The dragon was staring down at her making Chrysalis come out of her trance and yelled out, “How many times must I get rid of the same stinking dragon!!”
The Elements but Applejack-who was still lost in her grief-started rejoicing until the queen shouted to them, “Shut up!”
Spike then shouted out, “Chrysalis! A dragon stands between you and your destiny!”
But that last part was indistinct due to the distance between the changeling leader and the Dragon Warrior.
Chrysalis yelled out, “What?!”
“I said: a dragon stands between you and your destiny!”
But again the distance muffled the sound.
“What?!”
While the Spike on the rooftops distracted the changelings, another Spike crawled behind the Elements. The girls were surprised by this and Pinkie was about to scream when Spike covered her mouth with his claw making a shushing motion and whispering.
“Relax, it’s me…”
Rainbow narrowed her eyes and gestured, “How do we know that for sure? If there’s a Spike up there, who’s to say you’re not the real one?”
Spike smirked and stated, “When we had our first training session together, Fluttershy tamed a manticore, Pinkie used a dozen instruments to get rid of the parasprites, Rarity had to outwit Diamond Dogs, and Rainbow Dash used her awesome flying skills to dodge Quarry Eels.”
The girls gawked and could hardly contain their joy! It was him! Really him! They wanted to hug him until he reminded them.
“We’ll have to save the group hug for later, right now, I got to get you out of here.” he used a picklock to get them out of their chains. They started to move around but Spike noticed that Applejack wasn’t moving. He shook her shoulder, “AJ? AJ!” when he saw the blank expression he turned to the girls, “What happened to her?”
Rarity explained, “She’s been like that since well… she thought you were dead, we all did…”
The others nodded sadly.
Spike lowered his face to Applejack’s and held her face in his claws, “AJ… it’s me… Spike…”
When she didn’t respond, Spike did the only thing he could think of that would snap her out of it. He pressed her lips to his and held on until he felt her kissing back! He opened his eyes to see her eyes brimming with tears, when they slowly parted she touched his cheek while whispering.
“You’re alive… Really alive…”
They smiled at each other for the longest time until Applejack frowned and started to scold, “But dangnabit Spike! That was the most foolhardy thing you’ve ever done! You could have died!”
As she kept on ranting, Spike just smiled and said, “I love you too, Applejack.”
“And another thing you-“ she stopped when she realized what he just said, and uttered in disbelief, “What?”
“You heard me.” he kept smirking.
AJ sputtered and couldn’t find the words to say.
Rainbow came between them, “Okay, you two lovebirds can figure this out later, right now; we got an Empire to save!”
Spike nodded, “You’re right.” and looked to see Thorax disguised as him was still occupying the changeling swarm.
Applejack followed his gaze and inquired, “How are you here and there?”
“That’s Thorax.”
“Who?” the girls questioned.
“Remember? He was Crystal Hoof.”
“But he’s a changeling! How do you know we can trust him?!” AJ asked in concern.
Spike was quick to reply, “He came to me while Zecora was nursing me back to health in the Frozen North. He told me how sorry he was and that he wanted to leave his kind so he can share love and not drain it. At first I was hesitant but then I remember how he saved my life once by revealing himself and afterwards I watched him closely with the other changelings while we were brought before Chrysalis and he seemed so sad and out of place. While he was Crystal Hoof he told me about his crummy family life and it made sense. Look, you don’t have to trust him but you have to trust in me that he and I have a plan here to stop the queen once and for all.”
The Elements exchanged looks before Applejack said, “We’re with ya, Spike.”
He motioned them to follow and he led the way toward the Crystal Palace.
While they went in Thorax was still trying to get his words across in which Chrysalis was getting annoyed and grunted in frustration, “Enough of this!” she demanded to her soldiers, “Get him!”
The fake Spike saw them coming and thought, That’s my cue to go.
“You’re still alive?!” both Cadence and Shining Armor exclaimed joyfully when seeing Spike.
The dragon grinned, “My death was greatly exaggerated.”
Applejack shouted, “Exaggerated?! You call gettin’ blown across the Frozen North an exaggeration?!”
He sighed, “AJ, please…”
Shiny smirked, “I know that tone, Cadence uses it on me all the time whenever I do something risky on patrol.”
Cadence countered, “And for good reason, because I love you so much you big dope.” she addressed Spike and Applejack, “So I assume this means you’re a couple now?”
Spike said yes while Applejack said no.
He looked her at confusion, “I thought you love me?”
She faced him with sad eyes, “I do, Spike, but we can’t be together.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you later, right now we need to focus on freeing Cadence and Shining Armor and Flurry.”
“If we can find Flurry.” said Rainbow.
Rarity nodded, “I’m sure they moved her again after we had tried to rescue her before.”
Spike gestured, “We’ll split up into pairs. AJ, you’re with me, Fluttershy go with Rainbow, Rarity with Pinkie, and of course Cadence and Shining Armor will go together.”
Once they got the royal couple out of their cell, they went their separate ways.
Thorax managed to dodge the changeling guards with his powers. Transforming from one thing into another all around the Empire. But just as he thought he was safe and transformed back to himself, a changeling with dark purple eyes and a red fin on the back of his head appeared to him.
“Pharynx!” he exclaimed nervously.
The changeling scowled at him, “Thorax, just what do you think you’re doing?”
“I was… um…”
“Pretending to be the Queen’s sworn enemy?! You’re already in hot water with her as it is so why do this?!”
“I… I…” then Thorax deeply frowned and shouted, “I don’t want to feed on love anymore!”
“What?!”
“It’s true! I can’t stand it anymore! We’re just hurting everyone around us!”
“How dare you! You can’t turn your back on the changeling ways! It’s the only way for us to survive!”
“Please, Pharynx… brother… it doesn’t have to be this way…”
“What would you have us do?! Share love with everyone?!”
“Yes! That’s exactly it!”
“That’s stupid and crazy!”
“I don’t care! All I know is, we don’t have to drain love from anyone but instead we can share that love…”
Pharynx raised his brow and seemed to be thinking.
Applejack uttered to Spike as they walked down the halls, “Let me guess, the reason you pair us up was so you could find out why we can’t be a couple.”
“As much as I would like to know about that, we need to find Flurry before Thorax gets caught.”
“I thought you said you two had a plan!”
He nervously chuckled, “Well um, I might actually be making this up as I go.”
She groaned.
Suddenly Spike stopped and held her back as he pointed out a group of changeling guarding a room. He whispered, “Flurry’s got to be in there…”
AJ nodded, “With her powers it makes sense that they would have lots of changelings to keep an eye on her so she doesn’t escape.”
He suggested, “So we’ll need a code word, like if I say ‘lover’ you can say ‘boy’.”
She rolled her eyes, “You not giving up, are you?”
“I love you, so of course I’m not giving up.”
She felt her heart beating rapidly from those words. Until she reminded herself to keep her head in the game here. She suggested, “A code word won’t be necessary.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You can just use your fire breath.”
He blinked in bewilderment before a smile spread across his face, “It was so obvious. See? This is why I needed you to stay in the first place…”
She felt her cheeks flushing and uttered, “Really?”
“Yes. You can think of a plan of action while I just think of more complicated ideas to fix the problem. I would be lost without you.” on that note he moved forward while she was left speechless.