Ibique Moriemini, one of the few romane ponies in the Royal Guard, had the misfortune of having gate duty on this absolutely scorching day. His partner Et-Non Morieris, a romane pony as well, was standing on the other side of the gate.

“I tell ya Et-Non, it’s gonna be on one of these days that I’mma die of a sunburn or something.” Ibique said.

“Heh, too hot to think of a good one-liner? Eh, I can’t blame ya at all. Why in the world did we have to get stationed to the dragon lands anyways?”

Just as he asked that, both of them saw something crawl towards them. It was small and moved only very slowly, however protocol dictated that they don’t leave their posts at any circumstance other than immediate danger and Ibique and Et-Non were very thorough with their protocols.

When the object had finally moved close enough, both guardsponies could identify it as a young filly that was crawling its way towards them. It had a light gray coat and a two-tone pink mane that looked like it had met with a horde of stray cats. Overall the filly looked as if it had fought in a gladiator pit and barely came out alive. It had bleeding wounds all over and she seemed to be blind on one eye.

“Woah there, little filly, what happened to you?!” Ibique asked, while rushing over and giving first aid to the filly`s wounds.

“D-Dragons… Help.” The filly wheezed.

“We need to get her inside! Open the gates!” Ibique shouted.

“Woah, woah there, Ibique! You know we aren’t allowed to let anypony in!” Et-Non shouted back.

“This is an emergency, she’s gonna die if we don’t do something!” Ibique shouted back. “To protect and serve, remember?!”

Et-Non looked around nervously, trying to avoid eye-contact. However, he made the mistake of sparing a glance down at the little filly, the appearance of which immediately set his paternal instincts into overdrive.

“Urrgh, fine, but you’re gonna explain that to the colonel.” Et-Non grumbled while pushing the gates open and allowing his partner to carry the filly in.

After a quick visit to the medical ward, an excessively bandaged filly now sat at a table before none other than the colonel of this bastion. The middle-aged stallion looked benevolently over to the meek filly.

“So, dear Sweetie Belle, you claim that you and your friends were taken hostage by the dragons, who are now using them as chewtoys and… other toys until they get bored and eat them.” He summarized. “I hope you realize that the only credibility you have is that we found you covered in scratch wounds. The problem with these is that, while their profile fits a dragon’s claw, they are only very shallow – as if somepony tried to fake them.”

“But I didn’t fake them, I- ouch!” Sweetie whined when she softly slammed her forehooves onto the table and hit the wounds.

“Easy there girl, no need to worry, I believe you. Nevertheless, there isn’t much I can do. We are currently at peace with the dragons, so we will have to ask for permission to investigate first and that can take some time.”

“WHAT?! But you have to save them now! Please, they’re my friends! They’re going to die if you don’t do anything. Please!” Sweetie pleaded with the biggest puppy dog eyes she could bring up.

The colonel seemingly had a very hard time resisting her gaze, seeing as he vehemently tried to look away. Though his tries were in vain, as he seemingly finally gave in when he let his head hang.

“You’re giving me a very hard time, you know that? Might in part be, because my brother – Filthy Rich – has a daughter your age down in Ponyville.”

Sweetie Belle gasped and jumped up onto the table. “You know Diamond?! How is she? Is she okay? Please tell me she didn’t get hurt!!” She shouted.

“Easy there, girl. You know my niece?” The colonel asked with a raised eyebrow and Sweetie, who had now sat back down in her seat, nodded meekly.

“Are you friends with her?”

Sweetie nodded again.

“Are those others friends with her as well?” And again, a nod.

“Blast! This is little incident has just become a VERY personal matter! SERGEANT! RALLY EVERYPONY BUT THE BARE MINIMUM! We’re going on an expedition!” The colonel shouted, before running out of his tent and when she was finally alone, Sweetie Belle grinned evilly.

Meanwhile, Frosty, Applebloom and Scootaloo were sitting behind a few rocks in the dragon lands, scouting out their current target… Ember, the only daughter of Dragon King Torch, who was currently taking a bath along a few other dragonesses.

“I must say, it feels a bit scandalous to be watching the girls bathe right there.” Frosty mumbled.

“Not as scandalous as the things we’re gonna do with you, once this is over.” Scootaloo said, twitching her eyebrows at him.

“Ah’m not sure that’s an appropriate thing to talk about right now.” Applebloom said.

“Yeah, right, Dragon princess. Alright, there don’t seem to be any guards and the girls can likely easily be dealt with.” Frosty assessed.

“Come to think of it, I doubt the guard would pose a problem either.” Scootaloo remarked.

“True. They’d just drop like a bag o’ apples.” Applebloom agreed.

“Heh, I’m glad that you’re so self-certain, but I don’t know if our abilities work the same way on dragons as they do on ponies.” Frosty pointed out.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Scootaloo said, before jumping out of her cover and right into sight of Ember’s three friends.

“HEY, who are you?!” they shouted, making Ember turn around.

“Oh, nopony you need to be concerned about.” Scootaloo answered.

As soon as she finished saying that, the three dragonesses suddenly just fell over, as if they had suddenly fallen asleep.

“Girls?! What’s wrong?!” Ember asked, rushing over to her friends and checking on them. “Oh… oh no… what did you do to them?! No, it can’t be! You didn’t even touch them!”

Ember rose from the corpses of her friends and looked at Scootaloo with an absolutely hate-filled gaze. “I’m gonna make you PAY for this!!” She shouted before dashing towards the orange necroqueen.

Ember screamed a battlecry, making her intent to kill Scootaloo very clear. However, just like that, she too suddenly fell limp. She skidded for a few meters, before stopping right before Scootaloo’s hooves.

“Heh, that was easy.” She smirked.

“Great job, Scoots.” Frosty said from behind her. “That’s actually quite an impressive first kill. Four dragons, one of them a princess on top of that.”

“Hehe, thanks. Now, what next?” She asks.

“Simple. We have to find a way to blame this all on Equestria, which should also be done right about… now.”

Just then, Sweetie Belle teleported back to him, holding a guard’s spear in her horn’s glow.

“Heya, Frosty!” She greeted. “I’ve got the spear and the Guard is currently on its way here.”

“Great. Now, let’s make this seem like a fight.” Frosty says, before starting to slash and stab at the bodies with the spear, spraying blood everywhere and covering them corpses from head to tail in slash and stab wounds. Then, lastly, he lifted the body of Ember and rammed the spear through her chest and then set her to the ground, so that it looked like she was impaled while dashing forwards.

“Alright, now we wait. I bet somepony—or rather some dragon must’ve heard that battlecry. We better hide.” He said, before diving into cover, the three girls right behind him.

Dragon King Torch was flying as fast as he could. The battlecry of his daughter had echoed throughout the entire kingdom and beyond and it didn’t sound like it was just for show… He arrived at the hot ponds, where his daughter used to bathe and called out to her:

“Ember! I demand you report to me immediately!”

No answer came. Worry crept up into his mind, as he searched every single pond. Then, finally, on the last pond, he saw what he never wanted to see.

“EMBER!” He shouted, as he saw his daughter lay on the ground, together with her three friends. The ground was covered in blood and the dragonesses were littered with wounds. Ember herself was lying a few meters off to the side, seemingly having tried a dash attack towards her attacker, but ultimately found a spear embedded in her chest… an Equestrian Spear.

“WAAAAAAH!! These filthy equestrians have killed my DAUGHTER!” He shouted, before shooting into the air, his guard detail by his side.

He looked around, his rage-filled eyes searching for the murderer of his daughter, until they fell on a very shiny formation that was currently marching through his lands. Blinded by his rage, he failed to notice that they were actually moving into and not out of his lands, though that would’ve mattered little.

With one mighty flap, he propelled himself towards the Royal Guard, ready to avenge his daughter.

Ibique and Et-Non marched in formation together with their brethren. Their goal: save and rescue the foals that were foalnapped by these vile dragons. However, their mission shouldn’t be quite as easy as everypony had hoped it would be.

“AMBUSH!” somepony in front shouted, when a giant dragon flew overhead and brought down his flames. A few smaller ones were with him, picking off smaller groups that had split off from the main body, while the big one burned away more and more guardsponies with every swoop.

Half of the regiment was eradicated in the first fly-by, Et-Non among them. Ibique managed to evade just in time and returned fire as much as he could, bringing down one of the smaller Dragons. However, as he saw that more and more of his brethren fell, he panicked and dove behind a rock for cover.

As one of the few ponies who could use the radio-spell, he then immediately called the bastion. “Bastion, this is Spear. Bastion, this is Spear! We have been ambushed by dragons and are suffering heavy losses! We need help! I repeat, we need hel—“

At that moment, one of the smaller dragons had found and landed right in front of him. Ibique slowly looked up into the sadistic look of the large reptile, before he grilled him, just like the rest of the expedition force.

On a rock a few hundred meters away, a light gray colt stood and watched, as his plans seemed to take form. He chuckled darkly to himself, while watching the Dragons mercilessly burn the Royal Guards to ash.

The snowball had started rolling and now, it only needed to get bigger.

Author's Note

Alright, I must say I definitely fucked up the pacing on this one. Might be because it was a rather busy week and all that, but this chapter definitely isn't as good as I'd like it to be. eh, anyways: Some more or less bad news for you: This fic is going on hiatus for a while. not for too long, I assure you, just a month or so. The reson for that is that my other fic is close to completion and I'd like to focus 100% on that, before I come back to write other things.
Don't worry, this will not end up like the thousands of fics that go into hiatus forever. this hiatus is definitely finite. So, until then: have fun reading!