The sun was just starting to set when Spike and Rarity disembarked at the Ponyville train station. Once again they walked home with the unpleasant weight of failure in their hearts.
“What was her problem?” Rarity muttered. “She very near attacked me! No manners. And I was getting along with Mrs. Pie so well, too.”
Spike didn’t say anything. He just carried on walking, his head hanging low.
“Spike, dear, you’ve been terribly quiet,” Rarity said. “Is everything alright?”
He didn’t answer.
“Are you upset because we didn’t get to talk to her properly?”
Spike shook his head. “I got to talk to her.”
“And?” Rarity prompted. “Whatever she said couldn’t have been as bad as having soup tipped all over you.”
Spike shook his head again. “I don’t… I don’t really know what she said. She kind of… drew me in. It was so strange, Rarity. It was like she already knew who I was. Even the part about me being a dragon.”
“But how could she possibly know that?” Rarity flustered.
“She seemed to know a lot of things,” Spike said. “Maybe… Maybe even more than me. The more I try to help the more I just feel like a…” He scrunched up his face as he searched from an apt comparison. “Like someone with a hammer.”
Rarity winced. “And every problem just looks like a nail?”
“No,” Spike said. “That’s just it. I can’t find a nail-shaped problem anywhere. I feel like I’m the wrong tool for the job. And what’s more I don’t even know if anything was ever broken to begin with.”
Rarity was about to answer when they were interrupted by a passing filly.
“Hi Rarity,” the filly said.
Spike looked up and saw that it was Cheerilee. Only, y’know… younger.
“Feeling better?” Cheerilee asked.
“Oh,” Rarity remembered. She coughed a little. “Just out for a walk, trying to get some fresh air into my lungs. We’ll see. I am still feeling dreadfully tired.”
Cheerilee made a sympathetic sound. “You don’t look too well. I hope you’ll be back at school soon. We miss you.”
“And I, you,” Rarity said.
“Well, goodnight then,” Cheerilee said, walking past. “A shame you missed the performance. But your costumes were amazing! Thanks!”
“You’re welcome!” Rarity called. Then she added a few coughs for good measure.
When Rarity turned back to the path she came face-to-face with Spike’s ponified muzzle.
“What?” Rarity asked, but her guilty tone betrayed her.
“The school performance?” Spike said. “That was today?”
“Oh… was it? I’d forgotten.”
“Really?” Spike said. “But you dropped off your old costumes at school for them to use.”
“Ah… Right.” Rarity winced. “I may have… forgotten to mention it was happening.”
Spike snorted smoke through his nose. “I can’t believe you! You had me write you a note and everything! I said to wait until the weekend but you insisted we go today! Why? Did you miss the performance on purpose!?”
“Spike… It’s just a boring old play.”
“No it’s not!” Spike insisted. “You were supposed to get your cutiemark! You should have told me! We need to find more gems for your costumes. We need to—”
“Spike, Spike! Calm down. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
Spike stared at her. “Why?”
“Because!” Rarity said. “You’re fixated! I’m telling you, Spike, that is not how I’m going to get my cutiemark. I’m just… I’m just not feeling it.” Rarity sighed. “And I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
Spike closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths. “It’s difficult enough… trying understand what I’m supposed to do here… when you just keep using me!”
The pony-image fell apart and Spike stood up on two legs and tugged at the changeling armband viciously.
“Spike. Stop. What are you doing?” Rarity urged him. “Ponies will see.”
“I don’t care!” Spike yelled, struggling with the band. “Zecora has to walk around the way she is. I’ve been hiding behind this thing the whole time, and why? Because you said to! You said ponies would freak out!”
Rarity gave a nervous chuckle. “Spike, daring. Trust me.” She was very serious. “They will.”
“Good.” Spike dug his claws under the band and tried to force it.
“But what about your secret mission?” Rarity asked.
“It never was a secret!” Spike said. “Not until you made it that way. You! With your Shadow Spade books and your unauthorised trips to Manehatten! You just didn’t want other ponies to ruin your fun! Is this all a game to you?”
“N-no…” Rarity said. “No. This is very important. The fate of Equestria—”
“Yeah!?” Spike said, giving up on the band and just walking away. “Well let me know when you figure out what that means to you!”
“Spike!” Rarity called.
She watched him stomp off towards the Everfree Forest.
“Spike, please,” she insisted.
He didn’t turn around.
Spike went to spend the night in Zecora’s tree-top house. She was a little annoyed at the intrusion but, as usual, was a very gracious host. Zecora was of course disturbed to learn that Spike was having trouble removing the armband now. It took the application of a few greasy mixtures to get the thing to slip off at last, and it left a red mark behind.
Zecora set the thing down on her table. “This could be a problem, if you let it,” she said. “I think it’s best if you forget it.”
“No kidding,” Spike said, rubbing his poor arm.
Zecora cleared out an unused cauldron and threw a few blankets down into it. “It’s in poor taste, I must admit. But try to make the best of it.”
“Thanks,” Spike said, climbing inside. “Sorry for just showing up like this. I’ll clear out tomorrow.”
“And then where will your journey take you? And what new disguise can I make you?”
“I don’t know…” Spike moaned from inside the cauldron. “I don’t even know if I want to keep that up. Not because I’m confused about the future anymore. I’m just… bogged down in the present. Everypony I visit tells me to go away. Now I find out Pinkie has a new cutiemark and everything. All these weird eyes… and she’s acting like she knows everything and sees everything, but I don’t think she’s handling it very well. The bits she said to me were… kind of confusing.”
“And this confusion sways your path, in light of this new aftermath.”
“Maybe…” Spike said. “I just don’t think the Elements of Harmony are the way to go here. Is that crazy?”
“What seems too bleak in darkest night may gleam anew by morning’s light.”
Spike poked his head out of the cauldron. “What does that mean?”
“It means I need to hit the hay,” she said. “It’s not easy being wise all day.”
“Huh,” Spike chuckled. He flopped down into the bundle of blankets again. “Night Zecora.”
“Mm-hm,” she murmured, passing through the hanging curtain to her bedroom.
The crickets and fireflies were out that night.
It was… rather peaceful.
Spike slowly closed his eyes and felt heavy sleep rushing up to meet him.
When Spike opened his eyes he found himself walking. Walking on all fours. He could not see yet. There was just the sensation of walking and… crowding. He constantly felt bodies shifting next to him, bumping into him, brushing past him. One of the unseen companions smacked roughly into Spike’s shoulder.
He turned and hissed.
The void hissed back and Spike heard a buzzing sound.
Onwards they marched—they crawled and scurried. The very walls surfaces of the tunnels shifted around him, always changing, always in flux, and somehow he could sense where to go and when to move - to change with the rest of the tunnels. He and the other creatures moved as one.
The void gradually began to take form. It was… dark. It was colourless; composed mostly of shapes or the sense of shapes. Spike clambered over a ridge he had detected without even seeing it. The pull of the masses changed direction and Spike was busted too near a wall. Instincts took over and he clambered up its surface and carried on advancing with the rest of the swarm.
At last they approached the chamber—the heart of the honeycomb warren they all called home. They scuttled from tunnels of all directions, to wait and listen. And there She was… Their Queen… Tall and powerful and eternally hungry.
Unnumbered eyes shone in the dark tunnels that overlooked Her throne. Her hunger was their guiding force. They all felt such hunger, but not as She did. She was hunger, as they were hunger’s slaves. A crawling hive of hissing, snarling things—all to serve one purpose:
Consume.
The Queen rose from the seat of Her black throne of stone. All was dark, save glowing eyes, but all could see Her clearly. The chamber filled with the buzzing of Her wings and rang with the echoes of her laugh.
“My children…” She hissed. “My loyal brood. The land of Equestria would have us believe they are strong. They are united. Her subjects praise and bow and worship the dawning sun. They tell themselves their Princess knows all—sees all—bests all challengers who rise against her will.”
The tunnels buzzed and chittered and the glowing eyes bobbed playfully.
“But all is not as it seems…” the Queen hissed with satisfaction. “An unknown adversary has made that clear, when all of Equestria felt the blastwave and saw the flash of light. Now we see the crumbling of her power. The ponies demand answers but their Princess has found none. A villainous thing crept into their kingdom—into a place where their children learn and play—and it has struck! Without warning or mercy… See how they tremble before the unknown. See how their Princess cannot appease them.
“See how she is less than she appears!”
The crawling tunnels clicked and buzzed and squirmed in agreement.
Their Queen was going to lead them to delicious spoils. Soon they would taste it all—love, heart ache, regret, desire—power.
Spike chittered eagerly. His wings buzzed loud with the rest of the swarm.
“We will wait…” the Queen said. “We will watch… We will infiltrate their world, their lives, their families… and then, when they are soft and weak…” She drew an ecstatic intake of breath and sighed most pleasantly. “We… will… feed!”
Spike jolted awake.
The ground was slimy and the air buzzed. He swatted at the flies and mosquitoes that had come to inspect him. They did not like dragon blood, nor could their pierce his scaly hide, and so they left him there in the mud.
“Wha?” Spike panted, looking around.
He spotted Zecora’s tree a little further back. Somehow he had climbed down and wandered off but he could not remember when. The sun was just coming up. He could see the brilliant reddening of the sky above the tree tops.
Eventually Spike collected himself and went to find a river to wash in. The water was shockingly cold and Spike focused on that to help himself wake up. There was an intense amount of mud under his claws, he found, as if he had been frolicking about on all fours.
“Must be all that time as a pony,” Spike said dismissively. “It’s got me sleepwalking like a—”
Spike froze stone-still when he noticed his left arm.
“No… Wake up…” he whispered to himself. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”
But this was not a dream. The armband was very real, and very much fixed around his little dragon arm once more.
“Get off!” Spike snarled and wrenched at the thing.
But it refused to left go. And the more Spike pulled at it the more he began to remember a dream… A dream of a dark place filled with crawling things, all full of holes and buzzing and clicking as they grovelled obediently before their Queen.
Spike’s foot slipped on a river-rock and he fell over with a splash.
“Ugh…” He groaned and wiped the water from his eyes.
“Well, well, it seems you are bested by streams,” Zecora chuckled.
Spike sat up and shook himself dry. “Not my idea.”
He heard her gasp and drop something. A wooden bucket, it turned out.
“Do my eyes bear false alarm? Or is that sly thing back on your arm?”
Spike opened his eyes at last and saw Zecora take a nervous step back from him. He shook his left arm a bit. Then resorted to a shrug.
“I guess it likes me?” he tried.
Zecora did not seem amused.
“I don’t know,” Spike said. “I just woke up like this. I don’t know how I got down here or how it got back on my arm. I guess I must have been… sleep walking? I don’t know. I had—” Spike shivered. “Ugh. This dream. I think maybe… Or maybe it was…”
Zecora offered him a hoof. “It does no good to shake and shiver. Come little one and leave that river. Go back upstairs, get yourself dry. And then together we may try to understand what all this means.” She eyed him very seriously. “Do not ignore the word of dreams…”
Spike sat on a stool, all wrapped in a towel and nursing a bowl of warm soup.
“This is really good,” Spike said. “Much better than whatever they had at the Rock Farm. And I haven’t had a hot meal since Manehatten. I was getting sick of table scraps.”
Zecora prodded the armband while he drank.
“I’m sorry to say I have bad news,” she said. “It seems your scales and this band have… fused.”
“What?” Spike exclaimed. “You mean it’s stuck here forever?”
“Don’t be so quick to pronounce doom,” Zecora scolded him. “I’ll sort this out, if you give me room to work and test and find the key.” She frowned. “Whatever that turns out to be.”
“Is there something I can do to help?” Spike asked.
“Your offer’s kind, but I think no. This is a craft you do not know. But rest assured, this is my trade. I will undo what has been made.” Zecora took a few bottles off the shelves and examined them. “Though I must quest for more supplies. Now tell me… what did your dream advise?”
Spike put the empty soup bowl aside and snuggled further into the towel. “Well… It wasn’t so much advice as it was… maybe, a vision? I saw—” Spike stopped. “No. I was a changeling.”
Zecora fumbled a glass bottle for a moment. She turned to stare. “A changeling thing you say you were? That’s quite a nightmare to occur.”
“Tell me about it…” Spike groaned. “It all felt so real. I was becoming one with the hive. There were so many of them. I had no idea. I mean, I remember what happened from before—when they attacked Canterlot in my time. But it’s one thing to see them all swarming around the streets, and another thing to experience them just… all around. Crawling, squirming, everywhere. The hive was full of them.
“And Queen Chrysalis…” Spike rubbed at his arm. “She was preparing for war. Sooner than she’s supposed to. She thinks Equestria is weak now, because Celestia hasn’t found an answer behind the Starburst Event.” Spike’s eyes widened. “Oh wow. I think I know what Pinkie was talking about before.”
Zecora pricked up her ears.
“Yeah,” Spike went on, putting it together. “Pinkie talked about a Queen who sounded a lot like Chrysalis. Pinkie said Chrysalis could attack whenever she wanted, because she’s not bound by fate the same way as Discord or Nightmare Moon or the Crystal Empire. These things happen at certain times, but Chrysalis…” Spike hugged the towel closer. “She can move whenever she wants. I think she may have already started. She talked about her spies getting into place.”
“That’s quite concerning to discern,” Zecora said. “This distant threat may now return much sooner than at first you guessed. Tell me, how goes your friendship quest?”
Spike put his claws to his head and groaned. “Not good. Applejack can’t leave Manehatten. Pinkie Pie seems to think she’s changed too much to be involved—in fact, she seems to think the whole world has changed too much and that the Elements won’t work. Or at least… I think that’s what she said. She was kind of… more Pinkie than usual. But maybe she's right. Maybe they won't work here. I guess I was hoping everything would figure itself out if I just gave everypony a little time, but now—” Spike took a few deep breaths. “Now I don’t know if we have that kind of time anymore. But I can’t force the Elements to work. But at the same time, we need the Elements to defeat—”
Zecora looked up when he didn’t speak again. “What new found clue has silenced you?”
Spike shook his head. “Uh. The Elements. Twilight and everypony used the Elements the first two times, and we were going to try them on Chrysalis, too. But in the end it wasn’t the Elements at all. It was… love.” Spike puzzled it out. “Cadence and Shining Armor’s love, and their magic, combined to create a… a spell, maybe. I don’t know how it worked. But it was pretty powerful. Not as powerful as the Elements. It didn’t seal Chrysalis away or anything—it just made her leave.”
Spike stood up and started pacing; a look of concentration on his face.
“Twilight is the Element of magic, and the Princess of Friendship. She learned that friendship is magic, and that the magic behind the Elements was friendship,” Spike went on. “If love can create a spell powerful enough to defeat Chrysalis and her changeling army, without even the Elements, then maybe…” Spike’s eyes brightened. “Maybe we don’t need everypony to become Elements. Maybe we just need them to be friends. I can still make this work. Even if the world has changed there’s still friendship! Even Applejack said she was still making friends and that her friends and family were still reaching out to her!”
Spike ran up to Zecora. “I have to believe that friendship can still save us. I don't know how but I have to keep trying. Zecora… I need to get to Cloudsdale.”
“Not without me, you don’t,” said a little filly.
Spike and Zecora turned to see Rarity standing at the top of the stairs.
“Spike,” Rarity began. “Before you say anything I just want you to know—I’m sorry. I’ve been feeling ignored ever since the baby and I just… I wanted to have an adventure. But I used you, and that was wrong. I didn’t understand how important this really was for you. For all of us. But if you say now that there’s an army on the way and that friendship is the only way to stop it then—” Rarity puffed up her chest and approached. “Then you need all the friends you can get. And, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll try to be a better friend this time around.”
Spike folded his arms. “Did you skip school to come here?”
Rarity winced. “Oh come on, Spike.”
He laughed and waved a hand. “It’s fine. I’m sorry, too. I kept trying to push you into being somepony you’re not. Even after Applejack… and Pinkie Pie… Even after I told you that I understood you were different from the Rarity I remembered… I guess I was the real liar. So I mean it this time. Whatever you want to do, whatever cutiemark you get or when you get it, it’ll be okay. And if you want to skip school and come on an adventure…” Spike shrugged. “Well… I could use the help.”
Rarity beamed at him. “Hug me, you fool.” And she grabbed him and squished him.
Spike blushed. “Ha. Okay, okay… Ow! That’s enough. You’re hurting my arm.”
Zecora cleared her throat loudly.
The two little ones stepped apart and looked up at her.
“If Rarity is joining you,” Zecora said. “Then I think I’ll make potions for two. To walk on clouds, I have the just the thing for little ponies who don’t have wings.”
Rarity and Spike grinned.