---

---

The past five days have been interesting, I can now keep my champion form up for ten minutes before I get tired. It's not bad but it could be better. I've also learnt how to spit lava a short distance, though the first time I tried I was choking as I had to force it up from where my stomach would be and then spit it out.

I've also learnt to fly with these bulky wings but only for about ten seconds before I get tired and fall back down... still got the bruise from the first attempt.

Celestia and Luna have learnt new ways to use their aspects as Celestia can now move at the speed of light in a straight line and can give off a constant aura of light that can blind everyone around her, though it's not really good in a mixed battle of friend and foe. Luna can now launch multiple shadow tendrils and spear practically everything in front of her, she can also create two things she calls shadow souls, small waist high miniature looking deathmaws that she can control with a mere thought.

A team of archaeologists and changelings arrived the next day after we discovered the ancient changeling city. Over the days they found out it was named the Onyx Hive, where a breed of pure black changelings once lived. Many books have been found and preserved to be taken back to Canterlot for study, though from what they've found something terrible like a wide scale battle must have taken place.

We're heading back home to Canterlot as word from the border is that a flock of dragons are coming. Vortigan has already been told and has brought a force of mages, marksmen, twenty heavy ballista, and ten long range cannons with him.

The dragons are estimated to arrive at the grassy plains between the Everfree Forest and the dragon borders about twenty four hours from now.

"How will we stop so many dragons from just overwhelming us?" Luna asks with worry.

"I think the best bet is to kill the Dragonlord quickly and take the sceptre from him to force the dragons to stand down," I reply with a frown. Question is how am I going to kill him? I can't use water and lightning elements to weaken his scales in the fire champion form and I doubt that I would even stand a chance without my champion form anyway. That dragon from the Everfree was big, and from what Ember told me her father is massive.

"But what if the dragons attack before you can defeat the Dragonlord?" Celestia then asks with a frown. She's right, they could attack us before I can kill the Dragonlord and attack our people along with Vortigan's soldiers...

"Then I better kill him quickly, if what your parents told us is true, then they won't fight fair and will try to kill us any way they can," I reply and sigh. I hope after this is all over we get some peace and quiet for a while, I want some quality time with my family.

After a few minutes of just flying back home, a pegasus guard flies up to us from the direction of Canterlot panting heavily as he lands on the deck. "Your majesties... The dragons are... about to arrive... at the Prancing Plains in about... thirty minutes," he tells us before collapsing, winded from his apparent hasty flight to us.

"Captain! Change course for the Prancing Plains!" Celestia tells the unicorn currently behind the wheel.

"Aye aye, my Queen," he replies and spins the wheel to the left.

I look towards where Ponyville used to be and frown. 'I won't let the rest of Equestria suffer the same fate as Ponyville, I will kill this Dragonlord,' I tell myself with a determined frown on my face.

---

We arrive to see an army of Equestrians and Terrans armed and ready for battle, cannons and ballista are lined up and airships ready to engage in the air.

We land near a large tent and enter, a large table sits in the middle with a map of the area on it. Shining Armour, Ember, and Vortigan are talking to each other coming up with possible plans of attack and defences.

"Good evening, though I wish it was under better circumstances," I greet them all.

Vortigan looks up from the map and nodded at me. "I wish the same, though a dragon invasion sounds pretty serious and I've had to pull my best mages to aid in the possible battle," he replies.

We then spend around thirty minutes all discussing what we can possibly do to counter the dragons should they attack during my fight. Vortigan suggests getting the pegasi to push large clouds filled with water into the dragons and his mages will send lightning beams into them to take advantage of their weakness. Ember will also try to convince her father to leave peacefully, but she doesn't believe it will work.

While I face the Dragonlord; Celestia, Luna, and Vortigan will be watching my back in case the dragons try to ambush me during the fight.

A guard then bursts into the tent with a frown on his face. "Your Majesties! The dragons are approaching the Prancing Plains now, there seems to be at least a hundred of them..." he tells us grimly.

Celestia and Luna's eyes widen while Vortigan frowns. How are we going to deal with that many? Possibly even more?

"Thank you for the warning, private. Please return to your post and prepare for battle," Celestia replies and the guard salutes before leaving.

"We hope thou hast learnt enough in the past week to face the Dragonlord," Luna tells me with a worried expression while looking at the tent's entrance.

"Yeah," I reply with a nervous chuckle. "so do I." I then head out the tent and look towards the direction of Drakonis, only to see dragons everywhere in the skies.

I glare at the incoming dragons and start stretching my limbs, I'm too nervous to stand still and it appears my wives can tell that as well.

"It will be alright, our love. All we can suggest is thou try to take him down as fast as thou can," Luna tells me and places her left hand on my shoulder.

"I know, but the thought of facing so many at once is, a frightening idea... As soon as the fight starts, my best bet will be to go for his throat and try to puncture it while spitting lava down his gullet to fry is innards," I reply and take a deep breath.

After about six or eight minutes, the dragons arrive where some land and others stay in the air, but what gets my attention is the very large dragon the size of Canterlot Castle landing in front of them all.

"Puny little ponies, I've heard there is one among you who has slain two of our kind. Claw them over and I may just let the rest of you live!" the hulking blue scaled with a slightly darker scaled underbelly dragon with large horns that go down from the sides of his head and curl forward just under his chin orders us. Gods, he's even wearing a big ruby crown on top of his head that has a sceptre embedded into it along with a large dark grey metallic chest plate that looks like it's made from enough metal to arm and armour three hundred or more guards...

The guards look towards me before looking back at the dragons and ready their weapons, at least they'd rather fight than surrender me over to him to save their own hides.

I step forward and stand ahead of my wives and the others. "I am the one who killed them, they attack us first and I defended myself and my family from their attempts to kill us... If you are here to retaliate for their hostile actions, then you risk not only starting a war with Equestria, but also our allies from another world," I reply and gesture to the humans, elves, and dwarves with us.

The Dragonlord looks around at them and then laughs. "You think these pitiful creatures will be enough to stop us!?" he asks with amusement in his tone.

I frown at him as Ember then steps forward and looks up to her dad. "Father! Please return home and cease this foolish endeavour, you do not know who you are threatening," she tells him. It seems we're going with the whole I'm an ancient dragon ruse.

"Oh? And who is this tiny pony? I see no horn or wings, he doesn't seem like he'll put up any kind of resistance, the rumors that he killed two dragons is obviously a lie," he replies with a scowl at me.

"He is an ancient dragon from the ponies ally's world," Ember tells him and he raises an eyebrow.

"Him? An ancient dragon?" he asks before bursting out into laughter as the other dragons do as well.

"I am, and I challenge you for the Dragonlord's Sceptre!" I shout at him making him and the others shut up instantly.

The Dragonlord growls at me and snorts out some flames. "You dare challenge me!?" he bellows out in anger.

I narrow my eyes and gather mine and Infernus's mana together and take on my physical fire form, from there I advance to the champion form and rear up on my legs, wings spread wide, head pointing to the sky and roar out loudly, making the ground quake and the dragons to look shocked.

I drop back down to all fours and snort out my own plume of flames. I may be a third of his size, but that doesn't mean I can't do some damage.

"And as a dragon, he has the right to challenge you for the sceptre, father," Ember tells him with a frown due to the fact I can no longer talk, and I believe she is still angry at him for trying to force her home.

The Dragonlord snarls at Ember before looking back at me. "Very well, daughter. I accept his challenge, and when I win, I shall take this land as our hunting grounds!" he replies and launches himself at me.

I growl and leap to the right avoiding his right claw as it collides into the ground where I stood, I retaliate by lunging forward and bite down onto his right forearm and cough up some lava from my stomach which seeps into the wound.

He roars out in pain as the lava starts to melt the soft muscle under his scales and I quickly let go as he tries to pull his arm away. He then roars out in anger and a dark green dragon dives down at me, which I roll out of the way scorching the grass with my molten body.

He hits the ground and turns in time for me to leap on top of him before sinking my teeth into his long neck, biting down hard. He roars out in pain and tries to shake me off as I keep putting more pressure on his neck, and after a few seconds the sound of sizzling starts to pick up as my molten maw starts to melt through his scales and then right through the muscle as I bite his head off. Good thing I can't taste anything in this form...

His body begins to flail out of control as his lifeless head hits the ground, I leap off the twitching body and glare back up to Torch who looks surprised that I just bit through the dragon's neck with ease. I then lean back and gather lava from my stomach before spitting it out at the Dragonlord, it hits his chestplate which melts right through and leaves a one metre wide hole in it, but his scales are unharmed.

He snarls at me again before taking a deep breath and breathes fire all over me, I don't make any attempt to avoid it as the flames don't even affect me. Once the flames die down I start walking on all fours towards him as he raises his left claw to swipe at me. Another dragon then slams into my back and pins me to the ground while I was focusing on Torch.

"Adrian!" Luna calls out as Torch brings his left claw down on top on me and the other dragon crushing us both into the dirt. I mentally groan as my body feels like it's just a puddle of lava in a crater. I then feel something disturbing as the corpse of the dragon pinning me down starts to melt and dissolve in my molten body adding more mass to myself.

'Pull yourself together, Adrian! Once you've finished absorbing that dragon you need to finish this damn battle! Now what I'm about to suggest you won't like at all, but I want you to force yourself down his throat,' Infernus tells me sternly while I can barely hear cannons going off around me and the roars of the other dragons mixed together.

'You want me to do what!?' I ask him in disbelief, I've already been down another dragon's throat and barely lived, I don't plan on doing it again!

'You heard me! I want you to get inside him and burn him up from the inside out! It's the quickest way to kill him and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it! Besides, you’re reaching your limit and we’re losing stability!' he replies angrily.

I growl as I finish reforming my body and I can just feel my stamina fading already. 'Dammit fine! But I'm not happy about this!' I tell him and look up at Torch to see him getting ready to breath fire on our troops.

'I don't care if you're happy about it or not! Just get it done!' he retorts.

I raise my wings and fly up to torch's mouth as he begins to breathe out and I force myself with a grimace into his large maw and down his throat. Oh gods this is just as bad as the first time! At least I can't smell anything in here...

I can feel the Dragonlord choke and try to cough me up, but I stab my claws on the middle of my wing joints into the tissue of his oesophagus, I can hear his flesh sizzle where it comes into contact with my body as I forcefully pull myself deeper towards his stomach. I eventually reach it and fall into his stomach acid which starts evaporating on contact with me.

Quickly getting up, I gather mine and Infernus's mana into my own stomach and begin spewing out lava everywhere which quickly melts through his flesh and onto his other organs, I then focus on a specific point to get myself out of this stupid situation and breathe a constant stream of lava, melting through muscle and scale to freedom.

---

---

"Adrian!" Luna calls out to our husband but it's too late as the Dragonlord slams his claw down on top of our love and his own ally. There's a horrific sound of bones breaking and liquids being forcefully spread out under his immense weight.

Luna falls to her knees as tears start spilling from her eyes, the dragons all cheer for their lord's victory. "Adrian?" Luna mutters in disbelief. I'm not faring any better as tears start falling down my own face before an expression of pure rage replaces my heartbroken one.

We'll mourn for our husband later, right now, we're going to make these lizards pay!

Without a sound I take on my physical aspect form and conjure a greatsword made of pure light and intense heat. I then flap my wings, launching myself to the nearest dragon and with all my might, I swing my sword at her and carve right through her torso cleaving her in two.

"OPEN FIRE!" I hear Luna shout out in her own fit of rage as she takes on her magical aspect form.

The sounds of cannons and ballista roar throughout the plains hitting the dragons and either ripping some scales or a limb off with cannon balls, or large bolts piercing into them. The dragons retaliate and swarm over our forces breathing fire and crushing them beneath their weight.

Luna flies up and ensnares a dragon with her tendrils before gripping tightly and crushing his windpipe along with his bones, her eyes glowing bright silver as she quickly moves onto the next.

For eight minutes we fight the dragons before I focus on the bastard who is to blame for all of this, the Dragonlord just smirks at me before swiping with his right claw. Using my new power I move at the speed of light right next to his head and plunge my sword into his left eye. He roars in pain and swats me away before I could react sending me soaring through the air.

'Celestia, you need to calm down or you'll end up corrupting us both! Focus on defeating him first with a level head before you slip up and get us killed, or worse,' Lux tells me firmly but kindly in an attempt to calm me. He's right, I can't risk letting my anger make my decisions.

I recover from the blow and stop in the air, I frown at the Dragonlord and start flying towards him. The airships are firing their cannons and a few are taken out of the skies as the dragons ram into the balloons. The Dragonlord begins to prepare a breath of fire but movement from where Adrian was killed gets my attention.

My eyes widen as I see Adrian getting back up, filling my heart with hope before he then flies up towards Torch's muzzle, making my heart stop again as he plunges himself down the Dragonlord's throat. "ADRIAN!" I scream out at his stupidity as Luna flies up beside me.

"What is he doing!?" Luna says in a panicked whisper.

After a few seconds the Dragonlord starts hacking and coughing as the scent of burning flesh fills the battlefield. All the fighting stops as everypony watches Torch thrash and fall onto his side as he grips his stomach in pain.

"He's killing him from the inside out..." I reply to Luna's question in disbelief as his scales start to bubble and fall off before his stomach blows out with a flow of lava, followed by Adrian as he slips out not unlike a newborn foal and slowly gets up.

After shaking himself a few times he raises his head and roars out loudly. The dragons all look between themselves before some land before him and warily bow to him.

Ember makes her way over to her father's corpse and looks sadly at him, I just notice a few tears running down her face before she wipes them away and then pulls the sceptre from the crown.

---

---

I shiver in disgust as that was worse than the first time... I then look around and see many dragons bowing to me but keeping their distance.

I spot Ember walking over to me with the sceptre in her hands and then holds it out to me. I glance around one more time before cancelling my champion form and walk over to Ember where I take the sceptre and look at the dragons.

"I, King Adrian Stormsword, hereby declare Ember as the new Dragonlord," I announce and give her the sceptre back, doing this gets me angry growls and shouts from the dragons. "SILENCE! I already have a nation to help keep running, Ember will act as my connection to Drakonis, I will help her if she needs it. Also, here's a warning, no one is to harm her. If you wish to challenge her for the right of Dragonlord, you will have to face me first!" I threaten them, getting a few snarls. "Unless you want me bursting out your guts as well?"

That got them to shut up and I turn to the light blue dragoness. "Ember, can you order this lot to go back home and do what you can to restore order in Drakonis," I ask her.

She looks around nervously and nodded. "I've watched my father command the dragons a few times, I know how the sceptre works," she tells me and raises the sceptre up. "All dragons here, return back to Drakonis now," she commands and the dragons all glow gold for a second before flying off back towards the dragon lands obediently. "I'll be back within a week's passing," Ember tells me and looks away. "And keep an eye on Spike for me, hatchling barely knows anything about his dragon heritage." And with that she takes off after the dragons.

My breathing picks up and gets heavier now that I don't have to appear strong in front of the dragons anymore as the fatigue of holding my champion form for longer than I did before catches up to me and I collapse onto the ground. The sounds of yelling gets blurred and fuzzy as I fall into a much needed nap.

Next Chapter: Chapter 86: A Big Surprise! Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 56 Minutes