Dragon's Tale: The city of Darkrise

by IMN

A very bad day: Celestia

Celestia:

His smile is unnerving, I thought I eliminated the last shred of that smile when I beat him to an inch of his life for harming my guards yesterday. For it to return so mischievously, it gave me pause to say the least.

“If you have a reason then state it,” I said in my most authoritative tone, “and stop wasting our time.”1

He then regurgitated a letter from his flames, I saw Twilight and Spike laughing at his reaction toward the unpleasantness of the taste, something Spike had gotten used to I guess, oblivious toward the seriousness of this act, normally dragons don’t carry letters or paper2, which shows the importance of the paper he spat out.

He walked toward me, his chains rattling, then placed the scroll right under my hoof, I picked up the scroll only to be horrified by finding the official seal of the King of the fire kingdom placed on it.

“Where did you get that?” I think I may be showing a bit more concern than I ought to be.

“Is something wrong princess?” I hear my student call me, but I ignore her, I need answers.

“Do you honestly think that we came here because we want to?” I detect a hint of mockery in his voice, “The higher ups want that kid in our flight, so I was asked to bring him back because I knew about him the longest.”

I look at the parchment, then I look at my previous student’s face, at her dragon, at her sibling, confusion stares mixed with unease are all around me.

I unseal the letter and open the parchment, and to my surprise it wasn't a letter, but a rune.3

“Captain Shining, I want you to gather all those present and place your best anti-fire barrier around them, I may have shot the messenger by mistake.”

The once previous laughter and snickers of those present have genuinely muddled as everypony gathered sat in one corner of the room and Shining’s barrier is up, I placed protective armor on myself as well, if I don't handle this correctly... I shudder at what might happen. Then placing the scroll on the ground, I poured magic into the rune activating it.

In a sudden boom, flames engulfed the room just as I expected them to do, I saw Shining’s barrier falter at the sudden rush of heat hit it hard, then just as the temperature became high enough, the flames started to gather in the center where I placed the scroll, turning into a dragon shape, and the moment I saw it I knew, this is not going to end well.

“Magnus, I should have known.”

“Always a pleasure to meet you Celestia,” The flames apparition said wickedly, “I do hope that it was under better circumstances though.”

Dear me, he is going to make this a lot more difficult than it needs to be, with his small talks and his pleasant demeanor that allows him to evade the subject entirely, better make this quick before I say something I regret, “enough with the small talk Magnus, and tell me what you want.”

“Oh dear, was I not clear? I asked those teenagers from one of my flights to bring any orphaned dragon they saw, I could not have guessed that it would be your whelp they lay their eyes upon.”

Did he just lie straight to my face? The nerve!

“Then you already know my answer, I raised that whelp from the first day he hatched, I placed him under the care of my most prized pupil, a pony I would entrust my own life to, and I watched over him every single step of the way, do you honestly think I would just give him up so easily?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t really have a choice in the matter myself,” How dare he, “A new law was passed among the dragon empire that dictates that no dragon whelp is allowed to be raised by non-dragons. I am only doing what the laws dictates me to do.”

“Lies," I have never, in my wildest dreams, imagined that he would sink so low, "you’re doing this just to spite me.”

“The nerve,” he took an offended pose, I knew he is being sarcastic at this point, “angering you was just a bonus I’m afraid. However, there is more to my presence than mere pettiness.” He walked toward the window where all the glasses have melted, “The fifth kingdom was the one that passed that law, and they will not tolerate having it mocked at, or ignored by the rest of the empire for that matter.”

“Fifth kingdoms?” I gulped, sweat is trickling on my frown “Since when did you guys gained a new kingdom?”

“Oh quite recently I must say, I think it was about the same time you guys declared your kingdom of friendship.” He turned to Twilight, “congratulations by the way.”

There are a lot of variables that had suddenly emerged, I knew the dragon empire is a major threat to pony kind, but they never have actively attacked any race without prior incidents4, but a new kingdom might explain their need to expand5, could they have chosen Equestria?

“What will happen it I refused?”

He chuckled, “We’ll use Black Sun on Equestria.”

Horrified doesn't describe the feeling I’m having right now, Black Sun? Are they really willing to go that far for a single dragon?

“ENOUGH.” Twilight surprised me with her ear chattering scream, as I turned toward her, her Rainbow form flared with powers recently acquired. Stepping out of her brother’s barrier, she made her way toward the flaming apparition, apparently her rainbow powers protect her from the heat of a flame elemental, who knew?

“If you think you can just barge in and take whatever you want from us just because we are ponies, you have another thing coming,” She stepped toward him with a defying gaze, “I will not allow you take my most precious friend away even if I fight you for him, we are not so weak as to allow you to walk over us like that.”

For a moment I felt proud, my little Twilight sure is growing into a confident princess. As I gazed around the room, I can see the faces of my little pony light up with determination, Spike whom was crying a moment ago is now brimming with courage, and the teenage dragons all had doubtful looks on their faces.

Magnus however just looked amused, even as a fire apparition his body language is as clear as day, “Who said anything about fighting?” he finally said, and for the first time in a long while, I felt afraid, “Now that’s just offensive, just because we are dragons, that doesn't mean we solve all our problem with violence every single time.”

He stretched his paw toward the sun, and the heat in the room went up ten degrees, of that I am sure; every pony knew something is happening, my heart started to grow weary.

“All I’m saying is that we will take away your sunlight,”

His paw started to rotate, and the sky started to dim,

“We’ll sap it away bit by bit,”

The more he rotates his paw, the darker the sky gets as dreadfulness filled the eyes that were once so determined to fight.

“Until your days become as dark as your nights.”

He closed his paw and the morning sky became as dark as night, the sight of stars in the heavens have never been so dreadful, even though the sun is up, it felt like midnight had descended, screams of terror immediately filled the street.

“Tell me, princess of friendship, can you really fight something like that?”

Black Sun has just been cast upon Equestria. The end-day spell of the dragons and their most dreadful weapon, it rendered the werewolf kingdom defenseless the moment they cast it a 1500 years ago, allowing the four Kings descended upon their capital leveling it in less than an hour. Allowing them to erect the strongest dragon city outside their empire's border in its place. Darkrise they called that abomination, a mockery to what had befallen on that great land, and a warning to all those who might think to oppose them. And now, my little ponies are going to suffer the same fate...

“PLEASE STOP.” I did not realize that I jumped and grabbed the apparition's arm, burning myself in the process, “WE’LL DO IT,” I don’t know if it was from the pain or from out of despair that I cried out, but I'm glad I did.

He simply smiled at me before disappearing, and the sky returned to normal almost instantly after that.

Silence reign in the room,and the last thing I remember is Luna bursting in, “What is going on?" her voice rang strong.

This is going to be a bad day in Equestria.

---

1. Celestia is getting bored at this point

2. a fire breathing dragon will burn most paper, however if what's on that paper is important enough, they will turn is into ash and store it in their stomachs until later use.

3. Dragon magic 101: communication ruin, the "Skype" of the dragon race.

4. The dragon war with the werewolf nearly a thousand five hundred years ago was caused by the werewolves attacking the flight that became stationary there, the dragons in response destroyed the werewolf empire by casting "Black Sun."

5. In other words, force Celestia to declare war on them.

Comments

[_Ecocat_]

4455243 Now, make some more

>Ecocat<

[IMN]

4571848
4571637

More is on the way

4571654

Now I'm curious, what does that even mean?

And thank you for favoring Darkrise ver 2, hope you enjoy it.