[A.N: I know that I said that I woulds have an update by the weekend, (close enough.jpg) but after I had cranked out the chapter, I looked it over and realized that in my haste to complete it, I had done a totally half-assed job of the whole thing in terms of plot and overall story telling, plus I have been working on a more detailed plot structure for the whole story. This should mean that the frequency of the updates should improve after this chapter. My apologies none the less. Nearly a month of work means that this chapter should work out well and be a bit better than the others, and the other chapters should be cranking out at a much better pace after this.]

Four hours. Four damned hours and this, this daemon was still bouncing around as if the now ten Astartes attempting to subdue it were no more than playing with it! Gabriel rubbed his temples in frustration as he noted that the storm troopers, despite being some of the Imperium's elite, were placing bets on the spectacle taking place before them, and his enhanced hearing told him that the odds were currently stacked in the pink one's favor. Luckily they had not missed much, the base of operations was still in the process of being put together, and the scanners of the fleet had shown that while it appeared that unfortunately the majority of the ork force had survived the impact, thermal scans showed them to be holding position for some reason. What could be tying the orks down for so long was unknown to Gabriel, but he was grateful for the time being.

Despite this fortunate news, what Gabriel had learned of Jonas following his attempted reading of the purple psyker had proven to be most unfortunate. he had explained to the Chapter master that his search had yielded surprisingly little in the time he had before the link was severed. He only knew of the terrain and basic information of this world, he could not retrieve any more information than that, including the ruling government of this world, if it had one. This meant that all the information that they could acquire was contained in the head of the hyperactive ball of pink that still proved elusive to his marines.

"Are you positive that you cannot read anything from it?" Asked Gabriel.

"No my lord, I cannot explain it, but it is as if something is preventing me from viewing her mind, though I can say now from what I felt from attempting to crack it, that it would not be very safe to do so." Replied Jonas.

And thus, it had come to this; his marines attempting to catch a xenos that looked better suited to serving as a child's toy.

"Wowie! I never guessed that you guys could play for so long! Most ponies get all tuckered out at the thirty minute mark, but you guys must be something special!" said the bouncing mare.

Her remark was greeted by a chorus of very, very agitated marines venting their frustration through their vocal chords. It simply giggled at all of this and continued to bounce about.

"Enough of this!" bellowed one of the marines, Romulus, Gabriel recalled as his gaze drifted towards the marine. Romulus was known for his temper, a defect garnered from his implantation process. Curious as it was the Blood Angels and their divergent chapters that usually suffered from such a defect, but the fact remained that it had occurred in the case of Romulus.

"You will submit xenos, or by my hand shall you feel the judgement of the Emperor!" Romulus' hand drifted towards his mag-locked bolter.

The xenos acted in the oddest, but also the worst, way possible: she laughed. That was the trigger, the enraged marine raised his bolter and a click was heard as a finger depressed down on a trigger. The pink pony let out a startled yelp and collapsed into the ground. Romulus paused and looked at his weapon, it had not yet fired, and surely a bolt round qould have done much more than just knock the xeno unconscious. The combined gaze of the Imperials looked to the fallen xeno. Gabriel saw that a small dart was lodged in its flank, almost humorously placed dead center in the odd mark that adorned the creature's flank. A tranquilizer, no doubt.

A single voice spoke out from the crowd,"Well, that certainly did stonewall its actions. Glad I opted to carry along my tranq gun with me, sure it may do frak all against an ork, but a little thing like that certainly can get taken down a peg!"

"Present yourself trooper, and do explain why you delayed in your actions that could have ended this ordeal as quickly as it did." said Gabriel.

One of the storm troopers emerged from the group. Gabriel noted the somewhat puzzled notions that the other troopers were giving off upon having the figure being brought to attention, even with the masked they wore covering their expressions. Another storm trooper (though he looked a bit short for one) followed closely behind him.

"My apologies, Chapter Master, but I found that little rodeo that your men had put together to be quite entertaining, I would have let it gone on for a bit more but that big guy of yours certainly does have a short temper! I needed to take out the little ball of trouble before it became a bit more... liquefied." he spoke.

Gabriel walked towards the man at a brisk pace, the trooper was showing impudence that was only punishable by death. The muscles in his shoulders tensed, preparing to deal a fatal blow to the man, but when he was within several feet of him, a flash of silver caught his eye. An Inquisitorial Rosetta was held in the man's outstretched hand. The air around the man had changed from his formerly humorous disposition to an overall feeling of malice.

"Tarquin Aldorati, Ordos Hereticus, I will be taking custody of that xenos from here Master Angelos."

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

"Oy! Boss! It looks like Ripgut an' 'is fellas gots killed!" Shouted the Gretchen servant to SkullCrusha.

"Wot?! I din' tell 'em ter do that!" Shouted the raging Warboss. Strangling the Gretchin in his unarmored hand.

'...Wrenchtoof sent 'em boss." the diminutive green imp yelped.

Throwing the imp into the distance, the Warboss turned his gaze onto the unfortunate ork Wrenchtoof.

"Wrenchtoof! It were yer 'at tol 'em to go?" He howled.

"I dids!" the ork responded "We neddedz ta knows whre ta' enemy'z been hidin's, wot wit them wings an' all."

"Goods, i never dids like Ripgut an' iz boys, but now thats weze knows where them birdies are, wotz we got ready for themz?" said Skullcrusha, his gaze contemplative.

The smaller ork looked deep in thought for a moment, a wrong answer would mean death, or worse, a trip to the squig pens.

"... More dakka?" he asked.

Skullcrusha grinned a huge, toothy grin before he bellowed; "MOAR DAKKA BOYZ!!!"

A howling "WAAAAAAGH erupted from behind the Warboss as his boyz heard the signal. Thousands of orks rushed into the canyon where that fight had been taking place, firing off every one of their weapons at the general area above where Ripgut had been slain. ork artillery and mortars joined in, pounding away at the sides of the canyon that their tormentors had been hiding in for so long, an' holdin' up his boys from a right an' proper fight!

The shape of the dying and startled griffons filled the air around the canyon as they were flushed from the cliff sides, they stood no chance as the air simply contained too many bullets and pieces of shrapnel. As the once majestic animals fell, they wondered at how it had come to this, all of their forces wiped out in a days time, the initial griffon assault had met with what the green skin monsters had called "dakka", and it had nearly wiped them out. Thus, guerrilla tactics had been decided on. it was hard to believe that they, the griffons, the superior species of this planet, whom had only been forced to live here due to those weakling ponies' numbers and damnable magic, would fail to an even mightier enemy.

Gilda had been at first elated to finally get combat experience, but as she watched from her safe spot deep in the caves of the cliffs, she cursed herself for her eagerness, and now, her cowardice. She waited until the hooting band of monsters left, moving to join the others whom had already finished the task of wiping out the griffon homelands. This had been the last stronghold, they had thought the canyon unassailable, but hey were proven wrong, this enemy numbered in the millions, and only a few hundred had wiped out this bastion. She had not even taken up position on the cliffs because she found it felt safer here, and she was right. With her mind at breaking point, Gilda fled the scene of the massacre, to the one living pony who would take her in.

The Warboss payed no heed to the one remaining Griffon that flew into the distance, he was too focused on taking in the smell of used shell casings and cooked griffon flesh. Beneath his boot he kept Wrenchtoof's head affectionately crushed into the dirt, felling the spasms as the ork attempted to free himself. At long last he let the hapless ork go and spoke aloud.

"Ahhhhhhhh, dakka, you'ze needs moar of it, no ekshepshions!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Humiliated. Resigned. Antagonized. These were the words that best described both his emotions and overall situation right now. Zacchaeus had been beaten, not by a might Tyranid Hive Lord, not by the warpcraft of an Eldar Warlock, not even by a simple ork boy. No, taht was too good for him, by the Emperor's twisted sense of humor, he had been bested by ponies. Brightly colored, pastel, tattoo-on-the-rump-wearing PONIES! He stopped himself from continuing that train of thought otherwise his sanity be brought under threat.

He had been cleaning the wreckage for what Fluttershy had referred to as his "tantrum" (Damn her and her patronization!) for a good hour now, and while this sort of damage would have been referred to by most as a disaster zone, for a space marine it was little more than a remedial task. Fresh Guards watched over him from a safe distance, the previous group having been either too injured or too traumatized (the pegasi would not go within five miles of Flutterhy's home) to provide any real assistance. He heaved the last bit of splintered tree into the heap that he had put together during his work, he took out one of the flares that had been equipped in his pod, the gun for firing the flare had been rendered useless in the crash, so this flare could be used for other services, such as lighting a fire. He mashed down on the firing stud of the device and flicked it onto the pile of debris which ignited almost immediately. Fairly soon the entirety of the pile was ablaze, sending a large column of smoke into the sky.

"What are you doing?!" Yelped the apparent leader of the detail sent to watch him.

"I was told to clean up, this is doing so my way." Zacchaeus smirked. A small bit of his originally defiant personality had survived the psych training and implantation process, and while he hated to admit it, it was rather enjoyable to act in such a way, even under the circumstances. He looked over the pie until it was but ash, then turned to the guards.

"I believe the task is finished, you may notify that animal keeper of yours that it has been done." He said

About an hour later, he was greeted with the sight of the five mares appearing in the distance, as well as a strange reptillian creature on the back of the purple psyker. Ironically from the same spot from which they had so gallantly charged him earlier. The way they now looked made them look even less threatening than before. Each looked rather haggard, to say the least.

The injuries i gave them may have a small part to do with that. He chuckled to himself.

It was Fluttershy that spoke up first. "Zacchaeus, um, now that the mess is all cleaned up and everyone has had some time to... calm down, how about we ask you some questions?" she asked.

"Fluttershy, don't be so kind to this monster, he doesn't deserve it." said the purple one. "And you," she switched her attention to Zacchaeus, "will answer our questions."

"it is polite to have the knowledge of one's name before you talk to them, xenos, and while it is apparent that you know mine, I am still unaware of yours, so if you would be so kind as to tell me, then I would oblige to answer your questions." responded the librarian with a rare drop of humor to his tone.

"I will not tell you my name, that is reserved for people I know will not attempt to harm myself and my friends, and you have proven to want to cause harm to both."

Zacchaeus feigned not being able to hear her, and gazed un-attentively into the distance.The purple xeno was aware that he was toying with it, but seemed to realize that the only way to get him to speak was to play along with his facade.

"...My name is Twilight Sparkle." she muttered begrudgingly.

"Much better, now what is it that you ask, I will decide whether or not I shall answer."

"Why did you come here? What do you want with us? Why are you attacking?" she asked. The reptile on her head made no noise, but his eyes bored holes into Zacchaeus, or attempted to at least.

At that, the space marine did something that the ponies had not expected in the least: he laughed.

"Are you so vain as to think that the Imperium would have anything to gain through the conquest of this world? No, we did not come here by choice, if you are to place the blame of out arrival onto anything, blame the planet for its gravity, or better yet, blame the warp or spitting you back into the materium in the first place."

"So wait, you came here by accident? Then how come your ships landed so perfectly, gravity had nothing to do with that!"

"Your surprise is justified, in fact, we were expecting a crash landing, hence, all available pods and transports were jettisoned before the ships hit the atmosphere. Why we slowed is as much a mystery to us as it is to you."

"Then why is it that you and your species started attacking us? That does not seem like the smart thing to do after an emergency landing!" countered Twilight. The other ponies, though still opting to remain silent, nodded in agreement.

"This is a world that has just been spat out of the warp, with an unknown amount of xenos species residing on it, with a good portion of one species containing a dangerously high amount of psykers. Consider yourselves lucky that my brothers and I were not grounded, for if we knew such information while in orbit, this planet would be reduced to nothing but ash."

The cyan pony with the spectrum mane acted as if she were about to lash out, but the orange mare halted her before she could do so. Granted, she also looked close to doing something she would surely later regret. Twilight seemed to have let the comment break against her somehow.

"Then what is all about this 'warp' thing that you keep talking about, is it really that bad to justify harming us simply due to us coming out of it a bit ago?"

Zacchaeus held a hand to his forehead in frustration, "One does not simply walk into the warp, and then go as they so please. It is the most dangerous space in existence, that which traverses its depths without a form of shielding risks corruption or having their very soul consumed. Anything that arrives from warp-space that is not under the command of the Imperium of Mankind is considered a threat. All too recently, a world emerging from the warp led to billions of Imperial lives lost and nearly eradicated our chapter."

A silence reigned over the gathering for a good while until the lizard spoke up, at this point Zaccheus had seen too much of this planets life to really be all that shocked that another species could form speech.

"I almost don't want to know, but whats a daemon?" it asked.

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

Many miles away, an ancient tower stood out among the forest, to the sentient races of Equestria it was known as the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. It's real purpose was not known by any however. Deep within the confines of the ruins stood an archway, gems dotted along the curvature of the structure, the ancient material known as wraith bone had remained in pristine condition after many millenia. The psychic waves of the recent events on the world ; the violence, bloodshed, trauma, and raw power, washed over the device, though this could not be seen by the eyes of the psychicly untrained. Ancient sensors picked up these signals, for it was only this amount of disturbance that could cause them to react. A tiny spark arced its way across the arch, followed by another, then hundreds, then thousands, after enough energy had been accumulated, the web way portal activated. A swirling pond of energy now stood in the archway, and from it walked three lithe forms, their movements barely perceptible, each wore the same cloak, and each held the same issue long rifle. Nodding to one another, the Eldar Rangers scattered into the darkness.