In began in light.

Sanguinius stretched out his wings and tightened his grip on the Blade Encarmine, watching as the golden spires of Terra flew underneath. His own golden armour shone in the light, its every master-crafted plate and ornate device illuminated by the reflections of the sun, and by the flare of bolterfire below.

The Emperor’s Angel looked on in sorrow at the tragedy below; men who had once called each other Brother now bayed for each other’s blood, and Space Marine fought Space Marine in the streets of Terra. Sanguinius could still recall a time when such things were all but unthinkable; only the Wolves had ever done such a thing, save for that day on…

“Brothers, we are nearing the drop zone.”

Sanguinius turned to see the very man himself, Leman Russ, Gene-Father of the Space Wolves and the Emperor’s Executioner. Behind the wild Primarch stood two more of their ilk: Jaghatai Khan, the enigmatic warlord, who for so long rode with his White Scars among the farthest stars in search of battle, and Roboute Guilliman, the statesman and planner, the master of the Ultramarines and an empire within their Father’s realm.

On any other day, such a gathering alone would have been a thing of legend; five of the Emperor’s gene-forged sons in a single place. Yet on this day, it was simple necessity, and it was all the more tragic because of that.

Sanguinius turned and looked out across the smoking battlefield. His genhanced senses allowed him to see every detail as they passed, despite the speed of their flight and the altitude at which they flew. He watched each tooth on an Ultramarine’s chainsword bite through the ceramite of a Death Guard. He saw every crack as a boltshell broke through a White Scar’s armour. A thousand stories could be told from what he saw.

“Brothers! You know your duty,” Guilliman said, hefting a power sword in his right hand. “Aless-Father has assigned us the duty of establishing contact with the xen-Vulkan and planting the teleport homers so we can bri-fight Horus on his own ship. Check your weapons and make ready! For the Emperor and San-Terra!”

The Primarchs cheered, and of them , not a one was louder than Sanguinius. Fury surged in the Golden Angel’s blood, the fury that made him so fearsome in war, and which so afflicted his beloved sons.

A shudder, and Sanguinius soared to the ground, his brothers following close behind. They descended on Jump Packs; Sanguinius flew with his mighty wings.

His golden eyes widened with rage as he took stock of the enemy before him. They were clad in black, the hateful ebony of the Black Legion, the Sons of Horus, the arch-traitors. And there, in their midst, stood the greatest of his brothers and the worst of the traitors; a man whose very name was a curse, to be hated by every true human for all eternity. Fury bubbled up in the Blood Angel, spewing forth from his lips in a single, violent cry.

“Horus!”

Sanguinius burst up the street like a shell fired from a boltgun. The Sons of Horus turned their weapons on him, but their volleys were to no avail; boltshells hissed and dissipated against his golden plate, and chainswords shattered in the hands of helpless attackers. The Emperor’s Angel slew with abandon; a slash of the Blade Encarmine, a blast from his plasma-inferno pistol, the stomping of his armoured foot, and with each, another traitor slain. The heretics melted before his wrath like ice before a power sword. They died screaming, in agony, in fear. Sanguinius smiled; such a death was all they deserved.

For hours and seconds and years Sanguinius tore up the street; his enemies were few and unending; Black Legion and the Sons of Horus, charging and fleeing as he passed. His brothers were long out of sight, and out of his thoughts; only battle remained to him, the only outlet for the rage which surged in his breast.

Blood splattered across his armour and was quickly sheered away by the speed of his assault; no drop spent more than three seconds on his person before it was gone. Bones crunched beneath his tread. Ceramite and leather sizzled and warped under the blows of the Blade Encarmine. All who came in his sight died, again, and again, and again.

Then before him rose up a challenger, Ezekyle Abaddon, the favoured son of Horus. Clad in the black of the Justaerin and armed with a power sword, and bearing that impossibly arrogant glare.

“Die, you bast-!” Abaddon began. His words were lost in a burst of plasma, the air exploding from the sudden heat. Abaddon narrowly dodged the blast, a stroke of extreme luck.

Such luck did not last.

Sanguinius struck the traitor with the force of a meteor, throwing the black-armoured marine to the ground. The Angel reared back, raising the Blade Encarmine to the sky.

“Know the fate of all traitors!” Sanguinius roared. He plunged his sword deep into Abaddon’s chest, the energy of the weapon flaring as it seared through the heretic’s armour. Blood spewed from his mouth and his eyes went cold.

Sanguinius planted a foot firmly on Abaddon’s un-beating chest, raised his arms, and proclaimed in a mighty roar his victory. Hot on the heels of his success, Sanguinius lunged forward, leaping into the halls of the Vengeful Spirit. He dashed down the corrupted halls of the flagship. His wings brushed against the oozing sides, and he winced.

“Gah! What foul substance is this?” the Blood Angel spat. “It burns! Curse you, Horus, where are you hiding?”

More traitors fell beneath his blade, their lives snuffed out with both a fury unmatched among all the stars and an apathy as cold as a Fenrisian night. The rage bubbled forth uncontrollably from Sanguinius, but it was an uncaring thing; he killed because his blood demanded it, but not a stroke of his blade meant anything more to him than another brief respite from the pounding in his veins.

Then it came, as it always did. Darkness reared up before Sanguinius, brandishing an ebony-and-gold mace. The arch-traitor’s rancid smile gleamed in the shadows as Horus Lupercal extended his Lightning Claw.

“Come, Sanguinius, my brother,” Horus said, his eyes glowing red as he made his offer. “Join me, and we shall overthrow the false Emperor together.”

The Blood Angel raised his blade, his heart pounding against his chest with rage.

“Never! Face me and answer for your crimes!”

Thus it began; the penultimate duel, the Angel against the Monster. The clash was legendary, as the crimson Blade Encarmine slashed at the ebony might of the Worldbreaker. The battle was over in an instant eternity; for days unending did Sanguinius and Horus duel, sword against mace, wing against claw. With each passing moment a heat grew in the Angel’s breast, melting through his armour and touching his very heart. Sanguinius cared not; he would defeat his brother, bring an end to this heresy, save the Imperium. He struck with all his might, cracking open the unholy armour of his fallen brother.

Then, a tug on his wing, a slamming into the ground. Sanguinius could only watch in horror and despair as Worldbreaker rose into the air, its arc an inescapable fate.

The future flashed before the Angel’s eyes, scattered, disparate images of which he could make no sense: a verdant world, a desperate king, a forlorn queen, death, life, sorrow, love, the sun, the moon, a Father, a Mother…

“Horus!” Sanguinius roared his final word. Worldbreaker fell.

It ended in darkness.
_____

High-speed winds battered against the inhuman body of the Furioso Dreadnought as the Honour of Meros soared into the xenos city. Castello paid it no heed; he had barely any feeling in the cold shell he now called his body. Except, of course, for the perpetual pain of his sarcophagus.

This too he paid little attention to, accustomed as he was to the agony, to pain that would have slain any normal man and driven even the mightiest of them to madness. But Castello was, at his core, Astartes, and thus, though every moment of his life was excruciating, he carried on. Only in death does duty end, a wise man once said. By enduring the pain of the sarcophagus, Castello proved that man wrong.

Not that such mattered to him at the moment; all that mattered was the boil in his blood, the anticipation of the battle to come. It would be refreshing to fight a real battle; the skirmish earlier that week had been nice, but it had been too long since he was able to properly satiate the battle-lust that burned in the heart of every Blood Angel.

The Stormraven shuddered as it came to a stop in the middle of a xenos street. Inside his sarcophagus, Castello smiled; they had already stopped once, to deliver Orlando and his team, and now…

Now, as the clamps which held him to the back of the Stormraven hissed open, he would fight.

Castello struck the ground like a meteor, leaving a two-foot indent in the pavement. His legs whirred as the ancient machinery began to move. The Dreadnought turned his undying gaze on his target. Arcane sensors reached out, pin-pointing the ‘Police Headquarters’ three blocks north of his position. Submitting the information to the machine spirits which dwelled in his mechanical tomb, Castello awaited their analysis.

Sixty-one unaugmented humans, forty-two humanoid mutants, ten Word Bearers, five Emperor’s Children, eight World Eaters.

All in all, one-hundred-and-three Chaos Cultists and twenty-three Chaos Marines between Castello and the local resistance. Inside his sarcophagus, and amidst the endless agony of his condition, Castello twisted the ruined remains of his lips into a horrid facsimile of a smile. It had been a long time since he’d had a real fight.

Warning: sensors indicate no less than ten Iron Warriors on approach, accompanied by two Obliterators.

Had Castello still had shoulders, he would have shrugged. He was a Blood Angel, a Son of Sanguinius; at but a word he would fight against odds a thousand times worse without a word of complaint. More practically, he was entombed in the vaunted Furioso variant of Dreadnought. Even by the standards of the Adeptus Astartes, he was clad in great armour. Let the Iron Warriors and their Obliterators come; even the killing power of meltaguns would have trouble puncturing Castello’s armour, if he was careful.

“Kill it! Kill it now!” a harsh voice, as though its owner had spent his whole life smoking sandpaper cigarettes only to wash it down with shards of glass, called out. Barrages of metal pinged off the ceramite and adamantium that encased Castello.

The Furioso Dreadnought took his first step forward, the ground shaking a little beneath his mighty tread. The undying Space marine entombed inside inhaled hot, stale air.

“In the Emperor’s Name,” Castello boomed, his vox unit booming his words down the streets of the xenos city, Manehatten. He raised his Heavy Flamer. “Burn!”

Four cultists died screaming, their blood vaporized and their flesh seared from their charred bones. A fifth fell in pieces to the ground, his chest disintegrated by a meltagun beam. Castello stepped forward again, and again, increasing his speed with every stride.

The cultist champion hastily pumped a fresh shell into his shotgun. “Fire, blast you all, fire!”

Castello laughed. There was not a weapon for one-and-a-half blocks that could pierce his shell.

The Dreadnought charged into the cultists and their hopeless fusillade, crushing one to a pulp beneath his feet before he could even swing. Those swings came but a moment later, before the cultists could even mount a defense. Blood Talons, crackling with blue energy, soon became coated with fresh blood as he tore four more cultists to shreds, their gore splattering across their fellows. The cultists swung back in desperation, slamming fists, knives, bricks, and other makeshift weapons against the Dreadnought. It was to no avail; among them was not a one who had any hope of breaching his armour.

But a moment later it was all over; the cultists broke and ran, screaming in terror while their champion tried hopelessly to rally the squad. Castello took full advantage of their disarray, tearing the hapless humans apart. He swept through their broken ranks, slaying all who came in reach. Not a one was left unscathed; most were simply dead, their bodies shredded and splattered across the street, and those handful that yet drew breath were not long for this world. Castello cared not for the moans of the wounded and dying, however. He simply turned his attention to the next fight.

“Horus!” a blood-crazed voiced screamed from just behind Castello’s view. The Furioso Dreadnought released a sad, mechanical sigh as Brother Adamo soared past him. The Death Company Marine flew on jets of flame, his Jump Pack carrying him past Castello and into the next body of cultists. The Dreadnought held his fire, simply treading behind his fallen brother.

Before him was a sight Castello had seen many times in his long years. Flesh sizzled beneath the heat of plasma blasts, makeshift armour evaporating under the slash of the Power Sword. Cultists died in droves, their lives but wheat before the scythe of the Death Company’s wrath. The Dreadnought kept pace, spewing death by fire and melta. His sensors told him that the remainder of Priam’s squad followed closely behind, cutting down stragglers with their boltpistols.

Together they cut a bloody swath, scattering the heretics to the winds. Gore gushed freely in the streets. Sundered bones and rent hunks of flesh flew through the air. Bullets shattered against ceramite armour. Flames roared, consuming cloth and leather and metal and meat. The cultists scattered, screaming in terror and agony. Castello intoned a deep, mechanical laugh.

“Taste of the Emperor’s wrath!” he boomed as he crushed a cultist underfoot.

By now the cultists were few and far between; Adamo and Castello had laid waste to their numbers, and those who yet drew breath had mostly scattered down the many alleyways of Manehatten. With the meat shields removed from play, the true fight could begin. Not that a mere twenty-three Chaos Marines constituted much of a threat to a Furioso Dreadnought.

A blast of melta put an end to such thoughts. Castello narrowly dodged the shot, and retaliated with one of his own. A Word Bearer died with a hole in his Warp-tainted flesh.

Castello roared and charged into the squad. The Word Bearers threw up a hasty barrage of fire, but it was to no avail; the boltshells either missed or exploded uselessly against Castello’s Baal-pattern armour, while the handful of melta and plasma bursts failed to do more than warp his paintjob. The Furioso Dreadnought slammed into the lines of Chaos, tearing three of the heretics apart with his crackling Blood Talons. The Word Bearers broke, their line shattered by the Dreadnought’s charge. No defense could they mount, and no resistance could they offer. They simply died, their champion shredded while desperately trying to rally his warriors.

Impaling the last of the squad on his Talons, Castello took a moment to assess the state of the battle. It was, as he had anticipated, a slaughter; the forces of Chaos had been equipped for anti-infantry and urban warfare, not for close combat with a Dreadnought. He smiled as his sensors also reported that he was but half a block from the ‘Police Headquarters’ that the local resistance seemed to have rallied at. Good, the ancient Space Marine thought. We can use their numbers.

The battle here had been easy and swift, but he knew that such luck could not hold; here they fought mere infantry, and struck with the speed and fury so central to the war-doctrines of Baal. But in his centuries of experience, Castello had learned to always expect his enemies to have deadlier tricks up their sleeves. He was, in fact, somewhat surprised that the foul servants of Chaos had not yet made use of their heretical technology.

But a moment later, Adamo reminded Castello of what he had detected at the beginning of his charge.

The Dreadnought could only watch helplessly as the maddened Blood Angel made his final charge. With Power Sword raised high and Plasma Pistol blazing, Adamo threw himself at the band of approaching Iron Warriors. One of the grey-armoured Chaos Marines died silently, a blast of plasma melting through his unholy heart. His fellows ignored their loss as though he had been nothing more than a battle-servitor and took aim.

“Never! Face me and answer for your crimes!” Adamo roared as he lunged at the Iron Warriors, gouts of flame spewing from his Jump Pack. “Horus!”

Adamo died before he could even hit the ground. Castello watched as one of the Obliterators rippled and morphed, his arm transforming into two meltaguns. It fired point-blank at the Death Company Marine. The orange-red beam seared through Adamo, melting the lost Marine’s chest and killing him instantly.

Castello held his ground. But a half-second alter, Priam and his squad landed just behind the Dreadnought, their armour spattered with blood and their guns bearing exhausted magazines. The Assault Marines took a moment to reload, and while they did, Castello thought.

It was not a good situation; not a one of them had anything that could outrange the Iron Warriors, and they were too far away to simply charge. Not helping matters were the remainder of the original Chaos force; a handful of cultists had rallied at the far end of the street, providing covering fire for the Berzerkers and Noise Marines who still carried on the siege of the Police Headquarters. A quick scan told Castello that the building would not last much longer. Beams of multi-coloured light sprayed out of its windows, knocking down cultists and stunning the Chaos Marines, but it was not enough.

Priam stepped beside Castello. The Veteran Sergeant sighed.

“Of all bloody deployments, we just had to get this one, didn’t we?” he said with another heavy sigh. “Why are we even here, Castello? These are xenos. We should have purged them and left.”

“We go where the Chaplain orders us, Brother,” Castello replied. “It was he who forged this alliance, tenuous as it is.”

“And therein lies the rub,” Priam said. “Why has a Chaplain, of all men, chosen to make common cause with xenos? Of all of us he should have been the first to order the purge, and yet instead he has commanded first caution and now alliance. What is happening to the galaxy, Castello, that such a thing would happen?”

Castello did a rough imitation of a shrug. “The witchkin Renato sees things we do not, and the Chaplaincy is privy to matters mere battle-brothers could not understand. I share your concerns, but have faith. The Emperor’s hand is upon us. Whatever happens, take comfort in that knowledge.”

Priam chuckled and fiddled with the teleport homer hanging beneath his Jump Pack. “You sound like a Chaplain yourself, Castello.”

Castello gave his, albeit sadder chuckle. “Maybe I was, in life. It matters not at the moment,” The Dreadnought gestured to the Iron Warriors. “They had drawn bead on us. Brothers! Behind me! I will buy you what time I may!”

Young Brother Severin tightened his grip on his meltagun. “O Holy Emperor, Grandfather of the Astartes, cast your Golden Gaze upon us, and deliver us from Chaos.”

Castello took a step forward. Silently, he issued the same prayer, a prayer he and many other Space Marines had offered in times such as this.

A moment later, it was answered.

The air was filled with explosions as the Honour of Meros soared in overhead, its various weapons systems pouring death into the Iron Warriors. The grey-armoured heretics fell back, seeking cover from the onslaught. Few died; three, by Castello’s count, and not a one of the Obliterators among them. but they were driven back, and a path was opened.

Castello gestured to the Police Headquarters. “Brothers! The Emperor has delivered us! Let us not waste his mercy!”

Under cover from the Stormraven, the Blood Angels charged up the street. Castello burst through a thin line of cultists, scattering the rest to flight with a twist of his Heavy Flamer. Priam and his two squadmates followed closely behind, firing boltshells and melta blasts as they passed.

Castello’s scans blared. Warning: Noise Marines targeting. Warning: Noise Marines targeting.

A volley of fire from the Honour of Meros soon ended that concern, if only for a moment; Chaos Marines were clad in armour of roughly the same quality as the Space Marines themselves, and could survive these volleys if not with ease, at least predictability. In but a moment, the Noise Marines would take aim again and unleash their cacophonous barrage. Already some cultists had rallied, pumping autogun rounds at the Blood Angels.

It did not matter; the Stormraven had accomplished its purpose.

“Varen, the door!” Priam shouted to his battle-brother. The young Assault Marine rushed ahead, skidding to a stop less than a metre short of the Police Headquarters door. He holstered his boltpistol and reached for the handle, only for the doors to swing open on their own. A purple-coated head popped out.

“Quick, get in!” Twilight Sparkle said, her eyes wide with a strange mixture of terror and hope. The Space Marines rushed inside, their Jump Packs smashing dents into the doorframe.

With his battle-brothers safe for the moment, Castello turned his attention back to the servants of Chaos. The ruined remains of his lips twisted as best they could into a scowl as his machines spirits gave their report.

Warning: Noise Marines opening fire. Warning: Chaos reinforcements detected at three kilometres, estimated four hundred cultists, twenty traitor Astartes.

Even a war machine as mighty as Castello had his limits, and he feared they would soon be met. The Iron Warriors were irritatingly not yet dead, simply delayed, and between their anti-armour and the sheer weight of numbers marching to join the siege, the Dreadnought doubted he could win this alone. He simply did not have the range to protect himself from the Iron Warriors, and even his armour could only take so many hits before it would begin to buckle.

His only hope was the Stormraven; it was bristling with the kind of high-volume, longer-range firepower Castello sorely needed.

The first wave of sonic blasts struck but a second after that thought. As was only fitting, given the skill of the artificers of Baal, Castello’s armour held strong, easily ignoring the bombardment. The loud cracks Castello detected behind himself, however, told him that the building was not so sturdy. They would need to leave soon, lest they be slain by its collapse.

Castello could not return fire; the Chaos Marines had wisely remained out of the insubstantial range of his armament. The Dreadnought decided then and there that if he survived the battle, he would get Cosimo to restore his Storm Bolter; anything, just to have meaningful range on something.

From behind the Furioso, a rainbow array of lights blasted out, supplemented by volleys of metal-tipped wooden bolts. Most of the shots were clear misses, simply striking the ground or pieces of makeshift cover. Of the lights, none seemed to do more than stun or delay the servants of Chaos. The bolts fared a little better, sometimes punching through the low-quality armour of the cultists, though Castello had yet to see a one pierce the tainted ceramite of the Chaos Marines.

Beams of melta forced Castello to begin retreating, narrowly avoiding the maximum range of the Iron Warriors. He growled, furious that he could not simply charge in. But he had no choice; until the Honour of Meros returned for another attack run he simply could not risk taking a melta blast somewhere important.

As though in answer to his prayers, the Stormraven soared into Castello’s sight at that very moment. Its bolters and assault cannons opened fire, unleashing a fusillade of exploding death upon the heretics once again. Castello made ready to charge, taking careful aim with his guns and tensing his legs.

Then came the most horrifying sound the ancient Blood Angel had heard in many months. It was a roar, deep and mechanical, which carried in its very tone the feeling of fire and pain.

Castello could only watch helplessly as the Heldrake soared into view, spewing fiery death and beating its unholy wings against an increasingly crimson sky. The daemonic machine soared after the Stormraven. Before the Servitor pilots the Blood Angels had installed could react, the Heldrake latched onto the vehicle. It tore at the Stormraven’s armour, its vile talons shredding through its siding. The monster then arched its head and unleashed its foul breath. The Baleflamer melted through the Honour of Meros, frying its internal systems and destroying any control the Servitors had. The monster released the Stormraven and flew off, roaring in triumph. The ruined flyer fell and crashed on the streets below, its smoking corpse ripping apart the street and punching into a nearby building.

“No!” Castello boomed. He resumed his retreat, though fury burned in his breast. To be so close to another chance at glorious melee combat, only to be denied at the last moment, and by such a loss!

As Castello found cover from the Iron Warriors, he fumed. The loss of the Stormraven was a tragedy, both in terms of the Blood Angels’ arsenal and their morale. Without it, he doubted the Police Headquarters could hold out for very long, if at all. If they were going to survive, they would need help, and soon.

And so Castello did as all pious Space Marines did when doom reared up before them: he prayed, and he readied his weapons. If he was to die, he would do so with the Emperor’s name on his lips and blood on his talons.
_____

Inside the Police Headquarters, Veteran Sergeant Priam had matters of his own to attend to.

“Severin, Varen, get to the windows and return fire!” Priam shouted, pointing to a random window with his Power Sword. The young Space Marines obeyed without a word, slamming their heavily-armoured forms against the walls and taking aim with boltpistol and meltagun. Priam turned to the lavender pony standing nervously in front of him. He scowled beneath his helmet and strode past her, reaching for the teleport homer on his back.

“Oh thank Faust you finally got here,” the pony, Twilight Sparkle, Priam remembered, said. The xenos tensed up for a moment. “Pardon my Prench, it’s just, it’s been a rough day, and it’s been all we can do to hold these things off, and you seem to be the only ones who can stop them, and Rainbow Dash took off with most of the pegasi to try and find help but she still hasn’t come back and…”

“Cease your prattling, xenos!” Priam snapped. Twilight recoiled momentarily at the sudden aggression. Ignoring the xenos, Priam lodged the teleport homer into the floor of the Police Headquarters. Satisfied that it was stable, he activated the device and prayed that its signal would be received quickly.

With his immediate objective completed, Priam at last consciously took in some detail of his surroundings. The room, a lobby bearing rather eerie resemblance to human architecture, was a mess. Hunks of debris littered the floor, though most of it seemed to have been piled against the walls. Cement dust hung in the air, growing in density with every barrage that struck the building. Xenos of various colours and kinds were scattered throughout. The psyker-types, unicorns, mostly congregated near the windows, their horns glowing like lamps as they fired beam after useless beam at their attackers. The simple xenos, Earth Ponies, ran to and fro, lugging boxes of various contents, from what appeared to be some primitive ammunition to water flasks. Several of them were at the windows, carrying devices Priam recognized as some sort of crossbow. Many of the xenos were dressed in a blue uniform, with strange badges inscribed with words the Space Marine could not interpret. At the far end of the lobby were doors and a set of massive stairs leading up to a second floor. Several xenos seemed to be carrying their wounded down the stairs and through the doors into the backrooms.

Priam heard Twilight began to babble again, but he paid the alien no heed. The veteran Space Marine simply checked the ammunition in his boltpistol. Half-full. Not bad, considering…

His thoughts were cut off by a burst of light, a rainbow of impossible colours flashing briefly before his genhanced eyes as a gateway into the Warp tore open in front of him. But a moment later it as gone, leaving in its wake the Librarian Renato and the Terminator Veteran Paolo.

The two were a sight for Priam’s sore eyes, though a quick scan of the pair left him slightly disappointed.

Renato was armed as he always was, carrying his Force Sword in one hand and a Storm Bolter in the other. This was to be expected and did not play into Priam’s slightly sour mood. Rather, it was Paolo who left Priam uneasy.

The Terminator Veteran had elected to take up an Assault loadout, hefting a massive Thunder Hammer in one hand, while a Storm Shield rested on his other arm. It was a deadly combination, to be sure; few things could withstand a blow from such a hammer, and Storm Shields were famed for their ability to deflect all but the mightiest of blows. However, it did not provide what Priam in that moment desperately needed: ranged firepower.

“Renato!” Twilight leapt in front of Priam, wrapping its strange alien hooves around the Librarian’s chest. “You came! I was so worried I’d never see you again!”

Renato chuckled in response. “I suspect you’ll not have to worry about that for a while. Now, please, we have some rather pressing matters to attend to, so…”

The Librarian firmly but, to Priam’s mind, surprisingly, gently pushed the xenos’ forelegs away. He then strode forward and nodded a greeting to Priam. The Assault Sergeant returned the gesture.

“It’s not good, Librarian,” Priam reported. “Brother Castello is trapped outside, and none of us carries any weapons with the range we need. The xenos…”

“Are unable to harm the forces of Chaos?” Paolo finished for Priam. The Terminator Veteran hefted his Thunder Hammer. “Then I suppose we’ll all simply have to make up the difference. Of all times to meet an alien race that is not dedicated to destruction, why now?”

“We can ponder the ways of the Emperor later,” Renato said as he checked his Storm Bolter. “For now, let us focus on the battle. Twilight, I need a quick report on what’s happened. Our Scouts never returned, so we currently know nothing.”

“It started a few hours ago when Starlight and Spike noticed some, what do you call them, ‘drop pods,’ right? Well, they started raining down and the chanters, er, Chaos Marines started murdering everypony and…” Twilight’s speech was drowned out in a deep mechanical roar. The Space Marines froze for a moment, tensing as their gene-forged and battle-honed instincts flared warnings.

Priam, Paolo, and Renato rushed to the windows, followed closely by Twilight.

“Let it not be what I think it is,” Renato desperately half-prayed.

The spine-chilling sound of adamantium scraping against ceramite and the unholy roar of daemonic flame put an end to any hope otherwise.

The deep mechanical voice of the Dreadnought Castello boomed. "No!"

Severin was the first to voice what all the Space Marines suspected.

“Brother-Sergeant, a Heldrake has just destroyed our Stormraven!” the young Space Marine reported. He flexed his grip on his meltagun. “Sir, what are your orders?”

Brother Varen spoke next. “Brother-Sergeant, Chaos reinforcements are inbound! I see them marching up the streets!”

The three veteran Marines looked to one another, unsure of what to say. To Priam’s great surprise, it was the xenos Twilight who gave an answer.

“I suppose this means we keep fighting, doesn’t it?” the xenos said, its tone distinctly forlorn. An alien tear fell to the ground.

To shed a tear at the thought of battle was a thought as alien to Priam as Twilight itself. Yet the xenos’ trepidation at their situation was a feeling he shared. They had minimal long-range options, were horribly outnumbered, and had just lost their only reliable method of countering the Warp-cursed Iron Warriors.

Priam was no oblivious Scout; he was well beyond the early days in which every Space Marine believed himself invincible. He knew full well just how bad the situation was. It was, tactically, nigh-impossible. Strategically? In terms of keeping necessary assets alive to fuel what amounted to their war effort, there could be no victory here. They were doomed, cut off and set to be destroyed, either in a blaze of glory of a slow, bloody grind.

So Priam did as all Space Marines did in the face of the impossible: he prayed.

“O Lord and Master of Mankind, hear my plea,” he intoned. “Cast thy holy gaze upon your humble servants. Deliver us from this doom that marches upon us.”

Priam felt Renato lay a hand on his shoulder. No words were exchanged, for none were needed; Renato’s support was perfectly expressed in that single gesture. To Priam’s surprise, Twilight placed a hoof against his waist, as though imitating Renato. In that moment, Priam was both disturbed and strangely comforted. Though he, like all Space Marines, despised the touch of the alien, he felt in this particular touch a strange comfort, a familiar presence like that of a distant relative.

Paolo’s heavy steps interrupted the moment. The Terminator Veteran hefted his Thunder Hammer and spoke.

“Come, brothers, xenos,” he said. “The enemy is at our door. Let us teach him the price of such folly.”

“Aye,” Renato said with a grin. “Make ready, brothers, and xenos! To your posts! We shall not let Chaos go unbloodied this day! For the Sanguinius...”

The Blood Angels responded as one.

"And the Emperor!"

Author's Notes:

Well, this chapter is finally done. Sorry for the wait. My schedule recently got more busy, but I’ll try and get back on track for a chapter once a week.

Please note that the sequence with the Death Company Marine was NOT based on 40k game mechanics. That was based entirely on lore, where a DCM with a Power Sword can kill a Dreadnought solo (I kid you not, that is a thing that happened in one book; it was awesome).

And for those who weren’t sure, the first part was intentionally weirdly written; it’s the hallucination of a DCM, and so doesn’t entirely make sense. I hope it was at least readable.

By the way, does anyone actually understand what melta is? Is it a beam, a spray, what?

On the topic of reader advice, would you guys prefer if the Space Marines keep referring to the ponies as ‘it,’ or would you rather I gender the pronouns for reader convenience?