"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait… So you're saying that we all have to go stop a giant dragon from destroying the kingdom?"

Twilight nods.

"Finally! It'll be just like a quest from back home: 6 heroes, 1 dangerous foe, a kingdom shattering event. Ah, good times. Let me go get some gear."

The Forgemaster walked back into his home, leaving the 'Elements' on his doorstep. They had come to his house to tell him that Princess Celestia ordered them to stop a dragon from covering Equestria in an impenetrable cloud of smoke for a hundred years. The ponies followed him into his home.

The Forgemaster was in the one room she had yet to extensively study: The Armory.

They walked into the room to find the room covered in storage bins and shelves, everyone of them filled to the brim with weapons, armor, and other important devices. The Forgemaster was digging through a bin marked: 'Miscellaneous'.

As the ponies approached him, he had a stack of weapons ready to distribute. At the sight of the dangerous-looking equipment, Fluttershy fainted. Rainbow Dash went to help her.

Twilight spoke up, "What are you doing with all of those weapons?"

He looked at her as though she were an imbecile, which in his mind she was, and said, "What are we gonna do, ask the dragon if he would kindly move?"

"Actually…" she trailed off.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

Twilight nodded her head, giving a sheepish smile.

"And what are you going to do when the dragon attacks? Ask it kindly to not crush your skull into so many pieces?" He sat down on the crate, and with his head in his hands, said, "By Celestia's beard, this is the most hopeless group of heroes I've ever come across. You don't even have a back-up plan if shit goes down! Twilight Sparkle, you're supposed to be the one with every conceivable plan for every conceivable thing that goes wrong, and you don't have one for the most obvious?"

"Celestia has a beard?" asked Pinkie Pie.

"Gods, I ask that you take this stupidity from me, deliver me from this idiocy, in your names, I pray. Amen."

He got up and walked out of the armory. The mares were following him.

"Come on; if we're gonna do this, the sooner the better."

The group started to walk towards the mountain the smoke was coming from. Nopony noticed when The Forgemaster picked up a clipboard and a pen. The ponies and he formed a line as Twilight paced before them, giving them a briefing on the situation. The entire time, The Forgemaster was taking notes.

As she was speaking, The Forgemaster made these notes:

Sufficient route mapping. No clue Fluttershy is afraid. Not prepared for cold weather. No morale increasing speeches. Conclusion: awful leader, good planner.

After the unusual preparation speech, The Forgemaster and the 'Elements' walked down the path that would lead them to the dragon. Well, he was walking; the mares were running fairly fast.

wWwWwWw

The group made it to the mountain in no time at all. Twilight had yet to discover that Fluttershy was deathly afraid of continuing, much to The Forgemaster's chagrin.

The rest of the 'Elements', barring Fluttershy, started to climb the mountain. They had made it up the cliff face a good 50 feet before they even noticed that Fluttershy wasn't with them. Or, for that matter, that The Forgemaster wasn't with them.

After a bout of yelling, and unknowingly insulting Fluttershy, The Forgemaster decided to step in. On this particular quest, and on all quests involving young heroes-in-training, The Forgemaster took a spectator's role. He didn't interfere unless someone was going to die, or they were going to fail the quest. But, he felt that he could contribute this once, if only to speed things along.

He picked up Fluttershy much the same way he did back in the Everfree forest and started to fly up the mountain, keeping pace with the ponies next to him. Fluttershy was attempting to thank him, he thought, but she was much too quiet for even his ears to hear what she was saying.

As he and Rainbow Dash were flying up the mountain, and the rest were climbing, Twilight made the unfortunate decision to strike up a conversation with him.

"So, Forgemaster, I've been meaning to ask; how do you and Crimson Hammer know each other so well?"

"Twilight Sparkle, because I know that if I don't answer you, you will become temporarily mentally unstable and endanger the quest, I will indulge you just this once. Crimson Hammer and I met in the Everfree forest; we quickly became friends, and discovered, to our joy, that we were, in fact, blood brothers."

"But, he's a pony and you're… you!" Twilight said.

"What I mean to say is: we have 2 bodies, but one soul."

"That doesn't tell me anything!"

"I do not know how to make it any clearer than I already have, Twilight Sparkle."

She just grumbled in reply.

What The Forgemaster said was true. He did 'meet' Crimson Hammer in the Everfree, meaning that he had become Crimson Hammer in the Everfree. He and Crimson Hammer do share blood, so to speak, and if you were intelligent enough to notice, they do in fact have 2 bodies but only the one soul. This is because both are, in fact, him. Twilight Sparkle didn't know that and he didn't want to volunteer the simple answer. He told her the whole truth, but said it in a way that made Twilight confused.

"Knowledge is power, Twilight Sparkle, hide it well."

"Is that why you won't tell me anything?"

"I've told you quite a bit, you just haven't seen it."

"What? I don't understand."

"Not a word I've ever spoken since meeting you has been false, Twilight Sparkle. It's just that sometimes, your feeble little mind cannot understand the complexity of my simple words."

"Are you calling me dumb!"

"No, I'm saying that you do not understand the information that is clearly presented to you."

Twilight and he quickly stopped speaking after that. Twilight mostly because she knew she wouldn't get anything out of him, and The Forgemaster mostly because he only ever wanted to speak to Twilight if she spoke to him. He enjoyed toying with her, asking something of her would give her the opportunity to toy with him. And, he didn't need to learn anything about Twilight; Celestia's memories had everything he had ever wanted on the mare, and more.

After a quick rest stop on the flat area they had climbed up to, the group continued down the path.

The Forgemaster set Fluttershy down as there wasn't a steep incline to be climbing anymore.

She and he were walking at the back of the group. Him; to better observe how the 6 were acting. Her; because she was frightened. She felt comforted by The Forgemaster's presence; he was acting like a protective older-brother to her, or so she thought.

Soon enough, they came across a tiny gap in the path. The rest of the group jumped across with ease, but Fluttershy was too frightened to jump. After a song from Pinkie Pie, and some encouragement from the Forgemaster, she jumped across herself. The Forgemaster didn't need to jump across, he just stepped over.

He found that while flying was always nice, he liked being on the ground more. Something about the way that he wouldn't die if he fell appealed to him.

The group trudged onwards to the goal that was set. Even after several inopportune events, the group trotted along just fine. Twilight warned about them being in an avalanche zone. But, there was time to strike up another conversation, this time with Rainbow Dash.

"Rainbow Dash, did you bring your amulet along with you?"

She started, before saying, "Yes, and thank you for it. It's really quite beautiful. I can't believe that Crimson Hammer would do something like this."

"Yes, he did commission a fine piece. Do you wish to know exactly what it can do?"

"Of course! You just said it had some weird rune thingies in it, you never told me what it could do!"

"When you press down on your cutie mark, it becomes a small knife. When you press down on Crimson Hammer's, it sends out a message to him and I, so one of us will be along if you are in trouble. Only use it in an emergency, it wouldn't do if I showed up because you just wanted to talk to Crimson Hammer."

"Really! That's so cool!"

She pressed down on the depiction of her cutie mark, and just as he said, the entire pendant piece started to change forms. When it stopped, it was an intricately decorated and rainbow colored blade. She gasped at the sight of it.

"How did you even do this!" she screamed out.

Unfortunately, she had forgotten about them being in an avalanche zone. Just as Twilight had warned, an avalanche started. From his perspective, it appeared as though it were raining large and dangerous rocks. Thankfully, his head was harder than any rock.

A few moments later, and multiple destroyed rocks later, the path forward was blocked. Once more, the group got to climbing. He picked Fluttershy up again, and carried her over to the other side. As they flew, they talked.

"So, Fluttershy, how is your first quest going?"

"It's awful! It's scary and terrifying and… and… I'm just so frightened." She whimpered.

"Shh… It'll be alright, Fluttershy. Just trust in your friends, they'll see you through this."

Her friends chose that exact moment to intervene on the touching moment. Then Twilight announced that the large cave in front of them with smoke pouring out of it was, in fact, the place we needed to go.

"Really, Twilight Sparkle? That's where we need to go? I never would have guessed."

She glared at him before assigning duties to her friends. When she tried to assign a duty to him, he just shook his head.

"I'm just an observer here, Twilight Sparkle, I'll intervene if you're about to die. But, that's really it."

She sighed, angrily, and then continued to get her friends in order. The second she said that Fluttershy was going into that cave, he knew that the plan was going to fail.

But, as his role as trainer of heroes, he allowed heroes to make their own mistakes.

After numerous failed attempts at getting the dragon out of his cave, and numerous notes written about the status of these heroes, Rainbow Dash went into the cave.

While the most straightforward of the tactics used so far, it was the least likely to succeed. After all, they didn't even have weapons to combat the beast. He was severely disappointed in his young heroes.

After getting knocked aside like so much dust and ashes, the group was huddled in fear at the base of a broken rock, which Fluttershy happened to be hiding behind.

The dragon wasn't looking at her, or the others, he was looking directly at The Forgemaster. As the only creature left standing, he was the nearest threat. Though, he was sure that the dragon didn't consider any of them an actual threat.

'Ugh… Twilight Sparkle, I really hate your messed up thought process. I knew this would never work.' He thought.

While he knew that he had the dragon's attention, he felt it was best to keep the attention on him. He did so with a tried and age-old tactic.

"Dragon! You are a tiny and insignificant beast that is so insecure in its own body that you feel the need to bully those smaller than you to make up for your lack of size! I'm sure the other dragons all insult your tiny stature, and I agree with them! You are nothing before my glory!"

This dragon was pissed.

Though he had shot smoke out of his mouth at the ponies, he was shooting fire at The Forgemaster. Who, in turn, put up a magical barrier in time to block the flames. He then turned the dragon's tactic back at him, shooting fire out ofhis mouth to burn the dragon. Unfortunately, it didn't affect the dragon at all. Living in a constantly fire-filled environment will make you immune to fire. But the surprise evident on the dragon's face provided the time for one of his little heroes to save the day, just as he thought she would.

"How dare you? How dare you! Listen here, mister. Just because you're big doesn't mean you get to be a bully. You may have huge teeth, and sharp scales, and snore smoke, and breathe fire. But you do not- I repeat- You do not!Hurt! My! Friends! You got that?"

Fluttershy worked up enough courage from seeing her friends hurt that she interfered with a duel between the most dangerous creature alive, and a dragon. She placed herself directly in the line of fire, as it were, flew onto the dragon's snout, and started to berate him.

"Well?" Fluttershy asked.

"But that rainbow one kicked me." The dragon said back to her.

Off to the side, Rainbow Dash nodded to herself.

"And I'm very sorry about that. But you're bigger than she is, and you should know better. You should also know better than to take a nap where your snoring can become a health hazard to other creatures." Fluttershy told the dragon.

"But that hairless one called me names."

"I'm very sorry about that, too. But you were hurting those under his protection."

"But I-"

"Don't you 'but I' me, mister. Now what do you have to say for yourself? I said, what do you have to say for yourself? "

Fluttershy actually made the dragon start crying.

"There, there. No need to cry. You're not a bad dragon; you just made a bad decision. Now go pack your things. You just need to find a new place to sleep. That's all."

With nothing but her persuasive powers and guilt, Fluttershy saved the day. Just as The Forgemaster predicted.

"About time Fluttershy, I was afraid I would actually have to hurt the little guy."

"WHAT! You weren't going to hurt him; he was gonna smash you like a bug." Rainbow Dash yelled at him.

"None of you have any faith in my abilities because you have never seen them. That doesn't mean that that dragon had a chance in hell of beating me."

"Ugh, fine."

"Fluttershy, you are my new favorite 'Element'. Not only are you adorable, but you're also competent, my favorite thing in the world is competency! I don't see much of that in the others."

"Oh, um… that's nice." She said, blushing furiously.

"Hey! You can't pick favorites." Rainbow Dash interjected.

Completely ignoring her complaint, he turned around and said, "Let's go home!"

He reached down and picked up Fluttershy off of the ground he then placed her on his head so she could ride the way home on him. With an 'EEP', she finally settled down on top of him.

She spoke to him from her perch, "B-but, what if the dragon comes back?"

The group turned to see the dragon flying away with most of his haul.

"Don't worry; I have a solution to that problem in my bags."

He reached into his bags and brought out a few strange looking bags, he levitated them to inside the dragon's lair and then stood back. He told the group to run away, down the path. Once he judged them far enough away, he pulled out a much smaller device and handed it to Fluttershy.

"Push the big red button on that, please." After a moment's hesitation, she did so.

With a *BOOM* that could be heard from Stalliongrad in the farm north, the entire top of the mountain was blown to pieces.

Fluttershy was shivering from fright on top of his head. He took her down and cradled her in his arms.

"There are very few problems that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives. Remind me to thank Pinkie Pie later."