Anon The Dragon Slayer

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Prologue

You are Anon, a dragon slayer and part of a sacred order of said dragon slayers. Your company travels far and wide and takes jobs from many a king to slay deadly dragons threatening to devastate their kingdoms. This job you were currently on was different though. You and your two comrades Sir Gregory, and Sir Ruder, were sent to kill what many people have been calling the Dragon Lord. The dragon’s name was Quirog. He was a dragon of insurmountable power and no one could truly grasp how powerful he was. That’s why your company sent you three, you three were the best of the best, elites of elites, trained personally by the company’s own leader Sir Brumer III. It was said that he could kill fully grown dragons by himself with ease and could return from the battle almost unscathed.

The three of you crossed the entrance to the cave. You were fully decked out in your dragon slayer armor made up of the scales of countless dragons you had already slain. Your helmet even bore resemblance to a dragon’s head. You checked your waist and your hand fell onto the hilt of the long sword you always lugged around, it was crafted from the strongest metal and was forged by Dwarven Lords, next you checked your back and sure enough your crossbow was in the same place hanging off your back like it always was, the crossbow was unremarkable but what you shot out of it wasn’t, you had enchanters enchant your crossbow bolts so they could inflict lightning on whoever got hit by them, dragons were weak to lightning so your crossbow was quite the reliable weapon to pull out during a pinch. “I don’t like this, not one bit.” Sir Ruder said as he surveyed the cave.

Sir Ruder was always the cautious one and was almost always one step ahead of the enemy. In fact he had saved your life one time when you almost stepped on a trap that would have opened up a pit where you would have fallen to your demise. You trusted Sir Ruder with your life and always listened to his sound judgment. “Oh calm down, you’re overreacting, we’ll just get in there, kill that dragon, and get out with our lives its as simple as that.” Sir Gregory said casually as he strode in deeper into the cave.

Sir Gregory on the other hand was as carefree as could be, but where he lacked in investigative abilities he made up for with his fighting prowess. You had seen the man clash and parry against dragons twice his size, ever since you saw that you always promised yourself to never piss him off or else you’d probably be in for a bad time. As you make your way deeper into the cave you start to feel something, you don’t know what it is but it feels like something isn’t right. It took every fiber of your being not to turn tail and run for the hills right there but you press on with your comrades. You finally make it to a huge room in the cavern. The inside of the room was filled with jewels, gold, weapons, armor, and just about any other valuable you could think of but no dragon.

Noticing that there was no dragon in what was supposedly the dragon’s hoard put you on edge. You put your hand on the hilt of your sword and look over and see that your comrades have done the same. Ruder was eyeing the room cautiously, taking in every detail. Meanwhile Gregory was trying to listen for any sounds. “You dare trespass in my domain.” Came a gravely deep booming voice that sounded like it was coming from inside your head.

“What is your reasoning for entering my cave, speak now mortals or be destroyed right where you stand!” The voice yelled as you cringed from the pain of having someone yell in your head.

You step forward while unsheathing the sword at your hip and holding it aloft. “We are here to slay you Quirog and bring peace of mind to the world!” You yell into the empty cave.

You hear laughing coming from your head. “Really now, just you three are going to slay me? Fine I’ll entertain you!” Quirog yelled as he suddenly appeared before you.

He was a huge dragon, probably the biggest you’ve ever seen in your entire life of dragon slaying. His black scales gleamed even though there was no light coming into the cave. He also had bright serpent-like eyes that seemed to stare into your very soul. Quirog roared, you had to cover your ears it was so loud. After he was done roaring you stared at your comrades “I’ll lead the charge, you two follow me!” You yelled.

“Be careful Anon, we don’t know how strong that dragon is!” Ruder yelled back in worry.

You nodded to him as you rushed Quirog with your sword raised. You gave a battle cry as you finally reached him and swung your sword down, but before it could hit Quirog he slapped you away. You flew through the air and collided on the cave wall with a loud crack. You scream out in pain as you feel several of your ribs break then you fall to the ground. “Hahahaha, utterly weak!” Quirog says as he slowly walks up to you intent on finishing you.

“Anon!” Gregory yelled as he rushed to your aid.

“hmmm, so you intend to get in my way, very well I shall dispose of you as well.” Quirog said as Gregory unsheathed his claymore.

“Just try it dragon breath!” Gregory retorted as Quirog roared and swung one of his mighty claws at him.

Gregory blocked the mighty blow with his sword and entered into a struggle of power with Quirog. Gregory was obviously having some trouble if his strained face was any indication. You quickly fumbled around at the small pack on your waist and opened it up and got out a vial of red liquid. You quickly quaff the healing potion and feel it doing its job as your ribs are slowly being restored to their former glory. Gregory is still battling Quirog when the dragon suddenly swipes at him with his tail. “Gregory look out!” You yelled in warning but it was too late as Gregory got hit by the tail and ended up as a stain on the wall of the cave.

You gritted your teeth in anger as you started to get up despite all the pain. Your ribs were now back in working order and you were ready to get back into the fight. “You’ll pay for that you bastard!” You yelled in anger as you got your sword ready.

“Meaningless words coming from a worm, do you truly think you can defeat me?” Quirog said as you charged him with your sword held high.

Quirog tried to slap you away again, but this time you saw it coming and dodged just in the nick of time then swung quickly at his outstretched arm. Quirog roars as your sword pierces his flesh. “T-that sword, no sword has been able to pierce me before!” Quirog yelled in confusion as you smirked.

“Ya you like that, its the strongest metal in the world, mithril!” Quirog simply looked down at you in anger and opened his mouth.

“No you don’t!” Ruder yelled as he threw a few bombs that land and explode in the dragon’s mouth.

Quirog coughed and hacked as he stared angrily at Ruder. “Fine you can die first then!” Quirog grabbed Ruder before he could react and simply crushed him in his claws.

Ruder gave out a bloodcurdling scream before his life was quickly snuffed out and Quirog tossed his corpse aside. “Ruder, Gregory...” So many emotions were swirling in your head, fear, anger, sadness.

You quickly charged at the dragon “I’ll avenge you both, your deaths were not in vain!” You yelled as Quirog simply laughed.

“I won’t kill you boy, I know something even more fun,” Quirog said as his claws were quickly encased in phantasmal shadows.

You quickly pulled out your crossbow and fired at Quirog who simply didn’t move. The bolt bounced off his thick hide as he laughed. “Now then I shall send you to another dimension where you’ll never bother me again!” Quirog said as his claws quickly come down on you.

You quickly close your eyes and brace for the impact. You waited and wait but there was no pain. confused you open your eyes and all you see is black. You scream but for some reason you can’t hear yourself. So this is how I die, I’m sorry Ruder, Gregory, I couldn’t avenge you. You think to yourself as sleep quickly overtakes you and you black out.

Chapter 1

“Lift your arms up boy, your stance is lacking!” Brumer yelled out his order to you as you lift up your practice sword.

Brumer nods as he picks up his sword as well. “Now one of the most important moves as a swordsman is the parry, time it just right and you can deflect an enemies attack and get an opening to strike.” Brumer explains as he gets into a parry stance.

“In this stance you can easily parry an attacker, its the most opportune stance as it gives you the most control.” You nod as you take up the stance as well and Brumer smiles at you.

“Now then let’s see how well all that training did for you.” Brumer says as he gets closer to you.

You eye him up and wait for his attack as he circles you. Before you know it he attacks as fast as lightning. Your tempted to try and parry right then and there but you know you have to wait or else you’ll get struck down with your poor timing. Right as his sword is mere inches from your sword is when you decide its the right time to act. You do as he had instructed and you parry his blow marvelously. Brumer looks surprised as you swipe away his sword and make him lose balance. Seeing your opportunity you strike, hitting Brumer across the chest. Brumer winces but smiles nonetheless. “You did great for your first time lad, that was impeccable timing. don’t forget to parry when you need to Anon, it could change the entire outcome of a battle with just a single move.” Brumer says as you nod to his words in understanding....

You wake up with a start and open your eyes. You start hacking and coughing as you breath in the fresh air. You don’t know how long you were out but miraculously your alive. You can’t believe it you survived! But as soon as joy comes to you its painted over by the aching thought of losing your two friends. People who have fought side by side with you for years. You clench your fist in anger as you speak “I promise, Gregory, Ruder, I will avenge you somehow.”

After calming down from your rage you finally take in the surroundings around you. You seem to be in some kind of forest. The tree leaves almost block out the sun and even though you can tell its sunny from the few rays of light shining through, all around you its dark. “What a peculiar place,” You say to yourself as you get up and dust off dirt and leaves from your armor.

“Wait didn’t that damn dragon say he would send me to another dimension? That must mean...” You look around and notice that your in a place that you’ve never seen or even heard about.

“So it must be true, I’m a stranger in a strange land.” Deciding now was as good as a time as ever, and since you wanted to survive this ordeal so you could get your revenge against that godly dragon, you decided to check your supplies.

You pull off the bag at your waist and open it up. Inside are about four healing potions, great for when your losing a fight and need a little pick me up. Next are about five fire flask bombs, you smile as the memory of the first time you and the new recruits ever used them. You had just joined the dragon slayers when they had given you these to practice with, You and the new recruits decided it was a good idea to throw them at one of the wooden dummies to see what would happen. Well lets just say a beating and an almost burnt down barracks later and you discovered how powerful these little flasks were. As you rummaged around you found a couple poison antidotes for dealing with those pesky venomous drakes that liked to inhabit the Heronoke mountains. Beside the antidotes were your trusty fire resistance potions, you had about four in total and while they tasted like shit, they have saved your ass many a time. Next to check up on was your food supply, you had about three bags full of jerky made from the local deer near the town of Roklo, your hometown as it so happened, with this much jerky it could last you at least three days if you rationed each bag carefully. Next you checked your leather water pouch only to discover that it was empty. “Shit.” You cursed under your breath as you packed up all your equipment and got ready to move.

You had to find some kind of river quick or else you would die of dehydration. You strode into the forest trying to listen for some sign of a river. After a few minutes of aimlessly wandering around you finally hear it, the sound of a babbling brook. Excited you run towards the source of the noise and find what you have been seeking. You grab your leather water pouch and quickly get to gathering as much water as you could. As you gather the water into your pouch you can’t help but look at your reflection in the water. You look disheveled underneath your helmet, your eyes are bloodshot and you start to feel the first signs of a headache. As you sit there transfixed on the reflected image of you playing off the water you hear a scream that startles you. It sounded close by, and from the sounds of it it seemed to be a woman in some kind of distress. Already standing at attention you quickly cap your water pouch and put it away as you slowly unsheathe your sword.

The bushes to the side of you start to rustle and you quickly take up a defensive stance in case the enemy tried a surprise attack. Out of the bushes jumps what appears to be an albino dragon with pink scales on top of its head in the shape of a Mohawk, although upon closer inspection you could mistake the spiny scales as hair just by the way it looks. Upon seeing you the dragon quickly runs to you. Putting your guard up you expect it to attack but instead it runs behind you and shouts “P-please s-s-save me!”

Confused, you don’t have long to assess the situation when a huge lion jumps out of the same bush. Although when you look at it closer it appears to have a scorpion like tail and wings. “Huh, a manticore, didn’t expect to meet one here, then again I don’t know what to expect in this new world.” You say to yourself.

Manticores were familiars of wizards and employed to guard their towers. Maybe there was a wizards tower close by with a crazy old coot who decided to have his manticores patrol the outskirts of his tower. As you think to yourself you notice the manticore sizing you up. It seemed to try to come to a decision to see if it wanted to test its luck against you, after all you did look like a dragon, so it probably thinks you’re another dragon with a weapon. After a few seconds that seemed to last forever the manticore finally decided to go for it, after all if it killed you it wouldn’t have just one meal, but two. The manticore roars as the dragon behind you screams and faints from pure shock. “What a miserable sight to see.” You say to yourself as you shake your head in disappointment.

Dragons where you came from were suppose to be vicious and fearsome, not cowards who fainted from just one manticore roar. Maybe dragons here were just all wimps. You shrug your shoulders at the thought as you stare at the manticore. The manticore leaps at you with it’s stinger outstretched. You dodge the stinger as it barely misses you. The manticore doesn’t let up though as it keeps whipping its tail at you, trying to trip you up and get a lucky shot in. As you dodge you slowly start to feel the fatigue, You can’t dodge forever after all, you still felt some of the soreness in your body from the battle with Quirog, And the fact that that dragon was still in the vicinity, one wrong swing of that tail could impale it and possibly kill it. Its not like you actually care for the dragon or anything, its just that since coming here it was the first thing that could speak and you could understand it, therefore that makes the dragon a valuable source of information on this world. Instead of dodging you switch up your stance to a more defensive one and start blocking the stinger.

The manticore is relentless as he pummels you blow after blow with his mighty stinger, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel the resounding ache in your arms. As your blocking, the manticore decides to switch up its strategy and starts swinging its mighty claws at you. Your eyes widen in surprise as you go to dodge the claws, but as you do you see the stinger out of the corner of your eye coming for you. Your helpless to do anything about it as the stinger makes contact with your armor and pierces through. You shout in pain as you feel the needlepoint of the stinger enter your abdomen and start pumping its venom into your system. “Fuck!” You shout in pain as the stinger retracts and you clutch your side where the stinger hit.

You have to finish this here and now, otherwise the venom is gonna get to you and you’ll be helpless and under the mercy of the manticore. You raise your sword into a new position as you wait for the manticores next move, the Brumer’s words echo in your mind “don’t forget to parry when you need to Anon, it could change the entire outcome of a battle with just a single move.”

You smile as you recall those words, a tear forming in your eye as you gain new resolve to finish this enemy. “Don’t worry Master Brumer. This dragon slayer sworn by oath won’t fall today, I will be victorious!” You yell out your battle cry as the manticore decides to use its tail again, this time aimed at your head with the intent of piercing your brain.

You only smirk as the tail gets closer. Not yet, gotta wait for it, little more, little more... Now! You say in your head as you flick your wrist and deflect the manticores stinger aside, throwing it off balance. The manticore gives a startled yelp as you close in and swing your blade. Your mighty mithril sword cuts through the manticore’s tail like butter. Half of it’s tail falls uselessly onto the ground as the manticore looks at its disembodied tail then back at you. Now deciding that two meals wasn’t worth its life, the manticore decides to turn tail and run away, all the while yelping in pain and terror as it does.

You smile wide as you thrust your sword into the sky and give out a victorious scream. As you do so however, you feel the pain in your side and quickly remember that your poisoned. “Shit, I didn’t expect to have to use one of these babies so early, but oh well.” You say to yourself as you open up your pack.

You find the antidote quickly and open it up before downing its contents. As you ingest the liquid cure you already feel it working its magic. You sigh in bliss as you feel a warmth coursing through your body as the antidote battles the toxins. Finally the feeling disappears and you feel right as rain again. After you toss the vial aside and sheathe your sword, you look over to the person you just rescued, or should you say dragon you just rescued. The whole scenario feels weird to you, after all, you were a dragon slayer. You were suppose to slay dragons not save their lives! But after shrugging that thought off you go over to help the poor thing. As you get closer to it you still can’t discern its gender. It does have a somewhat masculine snout, but on the other hand its body also looks somewhat curvy, you also notice that it looks to be about one foot shorter than you. Deciding that now wasn’t the best time to be ogling a dragon, you quickly pick it up and carry it bridal style.

As you put your arm under its legs you also feel its soft butt on your arm. “The fuck, when did dragons start having soft asses, man this world is full of surprises.” You say to yourself in wonderment as you start to carry it.

When you look up at the sky through the treeline you notice that its darkening. It must be late evening, which means it will be night soon. You had to make a camp and quick, before any other kinds of beasties decide to come out and play with you. After walking for about an hour you come upon a clearing. “This should do for now.” You say as you try to lay the dragon on the ground. As you try to though the dragon quickly latches its arms around your neck, refusing to be let go. “P-please, j-just five more m-minutes..” The dragon asks in its sleep as you scratch your head in puzzlement, trying to figure out a way to pry this lizard from your neck. After about ten minutes of prying and pulling you finally get the dragon to lay on the ground. It snoozes softly with a content smile on its face as you shake your head with a smile. This dragon sure was a puzzling creature, but you decide to let that thought go on the back burner as you decide to start setting up camp.

It takes you about an hour but you finally gather enough wood to start a fire. You set up the fire when you realize that you have no way of lighting. Cursing under your breath, you start to contemplate whether or not you should use one of your fire flasks just to start a stupid fire when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You quickly spin around unsheathing your sword when you see its just the dragon you saved. It gives a yelp and starts to cower before you. You sigh as you quickly sheathe your sword, making the dragon visibly relax. “Please don’t sneak up on me like that, there could be many monsters in these woods and I got to be ready for anything.” You say to the dragon as it nods its head while shaking.

You go back to wondering whether or not you should use your precious supplies when the dragon nervously walks up to the fire and blows out a bluish flame that catches the logs on fire. You can feel the warmth of the flames as you turn to the dragon who seems to be avoiding eye contact as much as possible. You didn’t get a good look at it before, what with the manticore attacking, but you now notice that it seems to have some striking red eyes as well as a pink underbelly. As it notices you checking it out it gets even more nervous as well as embarrassed, that fact made evident by the blush starting to form on its cheeks. “H-hi, m-my names F-Fizzle.” The dragon says, breaking you out of your trance as you look back up at its face.

It takes you a moment to realize that the dragon just introduced itself. “Oh, um nice to meet you, my names Anon, its uh, a pleasure to meet you.” You saw awkwardly, not really knowing what to say to a dragon.

Fizzle clacks their claws together, you can see they want to say something, but before they can speak whats on their mind you quickly interject. “So, are you a boy or a girl?” You ask Fizzle as they seem visibly taken aback by your answer.

“W-w-what...?”

“It’s a simple question, are you a boy or a girl?” You ask again as you see Fizzle’s cheeks flare to life once more with an even brighter blush.

“I-I’m a boy.” Fizzle says in embarrassment.

You nod to him as you flop down on the ground to sit near the campfire, enjoying the warmth it brings. Fizzle just stands there awkwardly while clacking his claws together. He seems to stand there in thought, as if hes trying to solve the worlds hardest question. He finally makes a move and decides to sit down by you near the fire. You both sit there for what feels like hours before he finally breaks the silence. “S-so um, thanks for s-saving me, without you I-I would have been manticore c-chow.” Fizzle says as he gives a little awkward chuckle.

“Don’t mention it, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, besides, I couldn’t just leave someone to die like that.” You say as Fizzle smiles.

“But boy am I s-sure lucky, to think another dragon just happened to be out here to s-save me.” Fizzle says as you give him a quizzical look.

That’s when you realize you’re still wearing the helmet. “I’m actually not a dragon.” You say to Fizzle as he gets a confused look.

“W-what do you m-mean?” He asks as you slowly take off your helmet and reveal your true face.

Fizzle yelps in surprise as he leaps back away from you. “W-what are y-y-you?”

“I’m a human.”

“A h-hooman?” Fizzle asks as you chuckle at his mispronunciation.

“Yes, I’m a human, I’m not from this world.” You explain to him as Fizzle starts to calm down, but he still looks confused.

“What d-do you mean you’re n-not from this world?”

“I'm a dragon slayer who was sent here by an evil dragon lord with the power to send others to different dimensions.” You explain to him as Fizzle gets a scared look on his face.

“D-d-d-d-dragon s-s-s-s-s-slayer!” Fizzle yells out in fear as you mentally kick yourself for letting that slip out.

“Don’t worry, I only slay evil dragons, dragons that slaughter and burn down villages, dragons that enslave people. I can tell you’re not one of them, and besides all that, I wouldn’t harm something as cute looking as you.” Did you just fucking call a dragon cute, the fuck is wrong with you.

As you mentally argue with yourself, you look up and see that Fizzle seems to be blushing even more now, if that was even possible. “D-do you r-really think I-I’m cute?” Fizzle asks in a bashful tone.

“Y-yeah, one of the cutest dragons I’ve ever seen.” You say as Fizzle gives a tiny squee.

At least you dodged that bomb. After Fizzle calms down he goes back to his original spot by you at the campfire. Only now he seems much friendlier, maybe too friendly, as you eye him in your peripheral looking at you. He seems to be studying you quite intensively as you look at him. Upon seeing you turn to him he immediately looks the other way. After about a minute of silence, Fizzle turns back to you while still not making eye contact, and asks “So, you m-mentioned something about a d-dragon lord?”

You nod your head as you stare into the fire. “Yeah, apparently the dragon had already razed a village when I was sent to stop it, after a mighty battle the dragon hit me with its claws and sent me here, to this world.” You say as Fizzle nods in understanding.

“Well, in this world we also have a dragon lord, although I think she’s not as ghastly as that other dragon lord sounds, h-her name is ember.” Fizzle says

You eyes light up at the mention of another dragon lord. Maybe, just maybe, if you could find this other dragon lord, you could have her send you back to your world. “Do you know where this dragon lord is?” You ask Fizzle in excitement as he nods.

“Yep, she lives in the Dragon Lands, I-its where I used to live before I left.”

“Do you think you could guide me there?” You ask as Fizzle looks up at the sky with an uncertain look on his face.

After he contemplates about something for a few minutes he lowers his head. “Yes, I could, i-its the least I could do after you s-saved my life.”

Finally feeling relief, and a goal you can work towards, you start to feel better about your predicament. I mean you may be trapped in another world where dragons are cute, and there’s dangerous manticores roaming in a forest that want you for lunch, but hey at least you have a guide and you aren’t wandering around blind. As you think to yourself both you and Fizzle sit in silence. You look at Fizzle as he stares into the fire. Its weird to think that you’ll be traveling with a dragon. You’ve heard of some dragon slayers actually taming dragons and using them to fly in the sky, and to fight alongside them. You always thought those guys were weirdos, well, looks like your the weirdo now. “Hey Fizzle, if the Dragon Lands used to be your home, why did you leave it?” You ask as Fizzle gets as stiff as a board.

After a few seconds he starts to fidget around nervously before finally answering “That’s something I-I’d rather not talk a-about.” Fizzle says as you just shrug.

Well if he doesn’t want to talk about it you’re not gonna force him too. “Hey Anon, you s-said you’re not from this world right?” Fizzle asks as you simply nod your head in response.

“Whats it like in your world?”

You sigh as you look up to the sky, you try to think where to even start, after a moment of thinking you finally decide on where to start. “I come from a world called Ermos, a land ruled by kings and queens. a place with lush grassy highlands, mountains as far as the eye could see, meadows with beautiful flowers, and waterfalls where the water cascades down forming a rainbow with its misty spray.” Fizzle looks at you with sparkling eyes and a wide smile.

“It sounds s-so beautiful.” Fizzle says with a face full of wonderment.

You chuckle lightly at him. “Yeah, it sure is.” You say as you stare up at the sky sadly.

Fizzle picks up on this as he looks down, looking as if he did something wrong. “S-sorry, you probably miss y-your world a l-lot.”

You smile to Fizzle as you ruffle his head scales a bit, making him blush. “Its alright, you don’t need to say sorry, you did nothing wrong.” You say to him as he seems to smile in return.

Before the conversation can continue further, you hear a rumbling coming from Fizzle who immediately gets embarrassed. You laugh as he begins to blush even more. “You hungry Fizzle?” You ask him as he shyly nods.

You open up your pack and get two of the bags of jerky out, one for you, and one for Fizzle. You hand one of the bags to Fizzle as he takes it with an appreciative smile. You open up your bag and start to eat some of the jerky when you hear a squee coming from Fizzle. “T-this stuff is amazing, what is it!” Fizzle says as you see him scarfing down the jerky.

You let out a small laugh as you answer him. “It’s jerky, came from my hometown back in my world.” You say with a hint of pride.

Fizzle licks his scaly lips as he finishes off the last of it. “Thanks for that Anon, I-I was really hungry, I hadn’t eaten anything in like, a day.” Fizzle says as you continue to eat from your bag.

You grab your leather water pouch and offer it to Fizzle who just stares at it with a funny look on his face. “Whats t-this?”

“It’s a container for water, its used by travelers so they don’t get thirsty on the road.” You explain to him as you uncap the pouch and hand it to him.

Fizzle doesn’t know exactly how to hold it but somehow manages to start drinking from it with a smile. After he’s done with it he hands it back to you. You take a drink as well, noticing Fizzle blushing as you do so. “So A-Anon, not to dig up any b-bad memories, but did you happen to catch the name o-of the dragon lord you fought?” He asks as you finish drinking.

You nod to him before answering his question. “His name was Quirog.”

Fizzle visibly stiffens up as he hears the name, which you notice right away. “Is something wrong?”

“O-oh its nothing, i-its just that, Quirog is the name of an old dragon lord here that got banished from this world a hundred years a-ago.”

Your eyebrows cock in intrigue as you hear what Fizzle just said. “Was he now, do you mind telling me the tale about him?” You ask Fizzle who nervously nods.

“W-well, a hundred years ago there lived a t-tyrannical dragon lord, all the dragons hated him for his absurd laws, and he ruled over all of them with an iron claw. Quirog wanted an easier way to dispatch anyone who dare s-spoke out against him so he started to research about how the b-bloodstone scepter worked.”

“Bloodstone scepter?” You ask in confusion before Fizzle continues.

“Yes the b-bloodstone scepter, any dragon who possesses it g-gets the powers of a dragon lord. W-well one of the things the bloodstone scepter could do was open portals to different dimensions, but in doing so you would drain a lot of p-power from the scepter and once it was depleted it would take about one hundred y-years for it to regain its power. Quirog k-knew this so he started to research the powers of the scepter. S-soon Quirog was able to create his own spell to send things into different dimensions.”

“Just like how he sent me to this world.” You say as Fizzle nods.

“H-he used that power to send other dragons away w-whenever they challenged his rule. After awhile of Quirog abusing this power, a group of dragons rose up to defeat him once and f-for all. They led a r-rebellion against him and stole the scepter from him and used the power to trap him in another d-dimension.”

You take a moment to process all this information. So Quirog was an evil dragon lord that lived in this dimension, who got sent to your world after being defeated by rebels. After thinking that, your mind wanders to a more important piece of information. “So the scepter can open portals to different dimensions, and the current dragon lord, Ember you said? Does she have the scepter now?” You ask as Fizzle nods.

You sigh in relief as you realize what this means. It means there’s a big chance you could return back to your world. “Thank you for telling me this Fizzle.”

“No p-problem.” Fizzle replies as you give out a yawn, all of today’s exertions coming back to you and making you feel exhausted.

“Well, I think its about time for some shut eye, we have a long day ahead of us.” You say as you lay down by the fire for warmth.

Fizzle lies down next to you as you start to get comfortable. “G-goodnight A-Anon.”

“Goodnight Fizzle.” You say as you look up at the night sky one final time before closing your eyes.

Before you can drift off into dreamland though, You feel a scaly arm wrap around your midsection. You open your eyes to see Fizzle cuddling you with a smile on his face. “H-hey Fizzle, do you think you could, um, get off me?” You ask but all you get in reply is snoring.

Whoa, hes already out cold. Do dragons always fall asleep this fast. You think to yourself as Fizzle nuzzles into your chest with a content smile on his face. You smile down at him before scratching behind his ears. Fizzle gives a blissful sigh as you continue to scratch his soft ears. This is pretty nice, you can’t remember the last time someone cuddled you in such a way. Actually, you’ve never had someone cuddle you like this. You finally decide to leave him be and give in to the job of being this dragon’s cuddle buddy. You close your eyes with a smile as you get whisked away to dreamland.

Chapter 2

“That was one hell of a shot Anon,” Gregory said as he pats you on the back before taking a swig of ale from his tankard.

“It was nothing, just a lucky shot is all?” You say as you give a dismissal wave.

“Look at that, he’s being modest, no one else could have shot that drake in the eye from that far away other than you, here’s to you.” Ruder says as he holds up his tankard.

You smile as you and Gregory lift up your tankards as well and clank them together. As soon as your tankards make contact with each other the tavern door bursts open and a lone knight walks in. His face was covered with a helmet and he was decked out in full plate mail. He unsheathes a mithril sword as he charges your group. “What the hell?” Ruder says in confusion as the knight stabs Ruder through the chest.

Ruder cries out in agony as Gregory takes out his sword and swings his blade down on the unknown assailant. The knight quickly pulls his sword out of Ruder’s chest and clashes swords with Gregory. The knight easily overpowers Gregory and swings his sword, cutting off Gregory’s head. “Nooo!” You yell as you pull out your sword and jump over the table you were sitting at.

Your swords clang together as mithril meets mithril. You both were evenly matched so you decide to kick a tankard at your feet, hitting the knight in the head and stunning him long enough for you to stab him with your blade. The knight grabs the sword and pulls himself along the blade until hes mere inches from your face. He pulls off his helmet to reveal that its you. “W-what, what kind of trickery is this?” You ask to no one in particular as he just laughs.

“You killed them, you lead them to their deaths, their demise was all because of you.” The fake you says, but the voice that comes out of his mouth isn’t yours, but Quirog’s.

“No, that’s not true!” You shout as you take your sword out and decapitate the fake you.

The head rolls to a stop as fake you looks up at you and starts laughing. “You’ll never succeed, you’ll die all alone in this strange world, you’ll never make it back, all of your efforts are for not.” Fake you continues to say.

You quickly punt the head out the window before you fall to your knees and grab your head. “This isn’t real, this is all just a dream,” You say as the world around you starts to melt away.

You look around you only to see an inky black void. Quirog materializes in front of you. He smiles down on you. “Your journey ends here.” He says in a booming voice as he opens his mouth and breaths out jet black flames. You can feel the pain as you start to burn in the flames. You want to get out of the flames but for some reason you can’t move. You scream out in pain as you quickly turn to dust.

“-ake up, A-Anon wake up!” You hear Fizzle yell as he shakes you awake.

You open your eyes and see Fizzle on top of you, just mere inches from your face. Your heart rate quickens as he gives you a smile. “Oh t-thank goodness, you were having a really b-bad dream, you were screaming and thrashing about. Y-You had me worried.” Fizzle says with relief as you start to blush.

“U-uh, Fizzle, do you think you could....” You say as Fizzle looks down and sees the position hes in.

Fizzle blushes as he gets up off of you. “S-Sorry about that Anon.” He says apologetically.

“It’s fine.” You say as you get up and put your helmet on.

What was that just now. When you saw Fizzle’s cute snout so close to your face, you felt something. You’ve never felt like that before, could Fizzle be using a charm spell? You remember one time when a woman tried to enter into your stronghold. She used a charm spell on the guards and they let her in. Well one of the dragon slayers who was well versed in magic caught her. He could tell she was using a spell just by looking at her, that’s because when a person is using a charm spell, the user’s pupils turn into the shape of a heart. After she was caught she was sent to the gallows, and lets just say, she couldn’t charm her way out of that one.

You look at Fizzle who is currently turned away from you. You decide to see if hes using charm magic or not, so you start to sneak up on him. When you get near him you put both hands on his shoulders and turn him around. You stare deeply into those piercing yet adorable red eyes he has. “A-Anon, w-what are y-you doing?” Fizzle asks as his face turns a bright shade of red.

You ignore him as you continue to study his eyes, you see that his pupils are indeed normal. More importantly, your faces are really close. You can feel his breath on your face as you continue to stare into his eyes. You could kiss him right now if you wanted to. Wait, what the hell are you thinking, and why were you thinking it. You shake your head as you let go of the embarrassed dragon as he just stares at you with a confused expression on his face while he clacks his claws together nervously. You give a nervous cough as you ask “Well, um, shall we get going?”

Fizzle nods as he starts walking, with you following right behind him. As you do you get a perfect view of Fizzle’s soft looking behind. It looks quite firm and supple, just looking at it makes you want to feel what its like in your hands. You shake your head, now was not the time for that, you had more pressing matters to deal with. “So whats the plan?” You ask as you continue to follow Fizzle.

“Well f-first I’d like to go see a zebra who lives in this f-forest, her names Zecora. S-Shes letting me live with her, in exchange I-I go out and get her ingredients for potions, yesterday I was picking some plant for one of her many brews when I-I started getting chased by that m-manticore.” Fizzle recalls the memory as he shivers from fear.

A potion maker eh, you wonder if they have the ingredients to make your kind of potions here. While you doubt it, it would be quite good fortune if the stuff you needed for even one health potion existed in this world. As your thinking this Fizzle continues to speak. “A-After that we’d have to travel all the w-way to the badlands, its where another o-one of my friends live, they can fly us to the d-dragon lands.”

“Fly?” You ask with a hint of confusion.

“Y-Yes fly, the dragon lands are a-across the ocean.” Fizzle explains as you nod your head in understanding.

You both keep walking along in silence, you notice Fizzle looking at you over his shoulder occasionally when he thinks your not looking. You just shake your head as you try to get your emotions straight. Right now your mind was a mess, could you really be falling for this dragon. You just met yesterday yet your already feeling like this. Come on Anon, your a dragon slayer not a dragon dater. Yet as you think that, you still can’t get the image of Fizzle so close to your face out of your head. His cute snout, his adorable eyes, how soft he felt when he cuddled up against you. As you’re thinking this you hear a yelp that brings you out of your thoughts.

You look up to see that Fizzle is gone. “Fizzle, where are you?” You yell out as you start to go looking for the timid dragon.

“O-Over here, o-ow.” Fizzle responds back as you run to the source of his voice.

You get to a little slope, and at the bottom of the slope is a swamp. Fizzle was currently on his hands and knees in the water with a pained look on his face. “Are you okay Fizzle?” You asked worriedly as you slide down the slope to Fizzle.

You reach Fizzle and look down at him to see him holding his side. “Let me take a look at it.” You say as you kneel down towards Fizzle.

“I-I’m fine, i-its just a small s-scratch.” Fizzle says dismissively as you grab the hand he was using to cover up the injury and pull it aside.

It seemed to be a small gash, it wasn’t that deep but it was deep enough to draw blood, you look down into the swamp and see the sharp rock he must have landed on, you look at it with a grimace. Poor guy, that must have been painful to land on. Looking up at Fizzle, you notice the pained expression on his face, just by that look you can tell that it probably stung quite a lot. You hate to see the poor drake like this. Without a word, you hoist him up into your arms as he gives a startled eep. “A-Anon what a-are y-you d-doing?” Fizzle asks as he blushes, but you don’t say a word as you carry him out of the swamp water and lie him down on the dry ground.

You open up your pack and get one of the few health potions you have and uncork it. Fizzle notices this and looks at the potion with a curious gaze. “What i-is that Anon?” He asks as you kneel down to his level.

“It’s a health potion, it should heal that cut you have.” You explain to him as you go to give him the health potion, however, when you do Fizzle holds his hands up in defiance.

“You don’t n-need to waste that on me Anon, I-I’m not worth i-it.” Fizzle says as he looks down with a frown.

“How could you say that Fizzle. Of course you’re worth it.” You tell him as you put a hand on his scaly cheek.

Fizzle looks up to you with a confused expression. “All I want is for you to smile Fizzle, I hate to see you like this.” You tell him genuinely, Fizzle starts to tear up at your words.

“D-Do you really m-mean that Anon?” Fizzle asks as tears start to roll down his face.

“Of course I do Fizzle,”

“T-Thank you Anon.” Fizzle says as he hugs you, you return the hug as you pat him on the back.

Fizzle lets go of you and you hand him the potion. He accepts it gratefully and gulps it down. Pretty soon the cut on his side heals up and Fizzle is alright again. You both get up off the ground and Fizzle looks at you with a blush, when you turn to him you see him look the other way. “T-Thanks again A-Anon.” Fizzle says as you wave your hand dismissively.

“Don’t worry about it Fizzle, after all what are friends for.” You smile at him as he blushes even more.

“Y-Yeah f-friends, h-heh.” Fizzle chuckles lightly as you pat him on the back.

“Well, let’s continue on our way, and this time I’ll be right beside you so something like that doesn’t happen again.” You tell him as he nods appreciatively and you both continue forward.

You sigh as you think to yourself. You really did that didn’t you, normally you wouldn’t have wasted such a precious resource on such a minor cut. But seeing Fizzle in pain, it just stirred something within you. You never want to see Fizzle in that kind of pain again, that’s when you vow to yourself to always protect Fizzle, so no harm will ever come to him. You don’t think your heart could take seeing him hurt again. Your thoughts are interrupted when Fizzle points to a lone hut in the woods. “There it is, t-that’s Zecora’s h-house.”

You examine the hut, noticing some type of tribal masks as well as decorations of some sort hanging from the huts branches. All in all, it looks like a place where a dark arts user would practice their magic. Especially the tribal masks, plenty of dark arts users collected them, saying something like it boosted their potential when they had them around. As you think this, the door to the hut opens and out walks what looks to be a horse, with black and white stripes across its body. “Ah Fizzle there you are. I was searching for you near and far.” The horse says as Fizzle waves to her.

“Hey Z-Zecora.” Fizzle says as he walks up to her. So that was Zecora, you’ve never heard of talking horses before.

Zecora looks over at you with an intrigued look. “And who might this be? I’ve never seen something such as he?” Zecora asks as Fizzle clacks his claws together nervously.

“I’m a human.” You tell her as she simply nods.

“H-He saved my l-life when I was b-being chased by a m-manticore.” Fizzle explains to Zecora.

“Hmm, well stranger that I’ve never met. Since Fizzle trusts you, you can come inside so don’t fret.” Zecora says as Fizzle smiles.

“Thanks Z-Zecora.” Fizzle says as Zecora nods with a smile.

Zecora signals for you and Fizzle to follow her as she walks back to her hut. “Now come, I am working on a potion. Let’s hurry up, before there’s an explosion.” Zecora says teasingly as you both follow her inside.

You really were hoping she was kidding about that, the last thing you need was some kind of weird magical burn from an accidental potion explosion. As you all enter Zecora’s hut, the smell of incense hits you immediately. You plug your nose as you look around, you see a lot more tribal masks as well as a huge cauldron in the middle. Many potions line the shelves on the walls as well, each one a different color. “Zecora, I-I have something to t-tell you.” Fizzle says as he clacks his claws together.

Zecora looks at him, waiting for him to speak. “I-I’ve decided to travel with A-Anon here. W-We need to get back to the d-dragon lands.” Fizzle says as Zecora gives Fizzle a worried look.

“The way to the dragon lands is very far. And the trip there might be very bizarre.” Zecora says as Fizzle nods.

“I-I know it might be d-dangerous, but I made u-up my mind. I w-want to travel with Anon.” Fizzle says with a determined look on his face.

Zecora sighs before nodding in understanding before walking over to one of the shelves that held the many potions. “If you want to keep your goal in sight. First you need to some insight.” Zecora says as she picks up a purple potion then walks over to you.

She hands the potion to you as you take it and look at it skeptically. “You want me to drink this?” You ask as you point to the sketchy potion in your hand.

Zecora simply nods as you turn to Fizzle for his opinion. Fizzle just rubs his arms nervously before giving you an awkward shrug. You sigh as you uncork the potion. “Well, what do I have to lose.” You say as you quickly drink the contents of the potion.

You feel nothing as you look Zecora. “Sooo, is this suppose to do something or-” Before you can finish that sentence, an intense headache racks your brain.

You fall to your knees as you scream out. This is the most pain you’ve ever felt in your life. As you sit there holding your head, Fizzle comes up beside you and quickly embraces you. “A-Anon, whats wrong, w-what did you do to him Z-Zecora?” Fizzle yells out in anger, making your headache worse.

Before you can hear Zecora’s answer though, you black out. The pain immediately stops and is replaced with a feeling of bliss. You sigh as you float there in the black empty void, not having a care in the world. Suddenly you find yourself in a field of flowers. The sun is shining brightly as you sit there amidst the flowers, soaking in the sunshine. You start to feel incredibly hot as you see fire all around you. Then your in the inky black void again, this time Quirog is there staring at you with malice. He opens his mouth to breath hot fire when a bright light shines around you both. It’s an incredibly bright light as both you and Quirog have to cover your eyes.

The light gets closer to you and soon you are engulfed in its bright embrace. You stop covering your eyes as you see the source of the light is Fizzle. He floats besides you with a warm smile on his face as he extends his hand to you. You look at it before reaching for it and grasping his tender hand in yours. The light around you brightens as you do so, making Quirog roar in pain before disappearing in a puff of inky black smoke. You feel overwhelming happiness when you see him disappear before suddenly feeling intense sadness. You realize the reason for this as you look back to Fizzle and see that he is floating away from you while waving. You reach out to him but fail to grasp him as he continues to float away from you. Soon he too disappears in a puff of smoke. your left there in the void, all alone. All you feel is sadness and loneliness before you black out.

You feel a warmth beside you as your eyes open. You look down to see Fizzle cuddling you while you both are on the floor of Zecora’s hut. The headache that you had before you blacked out is gone, instead you feel, calm. As you stir you see Fizzle waking up. He stretches and yawns. You smile, He looks really adorable right now. Fizzle opens his eyes and sees you and immediately he lunges at you, wrapping you up in the tightest hug you’ve ever had in your life. “Oh A-Anon, I’m so glad you’re awake!” Fizzle yells out in happiness as you chuckle while petting his head.

“How long was I out for?” You ask as Fizzle nuzzles into your chest.

“You were o-out for 2 days, I was so worried A-Anon.” Fizzle says as Zecora walks up to the both of you.

“Fizzle has been with you since you passed out. I told him not to worry but he had his doubts.” Zecora says as you and Fizzle get up off the floor.

“Really now?” You say as you look at Fizzle with a smile as Fizzle looks away with a blush on his cheeks.

You look at Zecora who seems to be getting together a big backpack of supplies ready. When she’s done she hands it over to you. “Thank you Zecora.” You say as you take the backpack.

You look inside it and see lots of water and food that could last you for awhile. You then see Fizzle go to a corner of the room and pick up a small bag filled with something. Before you can question him what it is he opens it up and takes out what looks like a ruby. You watch as Fizzle consumes the ruby to your astonishment. “Wait, dragons eat gems?” You ask as Fizzle nervously nods.

“We d-don’t need to eat them, but they t-taste delicious to us dragons.” Fizzle says as you ponder his words.

Dragons back on your world didn’t eat treasure, usually they just hoarded it because dragons were inherently greedy. as you think this, Zecora opens her front door and gestures for both you and Fizzle to walk outside with her. You follow her until she gets to what seems to be a dirt path that leads deeper into the forest. “To start your journey, first you must walk to the south of the Everfree. Then when you leave the forest you must walk southeast into the desert where it is above a hundred degrees.” Zecora says as both you and Fizzle nod.

You look at Fizzle and he shyly looks away from you. You clasp his shoulder as Fizzle slowly looks over to you. “Are you ready to begin our grand journey?” You ask as you see determination in Fizzle’s eyes.

“I a-am Anon, lets walk down this path t-together.” Fizzle says as you smile and give him a thumbs up.

You both start to walk off while waving goodbye to Zecora. “T-Thanks a lot Zecora. Wish us luck.” Fizzle says as Zecora waves back as you both go deeper into the forest.

After what feels like hours of walking through the forest Fizzle finally points in front of him. “There it is, t-the forest’s exit.” Fizzle says as you look ahead.

Indeed, you can see the exit to the forest just ahead. Beyond the forest you see the bright blue sky. The sun shining down on the ground below is a welcome sight to you, you’ve had enough of this dark and dreary forest. You and Fizzle walk towards the entrance. When your near the exit you hear a howl pierce through the air.

The howls sounded close, you unsheathe your sword as you get in front of a shivering, scared Fizzle. “Stay behind me Fizzle!” You order as you investigate your surroundings.

“T-T-T-T-Timberwolves!” Fizzle exclaims as the wooden wolves reveal themselves.

The wolves jump out of the bushes surrounding the path you were walking on. They growl and bark at you as they circle around you. “Timberwolves?” You ask Fizzle as he nods.

“T-T-They're wolves m-made out of w-wood.” Fizzle says fearfully as he looks at the wolves circling you both.

Wolves made of wood huh. This is definitely something you’ve never seen before. The only thing you can really compare it to is the treants of the great elk woods to the north. Those monsters would attack any travelers that dared to enter their forest. Maybe the timberwolves were similar. As you study your opponents you notice a bigger timberwolf in the back of the pack. It seemed to have some sort of scar over its eye and seemed to be barking orders to the others. So, that was the alpha. If you could take that thing out first then hopefully the rest of the pack would fall. You just had to find a way to get there. You also couldn’t forget about Fizzle. You had to protect him or else these wolves might rip him to shreds.

As the wolves circle you, one of them seems a little eager too rip your throat out, and lunges at you. You swing your sword and slice through the timberwolf, leaving nothing but twigs in your wake. You chuckle to yourself. “They don’t seem that bad.” You say as you look for your next target.

“Anon l-look out!” Fizzle yells as two more timberwolves lunge at you.

You make quick work of them, swinging your sword and decapitating them before they can reach you. After you've dealt with them, another one lunges at Fizzle, clearly seeing that hes the easiest prey here. It’s the timberwolves last mistake as you cleave it in half. “T-Thanks Anon.” Fizzle says appreciatively as you give him a thumbs up.

“Don’t worry Fizzle. I won’t let any harm come to you.” You reassure him as Fizzle looks up at you, his eyes sparkle with an adoring gaze.

The pack still circle around you, then they fall back to the alpha. They just stand there looking at you, why are they just standing there, aren’t they going to attack you. As you think that, the alpha barks so loudly that it echos throughout the forest. It makes your skin crawl just hearing it. You notice that all of the remains of the other timberwolves as well as the ones next to the alpha start to move towards their leader. The various sticks and twigs start to attach to the alpha as it seems to be getting bigger, soon it stops growing after it absorbs all of the timberwolves. This huge timberwolf is about the size of a dire wolf back where your from. Dire wolves were a real problem for farmers since they couldn’t stop them on account for how dangerous they were, and they’d always eat the farmers livestock, leaving them with almost nothing left. They got so bad one time that the kingdom actually hired an entire mercenary group just to deal with the dire wolf packs. The mercenaries weren’t just your run of the mill hired swords either, the kingdom had hired the iron brigade. One of the most famous mercenary groups around.

As you think that, the huge timberwolf in front of you howls, you and Fizzle actually have to cover your ears its so loud. After recovering from the howl, you study the timberwolf and come to the conclusion that normal weaponry isn’t going to work here. If anything, all that’s gonna happen is the timberwolf will probably just reassemble again, and you’ll just end up tiring yourself out. No, what you needed to do was light this sucker on fire. You open up your back to try and grab a fire flask when the timberwolf lunges at you. “Shit.” You say as you push Fizzle out of the way and get snatched up in the timberwolf’s jaws.

The timberwolf tries to impale you with its wooden fangs, but since they are just made of wood it doesn’t pierce your armor. The timberwolf notices this and starts to shake you around like some kind of dogs chew toy. While you wouldn’t be physically harmed, if the timberwolf kept this up you would soon pass out from all the shaking. “A-A-Anon!” Fizzle yells in worry as he sees your predicament.

“T-Think Fizzle think, I n-need to save A-Anon.” Fizzle says as he quickly thinks up a solution.

Even though your being shaked around, you can see Fizzle open up his mouth and breathe out a whitish blue flame. You see the flames catch on the timberwolf’s paw and it stops shaking you. It looks down at its paw that’s on fire and immediately drops you. You fall to the ground as the timberwolf yelps in pain and runs away deeper into the forest, presumably to find some kind of lake or pond to put itself out in. You get up when you are suddenly embraced by Fizzle as hes crying tears of joy. “A-A-Anon I’m so g-g-glad your a-alive, I t-thought that was the e-end of you.” Fizzle says as he nuzzles into your chest, wet tears falling onto your armor.

You pat his head with a smile. “Thanks a lot Fizzle. You really saved my hide back there.” You say to him as he continues to embrace you.

“Guess that means you don’t have to help me anymore.” You tell him as he looks up at you with a shocked expression.

“W-What do you mean?”

“Well, you were only helping me because I saved your life. Now that you saved mine your debt is repaid, a life for a life.” You tell him as his smile turns into a frown.

“I-I don’t c-care about t-that Anon. I-I want to h-help you b-because I care a-about you.” Fizzle says

“Really? Why would you care so much about someone like me, we haven’t even known each other that long?” You ask as Fizzle smiles at you.

“Cause, y-your really nice t-to me A-Anon. Y-You saved my life, a-a complete stranger. Your t-the first person to n-not make fun of me or get s-scared of me. Y-You treat m-me like a normal p-person Anon. I c-can also tell your a g-good and honest person. S-Someone who would risk everything f-for someone they d-don’t even know. T-That’s why I care about you A-Anon, that’s w-why I want to h-help you.” Fizzle says as he blushes a deep red.

You smile back at him as you return his hug. Maybe you were falling for this dragon, but is that such a bad thing. Sure all your life you had been slaying dragons, and it might take some getting used too. But maybe it could work out. Hell stranger things have happened. You remember when that guy married that centaur. They seemed to have a pretty good relationship, and they seemed to genuinely care for each other. Maybe the same could happen for you. Come on Anon, just tell Fizzle how you feel. You open your mouth to speak but just freeze there. Fizzle starts to look at you weird. Come on Anon, why can’t you do it, its not that hard just tell him. “A-Anon are you ok?” Fizzle asks worriedly as you shake your head to clear your thoughts.

“Y-Yeah Fizzle, I’m fine,” You lie as he ends the embrace and you let out a sigh.

“Well Fizzle, lets get going. Our big adventure starts here.” You say with enthusiasm as Fizzle nods happily.

You both exit the forest together to begin your quest. Telling Fizzle your feelings will have to wait for now. Right now you have a journey to begin, dragon lands here you come.

Author's Note

took a bit to write this one lol, but I hope you guys like it. :)

Chapter 3

It’s been several days since both you and Fizzle set off from the Everfree forest. Fizzle had suggested that you both walk along the train tracks so you both won’t get lost when trying to find a town called Dodge City. Apparently Fizzle had come across this town when he left the badlands which were just south of this town. He said that the ponies there were scared of him at first but eventually let him stay there for a little bit before he began to travel again. In the time that you two had been traveling from the Everfree, Fizzle has told you about where he used to live. He said that the dragon lands were where all of dragon kind lived. You were quite surprised to here that dragons even bathed in lava. Dragons back where you’re from couldn’t do that, unless they were a fire drake of some sort, otherwise they would just die in it like anyone else.

Fizzle even mentioned that the island was where phoenixes also lived. Legendary birds who could die and be reborn anew, you had those back in your world too. Fizzle explained that dragons also liked the taste of phoenix eggs and that him and some of the dragons he used to be friends with would go and raid nests for their eggs sometimes. Fizzle also told you about a creature that you had never heard of before, slingtails. Apparently these creatures would hurl boulders at anything that they saw. After they killed their prey they would then extract the carcass and devour it. You shiver at the thought of such a creature. The only thing that even comes remotely close to it would have to be the frost trolls of Gregore Peak. Those nasty monsters would hurl boulders at people trying to scale the mountain, as well as any wild life that came near it. Just like the slingtails they too would then eat the dead body of whatever they killed.

Fizzle was also interested in your world as well as you. You told him how ever since you were just a little child you had trained with the sword. You were originally a squire to some pompous knight before the dragon slayers took interest in you. You remember that day like it was yesterday. The knight you were squiring had gotten himself killed by a rather dangerous beast. A thing called a Quillbear, these beasties were bears who had dangerous spikes all around their back. They had the ability to roll their bodies, making them dangerous foes up close. After the knight was impaled on one of the large spikes. You quickly unsheathed your sword and charged the beast. It had rolled at you while you swiftly stepped aside and swung your sword, cutting its jugular open. After you had defeated the creature, you were surprised to see the leader of all the dragon slayers himself ride up to you. Brumer had offered you a place amongst their ranks and you had accepted the offer without a second thought.

It was a hard life after that. Every single day you were training hours on end, never getting a break until the sun went down. Brumer himself had personally trained you, he seemed to see that you had some kind of potiential. Even know you don’t know what he was thinking, sure you were good at fighting, but you don’t think you were amazing at it. After you had finally proven yourself, Brumer had tasked you with killing an ice drake that was located at Gregore Peak. That’s where you had first seen the frost trolls. Your life was almost ended by them as their boulders had almost taken your head countless times. You had finally made it to the cave where the ice drake lived. After a few swings of the blade you had brought it down and swiftly ended its life. After that you had become a full fledged dragon slayer.

Even though you were talking about slaying dragons, Fizzle didn’t seem to mind. He just listened to you talk about your past as he oohed and aahed at certain moments. Fizzle had also told you that his favorite gems to eat were rubies, you asked him why and he told you that they tasted just like cherries. At one point during your journey, a thing that Fizzle calls a train went right by you both. You thought it was a monster and Fizzle had to stop you from throwing one of your fire flasks at it.

Right now you and Fizzle were still walking next to the tracks, the sun beating down on both of you as you do. While you were grateful to be free from the confines of the forest, the hot sun was proving to be its own problem. “Hold on Fizzle, I need a break.” You say as you fall on your ass.

“A-Alright,” Fizzle says as he sits across from you, staring at the ground.

Even though you both have been traveling for quite awhile, he still avoids eye contact. You sigh as you open up the backpack Zecora gave you and take out a water pouch for both you and Fizzle. You toss one over to him and he catches it and starts drinking as you do the same. You then take out some of the food Zecora had supplied you with, it was mostly a bunch of salads. While you didn’t mind eating veggies, you were starting to crave meat. As you both ate in silence, you heard the rumbling of a train coming. You still weren’t used to the things, as it started to roar past you. You could see the various ponies on board as the train went by you. Fizzle was covering his ears from the noise while you just stared at the metal monstrosity. Soon it passed both of you and started to grow smaller in the distance as it chugged along to its next destination.

Before you could continue eating however, you saw a spear being pointed at your throat. You look up to see what appears to be an upright dog wearing iron armor, its fur a sandy yellow. Surprised, you try to go for your sword but when you do, you feel the spear tip poke your throat. “Don’t move, or we kill yes.” Says the doglike creature with a sickening smile.

You narrow your eyes as you jump back from the spear and unsheathe your sword. “A-A-Anon!” You hear Fizzle yell as you turn to him.

Fizzle is surrounded by more of the doglike creatures as they all point their spears at him. “You make funny move, we kill funny looking dragon.” One of them says.

You curse under your breath as you look around you. Many more of them are coming up from the ground. It reminded you of the zombies that roamed the Placade Plains. They would also claw their way up to the surface. You wonder how you could have missed so many of these things, when you realize how you curse under your breath. They must have come when the train was going by you so they could mask the noise they’d make. You sheathe your sword as many more of the creatures circle around you with their spears pointed at you. You raise your hands up as they poke and prod you with the spears. “Funny looking creature. Will be good to work in mine.” One of them says as you raise an eyebrow at them.

So they plan to take you both as slaves. You sigh as they begin to poke you so you’ll follow them. They surround both you and Fizzle as they start to lead you somewhere, where that is you don’t know. You look over to Fizzle and see him on the verge of tears. Your heart sank as you saw him. You put your hand on his shoulder “Don’t worry Fizzle, we’ll find a way out of this somehow.” You whisper to the sad dragon.

He seems to appreciate your words as he starts to smile. “Thanks A-Anon.” Fizzle says appreciatively.

You soon come to a big hole in the ground as the guards poke and prod you towards it. “Get down in hole now!” Yells one of the guards behind you as he pokes you again.

“Whoa watch it with that thing.” You say as he pokes you again.

You’re right on the edge as you try to keep yourself steady, but with another poke of a spear, you fall down the hole. You scream as you fall, it’s not a long fall, and soon the hole slopes into a slide as you ride it all the way down. Your sliding on your back when you finally hit the bottom. You stay on your back to catch your breath when you hear Fizzle screaming as well before he collides right into your stomach, knocking the wind out of you. As you cough and try to catch your breath, Fizzle quickly gets onto his feet. “I’m s-so s-sorry Anon, I d-didn’t mean t-to.” Fizzle apologizes as you slowly get up.

“Its fine Fizzle, just need to catch my breath is all.” You say as you see all the other dog guards slide down and join you.

“Keep moving, you go to jail cell now!” Orders one of the guards as they continue to lead you deeper into the caverns.

The caverns are lit by numerous torches on the walls. Gems seem to glitter all around, making Fizzle’s eye wander to them. Fizzle licks his lips as he sees all the gems embedded into the walls. You chuckle softly as Fizzle blushes in embarrassment. You finally come to a room that has many jail cells in it, You can actually see a pony trapped here as well. These dogs must capture unlucky travelers when their guard is down, then bring them down here and make them slaves. As you think this, the dog behind points his spear at you. “You take stuff off now!” The dog ordered as you blush slightly.

“Uhh... do I have to?” You ask as the dog points his spear at you.

“Alright, alright.” You say as you start to take off your armor.

As you do, you see Fizzle look away with a blush on his face. After you finally take off all your equipment and hand it to the dog, he pushes you and Fizzle into the same jail cell. You fall to the ground landing on Fizzle as the guard closes the gate. “Slaves stay here till diamond dogs know where to put you.” Said the guard as he walked away.

So, their species were diamond dogs and they liked to live underground. Kinda reminded you of kobolds. Nasty little beasties those were. While they weren’t big or remarkably strong, they were still a big threat in large numbers. They could overtake a whole knight squad if there was enough of them. They also lived underground, and spent most of their days mining ores. Miners hated them, and would often post up jobs to rid a mine of a kobold clan that had moved in. if these diamond dogs were similar to kobolds, then they probably mined too. That was probably why they kept slaves, so they could do the work for them and they wouldn’t have to break a sweat. “U-Umm... Anon?” Fizzle says as he is pinned down underneath you, looking away from you as he blushes.

You quickly get up off of him, “Sorry bout that Fizzle.” You say apologetically with a blush as Fizzle doesn’t get up.

“I-Its o-o-ok... I’ll j-just s-stay down h-here.” He says as he stays laying down.

You look down at your bare body, feeling very vulnerable. All you had on was your underwear, the diamond dogs had taken everything from you. But it was fine, when you found a way out of here you would find where they were keeping your stuff, then you and Fizzle would make your great getaway. You sigh as you sit down on the floor. As you do, a diamond dog comes up to your cell with two plates in its paws. It throws them both inside as they fall to the floor. “Here’s your gruel.” The diamond dog says as it goes to turn around.

As he does, both you and Fizzle see the huge ring of keys on his side. You and Fizzle both look at each other and nod. You quickly get up and go to the bars. “Hey hold on a sec.” You say as the diamond dog turns around.

“Huh, you talking to me?” The diamond dog asks as you nod your head.

“Uh, yeah, so what are diamond dogs anyway, I mean I know you’re dogs but is there anything else?” You ask as Fizzle gets into position out of the dog’s line of sight.

“We are strong, strongest there is. Nothing better than diamond dog.” The dog says as he flexes.

“I see, what else?” You ask with fake intrigue as Fizzle starts to extend his hand out of the bars and towards the key ring.

“We mine gems, make slaves mine gems. Capture dumb ponies and make them mine gems.” The diamond dog says as you nod.

“I see, and do you have a leader of some sort?” You ask as Fizzle slowly takes the key ring off and puts his hand behind the bars again.

“Yes we do, King Mongrel. He strongest and wisest diamond dog.” The diamond dog says as you nod.

“Ah, I see, well that’s all I wanted to ask.” You say as you go back to sitting down.

The diamond dog looks confused for a second but then shrugs and goes back to do his rounds. As soon as he’s out of earshot you turn to Fizzle with a huge smile. “Amazing work Fizzle.” You say as you ruffle his head scales.

Fizzle gets a blush as he scratches the back of his head nervously. “I-It was nothing. Just s-something I learned while living in the d-dragon lands...” Fizzle says as he looks down shyly.

“Well thanks to you we have our golden ticket out of here. We just gotta wait for the guards to go a bit lax before we can make a break for it.” You say as Fizzle nods in understanding.

After waiting for awhile, you notice that the guards are showing up less and less. You decide that now was a good time to make your move. You take the key ring and start testing out the different keys on it. Soon you hear a click as your cell door opens. You and Fizzle smile as you exit the cell. You quickly scan the surrounding area for any guards, but to your relief there is none. “Alright Fizzle, lets get going.” You say as you start to walk, but Fizzle grabs your wrist.

“A-Anon, we can’t j-just leave that poor p-pony here.” Fizzle says with a frown.

You sigh as you look at him, he’s giving you those puppy dog eyes. You sigh again in defeat as you nod to Fizzle. “Sure, lets get them out of that cell.” You say as Fizzle smiles.

“Thanks A-Anon, I knew I could count on y-you.” Fizzle says as you wave at him dismissively.

“Yeah, yeah.” You say with a smile as you go to the cell that contains a pony.

The pony seems to have disheveled red hair and her butt seemed to have a mark on it that was a cherry. The pony looks up at you and starts to back away into a corner as you unlock the door. You wave your hands inward in a gesture for her to come closer. “Come on, I’m not gonna hurt you.” You say as the pony looks at you with doubt in her eyes.

Eventually she decides that its better than staying in this cell and comes towards you and exits the cell. “Thank you for um, saving me?” She says with confusion in her voice.

You ignore her as you turn around. “Alright, you two follow close behind me, we’re gonna have to sneak around here if we don’t want to get caught again.” You say as both Fizzle and the pony nod.

“Wait, before we get a move on, I’d like to introduce myself, the names Cherry Jubilee boss of Cherry Hill Ranch in Dodge Junction, and who might you gentlecolts be?” Cherry says as she finishes introducing herself to you both.

“M-My names Fizzle...” Fizzle says shyly.

“And I’m anon, a dragon slayer.” You say simply as Cherry’s eyes light up with intrigue.

“A dragon slayer you say. And what in tarnation is a dragon slayer doing with a dragon?” Cherry asks as you rub the back of your head.

“It’s a long story, lets just say me and Fizzle are traveling companions that got caught by the diamond dogs when our guard was down.” You say as Cherry nods in understanding.

“I see, I got caught while transporting some of my cherry products to Ponyville, dang diamond dogs snuck up on me while I was trying to fix a wheel on my wagon, and before I knew it they locked me in here.” Cherry explains

“Well we plan on getting out of here, if your in then just stay behind me alright, I’ll do all the uh, talking.” You say as you begin to lead them both deeper into the caverns.

As you three are hugging the walls as close as possible, you hear a sudden noise ahead of you. Putting your finger to your lips, you give both of them a signal to be quiet as you wait for the person who made the noise to appear. Soon enough, a diamond dog appears walking in your direction, completely oblivious to the three escapees that were before him. When the diamond dog gets close enough you pounce on him and put him into a headlock. The diamond dog tries to escape but its no use as he just uselessly flails around, trying to hit you to let him go. “Where do you take all the stuff you get from the prisoners?” You ask him as you tighten your grip around his throat.

The diamond dog whines a bit before complying “All stuff goto King Mongrel, he always gets the stuff.” The diamond dog says as he continues to whine.

“Where is your king?”

“He deep in caves, lives in biggest home.”

“Tell me how to get there.” You say as the diamond dog points in the direction of one of the connecting tunnels.

“Down that way, keep going and eventually you will see diamond dog city, find big house, that where he is,” The diamond dog says.

“Thanks,” You say as you start to choke him out until he slumps down onto the floor, unconscious.

“Hmm, now that we know where that King Mongrel fella is, how do you suppose we get to him, there’s gonna be guards everywhere?” Cherry asks as you think for a moment.

You snap your fingers with a smile as you start to take off the armor on the diamond dog. You put the gear on and notice that it’s a bit big for you, but it will do for now. You pick up the spear as well as you turn to Fizzle and Cherry. “Alright, here’s the plan, I’ll pretend to be one of the guards and you guys will be my prisoners.” You say as Fizzle nods, while Cherry gives you a dubious look.

“Are you sure this will work?” Cherry asks as you give her a shrug.

“It’s worth a shot.” You say as Cherry sighs.

She doesn’t look very confident in the plan, but she decides to go along with it anyway as you point your spear at both of them and you all start to walk deeper into the cavern. As you walk along you can’t help but stare at Fizzle. You notice his cute little ears twitching at every noise, how he’s looking around nervously, you even hear him clacking his claws together. You smile as you stare at him, Cherry seems to notice this as she looks at you with a sly smile. “I see someones smitten with a certain dragon.” Cherry whispers to you out of ear shot of Fizzle.

You get a deep blush as you look away. “W-What are you talking about, I was just uh, checking the area in front for any diamond dogs.” You say as Cherry giggles.

“Uh huh, you can’t fool me, I know when someone is making the googly eyes at someone else.” Cherry says with a knowing smile as your blush deepens.

“U-Uh is everything o-okay?” Fizzle asks as he stares at both of you.

“Yeah everything’s okay Fizzle.” You say, trying to hide your blush.

Fizzle just raises an eyebrow at you but doesn’t question it as you continue moving along. Soon you arrive in a huge underground chamber filled with what appears to be a stone town. You can see diamond dogs moving around within the town as well. You were amazed, not even kobolds were capable of such a feat. To think that the diamond dogs had an actual underground civilization, even though they sounded dumber than a sack of rocks. As you get to the town entrance, you are stopped by a couple of armed guards. “Halt, state business!” One of the guards barks as you adjust your helmet a bit.

You clear your throat a bit before speaking in your best simpleton voice. “These are prisoners, go to King Mongrel because king want these prisoners.” You say as both of the guards look at each other then back at you.

You can tell they are thinking deeply as they both scratch their chins in thought. One of them finally speaks up. “Hmmm, ok, you go through now. But keep slaves in check.”

The guards open the door as you all make your way past them. “Wow, that sure was easier than I thought.” Cherry exclaims once you’re out of earshot of the guards.

You just shrug your shoulders as Fizzle smiles. “I-I knew we would be f-fine, because I t-trust Anon.” Fizzle says as you give a small blush and a smile.

As you walk through the town you see many of the diamond dogs staring at you, but they quickly go back to what they were doing shortly after. You’re thankful that these beasties aren’t that bright. You look to your right and see one of them selling gems, as well as many more stalls selling gems. It seems like these dogs were rather fond of the shiny stone as you saw many of them purchasing them, with other gems... Before you can think about how the diamond dog economy works you are interrupted by a guard. “I need break, you guard palace while I gone.” Says the guard as you raise an eyebrow at him.

“Uh palace?”

“Yes palace.” He says as he points behind him.

You look up and see a huge stone structure, it was probably the biggest building in the entire town. The place had gems embedded all over it as well as banners showing off what you believe to be the Mongrel crest. The crest showed a diamond dog on a huge piles of gems. You look back to the guard who is staring at you impatiently. “Uh, yes, me stand guard, you take break.” You say as the dog smiles and happily runs away to enjoy his break.

“Well, uh, lets go inside.” You say as you shake your head at the stupidity of these diamond dogs.

You weren’t even that hairy and they still believed you were one of them. You all head inside the palace and make it to the first room. The inside of the palace is lavishly decorated. Many crude paintings line the walls as well as more gems embedded everywhere. “These dogs sure do love their gems.” You say jokingly as you see Fizzle eyeing all the gems hungrily.

“Y-Yeah, I don’t blame them, gems are delicious.” Fizzle says as he goes over to a wall.

“Um. I’m pretty sure diamond dogs don’t eat gems.” Cherry says as Fizzle digs out a ruby from the wall.

“Did you just claw your way through a stone wall to get to a gem?” You ask as Fizzle blushes.

“I have v-very strong claws.” Fizzle says as you just nod.

Fizzle’s claws must be pretty durable if he was able to claw through stone, then again your sure they have to claw their way through stone on a regular basis to get to their precious gems. Though for some reason you believed that they probably used a pickaxe or something. As you think this you see Fizzle eat the whole ruby in one bite and give out a content sigh. You look away from Fizzle and shake your head, now was not the time to get distracted by a cute dragon eating a gem, right now you had to get your gear back and the person with your stuff lived in this very palace. You gesture for the others to follow you as you begin to climb the stairs to this huge place. “The sooner we get my gear the better. I’m starting to get tired of these dark and dank caves, especially since it smells like wet dog everywhere.” You say as Fizzle nods in agreement.

“While I d-do like dark caves, t-the smell is a bit overbearing.” Fizzle says as you get to the top of the stairs and enter into a hallway.

This hallway had even more crude paintings. Some depicting who you presume to be King Mongrel in them. One of them had him on a giant pile of gems fighting off dragons, while another had him sitting in a lavish stone throne with a goblet in hand. Whoever this king was he seemed to be full of himself. As you all continue down the hallway you hear something coming from one of the rooms. You signal for the others to be quiet as you stalk towards the door and put your ear against it. You hear a lot of rustling inside, like someone was rummaging around, then you hear a voice. “This armor is very good, very sturdy, with this I could beat anyone,”

You look at Fizzle and nod towards the door. Fizzle nods back and gets ready as you ready your spear. Cherry seems confused by this. “Wait, what are you fellas planning on do-” Before she has a chance to finish her sentence both you and Fizzle barge into the room.

Inside the room there are gems embedded into all the walls, including the ceiling, as well as a giant throne with even more gems on it. Sitting in the throne is a big diamond dog with what appeared to be an eye patch on his right eye, his coat is the same color as all the other diamond dogs, he was also around the same height as you, wearing your armor and wielding your sword. He looked taken aback as you barge into his throne room. But he quickly recovers from his initial shock and smiles. “So, you the weird creature thing my boys were telling me about. What do you think you’re doing out of your cell?” King Mongrel says as he gets up and raises your sword.

You creep forward as you ready your spear. This was quite the tricky situation. You knew for a fact that this dinky little spear would not be able to pierce your armor. You were gonna have to stab your spear in one of the weak points of the armor. You were also gonna have to watch out for your sword, one swing of that would probably end your life. Not to mention that if you tried to block that sword, it would probably destroy the spear you were wielding. As you’re thinking of ways to deal with this threat, Fizzle steps forward. “What do you think you’re doing Fizzle, step back I’ll handle this.” You say as Fizzle shakes his head.

“N-no, I’m gonna f-fight alongside you.” Fizzle says as you look at him to see if he’s serious.

You actually make eye contact with him and you can see the determination burning in his eyes. With a small smile you nod to him. You know you can’t stop him so you might as well let him do what he wants. “Doesn’t matter how many of you come at me, with this equipment I’m unstoppable!” King Mongrel says as he gets into an offensive stance.

That’s when King Mongrel charges, aiming for you as he swings his sword. You barely have enough time to dodge before he winds up for another swing, but before he can act Fizzle spews flames at him. King Mongrel back steps while covering his face. He looks down at his body and sees that the flames had no effect on him. “Haha, this armor is amazing, not even flames can hurt me!” King Mongrel shouts as he starts lunges towards Fizzle.

“Shit.” You say as you run towards Fizzle who is cowering.

Before King Mongrel can reach Fizzle, you tackle him to the ground. You both roll around on the ground before standing up and locking your hands with one another. He was stronger, incredibly strong, but you held your own as you struggled against him. “Is this all you can muster?” He says with a smirk before he stops locking hands with you and grabs you by the waist.

He throws you into the throne. You hit it hard, your back exploding in pain. But you get back up, after all, you’ve had worse than this. “Hmm, to think that you could stand up after that, you are strong aren’t you. I can see it in your stance. You’re a natural born fighter aren’t ya.” King Mongrel says as he smiles at you.

As he’s talking, you see Cherry sneaking her up behind King Mongrel with a vase. You know what she intends to do so you ready your spear and charge at King Mongrel when she gets ready to smash him with the vase. King Mongrel readies himself for your blow when he feels a sharp pain in the back of his head. “What the hell?” He yells as he turns around and backhands Cherry, she yelps as she falls to the ground unconscious.

you curse under your breath as you aim your spear. Before he has time to react you thrust your weapon. You aim for his exposed face as your spear tip stabs into his left eye. He roars out in pain and rips the spear out of your hands as he struggles to get it out of his eye. Eventually he succeeds as he tears the spear out of his eye, along with his eye. His left eye is now closed as he sniffs around. “Ha, so you think that if you take out my one good eye that you’ll have an advantage in this battle. Well let me tell you, I don’t need sight to take you down!” King Mongrel roars as his snout locks onto you.

“There you are!” He yells as he charges you swinging wildly.

You frantically dodge his random slashes as he changes it up and stabs his sword right at you. “There you are!”

You get ready to dodge when Fizzle tackles into the diamond dog, making him lose balance. “L-Leave Anon alone!” Fizzle shouts with bravery you’ve never seen before from the meek dragon.

“Nice tackle Fizzle.” You compliment him as he blushes.

King Mongrel is back on his feet as he gives off a malicious grin. “You think you’ve won haven’t you, well I know whats in this little pack right here.” He says as he pats your pack containing all of your supplies.

He rummages around inside before pulling out a potion. “I don’t know what these potions do, but I’m sure they’ll give me the upper paw in his fight.” King Mongrel says as he uncorks the potion.

“Wait don’t drink that!” You yell out as he gives you a smirk.

“Really now, and why would I listen to you?”

“Just trust me, don’t do it.” You say as he puts a claw on his chin like he’s in deep thought.

“Nah, I’m gonna drink it.” He says as he downs the whole potion in one gulp.

He licks his lips and gives out a satisfied sigh. After a few moments his face twists into a pained expression. “W-What the, what is this?” King Mongrel asks in pain.

“Fire flask, in a few seconds you should become a walking bonfire.” You say as his expression darkens.

“Then I’ll take you with me!” He shouts as he charges at you.

Both you and Fizzle sprint away from him as he continues to chase after you. King Mongrel gives off a pained yelp as his entire body starts to combust. “Help me, someone anyone!” He screams out for help as he starts to burn alive.

You and Fizzle stay clear of him as he falls onto the ground and starts to roll around in a vain attempt to put out the fire. It proves futile as his entire body burns away, including his skeleton. With that the king of diamond dogs is nothing more than a pile of ashes. You sigh as you go over to your stuff and start to put your armor on. As you get all of your equipment you hear a startled scream. “K-King Mongrels dead.” Says a diamond dog in the doorway as he points to your group.

“You killed him. I need backup pro-” Before the diamond dog can speak anymore you quickly cut him down.

The diamond dog slumps to the floor as you turn back to Fizzle. “We need to get out of here and quick, this place is probably gonna be swarming with guards very soon.”

“R-Right, but what about C-Cherry, shes out cold?” Fizzle asks as you walk over to the unconscious pony and pick her up.

“I’ll carry her, now lets go!” You say as Fizzle nods and follows you out of the room.

You both run outside and are immediately surrounded by guards. “Hold it right there. You go nowhere.” Says one of the guards.

You look at Fizzle. “Hey Fizzle, mind heating things up?” You ask as Fizzle takes a deep breath.

He shoots out flames that engulf most of the guards. While it wasn’t enough to kill them, its gonna leave a pretty nasty burn later. You both quickly run past the distracted guards as you head for the exit that leads out of this stone town. “Stop them!” You hear someone yell as you look behind you.

There’s a whole platoon of guards on your tail, with spears at the ready. “Shit, this isn’t looking good.” You say as you both run down the tunnel.

“Think you can carry both of us?” You ask Fizzle who looks unsure of himself for a moment.

“I’ll try, I-I’ve never had to c-carry others while flying before.” Fizzle says as you near the place where you fell down.

You look up and can barely see the light from the entrance of the hole. Fizzle starts to flap his wings as he picks both you and Cherry up in his arms. You can tell Fizzle is struggling from the strain visible on his face, but the dragon toughs it out as you start to fly higher and higher. “Good work Fizzle, keep it up.” You praise him as you hear shouts from down below, followed by a spear that whizzes by your head.

You look down to see the guards picking up their spears and lobbing them at you. You quickly pull out your crossbow and take aim. You fire a bolt straight into the neck of one of the guards that was about to throw a spear. The diamond dog starts to convulse heavily from the electrocution as it falls to the ground. You start reloading your crossbow when a spear whizzes by and nicks Fizzle in his thigh. Fizzle yelps out in pain as you lose a little bit of altitude. “Are you alright Fizzle.” You call out worriedly as he seems to recover and continues to fly.

“Y-Yeah, just a scratch. I-I can keep going.” You can tell that Fizzle is scared right now, but he puts up a brave front as he continues to fly you to the surface.

The diamond dogs seem to have run out of spears as they angrily wave their fists at you. “You can run but not hide, diamond dogs will pay you back for king!” One of the diamond dogs yell up to you as you finally fly out of the hole and are back on the surface.

You all fall onto the ground as Fizzle breathes heavily, obviously exhausted from having to carry two people while flying. As you get up you notice Cherry stirring awake. She gets up to and looks around, obviously surprised to see the surface again. “Where in tarnation are we?” She asks, perplexed that she isn’t underground anymore.

“We escaped.” You simply say as Cherry still has a surprised look on her face.

Fizzle finally recovers and gets back up. “W-We should get going, the d-diamond dogs might give chase.” Fizzle suggests as you nod to him.

“Right we can’t let our guards down now.” You say as you look around, you have no clue where you even are.

“But there’s a new problem, where are we.”

“Why, we’re about two miles west of Dodge Junction.” Cherry says matte-of-factly as you look at her.

“How do you know that?” You ask as she gives you a smug grin.

“Why, I go this way when delivering my cherries of course.”

“Right, well lead the way then. The farther we’re away from those diamond dogs the better.” You say as both of them nod in agreement.

As you all start to walk you notice Fizzle has a slight limp. You immediately take out one of your health potions and attempt to give it to Fizzle, who refuses. “P-Please Anon, I’m fine honest.” Fizzle says as you shake your head.

“Fizzle you’re limping, please take the potion.” You plead with him but he shakes his head again.

“I-It’s just a scratch Anon, Please don’t waste another potion on m-me.” Fizzle says.

You look at Fizzle for a moment. “Are you sure?” You ask as Fizzle nods.

You sigh, you know the timid dragon isn’t gonna budge. You reluctantly put away the potion as Fizzle smiles. “Fine, you don’t have to take the potion but at least let me carry you.” You say as Fizzle blushes.

“W-W-What...” Fizzle says, obviously embarrassed at the prospect of being carried by you.

“You’re wounded, I won’t have you walking on that leg all the way to town.” You say as Fizzle looks down at the ground and clacks his claws together.

Fizzle silently nods as you smile before putting him on your back. All the while you can hear Cherry silently giggling to herself. “Welp, lets get going.” You say as you start to follow Cherry.

As you’re walking, you can feel Fizzle hugging your neck tightly. He lays his head down on your left shoulder, putting his face right next to yours. He sighs softly as he snuggles into your back, his scaly cheek touching yours as you blush. You can see Cherry trying hard not to laugh as you glare at her.

You all make it to town as the sun was setting. The sky an orange glow as you take in your surroundings. The town is made of mostly wooden buildings. You can see ponies coming and going, probably closing up shops and getting ready for the night. As you enter the town Cherry speaks up “Since you saved me from those diamond dogs, you and your dragon friend can sleep at my house for the night.”

“Thanks Cherry.” You say as Cherry waves her hoof nonchalantly.

“It’s the least I can do for you saving my hide back there.” Cherry says with a smile, you smile back at her as you continue walking.

You follow Cherry to her house, lugging a sleeping Fizzle on your back as you try to not pay attention to all the stares you’re getting. You finally make it to Cherry’s house as she opens the door for you. You walk in and notice all the cherry paraphernalia littering her living room. “Wow, you must really love um. Cherries.” You say awkwardly as Cherry closes the door behind you both.

“Of course. Now the room you’ll be staying in is the first one on the right upstairs.” Cherry says as she goes into her kitchen.

“Right, thanks again.” You say as you go up the stairs.

You open the door to the room and notice that all the furnishing in this room has cherries on them as well. You just shake your head as you go over to one of the two beds in the room and gently place Fizzle on it. You tuck him in as Fizzle lets out a happy sigh. You take off your armor next to Fizzle’s bed before you start to head for your bed. A hand grabs your wrist and stops you from moving forward. “P-Please don’t go A-Anon.” Fizzle mumbles in his sleep.

You decide not to leave the poor dragon alone tonight as you crawl into bed with him. He immediately cuddles up to you with a smile on his face. You smile as well as you fall asleep in the arms of a timid dragon.

Author's Note

Sorry it took so long for this one to come out, was busy with irl stuff, anyway I hope you enjoy :)