Nigel walked out of the interrogation room, Zarkrof in tow, the Xenobiologist reviewing all of the notes he had taken during the interview. Nigel was in a good mood, the whole thing with the Nocturne mare was one of the funniest things he had seen in a while. As he and Zarkrof walked up the corridor towards the throne room multiple Changelings stopped and stared at him in awe. Nigel really didn’t get why it was such a big deal, Klaus was the one who had stolen the moment. Speaking of Klaus, the weapons engineer had been banned from using any explosive substance, especially after rumours had begun to circle around the scientists that the crazed German had been spotted with nuclear material back on the listening station. Nigel hoped that this was untrue as the last thing he needed was for Klaus to somehow manufacture a nuclear weapon while on the planet.

As Nigel and Zarkrof entered the throne room a very angry Chrysalis intercepted them, homing onto the Commander like a fly to an unprotected plate of lunchmeat.

“What in Tartarus were you thinking you insane lunatic?” Chrysalis was pissed

“Technically” Nigel began “calling me an insane lunatic is redundant, as a lunatic is already insane, therefore your logic is wrong and your insult is void”

Chrysalis was dumbfounded, her mouth flapping open and closed like a fish out of water

“In regards to what I was thinking, I was debating with myself about whether to spend my up-coming holiday pay on a three mouth bender in Bondi or if I should just use it to buy a boat-load of liquor, hire some strippers and just veg out back home, I had almost made a decision but then I got interrupted by that whole ‘You assaulted my sister and invaded our city’ speech and I lost my train of thought.”

Nigel looked at the Queen, Chrysalis seemed to be completely un-responsive, a changeling was currently trying to rouse her from this catatonic state by waving a hoof in front of her face. The Commander decided that now was the ideal time to break the next bit of news to her

“Oh, by the way” he started, re-attaching his helmet and walking over to the weapons stockpile in the middle of the camp, grabbing large packs of explosives and attaching them to various places on his armour “Turns out the Equestrians have a larger army waiting back at their capitol, so me and some of the men are going to say a friendly hello, is that okay with you?”

As he said this fifteen wraiths led by Boland emerged from other rooms, all carrying large amounts of weaponry and two had a crate with a warning symbol for fire stamped on it. All fifteen ranked up in front of the Commander, guns held at their sides awaiting their next orders. Nigel awaited an answer from the Queen; the Changeling trying to grab her attention had desperately begun to tug on her left ear, still unable to elicit any reaction

“I’ll take that as a yes then, move out soldiers!” Nigel and the wraiths left the throne room, leaving a frozen Chrysalis and the changeling currently hitting her in the face alone.

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Canterlot- Three days after failed attack on Changeling Hive

Late afternoon

“How are we supposed to defend against such weapons, we have no viable counter tactics at all and our allies have deserted us!”

Celestia had no answer for the panicked Guard Lieutenant, the pony in question circling around the throne room while other Guard officers of various ranks watched on, the Lieutenant saying what they all were thinking. Celestia looked out the window, all of the Griffon, Minotaur and Zebra forces were gathering their equipment and preparing to withdraw. The Minotaurs’ and Griffons’ earlier confidence had been shattered by the defeat handed to them and their respective rulers had re-called all of their troops from Equestrian soil, figuring that the Changelings and Monsters would be satisfied with a poorly defended country full of plump defenceless ponies.

“I mean, I’ve heard that the Zebras were even considering bribing the enemy with one of the Islands of the Burhoofter triangle along with the one-thousand zebras and ponies living on it!”

“Lieutenant calm down” Ordered Celestia forcefully, fearing that if the rumour spread fear of zebras would increase, many Equestrians already wary of the striped equines “Ranting about these problems is not going to solve anything, Princess Luna and I are already working on a sou-“

“Princess Luna!?” the Lieutenant interrupted “How can we trust her, we know for a fact that a Lunar Guard was captured and I’ll bet my right hoof that the vampony has already told the changelings everything!”

The Solar Guard and the Lunar Guard where known for their bitter rivalry, insults such as ‘Vampony’ were commonly thrown around, with the Lunar Guard equally guilty.

“THAT IS ENOUGH LIEUTENANT!” The Royal voice was heard throughout the castle, Celestia fixing the soldier with a harsh glare “Leave the palace and don’t return unless I directly order you to, consider yourself on unpaid leave!”
Celestia’s voice lowered in volume but kept its forceful edge, the Lieutenant bowing his head and exiting the throne room. Celestia turned and looked out the window once again, the assorted armies leaving Canterlot via the main and only road.

‘This day cannot get any worse she thought’ watching as the ordered lines of soldiers left the city.

Celestia was soon proved wrong when a bright flash appeared in the centre of the marching armies, accompanied by a pillar of flame and a shockwave which blew out most of the windows in the city. The throne room window, which had just been replaced shattered, a few flying peices cutting Celestia’s face. As the Guards in the room rushed to help her Celestia looked out through drips of blood as more explosions sounded, with them fires igniting throughout the city.

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Nigel giggled gleefully as he removed his finger from the button labelled ‘1’ on the control, the other wraiths that were with him hidden in the penthouse suite of the luxury hotel they had snuck into before watching the aftermath of the explosion through the broken windows. Having infiltrated the city in the early morning a day ago the humans had scaled the hotel, the tallest building in the city apart from the Castle and entered the penthouse. They had expected it to be occupied but it appeared as if the current tenant had left for a few days if the note scribbled out for the cleaning staff was anything to go by. The changelings had provided the humans with an Equestrian dictionary, one of the scientists having uploaded it into the wraiths’ shared network as a translation program for written Equestrian, enabling the humans to read the note informing the staff to leave the room alone for the next two weeks.

Nigel let out another peal of laughter when he activated a second button, causing the multiple charges they had set the night before to detonate, destroying guard posts, armouries and military supply caches. The charges had been of an incendiary nature, the initial explosions followed up by raging chemical fires that grew rapidly, enveloping surrounding buildings in infernos.

The first bomb had been buried in the middle of the main road leading out of the city which passed over a natural rock bridge. The main bulk of the three non-Equestrian armies had been crossing said bridge when Nigel had detonated the bomb, utterly destroying it as well as wiping out most of the remaining enemy forces. This would have the secondary effect of cutting off the city from all ground access, meaning that the Equestrians would have to fly-in supplies with Pegasi, leaving many towns across the county without adequate numbers, a key factor in the plan Nigel had been forming.

Eyeing the last button on the control, this one merely had an icon of a yellow smiley face on it, Nigel turned around so that he could see the castle out the window on the other side. The other soldiers turned with him, unsure of what he was doing.

“Oh, this one is going to be great” Nigel chuckled to himself

“I thought we already detonated all the charges Sir?” Sergeant Boland enquired

“Well, all of the ones we planned, but do you remember how I left for a walk for a couple of hours?” The Sergeant nodded in response “Let’s just say that I performed a structural stability audit of the Castle, and it was found lacking”

With that Nigel pressed the final button, multiple cracks echoing around the city as a ring of Explosions encircled the tallest Spire of the castle. When Nigel had conducted his ‘audit’ he found that the largest spire served as an observatory/library and while it wasn’t a valid military target all of the items inside of it had seemed real expensive. Nigel had flogged the most fancy looking hand (hoof?) held telescope, the gold viewing device studded with gems, and was currently using it to view the destruction of the tower. With a loud echoing groan, the tower came away from the castle, the massive piece of masonry dropping to ground.

As the destroyed tower came into contact with the ground the entire city shook, paintings falling off the walls in the penthouse and furniture was overturned. Nigel watched, laughing as the tower came to a rest on the ground, the once proud high-perch reduced to a pile of rubble. The area that the tower came away from was currently on fire, the explosions having ignited the inner wooden support structure. Plumes of smoke rose up into the air from the ravaged castle, joining with the ones originating from the city, the inferno continuing to spread. The majority of the area that was on fire appeared to have been a military/supply area of the city, well separated from the residential area that housed the hotel the humans were in.

Nigel leaned back on the bed he was on, the four poster bed fit for a king “Well chaps, there’s only one thing left to do” at this the wraiths looked at him, before Nigel pointed towards an area in the room, two refrigerators and a bar sitting next to it “Let’s raid the minibar, after all, the poor SOB who rented this room is paying”

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An hour had passed and already the soldiers had run up a tab in the thousands, selecting the most expensive liquors and wines they could find. They partied hard as the city burned, the sound of classical music filling the room. Nigel had found a record player and some records, most of them being Classical with a smattering of electronic. As he reclined on the bed, the soldiers all lounging around in the room, with Boland and three Corporals even sitting in the hot tub with their armour still on he hoped that this ‘Octavia’ pony didn’t die in the fire, as he quite enjoyed her Cello music and he would like to meet her one day.

“Wow, look at this, we hit pay dirt!” Nigel looked over towards the voice; two corporals were crouching down near a cabinet at the end of the room. He removed himself from the bed, martini in hand and ambled over towards the pair. As he approached they moved apart for him, revealing their prize which they had found in a draw.

Around fifty magazines of a questionable nature were piled on the floor, amongst them ‘Playcolt’, ‘Mares of the Month’, ‘Regidar’s Rude Ramblings’ and the subtle and elegant ‘Saddles and Sluts’. Nigel and the two corporals stared at the pile, none of the three making a move to return the adult reading material to where it had been found.

“Lads,” Nigel began, scooping up the pile of magazines “We’ve set a city on fire, we’ve hijacked a Penthouse and we’ve already raided the Mini-bar, a line has to be drawn somewhere”

Nigel looked around the room at the four soldiers in the hot tub, to the few were dancing to the music and the others that were sitting around chatting, drinks in hand

“Oh, fuck it, it’s a party after all” Nigel said before throwing the pile of magazines into the air, the adult literature exposing itself as it spread itself around the room, falling down like a weird type of R+ rain. As the rest of the occupants in the room noticed the spectacle, Sergeant Boland in particular receiving a lewd centrepiece model to the face, soldiers began to pick up the Magazines, curious to what they contained.

“Pony porn for everyone!” Nigel yelled, spreading his arms as if he were a god, delivering salvation upon his followers.

____________________________________________________________________________________

“My Queen, you have to come quickly!”

Chrysalis groaned, lifting her head from her pillow, a frantic group of changelings standing at the entrance of her chambers. She slowly stumbled out of the bed she had spent the last few days in, her conversation with the Commander leaving her a little worse for wear. She followed her subjects out towards he entrance of the Hive, emerging into the dying sunlight, dusk fast approaching.

“What is all the commotion about!?” She snapped, not at all happy about being disturbed

“Look my Queen” one of the Changelings assigned to guard the entrance answered, pointing towards the horizon.

Chrysalis turned and saw a large cloud of smoke rising into the sky from a mountain peak, exactly where Canterlot should have been…

A bright glare was emanating from the spot, the glow lighting up the sky, an easel of red, yellow and orange waxing and waning before her eyes

“Hey” asked a guard to her left, his question directed towards a fellow guard “Isn’t that where the Commander went?”

Chrysalis decided that at that current time the ground seemed awfully comfy, the guards moving to catch her body as she fell over onto her side, out like a light.