Ember was not happy. She was flying above the Dragon Lands while she grumbled to herself. She landed outside of a cave and looked at the Bloodstone scepter in her claws. She took a deep breath before she walked inside. She would find her father taking a rest as Ember walked past him before she lay down on the pile of gold that was a part of her father’s hoard.

The moment she was wanting to relax, Torch looked down at her. Ember looked up and could see her father had something to say. “What is it?” she questioned.

“You’re taking a rest, now?” Torch asked.

“Yeah, I’ve just had to break up an argument because most of the dragons here are basically giant children. It took me over two hours to break up that fight because they couldn’t agree who gets to have more gems.”

Torch just looked down at Ember, looking like he had something on his mind. “You know, I would’ve had that solved in half the time.”

“That’s because you have a thousand years of experience over me! I’ve been in charge of the Dragon Lands for like 1/20th of that! You know… I’ve been asking you for advice, but you’re not giving it to me!”

“I won’t always be here when you need help.”

“Well, I clearly need it now and you’re just holding information from me!” Ember was getting more frustrated as she flew up onto her father’s muzzle so she could look him in the eye. “You don’t want to help me because you’re retired and don’t want to do any work!”

Torch just narrowed his eyes as he wasn’t liking the tone. “You think you could be a good leader with a temper like that?”

“Maybe. You always got dragons to do what you wanted by screaming at the top of your lungs. You’re not the Dragon Lord anymore, I am! I’ve been asking you for advice and you haven’t given me anything that would make me a better leader! I’ve been asking you that for months!”

Smoke was starting to billow from Ember’s nostrils as she was reaching her boiling point. “You might be the Dragon Lord, but I’m still your father.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re always right!” Ember started breathing heavily as she was about to snap.

“If you think that you’d be a better dragon lord than I’ve been, then do whatever you want.” Being talked down like this was more than the dragoness could bear. She let out an angry roar of fire into the air before flying out of the cave, scepter in claw. Torch just watch her fly away, feeling that he probably could’ve motivated her in a better way.

The dragoness flew across the lands, grumbling to herself. “The times are changing now,” Ember growled. “He’s huge. He wouldn’t be able to meet up with the ponies or other creatures if he wanted to.” The Dragon Lord grumbled to herself as she looked around for somewhere to blow off some steam.

She soon noticed a couple of dragons around an area known as the Blast Zone. Many dragons came here to practice fighting, blow up rocks with fire breath, or in cases like Ember’s blow off some steam. The Dragon Lord was still angry when she flew closer to this area while she kept muttering to herself. “I wished he’d be smaller. He only did so well because he was huge and he won’t even help me,” she grumbled.

Suddenly, Ember started freefalling as she lost control of her wings. She tried to flap them again, but it was like they were never a part of her body. Despite her best efforts, Ember crashed to the ground, leaving a small indent where she landed.

Ember looked back at her wings, groaning as she got up and left her scepter lying on the ground. She walked over to the Blast Zone, where a lot more dragons were walking around instead of flying. Ember grumbled under her breath before she noticed a familiar dragon known as Garble, who promptly saw her presence.

“Hey, Ember, what’s up?” he questioned.

“Don’t talk to me,” Ember ordered.

“Geez, what’s got…”

“I said don’t talk to me!” She shoved Garble to the side as she walked over to a big cylindrical boulder. It had a couple of indents and cracks on it from dragons kicking and punching it. Ember looked at this boulder as her wings began moving without her input.

They wrapped around the top half of her torso and started changing into denim. Some ripped sleeves opened up for the dragon’s arms. Two pockets appeared on them as well as a couple of buttons in the middle of it. The soon-to-be-ex-dragon’s wings had now turned into a jean jacket.

Ember didn’t pay attention to that and just pictured her jacket being more of a nuisance at the moment. She tossed her unbuttons jacket to the side and it landed on a very convenient bench that didn’t seem like it was there before. With the metal framing and soft cushions, it kind of looked out of place in the Dragon Lands.

Not caring to notice, Ember walked up to the boulder and swiftly gave a couple of punches to it. With each punch, the boulder started to get softer. The rocky surface started to turn leathery and stitch together while its insides were becoming millions of grains of sand. Not to mention, the more punches Ember threw, the duller her claws got.

Her claws started to turn into regular fingernails and also grew another finger. It happened to both hands and Ember would slowly start getting weaker, though with her punchbag getting softer, she wouldn’t notice a difference. A strange change she didn’t notice was the fact that most of the dragons were having similar changes to her.

Many of them were shedding their scales and the Blast Zone was getting some furniture, tiled floors, barbells, and treadmills, while also losing things like some of its lava. Ember just kept throwing more punches at the sandbag, which now started swinging by its chain. “Stupid dad,” she growled through gritted teeth. “I work my butt off for him and he just treats me like all the others!” She let out a small scream of anger as she delivered a kick to the bag.

The dragon’s feet started to stretch out a little bit as they had their scales start covering them up. They changed material and turned black and white with some soles at the bottom of them to help her grip surfaces. A shoe’s tongue and laces appeared at the top of her developing sneakers as some shoes appeared underneath them.

Ember’s tail was moving around on its own right now before lassoing around her legs and turning into denim-like her wings did, only they were black instead of blue. They covered up her legs, which quickly changed the direction of the dragon’s knees from digitigrade to plantigrade, shedding all of their scales in the process with some around her hips turning into a set of panties, while said body part was flaring out.

As the-soon-to-be-ex-dragon kept angrily hitting the sandbag as she could feel herself getting hot. She knew she should’ve brought a change of clothes to the gym but her argument with her dad stopped her from thinking straight. She took a minute to stop and caught herself while wiping the sweat from her brow. Ember then walked over to the bench and sat down, putting her jacket on in the process. She felt a little exposed without it, but she couldn’t figure out why.

“You wanna talk now?” asked a familiar voice. Ember looked to see Garble walking over to her, carrying some water bottles and going through similar changes to the Dragon Lord. Like Ember, he was missing his wings and tail while wearing some tennis shoes, orange shorts, and a red t-shirt. He handed the sweaty dragon one of the bottles of water, which she promptly chugged down. “I don’t think jeans are a good choice for exercising.”

“Thanks,” Ember said grumpily, “Want to tell me what color the sky is too?”

“Hey, I’m just wanting to talk. What’s your deal?” Ember groaned as she tapped the open space beside her, signaling to Garble to sit down. He did and she explain what was going on with her dad as she kept changing as well as the Blast Zone. Walls were starting to build themselves up around them. Lights and windows started to appear so everyone wouldn’t be stuck in darkness.

Garble listened to Ember’s story as the dragoness had more of her scales starting to turn into fabric and mostly cyan. Straps formed around the changing creature’s shoulders as she felt a bit of sting from the back of her arms. On her left, Ember had a tattoo of a dragon, which remembered getting out of spite for her dad. On the other arm, flaming text that spelled out “EMBER,” appeared inked into her skin. That tattoo she got after winning the Gauntlet…

Gauntlet… Wheels of Fire. Ember remembered that her dad didn’t want her in that race, so she got herself a biker’s uniform to cover up her body so nobody would recognize her and took on the stage name Ember. The dragoness groaned a bit as she readjusted her bra while her breast stretched her tank top out a little bit, giving her more of a figure.

“It’s just that… I work my butt off at the shop, yet I still get treated the same as those idiots who just sit around,” Ember complained. “He won’t let me compete in a bike race and he won’t let me do more at one of his shops. What’s with him!?”

Garble rubbed the back of his neck, as he and Ember only had their heads being the last draconic parts about them now. “Look, my sister, Sam said that she’s met her friends' parents and they often complain about being overprotective,” he said.

“But they’re teenagers. I’m in my twenties!”

“And still living under his roof. Look, have you ever thought the reason why he’s acting like that is that he’s worried about you? I mean, you saw how he acted when you revealed you were Ember.” Ember remembered how her dad made his voice go hoarse after yelling at her for racing in something he wouldn’t allow her to compete in.

“I mean… He was a lot calmer after the competition was over.” She rubbed her arm and sighed. “I’m going to go and talk with him.”

“Okay. Pleasure talking with you.” Garble stood up and walked off towards the treadmills while Ember walked towards the exit of the gym.

She took a deep breath before her muzzle quickly shrank into her face. Her nostrils ballooned out a little bit as they took on the shape of a normal nose and her new mouth got a pair of lips. Some of her teeth started going blunt, meaning she wouldn’t be able to eat gems anymore, though she was having a small craving for rock candy.

Her horn shrank and curved more to become one with the holes in her head and give a proper pair of ear lobes. The spines on top of Ember’s head started turning ash black, falling over to one side of her head and reaching her shoulder to give her a bit of side cut. Lastly, Ember rubbed her eyes, which stun as they changed from blood red to emerald green. Every bit of Ember had gone and was now replaced by Emma Barbra.

Emma looked around the gym until she saw her motorcycle; the Speed Scepter. The bike had a cool purple paint job and she remembered winning it as a prize from the Wheel of Fire tournament. She got on her bike and placed her helmet on before she started driving home, while the Dragon Lands were still changing around her.

As she drove along, the ground in front of her started smoothing out and getting lining to indicate which lane drivers were supposed to be in. Emma saw a red light up ahead and stopped nearby a new building that she recognized. It was a bike shop that her dad owned, which was also where she worked.

After she had graduated high school, Emma’s father had gotten her a job at this shop to help with other people’s motorcycles. She was happy to have this job and the pay was nice, but she didn’t enjoy helping customers who either couldn’t wait or pretended they knew more than her. It was frustrating and some employees didn’t help.

When the light turned green, Emma drove away, passing a couple of adult dragons who were shrinking on the developing sidewalks. More cars started appearing on the streets as Emma recognized a couple of buildings she passed. She saw an ice cream shop named “Frost Bite.” One of her earliest memories was getting scared at her first check-up.

She was overacted back then, as most children would do, so after she saw it wasn’t so back, her dad brought her to Frost Bite to help calm her down. Emma wanted to stop by and grab a scoop, but she didn’t really have a good way of holding her ice cream and driving home at the same time.

A stop sign was ahead nearby a street that led to a dead end. This street was actually where Emma remembered riding her first bicycle. She had a couple of failures and plenty of scrapes, however, her dad kept encouraging her to keep going. Emma smiled as she thought riding a bike was too fast for her, now she had a motorcycle and a need for speed.

As she got closer to home, Emma thought about how much her father helped shape her life. She’d probably never even have the Speed Scepter if she never learned to ride a bike in the first place. She looked down the street and saw her home approaching. The biker drove her ride into the driveway, switching the engine off and setting up the kickstand. She removed her helmet and looked at the front door, knowing who would be waiting inside.

Emma walked through the front door and walked upstairs, where she could hear somebody talking on the phone. “Look, if that mistake risks a lawsuit, you’re going to be the first part that gets cut.” Peeking into one of the rooms, Emma saw her father sitting in his home office finishing a conversation with someone, who must’ve screwed up by the tone of his voice. He hung up the phone, signaling this was a good time for Emma to knock on the door.

When her father saw her, Emma rubbed the back of her head. “Hey, dad,” she said, not sure how to start this conversation.

“Emma, you’re back,” her father said. “Got your anger out of your system?”

“Yeah. Plus, I had a nice chat with Garret.” She walked over to her father’s desk and sat down. “So… About what I said earlier.”

“Yes, about how you said there were some slackers at work?” Emma just nodded, trying not to get angry remembering her lazy coworkers. “Well, I did some digging and found out that you’re not wrong. I’ve checked that you’ve been doing more work than two workers should be doing and I’ll guarantee you that they’ll have consequences.”

A smile crossed Emma’s face as she would love to see the faces of her coworkers. “You’ve been working harder than you normally should,” her father added, “And you stuck through it. That kind of attitude definitely deserves a reward.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, I could give you that promotion to have more control of the shop.”

“Wait, really?!”

“Yes. I know businesses that would kill to have people like you.”

“Thanks, dad. This definitely makes me feel better.”

“You’re welcome. Also, I don’t do this often but… I’m sorry for accusing you of acting lazy earlier.”

“It’s fine. I swear that their stupidity was contagious.”

“I’m not sure but that’s entirely possible.” They both heard the phone ringing again, to which Emma’s father looked annoyed. “You let me know what you want for dinner tonight, I’ve got things to take care of.”

“Sure thing.” Emma walked out of the office and figured she could probably have some fun outside. She ran out to her bike, placed her helmet on, and sped off to have some fun.

She couldn’t get much speed on the city streets without getting in trouble, lucky for her, she knew special track for bikers like her. There was a dirt track that had held the Wheel of Fire tournament, the Speed Scepter was great on and off-road. When Emma got to the dirt track, she was ready to have her need for speed.

She revved the bike’s engine, popping a wheelie in the process. Dirt went flying as she zoomed down the track and leaped off one of the dirt mounds, getting big air. Emma drifted around the corners and did her best to get as much speed as she could, it almost felt like she was flying. She had a blast as she came back to the starting line.

Once she came to a stop, Emma looked around and felt that the track was kind of empty just racing on her own. She pulled her phone out of her jacket’s pocket and tried texting a couple of friends to see if they were up for a race. She scrolled through a couple of names until she came across one named “Theo.”

Emma didn’t think that Theo would be the type of guy who would be up for a bike race, but maybe he would be happy to have a simple hangout. She added him to a group text and messaged her friends if they wanted to experience a joyride.

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Been a while since I posted something like this but I'm glad I'm back to it

MLP (C) Hasbro