After encountering various obstacles, such as an avalanche (courtesy of Trixie and Luna yelling about who’s greater rather than Fluttershy’s panic attacks), an impossibly wide gorge that was a whopping five inches across, and the death glares Rarity was giving Luna for snuggling up to Dusk, our heroes finally reach the top of Stereotypical Mountain With a Cave at the Peak. Smoke billowed out from the cave, which was now echoing with the sounds of what seemed like a volcano snoring. The moon shone high in the night sky, giving the entire scene a rather creepy vibe to it.
Dusk Shine assigned each pony his job her job. “Rainbow Dash, since we’re now at the source of the smog, you’re in charge of clearing up the skies while Luna’s bat-guards assist you. Rarity, Trixie and Pinkie Pie, you’re going to create a distraction in case things go awry. Applejack-”
“-You’re going to create some covering fire with apples, just in case the distraction isn’t enough.” Shining Armor interrupted. “I’m going to create a force field around us, so nopony gets hurt. Soldiers, ready your bows.”
“Excuse me,” Dusk Shine coughed. “I believe I was the one leading this mission, so I should be the one to give the orders.” He gave a menacing look.
“Is there anything wrong with my positioning, Shiny?” Shining Armor asked innocently.
“No,” admitted Dusk. “Actually, thinking about it, you didn’t get to a couple ponies.” He turned to Luna. “Luna, you charge up your super-night-princess-powers for an attack strong enough to defeat the dragon. And Fluttershy?”
“meep!”
“You’re going to be our first plan of diplomacy. Your way with animals is sure to come in handy here!” He paused for a minute. “Thaaaat’s your cue to finally get off my brother,” he said through gritted teeth as encouraging as he could. “You know, because he’s too busy setting up the force field to carry you in?”
“Can’t I stay behind the force field where’s safe?” asked Fluttershy, peeping though the eyeholes of her helmet. Just then, the dragon snored extra-loud and threatening, causing her to fall off Shining Armor.“Sorry, I phrased that wrong: Can’t I stay ten-thousand miles away where it’s safe?”
“No!” snapped Rainbow Dash. “We didn’t drag you up this mountain for nothing! What, are you scared of caves now, too!”
“Umm, no… I’m scared of… dragons.”
“You’re scared of dragons?” said Dusk. Fluttershy nodded her head nervously, her body now in fetal position. Dusk slapped his forehead. “Of course!” he said with glee. “You weren’t falling for my brother, you were just hiding behind him for protection! Whew, what a relief.”
“Wait, there’s something that the Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t understand,” Trixie cut in. “Dusk’s little pet is a dragon, but he’s too pathetic to intimidate anypony, even you. Why aren’t you scared of him?”
“That’s easy,” said Fluttershy matter-of-factly. “Spike’s still just a baby, and everypony knows that babies are the sweetest, most cutesy-wutesy things ever, and they couldn’t harm anypony if they wanted to. We’re talking about a full-grown, snarling, gnashing, big-as-a-house, fire-breathing, could-eat-a-pony-in-one-bite d-d-dragon!”
Back in Ponyville, Spike let out a sneeze and stood stiff as a board. He had the strangest feeling that he’d never been more insulted in his life.
“It’s probably nothing,” he said to himself and shrugged. “Now, where were we?”
“You shall never take me alive, drake!” Angel said in Animalese. “When I release my brethren from their naptime cages, you shall taste the full wrath of Clan Cottontail!
“Come back and eat your carrot soup!” Spike said, unable to understand the most stubborn bunny ever born.
“How dare you call that poison in a bowl soup! You probably used your own bile as the main ingredient!”
“Is there anything we can do to convince you otherwise?” offered Shining Armor. Fluttershy shook her head violently.
“Then I guess it’s up to me to represent Equestria for the negotiations,” said Dusk Shine with a sense of duty. He trotted into the cave, coughing on the smoke a little. He came across a massive hoard of stolen treasure, and on top was the sleeping dragon.
“Excuse me, Mr. Dragon?” said Dusk. “Could I have a moment of your time?”
The dragon hardly regarded Dusk, it just mumbled something about “stupid door-to-door girl scouts,” and rolled over away from him.
“I’m Dusk Shine, and Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia, kindly asks you to move to another mountain. You see, whenever you snore, you release a billowing cloud of smoke, covering our land in darkness. Equestria cannot survive without sunlight for Faust-know-long-you’re-going-to-take-a-nap, so we need you to leave.”
The dragon (let’s call him, "Smaug") raised his head up from his pillow of jewels and gold, seeing that this problem wasn’t going to go away on its own. One at time, he opened his eyelid, which were crusty from lack of use. He turned to Dusk, opened his jaws that stored three solid rows of razor-sharp teeth, and exhaled.
Rather than gouts of fire, Smaug had released something much crueler on his intruder: Morning breath from someone that hadn’t brushed, gargled, flossed, or even laid eyes on a breath mint for 1,534 years. Dusk, desperately trying not to suffocate to death, crawled on his knees out of the cave where there was fresh air.
“Dusk! Are you alright?” Rarity said with worry.
“Can’t… *cough* …breathe…” he wheezed, collapsing on the rocky surface.
“Ya smell like a pigsty,” Applejack commented ever so intelligently.
“Clearly this needs a lady’s touch,” said Rarity as she walked in. “Oh, Sir Dragon~!” she sang with all her Rarity-ness. “I was just passing by, and I couldn’t help but notice how shiny your scales are.”
Smaug’s ears perked up at this. This was new one for him. Most ponies begged for their lives when they met him, and never had the courtesy to compliment him on anything before he roasted them alive. He could get used to this.
“And you just have the most perfectly polished claws to match them,” continued Rarity as she absent-mindedly helped herself to his hoard, trying on various accessories of jewelry. “I have to spent hours of blood, sweat, and tears to get the perfect hooficure, and you pull it off naturally. I’m so envious!”
Smaug was practically eating out of her hoof by now. If only the females during mating season were as considerate as this flesh-morsel. He stroked the spikes that formed a crest on his spine in vanity, and puffed up his chest with pride.
“You know what?” Rarity suggested, currently looking like a prom queen with all the treasure she was wearing, “You can always take a nap. What you should be doing is showing off your majestic image to the public out there. It would be selfish not to! Of course, I would be more than happy to look after your fortune while you’re away. Goodness knows what kind of hooligans would be greedy enough to steal from it.”
Smaug wasn’t feeling so grateful anymore.
Rarity had to abandon every single piece of jewelry to escape the rain of fireballs behind her. The last time she had ran that fast was the last Black Friday sale at Ponyville’s shoe store.
“DOST ANYPONY HATH ANY OTHER IDEAS?” said Luna. “WE STILL NEED TO CHARGE.” She was focusing on the moon high above them, slowly drawing power from it.
“My turn! My turn!” said Pinkie Pie.
“What, pray tell, are you wearing, dear?” said Rarity in confusion.
“Trixie thinks the pink one looks ridiculous,” said Trixie.
“Well,” Pinkie Pie explained, “Since I can’t break the you-know-what anymore, I decided that it was time to exercise the classic Pinkie-Pie-style humor on Smaug here.” The was a moment of silence, then she facehoof’d. “D’oh! His name wasn’t said out loud yet! I JUST DID IT AGAIN!”
“Are you okay, Pinkie?” asked Dusk.
“I’m gonna be fine, it’s just that old habits die hard. No time to get distracted anyway, it’s time to make that-dragon-whose-name-I’ve-never-heard-of-before laugh!” With that, Pinkie ventured into the cave.
It took about three seconds.
“The beast is slain,” said Pinkie triumphantly.
“Really?” said Dusk.
“No, he just tried to eat me,” Pinkie admitted. “But I did make you smile for minute there didn’t I?”
“You’re doing it all wrong,” Trixie snorted. “The true way to convince a dragon with words is to appear tougher than you actually are. Lucky for you, The Great and Powerful Trixie is better at this than anypony. Sit back and watch the master!” She strode in and pointed a hoof at the red monstrosity.
“You there! Do you know who I am? You stand before The Great and Powerful Trixie! She once defeated sixteen Windigos all on her own, so she will have no problem mopping the floor with likes of you! Get out of Trixie’s sight before she gets angry!”
“RRRAAAAAAWWWRRRRRRR!!!”
“…Trixie shall show herself out now, because she just remembered that she has to pick up her dry-cleaning.” She made a quick escape.
“What happen?” said Rainbow Dash.
“It seems the dragon has a very convincing argument to stay on this mountain,” Trixie said after catching her breath.
“Being?”
“He’s reeeeeaaaally cranky.”
“Horseapples,” Rainbow Dash said with an angry look in her eye. “If you’re going to threaten him, you’d better have the horsepower to back it up. Like this!” she charged into the cave and gave Smaug a good bucking. “GET OUT!!” she commanded.
Smaug had enough of this. How many of these meddling ponies were out there, anyway? Was it a crime to just lie down and just sleep for a century or two? And here he thought that ponies DIDN’T like having their villages burned down. If that was true, why go through all this trouble to annoy him to the point of tearing his scales out? He stomped outside, where they had gather behind a magical force field of some kind. No matter, he broke it with a few pounds of his fist anyhow.
All of a sudden, there were a few apples thrown at his face, smearing his complexion with their juices. He whipped around, seeing an earth pony was launching fruit at him. Applejack laughed.
“Ah thought that this was a perfectly good waste o’ apples,” she said aloud, “so that’s why Ah brought some rotten ones!”
The Royal and Lunar Guards lifted their bows. With repeated phrases like, “Never should have come here…” they fired their artillery. The attack was similar to tossing twigs at a bear: It had little to no effect, the projectiles bounced right off, and it only made your victim furious.
Smaug flapped his giant wings, blowing a gust of wind that sent the Guards spinning. He gave Applejack a whip of his tail, knocking her to the floor. The only hope was Princess Luna, whom fortunately was at full power by now.
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” she hollered, flying high above the battle. The moon was glowing precisely behind her, casting a theatric silhouette. “THOU DARE TO NOT ONLY COVERTH EQUESTRIA IN SMOKE, BUT STRIKE AGAINST OUR ALLIES? UNFORGIVABLE! WE ARE SAILOR MOON PRINCESS LUNA, A LONG-HORNED PRETTY SOLDIER OF LOVE AND JUSTICE! IN THE NAME OF THE MOON, WE SHALLT PUNISH THEE! IN OTHER WORDS, WE SHALLT RIGHT WRONGS AND TRIUMPH OVER EVIL, AND THAT MEANS THEE!”
She ignited her horn, focusing all her gathered energy to a single point, which was her tiara. It transformed into a disk of light, twinkling like the brightest star. She threw the glowing tiara like a disk, pummeling the dragon. Surprisingly, it did no damage whatsoever.
“THIS DEFIES ANY POSSIBLE SENSE!” the moon princess exclaimed. “THAT ALWAYS WORKED ON BEINGS FROM THE NEGAVERSE!”
Smaug faced Princess Luna and took a deep breath.
“FUS-RO-DAH!”
Luna was sent barreling back by Smaug’s Thu’um, and hit the ground with a loud thud.
“Princess!” Dusk yelled across the battlefield. “Are you okay?”
“The Royal Canterlot Voice is strong with this one,” Luna mumbled before passing out.
Fluttershy was hiding safely behind a rock. She peeped over, looking at the epic fight. Shining Armor was creating force field after force field, only to have each attempt to protect his comrade literally smashed. Dusk was firing bolts of magic, but to no effect. One of the Lunar Guards was getting eaten, and the rest of the backup looked worse for wear. The dragon itself was now airborne, flying circles around the mountain, swooping in to breathe fire and slash its talons. All and all, the situation looked bleak.
Fluttershy felt a fire boiling in the pit of her stomach. The sensation was like an incredible power surging trough her veins. The feeling rose up to her throat, channeled by the hate, hate, HATE she had for this winged slug for hurting her friends, and she a strange chanting in the back of her mind. She found herself flapping her wings, abandoning her cover to give this big, dumb meanie a piece of her mind. She focused on her rage, trying to find the perfect words to summarize her seething fury. Three words popped into her head, albeit they were in a language that Fluttershy didn’t recognize. Without hesitation, she barked them as loud as she could.
“JOOR-ZAH-FRUL!”
The Dragonrend Shout ripped through the air, sounding like a thunderclap if you could plug it into an amplifier. The human translation for this is “Mortal-Finite-Temporay,” but since in this case it was created by Fluttershy, the Equuish translation is “How DARE you!”
It hit Smaug with tremendous force, lighting him with blue magical fire. He hurled toward the ground, losing his ability of flight.
“What have you done?” he said. “What kind of black magic is this?”
“Shuttup, you bully!” said Fluttershy. “Don’t dare you talk back to me after hurting my friends!”
“You will PAY for your insolence!” said Smaug. He summoned his own Thu’um.
“YOL-TOOR-SHUL!”
This Shout was named Fire Breath, which obviously let all dragons breathe fire. Fluttershy countered with her own shout once more.
“JOOR-ZAH-FRUL!”
Another blast of Dragonrend halted Smaug’s attack. It was undeniable. Fluttershy’s Thu’um was not only much louder than his, but stronger as well. She followed up with another shout. (Although she still had no idea what the hay she was doing.)
“IIZ-SHLEN-NUS!”
This was called Ice Form, and the purpose of it was to turn your opponent into a dragon-sicle, rendering him helpless. It worked beautify.
“Now, are you going to listen to what I have to say?” said Fluttershy. She had frozen Smaug solid, save for his head. He nodded, ashamed that he was beaten by a mortal.
“Good. Now, just because you’re big, doesn’t mean that you get to push ponies around. You may be able to shake the earth itself when you walk, but you do not, I repeat, you do NOT hurt my friends!!! Do we have an understanding?”
“…But that rainbow one kicked me,” Smaug said like it was a legitimate excuse. Rainbow Dash, however, took pride in this remark.
“Don’t forget that I did it like a boss!” remarked Dash.
“…but I’m sure she’s sorry for it,” lied Fluttershy, taking on a more motherly tone. “But you’re bigger than she is, and you should know better. You should also know better than to take a nap so close to farmlands, so you don’t choke the crops to death. Now, what do you have to say for yourself? Does your mother know about this?” ( In reality, dragons ate their young, so Smaug didn’t really get to cozy to his mother to know her that well.) Fluttershy paused for moment, remembering a small detail. “Oh, and stay out of my shed, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
The red dragon broke out in tears, wracked with guilt. “There, there,” Fluttershy cooed. “You’re not a bad dragon, you just didn’t know any better.”
Luna regained consciousness, overhearing the conversation. “DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER?” she said with disbelief. “HE ATE ONE OF MY SOLDIERS!”
“Granted, you should apologize for that,” Fluttershy said to Smaug.
He rolled his eyes.“Sorry for eating your soldier,” he said unconvincingly.
“Say it like you mean it,” said Fluttershy sternly, similar to a teacher resolving a fight on the playground.
““I’m truly sorry for eating one of your soldiers. Can you forgive me?”
Luna snorted. “NEIGH, WE DO NOT ‘FORGIVE’ THEE!”
“Luna, play nice. He said he was sorry,” pleaded Fluttershy.
“…FINE. WE ACCEPT THY APOLOGY.”
“Good. Now, pack your things Mr. Dragon. I’m sure we can find you a new home.”
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today, I learned that you shouldn’t be so quick to judge, and not to let jealousy consume you. Instead of realizing Fluttershy was scared of dragons, I let my envy of my brother get in the way of seeing the truth. I wasn’t there for her, and maybe that doesn’t make me the right colt for her.
From now on, I will not only try to be there for Fluttershy, but all ponies I hold dear. Until next time!
Your Faithful Student,
Dusk Shine