I hate Dragons.

Cloud opened his eyes and found himself in a very comfortably decorated hospital room. Though its colour scheme was fairly light and medical equipment filled the cupboards and shelves, it appeared more like a lounge of a cottage. There was only one window, behind his bed and, while there was nothing of immediate interest to his right, to the left of his bed was an inactive cardiac monitor atop a stand. The stand itself housed multiple baskets filled with even more equipment as well as charts and diagrams. Cloud reached into a basket of the cart, pulled out the chart that had been used to record his vitals and skimmed over the data. I don’t know how to interpret this correctly, but the data seems to be stable judging by the patterns in the numbers. I would say that I’m fine. After putting the chart back into its basket, he climbed out of the bed and stretched out. Alright, first thing to do is find a toothbrush. I don’t know how long I was out, but my mouth tastes like grimy dishwater.

What looked like the door to exit the room was opposite to the bed, but on the wall to the right of his bed was another door. Cloud hadn’t noticed the second door at first, mostly because it had no handle. He walked up to it out of curiosity. As he reached it, it opened automatically, revealing an en suite bathroom. Is this a hospital or a hotel? A private establishment, that’s for sure.

The bathroom was very large, about the same size as the ‘hospital’ room. It included a bath, a shower separate to the bath, two toilets and two sinks. Each sink had a mirrored cupboard above it. Pulling one of them open, Cloud saw half a dozen toothbrushes that were still fully packaged, an equal amount of toothpaste, also still packaged, and plenty of very, very powerful soap.

Rather than question why the bathroom existed in the first place, Cloud just shrugged, accepted that the universe had given him a break for once and made use of the facilities.

A set of clean teeth and a long shower later, Cloud exited the bathroom only to find two armour-clad Pegasi clutching spears either side of the door leading out of the room. Cloud, the idiot that he was, panicked. Adrenaline kicked in and time seemed to slow down. Armed guards, private hospital - I’m being arrested because of the Dragon. THEY’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!

Without another thought Cloud jumped onto the bed and threw himself through at the window, smashing through it and falling. The guards exchanged a bewildered look before they threw their weapons aside and flew through the window after him.

As he flew away from the room on a Support Circle, Cloud tried to figure out where he was: A city, clearly - large buildings spread out for miles and miles. The architecture of the buildings was nothing like Ponyville; tall and white with purple and golden roofs. To his far left was the side of a mountain and to his far right was a fantastic view of Equestria including a smouldering mess which used to be Ponyville. I'm in Canterlot, clearly.

Cloud glanced behind him and saw that the building he had escaped from was the royal palace, confirming his suspicions and making him all the more sure he was to be arrested for trapping the Dragon, thereby causing it to go berserk, destroy a significant chunk of Ponyville and kill a dozen or so Ponies. The palace wasn’t all he saw, however - he spotted the two Pegasi guards flying after him and very quickly closing the distance between them and him. His adrenaline redoubling, Cloud threw a few magic bolts over his shoulder. The guards easily dodged his attacks and caught up to him, flying alongside him.

“Sir!” Shouted one of the Pegasi with a grey body and a dark blue mane. “Please stop! We just wish to-!”

Cloud ignored him and very suddenly came to a halt in the air, an action that took an incredible strain on his willpower as his Support Circle automatically used magic to ensure he didn’t kill himself with the sudden g-force. This didn’t do much to throw off the guards as they quickly made an aerial maneuver to turn around and fly back after him, but Cloud wasn’t flying away anymore: He willed the Support Circle to stop rooting him, allowing him to freely move while using it as a platform, then willed it to become larger, giving him space to move about. The guards reached him as Cloud got into a stance fit for spellcasting.

“I don’t care how well trained you assholes are!” Cloud yelled at them as they hovered nearby. “I bet you were never trained for a flying Unicorn!”

“Well, actually-”

Cloud cut the guard off by zapping him with an arc of electricity before quickly turning and firing a magic bolt at the other. The first guard, the same one who had first tried talking to him, was stunned for a moment and fell, but the second had better reflexes and dodged the bolt. He snarled before landing on Cloud’s Support Circle and throwing a punch at him. Something in Cloud’s mind pinged and, without a thought behind the action, he bashed the guard’s hoof towards his body, grabbed ahold of the leg and yanked it towards himself. Cloud was not nearly strong enough to dislocate it, so the guard merely stumbled slightly before recovering and punching again. This time Cloud was too busy cursing himself for not listening to Princess Luna and the punch connected with his jaw. Cloud fell to the ‘floor’ but, as he lost control of his emotions, he sprang back up, screamed in anger and went to throw a reckless punch.

That was when it happened.

A magic circle was summoned into existence just in front of the hoof he was using to punch - an entirely new magic circle, bright yellow and sparking with electricity. The guard, taken off guard by the circle, failed to react and took its full effect. Unrelenting electricity surged through his body and the point of impact, his neck, was badly burned. Cloud was doing no better - the circle was taking a dangerous amount of magic and willpower. His brain felt like it was on fire. After just two seconds of the new circle taking effect, both he and guard lost consciousness. Both the new circle and the Support Circle shattered and the two Ponies plummeted to the ground.

Cloud awoke back in the hospital room, in too much mental pain to think of what he would consider a witty comment. After a few second the pain lessened and he was able to look around. He was back in the hospital bed, this time bound to it by restraints.

On the wall opposite to him now stood eight guards all aiming spears at him, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and Twilight. They all looked very, very angry save for Princess Luna, who looked like she was suppressing a giggle.

Ignoring his mental pain, Cloud tried to free himself from his bonds with magic only to find that his horn wouldn’t respond.

“So,” Princess Celestia snarled, stepping forward, “I heal your wounds and allow you to stay in my private hospital. In response to this, you cause three hundred bits worth of damage and murder one of my personal guards.” She took another step forward, looking just about ready to kill him then and there.

“You, Sir, are an arsehole.”

Author's Notes:

Well done, Cloud. This is why we don't assume - you look like an ass and someone dies.

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My apologies for this chapter taking so long. A mixture of life getting in the way, not feeling motivated to write and writer's block and Skyrim don't lead to much productivity.

I can't make promises of when this will update. I honestly don't know when I'll be motivated to write sometimes, and I'm sorry for that. What I can promise is that this story will never be cancelled. No matter what kind of problems I run into, I'm finishing this story. If it starts to become bad like with what happened to the original, I'll delete chapters and rewrite until it's good again.

No matter how long it takes, this story will be finished.