• Published 27th Apr 2016
  • 12,145 Views, 425 Comments

A Growing Fire In My Heart - Rated Ponystar



A series of short chapters that show the growth of Ember and Spike's feelings as time goes on

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Chapter 12

Ember had been drilled in what to do during war before. Her father made sure to at least present her with a war scenario each day from full on massive pony invasion to rebellions in three different areas. Most times, she succeeded, other times ended up with her getting her head cut off in the scenario. In case of a hostage scenario, you had to sacrifice the captive for the greater good of the dragon race. That was the logical thing to do since you had to put hundreds of thousands over one important figure.

The problem was Ember would gladly sacrifice the world to save Spike. He did something to her that no other dragon, besides her father, had done for her. She made her care about him, and she wanted nothing more than to save him at all costs.

It had been three days since she learned that Spike was taken captive. Her now dead traitorous guards had been reported to have been stealing from her royal horde, which was punishable by death, but Garble’s father wasn’t an idiot and according to his son he was suspecting she knew they had Spike. Princess Twilight had an idea and asked for three days to prepare for it, while also asking for no patrols on a certain hidden pathway through the border only she and a few others knew about.

There had been only one thing she had to do, which confused Ember greatly, and that was spread rumors that the Dragon Lord was very ill. Silverback helped with that by announcing it in court while Blitz and Aquafire “loudly” spread their worries about how Ember was getting sicker by the day. Ember’s only boring task was to wait out in her bedroom which drove her insane.

On the day Twilight was suppose to return, Ember had the throne room cleared out so she could see Twilight in person. While waiting, she resorted to the same thing she had been doing in her room: pace around in circles while watching the sand drip from the hourglass.

“If you keep pacing like that, you’re going to end up carving a hole in the ground,” pointed out Aquafire. “Everything is going to be fine. I made sure they were escorted by guards we can trust and Blitz is with them just in case.”

“I know. I know,” muttered Ember. “I’m just worried things are going to go wrong.”

Just as she said this, the doors opened and Princess Twilight appeared while accompanied by Blitz and a few other figures behind them. A dozen of them seemed to be armored ponies, but more... crystal looking. They were shiny, lighter colored, and seemed to have their skin partly made out of crystals. It took a minute before Ember realized that the armored ponies were Crystal Ponies who had a very tense relationship with dragons in ages past. Since Crystal Ponies came from the Crystal Empire, many a dragon dreamed of tasting the land and its citizens for their hunger. Unfortunately, for the dragons at least, the Crystal Ponies had developed means to fight dragons off and a few piles of snow contained more than one army of dragon skulls.

The other group seemed to be a dozen multicolored bugs with fairy like wings, lead by a huge one with antlers. He was even bigger than her. Then she remembered what Spike told her about the Changelings and their new king Thorax. She didn’t believe at first Changelings were still alive, since they hadn’t been seen in ages, but here they were and looked... kinda weak really. Seriously, I think I like the idea of them having black and holes instead of... this...

Princess Twilight greeted Ember with a bow before smiling. “I brought our backup.”

“Uh, good,” replied Ember as she looked at the two groups. The King of the Changelings was waving at her even. “I thought you were bringing an army.”

“If we were to commence a full on frontal assault with an army, chances are we could win, but they could hurt or kill Spike before we could save him,” replied Twilight, shaking her head. “We have to use our heads on this one and I already have a plan. It required some help from the Crystal Empire and the Changelings. Once I told them Spike was in danger they rushed in to help.”

“Of course, Spike is our hero and the greatest savior of our kingdom! We would be honored to save him from any danger,” proclaimed a Crystal Pony while the others cheered.

“And if it wasn’t for Spike, I wouldn’t have learned how to use love to free my people. He’s my best friend and any friend of his is a friend of mine!” shouted Thorax as his people also nodded in agreement.

Guess I wasn’t the only one Spike touched in his life, thought Ember with a smile. “Well, I normally hate asking for help, but just this once I’ll be okay with it.”

Blitz and Aquafire snorted which earned them a glare from her. Ember turned to Twilight and asked, “So what’s the plan?”

“Well, have you been spreading rumors of your bad health since I left and kept out of sight?” asked Twilight.

“Yes, and let me tell you, I was starting to name all the stones in my room after counting them five times,” replied Ember.

“Good, because Silverback is going to announce something important tomorrow morning,” replied Twilight.

“What’s that?” asked the bigger dragon.

“That Dragon Lord Ember has died,” replied Twilight with a smile.

There was a long silence between everyone.

“Uh, what?” asked Ember, tilting her head and raising her eyebrow. “You want to tell everyone that I’m... dead?”

“Well, that’s what everyone else will think except for those of us in this room... and a few other guards we can trust,” replied Twilight.

“Well, if you’re dead, Ember, does this mean I can have your Ruby Fire collection?” asked Blitz with a smirk.

“I don’t get it, how is saying I’m dead going to help anything?” asked Ember.

“If we let the Redskull clan and their allies think you’re dead, they’ll lower their guard. Plus, every dragon clan leader and their families will come to your funeral with escorted guard. That’s what happened at your father’s funeral, right?” asked Twilight.

Silverback’s eyes lit up. “I see... interesting...”

“What?” asked Blitz.

“The whole need for rebellion and allying with each other is that they hate Ember, but if Ember was dead, and they believed it, they would lower their guard,” replied Silverback, grinning. “This would allow us to strike when they least expect it.”

“Yeah, only one problem, they’re going to want to see a body to convince themselves that Ember is dead,” replied Aquafire. “And I doubt Ember has the acting skills to be a dead body.”

“That’s where I come in,” replied Thorax as he engulfed himself in green flames before looking like a perfect clone of Ember.

Thorax, in his new form, twirled around and showed off everything including his wings and tail. “What do you think?” asked Thorax in Ember’s voice. “Pretty good, huh?”

“Yeah, but I don’t twirl. Like... never,” replied Ember before rubbing her chin. “Also, is my butt really that big? I gotta stop eating sapphires...”

“We changelings can also cast a spell on us to appear to be dead. No heartbeat, no pulse, no breathing. We learned it in order to avoid predators and act as corpses when we had to “die” during an infiltration mission,” replied Thorax before turning himself back to normal.

“Thorax will take your place and act dead to draw attention. We’ll even have a few other changelings act as Aquafire and Blitz so they can join us in the second plan: the assault,” replied Twilight, this got the attention of the others. “You guys know where the home of the Redskull clan is and Garble can be our guide to helping us get Spike. We can then use the Crystal Empire’s soldiers and your soldiers to storm the place and rescue Spike. Then at the funeral we can confront everyone in the rebellion and use the Blood Scepter to force them to come clean in front of witnesses.”

“I have to admit, this is a good plan,” replied Aquafire, nodding her head in approval.

“But Redskull has a lot of guards,” replied Blitz, shaking his head. “I doubt we can fight that with such a small force.”

“That’s why we have these,” replied a Crystal Pony, showing a very pentagon shaped pink jewel that made Ember and every dragon’s mouth water. “Don’t think about eating it. It’s poison for dragons. We used it in the old days to weaken your kind when you invaded our lands. You’ll end up throwing up and having diarrhea for a week if you eat this.”

“And I’m stepping back now,” replied Blitz.

“The changelings and Garble can give these to a good number of the guards before we strike. With their defenses weakened, we can get in, find Spike, and leave,” replied Twilight. “It’s the perfect plan. So what do you think?”

Ember looked at Twilight, then at her friends who nodded in agreement. Smirking, she pushed her fist into her claw. “Let’s do this.”

Author's Note:

A lot of talking in this one, action comes next time. If your wondering "Why not surprise us with the plan", well I didn't feel it was necessary. Plus, the POV is focused only on Ember and there wasn't a way around that.