Dream's End

by zaleacon

Chapter II - Introduction 1

There was a distinctive crash as Firebrand looked out from behind his coverage. The massive volcanic rock was not exactly preferable, given his adversaries, but it definitely did a good enough job.

He set his eye against the rifle’s sight, looking out over the burning field near the massive volcano. The queen’s troops were surely out there, ready to pounce at any second.

He suddenly heard another crash, and quickly hit behind the rock as a large sheet of ice came barreling towards his head. It slammed into his coverage, taking off the top half in a clean, straight line. The broken piece crashed down not four inches away from his head.

Firebrand grit his teeth. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Freaking bastards’re really havin’ a bit of fun, eh…?”

Suddenly, his earpiece crackled. “Firebrand! Come in, Firebrand!”

He tapped it with his free claw. “Aye, what is it, Drake?”

“What’s the situation looking like out there?”

Firebrand leaned out from behind the rock and fired a shot at a soldier in the distance. “Don’t look too good,” he growled. “These bloody bastards just keep comin’. We’re down three dragons – Aero, Pyre, and that new kid, Scales, all had to get dragged off.” He grunted as another blast of ice clipped his shoulder. “Doubt I got much time left myself, Drake.”

“Damned Ice Queen…” the voice on the earpiece swore. It paused for a moment before saying, “Firebrand, listen to me.” It breathed in deeply. “I need you to retreat.”

“What? You freakin’ kiddin’ me?!” Firebrand shouted. “We just recapture the Burnin’ Planes, an’ now we’re gonna give it up?! Freaking ridiculous…” he muttered.

“I agree,” the voice admitted, “but there’s no way we can take this place back with so many dragons injured. Fall back for now – we can always recapture it again, later.”

Firebrand grit his teeth. “Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll tell the others ta pull back.” Before waiting for the voice’s reply, Firebrand removed his hand from the earpiece. “Oi, ya layabouts! The commander wants us ta retreat!”

The five other dragons on the Burning Planes turned looked at Firebrand incredulously. “But sir,” one of them – a young green dragon, Jade – retorted, “if we give up our position, we’ll be leaving the base wide open for an attack! You know we can’t–”

“Shut yer mouth!” Firebrand growled at her. “We ain’t got the time nor resources we need ta take these bastards down.” He grimaced as another blast of ice crashed into his coverage, rocking it slightly. “We’ll beat ‘em down later, but we ain’t got the manpower right now.”

“But–”

Firebrand turned around and fired off another round, grinning as he was rewarded with the cry of an enemy soldier. “Ya heard me, didn’t ya?!” he shouted back. “Or are ya deaf as well as stupid?! Get yer asses outta here, now! We ain’t got time ta dawdle!”

The five dragons looked between themselves uneasily, but ultimately nodded. They placed their weapons – mostly rifles – in their holsters on their backs, turned around, and proceeded to flee as quickly as they could from the rapidly approaching soldiers.

Firebrand looked to make sure they had escaped before he, too, placed his gun on his back. “Bloody Ice Queen,” he hissed, taking one look at the massive palace in the distance before he turned around and took off as fast as he could.

Twilight blinked as the world came into view. There had been no flash of light, no feeling of fading – in fact, the transition from the collective mindscape to whatever sort of place Spike’s dream happened to be was rather abrupt.

Twilight blinked and took a look around the area. The door had let her out into a small, nondescript cave. A torch hung next to the door, giving it some air of light, but it was otherwise fairly dark.

She took a step forward, feeling her hooves crush the sand coating the ground. Certainly, it was a thin layer, but it still struck her as odd. After all, sand did not often appear outside of deserts or beaches, as far as she was aware. So in that case, were they in that relative vicinity?

The sound of hooves from behind her alerted her to the fact that Luna had just come through, as well. Twilight turned to her, and Luna looked around the small cave for a moment.

“It appears we’ve made contact,” Luna murmured, “but… Hmm, I wonder what Spike is dreaming of?” She pressed a hoof to her chin before realizing it was covered with sand, and wiped the sand off using her fetlock.

“Only one way to find out,” Twilight answered, pointing down the long, dark hallway that lay before them.

Luna nodded resolutely. “Indeed,” she said. “In that case, let us be off. I must admit, I am curious…”

As they began walking, Twilight looked over at Luna. “Haven’t you entered Spike’s dreams before?”

“Yes,” Luna answered, “but I doubt I’d have seen one like this. Normal dreams are often fairly nebulous or random, but these ones seem more… what is the word…?”

“Concrete?” Twilight suggested.

Luna nodded. “Yes, precisely. Why, my own dream was…” She suddenly fell silent and shook her head. “Ah… Never mind.”

“What’s the matter?” Twilight asked. She looked through Last, trying to find a spell to brighten up the dark passage.

Luna waved a hoof. “It’s nothing, Twilight.”

“O-okay,” Twilight said, although she was thoroughly unconvinced.

She shook her head. “Anyway, let’s see, here… Fire, fire… Aha! Here we go.” She began to read over the spell, which was next to a picture of a red cloud. “Huh… It’s pretty difficult in all this darkness… But this spell looks pretty simple. Ahem! Heat!”

The air around them quickly became warmer. Twilight felt sweat form on her brow as the temperature grew up to about eighty degrees. “Th-that didn’t work quite as planned…” she groaned, rubbing her forehead.

“What did you think a spell called ‘Heat’ would do, anyway…?” Luna muttered, wiping sweat from her forehead.

Twilight flushed. “I-I thought it was just the name!” she protested, before quickly flipping through the book to the first ice spell, which sat next to the picture of a blue cloud. “Uh… H-hang on, I’ll take care of this! Chill!”

The temperature suddenly dropped down to under thirty degrees.

Luna shivered and wrapped her forelegs around her body. “Th-that is not h-helping, Twilight!” she said through chattering teeth.

Twilight nodded, shivering. “R-right,” she groaned. “There’s g-gotta be something useful in here…” She flipped ahead to the Lightning section, looking at the first spell (next to, of course, a picture of a yellow cloud). “U-um… Okay, here we go! Amp!”

Electricity suddenly crackled through the frigid air, causing Luna to wince. “Twilight…” she groaned. “You m-might want to p-put that book away.”

Twilight sighed. Coincidentally, she saw her breath form in front of her as she did so. “S-sorry,” she said, before hanging her head in shame.

She turned through the book again, sighing as she noticed that many of the pages were blank. Even the ones where new spells were supposed to form had nothing on them. The only spells in the book at all were Heat, Chill, and Amp.

And all of those spells seemed conditional at best.

Disheartened, Twilight closed Last with a sigh. Of course that book would turn out to be nearly useless. When would she get any use out of chilling the air, heating the air, or creating tiny currents of electricity? Unless she was walking into some sort of arctic tundra or volcanic field, all her spells seemed completely useless. At least, the spells she had access to did.

Twilight shivered again as she and Luna continued down the long, dark tunnel in silence. She quickly discovered, much to her disappointment, that the torch at the beginning had, in fact, been the only one in the area. The entire cavern soon became swamped in a black cloak, leaving Twilight almost completely blind in the absolute darkness.

Luna looked over at her, curiously, as Twilight felt her way along the path. “Twilight,” she said, “are you certain you’re alright?”

“O-of course!” Twilight said, teeth still chattering slightly. “Y-yes, of course…” After a moment, she added, “It’s just a bit hard to see in here.”

“Ah, I see,” Luna said, nodding. “I apologize; I forgot that you could not see in the darkness as well as I. Let’s see if I can do anything…”

Her horn began to glow again, once again taking on a pitch-black aura. As it did so, however, the darkness in the tunnel seemed to fade away somewhat, becoming captured by Luna’s magic.

“Is that any better?” she asked, turning to Twilight.

Truth be told, it was, but only slightly. Instead of being completely unable to see the path, Twilight could now make out the basic shapes of the rocks and walls in her way. At least, in that way, it certainly made the trek much less difficult.

“Much better,” she said after a moment, looking over at Luna. “Thank you.”

It was hard to tell in the darkness, but Twilight was certain that she saw Luna smile back at her before turning back to the trail. In either case, however, their luck certainly seemed to be looking up – Twilight could now at least tell what was going on nearby, and the temperature seemed to have risen considerably.

“Your magic seems pretty useful,” she said to Luna.

“Very useful,” Luna replied. “Although I will admit, it took me awhile to get completely used to it. Even now, my grasp is not as good as I’d like it to be.”

“Really?” Twilight asked, intrigued. “But you seem to understand it very well. What about when you nearly took Dawn’s… entire body off?”

Luna waved a hoof. “That was a fairly simple spell to understand, Twilight. Charge magic, then fire. It’s not a particularly hard concept. Not to mention that I was quite… emotionally charged at the time.”

Twilight winced, making a mental note not to do anything that could potentially drive Luna into a rage.

“And more than that,” Luna added, “I actually made a huge error when I entered your dream.”

“What was that?”

Luna sighed. “While I was searching for you, I tried to use my magic to blast through the bookshelves and make my way through easier.” She stopped for a second. “Unfortunately, it seems that I… uh… I accidentally managed to…” She trailed off and mumbled something under her breath.

Twilight leaned in. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

Luna breathed in for a second. “I… accidentally absorbed too much energy from around me and caused the lights to go out.” She paused, clearly grimacing even in the darkness. “All of them, in fact.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Wait a second, are you saying you’re the thing I was so afraid of when I accidentally fell down the stairs?” When Luna simply nodded, Twilight sighed. “And to think I was afraid of nothing…”

“Well, excuse me,” Luna muttered, with mock hurt in her voice. “I’m sorry for being not threatening in the slightest.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Twilight retorted. “And to be fair, lights going out in a completely silent, dusty, possibly-haunted library would be pretty scary no matter when it happened.”

“Though I suppose it would’ve been more frightening if your Disparity had been the one to cause it…”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yes, because Dawn is clearly the most terrifying creature I have ever met. Her bright colors and lazy attitude frightened me beyond belief.”

“Poisonous things are typically brightly colored,” Luna pointed out. “Though I will admit, Dawn is probably the laziest Disparity I’ve ever met.”

Twilight grinned. “Can you imagine if she had to take any kind of job?”

Luna burst out laughing at the mental image. “Ha, ha! Yes, I can see it, now! ‘Excuse me, Miss, I’ll have the–’ ‘Nope, sorry, I’ve gotta take a nap.’”

Until that moment, Twilight did not know it was possible to choke on air.

Once she caught her breath, she grinned. “She wouldn’t last a day.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Luna agree, still chuckling a bit. “Ah… Speaking of Dawn, she didn’t hear that, did she?”

Twilight listened for a second and then shook her head. “No, she’s still asleep.”

Luna frowned. “How can you tell?”

“She snores.”

There was a moment of silence as Luna took in that information. “I am so sorry,” she said at last.

“Yeah,” Twilight said, grimacing a bit. “Me, too.”
After another length of silence, Twilight felt a bright flash of white suddenly jump into her line of sight. Her eyes burned for a moment from the sudden source of light, and she closed them.

As she reopened them – slower, this time – Twilight felt her heart rise a bit at the revelation.

“I can see the outside!” she said, excitedly.

Luna nodded. “Indeed!” she said, grinning. “At last we have found the fabled ‘light at the end of the tunnel’!”

“Yeah, but this time it’s literal!” Twilight increased her pace a bit.

Luna matched her speed, nodding along. “Ah, remember to be careful; after this long underground, I’ve no doubt that light will be blinding.”

“Right, since our pupils’ve completely dilated–” Twilight began, only to suddenly stop as the sunlight pierced her eyes like a lance.

As Luna had said, the light was positively blinding. So blinding, in fact, that Twilight’s vision turned completely red for a solid few seconds upon exiting the cave. Pain and fire burned at them, causing Twilight to shut them suddenly with a sharp gasp.

Luna stepped out beside her, holding a hoof above her eyes to shield them. “Right, as I was saying… Twilight?”

Of course, by this point Twilight lay on the ground, groaning in no small amount of agony. “That’s not… It shouldn’t hurt this much…” she moaned.

Luna paused before pressing a hoof into her forehead. “Of course…” she muttered. “I should have realized that my darkness magic would have an adverse effect when in contact with light…”

Twilight simply groaned on the ground for almost a minute before the feeling became bearable. She stood up slowly, making sure to shield her eyes until her eyes went back to normal.

As soon as they did, Twilight was able to get a better look around the area. The cave had deposited Luna and her out from the base of a mountain on a rocky, sandy beach. The crystal clear water lapped gently at the shore in even, slow strokes.

“Huh,” she said, a bit dumbfounded. “This is Spike’s dream? It’s a lot… calmer than I’d expected.”

Luna stepped forward and took a look around before nodding back to Twilight. “You might want to take a look at this,” she said, pointing her hoof off away from the beach.

“Why, what is… it…?” Twilight’s jaw dropped as she saw where Luna was pointing.

A large volcano stood in the distance, smoke pouring from its peak into the bright skies above. At its base, a large field of volcanic ash, stones, and lava ran off, connecting the massive mountain to the beach.

But what had drawn Twilight’s attention was not necessarily the volcano, but what lay at its peak. By some odd, impossible miracle, a massive, glass-like palace sat just above the spewing mountain, leaving enough room so that the smoke could still escape. The sun reflected off its surface, giving it a beautiful but strange glint.

Twilight closed her jaw, opened it, and closed it again. “Okay, yeah,” she said finally, “that’s probably more like it.”

Luna nodded. “I’ll say,” she declared. “That’s certainly not something you would see every day.”

Twilight paused again. “Dreams are weird,” she added lamely.

“They certainly are, Twilight. They certainly are.”

As they continued to stare at the palace atop the volcano, however, Twilight suddenly felt something cold press to the back of her head. She froze in place.

“Ah, would ya lookat what I’ve got ‘ere?” came a gravelly, very Griffish accent from behind her. “Looks ta me like a couple ‘a the queen’s bloody troops managed to make it down.”

Twilight’s breath caught in her throat. The queen? Troops? What was this insane creature talking about?

“Heh… Thought ya could sneak past our defenses, aye? Stupid morons,” snarled the creature. “After last time, ya really thought you louts could make any sorta progress? Idiots.”

There was the sound of a gun being cocked, and the cold feeling in Twilight’s spine suddenly became much worse. She slowly looked over to the left, careful to only move her eyes, and saw what looked like a gun barrel pressed against Luna’s head.

Despite her current condition, Luna was the first to speak. “I’m afraid you have us mistaken for somepony else,” she said, voice shaking only slightly. “I’ve never heard of any ‘queen,’ before.”

The creature behind Twilight laughed. “Oh, is that right? And I’m the provost of this here island.” He – for it was definitely male – paused for a moment to chuckle a bit at his own joke. “Heh… Ya know, it really weren’t a smart move ta come down ‘ere.”

The other creature suddenly spoke. “Hm… Actually, I don’t think that’s right.”

“Eh?” Twilight felt the gun brush against her head as the creature turned to his companion. “What the hell’re ya talkin’ about now, Rex?”

“Well, I’m just saying,” the other creature said, with no such accent. “You wouldn’t really be a ‘provost’ if you controlled an island… You’d probably be closer to a king than a mayor.”

“Yeah, and ya know what? Ya know what controls this whole freakin’ island?” the creature turned his gun back to its original position. “It ain’t a bloody king, that’s for sure.”

The other creature – Rex, was it? – sighed. “Yeah, I get that. Never mind, Firebrand.”

“Damn straight ya don’t mind! Now, where was I?” The creature, Firebrand, paused for a second as though in thought. “Ah, crap. Ya made me lose my place again, Rex. Little git…”

“Something about it not being smart to come down here?” Luna offered, far more cheerfully than she should have.

Firebrand snapped his… fingers? Claws? Twilight could not exactly tell, given her position. “Aye, that’s it! Thanks, lassie. Damn shame we need ta blow your brains out.”

“Well, that certainly is a shame…” Luna said, “but I doubt it’s for the reasons you think.”

Rex sighed. “I think you’re jumping the gun a bit there.” He paused for a moment, and Twilight could very clearly hear the sound of a palm meeting a forehead. “Ugh… Pun not intended.”

“Eh?” Firebrand stopped for a moment. “Ah, right, right. Gotta take these lasses back ta Drake first. Make sure they’re clean. Guess he’ll decide the rest from there.”

“This… ‘Drake,’” Luna asked. “Is he your leader?”

“Ya don’t even know that much?” Firebrand said, before muttering something about “bloody idiots” under his breath. “Yeah, he’s our leader. Leads us places. They don’t even teach ya brats important things like that in school?”

“Well, no,” Luna admitted. “But that’s partially because we’re not with this ‘queen’ you’re discussing – we’re here to find somepony.”

There was a pause before both Rex and Firebrand started to laugh. Rex’s was far more subdued, whereas Firebrand’s was loud and booming.

After a few seconds, Firebrand said, “I’m afraid ya ain’t gonna find somepony down ‘ere.”

Luna frowned. “And… why is that?”

Firebrand paused for a moment. “Ya mean… ya brats really dunno?”

Luna simply shook her head. It was an impressive feat, given that Rex seemed calm enough to let her do so.

Twilight took this moment to speak up. “T-to be fair,” she said, nervously. “We haven’t really seen any creatures down here…”

“What, are they recruitin’ children, now…?” Firebrand murmured. “But that can’t be right… You two are bloody alicorns, ain’t ya?” Without waiting for a pause, he sighed. “Eh, screw it. Ya know what, fine? If ya lassies dunno, I guess I’d better welcome ya both.”

Twilight suddenly became aware of a clawed, scaly hand gripping her and turning her around roughly. She came face-to-face with Firebrand for the first time.

As she had expected, he was a dragon. His scales shined a fiery red, his gold talons and spikes were long and curved, and his teeth were needle-like. Most shocking of all, however, was how he was only about as tall as a teenage dragon, despite having many traits of an adult – minus the archetypical wings, of course.

“Welcome, little lassies,” Firebrand said, dramatically, “ta the Draconic Rebellion.”