Blackie(1) was not a dumb Diamond Dog. He had combined two small diamond dog tribes and ruled them for almost three years, during which none of them starved to death or turned on one another--- which among diamond dogs made him the equivalent of George Washington, Albert Einstein, and Mahatma Gandhi combined. Once they had been conscripted by Garble, he had consequently applied his abnormally superior intellect to the situation at hand.

Their new bosses, he had quickly concluded, while being quite powerful and therefore quite good bosses to have around by diamond dog standards, were also kind of singleminded, and had a tendency to get so eager chasing the prize that they ran right past what they were sniffing for.

For one thing, it seemed kind of obvious that the sparkly ponies wouldn't just leave the really valuable stuff laying about in the street to be dug up out of the rubble. In fact the diamond dogs had been digging about in the wreckage(2) and had found nothing but cheap quartz and similar stones.  No, the good stuff would all be in one place-- namely that rather large, shiny, and pointy type building in the center of the city called a 'palace.'  Their new bosses were impatient and would expect the dogs to return with their arms loaded... and would most likely eat anydog who didn't. If Blackie wanted his dogs to stay in their bosses' good graces and off their bosses' menu, he'd better take the initiative.

"Dogs!" he barked. "We no find gems here. Time we go where gems ARE." He pointed at the palace. "RAID THE CASTLE!" The dogs fairly quickly got the idea and set up a howl. They grabbed up their makeshift clubs, truncheons and spears and set out in a lope after their leader.

Blackie really hoped somepony had left a door open.

He looked up.

Preferably a door to an elevator...

Grundle crashed to the ground. He gave a drawn out groan, and slumped. Spike dropped to one knee, his chest heaving. He was scorched and seared in a dozen places, and clawed and bit in a half dozen more. Blood trickled down his scales. Anyone who saw him knew that things were grim. The battle had raged for far too long; building after building had been leveled, and Spike's energy was flagging. He just needed to catch his breath though; just needed to catch his breath--

The white dragon hit him out of nowhere.

Blizz was getting desperate. Of all of Garble's crew, he was probably the most sane. If he'd had his way they never would have come. This was supposed to be easy. Now two of his friends were ash, another had puked his guts out and been captured by ponies, and now the Big Guy on their team was eating dirt. They were stuck in the middle of a city full of things that were heavily armed and angry at them, and they couldn't get away because this giant purple bastard was pounding the fewmets right out of them. It just wasn't fair!

He tore and clawed at Spike, spewing flame everywhere. "DIE, WHY WON'T YOU DIE?" he bellowed in frustration.

Spike had had enough. One massive purple fist caught Blizz by his scrawny throat and began squeezing.

Dragons have one last trick they can use, when everything else fails and they're at their last resort. It's a coward's move, a dirty trick, one that dragons everywhere hold in contempt-- but every last one of them would do, were they desperate enough.

Blizz used it now. He hawked up bile from his stomach and spat it in Spike's face.

Dragon's insides aren't just a raging inferno. They're a cauldron of boiling, violent chemical reactions; chemicals toxic and caustic and flammable and worse gurgle through their guts. Blizz's gut-spit was full of boiling, corrosive chemicals that could eat through lead in high enough concentrations, and they went right in Spike's unprotected eyes. His scream of pain shattered windows.

Spike flung the other dragon away from himself with such force that Blizz landed a city block away. The purple dragon roared and thrashed, wiping at his burning eyes; he fumbled across a pond in one of the parks surrounding the castle and buried his claws in it, scooping up handfuls of mud-laden water and smearing it across his face.

"Spike!" "Spikey!" Nyx and Rarity cried out. They reached out uselessly to their dragon friend, who kneeled in the muddy ruin of the pond and moaned in pain.  Rarity wept, tears running down her cheeks.

"He's blinded," Cadence whispered in horror. "He can't possibly fight them."

Roller suddenly cursed. "The filthy--- they're getting up again," he said. He was right; Blizz and Grundle were getting back up, coughing and groaning, but their eyes were fixed mercilessly on their blinded enemy. They started loping towards him; their lope turned into a run. They bore down on Spike like a twin runaway trains.

Without thinking Bright Eyes slapped his hoof to the walkie-talkie crystal still behind his ear. "Spike, look out, behind you!!"

Spike's head went up in surprise-- and he dove to one side. The two dragons charging him tripped over each other and went face down in the pond, plowing furrows in the muddy slough.

Spike got to his feet, head jerking around as if he were trying to tell where the voice that saved him had come from. Bright Eyes realized what had happened a moment later. "He's still wearing the walkie talkie," he breathed. "He can hear me!" He put his hoof to his own ear crystal. "Spike! Spike it's me, Bright Eyes! It's the radio crystal, you still have it on! If you listen to me you can--- SPIKE USE YOUR TAIL NOW!"

Without hesitation Spike spun and swung his tail behind him, catching a charging Blizz in the chest and knocking him sprawling.

"Now left foot, KICK!" Spike kicked out, and Grundle took a clawed foot someplace tender. He dropped, groaning.

"Right hook, left hook!" Grundle was the recipient of two rapid blows to either side of his head. He reeled backwards in his kneeling position, falling backwards onto the base of his tail.

"I do not beeee-leeeeeve thiiiis!" Roller screamed, whipping his camera back and forth from Bright Eyes to Spike.

"Hang on, Spike, I'll be your eyes!" Bright Eyes shouted. "I'll get you out of this!"

"How are you doing this??" Nyx yelled in bafflement.

"Didn't you ever play Kaiju Kombat at the arcade?" Bright Eyes yelled back. "Spike, CLOTHESLINE!" Spike raised his arms and lunged forward, catching both charging 'kaiju' across the throat. They literally flipped over backwards and crashed to the earth. "Yeaaahhh!!" Bright Eyes cheered.

Shining was caught in a state bordering both bewilderment and amazement. He couldn't make up his mind what was astonishing him more at the moment.

On the one hoof, his troops were actually managing to keep the big red pinned. All his crystal pony guards had gone through that.. seizure, or whatever it was, and a half dozen of them now wielding earth pony magic in ways that hadn't been seen in thousands of years. Boulders the size of cottages were slamming into the dragon, knocking him reeling. Another couple of ponies were making chunks of the crystal pavement grow up around the dragon's feet, tripping him. Others were slinging shards of crystal through the air that glowed and exploded on impact. Between that and the lightning from the pegasi and the magic blasts from the unicorns, they were keeping him staggered.

What was even scarier was that Shining Armor knew exactly how they were doing every bit of it, down to the smallest analytical detail. Earth pony magic was every bit as potent as Twilight had imagined.

On the other hoof was Spike's ongoing battle. It was visible from almost anywhere in the city at the moment. He had seen how the white dragon had blinded Spike-- he cringed in pain at the memory-- and had despaired for his foster nephew. But Spike had continued to fight and was still holding his own. What's more, he'd been relayed word from Cadence's bodyguards that a crystal unicorn colt was somehow acting as a spotter for the dragon, verbally guiding him through the blindfighting.

Shining shook his head. If he'd been reading this as a comic book as a colt, he'd have been flipping out over how crazy over-the-top it was. His horn flared and a knee-high force wall formed behind Garble. The dragon tripped backwards over it and crashed to the ground.

"Commander Shining!" a voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. "We have word from the S&S boys. They took a look at the residue those fragged dragons left behind, and they think they have something that will power them down! Over!"

"I copy, gimme details!" Shining barked, hoof to his ear. "What do they need?"

"They've got it set up, all they need is to get the target over to Fourth and Chalcedony, over!"

"Got it!" Shining said. "Okay, ponies, relay this to Cadence's Guards and tell them to pass it on: The Big Guy needs to get his playmates over to Fourth and Chalcedony, I repeat, get those dragons to Fourth and Chalcedony!"

Boom Boom walked around the device, regarding it. It was hard to be objective. Ever since that little white-eyed fit, she'd been hella distracted.  Explosives were her thing, and that odd little bit of magic knowhow she'd suddenly gained was like a key in a hundred different locks. She had words percolating in her head for all sorts of nifty new formulas to try with her chemistry set back home on the testing range--- words like "nitrate" and "azides" and--- a crystalline molecule spun through her mind; oooh, she'd call that one "Fulminated Mercury..." that looked like FUN...

She shook her head and tried to pay attention. The thing was apparently one of the S&S's skunkworks projects they'd been tinkering with. It had taken the S&S "Buster" crew about a quarter hour to assemble it. Unhappily, it didn't look like anything made to go boom. "It's a tuning fork," she said.

The red-maned and goateed pony grinned. "Yup."

"A giant tuning fork."

"Exactly."

"With a motor attached."

"Nice big locomotive engine," he agreed. Several ponies were already busy shoveling coal, getting the boiler up to pressure.

"And this will stop the dragons how?"

"A couple of troopers went out and examined the leftovers of those dragons that got toasted, and found these," he held up a reddish stone in his hoof. It looked like a partly melted lozenge.

"Fire opals?"

"Yep. The mountain of barf that came out of the one that shrank? Peppered with more of the same. The old myth about their effect on stallions may be false, but apparently they do have a "growing" effect-- on dragons. Our guess is that our nasty new visitors all have a bellyful of this stuff. Dragon barfs em back out, he shrinks."

"So how does this relate to giant tuning forks?" Boom Boom said, cocking an eyebrow.

"There's more than one way to get somepony to purge," the redheaded stallion said, smirking. "Today, class, we are going to be conducting an experiment to test the myth known as 'the brown note...' "

Spike lifted Blizz overhead and threw him to the ground. Buildings quaked. He reared back and bathed the white dragon in emerald fire. The flames raged, and when they parted all that was left was another scattering of half-digested fire opals.

Steelhoof stood with his fellow soldiers, maintaining the perimeter around the site of the fracas. He shook his head; The royal gardens would never be the same. Nor would the barracks, the summer dining hall, the secondary storehouse, the lesser West tower, the northwestern stretch of the curtain wall... he shuddered at the sounds of battle. Screams, roars, tremendous crashes and most disturbingly the sound of the Solar Diarch squealing and giggling like a schoolfilly-- that one was going to give him nightmares, he just knew it-- echoed over the castle grounds.

There was a loud WHUD, and the luckless adolescent dragons that had invaded the castle briefly appeared over the rooftops, flipping end over end like ragdolls before falling back out of sight. Steelhoof hoped Celestia finished this up soon. Maybe then she would send off a missive or two to find out where these two miscreants had come from. The two drakes were fairly spry, still, it shouldn't take much longer--

There was a flash of green light, a draconic scream of surprise and the sound of a body slamming to earth. He heard Celestia squeal giddily and clap her hooves.

"Oh look, Luna, another one! Quick, get your warhammer and join in!"

Or maybe it would be a while, Steelhoof sighed.

"Kid!" One of the Guards shook Bright Eyes' shoulder. "Word from the commander-- you gotta get your big purple friend to drag that dragon over to Fourth and Chalcedony!"

"Fourth and Chalcedony?" Bright Eyes said. "I-- We'll try--" he looked back down to where Spike was wrestling with the enormous brown dragon and tapped the crystal behind his ear.

"Spike! We gotta get him over to Fourth and Chalcedony! I'll guide you-- fall back!"

Spike complied. It wasn't hard to let Grundle push him back. The brown outmassed him, and his heavy plates had protected him from the worst of Spike's fires and claws. Slowly Spike staggered back, shielding his face with his arms, taking blows on his shoulders and forearms as he played a desperate game of rope-a-dope.

Grundle surged forward, grossly overconfident as Spike seemingly faltered. "GONNA CRUSH YOU, RUNT," he grunted, smashing at the smaller dragon relentlessly with his fists, flailing with his clubbed tail, spitting bursts of flame. Spike staggered, fell back, fell back again.

"Okay, you're at third and Chalcedony... a little farther, another step back-- THERE, YOU'RE THERE!" Bright Eyes shouted. "They say to back up fast!"

Fourth and Chalcedony ended in a large cul-de-sac. Spike shoved Grundle away and leapt back, leaving the dragon standing in the middle of the roundabout.

On a nearby rooftop, the ponies manning the brown-note tuning fork opened the throttle on the steam engine. The engine chugged, and a low, ominous note began thrumming through the air. In seconds the vibrations were so powerful they were visible as ripples in the air, focused on the corpulent dragon's gut. Grundle crouched, clutching his belly. "W-W-W-WHAT-T-T'S GO-O-O-ING O-O-O-N ?" he bellowed.

Deep in Grundle's digestive tract, the fire opals did not react well to the vibrations.  Fire opals are usually stable. They contain an incredible amount of magic, largely in the form of elemental fire absorbed from the heart of the volcano where they are first formed.(3) Digested in a dragon's gut they release it gradually.

Cracked in pieces, however... they're not so mellow.

Under the sonic barrage, all the fire opals in Grundle's bowels shattered. The results were both horrifying and spectacular. The shattered crumbs burst into flame, rocketed around inside him, and erupted violently from any orifice they could find. Grundle howled and spun about as torrents of blazing multicolored sparks vomited forth from either end. Sparks gushed from his mouth, his nose, his ears, his backside, and ricocheted around the cul-de-sac, sending any observers diving for cover.

The Buster crew stood on the rooftop and admired their handiwork. An occasional "Ooooo" or "Aaaaah" would announce the emergence of a particularly pretty explosion.  "We gotta figure out how to do this again," Boom Boom said.

After about a minute of rather pyrotechnic peristaltic gyrations, the sparks and explosions finally stopped. Grundle, groaning and smoking profusely from both ends, toppled over. The S&S crew fled across the catwalks, whooping like lunatics, as the deflating titan fell over, smashing the Brown Note Gun and the building it stood on.

"SO-- Busted or Confirmed?" Boom Boom shouted as she ran.

"Ehhh--" Jamie said, waving his hoof in a so-so motion.

All across the city, ponies--- soldiers, civilians, those running to fight or hiding in corners and in alleyways from the destruction-- cheered. Nyx and Bright Eyes were shrieking and jumping up and down in a victory dance.

Shining's voice crackled across the Walkie Talkie band. "He's down, he's down for good! We've got their leader corralled in and it's...

"--Oh no."

Garble raged, spewing fire at everything around him. He was beyond reason, dragon greed and rage were driving him now. It wasn't fair! It wasn't FAIR! He was the most powerful dragon that ever LIVED now and these stupid sparkly pastel ponies-- IT WASN'T FAIR!

His eyes fell on the gunnysack. He'd dragged it all this way; now it lay on the ground where he'd dropped it when the strap burned through.  His eyes burned. He'd show these ponies who the real masters of this world were... He lunged, throwing himself to where the bag lay.

Shining was shouting the news of Grundle's fall into his Walkie Talkie when he saw Garble make his dive. He watched as the dragon pulled a bag of... something... out of the scorched scrap-cloth sack. Ignoring the weapon fire pummeling him, Garble hefted it in both hands and tipped it up to his open mouth; a glittering cascade of reddish gems poured down the teenage dragon's throat.

Shining felt the blood drain away from his face. "Oh no...."

Garble gulped the fire opals down desperately. More opals at once than any of them had eaten thus far, more than all of them combined had dared to swallow in one go. He strained, churning up his fire-stomach, deliberately trying to melt the overdose of stones even faster.

Fire gushed through his veins. He groaned and roared, his bones stretching, his muscles ripping and popping. He began to grow, faster than ever before.

He swelled in size, limbs lengthening and thickening, his atrophied wings suddenly growing again, enormous veined sails on his back. His horns grew long and spiraled, his snout lengthened, sprouting jagged fangs. He grew broader still across the chest and back. Spike's head would barely come to his shoulder now. His neck lengthened, doubled, tripled. His insides twisted as his fire-stomach enlarged. The tortoise-shell-like growths on his shoulders suddenly cracked and split and two new heads emerged, horned and fanged and their eyes full of evil. The three heads looked at each other, came to an accord. All three heads raised to the sky and roared, a piercing shriek that echoed across the city.

"Retreat, retreat, all forces retreat!" Shining yelled. He hardly needed to bother; the forces of the Crystal Empire were scattering as fast as they could gallop.

The three heads lowered and a triple gout of flame scoured the city. Garble swept his tail in a circle, shearing buildings all around him off at their foundations. The three heads scanned around; all resistance was gone or fleeing. In the distance, though, stood one more.

"THE RUNT," the center head hissed. The other two heads swung around and saw the battered purple dragon. Wings unfurled, legs flexed and bunched, and Garble flung himself into the air and soared straight for Spike.

Bright Eyes watched in horror as the impossible nightmare hurtled towards his friend. "Spike, brace yourself NOW!" he screamed. Blind, Spike obeyed and dug his claws in.

Falling out of the sky, Garble plowed into Spike. Spike was braced; he took the impact on his shoulders like a hoofball linebacker, his feet spread and dug in, his claws digging furrows in the street.

But not enough. Both of them slammed into the Spire, an enormous cloud of dragon smoke, dust and earth rose up. Once again the spectators were knocked off their hooves. Bright Eyes, who had been leaning over the rail in his eagerness to keep his eyes on the battle, lost his balance. With a cry, he went over the side and plummeted into the rising cloud of dust.

"Bright Eyes!" Nyx screamed. All reason flew out of her head. She ran to the stairwell that led to the bottom of the Spire and began galloping pell-mell down the stairs. There was no sense to it, even she knew it in the back of her head; what did she expect to do, beat poor Bright Eyes to the bottom? But that didn't stop her from hurtling headfirst down the stairs, literally bouncing off the wall at every landing where the steps turned.

She was three floors down when she met the diamond dogs coming up.

The Spire was a popular site with tourists and romantics. Consequently a staircase leading from the Crystal Heart park straight up to the observation deck had been installed, rather than having half the population of the Crystal Empire trooping up through the Crystal Palace every day. Blackie had incorrectly concluded that this was the fast route to the inside of the palace, and so had lead his diamond dog thugs up the stairwell. He had not, of course, gotten inside the actual palace. He was now hot, winded, his feet and knees were killing him, and now the little black filly from before was blocking the way. "What you do here, runty pony?" he snapped. "Whack you good THIS time..." he hefted his club. He cocked his ear. Was that--? He could hear one female voice giving orders, others hurrying to comply. Yes! He chuckled, baring his cracked yellow fangs. "Then we take pretty pony princess back to Boss. Yes...!"

Nyx lost it. Monsters smashing the city, her brother getting hammered to a pulp, her new friend had just fallen off the tower probably to his doom, and now these stupid, smelly, greedy, stupid, thieving, ugly, STUPID Diamond Dogs were coming after her sweet auntie Cadence. Anger? Fear? She was so keyed up she didn't know what she was feeling. She planted all four tiny hooves on the flight and lowered her horn, glaring, lungs heaving. Her eyes began to glow white, her mane and tail began rippling as if in some cosmic wind.

Several of the Diamond Dogs in the stairwell began to seriously regret the choices they'd made in life.

She scrunched her eyes shut, opened her mouth, and in a perfect Royal Canterlot Voice, screamed at the top of her lungs.

Anyone who has ever heard a little filly shriek will testify to its ear splitting nature. With the Royal Canterlot Voice behind it, and contained in the narrow stairwell, Nyx's high, chiming voice was shrill enough to split the diamond dog's sensitive ears. Every dog in the mob howled in pain. Blackie clapped his massive paws over his ears in agony, convinced that his skull was splitting in half. He staggered one step back too far and lost his balance, tumbling backward into the dog behind him, and that dog falling into the one behind him, all the way down the stairwell like a stack of dominoes made of wet hair.

WHUMPthudYIPEbangTHUDCLUNKYowlYIPCRASHWHAPTHUDbangBANGthumpthumpityBANG

The crashing and yowling went on long after the last diamond dog had tumbled bruisingly out of sight. Nyx considered her options, then decided discretion was the better part of valor and beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs. As she galloped up the stairwell a fleeting thought passed through her mind

Darn, I shoulda said 'You Shall Not Pass'

But it was swiftly past and forgotten.

Bright Eyes felt himself tumbling through the air. He screamed-- it was automatic, he couldn't help it. He would be ashamed later, right now he couldn't care how fillyish it sounded-- and waited for his small body to hit the ground. He was a Follower, he knew the Forever Fields were waiting for him after he hit. He hoped they were as nice as they sounded...

He hit something big... and angled... and... scaly? Shouldn't the pavement have been a lot harder? and began to slide down it. It took a blink to realize that he hadn't hit the ground but rather someone's shoulder, and was now sliding down the length of their arm--

A giant purple hand scooped up under him, catching him gently.

Spike had just fire blasted his rival with a spray of flame, right in all three faces. The two new heads weren't used to the fury of Spike's flames yet; the pain sent the mutated dragon staggering back, heads writhing like teased snakes.  Spike heard the scream and felt something tiny and loud land on his shoulder. By sheer providence he managed to catch the falling unicorn colt in his claws. He looked down at his palm; his weeping eyes still burned, and everything was still too blurry to see. He could feel two hooves wrapped around his thumb. "Spike!" the voice crackled next to his earfin. "Spike it's me! Can you see yet??"

"NO." Spike could hear the growls and feel the footfalls of his enemy. There was no time for anything else. He lifted the foal up and put him on his head, saddled between his first and second headspikes. "...BE MY EYES," he said.

Bright Eyes realized what he was saying. He nodded, heart pounding, and wrapped his forelegs tightly around the headspike in front of him. "You got it," he said. "Let's get 'em."

Spike turned, planted his feet and took a fighting stance as his adversary rushed toward him.

...behind him, the Crystal Heart flared.

1)As we shall dub the highly verbose and luckless Diamond Dog Leader

2)In between bouts of running for their lives from things falling down, things blowing up, and things-- generally ponies-- waving about swords and spears.

3)Equestrian fire opals, mind.