The land of Abyssinia lies behind the diplomats and their escort. The local cats wave back at them though they pay little attention to the mineral canine among them. However, it’s a start: the first step to a long and bountiful friendship between Abyssinians and Diamond Dogs.
The homeward journey is long and takes a few days to complete. It doesn’t help that wings are out of the question when a unicorn and a Diamond Dog are in tow. Spike can’t carry them in flight for days on end even with the buff muscles he’s grown over the years. The train isn’t an option either: who needs rails when creatures have traveled cart-churned paths and trade routes for centuries and millennia? That mentality flies against the new and progressive face on the Equestrian throne, Princess Twilight Sparkle herself. Still, there’s joy to be found in taking it slow, treading the worn way, and spending precious time with his buddies.
They rest up in an inn at night. The innkeeper, desiring to curry favor by granting them deluxe bedrooms and free dinner, is dumbfounded when his generosity is denied. They’re just doing their job, they say, and they’ll pay like the others and have regular rooms, please. Their hearty dinner is an exhibition to the lucky dwellers there: the dragon Friendship Ambassador of Equestria, the unicorn Prince of the Crystal Empire, and the diamond dog Diamondian Diplomat to Abyssinia—all three breaking bread with each other over small talk, big laughs, and average-sized mugs of cider.
They retire to their bedroom hours later. By then, the diamond dog diplomat is fast asleep, his tongue wagging at dreams of uncovering caches of gems galore. Shining Armor, rocking a mature stubble for a rugged veteran’s look, sleeps too.
But sitting at a wooden desk by candlelight, Spike stays awake.
Before long, the flame’s burning light is enough to get Shining up. The loud turning of a page doesn’t help his sleep. With enough army experience to perform covert operations single-hoofedly, he casts his blanket away and sneaks up on Spike.
He announces his presence by poking his head into view.
“Oh, uh, hi, Shining,” says the muscular dragon, sheepish. “Too noisy?”
Shining shrugs. “It’s fine. You’ve been lugging those around for a long time, though.”
“You mean this?” A shiny new comic holds up well under the candlelight. “Not this specific one. The local shop is up-to-date with every major series, and the Power Ponies just had a new release. I couldn’t resist!”
The ex-Captain of the Guard shakes his weary head. “Some things never change.”
Spike flashes a handsome smile. “Growing up, I’ve learned to stop doing childish things… like being afraid of childish things. It’s certainly better than drinking your heart away,” and a wink seals the deal.
“But you’re already bulkier than Bulk Biceps!” jabs Shining, poking Spike on a beefy shoulder. “You’re already macho!”
The two share a laugh at that. “You still have those Brutus Force comics, you know! You’re just saying that because you know you can never be more muscular than me!”
“Uh, actually—” taps his forehooves, eyes avoiding Spike’s “—I was planning to auction them off. You know, adding funds to the Crystal Treasury.”
Spike calls his bluff with a deadpan stare.
“Yeah, you got me. The funds are for more comics and O&O stuff… and some trading card games I’ve missed out on during my Royal Guard years.” He rests his head on the desk. “And free time just creeps in with Flurry Heart growing up so fast. We won’t be prince and princess for long ‘cause everyone’s helping her with her future Crystal Princess duties, so I’ve got much more free time now. I can get back in the military academy as a teacher, but I’d still have lots of hours for pastime.
“Though I gotta say, you’ve really stuck with the Power Ponies all the way. Doesn’t seem like you read them every day, but it’s really true: you bring them over on every ambassadorial trip.”
“It calms my nerves.” A glance at the steady candle. “You know how stressful diplomacy can get. I may not be a cape-wearing superhero, but seeing the Power Ponies cut through adversity means I could do it too.”
Shining Armor ruffles his head only to realize Spike’s too tall for that, and ruffling scales isn’t as easy as ruffling manes. “Good for you, but—“
He searches the dragon suspiciously. After checking the sleeping dog one more time—he snores peacefully—“Let me guess: it’s that meeting you have with… them, right?”
Spike holds the comic up against the candlelight. A smile glimmers by the flame. “Yup.”
Shining shakes his big-grinned head. “It’s one thing to hear it from Twily, but it’s another to hear it straight from you! I’m still amazed at how that happened. Ah, I’d wish that’d happen to Brutus Force, but I don’t think I’d survive planets without any oxygen at all. Now, if you’ll excuse me—“ a long stretch-filled yawn “—I’m gonna go back to sleep now, and I think you should too. Don’t want to have a grumpy dragon vomiting fire in the middle of the inn.”
After another good laugh to share, Shining goes back to bed. He returns to snoring in less than a minute, leaving Spike to his comics.
The trip back home flies by fast. It isn’t long before they reach the closest train station, and then it’s a dozen hours of sitting there and taking the diamond dog diplomat back home. Deep in the heartlands of Equestria, they stop by Ponyville where Pinkie Pie showers them with pastries as appreciation for their hard work. Fifteen minutes later, they enter Canterlot where Spike hops off, leaving Shining strapped in for his northern trip back home to his Crystal Empire family.
It’s sunset, the perfect time for him to bump into Twilight. She reports a slow day today while they trot through castle halls: a few laws passed, a new planned wing to the School of Friendship, deciding which noble’s social function to attend over the week. “And whatever you do, Spike, it’s best you rest up early for tomorrow. It’s gonna be one manic day traveling to Griffonstone with Gallus and the griffon Royal Guard.”
“Another friendship meeting, then?”
“That and finally renovating the statues too. It’s amazing to see how far they’ve gone. From dilapidated dumpster fire to a second Golden Age!”
While Spike hears Twilight’s news of the day, a whisper nags at the back of his mind: It pays to be punctual, after all. Especially when we meet every two months these days instead of every two weeks.
Twilight stops her trot, giving Spike the once-over past her grand flowing mane. “You keep looking at the ceiling. Something on your mind? Sure things went well with the Diamond Dogs and the Abyssinians?”
His shoulders droop a little as practiced. “Definitely not. Trying again one more time next month… and Luster Dawn graduating too, right?”
“In about a month yes.” She tilts her head, seeing Spike’s giddy smile. “Having something tonight?”
His cheeks flareup. He nudges her on the shoulder. “Oh, you know!”
“It is the second Saturday of an even-numbered month, after all.” A giggle cuts away any remaining tension. “Promise you won’t take long?”
“I’ll take long, Twilight! It’s Sunday tomorrow!”
She rolls her eyes with a jesting groan. “Have it your way then, but that means you’ll have a jam-packed Monday! Thorax still has to deal with that satellite state on one of those islands off the Fillypine Sea pronto.”
The big bulky dragon jumps in his place. “Thank you, Twi!”
The alicorn princess rolls her eyes again. “You’re still such a kid from the good old days,” she mutters out of hearing range.
After saying goodbye to Twilight who’ll soon start Night Court, Spike heads to his quarters. They are decently well-furnished: the walls aren’t made of dragon edibles, for one, since bricks aren’t as tasty as crystals. A good bed, a big fridge, and a little hoard of gemstones all on his own in a vault: modern dragon hoards in this modern day and age.
A glance at the clock: six-twenty eight. Cutting it close.
A Do Not Disturb sign hangs on his door which he then locks. Into his wardrobe room, he opens up a cabinet where several Rarity-tailored suits hang. He sticks out a claw deep into a cabinet, pushes through a swamp of more clothes. Blindly, he turns the lock at the very end, staying there for a good three or four minutes to hash out the right combination. A click confirms the safe’s opening, and blindly again, he pulls something out of it.
Out of the wardrobe’s suffocating darkness and into clear light, a thin and colorful thing: a comic. A Power Ponies comic. The issue with Verumarendi and all. Verumarendi’s Game Over!
He puts it down for a moment to have on some proper clothes: a jacket and a hat reminiscent of the Guys’ Nights he still does with Big Mac and Discord. Not too formal, but formal enough to be dapper, snappy, and cool.
Spike checks himself out in the mirror and laughs. “Still as giddy as ever, eh, Mister the Dragon?”
But he has enough with his own looks. He picks up his comic and speeds to the last page, the one with those tiny familiar words.
After reading the words out loud—remembering last-minute to lock the wardrobe room—a portal opens up: that amazing swirling rift in spacetime he’s seen so many times before, made quiet and still as to not leave a trace behind.
He steps in.
The crossover to other dimensions leaves Spike with a dizzy head no matter how much practice he’s had over the years. With much experience, however, he has his dizziness subsiding in mere seconds these days.
Though he staggers from the recoil, someone props him up. “Woah! Steady there, Spike! You need something? Need a glass of orange juice?”
Spike looks and sees the stallion helping him up. Grown-up, sure, but though his costume grew with him, it never really changed. The raccoon mask around his eyes are still as prominent as ever, and the cape too.
“Nah, I don’t need any of that,” Spike says with a clawbump to Hum Drum’s hoof. “I just need someone to modify that portal machine or whatever so it won’t hammer my head.”
As the dragon nurses the remnants of his headache, Hum Drum walks him through the lab. Scientists mind their own business, busying themselves with more important projects than greeting Spike, though a few take the courtesy to wave or nod at him.
“Alright, they’re up the next floor, Spike! In the main room!”
Up the stairs, then Spike sees it: the meeting room of the Power Ponies, a small little round table that doubles as their dining area and a table for board games. In truth, a table of friendship and good times between Maretropolis’s greatest defenders.
Best of all, the Power Ponies are there. Rager and Radiance chat about fashionable greenhouses and how to breed plants super-packed with nutrients so orphans and other needy ponies around the world can easily grow their own food for the day. On the side, Fili-Second chugs on a jug of coffee, the rich brown beverage trickling down her chin—it’s decaf, Hum Drum assures him.
“Is that Spike?!”
The dragon turns around to see two teenage ponies galloping up to him, wearing their own good-guy get-ups. The colt carries a rope and a pair of nunchucks while the mare sports a tornado-shaped amulet and several glass bottles of lightning.
Spike looks down at the little ponies before him. “I guess you’re the apprentices they’ve been talking about, right?”
“Sure are,” coos a raspy voice.
Spike looks up to see Zapp coming in with Mare-velous: their faces much more creased since the first time he saw them more than a decade ago. As Mare-velous once said after Spike commented on it a few visits ago, We’re both the oldest of the bunch, anyway. Kind of funny, really, how Matter-horn’s the youngest of us. Looks like she’s never gotten older! Being trained on the mountaintops really does wonders for your health, eh?
Spike kneels down to the apprentices’ level, getting all of their attention. “And, uh, who are you two again?”
“I’m Three-Strand Coil!” says the stallion, whipping his half dozen of ropes about.
“And I’m Forked Light!” declares the mare, conjuring up mini tornadoes around her head.
A smirk creeps up his mouth. “Wanna show me what you got?”
So the apprentices show off for their inter-universal visitor. Coil throws his ropes into the air and they split off into mini-ropes grasping objects with their tight grip and lassoing them right onto his back. Meanwhile, Forked unleashes a tornado along with her jars of lightning, combining them into a storm-powered twister sucking up and electrifying dummy targets Zapp brought into the room.
When the dust clears, Spike stands stunned and still. “Wow, that’s incredible!”
“Spike!”
His heart stops. No need to turn around to know who this new pony is.
He scoops her up in a great hug, almost suffocating but she doesn’t mind. It lasts for a while before he puts her down gently. Kindly, still with spring in her step, though eye bags and a fading scar are reminders that even she too must set things up for the next generation.
“How’s things?” he asks Matter-Horn.
Matter-Horn takes off her goggles to take a more relaxed air: a sign of close friendship. “Other than fending off a bunch of dolphin-controlling brainwashers? It’s all good! Also, did you know the Maretropolis Centennial Celebration is coming up? It commemorates one hundred years of the city since its founding! That’s a week from now, but we’re all helping them set the festivities up starting tomorrow.”
“Funny you should say that! Tomorrow, I’ve got some big shoes to fill too!”
And Matter-horn chuckles and slaps Spike on the shoulder. “We’ve got a lot more in common than we think!”
The other Power Ponies gather around the big table. For Hum Drum, he joins the duo of Spike and Matter-horn as they sit by a smaller table on the far end of the room.
The sight of the mare’s tired eyes turns Spike’s gears. “So I’ve been thinking. I haven’t really asked this before… but what are your retirement plans?”
“About time you’ve popped the question, huh?” cuts in Hum Drum.
But Matter-Horn’s smile is as warm as ever, peering at her friends of over twenty years—just having a fun time chatting though flesh and strength may fail.
A soft sigh leaves her muzzle. “Mare-velous has been making her transition a gradual one: short stints as a museum tour guide, helping out with archaeology sites close to the city. Zapp’s already working her way through the ranks of the city’s weather factory—she wants to end up leading the whole region some day. Fili-Second is a wandering spirit: not even sure she’ll stay put to have a family, so I think she’ll see the world on her own terms without anything hindering her from stopping by and hanging out with us once in a while. Radiance plans to return to gadgeteering full-time, and she’s more than willing to pass on the art of attack constructs to a worthy successor. Rager’s afraid she might pass her bulk-up genetics onto her foals, but you’ve already heard of her engagement to Spruce Manners; she’s not letting it stop her… and with less things to protest for in the environment, she may retire to a life of housemaking.”
As she talks, Spike takes a good look at the Power Ponies there. All laughing, all striking up conversation with the two apprentices and each other over salad and orange juice. Someone may call the heroes and they’ll be up in seconds to fight crime and save the day, but here, they are simple ponies. Real, living, breathing ponies with a past to learn from, a future to prepare for, and a present to make the best out of.
Matter-Horn puts a hoof to her chest. “As for me—“
“Wait, you didn’t tell him yet?” says Hum Drum, a little surprised.
Matter-Horn tilts her head quizzically. “I’d rather he gets the news while you’re here too!”
“Get what news?” Spike asks.
And Matter-horn raises her head. Rubs her chin which doesn’t feel as strong and sturdy as a decade ago. “You know that I’ll be the last one to move on. You see how Mare-velous and Zapp have their own apprentices already. The other three are still on the lookout for the right ones, and we’ll know in time who’ll fill their horseshoes. When they do come, I’ll be the last one left: the veteran of the new-age Power Ponies, there to guide them. Wouldn’t be for long since I’d be pushing into my fifties by then, and their leadership needs fresh blood. So when I move on to become a full-time scientist, guess who’ll be in my stead?”
It’s a head scratcher for the dragon. “Your future son or something, right?”
“Oh, you don’t know?” she blurts out. “I’m infertile!”
That hits Spike like a train to the chest. “You… are?
Eyes lock on to Hum Drum. “Uh, don’t look at me! You told me it was a sensitive subject.”
“But Spike’s a good friend,” Matter-Horn says. “I’m sure he would’ve taken it with grace.”
Shock still all over him, Spike steps back. “Yeah, other than that I’m still learning new things about you after all these years.” An eyebrow raised. “Although you seem okay with being infertile. Eerily okay.”
“That’s because I’ve learned how to move on from it,” she says, glancing away for a moment. “It wasn’t an easy ride—had lots of tears and crying over it, especially since most of us wanted to have our own families too. But then… well, I didn’t just stop moping around. I was crazy about looking for alternatives, A-K-A the adoption centers.”
Her smile broke out into a tearful grin. “However, as legitimate and loving that option was, I realized I was already a mother. I had to be a good mother especially when his real father and mother have been long dead. And while modesty keeps me from saying it, I think—“ wipes a tear from her eye “—I truly believe my progeny would stand up and declare me as the best mother in the world.”
She puts a hoof on Hum Drum, nuzzling him on the head. “So you’re right, Spike. When I finally step down from my role in the Power Ponies, my officially adopted son will take his place in my steed.”
And Spike’s heart swells to the stars. Raising a muscular claw to the air, “Alright, Hum Drum, bro!”
“Yeah, bro!” and they bump appendages, hugging each other in congratulations.
A quick blur comes up: Fili-Second and the other Power Ponies follow behind, the speedy mare holding up a map with some restaurants encircled. “I’m not sure if I’m interrupting any sappy soap opera talk, but yes, Spikey boy, they’ve got The Alteration Agency up on Broadpath Theater: a conspiracy thriller! And coffee donuts, my treat!”
The others laugh in good-hearted fun, and Spike gives Fili-Second a thumbs up. “Yeah, I’m down for that!”
So he and the Power Ponies with their apprentices venture down from HQ and into Maretropolis proper.
There, the skyscrapers rise, and it’s much like Manehattan but two or three decades into the future: more buildings rising to the sky than ever, more cars rolling about under high-tech trains and above subway rails. The sun has long set, and in the middle of a long twilight, nightlife bustles with lights and colors aplenty.
The ponies there too, many he never saw in the background of a comic panel. One selling flowers, another dressed like a secret agent, some other selling pear and orange pastries in a mom-and-pop’s: none of this stops him even as he comes close to bumping into a streetlight—so distracted by these real-life “background ponies.”
As they step into the Broadpath Film District, there it is in typical adventure-thriller form: a poster showing off a couple young actors and actresses in action poses with an exploding building behind them.
“You ever get the feeling these actors just keep getting younger?” Spike asks Matter-Horn.
The unicorn rolls her eyes and keeps on smiling. “Why should I care? We’ll just buy popcorn and watch to our heart’s content. Let’s see where the night takes us.”
And Spike smiles too: about to hang out with the Power Ponies, about to watch a film with them. Not as superheroes but as ponies with a present, the now, to make the best of and enjoy.
So Spike and the Power Ponies enjoy themselves, letting the night whisk them away to greater joys.