“Lookie lookie. He’s wide awake! Let’s give him some time to review his mistake!” the voice of a griffon torture artist chuckled before pulling away from me.

Shaking my head clear of the fog I evaluated my surroundings to find myself back in my cell, strung up by chains fused to my arms via thermic welding. The grey stone walls of the cell looked damp, moist from whatever condensation had managed to gather in this hell.

“What… Where am I? How’d I get back here?” I demanded groggily, my head still not fully clear and my mind still misfiring.

“Get back?” The griffon looked at me in mock shock. “You never left! Where would you have gone?”

“No, I was rescued. Discord gave me the ability to free us and I killed all of you before lighting your black powder reserves to escape.” I replied, slipping over my moderately numb tongue. “I got back to Equestria and was… was…” I stopped, trying to remember what it was I was doing before I got here. “What was I doing?”

“I believe what you may be forgetting is building us advanced weapon benches and showing us how firearms work.” The griffon replied, pulling a silver .44 magnum from a holster to look it over. “You’ve really been a big help these last six months.”

“What? No, no it can’t have been that long. I’ve only been here for a month! Why would I have helped you bastards?” I demanded furiously, tugging against my chains which now pulled at my very flesh and blood with an intense burn.

“You know, I ask myself that every day. You just up and offered to help, or don’t you remember?” the griffon grinned in reply, holstering his weapon as he looked me over in the backlight.

“No, I’d never… I’d never volunteer to help.” I resisted, shaking my head to try and clear out this nightmare. This had to be some sort of hallucinogen to make me think that i’d already been helping them and would give them the actual technologies.

“Oh but you did. You started off with the P226s. You figured that giving us a small caliber weapon with next to no stopping power would have bought you some freedoms, but all it did was buy you your next meal. Then you gave us a ten millimeter pistol, then you worked yourself up into a fit before surrendering the plans for a .357.” The griffon paced before me, reviewing my impossible history.

“Then why do I have chains melded with me?” I demanded furiously; ignoring the searing pain in my arms, legs and neck. “If I gave you all these weapons, why permanently bind me with these chains?”

“Because you thought that would be it! You said you’d give us the powder that freed the Dragon Queen! You even went so far as to mix it all together before trying to use it against us!” The interrogator shouted, slapping me across the face and raked his claws over my broken skin. “We subdued you and took the powder and used it to remind you to never fuck with our great power!”

“And how did that work out for you?” I spat at the creature. I had to have resolved not to give them anymore more after that, right?

“Quite well in fact. You then went on to give us the shotgun. You first started with a simple double barrel for proof of concept before you caved and gave us what you called the 870.” The griffon replied, a soldier from outside my cage passing the aforementioned shotgun through the bars to show it off proudly.

“No…” I whimpered in defeat, resigning to merely hang from my bindings. Had I given them ranged weaponry? Automatics?

“Yes…” The griffon hissed back with a smirk, loading a single shell into the gun before placing the barrel of the gun against my right forearm. “The weapons that you thought would save you is destroying Equestria!” he announced, pulling the trigger single-handedly.

I screamed out at the slug tore through my arm; bringing with it a decent trail of blood, flesh and scale. The shotgun was removed from the room and a tourniquet was applied to my wounded arm.

“Now now, we can’t have you dying on us just yet! You already promised to give us the assault rifle!” the griffon grinned sadistically before patting me on the side of my battered face before turning away. “Clean him up and prepare him for transport.” the griffon ordered carelessly as he made off down the hall with his weapons.

This had to be a lie. There was no way that it had been six months and nopony had come to rescue me. There was no way I'd have given up all those firearms in order to allow myself a shred more life. I’d have sooner died before I gave up.

Right?

“What do you think?”

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Why are you talking to me?” I muttered under my breath, my head hanging low and my dirty silver hair having not only lost it’s luster but had also grown long and now hung past my face. “Why don’t you come out and face me!”

“Mmm, not yet. I’m almost ready for the big reveal.”

“Not going to be much of a reveal if I'm hanging from the ceiling by chains welded into my body.” I replied, calming back down again but remained somber.

“Which is why I've sent you a familiar face. Actually, this creature has been around for a number of months now. I think they like seeing you in as much pain as I do.”

“Oh really? Then who is it? Gilda? Some obscure griffon I thought I'd killed back in Griffonstone?” I demanded of the air and walls around me.

“Gilda? Please, she died long ago. I believe you even said she tasted like heaven.”

“Well that’s unfortunate. So? Who’s the little bastard that’s been watching me be tortured and betray my country?” I demanded, staring at the walls ahead of me. My response came in the form of claws clicking on a stone surface before the cell door slid open and a pair of glowing blue eyes peered at me from the shadows; the rest of their body hidden away.

“Afternoon.” Eben bid me as he stepped into the room casually carrying a small tray of what looked like welding tools and little red stones.

“You? You’ve been working for the Griffons and watched me betray Equestria? Betray your sister, mother and my girlfriend? You’ve sat by as I was being tortured and beaten?” I demanded furiously as Eben merely ignored me and set to lighting the welding torch.

“Yes.” Eben replied simply, looking back up at me with a white flame before very painfully climbing my chains to get to the ones that protruded from my body. “And now I'm going to rescue you and give you a chance at redemption.”

“If everything I was told is true, then there is no redemption for me.” I sighed defeated, completely ignoring the claws as they dug into me and began to cut through the chain links. “Besides, they’ve already proved that their weaponry is enough to subdue me. What possible chance would I have as a demi-dragon to escape?”

“None.” Eben replied firmly as my right arm dropped down with a length of chain hanging past my hand. Fresh blood dripped past the tourniquet before Eben pulled it off and put the flame to it, cauterizing the wound with howls of pain from me. “Mom’s scales have almost been entirely removed from your body, you know? There’s next to no chance that you’ll survive if you were to escape as you are now. You’re barely even a demi-dragon now.”

“So then what do you suggest? I’m in absolutely no state to escape, let alone move on my own.” I demanded as Eben moved to my neck and cut through those chains. I landed mostly on my feet though my left arm, now dislocated, held me up.

“You want to know what I've been doing for the last five months?” Eben stopped his cutting to look directly into my eyes. “I’ve been watching a man be tortured to an inch of his life before regularly suffering mental breaks and betray his country. I’ve been waiting to see if he’d deal with his split personality to finally get a hold of himself. I’ve been sneaking out at night to go rock farming. Do you understand how difficult it is to find Red Diamonds?” Eben demanded, hanging off my left arm to cut it free.

“Why would you need one of the rarest minerals on the planet?” I raised a weary eyebrow at the slightly older dragonling before the chain was cut through completely and I was dropped to the floor.

“Weiss told me of a way to give you a fighting chance. It required six, six, Red Diamonds and an incredible amount of Dragon Breath.” Eben explained, moving to my feet to cut them loose. A minute of relative silence save for the hissing of the flame and the hissing of my skin as it bubbled and popped under the heat and Eben set down the welding torch.

“And where is she?” I asked calmly, ignoring the burning in my limbs as I flopped backwards.

“She’s with mom fighting with the other Dragon Fleets against the Griffons, last I heard anyways.” Eben replied as he began setting the purplish red stones around me at the ends of my limbs, with the sixth being placed on my chest. “No matter what, don’t move.” Eben demanded as he pulled the cell door shut again for a bit of privacy and extra time should anyone discover Eben’s task.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked curiously as I remained as still as I could. Wasn’t difficult since I had absolutely no energy to even lift a finger at the moment.

“This is a binding ritual.” Eben explained, taking a short breath before lighting the diamonds on blue fire.

“A what?” I demanded, trying to lift my head by the fatigue, exhaustion and months of torture kept me in place.

“A binding ritual. This is called ‘Dragon’s Heart.’ It’s going to bind the two of us together and give you the full power of a dragon.” Eben replied, climbing up onto my chest to glare at me menacingly. “Don’t think for one second that I'm doing this because I think of you as my father. We’re not that close.” he growled before taking a huge breath in and let rip onto the stone on my chest.

All five burning diamonds around me erupted into a blinding light which arced up and over me, merging together into a single point of white light above my chest; above Eben and the stone.

The black dragonling got on his hands and knees, facing me with his stomach over the stone.

“Tell Weiss and my mom… I love ‘em both.” Eben requested, actually genuinely smiling for one in his life as a beam of white shot downwards into our bodies.

The both of us screamed out in pain as the light filled the room, filled our very bodies inside and out. Soon though, the scream turned into a mighty roar as our voices merged into one with our bodies.

~*~*~

Eben was no more. Captain was probably long gone. Two of the most important males in her life had disappeared from her life much too quickly.

There was one thing that gave Colonel Sunset Shimmer a ray of hope, however. Exactly 57 days ago, the Griffon legions started showing up with shotguns; an indication that Captain was alive if at least for now.

“Colonel, what’re the reports?” the familiar voice belonging to a blue General demanded from across the table.

“General Luna, the forty-eighth Pegasi division was met by Griffon troops in south Appaloosa. We only have the west remaining of our territory before Equestria falls to the Griffons. The siege outside Canterlot remains, ma’am.” Sunset replied, manipulating a magical hologram depicting the troop movements on a map of the country.

Save for a thin strip leading from Canterlot to the North Luna Ocean, the rest of the map was marked in red indicating enemy forces and their approximate strength in real time.

“Chief Engineer Sparkle, what of armament development? Anything to help us?” Luna looked at the ex-princess firmly, ignoring the eye patch and lack of horn.

The two alicorns had suffered imprisonment in a Griffon camp for a few weeks and had both lost their horns, however Luna’s was saved when an Equestrian spec-ops team retrieved them and brought them home for treatment. Twilight had undergone extensive therapies to get used to the fact that she was now powerless.

“Not yet. All our research facilities keep getting hit whenever we reach beta testing for a weapon.” Twilight sighed as she looked over the map before her. “All we have left are the labs here in the Castle Dungeons now.” she added, pointing to one of the two markers before it blipped away.

“Admiral Schatten, what of the dragons? How do they fair?” Luna turned to the white dragonling who’d been cast into her position rather suddenly when her mother returned with a full legion of Dragons. They were now down to four since Queen Schatten and her King had been killed four months back.

“This sucks.” Weiss replied, her arms crossed over her chest much like her brother used to do. “Without a reigning King or Queen, the last four want to go back home to wait out their destruction.”

“So we’re boned.” Captain Dash muttered, still examining the map herself. She hadn’t gone unscathed in these last six months as she was now sporting an artificial wing to draw attention away from her scarred face.

“Hey, what’s that?” Sunset demanded, picking up on a single symbol quickly moving in past the Griffonian mountains. It wasn’t registered with the others so it merely remained a black dot, though streak would have been more accurate going off the speed that it was moving.

“I have no idea. Don’t tell me the griffons have found a way to move that quickly!” Dash complained, burying her face under her hooves. “Just what we need, supersonic griffons!”

Suddenly the doors blew open with a random NLAF soldier panting heavily.

“Excuse the intrusion, but something is coming towards the castle at an alarming rate!” the soldier announced. Sunset stood and ran off after the soldier to investigate; the doors slamming shut just as an explosion occurred overhead.

With debris raining down on everypony’s heads, Luna threw up a shield and redirected the brunt of it as a single black figure with huge black leathery wings descended in.

“Open fire!” A guard announced and drew his magic rifle, loading in a magazine of laser rounds while the other guards all took aim and fired.

The humanoid creature with shining black scales opened it’s glowing red eyes and surveyed the attackers before sweeping its wings around, creating a gust of wind that knocked most of the guards down.

Touching down, the humanoid creature folded wings and approached the table as it’s eyes turned blue upon seeing the dragonling with bright white and gold scales.

“E- Eben?” Weiss demanded through a tiny voice, holding a claw up towards the creature. “Eben!” she exclaimed as she leapt up onto and latched onto the creature, weeping profusely.

“Eben, is that really you?” General Luna examined the creature. It surely had the scales and eyes of the dragonling but aside from the fact that this creature was much too large to be the baby dragon prince, it felt much too powerful. Too… Pure.

“Dude, you look great for five months older! What’s your secret?” Dash grinned and knocked her hoof against the creature’s leg. Dash hadn’t had to crane her neck upwards like this since she’d last looked up at… “Holy shit.” Dash’s eyes went narrow as she backed away into the table. “You’re not Eben.”

The creature shook his head, the twin horns protruding from it’s scalp almost managing to create a ringing sound as they swished through the air as the blue eyes turned silver.

“No… fucking… way…” Twilight gasped as she realized who it was before everypony else.

“Cap… Captain? Is that you?” Luna asked through broken sobs and tearing eyes.

“My name…” the creature announced with a combination of the human and the black dragonling. “Is Dragon King Soren Mercer.”

~*~*~

“How the hell are you still alive!” Twilight demanded as my black diamond scales almost seem to flip around to their silver side before settling back into place. My wings had also seemed to have disintegrated for the time being but I knew how to get them back should I need them. Along my arms, legs and spine ran a line of silver spines to the backs of my knees, my wrists and from my spine to my tail which now gently waved behind me.

Weiss remained curled up to me, weeping after I’d told her of her brother’s fate and of how I'd come to be the new Dragon King. Of the silver scales that now covered my body, only a single black one remained over my heart; the only remains of the black dragonling named Eben while I was transformed like this.

“I’m alive because of Eben.” I replied, taking a seat at the table before me. “He used something called Dragon Heart which turned me into this.”

“Dragon Heart…” Weiss muttered, her little claw poking at the black scale on my chest. “Is he in there somewhere?”

“Sorry, Weiss. When he melded with me his consciousness ceased to exist. He wanted to give me a message to you and your mother, though.” I replied somberly, working to soothe my dragon daughter.

“Mom’s dead.” Weiss reported with a sniff before looking up at me. “Whatever message to have to give, you can give it to me.”

“I’m sorry about your loss.” I replied. “But Eben says, ‘I love you.’”

“Thanks… Speaking of ‘I love you’s, where’s Colonel Shimmer?” Weiss demanded, sitting up in my arms to look at the others for an answer. I still couldn’t get over the fact that Twilight had no horn and Dash was not only a Captain, but looked like that alternate version I'd seen half a year ago. “I’m sure she’d want to see you again.”

“And she does! Don’t you, miss Shimmer?” the voice that I thought was in my head echoed in the room as the holographic map between everyone shimmered and transformed into an image of Sunset chained up in what looked like Celestia’s or Luna’s bedroom. Speaking of which, where was Celestia?

“Help!” Sunset cried out through tears, kneeling on the floor with a pony in NLAF armour pacing behind her.

“Sunset!” I shouted, standing and dropping Weiss suddenly as my hands impacted the table surface. My scales shifted back to black, starting at my hands and working themselves up over the rest of me until I was fully clad in hardened jet black scales as my eyes first turned blue, then red.

“Soren? Is that you?” Sunset asked hesitantly as she apparently could see me across the distance. “What happened to you?”

“That’s not important right now. What is important is that I'm finally coming back to save you!” I replied reassuringly, raising my clawed hand up as though I could simply reach through the magic to retrieve her.

“Aww, isn’t that adorable?” the pony smirked for a second before continuing. “But I'm afraid to say that the Captain won’t be joining us.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded furiously. “If you think anything is going to top me from saving my girlfriend, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Oh but I'm very quite certain that what I've got will hinder you, if not for a minute or so. Because a minute is all you get!” the pony exclaimed lifting the blanket off the bed to reveal that it wasn’t a bed, but instead at least thirty bricks of chromium thermite explosive all wired to a timed detonator with sixty seconds paused on the clock.

“Sunset!” I exclaimed as the others around me all gasped when they figured out what was going on.

“Here’s the premise to this game. There are three rooms set up in this castle designed to look exactly like this one. All three of them have explosives primed to detonate connected to a motion sensor that’s monitoring every conceivable entrance into the room. If they trip, all the timers changes to ten seconds and then activates the clock. You know what that means, right?” the pony grinned maliciously at me, seemingly ignoring everyone else in the room.

“Means I only have time to pick one room to try and rescue her.” I growled as my horns began to vibrate with pure magical energy. “But you forget that there are four creatures in this room who can fly.” I smirked, though my glare remained.

“True, which is why if anyone but you enters the room all three explosives will detonate at the same time. Now, I'm not an unfair game host so I'll give you a hint as to where in Canterlot we are.”The image was replaced by three different pictures of three different towers in Canterlot, all modelled to look the same as the Royal bedrooms.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded, as I began trying to discern which room was the right room. I just needed time.

The images flashed back to the one of Sunset and the pony, though this time the pony looked furious.

“Why? Let me tell you why! I looked up to you! You took me under your wing and taught me everything about sniping! Then you go and get me killed and I later find out that you survived! You took everything from me! My memories, my skills, my ambitions! Now I’ll take everything from you! Your girlfriend and your unborn child!” my face, and the faces of everypony in the room all dropped at this announcement.

“Sunset… you’re- you’re pregnant?” I asked weakly. Sunset nodded through tears but with a smile on her face.

“Yes. Turns out you’ve got quite the little swimmers!” Sunset chuckled before the pony brought a hoof down against the back of her neck, earning a yelp from the woman.

“But… I never did any of those things to you. I don’t even know who you are!” I shouted, turning back to the pony behind her as he continued to pace.

“Oh don’t you?” the pony replied but stopped and took a look at himself. “I suppose my disguise has been rather effective, hasn’t it? And after all this time together!” The pony replied as he began to melt and change into a different body.

“No.” I stumbled backwards, staring into the face of the past. “No! That’s not possible! You’re dead! I saw you executed!”

“Now he remembers!” the now human announced jovially, his own red eyes glaring back at my own. The Corporal stood over Sunset Shimmer with his hands on her shoulders, making her flinch. “You better hurry, Captain Mercer. You’re on the clock!” then the image fizzled out.

“I got him! I traced the magical signal!” Luna announced as her horn was enveloped in a dual over glow and concentration written on her face. “Go! Go!” Luna demanded, the location of the room appearing on the map alongside the timer now at forty-six seconds and counting down.

I spread my wings wide and launched from my position, exiting through the hole I’d made earlier and arced onto my back towards the proper tower before rolling over.

“Sunset!” I screamed, streaking through the dusk light and exploded through the wall of the tower. There she was, sitting in the middle of the room chained to the floor. The Corporal was nowhere in sight. I slid across the floor with the ten seconds counting down in my mind and swiped my claws through the chains, freeing her before turning back to the hole I'd come in through.

Three seconds.

No time. I threw my body over Sunset Shimmer, covering her entirely with my body as the world around me exploded in molten heat.

Neither of us screamed as I burned.

Author's Note

So, how's that for an ending? I was quite eager to write this and now it's here and it's over...

Or is it?

No but seriously, tell me what you thought! I wanna hear what you think!

Neue Welt. Neuer Frieden.