//------------------------------// // Chapter XVIII: Burned Out // Story: FireStarter // by Cereal-Killer //------------------------------// Say what you will about the princesses, they can fucking fight. The Necromancer seemed to be tired of the battle, constantly trying to get to the city, only to be pulled back by Luna's area control spells. He suddenly disappeared, what I thought was him coming towards me, since the sisters were flying back to the Hive. They weren't absolutely jetting over here, so I assumed that he had buzzed off. Celestia landed behind me while Luna went down to check on the city. "What's up?" I asked, giving a cursory glance downwards. Luna was doing her best to fix up the large crevices in the ground, causing the rubble to form back into dirt and whatever the material Changelings use to pave their grounds is. "We've seen him off for now, but Lavan assures me he will come back." She stood next to me, a wing on my shoulder. "Are you alright? You seem troubled." "Oh nothing, I nearly just died again." I sighed. "Do you do that often?" "For a long time, No, but recently its been happening every few months, a changeling invasion, the return of Tirek and now this necromancer. He is clearly no pony, but he seems to hold magical power rivaling that of an alicorn." "How do you cope?" I asked looking up at her. "I keep the ponies I love most to me as close as possible." She looked down at Luna, who was being thanked by a couple of Changelings down below. "Treasure your time with them. Even though, my time with each pony is finite, I love all of it." She smiled, "Even when you have problems and disagreements, resolve them and do not let hatred fester. That is one that the younger me needed to be shown." "Sounds like you were a bit of a hot head." She laughed, shaking her head. "I could be, sometimes. However, the history books would tell you otherwise." I put a hand on her wing and we stayed there for a while. Soon after, Lavan came up over the side of the tower, moving like a slug as he climbed, then transforming back into his humanoid form when he got to the floor. "Right, so here's where I'm supposed to fill you in on the things I think you're gonna ask." He walked up to me, assuming a similar stance by leaning on the rail to my left. "But right now isn't the best time to talk, especially with prying eyes around. That's including your friend, that Changeling king." He stared down at the changelings, then peeked at the throne room doorway. "Hey, he's probably been as good of a friend as you have at this point." "Uh huh. What I can tell you at the moment is about the previous avatar. Because all parties present are already aware of my existence over time." "What? Who were you bonded with before me?" "A Unicorn named Firestorm. He was a tortured soul, he went to war to protect his family and found me after his group hid in the cave I had resided in since humanity's fall. He became the Avatar of Destruction and used it as a tool to save others, burning away structures instantly to save ponies that were trapped, cauterising wounds, that sort of thing." He sighed. "He came back from the fight battered but intact. When he got home, he found that his Discord's reign had started. He lost his family, never knew where they ended up. Drove him mad and by the time Discord was defeated, he had gained a new name." "Lavan?"I asked. "He- 'Lavan' was completely deranged by the time he was gone. She couldn't save him but Celestia found a way to stop the insanity that afflicted me when she found me." He looked over, moving closer to her. "She found herself quite enamoured by what was hidden behind the madness." "Then why did you end up in the mountain?" I asked. The affliction, I had episodes of it. The first few times were no issue, a burnt tree, a broken statue... the last one nearly destroyed Canterlot and she put me in the mountain and collapsed it." The Alicorn flinched, looking away. "It was one of the most painful things I've ever done, along with sealing Luna in the moon." Ah, I heard of this. Some business about Luna being corrupted and then beamed up to spend a millenia there. "Yeah, I pressed the subject once to her, not knowing what it meant. She didn't react very well." I thought back to the odd dream from a couple months before. "It hurt her deeply, having to watch herself do such things. I have pried her open about it once before and she was in tears." Another question had popped up again in my head, one I had forgotten during my arrival, and had always nagged me a the most inopportune times. "Do you... know why I was there Lavan? In Canterlot, where you found me. "Not a clue. Maybe a cosmic fluke. Maybe fate." He reached across putting an arm on my shoulder. "All that matters is you are here." I put a hand on the sludge that had burned away my shoulder plate. "Thanks dude. And you owe me a new piece of armour, because that shit is expensive and I do not have the bits for it." Luna had finished up with fixing the fissures and flew up to join her sister. "These Changelings are quite thankful, sister. It is quite exhilarating to be the target of such gratitude!" Helix had come through the doors, looking towards the sisters. "Would either of you happen to know why a pony was attempting to siege my city? They were quite close to taking it." I turned around. "We were just finished talking about that, basically he was targeting me, by using your distress call as a lure." "Hmmm. You seem to be quite a dangerous friend, Smith." "I know. It's not my fault that everyone wants my hot monkey dick." I said, earning a smack on the back of the head from Lavan. "Ow. The fuck was that for?" "Being retarded. Oh, don't worry, you'll be getting much worse soon." He grinned. "What do you mea-" Twilight teleported in front of me, looking angry as fuck. "Oh." I proceeded to get chewed out for about 30 minutes straight, and given several pointers on how I could've avoided getting hurt." After my ears had stopped ringing, I felt something attach itself to my chest, It was a mysterious purple furry cage that was gripping me harder than death itself. Although considering current events, death's grip is probably weaker, if anything. "As soft as you are, Twilight, you're kinda strangling me here." I choked out and she loosened her death grip. ---- "And that was what happened when I got teleported earlier this weekend." "Seriously? You got beaten up again?" Spike asked as I read a book on rune-making. "Yeah, it's really getting on my nerves now. On the plus side, I can do this now." I made a finger gun firing one of the shots of condensed flames from my index. I made sure it dissipated before it could hit anything. "Thats kinda cool, I guess." Spike scratched one of his spines. "Hey, wanna do some guy stuff?" I put the book down, "Like what?" "I dunno, Oubliettes and Ogres? That what Shining Armour did when we were a bit younger." The drake offered. Is that a table top game where you make a character and you're put through a scenario in a group?" Spike nodded. "Huh, Twilight's brother plays D&D. I'm kind of suprised he's that nerdy, I mean, he just seems more like the jock stereotype." "He just doesn't act too normal when you're around, mainly 'cus he thinks you're gonna do weird stuff with Twilight." Spike shivered at the thought. "I literally told him I had no intention of that." I said, raising my voice slightly with indignation. Spike continued, "Well, he doesn't trust you, obviously." I huffed in response. "One day I'm gonna go to the Crystal Empire and play a really toxic round of D&D, or O&O as you call it here, with him just to make him salty and get banned by the GM." I raised my fist to the sky, making an oath to do so. "What does salty mean?" The short purple dragon asked. "In the context I'm talking about, it means making him angry." Spike mouthed an 'oh'. "Well, any other ideas?" "Twilight got my phone back from the researchers. Using some ingenuity, they've managed to manufacture a version of modern batteries that use magic as fuel instead of the chemicals normally used for batteries. It should be in the lab still." "What can we do with that?" "Quite a fucking lot. I had tons of games on that thing. We could watch some movies or shows from an app I have." I downloaded quite a lot of things on netflix, as well as having quite a few emulators. "It'll keep us occupied for a while. I know something that'll be right up your ally, since you like superheroes so much." We watched some Marvel movies that were on their, followed by One Punch Man, he was confused at first but thought that my world looked cool, he tried contesting how the Power Ponies could beat Saitama but I shut him down. "But what about-" "Saitama would literally just punch them and they'd be gone." "You arent even listening! I'm trying to tell you that they could just-" "LaLaLa! I can't hear you!" Spike growled, starting to batter my leg with half-serious punches. After being angry for a minute, I pacified him by showing him Pokémon. He was immediately enthralled. I had him sat next to me on one of the big chairs at the hologram table, budging aside so it could accommodate us both at once. "Dude, this is the coolest thing ever. Do I just pick whatever one I want?" "Yeah. I always choose Charmander though." He looked through the three choices, before deciding on Charmander, I gave him a high five and he got into the game properly. "So this Gary guy that's meant to be my best friend? He's really annoying." "Yeah, I always thought that. Is there anything left in the fridge?" I stood up from the little map table. The kitchens were pretty close by. "Yeah, those new microwave foods started popping up recently, so Twilight bought a few. "Huh. Must have come through a while back." I wasn't surprised, a lot of random crap had come through so far. Aside from Gunnar, I hadn't heard of any people coming through. There have been a few other additions. LED's, modernised plumbing, better communication tech and a couple of other more minor things. A big thing in the equestrian news was a couple of scientists figuring out a weird magitech combustion engine. Looking through the selection Twilight had gotten, most of them were pony foods; hay and the like. One stood out, some pseudo-meat vegetarian version of a burger. I slapped it in the microwave, walking back over to the little dragon while he was complaining about how he got ripped off by the Magikarp guy until he bit the bullet and put effort into leveling it. I had gone to get a drink from the castle kitchens, passing a few guards on the way when Spike came to me, yelling about how the fish Pokémon had turned into a sea dragon, which was kinda funny. I heard the ding of the microwave finishing and walked quickly into the kitchen, before picking it up and just beginning to eat. It felt weird doing that, but I didn't need the plate since holding something piping hot was only slightly warm. I seated myself back on the Twilight chair, because she bothered to put cushions on it and its the best thing ever. He went a bit quiet for a while and I just continued reading my rune book and eating my burger until he got tired, which he did. Later on, he was trying to beat the fourth gym while half asleep. "Hey bud, you wanna get teleported back to your room?" I asked. He nodded, not looking away from the screen. "Ok." He reminded me of myself, so I wasn't going to act like the asshole parent and snatch it off him. I was kinda appalled that Twilight had him sleeping in a cot instead of his own room and we had a conversation about it. I've probably said this before, but I'll say it again: Twilight treats him very strangely. Teleporting him back, we sat on his bed and I did a little backseat coaching before he won. Once he'd beat it, I took the phone from him while he was nodding off. We had other things to watch tomorrow, but I could tell he was going to be obsessed with the game until he finished it. There was something to be said about showing him it, though. The pure nostalgia, along with the feeling of happiness when you share a secret and someone responds positively. Hmm, maybe I'll level up his starter so he gets to see it evolve to Charizard first thing in the morning... ---- I woke to the sound of Spike knocking on my door. I got dressed sleepily and opened the door, yawning, "John, can I have the phone?" Spike asked. "Sure, go grab it. Its on the desk where all the scrolls are." He zoomed over there, hopping up on my office chair to reach it. It was one of thr things that came through into Equestria, it was missing a wheel, but otherwise mostly intact. Picking up the phone, he asked, lifting up a scrolll. "What is 'Bite The Dust'?" I pulled it neatly from his claws and sorted it back into the pile of prototype scrolls I had been making. It was a complex process and I had only managed to make 2 or 3 in the last few months. "A spell I'm working on." He peeked at one of the scrolls lower down in the pile. "Don't touch those, you might be trapped in stopped time forever." He pulled his hand back immediately. "Aren't those dangerous?" "Well, yes but actually no." I ushered him out of the room. "In the wrong hands, they'll kill you but they could also be incredibly useful. They aren't complete yet and unless I can find away to keep light moving through the stopped time then that one will never be finished." "Oh." "I also need to be able to start time again, and thats also a problem." "Dude, just slow it down a load instead of stopping it. Thats how Tick-tock did it in issue #78 of Power Ponies." "That... is actually a good idea." I mentally noted the dragon's suggestion for later. "Man this game is awesome. And its in something so small! The ones at the arcade aren't nearly as good as this and the arcade machines are like a hundred times bigger." "You know I have like fifty games on that?" He looked like his brain just melted. "Fifty? Like five-oh? I'm starting to realise why Twilight was busting a nut over this." He looked at the phone, trying to open it. I motioned for him to give it to me, using the fingerprint scanner to open it, before passing it back. "Who told you that kind of language?" "You." He deadpanned, as I heard the Pokemon Centre theme begin to play. I frowned. "Spike, I don't mind if you say that kinda stuff to me in private, but don't say that to ponies. They'll freak out, especially Twilight. Then I'll get another royal lecture." He nodded, motioning a zipper over his mouth. That was good enough for me. Of course, as we chilled out the whole day, Twilight came in to ruin the fun. "Spike, Rarity needs you to help her with gem-hunting." He sighed. "Do I have to?" "Ok, get re- wait, you don't want to help her?" Twilight suddenly seemed concerned. "I'm kinda... in the middle of something." He was tapping away at the phone, I couldn't see what he was doing since I was sat away from him. "What could be more important to you than helping Rarity?" "Pokermon." He mispronounced slightly, waving the phone, which Twilight quickly levitate out if his hands. "John, what is this?" Twilight scanned over the phone screen. "My phone. Duh. You literally gave it to me yesterday." She pouted, ignoring my bullshit. "And what is a Pokermon?" "A game from where I come from. One of the most popular ever." "We can talk about this. Spike, go help Rarity." "Ok." He grumbled, walking away. "So John, how long did you think you would be able to get away with it before I noticed?" "Wut?" 'The scrolls. The chronostasis spell, especially." "Oh, what about them?" "That spell is beyond forbidden." "I didn't know that." "Also this 'Dust biting' spell looks incredibly powerful. How much time did you spend writing these?" She poofed the scrolls from nowhere, causing me to cringe, in case she accidentally set one off. "A couple months. Also, be gentle with those." "She nodded. "I assumed as much. I was very careful, by the way, I've never even set off a scroll in my life." "Well, excuse me princess." "Gladly." Celestia said behind me, definitely not causing me to flip my shit. "WHEN THE FUCK DID YOU GET HERE!?" "Just now, actually. Luna and I were just planning to have a pleasant lunch with Twilight, as we finished our royal duties early today." "Cool, guess I'll be on my way then." I tried to walk away but got teleported back in front of them. "You are welcome to join us." Luna added. "Something tells me I'm not welcome to leave." "Lavan has things he wishes to speak about with you." Celestia said, as Lavan appeared, busting down the door. "What's up?" He said after making his grand entrance. "Get in, loser." I pointed to my head and he launched into my ear, causing the most uncomfortable feeling. "Ew." 'Oh cool, I'm back to red text mode.' Hurry up, dickhead. I ain't got all day. 'Why've you got a mardy on?' Just fucking tell me what you need to tell me, bitch. 'Ok, ok. Keep your bloody hair on.' he paused. 'So first things first, that mage talked to you about concepts, am I correct?' Yeah, he said something about possessing death, and then a blob like you, but it was black started coming out of him 'Yeah, that's Death alright. So in case you hadn't gathered, concepts are tangible things. Harmony is pretty easy, its made up of Laughter, Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, loyalty and- I finished it off. -Magic makes it all complete, yeah, whatever. ' Yeah, anyway. The Elements are tangible physical things. They are unique in that they're objects, but they are still a few of many. Second, most of us bind to a host, like symbiotes. The powers are different most of the time. There are a few famous people who bonded with Life or Creation and a few rather infamous ones who bonded with me or Death.' Anyone in particular? I asked. 'Death's 'best work' as she called it was done with an artist she found in Vienna.' Oh. 'Yeah.' He frowned. 'A single aspect is not a problem, in fact it often does the world good a fair bit of good. The problems occur if we end up finding an Avatar at around the same time. The most notable dispute is probably Life and Death, which is constant. I don't know who Life has bonded with but he hasn't made himself known yet, but he definitely is with at least one person. Be it pony or otherwise.' That... was a lot to take in. How did you know what was going on back at the hive then?" 'here's a sort of sense we have for each other. It's hard to explain. Anyway, I'm the current version of Destruction. Attaching to others has effects on our personality, so I'd say I'm more like you than I was Firestorm, or Lavan, depending on what you call him.' I could feel my self being shaken from outside. Looks like they're trying to get us back. 'Yeah, I pretty much said all that needed to be said. Try to be careful next time though, I'm in no mood to haul you back to life if you nearly die again.' I felt myself being yanked back to reality, my vision clearing as Twilight shook me, while Rarity and Spike were panicking and yelling about something. Spike was... glowing? What the hell? "John. Are you awake yet?" My hearing came back quickly once Lavan had exited me again. "Yeah? What?" "Rarity, Spike and I are going to the Dragon Lands, we'll be back in a couple hours, so don't do any testing till I get back." "Damn." I was going to see if I could get the chronostasis scroll working correctly. "See you guys later then." "Actually, Twilight, I believe it would do you well to take him with you, given Torch's propensity for odd theatrics." Celestia sipped at a cup of tea. "Very well Princ- Celestia." "Wait, why do-" we teleported, arriving at the base of a colossal volcano. "-n't I get a say in thi- aaaand we're gone, cool." I turned to face the group, finding Spike and a shoddily crafted disguise holding the two unicorns. "Wow, you are... terrible at being stealthy. What's the situation then, Sparkplug and Diamondbutt?" Rarity seemed flabbergasted, "Did you just call me Diamondbutt? Why, the nerve-" fortunately, her tirade was cut off by some colossal dragon, about as large as Smaug towered over us, and I noticed other dragons joining in, looking at me angrily. "WHO ARE YOU? SPEAK YOUR NAME TO ME, OUTSIDER!" The largest dragon yelled out to me. "Hi, I'm John. I'm uh..." I thought up a plausible explanation. "A Half-dragon?" "A Halfling? Hmph. Very well then. We shall continue on." Wow, that actually worked. We are gathered here today to..." blah, blah, blah, the big guy made an unfunny joke of the speech by telling the dragons how to react, before flinging a staff a couple of miles away into the hellscape behind him. A blue dragoness seemed to just appear ou of the group and siddle up near us and hot damn, this dragon girl was a shorty but she looked good. She was decently tall, compared to a pony, about a head above Twilight. I crossed my arms, waiting for his spiel to be over. "-Whoever gets the staff will become the new Dragon Lord. Any non-purebred dragons are not allowed to participate." He gave me the eye, before stomping, "Be on your way, then!" Most of the dragons flew off, and Spike started to run off into the distance in hot pursuit. "Twilight." I whispered. "Go keep an eye on Spike, I'll just chill and wait here." "One step ahead of you," she said, blinking away with Rarity and their crappy rock disguise in tow. Leaving me with the absolute unit known as Torch. "Finally. The whole big monster act is always hard on my throat. You are John, correct? I have been told of you." "Yeah. Who told you that?" I asked. "Lavan. Of course, any friend of his is a friend to me. He told me you would be arriving along side the purple hatching and those two ponies." "Wait, Twilight said you kill any non-dragon trespassers, is she wrong? "The ponies natural fear of us is well founded, but as a higher species, we do not kill indiscriminately. Most ponies that venture here do not leave because they either die of dehydration, fall into Lava, or on the very odd occasion, they stay here." "Oh, ok. Is there any other bullshit that ponies have been feeding me?" He harrumphed. "They'll have probably told you that a couple other species are savage, because of their closed-mindedness towards us. I am surprised you were not discriminated upon for your nature as well." At my questioning look, he continued. "My eyesight is better than you think, young wyrm. I can see your teeth." "So, we chill then?" He nodded. "Yes we are... chill, I haven't heard of such a colloquialism in my time. I assume it means to be in agreement." "Close enough. Hey, do you guys have any Lava-tubs? I tried dipping in Lava once and it was super nice." "We are surrounded by them. Any of those should be large enough for you to sit in comfortably." He motioned towards the many pits pockmarking the terrain. And so, I just chilled in my new 'hot-tub' for a while, waiting for the group to come back. My clothes had been enchanted to withstand more heat than usual, but I left them at the side, since they'd probably be burned up in direct contact with lava. Slowly submerging myself, I cooed out an 'ah' of satisfaction. The normally flesh disintegrating heat felt more like a particularly warm bath now. I could see some wild shit going on at that giant rock formation that kept blasting out fire for some reason. A couple of minutes passed and there was some kind of magical blast that echoed out, followed by another of equal power a couple seconds later. After a while, Spike and that blue girl came back, wit the scepter from before in hand. Then some random red dragon hugged me and walked away, which was kinda weird. I asked Spike about it, but he just laughed. She was reprimanded by her father, apparently when I wasn't listening she had also been banned from the little tournament, but she went anyway because she was being a minx. Spike informed me her name was Ember, and then they decided to join me in my makeshift jacuzzi, which was nice. Twilight and Rarity were in a slightly different disguise from earlier, more bush than rock now. "So you're chill with those ponies right there? I thought dragons of your age were ultra-racist?" "Well, Spike vouched for them, and he doesn't seem the kind to lie." Spike beamed at Ember's praise. "Eh, fair enough. How old are you by the way? I can't really tell." "I don't really keep count." She answered. Well, at least I can say to the officers she didn't know her own age when the FBI breaks done my door. "Never seen anything like you, though. Spike was telling me your species is a hyuman?" "Close enough." I turned back to Twilight, who was still in her dumbass disguise. "Are we planning to stick around or are we just heading home now." She nodded, "We should be on our way. Goodbye Dragon Lord Ember." In a flash of light, Twilight and Spike disappeared, leaving me alone with Rarity and Ember. "Wait, did she just go without us?" I looked towards the still disguised Rarity. "Yes. Yes she did." Rarity sounded slightly panicked. "Well should we, um, wait for her to get back." Waiting about ten seconds, I replied. "If she could come back, she already would have done so." It looked like we needed to get an alternative ride back. "Ember, could we fly back on a Dragon?" "Father? could you explain to him?" Ember looked up at the behemoth stood beside them. "There was a treaty established many years ago, that bars us access through the lands of Prance, and that would be the quickest way home for you. I should be able to take you to the border." "Rarity, you up for that?" I turned towards the mare in question. "Well I'm sure we would be able to contact somepony while in Prance and get home. Not to be rude but... anywhere is better than here." She did something from underneath the disguise, I imagined she was shaking rubble from her hooves. Alright, Looks like It's time for a road trip. --A torn page-- "FUCK!" The necromancer lashed out against one of the stone walls, blasting apart the horn of his current body. "We were so close! A mere second longer and we would of had him." 'You were too prideful to simply finish him quickly.' Death reprimanded. 'The blame falls solely on you for this failure. No matter, we must simply be more prepared next time. He is still weak enough to squash without resistance.' "Yes, yes. But I'm sure we'll have to deal with those two if the opportunity to attack ever arrives again." 'That is why you must grow stronger, as well. To the south, there is an area of land beyond the changeling kingdom that was once subject to many blood sacrifices from a civilisation long lost to the annals of time, they would offer their own kind as well as many animals to their gods as a show of faith. if you were to take those sacrifices as pittance to me...' "We would go stronger." 'Exactly, my dear.' "Very well then. Let us leave this place." He discarded the now useless body. "I have been saving this one for a while." The soul blew away, like on an imaginary wind making it's way towards a new body, a skeleton made of alicorn. He had made such creations before, but this was one of his best works, grinding horns to dust, only to sow them back together with his own magic into any form he wished. The form he had used this time was an alicorn, the idea of flight didn't interest him too much anymore, but he knew it would mortify the sisters if they were to see him like this. And in the end, that was all that mattered: Ponies were not deserving of what they were given. That had been proved to him. He simply needed to be strong enough to take it from them.