7: Hate
Spike's head was full of an odd, high-pitched buzzing. He couldn't seem to take his eyes away from the cocoon that held Twilight. His vision swam at the edges, and he was only half-aware of Queen Chrysalis speaking again.
The changeling queen was looking upward as well, fangs bared in a wicked, curved smile. "I thought that might get your attention," she said. "Waking up alone, after so long... it must have been hard for you."
She spread her wings and began to flap, adding the low, moaning thrum of her flight to the whine that still seemed to fill Spike's ears. "She has been such a delight, all these years," she purred, her voice barely audible over the pulsing of her wings. "Twilight Sparkle, faithful servant of Equestria." She reached the cocoon, laughed, and reached out to rest one chitinous hoof against the green, pulsating mass. "Well," she said, "former servant of Equestria. Now she serves a different people, in a rather more... personal capacity."
Her eyes flashed. "You know, she's lasted for over two hundred years now," she said. She was keeping her tone strictly conversational, but that malicious smile hadn't left her features. "She still wakes up and begs for mercy on occasion. Truly a remarkable creature. But her struggles were in vain... until now, that is. Now-" she looked back to Spike "-you have the chance to release her from all of this."
Spike wasn't listening any more. He had heard everything that he needed to hear. Now, something else was taking over.
He had been born in Canterlot and raised in Ponyville. He had spent the entirety of his life surrounded by ponies, acting as their patient helper and steadfast companion. He had learned everything he knew from them. He had even married one. But now, something in Spike's hindbrain was reminding him that he was not, in fact, a pony, even if he spoke like one and acted like one.
Something was bubbling up within him, something hot and viscous. He could feel it spreading through his body, slowly, inch by inch, radiating outward from his chest, like his blood had turned to fire. As it flowed through him, he felt his muscles tense.
Then the burning, liquid feeling reached his brain, and he recognized what it was.
Hate.
Spike let the journal drop to the floor unheeded. His lips rolled back involuntarily, revealing his rows of razor fangs, and a low, animal rumble rose from his throat as he felt his bones begin to stretch and pop. He felt a brief pressure around his neck, just for a moment, as the necklace that he wore strained to contain his growth, but then it ceased, and some part of him registered that it was growing with him.
Hate.
There was a snapping sound as his tail tightened around the torch, crushing the wood effortlessly. Slowly, he lowered himself onto all fours and spread his wings. They were wide enough now to scrape the edges of the hallway, and getting larger with every second. The resin under his fore claws shattered as his claws suddenly began to grow, scoring the stone beneath.
Hate.
Chrysalis was saying something, but now Spike could hear nothing but the scream of rage in his head. He had heard it only twice before in his life. The first time was when he had lost Rarity. The second had been only a few hours ago, in the brief moment when he had believed the three ponies to be thieves.
Hate.
A few of the changelings were bolting for the other exits from the throne room, desperate to be somewhere else. He ignored them. His eyes, the pupils now predatory slits, were locked firmly on Queen Chrysalis, who was raising her hooves and shouting orders to the rest. She was still hovering in the air beside Twilight's cocoon.
She was still between Spike and his friend.
Hate.
The bellow of rage that the dragon released shook the castle walls. In several rooms, crumbling masonry finally collapsed. Dust fell from the walls, windows shattered, and the earth quaked beneath his feet.
Eyes locked on Queen Chrysalis, wings outstretched, mouth spitting green flame, Spike forced his way out of the too-small corridor, shattering the archway as he did so, and leapt into the air, claws outstretched.
Compass Rose wasn't sure, exactly, how long she had been running, but it felt like an eternity. Her coat was, once again, streaked with sweat, her legs felt as though they were on fire, and there was a stitch on her left side that felt as though she was being stabbed with a rusty knife. Even her horn ached from the constant use of telekinetic magic.
If she hadn't known that both their lives depended on constant movement, she would have begged Tailspin to let her stop and rest for a minute. As it was, pure terror kept her moving through the pain.
The past ten minutes - was it really only ten minutes? It felt like forever - had been a blur of mad dashes through narrow corridors, twisting passageways, and empty chambers, punctuated by flares of faint music and the sudden disappearance of one or more exits.
Ahead of her, Tailspin was still flying along at breakneck speed. "This way!" she called, veering sharply to the left. "Come on!"
The two of them rocketed into another hallway. This one was full of what looked like legs sticking from the walls. For a moment, Compass almost slowed down, reluctant to follow the pegasus any further into the decidedly eerie hoof room. They looked as though they might come to life at any moment and attempt to seize the nearest pony.
Then an ear-splitting sound echoed through the halls, shaking the castle to its foundation, and all doubt left her mind. She bolted through the hallway at breakneck speed, shrieking at the top of her lungs - and collided almost immediately with Tailspin, who had come to a halt in the middle of the hall.
The two of them toppled and went over in a tangled mass of limbs, skidding across the stone floor, until they struck the wall. Tailspin was the first to find her feet again. "Watch it," she said shortly, moving to retrieve her helmet - it had gone spinning away during the initial impact. "Didn't you hear that?"
Compass hauled herself upright by using something on the wall as leverage. It wasn't until she was standing again that she realized she was holding onto one of the hooves that projected from the stone. She gave a small squeak and released it hurriedly. "Of course I did," she said, panting. "That's why I was running. We've got to get out of here before whatever that was finds us."
She cast her gaze around at the hall, looking for her lantern and book, and her face fell. The book was still intact, which was good. The lantern, on the other hand, had shattered when she had lost concentration and let it fall during her crash. She shook her head, lifted the book up with her magic once more, and moved closer to Tailspin, who was adjusting the position of her helmet. At least that light still worked.
"'Whatever that was' was Spike," Tailspin said. She tapped on her helmet lamp, which was flickering slightly. After a moment, it steadied, and she let out a sigh of relief. "Nothing but a dragon could be that loud, and I really don't think it's likely there was another one in here. We need to find him." Then she blinked. "Why are you still carrying that book around? There's heavier stuff to use if you want a club. We passed a place full of armor just a few minutes ago."
Compass frowned and floated the book closer to her chest, looking offended. "This is a priceless artifact," she said, drawing herself up. "It happens to be, uh..." She looked down and squinted at the cover, struggling to make out the words in the dim light. Then her eyes widened. "It's a spellbook," she said. "By Twilight Sparkle."
"Great." Tailspin walked a bit closer, bringing her light up so that the book was more clearly visible. "Is there a spell in there to magic all of us back home?"
Compass bit her lip. "I have no idea," she said. "Even if there was, I don't think I could cast it right now. Not without studying it first, and practicing. I'm not the best with magic."
Tailspin sighed. "Right, then. Back to Plan Find The Dragon. Which might be even more difficult than I thought at first, 'cause I think we're lost." She looked around at the collection of disembodied legs hanging from the walls. "Lost in an art gallery decorated by someone with a really, really weird taste in wallpaper, too."
"No, we're not," said Compass.
Tailspin blinked at her. "Yes, we are," she said. "Have you seen the legs?" She pointed with one hoof.
Compass sighed and continued, "We're not lost. We're one floor down, towards the east wing of the castle. I can find the way back to the stairs easily, if there aren't any changelings in the way."
"How?" The pegasus was staring at her now, looking entirely bewildered.
Compass smiled. "I'm good with directions," she said. "Come on. Let's get... back..."
She stopped and stared back at the entrance to the hallway. Or, rather, where the entrance had been a moment ago. "Oh, for the love of-" She stamped one hoof on the stone floor. "Can't we catch a single break today?"
"Pith and Spike were talking about an organ that controlled the castle's secret passages," Tailspin said. "I'm guessing one of the changelings has control of it now. Until that organ stops playing, all we can do is keep running and hope we find the others eventually. And you can keep tracking our location."
For the first time since the changelings had first shown up, Compass grinned. "That," she said, straightening up, "I can do. Come on. Let's keep moving. The changelings can't be... far... behind."
She trailed off, eyes widening as she stared into the hallway behind Tailspin. The pegasus sighed as the sound of chittering filled the air. "Yeah," she said. "That's about our luck."
In the throne room, the air blazed with green light. The putrid, rotting green of the changeling cocoons was bright, but the brilliant emerald of Spike's flame drowned it out. The black resin that covered the walls reflected it back, gleaming like jade.
The dragon was so large now that he filled nearly a quarter of the throne room, and he was still growing. Heat radiated from him in scorching waves, and flames poured from his mouth in an unbroken stream, cutting great swathes through the horde of changelings.
There was no thought in this. There was no plan in this. It was something in his bones rising to the surface, and it would not be denied. It reached deep down inside him, found the fire, and brought it out with more force than he would have believed possible. It wasn't heat, it was a physical force, not burning its victims but crushing them, smothering them under a torrent of blazing, scoriac flames. The changelings struck by it didn't burn. They simply ceased to exist.
Part of him was horrified at the simple, brutal ease with which he did it. The rest was focused on locating more targets. He was a dragon, and his hoard was being threatened. In that moment, that was what Twilight Sparkle was: a treasure, his treasure, and one that he would do anything to protect.
The changelings had actually tried to fight him at first. Now they were all scattering, scrambling madly for the exits, trying to get away from the all-consuming fire. Chrysalis had vanished, but he didn't care. There were changelings in front of him here and now, and they would all burn.
His hate demanded it.
Pith Helmet felt the ground under his hooves shake again. That made four times in the past five minutes. Something big was happening up above, and after hearing that roar echo through the tunnels, he was fairly certain he knew what it was.
Spike was tangling with the changelings. That meant one of two things: either he had started the rumble, in which case he was probably going to be fine and had taken them by surprise, or the changelings had started it, which meant things were about to get worse. They wouldn't attack a dragon head-on without an ace in the hole. They always found the little back way in that no one was watching. Most of the time, you never saw the attack coming until it was too late.
So think it through. What's the ace?
He crept further along the tunnel, taking things as slowly and quietly as he could. It had started to even out, and looked like it had actually been shaped now - it looked like an unfinished corridor more than a cave, at least, and that was good. That meant he was getting closer to the castle.
They've got night vision, know the place, and have the Tangle on their side. They can fly, they can bite, and they can change appearance. Not much help against an angry dragon.
So what, then?
He was in an actual hallway now. The tunnel he had just left branched off from it at an odd angle, and looked like it didn't quite fit in with the rest of the design of the place. A small protrusion of bricks on one side might have indicated a door that was meant to look like part of the wall, but he didn't stop to investigate. He could hear the sound of a pipe organ nearby, accompanied by the faint chittering that indicated the presence of changelings.
Ahead of him, on the left, there was an archway. It was too dark beyond it to see what exactly was inside, but that was where the sound of the pipe organ was coming from, along with the high-pitched clicking that passed for speech among changelings. He edged up toward it an inch at a time, taking care to step lightly so as to not give away his presence with the sound of hoofbeats on stone.
Finally, he reached the edge of the archway. There, he paused and weighed the length of... crystal? wood? in his hoof. Whatever it was, he shifted his grip on it, preparing to swing if necessary, and turned to peek around the corner.
The room beyond was truly massive, more of a cavern than an actual room within the castle. It was largely devoid of features save for a large raised platform in its center - and, sitting on top of that, a huge pipe organ the size of a house. One changeling was sitting at the keys, occasionally playing a run of three or four notes, then pausing again. Another two changelings were standing on either side of him, staring around at the darkness.
Guards.
Some part of him was surprised that the light from the glowing branch hadn't given him away, but the changelings in the room didn't seem to have noticed it. It was faint, though, just barely enough to see by. It just gave the darkness a grainy outline rather than actually illuminating anything. Maybe he had just gotten lucky so far.
One guard watching you, a weapon and a light source within easy reach, and two lax sentries. That's a lot of luck, Sonny Jim.
Pith shook his head, trying to clear it. Even if things were going a bit too smoothly to be considered normal, he didn't have time to stop and wonder why fate was suddenly smiling on him. Tailspin and Compass were still in the castle, and trapped between a horde of changelings and a rampaging dragon. He needed to do something to help them.
Stopping the changelings from using the organ seemed like a good idea. He had no idea what it was, but they were guarding it. Putting an end to the concert seemed like a good option.
He stayed behind the archway for another moment, weighing his options. There weren't many. No cover in the room, no alternate approaches. He could go in swinging and take them head-on, or he could walk away. He didn't like the first option, but the second seemed like an even worse idea - whatever the organ was, it was obviously important to the changelings, and leaving them in control of it couldn't be good.
He sighed, reached up to adjust his hat, and realized it had been taken from him. He settled for scowling, then swinging around the archway, branch raised, and shouting "Hey!"
It had about the effect he expected. That is, the changeling at the keyboard spun around to stare at him, while the other two hissed and took wing, rocketing across the room towards him. On the one hand, this meant they were rapidly getting close enough to hit. On the other hand, this meant that they were rapidly getting close enough to hit.
Welp. Nothing for it now, big guy. Swing or die.
The changelings had all fled. The throne room was empty of everyone but Spike and the still-cocooned Twilight Sparkle, but his flame didn't stop.
For a long time, he felt as though it never would. He continued to spit lances of volcanic heat at the walls, the floor, anything that he could see save for Twilight. His body refused to settle, or to stop growing. He now filled three-quarters of the hall by himself, which made turning almost impossible. Whenever the fire inside him demanded release towards that side of the room, he had to twist his neck as far as it would go.
Another spear of fire reduced the throne that Chrysalis had occupied a short while before to molten slag.
Slowly, the tiny part of Spike that remained lucid, the part that had been horrified by the slaughter he had wrought, started to regain control. Bit by bit, he forced his flame to stop. It cost almost all the willpower he had to do so, but he managed it. Every time that he started to falter, every time the heat started to return and boil over, he looked upward, to the spot where Twilight Sparkle hung in her prison, emaciated and weak.
I'm coming, Twilight.
His skeleton popped audibly as the bones rearranged themselves and shrank back down to their normal size. It took nearly five minutes to fully clear himself of the rage that had driven him so far. When he finally did, he felt drained and weak. His legs shook, his vision swam, and his breathing was ragged and sharp.
He shook himself, then looked upward, spread his wings, and took flight. She was waiting for him. As long as she needed him, he wouldn't let anything stand in his way.
After a few seconds' aerial climb, he was hovering in the air beside the cocoon that held his friend. He reached out and placed one clawed palm on its surface. It was warm and sticky, and felt unpleasantly like rotting flesh, but he didn't pull away.
"Hold on, Twi," he muttered. "I'll get you out of there." He pressed down with one claw, then drew it sharply downward, ripping open a long slit along the cocoon's length. Then he shoved both hands into the opening and pulled it apart, tearing the thin skin. A torrent of rot-smelling green slime poured out and splashed onto the floor below.
Twilight Sparkle started to slide down as well, but the dragon moved forward and caught her unconscious form in his arms with a grunt of effort. Then, slowly, he lowered himself to the ground and set her down gently on the resin-covered floor.
For the first time, he had the opportunity to study her features. She looked... different. Older, taller, thinner, more like the other alicorns that Spike had seen before going to sleep. Her mane had even changed; now it resembled Princess Celestia's, a series of shades of violet that seemed to be a window into the evening sky. But it was her, even if she was so thin that she looked like a skeleton, and breathing so shallowly that he could hardly see her chest rise and fall with the rhythm.
Spike reached out and gently placed the back of one clawed finger against her neck, checking her pulse. Her skin was cold, but he found her heartbeat easily. It was slow, but even and steady, and he let out a sigh of relief.
Then, to his amazement, Twilight's eyes fluttered open. For a moment, she simply stared blankly forward, seemingly uncomprehending. Then she blinked, her eyes focused, and she looked up at Spike.
A small but incredibly happy smile spread across her features, and she opened her mouth to speak. Spike saw her lips frame his name, but no sound emerged. Her mouth was too dry to talk, obviously.
He didn't care. Right then, seeing Twilight Sparkle smile was the greatest thing in the world. He reached out, wordlessly, and pulled her into a tight hug. For a few long moments, he held her there, eyes shut and leaking tears. He wanted to say something, but no words came, so he just held her close.
He didn't see the flash of green from Twilight's horn, or the brief moment where the brilliant purple of her eyes changed to toxic, shining, acid green.
All he knew was that Twilight Sparkle was back, and he would do anything for her.
Stats
Page generated in 0.02 seconds
Total duration
978 users online
1,566,503 hits today, 2,073,628 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
That first scene was very nicely done.
And what a
Things can't ever be easy for the protagonists, but then it wouldn't be a very exciting story would it.
Oh yes this made me smile like a madman! Kill em all!!!!
Good chapter. I'm kinda bothered that Twilight was fake but hey; can't have everything at the start can we?
Called it.
I figure it would be a mistake. It would have been mover believable if Crystalst said four hunderd years to even eight hunderd. After all, Twilight was gone for so long that no one knows a alicorn outside of Nightmare Mare, assuming she isn't the new Nightmare Mare.
...
DAMMIT SPIKE
Saw that twist coming a mile away xP
Alright then. Just as I thought. I would have been disappointed if that had really been Twilight... Now back to my theory that Twilight is now the Mare on the Moon.
4555384 It does seem all too possible.
Everybody saw that coming. But somehow, that doesn't make it any less... whatever it is.
5416874 because they keep it going RIGHT to the end
Spike, I'm sorry to say this but, your princess is in another castle.
Ah the ole’ switcheroo. A classic in the art of deception that the changelings excel at. Very characteristic of them and done so smoothly! Wonderful writing. It’s just too good!