Verus walked down the halls with a furious pace. “Verus you can’t seriously be considering trying to counter their attack. You are hopelessly out numbered.”
“Does it look like I care Celestia? I may be outnumbered however many to two, But Krogg and I outgun anyone who tries to stop us.” He continued on his path until the princess stood in front of him stopping his motion.
“Just listen for a second Verus, my standing army has already taken action and I am getting status reports. They are stopping the locust from even getting close to the gates.” Celestia looked at Verus awaiting his reply.
“You’re sure your ponies can handle the locust? After all of the things I have told you, what they are capable of?” Verus looked back at Celestia. The princess appeared to be thinking hard.
“Your highness let us go out there. The locust will surely cause a lot of damage even if your army stops them.” Krogg said in his deep voice. “As far as we are concerned we don’t even need to be asking you.” He added.
“Just go then I will not stop you from doing this especially when my little ponies are in danger.” She said. Verus and Krogg nodded then picked up the pace running faster and faster until they were out of sight.
“Princess?” Celestia looked down to her left to see a guard.”Yes?” She replied. “Chrysalis is waiting for you in your study. Your sister has already started to speak with her shall we go?”
“But of course.” she then followed the guard to the study where she would at least get a couple questions answered.
UNKNOWN POINT IN CANTERLOT PRESENT TIME.
Verus thought there would be significantly more locust but no. The entire deployment of locust was centered in this area aside from the reavers. Speaking of reavers Krogg should be just... about… DIE GROUNDFEEDARS HAHAHAHAHA! done.
Just then all of the locust moved their attention to the reaver in the sky that they proceeded to shoot at. Verus took this chance of their broken concentration to attack as did many of the soldier ponies. He reached behind his back and pulled out two grenades.
He threw one at a boomer and one at two hunters. The hunters started coughing as the ink entered their lungs the first one choked to death while the second one escaped the cloud he looked for the culprit seeing the theron killing more of his comrades he raised his gun to fire.
Only for it to be ripped off. He screamed in agony as the kryll went to work on him as they did with the boomer. Once the kryll were finished they went to protect their master. Verus continued to slit throats and blast off shells by instinct. He wasn’t even trying. He took this time to think of the reasons as to why they would attack not a full day from their last attack.
This seems rushed on very short notice really rushed. Also if they wish to kill him this Chrysalis or the princesses why send a small detachment it just made no sense...unless this was a “DISTRACTION!” Verus shouted right as he snapped a drones neck. Verus stopped to look around and all he saw was a bunch of slack jawed soldier ponies looking at him and the large group of dead bodies surrounding him.
He raised a finger to his ear and called for Krogg to pick him up. His reaver landed and pretty soon they were cruising through the air. “I saw you on the ground fighting my king. what happened?” Krogg asked.
“I think I just tuned out the fighting I am so used to it.” Is what Verus said. What he was thinking was that he just blacked out in thought and mercilessly killed those locust.
“This seemed a lot quicker than I originally thought it would be . Dont you think?” said Krogg as they approached castle grounds.
“Well I was thinking about that and I think this may be a distraction.” said Verus. Krogg looked back at him. “A distraction from what?”
“I am not sure yet.” said Verus. They landed at the castle. They put the reaver to sleep at the holding pens. They headed straight back to the castle entrance. There stood a guard who told them he was ordered to take them to Celestia when they returned.
MEANWHILE…
“So this is as much of a waste of our time as it is of yours. Just tell us the information you were able to gather. the sooner you do the sooner we can help.” said Luna trying again to get some information from Chrysalis and her changelings.
“Not one word until your locust friend arrives” said Chrysalis. Luna let out a groan of frustration. Just then they heard a scratching noise coming from the vents it was getting closer and closer by the second. The changelings got ready for a fight as did the royal guards in the room. the scratching noise got really loud above them then it stopped.
The bending of metal was heard as the vent pipe was ripped back and out popped a small creature. It was short, had a rounded hunchback, a big mouth with large teeth, And most peculiar of all no eyes. It looked very strange was an understatement. Everybody in the room had their horn or spear pointed at it. A guard asked “What is it? Some sort of monkey dog thing?” It then did something that caught everyone off guard, it opened its mouth and screeched.
The screech made everyone flinch. Their sensitive hearing wasn’t used to dealing with that high pitch a noise. Celestia looked up when the screeching ceased. The glass windows were shattered, everyone had recuperated from the screech, and the creature had others looking like it coming out of the vents.
They all started attacking the ponies and changelings. Celestia fired off a few shots of magic at them but they were too fast and they dodged the blasts. One of them ran towards her and a guard kicked it across the room it hit the wall and slumped over motionless. The guard smirked but was tackled to the ground by three more of them and was ripped apart as he screamed in agony.
The small creatures looked up from their meal with bloody mouths and looked over to their brothers tearing apart a changeling.
“Shin!!” Screamed another changeling after witnessing the other ones demise. Celestia caught the small pack of abominations by surprise by shooting them in the head when they weren’t paying attention. She killed four out of the twelve present.
The guards and changelings ran in just beating down on the monsters while Luna, Chrysalis, And Celestia shot at them with lethal beams of magic. The Creatures all fell limp in minutes. With this moment all of the occupants in the room took a breath. A guard stood over his fallen comrade as he swore he would be remembered.
Some chatter could be heard over by the group of changelings as they huddled over their fallen brother. “What were those things?” Asked Luna as she took in the sight around her.
“Wretches.” said a familiar voice. They looked to the door to see Verus and Krogg standing there looking at the current scene in the study. He walked forward and grimaced at the stench of the dead flesh of wretches as they were carried out of the room. “Celestia I must speak with you. I think this half assed attempt of an attack was a distraction. I am not sure what yet.”
“Perhaps I may be able to shed some light on this dilemma.” Said Chrysalis as one of her changelings constructed a weird looking Tome out of green goo.”This is the collected knowledge my changelings were able to gather on the locust. The locust have come in contact with a spiritual force which is believed to be helping them.”
“Wait so you mean to tell us that the locust are being helped by some ghost?” Asked Luna
“Well..yes But hold on and let me finish with this part you’ll really love it. My intelligence tells me they are based right here in canterlot mountain.” Chrysalis said.
“Then I guess we should take that with a very large grain of salt. Because I know from experience that your “intelligence” isn’t a very good place to get information.” Luna said with some attitude on the word intelligence.
“Quiet you. I know for certain it is true.” Chrysalis said trying to convince Luna.
“Without proper evidence we can’t be certain that’s even true.” Luna said back to the queen.
“Well go ahead and check I guarantee you’ll find them.” Chrysalis said confident in this proposal to look for them. Suddenly Verus shouted and silenced everyone.
“Ignorant fools. This attack was a distraction for them leaving. They knew Chrysalis would give us this information that’s why they wanted her dead. Now that she is here they decided to leave and used an “Attack” as the distraction to occupy us. Now they are probably hundreds of miles from here and you are here arguing like a bunch of children. Krogg lets go we are tracking them down.” Verus finally finished as him and Krogg ran all the way to the holding pens where their ride was
“My king what if they are tunneling under ground how will we see them by reaver?” Krogg asked.
“Well Krogg I am guessing they have a lot of locust with them so unless they have procured a riftworm there is no way they could tunnel underground without tunnels.” Verus said as he put more supplies they gathered from dead locust onto the reaver.
He turned around and saw Celestia standing there looking at him. “I refuse to let you leave without me giving you a proper send off.” She said as he walked closer.
“Well here I am. Is that all?” Verus said.
“Is there anything I can do for you before you leave?” Celestia asked him. He stood and thought for a while then smirked.
“Do you remember the night I arrived here?” He asked.
“Of course. Why might I ask?”
“I need you to get something for me.” He said. After a few seconds of waiting she returned with onyx coloured armor. Verus and Krogg took the armor and mounted it on the reaver. It then proudly wore the armor of the onyx government soon to be.
Celestia walked up to Verus as he was seated on the reaver driver seat. “One more thing take this that way we can keep in touch so I can make sure you don’t die.” She said when she gave him a mirror that he could hold in his hand.
“Aww Celestia you do care.” Krogg said as he was setting the Kryll shield in place.
“Well just try not to die and you won't hear from me that often.” she said to both of them.
“Will do. See you later. Give my regards to Luna and the elements.” Krogg said as he gave her a thumbs up. he didn’t know why but this land made him feel comfortable enough to talk like this.
“I will.” She replied as he took off. Verus paid close attention to a monitor to his right. the reaver was given orders to follow the stench of the locust that handled it before the attack.
Everything made more sense now. All of the forces sent were nothing but cannon fodder. Thats why he took out all of the ground forces without even trying. That also explained why this reaver had such a malleable mind. Now though he could only focus on getting answers and blood from these locust especially Viken.
With that thought in his mind he sent the reaver faster to its destination.
UNDERNEATH EAST DISTRICT OF CANTERLOT:
SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER DURING START OF ATTACK.
Viken moved through the moving ranks as they were heading out through the passage. A mist with the same color and lighting of the apparition of the “GOD” Kontos. “Ah now we can escape and gather all forces with the added bonus of that idiot Verus coming straight for us.”
“Kontos I don’t know how you treat allies but the locust usually give them some form of truth when they go on a suicide mission.” He said in a very less than pleased voice.
“Silence! they were merely a distraction for us. do not speak out again.” the mist said as it whizzed away.
It was then Viken calmed himself down. That bastard would pay. After he was done with Verus he would Kill Kontos brutally.He just needed to find out more about him. After that thought he continued on the track they were taking.
Fully unaware of the future that was set for him and his locust.