Conquer your Demons
Chapter 1: Recruits
Sapphire was one of a few thousand fresh recruits signing up, it was a beautiful summer day. Out of all the unicorns and pegasi, there were a few Hippogriffs and Griffons. The commanding officer was a unicorn named General Coldheart, he was a tall stallion with a frozen heart. He watched everypony with interest and already identifying which ones wouldn't make it through basic........ Sapphire made eye contact and felt his stare coldly at her. The desk sergeant assigned to get recruit names saw Sapphire and he snapped when he saw a dragon. To him, all dragons were the same, and didn't know that the dragons of the dragon lands were different from her species a highly educated breed called
dynatós polemistís in the common punish meant 'Mighty Warrior'.
This breed had all the normal abilities of the dragon race combined with the abilities of a bat coupled with magical powers only matched by an alicorn. It was rare to find ones like Sapphire who could change eye color for night vision and thermal heat vision.
"You should go back to hell where you came from we have no use for you."
"I would, but I am here on orders from my Lord. It's either join the royal guards or serve time for smuggling and theft. I got this letter for General Coldheart and........"
At this moment Coldheart walked up after noticing the disturbance.
"Ahh, Ms. Sapphire I was waiting for you Lord Inferno wrote saying you were coming and that her Highness Princess Celestia has agreed to the arrangements. Sergeant Lightfeather I'm dismissing you for the next month of active duty for your behavior." Sapphire felt short compared to Coldheart she could tell he hated dragons because of the wars and the death they caused.
When all the recruits were all signed in and the Luna and Celestia appeared to watch raw demonstrations to see where each recruit stood and build from there.
Two groups charged each other but it soon turned to a two thousand to fight for all of the recruits wanted to show that they could take down a dragon. The catch to the training was all hoof to hoof or claw, Sapphire adapted and booked it. Her speed was a blur and they barely could track her movements. After a few minutes, she stopped and curled into a fetal position and lay there; the other recruits thought that they had her. With a burst of fire and smoke, she used its momentum to spin a full three hundred sixty degrees and sent the closest attackers flying. Her fire suddenly became ice and the suddenly cold air slowed and stiffened the attacker's assault and the club at the end of Sapphire's tail started swinging. When the exercise ended the recruits glared because they couldn't pin a single dragon. Luna and Celestia wanted to have a go at it for fun.
Sapphire felt tiny next to the princess, "My little dragon there will be no limitations we want to see you're best. So give us your best."
Sapphire gulped and braced herself. Luckily for her it was now dark and alights burned, she was a dragon born for night combat. The area was lit up by magic blasts and Sapphire threw up two shields and teleported behind the princesses and since she had multiple horns hit both princesses with a stun spell and went airborne Luna gave chase. Celestia followed and they both suddenly realized they lost all advantage being airborne. They froze as a shrill whistle was heard and they barely dodged a black and blue blur.
"Sister if we live this I'm gonna kill you!"
"Lulu! This is but a poor decision!" Luna and Celestia quickly got to the ground and stood back to back and watched the area around them. They failed to see the missle flying right at them! The next thing they knew they were flailing and Sapphire ground the dirt and left a small trench.
The fight ended Celestia and Luna were very sore from the whole hour ordeal, Sapphire wiped the blood from her nose because Luna slammed her face magic blasts a few times head-on.
Celestia breathed heavily, the little dragon I see you got a great future."
Chapter 2: The Mess Hall
The recruits sat with their units and squads. Each squad depending on if you were pegasi, unicorn, or earth pony; the other creatures were divided among them evenly. For flight training, the Wonderbolts were pulled in. Rainbow Dash among them was summoned. Sapphire had broken away and sat alone. She jumped when a whistle blew in her ear, her feet hit the floor, and saw Spitfire grinning and Rainbow Dash behind her.
"That was quite a show earlier, but at the moment I can't see to not notice you seem down, how you, me and "Crash" here go for a fly.........by the way noobie this will be a race!" Whistleblowing again. Word got around and everypony wanted to see this. When the signal was given, Rainbow's trail was a distinct rainbow, Spitfire's resembled a trail of fire. Sapphire's trail was a blur she was almost invisible. She shot past Spitfire and she and Rainbow Dash were subsonic. Rainbow Dash performed a sonic rain-boom, Sapphire broke the sound barrier and there was a massive blast of lightning and ice with fire and she was gone. Rainbow Dash was just five yards off her tail until the end back at the training field where they started. The race was chatted about during the rest of the meal. General Coldheart talked with the princesses and they agreed Sapphire may be material for Special Ops.
Chapter 3: Meanwhile.....
As the recruits slept Coldheart patrolled the sleeping quarters, as much as he hated the dragon race he couldn't help but respect Sapphire, besides she was showing more respect than some of the recruits showed earlier that day. He chuckled as he thought about the race and the princesses being bested in combat.
Meanwhile, at the palace, Celestia woke to Luna pulling books off shelves and tossing them on the floor or a table, "Lulu what the fuck are you doing it's late!"
Luna uttered, "Damn it! Where is my book on dragon species! Shit!"
"Lulu it's there by your bed. What do you need it this late?"
"Sorry Celi, Sapphire's race is bugging me. Her species was dreamed in a dream I walked a few months ago from one of the soldiers. Ahhh! I found it I had it marked she's a dynatós polemistís; they're a very rare breed only some five hundred of them remain. Read sister!"
Celestia read the few pages and knew why they struggled so much in the sparring match. Well, now they knew and cleaned up the books and went to bed knowing they had an asset sent to them to help bring her some stability since she had no family and fell into wrong crowds.
Chapter 4: Physical Training
The next morning was grueling, to say the least. It started with six miles run with packs weighing in at sixty pounds and then the ones that could fly were expected to fly fifty miles at top speed with the aforementioned packs. Then following all were trained with weapons and close combat. Sapphire was never picked to partners with any of the others because they didn't want a repeat of day one. The only one who would do every exercise was the Captain of the royal guards and brother of Princess Twilight Sparkle; Shining Armor.......he loved a good challenge.
Hoof to hoof or claw whichever you had combat training was arduous at best, the ground was a mix of different substances, from loose gravel to swampy quicksand-like ground present a challenge in itself. One of the combat training was you had to rely on brute weight and strength and the only magic one could use as a shield.
The earth ponies were at a slight disadvantage but that was their strength, they were in tune with the earth around them.
The whole took a break for lunch, Sapphire tried to eat alone.......alone with her thoughts. She knew she could face prison time for her crimes but more frequently the voices of her demons crept in.
"Sapphire my dear, you know you could be much more. You're just holding back, we both know you have the power to wipe out an entire army."
"Shut the fuck up Balrog! I will not succumb to such treasonous actions!"
"Sapphire our precious, don't you see the general thinks you're hot, you might get a promotion of you to do him a few favors."
"Quiet Euphoria! I'm not a slut or a whore!"
These two demons that haunted her kept up the harassment, and Sapphire saw Coldheart and Shining Armor staring at her with worried looks as her head jerked back and forth and seeing no pony to whom she could be talking.
"General, ask Nurse Redheart of Ponyville to get in touch with the medical guild and find everything on Sapphire that she can. Tell her it's urgent!"
"Yes my Lord Shining Armor."
Chapter 5: Studying the Dragon and a Start of an excercise?
"Celestia, I've been doing more research on Sapphire's Dragoconic species; what I've learned so far is that all of her abilities are correct.........but they're wat above the average normal caliber of power. I suspect that there is a spell or curse upon her to accelerate her powers to perform certain tasks. Her species are known for their great magical abilities, speed, and combat skills; most notably their aerial combat and ground combat. I may have Zecora conjure a brew coupled with some spell of seeing the past of someone or something to get answers. "
"I agree on Luna, Twilight sent a letter to me this morning reporting that Sapphire through the course of basic training seemed to be tormented by something. Shining Armor and Coldheart told her of it. Most curious to me was the fact she beat both of us with no struggle."
The recruits were sent out in squads of six creatures to retrieve a package in the woods, the squad with the most collected packages won the event; Sapphire got put with two Griffons, two ponies, and a hippogriff as they set out the Hippogriffs was put in charge. He wasn't known for good leadership skills he was more geared to be a medic with his knowledge of every creature in Equestria and their anatomy. The Griffons were best geared to be scouts/aerial support. Sapphire was put as the team tactician by the hippogriff.
Chapter 6: The Event
As Sapphire and her squad approached their first package, already two other squads got there first and fighting it out.
"Maelstrom, you go with Peregrine and approach from the river, the package is closer to there. Condor with me we're gonna distract them......now move out." The plan wasn't followed the two Griffons and the hippogriff blitz it and the hippogriff is out of the event because he took twelve magic blasts and he is out cold. Peregrine got enveloped in magic and had gotten slammed into a tree trunk and sustained a concussion and he too was knocked out. Condor dove in from the air and had been distracting the unicorns Sapphire took that shot and flew in and grabbed the package she and Condor booked out of the area.
Condor wasn't pleased that they lost two squadmates, "Damn it! Those two assholes couldn't follow a good plan! At least you got the two of us........ wait a moment where is that pony that was with us? What was her name Gale Winds?"
Gale Winds replies quietly, "I'm right here."
"May the alicorns damn you! Why are you so quiet a pegasus like would've made this package so much easier to retrieve!"
"Typical griffon shit, you and your species were never good team players I swear on your hopefully dead mother you need to hurry up and die!"
"You two shut the hell up we got just the three of us left! We got work together to get through this crap!"
When the event ended Sapphire's squad for having only three active members won by having collected all twelve packages save one that the unicorns from package number one managed to acquire and hold.
Chapter 7: Beginning to Unify
After the team-building exercise, Sapphire trudged to the mess hall; she was accompanied by Condor and Gale Winds.
Condor the griffon spoke up, "Hey, umm" he paused a few seconds to collect his thoughts "Sapphire look, I know our outbursts earlier caused us some time on the event. I'm having a hard time saying because it's not a griffon's habit to admit wrong, but I shouldn't have lost my cool."
Gale Winds chimed in sheepishly, "I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have said what I said."
Sapphire accepted their apologies and apologized for losing it as well. As the three of them are the other two from their squad joined em. Maelstrom spoke up, "Look you guys sorry that I botched up the plan." The hippogriff stared at his food; Sapphire nodded in acceptance.
Peregrine landed with his food and sat down. Out of the six, Peregrine was the only one who didn't apologize for trying to showboat. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing drills. That night Peregrine stood outside of the barracks alone thinking when a shuffle behind him caused him to spin around it was Sapphire she hadn't been able to sleep.
Chapter 8: Knowledge
After hearing more of Sapphire's condition, Luna, Celestia, and Twilight delving deep into their library and the Canterlot library in the restricted section for answers. To help dig through the books, scrolls, and manuscripts they had Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer aiding them but with little ground gained.
All seemed lost when Luna happened to find an old tome book buried under several scrolls in an old desk. To their luck, it had the answers they were looking for. After reading it for several hours, the spell they sought was used by two battle mages long ago to endow the cursed being to have their abilities magnified a hundredfold. The way to break the spell is to kill the spell caster. Depending on how many cast the spell you had to kill every single one!
At this point, Sapphire was tormented by a legion of voices a total of six thousand. For the spell to climax in power it would do so on the victim's twenty-fifth birthday. Sunset went back to her other world and Luna and Celestia with Starlight and Twilight booked its training base. When they arrived they dug through the recruit forms Shining Armor and Cold-heart dug around and they found the form they needed. They saw that in two weeks that Sapphire was turning twenty-five so they quickly built up defenses and summoned a fighting force. In the time book up the victim's twenty-fifth birthday, all six thousand battle mages will come to collect their weapon.
Chapter 9: The Battle
General Coldheart, Shining Armor, the Royal sisters, Twilight Sparkle, and Princess Cadence paced the main office building nervously watching the recruits match out of the main gate led by a corporal. It was all of but three hours they quickly re-entered the base slamming the gates shut and barring them. The corporal let the Princesses know that that a force of six thousand unicorns was marching upon n them. The gates were blasted to splinters and the battle mages charged in. Peregrine and Condor charged first and we're enveloped in magic and ripped to pieces and the carcasses were thrown aside. The odds of the six hundred recruits combined with four alicorns and a dragon of great magical power and the power of a dragon and the night prowess of a bat were lucky if they could hold off until the rest of the army arrived. Those odds were very slim. Celestia ordered that the recruits sort themselves in species, once they sorted in a very chaotic circumstance they charged. Magical blasts flew everywhere, the griffins tried for aerial advantage and fire their bows into the battle mages; however, their aim was poor for not having trained enough in the art.
Two of the mages levitate skyward and began blasting magic in a wide conical blast, the griffins began slamming into the ground below and for many of them, their wings became broken and were grounded. The ones who were died exploded like a balloon filled with red food coloring. As the battle progressed the recruits not being used to such intense combat faltered. By this time the griffins focused on an almost pitch black unicorn with a dark red mane who had conjured up a staff of dark magic and on its ends were long fifteen-inch blades. The griffins had resorted to spears, swords, and axes; this unicorn was Belrog, he enjoyed hearing the griffins scream and curse as he severed their bodies. One of his favorite tactics, when he severed a body and the victim, was dead covered their bodies in salt and lemon juice so the cuts would sting and burn. The last griffin he killed, he slowly pulled the body apart, but not after forcing this victim to eat his companion's heart. He was soon joined by a pink unicorn with a light red mane and gave him a light peck on the cheek.
This unicorn was Euphoria and she had used her magic to have the hippogriffs kill and rape each other. The only recruits left alive were the unicorns, earth ponies s and the pegasi.
Sapphire was pinned in a corner and had a pile of dead mages at her feet, she alone had slain thirty. She was beginning to tire and she watched in horror at how many of the recruits died; screaming in agony. It hurt the most hearing the ones beg for mercy and were skewered and burned alive on the horn that impaled them. Sapphire fell to the ground as two blasts from Belrog and Euphoria hit her. She struggled to her feet and as Euphoria moved in a blue was seen and Gale Winds stood between her and two predominant demons.
Gale Winds went airborne and charged. Belrog stepped in and impaled her, pinned to the ground she lashed out with her hoof blades trying to get free. Euphoria sneered, "Sapphire dear, I give you a choice, come with us and we'll let the others live including this one." as she gestured to Gale Winds.
"Sapphire don't give in!" Gale screamed and Euphoria levitates a large rock and crashing it on one of Gale's wings completely shattering the bone to a point of not being savable. Gale cried and whimpered from the pain. Sapphire glared:
"I'll see you in hell! As she charged she got enveloped in magic by another mage and Euphoria and Belrog went to town on Gale Winds as she screamed and writhed on the ground and crying and whimpering helplessly as they dissected her and cast a spell on her so that she'd burn for hours and not die.
The mage that held Sapphire hit the ground pierced by Luna's blade. Sapphire charged again but got teleported with Luna to the far side of the base where Celestia and Twilight were. Shining Armor appeared by their side and they pushed as hard as they could to a vantage point, on top of the main office building. The earth ponies were completely butchered and strewn all over the place. The one lucky one who survived was was cornered and before they got to him he lit the fuse of a bomb and took out ten mages as he blew up.
The odds now were three thousand five hundred mages to only two hundred ponies, all unicorns. Sapphire's rage kicked in and she charged her foe blasting and burning everything and everypony insight. Gale Winds finally extinguished still cut open but not dead wanted to die. Euphoria led the troops while Belrog levitated himself and Gale high enough for Sapphire to see.
He repaired and healed Gale Winds and then slammed her into the groundbreaking of both her wings. As she whimpered trying to put on a brave face saw that Belrog conjured up a cleaver and hacked her wings off. Next, he conjured a Warhammer and broke her legs. To finish the job he created a knife with a short blade and started stabbing. When he got bored he threw the body against a wall.
Wanting this to end Sapphire tapped into her dragon side and coupled it with the war mage part of her and sent a blast that upon impact wiped out a hundred mages.
The curse I'll mention gets stronger as the victim nears their 25th birthday. It was about two and a half hours before it climaxed; Belrog and Euphoria and their former six thousand easily could've ended the fight in a matter of minutes but drew it out so that their curse could climax.
Darkness fell and Sapphire demanded that the royals leave and that she'll finish the fight. Now it was just her and thirty-four hundred mages. The mages had the tables turned on them as Sapphire butchered the mages and had bits and pieces of them flying everywhere. Finally, it was just Belrog and Euphoria left. Belrog attacked and he was relentless, but he stumbled and Sapphire blasted him and thinking he has deadly whipped around and attacked Euphoria she fought well, but Sapphire shatters her rib cage and broke her horn. Sapphire stood over her and levitated the broken horn and stabbed Euphoria dozens of times with it and made Euphoria burn alive without killing her...........but she got bored and the club on her tail bashed Euphoria's head and body to a pulp. Thinking that she won went to Gale's body expecting her to be dead but she wasn't. She cradled the almost lifeless body as it whimpered slowly dying. Suddenly she felt something pierce her and Gale was pulled from her as she hit the ground. Gale's eyes widened as Belrog conjured up a pair of pruning shears and opens and closed the blades he stabbed Gale to death, this time to prove her to be dead he swapped from shears to a surgical blade and opens her up again, and had her dissected and he used magic and ripped her insides out and did so slowly that she screamed for a solid hour. Then she went silent as Belrog crushed her heart in his hooves.
Sapphire sobbed, out of all the recruits Gale had been the nicest one, now she died the most horrific death possible. She stood bleeding from being stabbed in the abdomen, she enveloped Belrog and flew up to a high altitude and flew down at top speed, and impaled him on a spire on a tomb just outside of the base.
Balrog gasped as he was stuck on the spire in excruciating pain. Sapphire hovers above him and conjured up the same spell he had used on Gale. After a few minutes, Sapphire used her claws and dissected him and force him to eat his r before having his eyes ripped out and shoved down his throat and Sapphire gently kissed his cheek and with her Jaws ripped out his intrils.
When the royals came back the base was absolute Carnage, Twilight had to leave because it was too much for her and she was throwing up every five minutes. Celestia and Luna took Sapphire by their side and told her they would perform a spell that will tell them how much magic flows in her. The base was just burned and the bodies were burned as well. Sapphire four weeks later sat in her kitchen back home when she realized that she hadn't set up a memorial shrine for her squad and the other recruits. So carefully set the shrine up in her garden, her other squad-mates deaths didn't haunt her as Gale's had. Having a friend near death revived just to go through the pain of death again......... was just pure evil and torture, Gale's eyes showed pain and terror and Sapphire couldn't ever live a normal life. Luna was guarding her dreams and she was finally free of her demons but at a high cost. It had cost her new friends.
THE END
