The Great Dragon Coronation

Chapters

1. Dragon Migration
2. The Forge
4. The Overlord's Trinket
5. A Dying Race
6. The Rainbow of Darkness
7. The End of the Overlord
Uncertain Positives
3. The Overlord of All Dragons

1. Dragon Migration

The peaks were called the Skyshapers in the Equestrian tongue, and something basically similar in the languages of other nations that surrounded them. The tallest mountains on the continent of Cissanthema, they served as the most definitive boundary between Equestria and the southernmost of the Griffin Kingdoms, a centuries-old treaty between the two powers mandating that neither griffin nor pony settle within or exploit the untapped resources of the peaks. The treaty had the unintended side-effect of making the Skyshapers a natural home for many monsters and wild beasts – rocs, chimeras, manticores, hydras, even a very lost kraken in one of its inland lakes, or so a story about the mountains went.

For the most part, the Skyshapers were simple mountains, but in several locations the roots of the mountains buried deep into the Earth below, and touched the liquid magma resting there. Dozens of smoldering, if not generally fully active, volcanos were nestled within the Skyshaper Peaks, their forms easily distinguished from that of the mountains they surrounded thanks to the lack of snow on their broiling forms. The volcanos were a favored home of dragons – being both fireproof and not needing to breathe, they in fact made an ideal home, as a quick trip down a lava tube would give a dragon all the food he could ever want to eat in the form of gemstones of megalithic proportions. It was at the foot of one such volcano, in a once-forested valley that had been petrified at some point over the last hundred years by a pyroclastic burst from the volcano, that Solrathicharnon the Red now found himself.

Even by dragon standards, Solrathicharnon was ancient, a thousand and more years old. More than a hundred feet from the tip of his snout to the end of his tail, his scales were a faded red, and his eyes solid gold orbs with nearly faded pupils. He was blind, the result of a titanic conflict a thousand years ago now with himself, his father, and his six brothers on one side, and one of the most powerful beings on the planet, the Alicorn of the Night – Luna – on the other. That battle had not merely blinded him, but cost the lives of four of his brothers, and his father. Solrathicharnon and his two surviving siblings had limped from Equestria injured and humiliated at their loss. Those brothers were dead now, as old age was a scourge that plagued even dragons, but Solrathicharnon had not proven so vulnerable to its curse. And so for a thousand years, he had thought of only one thing: revenge.

The dragon held, in one of his front claws, an object that even the merest glance at which would tell the observer was wrong. Though it took the form of a mere black cloth bag, something seemed eminently sinister about it. The way it seemed to cling to whatever touched it. The way it seemed to glisten as though covered in slick tar. The way it seemed to pulse at regular intervals, like it contained a still-beating heart. In fact, it contained something that, in comparison to the mere bag, was a thousand times worse.

Solrathicharnon held the bag out before him, opened it, and the Rainbow of Darkness came out with a burst of magic so potent and vile that even Solrathicharnon flinched at it. The Darkness moved like a living thing, twisting and coiling around on itself and moving through the petrified forest like a serpent. It was anti-light at its core, a black that was so dark it seemed to absorb all light it touched, while surrounding that core was a miasma of deep violet. Blind though he was, Solrathicharnon could still ‘see’ magic – and there was no mistaking that the magic of the Rainbow of Darkness was as evil as magic could be.

The dragon focused, forcing his will and power forward and into the Darkness. It was a force as mighty and as powerful as the Elements of Harmony, or so the stories went. The Darkness could do anything – anything – if one’s will and, more importantly, one’s hate was strong enough. At this point in his life, Solrathicharnon had both to spare.

The Rainbow of Darkness twisted and coiled at Solrathicharnon’s actions, reacting like an animal meeting a new master for the first time. For time immemorial, the Rainbow of Darkness had been controlled by the demon Tirek, but some months ago Solrathicharnon had arranged to have it stolen from the demon’s kingdom-prison of Tartaros. The Rainbow’s first new master in countless millennia was an unknown thing to it, and it wasn’t yet sure how to respond.

Solrathicharnon, however, knew exactly what to do. The Darkness was a force of pure hatred, and Solrathicharnon focused his own hate forward, demanded though the link forged by the bag itself that it bend to his will, performed the metaphysical equivalent of flogging the Darkness until it bent into the shape that he willed it.

That was the idea, anyway. The Rainbow of Darkness resisted his attempts, wriggled and slipped like an eel. But for all its power, it had no will of its own, no direction, no drive. Left to its own devices it would sit in this valley forever – not inert by any means, but affecting no active change, instead only gradually warping the valley and all those that ventured into it. That was far, far too slow an action for Solrathicharnon.

The valley changed. Solrathicharnon could sense the changes, ‘see’ them with his magic vision. The petrified trees twisted and warped, grew in size and reached out towards each other, forming a wall of frozen ash. Nearby, a small pond that had formed bubbled and boiled, the water within turning inky black. Living creatures within the pond did not suffer long – but suffer they did.

Solrathicharnon directed the Darkness’ power towards one petrified log. The power of hate infused it. The log burst from ash, the wood inside re-created by the power of the Darkness and infused with new, twisted life. It impaled the ground, mangled roots seeking out and greedily drinking in nutrients and water trapped beneath the ground as the tree bloomed once more. It had been an apple tree in life, it seemed, but the fruit that the tree bore as it grew in size were not something that any creature would willingly eat – the apples were covered in pustules and sweated a black ooze, while the leaves of the tree were razor-sharp, and its trunk covered in spines.

The tree reached for Solrathicharnon, its branches bending towards him and spines extending eagerly. The dragon snorted, exhaling a gout of flame at the tree. It lit up with surprising ease, and actually screamed as it burned, a profane sound that echoed through the valley. Out of curiosity, Solrathicharnon continued to pour the Rainbow of Darkness’ magic into the tree, and found that the tree continued to live, and scream, as long as he did so. In fact, he was certain that, if he were to force more of the Darkness’ power into the tree, it could have quenched the flames itself, and then attempted to revenge itself upon the dragon that tormented it.

Solrathicharnon grinned widely. He willed the Rainbow of Darkness to withdraw from the tree, and retreat to back within its container. It did so only slowly and grudgingly, but the Darkness had no choice but to obey the dragon’s commands.

Once the Darkness was sealed again within the bag, he stowed it beneath a scale in his chest, near his heart – a convenient trick that many a dragon used to hold their most prized portions of their hoards – and began exhaling fire, destroying the tree utterly, then moving on to the corrupted pond, then every petrified tree that he had warped with the power of the Rainbow of Darkness. Far more importantly than destroying the physical effects of his experimentation, dragon fire burned with enough power to destroy the lingering magic of the Darkness, now that it was no longer being directly fueled. It would not do to have his ‘queen’ discover his experimentation with a force that even she feared.

But, more importantly, it was a force which she had faced in the past, and overcome. One day very, very soon, Solrathicharnon would be certain enough in the usage of the power of the Rainbow of Darkness to slay Corona, the Tyrant Sun. Until then, he would continue to do what he had for the past thousand years: bide his time, and wait for the opportune moment to strike. Very soon, he would even have the power to turn the Darkness against Luna –

There was a roar.

Solrathicharnon froze in his actions at the sound, his ear-crests flaring to try and zero in on the sound while he inhaled sharply through his nose and his tongue darted from his mouth, tasting the air. The roar he heard was a dragon’s roar – no, two dragons – no, more than that, ten – a hundred – a thousand – his blind eyes widened in surprise as he took to the air, mighty wings beating furiously and taking him rapidly into the sky as the roar continued. It was coming from everywhere, it seemed, all around him, yet none of the roars were in any way close. At a guess, the nearest dragon that was making the noise would be ten miles away.

The dragon flew from the vale where he had experimented with the Rainbow of Darkness, making his way back to his lair, a cave in the side of another volcano, which also housed the hidden palace of Corona, the Tyrant Sun – his ‘queen’ for the moment. He couldn’t see the volcano, of course, be he could smell it, a unique blend of sulfur and brimstone on the air that allowed him to zero in on its caldera with little effort.

In another moment, the darkness that was his vision lit up brightly. Golden light as bright as the sun appeared from nothingness, streams of powerful magic vaguely in the shape of an equine being with wings and a horn, and a mane and tail that flowed like fire. It was how he ‘saw’ Corona – the mad sister of Luna, once known as Celestia – who had risen from the caldera and ascended high into the air before stopping, hovering in place with a steady beat of her wings. She noticed Solrathicharnon’s approach, and he made sure to lower his altitude slightly, approach from beneath her, giving her the position of strength in the air. For the moment, she was more powerful than he, however much he hated that fact, and so he had to appear subservient at all times.

The roar of dragons continued, and Solrathicharnon’s attentive ears were picking out even more roars now. Corona, meanwhile, turned to look down at him. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “I hear dragons – thousands of them. Their call is spreading across Cissanthema!”

Solrathicharnon began a lazy circle around Corona, as he wasn’t capable of hovering in place for any sustained length of time due to both his age and his mass. He closed his eyes, taking a few more moments to listen to the draconic roars – not just the sound, but the pitch, the timber, the precise meaning behind every warble and breath. Every dragon on the continent hadn’t simply decided apropos nothing to roar; this was a message, being relayed across Cissanthema from one dragon to the next, and would continue until all were alerted and knew what it meant. He opened his eyes again, and looked to Corona, out of habit if nothing else. “You are even more ancient than I, O Queen,” he rumbled. “You know the meaning behind this call.”

The aura that was Corona to Solrathicharnon’s sight bristled, the glow of her magic doubling in intensity before withdrawing in on itself. “I feared as much.”

“An Overlord,” Solrathicharnon said aloud. “For the first time in millennia, a dragon has proclaimed himself Overlord of all Dragons.”

“This cannot come to pass!” Corona exclaimed, stomping one hoof, though the gesture was largely pointless as long as she hovered in thin air. “Not now – not while Equestria is in the fumbling hooves of my sister!”

Solrathicharnon was less than keen on the idea of an Overlord himself – at least, an Overlord that wasn’t him. He resisted the urge to touch the Rainbow of Darkness hidden beneath his scales, lest Corona notice. He had hoped the raw power of the Darkness might allow him to overcome his physical impairment – blindness – and allow him to proclaim himself Overlord. Indeed, certain designs he had for the near future, for the fruition of his centuries-long plan of revenge against Luna, depended upon it. But if some other dragon was Overlord, then those plans would be dashed.

Then again, how powerful could this dragon be? Could he really be any match for Solrathicharnon the Red? Solrathicharnon the Eldest? Solrathicharnon, Master of the Rainbow of Darkness?

The roar of dragons at last ended, the message apparently having been carried across the whole of Cissanthema. Compared to the noise of just a few moments ago, the silence was deafening. Even now, from every corner of the continent, dragons would be taking to the air, collecting their whelps and small portions of their hoards and setting their course for the part of Cissanthema known as the Western Wilderlands, a wild and free country where no sapient being went save one: dragons.

“I must go to the Dragon’s Forge,” Corona continued, wings beating as she soared higher into the sky. “And slay this Overlord now, before he can pose a threat – ”

“Wait,” Solrathicharnon interrupted, his own wings working hard to catch up to the alicorn. She didn’t seem to notice him. “Hold, Daystar!”

The use of an archaic title broke through Corona’s determination, but only so that she could turn upon Solrathicharnon. To his magic sight, her golden aura grew tenfold. “You would dare try to hold me back at a time like this?” she demanded. Her voice dropped several octaves. “A new Overlord has been proclaimed. Do you plan to betray me and serve him? That will end very, very poorly for you, Solrath.”

Solrathicharnon had to choose his next words carefully, he knew. Blow for blow, he could not defeat the Tyrant Sun. No one dragon could. No one…

“The Overlord will not be alone at the Dragon’s Forge,” he said, knowing the tack he had to take. “There will be others. Dozens, hundreds, very soon thousands. All of them wishing to see and test the might of the Overlord. All of them bowing to his power and obeying his commands, and none of them wishing the Forge to be defiled by the presence of a alicorn. You are mighty, O Queen. You are a match for any dragon, any ten dragons. But you will face far, far more than that.”

That seemed to give Corona pause. She was an alicorn, the eldest alicorn that still roamed the world. And she controlled the Sun itself in the sky. Her power was immense and she was naturally ageless, and immune to any and every disease. But she was not, truly, immortal, nor anything resembling omnipotent. She could be injured, and even killed, if the force directed against her was mighty enough. Hundreds of dragons at a time all directing their power against her certainly qualified.

Yet, Solrathicharnon knew that she couldn’t bring herself to do nothing. Corona was mad, a tyrant who would likely burn all of Equestria if she were ever to gain control of it – but on some level, she truly did care for the ponies that looked so much like immature alicorn whelps. A draconic Overlord, a beast powerful enough to unite thousands of dragons under him, was a threat to those little ponies that she could not tolerate the existence of.

Solrathicharnon let Corona stew in indecision for several minutes as he continued his lazy circle beneath the alicorn, suppressing a grin the whole time. At length he spoke up. “I could go, O Queen.”

Corona’s gaze bore into him; he could feel it, even if he couldn’t see it. “You?” she demanded. “What makes you think that I would ever allow that, Solrath?”

She expected him to get riled up at that – particularly the use of a shorter version of his name, an insult in Draconic – and he indulged her, soaring up and putting his wings to work so that he could hover in place before Corona for the moment, look down at her for effect. “Because, O Queen, I am the mightiest of all dragons!” he roared for added effect. “For a dragon, age is our greatest source of power. And I am the eldest in the world! No matter if the whelp that thinks that he can proclaim himself Overlord, I am stronger, and I will crush him!”

The theatrics were necessary, and in no way beneath Solrathicharnon. Nothing was beneath him if it moved him closer to his goal. Corona scoffed. “So that you could proclaim yourself Overlord?” she demanded, beating her wings and rising up to stare into his blank eyes. “I rather think not, dragon.”

Omitting his name entirely and simply calling him dragon was such a grave insult that it wouldn’t even occur to most dragons. Solrathicharnon felt genuine rage grip his heart then, but he fought it and the flames in his belly down, controlling himself with practiced ease. “I cannot become Overlord,” he rumbled, diving down to beneath Corona and beginning to glide in a lazy circle once more, giving his wings a break from hovering in place. A very real amount of spite and bitterness tinged his voice now. “I am blind. A cripple. No dragon will follow a blind Overlord, no matter how powerful.” He turned his head towards Corona. “But nor would they follow an Overlord that could be defeated by a cripple. They would follow a whelp first.

“But powerful I am, O Queen. And I have no interest in soaring beneath an upstart hatchling. I cannot be Overlord, and if I cannot be, then there will be no Overlord.”

Solrathicharnon continued his long circling beneath Corona as he waited for her response. One circuit went by, then two, three…Corona was insane, but not stupid. She was weighing benefits verses risks, what she knew of dragons verses what she suspected, what she knew of Solrathicharnon verses what she suspected…she knew that he was not loyal to her in any true sense, that his loyalty was bought entirely by the fact that she was his best chance at striking at Luna, the Alicorn of the Night, the being that had blinded him and killed his father and four of his brothers. But at the same time, she knew that he was old, and that made him prideful. He would not bow to any Overlord that was less powerful than he – and what dragon in all of Cissanthema, in all of the world, could be mightier than Solrathicharnon the Red?

“Go,” Corona said at length, through grit teeth. “Slay the Overlord and disperse the dragon horde. And if you betray me in any way, Solrathicharnon…” she flew down, matching Solraths’s speed and movements yet flying sideways with little effort, staring into the dragon’s useless eye. “If you submit to the Overlord, if you find some way to become Overlord yourself…then not only you will die. I will destroy every dragon I ever come across. From the smallest whelp to the most ancient wyrm. You know I can do this.”

Solrathicharnon did. No, Corona couldn’t survive engaging hundreds of dragons at a time, but it would be a small matter for her to strike from the shadows, over and over again, whittling them away in hit-and-run strikes over the course of decades or centuries. Eventually she would be brought down, but the dragons that died in the meantime…yes, if she put her mind to it, Corona the Tyrant Sun could very nearly wipe out the draconic race, or a significant portion thereof.

The problem was that Solrathicharnon didn’t care. But Corona didn’t know that, and he saw little reason to enlighten her. So instead he played the part, let the tiniest amount of worry show through his façade of pride and arrogance. “I understand, O Queen Celestia,” he said, using the name she preferred, her true name.

“Good,” Corona said. “Now go.”

Solrathicharnon did, turning in the air and soaring to the Dragon’s Forge, some thousand miles and more distant. Were he not blind, he was sure that he would have been able to see at least two or three other dragons in the sky, all making their way in the same direction, an impromptu draconic migration towards the heart of their kind’s power on Cissanthema.

Once he was far, far away from Corona, Solrathicharnon allowed himself a small, genuine grin. This was all happening somewhat sooner than he would have liked, but he could work with this. Sooner or later he had intended to try and unite the dragons of Cissanthema beneath him. He couldn’t become Overlord, of course – it had been no lie to say that he was a cripple by draconic standards, that no dragon would follow a blind Overlord – but as long as he had the Rainbow of Darkness, he could adapt.

If everything went as planned…then soon, very soon, he would have his revenge.

My little pony, My little pony
Ahh ahh ahh ahhh...
My little pony –
We're as close as friends can ever be!
My little pony –
So come on take a trip with me!
A big world tour; new people to meet
New sights to see; and new things to eat
When you're seeing the world with your friends
The fun you'll have will never end!
You have my little ponies –
We'll be seeing all of you real soon!

Pferdreich was a country located to Equestria’s northwest. It was an exarchy of Equestria – technically under the control of Princess Luna, but allowed virtual independence in almost all internal matters. It was still subject to most of Equestria’s laws but fully empowered to interpret them and make its own, which were enforced by a democratically-elected council instead of a princess, grand duke, or other monarch like in most of Equestria’s exarchies. The ponies there spoke a language very similar to that spoken in the southernmost Griffin Kingdoms, and neither pony nor griffin could agree who were the original speakers. The Pferdreichers also had a weird cultural fascination with wearing clothes all the time, specifically dirndls on mares and lederhosen on stallions.

And that ran through just about everything Raindrops knew about Pferdreich. She would have liked to learn more about it, but then a bunch of dragons had started roaring and appearing in the sky, and things had, as a result, gotten more than a little hectic in the Pferdreicher capital city of Ferdchenwortspel. Perdenvordsel. Pferkenwortspeer –

“How do you pronounce it again?” Raindrops asked the magenta mare as the two were lead through the twisted corridors of the Kaiserpfalz, the main governmental building of Pferdreich.

“Pferdchenwortspiel,” Cheerilee supplied. “Pferd-kin-vort-shpeel.”

“Close enough,” One of the guards escorting the two supplied, his Equestrian accented but also fully understandable. Cheerilee flashed him a smile. She didn’t speak much Pferdreciher, but what little she did know was much better than Raindrops’ own, which was completely lacking.

Raindrops could only suppress a sigh. Things were not going anything remotely resembling ‘to plan.’ After Raindrops’ little excursion into the Griffin Kingdoms just a few weeks ago with Lyra, Princess Luna had hit upon the idea of sending Raindrops and the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony – Cheerilee, Lyra, Trixie, Ditzy, and Carrot Top – around the world, it seemed, or at least to Equestria’s neighbors and exarchies, in pairs. The idea was to allow the neighbors of Equestria to get to know the six of them, as they were, after all, fundamentally living weapons. Weapons that Raindrops was pretty sure could only be directed against evil and disharmony, but weapons nonetheless. The Elements of Harmony essentially amounted to Equestria gaining a new and relatively unknown advantage over the other nations of Cissanthema.

In addition, the six had become moderate celebrities, what with having saved Equestria twice, first from Corona and then later from the lich Grogar, and had also been popping up in the news rather frequently in other areas: the castigation of the Night Court, re-establishing contact with the lost sea pony tribes, the recent incidents in the Griffin Kingdoms, and a dozen other minor events. Princess Luna felt that it would be a good idea for the six of them to get out there and become known by the larger world, to steady relations and to ensure that nothing like what had happened with the Night Court would play out on an international stage.

Mostly, Raindrops had been pretty sure it was going to consist of her being away from Ponyville for two or three months, shaking a lot of hooves and going to a lot of dinner parties and making sure that ponies and other beings realized that, in fact, she had no interest in ‘destabilizing continental relations,’ ‘reinforcing Equestrian hegemony over the continent,’ ‘abusing her phenomenal cosmic power,’ and so on.

Then, the dragons had started roaring at the sky across the continent, and swiftly thereafter started flying overhead, all heading towards the Western Wilderlands – which meant that, of course, a lot of them were flying right over Pferdreich’s skies. This had prompted an emergency meeting of the Boonderat. Bunderrats. Bender –

“And the…council thing?” Raindrops asked.

“Bundesrat,” Cheerilee said. “Boon-des-rat. The Exarch Council.”

“Federal Council,” the guard escorting the two corrected. “Exarch council vould be Exarchenrat. But ve do not call it that here in Pferdreich.”

“Makes sense,” Cheerilee admitted.

Raindrops grunted again as the four of them reached a large set of oak doors. The doors to the throne room of Equestria, and to the large Chambers of the Night Court of Equestria, were both magically soundproofed, but the Bundesrat’s own chamber doors were apparently not: Raindrops could hear the hundred ponies on the other side arguing amongst themselves in loud voices.

Cheerilee and Raindrops exchanged glances. “What are we even doing here?” Raindrops asked.

“We’re the Elements of Laughter and Honesty,” Cheerilee supplied, tapping the gilt jewelry around her throat and pointing at Raindrops’ own Element around her own neck. The magenta mare then looked down at herself. “Though we don’t really look the part right now…”

When the dragons had started roaring, the two had been out in Pferdchenwortspiel, spending time sightseeing since Pferdreich was an exarchy and close ally of Equestria that had needed very little convincing of the Elements’ good intentions towards the world, and basically of the week they were scheduled to be here, six of the days could guiltlessly be spent on vacation. Cheerilee had gone full-tilt in that department, and was wearing the most touristy of dirndls to have ever been sewn, along with a pair of saddlebags filled to the brim with Maß, nussknacker, kuckucksuhr, and other souvenirs. Raindrops had resisted the urge for the most part, save for a Trab hat that currently adorned her head. She might have indulged in one of the pastries, as well, but before she could this whole mess had begun and their two Pferdreicher escorts had been ordered to hurry them to the Bundesrat.

“Point is that we’re here as representatives for Equestria, right?” Cheerilee asked. “Well, the Bundesrat is going to want to know that Equestria will protect Pferdreich if the dragons show up.”

“But what does that have to do with us?” Raindrops asked, glancing around. Save for the lack of magic soundproofing, the antechamber of the Bundesrat looked much like the one before the throne room of Equestria. “We don’t speak for Equestria. We don’t speak for anypony but ourselves.” She let out a long-suffering sigh, remembering the Griffin Kingdoms some more. “This is that symbolism thing again, isn’t it?”

“Afraid so,” Cheerilee said with a sad nod. She looked to their escorts. “Though shouldn’t the Equestrian ambassador be here, too?”

“He is on the vay,” the guard said, a unicorn, said. “But I vas instructed to take you directly before the Bundesrat.”

Raindrops looked up at the hat on her head, straightened it, adjusted the Element of Honesty around her neck, and then nodded. “Okay, then, let’s get this over with,” she said. Their escorts looked between each other, nodded as one, and opened the door to the Bundesrat.

Chaos lay on the other side. Sheer and utter chaos. Also a large, semicircular chamber full of ponies as surprisingly comfortable-looking chairs and small desks. But mostly there was chaos.

“Wir sind verloren. Verdammt!” cried one councilor. “Sind die Drachen anzugreifen?” Demanded another. “Vielleicht, wenn wir sie ignorieren, sie werden weggehen!” Posited a third. “Wir müssen darüber abstimmen!” Attempted a fourth. And so on, and so forth, ponies calling out back and forth between each other, rushing between desks, exchanging papers, at least when those papers didn’t go flying all over the place from somepony tripping or throwing them aside.

Cheerilee and Raindrops both paused once inside, glancing at each other. Cheerilee’s expression held a small amount of bemusement at the situation, though Raindrops knew that Cheerilee was just as concerned with the dragons flying over Pferdreich as anypony else in the room and simply put on a smile to try and help other ponies calm down. Raindrops, for her part, did very little to hide her unease and lack of enthusiasm at being thrown before the Federal Council of a nation whose language she didn’t even speak while thousands of dragons were in the sky.

“Die Elemente!” exclaimed a pony after a few moments, once Cheerilee and Raindrops were noticed. The word was close enough to its Equestrian equivalent that Raindrops understood that they were referring to her and Cheerilee, especially once a bit of calm finally penetrated the Bundesrat as everypony gathered looked to the two of them.

Raindrops shifted, then looked to Cheerilee, nodding her head towards the council. “You’re on,” she whispered.

Cheerilee swallowed, her calm demeanor faltering for just a moment. After that moment was gone, however, her calm and reassuring smile returned, as she trotted forward and to the center of the Bundesrat, Raindrops in tow and their two escorts following closely. “Good afternoon, everypony!” Cheerilee called. “My name is Cheerilee, Element of Laughter. And this here is Raindrops, Element of Honesty. We’ve been enjoying ourselves immensely here in Pferdreich! We didn’t have much time to see the countryside, of course, but as you can see we were doing a lot of shopping.” She shook her back to indicate her saddlebags full of souvenirs. “It was fun!”

The small entourage reached the center of the Bundesrat’s chambers. “Now, I know that what’s happening is very frightening. The dragons seem to have begun their migration much earlier than they were supposed to. It wasn’t scheduled until sometime next year, right? Well, we all know how schedules can sometimes change!” She laughed a little, and wasn’t bothered by the lack of laughter in response as she continued. “None of the dragons seem to be attacking anywhere. I’ll grant you that it’s more than a little scary to see eighty-foot-long, fire-breathing lizards soaring by, but all they seem to be doing is just flying around. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as that’s all they do. And I know that we’re ponies and we can get a little panicked when we see big things with sharp teeth, but dragons are, for the most part, petravores! They don’t eat ponies, just rocks and gems.

“I don’t have any answers for you. But I’m certain that Princess Luna is looking into the matter, and for now, there’s nothing to be afraid of as long as we stick together and don’t panic!”

Cheerilee closed off her impromptu speech with a bright smile and a raised hoof. At length, one of the Bundesrat councilors stood. “Petravores?” he asked. “They…eat stones und gemstones?”

Cheerilee nodded vigorously. “I mean, technically they can eat anything, but most they prefer those, yeah.”

“…this building is made of stone!” exclaimed one councilor.

“Und its tallest towers are topped vith diamond caps!” said another.

“Meine Halskette!” exclaimed a third, gripping at a necklace she wore studded with gemstones.

The panic began again, and Raindrops sighed. “Nice one.”

Cheerilee shot Raindrops a small glare, but then let out a long groan of their own. “They just need to work it out of their systems. Not everypony in the room has fought two dragons like us.”

Their two escorts started.

“I fought two dragons,” Raindrops corrected. “You hid from Spike.”

The two escorts looked between each other with alarmed expressions.

“No, you mostly were dealing with Zecora, remember?” Cheerilee asked. “I’m the one who climbed on Solrath’s back and kidney-bucked him.”

“Oh, right…well, I knocked Spike out.”

“Let’s just call it an even split. We’ve each fought a dragon.”

“I knocked one out. You just annoyed yours.”

“Hey, we made it out, didn’t we? And you were a hundred feet tall when you fought Spike. I was just me when I bucked Solrath.”

The two felt eyes on them, and turned to their escorts, who were staring at them and looked like they were wondering what they were even needed for. “We lead interesting lives these days,” Raindrops informed them.

Author's Note

Trab hat = Tyrolean hat. I doubt that the MLP universe has a place called Tyrol, and I couldn't think up another name for it. "Trab" just means "trot" in German.

2. The Forge

The course of events that had brought Cheerilee and Raindrops to their current location were swift yet multi-layered. A number of decisions had been quickly made about the most appropriate place for two of the six Elements of Harmony to be during this impromptu dragon migration, and everypony had quickly agreed for reasons that were beyond either of the two mares that the best place was near, but not quite on, the front lines.

Cheerilee and Raindrops had been given almost no input into the decision. They would have had some rather pointed objections if they had been consulted, but things hadn’t worked out that way. And so it was that, in a matter of less than a day, the two found themselves in a fortress – actually, a hollowed-out small mountain that rose apropos nothing from the otherwise broad and flat fields of western Pferdreich – on the edge of the Western Wilderlands, surrounded by more military force than had been seen in any one place for hundreds of years.

In an abstract way, Cheerilee was impressed by the sheer level of military force that had been assembled in so short a time. The new railroads that criss-crossed Pferdreich had helped with that, delivering troops and materiel to the edge of Pferdreich at speeds that even as soon as thirty years ago would have been unimaginable. Pegasi swarmed in the sky overhead, filling it to bursting with a powerful stormcloud that once unleashed would make the sky nearly unnavigable to any creature without a natural resistance to electricity – meaning pegasi, griffins, and not dragons, it was hoped. The vast flat lands that spilled over on both sides of a river that marked the boundary to Pferdreich, meanwhile, teemed with ponies digging defensive trenches. Ballistae and canons both abounded, unicorn mages were arriving and rifling through any defensive spells they knew, and in an enclosed area near the fortress contained a treasure trove of magical artifacts of unspeakable power.

What was more impressive than the force assembled before Cheerilee was the knowledge that it was only a small part of a much, much larger machine that was already in motion. She knew this because she was standing in the fortress’ command center alongside Raindrops, a vast map of the continent of Cissanthema spread out before her with markers all along it highlighting troop movements. From the lands of Elkheim in the north, down along the Griffin Kingdoms’ western frontiers, to Heststed, Pferdreich, and Paardveld, and along the northern reaches of Naqah and its northern tributaries, the armies and air forces of every race were being mobilized and deployed, with the griffins, elks, and camels additionally scrambling their ocean-bound fleets. All of Cissanthema was mobilizing, it seemed. Despite the sheer military power on display, however, it reminded Cheerilee of nothing so much as a porcupine or hedgehog curling up on itself to ward off a predator – an analogy that was, she was certain, apt.

“Und ve are trying to get in contact vith the other Elements of Harmony,” Colonel general Preussischblau informed Cheerilee and Raindrops. An earth pony bedecked in a military uniform jacket that looked heavy under all the medals on it, he used a long pointer to indicate Ponyville, near the center of Equestria. “But it is two days by train to the Pferdreich border from Ponyville, even by express, und not all of the Elements are in Ponyville now…Freifrauen Dizy und Carrot Top vere on their vay to Appaloosa und ve do not know precisely vhere they are, they may have even crossed into Caballeria by now…”

Cheerilee thought that Preussischblau’s way of saying Ditzy was rather interesting – he pronounced it Ditzu, or something close to it. “They’ll be found if they’re needed,” the school teacher guessed.

“I’m still not clear what the problem is,” Raindrops said. She was sitting with both front hooves on the table, resting her head on it and looking over the map and all the markers there. Somepony had gotten her a cup of water, somepony else a straw, and she was drinking the beverage with the geological speed of continental drift. “So a bunch of dragons want to go home. So what? We get a dragon migration every thirty years or so. We’re about due for one, aren’t we?”

Preussischblau looked at Raindrops like she was a crazy pony. “This is no mere dragon migration!” He objected. “Have you not been told vhat is happening?”

Cheerilee shrugged. “I think everypony just assumed we knew,” she said, looking over the map again. “Though, I have to say that we do seem to be overreacting. Like Raindrops said, we have a dragon migration every generation. This one did come early, but plans change all the time. Dragons aren’t clocks, they change their habits over time the same as anything else might.”

Preussischblau glanced between the two dames, then to the rest of his general staff, saying something in Pferdreicher – probably explaining what they’d just said, since to Cheerilee’s knowledge none of them spoke Equestrian. Their reactions certainly seemed to bear this out.

“Es ist ein Drachenführer!” One of them – a lieutenant, Cheerilee thought – exclaimed.

“Drachenführer,” Preussischblau confirmed with a nod. “Er…dragon-leader…I believe the Equestrian term is Draconic Overlord.”

Cheerilee tapped a hoof to her mouth. “Draconic Overlord…Draconic Overlord…oh!” She held up a hoof, smiling as she remembered and began reciting as though in front of a class. “The term Equestrians use to refer to the Draconic position of Svernmaekrix, itself derived from svern, ‘above’ or ‘high,’ and maekrix, usually translated as ‘leader’ though it’s really more like ‘one in front.’”

Raindrops raised an eyebrow. “You speak Draconic?”

Cheerilee shook her head. “I…well, when I decided I wanted to be a teacher I started reading everything I could so I could pass my examination, and so that I could answer any questions my students might have. I think I paged through at least a few books on dragons.” She looked back to the Colonel General. “I think I remember something about how there haven’t ever been that many Overlords…”

“Seven,” Preussischblau confirmed. “There have been seven Overlords – one a myth from before the advent of ponies, Glaurancalunggon, und six others in recorded history.” He waved a hoof at a nearby table, on which sat a thick, ancient tome, labeled Draconomicon. “To become Overlord, a dragon must meet only vone requirement: it must be stronger than any other dragon – must be able to fight und fight und fight every dragon that challenges it, und win. The strongest dragon, bar none, that every dragon vill follow out of respect und out of fear. Und vonce it has proven that…it means that it has under it a host of dragons villing to follow its commands for as long as it seems to be the strongest. A host of the most dangerous creatures in the vorld, vith vitch to indulge its draconic greed und arrogance.”

“Oh,” Raindrops said after a moment, leaning away from her drink. “I get it. Basically this overlord dragon is the biggest bully and has a gang of bullies under him. And once the big bully has his gang, he wants to use it to beat up ponies and take their stuff.”

The Pferdreicher colonel general nodded in confirmation. “The dragons proclaiming an Overlord has never gone vell for the other races of Cissanthema. They have, to a vone, used their hordes to loot und plunder the land, und were only defeated at great cost. Eventually ve learned to set aside our differences vith the griffins und the camels und all others, und present a single, strong front against the dragons.” Preussischblau looked down. “Ve hope that, this time, it vill be enough to vard off any attack at all, rather than to merely survive it.”

Raindrops and Cheerilee glanced between each other, the rush of ponies and others across the continent no longer seeming the least bit funny. Raindrops looked to Preussichblau. “So what are we supposed to do?” She asked. “We can’t fight dragons!”

“That is not vhat I’ve heard,” the colonel general noted.

Raindrops and Cheerilee looked to each other again, then as one both sighed and covered their eyes with a hoof. “Two, kind of,” Cheerilee said. “But the second time, we didn’t exactly win the fight, we were just able to stay alive until Tambelon returned and the dragon we were fighting flew away.”

“And the first time I was a hundred feet tall, or something, because of poison joke,” Raindrops said. “And the dragon was just a baby dragon that Corona had made grow big anyway. He didn’t even really want to fight me.”

Cheerilee considered. “Oh, and I guess there was the fire drakes in Oaton,” she pointed out, looking to Raindrops. “They’re distant cousins to dragons, I think.”

Raindrops shook her head. “We weren’t exactly kicking flank and taking names against those, either,” she recalled. She also almost mentioned that their real trouble had come from the basilisks – plural – that they had needed to fight, but realized that if they kept naming monsters the two of them and their friends engaged in over the past year and a half since Corona had first escaped from the sun, the Pferdreichers would just become increasingly convinced that the two of them really could fight a flight of dragons.

Dragons, basilisks, fire drakes, windigoes, salamanders, sirens, ursa minors, parasprites, golems…actually come to think of it Raindrops and her friends had fought quite a few monsters. But that didn’t mean that they wanted to, darn it!

Preussichblau glanced down slightly, to the gilt necklaces that the two were still wearing. “But…you do have the Elements…”

“If the Elements of Harmony could work against dragons, don’t you think that Princess Luna or Princess Celestia would have used them back in the day?” Cheerilee asked. “Against those other Overlords?”

“The Elements are for using against things like evil liches or alicorns,” Raindrops added, studiously leaving out the ‘maybe’ she wanted to append to the end of that since she honestly didn’t know and would frankly be happier if indeed the Elements were only useful against those. It felt right, anyway. “Things that have a lot of magic…evil magic, I think. But not dragons.”

“They’re immune?” Preussichblau asked worriedly.

“The same way a normal pony would be, no matter how evil,” Cheerilee said. “For all that dragons are big and scary and powerful, they’re just normal creatures like you or me.”

That was a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around, and Cheerilee gave Preussichblau the time to do so, trotting over to a narrow window in the fortress and looking out at the assembled Pferdreicher army outside. There was maybe ten thousand now. Before too long, there would be a hundred thousand…ponies from every walk of life called into emergency service.

Well…there was still a chance that all of this would be for nothing, a waste of time. The Overlord had to not only beat all the dragons at the Forge, but also defeat all the other dragons that were coming now, right? That was the point of the call across the continent, she remembered. The dragons might…

“What’s that?” Cheerilee asked, squinting. She had glanced up at the horizon, into the Western Wilderlands. All the dragons who felt like it had already answered the Overlord’s call and journeyed into the dragon homeland, the last few flying overhead a few hours ago. There were probably some additional stragglers that would be looking to circumvent the pegasus storm barricade as well, but for at least a little bit the sky had been devoid of giant fire-breathing reptiles.

Now, however, that was not the case. From her vantage point high atop the fortress mountain, Cheerilee had a commanding view into the Wilderlands, and could see something coming out of it – something large, and reptilian, and probably fire breathing.

“Drachen!” A call went up from somewhere outside. The army below reacted quickly, pegasi bucking their thunderstorm into action, earthbound ponies readying ballistae and catapults that were quickly hidden behind magical shields. If the army beneath had reminded Cheerilee of a porcupine before, the description was only more apt now.

The dragon was close, now, only about a mile from the mountain fortress. It – Cheerilee couldn’t really tell the difference between male and female dragons – was primarily green in color, with an impressive-looking scar across its underbelly’s paler green scales, while the membranes of its wings were purple. It landed well away from the ground-bound army, but seemed less interested in them than in the pegasus-created storm overhead – probably a mistake, Cheerilee thought, since the storm was mostly to slow the dragon and make it easy to aim at.

The dragon then pulled something from its back, and held it out. It looked like…

“…is that a white flag?” Raindrops asked. Cheerilee jumped, not having noticed her fellow Equestrian having joined her at the window along with the Pferdreicher command staff, peering out. Indeed, the dragon held up a large white piece of cloth – it looked like canvas, actually, from a sailing ship – and was waving it around in the air.

“A truce?” Raindrops asked. “It’s looking for a truce? For what?”

The dragon had been approached cautiously by a commanding officer down below and a small guard. With a pony so near to it, Cheerilee could guess its size at maybe forty or fifty feet long – gigantic by her standards, of course, but relatively average as dragons went. From this distance they couldn’t make out what was being said between the pony and the dragon, but the dragon didn’t seem to be acting hostile, indeed it settled down on the ground comfortably.

At length, the pony commander below withdrew from the dragon and returned to the army’s front lines. As everypony in the command center watched, a messenger was dispatched from the front line back to a communications post, which then had a pegasus pony take off from it and head straight for the mountain at her best possible speed, landing atop it within a minute where she would report to another officer.

Two minutes after that, a junior officer of some variety descended into the command center, snapped a salute, and said something in Pferdreicher, while glancing nervously to Cheerilee and Raindrops. Preussichblau listened and asked her to repeat herself several times, before turning and glancing between the two Equestrians.

“The dragon vants to speak to you,” he informed them.

Cheerilee and Raindrops looked between each other, then glanced back to the general. “What?” Raindrops asked. “Us?”

“You two,” he confirmed. “He asked for you by name. Cheerilee, Element of Laughter, und Raindrops, Element of Honesty. How does he know you are here?”

“I have no idea,” Cheerilee said, looking to Raindrops. “You…you don’t think that Solrath has friends, do you? Or…or that maybe he’s the Overlord…?”

Raindrops thought it over for a few moments, before looking back out at the dragon. “I…I guess the only way we’ll know is if we go and ask,” she said.

The dragon was not the largest living thing that Raindrops had ever seen – Solrathicharnon the Red, Corona’s current pet dragon, was at least twice as long from snout to tail. For that matter, Spike had been around the same size, and during their impromptu visit to another world a few months back she had laid eyes on an Ursa Major that had been grown via magic to be at least a quarter mile tall at the shoulder when on all fours, though she hadn’t needed (nor wanted) to fight that monstrosity.

This did not make the green dragon they now approached small by any means, however – it could still have easily fit Raindrops into its mouth and probably swallowed her whole, pausing only to spit out the Trab hat the Raindrops still had on. She adjusted it slightly as she and Cheerilee approached the front line of the army, escorted by a dozen ponies armed with back-mounted crossbows that might have been able to hurt the dragon as much as a bee sting could hurt a pony. Of course, that guard was only a small part of a much larger army which certainly could bring down the dragon before them with little effort itself. But the thousands of dragons even now within the Western Wilderlands…

“Okay,” Cheerilee said as they reached the front line, a trench into which had been set canons all pointed upwards and outwards, and all of them loaded. She turned to their escort’s leader, who spoke Equestrian. “You should stay here. We don’t want to startle the dragon.”

“Startle it?” Raindrops and the escort captain asked at the same time. Raindrops glanced to the dragon. It had sat up a little straighter on spotting the two of them, but otherwise looked like it had no intention of actually standing up anytime soon and was instead watching them curiously.

“It is outclassed by all of this,” Cheerilee noted, waving a hoof at the army. “Besides, it came here in truce, right?”

“I did not even know dragons had truces,” their escort captain said, eyeing the immense cloth that the dragon had waved around. “That came from a sailing vessel, freifrau Cheerilee. Vhat happened to the ship?”

Cheerilee didn’t want to think about any of the worse possibilities. “We can ask it,” Cheerilee said. She looked to Raindrops. “Come on. We’ve seen scarier.”

Raindrops opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t. Cheerilee had a point, and they couldn’t assume this dragon was hostile simply because it was a dragon. Most dragons weren’t, Raindrops knew. What was it that Cheerilee had said to the Bundesrat? They were petravores. They ate rocks and gemstones, or slept, or did whatever it was that dragons normally did – but that didn’t involve hurting ponies, not normally.

Raindrops let out a long sigh, then nodded. “Okay,” she said. She and Cheerilee trotted up from the trench and onto the open ground between them and the dragon, took a moment to steel themselves – Raindrops was somewhat comforted to see that even Cheerilee needed that – then started forward.

The dragon watched them approach with interest, its violet eyes missing nothing and the slits of them widening slightly as though to take in more light. Or more appropriately, it was eying the gilt jewelry they were wearing around their necks – the Elements of Harmony.

“Yours is a fascinating tribe,” it rumbled once the two of them were close, its Equestrian understandable to Raindrops but with an odd accent, as though the dragon had picked up Equestrian by learning it from a dozen different ponies from all across the land. She was fairly certain from the sound of the voice that it was a male. The dragon’s eyes flicked up to the army behind the two of them, then back down to Cheerilee and Raindrops. “You fear my kind so much, and yet you walk around with your hoard’s finest displayed for any dragon to see and covet.”

Raindrops shifted on her hooves a little. Her wings were splayed, she realized, nominally an instinctive threat display but also ready to take her into the sky and flying away. Cheerilee spoke up at the dragon’s words. “They’re the Elements of Harmony. The most powerful magic in all of Ponydom.”

“I can see that,” the dragon said. “Fascinating and beautiful in their own way, but mere scrap metal and rock compared to my hoard.” The dragon reached up to a scale just over his heart, lifting it up and pulling from beneath it…

“Is that a pearl?” Raindrops asked incredulously, backing up a step as the dragon held forth the stone. It was easily two feet across, an orb that shined a perfect alabaster so white it almost didn’t seem real. Cheerilee was entranced as well, and her reaction had been different from Raindrops’ only in vocalization – she, too, had backed away a step at the sight of a precious stone so large as to defy reality. Neither had ever seen a pearl that big. Neither could have even conceived of it had they not seen it with their own eyes. Where had the dragon acquired it? How big was the clam that had created it?

The dragon grinned wide. “Yes, a beauty, is it not?” he asked, then eyed the pony’s necklaces again. “Gemstones. Gold. As common as any rock beneath the Earth’s surface. Any dragon could acquire trinkets like yours, though I grant you the magic in them does give them the most intriguing luster. But this…this pearl was created by a living thing, a creature of legendary size deep beneath the waves that I dared explore, heedless of the ocean serpents who might take offense. With my own eyes I hunted down the creature. With my own claws and my own breath boiling the water around us I slew it and feasted on its shell and its meat. And from that feast I pulled this, my hoard’s finest, all before the ocean serpents could discover my theft!”

The dragon tucked the pearl away again, and at last stood, spreading his wings wide. “I am Hesjingrasvim. It means ‘water treasure,’ the Draconic term for pearl.”

The dragon looked between the two as though expecting them to find this significant. Cheerilee caught on to that before Raindrops did. “That’s…impressive,” she said. “You named yourself after your hoard’s finest. You’re putting it on display too.”

The dragon grinned again. “Precisely,” he agreed.

“Um…” Raindrops said. The dragon looked to her, and she resisted the urge to flinch. “That’s…cool. Really, it is. But…I don’t think you came here just to show off that off to us.”

The dragon’s smile dropped. “I did not,” he confirmed, leaning down again, lowering his long neck and head until he was nearly at eye level with the two ponies, though Raindrops noted that he carefully avoided placing his head on the ground. “I have been sent by the Overlord, Dame Raindrops, Dame Cheerilee. He wishes to speak to you.”

“How did he even know that we were here?” Raindrops asked. “And who is he, anyway?”

“He is the Overlord!” Hesjingrasvim responded, and when he didn’t elaborate further Raindrops realized that that was supposed to be the answer to both questions. The dragon noticed her dissatisfaction with that, and grinned broadly. “When you meet him, you can ask yourselves, little ponies. It was he who sent me here, and instructed me to bring you to the Dragon’s Forge.”

The two ponies looked between each other. “And…” Cheerilee said, “if we refuse…?”

The dragon blinked at that, his smile dropping once more. “Refuse?” He echoed.

“Yeah,” Raindrops said. “If we don’t want to go to the Dragon’s Forge. If we’d rather stay in Pferdreich.”

“We like it in Pferdreich,” Cheerilee added. “Just got here. Still have some sightseeing to do.”

Hejingrasvim looked between the two ponies in confusion. “But…” he said, leaning forward and extending a clawed hand. Both ponies flinched, and could hear the army behind them readying to defend them, but Hesjingrasvim only put his claw over their heads, leaning down to peer at them. “But you’re so small,” he observed. “You’re very small, ponies. You are tiny things.”

“That’s kind of why we don’t – ” Raindrops said.

“Might not,” Cheerilee added.

“…want to go,” Raindrops finished, staring up at the massive appendage above her. The dragon’s thumb-claw was as long as her hind leg and she was very uncomfortable learning this fact.

Hesjingravsim withdrew his hand. “But how can you refuse the Overlord?” he asked. “Do you think you can challenge him? I cannot challenge him! I accept this. Why don’t you? He is the Overlord!”

“We didn’t vote for him,” Cheerilee said, probably before she could think better of it. Raindrops’ head whipped around to look at her with wide eyes even as her wings flared fully. Cheerilee, for her part, had a hoof to her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered to Raindrops after a moment. “Defense mechanism…”

“Find a better one,” Raindrops hissed, before looking back to Hesjingravsim, who was still looking at the two ponies like they’d just said that he had four heads. Were hydras related to dragons? Raindrops didn’t know. “Look, we appreciate the invitation,” she said. “It’s just…well, like you said. We’re very, very small…and you’re asking just to go to a place where we’ll be surrounded by dragons. We wouldn’t feel safe.”

Hesjingrasvim opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. He turned his head, looking back in the direction he had come, head tilting slightly as he did. At length, he looked back to the ponies. “You shall be treated as whelps,” he said, then waited another moment, once more glancing behind him before speaking again. “That means, little ponies, that no adult dragon shall challenge or harm you – as long as you do not challenge them.” Another moment, and Raindrops got the sense that he was listening to something. “The Overlord will also ensure that no other whelps challenge or harm you – again, as long as you do not challenge them. He advises that you do not.”

“You’re…talking to him, aren’t you?” Cheerilee asked after a moment. “Or listening to him, at least. He’s speaking to you right now, isn’t he? How?”

Hesjingrasvim’s eyes narrowed. “Clever. Yes, I was – am. The Overlord says that he wishes only to speak to you and then return you to this land.” He held up a claw. “One day. The Overlord wishes to…confer with you for only that long.” Hesjingrasvim’s eyes narrowed. “And I have been instructed to bring you to the Dragon’s Forge by any means necessary.”

The two ponies started at that, glancing between each other. By any means necessary? Did that mean that if they refused, the dragon would grab them and drag them away? Could it? The two could probably make a break for the front lines, and one dragon wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the thousands of ponies behind them…

…but, on the other hoof, Raindrops had to admit, Hesjingrasvim had been pretty friendly…for a dragon. And the Overlord sounded fairly reasonable…again, for a dragon. If all he wanted to do was talk…and maybe the two should wait for their friends to arrive? But how long would that take? They were scattered across the continent right now, and who knew how impatient this Overlord was…

“Okay,” Cheerilee said for the two of them after a moment, waving a hoof at the army behind her. “Just give us a few minutes to explain everything to everypony else.”

Cheerilee took some small consolation in the fact that everypony on the front lines were at least as confused at Raindrops and Cheerilee’s departure as the two of them had been to even be on the front lines in the first place. Flying into the heart of the dragon homeland in Cissanthema seemed monumentally stupid, they were told, but Cheerilee and Raindrops had made their case and not waited around long enough to be talked out of it. They were off within ten minutes – and regretted it in less than fifteen, though by then it was too late.

Hesjingrasvim had been their ride to the Dragon’s Forge, the dragon apparently having no problem with conveying the two smaller beings towards the draconic homeland towards the new Overlord. As they flew, the broad plains of the Wilderlands gave way to a rocky desert of black and dark gray stone – a land that looked like it had once been covered in lava that had since cooled and hardened and, if the blast marks were any indication, was regularly scoured of plant life – though the lack of rivers may have played a part in that as well. It was broad and flat and featureless save for the occasional small crater or dropped stone – pretty much exactly like what Raindrips had supposed the dragon homeland to look like.

Of course, then they reached the Dragon’s Forge itself. Appearing on the distant horizon as what looked like a tall, broad, and black plateau a mile high after several hours of flying, the Dragon’s Forge quickly revealed itself to be swarming with dragons – thousands of them, some resting on the edges of the plateau’s top, others flying in a sky that was full of white and gray clouds that rose from somewhere atop the plateau

“Newcomers, mostly,” Hesjingrasvim rumbled, startling the two ponies he carried. He turned his head a little to look back at them, even as his wings kept up their steady beat. “There are always a number of dragons within the Forge. Not this many, though. Not for a very long time. Look carefully, little ponies. This is a sight that few of your kind will ever see, if you’re lucky.”

Cheerilee caught the choice of words, and her head tilted to the side somewhat. “Does that mean that the Overlord doesn’t plan to…y’know…raid everything he can?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the wind rushing by.

Hesjingrasvim took a moment to consider. “I do not speak for the Overlord, except where I am told to,” he responded, wings beating a little harder in order to gain the altitude needed to crest the plateau. If the dragons that the three of them were soon surrounded by had anything to say about Cheerilee or Raindrops, they kept it to themselves as the two ponies looked out before them.

Cheerilee had been wrong – the Dragon’s Forge wasn’t a plateau, but a caldera, an impossibly wide volcanic crater that must have been more than three miles across, its depths sinking deeper into the Earth then the land around its outer base. Lava pooled in the center of the caldera around an island of obsidian, a twisted spire that reached a thousand feet into the air and had several apertures along its surface just big enough for a dragon, and positively cavernous to a pony.

More surprising, however, was the slopes of the Dragon’s Forge. Welling from some hidden sources were a trio of rivers of clear water that flowed unevenly from near the top of the caldera and down to the pool of lava below – the source of the white-and-gray clouds that rose up. Immediately surrounding the lava pool was a few hundred feet of baron rock, but almost immediately thereafter began a thick jungle growth – trees twenty and thirty feet high packed closely together save where dragons had recently torn them down to make clearings for themselves, all of them obviously the largest and strongest ones there. Paths had been burned or torn between the clearings in which smaller dragons, some no more than whelps, moved freely save for being careful to avoid the clearings of the largest dragons. As Raindrops and Cheerilee watched, one whelp twice as long and half again as tall as either pony ventured too close to one of the clearings, and in return for its adventurism the adult dragon within exhaled a gout of red-hot flame that sent the whelp scurrying away. The whelp was unharmed by the flames due to its fireproof hide, but it was charred and chastised.

Oh, and there was treasure in each of the clearings, too – piles of precious stones and metals stacked together upon which the older dragons lay curled up, almost as though they intended to sleep save that their eyes were wide open and constantly looking between every other nearby dragon of comparable size to them, assessing them, measuring them, and wondering how best to defend against them. A distant part of Cheerilee’s mind started trying to assess the value of all the treasure she saw, but pretty quickly gave up once it became obvious that introducing even a tenth of what she saw to a nation’s market would throw said nation into economic chaos.

“Behold the Dragon’s Forge,” Hesjingrasvim declared as he flew up to the ‘beach’ of bare rock near the lava pool and landed near one of the rivers of water that flowed down into it. The steam that was created was carried straight up as soon as it was created, leaving the beach sweltering but not boiling. Cheerilee and Raindrops both climbed down from the dragon’s back, and found the rock beneath similarly hot but not painful, not quite, and Cheerilee guessed that even a few hundred feet more back, towards the jungle, would lower the ambient temperature even more, to simply ‘very, very, very hot.’

“Wait here,” Hesjingrasvim instructed, turning and lifting into the air. “I shall inform the Overlord of your arrival. We have arrived just in time – he has been declared but not revealed. I imagine you’ll meet him when all the other newcomers do.”

Raindrops glanced around. The sky overhead was still full of dragons, the jungle behind them was full of greedy, paranoid adult dragons and greedy, prowling dragon whelps, and the ground before them gave way to lava and, beyond that, a dragon so fearsome that he could beat the tar out of any of the ones in the sky or on the ground right now. “How, uh…” Raindrops asked, “How do the other dragons know not to attack us?”

Cheerilee nodded. “Yeah, little curious about that,” she said.

Hesjingrasvim shrugged. “The Overlord promised your safety,” he said, flying off and towards the obsidian tower.

Raindrops and Cheerilee watched him go, then looked to each other. Without even realizing it, they’d stepped closer together, an instinctive defense mechanism when surrounded by so many potential predators. “So…” Cheerilee said, as she started trotting back from the lava pool and closer to the nearby river, Raindrops following. “I’m starting to think this was a bad idea.”

“Better than not going,” Raindrops said. “Then Hejingrash…Hejingram…whatever, would have gotten himself killed. That wouldn't have ended well.”

“Hesjingrasvim,” Cheerilee said once the two reached the river. She looked Raindrops in the eye. “Better work on that…I think I remember that dragons don’t like nicknames, find them insulting since dragon’s aren’t given names at birth, they have to earn them – and they get longer the more they accomplish.”

“Great,” Raindrops groaned. Closer to the river and back from the lava, the air was, indeed, much cooler. She leaned down to the river water, sticking a hoof in an swirling it around before splashing it up, her pegasus magic making a thin sliver of cloud that almost immediately began to evaporate due to the heat. “The water’s clean, I think,” she said. “Not much floating in it, anyway. Wonder how they do that…”

“Who cares?” Cheerilee asked, immediately bending down and starting to lap up gulps. She paused a moment. “Place this hot, you can dehydrate fast. Drink up.”

Raindrops leaned away from the river. “No,” she said. “I don’t eat things unless they’ve been washed. And I’m not going to drink water straight out of the ground, either.”

Cheerilee sighed. “Raindrops – ”

There was a roar from overhead, followed swiftly by several more. The two ponies both jumped and bolted away from the river before they could even think about it, dashing towards the jungle before they even thought to check the source of the roar.

At first it looked like some kind of fight had broken out amongst the dragons that soared overhead – hardly surprising, Cheerilee remembered that small brawls tended to break out amongst dragons all the time whenever there was a migration. Then Cheerilee noticed how much bigger than the others in the sky one of the dragons, who was knocking aside the smaller dragons with his wingbeats without effort, looked.

Bigger and older.

And there wasn’t any time to think about more than that as Solrathicharnon the Red swooped over the Elements of Harmony. The wake of his passing created a wing strong enough to send the two stumbling down and into the ground, which had the side-effect of giving the massive dragon – bigger than any other dragon here, some part of Cheerilee that she really wished would shut up noticed – time to bank, come back around, and land a scarce fifty feet from the two of them – only half his body length. His wings were wide and his eyes, though blind and blank gold orbs, seemed to lock onto the two of them. Or, more likely, onto the massive magic of the Elements of Harmony that the two wore, his Draconic sense for all things magic allowing him to ‘see’ them with little effort.

“I don't know what you two are doing here,” Solrathicharnon hissed as the two found their hooves, “but those trinkets of yours will make excellent additions to my hoard...”

4. The Overlord's Trinket

Something wasn’t right. Several somethings, actually. The first thing was the voice that Solrathicharnon had heard, barely more than a squeak, saying simply ‘hi’ rather than roaring in defiance and triumph, as the elder dragon had expected the Overlord to do. The utter silence that had fallen over the Dragon’s Forge also was out of place.

But what truly stood out to Solrathicharnon was the magic he ‘saw’. It had emerged from within the obsidian tower he knew lay near the center of the lava pool. The magic was small, but bright and incredibly potent – it stood out nearly as much as the Elements did down below, or the Rainbow of Darkness would if he removed it from within his scales. Magic? The Overlord’s hoard included magic? Solrathicharnon hadn’t counted on that. He had presumed a brute of a dragon, clever, perhaps, and certainly mighty, but one that had ascended thanks to his or her own raw power, not with the aid of a trinket from their hoard.

At length, the silence over the Forge was broken by a crashing sound, and a few small hisses of surprise and pain. The elder red’s ear-crests swiveled in that direction, and he recognized the sound of dragons trying to untangle themselves from each other. That, and the fact that he could no longer hear one of the challengers that had taken to the air, suggested that one had just landed amongst his or her fellow dragons – or, more likely, crashed.

“Watch where you’re landing!” He heard a whisper in Draconic.

“Sorry,” came the reply, most unexpectedly, to the challenge. Evidently whatever was happening was so shocking that the dragon who had crashed didn’t feel like re-asserting himself – and the dragons he had crashed into didn’t think to pounce on him in his moment of weakness.

Solrathicharnon grunted, angling himself to come down for a landing himself, now that he would no longer be the first one to leave the skies. Dragons made their way for him, at least, giving him plenty of space. He lashed out and grabbed a nearby one once he had landed anyway, pulling it close. The dragon he grabbed grunted in surprise and pain – from the feel of it, Solrathicharnon had grabbed her by one wing – as the eldest dragon pulled her close.

“You,” he said. “What is happening?”

A nearby dragon whispered something that might have been ‘Saurivthurgix’; Solrathicharnon’s tail whipped out at the impudent lizard and caught him in what felt like the chest, sending him flying away. The dragon he held, meanwhile – maybe a quarter his size, judging from the size of the wing he held – struggled a little, but quickly submitted to his superior strength. “The Overlord has revealed himself,” she answered. “He…he’s a whelp.”

“He is what?” Solrathicharnon demanded.

“Barely at that,” another nearby dragon noted. “A…hatchling. He can’t be more than ten summers.”

Solrathicharnon growled low, pulling the smaller dragon very close to his barred teeth. “Do not lie to me,” he warned.

“I’m not!” The dragon he had in a death-grip objected. “He’s small, purple, no wings yet…he’s smaller than those ponies!”

Solrathicharnon didn’t believe the dragon he held. Couldn’t. He made to demonstrate as such by tearing off her lying head, when a call went up from somewhere else in the horde of dragons gathered. “Is this a joke?” The voice matched that of one of the challengers, the one who had called herself Othlaraekgixustrat. He could no longer hear any wingbeats, and presumed that all the challengers, then, had returned to the ground “Or have you just gone insane, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha?”

There was a moment of quietness, and Solrathicharnon could imagine Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, if the whelp-turned-Overlord situation was true, shifting uncomfortably. “I am not joking,” the black dragon said – Solrathicharnon presumed that he was black, anyway, seeing as Vutha meant ‘the Black.’ “The Overlord has defeated all of us here.”

“Seriously?” another dragon asked, in a voice that was full of doubt but somehow lacking anger at the affront – likely too shocked to be angry.

“These ponies are larger than him!” Called another, from near where the Elements and, presumably, their owners were. “And they’re tiny!”

“H-hey!” the squeak of a voice, that of the supposed Overlord, exclaimed. “I’m not that small…and anyway, I am the Overlord now. My name is Spike.”

Solrathicharnon’s ear-crests flicked at that. Spike? Corona had used to have a minion with that name; a lost dragon whelp that Zecora had befriended prior to aiding in Corona’s release from the Sun. Dragons born outside the Forge were rare, though Solrathicharnon himself was one of them. Usually the plan of the dragon who reared their own whelps was to have a small, personal army of their own; evidently something had gone wrong with regards to Spike’s parents, or perhaps his egg had been stolen and subsequently lost by some thief.

Regardless, that answered at least one question – why every dragon in the Forge was speaking Equestrian. It was the only language Spike knew, having never had a chance to learn Draconic. He had likely ordered the dragons of the Forge to speak it; having done so, those dragons, generally the most powerful ones in the continent, had spoken it to the new arrivals, who spoke it themselves in deference to their seemingly bizarre choice.

It did nothing, however, to solve a greater mystery: How had this whelp become Overlord? Solrathicharnon knew that Corona had been able to use her magic to induce a greed-growth in Spike, but that had been Corona’s magic, not Spike’s, and from the sound of things Spike was just his normal size. So what was going on? He had some kind of magic…what could that magic do?

Raindrops looked to Cheerilee a moment. “This…this is weird,” she said.

“Yeah,” Cheerilee agreed. She thought a few moments, then a few moments more, feeling no rush to do so since all of the dragons seemed to be equally confused as her. However, the several moments of thought didn’t do anything to help the situation. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing. What is going on?”

Raindrops grunted, stretching her wings a few times and glancing around at the dragons. None of them seemed to know what was going on and had utterly no idea how to act at the moment. “I’ll…maybe I can move things along,” she said, taking to the air. Her ascent was noticed by at least a few dragons, but they didn’t pay her much mind once it was clear that she was only a little pony.

However, she didn’t get a chance to get very far – wasn’t even able to start flying over the lava pool – when two other beings joined her in the air: Solrathicharnon, and a much smaller beige dragon that he dragged up with him, kicking and wings beating.

“Considering what I have to put up with, I think I am a very patient dragon,” Solrathicharnon said as he began circling the obsidian tower, his voice deadly quiet but somehow carrying across the hundreds of feet that separated him from Raindrops, and him from Spike. Raindrops beat her wings, starting her own circuit around the tower in order to keep the distance between her and Solrathicharnon roughly the same. “But that patience has run out.” He looked to the dragon he held in his grip. “What is your name?”

The dragon stopped her struggling. “Uh – Rachvaeri…”

“Rachvaeri. Kill that whelp. I can’t be bothered.” Solrathicharnon threw the dragon from his grip, towards the obsidian tower.

She had to rapidly beat her wings to get air under her and prevent herself from falling down amongst the dragons below, but once she did, she hesitated, looking between Solrathicharnon and Spike. “But,” Rachvaeri tried. “I mean – he’s just a whelp…”

Solrathicharnon’s eyes narrowed. “Kill him or I'll kill you.”

Rachvaeri hesitated a moment more, before turning and heading for the obsidian spire. Spike’s eyes widened at Rachvaeri’s approach. “Hey, hang on, though!” he called. “You didn’t challenge me! Just those other four did! But that means that unless they defeat me, I’m still your Overlord, right?”

The black dragon atop the tower leaned down towards Spike, saying something in a low voice to him. Rachvaeri slowed her approach, giving the much larger dragon time to say whatever he wanted to say.

“Wait, I can be challenged whenever?” he demanded. “By any dragon? I thought that this would be the last time!”

“I never said that,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs answered, speaking loud enough to be heard, since Spike was as well. He waved a claw at all the dragons. “This is just…getting the word out. But you wouldn’t be much of an Overlord if you couldn’t take any dragon, at any time.”

Spike shook his head. “That is messed up,” he said, then looked to Rachvaeri. “Okay, come on, I guess…”

The beige dragon had stopped within about a hundred feet of the tower, doing her best to hover in place, though it mostly amounted to flying back and forth in a tight circle. She glanced once more to Solrathicharnon, who didn’t react other than to flick out his tongue, tasting the air. “Sorry,” she apologized, before diving forward. “But it's you or me, hatchling.”

Spike let out a long sigh, Raindrops saw, and then leaped from the obsidian tower, one claw touching the gray-and-red necklace that he wore as he fell.

And then, with appalling speed, he wasn’t a whelp anymore.

Raindrops blinked, eyes wide in surprise. His entire form had grown red and suddenly changed, elongating, bulking up, growing in size from two feet, to four, then eight, twelve, sixteen, finally topping out at around thirty feet long from snout to tail. Said tail lengthened from a short, thick, stubby thing to a long and sinuous length, while his neck had also elongated and his head lengthened into that of an adult dragon’s. The green spines on his back became pointed and increased in number, while a frill of new spines appeared around his jaw, and green, swept-back horns curled from his head. From his back a pair of wings erupted, giving him a wingspan of what had to be nearly a hundred feet when his wings stretched out to their fullest.

And all this happened in a second, a single moment of red magic wrapping around his form and infusing him. The necklace he wore grew with him, though it became partially covered by the scales that grew across his chest. In its enlarged form, Raindrops could see that it was made up of a red gem set against a stylized, very angry looking alicorn’s face.

The appearance Spike had taken on was familiar to Raindrops – it was the same one he had taken when he had been artificially grown by Corona, more than a year ago now. The only difference was Spike’s eyes; where before they had been green, now the irises glowed a bright red that matched that of the gem in the amulet he wore.

Rachvaeri let out a roar of surprise at Spike’s growth, wings flaring as she tried to backpedal in the air, while all around dragons let out yelps and roars of surprise, and even Solrathicharnon seemed to miss a wingbeat and do a double-take, no doubt ‘seeing’ the magic of Spike’s amulet at work. Spike, meanwhile, spread his wings wide, catching himself before he could hit the lava and charging at the now smaller beige dragon that had come to kill him, beating his wings a few times and catching thermals from the lava that propelled him forward and into her head-first.

Rachvaeri was lucky that Spike’s horns curled back from his head, else she probably would have been impaled. As it was, she let out a roar of pain and a gout of yellow fire as the wind was knocked from her. Spike grabbed her by her hind legs and pulled down even as he ascended, flipping her around in the air and ruining her lift. When Spike let go of her, she fell towards the lava below, and was only barely able to arrest her descent and avoid crashing head-first into the liquid rock.

Rachvaeri soared to the edge of the beach before alighting on it, looking up at Spike. The amulet around his neck and his eyes glowed as he reared back in the air, wings beating steadily and having no problems hovering in place as he did.

“If it’s you or me,” Spike said, his voice deeper and more rasping, “I choose me.”

That surprised Raindrops too. When Spike had grown before, via Corona’s magic, he had been nothing more than a dumb brute, an engine of destruction barely capable of speech or planning. That clearly wasn’t the case here, however. Rachvaeri, meanwhile, considered Spike a moment, growling low. “I…” she said, before lowering herself to the ground beneath her, head pressed to the basalt. “I choose you too, Overlord.”

Spike did something unexpected at that – he grinned, holding out one arm with fist clenched but thumb pointed up. “Awesome!” he exclaimed, then paused. “Um…Rach…Rachvari? Did I get that right?”

The dragon blinked a few times. “Rachvaeri,” she said.

“Rachvaeri. Got it. Don’t worry, I don’t hold grudges.”

There was a lot of fluttering of eyes at that statement, as the other dragons looked between each other and their now larger Overlord. Rachvaeri lifted her head off the ground a few feet, and when Spike didn’t do or say anything in objection, stood up fully again, looking at once relieved and confused, one hand at her neck as though feeling for a bite that she had expected Spike to deliver.

Another dragon rose into the air, one of Spike’s previous challengers – a gray dragon that was a good sixty feet long, more than twice the size of Rachvaeri or what Spike had become. Solrathicharnon noticed, and beat his wings hard to close in on the gray dragon, though he approached from a lower altitude to show that he wasn’t coming to attack – a sign of deference that Raindrops recognized, as pegasi had a similar built-in tradition as a holdover from their more military days.

The gray dragon watched the approach carefully, and when Solrathicharnon rose up to lean in close to him and say something to him, the other dragon’s eyes narrowed before turning to look at Spike. “So that’s what you did,” the gray dragon said. He banked away from Solrathicharnon and began to orbit Spike, unable to hover in place the way the smaller dragon could. “You have magic.”

Spike tapped the necklace. “Mine,” he confirmed. “What was your name again?”

The gray dragon’s eyes flashed with greed. “Versveshkepeskuskisk,” he hissed. “And that will be mine, whelp!”

Spike’s grin returned. He stuck out his neck. “Take,” he offered.

Versveshkepeskuskisk blinked a few times at that; he had been about to charge, but stopped cold at Spike’s words. “What?”

“I said take it,” the Overlord said. He beat his wings a few times, and then landed on the beach, other dragons making way for him, and even more space being cleared for Versveshkepeskuskisk. “Go on. I won’t stop you.”

The gray dragon paused. He had expected a fight, probably – most likely an easy one – not for Spike to just offer the source of his power to him. After a moment, however, he came forward, looming over the smaller Spike and grabbing the amulet that he wore, pulling. It didn’t budge. He tugged again, but was no more successful – not even making in Spike stumble. With a roar, Versveshkepeskuskisk drew back one hand, claws ready to strike off Spike’s head, no doubt – but then Spike’s form glowed red again.

And once again, Spike grew. In a moment he was bigger than Versveshkepeskuskisk by about ten feet, wings spread wide, glaring down at the now smaller dragon, who had roared in surprise and backed away at Spike’s sudden growth.

“I love this thing,” Spike said, his voice having grown yet deeper and louder as he loomed over the gray dragon. “It can’t be stolen. Doesn’t come off unless I want it to come off. Maybe – maybe – it would come off if you were able to knock me out…but that’s not gonna happen.”

Spike exhaled green fire at Versveshkepeskuskisk, who roared in surprise, more so when Spike came forward at a sideways angle, striking the dragon with a wing before turning and whipping at him with his tail. The gray dragon grabbed Spike’s tail, however, taking the blow and visibly being hurt by it but not letting it slow him down in the slightest. He pulled the Spike forward, and the Overlord of All Dragons seemed surprised as Versveshkepeskuskisk’s mouth snapped forward towards Spike’s neck. The now-larger dragon, however, twisted suddenly, dropping to the ground and turning, sending Versveshkepeskuskisk flying. Spike was up a moment later, arm slamming into Versveshkepeskuskisk’s head. The gray dragon cried out in shock and pain, even more so when he spat out several shattered teeth.

“Kill you – ” he began.

“Nope,” Spike finished, grabbing Versveshkepeskuskisk by the neck and then headbutting the dragon. Versveshkepeskuskisk cried out, stumbled a little when Spike released him, and then fell over, eyes blinking rapidly and still breathing but clearly dazed and down. Spike, meanwhile, had a hand to his own head, steadying himself. “Ugh…” he groaned, shaking himself clear. “No one wins a headbutt…”

There were shouts of surprise. Spike turned just in time to see Solrathicharnon land, rearing up to his full size – still larger than Spike – and head and jaws snap at him, not even giving him a chance to get his bearings. Spike still managed to avoid the deadly maw by falling backwards and scurrying away, getting space.

Solrathicharnon didn’t relent, however, leaping forward. Spike did the same, ducking low, but still caught the red dragon’s tail, making him cry out in pain. Solrathicharnon, meanwhile, landed easily and turned with surprising speed given his bulk. “Grow,” he commanded. “It doesn’t matter, whelp. I am older, I am stronger,” his hand went to the scales at his neck, the ones in which small objects could be tucked. “And I have – ”

Spike grew, as Solrathicharnon commanded. His form flashed red, his eyes took on the color of blood. In a second, to no one’s surprise, he was the same size as Solrathicharnon. What did come as a surprise was that he didn’t stop.

Solrathicharnon froze in whatever he was reaching for, blind eyes wide and ear-crests flared to their full extent as Spike passed a hundred and fifty feet, dwarfing the red dragon. But he didn’t stop there – a hundred and seventy-five feet, two hundred feet, three hundred, four hundred…other dragons scrambled over each other and took to the air with roars of shock and surprise. Raindrops had to spin, weave, and most of all pray that none of them would collide with her in their rush to escape the monster that Spike was becoming.

Additional spines had grown along his back, at his elbows and along his chin and in a crest around his eyes. A second set of horns grew out from his head, curling around the set that was already there. The iris and pupils of his eyes faded away and the white became an angry red, but there was no doubting that despite the appearance, Spike could still see perfectly well. His whole form glowed with an angry red light as he finally stopped growing. He spread his wings wide – his full wingspan had to be more than a thousand feet – and he loomed over Solrathicharnon.

“Hi,” Spike said, in what was probably supposed to be a normal speaking voice for him, but which instead echoed with the same kind of intensity that Raindrops had thought only Luna or Corona was capable of. “What was your name again? Sol-something-something-something?”

The mouths of just about every dragon in the Dragon’s Forge dropped open at that, and for a few moments there was only the sound of beating wings. “Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear,” said one at length, not far from Raindrops.

“Solrathicharnon-Saurivthurgix,” corrected another a moment later.

“Yeah, I’m not going to be able to remember all of that,” Spike said. “Solrath. Big Red. I’m Overlord now. Okay?”

The red dragon was shaking – not in fear, but in anger. His ear-crests had folded down, his teeth were clenched tightly together, wings spread wide and claws flexing and unflexing. One went to his throat again, but he seemed to think things over for a moment as Spike loomed over him.

“How?” he hissed. “Corona’s magic could not make you this mighty, I know it! And even when you were infused with it…you were overcome by a pegasus! By one pony, one of the ones you've brought here!”

The eyes of all the dragons in the sky were on Raindrops then, as was Spike’s, a fact that she was instantly aware of and just as instantly uncomfortable with. She held up her hooves. “Whoa, wait,” she said. “Wait, hang on, there was – I mean, I was forty feet tall at the – but it’s not like I can do that at will – ”

Raindrops was aware of a dragon behind her. She turned, and saw Claxokarthelornarux, the silver dragon from before, had flown up behind her. Before she could react, the dragon grabbed her in one hand, then let herself fall to the ground. Raindrops did nothing to hide the very real terror she felt, screaming aloud. She brought her hooves down on the claw that held her, but if it hurt the silver dragon, she wasn’t showing it.

“Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear makes a valid point, Overlord Spike,” Claxokarthelornarux said, holding Raindrops forward towards the dragon that was something in the area of six times her size. “How can you be Overlord when a foe who’s beaten you in the past is still alive?” She smiled a smile that was completely without humor or cheer. “Or is that why you had her brought here?”

“What?” Raindrops asked, then turned to look at Spike. “W-wait, what? B-but…that was…S-Spike?”

The Overlord of All Dragons took a single step forward, since that was all that was needed to bring him up to Claxokarthelornarux. He snorted green flames. “Right,” he said. “You made me bite off part of my tongue. That hurt!”

Claxokarthelornarux released Raindrops, but Spike wasted no time in snatching her from the air with a speed that belied his size. He pulled her up to eye level. “It hurt a lot, Raindropss!” he exclaimed, eyes flashing and voice growing far more sibilant. “Sso did the hoof to the face…I think you broke a few ribss, too! You’re lucky that sshrinking back down to normal ssizze healed everything!”

Raindrops squirmed in the grip of Spike, but he held her firm. From far below, she heard hoofbeats. “W-wait!” Cheerilee’s voice cried out. “Spike, wait, please, don’t – Raindrops didn’t want to hurt you!” Spike looked down to her, reached down and picked her up. Cheerilee didn’t try to struggle or escape as he did, and soon the two were held in either hand of Spike, looking him in his eyes. Green fire leaked from his jaws like some kind of burning liquid, though it evaporated to nothing before reaching the ground.

Cheerilee glanced to Raindrops, before pressing on. “You weren’t in control of yourself, Corona was directing you – Raindrops was just trying to protect us! She didn’t mean to hurt you!”

“Protect you?” Spike hissed. “Protect you from a sscared dragon hatchling who never even knew hiss own parentss? Who’ss only friend had turned him over to an inssane alicorn? WHO TURNED ME INTO A MONSSTER?”

Spike inhaled, and the sucking sound that he was making as he did so was more than familiar to the two ponies now – he was taking in air to fuel a gout of fire that would incinerate the two ponies. Cheerilee looked to Raindrops, tears in her eyes. Raindrops didn’t look any better herself as she looked back, as the two realized that this had always been a trap, that somehow Spike had known they were in Pferdreich, or at least Raindrops had been, and that all he wanted was revenge.

Raindrops looked to Spike. “I’m sorry,” she said, closing her eyes. She didn’t think he’d hear her. But the sucking sound stopped at that, and on opening her eyes, Raindrops saw Spike glaring at her still. However, he let out his breath – downwards, away from the ponies, and with no fire running through it. He closed his own eyes, shaking his head, before putting both ponies back down on the ground. Neither could keep their legs under them long, both falling to their barrels and staring up at the titanic dragon.

“I – I don’t have to hurt her,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at the silver dragon who had captured Raindrops in the first place. “What would that prove?”

Claxokarthelornarux glanced down at the ponies, then back to Spike. “But – she had defeated you – ”

“And?” Spike demanded. He spread his arms and wings wide, looking around at all the other dragons. “Is there any dragon here who thinks I couldn’t end her if I wanted to? But it doesn’t prove anything. It’s like kicking over an anthill.”

“But – but why would you – ”

“Because I’m in charge, that’s why!” Spike roared, jaws snapping forward at the silver dragon. Claxokarthelornarux yelped and skirted away from the attack, lowering herself to the ground as she did. Spike glared at her a moment more, before turning around and looking to Solrathicharnon. “I’m in charge. Right, Solrath?”

The red dragon still had a claw at the scales on his neck, and visibly fumed at being addressed by so short a name. At length, however, he set all four claws on the ground, and bowed his head. “You are,” he hissed. “You are Overlord – for as long as you can keep the title.”

Spike smiled, tapping the amulet he wore. “Forever,” he said, spreading his wings wide and beating them. Him taking flight was like the winds of a storm, strong enough that the smaller dragons had to grab hold of the ground or fly away from his airspace lest they be knocked around – nevermind the two ponies caught almost directly beneath it, who grabbed hold of each other and hunkered down.

Spike rose into the air, wings beating beneath him, gem on his amulet glowing brightly along with his eyes as he once again hovered in place with his wings and little other effort. “Any other challengers?” His demand was met with silence, and after a moment he grinned. “Alright, then! Awesome! Now hang on, it’s getting late. We’ll meet tomorrow and figure things out. I’ve got big plans!”

With that, he turned and flew back towards the black spire that rose from the lava pool, form glowing red as he did and beginning to shrink. By the time he reached it, he had shrunk down to a mere twenty feet long, and continued to shrink even as he landed and walked back inside. The black dragon, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, waited for him to enter before looking back out at the gathered dragons, and to the two ponies in particular, before ducking down and following Spike into the tower.

There was silence for a long time, as the various dragons in the Forge struggled to comprehend everything that had just happened. “So,” one said at length. “That happened…”

“Did you see how big he was?” Asked another.

“No dragon has ever been that big,” said a third. “Not since Glaurancalunggon.”

“And he’s our Overlord, going to lead us to new hoards…”

There were probably more conversations, but neither Cheerilee nor Raindrops had a chance to hear them, as the latter was quickly on all four legs and galloping along the basalt beach, Cheerilee following after her and calling her name. Raindrops reached one of the streams that fed into the lava pool and dove into it. It only reached up to her barrel, but she wasted no time bowing her head and swallowing great mouthfuls of water. Eventually her shaking legs gave out and she let herself fall into the water, soaking herself thoroughly and only raising her head above the water when she felt her lungs begin to burn, though she only lifted her head far enough out of the water to keep her nose out of it – making her look like some kind of jasmine-furred, herbivorous crocodile.

Cheerilee stared at her. “I thought you wouldn’t drink – ”

“Changed my mind,” Raindrops answered, raising her head just a little in order to do so but not looking at Cheerilee. The stream’s bed was made of stones of various sizes, all of them worn smooth. She fiddled with one of the rocks between her front hooves and wondered if it ever rained here. The water flowing over her coat and hooves felt nice, though, almost nice enough to make her forget being held by a dragon, looking at Spike in his red eyes, looking at…she felt a snap in her hooves, looked down, and saw that she’d snapped the stone she held in two.

Cheerilee considered a few moments, before joining Raindrops in the water, frankly in no better a state that she was but willing to try and be calm for her. “D…do you think that’s why Spike brought us here?” Cheerilee asked. “To…to get some kind of closure with you?” She had almost asked to try and kill you, but knew that Raindrops didn’t need to consider that right now.

“I think he wanted to kill me,” Raindrops said, vividly considering the possibility anyway. She felt her throat drying out again as she did, and dipped her head back into the water, drinking deeply. It was cool, at least as compared to the air of the Dragon’s Forge. Certainly as compared to dragon fire. “S…so that’s what a Draconic Overlord looks like…”

Cheerilee sat down, barrel pressed against Raindrops’ own, and to her relief Raindrops extended a wing and wrapped it around her friend – she could use a comforting touch at least as much as Raindrops right about now. “What is that necklace?” Cheerilee asked at length. “It has an alicorn on it. Did you notice that?”

Raindrops shivered, but nodded. One hoof went to her own throat, to the Element of Honesty. “It looks like an evil version of these,” she noted. Her eyes widened as she looked to Cheerilee. “You don’t think it is, do you? What if there’s some kind of…of…Elements of Disharmony or something?”

“If there is, I think ours need an upgrade,” Cheerilee noted. “All mine does is look pretty and try and choke me. I actually had my fur trimmed so it would stop doing that. Almost helped.”

Raindrops considered that for a moment, before chuckling a little. Her laughter died down, though, when the two heard a series of large footsteps behind them. They looked, and saw Hesjingrasvim approaching. After facing down Solrathicharnon, being snatched from the air by Claxokarthelornarux, and nearly being immolated or eaten or crushed or any number of other things by Spike, the sight of a mere fifty-foot dragon no longer inspired much fear in either pony.

“So,” he said. “Now you’ve met the Overlord. Again, I understand.” He eyed Raindrops. “You are so lucky, little pony.” He nodded his head towards the jungle. “Guess now you know why our whelps don’t ever come out from there, though, unless they have to.”

Cheerilee stood, looking up at the green dragon. “Did you know Spike was going to do that?” she asked, trying her best to remember that even if Hesjingrasvim was tiny next to how big Spike could get, he was still several times her own size, and so shouting at him probably wasn’t a good idea. “That he was going to threaten Raindrops like that? Try and kill her?”

“No,” the dragon answered. “I’m not sure that the Overlord knew that he was going to do that, either.”

“What?” Raindrops asked, as she stood herself. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” the green dragon began, before pausing and looking towards the obsidian spire. He shrugged. “Well, now it means you can try and figure it out yourself. The Overlord wants to see you both.”

Raindrops’ wings flared instinctively at that, beating several times – splashing the water as they did – as every fiber of her being screamed at her to start running and not to look back. “I don’t want to see him!” she exclaimed.

The green dragon scoffed. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“He just tried to kill me!”

“But he didn’t. And he probably won’t. Like he said, it won’t prove anything, so what would be the point?” He sighed. “Why do you keep fighting him? He’s bigger then you are. Things would go a lot smoother if you just did what he said, when he said it.” Hesjingrasvim leaned down. “Just think of him as a dragon version of your princess.”

“Luna doesn’t go around threatening to immolate her subjects,” Raindrops pointed out.

“Yeah, but she’s the strongest so she’s in charge, right? Same principle.”

Cheerilee and Raindrops started at that. “That’s not why Luna is the princess!” Both objected loudly, before they could think better of it.

Hesjingrasvim was startled by their outburst, but like most of his reactions to them his expression changed to confusion rather than anger. “It’s not?” he asked.

“No!” Cheerilee exclaimed. “It’s because…well, okay, look, there’s a long sequence of events during Equestria’s early days right after the first Hearth’s Warming. See, it had been agreed that the noble class of the Kingdom of Unicornia would be retained and the military elite of the pegasi and the landowners of the earth ponies would be integrated into it, and – ”

“Uh-huh,” Hesjingrasvim interrupted, glancing to the spire again. “The Overlord wants to see you now. Are we going to do this the easy way, or the hard way?”

A dragon has no personal name. His or her name is given to him or her by other dragons – their names are acclamations towards great events in their lives or things that they had earned. A strong enough dragon could try and claim a specific title for themselves, proclaim it for themselves, but ultimately it only stuck if other dragons went along with it. And the older, larger, and more powerful a dragon became, the more they accomplished, the longer their names were supposed to be.

No dragon was going to go against the will of the Overlord, though. As such, the eldest dragon in the world, the formerly largest and most powerful, was now known to every dragon simply as Solrath.

Big Red if they were feeling foolish. So far none had been, though.

Solrath felt his blood boiling, felt the fire in his belly threatening to spill out in a great conflagration. He had already exhaled fire at any dragon that had gotten within fifty feet of him as he took to the air, getting away from his lesser brethren and landing along the edge of the Forge’s caldera, giving him the space needed to think.

Spike. The whelp had magic, magic the likes of which Solrath – it wasn’t even accurate Draconic, it should have been Solrathi! – had only seen in three other sources: Corona, Luna, and the Rainbow of Darkness. Whatever trinket he had, some kind of necklace or amulet, Solrath guessed, it was potent, in the same scale as the Darkness that Solrath still had.

As powerful? More powerful?

Maybe.

And that infuriated Solrath, that he didn’t know. Solrath was not a dragon afraid of taking risks, of gambling, but only if he knew the odds of success and failure. But he didn’t. Whatever Spike had, to Solrath’s ability to sense magic it appeared powerful enough to make him doubt the Rainbow of Darkness. That same vision told him that it was just as surely dark magic, too. The magic imbued within the trinket wasn’t quite as black and vile as that of the Rainbow of Darkness, but it was certainly evil magic in its own way, a corruption. And, again, powerful. Spike had barely tapped into it to do what he had done, to grow to tremendous size. It could do so much more, Solrath knew.

Then again, the Rainbow of Darkness could do more than warp a mountain valley, too. Solrath hadn’t used the Darkness to its full power yet. He hadn’t thought he’d need to. And he certainly hadn’t used it on himself – he didn’t know what it would do to him yet. Whatever power it might offer, Solrath doubted it was worth the trade-off in corruption to his body and, more importantly, his mind, his ability to think, his most powerful tool…

But what to do about this Overlord?

There was a beating of large, powerful wings from nearby. Solrath snarled, turning in the direction and exhaling as powerful a gout of flames as he ever had, the one and only warning whatever whelp was approaching would get.

The warning didn’t deter the approaching dragon as it landed, however. “You’re in a foul mood, Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear,” Claxokarthelornarux said, her voice coming from too far below where it would have otherwise if she were sitting upright - she was bowing her head and neck, then, a sign of deference.

Solrath turned in the direction of the voice, his wrath stayed for a moment. “You prevent me from slaying the ponies, but then offer one up to the Overlord,” he observed, returning to the here and now. “You crawl on the dirt before that whelp, but that is the second time you have used the name that is mine by right…not that the whelp even noticed the first time. You have only ever taunted me and baited me before, yet now you come here submissively.” He leaned forward. “What games are you playing, Claxokarthelornarux?”

“A simple one,” the dragon responded. Not for the first time, Solrath wondered what she looked like – she had been born well after he had lost his sight to Luna. “The only one I have ever played, ever since I first tore my way free of my egg, earned my first name, stole the first part of my hoard. The game is called ‘I want to be Overlord.’”

Solrath scoffed, spreading his wings wide. “Not while I live.”

“I honestly wasn’t sure that you still did,” Claxokarthelornarux noted. Had it been that long since he had last joined a migration? Yes, it had been...a hundred and fifty years. Maybe more. “Even though you are, what, fifteen hundred years?” Claxokarthelornarux continued. “Even you don’t have long left to this world, Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear.” There was a low rumbling from her throat, and she shuffled forward. “Does that frighten you?”

Solrath’s wings beat once, propelling him forward. Claxokarthelornarux roared in surprise, but Solrath was already on her, crashing full into her chest and bowling her over. Her head snapped up and bit down on Solrath’s shoulder, but his scales were thick and more than up to the task of defending him as he pinned her with one arm and tore her loose with the other, his own jaws coming down on one arm and biting. Blood hotter than boiling water gushed into his mouth, and she roared in pain, convulsing enough to shake the older dragon loose and get out from under him. She didn’t get far, though, before Solrath leaped again and landed atop her back, pinning the somewhat smaller dragon to the ground with merely his own bulk and one arm, while the other grabbed her by the throat, claws getting under her scales and touching the softer flesh beneath.

“You never knew when to shut up,” he observed. “I should kill you. I would very much enjoy it at the moment.”

Claxokarthelornarux was breathing heavily, and Solrath could feel the sputters of flame coming from her nose and mouth as she did. “Fine, do it,” she said at length, “and forget learning about the Alicorn Amulet.”

Solrath paused, head tilting slightly. “The trinket worn by the whelp?” he asked.

“The same,” the other dragon responded. She shifted a little under Solrath’s mass. “I know quite a bit about it, as it turns out…and I’ll tell you everything as long as you do three things with the knowledge: spare me, kill Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha, and kill the Overlord.”

5. A Dying Race

After very little consideration, Cheerilee and Raindrops had chosen to do things the easy way. Hesjingrasvim, therefore, scooped them up without complaint and took flight towards the obsidian spire. The flight was surprisingly cool – a thousand feet in the air and the heat from the lava was much faded, while the steam had cooled considerably from ‘scalding’ to merely like that of a warm sauna. Their journey was also a short one, merely to the top of the obsidian tower, where Hesjingrasvim alighted within one of the entrances and set the ponies down. The floor beneath them was obsidian just like the rest of the tower, smooth and betraying no sign of scratch marks despite the claws of the beings that must have traversed it regularly.

Hesjingrasvim stepped ahead of the ponies and nodded his head towards the tower’s interior. “Follow me,” he said as he walked down a curving ramp that lead down the tower. “The tower is magic, it keeps out most of the heat. You’ll be fine.”

The two ponies did, though Cheerilee frowned at that. “Magic?” She asked. “Who enchanted it?”

Hesjingrasvim shrugged as they walked. “I don’t know. It’s always been magic,” he answered. “You ask a lot of questions.”

Cheerilee smiled a little. “I’m a teacher. I have to be able to answer a lot of questions. That means that at some point I have to ask them.” She looked back the way they came, then down into the tower. There was a dim light from somewhere far below, coming up the spiraling ramp that they were heading down. “Like…why are there so few dragons?”

Hesjingrasvim looked to her at that; in the dark, his eyes glowed violet. “So few?” He asked. “You said yourself there’s seven thousand here.”

“True,” Cheerilee said, “But Equestria has tens of millions of ponies living in it. Even smaller nations like Pferdreich or Cavallia still have populations in the seven digits.”

“Seven digits?” Hesjingrasvim asked, then looked to his hand, flexing the fingers there as though trying to figure out what they had to do with anything.

Cheerilee stared. “In the millions,” she said.

“Oh,” the dragon responded, walking again for a moment. Then he stopped again. “No, actually, wait. I don’t get it. Seven digits?”

“Numbers,” Raindrops answered, jumping in. Leaving aside that they were going to meet a dragon whelp that was not nearly as friendly as Raindrops vaguely remembered him being, she was feeling more than a little nervous as well at the walls, floor, and ceiling all around her. Sure, she lived in kind of a small home, but that was her home. Otherwise, like most pegasi, enclosed spaces made her a little claustrophobic, particularly spaces without windows, doors, or other means of seeing outside. “You know, like the ones digit, the tens, hundreds, thousands…” Raindrops continued.

Hesjingrasvim stared at the two. “When you write them down?” Cheerilee asked. “Or does Draconic have a different number system? How do you write?”

“Oh,” Hesjingrasvim said after a moment, turning and resuming walking. “We don’t.”

Cheerilee watched him go. “Don’t what?” she asked.

“Write. What’s the point?”

“What’s the point?” Cheerilee echoed, more than a little loud as she did so. She closed her eyes, holding up a hoof as she tried to process this. “Wait, wait, wait. Do you…are you telling me that dragons…that none of you know how to read or write?”

“I wouldn’t say none of us. I don’t, but maybe some dragon out there learned it, if they wanted to. I didn’t. What would be the point?”

Cheerilee was flabbergasted by that enough that Raindrops had to physically push the magenta earth pony several times in order to keep her moving after Hesjingrasvim. Cheerilee eventually got moving under her own power, but she looked to Raindrops with wide eyes and ears pressed to her skull. “They don’t…” she tried. “Dragons live eight, nine hundred years on average. And they don’t write anything down? But Hesjingrasvim is…okay, his accent is a bit weird but he definitely seems intelligent, most of the dragons do…”

Raindrops eyed Hesjingrasvim a moment, then looked back to Cheerilee. “They’re bullies,” she said in a low voice. She didn’t know how good dragon hearing was, but she had a feeling that what she was going to say wouldn’t offend Hesjingrasvim anyway.

“So are Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, a lot of the time,” Cheerilee retorted. “But they can both still read! Diamond Tiara has even said she might like to start up a school newsletter…”

Raindrops shook her head. “No, I mean…” she thought a moment. She was pretty sure she had figured dragons out, and was pretty sure she had done so because of her anger problems, because she had a part of her that just constantly wanted to fall into fight-or-flight instincts and heavily favored the fight part. “Okay. Imagine being a dragon whelp. You hatch and from the moment you do that, you can only look out for number one. Yourself. Every other dragon sees you as competition. You spend your entire foalhood…whelp-hood, whatever…just trying to get a one-up on all the other whelps. You probably only learn how to speak at all because figuring out what other whelps are saying gives you a better shot at surviving. Maybe you join a gang of other whelps since working together you’ve got a better shot at surviving, but even in that gang all you’re ever trying to do is get to the top and keep any other dragon from reaching where you are.

“And then, even after that, even if you make it to be the biggest and meanest whelp around, you’ve got…” she waved a hoof after Hesjingrasvim, “that to deal with. Adult dragons.”

Cheerilee considered. “But…argh. I just don’t get dragons. They live for centuries, they’re intelligent, at least as intelligent as ponies, they’re the strongest mortal creatures around …but all they seem to do is fight each other, and there’s only a few thousand of them! They eat rocks! They should be everywhere, where’s no reason why they shouldn’t be ruling all of Cissanthema!”

“Well, Luna and Corona might disagree,” Raindrops observed dryly.

Cheerilee shook her head again. “There’s just something I’m missing here,” she said, “something obvious, it’s going to really annoy me when I finally figure it out, that I didn’t hit on it earlier…”

Raindrops, for her part, was willing to just accept that dragons were mostly jerks without looking for a deeper reason than that. As the two continued to descend down the obsidian spire, the light that had been coming up from below grew gradually brighter, without the heat increasing – Hesjingrasvim hadn’t been lying about that, it seemed, and Raindrops wondered how much magic had to be invested in this thing to keep out the heat of an entire volcano. At length, the corridor they were descending through let out. Hesjingrasvim stopped just before the chamber that he was leading them to, not entering it, but indicating it with a nod. The two ponies looked in.

Gold.

So much gold.

The color and the metal were both anathema within Equestria, a societal taboo dating back a thousand years from when Corona had first tried to make herself sole ruler of Equestria. She had painted everything she claimed as her own in gold, and as a result after her overthrow the country had just gradually grown to find the color distasteful due to its association with the Tyrant Sun. But this wasn’t the case outside of Equestria – the metal was still precious, still valuable.

But if the sheer amount of gold that the ponies saw below them were ever introduced into the common market, that would change pretty quickly. The two were standing at the top of an overhang that overlooked a chamber that had to be nearly a thousand feet across, and was at least two or three hundred tall – far too large to be located in the obsidian spire that had been visible above the surface of the lava pool, and so they must have been beneath it, a thought that would have been unnerving if not for the wealth displayed before them. The chamber was full to bursting with piles of gold, coins and raw nuggets and trade bars and necklaces, rings, earrings, bangles, chokers, statues and any other form that gold could possibly be crafted or shaped into.

And there wasn’t just gold – there was silver and copper and platinum and electrum in every form as well, intermixed with the gold, as well as precious stones, rubies and sapphires and emeralds, diamonds and jacinth, opals and pearls and quartz and other stones in impossible amounts, stacked up as high as the ceiling, spread out across the floor of the chamber that they were in.

The wealth wasn’t even confined to precious metals. There were tapestries, too. The ceiling had hanging from it a hundred-foot-long one displaying a historical event that neither Raindrops nor Cheerilee could recognize, and that was only the largest – they hung from every possible space, the spaces that weren’t taken up by paintings, in any event, pieces of art that the ponies could only assume had been presumed lost for centuries, whole walls of frescoes and mosaics ripped out from wherever they had originally been and shoved into place haphazardly.

A bare hoof-full of the treasure in this room would set the ponies for life. The entire contents…they could buy half of Equestria itself. The sheer wealth, the sheer magnitude of the value set before them, was enough to make the two ponies at first miss the room’s current occupants. That didn’t last long, of course, given that one of them was a black dragon nearly a hundred feet long from end to end, and the other was the current Overlord of All Dragons.

“Hi, guys!” Spike called as he waved at them pleasantly from where he sat at the far end of the cavern, atop a golden throne with red cushions, the throne itself set on a gold, concave platform looking almost like it was supposed to have water in it. It looked familiar to Cheerilee, but she couldn’t place it, not with the sheer stunning wealth laid before her. The throne and platform, themselves, were wedged into the largest mountain of gold and gemstones in the cavern about halfway up.

Spike hopped off of the throne, sliding down the mountain of treasure as he did so. He gave a thumbs-up signal to Hesjingrasvim once he was back on the ground. “Good job!” he exclaimed, then looked once more to the ponies and spread his arms out wide. “Isn’t this awesome?”

Raindrops was beginning to seriously rethink the pony taboo against gold. “Yeah,” she said.

“In the original sense of the word,” Cheerilee appended, as the two started down a ramp that lead to the chamber’s floor, which was the same solid, smooth obsidian as the hallway they had been walking through. They glanced back at Hesjingrasvim, who wasn’t looking at them, but was rather alternating between keeping a wary eye on Spike and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, and eying the astounding wealth of the room without even bothering to hide his greed. He was actually drooling, in fact.

Spike noticed that, and flicked a claw against the amulet he wore, growing rapidly in size to be a true dragon again – not to the ridiculous extreme he had achieved to cow Solrath, but still several impressive scores of feet. Hesjingrasvim noticed and shrank back from the chamber, bowing his head low.

“Relax,” Spike said – voice deeper and louder but not massive and booming – as he looked around the chamber a few moments. He eventually reached into a treasure pile and pulled out a golden statue in the shape of a griffin, probably a famous one. He carried it over to Hesjingrasvim and set it down before him, carefully avoiding stepping on the ponies as he did. “Here. That’s yours now.”

The green dragon blinked several times at that, eyes darting between the treasure and the Overlord. “It’s…mine?”

“Or I could keep it,” Spike suggested, eyes flashing red.

“No!” The other dragon responded quickly, darting forward with speed that belied his size and grabbing the statue before pulling it against his chest, arms and wings folding around it. After a moment, he seemed to remember who he was talking to. “I…I mean, uh…that is, thank you? Overlord. Yes.”

“No problem,” Spike said, then waved his claws in a shooing motion. “Now go on, get out of here. I want to talk to the ponies.”

Hesjingrasvim didn’t waste time, backing away with the treasure clutched firmly in his claws before turning around and scampering back up the hallway. Spike, for his part, turned his back on the green dragon almost immediately, red gem glowing and shrinking down to his normal size and laughing a little, jerking a thumb back the way Hesjingrasvim had run. “Dragons don’t really get the idea of being ‘paid’,” he explained. “But I finally figured out how to do it. Tell them that something’s theirs, then threaten to take it back. Greed wins over confusion.”

“I’ll bet,” Raindrops observed. Her wings were flared, she realized, and she deliberately tucked them against her side, resisting the urge to keep them spread. “Um…so, about…what happened…”

Spike blinked a few times, then let out a laugh, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah. Things got a little intense outside, didn’t they?” he asked. He held up both hands. “Sorry, but all the dragons out there expect me to be some kind of big mean monster. Have to act like it if I want to stay Overlord.”

He started walking back towards his throne, which the two ponies couldn’t help but notice still had a very large black dragon behind it. “And, um…” Cheerilee said. “What…what about you?”

The black dragon stared at the two ponies a moment. “Doesn’t matter to me,” he responded, his voice echoing through the chamber. “As long as dragons obey him.”

“He’s my number-one assistant,” Spike said, looking up at the big dragon and considering for a few moments. “Syachtherkeerthichposs-Vutha?”

“Almost,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha responded, flexing his wings a few times.

“I’ll get it right one of these days,” Spike promised when he reached the bottom of the treasure pile that his throne was lodged into, considering it for a few moments before beginning to try and climb it. The two ponies and one massive dragon watched as the Overlord made a few goes at it, but the treasure would cause him to slide back down to the floor. Eventually he grunted, the amulet he wore glowed, and he grew in height and sprouted wings, flying up to the throne. The throne shifted a little when he landed, partially destabilized from the shifting treasure beneath it, but didn’t fall. “So…” he said after settling down and returning to normal size, “I guess you’ve got a bunch of questions.”

“Yeah,” Cheerilee said. “How were you talking to Hesjingrasvim?”

Spike grinned at that, tapping his amulet. “This does more than just make me big or small,” he said. He stood up on the throne and reached down into the pile of treasure it sat on, picking up a ruby. “See, some dragons have magic…” he inhaled, then exhaled a gout of green fire on the gem. It disappeared in the flames, but the flames themselves didn’t die, but rather transformed into a thin wisp that snaked its way over to Cheerilee before bursting to life again – and from the flame popped out the gem.

“I can send stuff to people with my breath,” Spike said. “But the amulet lets me do more, too! I can talk to dragons tele…telepati…with my mind, if I try really hard.” He frowned. “Not ponies, though, or any other being.” He walked over to the other side of the throne and picked up a hefty, black ball looking like it was made from polished obsidian. “And I knew you guys were in Perdrake because of this thing! Magic crystal ball!” he smiled smugly as he dropped the orb and then sat back down on the throne, brushing one claw against his chest and looking at it. “Yeah, this hoard’s got more than just gold. There’s all kinds of magical artifacts around here! Impressed?”

Raindrops didn’t doubt it, not if dragons had the innate sense for magic that they seemed to. She looked to Spike. “Okay,” she said. “Next question. Was I really just brought here so you could show me up?”

“What? No!” Spike exclaimed, though his eyes flashed red again and he leaned forward in the throne. “Well…maybe a little. You did make me bite off my tongue and break my ribs and it did hurt a lot, remember!”

Raindrops’ eyes narrowed. Some part of her knew what she was doing was a bad idea, but with her fear gone for the moment…“Remember how you wanted to eat me?” she demanded. Cheerilee bristled at the pegasus’ tone and turned to face her, eyes wide, but Raindrops didn’t notice.

Spike matched Raindrops’ glare with one of his own, his eyes retaining a red glow to them. After a moment, Raindrops remembered who she was trying to pick a fight with and forced herself to rein in her anger. She closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and letting it out, then a second time. “Sorry,” she said. She didn’t notice Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs looking at Spike with concern, but Cheerilee didn’t miss it.

“Spike,” Cheerilee said, stepping forward. “That amulet – where did you get it?”

Spike looked to Cheerilee, and blinked a few times, leaning back in his throne again and putting a hand to his head. The red glow faded from his eyes. “Ugh – sorry,” he said. “Ruling dragons, has me on edge. Um…the amulet? I dunno, I found it.” At a look from Cheerilee – the same look she gave her foals in school when they misbehaved – he held up his hands. “I mean it! A dragon found me after…some stuff…happened. I was wandering around the edge of the Wilderlands and the dragon decided to take me to here. But we stopped somewhere and I just found it in a river. Kept it hidden until we arrived here, then I figured out how to make it work and what it could do.”

Cheerilee put a hoof to her chin, considering it. Seeing it up close, and what it could do…something tickled the back of her mind. Hadn’t one of her friends mentioned something like this…? An amulet…looked like it had an alicorn on it…Cheerilee seemed to remember Carrot Top, but she couldn’t for the life of her think why…

“Anyway!” Spike said, leaning back in the throne and spreading his hands. “Bringing Raindrops here to get even wasn’t the only reason I wanted you here. Actually the main reason is because of those,” he pointed to the necklaces they wore. “I want to talk to Luna, and I figure that you guys can get any message to her faster than if I just tried to have it passed through Perdrake.”

Cheerilee considered a moment. “Pferdreich,” she corrected.

“Whatever,” Spike said. “Look, I might be new to this whole Overlord thing, but I know that the ruler of a land meets with other rulers. Treaties and stuff.” He spread his arms wide. “I’m gonna rename the Wilderlands. It’s gonna be called the Dragon Empire from now on. With yours truly as the leader. But this guy,” he pointed at Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, “says that I need to get something called international recognition first. So I figure if Luna gives it then every other nation will too.”

Cheerilee and Raindrops both blinked at that. Raindrops came forward after a few moments. “Wait,” she said. “That’s it?”

“Well, no,” Spike said, standing, glowing red, growing wings, and hopping from the throne. He glided over to another treasure pile, in which was set a gold-framed map of Cissanthema and parts of the nearby continents that looked a few centuries out of date, but very fine regardless. On landing next to it, he pointed to Elkheim. “See, that’s just part one. Part two is the Dragon Empire’s gonna need this.”

The two ponies stared. “Elkheim?” Cheerilee asked.

“Yeah,” Spike said. His eyes flashed red, and he grew a little – not much, but he had become as tall as either of the ponies. “Well, not all of it, but, see, Elkheim’s got this island chain that leads up to Rime, right? The northern continent. And a lot of dragons live there.” He turned to look to the ponies, tapping his fingers together. “See, Overlord of All Dragons, turns out that only applies to dragons in Cissanthema. There’s a bunch out in Rime, though, and even more in Occidenta. So if I want to be the real Overlord of All Dragons I’m gonna need to control them, too.” He pointed to the islands. “But even dragons need to stop for a break from flying every now and then. So the Dragon Empire is gonna need to be the Wilderlands, and this island chain.”

Spike looked back to them. “See, and as long as I’m taking those islands…Elkheim’s kinda’ basically been at war with dragons for centuries. Every few dozen years there’s a raiding party. A lot of treasure has been stolen over the past few hundred years. It’s mine. So I want it back. And let’s be honest, all those dragons out there want me to lead them to loot and plunder anyway.”

Spike stepped away from the map, waving his hands at it. “But I’m not going anywhere near Equestria, see? So all Princess Luna has to do is stay out of things. That’s all I want.” He smiled, growing a little larger as he did. “See?”

The two ponies did, but they didn’t like what they saw. “Spike,” Cheerilee tried. “Maybe…maybe it would be a bad idea to, as your first act as Dragon Emperor, declare war on another nation.”

Spike’s smile dropped. “It’s not like it would be a very long war,” he objected, crossing his arms. “And it’ll be my empire. I can do what I want.”

“It’s just…you’re not likely to get international recognition if you just attack others,” Cheerilee said. “That’s not what makes a nation, which is what it sounds like you’re trying to build. Plus there’s all those lives – you really want a war? And all that death it would cause?”

Spike paused at that, as though he hadn’t considered that. “Huh,” he said, deflating a little both figuratively and literally, as his form lost a few inches in height. “Hadn’t thought about that…I don’t want to hurt anyone I don’t have to…”

“And Princess Luna doesn’t rule over all ponies,” Raindrops observed, trying to help. “You don’t have to rule over all dragons – ”

The dragon whelp whirled on her at that. “Yes I do!” Spike exclaimed, stomping one foot on the ground and gaining a good two or three feet in height. He glare down at Raindrops, who backed away in fright as his form and in particular his eyes took on a red glow. “I need to. I own them, they’re mine!” He turned back to the map of Cissanthema. “Even if they don’t know it…I’ll hunt them down and make them mine!”

He turned back to the ponies, snorting a little green fire as he did and pointing at them. “I’m Overlord. But no dragon will stick with me if I can’t give them plunder, so I need to give them plunder. Lots of it. And I will and none of them will leave!”

Raindrops stole a glance at Cheerilee as Spike turned back to the map, flicking his tongue out at it and his form still glowing a subtle red. “Uh,” she whispered, leaning in close to the earth pony. “This…this isn’t good.”

“No, it’s not,” Cheerilee agreed. “I think I know why…” she took a cautious step towards Spike as Raindrops looked on in confusion. “Spike…you’re right. You’re Overlord. But do you really want other dragons to stick around only because you can give them treasure?”

Spike whirled around at that, growling and growing a few feet more, wings spread wide. Cheerilee backed away. “That’ss jusst to get them here!” Spike hissed. “But they’ll want to sstay. They won’t be going anywhere. They can’t. They’re mine! My dragonss! And then they’ll ssee – s-ssee how great I am, and…” he paused, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his head, shaking it. The red glow around him abated, and he shrank down several feet. When he opened his eyes again, they were their normal green, mostly – only a slight crimson tinge to the irises. “They’ll see,” he said, turning back to the map, leaning into it. “They’ll see, and they won’t go anywhere, ever again.”

“Oh,” Raindrops said in a low voice, suddenly able to put two and two together.

There was movement from the treasure pile that the throne sat on, and the two ponies looked to see Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs standing up, stretching his wings and making his way down the pile easily. “I think,” he said, “that your message for Princess Luna has been given to these two. So perhaps they should be on their way, Overlord?”

Spike considered a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said, then his eyes widened. “Oh! And,” he looked around the treasure piles, digging into one until he came up with a jewel-encrusted silver comb and a brass drinking bowl with intricate carvings along its outer surface, inlaid with electrum. “These are for you!” He held them forward. “Payment for coming all the way out here, and for sending my message to Luna!”

The two ponies stared at the gifts. Spike grinned knowingly, and pulled them back a little. “Or should I keep them?” he asked.

Cheerilee looked at the dragon whelp, a soft, but sad, smile on her face. She took the comb, and Raindrops the drinking bowl. “Thank-you, Spike,” the earth pony said. “But…you know you shouldn’t have to bribe beings into liking you.”

Spike stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, before bursting out in nervous laughter. “I’m not doing that!” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. His form glowed red, but he once again shrank rather than grew, reverting to his normal size. “It’s just…it’s payment. That’s all.”

“And…can I make a suggestion?” Cheerilee continued, jumping into the opening while it was there. “Take off that amulet for a little bit. I…I think there might be some…side-effects, to its magic. And I think you know that too.”

Spike’s hand went to the amulet around his neck. “I’ll…think about that,” he said warily. “Dragons are super-resistant to magic, though. The amulet isn’t effecting me that bad.”

“Are y – ” Raindrops began, but Cheerilee shot her a glare and the pegasus closed her mouth.

“Just think about it,” Cheerilee said, turning around and heading for the ramp up, Raindrops in tow and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs already waiting to escort them out. Once at the top of the ramp, Cheerilee glanced back and saw Spike sitting in the throne once more, looking down at the amulet he wore and tapping at it with his claws.

She shook her head as she and Raindrops began the climb up the passageway, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs in front of them. “This is bad,” she said. “This is very, very bad.”

“Biggest bunch of bullies in the world, and they’re taking orders from him?” Raindrops asked. “Yeah, that’s bad. ‘I’m just going to need Elkheim?’ Does he really think we’d stay out of it and just let him do what he wanted?”

“I don’t think he’s thinking about that,” Cheerilee said. “He’s not really looking for a kingdom. And he doesn’t really want to rule dragons…it’s just that – ”

“That that is the only way a dragon will understand what he really wants from them,” the black dragon in front of them said.

Cheerilee and Raindrops both froze at that, glancing away from each other and towards Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. He had stopped and turned around, looking down at the ponies. In the dark hall it was difficult to tell his expression – the only light came from the golden chamber they had left behind, and the red glow of the wyrm’s eyes. “And what is it,” he asked, “that Spike really wants?”

Cheerilee and Raindrops looked to each other. “A friend,” Cheerilee said.

“Friend?” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs asked. A low, rumbling laughter came from his maw. “What is a friend? Friendship is based on trust. Dragons have precious little of that.”

“Well, it’s what Spike wants,” Raindrops said, stomping her front hoof. The clack echoed through the hallway. “Friends and family.”

“Family,” the black dragon scoffed again. “Competition, you mean. Someone who will steal my gold, my treasure, my lair.” The black dragon waved two claws as though imitating little whelps running around on the ground. “Hatchlings that want nothing but their own hoard. Imagine having that! A lair that you invite – that you hatch – another dragon into?” He chuckled. “Foolish.”

“Well, that’s what Spike wants,” Cheerilee said. She eyed him a moment. “And you know that. And you’re not even against it, I don’t think. You’re not disagreeing with us, you’re just speaking for every dragon that does.”

“Which is to say,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs said, “every other dragon. I have been listening to you, Cheerilee, with the crystal ball that Spike uses. You have been trying to ‘figure out’ my kind, yes? Why are there so few of us? Why are we so willfully ignorant? So arrogant?”

Cheerilee paused a moment, before nodding. Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs nodded as well, and reached out a hand, touching it to the wall. “You’re right. The answer has been right in front of you. It is because we eat rocks.”

The earth pony considered that a few moments, but shook her head. “I don’t…what?” she asked. “How does that make sense?”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs turned around, resuming walking. “Nations. Societies. Cultures. These are all side-effects of the real goal of your race, I realized. The real goal is food. Growing it or herding it. Protecting it. Your societies exist to make the production of food more efficient.” He glanced back at the ponies. “You have a farmer. The farmer needs aid in tending his farm, so he has a family. The family needs protection, so you have soldiers. The soldiers need organization, so you have governments. You produce so much food that some of your kind don’t need to produce their own, so they become artisans, or artists, or thinkers.”

The dragon looked forward again. “But dragons eat rocks. We do not need farmers. We do not need a family. We are mighty – so we do not need soldiers. We can get our food anywhere. It does not need to be made ‘more efficient.’ So we need no government.” He snorted. “We collect treasure because the greed makes us grow. Because the more we own, the more we have, the stronger we are in our early years – but that makes every dragon competition, trying to take what is ours, to stop our growth. Even our mates are potential rivals.”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs looked back to Cheerilee. “Our only competition is other dragons – and so, we avoid those other dragons. We isolate ourselves in our lairs. We do not talk to one another. We have centuries of life to us…and yet the thought of companionship fill us with fear. So our language is stunted – so much that many of us learn other languages where we can, because Draconic simply cannot express what we may wish to say to others. And because we avoid each other, we see no need to learn or create letters. Draconic goes unwritten. Our history is distorted or forgotten.”

The three of them had reached the top of the tower, the entryway that looked out at the thousands of dragons in the Forge. The two ponies noted that all the dragons did their best to stay away from one another. They didn’t talk amongst themselves, really. Fights broke out over personal space. Almost every single one had a look of mixed paranoia and uncertainty on their faces.

“We are dragons,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs said to the two ponies. “We are mighty. We are the strongest of the mortal races. We have no equals. And because of that…we are dying.”

6. The Rainbow of Darkness

“You are going to die, Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear,” Claxokarthelornarux said. “This is not a threat, it’s a statement of fact. You’re not merely the oldest dragon alive. I think you are the oldest dragon to have ever lived.” She hissed a little. “But you are not immortal. I can smell it. You will not live out this century, and you know it.”

Solrath snarled at that, though it was true. Dragons were not like other mortal races. They only got stronger and stronger as they aged – but, eventually, age did claim them. Barring injury or illness, eventually the fires that sustained them would suddenly and completely sputter and die. Senescence was rapid, claiming a dragon in a matter of just a few days. And a dragon could feel that coming. Not with pinpoint certainty – Solrath couldn’t name the hour and day that he would die – but the elder red did indeed know that this century, perhaps even this decade, would be his last.

“And after you are gone,” Claxokarthelornarux continued, “baring the Overlord, there will be only one dragon in the whole world stronger than me. Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha. No other dragon even comes close.”

Solrath scoffed. “Are you really that strong?” he asked. “I have never noticed. If you are the third strongest then it is a rather distant third.”

Claxokarthelornarux hissed at that, and Solrath heard her wings flaring. “I am,” she insisted. “I am the equal of any other dragon. I have twice tried to become Overlord…and twice I have been stopped, by Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha.”

Solrath’s ear-crests flared at that. “And yet he did not make himself Overlord,” the eldest dragon noted.

Claxokarthelornarux snorted, and Solrath heard her settling down into a sitting position. “I do not understand that one,” she complained. “He lairs within the black spire itself but I have never known him to flaunt his hoard. He has prevented me from becoming Overlord but did not claim the title for himself. Why?”

Solrath hadn’t known of Claxokarthelornarux’s ongoing disputes with the more powerful dragon, but he did know of Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha in general, and had long ago figured out the peculiar quirks of the mighty black dragon. In some ways they mirrored his own. “Because he does not want there to be a dragon Overlord, obviously.”

The answer didn’t seem to appease Claxokarthelornarux. “Why?” She demanded.

“It’s not something you would ever understand,” Solrath answered. Solrath himself only understood it because, like Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha, he had something other than Draconic greed driving him, which allowed him to look at dragons almost from the outside and see the deep flaws in their race’s ‘society’, such as it was. The difference was that the other dragon had grown to despair at them, while Solrath intended to use them to his advantage.

Solrath took a few more moments to think over what Claxokarthelornarux was saying, then chuckled to himself. “So,” he said, having put it together fairly easily. “You wish for me to kill your two main rivals, then go somewhere and die. You will make yourself Overlord.” He hissed. “Rather than becoming stronger yourself, you have elected to merely kill those stronger than you. Not a very Draconic thing to do.”

Claxokarthelornarux snarled. “We have been too long without an Overlord. When was the last great Draconic raid? When was the last time a dragon increased its hoard by taking from one of the lesser mortals, instead of each other?” She leaned in to Solrath. “Our numbers here dwindle, Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear, have you noticed that? There is not enough treasure for our whelps. The scraps they get are hardly enough to fuel their growths. The youngest generation, those that do manage to claw their way to adulthood, are soft and weak.” She growled again, leaning away from Solrath. “I will become Overlord and change that.”

The eldest dragon wondered if Claxokarthelornarux really believed what she was saying, if she had somehow twisted her own greed and lust for the power of the Overlord in her mind into some grand design to save the Dragon race. She wasn’t stupid and had to know that any treasure she gained from some grand attack on the lesser mortals would be paid for dearly, with thousands of dragon deaths in the process of gaining it. Perhaps she really did have some plan to become Overlord and use the violence and increase in hoard size to hopefully bring about a resurgence of Draconic power, gather enough treasure that dragons wouldn’t fear spawning a legion of new whelps.

More likely it was just a line that Claxokarthelornarux was feeding Solrath and intended to feed to any dragons who asked once she was Overlord. After all, thousands of dragons dying at once would mean a substantial decrease in competition – and an awful lot of treasure hoards would be up for grabs.

It didn’t really matter either way, since both would work towards Solrath’s plans quite nicely. “Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha I shall slay at my leisure,” he said. “But what makes you think that I have any ability to overcome the Alicorn Amulet?”

Claxokarthelornarux chuckled. “I don’t know for certain,” she said. “But I pay attention. You are hiding something under your heart scale. You almost used it against Spike, but reconsidered at the last moment. What is it?”

Solrath considered. “Tell me of the Alicorn Amulet first,” he said. “It is a pony weapon, obviously. Where does it come from? Who made it? And what are its limits?”

Claxokarthelornarux hissed a little in annoyance about not getting to learn about Solrath’s secret weapon, but answered the eldest dragon anyway. “Unlike most, you and I both know the value of letters and words,” she answered. “I have read the legends and tales of the lesser mortals. The Alicorn Amulet is obscure even there, but I have read of it. Perhaps it was created by Tirek to tempt mortals. Or perhaps it contains the trapped soul of an alicorn. One legend suggests that it was made by a pony named Sombra, by sacrificing and binding the life-force of a powerful pony from each tribe. None know for certain.

“What is known,” Claxokartheloranrux pressed on, before Solrath could grow too annoyed, “is that when a pony wears it, it enhances their natural abilities. A unicorn becomes a mighty mage. A pegasus becomes capable of flying faster than sound and creating hurricane-force squalls. An earth pony can lift ten times what it could before and is all but invulnerable, and the land around it will blossom and grow. But the Amulet is…seductive in its power. It drives the pony wearing it to madness, especially the more it is used. And it can only be removed by its wearer willingly – or if it is slain.”

Solrath growled low. “Spike is not a pony,” he noted glancing down out of habit, even if it did nothing. “But the effect seems…similar. He can grow as though he is gathering a hoard of any size, at will. He is stronger and tougher as well…but…”

“That is it,” Claxokarthelornarux said. “He becomes a mighty dragon, a powerful dragon, worthy in body, if not in mind, of being Overlord…but he is still just a dragon.” She hissed. “Now then. Your weapon, Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear? Can it be used to overcome a dragon?”

Solrath’s left hand reached up, tapping at his heart scale as he considered. The Rainbow of Darkness…a power equal to that of the Elements of Harmony, it was said. Greater than Luna or Celestia. The secret weapon of Tirek that had allowed him alone to stand up against two alicorns together. A force of corruption and evil and darkness as old as the world, a tool perhaps created by Discord himself…

It certainly sounded like it should have been more powerful than the Alicorn Amulet. But there was no way to know, was there? Not unless he actually tried it out. But not on himself – not until he knew the effect it might have on him.

Fortunately, he had a test subject right here.

Solrath’s removed the Rainbow of Darkness from beneath his heart scale and opened the bag that contained it. It poured out eagerly, and was already responding to Solrathicharnon’s will as he flicked a finger at Claxokarthelornarux, who had roared in surprise, wings beating. She tried to get away from the Darkness, tried to fly, but it washed over her hind legs quickly and pulled her back down at Solrath’s mental whim.

“Is it more powerful?” Solrath hissed, as the silver dragon screamed.. “Let’s find out.”

“You’re curious about my history,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha said as he took Cheerilee and Raindrops into his hands, spread his wings, and flew them down towards the basalt beach that bordered the lava pool. “But there is not much to it. I was born as any other dragon, hatched here in the Forge. I fought for my hoard, grew in power, set up a lair beyond the Dragon’s Forge, in between the nations of Cavallia and Zaldia.”

He landed, setting the ponies down on the beach, then leaned down, looking at them closely. “My lair was stumbled across by a pony one day, while I was in the middle of a long slumber. The pony stole from my hoard. When I woke and learned of the theft, I flew into a rage. I used my magic and learned that the thief now resided in Roam, the Cavallian capital.”

“Wait,” Cheerilee interrupted, “magic? I’m guessing you mean spells…dragons have spells?”

The black dragon snorted. “Yes, a dragon who cares to try can cast some spells, though few ever bothered to even before our numbers started dwindling. Our magic is not as profound as that of a unicorn, but mighty and powerful in its own right.” He cocked his head back at the black tower. “How do you suppose that is kept intact? Or the magic Spike uses to transport objects?”

Cheerilee and Raindrops glanced at one another, then shrugged. “Makes sense,” Raindrops said. She looked back to Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. “Sooo…I’m going to guess what happened next: Princess Cadenza didn’t like a big, black dragon appearing at Roam threatening to burn the place down.”

“No, she did not.” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs confirmed, chuckling slightly. “I attacked her when she impaired my progress to the thief’s home. We fought. She won. And as I lay on the ground in one of Roam’s parks, battered and bruised and wondering how something so small could hit like a falling mountain, she demanded to know why I had come to Roam. I told her of the thief.

“That is when she left me, and then returned within the hour with Bagliore Felice, the thief that had stolen from me. She made him apologize, and return what he had stolen from me – what he had not spent, in any event. She punished him by indenturing him, making him work in her palace until he had earned enough to repay the remainder of what he had taken from me, which took him five years.”

Cheerilee blinked. “Indentured? Cavallia outlawed indenturing almost sixty years ago…” she trailed off when she noticed the black dragon staring at her. “Oh, right,” she chuckled, rubbing the back of her head. “Dragon. You live a long time.”

“Eight hundred and seventy years, so far,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs informed her. “In any event, I did not escape without punishment. I, too, was indentured, forced to aid in the rebuilding of those parts of Roam that had been damaged or destroyed in the battle by digging a new quarry and aiding in the cutting of stone from it. I chafed at this punishment and tried to escape several times. My attempts to do early in my imprisonment so resulted in additional battles, which damaged further parts of Cavallia and increased the length of my indenture. In the end I spent twenty years under Cadenza’s yoke.”

“But I did not merely scrape away at stone. On discovering that I did not know letters and words, Cadenza taught them to me, supposedly so that I would be more useful at digging. And not merely any random rock that I dug up could be used. Ponies had to show me what earth to dig up, what they were looking for, what they needed. They had to talk to me. I had to talk back. Not all our talks were about stone – not after the first three years or so, once I learned that escape was impossible. I learned of the pony concepts of family and friends, I saw how working together ponies could accomplish things that no one of them could. I considered the Dragon’s Forge,” he waved a claw at the surrounding landscape, “and compared it to Roam, and I knew which was the more impressive.”

He shook his head. “In time, my indenture ended. I returned to my lair and found it undisturbed – because Princess Cadenza had posted a detachment of her Honor Guard to protect it while I labored, a guard that left once I returned. And as I sat in a dark, dank cavern, atop a bed of treasure that meant nothing to me save merely having it, as I compared it to all that I had seen in Roam and in Cavallia…as I sat there, alone for the first time in twenty years, with nothing to do, nopony to talk to…I realized how magnificently stupid my race is.”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs stood, looking out at the dragons again. “I returned to the Forge. I wanted to find a dragon to talk to, to connect to. A dragon that I could speak to as I had learned to speak to ponies. I wanted a friend.” He looked down at himself. “But…there was no hope of that. A smaller dragon would only ever suborn itself to me, and then only for as long as I was physically present. Those as big as me, or bigger, saw me as a threat. I thought to perhaps try and raise some whelps…” he shook his head. “But so far, the only effect of that has been to give the whelps the idea of roaming in gangs, of working with each other to increase the chances of their own survival – until they become strong enough to leave the gang and become adults, usually while also ensuring that the rest of their gang cannot gain the same opportunity.”

The black dragon grunted. “For a time I considered becoming Overlord, making dragons change. I think I am strong enough that I could…but I am not so strong that I could remain Overlord under those conditions, that I could force dragons to follow me without offering them the chance for plunder and raiding the lesser mortals – without allowing dragons to give into the very natures that are killing us as a race. I am strong enough, at least, to prevent any other dragon that would become Overlord.”

Cheerilee and Raindrops both considered, glancing Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs over and then looking back to the black tower. “And that’s where Spike comes in,” Raindrops guessed. “He is strong enough, as long as he has that Amulet. And he wasn’t raised by dragons, so he doesn’t really think like one. But…but it’s corrupting him, somehow. At least I hope it is, that he isn’t normally that…unstable.”

“He was not when he first arrived,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs informed them. “But I have watched his trinket slowly drive him insane. It preys upon his mind, has made him fixate on his recent past – on the abandonment and loss that he has suffered. I think he came to the Forge hoping to learn of his parents, not knowing that no dragon truly has a parent. The betrayal of Zecora, his time with Corona, and his encounter with a pony named Twilight Sparkle…they have wounded him. I have tried to help him, but as the Alicorn Amulet’s influence over him grows…I can now act only as his adviser. Help steer him away from the worst of what he is now capable of.”

“Alicorn Amulet?” Raindrops asked. She looked down in thought, before her eyes widened. “Wait. Is that its name, or are you just calling it that ‘cause it looks like an alicorn?”

The black dragon considered. “It is its name,” he said. “Another dragon, Claxokarthelornarux, knows of it and has told me. Why? Are you familiar with it?”

“No, but a friend of ours is,” Raindrops said, looking to Cheerilee. “Remember? While we were away at Oaton, Carrot Top had that catering thing, or something, for Vicereine Puissance’s birthday. But it all went to Tartaros when there was a Discordian or something, there was a break-in to one of Puissance’s vaults and an artifact was stolen. The Alicorn Amulet.”

Cheerilee put a hoof to her head, trying to think. “Sort of…” she said. “I can’t really remember…Carrot Top isn’t that great at telling stories, and plus like you said Oaton had just happened. I was still thinking about Tarnished and Shiny, I think.”

Raindrops fluttered her wings as she turned to face Cheerilee fully. “I don’t remember too much,” she said, “but I do definitely remember that name, the Alicorn Amulet, that it can only be taken off if the wearer wants to take it off, and that it will drive whoever’s wearing it crazy.” She looked back up to the black dragon. “He needs to take that thing off. Like, right now.”

“It is the only reason he is Overlord,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs said. “The only reason why he has dragons following him – which, remember, is the closest he can get to having them be his friends or family, something he desires more than anything. Getting him to take it off will be nearly impossible.”

“Maybe not,” Cheerilee said, tapping a hoof to her mouth as she thought.

“I mean, it is obviously affecting him…but he did seem resistant, too. Like he has good moments and bad moments. Maybe if we can just tell him what we know about it, convince him to just take it off even for a little bit, that will be enough.”

Spike’s claws dug into the obsidian orb that he held, within which was an image of the two ponies and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, his supposed friend, talking about taking away the Alicorn Amulet. Those…those jerks! It was his! Didn’t they get that? He just needed it to stay Overlord, then he could make things better for dragons, and they’d be his friends…

“Not take it away,” Cheerilee continued, and Spike’s ear-crests flared at the words. “We should really emphasize that point, that he can hold onto it. I don’t think he’d listen to us if he thought we were trying to steal it.”

“But we are going to, right?” Raindrops asked.

Spike hissed, his tongue flicking out, and he snorted green fire.

“No,” Cheerilee said. “We’d have to convince him to give it up himself. But that’s not what we need to focus on right now, we just need to focus on getting it off of him. We have to help him.”

Cheerilee was smarter than she looked, Spike decided as he leaned back in the throne he sat on. He realized after a moment that he was glowing red, and had grown a few feet in height at the thought of ponies trying to steal from him. Jerks – foolish, lesser mortal creatures, trying to take what was his, trying to take from his hoard, his dragons…trying to…

…help him.

Spike groaned a little, closing his eyes and letting the orb fall from his hands as he put his hands to his head, concentrated hard on returning to his normal size. Which, oddly considering that he was sitting in a room full of treasure that was all his, was still just that of a small dragon whelp. Maybe because even though it was all his it just…didn’t feel right. He hadn’t earned it, after all, it had just been sitting here, the plunder of thousands of years of raiding and pillaging, a hoard reserved for the Overlord – or at least whatever dragon could break into the obsidian tower and steal the hoard.

That wouldn’t have mattered to a real dragon, though, would it? Spike took his hands from his head, leaning back in his throne and considering, glancing down at the amulet he wore. It was why he was Overlord. It was the source of his power. It looked pretty awesome, too, truth be told.

But it was just a necklace. Spike reached up, grabbed it, and pulled it off of his neck easily. And he felt…no different at all. There was no feeling of dark magic leaving him, though a test showed that he indeed didn’t have the power of the Amulet anymore. As he scratched his neck he considered that the ponies were probably wrong. He was fine, obviously. The Amulet was doing him no harm, and he was using it for a good purpose, right? Though in hindsight that whole conquer Elkheim thing was probably pretty crazy. But that wasn’t the Amulet’s fault, he was just new at this whole Overlord thing! He’d get things right, and then –

“Overlord!”

The ponies jumped at the sound, while Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs himself turned in its direction, snarling and spreading his wings instinctively. The call had come from the sky above them…

There. Soaring from the lip of the caldera and towards the basalt beach, ignoring the dragons that got in their way, were two dragons. One was Solrath, and the other…the other was some kind of monster. Her scales were like tarnished silver. Her front claws were impossibly long, even for a dragon, and as she landed she had to curl her fingers and rest on her knuckles. Her horns were long and twisted and covered in spines, and so for that matter was her back, her elbows, everywhere. She rippled with muscle, her scales seeming to strained and oozing some kind of black pus in places.

She was as big as Solrath, but more massive – and she looked familiar. “Is…is that Clax?” Raindrops asked without thinking, forgetting the longer name that dragons demanded.

Claxokarthelornarux’ head whipped around at the sound, even though the two ponies and one dragon were hundreds of feet away from her. “I warned you, whelps!” she screamed, her voice furious as she spread her wings and launched herself forward.

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs interposed himself between the ponies and Claxokarthelornarux, breathing black fire that washed over the monstrous dragon. The silver dragon stopped short as the fire washed over her, crying out in surprise – and pain. When the gout of fire receded, parts of her were still on fire, the black pus that leaked from her scales and mouth still alight – and hurting her. She clawed at the flames, putting them out, but doing so forced her to injure herself thanks to how big and sharp her claws had become, one attempt even cutting a gash near her right eye.

The black dragon stared at her in confusion; his fire had been meant only to challenge her, not burn her. Fire wasn’t supposed to burn a dragon at all, no matter how hot. “What has happened to you?” he demanded. He steeled himself. “And why would you go against the Overlord’s command to leave the ponies alone?” Other dragons in the Forge, meanwhile, had started to gather, looking on with interest.

Claxokarthelornarux roared aloud, head whipping around to Solrath now that the fires on her were finally out. “I’ll kill – ” she began.

Solrath held up a hand, revealing something there – a bag of some kind, from which something black like tar oozed and poured but evaporated before hitting the ground. He squeezed the bag, and Claxokarthelornarux doubled over and roared in pain.

“She is not quite what she used to be,” Solrath explained to Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. “I honestly don’t know what the Rainbow of Darkness – ”

“The what?!” Cheerilee exclaimed.

“ – might have done to her mind,” the eldest dragon continued without pausing, “but no matter.” He turned to the obsidian tower. “Overlord Spike! You have a challenger!”

As more dragons gathered, Claxokarthelornarux writhed in pain and hate, and Solrath and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs waited, Raindrops looked to Cheerilee, who’s eyes had grown large and fur was standing on end. “Rainbow of Darkness?” Raindrops asked.

“Short version, it’s Tirek’s, and it’s bad,” Cheerilee responded, cantering a little to look beyond Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs and get a better view of Claxokarthelornarux, who had picked herself up and was quivering in a mix of pain and anger, glaring at Solrath. The other dragons that had gathered near looked on in interest themselves; one caught Claxokarthelornarux’s eye and said or did something to set her off. She breathed out fire at him, but it was fire that was laced with some kind of black bile. The fire caused no harm to the dragon it landed on, but the bile burned and hissed on the dragon’s scales and eye that it landed on, and he fell away, clawing at the bile and roaring in pain. The other gathered dragons gave Claxokarthelornarux a very wide berth at that.

“How is every single evil artifact from history showing up here today?” Cheerilee demanded, stepping back to the relative safety of being beside Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs.

Raindrops tried to run through her ancient Equestrian history, but was drawing a blank, either from the situation or because she just had plain forgotten it since it had been awhile since she’d been in school. “Okay, what can the Rainbow of Darkness do?”

Cheerilee looked at Raindrops. “Anything, as long as it’s evil,” she said. “Supposedly it’s like some kind of…I guess a good way of putting it would be a counter to the Elements of Harmony. It’s just…evil. Pure evil.” She looked to Solrath. “It’s Tirek’s, and he used to use it to turn ponies into…things. He’s supposed to have it still with him in Tartaros. How did Solrath get it? And how is Corona okay with him having it? Even at her worst there is no way she’s that crazy!”

“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Raindrops said. “Back in Tambelon Corona basically said that Solrath isn’t really on her side, so much as against Princess Luna.” Raindrops looked down at her chest, the Element of Honesty that she wore there. “We…we need backup. This had officially become a blast-it-with-Harmony situation.”

“Yeah, only how are we supposed to do that?” Cheerilee asked. “Everypony else is hundreds of miles away!”

The dragons all around began roaring, and the two ponies turned to look. Spike had emerged from the top of the tower, still wearing the Alicorn Amulet, and looking down at Claxokarthelornarux and Solrath. “What did you do to her?” Spike demanded. He pointed at the Rainbow of Darkness. “What the hay is that?”

Solrath grinned, then spread his wings and arms wide. “Claxokarthelornarux challenges you, Overlord Spike,” he said, holding the Rainbow of Darkness over his head and squeezing it. The silver dragon roared in pain, bile dripping from her mouth and wings spreading wide. “Defeat her if you can.”

Spike growled, touching the Alicorn Amulet and growing in size as he climbed to the top of the tower – reaching a length somewhere between Solrath’s and the giant form he had taken earlier. He glared down at Solrath. “Okay, no,” he said, voice booming. “I am positive that you can’t use magic to make a dragon fight me if she doesn’t really want to.” He pointed at Solrath. “Especially not since you’re just doing this ‘cause you’re afraid to fight me personally! You wanna fight me? Do it yourself!”

The other dragons looked to Solrath at that, but the red dragon seemed unperturbed. “Oh no, you misunderstand,” he said. “Claxokarthelornarux wants nothing more than to be Overlord. She told me.” He turned to look to the silver dragon, and held the bag forward. “I am merely enabling her.” Solrath turned to Claxokarthelornarux fully, holding forward the Rainbow of Darkness and squeezing the bag again. Claxokarthelornarux roared in pain, clutching at her head, eyes wide. They were glazing over, like black oil was creeping across them and turning them jet black.

Then the silver dragon threw her head back and roared, letting loose silver flame, bile spilling forth from her mouth and searing the rock beneath her – as well as her own scales. She took to the air, the action scattering black pus everywhere that burned the dragons in touched, and paused a moment in the air.

“I’LL KILL YOU! I WILL BE OVERLORD!”

Claxokarthelornarux dived for the obsidian tower then, breathing a line of fire and bile at Spike. The larger-but-younger dragon leaped into the air to avoid it. The silver dragon collided claws first with the obsidian tower, ripping and tearing at the stone for a few moments before taking once more to the air and soaring after Spike. As she closed in, he turned to take the attack head-on. That was when spines suddenly and messily burst from his foe’s body, each a foot long and glistening with a liquid probably better left unidentified.

The Overlord roared in pain as the silver dragon collided with him and some of the spines found their way past his scales and to the flesh beneath. He breathed green fire on Claxokarthelornarux, igniting the pus and bile on her and sending her flying away in pain, but she quickly banked in the air and came at him again, not bothering to put out the flames this time in spite of the pain. One clawed arm, which had grown longer than the others, lashed out at Spike, even as her wings grew in size but the membranes of them didn’t quite keep up, tearing small holes in them that, unfortunately, didn’t seem to affect her ability to fly at all.

Raindrops stared in horror at the fight. The earlier battles she had seen had been brutal in their own way, yes, but they had simply involved two titans struggling physically, a larger version of what any pony could do. But this…what Claxokarthelornarux had become, was transforming into – she hardly looked draconic anymore under all those spines. Raindrops spared a glance at Cheerilee before beating her wings, taking to the sky and soaring up to reach eye level with Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. “Do something!” she demanded.

The black dragon looked to her. “Like what?” He demanded.

“I don’t know! Anything!” She threw her hooves into the air. “This has to be against the rules – ”

“Dragons have no rules,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs growled, eyes narrowing. “That is what I was telling you, pony! There is nothing saying that Solrath can’t use another dragon to fight for him! All that matters is whether the Overlord can survive.”

“Then there’s nothing saying you can’t go and kick his flank!” Raindrops countered, pointing a hoof at Solrath. “You don’t want anything bad to happen to Spike but bad is all that’s going to happen if this keeps on going!”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs paused a moment at that, looking to Solrath. The red dragon’s eyes were closed, both hands closed over the Rainbow of Darkness. He was probably following the battle nevertheless, however – his ability to sense magic allowing him to track both Spike and Claxokarthelornarux without difficulty. The black dragon growled low. “I always knew I’d have to, sooner or later,” he hissed, spreading his wings wide, then launching himself forward. Raindrops watched closely. The black dragon was nearly as large as Solrath, faster, younger, healthier, not blind, not occupied with the fight going on, attacking from surprise. He had every advantage…

Just as Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs’ jaws were about to close on the nearest part of Solrath, however – just as his claws were about to start rending and tearing – Solrath moved, somehow anticipating the attack. The red dragon used his wings to propel himself backwards several dozen feet, while his thick tail came down on Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs’ back, sending the black dragon sprawling to the ground in surprise.

Normally the fight would have been nowhere near over, but the circumstances were not normal. Solrath held the Rainbow of Darkness forward, and black tendrils lashed out from the bag, wrapping around the black dragon and sending him tumbling to the ground, then roaring in pain as they grew thorns that dug under his scales.

The other dragons nearby roared in surprise at the sight, while Solrath only used his tail to knock Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs away, rolling him and causing the thorns to dig deeper. “I could hear you coming from miles away, whelp,” the red dragon said, tail thumping the ground in anger. He glanced to the two Elements of Harmony. “And do not think that I have forgotten either of you.”

Overhead, meanwhile, Spike roared in pain as Claxokarthelornarux’s claws found his chest and dug a deep furrow in his scales there before he could escape, diving down and low over the lava pool that surrounded the obsidian tower. The silver dragon followed, the black pus across her scales once more igniting due to the heat, but she no longer seemed to care as she came up and over Spike, lashing out and forcing him down. By then he was over the ‘beach’ of basalt and was barely able to get his feet under him, nearby dragons scattering as he skidded to a halt near the ponies, but paid them no mind. He reared up and roared in anger, amulet glowing and making him swell in size once more – to the form he had taken before, the dragon four times the size of Solrath.

Most of the other dragons on the beach, and both of the two ponies, scattered in fear at the sheer size of Spike. But Solrath held his ground, and Claxokarthelornarux didn’t even slow down as she collided with his chest spines-first. The Overlord grunted but took it, grabbing the silver dragon by the shoulders and ignoring the pain as he tore her off of him and roared in her face.

“You can’t be Overlord!” Spike exclaimed, his voice rocking the very earth and once more sibilant as his eyes glowed red. “I’m Overlord! I’m the ruler of all dragonss! They’re MINE!”

Spike slammed Claxokarthelornarux into the ground with a sickening crunch, lifted her up, and threw her towards the lava. She didn’t waste any time, however, in standing back up and roaring. The Overlord matched the roar. “I WON’T BE ALONE AGAIN!” He hissed. “I WON’T BE ABANDONED AGAIN! I’M OVERLORD! NOT YOU! NOT SSOLRATH! ME!”

Spike leaped forward at Claxokartheloranrux. She twisted to the side, however – and then seemed to grow, neck and tail and arms and legs elongating and coiling around the Overlord, who roared in surprise at the sudden mutation. Her own neck twisted around his a few times and began to squeeze even as her jaws closed around one of his wings and bit down. Spines grew across her body, and her bile burned him.

The Overlord struggled, twisted, turned, breathed fire, clawed at the creature wrapped around him that could no longer rightly be called a dragon, and his eyes and the Alicorn Amulet both glowed an angry crimson. But it was in vain. He fell to all four legs, then stumbled to the ground.

Spike sucked in breath, eyes wide, looking at the other dragons even as he tried to pull Claxokarthelornarux from his neck – he may not have needed to breathe, but he did need to take in air to speak, to cry out. He spotted a familiar face in the crowd of dragons that stood in the jungle that surrounded the basalt beach – Hesjingrasvim, still clutching the golden statue that Spike had given him earlier.

Spike managed to get enough of the creature – she could no longer rightly be called a dragon – off of his neck to cry out. “HELP ME!”

The dragons all looked puzzled at that – none more so than Hesjingrasvim. “Why?” The green dragon asked confusedly.

Spike managed to pull more of Claxokarthelornarux off of him, enough to get a good grip on her and just rip her off – a singularly painful experience as he threw the aberration off of him and towards the lava. She shrank down on herself again, somewhat, and needed to take time to untangle her own limbs. The Overlord didn’t press his advantage, though – he couldn’t. He was in a lot of pain, was breathing heavily – dragons still did that sometimes, it was a way to regulate…something, Spike didn’t know his own anatomy very well. If not for the Alicorn Amulet he probably would have been dead by now.

He pointed at Hesjingrasvim. “Becausse…” He hissed, “If…if I losse…you’ll all end up like her!” He pointed at the silver “dragon”. “Big Red over there will turn you all into that! Do you want that?”

“She’s winning,” a dragon pointed out. “Yeah, I want that!”

Spike’s eyes grew wide at that. He tried to step forward, but stumbled thanks to his wounds. “But…” he tried, “But…I’m the Overlord! You have to…to do what I say!”

“Not if you’re losing,” a small, beige dragon – Rachvaeri, the first dragon Spike had faced earlier – said, looking as confused as all the other dragons did.

Spike looked between her and the other dragons, who were nodding in agreement. “B-but…” He said, his voice dropping in volume, somehow now only barely above his normal speaking voice. His eyes lost their red glow, as well. “But…I – I need your help,” he said. “I – I’m a dragon, just like you! I don’t – I don’t even care about being Overlord – I just want…I just want…”

There was movement behind Spike. He turned to look, and saw Claxokarthelornarux standing tall, having freed herself from her own limbs. She was growing, too, swelling up to his size. She was covered in spines from snout to tail now, even across the digits of her wings. Her teeth were too large for her mouth, which no longer seemed to open right – it was more like that of a lamprey. And very little of her silver scales could be discerned beneath the black pus that oozed out from beneath them, or the black, caustic bile that leaked from her mouth.

She looked like a nightmare – like hate itself given form. And her black, blank eyes left no doubt as to her intention.

“It doesn’t matter what you want, Spike,” Solrath said. Spike looked to him – Solrath could all but see Spike thanks to the Alicorn Amulet he wore, lighting him up brilliantly in the red dragon’s magical sight just as much as the ponies’ Elements of Harmony lit up them, several hundred feet away still.

Solrath was standing about as far away from Spike, well outside of the range that the still very large and very powerful dragon could reach him quickly with a surprise rush. Not that one was likely to come, not now that this whelp’s spirit was being utterly broken and shattered.

The eldest dragon held the Rainbow of Darkness up, on the flat of his palm for all to see. “It doesn’t matter what you want,” the red dragon repeated. “Because Claxokarthelornarux is going to kill you. But she can only do it because of my power.” He smiled a smile that was completely without humor or cheer as his blind eyes swept over the gathered dragons. He heard a large number of them let out roars and gasps, one or two even almost saying something before being silenced by others. Solrath’s smile grew. “I control the Rainbow of Darkness. I can grant this power to any dragon – and take it away with a thought. Spike has…had…a trinket. I have power itself, and none can oppose me!

“I am Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear, and I am the Overlord of All Dragons, and – ”

And something small – about the weight of a light earth pony, or a heavy pegasus – landed on his palm, grabbed the Rainbow of Darkness, and then leaped back into the air.

“This is a bad idea!” Raindrops exclaimed.

7. The End of the Overlord

Raindrops had known even as she approached Solrath – she had left the Element of Honesty behind with Cheerilee, since the dragon wouldn’t be able to see her otherwise – that on taking the Rainbow of Darkness from him, she would only have a second to decide where to go, and that was not a very long time, particularly given her fairly slow flying speed for a pegasus. Cheerilee had known this too when Raindrops had told her the plan, though, and had suggested the only place she could go, which was at once the best and the worst place possible.

And so, on grabbing the Darkness, Raindrops leaped into the air and flew straight at Solrath. Her heart, previously beating a thousand times a second, stopped dead at the sight of the eldest dragon’s eyes wide in shock even as he was already sucking in breath for fire to burn her from the sky. And the face got closer as she shot past it and then dove down, wings beating as hard as they ever had. Solrath tried to turn to face her, but she anticipated the turn, guessed its direction, and lucked out by guessing correctly, allowing her to follow it and land next to the base of Solrath’s right wing, on his back, braced in place by a combination of the dragon’s scales, back-spines and the wing itself.

Solrath roared, possibly something in Draconic, but probably just an incoherent scream of rage. He spun in place, trying to throw Raindrops off of him, but she held on tight with three legs. He tried to tear her off with his claws, but none of them could reach her.

As unthinkable as it was, though, Raindrops wasn’t sure that was her biggest problem. The cloth bag she held tightly in her fourth leg, crushed against her chest as that was the only way to do it without using her mouth, pulsed and twitched like a steadily beating heart. The bag felt damp and slightly warm, in an unpleasant way. But far worse was whatever was in the bag. She couldn’t see it and didn’t want to, but it wanted out. She heard whispers in her head, whispers in her own voice, telling her to open the bag, to pour in her hate, that out would come the Darkness to fulfill her every desire, crush all her enemies…

Fortunately Raindrops’ mind was mostly elsewhere, what with the dragon she was riding and everything. And, oh, look, here came another.

The moment Raindrops had grabbed the Rainbow of Darkness, two things had happened. First, the black tendrils binding Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs broke apart, sloughing off of him and dissolving into a black tar that seemed to just seep into the Earth and disappear. The black dragon crawled to his feet and took a few moments to gather himself, before looking at Solrath and roaring in challenge. Solrath stopped his trying to get Raindrops off of him and turned just in time to meet the black dragon’s charge. He was still shoved backwards a hundred feet, scattering smaller dragons behind the two of them before both Solrath and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs took to the air.

The other thing happened to Claxokarthelornarux. The dragon convulsed and roared in pain and rage as the Darkness left her body in great rivulets, bleeding from beneath her scales, being vomited up from her maw, a black tar like that which had left Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, though there was far more of it. She stumbled backwards, and shrank down as the Darkness left her body. She quickly regained her normal shape and size, but then kept on shrinking as yet more of the power of Darkness left her, exacting its toll for its use and how, even if she had been forced into it, she had in her heart of hearts fully accepted the power it had granted. With a final roar she fell backwards and into the pool of lava, quickly sinking out of sight even as the black tar – and she, herself – ignited in flames that stank of rot and decay.

Cheerilee waited only until she was sure that Claxokarthelornarux was out of the picture before dashing forward with the Element of Honesty in her mouth, running up to Spike. The Overlord of All Dragons – if he was still that – was sitting back, staring at all the other nearby dragons, or staring in their direction, anyway. His eyes weren’t really focusing on any of them.

Cheerilee took the Element of Honesty from her mouth as she stared up at the titanic dragon. “Spike!” She called. “Spike!”

The Overlord of All Dragons looked down at her, his eyes still not really coming into focus. “This isn’t happening again,” he said with very surprising softness. “This isn’t…not again…”

Cheerilee took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She did not have a lot of time at all, but that was no excuse, and as badly as Raindrops needed her help right now, she wasn’t going to be able to do that if she didn’t give Spike the time and effort he deserved.

First: she had to speak to him face-to-face. “Spike,” she said. “Can…can we talk…close to each other? Can you shrink down a bit? So I’m not craning my neck so much just to look you in the eye?”

The dragon didn’t acknowledge her at first, but after a moment the Alicorn Amulet glowed, and he began shrinking down. Even as he did, though, Cheerilee saw his gaze beginning to harden. He stood up and spread his wings wide as he stopped shrinking at about fifty feet in length, twenty feet off the ground when on all fours, and his eyes finally began focusing on the dragons gathered nearby. With him having shrunk down, most of them turned their own eyes to the fight taking place in the sky – the battle between Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs and Solrath.

“They don’t even care,” Spike spat. “They don’t even care! They’d rather become…become freaks and bleed oil or whatever and not even be them anymore! They’d rather that then help me! Than help anyone!” He exhaled green fire, though not at Cheerilee, even as he began pacing pack and forth. “Those…they’re jerks!”

Second: get Spike to think beyond his immediate anger. “It’s not their fault, Spike,” she said. “They don’t know any better. It’s how they were raised.” She glanced around at the Dragon’s Forge, and wondered how many whelps there were in the forests. “From the moment they’re born they’re on their own.”

“Oh yeah?” Spike demand, stopping his pacing and glaring down at Cheerilee. He snapped his jaws closed, then leaned down to Cheerilee so they could talk face-to-face. “What about me? I was abandoned! I hatched in the middle of nowhere! I didn’t have anyone, any more than they did!” He snorted fire, though into the air over Cheerilee, at least, and not at her. “I crawled around and kept hidden the same way they did! I learned to speak by listening to ponies the same way dragons learn Draconic! We’re the same! I didn’t have anything, the same as them! I was alone! But I wouldn’t abandon them!”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Cheerilee said. Third: confront Spike with the truth. “Because you weren’t alone. You had Zecora.”

Spike recoiled, and not just a little. He stumbled backwards several steps, head drawing back and high into the air, eyes wide, ear-crests flaring. Then, the anger he returned, and he snarled at Cheerilee. “Zecora abandoned me!” he roared. “She just kept me around only to abandon me as soon as she released Corona from the Sun!”

Cheerilee’s eyes widened a little at Spike’s choice of words, but she swiftly decided that right now wasn’t the time to focus on them. “I know,” she said, holding up a hoof. “I don’t know why she did it. But I know that it hurts, and I know why it hurts. Because she was your friend.”

Spike roared again, flapping his wings hard. He lunged at Cheerilee, but the pony didn’t move – because no matter how angry he was, how scared, how hurt, Spike was still Spike, and Spike was just a scared, confused kid who didn’t really want to hurt anything. Not even the Alicorn Amulet could change that, Cheerilee was certain.

And she wasn’t wrong. Spike’s jaws clamped shut only a few inches from Cheerilee. He was trying to scare her, lashing out in anger because anger was better than what he really felt. Cheerilee stepped forward, reaching out and putting a hoof on Spike’s muzzle as she looked into his eyes. Fourth, and most important: give Spike a shoulder to cry on. “It’s going to be okay, Spike,” she said. “It’s going to be okay.”

Spike stared at her, then sucked in breath – too quickly to be readying a gout of flame. His eyes darted around. “I…I have to be strong,” he choked out. “If they…if they think I’m weak – th-then they won’t ever…won’t ever – ”

“Spike,” Cheerilee interrupted. “Don’t worry about them right now. Worry about you. Think about what you’ve had to do up ‘til now just to get to be Overlord. Think about what you’d have to do to stay Overlord. Do you really want that?”

Spike sniffed hard. He leaned away from Cheerilee, staring down at her. His form glowed red, and he started to shrink down, further and further, until soon Cheerilee found herself a score of feet away from a small dragon whelp that managed to last only a few seconds more before he fell to the ground, curled up into a ball, and started bawling in a way that only a child or someone who had been truly broken could – and at the moment, Spike was both.

Cheerilee was there in a moment, hoisting him up off the ground and holding him close in her hooves. The dragon whelp wasted no time in grabbing hold of her foreleg and burying his face in her chest. He was trying to speak, probably, but nothing coherent was coming out, and Cheerilee didn’t expect anything to. As pressing as her need was, as much trouble as Raindrops was in overhead right now, she needed to focus on Spike right now.

Eventually, Spike’s tears subsided, at least a little. He didn’t let go of Cheerilee, but he did pull away from her a little. “I…I d…I d-don’t want to be O-Overlord anymore…” he said. “I want…I don’t know…b-but I don’t want t-to be here anymore! I want to go h-home, and I don’t know where that is…but it isn’t here!”

Cheerilee smiled down at him. She used her hoof to dry his eyes. “As soon as we can,” Cheerilee said. She looked down to Spike’s neck. “But…first thing’s first. You should take that off, I think.”

Spike looked down at the Alicorn Amulet. Cheerilee had expected to have to try and negotiate with him some to do that, but instead the whelp wasted no time in tearing it off of his neck. “D-Don’t have to tell me twice,” he stuttered, rubbing his eyes himself.

Cheerilee nodded, patting Spike in thanks. “Okay,” she said. “Now…Spike, I know what just happened is very big, and you’re in a lot of hurt right now, but…I need your help.” At a strange look from the dragon whelp, she grimaced. “I need you to see if you can think of any way to deal with Solrath that doesn’t involve one of us putting the Amulet on.”

Raindrops wanted very badly to let go of Solrath and fly away hide in the forest of the Dragon’s Forge below, but she doubted she could do so with any kind of speed – and was pretty sure that if she tried, Solrath would abandon his fight with Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs and just head straight after her. So instead, all she could do was hang on for dear life.

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs closed in on Solrath, but the elder dragon sensed it and dodged, lashing the somewhat smaller one with his tail as he passed by.

Unless…

Raindrops shivered as the bag she held onto seemed to grow colder. The Rainbow of Darkness was right here…she could always…use it…

No!

Solrath lunged for Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, grabbed the black dragon and lashed out with a claw, drawing deep furrows in Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs’ scales but not going deep enough to actually injure him.

Just once. Just for a moment. A second. Something to contribute to the fight, give Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs the upper hoof for a moment. It was pure evil, she could tell that just by looking at the bag, just by considering what was in the bag. It wasn’t like the Alicorn Amulet, who’s effects weren’t really evil, however much the Amulet itself was as it tried to corrupt the wielder. The Darkness was almost the opposite, actually. Using it required choice, an active decision…and the effects…well, Raindrops had seen Claxokarthelornarux, the nightmare beast that she had become…

But surely just one use…

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs got underneath Solrath and pushed up with his wings, driving one horn at the eldest dragon’s belly. But Solrath avoided it and kicked Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs’ head with one hind foot.

No!

Maybe…

Raindrops fought against urges she knew weren’t really her own. The Darkness didn’t really offer a choice. It corrupted just as much as the Alicorn Amulet – was worse, really, in that it corrupted even before one put it on. Just being near to the Darkness was corrupting…

But as she heard a roar of pain from Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, as she glanced as saw the black dragon getting clear of Solrath, blood flowing freely in the air from a wound to one arm, not lethal by any means, but the first blood drawn in this fight…

Raindrops shut her eyes tightly, but that didn’t help. She saw…it was probably supposed to be her. But it looked like she was rising out of a pool of black tar, was made of that tar itself as her wings beat and carried her into the air. Her eyes were empty sockets, the tar dripped off of her hooves and was flung everywhere by her wingbeats, corrupting everything it touched…the evil version of her opened its mouth wide and lunged at her…

The pegasus cried out, opening her eyes and leaping away from Solrath without thinking. As she had thought would happen, the red dragon noticed instantly, and began the somewhat ponderous process of turning around after her. In a straight run he was faster no matter what she did, her only option was to go down, she blinked at the sudden wind speed…

…and in the moment that she blinked, she saw the black tar version of her beside her, diving with her.

You’re going to die! It shouted in a voice that was exactly like hers.

Raindrops dove, wings beating as she tried to go faster than mere gravity pulling her down allowed. She reached and passed terminal velocity quickly enough, but a glance behind her showed Solrath closing, and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs in pursuit after him. Solrath tried exhaling flames at her, and she cried out, but the flames were sucked back and lost in the descent – the three of them were falling too fast.

Raindrops blinked again, and the black tar version of her was flying above her, wind whipping and tearing at it so that it was malformed, but still in one relative piece.

Use the Darkness! Get out of this alive!

Raindrops looked back down, saw the jungle. Her smaller wings when compared to Solrath, catching less air as they were, would make stopping and changing direction harder for her than for him despite his massive size. She had to start banking now, changing direction now to avoid a head-on collision with the ground that she wouldn’t survive. Solrath roared in triumph as he spread his own wings wide, following her, closing in on her…

Use the Rainbow of Darkness! He’s going to hurt you! Kill you!

Use the Rainbow of Darkness! Hurt him! Kill him!

Raindrops looked to her left and saw the tar version of her screaming at her, mouth open impossibly wide, eyes as empty as ever.

Use the Darkness! Kill the dragon!

Raindrops looked behind her, saw Solrath right on top of her, barely ten feet now.

“Give me what is mine!” Solrath exclaimed, snorting fire that singed Raindrops’ tail.

Hurt him! Kill him!

Solrath’s mouth was open wide.

Use the Darkness! Use the Darkness!

“Give me the Rainbow of Darkness!” Solrath roared at Raindrops, inhaling, getting ready to blast her with flame.

Raindrops glanced at the Rainbow of Darkness in her hooves, glanced back at Solrath, and for reasons that she would never really understand, spun in place so that she was flying backwards and shouted “Fine! Choke on it!” as she threw the Rainbow of Darkness at Solrath’s mouth. Her aim was true, and the small bag that contained the Rainbow of Darkness slipped into Solrath’s maw and down his throat.

The dragon roared in surprise as his mouth snapped shut, eyes wide and missing a beat in his wings – enough of a delay to let Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs at last catch up to him, fly directly over the dragon, and kick down with all four legs. Solrath roared as he fell to the forest below with a titanic crash, rolling several times before coming to a stop and clearing a huge path through the forest as he did so. Raindrops slowed herself, landing atop a tree as best she could and sucking in air, breathing heavily, wings trembling, eyes wide. She looked around desperately, but didn’t see a black tar version of herself anywhere, didn’t hear whispers or shouts demanding her to hurt and kill things. That was probably good.

Less good was the fact that Solrath was getting up. The red dragon had one claw at his throat, and was coughing as though gasping for air – something a dragon didn’t normally do. Raindrops saw why when he suddenly threw his head forward and vomited out black bile – the tar-like substance of the Rainbow of Darkness. The trees around the tar, and then further out to about a hundred feet away, all began twisting and dying, their leaves shriveling, their trunks shrinking in on themselves like they were becoming desiccated, and eventually collapsing under their own weight with dry snaps. Before long, though, the corruption stopped spreading, and the tar that had seeped into the ground disappeared utterly, leaving nothing behind but dead wood.

Solrath paid no attention to that, though, instead glancing around, pawing the ground frantically. “No,” he said – then roared. “No! Where is it?!” After a moment, he began hacking again, then vomited once more – more black bile, but that, too, only seeped into the ground and disappeared.

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs landed near Raindrops – crushing several trees himself as he did – eyes locked on the eldest dragon. All around them, meanwhile, the skies had begun to fill with dragons, taking off from where they had been gathered and watching the two dragons with much interest, wondering who was going to carry the day still – focused on the fight itself rather than what its consequences were.

“Dragons can carry things in our stomachs in a pinch,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs explained, “but normally metal and gemstones – things that can survive our fire.”

“Weird,” Raindrops said as a very bad thought sprung into her head at what she had just done. “Um…I don’t know if it can, but…what if the Rainbow of Darkness…y’know, fused with him, or something?”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs looked to Raindrops, then back to Solrath, who had once again vomited forth bile – Raindrops couldn’t tell if he was intentionally throwing up or if they were spasms brought on by what Raindrops had done to him when she had fed him the Darkness. The black dragon stepped forward, throwing his wings wide and roaring. “Are you submitting, Solrath?” he demanded.

The use of the short name grabbed Solrath’s attention, and he turned on Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, roaring himself. Black bile dripped from his mouth, but he wiped it away, and started coughing again, spitting forth more bile – but markedly less than before, and a second round of coughing had him spitting out even less, and the ground around the bile showed no signs of the bag that had contained the Rainbow of Darkness as Solrath felt around with his tail. At length, eyes growing narrow, he turned his attentions to the black dragon that had challenged him. “I do not submit to whelps,” he hissed, “but my quarrel is not with you.” He spread his wings and took to the air, heading back towards the obsidian tower – and Spike.

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs wasted no time in taking to the air himself, Raindrops following. She spotted Cheerilee – and Spike, once again a whelp and holding the Alicorn Amulet in his hand rather than wearing it – easily enough, and dove down towards the ground, giving Solrath plenty of space as she quickly joined her fellow pony and the dragon whelp. The black dragon landed not far away, while Solrath touched down a hundred feet distant, glancing around a moment. Raindrops realized he was looking for Claxokarthelornarux, and also wondered what had happened to her. She put it from her mind, though, as she looked Spike up and down even as Cheerilee passed her the Element of Honesty back. “What happened to the Rainbow of Darkness?” The earth pony asked.

Raindrops shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, then nodded towards Solrath. “I…sort of threw it down his mouth.”

Cheerilee opened her own mouth at that, holding up a hoof, but then closed it after a moment. “I’m guessing it made sense at the time,” she said.

“Sort of,” Raindrops said. She nodded towards Solrath, who had been overcome by another round of hacking and throwing up more bile – but even less than before, Raindrops noted. “He hasn’t been able to throw it back up, he’s just been puking out bile, but less and less each time…think the Rainbow of Darkness can be destroyed?”

Cheerilee shook her head, not knowing. Raindrops, meanwhile, looked down to Spike, who was fingering the Alicorn Amulet closely even as the pegasus slipped the Element of Honesty back onto her neck. “You okay?” She asked.

Spike glanced at her, then shook his head. “N-no,” he said.

“If you’re done,” Solrath’s voice called out. Raindrops turned back to him quickly, stepping closer to Spike as she did and spreading her wings defensively, one of them over Spike. Cheerilee also stepped closer, stooping down a little, as the two stared at the dragon.

Solrath didn’t notice the gesture, of course, though he probably noticed Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs taking up his own defensive posture, while overhead the thousands of dragons that had come to the Forge circled, watching eagerly what was about to happen. The eldest dragon leaned forward. “You are not Overlord,” he hissed, snorting red flames that were tinged with black. “You are nothing more than a whelp.”

Spike fingered the Alicorn Amulet again, Raindrops noticed. After a moment, though he turned quickly, and before any pony or dragon could react – and before he could really think things through, Raindrops suspected – Spike threw the Amulet away, into the lava pool that surrounded the obsidian tower. The dragons overhead all roared in surprise at that, several of them diving, but none were quick enough to stop the Amulet from landing in the lava. Almost instantly the Amulet cracked from the heat change, then shattered – the gemstone cracking open and shooting a pillar of red, angry light into the sky that seemed to scream in pain, though not as loudly as all the dragons at the sight of it.

It was over in moments. The light cleared when there were only a few scattered pieces of the Amulet left, and in another moment those sank beneath the molten rock, dissolving into nothing. Spike looked back to Solrath, clenching his fists. His eyes were wide with fear, his ear-crests splayed wide, but the youngest dragon present looked the eldest in his blind eyes. “I’m not the Overlord,” he said, then thought a moment. “But…you’re not the Overlord either.”

Solrath snorted at that, rearing back and spreading his wings. “Why not?” he demanded, as Cheerilee looked around on the ground for something. “I am the eldest! I am the strongest! Have I not proven that?”

Solrath’s scales were thick, so he didn’t even notice when the stone that Cheerilee had picked up and thrown hit him in the nose. The other dragons did, though, and let out collective snarls. That, Solrath noticed, and he glanced around in confusion and anger. “What?” He demanded.

Raindrops eyed Cheerilee, who smiled and passed the pegasus a stone. She tested its weight a few moments, then sighed and figured that it probably wasn’t possible for Solrath to hate her more. She threw the stone at him, and it landed on the thin membrane of one of his wings. He noticed, turning quickly in the direction and growling. His tongue flicked out and his nostrils flared as he tried to take in the scent of his attacker, but he perceived nothing.

“This is mean,” Cheerilee admitted.

“Solrath is mean,” Raindrops countered gruffly, picking up another stone and throwing it. She missed, and it clattered to the ground at his feet – but, primed as he was and paying attention, Solrath spun in place towards the rock and breathed fire laced with black bile. He hit nothing, of course. The dragons above once again snarled at the sight, though, then roared – and Raindrops realized, suddenly, that they weren’t roaring in anger or rage. They were laughing.

“Saurivthurgix!” One of them called out. Eye-cripple. Blind.

“Solrathicharnon-Saurivthurgix!” A second added. The call rippled through the assembled dragons, until it became a chant – a chant that put heavy emphasis on the second part of the eldest dragon’s name.

Solrathicharnon spun in place, ear crests flared wide as his blind eyes traced over the dragons overhead. “Whelps!” he exclaimed, taking to the air. The smaller dragons scattered as Solrathicharnon swiped at them with claw and tail, and breathed fire at them, but they didn’t even try to retaliate – they just circled away, giving the blind dragon a wide berth, and in the midst of so many flapping wings and roaring dragons it was impossible for Solrathicharnon to single out one – at least until another huge dragon took to the air. Smaller dragons gave Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs a wide berth as he ascended and began circling the eldest dragon, who noticed and fell into a circle of his own, teeth barred the entire time.

“I can kill any dragon who would try and become Overlord!” Solrathicharnon roared at Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs as the two orbited one another.

“But you’re blind,” the black dragon countered, “and no dragon will follow a cripple, any more then they will follow a dragon that could be defeated by one. Spike isn’t Overlord. I don’t want to be Overlord. And you…you cannot be Overlord.”

The red dragon snarled, and snorted out a line of fire. He forced himself to become calm after a few moments, however, and turned his head from the black dragon. “Then the impasse remains,” he hissed. “There will be no Overlord.”

“Agreed.”

The two dragons continued their co-orbit for a few more passes, before each broke off – Solrath soaring away from the Dragon’s Forge, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs flying back down towards the ponies. The smaller dragons waited until both others were well clear of them before beginning to stop their circling themselves – some heading down towards the Forge, others spiraling away from it, scattering in all directions as they began the flights back to hidden lairs across the continent.

Cheerilee stared up at the departing dragons, then looked back down to Spike, who was watching them fly away himself – none of them sparing the former Overlord even a single glance. He had tears in his eyes, but was fighting against them. The earth pony teacher reached out a hoof to wrap the dragon whelp in a hug, but before she could a jasmine-colored wing wrapped around Spike and pulled him close.

“It’s okay,” Raindrops said to him. Her gentle side wasn’t something that many ponies got to see, but Cheerilee recognized it – she brought it out whenever she dealt with her own little brother, Snails. Raindrops was talking to Spike in the same tone of voice – self-assured and certain of everything she said. “It’s going to be okay, Spike.”

Spike shook his head. “No it isn’t,” he sputtered.

“Yes it is,” Raindrops insisted. “We’ll make sure of it, Spike, I promise.”

Cheerilee didn’t know if Spike honestly believed that right now, but she did smile at Raindrops, stepping closer and hugging the pegasus herself. “We have got to stop getting dragged into messes like this…” she sighed.

“I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen,” Raindrops sighed, not returning the hug as she focused on the dragon whelp below her. She looked at Cheerilee. “So…what now?”

There was a somewhat-soft thud from nearby – as soft as one of the largest dragons in the world could make his landing, anyway. Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs looked down to the two ponies. “Now, I do not know,” he said, looking up himself at the dragons who continued to scatter. “You have seen yourself the problems my race faces. I…I don’t know how to fix them. I don’t know if they can be fixed.”

The two ponies glanced between each other, before Cheerilee looked back up to the black dragon. “Well – ” she began, when she heard a loud gasp. The two ponies and two dragons turned in its direction, coming from the vast pool of lava that made up the center of the Dragon’s Forge.

Climbing from it was something small, covered in lava, though it fell off of her and cooled quickly once she was free of the lake and lying on the beach. Beneath the hardening rock were silver scales and blue eyes, ear-crests that were almost white, the barest trace of blunt spines on her back, and no wings at all.

The whelp stared at the two ponies with wide eyes. The eyes locked onto Spike and narrowed somewhat, but then the whelp at last noticed that the mountain of black scales nearby was a living thing. She looked up, and up, and up, at Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs.

“Turalisj!” she exclaimed, eyes wide and pressing her head down against the ground as she started backing away. “Turalisjversvesh! Turalisjversveshothokent!”

Cheerilee blinked, and guessed that she was hearing the whelp exclaiming in Draconic. She glanced up at Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. “What is she saying?”

“Turalisjversveshothokent-vuthaverthicha!”

“She’s complimenting me,” the black dragon answered. “Big, strong, smart, black mountain. A whelp often does such when it thinks it has crossed an adult dragon. But…she looks like…”

“That’s not Clax, is it?” Spike asked, rubbing his eyes a little as he considered, focusing on the moment rather than his uncertain future and the recent past. He thought a moment, then started walking around the beach until he came across a small stone that he proceeded to breath green fire across. The stone disappeared as the flames raced out across the beach – and right up to the silver whelp, resulting in a flare that caused the stone to pop back into existence right in front of her. Spike’s eyes grew wide. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “That’s Clax.”

“Dragons can’t age down, can they?” Raindrops asked, holding a hoof over Spike’s head, then comparing it to what she guessed the silver whelp’s size was. If that was Claxokarthelornarux, she had shrunk considerably – she was now shorter than even Spike.

“Very young ones can,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs answered. “But Claxokarthelornarux wasn’t young. Did the Rainbow of Darkness do this?” He looked to Cheerilee, as did Raindrops and Spike.

Cheerilee noticed their stares, and shrugged and shook her head. “I just knew what the Rainbow of Darkness was, I don’t know anything about it, really,” she insisted, then looked to the whelp. “Is there any way to know?”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs considered a moment, then looked back to the silver whelp. “Ominak?”

The whelp looked confused, but after a slight grunt from the far dragon quickly answered. “Thricominak.”

“No name,” the black dragon translated. “She doesn’t know her name, hasn’t earned one yet. She doesn’t know who she was. That’s why she’s only speaking Draconic – she doesn’t remember any other language.”

Cheerilee nodded in agreement, looking back to the silver dragon whelp as she chewed on her lip a moment in thought. “You said you don’t know how to fix the dragon race,” she said at length. “Maybe the problem is that you’re trying to fix the entire race, all at once.” She looked up at him. “When you tried it with whelps before, how many did you try it with? All of them? Hundreds at a time?.” She looked to Spike then, and offered him a small smile. “The same with you…you were trying to fix all dragons at the same time, to save an entire race. But that’s too much for anyone to handle, even a dragon – even the Overlord of All Dragons. Don’t try to fix an entire species. Just try to make friends, and family, where you can.” She nodded towards the silver dragon whelp. “And I think you have someone you can start with right here.”

The black dragon considered Cheerilee’s words, then glanced back to the silver whelp. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “Perhaps I always moved too fast.” He looked back to the ponies. “You want to go home, I imagine,” he guessed. Each of them nodded, and he looked from them to Spike. “And you don’t want to be here anymore.”

Spike shook his head. “No,” he said. “B-but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be around you!” He stepped away from Raindrops, looking up at the far older and larger dragon. “It’s just, I don’t want to be near…” he waved a claw at the rest of the Dragon’s Forge, or more specifically, all the dragons it contained. “Them. They’re all jerks. Even if it’s just ‘cause they don’t know any better.”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs nodded in agreement. He waved a claw at the obsidian tower. “I can’t leave the Dragon’s Forge, not with the treasure in there. Dragons fighting over it would lead to a bloodbath, and no matter my feelings towards them I won’t allow that to happen.” He looked to the tower. “Some of it has sentimental value to me as well…but…perhaps I should start relocating it, away from here.” He glanced down to the silver whelp. “The Dragon’s Forge is no place for a child. Perhaps my old lair in Cavallia-Zaldia…”

The black dragon considered a moment, before extending a hand out towards the whelp. It shrank back in fear, but Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs only lay his hand on the ground, palm up. “Waxaustratwux,” he said. The whelp stared in confusion and fear for several long moments, but after that reluctantly climbed onto the hand who’s palm was larger than her. Once she was there, the black dragon lifted her up and looked back to the ponies and Spike. “I will retrieve Hesjingrasvim. He is…trustworthy, and will do as I say. He will take you safely to Pferdreich.”

With that, the dragon rose into the air, holding the silver whelp he carried safely in one hand. She was scared and confused, but before long, the two ponies were sure she’d learn she didn’t have anything to fear from her new benefactor.

Cheerilee glanced down to Spike, who was watching Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs fly off uncertainly. “S…so what now?” he asked, looking between the two ponies. “What’s going to happen?”

The earth pony teacher offered a smile. “No idea,” she admitted. “We’re pretty much always making things up as we go. It’s worked out so far.”

“Probably going back to Equestria,” Raindrops guessed. “Princess Luna will want to know that Solrath had the Rainbow of Darkness. And anything you could tell her about Corona would be good.”

Spike seemed to freeze up at the thought of meeting the Alicorn of the Night, but Raindrops noticed and once again wrapped a wing around him. “Don’t worry,” Raindrops said. “I know I keep saying this, but I mean it. It’s going to be okay, Spike.”

He actually looked like he believed her that time, at least a little, and leaned into the wing-hug. Cheerilee nodded in agreement with Raindrops, before pausing and glancing at the pegasus’ head. She frowned. “Hey, wait a second. Didn’t you have a hat when we came here?”

Author's Note

There shall be an epilogue! Don't worry, I hate plot holes as much as the next fan.

Some foreshadowing in this chapter to later stories, too.

Uncertain Positives

Solrathicharnon-Saurivthurgix knew very little other than hate and rage as he soared from the Dragon’s Forge. The rage did not cool in the slightest as he left the Western Wilderlands and began flying over the pony lands that lay between the Wilderlands and the Skyshaper Peaks. He very badly wanted to indulge in his hate and his rage as he soared over the pony lands, land in a pony village and burn and slay every single mortal there, but the eldest dragon was no slave to his emotions.

And besides, he had to figure out what was going on with the Darkness that now inhabited him.

He cleared the pony lands easily enough, and settled down after a day of hard flying within the first secluded valley that he could find. He heard nothing but the wind flowing through the leaves of trees, and the hurried, furtive movements of animals trying to either quickly run away or hide from the dragon that had landed in their home. He didn’t taste any sapient being in the wind, nor smell the scent of sedentary habitation – pony, griffin, dragon, or otherwise.

He was alone – so it was finally safe for him to double over in pain, three legs on the ground and the claws of the fourth scratching at his chest. He had thought that he had managed to expel most of the black bile from him, but he could taste himself vomiting forth more, mixed with the fires that he exhaled. Evidently it had built up within him again over the past few hours.

Solrathicharnon could see the bile – it was magic, dark magic. It washed over the mountain valley and corrupted everything it touched, twisted it, drained the life and the magic from it – killed it, eventually, and caused its rapid decay to everything except for him. The next round of expulsion brought forth less bile, and the one after that even less, until he had managed to vomit forth all of it – or almost all. No more would come from him…but now that he knew what to look for within himself, what to try and feel within him, he could sense it:

The Rainbow of Darkness. The bag that it had been contained it had been a potent artifact, but it had not been the Darkness itself – and it had been burned up and destroyed by the fires that burned within the eldest dragon, it seemed. Bereft of its physical vessel, the Darkness had found a new one immediately: Solrathicharnon himself. Just as the Elements of Harmony had come to reside within six ponies, so too was the Darkness now within him.

That complicated things…at least as far as his plans with Corona were concerned, in any event. Corona was insane and greedy and wrathful, but she would not abide Solrathicharnon’s presence – nor his continued existence – if he revealed the Darkness within him. But he still needed her. He would never get close to his goal within Canterlot unless he could use her to masquerade his true intentions. He would never have his revenge on Luna.

Solrathicharnon focused his magical senses. He couldn’t sense the Darkness on him, at least. Exhaling fire, he ‘saw’ that it wasn’t laced with the dark, magical bile at the moment, either. But the Darkness built up within him over time; he could feel it doing so even now. He would linger in this valley several days, determining how fast it mounted, experimenting with his control over it and if he could keep it suppressed, or if he’d have to periodically expel it from his body. The Darkness was powerful…but if it would move him closer to his goal, his desire to bring down all Luna had built over the past thousand years – all she had struggled for since killing most of his brothers, his father, and blinding him – then Solrathicharnon would learn to master it, would learn how to be more powerful.

No cost was too high to pay, as long as he got his revenge.

The whelp had been here for many sleeps. This was a hoard like no other. Once she had seen the hoard of an old, old, one, a pile that she would have had to stand atop of herself five times to be as big as, and that would take her many-many steps to walk around. She had taken a meal from the hoard when the old, old, one hadn’t noticed, but then he had noticed and hit her hard enough to make a crack inside of her that had hurt for many, many sleeps afterwards.

This hoard, though, hidden beneath the pool of lava in the Forge, at the bottom-bottom of the black tower, was bigger. Many many many times bigger. And the old, old, old, old dragon who owned it was bigger too, of course. But he did not hurt her when she stole a meal. She had tried to be unseen, but she had been seen, but the old, old, old, old dragon hadn’t hurt her or made her crack.

He was in his hoard now, putting it in piles. In one pile were gems, and they were all tasty, and the whelp took and ate from that and was mostly unseen. The next pile was made up of small pieces of gold that were mostly round and sometimes had small pictures on them. The next-next pile was made of other things. The old, old, old, old dragon was right now holding something made of gold and red soft things, nice to sit on for the whelp but too small for the old, old, old, old dragon.

The whelp didn’t know why the old, old, old, old dragon treated the gold and red thing more carefully than the small round gold things or the gems. She didn’t know a lot about him.

“Why?” she finally asked. The other dragon looked at her, and the whelp gasped and dashed away and hid in the gem pile in fear at the eyes of such a big and old dragon looking at her. But the old, old, old, old dragon didn’t do anything other than look, and after a few breaths the whelp poked her head from the gem pile, staring.

The old, old, old, old dragon looked at the whelp. “Why what?”

“Why…” the whelp paused, fingers opening and closing as she searched the words she had stolen and made her own. There were so few. “Why you…not hurt me? Why you not…” she snapped her jaws shut a few times. “Crack?”

The old, old, old, old dragon seemed to know her thoughts, though. “Why would I?”

The whelp blinked, not knowing. She looked down to the gems she was in, lifted one. “I take,” she said, then shoved it into her mouth, chewing and swallowing. Her heart beat faster and faster as she stole from the old, old, old old dragon with him looking, but he did nothing, even as she swallowed. “I take. You not hurt. Why?”

The other dragon let out a long breath, though it had no fire. “Why would I?” he asked again.

“Because I take!”

“Take,” the other dragon said, waving a claw at the whelp and going back to making piles.

The whelp stared. She looked down at the gems, and stuffed one in her mouth, eating. Then another. Then another, and more, and more, and more…she ate until full, until she felt she might crack herself. She was too young to grow from taking yet, and it did not take long until she had eaten all she could. She fell onto her back once full, staring at nothing.

Then she noticed the old, old, old, old dragon staring at her. She yelped and tried to struggle away and hide, but she was too full. She did not know how that could be, but it was. It hurt to move, especially inside of her. She flopped onto her stomach and panted.

The old, old, old, old dragon moved to come around and look her in the eye. She stared in fear. “No hurt!” she called out desperately, even as she tried to dig into the gems, to bury herself.

But the other dragon did not hurt her. “No hurt,” he said, then looked down, searching for words himself. “You take…too much. You hurt you. Take…less.”

The whelp blinked at the old, old, old, old dragon’s words. They were new to her. Her claws opened and closed again, as though she could grab his words. “Less?” she asked, not knowing.

The old, old, old, old dragon grunted. “Less,” he repeated. He grabbed a nearby pile of small round gold pieces – of course, he was so big that everything was small to him – and showed it to her, then poured out some of it and showed her the smaller pile. “Less.”

The whelp blinked, wrapping her mind around the idea easily enough. “Less,” she said. “Why?”

“You hurt you.”

The whelp thought. She was too full. It hurt to move. She could eat all the gems she wanted…but she should take less. Then she would not hurt as much. But…she wouldn’t be full…

The dragon whelp that had once been Claxokarthelornarux had unfocused eyes, and was thinking very hard about what Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs had said – or tried to say, anyway, in the stunted Draconic language that the whelp had only a basic grasp of. Her contemplation wasn’t made any easier by simply not knowing how to articulate what she wanted to say or think about. The intent was there, but the nuance…

Well. Nevermind that, for now. The black dragon returned to sorting his great hoard, trying to decide what to do with it. A large part of his instincts – five hundred years of his life – didn’t want to abandon a single piece, not the barest sliver of gold. Gold was useful beyond simply being treasure to hoard, after all…

To, what, buy goods at a market? That would go over well…a rumbling chuckle escaped the black dragon at the thought. No, he would probably simply dig a hole in the floor until he reached magma, and let the molten rock consume the gold. The gemstones, too, were largely useless. His old lair on the Cavallian-Zaldian border sat over a natural pocket that he wouldn’t be able to eat through in ten lifetimes of gluttony. That still left the other treasures, though. Priceless and ancient artifacts. Most of them nonmagical, of course – save for the throne and a few other trinkets – but the sheer history in them meant that he didn’t want to let any of them go. Plus a large number of them came from Cavallia and Zaldia; returning them would be a good way to get on the good side of both nations and secure his lair anew. The issue would be transporting it…he scratched at his head, trying to remember how he had even gotten all this here in the first place…didn’t he have a magical artifact or something? Where had he put it…

There was movement from the entrance to his lair; Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs spared a glance and saw a much-smaller-than-him green-and-purple dragon: Hesjingrasvim. The smaller dragon hadn’t tried to hide his approach and was keeping his head and neck close to the floor, though he couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering greedily across the treasure. His eyes widened somewhat when he spotted the whelp that had been Claxokarthelornarux sitting on a pile of gemstones, still trying to figure out the concept of ‘too much.’

“The ponies and Spike have been returned to Pferdreich?” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs asked, still in Draconic. With Spike no longer here, there was no need to use the language of pones, or any other lesser mortals, save if the dragon needed to in order to communicate a concept.

Hesjingrasvim was broken from his staring at the whelp, and directed his eyes forward – not meeting Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs’ own, of course. “Yes,” he answered, glancing up at Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, then back down very quickly. He shifted a little. “I, uh…was promised…”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs grunted, the sound sending Hesjingrasvim scurrying backwards a few feet. After a moment, however, he sighed as he reached through the treasures he had and came upon something that didn’t matter much to him, a very large golden frame inlaid with gemstones. There was, however, no painting set within the frame. Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs wondered idly what had happened to the painting as he tossed the frame at Hesjingrasvim, who caught it in his mouth before bringing it down to his hands, clutching it tightly. “Take,” the black dragon said.

Hesjingrasvim certainly looked like he intended to as he ran his claws along the golden frame and over the gemstones. His eyes once again wandered across the vast treasure hoard of Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. “The Overlord…paid me well,” he said, using the Naqahn word for ‘paid’ since Draconic lacked the term. He tapped at his heart-scale, no doubt considering the treasure he had hidden beneath it. “It is easier…safer…than stealing from other dragons, or the lesser mortals. Or the ocean serpents.”

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs’ tail flicked a little behind him, knocking into the pile of coins he had organized. “It is,” he allowed. What was Hesjingrasvim driving at?

Hesjingrasvim considered again. “I want more,” he said, then scuttled back quickly, pressing his head right to the floor. “Not to steal from your hoard! I would…do more things for you. And you would pay me?”

The black dragon’s eyes widened in surprise at the request. It was one thing to suborn oneself to a stronger dragon: that was simply common sense to his kin. But Hesjingrasvim was suggesting an exchange – tasks for treasure. Interaction beyond combat and theft. Interactions that required a degree of trust – that required going against centuries of bred-in instinct to fear his greaters and subordination of one’s lessers…yes, Hesjingrasvim was still utterly focused on increasing the size of his own hoard, his own personal power, but he was looking for a way to do it that didn’t involve crushing others beneath his claws…looking for a fair exchange.

Perhaps Spike had started to get through to the dragons of the Forge after all? Not all of them…probably not even most of them. And only a little bit – Hesjingrasvim had been perfectly content to stand by and watch as Claxokarthelornarux had tried to kill the then-Overlord.

But…perhaps it was a start. “I will allow this,” he said, leaning down towards the smaller dragon as a plan formed in his mind. “But…the other dragons of the Forge would be jealous. Jealous of your hoard. They would attack you.”

Hesjingrasvim considered that. He was of about average size and strength for a dragon of his age, and not blessed with inherent might and power the way Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs was. The black dragon had feared precious few dragons these past few centuries, but Hesjingrasvim still had to ponder his personal safety with everything he did. “So they would,” he confirmed.

“But,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs continued. “I am leaving the Forge, returning to my old lair. I shall take my hoard with me. You could follow me. No doubt I will have many tasks for you once there – and many rewards.”

Hesjingrasvim considered that carefully. “My own hoard…” he said. Based on his choice of a Naqahn word and his greatest treasure being a giant pearl, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs guessed that his own lair must have been on the coast somewhere near the camel lands.

“I would fly to the mountains in the east,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs said. “There are many caverns there, unclaimed by any dragons for fear of the attention of alicorns. But we shall not draw their attention.”

Hesjingrasvim considered for only a moment more. “I shall return to my lair and retrieve my hoard,” he said. “Then I will follow you, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha.” The black dragon nodded once, and Hesjingrasvim was off. No doubt he probably thought that he was pulling some kind of great scam on Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. Just as Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs had once thought that he only had to wait out twenty years under the yoke of Princess Cadenza, and then he could return to his normal life?

Perhaps. Perhaps the great changes needed to save an entire species weren’t accomplished in one fell swoop. Perhaps they were achieved not by some great and powerful dragon becoming Overlord – but rather, by three dragons simply leaving the Forge and trying something new, somewhere far away?

Or more than three. Hesjingrasvim hadn’t been the only dragon that Spike had paid for services rendered. Were there, perhaps, others?

Maybe. Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs considered his hoard, the sheer wealth that it represented – the gemstones and the gold as well as the treasure. There was a lot of wealth there…a lot of payment for dragons who desired it…

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs returned one more to his hoard, digging through it again as he tried to find the artifact that had allowed him to store his treasures to make carrying them across the continent actually possible, even as he tried to remember all the dragons in the Forge whom Spike had paid, who had gotten the barest taste of a different way – and who might find that they actually liked it. Whatever nebulous plans were forming in Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs’ mind would probably take centuries to reach fruition, or longer. Long enough that he wouldn’t see them. But perhaps he could make decent start, and – he glanced at the whelp who had once been Claxokarthelornarux, who held a gemstone in her claws but wasn’t eating it, instead just considering it – and maybe, eventually, it would save his people.

There was only one way to find out.

The grand army that had formed along the borders of the Western Wilderlands had faced several very nervous hours when the dragons had begun to approach them from all sides. Fortunately, Raindrops, Cheerilee, and Spike had been at the forefront of the wyrm flight and had been set down exactly where the former two had been picked up in the first place. They had been able to relay the message that the remaining dragons were simply going home, that the crisis was over, that there was no longer a Dragon Overlord and, as a result, there would be no terrifying war of lesser mortals against dragons.

The Pferdreichers, and others, had spent a few minutes breathing collective sighs of relief at that. Then it suddenly seemed to occur to them that less than a day previously they had sent Cheerilee and Raindrops into the Dragon’s Forge, and now the Great Draconic Threat had passed.

Thus it was that, several hours later, the two ponies and one dragon whelp found themselves back in Pferdchenwortspiel, carried through its main street atop a grand carriage and amidst a military parade of incredible size. Ticker-tapes rained down all around them and there was thunderous applause, and many very important ponies came up to them to say…something to them. Raindrops, Cheerilee, and Spike weren’t sure what, because none of the ponies seemed to remember that none of them could speak Pferdreicher.

Still, that hadn’t stopped the Pferdreicher’s good moods or desire for celebration and music and just basically anything to take the edge off of what had been a terrifying past few days. A few Pferdreichers who could speak Equestrian had let the three of them know that similar celebrations were happening in most of the lands that bordered the Western Wilderlands, and even some of the nations further inland. Ponies as a race didn’t need much of an excuse to throw a party, and the normally less excitable griffins, hippogriffs, cervids, and camels seemed to have adopted basically the same attitude for the moment.

Medals galore were slung around their necks – even Spike’s, as Raindrops and Cheerilee made sure to get the point across that he had been involved in stopping the crisis – and calls of prost followed them wherever they went. Somepony who’s cutie mark suggested a talent had haberdashery had even supplied Raindrops with a new Trab hat, which had then turned into an entire traditional Pferdreicher ensemble for the two mares, Cheerilee in a dirndl while Raindrops sported the lederhosen that went along with her hat.

In the end, though, the two ponies and one dragon whelp had made their desire to go back to their hotel and get some much-needed rest clear in spite of the language barrier. Somepony had at some point upgraded their rooms to the royal suite, which worked out just fine as it had an additional bed for Spike to sleep in.

Neither pony was particularly surprised when they heard a knock on the door just as they were getting ready to turn in – and nor were they surprised when, on opening the door, a certain alicorn was standing outside of it. “Dame Raindrops, Dame Cheerilee,” Princess Luna said, bowing her head in greeting. She smiled at them. “I’m sorry to keep you from your sleep…”

Raindrops had answered the door, and shook her head. “No, it’s fine,” she said. She was lying – mostly, anyway, since regardless of one’s personal state, one did not turn away the Princess after she turned up on your front door.

Cheerilee waved the Princess off as Raindrops closed the door. “It’s not that late,” she said, “and it’s not like we haven’t had long days or nights before, Princess.”

Luna nodded to the two ponies. “My visit will not be a long one in any event,” she told them as the three made their way over to the room’s living area, which featured a massive, lit fireplace and several couches broad and comfortable enough to double as beds if one felt the need. “I have had a long couple of days myself, organizing Equestria’s mobilization and coordinating with Equestira’s neighbors and exarchies. I only just arrived in Pferdreich – I flew here to help with the defenses personally, only to learn that those defenses were unnecessary.” She shook her head. “Not since the Stairs Coup have so many nations come together against a singular threat.”

“Wasn’t Equestria the singular threat for that one?” Cheerilee asked with a smile.

Luna grimaced in embarrassment, particularly since Pferdreich – at the time a fully independent nation – had been one of the targets of the military and political mishap from three centuries previous. “Technically. Perhaps I will finally be allowed to forget about that incident after today. Regardless I am glad that, as with that incident, all that was wasted was simply money and time, rather than lives.” She once again inclined her head to the two ponies. “I understand that I have you two to thank for that. As I was in Pferdreich anyway, I felt the need to thank you now, rather than waiting for your return to Equestria.”

The two ponies bowed their own heads, accepting the thanks, though after a moment Raindrops stepped forward. “It wasn’t just us, though,” she said. “We had help – a big black dragon, named, uh…” she paused, then looked to Cheerilee for help.

The earth pony teacher only shrugged. “I can’t say his name,” she said, then looked to Princess Luna. “Remember any dragons that lived in Cavallia for awhile?”

“Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs,” Luna supplied, though she said it slowly and glanced to the side, obviously trying to get the pronunciation right. “I know of him, through Princess Cadance. The Cavallians remember him as Alanero – Blackwing. I never met him personally, however.”

Raindrops liked the Cavallian name and its translation much better than the Draconic one, on the grounds that she could actually say it. “Yeah. Well, he helped, and…so did another dragon. Spike. He was the one who had been made Over – ”

“Hey,” a voice called, as Spike emerged from the room where he would be sleeping, rubbing one eye out of tiredness and looking towards the three equines. “What’s all the noiaaaaaahhh!” Princess Luna turned to face Spike even as the baby dragon stumbled backwards and away from her, pointing one finger at her. “Gyaaah! What’s she doing here?!”

The alicorn of the night looked to the two ponies, though both had quickly galloped over to Spike. “Spike!” Cheerilee exclaimed, helping him stand back up but also making sure to stand behind him, so he couldn’t run away. “Princess Luna isn’t going to hurt you!”

“Yeah she is!” Spike exclaimed, backing away, which lead to him pressing up against Cheerilee like his back was to a wall. “She’s Corona’s sister! The other crazy alicorn!”

“Spike,” Raindrops tried, “where did you hear that from? Corona? You can’t believe anything she might have said about – ”

“Not her!” Spike interrupted, though he paused a moment, his fear seeming to dissipate. “Well, okay, yeah, Corona said a lot about Luna but I figured that most of it was just her ranting.” He glanced back to Luna, and his fear returned full-force. “But she’s the crazy alicorn who manipulates everypony from the shadows for her own amusement! And she’ll want to put me in a zoo!”

“A…zoo?” The three equines echoed. The former accusation was something that Cheerilee and Raindrops had heard leveled against Luna before; the latter, however, was a bit out of left field.

“That’s what Equestrians do with animals they don’t know about, right?” Spike demanded. “I mean…okay, a zoo’s better than where I was…but I don’t want to be in a zoo!” He pointed at Luna again. “A…and…and…”

Luna held up a hoof. Spike flinched at the gesture, though Luna didn’t make any others as she spoke. “I’m not going to put you in a zoo, Spike. You have my word.”

Spike didn’t seem convinced in the slightest. “Wh…what do you want?” he demanded.

“Well,” Luna said, looking to Raindrops and Cheerilee, “these two were just telling me that you played a role in preventing a dragon attack on Cissanthema. So, I wish to thank you.” She bowed, much deeper than she had for Cheerilee or Raindrops, in order to set Spike at ease. “Your actions saved countless lives, Overlord Spike.”

Spike blinked a few times, clearly still not trusting the alicorn. “Uh,” he said. “Th…thanks? B…but I’m not Overlord anymore.”

Luna stood back up, a small smile on her face. “In Equestria and her exarchies, a retired noble retains his or her titles and stiles even after retirement, though the power passes to his or her successor. As I understand it, dragons don’t have any formal rules for a retired Overlord, so I thought we might as well use equine ones.”

The dragon whelp stopped pressing up against Cheerilee so hard, clearly disarmed by Luna’s actions. “B…but I don’t want to be Overlord. Not even a retired Overlord!”

“I have to reward you somehow,” Luna noted, tapping a hoof to her chin, before her smile widened. “Perhaps something more material. You don’t strike me as being a very avaricious dragon, Spike – ”

“Ava-what now?”

“Greedy. Even still, as a growing young dragon, I’m certain you would appreciate something like…” She closed her eyes, horn glowing as a bubble appeared in front of her. A moment later, sitting on the ground was a three-foot tall cake, covered in frosting in various shades of purple – and studded throughout with green gemstones. Luna’s eyes opened after a moment, and she looked to Spike. “A congratulatory emerald cake, perhaps?”

Spike’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the cake that was taller than him. “Whoa…” he said, breaking away from Cheerilee and moving forward to the cake a little, though he stopped himself after a moment and looked at Luna again. “N…no way. Nuh-uh. This is a trick.”

Luna shook her head. “It is not,” she said, and looked at Spike directly, though she didn’t let the smile leave her face. “I do have questions for you, Spike, about my sister, about where she is and what she is doing, at least when last you saw her. And we will have to sort out what will happen with you – find you a home.” She looked a moment between Spike and Cheerilee, how he had backed away from Luna again to be closer to her. Raindrops noticed it, too, and also noticed that Cheerilee didn’t as she was too concerned with making sure Spike was okay. But then, she was a teacher – that her focus was on the child in the room was to be expected.

“Your circumstances are quite unique and will take some time to sort through,” Luna continued, “but I would not dream of undertaking any course that did not have your approval.” She turned around, heading for the hotel room’s door, which opened at a brush from her telekinesis. “All of that, and the full story of what happened to you three, can wait for tomorrow. Until then, I shall take my leave, Goodnight, Dames Raindrops and Cheerilee. Goodnight, Spike.”

The two ponies watched her go, then looked back to the dragon whelp. “Spike,” Cheerilee said, “Luna isn’t a bad pony. Trust us, we’ve met her personally…” she leaned back, thinking. “Six times? Seven? Something like that. The point is, I promise, she doesn’t want to hurt you.”

Spike was rubbing his clawed hands together in nervousness, then eyed the cake that the Princess had left behind. “I…” he said, “I…don’t know if I can just trust her like that.” He looked at Cheerilee, then Raindrops. “But…well, I guess I can trust you guys.” He thought a moment more, then let out a long sigh, sitting down and not even going near the cake. “I just…I don’t know what I want.”

“You’ll figure things out,” Cheerilee said. She eyed the cake herself, then looked to Raindrops. “Do you think you could put that in the ice box? If it fits, anyway. I think that Spike needs to turn in right now.”

Raindrops waved a hoof, nodding as she approached the cake, which thankfully Luna had seen fit to put on a silver tray, making carrying it easier. She’d probably have to slice it in half to fit it into the room’s ice box, but it was doable. “Sure,” she said, heading over to the hotel’s kitchenette, watching out of the corner of her eye as Cheerilee escorted Spike into his room in order to help him get into his bed, which hadn’t been designed with two-foot-tall dragons in mind.

Raindrops doubted that Cheerilee would want to take Spike in on any permanent basis…but Spike had a rather long train of trust issues right now, and maybe having a chance to be around now-familiar faces would help him overcome them. She’d broach the subject with Cheerilee tomorrow – though, she also had to remember to bring up the Rainbow of Darkness and Solrath’s swallowing of it with Princess Luna.

“One problem at a time,” Raindrops decided, as she eyed the emerald cake, and the icebox, which as it turned out was only about a foot deep – and only maybe big enough for the cake even if it was cut into three sections. “How the hay am I gonna do this…?”

Author's Note

This took way too long to write.

This ending is quite a bit different from what I had originally planned out; then again, the dragons of this story are quite a bit different, as well, right down to switching in Clax as the primary non-Solrath antagonist - originally it was a different dragon, Vesvesh, who does cameo in this.

As well, dragons were originally going to be basically just big people, with most of pony/griffin/etc. fears stemming from their huge size and appearance, but dragons themselves mostly being harmless. However, that didn't "feel" right. I like this version much better: they're now basically Irkens, only without big computers to direct them around. The reason I changed them is pretty basic: Dragons have every advantage over every other race, with enough of them together even being enough to overpower an alicorn, so why aren't they ruling over everything? The only possibility that I could think of is that they suck at working together with each other - that is, the dragon's biggest source of competition is other dragons. From there I extrapolated their weakness as a species. Sjach's outlook might be a bit more bleak than the actual reality: dragons probably aren't dying, per se, or even if they are it's a process that's gonna take thousands or even tens of thousands of years to finish, what with how long they live and their extremely simple dietary requirements. But they're definitely stagnant, and so the entire plot of three dragons (Spike, Clax, and Solrath; or four, if you count Sjach-by-proxy) fighting to become Overlord for various reasons beyond simply "I want to be Overlord" formed. Of course not everything about their culture needs to be changed - note that Sjach doesn't refer to whelp Clax by an actual name. There's nothing innately wrong about needing to win a name by acclaim, I don't think.

Spike's ultimate conclusion in this story is also different; originally I wanted to contrive a reason for him to stay with Ponyville, but anything I came up with was just that: contrived. Him staying with Cheerilee feels more natural. Note that the above is phrased so that he could be staying with her for as little as even a week to as long as, well, as long as we like the idea. Realistically it makes the most sense for him to enter into some kind of adoption program, but I don't like the idea of sticking Spike with some ponies we've never heard of right off the bat, and also it limits our narrative options with him. Spike might not be a main character in the Lunaverse, but he is a main character in the TV show, so the option to have him easily accessible to relate with the Lunaverse's main characters should be there.

I kind of regret that Cheerilee and Raindrops were basically supporting characters to the dragons in this, but I was just having too much fun writing for the dragons. Overall I think this ending is as positive as it can be. The Aesop seems to be "the really important things take time, but that doesn't mean they'll never happen."

3. The Overlord of All Dragons

Solrathicharnon fluttered his wings a few times in an almost pegasus-like gesture before he tucked them against his body. His teeth were clenched tight, but licks of flame would make their way out from between them on occasion. His tongue also flicked from his mouth, tasting the air.

“Yes…the Elements,” he hissed. “I can taste you; you taste of sweat and fear. It has been some time since I feasted upon pony…maybe it’s time to change that.” He spread his wings wide and started forward.

“W-w-wait!” Cheerilee called out, backing away as Raindrops took to the air, but didn’t leave her side in spite of that – she was probably planning on grabbing Cheerilee and making for the forest. “Wait! Aren’t you curious why – ”

“No,” the eldest dragon interrupted, breathing fire. Raindrops didn’t miss a beat, grabbing Cheerilee about the barrel and lifting off. Raindrops wasn’t a fast flier, but she was strong enough that Cheerilee didn’t slow her down too much. She also knew that it would be hopeless to try and make for the jungle, and so instead dragged Cheerilee to the stream and pushed herself and Cheerilee down beneath the water.

The water around them quickly rose in temperature – it wasn’t very cool to begin with, and within just a few moments it rapidly rose to nearly unbearable levels as the two ponies kept their eyes focused upwards on the flames that raced by overhead. They hadn’t had much of a chance to take breaths, either, and Raindrops could already feel burning in her lungs, Cheerilee not looking much better.

The fact that the water of the stream was flowing, though, kept it from getting hot enough to start boiling them, and after a few moments the fire dissipated overhead. The two ponies dove from the water quickly and started running for the jungle, hoping that if Solrathicharnon breathed fire at them again, their soaking coats would provide at least a little protection. The eldest dragon didn’t let them get far, though, leaping easily and landing between them and their perceived safety, laughing as he did, wings spread wide and low to the ground to forestall any attempts at running around him. “Stupid mortals,” he hissed.

Cheerilee looked to Raindrops. “I have an idea,” she whispered.

“Good! Ideas are good!” Raindrops exclaimed as Solrathicharnon started forward again, and the two turned and ran.

“Not this one!” Cheerilee said, reaching up to her neck and undoing the clasp that held the Element of Laughter in place. She took it off and threw it away, across the blasted basalt surface of the lava pool’s ‘beach.’ It came to a stop in the rough middle, in plain sight.

Raindrops froze up in her run, eyes wide at what Cheerilee had done even as the school teacher veered off, running away from the Element of Laughter. “That’s a terrible idea!” Raindrops exclaimed, turning around to look at Solrathicharnon…and finding him having stopped. He had started after the Element of Laughter, it seemed, but then seemed to realize the ruse. Cheerilee had stopped her own gallop, staying in place and trying to keep her panting to a minimum. The school teacher glanced to Raindrops and jabbed at her neck, indicating Raindrops’ own.

Ohhhh this is a bad idea, Raindrops decided as she undid the clasp for the Element of Honesty and let it fall to the ground beneath her, before taking off into the sky – it was a terrible, awful idea, but on the other hoof it was also the one most likely to keep her alive.

Solrathicharnon hissed at the sound of the necklace hitting the ground, head whipping around, but though the crests of his ears were splayed wide he didn’t follow Raindrop’s ascent – his hearing was good, but not that good. His head whipped around a few times at perceived sounds, nostrils flaring as he tried to catch their scent, but he was unable to zero in on either Cheerilee or Raindrops, or indeed any other target.

The dragon’s visage twisted into one of pure anger, and he roared, exhaling flames across the beach and into the sky. Raindrops glided away from one gout of flame, while Cheerilee had used the opportunity of Solrathicharnon’s own roaring to dash away from where she was standing, back to the water. When his tantrum was over, Raindrops set herself gliding – she didn’t dare beat her wings – down towards the Element of Laughter, which she was closer to. It had landed somewhat near to the forest, maybe she could reach it and run away with it…

Of course, that was when the second dragon showed up. Just as Raindrops set down next to the Element of Laughter as lightly as possible, a silver-and-white dragon came stomping out of the forest – Raindrops had been so focused on Solrathicharnon that she hadn’t seen this one approaching. It was big, maybe seventy feet from snout to tail, and something about its build suggested that it was female.

It also was not blind, Raindrops noted, as the dragon’s eyes were locked on Raindrops as the pegasus put her hoof on the Element of Laughter and debated her increasingly grim options.

“You there,” the dragon said, stopping. Her voice was, indeed, somewhat more feminine than most that Raindrops had heard. “Pony. That is yours?”

Solrathicharnon had spun around at the other dragon’s speech, dropping onto all fours and hissing. “I know that voice,” he growled. “Claxokarthelornarux…so, you’re still alive.”

The silver dragon’s ear-crests flared at Solrathicharnon’s words, but she otherwise didn’t react, instead leaning down to look Rarindrops in the eye – giving Raindrops a clear look at a rather large series of fresh-looking wounds across the dragon’s snout, no longer bleeding but scabbing over. The pegasus noticed other wounds across the dragon’s body as well, though none quite as impressive. Raindrops quickly picked up the Element of Laughter, putting it around her neck – it was the easiest way to carry it. “Uh…um…” she thought desperately.

“It’s a simple question, pony,” Claxokarthelornarux said. “Is that yours?”

Raindrops glanced around, looking for Cheerilee. The school teacher was still standing in the river, and nodding profusely. “Y-yes,” Raindrops answered, trying not to imagine how the silver dragon could swallow her whole – could swallow her entire family whole. Not that she would have to, not with teeth that size…

Claxokarthelornarux snorted, and a small lick of blue flame flickered from her nostrils – only a few inches, not coming close to Raindrops. The action still sent Raindrops scooting back several feet, however. The dragon, meanwhile, drew back, looking disappointed as her wings flapped in annoyance. “Damn,” she said. “Oh well. A whelp is entitled to small hoard, I suppose…”

At those words Cheerilee dashed out from the river and quickly ran over to the Element of Honesty. Solrathicharnon reacted to the noise, head turning and growling, but Cheerilee reached the Element and held it up over her hoof. “A-and this is mine!” she called out. “Th-this is my hoard! Me and Raindrops might exchange our hoards later, maybe, but right now this is definitely mine!”

Claxokarthelornarux did something Raindrops didn’t expect at Cheerilee’s antics – she chuckled, and not unpleasantly, and there was even something of a smile on her face. “Well, you certainly act like whelps. I suppose the Overlord’s command makes sense, then.”

Solrathicharnon growled low, stomping up to Claxokarthelornarux and exhaling a gout of flame at the other dragon. “What command?” he demanded. “By what right does this supposed Overlord make any commands? He has challenged and defeated the mewling hatchlings that live in the Forge. But he has not fought those of us who earn our hoards!” He growled again, rearing up to his full height and spreading his wings wide, towering over the silver dragon. “He has not fought me.”

Claxokarthelornarux glanced to Solrathicharnon as though just noticing him. As she did, Raindrops noticed other dragons gathering around, each in a riot of colors. Some came from within the jungle, others landed from the dragons that were soaring about in the skies overhead. Most were around the size Hesjingrasvim had been – fifty feet or so. There were some that were smaller, and one or two bigger, though not exceeded Claxokarthelornarux, nor even came close to Solrathicharnon.

“Oh,” the silver dragon said. “You came. I wasn’t certain you would.”

“Wasn’t certain you’d be allowed,” another dragon, this one brown and gray, added. “Solrath.”

The elder red dragon bristled at the sound, tail lashing out in the direction of the dragon that had spoken, a mere thirty-footer. The smaller dragon wasn’t fast enough at dodging and fell away with a roar of pain. Before Solrathicharnon could turn his great bulk around to face the dragon directly, however, it had retreated back into the other dragons that had gathered around. Raindrops was able to follow the brown dragon easily, but Solrathicharnon wasn’t.

The elder red dragon at first looked like he might have wanted to charge into the gaggle of dragons nearby and start ripping and tearing until he found the right one, but paused after a moment and spun his head around at all the nearby dragons. “I am Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear! I am the eldest dragon! I will not be mocked by whelps!”

Claxokarthelornarux leaned back down to Raindrops. “It’s an impressive name,” she informed the pony. “Glare of the Sun, The Red, Eternal Foe of Moon and Night, roughly, in your tongue.”

“Oh,” Raindrops said after a few moments, wings spread wide. She was looking for escape routes – but, of course, there were none, because even a small dragon was kind of large and tended to take up a lot of space. “Wh…what’s your name mean?”

“Invader of the Silver Valley,” Claxokarthelornarux said, smiling and tail flicking, seeming to take the small talk in stride – which was more than Raindrops could say she was doing. “An involved story behind that one, we perhaps don’t have time.”

“Okay.” Raindrops was also a little curious as to why all the dragons were speaking Equestrian, but decided that that was a mystery that could wait for an answer.

Claxokarthelornarux leaned away from Raindrops again, looking to Solrathicharnon. “The Overlord,” she said, one claw coming up to itch at the healing wound on her snout, “has defeated those of us who live here, Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear. Or did you think I did this to myself?”

Solrathicharnon turned to face the silver dragon, blind eyes narrow. Claxokarthelornarux grinned, though there was no humor in it this time. “Ah, yes. Of course. Well, I have picked up an impressive collection of scars over the past few days. The Overlord defeated me, and all others here who challenged him. We here in the Forge recognize him as the mightiest of all dragons. You will have your chance to challenge him soon, if you want. Until then,” the silver dragon leaned in close to Solrathicharnon, her smile dropping and snorting a line of blue fire into the other dragon’s face. “Obey him.”

The red dragon didn’t seem to even notice the fire breathed in his face, let alone react to it. He barred his fangs. “Why should I?”

“Because he is the Overlord!” another dragon answered for Claxokarthelornarux. “And – ”

The silver dragon’s head turned, locking eyes with the smaller one who had spoken, the same brown-and-gray one that had taunted Solrathicharnon. He closed his mouth at the glare, but apparently that wasn’t quite enough as Claxokarthelornarux leaped straight at the dragon less than half her size, colliding with him and forcing him to the ground, the other dragons backing away. Once on top of him, Claxokarthelornarux’s maw closed around the base of the smaller dragon’s neck. He roared in fear, wings beating instinctively even as he lay his neck and face right down on the ground beneath him.

Claxokarthelornarux squeezed her jaw slightly, and the dragon roared in pain, but after a few moments the silver dragon withdrew. She remained sitting atop the brown one, pinning him down, but looked once more to Solrathicharnon. “As I was saying,” she said, as though there wasn’t a terrified dragon pinned beaneath her, “Obey the Overlord, because until you defeat him, he is the Overlord. You’ll have your chance to end his reign, but not yet, Solrathicharnon-Saurivthurgix.”

The elder red dragon recoiled at the new appended name, wings flaring, ear crests spread wide. Raindrops got the sense that whatever Claxokarthelornarux had said, it was immensely insulting.

“Saurivthurgix,” another dragon said.

“Saurivthurgix,” said a third, grinning and snorting fire at Solrathicharnon, then moving away before the elder red could lash at her with claw, tail, or wing. He had turned to do such, but couldn’t pinpoint the taunting dragon, not being blind as he was.

“Do not call me that!” Solrathicharnon roared, spinning around and breathing fire at all the dragons. Raindrops ducked low to avoid the flames, but to her surprise one of Claxorkarthelornarux’s wings came down and blocked the incoming conflagration. The thin membrane of the dragon’s wing glowed white, but wasn’t charred or harmed at all. At length, Solrathicharnon ran out of breath, and he turned back to roughly the direction of the silver dragon, hissing. “Do not call me that.”

“Why not?” Claxorkarthelornarux asked, leaning forward and breathing a small puff of flame at Solrathicharnon’s neck. That, the elder dragon reacted to, lashing out with a claw, but the silver dragon had already withdrawn, settling back down atop the brown dragon she had pinned and injured. “You’ve earned it.”

Raindrops didn’t see Solrathicharnon’s reaction; her eyes were focused on the smaller dragon beneath Claxokarthelornarux. He was wounded from where the larger dragon had bitten him, with bright red, steaming hot blood oozing out from beneath the scales at the base of his neck. There wasn’t a lot of blood – well, there was, but he was thirty feet long, so it amounted to no more than a scratch – but for just a few moments, Raindrops had started to think that Claxokarthelornarux had perhaps been a ‘good’ dragon, whatever that was supposed to mean. Her attacking another dragon for interrupting her, however, and injuring him to assert her dominance, had instantly dashed that thought.

A low growl from the red dragon nearby finally drew Raindrops’ attention. Solrathicharnon had closed his eyes and tucked his wings against his body, though he kept his head held high. “Very well,” he grunted, apparently accepting whatever the dragons had taken to calling him. He looked down at the two ponies. “I gather that the ponies are to be treated as whelps?”

“Yes. Meaning that unless they have stolen anything from you…”

“They have not.” Solrathicharnon turned, snorting and walking away on all four legs. “I will wait for the Overlord, then, and put an end to this farce. And then I will come for you, Claxokarthelornarux.”

The other dragons parted for him, giving him a wide berth even as they kept cruel grins on their faces. Raindrops, meanwhile, looked around for Cheerilee, and saw her approaching carefully, keeping well away from the elder red – slipping between several smaller dragons as she did, who paid her little heed. After a moment, the small gathering began breaking up, some taking to the sky, others wandering into the jungle, and more than few making their way over to the lava pool and immersing themselves.

Claxokarthelornarux, herself, got off of the smaller dragon, who backed away on all fours, belly, neck, and head all low to the ground as the silver dragon watched him go. After a few moments, Claxokarthelornarux looked away, and the brown one took that as his cue to turn away and run into the lava pool, diving out of sight.

The silver dragon looked back to the two small ponies, watching in interest as the two swapped their Elements back to their respective owners. “Uh…” Raindrops said. “Th…thanks for the save, um…Clax…Claxo…” Raindrops closed her eyes, concentrating hard on the name she’d heard. “Claxogartelornux? Did I get that right? Please tell me I got that right…”

The silver dragon chuckled. “You are like whelps,” she observed, glancing between the two ponies a moment, obviously bemused. “Clax-o-kar-thel-orn-arux. But if you can’t say it right, don’t say it at all. Just a piece of advice.”

There was motion from behind them, and the dragon and two ponies turned to look, and saw a green-and-purple dragon flying from the steam that surrounded the central lava pool, having come from the obsidian tower that sat in the pool’s center – Hesjingrasvim. He approached low over the lava, landing well clear of Claxokarthelornarux and keeping his head bowed as he approached, not looking directly at the larger silver dragon but keeping her in his peripheral. She observed him directly for a few moments, before snorting slightly, turning around and walking back towards the jungle, though not before looking back to the ponies. “Oh, and saurivthurgix means ‘eye-crippled.’ Solrathicharnon-Saurivthurgix. Solrathicharnon the Blind.”

With that, the silver dragon wandered back into the jungle, probably to return to her hoard – and it probably spoke volumes about how strong she personally was, and how feared by other dragons, that she felt safe leaving her hoard unattended for even a few moments in order to visit ponies and taunt another dragon. Hesjingrasvim watched her go carefully, not rising up to a more comfortable position until she was well away and rubbing his neck with one hand as he did.

“What did I miss?” he asked, looking around the basalt beach. He spotted Solrathicharnon quickly. “Why are we now trying to tick off the Eldest? I don’t want to tick off the Eldest…but I don’t want to tick off Claxokarthelornarux, either…”

“…I’m guessing that calling him ‘the Blind’ is insulting,” Cheerilee said.

Hesjingrasvim glanced down to Cheerilee. “Well it certainly doesn’t carry the same weight as the Red, Eternal Foe of Moon and Night,” he answered. He sighed. “Anyway. Every dragon in the continent is here now, so the Overlord will be revealing himself to them in a few minutes. He’ll take any challengers. Once they’re all down, everyone will know that he really is the Overlord of All Dragons. Unless some dragon kills him.”

Cheerilee looked around at all the dragons still in the air, or landed on the caldera’s edge. The ones within the caldera lived here, she gathered – probably some kind of status symbol, I can keep my hoard safe with so many other dragons around – while the ones in the air or on the edge were just visiting. There were thousands of dragons…but then something Hesjingrasvim said tickled her brain.

“Wait, this is every dragon?” she asked. “In the whole continent?”

Hesjingrasvim nodded. “Mostly. There is maybe a few hundred more that were asleep and didn’t hear the Call a few days ago. They’re going to be in for a surprise when they wake up!” He chuckled to himself, though stopped after a moment. “Unless someone kills the Overlord,” he appended.

Cheerilee looked over the dragons. She couldn’t count them all, of course, but she could make some guesses. “There doesn’t look like there’s even…say, seven thousand dragons here,” she said. “But you eat rocks and gemstones…it’s not like food’s an issue. And I’m guessing you don’t just kill each other willy-nilly…you have no natural predators…wait, whelps. Where are all the whelps? Back in their parents’ lairs still?”

Hesjingrasvim sputtered a moment. “No!” he exclaimed in shock. “Little salamanders would steal everything in sight! No. Whelps grow up here,” he swept a claw at the basalt beach, the jungle, the lava pool. “Within the Dragon’s Forge. Why do you think we call it a ‘forge’? They roam and they learn, from any dragon here who’ll teach them. And they try to gather hoards for themselves, enough to start their first growth spurt. The ones who succeed leave the Forge.”

Cheerilee and Raindrops looked around. They didn’t see any whelps now, but they knew they were there, moving through the paths that had been hacked and burned in the jungle between the open fields where the larger dragons lay with their hoards. There must have been more within the jungle itself, but…

“How many whelps are there?” Cheerilee asked. In Equestria, foals made up about a third of the total population. But the jungle didn’t look like it was teeming with nearly that many whelps.

Hesjingrasvim shrugged. “Who cares?”

“Who cares?” Raindrops demanded. Hesjingrasvim seemed surprised at her angry outburst, though also bemused even as she spread her wings wide. “They’re your kids, aren’t they? Your family?”

Hesjingrasvim smiled. “Dragons have a word for family, khadat. It’s nearly the same as our word for competition – khatat.” He jerked a thumb at Solrathicharnon. “Some dragons stick with their families, form a flight, think it makes them strong. But look what having a family did to him.” He grunted. “Nevermind that even if attacking Equestria had worked out, they probably would have turned on each other, fought or killed each other over their plunder.”

Any further commentary was cut off by movement that Cheerilee and Raindrops caught out of the corner of their eye. Turning to look, they saw a dragon emerging from one of the apertures in the obsidian spire, crawling up along its side. Even a few hundred feet away as they were, the two ponies could tell the dragon was large – larger than Claxokarthelornarux, even, maybe even nearly as big as Solrathicharnon. It had a hide that was jet black, with only a slightly paler gray underbelly and tint to its wing’s membranes, and the most malevolently red eyes that the ponies had ever seen.

More, despite its size, something about the dragon looked young and vital – at least as compared to Solrathicharnon. Its movements were easier, more fluid, as it climbed to the very tip of the spire and spread its wings wide, before roaring and exhaling a long gout of fire into the air that was somehow as black as the dragon’s scales.

“This is about to get loud,” Hesjingrasvim warned the ponies, before tilting his head back and roaring himself, shooting purple into the air as he did. The ponies covered their ears, but it didn’t help much, not once other dragons within the Forge began taking up the call, roaring and adding their own fire to the mix. The fire was a different color for each of them, but the roars all sounded identical to the ponies.

The dragons at the edge of the caldera took up the call next, then the ones in the air. The sound of thousands of dragons all calling out at once was almost too much for the ponies, who covered their ears as best they could and huddled close together, desperately fighting off the urge to run and hide. It wouldn’t much have mattered – the dragons in the air began to land by the dozens, on the basalt beach, within the jungle, even within the lava pool if there was no room on solid ground. The earth beneath the two ponies shook with the impact of so many creatures, each of which weighed dozens of tons, and Cheerilee and Raindrops scrambled closer to Hesjingrasvim to avoid being accidentally crushed. The sky overhead, now clear of dragons, quickly became filled with multi-hued fire in every color imaginable, seeming to almost form a dome in the sky and looking, to Raindrops and Cheerilee anyway, like some kind of angry, fiery counterpart to the Elements of Harmony when they were used.

At great length, the roaring ceased, and the fire in the air dissipated seconds later, no longer fed by the dragons below. Every eye in the Forge was turned to the black dragon that sat atop the obsidian tower, who looked out at all of them. This, then, Cheerilee reasoned, was the Overlord of All Dragons – not quite as big as Solrathicharnon, but younger, and fitter, and not blind. He certainly looked the part.

At length – long enough for Cheerilee and Raindrops’ ears to stop ringing quite so much – the dragon spread his arms and wings wide.

“I am Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha!” he exclaimed – once again in Equestrian, which seemed odd to the two ponies. For that matter, the two gathered that it was odd to many of the dragons around as well. Both noticed the reactions of many of the dragons to the words, slight recoils and looks of surprise. The black dragon, though, didn’t seem to care. “I herald the Overlord!”

“Herald?” Cheerilee whispered. “He’s not the Overlord?”

Hesjingrasvim heard her, and leaned down. “No. But I understand the surprise. To be honest I think every dragon in the Forge always expected Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha to try for it someday, but he never did for whatever reason. But no.” He withdrew, and grimaced. “The actual Overlord is…” he seemed unsure, for the first time since the ponies had met him. “He is the Overlord,” the dragon decided.

The black dragon had resumed speaking, preventing the green one from elaborating. “The Overlord came here weeks ago,” he said. “He came with his hoard. He saw the Elders here. He challenged us one by one. Irthosaussirsol. Charirkepesktalach. Claxokarthelornarux. Eventually he challenged me! Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha! And I was defeated!”

The dragons in the Forge roared at that, though not for long and not quite as loud as before.

“The Call was sent out,” the black dragon continued. “This is your chance. The Overlord has battled us one by one. He is weak from his battles! Fell him now – or submit to his will forever!”

The dragons roared again at that, somewhat louder. “Who is he?” One dragon demanded.

“Who claims the title of Overlord?” another called.

“Who could be strong enough to defeat me?” One dragon, this one yellow, demanded, rising into the air, beginning to circle over the crowd, since dragons were too massive to hover in place for long – especially dragons of her size, nearly as great as Claxokarthelornarux. “Othlaraekgixustrat?”

“Irthosmiirikedar?” Another called, also rising into the air, blue and copper in coloration.

“Versveshkepeskuskisk?” Demanded a gray dragon.

“Solrathicharnon-Charir-Uskirlymzolthurkear?” A very familiar voice cried, shooting into the sky highest of all.

“Saurivthurgix,” some dragon’s voice shouted at him. Solrathicharnon exhaled flames in the direction of the voice, but must have missed, as the call of ‘Solrathihcarnon-Saurivthurgix’ went up from amongst the rest of the dragons. The elder red dragon visibly fumed, looking ready to dive down amongst the younger dragons and just start slashing and striking without regard for whoever he hit.

The black dragon, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs – the ponies presumed that ‘Vutha’ was more of a title than a name, though dragons barely distinguished between the two – roared, drawing the red’s attention and shutting up the rest. “You will each have your chance,” he called. “Maybe you will even be in good enough condition afterwards to become Overlord yourself.” He seemed to place special emphasis on that last bit, eyeing Solrathicharnon – highlighting his blindness, most likely. The insult didn’t seem to escape Solrathicharnon, but he didn’t fly any closer, instead continuing to circle the obsidian spire with the other three challengers.

Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs spread his wings wide. “But first, the Overlord must reveal himself. Behold your master!”

There was a few moments of quiet, the two ponies holding their breath just as much as any of the dragons. What kind of dragon could possibly claim to be Overlord? How big would it be? How powerful? To leave scars on Claxokarthelornarux, to force even Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs to submit to his will? To think that he was strong enough to take on even Solrathicharnon? To…

The Overlord appeared, standing at the edge of one of the apertures that lead into the obsidian spire. He was purple, mostly, save for a green set of blunted spines on his back, green ear crests, and a pale beige underbelly, with some kind of gray and red necklace around his neck.

He was maybe two feet tall.

And he was decidedly familiar.

“Spike?” Raindrops and Cheerilee said in unison.

The Overlord of All Dragons probably didn’t hear the two of them, but he did wave at all the collected dragons in general, a large grin on his face. “Hi!”

Author's Note

Lots of dragon names in this one. I'm actually not using gibberish, by the by - well, not really. Most of the Draconic herein is taken from a Draconic word list in the D&D 3rd Edition book Draconomicon: the Book of Dragons, with occasional bits of gibberish substituted in when the word list didn't have what I was looking for. At some point I might post the full word list I was using for you to look over.