The Great Fox soared through the air as the western sky was painted orange by the setting sun. From the command deck, the floating isle that was the Walled City could be seen to the northeast. The smaller chunks of Krazoa Island obscured the way to the EarthWalker Tribe’s homeland as the raw magical force of the island suspended them in the air in a maelstrom of debris.
As Captain Pepper steered the airship, Peppy went over the maps that detailed the schematics of the city while Applejack looked over his shoulder with interest. Pinkie Pie and Slippy became fast friends when the pink Earth Pony shared with the green Unicorn information about her inventions. He was particularly interested in Pinkie’s pedal-powered flying machine. Fluttershy was sitting by Tricky, asking the Prince all sorts of questions about the different types of dinosaurs.
Spike stood staring out the window at the approaching Walled City. As he watched the flying bits of rock pass by the ship, he thought about what he had seen in the Test of Fear. No matter how he tried to forget about his vision of the future and move on, it always seemed to keep rearing its ugly head again and again. The sad truth was that he knew it was his fate to outlive his friends. That’s why he’s determined to make the most of the precious time that he had with them now so that he could always cherish and remember the good times during the sad and lonely ones. That is also why he must rescue this island. Once all of the SpellStones were recovered and the Krazoa Spirits returned to their palace, he could finally go home and be with his family.
“We’re approaching the Walled City,” the brown stallion at the helm announced.
“Ooh really, where?” Pinkie asked as she and the rest of the crew stood by Spike and looked down at the floating city.
“I see some buildings down there,” reported Peppy as he looked through his telescope. “There is also a moat surrounding the city. Just outside the city is a pass that leads into a valley with a dense jungle in it.”
“That’s the RedEyes’ territory!” Tricky told the navigator.
“On the other side of the city is a clearing. We can land there,” the gray earth pony told Pepper. The pilot flew the ship to the western region of the floating piece of land and landed in the spot that Peppy had mentioned. Once the ship had come to a complete stop, Spike, Tricky, and the mares started to leave the ship.
“Wait a moment,” Peppy called to them, causing them to turn their heads. “I didn’t see any Diamond Dog airships as we flew over. From what Tricky’s mother has told us, it sounds to me that the Diamond Dogs released the RedEye Tribe and then split. Whatever these things are, they sound dangerous.”
“What kind of dinosaur do you think they are?” Fluttershy asked nervously.
“I’m not sure,” the white maned stallion admitted.
“Tricky, kind of dinosaur are the RedEye?” Spike asked his dinosaur companion.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Tricky responded, not understanding the question. “They’re RedEyes.”
“I mean what species are they? Like you’re a ceratopid, the CloudRunners are pterosaurs, the ThornTails are ankylosaurs,” Spike clarified.
“I don’t know what any of those words mean,” Tricky told them as he shook his head. “Us EarthWalkers are EarthWalkers, or how we say it, ‘OuhkxNucboh.’ Those are your names for our tribes.”
“Then what do these RedEye guys look like?” asked Applejack.
“I’ve actually never seen one before,” Tricky confessed embarrassed. “All I know is that they’re big, nasty, and have a bunch of sharp teeth.”
“That could be any of the many types of theropods,” Spike said in mild frustration.
“A what now?” Applejack wasn’t as keen as Spike was on dinosaur information. She could recognize some of the more popular ones, but she was completely lost when Spike had listed off the names of the types of dinosaurs earlier.
“Carnivores,” Spike translated.
“Oh,” the blond maned mare stated, understanding the seriousness of the situation. “Well, it doesn’t matter what they are. What matters is that Twilight is out there with those things runnin’ around. We better find her as soon as we can and then move on from there.”
Everyone agreed and ran down the ramp of the ship. The Walled City rested in the center of a valley like ThornTail Hollow did. However, the Hollow was more of a grassland while the Walled City was a jungle. In the distance, Spike could see the moat surrounding the city. The buildings were step pyramids, just like the ones from some of the Daring Do novels. In the fading light of the setting sun, the skyline was a dark silhouette against the dusky sky.
As the group of five made their way from the ship, they walked along the edge of the valley. So far, there was no sign of Twilight Sparkle or any EarthWalkers. At least they didn’t see anything that could pass for a RedEye.
“Where do you suppose Twilight could be?” Fluttershy asked.
“I don’t know. Hopefully, she isn’t too far away,” Applejack replied.
“Psst!” they heard a voice trying to get their attention. They looked around, but couldn’t find the source of the voice. “Up here!” the voice urgently whispered to them. They looked up the wall of the valley and saw the lavender Alicorn up on a ledge, frantically waving a hoof at them with a stressed look on her face. “Get up here, quickly!” At the bottom of the cliff was a narrow winding path that went up to the ledge. They climbed up the trail as fast as they could to the top, where they met up with Twilight Sparkle.
As they reached the top, they noticed that the Alicorn had set up a camp for herself on the overlook. With her was a small group of EarthWalker soldiers. They had orange and brown pebble-like scales and they wore metal reinforcements on their shield-like frills. They wore plated armor on their backs and greaves on their legs. Since these were adults, they had the two long horns that the younger Tricky lacked. They noticed that this small band of soldiers were wounded and had their injuries bounded.
When Spike reached the top of the step trail, he came face to face with the pony who had raised him from the day she hatched his egg. When Twilight Sparkle saw that her friends had been accompanied by her son, her eyes widen and she uttered a small gasp.
“Hey there, Twilight,” Spike said to her before finding himself in a tight hug. Twilight was standing on her rear hooves as she wrapped her forelegs around his neck and cried tears of joy into his shoulder. Spike returned the hug and patted her back as she continued to cry. “It’s okay, Mom, it’s okay. I’m alright.”
“I know,” she sniffed as she let him go and wiped her eyes. “I’m just so relieved to that you’re safe. I was so worried. Ever since you went missing, I haven’t been able to rest.”
“I’m sorry for making you worry so much,” Spike apologized.
“Don’t worry about that now,” she told him. “Come, everypo… er, everyone... have a seat.”
As Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Tricky, and Spike joined Twilight around the campfire, they filled her in on what has transpired. Spike told her how he and Tricky were on a mission to find the SpellStones and return them to the Force Point Temples. He told her how Rarity was trapped atop of Krazoa Palace and that he must find all of the Krazoa in order to free her. During all of this, she couldn’t help but to notice the two wings sticking out of his back.
“Why don’t you tell me about how you grew your wings?” the Alicorn princess requested.
“Yeah, tell us all about it!” Pinkie Pie encouraged. “I want to hear all about. To be honest, I’ve always wanted to be a Pegasus and have wings of my very own.”
Everyone looked at the curly maned earth pony with mild surprise and Spike said to her, “Really?”
“Yeah, I’ve always wanted to fly; to be able to soar in the sky and float among the clouds. You can go anywhere you want, whenever you want, and not be bound to the ground. To be able to fly is to be completely free. What’s why I understand why Dashie loves it so much.”
“Wow Pinkie, that was profound,” Twilight complimented.
“Meh, I do have my moments,” Pinkie shrugged.
“I’ve always wanted to be an Earth Pony,” Fluttershy stated. “If I was an Earth Pony, then I could be even more in tune with nature.”
“Maybe you and Pinkie should switch places,” Spike joked, causing everyone to laugh.
“Well, Ah’m happy with who Ah am,” declared Applejack proudly. “Ah prefer to keep mah hooves on the ground and Ah love doin’ what Ah do. To me, there’s nothin’ more statsifin’ or more rewardin’ than to look at Sweet Apple Acres and know that Ah put so much hard work into helpin’ makin’ it what it is.”
“When I first grew these two, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them,” Twilight said as she ruffled her wings a bit. “I was both excited and scared. The thought of being able to fly was exhilarating and it felt incredible when I first took flight, but then I remembered that I had no idea how to control them.”
Everyone laughed and Spike chuckled, “I remember that. It was during your coronation. You just took off and kept on going. Luckily, everypony thought it was part of the show.” They laughed hard at the memory and Twilight blushed a little with embarrassment.
“I was halfway back to Ponyville before somepony realized that something was wrong and I wasn’t coming back. Rainbow Dash had to fly up and help me land.” Twilight then turned to Spike. “But my wings magically appeared when the Elements of Harmony transformed me into an Alicorn. How did you grow wings? Did they slowly grow out your back or did they just spontaneously appear?”
“It was gradual,” the dragon explained, his face hardening a little. “Ever since I fought with Dracula, a pain started to run through my back every so often. The intensity of the pain increased everyday and it started to happen more often until they came out.”
“Oh my, did it hurt?” Fluttershy asked with concern as they all listened intently, also concerned.
“It was agony,” Spike told them in a serious tone. “I’ll skip the gory details, but let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty when my wings had to break through the skin.”
“You mean, your wings actually had to rip through the flesh of your back?” Pinkie asked in shock. Spike nodded and Fluttershy gasped and Applejack winced at the thought.
“Yeah, Spike had to go off to be by himself when it happened,” Tricky told the mares. “I guess he didn’t want anyone to see the mess.”
“Not only that, but a dragon becomes uncontrollable when they grow their wings,” Spike told them. “The pain is so great that their natural instincts take over and they attack everything around them, enraged and confused from the pain. You should’ve seen what happened to the cave I was in.”
Hearing what her teenaged dragon had to endure, Twilight Sparkle scooted closer to him, wrapped a wing around him, and comfortingly nuzzled against him. Her dragon son had been in pain and she wasn’t there to comfort him. She also missed a monumental event in his development and missed the opportunity to watch him grow wings and fly for the first time. It was the same as a parent not seeing their child take their first steps or hear their first words.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Spike,” Twilight said to him.
“We all are,” Applejack added as Pinkie and Fluttershy nodded in agreement.
“Don’t be sorry, at least we’re all here now. Well, except for Rainbow Dash and Rarity,” Spike said to the four mares.
“I guess you’re right,” Twilight said and then looked over to the EarthWalker soldiers at their camp. “When we’d split up in order to find you, I flew here. I ran into a group of wounded dinosaurs and helped them to safety. I was able to treat their injuries and we should be safe up here. The cliff is over twenty feet high and the path is too steep and narrow for the RedEyes to climb.”
“I’ve been wondering, what is a RedEye?” Spike asked. In the distance, a terrifying roar sounded from the darkness of the night. Everyone stood up in alert, and looked over the ledge to the darkened jungle city. Even the weary EarthWalkers looked up from their campfire. They couldn’t see anything but they heard some trees shaking as something big moved pass them and birds squawking in fear as they took flight.
“What the hay was that?!” Applejack asked.
“That was a RedEye,” Twilight told her as she joined them by the edge of the cliff. She headed back and sat by the fire again. Once the initial shock wore off, her friends rejoined her. They sat in silence for a moment before Tricky spoke.
“Were you able to find my dad, the King?” Tricky asked the Alicorn, fearing for his father’s safety.
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen him,” Twilight answered, shaking her head. “From what the others have told me, many EarthWalkers are trapped within the buildings and those that managed to escape are taking shelter on the edge of the valley just like we are.”
“Oh,” Tricky said in disappointment, looking at his feet.
“Don’t worry, young prince,” one of the soldiers called over from their camp. “The King is safe for now, but we must do something soon. Our supplies are dwindling and time is running out.”
“But what are we going to do?” one of the more seriously injured soldiers lamented. “If we had an army, we could drive those beasts back into the jungle and seal the entrance again. But our troops have been scattered and many of us are unable to fight anymore.”
“We going to need a plan,” Twilight said thoughtfully. “First, we should find the King EarthWalker. Maybe he can help us further.” Tricky yawned and everyone looked up to the night sky to the moon, seeing how late it was. “We should get some sleep. We’re going to have to be awake and alert tomorrow.”
As everyone settled in for the night, Twilight pulled out a few scrolls from her saddlebags. Spike looked over her shoulder and saw that she was going over the map and the history of the city.
“Whatcha doing?” Spike asked.
“I’m not tired yet,” she told him. “Besides, I want to memorize the layout of the city before we go looking for the King. I don’t want us to get lost with those things running around. From what I can tell, there’s an underground chamber underneath the royal palace; the large pyramid directly in the center of the city. Funny, there also appears to be large dungeon beneath the palace. What’s interesting is the architecture of the buildings of the island. Many of them seem abandoned and in ruins.”
“I know what you mean. I’ve seen them all over the place.”
“I believe that the tribes of dinosaurs were influenced by pony explorers long ago. Many of the designs are from the Early Classical Era. This city, for an example, resembles the design of the ruins of the Tenochtitlan Basin.”
“And the Warp Stone is obviously carved to resemble a pony and it speaks with a Shetland accent.”
“Not only that, but the EarthWalkers seem to worship the sun and moon. Look here,” Twilight pointed to the map. “There are two temples outside the city, one on each side of the canal. The one to the north is labeled as ‘the Temple of the Sun.’ and the one to the south is ‘the Temple of the Moon.’ I wonder if the EarthWalkers know of Luna and Celestia.” When Twilight mentioned her mentor, she remembered what the solar princess had revealed to her before she and her friends left for Krazoa Island. She smiled and rested her hoof on Spike’s claw. “Spike, there is something that I need to tell you.”
“And what’s that?”
“The night we received the letter from Rarity explaining that she had followed your trail here, Princess Celestia told me something important about the day you hatched,” she began. Spike’s ear frills immediately perked up and he looked at her, anxiously waiting to hear what she had to say. “As you know, I thought I was about to blow my entrance exam until Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom startled me and caused me to unleash a surge of magic that hatched your egg. We also know now that the entrance exam was just aptitude test to gauge the abilities of new students and that the real purpose of the test was Celestia was trying to find me, the Bearer of the Element of Magic. What I didn’t know was that your egg was a dud.”
“…What,” Spike uttered, shocked by the revelation.
“Your egg was never supposed to hatch,” Twilight elaborated. “Ponies had discovered it abandoned in a cave. All the other eggs in the clutch had hatched, but yours didn’t and the dragoness who’d laid it left it behind. The explorers brought it back to Celestia and she knew that who could ever cause the egg to hatch would be the Bearer of the Element of Magic. The egg had the necessary genetic material, but there was no life in it. My magic sparked life into the egg, formed a baby dragon inside of it, nurtured the embryo, and then hatched it. My magic, my very life force, runs through your veins.”
“You mean that I…” Spike couldn’t finish the sentence. He was too shocked and too emotional to say the words.
“Yes, you really are my son. I am just as much your mother as the dragoness who laid your egg,” she told him. He wrapped his arms around her and she did the same.
“You were always my mother,” he whispered to her. “Family is so much more than blood. You were there for me as far back as I can remember. You raised me, taken care of him, taught me, gave me a home, and most importantly, loved me.”
“I know,” she told her son as she continued to hold him. “But now I can add ‘giving life to you’ to the list.”
They laughed together and then heard sniffling. The Alicorn and the dragon looked over and saw Fluttershy and Pinkie wiping happy tears from their eyes while Applejack smiled approvingly at them.
“That is so sweet,” Pinkie Pie sniffled.
“Heh heh… sorry if we woke you,” Twilight sheepishly apologized, as she rubbed the back her head embarrassed.
“Not at all, we’re happy for you and Spike,” reassured Fluttershy.
“And Ah agree with Spike,” added Applejack. “Family is so much more than who y’all are related to. To me, all of you are part of mah family.”
“Thank you,” Twilight said to her friends. They then all went to sleep to prepare for the challenges that awaited them tomorrow. Spike lay back on the ground resting his claws behind his head and looked up to the starry sky. Tricky was gently snoring, having slept through the entire conversation. Twilight and the others were curled up on sleeping mats that they had brought with them. Spike smiled as he watched them sleep and was about to fall asleep himself, but then heard the rustling of leaves. He could see some trees shaking in the distance and knew that a RedEye was lurking out there. He relaxed with the knowledge that they were safe on the ledge, but knew that they would have to go down there among the RedEyes in only a few hours.