Commissar Vandere skimmed the briefing material on his dataslate once again. Nearby, the regiment's ranking officer ran his men through a final inspection of their drop gear. He couldn't help but silently scoff at the report appended to the file. Ponies? Doing musical numbers in the middle of battle? And somehow gifted with the sort of probability-warping protection only afforded to high-ranking Imperials in a badly written propaganda piece? Evidently the Inquisition had not the faintest clue what it was talking about.
"Twenty to landing zone," the Valkyrie's pilot called out, and the soldiers crammed into its passenger compartment put away bits of equipment or personal items in preparation for landing. Vandere technically wasn't a soldier, but he did the same anyway, even as he studied the soldiers’ motions. If there was any lapse in discipline that would reduce their effectiveness, even his well-trained eyes could not discern it.
A few moments later, the Valkyrie touched down. The entire regiment leaped off with practiced ease, still showing the same discipline he’d seen from them earlier. They were loyal members of the Tempestus Scions, disciplined, well-armed, and blessed by the Emperor with the sacred task of doing his bidding.
It was enough to make Vandere kinda feel sorry for their opponents, for the harmony-worshipping, blasphemously pony-like xenos who’d been stationed on this planet. But only kinda. There was no doubt in the Commissar’s mind; this would be a victory as swift as it was brutal.
Commissar Vandere stared, jaws slack, as a wingless, hornless pony planted her two back hooves in a Baneblade, the massive tank’s armor crumpling beneath the force of the blow, its crew scrambling to evacuate as the tank’s machine spirit died a quick, brutal death. All around him, Scions were screaming for help, for reinforcements, or just out of mindless fear, their morale broken and their advance collapsing into a hasty, panicked rout. Vandere couldn’t even bring himself to try and execute any of them for dereliction of duty. Given how thoroughly the regiment was being curb-stomped, the Commander who was still belligerently screaming at them to hold the line was arguably far more deserving of execution by virtue of not knowing that sometimes discretion was the better part of valor.
He’d been right in a way he’d never have anticipated in a billion millennia. This was a victory as swift as it was brutal… for the ponies.
The barrel of a lasgun touched the back of his head. "You are my prisoner, sir," the xeno that had managed to sneak up on him informed him, its polite, respectful tone of voice standing in stark contrast to the deadly weapon aimed at his unprotected head, set to blow his brains out. "Please open your hand and release your weapon."
Emperor forgive me… Vandere silently prayed as he let his bolt pistol drop to the ground.
"Thank you, sir." The lasgun dropped from his head. Vandere turned toward his captor, a horned pony in the red-colored power armor issued to every last member of the USA. "Day Guard Company A reporting: breakthrough successful.” The pony spoke, obviously making use of a comm-bead. “Consolidating gains. Company B is clear to follow up. Tell the USA we'll be ready for them to relieve us in twenty minutes."
He gaped as more quartets of ponies, horned and not, passed through what had been his position at full gallop. In the air above his hill, dozens of winged ponies soared past just behind them. "What happened to our air support?" Vandere asked aloud, only half-expecting an answer.
“They did.” The horned pony said conversationally, gesturing toward the winged ponies. “They swooped in on your airplanes, yanked the pilots out of their seats, and let gravity do the rest. Don’t worry, they made sure to set the pilots down gently.”
"...how?" Vandere whispered, still struggling to wrap his head around what was happening. “How is this possible…”
The horned pony chuckled a bit. “I know we don't get many visitors from the Imperium,” he said. “But do you really not know anything about us?”
“I know your kind are obsessed with peace and harmony. That you have no war record of any kind before you made contact with the Iron Warriors. And that you’re always trying to make friends with your mortal foes.” Vandere murmured, rattling off information he’d gleaned from the Inquisition file. “And I also know you just curb-stomped a whole regiment of Tempestus Scions that had you outnumbered 2:1.”
“Yeah, all those are true. We do forgive our enemies a lot… but only after we’ve beaten them.” The last words landed like a drop pod crammed to the brim with the Emperor’s Angels, set to barge out and pump everything Vandere thought he knew about these creatures full of bolt rounds. “Our homeworld may look cute and whimsical, but look past the bright colors and you’ll find monsters who try to eat us, suck our souls out, enslave our minds, level our mountains, set fire to our cities, subvert our leaders, and even rewrite the very laws of nature itself left, right, and center. We have to deal with all that on a weekly basis. Compared to all that, this," he waved a hoof at what had briefly been a battlefield, "this was actually pretty tame.”
Vandere glanced around. The fighting was winding down now, the ponies rounding up and disarming the last of the Scions who hadn’t surrendered yet. Strangely enough, the battlefield was completely devoid of blood or corpses, human or otherwise. These ponies hadn’t just curb-stomped a whole regiment of the Imperial Guard’s elite—they’d done it without even resorting to lethal force.
"Not that you didn't do the best with what you had, of course," the pony continued, obviously offering what consolation he could. "But you just didn't know what you were up against. And to quote the Liberator himself: He who knows both his foe and himself need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles. Anyway, what’s your name?"
“And we didn’t know you.” Vandere murmured, half to himself, still in a daze. “Commissar Vandere, of the Tempestus Scions 16th regiment.”
"Corporal Amber Light," the pony responded, extending a hoof. "Canterlot traffic control."
Vandere’s eyes went wide. He'd been captured... his regiment’s position had been taken by... "Traffic control?!"
“I said we fought monsters on a daily basis; I never said we had a perfect track record for beating them.” He pointed a hoof skywards, where sun was beginning to break through clouds—clouds, Vandere noticed, which were being herded by large numbers of winged ponies. "They only give us the easy jobs. Our real heroes are up there, fighting the real battle."
Vandere blinked, hard. Now the Astartes had been joined by an entire Titan Legion, set to annihilate every assumption the Emperors Angels had yet to destroy and quite possibly annihilate his sanity too. “An entire regiment of Tempestus Scions—the Imperial Guard’s finest soldiers—are considered an “easy job”?!”
“Yeah, they are. This would’ve been the most bloodless curb-stomping you guys have ever suffered… had we not already subdued an entire company of Space Marines with just as many casualties. For either side.” Amber Light declared, and all the color drained from Vandere’s face. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind; the Imperium was doomed.
I shake my head once again as I read through the latest report. Another string of curb-stomps courtesy of the USA’s pony forces, another Imperial world taken with absolutely zero casualties on either side, and another massive surge of Imperial Guard defectors to the USA’s already-overinflated ranks. Honestly, at this point, I’m not even sure why I’m surprised that my poorly-thought-out plan to net the Imperium some easy victories by having the USA field units recruited from the ranks of the notoriously incompetent Equestrian Royal Guard has backfired so spectacularly.
“Kinda telling that things go so spectacularly well for you every time you do the exact opposite of what the Imperial Creed says you should do, isn’t it?” The white pegasus—her name is Wind Chime, if I’m remembering correctly—asks. She’s in a chair next to me, helping me sort through paperwork. Yes, that’s right, I have a pony assistant now, much to Zeraya’s glee.
I nod. “Yes. It is…” I mutter to myself, slumping a little as I press my head into my hand. A wave of deja-vu washes over me as I once again ask myself how things had come to this…