//------------------------------// // Session 88.5 // Story: Ponies and Dragons (Just Have Fun) // by Alex Warlorn //------------------------------// Session 88.17 Ardashir "Oh, I am trapped by the wicked knight!" Rari-dragon put the back of one claw to her scaly brow. Nearby a collection of buckets, old drain pipes, and a hoe made the 'wicked knight'. "Who ever will save me from this terrible creature who wants to hang my scaly hide on his wall?" "You know I will, I mean!" Spike flapped up to the 'knight', knocked on his chest, and said in a deep voice, "I will save you, fair dragon maiden!" He breathed fire on the piled scrap, knocking it over, before he landed beside Rarity as she 'fainted' into his arms. "Oh, you've saved me! My hero!" Rari-dragon puckered her scaly lips up... Spike leaned closer, feeling his heart beat faster... Shattering roars came from the area of the Friendship Palace. Curious, Rarity flew to look. Annoyed, Spike followed. "You can't withstand my superior fighting skills!" Grand Pear yelled. "Hai-yah!" He chopped at Garble's side as the red dragon heaved a boulder up over his head. Garble dropped the boulder, which shattered as soon as it connected with his ever harder head. He hopped and howled in pain. Nearby several dragonesses and two ponies watched the whole thing. Music of drums and horns filled the air with a song of aggression. Past the onlookers, Vinyl watched the show as she worked her music cart. "You can't have an action scene these days without music!" "Come on, handsome!" Goldie yelled at Garble. "Beat him and you get all of us!" The rest of the Golden Horsehoe gals cheered. "Ladies!" Twilight looked horrified. She turned to Ember, who was keeping her eyes firmly locked on the dragonified Grand Pear. "Ember! Tell them no! Dragons don't have harems!" She reared back as Amber spun on her. "Hey, who are you to say what dragons can and can't do? My grand-aunt kept a dozen kidnapped pony stallions in her cave." She looked back at the fight as Garble got a bearhug on Grand Pear. His eyes locked with hers and she panted again. "Then again, if I get that scaly stud I won't want any other males." Grand Pear ear-clapped Garble. The would-be Dragon Lord collapsed with a howl. Twilight gripped her mane as though ready to yank it out by the roots. "The last time something this insane happened, the Dazzlings were involved. But they lost their powers. It'd take someone with the ability to warp reality to make a dragon-shifting potion and --" Her eyes widened and went narrow. "DISCORD!" "What?" Discord said as he appeared out of thin air, Flim and Flam and their wagon full of potion in tow. The two conponies looked about fearfully, unable to move thanks to being trapped in a giant bowl of chocolate ice cream. Discord skated on the surface as he said, "Oh, can't I have any fun any more?" Session 88.18 Mtangalion “Discord!” bellowed Twilight. Some ponies later said that the Royal Ponyville Voice was born that day. “I should have known it from the start! You can’t just go throwing pony-dragon relations into utter chaos…” Princess Twilight trailed off. “Actually, I suppose you technically can. I mean, it’s kind of who you are…” Discord did an exaggerated double-take, his jaw literally hitting the ground. Then he did it twice more in slow-motion from different camera angles (somehow). “Finally, somepony gets it! It’s adorable when the princess of being smart actually gets off her high horse and thinks for once.” A smaller Discord popped up behind Twilight, pinching her cheeks. “I mean, ponies and dragons are literally playing games and just having fun! It’s right there in the title. What more do you want?” Twilight waved the smaller Discord away into a puff of smoke. “But isn’t all of this going too far? Rarity, how do you expect to run all your businesses if, even though you have the same age and experience, you’ve become a dragon child?” Rarity gasped, taken aback, but then she smiled at Spike beside her, putting a small scaly arm around him. “For our dear Spike… I might actually consider giving all that up…” Spike blushed so hot, the grass beneath his feet started smoldering. Garble rested a claw on Spike’s opposite shoulder. “Dude, that’s like, disgustingly mushy. As a real, lava-blooded actual dragon, watching that made me want to puke!” He leaned closer and whispered in Spike’s ear, “Don’t ever let her go, bro.” Twilight groaned, turning towards Granny Smith and her crew. “And you five! What is Equestria even going to look like in the future if elder ponies everywhere start turning into dragons instead of dying? Don’t you want to join your relatives who’ve already passed on some day, instead of going to…” She blinked. “Um, what’s the dragon version of heaven?” Dragon Lord Ember shrugged. “Oh, Queen Tiamat never bothered telling anydragon, but I always imagined that there’s an endless lake of fire and brimstone!” Applejack cringed. “Um, are ya sure about that? No disrespect, but that sounds kind of like, you know, the other place.” But Garble was grinning and nodding along. “Lava that never cools off? Endless, so there’s no ugh, waiting or sharing?” And Smolder sighed blissfully, imagining it too. “No cold toes, ever again!” “Ahem!” shouted Flim, despairing of ever getting all the chocolate out of his coat and mane. “We’d just like to point something out.” “You heard it from the draconequus’ own mouth!” chimed in Flam. “We’re completely innocent of turning ponies into actual dragons.” “Really, now?” said Applejack. “Then you won’t mind giving back every bit you took in exchange for those potions!” Discord clapped his mismatched paws together. “Let’s compromise!” “I’m listening,” said Grand Pear in his stern taking-charge voice… though he hadn’t actually gotten to do as much of that as he would have liked. “We’ve already got a real live wolfpony romping around.” Discord snapped his claws and Prince Blueblood appeared… naked, in a sudsy bathtub. He yelped, trying to cover himself, then ducked into the water and yipe-yipe-yiped! Soapy water splashed over everyone nearby as a huge white wolf bolted out of the tub and looked for a place to hide. Unfazed, Discord continued, “I’ll just continue in that theme and change all of these new dragons into kirin!” Princess Twilight raised a hoof. “Um, what do kirin have to do with this? I suppose they do have scales on their backs and a horn like a Chineighs dragon, but…” Discord waved his arms. “No, no! Not those kirin. Dusklight kirin! Ponies that can transform into dragons at will! Or when they get angry or something... it hasn't really been consistent, but rules are boring, so I'm completely fine with that.” He snapped his fingers, and all the new dragons once again became five old ponies and one young mare… or were they? “Voila! Now I’ll use my chaos magic to make most ponies forget about Dusklight creatures again, and everything will be peachy!” Applejack twitched. “Um… What do you mean ‘again?’” Session 88.19 Ardashir A few days had passed since the Day of the Dragons in Ponyville. Ember decided to stay on Twilight and Spike's invitation to see the pony holiday of Hearth's Warming. She just hoped that somedragon back home would hang her stocking by the door of her lair to see if the Krampus Dragon would fill it with coal for her Feast of Fire snack. As well as engage in her first snowball fight and game of Capture the Flag. "Bleah!" Ember spat snow from her mouth. Smolder, Spike, and Garble stood beside her, crouching behind the snow wall they'd made, AKA 'Fort Ice Dragon'. "Yuck! This is what ponies do for fun? Throw frozen water at each other?" "I told you ponies were nuts," Garble muttered, looking over the wall at their opponents, Twilight, Applejack, and Starlight. As he did a massive purple-glowing snowball hit him in the face and knocked him flat. Ember faceclawed in disgust. She stood up over her fallen subject. "Ugh, Garble, be careful! Do you know how dumb you have to be to let yourself get hit --" More words were muffled when another massive snowball landed on her. Ember joined Garble on the ground, her furiously lashing tail the only sign of life. "Ha!" Smolder pointed at the fallen Garble. His arms and legs stuck out from under Twilight's snowball. "That's the second best thing I've seen in days!" She pointed at Ember. "And that's the first! This is funnier than the time I told that story 'A Dream Come True' for the Feast of Fire." "You mean the one about Scales and how she stole the Bloodstone Scepter from a 'feeble and kindly Dragon Lord'?" Spike ducked as one of Applejack's snowballs came by. He gulped as it hit a nearby mound of hard snow and sank onto it half a foot. "Uh, I think AJ may still be ticked off about the whole letting Granny Smith and her grand-aunts and Grand Pear stay as Dusklight kirin." "Yeah, the Scales story," Smolder said. She began rolling a large snowball in her claws. "Even better? When I told that one, it was at a Feast of Fire meal hosted by Ember where she said she was gonna choose somedragon to go to the Friendship School. Ember said we could learn from the puny -- I mean, from the ponies. Everydragon laughed at the idea of becoming more like ponies. They laughed even more when told that story - and I looked right at Ember the whole time!" Smolder frowned and scratched her scaly chin. "Huh, I wonder if that's why she sent me?" Spike opened his mouth to say something. Smolder shushed him and peered over the wall, hissed, "Here they come!" A moment later the two dragons flew up and began hurling snowballs two-handed at the three approaching ponies. Twilight yelled and tried to shield her friends. Snowballs hurled by Spike struck both AJ and Starlight. "Starlight! Applejack! Look out --" A snowball from Smolder hit her right in the eyes. She reared up and fell over backwards. Smolder cackled with glee. "Sorry, headmistress, but dragons don't take prisoners!" She scowled, shaded her eyes and looked around. "Hey, Spike, where's your pony girlfriend? I thought she was playing too?" "She is, Smolder, darling!" Smolder and Spike both wheeled at the call from behind, covering their faces. As they did their flag, a purple and gold yarn scarf, floated away in Rarity's magical grip. The elegant unicorn trotted away holding her scarf. "You four fought a good fight, but remember, tossing snowballs wasn't the point. Catching the Flag was. Er," Rarity looked around, "where are Ember and Garble, anyway?" Fire shot up from one of the snow piles, melting it to reveal a soggy and annoyed Dragon Lord. "I'm right here," Ember growled as she rose, shaking herself. Looking right at Smolder, she added, "And oh yes, Smolder? That story is why I sent you to the Friendship School. How're we dragons ever gonna be more than a bunch of scaly savages if we reward behavior like that?" "Ah, what's wrong with being a bunch of scaly savages?" Smolder huffed and pointed at the other snow pile. "Garble likes it." "Ugh!" Ember rolled her eyes and breathed fire on the pile. As it melted to reveal a crimson-scaled form, she said, "Garble wouldn't know his own tail from a hole in the ground." Garble lay motionless, his eyes wide open. The dragons approached warily. "Uh, Garble?" Spike poked at his leg. "You okay?" "I had a vision!" Garble sat straight up and yelled his words. "Like, I was totally dead!" "From the neck up, yeah," Ember grumbled as she helped him to his feet. "What 'vision' are you talking about?" She yelled when he suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders. "I totally saw Dragon Paradise! Like, there was fire and lava everywhere, and these little weird-looking ponies with horns were giving me a back and butt massage with these great big forks they had," Garble said, sounding dreamy. "And right next to me was Scales the Traitor." Spike listened in disbelief, while Smolder just gave Ember a meaningful look and circled a claw alongside one horn. Garble ignored them and said, "I remember yelling, 'This is great, I never thought I'd make it to Dragon Paradise', and Scales said something weird." "Not that I care, but what?" Ember sighed. "She said, 'You dummy, this isn't Heaven!'" Session 88.20 Mtangalion 'Welcome back to THE LEGEND OF GRIZELDA, noble adventurer!' 'Your last save was seven months, twelve days ago. Continue?' 'Now entering RIVERSIDE CATACOMBS, floor 1!' Gerold the griffon dropped through a skylight and made a heroic two claws and one paw landing, thumping straight down onto the stone floor of the dungeon, and only then rising up and dramatically spreading his wings. His blue feathers and dark fur clashed a bit with the required green hero outfit, and a few of his white crest feathers peeked out from under his jaunty green cap. He held that pose for five whole seconds before he collapsed and squawked in pain, massaging his ankles. “Who did they make this game for, hatchlings? I don’t care how cool it looks, I’m not doing that again!” Gerold brushed some of the dust from his feathers, frowning as he looked around the enchanted comic game world. “Seven months, huh? Sheesh, I barely even remember what I was doing before.” He raised his clenched talons. “But I have to grab more treasure than Gilda and prove I can be a good provider for her!” He grinned, padding onwards. “And I looks like I made it to this dungeon first!” Around a corner, Gerold found a dark hall with many side passages, split by a chasm with whistling winds below. A stone glowed mystically, and a ghostly wizard appeared… this game’s version of fourth-wall-breaking, hint-giving NPCs. “Hail, noble bzzt-error-unknown pony! If you were a pegasus, you could fly over this gap and be that much closer to the treasure. Alas, you must now traverse the fiery pits of doom!” Gerold blinked, glanced left then right, then shrugged his wings and easily flew over the gap. Another ghostly wizard popped up, following him. “Well done, unknown-tribe pony! But the second challenge awaits!” Gerold snorted, romping on ahead. “Oh yeah, I’m shaking in my pawprints here…” The next chamber had a barrier of… savage pony-eating plants? The wizard caught up. “Wait! Listen! It’s a pity you’re not an earth pony, adventurer, for then you could command these plants to move aside with your magic…” Gerold laughed. “Seriously?” He tried to draw his magic sword to chop the carnivorous plants to bits, but it was stuck in its scabbard… he couldn’t enter combat mode near the plants. “First rule of designing games for griffons... Violence is always an option!” He smacked a fist into a palm, then bashed the plants and tore them out by the roots. “Error, err-err-error condition not found,” said the next ghost, glitching through his animations. “If you were a unicorn pony, you could retrieve the tiny glass key from this pool of water and unlock the gate yourself, but since you are a pony of the bzzt-unknown tribe, your only hope is to rescue the kind faerie held captive by…” Gerold unlocked the gate with his nimble claws and bounded towards the treasure room, leaving the ghost talking to an empty room. “I guess it’s like King Grover says in the stories. If dweebs wanna underestimate you, let ‘em!” Session 88.21 Ardashir "A-hahaha! Feeble pilots of Pone-tron!" Hydia the Witch, servant of King Grogar, cackled with glee as she held up a glittering multi-colored jewel. The remaining SeaPony Guard, who pursued her along with the heroic Pone-tron pilots, started firing their crossbows -- I mean blasters. "But they're obviously crossbows!" The Pone-tron armored and visiting Ember hissed. "Even I can tell that!" Twilight, also in Pone-tron armor, hissed back at her, "Not now! And I told you, this thing has some -- funny editing." Hydia soughed. "May I continue?" Ember rolled her eyes. Twilight just nodded. Hydia cackeld anew and said, "In this I have taken the souls of the Sea Pony race! And with it I, the Maker of Monsters, shall create this! Clawbeast, arise!" Behind her a mighty aquatic monster began to rise from the sea! A mass of tentacles, scales, and rasping suckers, created from the nightmares of the entire Sea Pony race! Its entire form was studded with pleading and begging Sea Ponies, subsumed into its monstrous mass, but thankfully they were all robots and not real ponies at all. It lashed out at the blaster-wielding Sea Guard, absorbing them harmlessly into its mass. Sure, it looked like they were crushed into pulp, but believe me, they were absorbed! "Huh?" Ember blinked. "But they were killed, we saw it! And we can see those aren't robots!" "Editing!" Twilight said. Ember snorted smoke but yielded as Twilight stepped forward, backed up by Ember, Spike, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. "Hold it right there, Hydia!" Twilight said. Her horn glowed as she summoned the five giant robotic GoPonies. "With these we'll defeat your latest monster and save the Sea Ponies -- EMBER!" "Hey!" Hydia snarled at the Dragon Lord flying at her. "What do you think you're doing -- AHHH!" Flame washed over Hydia, spilling from Ember's jaws. It vanished to reveal a pile of ashes. Ember reached down, picked up the Soul Gem and crushed it. The monster immediately went 'poof' as the you-only-thought-they-were-dead Sea Ponies reappeared around them. "Geeze, Ember!" Dash waved a hoof under the dragon's nose and pouted. "Ya cost us the big monster battle, that's the best part of these comics!" "So what?" Ember walked away from the pile of ashes. "We were supposed to save the Sea Ponies and get rid of that old witch, and we did!" Spike flapped over. "Ember, I don't know how to say this, but these kind of stories have certain, er, expectations? And when ponies play these Enchanted Comics they sorta want ta play through those things." He pointed behind her, "Also, you can't really kill anyone in these translations. Look and see." "A-hahaha, I have survived!" Hydia stood right beside the pile of ashes. "That was only an illusion! But, ah I am temporarily defeated," she started backing away as a snarling Ember stepped towards her, fire spilling from her open mouth, "so I'll be back with another monster next time!" Hydia vanished into a cloud of smoke. "Okay, she was DEAD!" Ember yelled, shaking a clawed fist after her. "What the," a sound like jingling bells came from her muzzle. She blinked and felt her mouth. "What in the --?" "Yeah," Dash said. "You really can't use any of those words, either." "Uh, guys?" Pinkie held up a bucket filled with crystals. "Since Hydia turned the Sea Pony Queen into a statue and shattered her, how do we get her back?" "Oh, she'll be okay!" One of the saved Sea Ponies said. "We'll just assemble her pieces and she'll be as good as new!" "You mean like Princess Amore?" Spike scratched his chin. "Hey, whatever happened with all that?" "If we do this again, I want something for adults, not hatchlings," Ember folded her arms across her chest as she groused. Pinkie nudged Dashie and whispered. "Think we should tell her about Devil Mare and Legend of the OverNightmare? She might like those." "Eh," Dashie shrugged. "I think she and Thorax have the whole tentacle thing covered." Session 88.22 Ardashir Occasionally when Sunburst visited the Friendship Palace, he, Starlight, Trixie, and Twilight would engage in a game of Dragon Pit. Complete with the costumes. Unfortunately, this was the first time they'd done so while Ember paid an unexpected visit. "Ember! We can explain!" Twilight looked round at her friends. "Uh, sort of." "Really?" Ember scowled, smoke rising from her muzzle. She folded her arms and leaned against the wall. Her voice would have made liquid helium sound warm. "Please do so." "Explain! Yes," Twilight looked around. Starlight and Sunburst were looking skyward, innocent looks on their faces. Trixie seemed to be suddenly interested in being somewhere else as she backed towards the door. Twilight swallowed heavily. "It's an old pony game. You p-play, er, a greedy dragon.." Ember's frown grew deeper, "and you play against the other dragons to see who lays sole claim to the hoard." Twilight gulped as she remembered the Diamond Dog game problems. "Really, it was done before ponykind knew much of anything about dragons." "Really?" Ember smiled and walked over. "It sounds to me that you know quite a bit about dragons. Hey, having and fighting over a hoard is part of what makes a dragon a dragon! Speaking on behalf of my race, we're honored ponies get one of our most basic ideas." "It is?" Twilight blinked and relaxed. "Phew. I thought we were in trouble --" She stopped as Ember set a claw over her muzzle. "But LOSE the costumes," Ember snorted pink fire. "I mean, honestly, who dresses like a dragon to play a game? Dragons don't dress like ponies to play games." And down the hall: "Okay, so I invite all my friends to a tea party and provide gifts. Is that good?" Smolder looked anxious as she pushed the fake unicorn horn back up on her head. A long fake pony tail lay behind her, dangling from the chair she sat in. The lacy and frilly dress she wore rustled as she leaned forward over the Crystals & Rainbows books, including one she'd bought herself. She held it up. "I mean, we are using the optional rules from 'Parties & Promenades', right?" Spike rolled his eyes and adjusted his own fake horn and pony tail. At least he'd been able to argue his way out of the dress. "Normally it wouldn't be enough, but with those new rules? Yeah, it works just fine." As Smolder clapped her claws in glee, Spike folded his arms and grumped. "Yeesh, I'm starting to hate these new splatbooks."