Appledashery

by Just Essay

Oh Snap(dragon)

"Mother..." Blood Fire murmured. His scales flexed to display a look of utter vexation. "You are..."

"...not dead?!" Aatxe's voice cracked.

"Of course I am not dead!" A mammoth pair of nostrils flared, snorting brimstone. The great dragon matriarch stood up at her full length. With a single flap of her wings, all of the rising smoke and fog cleared out of the crater, revealing a bed of burning brimstone beneath where she was previously lying. "I told you that I was hibernating, didn't I?! Why have you woken me this early?!"

"But M-Momma!" Aatxe squeaked. "You told us all that death was imminent!"

"Rrrrghhhh... No, I said that I would be dozing in a minute! And that was after I told you that my body was telling me to hibernate!"

"You said that your heart was losing its b-beat!" Aatxe declared.

"It was slowing down, you little ingrate!" the matriarch hissed. "What else do you think hibernation means?!" Spitting fire, she pivoted her massive maw towards Blood Fire. "Blood Fire... why is Aatxe doing all of the talking for you? Didn't I leave you in charge?"

Blood Fire blinked. Savagely. "You... left me in charge...?"

"Wuh oh..." Aatxe hugged the Flame Staff, shivering.

"YES." The matriarch's burning eyes narrowed. "I trust your elder wisdom above all the rest. That's why I said that the brood is to be in the tidiest claws."

"Curious..." Blood Fire glared over his shoulders. "...I was told that the brood was supposed to be in the 'tiniest claws'"

"Mrrffnnnghhh..." The matronly creature pivoted about to glare at Aatxe again. "Aatxe... Junior... did you deliver that message like I asked you to?"

"Erm... eheheheh..." Aatxe gulped, peeking his head out from behind the chaotic crucifix. "I'm guessing that... erm... a detail or two got lost in translation—"

FWOOSH! A single smoldering exhalation sent the Flame Staff flying out of his grasp.

"My staff—!" Aatxe yelped, only to be hoisted up in the air by a thick pair of claws. "Gaah! Momma—!"

"I told you to tell your brother that he was in charge while I slept!" she hollered.

Meanwhile...

Thw-Thw-Thwish! The Flame Staff twirled through the air until it rattled to a stop against the brimstone below. It slid a few feet on the surrounding gravel. Two boulders away, a sky-blue pegasus crouched, watching alongside her trusty statue. Both sneaky figures had dumb smirks on their muzzles.

"And I did deliver that message! Eheheheh!" Aatxe gulped, dangling by his tail. "A-a-and... uhhh... uhhhhh... I-I'm guessing Blood Fire mistook the memo for something else! Youuuuuu know how absent minded he c-could be!"

Blood Fire flew up until he was glaring at eye-level with the whelp. "Brother... you told us that Mother assigned you the position of Big Boss with her dying breath! Isn't that right?

"Pffft! What's it to you?" He stuck his serpent's tongue out. "You believed it!"

Blood Fire snarled. "Because I do not question the words of our Mother... or at least what I assumed was her words—"

"ENOUGH!" the matriarch boomed, silencing both broodlings. "Both of you! This is not the kind of thing I wish to sleep too! I need my hibernation, and after I'm done, we'll have to continue our migration west across the wasteland to find a place to store my hoarde!" She looked straight down and gasped at the barren obsidian and brimstone. "MY HOARDE!"

"Wuh oh..." Aatxe curled up into a little dangling ball.

"Grrrrrrrrrrr... Aaaaaatxe..." She exhaled smoke through her gritting teeth. "Where are all of my gold and jewels?!"

"H-hey! You're the one who slept on them! Must have been stolen overnight by... uh... by squirrels! Yeah!"

"He gave them up," Blood Fire grumbled. "Sold every gem to Morsel Land black marketeers in exchange for a magical staff full of chaos rocks."

"He did WHAT?!"

"You... you g-gotta understand, Mom!" Aatxe cleared his throat and tried to talk straight. "The return investment promised to be through the roof! I-I mean... the summoned corndogs alone were positively—"

"A dragon is NOTHING without a hoarde! NOTHING!"

"And those squirrels that Aatxe speaks of..." Blood Fire snorted. "...they are laying waste to the brood in the flying castle Aatxe had us steal from them."

"You mean your brothers and sisters are being slain?!" The matriarch snarled. "And you've allowed this to happen?"

Blood Fire hung his head. "I apologize, mother. I thought that we were doing honorable battle in your will... through Aatxe's will..."

The matriarch sighed. "And here I thought my egg-laying days were over." She dropped both broodlings to the ground and loomed over them. "Alas... I see that we have quite a few things to straighten out here."

"But M-Momma!" Aatxe crawled on his knees, clasping both hands together. "I-I was about to invade the Morsel Lands and bring great glory to the brood!"

"Aatxe, you know the rules. You're not allowed to invade mortals until you're eighteen thousand years old."

"But... b-but—!"

"SILENCE! You've done enough already. It's time we set some new perameters around here because you CAN'T be trusted with being a personal messenger ever again!"

Aatxe hung his head, sighing. "Yes, mother. I understand, mother..."

And within seconds of him saying that...

...a beam of red light flickered brightly around the Flame Staff... and dissipated in a blink. Steam rose off the chaos shards, one by one, as the artifact cooled from the dying spell.

Comments

[Shipmun]

I feel a spankin' coming on

[Phoenix Kitten]

So... did Dash trade one villain for another?

Oh Aataxe, you little shit. I wonder how much of the brood are going to get the chance to beat the crap out of him when all is said and done.

Blood Fire has been humbled, and he's still as awesome as ever.

Also, on the subject of the chapter name...
i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz159/Thatlittleskitty/Untitled_zpsks8ws9rl.png

[Elsaack]

Sooo... Rainbow Dash wins, yay.
Aataxe is defeated, or at least in trouble with is mommy
The Morselslan- I mean, Equestria is safe.
But wow, what was the body count. That's not like you Sportshorse. Not like you at all.

[MidnightReflection]

WAIT! That means that all of the chaos shards are in Rainbow's and Lancie's possession. Ho. Boy. END OF ARC!

[Aatxe360]

Wasn't the castle floating because of that? Also, time to make long-term vacation plans.

[Mister Saxon]

Sooo... is this Sturke?

[Phoenix Kitten]

6564790 Nope. Cause Rommy is still alive and ..not well, but angry.
Alive and Angry.

[Lightning Bearer]

I wonder how long dragon time-out lasts.

Things seem to be wrapping up... and then, Romulus!

[Sabin]

so the immediate question now is...will Romulus attack Rainbow before she retrieves the staff or after?

[zaponator]

So that went well. Now to fight Romulus to the death real quick.

[Hestia]

Aatxe, you dun goofed.

So we got all the shards? Apple Bloom saving time?

[I Thought I Was Toast]

Final Boss defeated!
Gained the Mother Knows Best Achievement.
Yet a new -- or shall I say old -- challenger approaches!
Ultimate Boss draws near!

[Gammahoof]

Inb4 Romulus grabs the staff before Dash reaches them

[YoshiFawful64]

6564773
Please tell me what that's from, I'm kind of interested in it now.

[Phoenix Kitten]

6566615 s'from this.
Probably goes without saying, but that's not the actual dialogue for that moment.

[Appledash_Gurl]

AAAAAAAAnd then Discord teleports back to Ponyville, saves Applebloom and A.j finds the letter and confesses her love for RD, and lancie puts a spell on all the ponies Rainbow loves/ like to protect them *gasps for air* and somehow makes the bad guys go away, and pinkie, and RD and AJ live happily ever after! *pant pant*

THE END

[destinedjagold]

6567341 Nah. We still have the catbird assassin to steal the staff, RD chases him, fight/tug-of-war scene, squirrel and dragon fight scene below RD and catbird fight scene, meanwhile in Ponyville scene, and etc scenes~

[Appledash_Gurl]

6568023 One things for sure, Appebloom will live.

[Sharp Quill]

6568035 Until you jinxed it by predicting this!

[Samurai-Demoman]

This chapter in a Nutshell.

Never trust prepubescent kids.. Or dragons for that matter.

Dragon Mothers are very relaxed.

Rainbow Dash is a Ninja.

[DrEggnog]

The mother could have just as easily NOT tossed the staff aside for Rainbow to grab. There wasn't a ton of reason to expect that. I get the feeling that Dash was just hoping SOMETHING would happen in her favor. Some plan. Oh well, I suppose it could have ended no other way but stupid.

[arancaytar]

6564838

At this point (two years late, so maybe there's more information I haven't reached yet?) I would suspect she's just a regular, non-divine dragon matriarch. Sturke was already ruling the Kingdom of Ward in Austraeoh...