Antonius had a short look at each of the ponies. To his left was Rainbow Dash, then came Applejack and Twilight. Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy were sitting to his right.
They were much more relaxed now than when he met them.
Good. It would be easier to get information out of them when they were not alarmed.

Antonius self-control had proven to be reliable, of course. He was an Ultramarine, after all. He had to admit, though, these ponies seemed to be by far the friendliest aliens he had ever encountered, making it relatively easy to stay calm and be 'nice' toward them.
If they really were what they seemed to be, time would tell.

Twilight's horn glowed in a purple hue as she used her magic to fetch a few sheets of parchment and a pencil.

"Everypony ready? Then we can start.
Mr. Varus, as our guest, you get to ask the first question. What do you want to know?"

Finally. His chance to get some information.

"First and foremost, I need some information about your species, your culture and the environment.
The basics you should know if you live here, and please don't forget the language mystery we mentioned earlier."

Twilight quickly browsed some books to look for the origins of their language.

"'Equestrian' first showed up about ten thousand years ago in the area around the 'Canterhorn', nowadays also known as 'Mount Canterlot'.
It spread quickly until it became everypony's main language. Its exact origins are still much-debated."

Ten thousand years? About the time of the Great Crusade. Perhaps there was a connection?

He also got the other knowledge he wanted about the ponies and the land they lived in, called 'Equestria':
Government, plants, wildlife, environmental conditions, as well as an explanation of these strange 'cutie marks'. They were obviously deeply embedded in society and very important.
Important enough that it would be best to memorize them.
Great. As if this planet wasn't already weird enough, now he would have to take a look at pony butts as well.

Another interesting aspect of their species were the three common pony subspecies, which they called simply 'kinds', the forth subspecies 'batponies' and the very rare fifth subspecies: the alicorn princesses.
Leaders, superior to the rest of the population, regarded almost as demi-gods. That concept was strangely familiar to him.

However, there was one point he had to inquire about:

"You said that your princesses raise the sun and the moon. What exactly do you mean by that?"

Associating a god or goddess with a sun or moon was not uncommon among primitive cultures, but the ponies seemed to be too advanced for that. Hadn't he even seen a telescope on the library's top balcony? At their level of civilization, Antonius had expected that they had figured out how solar systems worked.

Twilight looked a bit confused as she answered:

"Well, they use their magic to raise the sun and the moon. Literally. They control them."

That was possibly the most ridiculous statement the Space Marine had ever heard.
The princesses may be great psykers, granted. But controlling a celestial body with the mass of a moon? Or a sun?
Nonsense. Even the most powerful psykers of the Imperium could not do that.
Antonius did not show a single sign of his skepticism, though. Insulting someone's religion never was a good idea, so he simply said:

"Thank you for the information."

Now it was Twilight's turn and she prepared to take notes.

"Mr. Varus, what is your 'Imperium' like? Can you tell us a bit about it?"

That was a question Antonius had expected. Answering it was still not easy, as he had to explain the Imperium in a way these ponies would understand.

"The Imperium of Mankind is a pan-galactic empire under which the majority of humanity is united. It consists of more than a million planets, its central planet is Holy Terra.
It is ruled by the glorious Emperor of Mankind, respectively the High Lords of Terra in His name."

"Wait a second," Twilight interrupted,
"pan-galactic? You mean the Imperium spans the whole galaxy?"

"Correct."

"Wow. This size... it's almost unbelievable. To build an empire of that size, your civilization must be pretty old, right?"

"According to our calendar, we are living in the forty-second millennium, or M42, for short. I have to admit, this is not a complete answer to your question, as the history of mankind is a bit... complicated."

"No problem. I suggest, we do the basics first, the history later.
You said that your central planet is called 'Terra'. Did you mean 't-e-r-r-a'?"

"Yes, that is the correct spelling."

"Hmm, strange, that's the scientific name for 'Earth'."

"Correct."

"So, your central planet is called 'Earth'? We call our planet 'Earth', too! And the language... our fairytales about humans... that can't be a coincidence!"

"I came across enough references to each other's species to have reason to believe that there must have been some sort of contact once. We will hopefully be able to solve this mystery."

"Perhaps I can find something in the history books later. Would you mind if we continued our round of questions for now?"

"No, Twilight. Ask."

"So, Mr. Varus, you told Lyra earlier that you were a member of the 'Adeptus Astartes'. I suppose that's the army of the Imperium, am I right?"

"Not quite. The Imperium's army is the Imperial Guard.
We, the Adeptus Astartes, are one of the most elite fighting forces in the Imperium. As highly mobile strike forces, we are entrusted with the most dangerous missions a normal army cannot perform."

Rainbow's eyes grew bigger and she exclaimed:

"Whoa, you are an elite-warrior?"

"You could say so."

"Tell us more about it!"

"As you wish.
The Adeptus Astartes is split into about one thousand independent units, called 'Chapters'.
Each Chapter has about one thousand Space Marines, its commander is called 'Chapter Master', who decides independently if he sends his Space Marines to battle or not."

"There are about a million Space Marines?" asked Twilight.

"Correct."

Twilight cleared her throat, then she asked another question:

"You also told Lyra that you are bigger than 'normal' humans. What did you mean by that?"

"Space Marines are modified humans. We are physically, mentally and spiritually superior to 'normal' humans."

"You mean, you are not just a elite-warrior, but also... a kind of... super-warrior?"

"You could say so."

The ponies looked at each other, mostly concerned. Rainbow looked almost enthusiastic.
Then they all looked back to Antonius.

Twilight cleared her throat again.

"Okay, perhaps it is a good idea that you tell us how you got here."

She changed the topic.
Great.
When the ponies were already frightened by the mere existence of the Adeptus Astartes, they would probably freak out when he told them how he got here.

"I told you it was a teleporter accident."

"Yes, but could you please elaborate the circumstances a bit?"

Rainbow shouted:

"Yeah, and if there was a fight, tell that part in detail!"

The others looked at her reproachfully.

"What? I'll never get the chance to hear something that cool ever again!" she explained herself.

Twilight sighed.

"Okay. Please tell us your story, Mr. Varus. Fights included."

Rainbow grinned and Antonius just wanted to start, as he recognized three heads peeking in through one of the windows. And he knew whom one of them belonged to.
So he turned to Applejack:

"Do you know a small white unicorn with a purple and pink mane and a small orange pony with a purple mane that accompany your sister?"

Applejack was a bit confused, but nodded and answered:

"Yes. Sounds like Sweetie Belle, Rarity's little sister, and Scootaloo.
Together with my sister, they have founded a club to earn their cutie marks. They call themselves the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders'.
But how do you know them?"

Crusaders? What the hell did those little ponies do to get their marks? He had the unpleasant feeling that he would find out sometime.

"They are peeking in through the window over there."

He nodded towards the window and all eyes followed.
The three little heads quickly disappeared, but it was too late for them to stay hidden.

"SWEETIE BELLE!!!"

That came from Rarity. And Antonius had always thought the roar of a Carnifex was loud...

"APPLE BLOOM!"

That was Applejack. Not quite as loud, but still impressive for a creature of her size.

"SCOOTALOO!"

Rainbow Dash. She did not sound as angry as the other two ponies, more amused.

The door opened and the three little ponies came in and took a short look at the Space Marine. The three mares walked over to them.
Sweetie Belle smiled guiltily as she said:

"Hello, sister, um... nice afternoon for a walk..."

Rarity finished her sister's sentence:

"And peeking through windows. We'll talk about that later. Now, you better get back home."

"That's right, this here is nothing for fillies." Applejack added.

"We just wanted to see the giant." Scootaloo said defiantly.

Well, at least she hadn't called him 'alien'.

Rainbow Dash smiled as she said:

"Curious, hmm? Now, you've seen him. And we have really important stuff to do, so Rarity and Applejack are right.
We'll tell you later if something interesting happens."

The three fillies pouted, but turned around and left the library. The mares returned, and Rainbow said:

"Now, I think we were about to hear the awesome story about how you got here, not-safe-for-fillies-edition."

Antonius nodded and began:

"I was on board the Ultramarines strike cruiser 'Righteous Fury', together with the 2nd and 7th company, when we located a Chaos strike cruiser.
We immediately changed course to intercept the vessel and the 2nd and half of the 7th were sent to the boarding torpedoes.
Once in weapons-range, we opened fire. Our enemy did the same. This phase of the battle took a while as the ships fired broadsides at each other, parted, were brought alongside again and resumed firing.
We managed to bring the Chaos void shields down, damage their hull and some of their guns.
Unfortunately, they scored a lucky hit and damaged the energy supply of our most powerful weapons. That way, they had the chance to shoot our cruiser slowly but surely to bits.
To prevent that, the boarding torpedoes were launched, manned with one hundred and fifty Ultramarines. The second half of the 7th stayed onboard to prevent enemy attempts to capture our ship. Thanks to a barrage from the Righteous Fury's remaining weapons, every single torpedo made it to the Chaos cruiser.

"Once onboard, we fought our way towards the warp drive. We had to deal mainly with cultists and a few dozen Chaos Space Marines.
Halfway between our entry point and the warp drive, the 7th left us and feigned an attack of their main reactor to make them split up their forces.
We arrived at the warp drive, eliminated its defenders, placed the explosives and set the timer.

"We were heading back towards the rendezvous point with the 7th when we got news that they were under heavy attack by Chaos daemons. We immediately changed our direction to help them.
When we arrived at their location, we joined the battle against the creatures. They were just lesser daemons, but there were a lot of them. Together, we killed them all.
We had seven casualties up to this point, but we had eliminated dozens of enemies.

"Then, a part of the ceiling collapsed and separated a member of the 7th and me from the rest of our companies. Luckily, this marine was Sergeant Seneca, my Sergeant when I was a member of the 7th. I knew him since I had become an Ultramarine, and we were well familiar with each other's fighting style.
We tried to find an alternative route to our extraction point. On our way, we encountered a Chaos daemon. Not one of the small creatures we fought earlier, a bigger one.
We immediately opened fire, but the creature was protected by foul energies; we could not harm it that way.
So, we engaged it in melee."

"Hold on a second!" Rainbow Dash interrupted,
"What do you mean by 'bigger one'? How big was it?"

"About twice my size."

"Whoa. And you kicked its flank?"

"I was about to tell you."

"Okay, and remember: details!"

The enthusiasm of this mare made Antonius smile a little bit. Fighting Chaos truly was a noble deed, worthy of admiration.

"As I said, we engaged the daemon in melee, the Sergeant with his chainsword, I with my gladius."

He noticed the questioning looks the ponies had. So he pointed at his chainsword and explained:

"This is a chainsword. In fact, it's Seneca's. A gladius is a simpler sword without the teeth."

The aliens obviously were satisfied with this short explanation and Antonius went on:

"At first, we used a tactic of fast attacks. They did not deal much damage, but we could evade the daemon's attacks that way.
But we did not have much time. The explosives would detonate in a few minutes.
So, we changed our tactic to stronger blows.
I was able to pierce the creature's leg, but it hit me and sent me flying through the room, my gladius still embedded in its leg. The landing was hard and I needed a few seconds to regain my legs. The creature tore my sword out of its leg and broke it to pieces.
While I was gone from the fight, the daemon could concentrate on Seneca and managed to grab him, just as he swung his chainword for a mighty blow. He lost his grip on the weapon and it flew through the air. It landed on the ground about halfway between the daemon and me.
I hurried to join the battle again and picked up Senaca's chainsword, but I wasn't fast enough. The warp-filth laughed dastardly and ripped one of Seneca's legs out.
It was so busy with him that I grabbed the chance to jump on its back. I rammed the chainsword into the daemons neck.
The creature dropped Seneca and screamed in pain. I held on to its back and pushed the chainsword further into its body.
It jerked and turned and finally, it tumbled over. I ripped the sword out of its body and stabbed it into the daemon's head. One last twitch, and the disgusting creature was dead - at least its body, to be exact.
I immediately ran to Sergeant Seneca. He was still alive and even praised me for killing the daemon."

"Oh my goodness, were you able to help him? Did you have a first-aid kit?" asked Fluttershy.

The yellow pegasus had become paler and paler as Antonius had told his story. He was surprised that she was able to speak now at all.
Compassion, he realized as he looked into her eyes. She asked that out of genuine compassion. Compassion for someone she had only just heard about.
Antonius answered her question:

"I did not need a first-aid kit. I just picked him up to drag him to the extraction point."

Fluttershy looked shocked.

"But... a wound like that... you had to stop the bleeding!"

"The bleeding had already stopped. Space Marines have an implant, called 'Larraman's Organ'; the 'Larraman cells' it generates have the ability to seal wounds by quickly creating patches of scar-tissue."

"Another implant?" Twilight wanted to know. She continued a bit hesitantly:

"How many of those implants do you have?"

"Nineteen. I can tell you about them later. Now, let's finish the current story."

The ponies simply nodded. He went on:

"Seneca took his severed leg and I dragged him to the extraction point. Luckily, me met very little resistance, only a few scattered cultists we could easily take care of.

"We finally arrived at the extraction point.
The other marines had already left, but that did not surprise us. The explosives we had placed would go off any second and the cruiser had to get some distance to the Chaos vessel.
But there was a teleport homer the others had left for us. Only one man could be teleported at a time, so I placed the Sergeant next to it.
When I wanted to give him his chainsword back, he refused and told me to keep it until he was ready for duty again.
So, I kept the sword, activated the teleport homer and Seneca was teleported back onto the Righteous Fury.

"Then, I took my place next to the device and activated it again. As I dematerialized, I could hear the explosion of the Chaos warp drive. I fell unconscious, and the next thing I know, I awoke in a clearing of the nearby forest."

The silence that followed lasted a few seconds, then Antonius continued:

"I'm not used to telling stories, but I hope I included enough details to satisfy your curiosity."

"Hmm, thank you," Twilight answered. After a few more seconds, she asked:
"Can you remember where this clearing is?"

"Yes. I can take you there, if you want to."

"Okay. We should have a look at this place. We could ask Zecora to join us, she knows the Everfree better than anypony of us."

She looked at one on the library's windows.

"But that will have to wait until tomorrow. It's dark already. Perhaps we should call it a day and continue tomorrow after our excursion into the forest."

"Good idea." Rarity agreed,
"I need my beauty-sleep. That will be difficult enough, considering the nightmares I will probably get from that story."

"Yeah," Applejack concurred,
"we might keep Princess Luna busy tonight."

"I think it was a great story!" Rainbow Dash objected,
"a bit more violent than I thought, but awesome nonetheless!"

So, the ponies had not freaked out. But they were clearly not used to that level of violence.
Should he call them weak or lucky because of this? Probably both.

"Well, it was definitely an interesting story.
You can stay here for tonight, Mr. Varus. I'm afraid I can't provide a bed for you, or even a suitable blanket, though," Twilight said.

"No problem. I didn't plan to sleep tonight, anyway," Antonius reassured her.

"You do not need to sleep?"

"Yes, I do. But I can stay awake a couple of days if I want to."

"How do you do that?" Twilight asked.

"An implant. It's called 'Catalepsean Node'."

"Oh... We'll save that for tomorrow. Good night, girls.
We'll see you tomorrow morning, right after dawn. I'll prepare breakfast for us."

After Twilight's friends had said goodbye and left, she turned to Antonius:

"Do you need anything before... Oh, I totally forgot dinner! SPIKE!"

With the help of the little dragon, Twilight prepared some fruit and vegetables. During the meal, the three talked about their languages and some minor differences they had noticed.

All told, Equestrian was a 'ponified' Low Gothic:
'pony' instead of 'body',
'hooves' instead of 'hands' and so on.
A defacement of the human language, but compared to what the Orks spoke, Equestrian was really acceptable.

After they had finished, Twilight asked him:

"So, now: Do you need anything before I retire?"

"Do you have maps of the area and a book about pony anatomy?"

Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"Pony anatomy?"

"Yes. The more I know about your structure, the lower is the chance that I accidentally hurt you."

And the higher his efficiency would be should he have to fight the ponies. He kept this fact a secret.

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. The maps are over here." Twilight said as she used her magic to levitate a few folded parchments over to the central table.
"Now, about the book... It should be somewhere up there..."

She trotted over to another shelf and looked upward.

"Mr. Varus, could you please lift me up, so I can have a look where the book is?"

"No problem."

The Space Marine went over to her, put his right hand under her belly and carefully lifted her up.
He supported her weight with his left arm and tilted her upward, until she was sitting on his left forearm, her back against his armor. His right hand now prevented her from falling over.

"Hmm, not bad. Could you please go a bit to the right?"

Antonius did as she asked him to do.

"Ah, there it is."

She used her magic to pull the book out of the shelf.

"Okay, you can put me down again."

After standing on solid ground, Twilight levitated the book over to the table, next to the maps. Then she turned to Antonius:

"Thank you for your help. I'll go to bed now. Oh, there is a bathroom behind this door, although it might be a bit small."

"Don't worry, there will be no problems."

"Okay. Good night, Mr. Varus. Or good reading."

"Good night, Twilight."

The pony and the dragon went up the stairs and left Antonius alone in the library. He walked over to the maps and started studying them.

Strange creatures.
Going to bed while an armed stranger was in their house.

Careless creatures.
Trusting creatures.

"'Could you please lift me up?' You do realize that that was quite dangerous?" Spike asked after Twilight had closed the door to her private rooms.

"Not as dangerous as you think. Furthermore, it was a good opportunity to test something.
He had no problem lifting me. And did you notice that he crushed neither the muffin nor the glass?
Antonius is not only strong, he also has excellent control of his strength. I wonder how that is possible, considering the strength-enhancing armor."

"Don't we have more important things to think about? I mean, there is a alien super-warrior in the library!
I trust you, Twilight, you know that I do, but I don't think we can handle this on our own."

"I know, Spike, that's why I told him I'd retire. We must inform the princesses. Take a letter:
'Dear Princess Celestia,
Dear Princess Luna,
This is probably one of the most important letters you will ever receive. Today, I encountered a very strange creature...'".