Chapter 6: Dragonshy
I awoke in the Wolves’ Clearing, as I liked to call it. AJ was lying next to me, murmuring incomprehensibly. I grinned, slowly moving as to not wake her up. Danny and I started with cooking breakfast over a small fire while the light of the sun shone down on me. The sun’s glow felt colder around me, like some celestial being was angry with me.
“I forgive you too, Celestia,” I shouted to the sky. In response, the light grew even chillier. I laughed.
“The sun is angry with me,” I said to Danny, who chuckled as well. Once the two of us had breakfast for twenty one (most wounded) wolves done as well, I rounded up everyone in the clearing.
After a hearty breakfast, AJ and I went into town to buy some much-needed supplies (basically, paint for the barn and twenty gallons of lemonade). On the way, I noticed the cloud of ominous smoke on the horizon.
“Um… does that happen often?” I asked AJ, pointing to the smoke. She studied it curiously.
“Well, ah sure hope not. Otherwise, ah’ve lost mah sight faster’n Granny Smith.”
“Everypony!” I looked over at the bridge to see Twilight standing there with a very tired Spike. “A cloud of smoke is spreading over Equestria!” She pointed towards the sky. Everypony gasped.
“Don’t worry!” Twilight yelled again. “It’s not a forest fire!” We all sighed with relief. “It’s a sleeping dragon!”
This, expectedly, caused all of the ponies to freak out even more. They all ran, gasping and crying and screaming.
“Nice one, Twilight,” I called. She looked sown sheepishly.
“I’m guessing we’re gonna be the ones who gets this dragon to leave?” I asked. She nodded.
“How do yah always know what’s goin’ on?” AJ asked me. I grinned.
“Elementary, my dear Applejack,” I said. Now, only if I had a Holmes-ian outfit. Twilight looked at me funny.
“Okay… can you guys gather the rest of the girls and meet me at the library?” she asked. We both nodded and headed our separate ways.
“Alright, first on the list: Pinkie Pie.” I re-read the list. “WAIT!”
They sent me to get Pinkie? What, do they want me dead or something?
I trotted along the path, watching for pink. I finally found my cotton-candy friend next to Sugarcube Corner. She was licking herself (okay, anyone who just thought a dirty thought, you’re disgusting). I walked up, hoping she wouldn’t release the gates of insanity on me.
“Hiya, Andy!” she squealed. Andy… I hate that name. “Have you ever wondered why bubblegum and cotton candy are pink?”
“Pinkie, do you taste like bubblegum?” I asked seriously. She looked at me for a second, then burst out laughing.
“Now why would you think that, Andy?” she asked, tears of joy still flowing from her eyes.
“But- you just- you were- ugh, never mind. You will never be fully understood, Pinkie.”
“I know!”
“Pinkie, just help me get Rainbow Dash out of her house for a minute. We’re gonna slay a dragon!” I shouted. She began bouncing around and around, asking all sorts of questions about the dragon, like what color it was, what its favorite sweets were, and if it knew how to play the tambourine.
“Pinkie,” I asked tiredly, “what was that last one again?”
“Well, I wanted to know if he could play the tambourine, because I had an itchy flank, then a twitchy tail, and that means-” she was cut off as I bashed her over the head with a hammer, knocking her out cold.
“Well, that’s one down,” I muttered, grimacing. I slung Pinkie across my back and teleported to Rainbow’s cloud house.
“Rainbow!” I shouted to the bedroom. “I know you’re in there, so don’t even bother trying to hide!”
She peeked out of the room, her face pained. “Do you mind not blasting a metaphorical subwoofer in my ear?” she asked, annoyed.
“So, still hungover from the party, eh?” I asked, a slight smirk on my face. “Of course, I’m not surprised; you were flirting with as many mares as you were stallions.”
Rainbow looked horrified. “I flirted?” she asked, sounding like her life was at stake. I laughed.
“Of course not, I was just pulling your hoof.” She swung a punch, which I blocked lazily. “It looks like the shock sobered you up quite nicely, too. Let’s get going. Twilight says we’re going to have a talk with a dragon.”
I think she took that the wrong way, seeing as she punched her hooves together and started muttering something about “dragons ruining her nap time”. I, like any stallion that feared for their future children and/or sex life, got out of her way before she started punching something and set out for the treehouse. On the way, I met a rather strange brown earth pony with an hourglass for a Cutie Mark. I told Rainbow to take the still unconscious Pinkie and go on ahead. I trotted up to the pony, who was fiddling with a robotic dog and muttering in a British accent.
“Well, what do we have here?” I said, grinning. “A Time Lord and K-9.”
The pony stared at me. “But how did you…”
I laughed. “Well, in my universe you’re a television show.”
He looked at me once, then slammed into me. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to find you?” he hissed.
“Wait, what?”
“I was just zooming around in the TARDIS one morning when all of a sudden I pick up a life form falling into an alternate universe. So, I follow you through, get turned into a damn pony, and just to top it all off, the TARDIS has refused to leave without you.”
“Well, I guess you’re staying for a while, Doctor,” I said. I cut him off before he could speak. “Dammit Doctor, listen to something other than your alien brain for once. Maybe the TARDIS brought you here for a reason. Settle down, buy a house, maybe fall in love.”
The Doctor laughed. “I’m a 900 year old alien from another reality. What in the name of Gallifrey would fall in love with me?”
I looked at him. “You’re kidding me, right?” I asked. He stared, bemused. “We are in a land of talking magical ponies, Doctor. If anything can happen, it’ll happen here. Rose certainly did, and that was just on Earth.” He paled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to convince a dragon to stop snorting smoke across the planet’s surface.” I trotted off, leaving the Doctor behind with a look of confused fury on his face.
“Why do I have the feeling that man/pony will make life hell for me?” I asked myself. The white room formed in my head. Vael sat there, laughing.
“I don’t know. Maybe because he has the power to do so?”
“Look, Vael, you are not going to be the annoying voice in my head, so GET OUT,” I hissed. The room dissipated, Vael still laughing.
Great. Now I have three beings of great power that want me dead. You know what? I’m starting to feel like the Frodo of this series.
I finally got to Twilight’s library, where she was waiting for me with an angry expression on her face. She opened her mouth, but I stuck her hoof in it.
“I was sidetracked by an idiot of an alien who needs to listen to his friends more often,” I explained. She stared at me like I’d gone insane. “Alrighty then!” I shouted, raising my head to the smoke clouds. “What’s first, Pinkie?”
Pinkie, who had apparently recovered while I was gone, grinned. “Action montage!” she squealed, running off into the distance. I turned, facing the camera.
“Lauren, you know what to do.”
One extremely awesome action montage (in which I took the role of this world’s equivalent of James Bond, Con Mane) later, the gals and I were headed towards the mountain. Pinkie looked at it with hope in her eyes. Before she could say anything, I stopped her.
“No, Pinkie,” I said in a firm voice. “You may not make any more references.”
“But you did!” Pinkie whined. AJ looked at me with a little confusion. I mouthed “I’ll explain later” and returned my attention to Pinkie.
“Yes, but that was justified. I mean, I have Vael, the last known living Time Lord, and Princess Celestia angry with me, Pinks.”
Twilight stopped abruptly. “Princess Celestia’s your enemy?” she said in a quiet voice. I laughed out loud.
“No, my dear Twilight. I am Princess Celestia’s enemy. It is a matter of switching the roles.”
Twilight still looked ready to explode, so AJ calmly directed her attention elsewhere.
“Thanks,” I whispered as I sped to catch up with her. She gave me a sly wink.
“Yer gonna owe me, partner,” she said in the same tone. Well, at least something good came of Twilight’s outburst. Whatever I owe her, I have a feeling we are going to be spending a lot of time together.
The seven of us walked on. Soon, we reached a small crevasse with boulders positioned on either side.
“Okay, be very, very quiet,” Twilight said in a hushed tone. “These rocks are ready to fall at a moment’s notice. If anyone makes a sound, we’re all dead.”
“Comforting thought,” I told Pinkie, who suppressed a giggle. Danny appeared beside me, laughing as well.
“Again, why are you Wolves here?” I asked sarcastically. “’Cause you’ve been doing a ton of work around here.”
He bit my leg, drawing a little blood. “Shut up, hotshot,” he hissed quietly. “Most of us worked ourselves to the bone trying to bypass Luna and Celestia’s barriers. You should see Starlight right now…” he shivered a bit. A tendril of guilt crept into my stomach.
“How bad is she?” I asked. AJ came over to listen as well.
“Like I said, she worked herself to the bone. Turns out, Celestia was expecting us to come to your aid, so she set up a few… surprises. Mainly, an army of spirit ponies created from her magic. We took them all, but she has a horrible gash on her back and a few broken ribs. We’re not sure, but she might have a punctured lung, too.”
I winced. “At the very bottom of my guitar case, there’s a secret compartment. I packed some pain relievers and antibiotics from Earth in there. Give her two pills twice a day, and the cuts won’t infect.”
Danny nodded, relieved, and vanished in a puff of smoke.
“He likes her, doesn’t he?” I asked AJ.
“Well, ah’d say so.”
A scream pierced the near-silence.
“AVALA-” Rainbow shoved her hoof into Fluttershy’s mouth to stop her from screaming. It was too late. The boulders shivered on their mounts, trembling little by little until one after the other, they all fell. The seven of us ran for it, twisting through the boulders. Once I was nearly out, I heard a moan of pain from behind me. AJ was stuck, her foreleg under a boulder. Two more were headed right at her.
“NO!” I yelled, the magic involuntarily surging through me. With a halt, all of the falling rocks stopped, encased in a gold aura. I threw them all out of the way. When I got to AJ’s boulder, I snarled in surprise. Her foreleg was nearly crushed underneath the weight of the stone. I lifted it like the others, throwing it into the Everfree Forest. There, Vael. One more thing you can destroy, you heartless bastard.
I refocused on AJ. Her leg was in really bad shape; the bone was broken in four different places. I set it as best I could and hoped for the best.
“That’s all I can do, AJ,” I said a bit doubtfully. I splinted her leg temporarily, but she wouldn’t be seeing any action in the next week or so. “Can you walk?”
“Sure ah can!” she said, overly cheery. She stood up and wobbled for a bit before falling over again. “Then again, maybe not,” she admitted. I helped her up.
“Here, you can lean on me,” I said. She started to protest, but I cut her off. “AJ, it’s not going to make me uncomfortable. Now, are you coming, or do I have to drag you along?”
With a small blush and a huff, she leaned against me as we walked, resting her head on my shoulder. I’ll be the first to admit: it wasn’t that bad. Her coat was much softer than my own, and her slightly fast breathing was somehow… comforting. I noticed Rarity giving me a sly grin. I returned with my classic Vael look, and she immediately shrank back.
“I can’t wait to kill that dragon,” Rainbow hissed as we hobbled through a band of trees.
“Nor can I,” I said. “That bastard’s got my sympathy, though. I’d hate to see what you’d do to it.”
Trotting on, we had to stop several times because Fluttershy got too scared to move. I mean, she’s shy and everything, and we did kind of force her to come with us, but seriously? How can a two foot gap scare the daylights out of a pony? Especially one who can fly?
After much coaxing, pleading, and forcibly dragging Fluttershy up the mountain, we finally reached the peak. There was a loud crash, signaling the dragon was still asleep.
“Alright, let’s get the diplomacies out of the way so I can burn him with his own fire,” Rainbow and I hissed at exactly the same time. Fluttershy hid behind a rock. Twilight was eager to study the dragon. AJ looked bored out of her mind, and Rarity was cringing at the dust on her hooves. Pinkie was nowhere to be found; probably off having tea with the Cakes or something.
Twilight went into the cave first, hoping beyond hope that she could convince the dragon to leave in peace. She came back five minutes later with a smoking mane and a sheepish expression on her face. Seeing as AJ wasn’t going anywhere, Rarity would steal anything from that dragon’s hoard, and Fluttershy was scared of dragons, it was mine and Rainbow’s turn to enter the cave. I trotted in, with Rainbow close behind. The dragon had an angry, if resigned, look on his face.
“I assume you’re here to pester me too?” he asked in a deep voice. I nodded.
“Why don’t you sleep in the mountains to the north?” I asked. “From what I’ve read, dragons enjoy the cold, and you won’t have to be bothered with us ‘pesky ponies’ again.”
“Yes, child, but how am I to get my hoard there?” he rumbled, pointing to the massive collection of jewels, coins, and other valuable pieces in his pile.
“I’m a unicorn. I could accompany you and levitate them there.”
“Ah, but then you would know where my lair is,” he pointed out. Damn, I thought that would work.
“Then we are at an impasse, and we all know there is only one way to settle an impasse: a good old fashioned drinking contest!” I shouted, startling Rainbow.
“Whatever, Andrew,” she told me in a huff. She rushed over and punched the dragon in the snout. “Let’s just fight this guy.” She punched him again. I grabbed her with my magic and ran as fast as I could.
“You idiot!” I yelled. “That could’ve gone a lot better if you didn’t freaking attack a dragon!” Rainbow was still struggling against my aura.
“Let me at him!” she shouted. “I can take him!”
“Yeah, right. The only thing you’re gonna be taking if you go back in there is burn medication.”
The dragon chased us out of the cavern, trapping us by the edge of the peak. AJ was too weak to stand, Pinkie was still nowhere, Rarity had fainted, and Twilight was struggling to do even the most basic of magic because of her fear and the fact that she’d barely recovered from the “Vael Incident”. I knew I was missing somepony, but who would-
“HOW DARE YOU!” Fluttershy yelled from atop a rock. I looked up in mild fear. An angry Fluttershy was just like an angry Earth nerd: they’d go all Dovahkiin on you, and you’d be on the ground in, as Rainbow Dash graciously puts it, ten seconds flat. Of course, Fluttershy is more of an animal lover, not a nerd. Twilight could be considered a nerd, since she lives in a library. Speaking of which, aren’t libraries usually made of stone or something, not wood? I guess if the books burn down, the tree burns down with it. Kind of a “captain goes down with his ship” thi-
Dammit, sorry. I lose focus when I panic. So, back to the whole Fluttershy rant.
“Listen here, mister.” She sounded absolutely peeved. “Just because you’re mean doesn’t mean you get to be a bully. You may have huge teeth and sharp claws and snore smoke and breathe fire, but you do not-” she got really close to the dragon’s eye- “I repeat, YOU DO NOT HURT MY FRIENDS! You got that?”
The dragon whimpered and lowered its head. “But that rainbow one hit me,” it cried.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “You’re telling me that you tried to kill us because Rainbow
Dash hit you? For God’s sake, it probably didn’t even hurt!”
“He’s right, and you should know better. You should also know not to sleep where your snoring will be a health hazard to other creatures.”
“But I-”
“Don’t you ‘but I’ me, mister! Now, what do you have to say for yourself?”
The dragon started to cry.
“There, there. No need to cry. You're not a bad dragon, you just made a bad decision. Now go pack your things. You just need to find a new place to sleep. That's all.” Um, it’s come to my attention that Fluttershy may be slightly bipolar when it comes to animals and her friends. Nevertheless, I was quite glad she’d saved us.
“Fluttershy, that was awesome!” I shouted, startling her. “Rainbow’s assertiveness lessons are paying off.”
She blushed and hid behind her mane. “Oh, it was nothing.”
We all celebrated going back down the mountain. I, like I promised, transported the treasure hoard to the dragon’s new cave. Heading back to Ponyville, I became aware of Vael watching through my eyes with a curious interest. Every now and then, his gaze would flick to Fluttershy or Applejack. Temporarily unconcerned, I resumed my trek with AJ at my side.
It took only about an hour to reach the bottom, seeing as Fluttershy had set off any disturbances on our way up.
“I was worried that would be absolute hell,” I murmured to AJ, who grinned.
“Ah, there ain’t nothin’ yah can’t handle, Andrew,” she said. I smiled (not grinned, smiled; there’s a distinct difference), returning my attention to the road. If I was a pegasus, I’d probably put a wing around her; as it was, we leaned closer to each other. Rarity gave us another look, but turned before I could unleash all the fear-inspiring power my eyes could muster.
It was dark by the time AJ and I reached the farm. Without a word, we parted ways at the stairs. She nuzzled my neck one last time before trotting up the stairs on her three good hooves. I used the last of my strength to teleport to the roof.
Confound that pony… she drives me to think.
And so, I fell asleep with my thoughts on AJ.