"Y'all Flanks Are Getting Whopped When We're Done with This Dragon."
The battlefield was empty.
Sure, it still held the blobs of fire that threaten to burn through the ground, as well as the fallen spears and burnt arrows discharged by their cowardly owners. But those said owners were nowhere to be seen, or rather, felt, on the battlefield, and that made the blue dragon all the more worried. He flew above the clouds enshrouding the sky with the device of his own, sporadically howling roars to instill fear onto the prey looming below him.
This tactic worked greatly because the ponies could never pinpoint his position, and made his presence all the more ominous. That same strength was also the dragon's biggest weakness, as he could only see his prey when he swooped below his clouds. But at least he could still feel the ponies presence thanks to the hysteria his form pushed them into, until now, where there was only silence.
The dragon relaxed his wings into no longer opposing the winds, angling his body until his trajectory allowed for a swift descent to the surface of the clouds, where he then pressed his ear against. There weren't any cries for mercy or even any voice to boot – even the crackling of his flames was faint. His claws began to stroke the scales of his chin as his eyes slowly squinted, opting to weigh his body through the clouds and enter the realm of his prey.
Only there wasn't any prey amongst the ground below.
A foreboding sense urged the dragon's wings into taking him back into the safety of the clouds, suspecting that the ponies who already proved themselves clever had another trick up their sleeve. Still, he kept his purple eyes trained on the land below for anything out of place, until the pair rested upon two stallions emerging out from a bush in-between the two separated ascending staircases.
"That was a close one." The dragon's ears picked up on their faint dialogue as he slowed the pace of his flight. "I nearly peed myself thinking he knew we were all hiding, yet he proved himself to be a dumb brute once more, thinking that we all had gotten away."
The dragon's claw began to curl and tremble.
"Tell me about it!" The other stallion, who spoke in a rather loud tone, approached the first stallion. "I mean, we still need to keep an ear out just-in-case the dragon didn't go out searching for our new location, so I guess we'll just keep standing here and keeping guard!"
The aforementioned claw relaxed just as a grin grew on the descending dragon's muzzle. He saw his prey's blurry form past the digits of his claws as he prepared for another swift swoop, but didn't know why the wind was pricking his scales to the point where it almost hurt, as he reached the same level as his prey. A whistle, however, caught the attention of his eyes as they looked right, and saw an infestation atop the climb of stairs of his now most hated prey.
The archers, instead of flying blindly into the sky, aimed each of their arrows into the dragon's eyes. The plucking of string stirred hope in all of their furry chests and injected despair into the one that was scaly, who bore through the stinging sensation assaulting his eyes until the colors of the world could be see no more.
With blackness as his eyes on the sky, the blue dragon felt his wings clip on the side of a robust thing that sent his form tumbling onto the platform. He felt a few crack from inside him resounded outward into the world as his body inherited a heaviness that he could not currently lift, lying complacently on the ground in order to decipher the previous actions and to regain his strength.
The pain assaulting his nerves increased tenfold as those pinpricks began to pierce through the course of the dragon's body.
Meanwhile, the ponies cheered at the dragon's wing clipping against the cliff separating the two staircases and tumbled onto the platform and continued to roll to the railings. Some of the earth pony guards didn't wait for Applejack's whistle to dash after the dragon and begin hacking away at his scales with all the spears and swords that they had.
Even when their weaponry shattered by being rebounded by the flexible blue scales, the guards dashed around to the stump that was the dragon's tail and unleashed their fists into the black crispy layer that protected the dragon's injury. Soon enough, one of their punches was able to tear through the thin textured, causing for dry blood to splatter out from the stump.
Applejack, who had still whistled for the attack and watched from afar, gazed up to the previous archers and gave them a nod. They nodded back, reloading their arrows back into their bows which they then trained on the dragon's sealed eyes, awaiting the very second they were sealed no more.
"Earth ponies!" The Afro-Stallion's voice pierced through the cheers of revenge and even silenced the continuous stabbing for the moment. "Fall back a few steps and put up your guard!"
Most of the guards leapt back from the possible threat and covered their eyes with the slits of their swords and the wooden handles of their spears, while the rest of the guards, far too gone in the pleasure of taking down a beast, continued to impale whatever they got into the dragon with the vain hope of killing him then and there.
But the dragon's thrashes from the pain caused for every limb of his body to blindly spasm in every possible direction, for his body to roll about in order to somehow negate the agony sweeping his eyes. The vibrations coursing through the ground from the impact of his wildly slamming fist sent some ponies a few inched in the air, only for that said rest to be raised over their heads.
Those guards felt their muscles tensed from the vibrations that had sent them into the air in the first place now coursing through their bodies, locking them into place as they could only eye the shadow of the fist just above their heads. They couldn't scream for their mouths felt too tight and not enough time to even loosen them, but they still became all the gladder when their cries still managed to somehow escape as a weight bore down upon them.
The eternal blackness of death, however, looked more brown than black. The immense weight of the claw didn't seem to crush their bones right away, and even allowed a tight space for them to still breathe. After a few moments, the brownness gave way to the world once more, as the heavy weight fell away from the two guards.
The pair glanced over to their right, finding the Afro-Stallion who had dashed after them upon sensing they were disobeying his command, and leaped at them to push them away from the claw just above their heads. He heaved a few pants, before looking back at them. "Y'all flanks are getting whopped when we're done with this dragon."
The recently saved stallion felt their bodies levitated within the epicenter of a golden aurora forming around them, lifting them further away from danger along with the other foolish stallions. They were glad to still be breathing, but they knew for a fact that their flanks were grass by the end of the day; dragon or no dragon.
The rumbles derived from the dragon's violent thrashing began to quell, as the thrashes of his arms ceased, and his body no longer rolled about. All the surrounding ponies watched in suspense as the dragon began to calm down, which made them all feel more fearful than when the dragon had lost his mind and went berserk. Slowly, he peeled his body off from the ground, moving his head around as if he could see his attackers behind his sealed eyes.
In letting out not a roar, but rather a soft cry, his eyes slowly split apart.
The previously foolish earth ponies rose back to their hooves and unsheathed their swords into their jaws at the potential battle, slowly timing their steps behind the dragon. The scaled beast silently gazed at the barricade of ponies just before him, exhausting steam through his nostrils as the stump of his tail wagged about.
For whatever reason, the dragon didn't want to make the first move.