Chapter 12: Horns and Hooves, Fangs and Fire
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Prior Note: Note sure how this’ll go down (since there seems to be a decent division between team dragon and team royal guard), but I hope you all enjoy.
Also, the melee combat styles and elemental/breath attacks used (Spyro and Cynder) are those from LOS: Dawn of the dragon.
Pre-read by: Edragon
Chapter 12: Horns and Hooves, Fangs and Fire
The old saying ‘the tension in the air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife’, was definitely applicable to the scene before Twilight. Growing up with Shining Armor as her older brother, and hence seeing him in a wide range of moods and scenarios, meant she could tell straight away how he was feeling at any given moment... And as of right now he was looking to be anything but happy.
For a moment after Spyro finished speaking, no pony or dragon did anything but stand and stare venomously at those gathered opposite them; the four dragons had their fangs and claws drawn like sets of daggers, while the ten royal guards were locked together tightly like a living pony wall, their armoured bodies creating a makeshift barrier between their scaly opponents and the adjacent doorway.
To an observer, it seemed as if neither side wished to be seen as the aggressor, but instead dearly wanted their opponents to give them a reason to attack, each waiting for the other to flinch, slip up, or do something completely stupid.
The library itself felt like it was the chamber of Pinkie Pie’s party cannon, the lit fuse that was everyone’s frustration now burning up as a timer, and which upon reaching its end would no doubt send the room into a state of utter chaos.
“Are they actually serious about this?” Rainbow Dash asked in a bare whispered, her magenta eyes flashing between the dragons she called her friends, and her ruler’s royal guard captain.
“Knowing Cynder,” Applejack sighed in an equal whisper, nervously readjusting her hat. “I’d say so without a doubt Rainbow,”
Dash snorted and face-hoofed. “Twilight, did you not explain to those three who exactly it is they’re dealing with here? You know… the whole Shining-Armor-is-captain-of-the-royal-guard thing?”
“Hey…” Twilight started angrily, defensively, and surprisingly loudly.
The very moment she opened her mouth though, she regretted it dearly, and just as quickly clamped her it shut again; her response was, however, far too late.
With the speaking of that single word, which quickly reached the ears of the stoic royal guards and to the slightest degree caused them to flinch, the mare unintentionally unleashed all matter of Tartarus inside her library.
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Spyro was on the very edge. Every fibre, muscle, and nerve in his body was balancing on a claw’s tip with anticipation, and his battle instincts were all the while screaming at him from inside his head. Together with both Ember and Cynder, he had been in more fights than any other dragon would care to know. Through time, he had come to practically live and literally breathe combat, no matter what form his opponent came in.
This fight however was slightly different, for two reasons.
The first was that he had never faced a properly trained pony in combat before, hence he figured this fight would be both a new experience, and maybe even an interesting challenge. The snarky pegasus named Thunderlane was one thing, but this was a totally different scenario; the force of blue and alabaster ponies before him weren’t just the one type anymore, three were earth ponies, Shining Armor and another three were unicorns, and the final three were pegasus ponies, each no doubt having their own individual strengths and weaknesses.
Regardless of their type though, the ten ponies gathered before him, if the golden armor they were wearing meant anything at all, were also at very least trained fighters; after all, what kind of uniformed guard would incapable of doing anything but stand motionless and stare menacingly? Then there was that fact that judging by Spike’s words, which Spyro guessed were partly true at very least, these royal guards had possibly fought dragons before.
The second reason was that this wasn’t a catacomb crawling with enemies, a dragon city currently under siege, or even an open grass plain for that matter. This was a library, an entirely wooden and hence very flammable library at that; one that he and his four friends now called home for the time being.
Thus using his fire element didn’t exactly seem like the best plan of attack, so to speak.
With things as they were he watched his opponents, and waited, his ivory claws planted firmly in the floor, his wings spread wide, and a bolt of electricity readied in his throat for when it was needed. Admittedly, half of him wanted the situation to somehow calmly diffuse, and for everypony present to perhaps go their separate ways...
...But the other half of yearned for a fight, for a chance to unleash a bit of built up tension that had been simmering since his arrival, and perhaps to teach Shining Armor just who it was he was dealing with.
“Hey!” Twilight suddenly snapped, shattering the silence that had formerly held the room captive.
And that was when the royal guards suddenly flinched.
What followed was an impulse reaction that was both virtually instant, and totally unexpected by just about everyone still present in the room.
Before anypony could even blink again, his purple jaws snapped open, and with a small crack and flash of light, sent a glowing chain bolt of electricity towards the royal guards. Like a golden arrow it arched across the room, aimed straight at a stone faced Shining Armor.
The attack probably wasn’t powerful enough to do any real or lasting damage, given the last thing he needed was to turn Twilight against him for electrocuting her older brother.
Just as the lighting arched out and left his maw, the battle instincts of the two dragonesses at his side seemed to also kick in, the two in sync opening their own jaws, and sending their own long ranged attacks sailing towards the royal guards; Cynder’s came in the form of a wave of dark shadow fire, while Ember’s jaws opened and unleashed a thick tongue of blistering red dragon fire.
“Holy horse-apples!”
“Woah nelly!” Applejack shouted in alarm, grabbing her sister at the very sight of the flames, and hastily pulling the annoyed filly further away from the fight. “Everypony get back ya’ hear!”
“Twilight! Do something!” Rarity added in frantically, her voice coming out in much more high pitched scream.
“Woah...” Vinyl gapped, her shades just about sliding off her head. “...sweeeet.”
Spyro swore he heard Spike, each of his pony friends, and nearly everypony else in the room as well individually yell or scream in fright, all of them jumping back from the two flames.
He also made a small mental note to berate Ember about her actions later; unlike he and Cynder she could only ever breath normal dragon fire, but that didn’t mean she absolutely had to use it in the first place.
What happened next though neither the battle hardened dragon, or his friends for that matter, expected in the slightest.
A mere heartbeat before the three attacks found their mark, the stallion’s lowered horn erupted with light; said light expanded out into the form of a glass-like wall, which within an instant had surrounded himself, his troops, and the now nervous looking ponies standing closest to him, including Twilight and her friends.
Upon colliding with the shield, Spyro watched in surprise as his lighting crackled violently, before disappearing in a sudden flash of light, and apparently doing so without any effect on the magical wall whatsoever. Likewise the two dragonesses’ fires roared and danced across the barrier’s amethyst surface, Ember’s flames momentarily filling the library with a combination of immense heat and golden light, before fading into thin air.
“Well… looks like I might’ve under estimated him a bit.”
“Yeah, just a bit,” Cynder growled as she rolled her eyes, her head still lowered and jaws partly open.
Now Shining Armor and the royal guards were quickly making their own move. Slowly, and moving as a team, they began to spread out and encircle the small group. The two unicorn guards at the line formations end were now curving around and forming what a semi-circle formation, pushing the four dragons back towards the wall, presumably to stop any escape attempts.
“Surrender now and we won’t harm any of you,” Shining Armor ordered. “This is your last warning; continue to resist and we’ll be forced to use magic.”
The white stallion was still wearing his commanding blank expression, but, in his blue eyes, Spyro could see all he needed to know; there was an unmistakable drive burning in their core, an unquestionable need to protect his land and fulfil his duty, in all, a rather familiar feeling for the purple dragon.
Whatever ended up happening, he would confidently bet his horns that the stallion wasn’t going to back down, much like a certain earth guardian dragon Spyro knew would’ve done; it was just too bad that dragons in general had a habit of being about as stubborn as they come.
“Spike, you wouldn’t have any idea how powerful that barrier is, would you?” Spyro asked, cracking his neck and readying to charge at the shield head on, eyes glancing between Spike and the advancing guards.
“That shield spell is basically Shining’s special talent… from what I’ve seen personally, it takes a lot to break it, even a small one like that… and when I say a lot, I mean a lot.”
Those words, somewhat unfortunately for everyone, got the attention of Cynder. “Well then, we’ll just have to hit it with a lot,” She smirked wildly, the tone in her voice making both male dragons very nervous, and very quickly at that. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll try something different… but just a heads up you two, no matter what happens, Shining Armor’s mine.”
“Oh no,” Ember sighed as she rolled her blue eyes and face-clawed. “This really isn’t going to end well.”
Cynder’s smile seemed to widen at Ember’s dismay, and that in turn served to make Spike even more worried, the young dragon quickly backing away a step or two; given Spyro had just breathed lightning of all things, Spike wasn’t sure what to expect anymore, and if it was Cynder of all dragons smiling like she was, he wasn’t sure if wanted to find out either.
Before he could get a word out though, or even gain the faintest clue from Ember, the violet dragoness did something both amazing, and terrifying.
She turned herself into a living twister.
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Spike had, on more occasions then he could care to remember, woken up in the morning to find Twilight had overworked herself with her studies, fallen asleep where she’d been reading the night before, and left the library floor piled high with open books on every possible topic.
The other similar event, where the library ended up looking like a tornado had come through, was when Rainbow Dash came crashing through a window after failing at a stunt, and slamming into one of the bookcases at high speed. Both events, regrettably for the young dragon, often resulted in the library ending up in the same disaster-zone like state, and him having to clean it up.
Neither of those, however, had ever created half the mess that Cynder was currently making.
Within a bare second of starting her attack, the dark dragoness was spinning encased in a spiralling tunnel of howling air, sucking up just about anything and everything around her not bolted down, and rapidly throwing it in a constant volley at the now surprised royal guards. Before Spike’s green eyes, the books that had previously lined the library’s shelves, and just about everything else in the room as well, including hoof-made wooden chairs and tables, entire cakes of every size, colourful party decorations, and barrels of Apple family cider, rained down on Shining Armor’s barrier like a hail storm.
“Ok, black fire I can kinda take, but where’d she learn how to do that?”
“She didn’t learn it Spike, it was forced on her... and my advice, don’t ask,” Spyro growled in reply. “Cynder… doesn’t really like to talk about it.”
Now most ponies were yelling, and frantically running for the door as fast as their hooves could carry them, apparently deciding it was the best option available if they wanted to save their hides. All the while assorted objects were bouncing off the royal guard captain’s shield, and crashing into the walls and floor around them with resounding thuds and bangs.
Spike winced as he saw Twilight gasp at the destruction of her books, and then abruptly faint from shock, Rarity and Fluttershy quickly trying to bring her around.
As the chaotic cyclone raged on, Spike watched the resulting debris give the library’s interior a lovely new paint job… If ones definition of ‘lovely’ was the delectable colours of Sugercube Corner produced cake, and the yellow of Sweet Apple Acres’ apple cider that was. The young dragon’s eyebrow also rose a little as he saw Pinkie Pie, for some unexplainable reason, licking off cake from a nearby wall, and doing so without an apparent care in Equestria.
“Pinkie Pie, what the hay are you doing?” Rainbow Dash shouted in frustration, the cyan pegasus trying to avoid the steady stream of books that were flying at her. “Get down!”
“No! No cake can ever go to waste Dashie!” Pinkie declared in response, muzzle covered in coloured frosting and cider alike. “Never-ever-ever! Besides, I’ve never tried cake and cider at the same time before!”
Dash just rolled her eyes, and hastily left the pink mare to her own devices. “I swear I’m ‘never-ever-ever’ going to understand her.”
Just as he felt himself being lifted skywards by Cynder’s twister, Spike dropped down to all fours, and dug his short but sharp talons in the wooden floor beside Ember in an effort to anchor himself; the pair of young mates, along with Spyro, were now trying their best not to become more ammunition for Cynder, a hard task given they were standing right next to the violet dragoness.
“Now you know why I said this wouldn’t end well,” Ember said in Spike’s ear, the pink dragoness’s wings flaring as they were pulled upwards by Cynder’s twister.
“Yeah… Twilight’s probably gonna have my scales for this.”
Luckily for everypony, the twister ended up only lasting for a few seconds, for just as quickly and abruptly as it had begun, the pillar of air slowed, dissipated away, and dropped everything it had previously sucked up to the floor.
Leaving a destroyed room, a silent crowd, and an amused dark dragoness in its wake.
Cynder’s tornado impression ended as she landed again on all fours with a light thud, the dragoness proudly wearing a wild grin on her face as she flexed her claws, and looked at the lightly cracked purple shield before her.
“Well, that’s my warm up out of the way,” She smirked, bladed tail thrashing with anticipation.
Now, to Spike at least, it seemed she was happily done toying with the guards, and had decided it was time to take the fight right to them claw-to-hoof, his older brother figure in particular. Given their current position, he wasn’t exactly surprised; if anything, he figured it was the best option available, since Just as her talons met the floor, he noticed the ten guards tense up in ready to charge forward, in theory to try and subdue them all at once.
Before the royal guards could even take a step towards them though, Cynder was gone again, the dragoness swiftly jumping forward into her shadow, and completely vanishing from sight.
From behind his shield, a wide eyed Shining Armor looked somewhere between confused and annoyed. “Where’d she g-GAH!”
CLANG!
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CLANG!
Despite his thick armor, and his no doubt copious amount of prior combat training and experience, Cynder could just about hear the white stallion’s body yell out in pain, and his armor crumple a little, as her hard, shadow-empowered talons drove into his chest plate; at that particular moment, Cynder figured Shining Armor probably felt like he’d just been bucked by the strongest, heaviest earth pony stallion in the entire royal guard, not some slender violet dragoness that probably weighed half as much as he did.
“That’s only because he’s wearing all that metal,” she thought with a smirk.
Admittedly, she was both light and slender for a dragon, but in a fight that had never hindered her in the slightest; she knew how to hit just as hard as any other dragon, if not harder given her unusual abilities, plus her speed alone was lethal.
Up until now, her plan had worked perfectly; she had jumped into her shadow, quickly moved underneath Shining Armor’s rather annoying barrier spell, and then managed to drive into him dead on as she emerged again, the result being a loud clang, followed by the stallion stumbling backwards a few steps, and everypony else gasping in shock.
The white coated guard captain though, to the dragoness’s slight confusion, looked surprised more than anything at being hit. “How the hay did you…”
CRASH!
And that, as luck would have it, was when one of Spyro’s boulder-like earth missiles ploughed through Shining Armor’s already weakened shield, and shattered the pink crystal barrier into a thousand pieces. The resounding crash caused the guards to duck as chunks of crystal flew at them, and then ready themselves as three more sets of dragon fangs came charging towards them, courtesy of Spyro, Ember, and to a slightly lesser extent, Spike.
“…That,” Shining Armor finished, rapidly looking between Cynder, and the quickly forming crowd of clashing hooves and claws.
“Heh, not all dragons just breathe fire,” Cynder grinned, leaving her friends to deal with the other royal guards, and diving straight at their stallion captain.
With a slash of her crimson wings, she added further insult to the royal guard captain’s prior injury. With deadly trained grace she had perfected over many battles, the dragoness back-flipping in mid-air, slashed her bladed tail in an arc across the guard captain’s plate, and then slammed her back legs into him with all the force she could muster; the slash of her tail drew golden sparks as it scrapped the metal, and her kicks landed right where she’d aimed with another metallic clang.
That, however, was when her new-found fortune evaporated, and quickly at that.
Despite all her leg strength being driven behind her second, well-aimed strike, the armored stallion barely even flinched as her talons ploughed into his torso plating, let alone moved backwards any more.
That, as she knew all too well, was the unfortunate nature of a surprise attack; it only ever worked when your target was surprised by it, generally unprepared, or as in this case, when they weren’t a decent amount heavier than you.
Shining Armor though wasn’t going to give her a respite in light of her surprise, and instead rewarded her aggression and mistake by snorting, and forcing the dragoness to quickly roll sideways to avoid a burst of pinkish-purple magic that shot from his horn; the glowing projectile missed her by a scale’s width, before striking, and decently scorching the wall she’d been backed up against moments earlier.
“You just made a really big mistake,” he snorted through clenched teeth, the stallion lowering himself into a combat stance.
“Well, this is... going to be enjoyable.” Cynder groaned as she righted herself, the dragoness ducking under another glowing magic bolt.
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Spike, as much as he hated to admit it at the present moment, was in way over his head, and for once he really knew it. He’d never been in a real fight before in his entire life; sure, he’d bravely charged in to save Rarity from a pack of diamond dogs, amongst a few other precarious scenarios he’d gone through, but none of those situations had actually led to a fight of sorts.
Truth be told, he would’ve very much liked things to have stayed that way.
And yet, due to Cynder’s inability to accept being told what to do, he’d now somehow found himself latched onto the back of a thrashing earth pony royal guard, with his claws holding chunks of blue mane while his legs sat wrapped around the pony’s neck. In return, said earth pony was snorting, blowing, bucking, and in general doing everything possible to throw the dragon off, all the while Spike was trying in vain to subdue him.
Still, despite the guard’s best efforts, Spike refused to release his stubborn grasp around the pony’s neck; years of riding on Twilight’s back, and at varying speeds across countless different terrains at that, had rendered him skilled at hanging on whenever he needed to.
Now he could feel the guard quickly tiring underneath him with his continuous effort, not exactly surprising to Spike, given he was virtually attempting a bronco buck while covered head to hoof in plate armor, with the added weight of a dragon on his back to boot.
Twilight herself, after regaining consciousness, had moved her friends to the top of the stairs for safety, and was now nervously biting her hoof as she watched the scene unfold, mainly Cynder’s rather destructive one-on-one with her older brother.
“Somepony… get this… dragon… off me!” the earth pony panted to his fellow guards, who were currently having their own problems dealing with the combat skilled pair of Spyro and Ember.
And that was when things went downhill for Spike.
One of the unicorn guard’s, upon hearing his struggling comrade’s plea, quickly departed his prior fight with Spyro, turned around to the grappling dragon-pony pair, and lowered his now glowing horn; a mere moment later, the unicorn’s horn flashed a bright blue, and Spike found himself forced to duck as a pulse of sky coloured magic flew past his shoulder, all the while trying to maintain his iron grip on the still bucking earth pony’s thick mane.
“Come! On! Flare! I can’t *gasp* keep this up *gasp* much *gasp* longer!” the earth pony panted in exhaustion, rearing up with his front legs as he tried to throw the dragon off once again.
“Bracer! It would help if would you held still for Celestia’s damn sake!” the unicorn guard snapped angrily in return, his horn glowing in preparation for another shot. “I can’t hit him if you keep jumping around like something’s got your tail in its teeth!”
“Gummy!” Pinkie Pie shouted from the stairwell, hastily searching for her pet alligator. “Oh, wait, it can’t be Gummy! He’s got no teeth!”
A large amount of face-hoofs followed the pink mare’s bizarre statement, courtesy of her friends.
Just as he came down from his rear-up, and much to Spike’s misfortune, the stocky royal guard did just that; heavily, Golden Bracer drove his armored front hooves into the wooden floor as he landed, and then froze dead on the spot, the sudden impact sending a bone-rattling jar through Spike’s entire body and nearly dislodging him from his seat.
Just as he did so, Flare sent off a second burst of magic, the glowing blue projectile aimed straight at the somewhat stunned dragon.
“Pony-feathers!”
It was in that very instant that Spike thanked both his ability to think quickly under pressure, and his short but rather sharp claws; just as the second blast came a little too close for comfort, he drew his talons, and without another thought jabbed them firmly into the soft base of Bracer’s neck, just beneath the rim of the pony’s golden armour where his neck met his shoulders.
The desired reaction was instant.
“YAA! GET OFF ME!!”
In that instant of pain, Bracer followed his natural instincts just as Spike had predicted he would, said instincts being to once again rear up to try and dislodge the source of pain that was currently perched on his back. As he reared up though, Spike released his grip on the pony’s blue mane and hastily rolled off, landing flat on his back in time to see the bolt of blue magic, which had previously been meant for him, forcefully connect with the side of Bracer’s surprised, helmeted face.
There was a resounding metallic ‘clang’ as the unconscious marble and blue guard hit the floor.
For a moment after, Flash Flare just shifted his eyes rapidly between the purple dragon, and his now downed comrade, his jaw freely hanging open, and his mind trying to comprehend how exactly he’d managed to knock Bracer out instead of Spike.
Then he turned, glared at the young dragon, and willed his horn to glow. “Why you little…” he started angrily.
He didn’t, however, get the chance to finish that insult. Before the final words could leave his muzzle, or his binding spell leave his horn for that matter, a set of curved golden horns slammed into his armoured side like a pair of back hooves; the force sent him hurtling straight into the hard timber of an adjacent bookcase, the resulting collision causing the few books that had miraculously remained on the shelves to quickly dislodge themselves, entrapping the dazed guard under a small pile of literature and wooden shelving.
All thanks to a snarling pink dragoness.
“Are you ok?” she asked as she turned to Spike, her angry expression quickly fading into a look of concern.
“Yeah, I’ve... had worse… but remind me to never get on your bad side,” he said sheepishly with a sigh of relief, gladly grabbing Ember’s pink tail as she pulled him up from the floor. “That looked like it must’ve hurt.”
Ember just smiled and shook her head. “To be honest, I don’t think you could ever get on my bad side Spike,” the pink dragoness smirked, taking a moment to nuzzle his cheek.
“Well that’s a relief, I’d hate to end up like that guy,” Spike grinned, pointing a thumb to the pile of various coloured books, pony, and wood. “Though right now, I’m not complaining about him being there.”
“Hehe, yeah… we’ll dig him out later Spike, for now you just follow me and stay close; we’ve still got more of these guards to deal with, and I think Spyro could probably use some help right about now.”
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“I swear I’d prefer to be fighting another earth golem to this,” Spyro hissed in frustration as he rolled sideways, the purple dragon narrowly avoiding the armored front hooves of a swooping pegasus guard, only to come face-to-face with an earth pony’s back legs. “Well... maybe not quite an earth golem.”
As rare as the word was to him, this fight was proving to be a challenge, even with his excess of prior experience and numerous abilities. He’d fought packs of enemies before for sure, some numbering fifteen or more at a time in a few unfortunate instances, but none of those had ever been as uniform as these guard ponies; where one made a mistake, another would immediately cover for them, whenever he tried to single out one pony in particular, another two would come between him and his target, or one of the two unicorns would send bursts of magic at him.
Plus the stray remains of books, piles of splattered cake, and puddles of cider that dotted the floor weren’t making manoeuvring any easier.
He was quickly coming to understand why these were the guards of pony royalty, and silently wishing either Hunter or Sparx was around to have his back, or perhaps Terrador to give him some advice on strategy, or just pound a few of the guards into the dirt with his massive mace-ended tail.
“Alright, now this is just getting annoying,” he growled angrily, dodging the earth pony’s powerful back leg buck, and then charging forward while the pony was vulnerable, intent on driving either his claws or golden horns into the guard’s heavily armoured side.
And that was when something strange happened; a wave of bright green fire suddenly engulfed the unsuspecting white coated pony’s body.
In front of Spyro’s widening eyes, the royal guard’s golden plate armor literally burned off like it was just parchment, disappeared into thin air, and floated out a nearby window as a trail of black smoke. Before the armour-less guard knew what was happening, Spyro’s charging horns drove into the pony’s now exposed side, the result being a resounding crack and a yell of pain from said pony’s maw, followed by him toppling over and clutching his battered ribs.
Spyro, along with the remaining stunned royal guards, could only blink for a moment, the dragon’s mind trying to absorb what he was seeing.
Standing right over the top of the downed equine, with bright green flames still flicking in his jaws, was Spike.
“You… can burn off… armor?” Spyro sputtered in amazement, the dark purple dragon ducking under a glowing green bolt of magic, while frantically looking between the downed guard and his wingless friend. “Which element would that be? Earth? Or Poison maybe?”
Spike blushed slightly, and shook his head as he jumped over the floored pony, a spell striking the spot where’d he been standing a moment earlier. “Not exactly... I can send messages using my fire, so I kinda figured why not something else... all I had to do was think of somepony or somewhere I wanted it to go to.”
Spyro’s eyebrow twitched. “Wait... so did you just... send his armor to Princess Celestia or something?” he asked. “Because that would kind of be a bad idea, Spike.”
“Nah, I just sent it to Sweet Apple Acres.” Spike smirked. “AJ’s probably gonna find it on her barn floor when she gets home.”
Spyro couldn’t help but grin mischievously; it seemed Spike had a few tricks of his own hidden under his scales, plus, Spyro guessed, he had a lot more initiative then he’d originally given his friend credit for.
The purple dragon went to reply, but before he could, the pegasus guard who’d previously been swooping him seemed to have snapped out of his stupor, and ended up returning with a vengeance. The pony suddenly dived down between the two friends, resulting in the two dragons stumbling backwards to avoid the marble pony’s armoured front hooves, and doing so with barely a scale’s width to spare.
“Woah! Where the hay did he come from?” Spike started, rapidly covering his head with his claws.
“Uh, we’ll talk later, Spike,” Spyro growled through clenched teeth, tensing his back legs, and readying himself as the pegasus tried to swoop in once again.
With well-trained and honed precision, Spike watched in awe as Spyro flared his red wings, and jumped into the air just as the pony flew over his head, twisting as he did so to dodge a couple of magic bursts from the remaining pair of unicorns.
With seemingly relative ease, his razor sharp claws grabbed hold of the guard’s metal plate; then Spyro twisted in mid-air, and with all his might, hurled the startled pony at the wooden floor below.
The unfortunate armored pegasus hit the timber floor with a loud metallic bang, another quickly following as Spyro dove straight downwards, and slammed himself into pony’s torso plate like a falling purple sledgehammer; Spike couldn’t help but wince in sympathy as he heard the guard cry out in response to Spyro’s horns smashing into him, in some ways it was just like the Pinkie sense incident, where all number of heavy objects had, one fine day, somehow managed to land directly on Twilight’s head.
Before the guard could try and rise again, Spyro rolled off, righted himself on all fours, and bit down on the guard’s leg plate; like the combination of the pegasus and his golden armor weighed nothing, the older dragon then swiftly arched his neck, hoisted his still thrashing and snorting quarry skywards, and at last brutally slammed the pony back into the floor a bare meter from where Spike was standing…
The guard didn’t get back up again.
“That’ll teach you,” Spyro snorted as he spat the unconscious pony’s leg out, the unlikeable taste of metal still lingering on his tongue.
“Spyro! Move!”
No sooner had he released the guard though, Spyro’s head snapped around as a tongue of bright green flame suddenly erupted from Spike’s maw, and as it happened came rushing straight towards him; without another thought, the wide-eyed purple dragon’s battle instincts caused him to leap out of the way, his tail feeling the slightest amount of heat on its tip as he moved.
“What was that about?”
Spike’s reason though quickly became clear; looking back over his shoulder just as he landed, Spyro saw the wave of emerald fire engulf and dissipate two more of the unicorn guards’ spells, both projectiles presumably meant for him while his back was turned.
“Thanks Spike…but next time, how about a little more advance warning when you’re about to do that,” he said with an amused snort, turning and facing the two ponies who’d just tried to blast him. “Listen, I can handle these two and their magic on my own, so how about you go see how Ember’s coping.”
“You sure you got this?”
Spyro just grinned as he turned toward the two unicorns, smiling as he shook his head. “Trust me Spike, given what I’ve been through before, I’ll be fine no matter what they throw at me... you just go help Ember for now ok, heh, she’s your mate after all.”
Spyro gave a small smirk as he watched his new, and slightly blushing friend give a salute and depart; he had to give it to Spike, for a dragon lacking in wings, size, and any real fighting experience, he really had heart.
“And now to deal with you two,” He growled, burning eyes locked with those of the two golden armoured unicorns, who stood their ground and glared straight back at him.
With a parting snarl at the pegasus guard who’d annoyed him, the purple dragon left the pony lying right where he’d fallen, and moved on to the two remaining unicorns, his jaws parting and sending a barrage of ice spikes towards them.
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Deciding that Spyro could probably take care of himself, Spike quickly turned and glanced around the demolition site that was the library’s disaster-zone of a main room, his main intention being to locate where Ember had ended up. Everywhere around him there was fighting; a snarling Cynder and equally angry Shining Armor were still locked in a vicious one-on-one, trading glowing pink bursts of magic, eerie red blasts, and even green blobs of he-didn’t-want-to-know-what with each other by the looks of things.
Spyro was likewise sending what looked to be lightning and ice attacks at the two remaining unicorns, while they were firing stun spells right back at him in return, and Twilight and her friends were still crowded at the stop of the stairs.
“How they hay did it come to this?” Spike thought bitterly as he headed Ember’s way.
She was, as he saw, presently locked in a literally heated fray with the last earth pony and an aerial pegasus, small bursts of red fire keeping them both at relative bay when they came to close. For a few moments he could only stand and stare in awe as his pink dragoness fillyfriend fought, her normal bubbly happiness somehow having been replaced by an almost scary ferocity, one that he couldn’t quite believe she had in her.
He wasn’t sure if his presence would help or hamper the pink dragoness, but either way, he liked the idea of fighting beside her more than standing and twiddling his claws; hence, mustering all the confidence he could conjure, the young dragon prepared to enter the fray alongside his dragoness partner.
Fate, however, had vastly different ideas for him.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
From his circling position above the various scuffles that dotted the library, Sword Feather, the last free standing of the original three pegasi royal guards, saw the short purple and green dragon trying to sneak up on one of his fellow royal guards, and that didn’t sit well with the stallion one bit; the little dragon had already caused Flash Flare to knock out Golden Bracer, burned off Steel Hoof’s armor like it was paper, and was now apparently trying to attack Iron Sides and Storm Chaser with the pink one.
That wasn’t going to happen on his watch.
And thus, it was then a white and gold blur shot down from the ceiling, suddenly swooped in from Spike’s right, and before he could react let alone get out of the way, forcefully tackled him to the floor. Each one of Feather’s armoured hooves found its ways to one of the dragon’s shoulders, and pinned him firmly against the stained timber, his strength easily outmatching that of his scaly opponent.
“Gotcha!” he snorted venomously.
“SPIKE!” various voices all cried out in unison, each seeming to come from a different direction, but predominantly from the stairwell.
“Huh?”
The dragon’s green eyes snapped open, and his prior daze retreated at the loud call of his name; rather than seeing his friends standing over him, however, his view was greeted by the helmeted face of a scolding pegasus guard contrasted against the wooden ceiling.
That was perhaps the last thing he wanted to find himself looking at.
In response to the sudden realization of being pinned down, he quickly and desperately began struggling against the guard’s weight in an attempt to free himself, twisting, turning, and pulling his arms in an effort to remove his purple scales from the pony’s grasp.
Despite his best efforts though, the securing hooves remained, and if anything the pegasus only pushed down on him harder.
“Let go of me!” Spike said angrily, trying his best to bite at the pony’s forelegs as he thrashed and struggled, to little avail.
The winged guard just kept his hooves where they were, and if anything pressed down harder.
“Dawn, Blitz, would one of you kindly bring your horn over here and bind this guy up!” he shouted, his words directed at the two nearby unicorn guards who were duelling with Spyro.
“We’re both a bit busy here Feather!” one of them shouted back, a barrage of ice spikes just missing his left flank, courtesy of a snarling Spyro. “If you somehow failed to notice already! Just... try and hold him there for a second, alright.”
“I gotta… get this guy off me,” Spike thought angrily, the purple hatchling glaring daggers at the pegasus as he struggled.
Fate evidently felt bad for what it had done prior it seemed, for as his eyes ran over the pony’s blue plumed golden helmet, the flame of an idea sparked in the depths of his mind; it was farfetched, crazy, and even rather dangerous in a few regards, but it was just about his only available option, plus he didn’t owe his pegasus adversary any favours other than a painful one.
“This is either going to go really well,” the dragon groaned, shutting his jaws firmly, and allowing a mother of a fireball to build up inside. “Or really, really badly.”
He allowed it to build to its absolute maximum inside his closed jaws, knowing full well that he would need every ounce of flame available to make his plan work, if it even did work that was. Once his cheeks were building to their absolute fullest, and rather painfully so at that, he opened his fanged maw, and allowed a massive wave of brilliant emerald fire to spew forth like the waters of a burst dam, engulf the unsuspecting guard, and convert him into nothing but a floating tail of black smoke.
Within a second, everyone and everything around Spike stopped.
...........................................................................................................................................................
“All right,” Cynder snarled as her bladed tail slashed a green covered book in half, said book being one of the three Shining Armor had just levitated, and then hurled at her with his magic. “Now you’re really starting to get under my scales!”
“May I remind you that you started this Cynder, not me… I gave you a chance earlier to go quietly, and you didn’t take it,” the blue maned stallion snorted in return, his armored hoof pawing at the floor as his horn began to glow again.
“Oh sure,” Cynder snorted as she rolled her eyes, her deadly talons digging notches into the timber beneath them as she scraped it. “Because coming with you and ending up in a dungeon somewhere is such an inviting prospect… thanks, but no thanks.”
“Look, how about you lose the attitude, do yourself a favour, and just surrender now while I still have some level of patience?”
The dragoness’s lips curled back in response to his words, showing her rows of fangs. “How about no?” she growled, suddenly unleashing a tongue of dark shadow fire at him.
Cynder wasn’t sure how long the two of them had been brawling, but it was really starting to feel like long enough, if not too long already in her opinion; her wings were tired, her muscles were aching, on top of that she’d been ramming and kicking trees most of the day, and now it was getting late into the night.
This was looking to be a very long day indeed.
“You just don’t know when to give up do you?” Shining Armor sighed in a tone of annoyance, the royal guard captain’s horn erupting with light, and an amethyst shield forming between the two of them.
Cynder watched on in frustration and anger as her shadow fire hit the stallion’s barrier, and danced across its surface before disappearing. Of all his strengths in combat, that shield was proving to be the most annoying to her; being as heavy as he was compared to her light and agile build, she could out manoeuvre him with one wing tied down, and dodge most of the spells he fired at her with relative ease, but actually hitting him was proving to be problematic.
His shield spell was stopping every long ranged breath attack she threw at him, and apparently doing so while barely taking any damage itself other than a few small cracks, a fact that was now really getting on the dragoness’s nerves; even her siren scream, scorpion strike, and shadow fire attacks all did barely any damage to the thing, and unless she wanted Twilight to be seething and probably trying to blast her like her brother was, doing her twister attack again probably wasn’t such a good plan.
Then there was the issue of close quarters combat; she could strike him fast for sure with her claws, tail, and maybe her fangs, but he could also hit her twice as hard if she slipped up and gave him the chance, plus his full suit of plate armor meant there were very few places available on his frame for her to actually land a decent hit.
Without them being lethal that was.
“Why do you want to keep fighting so badly anyway Cynder?” Shining Armor asked as the black flames died away, the tone in the white stallion’s voice, for the first time not sounding so aggressive, slightly confusing the dragoness. “What do you actually hope to achieve by beating me? You’ve already dug yourself deep enough to be taken to Canterlot, if not brought before Princess Celestia herself... do you really think that’s all going to change if you somehow manage to kick my flank? If anything that’ll only make it worse.”
The violet dragoness, to the slightest extent, lowered her wings and softened her snarl. “You really think I’m just trying to stop you taking me away? You can’t seriously be the royal guard captain if you’re that thick can you?”
“Then what the hay is all this fighting about? Why didn’t you just come qu...”
Cynder growled and cut him off. “I said ‘just trying to stop you’, meaning that’s it part of the reason... do you actually believe I’d allow you to drag me away without fighting back? Nu-uh, sorry, but that’s not happening.”
She took a breath and sighed before continuing, her crimson wings dropping a slight amount more.
“But you want to know the real reason I’m trying to kick your flank? It’s because you, just like everyone else, need to realize that you can’t just tell me what to do and expect me to obey, just because of who you are... very few have that right. For part of my life all I did was follow another dragon’s orders, and you know what happened? It ended up getting me hated, distrusted, and feared everywhere I went!”
The stallion remained in a combat ready stance throughout her outburst, and never once took his eyes or horn off of his violet opponent, but deep inside him something flared and his anger softened; whether her story was true or not he couldn’t tell, he wasn’t the element of honesty after all, but a feeling of pity for the dragon was none the less slowly awakening inside him.
“So what then?” he asked as they circled each other, keeping his voice firm like a royal guard captain should, but putting no extra anger or aggression into his words. “Do you just... not listen to any good advice anypony gives you? Just because of what one dragon did?”
“Good advice I take,” Cynder snorted, sounding far from amused at his assumption. “Order’s I don’t... when I’m faced with decisions, I trust myself and my own judgement; like I said, I used to listen to what another dragon told me, and he was a lot older and more powerful than I was... but all the things he told me to do were for his gain... at the cost of everyone else, including me," she hissed and shook her head. "Since then I’ve decided the only ones who I’ll ever listen to are Spyro, and the dragon guardians, them at least I know I can trust.”
Trust.
His jaw slackened in a second, and everything came crashing together in Shining Armor’s mind as all his anger evaporated, the jagged puzzle that was the dragoness coming together as her words resounded in his ears.
Perhaps his anger had clouded his ability to see it earlier, perhaps it was too well masked by her bravado and aggression, but, either way, he felt slightly like a foal for not realizing.
Some time in her life, he realized, she had more then likely been manipulated, used, and abused by someone, and afterward it had left her in a state of being a hollow shell of who she should've been; broken, scarred, and almost paranoid when it came to trusting others.
Just as Chrysalis had left him.
With that realization resounding in his brain, a heavy feeling of guilt suddenly settled in his gut; he’d allowed his personal experiences and paranoia cloud his judgement, of both the three young dragons and the entire situation as a whole, and in doing so had only managed to make things far worse than they needed to be.
To say he felt foalish would’ve been the understatement of the century.
“It… hurt… didn’t it?” he sighed at last.
Cynder recoiled slightly at the words, her eye brow rising up her forehead a little in interest. “What do you mean?” she asked as she stopped circling, growling like she was mildly curious.
The royal guard captain took a deep breath, hoped against hope that he was right, and continued. “It hurt didn’t it? Realizing that you’d hurt others that you shouldn’t have, that you’d done or helped do terrible things without knowing, and that the entire time you were being used for someone else’s gain without seeing it?”
“W-what are you talking about?” she snapped as she bared her fangs.
Despite her aggression, he could hear the obvious crack in the violet dragoness’s voice.
“You were manipulated weren’t you?” he went on, taking a slow and cautious step forward, despite the continuous sounds of fighting that surrounded them both. “By that other dragon... the one who you thought you could trust? That’s why your unwilling do what others tell you, because he made you do things that were wrong… didn’t he?”
“B-be quiet!”
“That’s why you don’t trust anyone else, isn’t it?”
“I...”
“I’m right aren’t I?” he pushed on vigorously.
Her face, to his surprise, faded from an angry and defensive snarl into a look of shock as she backed up a little, her bladed tail now right up against an empty bookcase.
“I... I had no choice,” she stuttered as he wings and tail dropped completely in defeat, the violet dragoness now feeling her eyes burn, and the walls that held her together inside beginning to tumble. “He had my egg stolen, he corrupted me with his dark power... and he turned me into a monster so I could serve him...”
“What did he make you do?” he asked, his voice coming out softly, as Cadence’s did when they spoke. “This other dragon?”
The dragoness growled in her throat and stared at her claws. “Things… that I’ll never be able to fully forgive myself for... ugh, what do you care anyway?”
“I’m not judging you Cynder,” Shining Armor sighed gently, the stallion taking another slow step forward, while keeping his blue eyes locked with Cynder’s shimmering green ones. “I... had something similar happen to me not that long ago, so I know how you feel. I’ll admit nopony feared me afterwards, but a lot of them sure as hay thought I shouldn’t have been allowed to keep my rank, especially after I said and did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
“Well then, it seems at least you’re life went back to somewhat normal!” she snapped angrily as she looked away, her eyes now burning as her emotions threatened to get the better of her. “Ever since I was freed from… his… influence, I’ve tried to make amends for what I did... but all anyone ever sees in me is who I used to be... that... that thing I was when I was corrupted!”
“And it makes you angry, doesn’t it? Knowing that everyone doubts you for something that you had no control over?” the guard captain said, his steps now a slow, fluid march towards the crumbling dragoness. “I went through it all Cynder... everypony questioning my ability to lead as guard captain, everypony doubting my ability to protect Canterlot and the princesses...”
Cynder just snorted. “Did they think you were still a monster?”
Shining Armor didn’t need to hear any more, all he needed to know was being reflected in the dragon’s green eyes, eyes that no longer burned with a want to rip him apart, but sadness; in them he saw her pain, suffering, regret, hatred, and rage, emotions that she’d walled up inside herself, and had eventually allowed them to grow, fester, and consume her.
“I don’t see a monster Cynder... I see a dragon who was willing to go against a royal guard captain’s orders, say it to his face, and even fight him one on one, all because he tried to stop her doing what she thought was right. Now if that doesn’t show you’re trying to make amends for what you did wrong, then I don’t know what does.”
To her slight shock and amazement, his hulking frame was by now pretty much standing right over the top of her, the space between them barely measuring half a meter in length, and the base of his blue mane lining up with her snout; right before her eyes was his unarmoured neck, and in front of her sharp talons were his front legs, areas she knew she could probably hit and do serious damage to before he had a chance to even react.
But she couldn’t bring herself to; it felt like a block of stone, which had for so long been painfully resting on her tail, had somehow finally been removed by the very stallion she’d been fighting with for the last half an hour.
She couldn’t help but smirk at the pure ridiculousness of the situation.
“Why is it so quiet?” he asked suddenly, the violet dragoness at first shaking her head in confusion, and then casting her head around the room at his words.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Every pony and dragon still present, as the two of them quickly discovered, was for some reason staring slack-jawed at the purple and green form of Spike, each and every one of them looking like they’d had their tails pulled; Spike, on the other claw, was for some reason unbeknownst to the violet dragoness lying on the wooden floor in the middle of the room, with flicks of green flame coming from his maw and nostrils, and panting rather heavily.
In her increasing confusion, Cynder glanced around at the other’s in the room, all of them as she saw were wearing the same shocked facial expressions; it took her a moment, but eventually she noticed that something was very much off. It seemed that of the original nine alabaster guards who’d come invading the party with Shining Armor, she could only readily account for eight of them still being present, four of them lying about unconscious around the room, and the other four standing rather close to either Spyro or Ember.
“Why is everyone so quiet?” she pondered curiously, only to find out a second later.
“SPIKE!” Twilight suddenly screamed from the top of the stairs, the lavender mare loudly shattering the reign of the awkward silence, and causing everypony else to cringe. “YOU JUST FIRE MAILED A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD!!”
“Annnd That’s why,” she groaned mentally, a claw coming up and meeting her forehead.
Cynder swore she could just about hear Shining Armor’s heart skip a beat, but as it was the stallion only managed to openly let out a small ‘hu’ in response; otherwise, he remained perfectly still in a state of silent shock, bar a slight twitch of his free-hanging lower jaw.
Spike groaned, and gamely attempted to get to his feet before replying. “Well… you see Twilight…” the small dragon started through panted breaths.
That was when the room suddenly erupted with brilliant golden light, the abrupt appearance of said light causing everyone to yelp, and the pure intensity forcing dragon and pony alike to rapidly close their eyes and look away, Cynder quickly tucking her head under her wing membrane for good measure.
The wave of light died a few moments later, and the dragoness quickly heard a collective chorus of gasps from beneath her cover, followed by the sound of hooves crossing the floor towards her, and a flowing voice she didn’t recognize; it was one though that she could instantly tell, going on how it carried both grace and authority, belonged to someone powerful.
“Good evening captain Shining Armor,” it said, definitely female, and sounding to be rather amused. “You know, I must say that this is rather interesting surprise, if I do believe so myself.”
“P-princess Celestia, I can explain, this isn’t…”
“PRINCESS CELESTIA!” Cynder gasped mentally, the violet dragoness suddenly feeling extremely nervous, and like she didn’t want to remove her head from the cover of her wing.
“That’s quite alright Shining Armor,” the regal voice of the princess went on, sounding almost like she was on the verge of giggling. “Cynder, you can come out now, I assure you that I won’t bite.”
Cynder, swallowing the hard lump of fear in her throat, and gathering up what courage she could muster, slowly but surely removed her head from the cover of her wing, and turned to face the co-ruler of Equestria.
She would never admit it, but she was silently glad she had Shining Armor next to her.
The solar princess wasn’t quite as tall as the dragoness had initially expected, but then again, the few leaders she had come to know were towering dragons who were built like mountains, almost literal mountains in the cases of Ignitus and Terrador. She was though still every bit of a true ruler; she carried an aura of majesty and wisdom about her with the way she held herself, her pristine marble coat and flowing rainbow mane reflected an elegance and grace only royalty could possess, and then of course there was her golden regalia that sat atop her horn.
“Horn? That thing’s practically a spear it’s so long,” the dragoness sniggered inwardly.
“So then,” she smiled warmly, her eyes slowly running between Cynder, a now unsure looking Spyro, and an utterly amazed Ember. “Would one of you mind explaining to me how three dragons such as yourselves, from a completely different realm, managed to end up in the library of my personal student of all places? And maybe why a quite frazzled royal guard just appeared in my personal chamber as well?”
The last few words she directed at Spike with a sort of amused grin, prompting the young purple and green dragon to blush and bite his lower lip.
“A completely different realm?” Shining Armor asked oddly, his head swivelling sideways to glance down at Cynder as his eyebrow rose in scepticism.
“Well, you see we…” Cynder started, only for her mind to fully register what had just been said. “Wait… how would you know that princess? Or even my name for that matter?” she asked, staring up at the princess curiously along with everypony else.
Princess Celestia, in a rather improper and unroyal fashion, held a hoof across her mouth and looked the other way, much to the confusion of everyone else in the room; apparently she was trying to hide that fact she was grinning like an amused hatchling, and doing so rather poorly in Cynder’s opinion, since the dragoness swore she could still hear faint laughter.
“Let’s just say... a dragonfly told me,” she smiled at last.
Her words were accompanied by, to Spyro’s great joy, Ember’s glee, and Cynder’s mild shock and slight annoyance, said mentioned and all too familiar dragonfly emerging from her floating rainbow mane, his arms folded and a cheesy grin across his golden face.
“Well ain’t it a nice surprise to see you three again,” he grinned, casually circling Celestia’s head.
“Sparx!” the three dragon’s cried at once.
............................................................................................................................................................
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“YOU JUST FIRE MAILED A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD!!”
i could not stop laughing at this one.....
shinning used feels it was super effective cynder is an emotional wreak
thanks for the update
waiting and watching for the next to come
Yay Sparx is here.
Not bad, that ended up feeling like a reasonably balanced fight. The ponies were clearly not pushovers, but at the same time dragons are dragons.
Good thing for Cynder that Twi fainted when she did, otherwise, destroying her library like that? She's lucky she didn't get rage-teleported into space.
Ooooooo! Love a good Spyro fic!
...
Why didn't I think of that?
Do I need to be familiar with Spyro to read this?
At least you gave Spike a few moments of awsome. Though I still say you should have one of the dragons teach him a thing or two about fighting.
OMG! A new chapter on my birthday?
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From now on spike can just hit the send button
first yes a smaller shield would be easier to break but also easier to repair and maintain 2 when twilight said "YOU JUST FIRE MAILED A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD!!" seriously couldn't stop laughing for like 5 minutes so yer great chapter
Quite a few typos, I've got to say.
Should be capitalized.
Should be maneuver.
Needs an extra space after the question mark and nu-uh needs to be capitalized.
I thought you were using Armor, not Armour.
Again, spacing and capitalization.
Shouldn't that be gasped?
That apostrophe completely changes the meaning of the word, so it needs to go.
Now my opinions of the chapter itself: I think the Royal Guard was lucky that the dragons were holding back, because if they'd used their full power...there would be dead guards everywhere!
Nice to see that there can be a fight happening a few feet away and Pinkie Pie will still be Pinkie Pie!
My reaction to the conversation between Cynder and Shining Armor:
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Now, the question on everyone's mind is, When and how will they find out that Rarity was responsible for this fiasco? And will she be able to salvage her friendship with the others?
Great chapter and I actually prefer this ending rather than Cyder beating Shining sorry flank.
I used to listen to what another dragon told me, and he was a lot older and more powerful than I was... but all the things he told me to do were for his gain... at the cost of everyone else, including me. Since then I’ve decided the only ones who I’ll ever listen to are Spyro, and the dragon guardians, them at least I know I can trust.”
“You were manipulated weren’t you?” He went on, taking a slow and cautious step forward, despite the continuous sounds of fighting that surrounded them both. “By that other dragon... the one who you thought you could trust? That’s why your unwilling do what others tell you, because he made you do things that were wrong… didn’t he?”
“B-be quiet!”
“That’s why you don’t trust anyone else, isn’t it?”
“I...”
“I’m right aren’t I?” He pushed on vigorously.
Why is he asking that like he doesnt know? She just told him she was and now he acts like he had an epiphany and figured it out and she acts surprised. That just felt so odd reading.
Actually, a smaller shield is less area he has to spread his power over. If he poured even half as much power into a personal shield as he did into the Canterlot Dome, Celestia herself might have trouble breaking it.
*SPOILER*
The entire time I was reading this I kept thinking, "Man, this story would be so much more awesome with Sparx in it!" And them that ending happened and I literally cheered.
I thought Cynder could breathe fear; that would have nice to see in this chapter
1990770
Manoeuvre is the proper spelling in UK English.
Spike just traumatized a member of the royal guard. He just BURNED HIM TO DUST! Do you have any idea how painful that has to be... Actually after the pain receptors are gone it probably doesn't hurt at all.
Yay you used my idea
Sparx! Who else came over to Equestria? Please tell me Sparx is going to be the comedian, please.
1993658
This is Sparx we're talking about here, of course he's gonna be a comedian
1990398
Skylanders is mentioned early on in passing, but not really directly related... basically this fic was supposed to happen in between (despite each series being produced by different publishers) LOS: DotD and Skylanders, hence Spyro and Cynder's need to leave Equestria.
Wouldn't a smaller shield be harder to break because all the magic energy is concentrated rathe than spread out over an entire Capitol then again that would be a bit OP because if said Capitol Sheild can stop changeling for a good long time a small pony sized one would be vitually indestructible.
1994670
It depends on how the shield spell is cast I guess, and whether or not the amount of magic required changes with size; if the amount of magic didn't change, then the shield would indeed be stronger due to lots of magic over a small area, but if less magic was required to cast it, then it would be weaker according to size. It's something that's never explained in show, so I just made an assumption and went with it (Shrugs).
aw man i was hoping sparx would be old ps1 style where all he did was bzz bzz bzzzzz bzzz bzzz bzzz bzzz that was awesome... oh well cant have everything
1996033
I still have my copy of Spyro the dragon for ps1... man, I loved just running around, ramming sheep, and watching Sparx devour their butterflies, good times.
Anyway, the main reason I went with LOS Sparx is because of his character; If you haven't played any of the LOS games, he's a snarky comedian, who excels at getting on just about everyone's nerves with his remarks.
1994702
The earlier commenter was right in that the same energy in a smaller shield would be exponentially stronger, but on the other hand, the amount of preparation plays a big factor as well. The canterlot shield was built over days or weeks and was constantly maintained and reinforced. This one was cast by reflex in a split second.
Short version, it feels right to me!
1999227
I'll be honest with you, the only mention of that series is the Skylands itself (as a location which all worlds are connected to), and that's only in passing. The body of this fic (characters, combat styles, breaths etc.) is based of LOS: Dawn of the dragon.
Celestia uses Solar Beam.
It's super- wait, what's that? It was unneeded!
I want to read more of this.
Spyro, Cynder, and Ember are so awesome in this, but I would of thought Flame be in this story since he's always with the 3
I want to read more of this.
Spyro, Cynder, and Ember are so awesome in this, but I would of thought Flame be in this story since he's always with the 3
I want to read more of this.
Spyro, Cynder, and Ember are so awesome in this, but I would of thought Flame be in this story since he's always with the 3
2003157
I have nothing against Flame, but adding him here would've made this... awkward and unbalanced, if you get me, he'd be the odd one out.
With this whole scene taking place in a comparatively small library foyer, the fighting should be fast, messy, and brutal. The combatants really don't have time to stand around for minutes at a time for the sake of dialogue such as,
or
And part at which they were standing round while Spike explained where he sent the royal guard's armor was downright ridiculous with a brawl taking place all around them in such close quarters. In a chapter that is already 10K+ words, the dialogue between them really bogged things down and was very out of context.
It only got interesting when Shining and Cynder started talking. I was looking forward to this chapter for that conflict, not the long-winded descriptions of the fight scene. The fighting was exciting, but someone I only know by association once said, "Story is what happens when you put the guns down."
I still enjoyed the chapter, and I hope this helps you write action scenes in the future.
But still, why the FUCK did people want Shining to beat Cynder!? I wanted it the other way around. Shining's the one who let his emotions take control of his judgement and skipped the diplomatic approach in favor busting in with a show of force to accuse a foreigner after she had defended a complete stranger, and then allowed an insult to get a rise out of him. I'm gonna have to read those comments to understand just what the hell they were thinking.
2056453
I understand everything you're saying, and to be honest you're probably right.
My concern (while writing this chapter) was that I needed to find a balance between dialogue and action. Too much talking, as you've pointed out, becomes tedious to read; by the same token though, I felt that too little dialogue results in the fight looking more like a drunken bar brawl then a proper stand off.
I guess I just need to find the balance, thanks for the advice!
1804729Shining is going to use the BEST plan ever, of all time. SHOTGUN to the FACE. Sarge's plan is best plan.
Where's the "flame" of the fanfic? Hint hint. 13 chaps too late
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Flame... I just couldn't find a place for him in this fic to be honest, sure he's a funny little guy, but he wouldn't have really served a purpose in the storyline. Plus, with CynderXSpyro and SpikeXEmber, he'd be stuck as the odd one out.
I DON'T WANT TO FEEL BAD FOR HER THOUGH! AND WHERE'S THE chap14 BUTTON?!!
I love the Spyro games and Cynder is my favorite character.
I think that your story is pretty good and so far is the only Spyro/MLP cross-over that I've found on this site. By the way Tia's little comment about a little dragonfly told her was a bit of a troll moment in my opinion but sill funny as heck. Keep on writing your stories and I'll keep reading them.
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Thanks!
and yeah, Sparx and Trollestia... I just couldn't resist. 
Just a heads up (if you're interested that is), I think Bronius Maximus has a story going with Cynder as well (though its on Hiatus at the moment I believe). There's also two more Spyro crossovers out there... but the names escape me.
2326787If you remember let me know please and thank you.
When will you make another chapter. This is a nice story, I enjoyed it.
Nice fight, but I wanted to have the dragons imprisoned, then have the mane 6 and spike work on getting them out. Just having it so that Princess Celestia just comes out to stop the fight (way to go, Spike, BTW) w/o any detainment just doesn't work for me. I just think it would have been better if there was a bit of a jailbreak that happened and Twilight bails them out.
Also, I think miss Rarity has to come to grips with the fact that she's lost possibly something she didn't know she had until she lost it--spike's affection to her, because now Spike's got his girlfriend Ember, and obviously she's taking care of Sjpike a hell lot more loving than Rarity ever did.
loving this story man
rarity is acting the opposite of generous
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This is done rather well.I fully agree with you about Shining Armors character and I believe you have presented all the characters just as they are in the show and game.I hope to see the next chapter soon. :)
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Yeeeaaahh... I probably deserve a bullet in the foot by now
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I should be sending the next chapter to my editor either tonight or tomorrow. Uni's just been a giant f****** leech of my time recently (two research essays, a 24 page drawing task, and a studio assignment
)