//------------------------------// // Swapping Minds… Right? // Story: My Son, My Soldier, My Hero // by That_Random_Pony //------------------------------// Draco sat in the middle of a circle. A circle composed of his brothers and uncle. Ember, King Draco, Celestia, Luna, Moon, and the Elements waited a good distance away. The plains below Canterlot were deemed as a good spot to transfer the Ashla. When asked why, they were told to see for themselves. And so, anxious as ever, they waited for the ritual to begin. The rest of the League members were present as well, and they were funneling energy into Jaqeluu, who would actually force the Ashla out of Draco and into Jerosh. The other brothers and Figanti received smaller amounts of power to contain the beast once it was free. Draco was told that he would have absolutely no control once the Ashla was freed. He had been sitting in the same spot for an hour, evening his breathing like Fermot had showed him. Jaqeluu turned to the rest of his family, and they each nodded. Jerosh took a deep breath and stood up, taking another breath to calm himself. He had never experienced the Ashla's true power, even from a side view. Now he was about to actually have it in him. The thought made him feel honored and terrified all at once. "Nogotsko," Jaqeluu whispered. Draco felt his mind get latched on to another, and soon he started seeing memories. Memories of people… Loki'irians, he had never met. Signa, warriors. He saw his own self as an infant, then their hasty separation. He felt his brother's pain at the loss of their father, and even more so at the disbanding of what remained of their family. But he felt a fire that had fueled him so long ago. A flame that burned with thoughts of joining Jaqeluu, Derekosh, Fermot, and Agner. Assembling armies for battle. Rescuing their mother and finding their youngest brother. The drive to do all this was familiar… but one thing was different. His intentions were pure. Draco's drive had been fueled by rage and a lust for vengeance. Vengeance that he very nearly obtained directly. But the voice that stopped him long ago, the voice that reminded him that honor above all, was what kept him apart from the evil and cruel and stopped him from killing in anger. But Jerosh had also heard this voice before, not in a memory, but in real life. And with his brother's more vast array of vocabulary… he understood the one word he never could. Ninjot… son. He experienced the travels Jerosh and his family endured to assemble a big enough army to come for him. The number of ships lost… the bodies mangled, burned, rotted, eaten, and shredded all to find him. And when he not only admitted he didn't remember them, but refused to go with them and refuses to accept them as family… it broke Jerosh's heart. His brother was strong, fearless, almost as wise as Jaqeluu, and confident… but family was his weak point. Even if they hadn't seen each other since the second month of his life, Jerosh loved him as much as each of his brothers and their uncle. Even if he was the reason for Derekosh's death, it made Jerosh's love even stronger… because he wanted to guide him. Jerosh wanted to show him the wonders of their world, their traditions, their rituals. He wanted to see his little brother become the strongest there ever was. The memories caught up to the present, and now, only dark memories poured in. Memories that Jerosh was able to endure, Draco only felt anger. Anger that Jerosh eased, that he was able to contain. Draco couldn't. He lived each moment over and over, endlessly and slowly. Then his own somber memories joined the pattern. Dasher's death… nearly losing Ember… seeing Moon thrashed from the scout attack… and knowing he encountered the Alpha that killed his father personally. He could feel himself losing his temper, but something else was following his rage. Everypony and dragon gasped as a gust of wind blasted out from Draco, nearly knocking them down. Ember could see his eyes glowing white, and his face was scrunched into an expression of anger. Then he started screaming. Screaming in agony and thrashing around violently as he clutched his head. Jaqeluu ignored the cries of his brother and continued to funnel in the pain, searching for the Ashla's presence within his mind. Draco's screams only worsened as he felt even more memories, millions of them, surfacing within his mind. Jaqeluu sensed a small amount of the inner beast, and with it came the power of the previous Makti. All 825 of them. Ember barely stood her ground as she watched him take the pain, and she became frightened when his voice started changing. It sounded like a mix of hundreds of beings, all merged into one. There was a sudden shift in the air that put every one of them, especially the princesses, off. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight could each feel massive amounts of magic surfacing from within him. It quickly eclipsed Twilight's, then Luna, and soon enough it double Celestia's own magic power. Their jaws were slackened, and yet his power still kept climbing. It soon registered in the pegasi, then the Earth ponies, and soon even the dragons were feeling his energy. King Draco knew that it would take more power than either of the alicorns for him or his daughter to feel magic, and what amazed him still was that he hadn't even seen the beast he had trained the boy to control. Jaqeluu grunted as he felt the Ashla trying to force him out, but he drew it out even further by concentrating on Draco's worst memory. He forced his little brother to watch Ember slip into a small coma, thinking she was dead. Draco screamed even louder, a tear falling from his cheek as he remembered it all too vividly. It was finally enough to usher out the first changes. Several gashes on his body opened up, allowing the metals to crawl out and turn his screams demonic. Moon had hoped he would never hear that scream again, and he watched helplessly as Draco thrashed around incessantly, trying to relieve the pain. As his thrashing worsened, Fermot, Agner, Figanti and the League joined their energies to create a field around them. Draco bashed himself against the energy field, his screams morphing into roars. Jaqeluu finally pinpointed the Ashla, and he was standing at the very door to the beast itself. Mentally, that is. But even with his increased power he was struggling to coax it into leaving its own prison. Draco roared demonically, collapsing to his hands and knees as his body started to morph. His friends watched in horror as his legs snapped into a position like theirs, drawing another scream of agony. His toes and hands thickened until they were metallic paws, and the metals overflowed until they were starting to consume him. Two tails shot out of his tailbone, quickly reaching their full length and growing out their own spiked ends. Two pikes shot out from his shoulder blades, then bent until they were pointing forward. Celestia watched, shocked and terrified, as she watched the monster within him taking control. His limbs were the only thing that had changed, which forced him to stay low to the ground, and she was trembling. Ember was just as horrified at the early stages of his transformation, unsure whether or not a creature like this could ever be contained once let free. Come… out… you… drek trarg… …Rghh… You want… me to… control… this welp? F-Fine… then… Now… GET OUT! Jaqeluu yelled as his mind was attacked, and given how his efforts were focused completely on forcing it out, he was knocked back and put unconscious. Without Jaqeluu to keep the link between Draco and Jerosh, the Ashla was free to do what it pleased when it gained control. And with the Oracle knocked out, it only sped up the process. Draco roared again as his mark burned a menacing black, and Nyla roared in pain as the Ashla forcefully took over. Draco back hunched into that of a quadruped, and his body started growing out. His face began to decompress, giving him a horrific muzzle much like Moon's that was made of his muscle and metals. The metal alloy near his paws turned black, and it rapidly spread out until it was just behind the metals covering up his neck and reaching his face. His teeth sharpened even further, his eyes blackened, and his jaw was covered with a metal array of "teeth" that served as his mask. The transformation completed itself as his chest had his insignia etched on in a bright gray that glowed with a dark hue. It looked like it came straight from Tartarus. Its body was young, but it still stood eight feet high even on all fours. The metal platings on it were sleek and sharpened, to the point where it looked as if looking at it would give them cuts. Its body had Draco's build, with broad shoulders and thick muscles, but they could each see that it was nothing like him otherwise. King Draco, for the first time in his long life, felt fear. Fear of an opponent. Fear of knowing that a monster as powerful and menacing as this was within a foot of him for years. The large claws were the size of one of Moon's paws, which he took note of. Moon couldn't see or even imagine that thing as his brother, the one he had an unbreakable bond with. It was too… malicious… just looking at the Ashla made his instincts nag for him to run. But if that monster lost control, there was no way he was going to let it hurt his marefriend. He took a step forward, slightly in the way of Fluttershy. The Ashla surveyed the equines and Nera'ak descendants in front of it, then turned to the Signa. Even in its adolescent state, it knew it had enough energy to wipe them ALL out. A smirk grew on its muzzle, much to the brothers' horror. Its maw opened wide, and a sphere of black swirled into existence. The massive energy build put the brothers on high alert, and Hinaskol, immortal and 12th member of the League, shot a beam at the beast, followed by the rest of them. The Ashla fired as well, and the blasts collided with enough force to send Jaqeluu's limp body tumbling. Agner caught his brother while Fermot and Jerosh joined the League in their fight to stop the Ashla. Agner shook Jaqeluu violently, yelling for him to stand. When he sensed Celestia's magic and her sister's building, he teleported in front of them. "DO NOT ATTACK!" Agner roared, frightening them. "THE ASHLA WILL TEAR YOU EACH LIMB FROM LIMB IF YOU MAKE YOURSELF A TARGET! GET OUT OF HERE NOW!" "I'm not leaving!" Ember shouted, getting closer to Agner. "THIS ISN'T-" "AGNER!" The second youngest brother turned to his eldest, then realized he was pointing to Jaqeluu, who was unsteadily getting to his feet. He hurried over with Celestia and Luna following behind, while Moon helped King Draco take the mares somewhere safe. "Agner… ngh, what was… that?" "Brother, you need to re-establish the link before the Ashla kills someone," Agner reminded him. "We don't have much time!" Jaqeluu snapped back to his senses and stood back up, watching as the League and his brothers struggled to keep the collision of the beams between them, but it was gradually getting closer to them. "I… I need… more energy," Jaqeluu grunted. "It drained me the first… time." "I won't have enough," Agner said, turning to the battle. "And if any of them help they'll be killed." "What of us, then?" Luna asked. "Would our magic be able to assist you?" "If there's enough," Jaqeluu grunted, clutching his head. "I'll only be able to handle one more attack. Hurry." Celestia and Luna charged their horns to their fullest, and Agner's mark glowed as he placed his hand on his brother's back. The alicorns did the same with their horns, and Jaqeluu took a deep breath and focused his groggy mind. "No… Nogotsko!" Jaqeluu yelled, linking Jerosh and the Ashla. The beast's beam cut off immediately, letting the combined energies slam into it and let off an explosion the size of the castle. Even with the dust cloud blinding them, Jaqeluu zeroed in on his youngest brother's energy within the Ashla, then forcefully tried pulling them apart. The effects were immediate, and the Ashla began roaring as it felt itself being morphed into its energy form. It looked over to Jaqeluu, then tried to charge forward, but Figanti punched it in the muzzle and sent it tumbling backwards. Jerosh followed up by uppercutting it into the sky and blasting it with the last of his energy. The Ashla shrugged off these attacks, but the pain of its body being returned to another was forcing it to stumble around. The League channeled their energies into Jaqeluu from afar, speeding up the process. The Ashla felt its body being torn from the boy and into a stronger body, and it could sense how weak Jaqeluu was. With one last effort, the Ashla felt itself completely detach from the boy, and it's being entered Jerosh's mind. Agner fell to his knees, as well as his brother and the princesses. Celestia and Luna were panting heavily, the former looking over to the Ashla and watching it as it stood still. It let loose another deafening roar, which all too quickly changed to her son's regular scream. The metal turned back into a dull silver before falling off like normal armor. Draco screamed in pain as the metal detached from his skin, some of which flowing back into his body to wait for his summons. Surprisingly, the fallen metals changed in color and texture, then turned to red masses of energy before being absorbed by Jerosh. The man fell to his knees and panted, looking at his hands as he felt the raw power of the Ashla flowing through his veins. "It… It worked," he whispered. He could sense the Ashla within his mind, waiting to be unleashed. Jaqeluu's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed, just before Agner caught him and chuckled weakly. "Easy, brother," he said softly. "Rest now. You've done it." When the power had died off, King Draco and Moon came back, follows by the mares. Ember sprinted over to Draco, who was now naked and grunting in pain. Renkan, master healer of the League, kneeled beside Ember and used her rites to survey his body. "He'll be fine," she assured her. "A few days rest and he'll be back up as usual." Ember nodded, cradling him as Renkan placed a small disc on Draco's chest, which scanned his body before a black material stretched over him to cover him. Renkan and Ember assisted him, helping him limp over to the League so that he could be taken to get care. He and Jaqeluu were placed on Figanti's Nera'ak, which flew away to the ships above. Fermot and Agner, the only others who were still standing aside from the League, went to Celestia and Ember. "Reku'un will need some days to rest," Fermot said, his breathing slightly erratic. "Your medicines and magics won't help him with this." "Can I see him when he's awake?" Ember asked. Fermot nodded, then turned to Agner. "Go and rest, brother," he told him. "You've earned it." Agner chuckled and pushed his hand away. "Two more days and you won't be calling me little anymore," he laughed before grunting in pain. Fermot shook his head and watched his brother go. "Could you also let us see him?" Celestia asked. Fermot nodded again. "I'll need to be going now," Fermot said. "Don't worry. You'll be the first to know." Celestia and Ember nodded, watching Fermot return to Jerosh. "How do you feel?" He asked his elder brother. Fermot missed the flash of black that passed over his eyes, and the quick blink of the same color on his mark. His brother missed the smirk as his own usual smile. "I feel fine, brother," he chuckled. "Perfectly fine."