The League of Talented Magicians

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.

Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 8: Bison Angry!

As soon as the great skeletal dragon roared, Shining placed one of his strongest shields between the six of them and the monster. Its roars and claws slammed against the purple dome with such force that each hit made Shining cringe a little.

“That…that’s Dracus, scourge of the mountains, one of the un-captured great daemons. He died instead of being thrown into Tartarus, but that was before I was born!” Discord said as he gaped in awe. The creature’s claws slammed down on the shield again, making cracks appear in the top. Trixie gasped.

“Sorry.” Shining panted. His horn glowed brighter and the cracks healed, as well as adding another layer onto it. Shining giggled nervously.

“Daisy, can you control him?” Syringe asked, noticing the strain on Shining. She gulped and pulled her guitar off of her back. “I’ll try.”

She started playing and singing and Dracus stopped attacking the shield with such an effort. Daisy strummed louder and quicker and sung with more volume, making Dracus stop his attack completely.

“Drop the shield!” she shouted quickly between words. Even that small deviation in the music made Dracus look like he was going to attack again. Shining looked at her as if she was insane, but he realized she had a point. The shield was reflecting the sound waves off each side, making her music sound duller on the outside. Shining tenderly let his shield melt away and Daisy walked towards the lucid Dracus, her body soaked in sweat from trying to keep it under control. Discord led the rest of them over to the door and he started to try to open it. As he did, Daisy got closer and closer to Dracus, making him swoon even more, until she was almost touching him. However, that was when all hell broke loose.

As Daisy approached Dracus, the monster grinned an evil smile and let loose a terrible roar. Only this roar held the beast’s magic, making the roar go supersonic. Daisy was flung from in front of him by the mere pressure of the roar. Then Dracus lunged at the group at the door. Syringe and Trixie dodged one way, Shining and Helaku the other. However, Discord got caught.

“Ow! Ow! Horseapples! Ow!” he yelled as Dracus picked him up between his fangs and swung him about like a rag doll. The fangs didn’t break Discord’s marble skin, but that didn’t mean it did not hurt. “Uraghh!!!” Discord shouted again as Dracus tried to crush him. He tried to turn Dracus’s teeth into marshmallows, but dragon bone is impervious to most spells. So Discord summoned up a large crowbar. “Get ready for the Gordon Freeman special!” he shouted as he smacked Dracus again and again.

The gonging sound of metal on bone reverberated through the cavern as Shining tried to find a place to hide Helaku. He was just a kid! He couldn’t fight this monster, even if he was the Aspect of Destruction. Shining looked around the cavern, but only found a few stalagmites to hide the boy behind while he ran off to fight the creature.

Syringe and Trixie fled off to where Daisy had been thrown by Dracus’s shout and they found her crumpled body lying against the cavern wall. Syringe went to work stat, checking all her vitals and for the level of damage. He stripped his saddlebags away from his flank and searched through them while making magical compresses along Daisy’s body. She had broken too many bones and even punctured a lung, but what matter was that her heart and brain were undamaged. Syringe didn’t know if all the magic in the world could save a pony from a broken cortex.

“What can I do?” asked Trixie nervously.

“I need you to make sure Dracus doesn’t come over here. Keep him away at all costs.” He said while he unstoppered some poultice bottles. “Draw his attention away with your illusions.” he continued as he heard Dracus roar and a distant thump, indicating that Dracus had gotten bored with his Discord-chew toy. “Hurry!” Syringe hissed. Trixie sped away with shaking limbs to face the beast.

Shining had tried to trip the monster with some aptly placed shields, but they were all too weak to phase the creature. He kept on smashing through the magic, getting ominously closer to Shining.

“Hey ugly!” screamed a couple of mares’ voices from Shining’s left. He looked over to see not one but five Trixies standing next to each other. The last one in the line looked at Shining and nodded to him. But then Dracus attacked the Trixies and they scattered running circles around the skeletal dragon. Dracus caught one in his maw, but it evaporated away. At that all the Trixies’ horns glowed and the remaining four turned into eight. Dracus brought more attacks down on the Trixies, but Shining managed to block a few.

“Don’t worry about me!” said eight Trixie voices. “Find a way to stop Draacus!” they repeated each other. Shining nodded and ran towards the thrashing beast, looking around for a way to make the monster stop. He ran around in desperation for a moment before almost being crushed by the dragon’s tail. Shining quickly jumped away. Damn thing was like a moving staircase.

That was it! If Shining could run up those vertebrae, than maybe he could find a way to decapitate the creature. Maybe use some well placed stalactites. Shining readied himself and waited for the golden moment. Dracus’s tail hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Shining sprinted up the tip of the tail, running up towards the base just at Dracus pulled his tail from the ground. The dragon was aware that a small creature was on his back, but a more appetizing meal was running around his claws. If only he could catch it, he would be content.

Shining wobbled as he climbed up to the dragon’s shoulders and held onto the vertebrae at the base of neck for dear life. Trixie had made more clones and Dracus was going crazy, trying to eat all of them. Shining focused on one particularly deadly looking stalactite and made a circular shield at its base. He magically sharpened the shield and cut through the stalactite as Dracus’s head went underneath it. Shining managed to jump away as it impacted the dragon’s head, smashing the skull into the ground. Shining stood there for a second just catching his breath.

“You did it!” sixteen Trixies shouted triumphantly. “Oops, sorry.” She said as she made the clones disappear.

“No.” Shining gasped. “We did it. We’re all a team.” He panted out.

Trixie ginned. “Well now that that’s over, let’s---”

Trixie was thrown off of her hooves by a large ivory claw. She landed with a hard thud near where Helaku was hiding. Shining turned to fight the monster, but he was impaled by the claws. Dracus picked him up while he chocked on a punctured lung and flung him over to where Trixie lay. Shining woozily saw that the blue mare was still breathing, but he also saw the panicked look in Helaku’s eyes. But then something happened. Helaku looked at the pair again, and then over to where Daisy had fallen. He snorted and screamed, charging at the monster.

Shining didn’t see it, but he heard Helaku get smacked and thrown into the air. The land however, was different. It sounded much heavier than Helaku should have been.

“I AM CHINDI!” bellowed an unnatural voice, laced with so much power; you could run all of Ponyville for the winter on that shout alone. Shining moved his head slowly, looking for the tiny bull. Instead he saw a giant beast of a bison, with large horns, sharpened to deadly points. The bull’s soft, short coat was not thick and shaggy, with jets of electricity playing across it. Every time the bull snorted flames escaped from his nostrils, and his shouts brought on an icy wind. He pawed the ground twice, eliciting two small earthquakes as he did so.

“DIE!” the bull scream-snorted and he charged at the confused Dracus.

The impact of the headbutt sent waves of magical energy coursing through every being in the cavern. Shining was surprised the mountain hadn’t been destroyed by such a force. He followed Helaku with his darkening vision, watching as the fight played itself out. After the headbutt, Dracus was dazed and Helaku took that chance to unleash a fury of attacks on him. First, Helaku jumped into the air, somehow floating as he breathed in through his nose, and let out a large bout of flame on the creature’s skull. The smell of charred bone filled the cavern as Dracus howled and hit Helaku with a claw. Helaku was flung towards the ceiling, but he caught himself on his back hooves and shouted. Pillars of stone from the cavern floor shot upwards and tripped the beast, making Dracus hit the ground heavily. Before he could right himself up, Helaku jumped, bellowing as lightning gathered in his horns. When his head connected with Dracus’s chest, ozone filled the air and Dracus screamed in pain. But Helaku wasn’t finished. He kept kitting the monster with his overpowered hooves, bellowing the whole time. And then when all Shining could hear was Helaku’s ragged breathing and Dracus’s whimpering, he saw Helaku stand again.

Helaku took up a stance across from the beaten Dracus who kept trying to get back up. Shining saw Helaku take a deep breath and felt the room get a little hotter. Then, a high pitched screaming, like that of the winter’s wind through icy trees echoed through the cavern as Helaku screamed pure winter onto Dracus. In a matter of seconds, Dracus was completely frozen over and Helaku stood there panting.

Helaku let out a victory bellow and lightning erupted from his body, striking the top of the cavern. Shining looked at the bull’s face as he turned around and suddenly understood what Helaku has said about fearing the Aspect of Destruction and power. The bull was not the small bison foal Helaku; he was a creature of rage and power. He was Chindi.

Shining’s vision blurred away to darkness as the blood loss affected his body. He heard some drunken voice, but was lost to the darkness before he could answer them.