Animal Friends

by Elkia Deerling

Chapter thirteen: the Dragon Games

“Welcome, every dragon, to the most spectacular event of the year: The Dragon Games!”

Garble was standing on a great rocky outcropping, the Bloodstone Scepter held high. The platform on which he stood had been formed out of the basalt stones which marked the Dragon Lands’ coastline. It was right in the center, facing a tribune, and the whole arena looked like an open-air theatre. Garble stood proudly, back straight and chest puffed out, on the very same spot where Dragon-Lord Torch had spoken to his subjects on the day of his resignation. Naturally, Garble was far from resigning.

On other, lower outcroppings of hexagon-shaped basalt, many dragons roared their approval. All of the dragons which had been present at the trial were there, determined to see Chain Link’s verdict put in motion by their Dragon-Lord. But there were also new dragons, curious about the giddy procession which had marched through the Garble Gorge on its way towards the coastline. They had joined as well, and now heard exactly what Dragon-Lord Garble was going to do.

Garble breathed in, and continued his announcement. “This year’s Dragon Games have been advanced, because, as some of you may know, we have two very special guests eager to participate.”

The dragons which had been present at the trial smirked and grimaced, while the others turned at them with confused looks.

Garble saw it. “Oh, don’t be confused everyone! The candidates will be revealed to you soon enough. In fact, for it has been a long time since we’ve organized the Dragon Games, I will explain to you the rules of the game again.”

Some dragons nodded, while others rolled their eyes and contemplated whether that was really necessary. First of all, the Dragon Games didn’t have many rules, and secondly, a spectacle such as the Dragon Games wasn’t easily forgotten.

The first Dragon Games had taken place right after Garble’s coronation; the second a few months after that; the third had to be postponed because of a period of calmness in the earth. This would be the fourth. Of course, Garble hoped and knew that the Dragon Games would be a tradition he would uphold for a long, long time; both for his subject’s enjoyment as well as his own. He loved being game master.

“Rule number one,” Garble called, his voice amplified by the shape of the theatre like a judge’s microphone. “There are no rules!”

Laughing, stomping feet, and thundering earth.

Garble laughed along, an evil laugh which revealed his glittering teeth in a snarl of madness. “Alright, but seriously, the first objective of the game is to die in the least painful way possible. If that happens, you win… kind of.”

Garble paused and let the cheers and applause fill his ears, feeling like he was the main attraction of some kind of talent show, which, in a way, he was.

“The second objective is to provide us with Equestrian-class entertainment, while we sit back and relax, laugh, cry, scream, and root for the unfortunate losers!”

An applause rippled through the crowd; the other dragons were obviously looking forward to it.

Feeling the eagerness in the Sulphur-filled air, Garble decided not to delay the Games any longer. “Let’s do this!” He held the Bloodstone Scepter high above his head, and twirled it around. The stone began to glow, and for a moment, Garble looked like a fire artist performing for a crowd. When the scepter became nothing more than a ring of swirling fire, Garble thrust it on the basalt rock. A rumble went through the earth, and a crack started to form on the ground, glowing from the inside as if some hell was beneath it. With a crackling sound, the tear started to snake down Garble’s high platform and towards the tribune. It stopped when it reached a bowl-shaped decline in the stone, which looked like a stony cauldron, formed naturally by erosion. With a spark and a boom, the bowl became filled by licking flame tongues, roaring in the pit and covering each other over and over. Suddenly, an enormous flame shot up in the air, where it spread out until a giant gout of flames hovered in mid-air. A terrible heat blasted the whole theatre, but the dragons had no trouble at all handling it; some fumbled in bags and put on sunglasses.

“Alright! Let’s see what our brave contestants are up to!” Garble said. “I hereby declare the fourth Dragon Games open!”

Then, as if Garble’s words were the cue, the floating flames dispersed, only to reappear a second later, but not entirely in the same way. They merged together into a three-dimensional sculpture, showing a baby dragon and a pegasus lying on the ground, surrounded by nothing but rock and crystals.

“Game on!”

* *

“Ugh! Where are we? What happened?”

Rainbow Dash’s voice reverberated through the space and rolled away to the left and the right. Spike groaned as well, pushed aside Rainbow’s wing, and stood up.

He wanted to say, ‘I don’t know,’ but with a shock he realized that he knew exactly where they were.

Spike looked around the confined space, and saw how the tunnel led farther and farther away, ending in darkness. He saw how the tunnel buried itself further into the Gauntlet of Fire.

A sudden feeling of dread washed over him, as memories came crashing into his mind. The trials, the hunt for the Bloodstone Scepter, the collaboration with Ember, the fight with Garble. And now he was back again.

“We’re in the Gauntlet,” he said, his voice shaking.

“The what?”

But Spike was distracted. He continued to look around him, looking for dangers or hidden surprises. He couldn’t spot any things to be scared of where they were. Spike noticed that the tunnel had grooves in it, gloomily lit by the clumps of red crystals which gave off a hellish glow. He looked to the left, to the right, and concluded with a small sigh of relief that it was just an old lava-tube.

Rainbow Dash’s voice brought Spike’s mind back to reality. “You been here before?” she asked.

Spike said nothing; he just nodded with an absent gaze in his eyes.

“Alright, never mind,” Dash said. “Let’s find a way out of here, because I’m not seeing any daylight or pretty skies here.” If Dash was scared, she didn’t show it, and buried the fear instead under a heavy pile of sarcasm. But in truth, she was also a bit unnerved at the strange cave they had apparently been thrown into.

But Spike still stood frozen, looking, gazing, flashing his eyes from corner to corner.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Let’s go, Spike. As Daring Do always says: ‘If there’s a prison, there must be some way out.’”

Dash scooped Spike off the rocky floor, and tossed him on her back. With the echo of her clip-clopping hooves following and leading the way, Dash marched further into the tunnel.

* *

On the basalt throne, Dragon-Lord Garble clapped his claws in delight. “Great! They’re awake. I reckon it would be quite boring watching them lying groggy on the rocks for half an hour, wouldn’t it?”

The crowd nodded or grumbled its agreement, but the dragons didn’t take their eyes off the swirling fireball, which showed Rainbow Dash walking through the tunnel, carrying Spike on her back.

“And look at our little purple genius over there!” Garble said. “Paralyzed by fear, he still managed to find out where he was—and so quickly. And they’re on the move. I like that; let actions speak for themselves. Nobody likes to see long dialogues between our contestants, right?”

The same hum of affirmation; the dragons were obviously much more captivated by the scene in the fire than by their Dragon-Lord’s words.

Garble scanned the crowd, and saw the lack of enthusiasm himself. “So you guys like to watch a pony walk through a lava tunnel more than the inspirational voice of your royal gamekeeper?”

No reaction.

But instead of exploding with anger, Garble just smirked; a cold, scheming smirk, filled by cruel thoughts. “Well then, let me give you something interesting to look at, but remember who gave it to you, and remember who suffers because of it.”

With that, he waved his scepter in the air, the crystal glowing a violent red. Then he pointed it at the floating fireball, and a gout of scarlet lightning flew right into it. For a moment, the earth began to tremble. A few sunglasses fell off a few dragons’ noses, and some dragons had to keep themselves from tipping over. The earth rumbled as if in pain, but then it was over as soon as it began.

* *

The lava tunnel went on for a long time, with only a few gentle turns and curves. Rainbow Dash did want to fly or hover in the air, but she had seen some stalactites hanging from the roof, and figured that it wouldn’t be safe. Spike, meanwhile, had come to his senses a bit. He still rode Rainbow Dash as if she were his own mount, but talked to her in a hushed voice, as if the grooved walls had ears.

He told Rainbow Dash all about his previous trials in the Gauntlet of Fire; how he conquered the many perils together with Ember, how he obtained the Bloodstone Scepter before Garble, and how he gave it away to Ember in the end, thereby crowning Ember the new Dragon-Lord—or Dragon-Lady.

All the while Rainbow Dash listened, although she wasn’t that interested in Spike’s elaboration about how he taught Ember the value of friendship, a feat which filled him with pride. He had spread the seeds of friendship, much like the other ponies did in their individual missions in Equestria—missions of which he never got to be a part.

No, Rainbow Dash was much more interested in the exact nature of the traps, the layout of the Gauntlet, its tunnels and caverns and the connections between them. Of this Spike knew not much, but Rainbow Dash could guess at the traps, as she got quite some experience at those things herself. Not necessarily practical experience, but she had read about countless traps in her favorite books: the Daring Do novels. In those books, there were always hidden temples, dangers, puzzles, traps, enemies and friends, and Rainbow Dash had read all of them at least twice, soaking up all the words to miss not a drop of awesomeness.

“Is that all?” Rainbow Dash said with a snort. “Don’t you worry, Spike. I bet we’re out of here in no time.”

They made another curve, barely noticeable because of the monotonous, round lava tube. The air became hot, and Rainbow Dash expected this. It wasn’t quite as hot as in the Garble Gorge, so it was still bearable; and besides that, Rainbow Dash had made herself a promise not to faint anymore.

A side-passage revealed itself, which they didn’t explore. It looked narrow and dark, with little promise of a way out, and much promise of a dead end, so Dash and Spike left it behind.

“We should look for a central chamber or so,” Spike said. “Last time I was in the Gauntlet of Fire, I’ve seen loads of them. They are all connected to each other with passages and tunnels, so I might be able to orient me and get a feel of where we are. If we find one central chamber, we’ll find more.”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Good plan, Spike.” Wherever they were going to go, Dash didn’t feel the urge to retrace her steps. The heat had become more present, and Rainbow Dash swore that it came from behind. She swished her tail, and her flank felt warm. It reminded her of Hearth’s Warming with her friends, when she sat in Twilight’s Castle of Friendship with her back to the hearth fire. Only this warmth didn’t feel that comfortable at all. It felt like the hot breath of some big animal—a predator stalking its prey.

But Rainbow Dash shook it off and continued to march forward. It could also have been the crystals. All the way through the tunnels, they had been accompanied by the glowing red crystals, illuminating the passage as if they were trying to help Rainbow Dash and Spike. They lay scattered through the tunnel; sometimes embedded in the roof, merging with the stalactites hanging like spikes in the air; other times gathered in tight clusters on the floor or against the wall. At one point, there had been loads of them gathered together in a small part of the tunnel, which they had left behind.

Spike missed those crystals. They were the only source of light, and now they were absolutely absent. Rainbow Dash and Spike entered a part of the tunnel that became progressively darker, as the number of crystals declined. The light rapidly diminished, until Spike couldn’t see anything in front of him anymore.

“Darn it!” Rainbow Dash said. “I should have bucked off a piece of that shiny stuff and carry it along. I can’t see a hoof in front of my eyes.”

“Yes,” Spike said. His voice was wavering, as he felt lost in the dark void. He really longed for those crystals now, and turned around to try and spot at least some light in the dark.

There it was, a faint glow far away. Red-orange it glowed, illuminating the end of the tunnel which was actually the way back. Spike turned back around. “Perhaps there’ll be more of them up ahead… I hope… ”

“Yeah, me too,” Dash said. She would like to see some light as well; some light and some fresh air, because the air in the lava tube began to smell bad. It smelled like the air in the capital city: rotten eggs in a salad of Sulphur. Rainbow Dash coughed. “Do you smell that?”

“What?” Clearly, Spike had gotten accustomed to the scent—it was the scent of his homeland after all.

“Never mind,” Dash said; she didn’t want to look like a whiner, even though the temperature seemed to have risen again.

Then, there was a silence, broken only by the sound of Dash’s hooves on the rocks. Spike wanted to say something—anything—but found that the Gauntlet of Fire was no place to start small talk. He felt the fear creeping up to him, and after some more time, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He turned around, reckoning that the sight of the light-emitting crystals would comfort him.

What he saw didn’t comfort him.

The glow had come closer, and Spike saw what it was; definitely not the crystals.

Spike turned around. “Rainbow Dash! We gotta g—”

A terrible rumble resounded, amplified a thousand times by the echo of the lava tube. The tunnel shook. Rainbow Dash crashed to the ground; Spike rolled off her back. Instantly, as if someone had thrown a thousand more logs on the hearth fire, the heat spiked. When the rumble ceased, a sloshing sound replaced it; a sound Rainbow Dash couldn’t quite place.

When they were up again, Spike jumped on the pegasus’s back, and planted his heels against her flank. “Rainbow Dash! Fly!”

Dash wanted to ask why, object, look around, but the heat sucked all of her energy away. Automatically, she began galloping the other way, towards the coolness, until she stretched her wings and flew through the lava tube on the hot air.

Spike desperately grabbed Dash’s mane. “Don’t look back, Dash,” he said with a trembling voice. He was shaking over his whole body, as if the air felt really cold instead of blazing hot. “Keep going!”

But Rainbow Dash did look back; she wanted to know what she was fleeing from, and whether she could fight it. Then, another rumbling sound filled the cave, accompanied by a dazzling pain in Dash’s head. She tumbled down on the ground, accompanied by a large piece of broken stalactite.

Like a trainer urging his boxer on, Spike helped Dash on her hooves. Before she took to the air again, she looked around.

“Holy hay!”

The gurgling and the heat belonged to a roiling magma stream. It sizzled, hissed, and roared like some predatory beast, as it sprinted towards the dragon and the pegasus, ready for the kill. Rocks melted in its path, surrendering themselves to the inferno.

Rainbow Dash turned around, scooped up spike, and took to the air. Like a bullet through a barrel did Rainbow Dash shoot through the lava tube, careful enough to keep her eyes forward. The temperature raised and raised, and sweat beaded off Dash’s body, immediately evaporating in the insane heat.

“Spike! How close is it!”

But Spike had covered his eyes with his claws. “I don’t know! I don’t wanna know!”

Hadn’t Dash’s tongue felt so dry, she would have said something insulting, but now, her every fiber was focused on survival.

Survival of the fastest.

Despite being a fireproof dragon, Spike felt horror and panic take a hold of his mind. He knew he would survive the heat, but he also knew that he wouldn’t survive being dragged through the cave in a wild water magma river. He would be like a stone in a white, foaming stream, scraping against the bottom and slamming against obstacles, until the stone would break into a thousand pieces, becoming nothing but fluttering dust.

Dash didn’t look; Spike didn’t look, but still, Rainbow Dash tried to find out how close the swirling fire was. She focused on the temperature, on the sound of popping and cracking rocks, exploding underneath the blanket of magma. It was hard to pinpoint.

A stalactite came. Dash swung to the right. Her wing grated against the rock, and for a second she wobbled in the air. With a shock, Rainbow Dash realized that the lava tube was getting narrower now. Fly, fly, fly, was the only word that resounded in Dash’s head. She had had close calls before, but never something as extreme like this. She gritted her teeth and flapped her wings. She was not going to die like this. At least she would have her revenge on Garble.

In the distance, speeding closer like two baseball bats in full swing, two columns blocked the way.

“Hold on, Spike! This is gonna be tight!”

But when the columns were at a throwing distance, Rainbow realized that she couldn’t sidle through; not even when she would fly sideways. Spike would be knocked off her back, and if the skull-cracking blow wouldn’t kill him, the magma would swallow him whole in the blink of an eye.

“Hold on Spike!”

Rainbow Dash arched her back, making Spike fly through the air. Spike had no idea what Dash was going to do, and in panic he waved his claws in the air, hoping to grab hold of something. That something was Dash’s tail. Now he dangled on Dash’s rainbow tail, and would certainly slam against the rocks when Dash would fly sideways.

It was as if Dash intended to do just that, as she sped up with a dozen vigorous flaps of her wings. She went faster and faster, and Spike had trouble holding on, using two claws against the g-forces. The air roared against his face, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he and Dash were through the gap.

“What? Huh? How?”

Had situations been different, Rainbow Dash would have winked and thrown Spike a funny smile which would say, ‘I told you I could do it.’ But the situation was far from suitable. Thanks to Dash’s speed, Spike hadn’t dangled downwards, but had instead hung perfectly horizontally on Dash’s tail. He hadn’t lost his head. “When I say go, let go!” Dash shouted to him.

Against the roaring stream and the cracking of the earth, Spike couldn’t hear what Dash said.

“Three, two, one... GO!”

Rainbow Dash gave her tail a flick. Spike made a small somersault before landing neatly on her back, albeit facing the wrong way.

Behind them, the twin columns melted and crumbled as if they were made out of cardboard. The magma stream was closing in.

Now, sitting on his mount the wrong way, Spike couldn’t do anything but watch the magma behind them. It gurgled and sloshed, as if some creature was inside of it, pushing the molten rock forward in its rage and hatred against its two unfortunate victims.

Suddenly, a nasty scent penetrated through Spike’s nostrils; a burning scent. With a jolt, Spike saw how Rainbow Dash’s tail caught fire. The tip was already smoldering and smoking, and the fire crept closer in the direction of her cutie mark. Spike snatched the wavering tail, and stuck it in his mouth, swallowing the fire and gulping down the flames.

Dash cocked her head. “What the hay?”

“You’ll thank me later,” Spike answered. “You gotta go faster!”

But Rainbow Dash had the feeling that she couldn’t go any faster. She felt as if the heat surrounded her in a blanket, blocking her wings from moving. Her lips were bone-dry, as were her eyes. Somehow, Dash thought that she would explode when she would fly even faster. The only gear faster than this would be a straight-out Sonic Rainboom. And creating a small sonic blast in an underground lava-tunnel didn’t seem like a good idea to her.

Once more Spike blinked and looked at the magma. He could clearly see the waves swell, and the ground turning red.

“We’re not gonna make it!”

As soon as those words left the dragon’s mouth, another rumble went through the cave, showering Rainbow Dash with falling stones and dust. In front of her, a few stalactites broke off. Behind her, the cave wall collapsed.

Like the tributary of a river, another magma stream erupted from the collapsed wall like a sideways volcano, adding its deadly contents to the rushing stream.

Spike saw it; Rainbow Dash didn’t. But she didn’t even need to see what was going on to know that her chances of survival were slimmed down dramatically.

Very dramatically.

The heat became unbearable, and Rainbow Dash felt herself slowing down. The flaps of her wings became longer and slower, and her breath came in quick, panting bursts.

She thought about what she would do for one drop of water. One single drop of water, and she would be able to fly miles more—in her head anyway.

The will to live and the strength to face this challenge changed from determination to desperation. Don’t let me die like this! Don’t let me die like this! Don’t let me die like this!

Another rumble. Another wave of magma added behind them to the white-hot stream.

Both Rainbow Dash and Spike realized that when one of those side streams would break through in front of them, they would be pinned down.

Then it would be over.

Both Rainbow Dash and Spike realized that time was running out. There was nothing Spike could do; there was nothing Rainbow Dash could do either, because the tiredness evaporated all her hope.

Rainbow Dash was not going to last much longer. It was not just the feeling of tiredness that sapped her strength, for frustration started to bubble up like the magma stream behind her. Frustration that there was nothing she could do against this enemy. The frustration that she could do nothing against Garble, who would probably be planning an invasion—or worse—who would probably be laughing at her, content that he had murdered her in this cruel way. Frustration that she was going to die in this Celestia-forsaken cave.

That frustration filled her strength.

Closing her eyes, Rainbow Dash slowed down. She felt the rage burning inside of her, scorching away her tiredness like the heat had scorched away her tail.

“What are you doing?!” Spike yelled.

But Rainbow Dash didn’t listen. For a few seconds, her mind wandered off to the Wonderbolt Academy, where she was stationed as a cadet. She remembered a lesson Spitfire had taught her; a lesson she needed right now. ‘Grab the energy wherever you can find it,’ Spitfire had said. ‘Whether it be love, anger, friendship—it doesn’t matter. Grab an emotion between your teeth, then grind it down until the energy powers your wings. That is how a true Wonderbolt faces a crisis, by using power from unexpected places. Turn weaknesses into strengths!’

Those could have been Dash’s last thoughts, but they weren’t. Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth so hard she thought they might break, grinding the frustration into energy. She let it all flow through her body, through her wings, and for a moment, she felt stronger than Bulk Biceps. She felt as if her wings doubled in size. She felt invincible.

“Now!”

With one flap of her wings, she reached the appropriate speed. With the second flap of her wings, she let loose a skull-cracking roar, taking the shape of a rainbow halo. With the third flap of her wings, a rainbow shine trailed after her, and her tail grew back as if a spell had been cast on it.

The whole cavern shook and rumbled. It felt as if Gauntlet of Fire was going to erupt there and then. Behind Dash, dozens of new magma streams joined their big brother, and sprinted towards Rainbow Dash and Spike.

One last death-sprint to catch the animals.

Cracks appeared like lightning bolts on the wall and the roof. Stones began raining down on the flash flood of magma. Even though they sizzled, they held. Tiny splashes of magma sidled through the openings of the dam, but new stones quickly fell into place to smother the resistance. It seemed as if the whole roof collapsed on the magma stream, choking it to death. Mere seconds later, the red-hot light doused, and the cave was filled only with silence and dust.

* *

“Hahaha! Now that was quite something, wasn’t it?”

Every dragon sat on the tip of its rock, staring at the blazing light on the hovering fireball sculpture.

It was dragon tradition to place bets on the hours or minutes you would think the contestants would survive. These bets were gathered by the Dragon-Lord, who saw to it that the proper taxes were paid over the amounts, and that the winners got their fair share—if the Dragon-Lord was feeling generous.

And now, some dragons started looking around uncomfortably with frowns on their faces, for they realized they had lost the bet.

“Alright, every dragon!” Garble called out. He fumbled behind his back and behind one of his large spines, then he pulled out a golden pocket watch. “The time is three o’clock, so everyone who has betted on other times hereby lose their mon—“

“Wait!” a big, fat dragon shouted, and stabbed a claw at the fireball.

“How dare you interrupt your Dragon-Lord like that!“ Garble yelled. But when no reaction came, not even from the guards, Garble himself looked at the scene.

The dragons who’d placed their bets on three o’clock roared at the fireball.

* *

Two piles of dust and rocks littered the floor of the cave, slightly separated from the bigger ones of the Rainboom-induced rock avalanche. One was slightly bigger than the other, lying next to it. The pile began to tremble, and rocks rolled off onto the ground. Slowly, as if she got out of her bed, Rainbow Dash scrambled to her hooves. She wobbled for a second, but caught her balance. She felt a strange void in her head as the blood slowly returned to it. Her ears still rang from the sound, and she felt bruised and battered as if she’d practiced one failing trick all day long. A quick inspection revealed that Dash was covered in bruises as blue as her coat and burn marks as black as her pupils. Nothing too severe, Rainbow Dash concluded, even though she felt as if her bones were bent and twisted from the g-forces of the Sonic Rainboom. At least I’m alive…

But was Spike alive as well? Dash reckoned that the little dragon had had a lot to endure. And now, doubt started to form like a stormy cloud in her head whether or not it had been too much for him.

She jumped over her pile, almost bent her knees in an odd direction, steadied herself, and began digging in the other pile with her hooves.

At last, some purple appeared between the rocks.

“Spike! Are you ok?”

No answer.

“Spike!”

Rainbow Dash prodded the body of Spike the dragon, but when no reaction came, she dug even further. Then she bit his tail, and dragged him from underneath the pile of rubble.

“Spike!”

Still no answer.

Now Rainbow Dash started to feel desperate. She paced around in circles, thinking of a way to get Spike back to the conscious world—if that was even possible. After a few circles, she turned back to Spike, picked him up, and slapped him twice across the face; she wasn’t an animal doctor like Fluttershy, and she knew that that method always worked with herself.

“Come on, Spike. Wake up, wake up, wake up! You have to be alive!”

Tears began to sting in her eyes, as the dragon stayed limp. Dash blinked them away with a grunt.

“Spike… Are you alive?”

Her voice was weak now, as she knew that talking to a corpse was madness. Still, she felt that no method was mad enough, as long as Spike would live.

“No.”

With a jolt, Rainbow Dash dropped the dragon. “Spike! You scared the hay out of me!” Quickly she flung away her tears as inconspicuously as possible, but her voice was hoarse, and it was not because of the dust. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

Spike scrambled up, rubbing his back. “Glad to see you too, Rainbow Dash.”

The little dragon looked absolutely ravaged. He didn’t have the burn marks which Rainbow Dash bore, for dragons were fireproof. Instead, he had a nasty scrape on his head, right next to his green spines. He tried to touch it with bruise-covered arms, but he flinched.

“We’ll let Fluttershy look after that once we’re out of here,” Rainbow Dash said. “At least it’s not bleeding.”

“If we get out of here,” Spike remarked.

“No, when!” And with that, Rainbow Dash turned around and started walking further into the lava tube.

Spike threw one more glance at the massive stone wall behind him, which looked as if it were crafted by giant hands or hooves, while in reality, it had been something even more powerful.

Once again, they became surrounded by silence. It almost seemed like a false, plastic silence, as the violence which they had encountered an hour ago still ranged in their ears. Rainbow Dash tried not to focus on the pain of her sore bones or limbs, and kept her gait as steady as possible.

Spike was also walking, as he had said that he was able to; he was a big dragon, he said. With every step he felt pain somewhere in his body, and sometimes everywhere. Spike wished there was some way to distract himself from his pains, nudged Rainbow Dash, and forced his voice to be strong, although he himself felt weak. “Rainbow Dash?”

“Yeah?” Their voices echoed through the space, so they didn’t have to talk that loudly, for which they both felt grateful.

“That explosion… It was a Sonic Rainboom, wasn’t it?”

Rainbow Dash nodded slowly.

Spike fumbled with his claws. “You… you saved my life. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Dash said, sounding as casually as she could. Then she managed a small smirk. “Just don’t tell Twilight, alright?”

“Huh? Why not? It was awesome!”

Now Dash really chuckled. “Thanks for the compliment, Spike. But… you know… It was also kinda reckless. I’m sure Twilight could use her smart-ass calculations to point out a million more things that could have gone wrong.”

“Probably,” Spike said. “But nothing went wrong, right? It was perfectly executed. I’m sure Spitfire would be proud of you.”

“Hehe, thanks.” Dash started a battle with a blush, which she won.

Spike nudged her playfully. “Hey, I’m sure Daring Do would be proud of you.”

Now Dash lost her battle. “Oh, shut up, you.”

Spike chuckled, as he noticed Dash’s blush clearly, all too visible under the red lights of the crystals, which made it look as if she was entirely red. For a second, the horrors of being locked up inside a living volcano seemed far away, as the echo of their laughs reverberated through the caves.

Then Rainbow Dash stopped laughing, and turned her head to the ground for a moment. “Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “A million things could have gone wrong. The cave wall could have collapsed right on top of our heads; the magma might have swelled with new side streams, maybe even in front of us; or perhaps we would have opened up the Gauntlet and make it erupt.”

“Well, at least we would have been spit right out of it, right?”

Dash couldn’t help it, and let out a burst of laughter while patting Spike on the head, careful not to touch his grave wound. “That’s right, Spike. And I guess those ways would be better ways to die than drowning in a white-hot magma stream, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes…” he said, although such black humor felt a little sour on his tongue. They weren’t out of the Gauntlet of Fire yet. He decided to change subject. “So why did you do it?”

“What? The sonic Rainboom?”

“Yes.”

“Well…” Rainbow Dash thought about the reason, but then discovered that she couldn’t find it. She couldn’t find any logical or rational thought behind her actions. “I… I don’t know. I… kinda knew the risks, but it just… happened. I guess it was instinct or something. I didn’t really think about it.”

Spike nodded. “I guess we’re gonna need our instincts to survive this one, aren’t we?”

Rainbow Dash said nothing, but glanced at spike and slowly nodded her head.

They walked on and on through the lava tube, monotonous save for the all-too-familiar red crystals, illuminating the straight cavern. They didn’t speak anymore, and instead primed their senses for the unexpected, occasionally gazing behind and expecting to see an orange glow in the distance. Spike kept gazing all around him, as if he was looking for some monster to jump from the shadows and snatch him into them, never to reappear. It was by this vigilance that Spike noticed that the lava tube began to change.

The walls became straight and smooth. Not gradually, but abruptly, and Spike wondered how long it had been this way. The wall looked as if somepony had melted the rock of the wall and then smoothed it with careful strokes of precision tools. This part of the cave looked pony-made.

“Rainbow Dash?”

“Hmm?”

She followed Spike’s claw, and saw the straight walls. Then she glanced at the roof, and saw that that was smooth as well, like the roof of a building.

“That’s weird…”

Further ahead, illuminated in the glow of some crystals, were columns. Big, straight columns chipped out of the same basalt that made up the rest of the lava tube. But Dash’s attention was focused on another thing. The red crystals that stood near the columns and cast their red shine upon them were no longer just clumps of stone; they were straight, orderly, tooled. Fanned out in graceful shapes, looking kind of like crops of plants growing from the rocks, they stood at regular, set intervals, obviously planted there on purpose.

The cave no longer looked like a naturally-shaped lava tube; it was a hallway.

Rainbow Dash looked at Spike. “Did you see this stuff as well when you were looking for the Bloodstone Scepter?”

“Nuh-uh,” Spike said, shaking his head.

Dash wasn’t sure what to think. The fact that this was a new part of the volcano which Spike didn’t recognize meant that they were lost. But somehow Rainbow Dash didn’t even mind, as the crafted hallway bore the hope of at least some signs of civilization. Despite Spike’s words, Rainbow Dash had the feeling that they were going in the right direction.

They continued their way, craning their necks and examining the stones as if they were two archaeologists exploring a new site. Rainbow Dash had the feeling that she had entered one of her Daring Do books. Traps, dangers, enemies; the only things missing were treasures. Suddenly, Dash spotted once more grooves and scrapes in the rock, higher than eye level. When she looked even more closely, she saw that they were carved at regular intervals, separated by points or horizontal lines, not at all like the bore of the lava-tube. Dash thought they looked like letters or sentences; a language Daring Do would obviously decipher in mere minutes.

“Hey Spike, can you read this?”

Spike looked up, and saw the markings as well. They were quite high for him, so he jumped on Rainbow Dash’s back. Dash winced, but didn’t complain.

“They look like… dragon language,” Spike said. “I have learned a little bit of dragon language from Twilight’s books.” He jumped off Dash’s back. “But I’m afraid I can’t read this. I recognize some letters, but that’s it. It’s probably an older dialect.”

“That’s a shame,” Dash said. “It might have revealed the location of the next trap, or pointed the way out of here. Perhaps it says, ‘Follow the red arrows for the emergency exit.’” Dash’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

The hallway continued, the markings continued, the pillars continued. A side-passage opened, but it was dark and looked unimportant; the markings on its wall also disappeared, so they left it behind. Dash and Spike noticed how the roof became higher and higher, and soon they couldn’t see it anymore. Slowly, the ground beneath their feet became steadier and smoother as well, although there were still some dents in it here and there. Once, Spike had stopped and pointed at the ground, where a big claw mark, fanned out like a leaf of a chestnut tree, was embedded in the stone. There was no doubt about it; this hallway was made by dragons.

Another bend came, which they followed. A dark hallway lay before them. Then, Spike froze.

Before him, he could see an orange-red glow—magma.

“Rainbow Dash, look!”

Spike’s cry in the silence made Dash jump. She stared ahead, saw the light, and gasped.

“Run!” Spike yelled, and turned around.

“No, wait!” Dash reached out and grabbed the dragon.

They stood like that for a couple of minutes, gazing ahead at the light, which glowed like the tip of a unicorn’s horn. Rainbow Dash smelled the air. Sulphur. There was definitely magma at the end of the hallway, but it didn’t come closer. Nothing happened. No sloshing sounds or exploding stones. No wild, white-hot torrent came their way. It was just the light, at the end of the tunnel.

“Let’s go,” Dash said, and lead the way again, with Spike trailing behind.

* *

“Now that’s quite interesting, isn’t it?” And while he said that, Garble stood up, and walked to the edge of the basalt plateau of the high throne.

Every other dragon’s gaze was lost in the fireball. They had never seen something like that before. Not only the spectacle with the magma flow, but also the strange hallway their contestants had just discovered left them captivated.

And so was Garble.

He looked at the passage, at the markings, the pillars, the composition of the hallway. He had read some books about dragon culture (making sure that no other dragon would find out), for it had been necessary for him to know some things. What he saw now, he recognized.

Could it be…?

A gasp went through the public; even Garble himself gasped at what the fireball revealed next.

* *

In front of Dash and Spike’s eyes, a world of gold opened.

They stood on a bridge, which covered a flowing, bubbling magma stream, sprouting from somewhere up the roof in a golden waterfall and disappearing through an unseen gap. The glow from the stream illuminated an enormous pile of gold. Coins, chalices, idols, swords, spears, crowns, or just plain golden bars littered the other side of the bridge. The roof of the enormous treasure chamber was held by two gargantuan dragon statues clad in crystal-adorned armor, bearing the weight of the roof in their claws, while magma streamed through a few cracks and collected at their feet in a stone basin. Their stone tails formed a barrier, separating the glittering gold piles from the flowing magma river.

Spike and Rainbow Dash were breathless. Compared to the darkness of the cave, the golden glittering everywhere seemed to burn hotter on their eyes than the magma stream from which they had had to flee. They rubbed their eyes and looked again, but the treasure room was still there.

“Now it’s just like a Daring Do book,” Rainbow Dash whispered.

She walked slowly over the bridge, then flapped her wings and hovered in mid-air. The feeling of drifting in the air felt like a liberation after the confined spaces of the lava tube, and Rainbow Dash smiled as she hovered over the treasure.

It was a hoard worthy of a Dragon-Lord. Rainbow Dash silently wondered how many villages had been raided and plundered in order to collect such a pile. It wasn’t only gold, for there were many gemstones as well, shining their multi-colored light against the walls and the roof of the treasure chamber. Rainbow Dash picked one up; it was the purest, most translucent gem she’d ever seen.

Spike, meanwhile, had clambered over the stone tails, tumbled down, and rolled right into the pile. But of course, he didn’t mind. He began to chuckle, then to laugh, then to yell, “A treasure! We’re rich, Rainbow Dash!”

“Yeah,” Dash said, looking down at Spike, who buried himself in the gold pile as if he were playing like a filly in a new playground. “It seems we’re getting something out of this adventure after all.”

“You betcha,” Spike said, while he picked up a gemstone, inspected it for a second, and then threw it into his mouth. “Oh, that’s good!”

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and flew up higher in the treasure chamber. She flew towards the roof, inspecting the walls and the hole where the magma-fall came from. “It’s just a shame it’s not what we’re looking for… ” She thought about Fluttershy. All the gold in the world wouldn’t help her to return to Equestria. After a few circles, Rainbow Dash let out a sigh, flew back to one of the dragon statues, and landed on its tail.

“There’s no way out, Spike. We gotta go back.” Dash said. “Perhaps we can go through that side passage we saw.”

“Go back?” came Spike’s muffled voice from somewhere in the gold pile. Then he burst through the pile like a mole, and sat down on top of it with a gem in his claw. “But we’ve just arrived.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Remember that one friend of ours we have to save from a world which grows more and more evil by the minute?”

“Eh… oops.” Dash’s sarcasm brought Spike back to the present. “You’re right, Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry. Let me just gather a few things and then we’ll go.”

“Gather a few things?” Dash said. Spike sounded as if he were going to gather some luggage for a trip, which was exactly what he was doing. After a few minutes of digging around, he jumped out of the pile and onto the bridge, clutching a sizable portion of multi-colored crystals.

Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes and smiled. She took to the air and led the way over the bridge. “At least you’re not gonna starve to death.”

“Nope,” Spike said as he tossed a blue gem in the air, caught it on his tongue, and munched it with his eyes closed. “Soooooo good!”

The crunch of Spike’s teeth wasn’t the only sound which started to fill the treasure chamber. When Spike swallowed the gem, and picked up another one, Rainbow Dash laid a hoof on his claw. “Wait.”

It was a hum, or a growl, reverberating through the vast space of the treasure chamber. In her head, Rainbow Dash scolded herself for her carelessness. It was just as Daring Do had said, ‘There’s no treasure without a trap.’

Dash jerked her head around, and saw for herself what her carelessness had gotten Spike and her in.

From the overflowing bowls which caught the tips of the magma-falls, a blaze erupted. The temperature in the room swelled, and magma spattered out of the chalices across the room.

But Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to wait for the trap to close. She grabbed Spike, put him on her back, and dashed out of the room. “Hey, what are you—“ Spike tried to say, as he lost half of his gems. When he saw what came after them, he dropped the other half.

Two fiery figures erupted from the magma chalices. Fiery beasts with wings of living flame, and maws with teeth of iron. They rushed over the bridge, their tails swinging like flaring whips in the air, tipped with steel spikes.

Rainbow Dash pounded her wings up and down. She was able to fly much faster in this hallway than she had been in the lava tube, as there were no obstructions hanging on the wall. The tiles and runes flashed by on either side, and Dash’s mind raced just as fast, estimating where the side passage had been—and hoping it wouldn’t be a dead end.

Behind them, the two monsters ran side-by-side through the treasure chamber, leaving a trail of fire behind. Once they’d crossed the bridge, it collapsed into the magma with a loud sizzle. They flapped their wings, and took to the sky, the hallway being just high enough for them to navigate in.

A terrible roar cut through the air, coming from one of the creature’s hollow, fiery lungs. The roar ended in a lance of fire, which flashed through the hall.

Spike had just enough time to think, they are dragons, before the lance was within spitting distance. He didn’t think, he spit. Spike spit like he had never done before, and in front of his eyes, the hallway erupted in a screen of flames. Green fire mingled with red fire, and then the hall was dark again, as both flames dissolved.

“Whoa! What was that there?!” Dash said.

But Spike was totally out of breath, and panted too much to form words.

One of the beasts looked at the other in puzzlement. Then both of their eyes gleamed, and their teeth glittered in the shine. Both of them howled, flapped their massive wings, and rushed into a dive.

“Go right!” Spike yelled.

Dash never disobeyed an order. For a second, she felt as if she were doing a flying exercise, in another second, she veered to the right, but then almost fell out of the sky.

An infernal heat touched like a white-hot flatiron down on her belly. She looked, and gazed right into the eyes of one of the monsters. They were flying right next to each other in the narrow hallway, and if the beast would only roll to the side, Rainbow Dash would be sandwiched between the wall and its fiery body.

And that was exactly what it did.

Dash felt as if her coat caught fire, and fainted. Spike felt the cold ground before he saw it.

“NO!”

They rolled over each other, until they finally came to a halt in a cloud of dust and smoke.

Spike jumped to his feet, fell down, then stood up again. His gaze jumped to the sky, then to Rainbow Dash.

The beasts were a lot faster than them, and were already farther in the hallway. They met in the air and flew next to each other for a few seconds. The one who had brought down Rainbow Dash suddenly stopped, looked around, then back, where its eyes met Spike’s.

“Rainbow Dash! Get up! We have to fly!”

But Rainbow Dash couldn’t stand on her hooves, let alone fly. When Spike walked towards her head, he gasped. Rainbow Dash’s belly was blood-red. At some places her hide was charred, and the wound was rimmed with a black trail of ash. It looked horrible, but there was no time to wonder whether she was alive or not. Another roar resounded, and Spike estimated the distance in a flash of a second.

He grabbed Dash’s hooves, and started pulling her along, careful enough not to let her belly scrape over the floor.

The monsters were closing in.

Spike couldn’t believe his eyes. They had been so close!

Right in front of him, the side passage opened up. It was much narrower than the main hall, and Spike silently thanked every dragon which had made the structure for that. He gritted his teeth, and dragged Dash around the corner.

In the distance there were a few red crystals. Other than that, it was just a normal side passage.

Behind him, Spike heard a crash and he looked around. One of the monsters was shaking its head, while the other stepped over its comrade, and advanced on Spike without waiting for the other one to catch up.

Rainbow Dash was easily twice as heavy as Spike, but he didn’t give up. He gritted his teeth and pulled for all he was worth. In a flash, he imagined himself big and strong again, as he was when he nearly destroyed Ponyville in his greed-fueled growth spurt. He remembered the strength flowing through his limbs; he had tasted the power which a full-grown dragon possesses. Now, however, he was just little Spike the baby dragon, but that didn’t stop his will to live—and his will to save Rainbow Dash.

The fiery, iron-fanged monster let out another roar, together with its comrade. They weren’t flying anymore, but it looked as if they were just as fast while running. Running, pouncing, leaping. Spike didn’t want to, but he glanced behind him anyway. He realized he was not going to make it—not with Rainbow Dash, at least.

What Spike didn’t realize, was that he had reached the end of the side passage. When he turned his head around, he was greeted by cold, hard stone.

A dead end.

“No…”

There was nothing more he could do. With one last heave, he dropped Rainbow Dash right in front of the stone wall. Then he turned around, gazing right into the blazing eyes of the two fire monsters.

If they felt cruelty, their hollow, flame-encrusted eyes didn’t show it. No, they had the same emptiness of any predator’s eyes. Living only for the moment. Living only to kill and feed and survive.

They stood together now, filling the hallway with a pulsing, orange glow, as their flaming heads looked upon Spike. Perhaps they wanted to look their prey into the eye one last time, before they would finish them off. Perhaps they examined their prey as to remember how the intruders had looked before they would be digested in their infernal stomachs. Perhaps they had never seen a pony with wings, lying gravely wounded against the rocks; or perhaps they had never seen a dragon so small and powerless, bowing over his friend as if to protect her, even though he knew it would be futile.

But still Spike stood there. Arms stretched, eyes narrowed. He would not go down without a fight. He had blocked their fire breaths with his own, and although he knew he could do nothing against their massive, iron-bound claws or teeth, he would not leave Rainbow Dash alone.

If they would go, they would go together.

At last, the monsters had enough of their game. Spike saw them leaning back, like cats ready to jump. Their scorching muscles contracted and quivered. Their whole bodies were preparing for the kill. Their tails waved. They pounced.

There was nothing Spike could do. His last thought before darkness stuck out its claw and pulled him into the shadows was, Why in Equestria would dragons build a dead end?

* *

“And that is the end of Spike the rookie dragon and Rainbow Splash the rocking horse,” Garble said.

The fireball screen flickered once more, with the two fiery beasts in the picture, then it dissolved into sparkles, which scattered on the wind.

Cheers, roars, commotion, anger, delight, or sadness that the game was over so soon.

“The time is six o’clock,” Garble announced, “so we have ten winners. You can collect your prize at the bank of the Garble Gorge.” He pretended to be enthusiastic and clapped his claws. “Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations.”

Exactly ten dragons raised their claws into the air and belched victory shots. The others either ignored them or hurled insults at them. The crowd started to disperse and retreat in the direction of home, flying or walking, and the sky became crowded with all the flying dragons. Only Garble’s personal guard stayed behind, a cordon of two dozen dragons, and presented itself before the high throne.

With a smile on his face, Garble started to descend the basalt stairs, snaking around the big clump of rocks. It had been a good game, with a lot of action, just the way he liked it—just the way every dragon likes it. But still, even though the game was over, his mind was not at ease. He had seen the rune-engraved halls and the treasure room with his own two eyes, things he had read about in his books. Now he knew for certain that there was more to the Gauntlet of Fire than meets the eye.

“Out of all places…”

He would definitely send a scouting party to comb out the volcano and find that mysterious hallway together with the treasure room—although it wasn’t necessarily the treasure he was after. But first, he had an invasion to plan. Weapons had to be forged, armor had to be crafted, soldiers had to be trained. A few commands would do, then he would go into the Gauntlet with his guard. Or maybe tomorrow—he wasn’t in a hurry.

Maybe I’ll retrieve the corpses of that pony and Spike, he thought. Always nice to put some charred bones on display. Or perhaps I’ll put them on the mantelpiece…

Garble grinned. With the element of loyalty gone, Equestria would be weakened. Of course he had read about the elements of harmony, and how they protected Equestria. Know the enemy and know yourself, then victory will be inevitable.

Soldiers without loyalty… How would those fight?

Garble reached his squadron, which saluted him and stepped aside all at the same time; they were very well trained, as Garble had personally overseen the training drills. Only the toughest and most awesome dragons were allowed in his personal guard. He pretended they weren’t there, unfurled his wings, and led the way towards the Garble Gorge, all the while wondering how an army without loyalty would fight, and grinning at the thought.

What a wonderful day, today. S'�%[��=9

Comments

[Luna Nightshade]

Action! Suspense! Awesomeness!

Although I would have thought that Garble would call his Games 'Garble Games' instead of 'Dragon Games' - the latter is probably a reference to the Hunger Games?

[Elkia Deerling]

hehe, yeah, it gets pretty intense. When I wrote Animal Friends, I was really wondering if I wanted to put this subplot in in the first place. I thought it was so long. But when I noticed how I could fill in loads of backstory and lore of the dragons in Equestria, I decided to keep it in. Glad to see you like action novels too! So do I.