Screams of the desperate, the debauched and the damned came from every corridor that was passed, they came from straight ahead in the dark metal hallway and they were constantly coming from behind. They came from the desperate; those desperate to rip and tear at the flesh of anything living, anything with even a shred of innocence in its' bones. They came from the debauched; the debauched and ruined minions of the dark gods of chaos, their mortal slaves that had been infected with their endless madness as well as their own daemonic offspring. They came from the damned, and the damned were everywhere. But no matter what direction the screaming erupted from, bolter fire was there to answer it's insufferable call.

"We're following the coordinates-!" Another shrieking, half-living thing leapt at Errithius, the space marines advances reflexes seeing the thing's body shattered mid-air by the thunder of his bolter, "No avail! Our location is so drenched in warp energies we'd might as well be in the depths of the eye of terror itself!"

Errithius and his command team fired seemingly non-stop, the twisted parodies of life that swarmed around them coming apart in showers of gore and steaming bones in pitiful instants. The responses from his fellow brethren were choppy and utterly unclear, garbled and static-riddled to the point where listening to them was almost pointless. Something about an 'outbreak' came through, then something about a 'retreat'. A number of other disturbing and troubling words and simple phrases made it through his vox-link as well as the background sounds of gunfire, explosions and the screams of the dying. One in particular seemed so loud it could well have come from the marine on the other end of the communication line, yet the cry was cut short by static once again. A moment passed before Errithius heard rasping, wet breathes scratching into his ear before a breath in was made to speak.

"We can all see"

The space marine cut the feed, his face a bitter scowl as he turned his full attention to fighting his way out of this madhouse he had barged his way into.
Errithius wondered as his bolter sang, blasting limb from body. He wondered what he could have possibly done differently to avoid such an occurrence? To delay the arrival of the dread legions of chaos? To have saved this world in the way he'd wished he'd seen was possible. But nothing came to him, the battle raging around him became a numb, muffled blur as he secretly turned into himself, desperately trying to drown his doubt and melancholy in some reason he could have made all that was before him right.

Yet no reason came.

That was the nature of chaos in the end.

It arrived wherever it wished, whenever it could.

And there was never any reason.

A blur of motion darted past the commander's right side, immediately snatching his attention fully to the world around him. He turned to spy one of the alicorn sisters tumbling through the air, locked in combat with a cackling daemon. The blightful thing wheezed as it shrieked it's spiteful laughter, hacking and spluttering vile mucus from its twisted maw as the alicorn crushed its throat with her powerful bicep. The female native appeared a wild thing, eyes wide and alight with burning violence, her own fanged jaws roared and missed like a Nocturne Fire Drake. The wicked talons on each of her wings slashed at the warp-creatures ribcage and belly, tearing messy wounds into it's already ruined form. The alicorn reared her head back with one final, bone-shaking roar as her bicep swelled, her other hand pulling one of the daemons horns counter-wise to her shoulder to bring the monster's head snapping clean off it's shoulders with a sickening crack.

A light burst from behind Errithius next, bringing his sights around to see two of his terminator brothers fending off at least a half dozen chaos daemons with their shimmering storm shields. The gangling nightmares scrambled and scratched at the power fields of the terminators shields madly before a burning bright lance of energy cut into the chest of the one that had made its way almost entirely atop of the embattled marines. Another attempted to slither beneath their defenses, a skeletal, clawed hand scratching at their boots a heartbeat before another bolt of energy blasted its assailing arm clean off, leaving the unnatural creature to scurry away, laughing like a demented madman as it chewed upon its own smoldering stump. Although he couldn't turn enough to see her, Errithius all but knew how Celestia was faring; Eyes wide with terror, teeth clenched, features strained, she probably looked the worst she'd ever done before.

"Biemark!" Errithius roared over the mayhem around him.

"Still nothing, my lord! But the structure, this place cannot stand such a barrage from a warp breach like this!" The marine said back, one had firing a plasma pistol into the chest of an onrushing possessed federal while the other shakily held an auspex scanner. Said arm had a torrent of blood running down it from a deep wound he had sustained at his shoulder.

"Keep moving! Back!" Errithius called out, the company of embittered survivors slowly working their way back out the large junction room they had stumbled into and into another corridor.

Marines and alicorns all criss-crossed formation to defend their perimeter as best as they could, but they were slowly being broken down, their strength failing. Varadoch was first to the door they had chosen to exit through, his armoured fingers tapping desperately on the surface of the doors control slate to bid it open.

"Come on! It's the same as the last one!" Riveth barked at his brother who was struggling to get the digital display to operate properly.

"I know! I know! It's not wor-"

Before he could finish a spray of blood spat into Varadoch's eye lenses, a dull sense throbbing through his busy fingers for a moment before a piercing agony. Crying out more in surprise than in pain, the marine stumbled back, his power pack colliding heavily with his captains. Errirthius was about to bark a censure at his seemingly clumsy brother until he turned and saw. Varadoch's fingers, the first three starting with his index on his left hand, had been cut away messily, right through his armoured digits. Both of them looked up to see the digital slate had shattered entirely, and something had come from within. The metal rim of the slate now twisted with shrieking, grinding sounds of tortured metal, and within was now an open space that appeared much like the inside of an over-sized mouth. And sure enough, from the edges gnashed and chattered rows of needle-sharp teeth, yellow and gnarled.

"Brother."

"I'll...be fine" Varadoch grunted, his mind wracked with what had occured, but not enough to stop him raising his boltgun, filling the obscene techno-anomaly with a trio of explosive bolts, the cavity exploding in a squall of dark blood.

"Gierto, break through this damned door!" Errithius called out to one of his terminators.

"Aye captain!" Replied his rumbling, bass-tone augmented voice.

The marine took a couple steps back before making a full-tilt sprint straight at the door ahead as though it has been his enemy his entire life. Clasping his thunder hammer high on its handle, the terminator lunged the heavy headed weapon top-first into the door's center. The thick, metal obstruction buckled and blasted apart like wet cardboard, beyond lay an area looking much like the one they currently occupied, only absent on the fiendish assailants they suffered from.

"Brethren, through the breach!"

Errithius hurried his company in through the open door ahead, terminators thundering past on heavy boots as his command squad followed close behind alongside the alicorns. Firearms blazed behind them, snatching the odd possessed off of its feet and stumbling a couple of scrambling daemons. Alien weapons clumsily and hysterically fired back from those few deranged mutants who had kept a hold of their firearms after their possession.

"Drakon! Hurry!" Gierto called out to his brother terminator who was the last behind, even further than the captain who held besides the doorway, boltgun chattering with fire in attempt at dissuading the hellish creatures that were bearing down on Drakon.

"Cap-...tain...can't..." Drakon choked as he stumbled forwards.

Errithius had been so caught up with the escape of his retinue that he had failed to see how Drakon had become injured so, but there he was, slowly stumbling forwards at a heavy, limping pace. Bright red blood ran like a waterfall down his right leg, staining the bone white armour a glossy crimson, the deep, long gash at the side of his waist where his armour presented a gap gushing with gore. Errithius took a couple of steps forward, bolter still barking as he tried to both cover his injured brother's advance as well as bridge the seemingly vast gap between them. Drakon buckled forward and was brought to his knees as a daemon lept atop his bulky armoured suit, it's gnarled claws tearing the marines complex armoured mask off messily in a pair of savage strikes.

"Did you dream of us?!" It's ragged, ear-shredding voice shrieked as it leaned forward to bear down on the fallen terminator, a gleeful grin on it's ruined face.

"We dreamt of you!" A second squealed as it stalked from a corner, loping towards its fellow to scratch its long nails over the armour of its prey.

Both the creatures, followed soon by the dozens of lumbering, twitching possessed that circled the astarte even as Errithius desperately blasted apart all he could, crookedly turned their heads and burning eyes up to look straight at the captain and his company, sickening, cracked smiles gleaming at them from the gathering dark.

"We missed you!" They all croaked in unison.

Drokan choked out a word, or maybe even a final, sorrowful noise in protest of his fate as his armoured gauntlet raised, reaching out to his brothers in futility. Errithius' world seemed to stop and go silent as Drakon disappeared before him, mutated, skinless and potrusion-ridden arms pulling the terminator limb-from-limb in a singular flurry of terrible savagery, even the powered machanical aid from his suit proving nothing when met with the painless efforts of a hundred grasping limbs. Errithius blurted short, panicked breaths as his inability to help a man he had known over fifty years bore into his mind, his feet slowly stumbling back as his eyes found themselves unable to look away from the horrifying spectacle present before him. Suddenly a movement was felt from behind him, a powerful grip pulled him back from behind and half-threw him through the ruined doorway.

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Ritivek Gnolsor-01000101011011100110000101100010011011000110010101110010-C sat in his flight harness quite merrily. The servo-skull before him adjusted its levitation to perfect orientate itself to face its master at waist level despite the considerable turbulence the lander suffered when entering the target planets atmosphere. Within the grasp of its micro-manipulators it bore an ornate goblet filled with a dark red fluid. Trysnikior Death Knell wine with two percent digi-sanctic oil and four percent labourers blood, a common beverage by mechanicus standards, or at least between those tech-priests who still indulged in the odd sensory stimulation. Ritivek leaned his head forwards slightly, prompting the servo skull to once again swiftly float to his mechanical face. A wide syringe protruded from between his facial respirators, where his mouth should have been, like the proboscis of some parasitic insect. The long shaft curves down to dip into the fluid held before him, a metallic sucking noise resounding within the loading bay as his system absorbed the scarlet wine. With a satisfied whir of his internal mechanics the cyborg slowly leant back, the servo skull descending once more.

"Estimated time to arrival?" Ritivek asked in droning binary over the local comms network.

"One minute, fourteen seconds, two hundred and thirty four milliseconds, my lord." The lander's pilot droned back in the same buzzing language.

Ritivek let out a slight sigh, he found the concept of waiting outside of macro-sleep to be painfully dull and perplexingly pointless. Again he rattled in his harness, his spidery, mechanical legs scratching against the deck in a slight show of anxiety at the sudden lurch.

"Steady." He grumbled with a wave of his semi-organic hand.

"Of course, my lord."

On queue the starship began to slow a small degree, enough for the passengers to notice the turbulence drop a fraction. Ritivek grumbled to himself softly, his steely mind churning through a number of cynical presumptions and bewailments. He thought on how this whole endeavor could prove to be pointless, then onto how many units he could potentially lose to the pointless conflict that raged on the planets surface and how he could postpone his intervention even for but a few more seconds, then he thought on this new fledgling alien empire and how tiresome analyzing their uninspired and dreadfully dull technologies could be. The cyborg let out another huff, this one loud enough to turn a few of the scitarii ranger's heads that stood before him. His cold, piercing glance set them straight once more, their faces turning away sharply but a second later.

The rest of the journey ground on as uneventful and as tedious as expected before the crafts engines whirred low in tone and Ritivek's internal mechanics shifted and dropped slightly as the lander slowed as it approached the ground. A dull thump heralded their arrival, soon the harnesses of both the tech-priest and his scitarii bodyguard hissing apart to set them loos on the deck. Ritivek's insectile limbs chattered against the metal floor of the ship as he moved to come up behind the rangers he loomed over. The landers front door ramp lowered with a pained whine, the dull light from the living world beyond slowly seeping in. The biomechanic passengers disembarked in a hurried yet frighteningly precise manner, rangers coming to form two ranks around the landers ramp in a semi-circle formation as Rivitek steadily scuttled out, peering around for any sign of danger, or of intrigue.

"Forward. Follow coordinates." The tech-priest growled as he brought his arm-mounted eradication ray to bare before him as he moved onwards.

The sight ahead was a sorry one. So much to analyse, so many samples to have been taken unblemished and so much to record. The city they advanced through was quite the interesting sight, crystalline building structures, one being a truly magnificent tower at the city's center, caught the cyborgs scanner lens for many moments before duty calling him on still. Even the street lamps, those intact emitting a dull glow, seemed entirely formed from a crystal substance grown from the ground.

Most interesting Rivitek thought to himself as he recorded and categorised.

He was sure this place might well have been a true pleasure to thoroughly investigate once, but much had been devastated by the conflict that had recently flared all across the planet's surface. A pity indeed, yet further, more promising treasures still lay ahead further away from the rattle of gunfire and deep booms of explosives coming from the distance. Electric snaps could suddenly be heard a moment before the desperate cries of dying aliens, the tech priest not needing to halt his progress in knowing the commotion was his bodyguard already getting to work, making sure he wasn't to be bothered. The tech-priest turned a handful of corners until he came within a hundred yards of his objective, bringing a wave of assurance to his ancient mind. However as he turned the final backstreet corner a flash of light and deafening crack came from ahead.

Rivitek's refractor shield flared a ghastly orange, warning him the shields energy reserves had been cut in half alongside his inbuilt cerebral cogitator alerts. Rivitek snapped his head to the left slightly, to where the original cracking sound had come from. Nothing was to be seen ahead, the smog of the conflict that had been still obscuring his vision slightly. Within a half a second the cyborgs logic engine processed the sight ahead of him, cogitators rolling through various fields of vision, each spectrum of light, each thermal range scoured as the milliseconds ground on. And then he saw it, a strange blob presented itself in a low silhouette about twenty feet ahead of him. Spectral scrubbers shot designation beamers at the target, bouncing microwaves and infrared through the anomaly. The form cleared up steadily to reveal a single shrouded creature, an alien foot soldier draped in a hood and wearing light armour. Energy mappers revealed the alien was, much like the tech-priest, shrouded in an energy shield of some kind as well as using a form of active camouflage system.

A full two thirds of a second had passed, and the alien appeared to be readying its lengthy, rifle-like weapon it held to fire at Rivitek once again. However Rivitek had already readied his own primary weapon, his eradication ray leveling with the alien before a bright blue blast of energy shot out in a cone shape, engulfing the creature ahead. After the bright blast of light dissipated, the target he had fired upon had become suspended in the air and was drifting off wistfully as most of its body had been atomized, the ashen shell of its form now holding no more mass than a paper bag, the crusty, dark remains of the would-be assassin alight with atomic flares. As it drifted up it began to fall apart, limb from limb before eventually blowing apart into dust on the wind.

Rivitek peered at the space the alien had moments ago occupied as if it still knelt there, his head coking slowly as his mind sifted through what he had just seen, ignoring the scitarii who silently shuffled around and past him to secure the location. The cyborg analysed, deducted and categorised, a sense of satisfaction breathing through him as his first conclusive log was made.

Foreign species encountered:
Encounter duration - 1.823 seconds
Encounter development - Hostile
Encounter conclusion - Subject terminated
Subject capacities -
Used high-powered, chemical projection based projectile weapons (Hazardous)
Used cloaking technology, avoided thermal and base-spectrum analysis
Implemented kenetic based energy shielding (Bypassed by energy projection (Type - Atomic))
Conclusion -
Alien combatant prioritized Victorus level threat

Of course further data would be added to the report after this silly outing was over, but it was a delightfully thrilling start to his journey, a journey that was about to enter its second act.

"Advance." Rivitek croaked.

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

"My leg!" Yet another injured guardspony cried out at he was wheeled to the rear of the triage tent.

The large tent was one of several that had been hurriedly erected outside of Dodge junction after the country-wide conflict had arisen. Ponies filled every bed, those injured that could do without one simply sat propped up against the sandbags stacked around the inside of each giant tent. Guardsponies, local militias and even everyday civilians were amongst the many crying out in pain and panic, most bleeding and broken, a few lying still as they teetered on the precipice of death. Nurses, doctors and anypony else who could lend a much needed hand bustled about to tend to all that they could, each looking as exhausted as the next.

Gemini Glitter was one such pony, her brain feeling like it was going to split apart from the pressure within, the aching of constant worry for everypony she was trying her best to care for. The backs of her eyes hurt, her wrists and ankles ached and her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Despite all this she continued on, shaking her head from side to side a second to best shift a splatter of deep purple blood that had shot into her eye just as she'd started applying the tourniquet to the unconscious soldiers leg.

"Alright, that'll do, move aside!" A blue-coated male doctor gruffly ordered as she finished tying the bandage around her patient.

With deep breaths Gemini stood up and stumbled back as another fresh wave of exhaustion gripped her, her eyes fluttering shut a moment as she clumsily wiped what blood she could away from her face and eye. She'd been working in this triage camp for the past eleven hours, had been on the run from military action for five hours before that and had been awake a total of twenty two hours. This day had taken a toll on her indeed, like it had done most. Gemini turned awkwardly and made for the tent's door, flying through it with arms outstretched as if she was blinded by her own tiredness. The fresh air outside was a welcome change from the stuffy heat within the tent, and almost immediately she began to feel just a little better. Within this moment, with pleasant, cooling breeze and the relative quiet as she tuned out the dull chatter of gunfire in the distance, she allowed herself a moment to relax and gather her mind once more.

A small, yet heavy wet speck slapped Gemini out of her trance suddenly, the wad of liquid that fell from the sky slapping her right in the center of the forehead. She cringed away at the sensation before another drop of fluid slapped against her shoulder, then another on the same shoulder, then a handful over her chest and arms until a steady downpour of rain began to wash over her. A moment passed as she felt the warm torrent wash through her fur and down out her fingertips, the sensation making her smile as she opened her eyes.

What she saw killed her smile as dead as bones.

Crimson. The whole sky above her was a deep, dark, angry crimson, black clouds swirling and churning as bright flashes of purple lightning sent muffled booms through the air. The rain continued to pour over her, the downpour almost too much to bear comfortably as it soaked everything a dark red.

Blood. Not the blood of a pony, but blood all the same, much like that of a fed and some of the creatures that inhabited Equestria. The gore that came down was sickly warm and each drop heavy, coating everything in a thick layer of viscous fluid. Gemini looked down at herself, a breath choking in her throat as she saw how not an inch of her lilac coat remained, her white mane and tail stained a terrible red all the way through along with the clothes she wore. A shrill sound came calling on the wind, making Gemini snap her head north, her horrified gaze peering out towards Foal mountain, towards the federation's eastern research facility.

A pillar of dark flame arose from that alien place, the unnatural fire reaching up higher than any reason would have it reach normally. The dark flickering seemed to swallow the sight around it, the alien facility utterly shrouded from view and the mountain beyond barely visible. Again a nerve-shredding squealing sound rattled through the air despite the constant hammering of the rain, the terrible noise coming from the fires that now shifted and spread out into the air. Gemini's eyes rebelled against her, her focus flitting in and out as her mind fought to process the strange images the dark fire now presented as half-seen shapes swelled up from within its churning depths. She could have sworn she was seeing faces, she argued with herself in her mind as she stood paralyzed at the sight of the rising flames that seemed now to be entirely formed from shifting, soaring faces, each twisted with agony, hatred or sinister intent. Mocking, raging and screaming they spread, the landscape ahead drowning in darkness, the sight leaving the mare onlooking the scene to stand in the bloody rain, frozen in fear, absorbed in her own dread as the world began to end in front of her.

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

Another door was blasted apart from the inside, the terminator breaching it stumbling out and falling to his heavy knees a moment before shakily bringing himself upright again, charging ahead and, thankfully, out into the open air. Soon followed Captain Errithius, Brother Biemark, Brother Varadoch, Brother Riveth, three of the five terminators that had accompanied the command team as well as the two alicorn princesses. All present were injured in one way or another, Errithius ad earned a jagged slash breadth-ways across his face's left side as well as a couple of magna-shot wounds to his right shoulder, Varadoch was still suffering from his missing fingers, Both Biemark and Riveth had been shot and bitten at least once whilst Celestia clutched as a nasty gash that had been cut across her left arm and Nightmare had been bitten and scratched almost a dozen times all over her body.

"Thank...FUCK!" Nightmare blurted out as she fell to her knees, her face pained.

Her sister shot her an obviously unimpressed look in response to her vulgar outburst, Nightmare returning her disapproving gaze with her own exhausted one.

"Not a word you foal, it's hardly the time." The dark alicorn growled with a snarl.

"Brothers, status?!" Errithius called out between gasping breaths, his own expression strained.

"We need to extract! Biemark, get into contact with Remergence!" Varadoch called out over the rolling thunder that exploded from almost directly above.

"We're still too close to the warp breach! We need to get out of here and head towards-!"

Biemark's response was cut short at the ground beneath them churned and shook, dry dirt rolling and cracking as the alien base behind them groaned from within.

"Move!" Errithius barked before taking off, the rest of his comrades following at various paces as they jogged, limped and stumbled further away from the facility.

As he ran Errithius looked back to see the dark, geometric metal of the facility was breaking apart, twisting in as if a great pressures was forcing it to collapse inwards on itself. A terrible wind was kicking up, a powerful vacuum that pulled at his back as if the dreaded place he had just escaped didn't want to let him or anyone he had left with stay gone for long. Loose dirt danced and flew through and into his thick armoured plate, the torrent forcing him to slow his advance into a trudging march ahead. A terrible, burning glow lit the base from the inside as it's thick, metal exterior was torn apart in ugly, jagged patterns. A slope was up ahead not fifty feet from where the space marine marched, the promise of even the slightest cover proving enough to spur him and his company on to break into a hurried sprint despite the gale that assaulted them. Soon they reached the peak of the slopes edge, Errithius holding steady before it to half-throw each and every one of his fellow survivors over the hills crest and to safety before he himself threw his bulky form up and over.

"We're too late!" Varadoch cried out, eyes shut in protest to the madness emerging around them all, the alicorn sisters clutching the heads in agony as flickering sparks of unruly ethereal energy arched across their forehead protrusions.

Errithius' teeth clenched tight as the howling wind picked up power and pitch, its low howl rising to a feverish scream. He cracked a eye and peered over the rise to see the alien base ahead had almost entirely, painfully imploded, its vast form shredded and shuddering with unknowable energies that thrummed from within. As the screaming air hit its crescendo the front of the structure ahead seemed to split across its frontal length, the top pulling upwards like a gigantic jaw being messily torn open wider than it was ever meant to be opened. Half-molten metal split and shredded within and the outer walls of the base pulled open into jagged, gnarled edges to resemble a terribly carnivorous maw. From within came a breathless, long, aching shriek that shook the bones and rattled the ears, the epicenter of the madness a burning, bright light like a sun shrouded in a terrible darkness as if being swallowed by a black hole. Swirling collisions of contrasting spectrums slithered through the air, colour that was never meant to be percieved shattered the air just as fould energies turned the dirt beyond the ruined base harsh and hostile with jagged shards of twisted rock.

Ahead lie a gate into a nightmare, a screaming gateway into nowhere, and there did dark shapes gather, and they spoke as one terrible will.

WE MISSED YOU!