Death to the Enemies of Common Sense
Antonius of the Raptors 4th Company sat at a sizable desk, studying the two forms in front of him.
A violet flash and a sharp crack of displaced air emanated from his left. “Here’s some more quills and ink, in case you run out!” The endlessly gregarious purple pony psyker declared cheerfully, using its heretical psyker powers to push some more quills and stationery in his direction.
“No, but thanks.” Antonius intoned, pushing the bottles and quills back the way they came. “I have all the writing materials I need.”
He’d been on Centaur III for a week now, and it never ceased to amaze him just how inexplicably friendly and helpful the horse-like xeno natives of this planet were. Even the most accepting newly-rediscovered human worlds were cautious and fearful of the Emperor’s Angels, and the vast majority immediately jumped to the somewhat-understandable conclusion that any Adeptus Astartes who made first contact were alien conquerors and came at them with guns blazing. And yet, despite not being human, these xenos had been exponentially more friendly than even the most welcoming non-imperial humans, greeting Antonius and his brothers with open hooves, feasts and gifts, and a cannon that fired parties in one particularly bizarre instance.
Antonius was skeptical at first, as was only natural. The hypnotherapy sessions he’d been on the receiving end of during his centuries-long initiation had thoroughly drilled the untrustworthy nature of all xenos into his head, after all. But the pragmatic, logical mind those same therapies had gifted him with told him that if this was some kind of ploy to get them to drop their guard, it was a horrifically poorly-conceived one. The xenos had allowed Antonius’s brothers to mingle amongst them and wander wherever they pleased; a tactical blunder of species-ending proportions even if Antonius and his brothers hadn’t been dubbed “Angels of Death” for a very good reason. The Company of Astartes had thus gleaned more intel on these creatures in a single day than they had gained from millennia of war against literally any other xeno race. There was also the fact that the Company’s resident Librarian had mentally probed the creatures (with their informed and enthusiastic consent, no less), and could personally attest to the authenticity of their good intentions.
And that wasn’t even mentioning what had happened when one of Company’s more impulsive battle-brothers had reacted poorly to the aforementioned “party cannon” and drawn his bolt pistol (the pink xeno who’d presented him with the thing hadn’t taken offense over the utter fiasco that had followed, thank the Emperor). A canny Rogue Trader had once remarked, "To be kind instead of cruel, in this universe, a creature would have to be able to rewrite the laws of the universe itself”; these xenos seemed to have taken one look at that claim and unilaterally declared “Challenge Accepted!”
Of course, none of that would matter much to the rest of the Imperium. A xeno was still a xeno after all, no matter how inexplicably friendly they turned out to be, or how eager they were to join the Imperium out of a misguided desire to make some strange new friends. But then again…
Antonius glanced at the almost-literal mountain of papers that constituted the xeno form. Said form was stored in enough binders to make the Codex Astartes itself seem like a single-page pamphlet by comparison; even the Companies’ dreadnoughts weighed less than the combined form. Literally. Antonius had checked.
And then he glanced at the form for a human world. Insultingly enough, it was just a single page, with just two questions.
For a long, long second, Antonius contemplated something that even the most radical of radical Inquisitors would have instantly labeled as pure, absolute, undeniable heresy. He could spend Emperor-only-knows how many weeks or months going through that stupidly massive form… or he could “accidentally” fill out the human form, and instead spend those months doing what he was designed to do and actually trying to deal with the myriad number of true, actual threats to humanity the Imperium faced…
Antonius looked to the first box on the human form. It wasn’t even a question really; just the phrase “basically human?” next to a check box. If he checked it, the Imperial Bureaucracy would consider the xeno natives of Centaur III to be human citizens of the Imperium, and nothing short of the Lords of Terra themselves coming to this backwater planet and having a look would undo it.
But on the other hand, it wasn’t like that would do the Imperium much harm…
He checked the box.
“Basically human? But we’re ponies.” The purple xeno asked.
“You are human in thought and mind, and that is what counts.” Antonius lied. Worse came to worse, he still stood a shockingly good chance of passing these creatures off as a particularly bizarre type of abhuman, especially considering their uncannily human mannerisms and the fact that their native language was basically low gothic by another name.
With that out of the way, Antonius moved onto the next and final ‘question’; “religious affiliation; imperial creed?” Next to it was another checkbox.
“Uhh, we don’t exactly worship the God-Emperor…” The xeno stared to explain, guessing what Antonius was about to ask. “The chief diety among ponykind is the concept of Harmony, as represented by Celestia and, to a lesser extent, Luna-“
“Close enough.” Antonius lied yet again, checking the box.
“And that is why this Chapter Serf here is human, and you should cease harassing her.” Antonius growled.
The Inquisitor glanced at the mint-colored unicorn, whistling a cheery tune to herself as she used her telekinesis to service Antonius’s armor. And then back at Antonius. “But… but it is a horse…” He finally sputtered out.
“I have noticed.” Antonius deadpanned, and the Inquisitor’s jaw dropped. “That being said, I also have documentation from the Imperial Bureaucracy declaring, in triplicate, that Centaur III—the world this particular chapter serf hails from—is a human world, and all of its inhabitants are both human and full, loyal Imperial citizens, and that the same is true of Lyra here. If you have reason to believe otherwise, then you should take it up with the Administratum.”
All the color drained from the Inquisitor’s face. There was 'crazy', there was 'suicidal', and then there was 'has angered the Imperial Bureaucracy'. At least an Inquisitor was allowed to shoot an Astartes for heresy, or at least try to. No Inquisitor with even an ounce of self-preservation or sense of obligation to the Emperor would ever try such a stunt with the Administratum; nobody wanted to become a rounding error.
“I should probably be going, then.” The Inquisitor finally admitted, backing out the door, evidently moving toward the boarding hatch to his own vessel.
“Indeed.”
Author's Note
Heavily Inspired by the gorgeous piece of heresy known only as “The Brave Guardsmen of Spidera IV”. This is basically that fic, but with ponies.
