Story [MLP/40k] In the Grim Darkness of Ponyville (Dear Diary 2013) - Updated 29/01

Title: In the Grim Darkness of Ponyville
Author: @moosemousse
Genre: Diary
Notes: The title comes from the Warhammer 40,000 tagline 'in the grim darkness of the future, there is only war' and the place Ponyville in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series. This is a cross-over between the two, featuring canon characters from MLP as well as OCs.
As this is a diary it will feature many different genres as the story progresses, so expect a lot of genre changes.
I don't know how I'll handle an update list, but I'll figure something out. For now, just say if you'd prefer a PM or a tag and I'll do that.

Prologue

The lights on the bridge flashed bright reds and blues as the ship rocked and shook from the impact of enemy fire. Warning runes were lighting up everywhere and the bridge crew were frantically trying to control the ship, avoid enemy fire, and return fire on the enemy ships surrounding us. Only the Inquisitor was calm and sitting motionless. He was just watching and waiting.

A console exploded, killing the man stationed at it. Another of the bridge crew strode over to it and pulled the corpse out of the seat without blinking and just sat down at it. I watched as he tapped away at the controls to work around the damage before settling into it like there was nothing going on.

The bridge lurched violently, spilling me from my seat. Something fell on my head as I landed hard and dazed me for a few moments. As I shakily stood up, I looked over at the Inquisitor I wondered if I could ever be as good as him. He was always calm, always prepared, and always in control. Compared to him I was little more than a grunt in the Imperial Guard and not the Inquisitor in training I was supposed to be.

As I sat down, I saw a glimpse of something on the view screens. "Sir, there's something there, ahead and to the port!" I called out over the noise and chaos of the battle.

The Inquisitor flicked his eyes towards to smudge of putrescent light, then back at his controls. After tapping away, he bellowed out "enemy weapons are charging, unknown signature! Brace for impact!"

The smudge on the screen grew larger in size. At first I thought it was just because it was getting closer until I realised that it was doing both. I gripped the arm rests hard as the ball of light got started to dwarf our ship. We could not avoid it and there were no evasive manoeuvres to take. All I could do was take a deep breath and close my eyes.

The sickly light filled my vision and slowly faded to black.

Dear Diary,

Today has been the strangest day of my life. I might be young, but this will be hard to be. Mutations I can deal with. Daemons and chaos spawn are literally all in day's work. But this? This was nothing that the Inquisition could prepare me for. I think the only way I can make sense of it is to start at the beginning.

Well, diary, you can probably tell that I survived to tell the this tale as I'm writing this now, but for me it was the pounding headache that told me I was still alive. There was light, I could tell that much from the gentle glow through my eyelids. It wasn't too bright though, but my eyes still ached. I went to rub my eyes and instead of my relatively soft fingers I got hit in the face by something hard. I tried rubbing my eyes again, but still, the same hard thing and not my fingers smooshing into my eyes.

"Twi! Twi!" came a voice, "Twi, she's awake!" There was the plodding of small feet hurrying away from me.

I cracked my left eye open and waved my hands in front of my face. There must have been something wrong with my eyes because I saw hooves and not fingers. Opening both eyes, the picture didn't improve at all.

"Oh, hey, you're awake," cam another voice, this one female and cute sounding. "I was wondering when you'd wake up. You've been out for days."

Groaning, I rolled over to face the voice expecting to see a medicae or someone from the Inquisitor's ship. Instead, I saw a purple unicorn.

I think my reaction was something like "GYAH!" and falling off the bed. Putting my front hooves on the bed, I peeked over it to get a better view. It was definitely a purple unicorn with a purple mane. Peeking out from behind her was a purple dragon with green spines. I repeated the "GYAH!" and fell over backwards.

"WHAT IN THE EMPOROR'S NAME IS GOING ON?" I yelled from the floor. "WHY DO I HAVE HOOVES? AND IS THAT A TAIL?"

The unicorn peeked over the bed to where I was lying on the floor, "you have hooves because you're a pony. And yes, that is a rather fine tail. I'm rather jealous, it's prettier than mine but-"

"But I wasn't a pony! I was normal!" I was starting to hyperventilate. I knew that much but I was finding it very hard to calm down.

Twi tilted her head before climbing off the bed the way she climbed onto it. She walked round the bed and sat down next to me, crossing her front hooves in front of her. "Why don't you start from the beginning. What's the last thing you remember?"

I just nodded and took some deep breaths, like the Inquisitor taught me. "The last thing I remember was chasing some chaos cultists. There was me, the Inquisitor, and five others, plus the ship crew. It was a trap. They surrounded us and then they fired this weapon. And that was it." I looked at the purple unicorn. "Am I really a pony? Are you sure I'm not just a mutant?"

She smiled, "I'm sure you're not a mutant." She stroked my mane with a hoof. "Well, the day we found you there was this big ball of light in the sky. Something fell out of it and there was a big explosion. Everyone pony in Ponyville rushed out to have a look. It was terrible. Ponies were lying everywhere. We only found six survivors."

A tear threatened to spill down my cheek, but I blinked it away. "Can you describe the survivors?"

Twi thought for a few moments. "One of them has a strange metal leg, one is kind of muscular and well built, one is kind of small but looks like she's a good flyer, one is kind of average but I get the feeling that she's got some powerful magic in her, and the last one is a mystery. Every unicorn pony who knows how to heal others tried to do something but magic just wouldn't work around her. We had to send her to a friend who uses potions to heal, but she'll be fine."

I sniffed. It sounded like all of the Inquisitor's retinue had survived, even if the Inquisitor was dead. "Thanks." I looked at the unicorn pony. "So, um, who are you? And what was that purple thing that called you 'Twi'?"

"My name is Twilight Sparkle, favoured student of Princess Celestia!" She looked proud when she said this. "And that purple thing? His name is spike, and he's a dragon. Well, a baby dragon."

A dragon? That did not sound good. I shuddered. "I think I need more sleep. I would like to see the other survivors though."

Twilight Sparkle nodded and helped me to my feet- er, hooves. "Spike is very good at writing, so if you think it'd help you could tell him to write things down for you."

I crawled onto the bed and under the covers. "I think I'd like that. Can you send him in?"

She left and Spike came in after a few moments. I'm finding it kind of weird to be dictating this to a dragon. Not least because this one is kind of cute looking. Hopefully I'll be able to write this myself soon. Until then, I guess I'll have to rely on Spike and hope he doesn't tell anyone anything.

And now, I think it's time to try and sleep some more. Maybe this will all be a bad dream, or something. Here's hoping it is.

Yours,
Kalyn Frakes

G'night Spike.

You don't have to write that bit.

No, really, you can stop writing now.

Twilight Sparkle? Can you make him stop writing, please?

You know, I am kind of vehemently opposed to the cute and fluffy, but I am really liking this! More please!