"Hi Twilight," Spike said weakly as he started to shrink from under the glare that she was giving him, half of him wanting to use his ring to fly as far away from her as possible. He had placed both hands behind his back so that she couldn't see his ring, but with the look Twilight was giving him he couldn't be sure that she hadn't already noticed. Twilight didn't say anything for a minute as she looked over him before using her magic to bring a newspaper to her and started to read the front cover.
"Seems like there's been a lot going on while I was gone, hasn't there?" she asked him in an emotionless tone as she scanned the front page, levitating a cup of tea that she had made. "Since I've been working so hard during my time at Canterlot, I haven't been able to read the paper in a while. Let's see, I think I’ll start with this article...Who is the Emerald Dragon? Sounds interesting." Spike had to will himself not to start confessing on the spot as Twilight started to read the front story, her eyebrows going up every once in a while as she read.
"Y-you're home early," Spike stammered nervously, hoping to take some of the attention off of the article she was reading. Twilight only nodded in response as she finished reading, folding up the paper nice and neat before placing it on the table.
"That was a very interesting read," she said in the same emotionless tone as her eyes seemed to pierce through Spike. "It says in the article that a dragon in a green suit showed up about two days ago during one of the worst blazes that Ponyville had ever seen. In fact, it said that two lives would have been lost if he hadn't interfered. Then the next paragraph reads how just yesterday he went around helping a number of ponies with their problems, ranging from saving a cat in a tree to stopping a dam burst. Funny thing about the dam, the pony they interviewed said that he gave the dragon a dark red ruby as a reward, a ruby that looks almost identical to the one I found in my closet upstairs." Spike couldn't say anything in response. He could only nod dumbly as Twilight continued to give him a stare.
"But you know what really interests me about this dragon character?" she asked him as she stood up out of the chair and slowly started to walk towards Spike, who backed himself into a corner of the room as best he could. Owlicious hooted sadly as he watched what was going on, but he knew better than to mess with Twilight when she got like this. "The dragon seems to be a baby dragon that has green scales on his head and is about the same height as you. Isn't that interesting?"
"Y-yeah, it's totally weird," Spike stammered as Twilight came to a stop in front of him, waiting to see what he'd do next. When he didn't fess up, she sighed and went to her last resort. "It also said that he had a green ring that he used to make incredible green objects that he used in his various good deeds. What do you think that the ring would look like?"
"I have no idea," Spike said quickly as he clenched his ring had behind his back, sweat running down his face as Twilight narrowed her eyes.
"Then would you mind if I saw your hands?" She had him and Spike knew it. Either way, she would know about the ring. So he closed his eyes as he held out the hand with the green ring on it, causing a smile to spread across Twilight's face as her suspicions were confirmed. "So my little Spike is the Emerald Dragon, is he?" Spike didn't say anything in response. He simply waited to see what Twilight would do. "I'm disappointed in you Spike. Not because of what you did with that...ring, but for the fact that you didn't write me about it when you found it. It could have been extremely dangerous."
"But it isn't!" he said quickly, hoping to tell her his side of the story. "This ring is amazing! It can mimic the powers of a unicorn, but its way stronger. It-" Twilight held up a hoof to stop him, cutting of his words.
"Spike, from what I've read it is a very powerful weapon and I'm disappointed that you didn't tell me," she scolded, Spike hanging his head in shame at her words. "I want the ring Spike." Spike's head shot up as she said this and his hand clutched around the ring.
"But it's my ring!" he protested. "I found it and I've been using it responsibly!"
"This is not open for discussion," Twilight said sternly as she used her magic to pick Spike up, starting to slip the ring off his finger. Spike closed his eyes as she did so, channeling his will through the ring. Twilight let out a scream as a burst of light cut through her magic and shattered her hold on Spike, who levitated off the ground with a green coating covering him. "Spike, are you crazy? What are you doing?"
"The ring is mine Twilight," Spike said with a scowl, his eyes flashing orange as he pointed the ring at her. "And nopony takes anything from me. It belongs to me." Twilight tried to use her magic again to get the ring, but Spike threw up a barrier that stopped her magic before it could reach him. His response was to fire a blast of green energy at her hooves, forcing her to back away.
"Spike, what is the matter with you?" she yelled, trying to plead with him. But as she looked into his eyes, she saw something that she hadn't seen in a long time. She saw pure greed. "Spike, your dragon instincts are kicking up again. You need to get your emotions under control before you start taking everything!"
"And why shouldn't I start taking everything?" he asked her. "It all should belong to me!" As he roared this, an orange light shot down from upstairs. It flew through Spike's green barrier and slipped itself onto his finger. The green ring fell off his finger as the orange ring took hold, changing his suit and his energy from green to orange.
'Spike of Equestria. You want it all.'
"And I will have it all!" Spike said in response as he pointed the orange ring at the table and taking the ruby off of it, clutching the ruby close to his chest as he looked at Twilight with pure greed in his eyes. "It will all be mine Twilight. It all will!" With a laugh that sent chills down her spine, Spike pointed the orange ring skyward and shot out of the library, breaking a new hole in the ceiling as he did so. Twilight could only watch him go with fear in her eyes, having no idea what to do.
"Oh Spike...what's happened to you?" Twilight whispered as a tear streaked down her face as she looked up through the hole in the ceiling.
'He has given in to the power of the Orange Lanterns.' Twilight let out a yelp and looked down at the green ring on the floor, which was barely glowing.
"Did...you just talk?" she asked it as she lifted it up with her magic, floating it close to her face. "And what are the Orange Lanterns? What does that have to do with what happened to Spike?"
'The Orange Lanterns were a group of lanterns whose power came from greed, an emotion that they channeled in their quest to take everything in the universe. The rings would amplify their greed immensely and it was impossible to get them to remove the ring. Their leader, Larfleeze, is supposed to be the only Orange Lantern known to the Guardians. But it seems that an orange ring has escaped his grasp and has come here, summoned by the greed of the former Green Lantern. Spike has given into his greed and thus taken on the power of the orange ring.'
"Spike..." Twilight whispered as her fears for him began to grow. Dragons were naturally greedy creatures although Spike could normally stave off the cravings. But if this ring amplifies his greed, there was no way that he could hold off the cravings. "I have to help him. How do I stop him?"
'The only way to stop his greed is to get him to remove the ring willingly,' the ring said to her. 'But no Orange Lantern in the history of the universe has done so willingly. He will remain consumed by its greed until either he has taken everything...or he dies.'
"No...I won't allow him to take everything and I will not kill him," Twilight said with strength, picking up one of her bags that she had brought to Canterlot and pulling out her crown, the Element of Magic. She placed the crown on her head and placed the ring on her horn as she raced out the door. While she didn't know it, the only reason that the ring had spoken to her was because that she had been the original choice to be a Green Lantern. But due to the magic that she had hit the ring with, it was unable to work for her due to the spell she had cast was designed to keep whatever she cast it on away from her. Twilight threw open the door to her library and ran outside, seeing to her horror the destruction that Spike had already caused in the short time that he had been free. A number of homes had holes in their roofs, the pieces of the homes lying in the streets where they had been tossed aside. Twilight ran through the streets, catching bits and pieces of ponies talking about how they were robbed. And all of the stories mentioned an orange dragon that had stolen from them.
"Spike, what have you done?" Twilight asked as she saw a blast of orange energy shoot into the air off in the distance, following a rainbow trail that zipped and weaved across the sky to try to avoid the orange energy that was following it. "So Rainbow Dash has already found him? I wonder if the others are there as well." Twilight opened her wings and flew the rest of the way, realizing upon reaching where the battle was taking place that her assumption had been correct and her friends were already there fighting the orange dragon. Much to Twilight's horror, she found that Spike had already gathered up a large number of objects and items that belonged to other ponies and had them all wrapped up in an orange sphere that rested above him while he fired upon the five ponies that battled back.
"EVERYPONY!" Twilight cried out as she landed in front of her friends and the other Element, each of whom looked fairly beaten up and exhausted from the fight they had been having so far.
"There ya are Twilight," AJ panted as she struggled to stay on her hooves. "Ah was here selling mah apples when that dragon showed up and stole all of them from me with that weird orange power of his."
"Same for me. I was walking down the street when I saw a blast of orange energy go off and then AJ came flying past me, followed by that terrible dragon," Fluttershy said softly. "Who is he?"
"Who cares, we have to stop him before he takes everything in the town!" RD yelled as she threw herself at Spike, ignoring Twilight's cries for her to stop. But it was a useless attack as Spike caught her with his ring and threw her into a building next to the others.
"Hey, don't hurt my friend you meanie!" Pinkie yelled as she pulled out her party cannon and fired a cake towards the side of Spike. The cake splattered against the orange barrier that covered Spike and he slowly turned his head to look at her, his greedy eyes looking upon her party cannon with a smile.
"Mine," he whispered as an orange claw shot out and grabbed the party cannon, dragging it back to him as it too was absorbed into the orange sphere that he had kept all of the items that he had stolen. Pinkie yelled at him to give it back, but Spike pointed his ring at them and a massive cannon formed over his head, orange energy beginning to form as it prepared to fire. The ponies all backed up at the massive ball of orange energy came shooting at them before purple aura surrounded them and teleported them away from the explosion. Twilight and the others came out of the teleportation on a hillside away from the city to see a massive explosion of orange go off in the city.
"Twilight, what's going on?" Rarity asked her as Twilight looked upon the scene with teary eyes. "Who is that dragon and why does he have a similar ring to the Emerald Dragon?" Twilight opened her mouth to answer, but closed it when her conscious got in the way. She wanted to tell them that it was Spike, but that wasn't entirely true. Spike wasn't fully in control of his actions; the ring was fueling his normally controlled greed. If she told them that it was Spike, they might want to kick him out of Ponyville for attacking the city out of greed again. This was the rings fault, not his.
"He's an enemy of the Emerald Dragon and has taken control of his mind," Twilight said, speaking the truth for the most part. "That orange ring on his finger has taken control of him and unless we find a way to stop him, he's going to take everything in the world for his own."
"And how do ya know this?" Applejack asked, her Element of Honesty gave her the ability to tell when ponies were lying most of the time and she could tell that Twilight hadn't given her the whole truth. Before Twilight could answer, another explosion went off in the city followed by the sounds of ponies screaming.
"I'll tell you later AJ. Right now we need to stop him before he causes any more damage," Twilight said quickly, activating a spell that she had been working on in case something like this happened. She concentrated her power as she felt her magic grab hold of the other Elements of Harmony from where the others had hid them, teleporting to them within a manner of seconds. "We will use the Elements of Harmony to overpower his ring and return him to normal," Twilight explained as he hoofed out the Elements to her friends. "Hopefully the power of Harmony can overcome the power of greed. Let's go girls, we have a dragon to stop." Twilight activated her teleportation spell again and brought the six ponies back to the center of the battle in the center of town, where Spike had added the statue in the center of the town to his collection. The six of them caught him trying to steal a piece of town hall as ponies everywhere ran for their lives.
"Hold it right there, mister!" Rainbow Dash yelled out, firing a blast of her Element at Spike, which bounced off of his orange shield but did get his attention. He turned to face the ponies and his greedy eyes rested on the Elements of Harmony, which were much more valuable to him than the town hall. He dropped the chunk of the building he had grabbed and rubbed his hands greedily together at the Elements.
"The Elements of Harmony, only six of them in all the world," he said greedily as he looked at them with longing. "And with only six that makes them more valuable than anything else. And the more valuable it is, the more I want it!" He shot out six separate claws of orange energy at the Elements, but the claws slammed into Twilight's Harmony enhanced shields and shattered, causing Spike to roar in frustration at the failure of his attack.
"Alright girls, let's stop this greedy dragon!" Pinkie yelled as she pulled out her party cannon (much to Spike's confusion) and fired a beam of Elemental magic straight at him. He threw up a shield of orange energy to protect himself, but the energy went right through his shield and sent him flying across the ground. He would have smashed into the side of a building if it hadn't been for a purple aura that caught him before he could do so.
"Twilight, why'd you do that?" Rainbow asked as she started firing more lightning bolt shaped magic out of her Element, all of which were deflected by Spike's orange barrier. Spike roared and formed orange boxing gloves on his hands which he then slammed into the ground, sending out a shockwave that knocked the ponies off their hooves. Spike roared again and threw himself at the ponies, stretching out his hand in an attempt to grab the necklace off Fluttershy's neck. RD caught him with an uppercut to the jaw, which only staggered him slightly.
"Um, is it just me or is he getting bigger?" RD asked as the more adult looking dragon growled. Just as Rainbow had said, Spike was slowly getting bigger along with his greed. Twilight remember how big he had gotten the last time this had happened, but that time he didn't have a ring that amplified the greed. And with that ring making him even greedier she had no idea how big Spike would grow. They needed to stop him and soon.
"We need to get the ring off his finger!" Twilight yelled out a the others, relaying what the green ring had told her. Rainbow Dash nodded and shot off towards Spike, her incredible speed so fast that he didn't even notice that she was there until she had wrapped both hooves around his ring and had started to pull.
"IT'S MY RING!" Spike roared as he slammed one of his claws into Rainbow Dash, knocking her off of his ring. He then materialized a giant boulder that he smashed into RD's face and sent her flying across the ground. Twilight caught her with her magic just as Fluttershy unleashed her greatest weapon upon him: the stare. The stare was Fluttershy's greatest weapon that would make any who looked into her eyes tremble with fear. It was a weapon that had never failed her and as she unleashed it upon the dragon she knew that it would be enough to stop him. But there was no fear in Spike's heart at this point, only greed.
"I will have your eyes!" Spike roared as he reached out and grabbed Fluttershy by the throat, trying to grab her eyes with his other hand. Fortunately for Fluttershy, Applejack chose that moment while he was distracted to run up to him and buck him below the belt. Hard. Spike roared with pain as he dropped Fluttershy and clutched at where she had kicked him while AJ caught Fluttershy on her back.
"Yehaw! Guess ya'll be wanting those now too!" she taunted as she ran back over to the others. Spike looked up at them with a look of rage, pointing his ring at himself.
"I will have it all," he whispered as he fired the ring at himself, the orange energy starting to swirl around him in a storm of orange energy. The ponies watched as a cyclone formed around Spike, the cyclone starting to suck in everything that was around the ponies. With a roar, he tore apart the cyclone to reveal that he now towered over the buildings. An orange suit covered his body and in the center was an odd orange symbol. He roared again and looked down at the ponies, all of who looked up at him with terror. "If I cannot have you, nopony can." Spike pointed his ring at them and started to charge it with power, preparing to wipe them all off the face of the planet.
"Girls, it's time for the Storm of Harmony!" Twilight yelled out as she took up a position in the center of the ponies. The others took up their own positions and closed their eyes, letting each of their Elements flow through each other until the power was complete. All six of them floated up into the air as a white light began to spread between each of them, the ground beginning to shake as the Elements reached their full power. Spike let loose a roar to the sky as he fired all of his power at the six ponies, but he restrained a bit of his power so that they would live, deciding that he wanted them after all. Twilight and the others had different plans however. Twilight's eyes shot open to reveal nothing but pure magical energy, the other five following suit. Then the combined magic shot up into the air and formed a rainbow created from the six most powerful magic in the land. Greed collided with friendship in a blast that shook the very earth as the two energies battled it out.
"You will all belong to me! I must have everything!" Spike roared as his power was pushed to a standstill against the Elements, his great greed unable to push back the values of friendship. The Storm of the Elements was strong enough to defeat the power of greed and it began to push the orange light back, causing Spike to roar again in frustration. "I cannot lose! I will have my victory!"
"No, you will have learn the power of our friendship!" Twilight said with the voice of all six ponies as the Element's magic completely overpowered the beam of greed and slammed into Spike, who roared one last time before the magic consumed him completely. Spike opened his eyes and found himself back to his normal size with the orange ring still on his finger. He looked around to only find whiteness, nothing else besides him and the ring.
"Where am I?" he asked as he stood up. He then fell over and clutched at his heart. "And why...do I want everything? And why does my heart hurt by the fact that nothing's here?"
"That's the ring talking." Spike turned around to see Twilight standing behind him, her eyes glowing white with power. "It wants you to give in to your desire to be greedy. Don't do it Spike, remain strong. Use that will of yours to break through the greediness and take the ring off. Please, come back to us." Spike looked down at the ring on his finger, feeling the urge to take the Element of Harmony off of the pony in front of him. And then he looked back to Twilight, who, while standing silently, had tears falling from her eyes. Spike's eyes widened as he realized that his actions were hurting her, that his greed was stealing his friends from him.
'You want it all,' the ring whispered to him.
"No...I want you off!" Spike yelled as he reached down and grabbed hold of the ring, tearing it off of his fingers as it screeched at him. He threw it into the air where Twilight shot it into pieces with her magic. She then looked down at Spike with a relieved smile on her face.
"I knew you wouldn't give in," she said as she vanished and everything turned white. Back In Ponyville, Twilight had rushed forward into the massive crater than had been created when Spike had toppled over, crushing a large number of houses in the process. She searched for him desperately in the rubble, praying to Celestia that he was alright. Much to her relief, she found him unconscious on a couch in the front of what used to be someponies home, sucking his thumb with a content smile on his face.
"Spike! Oh thank goodness you're alright," she said as she ran over to him, scooping the dragon into her arms and hugging him. All of her focus was on making sure that he was alright, so she never noticed the orange ring that was on the floor next to the couch. Spike groaned and blinked twice before he completely opened his eyes, which had confusion written in them as he looked around the room at the destroyed house.
"Ugh...Twilight?" he asked with some confusion as he looked up at her with confusion. "Why am I in this house? What happened to the white room we were in?" Twilight couldn't say anything through her tears and she simply held Spike closer to her. "Yeah, there was this white room and the ring was talking to me. Then you showed up and told me to overcome my greed and...Why are you crying?"
"I'm just glad you’re alright," she whispered through her tears. She had given the other Elements the slip when they had started to see if the ponies were alright to come and check up on Spike before they could figure out that he had been the dragon that had destroyed the town again. She gently let go of Spike and let him back down onto the floor as he looked around in confusion at all the destruction. She was about to take him back to the other ponies when she looked behind him with fear in her eyes. Spike spun around to find that he was looking at...himself. It was the same height as him and had the same face, but the copies entire body was made of orange energy, all of which came from the orange ring that it wore on its finger. It looked up at Spike with eyes that only had one emotion: greed.
"I will have it all," it whispered. And then it attacked.