Along the ridge of the caldera sits a green dragon, tongue hanging out, lumpy scales studded with colorful gems. Uncomprehending eyes blankly roll around, watching the dragons playing on the ledge. Utterly unconcerned with what is going on in front of him, one of his eight legs awkwardly scratches his side, not able to reach far enough.
A second green dragon, scales studded with colorful gems, stumbles up the ridge, bumbling back and forth in an uncoordinated walk. Blue wings poke out the side along with, if one looks closely at the chest, a pair of magenta eyes. Three high pitched voices emanate from the beast, barely discernible over the sizzle and crack of lava cooling on the stone.
“Are you sure this is the place, Rainbow?”
“Of course I am! Hey, look! There! See?” A cerulean hoof pushes out from under the costume, pointing up at the ledge. Fizzle leaps out past Spike, hanging in the air briefly before the white dragon plummets down. He falls past a charcoal gray dragon holding a small white filly, his splash barely larger than Garble’s. Lava sloshes at his feet as he emerges strumming on a white guitar, an unrelenting pounding that reverberates against the walls of the caldera. The adult dragons turn, heads bobbing to the extremely quick beat.
“He’s okay! Hey, what’s Sweetie Belle doing there?”
The red dragon in the pool reaches down, grinning as he pulls out a red guitar etched with orange flames. His claws begin strumming, a fast melody up and down, barely fazed as lava drips from his frets.
“Whew! I’m gla- Wait, Sweetie Belle? ” An azure eye pushes one magenta eye out of the way, the back half of the green dragon going limp on the ground. “What is she doing here!?”
The two larger purple dragons drop from the ledge next, only the briefest of pauses in the music as lava covers the stage again. Nickelbangs utters a deep, guttural roar as he rises from the viscous magma, claws outstretched to the sky. One holds out a black bass guitar, the other gripping a purple guitar. His high voice rings out,
“Death is a misery, the end of all that’s meant to be,”
Charcoal leaves Sweetie Belle briefly stranded on the cliff as he swoops down, snagging the black guitar. Both dragons join in as Charcoal returns to the filly, her pink and purple curls bobbing up and down as she headbangs.
“In the past we had the chance to see, the meaning of our ways!”
Backdraft rises from the pool, his darker purple bass guitar a deep counterpart to Charcoal’s.
“If we can’t spend all eternity, dancing to some melody, then we demand some equity, the payment for our days!”
The large brown dragon leaps, leaving Spike fuming on the ledge. Sound in the caldera comes to a brief pause as Charcoal zips out of the way, hastily covering Sweetie Belle with a wing as the entirety of the lava pool rises to the heavens!
“Into the fire of forever we will carry on! We are the bringers of the dawn! Those that we loved are never really gone, forever in our hearts will they stay!”
Clump roars at his newly exposed drum set, two sticks of obsidian beating out a blazing rhythm. Fizzle steps forward, the white flames shooting from his mouth echoing his claws. They go back and forth for minutes, daring each other to faster and faster rhythms and more complicated strings until Garble breaks the dueling two.
“Searching through the memories, wishing for those victories, blinded by our revelries, the world cries out in silence lost!”
Spike cries out from above, “You Mock My Pain!” Four of the five dragons in the pool turn their heads up to watch as Spike leaps down to the slowly reforming lava pool, plummeting down.
His graceful landing consists of planting his belly on the hardening magma.
The surrounding dragons wince in pain, though their music doesn’t cease. Garble grins, “Hey, maybe you aren’t such a pony after all!”
Spike peels himself up, unfazed by the welt growing on his snout. “YOU!!” he shouts, bringing a claw up to point at Garble. He glares for a second, then snaps his claws above his head. Nickelbangs chucks his purple guitar at Spike, the small purple dragon catching it out of the air. He strums, completely out of time from the rest of the band, his high voice barely audible above the storming guitars,
“Lost in a dream, it seems; seeing the sadness grow, I know; through the fields of my despair, my love will ever flare!”
Garble grins as his claws fly over the strings. From high above, shouting in her deepest, most dragon-like, throat rending voice, is Sweetie Belle,
“Rivers of fire inside of us, will they see us victorious? The phoenix who guides us, will rise up again!”
Spike’s eyes furrow, “But she is dead now! Fading away forever; the darkness prevails now, her never to restore!”
Garble spins around, his guitar crackling with energy as he holds it behind his back,
“But in the end, what did we learn? A new light ascends! Even though the world may burn we’ll start it all again!”
“No!” shouts Spike, slamming the guitar to the ground, though it doesn’t quite break like he wanted it to. “Why? You have to know ponies can’t survive in lava!” The guitars stop playing, just Charcoal quietly strumming from high above and Clump wildly thrashing against the drums. Spike turns to glare at the brown dragon, “Hey!”
Garble shakes his head as he walks closer, “Yeah, he’s not going to stop. Maybe when he gets hungry. You want something?”
“Raaagh!” Spike yells as he charges Garble, claws madly swiping at the red dragon.
“Hey, that’s more like it!” Garble shouts as he dodges backwards. Spike presses forwards, the guitarists returning to a fast, pounding rhythm, though with nowhere near as much volume as before. “Now you’re acting like a dragon!”
The other five dragons shout, “DRAGON RAMPAGE!!” as Spike ferociously swings at Garble.
The red dragon blocks the first few attacks, stepping to the beat of the guitars echoing around him. A few light jabs of his own keep Spike from going completely on the offensive, the small dragon taking the hits but still pressing forwards. After a few more parries Garble grins, spinning to swipe at Spike’s feet with his tail, his head dropping low.
Spike leaps over the tail, legs bending low on the other side. Garble’s eyes go wide as Spike roars, a clawed fist delivering a devastating uppercut to the red dragon’s jaw!
Garble splays backwards, landing on the stone with a loud crack. Spike strides forward, shouting, “That was for Sweetie Belle!” as the guitars cease, leaving the thrashing drums.
“Heh, I knew you had it in you.” Garble rolls to his feet, snapping his jaw back into place. “Gotta admit, at first I thought you’d just let me do whatever I wanted to your fillyfriend. But after a belly flop like that, and an attempt to Dragonfarce better than me?” Garble lightly punches Spike in the shoulder, Spike blankly staring at the spot. “I hereby dub thee a junior member of the band, ‘Rookie Dragon’!”
“But-!” Spike calls as Garble raises his claw to the cliff.
“And I couldn’t have done it without our daring second newest, only female and only pony, Sweetie Belle!” Charcoal comes down, landing a bit away from the sizzling lava. Sweetie Belle awkwardly waves at Spike.
Spike’s jaw drops. “W-what!?”
“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle apologetically says, “Garble wanted to see how far he could push you. What kind of dragon you were.”
“And I wasn’t disappointed.” Garble pauses for a second. “Well, I was kind of disappointed at first. How you let yourself get pushed around, and you didn’t stand up for your fillyfriend.”
“Wait, my fillyfriend?” Spike says, glancing at Sweetie Belle.
“Thanks for coming to my defense, Spike,” Sweetie Belle says, a quick peck on Spike’s cheek, “even if it took you a little while to realize it.”
“Aww, how cute,” Garble says with a grin, Sweetie Belle shyly nodding. “She’s got a great voice, comes up with lyrics on the spot nearly as well as we do."
Sweetie Belle grins. "Yeah! I listen to you with Spike all the time! You're really cool!"
"We prefer hot," Garble says with a wink. "Hey, you want to come with us on stage?”
“That’d be awesome!” Spike’s mouth opens in a wide smile as his eyes beam. Onstage with Dragonfarce on the opening day of Tarrapalooza!? And Sweetie Belle is his fillyfriend? How could this day get any better?!
“Oh, not you, Spike,” Garble says with a touch of sorrow. “Just her.”
Spike falls over in a dead faint, clutching at his heart.
Garble glances at Sweetie Belle. “Too much?”
Sweetie Belle shrugs, “Eh, he’ll be fine. You were joking, right?”
“About him not coming? Yeah, fine, he can come on stage. Only you can sing, though. His voice is pretty meh. You’ll need to work with him on that a lot.”
“I can do that! Rarity is always telling me how good my voice is. Maybe he can practice with me!”
Garble grins at Sweetie Belle, “Yeah, you do that. Now, you want to sing more, or party dragon style?”
“Um, I think I like singing,” Sweetie Belle says, nudging Spike and not getting a response.
“You heard her!” Garble shouts to the other members. “Hit it!”
Three voices cheer from the second green dragon as the band begins playing again. Spike eventually gets up, grinning as he sits and watches Sweetie Belle belt out spontaneous line after line. Dragonfarce, of course, doesn’t have lyrics to their songs, merely shouting out whatever comes to mind at the time.
The first green dragon’s purple ears flick at the feminine voices. He, as it is becoming more and more obvious, utters a deep, low moan as he flutters his long eyelashes. He slowly waddles towards the oblivious second green dragon, his keening call drawing the attention of the teenage dragons.
“Crockle!?” Nickelbangs shakes his hair as the first green dragon gets close to the second. “Torch burn it! She’s your cousin!”
Garble rolls his eyes, “Yeah? How do you think they all ended up like that?”
The second green dragon turns just enough to spot Crockle as he gets almost into reach, his eight stubby legs barely propelling him forwards.
“What is- Aah!”
Eight uncoordinated pony legs send the second green dragon lurching forwards, immediately toppling over headfirst into the stone, the back buckling up and lifting into the air.
“He’s almost on us! We need to run!”
“Stop shoving, you two, or we’ll never make it!”
Crockle’s heavy body rams into the pony costume, quickly clambering on top on the squirming mess.
“We can’t stay in here! We need to-”
“No! Then they’ll know we’re ponies! You saw how much trouble Rainbow nearly got in when she tried to fly backstage!”
“Hey, they never would have caught me if-”
“It’s okay, you two, calm down. Rarity, how anatomically correct is this costume?”
“Um…”
“Seriously? Alright, then, we just- Aaah! What is that?”
“What do you think? Come on, Rarity, buck up! Your coat is already white!”
“Oh, no! You are not using me for that! You have far more practice!”
“Not with my hooves! And Twilight probably has way more experience cleaning up dragon spunk!”
“No I don’t! He never does that! At least, not when I’m around!”
“Ugh! Come on, one of you just make a shield or something! And quick!”
“Aah!”
Garble looks over at Sweetie Belle. “Is that what I think it is?”
Sweetie Belle shrugs as a third green dragon crests the hill, her feminine call drawing Crockle’s attention. The green dragon wrenches himself away, leaving the second green dragon shuddering on the ground. “Probably.” She turns back to the band, “We going to keep going or watch?”
Garble grins as he strums his guitar. “Nothing saying we can’t do both.” He chomps down on a clawful of gems, “Now this is a DRAGON PARTY!!” as he slams a foot down, another blazing melody reverberating around the caldera.