Just A Slice

A black pony in a shadowskin cloak felt his horn tinge. A magical prickling that meant the princess Luna was had sent him a package in the form of a pegasus. her last letter hadn't told him which pony to look for so he cast a finding spell. An almost invisible line appeared in mid-air pointing out the door. He summoned several thugs, and told them to get ready to go hunting. They all grinned at him cruelly. He sought out only the most vicious ponies from the prisons and from the most violent districts of the cities he had searched, coming up with an army of several hundred. Enough to take his dream by force.

Leaving his lair with the criminals at his back he followed the trace leading him to the package. Luna always put a slight magical cloud over it to keep others from opening it and drawing him to it. The packages always came to the pony they were intended for. He sought out the cloud in the massive city. As he drew closer to it, his horn pulled harder at the trace and he ordered his thugs, thirty in all, to fan out and single out the one he wanted as they were excellent at. They were like wolves they way they separated their prey from the public to get him where they would not be noticed. He found a crate and stood on it to get a better view of the crowd.

His eyes followed the trace to a dark green pony with an even deeper green mane with a gold streak in it. The pegasus was swiveling his head like a corkscrew, obviously looking for him, but the shadowskin made him absurdly hard to see. He had once made a thug wear it just to see how other ponies saw him. He could barely make him out even in full sunlight. He shook the memory away and sent a mental projection of the one he wanted to all of his thugs. They immediately found him in the throng of ponies and began their "magic" per se. The pegasus saw one thug give him a dirty look and began edging away from him, putting as much distance between them as he possibly could. The dark pony watched in awe as they corralled him, gradually closing in on him in then middle of the street. Eventually they surrounded him and pulled him to the side of the road.

It was unfortunate that none in his army were pegasi because he took flight over their heads trying to escape. The dark pony cursed his foolishness. Normally the pegasus Praetorian would deliver the package and knew the routine by heart, but this was a new pony so he didn't know what to expect. He was looking for an entirely black pony, not a series of thugs singling him out. He gave a mental order to the thugs and all 31 of them set chase after the flying pony. In the crowds it proved difficult, but the thugs knew how to traverse an astounding piece of the city very quickly and the Dark pony just teleported across the rooftops, keeping with him and not once loosing sight of him. He began flying toward an unfavorable portion of the city as he neared the dragon keep. The Dark pony teleported to a house around the corner with an excellent view of the entrance and the street below, startling a couple kissing on the roof. They scrambled away while he watched and waited for the pegasus.

On cue he came flying around the corner and seeing the keep, headed for the foreboding entrance. The Dark pony told his thugs to set up beside the gates and wait for him to leave. Ponies were unwelcome in that place. And he settled on the roof ready to wait however long he needed to get that pegasus.

Cairn landed just past the tall gate that stood in front of a huge tower, panting heavily. Those dangerous ponies that kept appearing all around him in the crowd surely had foul intentions for him, and he had a package to deliver. He could only hope that they weren't just waiting for him outside of the gate. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He turned to look at the tower before him. Huge stone gargoyles glared down at him from the top of the tower and he could spot rubies the size of apples for their eyes. Statues of dragons breathing fire, holding maidens in scaled paws, and casting magic surrounded him like a silent army of depictions. He had no idea what this place was, but he thought it much better than whatever those thugs had had in mind for him. Suddenly he heard a voice ring in his head, a silent echo resounded after the single word "Come" lit up his mind like a tinder fire. He felt his hooves move him in the direction of the tower seemingly of their own will.

He came to a massive solid steel door inlaid with enameled, cut gems of every kind and hue higher than the fishing ships mast, and as wide as the length of the boat. The door opened slowly with out any cranking of gears or magic, and as far as Cairn could tell, it opened entirely on its own. The door opened barely a crack, but the opening was as wide as a dozen ponies standing abreast as Cairn entered involuntarily, reprimanding his hasty hooves as they walked his body into the darkness. Several torches along the wall lit up when the door closed, not leaving him in darkness for long. He stood in a hallway just as wide as the door, yet so high, he could barely see the stones of the ceiling in the gloom. The hallway went on for what seemed miles. But that was impossible, the tower wasn't that big, just the scale and proportion made it seem larger than it was. The voice appeared in his head again.

"Is that what you really see? How do you know that the floor you stand on is not stone but sand?" He looked down and indeed he was standing in sand. He looked back up and the walls were made entirely of a different kind of stone than they were before. The ceiling also was much closer, barely a wing above Cairn's head. "Your eyes deceive you. Anyone can make their surroundings seem different to portray a false reality to get what they want." Before Cairn's eyes the hallway shifted and the ceiling retracted to it's former height. But the hall instead turned to a massive circular room ringed in a small river that flowed into the floor. Before Cairn stood a black wall carved like a reptiles scales. The wall moved and lifted causing Cairn looked up. The wall was instead the enormous nose of an immeasurable dragon that towered so high he couldn't see the top it. Scared out of his mind, Cairn stumbled back and fell on the floor in a heap. From the floor he looked at the dragon. A single eye as big as the door he had just entered through and red as blood opened and focused on him. He felt puny to the point of nonexistence before the unimaginable volume of the creature before him. In his mind the dragon chuckled, "You are the only pony I have met who has not cowered before me, babbling for mercy. Your courage impresses me."

Cairn couldn't believe his... mind. He could barely keep from passing out in terror, and he was the most brave pony? The dragon chuckled again, sounding like a combination of an erupting volcano and an earthquake. "I am the Patriarch. Oldest of all beings in all the world and father to the race of dragons. I was before all that is began. I saw the earth build the continents and felt the great flood against my scales. I saw the lands shatter and break into fragments. The cities were built unbeknownst to ponies on my back, and when I arose, they believed it to be a terrible earthquake. I have lived here on the energies of this planet for more aeons than your kind has numbers to count. I am oldest of the old and intrigued by you, does that not count for something? Even if you do not know the courage you possess, you should know why it then intrigues me, for I see it in your very soul." Cairn could only stand and stare. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't... anything. He could barely form cohesive thoughts.

"Now, take my blessing and find that courage in your soul. With it you can surmount the very mountains, and do all that is and is not possible." The head shifted again and the dragon opened his maw, it the size of a castle. The dragon cast a breath on Cairn, hardly a breath to the dragon, but then as strong as a hurricane to the tiny pony. He pushed against the torrent, barely able to keep his hooves as his body was filled with energy. He began to feel the thrum of his blood in his every pore. He could feel his legs begin to become stronger and stronger with every second. His wings literally lengthened in his wingblades and he feared they would cease to fit, but they continued to adapt to their mounts, increasing in length. At the end his mane stood straight back and his wings were almost twice as long as they were before. His entire being was livid with energy and he felt like he really could topple the mountains. Every chip and crack in the stone walls around him was clearly visible and he could think with the utmost clarity.

The enormous head settled back down in its previous position, and the great red eye focused on him once again. He could see that it was more of a deeper crimson and he could see flecks of gold in the titanic iris. He could hear the dragons gentle breathing and he could feel tremendous power in the air around him, thrumming and pulsing like a beating heart. Cairn could smell the dragons hide, a musky, yet clean scent. All of this and more he absorbed in a fraction of a second. The dragon hummed like a roll of thunder, a pleasured sound, and bade Cairn leave. "Your name is now Aeroga, like that of your birth-name, but the power of the dragon beats in your soul now, and you are different." At the suggestion of his birth-name he turned and explained his loss of memory. The Patriarch only said, "You will remember when the time is right. And that time is not now." With that, the newly dubbed, "Aeroga" left the powerful being in his tower and left the courtyard into the city beyond.

The moment his hoof touched the pavement outside the gates, a pony on either side of him tackled him. Or at least tried to. He could smell them before they struck, and he found that all his senses were all amplified. He darted out from under them and bucked another coming from behind him in the chest. The third went flying into a wall as three more came at him. He leaped vertically, nimble as a cat and caught two on the jaw with a lightning-fast hoof, and the third he slashed with a wingblade, splattering the wall with bits of brain and skull. He landed softly and, whirling, cut yet another brutes legs out from under him. He fell, legless, as Aeroga took a strong flap of his wings to fly away when the strong aura of a unicorn picked him up. He fought the magical grip as much as he could before he saw the pony responsible for his magical imprisonment, a solid black unicorn with golden eyes, draped in a shadowy cloak that made him almost invisible even in the day. The unicorn leaped down from the house he was perched on, and approached him with a slight hint at displeasure in his eyes. Aeroga could see a faint scar, covered by fur, just under his left eye, but the rest of the pony was obscured by the strange cloak that enshrouded him like a fog. "An impressive display of prowess, but I believe you have something that is mine."

Aeroga nodded and responded, "Yes sir." The unicorn let him down and Aeroga pulled the metal box out of his saddle bags, handing it to the ghostly pony. "Why thank you. Would you like to walk with me?" Aeroga agreed and followed the pony into the shadows, descending into the alleyways between buildings. He smelled them before he saw them. Thugs, the same ones from earlier, moved almost silently into a ring around the unicorn and enhanced pegasus and walked with them. "These are some of the ponies under my command. A shame you had to kill those seven before, they were some of my best. But that allowed me to see what you could do. So, how is the princess Luna?"

Aeroga stopped walking, "Who?" The Dark pony turned to face him, his face puzzled. "Luna is the one who sent you, no?" Aeroga explained that he had no recollection of the events before his awakening on the ship besides the need to deliver the package. "Ah. Well you have delivered your package and I find I am in need of a second in command, as my most recent one is bleeding to death in the street without any legs. Would you consider applying for the job? Unless there is something else you wish to do."

"No. I have no purpose without my memory and living alone won't help much I should think. I would be happy to apply for the position." The pony looked pleased as he lead Aeroga into a small apartment building. "Good, you are hired." This pegasus was exceptionally agile and strong. He would be invaluable in the battle to come. Thought the Dark Lord. "Your training begins now."