My dearest student Celestia

I would like for you to accompany Spike to the Dragon Lands and yes, you may go with all your friends.

I have informed the current dragon lord Torch that you are there to witness the guantlet of fire and have set things up for you to view the entire thing.

What are you about to witness exactly? A challenge known as the Gauntlet of Fire. This challenge will cause whoever wins it to become the next dragon lord in three months' time and I'm hoping Spike wins it as there can be some dragons that wish to see us Ponies destroyed.

Your teacher, Princess Twilight Sparkle

---

"...You've got to be kidding me, all we do is watch and pray?" Spitfire asked.

"Pray for what?" Buttercup asked.

"Pray that the winner isn't a dragon that wants to kill us. Duh." Spitfire said.

"That's why I invited Sombra, actually." Celestia said. "His dark magic will be easy to sneak into this challenge to help tip the scales in Spike's favor if need be." She added.

"And how do you figure my Dark magic can sneakily do that?" Sombra asked.

"That's easy: You can use your magic to manipulate the course. I've seen you manipulate the environment with a tree before." Celestia said.

Sombra grinned. "I see what you're playing at. Just got to make sure to do it a couple of times to Spike too, just so it doesn't look obvious. I may not want to be killed, but we don't want the dragons calling foul just because Spike was the only one who wasn't getting the more difficult sections." The umbra pony stated.

"Fair enough." Celestia said.

---

The group of ponies were allowed to watch through the use of a giant orb. Which only made Sombra's job a lot easier.

For the most part, it didn't seem like many dragons were gunning for the position to kill ponies; in fact, most dragons seemed to not care that Ponies were going to be watching.

But there was one dragon that had spoken up the most about wanting to declare war on ponykind, wanting to kill all ponies.

And that dragon; ironically; had been the dragon lord's own daughter, Ember.

So, the group of ponies knew without a doubt that of all the dragons that were participating, Ember needed to be the LAST ONE POSSIBLE to get the Bloodstone Scepter; meaning she'd have to get the worst of Sombra's power.

And when it was revealed that the dragons were going to have to go through a volcano to get said scepter, Sombra could barely hold back the biggest grin ever.

It's like this very gauntlet was made to look like the things I could do to it were to look as naturally occurring as possible. I barely have to bend a hoof making things not look rigged. Sombra thought to himself.

---

Sombra was secretly making it look like the course was very perilous, but unfortunately for the ponies, while Spike was not having problems with the added difficulty, neither was Ember.

"This isn't good. Ember and Spike are basically neck and neck." Celestia said. Suddenly the entire earth began to shake. "Wait, what's going on now?" The white unicorn asked.

"Oh dear, I was worried about this." Torch said.

"What do you mean?" Spitfire asked.

"I was worried that the volcano might become unstable from all the dragons racing through the various areas of it." Torch said.

Sombra went wide eyed. I don't think the dragons have anything to do with that. Didn't think I would actually trigger a volcanic eruption with my tampering... The Umbra Hybrid thought to himself.

---

Things were so hectic that at one point, the orb was unable to give anymore feedback.

"Oh no. That's bad, right?" Buttercup asked.

"Unfortunately, yes, it is." Torch said. "Means the volcano is about to erupt." He added.

"Without a direct sight of what I'm using my magic on, I can't prevent the eruption." Sombra said.

"But we can see the volcano from here." Spitfire said.

"My magic only works so far from my line of sight." Sombra said.

"Huh.." Celestia noted. Soon the volcano erupted before them and then an orange dragoness was seen bringing an unconscious Spike and Ember to the whole group; Spike holding the Bloodstone Scepter.

"Smolder? Didn't think you'd participate." Torch said to the orange dragoness.

"Well you need to have some words with your daughter when she wakes up. She was willing to go to war with ponies. Which would've been all kinds of bad." Smolder said.

"Please tell me it really was Spike then who grabbed the Scepter. Because we couldn't see anything." Spitfire asked.

"Well, I'll tell you what I saw happen then..." Smolder said.

---

"YOU AIN'T WINNING ON MY WATCH PONY!" Ember had shouted at Spike.

"I'm not a pony, I'm a dragon." Spike said.

"Could've fooled me, considering you've lived your entire life with ponies. So to me, your just a pony, pony." Ember said.

"Well I ain't about to let you declare war on ponies, so I guess that makes us even." Spike said.

"Ha! I'll imprison you, then make you watch as I kill each and every last one of the ponies close to you. Only then will I make you join them." Ember said. The volcano started to erupt, and lava took the bloodstone scepter up up and away.

The two dragons quickly flew after the scepter, but the lava caught up with Ember first, injuring her to the point of unconciousness. It was catching up with Spike too, who was within reach of the Bloodstone Scepter, so in a last-ditch effort, Spike stretched out a claw towards the scepter...

---

"...And managed to grab it just before he too fell unconscious. I managed to grab them both before they became lost in the volcanic eruption." Smolder said.

"I see. Then I hereby declare Spike the new dragon lord." Torch said.

"Guess he's staying here then." Celestia said.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he'll find a way to communicate with the rest of you ponies. Speaking of you ponies though, I have a favor I need to ask of you." Smolder said before suddenly a small red dragon suddenly showed up.

"Big sis! Are you okay? Did you manage to prevent Ember from declaring war on those cute ponies?" The red dragon said.

"Well Spike managed to do so in my place, but there won't be any Pony VS. Dragon war going on all the same Gar Gar." Smolder said. "And you've come at just the right time. Ponies, this is my baby brother Garble. Garble, these are ponies from Equestria." She added.

"Wow...so many cute ponies! It's very nice to meet you." Garble said.

"Now, about that favor, would you mind taking my brother back with you to wherever you came from? My brother has always wanted to study Ponykind, and this will be the perfect opportunity for him to do so." Smolder said.

"Me? Go with them? OH CAN I? CAN I?!" Garble practically begged.

"Sure. He'll make an interesting addition to Ponyville." Celestia said.

"YAY!" Garble said before tackle hugging Celestia, knocking her over. "Oops, sorry." Garble said.

"Ha ha ha, it's fine." Celestia said.

---

Sometime later after the ponies left, Spike woke up in Smolder's cave. "Hey, look whose finally awake." Smolder said.

"I...I remember you. Smolder, how long has it been since we last saw each other?" Spike asked.

"Too long. But your staying here. Managed to convince Tourch you were the one that got the Bloodstone Scepter. Was really easy to do so too." Smolder said.

"...So...then only you and I will know the truth then huh? If you wanted to romance me, you could've just said so." Spike said.

"Yeah well...had to look out for Ember. But thanks to some quick thinking, she can't now." Smolder said.

"Heh...some things don't change with you, you know that?" Spike asked.

"You wouldn't have it any other way, now would you?" Smolder asked.

"Oh Tartarus no." Spike said.

---

...Turns out, Spike wasn't able to grab the scepter in time before he too lost conciousness. Smolder still rescued him and Ember though, and caught the scepter with her mouth which would've technically made her the new dragon lord, but because the rules of the challenge was it was the first one to grab it with their claws, using some fumbling, Smolder was able to get the unconscious Spike to touch the Bloodstone Scepter, making him the dragon lord officially yet unofficially at the same time.

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