//------------------------------// // Regret and Rage // Story: Legacy of Dragons and Knights // by DARKPHANTOM13 //------------------------------// 3rd-person P.O.V. Silence. That is what filled every single inch of the room. It is so quiet that it would make a graveyard on a windless night seem like the loudest party Pinkie has ever hosted. "W-W-What did you say dear?" Rarity stutters out quietly. "I said that Spike wasn't the one who hurt us," Sweetie repeated. "Yeah, why would Spike hurt us anyway?" Scootaloo asks. Once again, with a single sentence, it became deadly quiet. So much so, they could practically hear Fluttershy at her cottage from where they are, and that's saying something. The four older women shared looks of shock and dread while the young ones' faces were currently plastered with looks of confusion. "Wait, wait... hold on second here! If Spike wasn’t the one who hurt you guys, than who did?" Rainbow asks, prompting looks of fear from the three young girls. "I-I-It was M-Mr. Dark." Applebloom fearfully stutters out. It looks like the god in charge of awkward silence was in top form today. The amount of dread seems to have doubled within the hearts of four of the six Elements of Harmony in light of this new information. "Can y'all tell us what happened?" Applejack asks in a gentle and fearful tone. Taking a minute to collect herself, Scootaloo spoke for her friends. "Well... we decided to go visit Mrs. Dark and help her around the house, hoping we could find our special talents," she says. That would explain why the three were at the Darks' house in the first place. These three would get into all sorts of trouble trying to find that one thing that they were good at. "Mrs. Dark was kind enough to let us help; we talked, had some fun, and tried to help with the chores, but somehow we made a big mess." "We wouldn't have made a mess if y’all knew how to use a darn laundry machine," Applebloom says with an annoyed tone in her voice. "They were out of laundry detergent! How were we suppose to know that dish soap wouldn't work?" Sweetie replied, trying to defend Scootaloo and herself. Rolling her eyes, the young valkyrie continues. "Anyway, after that, Mrs. Dark was helping us clean up the mess we made when Mr. Dark came in, and he was really angry. He muttered about being laid off or something while he was talking, had a glass bottle in his hand, and smelled funny," she says innocently. While that might have confused the younger people in the room, it became as plain as day for the four grown ladies in the room what was wrong. "He started yelling at the four of us. She tried to get us off the hook, but he just pushed her away and said that she should do as she was told and clean up the mess unless she wanted him to teach her another lesson." With tears starting to well up in her eyes, she continues her story. "He grabbed us and threw us down to the basement. H-H-H-He s-started to hit us. We begged for him to stop, but then he got a knife and...*sniffle* and..." she didn't finish as tears silently poured from her eyes; the young crusader's friends soon followed suit. At the tale's end, anger and regret surged forth from the Princess of Magic and her friends. Anger at John Dark for doing what he did to the three little ones and regret because they had blamed Spike for what happened and unjustly exiled him. "So Spike wasn't even there?” Twilight questions, trying to get as many pieces to this puzzle as possible. "Ye...wait, no, he was there. I remember, just before I passed out from the pain, he broke the basement door open and yelled, 'What's going on here?'" the young mage says, trying to recall what happened. That is when a realization kicks in. It was easy for them to somewhat fill in the blanks of the story they got from the CMC. Spike had stumbled onto the scene and ended up having to fight and kill John Dark to protect the three young girls, which also explains why the house was covered in Spike's dragonfire. 'Because of our narrow mindedness, we sent Spike away because he had to kill a monster in order to protect these three,' All four thought at the same time. Rarity put her hands in front of her mouth in horror. Applejack takes off her hat and puts it to her chest in regret and sadness. Rainbow Dash just slumps to the floor with her eyes as wide as dinner plates from her realization. As for Twilight... well, her brain basically shuts down at this point. She realizes that she had banished Spike—someone who had been her assistant, her first friend, and practically her younger brother in all but blood—into the outside world for an incident that, for the most part, showed he was in the right. She even escorted him into the Everfree Forest, probably the most dangerous place in all of Equestria. For all they knew, he could be dead with his remains inside the stomach of one of the forest's many predators. "What have I done?" Twilight says to herself with tears slowly coming down her face. Without a second thought, she runs out of the hospital and straight for her library. As soon as she closes the front door, she slumps to the ground with the door against her back, crying her eyes out. After about thirty minutes of crying, she gets up and looks around her cold empty library. Nobody around to help with her studies, to talk to, to eat with, to cheer her up, or even to make jokes about her. In a zombie like fashion, the Princess of Magic makes her way up to her room. When she gets there, she looks through an old album on her nightstand. Looking through the pages, she sees no pictures of her dragonborn younger brother and notices that some of the pictures that should have him were cut up. It causes her to remember that she got rid of everything that had to do with Spike the day after he got exiled. This causes her tears to come down even faster. She hears the front door opening but it barely registers in her mind. A minute later, the door to her room creaks open. "Twilight, are you in there darling?" a refined voice asks from the other side of the door. "Yes," Twilight answers weakly. The door opens to reveal Rarity with slightly puffy eyes. She slowly makes her way across the room and takes a seat next to the crying princess. She stays there for a minute to allow her friend to calm down. "This is quite a pickle we got ourselves in, isn't it?" Rarity asks, trying to lighten the mood a bit. Needless to say it didn't work. "*Sigh* I would like to say that everything is alright, but I would be lying. We all have made a grave mistake when it comes to Spikey Wikey." Rarity grabs Twilight's hand in a comforting gesture. "But that's all the more reason to make things right." Twilight looks up at Rarity with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. "Now then, let’s go find Spike so we can apologize and bring him home," Rarity says with a determined look on her face. Twilight wipes away her tears and gives Rarity a nod with a hopeful and determined look on her face. She grabs her backpack and starts filling it with everything she believes she will need for the search. By the time she is done, the pack looks like it could burst at any second. As she goes down the steps to the library she sees that all of her friends are there with slightly red eyes and determined looks on their faces. This brings great relief and happiness to Twilight, since she now knows that her friends will be right behind her. "Are you girls ready to go?" Twilight asks her friends. Before anyone has a chance to answer, a blinding flash appears in the room causing everyone to cover their eyes. As soon as the flash came, it fades revealing Princess Celestia in all her glory. She is wearing her royal attire, a white one-piece dress, and her multicolor hair is swaying in a non-existent wind. "Hello, my faithful student," Celestia says while taking note that the other elements were there and looked like they were about to go on a trip. "I tried to send you tickets for this year's Grand Gala, but for some reason I can't send them or feel my connection to Spike. Can you please tell me where he is so I can see what is wrong with the connection spell I put on him?" Looks like the god of awkward silence wasn't quite done with these girls yet. As soon as Celestia finished issuing her request, everyone and everything inside the library fell silent—which wasn't lost on the Princess of the Sun, though she patiently waited for a reply. "W-W-W-We d-don't know where S-S-Spike is but I know w-what happened to the connection spell on him," Twilight stutters out with her voice full of fear and dread. The look on Celestia's face said to continue so Twilights takes a deep breath to prepare for the possible apocalypse that is about to come. "I destroyed the connection spell and I exiled him from Equestria about a week ago," Twilight says and prepares herself for her teacher's response. It looked like the awkward silence god was going for a record today, but it didn't last long. "YOU DID WHAT?!?!" Celestia yells using her Canterlot Shout. Not voice, shout. Not only did it almost destroy the elements' ear drums, but it shatters every glass made object in Ponyville. Her shout even woke up Princess Luna who was sleeping in Canterlot Castle. And it didn't help matters that she is now engulfed in golden flames and her eyes glowing white with power. While everyone is trying to restore their sense of hearing, Celestia takes a moment to calm down. 'Settle down, Celestia. It wouldn't be a good idea to incinerate the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, no matter how tempting the idea is,' she thinks to herself. After everyone got their hearing back, she asks in a neutral tone and her political poker face on, "Twilight, can you please explain what has happened?" As expected of the studious librarian, Twilight goes into great detail on what has happened in the past week. Thirty minutes of overly detailed explanation later... "I must say that I am disappointed in all of you," Celestia says with a look of cold rage. "I will send word to my guard to help with the search." This causes some relief to spread through everyone. "However, if he is dead or hurt to any degree there will be dire consequences," the sun god says; and judging by the tone in her voice, she has every intention of keeping her promise. With that, she teleports back to Canterlot to alert her guard, and silently prays for the safe return of the boy she considers to be her son.