Shepard's Adventure
Chapter 30: A meeting with the council
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Twilight stared in wonder at the figure before her, stepping out of the light was a large stallion who Twilight recognized immediately.
“I don’t believe it!” Twilight exclaimed as the stallion barked a few orders to the salamanders in a language that Twilight couldn’t understand. The salamanders let out growls of frustration but they submitted and walked back the way that they’d come.’
“Twily am I glad to see you!” Her brother exclaimed scooping her into a hug.
“Shining Armor how did you even get here?” Twilight asked once she was out of the hug, her brother laughed.
“Come on Twily you knew that Cadance and I were diplomats, Celestia just sent us where she thought we were needed.” Twilight stared at her brother.
“You’re the diplomats to the Dragon Council, and you never told me!” she sounded annoyed, her brother sighed.
“Sorry Twily I assumed that Celestia would tell you, I haven’t had much time to write between juggling politics, and keeping the griffins from gaining and advantage with the dragons.” He said apologetically “So who are your new friends?” He asked turning to Shepard, Garrus, Tali, and Thane.
“I’m Commander Shepard; this is Garrus, Tali, and Thane.” Shepard said offering Shining Armor his hoof to shake, Shining Armor did so and was impressed with Shepard’s grip.
“We can talk more once we’re inside Mt. Inferno, as for now I suggest we leave before those salamanders come back.” Shining Armor said gesturing behind him with his horn and somehow opening a large swirling doorway. He stepped through it followed by the others, when they emerged from the other side Twilight gasped the room that they were in was huge. Lava poured off of ledges above them in slow meandering streams until they fell into the bottomless chasm that stretched off into the distance. The room that they were in was apparently attached to one of the walls of the volcano, Twilight tried looking for the opposite wall, but her vision didn’t travel nearly far enough.
“That’s the great thing about traveling with you Shepard, for every time we almost get killed we also get to see something truly incredible!” Garrus said inspecting the scenery in awe.
“Don’t worry Garrus after this war I think I’ll be done.” Shepard replied
“Twily you did an amazing job getting here, although I’ve got to say that the death toll was surprisingly high for such a small group.” Shining Armor told his sister while the others talked.
“What do you mean?” She asked him in confusion.
“Well let’s see, you killed everything that you encountered on your way in, except for a swam of giant bats!” Her brother didn’t sound mad, he sounded amused. “Most ponies have the sense to run from some fights but not my sister.” He was smiling at her with a large grin on his face “Thanks to your little killing spree the Dragon Council is willing to take us seriously unlike the griffins.”
“Wait what?” Twilight asked her brother in confusion.
“The Dragon Council respects those who can defend themselves and survive on their own, and up till now you were doing just that under some of the worst conditions on the planet. The griffins on the other hand just flew a few feet off the ground until they got here without having to fight a single thing, the Dragons called them cowardly curs.” He chuckled quietly to himself at the memory.
“So what now Brother?” Twilight asked him her eyes scanning the room.
“Now you meet with the Dragon Council and plea your case.” A deep female voice said from behind them. Twilight jumped in surprise as did the others with the exception of Shining Armor; standing behind them was a massive dragon, easily four times as big as the one that they had displaced from the cave near Ponyville. Her scales were red with gold inlay and her eyes which were the color of emeralds were the size of house windows, two streams of smoke pooled their way out of her nostrils and below them was a mouth filled with teeth twice as tall as a pony. “My name is Ruthiel Firebrand and I’ve been charged with making sure you don’t set off any international incidents.” She said it with a slight smile gracing her face, Twilight didn’t know why but this dragon reminded her of an old librarian.
“I’m Twilight Sparkle, student to Princess Celesta Bringer of the Sun; these are my friends and companions…” She was stopped by Ruthiel raising a talon.
“You can tell the Council, I’ll learn all your names and titles then, oh and hi Shika good to see you again.” Dash sputtered for a second before she asked.
“How did you know that she was in here?” Ruthiel smiled and turned her head as she walked slowly forward so that the ponies could keep up with her without having to run.
“I can sense two Paladin energy signatures from you one of which I can identify as Shika’s, that and you look like a smaller exact copy of her.” The dragon said Dash stopped in her tracks in shock and Fluttershy had to nudge her so that she wouldn’t fall behind. They entered a large chamber that seemed to overlook a the main volcano shaft. Spread out along the edges of the cavernous were large ledges on top of which sat innumerable large dragons ranging in color everywhere from black to white. Directly across from their ledge sat a incredibly large golden dragon who was ten times the size of Ruthiel, when he saw them he looked up from the conversation that he was having with Cadance who was standing a few feet away from him.
“Welcome to my court Twilight Sparkle and companions my name is Parthensus and I am the king of the Dragon Council, now what did you wish to discuss?” Parthensus’s voice was an echoing rumble which thundered across the chamber, yet as impressive and awe inspiring as it sounded it was also remarkably friendly.
“My lord as you know my name is Twilight Sparkle star student to Celestia the Bringer of the Sun and I’m here to plead your assistance against a great enemy.” Twilight said keeping her voice respectful but strong.
“So I’d gathered.” Parthensus replied with a small grin, Twilight blushed. “Please go on.”
“It all started a month ago when my friend Pinkamena Diane Pie found Shepard here walking into the town of Ponyville where I live…” at the mention of Pinkie several of the dragons snorted with laughter and a slight smile touched Parthensus’s lips.
“We know Pinkie quite well.” He said drawing a look of surprise from Twilight
“…Anyways Pinkie brought Shepard to my library where I asked him some questions and it turned out that he was once a member of a species known as humans, he’d just finished fighting a long and bloody war and he’d sacrificed his life for the sake of the galaxy. Then a group of his crew showed up saying that they’d also died, the three others standing around Shepard are members of his crew. I wrote a letter to Celestia explaining all of this and she called us to Canterlot for a meeting, Shepard managed to annoy her but Luna managed to keep her from turning him into a pile of ash. We departed the castle with the intention of showing Shepard and his crew that had accompanied him the sights of Canterlot; unfortunately we were interrupted by an assassin who injured two of Shepard’s crew who are still in the hospital recovering. When we next saw Celestia she explained that somepony had been slowly destroying both her own and her sister’s minds and it was only through the intervention of Discord that she was able to avoid succumbing to the magic.” At this the dragons broke into scattered conversation.
“Lies, lies and slander I say!” yelled a griffins who alighted on perch to the right of Twilight’s group. “Dragons of the Council I beg you throw these lying ponies into the depths of the volcano!” Parthensus turned to gaze steadily at the griffin.
“I believe that you’ve already had your turn Blackbeak, as it is they have yet to accuse you of anything, in fact you seem unreasonably nervous.” Blackbeak froze his feathers ruffled uncomfortably under the combined stares of over three hundred dragons. “Continue your tale Twilight Sparkle” Parthensus said kindly returning his gaze to Twilight who nodded in thanks.
“We set off heading towards Ponyville but were warned by a friend that there were a group of griffins in position to ambush us outside of the city, luckily Celestia was so kind as to provide us with these guns and we were able to fight them off. After that we’ve been traveling around Equestria stopping the assassination of Celestia and keeping the griffins from destroying Ponyville. From an outside source we learned that the being known as the Illusive Man was the one behind all the hardships that have happened to Equestria in the last month. We set out planning to assault the Illusive Man directly but Discord advised us to seek your assistance instead, and so here we are sounded by enormous dragons.” Twilight finished with a smile, it got a few chuckles from the surrounding Dragons.
“An interesting tale, what say you in response Blackbeak?” Parthensus asked the disgruntled griffin.
“The same as before Lies and Slander, they are obviously here ruin the good name of the Illusive Man!” The griffin replied in outrage. Parthensus rolled his massive eyes.
“Blackbeak you’re sweating like a sapling pig, your eyes are scanning the room for any escape route and if I’m not mistaken you’re holding a small pistol that’s being aimed at my eye.” As he said the last part Blackbeak pulled the trigger sending a bullet flying towards the dragon king’s eye, without missing a beat the dragon kind grabbed the bullet out of the air with magic and sent it speeding back into the pistol that had shot it forcing it out of the griffin’s talons. “So let me see that’s two counts of attempted mind rape committed against physical goddesses who are responsible for the raising and lowering of the sun. Three attempts of unsuccessful assignation of royalty, the attack of a normally noncombat village, however many you’ve killed in your attempts to kill these ponies. Oh and the sheer stupidity to aim a deadly weapon at me, tell me have you ever heard of waking the sleeping giant?” The griffin nodded uncomfortably “Well in this case you’ve woken an army of them, and we weren’t sleeping that deeply to begin with.” Parthensus let out a short jet of fire immolating the griffin where he stood. He then turned to smile at Twilight and conspiratorially whispered “I’ve wanted to do that for weeks.”
AN
Just to let you guys know I’d planned on having it be Shining Armor and Cadance for a while, I just wanted to see the finale fist so I could make sure.