Upon spotting the soldiers vengeance ducked back down and pressed his back into the wooden stall. The soldiers had all been large, burly earth ponies. 'perhaps I could just fly off' he thought to himself, after all he wanted nothing to do with this whole predicament and didn't like this new feeling of fear that was coming to him.

"Alright Mister Mcshufflebutt, This is what we do."
'mr mcshuffl!-' His thoughts were cut off quickly as the upbeat voice continued,
"They have a major disadvantage, you have hands and fingers(don't ask what these are) make your fingers wiggle around to distract them, and then you SMASH THEM WITH MAH HAMMAR! Or you could, I don't run away? maybe. I'm still going for the hammer."
Vengeance was left very confused by the voices broken english and silly demeanor. This was serious, it was no time for joking.

"Listen, this is Serious, any more bright idea's?!?" He whispered in a somewhat exasperated manner. He waited for a reply, "Well?"
A camp english voice spoke up, this one sounded like he was speaking into a plastic cup, "Start parkouring."
'Park-PARKOURING!' Vengeance sat still for a couple seconds letting that sink in...
He sighed, momentarily forgetting where he was entirely "Oh just fuck off"

"There it is lads!" a gruff voice shouted, the dragons eyes went wide as the stall began to topple over on top of him, he narrowly avoided being crushed by that relatively light piece of wood and oranges. Managing to get a couple feet on his attackers before turning to face them, the three ponies looked weary of the dragon. It was a mutual feeling.

"Fight the whelps! For the slaughter!
Break their backs!
Split them open!
Gut them all!
Flense the skin from their bones!
Engulf them in pain!
Blood for the Blood God!"

Despite the sudden urge to rend the ponies apart Vengeance settled on a more diplomatic approach, "WAIT... wait" He held us hands up in a passive gesture but it was apparently lost of the four legged creatures.

The apparent leader gave an incredulous look to his companion "It can talk..." his hoof gesturing towards the dragon.

"Why yes, yes it can" Vengence replied snarkily, which judging by the sudden glare might have been a mistake.

"What do yer want lizard? yer come to eat our children?" The other ponies seemed to grow angry at the mere thought of it.

"WHAT?! NO, no I'm uh... I'm the beggining ...of something new?" Oh god he sounded like some kind of egotistical lunatic.There as a brief awkward silence that made each party very uncomfortable. Finally the soldier spoke up "reeeet... well.... why are yer terrorizing ma village?"

"Oh well, I'm not exactly sure I-" Vengence was cut off by a loud voice screeching inside his skull.
We are chaos!!!
Chaos, ... Chaos is strong....
The colt stared as the dragon clenched his forehead and almost crumpled to the ground. The soldiers looked at each other. "what the 'ells eatin him?"
"Divint na" the other replied, they were clearly not from this area of equestria.
The leader again spoke up, "Oi! what the hells wrong with ya you-"

Vengeance snarled "Oh my god, shut the fuck up, you obnoxious faggot!!"

Upon opening his eyes the first thing vengeance saw was the colts in question drawing their swords, holding them with their teeth. Evidently the time for discussion was over.

Before the dragon could ponder the cost of the equestrian military dental plan the leader rushed forward bringing his sword down in a wide arc. Vengeance managed to dodge to the side just in time "God damn!" he shouted still retreating as the other two soldiers rushed forwards. The nearest guard, a brown colt, swung his steal horizontally with barely enough time for the dragon to duck under it.

Time seemed to be slowed down for vengeance, he watched almost serenely as the sword flew over where his neck had been less than a few seconds before hand. The situation began to sink in, this motherfucker just tried to cut his head off. A deep seated rage began to boil inside him as he leapt forward and gripped the brown colts head between his claws, cutting into his jaw.

The grey leader and green run watched in helpless horror was the dragon dug his thumbs deep into the brown colts eyes, his blood curdling scream as just as quickly cut from the air as a pair of razor sharp teeth sunk into his neck, crushing his esophagus before tearing out a lump of cartilage. He collapsed to the floor gurgling, his legs kicking and jerking erratically.

The dragon sat with a lump of throat in his mouth, thinking about what he had just done. It was fun, yet he knew it was terribly wrong, he didn't want to be a bad person... dragon thing. He made a grave mistake by taking the time to contemplate this as the grey colts sword cut into his hind leg, luckily the scaly armour stopped it from going too deep. It did not however stop it from hurting like a bitch.

"Motherfucker!", Vengeance let out a roar of pain, and with it came a small jet of flame. He could feel the cold, hateful rage boiling in him again stronger than ever, the same look was plastered on the grey colt whose friend just got his throat torn out. Before the colt could fully lift up his weapon vengeance swiped his claw down across his face, gouging tears as it went and taking away part of the leaders upper lip. Rather than scream the colt staggered backwards, dripping blood across the ground.
The other smaller brown colt kept his distance as the two faced off, glaring at each other in utter hatred. His grey companion yelled "wha amm umm mmmim! mmm"
'what are you doing! help!'
The dragon rushed forward suddenly, dodging the stabbing motion of the sword and shoulder barging the colt with all his might. This backfired as the colt was stronger, he hooked his arm around the dragons middle and wrestled him to the ground, ignoring the way the claws dug into his back. Pushing the reptile off him he slammed his hoof into vengeances face, dislodging a tooth and filling his mouth with blood.

Creeping forward hesitantly while his friend repeatedly knocked seven shades of shit out of the dragons face the smaller runt saw how the dragon was clawing repeatedly into his comrades back with frantic motions. Realizing he had to help end this he approached cautiously from behind but as he got too close a spiked tail whipped across his face. He screamed as the vitreous fluid ran from his eye.

The leader looked back out of concern from his friend, his back and upper arms had been torn to threads by now and the sword lay long since abandoned in the nearby dust. This distraction was all it took for the dragon to clamp his bloodied yet powerful jaws down on the colts leg, the bones snapped like twigs and the flesh gave way to teeth designed to magically pick apart gemstones. While the colt let out a bloodcurdling scream vengeance took the opportunity to roll him over, inadvertently rubbing the exposed flesh of the stallions back wounds into the dirt.

The colt had lost too much blood to properly fight back, but he still tried with all his might, the dragon quickly pinned his arms down by the side of the colts head and yelled "I'll fucking kill you" into his face. Both were gasping for breath and bleeding heavily, the colt snarled through clenched teeth in a voice filled with pure hatred "I won't let you hurt them".

Vengeance tightened his grip on the colts arm, digging his claws further into flesh. He just growled at the soldier, nothing mattered but his death. Silence reigned for a couple seconds as the two glared into each other eyes, then the dragon spewed fire from his maw. The colt thrashed in agony as the flames danced over his bare eyes, sizzling his flesh and disfiguring his face. The seconds passed, eventually the flames ceased.

The colts face was singed black, his eyes blinded crisp. His cracked and blackened gums were clearly visible where the magical fire had burned through the flesh surrounding his mouth leaving just a few scraps of muscle tissue still connecting his jaw to his face. He was still alive, but barely and in a state of massive shock.
Vengeance rolled off the lightly gasping corpse and sat panting on the ground. His nose and mouth were dripping blood, probably broken. He let a few teeth drop from his mouth in a calm, almost disbelieving fashion. He idly noted the brown colt running off like a coward.

He felt a bit numb, almost unable to believe all of that actually happened. He had almost died... he had killed someone, and the only thing that made the experience horrible was that they fought back hard, and that scared him. 'I must be some kind of monster...' he thought to himself, 'what kind of sick fuck enjoys doing this?' apparently a sick fuck like him he mused.

"Daddy!" oh no. He felt sick as a young filly rushed out and latched onto her dying father's side. The colt managed to weakly turn his head towards his daughter but didn't say anything. Blood mixed into her fur as she lay sobbing into his chest occasionally burbling "daddy" as if in denial.

A long minute that felt like an eternity passed as Vengeance just sat watching the little filly, a cold numbness spreading over him, he somberly watched the blood drip from his nose and into a puddle to take his mind off the scene he caused. The stallions shallow breathing eventually halted and he became still. The filly just stared, sitting in a warm pool of her father's blood with tears cascading down her face. In her tiny voice she managed to utter "no..." in what could only be described as a half sob half whisper.

The dragons gaze met hers and for what seemed like forever they just stared into each others eyes, all the while a growing sense of nausea settled into the dragon's stomach.

"Steal the children then run away.
You need child labor if your sweatshop is ever to get off the ground."

Vengeance stared in disbelief at the child. "wow... you guys are dicks..." The young filly went back to sobbing into her dead father's chest.

The dragon looked away, he tried not to think about what just happened. He disliked these new emotions he was feeling, the feelings he got whenever he looked at the filly smeared in her father's blood. For now he seemed content to just sit and study stray beatles scurrying obviously across the ground. Wouldn't it just be nice to be like them, totally oblivious to anything beyond their meager existence. Never wanting more or feeling remorse. His existential philosophy was cut short by a somewhat familiar voice.

"FOCUS! we need focus people! There will be blood, plenty of it, but first we must ask them the question we needed. They will probably not answer any way.

So when they try to stop us we strike them down as an example."

These guys really were just sick fucks weren't they... just like him he supposed. He felt the familiar pain flare up from whenever he even thought about disobeying their commands, he realized that it would only get worse the more he resisted.

Forcing himself to move he felt the headache totally recede, making his way through the town in order to ask where they kept the prisoners for some probably inane reason.

"Blood for the blood god.
Do this and be rewarded. I wish to help you, but only if you help me."

They kept saying that, what did it mean. Who was this blood god... further up the street he came towards another thatched roof, banging on the door in an exhausted fashion he waited for a response. He heard a shuffling from the other side of the wooden door. A terrified male voice came from within "W-who's this? did you kill that thing". The dragon looked back at the corpse further down the street, the filly was lying head down on it's chest, hair covering her face.

It hurt but he had to do this, "I did... could you please come out sir?". The door unlocked and slowly slid open. The smaller stallion on the inside of the home froze solid when he looked up into the bloodied face of a dragon, who didn't bother to wait when he pressed his weight down on the door. The colt yelped and zipped backwards into the dark.

The cottage was a simple affair, being windowless and one roomed, it's walls were white and a series of small beds lay at one end. In between the beds lay a stallion with his back to vengeance, he was cradling his wife and kids in a terrified embrace.
"hey..."
"p-please don't kill them" he whimpered weakly, "They're all I have".

Vengeance sighed, wishing he could just be done with this whole ordeal, or maybe fly off somewhere. "Listen... I don't want to hurt any of you. I just want to know where you keep the prisoners, if you even have any". If they never even had any prisoners he was going to feel awful... and stupid.

"o-of course, please... they're kept in the Hold".

The clink of an unlocking door caused a black feathered griffin to bolt upright from his cot. he and his comrades were wary whenever the ponies came, in case they meant to interrogate them for information of griffin troop movements. But to his great surprise there was no soldiers, only a small stallion flanked by a slightly larger reptile. The griffin stood up from his cot and grasped the cell bars in his claws, a dragon coming into a jail cell was not something you see everyday.

"H-here they are, now p-please" The stallion whimpered. The dragon nodded with eye's full of pity before the pony took off in a hurry. Then started another awkward silence in which a few of the birds took note of the dragons injuries.

A female griffin, one of the four held captive spoke up in a raspy voice "Who are you and what do you want?" vengeance thought about this, he really had no idea. Yet he had already burned his bridges with the ponies so he might as well pick a side.

"I suppose I came to set you free"

The block feathered griffin perked up "so you're with the kings army? Thank you comrade, I can see you encountered some swine while carrying out your most noble of tasks"
The dragon muttered a subdued "Yeah..."

"The keys are on that bench over there"

No set of choices this chapter, but feel free to tell him what you think of his actions ect, or what to do next.

Author's Note

Sorry for screwing you over for a choice on whether or not to join the Griffons. It seemed like the only thing to do.