//------------------------------// // The Beast Below // Story: Dragon Scales and Other Tails // by Darkwing Dash //------------------------------//   We ran down the quiet streets, going at top pace in order to keep up with Shining Armor. He didn’t slow down until we had gotten about a half-mile away from Kate’s house. Coming to a stop by the side of the road, he turned to face us.         “Whew, that one was pretty close, huh?” he said grinning and breathing heavily. We said nothing, our breaths coming in winded gasps. But that wasn’t what caused our silence. We looked around at each other, not sure how to answer the white pony. Was this the real Shining Armor we were talking to? As in, co-ruler of the Crystal Empire and Twilight’s brother? And if so, where was Shane? Did he even still exist?         Shining looked at us quizzically. “Come on guys,” he said. “It wasn’t that bad.” Then he caught sight of Kate, and he lit up with joy. His face looked completely changed “Cadance!” he cried, running over to her side. “Wow! I can’t believe you escaped! I thought Discord would’ve had you for sure! Guess I shouldn’t have doubted you, huh? Don’t know what I was thinking.” he chuckled to himself. Kate backed away, looking nervously at him, unsure how to react.         He looked at her, puzzled. “Cadance,” he said approaching her gently. “It’s me, Shining Armor. Don’t you rec-” he stopped, his eyes going wide, having fully comprehended the situation. “Discord did get to you. He cursed you. Which means... you’re not you... We failed. I-I failed.” He looked crushed. As much as his face had lit up at the sight of his bride, it was now completely devoid of anything remotely resembling light.         My brain went into overdrive. Discord? a curse? Was Discord behind more than just attempting to kidnap David? How far did it go? What exactly had the curse done? I shook my head. I needed to pay attention now, not ask questions.         Kate stepped tentatively towards the defeated unicorn. “Um, Shining Armor?” she said timidly. “Uh, don’t worry. It’s all right. You didn’t fail, you just saved us from those windigos.”         Shining Armor shook his head. “It’s not that. I failed... I failed to protect you... from Discord... and now he... now you...” he gasped, trying to take deep lungfuls of air. “Discord!” he said, spitting the name like a curse. “His spell... sapping my strength... I don’t have much time...” he was now very weak, leaning on Kate for support. “I don’t... have much time...” he said, panting heavily. “You have.. have to find... only thing that can help... find him, please.” He was slipping to the ground, becoming incoherent in his delirium. “Please... find... him...” He sank to the dirt, unconscious.         Kate reached forward slowly to help him, when suddenly she gave a loud cry and fell to her knees beside Shining Armor, clutching her head in her hooves, obviously in intense pain. David and I rushed forward to help her. Before we got there though, she relaxed, the pain having subsided. “I’m fine,” she said, getting slowly to her hooves. “Just a bad headache.” I wasn’t convinced.         Next to her, Shining Armor groaned and opened his eyes. He got unsteadily to his feet. “Kate, David, Peter, are you guys alright?” he asked.         “Shane! It’s you!” cried Kate, throwing her arms around his neck.         He gave her a one-armed return hug. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me,” he said, almost as much to reassure himself as to reassure her.         “Do you remember what happened?” David asked him.         “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “But I’m not sure of the how. I remember sitting in the living room, trying to keep the shield going. Kate said that we were all going to die, and then I felt this really intense pressure build up inside me. Then, it was as if I was watching a video, like someone else was moving my body. I saw my legs move, felt my mouth move. Then, I watched us escape and someone else... I guess it was Shining Armor, talk to you guys. He collapsed. Then, my limbs got pins-and-needles, like they were waking up, and I could move again.” I listened to Shane’s story, my brain working hard. How had Shining Armor come to be in Shane’s head, or was it the other way around? How had he woken up? Why had he fallen dormant once more? Would he wake up again?         David shook his head, obviously clearing away the same kind of thoughts I was working through. “That doesn’t matter right now,” he said. “Shining Armor’s managed to give us a gift. That,” he said, pointing to Shane’s horn, which he had still managed to keep working even subconsciously. “The shield is much stronger this time, but Shane won’t be able to keep it going for long, and once it’s gone, those windigos will be back on our trail.”         “So what do we do now?” asked Kate.         “We have to continue our search,” David replied.  “We need help against the windigos, and that means finding someone from Equestria.”         “But we have no leads,” protested Kate. “And we can’t just sit down and surf the web until we come across something, not with those fiends after us.”         David hesitated. “Actually... we do have one lead. The pawnshop. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it has something to do with what’s going on with us. Anyway, it’s the only lead we have to go on and you’re right: we don’t have the time to do a full out search. We only have one lead to follow, so let’s follow it.”         “Sure, sure,” said Shane dismissively. “Sounds good, let’s do it. But can I please get something to eat first? I’m absolutely starving!” Smiling, I reached down from my position on David’s back, dug an apple out of his saddlebag and tossed it to Shane. He caught it in his mouth and started eating it, core and all. “Right then,” he said around the apple. “Let’s ride.” We galloped down the road into the rising moon.         Kate lived outside the south end of town and according to David, the shop was on the outskirts of the east end, about a half-hour away. All in all, the journey would take about an hour to complete, so we got started right away. We ran in ragged formation, Shane running about fifteen feet or so ahead, acting as lookout. David and I ran in the middle, and Kate brought up the rear another fifteen feet back.         I decided to use the travel time to try and gather some information. I thought back on my experiences at our apartment and Kate’s house, about Shane’s collapse in the backyard and Kate’s collapse near the house. “David, have you gotten any sudden, really intense headaches lately? Like, since we started turning into ponies, lately?”         David looked back at me quizzically. “Actually, I can’t say that I have. Why?”         “Well, Shane had one while we were training in the backyard at Kate’s house, and Kate had one right after we talked with Shining Armor, so I was wondering if you’d gotten any.”         David shook his head. “I haven’t. Do you think it might have anything to do with the connection between Shining Armor and Cadance?” “Maybe,” I said hedging. Personally, seeing as I’d had them too, that possibility didn’t seem likely. But the fact that David hadn’t felt any headaches cast some doubts over my suspicions that they were actually relevant at all, so I held back the rest of my information. We lapsed into silence. Soon, I noticed that something was off. David was being rather quiet. True, running isn’t exactly the most talkative of states, but David was being even more serious than usual. “Thinking about the ‘Discord Curse’ Shining Armor mentioned?” I guessed.         David sighed. “You caught that too, did you? Well, that kind of was the most important thing he said. And it confirms that Discord is behind all this.”         I raised an eyebrow. “I thought learning that Discord had a price on your head did that.”         David shrugged, an impressive feat to manage while running with me on his back. “It doesn’t matter how it was confirmed. The point is that now we know: Discord is the reason we turned into ponies.”         I hesitated. I had an idea, crazy as it might sound, but I knew it had to be voiced. “Maybe not,” I said.         David looked back at me, his face skeptical. “Are you saying Discord didn’t do it?”         “No,” I replied. “I’m saying maybe Discord is the reason the ponies turned into us.” He looked back at me again, both eyebrows raised. “Think about it,” I said. “What possible reason could Discord have for turning us, four random strangers who have nothing to do with Equestria, into ponies?”         “The obvious fact that it would cause entertaining chaos,” David said.         “Well then there’s Shining Armor’s reaction,” I countered. “When he realized that Cadance had been cursed, he said “You’re not you.” That means that he knew that because Cadance had been cursed, she wasn’t her. That must mean that the curse had something to do with changing the ponies.”         “So you’re saying that the ponies were cursed and forced to share bodies with us for several decades,” David stated.         “Something like that,” I said, shrugging.         David snorted in anger and stamped his hoof mid-stride. “We need information!” he said angrily. “I’m good at solving problems, but I can’t make bricks without clay!” he said, quoting his favorite detective. “We don’t have enough to go on. We can’t afford to start speculating. We have to follow what concrete leads we have.”         I shrugged, palms out. Realizing that David couldn’t see this, I spoke. “It doesn’t matter to me. I never expected it to change our plans or anything. I just feel we need to consider our options, and at some point we’ll have to sit down and figure all this out.”         “Agreed,” said David, sighing again. “But not right now.” A few minutes later, Shane called for a break. We came to rest by a stream, about a good half-hour away from Kate’s house. We stopped to get a drink from the stream and eat some of the supplies we’d packed. I could tell that Shane was starting to feel the effects of simultaneously running and holding a shield up. I hoped that he’d be able to make it. We got ready to travel again. As I made to hop up onto David’s back, Kate spoke. “Actually Peter, could you ride with me for a bit? I have some questions I wanted to ask you.” “Sure,” I said, walking back to Kate and climbing on her back. We started off again in the same formation, with Kate and I bringing up the rear. “So,” Kate began. “Since it might be important later, I was hoping you could tell me everything I might need to know about Doctor Who and Doctor Whooves.” I let out a breath. “Well, there’s a lot to tell, and not a lot of it is really relevant. Let’s start with this: what do you know about the Doctor?” Kate looked back at me, confused. “Wait, so his name isn’t Doctor Who?” I facepalmed. “Well that answers that,” I said. “No, his name isn’t Doctor Who, it’s just the Doctor. He’s an alien called a Time Lord who travels through time and space in a blue box called the TARDIS that’s bigger on the inside. He’s generally a really good guy who helps people out wherever he goes. That’s about the gist of it.” “Okay, where does Doctor Whooves fit in?” Kate asked. “Fans theorize that some event knocked the Doctor between dimensions from where he was to Equestria. Oh, and it killed him.” Kate looked back at me, bewildered. “What?!” she asked. “Then how is there a Doctor Whooves!?” “Time Lords have the ability to regenerate from lethal injuries.” I replied. “They change their appearance and bring themselves back to life. They can do it twelve times, so they basically have thirteen lives. If the stories are true, which, seeing as Doctor Whooves is running about fifteen feet away from us we should assume that they are, then the Doctor is on his twelfth life, and is in pony form because he landed in Equestria.” Kate took a deep breath, trying to take it all in. “Okay, then here’s the question that I really wanted to ask you: do you think that David is acting like the Doctor?” I considered the question for a little bit. “Not really,” I replied. “David’s his own person. I haven’t really noticed any Doctor-like tendencies from him, other than his interest in engineering. Why?” Kate bit her lip, and I could see an amount of fear in her eyes. She glanced over at Shane. “You can tell me,” I said. “I seem to be everyone’s confidant today.” Kate let out a deep breath. “Okay. But, and I know this sounds childish, you have to promise not to tell anyone. Okay?” I smiled. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake-” “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Kate, cutting me off. “I get it. What I’m wondering is... how much of mine and Shane’s relationship is really real?” My face instantly paled. Oh no. Oh no no no. I’d accidentally gotten myself involved in the world of relationships. I was doomed. Kate turned, saw the look on my face and gave me an annoyed glare. “I’m not asking you for relationship advice,” she said. “I’m just asking you to listen for a little bit. Please?” There was real pain in her voice. I instantly regretted my earlier trepidation. “Sure,” I said. “Sorry.” Kate sighed. “I’m just worried. Ever since Shining Armor showed up, I’ve been seeing more and more similarities between us and the ponies we look like. Shane’s a guard, you study geology, David’s an engineer, and me... Well, I don’t know, but then, I wouldn’t, would I? If I’m being influenced by Cadance, then what would seem normal to her would seem normal to me,” she sighed. “What I’m trying to ask is: are my feelings for Shane, and his feelings for me, actually real? Or are they just part of the influences of Shining Armor and Cadance, who do have a real relationship?” I thought about that for a bit. “Well, I don’t think so,” I replied. “I think you’re right a bit about being influenced by the ponies, but I don’t think it changes our entire lives. I mean, we’ve all turned into ponies from the show, but Shane’s barely even watched it. David is Doctor Whooves, and I’ve tried to show him Doctor Who, but I don’t think he’s watched more than five episodes of the show that’s supposed to be his life. I don’t really think all of our lives are predetermined by the pony side of us.” “Thanks,” said Kate. She opened her mouth to continue, but was interrupted by Shane calling from up front. “Hey, Kate, come here. I just had an idea,” he said. Kate trotted up over to him. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner, but I should teach you the laser and shield spells I learned.” Kate and I agreed, and I made the transfer onto Shane’s back, so as not to throw off Kate’s aim, which already had to deal with the constant motion of running. Once Kate had learned the basics, she returned to her position to practice them, and I ended up on Shane at the front. A few cars passed us along the road, which sent us scurrying for the bushes at the side. Luckily, the road was raised a good six feet above the hilly landscape around it, so the sides were good cover. As we went further along, I started thinking more and more about our encounter with Shining Armor. Finally, I spoke up. “Hey Shane,” I began. “What did it feel like, when Shining Armor took control of you?” Shane didn’t answer for a moment. “Definitely strange,” he said at last. “But, not altogether bad. Sure, I’d rather prefer to stay in control of my own body, but the experience wasn’t something out of a horror film or anything. It was as though there was a second option, an option that had always been there, and someone had decided to use it. It wasn’t painful or scary. Just... really weird.” He sounded pretty calm when he talked about it. I was glad he wasn’t traumatized by the experience, as that was the last thing we needed right now. We entered the city limits. Traffic became much more frequent, but there were alleyways and other places to hide in now. Still, for safety’s sake, I dug four large blankets out of the saddlebags and made makeshift cloaks out of them for each of us. Better for people to see four dark shapes than to see four crazy creatures. As we neared the road where David said the pawn shop was located, Shane’s pace decreased more and more. Finally, as we were about to turn the corner onto the street, Shane stopped and sat on the sidewalk, panting. “I just need a break,” he said to our inquiring looks. “We’re really far away from the shield. It takes a lot of energy to keep it going. “Drop the shield,” I told him. The others looked at me, stunned. “Look,” I said. “We don’t know how this lead of David’s is going to turn out. It could lead us somewhere safe, but the odds are high that it won’t. If that’s the case, we’re going to have to find somewhere to make a stand. We can’t keep running from these windigos forever, and if we’re going to fight, we shouldn’t have our best fighter near unconscious from exhaustion. We have more options now, and we need to be ready to act on them.” The three of them looked at each other uneasily, but no one offered any objections. Shane let out a deep breath and, slowly, released his focus on the magic shield. “That’s it,” he said, his voice instantly stronger and more stable. “They’re on their way. The windigos should be here in about twenty minutes.” “Then let’s get started,” I said, turning towards our destination.                      ************************************************************ Dale stood behind the glass counter in the middle of his shop, wiping down the surface with a rag. He looked at the clock and sighed. It was 2 o'clock. That meant he had about six more hours until the day shift manager he’d hired showed up to take his place. Not that keeping his shop open for 24 hours really did him much good. No one really came to this end of town at night. No one really came to this end of town at all. The only things here besides his shop were a small grocery store and an old bowling alley, both of which closed at 9 o’clock. Everything else was run down. He himself was just looking for someone to buy his shop so he and his family could move on. His musings were suddenly interrupted by the sound of the bell above the door. He turned towards the sound to find a figure, about three feet high, standing next to the door. The figure was draped in a large black blanket, with a section folded over its head like the hood of a cloak. Dale stared at it. The figure was motionless. Then, it moved quickly off to the right, down towards the hallway where the bathrooms were. Dale blinked in surprise. Was this someone’s kid? He’d seen crazier things in a 24 hour pawn shop at 2 in the morning, but he followed after the figure anyway. The figure walked down the dark corridor until it reached the end. The hallway was illuminated occasionally by a flickering bulb at the back. The figure stopped and turned to look at him. He couldn’t make anything out under the cloak. “Are you my mommy?” it asked. “Uhh, no,” said Dale, confused. “I’m not your mommy.” “Are you my mommy?” it asked again. “No,” he said firmly. “Are you looking for your mommy? I can help-” “Mooooo-my” said the figure in a sing-song voice, cutting him off. “Look, I-” Dale began. “I want my mommy!” the figure interrupted, voice rising in anger. Dale approached the figure cautiously, more than a little unnerved. “Now just calm down, and I’m sure we can-” he stopped when he noticed the figure’s hands moving slowly towards its hood. The hands were wrong. They were purple, and scaly, as though they were covered with a horrible skin disease. He stopped where he was, a few feet from the figure. Suddenly, with a quick movement, the figure jerked back its hood. A purple reptilian face leaped out at Dale, its bright green eyes contracting, a hiss escaping from its mouth. Dale leaped back with a scream, falling off his feet and hitting the floor. He whirled around to run, only to find three more figures in cloaks behind him, each one taller than the serpent.  “Death, death, death, death,” they chanted as they stepped towards him. Their steps made thunking sounds as they walked, like the sound of skeletal feet hitting the tiles. Their bodies seemed to stretch out behind them with inhuman proportions. The chanting grew louder. “Death, Death, Death, Death,” Dale was rooted to the spot with fear. The figures seemed to descend beneath him, and he looked down to see that he was slowly being raised into the air. The chanting rose even louder. “Death! Death! Death! Death!” Dale tried to struggle, tried to fight against the invisible bonds that held him in the air, but he could do nothing. The first figure walked over to join the other three, its fiery green eyes leering at him from above a wicked smile. A silver knife floated from off its post on the wall near to him and hovered to a stop in front of his face. He looked at its glistening point and his blood ran cold. The chant reached a tremendous volume. “DEATH!”  Dale’s nerve broke, and he blacked out.                 ************************************************** “Whew, that was a close one,” said Kate, lowering the knife to the floor and levitating some rope out of her bag. “Gotta hand it to the guy, he held out to the end,” said Shane, magicking Dale gently to the floor and tying him up with the rope. “I thought we were actually going to have to knock him out.” “Good thing it didn’t come to that,” said David. “Now, we have to hurry. We don’t have much time. Shane, I want you and Kate to be looking for anything we can use as weapons. Guns, knives, swords, anything. Gather it all in a big pile in the front. Peter, I want you to go to the second floor and see if you can find at least one piece of ammo for that,” he pointed at a large object mounted on the wall. I grinned. “Sounds fun.” “If you can’t, then we’ll make do with what we can gather for it. I’ll start searching for what we came here for. Now let’s go.” Shane and Kate broke off and started pulling stuff down from the walls. David moved to the front of the store and started looking through the counters. I made to go up the stairs when a thought occurred to me. “Hey David, if I’m the only one upstairs, shouldn’t I be keeping an eye out for the relic too? What if it’s up there?” “You’re right,” said David, not looking away from the cabinets. “Keep an eye out for it.” I had two eyes to keep out for it, and I rolled both of them. “I don’t actually know what it looks like, or even what it is,” I told him. “We’ve just been calling it the heirloom this whole time.” “Don’t worry, you’ll know it when you see it. It’s silver and it has a whole bunch of circles on it.” he said, looking at me. I crossed my arms and glared at him, my face deadpan. He sighed. “I guess you’re right. I am being pretty defensive about it.” He leaned closer to me, as though afraid the others might hear. “It’s a pocket watch.” he said. “A silver pocket watch with circles on it. Now hurry.” he turned back to searching the cabinets. My mind reeled from the force of what he’d just told me. If it was a pocket watch, the pocket watch... I sprinted up the stairs and burst through the door on the second floor landing, my eyes frantically searching everywhere for a glint of silver. The upstairs room was completely filled with clutter. Boxes lined the bottom of every wall, stacked until they were almost toppling over. Glass counters took up most of the room, each one filled with random knick knacks and piles of junk. There was barely enough space to walk. I remembered that we needed spare ammunition for the thing downstairs. There was no way I’d find any of it’s ammo in here, but if I could find enough random small objects, that would work too. I reached into the nearest box and started pulling out any metal things I could find and stuffed them into the saddlebag I’d brought up with me. The more I took though, the slower I seemed to go. A fork, a couple of knives, a locket, a few coins. I moved onto the next box. A silver plate, an iron cup, a box of steel silverware, a brass lamp. Next box Some shiny coins, a couple of glittering trays, a few dazzling helmets and an assortment of polished rings. I started grabbing things that weren’t metal, anything I could see, as much as my hands could hold, and stuffing it into my bag. My gaze fell on one of the glass cabinets in the middle of the floor. It contained an assortment of small, glittering gemstones. I walked over to them, mesmerized. They were beautiful. They were perfect... They were Mine.                         *************************************** The windigos hurtled up the block, racing to where they felt the pulsing emanations of the ponies. They would not fail their master this time. The target would not escape alive. They raced towards the end of the street and turned the corner. There was a shimmering purple forcefield around the third house in on the right side. The lead windigo snorted in impatience. When would these fools learn? A force such as theirs was inexorable, impossible to stop. They were sustained by the emanations of hatred that practically oozed out of this pathetic little mudball. Against such a background of hatred and spite, the gentle creatures that were ponies stood out in stark contrast. There was no escape, no point in running, only a delay to the inevitable death. The windigos rushed at the shield, intending to ram it, when they saw someone standing next to its edge. A light brown pony with dark brown hair. The target. They stopped at the last minute, drawing even with the pony. “Y-You’re the windigos, right?” he asked. They nodded. “I’m surrendering,” he said. “Just don’t hurt my friends inside, okay?” The lead windigo laughed. “You have made the right choice. A noble sacrifice. Your friends will be spared our wrath.” There would be time later to come back and slaughter the rebels once the target had been delivered. “W-what does Discord want with me?” asked the pony, taking a step back. The windigos moved a step forward, impatient in their eagerness. “Our master merely desires to speak with you,” the windigo lied. “There is some business that you have with him, something you would not remember. He wants to talk with you about that.” The pony edged two steps to the right. The windigos moved with him, never taking their eyes off of him. “And you s-sure my friends will be safe?” the pony asked, looking down at the ground in nervousness. “Absolutely,” said the windigo,  making its voice as smooth as it could manage. “Then there’s one more thing I need to make sure of,” the pony said, still looking at the ground. “And what might that be?” asked the windigo politely. The pony looked up, a smile on his face, seeming much more calm than before. “That you’re perfectly centered,” he said.                         ****************************************** David pulled his back leg forward, pulling on the string tied to it. Inside the store, the bell above the shop rang. As it did, Shane lit the fuse. David dropped to the dirt. The window behind him exploded as the large cannon, stuffed with bits of red-hot random metal deployed its charged directly at the windigos. They screamed and tried to move out of the way, but one of them was caught directly by the barrage and blasted into the building behind it. Severely weakened, it flew back up to join its fellows. “You will pay dearly for your insolence!” roared the windigo. We’ll see about that,” said David. He turned and re-entered the shop. “We have to take them out quickly,” David said to Kate and Shane. “I doubt very much that the cannon blast went unheard and even if it did, someone’s bound to drive down this street sooner or later and see what’s going on. Kate, how are we on weapons?” “Not too good,” she said. “I found a few pistols and some ammo, but I’m not sure how good those will be. The bullets will be hot, so they can do some damage, but only minimal damage and the bullets aren’t that big.” “What about that cannon? Do we have enough ammo for another shot?” David asked, turning to Shane. “Yeah,” he said. “But it won’t do much good if we can’t heat the metal up. We can do it with laser power, but it takes a while. Has anyone seen Peter? We could use a little dragon fire right now.” Suddenly there was a tremendous crashing sound from directly above them. The whole building shook, and several of the lights flickered and went out. A storm of brick and glass rained down on the pavement, and the street cracked under a heavy weight.                         ***************************************** The creature looked out from its lair. It could identify three beings outside. They had come dangerously close to its lair. The only thing stopping it from attacking was that it did not know what their intentions were. It heard a noise, like a small explosion somewhere nearby. One of the creatures went down, but recovered soon after. The creature watched them with narrowed eyes. Their group reformed, and as one, they attacked the barrier that surrounded his lair. He let out a low rumble of anger. So that was it then. They intended to steal from him! To rob him! To plunder his lair! Well then, he would show them his might! He threw himself at the wall and hit it with a shattering crash. He burst out into the air, landing on the ground with all the force a fifteen foot purple dragon could muster. His purple scales shimmered and his claws glinted dangerously. “Who dares attempt to attack me?!” he bellowed. The intruders floated up to head height and stared at him. “Begone, lizard,” they cried. “This fight is of no concern to you. If you wish to suffer a painful death, then by all means, remain.” The dragon glared at them. He would not let such insolence go unpunished. “You would challenge me?!” he roared. “I am mightier than any foe you have faced! My armor is as a shield, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane and my breath death!” The intruders answered in kind. “You cannot defeat us! We see your heart. It is corrupted by greed, anger, hatred. We will feast on your power until we have consumed you, and then we will consume the world!” “Consume this,” the dragon rumbled. He opened his jaws and a torrent of pure green flame burst forth, engulfing the windigos. They screamed and tried to flee, to attack, to do anything, but it was too late. The molten hot flame engulfed them, draining and nearly consuming them. With the last vestiges of strength they had left, they cast themselves into the void between worlds, to the safety of Equestria. He roared his triumph, and turned to return to his den. He spotted three other ponies, a pink one, a brown one and a white one. More intruders, he thought. They shall die like the others. “Don’t do this Peter!” the brown one said. “This isn’t you!” The dragon lashed his tail out, knocking him aside and into a wall. The dragon raised his clawed foot over the two other ponies, ready to crush them both. The pink one was trying unsuccessfully to summon a feeble shield. Her foolish effort would be wasted. The white one stared up at him, unafraid. “Go ahead then,” he said. “If this is who you are, then crush us. But I know that there’s something in you, deep inside, that won’t let you do this. Pull yourself out of it, I know you can.” Something about his words seemed to resonate within the dragon. But then the dragon shook the feelings away. There was no time for sentimentality. He must secure and expand his hoard. Though the dragon had shaken the feeling off, something else had not. The dragon suddenly felt a pressure on his mind, as though something in it was being pushed. He clutched his head with one claw. The feeling grew and grew, until the dragon nearly went cross eyed with the force of it. There was no pain, only an intense pressure. Finally, the pressure released, and something in his mind seemed to crumble. It felt as though a wall in his mind had fallen away, and something behind it was stirring. A presence. The dragon felt it wake up, shake itself and peer out through his eyes. The presence surveyed the scene. It whistled. “Well, you sure seem to have made a mess of things,”  the presence said in a matter-of-fact tone  “Though I can’t say I’ve never done anything worse.”  The dragon roared in outrage. What was this?! Did this invader dare to think that his mind would be vulnerable when he was distracted? The dragon did not know how this assailant had entered his mind, but it would soon come to find that a dragon’s mind was as sharp as its claws. The dragon threw the force of his mind at the presence, causing it to retreat slightly. “Oh a tough guy eh? Well, I know just the thing that will cut you down to size!” Suddenly, unbidden, images and memories started appearing before the dragon’s eyes. Visions of ponies, many ponies, swam before him. Pink, blue, orange, yellow, purple, but mostly white. A white pony and a small dragon, talking together, laughing and helping each other. The dragon shook these thoughts away. No! That was not its life. These were not its thoughts! The intruder would pay for such an invasion. The dragon attacked again. “You don’t scare me!”  said the intruder. It reached into a section of his mind, forgotten, pushed aside and unused. “How about something a little closer to home!” Again, images flashed before his eyes. This time, a family. A human family. Memories of them playing together, crying together. Of love and friendships formed over years. A family. My family. I looked around, not understanding where I was. Slowly, I felt the huge waves of greed and rage inside me start to dissolve. As they slowly started to disappear, the ground seemed to grow steadily closer. I looked down to see that I was shrinking back down to my original size. In a few seconds, I was three feet high once more. My body felt weak. I was utterly drained, as though I’d run a few miles over the past few minutes. The presence inside me looked around, satisfied. “Well, looks like another job well done,”  it said smugly.         “What?”  I thought at it, confused. “Who... Who are you?”         “Spike the dragon, at your service,”  Spike said cheerfully.