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// Shattered Petals 
// Story: Thick Scales, Warm Heart 
// by Freeda91 
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Shattered Petals


“Ha!” Twilight screamed happily “You actually though Spike could possibly… wait, what!” The unicorn finally gasped as the dragon’s words where processed in her mind, causing her brain to crash; Spike had decided to join the dragons’ conquer of Equestria, making him their enemies. There was a sudden deep silence in the area; the ponies could only stare and have their jaws drop with no defense against the shocking present. Spike had been their friends ever since they met and now he’d just leave that friendship for power, knowledge or whatever reason he had had. A strange sensation ran through Twilight’s body; was it anger? Anger against his assistant? Anger for being betrayed? All of the previous. The fact that Spike had decided to change sides just like that was something as unbelievable as it was hard to face.

“My dear Spikey-wikey…” Rarity whispered as a small drop came out of the corner of her eye. She closed her eyes in order to avoid breaking into tears. Her heart was devastated but it was clearly not the right time to show that kind of weakness to the now enemy; was it? How couldn’t she be sad? The very same dragon who had confessed to her and to whom she had actually started to develop a thing for was now on the other side of the line. Something seemed to be wrong though; her heart was brutally broken, so how could Spike stand still while the love of his life was suffering that much.

It was then that it occurred to her, that perhaps he didn’t love her that much; he didn’t love any of them the enough not to betray them. Even though the facts pointed this out, there was still an uneasy feeling deep within her heart; she couldn’t just come to conclusions that quickly, none of them could. Spike needed to give them an explanation, but it seemed they wouldn’t get it soon; but she’d make sure they got it somehow.

“I can’t deny it and neither can you!” Spike ranted the ponies, not only his friends “you know how everypony treats me like a monster, and guess what?” he said pointing at himself with proud “Maybe I am a monster! I am a dragon, like it or not.” The small dragon took a quick pause to rest his voice from shouting and resumed. “And even though you’re my friends now, it is only a matter of time before things change. I’m given the opportunity to accelerate that moment and be trained to be the most powerful kind of dragon.” He now stared at Twilight “What would you do? You don’t know… You’ve never had any idea of what it is to be different from everyone else, to be feared by your own friends, to be condemned to live the last moments of your life alone.” The young dragon’s words cut through the ponies’ hearts like sharp blades; it was clearly now which road Spike had chosen and it was now certain that he was no longer the Spike they knew and loved.

Rarity wasn’t the only pony who was crying now; as contagious as laughter, her tears expanded through the six ponies, now broken. It was such a sad moment even Pinkie Pie had fallen in the contagiousness of her friends’ cries. Rainbow Dash and Applejack however, were frowning angrily at the dragon as well as letting a couple of tears come down through their faces.

“Do not get ahead of yourself, young dragon” White interrupted the heartbreaking moment. “As I may have offered you training, I still require some guarantee of your loyalty to me.” He added and turned to the ponies. “These were your friends…” he pointed out “kill at least one of them and you will automatically be awarded the honor to be my apprentice.” Everyone stared at him; his dragon subjects, the ponies, and Spike. He may have decided to join him, but he definitely wasn’t ready to kill; let alone his friends. He was stunned by the request of the dragon king, and so were the ponies. Fear now replaced the sadness within them, as they questioned themselves if Spike would do it or not, and if not what would the dragons do to them.

“My highness” Garble asked permission to speak, and as soon as he saw the dragon nod he continued “This shri… Spike, couldn’t even break a single phoenix egg” Spike frowned at the red dragon “He won’t be useful at all for this war; he might as well be imprisoned with these namby pamby ponies.” Spike wanted to shut him up somehow, but he had almost been killed by him not so long ago, let alone he needed to build some trust within his new fellow dragons.

“He’ll have to show me his loyalty somehow; I’d prefer he killed one of them, but as I can see” White said noticing the small size Spike was compared to the ponies “He couldn’t even catch them if it wasn’t for my magic.”

“Put me to the test!” Spike growled; White frowned at him for speaking without permission, but allowed him to continue anyway. “I’ll show you I don’t need your help; teleport them away and I’ll catch them.”

White grinned at the young dragon’s confidence “All right, Spike. But I’ll have Chomp and Ace keep an eye on you until you’ve proven yourself.” Saying so, White used his magic to teleport the ponies with a white flash at different locations, all inside Ponyville. “I shall recommend you to track them with your smell; if it is sensitive enough that is.” Spike nodded and left, searching for his friends again; Chomp and Ace followed him from a close distance, constantly hitting and blaming each other for their lame loss against the ponies.

Rainbow Dash had appeared somewhere close to Fluttershy’s cottage, and as stubborn as ever, she proceeded to search for her friends from high in the sky; not caring whether the dragons lurking the skies spotted her or not. After not too long, she was being shot several fire balls from practically everywhere and even though she could evade them, the risk was such that she was forced to land and remain silent for a while. On the harsh landing she got her wing hurt; even though it hadn’t broken, it hurt her enough not to enable her to fly for a while. Exhausted, she hid herself inside what seemed to be an empty house to treat her wing. She realized how stupid it had been of her to fly that carelessly; getting out of Ponyville would definitely be impossible by simply flying, and galloping was an even worse idea.

As she was rubbing her injured wing a soft voice whispered from behind her, scaring her to her soul. As she jumped back and turned around she saw Fluttershy, who was taking care of a bunch of injured and scared fillies; within them were Scootaloo, Applebloom and Sweetie Bell. The shy pony was surprised to see her friend’s reaction “Are you okay, Rainbow?”

“I-I’m fine” stuttered the blue pegasus “It’s just that you scared me back there” she explained rubbing the back of her head.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy apologized bringing both hooves to her mouth.

“Hey, don’t sweat it” Rainbow cut her off “Good thing you’re here, I was starting to get worried for everypony; I couldn’t see anypony from the sky.” she added.

“What do we do about Spike and the dragons?” Fluttershy asked; the Cutie Mark Crusaders stepped behind them to overhear their conversation as soon as they heard their friend being mentioned. “He’s searching for us, you know”

“I suppose we’d better stay here for a while, as much as I don’t like it, it’s better for us to remain hidden from the dragons until we are safe enough to leave.” Rainbow groaned as her eyes dropped.

There was an extremely deep silence; with the fear that consumed everypony, and the fact that they needed to be quiet, no one could conform each other as they were all in the same boat. And they couldn’t rest just yet, the dragons’ first step of their plan was to attack Ponyville, who knows what’d be of their citizens, and if they wanted to recover the town, they needed to think for once. The two pegasi realized then how much they needed Twilight.

After not so long of being hidden from the rampaging creatures that set on fire everything that moved, they heard a loud knocking at the door as well as a yelp for help; they recognized this voice as Rarity’s. Rainbow Dash rushed to the door and opened it to let a panting Rarity inside; the unicorn gasped for air as she reincorporated herself. She then glanced at both pegasi and thanked Celestia for finding them; however, she then remembered why the sudden rush inside. “Girls, I’m being chased!” Rarity yelled. The two friends gasped in horror and surprise.

“Do you think they saw you get in here?” Rainbow asked in fear.

“I don’t know, but Spike was one of them” was the unicorn’s unsatisfactory answer. The three of them sighed slightly as they understood why they now had to fear the small guy. They didn’t have time enough to deepen their agony as a couple of seconds later they could hear the dragons land in front of the door; they didn’t know how to be subtle at all. They reacted quickly and got away from the door; as they did so, Chomp crushed the wooden door with his tail and removed the remaining pieces of it with his hands. The door was no more and they could be seen by the three dragons; and to harden things, they had fillies to protect.

“Fluttershy, get the fillies out of here!” commanded Rainbow Dash to her pink manned friend. “I’ll take care of these lizard brains.” The rainbow manned pegasus now stood in front of her friends, blocking any attempt to reach them without getting past her dead body; she wasn’t the wielder of the element of loyalty for nothing. With her hurt wing she knew she wouldn’t be able to perform such swift movements as she might need and would end up losing, but she’d give her friends the time enough to escape.

“At least allow me to help” Rarity put her hoof on her shoulder and whispered for the dragons not to hear “if anyone is capable of bringing Spike back to his senses, it is me.” Rainbow Dash though about it for a second and nodded, and using all the strength of her wings, she casted small gusts of wind to repel the intruders while Fluttershy exited the building through the back door with the fillies; she then vanished into the forest for protection.

Ace had been blown away by Rainbow Dash’s wind, but Chomp remained on the ground and didn’t even move an inch; he also stopped Spike from blowing off as he grabbed him before he did so. As the fat dragon was gathering some air to create fire, Rarity quickly assaulted him with dirt on his eyes; the dragon yelled in pain and was now blinded. Rainbow Dash took this chance and tackled him with all her power and got him on the floor for a while; he was busy trying to get his eyes open, which gave her the time enough to take care of the blonde dragon. Rarity, on the other hand, was now face to face with Spike; he needed to explain himself, and if he had really chosen the dragons over his friends then she’d try her best to convince him to help them.

Spike’s eyes resembled hatred and it seemed greed would quickly follow and make of him a monster again. Once again, Rarity felt devastated and confused at the same time; she knew he loved her, there was no mistaking. Then again he betrayed her; nopony could ever understand that logic. It couldn’t be because he understood he didn’t have a chance with her because it was a lie. He knew they both loved each other and if the dragon invasion hadn’t interfered, they’d be together at last. This wasn’t his natural behavior; perhaps a hex?

“Spike, why are you doing this?” The unicorn showed her concern with the most cracked voiced she had ever had. “Didn’t you love me?” Even though it wasn’t intentional, a small tear accompanied her words. Spike stood there, emotionless and speechless for a couple of seconds with is eyes closed; he was preparing himself to say something, something he didn’t want to say or was too ashamed to say.

The small dragon sighed and answered back “I’m sorry my love, but I have to do this” The dragon’s reply took no more than a second to be understood by the unicorn. But it felt like ages; ages facing the small purple dragon and remembering all the good times they had had together before then. From their adventures hunting gems to the dragon’s birthday disaster and even to what should have been the kiss from receiving the beautiful sapphire flower. The sudden answer broke Rarity’s spirit in ridiculously small shards, and her heart was crushed into even more pieces. Before Rarity could do anything else, the room was covered in fire and smoke.




As the smoke covered the structure that had been blazing from the green fire for a couple of minutes, Rainbow Dash defeated the blonde dragon by doing the same thing as not so long ago. But she couldn’t do anything else than gasping in fear and despair as she saw the place her friend was at falling down in ashes as the small dragon came out with a lock of purple hair in his claws. Before she could do anything like assaulting at Spike for doing what she thought he had done, Chomp got back to his feet and grabbed Rainbow Dash; not any kick or whatever she’d try could get her free from his grip, as the dragon was resistant to all of them. Normally she’d free herself using her wings, but her injured one prevented her from doing so.

“You’re lucky my wing’s like this, otherwise you’d be crying” Rainbow growled behind their backs as the three dragons regrouped. Ironically though, Chomp was crying due to the dust on his eyes.

“What do we do with this rainbow pony?” Chomp asked his new ‘boss’. It didn’t surprise Spike that someone as small as him could be Chomp’s boss. He was clearly what would be called muscles only; and not even that, as he had been easily taken down by ‘weak’ ponies once.

“We go back, I’ve proven myself.” Spike firmly said without explaining anymore. With Rainbow Dash as their prisoner, they headed back to where White was supposedly waiting for them. The rainbow manned pegasus muttered several silent insults incomprehensible for the dragons as they made their way to the dragon king. On the way Rainbow Dash could see the houses, now free from fire but totally damaged from it, which now were empty and nowhere near of being inhabitable. Despite her hard work trying to cease the fire and defend her land from the invaders, it was useless; they had destroyed Ponyville.

As the dragons who brought with them a defeated Rainbow Dash approached the king White, they passed through a devastating scene as ponies who were lucky enough to live after the attack were chained together and kept under constant vigilance. Rainbow Dash was relieved for a second, as she couldn’t spot any of her friends within those ponies. Then a fearful thought poisoned her mind as the sudden realization that perhaps her friends weren’t there because they had suffered the same destiny as Rarity. Her fears decreased as she saw three dragons bring four unconscious ponies: all her friends.

“These four ponies recklessly confronted some of my dragons, and in order to test you, I allowed them to live for a while” White said obviously pointing the four now waking up ponies; then he noticed Rainbow Dash and a grin formed in his face “I see you’ve caught one of your friends as you had to”

“I’m afraid I didn’t capture her” Spike shook his head “Chomp did. However, I did something further than capturing one…” he said as he showed the white dragon the lock of purple hair to which his friends all gasped at as they glanced at it. “…I turned one to ashes.” The young dragon finally said.

“Just a lock of hair?” White complained “You know I need more evidence than that”

“Rainbow Dash here is the only witness” Spike added then revealed a sapphire flower in his hand “and to prove my friends I did so…” he said as he gently placed the precious flower that had taken him so much work to make and to give; which meant a lot to the love of his life, who he had burned. The dragon proceeded to stomp it with such ferocity the noise was deafening and the image was so perturbing, the five ponies where awe struck. Even if Pinkie Pie’s sense could foresee many things in the immediate future; that one was clearly something she’d have never guessed.

“How could you!” Rainbow Dash roared in tears; there was no possible way she could ever hide the excessive amount. “How could you kill Rarity!” The last sentence replaced the deafening noise the crushing flower made; as it was even worse to hear those words than witnessing the proof that Spike had provided them.

The word Rarity felt like a taboo, as it suddenly hit the remaining ponies with the cruel reality that their friend was gone; and the assassin who had taken her away from them was no one else than Spike, one of their closest friends, and the one who loved Rarity the most. Pinkie Pie let a waterfall of salty water come from her eyes as she desperately gave consecutive small yet loud sobs. Her friends weren’t as exaggerated as her but were obviously heavily crying.

As White glanced at the cries of the five ponies he understood the young dragon was telling nothing else than the truth; in fact the most important thing for White, was for Spike to prove to himself that he wanted to be a real dragon. The shattered petals from the precious gift reduced to a clear and sparkling dust, shiny and beautiful yet awfully meaningless for the dragon, which quickly drifted away by a soft breeze into the nothingness. There stood Spike, surrounded by complete silence, amazed at what he had just done. The next thing he could hear was the applause of King White, followed by his subjects.

“Congratulations, young Spike” the evil dragon said “you have just earned yourself a high position in my troops; come with me so that we can talk” he gestured the small dragon to follow him then looked back at the dragons that were holding the five ponies “kill them” he coldly said.

The shocked baby dragon stood still, almost frozen, as he heard White’s command on the dragons who held his friends; he knew they were the enemy, but he did share his entire childhood with them. He already felt bad enough, so he stopped his superior. “Wait!” The white dragon frowned at the small dragon but listened anyway “I don’t think you should kill them, since they are the wielders of the elements of harmony” Spike must have said something that attracted the powerful dragon’s attention as he noticed how his eyes shot open “If the wielders die, the element just passes on to another one. However, we can keep them prisoners and that way they won’t be able to fetch the elements of harmony nor die to let another free pony wield them and defeat us.” Spike’s explanation seemed made up to the king; but it could make sense too.

“Interesting suggestion my faithful student” The dragon patted Spike’s head as he ordered his subjects to take the prisoners away.

Before they could do it however, all of them but Rainbow Dash had a not so mysterious purple glow enveloping them. Even though the dragons blocked Twilight’s horn, the spell wasn’t stopping. To everyone’s surprise, the four ponies turned into dust, only to disappear on thin air and allowing these very same ponies to charge from an entrance to the sewers. Despite the awful smell they now carried with them, they managed to get through the surprised guards and got close enough to Rainbow Dash for Twilight to teleport the five of them back to the sewers. As the dragons tried to follow them they found out they were far too big to pass through the narrow entrance.

“I’ll follow them!” Spike told the king, who stopped him on his tracks by blocking the way with his tail.

“I don’t think you can handle the five of them alone… yet.” White explained. Spike took an angry sigh, and conformed to simply follow his new leader in order to learn the magic that could make him a great and powerful dragon. “They will come on their own” White added as if he could predict the ponies’ moves.




The five ponies walked in a very depressed and slow way through the pestilent sewers. Rainbow Dash had already thanked them for the rescue, but felt ashamed of not being able to protect Rarity from her fate. She walked even slower than her friends because of this and the fact that they had no idea where they were going. Twilight however, seemed to have a hint of what the road would take them to and was leading with confidence.

“What exactly did you do Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked her magical friend “I know you didn’t teleport cause you’d have taken me too in the first place.”

“We tricked the dragons with a simple illusion” Twilight replied without even turning back to face the blue coated pony; she was busy and tired, using her magic to lighten the place up for them to see each other, and figuring out where they were going.

“What do we do now?” Applejack asked, her preoccupation affecting the whole group.

“We need to think of some way to rescue the captured ponies and ask princess Celestia for help.” Twilight answered before looking in understanding at her famished friends who barely followed behind her: Rainbow Dash was hurt, and they were lost; not to mention her hunger. After considering these facts she decided there was necessity for resting “for now, we need to find a place to take shelter” she then added.

“Where do you think this tunnel goes to Twilight?” Fluttershy asked her unicorn friend.

“I’m just guessing, but I think it may lead us to the castle were we confronted Nightmare Moon” Twilight replied the shy pegasus. “May as well serve us as a safe house for now” She took a deep sigh as a tear dropped on the wet tunnel “With Celestia as my witness, I swear I won’t let this crime against our friend go unpunished…whatever the cost”.









Whenever I used to do something like this to a main character in fanfiction with a long-forgotten account, I would usually get hate and threatening letters/ coments. I hope you enjoy this... drama.
See ya/read ya
Freeda91