You sit back and wipe your mouth on the back of your vambrace leaving a bloody smear across it. You shudder in ecstasy as you feel the rush of the Eldar’s memories flowing into your mind and the wailing of his soul as his essence congeals with your own. It wasn’t unheard of for Astartes to become addicted to the sensation of memory absorption and develop cannibalistic tendencies to fuel it. You happen to be one of them. You’d almost forgotten how sweet Dark Eldar flesh was.

You take a look at the bloody smear that was all that remained of the warrior and briefly wonder how you were going to explain this to Twilight. Technically you didn’t hurt him. You set him free. Though you hardly believed Twilight would feel that way. Well these ponies seemed trusting enough, you could just lie. But then why did that feel wrong? Oh well, burn that bridge when you come to it.

The Eldar’s memories began to take on coherence and you were able to pick out what you wanted. And the force was just as massive as Infernus claimed. Feanor had spared no expense, calling in debts, threatening and bribing, making promises he would never honor. Feanor did not know your location, but it would not be long before Irideth was missed and he came looking. Two days maybe, three at the most. Not nearly enough.

You turn your ruined helmet over in your hands, looking at the soulstones. Three tiny little gems. It was amazing how much trouble they could cause.

”Where can I run.” you mutter. ”How can I hide them.”

There was nowhere Feanor would not follow you. The Eye of Terror was your only true safe haven, and it was so far away. Feanor would not stop until he had these soulstones back.

”No,” you growl, staring into the depths of the gems. “Their light belongs to me!”

You were not yet defeated. Chaos had not abandoned you. Even the dogs of the False Emperor flew to your aid, albeit unknowingly. Surely this must have been the providence of the Dark Gods. You objectives are clear; get back to Ponyville, warn Celestia, prepare for war.

You take a step and immediately your strength leaves you. You fall face first onto the soft forest floor and everything starts to go blurry. Well shit. Seems like you're far more heavily wounded than you first thought. Alright, take a quick healing coma and THEN warn the ponies. Right-o then. Best get to it.

As your vision darkens you see a white blur sprinting through the clearing towards you.

”Anon!”

Oh look, it’s Vinyl. She came back to help, how nice of her.

---

You are Vinyl Scratch and as much as you know you shouldn’t have stuck around, you really wanted to see what Anon was doing with the Eldar. In hindsight, you realize that was a terrible idea. Especially considering the part where he started eating it. Twilight was equally as horrified, but not too surprised by it. You recall her saying something about looking through Anon’s memories, she probably expected he’d do something like this. And for some reason you couldn’t help but feel more than a little jealous that she’d gotten to look inside Anon’s mind.

Suddenly Anon topples over and all those thoughts are pushed from your mind, replaced only with concern for your friend. You race back into the clearing, ignoring Twilight’s protestations.

”Anon!” you yell, racing over to him.

You see his eyes focus on you for the barest of seconds before closing. You freeze as he hits the ground and watch as the ruined helm falls from his grip and rolls over to you, striking your hoof and coming to a rest. No no no no no no no!

”Vinyl!” you hear Twilight yell as she joins you.

”Vinyl, stay away from him, he’s dangerous!” she says.

”Well obviously!” you retort. “But not to us!”

”Were you paying attention? He just ate that Eldar!”

”That doesn’t mean he’s dangerous to us. He’s had plenty of opportunities to hurt us and he hasn’t. He even came out here to save me!”

”How do you know he was here to save you and not just to kill them?” she counters.

You pause at that. You couldn’t actually be sure of that, but it just couldn’t be true. No, he came to save you, you know it.

”During the fight, the Eldar that took me told Anon what she was going to do to me when he was dead and it made him furious. He cares about me!”

”That doesn’t change how dangerous he is.” Twilight argues.

”You saw his memories!” you shout at her. “You knew from the start how dangerous he is and you didn’t say anything! What’s so different now?”

”He broke a Pinkie Promise!.” she yells. “He said he wouldn’t hurt that Eldar and he ate it! Celestia knows what Pinkie'll do if she ever finds out!”

”What was he going to do? Just let it run around eating everyp0ny’s souls? And he said those things are responsible for creating the god he follows, if anything they’re even more dangerous than he is!”

”What if he decides to eat ponies?” Twilight says. “What then? He’s dangerous and keeping him around puts everp0ny at risk. ”

You really didn’t wanna play this card, but Twilight was starting to get to you.

“Some ponies might consider dragons to be dangerous.” you say.

Twilight levels a glare at you.

“Don’t you dare bring Spike into this.”

”Why not? Spike’s a dragon and dragons are dangerous.”

”That’s completely different!” Twilight yells. “Spike wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

”Oh yeah? What about that time he went on a rampage through Ponyville? He seemed pretty dangerous then.”

”That wasn’t his fault! He couldn’t control it! And he managed to stop himself before anypony got hurt.”

”Look, what I’m getting at is that if Spike can do it why can’t we give Anon that chance?” you ask.

Twilight goes quiet and seems to wrestle with the idea for a little bit.

”Alright.” she finally says. “I really do want to trust him, he’s been nothing but nice to us. Just after that...”

"I know, I know.” you agree. “It... that’s not something you just ignore. But we can confront him about it later, right now he needs our help.”

Twilight nods. “Alright, teleporting is out of the question, he’s in no state for that. We’re gonna have to carry him.”

Twilight envelopes Anonymous in an aura of telekinetic magic and lifts him into the air. Well buck, looks like there’s a reason she’s the Element of Magic after all. Twilight starts trotting out of the clearing and you begin to trot after her, but your hoof knocks into something and you pause. The remains of Anon’s helmet gaze lifelessly up at you from the ground and you quickly grab hold of it in a telekinetic grip and trot on after Twilight.

It takes about an hour of walking but you finally make it out of the Everfree and back to Ponyville. You’re just in time to see one of the most amazing sights you’ve ever witnessed. A colossal ship hovers over Ponyville. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. It doesn’t look anything like the larger air yachts you’ve seen in Canterlot, you’d never thought something so large made out of metal could ever fly. Smaller ships fly back and forth from it, disgorging even more of the armored giants of the Disco Marines around the outskirts of the town.

The greatest sight though is a colossal metal giant that towered over even the houses striding through the squads addressing them in a deep reverberating bass voice. A banner rose from the giant’s back declaring its name for all to see, the legend Grandmaster Funk proclaimed proudly upon it.

”Hey Twi, you think we should take Anon to the Disco Marines? They’re Space Marines like he is so maybe they can help.”

Twilight shakes her head.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Anon had a... really bad falling out with the rest of his species. He looks to be on good terms with these guys now, but I don’t think we should push our luck.”

You’re not sure what she means, but you don’t have much choice other than to trust her considering she’s been inside Anon’s mind. Something you’re still rather jealous of.

”Alright, but don’t you think we should at least tell Infernus about the Eldar?”

”Yeah,” Twilight agrees. “That seems like something he’d need to know about.”

”Alright.” you say. “You bring Anon back to your place and I’ll go get Infernus.”

You begin to trot away in when Twilight calls for you to stop. You turn around and give her a questioning look. She points a hoof at you and you- oh. Right. The blood. Boy that sure was a lot of blood.

---

You are Twilight Sparkle and wow that really is a lot of blood. It’s a good thing you’re such an accomplished mage. A quick burst of telekinetic magic and the dried blood is blown from Vinyl’s coat. She inspects herself for a moment then gives you an approving look.

“Wow, that’s some pretty useful stuff. Does it work for getting other stuff out of one’s coat?”

You’re about to respond with the obvious answer, but in one of your rare moments of social clarity, you realize she’s making a dirty joke and blush fiercely. Vinyl laughs and begins to trot away.

“I’ll meet you back at your place with Infernus, see ya!”

Grumbling to yourself, you trot briskly into town, making sure to keep Anon out of sight of the Space Marines. As you enter the town and ponies begin seeing the state of Anon you start to hear hushed conversations pick up all around you. After what feels like ages you finally get back to the library. You set Anon down on the floor with a loud thump. You may have been able to make it look easy, but Anonymous was anything but easy to levitate, it was almost as bad as the Ursa Minor. Now... you actually had no idea what to do right now.

”What the hay happened to Anon!”

You turn to see Spike running into the room in full panic mode.

”Oh man, what happened? How’d he get all those cuts? Why isn’t he moving? He’s not dead is he?”

You sigh and put a hoof to your forehead. This was going to be a long day.

”OMYGOSH TWILIGHT, I HEARD NONY GOT HURT!”

No, wait, NOW it was going to be a long day.

Pinkie Pie rushes over to Anonymous’s prone form and envelops him in the biggest hug she can muster.

”NONYYYYYYY, YOU CAN’T DIE, WE’VE STILL GOT SO MANY MORE PARTIES TO HAVE!”

This is not what you need right now. In fact, this is probably the last thing you need right now.

”Anon’s dying? We have to do something! Twilight, try writing the princess!”

No, no, no.

”Hey, I heard Anon got hurt, what’s goin’ on?”

Sweet Celestia, Rainbow t-

”Twilight! Fluttershy and I were at the spa when we heard that Anonymous had been hurt! Is there anything we can do to help?”

You don't need this.

”Howdy y’all.”

And there we go. Fully rustled status: achieved. You love your friends, more than anything in the entire world. But when attempting to tend to an injured alien you knew nothing of, physiologically, there was likely no other group of ponies in existence you would give anything to be without. You clear your throat.

“Girls?”

They completely ignore you, though Applejack and Fluttershy stand off to the side watching the spectacle unfold.

”Nony, don’t die on meeeeeee!”

”Well his armor is simply ruined! He can’t go out looking like this at all! Of course I’ll have to make him something to wear, oh I’ve never designed anything for an alien before!”

Rainbow, for her part, was poking him in the face with a hoof trying to wake him up. Spike is just running around in blind panic now. Buck this whole day.

You take a deep breath, you prepare a spell, then you teleport everyp0ny away to their respective homes. Except Pinkie. She dove for cover the second her Pinkie Sense went off. Bucking Pinkie Sense.

You calmly snatch Spike up with your telekinesis as he runs by you, still panicking. He flails around weightless for a few moments before calming down. He looks around sheepishly.

“... hehe, sorry.”

You set him back on the ground and send him out on some errands. You resolve to simply suffer Pinkie and make your way over to the unconscious Anonymous and look him over, wondering where to start.

”You should probably take his armor off.” Pinkie suggests.

”That’s probably a good idea.” you agree. Ignoring the fact that you just agreed with an idea of Pinkie’s.

His chestplate looked the most ravaged and his torso in the most need of tending to. You grope around his chestplate with your magic for a few moments, looking for latches or locks. You find a few seals and undo them and then grab the plate in your magic and tug. Nothing happens. It remains firmly in place. You tug again, a little harder this time. Still nothing. You tug harder again, but this time you keep the pressure on. After a moment of pulling you hear a click as the chestplate detaches and begins to move. You nearly jump through the roof when Anon’s eyes shoot open and he begins to scream.

---

You are Anonymous and FUCKING GODS DAMNED SHIT THIS FUCKING HURTS, OW! It’s not even the good kind of pain either! As you scream the armor segment finally comes free trailing multiple mucus-slicked cables that were forcibly yanked from your Black Carapace.

”OMYGOSH!” Twilight exclaims. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you were connected to it!”

You inhale sharply through clenched teeth.

”You didn’t perform the rites!” you hiss.
”W-what?” Twilight stutters.

”You don’t just remove power armor! There are rites to be observed, a process to be followed!” you say, clutching your now exposed chest.

At the mention of ‘process’ Twilight’s eyes light up in an extremely unsettling way.

”You mean like a checklist?”

”Yes, exactly like a checklist!” you hiss.

The Warp trembles and you later come to understand that these were likely the worst possible words you could have spoken to Twilight. Ever.

Next Chapter: Bird is the Word Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 53 Minutes