//------------------------------// // Chapter 11: Fluttershy and the Dragon // Story: Dragonshyness // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash She was sick of seeing her friends getting shoved aside by that big bully of a Dragon. Its brutality toward friendly, fluffy Pinkie Pie was the last straw! "It's time to stop wasting time!" Rainbow Dash declared. "I'm going in!" Without bothering to say anything else -- further talk would just mean further delay -- Rainbow Dash streaked forward into the cave. She could faintly hear Twilight crying something -- it might have been "Rainbow! No!" -- but there was no time to listen. There was no time to do anything but act. To fly fast, and hit something -- which is what Rainbow Dash did best. The tunnel walls whipped by her as Rainbow instinctively steered her course between them, not so much as scraping the stone despite her velocity. She saw the great bulk of the Dragon before her, its huge head rising on its neck to confront her, yellow eyes bigger than her own body glaring at her. It was just like in her fillyhood fantasies, but way cooler because it was real! Rainbow Dash flew up to that big ugly kisser of a beak, stared it directly in the face, and -- still not dispersing her flight field, but instead focusing it on the points of her rear hooves, cried "Get ... out!" She swung herself around and discharged her full power into a punishing kick with both rear hooves together right on the end of that beak, striking it with so much force that its whole head rocked back on its neck. Even through her flight field, that stung Rainbow Dash, and hard -- for a moment she feared she'd overdone herself, but it was worth it to defeat the big scaly beast! She saw the head trembling, waited for the monster to fall ... It did not seem to be falling. Instead, the Dragon was making noises ... "Ah ... Ah ... Ah ... Ah ..." in a tremendous basso which shook Rainbow Dash's very bones, and made her wonder what the creature was going to do next. The noises reminded her a lot of something that Ponies did ... "CHOOM!!!" The Dragon sneezed forth a tight cloud of smoke which smelt so much of sulfur that Rainbow Dash's eyes watered; nasty greyish-black snot splattered all over her lovely rainbow mane and blue fur and feathers. Rainbow had no time to be disgusted by this, as a light of genuine anger came into the Dragon's eyes, and she abruptly realized that the glare that she had seen before had been but 'mild annoyance' on the Dragon's emotional scale. Even Rainbow Dash quailed in terror as the huge eyes bored malevolently into her own, as her whole frame was shaken by a chilling and complex snarl. Rainbow Dash did not understand Dragon, but she strongly suspected that whatever the huge horror was saying was about as far as one could get from announcing itself to be the President of the local Rainbow Dash Fan Club.. She also realized that the Dragon had not really been hurt in the slightest, and that in fact there was absolutely no power she commanded able to cause the creature any genuine harm. The reverse seemed hardly likely to be true. It occurred to her that she was very likely to die now, and to absolutely no purpose. "Heh," she said, grinning nervously at the creature. "Sorry ...?" The Dragon roared. To say this baldly does not do justice to the Dragon's roar. It was a complex sound, of the sort that would require vocal passages considerably more complex than those of a Pony, at a volume exceeding that of any loudspeaker -- physical or magical -- that Rainbow Dash had ever heard. The undertones shook Rainbow's skeleton and seemed to freeze her blood in her veins. A powerful beam of paramagnetism channeled the air into a near-solid ram which deafened all her atmospheric senses and blasted her back down the way she had come almost as rapidly as she had entered. She had essentially no control over her trajectory. She slammed directly into Twilight Sparkle on the way out, her friend just barely managing to raise an almost-instinctive personal shield the instant before impact and thus avoid serious injuries. The impact of the Dragon's air ram and her own flight field on that shield created a pulse of paramagnetic energy which sent not only Twilight but also Applejack and Pinkie Pie flying. Rarity, who was actually quite close to the collision, was shaken but managed to keep her hooves. Rainbow herself crashed into a solid rock outcropping overlooking the cave. The force of the impact overwhelmed even her own powerful flight field, and she fell to the ledge behind her friends, the world spinning. *** Twilight Sparkle Twilight staggered back onto her hooves, head hurting both from the sudden magical effort by which she had deflected most of the force of Rainbow's impact and from the bruises the portion of that force she had been unable to deflect had inflicted upon her all too soft and vulnerable physical form. In the next moment, a great Fear overwhelmed her and everypony else. Twilight's eyes widened in terror, while by her side the normally indomitable Applejack screamed and ran like a frightened little filly. She and Rarity scattered away from the entrance, down which were coming thoom, thoom! noises which sounded like titanic footsteps, and which Twilight knew to signify exactly like what they sounded. Pinkie Pie looked to be concentrating intently, as if she were attempting to do something -- but nothing happened. A great taloned left arm and hand reached out of the cave mouth, hitting the ground like a Pony angrily stomping the ground with a hoof -- but the hand alone was several times the size of any whole Pony. The next moment the head and neck of the Dragon himself pushed himself into view. A mountain walked or stumbled, thought Twilight dizzily, reminded of a weird tale she had once read. Why am I so frightened? --- the part of her self which was still capable of rational thought asked, and the answer was plain to her: Dragonfear. Older Dragons can project fear as a psychic weapon. Was there a counterspell? Twilight was certain there must be, but she couldn't remember the spell or even its name, and she couldn't focus to try to remember either, for a primal pony within her finely disciplined brain was whinnying and bolting in stark animal terror, her sanity teetering before the waves of malevolence emanating out from that monstrous mind. Only the force of will she had honed through the prolonged practice of high-level magic was keeping her from utter panic. Then, those last shreds of her will gave way. Exposed directly to the psychic power pouring from the Dragon, Twilight and her friends could do nothing but cling together in a fear-stricken mass, holding on to each other for comfort like foals clinging to their mothers. The Dragon looked down upon them and roared with rage. A focused beam of smoke and air came from his mouth, knocking them all back against a rocky outcropping. The beam somehow had failed to kill them, but it shattered the rock behind them, and the outcropping crumbled. Twilight and her friends lay utterly helpless before the great creature, which stood there, towering tall as a skyscraper, ready to kill them all in the next instant. *** Fluttershy "All right!" Red Haze had roared, so loudly that Fluttershy could make out every word distinctly despite the fact that he was within the cave.. "That's it! Now I'm going to show you why you shouldn't kick a Dragon!" Fluttershy had been watching from behind a smaller outcropping, protected by her "don't notice me" broadcast, when Rainbow Dash had come rocketing out of the cave. At first Fluttershy had been terrified that her dearest friend was dead, or would die when she hit something, but she soon realized that Rainbow's flight field had been strong enough to save her from serious injury, and that nopony was more than lightly wounded by the collision. The next moment she had felt the first wave of fear come rolling from out of the cave. Fluttershy's psychic senses immediately and automatically recognized it as an attack, and her steel-hard mind shield, the natural legacy of the elites among her paternal Kind, snapped firmly into place. Dragonfear, she thought, trembling for reasons having nothing to do with the psychic attack and everything to do with its author. They use it to paralyze their foes with terror, to win battles without their victims even having a chance of fighting back. Then had come the shocking emergence of that tremendous arm. Even as she quailed in terror at the appearance of the Dragon, Fluttershy was fascinated by the anatomical structures, the shape of the great skeleton, the motions of mighty muscles beneath flexible metallic scales. She had seen some of this in miniature, in Spike, but now she was seeing that awesome anatomy at the scale for which it had truly evolved. For a moment she almost forgot to be afraid, but then the huge head appeared, and Red Haze had spoken, saying: "I'm going to hurt you now," and Fluttershy remembered that she was standing in full view of a creature of considerable intellect and psychic power, who might any moment see through her mind-clouding. Fluttershy darted behind the larger outcropping behind which she had been hiding earlier, reasoning that this was the safest place to be if she had to remain in the vicinity of the Dragon. She barely even noticed that, in this quick maneuver, she had made use of her wings. She cowered behind the slab of rock, head down and tail up, trying to scuttle into a small crevice, and Red Haze roared again, shouting "Take that!" and she felt the rock shiver and crack before an immense telekinetic force. Then suddenly, horribly, her shelter, which had stood there for an unknown number of centuries or millennia after the first builders of this place had carved it as a shield to direct observation into the tunnel, crumbled away to either side. She lifted her head in astonishment. Then she looked down and saw her friends lying below on the ledge, helplessly groaning in pain and confusion from the combined effects of Dragonbreath and Dragonfear. She collapsed in horror at the sight, then turned and looked straight up, directly at the Dragon. He was huge. He was magnificent. He was powerful. He was, quite rationally, something of which she should be afraid. She whimpered. He turned to look down at her friends, and in the process, almost directly at Fluttershy. Before the gaze of those two huge yellow eyes, Fluttershy had no choice but to cast her own eyes down. As she did so, she once again saw her friends lying helpless below her. Most looked frozen in terror -- Pinkie Pie in particular was looking straight up into the sky, eyes widened in shock. Rainbow Dash was lying on her face, possibly unconscious -- she would have no chance of dodging should the Dragon decide to consummate its revenge upon Fluttershy's best friend for her temerity. Fluttershy looked up at the Dragon again. She remembered all her mother's descriptions of Dragons. "Bigger than mountains!" Sweetwing Wind had said. "Scales tough enough to turn cannonballs! They move like lightning and have the strength of a million Ponies! They can reach right across a town and pluck you out of your bed with their hideous talons and there's nothing you can do about it! They can look right into your mind and turn your soul to jelly with terror! They want nothing more than to hunt and eat little fillies, like you!" And so on, and on and on, again and again, until the young Fluttershy had trembled in the belief that a Dragon, vast and invincible and malevolently monstrous, would come and slay her in an instant -- and often, as she slept in her bed, Dragons would chase her through her nightmares, until she awoke screaming. Now Fluttershy beheld a full-grown adult Dragon, the bane of her imaginings. Her eyes shrank in fear, but a strange thought slowly crept to the surface of her mind. Wait ... she asked herself as she examined the Dragon. Is that all? For the Dragon was big and the Dragon's scales were thick and brightly-gleaming, his teeth and claws were long and sharp, his breath capable of choking acres of farmland or scything through solid rock: objectively, he was indeed terrifying. But no Dragon of actual reality, no matter how big and well-armored and well-armed, no matter how potent his breath, could possibly compare to the creature conjured up by Fluttershy's mad mother Sweetwing, and which had taken residence in the subconscious mind of a frightened little filly. It was big, but only so big; its scales were only so thick, its claws only so long and its breath only so deadly. It was not an implacably-malevolent monster -- he was named Red Haze, and he was cranky and disrespectful because he actually had a decent claim to this lair but he thought it beneath him to give any accounting of his actions to mere Ponies, and he was really, really angry right now because Rainbow Dash had kicked him in the face. Which meant there was a very good chance that what he was going to do next was to kill Rainbow Dash. She looked down at her friends again. There Rainbow Dash lay, a helpless blue rainbow-maned bundle, so small when not animated by her normal boundless energy and confidence. She remembered the many times they had laughed together, played together, that Fluttershy had basked in her best friend's pure and shining love. And Rarity -- so gracious and kind to Fluttershy, normally full of such dignity and elegance -- now a trembling white form, lying on her back behind Rainbow Dash. There was a good chance that any attack Red Haze made upon Rainbow Dash would kill or maim the helpless unicorn. Brave Applejack, who had been so nice to Fluttershy, helping her up the mountain, never complaining even when Fluttershy's own cowardice endangered them all -- almost catatonic before the Dragonfear. Pinkie Pie, who had helped her across the crevasse. Twilight Sparkle, who had despite everything still thought her worthy enough that Twilight wanted her by her side ... All her friends, reduced to helpless victims. And, within Fluttershy, from beneath the shyness and the fear, from the depths of her soul a great anger arose. Red Haze was no unstoppable monster, he had just gotten lucky. His Dragonfear had overcome her friends, whom she had seen stand up to Nightmare Moon returned, but that did not make him unstoppable. If he had been unstoppable, he would have had no need for Dragonfear. He was just a big bully ... infinitely the inferior of any of her friends ... And she had the measure of his mind, and knew hers to be the stronger. She lifted her eyes a third time to the Dragon, and addressed him directly, saying, "How dare you?" Something was leaking from them. It was not tears. The Dragon was now looking at her directly, curiously, for this was the first he had seen of her. "Because there's nothing anypony can do to stop me," Red Haze said to her, conversationally. "The weak must yield to the strong." But Fluttershy was barely listening to his words. She rose into the sky and shouted angrily "How dare you?!!" And now the power began to build within her, readying itself for release. She felt it begin to tickle the edge of Red Haze's own shielding. The Dragon's eyes widened in astonishment, and ... fear? In a sudden winged leap Fluttershy vaulted high and hovered above the Dragon's snout, staring directly into those great yellow eyes. Each eyeball was bigger than her whole body, but her will and power were far greater than his own. She opened her own eyes wide, and her slumbering Stare awoke to slice through Red Haze's own mind shields, pinning him to the spot, unable to do anything but obey her. "Listen here, mister," she said, punctuating the last word by landing with deliberate roughness upon the end of his snout. "Just because you're big," Fluttershy continued, walking up his snout to the bridge of his nose, Staring into his huge eyes from point-blank range, "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!" As she spoke each of those last words, she cruelly amplified her Stare, until the power pouring from her permeated every portion of the Dragon's brain. At this moment Red Haze was helpless before her -- she could have commanded him to do anything, to love her to the point of being her eternal slave, or to fling himself off the mountain to his own destruction, and there was a sadistic side to her own soul that very much wanted to issue just such commands. She almost did so -- and then she remembered that Red Haze was not some mindless monster, but a sapient creature like herself, and that if being big and terrifying did not give him the right to abuse her friends, nor did it give her the right to abuse him -- any more than was necessary to make him understand that she was serious, and his superior in psychic power. So she slightly relented her Stare, and asked, in a soft and deadly voice: "You got that?" Red Haze cringed. Literally cringed, as if he were a cowed cur the size of a skyscraper. "Well?" Fluttershy asked him. Red Haze looked pathetically up at her. Fluttershy realized that her control was still too rigid to allow him to speak, so she loosened her hold on his ability to communicate. Red Haze spoke, in Equestrian, in what was for him a very small voice. "But that rainbow one kicked me," he complained, pointing at Rainbow Dash. "And I am very sorry about that," Fluttershy said reasonably, giving him a dose of mild pleasure for speaking reasonably to her, by way of reward-conditioning. She had used this technique before to tame recalcitrant animals; it worked almost as well on a Dragon. "But you're bigger than she is, and you should know better." She was now but gently scolding him. "You should also know better than to take a nap where your snoring can become a health hazard to other creatures," she said. Red Haze nodded, his expression chastened. He seemed glad that this was going to end in a moral lecture rather than the psychic annihilation of his individuality. "But I --" he started to say, a bit more gruffly. "Don't you 'but I' me, mister, ' Fluttershy said sternly. She shifted to an imposing posture, vertical in mid-air with her forehooves planted over her hips. "Now, what do you have to say for yourself?" she asked him. Red Haze considered the question. "I said," repeated Fluttershy, an edge of annoyance entering her voice, "what do you have to say for yourself? Red Haze cringed and whimpered. He tried to speak. Words failed him. Instead, the huge dragon burst into tears and bawled like a heartbroken little colt. Fluttershy let him do so for a while. Then she said, softly and soothingly, "There, there. No need to cry. You're not a bad dragon," she said, turned and flew down his immense length, admiring the sheer perfection of his anatomy on the way. "You just made a bad decision. Now go pack your things. You just need to find a new place to sleep. That's all." Her voice was affectionate at the end, as she slowly released her Stare. She knew there was no more need for cruelty: she had tamed the Dragon, bent him to her will, ensured that he would and could never hurt her, or her friends. She wondered if she had done right, hoped that she hadn't used too much power upon him, as she had once done to ... but that was not important right now. She was older now, and wiser, and her friends all ran to her cheering, congratulating her. "You did it!" cried Twilight Sparkle happily. From the other side, Fluttershy could see Rarity coming up, smiling proudly at her. Fluttershy smiled joyfully at the love she could feel wafting from her leader. "I knew you could do it!" continued Twilight enthusiastically. Fluttershy was briefly saddened by the fact that to do this she had been forced to Stare down the magnificent creature. She felt the wind from his vast wings blow across her, and looked up to smile in joy at his awesome form. He orbited the mountain once, then flew off, seeking another refuge. She looked back at her friends -- Applejack grinning in sheer joy at their shared success, Pinkie Pie beaming happily. And up at Rainbow Dash, who was staring at her in open and unabashed admiration. Happiness filled Fluttershy's heart as she once again felt the special, pure love of her oldest friend. The crisis was over. She had in the end proven her courage. The nightmare was over.