As the solar monarch had estimated, the trip to the embassy in the Dragon Lands was quiet, no bandit dared to show its face, much less attack.

Policy wasn’t looking beneath the carriage anymore either, the city was far more interesting to admire from above than the grasslands and, after them, the red ground. Instead, the mountains visible during the trip were the places where his vision rested at.

Midway to their destination the diplomat looked briefly at his bodyguard. The fact that she was so relaxed and didn’t act like most guards who never spoke without permission had taken him by surprise, even more so that she didn’t complain about him since everypony else disliked him for his uncomfortable knowledge. Given her qualities, he would have expected some kind of rejection, perhaps even a threat.

As if on cue to his thoughts, she looked back at him with a glare and made a threat.

“If you ever tell anypony anything about me I will use my first name to turn you into my last one, is that clear?” Some sparks ran through her mane as she spoke.

He smirked as his vision shifted to another mountain in the distance.

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

“You better, if you appreciate your life of course.”

Those words got him thinking again. Just the day before he was questioning if his life was worth living. Now, thanks to the princess, he was sure of himself again. He had a debt with her now, a big one.

No more words were uttered in the rest of the voyage, if it weren’t for the wind and the sound emitted by the flaps of the wings of the soldiers it would have been completely mute.

Half an hour later the carriage was already landing on Dragon soil in front of a tall building made of red sandstone, which stood in the middle of nowhere. It had several banners on it.
"The embassy, at last." Thought the orange pony.
The background of the banners was plain white and they had Celestia’s cutie mark in the center. Four of them were hanging in the facade of the place. The embassy was shaped like a small fort. The alicorn had planned for it to be structured as a modernist building, rectangular shaped, a single window that would go around the building giving light to the inside and lacking any form of ornaments but, despite her plans, one thing led to another and in the end, it turned out to be the way it is today. Perhaps it was better that way: Could you imagine such a modernist building placed in the Dragon Lands? The most medieval place there is?

Once in the ground, both earth pony and pegasus got off the vehicle and walked straight to the front doors, which were made of the same wood as most of them in the Canterlot castle, mahogany.

Poll tried to be a gentleman and opened the doors for Lightning to enter. She, however, only raised an eyebrow and looked at him with a disgusted face as she walked in.

“What a bitch.” Thought the diplomat as he entered after her, who was already sick of her pride and of… herself in general.

Inside, there was a reception bureau to the left with an earth pony stallion whose left hoof was working as a pillar for his cheek to rest at, a door to the far end of the floor, to the right some stairs close to that door and another one to the left, past the bureau.

The stallion in the escritoire had his eyes half closed and was looking to the wall in front of him, which had some paintings. At the sound of the door opening, he, without much interest, looked there to see who was entering the place. When Dust walked in he just stared shortly with no interest at all. His head was about to turn to its former position when the orange stallion suddenly walked in.

The bored, lifeless face of the red furred receptionist unexpectedly morphed, as fast as a hoof backs off when standing too close to fire, into one of utmost fear, sweat running all over his face. The red earth pony stood up as fast as his expression had changed, both front hoofs on top of the table.

“H… How may I help you?” He knew exactly what they were there for, but his fear made it impossible for him to think straight.

“Good morning” Spoke the diplomat. “Could you point us to our…?” Policy halted his words without warning and started to look around desperately, searching for a certain dragon.

He turned to his right, then to his left, facing the red pony, ahead of him, and lastly, to his back. Seeing that… well, actually, not seeing the dragon, he turned once more to the receptionist.

“Where is…?”

He was startled (only a little) by claws which were set on his shoulders, interrupting him. He moved his vision to his back, a confident smile on him.

From what used to be an empty space in the room, a brown dragoness displayed herself slowly, holding his shoulder with her right claws, disappointed looks to her face.

“Not even that made you jump? Come on!" Sweet and young was her voice.

“Almost, but you need to try harder if you really want to scare me.” His tone mirroring his facial expression.

“Mark my words. One of these days you won’t see it coming and you will jump higher than Javelin Sotomayor in fear, one of these days…” Plans were already forming in her mind.

“Looking forward to it.” After Ren, Clash was his best friend.

The yellow maned mare simply stared at them both, an eyebrow raised once more.

“Anyway, has the battle started yet?”

“It will any minute now, it should last for around three hours, the last two are to decide who wins between Whitefire and Bloodscales. I’m the only one of my kind missing it right now.”

“What are you doing here then? Go! Lightning Dust here is my bodyguard this time, don’t worry about my safety.”

“Alright, stay safe!” She walked outside as she waved goodbye, closing the door behind her.

Immediately after that, both remaining ponies were pointed to their rooms which were in the second floor. It was a long hallway with five doors, two to the left and two which were opposite to them, the last one was in the far end of the hall, imitating the first floor. The ones closer to the stairs were their rooms, the right and the left were Dust´s and Policy´s room respectively. Neither of them waited to go inside them.

The rooms were symmetrical to each other, had medium sized horizontal pivot windows, a single bed with a nightstand next to them which were opposite to the door and a showcase. Pretty small were the bedrooms I must add.

The first thing the mare did after founding herself in front of a bed was to throw herself on it, her back facing the soft mattress and exhaling in pleasure of finding rest.

Suddenly, an invisible force grabbed her, pulled her up, restrained her hoofs and held her mouth closed. The pegasus was surprised but still managed to stay calm. In order to identify her enemy she identified the shape of the limbs restraining her, they were… claws.

“Clash.” She thought.

“If anything happens to Policy, I will make sure you touch the ground before he does.” Her voice didn’t change and yet it managed to induce fear and the feeling of being dominated to most adversaries.

The invisible dragoness released her, the mare returned to her fours and gasped for air. The former never showed herself. The window was opened and left like that. Such action raised a question to the latter.

“How could she go out through the window? Not even I fit there!” Shortly after she would be asking herself if she was fat.

There weren’t many structures in the Dragon Lands, in fact there were only five, two alone were property of the fire-breathing creatures: The king´s Castle and the Sacred Dome. The latter was where the dragons who wished to become kings fought to the death. Another option of losing was surrendering but those never happened because even though some had tried to several times they were always killed on the spot, the thirst for blood of the dragons in a battle was too big, they couldn’t help it but kill everyone who lost against them.

The buildings not owned by them were the embassies of the rest of kingdoms.

Prince whitefire was sitting on a rock bench, inside a dark room with several torches, an iron gate next to its left from where light managed to pass through. His eyes were set to the ground, the memory of his father and the funeral still vivid in his mind, alongside his newfound feelings. After some time, a horn´s sound could be heard. He clenched his fists and got up really fast, his ruby-coloured eyes showed no mercy, they were set to kill all his opponents.

The gate was opened and he got outside, at the very same time every other contestant did. A massive cheer erupted from the crowd, filling the warriors with excitement, killing intent and fear at the same time. Neither Lance nor the prince felt the latter though, they were sure of what they were doing, victory was already theirs’ in their minds.

Amongst the contestants there was a cyan dragon with a very pointy beak, an orange one with lava leaking out of his mouth which was somewhat round as well, a red one whose right claws were as bright as ruby gems, a light green one whose scales were sticking out and a very old one, purple in colour, without any noticeable rarity other than his age. There were twenty in total, all male.

The prince wouldn’t lose; he would fight with all his might. Only after the complete stadium was filled with the ashes of his enemies he would stop.

Bloodscales, however, was way more confident. In his mind crushing Whitefire would be easy, it wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes to kill him, he wasn’t expecting any kind of challenge. His never-ending pride came from the thousands of battles he had been already in which he always won in mere minutes, he had splashes of blood all over him due to them, which looked recent somehow.

Ten seconds, who felt like ten hours to everyone, even the spectators, passed before the horn´s sound was heard again, signaling the start of the battle that would shape the future of the four kingdoms, the battle Flamepath had prepared his son for five hundred years.

However, all dragons remained in their positions switching their visions at each other, unsure who to attack first. Lance, who was in the south part of the colosseum, charged to the one in his right and punched him in the face. Since it wasn’t expecting an attack, the hit stroke home and knocked him out, the bloodthirsty dragon buried his sharp tail on its head afterwards, ending its life.

After such action, the creatures dispersed and started picking random targets while performing battle cries, Whitefire was the only one calmly walking through the battlefield. A grey dragon jumped and used his wings to charge towards the prince from above, he stood his ground, bended his knees a little and adopted a catching position. When the enemy collided with his claws he held its fists tightly and was pushed a bit backwards but managed to hold him in place despite the efforts of the grey one. It was followed by a head-butt to the ground and later, a stomp to its head which squished it.

Meanwhile, the cyan warrior flew very close to the ground, at high speeds. With his beak he slashed two necks. Two others tried to attack the red one, only for him to cut the air in front of him with his glowing claws, both attackers got their upper half of their bodies separated from their legs.

Next was the orange, lava-leaking dragon, a single target came close to him and threw a punch, he just dodged it and punched back in the stomach. When he retrieved his fist, lava could be seen where he had stroke. The damaged dragon just looked at his wound and fell on his back with its eyes completely white.

Then there was the green one, he flew up and got in the middle of a battle that was taking place up there between two others. He quickly grabbed two of his scales and threw them to his sides, as if they were knifes, to where the combatants were. They were buried between their eyes, followed by the fall of the dead bodies.

Not moving at all was the action that the old one decided to do. Another one, whose claws had just met the flesh of someone else’s stomach turned to see him, just being idle, in the far west of the arena. It ran to him and punched the old one, making him fall on his rear.

“You won’t fight?” Spoke the younger dragon, black in colour, expecting him to have an “as” under the sleeves.

“I’m very old, my fighting is not what it used to be, I just came here to die in an honourable place.”

“Very well, wish granted.” And without hesitation, another neck slashing took place, the elderly bodiless head rolling in the ground.

“Stupid.” Was all that he said after the action.

Two more lives were taken by the prince, one who tried to punch him in the face, he moved to the left and used his right claws to grab the fist, the left ones to push the arm bones to their limits and beyond, breaking it. The opponent fell holding tightly its limb, then he was beaten in the face to death. Afterwards, the cyan dragon targeted him and, as before, aimed his beak to the white neck. The sharped-beak one approached with great speed from the prince´s right, who, in the last second, took a step back and smacked him square in the left cheek, violently changing his course to the ground.

After the stun caused by the unavoidable crash, Whitefire approached for the kill but, Lance descended, unexpectedly, from the sky and on top of the defeated one with great strength, crushing was used to be its back.

The blood which drenched his feet started drying and was replaced with red glowing in them, as red as the dried fluid, alongside some muscle forming as well.

“Now…” Was what he said as he stepped outside of the body.

“You fight me.”

The feet of the prince would be tangled with the tail of his current and probably last enemy, making him fall on his back. Bloodscales retracted it after that. His foot was in midair, about to stamp on the prince. A quick, hard, flap of his wings got him out of there, another took him to the sky, where he hoped to best him. He felt lucky to avoid the stomp, for it caused a minor tremble throughout the stadium and left a crack almost as big as himself in the spot, the foot which was used returned to normal afterwards.

To the sky he was followed, relentless was Lance, who, not giving the prince a chance to breathe, started swinging his sharp tail without rest, he managed to avoid most of them but two swings got him, both in the left arm.

As he tightly clutched his wounded appendage, natural reaction to any serious injury, he blasted two balls of fire straight to Bloodscales face. They struck home but didn’t affect him, only made a big cloud of grey smoke for the injured one to fly away.

“That tail! It is too strong and sharp! He inherited it from his father right? Riddle, Ridley or something like that was his name.” He thought.

Another three normal contestants were killed in the meantime, leaving only six alive.

The green one grabbed another one of his scales and threw it to the red one, from behind him, who just turned around and slashed the air once more, making a clash with the flying scale, thus, avoiding it.

With his glowing limb he walked towards the green one and when he was around two meters away he performed his signature move once more, this time however, the enemy wasn’t cut in half and he felt great pain in his claws. He looked at it while groaning in pain, it was… well, it wasn’t. The claws were gone and the vital red liquid was pouring from the open limb.

Several steps, followed by burying his own claws on the red one´s eyes were the actions that the green one chose to perform.

Meanwhile, the black one had met the lava maker, they stood in front of each other, staring at each other for half a minute, until the orange one opened its round mouth and a column of the hot liquid was shot at his opponent, who just dodged it by a thrust to the right with the help of its wings, then did so again, but charging straight ahead.

A quick kick was all it took to kill the charging dragon, the same lava appearing were he had stricken him, just like before. However, the winning one suddenly held his head and screamed, then landed on his knees, panting.

“This one had a fairly stronger mind, still, he couldn’t have hoped to resist me.” He remained still in his place, still trying to stabilize his breath. It didn’t remain down for a long time, fifteen minutes was all it took him to get up again, then pick another target, the green one.

That one was looking at the battle between the two who everyone betted on for the win.

“Do I really not stand a single chance against any of those two in single combat?”

The prince was in full shape once more, his fast regeneration was legendary, he had to be taken down in one blow, or he could escape and heal once more, that made him a very dangerous adversary. That was a quality shared by Lance as well, all the very powerful dragons had a great regeneration but none matched Whitefire's.

Both white and crimson flew very fast to each other, when they were only meters ago the former suddenly lowered his altitude and made an uppercut from below. The hit was successful and very strong, sending the latter flying. Whitefire, however, didn’t let him fly for long, he took its tail and, as the lumberjack chops a piece of wood in half, threw him down to the ground.

“It seems like they are both very strong, yes. I must fight nevertheless, until my last drop of blood is… Ah!”

He groaned in pain as from behind him, the only other warrior left was entombing its fist on his back, making the magma burn his insides completely. Indescribable pain overwhelmed him. It came to a peak when he looked to his gut and saw the fist, which had already gone throughout his back to his front. He died right there and then, without being able to give a proper fight like he would have hoped, he died in the worst way imaginable to him, he was assassinated.

The one who had just ended a life dropped the body to the ground and looked right in front of him, Lance was dashing to him, his claws ready to dig on its flesh.

The attacked one helplessly tried to spit back but it was too late, Bloodscales already had his right claws on its chest, a reddish orange was leaking from there, a mixture of both lava and blood. The former didn’t affect his resistant skin. He felt some kind of force trying to enter his mind, to control it, but he made a quick slash to his left arm with his tail, filling him with pain, rage and power, his state of mind engulfed the spirit and destroyed it, since it couldn’t bear him. Blood covered both of his arms now.

The blood from the recently killed body made his scales shine red brightly, the splashes he already had glowed even more intensively than his drenched limbs.

“This one had better blood I see, Whitefire will be sorry for fighting me.”

Fifteen meters was the distance that separated the only two remaining rivals, shortened to three by the prince who had started running with his wings spread widely, performing a battle cry as well. The blood seeker dragon just turned around and punched the prince with his right fist at a stunning speed. The speed of the action made it unable to avoid for Whitefire, who was propelled all the way to the colosseum’s east wall, where he crashed, leaving a big crack on it, plus some more on several of his own bones.

Lance walked slowly to his enemy´s landing position, his left limb still empowered by the red liquid.

In a small, dark, room consisting of a rectangular table, four chairs (two on each side) and some torches to light it up since there was a lack of windows, Equestria´s top diplomat was found sitting, alongside the griffin´s ambassador. He had a monocle and was blue-feathered, both had papers with them on the table, reading them every now and then.

Four dragon guards, one in every corner of the room, were standing. Two blue, two red. Neither had weapons, but they did have armor on them, golden armor. A griffin soldier and Lightning dust were standing next to the politicians they had to protect.

“Celestia is a genius.” Thought the mare who had just recently found out about the chance of Lance winning thanks to Poll. “She knows that if that bloody dragon does win and shows up here I will immediately kill him." She chuckled before continuing. "Very well, let’s be myself.” She said that last part out loud, with a confident smile on her.

The guards present didn’t pay her any mind and the griffin ambassador just looked at her briefly, raised an eyebrow and went back to his papers. Policy was too distracted in his own thoughts to acknowledge her.

Sweat ran through Poll´s face, accompanying the fear he had. He didn’t have a clue to what was going on in the fight, he could only pray for the white dragon to win it.

He looked in front of him, a lonely door stood there, hiding the hallways behind it, the only obstacle for whoever won to get inside, and for everyone inside to look at the winner. The thought of that door opening was more fearful to the orange pony than the actual creature coming from it.

He stared at it, he wanted to look away but his fright made him to keep looking somehow.

The horror engulfed Policy like a mantle and the world stopped existing for him as the door squeaked as it was opened. He conceived the door, nothing else, the world had gone blank for him. It was him and the opening door along its noise alone, until the one behind it made himself visible.

He had blood splashes in several places of his body.

Author's Note

This one took some time, I wrote less these last days. I need to find my writing ispiration once more.

Anyway, as always, let me now of any mistakes, I really want to improve.