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Drake the Dragon

by Immortan Joe

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: The Death

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The wind howled loudly that night, the shrieking cries of the air tearing across the rocky landscape tore its way into the aching ears of a wounded beast shambling across the mountainous terrain. The creatures body writhed with agony as one of its massive wings laid across its side broken, a noticeable sword clearly lodged into its side. Beneath its scales bruises could be felt forming as the beast shambled up the side of a cliff and onto a plateau, its eyes occasionally glancing back to see if its pursuers were still on its tail. The faint glimmer of torches would give the creature it's fine answers.

They were near.

Landing on the surface of a smaller plateau, a large bulky griffon stood on its hind paws and gestured with a spear out to its flying comrades. “Talon, flank left! Aerial, to the right, the beast will surely try and fling itself off the mountain side!” The griffon warrior ordered, its companions nodding their heads in compliance before doing their tasks.

The creature on top of the plateau bellowed loudly along with the cascade of lightening and thunder which was soon followed by sheets of rain. Growling the creature stumbled across the plateau before collapsing meters before the edge, its legs too weak. Letting off a shrilled whine, its claws weakly dug into the surface as it tried to escape its hunters.

“Fiend!” Shouted one of the hunters. “It is useless to flee, accept your fate and judgement shall be swift!” The creature’s eyes shifted over to see a band of griffon hunters surrounding it.

“I shall never submit,” The creature snarled, voice deep though with a slight touch of femininity. “For I have done nothing to deserve such treatment!”

A griffon wielding a large axe scowled and stepped forward. “Tell that to the villagers below!” The griffon wound up its axe, the blade aiming down at the beast's eye. Feeling its end was near, the creature clenched its eyes shut.

“Halt!” Barked a soft but firm voice, causing the griffon with the axe to stop mid swing. All fell silent save for the pitter pattering of rain and the faint clicks of hooves on stone.

“Do not tell me you wish to spare this monster?” The griffon asked as the creature opened its eyes to see a hooded pony approaching them.

“You can go!” The pony said sternly. “You have done your job, the money is down in my cottage. Collect your dues and leave us be!” The griffon hunters blinked and shared looks amongst themselves, their confusion heavy in the air. A few moments past and the hunters nodded their heads and sheathed their weapons before taking to the skies, leaving the beast and the pony.

“Dragon––” The pony was silenced by the beast snarling, its teeth showing and eyes beaming with rage.

“You are the... contractor who sent those... hunters after me!” The dragon wheezed, its breath faint and body heavy.

The pony approached but stopped out of claws reach, flinging its head back the emerald eyes of a grey unicorn mare came into view. “To your misfortune, yes, I am the one who had ordered your demise.” The dragon snorted and weakly shook its head.

“And what...had a change in heart?” It turned slowly to look at the mare who laughed out right in the beast’s face.

The unicorn giggled and snorted before bringing up a hoof to paw gently at her own face. She looked up at the dragon, a large ear to ear smile on her face. “Far from it my, dear, unfortunately even if I had changed my heart, you are far too battle damaged to recover from those wounds.” The dragon snarled and bared its teeth at the pony who continued to giggle as her horn flashed a bright green, a large silver box would suddenly appear before them. “Unfortunately your time here in the physical world is done, however, I do have another mean of keeping you around if you’d like to accept my offer?”

The dragon blinked, its face now baring confusion. “What is...that supposed to mean?” it asked softly its heart rate slowing as its time was drawing to a conclusion.

“I’m a soul keeper!” The pony beamed widely. “Well actually that’s one of my occupations but uh...well let's just put it this way. I’m a Reaper!”

“You want my soul?” The dragon whispered softly its eyes failing as it could no longer see anymore, its limb failing to respond as all life within was fading.

“Why yes! Either you can die and fade away out of existence seeing as those bigots at the Elysium gates and you dragons don’t fully obey the laws of magicality. Or! You can come with me and for eternity exist!” The pony reaper smiles widely and taps her hoof on the box, the dragon chuckled softly and bared its teeth.

“Te-tempting...” The dragon muttered, the pony smiled even wider and leaned towards the beast. “I think I’ll fly with my brothers and sisters...in Valhalla...” Like a deflating balloon the pony’s smile slowly cascaded down into a frown as the last beat from the dragon's heart echoed into eternity as the spark of its soul flashed from existence. Leaving nothing but a fresh carcass.

Flashing her horn, the pony reaper wrapped her magic around the large dragon corpse which practically spanned a little over the size of her own cottage, which was about 4 meters. Using her magic to cast a preservation spell the unicorn pouted as she had hoped to have obtained the dragon’s soul. The amount of bits she could have accumulated for such a valuable item that would have done wonders for her transposition and enchantments of not so other rare items. Yet alas, the stubborn beast did not adhere to her promises.

Which of course were totally lies.

Yet despite not gathering the damned thing’s soul, she did, however, get a pretty good prize in the end. Dragon skin and its scales do catch for a high bargain, she just had to figure out how to get the damned thing back to––

A massive eruption of incomprehensible sound, followed by a blinding bolt of lightening struck down from the heavens, striking the magic that hand encompassed the corpse of the beast startled the living shit out of reaper pony.

Throughout her shock and terror the pony shrieked when she heard a sharp cry of something else, an unexplainable, blood curdling scream of something that sounded as if it was being torn to bits by the hell fiends of Tartarus boiled the pony’s blood all the way to her core. It was if the screaming cries of thousands, if not millions of banshees echoed throughout all of Equestria. Around the pony the ground began to tremble along with the screams, it was as if the earth itself was quaking with agony.

Terrified beyond all belief, the reaper pony zapped her silver case from existence and dove behind a rock and watched as the dragons carcass jiggled and shook. Repeatedly blinding flashes of lightening struck the corpse repeatedly, the bombastic noise of thunder and banshee howls of wind practically drove the pony so mad that she had to cast a spell over her poor ears which only seemed to barely muffle the noise.

Strangely enough; seemingly just as quick as the carnage started, it halted. Shivering behind her cover, the reaper pony peeked her head up and out from behind her rock and gasped just as what looked to be tear in the middle of thin air; a sliced hole in the fabric of time. Inside said tear even the reaper pony couldn’t describe such unspeakable horrors she witnessed.

The sight of what beheld inside that very hole looked as if she was gazing into the pit of Tartarus itself, or worse. Despite the soul ripping scene she enduring, the pony found herself unable to tear her eyes away. Tears welling at the edges she could feel her very sanity slipping away, then she saw it. A figure, no an outline of a something falling out of that very tear which held the nightmares she’ll never be able to rid herself of.

Upon noticing the shape crumple to the ground, the tear zipped itself closed similar to a jacket before vanishing. The pony couldn’t tell how long she sat there, her mind swimming her very thoughts tried to comprehend what she’d witness. She knew she was sobbing, or laughing, she couldn’t remember. Perhaps she sang a song or two? Couldn’t recall.

What she does recall is that by the time she had regained composure, the sky was clear and the very moon was setting on the horizon. Taking a deep breath the pony nearly leapt from her skin when she heard the distinct sound of another pony moaning. Scrambling to her hooves the reaper pony gazed over to see the figure she had witnessed sometime earlier laying upon the ground.

The pony bit her lip and shifted before cautiously approaching this bizarre creature which laid before her. The sight and smell the thing was emitting atrocious and she was forced to cover her mouth with a filter spell. The horrendous thing which laid before her was some kind of...thing. She couldn’t describe it really, at least not in any distinct detail, because she had no idea what to relate it to. The closest she could get was some kind of...minotaur thing, yet from what she could see it was clearly nothing like it aside from its shape. She could theorize that whatever she was examining was some kind of armored beast, covered in some kind of glowing lights and also wore a window for a mask. Yet the glass upon its face was very reflective, she couldn’t see its face.

Upon further inspection, she was able to conclude that this creature was in fact living. Except...after running a few spell tests, she theorized it wouldn’t live for long. The reaper pony was able to conclude that this animal did in fact have a soul, a faint one at that. Something about it was rather peculiar though, unlike the others she had witnessed from various creatures and ponies alike; their souls were strong and bright. This one was very dim and weak.

The reaper shrieked when the creature suddenly jerked, its metallic armor clanging against the mountain stone. Its voice muffled and brutish, it grunted and thrashed. Scared, the pony started to move back but squealed when the beasts fingered hand lurched out violently and with surprising amount of strength, gripped her by the throat.

“Wh-where am I...W-when am I?!” The creature weakly forced out, its voice strangely understandable yet very heavily accented with a tone she had never heard before. The grip around her throat loosened as she used her magic to pry the fingers off, stepping back she felt her hooves slide through a puddle of her own urine, how embarrassing.

“I-I don’t k-know what y-you’re talking about!” The reaper stammered out. “Wh-what are you?”

The creature gagged and squirmed, its windowed mask suddenly sliding open like a door, revealing a grizzled face of an ape like creature. Its eyes small and pained as its mouth bared its omnivorous looking teeth. Its voice clear as the creature shifted onto its side and groaned in pain before suddenly throwing itself back on its back, body now spasming.

The pony could sense it. The creature was suffering through its final moments, she could feel its organs shutting down, its heart struggling to pump blood. Yet that dim soul she sensed earlier was starting to glow brighter, as if this creature was trying its damndest to hold on. Then it died.

Its body still and motionless, those small eyes gazing up at the starry sky, its face looking pained and sad. The pony’s eyes wide, cheeks stained with fresh tears, hooves standing in fresh urine. She had no idea what she had just witnessed, yet all she could feel was pitty. Which in all reality was something this pony never really felt, in all of that had made up this pony’s life she was pretty much one of most cynical and least caring. To which when compared to the rest of her species, she’s mostly paired with a minority.

Carefully, the reaper stepped towards the second corpse that had arrived at her hooves that very night. The strange being forced out of a hellish tear that had went against anything she had learned in the magical field and all of physics. Where had this thing come from? Is there more of its kind? What was this armor it was wearing? Why had it seemed so desperate to learn where or when it was? These were questions that had flown through the mare’s mind at light speed, questions that’ll most likely never go answered.

That is until she sensed it; something odd emanating from the corpse of the creature. The mare turned and her eyes widened when she gazed upon the one thing she had never thought to have ever witnessed. A faint, flickering soul.

Quickly summoning her silver case, the reaper opened it and rummaged about before taking out a small reflective, glass jar. Carefully, by using the spell she had learned from the forbidden arts of the soul, she plucked the soul from the corpse of the alien creature and eased it into her jar. Closing the lid and muttering a few words in an ancient tongue, the jar glowed a bright green before she stuck it back into the case.

Breathing softly the mare smiled happily before gazing back at the carcass of the reptilian giant. Her preservation spell still seeming to be active around the dead beast, she sighed softly as she glossed over its grey scales and dark blue spines. As she had said to it during its final moments, the beast had been heavily battle damaged.

Yet maybe this reaper could get a little more out of that pathetic reptile then just a couple thousand bits. The thoughts she was having seemed sinister, matter of fact they were just downright evil. Yet it was possible. What she was thinking wasn’t fiction, all she would need are a few key items. Items for the most part she already had. If she could patch up and repair most of that damage on the pitiful beast, just perhaps...

She could raise the dead.

Author's Notes:

An interesting topic that came to me after reading an H.P. Lovecraft story

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: The Revival Estimated time remaining: 50 Minutes
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