//------------------------------// // Dance With The Dragon King // Story: Succession // by bigbear //------------------------------// The Thirty Fifth Day of the Third Year of the New Era The Dragon King flew out of the Crystal Mountains toward the border of Equestria, backlit by the setting sun. His wings spanned from one adjacent peak to next. The length of his tail, body, and neck matched the great span of his wings. His head was as big as Canterlot Castle and his maw could swallow up a city block in a single bite.. The Dragon King was not made of flesh or scales, but of massive outcroppings of living stone. He had slept under a mountain for millennia, then reduced it to a mole-hill upon his waking and taking flight. With each wingbeat, The Dragon King blew the snow and trees off of whatever mountain was below him, leaving them bald and stony. Just behind the Equestrian border flew a single alicorn. A powerful equine, with majestic wings, and a long pointed horn atop her head. This alicorn was larger than any of her contemporaries, though she was still dwarfed by the Dragon King. Her colors shimmered with the yellow, pink, and purple of the sunset. “Pony!” the Dragon King roared. His voice filled the sky and the valleys like the roar of a blast furnace. “Your kind’s time is at an end. I had been bested in the past by Celestia, and she is gone.” The Dragon King raised his massive head. Stones along his belly blazed white hot. Then he opened his great maw and an ocean of fire spewed forth. It filled the skies for miles in every direction, advancing as a wall of flame. Where it hit the ground, the fire scoured the mountains clean, and left nothing but blackened and glowing boulders in its wake. The alicorn flapped her wings slowly, remaining in a hover. She did not bother to raise a shield and let the wall of dragon fire wash over her. The power of the sun blazed within her; a wall of fire had no more effect than a wall of fog. From her place on high, she called out in a voice that filled the skies as fully as the Dragon King’s roars. “I am Cadenza of Equestria. Princess of Love and Sheppard of the Sun and the Moon. Co-ruler and co-defender of Equestria and all her territories. Do not cross the border or I will be forced to expel you!” She hoped she sounded confident. Princess Cadenza, and her co-ruler Princess Twilight, knew that they would be tested by old enemies, after Celestia and Luna had moved on. They had hoped the test would not be so soon. Twilight and her dragon friend Spike, were diverting the Dragon migration away from the Dragon King. Cadenza had to keep the king from finding and merging with the migration, assuming control, and forming an unstoppable Dragon army. “Puny pony!” The Dragon King roared. “I was only beaten by Celestia in the distant past because I was weakened from forcing my dragons to conquer too many of our enemies at once. And Celestia was at the height of her power, as she had been wielding the sun for a thousand years. But after millennia of slumber, I am more powerful than ever, while I sense your connection with the sun is but a few years old.” The Dragon King beat his monstrous wings, crossed the Equestrian border, and climbed higher into the sky. He raised his head again, his entire belly blazed, and he opened his maw. The Dragon King blew a miles long stream of concentrated fire toward the alicorn. Cadenza drew in her power, like drawing in a great breath. It filled her from hoof to pinion, and her radiance doubled, then doubled again. She stooped, then dived directly towards the Dragon King’s maw and the coming maelstrom. She did not fear dragon fire. The bow wave of the dragon's attack enveloped Cadenza. Like the wall, it had no appreciable effect. She grinned a feral smile, and charged her horn to unleash her own attack. But hidden within the fire blast was a mountain's worth of magma and superheated boulders, moving at rainboom speeds. The first impacts slammed into the undefended alicorn, stunning her. Caught in the miles long blast, the alicorn was blown back, buffeted again and again by impacts that could reduce a castle to rubble. Cadenza finally fell out of the column of fire and magma. Stunned, she plummeted, weighed down by molten rock sticking to her body and wings. She regained enough sense to painfully spread her wings and turn her fall into a clumsy glide. Cadenza shook her head and cleared her mind. She recognized her rocky burdens, then blazed with power from within to vaporize the magma and cleanse her body. “I will not be surprised again, dragon. I give you one last chance to retreat before I attack. Know that where Celestia was a powerful alicorn, I wield the power of many,” Cadenza called, “for I am the Princess of Love, sheppard of the Sun and the Moon, and sister in power to the Princess of Harmony!” “Too bad for you, love pony, this is war! A war of extinction!" the Dragon King called back. "I will have my revenge for the indignities that Celestia laid upon my dragons and I. After annihilating you, and taking control of my army, we will raze the pony cities, scatter the survivors, and reduce your population to grazing herds that we will nibble on for sport.” The Dragon King continued his climb toward the alicorn, He raised his head for a third time. His entire belly and the underside of his wings glowed as if molten. “You are a fool to dismiss love,” Cadenza called. “I have wielded all types of power, and the love of my ponies makes the power of the sun look like a candle flame!” The Princess of Love waited a heartbeat, then another. When the Dragon King opened his maw, she instantly focused all of her powers into a single attack. The yellow of sun-fire, the pink of mind magics, and blue of a force blast rippled along her wings and body, up her mane, and shot out of her horn in a swirling conflagration. It went straight down the maw of the Dragon King, before he could unleash his own fire. The Dragon King’s enormous slit pupils shrank to tiny points. His golden eyes turned pink under Cadenza’s mental assault. The stones of his body glowed, as sun-fire superheated them from within. And the Dragon King’s miles long stony tail exploded, as the blue force blast exited the back of his body. The impact of the blast knocked the Dragon King back toward the Crystal Mountains and flipped his head up, until his great stone belly was facing the alicorn. Cadenza pivoted in the air, aiming her hooves at the Dragon’s underside. She focused her power into strength and flight, and smashed into the dragon’s vulnerable belly like a shooting star. The Dragon King’s neck, wings, and limbs folded up and flailed aimlessly around the alicorn. Flames and magma spewed, undirected, from his maw and the hole where his tail had been. Cadenza redoubled her power, forcing the Dragon back across the border out of Equestria, and toward the highest peak in the Crystal Mountains. Once she crossed the border, Cadenza called down the full power of the sun on herself and the Dragon King. His already superheated stony exterior began to boil away, while Cadenza was invigorated by the solar storm that roared down from the sky. With a final push, Cadenza power slammed the Dragon King into the peak. The entirety of the range of the Crystal Mountains were lit by a blinding white light. An explosive mass of fire replace the mountain. The force of the impact, combined with the power of sun-fire, had vaporized it. Shock waves of fire propagated out from the explosion, and raced across the surrounding mountains. All the snow the shock waves rolled over melted, all the trees it passed were blown down, and all the vegetation it touched were set ablaze. A miles high column of fire rose from the impact, until gravity overcame it. No longer able to rise, the fire rolled into a great half domed cloud atop the column. From the ground, Cadenza drew upon her power again and pushed the flames, dust, and ash into the sky with a mighty burst of magic. It flew up and out of the atmosphere, disappearing into space. The momentary vacuum on the ground doused the burning vegetation. Fresh air from outside the conflagration rushed in to fill the emptiness. Gale force winds blew, and Cadenza surveyed her surroundings. She was standing on the remains of the Dragon King’s body. They were miles deep in a crater, where the tallest peak in the Crystal Mountains had been moments before. The Dragon King’s body was unmoving; one of his great stone wings had shattered, the other was attached, but was twisted and tattered. The Dragon King’s head was upside down, magma dripping from his open maw. Despite his condition, Cadenza knew immortals were hard to put down permanently. Deep within the Dragon King, Cadenza could feel the glow of his divine essence. It was this power that would speed his recovery. Given time, the Dragon King would come after her ponies again. Cadenza considered her options, and decided she had no choice. The Dragon King had risen twice with the goal of exterminating ponies; once against Celestia and once against her. Cadenza could not risk a third time. She gathered her power, from the sun, and from the love of all Equestrians. Cadenza focused all that power into a spear of mind magic. She glowed with blinding radiance and the magic around her horn roared. She cast the magic down into the body of dragon, targeted his divine essence, wrapped her magic about it, and pulled. The Dragon King resisted. Any other time the dragon’s essence would have been invulnerable and made this attack futile. But the Dragon King had been grievously injured, his power depleted, and his natural defenses were against physical and fire attacks, not mind magic. With a triumphant surge, Cadenza squeezed the Dragon King’s divine essence with her magic, and pulled it free from his body. The essence manifested as a sphere, tall as a stallion, with a perfectly reflective surface. Cadenza’s own radiance reflected off the sphere, and threw sunset light onto her surroundings. “Dragon King, you have been judged and found wanting,” Cadenza said. “For the crime of attempted extermination of my ponies, you have forfeited your divine essence. You body may recover in time, but your power will never again be as is was before.” Cadenza knew the divine essence would dissipate into the ley lines in moments. She had to make a momentous decision; one she did not have time to share with her co-ruler. “Twilight, forgive me, I hope I do the right thing for all.” Cadenza reached out with her love to every citizen of Equestria. She could feel them, every stallion, mare, and foal, including those outside the country’s borders, and the non-ponies that had been welcomed into her land. She was their princess and they her subjects. They shared an unbreakable bond. She divided the sphere of divine essence into two smaller perfect spheres with her magic. Then those two divided into four, then eight, then sixteen. The spheres divided and divided, becoming smaller and smaller, until they were as a cloud of silver raindrops, and Cadenza knew she had enough for all. “In compensation for the damage you have done to Equestria, I deed this divine power to your intended victims,” Cadenza continue. “The next time you rise, you will face ponies with a spark of divine dragon power, while you will have none!” The tiny spheres of divinity swirled about her in a toroid, glittering in her sunset radiance. Cadenza gathered them in close, designated one for each strand of love she felt, then sent them on their way. When the act was done, Cadenza blew out a long sigh. Even fueled by the power of the sun, and the power of her ponies’ love, she was exhausted from her labors. She looked at the cooling remains of the Dragon King, and the miles high sheer rock walls of the crater he lay in. Those walls would not last long. Sometime soon they would crumble and bury the Dragon King. But just to make sure… Cadenza flapped her great wings and rose to the rim of the crater. She charged her horn, then shot a long force blast around the rock walls, just below the crater rim. The walls collapsed, covering the bottom of the crater, and the defeated Dragon King, under a mile of stone. Under the rocks he would sleep and heal. When the Dragon King emerged, he would be lesser than he had been today; and her ponies would have had more years of safety and progress. With another mighty wingbeat, Cadenza shot into the air and headed back toward home. She knew she had made history today. Confrontations of great powers often did. She didn’t know if empowering her ponies with the dragon’s essence would be for good or for ill. But Cadenza knew she would do anything to protect her little ponies. Anything.