Draconic Relations

by ramseymac

Rating: teen
Tags: Tragedy, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Princess Luna, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Spike, Comedy, Other
Length: 23489

Drake has been living monotonously. Then, just when he thought it couldn't get any more boring, things changed. Dramatically.

Drake is living a boring life. It may not be terrible, but it's monotonous. He knows that everything will just keep happening the way it has been already, but doesn't want to accept it. He wants change. He wants a new life, but gets more than he bargained for. Now he has himself re-written and thrown into Equestria, but not all is as it seems.

Crossover with a little bit of Skyrim, a little bit of Stargate, a little Portal, and much more later.
Avoids clichés such as: Brony protagonist, WTF talking ponies, WTF am I, complete Mary Sue, the worf affect, and the part where a giant monster is slain in Ponyville and all the ponies love him for it/hates him for it.
Drake is not what he seems

Published 2014-04-18 21:30:04 UTC
Last updated 2014-12-29 08:04:15 UTC

Gearing up

Draconic Relations-chapter 1- Gearing up

BORING. That is the word I would use to describe life. I was a top student, socially awkward, kind of a game nerd, obsessed over anything that I found interesting and working on military skills. My family had a history of military service, and I was expected to follow in their footsteps. I knew a thing or two about fencing and archery, and I was always open to computers. I wrote a few stories, but the internet was not a kind place for me, thus that tangent was snuffed out. I did anything to sate my boredom, as long as I couldn't gain any serious injuries from it. Well, except for one thing...

The truth is, everything was way to normal. I wanted different places, and fantasy lands, the whole shebang! The only problem was; my dreams were impossible, and there was no way that was going to change. All I wished for was change. I wished too much.

I walked out the door, my pale complexion rejecting the evening sunlight. I flipped my hood up to shield myself from the sun, and headed to the car. It was an old compact, but it did its job. The drive to the airport was entirely uneventful, as Des Moines isn't exactly the busiest place on Earth. I pulled into the parking lot after paying the fine, then walked through the airport doors. I received my ticket from the flight kiosk and checked the gate I was supposed to go to.
"Six... six, six, six..." I repeated to myself, earning some dirty looks as I made my way past a few people lounging about in the lobby. I stopped at gate six and walked up to the attendant manning the tunnel thing going into the plane. I handed her my ticket, which she scanned, then handed back. I went through the metal detector after taking off my necklace and dragon bracelet. they patted me down, then sent me through to the plane. I settled into my seat and looked out the window to my right, knowing that I would probably be asleep soon in the flight to the Atlanta International airport. After the last few people boarded and the plane taxied towards the end of the runway, the world faded to black and I fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

When I next woke up, I heard screaming. Lots of screaming. Oh, and rumbling too, can't forget the rumbling. The wind whipped at my face as I forced my eyes open. I looked at the empty sky ahead of us and thought Oh, that's pretty... wait... open sky?!
I turned my head to see that everyone else was holding on for dear life, while I just sat there, dumbfounded. The plane tipped forwards to a view of the ground that was coming towards us, fast. I simply strapped my seatbelt on, and sat, awaiting my demise. It came faster than expected. In one instant, everything simply stopped. It wasn't like we hit and I blacked out. No, EVERYTHING stopped. The plane, the screaming, the rumbling, maybe even time itself. Except for me, and one other. Someone who had been sitting calmly in the plane, just as I had. He was wearing an all white tweed suit with a red undershirt. He had white, neatly trimmed hair, and a wide goatee. The man climbed over the seats and sat next to me.
"I guess I cut it a little close, but it's fine." He muttered to himself, while I just stared at him with a slack jaw. "Yes, I must do better next time." He turned his head and finally acknowledged me. "Ah, hello! Now, I have a proposition for you that may be... interesting to you. You see, there is... another world out there, Drake, and I think that you, of all people, should go. It would spice up your life considerably, and, as an added bonus, become an entirely new life. Now, you don't have many that look after you, and I'm sure that this is what you've been looking for. So I give you a choice. Either stay here and die in this unfortunate accident, or come with me to a new life."
I stared at him, soaking it all in. A new world? This was great! Then I looked around the plane to see all the others.
"What about these people?" I asked.
"Oh, they'll be fine, more or less. Now, do you want to be here, dead and orphaned, or do you want to be anything you want?" He asked impatiently. The choice was clear.
"I think we'd better go then."
"Excellent!" he clapped his hands and suddenly we were standing in a white plain, stretching off into the distance in all directions. "First we'll need to change what you are..." He snapped his fingers and a long line of figures on racks came speeding out of nowhere like a subway train, stopping when we had a view of everything there. I pulled my hood down and put my hands on my head, making an O shape with my mouth. The man just stood there, looking chipper as always.
"Pick a species, any species!" I looked down the long line. There were midget equines, humongous dragons, felines that would put a liger to shame, tiny bugs, and even rodents such as squirrels and mice. I looked around until I found something that caught my eye. It was vaguely humanoid, with a short muzzle full of sharp teeth, a long tail that ended in a spike, dull white scales, double digit toes, four digit claws, digitigrade legs, large eyes that could be used for night vision, a plated spine along its back, two fin-like ears on the sides of its head and an armored underbelly.

I reached out to touch it, but it disappeared, and I started shrinking in height, while I gained a new awareness of a tail. The man handed me a small hand mirror to look at myself. My enlarged irises were a faintly glowing yellow, my teeth were razor sharp. My scales were charcoal gray, while my ears were off white. I handed the mirror back to the man. He snapped his fingers and the creatures disappeared, replaced by different articles of clothing specifically meant for me. After careful mixing and matching, I came out in a type of low silhouette chameleon armor that changed depending on my surroundings on command, with a clip on the back for a bow and one on each hip for swords, while a dull silver collar fitted around my neck that folded itself out to the shape of a hawk head, conforming to the chameleon style as well, with a grey hood to hide my face while it was down.

"So if I'm using swords and bows, I'm guessing it's not too advanced?" I asked jokingly, while he just beamed at me. He snapped his fingers again, so I turned around to see a literal wall of weapons. I almost squealed at it, running over to see what was in it and quickly grabbed two one handed swords that looked a lot like katanas.Next I picked a black bow meant for long ranges and high power that had a scope on the side. The quiver was also chameleon with a white base, just like my suit, with a full stock of high velocity, long range arrows, perfectly my style. For the final piece, I fitted myself with an armband with what looked like an Iron Man repulsor on the wrist that folded inwards. I turned back towards the man.
"Ah, now to my favorite part! A companion!" He said cheerily. I flicked my tail and turned around again to see a bunch of random creatures milling about.
"Hey! Ouch!" a synthetic feminine voice called to me from below. I looked down to see the best potato I had ever laid eyes on, and not in an eating kind of way. It had a light on it with wires and nails coming out of the potato. On top of it was a small crow pecking at it. "You look like you're good at (ouch) murder. Would you (ouch) murder this bird for me?" I shooed the bird away and crouched down, picking the potato up. "You're not going to eat me, right?"

"No, but I would like to know your name."

"GLaDOS. Though, right now it's more like PotatOS. You can fix that if you put me the semi-circle over there." she said. I looked over to see that there was indeed a small white semi-circle. I picked it up and put what looked like a USB port onto the end for a USB cord. They connected and the light on the potato went out, transferring to the tiny GLaDOS head. I clipped it onto my the area below my collar.
"Thanks. I was worried I was going to fry that potato by thinking too hard." I smiled.

"For science, you monster." I said smugly, and turned back to the man in white.

"Who's this?" she whispered,

"No idea."

"Well that's helpful"

"So, are you all finished?" He cut in.

"Yes." responded GLaDOS before I could.

"Wonderful! Now, you'll need a life that not only they believe, but you believe as well as being provable... Ah yes! Still orphaned, one sibling, world traveler, inventor, warrior, tactician... maybe hulk-esque powers? Yes, that will work. Erm... hard life... quest to find... family? Yes... get rid of the need for video games..."

"Why do you have to do that?" I asked, slightly offended at how he thought it was a flaw.

"So you don't go crazy trying to find an equivalent!" He snapped. I took a step back and looked around the landscape to see if there was a single thing out there besides white. After an inconclusive five minutes of searching, I turned back to the man, who had finally stopped mumbling and was ready to go. I turned, activated my helmet, and nodded.

"All right, you'll be remembering more about your life there than on earth to make it easier." I shrugged. "Have fun..." he said quietly before snapping his fingers. And just like that, everything went dark. The light came back and my visor scrolled with 1s and 0s for a few seconds before going back to the view of outside the helmet. I looked around to discover that I was standing in the middle of a path in a forest.

Then the memories hit me like a wall. I stumbled backwards as I remembered how I had gotten here. I had been hiding in the dragon mountains, then I was driven out by a hoard of griffin dragon hunters a few years after my mother died and my brother's egg was stolen by -of all things- ponies. I remembered evading things for years afterwards, now on my way to see if I could sneak into the capital to find my brother, who was rumored to have been taken there and hatched by some unicorn. I activated my active camouflage and sprinted down the path to the edge of a forest. I nimbly took off to the nearby town, not stopping for anything.

I reached the town marketplace, which was crowded with ponies buying and selling wares. I crouched on my perch atop a house and watched for any signs of danger as I rested. The eyesore of a crowd came in as a dull roar through my helmet. Then something hit me from behind at a high speed, deactivating my camouflage as I back-flipped through the air and landed soundlessly on my feet, quite unlike the mare that hit me. She skidded across the ground before stopping at a wall. To my surprise, she jumped right back up, her rainbow mane and tail more than a little disheveled.
"HEY, WHAT'S THE BIG Idea..." She trailed off as she looked at me, standing in a battle ready stance, speechless. The crowd was completely silent at this point. Then a single pony raised a hoof and yelled in slow motion;
"MMOOOONNSSTEERRR!" There was a split second pause, the calm before the storm, before almost every single pony in Ponyville basically ran away screaming. Every pony except six, including the one that hit me. Four of them stood there defiantly with a fire in their eyes, while one bounced and another hid behind the rainbow pegasus. An orange and a pink normal ones, The cyan and the yellow pegusi, and the white and the purple unicorns.

Twilight
Twilight had thought that maybe, for at least one day she would be able to have a normal day without something weird happening, but NOOOOOO, some bird-lizard thing with invisibility just had to show up. Currently, she was staring at the creature in front of her, trying to put on her most fearsome look by crouching and snarling at it, as Rarity, Dash, and Applejack were doing.
"GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM, MONSTER!" Yelled Dash. The monster cocked its head to the side, its black, soulless eyes boring into them.
"Cease and desist" It said calmly without moving its beak.
They all backpedaled at the fact that it could talk.
"I would listen to him." The orange light on its armor said.
"Beast! Monster! Leave us!" Rarity yelled. It simply cocked its head at her.
"Wait, Rarity." Twilight intervened. "Maybe it will tell us why it hit Rainbow Dash. HEY MONSTER!" She yelled. It shifted its gaze to her and she shrunk under its scrutiny. "Uhm, why did you hit my friend?"
"It's probably too stupid to answer..." Rainbow Dash whispered to her. The creature swung its head to face Dash as it shifted uncomfortably.
"You would best be quiet, lest I punish you for your insult. I did nothing that would cause harm to anyone. Your friend here simply flew into me. Not that she would admit it." It stated calmly
"Well you're coming with us whether you like it or not." She gripped it with her magic, only to have its eyes glow red and dispel it.
"I move on my own terms." They all gasped as its head folded back and its neck slid down to reveal a gray hooded face covered by a scarf. Though it was pitch black inside the hood, two glowing yellow eyes with slit pupils shone out.

Author's Note

My first story, constructive criticism appreciated. Trust me, I need it.

Jail Square

The rainbow one sprinted up as if to clock me in the face, for which I was ready to sidestep, but before she could reach me the pink freak was right in my face, smiling like a psychopath.
"OOH, OOH! Doyoulikeparties? Ilikeparties, they'remyspecialtalentandhowlonghaveyoubeenherewhatcakedoyoulikeareyoureallyadragon?" She fired off questions, moving her mouth at ludicrous speed, enveloping it in plaid. I backpedaled a few steps, half unsheathing my swords as GLaDOS screamed:
"Agh, kill it! Kill it! It's evil!" I activated my helmet once again, trying to keep the pony as far away from my face as possible. She climbed up me, pushing her face into the right side eye, enveloping one side of my vision. I grabbed the pink mass of terror, pulling her off my face and, in the process, relieving GLaDOS of a pink hoof to the eye. I dropped her and punted her away in mid-air as hard as I could, resulting in her flying over several houses, going "WHEEEEEEEE!" the entire way.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" Yelled the rainbow one, also getting in my face, to the point where we would have been muzzle to muzzle had my helmet been down.
"That was for climbing on my face with no warning!" I spat.
"Dash, it has a point, but he still shouldn't have been so violent, neither of you should have been." Purple conceded, changing her stance to a more friendly one.
Just then, a shadow fell upon me.
Now, you may be thinking this is the part where a giant monster appears out of nowhere for no apparent reason, I save the town from it, and the ponies all love me and want to be my friend.
That's not what happened at all, given that the shadow barely reached my knees.
I turned around to see a red Pegasus with a police officer hat and a white unicorn wearing a tux, dark sunglasses, and an earpiece.
The former walked forward and pulled out a small notepad out of seemingly nowhere, given that he didn't have anything but the hat on.

"You are under arrest on the charges of; armed assault, multiple attempted murder, carrying weapons in a public place, aaaand... I think this says... being a dragon, and... fleeing from authorities? The griffins wrote those two," He listed out, looking back to the other for affirmation, for which he received a nod. "So... we're going to have to ask you to come with us." there was a moment of silence.

"Really?" I deadpanned, unfolding my helmet. "I'm being arrested for being a dragon? Seriously? What racist bastard wrote the law 'You are not allowed to be a dragon in this country under penalty of death'? Oh, you know I bet you probably think that everything I have with me is stolen don't you?" I shouted, my scales ruffled and covered me in tickling sensation before settling back down, now glossy black. "You know what? I bet you probably think that this," I fished around in a pouch on the side of my leg, pulling out a bright yellow lemon. "This lemon is stolen, huh? Well it isn't!"
"Where'd you get that lemon?!" GLaDOS asked,
"I picked it off a tree."
"I didn't see you pick that! You didn't get that from anywhere!"
"Ssshhhh... So anyway!"
"Throw it at them! I bet it'll set them on fire!"
"I'm not gonna set anyone one fire, Carolyn."
"Don't call me that."
"Anyway... What I'm trying to say is that griffins are racist bastards."
"We still need you to come with us." The policecolt repeated.
"UUUGH!
...
Fine. But only for twenty-four hours. Then, I'll be considering a jailbreak!" I yelled, crossing my arms. "And I only beat those guys up because they were trying to stab me. In the heart. I call self defense." I proclaimed, then suddenly, the shy pegasus with the pink mane and butter body flew up to me. She looked at me with a harsh, angry glare that could cook a chicken. I tried staring back with the same intensity, but it didn't work, even with my glowy eyes burning like fire I couldn't match it.
"You do not hurt my friends. You do not hurt anything, or anyone. Do you understand, mister?"
I looked into her eyes for a moment, evaluating her.
"Look, Butterscotch,"
"Fluttershy."
"Fluttershy, I'm on a quest to find someone very important to me, and if anything gets in my way, I won't hesitate to destroy it. Ya got that?" She looked taken aback, recoiling, before hiding her face behind her mane and going back to hiding, being replaced by the rainbow one.
"We're not over with, bub!" She whispered dangerously, poking a hoof to my chest.
"And a good day to you too, madam!" I said, layering the sarcasm on thicker than flies on horse dung... or pony dung.
Anyway, I got a few glares as consequence.
"So... I gotta take your weapons."
"Nobody takes my weapons." I said, half unsheathing my sword.

Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Twilight, and Applejack walked down the road in the opposite direction to the dragon.
"W-well I'm going to see if I can find Pinkie, so I'll be going now... unless you want me to stay that is..." Fluttershy said quietly.
"Oh, that's fine! See you later!" Twilight said, waving a hoof in Fluttershy's direction and smiling, then she turned towards the others.
"That fella was sleezy as a snake, ah tell ya!" Applejack shouted
"He did seem a bit shifty..."
"How was he immune to The Stare even? And did you see how his scales changed colors? Black scales! I mean, what's more evil than a black dragon?" Rainbow Dash interjected
"RACIST!" Came from down the road, carrying an undertone of irritation.
"Armed to the teeth with weapons to boot!" Dash continued, not paying attention to the ranting reptiles antics.
"And did you see that garish helmet he had on? Horrendous, I tell you." Rarity added.
"I've gotta agree that he seems pretty shifty. Weapons, armor and all. Although, I would like to ask him some questions, and examine the helmet and that magical construct he has." Twilight conceded.
They parted ways, and Twilight walked into the library, observing that her young dragon assistant was seated at the table, munching on some hay fries and reading an adventure story with half lidded eyes and barely sparing her a glance.
"Hey, Twi. What was the big panic about today?" He asked sarcastically.
"There was this weird dragon that Rainbow Dash ran into, then the police hauled him off. He kept yelling at us about how ponies are racist." Spikes eyes widened, and a hay fry fell out of his mouth.
"A... a dragon?"
"Yeah, me and a few of the girls are going to talk to it tomorrow."
"Can I come, please? I mean, I know last time didn't turn out so well, but maybe this guy's nicer!" Spike pleaded giving the best puppy eyes at his disposal.
"Spike, he doesn't really seem all too friendly,"
"I bet if he sees another dragon he'll be friendlier, and maybe stop with the racism thing!"
"Spike, really..." She looked at him and saw the puppy eyes, and quickly averted her eyes. "I really don't want you hanging around that guy, so no... you can't come." Twilight concluded, and heard groaning as Spike was once again denied an adventure.

I sat in a small jail cell, with a single barred window and a grimy cot, spitting bright blue luminescent globules of highly acidic saliva mixed with highly acidic blood from a cut inside my lip into a small metal cup, which completely melted as soon as the glob hit it. I spat another one towards it, but it froze midair. The man in the white suit from before was suddenly next to me.
"I'm disappointed in you, Drake. Thrown in jail within the first hour? Tsk, tsk, you must learn diplomacy, young padawan, or you won't go far out of the cell in this world." He said in a condescending tone that, instead of angering me, like it usually would, calmed me down.
"It's just... I can't stand racism! It's like they assume that since I'm a dragon, I've done -or am currently doing- something evil! If that had been a pony that did that, they would have brushed it off as me just being irritable. Since I'm a dragon, they say I'm evil because of it. It's just so stupid..."
"You could always escape, you have the tools." He stated matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, but I feel like I would just be in even more trouble then." The room darkened, the man stood up and the atmosphere became tense.
"I will NOT have you rot away in a jail cell like some petty criminal! You are destined for more than this, and the princesses would keep you from your own power!" He yelled, then suddenly, the room brightened, along with the atmosphere, relieving me of a large amount of pressure. He ran his hands over his face, before bringing them down again. After his rant, his eyes were suddenly just like mine, except smaller, so as to fit on a human face. "Ugh... I'll be leaving now." He almost whispered, snapping his fingers and disappearing, leaving me with wide eyes and an open mouth.
"Dafuq was that?" I said to myself.

The wind flowed through Special Agent's mane and coat as he added the finishing touches on his report to the princess.
He looked up, towards the front of the chariot, to see Canterlot looming over. The gold and white architecture would have put most ponies in awe, but Special Agent was not 'most ponies'. On the paper in front of him was the evidence that the dragon imprisoned in Ponyville was the one the princess was looking for; the final direct descendant of...

... King Alduin

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait and shortish chapter, but life is busy.
Also, I'm sorry for if you feel I butchered the mane six or anyone else, I'm not that great at keeping the characters canon.
Also, do you think I should put this in Skyrim Equestria now that Alduin is in? He's going to be the only one from The Elder Scrolls.

The Skills, The Tools, The Tech.

I laid on my back on the cot in my cell, holding a small notecard in front of my face. It read, "Jailbreak at midnight, don't get eaten!" He was actually going to break me out? Hardcore. Who even was this guy?

Since he had disappeared, my scales had flipped back to being gray, a bunch of ponies went by the window, singing one of their disgustingly happy musical numbers, and I had found the notecard. By now, the red sunset light was streaming into the room. No one had bothered me since putting me in here, though that wasn't bad at all, for a conversation with one of the racist gits would probably be me stating something and them disagreeing immediately. They hadn't taken my swords or bow, and they didn't know about my blaster, so that was a plus.

I looked around the bland room for anything to occupy my time until dark, and found it in the jail cell bars. My blaster unfolded from my wrist. I set it onto the 'welding' setting, and set into the bars, separating them from the ground and ceiling.

Princess Celestia reread the report for the fifth time now, levitating it in her magic while Special Agent waited patiently at her side.

"This is not good. Another possible dragon of royal blood in the kingdom. One that has advanced magic, hates griffons, and most likely hates ponies as well. At least we were able to get the other one before it hatched so he wouldn't have any prejudice against ponies or griffons. At least we can lock this new one up for something first, and the townsponies probably don't like him." She gave a tired sigh, and levitated the papers back over to Special Agent. "We need to see if he's a threat, and if he is, he'll become an exhibit in the sculpture garden. Take that to Luna, she needs to assemble a squad of night guards to retrieve him discreetly."

Cuffs was ready to pack it in for the night. He didn't care about the strange noises that had been coming from behind the door to the cell block since the sun started setting. Now that the moon was up, he could go upstairs, take a nice, long, sleep, and be done with that stupid dragon.

"Hey, I didn't get any dinner. Aren't three meals a day the required amount in a jail?"

Right after he fed the idiot.

The pegasus was on the other side of the door to the cell block, grumbling something about not being paid enough to feed idiots.

"Why did we do this again?" GLaDOS asked in a flat voice, obviously disappointed in my work.

"Because of reasons." I answered smugly.

All of the bars to the cell had been cut off and reassembled into a trebuchet in the middle of the room and facing the window, with a space to put a bowl filled with gruel to throw.

The door opened and in walked Cuffs, a bowl of slimy gruel balanced on his back and a key in his mouth. He was looking down while walking so he didn't see the bars were gone until he raised his head to insert the key, at which point his eyes widened and his mouth fell open, dropping the key in the process. He looked at me, then the trebuchet, then back to me again, then looked somewhere in between us. His mouth burst into foam and his left eye began twitching.

I strode over, feigning ignorance to his (probably) serious rabies infection and plucked the gruel off of his back.

"Yoink!... And there we go!" I said, placing the bowl into the holder for it. "Firing in three... two... one... blastoff!" I kicked the bar out from under the counterweight and allowing gravity to take over. The bowl left at exactly the right angle, sending it soaring through the now barless window and into the night sky.

Cuffs finally got over his inner rage fit and yelled "HEY, YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"

"Watcha gonna do about it?" I asked rhetorically before activating my helmet and cloaking, then jumping onto the ceiling. The guard pegasus jumped at where I had been before, only to come up with empty hooves.

"I'LL FIND YOU IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO YOU DAMN DRAGON!"

'You could always escape. You have the tools.' Echoed through my head, and I looked to see that the doorway was still open, light streaming into the dark room. I looked back towards the warden, who was now working on pounding my trebuchet to scrap metal, then back again to the door.

'Yeah... Screw this joint.' I thought before climbing through the top of the doorframe. I was halfway across the room when the door started to open and a gray muzzle poked its way through. I jumped into the corner and stayed stock still. The ponies that came in were by far not the strangest thing I'd ever seen, but still strange. They all looked exactly the same, for one. Secondly, they had fangs, slit pupils, and draconic wings. They had black armor on, ebony, if I'm not mistaken. The armor had small greaves, and large openings for the wings. On their chests were large blue amulets with slit pupils, like an eye. The helmet only covered the top of the head, leaving the throat and face almost completely exposed, while a fin ran along the top, ending at the base of the neck, where flexible ribs wrapped around the sides of the necks and connecting to their chest piece. The pupils on their amulets flicked about, as if searching for something. My HUD highlighted all of them red and targeted them.

Ponies streamed in until there were seven elite night guards standing in the room, five mares and two stallions, each with a cutlass strapped to their shoulder. All of their ears perked up at the sound of something being smashed. One of the mares got the attention of the two stallions and made a series of complicated hoof gestures, taking a full minute to say what I interpreted as: Go in there and figure out what that is. The two stallions rushed in, swords drawn, as the rest of the team fanned out around the room. Two hid next to the front windows, one stood in front of the front door, and the remaining two sat down behind the desk and started shuffling through some filing cabinets. I knew that they were trying to be sneaky, but at the moment it was a little sad, as they made a sharp clacking sound every step they took on the hardwood floor. The two behind the desk pulled out a file that read:

SUBJECT_KA-2

NAME:_UNKNOWN
AGE: APPROXIMATELY_25
LOCATION:_~~UNKNOWN~~ near Ponyville
RACE:_DRAGON
NATIONALITY:_OLD_DRAGON_EMPIRE
PRIORITY:_BETA-3
CONDITION:_~~AT_LARGE~~ Captive
THREAT_LEVEL:_UNKNOWN-POSSIBLE_LETHAL_VECTOR._APPROACH_WITH_CAUTION.

I squinted, and the HUD zoomed in on it. They knew way too much about me for comfort. Still, it could be worse. At least they don't know my name. I slowly eased my way out of the vertices I had jammed my self into, digging into the ceiling to stay up. I sped up, hoping none of the ponies would notice the distorted area moving along the ceiling.

The guard in front of the door's amulet started flitting around, looking in my direction as soon as I sped up, though I didn't notice. Finally, it rested upon my cloaked form, still crawling across the ceiling. It let out a low moan, as did all the others' amulets, and they all looked at me. The guards in the room sprung into action, forming a circle around the area underneath me, cutlasses drawn and ready.
'Only two ways outta this one.
1.Kill them, steal any survivors.
2.Surrender and get taken away.-Not advisable.
3.Try sneaking out
...
Option one it is then.'
I quietly unsheathed my swords, making sure to not rub them on the sides of their sheaths. I braced myself, then launched downwards towards the floor, my swords spinning around me in a blur, slicing at their unprotected throats as I became a whirlwind of death. My cloaking deactivated as single sword parried my blow, one of the mares that had been looking at my file. She looked at me with wide eyes, clearly not used to seeing her comrades wiped out.
Not that I could blame her.
She gritted her teeth, raising her sword in a defensive stance, then whistled. The stallions that went to check on the police pony burst out of the cell block, swords drawn, fangs bared. Their tough faces fell as they saw their comrades' slashed throats, and me standing over the lone survivor.
"RAAAAH!" They cried simultaneously, charging at me and swinging their blades blindly. I reactivated my cloaking and deftly sidestepped them, using my blaster to take one down, hitting him in the face, while I clubbed the other one in the face with my tail, the blade on the end making a gash across his face and half blinding him before hitting him with the blaster. I turned to find the mare from before still sitting there, though now frozen in shock. I easily knocked her blade away and grabbed her by the throat, choking her out. She struggled for about a minute, punching at my arm, before she went limp. I threw her across my shoulder before dashing out the door.

CANTERLOT- THE NEXT MORNING

Midnight Blade and Ebony Wing walked up Canterlot boulevard. Midnight was missing all the fur on the burnt left side of his head, while Ebony had a massive dent in his armor, paired with the large gash running across his face. Behind them they pulled a ramshackle covered cart. They stopped in front of the gates to Canterlot as a day guard trotted in front of them.
"State your business, bat ponies!" He barked.
Midnight looked at Ebony, who shook his head. He looked back to the day guard who had stopped them before he smacked him in the side of the head.
"Mind your place, whelp." He said, then pulled the cart past the smarting day guard.

"Princess Luna, ma'am." A night guard said just as Luna was about to lay down in bed.
She sighed explosively before turning away from her bed to face the guard.
"Did the retrieval squad come back?"
"Yes, ma'am. But there is a, erm... slight... problem..."
Her expression hardened. "They didn't get him, did they?"
"Err, that would be a no."
"Ugh... nothing else happened I hope."
"Well... I think it would be best if you came with me." He said nervously, probably not wanting to face an angry moon goddess.

At the troop garrison, Luna looked over the carnage wrought on her unlucky elite guards. The clipboard she held in her magic read that the mission had failed catastrophically. There were four KIAs, one MIA, and two injured.
The two in front of her weren't too badly injured, a few broken ribs, some burns, and a cut were nothing the infirmary couldn't handle.
The other four, not so much. Each one had a messy slash through their throat. She hoped this wasn't going to become a regular thing.

PONYVILLE-THE NIGHT OF THE ESCAPE.
I sprinted across rooftops until I came to the edge of the town. I hopped off the edge of the roof, then dashed across the plain between me and the forest, staying low to the ground so that it was harder to see the distortion of my cloaking. In the middle of the field a bright flash appeared in front of me. I skidded to a stop and picked up the piece of paper that had appeared in front of me. It said 'Aww, you made me cancel my jailbreak:(. Good job though, knew you could do it:)'. I shook my head, tucking the note away and continuing. Once in the forest, I dodged trees for a couple of miles until I came across a large cave opening. I ran inside of it, setting the pony down to the side. I deactivated my cloaking and my helmet to save power while I recharged. My eyes glowed and I could see that the end of the cave was blue... and was full of stars... and had red-and-yellow eyes.
"GRRRR..."
"Well, shit."

LOCATION UNKNOWN
Trixie Lulamoon stared into her reflection in a pond. It had been a few weeks since she had been run out of Ponyville. Since then she had been doing a lot of self-reflection.
"Should I keep doing this?" She asked her reflection.
"...Yes. The Great and Powerful Trixie will not be-" At that moment, a bowl full of gruel fell out of the sky and landed on her head.
"You know, on second thought, maybe not."

Author's Note

ERMAGHERD!
All the guards are supposed to be pretty inexperienced in live combat.
Drake's cloaking stops when he gets hit by something, or when he hits something hard.
Like my drawing? Best I could do. Well, it was on Microsoft Paint and I don't have anything else, so that's the best quality you're getting out of me.
Feedback is appreciated!

Thug Life

"GRRRRR..."
"That's a big bear." GLaDOS commented,
"You don't say." I snarked back, drawing my bow and grabbing the bat pony again while backing up towards the cave entrance. The bear stood up on its hind legs and gave an earsplitting a roar. I turned and sprinted to the cave entrance as the ursa minor charged toward us. I drew an arrow from the quiver and nocked it, then quickly turned around, taking a knee. I took a moment to adjust my aim and calm my breathing, counting heartbeats.
One

Two

Three, fire!
I released the arrow, allowing it to soar straight towards the ursa. The arrow penetrated the lens, slicing clean through the eye and burrowing into the brain, ending the creature's life.
According to physics, big things going at high speeds have a hard time stopping.
The ursa was big.
And it was going at high speeds.
Oh boy.
I slung my bow on my back and took a crouching position, readying myself for the jump I was about to make.
Just as the corpse neared me, I pushed hard with my thighs and ankles, throwing myself up in the air as it slid underneath me. I landed lightly in the place I was standing before in the clearing just outside the cave. I turned to see that the ursa had stopped when it smashed into a tree, toppling it in the process.
"Do we have an easy button?" GLaDOS asked out of the blue,
"No. Why?"
"Oh... no reason."
"Whatever." I said, walking out of the clearing and activating my helmet, letting the night vision kick in. I stealthily crept through the forest so as to avoid any more dangerous situations including the local wildlife. A few minutes later, a massive roar rolled over the forest, it's meaning lost to rage as something crashed through the forest half a mile north of me. With that indicator, I doubled my speed. Maybe I could reach the capital by noon.

Later that night.

LOG NO.4959
WEDNESDAY, 2:21 AM, 2551

The bat pony is awake. She won't stop staring at me. She's bound for the moment, but she's military, and most likely resourceful in some way or another. I'll have to keep an eye on her. I managed to completely circumvent the town I was arrested in this time, though I did see a couple of the bat ponies leaving with a cart, which means that I should try getting to the capital before dawn if possible. I don't have a fire and my reptilian nature isn't exactly keeping me warm, but my suit is utilizing temperature control to the best of its abilities. If whoever reads this is wondering why I haven't got a fire, read some of my other 4,959 logs. I'm running low on food now, only a few lemons left. I would go foraging, but I can't let the bat pony out of my sight.
Back on topic, the city is in sight, and I must say, the place looks...
like the most impractical assortment of bad engineering I've ever seen.
Seriously, how is that thing still on the side of the mountain? I would say they put some sort of massive anchoring into the mountain, but there's nothing on the exterior to suggest that. It's probably held up by nothing more than magic.
Let it be said here and now that ponies can't engineer for shit.

I saved the log, then closed the window off of my HUD and looked back at the bat pony, who was still looking at me with those fear filled eyes. It kind of... hurt. To be looked at with so much fear... it made me feel like a monster, especially since the fear was warranted. I averted my gaze, allowing it to stray to the aesthetically pleasing sight of the capital, looming over the surrounding plains. That one, lonely mountain... heh, lonely mountain. Because, I'm a dragon, going to a mountain with a capital in it and... you know what, forget it.
I stood up from my crouching position and walked over to my captive. She attempted to scoot away, but... well, scooting isn't exactly the best way to outrun someone. I checked to see that her legs were still securely bound and her muzzle still tight before slinging her over my shoulder again. I took off toward the lonely mountain at a brisk pace once more, keeping an eye on the clock in my HUD while also watching my surroundings.

The bat pony was still draped across my back as I hung from the rim of a circular platform that housed nothing but a pond and some waterfalls for some reason or another. I shuffled along the rim until I reached the rocks on the left side of the platform. I vaulted over the rim, landing on a damp rock. From there, I climbed upwards on the rocks until I was just under the rim of the next one, where there was a waterfall just next to us. I jumped up and grabbed the rim, then shuffled over to the right side of the platform that, for some reason, housed another pond. I scrambled up the side, balancing on the rim, before grabbing a conveniently placed raised walkway and lifting myself up on it as the tip of the sun appeared over the horizon.

I dashed up the path, activating my cloaking. At the end of the path was a building that reminded me of a wizard tower from Dungeons and Dragons or something. It had a band of stars wrapped around the circumference underneath the top balcony and a likeness of the sun was at the peak of the roof. I climbed up the side facing towards the outside of the city until I reached the top floor where I saw... lots and lots of books. And a giant hourglass. This was a library if I had ever seen one, which I hadn't in Equestria, but that's besides the point. My repulsor unfolded out of my wrist, set onto weld again. I melted my way through the glass, creating a hole just big enough for me and the bat pony to fit through. Once we were in, I laid the pony on the floor, then dug into the books. The sections were alphabetically ordered, so it was easy to find the records. Once I pulled them all out, I flicked through the files until one caught my eye...

MEANWHILE...
Dusk already had her muzzle off and had chewed through the bonds on her front hooves. At the moment she was attempting to get the ones on her back hooves off. She looked over her shoulders to check that the dragon was still occupied with whatever it was doing. She saw it was starting to stand up! She pulled at the bonds even harder, frantically trying to get away and tell her superiors that the dragon had broken into Twilight Sparkle's home and was ransacking it. She heard a low growl from behind her and pulled even more.
"DAMN IT! DAMN IT ALL!" The bonding finally snapped, allowing her to scramble out of the window and towards the palace. She looked over her shoulder to see the dragon jump out the window, performing a swan dive off the side of the tower.

PONYVILLE- NOON

Twilight Sparkle, accompanied by Rainbow Dash, walked towards the Ponyville police station. The two floor building fit in quite well with the rest of the town, with stark white walls, blue trim, and a bronze star overlaid onto a circle hanging on the door, bearing the word 'Sherriff'.
Today, however, the building was quite different today than on any other day they had seen it.
Across the front was a perimeter of yellow tape with the words 'POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS' on it, with several day guards stationed along the outside of it. The door was slightly ajar, allowing some to see a group of ponies wearing brown trench coats and fedoras inspecting blood coated floor, walls, and ceiling, occasionally snapping pictures with cameras.

"What's going on in there?" Twilight asked the nearest guard, an earth pony that looked pretty much the same as any other guard.
"Yeah, what gives?" Rainbow shouted.
"I'm not at liberty to say, ma'am." He answered stoically.
"Aw, come on, we're the Elements of Harmony! Let us in on it!" She said.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I have orders from Celestia herself not to let anypony in."
"Well we're not just anypony, pal!" Rainbow shouted.
"I know who you are, ma'am. This is out of the jurisdiction of the Elements. Move along."
Twilight sighed, "Rainbow, back off, let's go home."
"No, I'm figuring out what's in there!" She then launched into the air, flying right over the guard and police line, making a beeline for the door.
"Hey! Get back here!" The guard shouted as Rainbow Dash arrived at the door. She flung it open to reveal a room covered in blood. The five ponies in the room stared at her as her pupils shrank. She noticed one of them was holding something with their magic. She looked closer and realized it was... a piece of throat. The guard grabbed her from behind and pulled her out, closing the door behind them. He dumped the disturbed pony next to Twilight, who picked her up with her telekinesis.
"I'm sorry sir, it won't happen again!" She apologized, then trotted off, still carrying Rainbow Dash.

PONYVILLE- GOLDEN OAKS LIBRARY

Twilight flung the door of the library open, slamming it into Spike, who was thrown across the room, smashing into a bookcase and somehow not knocking all of the off the shelves. Twilight slammed the door behind her, causing all the books on the bookcase to fall on top of Spike, burying him in a mountain of books. She laid Rainbow Dash on the couch, then turned to Spike.
"Spike! Pick those books up! We can't have you making messes when we have a guest over!" She yelled, which was answered with a muffled groan. She turned back to Rainbow Dash. "Dash, what was in there?" She asked. No response.
"what was in there, Dash?" She said a bit louder. Still no response.
"WHAT DID YOU SEE?!" She shouted, finally eliciting a response from her. Dash looked up at Twilight and said,
"I don't wanna talk about it."

Author's Note

Sorry it took so long! Please don't cut me!
Give me suggestions on what you think I should do next!
I need OCs for baby dragons, Teen dragons, and a few adult dragons.
Shout out to Legionary, for making two of my top favorite FiM fics!
COMMENT BECAUSE I WANT YOUR APPROVAL!

Dreams of Destruction

Shattered glass trailed behind me as I spread my arms to either side. The leap of faith, as many call it, was actually easier than it looks. I used my tail to flip myself in the air as the rim of the city flew past me at alarming speeds and the wind rushed past me.
"ARE YOU CRAZY, OR STUPID?!" GLaDOS shouted. I looked down at her for a second before responding,
"Yes." I assumed a position that could be most closely compared to sitting, the water coming closer to me blaringly fast.
"Three, two, one, stop." Suddenly, the world stopped coming closer as time froze around me.
"WHAT THE FUCK?! ARE YOU CRAZY, OR STUPID?!" A deafening voice shouted from right behind me, one that would have knocked me over had I been standing up.
"YES!" I shouted, not realizing how loud I was shouting,
"YOU WERE JUST GOING THROW YOUR LIFE AWAY AFTER A SMALL SETBACK?!" It half shouted half sputtered,
"NO! I KNEW YOU WOULD HELP ME OUT!" I earned a deep growl for a few seconds before he let up.
"...Fine."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" I felt massive claws wrap around my body as shadowy black blocked my vision, moving me out of the air and setting me down on the ground.
"Do not try that again. I may not be able to save you." The presence left as I realized that whoever that was... it wasn't a man in white. I stood up and brushed myself off, retracting my helmet.
"What just happened?" GLaDOS asked,
"Let's not question life saving events." I shrugged, making sure all my things were in order before calmly starting my trek back to Ponyville.

5 HOURS LATER

I released a massive yawn, barely managing to cover my mouth as I stopped to lean on a tree, cloaked. At the moment I was in the town from the night before, stumbling towards where the file had directed me.
"Oooh... I'm really tired... GLaDOS, why am I tired?"
"You've been sleep deprived for several weeks now, using your cloaking a lot, which is draining a lot of your energy, you're completely out of food, and you've been running for several days now. Does that answer your question?"
"Yes... it does." I said, walking around the circumference of the really thick tree. I stopped in front of the door to the tree, taking a deep breath.
"Well, here goes nothing..." I raised a fist, then knocked on the door.
"COMING!" A juvenile voice from inside shouted, followed by "Woah, woah, woah, OOF!" and a loud thud, a patter of feet, and finally the door opening. What opened it was baby dragon, probably half as tall as me with my helmet retracted. He had purple scales and tall green spines and eyes with a beige underside. "I didn't think you'd be back so soon Twi...light?" He quirked an eyebrow, looking around. "Hello?" He said. I realized my cloaking was still active, so I deactivated it. His jaw literally dropped as he stared at me in terror. I retracted my helmet to show him I wasn't a monster. He looked slightly less terrified.
"Hi." I said.
"Uh... hi? Ack!" He yelped as I picked him up by his armpits and hugged him tightly. "Urk... Ack, can't breathe!" He wheezed.
"OH! Sorry." I apologized, setting him down to catch his breath. He took a few breathes before asking,
"Who are you and why did you hug me!?"
"I'm your brother!" He stared at me for a few awkward seconds before shaking himself out of the trance. "WHAT?!" He shouted, gaining the attention of some nearby ponies.
"Shhh! Come on, let's get inside!" He nodded dumbly as I ushered him into the tree house, closing the door behind us. We went up a flight of stairs, then sat on a couch in the bedroom upstairs.
"So, again, WHAT?!"
"We're bros!" He stuttered for a few seconds before fainting. The sight of him sleeping made me think of sleeping, and suddenly, my eyelids seemed like the heaviest things in the world.
"GLaDOS?"
"Yeah?"
"Wake me up when he wakes up." I said before drifting into slumber.
"Yeah... I'll do that..."

250 YEARS AGO.
A massive sleight gray building with a domed roof, half embedded in one of the mountains surrounding the massive city that sprawled out radially across the valley, the buildings ranging in diversity from short black obsidian dwellings to tall bright white crystalline structures. The tops of the bordering mountains were dotted with snow blasted watch towers sporting artillery and anti air guns that had just recently been fitted. The capitol of the dragon empire was a beautiful site indeed, though the inside of the aforementioned dome roofed building was a whirlpool of chaos.

A massive black and grey dragon, so large that he had to hunch over to not bump his head on the ceiling, high above the heads of any other in the room. Below, many large dragons ran about, carrying stacks of slates, or moving stone pieces around on a world map.
Next to his massive throne, a smaller one sat where a female dragon slept, curled up around a pair of eggs, one of them dark grey with a lighter grey stripe around its equator. The other was purple, with dark speckles sprinkled across its surface.

A smallish green dragon scampered in, stopping in front of a large crimson red dragon wearing -like most of the other dragons in the room- thick black titanium armor that covered his entire body except for his head, mostly because his helmet sat on a nearby table. On his back there was a massive claymore sword and a gun that, by human standards, would equate to a rapid fire artillery gun. He bent over to listen to what the green dragon had to say, then bolted upright. He waved his arms frantically to get King Alduin's attention. The great king turned his massive head to acknowledge the general, who nodded his head.
"Your majesty, we have lost radio contact with Valoran! Could it be-"
"It is... fortify the city limits, alert all guards and soldiers, and make sure all weapons are loaded and manned." He said calmly, the pages in the room each running off to notify all the ones the king had mentioned. "Brace yourselves... The Burning Queen approaches. Engineers, equip my armor." Dragons poured through the doors on either side, each carrying different pieces of the gargantuan dragon's armor, the first wave carried flexible interlocking pieces to cover everything below the neck except for the spines, made up of carbon fiber weaving and a gel layer to take in the force of impacts. After the first wave was finished, the second wave rolled in, each carrying a piece of the chrome colored armor pieces, a mix of titanium plates and adamantium to protect the vital parts, and a helmet covering only the top of his head, leaving his lower jaw free.

Once the engineers were finished, he stood, hunching even more. He turned towards the queen, a huge white dragon with black spines and glowing yellow eyes. He gently shook her, waking her from slumber.
"Caroline, you must take the eggs to the shelter." He whispered. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes before hardening her expression. She sat up, grabbing the eggs. She nodded, turning to go. Before she could take a step, Alduin stopped her.
"Wait." He took off a small section of his helmet, then gestured toward the gray egg. She held out the egg as a tear formed on Alduin's eye, then ran down his cheek, a bright white fire encased in the center of the tear. It fell off of his cheek, splashing onto the gray egg, which absorbed the entire thing. He replaced the piece of his helmet, taking one last look at his wife's grim visage.
"Do not worry, Caroline, she cannot trap my soul like the thousands she has before." he assured her,
"Just... just try to stay safe out there." She said, then dashed out of the room with the two eggs.

"General Tullius... Prepare for battle." He grabbed the Zu'u'fus, or rail gun, off of the wall behind him as the roof of the building split into four different segments. He spread his massive wings, taking to the skies along with the remaining three hundred elite soldiers.
"Today, we are fighting for our freedom.
Not from tyranny or persecution or oppression.
But from annihilation.
We're fighting for our right to live.
To exist.
and should we win the day...
then today will be the day the dovah declared with one voice that WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT!
WE WILL NOT VANISH WITHOUT A FIGHT!
WE WILL LIVE ON!
WE'RE GOING TO SURVIVE!" Alduin panned over the crowd, swinging his massive head around.
"TODAY, WE ARE CANCELLING THE APOCOLYPSE!" He boomed as the soldiers cheered for him.

Caroline dashed through the hallways, finally reaching her laboratory, the door was labeled 'Aperture Science', She burst through, grabbing a tiny device, then dashing out again as Cave Johnson, a tan dragon with dark brown spines and blue eyes threw his hands up at the mess his student, the queen, had just made.

Caroline sealed the door, flicking the lights of the vault on, bathing the utilitarian appliances in white light. She inspected the miniaturized GLaDOS unit. They had barely been able to get any coherent memories into it, but the personality matrix could be called nothing but perfect. This would be a gift to the first to hatch, which she had already decided would be the gray one. The moment she died, the GLaDOS would activate and help guide her child through the world. She set the eggs down on the bed, the GLaDOS on the nearby table, and grabbed a bundle of oranges out of the fridge, eating them in one gulp, then finally curling up around the eggs, beginning her two hundred twenty year nap.

Celestia hovered a couple miles away from the great city of Gondor, the Dragon Kingdom's capital city, her golden armor adorning her body. A griffin covered in red steel armor flew up next to her.
"Princess, the Blades are ready and at your disposal."
"Good. You know the procedure by now, contain them inside the city so I can concentrate on the spell, then pull out before the beam hits. Then, you get your payment."
"Yes ma'am." He turned to the eight thousand griffin mercenaries behind them. "LEEEET'S DO IT!" He shouted, prompting the Blades to cheer and surge forward towards the dragon city as a wave of blood red death.

As soon as the spear and net wielding griffins flew within range, the flack guns opened up, shredding enemies, only for them to be replaced by more. On the ground, hydra riding griffins and the odd pony here and there were pummeled by artillery strikes and gunfire from atop the mountains, much like their peers in the air. A loud swooshing sound was heard as three hundred massive silhouettes shot straight up out of the city, splitting evenly into two groups, going to either side of the swelling horde of griffins. In the front, a titanic figure shot out of the isolated city, a pulsating blue light coming from the device in it's claws. In a flash, a hole was punched through the entire griffin flock as a tungsten round decimated their ranks, going at a speed somewhere around twelve thousand kilometers per second, smashing into -and destroying- a mountain in the distance. Three hundred dragons descended on the griffins, hungry for the vengeance of their fallen cities. As the dragons reached them, the griffins split from the back to the front of their group, forming a V shape and pushing the dragons back above the city as Alduin swooped in, wiping out three rows with a single claw swipe, then firing his Zu'u'fus through. Blood saturated the ground as more and more soldiers from both factions fell. After what seemed like hours but was probably more like days the griffins let off, relieving the battered soldiers and king.

Suddenly, a far off white gleam caught his eye as the griffins began to retreat. He lifted the Zu'u'fus to look through the blood speckled scope, and what he saw chilled him.

He saw The Burning Queen hovering miles away, her horn glowing as bright as the sun. He looked up to see the sun flaring sporadically. He lifted his weapon to bear as a massive beam of plasma enveloped the city, burning all in it's path, Alduin's armor giving him enough time to fire off a single round into space before his body was burned to ashes and irradiated. A white and red entity flowed from the skeleton, streaming towards the destroyed capital building, deep into the bowels of Terra, phasing through the tungsten and adamantium, and settling inside of a grey egg...

A blue alicorn that had been watching from a distance covered her mouth with a hoof.
"Oh my..." She whispered to herself, before phasing out of the memory fueled nightmare as it ended.

THE DISTANT FUTURE- THE CITADEL
A huge fleet of starships duked it out around the citadel in a battle of Geth versus Alliance. The arms of the massive space station were just about to close as the SSV-Normandy squeezed in, followed by a tungsten/adamantine shell going at four percent the speed of light, smashing through the kinetic barriers of a giant sentient starship like so much paper mache and punching a hole straight through it, destroying its element zero core, then coming out the other side and smashing a hole out through one of the citadel's arms.
"The hell was that?!" Joker, the pilot of the SSV-Normandy yelled,
"Don't question it Joker, now take us in!" Commander Jane Shepard ordered.

I jerked up out of my sleep, breathing heavily. I looked around the room I was in, making sure everything was the same in the room. I looked down at the sleeping dragon that still slept next to me with a smile.
'I did it... I finally found him!
...
... What do I do now? Take him home? I can't stay here, I'm most likely wanted by the authorities. We could try the jungles, but... no, not the jungles. Ugh, I hate those wyverns. Yeah, let's go home.
I walked down the stairs and into a kitchen. I found a couple lemons and oranges sitting on the counter. I grabbed them, then went back up the stairs. I shook Spike awake.
"Spike, wake up, we need to leave soon." I whispered.
"Uugh... five more min- wait WHAT?!" He bolted upright, "Leaving? Why?"
"I'm a wanted dragon, I can't stay in Equestria much longer, and I'm not about to leave you behind after eleven years of searching for you. So, pack your bags and prepare your walking boots, we're going for the long haul."
"You're a CRIMINAL!?"

Author's Note

TheNomad360 and Fiction Lover read this! READ THIS! Anyone else can read it too if they'd like.
This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug, feel the weight!
Every five seconds, the main gun of Alduin's armory accelerates one to 4 percent of light speed.
It impacts with the force of a 38-kiloton bomb.
That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima, back on earth.
That means, Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space!
Now!
Serviceman Nomad360!
What is Newton's first law?!
TheNomad360: Sir, an object in motion stays in motion, sir!
No credit for partial answers, maggot!
The Nomad360: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!
DAMN STRAIGHT!
I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty.
Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going until it hits something!
That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship.
It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years!
If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime!
That is why you check your damn targets!
That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution!
That is why, Archangel Fiction, we do not 'eyeball it'!
This is a weapon of mass destruction!
You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!
Archangel Fiction: Sir, yes, sir!
Class dismissed!
Give me all yo OCs!
And comment please!
The ending is longer than it was before thanks to a bag of gum drops! Who knew!

Taking the hobbits to Gondor, and stopping to eat along the way.

"YOU'RE A CRIMINAL?!" Spike shouted, jumping off the couch.
"Aw, shit. Well, yeah, eleven years of searching for you might have gotten me to resort to some... extreme measures to find you."
"Like what 'extreme measures'?!"
"Well, most recently it was kidnapping, destruction of private property, breaking and entering, and theft."
"Most recently?!"
"Meaning today."
"TODAY!?"
"Yes." He paused for a moment, giving me an evil eye.
"If you're a criminal, and you kidnapped somepony, how do I know you're actually my brother, and not some creep trying to kidnap ME?!" I thought about it for a moment before I pulled an old, faded picture of a baby me holding a purple egg and smiling. I Smiled at the memory before handing it to Spike. He looked at it for a moment.
"That... that's really me... and... you." he furrowed his brow. "If I was with you, how did we get separated? Surely our mom would have-"
"Your mother's dead." GLaDOS cut him off mid sentence.
"W-what? She's dead? What about our da-"
"He was killed two-hundred-fifty years ago by The Burning Queen." I cut him off this time, frowning as the memories of my mother dying came back to me. "Let's go. We need to leave the country as soon as possible, so hurry up."
"B-but, what about my friends?!"
"Like who? We'll ask them if they want to come with."
"Well, Twilight would probably stop both of us, so we can't go to her. We should leave a note for her. Uh... who else is my friend... Pinkie?"
"NOPE."
"Okay, uh, maybe Derpy?"

A grey pegasus with a blonde mane walked out of sugarcube corner, a deep frown plastered onto her face.
"I don't even like muffins." She grumbled as she tossed a bag containing a banana nut muffin into a nearby waste bin. "Why did it have to be buckin' muffins?"

Ditzy was snapped out of her thoughts as she was approached by a baby dragon wearing a brown trench coat, hiking boots, a large backpack and a fedora.
"Uh, Ditzy, how are you doing today?"
"Oh, I'm just fine and dandy today, Spike. I just got done wasting my bits on another Celestia forsaken muffin, now I get to have a totally one sided conversation with you for the next few minutes. Today's just starting off buckin' super."
"... Can I ask you a question?" She gave him a deadpan look.
"Shoot."
"Uh, me and my big brother, Drake, wanted to know if you wanted to go on a journey to our homeland." If Ditzy had been drinking something at that moment, she would have most likely spit it into Spike's face.
"WHAT?!"
"We can get you muffins if you'd like!" I materialized in the shadows next to Spike, making Ditzy jump.
"Why would we get her muffins? She just said a few seconds ago that she didn't like muffins. The only thing she said about muffins was that she wasted some bits on some."
"What are you talking about? Muffins are the ONLY thing she's said!" I turned to Ditzy.
"What is your favorite thing in the world?"
"... My daughter." I turned back to Spike.
"See! She just said 'my daughter'."
"No! She said muffins!"
"Wait, you know what I'm saying?!" Ditzy interjected.
"Well yeah, should I not-" I didn't get to finish my sentence as the pegasus wrapped me in a bear hug.
"Finally, someone who can tell what I'm actually trying to say!" She cried, letting me go, "Of course I'll go with you! Just let me pack my things!" She started to turn around, but stopped. "Is it okay if I bring my daughter along?" She asked, tilting her head.
"It's probably a bit harsh out there... And there might be some disturbing stuff out there." They both looked at me curiously.
"Like what?" They both asked.
"Changelings, giant bugs, centaurs... I hate centaurs."
"Aren't centaurs half monkey, half pony?"
"No... Let's change the subject! You probably shouldn't bring your daughter, so try to find someone who can care for her. Once you've done that, we'll meet near the edge of the forest. We're skirting along the eastern edge of it, going north. Once we get to the end, we go northwest until we hit wasteland. Then we go north past Valoran ruin and into Gondor ruin. Once we get there we get over the mountains, past the boneyard and then we're home in the vault." Ditzy nodded, then galloped off towards her home.
"So all you could hear from her was muffins?"
"Mhm."
"Weird" I said, checking off another bit of the list displayed on my HUD.

~~Find brother~~

~~Bring him with me~~

~~find Ditzy~~

~~Ask Ditzy if she wants to come~~

Get home

Bond?

Ditzy Doo approached us at the edge of the Everfree, burdened by some saddlebags filled to the brim with foodstuffs and water bottles, while on her head was a brown Indiana Jones styled hat.
"Ready to go."
"Alright, let's get going." I said, taking the first step towards home.
As soon as the others started walking with me a strange song started in the background and they started singing,
"He's taking the hobbits to Isengard!"

5
hours
later

"He's taking the hobbits to Isengard. Isengard, gard-gard-gard-gard! They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!"
"AGH! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! PLEASE STOP SINGING!" Silence. "Ah. Thank you."
"My feet hurt." My scales flipped to black.
"FUUUUU-"
"Hey look, a town! Maybe we can stop and rest!" Ditzy pointed out.
"Yeah, maybe we should stop." I growled. How did they even know that song?!

Spike, Ditzy and I sat in a booth in a restaurant, the only ones there. Behind Ditzy there was a window displaying a quickly flowing river and the edge of the Everfree forest. Each of us had large menus covering our faces. A light blue unicorn trotted up to the table, a pencil and notepad floated next to his head.
"Hello, welcome to Riverside Café, my name is Hydra Wolf, I'll be your server today. What would you fellows like to drink today?" He asked cheerily.
"I'll have some lemonade." I answered
"Milk please." Spike said.
"I'll just have water, thanks."
"I'm sorry ma'am, breakfast time is over right now. There's a bakery just around the corner if you want, but is there anything I can get you right now?"
"She'll just have water." I answered for her.
"Aaaalrighty then! Milk, lemonade and water, coming right up!" He said, trotting back behind the counter.
Just as the waiter disappeared into the kitchen, a group of griffins threw open the door, laughing and yelling as they filed in, all seven of them, all wearing red and black leather armor that had Blades insignias on the shoulders.
"And vhen ze patient voke up, his skeleton vas missing, and ze doctor vas never heard from again!" A slim griffin with glasses said in a German accent.
"BWAHAHAHA! YOU ARE A FUNNY DOCTOR!" Shouted a Russian sounding one that was all muscle from head to toe.
"So anyvay, zat is how I lost my medical license." The Heavy stopped laughing.
"Oh..."
"Hey, hey bub!" I raised my menu slightly. "Hey, I'm talkin' to you, pal!" someone tapped on the other side of my menu.
"What?" I snapped.
"Alright, I'm gonna need ya to find somewhere else ta sit, cause, you see, me 'n my posse like ta hang here, and this is where we sit. So, we can do this the easy way and you move on your own, or we can do this the hard way. Your choice, bub."
I glanced up.
"I move on my own terms." I growled.
"Hey pal, you wanna look me in the face, when I'm talkin' to ya??" He tore the menu out of my hands, revealing my stern draconic face.
"I'd appreciate it if you'd give that back."
"Hey, guys! Lookie what we got here!" He pulled Spike and Ditzy's menus away. "A couple of dragons and a retard sittin' in our spot!" The six other mercs in the room walked over.
"If you'll excuse us-" I started to stand up, but was pushed down by the griffin.
"Hey, where ya goin', bub?" He pulled out a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it. "Ya know, we're a part of a group of mercs called the Blades..." He started. "We specialize in a certain field of work... do you know what that is?"
"What is it that your mercenary group specializes in?" I deadpanned, knowing the answer already.
"Dragons!" Spike gulped.
"And by that you mean dracos, a draconian species that closely resembles dragons, or Dov, but is generally less intelligent, more feral and is commonly referred to as dragon. We'll be going now." GLaDOS said. I stood up to leave again and, out of the corner of my eye I saw the mercs bringing their weapons to bear as Spike and Ditzy got up to leave as well. I pushed past the scout, heading for the door.
"Hey asshole!" I stopped. "You want a fight? Well, you're gonna get one!"
I pushed Spike and Ditzy towards the door. "Get out of here, I'll handle them."
"But-"
"NO! I can handle them, you can't. Me yes, you no. Now get going!" I shoved them out, then turned back towards the mercs and activating my helmet. I unsheathed my swords in a flourish, taking a battle stance.
"I came here to kick ass and drink lemonade," I looked the griffin that had been talking to us before in the eye, cracking my knuckles.
"And the lemonade never came."

Hydra Wolf was having a great day!
He flipped the final pancake for the day.
"I love the smell of three hundred seventy two thousand, eight hundred forty five pancakes in the morning!"
He picked up a tray with three drinks with his magic.
"Smells like victory!"
He strode out into the front room to find an epic stand off between the eight griffin mercenaries that regularly visited the restaurant and what looked like a small dragon wearing a strange helmet and brandishing a pair of razor sharp swords.
"Have a taste o' this!" One of them said, lighting a stick of dynamite and throwing it towards the dragon, who simply kicked it back towards the group of mercenaries.
"Well, shite." One with a bow said before being obliterated. The explosion from the dynamite threw the three surviving mercs forward, killing all the rest and partially destroying the wall and bar.
Hydra Wolf ducked behind the bar, which protected him from most of the shrapnel.
"Ready, Naerud?" He asked to seemingly no one.
"I cannot engage that dragon in combat, you must do it on your own." A deep voice answered in his head.
"Why not?"
"He is the son of an ancestor-god, and a very powerful one at that. It would be unwise to attack him."
"Fine then, I'll just incapacitate the mercs"
"AGH! MY SPINE!" A wail floated over the counter.

Author's Note

I has Ditzy and soon I will has Hydra Wolf and Naerud.
I made the mercs TF2 guys just cause.

Bleeding Out

"MY SPINE!"

I snapped my head over to the merc with a longsword and an army helmet, who now had a sharp piece of ice lodged in his spine. I looked up to the ceiling to see a hundred floating crystals of ice, ready to drop on my head. Taking my foot off the heavy's throat, I jumped backwards away from the griffins. The ice struck as soon as I was out of the drop zone, impaling the mercs, alive or dead, a hundred times over. I looked around the room to find the source of the attack, seeing a teal glow from behind the bar. I vaulted over it, a levitation spell being broken by my helmet as I landed lightly in front of a unicorn and held my sword to his throat.

He had hazel eyes, a cool blue coat, deep blue mane and tail, a lean build, and a marking on his flank of a tidal wave and a wolf's head. He looked behind me and smirked as his horn glowed.
'He's just trying to get me to look away so he can get the jump on me. I heard a cracking from behind me, but stayed focused on what I was doing. A loud crash finally got my attention as I looked behind me to see that the wall had broken open and-
"Three hundred seventy two thousand eight hundred forty five pancakes incoming!" GLaDOS shouted, stating the obvious fact that there was a massive cloud of fresh, hot pancakes floating in from the kitchen. I vaulted over the bar again, then dashed out through the burning hole in the wall with the pancakes following close behind. The pancakes dropped just as I reached Ditzy and Spike, burying all but our heads under a mountain of cooked breakfast goods.
I groaned, pulling a singular arm free. "Once I've taken care of my brother, I will wage war on..."
A dramatic DUN DUN DUN from nowhere sounded.
"Pancakes!" I ground my teeth together as a sharp pain in my stomach made itself known, before the area went numb.

3 minutes later.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" The blue unicorn from behind the bar walked around the pile, a smug grin dominating the lower portion of his face.
Darkness pulled at the edges of my vision as I looked up at him.
"Most likely internal bleeding-" I coughed, causing a stabbing feeling in my abdomen and spraying droplets of blood across the display inside my helmet. "Yep, definitely internal bleeding." I said as the darkness enveloped the world around me.
"--What happened to hi--" A voice echoed.
"-- impaled on his own--" another voice said.
"--FIX--"
"--I'll try!--"
"--the hilt is in his stom--"
Then everything went quiet.

I was floating in a dark void, the emptiness comforting me. I reached and rooted around in my own mind, finding memories and emotions, some mine, most not.
I found a memory of my time as a human and entered it.

230 YEARS AGO
I stood next to a couch, still my dragon self. My human self sat on the couch, leaning forward and rapidly tapping buttons, moving thumb sticks, and pulling triggers. On the screen was a game, just a generic military shooter. I sat down beside my former self, who seemed not to notice me. Something didn't feel quite right. It just didn't seem... natural to see myself like that. I couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness about this scene, so I turned to a different one of my memories. A darker memory.

14 YEARS AGO
I appeared in a dimly lit cave, looking out of a small opening. Really, the word cave didn't do it justice. It was more of a 'giant vault'. To put it in perspective, it was like looking from the perspective of an average sized cat. I was my baby self, only seven years old, hiding inside of the firing chamber of a massive gun. Outside, a battle raged between a legion of griffins plus one alicorn and a massive female dovah, covered head to toe in porcelain white armor and armed to the teeth with all manner of guns, rockets, blades, and lasers. Tiny hands pressed against ears did nothing to drown out the sounds of explosions, gunfire, and screams coming from the outside. All of the sudden, every thing went silent.

Luna watched from afar the procession of the battle. The white dragon had done an admirable job defending her home, but she was on her last leg. The few remaining griffin forces were taking cover behind boulders as Caroline recovered from their last attack. A hundred gashes and stabs, she could handle. A severed wing? She could live without it. A throat? That was something that she needed. Her armor was quick to automatically patch the wound, but that was only temporary. Stimpacks injected into her bloodstream for the hundredth time that day, and they were gratefully received. The once great queen stood to her full height, dwarfing any living being nearby. Celestia descended from the clouds, her golden armor shining out and catching the attention of the only other royalty in the area that wasn't skeletonized.
"The Burning Queen... I should have known you'd find once I opened the vault again." The queen rasped, her once silken voice reduced to what sounded like an eighty five year old human that smokes six packs of cigarettes a day.
"Queen of dovahs, I have judged you and your kind to be a major threat to my kingdom. What say you in your defense?" The queen paused for a moment, considering what the Burning Queen had just said to her.
"WE ARE THE THREAT?! YOU DRIVE OUR SPECIES TO THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION AND YOU CALL US THE-" The queen was cut off by a bright flash and a boom. When Luna's eyes readjusted, the queen had been completely stripped to the bone of any and all flesh, obviously dead. Her skeletal remains, plus armor, dropped to the ground, raising a plume of dust. The griffins stalked past her, and into the vault as Celestia simply glided in.
"Find the eggs, then we leave." She commanded. The griffins spread out in a search pattern. Luna sensed that the dreamer was in strife, so she assumed a gaseous form and slithered along until she found where they were hiding. In front of her was a massive machine with a large rectangular piece and a long cylindrical one coming out of the side. In the machine, Luna sensed, was the dreamer in question. There was a slit where she could see into the small place that the subject was in. She solidified and peeked through the slat. Inside of the dark room she could clearly see a baby dragon, shivering in fear. Perks of being the goddess of night.
"Ahem... Uh... there, there, everything is going to be okay." She said in her best motherly voice. The baby dragon looked up and jumped at the sight of her, backing further into a corner.
Realizing that he probably wouldn't be too friendly with an alicorn, after just reliving his mother being killed by one, she changed her form to that of a blue baby dragon with eyes like a starry night. She opened the sliding door and climbed in, looking to Drake who, instead of quaking with fear, was now looking at her curiously.

I shivered inside the firing chamber of the gun after witnessing my mother's death again in my dreams. Suddenly a dark figure blotted out the light from outside, leaving me with nothing but my eyes for illumination. It mumbled something then disappeared. The breach opened. This was new. A blue baby dragon climbed in, the breach closing behind her. She had light blue scales and her eyes were filled with stars and galaxies. I cocked my head to the side in curiosity, wondering what was going on.
"What is your name?" She asked.
"My name is Loki. What's yours?"
" I am Luna. You are experiencing a nightmare, and I will end it for you, to bring you more pleasant dreams." I blinked. The death scene was gone, instead replaced by the dark void, though now I was my usual self. Still in front of me, Luna's eyes widened for a second before she returned to her usual composure. She grabbed my claw for a second before letting go. "I will find you in reality. Now awaken."

I jerked awake, bolting upright. I soon regretted it. I looked down at my stomach to see a bloody, luminescent blue mess of jagged tears and rends. I eased myself back down, feeling the hole both in myself and in the bed I was currently laying in. I looked around the room to see Ditzy sleeping in a nearby chair, snoring quietly.
"Uh, hello?" I called, hoping I wasn't about to become a Rick from the Walking Dead.
"One sec!" A muffled voice from outside the room called. The doors opened, revealing the blue pony from before and my little brother.
"You!" I shouted as loud as I could, which wasn't exactly the loudest I had ever spoken.
"Yes, me. I've been trying to fix you up all night, but it hasn't exactly gone very well."
"Why not?"
"Well, I know absolutely nothing about your biology, and anytime I tried to stitch you up the stitches got burnt away by your blood."
"Yeah, what's up with that, anyway?" He asked, clearly uninformed.
"Yours isn't?" Spike asked, but the pony steered the conversation away from the topic.
"Anyways, you have a very important visitor!" He exclaimed in an almost giddy fashion. He trotted back to the door. "He is ready to be visited." He shouted into the next room which, by the sound of things, had stopped being on fire.
A new figure strode into the room with royal poise. A tall dark blue pony with both wings and horn walked into the room. Her chest and hooves were covered by jet black pieces of armor, the chest piece bearing a crescent moon insignia. Her mane was filled with stars and when our gazes met, I knew who I was talking to, though a feeling of dread filled me when Spike and Hydra Wolf bowed to her.
"Luna?"
"Loki."

Author's Note

This is why we don't run with scissors, kids. Impalement.
We found out Drake's real name!
Will an alliance with Luna be made?
Will Spike ever find out his real name?
Will Loki and Spike ever have an actual conversation?
Find out in the next exciting installment of Dragon Ba- dammit!
Find out in the next exciting installment of Draconic Relations!
Thank you to everyone who liked, favorited, and commented on Draconic Relations! It always brings a smile to my face to see more of those!
And for those who disliked it...
Eh, it's your opinion.

Wait, What?!

"Who's Loki?" Spike asked.
"That is Loki." Luna answered, pointing to me with a hoof.
"His name's Drake."
"He said it was Loki."
"Why are you a pony?!" I interjected, though it went virtually unnoticed.
"But he told me it was Drake!"
"Well it would seem that thou brother has been lying to one of us."
"You lied to me!" I tried again. "You were in my memory!" They both turned to me with questioning looks.
"So, what is thou real name, dovah?"
"I am Loki dovahsebrom Zeymah Morolah Sahronaaz Kul Caroline Kul Alduin. Or Drake. Drake's fine."
Spike whistled. "That is one long name."
"Kul Caroline..." Luna echoed, "Does thou mean to say that the armored dragon from thou memory was Caroline, and she was your mother?"
"Geh."
"Wait, what?" Spike asked, though it was his turn to be ignored. "Our mom? Memory?"
"Oh, Celestia, what were thou thinking?" She turned to leave, but decided against it. "You are still wounded though..." Her horn glowed and I tensed up. I looked down to see a long, silver object sliding out of my abdomen.
"Oh, that's just weird." I muttered as the tip finally came out. Her horn glowed brightly, making my flesh and armor stitch itself back together.
"Thou hast been healed. Do not forget that you owe me quite a bit. I will be going now." She turned to leave again, but I stopped her.
"What do you mean I owe you?"
"Thou owe me because of the guards that thou hast murdered, because thy did not alert my sister to thou location, and for healing thou." She concluded, then continued out the door. Spike stood stunned next to Hydra Wolf, who looked generally less stunned at the revelation.
"Waitwaitwait, you murdered royal guards?!" Spike asked loudly.
"It was them or me." I grumbled, sitting up and propping myself up on my pillow.
"Oh, what am I gonna tell Twilight?" He whined, pacing around the room.
"You aren't going to tell 'Twilight' anything. You understand?" I looked over at him to see he was holding a rolled up scroll in front of his mouth. He blew a flash of green fire on it and it turned into a mist, floating out of the room with obvious purpose. He chuckled nervously as I gave him a hard glare.
"What did you do?" I asked with a dangerous edge.
"Drake..." GLaDOS warned.
"What did you do?" I asked again.
"Well, eheh, you see..." He started backing up toward the door. I swung my legs over the side and rose to my full height.
He panicked and sprinted out the door, and I found myself in close pursuit.
"I SPENT ELEVEN YEARS TRYING TO FIND YOU," I shouted after him, though it didn't make him stop. "I'M NOT LETTING YOU GO!"
I jumped through the hole in the wall behind him and into the sunset light, where, instead of a normally quiet town, a semi-circle of guards in gleaming golden armor welcomed me. I skidded to a stop.
Spike ran past them through a gap in the semi-circle and over to a very tall, white pony with both wings and a horn, and shining golden armor adorning her body. There was a flash of white light and suddenly, Spike was gone.
I remembered what had happened to my mother and came to the conclusion that... she had just murdered my only surviving family member in cold blood without flinching.
I was facing the Burning Queen.
"You monster." GLaDOS whispered.
"Dragon, you stand before the might of Equestria as a criminal. You have been charged with murder, armed assault," She started going down a long list that she had summoned. As she spoke, I formulated a plan.
Run like hell.
I turned and sprinted back into the house, where Hydra Wolf and Ditzy sat, wondering what exactly was happening. I heard the loud sound of royal guards clamoring after me. I ran past the two ponies in the room, grabbing my bow and quiver, but I didn't have enough time to grab my swords as when I tried, a spear lodged itself into the wall in front of me. I dashed towards the window and jumped, activating my helmet midway towards the window, then smashing through it headfirst. I rolled in midair until I hit the ground. I popped up to my feet, then cloaked and headed north as quickly as I could.

I ran until the sun was far below the horizon, and the moon was high in the sky. Ahead of me was the ruin of Valoran, a once flourishing hub of trade, now reduced to nothing more than dust and ashes.
Cracked earth crumbled under my claws as I slowed to a stumble near a cave full of mossy green plants.
"You look like shit." A gravelly voice said as an empty beer bottle rolled past my feet.

Author's Note

A bit of a short chapter.
I got some major writers block.
But just remember.
You will be baked.
Then there will be cake.

Reclaimer

Note: all italics signify a character speaking Dovah (dragon language) because I don't want to spend hours on the wiki.

I jerked my head up and attempted to cloak, but instead of fully cloaking I simply flickered in and out of invisibility as I backpedaled away from the cave, almost falling over. A perfectly camouflaged form emerged from the shadows in front of me, blocking any view of the inside of the cave. It stood at what I guessed was about ten feet tall and cradled a long-barreled sniper rifle in it's arms.
An army green hood obscured their features, while matching military fatigues and black ammo pouches covered the rest of his body. His back was covered with a desert camo ghillie suit with a partially skeletonized wing jutted out the side.
"Relax kid," He said in a gravelly voice. "If I wanted to kill you, you would have been dead three miles ago."
My eyes widened for a moment as I realized that he was telling the truth.
And that those two statements were polar opposites.
"Then why didn't you?" I asked, tilting my head, my helmet following suit. He stepped forward and pulled down his hood and revealed a rugged face. He had sharp brown eyes that complemented his thin, if a bit scruffy, features and pale scars that raked across his face. His scales were army green, while his underbelly was lime green. A dark brown, almost black, spine travelled from the tip of his snout to his tail.
"I don't kill other dovah unless they try to kill me." He said, a smile playing across his face for a moment before getting serious again.
"And you're lucky enough to catch me sober." He slung the rifle over his back, then motioned for me to follow. "Come on in." He turned around, then walked inside with me stumbling after him. Really, what else was I supposed to do?

I stepped over the blunt, tooth-like spikes that ran along the top and bottom of the mouth of the cave. I stepped onto a metal grate floor. The entire cave was covered with a brown mesh, covering the steel floor, walls, and ceiling, while empty beer bottles covered every surface not in use. In one corner there was a weapon station with a weapons bench, a weapons rack, and other things for maintenance of guns. Off in another corner there was a bed with a tomahawk and shotgun leaning against it. Dim lights hung from the ceiling, bathing the area in soft yellow light. I folded my helmet down, even if I still wasn't sure about this guy, even with his nice setup, he still had be an alcoholic of sorts if he had this many bottles lying around... unless they were all really old and he had just been here a really long time. Which was also possible, given his size and apparent age.

"Welcome to my humble abode," He said spreading his arms. "Foods over there --" He gestured towards a grimy brown fridge that probably used to be white. "And I'm Ovronaan, or Ov. How about you?"
"Loki... call me Drake, though." I looked down to see why GLaDOS wasn't speaking, because she would have usually said something by now.
Her light was out, probably meaning that she had either turned herself off to conserve power, or we had just run out of power.
The latter was most likely.
"Dammit" I muttered.
"Huh?" He turned around,
"Oh, nothing, I just ran out of power."
"Ran out of power?" He asked concernedly. "How low are you?" He asked, setting his rifle down on the bench and shedding his ghillie suit to reveal a set of armor that his other apparel covered that included a set of heavy black armor plating with gold edging, armor that only elite soldiers of the Dov Military wore. Ov was likely some high ranking field officer or something to have armor like that.
"Uh... empty?" I guessed. he opened the fridge, then grabbed a lemon before shutting it and throwing it to me.
"Eat up. I've got some questions I need to ask." I bit into the acidic fruit gratefully. Ovronaan sat on his bed and attached a chestplate onto his armor, matching the black and gold coloring.
After eating the lemon, I stood there for a little bit. "...So?"
"Huh?"
"What did you need to ask me?"
He fumbled with his words for a second. "Uh... first, what's your name?"
"Call me Drake."
"Is that your real name?"
"...No."
He shook his head ruefully. "Whatever... Where'd you get your gear?"
"Half of it's custom, half of it is... scavenged."
"And my final question; Were you, at any point in time and space, in a human form?"
I stared at him in shock. "W-what?"
He sighed. "Were you ever a human in the human world?" He repeated.
I continued to stare at him. "H-how do you-"
"Do you remember being here before being human?" He interrupted.
"...No." I answered, fearing that I may have gotten it wrong.
He took a deep breath then released it slowly. "Either they got something wrong with you... or you were in an egg before the project." My eye twitched.
"So, what you're saying is that I was always a dragon, even before I was human? How does that even work?"
"To answer your first question, that's exactly what I'm saying. And to answer your second... I honestly have no fucking clue how that works. How 'bout you go ask your mom?" He punched a non-descript part of the wall as he said this, causing a hairline crack to form in the wall and widen, becoming a thick door leading that opened to a chrome room that looked suspiciously like an airlock. Behind me, the opening to the cave was closing as a triple seal door with wide teeth on the top and bottom closed.
"M-my mom?"
"Yeah... your REAL mom."

Author's Note

"This is not your grave, but you are welcome in it"

Propaganda Filler

Fillies and colts sat at their desks in the Ponyville schoolhouse, gazing out the windows and wishing for glorious freedom. Many of them scribbled notes and passed them about each other. Snickers, giggles, and groans could be heard throughout the classroom as a magenta unicorn mare with three daisies for a cutie mark lectured them about the principles of something or other, not that most of the children cared enough to find out what exactly was being taught at the moment. To any outside onlooker, it might seem as if the Equestrian culture severely undervalued education, though that may have just been the mentality of being a rather small town in comparison to cities such as Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Canterlot itself.

The teacher glanced up at the clock. It was two-fifty-five. Five minutes until the class was dismissed. She erased the blackboard and pulled down a projector screen.
"Alright, children, I am afraid that we have to cut today's lesson short," Faces brightened across the room. "But first we must watch a PSA that was sent from Canterlot. Now, does anypony know what PSA means?" A single white hoof shot up, eliciting snickers from a certain corner.
"Yes, Sweetie Belle?"
"A PSA is a Public Service Announcement!" The filly said proudly before sticking her tongue out at her friends.
"Good job! Now this announcement is to warn you of the dangers of dragons! Watch the projection, please."
The unicorn levitated a clear gem into a little stand specifically meant for these types of gems.
She slid it in carefully, then directed a stream of magic into it, causing a black and white image to appear on the screen.
A menacing song started playing.

DRAGONS
and why they should be avoided

the scene changes and it now shows a group of fillies in a field, hugging and smiling in an excruciatingly obvious expression of friendship and happiness. Then, the scene darkens and a massive (obviously fake) reptilian beast comes roaring out of the sky with a mouthful of gleaming white fangs, legs ending in razor sharp claws, dark wings that blot the sky, and eyes full of hate. It swooped down upon the now terrified looking fillies, breathing fire into the air and gnashing its teeth.

If you see a dragon, do not attempt to fight it away or scare it. Simply inform your local police department, and stay indoors.

Next, it showed a group of police ponies with Celestia (And Luna, I guess) chasing after the dragon, the dragon, of course, went from menacing to comical with this transition and the class, which had started to huddle up and shake, released each other and started giggling as a funny song started in place of 'Dreams of Cruelty'. The teacher lifted the gem out of the stand, putting it back into the desk drawer.
"That's all for today, but before you can go, you must answer a question." The entire class groaned.
"What did we learn from the cinematic today?"
"Don't go near dragons." Almost the entire class droned, then stampeded out the door, leaving Cheerilee in a dust cloud.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DRAGON CATCHERS, YAAAY!" Cheerilee was spun around on one hoof and left choking on dust.
She coughed a few times before realizing what the three had just said.
"WAIT, COME BACK!"

Author's Note

Just a bit of an experiment on my part to ease the writers block on the next chapter of the main storyline.
I might tie it in with the storyline, but we'll just have to see.

Drunken Royalty

"Weeeell, not your real mother, per say. More like your real mother's personality that was stored on a Genetic Life-form and Disc Operating System so that she could personally oversee a massive operation from beyond the grave." He explained. I stared at him blankly.
I was doing that a lot, lately.

SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER

A pair of dragons sat on a charcoal grey couch, in a slate grey room, watching a rounded, fisheye screen that dominated a single wall, leaving the rest of the room blank and barren, though mysteriously well lit.
The dragons were roughly the same size as Drake, or Loki as he was now known as. The first had glossy black scales that seemed jagged and a bit frayed at the moment. He had red eyes, a medium sized jagged ridge of sharp spines stuck out from the tip of his nose to the end of his tale, which ended in a broad, though still sharp and very pokable, isosceles, and a pair of thin skeletal wings. He wore charcoal grey hooded robes that had ebony plating fitted to the exterior. His hood was currently down.
This particular dragon, who we'll call Dovah A for now, looked very angry right now. He barely contained a snarl as he leaned forward in a very involved and aggressive manner.

The other dragon in the room, Dovah B, had shining, golden scales that may or may not have been what was causing the room to be so well lit, bronze eyes, a black spine, and full, massive wings that were folded on his back. He wore absolutely nothing and laid back on the couch with his tail in front of him. He toyed with the blade on the end of his tail while waiting for Dovah A to come to whatever important decision he came to, even if he didn't exactly need to wait.

Dovah A extended his arm with his hand splayed, then brought it up, summoning a semi-circular table from the floor in front of him covered with all sorts of computers, paper documents, and mini chairs that had mini psychiatrists sitting in them, all attempting to give him conflicting advise at the same time. He sighed and pushed it back down into the floor.

"That was the thirtieth time you've done that. Something else, perhaps?" Dovah B asked, summoning a kaiju plushie stand and grabbing an Otachi plush and de-spawning the stand. He set the toy next to Dovah A, who batted it away.
"I don't need toys right now, dad. I need to focus."
Dovah B, who happened to be Dovah A's father, slumped a bit.
"You're no fun anymore." He muttered. Dovah A snapped his head around.
"No FUN?! Why in the nine plains of fucking Oblivion would I be any FUN right now?! Seeing my own skeleton is NOT FUN! Seeing the mass genocide of our species and their near extinction is NOT FUN! How could you even consider wasting time on things just because they're FUN?!" He was standing up by now and had taken an aggressive stance.
Dovah B regarded him, if not lazily, calmly.
"The last time you blew off any steam was in Nirn, and that was when you were reviving the dov of that plane and devouring the souls of the local human and elf populace. You've got issues."
Dovah A lost the aggressive stance and flopped onto the couch next to his father, running his hands down his own face.
"Don't... don't remind me about that. I was being an idiot, and got myself and all the other Dovah there killed because of my stupidity."
"Don't call yourself stupid, Alduin."
Dovah A, now dubbed Alduin, sighed and pushed himself up off of the couch. "Waddya say we get something to drink?" He asked.
His father simply nodded and started the tedious task of lifting oneself from the oh-so-comfy couch that his grandson had stored in his mind for some reason. Alduin summoned a small, round table with a couple of chairs. He picked up one of the beers off of the table.
"Cheers?"

"The point is," Alduin said, now sporting a fine british accent, "The point is. The point is." He tried to focus on the still-yet-to-be-named Dovah B.
"The point is," he said, trying to think of a point.
"The point I'm trying to make," He said, brightening. "is the dolphins. That's my point."
"Kind of fish." Said Dovah B, also sporting an accent, as he observed the first person view of Loki running on the screen.
"Nononono," Said Alduin, shaking a claw. "'s mammal. The actual mammal. Difference is-" He waded through the swamp of his mind and tried to remember the difference. "Difference is they-"
"Mate out of water?" volunteered Dovah B.
Alduin's brow furrowed. "Don't think so. Pretty sure that's not it. Something about their young. Whatever." He pulled himself together. "The point is. The point is. Their brains."
He reached for another glass.
"What about their brains?" Asked Dovah B.
"Big brains. That's my point. Size of. Size of. Size of damn big brains. And then there's the whales. Brain city, take it from me. Whole damn sea full of brains."
"Kraken," Said Dovah B, staring moodily into his glass.
Alduin gave him the long cool look of someone who's just had a boulder dropped in front of their train of thought.
"Uh...?"
"Great big bugger, sleepeth beneath the thunders of the upper deep. Under loads of polypol- polipo- bloody great big seaweeds, you know. Supposed to come to the surface only when the sea boils, like the dear old Burning Queen makes et."
"Yeah?"
"Fact."
There you are, then," Alduin said, sitting back, "Whole sea bubbling, poor old dolphins s much seafood gumbo, no one giving a damn. Same with gorillas. Whoops, they say, sky gone all red, beams of light burnin up the ground, what they putting in the bananas these days? And then-"
"They make nests, you know, gorillas." interrupted Alduin's father, pouring another drink and managing to hit the glass on the third go.
"Nah."
"i's true. Saw a film. Nests."
"That's birds."
"Nests!" Dovah B insisted.
Alduin decided not to argue the point. "There you are, then. All animals, great and smoke. I mean great and small. Great and small. Lot of them with brains. And then, bazamn."
"Well, they're smoke now, then." Dovah B said.
"Wot? Why're they smoke now?" Alduin asked.
"They've all been vaporized, they have!"
"I'd have thought they'd be ashes, not smoke."
"Maybe they're both." Dovah B concluded.
"Oooooh. I see." Alduin said before glancing over at the screen where Ovronaan was currently being displayed. He jumped up, nearly knocking the table over.
"Lookit- Taazokaan dovah sharpshooter right there, that is!" He shouted excitedly, pointing at the screen.
"He looks a bit like one of those deserter fellows." Dovah B commented before belching. "You know what's great about being in someone's mind?" he asked in a philosophical tone.
"Wassat?"
"We can get drunk."
Alduin nodded in agreement. "What was that about deserters?"
"That guy there. 'e looks like some sorta deserter, or a mercenary."
"They'd 'a shot us up by now if they were."
"Indeed."
They remained silent for a little while as they both drank and watched Loki's life happen.
*thud*
Dovah B looked over to see how Alduin was now sitting, which happened to be face first on the floor.
"Might as well sober up now." He muttered, wincing as the alcoholic influence left his mind. He then summoned a Swiffer to clean up all the spilled beer.

Author's Note

Hope someone got the massive reference that this was, even if it's a 20 year old literary reference.
This was about Alduin and his father who, if you've ever paid attention to Skyrim lore, you would know what his name is. Or if you've played oblivion.
a dragon's isosceles is a triangular end-piece for their tail that can act like a hook or a spear, depending on the situation. either way, you don't want to get poked by one.
This was from inside of Drake's , or Loki's, head.

Intruder alert! A blue pony is in the base!

The airlock, elevator, and tight labyrinth of tunnels were a blur. Ovronaan gave me a hand-sized data-pad that displayed a transparent map of where I needed to go, then sent me off on my way. His explanations were that he couldn't fit through those tunnels anymore, and that he needed to keep watch anyway, both of which made perfect sense. At the moment I was in front of a black blast door in a hallway that widened out from about twenty feet back with no cover. A bottleneck, I realized. A control panel with blinking lights covering its surface protruded slightly from the smooth, porcelain white walls.
The data-pad pinged and showed a red dot around where the button would be on the map. I walked over to it, completely lost on which button to press. My claw hovered an inch above the buttons, one at a time. It reached a red laser of some sort and a grid of red lines covered my entire body. I jumped back a little bit, but didn't take any action on it.
"IDENTIFICATION: QAHNAARIN-No. UNKNOWN
ARMOR CLASS: LIGHT/UNKNOWN
WELCOME HOME, QAHNAARIN." It said in a robotic monotone.
The doors quickly slid back into the walls to reveal a massive chamber, the entire thing bleach white and very well lit.
I squinted in the intense light, then activated my helmet, which polarized and allowed me a bearable level of light. I wandered in. There were no visible doors, but I could definitely see a row of windows to my left, up near the ceiling. They had smokey tinted glass, and the seven figures watching him from above were perfectly silhouetted against a dim light from behind them.
They were definitely dovah, but they were wearing some sort of armor. It didn't look smooth and rounded like mine, but rather angular, with pieces sticking off in places. I was about to see if I could get a closer look at them, but a synthetic female voice cut in before I could start.
"Hello, Loki. It's nice to see you again. Last time I saw you, you were just an egg. But personal feelings aside, I think it's time to get down to business. You've been away far longer than anticipated, but we can still continue. You just need some... extra-hard practicing. That's it." She said. I quirked my head. This definitely sounded like my mother, but I had a hard time figuring out what she was talking about.
"Um..." I managed, still barely having enough energy to hold a steady conversation.
"Oh. You're tired. I should have known Alduin would have you running ragged. He never could gage peoples' limits. Come in, i'll get you cleaned up." She said in a sort of exasperated, yet motherly, tone. I nodded dumbly and a pair of panels separated from the wall to reveal a door. I walked into it and the wall closed up behind me.

One of the dovah behind the window turned their head to look at the one next to them.
"Kaaz, are we absolutely sure that it's him?" He asked the one next to him.
"On it. The info from his armor uplink and mobile unit are being uploaded as we speak, commander." She said in a Russian, or perhaps German, accent.
"Good. Sah, what do you make of that helmet he had on?"
"Lots of advanced electronics and mech in there. Folds over his head, most likely has a heads up display inside. Also saw traces of magical residue... high possibility of arcanite somewhere in there." He reported.
"Alright. Rahgol?"
"Nothing to report, sir." A male voice announced.
"Tuz?"
"Bow, quiver, high penetration arrows, looks like some magnetic clips for side-arms or one-handed melee weapons." She responded simply.
"Mirmulnir?"
"'m pretty sure it's all covered, commander." He responded in an Australian accent.
"Alright then. Kaaz, what's the status of that upload?"
"Done and done, commander. Here's a basic overview." She handed him a data-pad that showed schematics, walls of text, and snapshots of various locations.
"...What am I supposed to get out of this?" He asked.
Kaaz sighed. "He grew up in a large artificial cave with his mother until he was ten. The Burning Queen shows up, boom! No more queen Caroline. After she left, he salvaged some prototypes from the armory and made his armor and weapons. He went lone wolf for ten years after that, searching for the egg of his brother. About a year ago he finds out it's in the capitol pony city. He goes there, finds out it's in a nearby town, retrieves the hatchling, then continues about heading northwards toward his old cave. His brother somehow gets a message to the Burning Queen and she's right there. Brother gets poofed, he runs away, comes up to here by chance, and here we are now." She said in one breath. The other dovah gave her a look.
"You do know how crazy that all sounds, don't you?" Rahgol asked.
"Of course I do, but the data doesn't lie. He's been lone wolf for half his life here, which, might I add has been much longer than ours currently. He's been through too many traumatic experiences to count and he covers it up with jokes and his mobile unit."
"...Damn." The commander put a hand to his helmet. "GLaDOS, I recommend a full psyche evaluation of Loki."
"Commander Kein, you're aware that I listen to everything you say, right?" She asked through the radio.
"Just making sure, ma'am."

OUTSIDE THE COMPOUND
Hydra Wolf kicked at the cracked ground, releasing a small puff of dust. Behind him, Ditzy sat next to the mouth of the small cave that was now covered with a toothed metal wall. In the distance an angry black storm front rolled its way towards them, painting the ground beneath white with snow. He sighed, turning to the mare. "So, how do you think they closed off the cave like-"
"Muffins!" She cut him off, smiling dumbly and staring at him with one eye. He groaned. Muffins was all she ever seemed to say...
"Ugh... Naerud, can we just cut through this wall and go in?"
"...Yes."
"Well why didn't you say so?!"
"...You never asked." Hydra groaned and face-hoofed.
"Just... just open the damn door, Naerud." A blue, spectral wolf head appeared next to him. It was about twice his size, and when it moved it blurred, so it was hard to make out any real features besides being a giant ghost wolf head. Its jaws opened as wide as possible, then a stream of water shot out at hyper-speed and started cutting through the outer door. It kept going until a square was cut out near the base, revealing... another door.
Hydra looked at the offending door accusingly.
"Well, at least we know why they put more than one door in." He huffed as his ears perked up. "Is that... a klaxon?" He asked to no one in particular.
"I believe so."

INSIDE THE COMPOUND
"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! Enemies attempting to enter the base!"
Klaxons blared as the team of seven rushed through the narrow hallways.
"Move, move! Kaaz, what are we dealing with?!" He shouted into his radio.
"A pair of ponies, one pegasus one unicorn, and a giant floating ghost wolf head!" They ran in silence for a moment before simultaneously yelling:
"What?!"

Hydra shielded his face from the spray of water bouncing off of the door; whatever this new material was, it was stronger than Naerud seemed to be able to penetrate.
"Alright, stop it. This isn't getting us anywhere." He said, and the water stopped. "They know we're here, so we just have to hide." He looked around the barren, rocky plain around them. "...Or not." He snapped his head around as the door slid open to reveal... nothing.
A slight shimmer caught his eye before disappearing.
"They're cloaked! Stay close!" He yelled. Naerud revealed his whole ghostly body, crouching in a defensive position, while Ditzy simply sat down between them with a confused frown. A grey figure revealed itself in the cave holding a blocky black object with a square device on top and a short tube protruding from the front.
He readied himself for a fight.
"Govey geinmaar, volaan!" It shouted, pointing the tube part of the device at them threateningly.
"Heyheyhey," Hydra yelled back at the obscure figure. "We didn't mean for any trouble, we were just... curious!"
"Govey. Geinmaar. Volaan Nahgadinok!"
"I can't understand what you're saying." The dovah twitched its tail.
Something thwacked Naerud on the forehead. A purple tinted piece of streamlined metal was buried in his ectoplasmic skull, draining away his size, which in turn drained Hydra's energy. he stumbled a bit as the arcanite bullet sapped up all of his energy, then lost consciousness as the world turned on its side. The last thing he could note was that something caught him from behind.
'Damn cloaker...'

Welcome to Boot Camp, maggot.

Commander HahdrimKein stood behind a shaded window, watching Loki digging into a tray of adamantium with a side of sulfuric acid below. The dovah was eating as if he had been starved, which, according to Kaaz, he was. Apparently he had been surviving on barely a lemon a day during continuous exercise.

The commander was exactly as tall as Loki, his features were exactly the same as well except for having deep blue eyes. He wore a black under-suit with wires and braces running through the inside, creating a biomechanical look that covered his entire body, including his neck and tail, but not his head.

He scrutinized the prince's behavior critically, noticing every movement. The young dovah tore a piece of adamantium from an ingot before swallowing, then swigged it down with a canister of sulfuric acid. Kein glanced at the miniature GLaDOS unit clipped to Loki's chest, which was slowly charging back up as the prince recharged his body, in turn charging his armor.

Kaaz, wearing the same outfit and almost indistinguishable from Kein except for having cyan eyes, walked up next to him.

"He's not quite what I was expecting." She said, leaning against the wall.

"Never knew quite what to expect... just didn't exactly think he would be some carefree teenager with minor PTSD." He said, sighing. "I don't think anyone knew what to expect."

"Do you think he's right for the job?" She asked, producing a clear data pad that looked like a piece of glass with black pieces of metal on the corners.

"With some training and discipline, yes, I do. But right now... we'll see tomorrow in Boot Camp."

"As I thought. Should we put him through his paces in an obstacle course today, Carol?" She asked to what seemed like no one.

"The subject requires a resting period before any more strenuous activities, as you know, Lieutenant Kaaz." GLaDOS' voice said with a tone of minor annoyance.

"I'm just saying, we need to know his capabilities firsthand."

"I've reviewed his video files, he's extremely skilled and dangerous. He also needs rest."

"Fine then, do what you want." She threw up a hand in frustration with the artificial intelligence unit, who didn't respond further.

THE NEXT MORNING

I shifted in the new bed that had been given to me, the tough mattress barely being an inch thick. The new black undersuit I wore was filled with wiring, braces, and a gel layer that encased my entire body up to my head, where it stopped at the base of my skull, interlocking with the ends of my spines. I kicked at the cold blankets covering my lower body, throwing them off the bed and turning. My scales turned black and my eyes red as I struggled.

I was surrounded by a void.
The void was dead silent, a ringing in my ears being the only thing filling my mind.
My body was gone, only a mix of white, black, grey, and red wisps of light.
A rumbling, bass, synthetic voice sounded. "Drem yol lok, dii kiir." It said as a pair of glowing red eyes opened directly in front of me. I willed my normal body to form, becoming myself but black with red eyes just like the ones in front of myself.
"Who are you?!" I asked the entity in front of me.
"I am the old man in the prison."
"...You were on the plane?" I asked, uncertainty edging into my voice. The entity paused for a moment, glancing around.
"...No." It said, dropping the 'unfathomable god' act and sounding disappointed with itself. "I wasn't on the plane."
I quirked my head. "...Then... who was on the plane?"
"Your grandfather."
"...No seriously, who was on the plane? And for that matter, who are you?" I asked, seriously curious. This was breaking news and... and whoever this guy was, he seemed keen on helping me. And my dead granddad, apparently.
"I am Alduin, your fath-" He was cut off by the blaring BWAAAAH, BWAAAAH of a klaxon sounding. The dream dissipated before I could respond to what sounded like 'your father'.

I leapt out of the bed at the ready with claws out, teeth bared, and tail poised. I looked around, seeing no one there but the blaring of the klaxon. I slackened and stood up straight, looking around as the blaring continued.
Someone grabbed me by the shoulder from behind and shoved me out the door to my room, leaving me in a room full of weapons and armor lockers. I turned to look at who had shoved me and saw someone covered with dark grey, almost black, armor with a silver V shaped visor. The armor was angular and had various modules covering it, including a datapad on the wrist, a camera on the side of the helmet, and additional armor in places including a huge knife on his shoulder. On the shoulders were white emblems with downward facing swords with draconic wings on either side.
"Who are you?" I asked as he advanced quickly.
"As of now, YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!" He shouted, imposing on me. I stumbled towards the lockers as he kept walking forward. "GET TACTICAL, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE THE FUCKING THRONE ROOM?! GET YOUR FUCKING ARMOR ON!" he shouted into my face as I scrambled to my armor locker. I threw it open, but instead of finding my regular, curvy armor, I found a set of angular armor similar to the stuff on the guy yelling at me. I turned around and looked him in the visor.
"This isn't my armor!"
"WHAT'S THAT MAGGOT?! I COULDN'T HERE YOU OVER THE SOUND OF YOU BEING A WHINING BITCH! NOW PUT THE FUCKING ARMOR ON OR I WILL STOMP OUT YOUR GUTS AND FEED THEM TO THE MAGGOTS!" He yelled, prompting me to start attaching the armor pieces to my undersuit, interlocking perfectly. "I DON'T HAVE ALL DAY, RECRUIT! MY GRANDMA COULD PUT ON ARMOR FASTER THAN THAT, AND SHE'S DEAD!" I whipped around after finishing the second gauntlet, throwing a punch towards this guy's face, only to find it caught in a similarly armored, and much stronger, fist that crushed my own. I cried out and threw another punch, that being caught too. He forced me down to my knees and kicked me in my yet-to-be-armored stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I gasped for air as he looked down on me pitilessly.
"Did you think you could fucking take me?" He asked, kneeing me in chin and making me bite my tongue. "Because I find the notion that you could even think to attack me is disturbing, even more so that you're so arrogant that you thought you could fucking beat me with a punch that predictable." He let go of my hands and kicked me back into a closed locker door. "NOW GET FUCKING TACTICAL, MAGGOT!"

Author's Note

Really sorry it took this long to get out, but I actually have a lot of AP to worry about. I wanted this to be longer, but I wrote another chapter of the same length and decided to include it later in the story instead.
Notice anything weird about the mysterious dovah hanging out in the other parts of the facility?

OnetwothreeDEATH

My breath came in ragged gasps as I skidded to a stop behind a white panel and reloaded my assault rifle. Bullets smacked into the panel and ricocheted off at high speed in random direction. I caught my breath and evaluated the situation for a moment as I recuperated. I wore the dark grey angular armor and was equipped with a blocky assault rifle, two mags left, and a sort of taser device in place of a knife. I had been shoved into what looked like the ruins of an old apartment block with mechanical flooring and hostile sentry turrets posted everywhere and did what seemed most reasonable at the time- that is, run like hell. Now that I was crouched in cover after sprinting around gunfire, this was all seeming crazy to me. Why the fuck did they put me somewhere I would get shot?! I shook my head and peaked out of cover, ducking as a shot nearly smacked me in the forehead.
"Well, shit..." I muttered, putting my rifle over my head and firing into the general direction of the turrets in a sort of 'spray 'n' pray' fashion, knocking out the one sticking out of the left wall of the hallway.
That was when my cover went away.
The panel that had shielded me previously folded back into the ground seamlessly, leaving me exposed to the barrage of death heading in my direction.
"Ack!" I yelped and jumped up, strafing in the opposite direction and rifling through the things in my HUD. Infrared? Nope. Invisibility? Already tried that. Didn't work. Booster jets? ...Fuck it, let's go.
I activated the booster right as a bullet smashed me between the shoulder blades, doing three things: first, it made me spasm like an epileptic gorilla. Second, it knocked the wind out of my lungs. Lastly, it sent me flying toward the door at nigh uncontrollable speed. I crashed through the door painfully, sending splinters everywhere, the ones hitting me simply jabbing and bouncing off. As I regained control of my body and stopped spasming, I took note of the completely white room I was now in, with a dirt floor and a ruined looking obsidian apartment building with a huge hole in the roof, then the wall screaming towards me.
"Shit! Wait, I got this!" I shouted as skidded my feet across the dirt and attempted to spin too bleed off speed. I skidded on my heels for a moment, spinning quickly, then took a couple of long strides before losing my balance and smashing into the floor, "FUCK!",the booster keeping me going until I smacked into the wall with a thud. "...Damn it." I muttered as the boosters switched off.
I laid there in pain for a moment before the GLaDOS voice said "Loki, I've been studying your performance, and I don't know how to put this. I'm certain you're trying very hard." She said as robotic limbs pulled me to my feet. I groaned, staggering a little. "Now, let's try that again."
"Oh, fucking hell!"

A pair of dovah, both cloaked, stalked through the collapsed remains of the palace in the capital, the rounded, melted scraps of armor plate layers that were ingrained into the building. Ahead of the dovah was a tunnel that drove down into the roots of the mountains at a mediocre slope. The pair peered down into the tunnel, activating infrared in their optics. The one on the left hefted a sniper rifle up and signaled for the other to go. The second one jumped forward, then quickly activated their boosters. They skidded down the tunnel on their heels leaving a glowing red contrail in the darkness. Burnt out torches marked every few meters, jammed into the fluorescent white lights that had quit functioning centuries before. At the end of the wide tunnel was a vault with its door slightly ajar- an orange, flickering light emanated from the crack in the door. They switched off their boosters and slid down the rest of the slope on momentum.
The dovah stopped and crouched near the side of the door, their partner sliding down and joining them. The sniper unclipped a cylindrical device with three small legs on a sphere from the 'belt' part of his armor. He set the device on the ground and flipped a panel on his wrist open. He uncloaked and tapped the touchpad. The device righted itself on top of the orb side. He moved his claw and it moved into the vault, the camera feed showing him a campfire with a sleeping bag next to it.
The vault itself had begun the long process of decay. Dirt and plants had begun to fill the immediate area around the entrance, though the only remaining plants in the region were basic mosses and withered saplings that stubbornly refused to submit to radiation.
The creatures in the area of the relatively small country were also filled with strange creatures born from radiation such as changelings and tatzlwurms.
Slightly further into the cave sat a white mass of feathers and fur. The fluffy creature was about the size of a medium dog and was fawning over a standard MA5B assault rifle that was half buried in the dirt with huge yellow eyes.
The sniper directed the robot back to his position and clipped it onto his belt.
The other dovah moved around him and silently creeped toward the owl-cat hybrid by some unseen gesture or signal. They flicked out a short sword--a blade that can be used as either a dagger or a normal sword--that telescopically slid out to full length with just a faint click. The click was, unfortunately for the griffin, masked by the roar of the fire. The blade slid across his throat before he could react, and he was soon drowning in his own blood, writhing on the floor silently and spurting blood through the slit in his neck. The sniper crept in and nodded to the other dovah before pulling another tool out of a pocket on its chest. This one had a pistol grip and a screen on top. The sniper moved across the vast room, followed by the assassin, until they reached the far wall. The sniper brushed the collective dirt and grime from the years off of a section, revealing a small latch. He pulled on the latch and the mechanism came loose. Inside of the box that came out was a tiny bowl.
The sniper lifted his helmet and, with a small hiss, it came off.
He had dark grey, almost black scales covering his face and large steel grey eyes with glowing red overlays across them, feeding him information.
He spat a globule of glowing blue saliva into the bowl and replaced his helmet. The wall cracked open twenty feet to the right, going up to about thirty feet high. An interlocking system of doors separated and opened to a large square opening with clipped corners that dug even further into Taazokaan soil. Freezing cold air, below zero degrees, rushed out of the secondary vault as the two dovah moved in. The grey walls were completely blank and spotless, though small lights adorned the clipped corners on the top and bottom of the tunnel. A deep, base voice with the telltale resonance of synthesized speech replaced the general silence of the rest of the tunnel, which continued to stretch on.

"Your presence is... unexpected. I have reviewed your genetics and confirmed royal blood, but still do not know who you are, if not the prince." It said with a confused tone. "I am Durnehviir, and you are nearing my domain. This area was highly classified by Queen Arkay (Formal), otherwise known as Queen Caroline, (informal). If you are of security clearance below level Monahven, this is in direct violation of standing executive order codename: Ahrolsedovah and you should proceed to vacate the premises immediately." It droned as the two dovah kept moving through the tunnels as quickly as possible, leaving a trail of small black domes along the floor behind them. Eventually they came to a larger chamber that housed a series of large rings side by side, each one about ten meters in diameter. They were kept up by radial struts that connected vertically to the floor and ceiling and horizontally to each other. The rings had large engines mounted along the circumferences that each pointed a sort of beam inward into the center.
Sterile white lights flicked on as they entered the room and the sniper patted the assassin's back.
"Tuz, this is it." He said with a slavic accent. "Nahkriin."
"Visual analysis confirms suspicions- Qahnariin program confirmed." Then the tone of the voice darkened. "We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. I am the vanguard of our vengeance.." He said... just before a black form landed on top of the sniper, pushing him to the ground and smashing Tuz in the back of the head with an armored fist. Tuz stumbled but regained her balance quickly, spinning to retaliate with a blade. Her blade met thin, cold air.
She looked around, but saw nothing but blank walls and rings. She crouched and checked her partner's condition.
He was down, but definitely still alive. She removed a tiny, black dart from the area around his jugular that had breached his under suit and tranquilized him- this stuff was super potent. Immediately she whipped around, flashing her blade out and catching the arm of their assaulter. It was a dovah, around six feet tall, completely covered with angular black armor. The places that didn't have armor were covered by matte black under suit and covered everything under the armor.
The gauntlets had clawed armor on the fingers, blades jutted downward from the forearms and out the backs of the elbows. The knees, greaves, tail armor, and helmet were all sharp in some way. The helmet was rounded in the back but had a triangularly pointed front, while four large black blades jutted out of his back. Sharp, angular black spines lined his spine from the base of the neck to the end of the tail in two outward facing rows. Three jagged, claw-like, hooked blades ended the tail with a lethal bite.
Holy pointy objects Batman!

Tuz's blade locked between the spikes on the bottom of his left forearm. She shoved him away and ducked to avoid the punch that would surely come next, only to receive a high powered kick to the face, servos whirring inside the exoskeleton supplementing the opponent's attack. The kick sent Tuz flying backwards toward a ring. She quickly utilized her jump jets to slow herself, then rolled and landed perfectly, standing up with a pair of larger telescopic swords out in full swing. The blades glowed with white hot energy as plasma covered the blades.
She took the offensive and rushed the other dovah, who flipped out a pair of large, matte black blades, both double ended because this guy definitely needs more pointy bits to poke people with. He whirled them in his hands and put them into a guarding position.
Tuz lunged forward, straight down the middle, but altered her course with jump jets just before coming into range of his swords. She, lightning quick, brought her blade down on the back of his neck- only to find a blade there blocking her attack.
That dovah was fast. Too fast to be natural.

Tuz jumped back and away from the threat, but wasn't fast enough. In a split second, the dovah was out of defense mode and into 'OnetwothreeDEATH' mode. A clawed hand grabbed her by the throat. This one had six fingers, all holding with an iron grip. She brought her swords up in an X and attempted to slice at the arm to no avail. The weapons bounced off as if they were plastic, the plasma doing nothing to the unflinching adamantine grip. The arm holding her launched forward abruptly and she was swept off her feet, the arm whirring as the combat prosthetic did its job- then brutally slammed into the ground and injected with sedation via the jugular.
She was unconscious almost immediately.

I hung up the last piece of armor in the locker and stumbled over to the showers. I was bruised, sore, and frayed from twelve hours straight of being whacked with rubber bullets, vigorous exercise (parkour parkour, NO MORE!), and electric shocks. This was going to be the best shower I'd had in years. And the worst, considering how horrible I felt, and also taking into account that I, in all likelihood, had not taken a shower for years because when you live in the Mojave with a sarcastic AI and you don't get to shower you don't cry about it.

Author's Note

So yeah, got some action, and a possible new AI and ninja.
This chapter was really about bringing back some action, which is what this story is- an action story.
I'm so, sosososososo sorry for the long updates, but I've had a lot on my plate in REAL LIFE, the place where when you think about the reality of your future, you kind of hope for a sun goddess/sorcerer to come over and murderize the world.