Chapters It was one of those Texas days when all clouds steered clear of the sun so it could reach that toasty 109° and the air conditioner had suffered a heat stroke when I settled into a hammock in the only shade for miles. I let what little wind there was rock me back and forth while I tried to sleep until the cool night let me escape from the brain frying heat. My eyes closed and I was embraced by sleep for but a second before the hammock was violently thrust to the side. I opened my eyes to find a Hispanic man dressed in an as stereotypical cowboy fashion as was possible. He wore a ten gallon hat, a plaid shirt with a cow spotted vest over it, he wore blue jeans, and a pair of boots with over-sized spurs. His face was long and narrow, he had a long twirled mustache dyed bright pink, and had eyes a peculiar tint of yellow.
"Hurry boy, we must save Equestria!" he yelled in a voice suspiciously similar to Yosemite Sam . He motioned to my modest home behind him which was now surrounded in a mist of what appeared to be cotton candy.
'Oh it is one of those weird heat dreams.' I thought before deciding to play along. "Aren't humans banned from Equestria, or something similar to that effect?"
"I have all the details worked out! You just need to step through the portal!" He said with a mischievous grin.
'Get whisked away to the land of rainbows, lollipops, and controlled weather? Count me in, even if it is just a dream.'
We batted through the candy mist and made our way to my door. When I opened it I was not greeted with the familiar couch and old beat up TV, but instead with Stargate Command. The large constellation encrusted ring in the center of the room had wires of all shapes and sizes attached to it and appeared to have been heavily modified beyond even it's previous tangle of cables. In the center of the gate floated the Elements of Harmony being closely circled by a fiery looking rock and a counterpart pale as the moon. The inner ring of the gate began to turn selecting the constellations seemingly at random before falling on a pony shaped group of stars instead of the familiar pyramid shaped home key. Lightning crackled around the ring before forming into a water like membrane that waved as if it where a still lake disturbed by a single drop of water. The vibrations stopped and I turned back towards the door from whence I came only to find it replaced with an observation room. Inside the room I could make out what looked like a smiling samurai with the same likeness of the cowboy before him.
"Just jump on through and start life anew!" he spoke over the intercom now with an accent you would associate with your typical wise sage.
'It's a dream, what's the worse that can happen?' I walked up to the pool and jumped through with my arms flailing wildly. I landed on my feet and stumbled before regaining my composure. For all I could tell I was facing a wall cloaked in shadow. "Oh honorable sensei, I don't think it ..." I was cut short by a blow to the back of my head, my brain switched to the off position, and I was dead to the world.
I woke up, but my eyes refused to open. 'Well it is still hot out and my eyes want me to stay asleep, who am I to deny them?'. That's when I realized that it felt hotter than before.... way hotter. My eyes flew open to see a lava flow just a few inches from my nose. I tried to jump away, but my body did not respond. My head would not turn, but I still tried to locate the source of my paralysis. Somehow I did not notice the problem under my nose, in fact it was my nose. The problem being I did not have one instead a snout protruded from my face. I looked at the strange thing in front of me, it was covered in black scales and under the end of it appeared to be a tuft of golden hair, all of which had simple shading and an outline. I continued to contemplate the thing in front of me before going completely cross eyed to confirm the sight before me. 'Oh, crap I'm a salamander!' My screams echoed around me before I somewhat regained my composure. 'Ok, what do people do in these situations? Oh, I know body check.'
Wiggle my fingers. No dice.
My limbs responded slowly, but I managed lift myself off the ground. I looked down to where my hands would have normally been only to discover the cloven hooves of a goat encased in a golden fur. I moved my head to look at my chest and felt a weight on my head. I reached up with my hoof as best I could and felt the general shape of a deer's antler. My chest was covered in the same black scales as before. A twitch caught me eye as I saw the rat like tail ending in a tuft of fur that topped the whole thing off. 'What in the sam hell am I?!'
The stream of lava in front of me flicked a few embers my way, drawing my attention to the world around me. The sky was a smokey shade of red, the hardened obsidian that I stood on was coated with a layer of almost black ash, in the distance titanic volcanoes angrily spat fire and brimstone into the air daring something to try to get near it. 'Well this is just fan-fucking-tastic! I'm in hell and I'm some sorta goat demon!' My butt greeted the ground which gifted it with a small cloud of ash. I looked around half expecting to see eyeballs with bat wings flying through the air or a tentacle monster of some sort to pop out of the river in front of me.
After a good solid ten minutes of me and the soft bubbling of the lava in front of me and nothing else I decide I should at least to think of what I had done to get in this situation and my memory finally decided to kicked my ass into gear. "IT'S A DREAM!" I yelled to no one in particular. I strolled over to the stream of lava and partially stuck my hoof in before the fire that engulfed my leg politely told me that I was wrong.
Screaming I fell backwards before rolling in circles on the ground to put the fire out. 'Well, damn. I'm in hell, I'm alone, and there ain't nothing here but lava. Never thought it would look like a cartoon though. Wait, does that mean that bony bastard Skeletor is here? Whatever the case, no use sittin' here and feeling sorry for myself.'
I followed the lava downhill for miles trying to get used to my new body, trying to find anything other than molten rock, and trying to figure out how to get that "I Say Hey" He-Man song out of my head. When I heard, "MYAAH!" From behind me, and rapidly turned to face whatever it was, but since I had yet to become acclimated to my new form I fell, hard. Not to mention it was just my brain being a dickbag and playing the funniest part of the song. 'Well the insanity was not completely unexpected.' As I lifted myself I came face to face with a creature as black as night with a look of anger in it's eyes. I tried to scream, but the flames that erupted from the creature's mouth silenced me. By some miracle I avoided the flames and jumped behind the nearest rock and waited for my doom, but it never came. I peeked around the rock and had to try hard not to hit myself. Before me was a large piece of polished obsidian that had only shown me my own reflection. 'Wait, I just breathed fire!' I took in a deep breath and exhaled a small stream of fire 'Me gusta!'. Looking back at the obsidian I was only confirming what I saw before. My belly and snout looked to be those of a lizard, I had a thick tangled mane and a matching goatee, a deer's horn grew from the middle of my skull, and the rest of me seemed to belong to a goat of some kind.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a single flash of light, to my side was the entrance to a cave that had seemingly not been there before. 'Oh this is definitely not a trap, but it is not like I have anywhere else to go and at this point I don't think safety is a priority.' With small breaths of fire I lit my way through the cave. The walls were smooth and unnatural looking, not a single flaw could be seen in the expanse before me. The cave became twisted and jagged as I advanced further splitting and rejoining at random before ending in one giant cavern full of branches with no logical placement be it on the ceiling or leading backwards at some weird angel. The same flash of light as before caught my attention once again and I followed it down an obscured side tunnel.
I ran forwards hoping for a way out of this infernal place as I came closer to the light I realized that something was wrong. The light formed a wall between me and the rest of the tunnel. For all that could go wrong I was willing to try to forge ahead. I hesitantly placed my hoof against the wall and was sucked through into a what at first glance looked like a forest. A small river ran through the peculiar purple trees and there was no lack of random forest debris. Past all the trees I could see huge walls trapping me in the forest, but I was not exactly in a position to complain about the change in scenery. Above me was a huge domed ceiling only broken occasionally by what looked like hatches. Was hell like the Greek's Hades, had I found the golden community for the blessed ones? I turned my attention back to the ground to look for a hut, anything.
"What is it?" I heard whispered from somewhere above me.
"A draconequus?" Another voice asked.
"It doesn't matter. Put it to work." A grizzled voice called from above me.
'Draconequus? That only exists in Equestria... ' I looked up just in time to see the diamond dogs closing one of the hatches above me.
'Well on the bright side I'm in Equestria, I'm alive, and I'm away from the lava. On the other hand I might just be crazier than a loon, I'm a prisoner and I don't think I can Rarity my way out of it, and I'm still some unidentified creature. The last time I checked Discord didn't breath fire, but then again he didn't seem to be putting his all into it that episode.'
Rumbling filled the air and the ground beneath me gave way to the diamond dog's claws. The dog grabbed me by the neck, pulled me down into the tunnels below, and pinned me to the ground. The air was knocked from my lungs and the taste of the Equestrian rock entered my mouth. His grip tightened as the dogs behind him argued between themselves before picking a harness. I was strapped in with heavy metal chains attached to a wooden collar that forced them to release my throat.
"Go!" yelled the dog before I could even catch my breath.
I turned to see I had been attached to a gem cart followed by a heavily scarred dog who did not take kindly to my hesitation. He reached for his whip and I dug my hooves into the ground as I tried to pull the cart. The wheels creaked and the cart lurched forward as I started to descend into the darkened mine, the only source of light being pale white crystals strewn about the cave. In the distance I could hear the earth being ripped apart by the dogs in search of gems. We passed mighty piles of gems, but did not stop. No, we went deeper.
The further down I was forced the more rough our path became, the crystals that lit our way became more and more scarce, and the grunts of the dogs further down became louder. Soon soft clicking met my ears, the sound of pickaxes and chains. Thin shadows of ponies moved throughout the darkness, quietly digging as the slavers demanded.
"Stop." the dog finally grumbled before wandering off.
As I finally relaxed and sat down a nearby unicorn lifted what looked like a pile of ordinary rocks. The magic surrounding the rocks gave a soft blue glow to the cavern around him as he approached me. As the glow lit up the cart and me, he hesitated. He looked long and hard at me before depositing the rocks in the cart. Once he returned to the hole he came from the whispering began.
"They captured who?!"
"A draconequus?"
"All hope is lost."
These were among the many whispers passed between prisoners as they lined up to fill my cart with rock. My very appearance filled them with dread and the thought that the diamond dogs had captured me only made it worse. I did not want to tell them that I just strolled into the holding cell like an idiot, but by not telling them they assumed the worst.
The scarred dog returned with a fist full of gems and a pint in the other hand, and as he walked he wobbled ever so slightly. He paused only to shove the rest of the gems into his mouth before jumping onto the back of the cart and simply pointing back towards the way we came. The cart had gone from heavy to immovable object. It would take a creature far stronger than I to move the cart back up the mine shafts. I dug my hooves into the ground with the cart not budging. As I went on struggling the drunken dog became more aggravated with every second that passed. Within a few minutes he had hopped off of the cart and had walked over to me kneeling so that he was eye level with me.
"GO! " he screamed, the smell of alcohol heavy on his breath.
"No." I replied calmly.
In the quiet following someone felt the the need to say "He's a goner."
"It's too heavy." I added.
The inebriated dog was unable to think of a reply he simply raised his paw and extended his claws. He started to bring them down on my face but he was stopped by the flames engulfing his own. His screams traveled the length of the cavern along with the gasps of the slaves around me. The cavern was filled with bright orange light revealing the starved ponies around me, who looked on in awe. Diamond dogs spewed out of every nook and cranny looking for their wailing companion. With all the dogs anywhere close to me distracted I blew on the chains using my mouth as a blowtorch, but I was tackled before I could cut through the last chain and was knocked out for the second time today.
As I awoke I could feel myself being held under the arm of one of the diamond dogs. The light of the room stung my eyes and the voices I could here were distorted. Only fragments of sentences could be heard, that or diamond dogs really did have terrible grammar.
"Useless....fire....danger....kill ."
The last word hung in my mind while my senses rekindled themselves. Suddenly I realized I was being addressed.
"You, abomination, look at me." came the same grizzled voice I had heard before. My eyes finally focused on the old and graying diamond dog. He was tall, shaggy, unlike all the diamond dogs I had seen so far he did not wear a collar, he held himself up with a spear tipped with a ruby encrusted metal, and had the kind of eyes that demanded respect.
"Well you don't exactly take first in the beauty pageant either princess."
He stared into my eyes and allowed himself to growl at me. He reached out and placed a paw on the side of my face before recoiling.
"Want us, throw him in magma?" asked the dog carrying me.
He thought a moment before surprisingly saying "No, send him to the forge. We are not letting him win by getting out of work."
With that he slammed the handle of the spear onto my head sending my head swimming once again. The dog holding me did not hesitate to carry out his orders and ran full speed down the tunnels not letting me focus my vision or see the path he took, he only stopped momentarily to open a hatch before throwing me through. Once again it was the heat that brought my senses back. The room oozed magma in various places, most noticeably an entire lava-fall was at one end of the room. Some of the streams of molten rock were captured by sapphire encrusted pipes that delivered them to a central forge, anvil and all.
"Why does he need me here with all this already set up?" I wondered aloud.
"Ta keep the metal hot when it comes outta the stream o' coarse." came a feminine reply. A big chested,grey, wolf looking diamond dog wearing a blacksmiths apron stepped out from behind the forge, causing me to nearly pass out. "Didn't mean to scare ya lad." she said between laughs. "The names Ashy and you and me are going to be getting to know each other very well."
"What!?" I shouted in my shock.
"Not like that ya perv!"
"Oh... So, uh, what am I goin to help you make?" I asked trying to dispel the awkward silence I had created.
She gave me the evil eye before answering "The boss ordered some armor platin ta start off simple."
"Plating for what?"
"Doesn't matter, you'll make it and you'll be happy ta do it." she said as she pulled a chunk of ore out of a nearby cart. "Now, what ya do is toss the rock into the top o' the smelter and it gets poured inta the simple mold I got set up front. The mold isn't perfect so I hammer it inta shape and you keep it hot to make it easier. You just need ta learn how hot to keep yer flames for each metal be it titanium or varcalite." Suddenly a strange look passed over face "Here I am jabberin on and I don't know yer name."
I hesitated because my old name would not exactly fit into Equestria "Do you need to know?"
"I'm not askin where ya buried the bits, it's just the polite thing ta do."
"I had the good fortune of becomin a slave and you are talkin to me about being polite?"
"Howd ya think I got down here lad?"
"By walking?"
She face-pawed and let out a frustrated sigh before replying "Ya know nothin bout diamond dogs, do ya?" I silently shook my head and she continued "We females are in the minority so the men like ta keep us locked away from the world. The only reason I'm here is because they thought I was too ornery to be a wife so they found a use for me. I'm as much a slave as you are."
"So we're in the same cage."
"Oh, look, it has a brain after all."
I glared at her and thought for a moment. The world was dead set on calling me a draconequus and all the ones I have ever read about in fanfics have names starting is 'dis'. For all intents and purposes I was nobody and I was useless there. "My name is Disdain." I finally replied.
She threw her arms into the air and shouted "Welcome Disdain, welcome to the Infernal Forges!" The smelter seemed to hear her and let out a cloud of steam before pouring the melted ore into a mold next to the central anvil. Ashy ran over to the mold and tapped the metal with a sapphire causing the metal to quickly solidify.
"How does that work?"
"How does what work?"
"You tap the metal with the sapphire and the metal hardens."
"Oh, that. You'r parents didn't teach ya much of anythin did they?"
"I'm not sure that I had parents. I just wandered around until I ended up here." I said trying to sound sad so that she would not press me any further.
"Sorry kid, I didn't know. This here is not a normal sapphire, it's a frost sapphire." She said with a smile. "Most folks use amethysts because they're easy to enchant, but sapphires hold a more powerful charge. Tha metal cools quick, but it doesn't stop until it's completely solid. That's why I need you ta heat this mithril while I shape it."
It was hard not to snicker at that mention of mythril, but I did as I was told. With a simple yellow flame I was able to keep the mythril soft and Ashy and me made our first armor plate together.
A few hours and 50 plates later my stomach began to rumble. "When do we get fed around here, and for that matter what do we get fed?"
"We're about to be fed. I get a pile a gems. You, I'm guessin, get a bale a hay."
"How do they get bales of hay in this wasteland?"
"You've seen the holdin area. There are a few small farms here and there. Even without the farms this is the Volcanic Wastes, you can get anythin here if ya have tha bits."
"So are these dens like towns? I never asked, but does this one have a name or anything?"
She sighed before replying "Kid, I'm not a teacher, you need ta cut back on tha questions. Yes these are towns, this one is Dodongo's Cavern. It's the second largest in the wasteland."
"Don't tell me the mountain it's in is called Death Mountain."
"How'd ya know?"
I keeled over laughing. 'Mithril is one thing, but now this?!'
"Are you insane lad?!"
I realized how I looked and cleared my throat "Sorry, it's an inside joke."
Ashy mumbled something about "those draconequus" before walking over to the hatch that I had been thrown through and pounded the door with her fist. "You forgettin somethin?" she shouted. The hatch suddenly flew open and two bags were thrown in. Ashy grabbed the first bag and shook it, after she was satisfied with the clinking inside she tossed the second bag to me.
I hesitantly opened the bag and was happy to see that it was full of grass, which up until this point is what I had assumed that I ate. I braced myself for the terrible flavor of grass and took a mouthful. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the grass tasted like lettuce although it was a bit sweet. Glad that I would not have to suffer through every meal here I dug in, but then it happened. CRUNCH! 'Grass doesn't crunch!' I spat the grass out to reveal the sparkling of a diamond in the heap of partially chewed grass.
"Ya okay there?"
"There was a diamond in my bag!" Maybe the diamond had fallen into the bag, maybe old scar-face had decided to try to break all my teeth, or maybe that old dog was more cunning than I took him for. I brushed the grass pulp off of the diamond to find it had fractured and was on the verge of breaking. Either I was one lucky son of a bitch or I had just cracked a diamond with nothing more than my teeth. I picked up the gem and placed it back in my mouth before carefully biting down on it. The diamond broke. I continued to chew on the diamond and found it to taste quite pleasant, the only description I can think of for it is that it tastes like winter.
"Yer just like a black dragon." Ashy said in awe.
"What?"
"They are one o tha few creatures that can eat diamonds and obsidian."
"Weird, tell them I could use some more if they want to save on grass."
"Did ya not know ya could eat them?"
"I don't know about you, but I don't go around tryin to eat things that could break my teeth."
We finished our bags and Ashy showed me a door previously obscured by the forge that led to a small room furnished with nothing more than one tool chest, four beds, and a bookshelf mostly filled with books written in Equestrian with the exception of a book called "Working the Forge". Ashy plopped down in a bed in the corner of the room and I picked the one opposite of her. Soon I drifted into a dreamless sleep.
Work was not hard, I just had to learn how to control my flame and which metal required which flame and Ashy did the rest. We made everything from pickaxes to full suits of armor, and we were treated better than the other slaves because, lets face it, you don't want to piss off the guy that makes your armor. It's always nice to find out the metal is brittle a little too late. At this point most of my food supply has been replaced with diamonds, which the dumb dogs could not find a use for. Ashy and I grew to understand each other, but not much more. It was the kind of understanding that comes from only seeing one person for two weeks. After two weeks of continuing the cycle of forge, eat, sleep, rinse, and repeat I cooked up my hare brained scheme for escaping.
"Hey Ashy, what exactly is preventing you from digging through the wall?" I asked nonchalantly.
"I thought we were done with this." she replied.
"You never give me a straight answer."
"I don't want to give ya hope. Yer crazy enough to go fer it."
"Go for what?"
She gave me a signal. I'm pretty sure it meant something along the lines of, 'Shut the fuck up.' "I think I've said too much."
"Come on, don't you want out of here?!"
"Yes." She said, exasperatedly rubbing her temple.
"Then tell me!"
"Disdain, ya have no idea how much I hate ya right now. Fine, you'll get yer answer. Abso'lutely nothin. The problem is that three of the sides only lead back to the warren, and tha other one is a half submerged mine. My kin stay away from the magma, but they still guard the area for some reason that they haven't seen fit to clue me in on."
"Then let's go, Ashy! They keep it guarded, but there has to be a way up." I said with a chuckle. It was as if they were begging us to leave.
"No, ya idiot! We're unarmed and the guards will alert ev'ryone else. As you'd say 'we'd be screwed from both sides' and I'm pretty sure that means the same thing I think it means."
"Ashy, are you telling me you've never thought of making your own arms and armor?" I asked, and she gave a sheepish shake of her head. "We constantly have a surplus of ores and they don't ever check on us because they think we were tamed by just stuffing us in here. With the level of skill we've developed working together here, it'd only take a few hours to do. Not only would we have armor, but can you honestly say that you put your all into making the supplies for the rest of them?"
"No, no I can't." she said hesitantly, but with a slight gleam in her eye. She saw where I was going with this. Smart girl.
"We finished early today, so we have the time. I just need some leg coverings and all you need is one suit of armor and a weapon. Judging by how you use the one you have, I'd suggest a hammer. A big one."
"But they'll hear me diggin through the wall." She said, not really believing it herself.
"Not if I buck the side of the anvil so it sounds like you're over here shaping some metal. Our entire stint down here has pretty much been training for escape. We can make our own armor, high-quality stuff, too, we know the weak points in all the suits we've given to our enemies, you have been working on your arm strength with all that hammering, I can use my flames much more effeciently and effectively than before, and I read through that one book in our room and thought of a few tricks you could use to make our armor even better."
"You can read that?" She asked, incredulous.
"You can't? I thought you had read through them and that was why you spoke better than the rest of the dogs."
"I'm not tha first blacksmith to work here." She deadpanned.
"Fair enough, you want to try this?"
"I must a caught yer crazy, 'cause ma answer's yes."
"Good, now let's get to work." I said, a gleam in my eye as I set about doing my job, with Ashy working alongside me.
"There ya go, all done." Ashy said as she slipped the last gauntlet onto my leg. The polished metal surface of the armored glove reflected the light of the magma, giving them a glow. It was almost as if they were enchanted. They were simple banded tubes of what Ashy called wolfram, the only thing noticeable about them was the spare frost sapphire we had embedded into each of them. With the sapphires Ashy had hoped that if, for some reason, I ended up in the magma it would help me out. I liked it because the gauntlets stayed nice and cold even when surrounded by all this heat.
"Are we ready to start, then?" I asked while admiring the workmanship (workdogship?) on Ashy's armor. Ashy had refused most of the designs I proposed based on how heavy they were and how much they would pull on her fur. In the end she opted for mithril everything and only to wear a simple chest-plate, gauntlets identical to mine, knee high boots, and the blacksmiths apron that she had apparently become attached to. I mean, I'm not one to judge, cause I remember the stuffed animal phase, and more recently the pony toys that I'd bought.
"Ya, I'll start diggin through the back wall." Ashy disappeared behind the forge and into our room while I started to kick the anvil rhythmically. Vibrations ran through my legs reassuring me that the dogs would not be able to detect Ashy's digging.
The wall must have been made of butter because Ashy came back in less than five minutes. "Already done?"
"Yeah, you can stop. I didn't see anyone we should be clear to go." she said while picking up and donning her new armor and grabbing her new hammer, or should I say dog tenderizer? The thing was absolutely massive!
I followed Ashy back into our room and then through the small tunnel she had been digging. We stepped into the mines and I was amazed by the beauty of the place. Crystals were clustered throughout the cave and reflected the light of the pools of magma in brilliant spots of light, the downside to this being the lack of darkness to cling to. Boldly we walked through the middle of the cave in the direction of a tunnel that appeared to lead up.
"YOU! " We heard from behind us, turning on our heels to face the voice that had interrupted the soft bubbling of the magma pits.
"Oh shit." was the only thing that I could think to say.
"YOU ARE ONE WHO BURN ME! " shouted my old friend, now dubbed Scarface. "YOU KILL ALPHA! " He looked terrible, not just because half his face was burn off, but he looked disheveled.
"What?" I asked, my mind not comprehending what I heard.
"He got sick after touch you, die today." he said, nearly in a whimper. All his rage seemed to melt away to sorrow. "Others fighting to be alpha, he lead when no one could." Scarface said before breaking into sobs.
Quietly I leaned over to Ashy "What is he talkin bout?"
"Only criminals come ta tha wasteland. It's a miracle that we have three settlements here." She whispered.
"YOU KILLED HIM, PEACE IS BROKEN! BROTHERS COME! " He shouted while stomping the ground. Out of the tunnel behind him came four more dogs armed and ready. One of the dogs handed Scarface his spear which was equipped with two vials of some sort. He ripped one of the vials off of the spear and waved it in the faces of the dogs next to him before throwing it into one of the pools of magma. As the bottle melted a purple gas escaped the bottle and dissipated into the air. The dogs next to him looked at each other surprised at Scarface's decision.
"That was tha sleeping gas." Ashy whispered.
Before I could ask what the other vial was Ashy tackled me and the second vial flew over my head.
SHGLOAGADOAGAWOABADOA!
The vial exploded and the cavern shook in response, several of the crystals escaped the grasp of the rock and fell to the ground shattering while others fell into the magma sending deadly droplets of molten rock into the air. Scarface used the explosion to his advantage and charged at us through the smoke ignoring the sharp crystals and drops of magma. He kicked Ashy off of me and lifted his spear and propelled it down towards my side. The spearhead harmlessly bounced off of my scales, instead it landed in Scarface's foot. The other four dogs charged at the sound of his screams down the path towards us. With one swing Ashy sent two of the dogs sailing across the cavern. One of the dogs slammed into the cavern wall and was knocked unconscious, the other was impaled on an outcropping of crystals that tore through his armor like a can opener. One of the remaining dogs helped pull the spear from Scarface's foot and was only rewarded with a stream of flames that melted his armor and melded the molten metal to his skin. What little brain the dog had abandoned him at the sight of pain and he jumped into the magma in an attempt to escape it. Scarface looked at me as if he had seen a demon and turned to run only to slam into the other remaining dog. Scarface fell backwards to see that I had once again gotten to my feet (hooves?). I reared up and brought my front hooves down on his chest knocking the air out of him. Ashy charged past me and hit the last dog sending him back into the tunnel he had come from.
"GOAL!" I shouted. I looked down to see Scarface looking back up at me completely terrified of the creature above him. I hesitated and decided to spare him, he had been through enough. "Which way is the exit?" I asked in a voice as soft as I could muster. He shakily pointed in the direction we were headed before flinching as though I was about to hit him. "Let's go before the surviving dogs wake up." I told Ashy who now stood at my side with the hammer leaning against her shoulder.
We wasted no time in running down the tunnel that Scarface had pointed out, but something was off. We went higher and higher, and then suddenly back down. We followed the tunnel down into the earth until it branched.
"Which way we goin?" asked Ashy.
"Well the last one went up and then down, so shouldn't we choose the one going down? It should just go back up later."
Ashy shrugged and let me continue onward. It's not like I had bad history of picking tunnels or anything. The number of light crystals did not wane as we went down, but their light did. Once again I was forced to be my own torch as I led Ashy down the tunnel. In the distance we could hear water dripping from stalactites and then the gentle sounds of a river met our ears, wherever we were headed at least sounded pleasant. Suddenly a wave passed over me that made the cave feel... wrong, but stubbornly with the thought of freedom I pressed on. Soon the tunnel ended in a large room much like the rest of the diamond dog's main rooms. This room however had a river flowing right through the middle of it and large glowing mushrooms grew all over the place. If this had once been a warren, it was now abandoned.
"We should go." Ashy whispered. I looked over at her to see that she was shaking and had slowly started to back out of the room.
"You mustn't! We need you!" called a creature that had just charged into the room from one of the many connecting tunnels. It took me a moment to register what I saw, it was almost like a mirror image. This other creature was slightly smaller than me, it's scales were pink, it's fur was black, it lacked the small goat's beard that I had, and it had the normal pair of antlers. "Stay, please." she said.
"Why?" I asked. From the corner of my eye I could see that Ashy had stopped backing up, but her shaking had not ceased.
"W-we need your help." the creature pleaded.
"With what, exactly?"
"You don't know? I'd better take you back to the outpost, then."
"Why should I trust you?"
"We Kirin are the only things that keep the peace down here." she said with frustration edging into her voice.
"One last question, where, in Luna's name, is here?"
"Tartarus." she said bluntly.
THUMP!
Ashy had just passed out, and I was not going to be able to carry her alone. I did not have much of a choice in following this other... Kirin?
"Help me carry Ashy and I will stay at least until she wakes up."
The other kirin jumped around happily before doing the closest thing to a blush she could manage. "Oh, okay. I'll explain everything on the way."
We managed to drape Ashy and her hammer across our backs and we walked side by side down yet another tunnel. "Tartarus is where all the most dangerous creatures of the world are kept," she explained "But all these creatures fought with each other and threatened the stability of the cavern itself. We were appointed as the peace keepers, and at times I think it was only because the world never wanted to see us again, either. This is a dangerous job and over the years our numbers have dwindled. This is why I could not let you leave. We have outposts all throughout Tartarus, but I am the only one left here." I could now see the end of the tunnel, at which was a door. The kirin continued, although much quieter now. "That is, uh, why, we uh, need to... breed ."
The only thing close to an intelligent response I could muster at this point was "What?!"
"Yeah... you are probably going to want to, uh, leave her outside if we are going to do this." she said arching her back to indicate Ashy.
"Oh, right." I said before helping her get Ashy off of our backs. Part of my brain was saying 'YES! ' and the other part was saying 'Whoa there little buddy, that right there is a goat.'
Gently she grabbed onto the door handle with her teeth and opened it just enough for us to get through. The room was slightly darker than the outside thanks to it's lack of glowing mushrooms, so it took a moment for my eyes to adjust.
When my eyes did adjust I nearly shat myself. In the middle of the room sat a large bed elaborately decorated in gold, and around it? Bones. Hundreds of skulls of many varying creatures lined the walls of the room, each one a tally mark to show how many the succubus had conquered.
"You're lucky boy." She said stepping out in front of me in her true form. The succubus was in fact a pony with a red coat and a black mane, she had two curved horns, and the wings of a bat. "I'm not allowed to add you to my collection." she said.
A raspy voice came from the shadows "You owe me much, and I am here to collect."
'Not the dogs again.' I thought.
"I am no mutt!" the voice boomed. From the shadows stepped a ram. His coat was blue, his massive eyebrows were white, along with his goatee, his eyes glowed red, and around his neck was a collar that held several medals.
"You read my mind!" I shouted.
"I have been IN your mind, and what a disgusting place it is." he said glaring at me.
"W-what are you talking about?" I stammered.
"That fool, Discord, invited us to a game using your kind as pieces. I asked you to come to Equestria and you accepted, now I have something for you to do. First, go to the forest and search the temples for a bell."
'So there is more than just me!' I thought excitedly. 'But I'm free now, I don't want to go to work for this guy.'
"YOU WILL NOT FAIL ME! " he shouted "If you refuse I will send you back to Earth and nothing will be here to save that mutt you brought with you. If you do everything I order, you get Luna."
'SWEET BABY JESUS IN THE MANGER! '
"If you succeed I will return fully to this realm and I will take all of Equestria! This simple gift will be within my power and I have been in your mind and see no better prize for you."
The guy had my balls in a vise grip. He knew I thought Luna was best pony, and he knew I would not dare leave Equestria, and to make matters worse, he had Ashy. "Fine." I said with malice in my voice.
"Good." he said with a smirk. "To help you along, you may call upon my power during your quest."
"I have one question, what is your name you evil bastard?"
"Grogar." He said with a chuckle. He lowered his head and the tips of both his horns began to glow.
I was blinded by a flash and disoriented by a weird tugging feeling. Wind blew through my mane, I could hear the sound of leaves rustling, and crickets happily went about their business. It was nighttime on the edge of the woods. I looked around panicked for a moment and spotted Ashy resting with her back against the trunk of a mighty tree. I took a deep breath of the fresh air and let out a frustrated sigh.
'I get sent to Equestria, a dream come true, and get turned into a slave not once, but twice. Once to the dogs and now again to a creature that is arguably worse than Discord. The world I was shown was not what I got, I was never told caveat emptor "let the buyer beware". No, I was thrust into a world that hid all it's evil and I fell into the middle of it.'
Ashy stirred in her sleep and my frustration waned. For all the evil I am undoubtedly going to unleash, some good had come of it. I had rescued at least one slave.
Author's Note
I am going to go ahead and thank Chuck Norris who has been my proofreader up until now without any thanks.
Also if you know where "SHGLOAGADOAGAWOABADOA!" (Warning: This link starts in the middle of the video and I doubt you will know what is going on.) is from I salute you. If you don't go watch the genius that is theheartless .
