//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 - My what now? 
// Story: Hail to... MY Horde? 
// by Emo Rainbow 
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I yawn to myself as I walk through the door of my apartment and kick off my shoes with little regard to where they end up. My small 900 square foot shoebox was barely worth paying for, so I’d be damned if I wasted any of my time cleaning the place up. I grumble to myself as I look out onto my sorry excuse for a living room, the empty pizza hut boxes, and piles of unused papers decorating it far more than any nice tapestry or potted plant could. I didn’t know how or why it was spiraling out of control, but I wasn’t about to bother screwing with it. It wasn’t like I spent time here anyway.

Speaking of which, I tear my eyes away from the unsightly mess before me and run across the apartment to my room, slamming the alabaster door behind me as I make a beeline to my desktop. I usually don't bother turning on the light, since I'm usually pretty aware of what's in my room since I never clean. I think I just prefer letting my PC do the lighting for me. 

“Gah, son of a mother fuck!” I scream in frustration as I jam my foot into an unused dumbbell just sitting on the floor directly in my path. I think I need to be more aware of the ways I play myself throughout the day. With a sigh, I ignore the throbbing in my toes and plop myself into my chair as everything boots up, my desktop loading screen, then Steam and Discord respectively.

I was fully prepared to waste another night playing some games and cleaning house(Not literally), cause what else am I gonna do? I have a shit job, my family doesn’t talk to me, and I can’t afford therapy even though I know I need it. No, it seems that my good old buddies XCOM and For Honor were the only ones who could help me through this dilemma.

As I waited for the updaters to finish loading, I looked off to the side as windows automatically notified me of something that I hadn’t paid any mind to for quite some time. A Fimfiction notification, telling me that I’d just gotten a private message.

“Fimfiction? Jesus, that’s a blast from the past.” I blurt out loud as I curiously bring my mouse over to the notification. I haven’t been on that site in years, and god only knows when the last time I watched the show was. I’m aware that much has changed, even that it ended not too long ago, but I never really gave it much thought. Like many guys my age, I grew past all of that like a healthy adult instead of wasting my time pouring hours into a fanfiction that never yielded me any kudos or results. Boy, I pity the fools who actually do such a thing….

I follow the notification back to the site and smile as I’m greeted by the familiar interface. Even after all this time I’m still remembered on the site, and a good thing too since I can’t for the life of me be bothered with remembering the password. I read out the message, and feel the strong pull of nostalgia as I’m reminded of fourteen-year-old me’s passion project.

“Hey Emo Rainbow. I know your story had a lot of faults, but I still really liked it. I must say I am very sad that the story was canceled due to not-so-good editing skills, but trust me when I say I've been there. So I ask you, will you remake the story please?” I chuckle and shake my head as I glance at the date. This man really asked me in the year of our lord 2020 to remake that thing? Well, year of our lord satan more like it. Damn Corona.

I can’t believe someone could be so delusional as to think that my old story is worth anything as it is now. I click on the link of my stories and pull it up, the abomination in black, the proof that no one under the age of seventeen should be on the internet, the Gears of War crossover Hail to the king, hail to his horde. A story about a scrappy, blank slate of a main character who was the leader of a locust resistance before coming to Equestria. That was about it as far as the story was concerned, because I had no idea what to do with it afterward.

“Ssssssssss… should I?” I ask myself after letting out a long hiss. I glance at the clock on my computer and decided what better way to spend a Friday night than some good ole cringe from my days of old. 

I skim through the first chapter, as the spelling and punctuation errors alone were enough to make me crawl in my skin, but by chapter two I was thoroughly tapped. My eyes were clearly bigger than my stomach on this one, and if I could I would travel to the past, smack myself, and sit younger me through an entire course on syntax alone. But as much as I hated to acknowledge it, the story had a slight charm to it. I was so infatuated with the idea of these locusts that I just wrote without a care in the world. It was that raw passion that I was missing in my life right now, and maybe, just maybe, that was the only credit younger me needed. 

However, I still felt the urge to do one last thing before I left the site. Quickly I hovered over to the edit page and changed up the description, nothing major, just a little apology for anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon it. 

I leaned back with a smile and gazed into the screen lazily, as the day of my quote-unquote essential work finally bore down on me, and laid my head against my keyboard. I took one last look at my story as my eyes finally closed and chuckled. Maybe I would remake it in the morning, if anything, for old times sake at the least.





My consciousness slowly started to fade back in as I felt a slight nudge on my shoulder. It must’ve been the fan in my room brushing the air past me again, so I just ignored it and further leaned my head against the wall.

“My lord?” I grumble as I try to turn away from the voice and focus on my sleep, until I realize something important. I was asleep at my desk, wasn’t I? Why was I laying against a wall?

“My lord.” The voice came again, louder this time. Deep and authoritative, yet still polite and full of respect. Last I checked I live alone, so who in the sam hell was talking right now? I slowly roll over, my entire body feeling heavy for some reason, and slowly crack my eyes open to see a dark and dingy cave greeting me. I was lying against the wall of the cave, hearing voices in my head.

“My lord!” I jump for a moment and look to my left as the voice shouted at me for the third and final time, and what I saw… I couldn’t even believe. There, kneeling right before me, was a real-life locust! He was wearing black armor, his massive arms and hands were draped over his knee and filled with sharp talon-like claws, and his teeth, while not ten inches long like the game, were still pretty massive. On his back were two bulging weapons, a torque bow, and a lancer, but the only thing I could focus on was the gaze he was giving me.

What the hell is happening? Who is this? Where am I? These were the questions running through my head, but for some reason the only thing I could even articulate was a weak beta-male... “Yes?”

“I have checked the perimeter, and it seems that we are safe… for now. I know not how we ended up in this place, but I have the others scouting out to report anything unusual.” He ended that last sentence with a bit of a hiss, and already I felt a slight shiver traveling up my spine. I clear my throat and attempt to stand up, only to fall back down as the weight on my back and waist completely threw me off. The Theron looks at me strangely, or at least I assume he does since I can’t see the half of his face hidden under a helmet, but I just play it off and stand back up again.

“Th-that’s alright…” I say with a crack in my voice that makes him look at me strange once again. No that is not good, not good at all. I clear my throat, and in as deep a voice as I can manage I repeat myself. "That's alright." And this time, I was the one who was weirded out. My voice was never ever this deep, Jesus I sound like a Stallone growl alike mixed in with Vin Diesel, except I still think people would be able to understand me better. The Theron dropped his head the moment I spoke, so naturally I tried to fix that. “You may… rise?” 

“Thank you, my lord.” He said with a hushed tone that caused me to force down another shiver. I slowly stepped around the cave, my eyes adjusting very quickly to the dark, and ran my hands along the wet surface of the walls. I could feel the cold and damp water through the gloves of my armor, then stopped once I realized that I had armor on. I raise my hand to my face, then slowly look myself over as I point out the different pieces and compartments layered all over me.

I could tell from a glance that I wasn’t like any other Locust, and as I felt my face I breathed a sigh of relief from the absence of shark teeth. I felt the helmet above my head and confirmed the V shaped horns on top, and that’s when I could tell that I was wearing Queen Myrrahs royal armor. I reached behind my back and felt two very thick metal objects strapped to it, and suddenly I felt very nervous about searching any further. Luckily, something else came along to distract me from this searching process. 

A barrage of thundering footsteps echoed through the dark cave as a very muscular locust ran inside and knelt before me and the Theron. It was a bit hard to tell at first, but as he grew closer I could see that the locust was wearing a round and unsettlingly spider-esque helmet with many eyes in the front and holding a massive revolver in his meaty hands.

“Speak, Chorsus.” The Theron commanded.

“We have found a very strange sight, Verus. A caravan of sorts led by vile, repulsive creatures. I have left Roc in charge of observing them from afar as they seem to have stopped for now. Krogg and the others are currently waiting outside for further orders.” The spotter said in a very deep and gravelly voice that I could still make out fairly clearly all things considered. As he remained kneeling on the ground, the Theron turned to me and pulled out his torque bow.

“My King, what are our orders?” He hisses dutifully, but I was too far gone to answer him honestly at this point. Did that locust just call this guy Verus? And did he say Krogg? Was this place… possibly… No. No, it couldn’t be… could it?  “My lord?” Verus continued with audible confusion. 

“Yes, your orders,” I say without even thinking as I wave him off. “Let me… just…” My sentence petered out naturally as I walked closer to the cave entrance and into the barely lit forest just outside. I raise my hand to slightly cover them from the sunlight before everything naturally dimmed down and adjusted. It seemed like for miles in all directions there was dense and dark forest, as massive trees and wild foliage surrounded me and nearly blocked off the cave entrance as well. I was barely able to take it all in before some newcomers caught my eye.

“He is awake! Gather!” Came a deep, yet still very scratchy voice as a massive kantus clad in sharpened metal armor nimbly dropped out of the tree to my left and knelt before me. I started to back up as a couple of small wretches covered in onyx armor dropped down as well, joining the Kantus in a bow. I look around in shock as Verus and Chorsus frantically join the others, and just like that I have a whole gaggle of them kneeling before me. Never before in my life have I been left speechless in less than a minute, but this? Yeah... this'd be the thing to do it.

“Uh...” I start with unease, and immediately all of the locust lift their heads and look towards me. I jump for a moment in fright, garnering some more confused looks, before quickly salvaging as much of my composure as I could. "Right... orders. Reports and the..." My voice cracks once again, and I instantly feel the overwhelming need to shit myself as all of the Locust quickly look at each other with concern. 

Come on Ben, pull it together man, you're losing them. It's time to put all those highschool acting classes to good use. You have no idea what’s going on, where the hell you are, or what we should be doing, but dammit you were voted best actor in sophomore year and if there was ever a time in your life where that mattered in the slightest, it’d be now! “Chorsus…. You… said something about a caravan?” Okay, okay, shaky start but not bad.

“Yes my lord Not too far from this position. Shall we go and observe for you?” He asked, the lit up eye holes on his helmet slightly flashing as he did.

I gulp down my fear once again when suddenly I begin to feel an overwhelming calm wash over me. "Actually…” For the first time since waking up my mind starts to clear, and I finally have a chance to think about things. That Theron was Verus, the main character of my story. That was Krogg the Kantus, another one of the characters. And these were all some locust that I definitely knew about but never actually wrote into the story. Now all of a sudden I seem to be in charge of them, they have absolutely no questions for me, and they said they found a caravan of ‘creatures’ nearby. 

That's the word that's really throwing me for a loop, 'creatures' and not 'humans'. I have a really bad feeling that I know where this is going, but until I've seen it for myself then... “Take me there," I immediately command without any thought. "Take me as close as you can so I may evaluate these beings with my own eyes." Okay, where did that come from? I guess I'm a better actor than I thought?

All of the locust, Wretches included, look at each other in confusion before Verus raises his head. "My lord, that is highly unnecessary. You need not waste your keen and all-knowing vision on these creatures.” Verus said with nothing but respect, but respect be damned, I needed to know. I glare at him for only a second, and instantly he lowers his head like a newly kicked puppy. “I… I understand my lord.” He said with a respectful nod.

So far so good, but first there's something I absolutely must do. “Yes, now wait for me outside of the cave. I have some… preparations to make.” They all nod their heads as I turn to leave and head as far back in the cave as I can. Once I’m sure they’re no longer watching, I lean against the wall of the cave and start hyperventilating.

"Heee, hoooo...  uggghhh." I do my best impression of a dying walrus and fall to my ass against the wall. I look down at my hands and keep trying my best not to lose my shit as they begin shaking up a storm.

This isn’t a dream! No dream would ever let me feel anxiety like this, no dream has realistic ass water, and sights, and smells, and all this other bullshit! What the hell am I going to do? What the hell is happening? Why!? 

I slowly stand back up and prop my hand against the wall as I work on controlling my heart rate.

Just take things slow Ben, see what creatures they’re talking about, find out what the hell kind of acid you took before you went to bed, and sleep this whole thing off. I slow my breathing and look towards the entrance, then with a crack of my neck I find the resolve to make my way outside. All of the locust look to me and fall into line, so with a single raised hand I point outwards towards the trees,

“Alright, lead the way.” I respond calmly. The last thing I need is for these guys to realize who I really am, a nervous loner who’s only halfway decent at his programming job, so I better commit to this whole ruler thing. 

With that we follow the spotter deeper into a dark and dense forest, the likes of which start making me feel very anxious. Come on Ben, get real, being a locust king in charge of your OC’s from seventh grade is one thing, but ending up in the Everfree forest? That’s just crazy talk.

“Up ahead,” The spotter, Chorsus I think, whispered as he made a ‘get low’ gesture with his hand. We crept low in the darkness behind a bush, and just ahead we see a large dip in the terrain as we overlooked a narrow valley devoid of trees with a large trail just below us. I was speechless at the sight of what looked to be tens of bipedal anthropomorphic bug creatures covered in armor and buzzing around, as well as several on the ground surrounding three large black cage wagons made of chitin. Within the large carts was a handful of anthropomorphic ponies in all shapes sizes and colors with strange green markings all over them. 

“This… is what you found?” I barely manage to whisper to Chorsus as my eyes become transfixed on the sight before me. I can’t believe this, undeniable proof of where I am, albeit with more unorthodox looking ponies than I remember. I mean, I stopped watching MLP after season four, so maybe at some point in time they added strange anthro ponies to the show. Regardless, it still gave me a general idea as to what was happening here.

“Yes. Disgusting aren’t they?” I nodded my head, but more absentmindedly than anything else. In my opinion, they didn’t look disgusting, just strange. Very uncanny to say the least, but I’m sure I won’t really notice as time goes on. “So what do you wish to do my king?” The spotter asked me curiously.

“Hmm,” I start honestly, as I’m pretty sure that going up against this many changelings would surely be a hefty challenge. Even with our weapons, I wasn’t sure that forty plus enemies bum rushing us at once was really a scenario I wanted to be in. “I suppose we should just move on, There’s no reason for us to interfere.” I say with a heavy heart, knowing that something should be done, but also knowing that it really wasn’t our responsibility. I wasn’t about to risk their lives, my life, and the possibility of questioning my intent all for a group of ponies, no matter how much I loved the show in the past. 

“Understood, My king,” Verus hissed as he slowly started to back up and whisper something to the others behind us. I know that this wasn’t very cool, but what would anyone else do in this situation? Charge headfirst like a suicidal maniac? Could anyone truly judge me for just trusting my instincts and walking away? Now that I know where I am, what I’m up against, I just want to take it easy and think of a plan of action. I need to find a way home at some point, and I also need to figure out why the hell I even got here in the first place, there was no way that jumping into a fight here would possibly- is that Pinkie Pie? THE Pinkie Pie, also known as best pony, locked in a cage!?

Suddenly I feel my entire body become rocked as my dormant Brony senses begin to tingle once more.

“N-now hold on a second,” I say to quickly interrupt Verus as I crawl over and face the other locust, garnering all of their attention. “Perhaps we should interfere, if only to rescue those prisoners.” I stammer out quickly. I know it's unbecoming of a confident king to backpedal like this, but dammit best pony needed help and I was NOT going to just stand by and watch.

“As you… command?” Verus said slowly as he and the others shared a look of confusion. Thankfully what I do remember from the story, or at least what I still had knocking around in my head, was that these guys were smarter than the average locust, way smarter. So I needed a bit more information than just ‘do as I command’ to fully convince them. I’m sure they’d do it regardless, but even so that’s just not how I roll.

“I understand that there’s a lot of them, which is why we’re not going to attack them all at once. We need a distraction of some kind, a diversion to draw most of them away so we can slay the last few and free the prisoners,” I say as I immediately jump straight into strategy mode with all of my locust paying very close attention to me. I guess all those strategy games and acting workshops weren’t a waste of time after all. Suck it dad! “For now I think we should keep watching them to find the best time and strategy. In the end, these locals they imprisoned will more than likely aid us for our help.” I look at my locust curiously and watch as some of them nod thoughtfully and face each other as they silently agreed with my plan. 

“Roc, did you hear that?” Chorsus asks, his voice travelling through our comms as he places a finger on his helmet. We hear a quick grunt in response that seems to be a non verbal form of agreement. Eventually all of the locust share some thoughtful nods of agreement before taking various positions at the top of the hill in order to watch the changelings. I might as well see if there’s any other ponies I recognize in the meantime, find out who we should definitely try to get on our side here. 

With the way things looked, it’s like changelings never lost the battle at Canterlot in season…. 2? Regardless of what episode it was, I still remember fairly well that the changelings failed, so whatever timeline we were in… things seemed to be pretty dire.





Zecora slowly looked between the jagged bars of the cage cart and kept her back pinned against one of the four corners while clutching her abdomen. Though she and her ponies put up a good fight, they were no match for the overwhelming force that Chrysalis had brought with her. Now there was nothing that she could do, as the last of the survivors from her camp were all captured. In the same large cage as her were about eight other ponies, all of which looking scared beyond reason as the changelings constantly looked in their direction while licking their lips and hissing. For now the force that had captured them were leaving them be as they waited for transport out of the everfree, but who knew how long that would last before some of them got hungry.                                                                  

To say that Zecora, and the ponies to her left and right, were downtrodden would have been an understatement. They were defeated, crushed, at their lowest point, but she still did not lose hope. If what she felt within that alicorn was truly correct, then all of this would soon be erased. None of the hardships she and her ponies had faced would ever come to be, and they would finally be safe to live their lives in peace.

“Zecora, Zecora!” Fluttershy whispered as she got close to the zebra and shook her back into full consciousness. “What are we going to do?” She asked as she glanced at all of the roaming changelings surrounding them.

“My mind is tapped, and my body is weak. I can no longer provide the answers you seek.” She said with a sad smile as she looked down at the left side of her exposed abdomen, the blood now quickly starting to overtake the bandage that had hastily been applied by the others and staining her hand. 

“No, no! The Zecora I know would never give up like this. There has to be something we can do.” Fluttershy pressed on, this time with the other captive ponies coming closer as they heard her speak. 

“Yeah!” One of the changeling guards said abruptly as he smacked his hand against the cage, causing everypony aside from Fluttershy to back away in fear. “What you can do is sit tight as we call for the heavy lift!”  He said with a laugh before hissing and flaring his tongue at them. Fluttershy glared at him as she slowly slid her hands off of Zecora's shoulders and hung them at her sides, balling them out of anger. “Oh, looks like somepony is getting a little mad.” The changeling chuckled as he got closer, and in one swift motion Fluttershy reached her hand between the bars and grabbed a protruding bit of his chitin chest plate, pulling him closer to the bars and slamming his uncovered head into the cage as hard as she could. 

He screamed from the pain of the impact, but the pony wasn’t through with him yet. As he was held against the cage Fluttershy raised her free hand and dug her thumb into his right eye, eliciting screams of agony as she gouged it out. Some of the other ponies recoiled in shock as they watched her continue, feeling scared, but also harboring a great amount of respect for the mare. They knew that Fluttershy was one of the most ruthless fighters they had, but they never knew that she could still be so feisty even when behind bars.

It wasn’t long before a couple of other changelings arrived, with one pulling him off of the bars and another hovering up to jam the butt of their metal spear through the bars, striking Fluttershy in the face. The attack caused her to loosen her grip just enough for the changeling to be pulled away, but she was still standing as angry as ever when she turned to face them. She glared fiercely to all three as they looked back angrily, shooting a slight pang of fear into them as she showed that she was still unfazed by their presence.

“Calm down! Just calm down!” One of the other changelings said to her colleague as he writhed in pain on the ground. 

“Don’t you tell me to calm down! She got my fucking eye!” He clutched his right eye, which was now oozing green blood through his fingers, and grit his teeth in anger as he looked to Fluttershy. “You!” He growled as he stood up, the rage managing to lessen the pain in his eye. 

“Hey, stop right there. The queen said she wanted them all alive, since they’ve never been fed on they’ll be extra delicious later!” The other changeling soldier said in an attempt to stop his friend, but the changeling only ignored his pleas.

“I don’t care! Besides, it’s just the one. They won't miss her.” He said while buzzing his bug like wings. He and Fluttershy glared at each other, her not flinching in the slightest, and him charging up a massive amount of magic in his curved horn. The green light above his eyes got brighter and brighter, with no pony or changeling stepping in to stop it. If this was the end for Fluttershy, then so be it, at least she wouldn’t become some endless food source for these insects for the rest of her life.

“Say goodnight.” The Changeling said with malice as he prepared to launch the killing blow. There was a bright green flash of light that caused everyone present to cover their eyes, but in an instant it abruptly vanished. All at once the magic dissipated, and just beneath the sounds of swirling power the sound of crunching bone and chitin was heard. All of the ponies slowly gasped as they saw the once living changeling replaced by a still standing body with a spewing fountain of green blood where his head used to be. One of the changelings behind him had a strange sparking arrow stuck in his chest, and from the looks of things it seemed very painful.

“What the-” His sentence was cut off as the arrow exploded, turning him and the other changeling beside him into a pile of shredded armor and body parts. As soon as the explosion rang out in front of their cart, another much larger explosion echoed into the sky near one of the other three carts at the end of the caravan. There were loud screams as all of the changelings shouted orders at each other while springing into action, but soon those screams calling for order were replaced by screams of terror as something began attacking their transport.