As soon as Praeratus killed the first creature, three more jumped at him, with one attacking frontally and the other two from the flanks. He caved the first one's head in and grabbed the other two by the necks when they lunged, ripping their throats out.

His plan was simple: wait for Celestia and the others to get their people out of the Hall and then blow the Hall with a psionic bomb; after that he would send a psionic fire storm down the hole and go inside to see where did the monsters come from. He didn't know how many of these things were there, and he didn't want to take any chance with them. For all he knew there could be more than a thousand of them under the Hall of Unity. Until then, he would resort to mostly hand to hand combat and psionic attacks to take them out.

On the bright side, it didn't like any of them were psionics, relying completely on numbers and brute force (which might as well non-existent when compared to their bigger relatives and Praeratus). That would have been more than enough to kill the people attending the Convocation, but he was a xeno-hunter and a former Centurion, he had been in literal worse odds and won.

'Besides' He thought while stomping on the back of a monster and ripping the lower jaw of another, using said jaw to rake a third monster and decapitate a fourth. ', these things aren't really smart, and it doesn't seem like they can heal either. As long as they keep going at me, it should be fine. But I do wonder, how did the big ones make these?' He wondered before grabbing a monster's head and ripping it off.

It was obvious by this point that these things had to come from the bioweapons, what with these things looking exactly like them aside from their smaller scale and their quadrupedal stance. But how did the bioweapons 'create' these ones? As far as he knew they were supposed to be sterile, since there was nothing in the report saying they could reproduce, either by mating (somehow, since the genitals of the one he dissected were so mismatched he simply didn't know if they even had gender) or by parthenogenesis which... wasn't so out of the question since a lot of reptiles could do that in times of need and the bioweapons were mostly reptilian in both appearance and physiology; on the other hand, they were intended civilian populations and infraestructure, not full military forces that could take them out (after suffering heavy loses), so he didn't know why were they able to make more of themselves. Maybe the bioweapons thought they couldn't take him out even if they attacked all at once and instead chose to crush him with weaker and psionic-less yet much more numerous spawn?

He had to give it to the bio-engineers that made them, they knew how to create killing machines that surpassed the xenomorph packs of the Hegemony, and some (and, while he loathed to admit it, ones that knew how to differentiate between friend and foe).

But were did these 'imps' (the bigger bioweapons were called demons, it would be fitting to call them imps, small demons) come from?

Having a minute of clarity, Praeratus stopped himself from killing a creature that managed to bite his arm and probed its mind. He was unpleasantly surprised when he found a blank mind, literally: this thing, and by extension all the others, only had an image of him and killer intent on their minds, which turned out to be even more primitive than the one of the bioweapon of Canterlot.

In the full minute that passed since the first monster came out of the hole he had killed at least thirty, maybe even forty of them, their gory remains, ashes and pieces of flash-frozen flesh and bone littering the ground of the Hall of Unity and their blood splattered on Praeratus' uniform, which aside from the bite in the sleeve and the aforementioned blood spots was somewhat in perfect condition. They still kept coming, they still attacked without thinking, they still died.

And then they stopped coming out of the hole.

Praeratus, confused by the sudden cesattion of attacks, looked at the darkness in the pit, thinking that it was just a trick, that they were waiting for him to lower his guard and attack him with his pants down. He stayed like that for a full minute before carefully stepping away from the hole. They gave up.

Not wanting to test his luck and not willing to test the strength of the foundation of the Hall, Praeratus pushed the dead monsters inside the pit and covered it with dirt and furniture, to negate them a way to enter and to hide the grisly remains of the monsters

'Did they get demoralized? No, these things are too stupid to just give up and run' Thought Praeratus while making sure the gore and blood was well hidden under the pile and ripping a piece of cloth to bandage the bite on his arm. Seeing that the creatures weren't coming, the therawyrm decided to head for the library to check on Celestia and the others, in the upper floor. 'I wonder if the leaders have decided to-' His thoughts were rudely interrupted by something screaming right on his mind with such intensity that he was fell on his knees.

'DIE!'

Praeratus, recovering from the mental backlash, looked around frantically and, for the first time in two hundred years, fear.

A bioweapon. There was a bioweapon near. And, despite being two steps higher in the psionic scale, he hadn't detected it until that moment.

'But how!? How the frack did a freak of nature hide itself from me!? Frak, how is it hiding from me right now!?' Thought the xeno-hunter while looking around like a maniac and throwing mental probes, finding neither the mental presence of the monster nor nothing that betrayed its location. He hadn't detected the bioweapon in the attack on Canterlot because he had depleted his psionic reserves annihilating the horde of mad animals and wasn't actively looking for them. Now, however, he had plenty of psionics left and wanted desperatedly to know where it was.

At the same time he received that 'thought', someone screamed somewhere in the library. It was Twilight.

“CELESTIA!” Screamed Praeratus before running at full speed towards the direction of the scream. Twilight may have been the one who screamed, but Celestia was arguably the more vulnerable to the demon.

On the plus side, now he knew where the thing was, and could act accordingly.

By ripping the monster's own guts out and force feeding them to it.

But first he had to find it and rescue the leaders, Twilight and Celestia.

After leaving Praeratus to fight the monsters alone, Celestia and the others ran to the library of the Hall of Unity to get to their aides. However, despite knowing that Praeratus would be okay, Celestia still was worried for him. She didn't know hoy many of those smaller monsters were there, but there were probably lots of them, and since they looked like miniature demons they probably were quite dangerous.

“Celestia, are you okay?” Asked Novo, who was flying alongside her.

“Uh? Yes, yes I'm fine.” Unfortunately for her, the hippogriff queen was good at reading faces thanks to having a teenage daughter with the usual teenage issues.

“No you're not. You're worried about Praeratus, aren't you?”

Celestia sighed. “And what if I am? I have the right to be worried for him, we left him alone with who knows how many monsters.”

“Don't worry about him Celestia, I'm sure he'll be okay.” Novo said in a reassuring tone, seeing the concerned expression of the white alicorn. “After all, he took on an army of beasts, an Ursa Major and a demon and won!”

“And an adult male dragon.” Chimed Ember behind them, running alongside the others. “That said, I expected him to threaten Gnasher or glare at him, not punching his guts out.”

“Yes, no offense to him, but he seems to have an anger problem.” Agreed Gestal. “Wouldn't blame him for it though, most dragons tend to anger those who they don't see as a threat until those same creatures snap and punch their faces.”

The older Ember would have exploded at that, but after being 'crowned' as Dragon Lord, travelling to Equestria and other lands and see that the reputation her people had in those places was not unfounded (no thanks to individuals like Garble or Gnasher), the new Ember could only nod in agreement. On the other hand, that meant that, aside of the aforementioned green ambassador, dragons and changelings got along pretty well due to their similar background.

“I'm sorry for the way Praeratus acted. He hates being called a freak by primitives.”

“You know, you shouldn't take responsibility for what he does.” Replied Thorax. “He's not a pony, and frankly, that dragon had it coming, badmouthing you and insulting an agent of a foreign government that probably encompasses several planets.”

“Actually, the Confederation is made up by seven thousand star systems, not just planets.”

That comment made the entire group stop on their tracks and stare at her in shock (minus Pharynx, who was looking back from they came from, and Ruthefhord, who didn't want to leave them behind and go to the library alone with the possibility of being eaten by monsters from outer space). By that moment they had reached a hallway, and while they didn't know it at the moment, Twilight, Raven and the other archivists were going their way to tell them they had found something involving the ancient past of Equestria.

'Star systems!?' Thought the leaders at the same time. Especially Ember, terrified of the possibility of an alien fleet glassing the Dragon Lands because her ambassador was stupid enough to insult one of their subjects.

“Since we're having conversations at an inappropiate moment, has any of you seen Aspen?” Pharynx asked.

“Yak saw deer running away like coward!” Exclaimed Rutheford.

“Well, deer are known for being skittish creatures you know.” Supposed Gestal. “Plus, I doubt that he lets predators hunt other animals in his kingdom and therefore is not accustomed to see blood.”

“Gnasher started bleeding from his mouth and nose when Praeratus punched him.” Pointed out Ember. “Which is weird given that he hit him in the belly and not the head.”

“How far was the library?” Asked Celestia, not wanting to deviate from their goal.

“Well, I've never been on this place before, but according to the map on the entrance of the Hall...” Began to say Novo before they heard a voice coming from in front of them, at the other side of the hallway.

“Your majesties!” It was Twilight Sparkle, followed by Celestia's aide Raven Inkwell and the other archivists: Urtica the changeling, Blacktip the Dragon, Horwitz the Yak and Glenda the griffon. “We have found something important that-”

“Good, you're here, now we can get the heck out of here before those things come!”

“Things?” Asked Horwitz. Unlike practically all other yaks, especially his prince, he was a well-spoken individual, never speaking in thirdperson, conjurating verbs and always using his name and proper nouns instead of saying his race's name most of the time. He also hated violence, which was what dumbfounded all other yaks the most. “What is he talking about? And what was that ruckus we heard from the library? We could heard the creatures scream and run.

“A bunch of space lizards dug a hole in the Hall, and we would be their dinner if not for Praeratus staying behind to hold them off while we got to you.”

“Space lizards?” Said Twilight before gasping in realization and fear. “The demons!”

“Well, sort of; they looked exactly like the monster at Canterlot, but barely bigger than Praeratus.”

“Still, the demons are here! Princess, we have to get out of here before they kill us all!”

“I wouldn't be too worried about that. Praeratus turned the first ones that came out into ice... and the next twenty monsters into meat pancakes.” Said Novo. “They didn't seem to be that strong, and this is Praeratus we're talking about.” She was saying this mostly for Celestia's sake, but fortunately neither the alicorn nor the other creatures realized this.

“Well, I guess we-” Began to say Gestal before a voice screamed, making them all drop to their knees due to the intensity... and the fact that, whoever or whatever it was, the heard the scream right inside their minds.

'DIE!'

Celestia, Twilight and Novo, after recovering from their shock, realized with dawning horror that there was only one breed of monsters in all of Equus that could do that.

And then happened.

The wall next to the group exploded, covering them in splinters and dust, and before any of the natives could react Twilight was already screaming back in the ground, screaming in pure agony... because she had a bloody stump where her left arm was seconds ago.

And right next to her, dwarfing even the hulking Rutherford, stood one of the dreaded 'demons' Celestia wrote about, a draconic monster with sword-like claws in each of its limbs, a spiked tail that looked like it could crush stone with ease, white eyes that glared at them with something akin to rage... and with Twilight's left forearm dangling from its maw full of fangs.

Celestia, still scared of the monsters, was unable to move even with her former pupil crying in pain in front of her. Novo, Thorax, Gesalt and the archivists were simply terrified of the damn thing and unsure of what to do.

Pharynx, Ruthefhord and Ember, though, weren't easily intimidated, although in the case of the first it was more of a lack of understanding how dangerous the monster was.

The yak Prince screamed bellowed in anger and threw himself at the monster which, busy as it was enjoying the terrified thoughts of Celestia and Twilight, found itself surprised by the attack and tumbling down with the bull.

“Yak smash monster!” Shouted Ruthefhord as he repeatedly bashed the monster's head with his mace, doing negigible damage (if at all), but he didn't care, he wanted to defeat the beast.

The bioweapon easily got him off it with a psionic burst of red energy that sent the yak head first through the opposite wall of the corridor, bruised and barely conscious but still alive.

Ember and Pharynx thought this was their chance and attacked the monster, with the dragoness flying around and breathing fire upon it and the changeling doing the same while shooting magic bolts to its face, both careful to not get near the monster's deadly claws or mouth.

Unfortunately, in their hurry to attack it they forgot it could do 'magic', which they were rudely reminded of when the monster grabbed both of them in a psionic field. Pharynx tried to teleport away, but found to his horror that his magic didn't just work, it was as if he didn't have it in the first place.

Novo, Thorax, Raven and the archivists watched in dismay as the monster grabbed the two monarchs by the neck with its claws and opened its jaws to bite their heads off.

Fortunately for them, the distraction the three action-minded royals provided was enough to allow a certain black-skinned alien to lunge at the monster from the end of the hallway Celestia and the others came from.

“STAY THE FRACK AWAY FROM HER!” Screamed Praeratus while punching the monster's head. Unlike Ruthefhord's mace strikes, his fists hurt the monster, snapping bone and ripping muscle, but the monster was quick to react and shoved him away just like it did with the yak previously, with a psionic pulse that threw Praeratus off it and right next to Celestia, who had recovered from her shock and was attending to the passed out princess the best she could, having ripped a piece of her dress to tie her bleeding stump and stop the bleeding. It wasn't the best option, but couldn't anything else. Of course that didn't stop her from turning to Praeratus to see if he was ok.

“Praeratus!” She asked Praeratus. She got even more worried when Praeratus instead of replying was staring at the bioweapon, who instead of slaughtering them as she thought it would it was just glaring at the xeno-hunter. “Praeratus are you alright!?”

Praeratus snapped off his trance and looked at her with a wide, frightened eye, something that terrified her. Until know, he had seen Praeratus get angry (Cyranus doing his needs in the ship), embarrased (Cyranus doing his needs in public), annoyed (a mix of the previous, plus Cyranus chasing Philomena any time he saw her), happy (any time he saw her happy), melancholic and even sad (both when watching recordings or documentaries of conflicts of which he had been part of), but never scared.

But then she realized several things about the monster.

One: the monster was clearly bipedal, but rather than being hunched over like its brethren, it stood fully straight like a pony. It could have been easily mistaken for a dragon if not for the lack of wings.

Two: it wasn't attacking them. Praeratus told her that one of the advantages he held over the bioweapons was that he wasn't always 'pissed off', as he put it. This one, however, was staring at them with cold, calculating eyes. It was still obviously angry, but not to the point of his peers.

Three: when it used psionics, Celestia saw that they had a blue coloration. Praeratus had explained to her, Luna and Twilight how psionics worked, like their colour-based tiering system: the higher the intensity of the psionic aura, the more powerful their abilites and bigger their psionic reserves were, with red being the weakest and gamma/gold the strongest, and ultraviolet/purple was literally in the middle, very powerful but not to reality-warping levels. Praeratus told them that, while possible, becoming a more powerful required time to train, time that the monsters didn't had because they had stayed frozen for two centuries.

Four: the monster had a burn mark on his left arm, and while it was glaring at Praeratus it also stole a few glances at Twilight, and she swore she saw it smirk before it swallowed Twilight's arm.

Celestia gasped in horror when the realization dawned on her: this wasn't just one of the bioweapons, it was the one Twilight shot its arm off back in Canterlot when Praeratus arrived.

Then, it looked right at Praeratus.

'Why?' They heard it say. Unlike the nearly feral scream of rage of before or the rudimentary speaking of its dead fellow, it 'spoke' with a surprisingly calm tone, although still with a creepy voice, and it was just one word, so they didn't know how coherent it was.

Praeratus, who had been staring at the creature until that moment, came out of his stupor.

“W-what?” He replied stuttering. It was obvious that even he was surprised by the fact that the monster could speak like a civilized being.

“That thing is speaking? Because I'm not hearing anything.” Whispered Ember from behind them.

'Why do you protect these creatures from us?' It asked again.

Praeratus stood up and glared at the monster.

“Because they don't deserve to get exterminated by a bunch of vat-grown freaks just because of a mistake.”

'But these creatures can be a threat to the Confederation with their witchcraft and monster pets.' Said the bioweapons. 'Sooner or later they will be able to escape their orbit and reach the stars, and join the Hegemony. Besides' It leaned forward with a sneer on its face. ', I'm pretty sure that Centurions fit in the vat-grown freaks category'

Praeratus stared at it in shock and fear, alongside Celestia. How did it know?

“How the frack do you know that?”

'Our creators transferred all the military knowledge they could to our minds, both of the Confederation and of what they knew of the Hegemony. Like the fact that they goad primitive or weak empires to join them' It said while glaring at the natives.

It was Celestia's turn to get angry.

“We would NEVER join those tyrants!” Exclaimed Celestia in anger, earning a snort of disdain from the monster she should be terrified of.

'They all say that. Next time you know, the idiots that think they can stay away from the Hegemony end up used as cannon fodder, literally if they are not good enough.'

Praeratus decided to take the chance to learn more about the bioweapons' capability. “How did you manage to create those other bioweapons? The report didn't say anything about you being capable of enlarging your numbers”

'Ah, the fodder? They aren't an adaptation if you're wondering that, they're our young, which by comparison are little more than hatchlings. I needed a way to get close to you without being detected Plus, their brains had barely developed beyond the primal state, so they were of little use to me. Besides, we can make more of them' It said in a casual tone, like someone commenting on the weather and not about using his children as attack animals.

Celestia would have gone berserk if she had heard that before meeting Praeratus, but now she was just dismayed. Despite the fact they would have slaughtered the leaders of the world if not for Praeratus, Celestia felt pity for them since they surely didn't know they would die.

“Why are you talking like that? Last time I met one of your friends he spoke like a hulk.”

'Oh, that. Well, one of us has to convince you to help us by stating actual facts and the so called story of Equestria's heroes instead of screaming at you like a rabid animal'

“How did you manage to become a blue psionic?”

'By practicing, of course' It replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

“But how did you-” Began to say Praeratus before the bioweapon interrupted him with a short song.

'Grabbed a pony, burned a pony, froze a pony, flayed a dozen, mind-raped the rest and thaaaaat's it!' It sang with a sadistic smirk while staring at Celestia. The singing was crap, but since it only sang to mock a species prone to sing, it didn't care 'If you haven't noticed it until now it's because I grabbed ponies from remote towns, and erased the memories of those who knew them, I'm not stupid. And all of them screamed your name before I ripped their bodies apart, atom by atom.'

It must had made the other listen because most paled, Novo fell to the ground unconscious, Ember puked her guts out alongside Thorax, Gestal looked like he had a heart attack and Pharynx glared at it with all the fury he could muster.

But Celestia, being the emotional pony she was, was the one who took the news the worst, crying her heart out and covering her face in grief.

'But' It said while looking at the unconscious Twilight, not even glancing at the crying alicorn.', despite my instincts telling me to massacre all of you, and the ruckus the kids caused, I'm not here for that.'

“Why are you here then?” Muttered Praeratus in barely contrained tone that did nothing to mask his rage, so furious he forgot to ask how did it hide its mental presence from him.

The monster's smile was replaced by a fang-bearing snarl while it glared at Twilight.

'To kill the white horse that can move the sun... and rip apart the bitch that shot my arm off!' The beast exclaimed before lunging at Celestia and Twilight claws first. Before it could kill them, Praeratus body-slammed it with a psionic-enhanced tackle that sent them both through the walls of the building, punching, biting and slashing at each other until they hit something sturdy enough to stop their flight: the durasteel hull of Praeratus' ship. The creatures that came to the Hall, having evacuated when the first monster came out, panicked when they saw the alien that came with Celestia and an even bigger monster flying out of the Hall.

After slipping down the hull, Praeratus, who was the first one to recover, grabbed the monster telekinetically and slammed it between the lower part of the ship and the ground several times, not stopping until he depleted his psionic reserves significantly and the monster's skeleton was flour.

The therawyrm, seeing that the bioweapon was still breathing, came over it and grabbed its face to forcefully probe its mind to see where the other monsters were hiding and level it with the ship's armaments.

And then the thing raised its claw somehow. But not attack him.

'Before you try and get the information of my... brothers whereabouts, let me remind you that, as savage as we are' It said while glaring at him ', we are not stupid'

Praeratus barely had time to realize the danger he was in when a claw sprouted off the ground and grabbed his leg. A big claw, whose owner dug itself from the ground alongside another bioweapon and at least ten imps, and before Praeratus knew it he was being held by the bigger bioweapons, after which the imps bit into his legs and chopped them off. Praeratus screamed in pain, but not for the loss of his legs (it wasn't the first time); the monsters grinded their teeth instead of ripping his legs off outright, and since they were in fact serrated (he hadn't noticed it when they bit him before in the Hall) it was like a pair of chainsaws cut his legs.

Several of the guards that were guarding the crowd watching the battle, most of them ponies, griffons and hippogriffs, chose that moment to attack the bioweapons, screaming battle cries and raising swords and spears.

Before Praeratus could scream at them to not come, the young monsters rushed to the guards faster than they could react and slaughtered them in less than ten seconds.

'Ah, isn't it beautiful, the sight of children getting their first kill?' It said in a mock emotional tone. 'But let's not deviate, I'm here to kill those two xenos. But first... You, bring me that'

One of the imps grabbed a hand still latched on an spear and brought it to the blue monster, who grabbed the weapon with telekinesis and inspected it after throwing the deattached hand away.

'A spear, the second oldest weapon a species can discover after the wooden club. Despite being capable of creating gunpowder-based slugthrowers, and having primitive cannons, all species on this planet still rely on medieval weapons at best, and none at worst. And therawyrm skin is pretty damn tough, and if that therawyrm is a Centurion even more so' It then aimed the head at Praeratus' glaring eye. 'Therawyrm eyeballs, on the other hand, are just as vulnerable as any other to a giant spike going through them.'

“Before you kill me, could you at least tell me where are the others?”

'You think I'm stupid like the others? No, I won't tell you where they are, but I will tell you what the Confederation will find when they inevitably discover the planet: a safe, clean world, an army of loyal if savage pets, and a 30 feet tall metal statue of a therawyrm soldier fighting loc-hanae. Goodbye, Centurion' It said before thrusting the spear forward...

BRAM!

… And missing Praeratus' eye entirely because the head of the left bioweapon was suddenly blown to bits.

'What was that!?' Screamed mentally the monster, roaring at the same time. Praeratus, on the other hand, was smiling, because he knew what killed the bioweapon: a green plasma bolt going at only mach 1, but with the equivalent energy of 15 kilojoules, shot from a high-powered hunting rifle.

There was only one place where a weapon like that could be stored, and there was only one being on the planet that knew where it was and how to get it.

“Get away from him, you monster.” Said an angry voice coming from behind them, from the stairs.

It was Celestia, aiming at the nearly-flattened demon with an R-90 hunting rifle with a smoking barrel.

And she was angry.

Another chapter for you guys! This time the plot thickens a fair bit and get to know what the bioweapons had been doing through the last two months. You know the drill, comment, thumbs up and fave if you please.