Time is relative where and when I am right now, so I don’t know how long it’s been outside since the last time I did this, but it must have been less than a month (I hope). Let’s get things rolling while I still can do this.

I spent the two days until my welcome ceremony getting used to living in Granite Back. I learned more about Drogur’s job, which wasn’t limited to supervising the mining work. He also had to make sure the slaves’ basic needs were covered, that the buildings and commerces ran by them worked properly and that the ones working on the crop fields out of the den brought enough food. His work was harder than it should because neither he nor his subordinates could write or read, so he had to keep all the information in his mind.

The welcome ceremony, which didn’t have an official name, as it had been also called rite of joining, enrolling and ‘that thing you do, then you member of pack’ was really simple: the pack formed a circle with me and the Beta inside after dining, we had a short fake fight and then I surrendered to him. That was all. Since then, I received a better meal and sat with the other apprentices/assistants of the pack. They were brighter than the miners I had dealt with on the previous days, but they were still stupid when compared with humans and ponies. At least they were friendly and amusing.
The day after I became an official member of the pack, I found that a piece of paper had been put up on my door while I was in the mines. I read it as I went in.

“Balto,
You know how to read, right? If you do, come to my house after dinner and bark three times at the door, I want to speak with you.
Drogur the Arcane”

He signed only with his name, but I could smell him on the paper as well as an unknown dog (probably the one who brought the note), which was a better confirmation of the note’s authenticity than any signature. Drogur the Arcane ignored me and closed the door behind him when I followed him from the Great Hall to his house that night, so I barked three times as he told me to. Then he opened the door.

“Come in,” he said with a grin.

This time he led me past his throne room to his house. His house was way bigger than mine, with a chimney and many nice pieces of furniture. Is that a gramophone? It is! His wife, another male diamond dog (the one who put the note on my door, according to my nose) and the three cubs were sitting around a table.

“Welcome to chez Drogur,” he jokingly said, “you already know Gavriila. These are my children: Gwar, Aelia and Marius,” Gwar was the eldest sibling, almost as big as me and about to reach maturity, Aelia was about to hit adolescence and looked like his mother, and Marius was the youngest and more energetic of the trio.

“This dirty old dog is Julius, Granite Back’s keeper of knowledge. Dogs, you already know Balto,” Drogur finished.

The keeper of knowledge was the diamond dog who was in charge of memorizing all the history and technology of the warren. As they had writing, he was more of a librarian than a living encyclopedia.

“I expected to see the Beta here,” I said after finishing the formalities of meeting the new dogs.

“My brother Borduk is just muscle,” said Drogur, “which is good for me, as he has been the Beta since he reached adulthood, a few years after I defeated father and became Alpha. He knows better than challenging me, and no one else can beat him in a fight, so I can focus on running Granite Back instead of dealing with new Betas every week. However, he never participates in our meetings.”

“About that... Why am I here?” I asked.

“Because we are the only ones who would rather use our heads to think than to headbutt someone else in Granite Back, and you are a good candidate to join this little group,” explained Julius.

“Since you are the newbie,” continued the Alpha, “you will tell us about Copper Depth. We are neighbours but we have always ignored each other.”

I told them everything Ruffus had told me about his den, hoping to convince them about my origins. Afterwards, Drogur showed us seven Equestrian newspapers. He had a deal with a pegasus who brought him the newspapers of the past week every monday and was paid with a few gems in exchange. Equestria was Drogur’s biggest source of concern, as dragons ignored Granite Back since a pair of them died in mysterious circumstances (which no one explained to me), preferring to demand gems from less dangerous warrens.

“For a thousand years,” explained Drogur, “Equestria has ignored us. But since Discord’s return and defeat there are winds of change. There’s this crazy Griffin travelling around with a ship of pirates that wants to end slavery, rumours about the legendary Wolf Alpha, ancient evils leaving from Tartarus and much more. We need information about all of those things, or we may find ourselves doomed.”

I was fully integrated in Granite Back’s life after the first two weeks. All the bitches knew I would become important soon, so many of them fought for my attention and I could choose which one I wanted to have furry sex with each day. I made friends with my workmates and with the dogs I ate with. On top of that, I enjoyed Drogur’s intellectual activities, like brainstorming sessions and debates. All in all, I thought I could forget about Earth, the draconequi, Screwball and all that crap and live in Granite Back all my life.

“What are you going to do with the slaves?” I asked once, “their life conditions are better here than in most warrens, are you planning a slow liberation process?”

“Not at all, I treat them well because they work better this way. However, a civil war is about to take place in Gem Fido,” he revealed, “The Deeps and the rest of the supporters of slavery against Marble Pillars, the Griffin Pirates, the warrens they may acquire during that time and whoever comes to their help. Our territory borders Equestria, so I plan to transform Granite Back into an Equestrian protectorate, exchanging our slaves for better conditions. That way, we will have the support of ponykind and their living goddesses, even if we have to use paid workers in the mines instead of slaves.”

“Really? You would put yourself under the rule of the ponies?” Shit, that will eliminate my main source of chaos energy!

“Balto, have you ever been in the surface? If you have, you might have seen something floating in the sky that is so bright it hurts your eyes if you look at it, and warms everything with its light. You know who controls that? Princess Celestia does, so we already depend on her raising the Sun everyday to survive. Why shouldn’t we depend on her a bit more instead of taking a side in a war with an uncertain outcome? I like being the supreme power of Granite Back, but I would rather answer to an immortal being than to another Alpha or a griffin.”

Four weeks passed. My power kept on rising, and Goozar was giving me more responsibilities everyday. They all thought I was a hard-working diamond dog, or so I thought. One night, I went to Drogur’s house as usual only to find him alone, wearing a red armour that covered most of his body and wielding a sword, also red, on his right paw.

“What the-” I asked, only to be interrupted by his left paw choking me. He rose me from the floor and slammed me against a wall.

“Alright, I have been patient enough with you. I hoped you would leave and report to your queen after I told you my plans of joining Equestria, but after four weeks I am not going to wait anymore. Now show me your true form, changeling.”

“I’m... not... a... changeling,” I managed to say while gasping for breath. Fucking Drogur, can’t breathe. He loosened his grip a bit so I wouldn’t pass out.

“No? Then how do you explain your unique eye color, your uneven knowledge of our culture and the rest of the world, and the fact that I have been feeling your magic since you came here on the first day?”

Aw, shit, I really need to learn how to hide my magic. I turned back to draconequus, using my new strength to free myself from his iron grip.

“I am not a changeling, but a draconequus.”

“Impossible,” he said, his eyes widening as he stepped back, “there is only one draconequus in the world, and you are not Discord. Explain yourself!”

“I don’t know much about my condition, or how much I can tell you. I was turned into this by a real draconequus, and now I’m hiding from Discord’s minions, who want to kill me.”

“Why this warren?”

“I learned that you were accepting new members, so I took the form of a diamond dog and came here. I feed on chaos, and here I will never starve, thanks to the misery of the slaves and the violence of the diamond dogs.”

“Well, I am still your Alpha, even if you are not a diamond dog, so I order you to tell me what your powers are.”

I realized he was testing me: if I refused he would kill or banish me, if I agreed he might let me stay. I did a brief description of my abilities, excluding the mind manipulation which would only make him more wary of me.

“A draconequus...” he was still a bit shocked, “you can’t take on one of the pony princesses, can you?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly, “I have never reached a power limit before, so I may become stronger than them with enough time. I don’t know how strong they are, but I really doubt I could stand against them right now.”

“I need to think about this,” he muttered, “paralysis.”

When he said that last word, I felt magic energy coming out of him and I found that I couldn’t move my body anymore. I was shocked, as I didn’t know diamond dogs could do magic. He sat on his throne and stared at me, lost in deep thought. Meanwhile, I analyzed the magic energy that was binding me. The spell was maintained by a constant flux of energy from Drogur’s armor, which reacted to my struggles by increasing the power of the spell. The energy was pure, neither harmonic nor chaotic, so my only chance was to spend my own chaos energy until I depleted the armor’s reserves. However, I didn’t know if the armor had more energy than me, so I decided to wait for the time being. He just said paralysis and he was magic! That’s cheating! Well, at least now I know why he’s called the Arcane. I had to wait for ten eternal minutes (I am REALLY impatient since I became a draconequus) until he moved from his spot. During that time I noticed that his equipment was made with the scales of a dragon, instead of steel or something like that. There’s a level 100 blacksmith here? I want one of those!

“Congratulations, Balto!“ He exclaimed, “you have been promoted from assistant of the slaves’ supervisor to secret weapon!” The spell stopped holding me when he finished.

“Wat.”

“What you heard. From now on, I want YOU to become powerful and protect Granite Back from other dangerous beings,” he did the Uncle Sam pose as he said that.

“Like what, changelings?”

“Dragons, alicorns, windigoes, changelings, pirates, monsters from Tartarus, et cetera. If they want to cause trouble, you turn them into a bloody mess. Now turn back to diamond dog and get the hell out of my house, Balto,” he ordered.

“By the way, my real name is Havoc,” I said as I left.

What did just happen? That guy is crazy, who in his right mind would let something like me live under his roof? I went back to my house and wondered about how fucked up Drogur’s mind must be to reach such a decision.

That same night I tried to copy his magic. I pointed at a small worm I had found and said “paralysis”, but nothing happened. I can do magic but I can’t do it when I say the magic word? Fucking magic, how does it work?

The Universe decided to troll me again, so two days after that a dragon landed atop Granite Back’s mountain (whose name was Granite Back, too) and changed the course of the river that supplied us with water to force us to face him or die of thirst. Drogur barged into my house, wearing his dragonscale regalia again, and told me about the giant lizard atop the mountain. Wait, did I just say dragonscale regalia? Wow, just wow.

“Let’s see how strong you really are. We meet him, listen to his demands and if I don’t like what he has to say you kill him, OK?”

“I don’t know if I can take on a dragon, the worst thing I have fought before is a manticore,” and I only managed to make it flee.

“You will be fine, I guess,” he said, not really trying to sound convincing.

And so, the two of us left Granite Back, with me hiding as a frog in one of the little pockets of his belt, as he didn’t want anyone else knowing about my true nature (and he preferred to take all the glory of beating the dragon for himself). I changed to dog again and we climbed the mountain. The huge green dragon, as big as the one who attacked Spike in that episode, had smelled us coming long before he saw us, so he was sitting on a rock and waiting for us.

“Dogs!” he exclaimed, “I am Thuryol, I have come with an offer for you.” That’s one huge dragon, how am I supposed to beat him?

“What kind of offer?” asked Drogur.

“You will give me this rock’s weight worth in gems every month,” he said as he grabbed a huge rock that weighed at least half a ton with one of his claws.

“And if we refuse?”

“You will die,” he half-growled, black smoke coming out of his nostrils and mouth.

“I will give you a chance to leave now and conserve your life,” said Drogur while smiling, “if you decide to stay, we will dine dragon tonight.”

Thuryol roared with fury and jumped toward us. I changed to draconequus and fired a small energy beam to his left eye while avoiding his claws. His scaled eyelid protected him from losing it, but it still dazed him.

“You are not a dog, but I will kill you either way!” he shouted.

I had been thinking about how to beat a huge dragon since we left the warren. Thuryol was physically stronger than me, he probably had more energy reserves and his resistance to magic, which was probably several times stronger than Spike's, made it all worse. I used my mind manipulation to trick him into seeing me somewhere else. It was working, as he started to attack the air where he saw me avoiding his attacks, but my magic was depleting faster than with any of the creatures I had tricked before. I flew to his back, changed to bear and broke his left wing’s base bone with a powerful attack. Is it wrong to be turned on by the sound of a huge bone breaking? I gue- Wait, lolwut? I discovered something incredible just then: dragon blood was charged with pure magic. Much like the energy in Drogur’s armor, it was just pure magical energy that I could consume now that it wasn’t protected by his body or soul or whatever or being channeled as a spell. It was also different from taking chaos energy. I could attract the chaos energy to myself like a magnet with no effort, while taking pure magic was more like drinking water. I wasn't an expert of magic theory (and I still aren't), so I could not make a proper explanation on how I can take both kinds of magic and which differences do they have, but it worked so I didn't question it.
This discovery distracted me for a few seconds from the fact that I still was a bear standing on the back of a dragon who was very angry and no longer seeing a fake me in front of him. His long tail coiled around me like an anaconda, my efforts to free myself useless. Shit!

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, BUT I WILL KILL YOU AND EVERY LIVING THING BELOW US FOR THIS!” he screamed. SHIT, think fast Havoc!

I changed into frog, freeing myself from his grip just before his firebreath burned me to ashes. Whew, that was close! Changing back to draconequus, I took the magic from the spilled blood and created a barrier to protect myself from the flames the dragon was pouring on me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t too versed in the art of creating magical barriers, so I got my fur signed and the leaves on my left arm burned. I created a snow globe with a small dragon in it and threw it to Thuryol’s face, encasing his maw on a block of solid ice when it collided. I charged at him while he tried to break the ice with his paws, and punched him in the neck, powering my fist with magic. My attack wasn’t really effective, as I wanted to blow a hole in his neck and I only managed to break the scale I hit. I heard a sound similar to three blades being unsheathed at the same time, then the dragon used his extra long and sharp claws against me. His brutal slash hit me in my torso, eviscerating me. I quickly changed to dragon to avoid the pain and death and flew off, trying to find a hiding place to heal my main body.

“I can’t beat that lizard!” I shouted, hoping that Drogur would come out from wherever he was hiding to help me.

“Vacuum!” I heard my Alpha shout, then the constant roaring of Thuryol stopped abruptly.

I turned back and found the dragon gasping for breath, but unable to do so. He clawed at his face, hit the floor with it and did a series of convulsing movements. After five eternal minutes, in which I barely managed to heal myself, he died. When he did, all the magical energy started to leave his blood, which turned darker by the seconds. I managed to take a good portion of it for myself, but the rest spread all around the zone, so trying to gather it would cost more energy than it would give me. That was dangerous, but now I have much more energy than before, if I ever find a way to easily kill dragons I will become invincible in no time! Also, next time I will make the magic flow between the dragon and me visible so I look like a freaking dovahkiin. I used the energy to heal my draconequus body before returning to it.

“That was rather impressive, even if you failed when you tried to punch him,” commented Drogur, who was behind me, “why would you do such a thing?”

“I thought I could blow a hole in his neck, I underestimated his toughness. I almost feel bad for him, he had no choice against that spell of yours,” I said as we walked back to the warren’s entrance. I was also angry because I could have killed him the same way if it had occurred to me.

“He was an idiot. Dragons can hold their breath for a long time, he could have used that time to kill me and end the spell, instead of panicking and wasting the air in his lungs even faster.”

“Even so, it feels like cheating to be able to kill something so powerful with such a simple spell.”

“You are a magic creature, so you must know that the farther away your target it, the harder it is to maintain a spell. He could have just flown away until he broke the spell.”

We climbed down the mountain in silence for a while.

“I want to know how you do magic.”

“It’s a secret. Deal with it.”

“If you won’t tell me, I will discover it by myself.”

“Don’t get too cocky around me, Balto, it was me who killed the dragon, not you.”

“Yes, my Alpha... What are we going to do with the dragon’s corpse?”

“Weapons and armour for the strongest dogs with the scales, turn the bones into powder and sell them for a really high price to the Equestrian alchemists, the usual,” he calmly explained.

“The usual? How many dragons have you killed?”

“Only two, a teen red dragon whose scales I am wearing now, and an adult brown dragon that flew off and died in the territory of another warren, so we couldn’t take his corpse without starting a war.”

“Wait, you maintained a spell on a dragon who flew out of your territory?”

“No, I jumped on his back so he wouldn’t escape.” Oh God this guy is SO. FREAKING. BADASS!

I hid again in his belt and we returned to the warren, where he proclaimed his victory. Then he told everyone to stop working on whatever they were doing so they could loot the dragon’s corpse faster and attend to the celebration he would hold that night. I left him as soon as I could and then I joined the rest of the dogs in the mountain. I helped Goozar control the slaves, as the pegasi and griffins could fly off if we stopped watching over them and they managed to break the ropes that bound their wings to their bodies.

“Why no pluck feathers so they no fly?” I asked Goozar.

“If they no fly, they sad and work bad. They can fly on main cave when they no work. They happy, they work good, we happy.”

We continued working for most of the day, as gutting a dragon is a hard and time-consuming work. Finally, we returned to the cave and the bitches started cooking a huge dragon stew.

Dragon meat is the best meat I have ever tasted. The rest of the pack seemed to think the same, as we all ate until we felt sick. After that, the gems and the alcohol came into the mix and the “party” soon evolved into a massive orgy, but I won’t describe it in detail because of reasons.

The next day I woke up with the worst hangover ever. Fucking diamond dog moonshine, I knew I shouldn’t have had the last eight refills. I tried to get up, but then I realized I was trapped between the huge arms of another diamond dog who was hugging me from behind. I turned around and saw the fattest, ugliest, dirtiest diamond dog of Granite Back.

“Hi there, hot stuff,” she said. I felt a cold shiver running down my spine.

“Uh... Where I am?” I asked as I got up. Oh god, I ended up fucking the fat one, AGAIN. Oh, right, that was the second time it happened to me. The first was when I still was human and it was very awkward for both of us. She was a nice girl, fat and ugly but friendly, the perfect internet friend who you never meet in person. Now, THIS ugly bitch...

“You in my house. You very drunk, can’t walk to your house,” Shit, I don’t even know her name. “I bring you here, you still with energy, we have fun before sleeping.” SHIT.

“I remember nothing,” I admitted, “last thing in mind, Goozar challenging me to drink contest. Then all clouded,” She broke into a fit of laughter when I said that.

“Goozar is best drinker in warren. You crazy if you think you can drink more.”

“I have terrible head pain... What was your name?”

“Agnes. I leave now, time to work,” I remembered that she was Granite Back’s head chef. I hope she enjoyed it, I don’t want to find (more) spit in my food.

I followed her out of her house, then I went home and proceeded to apply bleach to my brain and eyes. Literally. Unfortunately, it didn’t make me forget and I’m sure I would have died if I hadn’t changed into draconequus to heal my diamond dog body before returning to it. Healing the damage done by the bleach also got rid of my hangover, so I could think clearly again.

I want a weapon made with dragon bones or scales! Wait, I can’t carry a weapon around when I’m on many of my other forms... That’s it! I must learn how to access hammerspace!

I went to have breakfast, determined to find a way to reach hammerspace that night.