a burning star shining upon a glistening white silhouette of an Alicorn. “The great guiding light of our Equestria, the one who has saved us from darkness before and will do so again. She is the sun manifest, she is a goddess made flesh, one deserving of our faith for she will ask nothing of you and yet still give with all her heart! That is our Princess! That is Celestia! The Mare of Harmony that stands against the Chaos! PRAISE THE SUN!”
“PRAISE THE SUN! PRAISE THE SUN! PRAISE THE SUN!” I heard them chanting, my plan in motion, the first town of many.
By this time next year, the Warp will shudder, and a new god will rise.
{Ethereal Comments}
Discord: ... Why is everyone staring at me? Khorne: Are you fucking stupid?! You want to kill us so you decide to make an Empress of Ponykind?! A PONY ANATHEMA?! Tzeentch: I concur, and you believed me to be a disappointment. Discord: I don’t care for your tone… Slaanesh: well think, genius, after you overcharge Celestia into a Chaos-Slaying Warp Goddess and point her our way, who do you think she’d go after she’s through with us, Mr. Lord of Chaos?? Discord: …I see the problem. All 4: OH DO YA?!
{Celestia, Third Person, 1 Week After Luna’s Imprisonment}
Flowing Inkwell walked up to the Throne Room, her hoofsteps cautious, it has been one week since Princess Luna disappeared without a trace, apparently claimed by Equestria’s newest enemy, dubbed the Warped Pantheon. Not only had her disappearance seemed to kickstart troubles, first the report with the pony that had turned into a tree, and then two high-ranking guards turning traitor, it seemed now came the biggest problems… and she had to deliver it to Celestia herself, who was already on edge after the incident with the Traitor Guards’ portal exploded on her.
The mare carefully walked into the room, looking up at the alicorn seated, her once shimmering main now beginning to turn a furious orange, yet not fiery just yet, her glare ironically laced with an ice cold fury, and her nostrils flaring not unlike a dragon’s, but what seemed the most concerning was her eye. The eldritch energies of the portal had struck her face, leaving their mark, now the left eye and the area around it looked to have reality itself shattered, a hole possibly into that dark world that the enemy gods came from, and what peered out looked more feral than any pony could be.
“Yes, Inkwell?” Celestia’s voice was calm, but that eye looked to burn with a fury as hot as the celestial body she governed.
“W-well, Princess Celestia, it seems that there seems to be… r-reports of… a cult forming in Appleoosa not long after the ‘Apple Fever’ incident,” the assistant began, refusing to look at the narrowing and furious eye. “From our investigations, an unnamed pony arrived and used the situation as a way of swaying the crowd to join the new faith, and—”
“Destroy it immediately, those four cannot gain any ground.”
“A-actually—EEP!” suddenly the unicorn ducked under a blast of fire that launched out of the extra-dimensional tear. “I-It isn’t a cult for any of the Warp Gods… it’s a c-cult for you.”
“...Me?”
“Yes! It’s called the Temple of The Sun. they were told of the four gods to be abominations and corrupting monsters, and then coaxed into forming a large following to you, as the goddess opposing Chaos and the greatest threat to them.”
Celestia was quiet for a while, both eyes indecipherable. “I see…”
“I’ll inform the guard to—”
“No, leave them be… in fact, sanction this faith.”
The mare’s eyes widened in surprise. “Sanction, I—but I thought you… you hated being treated as a deity, Princess!”
“I do… but I despise the idea of my little ponies falling to the temptations of the Warped Pantheon even more. If they wish to place their faith in me instead of them, and fight to oppose these Dark Gods, I will accept it… now go, send out the orders.”
“...at once Princess.” Despite how much Raven wished to believe Celestia’s intentions were pure when it came to the cult, she couldn’t bring herself to consider such a possibility true.
Because while Celestia’s words were incredibly sincere… that eye… it looked upon the thought of her being viewed as a goddess…
With delight.
{In The Warp, The Prosecution Calls Khorne To The Stand!}
“Tzeentch! I’ve got a situa—what the fuck are you doing?” I mutter, because I don’t want to assume what I’m seeing is exactly what it looks like.
Because right now, what I’m seeing is Tzeentch has widened the Dream Door that Luna had left, and currently had his entire upper body shoved through the still too small doorway. “What does it look like I’m doing??”
I try to think of anything nice I could really say, before deciding ‘fuck it’ and being honest. “It looks to me like Slaanesh corrupted you and you’re trying to indulge in something rather inappropriate, ‘step-bro’.”
The involuntary flinch slamming his spine into the frame, followed by the string of expletives was almost music to my ears as he forced himself out of the manifested concept of a portal into the Equestrian Dream-Realm. “NO! That was not what I was doing!”
“Then explain it to me, what were you doing?” I demand, not wanting to devolve this into any kind of argument.
Thankfully, Tzeentch was of the same mind (heh) and sighed before moving into his explanation. “I’m trying to enter the Dreamscape to help out Princess Luna, out of the four of us, I assumed I would be best suited to being the first in exploring the dreams of ponies, since my domain is linked with thought-patterns.”
“Wouldn’t Slaanesh be a better pick, since Dreams are more emotion than logical thinking?”
“Do you trust Slaanesh not to quite literally mind-fuck Luna should they cross paths?”
“Fair, doesn’t even trust herself not to do that.”
“I’m also hoping to be a bit more helpful to Foals, maybe even Adult Ponies… you know how there’s that whole study about if you have babies listen to Mozart in their sleep they turn out smarter? I’m thinking if I go into dreams and bestow knowledge upon the sleeping ponies, they’ll wake up with greater smarts.”
“...oh! like those language tapes people listen to while sleeping so they can learn a second language? Didn’t we try that at one point?”
“Nah, we never bothered because of procrastination and video games. But hey, Ponies are very receptive to learning new things, so if I’m able to actually get to the dreams, I could really make a difference… but the problem is I can’t make the door big enough, and I can’t make myself small enough to fit into the door normally.”
“Why don’t you just shrink yourself and enlarge the door so you meet half-way?”
There was a moment of silence in that corner of the warp, even the flow of psychic energy halted for that one brief instance, before the almost deafening sound of a firm smack exploded out from between us. Sure it would be more logical for it to be the clang of metal on metal, but in the realm born of raw thought and souls, a facepalm is always going to sound exactly how you recall a facepalm to sound like.
“I just… I… what is your situation, Khorne?” Tzeentch asked, most likely to escape the embarrassment as I could see several panels and plates on his body shifting around in a flustered state.
“Oh, well I… may have accidentally a rebellion.”
“... Khoooorrrrr—”
“NO! You do not get to “Llamas With Hats” me! It wasn’t even my fault!”
“Well then why not explain what happened?!”
I sighed at that, but then moved to begin the story. “Alright, so it started when I had sense the psychic—”
“Psykic—”
“Psychic outlash of what appeared to be another potential Psyker, about right after we learned of Luna’s imprisonment and went to try and handle the Celestia situation in our own way…”
{Rewind: 1 day after Luna’s imprisonment}
“Hm?” I approach what appeared in the warp like a… well it shone like a star, but it was about as big as a lightbulb; Or rather, big as a lightbulb compared to me, so it was probably very large to a pony.
Whatever, I needed to actually deal with it anyway, considering the soul was lingering in the unclaimed Warp-space bordering my domain. How curious, the place still seems infinite and yet clearly confined. Is it a metaphor for how life and emotions are never really restricted? Or perhaps the method of the Webway Barrier’s incorporation into—
Oh what the fuck am I even doing?! I’m starting to sound like Tzeentch!
Shaking my head clear, I focus on the soul, and find myself pleasantly surprised to see its draw towards my territory is born of its great level of honor and not craving for violence. In fact, they seem to radiate a lot of loyalty; for many other beings not related to them, for a piece of land, and an individual linked to them by blood… a male, not parent.
Loyalty to people, land, and a brother… loyalty to their people, their nation, and their brother. That link is tenuous, the brother doesn’t seem to hold the same loyalty to them. The link is full of shame, but honor still rings true. A leader who holds a desire to help their country, and in the process ended with them betraying their brother but still caring for him…
“Tell me your story, little soul.”
I reached out towards it, only to immediately pull away as if burned. The reason being the moment even the smallest tendril of my power approached, the soul quivered and looked ready to burst at the sensation of my energy just being near it. It wasn’t hard to deduce that if it did burst, it’d be literal and the poor bastard would end up like Shaker Stone.
“Damn it, why do Daemons have such an easy time contacting Materials while we can’t even touch them without—” *DING!* “—...why didn’t I think of this sooner?!” I exclaim with a frustrated slap to the forehead. The answer was so simple now!
We don’t need to directly contact people!
We can have a middle-man!
I just need to make a Daemon and have it talk with him…
…
I DON’T KNOW HOW TO MAKE A DAEMON EITHER!
“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—” I screamed out in fury. Honestly, I was so mad I was almost willing to take off my helmet to see if there was any hair to rip out—
Wait… rip… rip out…
The idea slowly came to me, and I proceeded to look at my armored gauntlets, before I grabbed the pinky of my right hand.
Daemons are an extension of their god, pieces given a will, if one cannot figure out how to manifest a piece already detached…
“Oh this is gonna hurt like a bitch.”
*RIP*
“AGH FUCK I WAS RIGHT!!” I cried out before dropping the severed finger in favour of cradling my hand. Thankfully it seemed that mutilating myself was an effective way to make a daemon, as once separated from me, the lump of warp-flesh began to shift. Slowly but surely the concentrated chunk of my essence began to reshape itself into a being in its own right. I did not find it too concerning as red skin and hooves began forming, but then came the fangs, the leathery wings, and the eyes… the eyes so full of rage and—
I crushed the still stabilising beast with my good hand immediately. “NO!” I roared in defiance, I would not allow this piece of me to become one of his creatures. “I am no Blood God, my throne is of the strongest steel and the softest silk lining, not skulls!”
The writhing ball of anger and violence lashed out inside my grip, but I simply squeezed back harder, subduing any attempt at escape as I continued.
“There shalt be no Bloodletters, no Bloodcrushers, no Bloodthirsters, the age of monsters like Skarbrand and Kharn, the time where I overlook the horrific practice of Butcher’s Nails to sate a pointless hunger, the era in which we allow mindless slaughter dies now.” I find my anger coming forth, yet not unguided, becoming righteous in purpose as I began to burn what had been once my finger. “We are the age of honour, of loyalty! Where we fight not to slay what is in front of us, but to protect what is behind! That is true strength, and you will be reforged in that fire or you shall burn in it!”
The beast that had once been my appendage roared in defiance, clawing at its creator’s grasp, the armor sparking from the power and sharpness of its nails.
“I AM KHORNE! GOD OF COURAGE! THE FIRE OF JUSTICE! AND BY MY HAND YOU SHALL YIELD!” I roared back, winding back my arm. The Warp provided through my rage, and soon there was an island beneath my fist.
A fist that slammed into the rock, the monster letting out a cry of pain. Its agony gave no feelings or pity or of joy, I only had grim determination.
“YIELD!”
*SLAM!*
“YIELD!”
*SLAM*
“YIELD!”
*CLANG*
The new noise didn’t register until long after, in the moment I had not realised how the beast’s roars grew quiet, or how the island beneath had shifted into steel. I didn’t notice how the flames of my rage became stronger, yet calmer, more controlled…
Like the fires of a forge.
*CLANG!*
At the final blow, the Daemon in my grip burst into light. At that point I had to release my grip, if nothing else than for the instinctive reaction to cover my eyes despite no pain.
When the light died, I found two things, the first was my restored finger.
The second was not a feral beast associated with my predecessor, the horns, wings and hooves remained, as did his crimson flesh… or what I could see. The Warpspawn knelt before me in full plate, eyes glowing a fiery citrine, staring at me with respect. His blade, a sword that radiated heat and strength yet remained straight and solid, an honourable weapon but not what made me believe I had succeeded in making my daemon.
No, that would be the mighty greatshield he proudly held in his other arm, taller and wider than he was, something the original Khorne would never see his minions wielding.
“My Lord… My General,” he spoke calmly, a deep baritone that echoed through his helmet. “I pledge allegiance to the cause of justice and honour. Name me and I shall devote myself to fighting the wrongs and protecting the innocent.”
I blinked… and then again… and then once more for good measure. “Oh please no.” I whimpered as I felt the fear that I had gone too far in the other direction on my second attempt and made some pretentious asshat.
Those fears were quickly found baseless when the winged knight relaxed its posture and looked nervous. “Oh crap, sorry… did I go too far? I was trying to be dramatic.”
“I… it’s fine,” I assured him. “It’s just I was worried I got someone too into the bit?”
“Well General, how else was I supposed to greet the God of Courage, The Fire of Justice?”
I stared at him for a good few seconds as he stood up from his kneeling position and put away the sword and shield. “You are a snarky little fuck, aren’t you?” I mutter before grinning beneath my helm. “I like that. Well, best commit to this. *ahem*”
I look upon him and decide to add onto the look by having my eyes appear to have flames erupting from them. “If it is a name you request, then you shall be granted the name Caliburn, for you are the first, you shall act as my sword, my hand in this world until I myself can interact with it safely.
And your race of Daemon shall henceforth be known as Honour Guard.”
“What is your order, General?” the newly dubbed Caliburn asked, looking ready to begin.
“You shall—*ahem*, sorry, I need you to speak to this soul at the edge of my territory, from what I can guess, it is here because it requires help and with my affinity to honour and loyalty, it seems inclined to drift close to our borders.”
“And so your first option was to create a Greater Daemon to chat with a mortal?”
“Hey, we’ve already exploded one head by just showing up in this world’s isolated part of the Empyrean, I’d rather we don’t cause more harm. I can just tell that if I directly interact with a soul it will have stupid consequences… but then again that’s probably the fact that I can feel all my power just rumbling beneath the surface of my form, if it was even a little more relaxed, I might not notice how much I’m actively using and the danger would be difficult to perceive,” I explained. “Besides, I wasn’t trying for a Greater Daemon, just any Daemon, but…” I trail off as I look at my hands, the hammering of that piece of my essence, it felt… right.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble forging your kin.”
“Then it shall be done, General.” The Honour Guard gave a respectful bow before turning his attention to the soul. Carefully, the creature placed his gauntleted claws onto the radiant sphere of light, and I had to hold back my knee-jerk reaction to interfere when the soul gained a red haze before returning to a standard white; If only because I knew you don’t stop a sledgehammer by throwing the entire fucking tool shed at it.
A flicker of surprise, and recognition flashed across the Daemon’s eyes behind his helmet before it pulled his hand away and snapped to me. His next words almost made me froze, because this was a lot bigger than a couple guards.
“General Khorne, this soul says his name is Scorpan, and he is currently an exiled prince.”
{Ethereal Comments}
Nurgle: I feel that was a rib at me. Khorne: It was not, I didn’t even know you pulled that crap until now! Nurgle: He got better! Tzeentch: How do you ‘get better’ after being turned into a tree?! Discord: Our dear brother decided to double down on the pony’s affliction and turned him into a full on Daemon Dryad, he was actually the first general he deployed for the War On Inferno. T+K: NURGLE! Nurgle: Hey, Spoilers! Khorne: THAT’S WHAT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH?! Slaanesh: So wait, are we not gonna talk about the part where Khorne accidentally helped Scorpan apparently wage a rebellion? Discord: No, I think they’ll be at this for a while…
I gave a soft sigh as I sat in a tent out on The Scorching Plains, just north of The Ruthless Wastes where the capital of my old kingdom, the Kingdom of Beasts, resided. Despite the threatening name, the City of Chimera was a shining jewel in the hard and relentless wilderness… and that was the point, it was. Up until one hundred years ago, the lands were bountiful and the people were as full of life as the fields, but then began the Decline.
It began with an end, the end to a horrid and bloody war with the monsters, the Titans, that we waged. Our grandfather had grown mad and paranoid, demanding they all be wiped out lest they become a threat to him. When it was over, every single one of the Titans lay dead from our weapons, even with how valiant they fought in self-defence. The moment the last of the beautiful giants had fallen, the event known as the Decline began.
It wasn’t obvious at first, the fields became a little harder to plough, the crops took a day longer to grow for harvesting, but it was nothing! We’ve always had to put more power into tending our soil, it was no trouble… but then one year an entire field of vegetables died, it rotted in front of the farmer’s eyes. It started with the crops that were at the farthest edges of the kingdom, before it became a far more noticeable pattern, a traceable famine. It did not take long for scholars to match the path of rot with the trails the titans migrated through and grazed, we had wiped out the beings that fed life into the earth, we had slaughtered the only reason we could even survive in this region.
It was ironic that when the truth came out, the titans were indeed why my grandfather died, but it was my father who slit his throat.
Then my father, the old king, moved to try and alleviate the Decline. He set about ideas of irrigation, crop rotation, harvesting the waste of wild monsters and fertiliser. The Decline slowed, but it sadly didn’t stop, and even though he made these policies, the people grew suspicious of how his weekly announcements to the people showed him seemingly happy and full.
Talk of possible revolt began and died all in one day when Father collapsed on the balcony, and the ring of glamour fell from his finger. The entire kingdom mourned the loss of their greatest leader, he had died starving just so his children could have one plate more.
Then ten years ago, the last field gave up, and Chimera was the only city that stood. That was when my brother Tirek and I left on one last desperate gamble. The land of Equestria that The Wild Barrens neighboured, they had magic that fed the earth, magic that could revitalise the kingdom. They couldn’t bring back the prosperous nation they had, but maybe they could ensure who was left didn’t suffer a painful end.
We couldn’t ask for the magic, the ponies there were known to fear that which was different, and we didn’t have time to convince them, so we took the forbidden techniques, the ones that had let us steal the power of the Titans to wield against them, and we would in turn steal the magic, and instead of wasting it in war, we’d give it all to our homeland.
I was lucky, I had met an old stallion who was too strong for me to drain, and he talked to me. I was able to explain our people’s plight. That old wizard granted me the key to my people’s salvation, a small seed, but one that would feed on unity instead of fertile soil, and in turn give magic to the land it was rooted in. He called it a prototype of a grander project.
I called it a tiny miracle, and I called him my friend.
Instantly I rushed to find Tirek, this was it, this was what we were looking for!
“You conspire with the enemy, Scorpan?! You put the hopes of our people on a tiny bead?!”
I drew a shaky breath as the memory of that day came about. Taking out the seed from my pocket, the events of my encounter with my brother, and what followed, burned in an all too clear image.
I tried to tell Tirek of the seed I had gotten from the wizard, of our salvation, that we would no longer need to cause suffering for the sake of our people.
And he turned his back to me. He spoke of our duty and keeping with the original mission, that we had no way of knowing that it was truly a seed and not just some bauble. I wish that he was truly thinking of our people when he said that, but I knew better. I could hear it in his tone, see it in his eyes, feel it in the air, he was not thinking of our home.
No, he had gotten drunk off the magic he had stolen from the ponies, been enthralled by the power it granted, and refused to cease in his addiction for more. I knew his arguments were lies once I saw that, even if I had let him continue, there was no way he would give the magic to the land, he wanted it all for himself.
Brother… Why did you make me do it?
I had to stop him, save him from himself, and so I acted against him. I met with the Rulers of the land, and they stopped Tirek. I grieve for the day I lost my brother, his madness demanding he be sealed away in Tartarus so he would not harm anyone else. I believed even then I could redeem myself and him, that after I returned home, I could come to my people and save them. Then in a few years when the lands were filled with life and our people feasted on the bounty of the earth, I could return and show Tirek the kingdom we both had dreamed of as children.
Fat lot of good dreaming did now. Now I was exiled from the kingdom, denied from saving my own people, and having to watch from this tent as my kind walk off the cliff to become lost to history.
My gaze slowly turned to the pillar of crystal I had polished into a makeshift mirror, and all I saw was a Gargoyle who had all the hope and joy drained from him. Not even the changelings of myth would be capable of garnering a morsel of sustenance from this husk of a being.
“Quite the sad state you find yourself in, warrior,” A being clad in armour spoke as he appeared behind my reflection. Instinctively I looked over my shoulder, snapping back to the mirror in shock as I found no creature behind me. “No, I am not physically here, and no, you are not going insane… well, maybe you are from this isolation, but I assure you I am not part of your madness.”
“Who… no, what are you.”
“I am Caliburn, a servant of the Chaos God Khorne, of Honour and Loyalty.”
“Hmmph, Honour and Loyalty are not things I would ascribe to a being of Chaos.” I responded, knowing full well the terror of the entity known as Discord.
“That is fair, however please trust that my General means no harm. Take my presence as proof, as he created me just to speak to you, as his own power renders him unable to speak to mortals. I’m sure you sensed his initial attempt earlier?”
My eyes widened in recognition, it was only this morning, I woke up to the feeling akin to my entire body set aflame. It left as briefly as it arrived, but if it hadn’t stopped… that was the result of this ‘Khorne’ attempting to merely speak with me?!
“...Very well, I will humour you. Well met, Caliburn, I am Scorpan, Exiled Prince of the Kingdom of Beasts.”
The being’s eyes widened behind his helmet. “Wait a moment.”
I admit to a little confusion as the armoured creature suddenly disappeared from the mirror. I had waited for a few minutes, and just when I had believed it to be a mere hallucination brought about from loneliness, Caliburn returned.
“Apologies. Khorne knows part of your story, Scorpan, of your… ‘visit’, to Equestria. But due to his difficulty connecting to the world, that is all he knows.”
That came as a surprise to know that this Khorne even knew that much, unless of course this was the madness talking… but then again if it was, then this god would know even more than that, the reason why we went to Equestria. “Well then, what could your god want with me? I am an exile to my own kingdom, I have betrayed my own brother for the sake of helping another nation, and I am a shell of my former self.”
The entity chuckled softly. “Well… he wants to hear your story.”
That surprised me, I hadn’t expected to tell anyone my tale… but then again, I had been telling it to myself every day now.
So I told him everything, of the Titans, the decline, the deaths of the last two kings, and the events of our quest to Equestria. I also told him of my return to my home, ‘the welcome’ I had received, and the reason for my banishment.
The response I had received from the latter half of my story was shocking to say the least, not from Caliburn, but something else. It felt like the entire inside of the tent was filled with a sudden pressure, an overwhelming sensation of horror and disgust that I was almost lost in before the haze lifted.
Caliburn looked surprised at my doubled-over form, looking away from me for a brief moment before finally saying, “Khorne is… greatly displeased with the events happening to your people.”
No kidding. I muttered internally before I recomposed myself. “I am grateful to your General's distaste for my sake, but it’s not like we can do anything about it now.”
“Is that so?” Caliburn spoke before my limbs burned again, like this morning but less. I almost panicked before I felt the change. Suddenly my weakened and malnourished limbs bulged with muscle, familiar muscle. While I was still hungry, the strength I once had at the start of my journey had been restored. “We are willing to sponsor your saving of your people, all we ask is for you to pledge your new kingdom’s worship to the four Gods of The Warp. Which god a person chooses to offer their faith to will be up to them.”
The words given, the talk of a deal right after showing the potential benefits, this game was something I could see a mile away. “And this power you’ve granted me is supposed to be a taste? A sample of the power you could give me so I can’t refuse in fear you’ll take this away?”
“No, the restoration of your strength was to grant you a chance should you refuse our help anyway.” The response stopped whatever animosity I had short. “We can’t help anymore than this without something in return, it is not how Khorne is. He is a god of strength, courage and honour, he can’t freely give away power. We can bring back the strength you lost as it was wrongly taken from you, but anything extra must be earned.”
Khorne only grants power to those who earn it, not demand…
That thought already gave me a level of respect for the supposed ‘Chaos’ god, the fact he gave me back what I had lost only adding to it. With this alone, I had a fighting chance, I could maybe save a few people…
But then what?
Even if I freed them and escaped that tyrant, our only choices would be to flee and seek mercy from another nation, or starve out in this wasteland. Because… because Chimera, my home, was defiled so long as he ruled.
I still burn with a righteous fury as I look back to what he, my Uncle, had done to his own brother’s kingdom, a kingdom he died for. I remember how he welcomed me with open arms, the people around him submissive and fearful, as he declared a feast in honour of my return.
I recall the trepidation and suspicion I felt at the word ‘feast’, as my entire purpose of leaving was to resolve our food crisis. I should’ve caught on quicker, how the members of my uncle’s despicable inner circle grinned while the commoners cowered at the word. It should’ve clicked when the castle chefs brought plate after plate of meat.
…I can still feel the bile that rose in my throat as the lid on my platter lifted and I saw it to be the whole roasted corpse of a Kid Satyr, likely no older than 8 before he was…
I still ache with the pain from when I was beaten for calling out my Uncle’s cruelty before the guard threw me out the gate, as if I was being petulant and entitled for arguing against the king’s decision to enact cannibalism. How my people, innocent yet desperate, agreed to the new law for the sake of survival, offering up their own bodies on a plate before learning too late that their children were also on the menu.
… the choice couldn’t be easier.
“Caliburn, in the name of Khorne, I will earn my people’s freedom.”
{Back to 1 week ALI, it’s a bird! It’s a Tzeentch! No! It’s… no wait I was right the second time.}
“That… that doesn’t sound like you accidentally a rebellion.” I say suspiciously.
“It does when you consider I was intending for him to simply grab a bunch of the innocent people and flee, then I’d call in Nurgle for a favour to bless one of them so they can kick-start the patch of land they stop on so they can last long enough for that seed to work. I’d be a bit miffed about my whole plan going out the window if I didn’t understand why he did it.”
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”
“Simple, he’s loyal to his father’s vision, he wants to honour the man’s memory by ensuring the kingdom he tried to save returns to the shining beacon it was rather than have it die the horrific self-mutilated husk it currently is.”
I blinked slowly. “That… that is a noble goal indeed.” I then shook my head and I quickly recalled the reason he told me this story. “Wait a minute, why do you have a problem with this? From what I gather, those assholes deserve everything they’re gonna get, and it’s not like he’ll have to try to get anyone on board.”
“Yes, he’s already got a few followers from those who had fled the walls of the mad king, and I want to add in more of my own support, so I need you to do that information download thing you did with Shaker.”
“Khorne, I could only do that because she is our reborn follower and her body was rebuilt with a more stable connection to the Warp, I didn’t have a special trick for that.”
“Ah, fuck.”
“Besides, what would he do with that spell? Have Scorpan Warp Travel into the castle to stab the king before the guards were any the wiser?”
“I was… thinking of a different ritual, like the portal but a bit more stable and… half-way?”
I stared at him for a second before it clicked, and I sighed. “Khorne, are you seriously trying to get people to make a Daemon Gate? Brother, this section of Empyrean is contained but that doesn’t make it any less unpredictable! Our own domains don’t even fill the space, and that leaves a bunch of uncharted areas. My portal ritual was short-lived to ensure nothing in that neutral space could exploit it! What if this gate you make becomes a perfect way out into the Materium for an Enslaver or Ebon Geist before you can use it for whatever you—wait a minute… Khorne, you said this was about a week ago, how many Daemons did you forge before coming to me?”
“Well, I won’t bore you with exact numbers but—”
“KHORNE…” if he was intending to side-step with the excuse of numbers he needed to make sure he wasn’t talking to the fucking God of Knowledge.
“...roughly two-thousand lesser Daemons with three more Honour Guards, all four taking control of a contingent of five-hundred each.”
“For fuck’s sake Khorne!”
“I know, I know. I shouldn’t be spawning Daemons all willy-nilly! But look! I made a little squire!” He spoke quickly, revealing what appeared to be a small (by human standards) shade in a suit of shimmering red armour, with big yellow dots for eyes and holding a short-sword and buckler. “Isn’t he precious?”
“Fight for your family!” it cheered out in a squeaky voice.
I stare at the little armoured mass of shadowy energy with a clearly noble spirit and can-do attitude. And I only had one real answer for my brother.
“...okay yeah he’s pretty cute,” I admitted, before tearing my eyes away from the adorable little protector. “Alright, I’ll forgive you for making use of an ability without telling us first if you tell me how you did it. I’ll pass it off to the others.”
“Wait, you aren’t mad I made two battalions of Daemons so suddenly?”
“Khorne, it’s going to take a lot of work before we can even hope to interact with mortals safely. I’m letting you make an army of Daemons for the same reason I’m letting Nurgle grow that little flower garden in his domain or not stopping Slaanesh attempting to make Clairvoyance windows to watch the mortals fucking for fap material, it’s the same reason why I’ve been trying to take the initiative to enter the Dreamscape.
Because it’s better than sock puppets and basketballs.”
{Nut! Nut! Slaanesh! Nut! Wait, I think my echo’s broken}
“Mmm~, yeah baby… take it off~.”
*fap* *fap* *fap*
“SLAANESH!”
“EEP!” *Squeeze* “OW! Knee-jerk hand clamp!”
Quickly I cheated soothing my pain by just dispelling and reforming my shaft, and then turning to see the approaching Nature God. I didn’t even bother hiding it, we all know what I’m about anyway.
“I fucked up! I fucked up so… are… are you masturbating to a pony eating a banana?”
“Wait what?” I snapped back to the window to see the mare already half-way down the fruit. “Dammit I missed the striptease!”
…
“I don’t think we’ve been here long enough to get that desperate, Sister.”
“Sh-shut up! Luna and that Soul-Job I gave to Silk Striker left me pent up!”
“Okay, now that’s understandable.” he said calmly, the fact he didn’t even question what a Soul-Job was ended up making me feel more embarrassed than what he had walked in on.
“What the hell do you want, Nurgle? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of—” And then I screamed in terror, any arousal I would’ve had dying right quick as I saw something begin to emerge in the warp some distance behind Nurgle.
And when he turned and saw it, he screamed too. With both of us on the same page we rushed over to find Tzeentch and Khorne, currently standing near the door Luna left to the Dreamscape.
“Oh hey guys.” Tzeentch began. “Khorne just—”
“FORGET THAT! The Anathema is here!” I cried out.
“He’s WHAT?!” Khorne yelled back.
“That’s impossible! Even if he managed to acquire his soul fragments in our absence, the Web-wall is a complete seal around this system, he can’t come in without making a hole, and if he made a hole, we’d notice!”
“Would you stop making up fucking words?!” the God of Courage snapped.
“JUST LOOK!” Nurgle interjected quickly, pointing to the thing we saw, a shining golden star amidst the shifting tides, a single, burning constant, a shining beacon…
An Astronomicon.
“That… that isn’t his.” Tzeentch said.
“...what?”
“It’s too small, Sister, his Astronomicon is big enough to be seen at all edges of the galaxy, even through the Shadow the Tyranid swarm casts upon the Immaterium,” he explained. “This one isn’t big enough for even the star system we’re in, only big enough for reliable transport across the planet, and even then it’s still fluctuating, it’s not anchored in the Warp firm enough.”
“I thought the fluctuations were because it wasn’t connected to the Golden Throne and was a moving entity.”
“Fair, but only a fully restored Emperor could reach us here, and as a fully developed Psychic Being of Godlike Power, his presence would still be enough to outshine the little spark we have here a million times over.”
“Then…” Nurgle hesitated before continuing the horrific question. “Then whose is it?”
We all looked at the shining beacon in the warp, the implications of such a familiar icon not lost on us. We all had the same thought as we gazed upon what could only be a new fledgeling Empress of Ponykind, as so far only one mare was both powerful enough and antagonistic to our presence if Luna’s story to Citric Slide was to be believed.
We need to prepare.
{Ethereal Comments}
Khorne: even from an outside perspective, that was terrifying. It’s like watching a horror movie. Tzeentch: What, like the one we watched about that ooze that made people experience their worst fears to feed off of? Khorne: no, like a good one like Friday the 13th or that FNAF movie… Discord, you good? Discord: You made something small and adorable… you really have changed. All 4, Mental: ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!
{Everyone Prepare For Utter Luna-cy! Two weeks ALI}
Damnation!
To think our holes into the Dreamscape could be found and sealed so fast by the matrix, Starswirl really did over-engineer everything. We had seen it First-hand with the Tree of Harmony that kept the Everfree Forest, that the city was built inside, in check, and now with a seal that we had never had to combat before due to having a calmer demeanour in my youth. To think he predicted our ability to transmit our mind into the Dreamscape as a form of escape.
…Well, either that or he added that in to make sure we never risked intruding on what many a pony have dubbed ‘Wet Dreams’.
*shudder*
But now that is working against us. It takes considerable strain to make holes just long enough for a few minutes, and each time we have no real agency in which dreamer we wish to interact with. The best we have managed to do is spread a warning of Sister’s madness to a scattering of ponies without the ability to see if they understood or made use of it.
we would say we were cut off but… that wasn’t entirely true. Ever since encountering that one space in the Dreamscape, we’ve been able to… feel the emanations, the tides of what is known to us as ‘The Warp’ ever since. Even now within this cage we could feel the faint connection between myself and this realm remain open, as if it was outside the understandings and laws of magic.
Truly fitting for a realm the four Gods of Chaos call their home.
A way out could’ve led through that connection, seek them out directly for assistance in talking some sense into Celestia and yet… that first meeting.
*pleasant shudder*
We think now the colour purple will always end up leaving us with underlying sensations of both lust and terror in equal amounts… as if we didn’t already have issues with our feelings of dread when it came to the colour pink.
Wait a minute… how long was I using the Royal ‘we’ in my head?!
“This isolation is getting to me, either I’m trying to use the Royal ‘we’ for some semblance of normalcy, or my mental degradation is making me begin to develop a second personality.”
Please don't be the latter…
In any case, I would only be using the Warp as an absolute last resort. I still had hope for my sister to come to her senses and release me. Even with my own concerns, it would be best not to involve the four, lest Celestia feels justified in her belief of my corruption when she sees me making use of their aid.
But… why would she even believe we are under their thrall? Does she have so little trust in us? Does she think we are not strong enough to—
GAH! I’m doing it again?! What’s causing that?!
{Third Person}
Unseen by the Princess of the Night, a tendril of darkness reeled itself back from underneath the bed. It recognised plenty from the Alicorn’s thoughts, and that is why it hesitated to reveal itself.
The creature once known as a fearsome creature called an Ebon Geist did not survive this long without adapting… although in truth the Former Warp Predator’s intellect could not be attributed naturally. No, much like the God Malaal that it had followed to this delicious planet, it had been changed by the direct exposure to the inherent magical field of Equis. It had become more than its kin, more than the mindless shadow that killed for short-lived feasts, it was now a creature that indulged in the darkness, fed on the essences of night, and that is what had led it here to begin with. It loved the Alicorn of the Moon, a walking banquet of darkness, the living avatar of night itself, and like a drug addict, it only craved more.
It was ready to claim this avatar for itself, and bathe this world in eternal night, a feast that great, that endless, would surely allow it to multiply. It had prepared to possess the mare the moment her defences, her will and self-worth, dropped… but now it must be patient.
Now they were here, and they were already influencing the world. It was intelligent now, and with its intelligence it knew the sloppy possession, while strong enough to overwhelm the One Who Burns, would not be able to oppose them.
And so the Nightmare Force would take it slow, use this seal to claim her in a gentler way, make it and her intertwine on a mutual level and create a bond that is greater than the mere sum of its parts.
It did not hold any complaint on that, it loved the Alicorn of the Moon.
And bit by bit, the Nightmare would make her love it back~.
{Do robots dream of Electric Tzeentch? If so, that sounds awesome!}
This was a nightmare in the making, I’d very much like to wake up now, please. I bet you’re wondering why I had no desire to wake up earlier, when I had arrived with three other versions of myself in the Immaterium overlapping a system full of talking anthropomorphic ponies spouting friendship… or they would in the future with Twilight and her friends… hopefully.
Well the answer was simple, it was only us in this place; No Imperium, no Orks, no All-Consuming swarm of Space Locusts, none of those things followed us here. I had believed that without any other faction chasing us down, and us having the copied mind of our old human life, we could make something good in this peaceful sanctuary sealed from the rest of the universe.
I had hoped to escape the terrors of Only War, and yet War had followed us anyway. It was like the Galaxy itself hated us simply for what we are and ignored the fact that we were trying to prove ourselves better than the four that came before us, desiring only our suffering. And now this innocent world is caught in the crossfire, and I’m not sure we can even return it to the path.
Maybe I should take a quick peek—NO! Control yourself, Tzeentch, down the road of prophecy lies madness.
But… maybe just a glance at the end, not the steps in between… I can’t be tempted to lie if I don’t know what choices I make to set that future in motion.
I set down my work in the Dreamscape and return my awareness to my main body. Carefully, I reach into myself, into the idea of knowledge, of seeking answers. I pull that concept before me, forming a window into time itself… and I ask it one question.
“What happens in Ponyville one thousand years from now? Don’t show me the road, show me only the destination.”
And as it was a part of myself, the window obeyed. The swirling tides of improbability slowed in a matter of seconds, uncertainty became certainty, maybe became yes, and the maelstrom of potential timelines opened to reveal the most likely.
And I saw a happy and bustling town, ponies trotting up and down the street making conversation. I felt a little joy as I watched such a place so close to the Everfree hold no scars of conflict, and looked almost exactly as it did in the show.
I watched with excitement and relief as a studious lavender unicorn made her way out of her Tree-Library-House with a small purple and green scaled child riding on her shoulders that I recognised as a certain baby dragon. It looked like she had a pair of golden tickets poking out of one of her pockets.
I chuckled as I saw that, reminiscing about that episode. While Celestia was a bit of a jackass for trying to pull that on the Neurotic Bookhorse, considering how the Gala was naturally, it’s entirely possible Celestia used the scarcity of the original two tickets to give a big enough draw to Twilight’s friends. They did some crazy stuff just for the chance of getting that ticket, some pseudo-sunk-cost fallacy would easily kick in now that they all had tickets. Even without their motives, after all the stunts they pulled, the idea of not actually going would never cross their minds.
I had to roll my mechanical optics at that, that kind of chessmaster mindset is something I was trying to avoid. If you treat the world like chess, you need to consider someone your pawn, and I have no desire to see someone as less than me. I mean yeah pawns are actually more undirected balls of potential than something inherently weak considering they can become any other piece in the game except a king, and that includes the extremely powerful queen—aaaand now I’m thinking of that one post saying chess was just two harems fighting each other.
Maybe I should make a chess construct based on that and challenge ponies to ‘harem wars’ to mess with them.
I chuckled to myself as I returned to the window, watching Twilight and her friends getting up to their little misadventure. “Such a lovely future they have… hmm, I wonder where me and my siblings are during all this?”
I should not have asked that.
Suddenly, faster than the human eye would be able to track, the window rippled as the view began to move. It registered only a second too late that it was rushing to Canterlot.
I closed my eyes, I shut the window into time and pulled it back in, but the damage was already done. I had seen it, my brothers, my sister…
…the stone.
I…
I have to stop this!
“NO!” I scream, punching myself in the side of my head! “I will not meddle in fate!!”
You have meddled plenty already. The sound of writhing tentacles beneath my metallic hull echoed around me. All we need to do to save our family is—
“I SAID NO!” I roared in defiance, using my will to suppress the temptations, the tendrils. “I am Tzeentch, Lord of Knowledge, Master of Sorcery! I am not the weaver of fate! My family would never want me to save them by losing myself!
If… if we are to be sealed, then it happens, but I will not change who I am because a potential future is not perfect.”
Whatever influence had washed over me faded just as fast, and I all but collapsed on the floating earth that formed beneath me. I had no need of breath and yet I was clearly winded if the sound of my inhales and exhales were any indication.
“Tzeentch!” I heard a voice barely in the haze, and glanced to see a purple figure rushing over to me. “Are you alright?!”
I looked at my sister who knelt down beside me, her demeanour bereft of lewd mischief or childish excitement, all that was there was a strong, unwavering concern for someone she cared about.
Seeing it, seeing that face after such a horrific brush with what I could’ve become… I could only sob as I clutched onto the Goddess as if my life depended on it.
“No… no I’m not.”
{Ethereal Comments}
Tzeentch: …alright, what are you doing? Slaanesh: Well brother, for a God of Knowledge, it’s shocking to discover you don’t know of a ‘group hug’~. Tzeentch: I know what a hug is, Slaanesh, why are you hugging me, this was years ago! Nurgle: It still scares you though, we noticed you tense up at rewatching that. Tzeentch: Guys, really I’m— Khorne: Just shut up and accept that we love you, you idiot. … Tzeentch: Thanks, guys. Discord: Ugh, get a room. Khorne: Must you ruin everything?
{Open the door, get on the floor, everybody walk the Discord-saur!}
There it is, Galloping Gulch City. the idea someone—oh sorry, somepony managed to make a flourishing city that also happened to be Wild West themed is downright hilarious.
I walked slowly into the city, donned in one of my many preacher disguises. It did good to change up the persona a little each time, doing the exact same thing over and over was maddeningly boring. But… needs must, and I need as many ponies boosting Celestia as possible if I want to make her strong enough for the final battle.
Soon enough I found a Saloon, although the building was much larger than your average tavern structure, the nuance and theme was on point. Almost as if it was scripted, the moment I reached door, a pony was kicked out of the building through the iconic louvered doors. “NO BITS! NO BEER! Come back when you can pay your tab, freeloader!”
Sadly it was unlikely the stallion would get the message, seeing as how he was currently unconscious… he’d probably be fine.
Moving on, I walked into the establishment, finding a lovely subversion of expectations as I opened the swinging doors and walked in, finding the patrons and workers not once pausing in their own activities in response to my entrance.
The silence instead came when I reached the centre of the Saloon and clapped. I admit to putting some of my power into that act, causing the sound to reach the ears of all regardless of the volume or commotion.
“Fellow ponies! I come to you now with portents of doom and terror! Across Equestria, neigh, the entire world! There is a horrid threat that looms over everycreature, looking to take from us our very souls. I come now to ward you against that threat, as a representative of the Temple of Celestia—”
“Celestia?!” The bartender yelled, chewing on what was probably sunflower seeds before launching them in a rather impressive arc into the spitoon by the door. “Haven’t ya heard?! The mare’s gone gosh-darn fruit loops!”
“I… say again??” This was a new predicament, no town before this place had given that response.
“The Mayor got a warning last night, Celestia’s gone utter bananas and locked up her own sister in a magic cage!”
She did what now?
“I got the same message too!” A rather rough looking stallion with a thick beard added. “‘Parently there’s four angels of random that Luna wanted to have a nice sit-down with and the Princess took that personally, called her the crazy one.”
“That is the threat I come to you about!” I declare, trying to recover the initiative. “And they are not four angels of random, but the four Gods of Chaos! They seek to deceive you, and probably put those messages in your head, lying about Luna’s imprisonment—”
“Bullhonkey! It was Luna who gave us the warning! And she says she’s met them personally!” the bearded stallion argued.
“Then she has been corrupted too! Surely their grasping tendrils seek to invade every innocent mind they can reach!”
“Now that just sounds like a cheap excuse!” the bartender spoke up, causing a cheer of agreement to run through the establishment.
“What proof do we have you’re on the up and up, eh?”
“Just come in and start raving about wanting us to join some bullshit sun-cult when the real Celestia hated being called a goddess!”
“Maybe we should hear out what them Chaos Gods have to say if some maniac like you is goin’ about and bad-mouthin’ em.”
“YEAH!”
This isn’t going to plan! Shit! “P-please! Fellow ponies, I know I may be strange, but you must trust me. The Chaos Gods are not our friends, they would take your welcome arms as weakness and turn you on your people! They would harvest your souls like so many fields of wheat—”
“WHEAT?!” A corner of the Saloon exploded with rage as a gang of honest to Warp Redneck Ponies stood up from their table, the leader continued. “Fuck wheat! Gross! Gross!”
“Corn!” the mare to his left yelled, holding up an ear of the vegetable.
“Fuck yeah! Khorne!” another patron yelled, his inflection telling me he spoke of his name and not the plant.
“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” however the Rednecks cheered him on, and soon the noise spread.
I had come in here attempting to convert ponies to the cause of Celestia, and now here I was, fleeing the building as they chanted the name of Khorne, with half of them probably unaware who they were chanting for.
This was the kind of chaos I very much didn’t care for, and that left a bad taste in my mouth.
{Khorne! Khorne! Khorne!}
I laid back in what was my newly moved throne, taking extra care to set the cushions just right before I sat down completely. I was taking the time to set myself somewhere with a perfect view of my domain, and to watch the training of my new Battalions.
And needless to say the direction they took from my memories was… just great.
“Be a Man!”
“We must be swift as a cour-sing ri-ver~.”
“Be a Man!”
“With all the force of a great ty-phoon~.”
“Be a Man!”
“With all the strength of a ra-ging fi-re! Mysterious as the dark side of, THE MOOOOON~!”
I found myself relaxing just that much more as I listened to them train and sing. “Ahh… ain’t the internet, but it is a very close second.”
And then… my seat became extremely uncomfortable.
“What the? Oh come on, I just got this right!” I said, trying to shift around, only to hear the odd sound of rustling leaves and straining stalks. Upon hearing the noise I bolted upright and snapped to look at my throne.
And I found it to have been transformed into a chair made of Corn Plants.
“MY THRONE!” I screamed out in despair and outrage. “MY LOVINGLY UPHOLSTERED CUSHIONS! MY AUTOMATED RECLINING MECHANISM AND BUILT IN MASSAGER! MY CUP HOLDERS!!!”
Beneath my helmet, my widened eyes and dropped jaw gave way to a furious scowl and snarling fangs.
“SOMEONE IS GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!!!”
{Ethereal Comments}
Tzeentch:... Nurgle:... Slaanesh:... Discord:... Khorne:... APPARENTLY YES!! Discord: wait Khorne I can explain—put down the— *WHAM!* Slaanesh: Ooh! Khorne coming in with the steel chair! Discord is gonna feel that one in the morning! Discord: You’re not helping! Slaanesh: Helping?
[Warning: This is a chapter of Slaanesh doing Slaanesh things, if you are not up for horny shenanigans, well… I would say skip this chapter but this is still part of the plot]
{Speaking of Slaanesh~. Three weeks ALI}
“Mmnnh~.” I moaned out slowly as another mini-orgasm ran through me tip-to-tail. “I love giving birth~!”
…I should probably give a bit more of an explanation, shouldn’t I?
Well sometime after Tzeentch recovered from his breakdown, and refused many of my offers of cuddling up in a bed for comfort—
“I know damn well it’s not gonna stick to cuddling with you involved, and right now I don’t need any other excuse to give myself tentacles again.”
“Mechadendrites.”
“I fucking hate how you have a point there.”
—He managed to get us all together for another important part of preparation, readying our ‘troops’ as it were. He figured out from Khorne’s own experiences that creating a daemon can be done one of two ways: The first being our brother’s more simple attempt of removing a chunk of ourselves and letting it reform. This was the method we should avoid if we can help it, as not only is ripping body parts off is extremely painful, the raw essence of the four and the Warp simply do not fucking care that the consciousness in control is wanting to be a good being now. No matter how we’ve changed, the Warp, even this isolated piece of it, remembers our sins. That’s why Khorne almost got a Bloodthirster instead of the Honour Guards he has now, the piece had no intelligence of its own and so defaulted to the imprint of the Immaterium to shape itself, and the Immaterium before now had only known Khorne the Warmonger, Tzeentch the Liar, Nurgle the Pestilent, and Slaanesh the everything-addict.
Thankfully Khorne’s attempts to curtail such a monstrous creation is what led to discovering the second method; Our intent is to create daemons, and so in the tides of the realm of souls, it is a simple matter of performing acts of creation with intent. Not only does this let us choose what form our daemons take, we’ve also been able to stylise the methods we take to fit our aspects.
Khorne’s was obviously forging his daemons from the earth of the islands that all seemed to form within the Warp, adding onto his theme of ‘The Fire of Justice’.
Tzeentch built factories that assemble his mechanical servants, and those of a more etheric nature instead manifested from power plants he called ‘Surge Nexii’ that essentially created tesla cascades on a central podium; in essence his spirit-like daemons were born of lightning.
Nurgle’s was a no-brainer, he had already been doing a lot of creation even before he knew he could create Warpspawn from it. What was once a tiny little patch of flowers became a massive sprawling garden across his domain full of daemonic beings of both plant and animal disposition. Alraunes, Dryads, Treants, Beastkin, Harpies. It was practically an entire ecosystem!
And as for me? The idea is what invoked the first change I made to my body outside of aesthetics. That wasn’t to say it didn’t look good, it was a sleek, smooth and supple tail of reptilian shape, a long prehensile thing that tapered off into a rounded point; but the look isn’t why I created it.
No, I created it because my method of creating daemons was laying eggs~.
*pop*
“AAHhnn~!!” I moaned again as yet another came out, oh it was bliss to feel all the various sizes and shapes travel down the long appendage, stretching out the tip before being pushed out on the little nest I made. I knew it would be, after all I designed it to work like that, and the only thing that would feel better with this tail would be to use it to lay eggs inside someone~.
That wasn’t important right now though. What was important was my newest egg. I looked over to it, a large egg, long and rounded on both ends like a pill and yet big enough to fit a tree inside. There were many smaller eggs in various shapes and sizes, and even some ‘infertile’ ones I had done to test the tail as well as maybe use for a nice omelette later, but this one was important. See, this was going to be my first greater daemon, and I wanted to make sure—
*crack*
And that was the moment I was waiting for. The daemon was hatching, and I sat there, waiting to welcome it into the Empyrean.
Slowly, the shell was pushed apart by four powerful limbs, each one soft and delicate looking, even as it ripped apart the casing I had made to be as tough as Adamantium. It was also very precise, cutting the shell open in a straight line around the centre. Just these little tidbits gave me great hope that I had put everything together correctly, she was to be capable of being as gentle as a mother, as precise as a Marksman… and casually able to rip an Astartes Terminator in half for good measure.
Finally, the daemon emerged, her purple hide distinct, her long flowing sapphire tendrils for hair (they could be any colour, but just imagine all the questions Khorne and Nurgle will have about why my daughter has blue tentacles~, hehehe.) that I knew could lengthen and recede at her will. Her shining amber eyes looked at me with excitement and joy as she climbed out, her long and winding serpent-like tail of a lower body trailing behind her as she moved to greet me.
In joy, I lowered my head down to meet hers, and did not even hide the happy giggles as she latched onto and nuzzled my nose.
“Hello, my little daughter.” I greeted.
“Mmm… mommy~.” she purred back, and I had to fight down the urge to make use of my mouth so close to her two cocks.
“Ooh~, none of that now, we’re working.” I ‘chided’ the little one as she broke the hug. “Your name shall be Estallia, and your race of Daemon is known as Embrace.”
“Oh, is that why I have the disposition to wrap people up when I’m fucking them?” she added with a smirk.
“Well, if you don’t like it, I could’ve gone with the original plan and have you be a daemon called a ‘Sedusa’~.”
“No no! I like Embrace, I’ll make sure to embrace a lot!” she said quickly. “Please don’t make me a daemon with a shitty pun name.”
I giggled at her panic. “Oh relax Esta, I am only joking. I’d never have my children be stuck with stupid monikers like that.”
As she visibly relaxed, I watched her look at me with curiosity. “So what would you have me do? Join my siblings at The Unyielding Tower?”
“Oh no, they’re doing perfect on their own. I just felt it was time for me to create a Greater Daemon of my own so I’m not left behind by my brothers… but as for tasks, perhaps you could help me with some potential new followers.” I stand up and lead my ‘little’ girl over to a clutch of lights I had herded over to one of the other islands. “You see, many of them have come from a certain stallion boasting about how a sexy goddess sucked him off through his soul, and so many are asking for a more… intimate rendition. Unfortunately I’m still having trouble in the… size department in ironically the opposite direction than with a lot of males. I can’t get my girth and length down enough for the mares and even if I could the proportions would make thrusting awkward, and I don’t trust my pussy at this size to not succ the stallions into my uterus and unbirth their souls.”
“So my first day at work is that I have to have sex with all these souls… I love you mommy~.”
She needed no prompting after that, starting her work on who I recalled to be a Baron who had granted our two followers sanctuary on his land. I believe he was given the rather pretentious name of ‘Glistening Leggings’, and he admitted to finding the name too much for him. Now the stallion was currently coiled up in horny snek futa and getting his ethereal shaft stimulated with the ten paradoxical flavours of inner muscles an Embrace’s pussy held. All designed so it was nigh impossible to pull out, feel so good you’d never want to, and ‘blessed’ so you wouldn’t ever suffer any soreness or fatigue no matter how long you were inside.
“Oh mommy! He’s making such cute little whimpers from me milking his cock~!”
Ffffuck, that's so hot~!
I could not help the tinge of envy, even as I fingered myself to the show. This envy was to both sides, as I wanted to indulge in sating my devoted ones’ desires, as well as wished to partake in Estallia’s skills. I could not place blame on any of them though, as the fault lay in my inability to downscale my form. If I wished to taste such pleasures, I’d need to figure such a thing out… on the plus side, it did mean I was not without motivation.
HELP!
My form shudders as a sudden cry of what could only be an untrained Psyker rips through my domain, it dances across the landscape, up the mountains and down the valleys. It goes through me and then straight to my first monument, The Unyielding Tower, an immensely tall and deliciously girthy cylindrical structure, veins of energy from the ground pulsing along its outer walls. The base of the tower was partially wider than the main shaft, as if the rest of the tower could recede into it. A bit further up there was a ring that bulged out somewhere at the midpoint before continuing on. This all culminated at the top which flared out like one of those flat-headed mushrooms save for a nub on the roof that appeared to be some kind of chimney. It danced through all its floors before cascading down to the two domes connected to the tower that supplied it with energy and fluids.
I rushed over to—
{Ethereal Comments}
Tzeentch: Now wait just a minute! Slaanesh… Slaanesh: Yes, brother? Tzeentch: Did you make yourself a horse-cock and then turn it into a monument for all your children to run around in for stimulation? Slaanesh: Actually, you’re partially wrong there. The Unyielding Tower is my penis, yes, but it was actually made into a conduit for refining Warp Energy, specifically my Warp Energy. Discord: For what purpose? You’re not a mortal Psyker, it’d be pointless to focus your energy. Slaanesh: Heh, typical of you Brother, always missing the obvious. If my Daemons can refine and focus the energy I’m made out of, that means I’d have far more control over what form the energy can take, be it specific shapes or specific sizes. Nurgle: Oh! You’re having the Daemons refine your essence so you can actually scale it down to pony sizes! Slaanesh: see, Nurgle gets it! Now let’s hurry up and see me fucking up in helping out. Khorne: Sister, you might be a little pessimistic there— Slaanesh: Nurgle fucked up and turned a guy into a Tree, You Accidentally’d a Rebellion, Tzeentch had an existential crisis that almost turned him into a mollusc again, and Discord is currently creating a Goddess Empress of Ponykind that may or may not have become a Chaos God far worse than what our original selves ever were, it’s pretty clear all of us have fucked up now LET’S. MOVE. ON. Tzeentch: okay! Okay!
{Back To Slaanesh}
—the source of the sound to find something interesting. It was a pair of souls, one smaller than the other, with the larger of the two radiating great feelings of despair. The smaller soul was worryingly quiet, and I was not getting enough info from spheres of consciousness. Quickly, I make use of my Clairvoyance spell, opening the window over the two souls so as to properly direct the view instead of the normal way which had the vision contract ADHD and flicker to the first thing it found interesting.
The image came about and immediately I realised the trouble. The larger soul, clearly the Psyker, was an Earth Pony mare. She had a soft red coat and a brown mane and tail with black highlights… and said mare was a MILF, like, ‘Button Mash’s Mom in all the SFM Porn’ type MILF. She happened to be in some form of archaic medical ward cradling the smaller soul.
“Please… Great Mother Of The Warp… I will give you everything I have.” She sobbed, the title she gave me resonating with my form in a way that brought me a warm, non-sexual pleasure. “Just please, save him…”
I got a better look at the little foal in her arms, a newborn, he was so frail, so weak, his breath… nonexistent.
“Oh fuck! Okay, think Slaanesh, think!” I racked my brain for a solution, I couldn’t just heal the child, that was Nurgle’s thing, and the idea of ‘rebirthing’ the kid might not go so well.
Fuck, the old four were bastards but at least they had it easier without ‘morals’, all they needed to do was just possess fuckers and—
*DING*
“That’s it! His pony soul is too weak to force the body to function but a Daemon is far more stubborn! If I implant some Daemonic essence into him, he should become a Daemon and possess his own body before it can become a corpse!”
Now, in any other case, I would not even consider this, Daemonic transformations without proper care or preparation can risk a loss of ego. That risk didn’t exist with this soul, he was so new he didn’t even have any personality yet, and he would live a life as a material, so I wouldn’t have say in how he turned out. The worst this’d do is probably make him develop into some kind of Pony Incubus when he hit puberty, and yeah, being gifted as the one stallion that can outlast every mare in his town during Estrus is gonna be such a downside.
Without any further hesitation, I touched the tiny soul with my nail, and focused on channelling my raw Daemonic energy into it. Drop by drop the little ball of white slowly had a sensual purple overtake its colour. As the last of it entered I watched as the soul transformed completely into an Orb of Daemon Essence, a Slaaneshii Soul.
Not even a second later, I heard the crying of a foal. I turned to the window and watched as the mother held the colt with tears in her eyes. I did notice that the child’s once white coat was now covered with intricate swirling patterns of my signature purple, but the markless flank was a good sign. Wouldn’t do for me to deny someone so young the chance to discover their special talent.
“Thank you… thank youGreat Mother. I owe you everything. Please, consider me your loyal servant.”
Well… I would’ve done it for free, but I won’t turn down new followers, funnily enough I’m lagging behind the rest.
Yeah, turns out there was just this city off in the west of Equestria, Galloping Gulch if I recall correctly, that just suddenly exploded with followers of Khorne and Nurgle without our input. There was so much green and red intermingling there that you could mistake the place for being Christmas themed. Apparently the majority of Khorne followers there ticked him off and he had to explain he was not a God of Corn, and they’d need to go to Nurgle for plant stuff, and that he was a God of Honour, Loyalty, and apparently now competitive sports.
Tzeentch on the other hand ended up meeting Luna again and… well…
{Flashback, 3 days earlier, Ladies and Gentleman, this is Tzeentch No. 5}
“Tzeentch?!” The Alicorn of the Night exclaimed as she arrived to one of the strangest sights from an outside perspective without context.
See I had just helped a lovely Unicorn mare who had been having the classic terrors of exam anxiety… except the Exam was to get an official mage’s certificate from an Archwizard. I couldn’t help her with it and she didn’t want help, so the least I could do was allow her to actually get a good night’s rest, and I merely plucked the memory of her favourite tea for us to enjoy.
My abilities were so much easier to use through the Dreamscape than the Warp, mainly because I’m limited to only dreams and the mind instead of having to navigate through an entire fucking soul to do something small like read a memory.
On top of that considering I was in the Realm of Dreams and not the Realm of Souls, I could literally say ‘fuck you’ to whatever psyker rules deny me from altering my size and just scale down with a thought.
And that is how Luna came to see me sitting with the mare sharing tea at a mushroom-themed table.
“Hello Luna, don’t worry, I’ve already given Nascent Spark the heads up. Care for some tea? It’s Chineighse Dragonleaf.”
“I can’t afford time for tea! I only have minutes before the Matrix seals up my—wait how are you in the Dreamscape?”
“Oh, I used the door you left in the Warp.”
She blinked, unconsciously sitting down at the table in surprise. “But… only I can use the doors to Dreams, even those that taught me the magic of Dreamwalking needed to be directly connected to the pony to enter their mind.”
“Well…” I began, ready to explain the Warp, but stopped. Like Luna said, she had only minutes here. “Nevermind, there’s not enough time to explain, you speak of a matrix attempting to hold your escape through magical means? How about we make a deal?”
The mare’s eyes widened in surprise, but then narrowed in anger. “A deal? Are you going to ask me to offer up my soul?”
“Oh believe me, we treat souls as precious as they should be, nothing I could offer you would be worth your soul unless I offered up my own.” That seemed to stupify her for a second. “No, it’s a simple trade, a spell for a spell. You grant me your knowledge of Dreamwalking, and I will teach you the spell of a Psyker, you certainly have the potential to become one.”
“And what is this spell?”
“I like to call it ‘Astral Projection’. A… former associate of mine created it in defiance of his father, and was able to use it to enter the Warp while their body remained in the physical world.”
“I… I do still feel the connection to your realm, but—”
“Wait… don’t tell me, you’re scared of Slaanesh.” the rather shameful droop of her ears told me all I need to know. “Don’t worry, since you will be ‘gifted’ with my knowledge of a spell, you’ll have a firmer connection with me, and manifest in my territory, where I have the door. So not only will you have me to ensure she does nothing drastic, but you’ll have a quick escape to the Dreamscape.”
“That sounds… relieving, alright, we have an accord.”
With a nod, I placed my hand on her muzzle, wielding my power, taking what I was owed and giving her what she needed. “It is done, maybe next time we meet we can speak of how to deal with Celestia’s growing power.”
“What do you mean? Is she attempting to conquer other lands now?!”
“No, but she—” and then she blinked out. “Ah fuck… well hopefully our friend can use what I’ve given her to escape her shackles, if only for a time.”
I then pulled on a thread and pulled my essence out of the Dreamscape and back into the Warp.
{Flashback End. Back Inside Slaanesh…’s POV}
Yeah, both forgot about the mare witnessing a meeting of gods, and when she woke up she decided to form a freaking Shadow Cult for Tzeentch and Luna. They call themselves the Nightwatch, and the massive boom of followers didn’t come from people who wished to worship Tzeentch, but instead Luna. a lot of rural communities had a good share of Night Owls, and that meant a lot of ponies, ponies that Luna would have never known of within the Everfree City, cared deeply for the one who so beautifully crafted the stars. With the connected nature of the cult, all of Luna’s followers became Tzeentch’s in turn, to the point where he ended up gaining an aspect of the moon.
So everyone suddenly had a boom of followers, and I was kinda left in the dust. However, I wasn’t bitter about it, but I no less appreciated every devoted I got.
…huh, somehow I felt one of my decisions was going to screw something up but—
“Mommy! I’m done!” I heard Estallia call, and I happily turned to her.
…and found all the souls I left her with beginning to float free from the island.
“Esta… sweetie, why are the souls doing that?”
“Huh? Oh yeah I fucked them all to death.”
“YOU WHAT?!”
“Well they asked me to!”
“Esta we’re supposed to ensure enjoyment, pleasure and satisfaction! Help me put these back in!” I scrambled to herd the souls back to their bodies.
“...I wasn’t satisfied.” she muttered to herself.
She didn’t think I heard her, but I did, so I decided to finish restarting the hearts of my people before pulling my little snek daughter into a hug. “Well, I’ll make sure to fix that, okay?”
“...okay…” she murmured again before looking at the souls. “...you mixed up a couple mares and stallions.”
“I wha—OH SON OF A—”
{Ethereal Comments}
Tzeentch: huh, I thought you saving the newborn was gonna be where you fucked up. Slaanesh: I know right? But I think how I messed up with my first Embrace was just as bad. Nurgle: what happened with that, anyway? Slaanesh: I based her and my other Daemons off of Hentai games and anime in our memories. When it was just the Lesser Daemons like Caresses and Smooches, they were able to sate themselves properly with their tasks. Discord: let me guess, Greater Daemons have stronger needs? Slaanesh: actually no, the problem was that I forgot the only being all my Daemons have been intimate with in any sense so far is me, I never set them to handle ponies. T+K+N: Bruh. Slaanesh: well sorry for wanting to give my kids a good time without accidentally shocking them into sex comas!
“My Lord! We have managed to acquire one of the new Daemons, it is of Slaaneshii ilk.” One of the two Grey Knights spoke as they reported to their Grand Master.
The man was none other than Aldrik Voldus, a powerful psyker without peer in the chapter, Leader of the Third Brotherhood, Warden of the Librarius, and devoted servant to the Emperor. His brothers had been set out on the borders of Imperial Territory by the Ordo Malleus after a sudden resurgence of Daemonic Incursions into realspace, something never seen since the disappearance of the Dark Gods and the emergence of a new major Aeldari Faction dubbed ‘The Fallen’ which resulted in the Craftworld Aeldari becoming even fewer in number than they already were. It didn’t take long before the Knights and the Ordo by extension learned that the Four had returned, worse still, that they were united and dragging along a new Daemon World with them that had granted them as of yet still not understood powers.
But the tide was stemmed before it could surge, and the Grey Knights were able to fight off even the newest monsters formed by the Gods of Chaos. It was a difficult ordeal however, new daemons had meant new names, and with the witness of one of the new ‘Honour Guards’ attacking and slaying a Bloodthirster, the old Daemons were being removed. This development meant that the Book of Names that Ordo Malleus had written was now useless and they would need to find the names of these creatures from scratch.
But the Knights were one step closer, they now had one of them.
Aldrik nodded and silently followed the two knights to a chamber, where the caged Daemon struggled in its binds. From the description it was a Greater Daemon that had been given the disgustingly ironic moniker of ‘Embrace’ by the newly dubbed ‘Goddess of Pleasure’, most likely for its disposition of squeezing their victims like the serpents its lower body takes after.
The fact the tendrils that made up its ‘hair’ were blue only told Aldrik that this thing was a wretched half-breed of the Puppetmaster Tzeentch as well. The creature itself was held down within the cage by holy chains that burned at the parts of the body they were clasped around, the blasts it had attempted to throw at its captors halted by the attuned nature of its prison. The only oddity was that the monster seemed to recoil and writhe from the pain of its searing flesh negatively, as though it despised the sensation.
“It is of no use, Warpspawn,” One of the Justicars working to divine the abomination’s name spoke in response to the Daemon’s struggles. “Those chains have been blessed by the Emperor himself and anointed with the blood of his most devoted followers of the Sisterhood. You shall not break them so easily.”
“Oh yes, and I’m sure your dear Emperor loves it when you slaughter his people in his name, and you wonder why there are humans that aren’t as gung-ho about your faith as you are—GHK!” it gags as one of the knights tugged on the chain wrapped around its neck so as to silence its deceptions. “Hey, watch it! I’m not into Choking, you’d need to see one of my sisters for that kink!”
“Enough!” Aldrik declares. “Your ‘Goddess’ holds no power in our sacred temple, Warp Filth, it would do you well to reveal your name soon so that you may receive the Emperor’s mercy.”
“Oh, I’d be all up for being at your Emperor’s ‘mercy’, dear, oh I can just imagine what he’d do to me in his righteous fury, throwing me to the ground with that strength and forcing me to submit to his rippling muscular form~, mmmm, Harder Daddy~.”
*BOOM* The thundering blast of a bolter erupted, and impacted the ceiling, one of Aldrik’s brothers rather justifiably having attempted to put a round through the bitch’s head before another stopped him, lest he damage the cage or chains and release it.
The Daemon only giggled in amusement at their actions before its tone became serious. “And you are welcome to try and find my true name, but Mother Slaanesh and her siblings have gotten a bit more creative in protecting our identities since you last saw them.”
“Brother Aldrik I have pierced the vei—... what is this…?” the Justicar spoke slowly.
“Justicar Michael, what is it?”
“It… it says it’s a ‘Captcha’.”
“What the hell is a Captcha?” a fellow Justicar asked.
“I don’t know, but it blocks my vision, it won’t allow me to pass until I prove I’m not an Abominable Intelligence. Yet all it gives me is a strange image and a box.”
Aldrik pondered before asking. “Is there anything strange about the image, Brother?”
“There appear to be symbols within it, a letter ‘A’, some numbers, and an Ampersand.”
“Attempt to imprint those symbols into the box in order, it is clearly a code of some kind.”
“...yes! I am through Lord Aldrik! And I believe I have found a clue to the beast’s name!”
“Speak it aloud.”
“Yes, the clue appears to be some form of riddle ‘to reach the answer, you must learn of Ligma’.”
The other Justicar seemed to flinch in shock, and moved to speak before the Knight watching over the chain to the daemon’s neck absently asked. “What is Ligma?”
“BROTHER! NO!”
“Ligma Balls~,” The daemon answered after the knight asked, the Justicar too late to stop it.
“AAAAA—” and the knights all watched in horror as the one who asked was just instantly vaporised in agony, not even his armour was left.
Aldrik stared at where the man had stood and involuntarily exclaimed:
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
The daemon remained in captivity for five more days before the Brotherhood decided to just slay the creature instead of sacrificing more time and brothers to it.
They never learned Estallia’s True Name.
They didn’t even manage to get around the third defence, by the sheer fact that said third defence was an image of Estallia in a ski mask with the caption ‘Seduce Me’.
