Spike, or Humdrum as he was known in costume, was not a very happy dragon at the moment. First, he was left behind by Twilight and the power Ponies again; then when he went to survey the damage that they left behind for him to clean up, he was attacked by some unknown creature with a wrench which he had lost in the castle. As far as he was concerned, there wasn't much that could make the day much worse.
“No, no, no, no, no, no!” He was soon proven wrong as his legs, tiny as they were, were swept out from under him as a purple blur ran past him. As he was trying to regain his bearings, he looked up back the way he came to see the figure just before it disappeared around a corner.
“Was that a mouse? Seriously? Ugh, maybe Twilight was right about me not coming along if something like that can take me down. But why was it wearing a purple jumpsuit? Wait, how was it even talking in the first place?” His annoyance at being beaten by something that could easily ride around on his shoulder like a puppet, was quickly replaced by curiosity at the oddities he noticed. Rising to his feet once more, he took off after the creature, this time trying to be a bit more stealthy.
He found the mouse once again back at the tree, making a large commotion inside of it. Glancing through the window, while staying out of view as much as possible, he found that the mouse was tearing the place apart, searching for something.
“Where is it, where is it?! I'm sure I put it right around here!” Suddenly in front of Gadget, a piece of the wall fell inwards, allowing her to find what she was looking for. Spike watched as she went into the open cupboard, and saw her leave with a large ruby. Glancing around the mouse frowned at the mess around her.
“Shoot, my lab is in too much of a mess for this, but maybe...” She trailed off before dashing towards the main door of the base and exiting into the courtyard. Spike looked down and saw a concealed doorway in the tree open up, and the figure he had been following dash out into the castle. Following her, he was only partially surprised to see her go into Twilight's lab and start digging around in the spare parts.
“Now what is she doing in here?” Peeking into the room, he finally gets the time to examine the mouse as she digs through the pile of scraps. While he had seen some animals with hair before, it was still rare so seeing her blonde locks was a bit of a surprise. The mouse also was rather slender, which was easily seen with her simple lavender jumpsuit that was reminiscent of what would be seen in a vehicle repair shop. Atop her head was also a pair of goggles of the same color as her suit, with a small contraption along the side of it from which he spied a small gem sticking out of it. With only the sound of her rummaging around, he was easily able to hear the mouse speak to herself.
“No, that won't work. This one? No, not quite. Ooh, I can use that for... No, none of that. Stay focused Gadget. Wait, that one is perfect! Now I just need...” After pulling out a copper mounting coil, she looked around the room until her eyes settled on one of the screens in the room. Rushing over she opened a panel on the side of it and reached inside to the wiring. While she was distracted, the dragon slowly moved over to get a view of what she was doing inside of it. He didn't see where she pulled it from, but she noticed that she was attaching the coil to the wiring inside, with the gem she had taken from the tree mounted inside of that.
“Now, all I need is a thaumic converter and something to use to translate magical impulses.” As she went back into the scrap pile again, Spike looked over the mouse's shoulder, before moving over to a nearby desk and began digging through the drawers. He was curious about what she was putting together, and with his experience helping Twilight he could easily guess what she was looking for. Finding the items she mentioned, he slowly crept over to her before holding them out to the mouse and tapping her on the shoulder with them.
“Huh? Wait, those are perfect! Thanks!” Spike raised an eye-ridge as the mouse grabbed the offered objects and run towards the monitor she was messing with. This level of obliviousness was something he had come to expect from Twilight, but to see a mouse doing it? If it wasn't for the fact that she hadn't started anything in the new lab yet, he would have said that this situation had Twilight's hoofprints all over it.
After a quick bit of tweaking of the innards, Gadget hopped out of the panel and closed it up before running around to the front of it and switching it on. At first nothing but a random rainbow of colors appeared, but after meddling with he knobs on it a picture began to appear and flicker by as she spun a second one.
“No. Not that one. Not that either. Wait! There!” Suddenly she stops and hits a third knob, sending the picture into motion all on it's own. Spike's jaw drops as Celestia crashes into the room on the screen, followed soon by another figure that he recognized as Nightmare Moon. He watched in awe as the scene played out of the incident known to many now as the moment when the alicorn was forced to banish her sister, but not only as a video recording but one with audio as well. Soon the alicorn of the moon was banished into the object she was charged with controlling, leaving the alicorn of the sun alone in the room. Yet it did not stop there as the moments after were shown as well, moments that few really knew about as the history books could never agree on it.
“Huzzah! The foul beast has been defeated! All hail the Princess of Equestria! No! The Queen of Equestria! Prepare the coronation festival!” Princess Celestia's eye twitched at every word from the noble and the sounds of agreement of the ones around him. She had no words for their reaction until she felt something inside of her snap and two words slipped out.
“I'm sorry, your majesty? What was that you said?” Prince Blueblood the Third was too busy congratulating himself on his idea to react to the tiara that was thrown at him, knocking him out. The other nobles in the room gasped at the attack before turning fearful eyes on the solar princess as she glared at them in anger.
“I said, I QUIT!” Manes were blown back from her voice as she projected her anger through it. As she began to stomp away, one of the noble mares unsteadily spoke up.
“B-b-but why? Isn't this what you fought for? We thought you would be happy now that the threat is gone.” The alicorn froze in place before she turned her glare back on the group of ponies again.
“Happy? HAPPY!? That I just banished mine own sister to the moon!? That I may never see her again and you think that makes me happy!? Well if that is the way you feel, then you can deal with having no princess at all!” Flaring her wings the alicorn flapped once and took off out of the hole leaving the ponies to stare after her in horror.
Gadget and Spike watched all this with shocked expressions as the scene continued on, but neither were paying attention. The mouse just sat there on her knees, looking at the screen in shock, as Spike began to look thoughtful.
“Huh, is that what happened back then? That's nothing like what the history books said happened.” The smaller rodent let out a small yelp of shock as the dragon's voice finally made her realize that she wasn't alone in the room. Spinning around she reached for her tool-belt before brandishing a wrench as big as her between her and the other creature in the room.
“Ack! Not the face! Not the face!” Seeing the aggressive movement, the dragon flinched away and brought his arms up in front of his face, expecting more pain once again. Gadget looked at him as her panic slowly settled down before she tilted her head to the side as she realized that he seemed familiar. Her eyes widened as she remembered just where she had seen the purple and green dragon before.
“Wait, Spike!?” The dragon flinched again at her words before his eyes opened and he peeked out from behind his arms in confusion. Looking down on the mouse, he saw her frozen in shock before he tilted his head questioningly.
“How did you know my name? Wait... I mean... The name is Humdrum. Who is this Spike you speak of? He sounds like a handsome fellow, though.” Gadget wasn't fooled, but her attention wasn't on his attempt to divert attention away from his slip-up as she realized just how badly her experiment went wrong.
“No. Not again. I lost all of them again. Not only did I lose my family and old friends, but my new friends, too? How could I lose everything again?” Dropping her wrench, which shrank down to a smaller size, the mouse fell to her knees as the shock overwhelmed her. Soon tears were pouring from her eyes as the fact that she had been frozen for over a thousand years hit her, forcing the fact that she had nothing left once again.
Spike wasn't sure how to react to having the being that had attacked him earlier breaking down like she was now. He was actually starting to get flashbacks to some of Twilight's episodes when she was younger so he did the only thing that he could think of while patting her on the head.
“Um, there there? It'll be all right?” His actions did something though, as his leg became the victim of a death-grip by the mouse as she started bawling into him. With a sigh he tried to make himself comfortable as he did what he could to reassure the mouse until he could figure out what was going on with the situation.