4th day of Moon's Rising
454 Years after the Defeat of Discord by the Sisters

Pallas looked up at the beast. Six wings,each translucent and resembling a slice of the night sky. A flat face like a bulldog with leonine mane of leathery frills. An armored, scaled hide the color of a pearl. It was bigger than the homes around here, towering over the Low City. It’d be stupid for anypony to fight it alone, but Pallas wasn’t spoiled for choice.

“You’re one ugly mother-” Pallas was cut off by a bellowing roar that made her crouch, bracing herself as her spurs dug into the ground to keep her from toppling. A row of spines down the dragon’s back raised up like hair standing on end, before launching towards Pallas in a high arc.

Pallas’ tail slapped the ground with the sound of a bell as she jumped away, galloping to the side as spears of bone slammed into the ground, going right through the cobblestone and burying themselves into the dirt below, impacting with enough force to raise a cloud of dust.

“Ugly, but strong,” Pallas muttered. She closed with it, only to see the wings spread as the dragon jumped up, spinning in the air like a huge cat, its tail lashing around. Pallas’ eyes went wide, not expecting the sudden burst of speed. The mace-like tail hit her from the side with the force of a cannon, slamming her into a building and through the wall.

Pallas realized she should be dead. It was more than enough force to kill her. To kill any pony. Her ribs ached, and for a moment she wondered if shock was keeping her from feeling it.

She got to her hooves, looking back at herself. She certainly didn’t feel like she was dying from blunt trauma. Her armor was barely even scuffed.

“I need to remember to thank Silver Tongue once this is over,” she said. As she tried to shake off the disorientation from being put through a wall, a blade of purple lightning and fire tore through the home, inches above her head, so close she felt her hair stand on end from the static.

The building was abruptly open to the sky, and Pallas ran out as the blade edged downwards, rolling through the broken wall and back out onto the street as everything disintegrated in the stream of hot dragonfire.

Pallas ran. She was only a block away now. The dragon pulled its head up, obviously struggling with the force and recoil of its own breath weapon, like a firefighter trying to direct a high-pressure hose. The stream of energy cut off, sputtering out, and the dragon lunged as she charged, trying to bite her.

Pallas did something stupid, and tried to stop it with her blades, bringing them together. Her spurs dug into the street as the impact hit, keeping her from being knocked back. Somehow, impossibly, she held it back. The dragon’s head alone was the size of a small building, with teeth as long as her legs.

And she was holding it back, her wings and legs straining against the incredible force. She could do anything.

Pallas jumped, the restrained force of the dragon’s lunge suddenly released, the beast’s face slamming into the cobblestone. She landed on its forehead, clinging to its scales, her spurs tapping and stabbing into the dragon and trying to find purchase for her. The whole thing seemed to be as tough as stone, like it was made of several tons of angry rock.

Unfortunately for the dragon, Pallas was fully capable of shattering stone.

She slammed a wingblade into its face, scales exploding under the blow. A spray of white-green blood erupted over her, hissing with heat as it splattered against her armor. The dragon reared up, throwing Pallas from her perch, and flew into the air, flapping its six wings as it repositioned itself at the other end of the plaza, crushing several buildings with its bulk.

A crackling glow erupted along the dragon’s spine and another storm of spines was launched into the sky. Between that and the dragon’s breath, Pallas knew she had to get close and stay there if she wanted to have any chance at surviving.

The lenses over her eyes lit up, and her vision seemed to slow. She could see the spines clearly, like their edges were bright and popping out at her. The dust and smoke from the destruction around her seemed to fade to invisibility as she batted some of the deadly spikes from the air, their hardened edges raising sparks from her wingblades as Pallas parried them.

She jumped over an overturned cart of oranges, nearly slipping in the wide puddle of gore from what had once been the vendor. A shadow fell over Pallas, and she looked up to see the dragon’s talon slashing down at her.

Without thinking, she raised her wings to try and stop it. The talon slammed down, driving her hooves an inch into the cobblestones. She gasped with pain as her wing nearly popped from its socket. If not for her armor she’d have been killed instantly. Sparks rained down from her wingblades as she held the talon off, the serrated edge of the talon shearing away against the enchanted steel.

Pallas shoved, rearing up, and the dragon lost its balance. The crushing weight of the talon came free, and she jumped, spreading her wings. With the dragon reeling, there was a tiny window of attack. Pallas slammed her wingblades into the talon, chipping away at the stony scales before landing on it, using her full weight to buck with her back hooves, using the spurs in her armor like jackhammer points.

The dragon’s skin cracked and shattered like the face of a cliff, the scales exploding out and raining down on the street. One of its wings flashed towards Pallas, knocking the thestral back and out of the sky.

Pallas landed heavily, trying to catch her breath. The dragon howled, wounded. Dark, bleeding flesh was exposed where she’d torn apart its scales. She just had to hold out until the rest of the army got there.

The dragon spun, and Pallas saw the tail whipping towards her. She launched herself into the air, just barely clearing the bladed tip. It crashed into a store, reducing it to rubble. Just as her hooves touched the ground, the tail struck in the opposite direction. She didn’t have time to jump over the sweeping attack, and slammed her wingblade into the ground vertically.

The dragon’s tail hit the wingblade and parted before it like a wave breaking against the bow of a boat, the force of the dragon’s blow only serving to sever its own tail in a single motion, spraying Pallas with a powerful jet of blood, like a firehose of gore.

Pallas sputtered, coughing out a clot of blood as the dragon screamed in pain, retreating back to nurse its wounds. Her wing fell limply against the ground, blade scraping noisily against the cobblestones, numbed from the sheer impact against the still-tender bone.

“Okay, not a great idea…” Pallas mumbled, trying to force her wing to move. She could just barely pull it up. It didn’t feel broken, just deadened, and she had to watch it to make sure it was actually moving as she pulled it to her side to keep it from dragging and getting further injured.

Pallas looked up again towards the dragon just as it breathed a cone of crackling fire and lightning, the plasma streaming across the street like a flood of ball lightning. The street lit up with ultraviolet light, the gore around Pallas shining under it with a white glow, splashes and streaks of black from the blood of the murdered soldiers around the street competing with the spray of white and turning the plaza into a riot of conflicting shades.

There was no time to think. Pallas ran from the unnatural dragonbreath, the street burning in her wake as she tried to outrun the destruction behind her. Bodies crunched underfoot and she saw a guard open his eyes and cough up blood as she passed, only to dissolve into light a moment later as the plasma burned his body into ash.

She ran through a doorway, hoping the stone would protect her. A window exploded, and Pallas threw herself to the ground, ignoring the pain from the glass. The air filled with heat like the blast from an open oven, wood smouldering. The stone itself started to give out, and as the light intensified until it seemed the sun was right outside. Pallas screamed as a tendril of purple lightning crackled across her right side, her helm catching the worst of it. She could feel blisters raising on her cheek just from that moment of contact, the metal turning red-hot almost instantly.

And then it was over, the light fading. Smoke rose from the wood beams, their surfaces blackened. The smell of burning hair filled the room. Pallas got up, and tried to put her weight against the wall, only to find it was still burning hot.

“Feathering stupid dragon…” Pallas said, trying not to move the right side of her face. She took one step towards the door before the building collapsed around her, the dragon’s wounded talon coming down on top of her, smashing her through the floor and into the basement. If not for that, she’d have been flattened like a bug, but the drop down an extra story surprised the dragon, turning the lethal stomp into an overextended attack that made the beast stumble.

Pallas jumped out of the billowing clouds of dust and ash, latching onto the dragon’s limb as it raised it back up out of the rubble.

The thestral gave a primal scream as she raised her wings, ignoring the dull numbness from the injured one, and scissored into the dragon’s wounded talon. Without the protection of its scales, the blades sliced through muscle and tendon, both hitting bone at the same time. With a crack like thunder, the bone snapped.

Pallas fell away with the severed talon, riding it to the ground and leaping to the side as it crashed to the street. The dragon screamed in agony, clutching its stump, and fell over into the burning buildings on the other side of the street, going limp.

“One down,” Pallas panted. Part of her was pretty sure what she’d just done was impossible. The rest was in too much pain to care. Her ear twitched with the sound of running water, and she galloped towards the noise with a half-jerking motion, the spurs on her hooves fighting to stabilize her and keep the pony from just falling over as she ran wildly.

A broken pipe was spraying cold water into the sky like a fountain. Pallas groaned with relief as it fell around her, the water steaming on her overheated armor. The pain from her burns started to fade. She stuck her face into the flow for a moment to refresh herself slightly, shaking her head like a dog to clear the drips from her eyes as she pulled back.

“That hippogriff…” Pallas muttered, looking around. He’d only been using the dragon as a distraction. There was no sign of reinforcements yet. She’d have to go after him, despite her injuries.

Pallas spread her wings, gingerly testing herself. Feeling was starting to come back, and she was going to be sore in the morning. She beat her wings and flew up, landing on the roof of the nearest building that wasn’t on fire or collapsed into rubble.

It seemed like most of the Low City was ablaze. Ponies were screaming everywhere, and there was no time to help them all. There was no sign of either Guard unit, and the only soldiers she did see were dead.

A flicker of purple-green caught her eye, and she flew further up above the smoke to get a look. It had to be some kind of magic. It looked almost the same as the strange flare that the hippogriff had used to call the dragon. Pallas felt a sudden drop in altitude as a wing seized up. She was risking a lot trying to fly in her condition. At least it was her strong wing that was numbed, otherwise it would be even more uneven.

“I’ve got you now!” Pallas grinned, pulling her wings tighter for a dive. There was a flare of light from near the spell-circle, and a sputtering flare surged towards her. If not for the lenses in her helm, she wouldn’t have seen the bolt it was tied to. The spear-like projectile skidded across her armor as she banked to avoid it, the tip tearing through the membrane of her wing and the flare shattering into a burst of glowing crystalline dust.

Pallas was sent into a spiral, losing control. She tried to adjust, flaring out her wings despite the pain of the punctured membrane. Then she heard the roar, and the pale, doglike muzzle of the stout dragon erupted from the smoke below her.

“That damn dragon… it’s still alive?!” Pallas looked down in disbelief as the dragon opened its maw, an ultraviolet glow forming in the back of its throat.