"Why aren't they doing anything? One of them should have worked by now, right?"
Liaz taps his foot in apparent lack of patience. His tail sways back and forth while he, Goldenclaw, and I stand in a circle. Each of us clutches a small, glowing, white feather. Three of the teleportation feathers we'd discovered. Now we only have one problem: getting them to work.
"You said we just had to picture the person we're trying to teleport to, but that doesn't seem to work." I relax my arm. "Let's take a break for a minute. I feel like we've been trying to do this for hours now."
"That's because we have!" Liaz presses his eyes shut in an attempt to concentrate until he gives up and tosses his feather back into the chest. "You know what? Damn it all! I'm sick of messing with this stupid feather!"
"It has to be some kind of disturbance on their end." Goldenclaw plops down, his normally pristine mane drenched in sweat.
"What do we do now?" I take a seat next to him, cross-legged. "Even focusing on Glimmer didn't work."
"Something isn't right. I can smell it!" Liaz sits down as well, completing an unintentional triangle. "Why couldn't we teleport to Glimmer? Isn't his pops king or something?"
Nobody says anything. There are so many questions unanswered right now. I look at Liaz and Goldenclaw, who both appear just as unsure as myself. Goldenclaw looks up at me while pondering deeply. He laughs.
"Ironvine, your-bwah! Ha, ha, ha!"
I'm shocked at this sudden burst of laughter. Liaz looks at me and laughs, too.
"Ha, ha, ha, ha! Why is your skin like that?" He howls."Your skin is-it's pink! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"What is wrong with both of you? If you can laugh, you've got the energy to keep trying!" I bare my fangs at both of them. "Our friends could be in danger right now."
"No, you're right, you're right, but... I can't take you seriously when you're pink!" They both burst into laughter again.
I don't get comedy. My fur changes color depending on my mood. It happens to all Chim-Chis. Standing up, I grab three feathers out of the box and shove one into each of their hands.
"Focus!" I say, shutting my eyes.
They continue to laugh, but I ignore them, visualizing Glimmer instead. He's short, only reaching up to my stomach. He has shiny blue skin and white hair, which sometimes glows under moonlight. His eyes are a sparkling, reflective black, like the surface of a pond. Suddenly, laughter grows into roars all around me, getting louder and louder until... it all stops.
The roars become gasps. I feel the wind whipping across my face, prompting me to finally open my eyes. I'm falling. I fully realize what's happening before I slam into the ground. My bones are being shattered into pieces by the impact of the crash, but I can feel all the damage being reversed as Celestria's energy surrounds me.
I pause for a moment to take a deep breath. The first thing I notice is that the sun is very bright. I'm in the middle of a crater. Also, I'm surrounded by rich golden sand. I'm not in the dungeon anymore. That would mean I should be with Glimmer right now. I stand and dust myself off. Clutching my recently acquired double-sided stone sword, I march out of the crater.
"Ironvine lookout!" I instinctively roll to the left, choosing not to focus on who spoke.
I slide backwards and slam into something. I whip around and see a massive stone wall. I finally get a second to look at my surroundings. I'm in the middle of a colosseum. A yellow-scaled draken, with sky blue eyes and a wide-brimmed hat on, is aiming a mana pistol pointed in my direction.
I recognize the draken. It's the bounty hunter who snatched Glimmer and teleported away. I feel myself boiling with anger. I charge. He fires off two shots that slam through my armor, but Celestria's energy heals the wounds. I close the distance between us and slice down with my sword. He jumps backwards, twirling in the air and slinging a mana shotgun from underneath his cloak and into my face. I twirl my sword and knock the shotgun away with the second blade before it fires. Now we're standing face to face. The crowd around us applauds and shouts in delight.
"Where the fuck did you come from?" The draken snarls, blue electricity crackling around in his mouth.
"Forgot about me?" A snargle with shimmering blue skin appears in front of him.
He punches the draken in the face, sending him flying across the colosseum. I watch in awe as the draken plants both his feet into the ground to slow the momentum. He tosses his guns and slams his claws into the sand. I blink, and the snargle is gone. At the same time, waves of electricity zap out of the tips of the draken's fingers in my direction. They each take the shape of a dragon, swimming through the sand, turning it into molten lava and glass. I close my eyes and brace for impact.
"I got you!" I feel something scooping me up off the ground.
My eyes open. Renald has picked me up and is flying with me towards Glimmer and Whisperclaw, who are standing in the shade of a large gate. Behind us, the dragons crash into the colosseum wall. The draken looks at us for a second and pays for it by getting punched away again by the snargle.
"Quick! You gotta heal Whisperclaw and Glimmer so we can get the hell out of here!" Renald yells, landing and quickly placing me down.
Before I can ask for details, Renald takes off into the sky. I touch Whisperclaw's unconscious forehead and Glimmer's shoulder. I envision Celestria's energy spreading from my body and onto the others. A thin, green fog covers Glimmer and Whisperclaw, healing all their wounds. A multitude of thoughts shroud my mind, filled with the different ways they could have ended up like this.
"Well, this is a fascinating turn of events! It looks like we have some extra competitors joining in on the fun!"
My eyes snap to the sky, where I see a dull colored, brown skinned snargle wearing a suit hovering above us. He has on a pair of glasses with blacked-out lenses and holds his finger up to his mouth like a microphone.
"Should we even up this battle?" He directs the question to the crowd, which roars in response. "Alright... Ash! Sneaker! Eudora! Fraken! Come on out!"
The snargle points his finger towards the far left side of the colosseum. At the exact moment he finishes pointing, I see three figures I don't recognize leaping down from the top of the stands. The first to land is a shirtless, gray-skinned senat with a long sword on his back. Next to him, a figure with their face completely covered by a dragon skull mask lands. They are wearing a black jacket with the hood thrown over their head and wielding a sword with a spike-encrusted blade. On the right of the shirtless senat, a senat woman with red skin covered in white patches lands and throws out a small crystal. The crystal explodes in a small blast of fire, and a panther with black fur and a silver stripe down its back appears in its place.
"Stand back, everyone!" The snargle man hovering above shouts.
Standing on the top of the wall, I see the outline of a human man. The sun shines directly behind him, covering his entire body in darkness while everything around him is illuminated. He stabs something into his neck and leaps down from the wall. He slams his feet into the ground. The sand beneath him explodes, covering the colosseum.
"Ironvine..." I hear Whisperclaw regaining consciousness behind me. "...these people, they're dangerous."
"Glimmer, which one hurt you and Whisperclaw?" I ask, ignoring her statement.
"Ironvine, I'm serious!" My eyes widen at the fear in Whisperclaw's voice. "They beat me and Renald like it was nothing."
"They beat Renald?" I ask, shocked.
As if to answer my question, the sand screen dissipates, and I see Renald charging straight towards the gray-skinned senat.
"You!" He roars. "I've got unfinished business with you!"
Renald punches the senat, who counters with his own. Their fists collide, and both of them are thrown backwards. Renald does a backflip into a slight glide back to the ground. The senat stands his ground and slides backwards in the sand with both feet firmly planted.
"Tsk." The senat sucks his teeth. "I told Hiel we should've killed them when we had the chance."
Boom! There's another explosion of electricity and sand that shakes the entire colosseum and fills it with smoke. The snargle from earlier barrels into the sand in front of us. The draken gets flung out of the smoke, across from us, landing in front of the other four figures.
"What a spectacular battle! Who knew that our very own Vanhiel would be able to keep up so closely with the legendary King Hawk?" The announcer calls to the crowd.
The crowd erupts at the mention of Vanhiel, but groans at King Hawk. They don't seem to care for him too much.
"Vanhiel! It's over!" The snargle, who I'm assuming is Hawk Wind, cries out. "You can't beat me, and you know it."
"We'll see about that." The draken, Vanhiel, laughs. "You think just because you had some kids interrupt the challenge that you'll win? You've gotten soft, old man."
"Enough!" Hawk shouts in anger. "You've done nothing but destroy my kingdom and disgrace my name and my family! Now, I will show you why your ancestors crowned me king all those years ago! I'll show you why your family has always bowed to me and mine!"
Enraged, Vanhiel screams. He points his index finger at Hawk like a gun, then presses his thumb down like he pulled the trigger. A massive blast of blue energy fires from his fingertip, and it slams into Hawk. Hawk doesn't budge. The blast explodes on contact and kicks up another sand screen. When the sand clears, however, Hawk is not alone anymore. Instead, he stands behind a massive, undead dragon. It is almost completely bones, with most of its remaining flesh colored a sickly purple and covered in abscess pockets.
Hawk shouts, "This is the power of the Wind family!"