(A.N: Strep throat.... uuuuuuuuugh! By far one of my least favorite diseases to be afflicted with. It's good news for those tracking this story though as it guarantees that this chapter is out today since I have nothing else to do besides lay on the couch and browse the interwebs. So now this story is 20% longer. Whoopie for me. Anyhow, it's time for some Imperial frustration-inducing from from our dear old Pinkamina! Enjoy! *cough*)

The medical facility was in a state of urgency right now, the worst they had ever had to deal with was the occasional scratch or scrape that somepony made too much of a fuss about or at worst a weather team-related accident. Now nurse Redheart was dealing with three cases of intense shock and one unicorn with a serious case of magical overload the three others had been taken care of, medication doled out and now each was resting in bed. Now, Twilight Sparkle was receiving the full attention of all of the facility's medical staff. The unicorn was in bed, several unicorns surrounding her, the mare had completely drained herself in the teleportation spell she had cast. Any other unicorn would have received... unfavorable results if they had tried such a feat, but Twilight had extreme magical power, so the spell had put her into what professional medical practitioners called "magic hyper-exhaustion" . The unicorns were taking turns slowly giving her amounts of their own magical powers to bring her energy to acceptable levels, it was a very tedious, concentration demanding task, and the two other unicorns that were resting looked quite put out. After the current unicorn had finished, he gave a sigh of relief and looked to nurse Redheart.

"That should just about do it." he said, "her energy should be able to restore itself on its own."

"Thank you, that's great news to hear, you guys take a rest, we don't want you ending up like her." she replied.

"No kidding, the amount of energy we had to put out just to replenish her magic reserve was staggering, I would hate to think of what caused her to drain it so quickly." he shook his head in disbelief at the sleeping Twilight. "She should be lucid by morning, just make sure she stays in bed until then."

"That shouldn't be a problem" she said, and noted how Twilight was almost in a coma by the looks of her. She would not be going anywhere for now.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie Pie was in a situation that would even have an ork warboss second-guessing itself. A full tactical squad of Adeptus Astartes encircled her front, not to mention a Chief Librarian, Chapter Master, and a platoon of storm troopers. She however, did not bat an eyelash to this. Instead, she faced this problem like any other, with the Pinkie Pie method.

"Hi there!" she chirped, her voice bubbly.

She did not know what these things were, but they had gotten rid of the big green meanies, who right now looked to be asleep, though she was in wonder how some of them had detachable heads and limbs. Oh well, these guys were new, and though her friends had left, she was not in any way close to fear.

Gabriel was taken aback by the pink pony's behavior. Perhaps she felt that because they were not behind her, that she had options, he would see that she thought wrong.

"Sergeant, have your men move out of cover" he sent over his vox.

Six figures seemed to materialize out of the forests shadows, encircling the rear of the pony, despite the almost laughable advantage they now held over the pony, she still seemed unfazed. The sergeant, of all people, looked somewhat anxious.

"What troubles you sergeant?" asked Gabriel, his eyes not leaving the pony in fear of some trick she might try to pull.

"It's the pony sir, she almost found my men multiple times, not even the Eldar have found my squad to date, and this one almost succeeds and acts as if it was a game." he looked utterly humiliated, his men seemed as ashamed as him as well.

"Well of course it was a game, silly! What else would it be? I gotta say, you guys are the best hide and seek players I've played with to date! I should know, I'm reigning champion!" her voice was still infuriatingly bubbly.

"WE lill show you how much of a game it really is." said Gabriel. Me motioned to one of the tactical Marines; "Lazurius, seize her!"

The marine walked up to the pony and outstretched his hand, and then the pony was gone. The marine started, obviously confused, when a dreadfully familiar voice popped up behind him.

"Oooooooo... are we playing tag now? YAY! I love that game! Not it!"

The startled marine spun around to find the pink pony behind him, bouncing happily. Irritated, he reached for her again, albeit much faster. Again, the pony seemed to de-materialize without any real explanation. Gabriel looked to Jonas inquisitively.

"I can read that you are wondering if this is some form of warpcraft, and I cannot honestly say if it is or not. I was able to glean some information on her from my limited time of reading the xenos psycher. Her name is Pinkie Pie, as ridiculous as it seems, and what the purple one knew of her... well it seems to defy all logic. In fact, when I tried to read the xenos, it was as if I was reading an interrupted transmission. She is unreadable." said Jonas

"So we have no idea on what it is that we are trying to capture?" the Chapter Master asked, beginning to have to raise his voice over the roars of frustration followed by manic giggling coming from the center of the circle of Imperials.

Gabriel looked over to the flustered marine, he now was spinning frantically in a circle to attempt to get at the pink pony, whom was now on his back, laughing hysterically.

"I am afraid not, My Lord." replied the librarian apologetically.

Gabriel sighed and looked back to the scene that was unfolding, two of the other tactical marines had joined the fray, and were making no progress whatsoever. If anything, they were making it worse, the pink pony now having three targets to weave, duck, jump, climb, and materialize out of nowhere on. Gabriel collected himself, this was going to take a while.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy had not left the hospital since the evening before, riddled with guilt about not have been able to do anything about her friends condition. Spike had been with her the entire time, looking as bad as she felt. The poor dragon had blamed himself for all that had happened, despite Fluttershy's adamant belief that he could not have done anything.

When the morning came, the first of her friends awoke, Applejack was the toughest pony in town, so it was a bit obvious that she would be the first to recover. Immediately, she was beset with questions by the Royal Guard. The doctors had preemptively told the guards that the shock had put her in a state at the time that had blocked out her senses. The guards persisted anyway.

"What happened that caused Ms. Sparkle to use such a powerful spell?" he asked.

"I done told ya' sug', all I remember is walking into some clearing after seeing that statue and..."

"Wait." the guard interrupted, "you did not mention a statue before, what did it look like?"

"Well, it was was plum gigantic if ya'll ask me, had some beady 'ol eyes and big tusks coming right out of it's mouth. Din't get a good look at it though, Pinkie came outta nowhere and scared the hay outta me. Didn't quite catch what that crazy filly yelled, but Twi said we needed to get goin' so I just followed, then it just gets kinna fuzzy from there."

A rock had formed in Fluttershy's stomach, Applejack's vague description sounded very much like an ork. This was going from bad to worse, if Zacchaeus had been correct about the nature of the orks, then what could have happened to her friends appeared to me much worse.

"So now all we have for a lead now is some statue? Perfect." replied the guard, "Well, perhaps the other three will provide more information."

Rainbow Dash had been about as helpful as Applejack, telling the same story of finding the statue, then coming across the clearing, then blanking out.

It was Rarity who finally provided a decent account.

"A proper lady always needs her wits about her, no matter the situation." She said gloomily, "But I rather wish I had forgotten what had happened, I dare say that it was the most dreadful scene I have ever seen!" she said.

Rarity then explained all that had happened, the discovery of the statue, the greenskins in the clearing, and the subsequent arrival of the humans. "Lastly," she said, "the one with the staff and the odd looking hood on his head looked at Twilight, and a few seconds later, the poor deary began to lost it. Then, I find myself here, being questioned by her Highness' Royal Guard."

The stallion questioning her had a shocked look on his face, yes, he was a guard, but the worst he had ever had to deal with was the occasional dissenter. The part about these creatures being "aliens" he did not believe, but he did know that a horrible threat was out there now, and he needed his ponies to be ready.

"Thank you ma'am, we simply need to question Ms. Sparkle to get any information on what else these... humans, can do." he said.

This was not good, not good in the least, now Rarity had claimed that her friends had stumble upon orks, then humans, and a librarian (if her description had been accurate) had done something to Twilight. Worst of all, her friends still did not know that Pinkie was missing, and at the mercy of the humans, the doctors had said that news like that could reinstate the shock they had gone through. Fluttershy just hoped that the humans would opt to interrogate Pinkie, instead of choose Zacchaeus' other outcome.

Twilight awoke roughly an hour later, she had panicked at first, muttering something about her mind, then calmed when she found herself surrounded by her friends. Her panic had begun to rise again as she was asked to recall what the human had done to cause her to cast the transportation spell. She described the human entering her thoughts, reading her memories, and his plan to destroy her mind once he was finished. She was shaking once she had concluded her recollection. The rest of the group looked at her, shocked, Spike held onto her mane like he would ever let go. Fluttershy felt a wave of pity wash over her as her eyes rested on the baby dragon, he believed that what had happened to Twilight had been his fault, and now it seemed that he did not wasn't to let her out of his sight.

"Well, we know know that at least one of them is capable of magic, though I have never heard of it being used for such violence. It is apparent that both these humans and orks are a threat." he turned to the two adjutants behind him, "tell the rest of the troops that we are going to head out for those objects and give those humans what for!" he said boldly.

"WAIT!" yelled a voice that rarely went above a whisper.

Everypony turned to see Fluttershy standing tall now, a fiery determination in her eyes. "If you try to make it within one mile of those things, the aft autocannons on the strike cruiser would tear any chariot or pegasus apart, not to mention any anti-air fortifications they may have set up. Any ground attack would also be useless as they surely would have a perimeter set up by now. And just think about how many ponies that you have now, forty? The carrier alone has a crew of one million, they would turn you all into specks of dust in an instant! Even if you somehow managed to get close enought to them, your armor could not withstand a bayonet, Celsestia forbid a chain or power sword. You should just forget about any plans of attacking them right now mister! she shot out the words in a rapid fire fashion.

The room was silent for a good thirty seconds, save Fluttershy's deep panting breaths. At last, Twilight broke the silence.

"Fluttershy, how in all of Equestria do you know all this? she asked.

"How indeed?" asked the commander, his tone accusing, this mare had just amounted his troops to foals, and had somehow knew all about what these humans could do.

Fluttershy blanched at the words. "Ummmmmmm..." was all that she said.

"Ma'am, how is it that you know this?" the commander questioned again, beginning to approach the yellow pegasus.

Fluttershy cracked; "I'm so sorry, I had no idea that the others would do such a thing, I mean he said that they would not take to kindly to finding new xenos, but-"

"Fluttesrshy, calm down! You just used to word 'xenos'... i did not mention that they called us that once, and who it this 'he' that you are referring to?" Twilight asked, her eyes narrowing.

"It... was... Zacchaeus..." said the yellow pegasus, now cringing.

"Who?" asked Twilight.

"A space marine, a librarian to be specific..." she mumbled.

Once again the room was silent. It was the guardsman commander who broke it this time.

"And how is it that you talked to this... librarian?" he inquired.

"Well, after he crashed in my yard we talked for a while... he told me all about human culture and... military..." she replied.

"And you intended to hide this information from us?" he questioned angrily.

"N-no! Of course not, I was going to say it once things calmed down a bit, then Twilight had said everything that had happened.. I did'nt want you to have that bad an impression of humans if you met him, but then you said that you were going to attack them, so I spoke up..."

"Do you know his whereabouts? Answer truthfully, or I'll have to place you under arrest."

"H-he's at my house now. I told him to wait when I went into town." she stammered. She hated selling Zacchaeus out like this, but if she was arrested, nopony would take care of her animals.

"Well then, I suppose I'll just have to have a little chat with this 'Zacchaeus' then. If he is just a librarian then he should be no trouble when we bring him into custody." said the commander.

"Wait! You can't!" Fluttershy pleaded. But it was too late, with a flurry of wings and hoofs, the commander and his adjutants left the hospital.

Fluttershy looked to her friends, "We need to go after them!" she yelled.

Her friends gave her no response besides a series of hurt looks. "Whats wrong?" she asked.

"What, besides the fact that you had a nice little conversation with a member of the species that tried to kill us?" replied Rainbow Dash icily.

"Rainbow's right, Fluttershy, why didn't you tell us earlier?" asked Twilight.

"He's not bad, I know it!" Fluttershy yelled, "Please girls, trust me, we need to go after them and stop this before it's too late!"

Her friends did not respond, finally Applejack sighed; "I'm goin' with ya' sugarcube."

Twilight's jaw dropped, "AJ, why, she's trying to save one of them." she nearly spat the last word. This was not the studious, caring Twilight she knew, thought Fluttershy she was acting crazy. "Wait, did she say save HIM?"

Fluttershy face-hooved, "Twilight no, not save him save the guards!"

The others looked perplexed by the statement, Rarity spoke up, "Dear, you said he was just like a librarian, and not to discredit Twilight, who is certainly an exception, most Librarians tend to be a bit... lacking in power."

"Librarian means a different word to them," replied Fluttershy, "a librarian was the one who mind-read Twilight!"

Twilight bolted out of bed, standing directly up to Fluttershy, "I'm still mad at you... but you're right, we need to stop this before one of those monsters can hurt a guard. Come on girls, we need to... wait where's Pinkie?"

Once again, all eyes turned to Fluttershy, "Uh-oh..." she stated.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seemed that letting the pegasus go had been a bad maneuver after all. Zacchaeus exited his meditation when he sensed a good forty lifeforms—all sentient—approaching the cottage. His experience told him that these minds, though weak in the regard, were military. A quick mind scan told him that they were coming to apprehend him, good luck with that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The pair of Royal Guard trotted up to the front door, the whole cottage was surrounded, there would be no escape for this creature.

"Open up in there, or we will break down the door!" shouted out the first guard. The commander smirked, this would be too easy.

"GUESS AGAIN!" The voice bellowed into the mind of every one of the poinies in the area, in Ponyville, the aftershock of the psy-message that left more than a few residents with a headache. As soon as the words were sent, the side of the cottage exploded. From the hole strode an immense figure. The description the unicorn had given, even the enormous size, was quite accurate. A glowing field surrounded him as he held his staff high, his stance ready for battle.The two guards laid at the feet of the librarian, lying slack due to what the commander hoped was unconsciousness. The rest of the guards looked back anxiously between their commander and the towering Astarte.

"What are you waiting for? Disable him!" the commander yelled.

At that, several earth ponies rushed Zacchaeus, he held out a hand at the charging guard, and lightning arced forth from it. The group of ponies came to an immediate halt, crying out at the sudden electricity running through them, and fell to the ground. Upon seeing their comrades fall, the other guard charged the librarian, the pegasi of the group taking to the air, the unicorns preparing the few offensive spells that existed. This was why the commander had assembled a mixed regiment instead of the usual all-pegasus guard units, for the versatility and tactics it provided.

The librarian noticed the unicorns gathering warp energy in their horns, Fluttershy had not told him that her species had psychers, let alone so many in their military, then again, he had done most of the talking during the time he had spent at her cottage, which he was now regretting. Regardless, he had fought the psychers of Chaos before, and these xenos were child's play compared to them. He focused his energy around himself, creating a psychic barrier around himself.

The built up energy in the horns of the unicorns shot out in the form of magical orbs of energy. These were designed to knock out an opponent, and this many at once would bring down a manticore. The commander felt satisfied that this would be over so quickly. He was quite surprised then, when every single one of the orbs crashed over some sort of invisible bubble around the creature. Not one made contact.

"My turn."

The voice whispered into the mind of just the commander this time. He realized what he had gotten his troops into. Before he could call off his unit, the librarian acted. The Avenger was essentially an avatar of flame summoned into corporeal form from the memories of the librarian's Chapter. This one in particular Zacchaeus had made a bit less destructive, though he could not find a reason why in hindsight, still it had the desired effect. The guards were sent screaming in the opposite direction by the roaring avatar, a burning trail of destruction left in its wake. It dissipated after a good ten seconds, the earth ponies and unicorns sent running for the hills. All that remained of the unit were the pegasi, who were now very unsure of themselves. Zacchaeus decided to act upon that fear, amplifying it in their minds ten-fold. The pegasi flew away screaming in a very un-masculine way. This left just the commander and Zacchaeus in the scorched clearing.

"You were fools to attempt to apprehend a space marine with so little a force, let alone a librarian."said Zacchaeus.

"B-but thats just it, you're supposed to be a librarian, right? You should be off organizing books or something." the commander stammered.

"You believe a librarian to be a mere collector of knowledge here? Perhaps a scribe or a lexicanium, but not I. Your species is weak if that is your belief." He began to walk towards the commander.

"Stay away from him!" a feminine voice shouted out.

Zacchaeus sensed another psycher, this one was much stronger than the others that he had sent packing, he turned to see not another guard, but a lavender female unicorn, her horn aglow. A short distance behind her, two more ponies followed. In air above them, a cyan pegasus with an odd rainbow mane flew alongside what he now saw as Fluttershy. Surprisingly, Fluttershy did not want to be here, nor had intended him to be found, as a quick read soon discovered. The other pegasus radiated cockiness, a trait that the librarian himself loathed, yet he found an unwavering loyalty in her aura, an odd combination to be sure. The orange earth-bound pony's signature did not hide anything from him, if anything, it did not have anything to hide from anybody, as if the pony;s spirit was truly honest. The white unicorn perplexed him, both generosity and vanity, now that was just incomprehensible. He wondered why he was taking the time to do this, true it only took a millisecond to so so, but he questioned his decision regardless. He could not hope to read the purple though, as he found an emotion that he had not yet experienced from any of the beings on this world, never mind, this was the first pony he found it from, recalling the rabbit from earlier. Either way, her anger towards him was so intense it was actually clouding his psychic read of her. He sensed that she was preparing an attack against him, this one much stronger than the ones from before. The commander took this opportunity to get the hay out of there, running from his old position.

She fired a lance of warp energy form her horn, he had not seen a latent psycher with this much power in a good while, but she was laughably inexperienced, he had a good century of training over her, and it was for that reason that she would fail. He summoned another protective field, this one having two distinct angles, like that of a blade. It parted the lance easily. He countered with an arc of blazing warpfire from his staff, the rushing torrent of flame speeding toward the unicorn. He knew that she could withstand this attack from one direction, so he decided to go with a different strategy instead of brute force.

Twilight paused, that attack had been supposed to knock him out (among other things) instantly, that had been her plan. Now, not only had he countered her attack with apparent ease, but now she had to deal with the same fire that she had seen the other librarian use before. She was stupid to think she could beat him, look at what he had done to all of the guard. No. She could beat him, she could do this! She summoned a bubble of magic around herself and moved to intercept the flames before they could hit her friends. To her surprise, the wave of fire parted before it could hit her, becoming two serpent-like tails of flame, heading directly for.... her friends! The other ponies stopped dead in their tracks, a trail of fire rushed towards Fluttershy and Rainbow, the other heading for Rarity and Applejack. Twilight rushed towards her friends, intent on taking out the pillars of fire that threatened them.

"I have you now, fool" A voice seemed to echo inside her mind, only one other being had done this before, and it had been the librarian. She realised that this must have been her opponent who had just done it. But how could he have me if he is aiming for my— Her thoughts were interrupted by the realization that the flames had just altered course and had picked up speed. Before the purple unicorn could do anything otherwise, the flames—now from two separate directions— slammed into the bubble of magic that surrounded her. The heat was so intense that she felt it even through her shield. Her heart skipped a beat as she heard a splintering sound, the shield was beginning to fail. Flames began to lick at her hooves as she fought to keep the fire at bay, but it was no use, she had been drained not only from yesterday's events, but by her first attack she had used. With an ear-splitting crack, her defenses shattered, as soon as this happened, the flames ceased their relentless assault, dissipating into the air. Twilight collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.

Zacchaeus was satisfied with his victory, he did not intend to kill the unicorn, she was far too valuable a psycher to be killed immediately, she would make an excellent specimen for study by both his chapter and the Inquisition once they left this world, the horn these unicorns sported seemed to focus warp energy, explaining why they had such better control over the powers than a normal human psycher. If the Imperium could utilize that mutation somehow, or perhaps form a focusing device from it... The possibilities were grand indeed. He began a steady walk towards the mare. The guard commander, finding some new found courage, ran from the cover that he had hid under during the brief fight.

"Fight me, monster!" he yelled.

Zacchaues backhanded the unfortunate pony without so much as a glance, sending him flying into the brush. He heard new voices now, and remembered the friends that the unicorn had brought along. He wondered if she questioned herself for bringing them now, considering that they had proven to not only be useless, but also serve him as a perfect tool for besting her.

"Don't you take one more step towards Twilight!" yelled the rainbow maned pegasus, diving for him.

Zacchaeus produced his rarely used bolt pistol from its holster and loosed off several rounds in the direction of the pegasus, the rounds whipping past her. Though none of them truly connected, the shock-wave from the massive rounds passing by, as well as a grazing shot past the right foreleg, was enough to send the pegasus plummeting towards the ground with a yelp. Before she could connect tough, she glowed a light purple and her descent slowed to a halt, then she was place gently onto the ground. Zacchaeus noticed the horn of the other unicorn glowing. This psycher was not nearly as strong as the one beforehand. He did not take any chances though, and sent her sprawling with a burst of power. It was the orange pony (which he now noticed was wearing some odd form of hat) who confronted him next, a lasso swinging from her tail.

"Nopony hurts mah friends an' gets away with it!" she hollard before looping the rope around the librarian's arms. Smiling with satisfaction, she pulled back, expecting the usual yeilding tumble to accompany it, but was instead greeted with no progress. The librarian stood, no difference from before hand, albeit he looked much, much angrier. She gulped and went with her surefire plan: bucking. She sprinted up to the still bound figure and bucked at his leg with all her might. A ripple of vibrations ran up her form as the backlash of hitting pure ceramite armor reverberated through her being. The figure still stood, completely unfazed. With no effort whatsoever, he snapped her strongest rope as if it were string. He now loomed over her.

"It is not a good idea to bind an Astartes." it said.

He then gave her his own "buck" lashing out lightly with his foot. He barely put any force into the kick, though a "light kinck from a space marine was still quite powerful. Applejack had the wind knocked out of her, flying back several feet, laying near Twilight.

"S-sorry Twi.", she muttered next to her friend.

Though her friends were still conscious, they were certainly out of action, and hurt for sure, she looked towards Zacchaeus, True, he had been attacked first, but nothing harmed her friends if she had a say in it. She rushed up to Zacchaeus, the event known as "The Stare" already in full effect.

"How dare you hurt my friends!" she yelled at him.

Though the librarian did not want to harm the little xenos, she was now opposing him. He looked at her, preparing to push her out of the way, that was when when he caught sight of her eyes. They bored into his mind, cold steel backing them up. he summoned all of his mental defenses, he had withstood the taint of chaos during the Aurellian Campaign, and he would not submit to this xenos' assault. His mind stood like a fortress against the attack, and he began to fight back.

Twilight could not believe this. She was watching someone resist Fluttershy's stare. As the two faced off in their invisible battle, the air became palpable with energy, ripples of energy radiated between the two. The librarian took a step forward, his face lined with strain. He was actually beginning to win. He took several more steps forward, almost within reach of Fluttershy now.

"You... are... mine... now." he strained out the words.

just before he could touch her, a tiny battle cry was heard, out of seemingly nowhere, Angel jumped onto the back of the marine, climbing up to his head.

"You!" Zacchaeus growled.

He did not get a chance to speak further as the rabbit hammered down on the "Calibrate" button on his psychic hood. The Astarte roared in pain as all of his psychic abilities were scrambled by the sudden reset. Now that he offered no resistance, the stare speared through his defenses, reaching into his very being. He was helpless now, and humiliated, bested by a pony and a rabbit.

"Now, you are going to apologize for what you've done." she commanded.

Though he could not do it towards her due to the stare, Zacchaeus still retained enough willpower to spit into the grass. Everypony noted with fear that the spit had begun to eat away that the grass, carving a neat hole into the dirt as it dissolved the soil.

"I said apologize." said Fluttershy, and she intensified her gaze.

"Sssssssss..." said the librarian, still fighting it.

"NOW!" she bellowed.

"Argh! I... am... ssssorry." grunted the librarian at long last.

"You will not be hurting another one of my friends, understood?" she asked.

Zacchaeus could only nod in response.

"Good." she said and released her grip on him.

He began to rise and looked over at the rabbit with a hatred so intense it could have melted battleplate.

"Mark my words, vermin, one day, I will rip you limb from limb." he vowed.

"Now, we need to get these ponies back o the hospital," said Fluttershy, motioning towards the many ponies sprawled across her yard, "and you're going to help me."

He began to refuse before the stare began to act up again, so he nodded begrudgingly. Twilight sighed with relief before unconsciousness took hold of her.