Cold Scales

by Konatra

Forgotten Home

The god of Chaos blinked once, then a look of recollection filled his features. "Yes I remember now, you crashed here along with that demon in the center of the old temple head. That's why we locked you both up."

"Well where is it?" He snapped with opened hands. "My mind has been in a state of fragmentation for far too long, my past, mission and purpose and even my own name are lost to me. Whatever is on that ship may be able to jog my memories or even be able to kill the beast once and for all."

"Well since the old gods are as good as dead I do not care about the set rules anymore." He pointed upward into the distance. "Your ship can be found near the summit of that mountain."

Spines awed at the reveal and location. "That's Canterlot!"

"Yes, millions upon millions of years ago two giant space ships crashed right into our old temple grounds. We never had the ability to clean it up so at some point the two smashed objects formed a mountain with a very nice shape for climbing. Soon enough, the old Alicorn race built their kingdom upon the debris of Interloper technology." Forcefully he freed himself from the tendril around his leg. "Now if you are quite done, I'll be taking my leave now before the apocalypse rains down upon us all."

Once again the interloper made a hand gesture telling him to stop. "Chasm, I need you to keep watch over the edge of the forest. I can afford to let the swarm gain ground over my territory but it is an absolute must we keep them from consuming flesh and especially the life force of the inhabitants."

"Why, what happens then?"

"I've seen it happen once to one equine child who got lost so many years ago, at the time I didn't know the scale of danger the forest posed. I followed the child, more in curiosity really so I had no time to react when a Spawn appeared and tore her to shreds." Spines gasped at this gruesome knowledge. "The low threat spawn suddenly shifted into something I call an 'Apex'. It became savage unlike anything I expected and destroyed everything in sight. I studied it for some time and witnessed it kill an Ursa Major in one blow. By that point, I still managed to dispose of it with relative ease but if the swarm were to expand out into the nearby village and consume the populace then we would have much more than the demon to worry about."

Discord nodded grimly. "Yes, I see how that could be considered such a high matter...I guess I'll do Ponyville a service and keep it secure until you return."

Spines spoke up. "Discord, I think it would be best if you manage to get Butterscotch to leave his home for the time being. He was targeted once and I doubt it will be the last, make something up if you have to but please just get him away from this place." Before the Everfree was a place of fear and dread, now it filled her with terror and thoughts of genocide, no way should such a soft-hearted being like Butterscotch be even close to such a diabolical presence.

"If you insist dear Spines...I won't question why you follow this creature since who am I to get in the way of fate? Just watch yourself, this Interloper brings death wherever he goes." With that, the god of chaos disappeared in a simple puff of smoke.

Spines looked to the Hunter. "What are we going to do?"

The Hunter suddenly shifted into a black liquid-like form and pounced into her head. "We head to Canterlot on the double, we must discover some way to combat this force before it is too late." Now in combined form the two single being rushed at breakneck speeds to the Capital.

___

"...What do we call ourselves?" The combined Spines asked in her mind as they ran across the grasslands.

"Excuse me?" The Hunter answered in a more distorted voice.

"Well in these Japonies comics I like to read, when two robots or ponies combine together like this then they get some cool name, um...I just thought maybe we could do sometime like that maybe?" When said out loud it sounded pretty stupid to her. She regretted this and blushed eternally.

The Hunter gave a meaningful sigh. "Yes I suppose...What would you have in mind."

Not expecting to go further into this topic Spines found herself dumbfounded by the odd ancient interloper. "Well...maybe 'Dark Dragon'?" She asked sheepishly.

"Well I-" Before he could get another word out Spines perked up in excitement.

"Wait no! Here's a better one, 'Spine Hunter' or maybe 'Doom Harbinger' 'Corrupt Dragon'... This would go on for some time. The Hunter could call himself a master at patience so this was no difficult thing to listen to. In fact, he rather enjoyed the change of script he usually had for the last few centuries. A feeling of warmth hit the Hunter, it was faint but being nothing but cold for millions of years made even the slightest bit of warmth felt like a long-awaited thawing moment. He needed to think about these feelings at a later date since the mountain was on the horizon. "DARK SCALE!" The outburst snapped the Hunter out of his trance, how long has she been speaking for?

"I am sorry, what was that?" It was not like him to lose focus so easily, another topic he chose to think on later.

"We should call ourselves Dark Scale...or maybe Black Scale.. Cold Sca-" The Hunter cut her off before she could go into another naming fit.

"Dark Scale is fine. Now focus, we have some climbing to do."

Dark Scale stood at the base of the Caterlot mountain and awed slightly. One part of her (since the body was Spines's she chose to keep the female pronouns) found the view stunning while the other side could not care less. THoughts formulated in her, in a second she came up with a plan to reach the top in one move. Six tendrils shot out of her back, three attached to a sturdy tree while the other three wrapped around a large rock on the other side. With the combined strength of dragon and monster, she took steps back until resistance became almost impossible to move against. "Let's go!"

The corrupt dragon shot up through the sky like a bullet at speeds that easily rivaled veteran Wonderbolts. She flew high in the sky over the grand city, she focused her enhanced vision to see the castle windows. She scanned around for a moment but caught a glimpse of her father. He sat on his throne looking like he was about to collapse from exhaustion, eyes were red and fiery mane lost a lot of its flare. Dark Scale felt both guilt and Indifference.

The amalgamation flew a bit higher near the summit of the mountain, two tendrils shot out hard and attached to the edge, she pulled herself up. The view below was massive, she could see all the way to Manehattan, looking back she rushed up the cliff and started climbing the rest of the way up.

Once she made it to a small clearing the Hunter shot out of her head back to his usual form. Spines took a minor shock from the sudden detachment and stumbled backward near the edge of the cliff. "Woah-!" She tripped back but before she could fall further than an inch the Hunter rushed near her and held her by the sides with his hands.

"Careful now, despite the improvements I have implemented in you, you are still not ready to survive such falls." Without asking he picked her up and placed her sitting on his back with her legs around his shoulders. "It will do you well to rest before we investigate the crash, theirs no telling what we will find..." Despite his words Spines could not help but blush.

The duo hiked around the top for a few minutes, the Hunter not exactly sure what to find would inject small pieces of himself into the ground like small black worms to see if he could find anything of interest. After a few minutes, the worms came back and reformed with the Hunter. Without speaking he moved down the path for a minute until he stood before an unassuming rock wall. "Here." The Hunter arched his arm right arm back and punched through the stone in one hit. The rocks caved in to reveal a hollow dark hole leading to something.

Without words, the Hunter, with Spines, jumped down into the dark abyss below.

Comments

[NightmareMoon23]

Nice.