Chapter 28: The emperor declares war
Gusty and her friends weren´t the only ones getting ready to fight. From the moment he discovered she was the Wind Warrior, Emperor Grogar knew that the conflict between him and Majesty was about to scale to a big war. Having accepted this fact, he imposed harsher work conditions in the unicorns´ slaves throughout the whole empire, especially the ones who were working in the castle. He also interrogated them every day, using torture if needed. However, he never got any relevant information about Gusty or Majesty´s plans.
Many weeks had passed, and the emperor still knew little of her location or activity. Despite having his moments of anger like he often does; he still planned his actions with extreme care and thought, waiting for the perfect moment to attack.
As usual, Bray knocked his door before entering to the throne room.
“Emperor Grogar. We finished our daily interrogation to all the unicorns but like always,” he rolled his eyes “we didn´t get answers. Only cries for help and begging.”
“I don´t even know why you keep interrogating the unicorn slaves.” Grogar bashed him. “Isn´t it perfectly clear by this point that Majesty is not sending spies anymore?”
“Well, you didn´t tell us to stop.” Bray muttered under his breath.
Hearing what Bray said, Grogar glared at him. Bray´s ears dropped.
“I mean…. Yeah, it´s clear that we need to stop.” he nodded his head energetically. “But if she isn´t sending spies, what is she doing now?”
“Training Gusty to death of course! By sending her to the castle, she practically exposed that she intends to start a war.”
“Weren´t you already in war?”
“I´m talking about a real war, Bray. The battles in which she stole territories are nothing compared to what will be. Because this time, Majesty will be confronting me face to face. And you know that I´m not merciful when fighting my enemies…”
“Wow… After all this time you´re finally seeing each other again. Oof, she´ll be furious the moment she sees you. You know… because of her son thing.”
“What happened with her son is something that happens in every war. It was not my fault. It wasn´t me who killed Lucky with a sword. She knew the risks of sending her only heir to battle and she sent him anyway.”
“If I remember correctly, that was the first time you saw Majesty in flesh, am I right?”
Grogar nodded.
“I knew of her name because of the problems her family and I had but I never saw her face until the day she showed up to my castle to `negotiate´ with a sword.”
“Oh, I remember it perfectly.” a chill went through Bray´s back. “Compared to you, her rage still falls flat, but I never had seen a pony that furious in my life. And it was somewhat scary.”
“As scary as she might have pretended to be, I still managed to hurt her significantly. If her subjects hadn´t taken care of her, she would have died moments afterwards. Just like I will manage to do so with Gusty.”
“Let´s hope so…” Bray thought as he bit his lip. “Talking about her, how are you handling it?”
“What do you mean by how I´m handling it?” Grogar asked somewhat upset.
Bray wanted to ask Grogar about his emotions, but seeing his reaction, he had second thoughts.
“I was talking if you have progressed on your strategies on how to capture her.”
“I do have my ideas to capture her, yes. Most importantly, I do know how to make her reconsider fighting me…” he smirked.
“And that is..”
Grogar was about to explain but a guard opened the door before he could.
“My emperor. The allies are waiting for you in the meeting room.”
Grogar sighed.
“Tell them I´ll be there in a minute.”
The guard nodded and closed the door. Bray observed how Grogar closed his eyes as he breathed slowly.
“Forgive me for this question my emperor.” Bray looked at the floor to avoid eye contact with Grogar. “But, do they know about the prophecy?”
Grogar´s opened his eyes. Slowly, he turned his eyes to Bray and glared. Bray´s ears dropped and walked backwards, expecting Grogar to blow in anger.
“They don´t need to know about a nonsense superstition. So why tell?”
Grogar´s answer left Bray relieved. Many years of servitude to Grogar allowed Bray to know everything about him, even the most insignificant detail. After a long time of stress and getting angry, there came a point when Grogar would come back to his calm yet imposing attitude, either because he had accepted the situation or was exhausted about wasting his energy in anger. Judging from his answer, Bray could tell that moment had come. He subtly exhaled all the air he held.
“That makes sense, yeah.”
“Let me ask you this, Bray. And I want you to be sincere.”
“You know I would never lie to you. I´m your most loyal follower!”
Grogar raised an eyebrow, skeptical about those words. No matter how loyal Bray was to him, he knew there were moments in which he lied to avoid trouble. However, he also knew that he was too afraid of him to betray him, which was why he still kept him as his confidant.
“Do you really believe in the prophecy Bray?”
“What? No! Why would I?” Bray looked away as he smiled nervously.
Grogar´s eyes and bells shone, noticing Bray´s fear. The ram frowned.
“I told you to be sincere.”
“I am being sincere.”
“No, you´re not. Why are my bells glowing then? If you were telling me the truth, you wouldn´t be so afraid. Answer me again. Do you believe in the prophecy or not?”
Bray took some seconds to answer, wondering if he really should tell the truth. After reconsidering, the donkey gave in his master´s desires. He sighed defeated.
“Believe wouldn´t be the word. Deep down I know that she did it to scare you but there´s also a part of me that´s frightened. And I think we can speak for all that follow you.”
After Bray told the truth, Grogar´s eyes and bells stopped glowing.
“Now you´re telling the truth. See? It wasn´t that difficult.”
“You´re not angry?”
“No. Just disappointed that you would let your emotions take over you. Don´t I always tell you that feeling fear is just for the weak? I never thought you as weak. I saw a strong donkey who could get everything done. But maybe I was wrong.”
Bray looked down.
“I´m sorry, my emperor.”
“You are forgiven. But one more thing. Don´t ever mention the prophecy. Again.”
“Yes, my emperor.”
“Good. Now, let´s just get the meeting done, shall we?” Grogar said as he left.
Bray stared as he left, his ears lowered due to embarrassment. Whenever he showed worry for Grogar, he would just brush it off and make it seem like it was him being weak. Sometimes, he wondered if Grogar truly never felt fear or sadness and it was just an armour to make him feel better about himself. Even worse, he feared that armour would doom him rather than protect him, which was the reason why he was so scared of the prophecy coming true.
“Bray! Are you coming or not?” Grogar called him from the corridor.
Grogar´s voice brought Bray back to reality.
“Huh? Oh! Yes, my emperor. Sorry.” he apologized as he followed him.
Meanwhile, at the meeting room, Grogar´s allies waited impatiently for him to appear. Katrina drummed her claws constantly, to which Silenius reacted by slamming his fist on the table, making Katrina´s fur pointy as she meowed scared, tensing her entire body.
“Will you stop that?!”
“Wow, wow.” Katrina put her paws on the air. “Temper. Temper!”
“What? I´m not the one who´s drumming my fingers?”
“Well, how am I supposed to be waiting then?”
“By not making any noise?!
“I´m sorry but that´s not an option for me!”
“Oh, I will make it your only option.” Sylenius hit the floor with his staff to activate it.
“Oh, Bring it on!” Katrina enlightened her paws.
The two started throwing blasts at each other. A dog-like creature made of stone duck his head.
“Hey, knock it out you two, will you?!” he asked angrily.
“Sorry Crunch, but no.” Silenius replied to the dog without any sign of remorse of upsetting him. “This is urgent.”
“Exactly!” Katrina agreed.
A female troggle smirked.
“Yeah, keep going Katrina! Keep going and waste more spells.” she laughed.
“Oh wait. Unlike you, Hydia, I actually can because I don´t need ingredients to cook brews in a pot!” Katrina clapped back.
The troggle stopped laughing abruptly after hearing her words.
“Are you saying that I´m not a real sorcerer?!”
“I don´t know, am I?”
“Well, I´ll let you know that sorcerers that make spells by brews are as good as those who don´t. I bet could even beat you in a duel.”
“Ha! You wish.”
“Ok. But I think I have more merit than you, as I don´t need to carry a potion all the time to do magic.”
Katrina gasped dramatically.
“Oh, you´re going to repent those words!” she said as she walked to Hydia.
“Hey! We´re still not done.” Silenius called her.
“If you don´t shut up, I´m going to turn you into stone!” Crunch exclaimed as he slammed the table.
As they were too busy arguing with each other, none of them realized that Grogar had opened the gates. He and Bray stared at them, both raising one of their eyebrows. The ram and the donkey shared briefly looks. Unamused, Grogar rolled his eyes before he raised his voice.
“Silence!” he stomped his hoof.
As soon as they heard him, the creatures quickly came back to their seats.
“Good morning your royal highness.” they said in unison as they bowed their heads.
Grogar nodded his head in response, greeting them quietly.
“You know, for a creature that´s always punctual and very consistent on us on not getting late to reunions, you sure are late today.” Silenius said to Grogar as the emperor walked to his sit.
“As you well said, I am always punctual.” Grogar replied back, annoyed by Silenius´ audacity. “Even more than any of you. At least I didn´t make you wait half an hour unlike others.”
“Ok, ok. To be fair I had a little trouble on the way that day.” Silenius raised his hands in defence.
“And by trouble you mean that you forgot that we had a reunion.”
Katrina and Hydia held their laughter.
“Busted.” Katrina muttered.
“Now that we´re talking about reunions, why did you summon us?” Crunch asked angry. “It´s not meeting time and I have many things to do!”
“Crunch, did you forget that I could literally turn you to smaller stones with just a zap just for how you spoke to your emperor?” Grogar raised his eyebrow.
Despite having asked quite calmly, Crunch still felt very intimidated by his angry eyes. He grinded his jaw as he looked away.
“That´s what I thought. But answering to your question, I summoned all of you because I suspect that Majesty is about to take the next step in her plan.”
Every creature gasped.
“You mean that now she´s going to battle you? Like in a real war?” Hydia asked shocked.
“Yes.”
“Huh, well it was time that coward showed her face again.” Katrina looked at her paws.
“But does that mean that all the spying is over?” Silenius asked.
“I´ve interrogated and tortured every unicorn in this castle for months and none of them know anything. Some would say that they knew about Majesty´s plans to stop the torture, but once I asked about the plans, none of them gave a valid answer.” Grogar explained. “So I think it´s safe to assume that she´s not sending spies here anymore.”
“Besides, say all you want about Majesty, but we perfectly know she´s not stupid enough to be sending spies after what happened.” Bray added.
The donkey covered his mouth. Grogar turned his head and glared at him.
“What do you mean by `after what happened´?” Crunch asked Grogar.
Grogar turned his head back to his allies.
“The reason we know this is because one of the new maids turned out to be a spy.”
“Which one?” Hydia asked.
“Her name is Gusty, a white unicorn. She was the one Silenius and Katrina teased in one of our reunions.”
“Wait. That one?” Silenius asked incredulous.
“Yes. That one.” he said full of hate.
Although she tried not to, Katrina burst in laughter, which made Grogar frown.
“It´s not funny Katrina.”
“Ok. Ok.” she said as she wiped a tear. “You´re telling me that weakling was Majesty´s puppet all along? And you didn´t realize?”
“I knew it already! I knew it from the first moment I saw her.” he said in his own defence. “But she and her fellow spies managed to escape.”
“Looks like even the emperor makes the most stupid mistakes.” Hydia whispered to Crunch.
“Who do you think you are to say that, huh?!” Grogar yelled at her. “If it wasn´t for me, you wouldn´t own a castle and you´d live in terrible conditions. Without me you would be a nobody! How dare you speak of me like that?!”
“Ok, ok. I´m sorry.” Hydia apologized, scared by Grogar´s burst.
“Does any of you have anything else to say?” Grogar asked them.
Katrina, Silenius and Crunch shook their heads.
“Good. Now, listen carefully. Majesty is coming for all of you. You need to double the guards at the walls, reinforce security inside the cites, arrest and stop anypony you suspect in any way you can, I don´t care if you have to kill the entire city. But most importantly, train. Prepare yourselves and your armies for battle the best you can.”
“Forgive me, but from my understanding Majesty only wants the parts of her kingdom back. It makes sense for Hydia and Crunch but Silenius and I? His and my territories aren´t part of her kingdom, so why would she be coming for us?” Katrina pointed out.
“Precisely because their territories, which are the ones she´s interested in, are near yours. Which means that she might have to go through you first, so you need to be in alert. You won´t have to take measures as strict as theirs but you could stop Majesty once and for all.”
Silenius and Katrina shared looks.
“And one important thing. You can kill all of them but there´s one of them I want alive. Capture her, bring her to me and I´ll deal with her.”
“And what´s in it for us?” Silenius asked.
“Not being overthrown, isn´t that enough?” Grogar replied aggressively, making Silenius lean back against his chair.
“And that soldier is…” Hydia implored Grogar to continue with her hand.
“Gusty.”
“You mean the spy maid?” Silenius asked. He scoffed. “No offense my emperor, but I think you´re a bit obsessed with her, don´t you think?”
“What do you mean by that?” Grogar raised his eyebrow, both angry and confused at the same time.
“I get it, the mare that caught your attention turned out to be a spy, and you´re embarrassed by that, and as result you want her to pay. But don´t worry, as stupid as she was, even I thought she was somewhat pretty.”
Grogar widened his eyes and perked his ears up as he blushed.
“This is not because I am infatuated with her!” he yelled as he slammed his hooves on the table. “I don´t have those desires, only those who are vulgar and weak do. Especially for a pony.” he said with disgust.
“To be honest, you seemed interested on her.” Katrina agreed with Silenius. “Otherwise, you wouldn´t be doing such a fuss about a pathetic unicorn.”
Grogar conjured gags for both Katrina and Silenius.
“Enough! Let´s not make this about something that isn´t. Yes, she has my interest but for a very good reason. That unicorn is dangerous, don´t underestimate her. She has a very strong wind magic and Majesty is going to push it to its potential.”
No matter how much he tried to warn them, Grogar still didn´t get a proper reaction from his allies.
“Fine. Don´t believe me. But just remember this. If I find out that you failed, there will be deadly consequences.” Grogar said as he left the meeting room, Bray following behind.
The four creatures widened their eyes.
“Wait what?” Hydia asked but Bray closed the door before she got answer.
Once the door was closed, they shared fearful looks.
“Your allies don´t seem to take the situation seriously…” Bray said to Grogar as they walked in the corridor.
“Maybe, but after my warning, they´ll change their attitude.” Grogar reassured him. “Besides, we´ll have more help.”
Bray raised his eyebrow confused. Grogar smiled. He closed his eyes and started chanting a spell.
“Come my minions, rise for your master. Let your evil shine. Find her now, yes fly, run or creep ever faster. Search for a blue-eyed white unicorn mare that has wind magic near Majesty, and if you find her, deliver her to me.”
As he said those words, he activated both his horns and his bells. Once he finished talking, he opened his glowing eyes and rang his bell, spreading the sound throughout the whole empire with the help of his horns´ magic.
“The monsters. That´s clever.” Bray smiled at Grogar.
Grogar smiled back cockily.
“There´s still one thing to do. Most specifically, you can do.”
“Yes?”
“Tell me, did Gusty tell you she had daughters?”
“Of course!” he scoffed. “All the time.”
“Did she tell you how they looked like?”
“No, but I did see them.”
Grogar widened his eyes.
“Expand on that.” he asked intrigued.
“One was white, just like her mother, with a pink mane and purple eyes. I think she´s older, judging by her height. The youngest one was dark blue, her mane of a lighter blue and with her mother´s eyes.”
As Bray described them, a wicked smile drew on Grogar´s lips.
“Interesting…”
After his master said that, Bray understood what his intentions were.
“Wait. You´re going to…”
“That´s up to her, Bray. By joining Majesty, she practically wrote their fate. But if she´s smart enough, she´ll rewrite it.”
Bray knew that Grogar was cruel to every creature, even foals or Discord, who considered Grogar his own father. Bray wasn´t a child enthusiast either, but he was more flexible with them than he was with adults. In fact, he felt bad for Celestia and Luna when he yelled at them. And now, he couldn´t help but thinking on what would happen to those poor fillies if their mother didn´t give in. Or worse, that could be Grogar marking the end of his life if Gusty loses all her mercy after such offense.
Meanwhile, Grogar looked at the window.
“Hurry up Gusty.” he chuckled. “I can´t wait to get started.”
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Welcome back!!! There's no need to apologize. We (your fans of your stories) completely understand that you needed to get your practices and exam done.✋
As for the story: It's great to see Crunch and Hydia in this story and not just Katrina from MLP G1!!!
Everybody including Gusty are now going to have to be careful because Emperor Grogar's got something in mind for Celestia and Luna!!!
Also, Emperor Grogar summoning those on his side to fight Majest and Gusty is being similar to Jadis the White Witch (book version).
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Thank you for your patience! These last two weeks have been very exhasuting (and the ones ahead will be too), but it´s nice that I managed to get some time for writing.
Many G4 characters were taken from G1, and I wanted to carry on that tradition
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Gusty especially!
Really? It was actually a reference to In the Dark of the Night from Anastasia but you´re right!
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Well, not all the characters of G1 got taken and put into G4. Here's a pic that I did that has the ones taken from G1 into G4: https://derpibooru.org/images/2804443?q=artist%3Abackground-conquerer
So, I was speaking about those who weren't so lucky to appear in it like Katrina, Crunch, Hydia, Majesty etc. Only some of their characteristic traits were taken for some G1 characters that got revamped into G4.
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Ah, I saw i before!
That´s right, for example G4 Tirek was also inspired by Erebus and Lavan. I think Majesty also served for inspiration for Celestia.
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I think the REAL G4 Grogar was inspired by Tirac in terms of being a tyrant of a kingdom and having created monsters.
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That´s a clever observation.
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:applecry
Hey did you hear? GILBERT GOTTFRIED'S DEAD!!!!!😭🥺
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Yeah! Read the news before going to bed. Super shocking, he was relatively young (67 years old).
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Last Wednesday on the Masked Singer was the very last time I saw him😢🥺😔
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I just read that he had Myotonic Dystrophy, a neurological disease that slowly weakens your muscles. That must have been what killed him
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It's so sad all of our legends are leaving us like shooting stars 😔
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Yeah... At least they´re in a better place. Iago and Genie are together again.
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Ha! Much to Iago's chargin! He gets stuck with the big blue loud guy!😁
They even said they were gonna do a Cyberchase season 13 but I gotta it's not gonna be the same without Gilbert as Digit
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Really? Well, maybe they´ll replace him but Gilbert had a very characteristic voice. It´s gonna be hard finding someone who sounds like him.
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I've been coping his voice a little
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Oh! How did it go? My throat would hurt
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Ah it's not so bad
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Glad to hear that. What other voices you imitate?
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Well for one thing I try imitating the Looney Tunes and Harley Quinn I can do Fluttershy and Applejack and Applebloom I even try my best to make deep voices like some characters who are male
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I also do Flutters and A.J!
From MLP I imitate Luna, Cozy Glow and Twilight. I also imitate characters from other animated characters like Isabela or from live action series. As for male characters, I obsviously don´t get to their range but it´s fun speaking their lines!
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Fluttershy's voice is pretty easy to do I even try to imitate Discord I just have to listen a bit closely to John De Lancie's voice I can also do the Powerpuff Girls, Ed Edd' n Eddy is fun to do I enjoy doing the Kanker sisters and Rolf because he says the most hilarious things especially when he's pissed!
YOU HAVE VANDILIZED ROLF'S FACE!!! AND...... AND YOU HAVE STOLEN ROLF'S CHICKENS YET AGAIN!!?
You stealing Rolf's soul with your film box!?
ROLF WILL RELEASE HIS RAGE NOW!!!!
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Oh! I also love imititating Dizzy!
That sounds fun. I also do Mickey Mouse.
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The two voices that I think are hard to do are Donald Duck's and Stitch
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Those two are very tough yeah. I really struggle understanding what Donald says if I don´t have subditles.
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Especially in the old Disney shorts
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Yeah. The old audio doesn´t help either. God, I don´t want to imagine what the dub voice actors went through to translate the shorts to othe languages.
This seems like a good time, I'll try to read it once I can.
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Thank you! Take your time