Sol did not like that both Titan and Veliuona were pushing to reunite their forces. Granted, during their months apart, the campaign had become far bloodier and more desperate than Sol had expected it to. Even as their forces worked hard to purge the Wyrm menace, trading information back and forth, recruiting ponies - and other servants, both fair and foul - to their cause, and helping to push back the corrupted thralls of the beasts, they found their forces never fully gaining an advantage, and that another worse foe and harder challenge was always waiting for them around the next corner.
And yet Sol did not think they had yet encountered either the source or the worst of these Tyrant Wyrms: more than once, in the distance, she had seen something larger and more fearsome than any Wyrm they had faced so far, watching her, judging her, as they skirmished with some wretched foe or another... not that it ever stayed until the end of the engagement to risk her wrath.
It made Sol nervous: the Wyrms clearly didn't care about their lives, but threw themselves to their deaths, only seeking to do as much damage as possible before they perished, laughing. If whatever ruled these Wyrms was calculating enough to stay back and watch - or worse, it was cruel enough to send its servants to their deaths, to test them, to weaken them, while sacrificing what were likely only pawns - and could even be some form of Master Wyrm itself... it displayed a cunning, a cruelty, and a strategy she was not prepared to fight.
That was what compelled her to finally agree to reuniting their forces to form one major front: that, and the news that in other places, the Tyrant Wyrms had finally begun to lose their grip on Equestria. Here, though, in the range between the mountains and Central Equestria, the Wyrms had lost none of their strength.
But that was also what worried her: it was very possible this foe wanted them to be grouped together, so it could do as much damage to them as possible at once. Sol hated this thought, and hated that she might be playing into the claws of a dangerous foe... and worse yet, she might have to rely on the aid of Veliuona and her minions for support.
But there was nothing else she could do, and the risk of leaving Veliuona where she was, was not worth a reward that would benefit only her own pride. Furthermore, if she appeared weak, then Veliuona could seize the opportunity and attack her, or take her own territory in Equestria...
Still, every day was spent in trepidation and doubt, until one morning, Veliuona and Titan's forces appeared on either horizon, and by the time the sun stood at its highest over their heads, both armies had rejoined her own.
And, like a bittersweet reward, the moment of their reunion, her sister's shout and Veliuona's flares of magic warned her almost too late of the shadow sweeping down on them from the north, and the foe she had both feared and hoped would rear its ugly head when all its worst enemies united in one place.
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