> A Scaled Flame: Return Of The Legend > by Opius Malikai > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter One:Reawakening of an Old Hero and an Elder > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had a lot of time to take in the details. A lot of time. Like so much ti-that's getting annoying. It was hard at first because I couldn't really see as my powers didn't come with X-ray vision. That would be cool though. I had to try and find my inner peace. Or at least that's what I thought. It took a hundred years of meditating and screaming at myself in frustration before I got the ability to see my surroundings outside of my stone prison. I was put in stone for a reason but i'll get to that in a little bit. There wasn't much really. There were two crates in one corner of the room, in another corner a pipe was coming from the ceiling with water dripping down. The brick walls had 5,732 cracks(I had the time to count), and covered all of the walls,of course their was a floor and a ceiling. Beyond that I couldn't see much. I could feel that there was earth all around me except for behind the door in front of me. So I knew I was in the lowest part of the building. I was probably in the alicorn sisters castle. Remember what I said about stone prison? Well they caused it. They put me in stone as their prisoner. You could say I'm technically a prisoner of war. A prisoner of war they never let go. When I was in the third pony-dragon war. I stood in their throne room. The Alicorn sisters. One was had dark-blue fur, the other white. Both were wearing armor that matched their coats. They held their swords with pride and had a courageous look on their face, thinking they could win. Of course they were quite familiar with my styles and ways of fighting. It was important to observe everything that I could use to my advantage. Not much was nearby, an indent in the floor suggested a trapdoor, the design was beautiful so I would try to limit destruction. The room was like a hall but had two raised up thrones at one end. The rug on the ground was tattered and singed. All around us were the sounds of battle, fire erupting, and screams. They started charging me and I sidestepped to the right. I held out my right hand and thought of my sword. It's design in a way that it had a large hilt, with a sharp blade. The sword came out of the ground and I took quick hold of it. The darker one slashed at me to which I ducked under and stabbed her leg. She stood strong but screamed out in pain. The white one charged me again and I clashed swords with her. I started to push her back until she flew back herself. They looked at each other and nodded. Using their magic they activated the "Trapped Door" and out came six stones. They took three each and powered them up. As I attempted to run at them they blasted me with a rainbow putting me in my stony prison... That was one thousand and nine hundred years ago. I had summarized the two hour battle by a lot. Thinking about this made me think of all the things I miss from being put in stone. Food, Meat, Battle, and most importantly sunlight. Sunlight is amazing the way it warms your skin. How it makes you shine. The way it makes you feel like it can guide you. The only bad thing is Celestial controls it. I still feel loathing for both her and her sister. I think her name was Lunar. Their names aren't important. They both move the sun and the moon. In that order specifically. Now I know what your saying, 'Moving the sun and moon is impossible.' Well the way they do it...is with magic. Before you shut the book or close your browser or whatever your reading this on let me explain. The reason why i'm trapped in stone and in a place with peo-beings called Celestial is because I'm not on earth. I came to this world two thousand years ago. And i'm in a universe with talking Anthromorphic ponies. Let that sink in. Let's move on now. Now you'd probably think I wouldn't be informed much. You'd be wrong. Because for a while Celestial would come in every week telling me about recent news and things from my dragon family. One week she came in and told me about how Chaos had gone crazy. Chaos is what I call Discord. I met him when he asked if he could borrow one of my scales. He used them to make seeds and told me he would have need for them later. So I knew that later Celestial would be leaving. What I didn't know was that she would leave without her sister. Her sister, fueled by chaos magic and wanting to be noticed more transformed into Nightmare Moon. She wrecked the castle causing enough chaos magic to start growing the chaos vine seeds. So she left and with her my chance at freedom was gone. Until she came back later to move me over to the new castle where I ended up in my room now. I never did get to see how my family was doing. I wasn't even able to hear from my son. When I was apart of the dragon empire a couple did not want their child. They claimed he wasn't violent enough. When I looked inside his eyes I had felt a spark of something, wisdom. I knew that he would be able to become a great elder if he had someone to teach him. So I took the challenge and adopted him as my son. After my unfortunate imprisonment I never got to hear how he was doing. I can barely remember the day I got him. He was purple with an orange scaled belly. He also could not stop reading the books I gave him. Then I felt it. An aura. Dragons can sense an aura of any living being. An aura can tell us a beings emotions, personalities, and sometimes thoughts. That's why you have to hide fear in front of a dragon. This aura felt familiar. To me it felt... not friendly, but not fiendish. It felt...Chaotic. I knew who he was. "Hey there." Chaos said,"I remember you." He never spoke light hearted around me. He couldn't. It was a part of my aura, to control. So our conversations were awkward because he had to speak in a monotone voice. Sup' Chaos I thought knowing he couldn't hear me. Although I was concealing it I was surprised to see him alive as I could fully believe the Royal assicorns would stoop to to that level of killing again. "I've been thinking about and I thought,'Maybe I should let that Scaled guy out!' I mean I hardly know you. Besides the fact you gave me a scale for a trick. So I decided after realizing it would cause chaos i'd let you out for fun-" This could be my chance, I might finally see my son! My friends! I'd be able to enact my reven- "But only if there's four alicorns!" He tried to laugh but my aura kept him from doing so, so it turning him into a drawn out coughing fit."I bet you feel horrible, huh?" He was right, I felt shattered. I knew discord would win this time so he would be able stop anymore alicorns. So It was hopeless. "We both know that won't happen. I mean why would there ever be four alicorns? That would just be ridiculous!" He snapped his fingers and was gone. And with him went my only chance to leave. 6 Months Later... I think it was six months anyway. I lost count. What was at first anger turned to sadness and finally hopelessness. I knew I should forget it but I couldn't. I still had just one hope that maybe, just maybe...I'd be free. As I finally gave up on it I heard an unusual noise. CRACK! Impossible! No way could there be four alicorns. Yet I could feel my prison shattering. So it had to be true. Discord can't lie and he cast the curse(or blessing?) on me. Then it finally broke apart. That happened suddenly. I opened my eyes taking in the sight of the small dark room. I saw the crates spread throughout the room. So they were using this as a storage room. Celestial prick. Stretching my neck I said,"One thousand years can get you such a crick in the neck!" My voice was rough from all the years in stone. I broke apart the chains on my arms by flaring out my scales on my arms. My scales were extremely sharp able to cut through literally anything. Which leads me to my appearance. Picture a human, now put lizard eyes on him, scales all on his arms, green scales on my head, give him armor, and bingo! You got me. I wore scaled armor that I had used my own scales for(it's not as painful as you'd think,) combined with a special mineral I created called Ethernite. Which can only be destroyed by itself. It was a hard recipe but it worked. It covered my chest and went on my shoulders stopping there and going down my back. It also went down to my feet where I had special boots as well. My arms weren't covered because of my scales which were jutting out currently. There was also spots on my back for my wings to grow. Yeah, wings. They're very sensitive. I stood up quickly, got dizzy and fell back down. Oh, boy. 10 Minutes Later After getting used to walking I went over to drink the water. It could have been polluted by the worst factory on earth but for me it was delicious. I looked in one of the crates and found an abandoned cloak. Putting it on I started focusing my aura out to find the throne room. When I found it I headed for the door ready for any challenge headed my way. I would kick anything that got in my way to tartarus and back. I was ready to see sunlight. Both of them this time. And I had one thousand nine hundred years of pent up aggression. Hundreds of miles away in a cave deep in the earth. An old dragon opened his eyes. He got up slowly from where he had slept. The sunlight shining on his orange and purple scales. He looked around his familiar cave and saw rooms carved into the walls. He looked upas the walls came together stopping in the center where a skylight was. As he looked around he wondered why he had awoken. As he thought about this far away he felt a familiar aura from long ago in his lifespan. He took a breath of realization and air and spoke for the first time since his father's funeral took place. "He has awoken." He opened his wings as he started flapping wind picked up throughout the tunnel. He found his right pace and started flying out of the cave. When he reached the surface he looked at the distant city of Canterlot and setting his course started flying. > Chapter Two:Scroll Searching and The Idiot Guards > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was lost. After wandering throughout the hallways for at least an hour I had come to that conclusion. I hadn't seen many servants or maids strangely though. They must all currently be celebrating their new Princess. The castle was very different to the last one I had seen. The halls seemed more elegant, they had a more open feeling to them. Walking through the halls while not looking suspicious is hard when wearing a cloak. My scales didn't help either. Making it look like lumps were along my arms. After walking for a while more I saw a maid cleaning the hall. She had light cerulean blue fur and was wearing that french maid costume you always see. The fabric looked flawless, meaning a unicorn had sewn it. I should explain. The ponies in this land are made up of three races. The unicorns, the pegasi, and the earth ponies. Unicorns are ponies with horns and are able to do various spells. Pegasi are ponies with wings and are able to fly. Earth ponies are just regular ponies but are built with stronger bones and a connection to the ground. Pegasi are very light in comparison to earth ponies. Her green eyes had a sparkle in them. I started to read her aura and saw what the sparkle meant, she was ambitious. She took pride in her job though. It had a special place in her heart. A beings aura is separated in their body. One part of it is in their heart, this is the bigger piece. The other part is in the mind and is much smaller in comparison. So what lies in a being's heart is able to affect their aura. Which means an aura greatly represents their heart and their beliefs. An aura is an easy way to tell if someone has good or bad intentions. It was at that moment that I had realized I had been staring at her this whole time...while she was bent over. Before she could say something I put into her aura the motion to fall asleep. When she had fallen asleep I used her pride of her job to get a map of the castle. When I had my path set out I laid her down as if she had passed out during the job. My main mission was to now see Celestial. However I realized to even stand a chance against her I would need my other powers. I was still able to call on my sword but I would need a specific scroll for my other powers though. So I started to head towards the room they kept their "Special Artifacts" in. It was in the library which wouldn't be difficult to get to. It took another few minutes of going through hall after hall when I finally came onto the library. I could only think of one word to describe the library: MASSIVE! It looked like every single book that existed was in this library. The walls were lined with shelves which had thousands of books. There wasn't a second floor so the shelves went up to the ceiling. It also looked like the archives room, which hopefully kept my scroll, was hidden behind a wall. If I knew this world it would have to take pulling one of those books to open the secret door. Which means that this would take a lot of trial and error of pulling books to uncover the secret door. It's a good thing nobody was around. Because this is gonna take a while. Celestia(3rd Person) Everything was going perfectly. They were still setting up the room for the official coronation but Celestia knew nothing could go wrong. Well she thought that. The thought was diminished when she saw that Discord was pacing. Never a good sign. It either meant he was frustrated or something wrong was going to happen. Celestia walked up to Discord planning to say something when Discord beat her to the punch. "I can't remember." He said. Celestia ruler of Equestria the most powerful being on the being in the world(in her subjects eyes) could only say one thing,"What?" "I had done something a long time ago that had to deal with a fourth princess...but I forgot." "Maybe, it was just a bet with somepony who isn't around anymore." "Yes that's probably it...probably." Meanwhile How was our hero...horrible. I was ready to burn down this whole library and every book inside it. There was 278,279,280 and counting books on the floor(I had gotten pretty good at counting while stuck in stone) and none of them had worked. It was getting to the point of being frustrating where I was about to go insane. Again. I decided it would be a good idea to take a break. So I decided to look around the place. I was on the right side of the library(if you looked fro m the door) with a huge pile of books around me. There were two desks with chairs pushed in next to me. I decided to sit at a desk to collect my thoughts. When I pulled out the chair a sound like gears turning was heard and the shelf with little to none books left slid down into the floor. I was torn between crying out in joy or crying out in anger. I settled with going into the archive to retrieve the scroll I would need. When I stepped in the first thing I noticed was the lack of artifacts. Many of the shelves were empty as if someone got rid of them. I then noticed that their were scorch marks on the walls. It took me a minute to realize that someone must have broken in and burned some artifacts. I hurried through the artifacts looking for my scroll. When I got to the end of the hall I saw sitting on a table was one scroll. Walking up to it I took the scroll in my hands and read the title. Mastering the art of Thu'um. It was definitely mine. For the scroll to work all I had to do was open it up and i'd be granted the power. When I opened up the scroll I felt winds whipping around me. It felt like snakes were coiled around my stomach. My throat felt stronger, however that could happen and I heard a deep voice from the scroll speak to me,"Vrii Yolos, hi lost kosaan ofan zin wah zaan med dovah nuft daar wisely." I had gained my first ability again. I wouldn't be much more powerful as Celestia without some more practice with shouting but I would be able to defeat her. I began my journey now to the throne room. Thinking of strategies and ways to defeat her. Her magic wouldn't work on me because of the magic resistance dragon's had. So she would be forced to attack with her sword. Which judging by the lack of security, she hadn't used it in a while. Before she would be able to attack I would use my Thu'um, assuming she has her sword. It will be too easy without her sister interfering. As if the universe hates me it put a huge wrench in my plans. Because around the corner came Princess Luna herself. "Hello." she said while giving a quick nod to me. So it looks like they're actually speaking to their "Peasents" as they called them. I nodded back and she continued walking. It's a good thing I had this hood or otherwise I would have had to deal with an unexpected battle. Now if I was much younger I would have given her a salute to mess with her head but I had matured much since then. So when her back was to me I flipped her off. I finally came up to the door to the throne room, and(lucky me) there were three guards there. I couldn't just walk in or they'd question me. But if I attacked they would probably send one in to warn their princess. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place I would have to form a ver-"Hi sir." One of them interrupted my thoughts,"Are you here for the coronation. The one who had spoken had orange fur with a blue mane. He wore gold armor that must have been for show. "Yes." my roughened voice responded with. I could see concern flash in his aura before it was returned to normal."Alright then go right on in!" he cheerfully responded with. I wanted to facepalm so much right now. The guards stepped aside to let me open the door. I walked up to it and and opened the door where I could see the cold blooded killer standing near the throne.