All Eyes on You
“Twilight! Twilight!” Applejack knocked forcefully, nearly tearing the door off its hinges. “Twilight!”
“Applejack?” Twilight asked, surprised to see her friend again so soon, and even more so by her intensity. “What’s wrong?”
“Well… I-I ain’t too sure…” Applejack stuttered. “It’s Spike… Spike and Rarity…”
“You shouldn’t feel so bad…” Twilight said, misunderstanding the earth pony’s anxiety. “Rarity… just had too much of a lead on us. She has been working her way into Spike’s heart since we came to Ponyville… guess we really never stood a chance...”
“Wait, Twilight, listen!” the apple farmer interrupted her. “It’s not that… I ain’t jealous… Ok, maybe a lil’ jealous. But there’s somethin’ off about the whole thing! Rarity’s…”
“Now, now, Applejack,” the purple unicorn hushed the ranting mare. “There’s no need to call each other names. We’re still friends after all, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, we are… but ya ain’t hearin’ me, Twilight!” Applejack answered, rather frustrated that her friend simply waved off her worries. “There’s… somethin’ wrong with Spike… And Rarity… she’s not acting like herself… I mean, Spike… he was always happy to help her whenever she needed it… But this time… it looked like he was fighting… somethin’… Somethin’ that Rarity was doin’ to him. And Rarity… she was usin’ some sort of weird magic… I don’t know too much about all the unicorns’ hocus pocus, but this magic… It didn’t feel right. I’ve seen you and Rarity use magic… This was nothing like before, not even close…”
“What do you mean, Applejack?” Twilight asked, her own concerns growing with each small pause her friend took.
“Rarity… wasn’t actin’ like herself,” Applejack continued. “She used Spike, sure, but I never thought she meant no harm by it… This time, the magic she was usin’… it looked like it was hurting him… on the inside… Even the way she called him… She called him ‘drake’… Even if she did use him before, even if she did hurt him… Rarity always cared about Spike… Ya could hear every time she called him ‘Spikey-Wikey’. That’s why I wouldn’t have minded losin’ Spike to her. ‘Cause he would still be with some pony that can make him happy and cares about him… But that unicorn I saw ain’t a pony I would ever leave Spike with…”
“Well, even if I do believe you… There’s nothing I can really do… I’ve never heard of a spell that does what you said,” Twilight replied. “I wouldn’t know where to begin to counter a spell like that.”
“Why don’t ya try talkin’ to him?” the blond earth pony asked. “I think I was gettin’ through to him until Rarity did… somethin’. Then Spike told me he never wanted to see me again…”
“That doesn’t sound like something Spike would say…” Twilight commented.
“Exactly! Maybe since Spike is alone with ya here… away from Rarity…” Applejack paused as she exited the library. “Maybe ya can help him…”
“This is becoming very risky…” the Changeling Queen thought out loud. “That lowly little farmer has grown suspicious of me… and of my pet… The Gala is still some time away.
“So it seems that having complete control over your mind is not the wisest choice at the moment. We both must keep up appearances,” she turned to Spike. “However, I can’t afford to have you on such a loose leash. Seeing as you already have it engraved in your mind that I’m your precious Rarity, I will simply lock away those memories of the other two pesky mares. Your mind will remain mine as long I am near. Not even Celestia’s little pet will be able restore them…”
“Ah, yes!” Chrysalis said as invaded the dragon’s mind once more. “The little incident that caused this whole situation… Perhaps erasing that is all that is really needed. It will ensure that your love for me, your Rarity, remains strong. You will return to me of your own will, you will listen to my demands of your own will. Forging a memory of your choosing of me would not hurt either. A little insurance. Truly, I should have thought of this long ago.”
“It is actually quite laughable…” she said, turning her attention to the still-cocooned unicorn. “I do believe that, was it not for that incident, his heart would unquestionably still have been yours. It must really be painful to think you brought this heartache upon yourself. Such a shallow creature you are. However, this makes it all the easier for me.”
The Changeling did not even care to see her captive’s enraged frenzy as she carried the unconscious dragon out of the room.
“Wouldn’t want his little head to become confused from seeing two Raritys…” Chrysalis laughed as she resumed her disguise. “Now would we?”
Twilight paced the library floor, anxiously awaiting the return of her assistant. Her mind raced with unnerving ideas of a magic that could result in complete control over Spike. Surely if Applejack’s suspicions proved true, she would have to report Rarity to Celestia for using such egregious magic on an innocent creature for her own ends. It was her biggest fear and the very reason she desperately hoped it was not true. She now understood why Applejack also had doubts that this was the same pony they had come to call friend. A new knock on her door derailed her train of thought.
“Spike…” Twilight said under her breath, cautiously opening the door. “Rarity?”
“Yes… I brought you back the dragon…” the white unicorn answered, coldly leaving Spike’s limp body in front of Twilight. “He seems to have fallen asleep, and I don’t have the room for him to lie around.”
“Rarity… wait…” Twilight called out to her, to no avail.
“I have no time for small talk…” the unicorn said, her back continuing to face her purple counterpart. “When he awakens, tell him to report to me as soon as possible. I require his assistance in some matters.”
Before Twilight could even protest, the white mare had already moved out of earshot. She turned her attention to her sleeping assistant, deciding that seeing to Spike’s well-being outweighed investigating Rarity’s behavior in importance. Twilight gently tucked the dragon into his bed, and promptly fell into her own. Exhausted by her own worries, she took one last look at the sleeping dragon before falling asleep herself.
The purple unicorn awoke to the sounds of dusting and bristles sweeping the floor. To her surprise, Spike was happily fulfilling his daily routine, and even whistling. Normally, this would have proved to be just that: normal. However, after all the strange happenings, and his own strange, absent minded behavior before this, Twilight could not simply dismiss what Applejack had warned her about. Reaching a hoof out towards her assistant’s back, she flinched when he suddenly turned around.
“H-hi, Spike…” Twilight stuttered. “Are you ok?”
“Oh, hi, Twilight!” Spike beamed. “Yeah, I’m doing pretty good! I mean, I have the most beautiful mare in all of Ponyville as my marefriend! So I think I’m doing a-ok!”
“You mean Rarity?” Twilight asked tentatively.
“Well, yeah…” Spike answered, looking down at his feet. “Sorry that things didn’t work out between us… I hope we can still be friends.”
Twilight backed away from the dragon, her head totally lost in thought. Applejack had told her that Spike had said that he never wanted to see her again, and yet, here he was apologizing for the failed romantic relationship they had together. Something was not adding up. Applejack would not lie about something so serious, and her worry seemed genuine. But she could not simply ignore that Spike was acting like his normal self once more. Applejack was certainly right about the fact that something strange was going. Whether it involved Rarity was yet to be seen.
“Twilight?” Spike asked, snapping her out of her self-induced trance. “Are you feeling ok?”
“I-I don’t know…” Twilight said, drawing further back from him. “You haven’t talked to Applejack lately, have you?”
“Oh yeah…” the dragon replied, hanging his head. “Rarity said that Applejack was getting really jealous of her. She told me to tell her that it would be best if we didn’t see each other anymore.”
“Rarity, huh?” Twilight whispered to herself. “I need to go see Applejack for a while.”
“I guess I’ll go over to Rarity’s after I finish here,” he told her as she reached the door.
For a moment, Twilight hesitated. She wanted to tell him to stay away from Rarity. Moreover, she wanted to tell him about her suspicions. However, she knew that might only yield the same result as Applejack achieved, distancing Spike from her and causing him to mistrust her as well. Instead, she simply nodded and faked a smile, then hurriedly galloped to the farm on the outskirts of Ponyville.
“Ya sure about this, Twilight?” Applejack asked as they both hid in the bushes near the town’s boutique.
“No, but it’s our only choice right now,” Twilight answered, keeping a quill and scroll handy for any suspicious behavior. “I don’t have any proof that Rarity’s done anything to Spike. And Spike looks like he’s back to his normal self… So we need some kind of proof that there is something strange going on with Rarity and Spike.”
“Here he comes!” Applejack said as both ducked back under the brush.
As the little dragon said he would, he arrived at the shop and waited patiently at the door for the unicorn to allow him in. The white unicorn hardly gave him a proper greeting. Instead, her eyes were instantly glued to the very bush that the two mares hid in. Both felt cold beads of sweat form at the foreheads and drip down their faces. They saw turn her narrowed gaze on their bush, almost as if she knew they were there, but neither really knew how. They had not seen her leave the shop once, or even stare out any of the windows.
“You’re late!” the unicorn scolded Spike, finally allowing him entrance after a long stare down with the shrub outside the shop.
“Sorry,” Spike apologized, disappearing into the shop.
Giving the bush one last cold look, the unicorn slammed the door shut.
“Did she know we were here?” Applejack whispered, feeling a shiver travel down her spine.
“No…” Twilight answered uncertainly, swallowing hard. “I mean… how could she?”
“Clean this place up!” the unicorn ordered harshly, startling the dragon.
“Umm… ok…” Spike said, grabbing a handful of fabric and rolling it back onto its tube.
“I’ll be in my room…” the mare said. “Do not disturb me!”
Leaving the dragon for the safety of her locked room, the unicorn promptly dropped her illusionary disguise. Letting out an angry snort, she turned her attention to the only window in the room. Pushing the curtains aside, she peeked through the window to see the heads of her two spies quickly retreat back into their hiding place.
“It seems that your friends have finally caught on to me…” Chrysalis told the trapped the unicorn, her eyes never leaving the bush. “I can easily have them join you up here, but that would raise even more suspicion, something I cannot have. It will still be a while longer before the Gala… I can’t afford for them to give their pompous princess a reason to be on alert. I guess I’ll just have to play drama queen until the day of the Gala…”
“What is it that drives them to go to such lengths?” the Changeling Queen asked herself. “Their friend is acting so coldly to them, their dragon has rejected them… Yet they still won’t leave me alone! It doesn’t matter. In a few more days, none of this will…”