Author's Note

Wonder if this will do well. Idk. Comment below if you catch any grammatical errors that I didn't see.

Or comment and tell me why you disliked it. Would love to know how to improve my hand in writing.

EDIT 9-17-2018: re-wrote a lot of this chapter because it was rushed and sorta shitty. Hope you all enjoy the new bits I've added!

The God of Destruction and Conquest (re-write)

“P-Princess Celestia! There is an emergency!” a panicked voice rang out through the Canterlot throne room. A few ponies jumped at the startling appearance of a battered guard.

Turning her head, Celestia was greeted by a brown pegasus stallion, his body dripping with sweat and his once golden armor now cracked and bloodied. The frenzied expression on the guard’s face drew Celestia off her throne to meet with him muzzle to muzzle.

“Lieutenant Holidor! What’s going in?! What happened to you?!” Celestia said, gripping the fallen pony in her forelimbs.

A brief grunt of exhaustion and pain escaped the mouth of the stallion. “I-I don’t know! One moment I’m flying above C-Canterlot patrolling our skies and the next I’m being knocked to the ground by some sort of wind or force. My entire platoon is now gone! There’s also now a strange metal castle or something just floating there!”

A low but audible horn could be heard emanating from somewhere outside the walls. Shortly afterwards, a rough silhouette of a short draconic creature formed in front of the throne room. A mischievous grin spread across his scaled lips, revealing rows of ivory hooks. He was draped robes the were dark as crimson and lines with pure gold threads made of silk, almost seeming to reflect the light in the room.

“Greeting, inhabitants of Equestria! My name is Dragus. It is a pleasure to meet you all and worry not, I bring wonderful news! If you will all look outside, you will see a large structure floating above this fair city.” The creature pointed a staff toward the decorated stained windows.

Outside, floating above Canterlot, was indeed said floating structure. It resembled a large castle with multiple spires levitating off its sides.

“What is the meaning of this intrusion, dragon!?” asked Celestia, startled by the appearance of the dwarf dragon.

“”I’m glad you asked, your Highness. And though I may be related to them, I am not a dragon. I am a kobold. And as to the meaning of my interruption to your day court? I am looking for a champion.”

“Champion? What has transpired to my ponies that were taken by your castle!?”

Dragus tilted his head in confusion. “Taken? Nonono, you misunderstand! I haven’t taken them prisoner like you’re thinking, they’re dead! Disintegrated! Wiped from existence! They were in the way of my home, so I saw fit to ‘remove’ them, so to speak. But yeah, they’re gone.”

Celestia’s eyes widened, her expression quickly changing into that of anger. “You monster. Explain yourself at once before I personally decide to strike you down instead of imprisoning you!”

“I don’t see why I have to explain myself to you, but I think it’s be best for both parties that I don’t get on your bad side. Not that it’d make much difference if I did.”

“Are you threatening me?” Celestia spat, lighting her horn and summoning two small spheres of fire.

“I like that, all that fire you’ve got going in there. But no, I’m not threatening you. I’m just simply saying that as a God, you’d not be much of challenge and I’d get bored not being able to do what I’ve set out to do.”

Celestia opened her mouth to speak, but quickly shut it when she saw the kobold reaching into his robes.

The kobold produced a large blue sapphire from his robes. It was decorated with small veins of golden metal all across its surface. With a snap of his free claws, Dragus caused the gem to explode into flash of light, tinting everything in the room slightly darker.

“Now then, on to my explanation. Sitting here before you is a miniature version of my home that I call a ‘dungeon’.” A smaller version of the castle appeared in front of Celestia. “Inside are all manner of traps, monster, puzzles, and prizes for anyone who manages to get through it all the way to the top. In between sets of floors is an area for rest, as you can see here on the pictures floating to the right. The goal for each contestant is to survive long enough to make it to these floors, eventually reaching floor 50 and defeating its current champion, that being me. Now I know what you’re thinking. ‘Lord Dragus, what about anyone who gets afraid and want to go home?’ Well, being the generous host that I am, I’ve set it up to where contestants are able to return to the exit before reaching the second floor. Once on the stairway up to there, there isn’t any turning back. Understand so far?”

Celestia took a moment to ponder the information. “If I am understanding this correctly, you want my ponies to go through your gauntlet for amusement? That is just pure sadism! You’re more cruel than King Sombra was!”

Dragus chuckled at the remark. “Cruel AND sadistic? You flatter me! But no, this isn’t for my enjoyment. Well it partially is, but that isn’t important. What I’m actually after is a replacement for my position as God of Destruction of this universe.” This brought a confused look to Celestia. A god wanting to be replaced was strange to her.

“You see, I’m getting old. Though I may not die of age or injury like your ponies or any other creature on this planet, I would like to retire and live out my afterlife. But, in order to do that I need to give someone else my ‘godhood’ to ‘pass on’.”

“Why not just grant somepony your powers and be done with this? Surely you’ve met a worthy candidate in all your time of being alive?”

The kobold nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, you are correct to assume that I have met worthy people in the past. But none of them were truly able to handle it. They may have been worthy in heart, but not in body and vice versa. Surely you know Discord, do you not?”

Celestia nodded. “Y-yes, I know Discord. But what does he have to do with this?”

“Discord is one of the few beings I’ve met in my time as a god that I would say is close to ‘friend’ status. He’s the thirtieth god in the cycle of Gods of Destruction. We’ve both been in power for roughly the same amount of time, give or take a few hundred centuries or so. Like me, if he wants to find a replacement, he’d have to go out and cause untold chaos and meet someone who treats his chaos as normal. They must literally become chaos incarnate and embrace it as a part of themselves. In my case, I need to provide a challenge relating to what my role is. That’s why I need a champion. It’s the rules.”

Celestia was starting to grab an understanding of what Dragus had been saying. He felt exhausted being a god and wished to really and truly move on. But something bothered her. “What sort of god are you, if I may ask? I don’t know of any other being as old as Discord.

A sadistic grin started to form on Dragus’ scaly lips. “Me? I’m the God of Destruction and Conquest, though the ‘Conquest’ part is a title I’ve earned. Now, back to my dungeon. I have a few rules I’ve set in place. Rule number one is that there is not going to be any magic that gives an advantage other than what the Dungeon allows. Anyone who tries to do it will get a puff of smoke shot out of their horn. So no teleporting or trying to transform creatures into inanimate objects. Flying is also banned to an small extent, which they will find out upon entering. You also can’t fly to the top or you’ll die a hilarious death, like those pathetic excuses you call guards. The second rule is that you must kill at least one creature in the dungeon in order to qualify for my position. Can’t have a God of Sestruction who doesn’t kill things, can we?”

“Hold on, you can’t be serious. How will my ponies defend themselves if-”

Dragus stomped his foot on the ground, causing a large tremor to be felt all across the room. “DO NOT interrupt me while I am talking.” He cleared his throat. “The third rule is that there will be no cheating to get to the top, like the aforementioned flying or trying to climb any holes that appear due to the Dungeon tweaking a floor. And the final rule is that there can only be one winner. The first one to claim the prize wins! You have a month to prepare for the journey. Otherwise I will just select a random number of inhabitants from this world and have them all go in anyway. I’ll even use children if I have to. Good luck and remember, only the strong will win this challenge!”

The fact that Dragus did not hesitate to mention children shocked everyone in the room, a few even fainting. Celestia felt a tear stream down her face at the thought of a foal being torn from its mother.

“How could you even consider using a child for auch a nefarious purpose?!” Celestia barked.

“Because I can. Literally nothing can stop me from doing what I want. My job is to destroy literally anything and everything at a steady rate in this universe. As long as I do that, I’m not doing anything wrong. It comes with the job.” Dragus held up a claw behind himself, opening a cut in reality, revealing a black void. “Now, if you will excuse me I have other things I must see to. Good day.”

She tried to calm her nerves, but couldn’t stop herself from shuddering fearfully. She did not want to send anyone to their deaths, but knew that more lives would be lost if she didn’t comply with the deranged god’s will.

Celestia shook her head to snap herself out of her fear and turned to the guards standing at her throne. “Send word to Twilight Sparkle at once.”

Twilight Sparkle marched up the steps of Canterlot Station towards the familiar castle she grew up in, her five friends walking alongside her. Each looked above the castle itself,

“The hell is THAT?!” spoke a rather raspy and tom-boyish voice pointed at Dragus’ dungeon.

“I think it might be why we’re here, Rainbow Dash. Princess Celestia didn’t specify anything in the letter other than that we were needed immediately. Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll find out when we reach the throne room.”

The walk to the castle itself was filled with tension, especially including that the once busy streets were unusually barren. Upon reaching the throne room, Twilight opened the doors rather quickly, an expression of worry on her brow. “Princess Celestia, we came as soon as we received your summons. What’s going on? Why is there a giant floating building above the city?”

Celestia walked forward and hugged her student in a motherly embrace, making the tension in the room calm down. “It is as I said in the letter. Another fiend has threatened the harmony of Equestria and I was hoping you and the other Elements would be able to help as you have done in the past. A small draconic being of great power has come seeking a ‘champion’ to replace him, even killing many simply from making his dungeon appear. I fear there may be more deaths if we do not comply with his demands.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, let me get this straight. Some random midget lizard with crazy powers threatened to harm more ponies? The hell?!” added Rainbow Dash.

“Calm down Rainbow Dash. If at all, I would prefer to have nopony to get hurt. I called you all here to see if we can discuss ways to banish the dungeon and its master from both Equestria and the world.”

Rainbow Dash exhaled angrily. “Why don’t we just go in there ourselves and knock the bozo down a peg or two? We could totally take him!”

“I-I would prefer t-to not fight if we can help it. Especially if he’s as s-scary as Princess Celestia makes him out to be,” Fluttershy added, albeit quietly and with a frightened stutter. “Maybe all he needs is a friend, like with what happened with Discord.”

“Fat chance! He’s already killed like a DOZEN ponies. What makes you think he’d listen to reason. Guys like this only speak one language,” Rainbow Dash creacked her neck and punched her hooves together, “and that’s pain!”

Rarity stepped up underneath the floating blue pegasus. “I concur with Rainbow Dash. A ruffian such as this needs to be handled with extreme prejudice. Though I may not like being forceful, I will show him what for!”

“Now hold on there, sugarcube. Maybe Fluttershy is right. It don’t sit right with me endin’ another’s life just ‘cus they’ve hurt other. We should only be usin’ force after we try talkin’ this through. Violence only leads to more violence,” said Applejack. “And before you even say it, Pinkie, no he ain’t gunna want a party. Bad folks never do.”

The pink cotton candy earth pony looked towards the ground. “Aw phooey! How’d you know I was thinking that?”

“Because you always want to party,” the Elements speak in unison.

“It’s like you’re all up in my brain! Creepy!”

A smile of relief laid upon Celestia’s lips. “It eases my heart to know there is such eagerness to solve the matters at hoof, even if not all of you agree on one solution. But I really think you should try sealing him first. If it won’t work, then violence is our next best answer. I’ll have to send in a team of guards to dispose of Dragus. I’ll even-”

Twilight interrupted her mentor with a sharp hoof stomp. “No you won’t, Princess. You’re too important to let go somewhere as dangerous as the dungeon. If anypony should go, it should be us six. We’re no strangers to impossible odds and Equestria would be in even more danger if you died in some crazy floating castle.”

There was no doubt that Celestia knew this. The truth hurt more coming from her student’s mouth than from her own. Had there been any other option, Celestia would have tried it before summoning the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, but there wasn’t any.

A few hours of further discussion went by about what might happen should the six fail to seal away the cruel god. If push came to shove, they would all journey inside the dungeon themselves to defeat their foe.

While the Princess and her Element Bearers were conversing, word was spread throughout Canterlot by those who were in day court at the time that morning. After three days, the news spread like wildfire, nearly covering all of Equestria in barroom gossip and rumors. An impossible reward and fame for completing the dungeon.