Scholar Arc
Year 10, Month 4, Day 28
"What do you mean?" Atlas asked, not yet aware of the giant resting under the mountain of gold.
The eye blinked as it regarded Amethyst standing in front of it for a second before the whole treasure pile started to move. All four of the ponies ran towards the wall of the cave to avoid being buried under the resulting avalanche. They hurried behind a natural rock formation right next to the path they took to come down.
A giant dragon emerged from the gold, rising to its full height in a stretching motion. It was covered by scales that were a mesmerizing royal blue while its belly was colored in a pure white. Thin and sharp spines ran down its entire back and tail, while two large horns protruded from its head.
The group of ponies stared on in awe and fear as the dragon turned around to regard them, every step it took shaking the ground beneath them. The dragon lowered its head, scanning the cave for the intruders, its maw easily big enough to swallow all of them at once.
The breath coming out of its nostrils was hot and felt like a strong wind, the ponies hair whipping in all imaginable directions.
"Where are you," the dragon spoke slowly and with a feminine voice, her eyes scanning the area. "Thief?" She shifted atop of her pile, turning around, searching.
Atlas' group took the opportunity to silently hurry back up the path towards the temple. Sensing the dragon closing on them they took the opportunity to hide behind a rocky outcrop on a ledge overlooking the cavern.
"Well?" The dragon sniffed the air a few times, turning back around to face them. "I smell you... I hear your tiny hearts beating with fright..." Her face was now mere inches away from where they were hiding. "Come now... don't be afraid. Step into the light!" She commanded with finality.
It was no use, they had been found. "Run for it," Atlas whispered.
They burst forth from their hiding place, running faster than ever before towards the safe haven the small hallway promised. Just before they arrived at the doorway, a gigantic fist slammed into the upper archway. The cave shook under the force of the dragon's punch and they could only watch in horror as their exit collapsed, trapping them with an angry dragon.
"Leaving already?" The dragon asked mockingly. "Why don't you... stay for a while?"
The words were powerful enough to shake their very bones with its vibrations and were spoken slowly. Even though the dragon's voice was deep, it still sounded distinctly female. Especially now that her face was so close to them.
"My cave is far off from your borders, what brings you all the way out here?” The dragoness peered over the ponies before her accusingly.
"Are you here for my treasure?" It asked with hatred in its voice. "You damn ponies are just so greedy, always trying to steal our hoards. I thought I escaped far enough away from your lands, yet, here you are."
The irony of her statement wasn't lost on Atlas, but he definitely wasn't about to point it out in their situation.
"O mighty dragon!" He called out. "Rest assured we are not here to rob you! We came to the temple above your cave in search of knowledge and merely came through here on our search for another exit!"
The dragoness seemed to mull over his words watching them carefully.
"If your words are true, then tell me; why does the red one wear some of my jewelry on his wings?" She asked.
All eyes slowly turned towards Crimson who indeed wore some sort of bangles at the base of his wings. He smiled sheepishly at them, sweat flowing from his face.
The others had abandoned whatever they were currently holding in favor of escaping death by avalanche. In turn, Crimson couldn't remove his newly acquired bling in time and now they were in deep trouble.
"While it is true that we came here for the books that are currently in our saddlebags when we came across your hoard, we thought it was the treasury of the temple above and planned to only take a few items with us since we can't carry much more anyway!" Atlas shouted, trying to rectify the situation by telling the truth.
"Lies!" The dragon shouted into their faces. "You puny ponies are here to take away what is rightfully mine!"
"Here, you can have them back!" Crimson shouted.
He had managed to take off his decorations and threw them down, back into the pile below them.
"We already got what we came for! Your treasure is safe from us!"
The dragon followed the two bangles with her eyes as they rejoined her treasures. Shortly after, she began to pull her head away from them.
It was a truly impressive display, seeing the dragon at her full size atop her mountain of gold. She took up almost the whole cave with her excessive form.
"I thank you for returning what is rightfully mine," she said calmly, the ponies breathing a sigh of relief. "Yet, you now know where my hoard is. Did you think I didn't know this day would come? The day where you ponies once again, find me? Only to take away what I have carefully collected over the centuries?"
The longer she talked, the angrier she got. They could clearly see the fury in her eyes as she remembered the wrongs pushed upon her in the past.
"Last time I was but a little hatchling!" She exclaimed furiously. "Yet, you beat me down and took from me that which is most precious to a dragon! Now look at me! My skin is iron! My teeth are swords! It is high time I took my revenge!"
"No please!" Atlas tried to shout over her booming voice. "We mean you no harm!"
"I... am fire," the dragon said as flames started to flicker around her mouth. "I... am death."
Atlas barely had enough time to process what she had just said when he could feel the temperature in the room rising.
"Amethyst! Shield!" He immediately shouted when he realized what was about to happen.
Amethyst seemed to have noticed as well, the shield encasing the huddled ponies a fraction of a second later, with Atlas and Doc Brown immediately channeling mana into the shield to strengthen it.
It was only moments later that dragonfire washed over them like a molten sea of death. The shield was doing a valiant job protecting them from the flames, but that didn't stop the temperature inside their bubble from rising almost instantaneously to near boiling levels .
Atlas stopped his efforts in strengthening their shield and immediately started to work on cooling down their environment by creating an ice cold mist around them. He had to expend a great amount of mana just to keep it from turning into steam which could have been just as bad as the flames outside.
Their struggle felt like it went on forever, but in reality only lasted for about five seconds. The torrent of flames slowed down and eventually ended completely. The surface of their shield was blackened and they couldn't see beyond the bubble until Amethyst dropped the shield.
The dragon regarded them with contempt, and apparently was preparing another breath to smite them.
"Split up! We're sitting ducks here!" Amethyst commanded.
Just as they were told, they all ran in different directions. Doc Brown immediately teleported down into the cavern before he started gunning it for the only other light source in the cavern. Atlas tried his luck with running directly at the dragon, figuring she wouldn't be able to see him if he was under her. He jumped straight down, conjuring a sheet of ice that he rode like a snowboard down the jagged slope. Meanwhile, Crimson took to the air and zipped towards a spear with golden engraving that was sticking out of the treasure pile.
The dragon choked back the last of its flame upon seeing her prey scatter. A cold fury surged through her upon seeing the puddles of gold on the cavern floor, where her fire had turned a fraction of her horde into a molten sludge. Singling out a target, she turned to her left to face the insolent pony who so brazenly dared to try and steal from her.
Crimson, now equipped with a spear, charged directly at her eye as she was turning and plunged the spear directly into her iris. Upon impact a loud crack resounded before the spear snapped at the handle. Taken by surprise his momentum carried him forward until he crashed directly into the surprisingly tough eye.
The dragon laughed mockingly. "You fool! Did you believe a mortal weapon could hurt me? I am an ancient dragon!"
She followed up her words by swatting Crimson down out of the sky like he was little more than an annoying gnat. He plummeted towards the ground and skidded past the galloping Doc Brown before hitting the wall.
"And where do you think you're going?" The dragon asked.
She turned around to properly face him, the shifting pile of gold testing Atlas' balance, who was now under her. Her giant hand was closing in on Brown Diamond, with him none the wiser.
Atlas recognized the impending doom for his friend and boss and grabbed him from afar with his telekinesis. Yanking as hard as he could, he pulled him away from her path, her claws missing him by only a hairs width. The clasps of his saddlebags ripped and flew away from him in a high arc, landing on the ground with a dull thud.
"The books!" Doc Brown shouted panicked.
The dragoness took notice of this and regarded the bags with a morbid interest. She seemed to ponder something before she swiftly picked them up between two claws and proceeded to throw them into her gaping maw.
"Nooooo!" Doc Brown shouted while she swallowed them whole without even chewing. "My magnum opus!"
He struggled against Atlas' grip and eventually broke free with a counterspell. Moments later teleporting away before reappearing on the dragon's snout.
"Give them back!" He shouted.
Tears were flowing freely as he launched every imaginable offensive spell he knew at her face. They were admittedly few and did little more than create a mild inconvenience for the lumbering scaled behemoth.
She moved to squish him like the inconsequential insect he was, when a giant purple hammer connected with her lower jaw. Her neck snapped back like a ragdoll and sent Doc Brown flying. Crimson, who had mostly recovered, intercepted him and went to set him down safely.
"Forget about the books!" Crimson shouted at the hysterical stallion. "We need to get out of here!"
When Doc Brown still didn't listen to him, he slapped him across the face, which seemed to wake him up a bit. "Right... right... not all of the books were lost..." he mumbled.
"Exactly, now come on, we've gotta help Atlas and Amethyst," Crimson propped the stallion up before they both turned around to face the rampaging dragon.
During their little chat, Atlas and Amethyst were keeping the dragon busy by flinging offensive spells at her like it was going out of style. Atlas had to constantly dodge between her legs while doing so; his spells, while more effective than Doc Brown's, still did little more to the rampaging dragoness than a mosquito bite would do to a full grown pony.
Amethyst had a little more success since he could tailor his constructs to the fight. A giant sword and shield were pummeling the dragon, but keeping them active was putting a lot of strain on Amethyst.
"We won't get anywhere like this..." Crimson muttered to himself, trying to think of a way out of their precarious situation.
"We need to buy those two some time," Doc Brown suddenly said. "They're our combat aces, I'm sure they'll be able to think of something, given enough time. I suspect the giant dragon trying to kill all of us isn't helping their ability to think clearly."
"You got a plan?" Crimson asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Something like it," Doc Brown said with a manic grin on his face. "Just try to distract her while I prepare."
Crimson looked doubtful, but for now, it was their best shot. Crimson took off, while Amethyst managed to land their first good hit. His sword slashed along the dragons left leg and carved out a sizable gash into her flesh.
The dragon cried out in pain and put her attention solely on Amethyst. "How dare you!" She shouted at the top of her lungs as she prepared to billow another bout of fire to punish him.
Amethyst saw it coming, but his avenues of escape were limited to falling back on his ace in the hole. Under great stress, he channeled magic into his wing-construct spell, and with a single mighty flap catapulted himself out of the way. The wings dissipated as soon as he was airborne and out of harm's way to lessen the stress on his mana pool, and he only just managed to redirect a small amount to safely land.
The dragon followed him with her eyes unbelievingly but pursued him nonetheless.
"Hey Dragon!" Crimson shouted. "Say goodbye to your treasure!"
The dragon's eyes snapped over to his voice immediately. Crimson was hovering over the exit of the cave, holding a sizable pile of golden trinkets in his legs. Once he saw that he had her attention, he simply dropped everything he held into the river that was flowing far below him.
The dragon's eyes became pinpricks, her fury building until it was absolutely blinding. Amethyst momentarily forgotten, she went to crush Crimson. As soon as she started moving though, a single glowing white goblet popped into existence before her face.
Before she could even question its existence, it exploded with great force.
"Haha! Take that you stupid lizard!" Doc Brown called out.
He had used an enchantment on the goblet before teleporting it in front of her face. Originally, the enchantment was supposed to keep liquids cool inside the container, but for whatever reason he couldn't figure out, they always exploded.
He was already enchanting several more goblets that he had gathered and was sending them to her face at a steady rate. The dragon, in turn, was constantly blinded by the resulting smoke and explosions, while the force of the explosions was actually enough to stop her from going forward.
Crimson darted over to him with a grin and started searching for more ammunition for the mad scientist, while Atlas and Amethyst regrouped to catch their breath.
"She's a tough one for sure," Amethyst mentioned, breathing heavily. "You got any ideas?"
"For starters, running off while distracting her won't do us any good. She'd definitely pursue us. We need to immobilize her somehow..." Atlas answered while racking his brain for any possibilities.
"We're going to need something big... could you maybe freeze her?" Amethyst asked.
"Not enough water," Atlas shook his head. "I can't make enough to completely encase her, anything less than completely immobilizing her and she'd just melt it."
"I guess we'll have to inflict a wound severe enough so she won't be able to pursue," Amethyst wheezed.
They both had to duck when the dragon suddenly turned left, narrowly avoiding her tail.
"My spells had trouble penetrating her scales, so it would have to be something from you," Atlas surmised.
"To be honest, I'm pretty spent, can't you go all nuts like you did back when we were all kidnapped?" Amethyst suggested. "A spell like that surely would be enough to hurt even a dragon."
"Something like that would also most likely collapse the cave and kill all of us by proxy," Atlas pointed out.
The idea wasn't bad, but definitely not worth it. Atlas also had no idea how to trigger something like that again.
"True, but couldn't you try something less destructive?" Amethyst tried again.
Atlas sighed. "I can try, but I have no idea if I can pull it off."
To be perfectly honest, Atlas had no recollection at all from what happened back then and all he had to go by was what his friends told him. That being said, he had a pretty good idea what caused his transformation.
He closed his eyes and tried to tune out the sound of constant explosions going off and an angry dragon. He somehow had to access the fragment of Atlas' soul from within him, which would give him an extreme power boost.
"Atlas, if you can hear me, some help would be really appreciated... I know you're inside me somewhere and that you can hear me, so please, just a little would be enough!"
Atlas tried everything, from mentally feeling out for a great source of power to simply asking for help.
"It's no use," Atlas eventually relented. "I can't do it."
Amethyst cursed, looking around for anything that would help them before the sound of running water reached his ears. He turned around to face the cave's exit when an idea hit him.
"If you had lots of water, could you think of something?" Amethyst asked.
"Probably, but where are you going to get that much water from?" Atlas asked confused.
"There's a river right outside the cave remember," Amethyst replied with a shit eating grin.
"Oh," Atlas replied, chastising himself for not thinking of it earlier.
Meanwhile, Doc Brown was enjoying himself greatly. He had found a way to harass the dragon and thanks to Crimson's efforts, he wasn't about to run out of ammunition any time soon. Whenever the dragon was about to catch them, he teleported away, only to continue from somewhere else in the room.
The dragon was growing more and more enraged at the ponies. They were just ponies, how dare they vex her so, in her own home no less! She finally had enough when a particularly big explosion went off before her, making her stumble backward a bit. She filled her lungs with air and let forth a terrifying roar. It was enough to blow away the smoke surrounding her and knocked Doc Brown to the ground.
Finally being able to see clearly, the dragoness wheeled around to face the prone pony. She immediately grabbed him with her hand and pulled him up to her face.
"I'm going to enjoy chewing on you, pony," she spat out, fully intending to eat him, despite the low dietary value.
"Hey doc, stop playing with the dragon and come over here for a second!" Atlas called out to him.
Doc Brown turned his head, the only thing he could turn in the dragon’s iron grip, to face Atlas. What he saw made him smile before he simply disappeared with a pop.
The dragon stared at her empty hand in confusion. She blinked a few times, wondering where he had gone. Having heard Atlas as well, she turned around to face him.
"We could use a hardening enchantment right about now doc, a fast one if you could," Atlas said, straining.
"Of course, of course," Doc Brown said, marveling at their creation. His horn lit up and Amethyst's construct changed color from purple to green. "All ready to go." He stated, pleased with himself.
Amethyst had used one of his constructs to gather a sizable amount of water from the river, before calling it back to the cave. He then gathered it before changing its form into that of a large spike before Atlas froze the water inside. He cooled it down as much as he could so that it would hold for as long as possible.
The plan was to use Amethyst's construct as an outer layer, so they could penetrate the dragon’s scales, while the ice was supposed to be a more permanent addition to the dragon. Since Amethyst had to constantly fuel his constructs with mana, it would just disappear once they were a certain distance away.
He waited to launch the projectile until the dragon was just about to face them, all three of them helping out, so it would gain enough momentum. They rammed it into her left shoulder, where it effortlessly penetrated her tough scales.
With a howl of pain the dragon collapsed, the icicle easily pierced her hide before being embedded almost completely within her. Amethyst let his construct dissipate so that the icicle could do its work. Due to the extreme cold, the dragon's blood froze almost instantly, cauterizing the wound but also sending excruciating waves of pain through her body.
"You guys are nuts," Crimson said as he landed next to them.
"Whatever, let's get out of here before she recovers," Amethyst said with urgency.
"There's only one exit and we're pretty high up, though," Crimson pointed out. "I don't think I can carry any of you down," he added, pointing to his rather messed up wing.
"Oh, that's an easy one," Doc Brown said, sprinting towards the entrance to the cave. "Hey Dragon! It was 'ICE to meet you!"
With those words he disappeared as he fell out of sight, having simply jumped off the ledge.
"Well, there is a river down there," Atlas said, shrugging.
The dragon behind them thrashed around in pain, the intruders forgotten for now.
"You think that will be enough to keep her here?" Crimson asked doubtfully.
"I don't think it's enough to kill her, but she’ll definitely have to take some time to heal from that one," Amethyst said.
"If you say so..." Crimson replied, doubt visible in his eyes.
"Hey Crimson, think you can at least take our saddlebags down?" Atlas asked while peering over the edge. "I'd hate for the books to get wet..."
"Probably, but I most likely won't fly around anymore after that. My wings hurt something fierce."
"Thanks, buddy," Atlas said before taking off his saddlebags and jumping off as well.
Amethyst nodded towards Crimson in thanks and joined the other unicorns. Crimson sighed and took one last look back towards the injured dragon before picking up the saddlebags of his friends and flying out to join them.
He wasn't looking forward to coming home since Blue Current would most likely chew him out for almost getting himself killed. He smirked and hoped that she would at least accept the treasure in his bags as an apology.