//------------------------------//
// The Dark Side Smolders 
// Story: It's About "Princess Twilight Embracing The Dark Side" (And Raven Inkwell Gets Spiked) 
// by SparklingTwilight 
//------------------------------//

Surrounded by the guard ponies' halberds, Spike gaped. "Is this... a coup?"

The guards held their ground with courage girded by the presence of the former Chancellor, Raven Inkwell. Several boasted rather ragged looks, bedecked in armor stained by juice... or orange blood.

"Where have you taken the Princess?" Raven, squinting in one eye, thrust a hoof in challenge.

"Twilight--Princess Twilight is researching beneath Canterlot."

"A likely story." Raven withdrew her hoof, hissing.

"The sun set and rose...right?" Spike asked.

"Yes..." Raven admitted.

Spike sighed. "You've never known me to endanger the Princess! Sure, she might endanger herself. In fact," Spike bit his lower lip. "That happens quite often." Several guards exchanged knowing glances, recalling the UltraGriffon incident. "And admittedly, she's probably endangering herself right now, but I have always been at her side... Except right now, since I'm heading out... to--"

"Then, why?"

Spike looked at the guards. Royal Guards were usually discrete but the more who knew a secret, the more difficult it was to keep, and he had no idea how long it would take to lure Twilight from her cave. And many villains could be awaiting a moment of apparent weakness.

"Can we... discuss this in private?"

"I do not trust my safety in your presence... However," Raven noted Spike's odd position, half in and half out of the trapdoor. "You may rise and relocate for interrogation."

A guard lowered a halberd and brought up a rope cord, which he snapped with a grin.

Spike remembered something from Raven's Rules of Order. "In Princess Twilight's absence, her Chancellor holds authority. That's me. I'm her authority. You challenging it?"

Raven grimaced. "You've endangered the Princess!"

"And you're arresting her Chancellor."

Their gazes met.

"If I'm right and she's okay," Spike started. "You're going to look awfully bad to Twilight.... Maybe I should let you arrest me."

Raven hesitated, but Spike's forehead beaded with sweat.

"Stand down." Raven ordered her guards, whether because she was convinced by Spike's rhetoric, because she was plotting a betrayal, or because she realized Spike had powerful friends other than the Princess, Spike could not say.

"Spike, let's discuss this, just the two of us."

Taking Raven's actions to be surrender, Spike bore a smug grin upon his face as he climbed out of the trapdoor and followed Raven to a side meeting chamber that was filled with seven well-carved empty chairs and a stone table.

"Well," Raven said when the guards departed and the door had shut with a resounding thwack. "Out with it."

Spike considered. Raven had folded when confronted with his challenge. He hadn't realized getting his way could happen so easily. But, maybe the reversal in power was merely circumstantial. He'd still need to carefully select his words.

"Twilight decided the answer to a problem could be found deep beneath, in a restricted library."

"I've never heard of a--"

"It's been sealed for a thousand years."

Raven rolled her eyes. "Ridiculous. What have you done to the Princess, Spike?"

"Chancellor Spike." 

"A Chancellor does not stoop to locking a valued aide into her room, placing a guard near her door, and denying her access to her Princess." Raven's words were soft, likely so as not to be heard by the guards who were almost certainly directly outside, but the words nevertheless bubbled with bile. Then, she dropped on the table the offending bit that had wedged her door.

Spike chuckled as the bit spun to a stop. "Heh-heh. That's how I feel every day."

"What?"

"You've been treating me like that. Locked me into a schedule over which I have no input. You don't give useful feedback, and you deny me access to my best friend--Twilight!"

Raven met Spike's sparkling eyes. Then, she snorted.

The two were silent for a while. 

Raven broke first. "I. Was. Training. You." Punctuating her words, she met Spike's gaze again. "You returned my mentorship with hatred, a wedged maliciously polished bit that nearly blinded me, and you snatched away the Princess!"

Spike slowly shook his head.

Raven breathed deep, composing herself. "I have been training you in this... traditional way so you will grow into your job with greater strength."

Spike could keep silent about the depths of his annoyance with Raven's methods and not risk angering his 'teacher' out of a misplaced sense of politeness or fear. But he was the Chancellor. He shouldn't let himself be pushed around. Raven acted like the Chancellor she once had been, but she wasn't one anymore. "You want to make yourself indispensable to Twilight!" He accused.

Raven swallowed. "I'm helping Twi--the Princess while you're learning."

"This schedule is not very balanced. I get no time with Twilight."

"Once you complete--"

"The way you're structuring it with no explanations, no help: only criticism and blame--that doesn't work. I go into a meeting unbriefed on the personalities, with no words of encouragement. They bicker and I get the blame for their actions and for not knowing anything about them when you could have told me something! You've worked with them for decades!"

Raven's eyes moved away from Spike's, focusing up on the wall behind him. She pushed her glasses back tight against her wrinkled forehead.

"My book has the answers."

"You have decades of experience and you don't share it. You know that book's barely legible! You have better hoofwriting than that! You scrawled scratch on purpose!"

Raven hissed. "You have it all figured out. Ready to replace me?"

"It's my job!" Spike thrust his arms into the air.

"It is mine too!" Raven shook. Then she bucked the wall behind her, and winced after the collision. "This is my calling."

Spike blinked.

"If I don't do this, then I have nothing. I have much more to give."

"You're taking me away from my best friend!"

"It's just temporary." Raven was breathing hard.

"You admit it!" Spike grinned. "You're keeping me from Twilight."

"The Princess--she is your friend. You will always have her. She's not mine and she will never be. But I can help her and Equestria!"

Spike had learned a few things about friendship during his years with Princess Twilight, who had, before ruling all of Equestria, once served *merely* as the princess of friendship. So, he had a few questions.

"Raven...what do you do when you're not working?"

"I'm always working."

"When you take time off..."

"I'm thinking about work. Making Equestria better."

"But you have friends. What do you do with them?"

"...No."

Spike met her gaze. "How is that possible?"

"I served Princess Celestia for decades. There were always responsibilities, issues to resolve. I am integrally important to Equestria. Moreso than your friends." She glowered.

"You mean--"

"Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Starlight Glimmer, Sunburst, Ember of the Dragons, I could go on listing them and I know that if you wanted, you could crush me." Raven stomped a hoof. "But I'm more important. Without me there would be no Equestria. Think about that before you pull rank!"

"I--what?" Neither concept had even occurred to Spike.

"You're going to replace me," Raven insisted, "but I will not let Equestria suffer!"

"Then why not be more helpful?"

Raven stomped her hooves again.

"Okay," Spike considered. "You were trying to help?"

Raven snorted.

"You didn't do it in a very friendly way."

Raven closed her eyes and took a very deep breath.

Spike wasn't getting anywhere, so he considered a different angle, extending a kindness. "You have a lot of knowledge--"

"I was *her* student." Raven blinked.

"Really?"

Raven sat back on her haunches, tears forming at the edges of her eyelids.

"I was sent to Ponyville...decades before the Princess." Princess Twilight, with Spike by her side, had been sent to Ponyville by Princess Celestia for training, with orders to make friends. She had succeeded wildly, and with her friends stopped the return of the villainous Nightmare Moon.

"Princess Twilight made friends--I did not." Several tears fell.

"Oh." 

"And when I returned, I was no longer *her* student, but she found a position for me. And I served. And watched other students fail. Until Princess Twilight--"

"But surely you had relationships?"

"No."

Spike's rival was shaking and staring at the table. Heart touched, Spike reached out a claw to her, across the table. She took it in a hoof and squeezed.

"And now Celestia's gone."

"And she didn't ask me to accompany her," Raven sniffled. 

As he had so often hugged Twilight when she was feeling gloom, Spike walked over and embraced Raven. It wasn't like hugging Twilight. Raven stiffened and pushed him away. "No."

Silence again.

"Where is Twilight?" Raven repeated.

"As I said; in a forbidden dark library beneath Canterlot. We need to get her out."

"And we wasted time on...what?" 

"Talking about friendship?"

Raven dramatically sighed. "I'll arrange something and--"

"What have you been doing while Twilight's been gone?" Spike asked a remarkably astute question.

"Covering for the Princess.... Few know of her absence."

"You didn't contact our friends?"

Raven rolled her eyes. "Your friends."

"Mine and Twilight. 'Our' friends."

"...The Element Bearers are off to places unknown...or at least far distant. Some are in Abyssina, others across the ocean, Zebrica, who knows where. Even if I sent pegasi after them--they wouldn't be back for days. Still, I nearly sent the flyers despite explicit Princess instructions that the Element Bearers were not to be disturbed."

"Twilight has other friends--" Spike started.

"Of course she does." Raven rolled her eyes.

Spike ignored that. "What about Starlight and Sunburst?"

Raven sighed. "I have covered for Princess Celestia hundreds of times without incident. Although I suspected something was amiss, it was reasonable to assume the Princess would, in time, return. I sent guards after her."

"You knew!" Spike accused. "When you said you didn't believe Twilight was beneath Canterlot--"

"I was testing whether you varied your tale." Raven wiped all remaining welled-liquid from her eyes. "You passed. Though I would rather that you had failed."

Spike frowned. "You really hate me."

"I will die if I leave this job."

"...It can't be that bad."

"... Of the guards who went beneath Canterlot, three have not returned. Those who *did* return bore ichor of the deep, with tales of giant arachnids, roaches, and silverfish. They were reporting when you surfaced.

"Ah," Spike nodded. "Makes sense."

"What of the missing three; what happened?"

"I have no idea." Spike shook his head. "I didn't encounter them. The paths are twisted. A rock expert could maybe drill down to Twilight but I think with the mist that maybe she's in a place that can't be reached except by magic. We need Starlight Glimmer who can magic past the wards. Princess Celestia didn't want anyone finding this library.

Raven took a deep breath. "Fine. Spike. You find Starlight. I will continue to cover for the Princess."

Spike considered her order. "I'm the Chancellor."

Raven met his gaze. "Yes. You are." She blinked. "Is this proposal acceptable, Chancellor?"

"...Yes," Spike nodded. "Yes, it is." Finding Starlight had always been part of his plan.

Raven strode to the door. "I will inform the guards and continue my arrangements. With luck, the sun will set on schedule and our moon will rise on another uneventful night."

Spike stared at the bit on the table that had wedged Raven's door, and their relationship. He took it back with a deep sigh.




Above the School of Friendship, Spike flew, searching for Headpony Starlight Glimmer, but he instead glimpsed the familiar orange draconic streak of Smolder, who drew even with him.

"Favor. Need it now," she barked.

"Wait--" Spike protested.

"You know how it works." Smolder slapped his right shoulder. "Come with me. Do the thing. Then we're even."

"No, no, no," Spike said, "I need to see Starlight. Then we'll do it."

"No can do." Smolder shook her head. "Favor needs doing now. You cost me my rest and most my day and I was sweaty and tired for my d-" she trailed off.

"Don't you like being sweaty?"

"Shut up." Smolder hit Spike. Then they were alighting on the green of the School of Friendship and Spike was rushing toward Starlight Glimmer's office. Smolder ran behind him. "You're not gonna outrun this favor you owe!" 

Ponies trotting to their classes paused to watch the shrieking dragon and hustling Chancellor.



Knocking over only a couple of ponies, Spike arrived at Starlight Glimmer's office and thrust open its doors with a mighty heave. "Starlight!" He shouted, to an empty chair. A note was situated on it: "Inspecting classes; back later; have some candy". He saw the candy bowl, strode over to it and jammed a candy cane into his mouth. Angrily, he bit it in twain. He'd need the sugar high. The room was empty, save for its desk, candy, a number of plants, a weirdly placed group of rocks in a corner, him, and Smolder.

"You're gonna listen to me now." Smolder grabbed Spike's right wrist.

"I've gotta talk with Starlight about something very important. Life or death."

"It's always life or death with you ponies! Flower stems got bent--Oh the horror--the horror!" She made a mocking ponyish expression and accent. "Rabbits ate up some of your vegetables--it's the Worst! Possible! Thing! Ever!"

"Hey," Spike frowned. "Don't mock Rarity! And, she's never said that about vegetables. That's more something Roseluck's gang would be concerned about--"

The door opened behind them.

"Spike! Smolder!" The voice was not happy.

"Starlight!" Spike, yanking away from Smolder, rushed to greet her. Starlight magicked up a barrier between them. "You don't get hugs. You knocked over five, six, maybe more students--some of them exchange students. You don't have to sign the letters back to their homelands and their infirmary reports explaining the Royal Chancellor injured them at the Friendship School during an unfriendly display of aggression!"

"Uh," Spike commented, "it's an emergency."

Starlight worried her lower lip with a big bite, then tossed her head, punctuated by a groaning, powerless moan of "Urrrggghhhh!" Then, she zapped the weird stack of rocks.

"Talk about aggression!" Smolder grinned.

"It's safely channeled," Starlight growled. "I'm getting better. Not gonna bottle it up. Urrrrgggh!" She tensed, then smiled and brightened, turning back to business. "What's the emergency?"

"It's private." Spike looked at Smolder.

"Oh no." Smolder held up her claws. "You're not getting rid of me till you make good on that favor."

"This is not the time!"

Smolder raised an eyebrow. "But it was 'the time' when you woke me up early in the morning and had me do your Royal duties."

"What I have to say is a secret matter of state."

"What's that between 'friends'?" Smolder put an arm around Spike's shoulder. "Oh wait, you never graduated from the Friendship School, did you, Spike?"

"I didn't need--"

"Just tell me the emergency!" Starlight's unicorn horn shimmered with magic that surrounded Spike and her in a bubble of silence, shunting Smolder off Spike's shoulder.

"Twilight's in a forbidden library and she won't come out."

"Is that a joke?" Starlight looked about to laugh.

"No." Spike shook his head.

Starlight sighed, "I guess the recriminations about the children can wait. Where do you need me?"

"The capitol."

"I'll get Sunburst to clean up this mess and cover.... Unless we need him. You mentioned books."

"The... dark books are keeping Twilight there. Sunburst might be even more affected." 

"And I'm illiterate?" Starlight challenged.

"Think about it. Compare your use of books to Twilight, Moondancer and Sunburst's love of them..."

"I suppose I use books like I used to use ponies; didn't love them." Starlight frowned, recalling her past where she had enslaved a village into following her every whim and teachings, before she had been seen the goodness of friendship and self-actualization preached by Princess Twilight,

"Books aren't ponies."

"Ha! Right you are!" Starlight forced a smile and popped the bubbles of silence; then she teleported away.

"Now can we go do that favor?" Smolder grabbed Spike by his shoulders. Spike grabbed her claws with his, to better shake off her grip.

"Let's go!" Starlight popped back, then teleported Spike and everything he was holding to the Canterlot Castle. Most unicorns could only pass ponies a few feet. Before becoming an alicorn, Twilight could teleport about a quarter of a mile, but Starlight Glimmer could teleport for miles upon miles. If she couldn't save Princess Twilight Sparkle from the dark tendrils, then nopony could.




Tendrils of darkness spread across the floor of the reception hall. Petitioners fled toward the far door. Near the throne, Raven Inkwell and several guard ponies were backed into a corner, tendrils grasping for their necks and legs. Spike, Starlight,  and Smolder appeared in-between the groups, amid the trouble.

Starlight's horn pulsed with power that she channeled into zapping the dark tendrils, popping them into nothingness one after another until the room was clear. 

The ponies at the room's far door clopped approval. One called out: "Where's the Princess?"

Raven and the guards could only wheeze and choke out tears. After wiping those away, Raven breathed hard and rubbed her neck, unable to immediately reply.

"Fighting the darkness!" Spike called out. "We're here to help. Evacuate the castle--in careful order. We're going to blast this darkness into light!"

The ponies clopped more approval and thanks. Then, in orderly military fashion, they left the hall.

"G-good work, Spike." Raven approached him. "Those ponies trusted you."

Spike blushed. "Just doing my job."

"Yes," Raven nodded.

"Yeah, but where's Twilight?" Starlight scanned the room. Glimpsing more tendrils emanating from behind the throne, she zapped those too.

Spike raced toward the darkness with a hearty call of: "This way!" Starlight, head down and determined, followed. Smoulder hesitated to follow, blinking and orienting herself among the usual pony chaos. Deadly black tendrils over here, orange juice stain...or blood over there, foreboding darkness that way. Something was seriously strange with how often world-ending never-before-seen terrors converged on Equestria. Maybe all that friendship ponies promoted kept some deep-seeded hatred bubble buried deep amid their environment? Maybe the false smiles and--whatever. She threw off that line of thought since she had to get going if she didn't want to lose her 'friend' whose smiles probably hadn't been false--she hoped. "Ponies," she rolled her eyes, shrugged, and tugged a foot--dislodging a tiny dark tendril that had been grasping at one of her claws, then hustled after.

"Spike!" Raven Inkwell joined them. "There's no sense in me covering right now. Let me come."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Twilight won't think less of you if you don't rescue her."

Raven pushed past him and into to the room with the trapdoor. 

"Guards. Fall back and hold the door to the hall as long as possible." She related orders over her shoulder. "Fall back if the tendrils risk overwhelming you."

"Did you send for help?" Spike asked.

"Yes. Crystal Empire, Discord, Seaquestria, and more. Responses will take time." 

"Always a disaster with you ponies," Smolder sighed. "'k Spike, after this thing, though, you're taking care of that favor."

"Sure. Sure!" Spike said. Starlight zapped a couple of black tendrils, clearing a path to the trapdoor. "But you don't need to come."

Smolder shook her head and spread her claws. "I sort of missed this pony-craziness back in the Dragon Lands. We just have our wrestling, belching, and tobogganing contests. Here, there's usually some world-ending disaster--fighting that gives more meaning to life."

Starlight blazed a way for the group, blasting through the illusions under Canterlot.

Then Starlight found three motionless guard ponies, bloated by the dark tendrils. After blasting away the darkness, she sat in horror, reflecting on a familiar complaint. "...I use books like I used to use ponies; no friendship." 

"Don't dwell," Spike said. "That's long past--" Then he saw the dark tendrils dipping down from stalactites; one had descended onto Starlight's mane and crawled across her backside.

"Oh no." Starlight had been so focused on blasting, she hadn't summoned a protective bubble. And the blackness was engulfing her. On her haunches, she continued to weep. "I'm terrible. I--enslaved ponies and let Spike hit my students and cheated... Trixie and..." She was rambling. "I couldn't change... my heart is dark--like Nightmare Moon...."

"What can we do?" Spike mused.

Light glimmered from Raven Inkwell's horn and it zapped the blackness away from Starlight. Then, Raven fell. Spike caught her. 

"I...don't think I can walk." She collapsed from the magical exertion. "I was...Celestia's student, but I wasn't as good as...Starlight or anypony."

"Don't say that!" Spike insisted. He tried to throw her over his shoulder. By angling her against some rocks and heaving with a strong shoulder, he managed it, more or less, but it was going to be difficult to walk.

"What?" Starlight shook her head and wiped tears from her eyes.

"You were touched by the blackness!" Smolder shouted.

"Oh!" Starlight jumped to her feet and covered herself with a bubble, then the others. "I should have had these up sooner." Then her gaze traveled to the fallen guards. "Oh no."

"We have to press on," Spike said. "We'll recover them later."

"Sure." Starlight took a step forward, then looked back at Raven, draped over Spike.

"Is Raven--"

"Yes," Spike nodded, preempting the question.

"What happened?"

"Her magic saved you."

"Oh," Starlight said. "We'll have to leave her."

"She's not dead!"

"I thought you were saying 'yes' she was dead." Starlight blinked. "Heh-heh. Ditzy me. How'd I ever become a Principal..." Sighing, she gathered the fainted Raven up in magic and levitated her in-step with the group. 

"Starlight?" Spike asked, placing an open claw on her withers.

She spooked. "Sorry, I'm... mistakes worry me... Let's go." 

It was good to have a powerful sorceress... even if she might have some sort of bizarre imposter complex and was losing touch with reality. All the powerful ones, like Twilight, seemed to be a bit unhinged. Or maybe that was just unicorns in general, Spike wondered. Then he shook his head. "Nah, probably not."

"What was that, Spike?" Starlight asked.

"Nothing!"




They reached the final door and a room of complete darkness that didn't stand up for long to the light explosions emanating from Starlight's horn. At the room's center, thankfully untouched by darkness or light, the Princess sat ensconced by a protective fuchsia magical bubble, her attention focused on an ancient book until the flashes of light caught her attention.

Blearily blinking, Twilight squinted at the new arrivals. "Oh, hello Starlight," she noted.

"Twilight! We need to get you out of here!" Starlight shouted.

"Soon. Soon," Twilight nodded. "I've nearly got it figured out."

"Got what figured out?" Starlight asked.

"The curse of the coinage. I can fix it."

"How?"

Twilight narrowed her eyes, focusing on Smolder, then on Starlight. "Friendship. We teach it in the school; we should practice it every day--on our change, our bits."

"We will place representatives of everycreature on the back of the coin and my image on the front. I realize it is a bit arrogant to place my visage there, but logic supports the action. It will bind the spell." Twilight paused. "Of course, while this may solve the problem of the dark side I am not entirely sure if the coin will still blind creatures like Celestia's visage has. And the committee wanted a vote, which could cause trouble...."

"Why vote?" Starlight asked. "I don't really understand what's going on about changing bits but it sounds like this has to be a "do it this way" sort of situation."

Twilight laughed, a nervous titter.

"This make sense to you, Spike, or is something going on?" Starlight motioned to her head with the universal dizzying gesture for 'is she crazy?'

Smolder spoke. "Yeah, don't kid yourself, Twilight. You sound like the Storm King--dictator stuff. Still," she guffawed. "It ain't wrong if it's right. Ember, our Dragon Lord, does it right, but that's for us. You ponies are weird."

"Now isn't really the time for debate," Starlight zapped a dark tendril, "but Twilight, I thought you said it wasn't a good idea for a single strong hoof to solve Equestria's problems?"

"It's just currency," Smolder shrugged.

"The idea could be refined." Spike spoke, then he addressed Starlight. "The currency is key. There's something wrong with it. You've heard of the blindings, the increased shine on Celestia's side?"

"Just rumors--" Starlight started.

"They're true! And the dark side--the back--it's connected with these tendrils." Spike pulled out the bit from his vest.

"How?"

"Oh!" Twilight brightened. "You've reached the same conclusion." She reached for Spike's bit. "And you even have some change--I must have it."

Spike watched her zap wisps of dark fog emanating from its backside, then she snatched the cleansed bit from his claw.

"Precious. Yes... I really should not depend on guard ponies carrying all my currency," Twilight muttered. "It will be easy now that I have this precious..."

"I thought the darkness was tied to the obvious evil of this forbidden library." Starlight declared.

"No, no, no. Books can never be evil." Twilight noted.

"Except that comic book--" Spike mused, reflecting on an evil book that had sucked him and his friends into it where they had to remain until they had re-enacted its deadly story.

"Does Raven know anything about this library?" Starlight asked, but no reply was forthcoming from the subject as Raven was drifting in and out of consciousness. Meanwhile, Starlight zapped more flourishing black tendrils.

"These freakish tendrils aren't coming from bits though, ponies; they're coming from the books." Starlight insisted.

"The one I passed to Twilight--" Spike had seen sinister stirrings.

"Why aren't we getting out of here?" Smolder complained. "Spike and me got a date to go on and it looks like you ponies've got whatever weirdness you're dealing with well-in-claw."

"This is serious." Starlight glared.

"Yeah." Spike added. "Black tendrils could destroy the world, reaching through our bits and you want me to go on a date?"

Smolder shrugged. "You ponies have a world-ending threat like every week and you always come out alive.... As long as you're not one of the royal guards, rest their souls." Smolder observed a moment of silence. "But really, unless you're one of those poor pony souls, your problem's resolved sometimes in thirty minutes tops. I didn't want to interrupt any decisions though. I just figured Spike didn't have a role here anymore since he doesn't have any of that jazzy magic. Starlight and Twilight, you'll work things out like usual, y'know."

"What?"

"I mean we're running out of time."

"For what?" Spike asked.

"For my date."

"I'm not going on a date with you."

"Yeah you are; you owe me a favor. I need a wingdragon."

"Oh," Spike noted. "You don't want me *as* a date."

"Yeah, I want you *for* a date. But you can't come alone. That'd just be awkward."

"Smolder." Spike grabbed her mouth, holding it shut. "Would you kindly wait?"

Smolder stood, shocked. Spike quickly removed his claw and Smolder puffed out some smoke, but she didn't say anything else.

Raven drifted back to more steady consciousness. "Twilight... Spike may have insight into the coinage."

Spike looked over in shock. 

"You did complete a tour of the mint." Twilight noted. "And hosted the committee. What might they accept? We don't have time for a vote. I must bind the spell immediately or else these tendrils might crawl to Canterlot; according to these books, the corruption is centered here, deep beneath the mint. And it will disappear when the coinage is revised."

"But if coins were infected, then tendrils should be bursting out of all the currency in Canterlot--" Starlight mused.

"That may be starting." Spike recalled the fog emanating from the bit Twilight had grabbed from him. "...Let's trust Twilight. She's been reading the creepy books."

"Coinage infestation is coming!" Twilight added. "Chancellor. Headmare. You are both correct!"

"Okay... Chancellor Spike." Starlight raised an eyebrow.

Spike ran everyone through options the committee had raised.

Twilight chewed over Spike's words.

Smolder shifted from one leg to the other. Minutes passed. More tendrils were obliterated by Starlight's horn. 

"Fine!" Smolder shouted. "Twilight's got things in claw, so Spike, since we can't leave--let's work out the details for tonight you know. After Twilight saves the world. You got a date in mind to accompany you while you're my wingdragon?"

"I don't have any friends who'd do that."

Smoulder blew a raspberry.

"I mean, really. Not Rarity, after the awkwardness. And she's not here."

Raven spoke up, weakly. "This is...distracting and stupid."

"I agree," Spike nodded.

Smolder placed her arms akimbo at her side. "This is about friendship! I helped you. And you're not helping me."

"I'm sorry," Spike said. "It's sort of a world-ending threat here--"

"It's like that all the time," Smolder said.

"Spike," Raven spoke again. "She's your friend?"

"Yeah," he said. "And Raven--you're recovering!"

"Yes," she sighed.

"Great." Smolder rolled her eyes.

"Spike," Raven continued. "I will recover from this magic exhaustion. There are energy concoctions. Upstairs."

"Good," Spike said.

"If you... if you truly need somepony to help you be a good friend for your friend here... I could go."

Spike did a double-take. "What?"

Smolder grinned. "Good. Good." A little smoke came out of her nostrils. "A Pony-Dragon wingdragon relationship; a good concept to reinforce."

Spike gaped at Smolder. "You're dating a pony!"

Smoulder shrugged "...Yeah. Why else would I be on a date in the Ponylands? I mean maybe I might have been taking a honeymoon among these exotic landscapes with less burned stuff and warm memories from the School of Friendship--" a weird lovesick grin plastered across her face. She shook out of it. "But... nope. Ugh. Not gonna talk about that."

Raven reached for Spike's claw. He placed it in her hoof and she whispered: "Friends?"

Meanwhile, Twilight glared at her bit and started to work the spell, detailing the prototype pictures. The cavern shuddered, dirt fell around the creatures, specks of which they could actually see since the fast-retreating darkness packed itself together, swirling in a whirling screen around Twilight until it shuddered and dispersed with a crack. Below, the coin spun, its facade bearing images of all types of ponies accompanied by dragons, yaks, hippogriffs, donkeys, and buffaloes crammed to its edges. The mint was going to have a Tartarus of a time re-working minting machines to manufacture that level of detail without it coming across as an unrecognizable smudge. 

"And the back will have Celestia and Luna..." Raven asked.

"Support existed for that--" Spike noted.

"My visage... is required." Twilight said. "But combining it with others is good. And having Celestia and Luna will remind creatures of our history."

"Now that they've passed from the stage... like everypony must." Raven sighed.

Spike spoke up. "Raven. We won't force you to leave. There is so much to do."

Raven hugged Spike with her forelegs, tighter and tighter.

"How cute," Smolder teased. "A great couple."

"Smolder!" Spike shouted. "It's not romantic!"

Smolder rolled her eyes.

Twilight turned the coin to its dark side, and it shuddered, emanating somber, smoldering gray fumes. Holding her breath, she embraced the coin, close to her chest; her eyes watering. Moments later, her dripping tears splashed against the currency, then she held it up for inspection.

"Here." Twilight's voice cracked and she sent up a glimmer of light as far up on the ceiling as possible, above everycreature, who examined the slightly soggy bit.

Twilight's face resided in its center ringed by visages of mostly generic members of other species, but among them Celestia and Luna grinned, representing alicorns both light and dark. 

The bit glimmered and shook until its bright facade faded and its dark back melted into light. Twilight turned the bit on its side. Artificial light fell on both parts of the bit: equally. And Twilight smiled.

Spike smiled too, first at Twilight, then back at Raven, while he squeezed her hoof in his claw, spiking it gently with his talons, accompanying the gesture with a nod. 

"Friendship...." even bridged tension between rivals. Friendship would get them through changing leadership, aging, capacities, coinage... generations.