Rarity peered from behind the mannequin she was dressing with her latest work. Someone was knocking at her door, but she didn't have any appointments today.
"Come in darling, I'll be with you in a moment." She said as she quickly sewed the two pieces of fabric she was working with at the time. She pouted to herself for having for having to stop so suddenly, she really hoped this was important.
She heard the door open as she tightened the sewing thread to tie it off and cut it, but didn't get the chance as her new guest slammed into her.
Rarity grunted as she hit the ground and found herself staring into the frantic frightened eyes of SilverStream.
"RARITY!!YOUNEEDTOCALLTWILIGHT!!THERE'SABUNCHAFREAKYKNIGHTSANDWIZARDSATTHECASTLEOFHARMONYANDITHINKMYFRIENDSAREINTRO-" The panicking hippogriff was silenced as Rarity used her magic to lift SilverStream off of her. "Darling, you simply must slow down! I understand that you're frightened, and I know it takes something truly terrible to scare you this greatly, but I can't understand a word you're saying. Now please, take a breath and try again."
"Are you INSANE!?" Chancellor Neighsay shouted.
Twilight groaned internally. Of course Neighsay had somepony monitoring the skies for potential threats. "Quite the opposite Chancellor, who or what ever these creatures are, the fact that they came here in real life space ship proves that their technology is far superior to ours. So even if they are here to cause trouble, provoking them would be the dumbest thing we can do right now."
"If? IF!? THOSE THINGS CAME DOWN UPON THE CASTLE OF HARMONY!! THE SOURCE OF OUR GREATEST WEAPON!! CELESTIA KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING TO DO!" Neighsay shouted.
"...WEAPON!? YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THE MAGIC OF FRIENDSHIP IS JUST A WEAPON!?? FOR ALL WE KNOW, THEY'RE JUST TRYING TO LEARN ABOUT IT! MAYBE THEY PICKED IT UP ON THEIR 'TRICORDERS' OR SOMETHING!!" Twilight shouted back.
Spike stepped between the shouting Ponies "Okay you guys, maybe we should give it a break until we get to Ponyville at lea-" The Dragon puffed his cheeks and grabbed his face before letting out an echoing belch of green fire that compressed into the form of a letter.
Twilight Sparkle seized the letter with her magic and went numb as she just barely recognized the scribbled writing as Rarity's
TWILIGHT!!YOUNEEDTOGETTOPONYVILLEIMMEDIATLY!!THERE'SABUNCHOFFREAKYKNIGHTSANDWIZARDSATTHECASTLEOFHARMONYANDITHINKOURGRADUATESAREINDANGER!!!"
Rarity paced around nervously while Applejack did her best to keep Rainbow Dash from flying out to attack these new invaders by herself. "Oh Twilight, please hurry."
"Grr, let me go! We can't wait any longer!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she flapped her wings as hard as she could. Applejack kept her teeth clenched on Rainbow Dash's tail, but the ground beneath her hooves was starting to give way.
"Hmm, What do ya know, Applejack kept her here. Guess that means cookies tonight." Pinkie Pie chirped to herself. Confusing Rarity for a half second until a lavender flash and audible pop signaled their leader's arrival.
"Oh Twilight! Thank goodness you've made it!" Rarity shouted as she and the others crowded around their friend...and somepony else.
"We don't have time for this nonsense! Who knows what damage these invaders have already caused." Neighsay grumbled as he, Spike, and another familiar face made themselves known.
"While I don't mind the odd group hug from time to time, Neighsay does have a point. We need to assess the situation immediately." The dark maroon Unicorn stated. Pinkie Pie is the only one who called Fizzlepop Berrytwist by her real name, with the others using the nickname she had chosen for herself: Tempest Shadow.
Twilight sighed but relented. "Right, let's get go- wait, where's Fluttershy?"
"Oh, Discord took her out on a date this morning. I'm afraid we'll have to do this without her." Rarity stated.
Nothing else was said on the matter, but an unspoken concern wormed it's way into Twilight's mind. Would they be able to use the Magic of Friendship without their sixth member?
The last wooden wolf cried out an echoing howl as it exploded into splinters. Jerrik lowered his Storm Bolter and continued forward.
Soon brothers. Soon. Jerrik projected to his brothers. He was close to them, as they were to him. When the thrice damned Wolves of Fenris betrayed the Thousand Sons and put Prospero to the sword, he had lost his entire biological family. His parents, his sister, his nephew. All butchered by the Wolves.
He had captured one of Leman's dogs the following year. Beat and tortured him as he explained what he had learned of Horus and Magnus. "YOU PLAYED RIGHT INTO HIS HANDS!!" Jerrik shouted at the dog. "No." He replied. "You would've betrayed us either way. Such is the nature of Witches."
Jerrik put him down and howled his hatred. Only his brothers mourned with him, and they fought beside him on Terra as they reaped their vengeance on those who had betrayed them and labeled them traitors.
Then came the Rubric. Jerrik hunted Ahriman to kill him, but Ahzek had defeated him and convinced him to aid the Scourge in undoing his transgression.
Now, on this Alien world, they were mere days away. And no Xenos filth was going to interfere.
Such were his thoughts when his helm detected movement. Jerrik and his Scarab Occult Terminators halted, and Jerrick used his sorcery to conceal their presence. Let them come...
"Huh, that's weird." Applejack stated.
"Hmm? Something wrong?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Well, aside from the absence of any birdsong, I had heard kinda large critters up ahead...but they suddenly stopped." The farm girl explained.
"It's the invaders! They're here!!" Neighsay shouted. Striking up an aggressive pose and lighting up his horn.
"That's enough!" Twilight stated firmly and engulfed the zealous Unicorn in a magic bubble. "If the visitors are really here, and even if they are invading, we can't just go in horns blazing. So take it down a notch!" The Princess of Friendship dropped Neighsay like a sack and turned to Rainbow Dash. "Can you fly overhead and tell us what you see?"
"Caaan do!" The hotshot Pegasus sang out with an exaggerated salute before rocketing through the treetops, sending down a snowfall of leaves and twigs.
Rarity quickly shielded herself with her magic to prevent any debris from finding root in her mane or tail while others simply picked them out or brushed them off after the fact.
"Well...that could've been worse" Twilight stated...half a second before Rainbow Dash punched through the treeline again and dropped a whole branch on an unsuspecting Neighsay.
Neighsay removed the offending flora and was about to shout at Rainbow Dash when the Wonderbolt Captain suddenly shoved her hoof into the Unicorn's mouth. "Shhh! Something's over there!"
The whole group dropped to a dead silence, and quietly asked their friend to explain what she had seen. "I don't know, I could... barely make it out!"
"What!? But your eyesight and memory are photographic when you're flying... it's how we taught you your Wonderbolts history lesson remember!!? Pinkie Pie practically exploded with a whispering shout.
"And that's the only reason I noticed them at all. There was a whole chunk of the forest that I couldn't focus on, like my mind wouldn't let me look at whatever's over there. So I looked for clues around the area, and saw these huge footprints leading to the blank spot. They must be using some weird alien magic or something." Rainbow Dash explained.
"Then that confirms it, they're trying to ambush us." Neighsay snarled.
Twilight took a deep breath. "If that's true, then I'll spring their trap. Rarity, Tempest, please make sure he doesn't do anything rash."
And with that, the Princess of Friendship teleported between the two groups and shielded herself. "Visitors from the stars, I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, ruler of Equestria. There is no need for conflict between our two peoples, we could accomplish much more learning from each other than from fighting each other. Is it possible we can coexist in peace?"
Jerrik didn't bother trying to interpret the Alien's tongue. It either spoke the lies of the Eldar, or the naive foolishness of the Tau.
The purple equine creature called out to him again, he pondered eliminating the Alien, but the shimmering purple field gave it away as a psyker.
The creature called out again, but this time to something above them. Jerrik craned his head and saw a winged xeno calling back. It was flying over them, but couldn't see them...yet it knew where they were.
Jerrik took aim and fired a single bolt at the low flying alien giving away their cover before reorienting on the witch. Fire! Jerrik willed, he and his brothers opening up with Storm Bolters, a Soulreaper Cannon, A Heavy Plasma Gun, and two Hellfyre Missile Racks.
The barrage of munitions slammed into the witch's shield and exploded violently...so violently that it masked the Ariel assault.
Rainbow Dash barely saw projectile in time to barrel roll at Mach 5, and still lost some feathers as it passed her by.
The tomboy reoriented herself and finally saw what she couldn't. 10 humongous blue knights with loud and totally awesome looking weapons that were shooting at-
"TWILIGHT!!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she realized what was happening before rocketing towards the sky as fast as she could before diving back down, developing an ever shrinking mach cone that merged with her just as she fell within the midst of the invaders.
BOOM!!
Rainbow Dash reoriented her flight path and headed straight for Twilight, but she was unreachable.
Jerrik pushed his body off the ground, and found himself staring into the eyes of the Alien witch that he had evidently landed on.
He made a fist and tried to punch the witch, but something electrocuted him. 5 more Xenos erupted from the forest shouting battle cries.
Engage! Jerrik willed as he shrugged off the psychic assault and made to kill the witch beneath him again.
This time, the witch herself intervened. Teleporting out from under him and casting an energy wave powerful enough to throw him on his back.
Bolter fire and the sounds of sorcery erupted around Jerrik as he fought against the witch's sorcery. He pushed against the energy wave with a psychically enhanced hand and started looking around for his weapons.
Fortune favored him, he landed right next to his force sword. It's runes and savage design marking it as a trophy taken from Leman's dogs. He grabbed the sword and Rose to his feet. Pushing against the energy and advancing towards his quarry.
Out the corner of his eye, he saw one of his brothers felled by...the pinkest Alien he had ever seen. It shot the Terminator with a cannon that shot pastel colored strips of paper with enough force to knock down an Astartes in Tactical Dreadnought armor.
The Alien climbed onto the downed warrior's chest and smacked him with a hammer, a carpentry hammer. Get up! Fight back! Jerrik willed, but the Rubric Marine remained unresponsive.
"Sorry! He's out cold! It's just yooou and meeee." The Pink Horror explained in flawless High Gothic as she jumped towards Jerrik with her hammer in tow.
Jerrik didn't have time to ponder the impossibility of what was happening here. He spun away from his struggle with the witch to engage the Horror.
A swift swing of his sword should've taken the monster's head off, but it sucked it's head into its own neck like a turtle.
"Missed me!" The Horror chirped as it resurfaced. Jerrik seized it's head and crushed its skull, or would if it wasn't boneless. It's fleshed simply squeezed through the gaps in Jerrik's fingers with an obnoxious squeak.
They're not Aliens, they are Daemons! Jerrik mentally shouted as he realized his window was closing, the witch would reengage him any nanosecond now and he was unable to kill the Horror. All he could do was glance around the battlefield and try to salvage the situation.
It was a disaster. The witch had engaged two of Jerrik's to save an injured Alien that was also a psyker while two more psykers bogged down his heavy weapons specialists. The flying Alien was still alive and distracting more of his brothers while the closest Alien to being a Terran born equine seized the openings created by the flyer to launch Terminators through the air with simple kicks.
This is not possible...withdraw! Jerrik willed to his brothers. "Aw, leaving so soooon?" The Pink Horror sang, its head still squished in Jerrik's hand.
"SILENCE!" Jerrik shouted as he threw the Horror at witch and retreated. "This is not over."