Brother Librarian

Thought for the Day:

Only in death does duty end.

Jonah's examination of the room he was being held prisoner in inevitably led him to look downwards. One cannot complete the examination of a room without also examining one's position in the room. His eyes gazed downwards even as his head made no movement. The xenos were still frantically moving about and had yet to notice his awakening. Keeping a Space Marine down was similar to keeping a Carnifex down: it was stupid to try as it would inevitably fail, ending in the deaths of many. It is far more wise to kill them and then examine the corpse as taking them alive serves no purpose and is accompanied by extreme risk.

Everything seemed to be in order: 4 limbs, blood all over, a few gashes and holes in the armor from Daemon Blades and bolts, the blue coloring was covered in more red than anything. In fact, he looked more similar to a common Battle Brother of his chapter rather than the Librarian he was.

But something was amiss...

He certainly remembered wounds, and yet there weren't any, and judging by how his legs were bent he should be in pain. There was also substantially less blood than there should be, likely due to the xenos wiping it off. His gauntlets also seem to be... blunted, for lack of a better word. He also should be dead. Come to think of it, that is a rather large concern. Shouldn't he have gone to the Emperor's side to continue in the never-ending fight against the foul powers of Chaos?

He shoved the thought forcefully out of his mind. There were more pressing concerns.

Such as this red lump on his face.

He had assumed it to be a trick of the light at first... but close examination revealed... fur?

His breath caught.

It all clicked together in an instant...

Those damn xenos...

Thought was gone, replaced by white hot rage. Righteous fury burned in his mind and he wanted nothing more than to lash out. Hatred for the xenos, fury for their being, contempt for their brutish minds... that's all that existed in him at that moment. On the very precipice of berserker rage, of mindless anger, of forming warp-fire and decimating all that opposed him... Jonah regained control, if only slightly.

Anger is the correct response, despair only feeds the Dark Powers.

An essential part, the most integral, necessary piece of psyker training was self-control. Discipline. With every emotion, there is an effect in the Warp. With every emotion, a gateway that invited daemons. With every emotion, a beacon into the Warp, attracting daemons for possession.

He would not give in to mere rage like a mindless fool.

If knowing your Chapter Master to be a heretic and a traitor so terrible as to sacrifice an entire sub-sector to Khorne does not incite you to rage that would impress the Angry Marines, then discovering that xenos had stolen you, studied you, imprisoned you, and, even worse, made you into one of their own would only come close to sending you flying into the grips of battle-wrath.

Nevertheless, he noticed his effect on the room. Standing next to a furious psyker is equivalent to standing next to a volcano erupting: you feel the heat. And experience a migraine, sometimes a nosebleed, various and sudden mental phenomenon, and occasional possession by a rampant daemon, but that was beside the point: the xenos had noticed.

All of the xenos horse things were looking at him now. Surprise, fear, horror, even a little pain shown in their eyes.

His eyes met theirs, and an invisible battle of wills began. He won shortly thereafter, mostly because they were thrown off balance by an aura of rage.

Jonah was staring at them as they stared back. He was intrigued. It is well known throughout the Imperium that xenos are vastly different than humans, and don't experience the same emotions in the same way, and often don't perceive similar emotions at all, if they even can. Like the Tyranids: nothing at all. And the Orks: amusement, rage, irritation, stupidity (So powerful among their race it might as well be a state of mind or an emotion than a quality of their mind).

But Jonah could readily see the emotions on these xenos' faces. It was bewildering to see such from a xeno, especially considering it was so incredibly easy to see. It was like they broadcasted their emotions. Their eyes were so expressive... it was strange. The teachings of the Imperium tell that xenos are infinitely different than humans, and incapable of having similar emotions. But that was a lie, and he knew that.

And he was one of them now...

Cue the white hot rage, the infinite hatred, the barely holding back these emotions, and the forcing them back where they belonged. He exhaled... inhaled... exhaled... inhaled.

The horse things definitely knew now he was producing the aura. As though they did not know before, but now they were certain beyond any doubt. They also knew he was awake, as though it weren't incredibly obvious.

He decided to go for broke. He could have observed the xenos for longer, but not if they were aware of him.

All of the horse-xenos were caught off-guard as he stole into their minds. Jonah was a very powerful Librarian and wielded that power with great skill, but altering someone's mind was difficult, especially if they were a xeno. Xenos have vastly different thought patterns than humans. But stealing knowledge was a thing that all Blood Raven Librarians were excellent at. (Some would say that stealing in general was a thing Blood Ravens were good at, but I digress.)

It was an essential part of Blood Raven battle doctrine: read the future and observe the enemy until victory is assured. When given the proper time to prepare, the Blood Ravens were unbeatable in battle. The skilled and numerous Librarians of the chapter would delve into the skeins of the Warp, and read the future to the best of their ability. Every possibility and eventuality was considered, and planned for. If there was a minuscule chance, a less than .01% probability of something happening, the Blood Ravens would bring it up during strategic meetings and create a plan just to deal with the situation. This fore-sight allowed the Blood Ravens to deal with enemies before they had even arrived, occasionally. It also allowed them to predict the actions of their foes before the foe was even aware he was going to make that action.

Of course, without the proper time to plan and prepare, the Blood Ravens fight as any other chapter would. This is supported by the actions of the Tartarus campaign, as well as the multiple Aurelian Crusades where there weren't enough Librarians on hand or there was insufficient time to perform the rituals necessary. In those instances, the Blood Ravens fell back on old-fashioned techniques of battle, mostly by attacking whatever enemy they see and securing important objectives while pursuing the leaders of the enemy.

Despite their xeno nature, their minds were open books to him. Without having to fend off daemonic incursions, he was able to better focus on the xenos. He kept his mental shields at full, in addition to the protection the Psychic Hood offered. He had figured on at least some resistance, but these xenos seemed to have no experience with telepathy.

The technique he was using has been identified as a 'Mind Probe', because the name fits the technique, no Librarian objected to the name.

Knowledge was a wonderful, treasured gift to the Blood Ravens. And to 'discover' knowledge was always a good thing. No knowledge is damning, only how one reacts to the knowledge. When it was revealed that Kyras had bound a daemon into Galan, may his soul rest eternally with the Emperor, the brothers had despaired. But prayer and sessions with the Company Chaplain had set the brothers back on the path of the righteous. Had the brothers reacted with righteous fury, such measures need not have been taken, but they had despaired and they were corrected.

These... xenos... were all practicing medicae, similar to the Hospitaller Order. As such, they were very learned creatures, especially about the body of the xenos. But more importantly, they had basic information. Things like language, basic social graces, manners, etc, etc.

If these xenos, these... 'ponies' as they call themselves, think he is one of theirs, then by the Emperor he is going to blend in with them until he can call on his chapter for support. The chapter will cleanse this place, and hopefully be able to transfer his consciousness into a servitor.

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment, so he did not hope that his brothers would rescue him. He would merely try, success will depend on the Emperor.

Now was a time for subtlety. And as an XL-sized xeno-horse-pony, he would be as subtle as he could.

Easily done, considering he could manipulate an entire crowd of these weak-minded ponies.

With one last surge of Warp power their memories were altered. They had not been administering care to a giant in blood-soaked armor, they had been tending a normal, easily forgotten pony. Come to think of it, they had never seen a giant in blood-soaked armor, they would surely remember giving care to such a large pony.

Giant pony? Ha! I'm sure we would have remembered that.

Appeared in town one day, and rushed to the hospital? I don't know what you're talking about, that seems too outlandish for Ponyville.

Medical records? I'm sorry, it seems the room where we kept the records suffered from a small fire, and cabinets had been slagged irreparably.

A broken window? Well, you know foals. They probably just accidentally broke it while playing ball.

Aura of dread coming from the hospital? Well, we didn't feel anything. Maybe you were just imagining it.

Blood soaked trail that leads to a river? Hmm, how did that get there, I wonder?