“Holy guacamole!,” Spike shouted as he dodged another attack from the hell beast.
The horned monstrosity was tenacious, but rather clumsy. All of the prowess it exuded while cornering the baby dragon had been replaced by simple feral hunger. It lunged at Spike, throwing its entire body into its attacks.
For once in his life, Spike was thankful for his diminutive size. While he didn’t have the same grace as say, Fluttershy, he managed to keep away from the demon. He received cuts and bruises from falling on his belly every now and again, but he was otherwise fine. Unfortunately, he could feel the fatigue setting in. His thighs were starting to ache significantly.
Looking up from his prone position, he realized his proximity to the door. “Yes!,” he exclaimed, running towards the outdoors.
Landing on his feet, Spike surveyed the area. The stone walls were still standing, accentuating the bright full moon shining directly over them. The spellbound ponies seemed to have stopped their labors, but had not fared much better than when he had seen them.
“Grrraaaaaaarrrggh!,” roared the beast, still pursuing its quarry, not losing any speed despite its crumbling skeletal form.
“I don’t think I can play keep-away for much longer than this! Aaah!”
Spike led his predator on a long chase throughout Ponyville, using his knowledge of shortcuts and twisting paths to keep the latter astray. His heart pumped faster than ever before. All the while, he kept on thinking of a plan. “No magic, no Elements, no Crystal Heart – what the heck am I supposed to do?”
After what seemed like eternity, Spike had circled his way back to Town Hall for the ninth time. Around the sixth run or so, he could no longer hear any growling or slathering from his pursuer. Unable to help himself, he sat down.
“Come on, Spike, think! What would my friends do?” He massaged his temples, recalling what had happened before in the Crystal Empire. “You’d think they might have noticed an entire village being eaten by now! What do they need a sign saying “HELP” on top of… the…”
“That’s it! I can send a message to the princesses! I just need some paper and some ink!” Spike made a beeline for Couches and Quills; he didn’t want to risk going back to Golden Oaks, given its current status.
He weaved his way through the buildings, hopping over stalls and under the frozen ponies for good measure. Apple Bloom had told him some time ago while they were playing hide-and-seek with Winona: “Dogs follow their noses. If ya wanna beat Winona, you’ll have ta mess with her first!”
While this wasn’t an easy-going game with a tame pet like Winona, he had little else to go on. After passing under three different ponies (he even recognized one as the sofa clerk) and at least six stalls, he finally made it into Couches and Quills. The place looked about as rundown as the rest of Ponyville but its interior didn’t have the same stench of wet dog like the library had.
“Please, oh please, oh please… Yes!,” he yelled upon seeing toppled stacks of paper and some stoppered wells. “I can finally put an end to this craziness!”
Spike wrote feverishly onto one of the few dry scrolls he could get. He didn’t even bother with quills anymore – he scrawled messily with his right claw. Unlike the letters he had penned for Twilight, this felt maddeningly urgent. No time for proper syntax or salutations here!
“DANGER IN PONYVILLE! SOMBRA’S HERE!”
Rolling up the small sliver, Spike peered outside, looking to see if the coast was clear. Seeing and hearing nothing, he stepped outside. “Here goes,” he said, before pulling in a deep breath and expelling a steady stream of green smoke. His written message burned to a crisp, becoming a thin wisp of magical smoke. It snaked whimsically from his claws and made it to the opening above…
Before stopping and speeding down to south of where he stood. A few seconds later, he heard an ear-piercing howl.
“Oh, horseapples.”
Steeling himself, Spike grabbed two more inkwells and a ball of papers before making a break for it. “Oh, man! Why didn’t that work?!” Again, he snaked his way throughout Ponyville, electing instead to send his message from above ground level. “The schoolhouse, maybe? Should be tall enough!”
Stubby legs swinging to and fro, the little dragon ran past the mesmerized denizens of Ponyville; some had started digging again. Out the corners of his eyes, he could see shadows following him from alleyways and corners. The Sombra-infected dog appeared to be regaining its grip on his hometown.
Spike leaped over the half-door into the school, upturned some desks for good measure, and clambered up into the chamber where the school bell was housed. Standing as close as he could to the edge, he once again scrawled the same message onto a sliver of paper and blew.
The smoke didn’t even get half an inch away from Spike’s face before zipping straight down and into the school’s front door.
Fearing the worst, the little dragon tucked into a ball and jumped towards the ground below. He plummeted into the hard dirt, sending a pangs up his spine. “I am so feeling this in the morning,” he said as he unfurled and made his last effort to send a call for help.
The darkness made it hard to navigate, but Spike knew where he was going. He didn’t zigzag his way through town anymore; the monster was probably too close for it to work. No, he made a beeline for the highest point in the city – the clock tower.
*Huff*
Two more steps.
*Huff*
One more step.
*Huff*
“Made… it…!”
The tired dragon would have been perfectly satisfied to collapse on the wooden floor right there and then, but he knew he had a job to do. He had made it to the top of the clock tower, tackling the stairs by foot to make it inside the great mechanism itself. Along the way, he had figured out one last gambit to play.
Opening the latched door embedded on the clock face, Spike prepared his last two pieces of paper. He breathed deep and incinerated one. As expected, the ash stopped just short of his nose, preparing to zoom away and tell on him. “Gotcha,” he thought. Both times, he managed to notice it – a short delay before his messages revealed his whereabouts to his hunter. Before it whizzed away, the dragon blew another burst of flame onto his second paper. Unlike its predecessors, this one followed the more familiar path up and away from its sender, hopefully to Canterlot.
Sadly, no sigh of relief could be had. Spike couldn’t think about it at the time but he knew: the decoy zipped right behind him. Every failed attempt to call for help had brought his own end ever closer.
“Be brave, Spike. This is for your friends.”
“Noble, but foolish,” intoned a new voice. It wasn’t as monstrous as the beastly diamond dog, nor as shrill when the former began to lose its mind. This was a deep, sinister voice – one of pure malice.
“The dog was a poor host. It couldn’t handle its own greed. I sped up the inevitable.”
Spike closed the door – even he couldn’t survive a jump from this height. Turning around, it took immense will not to simply curl up into a ball and hide. He wanted to show this monster that it had failed to scare him, even if it could kill him.
The chamber was bristling with shadows in various terrifying shapes: dragons, manticores, serpents, chimeras. In the small space in front of him stood King Sombra in full regalia, pulsing crystals intermittently growing and sloughing off his frame. Just like in the Crystal Empire, he wore a smile of cruel dominance.
“You won’t win, Sombra,” the dragon said in defiance. He held his head high to look the spectral tyrant eye-to-eye. “You’re not getting your throne back.”
“Little one, I do not hunger for my old throne. I can simply take another in its stead.” The hungry look returned to the shadow pony’s face as he licked his lips. “What you and the Crystal Princess took, I can replace. You owe me a new kingdom… and a new body.”
“A new body?” Spike faltered. The shadowy figures were weaving an ever tighter circle around him. The king lunged forward, pinning the young dragon under his hooves.
“I cannot imagine how powerful I can become as a dragon!”
Once again, Spike was plunged into gloom.