Slowly, her wondrous dreams began to recede back into the void, the vivid imagery fading into the furthest recesses of her subconscious mind. Shifting her body slightly, she desperately tried to keep the dream going, doing her best to prevent her awakening. As Twilight began to stir more and more, she did whatever she could, from continuing the story with her own thoughts to trying to imagine that she was actually still asleep, to force the dream's continuation. Alas, all of her attempts failed, and she was thrown out of the land where everypony was a book filled with an average of five syllable words, to the world where everypony was subjected to Discord's rule.
A small frown formed on her face for just a moment from the lack of, literally, living tomes, but the frown was quickly shifted as soon as she realized where she was: Spike's forelegs. The scaled appendages that protectively covered her changed her downcast look into a much more upbeat smile, and with a sigh, she snuggled into the embrace a little more. While she knew she had fallen asleep almost as soon as she initially snuggled into her little crook yesterday afternoon, Twilight wasn't sure what he had done during that entire period. Of course, between the two most likely options, Spike either falling asleep with her or staying awake to guard her through the night, she wasn't sure which would've been more sweet. Either way, both possibilities warmed her heart in a way that she hadn't felt since she first came to this wretched world.
“I see you find it comfortable there,” A deep and rumbling voice chuckled from above her.
Twilight poked his foreleg slightly, never opening her eyes, “Oh hush you. It's nice and warm here.”
“I'll remember that the next time you try and tell me I'm a cold-hearted monster.”
“Oh, I never said anything about your heart,” Twilight finally looked up, locking her eyes on his. “I just said that you have a warm foreleg.”
Spike smiled even wider, “Hmm... I guess you speak the truth. In that case, I'll keep THAT in mind the next time you ask me to do you a favor.”
“I'm sure you will,” the lavender mare giggled, breaking her gaze as she snuggled up a little deeper into the crook of his elbow. Blissful thoughts ran rampant through Twilight's mind; images of her and her dragon tending to the library again, just like old times, began to blanket her mind. Granted that in her head, the inside of the library she tended to was much, much, much larger than her little tree home could ever dream of becoming, but the idea was there nonetheless. The thoughts of her tending over the library, instructing her little... err... very large number one assistant to aid her with organizing the near infinite books in the structure brought an even larger smile to her face. The huge number of books would have a variety of subjects. ranging from magic, art, history, engineering, Equestrian family trees, Zebra horticulture, Griffin mili...
Twilight's smile was instantly erased at the thought, her lips turning down the moment she thought of the feathered race, and the significant information she overheard regarding their fate by Spike's will. Even though she heard it from Spike's own mouth just a few days ago, she couldn't believe that he would do such a thing to anypony... or anygriffin in this case. Still, facts were facts, and if he was doing this sort of thing, that meant... meant... she didn't know what it meant, but it wasn't good! But... why would he do such a thing?
“Spike...” Twilight whispered, her voice a little quieter than even she was expecting.
She felt the dragon around her shift his weight a little, “Hmm? Yes?”
“Why did you...” the lavender stopped herself, unsure on how to ask the question. Allowing herself a few seconds to think, she restarted, “You never explained why you are doing all the terrible things to the griffins.”
There was an awkward pause, a pause formed from his inability to answer her question in any satisfactory way. Slowly, he sighed, “It is... a complicated and very unfortunate situation.”
Twilight rolled to her side, once again looking at Spike, “Try me.”
“If I... had refused to attack the griffins, effectively driving them to extinction, Discord would've suspected that I was against him, and had me... dealt with.”
The mare groaned, “He already DOES suspect you are against him! Even if that wasn't the case, that's not a good enough reason.”
Spike used his free claw to rub the bridge of his snout in slight frustration, “Of course he thinks I’m out to get him, but not any more than he thinks the next lord out there is. The whole situation is dumb I know, and it certainly isn't just, but I've told you before that I was not proud of what I have done or am doing. Everything I've done as Sarlaka was because of the plan that-”
“Yeah, well,” Twilight huffed, her agitation slowly growing, “your plan stinks.”
She wasn't sure why she was doing this, choosing right here, and right now, to start this kind of argument with him. Right when they had finally began to reconnect with each other after the long concealment and secrecy, she drops this sort of bomb on him. Seriously, was she intentionally trying to sabotage the relationship between her and her... what? Friend? Brother? Son? All three? She knew Spike had already admitted towards that third option, and she was well aware of the irony behind him thinking of her as that as he cradled her like a filly. Maybe that was the true reason behind the scolding, the fact that she considered him her so-
“It was not my plan.”
Twilight's thoughts came to a crashing halt as her mind refocused back onto the world around her. Curious, she cocked her head, “Not your what?”
“I said,” Spike sighed, “that none of this is, or has ever been, my plan.”
If anything, the lavender unicorn cocked her head even further, “So I did hear you right. What do you mean 'not your plan'?”
Spike looked off into the distance, “After my sisters... left me, I was alone for quite some time. I don't remember too many of the details of my solitude very well, a side effect of my decade long depression I guess, but what I do remember is after a fair amount of time, Luna found me again. When she heard that the Elements of Honesty and Loyalty were stolen, she was... well... for lack of a better word, furious. She demanded that I hand over yours as well, and fully intended on scolding me for losing those two.
“Heh, that emotion ended real quick as soon as she realized that my sisters had died protecting them.” Spike closed his eyes for moment, reliving the memory, “It was strange, being comforted by Princess Luna. She had always shown herself as a cold pony, or at least one that really didn't understand emotions in the slightest. That... wasn't entirely inaccurate, but wasn't accurate at the same time, for while she never tried to show her emotions outwardly, she felt them so much... so very much...
“Anyway, she had returned to inform me that she had not found the new bearers yet, but she was not giving up hope. Even if she had already used every single divination spell ever created to find them, obviously coming up empty-hoofed, she was going to physically search every corner of the globe in her hunt. She had no idea how long this would take, so she placed a few more enchantments on me, these being much longer lasting spells, and advised me to take your Element, leave Equestria forever, and never set foot near the former kingdom until she told me to.”
Twilight nodded, “Yes, you kinda explained that second part at the first dinner we had with you, or at least you did cryptically. You said she was looking for one hundred years? You... you wandered that long?”
“Of course not! You take me as some kind of grumpy hermit?” Spike chuckled to himself for a moment, before finally relaxing again, “After the first two years, I settled down, found a nice little cave, and finally began to make myself a nice hoard to call my own. I probably should have kept on the move, but I was tired... I just wanted to finally rest.”
Spike sighed, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. A few seconds later, he began anew, “But like you just said, a hundred years eventually passed, and by that point, Luna finally returned. I have to say, I think she was a little surprised when she saw how much I had grown. Sure, I wasn't nearly as big as I am now, but I don't think I would've been able to fit inside any normal pony's house by that point. That was when... well... when she told me that she had no idea what happened to the Elements of Harmony; the bearers I mean. Obviously something strange had happened, and we theorized many different scenarios, and actually, the idea of time travel came to mind at some point. However, with no evidence towards one theory or another, and no way to prove or disprove any of our theories, we could only guess.
“So she decided to completely abandon the idea of using the Elements,” Spike sighed. “Instead, she decided to come up with a much more... long term plan. Princess Luna had been forming a resistance group throughout her travels, and while this movement had barely numbered one hundred at that time of our discussions, it was slowly growing every day. She planned on utilizing this as a tool against Discord, but it was obviously much too small, and even if it was large, a simple horde of typical ponies would never be enough.”
Twilight frowned, “Let me guess: that's where you came in.”
The large dragon nodded his head, “Indeed. Luna told me that I should infiltrate Discord's organization, and make sure that I got on his good side, move up the ranks if you will, and make sure that I was his favored commander. After that, I was to make sure that I did everything with the power of my position to aid her in her in her attempts to destroy Discord once and for all.”
“That's... a pretty risky idea,” Twilight began to rub the royal purple scales, each scale showing their wear from both violence and time. They were so thick and strong, she wasn't even sure that he could feel the soft hoofstrokes she was giving him, but in nothing else, it calmed her. Softly, she continued, “How could you two be sure that it would've worked?”
“In short, we didn't.” Spike darkly chuckled, “For all we knew, Discord could have recognized me the moment I walked in declaring that I wanted to join his cause. He probably would've destroyed me right then and there. I probably wouldn't have even felt the blow, so I guess I could think of worse deaths.”
The lavender unicorn's hoofrubs quickly turned into a hard slap, “Spike! Don't talk like that. It's... unsettling.”
“Well, I’m still here, so it didn't happen, and so you don't need to worry.” Spike smiled, and lightly scratched her back with a claw, “Like I was saying, I joined Discord, and while the ponies I was serving with were a little suspicious that a freakin' dragon was joining them, they quickly came around when I proved my worth. As Luna took her sweet time gathering her rebellion's strength, I rose through the ranks.”
The dragon smirked lightly, “Kinda funny that after one hundred years, most of which I was serving in Discord's forces, I was only a colonel when Luna finally made her move. I can't tell you how many times that I was passed over for a promotion in favor of somepony else, even if I was the more qualified one there. If it was fair, I would've been general of all of his armies by the time Luna struck.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes, “You sound a little too upset over that.”
“Err...” Spike shifted his eyes a little, “It was because I would've been able to distract more forces! I swear!”
“Uh huh...”
“Anyway, back to the topic at hand, which is much more important than that minor detail,” the dragon not-so-subtly tried to change the subject, “I was in command of the left flank of Discord's line when he and Luna decided to have their little go at each other.
“It was a battle to end all battles, so to speak. In fact, it actually happened right outside this little cave here,” the royal purple dragon pointed towards the direction of the entrance of his home with his thumb. “Funny how things seem to come full circle like that. The battle was intense, with nopony pulling any punches. In fact, if anypony was pulling any punches, it was my contingent, for I instructed them that we should keep in reserve for the pivotal moment to strike, so that in one swift push, we could crush them, and carry the field.”
The unicorn frowned, “Did you?”
Spike shifted his weight, “Well... kinda. My original intent was to keep my forces out of the battle entirely, allowing Luna's army a larger numerical advantage. However, when I saw her fall and her forces beginning to route as a result, I decided to make sure that I cemented my place at Discord's side, and used my forces to sweep the field. That... well... while I had been calling myself Sarlaka ever since I joined Discord a century prior, that was where I got the title 'Sarlaka, The Butcher', and was hailed as some sort of perverse hero.”
“That's...” Twilight couldn't find the words. Instead, she took a deep breath, and decided to just lay her head on his foreleg.
“Yeah. Not many words to describe that one, is there?”
“... so what happened next?”
“Next?” Spike frowned, “Nothing nearly as eventful as that. I was promoted to Brigadier General immediately after, and given this entire cave as my lair. It wasn't long after that, even in pony terms, until Discord finally decided, after turning the original lord of the Equis domain into a boneless mass of... well... pony, that I-”
Twilight's pupils shrank, “He did what!? Why!?”
Spike stretched his neck to work out a kink in the muscles, “He... kinda removed the bones from the Lord's body. As for why? Well, Discord knew that Luna had eradicated most of his powers, but he never really knew how much. So, because he was bored with the way Lord... I don't remember his name... Talcon I think... bored with how Lord Talcon was running the place, he chose him.”
“That's... that's...”
“Crazy? No duh. But yeah, Lord Talcon did not survive the experiment, so I was given the domain, and since then, I've done my best to carry out every one of Luna's contingencies that she came up with as they occurred. Sure, I had to ad-lib a little bit here and there, but for the most part, everything has been unfolding as she predicted might potentially happen, and what I should do in those cases.”
“You mean,” Twilight's eyes widened slightly, “even us getting teleported to the future?”
“Well, not exactly, but we did have one ready for if the new Elements of Harmony ever did show up, as well as if the Element's themselves became ponies, so I've been doing my best to adapt those two into what we have here right now.”
“Th... the Element's became ponies!?”
Spike chuckled, “That one was my idea... yeah... I hadn't had much sleep when I suggested that one.”
“What could've you possibly implemented from that idea!?”
“Well, that's why I have a hoard of nothing but gems!” Spike looked at Twilight with a smile. “If they ever became ponies, there wouldn't be any more physical jewelry, so they would need some sort of focus, right? So I just had gems instead of gold, and there we go! No shortage of magical focuses!”
“I see...”
“It's a good thing too, because if I had chosen the sterotypical gold that most dragon's have, I wouldn't have collected diamonds as massive as the ones Rarity needed, as well as never learned the skills I needed to forge her sword and horn.”
Twilight nodded slightly, “I guess that's true.”
“Twilight,” Spike lowered his head, so that it was level with her. The sudden mood shift nearly gave Twilight whiplash, “I will not lie to you, there were over a hundred times that I could have made a move against Discord; a hundred times that I had a shot at ending this a thousand years before you even arrived, but each time, I stopped myself. Why? Because if I failed in my rebellion, and the Elements did eventually appear, as you girls did, who would be able to look after them, protect them, and make sure that they could find the Elements that my sisters and I hid, let alone the ones that Discord stole? Imagine if you had arrived outside of Conflound, and instead of me, the lord of this domain was Lord Talcon, or Lord Xavier, or any other of the typical tyrannical creatures ruling over the domains. How differently would've things turned out?
“So for those reasons, I did what I had to. I murdered thousands to make sure that I was Discord's favorite. I slaughtered the dragons to extinction, brought the other few nations of the world to their knees, and I brought down the hammer that is now destroying the griffin race as we speak. All three times...” Spike paused for a second to calm himself, “... all three times I desired nothing else but to say no, and sacrifice my life to save millions, but I didn't. I didn't because not only do I want to protect you girls, but because I trusted, and still do trust, Princess Luna and her plans.”
Before Twilight could get another word in, Spike began to lift himself up. With a small 'eep', Twilight felt herself being carried by the large dragon, “Speaking of which, I have a surprise for you and the rest of the girls. It's not quite the normal present one gives to another, but I think you will like it nonetheless.”
Twilight was going to protest against how he was carrying her like some sort of child, let alone how he was abruptly changing the subject, but she quickly realized that any protest would fall on deaf ears. How could she protest against him? It's not like he couldn't do what he wanted anyway, and while she had some sway on some more minor issues, something like this... nope, she was going to be carried. With a frown on her face, she felt him cradle her through the room, and with a light touch, open the door to the main foyer.
Inside, the mare was surprised to see three of her friends, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash, all talking to each other about some sort of unknown subject in the room. She only had a chance to hear some words pertaining to how Rarity was right about something the mare had said before they hushed their conversation, and watched her transportation lumber along. The entire time, while she couldn't see it, she knew that he had the biggest smile on his face, and she knew that he was enjoying this more than she would ever want him to.
“Good morning ladies,” the blasted dragon continued to smile. “I hope you didn't miss me yesterday. I had... issues that have now been somewhat taken care of.”
“Oh we're completely stupendous Mr. Dragon Pants!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, a beaming smile on her face. It was a welcome change to the despondent Pinkie of late.
“Ah reckon ah'm doin' alrigh'. Thanks for askin',” Applejack smiled, albeit with a lot less outward enthusiasm when compared to Pinkie.
“Yeah, I’m alright too,” Rainbow dismissed with a forehoof. “I'm starting to get a little bored though. You have anything to do in here?”
“Do? Well... you could make something in the forge,” Spike grinned wider. Slowly, he narrowed his eyes slightly, “Though I think with the help of a certain kind pegasus friend of yours, you should always be able to be... doing things with each other.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow, “Who, Fluttershy? Of course she and I do things together, but what do you mean by us doing things with each... oh...”
Light giggles escaped the pink pony's mouth as Rainbow's face became much more akin to the color of an apple, “That's... that's mean! Shut up! Just... shut up!”
For her part, the cowpony chuckled, “Well, Ah gotta say, now Ah have two reasons to like ya'll together. First bein' of course tha' mah two best friends found each other. The second, and much more fun one, is tha' it's sooooo much easier to make fun of ya.”
Spike laughed as he watched Rainbow Dash fall into a muffled series of grumbles and potential death wishes towards the rest of the group. Still with a smile on his face, he stretched his head, “So where ARE the other two girls? They finally decide to escape this cold and dark cave? Pity... I had something to show you all.”
“As if, they're just in the other room. Give me a sec,” Rainbow smiled as she recovered from her previous embarrassment, and darted into the dining room. A few short seconds later, muffled sounds of a minor scuffle began to enter Twilight's ears, and with confusion mounting, she couldn't make out what was going on in there. She swore she heard something about a strawberry turnover, but that couldn't be it. Of course, all her questions were answered when Rainbow flew back into the room with two passengers in her forelegs.
A beaming smile on her face, she gentle placed the two mares on the ground, “Alright! Got them!”
Rarity turned her attention to Rainbow, a noticeable barb in her voice, “Really, Rainbow, you could've just asked us to come in, and we would've. You didn't have to physically assault us!”
“Psh, don't be so dramatic,” the chromatic mare smiled. Quickly, she turned, and gave the yellow pegasus a quick peck on the cheek, “Sorry about that.”
The shy pegasus sighed, “It's... it's alright.”
“Good! Now that we're all here, what were you supposed to show us?”
The dragon chuckled, “Well, I can't ever say that you aren't quick about any task that is thrown in your direction, especially if it's something you are motivated towards. But I am getting off topic. Yes, the little surprise. Please, follow me.”
Slowly the rest of the ponies in their little group filed in behind Spike, his massive form completely filling the tunnel as he passed through to go outside. Correction, he had to scrunch down slightly, and nearly crawl to make sure that he was able to get through the comparatively small space. In this much more confined area, he truly looked like a massive dragon, as if he ever looked like anything but.
Finally, the dragon made it out of the tunnel, and for the first time in over a week, the blazing sun entered her eyes. It blinded her for a second, before clearing. As her vision returned she looked, “Now what's so... woah...”
“Come on! What do you mean by... woah... yeah... woah is right.”
“Oh... oh my.”
“Well... Ah think... huh.”
“Wow... I... wow.”
“Darling... what... what is this?”
Spike smiled as he looked over the ledge, for down below was a sight to see. A huge gathering of ponies was being created, most of them giving off a slight sparkle in the sunlight, reflecting the suns rays back onto their eyes. It was impossible to count how many ponies there were, their individual forms turning more into a mass of shades from this distance, but Twilight could tell that, with the massive space that they took, there must have been tens of thousands.... if not more, all of them busy setting up thousands of tents.
The entire time, the dragon continued to smile, “Your army.”
A/N: So I went back and looked at the second chapter (Arrival) yesterday... and all I have to say is damn. Anyone reading this has dedication reading through that garbage!