I was busy my business, I was exchanging letters and things with the company. I had recently switched from being a lumber company over to more of a mining operation. The demand for lumber had gone down and I was talking with Filthy Rich, such a drastic change could lose me a lot of money but I was willing to take the loss. I have a lot of loyal employees so I had decided to pay them in order to teach them modern mining operations. I had a lot of money saved up, it's very well known that I am the richest person in equestria. So converting the company to be more of a mining operation and less of a lumber will be the biggest chunk of change out of my bank account since I had the house built. There were times when I considered inventing the gun, but then I thought of the wars that weapons like those caused. So I turned away from I was busy looking through the papers of the finances when I got a knock on the door. I turned to open it to see, Spike?

"Hey dad, can I talk to you?" Spike asked.

I stepped out of my office and closed the door, bad things happen when people come into my office. Celestia got pregnant because of it. I'm not going to fuck my son. "What is it?" I asked him.

"You remember how I went to the dragon lands to compete to become dragon lord?" He asked and I nodded. "Well there's a problem in the dragon lands. I need your help."

"I don't know if you know this Spike, but I'm not a dragon, and I'm not fireproof." I said.

"Twilight has a solution." Spike said.

"Which is?" I questioned.

Spike held up an amulet. "Twilight and Celestia enchanted this amulet to turn you into a dragon temporarily. We won't be there more than a week but they made it for two weeks just in case."

I looked at the thing and then sighed. "Alright what do you need me to do?"

"I'm going to take care of this mostly by myself, but I want to bring you along to show you my culture and to ask for some advice if I need it." Spike explained.

"Alright then I'll just hang back and offer my advice as needed." I said and Spike looked behind me.

"Why couldn't we talk in your office?"

"Because that's where Celestia got pregnant." I stated.

"Oh..." Spike nodded. "I get it."

"Yeah." I said, "I'm going to go pack some camping gear and a fuckton of water." I said as Spike tossed me the amulet as I went to go find my camping stuff in the storage in my house. It took some digging around but I did finally find what I was looking for and packed it up, hmm. I haven't been properly camping with the girls maybe that's something we could do one weekend. Putting those thoughts aside I soon joined Spike and he was talking with Mac. I hefted the bag onto my back, "I'm ready to go."

"Why aren't you wearing the amulet?" Spike asked.

"I was going to wear it right before we got to the dragon lands." I said and Spike nodded.

"Oh, okay. That's smart." Spike said.

"I heard that it was a long hike, so let's get going." I said and Spike nodded again.

"Right. I'll see you later Big Mac." Spike waved to the eldest apple sibling and we started to walk towards the everfree forest. I readied my gurkha kurkuri knife and started to swing through the brush as we got deeper into the forest. Spike looked at me and stared in awe. "Wow, that's one weird looking machete."

"It's called a gurkha kurkuri, or just a gurkha knife for short. I forged it myself." I said as I slid it back into it's sheath that was attached to my hip.

"So you're used to hot temperatures?" Spike asked.

"I had to stay in two deserts for the collective period of a year with over 70 pounds of protective gear on me. Yeah I am, but you said that this amulet will turn me into a dragon, so I have no worries." I said as we continued to walk though the rugged terrain. We walked through the forest and into the mountains, going over the snow capped mountaintops and down into flat lands. It took us roughly a day to get there with barely any time to rest, we decided to sit down for a minute and catch our breaths before continuing. I wiped the sweat from my brow and looked to my son. "You okay Spike?"

"Yeah, I'm just...nervous." Spike scratched the back of his head.

"Why?" I asked.

"It's been a while since I've seen or even talked to Ember. What if she doesn't like me?" I looked at him as he spoke and raised my eyebrow. "What I mean is what if she doesn't recognize me?"

"You have grown considerably since you last met as I've been told. But Spike, you have nothing to worry about. Any person will see that no matter how much you change and grow, deep down you'll always be the same and a good friend will recognize that." I advised and Spike visibly relaxed.

"Thanks dad, now let's go to the dragon lands." Spike said and I took that as code to slip the amulet on.

The amulet had a strange effect on me it felt like it was reshaping and reforming my magic to the form of a dragon all while changing me on the outside. But needless to say, I was in excruciating pain. I screamed out until it turned into a roar. When I was finished I looked up and down myself, I had a black scale underbelly but my main scales were a shade of dark blue, almost cobalt. I took a bit to regain my balance and spread my wings out accordingly. Then I looked back at them. "AW SWEET!" I said and noticed my voice had changed as well, it became a much lower pitch and I looked at Spike. "So how do I look?"

"Just fine...uh.....what do I call you? I don't think Mickey is a common dragon name." Spike wondered.

"Hmm." I paused and scratched my chin with my new claw. "How about Maul?"

"Okay then Maul, let's go." Spike said as he started to climb the hill and I climbed along with him.

When we reached the peak I looked out over the volcanic lands and lava terrain and gulped. "Well shit."

Author's Notes:

Sorry, college has been taking up a lot of my schedule. But I got this chapter out so yay! Comments are always appreciated.