//------------------------------// // Dragon at dawn // Story: Buck My Life // by JasontheDemon //------------------------------// Dragon at Dawn You know, I never imagined that I could spill my guts with such ease. I expected to at least stumble over a couple of words, but that didn’t happen as I revealed all to the luminescent being before me. As I spoke of my life story like I had to the others, Celestia mostly remained calm yet intrigued of my tale. She said nothing beyond the occasional question and kept the same basic appearance throughout it all. Celestia's consistent upbeat attitude clashed with my deadly serious demeanor. Our outward personalities were practically parallel opposites... she was like warmth giving light and I was cold, unforgiving darkness. We came from two very different worlds and it would have easily been apparent to anyone observing us together. I found it strange that I respected her. I always said she had no reason for respect since she never did anything but call upon the mane six to do her work for her, but I still felt an overwhelming power flow from her. Maybe she had a spell in place to alter my view of her. Whatever it was didn’t matter. I just had to tell her what I could and hope for the best... still I wanted to get into her head as much as she was allowed into mine. I drew to a close with my own story and waited for a response. She took another sip of tea and made her thoughts known. “Well, I see Twilight wasn’t exaggerating when she said you had many issues. Still even after all you have told me, I sense... a greater darkness within you. Something that angers you above all else. Tell me of the rest of your kind. I believe that has something to do with this reservoir of fury... am I correct?” Without showing my surprise to her accurate assumption, I replied, “No... you hit the nail on the head. I am not proud of my species. Some humans remain good, but the majority let evil temptations guide them like puppets. They have little willpower and rarely hold back when they can gain something they want. Their greed overpowers them and causes them to be unjustly cruel, or sometimes they are cruel just because society says they have no time to be nice. In reality I believe them to be corrupt and bloodthirsty beings to their core... and I feel sick to be counted among them. Humans are spiteful, angry, malevolent creatures that don't even care for one another.” I couldn’t tell if Celestia was sad to hear me say this or considering my banishment at that moment. She didn’t do anything other than ask me how I came to the conclusion that I did. That’s when I knew, I had to tell her about our most dark actions... our wars. I took out my mp3 and began to play ‘Boom’ by System Of A Down. I sat there and waited for the song to end while simultaneously throwing a few images dealing with war and death into her mind. Terrorism, political propaganda, jets dropping bombs, thousands of graves, dead bodies piled in a field left to rot... I bombarded her with the horrific details of everything concerning our horrible deeds. This world was obviously lacking such things and I was going to give her the full tour like she deserved. I would not hide anything. The song ended and I began to explain. “Our kind kill each other daily through war. Not on a small scale either... we can execute hundreds of thousands of our own kind in mere moments if we wanted. Each day we kill thousands only because our world leaders tell us to. It doesn’t matter how innocent or guilty our targets are, we will still kill without thought because of our orders. Many times wars are started because of political disagreements, religious differences, or money. Countless lives lost for the pathetic reason of greed. Death is far too common in my opinion and that is why I wanted to go home... to stop the hate anyway I could and make my world a little better. Many say its a lost cause and there is no way that it will end. I believe that if I can change the way other countries view of each other and give everyone a little push in the right direction, I can turn things around for the better... but there is always going to be that seed of evil within us. That one little piece of us that wants to kill.” After finishing Celestia turned and shuddered. My speech had disturbed her to say the least. I had expected her to react as such. I hadn’t even gone over the fact that we condemned each other to death and slavery over a slight difference in skin color... it seemed unnecessary at the moment anyways. “Do you believe you are one of them or do you see yourself as something more?” The princess asked, once again laying her eyes upon me, though with a stern look this time. “Hard to say...” I said, leaning back in the chair, looking up at the ceiling high above me. “At times I do feel more kind and thoughtful than the rest, but at others I feel like I could be far worse. In my world I went by the alias Jason ‘the Demon’, and I do believe I have many inner demons that I have yet to face... so in short, its a gamble. I may be better now, though I could very well snap into a monster at any time. I fear that my past life has dwindled away my stability and insanity could be only a step away... but like I said, it’s hard to say what I am or what I could be.” “You seem very relaxed for telling me all of this... do you not fear punishment?” I sat up and looked her dead in the eye. “Don’t get me wrong. I am terrified but... do you believe in fate? I do... I think everything happens because it is destined to. My birth, my ill fated life, my arrival to this dimension. It is all part of the intricate web of fate. I believe everything is meant to happen so things balance out in the end. If I am destroyed, it was meant to be and I can not change it no matter how much I worry, therefore I stay calm and go for the ride whatever the outcome. It is foolish to do anything when it is out of your control.” The room then went silent for a long while. The grandfather clock in the hall outside the door could be heard clearly as we stared each other down. I didn’t even know why we were having this moment of tense silence by the time she spoke up. “It is about time for me to rise the sun... I will take time to think while I do so. Please make yourself at home.” Celestia then made her leave and I was alone. ‘I will take time to think’... like I didn’t know what that meant. I could tell what she really wanted to say was ‘I’ll give you a few more minutes to live, feel free to look back at your life before I end your sad existence Mr. Threat-to-my-kingdom’. I could have made a break for it but I know that with magic being a reality, my escape would be short lived at best. All I could do was wait for her to come back and pray for a painless punishment. I think anyone else in my position would have tried to sugarcoat the description of humans. However, I was going to keep my story as gritty as I saw fit... nothing more, nothing less. I was taught that there were dozens of layers between true honesty and pure lie. I took it upon myself to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the best of my ability. With Celestia being royalty meant that I would be an idiot to tell her otherwise. I knew that I was screwed either way, but one way would delay the inevitable, the other was straight to the point. I disliked stalling what was bound to happen, so I chose the latter. My decision was mine and mine alone. I didn’t regret any of my words. I chose them carefully and I was ready for what I deserved. A few stray strands of light entered the window and I walked over to observe Celestia's work. This was the first time I was up early enough to see the sunrise in this land, and it was glorious. The cool night air left and the sun's warmth heated me. I stretched to invigorate my tense muscles from a sleepless night. I would have found it silly to hear of a man on death row loosen himself up just to die, but right now it didn’t seem so odd. It never ceased to amaze me how different a sunrise felt compared to a sunset. they looked very similar but one would give warmth and start the day while the other would take away the warmth and bring the peace of night. They were still both very beautiful to witness nonetheless. While looking out the window I heard a distant shout. “JASON!” I adjusted my gaze down towards the palace steps. It was Twilight and she looked livid. It was fair to assume she was furious because I snuck out while she was asleep. She was well within her right to be angry with me, I knew that and accepted it. She started pounding on the front door and shouted some more. “GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW MISTER! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE AND I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!” I smiled seeing her get so worked up even though she could have probably just teleported inside. My amusement died off quickly after I heard a shout from one of the guards that suddenly bursted into the room. “DRAGON AT THE CASTLE!”, he yelled in a panic, his voice cracking from fear. I looked back down at Twilight who was still screaming at the top of her lungs. I gently shook my head and turned to the guard. “Okay, I admit she's mad and kind of scary at the moment but shes far from a fire-breathing monster.” The guards eyes widened and he pointed slightly above me. “She wasn’t who I was worried about...” he said meekly, shaking like a leaf. I raised an eyebrow, confused as to what he was getting at and turned around one more time... to see a giant orange draconic eye look right back at me. My jaw dropped as it blinked. I could see my own reflection in the humongous slitted pupil. I slowly rotated to face the door. I carefully lifted my front leg and then... ran like hell! I shot down the hall as fast as I could. I didn’t even look back after hearing a scream and a roar coupled with the crackle of a blazing fire. When I came to the stairs I wasted no time in walking down, oh no, I jumped on the handrail and rocketed down to the main entrance area. I could still hear Twilight knocking on the huge doors so I flung them open. My heart leapt into my throat as I saw the dragon right behind her. She was completely unaware of it because she was too focused on me. Using my magic I pulled her in and shut the doors. “You have some explaining to do! Do you have any idea how worried I was when I found out you were gone?!” Twilight barked. “No time, Dragon!” “What did you just call me?!” “NOT YOU!...” I began. The scaled behemoth then broke through into the room with us. “THAT!” I yelled, pointing at it while keeping my eyes on Twilight. Of course Twilight screamed once she found out what was really going on, but like I said before, we had no time for that. With quick thinking on my part, I turned us invisible. It was simple if you knew how light was used to see. All you had to do was bend the light around an object to theoretically make it invisible. The bending of light was apparent in some anomalies in space with extremely high gravitational fields, such as a black hole. I had no clue as to if it was even possible beforehand since I had never attempted it, but thankfully it worked. The dragon seemed to think we had teleported or something by the way it gave up and walked off. I was just glad Twilight had stopped her screaming when she did. After I was sure it was safe, I stopped holding my breath and let the spell fade. Speechless, Twilight turned to me. Her expression was that of shock and awe. I saw her mouth moving slightly but there was no sound to go with it. “We have to go... he won’t be gone long and we need to get somewhere safe before he comes back.”, I said as calmly and rationally as I could. “Wh-what was that?” Twilight asked, now visibly trembling. “A dragon... a real dragon. You know if I wasn’t so sure it wanted to eat us, I would be ecstatic. Dragons were always a strange obsession of mine... but that's beside the point. We need to get out of here.” I began to walk towards the gaping hole left in the wake of our fire-breathing monster, but soon noticed Twilight hadn’t moved. “What are you waiting for?! Come on!” Twilight shook her head and took a step back. “We cant just leave Celestia like this... she needs our help.” I could feel my eye twitch from the sheer stupidity I was faced with. “What do you mean ‘she needs our help’?! SHE’S PRACTICALLY A GOD! And let’s not forget, LUNA IS JUST AS POWERFUL!” “But Celestia just rose the sun and Luna just lowered the moon! Do you even know how drained that leaves them?! THEY COULD DIE!” I hadn’t thought of that... the sunrise and sunset every day takes the switching of sun and moon. Changing day to night and vice-versa would be difficult for even them. moving celestial bodies around and making the transition run smoothly could only be done by godlike powers, and even though they possessed such power, they were not immortal... at least it was never said that they were. However, even if I wanted to help, how could I? This was a dragon we were dealing with and I was no more than a crumb waiting to be eaten. I wasn’t even bite-sized! How do you kill something so large, let alone something that has been told to have steel hard scales and enough strength to topple a castle without breaking a sweat?! It was an impossible situation I did not want to take part in. “I’m sorry Twilight, but we stand no chance. It would be better if we...” At that moment I managed to catch a glimpse of that stupid unicorn's tail before it vanished behind a far off corner. Of all the idiotic things she could have done, this was the absolute dumbest! She must have had a death wish or something! Without thinking I ran after her. She was so far ahead of me that I could barely keep track of which turns she made. The whole time I chased her down, I could hear roars and feel the floor shake from the rampaging dragon. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they did. A piece of the ceiling fell and blocked my path. By the time I had managed to get over it I had lost Twilight's trail at a four way intersection. It was like someone had purposely made this place to be a maze. I picked a hallway at random in hopes that it was the correct one. I was frustrated beyond belief and felt as though I was chasing off a toddler who was purposely trying to run into traffic! I hadn’t been focusing on where I was going anymore and bumped into something after turning a corner. I fell on my back with my eyes clenched shut and screamed for my life. “OH GOD DON’T EAT ME!” “Don’t worry, I’m not a cannibal.”, said a strikingly familiar voice. I opened my eyes to see Celestia standing over me. I had never been so happy to see anyone in my life (probably because it meant I wasn’t going to be torn apart by car sized teeth). Feeling rather embarrassed that I actually begged for my life, I rushed to get up and brush myself off to spare any further humiliation. “Where’s Twilight?” Celestia asked with a stern glare and harsh tone. “Beats me, she just ran off looking for you because she said you needed help... wait, how did you know she was here?” “I could her scream a little while ago... I feared the worst might have happened. I found that Discord was not in his room when I heard her-” I instantly cut her off. “Wait, why were you looking for Discord?! How could he help?!” “Discord has been rehabilitated to serve under me. I hoped that he could help with situations such as this, but this is the first time he has just disappeared on me. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop the dragon in time without him... and without the Elements of Harmony, I see no way out. We will have to evacuate the castle.” I rolled my eyes at her pathetic excuse. “You rely too much on the elements... if I were in your position I would at least come up with a decent plan before jumping straight to sending six innocent girls to their potential graves. You are the leader of this kingdom! Try acting like it!” Celestia looked like she was going to yell at me, but before she could we heard a scream. Looking out a nearby window, we saw what looked to be the palace gardens, and right there against one of the stone walls was Twilight. The dragon that we had barely evaded before was fifteen yards away from her at most. I know fifteen yards sounds like a lot, but against something that size it was only a step or two away. I could practically see it grinning victoriously. I turned to Celestia and shouted, “DO SOMETHING!” “Like what?! Get eaten myself?! Even if I could manage to teleport to it, I wouldn’t be able to stop it!” “YOU COWARD!” I screamed, feeling pure rage coursing through my veins. “COWARD?! What do you plan to do then?! SHOW ME YOUR BRILLIANT PLAN! COME ON! WHAT IS IT?!” “I DON’T KNOW, OKAY?! GIVE ME A SECOND TO THINK!” I paced frantically, searching through my mind trying to come up with something, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get past the mental block my current stress created. ‘Come on! THINK!’, I mentally yelled, pleading for clarity. Right at that instant, it was like something clicked into place in my brain. Just like when I couldn’t find Fluttershy's house, everything became clear and easily processable. A nearly bottomless well of information flooded my brain but felt natural at the same time. Suddenly it hit me. Why hadn’t I thought of it earlier? Dragons are reptiles... which meant cold blooded. Without a second thought I opened a rift in space time, making a portal in midair. I don’t know how I did this but I didn’t care at the moment. All I knew was I couldn’t waste any time. I pulled a few vials of various chemicals from the portal. “Are those from Twilight's lab?!” Celestia asked, obviously stunned from her tone. “Yep. I don’t think she will mind, do you?” I responded turning to her while continuing to mix the chemicals in a calculated sequence and quantity to get the formula just right. Celestia shook her head, trying to keep her regal appearance intact (but failing miserably). “Well alrighty then... hey does this look close enough to C major to you?”. Celestia stayed silent and I looked back at the vial. “Hmm... yeah, needs a tad more blue.” I put a few more drops of the blue liquid in and sealed off the top with a cork. Somehow I knew what the outcome would be even though I never worked with chemicals before. Just like all those times in school where I knew the answer but had no clue how I obtained it. I galloped off down one of the halls that had stained glass windows lining the garden. “What are you doing?!” Celestia, called out. “Getting eaten! What does it look like?!” I called back. I kept track of my position by counting the number of windows. ‘Seven... Eight... here we go! Ninth window!’ I thought as I levitated a bust of Celestia's head and tossed it at the window. The glass shattered and gave me a clear view to the dragon who was currently picking up Twilight by the tail with his claw. I hastily tore the long curtains by the window down and rearranged their molecular sequence to make them more like elastic, then I tied them around two columns far from the window, making sure they were in the perfect position. I got on the other side and started walking back, increasing the tension on them. When I got to the right spot I stopped and put the floating vial of light blue liquid under my arm and held it like I was carrying a football. Now that everything was in place, I was ready to do the craziest thing I had ever done... EVER! “HEY YOU OVERGROWN IGUANA!” I shouted to get the dragon's attention. He looked down towards me and had Twilight dangling right in front of his open mouth... perfect. “Fus Ro Dah...” I said right before letting releasing my hoofs from the floor. By using the curtain as a slingshot, I shot straight at Twilight, traveling at a velocity of roughly 80 miles per hour. Right before I hit her I opened my free arm and let her fall into it. In less time than it took to blink, we were already in the creature's mouth. I quickly released my hold on the vial gave it a little push to shoot it farther down his throat. Right after doing so, I teleported. We reappeared right next to Celestia. I looked to the dragon to observe my handiwork in effect. He reared his head back in confusion and put a claw to his throat. A moment later he began to cough a very pale blue smoke. As he coughed he began to stagger and weave around as though he were inebriated. He stumbled into the castle once and then fell to the ground soon after. That was when Celestia and I noticed that Twilight was still screaming. I nudged her with a hoof and she snapped out of it. “W-what’s going on? Where’s the dragon?” she asked, still shaking. Celestia and I both pointed to the fallen beast. “H-how?!” She inquired, looking at the scaly thing with her mouth wide open. “Yes, I am curious as well. How did you do that?” Celesta added. “Well you see the chemical formula in that little glass bottle was the key. It was made to be reactive to high temperatures. Once I had Twilight, I tossed my concoction down the dragons throat and let his stomach acid eat through the cork. Once that happened, it would respond to the fire in his stomach. I noticed that Spike belches when he breathes fire, so I came to the conclusion that the fire originates from the dragons stomach. When the heat of that fire came into contact with the mixture I had made, it responded by creating cryogenic gas! I figured that since he was still technically a reptile and cold blooded all I had to do was cool him down. When cold blooded creatures get cold they don't shiver. Instead they just sorta slow down and fall asleep... soooo, ta-da?” “Where did you learn how to do all that?” Celestia asked, looking positively baffled. “Well that’s easy I...” right at that moment I could no longer think as clearly and my mind went back to its original state. It was like my brain had been running on fifth gear and suddenly shifted to first. The wealth of knowledge felt like a fleeting dream. I realized I was at a loss for words. “I... don’t know.” I said trying to recall the answer I was about to give before my brain cut out. At that instant, everything began growing dark and my vision was fading. I found myself passing out.