Heavy clouds hung over the peaks, overcasting our village in the ever-present shadows of the valley. Having made my way up the dirt road, I started my trek up the mountainside, my destination drawing closer. Eyes wondering about the landscape as I continued, my claws sliced and crushed the stray rocks on the path to dust. Soon approaching a set of large oak doors imbedded into the cliffside, I pushed them open, stepping into a large tunnel that led to the docks. Three massive ships had moored as their cargo was being unloaded by the crew and my own Wargs. In turn, crates from another pile were being loaded onto the ships, according to our agreed trade.
I spotted Damien talking with Uur, the two looking over the list my Beta held. “…so, just a few more and we should be done. And you said that the files for the Forge were good?”
“Yes.” Uur assured. “From the texts we have inside the Archives, most line up with what Havaak noted.”
“Did I miss anything?” I asked as I stepped up next to my uncle-in-law.
“Ah, Havaak, good to see you. Not much. There were various things we ought to tell you.” Uur took on a more serious and less cheerful tone. “As you know, the Forge has a form of sentience to it. Nothing particularly powerful, but enough to where it can think on its own. This fact has led to the Forge creating weapons and armor for its master uncalled for from time to time. However, there have been cases where the Forge felt its master to be… unworthy.”
“Anything that dictates how it sees its master as ‘worthy’ or ‘unworthy’?”
“Not much. Just that the heart of the wielder must be just and good. The few who fell were… not. But with what I’ve seen of you, I doubt that’ll happen at this point.”
“So don’t go needlessly killing. Damian, you’re in charge of locking me up if I go all ‘Evil Emperor’ on everyone.”
My Beta chuckled at the idea. “Consider it done, my Mighty Emperor…”
I did my best to stifle the laugh in my throat, looking to Uur. “Was there anything else?”
“Hm… for whatever reason, it hates pickles.”
My face screwed itself into confusion. “Luna loves those little green weeds… I’ll add ten more fire-proofing spells to the house… maybe twenty…”
“Or thirty…” Balder chimed in. “If that ball of hot gas decides to burn the house down because of a stupid pickle…” He sighed, pinching our brow. “It won’t be pretty…”
“I hear that…” My gaze shifted back to my fellow Alpha. “Was there anything else to discuss?”
“I have a few books and scrolls on Chroma and elemental magics in the crate addressed to you. They at least have the basics. Several more copies have been transferred to your local Library. I trust the building is just about done? No complications?”
“None so far, which is great.”
I nodded as soft thunder rolled overhead, even softer pitter patters of fresh rain beginning. “Seems the trip back will be a bit of a hassle. Need anything for the way back?”
“No. We have all that we need.” Uur smiled as he stepped forward, holding a hand out. “The last of the shipment is being loaded, so on that note, we bid you adieu.”
My arm outstretched to clasp over his own, claws tightly wrapped around each forearm. “Until we meet again. Safe travels, Uur.”
“And may your reign as Alpha be healthy.” With those words, he turned and departed with the ship. Both Damian and I watched until the massive vessels were swallowed by the clouds.
My gaze lingered on the heavy clouds as my mind focused on Uur’s words. “Damian?”
He turned to me with a hum.
“Do you think I’ll make a good king… or Alpha?”
It took him a moment to gather his words. “From what I’ve seen so far? Yeah. You’ve sacrificed your own body on multiple occasions to protect everyone, even the ponies. Do I hate them myself? Yeah, but I focus on the now, not the past. Do I think you’ll be okay without Haven… I don’t know. I grew up in the streets, a local Bishop took me in, helped me in all the ways the streets couldn’t. I know no one’s perfect, neither are you…”
He then locked eyes with me. “Like the Pastor did, you’re helping me and everyone else in these troubling times. Showing us the way. Will you stumble and fall? Yeah. We all do, but I know for a fact that God’s looking out for you. If He doesn’t help you back on your feet, I’ll take it as a sign that it’s my turn to snack some sense back into ya. So… do I think you’ll be a good Alpha, as good as you can be? Abso-fricken-lutly!”
I choked back a sob and blinked away a tear, my throat soar. “T-thanks…”
“No problem…” He looked down at his clipboard. “Now, you’ve shoved all this on me, I’ve got to get it done. Go to the Hall, get a drink. You look like you need it. I’ll join you soon, dude.”
Nodding, I exited the docks and headed back down the path to the village. The rain dripped and splashed on me, but I barely noticed it with my thick pelt. Winter was soon approaching, and our fur had doubled in thickness to match the coming cold. Trekking my way along the now muddy streets, dim lights of spell fire and lamps lit the occasional window. A few potholes had started to form, proving that we needed that new stone street plan active by next summer.
Blinking away the droplets of water, I soon came upon the Great Hall. The tallest structure in the village. Enough to be a five-story upside-down boat, it was one massive room with ten heavy pillars on each side, two layers of stretching balconies looming above the roaring firepit. Long tables lined the walls and inward, stacked to the brim with food, as half the tribe had huddled inside. Above the heavy oak doors sat a large plank, reading; “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend…”
Having stepped inside from the howling winds, I was greeted by several shouts of praise and welcomes. My hearts warmed by chilled body, a small smile stretching my muzzle. From the high rafters hung three large chandeliers made of polished bone, set ablaze with red flame, yet nothing burned as their light brightened the grand hall. Said light illuminated a few familiar faces, Greg and Maggie ushering me over to their table, where Asher was telling some crazy story. A hard pat on the back signaled Gwen handing me a full mug of mead, the frothing drink sending my nose ablaze. I took a few sips, not wanting a repeat of last time.
But our merry making was shattered by a massive explosion shaking the place. Mugs spilled their nectar, Wargs fell from their seats, and the rafters shook. Dropping my mug and racing everyone else out of the building, we were met with an alarming sight, a dragon. Not a Krah’Tri or an Ahamkara. It was as if a Balrog had a child with a dragon. It was made of pure, dark fire. If it had possessed a shadow, it would have easily cast our little village in it. The rain was rendered mute as steam billowed off the dragon’s back and spread wings.
The great beast loomed over our valley, blazing eyes searching. It almost seemed to be smiling, if the jagged corners of its gaping maw were anything to go by.
Oktarr suddenly changed to her full size, matching the new arrival in height. But our visitor was neither surprised nor impressed.
He scoffed, flames erupting from his maw as he spoke. “Am I supposed to cower at this, little drake? You don’t become as old as I by being effortlessly intimidated!”
My heart sank as I processed what he’d said. He was old, and if I recalled, dragons were stronger the more ancient they were. Just like Wargs. And if Luna’s grandpa had given me a fright… this guy could probably flick our town off the map!!
“What do you want old gas bag?!” My subordinate spat back, snarling as they both towered overheads.
The flaming dragon rumbled back, inching his head forward. “I heard that the Nahar were returned. And as a Hellfire, I felt the need to see if my kin’s old… friends were up for some catching up…”
“These are a new generation; your journey here was in vain!”
“Then I shall simply see if their Alpha is up to the task of facing me!” He lifted a claw and slashed her across the face, sending her flying through the crumbling mountain with ease. He scoffed again, almost chuckling. His gaze lowered to us. “Who among you is leader?”
I felt my nerves seize up; my voice lost. I was still shaken by Luna’s grandpa that badly?! Taking small breaths with closed eyes, I tried to calm down. Opening them, I noticed several of my pack looking at me. Judging. I looked back up at the dragon. “It’s m—”
“I am.” Luna rose above the crowd on her raven wings, only her bright clothes stopping her from camouflaging with the night.
“You?” He took a moment to study her. “No, you’re not.” A single flick sent her careening into someone’s house, caving it in. I briefly recalled hearing that someone cry out in rage and anguish. The dragon’s eyes searched the crowd again.
This time, I didn’t falter after a hard swallow. “I’m the Alpha!”
I walked out into the open, glaring up at the dragon.
He gazed down with a hum. “Why so afraid? You reek of fear.”
My heart beats picked up speed.
“You’ve never faced a foe as great as I, have you?” The great beast smiled again. He reared his head up and roared, the sound driving me to my knees, and almost to the wet ground completely. “Then face me and your fears now, OR DIE!!”
With that, he breathed his essence down atop me. I screamed. I screamed as my body burned, falling on my scarred back with a grunt. The flames kept coming, I barely noticed the smoking earth flying away, giving way to scorching dirt. My throat had long since turned raw, my screams dying down to whimpers.
The dragon stopped his attack to speak, leaving me to groan in the fresh crater. “I do you the courtesy of knowing my name. I am the eldest of Hellfire Dragons, Arcon the Unbroken! What is your’s, little Warg?”
“I-I…” My muscles ached like never before, the dragon’s fire penetrating my natural defenses. I stumbled, falling back to earth. It took a two more tries, but I stood back up with my fur smoking. “I-I’m Hava-ak, the Alpha of Desolation! And anyone who threatens my pack will die!!”
“Then give this ol’ drake a fitting end, Alpha of Desolation!”
“B-before that… min-mind telling me why that hurt? I fought a Hydra before, and their dragons, but their breath didn’t hurt one bit. Why yours?”
The dragon almost looked disgusted as he spat. “Hydras are one of the weakest dragons, their fire couldn’t even burn a small forest. But a Hellfire’s? And I imagine that your servant knows that. They’ve never breathed on you in the physical, have they?” He paused, looking to Oktarr as she stood. “A real dragon’s fire is the only thing that can burn a Warg! I guarantee another blast like that will kill you.” His blazing eyes stared back at me. “So… are you still willing to face me?!”
I set my jaw, fists clenching. Breathing in to yell my answer, I was stopped by Damian shouting behind me. “We all will!”
My head whipped around, feeling like it was about to be sent flying by the force. Not just my Beta, but everyone stood in defiance against the dragon. Luna had picked herself out of the wreckage and joined my side. I felt tears beginning to well up my eyes. They were willing to fight this intruder with me, even if it meant their ends.
Baldur shouted in my head. ‘Hey, eyes on the fireball of a dragon! Just be thankful that they’re fighting with us!’
‘Why do you think all my hearts are hammering?!’
I then looked back to our unwanted guest, coughing. “You-u h-heard the dude; we’ll all take you on!!”
As one, every Warg marched forward. Eyes alight, our march shifted to a charge, the war cry of nearly a hundred voices aimed at our enemy. Arcon stretched himself tall, the light in his chest growing.
“Wards up!” Walls of yellow fire sprung to life, blocking the dragon’s breath. What parts of the village cought between us were obliterated, but we could rebuild… hopefully. I didn’t know if our budget could withstand anymore.
The Wards withstood for only a moment, collapsing as a chorus of anguished screams filled the skies. We all burned.
Amongst the flames and pain, I felt Luna rest her hand on my back. I managed cracking an eye open in her direction. She was in as much pain as the rest of us, if not more. Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself onto my elbows, my fur painstakingly hardening amongst the throbbing. I flung myself onto my knees, enduring the agony of Hellfire. Pipes still raw, my voice cracked as I belted out a roar, what meager flames I could muster against the inferno sputtering. Did my tiny attack hurt Arcon? No. Did it pertect my friends? No. Did it show that I wasn’t giving up? That I still stood against the dragon? Yes.
Luna had huddled herself against my back, feeding me her power. I could feel both our reserves dropping fast, as huge as they were. Someone grabbed my leg. I twisted around for half a second, seeing that it was Greg, Gwen latched onto his shoulder. Damien was off to the left of them and had gripped Greg’s foot, Danny crawling towards Maggie, scooping her up and seizing Gwen’s tail. Like links in a chain, the Wargs latched, their individual pools funneling into mine. My power slowly returned, little by little.
Taking another shuttering breath, I roared again. This time, my fire pushed back. Arcon huffed in what I guessed to be annoyance and doubled the force of his breath. Seconds later, I was back on the ground atop Luna. We went back to screaming.
“Pathetic!” I was barely aware of a voice from the darkened heavens, loud and devastating, but warm and sweet. Two orange eyes glinted in the thick smoke, the sound of enormous wingbeats reaching me through the flames. The entire world shook as something huge landed, there was a scream, and the Hellfire stopped. We slowly gathered ourselves and stood. I sat up, body shaking from that alone. Looming over all present, even Arcon, was another dragon. She was tall enough that her head breached the clouds, double Arcon’s height, who was now trapped beneath her mountain-shattering talons. No horns adorned her head, only black fins rising among dark blue scales. Her blazing, slitted eyes glared at me. “You. Look at me.”
Too tired to resist, I obliged.
“Were you the one that sent this little dear to get help?” She slowly brought her head down from on high, turning so the one eye encompassed the sky. My hazy vision focused on Spike as he slithered his way over a mountaintop, having shifted into a much more dragon-like form. He still had the same scales, but his body looked more like a thin lizard, a flurry of spikes down his neck.
“No. It was I.” I turned to see Oktarr climbing between two peaks, her battered form stiff. “I knew we couldn’t fight the Hellfire, so I asked him to get any help he could using his fire.”
The new dragoness hummed, deep in her chest and pleased. “He did very good. Now then…” Her tone dropped into the most sinister rumbling I’d ever heard, her gaze fixing on Arcon. The fire dragon was reduced to a whimpering lizard. “You.”
Under her increasing weight, Arcon’s screams and gasps only grew louder and louder. However, an ethereal body can only take so much punishment. And with the last shreds of conscious thought, the Hellfire begged. “P-please, I-I wa-was only tri-“
With a single twist and press, Arcon burst into a shower of sparks, nevermore. The last of his screams faded in the breeze.
“Well, now that that’s done…” She looked down at me with a much kinder, yet still authoritive air. “Alpha, step forth.”
I did as commanded, close to cowering in her shadow. My clenched hands shook, jaws tight, and legs stiff. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to run away screaming, crawl into a ball in the hopes she wouldn’t notice me, or faint. Defiantly not the last one…
“I can see that you have the power to absorb magics. Does this apply to all magics, or just a single one?”
“A-all, I think…” My back arched slightly, terror evident on my face. “H-haven’t really t-tested it…”
“How have you been gathering magic? What method do you use?” Her brow arched, eyes gleaming with interest.
“Uh… l-like this…” Extending a hand, I began absorbing the magic in the air, some sparks getting sucked into the vortex.
“Stop it.” I impatiently rebuffed my power, rigidly standing at attention. She sighed. “Absorb the magic like you would food; through the gullet.”
I blinked, relaxing slightly. “Uh…”
“Just do it.”
My already aching body went stiff as a board. “Yes ma’am!” Slowly relaxing again, I opened my mouth, taking a long breath. The sparks started drifting toward me, slowly igniting into streams of fire. But the moment the fire touched my throat, I gagged. I coughed and sputtered, tears threatening to spill.
“Well, better than some I’ve seen try to take a dragon’s fire.” She sounded closer, less thunderous. A clawed hand gripped my chin, firmly but gently raising my head. She stood in front of me in her smaller form. “But unless you want to get stronger, dear, you’ll need to choke it down.”
“W-wha—” My words were stopped as she forced my jaws open, the sparks and fire flooding my throat and senses.
Tears poured from my ducts as I gagged, barely aware of Luna’s roar and her charge. But the dragoness flicked her away, sending her to shatter one of the few remaining houses. No one reacted to the furthered destruction, focused on me being force fed the Hellfire’s magic. I think my lungs may have caught fire.
My vision was slowly growing dark, the pain insurmountable. It was just at this point that the brunt of it stopped, leaving me to take huge gulps of air, falling on my back. Or at least I would’ve if everyone wasn’t there to catch me. I stood on shaking legs, looking to the dragoness.
Coughing, I croaked. “Why are you here, aside from the destress call?”
She smiled. “Rude much? Not going to ask your savior her name?”
“Fine. What’s your name?” I groaned from the effort.
“Ihkerah,” She smirked with a quick bow. “And I’ll be your spearhead from now on. And as my first act, I’ll be naming this soon-to-be rebuilt town. How does…” Her eyes glowed, I felt a small pressure in my head, among the already throbbing headache. “Dragneel, sound?”
Darkness was slowly trapping my vision as Ihkerah, our new mistress, knelt and gently gripping my chin, inspecting my tired and scarred face. “Hm… not that you have much of a choice, but… do you want to be in my hoard? I’ll look after each and every one of you as if you were polished gold. No gem grows dusty, no coin, or trinket rusts nor dents in a dragon’s hoard. With your last smidget of mindfulness, grant me ownership of your pack.”
Every bone and muscle in my body ached. My brain felt ready to sleep. Burned and bruised, I felt sleep encroaching on me. But… she’d saved us…
‘And forced a butt-load of dragon magic down our throat…’ Baldur complained, his mind almost as weary as mine.
I blinked slowly. “Yeah… we… need help. E-especially if everything i-is as powerful as you…”
“And I plan to give it deary.” With the last words of Ihkerah’s silvery voice, I slipped into nothingness.