You are Twilight Sparkle and you are currently inside the mind of a Space Marine. Whatever that is. But that's what you're here to find out. Alright, time to get to work, let’s see some memories. Suddenly memories, memories everywhere! It’s just a giant bucking maelstrom of color, sound, and raw emotion. It’s absolute bucking chaos in here, is this how Anonymous actually thinks? It explains a lot actually.

With a brief burst of magic you force some semblance of order upon the memories. Everything calms down and you see the quantity of memory arrayed before you. Sweet Celestia, no living being should have this many memories. How old was Anonymous? This is easily a thousand lifetimes worth of memories.

Well let’s find out, now where to start... Well you could always just go with the very beginning and fast forward to the important parts as you went. Okay, let’s do this. For science, for Equestria! And not at all for your own personal gratification! That’s your story and you’re sticking to it.

You find the beginning and start watching. It starts with the sound of flesh striking flesh and crying.

”Quit yer blubbering, I didn’t hit you that hard, ya little runt!”

What the buck is this? More crying is the only answer you receive.

”If I catch ya with this thing again I’ll really give you a reason to cry! This was yer mother’s and yer ungrateful ass ain’t got the right to touch it!”

The scene solidifies itself and you are horrified at what you see. A large human stands over a significantly smaller one. He's holding some kind of instrument, it looks like a violin. The little one is crying, his left cheek is bright red.

”I just wanted to make music like mommy...”

Another smack, more crying.

”Long’s ya live in my hab there ain’t gonna be any of that! We ain’t got time fer prissy music, we got work ta do!”

”I don’t wanna work in the fabrication plants though!”

”Well tough shit! You’ll work there just like me, and my father before me, and his father before him, and his father before him!”

Another smack, more crying. You pull out of the memory as quickly as you can, feeling tears coming on. What the buck did you just see? Was that... was that Anonymous? But he was so small... And that man, his father... Is that what humans were like to their own children? You go to the next memory. What a surprise, it starts with another smack.

The boy is sitting on the ground and holding his left cheek. He’s older this time, probably doubled in age. He’s still so young though.

”What did I tell you? I don’t want none of this prissy music shit in my hab!”

”But dad, Fulgrim’s trying to bring culture to Chemos! If I show him I have talent maybe he’ll let me join the legion!”

The old man bursts out laughing. It isn’t a happy laugh.

”You think you have any chance of ever getting into the legion?” he wheezes out between laughs. “A little shit like you? You think you’ll ever join the legion? That’s fucking hilarious!”

He’s holding a violin in his hands again.

The boy looks angry. “Please, just give me my violin back. I didn’t touch mom’s, I bought it with my own wages!”

The man stops laughing.

”That’s even worse! D’ya know how much obscura I coulda got with those wages? Do you?! I’m not tellin’ ya again, no music in this hab!”

He snaps the violin in half and the boy finally cries.

The next memory.

”Where the hell do ya think yer goin’?”

”I’m leaving.”

The boy is almost grown now, he’s easily his father’s height.

”Like ‘ell ya are! Yer damned shift starts in an hour!”

”No it doesn’t, I’m done with that.”

”What, ya think ya can still join the legion? They’ll never take a little shit like you!”

"I don’t even care, dad. Whatever happens to me out there will be infinitely better than what happens here. Goodbye dad. I won’t miss you.”

A door opens.

”You’ll come crawlin’ back, ya little shit! Yer just like yer mother!”

The boy turns around.

”Good. I’d hate to think I’m anything like your sorry ass.”

More shouting, the door closes, the memory fades.

Now Anonymous is sitting on a sidewalk in the streets of the factory-fortress. He’s playing a violin, trying to earn a few scraps from passersby. He doesn’t regret leaving, but he does regret not going further. He also regrets that he has no idea what to do. He didn’t even know how to join the legion! So he sits here and plays his violin alone, the music his only company. And the hunger. Stars above, the hunger! At least with his father he’d been fed.

He was probably going to die out here, alone and faceless. Completely anonymous. He was so hungry, he probably wouldn’t last the night. So he played his violin. He took all of his fear, frustration, sadness, anger, and spite and poured it all into his violin. He played it for hours, not even looking up at the people he played for.

He couldn’t see how the passersby all looked at him, faces full of wonder at the music. He couldn’t see the ornately dressed figure that stopped as it passed. He didn’t see as the figure and its armored retinue walked up to him and watched him play. Didn’t see as it knelt down. He did feel as it placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and he saw him. Fulgrim.

”You’re a very talented young man, you know.”

Anonymous could only stare dumbly.

Fulgrim nods at the violin. “This is exactly the kind of thing I want to bring to Chemos, I cannot express how proud I am to see even one person embracing some form of culture.”

Anonymous bows his head. “You honor me, my lord.”

Fulgrim smiles and stands up, offering young Anonymous a hand. Anonymous accepts it and Fulgrim pulls him to his feet. Only now does he see the retinue of Space Marines accompanying Fulgrim. Their armor is dazzling and covered in various adornments, silks, gold chains, scrolls proclaiming their great deeds. They all look at him appraisingly.

”Do you have a family, son?”

”No, my lord. I’m an orphan.” he says with no hesitation.

Fulgrim puts a hand to his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “Well that’s not right, every child should have a family.”

He snaps his fingers. “How would you like to join our family?”

Anonymous takes a second to absorb what was just asked of him. Then he lunges forward and hugs Fulgruim.

Fulgrim laughs and ruffles his hair. “An orphan no longer! You are now one of the Emperor’s Children! Come now, grab your violin and we’ll have that music of yours spread all across the Imperium in no time!”

You feel tears in your eyes as the scene plays out before you. You can’t help but feel happy for Anon.

The scene fades and you’re alone again. And you honestly have no idea of what to make of what you just saw. But this was taking too long, you couldn’t watch every memory play out, you’d be in here forever. Best to just get the cliffnotes then. You plunge back into the memories and do your best to just skim them.

Anonymous in his full regalia, standing in a perfect row amongst his new brothers as Fulgrim addresses them. Words cannot describe how happy he is. He has a new family, new brothers. A new father. The brother he stands next to. Closer to him than even your friends are to you. Melkor.

The scene fades, another takes its place.

”A single month? My lord, I do not mean to question you, indeed it can be done but... the resources it would take... the losses we would incur.”

Then the ever kind voice of Fulgrim. “Have faith, son, the legion will succeed here. We have to, this is to be a message to the Imperium and the rest of the galaxy. Humanity will not be stopped. Only humanity can be perfect.”

”Yes, my lord. It will be done.”

Another scene. Monsters. Serpentine and insectoid all at once. They fought ferociously, but could not stand long against the ordered perfection of the Emperor’s Children.

An alien temple. Such horrendous cacophony! But how Anonymous was taken with it. It inspired him, this music was so close to true perfection! But it could not be perfect unless he was the one to create it. The temple was cast down. Fulgrim strode from the ruins, a sword clutched in his hand, taken as a trophy.

The alien world fades, replaced by an ornate room. It's called the La Fenice, the remembrancer’s lounge on Pride of the Emperor. There was a symphony about to take place. Fulgrim and his Emperor’s Children were in attendance. Anonymous stared intently at the strange and outlandish instruments that were being used. You look at them too. Blastmasters.

The performance begins. It’s so loud and discordant you can hardly imagine how this would be considered music. Then something happens. Reality bends and warps and tears. Monsters from another world pour through the rent and possess members of the orchestra. The chaotic influence reaches the crowd and- SWEET CELESTIA, WHAT THE BUCK ARE THOSE PEOPLE DOING? Your jimmies have never known such rustling.

Fulgrim doesn’t seem to notice, his jimmies remaining completely unrustled. Instead he orders his marines down to the orchestra to take up the instruments to keep the music going. Anonymous needs no further prompting, hurtling over rows of seats as fast as he can to reach the glorious instruments. In his untrained fumblings with it he produces a note that obliterates a section of seating and his eyes light up.

A new scene. A horrible scene. A planet. The name comes to you: Istvaan III. No longer was Anonymous clad in his pristine regalia of beautiful magenta and gold. He now wore the more familiar black and pink that he wore now. He also carried the Blastmaster he loved so much. And he carried it against his brothers.

Traitor. Anonymous was a traitor. You couldn’t believe it. He used the sonic weapon to bring ruin and death to the people he once called brothers. He fought like a man possessed, tearing through entire squads of his ex-brothers with Melkor at his side. Two of the first Noise Marines to ever exist. And they cried the whole time.

The horrible scene faded and you breathe a sigh of relief. At least the worst was over. Now what was this about Istvaan V? Oh buck it all.

---

You finally wrench yourself out of the latest memory, some horrible event called the Drop Site Massacre. What the buck was wrong with these humans? You look at the memories you’ve gone through already and the ones still ahead of you. You groan, there are still so many of them.

Welp, time to get watching. You gasp as you witness the beauty of the next memory. Golden spires and great walls. A palace that spans an entire continent. The human homeworld, Terra. And Anonymous has come to destroy it.

You feel Anon’s disgust as his brothers run off to wreak havoc upon the helpless civilians. He and his brother, Melkor, join in the assault proper. They’re fighting their way through the palace, accompanying another group of Traitor Marines. He actually seems to feel some mild respect for them. Their name comes to you, Night Lords.

They haven’t given themselves over to Chaos, they simply fight for what they believe to be a just cause. One of the Night Lords draws Anon’s attention, a man whose brothers call him Soul Hunter. He throws back his head and he roars, the sound of some colossal primordial carnosaur. The roar tears through the defending crimson-clad Astartes. The sound clouds the mind and bursts eardrums. Anonymous is inspired.

The following memories are little more than a mess of sensation, but you get flickers of coherency every so often. The flight from Terra, the defeat of Horus. A colossal, four armed serpent battling a giant in blue armor. Endless raids and battles. The eventual disintegration of the legion as a solid fighting force. An artificial world of bone that sails the stars. Two radiant crystal trees shattered by the wail of a pair of Blastmasters and the rage of a colossal daemon-spider.

Flight from that world of bone with a cargo of dazzling gems which shone with the light of souls.

”That which you hold in your hands is what I demand as recompense for my services.”

”Oh come on! These are the whole reason we went to that craftworld in the first place!” Melkor shouts at the daemon.

”Just give Ungoliant the damned soulstones.” Anon says to his brother. “We fucked up their Dome of the Crystal Seers, that will earn us more than enough favor. And it’s not like we can’t get more.”

Things grow more lucid as you get closer to present day.

A colossal, two headed avian shrieks at Anon and Melkor.

”Gone forevermore shall thee be from his sight! Until the end of time may the shadow of my thought hang about thee and obscure thy actions from the Warp! Thou shall fall down into despair and be faceless and anonymous to him, and die alone and unseen, cursing both life and death! Such is the Curse of Kairos upon thee!”

Silly bird-man, curses aren’t real.

Next is a colossal extra-dimensional city of decadence and hedonism. Commorragh, city of sin and darkness. It was desperation that drove Anon and his warband there. The memory is about to begin, but as soon as it does it stops. And then you’re aware that you’re being watched. Buck.

---

You are Anonymous, Noise Raptor of the Emperor’s Children and there is currently a pony rifling around in your memories. You are not exactly sure how to feel about this.

You can’t be angry, this is a pony. There’s just something fundamentally wrong about being angry at a pony. You aren’t exactly concerned, whatever mindrape she just endured is her own doing. But while your state of feels in unintelligible, there is one undeniable truth. Your jimmies have been rustled.

Oh fuck, she’s going into the Commorragh memories! That is not a place for ponies! Ponies and Dark Eldar do not mix! Better step in and fix this. The memory begins, but you manage to exert your will and shut it down. And Twilight is now aware of your presence.

You feel her presence quickly recede from your mind and you will yourself awake. Your eyes open just in time to see Twilight attempting to sneak out of the basement.

”Twilight, you got some splainin’ to do.”

Twilight freezes and looks over at you sheepishly like a daemonette who just got caught with her claw in the Infinity Circuit. Actually no. She doesn’t look like that at all. Why would you even think that.

”You, uh... you noticed that?” she asks.

”I’ve had my mind violated by entities far more sinister than you, Twilight.”

She looks at the floor.

”How much did you see?”

”Everything.”

”Is your curiosity finally satiated?”

She looks so conflicted, you can tell she can’t even begin to find the right words to say. She tries anyways.

”How did... your own brothers!.. and those THINGS... and... I just...”

She looks up at you with those big, innocent eyes wet with tears.

”What ARE you?”

You sigh and lean back on your hands, gazing at the ceiling.

”The lost and the damned.”

”What do you mean?”

”Twilight, when I betrayed by brothers in the Heresy I lost all concept of what purpose there was to life. My whole life I fought to bring humanity into perfection, to please my brothers, and, above all, to please Fulgrim. When the order came to take up arms against my own battle-brothers it broke me.”

”Broke you?”

You nod.

”I had heard the whisperings, all of us had. But I never wholly gave myself over to them, not even when everyone around me did. But when that order came... a part of me died, Twilight. We had betrayed the Imperium, we were outcasts. Our father didn’t even seem to care for us anymore, so far gone was he. But at least I had my brothers. Then I didn’t even have them.”

”Why? What happened to them?”

”They gave themselves over to Chaos. Slowly they changed and the brothers I loved died, but there were still the ones who did not give themselves to the madness. Then I was told to kill them and I didn’t even have them anymore.”

”I had sworn myself to a traitor who had abandoned me and killed the only brothers who I was still loyal to. I was completely alone save for a few select brothers. Then the whisperings returned and stars above, I could not deny them. I was so alone, but Slaanesh promised he would stop the pain. So I gave my soul to Chaos so that I would never again be hurt by betrayal.”

”When I accepted Slaanesh my life had meaning again. He taught me that I didn’t need family to be happy, I only needed Slaanesh. I still had my brothers, of course, but I could still be happy without them.”

Twilight stares at you with wide eyes.

”That’s horrible!” she exclaims. “Friendship is what makes life worth living, you shouldn’t abandon it completely!”

”I never did.” you explain. “I still had brothers, but from then on I no longer lived for them. I lived only for myself and for Slaanesh. But that changed nearly a century ago.”

”This wouldn’t happen to be about that darkness I’ve been feeling around you, would it?” she asks.

You nod. “You said you saw everything. Then you also saw the curse we were struck with.”

Twilight furrows her brow. “Yeah I saw that, but there’s no such thing as curses, they aren’t real.”

Your face darkens, though Twilight can’t see it. “They are when the Fateweaver speaks them.”

”Who’s the Fateweaver?” she asks.

”He’s an extremely powerful daemon of Tzeentch, the Changer. As his name suggests, he is the absolute master of fate, surpassing even Tzeentch himself in his knowledge of the future. The curse he placed upon us was the most devastating thing he could have done to our legion. He made Slaanesh blind to us.”

”That doesn’t sound that bad.” Twilight says. “I’m sure there’s worse things he could have done if he’s so powerful, sounds like you got off kinda easy.”

Oh no she fucking didn’t. You lean over and speak directly into her face.

”Imagine Celestia could no longer see or hear you.” you begin. “And no matter how you screamed or what you gifted her, she would never acknowledge you ever again. She would never be there to witness your deeds or congratulate your successes. It would be like you were dead to her.”

Twilight pales as you speak.

”That’s... I’m sorry, I didn’t know...”

You sigh. “And hopefully you will never have to. And this is why I interrupted your spell. This is the reason we went to Commorragh. That is what these are.” You tap the three gleaming gems set into your helm.

”These were the trophies of one of the most influential Archons of the Dark Eldar. A twisted, sadistic monster named Feanor the Kinslayer. Through some twisted sorcery, he managed to bind unnumbered thousands of Eldar souls into each of these gems.”

The revelation shocks Twilight. “You mean there are living beings in those?” she asks, startled.

You nod. “Enough souls to populate entire worlds.”

”What did he want with them?”

”Dark Eldar are twisted monsters who need to devour souls in order to survive. They were a symbol of status for him, a boast that he could possess so many souls and not need to use them to sustain himself. Something to lord over other Archons.”

”And... so you rescued them?” she asks.

”No. Not at all.”

”What do you want them for then...” she asks.

You can tell she doesn’t want to know the answer. You tell her anyways.

”The Eldar gave birth to Slaanesh and for Eldar souls does my master endlessly hunger. A sacrifice of this scale would be more than enough to break the curse surrounding me and my brothers.”

Twilight is horrified by this.

”You can’t do that!” she all but screams. “How could you do something so horrible to so many innocents!”

”Twilight, after what I did aboard my warband’s strike cruiser, I’m now utterly alone in the galaxy. Slaanesh taught me to live for myself, but I cannot live without Slaanesh. I refuse to be lonely ever again and I would set the entire galaxy aflame if that’s what it took to break this curse.”

Twilight is silent at that, she hardly knows what to say. You decide it’s best to end the conversation there.

You lay back down and try to fall back asleep.

”You aren’t alone though.”

”What?” you ask.

”I said you’re not alone.” Twilight trots over and puts a hoof on your pauldron. “As long as you’re here you’ll never be alone.”

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