Pinkie Pie rifled through a file cabinet, one of twenty-six arranged in a circle, this one labeled “L”.

“No, no, no, no… There you are, Lokha.”

She pulled the ochre folder, and pored over the little girl’s life history. Lokha Styrbjorn, daughter of Orgon Styrbjorn, Goromandy tribe, eleven years of age, her favorite color and foods, her friends, and…

Her friends. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were near the bottom of the list, probably having met her recently. Pinkie Pie suddenly felt a knot in her throat.

No, this was an opportunity to make it up to them, make it great. Pinkie tucked the folder in her mane, and was already prancing around the cave, sequestering the basics for a youth’s party.

It felt liberating to be able to do this again. Not fighting, or settling another one of Sigvald’s petty niggles. The celebration in the burning ruins of Praag was on another level, the music, the wine, smoke, noise, food. She’d woken the day after, cuddling half a stallion, and with a hangover enough to kill a man. Even with the lingering migraine, days later, she finally had time to herself, to work, and hoped to bring her talent to the older people of the horde.

Under the light of hanging discoballs, she passed the armory, taking a box of filly-safe fireworks, and some low-yield confetti bombs. She juggled the ordnance in brief practice, wondering how Rarity must have felt when in the attack on Praag’s citadel. She’d been a split-second too late to shield herself and Spike from a Kislevite bomb, and the amount of shrapnel removed from her legs was nauseating to see. Rarity would have to minimize the time spent on her own two talons for a while, and Pinkie was happy to help ease the burden.

Pinkie missed a beat, and a grenade had slipped through her claw and bounced across the floor. She caught up with it at the back of the armory, where it stopped against the skid of a pedal-powered helicopter. She blew the film of dust from the handles and seat, memories and ideas of helicopter rides for the young ones coming to the fore. It would need a major overhaul first. Trying to mount it, she almost laughed at how much she’d outgrown the machine; her bottom spilled over the seat’s edges, and her head was among the rotor blades.

Pinkie firmly rubbed her belly to rouse its contents. “Hey, Rarity, wakey-wakey...”

A heavy weight shifted under the muscles of her guts, and Rarity moaned back, “Hmm… yes?"

“I need to fly my chopper for a few minutes, so things might get a bit bumpy.”

“Oh. Alright. Where do you even find these things?”

“I build these myself, silly. I never told you that? Where I keep them, ehh you don’t need to worry about that. Just enjoy the ride.” Pinkie hunched over to avoid the rotor, and started to pedal. Thwopping gusts of air pushed the contraption off the ground. “Oh, and does Sweetie Belle have a fear of heights? Should this be fully enclosed, or would that ruin the view, or...”

Gunning the underpowered mechanism, she flew straight up the heli tube, and reentered the Old World.

“The King in the North! The King in the North! Here comes the King in the North! The King in...”

The soldiers paraded around the corpse of another infiltrator, in parody of Archaon. Tied upright to a horse, a foil-wrapped boar’s head was bolted to his shoulders where a man’s should have been. Onlookers laughed at their passing.

Rainbow Dash was sweating, watching them pass. Though her disguise seemed to be holding for now.

“Geoffrey, come on!”

Rainbow Dash hurried to catch up with her ‘friends’. Trutwin, Lukas, Wortwin, and Voltz. She was the 6th Company Captain, 27th Ostland Spears regiment. She was Geoffrey Wurtz, and Geoffrey Wurtz was being paraded around with a boar’s head on his shoulders, and another dead man’s tags around his neck.

The chapel set aside for the ceremony was new, of unweathered marble, with a bright blue-tiled roof. Rainbow glanced up as she entered, looking to a crowned skull on a golden cross in stained glass. The interior was abuzz with nobles, officers both retired and current, even dwarf emissaries. Security was everywhere. A Reiksguardsman was at every colonnade, four at the preacher’s podium alone.

She took a wine glass from a passing waiter, and glanced about for the Emperor, or the Princesses. She avoided her ‘friends’ and talking to anyone as much as she could help it, and made up some bits of Geoffrey’s life when compelled to share by Trutwin. Damn him, he was practically using her as a conversation crutch when his memory failed. Eventually she managed to excuse herself from the party, and trailed off on her own exploration.

She actually got invested in a conversation with Filthy Rich, a familiar face who was starting to show his age. He’d rebuilt his wealth almost from scratch since the Fall of Equestria, and contributed to Spitfire’s consolidation of order in Cloudsdale. Perhaps she’d spare him a thought once she went after the royalty, and try not to step on him.

“Starting over… it was surreal,” Rich said. “Maybe a fifth of the ponies you knew made it out of the Fall, and now you’re stuck in an alien land, at the mercy of another species. No offense.”

“None taken.” ‘Geoffrey’ snickered, and sipped the wine. Sipping was something she had to learn the hard way. This stuff wasn’t like Equestrian cider, let alone Applejack’s homemade brand, and knocking back her first glass of Bretonnian wine nearly made her gag. If there was one thing she was grateful for, it was that it at least helped her stay in character. “Things moved so fast since your lot fell from the sky. How did you find your way back up?”

“Logistics, management. There’s a reason my cutie mark is money bags. The princesses put me and some other business types in charge of keeping everypony in line early on, and to prove we could contribute to the Empire. I was flattered when Mr. Gelt called our magic, ‘casually mastered’.”

“He must have been terrified knowing there was such magic freely flying around.”

“Oh, you have no idea; the regulations were stifling! ‘Earth ponies cannot lift more than twice their bodyweight’, ‘Imperial citizens must report any unsanctioned use of unicorn magic, down to telekinesis’!” Rich choked up a moment. “You’ve seen the Punished Blind?”

Rainbow shook her head. “I grew up out here, on the frontier. There’ve never been many ponies around here. News of race relations doesn’t carry out here much.”

“Right. The Blind were unicorns who were caught freely using magic, and had their horns filed down to the forehead. The lighter patch of fur looks like a third, blind eye.”

“Disgusting, that. Like taking a man’s hands away.” Rainbow squeezed her glass tightly, and put it on the outgoing tray of another passing waiter. “Better times for your lot now?”

Rich nodded. “For us all. Well, it would be, if not for that rabble beyond the wall.”

The steeple bell sounded, reverberating in the stony hall.

“May I have your attention, please?" A page called out from the podium. “It is my honor to introduce, Karl Franz Holswig Schliestein, the Emperor Himself and Son of Emperors. Celestia, Eye of Heaven. Luna, Mother of Moon and Stars.

Rainbow Dash felt her blood boil at the sight of them as they strode to the top of the stairs, all smiles and grace as applause greeted them. She slowly eased forward between onlookers.

Sure was nice of you to just forget us. Abandon us.

“Here we are, at the new edge of the world,” Franz said. Power punctuated every word, and he raised his arms. “Our efforts have culminated in this, the ultimate bastion to defend the world of men. I applaud each and every one of you, your contributions to build it, defend it. It is a shame Lord Balthasar could not attend, for without his genius, this would not have been possible.”

The crowd made a rumble of assent and clinking glasses. Rainbow advanced, building up the energy within for her transformation.

Mother of stars, Eye of Heaven… ugh! You think you're some kind of gods now?

Her skin hardened to steel, her fingers merging together into a short blade under her sleeve. The human blockade of Reiksguard was but a few meters away. Franz was nearing the end of his speech when the chapel doors slammed open thunderously, and someone screamed.

“ASSASSIN!”

A bolt of lightning dropped Balthasar Gelt before the Triumvirate. He was ragged and wheezing, his golden mask streaked with red tears.

Rainbow saw Celestia, Luna, and Franz stand bolt upright, unbent by the blinding flash and loud boom of the Patriarch's entrance. The Emperor was staring hotly at Balthazar, one hand on Ghal Maraz, and saying something quickly, but she couldn't make it out over the sudden distress of the crowd.

Balthazar didn't respond to whatever it was either way, instead gesturing frantically with one hand and yelling, “Seal the doors. Let no one out!”

Rainbow felt her gut drop. Now or never.

In the commotion, as the Reiksguard attempted to contain the fearful crowd, Rainbow pushed people out of her way. As she drew closer, she made out more of Gelt’s plea with the triarchs. He’d had a vision, he said; it was not safe, they must get out.

Rainbow reached a metal hand between two guests and toward the last knight in her way. He was distracted with someone shouting at him to open the doors. She aimed just above the gorget, right for the throat.

“Unhand me!” Gelt shouted as another knight took him by the collar.

A wicked aurora passed between Gelt’s hand and the knight attempting to stop him from grabbing the triarchs. A screaming body of light separated from the knight, wearing his face.

“No, no, stop!” Gelt wrestled his own arm down, and the knight collapsed in a gasping heap.

The guardsman before Rainbow turned sharply towards Gelt, his hand already moving towards his sword. She un-steeled her flesh, pointed at the Patriarch, and yelled, “Necromancy! It’s him!”

Celestia and Luna, their faces riven like thunderclouds, immediately forced Gelt to his knees with the force of their combined telekinesis, covering him in a flaring aura of clashing gold and blue. Franz was half-turned into a combat stance when members of the Reiksguard on either side surged forward to bracket the three rulers and surround the fallen patriarch.

But the damage was already done. The crowd surged in panic, and broke free of the containment. Dozens of nobles poured from the chapel, shouting of assassins and the patriarch practicing unholy magic. The word spread like wildfire, and within minutes reached the ley nodes. The wizard covens maintaining the Auric Bastion’s magic were thrown into confusion at the prospect of forbidden arts holding up the walls, and the madness dark magic could destroy them with. One by one, the ley nodes went dark, and the bastion’s magic waned.

Gutrot Spume’s fleet had been reassigned to prowl the Sea of Claws. Delays in the Everchosen’s army moving on the Empire had mounted. Still, the fleet was not idle, partaking in coastal raids and battle with the Imperial Navy on the seas in recent days. The flagship was like a rotting whale, surrounded by schools of teeming escorts. There were more than one hundred ships in the fleet, with pustule- and rot-covered Nurglites working them like swarms of ants.

Applejack laid in her hammock, unable to rest after the most recent letter from her friends, only stare at the algae-covered boards, and the bugs crawling across them. The letters had been coming regularly, detailing their goings-on. Praag burned, Twilight experimenting with forms of magic, Rarity’s injury and recovery from a grenade.

In the latest, Rainbow Dash had been given a mission to take out the Imperial leadership. She felt the reason Archaon gave was horse apples, and recognized Rainbow’s penmanship. “You will face many challenges, one after the other. I will send you on your most dangerous, so I know I’m not wasting my time.” Rainbow hadn’t been slated to go in for days, and Applejack lost nights of sleep over when the time would come.

She heard heavy footsteps approaching, a rhythm of wheezing hydraulics and clunking metal.

“Macintosh, I told you I ain’t playing no driftwood banjo. It’s an art that deserves a real instrument.”

A few badly tuned notes made her head turn. Apple Bloom struggled to get her hooves around the instrument, and clumsily played out a few strums. A cowpony hat made of seaweed rested on Macintosh’s facial horn. A note was tied to the middle with a big ‘Happy Birthday!’ in gold glitter.

Applejack sat up and took the hat. “Aw, shoot…”

“With everything goin' on, I’m surprised Pinkie Pie still keeps track of everypony’s birthdays,” said Apple Bloom. “She even made this here banjo, and we made you the hat. It was uh… a challenge, sayin' the least.”

Macintosh rolled his eyes. “Yep.”

“And I can’t fault neither of you for losin’ track. Date system here ain’t exactly the same as Equestria’s.” Applejack paused in the middle of tying the chinstrap. “So Spike can send other things, ‘sides paper?”

Apple Bloom plucked another sour note. “Guess so.” She handed over the banjo, a well-made construction of polished steel fittings and still smelling of varnish.

Applejack expertly tuned it. She strummed a few melodious chords, and laughed. “I gotta send them a raven askin' how that whole thing works. Ya think Spike could send a lit bomb dropping into ponies’ laps? Or how bout droppin' you in the middle of a block of Empire troops?”

Macintosh shrugged. “Could be useful. Shame he ain’t here.”

Whistling and calls to the main deck on the floors above roused the rest of the crew. Applejack hastily hugged Macintosh, and they went with the flow of bodies to the main deck.

Midday on the sea, the banners of the plague fleet hung in full view, illuminated by glow-bug lanterns. Dozens of zombified Imperials were speared along the hull, moaning and thrashing uselessly at the sea, grim trophies of recent raids.

The masses gathered, attention fixed on Gutrot Spume on the poop deck. A pox-ridden raven perched on his shoulder, and he held a balled-up parchment in a fist. Once he judged there were enough in attendance, he held up the paper.

“Took them long enough! Practice your sword arms, and weigh anchor. We’re on for Marienburg!”

Cheers erupted from the congregation. Big Macintosh crushed Applejack in a hug, and with a free hoof, Applejack tossed her hat skyward with a whistle.

Rarity opened her eyes. The mundane world of flesh caged her again. The lightform always felt so liberating, like the purest form of being, the liberation of the soul. But van Horstmann warned her that such joy cannot last long. Many an acolyte refused to return to their bodies while in the lightform, believing themselves enlightened and ascended, only for their souls to dissolve into the Warp, and their bodies left comatose husks.

She stood up from Spike’s lap, straightening out her chainmail robe, and rested a hand on the prow of Fluttershy’s howdah. The Auric Bastion had a ghastly wound, a breach more than two hundred feet across. Pummeled open by artillery, then widened by two previous assaults.

“Did you see anything?” asked Spike.

“Not much. Fluttershy?”

The giant turned her head slightly and grunted.

“Don’t stop at the trenches. There are tanks you’ll need to contend with behind them.”

Fluttershy impatiently pawed the ground, and many more monstrosities bayed their impatience around her, like hounds, waiting to be unleashed. Some of their bodies flickered, as if not wholly there, their existence sustained by the turmoil of both sides, and imminent slaughter.

She was assigned a team of ten riflemen, from a cultist organization known as the Blood Pact. They wore heavy armor, bore rifles of similar quality to Imperial weapons, and their faces were obscured by sneering iron masks. Cheerilee helped them secure their gear for the ride, witnessed their oaths, and marked them for glory.

Hundreds of corpses of cultists and warriors hung from the blood slicked Bastion, an entire giant was crucified against the face. A wave of roaring sounded from the bastion. Defiance, iron will.

Rarity’s focus was broken by the trumpeting of elephants. Five mammoths moved up to flank her, each of their howdahs adorned with dragon banners and shouting Norscans.

“Jinam! Jinam!”

“Oh, dear gods, they found us,” Rarity laughed.

Spike felt a familiar, childish ego at the attention, and this might just be sufficient to get past the breach. “What do you say, guys? Jinam for now?”

Fluttershy pounded a fist on the ground to a beat, which drew mimicry from the warriors around. A thunder of stomping hooves and blades clashing against shields resounded. Even the rifle team joined in, thumping their rifle butts on the floor.

“Well, I’ve always wondered what it would be like at the head of a warband,” joked Rarity. “Let’s live the dream, at least this once.”

Spike drew his sword, holding it high as the blade ignited in iridescent flame, drawing the applause of the Norscans. Today, he was theirs and they were his.

He spotted a comet of violet light lazily sailing across the sky, followed by a cloud of pegasi, their number blackening the sky like a murder of crows.

Warhorns sounded, and Fluttershy smiled at the sound. “Hang on, everypony!”

Atop the walls, Karl Franz and Celestia witnessed the surging tide. A mad, barking pack of flesh hounds bounded ahead of the first wave of marauders that had yet to fully form up for an attack. Being so close to the immense nexus of power that was the Bastion drove their daemonic allies onward in a frenzy for its energies, even chewing at individual blocks and bits of rubble in their way as others raced the gap, only to be obliterated in the bottleneck by helblaster volley guns and massed rifle fire. The calls of ‘Ready! Present! Fire! Reload!’ became an incessant chant.

Franz had always thought there was something beautiful in the first moments of battle. Here were the moments of highest emotion, the fear of mortal men, the frustrated bloodlust and screaming overconfidence of the Empire’s enemies. In these moments, when battle is joined, the purity of the mortal spirit is revealed to the foe.

Franz squinted, his eyesight thick through the smoke. Yet no one could miss the hulking, equine form towering over the horde, her metal hide glinting dully in the sun. “That thing used to be the Element of Kindness?” he remarked.

Celestia opened the small box chained to her armor, and levitated out the Elements of Harmony. The gems had lost their distinct shapes, now simply hexagonal gemstones. “Perhaps she can be, once again.”

The soldiers around her receded slightly as the Elements lit up. Celestia channeled her own power through them, awakening memories of the Tree of Harmony, of Luna, the Nightmare, and Discord.

Gleaming rainbow ribbons branched between the gems. Celestia watched as Fluttershy charged, hearing her roar of hate and wrath. She looked to the purple comet and smiled. The energy of the Elements climaxed, and a supernova of magic blossomed forth. The storm faltered in the face of the oncoming wave, and they were defenseless as it washed over them.

The neverborn disintegrated in its wake, like sand in the face of a tsunami. Their dying screams echoed across the plains as the soulstuff of their being was calmed, and flowed back into the warp. Those few caught on the edges were left partially petrified, fully half of the hounds' lanky bodies turned from corrupted flesh to what was little better than brittle clay. Their howls turned to shrieks of pain and dismay, and many of them tumbled like rocks down the slope where much of their bodies crumbled to dust.

A few Imperials nearby who witnessed the spectacle raised their swords and let out shouts of jubilation at seeing their most hated foes undone. The warp gods themselves felt the touch of Harmony, and they were weakened.

Karl Franz watched, his whole body tingling so close to the epicenter. He didn’t know what to expect. For them to lay down their arms, surrender, for mutations to reverse in moments? As the aurora struck the comet of black and violet, it flashed momentarily as though it was being reflected, and its light dimmed.

He only had Celestia's recountings of the Elements’ capabilities until now. This might actually work; the might of the North, and Chaos itself subdued.

The horde slowed, but did not stop, and nothing seemed to change among the flesh and blood warriors. The war horns blared once again, reaffirming the order, and the charge renewed with unmitigated fury.

“It isn’t working,” he snapped, then shouted to the troops. “Deathclaw, hop-up.” The mighty griffon bowed to let him to mount the saddle. “Daemons destroyed and they still come, ey? Gluttons for punishment, they are! Make ready!”

The Elements died down, their power spent. The aurora of colors shrank, and swiftly dissipated into the ether. Celestia stared in disbelief, but quickly grit her teeth and returned her attention to the battle. “Artillery, fire at will!”

The hastily prepared ground defences shored up. Mortars and rocket batteries thundered in discharge, and soldiers mounted the firesteps of a ranked series of trenches, a stair of fire awaiting the foe. Three steam tanks, the Stormcast Eternal, Iron Heart, and Schwerpunkt had their guns leveled just above the top redoubt.

A series of trumpet blasts cued a platoon of unicorns to project a shield wall. Moving in unison, their aetheric steams mixed and built up the barrier expected to hold for mere moments to blunt the charge of monsters.

The comet changed course, arcing toward the barrier, and accelerated to a bullet’s speed. It broke through in a scintillating shower of magic shards, and impacted in the center of the killzone, kicking up a blinding cloud of dust.

Through the dust, like a nightmare birthed from the void, an iron mare stormed the breach’s center.

------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy rushed over Twilight and Archaon, a black shadow whose booming stride nearly drowned out the fusillade of fire from the Imperials.

The giant didn’t stop, climbing the trenches and moved to grab the turret of a steam tank behind them. A beam of golden light intercepted her claw, melting a divot in her armor.

“We break the Imperials here,” Archaon’s voice thundered in Twilight’s mind. “Trust in me, and obey the reins.”

Mammoths charged in her wake as if spawned from the dust, trunks trumpeting. Iron Heart fired, snapping off the leg of one mammoth in a tree-trunk crack of bone. Streaming around it, the Swords of Chaos charged headlong onto the trenches, bullets ricocheting off their heavy armor.

Archaon guided her from one trooper to another, cleaving men in two in a single swipe. Their concert was a blur of motion and teleporting flashes, never ceasing and every turn finding a new victim to reap.

A lance of pain shot through her cheek, quickly feeling hot and wet. She spotted a rifleman re-cocking his weapon. There was fear and glee in his eyes for the grazing hit. With a telekinetic thought, the weapon was yanked out of his hands, himself teleported to her, his neck already in her jaws. The bite instantly crushed his spine, and in a single draw, the corpse shriveled into a mummified skeleton.

Archaon jerked the reins, yanking her head up, and half-swallowed blood dripped down to stain the grass. “Out. We need more important targets, the airship.”

Beating her wings to leave the trench, she shot for the nearest airship, its gunports gushing burning oil onto a giant and sending it fleeing in panic. Cultist and Imperial pegasi fought for supremacy over its airspace, filling the air with feathers and a drizzle of blood on the world below.

Archaon guided her through the maelstrom, slashing at any Imperial within reach. Once alongside the ship, he drove the Slayer of Kings into the balloon, and renting it end to end. Gasses blew out, the hull listed, and its fate was sealed to crash.

Twilight saw the battle from above, as bullets softly whizzed by her.

The Empire was overwhelmed. The full might of Chaos was forcing itself through the breach, from woolly mammoths rampaging through the lines, and the northmen’s savagery tearing into the armies.

She thought the red thirst was hitting her again as the view darkened, but it wasn’t just her; others looked up, some even stopping in their tracks to stare at the sky. The world was quickly losing color, muting all to a lifeless grey.

“The sun,” Archaon said. His voice held uncertainty.

A black orb hung in the sky, haloed by sunlight, like a dead eye staring down on the world.

“Are the gods doing that?” asked Twilight timidly.

“No," Archaon said simply, though he was just as confused as she.

A sonorous wail rang out that chilled her bones, and the hills in the distance darkened, a rolling carpet covering the land in its advance. The noise became a screech, eldritch and hateful. Flapping forms, too big to be birds across that distance, floated above a dense tide of shuffling forms that blanketed the ground. As the sudden eclipse grew until the black disc swept nearly all light from view, the stentorious chirping of a rising black cloud of creatures, flying in their thousands above the army, filled the air.

“The dead come,” growled Archaon. He whipped the reins, pushing Twilight into a dive toward the fray. “We break them now!”

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Cheerilee’s voice was enchanted before the battle was joined via an amplification spell, so her litanies would be heard far and wide. She sang portents of doom, promises of filth and bloodshed. Fluttershy’s howdah was her pulpit, Empire and Chaos alike her audience. Above the blood and fire, she preached. A band of five played from an locomotive-like platform behind her, under an armor-glass bubble. Noticing them, Cheerilee only slightly changed her cadence to fit the music.

Fluttershy dug her claws under the prow of a tank that was backing away, straining to lift its front end up. With a grunt, she managed to flip the machine on its head, and tore out its wooden underbelly. Scooping out the disoriented crew, she crushed them with one clench of her claw, and hurled the mangled bodies across the field.

She felt invincible, watching the war machine of a nation flee before her with Cheerilee's words giving them wings. She pounced into a formation of charging knights, swatting men and ponies into the sky, their armor crumpling like foil under her weight. In return, she felt only papercut stings from their enchanted lances. Armor-piercing, but not deep enough.

A far stronger stab of pain hit her shoulder, and liquid metal ran from a fist-sized divot. She scryed through smoke and fire for the source of the blasts that harassed her since she took the breach.

A golden blur flashed between the bent pillars of smoke. She followed it, raising her palm cannon at the cloud it vanished behind.

But before she could properly aim, an eldritch screech pierced her ears. A titanic creature soared overhead, with tattered, leatherywings, and broken horns on its scaly head. Fluttershy immediately switched her aim to it, yet a much more immediate threat presented itself.

Fluttershy froze, unable to comprehend what she was looking at. This thing wasn’t the stuff of Chaos; a different power burned within it. It towered, taller than her, but lanky in build. Wooden planks and iron pillars made up its bones, wrapped in skins and flayed muscle, the viscera of the dead binding the abomination together and straining to give it animation. At its heart, a mausoleum was crammed to bursting with corpses, the dead groaning and withered arms reaching for Fluttershy, and the ramshackle giant mimicked their desire.

Fluttershy fired wide, and the shot sizzled past one of its legs. The colossus lunged forward, and its claw struck her across the face. She was thrown off her footing, head ringing like the toll of a great bell. In concert, a massive bat, easily the size of a dragon dove on her and took her by the mane. Flapping with rotting pinions, it played Fluttershy like a puppet on strings.

Her passengers tumbled out of the howdah as she crashed onto her back. She screamed and swatted at the bat-thing, which slashed at her face with rending talons. And all the while, the dead colossus bore down on her, swinging its claws in wide arcs that tore rents in her belly.

Spike leapt up to intercept its claws as they reached for her innards. He breathed green flame onto the ironwrought digits, and they quickly softened and dripped away. In quick reflex, it attempted to swat him away, but Spike managed to dive away and roll to a stop on the ground.

Fluttershy managed to grab the bat-thing's legs, pulling and tearing one out in a squall of congealed blood. It took off frantically, just in time for Fluttershy to re-align her cannon arm, and fire a shot point-blank into the colossus' body. Raw warpfire met undead muscles and their cage of metal supports, blasting them into slag. The monster recoiled, a hundred voices groaning in rage, but when the smoke cleared, two things became obvious: One, that the flesh and metal had mostly spread away from the impact like a crater, rather than falling apart or disintegrating like human bone and tissue; and two, that it was already beginning to slough back into place, the muscle re-integrating itself and pouring into the wound, pushing out the warp-corrupted flesh in the process.

Fluttershy shuffled back from the monster, knowing her weapon would need to charge. The colossus didn’t follow her, however, instead casting its burning glare across the field, to a battery of hellcannons being ushered through the gap in the wall, with a band of chaos dwarfs settling the rubble around into serviceable platforms for the machines. Seemingly choosing the greater threat, it loped into an earth-shaking gait towards the breach, bellowing the rage of the damned. Within seconds, it was out of reach, leaving its victims on the ground, in between the opposing armies.

Fluttershy leaned up, resting a claw over the gouges in her stomach. On one side, a tide of dead things crashed into the Everchosen’s host. Skeletons, zombies, and rotting monsters flowed through the broken Imperial lines. The living of the Empire, confused by the lack of hostility from the undead, took the chance to rally and form a more orderly retreat.

On the other, she looked over at Spike, who was helping Rarity up, and the remains of the rifle team setting up a fire position behind an overturned wagon, one of them passing a heavy book back to Cheerilee. Fluttershy raised the other claw to address the damage to her face, and found one of the Pact men smeared across her palm, an unfortunate victim of her landing.

She was about to ask Spike how he and Rarity fared, but she heard the familiar chilling shriek. The bat-thing finished its circling, and dove for her once again.

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The dungeons of Castle von Rauken were infamous for the sounds that emanated from below for all to hear. Valves built into cells that carried the sound of tortured souls to the outside walls, so all would be aware of the East Warden’s wrath.

Today, the dungeons were empty, save one occupant.

Luna’s jaw ached with how much he’d been grinding her teeth, and wine did nothing to ease the stress. Between interrogations and coordinating the fortification of the castle, her hooves were full. She was very thankful when Queen Chrysalis appeared to her, and offered to help with her prisoner after she’d witnessed the chapel fiasco vicariously through one of her drones at the event. The drone had felt a familiar magic in the room, someone else using transfiguration. Gelt's shouting of an infiltrator was spot on.

Leaned up in his cell, Balthasar Gelt seemed lifeless. He made not even an errant twitch, but his voice came out of that stoic, golden mask. He’d protested having it removed, and Luna granted him at least that.

Karl Franz stood before Gelt, unmoving, his eyes fixed on the mask. But in truth, it was Chrysalis herself, taking his form while the Emperor attended the battle raging miles away.

“Why don’t you try to run?” she asked sternly in Franz's voice.

“Where would I go?” Gelt murmured. “I’m ruined, my arts tainted. None of my colleagues will ever accept me as their own again. You should have… you should have just killed me. I betrayed all I vowed to keep sacred.”

She ignored the remark. “How long have you kept this from everyone?”

The masked man drew in a shallow breath, and replied, “Six months, perhaps. The von Carsteins took one of the Bastion's nodes some time back, and I investigated. Vlad said that we should unite against the common enemy, and gave me a book.” In his first noticeable movement in more than two hours, he looked at Luna. “It is in my office in Altdorf, in the chest under my desk. Leather-bound, black pyramid embossed on the cover. You’ll know it when you see it.”

There was a long pause, in which the two stared at the man. 'The Emperor' slowly shook his head, and asked simply, "Why?"

“I thought he had a point. So many would die in the war, from violence, or the sheer hardships of having their homes and lands devastated. But the true tragedy of this war, like all wars, is not that so many die; it is that so many die as victims. Unable to use their deaths to buy anything of value." As he spoke, a faint note of strength crept into his voice, as though he were convincing himself of his own point. "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor; they all bleed for the Empire. So why shouldn't they have the chance to fight again, to take vengeance, and preserve those who still live?”

“You know humans can’t use more than one wind at a time,” Luna said curtly. “You, of all mankind, should know that.”

Gelt's fingers twitched reflexively, and he averted his gaze. “I... had to try. I am not strong enough on my own.”

Chrysalis knelt down. “And are you stronger now, Balthasar?”

Gelt did not respond.

Luna took a step forward, and inclined her head towards his mask in a subtle admission of respect. "Putting the world on your shoulders isn’t your responsibility," she began. "At the very least, notwithstanding your… explosive entrance into Our presence, it would seem you were in fact correct on one point."

The man remained silent, though his mask did lift up an almost imperceptible fraction towards her.

"We felt the unsanctioned use of magic—" she glanced at Chrysalis "—in the chapel, just before you arrived. Transfiguration magic, to be precise."

"The Changeling," Gelt murmured under his breath.

Chrysalis and Luna exchanged a pointed look. Luna pursed her lips thoughtfully. It was several moments before she addressed the man again. "You're… referring to Tzeentchian trickery, then. That was the reason for your screaming of 'assassins' in the chapel?"

A pause. Balthasar let out a raspy breath, which gradually turned into a dry, shallow laugh. "Trickery," he parroted. "That was it. The visions, the… warnings. Gods. I… I should have known."

Luna let out a long-suffering sigh, and momentarily closed her eyes. Yet when she opened them again, she didn't look away from Gelt. "Nevertheless… We appreciate that you came to Us, regardless of what transpired thereafter, and acknowledge that your heart was in the right place."

Chrysalis stood, drawing herself up before the man. “But that won’t sate everyone after they saw you nearly rip out a man's soul. A hundred highborn saw your folly, and they’ll demand justice for the treasure they poured into that wall. Not to mention the Chaos invasion, coinciding so perfectly with the weakening of the Bastion, leaving questions as to your loyalty, and that of the Colleges of Magic... I can think of any number of witch hunters who would scream for your head. They’ll all want your head, Balthasar.”

He continued to stare down at the floor, unmoving, with all the mien of one resigned to his fate. “What will you do with me, my Emperor?”

Chrysalis turned to Luna with a sly grin. “We’ll give them what they want.”

Hills of dead, fresh and ancient bodies and bones, were plowed away in the aftermath of the fall of Hell’s Reach. The undead appeared to cover the retreat of the Imperial forces, swamping the warriors of Chaos in a tide of bones and shambling corpses. It was barely enough to shield the living.

Construction of a new fortress around the breach began immediately, and the hordes began funneling through unabated. Columns passed for days, and the ones who led the last strike recuperated in camps around the former battlefield.

Dwarfs picked over the carcass of a fallen airship, prying off titanmetal sheets and taking trinkets of technology for study.

“Sir Haster, I’m fairly certain your teams were charged to her,” Rarity said, finding difficulty in controlling her tone.

Haster threw a device of unknown function onto a carriage, and clapped his hands of ash and dried blood. “Our job, is to fix minor damages. Parts fallen off, recalibrate a piston. We could use the chassis metal from this ship for a temporary patch-up, but the forge I’ve been using was taken to the front.” He ran a hand through his beard and grumbled under his breath. “There are others, though.”

He motioned her to come closer. “Look for any ratman around here who isn’t wearing armor; they’re the easy pickings. Make sure he’s clan Skryre, and make him take you to Ikit Claw.”

-------------------------------------------------

“I think we should reconsider, guys,” Fluttershy said meekly.

A rickety scaffold awaited her. Rotten wood and nails barely driven home. Hundreds of ratmen surrounded her, a fuzzy, chattering carpet, radiating palpable fear. Rarity and Spike were perched on her shoulders, an assurance in coming to the verminous multitudes of Skavendom.

One out of the many stepped forward. Covered in brass plate, and unusually white fur, Ikit Claw was no less twitchy than his slaves. They all seemed to be filled with pent up, manic energy. Even out of battle, his cranium was armored, looking up at the iron giant through glowing green lenses.

“Magic Rarity-thing will come down if she wants to pay!” he shrieked at them.

Rarity rested a hand on Fluttershy’s cheek. “Keep your composure. We’ll handle this.” Fluttershy lowered them in her palms. “Lord Claw! My my, you’re more imposing than your worker had described.”

“Work-slave makes undersell, he get flayed for his incompetence,” Ikit growled. “but so good of you to have an eye for my-mine work. I have seen metal pony-thing fight, such hate-fire. Mighty Clan Skryre sees room to improve it.”

“She,” snapped Rarity. “Fluttershy is a she, not an it. And no extra work, just repair the damages.”

"I give much credit, forget payment, yes,” Ikit insisted, bobbing his head excitedly. “First service free if Pony-thing shows me its warp-cannon, give Skryre idea-schemes for rat ogre weapon-arms, improve design for lightning cannon—"

"No means no!" Fluttershy thundered, startling the rat-man into silence.

"There you have it," Rarity quipped. "She needs to be in working order," she punctuated each word, "and ready to get back in the fight. Thirty tokens for the work, was it?”

“Indeed,” Ikit settled with a grimace.

While Rarity levitated out tokens from a pouch, Spike was silent and staring with one claw resting on the hilt of his sword. ‘Trust the Skaven’. At any other time it would be impossible to use those words in the same breath. Thousands of years of infighting and treachery led to this, each set of eyes, beady red points, ogled him. Silvered armor, valuable to nick. Big sword, valuable to nick. Stealing, stealing, stealing. Flammable secretions left a sour taste in his mouth.

Through the noise of the chattering mobs, he just made out a clicking noise, barely on the edge of hearing. It didn’t match the manic clacking of Ikit’s teeth. It was more sporadic, like static build-up, and coming from somewhere on his person.

He knows.

Rarity kept counting. “Fifteen, sixteen…”

Fluttershy’s first reflex was to flick back the first slave that got too close, then saw he’d been goaded forward by the others. She picked him up before he could run, and while he panicked, convinced of his imminent demise, she gently scratched him on the head. He soon stopped screaming, and surrendered to the petting with a smile. The other slaves looked on jealously, and hissed at the ones that pushed the first one at her.

“That sword,” Ikit sid eagerly, staggering a bit closer to Spike. “Warpstone. In the hilt. Where did you seek-find it?”

Yeah, I’ll shove it down your throat if you want warpstone so badly.

“Took it from the dead hands of an elf about two hundred years ago,” Spike answered off-handedly. “Pretty sure he was about to tell me his name, but I was already bored of his going on and on.”

“Pointy-ears be most boastful things,” Ikit snickered.

The clicking was faster now, continuous like a simmering pot as he reached for Rarity.

He knows.

Ikit left hand was encased in a jagged steel claw with a hole in the palm. A device strapped to his arms squealed, a needle smacking the red zone of a dial.

He knows!

“Twenty-nine, thirty.” Rarity replaced the token in the purse, dropped it in Ikit’s claw, and he stashed it away feverishly. His eyes flicked back and forth excitedly between her and the dial.

“We fix big pony-thing, yes-yes, and I see much business between you and I. Many repairs for pony-thing in big war.”

Pursing her lips, Rarity pondered that for a moment. “Don’t count on it, Ikit. If she doesn’t like what you do here, I’ll melt down whatever I can find and use it to patch her up myself, if that’s what it takes. But you have your payment. Do try to treat her with respect.”

“Of course, for my most-most generous of new customers.” Ikirt gave an ugly, bucktoothed grin. “Come, Fluttershy! Sit-rest in the scaffold, and tell me where it hurts most.”

Rarity gave Fluttershy a reassuring smile as they departed. The mobs of slaves parted before them. Spike spat on the ground near those who didn’t move fast enough, and they recoiled at the small detonations

“This is a bad idea,” he whispered.

“If she doesn’t like what they do, she’ll step on them. Besides, they’re in the open, and it’s quite difficult not to see her.”

“And you didn’t see that thing on his arm? He was measuring you, and knows you have more warpstone on you.”

“We still don’t know if it was picking up me or the purse. Either way, he knows we have it, he wants it, so he’ll keep in our good graces to get more.” Rarity sighed heavily. “Despite what I said, if Haster doesn’t get access to the forges, we’re most likely going to see Ikit again…. And again… This is going to cost me an arm and a leg.”

“Literally.”

Rarity slapped Spike on the shoulder. “Oh shush, you!”

Author's Notes:

What's that? Rats of unusual size? That's ridiculous!