//------------------------------// // Chapter 28 Fight or flight (M) // Story: Spike the Knight // by vadram //------------------------------// Fight or flight “Help me Apple Bloom, I can’t see!” “Forty-five...” The pony ran towards him. “Grab on.” She said as she turned towards him. “Fifty-two...” Spike reached out blindly with his claw, grabbing at air, after a few swipes he touched something. He closed his hand squeezing tight; it was soft. “RUN!” She yelled and started galloping, pulling Spike after her. “Fifty-eight...” They just had passed by the creatures snout and headed for the exit when the creature awoke. “Sixty-one...” It got up on four legs, shook its head and roared. “Sixty-eight...” It’s sight were set on the two brownish blobs moving away from it. “Seventy-five! Run! Run! RUN!” They almost reached the exit when they felt the ground shake. “Jump!” Apple Bloom shouted as she leaped off the edge. The two started tumbling down the jagged edge of the cliff as the manticore emerged from its cave and let out a violent roar, grabbing the attention of all other manticores. Other smaller, but no less terrifying roars followed. Every creature for miles ran from the screams of enraged beast. Deeper within the Everfree a voice was heard yelling from within dark cave. A pair of yellow eyes illuminated the darkness. A earshatering ‘NO!’ came from their direction. “You shall not die on my watch!” the voice screamed. “Not. On. My. Watch!” The clouds above the manticore caves started gathering and moving in a spiral pattern. The sky behind them was getting darker, a few stars were shortly visible between the moving clouds. A large lightning bolt came from the center of the vortex, striking the manticore. It was dazed for a second before it turned it’s head upward roaring at the sky. More bolt of lightning struck it, lighting the fur on its back ablaze. Spike screamed in pain. He forced open his eyes and grabbed the shell from the ground tossing it into Apple Bloom’s bag. She let out a similar scream before fainting. “DIE!” Spike screamed, his eyes turning white. Green and red flames erupted from his body, hardening the manticore repellent before it cracked and peeled off him, revealing the scales he was covered in. Mind numbing pain overtook Spike, as his body rapidly began growing. But not all of it grew as fast and as much as the rest. His arms grew the most, and the scaly skin that covered his fingers retracted revealing long bony claws. The dragon’s legs kept getting smaller compared to the rest of his body until they were only slightly bigger than his arms. The neck and tail were getting longer and thicker as well, greatly increasing his overall size. He continued to grew until he reached the size of a fully grown dragon, dwarfing every other creature that stood next to him. Most of the lesser manticores cowered at the sound of a dragon’s roar. The growth caused his scales to harden and become bigger as well, but, not all of them grew at the same rate, covering him in a coat of scales of varying shapes and sizes. Only on some parts of his body they overlapped perfectly, like the woven chainmail rings, but for more often than not they grew chaotically, leaving parts of his skin exposed in some places, while in others, several layers of jagged scales overlapped, rubbing against each other, making it harder for him to move without tearing off some of them. His face changed as well, adding a great deal to his new fearsome form. The jaw was now larger and the jawbone more prominent, his irises took the shapes of thin black daggers, his teeth changed into fangs, and the few fangs he already possessed became thicker and sharper, some of them growing so much that they jutted out of his mouth. As his body grew bigger and bigger large chunks of his scales started peeling off, revealing even more of his flesh. The skin itself, sometimes, could not cope with the strain of stretching so much and in such a short amount of time, that it started cracking and withering away under the pressure, exposing the muscles underneath. Before reaching his full size his eyes changed colour. The emerald green changed to a deep red and the white of his eyes was almost entirely covered in veins. Blood started dripping from his eyes as well as his mouth, wounds, and from where his muscles were exposed. Falling on all fours he sunk his fangs deep into the manticore flesh, grabbing it, and slamming it into a nearby wall. The creature hit the wall hard before it rolled down the side of the cliff crashing onto the jagged floor below, chunks of the cliff broke of and fell onto the creature, burying it alive. The fully grown Spike slapped the rocks away and placed his claw on the creature’s back pinning it to the ground. He took a deep breath before letting loose a stream of orange and red flames setting the creature ablaze. It screamed from the pain of having its body being burned alive, before the flames entered its mouth silencing it. Dozens of other manticores jumped onto Spike doing what they could to save their leader. Each of them bit, clawed, stung and tore off his scales. Despite the size difference they proved more than a match for the dragon. His attention now turned towards the swarm of assailants, he struggled to knock them of himself. But no sooner than that they hit the ground, they would get up and lunge at Spike again. The alpha manticore used this distraction to recover. Its coat was now gone, his skin severely burned and his stinger was broken, despite all that he ran up the cliff until it was at Spikes level, it jumped and landed on his neck burying its claws and clamping its jaw shut, securing himself onto the dragons flesh. The fully grown dragon screamed in pain and tried to get the creature of. Frantically he flailed his head, trying to rid himself of his assailant. His claws reached for the beast trying to tear it away from him, but to no avail. With a wild roar he slammed his neck against the ragged stonewalls, crushing the manticores body between the wall and his sharp scales, which only made the creature sink his teeth all the deeper into the dragon's neck. He ran of, the alpha manticore still stuck in his flesh, as well as other smaller ones still having their claws and fangs plunged into various parts of his body. A path of destruction marked the trail he and the manticores had taken. His new body had turned a journey that would have usually taken him hours into a matter of minutes, and soon through a veil of rage and adrenalin he could make out the sulphur pits. He lunged into the caustic smelling pond, draggin his attackers with him. Most dragons have a natural resistance to extreme heat, some even make their lairs in volcanoes, but their resistance comes mostly from their thick scales. Spike however had many of them missing, as well as open wounds that allowed the sulphury mixt to burn deep. He pulled himself out of the bubbling conclusion that filled the pit manticore free, one of his eyes was now back its normal green color.