//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: The terrible truth of Crimson Cross // Story: Assassinverse: Unicornia The New Order // by efug25g //------------------------------// "Help Us???" What do you mean help us?" Twilight asked in bewilderment. "Well for one thing, I should never have trusted Morning Blade from the start." Crimson said as he growled at the Unicornian General. "After all this time, I've been living a lie!!!" "What are you saying?!" Twilight asked Crimson Cross. "I still don't get it." "I'll explain later." Crimson Cross responded to Twilight. "ENOUGH TALK!!!" Morning Blade roared as he drew out his sword with his magic. "Let's get this over with, shall we?" As soon as they continued fighting against Morning Blade and Red Moon, Twilight, Flash, and Crimson engaged them 3 versus 2. Crimson drew out a sledge hammer and started swing it at Red Moon. However, Red Moon stepped back away from Crimson's attack and lunged at the brown earth pony with her rapier. Crimson blocked Red's lunge attack, raised his hammer up high his head, and attempted to smash Red on her head only for her to block the hammer with her rapier while using both of her hooves. As for Morning Blade, he launched his Metal Claw at Twilight only for her to knock the claw away from her face with her sword with an uppercut block. Twilight, then, unfurled her wings as she launched up above Blade and dived down aiming her sword at the altered unicorn. Blade used his magic to raise his sword up high above his head to block Twilight's aerial attack, performing a shoulder guard against her sword. Flash Sentry, who was also in the air, charged straight at Morning Blade while using his lance to perform a jousting attack but Morning Blade used his teleportation spell to dodge it. As for Starlight and the others, Trixie unleashed a fireball spell that struck 2 corrupted LRCs before they closed in Rarity. Starlight Glimmer focused all her energy into her warhammer and smashed through one LRC's tower shield before it cracked his head open. Sunset Shimmer threw out a cluster of grenades at the incoming intruders. When the grenades exploded, about 5 of the intruders were sent flying with explosive shrapnel piercing their skin. The fighting in the sewers continued until Luna unleashed a powerful, blinding flash that made all of the remaining corrupted LRCs get burned alive. All of the intruders collapsed, while burning in agony except for Morning Blade and Red Moon. As Red Moon made another fencing lunge attack at Crimson Cross, he slammed the evil pegasus with his sledgehammer squarely in the chest, making her stagger in pain. The next thing Red Moon saw Crimson reaching both of his hooves toward her face and forced her neck move to the left and right before her neck snapped in two. After Crimson broke her neck, she collapsed on the ground and left behind her final gasp of air coming out of her lungs. When Morning Blade lashed out at Flash with his sword, Flash parried it with his lance and forced Morning Blade's sword straight to the ground completely stuck. Unable to get his sword free, Morning Blade let go of it and launched his Metal Claw at the orange pegasus. However, Flash Sentry dodged the Metal Claw only for Twilight to use her magic to summon a huge metal crate and smashed it right on top of the extension of Morning Blade's Metal Claw. Morning Blade grunted in pain. By the time he struggled to get his Claw out, the extension broke apart, leaving Blade's claw stuck underneath the crate. Upon seeing his Metal Claw destroyed, Morning Blade screamed. "ARGH!!! You haven't seen the last of me, Twilight Sparkle." Morning Blade said. "I'll have my vengeance!!!!!" Before any pony got closer to Morning Blade, he used his magic to teleport himself out of the sewers. "Good riddance, Morning Blade." Rainbow Dash growled. After treating every pony of their wounds and disposing all of the dead Changeling Republican soldiers and corrupted LRCs, Crimson was brought in before Princess Twilight and Princess Luna for more interrogation. Despite Crimson helping Twilight and her friends defeat Red Moon's men, they still did not understand why would Crimson have a change of heart. "Alright, Crimson. This better be good or else we're going to leave you behind, completely tied up in chains." Luna said in a Royal Canterlot voice. Before any pony could say any further, Twilight noticed that Crimson started to have tears come out of his eyes. This can only mean that Crimson had his own reasons for joining the Unicornian Army. After Crimson wiped away his tears, he took a deep breath before explaining his reasonings. "I know you ponies all have a lot of reasons not to trust me." Crimson said in a forlorn expression. "Before any of you could say anything, there is something that I want to show you all. Trust me, it's going to give you all quite a shock." Crimson used his right hoof to pull out a picture from his fur coat and showed it to Twilight, Applejack, and Princess Luna. As Twilight used her magic to hold Crimson's picture, she sees 2 little fillies in a peach and light-brown color and an earth pony mare, with a yellow body and an orange mane and tail, standing next to them with Crimson holding her by his shoulders. Upon seeing what was on the picture, all of the ponies other than Crimson stared at it with their eyes widen. "Crimson, are they....?" Twilight asked the sad earth pony. "Yes, Princess. It's my family!!" Crimson said to Twilight Sparkle. "Everything that I did, including joining the Unicornian Army and taking charge as the head slave master; I did it for them." Upon hearing what Crimson just said, every pony, including Discord, gasped under a state of shock. "Wait, are you trying to tell us that you made a deal with Morning Blade, but it went sour?!" Luna asked Crimson. "Yes, it did. He promised me that if I serve in the Unicornian Army for 20 years, he would let my family go." Crimson said crying. "During the invasion of Unicornia, my entire family was captured at Manehattan and hauled off to a concentration camp. I used to be held prisoner there, until Morning Blade brought me into the military." "So, ya trying ta say that this Morning Blade fella was just using ya from the start?!" Applejack asked the sad earth pony. "YES!!!" Crimson cried out loudly. "I didn't really have any choice during that time. Before all of that, I was just a hard-working earth pony that harvested all sorts of fruit in my farm down at Manehattan and that I had a family to support, my wife Yellow Peach and my 2 daughters, Bright Song and Bella Harp. I thought for sure that joining Morning Blade's battalion would earn me my permanent freedom. I guess you can all say that, I was never free and neither was my family." "So when you tried to escape from us, what also did you learn from them?" Luna asked. After Crimson gave himself some thought, he slowly make his way to a couple of hours earlier before Red Moon and Morning Blade prepared their attack upon Luna's HQ. As Crimson escaped from his imprisonment inside Luna's HQ, he came out from a sewer grate in the middle of street during the night. When he proceeded forward through the shadows, he ended up hearing a group of ponies coming from around the corner to his right. "All right every pony, tomorrow we attack at dawn!!!" Morning Blade told to Red Moon's men. After hearing his speech, they all cheered before the proceeded down to the sewer. "Uh sir, we received a report that Crimson Cross was captured by Luna's commandoes when his slave caravan was raided in a forrest near Baltimare." One of Red Moon's men said. "Shall we go rescue him?" "I think not. Since he failed to escort the slaves to the Baltimare docks as planned, the deal is off." Morning Blade said as he denied the corrupted LRCs request. "He already served his purpose in my battalion, but now it's over. I have no further use for him. Well, that idiot doesn't realize that we have no intention of letting his family go, whether or not he joins us to help conquer Equestria. We only wanted him to help enforce the slave labor in our nation because we can't get enough resources to gain power if we don't have enough slaves to harvest them for us. Second, if anything happens to him, we could always find a replacement for Crimson Cross; I made him after all since everything always come with a price. So, if any of you ever see Crimson down in the sewers, you kill him immediately. Now let's go every pony, we have no time to lose." Upon hearing everything from Morning Blade's mouth, Crimson Cross realized that he made a really big mistake. Not a moment too soon, the earth pony started crying in silent while hurdling himself up in a corner. "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" Crimson wailed. "What have I done????" After crying for 3 hours, Crimson got back up on his hooves and grabbed a sledge hammer from a nearby workshop and decided to go back to the very same place that he escaped from. "Princess Luna! Princess Twilight! I should've listened to both of them." Crimson muttered to himself. "I've got to make things right, not just for me, but also for them and for my family." After hearing what Crimson said through his flashback, every pony was completely shocked. "Wow Crimson, if ah didn't know any betta, ah would've thought that ya were lying through your teeth when you said that ya would treat me fairly at Baltimare." Applejack said with her eyes widened with horror on her face. "Why did ya not say so in da first place??" "I was trying to understand what honesty is really about through your perspective. As a matter of fact, you do remind me of my wife when she was your age Applejack." Crimson said to the earth pony mare. "I may be a slave master and torturer just recently, but I'm also a devoted husband and father who had a lovely mare and 2 little fillies to take care of. But now, I don't know what to do anymore and I'm probably never going to see my precious Yellow Peach or my children again!!!" Before any pony could say anything else to Crimson Cross, he started crying again as he covered up his face with his hooves. "I'm so sorry, Crimson. I had no idea." Applejack said as she embraced Crimson in her hooves. "No Applejack, I'm the one who owes you an apology, you and Princess Twilight." Crimson replied to Applejack. "I wasn't really trying to throw all of that negative rant at your princess blindly, I was just doing that in order to stay alive and do my job so that I can see my family again." "Well Luna, what do you think?" Twilight asked the night alicorn. "Are we going to let him come with us to save his family or leave him here to rot?" After Princess Luna thought to herself about everything that Crimson Cross said, she took a deep breath before making her decision to every pony in the group. "Crimson Cross, if what you say is true, then as the Princess of the Night, I shall issue the following decision." Luna announced. "If you help us retake the Crystal Empire, I will do my best to help you bring back your family. However, if this is some sort of trick, I will have you publicly executed myself. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!!!" "Yes, your highness." Crimson responded as he bowed down to Princess Luna. "Alright then, every pony." Twilight said to the rest of the group. "Time to pack up. We are leaving the sewers at once." As they continue to haul off all of their supplies outside of the sewers, they were meet by a fleet of transports that are lead by Daring Do's men. The moment their ships stopped by, Twilight and her friends started loading their stuff onboard the transports. However, before they proceeded to leave the sewers, Princess Luna decided to have the entire group split up into two teams so that they will not attract too much attention from Morning Blade's men. Princess Luna, Discord, Zecora, Nurse Redheart, Crimson Cross, and the remaining Changeling Republican soldiers decided to board on one of Daring Do's transports before heading out to the Crystal Wastelands, while Twilight, Flash Sentry, Soarin, the Mane 5, Starlight, Sunset, and Trixie walked on foot, as well as staying off the main roads leading directly to Canterlot. Nevertheless, both groups had promised each other to meet up at the Crystal Wastelands, despite taking different routes to avoid getting detected. Before their journey, Luna also warned Twilight's group to be wary of any guard patrols outside of Canterlot, as well as Diamond Dog Bounty Hunters and Cicada's Changeling Scouts. For nearly six months, the Diamond Dogs were hired by Amadeus Blueblood to hunt down any fugitives or wandering rebels that get too close to the Crystal Empire, Cloudsdale, Appleloosa, or to Canterlot.