Aaron awoke early one morning and stretched out the tiny kinks that had built up over night. As he wandered the halls of his shop at three in the morning, he couldn’t help but feel as if he were missing something. But, what was it?

A sudden shaking revealed it to him.

“Oh shit! The autopilot!”

Racing towards the cockpit of his still-SSV Normandy-shaped ship, he realized all too late that his shop was heading straight toward a pair of joined Universes.

Specifically, a Conversion Bureau Universe.

Panicking, he drew his ship back into the subspace pocket it was formed from and shoved it back within his form, unwittingly launching himself into the Universe’s Earth-side due to the shenanigans based inertia.

As the Universe forcibly tried to strip him of his power and reduce him to a mere Lovecraftian being, Aaron blacked out, barely having enough time to leave a note on both Jupiter’s and Juno’s beds detailing exactly what had happened.

And then, darkness.

Aaron awoke in chains.

Sleepy and still recovering from the wounds the Universe had bestowed upon him in its unsuccessful attempt to strip him of his power and reduce him to something more comprehensible, he took stock of his surroundings through bleary eyes.

A cell. Dank, dreary, and with several other huddled humans, also in chains.

“.... Wonderful.” He muttered, incredibly pissed off but not yet awake enough to do anything.

The other humans around him stared, clearly not expecting the almost-dead looking young man to wake up. Defying expectations, Aaron stood up, healing and rejuvenating as he did so, casually snapping the chains which so poorly bound him.

“Alright you lot, mind telling uncle Aaron where the hell he woke up?” Clearly, half asleep Aaron was the best diplomat ever.

Said lot merely shrank away, that is, until one nervous girl spoke, “Y-you’re in A-Arizona, sir.”

“Arizona, huh? Hmmm. Okay, here’s what’s gonna happen: One, I’m getting out of here. Two, you lot are gonna follow me out of the cell and wait until I destroy the camp. Three, you lot are gonna find somewhere to get on with your lives while I take down the bitch in the ocean. We clear?”

Not waiting for a reply, the shadow man burst back into his normal incomprehensible existence with a tiny flare of power before shattering the wall behind him and floating out.

The humans rushed out nervously, waiting for the other shoe to drop even as they made their way to any form of safety they could find.

Smoke. Smoke and fire. Smoke and fire and rubble and the corpses of ponies. This was the scene that greeted the recent escapees of Conversion Camp 332. That, and a bunch of confused, naked humans. Oh, and the shadow man pouring a weird, red liquid down the throats of each “Newfoal”, as the bitch herself had called them.

Said Newfoals immediately burst into massive auroras of rainbow light as the “Harmony” magic was expelled from their bodies and they were once more restored to full humanity.

Then things got weird.

The shadow man had spontaneously formed a stage out of nowhere, stood upon it, and delivered a speech.

“GREETINGS EVERYONE. MY NAME IS AARON HEIBAI, AND I’LL BE YOUR RESCUER FOR TONIGHT. NOW, AS YOU MAY HAVE REALIZED, ALL THE PONIES IN THIS CAMP ARE GONE. HOWEVER, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT ALL THE PONIES ARE DEAD. NO, THAT MEANS WE HAVE A FEW MORE ADDITIONS TO THE HUMAN RACE. NOW NOW, DON’T BE SUSPICIOUS. I SPECIFICALLY CHOSE THE FEW PONIES TO CONVERT BECAUSE THEY WERE TRUSTWORTHY. YES, YES, HOW CAN YOU TRUST THE SHADOW MAN THAT KILLED A BUNCH OF PONIES AND CONVERTED A FEW MORE INTO HUMANS, AND GAVE A FEW OTHERS BACK THEIR HUMANITY. ANYWAY, POINT IS, GO ON, LIVE YOUR LIVES, KILL SOME PONIES IF NEED BE, I’M TAKING DOWN THE BITCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS.”

And then he was gone, the stage fading back into rubble, and the camp suddenly converted into a small town.

Far away, right above the centerpoint of the Barrier converting Earth into Equestria, Aaron hovered, weaving a grand spell. An ominous breeze struck the pacific ocean, massive, intricate glyphs forming in concentric circles beneath the shadow man. Shining in every color of the rainbow in a parody of the Elements of Harmony, Aaron’s glyphs swirled, runes and pictographs twirling and spinning in massive spirals around the area like a glowing hurricane of magic. Far below, in Canterlot, Princess Celestia felt a terrifying premonition strike her. Shocked out of her malevolent languor, she looked out the window and saw the miles-long glyphs and runes swirling above Canterlot, and by extension, most of Equestria.

Then she felt the most infuriating smirk form upon the distant caster of said glyphs. And then, faint at first, she heard the music.

And then, with a sound not unlike the shattering of glass, they appeared.

Ships. Hundreds. Big and bulky, massive and intimidating. Some miles long, others barely the size of city buses. All armed in the extreme, all of them carrying, from what she could see, massive, black armored, armed-to-the-teeth soldiers. Massive pauldrons, oddly shaped helmets, massive weapons, skulls and jack o’ lantern faces decorating each facet of their armor.

The Adeptus Astartes, as interpreted by Aaron Heibai.

As the ships finally finished rising from the glyphs, the music ended, and all was still for but a few seconds. Then, a ferocious groan of warping metal rang out and the glyphs shifted, more music coming through the new pattern of glyphs.

Now, even more ships, many of them bearing the sign of what appeared to be a capital ‘I’ with a skull over top. These ships were also coated in deepest black, but with golden decorations all over in what could only be holy symbols.

The Inquisition.

Then, more music and even more ships, some embossed with a capital ‘I’ with a skull in a spiky circle.

Adeptus Ministorum, also known as the Ecclesiarchy.

At this point, the sky was so choked with hundreds upon thousands of space vessels that it seemed as if night had fallen early, the tiny pinpricks of blue sky shining through seemed as if an obscene parody of stars.

As even more ships came from the ever changing patterns of glyphs, the music selection changed ever more to suit the thousands of vessels that came through

Adeptus Mechanicus, with their gear and skull motif. Officio Assassinorum, dagger and skull proudly emblazoned. Adepta Sororitas, fleur de lis embossed with its skull. Adeptus Arbites, scale and fist logo worn as a badge of justice and righteousness.

And then, from the incredibly dramatic and terrifying music that had been playing previously, came something completely unexpected.

Of course, more ships poured through the newest glyph configuration, this time shining and golden, with the picture of a golden armored, raven haired man imprinted on the sides.

The Adeptus Custodes, in all their half naked, oiled, muscular glory.

Truly, they were the most glorious sight to behold, even with their immortal, sculpted bodies still inside their massively overpowered vessels.

For a few tense moments, the fleets hovered there as if waiting some sort of cue.

And then, the glyphs disappeared, the being at their center dropping to a halt, standing on the surface of the barrier as if it were no different from solid ground.

The fleets continued to hover, filling the air with the cacophony of chanting and roaring engines.

Then, the shadowy figure knelt, placed a hand upon the surface of the golden dome, and slipped through, leaving a dark splotch behind, much to Celestia’s surprise.

Later on, Celestia would be able to perfectly recount the events that led to her demise, even as a soul floating helplessly through the Warp.

It all started when the splotch that had been left on her gloriously golden and meticulously crafted barrier grew from human sized to encompass the entirety of the malignant thaumaturgy.

Then, as darkness descended upon Equestria, music began playing once more. While it did not fit the previous ominous tones… and one incredibly fabulous song, it promised pain and swift retribution.

And ass kicking. Lots and lots of ass kicking.

Then, just as the darkness spread over the last inches of barrier, it began receding from the top down, leaving nothing but clear, blue sky to cover all of Equestria.

Then came the rain. Not a rain of water, nor even a rain of hellfire, though Celestia would note that the hellfire also came, just much later.

No, this was a rain of metal and men, hundreds upon thousands of soldiers and mecha alike descending to the ground in waves upon waves of dropships and falling mecha.

Then came the screams and the DAKKA DAKKA! of heavy weapons fire. For as far as Celestia could see, Equestria was being ravaged in the extreme, not a single blade of grass unburnt, not a single tree left standing, and holy Creators above, not a single natural born pony left alive. (Alicorn-hood tended to grant one some measure of Legolas level eyesight, along with vision enhancing spells).

The Newfoals were captured, vials of odd liquid poured down their throats. Then, as they exploded into rainbow light, the newly returned humans were shoved through shadowy gateways, even as more armored beings and mechas poured from the same portals.

As the wave of destruction travelled all across Equestria, more and more troops shuffled down, and soon the air was choked with descending and ascending drop ships and cargo ships, gunfire and missiles. Pegasi fell in droves as they struggled to defend mother Equestria from the terrifying and massive invaders.

For every ship taken down, at least fifty pegasi died, and two more ships quickly descended to make up for lost time, even if the remains of the ship were salvageable and nearly no casualties were taken.

All this while Celestia stood in horrified, numbed silence. Of course, the paralysis wore off after the first half hour of destruction, then she flew out to meet the invaders directly, horn charged and heart full of righteous fury.

Then she slammed into an invisible barrier erected around the entirety of Canterlot. Strangely enough, it formed hexagonal, orange ripple patterns at every contact it made.

And, try as she might, she was unable to break through; not while still taking care to not harm her precious ponies, that is.

After minutes of furious cursing and shouting and blasting and pounding, Celestia noticed that the troops had stopped outside the field around Canterlot, ascending back up to the massive swarm of ships in the sky, leaving a surviving stretch of land open for a mere mile around Canterlot.

Celestia surveyed the destruction from her airborne position, shocked at what she found. As far as her magnified vision could perceive, not a single city was left intact, no towns, not a single sign of civilization went unrazed, even the mountains had scorch marks carved into them where mining villages had been nestled.

Fire rained then, starting at the edges, then working its way inward.

An orbital bombardment capable of turning the entirety of a planet’s surface into nothing more than molten slag… and it was concentrated entirely upon a tiny continent in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

Celestia only had to endure the opening salvos, thankfully, stopping several of the missiles from impacting the surface as she fought to defend her last bastion of ponykind from the orbital bombardment. Of course, she was free, then to travel all over the continent as fast as she could; the shield had fallen after the bombardment began. Not that this was any sort of comfort. Then the thermonuclear missiles hit the ground and she knew no more.

Well, until she woke up drifting in the Warp, dangerously near where Khorne had made his home. But that’s a story for another day.

Aaron let his armada dissipate into the aether as the last of what had once been Equestria sank beneath the ocean waves as a lump of molten slag.

“Sorry, Celly, but I really, really hate it when people like you do things like that. You should at least be glad that some ponies still survive; though how long they survive in the anti-magic and openly hostile terrain of Earth is a bit of a question, now ain’t it?” Aaron’s face expressed great sadness– he’d never really had to be this close and personal to his own destruction before, and as much as he hated Celly, he found that he hated the sound of screams and death even more.

Not that it really bothered him– if worse came to worst, he could always visit the fragments of timeline where he hadn’t Exterminatus’d the continent.

Being a Void dweller killed most peoples’ value of mortal lives, to be honest.

With one final sigh, Aaron snapped his fingers, replaced Equestria and its ponies back on Equus, locked the both of them apart, and stepped through a midair doorway back into his shop.

He looked at the clock and nodded. The whole trip had taken naught but three seconds of relative time.

And thus, the lion slept that night, deep in the jungle of shelves and products, nestled in his bed, untouched by any sort of nightmare or regret.

Author's Notes:

This marks the first time I wrote a chapter of this story without some sort of outside assistance, the first time I intentionally put Warhammer into a fic, and this is probably the second darkest thing I've ever written.

And yes, I did make a "If the Emperor had a Text to Speech Device" reference in there.

[Aroused Snickering]