Chapter 5: Meanwhile, At Canterlot...
"PRINCESS CELESTIA! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!!!" Lieutenant Lance shouted at the top of his lungs as he ran toward the throne.
"What!?! By whom? Is it the changelings?"
Lance, exhausted, nearly collapse as he struggled to regain his breath. "No your majesty. They are something we have never seen before. They are as far from a pony as it gets, they look more like insects!"
"Insects? We must go at once!!! Come lieutenant!"
Lance gave a faint whimper at the prospect of more running and started to gallop after Celestia. They reached the central guard tower and from there, Celestia was able to witness the full scale of the attack. Fires throughout the city were burning as explosions went off at several points of the city. The Invaders had managed to open a whole in the Northwest and Southeast walls and enormous Monstrosities that looked like giant Centipedes were being fought by the guards at both corners. Celestia eyes burned with anger as she saw the senseless destruction before her. Lance finally caught up with the princess, panting more heavily then before.
"How did they get in so fast and why hasn't Shining Armor put up his shield yet?"
"Your Majesty, Captain Shining can't put up his shield, the invaders set explosions to destroy most of his glyphs the moment before those Monsters came through the ground and breached the walls. Captain is busy right now trying to prevent the flood of ground soldiers on the Northwest wall, while we are trying to push back the soldiers at the Southeast wall."
"Lieutenant Lance, go wake Princess Luna and tell her what you've told me, she would never forgive me if I let her sleep through another attack."
"What will you do, Princess?"
"I am going to teach them a lesson, and it will not be on friendship." Celestia extended her powerful wings and took flight. The changeling attack a month ago had left her feeling rather frazzled on how useless she had been and she was not going to let that happen again. As she flew toward the battle as it raged below, a mental warning snapped her focus to the Hall of Harmony, where the Elements of Harmony were kept. Somepony was trying to break into the vault past her wards, and was succeeding. Celestia stopped in the air and made her decision quickly. 'I'm sorry my little ponies, you’re going to have to hold out a little longer.
Celestia made a hard turn and dove straight at the Hall.
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A stone statute stood glowing in the garden. The personification of disarray stirred in his prison as another helping of chaos filled the atmosphere. The stone prison started to crack as it could no longer contain the draconequus. The Stone shattered to reveal the monster as he roared with his awakening. He had not felt the wonderful chaos that is war for a near 5,000 years and in around a month, he had got a double dose. "Discord’s back in black and better than ever." He roared with laughter as he materialized a black trench coat around him with sunglass to match. He looked around and felt the battle brewing. "While a visit to my favorite royal sister is in do order, I think I will screw order and make a trip to Ponyville instead." Discord chuckled at his joke and then faded into mist.
Only one saw this event transpire, with dark eyes, the groundskeeper went to his office and opened a secret wall on the side to retrieve the statute within.
....................
Celestia broke the doors of the hall to find 3 of the invaders and gasped at their appearance. 2 were identical quadpedial creatures were slightly taller than the average pony. Their bodies were round and resembled Bumblebees, a thorax which all six limbs sprouted from (2 sets of legs and 1 set of arms) and an abdomen sticking out at the rear. Only their head was different, containing a face that was more equine with a mouth without a snout instead of an insect’s mandibles and eyes that had red irises. The third one looked similar but was much taller and much more slender then the first two and stood on two legs have four arms instead. All three and wings of an insect that befitted their size and stood in front of the open vault with one of the smaller bees holding a box.
"Who and what are you and why are you attacking!!?!!" Celestia demanded at the three intruders. Celestia made note that none of them had a horn and had antennae instead but still managed to break her wards. At least one of them was capable to perform magic and Celestia was not planning to be caught off guard. She mentally prepared a magical defense ward in her head as she continued to glare at the intruders.
"Princess Celestia I presume. It is an honor to meet royalty." the tall one spoke as she gave a bow at the Princess.
"I asked you a question, don’t make me repeat myself." growled the Princess as she reared for battle
"I'm sorry, where are my manners, my name are Princess of the Thorns and we are... embassies of the Bombus Empire."
"An ambassador does not attack a city, harm other ponies in an act of war and steal valuable artifacts from Royalty!" Celestia's patience was nearing its end. the ambassador was openly mocking her and smiling as if all that happened is that she was caught stealing a cookie from a jar!
"Oh, am I am terribly sorry for that. You were supposed to be busy outside. I was planning to meet you in a more civilized setting. Live and learn I guess, next time I will remember cause more damage for a better distraction."
That was the last straw. Celestia fired a magical beam of heat at the creature, to which the creature dodged with a roll. Princess of the Thorns pulled from her pocket on her belt a small scroll and ordered the one minion to attack. The small bee that was not preoccupied with the chest pulled out a glass orb full of a strange liquid and threw it at the ground in front of Celestia. The glass shattered on the ground causing the liquid to burst as a ray of white light that blinded the Princess for a moment. When she opened her eyes, all three of the intruders had disappeared, including the Elements.
Discord was slightly confused when he reformed, he was not in Ponyville. In fact, for the first time he had no idea where he was. He had appeared in a rather large, cave-like room. The floor was covered in white granite tiles while the ceiling was black with an orb of light in the center, illuminating the room. The room was round with the ceiling as a doom over the whole thing.
"This is not Ponyville." stated the puzzled draconequus
"That's a point of the trap." stated a male that sounded bored.
Discord turned around to find the only other occupant of the room. There sat a robed figure on a chair with his arms resting on the back. The figure wore a white mask with big black holes for his and black lines from the holes straight down to the bottom of mask. The figures eyes were not visible in the light, showing only darkness.
"A trap? That's rather bold. What makes you think you can trap the god of chaos."
"Simple I already did."
"This? Ha!!! I can leave anytime I want with a snap of my fingers!"
"Go right ahead then." the robed figure said with boredom in his voice.
Discord once again tried to teleport, this time turning into confetti. When he reappeared he had moved exactly two inches forward. Discord looked at his progress with surprise and turned to face the figure, his eyes demanding an explanation.
"It was by no means easy, I especially didn't think it would work at all right now with it being a rushed project and all. Equestria always gets attacked always at the most inconvenient of times. If you have to know how you ended up here and subsequently cannot leave, I took a sample of or chaos magic from last time you were out and basically made this room into a giant magical magnet for chaotic energy. Every time you use your magic, it wants to end up here, and when you teleport, you come along for the ride."
"That's rather clever of you. And extremely stupid. I'll just kill you and destroy this place and be on my merry little way." Discord crackled his knuckles and started to stretch.
"For a 'god' of chaos, you are really quite predictable." The ground opened up in front of the figure as he stood up. From the ground, came a white spear with the tip in the shape of a brown unicorn's horn bolted to the staff. The Ground closed up leaving no trace that it had been moved as the figure graved the weapon with his right hand. As he gripped the spear, black energy poured out from horn and formed the shape of a blade of a scythe.
"Wow, You came prepared to fight, and a little 'grim reaper' outfit as well. For that you get first prize, a fireball!!!!"
A giant ball flame burst from the draconequus paw at the figure and hit the figure dead on. Discord was feeling rather pleased with himself until he saw that his magic fire had dissipated on impact and had left no damage.
"Thanks, it is rather chilly in here."
"You dissipated my spell, didn't block, deflect or dodge it. Dissipated it. I thought only humans had ever displayed such anti-magic capabilities."
"You’re a smart boy; you can figure it out."
"If you are human, how did you survive I thought I had made your people extinct."
"Now, if that was true, where would we be? Is not like you haven't failed before."
"I see you have a rather smart mouth, how about I knock some teeth in." Discord Reached behind him and pulled out a weapon he thought was most appropriate for the task, a giant lollipop axe. “You’re really going to need a dentist after this one."
Discord struck at the masked man with an overhead swing which the man quickly deflected and then slashed with his scythe. Discord easily avoid the attack and continued to swing wildly at the man. Discord laughed as he increased the tempo of his swings and watched as he felt the man struggle to keep up.
"Before you die, how bout you tell me your name. I haven't had such an interesting opponent for a long time, especially one that thinks he can beat me in close combat."
Discord swung down heavily as the man barely dodged the attack by rolling. "I go by the name Noah." He grunted as he fed off another swing made by Discord, this time, sending him skidding backward.
"Well Noah, I had my fun. I think I am going to kill you now just like I killed your people. Wasn't it brilliant of me to deduce that while magic doesn't work on humans, using magic to rapidly speed up time around humans to cause them to instantly fossilize does work? Let's face it, I am a genius."
"And fool." Noah threw his scythe at Discord, which the draconequus easily side-stepped.
"What's that? I'm the fool. You just threw your scythe in a desperate attempt to wound me. That's rather foolish if you ask me."
The man lifted his hand to his mask and gripped it. "You're the fool for not realizing that I was never truly in front of you." The mask fell off revealing nothing but a skull underneath. A swing of the scythe then struck Discord from behind, leaving no visible gash but dropping the chaotic entity anyway. From behind stood another man in identical robes as the skeleton holding the scythe and a white mask similar to the skeletons, but with a black circle going around the eye holes instead of the black lines. "You never noticed you were fighting a puppet the whole time. How pathetic."
"What did you do to me?" said Discord with his struggled breath.
"I cut your life force from your body. While nothing can kill you as you are the essence of chaos, it will still take you a long time to recover. I can't have you causing ruckus alongside an impending invasion. That would be too much for Equestria to handle, even with my help. So sit tight. You’re going to be here a long, long time."
"Sister the enemy is retreating, we’ve won, Huzzah!!!"
Celestia looked at all the burnt buildings and at the injured guards. She then looked back at Luna
and said "No sister, I don't think we've won."