//------------------------------// // Episode 33: The Hunting Arc; End of the Beginning // Story: The Drake Six // by JNKing //------------------------------// Swift was supposed to be the fastest; his name was literally Swift Winds.  So why did it feel to Spike like he was going as slow as a snail?  “Come on,” Spike pleaded. “Can’t you go any faster?” Swift panted raggedly. “I’m doing the best I can!” he pumped his wings faster, yet the mountains below them moved far too slowly. “W-Why couldn’t you ask Star Wing?”  “Because it would’ve taken too long to drag her away from her fans,” Spike insisted. “And Twilight needs my help now!”  “Why?” Swift asked. “Because a magic map malfunctioned?”  “That map’s not just any normal map,” Spike insisted. “Something really bad has happened to Twilight. I feel it in my gut.”  Almost on cue, his gut rumbled; they had been traveling for a full day and night now, without stopping. Swift’s stomach similarly groaned, and he drooped out of the air.  “At this rate,” Swift bemoaned, “I’m scared we’ll show up and collapse from exhaustion. Then we’ll just get locked up alongside your friends.”  Spike’s soul wailed in agony, but the look in Swift’s eyes was reminding Spike too much of how he used to look on his Aunt Hawke. That same fear of provoking someone who could hurt him… Spike wasn’t Swift’s owner. He was supposed to be his friend.  Even though his fear for Twilight still chilled his heart, Spike nodded in acceptance. “Let’s take a break, buddy.”  Gratefully, Swift dropped out of the sky, and landed on a nearby mountain ridge. “J-Just a quick break,” he promised.  ### Unfortunately, Swift and Spike’s ideas of a ‘quick break’ were rather divergent.  “Swift? Swift, wake up!” Spike pleaded, shaking the slumbering hybrid.  No luck; he was passed clean out.  Spike had no idea how he managed it. The young dragon himself was going out of his mind with worry. He shut his eyes and immediately got nightmares of Twilight being tortured. Violated. Maimed. Killed. He gazed out across the mountains. “I’m sorry, Twilight,” he found himself thinking. “I never should have left you. I was supposed to be your number one assistant.” He sunk to his knees. “Now what am I really?”  Almost on cue, Spike heard the flutter of wings. He turned hopefully to Swift, but the griffon-dragon hybrid snoozed on. Turning his gaze higher, Spike saw the night sky above flickering, before Star Wing dove down to join him.  “Star!” Spike stammered.  “Ya know, I was curious about that,” Star admitted, shifting back into her dragon form of Night Fire. “Do you think I still need this guise? I mean, word must have spread quickly and…” “We don’t have time for that,” Spike said, running over to her. “Swift’s passed out and Twilight’s in trouble.”  “Passed out?” Star immediately ran to Swift’s side and checked over him. “Is… wait a minute, is he hurt?” “No, just tired,” Spike admitted. “We’ve been traveling non-stop; I’m really worried that something happened to Twilight.”  “Why?” Star asked. “What happened?”  Spike felt his inner fire seething at having to explain everything yet again, but he forced himself to remain patient. There was no way he’d be helping Twilight by lashing out against his friends.  “This map appeared in Twilight’s library. It had her cutie mark - t-the cutie marks of the others - all hanging around somewhere in these mountains. A-And I saw those marks flicker and die out.”  “So, you… think the map was somehow able to track their vitals or something?” Star asked.  That thought made Spike’s heart skip a beat. “If that’s true, then… that means they…” “Hey!” Star immediately grabbed him. “Don’t go that far. Twilight’s a lot tougher than that. At least I think, I haven’t interacted with her that much. But I can get impressions.”  “Like how I’m a terrible friend?” Spike asked, his voice cracking.  Star gasped. “Spike, don’t think like that.”  “But I am!” Spike looked back across the mountains. “Twilight was my first friend. My… I don’t know if she was a sister or a mother, but she was the only family I had. And I left her!” He tried to stifle his tears. “She was my treasure. Just like how we’re Diamondback’s treasure. Friendship is the most valuable treasure that can be had and… I took her for granted.” He looked out over the mountains. “Now she’s out there somewhere, possibly in danger… and what am I doing?”  Star stepped up next to him. “You’re rescuing her,” she replied with a grin. “You’re her knight in shining armor.”  Spike huffed. “Gonna be hard to do when I’m still nowhere near close to finding her.”  Star hummed before hoisting Swift onto her back. “Well, luckily for you,” she said. “I always preferred the night.”  Taking on Spike as well, she spread her wings and launched back into the sky, the search back on.  ### However, as the dawn came and the sun rose on a new day, even Star began to drop out of the sky. Evidently, carrying two dragons - even with one being part griffon - was a lot even for an alicorn to handle. “Starting to…” Star gasped. “Kinda regret… giving up my mom and aunt’s power…” She landed on another mountain. “Really wouldn’t say no to the energy boost that would’ve given me.” Flicking her horn, she summoned an energy drink. “Oh well; at least I got caffeine.” With that, she started downing it.  Luckily, at that moment, Swift’s eyes started to flutter open. “H-Huh? Where are we?”  At the same time, Spike noticed something. A strange pink pony with a purple mane, racing along a mountain path with some sort of cart attached to her. The cart had several jars, each of them glowing with some sort of strange power. Swift’s eyes widened, and he shot over to Spike’s side. “Spike, why is Fluttershy’s cutie mark in a bottle?”  Spike tried to look. “What are you talking about? It’s too far away.”  Swift sighed, before pulling Spike onto his back. “Hang on.”  He jumped off the ledge. Star racing after him.  “Guys, wait for me!” she claimed, chugging the rest of her drink… and promptly gagging and coughing. “Sorry,” she said. “Wrong tube. Don’t mind me!”  As Star fell back, still coughing and hacking, Swift flew down towards the pony… just in time to see a dark blue pegasus with a white mane flying after her.  As Swift banked in the air, the pink pony turned and growled.  “Are you all so willing to give everything because of these strangers?!” the pink pony screamed, before revealing a unicorn horn. She blasted some snow off a cliff, deluging her pursuer in snow. Yet even then, more ponies rushed on by.  “We gave up everything for you,” one of the ponies yelled. “Because we thought you were our friend!”  Spike and Swift exchanged startled glances. “W-What’s going on?”  At that moment, Star shot up, her eyes swirling from caffeine. “CHASE SEQUENCE!” she cheered, before joining the ponies, scat-singing some sort of epic chase music.  The ponies slowed up in shock. “What the…?!”  But at that moment, Spike saw what Swift was talking about. The six glowing jars did indeed have cutie marks in them. He spotted Fluttershy’s butterflies, Pinkie Pie’s balloons, Rainbow Dash’s lightning bolt… and Twilight Sparkle’s stars.  Rage drove him off Swift’s back. He hit the ground running and grabbed at the cart. “What did you do to my treasure!” he roared.  The unicorn yelped and fired at him with her horn. Spike was sent reeling from the blast, right as the unicorn made it onto a bridge. Snarling, Spike took off after her.  “That cutie mark is mine,” he thought as he felt the Greed granting it’s power to him. “It belongs to my treasure. My Twilight! Give… it… BACK!”  However, the bridge began to crack as he grew. And whoever the thief was, she was a fast thinker. She fired another spell at the bridge, and as the stone cracked and shuddered, the magic and Spike’s weight proved too much.  Spike roared out as the stone gave way underneath him, and he plummeted into the ravine. “SPIKE!” Star yelled, diving after him and catching him by the snout. She shifted into Night Fire, and then into a Greed Empowered Night Fire, her wings buzzing like mad as she tried to pull Spike up. “Spike,” she groaned. “Lose some weight! Caffeine’s not helping!”  But Spike couldn’t stop thinking about Twilight. His treasure. His friend. Whatever this pony had done to her, she needed to be punished for it. Glaring at the ridge, he swung himself forward and managed to sink his claws into the wall.  “I’m on!” He declared, allowing Star/Night to let him go with a gasp. Spike scrambled as fast as he could up the ridge, only to find that the ponies who had been chasing their captor had gotten ahead of him.  “Come on,” Star said. “Swift flew ahead, but he’ll probably need help.”  Her words were unfortunately proven right, for as Spike and Star raced after the ponies, they found Swift encased in ice, his frozen form having fallen right next to a pair of skis one of the ponies was yanking out of the snow.  “Swift!” Star yelped, trying to tend to their friend.  But as Spike looked past them, he saw the thief heading for the caves.  “YOU THIEF!” he roared, pounding after her.  But even then, he knew it was hopeless. She had too much of a headstart, and while the Greed made him bigger, it didn’t give him wings. But just before she could escape into the caves, the white pony with the skis shot by, dropped by the dark blue pegasus. Knocking snow off the cliffs just like how the thief had done to the pegasus, he buried the thief in snow, and knocked the jars from her.  The jars shattered, and Spike watched as the cutie marks shot into the air, heading right for him.  He almost ducked, but the cutie marks sped past him, flying further off into the mountains towards… Spike’s heart leaped in joy. “TWILIGHT!”  “Spike?!” Twilight rose into the air, her eyes wide at the sight of him. “What’re you…?”  She paused, and then gasped. Spike tilted his head in confusion, before she teleported past him.  A blast of magic drew his gaze, as he saw Twilight protect the pursuing ponies from a blast of magic from the thief.  “W… I studied that spell for years!” the thief snarled. “How can you…?”  “I studied magic for years too,” Twilight refuted. “But what I didn’t know was that studying can only take me so far.” She looked back at the ponies. “Each of my friends has taught me something different about myself. It was their unique gifts and passions and personalities that helped bring out the magic in me. I never would have learned that I represent the element of magic without these five. And I certainly wouldn’t be here to stop you now.”  “Spare me your sentimental nonsense,” the thief declared. “I gave these ponies ‘real’ friendships they never could’ve had otherwise!” “How do you know that?” one of the ponies demanded. “You never gave us a chance.”  The thief seethed in rage, but Spike was seething with his own rage as well.  “More importantly,” he said as he stormed up. “You messed with my friend! My treasure!”  He unleashed a burst of fire, but the thief deflected it with a burst of magic. The force from his fire knocked her backward… but it also sent her into a cave.  Briefly trying to force his oversized body through, Spike prepared another blast of fire. However. “Spike, no!” Twilight said, racing over and pulling his head back. “I’m fine. It’s okay. I’m fine.”  “Fine…” Her words echoed through to Spike, calming him down and shrinking him down from his other form. As he relaxed in her grip, he saw Star fly over with a recovered Swift.  “Well,” Star noted. “That was fun.” She glanced at the other ponies. “Oh, right, intros. Um…” she glanced at her horn and wings before shrugging. “Name’s Star Wing. This is Swift Winds.” Swift shivered on her back, sipping desperately from a mug of hot cocoa.  “And that’s Spike,” she said happily. “So… who were you guys.” She pointed to the cave. “And who was the crabby lady?”  Twilight sighed. “Long story.”  “Short version,” the white pony noted. “Her name is Starlight Glimmer. And she fooled us all.”  They started to explain - something about Starlight running some sort of equality cult. But Spike couldn’t help but glare into the cave.  This ‘Starlight’ had nearly taken everything from Twilight. His mother. His sister. His treasure. Worse still, what had he even done to stop her? Star had to save him. Poor Swift nearly got frozen to death because of it. They had done nothing to contribute to Starlight’s capture or the restoration of Twilight’s cutie mark.  Spike took a breath. “I can’t let this happen again. I need to be better. I may be a dragon, but I was always Twilight’s number one assistant. It’s high time I started acting like it.