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The Greater Good
By Deathstrike666
Chapter 4 – Two Messages
Thx to Tresviri for proof reading
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The sun shone through the glazed window onto Twilight’s face, causing her to slowly wake up. Slowly getting up and rubbing her eyes wake, see looked around the room seeing every one of her friends still asleep. With a sigh she got out of her bed, she knew that this way going to be a very hard day for all of them. She slowly started pacing nervously around the bedroom, trying not to create so much noise to wake the others.

“M-Morning Twilight”, quietly said Fluttershy just loud enough for Twilight to hear and blinking her eyes to the brightness of the sunlight. This was the first time she had awoken since fainting yesterday.

“Oh, Morning Fluttershy”, replied Twilight with a small smile coming to her face, “Nice to see you awake again”

“Sorry about that” said Fluttershy slowly dragging her body out of bed.

“Don’t worry about it”, said Twilight trying to comfort her, “We have dealt with this situation many times before”.

The sun was slowly getting higher. The last of the six ponies was slowly getting out of bed and preparing for the assignment ahead, Rarity of cause took the longest of the six. Everypony was extremely nervous to what would happen when they meet the so called Imperial Guard, especially Fluttershy who was visibly shaking.

“I’m sure everything will be fine”, reassured Twilight to the shaking pony, “I don’t think the princess would of sent us on a life threatening assignment. Well I don’t think the Princess would”.

“Y-You... think... so?” mumbled Fluttershy, shaking a little less than before.

“Absolutely!”, exclaimed Twilight, “Now come on, let’s get some breakfast before we go”

“O-Ok, if you say so”, said Fluttershy, she had finally stopped shaking and started to slowly following Twilight to the Canterlot kitchens.

++++++

When Angrus woke up many of the guardsmen had already set up a large tent as a makeshift mess hall and were currently indulging themselves in a low level chat in small groups. Angrus decided that it would nice to finally get some food, he hadn’t really eaten since yesterday morning. Walking into the one of the two lines made for officers and high ranking personnel it didn’t take him long to get to the front of the line, well he was the only one in the line. Picking up a metal bowl, out of a crate that they had brought off The Righteous Vengeance, he handed it to the guardsman next to a large pot full of a pale yellow looking paste.

“Sir”, said the guardsman handing back the pilled bowl, Angrus just nodded and walked off to find an empty table to sit at.

When Angrus found an empty table he just sat down and started to prod the pale yellow paste with his spoon. He really didn’t like this shit, well no guardsman did, it was tasteless, thick and it fell like your mouth has been stuck together when you start chewing. But he, as well as every other guardsman, had gotten used to it, it was their daily supply of protein, vitamins and other stuff that your body needed to function and it doesn’t go off if you leave it out, so you could have been eating some that was nearly a year old.

“Do you mind if I join you?”, said the familiar voice of Commissar Vrax from behind him. Angrus just nodded and immediately Vrax took a seat on the opposite side of the makeshift table.

There was a quick moment of silence between the two while they just sat there eating their pale yellow paste. Vrax by now had already finished at least half of his meal.

“What’s going to be our main objectives today?”, asked Vrax before putting another spoon full of paste in his mouth.

Angrus paused in thought for a moment before replying, “Well we need to learn more about them but they don’t seem to be inclined to really talk to us”.

“I know ways to get them to talk”, suggested Vrax, the suggestion was met with a burning gaze from Angrus.

“We are certainly not doing any of that”, said Angrus slightly angered, “They'd definitely would start a war against us, we are severally low on manpower and supplies”.

“What do you suggest we do to get them to talk them?”, asked Vrax putting his left elbow on the table and putting his head against his fist while still eating what was left of his meal with right hand.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this”, said Angrus shaking his head, “But I’m suggesting that we have to become… ‘Friends’… with the xenos”

A small smile fell onto the commissar’s face; it looked as if he was trying to suppress himself from laughing out loud, which he was.

“You can't be serious”, Vrax finally said after finally controlling his urge to laugh, “You know how many Departmento Munitorium rules you would be breaking if you go ahead with this. You will be condemned as a heretic”.

“I know”, replied Angus, “But we have got no other option”

“Even if I have my objections to it, you are my commander. So hope that it this plan works”, said Vrax with a sigh before leaving the table and walking out of the tent.

“So do I”, Angrus said to himself.

++++++

The Six mares were following the two guards that had escorted them from the train down a windy path down the mountain. From the path they were walking on the six mares started to figure out the enormity of the situation, well the enormity of the crashed wreckage of The Righteous Vengeance, it was nearly one fifth the height of the mountain and so long that it was nearly sticking out of the forest. From their height advantage they could see where the ship had touch the ground, just outside of the forests boundaries, leaving a large trail of dug up dirt and destroyed trees before finally stopping at the mountain. The impact was so hard that the mares could see large cracks in the mountain side, spreading in all directions, one of the larger cracks had nearly made its way to Canterlot. They could also see large plumes of light grey smoke coming out of different places of the wreckage and started to wonder how on equestria that they didn’t see that from the train.

They continued walking in silence down the mountain path; they really didn’t speak because they were all looking in amazement at the wreckage. It took them twenty minutes before they reached the base on the mountain.

“How long now”, asked Pinkie Pie with a wide grin on her face to the two guards finally breaking the long silence.

“Not long now”, replied one of the guards. He stopped and pointed a hoof into the forest and added, “Just a five minute walk that way”

“YAY!”, exclaimed Pinkie bouncing up and down, well much faster than she usually does, “Can’t wait to meet them”

“Twi, do ya have a fancy spell in ya head to remove hyperactivity”, whispered Applejack to Twilight.

“Sometimes I wish that I did”, Twilight whispered back with a small giggle.

The rest of the walk was relatively easier that going down the mountain, it was virtually flat with plenty of room in-between each tree for the ponies to walk through. They finally reached the clearing and greeted with a barricade, which was the height of an average pony, circling around the clearings perimeter.

The small group of followed the barricade until they found a small entrance. When they entered the makeshift base they could see four large tents of to the sides, one of them was filled with tables and chairs while the other three were filled with hundreds of crates of varying in sizes. Also scattered around the base were the so called ‘Imperial Guards’ they weren’t doing much, a large majority of them were in the tent with the chairs and tables while some others were patrolling the barricade.

In the centre of the area Twilight saw a surprisingly familiar looking unicorn wearing purple armour. It took her only a few second to realize that this pony was actually her brother, Shining Armour.

“Shining!”, yelled Twilight as she was running towards her brother.

“Hey Twilly. What ar-OOMF“, Shining was abruptly interrupted when Twilight hugged him with something that looked more like a spear tackle, “Not so rough Twilley, I’m on duty”

“Sorry”, said Twilight letting go of her brother, “It is just that I haven’t seen you in a while”

“It’s alright”, said Shining with a small grin, “What brings you and your friends here anyways?”

“Well we are kind of on a special assignment for the Princess”, said Twilight, suddenly she started going through her bags with her magic for a few seconds before pulling out a scroll, “And before I forget, I need to give this message to someone called ‘Angrus’. Do you where he is?”

“Um… I think I last saw him go into that tent there”, answered Shining while pointing at the tent designated as the mass hall, just as he finished saying that Angrus appeared out of the tent’s entrance, “Ah, here he is right now”.

Noticing that the xenos was pointing at him Angrus decided to see what all the fuss was about.

“Why are you pointing at me xenos? Who’s this lot? They don’t look like they are guards”, asked the slightly angered Angrus.

“W-were here on an… assignment from the Princess”, Twilight said nervously, “She told me to give you this message”.

She held the scroll up to Angrus who just snatched the scroll out of her hoof and began to read it.

Angrus
I have instructed my apprentice Twilight Sparkle and her five friends to stay at your base.
They are there to gather more info about you lot and in return you can gather info about us.
Their secondary assignment is to get a more peaceful relation between our two species.
If anything happens to these six you will regret doing it.
Princess Celestia

Angrus rolled the scroll and put into one on his many uniform pockets

“Welcome to our base then, xenos”, said Angrus slightly pissed.

++++++

Nightrunner was panting heavily, he was tired and exhausted. The grey fur on the left side of his back and stomach were now the colour of a deep red from all the blood that was coming out of the unconscious Slowstride’s injury. He just been running nonstop all night and he just arrived in a small town halfway between Appleloosa and Canterlot. Now too tired now to keep on running, Nightrunner slowed to a struggling walk down the main street. Everypony in the main street just looked at the two with wide eyes and opened mouths. Reaching the middle of the street, Nightrunner came to a sudden stop and fell down to his knees.

“Please… help us”, Nightrunner said weakly before closing his eyes and letting the rest of his body collapse to the ground with a thud.

Several ponies quick run over the help the two unconscious ponies and quickly carrying them to the local hospital. No one knew what happened to the two ponies, just that one of them had a large piece of wood sticking out of his stomach while the other was completely excused from carrying the other on his back for a long time. The two reached the hospital within a few minutes of arriving in the lone town on the outskirts of the desert.

The hospital was surprisingly empty besides a stallion unicorn doctor and two mare pegasus nurses, they had nothing better to do but play monopony, nopony had come in to the hospital for the past two days. So the three were surprised when the doors suddenly flung open and Nightrunner and Slowstride were brought in.

“What happened to these ponies?”, asked the doctor to the ponies carrying Nightrunner and Slowstride.

“We don’t know”, replied the pony carrying Nightrunner, “This pony was carrying him on his back when he suddenly collapsed in the middle of the road”.

“Quickly follow me then”, ordered the doctor.

The two ponies followed the doctor into a long corridor passing a door every five steps or so. The doctor stopped at one of the doors.

“Place him on the bed in here”, ordered the doctor to the pony carrying Nightrunner. He then turned to one of the nurses, “I want to look after him while I deal with the injured one”

The nurse just nodded and followed the pony with Nightrunner inside while the doctor and the other nurse lead the other pony carrying Slowstride onto a surgery room. The pony placed Nightrunner carefully on the bed and left the nurse to do her job. The nurse found out that there wasn’t anything wrong with the patient besides being dehydrated and worn out. So just let him rest there and decided to clean off all the blood from him.

“You must have been carrying your friend for a long time”, her thoughts said out loud while she was cleaning the dried blood.

She finished a few minutes later so she left him to get some rest while she went to see if she could help the doctor. When she reached the surgery room the doctor had started stitching up the other ponies wound. On a tray next to the table was a two foot long piece of blood stained timber.

“Is he going to be alright?”, asked the nurse concerned.

“He’s going to be fine. The piece of wood didn’t hit any vital organs”, replied the doctor not taking his eyes off the brown pony, “What about his friend?”

“He is just sleeping”, said the nurse, “Tired and dehydrated, that’s all”

“Just keep an eye on him until he wakes up,” said the doctor finishing the final stitch, “When he does, ask him what happened”

“ OK”, replied the nurse before walking out of the door and back down the corridor towards the other patient.

It was a couple of hours before Nightrunner started to wake up. He felt sore all over and a little dizzy when he slowly sat himself up.

“Here drink this”, said the nurse holding a glass of water in front of him.

Nightrunner grabbed the glass and quickly started gulping it all down. Putting the finished glass down, he asked the nurse, “Where am I?”

“You’re in Hoofsand Hospital”, answered the nurse, “May I ask what is your name?”

“Um… I’m Nightrunner”, he replied while starting to remember what had happened in the last twelve hours, “Where’s Slowstride? He was badly injured. Is he alright? I need to get to the Princesses”.

“Your friend is fine. He is just resting in another room”, replied the nurse calmly, “And what’s this about needing to get the Princesses?”

Nightrunner started shaking a little; he really didn’t want to remember what he had seen happen to the other ponies, many of which were some of his closest friends.

“A-Appleloosa was… attacked”, mumbled Nightrunner.

“Attacked? Who attacked you?”, asked the nurse surprised and very worried with what she just heard. The nurse had some family staying there during the summer and was now hoping that they were all right.

“Monsters! Giant Blue Metal Monsters!”, exclaimed Nightrunner starting to cry with having to remember what happened, “They walked on two legs and had strange weapons. They started laughing at us. They started killing us. Killing all my friends, my family. For all I know us two were only survivors”.

The nurse looked distressed with what she was hearing from Nightrunner. She had never heard anything like this before, hundreds of ponies killed and an entire town destroyed by metal monsters. But what distressed her most of all was the fact that some of her family was now most likely dead, killed by metal monsters.

She quickly ran out the door of the room and headed towards the reception hoping the find the doctor. When she entered the reception the doctor and the other nurse turned their heads to her. What they saw was a deeply panicked mare and started to worry that something really bad had happened.

“Everything all right?”, worried the doctor, “Is he awake yet or did something happen?”

“He’s fine”, replied the nurse who looked like she was about to cry, “But Appleloosa isn’t”

Before the doctor or the other nurse could respond she had already ran out of the hospital. The doctor decided to chase after and try and find out what on equestria was going on.

“Wait for me!”, yelled the doctor chasing after the nurse, she started to slow down to let him catch up, “What the hay is going on? What did he tell you?”

“He said that he needed to tell the Princesses something”, said the nurse crying.

“What did he need to tell them?”, asked the doctor puzzled.

“He told me that Appleloosa was attacked by metal monsters”, said the nurse still crying.

“Attacked? Metal monsters?”, repeated the doctor now extremely worried.

“Yes, he said that they killed everypony, they destroyed Appleloosa”, said the nurse now pointing her head down to the ground and crying more heavily, “I had family there”

“I’m sorry”, said the doctor trying to comfort the nurse, “The Princesses do have to be told about this. Go back into the hospital and I will go and send the message”.

The nurse just nodded and just started walking back to the hospital. The doctor started running to the town's post office, it didn't take him long to get there of course, it was just a small town after all just half the size of Ponyville or Appleloosa. When the doctor entered there was a unicorn mare standing behind the counter.

“Morning Doctor”, greeted the mare with a smile, “What can I do for you today?”

“I need to send a urgent letter to the Princess”, said the doctor with a worrying look on his face, “How quickly can you deliver it?”

Seeing the look on his face the mare quickly looked under the counter and pulled an old looking wooden box.

“About five minutes”, she said while placing the box on the table, “What’s the important message?”

++++++

Everything had been going well for Twilight and her friends, Angrus had order two of his soldiers to stay with them and answer any question that they were given. The two guardsmen had just finished telling the six mares about the God Emperor and the Horus Heresy.

When suddenly a slightly pissed looking guardsmen walked up to the six mares and punched Rainbow Dash as hard as he could into her muzzle and caused her to start bleeding. The two other guardsmen quickly restrained him from beating up any of the others.

“Why are you telling them all this!”, shouted the angry guardsmen before spitting on the ground, “They’re filthy xenos, we should be killing them not talking!”.

The angered guardsman was struggling against the two restraining him. He managed to free himself and started charging at the six ponies. Before he had a chance to start beating up any of the other a red beam of light passed through the side of his head causing him to fall to the ground , dead, in front of the six.

“Are you alright?”, asked Commissar Vrax to the injured Rainbow while putting away his laspistol.

“NO!”, exclaimed Rainbow while holding her nose in her fore hooves, “I think he broke my nose and I don’t think that you had to kill him!

“He was disobeying a direct order from the Captain”, said Vrax gazing at the now dead guardsman, “Disobeying orders comes with severe consequences”.

Shining had seen the whole thing happen, the attack, breaking free from the other men, the abrupt execution but happened to fast and he was too far way to do anything about it. He ran as fast as he could over to the six mares.

“Are you alright?”, Shining asked worryingly to the six mares.

“We fine”, Replied Twilight helping Rainbow back onto her hooves, “Rainbow probably has a broken nose that’s all”

“If you say so”, said Shining unsure.

Shining made a scroll and a quill appear in front of him, he wrote down a few things before rolling the scroll up. He handed it to one of the pegasus guards, “Get this message to the Princess as fast as you can”

The pegasus saluted before quickly flying off into direction of Canterlot.

++++++

Celestia was sitting in her throne looking through countless piece of paper that she had levitating in front of her with her magic. Doing paperwork wasn't her favorite part of her royal duties but it was one that needed to be done no matter how boring it was.

“Why is there always more paperwork to be filled out”, said Celestia to herself.

Before she could say more stuff to herself the doors to the throne room burst open and one of her guards came running through. He stopped in the middle of the large throne room before bowing to Celestia and pulling out a scroll from under his wing.

“Message of major importance, your highness”, said the guard.

Celestia gave the papers floating in front of her assistant next to the throne before using her magic to bring the massage over to her. She opened it up when it had got to her and read it several times to make sure that she had gotten everything.

“We leave immediately”, ordered Celestia with a slightly angered tone, “Assemble some of the guards”.

“Yes, your highness”, said the guard, bowing before turning and running back through the doors of the throne room.

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Author's Note

Mmmmmmm...
I wounder which of the two messages Celestia read?
Is she going to Angrus or Applelossa?

Don't worry people there will be lots of gore coming up in the next few chapters
especially when the Tau and Tyranids arive

FOR THE GREATER GOOD!!!