Chapter 3:
Those, those bugs had magic!!
Those bugs were basically fake alicorns, nose-diving into the city! Bini managed, through the will of some sort of alicorn god, to get her hooves to obey her just as the ground stopped shaking when pure panic took over the city and everyone went into blind panic galloping.
Where were they going? Those were the least of Bini's issues at the moment as she galloped down the street toward, what seemed to have been the source of the whole issue. The castle. Not smart if Bini hadn't sworn an oath to protect the Library. That was when she looked up at the sound of magical blasts above her to see the bug creatures nose-diving in a magical field of green surrounding their bodies, allowing them to be unharmed when they slammed into the ground, leaving deep marks on streets and buildings alike.
Bini, unsure of what else to do but gallop like mad towards Canterlot castle let out a series of curses to the creator herself, all alicorns in existence, the wedding, and her own life for having been born when she barely managed to dodge one of the creatures heading to the ground before coming to an abrupt stop when another interrupted her path and landed right in front of her.
The creature snarled at her with its evil large pure blue eyes, with its very sharp teeth. Bini gulped as her mind jumped to conclusions about how she would die. That thing could tear her throat out easily, she could be crushed by debris, crushed by a failing bug, burned by a bug. None of those options was how she wanted to leave the world. All too painful. All too foreseen to her liking.
She lit up her horn as the thing prepared to tackle her to the ground and blasted him with the strongest spell she could muster in blind fear that any of her normal very limited combat spells could subdue such a creature. The creature screamed in pain, the sound ringing more in her ears than the screaming of the other creatures and citizens around her. Everything, despite the constant motion of erratic behaviour surrounding her on the street, faded away when the bug slam into the ground a mere meter away and twitched before not moving at all.
Her breathing was heavy, the magic took a lot out of her but she still managed on shaky hooves, scared out of her mind to move forward slowly as she got closer to the thing. She didn't want to look at it. The next few moments of her life might be scarring her forever if she looks for the answer to a question she feared.
Did she kill it? Did it deserve to die?
Bini didn't know.
She wasn't sure she wanted to know as her eyes drifted down to the hole in the bug's chest, clearly burning around the wound had occurred. It looked deep. Faint sparks of blue magic flashed before completely disappearing, the only evidence that her magic had caused such a wound.
She reached out to maybe feel its pulse, watching for any sign of life before she looked briefly up to the world around her rejoining reality as she watched a unicorn mare running through tables and chairs outside a restaurant before being tackled to the ground. She screamed for help but everypony else was dealing with their own little issues as the bug creature lit their horns and sucked some sort of...energy out of her. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed motionlessly.
Bini looked down at her outstretched hoof, not yet touched the bug for a sign of life. She pulled back, disgusted. Not quite at the bug itself, but herself. She stumbled backwards, she shook her head. Hoping she could live without an answer. So, she kept galloping towards the castle.
Soon, she found herself in a sort of rhythm.
She would stumble a few times and have to jump over falling ponies or bugs as the attack waged on. Having to dodge flying debris and weapons as the guards tried to get a handle on the situation before continuing on. Soon, four streets turned to three, two, one and finally, the main door to the castle staff was in her sight. The key was to ignore the blasts of magic, the screams and the buzzing straight from hell around her.
She blasted open the staff door, not bothering to open it with her keys, snapping the lock in the process. She stumbled into the dimly lit corridor as she coughed from her adrenaline dying and her throat soon turning to feel as if it was on fire from the galloping she had done. She coughed a few times more before staying still, leaning against one of the refreshingly cold walls as she listened to the sounds of the castle.
Buzzing, screaming, crying, shouting, galloping. Horror.
She was not surprised to know the enemy was in the castle, but it didn't hurt any less to hear the sounds inside.
"Come on, come on, move forward already," Bini muttered to herself, trying to gain energy as she stumbled away from the wall and started into an uneven trot toward one of the main hallways. Bini peeked into the main hallway cautiously, waiting to see any movement. She slowly stepped further into the bright larger hallway, one that she knew would lead her to her needed destination. The Library.
She paused as she looked at the walls around her, the curtains lining the large windows were either burned or falling apart, and windows were smashed as something had entered causing burn marks across the walls as magic was thrown around. She gulped nervously as she started to move out of the hallway into one of the main lobbies of the castle that brought her right in front of the double doors to her Library, which was under her protection. She carefully looked around to make sure the coast was clear, the noises in the castle signalled to her that most of the action was towards either the middle of the castle or the Wedding hall.
Bini carefully flared her horn as she checked the lock on the doors, they seemed fine but Bini was soon cursing herself for not taking the threat made against the city more seriously as she remembered she had neglected to activate any of her magic security systems she made in case of a castle invasion, so, if those bug things could use magic, they might be able to teleport and for all she knew, they simply teleported inside, maybe broke through the glass dome ceiling while they were at it.
Bini unlocked the door to the Library, opening it very slightly before slipping in and shutting it again as fast as she could. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the Library's darkness, the only source of light came from the sun shining through her dome window and the larger windows looking into the Canterlot garden.
She didn't want to alert the enemy, if there was one inside with her, that she was there.
She took as soft steps as she could muster as she crossed the room very slowly to approach her last location before she left the Library, the desk surrounding the hourglass. She looked up at the glass dome, seeing a small hole cut into it with the glass placed on the table rather than crushed to the ground. She looked from the circular piece of glass, back up to the hole in her ceiling, before back down at the glass with more confusion if anything than fear.
But the issue still remained. The chances of somepony being here were very high still.
She kept telling herself to calm down, maybe call a guard or two while she was at it but as she considered the plan further, there was no chance she could do that. The whole guard was probably trying to either defend the outside city or were caught in a battle near the center of the castle.
Alright, she got very basic combat training from Sunlight Shield once, these things were bugs, she probably already killed one and frankly if a low-level unicorn could take out one of them in a street, it shouldn't be too hard for her to take out another one in the silence of her Library, she reasoned.
Her ears shot up at the sound of buzzing and hushed voices further in the Library, a far darker area. She began her soft slow steps again as she entered deeper into her Library because truthfully, it was hers. She had been at the job for years, had been adding books, making records and running the whole place mostly by herself. This was like her home and she wasn't about to let some bugs get her fired.
She clenched her teeth together in fury at the idea of these bugs tearing apart all her hard work within a matter of minutes, she felt fear at the small idea she might possibly lose whatever battle she might find herself in as she weaved through a maze of bookshelves was clawing at her brain.
She stopped again, it was a lot darker now, allowing her to easily see that green light was a few steps ahead of her. She ducked behind another bookcase, a bookcase that if she moved correctly, would allow her to see her new enemy. To observe and come up with a plan before she attacked.
She used her hooves, not her own magic as that would cause too much light, to move a few books apart to allow her to see it.
It...the bug was sitting on the ground a few meters away, next to another bookshelf, with a book open and seemed, as hard as it was for Bini to believe, to be reading. It looked pretty delighted at whatever it was reading as well. It was smiling with its sharp teeth, but not an evil smile as it used its green magic to flip another page before squinting its eyes to read a little more and occasionally muttering in a strange voice as it tried to pronounce words in the Equestrian language.
She was here to defend her Library, the enemy was currently reading one of her books. By basic logic, she should have blasted him across the room by now and snagged the book before galloping off. But she hesitated as she looked over to the section they were in.
"Friendship section."
The "Friendship Section" was established a mere month after Bini joined the job. Princess Celestia herself came to her with an idea to dedicate a whole section to the magic, research and general information on the subject of friendship for those who wanted to know, and, as Bini suspected, for her student Twilight Sparkle. Who was an anti-social pony at the time and despite them being a bunch of books, spent one hour there before never returning to that specific section unless she had an assignment about Friendship she needed to read.
Why was this bug here? Why not the Archive? Filled with dark magic and ways to even mind control a whole nation.
Then, another crash of glass, causing the both of them to jump in further alarm. Bini had to steady herself and watched the scene again. Thankfully, the bug was too preoccupied with the sound to notice her.
"Thorax! Thorax?" An awful voice that made Bini want to go deaf yelled out.
"B-Back here, Pharynx."
Bini scratched her nose, strange names. Then again, they weren't Equestrian. There were sounds of galloping before another changeling appeared on the scene, this time looking slightly different with a red mane...? and different coloured eyes and...back shell she guessed.
"What are you doing back here?" The creature named Pharynx hissed before pointing a hoof toward where he came from. "We are supposed to be subduing the city already!"
"W-Well, y-you don't need my help with that, big brother. You have more than enough training and many willing to follow your command. I have never been much into fighting as you know." Thorax stammered as he seemed to be trying to justify his actions. "I wouldn't be much help."
"Hiding in the dark and reading some...Equestrian filth will not do you any better."
"It's actually quite interesting!" Thorax seemed to light up a little at the mention of his current activity. "You see, while I was outside, I saw six ponies and they seemed so strong and had such a tight bond. Really, brother! I am interested in this and just happened to stumble upon this Library-"
Thorax trailed off as he realized his brother really wanted him to get to the point by the death glare he was being given. So Thorax cleared his throat and did indeed get to the point.
"Anyway, apparently friendship has some real power here and as much as our Queen despises it, it can really create something magical! I believe that if we brought this information back to the hive-"
"Back to the hive?" The brother questioned. "We are not ponies! We are the noble changeling nation, we will not snoop down to their level!"
"Snoop down?" Thorax questioned. "Pharynx, this system they have of friendship to connect their race together is working for them. They grow stronger, like those six ponies, when they are together. Their friendships with those around them is the reason they have love at all for us to feed off of. Maybe we are the problem. We steal, we hunt, we ruin. This is why we are always hungry. Maybe, just maybe if we tried their ways, maybe tried to get on good terms with us as a nation they would help feed us."
"That is ludicrous!" Pharynx roared with rage. "Thorax, I will not have this discussion with you right now. We are in the middle of a battle that needs to be won! Let go of your foolish dreams, the world is not black and white! Step up, be a warrior as you were trained to be."
"But br-"
"Enough!" Pharynx snapped, interrupting Thorax once again when he slammed his hoof down onto the marble floor, surprisingly cracking it a little in the process before he ignited his horn, bringing the book into the air. "This book, all equestrian books is full of propaganda! Believe nothing these food say! Because that is what they are brother, food."
Bini felt her blood boiling at the interaction as Thorax looked down at the floor in shame. Bini cursed herself silently, if only she had attacked when she first came, no questions asked then she probably wouldn't have to take on both of them because she knew she couldn't avoid it no matter what at this point.
"T-They have lives just like us."
"They lie. They kill. They say we are the monsters in legends. In reality, they are too blind to notice that they are monsters. Forcing every creature to conform to them and their ways. This is karma, Thorax. If we hadn't done this to them," Pharynx gestured to the way he came once again, probably to the sounds of war outside and inside, "Then someone else would have. At least we are doing it for a reason, we need to eat."
Bini's breathing stilled for a moment at his words as she considered them. Denial was always a nice friend but at that moment it was clouding her judgement a bit too much, until it was too late for her to see the warning signs when Pharynx, within a moment, surged magic through his horn to the book still held in his grasp, burning it within seconds.
Bini, pushed all thoughts aside, dealing with her conflicting emotions over society could be dealt with later in a far too expensive therapy office in downtown Canterlot later. But this, they burned Canterlot Property. Even one book burned, meant she had allowed the enemy to take it from the world. She wasn't about to let that happen again. She swore an oath.