//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: Loose Ends 
// by TheCrazedTurkey 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 6

December 11

Sorry for stopping so abruptly last time. I’ll explain why in a moment. For now, I’d like to pick up where I left off.

Now, where was I…

Vigil, Bolt and I were heading off to the war room, where we would be given procedure to follow, and leave from. When we got there, the general explained how we should use lethal force only if the situation was dire, and led us out the back, which led to what normally was a straight drop downward, hundreds of feet. However, when we came out, we found a large airship docked there. The general motioned for us to climb on board. “Now,” he called to us as we did so, “We can only get you so close to their position. They’ve got a pretty good view from where they are, so when we have to drop you off, it’ll be a three day hike. Once you’ve rescued the captive, we’ll give you further instructions.”

He saluted to us as we took off in the large ship. We sat in silence, waiting to be dropped off. The trip lasted four hours, and, before we knew it, we had landed and had to make the rest of the trip on foot. We were in the middle of a field that seemed to stretch on forever. To the north was a mountain, which was believed to be the location of the mercenaries’ hideout. Without hesitation, we started hiking, and didn’t stop until 21:00, when there was zero visibility.

When we bedded down for the night, we set up a fire and decided who would stand guard first. Vigil volunteered. I would be on duty next, followed by Bolt.

I was awakened at 1:00 by Vigil. There were bags under his eyes, but he seemed wide awake. “Your turn,” he whispered. I left my tent, and Vigil entered his own. I sat atop a large rock and gazed at the horizon. My mind wandered to several places. I thought of my family, of Cadence. I wondered when I would see them again. Then, I thought about my companions. Something seemed to be bothering Vigil. He never went into any detail whenever talking about his childhood. Could that be connected to how he was at the ceremony? I thought of how Princess Celestia looked at him… what was wrong?

And as for Princess Celestia herself, what was she planning for us? Why were we so important? Could it have something to do with the changeling’s prophecy?

	“She isn’t coming back, Twilie…”
“Equestria shalt fall into discord…”
“Creatures most foul...”
I looked at my watch. It was 3:00. Bolt was supposed to be on duty. I went to his tent, woke him up, and went back to sleep.

The next morning, at 5:00, we woke up, ate breakfast, tore down camp, and kept walking. Since we were all wearing full combat armor, the hikes were long and tedious. We would eat and have water without stopping, so as to save time. We would have dinner before going to bed, and we went through the same routine. On the third night, I remembered that I had packed my journal. So, while I was on guard duty, I wrote.

While I was writing my last entry, guard duty was over for me. Seeing as I was exhausted, I woke up Bolt and returned to my tent, forgetting the journal completely (again).

The next morning, we awoke once more. We would be reaching the enemies’ hideout today. Without eating, or breaking down camp, or even bringing more than two MRE’s each, we approached the mountain. The walk only took an hour, and we arrived at the base of the mountain. There was a tunnel digging deep into the mountain. At its mouth, we noticed a small fire, still burning. As we approached it, we saw that two dragons sat around it. They were still quite young, standing on their hind legs, only a bit taller than us. I guessed that they were only about nineteen. Probably a bit older, knowing that dragons have long lifespans.

We all waited a bit, watching them while also scanning our surroundings. We soon noticed a huge pile of boulders, probably from a rockslide. It looked big enough to conceal the three of us, and it was positioned closer to the tunnel, so we stealthily approached it, and dove behind the pile. From there, we could clearly hear the conversation of the dragons.

“Whaddaya suppose those dumb ponies are gonna do?” The larger of the two chuckled.

“I dunno. They’re all about love and harmony and all that crap, so I’m assuming they’ll just have to do what we say. What I’m wondering is: what does that Chrysalis lady wants with all those weapons?”

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it, seeing as we’re getting a shitload of bits! I’ll bet – hold on…” The larger dragon sniffed the air. “Smell that?” he asked.

“Yeah… smells like…” the smaller one agreed.

They both unfolded their leathery wings and rose into the air. Incidentally, just a few seconds afterward, we heard to large objects land behind us.

“Think they know we’re here?” One of the dragons asked. I heard the other give a loud “Shhh!” in reply. “Oh, yes we do,” Vigil laughed, turning around and elbowing the smaller of the two dragons in the face, knocking him over, holding his snout in pain. The other ran at Vigil, and was thrown backward by a ball of fire created by Bolt. I drew my sword and held it to the larger dragon’s throat. “Who are you working for?” I asked quietly. 

His eyes darted around. He was terrified. “I-I-I don’t know!” He pleaded, “All she ever told us was her name! She calls herself ‘Queen Chrysalis’! That’s all I know! I swear!”

“Alright, then,” I said, “What should we expect in there?” I gestured with my head to the cave.

“Inside, there are eighteen guards,” the dragon stated, gasping for breath, “There’s a captive, too, but I’ve never seen her! Please don’t hurt me!”

I responded by bashing him over the head with the hilt of my sword, knocking him out. We questioned the little guy too, but he knew even less than his buddy, so Vigil gave him a good head-butt, knocking the dragon out.

“Dude,” Bolt asked, astonished, “Doesn’t that hurt? Aren’t dragon scale super hard or something?”

“Hurts like crazy, but it was worth it,” was Vigil’s reply.

After that little encounter, we all crept into the tunnel, and eventually came to a large opening. Tents were set up around the area, and we each counted eighteen guards, all armed with various weapons; some carried swords, others had various guns, and some simply carried grenades (or, at least, one did). We didn’t see or hear anything that would be telltale signs of a hostage, but, then again, we couldn’t see inside the tents, so we couldn’t be entirely sure just yet. The three of us whispered to each other, devising a plan. Unfortunately, before we had finished, one of the dragons spotted. The grenade guy yelled, “Hey! What are you Royal Guard folk doin’? GET OUT!!” Without further discussion, he tossed one of his beloved explosives at us. The three of us rolled in separate directions as the grenade landed. Remembering my horn, I created a force-field around the grenade, isolating the explosion and rendering it harmless. Vigil’s wings unfolded, and the mucus fell from them again. He flew upward, dodging as a few dragons fired at him with AK-47’s. While Vigil was enjoying himself, Bolt shot beams of magic at two of the dragons, killing them both. I was busy having a swordfight with one of the hostiles, really just toying with him. I just impaled him on my blade when I heard a loud bang! and felt a sharp pain in several places on my back. I looked back and saw the remains of a grenade, and several bits of shrapnel embedded in my armor. I noticed that I had no severe injuries, and created a wall of magic, moving it forward until the grenade dragon was crushed in between it and a wall of the cave. Once he was unconscious, I let the wall dissipate and moved on to another dragon, beating him until he was unconscious as well. I looked around to see Bolt banging two dragons’ heads together, knocking them out. At his hoofs lay several dragons. Two of them were dead. Vigil had begun fighting the dragons who had been shooting at him. He flew right over the row of dragons’ heads, snapping the first one’s neck with his hind legs, landing, and engaging the rest in hoof-to-claw combat. He took the gun from the dragon closest to him with his mouth, throwing it aside.

I stopped watching, since three dragons had come to attack me. I picked one up with my magic and threw it at another. The third fled to a tent, and returned with a small gray filly with yellow eyes. The dragon held a knife to the filly’s   throat. “If anypony moves, SHE DIES!!” he yelled, panic in his eyes. The filly struggled, but couldn’t escape. “Calm down,” I said, “Just put down the knife. Killing that little filly won’t save you. As soon as she’s dead, nothing will be keeping us from killing you.”

The dragon pondered this for a few moments. “If you’ll just let her go, we’ll take you into custody and maybe you can go free,” I continued explaining the situation to him, and he continued pondering this. Eventually, he let the filly go.

Suddenly, I heard a small thump!, he fell forward, and I saw Vigil standing behind him, one hoof raised like he’d just… whacked him across the back of the head.

“C’mon, Vigil. You didn’t need to do that,” I said.

“Well, he deserved it,” Vigil stated blandly, nudging the dragon with a hoof, “Plus, he’s not dead.”

As if on cue, the dragon groaned, but didn’t get up.

I pulled out my walkie-talkie. “The subject is safe. What should we do?”

“How many casualties?” Was the response I got.

“Six hostiles confirmed dead, fourteen wounded, including all enemies outside of the enemy hideout,” Bolt said to his walkie-talkie.

“Good. Search the area and take all weapons and suspicious objects,” the general ordered, “We’re sending in an extraction team now.”

The three of us proceeded to search all of the tents in the cave. We found several guns, swords, etc. However, one object perplexed me.

Searching one of the tents, I found a large egg. I knew it was a dragon’s egg. It had the right shape, size, and color. Why was this here, though? I laid it with everything else and moved everything to the mouth of the tunnel. The small filly was quiet, the entire time. I noticed her eyes were slightly crossed. I crouched in front of her, so that we saw eye-to-eye. “You okay?” I asked gently. She just nodded. “You got a name?” I inquired.

“Ditzy Doo. My friends call me Derpy.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Derpy.”

I reached out a hoof to shake, but she just stared at it, perplexed. I scanned the little filly a bit more. She was a Pegasus, with a cutie mark that depicted a cloud of bubbles. Her mane was yellow, like her eyes.

She had taken being kidnapped surprisingly well. I thought she would be in hysterics, but she just… sat there, more confused than afraid. I heard the sound of engines outside, followed by hoof steps. Soon, dozens of guards were charging into the cave, tying up the dragons, and taking the supplies. Vigil, Bolt and I left (with permission from the general) for the campsite, packed up our belongings, and returned to the tunnel. By now, everything had been loaded onto the ship, which had landed a few yards away from the entrance of the tunnel. Derpy was sitting at the front of the ship, being questioned by a guard. The three of us sat in the middle silently. A thought had suddenly occurred to me: I had killed today. Looking at Vigil and Bolt, I knew that they were thinking the same thing. I hadn’t felt like this when the changeling had died. Was that my fault? That thing just seemed to have just… died.

This time, however, I was definitely responsible for those deaths. True, Bolt and Vigil had killed some, too – more than me, in fact, but that didn’t excuse me for what I’d done.

Just then, the general walked onto the ship. He was levitating the egg in front of him with his horn. “Nice work,” he said, eyeing the egg, “Once we get back, you three have an audience with Princess Celestia, by the way.”

We didn’t respond right away; there wasn’t much to say, really. The general remained standing in front of us. It wasn’t until he was about to start moving toward the back of the ship when Bolt said, “Sir, I have a question.”

“Fire away, soldier,” the general responded. “Do… you ever get used to… you know…” Bolt began, “killing?” Our superior paused for a few moments before answering: “Not unless you’re some heartless monster.” “I was afraid you’d say that,” Bolt muttered as the general headed elsewhere. Five minutes later, we took off. At some point during the wait, we all began falling asleep.

When we awoke, we were once again docked at the area just outside the war room. Without needing to be told, we stepped off of the airship and started making our way to the palace. Suddenly, the general caught up with us, still carrying the egg. “Take this,” He said, holding it out to me. I simply nodded and levitated the egg in front of me as we continued walking.

By now, we had the layout of the palace memorized, so we didn’t have any trouble finding the throne room. We entered without knocking, or even waiting to be invited in. The princess was not bothered by this, however. She just greeted us with a simple, “Welcome back.”

The three of us stood silently, awaiting an explanation as to why we were here. Princess Celestia sat upon her throne, deep in thought. Eventually, she looked to us again. She stood, saying, “Come with me. I must show you something.” She left the throne room, and we followed, with me still holding the egg. When she stopped in front of a bookshelf, the sun goddess turned to look back at us. Without speaking, she looked back to the shelf, pulling a red book from it. Behind where the book had previously been was a small, oval-shaped metal plate, built into the shelf. The princess then placed a hoof on the plate, and pressed down. Almost immediately, the bookshelf shuddered and a clicking noise was heard. After that, the shelf swung forward, as if on invisible hinges. Behind it was a large, rectangular hole that led to a white, sterile and well-lit hallway. As we strode down the newly revealed hallway, we heard screeching noises. We (I can only speak for myself, but I’m pretty sure they were thinking the same thing) didn’t ask about this, however, seeing as we knew we were about to find out what it was.

Sure enough, at the end of the corridor, we came to a large room.  It was the size of one of the hangars that holds airships. The area was surrounded by guards, who watched the area from huge towers. They looked down on several long tables, dozens of cots, some glass boxes that held eggs similar to mine in them, and… dragons. More than fifty dragons of all ages talked with each other, sitting at the tables and on the cots. Some were reading, while others were wrestling. The area was filled with voices, and I could barely hear the conversation that went on between the princess and a guard who had seen us enter.

“Take this egg to an incubator, please,” she said. The guard looked to me, and I loosened my grip on the egg. He grabbed it with his front hoofs and made for one of the empty glass containers, which must have been the incubators. I looked to my left and noticed the source of the screeching. Several infant dragons crawled around a playpen. One of them appeared upset, and was emanating the sound in question. A guard was trying to calm him, but to no avail. I looked to the princess, who gazed at the entire scene sadly.

“What is all this?” I asked her. She was silent for a few moments, before looking to the three of us with an indescribable look of sorrow in her eyes. It looked like it had been there for years – no, centuries. She had just been concealing it. “This is what must be done to maintain peace,” she replied. When she saw the blank looks on our faces, she elaborated. “You see,” she continued, “for years, the dragons have been relatively nonaggressive. However, recently, they have attacked towns and individual ponies. With each passing day, it seems that they have been growing more violent. We have found ourselves having to take drastic measures, destroying entire settlements of dragons.

“However, they are just individual groups, and so we have managed to keep peace with them as a species, but, during attacks, we have had to search targeted areas for eggs like these.” She looked to the incubators and continued, “They may not seem like it, but the dragons value their young greatly. If they were to learn that we had killed even one dragon in its stages of infancy, it could result in all-out war. We couldn’t leave them to die, as we could meet similar consequences. So, we only has one choice: we had to raise the dragons as our own. We hoped to mold the young hatchlings into productive members of our society. Originally, we attempted to have each and every one of them adopted by citizens.

“This did not work. Most were repulsed by the idea of having a dragon as a member of their families, so we kept them in this facility, where they could receive education and be cared for. Many of them volunteer for the Royal Guard, so we train them to work as soldiers and spies. On many occasions, we have had students hatch dragon eggs for tests at my school. Once it is done, we take them to this facility.

“Once your sister, Twilight Sparkle had become my personal student, (I let that last part go without comment; I wonder how many more things were there that I didn’t know about my sister?) she asked to see the dragon she had hatched. She insisted, and I took her here. She named him Spike, and came to visit him at every opportunity she got. Spike was more powerful than most of his kind, however, and had to be kept here while his abilities developed. Eventually, he became stable, and as soon as this happened, Twilight offered to adopt Spike: the only occasion in which a dragon was adopted into a pony’s family.”

We each let this soak in for a few moments. Vigil was the one to ask the next question that had arisen in each of our minds: “Then why did you bring us here?” The princess looked at us, examining each one of us closely, as if sizing us up; this was something she did often, as we had learned. “Because you may have to work with them, someday,” she stated. With that, she dismissed us, and we returned to life as usual.