The Guardian of the Elements

Chapters

Titans Set in Motion
A Kindle of Trouble
The Guardian
At His Greediest
Forces of Order and Harmony
Fire and Stone

Titans Set in Motion

Tell me, do you not find my children so magnificent? What is it about them that impresses upon you so much? Is it their massive stature that can so easily overshadow all of your tiny, little villages? Their scales so notorious for denting your beautifully crafted lances? Or is it perhaps their bellyful of flames that can lay waste to entire fields that has you so entranced?

...

...I see. You're not so easily cowed into giving such obsequious praise are you? Good, I like that. My little drakes are already big-headed enough, they don't need a pony as ...influential as you bloating up their egos even more. Arrogant, little burnt-nosed brats: the lot of them. I've been thinking of going on another horde tithe just to smolder their over-blown self-images of themselves. That'd bring them down to size—literally! Heh heh heh—STOP YOUR QUIVERING UP THERE! I'M ONLY HALF-JOKING! I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE YOUR PRECIOUS TREASURES FROM YOU ...YET! HA HA HA HA! NOW ALL OF YOU BUGGER OFF! I HAVE A PRINCESS TO ENTERTAIN!

...

Hmm? I'm sorry, but could you repeat your question? I didn't quite hear you the first time.

...

...What do I admire most about my dragons? Well now, isn't that a rare question I hardly ever hear.

Their wings of course, so as to better flee from danger.

Surprised? I don't blame you. After all, with my children being such a magnificently terrifying species, how can I look so fondly on such a cowardly trait?

Well, when you've been around as long as I have and seen the workings of this world: quite easily.

For as massive and as terrifying as my dragons are, they are in no way invincible and cannot hope to face every foe with sheer strength and fury alone. The magical beasts that roam this world prey upon them just as easily as they prey upon your kind and all other kinds. Even more so, as I'm sure they find my sizable children a much more tantalizing morsel.

I've seen careless young blood suddenly pulled under the ground and suffocate on the dirt by vicious tatzelwurms. I've watched scar-earned warriors get nipped by a single head of a hydra and die from the poison. I've found long lost kin turned stone and hollowed out for sustenance by foul cockatrices. I've even once seen a dragon so ancient as to be called my peer suddenly and with no warning get swallowed up entirely by the ocean due to a mysterious monster of teeth that chomped him whole, all because he drifted too close to the clear water.

I ask you, what good is our impressive stature when all it takes but a single poisonous strike to lay us low? How useful can our armored scales really be when only a simple glance is needed to turn them into stone? What danger can our flames truly pose when they can be so quickly drowned out by dirt and water?

The titles of prey and predator are not so easily defined in nature as many would like to believe. All of us, even the mightiest of beings, can soon find ourselves learning what it truly means to be prey when put under the correct circumstances.

And for prey to survive, it must learn the value of fleeing.

My dragons do not have the build for speed or stealth; their bodies are too bulky and thick armored to be quick on their feet, and their scales too proud and vibrant to merge with the shadows properly. Their flames, claws, and teeth are those of a predator and will not help them as prey when they are cornered like animals and outnumbered thirty to a measly one.

But their wings... their wings can take them far—far from danger and far from death—far away until they are safe, or at the very least, far enough away to easily return a dragon's fiery wrath.

This is why it is the wings of my dragons that I admire most, because without them my children would only be fat, temper-breathed salamanders to be hunted and felled for the prestige and the award of the kill. The beasts of the wild would chase them down for their tender muscle and fat, but by a dragon's wings they will only ever taste shadow. While the demons that seek to murder my children for their bone and flesh will wish that they had never slithered out of the cracks of Tartarus when dragonfire rains down upon them from an unreachable height. Even the titans, the unstoppable forces of nature that they are, would be hard-pressed to so easily destroy a dragon that has already taken air.

It is through these wings that has allowed my children to not only survive in this world, but to also thrive in it. And any dragon crippled in their wings is soon to learn this.

But, of course, then there's him.

Your biggest exception to this rule...

Like an enormous arrowhead piercing out from the crust of the land, a singular, rocky mountain jutted out of the long stretches of forested fields that surrounded it. Isolated in the middle of this green ocean of bark and leaves, the lone mountain towered over everything for miles. Snow-capped white at its tip from its impressive height, the mountain was also gray from its bare stone that no plant or tree from the forest below dared to take root on.

For as long as this centuries-old mountain has stood, a foreboding sense of anxiety enshrouded and deterred all those who approached its slopes. A paranoia justified by those who knew that 'centuries-old' wasn't actually something that's supposed to be applicable to a mountain.

After all, there's no such thing as a centuries-old mountain.

So it was no surprise that when the ground started shaking and the trees of the encircled forest began to tremble in fear, that the little critters whom made their homes in the surrounding forest knew to turn their gazes to the lonesome mountain.

With a literal earth-shattering explosion that tore apart and jettisoned rocks afar, a side of the mountain suddenly burst open like a spear thrust forward through a body, causing surmountable amounts of dirt and dust to lay claim to the surrounding air and obscure the causation of this destruction. From this shattering event, the entire mountain fell unto cataclysm as its snow-tipped peak and rocky slopes slowly crumbled into pieces before finally collapsing inward into itself as though the mountain was no more than a hollow shell come undone.

The collapse of an entire mountain was nothing short of devastating to the surrounding land as each crumbled chunk of the mountain that fell to the earth shook the ground so powerfully that each was an earthquake that tore the land with cracked fissures; as if the very tectonic plate had shattered from its collapse. The encompassing sea of bark and leaves that surrounded the once mountain, a once vibrant green of flourishing life, was now flooded brown by the displaced dirt and dust of the mountain's corpse. Trees that hadn't been uprooted and defeated by the flood of dirt now suffocated from the dust that covered their leaves from the sun, while grass and the many little critters that were the denizens of this forest now lay buried under massive mounds of dirt, hopefully already dead from the impact of the flood.

What had once been a peaceful, if albeit an underlying foreboding scene of landscape, had now become one of destruction and ruin.

And now the causation of this destruction was soon to be revealed.

From the dead mountain's massive cloud of displaced dirt and dust that stormed out with a mile-wide girth, out came the Mountain Bull.

A titanic being of epic scale and proportion a quarter the height of the mountain it had burst from, the Mountain Bull stepped forward with hooves each the size able to wholly crush a fully grown oak tree; proven by the fact that with every step that the immense beast took tore and shattered everything in its wake and left a trail of fallen timber and scattered dirt behind it. Skin like rock and crust, the Mountain Bull was more mountain than bull and every movement of its form relayed this as fissures opened and closed upon its rocky coat as it moved forward away from the dust storm of the mountain corpse. Between stone horns the size of galleons, the enormous beast's shadowed ruby eyes surveyed its surroundings before locking ahead at what was before it:

A forested landscape that stretched for miles, a small collection of steep mountains clumped together, a wide valley that followed after, and then even more ranges of mountains that currently sat under a raging storm.

At the sight of it all, large clouds of dust escaped the Bull's stone nostrils in a display of contempt determination as it began its slow march forward, undeterred by the distant obstacles as it left a trail of crushed forestry under its massive hooves.

For far, far beyond those mountains, in distant parts unknown, was the Mountain Bull's destination; its next place of slumber that called the massive bovine.

It did not matter where or how far it had to go. Nor did it matter what was between it and its destination. It was all irrelevant.

The Mountain Bull was a Titan. A creation of Order that has been around since before the Tree of Harmony first spouted, back when the Old World needed Flattening and the New World needed Structuring at the hooves of the Titans. The Chaos of Life and Nature did not interfere with its kind. It Woke, Moved, Slumbered, and then Woke again in a never-ending cycle. Though when it Woke and where it Slumbered was of a random nature, the fact remained that the cycle never decayed into something different like so many other things susceptible to Chaos were want to do.

The Mountain Bull always Woke. It always Moved Straight in the direction of its next Slumber.

And it always reached its place of Slumber, regardless of what was in its way.

All across the chamber's stone flooring, fluorescent glyphs of blue color glowed brightly through the abyssal shadows that cloaked the room in darkness. Filled with flowing arcane energy, these stone-etched grooves were like a radial maze of curved lines and jagged symbols that together encircled the room's center object like a net.

Floating there, with no assistance from any kind of physical support, was a large, spherical orb of glass that silently thundered from the entrapped storm clouds raging within it. Slowly rotating one way, while its glass prison rotated another, the contained collection of storm clouds repeatedly discharged bolts of lighting uselessly against the orb's thick, glassy surface.

Over the fluorescent glyphs, a set of hooves stepped through the arcane glow that rose up from the floor, and a pair of deep eyes gazed upon the glass orb of thunderclouds.

A spark of magical light from above those eyes and suddenly the glass of the orb was drifted apart into several large, bulbous pieces that swirled around the cacophony of trapped storm clouds like a tornado encasing a hurricane. Streaks of lightning that were once contained now arched through the gaps in the glass and across the chamber, striking the three metallic pylons that hung from the ceiling.

Studious eyes watched on, pupils twitching in their concentrated search for any sort of disturbance.

Storm generators were always a danger to fix. The fact that they were essentially a collection of condensed thunderclouds super-juiced to dangerous levels through pegasi magic with the intention of increasing the outage of their magical energy tenfold, all of which was contained behind a thick surface of glass, only drives home the point of how volatile the things were...

Behind the spinning pieces of glass, like the sudden sight of a shark skimming just below the ocean's surface, a section of the contained storm formed into that of a ghastly face that swirled about with the thunderous clouds it took shape from. Equine in design, the face's expression seemed to be locked into that of a state of torment and anger as its eyes and mouth gaped open painfully wide; its formed orifices filled with the bright, glowing light of magic, thunder, and soul as it let out a horrifying wail that shared all of its hellish pain and hate with the ears of those nearby. As if on queue with its wail, the storm generator thundered over-violently as bolts of lightning shot out across the chamber.

...Of course, a possessed storm generator was even more dangerous...

A particularly nasty thunderbolt of such volume lashed out at the pony in the chamber with seemingly violent intention, only to collide uselessly with the barrier of magic that immediately appeared around her.

...Which was why she was here.

From within the chamber's darkness, eyes flashed white with power and the fluorescent glyphs that covered the stone flooring glowed even more brightly from the arcane energy that flared within their grooves and symbols. Then, with a resounding slam of a hoof upon these glyphs, a magical beam of fluorescent color shot out of the darkness and pierced the thunderous storm generator, wrapping around the ghastly face of the specter that haunted it like chains upon a prisoner. The phantom wailed and thrashed violently in this magical grip as it was slowly torn away from the generator, its painful emotion spurring out the storm generator's lightning bolts hatefully across the chamber as its spectral form was brought closer to those white eyes that were bright with power.

Finally, the wailing phantom, its form now intermixed with the remaining black clouds of the storm generator and the spectral details of a once pegasus, was met with a chest covered in a soft coat just under those bright eyes that now seemed so much warmer when brought up closer. Wings colored similar to the met coat wrapped around the phantom's form like an enveloping blanket, their warm presence replacing the vanishing magical aura that had ensnared the phantom, whose wild thrashings and terrifying wails slowly stilled as comforting words were whispered into its spectral ears.

As soft comforts filled the chamber, as gentle promises of safety and of a better journey ahead were whispered in the darkness, the angry thunder and violent bolts of lightning that had dominated the storm generator's behavior slowly began to lessen.

But whatever resolution of peace that was to be attained right now was unfortunately destroyed by the disturbance of a large, nearby impact that quaked the chamber, followed by a bellowing, reptilian roar.

The phantom wailed fearfully at this sudden disturbance and pushed away from the warm wings, before diving back into the storm generator with a screech. It's maddened, terrified behavior now causing the generator to act much more thunderously than it had before, as the wild thrashing of its lightning bolts increased exponentially. Before the generator had the chance to destroy everything in its vicinity, the swirling pieces of glass that surrounded the clout of violent storms were quickly condensed back into the singular orb from before to better encase the destructive weather.

As the glass orb of the possessed storm generator was held together against the phantom's ministrations, white eyes of power angled away from the generator and further into the chamber's darkness with an irritated look that had a clear meaning to anyone familiar with the expression.

'Deal with it,' they seemed to say, before returning back to focus on the haunted generator.

Just hidden within the chamber's shadows, thick scales glimmered from the violent storm's light as sharp claws traversed across the stone floor, towards the chamber's steel door exit.

Author's Note

This story is part of the Tutelary Spirit universe.

Reading the other stories in this universe is not required to enjoy this one, but if you do happen to enjoy reading this story, then just remember that there are more stories like it that you can read.

A Kindle of Trouble

Like a pike impaled down in a drastically acute angle through a wall of dirt, a massive tower of stone bricks rose out from the side of a mountain range and up into the sky, overlooking the urban valley of a city below. And although the massive tower rose from the earth with bricks for skin, the higher it rose in the air the more the tower's stone exterior merged with the clouds of the sky, until finally its tip ended inside of a raging storm.

This was a storm facility. It was used by the ponies of Equestria to produce arcane and electrical energy for their benefit, and those who looked upon it's staggering height and how it was able to bridge the gap between the earth's mountain and the sky's storm found it a truly impressive sight. Although nearby pegasi with a keen eye for detail would point out that the storm seemed much more violent than usual.

Not that Kindle cared much for a storm or what little ponies thought of it—dragons usually didn't. She was much more focused on the courtyard surrounding the base of the tower, and the double rows of warehouses nearby that lined against the side of the mountain.

Landing between the rows of warehouses with a great, mighty thump, Kindle bellowed out a terrifying roar at the nearby ponies. Like most competent sentients, the ponies were justifiably frightened at the sight of an adult dragon roaring at them, but for good measure, Kindle then raised her head up and let loose a stream of flames into the air above her, deeply frightening more of the little equines. She then let slip a subtle smirk upon her short snout as she saw all of the ponies, many of whom were still garbed in their factory work coats, fearfully scamper away from her like terrified rabbits from a manticore.

"Too easy," thought the dragon as she slowly began moving herself between the warehouses.

Normally, Kindle didn't really go out of her way to bother the little ponies, especially the ones in such a large city. For one, she wasn't an idiot. She knew that terrorizing a city full of ponies, or any city full of the smaller beings of the world, was akin to poking a hornets' nest. Sooner or later, she was going to get swarmed and stung by the nest's vengeful soldiers.

And a dragon she may be, but an army she did not make.

Besides, she actually quite enjoyed the glittering lights and large architecture that the view of the city provided her from her hidden, mountainside nest.

Raising herself up and standing upright at the average height of a fully-grown dragon, Kindle's draconic waist was level with the roofs of the warehouses as she looked over them to view the city beyond. The storm facility's higher location on the side of a small mountain range allowed her to better see the city in its entirety; it's tall buildings and urban covering that stretched on for a mile or two complimenting beautifully with the evening sun of their ruling diarch.

With a dismissive grunt, the dragoness quickly dropped back down on all fours and resumed her traversing.

It was just that, considering the unique circumstances that were currently underway, it would be an absolute shame—a tragedy even—if she didn't take advantage of this opportunity, especially considering that this could be one of the only few times that she'd be able to get away with it.

So here she found herself: stomping along on all fours between the rows of warehouses; her large, leathery wings tucked into her sides, her glimmering, ivory scales shimmering from what light could reach her from under the shade of the tower's high storm, and her long, golden spikes that lined along her spine sailing over the sea of steel roofs like a predator of the ocean. And like a predator, Kindle was on the hunt. With her serpentine neck and her bright, sapphire eyes, she peeked through the windows of the warehouses as she searched for her prey.

And it didn't take long for her to find it.

The glass of a warehouse window shattered into a thousand pieces as an ivory claw nearly as big as the large window itself crashed through it. The claw then gripped the edges of the opening that had once been a window and began tearing out huge chunks of red bricks that made up the wall of the warehouse. It wasn't long before near the entire wall had been torn down, that the dragoness took the underside of the warehouse's metal roof and, with a minuscule amount of effort, tore off the entire roof so as to better gaze down at her prize.

Crystals.

Crystals everywhere.

The now-roofless warehouse was absolutely cluttered with crystals, all of them stored upon the many rows of factory shelves that filled the open interior. But these weren't just any sort of crystals. These blue crystals with white hues glowing in their center were power crystals, filled with the magical energy that had been siphoned off from the nearby storm facility. The ponies, and indeed most community-living sentient beings of the world, don't dare directly connect any sort of energy facility with an entire city, because considering how susceptible magitek is to these kinds of things, it would only take one cursing or haunted possession from a foul spirit to bring it all to ruin, so ponies instead use these gems to power all of their little gizmos and machinery that they use.

Grabbing a shelf with her ivory claw, Kindle shook the crystals loose, letting them clatter to the warehouse's cement floor noisily before tossing the now barren shelf over her shoulder, past her tucked-in wings, and letting the metal factory shelf break and shatter as it impacted against the wall of another nearby warehouse. Turning her attention back to the myriad number of energy crystals that lay scattered on the floor, she meticulously began clumping them up together in a pile with her claws before pressing them up against her scaled underbelly; the slight magnetic-like attraction of her body that was inherent to all dragons allowing them to stick to her scales without the further aid of her limbs.

With the energy gems sticking to her scales, Kindle reached over and grabbed another factory shelf filled with the crystalline batteries and began dumping them free; repeating the process.

It was while she was in the middle of this process of dumping crystals from shelves onto the floor and then sticking them to her coat of scales that a small voice called out through what was left of the warehouse's interior, interrupting her.

"Y'know..." spoke out the male voice in a sardonic tone, "I'm not usually one to judge on another dragon's tastes or anything, but I mean... energy crystals? Seriously?"

Kindle paused in her hoarding, her still claw inches from another shelf, before slowly swiveling her gaze over towards the source of the voice. There, on the far end of the overlook railing that hanged off of one of the warehouse's remaining walls, stood, much to her surprise, a small, purple drake with a casual air about him as he leaned forward on the railing and absentmindedly toyed with an energy crystal in his claw.

"Again, not judging. Just..." the purple dragon tossed up the crystal into the air and took a bite out of it, eating it, before scrunching his face inward in a mixture of slight pain and disgust at the sparks of electricity that danced around his teeth, "...They're just too sour for my tastes, is all."

With a dismissive flare of her nostrils, Kindle batted the factory shelf away and began moving herself towards the little drake. The many other factory shelves in her way being so effortlessly toppled over as she did so, and the multitude number of fallen gems scattering across the floor being paid no mind by her as her sapphire eyes stayed locked on the little, purple dragon, who so confidently waited as his towering kin approached him without any sign of trepidation.

Stopping before him, Kindle could now see that 'little' may have been a bit too relative when describing the purple dragon, as even on all fours the drake stood almost thrice as tall as the average pony—though he was still only barely the size of Kindle's entire head. Unusually, although his much smaller stature to her would indicate his age to be somewhere in the dragon equivalent of an older teenager, his features seemed much too mature and defined to be labeled so young. Whatever remaining baby fat that a young dragon of that size would have was absent, replaced with lean muscle, while the green spikes that lined his back and tail seemed to be much more broad and thick from the experience of age rather than what resulted from youthful growth.

Still, he was only a little dragon, and Kindle would not allow some stunted drake to slight her so easily.

"Well, if it isn't a little dragon among littler ponies," soothed out Kindle as she looked down on the smaller drake, her tone barbed with amusement, "are you another of my kin being raised by the civilized, little species of the world?"

The purple dragon chuckled, "Uh... no, I'm not being raised by them. Bit too old for that, really," he replied, his tone smarmy, "though if you're insinuating that my upbringing has made me civilized, then I won't deny it. After all, I am quite the eloquent speech-giver and writer."

"Is that so?" inquired the dragoness, "And what is it that a sophisticated dragon like you has approached me for? Do you plan to butter me up with honeyed words and ask me to leave?"

"Well... that's one approach," said the small dragon, "and I was sent here to stop you from destroying this place."

"Really? Then I am surprised," replied Kindle with a humorous smirk, "I, myself, was raised by griffons long ago and even those prideful birds taught me the value of not getting in the way of things much bigger than you. I had thought that ponies of all beings would have distilled that into you."

A small, brazen grin never seemed to leave the purple dragon as he leaned forward and replied, "Sorry, I must have missed that lesson. Which, considering all the ones that I had to write down in my younger years alone, is really saying something," he then let loose an indifferent shrug, "but ah well, it doesn't sound like a very important lesson anyways."

With a flare of her nostrils, Kindle blew a cloud of smoke into the little dragon's face for his impudence, which shut that brazen grin of his, "I beg to differ," spoke Kindle, "from one drake to another, let me share you some advice," she leaned her head forward, her snout pushing the purple dragon back as her bright blue eyes locked with his vibrant green ones, "flee," she told him with goad in her tone, her following words causing the smaller dragon to crease a deep frown, "hoard what you can and flee, because by the time after I'm gone, this facility and the city below it will be nothing but a pile of rubble and broken bodies. And you don't want to be here when it's made."

With that said, Kindle turned away from the little dragon, done with him, and returned to gathering the fallen energy crystals that were scattered across the floor, completely unaware of the ire that her words had prodded. With her back turned and her attention focused again on her hoarding, she paid no more attention to the little dragon or how his eyes had grown fierce as they glared into her winged back. Nor was she aware of how those glaring irises began to glow a fiery green, or how his violet scales started to smolder that same glow from the emerald flames that danced out from between their overlapping folds.

It was only when she heard the sound of straining metal tearing under heavy stress, and the subsequent sounds of a collapsing railing and the crumbling of a brick wall behind her that Kindle began to take notice.

But before she could return her gaze behind her, a foreboding shadow fell over her and encompassed her form in her entirety.

Suddenly, the dragoness felt a massive claw grip the base of her tail and an arm wrap around her gem-covered midsection. Before she knew it, Kindle was experiencing a rare sensation that very few adult dragons had ever experienced in their entire lives as ginormous, flying reptiles:

The sensation of being picked up and thrown.

Kindle let loose a defiant roar as she sailed through the air and over a number of warehouses like a boulder launched by a catapult, her wings flailing uselessly against the air in her forced flight, before crashing into the middle of the storm facility's courtyard. The energy crystals that had stuck to her body were now being splayed everywhere as her impact had her rolling across the courtyard from her velocity, brick and dirt being ripped apart and thrown into the air as her hard scales scraped against the ground. When she finally slowed and stilled her barreling, the courtyard of grass and intermingling brick pathways now had a torn trail of dirt and crystals slicing through it with a very irritated dragon at its end.

Invoking the name of her Mother under her breath, Kindle rolled herself off of her back and onto her stomach with a groan. Her head lying on the ground, Kindle quickly shook it to clear away the pain, before letting loose a low, fiery growl as she opened her eyes with the intent of hunting down and smoldering whoever it was that dared to have the audacity to throw her.

With her eyes now open, she was just in time to see the massive, clawed foot that slammed down onto the ground, right in front of her face, startling her.

Author's Note

Storytelling tip #308: When alluding to something massive, always begin with the foot and work your way up from there.

The Guardian

Thunder rumbled above, the artificial storm all the way up at the top of the storm facility's tower seething with unnatural and barely-restrained rage as it slowly swirled about against the sky.

But for Kindle, that possessed storm was high and away from her—far from her concern. Instead, for the ivory dragoness lying prone and vulnerable on the ground, her immediate attention was not focused on the distant rumbling of the storm high above her, but rather the rumblings of the deep, guttural growls that stood just over her.

Draped again in that same foreboding shadow from before in the demolished warehouse, Kindle, for the briefest of moments, could only hear her own deep breathing as she laid there in the middle of that deafening courtyard, staring at the talon foot in front of her.

Slowly, Kindle's sapphire eyes began to steadily climb up the massive foot, finding its leg both thick with muscle and absolutely covered in dark, violet scales. Following up this limb, she found a greenish-yellow underbelly; not of a softer hide as most dragon bellies were, but instead like one that was composed from rows of naturally-armored plates. Behind this bulk form of toughened scales and hardened plates, her eyes glanced a large tail—fat with muscle, yet long enough to end in prehensile capabilities—that swished and wagged about on the ground like a heavy whip eager to ricochet the end of its arrowhead tip with dangerous intent. From the end of this tail began green spikes that pierced out of the violet scales. These spikes though were not spindly like her own golden ones that were the norm for dragons, but rather they were large and stocky, like jagged hatchets that could equally tear and bludgeon with enough force; and the further they traveled away from the tail and up along the violet scales, the bigger they became, until they resembled the curved, point-ended cleavers that sat at the top of the head, where under green irises seemed to radiate with a fiery glow as they stared down at Kindle.

Her sapphire eyes locked with those radiating irises, and that was when she knew.

The scales, the spikes; at first glance, Kindle had assumed that the resemblance meant that she was dealing with a protective parent of some kind.

But no, those eyes spoke everything.

And what those eyes told her was that this massive drake was the very same snarky, little, purple dragon that she had spoken to not barely a moment ago.

It was hard to believe. Most mature dragons had some decent control over their stature through their hoarding and greeding, with most tending to be able to shrink to the size of a cottage when they were feeling charitable—which was about as often as one would imagine it to be, though it does happen—to being able to grow back to their original giant forms just as easily.

But never from such a small stature, and never so quickly.

He was taller than her now. Standing upright, he had the length of a head over her even if she were to stand on her own hind-legs. Despite this though, his neck was shorter than what was usual for a dragon, although it was also slightly more bulky in width. In fact, everything about him could be described as if all of the physical features that had given a dragon some sense of agility had been traded away in favor of bulk and muscle. His body, his tail, his arms and legs: they were all thicker with lean muscle than what the average dragon was expected to have. Even his snout, which was currently snarling and showing off glistening rows of white teeth the size of swords, was broader from his powerful jaws that looked like they were ready to crunch on something besides gems and crystals.

...Something like her.

Quickly realizing the vulnerable position she was in, Kindle, with a single flap of her large wings, immediately jumped back away from the larger dragon and landed on the opposite side of the courtyard. It was through this distancing of herself from him that she was better able to see his entirety at once, and because of this, as she growled threateningly at him with a defensive glare, she took notice of his most prominent feature.

His complete and utter lack of any large, leathery wings that were so complete of a dragon.

Kindle froze, her aggressive growls cutting short as her glaring eyes widened at what she saw, or rather at what she didn't. How she had missed such an obvious trait until now, she did not know. But what she did know was that she needed to be much more wary now.

Because there was only one wingless-drake she knew of, and it was the same one that every dragon knew of.

For among the multitude number of tales about Mantle, Smog, and the other legendary drakes that older dragons told young hatchlings when they wanted to frighten them and warn them about the dangers of stealing from another dragon's hoard through horrible tales that had such wrathful retributions contained within them, his were some of the most frequently spoken. A fact Kindle herself learned very early, during her first few involvements with dragon migratory groups.

Of course, when one was known by all of dragon-kind and all other kinds as the Guardian, it's no surprise that one tends to be very famously ferocious and successful at what he hoards.

The display of surprise and wariness upon Kindle's face seemed to bring amusement to the purple dragon, as he began chuckling a deep chuckle befitting of his size, "Well now," he said with a much deeper tone from before and a grin full of large teeth, "it looks like you've finally gotten a clue as to who I am," raising a claw, he began rubbing his knuckles against his chest in a pompous manner that was most usual for male dragons, "gotta say: it took you long enough. I mean, did the lack of wings seriously not tip you off?" he finished off with another chuckle.

Narrowing her eyes at him for that slight, Kindle steadily raised herself up on her hind-legs as she kept her gaze locked on the dragon before her, wary of not coming off as too aggressive. She knew she was out-matched here. Her size and strength would be of no use to her in a straight-up brawl with this famously more experienced dragon. It would have been pointless anyways. His show of dominance was already established when he easily threw her across the facility.

But that was alright. After all, it wasn't a fight that Kindle was here for anyways.

"So... you are the one that they call the Guardian?" she began smoothly, her tone equally inquisitive and cheshire, "The one that has so many other dragons too fearful to cross you lest they get their skulls crushed under your heel?" her sapphire eyes trailed up and down him, giving him an obvious once over before again facing him, a sharp smirk on her features, "No offence, but from all the stories I have heard associated with the 'largest of all dragons,' I had expected you to be much ...bigger."

The Guardian's grin faltered for a brief second as he stared incredulously at the ivory dragoness before him brazen with charisma, before rearing his head back and letting out bellowing laughter that echoed across the courtyard and facility grounds, "Well, sorry to disappoint!" he shouted humorously between his bouts of laughter, "Bigger... hah!" he admonished. When his laughs lessened and he finally began to calm down, he looked back at Kindle with an amused smirk on his maw and told her, "And don't worry about that whole 'skull crushing' thing or whatever, that's mostly just an exaggeration on the part of all those stories you hear about me."

A slight tilt of her head with an inquisitive expression, Kindle showed off an amused smile, "Mostly?" she replied in a cool tone as her tail steadily swished about on the ground.

A deep hum echoed from inside the larger drake's throat as his smirk drooped just a bit and his face took on a more serious expression, "Well, you know what they say: every story s'got a grain of truth to it," he replied in an almost somber tone, "and besides, you should know how it is with us dragons when someone threatens our hoard."

"Oh? I did not know these factory-produced crystals were apart of the illustrious Guardian's most-valued hoard?" said Kindle in an off-claw manner, her sapphire eyes distractedly trailing across the ground around her.

"They're not, but you were making quite the racket near where mine is," answered the Guardian, "what with your thieving and all."

An ivory tail swept along the dirt and brick surface of the courtyard, sweeping up the scattered energy crystals and collecting them in one spot, which just so happened to be located right under Kindle. She quickly seized them and added them to her paltry collection that had still remained stuck to her scaly coat even after she had been thrown across the facility. Though it still wasn't as much as what she had previously, it was enough, and she doubted she could risk getting any more.

Eyeing the Guardian before her, Kindle showed off a pointed smile, "I prefer to call it liberating," she replied coyly, "and if you'll excuse me, I have my own hoard to attend to. So if you don't mind..." Before the Guardian could react, she dropped back to all fours and immediately turned and sprinted as fast as she could towards the towering spire that contained the storm facility's generator. She leapt onto the spire, her claws sinking into its bricks as cracks formed from their punctures, before taking another leap higher up the spire. Then, with a final bound, she launched herself away from the spire and flared her wings open, flapping them hard as she flew up higher and away from the ground.

It was at this time, when she felt the wind under her wings and the shade of the facility's stormy sky against her scales, that Kindle chanced a look back down at the Guardian.

Where she was just in time to see the rising torrent of emerald flames consume her.

Like all dragons descended from those first that were hatched out of the fiery wombs of Mother's volcanoes, Kindle was incredibly resistant to the burning lashes of fire. But these green flames were not like usual flames, nor even like dragonfire; there was very little scorch to them. For it was that the emerald flames were too laced with pure magic to have the lethality that was so eternally kindred to fire. Instead, when the torrent of green flames struck her in her side like a jet stream of water, its impact momentarily pushing her just a bit higher into the sky, she felt like the flames were numbly barbing into her and pulling her apart as they enveloped her body.

Soon, all of Kindle's sight was obscured by the emerald flames, and for a seemingly indeterminate amount of time she experienced the strangest sensation of feeling like she was both floating and being tossed around like a rag doll at the same time. It was akin to being a leaf in the wind, if the wind was made out of fire.

Suddenly, the flames were gone, as was the weightlessness, and Kindle quickly found herself on the ground again as she felt her back impact against it. Opening her eyes, she saw the Guardian standing over her as he looked down at her prone form in the middle of the storm facility's courtyard with an unimpressed, bored stare.

"Oh, wow," he deadpanned so monotonously, sarcasm dripping from his tone like how venom drips from a serpent's fangs, "you tried to fly away. It's not like I've never had to deal with something like that before in my entire life."

Kindle glared up from her position, a low growl escaping her throat in response to the Guardian's words.

Seeing her behavior, a flash of irritation streaked across the Guardian's face and, before Kindle had the chance to do anything, the Guardian raised his large foot and pressed it down on top of her head, eliciting out a pained yelp from the dragoness as she quickly brought her claws up and attempted to lift the offending foot off of her skull, to no avail.

"Now, if you're done pretending that you actually have a shot at beating me, outwitting me, or whatever it is that you think you could do to gain the upper claw in this situation, may I suggest that you instead tone back whatever aggression you have directed at this city and approach this a bit a more... politely," the Guardian offered in as pleasant a tone as one could manage when keeping a foot poised over a vulnerable skull, "because considering you're trying to threaten a millennium-old drake that has to personally deal with whatever cataclysmic shenanigans that these ponies get involved with every other century or so, I don't think the aggressive route is going to work out for you," he shrugged indifferently, "but hey, if you think you can do better than that giant war golem that that crazy minotaur warlock was using to—of course—take over the world a couple centuries ago, then please, be my guest and show me what you've got."

The dragoness continued to struggle under the Guardian's heel, her claws tirelessly scraping against his thick, purple scales, "What in Mother's name are you talking about?" she growled out painfully, "I've done nothing aggressive towards this city!"

Not budging his foot an inch at the forceful ministrations attempted on it by the struggling dragoness below him, the Guardian absentmindedly checked his claws for dirt in a most casual manner, "Uh huh," he replied distractedly, "and I guess I only imagined the terrified screams of innocent ponies and the destruction of that warehouse back there."

"The ponies were not harmed," insisted Kindle between her strenuous grunts, "and I only did what I did to the warehouse so I could save the energy crystals before they got destroyed!"

"Destroyed from what?" asked the Guardian, his voice filled with accusatory skepticism, "From your goal of turning this place into a pile of rubble and broken bodies as you so eloquently put it?"

The incessant scraping against the Guardian's leg immediately stopped, the claws upon the thick-scaled limb stilling as the dragoness under him ceased her struggling and stared up at him with frozen disbelief.

"W-What? No!" she shouted with a slight stutter, confused, "I mean before they get destroyed by the titan!"

Around them, nay for the facility's rumbling storm thundering high above them and the muffled moans of the raging generator entrapped within the tower, the courtyard had become eerily silent as both dragons stared into each other.

Then the Guardian blinked once, blankly, "...What?"

Immediately, fans of fiery, red fire escaped from between Kindle's clenched teeth in agonized frustration as she resumed her tirade against the Guardian's leg in increased fervor.

The Guardian, for his part, only raised a scaly eyebrow as he watched the dragoness snarl through her tantrum.

Finally, when the dragoness ceased once more, she had her eye closed tight before breathing in deeply. Steadily releasing that breath, she opened her eyes and stared back up at the Guardian, obvious annoyance and anger being barely restrained.

"Look towards those mountains in the distance," she uttered through clenched teeth.

The Guardian did so, turning his gaze away from the dragoness under him and directing it out towards the view of the city that was provided to him from the storm facility's higher elevation on the mountain. His radiant irises traversed across the urban coverings of the city, past the larger valley of green hills and rivers that followed after, until finally settling his eyes on another small mountain range—a thick, yet paltry range that only added up to four peaks—that laid opposite of the one he currently situated himself on.

It was only when he strained his eyes further and looked past those mountains that he took notice of the massive cloud of dirt and dust rising high into the sky some farther distance away.

At the sight of it, the Guardian's eyes widened in realization, familiarity flashing before his bright green irises as memories of where that cloudy tower of ruin and destruction had originated from were called back to him.

Now, the Guardian was well-known among his own kind as one of the greediest and most fiercest drakes that there ever was when it came to one's hoard. Indeed, in terms of lethal aggressiveness, he was perhaps second only to Smog the Golden when it came to protecting his hoard. As such, Kindle had spent many a gathering with her fellow kin hearing stories of the Guardian's ruthlessness being practiced: tales of thieves being chased across the ends of the world before being crushed underfoot, and of fully-grown dragons having their entire heads bitten off for just attempting to eat a single gem of his hoard.

And while tales such as those enthralled her in her younger years, by the Guardian's next actions, it was clear to Kindle that those tales detailing the Guardian's ruthlessness may have been slightly ...embellished.

"MANTLE'S MOLTEN BLOOD!!" cursed out the Guardian loudly, his claws at his head and eyes wide with shock and fright.

Suddenly, realization struck and he twisted his gaze back down to the dragoness struggling under his heel. He then immediately leapt off of her, the ground rumbling from his bounce, before reaching down for her.

"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I am so, so sorry!" repeated the Guardian frantically as he hurriedly helped Kindle to her feet, his claws surprisingly gentle on her scales as he lifted her up by her shoulders, "I really, really do apologize for throwing you across the facility and almost crushing your... um... skull," he continued awkwardly, showing off a big, innocent, pleading-for-forgiveness smile as he, of all things, began brushing off the residue dirt on Kindle's scales, "It's just... the way you worded your advice earlier was very easy to misconstrue as a threat and I don't usually take those lightly, so I may have jumped the party cannon on that one..."

Kindle quickly batted the Guardian's dusting claws off of her, interrupting his rambling apology, "It's fine," she replied tersely, her pride just a little bit wounded before she began rubbing the underside of her jaw to relieve whatever remaining pain the Guardian's foot inflicted, "it's not like this is the first time I've come to blows over a misunderstanding. We're dragons. It happens."

"Er, yeah..." said the Guardian awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his neck, his claws interlocking with his large, stocky spikes, "but I try to make it a point to not act like the stereotypical brutish dragon, you know?"

"Well you're doing a fantastic job of it," commented Kindle, explicitly attaining the same venomous sarcasm that the Guardian had previously wielded, "what with you trying to crush my skull in. And here I thought you said those 'skull-crushing' stories were exaggerated."

"I said they were mostly exaggerated, and I was only being so rough with you because I thought you were going to attack the city," defended the Guardian before his green eyes widened in realization and his claws returned to the sides of his head in fright, "Oh, Celestia and Luna! The city!" cried out the large drake as he began frantically pacing back and forth in a distressed manner.

Kindle, once again treated to the unusual sight of one of the most legendarily feared and respected dragons among her ilk go through another panic attack, could only stare in befuddlement as the Guardian acted like a headless cockatrice.

"What do I do? What do I do? What do I do!?" repeatedly panicked the purple drake in his frantic pacing, the ground rumbling at the giant dragon's rapid movement, "Wait!" he shouted, suddenly coming to a dead stop in his pacing, "Calm down. Just calm down. I've gone through this kind of stuff plenty of times before," he told himself before slowly taking a calming breath, "okay... I need to warn the city. The Mountain Bull isn't here yet, so there should still be time for a proper evacuation if I hurry."

And that's when they felt it...

The shaking.

It wasn't anything overly spectacular. There was no Tartarus-deep fissures being torn open around them. None of the buildings were collapsing from some mighty tectonic shifting. Heck, the two dragons didn't even so much as stumble when they felt the ground shake. It wasn't even so much as shaking as it was just simply vibrating. The only unusual aspect about it at all was that it didn't seem to end; it just kept going.

It was as if the very earth was trembling in fear at what was approaching.

Author's Note

I feel like I'm forgetting something...

Something important...

Oh right!

Hey guys! The first chapter of Strength Grown from Kindness... would be that way.

At His Greediest

The mountain range was a difficult traverse. Its slopes were too steep, too laced with loose gravel for hooves to find purchase, and too dangerous by the large rocks and boulders that always threatened to tumble upon weary travelers at a moment's notice.

None of this mattered to the Mountain Bull. None of this mattered to the massive bovine that moved through the highly mountainous terrain like a buffalo through a lake of thick mud: slow, steady, and leaving a crumbling canyon behind it as it tore through the land. It did not matter how dangerous or how difficult it was to travel through this range. No slope was too steep for the Bull's strength and absolute perseverance. Loose gravel meant nothing to the massive hooves that slammed down and hooked into the very crust of the mountains, and the fallen rocks were little more than pebbles that bounced harmlessly off its stone skin.

It did not matter that it would have been exponentially easier to just go around the thick mountain range. It did not matter that it would have saved on time. The Mountain Bull's path to its next place of Slumber went directly through the mountain range, and so through the mountain range the titan went, knowing full well that it would lose nothing. Time was meaningless to the titan. It was Eternal with the World and so had no caring for the length of time it would take to reach its Slumber. The Mountain Bull felt no strain, no exhaustion in its form, not even pain; it only felt the need to go Forward. Because of this, the mountain range's difficulty had no sway over a being that was incapable of losing effort, or of even understanding the concept of effort.

The only 'loss' today belonged to the mountains themselves, scarred as they had become by the Mountain Bull's forceful passage through them that had left deep, hoof-shaped gashes in the sides of their slopes that had inadvertently formed lakes of fallen rock and gravel that had coalesced together at the bottom crevices of the range. The natural rivers and lakes of water that had flowed through these mountains for centuries upon centuries had now been clogged by all of the displaced dirt, causing untold deaths and ruination of animal lives as the ecosystem was wrought.

Where there was once a mountain range formed by millions of years of tectonic muscles, now there was a canyon forcefully carved out in a single day.

And as the Mountain Bull reached the peak of the final mountain of this range, it immediately began its trek down the opposite slope of the mountain, not even pausing for a single moment of jubilation at its accomplishment. It only kept moving, dauntlessly, its ruby-glowing eyes scanning the valley before it and taking note of the city that hugged the valley's far side.

The Bull's stone nostrils puffed out clouds of dirt and dust in contempt dismissal at the sight of the city's tall towers and buildings. There would be no climbing over those towers, only going through.

Kindle was a dragon, a powerful beast of magic and fire that towered over most beings in the world. She had scales tough as iron, claws as long as spears, wings as strong as hurricanes, and fiery breaths of flame. Her kin could live for millennia and gain many a wealth of knowledge on top of their hoards of treasure. Truly, as a dragon she was rare to feel fear.

But even Kindle had to admit the flash of terror that struck her heart when she saw the Mountain Bull crest that mountain, its titanic form being visible at all from such a distance away giving terrifying weight to its massive frame. The fact that she still had ample time to stretch her wings and simply fly out of its way did little to extinguish that feeling of terror; that knowledge that she was in the path of an oncoming disaster. It was like watching a wild hurricane slowly approach: a terrifying monstrosity of nature on a path of destruction that one could not help but be in awe of. Even from where she stood, Kindle could feel the ground's subtle vibrations travel up her bones as the titan approached, its every step causing a quake—not by its sheer size alone, but through the very fact of its identity as a titan and its connection to the world.

Suddenly, terrified sirens blared noisily down in the city below, catching Kindle's attention. Undoubtedly the residents of the quaint metropolis had just taken notice of the oncoming titan and were already panicking. Kindle could see flocks of pegasi fleeing en mass into the sky overhead, though plenty of the distant, little specks stopped just short above the buildings and frantically stayed in-place, no doubt struggling with the thought of their ground-bounded friends and family still stuck in the city below them where panic and riot had quickly begun to fill the streets.

At the sight of it all, puffs of flame escaped Kindle's nostrils as she let out a snort. All of those tall towers, all of those buildings that had such beautiful lights that glistened during the night; that entire city was about to have a scar of destruction trail right through it. It truly was a tragedy.

But it wasn't her tragedy.

Whipping back and putting the city's fate behind her, Kindle quickly set about regathering the fallen energy crystals that were scattered across the facility's courtyard not unlike a sea of stars. Reaching down, she scooped up a clump of them before sticking the glowing gems to her scaly underbelly for what must have been the third time.

"What are you doing?"

Kindle glanced back at the Guardian, the big oaf of a legendary dragon was looking at her, neutrally so. The corner of his eye was on her, while the rest of him faced the horizon and its oncoming disaster.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" asked Kindle as she turned back to collecting, "I'm following my own advice: hoarding what I can and fleeing," dragging more of the crystals to her, she added, "and you should do the same as well. A dragon has to protect their hoard after all, you especially."

The Guardian stared quietly at the golden-spiked back of the ivory dragoness, his bright green eyes mulling her over for a time, as if searching for something, before returning his gaze back on the horizon, "True," he replied easily enough, "nothing's more important to a dragon."

Once again with a decent bushel of gems at her stomach that she'd hopefully keep this time around, Kindle turned around and couldn't help but give the Guardian a curious eye, "You seem awfully calm now that the titan is about to destroy everything. What happened to the panicking drake from just a moment ago?"

The Guardian scratched the underside of his jaw, a chuckle coming out of him, "Well, I've always had a bone of melodrama within me," he admitted in an almost sheepish tone, before not at all sheepishly continuing, "but really? I suppose I just finally realized that it was inevitably going to come down to this anyways."

Kindle raised a questioning eye-ridge, "Down to what?"

A smirk shone in the evening sun, "To protecting my hoard," was the simple response.

And then the Guardian took a step forward, striding towards the city below and in the direction of the approaching titan.

Behind him, the ivory dragoness stared at the leaving drake with a flabbergasted expression, before shaking her head, "Wait, what!?" she exclaimed in confusion, "What do you mean? What are you doing?" she asked.

Stopping at the edge of the facility, the Guardian glanced back at her with a knowing grin, "What's it look like I'm doing?" he asked, pointing a claw at the distant Mountain Bull that was already half-way down the far off mountain, "There's a titan heading straight for my hoard. Can't have that now, can I?" he said as if it was the most casual thing ever, before stepping over the gated edge of the facility and continuing his trek down the mountain's slope, "And if I'm gonna have to defend my hoard, might as well do the charitable thing and save the city too."

But before he could start down the mountain proper, Kindle quickly took flight and appeared before him, stopping him as she hovered in the air. Flapping her wings and kicking up dust off the ground from her gusts of wind, she looked at the Guardian with shock in her eyes, "Are you crazy!?" she asked, her tone more accusing than anything else, "You can't fight the Mountain Bull!"

"Oh? And why not?" asked the Guardian so knowingly, an infuriating grin appearing on his face.

"Because it's a giant bovine that's bigger than an Ursa Major!" shouted Kindle frantically, unbelieving that she had to explain this to the Guardian who had clearly gone crazy, "It collapsed an entire mountain when it woke up and creates earthquakes everywhere it goes! It'll trample all over you like you're nothing!" explained a frenetic Kindle, before focusing directly into his eyes as if in hopes to pierce some reason into his thick skull, "And in case you haven't noticed, you don't exactly live up to being 'the largest of all dragons' like your fables make you out to be."

But the Guardian just chuckled a light chuckle under his breath, "Well, I wouldn't say that," he replied lightheartedly, "After all, don't you know that every tall tale, no matter how outlandish, has some truth to it?"

Hovering before him, Kindle gave the purple dragon a skeptical eye, "Don't kid yourself," she commented coolly, "you're big, but I've seen plenty of bigger dragons at their most greediest."

And that's when the Guardian showed off a fierce smirk, revealing sharp teeth that glistened in the twilight sun as he matched Kindle's gaze, his glowing, green eyes not straying a bit as they pierced directly into her own sapphires.

"And what makes you think I'm at my greediest?" asked the Guardian.

Kindle paused, quiet.

She couldn't help but stare. Flapping her wings a little harder, she pulled herself higher up and away from the Guardian, staring at him wholly as she tried to recall back to those old stories and their exaggerated descriptions of the 'largest of all dragons.'

"Can't be... no dragon is that big," she whispered to herself almost in hope that those words would keep her afloat from the revelation. Shaking her head, she focused her attention back on the Guardian, "This is still crazy! Is your hoard truly so large that you can't simply move it before the titan arrives?"

Standing still in front of the hovering dragoness, the Guardian was quiet for a moment. Slowly, he twisted his head back. Looking over his shoulder, his gaze settled on the sky-reaching tower behind him that still had its tip merged with the violent storm above, a violent storm that still raged as if it was held by an unnatural anger.

"The Mountain Bull will be a disaster for the city. A possessed storm generator running wild will finish it off," spoke the Guardian quietly, his eyes not straying from the tower, "...she won't leave."

Kindle blinked in surprise, her features softening as watched the Guardian in confusion, "She?"

The Guardian returned his gaze to Kindle with a smile on his muzzle while his glowing, green eyes roamed over the ivory dragoness's gem-covered midsection, "Greed sure can make us dragons do some pretty stupid stuff, huh? Not the least of which is putting our lives on the line for what we value most," his eyes locked with Kindle's, "you know, now that I think about it, there aren't that many uses that a dragon has for energy crystals. And really, there's only one reason that I can think of as to why a dragon would want to risk going into a doomed city like this one to only hoard energy crystals instead of all the other treasures that the city has."

Kindle said nothing, her face stoic as she hovered before the Guardian. With gems of arcane power hugging her belly, the ivory dragoness eyed the wingless drake before her with trepidation, his words shivering her spikes more so than any other dragon has ever done before.

The Guardian's smile was so gentle, much more so than any draconic smile has the right to be, "Don't you have somewhere much more important to be than staying here and arguing with me?"

For a moment, Kindle did nothing, only staring at the larger drake before her in silent musings.

But then, with her bounty of energy crystals held at her stomach, the ivory dragoness promptly turned and flew away from the Guardian, a soft-spoken 'thank you' left behind in the wind as she flew towards the distant horizon.

Left alone in front of the storm facility, the Guardian now stood silently by himself. Above him, thunder rumbled from the facility's artificial storm as he watched the ivory dragoness fly off into the distance, that gentle smile still on his muzzle. Turning away from the distant drake disappearing into the sky, the Guardian set his gaze far, across the valley and on the range of mountains opposite of his own.

His smile was promptly abandoned, replaced with a grim expression.

At the far end of the valley that the city below occupied, just a couple miles away really, the Mountain Bull had almost reached the valley floor. The slope of the mountain it had descended was now horribly pockmarked with a trail of deep, hoof-shaped gashes, while large clouds of dirt and dust that were kicked up from the slope's scars followed after the Mountain Bull's hooves. Heading straight for the city, there would soon be nothing but a large field of rivers and grassy hills in the titan's way.

"It's almost here."

He didn't have to imagine what this might be like for the city ponies. He remembered, a long time ago, back when he was still just a baby dragon and barely the size of a pony, that first time he had seen the Ursa Major near his hometown. It was only passing by, on its way to some random location with its child counterpart following close behind, when it looked directly at him. It dismissed him just as quickly, but to have something so massive, so incredibly large that it wouldn't have noticed if it had stepped on him, focusing entirely on him much like how a pony takes a short moment to contemplate on whether or not to squash a spider they had found in their home was a powerfully frightening experience.

"There are thousands of lives in that city. All of them now threatened by the titan."

Talon claws wringed and spouts of angry, green fire puffed out of nostrils. Steadily, the Guardian once again began his descent down the slope, moving at an angle away from the city. Despite the city's large population, its urban environment wasn't that spread out, making it much easier and faster to just move around the city's edges than trying to delicately maneuver through the city streets that were filled with panicking ponies.

Besides, he needed room that the tight confines of the city's urban environment just couldn't provide.

"The titan won't care about these lives. It doesn't have the capacity for it. It'll just trample through the city, destroying everything in its wake and killing thousands."

The thick bark of the pine trees and bushes that hugged the mountain slope cracked and splintered in their destruction as large, armored limbs battered them aside. A deep growl rumbled from the Guardian's throat, bestial and angry. He had many friends across Equestria, and across the world. Some of his friends lived in that city. Now their lives were in danger due to the titan. His friends were in danger. His!

"It's hooves will flatten homes and its horns will topple the city's highest skyscrapers, ending countless lives from under all that destruction and rubble."

His heart pumped aggressively, selfish desires coursing through his veins. From between his scales, emerald flames danced out, lacing the large dragon's form with magical ember. From this ember came new scales that emerged out from between the folds of the already existing ones, pushing them apart and creating larger expanses of armored skin as the flesh underneath the scales stretched and bulged outward in its growth.

Dragon greed was encompassing him. That intoxicating desire found deep within the heart of every dragon, that selfish compulsion to hold onto what was his, it burned at him, gave him strength. Talons elongated, muscles bulked, bones hardened, and a draconic shadow slowly stretched out across the land.

But it wasn't enough. Too soon did that draconic shadow cease its growth.

The Guardian was not at his greediest.

The desire to save the countless lives within the city was there, but his greed for them wasn't deep enough in his heart. Despite the honest friendships that he had within the city, he would be lying to himself if he said that it was those friendships that he valued most above all else.

To find the strength needed to protect everyone, he needed that which was most precious to his heart.

"But the titan won't just stop there..."

And he was going to get it.

Small rivers of dirt and rocks flooded down the slope, past the massive, clawed feet that had suddenly ceased their descent. A talon claw, brutishly larger than what was normal for dragons and burning a bright green from the embers between its purple scales, gripped a collection of pine trees to steady the draconic shadow that encompassed them, their roots being torn up from the ground as a result of the sudden force.

Hugging the mountain, the Guardian closed his eyes.

And waited...

Listening...

"The Mountain Bull will continue to march forward relentlessly like it has always done before, leaving the city behind it scarred and in ruins. Its path will lead it to the storm facility, where its hooves will shatter the courtyard's concrete ground and its glowing, ruby eyes will be set upon the high stone tower before it."

Lightning cracked from the artificial storm above, flashing the dusk sky brighter.

"...Which will put me in danger."

Glowing, green eyes snapped opened, filled with so much greed.

Author's Note

The clash draws nearer...

Forces of Order and Harmony

Noise...

So much noise...

So much Chaos...

The valley between the walls of mountains was filled with so much noise, filled with so much activity. The earth rumbled constantly, quaking in fear. Trees and plants rooted deep into the soil trembled endlessly from the shaking, their branches and leaves rustling together and creating such crackling noises, scaring away the birds and other little critters. Above, the twilight sky was blotted black from the flying masses of countless birds that swarmed overhead, their thousandfold cawing and flapping of wings thundering louder than the nearby storm that still rumbled angrily.

Over all this though was the fearful siren that blared out for miles from within the sprawling depths of the metropolis that hugged the valley's corner.

Within the city, panic was prevalent. The streets were filled with scampering ponies desperately galloping about, the drumming of their thousand hooves against the stone streets racketing up more noise than their own terrified screams. Many of the ponies were searching for family and friends, their calls of familial names echoing loudly against the canyon walls of buildings. Some ponies screamed out for others to get out of their way, carts filled to the brim with materials being pulled behind them as they tried to save what was their's. Still others had forsaken both, fear taking a hold of them and numbing their morality as they set upon a direction and ran for their lives.

All of this noise...

All of this life...

Thousands of bodies, each one composed of trillions of cells—of trillions of single-minded micro-organisms devoted to one or few tasks in their short lives—all forming together to create components of a body: organs, blood, muscles, bones and all sorts of bodily fluids. They were all multi-cellular tools in an interlocking, organic system—cogs in a machine—nothing more. Lungs took in air, oxygenating blood. The heart pumped blood throughout the body by arteries and veins. Muscles, bones and organs received this blood, giving them energy to continue what sole functions their existence revolved around.

Even now as the ponies panicked, their bodies continued to work in their Ordered way: their hearts beaten faster, lungs accelerated their work and muscles increased in tension. These living components of the body did so, without thought or question of why, and without an understanding of what these actions were for. They only did what was Ordered.

All Life was sustained by magnificent components of Order...

Life that acted so Chaotically...

Chaos had brought the ponies here. It was the Chaotic forces of Choice and Chance that had the ponies construct their city in this valley, and it was the Chaos of free will that had the ponies behave so disorganized and differently in the path of encroaching destruction.

As creations of Order, Titans know of this. They know all of this, but have no opinion of it. Instead, they only continue to focus on the tasks they exist for, like the good little forces of nature that they are.

So it was that the Mountain Bull strode forward, unperturbed and unattached to the maelstrom of panic around it; incapable of caring for the destruction it wrought.

With the World continuing on because of it...

The Saddle Arabian desert was quite possibly the largest expanse of arid starvation to ever exist in this world. With miles upon miles of scorching dunes that burned at the eyes of weary travelers, along with harsh storms of sand that choked down their throats, no other desert was as quite as ruthless to the participants of life as this one was.

Somewhere deep in the midst of this vast desert, the entrance to a small cave could be found in the side of a mesa that barely jutted out of the dune landscape like a flat hump on a relatively mild hunchback. Those that have journey forth into this cave were soon to come upon a massive whirlpool of sand that took up the entirety of the mesa's hollow gullet. But this sandy whirlpool was no violent thrashings of swirling forces that were so often described in great epics of the sea, rather instead its coiling trails of sand were slow and meticulous in their movements towards the center; like a conveyor belt born for productivity than a vortex of nature.

And in the very epicenter of this desert whirlpool, there laid a lone statue upon a barren pedestal of onyx.

For the rare few that have gazed upon this statue, its appearance always seemed to differ to each of whom beholden it. Ponies that looked upon the statue saw an equine much like themselves; for griffons, they saw a similar hybrid of bird and lion; minotaurs saw a replica of a minotaur; and so on and so forth, with each and every appearance: a stone figure of rough exterior and stiff posture.

This was the Statue of Order.

And he liked to count sand in his spare time.

49,993...

49,994...

49,995...

49,996...

49,9—

The desert whirlpool that surrounded the statue paused. Every single particle of sand that had been flowing within the whirlpool at a steady pace had come to an immediate and abrupt stop; all at once.

The cavern was still.

A moment later and the statue swiveled exactly forty-two degrees to the right, where the dry cavern wall greeted it. Then, from within the carved details of the statue's stone eyes, glowed the white, hot glare of arcane light; and now the statue saw far beyond the cavern wall, far beyond the reaches of the desert it resided in.

Titan #8 has awakened, noted the statue.

Reason: the Ordered Rule of the Conservation of Momentum has stagnated in areas 84467-84521 (decaying 1% under the optimal requirement of 100% functionality), as such, Titan #8 has Awakened and begun its Movement towards its next place of Slumber, reasserting the Ordered Rule back into the World again.

Analyzing pathway of Titan #8 in order of importance of conservation...

Tree of Harmony: out of contact with pathway.

Statue of Order: out of contact with pathway.

Titans: all are out of contact with pathway.

Tartarus: Warning! One minor entrance to the Underworld is on pathway. Destruction of minor entrance will result in minimum damage to the cosmic tethers that bridge the World to the Underworld. These parameters are acceptable, but unrequired.

Within the desert cave, the statue's glowing eyes flashed incredibly brighter for a single second, signalling the far away titan about the Underworld entrance. The titan won't divert from its path, but now it knows to watch its step.

Reanalyzing...

Tartarus: safely out of danger with pathway.

Conclusion: acceptable parameters.

The glow of the statue's eyes receded back to the dull, stone craftsmanship that they were, with the whirlpool of sand surrounding it once again churning at a slow, meticulous pace.

49,997...

49,998...

49,999...

50,000.

Mild elation swelled within the statue. Another fifty-thousandth particle of sand. Add that up to his previous countings, and he has now reached nine-hundred twenty-four thousand, three-hundred forty-five times ten to the power of three-hundred eighty-two (924,345 X 10^382). A new personal record.

1...

2...

3...

4...

Within a black expanse of consuming shadows, a breath of mist sashayed through the deathly air in a huff; its soft details of cloudy shape quickly disappearing into nothing by the sea-foam glow of the mystical pool of water that shimmered below.

From where this mist originated, one needn't look further than the shadowed shape of a dark equine that loomed over the pool; where by the burning flames of blue fire that were its mane and tail, an outline of dark, leathery wings and a pair of long, curved horns could be seen within the abyssal chamber.

This was the Underking, the Lord over all Damned and Dead.

And as he gazed deeply into his Pool of Calamities, irritation welled within him.

As if taken from the eye of an airborne crow, the mystical pool before the Underking presented him a high-above picture of some faraway mountain valley, where a city and its impending ruin could clearly be seen. Conjured up from within the pool's glowing depths, the pictured valley was overflowing with the currents of fear and panic; all of it swirling around the massive bovine of stone that trampled across the earth in its movement towards the city.

Another breath of mist huffed out into the darkness, the annoyance within it now much more obvious to see.

More souls for the grind.

Which meant more work for him.

Eyes that glowed as bright and as powerful and as terrifying as the blue essence of a bared soul turned away from the Pool of Calamities and gazed into the shadows of the chamber.

"Undertaker..." was whispered into the abyss, heavy and deep with a power that could only be born by an ancient and absolute authority.

At the call of this authority, from out of the darkness stepped forth the skeleton of a pony. Fleshless and bare to the cartilage, this skeleton was no jumble of bones puppeteered like a cheesy Nightmare Night decoration, but rather a wraith of Tartarus; those who hunted and guarded all of the damned souls of this Hel. Standing tall and lithe even for a skeleton, this wraith wore a prim suit and a top hat that were as black as the abyss that surrounded it, mingling its form with the shadows. Over its vacant eye-sockets, a pair of glasses were placed, with spectacles that shimmered as brightly as a duo of glaring moons.

"Gather your wraithstriders for a mass ghost-hunt," commanded the Underking, almost lazily from the expected compliance, "there's an entire city that will soon need exorcising."

Exorcism: the expulsion of a spirit from a place.

When lives are cut short, especially of those incurred from such violent ends, their spirits will oftentimes linger far longer in the mortal plane than they have any right to, latching onto anything familiar to them to stave away the pull of the afterlife, leading to hauntings and cursed lands.

By the amount of death that will soon be upon the city, there will undoubtedly be many a traumatized soul that will still linger in the metropolitan corpse, lost and confused as they haunt the remains of the inevitably ruined city. Not only that, but the sheer mass of expected ghostly spirits in a single location will lead to disastrous results for the setting. If they are not quickly exorcised, their cries of woe will curse the land, condemning the city's remains to a sore upon the earth. It has happened before, with long-ago battlefields of horrendous brutality transforming into marshlands of blood and smoke by the littered corpses of dead soldiers, and with times of famine decaying a once fertile field into a dead wasteland where nothing grows by the starved souls that haunt it.

"And on your way out, inform the ferryponies to expect a mass influx of dead," added the Underking, before turning his gaze back to the Pool, "Go," he ordered.

The skeletal wraith had no capacity for facial expression, besides that of a morbid grin that was so eternal to a skull, and as such made no expression to his king's orders other than to bow his lithe frame in compliance before turning about to disappear into the darkness, the wraith's every movement accompanied by the creaks and snaps of old bones.

"Wait..."

The Undertaker paused and looked back to find his king still staring at the Pool of Calamities, only this time, as a glow of emerald green flashed from out of the Pool, bared teeth could be seen in a smirk.

"Inform the ferryponies that there ...might be a mass influx of dead."

Sometimes, lords of the dead got a break every now and then.

Her crystalline leaves fluttered in the wind.

Her deep roots vibrated from the distant tremors.

She can sense it, even so far away...

Another of Her brother's tools; repairing what needs to be repaired.

The Master and the Tool; both blind to the inconsequential yet irrecoverable damage that their repairing inflicts.

She must remedy this.

Order will not cease its work—cannot cease its work.

Chaos cannot be expected to fine-tune Order's mistakes, Chaos cannot be expected.

Harmony can.

It is why She Exists.

She brings Balance between the Opposites.

But Her tools of Cleansing and Banishment will not do.

Her Children/Aspects are not Gathered anywhere near Order's tool.

Luckily, Her Investment is.

A cloven hoof of stone as large as a small cottage slammed down onto the brick road leading into the city, crumbling the bricks from the impact and spreading spiderweb cracks across the hard surface. Over the outer limits of the metropolis, where the shorter buildings of small businesses and humble housings had set up away from the tall towers of the city's bustling center, a large shadow stretched out, encompassing entire streets and darkening the buildings' windows that had glistened from the evening sun. Ponies caught in this shadow froze in fear and glanced upwards to find a giant bull of stone towering over them, two pinprick eyes bright as rubies staring ahead, not even taking notice of them.

The Mountain Bull had arrived.

To the little ponies in their city, here was the giant come to kick down their little ant hill that they called civilization.

Rocky nostrils flared, puffing out clouds of dirt and dust into the air with a contempt manner. Over an earthly coat, fissures opened and closed to accommodate movement that a figure made of stone was not meant to have. A hoof too massive for the land steadily lifted off of the trembling ground.

This was it.

The Mountain Bull had raised up a towering leg, intent on going forward just as always. With this step, the Mountain Bull was about to enter the city proper, unleashing ruin. Its massive hoof was going to collide into the path of several buildings—several homes—destroying them and beginning the loss of lives.

All it had to do was take one more step—

*KER-POW!*

...Except the Mountain Bull didn't take that step.

For it was at that moment, with the rumbling earth covering his strides and with the twilight sun shadowing his approaching visage, that the Guardian arrived and punched the titan in the face.

Author's Note

THE CLASH BEGINS!
...next chapter.

Fire and Stone

The Mountain Bull let out a deep, bellowing groan as loud as a canyon's roar as it was suddenly punched in the face, the sheer size and velocity of the impact cracking the titan's stony jaw and forcing it to stagger to the side in an attempt to regain its footing. But before it could properly steady its hooves, green spikes and a long, reptilian tail ducked out from the corner of the Bull's sight and slammed hard into the titan's side, taking advantage of the Mountain Bull's imbalance and forcing it to tip over, away from the city. Wind howled as the mountainous weight of a Titan fell to the earth, its crash into the green pastures quaking the ground so massively that it was a wonder that Tartarus itself didn't feel the shaking.

When the rumbling had subsided it was as if the whole world had gone quiet. The thousandfold cawing of the storm of birds up above, the frightened screams of panicking ponies echoing out of the city, the blaring horn of the city's siren that warned of death to all who had ears; they had all just become silent white noise that disappeared into the background as the awe of what had just transpired choked out all sound.

"SKREEOOONK!" cried out a mighty roar filled with such powerful fury, piercing through the valley's awed silence like the victorious roar of a lion over a fresh kill.

A massive, talon foot slammed down hard against the rocky belly of the fallen titan, spreading cracks across its stony coat. The scales of this appendage were numerous in number and traveled far up the colossal form that was as towering as the Titans themselves. This towering figure had talon claws wringing with strength, green spikes that were massive and stocky in shape numbering over its bipedal back like a mountain range, a powerful tail as long as a street whipping about from behind, and a massive maw of sharp teeth misting over from its scorching hot breath that all added up to a very draconian form.

The Guardian had arrived.

Standing over the Mountain Bull like a conqueror over new land, the Guardian's greed had enhanced his growth like no other dragon, scaling him up to literal titanic heights. But it wasn't just his growth that had surged with greed. From between the folds of purple scales smoldered emerald flames, seething and dancing with fury as they coated the Guardian's scales in a glowing miasma of green ember. This burning miasma coalesced with the Guardian's form, allowing torrents of emerald fire to burn continuously between the large spikes on his back, while a fiery green light continued to glow from within the back of his maw.

Now so taken ahold with greed, the Guardian's massive form was literally seeping with it. Even the pupils in his eyes had disappeared behind the surging glow of his greed, indication that some sense of higher thought had been overshadowed by instinctive desire.

An instinctive desire to protect what was his.

The Guardian turned his burning gaze to the Titan under his heel, to the Mountain Bull that was steadily rising back up to its hooves despite the weight of a titanic drake upon it. Growling at this, the Guardian stomped down hard onto the Bull, forcing it back down against the ground with a mighty rumble and spreading even more cracks across its stony coat. This did not illicit out any groan of pain from the Mountain Bull, Titans didn't feel pain, instead it only arched its head up slightly and focused its shining ruby eyes onto the Guardian directly.

Satisfied at putting the titan down, the Guardian then sucked in a deep breath, the green ember smoldering over his scales burning bright as fiery power boiled inside of him. Directed downward, the Guardian was about to release this breath over the titan when—

*SMACK!*

The Guardian whipped his head up with a roar of pain as a cloven hoof of stone struck hard against his shin, a torrent of emerald fire surging out of his maw and into an empty patch of sky. It seemed that the Mountain Bull had finally taken notice of the dragon holding it down and had decided to deal with this obstruction.

With mountainous strength, the Mountain Bull quickly rose up off of the ground as dirt and pieces of foliage dribbled off of its form like crumbs off of bread, forcing the Guardian to remove his foot off of the rising Titan lest he lose his balance.

Standing back to its full titanic height that shadowed the surrounding area, the Mountain Bull swerved its gaze over to the Guardian, its ruby eyes glowing bright from within the shadows of its massive horns.

Opening wide a burning maw of sharp teeth, the Guardian let loose a mighty and powerful roar filled with challenging incentive that was directed solely at the titan before him; instinctive fear traveling up the spines of many in the valley as they trembled like prey near an apex predator.

Despite this terrifying roar, the Mountain Bull's eyes continued to only stare emptily at the unusually large drake near it, incapable of being impressed or of feeling fear.

So it was that the Mountain Bull directed its gaze away from the Guardian, dismissing him as an ant does to a grain of sand, and instead returned its gaze forward, in the direction of the city ahead.

...In the direction of his horde.

Before the Mountain Bull even had a chance to take a step in that direction, the burning Guardian placed himself in the titan's path. With talon feet clenching deep into the trail of torn up earth, another roar rampaged from out of that fiery maw.

Only to be quelled by horns of stone slamming into the Guardian's stomach, his fearsome roar gurgling into a grunt of pain as burning claws gripped the Bull's shoulders in a reactive attempt to stem the charge.

Nostrils flared with dust and stone. Mighty hooves of earth strode forward against the dragon as scaled feet dug up wide trenches in resistance. This titan could not be denied from its path. No force in this material world could stop it.

But then, despite such an inviolable fact, it was all the more surprising when the momentum had suddenly slowed to a still. For the Guardian had recovered and had dug in his heels, leaving the two giants locked in a strained embrace. An embrace broken when the mighty dragon brought down his elbow onto the titan's head, stumbling it and allowing him to reposition himself and slam back into the Bull.

Then, with a mighty roar, the Guardian pushed.

Trees were uprooted and the earth scarred as the Bull's hooves were grinded against the land. Green flame lashed out from between hard scales against rocky skin as muscles rippled in defiance of the titan. Step by momentous step, the Mountain Bull was steadily pushed back across the valley, ever further away from the city and its far off destination.

This could not be abided by a force of Order, and the Mountain Bull began to thrash wildly against this opposer, forehooves reigning and head bucking at the dragon. When a stone horn pierced through the hardened scales and the Guardian let out a pained roar, the retaliation was swift and brutal.

A claw grasped one of the reared forehooves, holding it up in the air like a prize won. A maw of razor teeth then clamped down on the Bull's neck, bright, emerald flames flaring out and searing the stony skin. Pulling against the titan, cracks began to form across the held appendage, before finally, with a great and mighty strain, the leg was torn off. A second later from this mutilation, the Guardian's maw crunched down onto the Mountain Bull's neck, crushing it and tearing away the Bull's head away from the body.

The decapitated head landed on the grassy plains with a thunderous boom, its expression as frozen as a carving. Behind, the headless body of the Mountain Bull collapsed down onto its one remaining foreleg.

For but a moment, there was silence.

Then glimmering ruby eyes shimmered so much brighter, and the head uttered out a bellow that reverberated across the valley.

The Mountain Bull's decapitated head began to crumble and turn to dust; the resultant debris rising up towards its body. Like puzzle pieces to a picture, the clumps of rock and dust reformed the Mountain Bull's head back onto its body. Even the severed leg within the Guardian's grasp crumbled out from between his claws to reattach itself back to the Bull.

And just like that, the Mountain Bull was fully formed once again.

And it did not wait a second more to topple the obstruction before it.

With a great, mighty force of momentum, the Mountain Bull slammed head-first into the Guardian, tripping up the massive dragon from off his feet. Landing on his back, his flaming spikes piercing and burning the earth under him, the Guardian had no time to recover before the Bull's hooves began to trample over him like a gravel road.

Leaving the dragon bruised, battered, lying on the ground, and literally no second thought spared for him, the Mountain Bull continued its march forward.

Then a claw grabbed onto the Bull's back leg, and thoughts were spared.

Ruby eyes looked back, in what could almost be described as a glare, to find the Guardian, wounded but furious. Defiance and rage clear in those burning eyes, the Guardian pulled the leg it had gripped back, tripping up the massive titan and splaying it onto its rocky stomach. Then, before the Mountain Bull even had a chance to recover, the Guardian came about and grabbed the Bull by its neck and pelvis; both claws crunching the stone skin of the titan as the talons pierced deep into it.

That was when the Guardian, with a massive surge of strength and a terrifying roar, lifted the Mountain Bull from off the ground. And what would be an extraordinary sight to all those who saw it, the Guardian held aloft the titan over his head, the Bull's stone hooves flailing in the air as it struggled, and cast his fiery gaze across the valley.

Then, with a great and mighty heave, the Guardian threw the titan.

The Mountain Bull sailed through the air for only a short time before it crashed leagues away from the city, its impact thundering the valley and shaking the ground so violently that it was a wonder that it didn't uproot all the trees and collapsed all the buildings for miles.

With a slow rise, the Mountain Bull got back on its hooves, the cracks and shattered apart limbs broken from the crash reforming as it did so. Taking four massive steps to the left, the titan realigned itself back onto its Path. There it stilled, not moving an inch as it cast its ruby gaze at the dragon opposite it.

What an inconvenience this was.

Across the valley, the Guardian roared defiantly at the titan.

Such a delay to the inevitable this had become.

Fiery, emerald flames surged out of the Guardian, the spikes on his spine beginning to glow that same radiant energy.

It was clear that a change in tactics was needed.

Stone nostrils snorted out dust and dirt, one of the titan's massive forehooves ground into the earth, and horns were angled forward.

And for the first time since the old, decaying world needed Flattening and Structure, the Mountain Bull Charged.

The land shook, the earth was torn up from under those hooves, and the wind howled as a mountain galloped across the valley, ready to decimate anything and everything on its Path.

But the Guardian was on this Path, and the Guardian met stone with fire.

From out of the Guardian's maw surged forth a torrent of green flames that slammed into the Bull's head and blanketed over the titan's body, enveloping it in a raging inferno. But this did not stem the titan's charge, no more so than a cannon could stop a crashing wave. The Mountain Bull continued on through the storm of fire, its momentum unstoppable, even as emerald flames barbed themselves onto every crevice, every crag, and every surface of the titan's exposed skin of stone and dirt.

It was from out of this inferno charged the Mountain Bull, the entirety of its form completely coated in flickering, emerald fire as it barreled down onto the Guardian.

With flames dying from his breath, the Guardian only watched as the titan stampeded toward him.

But just as the Mountain Bull was about to plow right through him, instead of slamming into the Guardian, the titan passed right through him, like a cloud dispersing around a tower. The magic of the Guardian's flames had enveloped the body of the titan, now it was as immaterial as a fire's heat.

Barreling down on its Path, the Mountain Bull whisked through the urbanized sprawl of the city harmlessly, passing through ponies and buildings like a swift mist. Every once in a while a hoof, a horn, or some other body-part of the titan would whisk off the flames and become material once again, running the risk of colliding with a skyscraper or some other building, but these instances were for but mere moments before the emerald flames ensnared the Bull fully back into its inferno. Titans could not be contained long by any form of magic; tied too much to this world as they were.

But that was alright. The Guardian didn't need to hold onto the Mountain Bull for long.

Just long enough.

When finally the Mountain Bull exited from the city confines, it traversed speedily up the mountain range, helped along it was by the emerald flames that made it as weightless as a leaf on the wind. It passed around the storm facility without issue, the thunderstorm above much more docile than it had been. It was when the titan reached the peak of the mountain where the facility was located on that the coat of flames were finally shaken off of its form and it was free to continue on its Path unobstructed.

And the Mountain Bull did so, without a single glance back at what had happened.

Behind the titan, nothing but silence permeated the valley.

Then came the cheering.

"Well, what do you know? He did it."

Ivory and golden scales shimmered in the daylight as Kindle stood high atop the ledge of a cliff that purveyed her a view of the entire valley below her.

She had seen it all; the entire battle between guardian and titan.

To say that the sight had been an epic experience for her would have been a gross understatement. Nothing could have awed her more than the sight of such a clash.

With a swift shake of her head, the dragoness broke out of her stupor and turned away from the view of the battle-torn valley. Not far from the cliff edge was a large, gaping opening into the mountain. It was her nest, and with a bountiful of glowing crystals in her tow, she entered into the cave.

Traversing quickly through the tunnel, she soon came upon her hoard. Gold, silver, and jewels were clumped together to create a massive pile of value, whereupon it sat her most precious treasure of all.

The small dragon of ivory scales and black spikes that was barely the size of Kindle's open palm looked in her direction with milky eyes.

"Mom? Is that you?" he asked, voice weak, before curling into himself as his body suddenly spasmed painfully.

"Yes, my son. I have returned," Kindle replied, so much warmth in her tone as she climbed on top of her hoard and encircled her child. Setting down a clump of energy crystals near her son, she said, "And I have brought medicine. Eat this, it will heal you and rid you of these spasms."

The young dragon reached a claw for where he had heard the sound of something being set next to him, blindly grasping at thin air as he did so before finally taking a hold of a single crystal. Popping it into his maw and biting down, he grimaced at the jolt and sour taste.

"Will... will it also let me see again?" he asked with a grumble, the unwelcome taste still on his tongue.

Kindle hesitated.

"...No," she finally said, her voice morose, "there is nothing that can be done about that."

With a scowl, the young child turned away from the crystals and ruefully replied, "Then I don't want the stupid medicine."

"Dammit, Spark! These crystals will save your life!" shouted Kindle, exasperated and pained.

"A life where I can't see!" shouted her son, his wings enfolding themselves over his head as if doing that would shut him off from the rest of the world, "How can I be a mighty dragon like you said I'd be if I lose the one thing that all dragons have!?"

Kindle paused at her son's words, staring at his small, bundled body as she did so. Then slowly a small, somber smile blossomed on her face.

"Is that what you're worried about?" Kindle spoke in such a soothing tone, "My dear son, have I never told you of the mightiest dragon known to our kind? He's just as disabled as you, you know?"

Slowly, Spark's head peaked out from between his wings, curiosity detailing his expression even as another spasm shook him, "R-really? The mightiest dragon was blind?"

Kindle chuckled with such mirth in her tone, "No!" she barked out, startling her son, "It was even worse than that. For he had no wings and could not fly."

Now her son had fully perked up, befuddlement playing out in his blind eyes, "No wings!?" he cried out, aghast, "How can any dragon become mighty or fearsome without their wings?"

Kindle smiled, "Promise to eat your medicine, and I will tell all you wish to know about the Guardian."

Spark hesitated, his claws gripping the gold and jewels under him nervously, before straightening up and giving a resolute nod, "I promise."

I know why you are here.

You're curious about him, aren't you? You want to know why he's so different from his kin. Why he's so strong, so much bigger and so much more reactive to his greed and hoarding than the other dragons. That's why you've come to me, why you've traversed my golden mountains and stepped into my burning nest. After all, if there was anyone who could answer this riddle of yours it would most certainly be the Mother of All Dragons now, wouldn't it?

Well, he's not one of mine if that's what you came to expect. And I mean that in both senses of the word. I have never laid an egg such as his, and neither have any of my children today done the same. In fact, you can just give up now on finding any relatable blood to him. Dust and old bones are the only places you'll find such relation.

His was a long-dead egg: an ancient fossil uncovered in a dig site among dozens more and used as a test to gauge how your foals and prospective apprentices handled failure.

No one expected that egg to hatch. It shouldn't have hatched. That egg was older than I, older than your own Mothers; your fellow princesses. It was lain and then died a pre-life during the final years of the Old World, back when I was still primordial with the world and could only interact with the lives of those old dragons in the most vaguest of senses. It was only when came the New World and Her Breath of New Life allowed me to take form did I nest and raise children of my own.

So, no, he won't find any long lost kin here.

Now don't you fret, dear. You already know full well that he already has plenty of family with him right now that gives him just as much love as any biological parent could.

But I digress, you came here to learn why he is so different from his kin, and I will enlighten you.

The reason why he's so different, why he has no wings and can grow to such towering heights so quickly due to his greed is simple.

It's because the Elements of Harmony made him that way.

On the day when Loyalty called out to the other Elements and awakened them on the first steps of their destiny, the Powers of Harmony had surged out of Magic and into the material realm, searching for one that was perfect for fulfilling a needed role. And in their search, they had found a fossilized egg of an ancient dragon, before granting life where there had once been none.

The gift of life is not something that can be given so freely, and so when that little, purple drake hatched from his dead egg, his fate was just as much tied to the Elements of Harmony as the bearers were themselves. For as they now embodied living, breathing forms, the Elements had need of a protector, someone to always be by their side and safekeep them against the many powerful forces that make up this world.

And so the Powers of Harmony had hatched a Guardian, giving him life and reshaping the dragon to better fit his role.

His wings? The Powers removed them. At the behest of their greed, a dragon with wings will be compelled to fly off with their hoard when they see it out in the open and threatened. This will not do, as the Elements of Harmony are not simple gems to be hidden away in a cave. They have a will of their own, a will that calls them to help others, and they do not need to be picked up by their Guardian and flown away every time they approach danger.

So the Powers of Harmony took his wings, and instead gave him a greed like no other. A greed that enhanced his strength and size more so than any other dragon.

A greed for you and your friends, Princess Twilight.

Two metal doors slammed open and in walked the Guardian, back in his miniature form and slightly worse for wear if his bruises and small cuts were anything to go by. Walking into the shadowed chamber, he stopped in front of the floating orb of storms that centered the room and let himself collapse onto the floor with a groan, the glowing glyphs carved into the floor shining against his body as he laid there.

"Ugh, feels like it's been years since I've been back here," the Guardian moaned out, eyes closed in exhaustion before letting one peek open to blearily see her, "so... how was your day?"

"Quite well, Spike," came her response as lavender hooves trotted past him on her way to the exit, "the spirit has been successfully exorcised and the storm generator is no longer going to go on a rampage."

"Well, that's good," he said as he closed his eyes again in a somewhat futile attempt to catch some sleep, I'm sure the city will be grateful for that."

He wasn't sure, but it suddenly felt like Laughter had just danced through the room and had a party behind his back. It was the only explanation he could think of right now for why mirthful giggling suddenly escaped from her mouth.

"Oh, I'm sure they'll be grateful, yes," came the teasing answer, "but I do believe that they'll be quite busy celebrating their hero than pay any attention to what I did today."

"What!?" said Spike, eyes snapping open at the thought of anypony not paying due notice to his most favored gem, "Who!?"

He felt a hoof tap down on his head. He didn't need to see her to know that she was flying above him.

"You, silly," came the laughing response, "now come on, I'm sure the city will have a huge celebration for the big hero that saved them from the rampaging titan."

"Oh yeah," said Spike sheepishly as he stood back up, before swelling up with dragon pride and turning towards her, "Hey, do you think they'll have a parade in my honor? I always love it when they do those."

That same smile he had known since the day he had been hatched greeted him once again, even with those wings and ethereal mane, she was still the same to him, "I'm sure they will, my Number-One Assistant."

Author's Note

After two years, I actually got this chapter finished in what amounted to two weeks of writing.

I am so sorry that it has taken so long.