Underdrake

by SuperBird64

Phoenix Poachers

Flashback

"This job isn't as exciting as I thought it would be." Derpy sighed disappointed that her dream job as a mailpony wasn't as fun as she anticipated. What made this job disappointing was that rather than delivering mail around Manehattan like the other 2 mailponies she was instead stationed at a newspaper stand that would occasionally get delivers and speaking of which,

"Welcome to the team Derpy!" Special Delivery said driving by in a mail truck and dropping off a stack of newspapers. Derpy walks over to it and finds the headline to be about a crime wave accompanied with a blurry picture of a tall figure in a trench coat and fedora labeled as an eye witness report.

"Whoever behind this is a massive jerk." Derpy for some reason said out loud which is followed by a weirdly shaped hoof stepping on the stack and a voice asking "Who are you calling a jerk."

The pegasus looks up to find the same tall figure seen in the picture, she repeatedly turns her gaze between the picture of and the actual figure itself which gets interrupted by a red hand which looked more like a claw grabbing her

"Please I just started this job I don't have anything."

"Oh yeah let's see about that." The figure shakes her a little releasing a dozen chocolate chip muffins "Seriously...Maybe you're hiding something in these things." the other red claw looking hand pressed the top of the muffin against a wall which doesn't reveal any valuables as a result he squishes it in their palm only to get the same result.

Annoyed the criminal shakes Derpy more and a lot more violently which drops a lot of bits, along with a bit of jewelry "More to add to my ever growing greed." Spike who was dumpster diving in an alley for another meal ended up overhearing this crimnal act in the process and rushing over to an empty trash can suits up as said criminal notices the new mailpony's derped out eyes.

"Hey you mind if I fix those...hah too bad i'm gonna fix them anyway." he balls up his claw looking hand and goes to punch Derpy.

"No need to shake here's Underdrake! You leave her alone she needs those bits and valuables!" The dragon says jumping out of an alley, the figure laughs "You call yourself a dragon you're barely 4 feet tall."

"Call myself a dragon? Does he mean he's a-" Underdrake's thought is interrupted by the figure dropping the new recruit, approaching him, taking off his fedora and lowering the rim of his trench coat revealing a tall red dragon "The name's Garble gang leader and a real dragon cause I can do this!" he proceeds to breathe out a massive stream of orange fire at a wall which manages to burn a hole in it.

"Oh yeah what about this!" He takes the larger dragon's claw and crushes it as if it were a tin can. Angry Garble breathes another stream of fire this time directly at Underdrake and once all the smoke clears up he's revealed to be completely unharmed.

"Huh? Not even a normal dragon can survive a fire blast that powerful."

"Guess that doesn't make me a real dragon more like an extraordinary one!" The purple dragon empathizes his point further by flying up revealing his pair of wings "You may have invulnerability and wings BUT I HAVE A MACHINE GUN!" he pulls a Tommy Gun out of his trench and fires it at Underdrake but just like with the fire once the gun runs out of ammo he finds the bullets dented and the dragon unscratched.

Underdrake flies forward landing a hit on his snout with a balled up claw, knocking his trench off revealing a white suit underneath and that he had no wings. He punches the Garble in the same area with his other claw conventionally knocking him into a nearby jail and into a cell.

Meanwhile across Manehattan in a cave filled with bits, gemstones and valuables a orange dragoness named wearing a dress and make up was having a tea party with a few stuffed animals and going to take a sip of tea only for her watch alarm to go off making her spill it "OH COME ON! That's the 5 dress this month! Looks like the boss been captured

She takes the dress off and wipes the makeup revealing a purple suit and fedora underneath. She runs over to a blue dragoness named Ember wearing a black suit and fedora whispering something in her ear. The blue one runs over to a dark purple dragon, eyes covered by a blonde tuft of hair wearing a tan suit and fedora his name was Thorn, Ember told him the same thing. Finally he delivered the same message to a large brown dragon with blue ice cream cone like horns, wearing a blue suit and fedora he was named Fume.

"This is taking longer than usual." Garble grumbled sitting in a prison cell board as always. He hears and sees a crack in the floor, a circular slab is then made around the crack breaking it off, turning it into a hole and out comes the 3 dragons "Knew you all would never abandon me."

"Of course not you're the boss after all!" Smolder whispers handing the boss another white fedora "We wouldn't know what to pull off without your knowledge." Thorn adds

"Hey can you hurry it up there." Fume says staying below the trio due to being too big to fit through the small hole "Now come on before any guard sees." Ember says pulling Garble into the hole, Smolder puts the slab back in place and seals the slab back into the floor.

"So what happened this time?" Thorn asks the gang back in their hideout and all sitting on a pile of gemstones "I tried to rob a namby pamby pony of her valuables only to be stopped by a short dragon with wings and invincibility he calls himself Underdrake or something like that."

"We're definitely looking forward to more of him." Ember adds sarcastically

***
Not even Underdrake's civilian life was safe from these dragons.

Spike Strip started packing his things up to head home when his supersonic hearing picked up the sound of police sirens and walkie talkie "Attention all units an bank robbery is currently being executed by a group of 4 pegasuses or pegasi." the yellow pegasus goes to reach for his hat when he is approached by 2 mystery creatures.

"Hey Shrimp show me a magic trick."

"It's Spike Strip and listen i'm packing u-"

"No you listen here-" The familiar male voice said grabbing the pony "I may not like you Namby Pamby ponies but you're gonna show me one of your acts or i'll do a trick myself involving your face and the sidewalk." He throws the magician to the ground who hears the sound of bits shuffling.

"Alright pick a card any card." The male creature picks a card face away from the pony "Is this your card?" he pulls out the same card

"What you think of that trick Ember?" he asked the other creature who was apparently named as such "It was terrible show him another."

"I think I heard the phone ring?"

"Phone? I thought this city got rid of phone booths a long time ago."

"Maybe they're rare or maybe you need to get your ears checked." the male response to to Ember's question resulted in an argument which allowed Spike to slip away and suit up into Underdrake. The dragon with wings tapped both creature's shoulders and gave them a balled up claw to the face, knocking off their disguises off and them out, revealing a red and blue dragon, who dropped a few bits out of her claw.

"Just as I suspected." Underdrake thought taking back the clawful of bits

---

Present

Garble and his goons had just stolen an armored truck full of Puckwudgies who were conventionally all muzzled and restrained from attacking anycreature. The reason why the hoard were after these creatures was because they've been declared endangered by the city's press and now were highly valued in the black market which was outside Manehattan

"Alright we've gotten away with them but how are we gonna smuggle them out of Manehattan?" Thorn asks "Simple we're gonna stuff them into a wagon full of cupcakes." Garble plans followed by a sudden stop and lower in the vehicle "Looks like we've hit a pothole i'll check it out."

The purple dragon grabbing his AK-47, slowly steps out to find a wheel trapped in a pothole. He is then tapped on the shoulder by a lighter purple dragon

"No need to shake here's Underdrake! Planning to smuggle Puckwudgies eh?” The other purple dragon fires his AK-47 but it has little to, wait scratch that no effect on Underdrake. Thorn gets halfway through his ammo when his firearm is taken, snapped like a twig before getting knocked out with a punch to the snout

Garble and the rest of his goons step out and attempt to fire their own machines guns, Underdrake simply walking through the bullets. When he gets close they each release a blast of fire but get the same result.

He knocks them out, throws them in a dumpster and with that rightfully returns the armored to the zoo and the dragon gang to jail.

***

"Finally got that Orthros inside now I don't have to worry about it slobbering on me." A disguised Smolder said as she approached Zeppelin security, she places her suitcase on the conveyor belt, which not only contained a parachute but also a cramped in Orthros another endangered species.

"Hey check this out!" Right as the smuggling suitcase went into the x-ray the dragoness did a flip which managed to distract all the zeppelin staff and security in the area. By the time Smolder got done the bag had already gone through the machine. A security guard then checked all her trench coat and pants pockets for anything dangerous but found her clean of them.

Spike Strip who had already gone through security was about to board a Zeppelin only for his supersonic hearing to pickup the whimpering of 2 dogs which was coming from the suitcase of the suspicious looking creature in the trenchcoat. Spike drops his bags, reaches into one of them, pulls out his magic hat and runs behind a corner suiting up into Underdrake.

"No need to shake here's Underdrake! Hey you drop the bag!" he demands which Smolder responds to by ripping out 3 grenades which had been sewed into her clothing, pulling out their safety pins and throwing them at the dragon which clears the area. Underdrake wasn't afraid of the explosives as he just walked right through the explosion and smoke. She grabs a machine gun from the same place and fires it at the other dragon only to get the same result. The barrel's half empty when Underdrake bends the tip so when she fires a her firearm blows up destorying her disguise and suitcase releasing the Orthros.

Underdrake lets security take the dragoness away as he returns the attempted smuggled Orthros back to the zoo it was tagged with.

---

“Is this your card?” Spike Strip asked showing a stallion a card identical to the one he was holding “Why yes it is.” He reaches into his pocket and throws 2 bits into the pegasus’ magic hat. Once the stallion had left it’s revealed that the magican’s whole stack of cards were made up of the same card.

Spike started packing his things up when he saw Rarity walk by looking worriedly down at a newspaper and holding a microphone “Hey Rarity what’s wrong.”

“It’s terrible Spike the daily news had just declared Phoenixes endangered. I’m currently heading to Manehattan National Park to report on a Phoenix nest found there.”

“I got a feeling something or someone might try to steal them.” Spike thought remembering Garble’s attempt to steal and smuggle Puckwudgies out of Manehattan

“Well you better get over their don’t want to be late for your big report.” Unbeknownst to either them Ember was overhearing their conversation from a sewer grate “Did you hear what that pony said Phoenixes are endangered and there’s a nest of them at the national park.”

“That means they’ll be worth a lot on the market. Alright here’s the plan everydragon we’re gonna go there, steal the phoenixes and their eggs if there is any.”

Spike Strip ran into an alley took off his glasses, jumped into his hat and suited up into Underdrake.

Now with a whole camera crew Rarity stood near the tree where the Phoenix nest was. “Rarity here currently in Manehattan National Park. Phoenixes that had recently been declared endangered had just been found in this very park up that tree.”

The camera pointed at said tree which is followed by the tree next to it cracking, falling over scaring away a few birds and revealing Underdrake “No need to shake here’s Underdrake.”

“Underdrake! I’m glad but kind of confused to see you why are you here?” She asked giving him the microphone

“Just doing what I do best keeping Manehattan and Equestria safe. Part of that is keeping their residents and creatures safe especially the endangered ones.”

“NOOO!” Smolder said throwing a gemstone at the stolen TV the owner which broke right through and shattered the screen “Don’t worry Smolder I’m prepared for this with a DVD of military war tactics but since you broke the TV guess I’ll have to read the pamphlet."

“Uh boss that says pony military war tactics.” Thorn points out “I may hate ponies but they do occasionally provide us with more than valuables and gemstones. Now onto the tactics starting with the most simple: Sneak Attack we’ll wait till nighttime for Underdrake to either leave or fall asleep and then we’ll poach the Phoenixes.”

---

Nighttime had fallen over Manehattan and the gang of dragons had made it into the park and were targeting the phoenix nest from a bush.

“Fume you’re the biggest one here I want you to climb the tree." Garble orders, the other dragon nods in agreement, climbs out of the bush and heads towards the bush only to stop when he spots Underdrake sleeping back against the tree. "Uh boss-Come on Fume we don't have all day."

Knowing he head easily lost the verbal battle he sighs, slowly and carefully scoots up the trees, he goes to grab a sleeping fully grown phoenix and a egg but since he was using both claws he lost his balance and hit the forest floor with a loud thud which somehow didn't wake the much stronger dragon up.

"Phew that was a close on-" Some phoenix dust landed on his nose and he let out a surprisingly loud sneeze which was the last straw and woke the heroic dragon up.

"That was the loudest sneeze I've ever heard." he comments before getting a small rock thrown at his forehead stunning him for a second "The raid's a bust time to scram!"

The 5 dragons make their way out of the forest park, into a street a ponyhole (man doesn't exist in Equestria) which then gets the cover placed over it. Underdrake despite being able to fly at an incredible speed ends up arriving about 2 seconds late.

"Would go after them but it's best to protect the nest first. Now I know the phoenixes really are endangered" he thought

***

This failed attempt of course resulted in a lot of annoyed and angry grumbling among Garble's goons

"No need to over grumble goons we've still got 2 war tactics left, next up is sabotage which i'm going to show on this now fixed TV!" The red drake goes over to the mostly repaired TV only to trip on a ruby knocking the TV off the small table and shattering once it hits the ground.

"Nevermind guess i'll just read it from the pamphlet. Sabotage: We'll do as much as possible to distract Underdrake from the tree. Once we do, we strike and snatch the nest and unlike Sneak Attack we'll execute this plan now! Come on!" At Manehattan National Park Rarity was currently trying to make a fire the old fashioned way by rubbing 2 sticks together. "Underdrake darling think you use your fire stare to make my fire trying to roast some marshmallows over here."

"Are you sure? It requires a lot of focus and if I wanna protect the nest I can't let my guard down." the dragon explains "No one would be silly enough to try to steal the phoenix eggs with you guarding it Underdrake." The pony complements "That's a fair point." he responds before staring at the pile of wood from Rarity perspective releasing a heat waves from between his eyes and once making contact with the firewood starts a fire.

Nearby Thorn lit a leaf on fire, discarded in a bush which set it ablaze, finally and the set of blazes spread to the trees. On the other side of the park, near a ranger cabin Smolder spotted a bear sleeping and poked it with a stick and jumped into a bush which was more than enough to wake it up. Thinking it was the ranger who bothered it, the bear runs at the stallion causing him to run into his cabin and now struggling to keep the wild animal out. In another part of the park Ember grabbed a wasp nest off a tree and threw it at a group of tourists releasing the swarm inside.

"Underdrake! A forest fire has suddenly ignited!" A mare ranger told the dragon "You better get over there! I'll stand watch." Rarity takes Underdrake's place allowing him to fly off over to the fire. He dashes through the flames rescuing a surprising amount of critters hiding the burning bushes and trees.

"Now to take care of the fire." He notices that the fire has spread a bit and goes to fly through it again but recognizes that his supersonic flight is what fanned the flames so he dashes in the opposite direction and finds a pond. He flies head first into the ground, cuts a hole around the body of water allowing him to pick it up and pour the water onto the forest fire putting it out.

"Phew what a workou...Underdrake! A group of tourists are under attack by a swarm of wasps!" the same mare ranger informed. Having lost a lot of energy evident by how he was now flying at what would be considered normal speed, Underdrake heard the familiar sound of buzzing and found the swarm of wasps attacking the tourists. He flew up to them turning the swarm's attention from the ponies to the dragon but as always when they attempted to sting him the dragon went unaffected.

He grabbed the wasps, balled them up as if they were paper, grabbed the nest and stuffed them back in, patching it up with a pine cone.

"Underdrake my dad's being attacked by a bear!" A camper colt told a now panting and sweating Underdrake the latter 2 being thing dragons rarely do

"Looks like you can use a cupcake." the colt says unwrapping a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing and conveniently for him had pieces of a emerald on it "Exactly what I need!"

The first bite Underdrake takes clears the icing and a bit of the top of the cupcake but he was modest enough to consume the rest of it in the second bite. He feels a pair of green flames go off inside him refueling his energy and allowing him to get a massive boost in speed allowing him to once again reach his supersonic flight speed and fly to the cabin to find the sheriff still under the attack by the bear.

He tackles the bear to the ground, away from the sheriff's cabin and after a bit of tussling around, the bear managing to land a few claw swipes that didn't even scratch the dragon, he managed to pin the bear down and allowed it to run out of energy and pass out.

At the phoenix tree Garble and Fume hiding behind a rock splashed Rarity with a bucket of water messing up her mane "AH! My regal mane!" the unicorn steps aside and pulls out a mirror to fix her mane which allows the dragons to climb up and swiftly retrieve the eggs from the phoenix nest.

Rarity having somewhat dried off her mane looks at and then up the tree to find the contents missing from the nest, something she notices right as Underdrake returns "Underdrake! Quickly someone took the eggs from the nest!" In response the dragon flies headfirst underground and uses his ultrasonic hearing to listen for rapid footsteps Underdrake flies slightly forward and pops out the ground to find Garble and his goons red clawed (No irony intended) with the Phoenix eggs.

"You know the drill Garble hand them over....1...2..." He gets bonked on the head, the eggs landing safety in his loose claws. "Run for it!" the 5 dragons all follow after the boss and run out of the forest park.

"Hey ranger you saw how those criminals just tried to steal these Phoenix eggs? You mind if I take them home with me." He asks "Sure anything for you Underdrake if it means keeping Phoenixes from extinction."

---

"We're not giving up just yet everydragon we're moving onto the next tactic: Watch and Learn which i'll show on the TV" the red dragon goes to a new stolen TV and inserts the DVD into the player only for it to reject the disk, confused her tries again same result a few more times film tapes come out the player. Annoyed he start and eventually manages to stuff all the tape back into the player and insert the disk and it actually starts playing.

It started off with Royal Guards dressed in black armor to represent the enemy, which to the dragons was the good side. Spying on Royal Guards in Golden Armor which the gang saw as the bad side.

The dark guards spied on the golden guards through binoculars and took note of how they would only guard the surrounding area so as a counter they decided to dig underground and plant explosives under their base. "As you can see all we have to do here is just observe Underdrake and once we learn his patterns we strike.

---

"This is a lot less exciting than I thought." Ember grumbled hiding behind a rock near the phoenix tree along with the others.

"You got that right, Garble we've been here nearly all day and Underdrake hasn't done anything we can counter." Smolder adds empathizing her point by pointing at the moon in the night sky.

"Wait I think he's finally doing something!" Thorn says turning the dragons' attention to the heroic dragon who flew up and grabbed the eggs from the nest.

"Let's follow him"

"But boss how are we gonna do that without him noticing?" Fume asks "Simple like this!" pulling out a bag of shattered rubies with a small hole in a corner, Garble attaches them to the winged dragon when he came by. A few moments later they felt it was safe to follow, the flightless dragons followed the trail which led to an rundown apartment inside a rundown building.

"Huh didn't expect that pony in a dragon costume to live in such a low quality place." Garble shoots a hole in the door with a pistol and unlocks it to find Spike placing the 3 phoenix eggs on his drawer "What's the big deal i'm just a humble magician-" "Can it Shrimp I was right about you Underdrake you are a pony in a dragon costume."

"Oh i'm no Underdrake I just know him, he's my friend he trusted me to keep these eggs safe in my apartment."

"Well in that case step aside!" Garble said holding him at gunpoint, the pegasus reluctantly steps aside allowing the red dragon to snatch the trio eggs and dash out the apartment.

"Phew that was a close one. Now to stop this Phoenix Poaching once in for all!" he results into Underdrake and finds the 5 dragons heading towards a ponyhole cover, lukily he was fast enough to grab all of them in his left claw right before they could lift the cover off.

"I'll take these!" He holds all 3 eggs in his right claw and sees a mailtruck. Getting an idea he hovers and then throws all 5 into the truck. He taps on the driver's window "You've got some trash to take out to the police station!"

"Look up in the night sky it’s a bird!" Special Delivery the driver started

"No it’s a plane!" Parcel Post added

"It’s a snake!" Derpy randomly added

"A snake?" the 2 mail stallions asked

"No bird nor plane or snake just friendly old me U-" the winged drake crashes ends up crashing into a tall tree getting his head stuck through it "Underdrake!"

Luckily for him not only were the eggs safe the 2 adults phoenixes came and safely retrieve their soon to be hatchlings back.

Author's Note:

There won’t be much action in the Garble chapters since it’s more Brains Over Brawns

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Who will be Overcat?

[Comickook]

Hey there. Thanks very much for getting this next chapter up. REALLY loved the work going into this adventure. Underdrake's first encounter with Garble (with the latter trying to rob Muffins and finding out about the former being fireproof and bulletproof. The stuff with Garble's gang's failed attempts at robbery and smuggling before the attempts to steal the phoenix eggs with guerrilla war tactics (particularly the sabotage stuff) were pretty well done.

Definitely looking forward to more adventures.