//------------------------------// // Chapter 47 Morning Spike // Story: Spike the Knight // by vadram //------------------------------// Morning Spike Spike was rudely awakened from a pleasant dream filled with purple and white, when Imamu tipped the pod over. His body reacted to the change in environment doing its best to adapt itself. Unfortunately that meant expunging the green goo that filled every empty part of Spike’s body. The contents of his lungs were the first to go in a fit of uncontrollable coughing, followed by the part that was located in his stomach and digestive tract in a more unpleasant manner. This time he finished a lot quicker and with less discomfort than the first time, it was still horribly, but just a little bit better than before. “Morning Imamu,” Spike said after finishing eliminating the goo from his body. “Morning kid,” Imamu replied, picking him up and moving him away from the green mess that lay on the floor. “Breakfast is ready.” “Uh, thanks. But I am not really hungry.” He turned to look at the pod. To his surprise it had already returned to it’s upright position and began producing more goo to make up for what it lost when Spike had emerged from it. The whole thing was throbbing and pulsating as it started secreting the liquid from the pores that covered its opaque parts. It was not a pleasant sight and made Spike lose what little appetite he had left. “Now I know I am not hungry,” Spike said, placing his hand over his mouth trying to suppress his bodies reaction to the spectacle. “Oh?” Imamu replied batting an eyebrow. “What a shame... I guess I will have to put all those fire rubies back.” At the mention of the rare gem Spikes mood seemed to change instantly. “Now no need to be hasty, it wouldn’t hurt if I took a look... and maybe eat a few.” Imamu couldn’t help but chuckle at the dragons remark. After placing him on the table next to a pile of raw fire rubies, roughly the size of Spike, he went to wake Kirabo up. Upon reaching the doorless archway that led to his room all he did was tell him to get up and the simian jumped to his feet. Although half asleep, he still managed to stand up straight, his cloak pin firmly held in his left hand. Again Imamu chuckled as he told Kirabo that breakfast was ready before heading back to the table. On his way back a thought crept into his mind, and for the third time that morning he chuckled. “It’s like having two of them around.” Imamu said to himself, thinking how much Spike acted like Kirabo. By the time he reached the table Spikes hunger already made him start eating. Imamu looked at his plate to see if anything was still fresh and moving, but when he noticed that nothing did he let out a sigh of disappointment and turned to Spike. “Kid,” he said trying to get Spikes attention, failing miserably. The dragon was solely focused on the delicious pile in front of him. “Kid... Kid...” he tried a few more times, but still no result. Not wanting to be ignored he gently, for someone his size, tapped the table. The massive table bent under the strain causing all that lay above it, Spike include, to be thrown almost a foot in the air. That got his attention. “What?” “Listen kid, since you will be joining me watching them, it would be a shame to waste that time.” Spike raised an eyebrow and looked confused not knowing where this was going. “So... I want you to stay big the whole time, the two of them dance.” “Okay,” He said before returning to his rubies. “So who do you think will win?” “Adanna of course.” “Why? I mean I know Zecora is good at making potions and stuff, but Kirabo seems much more of a warrior than her. Plus she is in the body of a filly now.” “Let me ask you this. Have you ever seen Zecora fight? I mean really fight, like her life depended on it.” “Hmm...” Spike paused trying to remember if he ever saw Zecora fighting. “I don’t think so...” “Then you will be in for a show.” “So, Zecora is stronger than Kirabo?” “No.” “No? What do you mean, no?” “Kirabo is stronger and faster, and he has more combat experience.” “So Zecora has more magic than him?” “Quite the opposite, even I can’t match him pound per pound, so to say, when it comes to raw magical power.” “Then it comes to discipline.” Imamu was impressed by the little dragons reasoning. He seemed to know a lot more about combat than he let on. Physical strength and agility, magical power and discipline, were the most basic traits that a warrior must train in. Imamu smiled at the dragon. “Okay kid, I am impressed. So far you found three out of five. But no it is not discipline. Kirabo is a master of that. So try to guess the other two.” “Hmm...” Spike was thinking what made a great warrior, while taking small bites out of a larger ruby. He had no actual experience, but he knew what Twilight told the princess in her non-friendship related reports, and, since he had a lot of free time while she was gone, which happened more often that he liked, he spent it reading. He lived in a library after all. The books that belonged to Twilight’s private collection were mostly manuals, the vast majority focused on magic, but there were other subjects as well, anatomy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics only to name a few, he did not care about those. A good part of the books that were the library were also instructional manuals, most focusing on agriculture, as well as classic equestrian literature, romance novels, and children books used by the local school, but there were also fiction books, like the Daring Doo novels that a certain cyan pegasus loved. He also liked them, but not to that extent. There were other adventure books there, a few modern, but most of them referred to adventures in the olden days. The kind of books that start with “Once upon a time, long before the peaceful rule of Princess Celestia...”, Princess Luna was not mentioned because the books were written during her ‘absence’. “Hmm...” He went on. “Courage?” He took a wild guess. “Courage? No. Everybody has courage. And courage itself does not make a great warrior. Care to try again.” “I don’t know... I guess I was lucky the first times.” Imamu offered a wide smiled. “You were what?” “I was lucky.” He replied. “I will allow it.” Imamu said almost laughingly. “And luck can make a huge difference in a fight. And it is by far the most important of the five.” He paused to let it sink in. “A warrior's strength, be it physical, mental or magical does him no good if he is killed by a lucky shot, a stray arrow or bolt of magic, if he strained a muscle, if he over-channels or botches a spell. All the training we go through, all the years and years of perfecting our bodies, our minds, our skills, are spent trying to make luck matter as little as possible.” Again he paused. “You can have the strongest body, the sharpest mind, near infinite magic powers, but...” He paused for dramatic effect, and to drive the point across, mostly for the lather. “None of that matters if the universe decides that it wants you to fail.” “The universe? Really?” Spike asked not sure if Imamu was serious or just pulling his leg. “The universe, fate, chance, call it what you want. But always remember this: nothing is impossible, nothing. Everything imaginable has a chance of happening, even if the chance is so small that we, in our limited intelligence, can’t think of any way to make it happen.” “So you are telling me that it’s all is for nothing?” Spike asked a little depressed. “Of course not.” Imamu said, his voice louder than usual. “It’s about playing the odds. Here let me give you an example. You know what a timberwolf is right?” “Of course I know.” “The easiest way to defeat a timberwolf is to burn it alive. It doesn’t matter what sort of fire you use. Normal, magic or Luna knows what else...” “Luna knows?” Spike found the wording odd, normally one would say Celestia knows, but he paid little thought as Imamu continued with his explanation. “But a very lucky shot from a conventional weapon, such as an arrow or a sword, could also incapacitate one.” “Or a small rock.” Spike was having troubles containing his laughter. “But the chances of that happening are absurdly low. You could fire millions of arrows at a timberwolf without a result.” Spike's resolve broke and he fell on his back, he was now laughing so hard that tears were forming in his eyes and his stomach was starting to hurt. “What’s so funny?” Kirabo asked as he jumped on the table joining them. Bonus image by Huussii. (used without permission)