Spike was furiously pacing in circles before the desk in the navigation room, but he stopped when Thorax entered, shooting a glare at the changeling though the false eyeglasses he wore. “I’m not doing it, Thorax!” he hollered. “You can’t make me!”
“Please sit down, Spike,” Thorax requested in a dark tone as he closed the door behind him and started to march across the room.
Spike didn’t move though, refusing to take the empty chair standing next to the desk. “After everything they’ve done to us, we owe them absolutely nothing! We have no reason—”
“I said please sit down!” Thorax suddenly snapped, whirling on the dragon.
Spike immediately fell silent, taken aback as he couldn’t recall Thorax ever raising his voice against him like this. Stunned, he stared at Thorax for a moment then obediently let himself drop into the chair as requested.
Thorax paced for a moment of tense silence in front of Spike, gathering his thoughts before he continued. Finally, he turned to face Spike, determinedly pointing a holed hoof at him. “I’m not going to let you do this to yourself, Spike,” he stated firmly.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, I am not to blame for any of this!” Spike objected immediately. “It’s all on them Thorax, not us! They should’ve listened to us from the beginning if they didn’t want this mess to happen! Don’t tell me you haven’t figured out that we could’ve prevented all of this if they had just listened and trusted us, because then they would’ve had you as a valuable ally, providing all sorts of important information Equestria could’ve used to prevent this very invasion Chrysalis is trying now, someone who could’ve potentially served to negotiate with the changelings, and above all, they wouldn’t have been distracted trying to search for us and could’ve instead focused on this invasion!”
“This isn’t about any of that though, and you know it!” Thorax objected. “This is about you, and how you are absolutely livid with them for betraying you, and you refuse to forgive them for it!”
“And why should I?” Spike demanded. “They meant the world to me once, Thorax, and how did they repay that? By throwing it in my face and turning their backs on me, then chasing me all over Equestria like some common crook, just because I wasn’t going to let them abuse you for no good reason! You deserve better than that, and frankly, so do I!”
“Maybe so!” Thorax agreed. “But now you’re putting yourself above their safety and well-being because of it!”
“They banished us, Thorax!” Spike argued. “They made it blatantly clear that they don’t want us around, and if that’s what they want, then balani devoveo, that’s what they’re going to get! I will NOT reward them with my loyalty after they pulled all of that on me! Not now!”
Thorax stared at Spike for a moment, briefly surprised at the dragon’s use of a changeling curse, and realized just how much he had rubbed off on his loyal friend. He shook his head, disappointed in himself. “This is my fault then,” he mumbled to himself darkly as he resumed pacing. “I shouldn’t have let this go on for this long…”
Spike snorted. “You aren’t to blame for any of this any more than me!” he pointed. “If anything, you’re more the victim than I am! Equestria is no ally of yours.”
“We have friends in Equestria, though,” Thorax pointed out gravely. “Fly Leaf, Ragg…”
“Yes, all individual ponies who are good ponies to be sure,” Spike agreed. “But they all answer to leaders who are not!”
Thorax watched Spike for a long moment, sensing Spike’s emotions for a moment, almost tasting the raw fury and aching pain for the betrayal he felt he had suffered. “Spike…you just want this as a chance to get back at her for what happened, isn’t it?” he deduced.
Spike scowled. “Her?”
Thorax nodded. “Twilight. This isn’t about Equestria, the changelings, or the bias that exists against me. This is about you being mad at Princess Twilight, because she didn’t give her support to you, and now you’re wanting to do anything you can to hurt her back.”
Spike’s frown deepened, but he didn’t deny it. “Don’t tell me she doesn’t deserve it,” he growled. “After everything she’s done, she’s proven she doesn’t care a shred for me, not truly! The Twilight I had always believed in wouldn’t have let this go so far! But now I know the Twilight I had believed in doesn’t exist…she never did. Twilight showed her true colors to me when she agreed to banish you.”
Thorax averted his gaze. “Twilight isn’t to blame for my banishment.”
“She’s totally to blame! She was the one in position to have tipped the scales if she wanted to, but she didn’t even hesitate to support the banishment, and—”
“I was the one who convinced Twilight to support my banishment.”
This stopped Spike short, who did a double take and stared at Thorax in shock. Thorax, ashamed, averted his gaze further. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, but then Spike finally asked the question. “…but why?”
“Because I was scared,” Thorax admitted, suddenly fighting tears. “Scared for you. You know I didn’t come to Equestria to cause any sort of trouble, but the longer I was staying, the more it seemed I was, and…I didn’t want to let it continue! I wasn’t seeing any hope of a peaceful solution, and I already knew Princess Cadance, Prince Shining, and Princess Twilight were discussing the possibility of banishing me. I knew from her emotions that Twilight had her misgivings about going through with it, but I thought that if I just relented and accepted the banishment and peacefully left, it’d…limit the amount of damage I’d cause…and spare you any further harm. After everything you had done for me up to that point…Informis Una mihi benedicat, I owed you that much.” Thorax started to approach Spike. “So…when you and I had both been thrown into jail cells after your attempt to break me out and Twilight came down to interrogate me…I told her straight up to go ahead and banish me. And…she listened. Obviously.” Thorax averted his gaze. “Neither of us had any idea at the time that you were only going to voluntarily follow me into banishment…nor did I know the others were going to let you go.”
Spike gaped at him for a moment. “You would’ve died if I didn’t, Thorax,” he reminded, tearing up himself.
Thorax nodded. “I know,” he said simply, his voice cracking a little as his emotions caught in his throat. He stopped to take a deep breath to try and regain his composure.
Spike’s gaze turned vacant and wandered off the changeling before him as he processed this revelation. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally asked.
“Why do you think, Spike?” Thorax replied. “I was afraid of how you’d react. I did it trying to protect you from harm, but just look at all the grief it ended up bringing you instead!” He shook his head. “I was afraid you’d only come to hate me for doing that, you, the only friend I had at the time…” he sighed, “…but if you should blame anyone for the banishment…you should blame me.”
Spike shook his head slowly and looked back his changeling friend. “I don’t blame you, Thorax,” he said. “How could I? You meant well, and…you were basically willing to die for my sake over that, and that’s…that’s big, Thorax.” He kept shaking his head. “But Twilight and the rest…their actions in all of this were nothing like that. Not even close to selfless like yours were.” His anger gradually started to return. “I am not about to just let that go! I don’t intend to ever let it go!”
“And see, that’s just it!” Thorax said, turning on the dragon again, but instead of anger, his face was etched with grave concern, so much so Spike almost felt it physically washing over him. “I’ve been sitting to one side and watching as this grudge of yours slowly eats you alive ever since we were trudging away from the Crystal Empire as newly made outcasts. I’ve continually been keeping silent about it, giving myself a whole mess of flimsy excuses to avoid bringing it up, that you’d resolve it on your own, that you were justified in your feelings, and so on!” He gazed at the dragon with utter resolve. “But I will do it no more now. You’ve thrown your life away for me and bent over backwards trying to ensure my happiness at the price of your own…so now let me return the favor, because I’m not going to just stand to one side and let you do this to yourself, not after everything we’ve been through and done together.” He reached out a placed one hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “Let it go, Spike. Please. If not for my sake…then for your own. It’s brought you nothing but grief…and it isn’t going to ever bring you anything else.”
Spike gazed sadly back at Thorax, moved by the changeling’s words, but still not swayed. “Even if I could, Thorax,” he stated sadly, placing a set of claws on Thorax’s hoof, rubbing it sadly against the cotton sleeve of the changeling’s jacket, “it’d only leave us open to the full wrath of the grudge they have been sporting against us.”
“Yes, and we ended up banished because the ponies couldn’t stop holding a grudge and couldn’t let themselves “forgive and forget” past grievances with a perceived enemy,” Thorax agreed. He gazed firmly into Spike’s eyes. “But you of all people should know better than to make the same mistakes they did.”
Spike frowned, shaking his head. “What good will it do at this point, Thorax?” he asked. “The damage has already been done. And it’s not going to just go away.”
“Yes it can,” Thorax stressed. “You haven’t stopped to think about the chance we’ve been given with Starlight and Trixie coming to us for help like this. By helping save Equestria, we have a chance to prove where our loyalties lie, to show that ponies like Princess Twilight don’t need to fear me or you, and maybe prove something to my fellow changelings too…and are you really willing to just let it slip by?” Thorax pulled back from Spike a pace, licking his dry lips. “You know it had always been my plan to try and bring change to both the changelings and the ponies, so they can could set aside their differences at last and be friends. I see this as a chance to do that…but it saddens me you’ve already rejected that vision altogether without even trying to obtain it.”
This struck a chord within Spike and he gaped at Thorax, a little offended. “I still believe and share in that vision too, Thorax!” he stated anxiously.
But Thorax sadly shook his head. “You did, once, in the beginning,” he relented, “but you’ve since stop believing in it a long time ago…and I think you and I both have known that for a long time now.” As Spike was still processing this statement, his eyes wide and stunned, Thorax hung his head with a sigh, and decided to draw the line. “Look Spike, it’s not going to matter what you think about all of this. I’m going to go help with this rescue attempt and help stop this invasion, because, as a changeling, I feel I’m morally responsible for the actions of my fellow changelings. And, again, I see it as a chance to prove to everyone that I am a good changeling, providing a better example for the other changelings to see and possibly paving the way for others to follow in my hoofsteps.” He leaned closer to Spike. “And because, above all else, it is the right thing to do.”
Spike gazed into the changeling’s solid blue eyes, feeling his heart ache as this last statement reminded him that he himself had said something similar when defending Thorax just before they became outcasts.
Thorax then straightened, taking on a formal stance as he continued. “And I know that if I go…you’re going to follow me regardless, because you’ve stuck by my side through all of these long four moons without fail. I know you’re not about to stop now; you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself knowing you had abandoned me to go off into danger without you.” He sighed, tilting his head at Spike. “But I don’t want you to follow because of all of that. I want you to follow because you actually want to, and because you know just as well as I that it’s the right thing to do.”
He gazed sadly but expectantly at Spike for a long moment, awaiting some sort of response. But Spike, sad and greatly conflicted, only stared back, at a loss for words. So, suppressing a sigh, Thorax then started to turn for the door.
“Thorax, I’ve been hurt by Twilight too many times before,” Spike abruptly stated sadly, his voice soft while starting to fight tears again as he said it. “I don’t want to set myself up only to be hurt by her yet again. I can’t. I…I still doubt that she wouldn’t do it again, or that she can ever be swayed to trust you or me, Thorax.”
Thorax paused at the door, and this time he didn’t bother to hide his sigh. “Spike, how could you ever expect them to befriend me…” he said, glancing back at the dragon sitting in his chair, “…if you can’t even befriend them?”
Concluding with that remark then, he then pushed open the door and slipped out of the room, closing the door again behind him and leaving Spike alone in the room to quietly ponder the matter to himself. He remained there for a very long time, thinking and debating in his mind all of his options. Tempers ran high, tears were shed, hearts ached, and depression staved off as far as he could during these tense minutes. Finally, he knew he had come to the only conclusion he could, and bracing himself for what he knew it was going to bring, he finally emerged from the back room again, stepping back out onto the Vergilius’s main deck. He found the others sitting or standing just outside the entrance to the craft’s deckhouse, talking amongst themselves. Hovering next to the airship was one of Ember’s escorts, Obsidian, and looked like he had returned to report in, and now they were discussing that report as they began pitching ideas about how to proceed from here. They all stopped and turned to look at Spike though when he approached the little gathering.
He looked sullen and sad, but above all resolute in his choice, raising his chin as he addressed them. “Hey,” he said gently. “Keeping, uh, keeping busy?”
The others glanced about at one another before their gazes all fell back on Spike again. “We were just discussing how we might rescue Twilight and the others from the changelings while also avoiding detection,” Starlight explained simply, but with a note of tension in her voice, fearing how Spike would react to this. She looked like she might say more, but instead trailed off, deciding to let Spike react to that much first.
But Spike simply nodded to himself, fidgeting sheepishly with his claws as he took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, then with some hesitation, added, “I’m…I’m going to help rescue them too.”
Trixie expressed the most surprise of the group at this, tilting her head at Spike and furrowing her brow. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with this,” she remarked aloud.
“I don’t,” Spike admitted firmly. His eyes met with Thorax’s waiting gaze. “But…it’s the right thing to do.”
Thorax slowly broke out into a pleased and proud grin at this. Heartened a little by this show of support, Spike sheepishly returned it. But then his gaze turned serious again and he turned to Starlight, pointing a claw at her.
“I have just one condition,” he told the unicorn, his voice stern. “If we actually pull this off, then after it’s all said and done, you MUST have Thorax entirely exonerated of all charges, and leave him and all he chooses to befriend henceforth alone. No more of this stupid chasing and attacking just because he’s a changeling.”
Starlight looked at Spike with a heavy gaze for a long moment, letting out a small sigh through her nose. “Spike, you know I don’t have the kind of authority to guarantee all of that,” she reminded gently. “No matter how much we all might try and support such a thing happening, you know the final choice ultimately isn’t up to me, but rather the princesses. They will always have the last say in the matter, so long as they are ruling.” She paused to let that sink in for a moment, then took a deep breath and turned resolute. “But by golly, I’m still going to do everything in my power try and make sure it happens anyway.”
Spike gazed at her for a long moment, his expression neutral and unclear if he would agree to that. But finally, he nodded. “All right,” he said, satisfied enough. “That’ll have to do for now.” He jabbed his claw at Starlight one final time. “But I will be holding you to that.”
Starlight nodded, grinning a little. “I don’t doubt that, Spike.”
Spike kept nodding too, not sharing in the grin. “Okay then,” he said, then turned and gazed at the others for a second. He finally shrugged. “Guess I’m in. I’m putting my life on the line for it, and I’m not entirely happy about that, but I’m in.
Ember made a small grin. “Well, there is a fitting dragon saying for this anyway,” she remarked. “You only live once.”
Trixie then immediately clapped her hooves together. “You heard the dragoness!” she declared with definiteness. “I guess we’re doing this!”
“But first, we still need to sort out the matter of those who are tailing us,” Ember interjected quickly, getting them back on the topic they were about to discuss when Spike turned up.
Spike groaned as he immediately caught on. “Oh, don’t tell me…”
Starlight nodded with a wince, and pointed a hoof at Obsidian. “Him and his partner found the trail of two others who have clearly been trailing behind me and Trixie for a while now,” she explained.
“That’s correct,” Obsidian confirmed in the rumbling voice typical of an adult dragon. “Their scent trail was fresh and heading in this same direction. Going by scent alone, they seemed enough like ponies…”
“…but it’s pretty clear to me that they’re changelings, trying to follow Starlight and Trixie,” Thorax finished with a sigh. “Garnet’s out covering the Vergilius’s rear in case they try something for now, but eventually they’re probably going to catch up with us and figure out their targets have hitched a ride, so we were trying to figure out what, if anything, we can do about it.”
“I still say we just outrun them,” Trixie remarked eagerly. “I have no interest in trying to fight them off directly.”
Spike sighed, remembering his promise to assist and bit back his complaints to try and look at the matter positively. “Well, fighting them actually might not be so bad,” he reasoned aloud. “If there’s really only two, we do outnumber them.”
“That doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything though,” Ember pointed out. “I mean, they did just send one changeling to attack us back in the Dragon Realms, and even though he didn’t succeed, he did put up a good fight, so I’d say he still stood a good chance.”
Thorax, however, suddenly perked up. “Wait a minute,” he said and turned to Obsidian. “You said you and Garnet didn’t actually see the pursuers, you just found their scent trail, right?”
“Right,” Obsidian confirmed, nodding his giant head.
“So they probably didn’t see you either, to the best of your knowledge, correct?”
“Right again…unless they observed us in secret, without our knowing.”
Thorax grinned a little. “Then, if we can just get you and Garnet out of sight for a little while, I think I might have an idea to ditch them.” He looked at the others though and his grin turned into a sympathetic wince. “But you all probably aren’t going to like it.”