//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7: Secret of My Excess 
// Story: A Crown's Atonement For Their Misdeeds 
// by UnknownOrigin 
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So, turns out something crazy happened in Ponyville while I was in Canterlot. Apparently, in order to help knock Rainbow Dash's ego down some, the girls decided to become their own superhero that would outshine Rainbow. This resulted with the girls taking turns acting as the "Mysterious Mare Do Well". How they did this is by taking turns saving ponies around town while disguised as Mare Do Well in various different ways. Applejack helped stop a runaway cart, Pinkie Pie saved some construction workers at a crumbling construction site by using what she referred to as her "Pinkie Sense".  When I asked what she meant by this she simply said her body reacts to what might happen in the future in weird in unique ways. When I decided to ask Twilight about it for more clarification, she simply said to not worry about it and also to not think about it too hard or I would end up with a headache. The end result was me just thinking of it as some sort of sixth sense Pinkie had that also went along with her weirdness, as I have seen her do some weird things ever since I began staying here. Anyways, after the construction site Twilight fixed a dam that had breached using her magic, and Fluttershy simply flew by Rainbow Dash after Twilight fixed the damn to make it seem like Mare Do Well had it all. Oh, and Rarity helped out by making the outfit. In the end, Rainbow Dash learned a pretty decent lesson in humility and not letting others who do better than her get to her head.

The next few days came and went with nothing really happening in that time as everything pretty much slowed back down as a sort of calm settled over Ponyville. It was also during this time that the temperature began to drop even further as it began to change from being late fall to early winter. As such, the leaves on the trees began to further fall off until the branches were the only things left and a lot of animals around Fluttershy's house began to go into hibernation, with  Fluttershy having me assist in making sure the animals were comfortable and had everything they needed to sleep through the winter.

One thing I did try to do as the seasons began to change was trying to see if I could possibly absorb any more negative emotions as to try and have enough power to use what I felt like I was on the verge of being able to do. Unfortunately, any attempts at this were meant with failure as there wasn't really anyone around that were giving off any immense negative emotions. I guess this was kind of a good thing, I suppose, as it meant the citizens of Ponyville were quite happy at the moment. Still, I really hope I'll be able to gain enough power to use what I'm on the verge of being able to do soon.





"I still kind of find it a little bit funny." I said.

"What do you find funny?" Fluttershy asked

"That Spike, who is a dragon and breathes fire, has his birthday during one of the coldest times of the year." I said.

Fluttershy and I were currently making our way towards Twilight's house as we Twilight herself told us and the others that Spike's birthday, or hatch day as her and Spike sometimes referred to it as, was happening today. Thankfully, she told us this about three days ago so we would have the time to find and get Spike a gift. Fluttershy was walking beside me with a purple box with a pink ribbon on her back containing her present while I held mine in my hands right in front of me that had been put in a red box with a black ribbon.

"Either way, I do hope Spike likes my gift." Fluttershy said. Fluttershy and I had gone shopping roughly two days ago to get Spike his present, which mostly involved with me going around the different stores in Ponyville trying to think of what kind of gift I should get him. In the end, I managed to find a scarf for him that was being sold by a seasonal store in town that I thought he would probably need in the upcoming weeks as it would continue to get colder, using the bits that Fluttershy let me keep to pay for it. The scarf itself was simply light blue in color and had white snowflakes on it that made it seem that they were flowing through the sky. Fluttershy on the other hand managed to find a claw filing kit that she thought Spike would appreciate which included a nail file and some lotion that was said to help strengthen scales when applied.

We eventually made it to the library and went inside to find the Spike and Twilight along with the rest of the girls who were holding their gifts. Pinkie, however, was currently throwing around confetti and cheering as the I assumed she was excited to celebrate Spike's birthday. Spike, upon seeing all of the gifts we had brought for him, looked to be a little bit surprised.

"Are all of those, for me?" Spike asked.

"You bet they are, birthday boy." Applejack said as she gave her gift to Spike and held onto it.

Fluttershy went up to him and said "Happy Birthday Spike." before setting her gift on top of Applejack's.

"Here you go Spike, and Happy Birthday." Rarity said as she increased the height of the present stack by putting her gift on top of Fluttershy's.

"Happy Birthday dude." Rainbow Dash said, as she flew over Spike and set her present, which was simply a dumbbell with a yellow ribbon on it, on top. This would unfortunately result in Spike losing his balance and falling to the floor as all of the presents in the stack fell down as well. Thankfully, none of the presents seemed to have been damaged from the fall.

Slightly chuckling to myself, I went over and set my present in front of him. "Happy Birthday Spike. I hope you like what we got you."

"Thanks Null. I just wasn't expecting this many gifts." Spike said with a somewhat curious look.

"Well, don't you know you get presents for your birthday?" Rainbow Dash questioned.

"I mean, yeah. Its just that this is my first birthday in Ponyville. I usually just get a present from Twilight... which is usually just a book." Spike said.

I looked over at the mare in question and saw her holding a blue book wrapped in a gold ribbon in her aura as she was walking down the stairs. Hearing this, she looked back at the book and then hid it behind her as she had a look of embarrassment.

"Speaking of presents..." Rarity began saying as she levitated what appeared to be a cape with a purple collar with the actual cape part being pink. "This is from my new line of taffeta capes, and I plan on making one for each of you!"

Holding up the cape issued everyone to get a closer look at it and compliment how good it looked with some of the others also saying how they liked its design.

"I've been inspired by the generosity of my little Spikey-wikey, who gave me this beautiful fire ruby..." Rarity said as she touched her hoof to what appeared to be a red heart shaped gemstone that had been fixed into what appeared to be a gold band that wrapped around Rarity's neck. Though, I couldn't help but feel an odd warmth coming from the gemstone even though I was maybe a couple of feet away from Rarity. "It was one of the kindest acts I have ever experienced. And I am ever grateful to him for gifting me this gem."

This was followed by Spike slightly blushing at scratching the back of his head at the compliment. After that, the party began really pick up as everyone began to do various activities that had been set up or just enjoying some of the cupcakes that Pinkie had brought. Though, it wasn't long before Spike began to unwrap the presents everyone got him. Rarity had made him some mittens that would help him fight off the cold, the book Twilight had gotten him was apparently one filled with ancient legends involving dragons, Spike wasn't able to hold up the dumbbell Rainbow had gotten him for very long, but appreciated it nonetheless, and Applejack had gotten him a blanket that he seemed to be extremely happy about. When he got to Fluttershy's gift, he looked ecstatic as he talked about how his scales were feeling a little bit rough lately, and he also liked the scarf I got him as well.

"Applejack, I can't thank you enough for this great blanket. I really needed a new one." Spike said as he thanked Applejack once again for the blanket while hugging her.

"C'mon, Spike, you already thanked me fifteen times. I'm startin' to get a little embarrassed." Applejack said as she began to pry Spike off of her as he was probably begging to hug a little too tight.

"I know I keep thanking you guys, but I'm just so grateful." Spike said as he smiled. "I wish this party could last forever." This was followed by the sound of a balloon popping causing everyone to look towards the source of the sound. The source being that of Pinkie who had been hopping on a balloon earlier, though it appeared said balloon had popped as she now sat on the floor.

"Well duh!" Pinkie said as she came over to Spike. "The party can't last forever because you have to go to Sugarcube Corner because the Cakes said the have a special surprise for you because it's your birthday!"

"Really?! No way!" Spike said as he began to rush towards the door.

"I said the party couldn't last forever, but it doesn't need to end right now!" Pinkie exclaimed. This would go to be left unanswered as Spike had already left by the time she finished.

"Don't worry, I'll meet him at Sugarcube Corner and make sure he gets back safe. I'll be back soon." I said as I went to the door and left to go after him.





It took a little bit of time to get to Sugarcube Corner, but I eventually got there pretty quickly. Unfortunately, when I got there, Spike was nowhere to be seen. I asked Mrs. Cake if Spike had already arrived or had yet to get here, with her saying he just left a couple of minutes ago with the cupcake her and Mr. Cake had prepared for him. Thanking her for telling me, I went back out and continued my search. It didn't take long at all, as after looking around for about a minute, I managed to find Spike sitting on the ground holding what appeared to be a cupcake with blue frosting, except that there were also small blue gemstones poking out of the frosting as well. Thankfully when reading about the various creatures that existed in this world, I knew that dragons often ate gemstones as a sort of treat, meaning that the sight of the cupcake didn't really make me question why Spike got that sort of cupcake to eat. Anyways, nearby was Cheerilee who was also sitting on the ground with a dazed expression as a variety of different fruits laid on the ground around the two of them. Seeing how there was also a brown paper bag next to Cheerilee, I immediately figured out what happened. As such, I began heading over to the two of them to see if they were fine.

"You two ok?" I asked.

"I'm fine." Spike said as he turned to Cheerilee. "Sorry about that Cheerilee, I wasn't really paying attention."

"That's ok Spike. Though I have to ask, what's got you so excited?" Cheerilee said.

Spike looked around at the various fruits and then back at the cupcake he was holding. After a couple of seconds, he simply shrugged and ate the entire cupcake in one bite. before he began picking up some of the fruit and putting them in the bag with me joining him shortly after.

"Pinkie told me I should come see the Cakes as they had made me a cupcake for my birthday. I guess I got a little bit excited about it so I didn't notice you in front of me." Spike said.

"Well, happy birthday, Spike! I wish I had something to give you." Cheerilee said as I assumed she began thinking of giving him a gift before saying "Oh! You can have this" and pulled out a white fedora with a red feather out of her bag and placed it on Spike's head.

"Really? Are you sure I can have this?" Spike asked.

"Of course! Everypony should get gifts on their birthday! Have a great birthday Spike!" Cheerilee said as she picked up the paper bag and began walking off. After which, the two of us began to walk back to the library with Spike having a big smile.

"It sure was nice for Cheerilee to give you that hat. Though, from how much you're smiling, I guess it's safe to say you're having a good birthday." I said.

"Yep! I'm getting all these nice gifts from everypony. You and everypony else got me some great gifts, the Cakes gave me that cupcake, and Cheerilee gave me this hat!" Spike said as he flicked up the fedora as it was beginning to cover his face a little bit. "Hmm, I wonder..."

"What do you wonder Spike?" I asked as I turned to look at him, only to find that he was gone. "Wait, Spike? Where did you go?"

I looked around before spotting Spike talking to earth pony colt who was holding a yellow and blue ball. After talking for a bit, the colt gave the ball to Spike before Spike began heading back to me.

"Spike, what did you do?" I asked.

"Oh, I just told him it was my birthday and if I could have his ball and he gave it to me!" Spike said as he held up the ball.

"Spike, that's not really how birthdays work." I said.

"What do you mean by that?" Spike asked.

"Well, you don't go up to someone and say it's your birthday and ask them to give you something." I said as we resumed walking.

"But, Cheerilee and that colt gave me stuff." Spike said.

"Well, I think Cheerilee didn't really have a gift prepared for you so she just gifted you something she had on her. The colt, however, you just simply asked for him to give you that ball. Do you understand?" I asked as I turned back to look at Spike only to find that he had once again disappeared. Looking around, I found Spike talking to a yellow earth pony mare who was carrying baskets of flowers. I saw Spike make a sort of grabbing gesture and slapped my face for not keeping an eye on him. 

"For the love of... Spike get back over here!" I said as I went over to him. He kept making a grabbing motion towards her flowers before I got behind him and grabbed him before lifting him over my head. 

"Sorry about that. I don't know what's gotten into him." I said to the mare.

"Uh, no problem. Happy Birthday Spike!" the mare said as she walked off.

I put Spike back down and went in front of him so I could easily keep my eye on him. "Spike, what was I just saying?! Seriously, you need to snap out of it, you're not like this normally." I said.

Spike shook his head a few times before pulling off the fedora and looking at it before looking back at me. "Sorry Null. I don't know what's gotten into me. I'm gonna go give this ball back as well as give Cheerilee her hat back, can you go tell the others back at the library?"

I sighed as I began questioning whether or not I should accompany him. On the one hand, I've had plenty of experiences with dragons and knew that when it came to anything shiny or pretty, they tend to get quite greedy. On the other hand, I wasn't sensing any greed coming from Spike, so I just had to assume that he had snapped out of whatever he was doing earlier. In the end, I decided to give in.

"Sure, just make sure you come straight back to the library, ok? Otherwise Twilight might panic about where you went." I said.

"Ok, see you later then." Spike said as we parted ways, with me making sure he was heading off to find Cheerilee. Once he got out of sight, I went back to the library and told Twilight about what happened.

"Wait, Spike was demanding gifts from other ponies?" Twilight asked.

"Well, it only really began happening after Cheerilee. He essentially told them that it was his birthday and asked them for a gift. At the moment, he should be giving the things he got back, so he should be back shortly." I said.

"I'll have to talk to Spike about this later." Twilight said.

"Also, do you mind if I stay here for the night? I'm trying to find out more about something, so I was hoping to see if there were any books about what I'm trying to learn about."

"Sure. You can sleep on the couch down here. I'll make sure to get you a blanket and a pillow as well." Twilight said.

"Thanks Twilight." I said. Shortly after Spike returned and said that he had returned everything he had gotten. Satisfied with his answer, the party resumed for a couple of more hours before it began to get late as the other girls began going back home. Before she left, I told Fluttershy that I would be spending the night here with her saying that she was ok with that. Once she left, Twilight came back down from upstairs carrying a blanket and a pillow in her aura and set them on one of the couches.

"Alright, these should be fine for you while you stay over tonight. Spike's already in bed, and if you need me, I'll be in my room as well. Might I ask, what are you trying to find out more about?" Twilight asked.

"I guess just what kind of magical artifacts are in Equestria." I said.

"And why's that?" Twilight asked.

"Remember how I went to Canterlot with Cheerilee and her class?" I asked with Twilight nodding in response. "Well, when we went to the museum, I stumbled upon something called the 'Alicorn Amulet' which was being displayed in one of the wings. Ever since then I guess I've been sort of curious as to what kinds of magical artifacts are in Equestria if something that can make one's own magic equivalent to that of one of the princesses' exists." I said.

"Yeah, I heard about that as well. Apparently it was a recent donation as well. When I asked Celestia about it after she donated it, she said that she felt it would be better to have it in a museum where people can learn about the damage it has caused and not do the same thing than have it simply collecting dust under her care." Twilight said.

I guess I could see her reasoning behind that. No one really cared about the destruction the Master Crown could cause as they only cared about using its power to carry out their own personal wants and needs. And while there were the few wearers here and there that used its power for good, almost everyone that wore me used said power for their own selfish desires, whether it be revenge, wanting to rule over everyone, or just destroying everything in sight. Regardless, in the end, either I would end up taking control and wreaking havoc, or I would end up being taken by someone else who also wanted the crown.

"Null, is something wrong?" Twilight asked.

I quickly blinked a few times as I processed what Twilight had asked. "What?"

"You look like you were really focusing on something. Is something on your mind?" Twilight asked.

I guess I must have been focusing a little bit too much on my past, which resulted in what I assumed was me intently looking at nothing particular. "It's nothing to worry about." I said.

"If your sure." Twilight said as she looked up at the clock. Looking up at it as well, I noticed it was starting to get really late. "Well then, I suppose I should be getting to bed. Have a nice night Null."

"You too Twilight." I said as Twilight went up the staircase and into her and Spike's room to retire for the night. "Now then..." I said as I looked at the various shelves filled with books and scrolls. "Let's see what I can find."

The next couple of hours were spent with me scouring some of the various books in the library that mentioned or focused on magical artifacts. Ever since I learned that something as powerful as the Alicorn Amulet existed, my curiosity about what sort of other artifacts existed in this world had reached a point to where I could no longer ignore it. I skimmed through multiple books trying to find out about anything that talked about or proved the existence of a magical artifacts. However, I ended up hitting a couple of roadblocks here and there. The first being that a lot of the artifacts I read about had either been lost to time or had been destroyed long ago, or some texts talking about how the claims of the existence of some artifacts had proven to be false. Though, this didn't mean that I found nothing. I found multiple books saying that the existence of magical mirrors that could transport those that walked into it to other worlds existed. A book or two mentioned how there existed some books that contained worlds of their own within their pages, allowing those who read said books to enter the world the book contained. And some book referenced a set of rings that possessed some sort of curse that, while separated, didn't really do much. But when brought together, they were capable of bringing about events that would devastate the ecosystem around the rings.

As the hours ticked by I slowly began to feel myself become progressively more tired as I continued to find out more about the artifacts this world held. Eventually, feeling that I could no longer stay awake anymore to continue, I began to put back the books and scrolls that I had gotten out during my research and slowly drifted to the couch. Wrapping myself in the blanket that Twilight provided me, I began to drift off to sleep.





I watched as Landia, who had split herself into four separate dragons using the power of the Master Crown, carried the now damaged body of the overseer of Egg Engines. Normally, the body of the Metal General was somewhat streamlined in appearance. Its body had an aerodynamic shape to it, allowing it to easily move quickly, the top of its body was covered in blue plating with the bottom having white plating instead. When it was active, its eyes shone a piercing yellow, as though it was actively analyzing anything that stood before it. In most cases, that was true. Its left arm ended in a white metal hand while its right arm was instead of a blue projectile launcher that could fire energy shots, mines, to even rockets a few times its size. Finally, towards the back, were a few thrusters that allowed it to fly swiftly through the air as though it wasn't made up of heavy metal and even rush forward at high speeds while on the ground.





However, as it was now, it was a miracle that its body was still intact. Several tears in the metal were visible on both the plating on its body and both of its arms. One of its eyes were cracked and neither were glowing as it was currently not on. A large chunk of its right arm was missing, the main launcher part of the arm being severely damaged. And almost all of the thrusters on its back had been bent or torn off.

Needless to say, Metal General was possibly no longer going to be turned back on for a very long time.

We eventually reached the far reaches of Halcandra, an area simply known as Dangerous Dinner. Dangerous Dinner was that of a fiery wasteland as river of lava flowed endlessly on the surface and the volcanoes scattered about constantly released dark smoke into the sky. However, none of these places was where we were heading. Instead, we were heading straight for the side of the biggest volcano in Dangerous Dinner. We skimmed the side of the volcano until we reached the entrance to a small tunnel that was hidden from the ground by a few rocky spires that were in front of the entrances. Landia quickly flew through the tunnel the entrance led to, and after a small amount of time, we reached a large domelike room that was illuminated by different colored crystals that lined the walls. And in the middle of said room, was a massive pile of various trinkets and shiny gems that Landia had found over the many years that I had been stuck on her head. 

Slowly, she drifted down to one side of the pile and placed the Metal General beside the pile before her four separate parts fused back together into the four headed dragon. I could feel the sadness coming from Landia as she nuzzled all four of her heads against the now broken body of the Metal General. Over the many long years I have been stuck on Landia's head, I had been with Landia when she first discovered the Metal General, who had wandered to this very volcano that Landia considered to be her territory. The two clashed for a while before the two of them eventually stopped due to Landia becoming exhausted and Metal General running low on energy. Metal General fled, and the next day, Landia managed to find it back in its own territory in Egg Engines. Though this time, instead of fighting each other, they had developed a sort of bond of respect towards one another. As such, the two of them would often visit one another to keep each other company. 

It was kind of a special bond they had going, but most bonds can't last forever. When Landia and I saw the ship that had appeared the last time once again carrying the mage that had attempted to take me, Landia thought it wouldn't be too much of a problem to shoot it down. Neither of us were expecting the mage to bring reinforcements.

The four groups of friends made their way through Egg Engines and had wandered directly in front of Metal General, who seeing them as intruders, attacked them. They easily fought against him and won the fight even when he brought out a giant robot that he had been working on for some time now. Upon hearing that Metal General had been defeated, Landia rushed to Egg Engines and, seeing the nearly destroyed state that he was in, knew that it would not be coming back for a long time. And so, she decided to take it to her personal horde as one of her most prized treasures.

After many minutes of nuzzling the decommissioned robot, the both of us knew that it was only a matter of time before the four friends found Landia and challenged her to take me from her. Knowing this she flew back out of the cave and towards the top of the volcano where a stone landscape sat within a lake of fire and waited for the friends to appear. Some hours later, and they eventually did. Seeing this, Landia flew up from where she had perched herself and flew towards the four friends. And with her releasing a roar filled with sadness and rage, she started the fight. Little did either of us know, that this fight would change the lives of everyone here: the four friends, the four headed dragon, the mage who was hiding behind the lip of the volcano and was watching the fight, and myself.





I slowly opened my eyes as I began to wake up as it also took me a few seconds to remember that I had stayed over at Twilight's last night as I almost panicked upon seeing that I wasn't in Fluttershy's house. I began to think back to the dream I had last night, as I haven't had a dream since the first night I had arrived in this world. Even now, that dream didn't really make much sense to me. This time, however, the dream was about the moments leading up to Landia losing possession of me due to her being defeated by Kirby and his friends, only for Magolor to immediately wear me moments later. I guess the moments with Spike trying to take things from ponies yesterday somehow triggered that memory.

Though, I couldn't help but wonder, how were they doing? I suppose Kirby and his friends went back to Popstar after defeating me while I was controlling Magolor and I could also guess that maybe Landia, who I also assumed was now still separated into four smaller dragons, had managed to get back to Halcandra somehow. Magolor, on the other hand, I wasn't entirely sure of. Did he somehow find a way out of the dimensional abyss the both of us found ourselves in and went to Popstar after defeating me? Or did he travel to another dimension entirely? Those questions lingered in my mind as I got up from the couch and folded up the blanket Twilight had allowed me to use and grabbed both it and the pillow. However, right as I was about to go up the stairs to return them, I stopped as I heard a small commotion happening upstairs. Not only that, I began to feel a large amount of a certain emotion that I was entirely too familiar with. Said emotion was the same of almost every single being who wanted the Master Crown for their own use:

Greed.

I began to quickly make my way up the stairs as fast as I could and reached the door to Twilight and Spike's room. Opening it, I made my way inside and stopped to process the scene that was playing out in front of me. First was Twilight, who was looking worriedly at Spike while flipping through a book held in her aura. Spike, however, was the reason I was trying to process what was going on. Spike was no longer the baby dragon I was used to seeing, instead, he was as tall as Twilight and had a somewhat lanky body as he was currently trying to pull off a familiar fedora that was stuck to his head. Not only that, I could tell that he was the source of the greed I had felt downstairs as it almost emanated from him in a steady pulse. I set the pillow and blanket down by the door and approached the two of them.

"Ok, can someone tell me what is going on?" I asked.

Twilight looked to me with a panicked expression on her face. "I don't know! I just woke up earlier and found Spike sleeping underneath a pile of junk, only to see that he now looks like this!" Twilight said as she gestured to Spike.

"What pile of junk?" I asked, to which Twilight pointed towards the area above us where her and Spike's beds were. Floating up, I immediately saw what Twilight was talking about. Set right beside a small pet bed was a pile of various things including a few books, a wooden basket, some flowers, some of the gifts Spike had gotten yesterday, and a familiar ball. Seeing this, I floated back down and faced Spike.

"Spike?" I asked.

"Um, yes?" Spike said.

"Why is it that some of the things you tried to or did take from ponies yesterday are in that pile?" I asked.

"Wait, what?! Spike, what did you do last night? I didn't see any of this yesterday when we went to bed." Twilight asked.

"I went to... went to..." Spike trailed off as he began to look at Twilight as the greed I was feeling from him began to slowly rise.

"Spike!" Twilight yelled, snapping Spike out of his daze. "Where did you go last night?"

"Oh, um... I don't remember." Spike said before he spotted a nearby globe as I felt his greed begin to rise again. "Hey, can I have that globe? You're not using it, right?" 

"Huh?" Twilights asked as Spike grabbed the globe and ran up to the pile by his bed and placed it on top of it before grabbing a book off of Twilight's bed.

"What about this book?" Spike asked before Twilight teleported on top of the globe and grabbed it in her aura and tried to pull it away, only for Spike to try and pull it back. This continued for a couple of seconds before Twilight successfully pulled the book away from him.

"Spike, I'm worried about you. Usually you're not this grabby." Twilight said.

"Yeah, something's definitely not right. You acted similarly yesterday, but now it looks like whatever's going on has gotten worse." I said as I floated up to them.

"Well my arms aren't usually this long either." Spike said, though halfway through the sentence his voice dropped, causing him to slap his claws over his mouth. "What's happening to me?"

I looked at Twilight as she looked back to me before both of us nodded in a silent understanding. "Maybe we should get you to the hospital and see if they can figure out what's going on." I said.

"Are you sure?" Spike asked.

"We're positive." Twilight said.

And with that, the three of us made our way out of the library and quickly made out way towards Ponyville's hospital, hoping for at least some small clue as to what was happening. The hospital had a somewhat welcoming appearance. It was three stories tall with the outside walls being somewhat beige in coloration as pink windows on every floor lined the walls as well. The roof itself was brown and slated, with two chimneys poking out of the top as well.









As we sat in one of the rooms waiting for a doctor to arrive, I noticed Spike began to try and grab one of the depressors that were in a cup. Seeing this, I went up and smacked his hand so that he would stop. Almost immediately after I did, the doctor, a brown earth pony with a poofy orange mane and tail, walked in.

"Well now, what seems to be the problem?" The doctor asked.

"This is Spike." Twilight said as I slapped his hand again as I noticed he attempted to take a tongue depressor again. "And something's wrong with him." I slapped his hand again. "He used to be half this size! And he keeps trying to take things that aren't," I slapped his hand one more time before taking the cup and moving it away from him. "his!"

"All right then, let's just have a look see, shall we?" The doctor said as he approached Spike. "Widdle guy not feewing too good? Who's a brave widdle boy, huh? Who's a brave one?" The doctor began seeing in an almost childlike voice as he began examining Spike. As he knocked on one of Spike's knees to test his reflexes, Spike breathed out a steady stream of green fire from his mouth that blew right into the doctor's face. As it settled down, the doctor face was burnt and his mane was slightly charred.

"So? What do you think, doctor?" Twilight asked.

"Well, I think I know what the problem is." The doctor said as the three of us looked at him expectantly. "He's a dragon!"

The our hopeful looks gave way to ones of unamusement as he stated the obvious.

"Well, I don't think that's the problem. Spike's always been a dragon, Twilight here told me she was there when he hatched." I said.

"Oh. Well, that would explain it. Listen, I don't know anything about dragons, I only know about baby ponies. Maybe you should try a vet."

"Really, that's the best you can give us?" I asked.

"Don't know what to tell you. Hopefully they are able to figure out what's wrong with whatever's going on with your dragon here." The doctor said.

Twilight sighed as she sat up from the chair she was sitting in. "Okay, thank you doctor." We then left the hospital and slowly made our way towards the central part of Ponyville, where the pet clinic was supposedly set up.





The pet clinic was set up in the central part of Ponyville, close to that of the town hall. The building itself was a simple one story building with the outside walls being light blue with multiple windows lining the front. It also turned out that this place also doubled as a pet spa, as multiple ponies within the waiting room had brought there pets either to be examined or be cleaned and taken care for. After setting up a quick appointment, it took about 10 or so minutes before we were taken to an examination room where an earth pony mare with yellow fur and a blue and white mane wearing a white collard shirt waited for us and had us set Spike up on the examination table. After which, she began to closely look at Spike to see if anything was wrong.

"Hm, well, I'm flummoxed. You bring me a dog, I've got it diagnosed in seconds. Snake even faster, but... to be honest," The vet said before turning to the both of us. " I've never seen a real live dragon before."

"Seriously? Are you sure you aren't able to figure out what's causing Spike to be like this?" I asked.

"Nope. With how little documented information there is about dragons, let alone information about keeping dragons as pets, I'm afraid I can't help ya." The vet said.

Spike snorted in annoyance as I could feel all of us were annoyed at not getting any answers as to what was causing this. However, I watched as Spike's attention shifted to a dog treat the vet held in her hoof with a jar of dog treats being held in her other hoof.

"Now, who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?" The vet said as he waved the dog treat, causing Spike to begin panting like a dog. "Now, sit."

Spike sat on the table as the vet tossed a treat towards him, to which he ate in one bite. However, his attention soon turned to that of a bowl filled with various sweets and in one swift motion, grabbed the bowl. I slapped myself in the face for not noticing the bowl earlier.

"Thanks anyway. Come on Spike." Twilight said with a sigh as Spike got off of the table and followed us as we left the vet. We walked for a bit until we reached the plaza around the town hall, all of us somewhat annoyed as we weren't able to find out anything. Spike, on the other hand, seemed to be somewhat happy with himself as he began eating some of the sweets out of the bowl.

"I don't know where else to got to. I was at least hoping that the vet would be able to figure out what is going on with Spike." Twilight said as she looked at Spike.

In all honestly, so was I. We had gone to places that would seem to be obvious in providing us with solutions, only for them to come up with nothing. It also didn't help that I've been having this weird feeling that I was forgetting something ever since we left the hospital after seeing Spike trying to take those tongue depressors. While Twilight didn't really have any ideas on to where to go to, I had already thought of two ponies we could possibly go to that might help us in this situation.

"Hey, Twilight?" I said, getting Twilight's attention as she turned to me. "There's still two ponies we have yet to go to that might be able to help us."

"Yeah?" Twilight said expectantly.

"Why don't we go to Fluttershy and Zecora and see if they have any answers. Fluttershy's pretty much knows everything about animals, and I bet Zecora's an expert on stuff like things such as this." I said.

It took a few seconds for Twilight to process this before it was her turn to smack herself in the face. "Of course! How could I not think of them? Alright, here's what we're going to do..." Twilight said as she turned to me. "I'll take Spike to Zecora and see if she's able to figure anything out. I want you to got to Fluttershy and see if she has any answers, things she knows off the top of her head, a book, anything! Once we're done, we meet up back at the library and see if we found anything."

"Sounds like a plan." I said.

"Alright then. Spike!" Twilight said, getting Spike's attention.

"Yeah?"

"Come with me. We're going to Zecora's." Twilight said as she levitated Spike in her aura as the both of us began heading to the Everfree Forest before splitting up where the path split, Twilight and Spike going directly into the forest while I quickly made my way to Fluttershy's cottage. Upon getting there, I quickly entered and began calling out for Fluttershy.

"Fluttershy? Are you here, I need your help?" I said. This was shortly followed by Fluttershy coming out of the kitchen with Angel following right behind her with an annoyed look on his face.

"Null? What's going on? Has something bad happened?" Fluttershy asked.

"Kinda. Something weird is happening with Spike, and we haven't been able to figure out what is going on." I said.

"What's happening with Spike?" Fluttershy asked.

I explained the weird things that have been going on with Spike, from the way he acted yesterday trying to take things from the residents of Ponyville, how Twilight and I found him this morning and had seemingly undergone some sort of growth spurt in the night, and how he has been trying to take anything he could get his claws on.

"My, that is strange. But, I also feel like I've read about that somewhere." Fluttershy said as she put a hoof to her chin. "Oh! I remember, wait here one second." Fluttershy then dashed up the stairs with Angel and I turning to look at each other with Angel simply giving an eyeroll before going back to the kitchen.  I could only assume that I had barged in right when Fluttershy was about to feed him his lunch. A minute or so later, and Fluttershy came back down carrying a book with one of her wings.

"All of the things you said sound almost exactly as what the author of this book wrote." Fluttershy said as she handed the book to me. It was a somewhat large book with a maroon cover with the title of said book being "Drago Wing's Guide and Journal to Raising  Dragons". A picture on the front of the cover showed who I assumed was the author: a tall unicorn stallion with rust colored fur and a messy green mane and tail whose cutie mark appeared to be that of a book clenched in a dragon's claw. Right next to the author was what I could assume could be a teenage dragon, considering the fact that Spike was a baby dragon, who barely reached the unicorn's head and had light blue scales covering its body, a white underbelly, orange spines, and had wings on its back. 

"This book was the published journal of Drago Wing, an alchemist who wrote down his experiences with raising a dragon and also included information on how to properly raise and take care of a dragon of your own. I like to read it sometimes before I go to sleep." Fluttershy said. "I think it's possible that Drago Wing wrote down something that might help."

"Thanks Fluttershy. This is better than nothing." I said.

"No problem. If you need me, I'll just be in the kitchen getting Angel his lunch." Fluttershy said as she went into the kitchen.

I opened the book and began to skim through the contents. Most of what was contained in the book included things such as making sure to properly file a dragon's nails or making sure to pluck any overgrown scales or they will cause skin irritation. Some other things included some basic information about dragons, which was helpful considering the information I found on dragons while going through the many books in the Golden Oak Library was quite limited. These included how there were many different kinds of dragons, how they had different elemental breaths that all had magical properties, how they were quite resistant to certain elements such as fire, and much more. Just as I was about to give up, I stumbled upon a chapter that caught my eye. Carefully, I began reading through the chapter as to not miss any details.

Dragons and Hoarding

At a certain point in a dragon's youth, a dragon will begin to develop urges to begin hoarding anything they see that they consider interesting, shiny, or important to them in emotional value. This is quite common, as it is in a dragon's nature to hoard treasures, whether it be gold and jewels to magical artifacts. Make sure to keep these urges in check, as ignoring them and not handling them properly can lead to a dragon to develop more of these urges and can also lead to some side effects. Said side effects range from developing a possessive personality, growth spurts, and on rare occasions, intense growth spurts. Back when my dragon Sael began developing a hoarding problem, I was unfortunately slow to catch on to what was happening and before I knew it, he had grown roughly twice my size! Thankfully, by calming him down and talking to him, Sael reverted back to normal and no longer developed any hoarding problems.

I stared at the chapter intensely. More specifically, at the phrase "it is in a dragon's nature to hoard treasures". It was in a dragon's nature to hoard. For the second time today, I slapped myself in the face.

"How could I have forgotten something as obvious as that?!" I yelled, hearing Fluttershy squeak from the other room as I had startled her. How could I have forgotten the fact that it was literally in a dragon's nature to hoard?! I was stuck on the head of a four headed dragon for roughly more than 1,000 years who also had a giant hoard in a cave within the volcano she considered to be her home for crying out loud! Slowly calming down, I began to think back to the dream I had last night, about the moments leading up to the fight between Landia and Kirby and his friends, how she had taken the broken down Metal General to her hoard. Was that dream some sort of sign? Regardless, I realized that I needed to find Twilight and Spike and tell them what I found.

"Umm, Null..." Fluttershy said as she peaked out from the entryway to the kitchen. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said.

"Are you sure? You sounded mad about something." Fluttershy asked.

I slightly winced at that, not meaning to actually yell out my frustration. "It's nothing to worry about. But, I did manage to find out what's happening to Spike. I need to go find Twilight, I'll be back later!" I said as I bolted for the door, not before giving Fluttershy back the book.

"Let me know if you manage to fix what's happening to Spike!" Fluttershy called out as I left the cottage and made my way down the dirt path. Eventually I made it back to the main path where I saw Twilight running out of the woods with a worried expression on her face as I could feel her anxiety going through the roof. Seeing me, her horn was covered in her aura as I felt myself being lifted off of the ground and onto Twilight's back as we began to head to Ponyville.

"Twilight, I managed to figure on what's going on with Spike! Fluttershy had this book that was written by a unicorn who raised a dragon and said that Spike's maturing to the point to where he is starting to experience urges to hoard literally everything he sees!" I yelled out.

"Zecora said the same thing. And that if we don't stop Spike from hoarding, he'll keep growing and eventually become a monster!" Twilight said.

A realization slowly struck me as I looked around, not seeing Spike anywhere nearby. "Wait, Twilight? Where's Spike?" I asked.

"He took everything in Zecora's hut and I can only assume that he came back here!" Twilight said as we were entering the main part of Ponyville. We eventually stopped and I had to hold on as to not get thrown off as we heard screaming coming from nearby. Making our way to its source, we found Spike trying to take Scootaloo's scooter, with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle trying to help prevent Spike from taking it.

"Spike want!" Spike yelled as he pulled on the scooter.

"You're not getting my scooter!" Scootaloo yelled out as she pulled on the scooter.

"Spike said he wants!" Spike yelled as he pulled on the scooter again.

"If we don't do something, Spike's going to take the scooter and probably run off." Twilight said as he panic began to rise.

I began looking around to see if there was anything we could use to distract Spike, before laying my eyes on a nearby broom. "Twilight, the broom!" I yelled out as I directed Twilight's attention to the broom. She then smirked before the broom was surrounded in her aura and flew over towards Spike and began to wave it, getting Spike's attention.

"Hey, Spike! Check out this amazing broom!" Twilight said.

"Spike want!" Spike said as he hissed.

"C'mon, big boy! Come get this incredible broom!" Twilight said as she began running, causing the broom to float after us.

"Spike want!" Spike yelled as I felt him begin to get angry.

We looked over and, to both Twilight's and my horror, saw Spike grow bigger in size before chasing after us. This caused Twilight to pick up the pace as we began to rapidly make our way to the library. We easily ran through the door, however, Spike tried to follow us in only to get stuck. But, when he saw Twilight waving the broom again, he lurched forward and got unstuck as he began to charge at us. I hopped off and got out of the way as Twilight stood in front of a door leading to a room filled with shelves lined with books. And as Spike began to rapidly approach her, she dove out of the way at the last second with the broom as Spike barreled into the room. Acting fast, I quickly shut the door as Twilight pressed against it.

"Nice job with the broom." I said.

"Thanks. Now we just need to-" Twilight was interrupted as Spike began to pound on the door, prompting the both of us to hold it back to make sure he wouldn't break out. After a few seconds, Spike stopped pounding on the door as everything began to get quiet. And unfortunately, I began to come upon a horrible realization.

"Twilight?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"Did we just lock Spike  in a room filled to the brim with books that he can easily get his claws on and hoard?"

Twilight immediately registered what I had said and opened the door, where we found Spike laying over a giant pile of books that he had taken off of the shelves.

"Seriously Spike? I just reshelved this room." Twilight said with an unamused look as she levitated Spike off of the pile and then levitated said pile to us before closing the door again with a swift kick. I then immediately felt Spike's anger flare up before a crash could be heard coming from his room before I could no longer feel his anger.

"That, can't be good." I said.

We slowly opened the door and found that Spike was no longer in the room. Instead, a Spike shape hole was in the wall on the opposite side of the door. As we rushed towards it, we saw Spike running off towards in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. We both looked at each other with looks of worry before we booked it out of the library and made our way towards Sweet Apple Acres ourselves.





As we got closer and closer to Sweet Apple Acres, we began to see that a lot of the tress we were passing while running along the fence were missing any apples that they may have had growing on them, and more importantly, had no leaves on them whatsoever. We eventually spotted Applejack looking at the trees in confusion, so we jumped the fence and made our way over to her.

"Applejack!" I yelled out, prompting Applejack to look over at us as we got to her.

"Twilight? Null? What are you two doin' here?" Applejack asked.

"Applejack, we need your help. Spike's running wild and we need to lasso him!" Twilight said.

A couple of seconds passed as Applejack said nothing, before she began to lightly chuckle before eventually laughing. It took her a few seconds, but she eventually calmed down and placed a hoof on Twilight.

"Twilight, oh that's a good one. Sweet little Spike, running wild? That's the funniest thing Ah've heard all day." Applejack said.

"Applejack, we're being serious." I said. Soon after, we began to hear loud stomping before Spike ran past us, holding a giant pile of both leaves and apples that he had taken from the trees around the farm. Once he was gone, I turned back to see Applejack with wide eyes at what she had just witnessed. A serious expression then appeared on her face as she looked towards Twilight.

"Twilight, get my rope." Applejack said.

Twilight disappeared in a flash of light before reappearing moments later holding one end of a long piece of rope in her mouth. Applejack the grabbed the other end of the rope with her mouth and then the three of us took off after Spike. We began to get closer and closer to Spike as he could be seen taking his time picking up any stray apples on the ground and placing them on the pile he was holding before continuing. As we caught up to him, Twilight and Applejack jumped forward, hoping to tie up Spike. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that Spike chose to pick up an apple that was on the ground, resulting in both Twilight and Applejack jumping over him and getting the rope snagged on the trunk of a tree. The force of their jump resulted in them wrapping around each other before the ended up being tied to the tree. Spike simply looked at the two of them after grabbing the apple, roared at them, and took off once again. Getting to them, I began chuckling a bit as they gave me looks of annoyance before I began to try and untie them. As I was, I heard someone flying right behind me and stopped to see that Rainbow Dash had gotten here and appeared to be trying to hold in a laugh, before ultimately failing as she fell on the ground laughing.

"No way! Don't tell me, you two tied yourselves up?" Rainbow Dash said in-between laughs.

"Help us get out of here!" Applejack said, before a loud scream could be heard.

"What was that?" Twilight asked as the scream could be heard again, though this time I recognized its owner.

"That's Fluttershy! Spike must have gone to her house!" I said.

With Rainbow Dash's help, we were quickly able to untie Applejack and Twilight and then quickly made our way towards Fluttershy's house. As we got there, we saw that Spike had definitely come here as giant footprints could be seen leading up to her house as I felt fear coming from behind the cottage. Making our way around, I managed to find Fluttershy hiding up in one of the taller trees that were around her house, surrounded by a bunch of squirrels.

"Fluttershy! Are you ok?" I asked.

"No, not really." Fluttershy nervously said.

"What happened here?" Twilight said.

"After Null had left earlier and I gave Angel his lunch, I was helping my squirrel friends with a dance step and all of a sudden, a giant, rampaging dragon stormed through and then pulled my chicken coop out of the ground, filled it with apples and leaves, and then went towards Ponyville. Wait, was that rampaging dragon Spike?" Fluttershy asked.

"Yeah. After I left he underwent a growth spurt just like the book said." I said. This was then followed by another scream coming from the direction of Ponyville.

"That sounded like Pinkie Pie!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"Then what are we waitin for? We need to go!" Applejack said as she began running off towards Ponyville. All of us, including Fluttershy as she flew down from the tree, followed Applejack as we made our way towards Ponyville and reached Sugarcube Corner and went in. Inside, we found Spike on one side of the main room holding onto the chicken coop he stole from Fluttershy's house and was trying his best to avoid cakes that were being thrown at him by Pinkie Pie, who was standing on top of a nearby shelf.

"Pinkie Pie! Stop giving him cake!" Twilight yelled out.

Pinkie turned and looked down at us from her perch. "I'm not giving him cake, I'm assaulting him with cake!" Pinkie said as she threw more cake at Spike. However, Spike was able to catch one of the cakes Pinkie threw at him and put it inside the chicken coop. "How dare you take the cake!" Pinkie yelled out.

It was then I began to feel Spike's anger rise once more as he let out a loud roar, causing the whole building to shake as well as causing Pinkie Pie to fall from her perch. We all fearfully watched as Spike began to rapidly grow, before his head crashed through the roof of Sugarcube Corner as he had now grown to be what I assumed was the size of an adult dragon. Roaring once more, he climbed out of Sugarcube Corner and began wreaking havoc.

"This, definitely isn't good." I said, stating the obvious.

"Yeah, he's completely out of control. We need to follow him before we lose track of him!" Twilight said as she ran out of the now demolished bakery, with us following closely behind. As we tried following Spike, we saw how he had reduced a lot of buildings to rubble during his rampage. We unfortunately lost sight of him multiple times, but Rainbow Dash was able to point out where he was by flying above and leading us to him. At some point, Spike had ripped off the water tank off of a nearby water tower, and was now using it to carry anything he could grab. But, things turned from bad to worse as we had lost him yet again and had to spend some time looking for him before Rainbow Dash pointed out he was close to the town hall. As we arrived, we saw Spike who was now holding Rarity using his tail coiled around her, and appeared to be wearing the cape she showed everyone yesterday.

"Rarity!" Fluttershy yelled.

"Don't worry, we'll save you! Come on Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash yelled as she took off towards Spike with Fluttershy in tow.

We watched as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy each got on one side of Spike's head, each one of them right next to one of his ears. Rainbow Dash was trying to demand Spike to put Rarity down, while Fluttershy was doing the same, albeit more politely. Sensing his annoyance, Spike began to use his tail to try and hit the two pegasi, resulting in rarity screaming for her life. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy tried their best to avoid Spike's tail, but it was Rarity's cape that got them, as the cape draped over the two of them and ripped off, causing the both of them to fall into a nearby river that ran through part of the plaza. We went over to see if they were ok.

"Are you two ok?" Applejack asked.

"We're fine." Rainbow Dash said before something grabbed her attention and she pointed behind us. "Look! It's the Wonderbolts!"

We turned and saw the stunt team that Rainbow Dash worshipped flying over us and towards Spike. It appeared that only a few members had come to help, as there were only three pegasi flying in formation. Beside all of them wearing blue jumpsuits with a lightning design to them and goggles, the only difference between them was that one of them had a slicked back orange mane and tail as well as yellow fur and wings , one had a similar mane and tail style as the first but it was yellow and had white fur and wings, while the last one also had white fur and wings but had a blue mane and tail that were puffy. They began to fly around Spike who quickly took notice of them. One of them came in and it him square in the chest while another stomped down on his head before the all regrouped and charged at him at once. However, they wouldn't have the chance to hit him, as Spike began to breathe in before letting loose a massive green fire breath that hit the three Wonderbolts, resulting in them crash landing nearby as they were covered in scorch marks. Worried, all of the girls rushed towards them to see if they were ok with me lagging behind. I then watched as Spike picked up some nearby rubble in one of his claws and then threw it directly at us.

"Scatter!" I yelled out. Hearing me, the girls turned and watched as the rubble was flying towards us, and all of us dove out of the way, resulting in the rubble thankfully hitting no one. However, I found myself alone as the girls had all dived towards the direction of the Wonderbolts while I had dove in the opposite direction. Spike, seeing me separated from the others, picked up more rubble as he looked at me with a predatory glare.

"Spike, please. It's me, Null. Whatever you're thinking, please don't-" I was cut off as Spike threw the rubble towards me.

No matter how hard I could try, I wasn't able to move my body. It was if everything had slowed down, as I watched as the rubble slowly made its way towards me. I could faintly hear the others calling out to me, yelling at me to move out of the way, but it was though they were just barely audible whispers. As I watched the rubble threatening to bury me, I could only watch fearfully as my life flashed before my eyes. My time here in this world, from me entering that vortex to just yesterday, me fighting against Magolor, me fighting Kirby and his friends while I was controlling Magolor, my time spent being stuck on Landia's head, and all of those that wanted to use me for my power. Was this how I was going to go out? When I had finally escaped the Master Crown and had somewhat found a place where I had friends for the first time that I could remember, only for me to perish by the hand of a friend that had been corrupted by greed.


Was this how I wanted to go?


No.


I refused to go out like this. 


I refused to simply float here and watch as my demise slowly crept closer and closer to me. 


I, the influence of the Master Crown that had corrupted and possessed those that sought to use my power for their own selfish goals and then wrought destruction until I had been removed from my wearer, refused to go out like this!

As if by pure instinct, I felt my body go into autopilot and I watched as I slowly put both of the gloves that acted as my makeshift hands were placed right in front of me, palms open and faced towards the incoming rubble. I felt as I began to tap into my mana pool that had grown during the past few hours as magic began to flow directly into my hands and gather right in front of them. As it did, a glowing pink hexagon with various symbols lining it appeared right in front of my hands as the magic began to concentrate. Slowly, a small red orb appeared right in front of the hexagon and began to gradually get bigger. As it reached the size of a basketball, the orb was red on the edges and gradually turned transparent as it reached the middle. However, a small spark of electricity could be seen in the middle of the orb, with various streaks of electricity branching out towards the edges as red sparks danced along the outside of the orb. Feeling the orb could no longer get any bigger, I fired it.

As time seemed to no longer be slowed down, the orb rocketed towards the rubble at high speeds before striking it, causing the rubble to scatter into harmless debris. Looking towards Spike, I saw as he now had a look of shock as I had shot the rubble he threw at me right out of the air with Rarity also sharing a shocked look as her mouth was hanging open. Actually, everyone was wearing shocked looks as when I turned to look at the others, they were all staring at me with their jaws dropped.

"Null, what did you just, how did you just..." Twilight stammered.

I looked at both of my hands as what I had just done finally seemed to catch up with me. Once again going by pure instinct, I tapped into my mana pool once more and began drawing from it. However this time, instead of a pink hexagon appearing, the orbs appeared in my hands and steadily grew until they were about the half size of the one I had shot earlier as I wasn't intending to fire these ones. I watched as the electricity within the orbs danced along the inside and touched the edges as I began to come to the realization that I had just cast my first offensive spell, one that I had used almost constantly during my fight with Kirby and his friends. Even though I could feel that these orbs weren't necessarily strong, I was ecstatic as I was now able to use Magic Spheres.

Before I could answer Twilight, Spike let a loud roar as he got over what I had just done, snapping us all out of our surprise as we had bigger things to worry about with me also losing focus and causing the Magic Spheres in my hands to disspate. Seeing how talking to him hadn't worked, there was only one thing we were able to do.

"Twilight!" I yelled out with her turning towards me as I called out her name. "You and the others need to get everyone out of here or Spike will just keep attacking everyone he sees."

"But what about Spike and Rarity?!" Twilight yelled back.

"I'll try and get Rarity away from Spike. As for Spike himself..." I said as I turned back towards Spike. "I think I'm going to have to fight him."

"What?!" Everyone yelled out.

"Dude, you can't fight him! Look what he did to them!" Rainbow Dash said as she pointed to the three Wonderbolts that had been hit by Spike's fire breath.

"Yeah! And he might try and flatten you like a pancake if you get too close!" Pinkie exclaimed.

The girls continued to voice their concerns before Applejack said something that caused all of them to be quite.

"Well, Ah think he should be fine."

"What are you talking about?" Twilight asked.

"Well, Null did help me catch Snips and Snails when they were taking my apples." Applejack said.

"That's right. I was there when he helped her as well." Fluttershy said.

"Hmhm. And we did a mighty fine job at that. Ah don't think we would have caught em' if Null didn't tell me to buck him towards em'." Applejack stated. "Ah think we should trust him on this. Ah definitely do."

"Thanks Applejack." I said. "If I can just wear out Spike, I think there's a chance I can calm him down."

The others began to talk with each other for a bit, before deciding to come to an agreement.

"Alright, just be careful, ok?" Twilight asked.

"And please don't hurt him too much." Fluttershy said.

"Yeah! Go kick Spikezilla's butt!" Pinkie Pie said, prompting us to look at her with confused looks. "What? It's like you're facing some big bad boss. It feels right to call him something menacing like Spikezilla."

"Regardless, you all won't worry. I'll be fine." I said, reassuring the girls.

And with that, the girls split up. Telling everyone that was still in the plaza to get away, or in the case of Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash, carrying the three burnt Wonderbolts away so that they could be treated for their burns and any other injuries they sustained when they crashed. Once there was no one left in the plaza, I turned towards Spike and Rarity.

"Alright Spike." I said as I held my hands to my sides and began to tap into my mana pool. Spike on the other hand began to glare at me as he sensed I was about to fight him, with Rarity watching us nervously while still being held tight with Spike's tail.

"It's on!"



Baby Dragon Corrupted by Greed 
Spikezilla




Our fight began as I began to rapidly float towards Spike as Magic Spheres began to form in my hands. Seeing this, Spike began picking up large chunks of rubble in his claws before throwing them at me. However, they were quickly shot down out of the air as I fired the Magic Spheres at them. One thing I definitely noticed was that when I launched the Magic Spheres, the same pink hexagon from earlier appeared between my hand and the orb of concentrated magic, leading me to believe that they only appeared when I was attacking using spells as they didn't appear earlier when I summoned the two Magic Spheres to examine.

Despite seeing how the first few chunks of rubble failed to hit me, Spike kept up the pressure by grabbing larger chunks of rubble at throwing them. While launching Magic Spheres at these chunks didn't destroy them, they did however knock them off course, causing them to hit the ground beside me as I kept going.

As I got close to Spike, he decided to just stop throwing rubble at me and instead got on all fours and raised his tail up high.

"Null! Watch out!" Rarity yelled as Spike swung his tail horizontally, causing her to scream. Seeing this, I quickly did my best to float over the tail sweep with it just barely missing me as I got out of the way in time.

As Spike began to turn back around to face me as he noticed his tail sweep didn't work, I launched a Magic Sphere while his back was turned resulting in the Magic Sphere striking his back. While it didn't seem to do much, I did notice Spike wince a little bit, meaning that I was doing some damage to him.

Finally becoming more offensive, I watched as Spike got back onto his hind legs and tried to slash at me using his claws. Thankfully, the slashes were somewhat slow, so I was able to get out of the way before launching two more Magic Sphere, one for each arm. After striking both arms, Spike winced some more as he shook his claws in what I assumed was an attempt to shake off the pain. Taking this brief opportunity, I floated closer towards his face and fired a Magic Sphere directly into his face. It seems that Spike wasn't expecting this, as he covered his claws over his face while backing away.

As he uncovered his face as he moved a decent way away from me, I watched as he began to glare at me before green flames began to dance around his closed mouth. Realizing what he was about to do, I quickly floated down to the ground as Spike let out a massive stream of fire right where I had been moments ago. Seeing how I dodged it, he immediately began to try and backhand me with one of his claws. Unfortunately, I had been too focused on avoiding the flames to notice the giant claw before it was too late, resulting in me being launched a decent ways back before hitting the ground.

Groaning a bit as I had to endure the pain, I immediately rolled out of the way as Spike let out another stream of fire from his mouth and kept moving as he moved his head with me, allowing the fire breath to follow right behind me. Thinking quickly, I floated back up again and fired multiple Magic Spheres at Spike's side. This seemed to do the trick, as Spike stopped breathing fire as he couldn't ignore the pain the Magic Spheres had caused.

I once again took this opportunity and floated right in front of Spike and launched two Magic Spheres once more at his face, with him once again covering his face and moving back to get away from me, however I didn't need to feel his anger to know that he was extremely mad as his glare was downright murderous.

That's when he began mixing things up as I assumed he was starting to get desperate.

He once again got on all four as fire began to dance along his mouth. But before I could even think of dodging what I assumed was him trying to breathe fire at me, he began to once again perform a tail spin that I hovered over easily, only this time he kept going as he also began to breathe fire as well. This resulted in him becoming a spinning wheel of fire that I had to constantly hover over to avoid his attacks. Though he would begin to aim both his tail and fire breath upwards, resulting in me needing to avoid both while in midair. He then pushed himself off the ground while still spinning and landed on his hind legs, stretching his arms and claws out. Continuing to spin, he then raised his head up and released a large green fireball that slowly began to rise before exploding. From the explosion, multiple green fireballs began to rain down all around us. I did my best to avoid them, but I got hit a couple of times, resulting in me getting burnt as my outfit also started to have scorch marks appear on them as well.

However, it seems that Spike's desperate move caused him to exhaust himself, as after he finished spinning and all the fireballs were gone, he proceeded to sit down while he had a dazed look in his eyes. Aiming to end this fight, I quickly floated in front of Spike and began to charge a Magic Sphere, pushing all I could as I felt my mana pool being rapidly drained. The result was a Magic Sphere that, while still the same size, was no longer transparent in the middle. Instead, it was dark to the point where you wouldn't be able to see through it at all, with the red color of the Magic Sphere being more vibrant as more electricity danced along the inside of the Magic Sphere as well. And then, in one quick motion, I fired the Magic Sphere right at Spike's stomach.

The result was Spike letting out a massive roar that continued on for multiple seconds, before his upper body slumped forward and his head hit the ground. His tail followed soon after, also crashing to the ground and releasing its grip on Rarity, who tumbled a bit after being let go. Recovering from her tumble, she saw me and made her way over.

"Null, are you ok?" Rarity asked.

"I'm fine, just a little-" I began to say before before I was interrupted by Rarity gasping.

"Oh my gosh! What has he done to your outfit?!" Rarity said as she looked at the various scorch marks as some parts of my outfit were still smoldering from where I was unable to avoid all of the fireballs. The end of my scarf had also burned away as well. 

"This will not do. Null, I'm going to need your outfit so I can fix it later. But first..." Rarity said as she began to make her way over to Spike head. Following her, I watched as she stood right in front of Spike who I began to notice was still conscious, though he was barely on the verge of passing out. He let out a weak roar as he glared at the both of us.

"Oh, be quiet. You've got nothing to be proud of. You steal everypony's things, terrorize the town, and use me as a weapon against my own friends! Which, as horrible as it is, I can almost understand because you're a dragon and all. But this!" Rarity exclaimed as she ripped off her torn cloak, holding it in her aura. "This is a crime against fashion!"

"Umm, Rarity? I don't mean to interrupt you, but this dragon is actually-" I began, only to be cut off once again.

"Hold on one moment darling. I'm almost done. Anyways..." Rarity said, only to stop as she noticed Spike staring at her. Or, more specifically, what she was still wearing, as Rarity was still wearing the fire ruby around her neck. Realizing this, Rarity placed a hoof over the ruby while glaring at Spike.

"Oh no. You are not getting this gemstone! This was given to me by my dear friend Spikey-wikey, the kindest, sweetest, most generous dragon ever. And it is too precious to me to give to a greedy old beast like you!" Rarity said, however, it looked as though Spike wasn't listening as he appeared to be lost in thought. After a few seconds of nothing, we all watched as Spike slowly began moving one of his arms and placed a claw on his left cheek. Then, all of a sudden, the fire ruby began to emit a soft red glow as I began to feel an intense warmth from it. It then flew out of the gold band and floated right in front of us.

"Uh, Rarity, what's going on?" I asked.

However, Rarity wouldn't be able to answer as the fire ruby let loose a stream of red fire from it onto Spike. We watched as the flames crawled over Spike before covering his body completely before the flames changed from red to green. Finally, the flames seemed to shrink down as Spike's body got smaller and smaller, before reaching the same size of what he was normally. Then, the flames dissipated, revealing Spike laying on the ground who had turned back to normal. With the last of the flames gone as well, the fire ruby began to stop glowing before falling to the ground.

"Spike?!" Rarity yelled out in surprise.

"As I was trying to say earlier, Spike was the dragon that was rampaging around town earlier. But I'm wondering just what did the fire ruby do and how did it turn Spike back to normal?" I asked.

Rarity seemed to think his over before her face lit up in realization. "I think I know what just happened. I've heard tales of fire rubies possessing fire like properties, hence the name "fire ruby", but that they also have some sort of healing effect that is able to get rid of most afflictions. But, the only way that this healing effect can happen is if..." Rarity said trailing off.

"Is if what?" I asked.

"Is if the afflicted has strong emotions for the one possessing the fire ruby." Rarity finished.

Our conversation was stopped short as we began to hear groaning. Turning to the source, we saw Spike slowly rising up to his feet while holding his head in one of his claws. Rushing over, I caught Spike tight as he was about to fall over.

"Null? Rarity? Ugh, what happened? And why does it feel like a ball was thrown at my face multiple times?" Spike asked.

"I'll explain later. Just know that you sort of went a little crazy with hoarding things." I said.

Spike slowly looked around, seeing the destruction he had caused both before and during our fight before turning to Rarity. He seemed to struggle a bit as I felt him becoming nervous before he took a deep breath and seemed to calm down. 

"Rarity, I sort of need to tell you something." Spike began. "The thing is, I've sort of always had a crush on-" Spike was interrupted by Rarity placing her hoof in front of his mouth.

"It's fine, I sort of just found out. May I at least ask how long?" Rarity asked.

"Ever since Twilight and I first arrived here in Ponyville." Spike sheepishly said.

Before we could continue, we all saw the other running up to us with looks of relief. Twilight ran over to Spike and the two hugged each other while Fluttershy came over to me and kept asking me if I was ok as she saw the scorch marks with me telling her I was ok. They explained how they had managed to evacuate everyone within the area and had managed to treat the three Wonderbolts of their injuries before taking them to the hospital. After which, they explained how they rushed over here as they no longer heard the sounds of fighting. After the two of them finished hugging, Twilight approached me.

"Now that Spike is back to normal, I believe all of us still have one thing on our minds." Twilight said, getting everyone's attention. "Null, just what was that orb you fired at that debris?!"

"Yeah. All of us thought you were a goner." Rainbow Dash said.

"Well..." I said. "All I was thinking about was how much I didn't want to get hit by that rubble, and then my body acted all on its own. And then I just fired a Magic Sphere."

"Magic Sphere? That's what those orbs you kept firing at Spike were?" Rarity asked.

"Wait, is that why my face hurts?" Spike asked.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I was sort of forced to fight you so that I could calm you down." I said.

"Regardless, I'm thinking back to what Princess Celestia said about you and how you had a large amount of magic within you. I've seen orbs of pure magic before, but none like these before. And definitely not ones that were able to destroy chunks rubble like that." Twilight said.

"Anywho, I think all of us need some rest, especially these three here." Applejack said gesturing to me, Spike, and Rarity. "These two were fightin' each other and don't look like they're doin' too good, and Rarity's been swung around a lot."

"I agree. I've had a little too much excitement for today. Before I go, may I have your clothes Null? I at least want to fix them as thanks for saving me." Rarity said.

"Sure. Go ahead." I said as I took off my outfit as she held it in her aura. I also gave her my gloves as well as they also had burn marks as well. After that, I made my way over to Fluttershy and floated down onto her back. Everyone decided that we would meet back up later after everyone had gotten some rest while Twilight levitated the tank of the water tower that Spike had set down earlier before we fought and set off to give back everything Spike took during his rampage before the rest of us headed our separate ways. The moment we got back to the cottage and I covered myself up on the couch, after Fluttershy gave me a bath as I smelled like ash and smoke, I gave away to my exhaustion and swiftly fell asleep.





Odd, this was new.

This was the third dream I have had since coming here, but I wasn't expecting for it to happen so soon. I vaguely remember myself closing my eyes and falling asleep on the couch at Fluttershy house, only for the next moment to open my eyes and find myself in an endless expanse of darkness. Another thing I quickly noticed was that I was wearing my outfit, with said outfit appearing as though my fight with Spike had never happened. While I was trying to figure out what was going on, the darkness around me slowly began to brighten before quickly becoming that of a blinding white, forcing me to cover my eyes at the sudden change in brightness. As it died down, I slowly removed my hand from my eyes as I found that my surroundings had completely changed.

I appeared to be in some sort of viewing/observation area, as there were multiple computer terminals lining the walls to my left and right that were displaying random bits of information that I wasn't able to make out. The wall behind me was bare, except for two glass windows that were separated by what appeared to be a metal door of some kind. Lastly, the wall opposite of the door was that of a large window that appeared to look down into some room as there were also multiple rows of chairs that people could sit in that were facing the window as well. Before I could investigate the change of scenery, shadowy concentrations of smoke began to appear throughout the room before they slowly began shifting into humanoid shapes that appeared to be doing various things. Some were observing the computer terminals, others appeared to be conversing with one another, and some appeared to be sitting down in one of the chairs. However, there was one shadowy figure that caught my attention as this one appeared to be more detailed than the others, even if said details were as black and smoky as the figure was. This one appeared be somewhat portly in shape and looked to be wearing some sort of suit and was holding a cane in his right hand. The figure was standing in front of the large window while tapping one of his feet.


I swear, if he isn't here in the next two minutes I'll be docking his pay.


I was startled by the voice that had just appeared. It sounded both deep and raspy as it reverberated throughout the entire room with no visible source. Moments later, I heard the door to the room slide open and watched as a shadowy figure rushed into the room and towards the one in front of the window. This one also had more detail, even more so than the one in front of the window. It was wearing a lab coat that extended a bit past its knees, was wearing boots of some kind, had somewhat scruffy hair on the top of its head, and some sort of lanyard around its neck holding onto some sort of card. Lastly, where its eyes were glowing white as though they were small lights.


Sorry sir, I'm here. I would have been earlier, but you did sort of call me at literally 2 in the morning.


Wait, I recognized that voice. That voice was the same one that I heard in the first dream that was talking to someone about leaving. The voice sounded male and somewhat mature, but had a slight mischievous edge to it. I could only put two and two together as I assumed that the figure that rushed in was the owner of the voice I heard both just now and in the first dream. After talking, the figure holding the can turned around to face the one in the lab coat, who I also saw had the same glowing white eyes as the figure with the coat.


Well, I assumed the head researcher of this whole thing would have at least been able to get here as quick as he possibly could so that he could know what's going on. Do I need to remind you who is funding this whole thing?


The figure in the lab coat seemed to slump a little bit before scratching the back of their head.


No, you don't Mr. Corpalki.


The figure with the cane, who I assumed was whoever this Mr. Corpalki was, appeared to have a smug grin.


That's right. Now then, all that these tech heads could tell me was that the device was undergoing a, what was it, a "magic overflow"?


Mr. Corpalki gestured towards the glass wall with the figure in the lab coat walking up to it and looked down through the glass.


It's nothing too serious to warrant any worry. I actually knew that something like this was going to happen. It just needs some time to adjust to the large amounts of magic being pumped into it, overtime this issue will fix itself.



Seriously? That's it? All these tech heads said that it was a major deal! And what about those weird colorful lights floating around it?



To be fair, a lot of the others don't really have a lot of experience in how magic works. I'll probably need to remind them what they should consider "bad" or "dangerous" when it comes to this project. As for those lights, that just simply raw magic from the overflow. It's not really all that dangerous by itself, but we should probably put some magic absorption crystals in there to clean it up.


During their conversation, I slowly made my way closer and closer to Mr. Corpalki and the figure in the coat to the point where I was just behind them. With some curiosity, I stuck my hand out to touch the figure in the coat, only for my hand to pass through it as though the figure was made of smoke.


And you're positive this project of your will work? Remember what will happen if I find out you've just been wasting my money.



I'm positive that Project Crown will work. It has to. And when it does...


The figure in the coat clenched one of its hands.


It will ensure that we will never have to worry about any more disasters that befalls us. Not wars. Not alien creatures from another world. And especially not the planet dying.


As the figure finished, I slowly floated towards the glass window to see just what they were talking about. And when I looked down through the glass, I felt my eyes widen at what I was seeing. The glass allowed those looking through it to view a large circular chamber with a metal door leading into it. However, what caught my attention was within the middle of the chamber.

Sat upon a large metal pedestal with multiple monitors sticking out of said pedestal, was the Master Crown. However, it looked a lot different than the Master Crown I knew. While it was still the same in terms of shape, circular with triangular points on the top with four spikes sticking out of the front with a gemstone embedded above the spikes, that was where the similarities ended. Instead of being gold in color, it was metallic gray in color. And the gemstone was pink instead of blue. Lastly, multiple wires could be seen sticking out of the crown with some sort of colorful light flowing through the wires. All around the chamber were small orbs or various colors, almost exactly the same colors as what was flowing through the wires. Before I could figure out just what was going on, a bright flash was released from the Master Crown as everything around me faded away into the light.





"Ahh!" I yelled out as I found myself falling from the couch and landed on the floor. Thankfully, the impact didn't hurt due to the low height of the couch. Still, as my mind began to catch up to what was happening, I couldn't help but think back to what I had seen in my dream. The weird lab I was in, those two figures, one of which I concluded was in my first dream, and most importantly, what was going on with the Master Crown. It didn't really make much sense, as I think I would have remembered me being hooked up to some glowing wires in some sort of lab. And I especially don't remember the Master Crown looking like that. All of this wasn't really making much sense, but it also felt too real for it to have been a dream.

Looking out the window, I watched as the sun was a decent way into the sky, signaling that it was till early morning. However, I couldn't really appreciate the sight as I thought back to what happened before I arrived in Equestria, how the shards of the Master Crown flew into that colorful vortex before I myself was sucked into it as well. As I did, the urge to solve this mystery as to what that dream was all about and the questions kept getting stronger and stronger. And then I realized something.

If I wanted to find out what was going on and how the Master Crown related to this...

I was going to have to find the shards of the Master Crown.