The mountain range was a difficult traverse. Its slopes were too steep, too laced with loose gravel for hooves to find purchase, and too dangerous by the large rocks and boulders that always threatened to tumble upon weary travelers at a moment's notice.
None of this mattered to the Mountain Bull. None of this mattered to the massive bovine that moved through the highly mountainous terrain like a buffalo through a lake of thick mud: slow, steady, and leaving a crumbling canyon behind it as it tore through the land. It did not matter how dangerous or how difficult it was to travel through this range. No slope was too steep for the Bull's strength and absolute perseverance. Loose gravel meant nothing to the massive hooves that slammed down and hooked into the very crust of the mountains, and the fallen rocks were little more than pebbles that bounced harmlessly off its stone skin.
It did not matter that it would have been exponentially easier to just go around the thick mountain range. It did not matter that it would have saved on time. The Mountain Bull's path to its next place of Slumber went directly through the mountain range, and so through the mountain range the titan went, knowing full well that it would lose nothing. Time was meaningless to the titan. It was Eternal with the World and so had no caring for the length of time it would take to reach its Slumber. The Mountain Bull felt no strain, no exhaustion in its form, not even pain; it only felt the need to go Forward. Because of this, the mountain range's difficulty had no sway over a being that was incapable of losing effort, or of even understanding the concept of effort.
The only 'loss' today belonged to the mountains themselves, scarred as they had become by the Mountain Bull's forceful passage through them that had left deep, hoof-shaped gashes in the sides of their slopes that had inadvertently formed lakes of fallen rock and gravel that had coalesced together at the bottom crevices of the range. The natural rivers and lakes of water that had flowed through these mountains for centuries upon centuries had now been clogged by all of the displaced dirt, causing untold deaths and ruination of animal lives as the ecosystem was wrought.
Where there was once a mountain range formed by millions of years of tectonic muscles, now there was a canyon forcefully carved out in a single day.
And as the Mountain Bull reached the peak of the final mountain of this range, it immediately began its trek down the opposite slope of the mountain, not even pausing for a single moment of jubilation at its accomplishment. It only kept moving, dauntlessly, its ruby-glowing eyes scanning the valley before it and taking note of the city that hugged the valley's far side.
The Bull's stone nostrils puffed out clouds of dirt and dust in contempt dismissal at the sight of the city's tall towers and buildings. There would be no climbing over those towers, only going through.
Kindle was a dragon, a powerful beast of magic and fire that towered over most beings in the world. She had scales tough as iron, claws as long as spears, wings as strong as hurricanes, and fiery breaths of flame. Her kin could live for millennia and gain many a wealth of knowledge on top of their hoards of treasure. Truly, as a dragon she was rare to feel fear.
But even Kindle had to admit the flash of terror that struck her heart when she saw the Mountain Bull crest that mountain, its titanic form being visible at all from such a distance away giving terrifying weight to its massive frame. The fact that she still had ample time to stretch her wings and simply fly out of its way did little to extinguish that feeling of terror; that knowledge that she was in the path of an oncoming disaster. It was like watching a wild hurricane slowly approach: a terrifying monstrosity of nature on a path of destruction that one could not help but be in awe of. Even from where she stood, Kindle could feel the ground's subtle vibrations travel up her bones as the titan approached, its every step causing a quake—not by its sheer size alone, but through the very fact of its identity as a titan and its connection to the world.
Suddenly, terrified sirens blared noisily down in the city below, catching Kindle's attention. Undoubtedly the residents of the quaint metropolis had just taken notice of the oncoming titan and were already panicking. Kindle could see flocks of pegasi fleeing en mass into the sky overhead, though plenty of the distant, little specks stopped just short above the buildings and frantically stayed in-place, no doubt struggling with the thought of their ground-bounded friends and family still stuck in the city below them where panic and riot had quickly begun to fill the streets.
At the sight of it all, puffs of flame escaped Kindle's nostrils as she let out a snort. All of those tall towers, all of those buildings that had such beautiful lights that glistened during the night; that entire city was about to have a scar of destruction trail right through it. It truly was a tragedy.
But it wasn't her tragedy.
Whipping back and putting the city's fate behind her, Kindle quickly set about regathering the fallen energy crystals that were scattered across the facility's courtyard not unlike a sea of stars. Reaching down, she scooped up a clump of them before sticking the glowing gems to her scaly underbelly for what must have been the third time.
"What are you doing?"
Kindle glanced back at the Guardian, the big oaf of a legendary dragon was looking at her, neutrally so. The corner of his eye was on her, while the rest of him faced the horizon and its oncoming disaster.
"What's it look like I'm doing?" asked Kindle as she turned back to collecting, "I'm following my own advice: hoarding what I can and fleeing," dragging more of the crystals to her, she added, "and you should do the same as well. A dragon has to protect their hoard after all, you especially."
The Guardian stared quietly at the golden-spiked back of the ivory dragoness, his bright green eyes mulling her over for a time, as if searching for something, before returning his gaze back on the horizon, "True," he replied easily enough, "nothing's more important to a dragon."
Once again with a decent bushel of gems at her stomach that she'd hopefully keep this time around, Kindle turned around and couldn't help but give the Guardian a curious eye, "You seem awfully calm now that the titan is about to destroy everything. What happened to the panicking drake from just a moment ago?"
The Guardian scratched the underside of his jaw, a chuckle coming out of him, "Well, I've always had a bone of melodrama within me," he admitted in an almost sheepish tone, before not at all sheepishly continuing, "but really? I suppose I just finally realized that it was inevitably going to come down to this anyways."
Kindle raised a questioning eye-ridge, "Down to what?"
A smirk shone in the evening sun, "To protecting my hoard," was the simple response.
And then the Guardian took a step forward, striding towards the city below and in the direction of the approaching titan.
Behind him, the ivory dragoness stared at the leaving drake with a flabbergasted expression, before shaking her head, "Wait, what!?" she exclaimed in confusion, "What do you mean? What are you doing?" she asked.
Stopping at the edge of the facility, the Guardian glanced back at her with a knowing grin, "What's it look like I'm doing?" he asked, pointing a claw at the distant Mountain Bull that was already half-way down the far off mountain, "There's a titan heading straight for my hoard. Can't have that now, can I?" he said as if it was the most casual thing ever, before stepping over the gated edge of the facility and continuing his trek down the mountain's slope, "And if I'm gonna have to defend my hoard, might as well do the charitable thing and save the city too."
But before he could start down the mountain proper, Kindle quickly took flight and appeared before him, stopping him as she hovered in the air. Flapping her wings and kicking up dust off the ground from her gusts of wind, she looked at the Guardian with shock in her eyes, "Are you crazy!?" she asked, her tone more accusing than anything else, "You can't fight the Mountain Bull!"
"Oh? And why not?" asked the Guardian so knowingly, an infuriating grin appearing on his face.
"Because it's a giant bovine that's bigger than an Ursa Major!" shouted Kindle frantically, unbelieving that she had to explain this to the Guardian who had clearly gone crazy, "It collapsed an entire mountain when it woke up and creates earthquakes everywhere it goes! It'll trample all over you like you're nothing!" explained a frenetic Kindle, before focusing directly into his eyes as if in hopes to pierce some reason into his thick skull, "And in case you haven't noticed, you don't exactly live up to being 'the largest of all dragons' like your fables make you out to be."
But the Guardian just chuckled a light chuckle under his breath, "Well, I wouldn't say that," he replied lightheartedly, "After all, don't you know that every tall tale, no matter how outlandish, has some truth to it?"
Hovering before him, Kindle gave the purple dragon a skeptical eye, "Don't kid yourself," she commented coolly, "you're big, but I've seen plenty of bigger dragons at their most greediest."
And that's when the Guardian showed off a fierce smirk, revealing sharp teeth that glistened in the twilight sun as he matched Kindle's gaze, his glowing, green eyes not straying a bit as they pierced directly into her own sapphires.
"And what makes you think I'm at my greediest?" asked the Guardian.
Kindle paused, quiet.
She couldn't help but stare. Flapping her wings a little harder, she pulled herself higher up and away from the Guardian, staring at him wholly as she tried to recall back to those old stories and their exaggerated descriptions of the 'largest of all dragons.'
"Can't be... no dragon is that big," she whispered to herself almost in hope that those words would keep her afloat from the revelation. Shaking her head, she focused her attention back on the Guardian, "This is still crazy! Is your hoard truly so large that you can't simply move it before the titan arrives?"
Standing still in front of the hovering dragoness, the Guardian was quiet for a moment. Slowly, he twisted his head back. Looking over his shoulder, his gaze settled on the sky-reaching tower behind him that still had its tip merged with the violent storm above, a violent storm that still raged as if it was held by an unnatural anger.
"The Mountain Bull will be a disaster for the city. A possessed storm generator running wild will finish it off," spoke the Guardian quietly, his eyes not straying from the tower, "...she won't leave."
Kindle blinked in surprise, her features softening as watched the Guardian in confusion, "She?"
The Guardian returned his gaze to Kindle with a smile on his muzzle while his glowing, green eyes roamed over the ivory dragoness's gem-covered midsection, "Greed sure can make us dragons do some pretty stupid stuff, huh? Not the least of which is putting our lives on the line for what we value most," his eyes locked with Kindle's, "you know, now that I think about it, there aren't that many uses that a dragon has for energy crystals. And really, there's only one reason that I can think of as to why a dragon would want to risk going into a doomed city like this one to only hoard energy crystals instead of all the other treasures that the city has."
Kindle said nothing, her face stoic as she hovered before the Guardian. With gems of arcane power hugging her belly, the ivory dragoness eyed the wingless drake before her with trepidation, his words shivering her spikes more so than any other dragon has ever done before.
The Guardian's smile was so gentle, much more so than any draconic smile has the right to be, "Don't you have somewhere much more important to be than staying here and arguing with me?"
For a moment, Kindle did nothing, only staring at the larger drake before her in silent musings.
But then, with her bounty of energy crystals held at her stomach, the ivory dragoness promptly turned and flew away from the Guardian, a soft-spoken 'thank you' left behind in the wind as she flew towards the distant horizon.
Left alone in front of the storm facility, the Guardian now stood silently by himself. Above him, thunder rumbled from the facility's artificial storm as he watched the ivory dragoness fly off into the distance, that gentle smile still on his muzzle. Turning away from the distant drake disappearing into the sky, the Guardian set his gaze far, across the valley and on the range of mountains opposite of his own.
His smile was promptly abandoned, replaced with a grim expression.
At the far end of the valley that the city below occupied, just a couple miles away really, the Mountain Bull had almost reached the valley floor. The slope of the mountain it had descended was now horribly pockmarked with a trail of deep, hoof-shaped gashes, while large clouds of dirt and dust that were kicked up from the slope's scars followed after the Mountain Bull's hooves. Heading straight for the city, there would soon be nothing but a large field of rivers and grassy hills in the titan's way.
"It's almost here."
He didn't have to imagine what this might be like for the city ponies. He remembered, a long time ago, back when he was still just a baby dragon and barely the size of a pony, that first time he had seen the Ursa Major near his hometown. It was only passing by, on its way to some random location with its child counterpart following close behind, when it looked directly at him. It dismissed him just as quickly, but to have something so massive, so incredibly large that it wouldn't have noticed if it had stepped on him, focusing entirely on him much like how a pony takes a short moment to contemplate on whether or not to squash a spider they had found in their home was a powerfully frightening experience.
"There are thousands of lives in that city. All of them now threatened by the titan."
Talon claws wringed and spouts of angry, green fire puffed out of nostrils. Steadily, the Guardian once again began his descent down the slope, moving at an angle away from the city. Despite the city's large population, its urban environment wasn't that spread out, making it much easier and faster to just move around the city's edges than trying to delicately maneuver through the city streets that were filled with panicking ponies.
Besides, he needed room that the tight confines of the city's urban environment just couldn't provide.
"The titan won't care about these lives. It doesn't have the capacity for it. It'll just trample through the city, destroying everything in its wake and killing thousands."
The thick bark of the pine trees and bushes that hugged the mountain slope cracked and splintered in their destruction as large, armored limbs battered them aside. A deep growl rumbled from the Guardian's throat, bestial and angry. He had many friends across Equestria, and across the world. Some of his friends lived in that city. Now their lives were in danger due to the titan. His friends were in danger. His!
"It's hooves will flatten homes and its horns will topple the city's highest skyscrapers, ending countless lives from under all that destruction and rubble."
His heart pumped aggressively, selfish desires coursing through his veins. From between his scales, emerald flames danced out, lacing the large dragon's form with magical ember. From this ember came new scales that emerged out from between the folds of the already existing ones, pushing them apart and creating larger expanses of armored skin as the flesh underneath the scales stretched and bulged outward in its growth.
Dragon greed was encompassing him. That intoxicating desire found deep within the heart of every dragon, that selfish compulsion to hold onto what was his, it burned at him, gave him strength. Talons elongated, muscles bulked, bones hardened, and a draconic shadow slowly stretched out across the land.
But it wasn't enough. Too soon did that draconic shadow cease its growth.
The Guardian was not at his greediest.
The desire to save the countless lives within the city was there, but his greed for them wasn't deep enough in his heart. Despite the honest friendships that he had within the city, he would be lying to himself if he said that it was those friendships that he valued most above all else.
To find the strength needed to protect everyone, he needed that which was most precious to his heart.
"But the titan won't just stop there..."
And he was going to get it.
Small rivers of dirt and rocks flooded down the slope, past the massive, clawed feet that had suddenly ceased their descent. A talon claw, brutishly larger than what was normal for dragons and burning a bright green from the embers between its purple scales, gripped a collection of pine trees to steady the draconic shadow that encompassed them, their roots being torn up from the ground as a result of the sudden force.
Hugging the mountain, the Guardian closed his eyes.
And waited...
Listening...
"The Mountain Bull will continue to march forward relentlessly like it has always done before, leaving the city behind it scarred and in ruins. Its path will lead it to the storm facility, where its hooves will shatter the courtyard's concrete ground and its glowing, ruby eyes will be set upon the high stone tower before it."
Lightning cracked from the artificial storm above, flashing the dusk sky brighter.
"...Which will put me in danger."
Glowing, green eyes snapped opened, filled with so much greed.