I took my seat on the benches, glaring menacingly at the various creatures around me. After all, I'm a dragon, and I have to uphold certain expectations, being dominant and imposing, and making sure other things give me my space. The ponies gave me adequate room, but the griffins and diamond dogs living here did not give a single care to the fact that I was here. It was strange, having not-dragons be not-scared. I didn't like it. Just as I was about to put them in their place, Amethyst sat down next to me.

"It's about to begin." She said. "You don't wanna miss it cuz you're not paying attention." She was right. She was much too happy a person for a dragon, but when she said things, they often made sense. Amethyst was not a dragon who said or did stupid things. She definitely didn't boss me around. Nobody bosses me around. She just had good ideas is all. Suggestions.

The griffin king walked out into the center of the arena, leaving claw and paw marks on the sand floor. He didn't seem happy, like he didn't want to be there. I don't know why. He was about to have a good fight, like king of the horde.

"Group A!" He shouted. A large number of diamond dogs, seventy or so, walked out through the doorway in the high wall separating the arena from the audience. They had all different types of weapons and armor. Some metal, some hide, some cloth, some bone.

"Alright, so, if anyone has second thoughts, now is the time to back out." Those in the group looked to each other, then stared at the king with determined looks on their faces as they spread around the arena, surrounding him with their weapons drawn.

"So, let me just make absolutely sure. You lot, each and every one of you, will not rest till I'm dead, and have nothing to live for other than seeing me as a corpse?"

"Yes! For barking out loud! Stop delaying!" One of them replied. "Hurry up and get this started so I can kill you!"

"Alright! Alright! *sigh* Mages, set up the shields to protect the audience. Don't want anyone to get hit by a stray spear or spell." A unicorn walked up beside me and tapped me on the arm.

"Excuse me. I need to be in that spot to cast the spell, otherwise there will be a hole in the shield. Can you move please?"

"And lose my front row seat? No way."

"Garble." Amethyst started. "These losers don't have scales like we do. The fight can't start till the shield is up."

Amethyst was right. Nobody tells me what to do, but if I wanted to see the fight, they wouldn't start till the shield was up.

"Fine, whatever." I moved a bit to the right, making the griffin there move over.

"Shield is up sir!" A bubble of magic surrounded the circle of the arena, shielding those outside it from anything happening inside it.

"Right." Griffin continued. "When they hit the gong, the fight starts, so just go at it."

A pair of dogs holding large iron sticks began pounding on a drum. Boomboomboomboom. They picked up the pace, faster and faster they pounded it, until one of them turned and slammed his metal rod against the large bronze disk, making a resounding claaaang.

As soon as the sound rang out, all the combatants in the arena charged. Weapons drawn, they ran at the king, standing in the middle of the ring who calmly.... almost bored looking, pressed two claws together.

*snap*

Fire. Nothing but fire. We couldn't see any of what was happening in the arena. A great pillar of fire filled the entire arena. The shields being made by the casters lit up as they tried to contain the inferno. The top of the bubble dome twisted and warped, before breaking apart and letting the fire escape, while the portion protecting the audience struggled, but succeeded to hold. The great inferno rose miles into the sky, a gout of flame that would be visible all the way from the mainland. It became as bright as mid day. How long the fire raged, I have no idea, but it finally began to calm and snuff itself out.

Once the flames were gone, and the arena could be seen again, I noticed three things. First, the sandy floor of the arena, with the only exception being the spot where Griffin stood, had been turned to molten glass. The second, is that there were only four people in the arena. Griffin himself, a smouldering corpse, an unconscious dog, and one who was struggling to stand as the thick, liquid glass stuck to her paws.

"Garble." Amethyst turned to me. "They didn't scream Garble. Look." There was ash falling from the sky, as it often does at the volcano, but there was no volcano here. The ash flakes were what was left of the people. Their weapons and armor nothing more than blobs of molten slag, slowly mixing with the glass floor. "They were dead before they even felt it."

The smoking corpse slowly sank into the floor, as did the other one, while only the female still struggled. She growled. Her fur was burnt and singed, and her body was covered in black, charred flesh.

Griffin walked over to the sole survivor, the liquid floor moving away from him with each step he took. He looked to be examining her.

"Third degree burns all over your body, anything not burnt has been boiled. I'm surprised you're still alive. You and the other two had shield magic, but it couldn't hold up. Even if you got medical attention right now you wouldn't make it, though." He put one claw under her head and lifted it up, to look in her eyes, before drawing it across her throat. Blood spilled out onto the ground as she went limp.

"Group B, C, and D! Listen up. If you're having any second thoughts, feel free to leave. Lets face it, these ones..." He lifted the limp body of the one he just killed. "Were among some of the stronger ones. I'll tell you this right now, if you wanna train and come back later, you CAN. The fact that I'm doing this right now doesn't meant you need to fight me right now. You can come back later if you don't think you're ready. I might not be around, so you'll have to wait a bit, but I'll always come back here at some point.That being said, anyone who wants to fight me right now come on out."

The other challengers, who were also in the audience, looked around, but sat silently.

"Nobody? Alright. In that case, head on home everyone, show's over."

"Amethyst."

"Yeah Garble?"

"Lets go home."

"Akay."

"You did that intentionally." Empress Narin stated.

"Yeah. They were determined to see me dead. No amount of diplomacy was going to talk them out of it. So, figured if I had to kill them, might as well make it a show for the rest. Sure, they might come back later, or they might not. I was going to have to kill those ones regardless. Might as well use that as a way to spare the rest. Still, I wish I could have talked them all out of it, but I guess that would have been hoping for too much."

"And you are not worried that they will return asssss a knife in the night?"

"That is why I keep her around." I turned and kissed Chrysalis on the cheek. She blushed as she ate up the love. "As much as I want to see your home Narin, not having someone keep watch over us while we sleep is going to be awful. Still, I think we can handle it. What do you think Gilda?" Gilda herself had a wing draped across the changeling queen's back.

"We'll probably be all right. There isn't anyone in their land who wants us dead, and anyone who follows us there is going to stand out. Besides, we'll be staying at Narin's palace. If someone wants to assassinate us, they'd have to sneak in to a place full of guards specifically on the lookout for assassins, who have much more experience with it given that their culture is based around it. We're probably safer there than we are here, even with the changelings watching us."

Chrysalis blew a raspberry at Gilda, before she went back to petting Seth.

"In any case." I continued. "The rest of the challengers will probably head home now, or, maybe they;ll stick around and get jobs here. Who knows. Whatever. Lets get some shuteye. We'll pack in the morning, and start flying in the afternoon, after lunch. The town is going to have quite the mess to clean up in the arena. It's going to take a while before it's usable again."

Author's Notes:

Hilf mir!
Das feuer liebt mich nicht!

Pyropryomania ma ma ma mania. OOH, call me obsessed, call me insane, somethin is creepin in my veins.

Little inferno just for me!!!!