The Adventures of Test Subject SP-1K3

by Dedion

Chapter 8: Adventure of the Five Dragons

"Wa..... U.... Wak... up.... WAKE UP!!"

The voices had returned as Spike had assumed they would. If he was honest, the pure silence of when they left made him feel uncomfortable and he was kind of glad to hear them again. However, there was something wrong with them. In his head, there once was a sea of voices ranging in different pitches and maturity. It seemed as if a vast majority of the voices had vanished and the ones that remained yelled in pain. He could feel them readying themselves for another round of shouting, but he was one step ahead of them.

He forced his eyelids to open and was not greeted by the four pale colored walls he was used to. Instead, he was in a forest of some sort with his head in the lap of a young rusty colored dragoness. A few light snores indicated that the young dragoness was still asleep. Spike tried to lift himself up. His right hand managed to touch the ground, but his left one never did. A quick glance to his left gave him the reason why. There was no left hand to touch the ground with nor was there a left arm to be seen. In its place were the burnt remains of Spike's left shoulder.

Spike felt his tired eyes widen as the situation began to dawn on him as well as the pain from yesterday starting to web its way back into his body. He fell back onto the young dragoness's lap and curled up in breathtaking pain. Hot tears pierced through his eyes as he struggled to reclaim his breath. He rolled off of the dragoness's lap and thrashed around. Small emerald flames with a small erupted from his body, burning the grass under him.

The sound of the young drake thrashing about managed to stir Little Fang from her slumber. She grumbled something under her breath as she rubbed her sore neck. Her eyes soon laid upon Spike writhing on the ground in pain. Her heart dropped for a moment. "Oh, crap!" she muttered before going over to the young dragon. She stopped just a few inches away from him. The heat of the emerald flames proved to be too much for the dragon to handle. "Spike!" Little Fang called out, "Calm down!!" Spike's emerald eyes shot towards Little Fang. His tear-filled eyes furrowed in an angry look and he looked as if he was about to retort, but he was stopped short as another surge of pain washed over his body.

"Fizzle! Jet! Garble!" Little Fang yelled out, "I need some help over here!" There seemed to have been a shuffling sound coming from her left. She looked over to see two of the dragons she called for emerge from behind a couple bushes. While Fizzle appeared alert and quickly took in the situation, Jet was a bit slower to catch on to what was happening. Fizzle quickly rushed towards the young drake, the heat barely registering. The albino drake took it upon himself to try and comfort the young purple dragon. The attempt was a failure, but Spike appreciated it none the less. The flames continued to spread and the heat was strong enough that it reached Jet, who was standing a few feet away from Spike.

Jet was never a fan of heat. His entire blood of dragons didn't like heat actually. It was instinctive for them to move away from any large heat source as soon as possible or if they couldn't move away from it or in this case, too lazy to move away from it, they would extinguish it. Jet dug down into himself as he took in a breath. A bitter coldness deep inside of him began to spread through his body. The air around him lowered in temperature dramatically before a blizzard escaped from Jet's maw. Spike and Fizzle were caught in the frosty blast. The emerald flames were soon extinguished.

Jet closed his mouth and felt better now that the heat was gone. A small smile spread across his face. However, the smile would not last long as a bolt of lightning knocked him onto his back. The small prongs of pain in Jet's chest was annoying, but a quick trip to dreamland would make him forget them. He closed his eyes again and drifted off to sleep. A grumbling Little Fang stood above the dark purple dragon. Her hair jutted out rapidly as arcs of electricity flowed through it.

Fizzle managed to shake off the frozen breath attack as well as Spike. Both of them were chilled to the bone, however. While it wasn't a painful experience, neither of the fire blooded dragons liked the being cold. Though, the annoying decrease in temperature wasn't all bad. It wasn't until Spike stumbled to push himself up that he realized that the coldness that seeped into his body seemed to have dulled the pain by a bit. It wasn't much, but it was enough that Spike could think clearly again. "Here, let me help you up," Fizzle offered a hand for Spike to grab onto, which he did. The purple baby dragon was then gently hoisted up onto his feet.

"Thanks..." Spike said softly. He regained enough energy to speak and stand up. In Spike's eyes, this morning didn't start off too bad. The same couldn't be said for his fellow dragons. Little Fang marched over to Spike. Her fists were clenched, her hair flowed and jutted out at odd angles, and she had certain intense glow in her eyes. The young purple drake felt something stir within him. He couldn't quite put his claw on it, but if he had to guess what it was, it would be fear. This was the same rusty colored dragoness that tried to chock him to death. He wasn't fully aware at the moment, so the event didn't have much of an impact it would have had. However, that was Past Spike. This was Present Spike and Present Spike was fully aware of the situation and had let fear grip his mind. 'Oh, how I envy you, Past Spike.' The young drake thought.

To his surprise, Little Fang quickly wrapped her arms around him in a non-hostile embrace. "Stop scaring me like that, you big dummy!" she nearly yelled in his ear. Spike chuckled lightly as he tried his best to return the hug.

"You need to stop worrying so much," Spike retorted, "I'm fine."

"Stop lying," Little Fang huffed as she let go of Spike and turned towards the teenage albino dragon. "Where are we heading to next?" she asked. Spike looked towards Fizzle as well. The pink spine scaled dragon rubbed the back of his head.

"See, that's the problem," he started, "I'm a bit lost as to where to go from here."

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE WE'RE GOING!!??" Little Fang yelled.

"Hey, planning out where to go has more to it than the getting to the destination Fang!" Fizzle yelled back, "I have to think about what to avoid. Where is the nearest city? What is the settlement's main population? Are there any mostly pony populated settlements that have access to dragon level magic? Is there any edible food and drinkable water nearby? These are just a few of the things I have to take into consideration before I can really plan out our next move. Otherwise, we could be flying right into a trap and end up right back at the facility or dead! Do you want that to happen?!" A plume of pink fire escaped from Fizzle's nostrils as he finished his rant. Both baby dragons flinched from the albino dragon's outburst. After a few moments, Fizzle sat down and leaned against a tree.

"Sorry," he apologized, "I've been thinking a lot and I didn't get much sleep last night. You could say I'm a bit on edge right now." There was a moment of silence amongst the three dragons. Before they could break it themselves, a couple of yawns could be heard from a few feet away. Jet had just returned from his short trip to the dream realm and Garble had just awoken. A few hand gestures from the groggy crimson dragon were given to which Fizzle quickly responded to. "No, I don't know where to go to next, Garble." he replied grumpily, "I don't even know where we are now."

"Well," Spike started, "I believe facility was a couple hundred miles south of Equestria. So, depending on where you flew us to, it shouldn't be too how to figure it out." The other dragons looked at him with curious expressions

"And how do you know that?" asked Fizzle.

"Twilight told me," Spike confessed plainly, "We shared a bottle of wine and I asked her where the facility was and she just let it out."

"She could have been lying to you."

"Yeah, you're right, but it's the o-only lead we... we've got so far." The numbing was starting to fade away and so was Spike's ability to hold himself up. Just as Spike was about to fall, Little Fang managed to grab hold of him and allowed him to lean against her for support.

Fizzle frowned. Spike was in no condition to be up and about. He needed rest and, if Fizzle could manage to make or find some, magic replenishment medicine. Spike would also have to get what was left of his left arm looked at. Fizzle assumed that the wound had been closed on account of it being burned, but Fizzle wanted to be sure that there wasn't a risk of the wound reopening or becoming infected. If Fizzle were to take the precautions of making sure of that, he would have to go off of the information that was given to him.

"Okay then..." Fizzle said. The gears in his brain started to turn as he thought of a plan. "If the facility was in the South and we flew East for the rest of the day that would mean flying North for a day or two should get us to a mountain range. It's the Diamond Dog capital so we shouldn't have to worry about ponies too much. We could even trade for food and water while we're there."

"But we don't have anything to trade with." Little Fang protested.

"Yes, we do." Fizzle said, "I've heard dragon scales can fetch a pretty good price if you have enough of them." The implications of what they would trade sent a shiver down Little Fang's spine.

"Do we really have to?" she asked.

"If you want a decent meal and a temporary place to stay, yes," answered Fizzle.

"Wait, what do mean by temporary?" Little Fang asked, "Couldn't we stay there until the war blows over?"

"The Diamond Dogs have been pretty neutral on the whole war thing, at least from the last time I've visited them. They can give us a few meals and maybe a few nights to sleep, but after that, we have to go. Since their still on Equestrian soil, they can be charged with crimes against Equestria for not having us detained." Fizzle stood up and stretched his wings. "You can hold out for a little while longer, can't you Spike?"

Spike's immediate thought was 'no', but considering how they needed to move out as quickly as possible, he nodded his head. Fizzle smiled a bit before putting the young drake on his back. He instructed for Jet to carry Little Fang on his back as well. The two baby dragons clung to the backs of the older dragons they rode on during take off. Spike almost passed out as he and Fizzle rose higher and higher into the sky. A few moments later, Spike could feel the howling air around him calm down and found that he along with the rest of his friends were flying smoothly through the sky. The ground beneath them almost a blur as Fizzle flew them towards their destination.

For a moment, the stinging pain that surged from Spike's chest and had spread its way through his body had been forgotten. He hadn't flown on the back of a dragon in a long time and he was going to enjoy it for as long as he could.

---

"Sister, we can just move a few of the troops stationed in the East to the South." protested Luna. Her sister, Celestia, gazed over the map that sat on the large table in front of them. Dozens of figures stood on the map representing their soldiers on the front and support lines.

"Yes, we could, but then we run the risk of losing ground should the griffons decide to attack us." argued Celestia, "If we took just a little bit of forces from the West, we could..."

"Give the dragons more land and resources." Luna interrupted Celestia, "So far, we've been attacked in our Western and Northwestern regions by the dragons and Northeasterly by the griffons. While I do see the future risk in moving half our units could bring, but we need to address the issue at the Southern border now. At best, it will take the dragons a couple days to reach the border. While we may not be able to stop all of them, we should be able to capture a majority of them with a well placed teleported squad. We should be able to minimize the fear from our ponies too if things go smoothly."

Celestia seemed to hesitate for a moment. Her thoughts were running a million miles trying to figure out a better solution. She hated having to take a good portion of her troops away from a spot that she worried would be attacked within the coming months. However, she knew that the newly released dragons would do to her ponies if given the chance. If she hurried, she could minimize the casualties and property damage. Not to mention the wave of fear that would wash over the nation soon after. "Alright then," Celestia said. "Now, where should we teleport these squads?"

Luna took a pencil in her magical grasp and circled a few areas where she assumed the dragons would have to cross if they passed over the border. They were five small villages that rested on or a couple of miles from the Southern border. If any dragons got further than that then they would have to notify the country of their presence and send troops to intercept them as best they could. Celestia turned to the armor-clad guard that had been standing next to her. "Inform Commander Dash that I want her to assemble six squads of no more than four ponies. Each squad must have at least one unicorn in it. I want one squad to be sent to each of these villages."

"What of the sixth squad, your majesty?" the guard asked.

"That squad is to be teleported to the Diamond Dog capital, here." Celestia pointed at a mountain range just a bit to the East of the border. "I know the Diamond Dogs have been neutral on the war for some time now. So if any dragons want to avoid immediate detection, they might try and go there. I am to be informed should there be any dragons cited, captured, and/or killed there. That is all." The guard nodded his head before leaving the room.

Celestia sighed as she placed a hoof on her temple. "How's Twilight doing?" she asked.

"You want the good news or the bad news?" Luna asked in return. A worried look gave Luna the answer she needed. "Well, the good news is that she'll live." A sigh of relief was heard of the alabaster alicorn."The bad news is... she'll never be able to use her hide legs again." Celestia could feel her teeth grinding together as words escaped Luna's maw. She stood up from the table and walked towards the door. Her sister tried to join her, but Celestia stopped her.

"Don't follow me, Luna." she said, "I just need to get some fresh air." Luna accepted her sister's wishes as the two exited the room and went their separate ways for the day.

Comments

[DragonPony]

Well this is interesting to say the least. I think the Diamond Dogs could be a interesting area to see, I can't wait to see how their society will function for sure. I think There may be some tension between the D.Dogs and the Ponies. I mean D.Dogs from what I can only guess eat meat which would put them at odds with Pony beliefs. Not to mention that I get the feeling without Dragon's being in their lands D.Dogs prob take alot of the heat that Dragon's would normally get. Being seen as second class to the Ponies. But the problem is that the D.Dogs are in Pony territory so they can't act against them openly or be overwhelmed in all fronts by them. But I think that tension is what our dragon party will play off of. There is no love lost between the D.Dogs and Ponies and honestly it seems the D.Dogs and Dragons have far more in common than with the Ponies. Hell I could see the ponies having a habit of taking the D.Dog's gems to fund their war. Something a Dragon would NEVER do since they know how special gems are.

I think a interesting thing is Celestia as well. For with the damage done to Twilight it is now personal to her. She will want to bring Spike in no matter what that is for sure. She will blame the dragon's for the damage done to her student and not even look at the situation that lead up to the issue in the first place. But Twilight, honestly I see her being content with it. Not happy for sure, but I can see her thinking this is a small price for what she has done over the years. And if it means Spike is free she is happy, to ponies shock she doesn't hate Spike, in fact she still like the little guys. She knows how kind he really is and all that wasn't the true him, but more of the built up damage her kind have done to the poor kind baby dragon. She know that if he saw what he did he would feel horrible and that means alot to her. I can see her now focusing far more on her studies and magic now but not in the way to harm dragons like she has been doing. But really in ways to find a way to stop all this damn fighting and having others like her and Spike suffer from it. I can see her also being happy that it is just her legs and her lower half still works, even tho she feel she doesn't deserve or might not even want foals she doesn't want to lose the opportunity if she does want them.