//------------------------------// // Episode 209: What Is Your Command? // Story: Pony POV Nightmare World: Spike The Dragon // by Alex Warlorn //------------------------------// Pony POV Series Nightmare World Nightmare Banneret By Alex Warlorn "Spike!" "Spike!" "Spike!" "Spike!" "Spike!" Day in and day out, it echoed in my head, everywhere and everyplace. Ponies calling for me. I work without rest, without pause, without hesitation, without regret. This is the world I've made. Ponies sit on their golden thrones (or silver, or obsidian, or bean bags, or candy, etc), their round bellies poking out. Some don't even bother shouting, some just ring a bell I've given them or press a buzzer, whatever they want. My mind is splinted several millions different ways, every one utterly devoted to a single ponies' needs and wants, and I provide unconditional service. When one of them wants to run, after years of letting their flank grow, I just breath fire on them, and they have the body of an athlete, and run around for miles, days without rest because they don't want to rest, and I provide for them. Then they get bored some time later, years or minutes, and sit back down, and just watch their belly grow again. I feed them, or they feed themselves, plastic forms or fancy silverware, or with their bare hooves. I cook it for them, or they cook it themselves and I provide every ingredient, or I provide them with a shop to buy it themselves. Foals wish to be adults, I breath my green fire and give them the bodies and minds they WANT to have. The elderly wish to return to foalhood, I give them the bodies and simplistic view they long for. There are ponies who wish to remain in their prime forever, I give them that too. Then come ponies who are bored out of their minds after centuries of having overcome every challenge they can imagine for themselves by themselves, and just want it to end...I grant that desire too. I don't what shocked Equestria more, that I could become something like Princess Luna when I wasn't even a pony, or that I didn't try to enslave every pony alive into giving everything they had until everypony was exactly equal. Forcing ponies to give away things wouldn't be very generous would it? I think the Princesses had no idea how to handle me. What crime had I committed? Stealing? I produced all I gave myself. Trying to conquer Equestria? I never once challenged the Royal Sisters' rule nor founded any kingdom or political party of my own. Slavery? Everypony who I gave to, I did so only because they desired it, and asked me of it. The ones who wished to be different species or have different personality traits, I only did as they asked of me, what they wanted of me. My green flames created and changed what they wished for. Forcing a pony to do something against their will is hardly generous. All types came to me at the beginning. The greedy, the desperate, the disabled (that first mare who had lost two of her legs to a Cragadile pranced out of her wheel chair), and the elderly. The greedy of course just asked for more and more and more and more, and I provided. When they asked for servants, I gave them myself, a piece of myself, splintered from myself, to serve them loyally and unconditionally. I had to explain I couldn't MAKE ponies fall in love with each other. That wouldn't be generous. I could turn them into a pony that their fancy would fall for. I could create a pony who was like their fancy who'd love them forever. But I couldn't go MAKING ponies fall in love who hadn't come to me to ask for my gifts and ASKED to fall in love. Of course I was proactive in spots, food and water to Zebrafrica, food and clothes for unemployed ponies. It was the generous thing to do after all. And ponies realized they could ask for nearly anything and I could provide for them. Mansions. Exotic pets and tamers for them. A clown for their birthday party. I would create it, shape it, or I would be it. I could provide gold and jewels, but not bits unto themselves, those could only be 'real' bits if they were minted by Equestria after all. And it wouldn't be proper or me to provide 'counterfeit' wealth to those who asked. That wouldn't be generous. I splintered myself, and sent pieces of myself everywhere, providing what was ask of me. Ponies realized they didn't need to spend their well earned bits on...nearly anything. Food, clothes, jewelry, toys, houses, pets, potted plants, sofas, quills, books, musical instruments, video games... The economy collapsed. But by that point, few ponies took notice. I was everywhere. And everywhere I was, anything would be provided if but asked. Piles of junk began to litter Equestria, as ponies were granted whatever they asked of me, quickly grew bored of them and tossed them aside. Many were asking now for a landscape unobscured by garbage. I waited until they forgot totally about them in their need for their next object of want before I used my green fire to unmake their now unwanted things. There were ponies who wanted to provide for themselves, I provided them the basic tools to allow them to do so and as little help as they wished for. Then came the ponies who wanted foals, but didn't want to go through the trouble of being pregnant, others wanted to skip the diaper years. I used my green flames, reached into the well of souls, and provided them what they wished for, implanting the knowledge in the heads of their foal so the foals could live and decide what they wanted for themselves. Through my now countless avatars, splintered pieces of myself, I watch the pudgy ponies on their free floating thrones. There are ponies who want me to destroy myself. But they are out numbered by the ponies who me to stay. There are ponies who want things back to way it was before I became Nightmare Banneret, but they are out numbered by the ones who like being waited on hoof and hoof by my claws. Ponies don't want Discord to bother them, so I keep his statue at the center of the planet, away from any source of disharmony that could free him. I made Shining Armor immortal, so he and Cadence would be alive together forever, like they had wanted. Princess Luna had -commanded- her bat-ponies to never ask anything of me, they wanted to obey her. They were now a tribe unto themselves, their foals now born with Princess Luna's essence and bat wings, they remained loyal to Princess Luna as they wanted to be, as Princess Luna in turn wanted them to be. Their numbers grew. Most of the the other tribes now found the idea of having foals only a novelty. I provided the love and nurturing their foals wanted after their parents grew bored with them. Somepony teleports deep underground. The cave is completely bare of anything, light, books, treasure, anything of remote value of any kind, it is simply a space underground with no way in or out sans teleportation. This is where I dwell. "Spike." "Hello Twilight." She looks different, oh right, she'd become an Alicorn a few centuries back. Her and...who was it? Applejack and Rainbow Dash still had the young bodies they asked for, keep them in shape themselves, and still challenging each other to new challenges in their endless competition. Pinkie Pie hadn't been seen outside of Partitopia in years hosting her endless parties for eternally young foals. Had Celestia finished Caketopia yet? It got so confusing sometimes. So many places, all at once, but serve, but give them what they want, didn't matter what. Fluttershy had died of old age after a century or two, her own request of course for her to grow into old age. Oh yes, it was Rarity, Rarity had become an Alicorn too. Beautiful perfect Rarity. I have no wants. I have no desires. I have no hopes or dreams of my own. Everything I have, is something that someone else therefore doesn't. I give all that I am. Twilight wants me to answer. "Hello Twilight," I rumble. The golden armor I had been born into when I became Nightmare Banneret, had long since become dull and dirty. I had become Rarity's knight in shining armor, I gave her everything she could have possibly wanted. I gave her the love she wanted. I gave her the beauty and wealth she wanted. I gave her the means to earn her fame and recognition like she wanted. All that she wanted. I gave her the path she could walk to become a Princess herself by her own hard work and enlightenment, as she wanted. Why did she leave me in tears when I told her that I wanted nothing, that I couldn't want anything, that I didn't desire anything, anypony, when she asked me, with her new beautiful feathered wings and perfect platinum and amethyst barding, "Spikey Wickey, what is it that YOU want?" I didn't understand. She never asked me to understand. She simply left in tears. I didn't want to see her cry. I didn't want to see her stop crying. What mattered was what she wanted. "Spike? Spike!" Oh right. Twilight. She's right here in front of me. She's a princess now. An Alicorn. Like Rarity. Did Rarity now succeed Celestia as Princess of Equestria? Or was that a dream? When was the last time I slept? But those who wanted me to sleep, were out numbered by those who wished for me to continue to provide for them. "Sorry Twilight, there are just...many...so many...I...am distracted easy." "Spike I want to talk to you." "Your wish is my command, you are talking to me." "Spike! I want you to listen to me!" "Your wish is my command, I am listening." "Spike I want you to want something!" The Alicorn said, her magical wavering mane jerking a bit as she spoke. Rarity's was beautiful too. "Your wish is my command. I do want something. I want whatever you want. And what Rarity wants. And what Celestia wants. And what Applejack wants. And what Applebloom wants. And what Scootaloo wants. And-" "I want you to want something for yourself!" "Your wish is my command. I want to give to everypony what they want. I want to give all of myself to everypony. I want to give all that I am, all I was, and all I'll be to everypony else. So everypony can have what they want." "UGH!" Twilight face hoofed. "Spike! I mean something YOU want! Something that only SPIKE wants! Not Nightmare Banneret! Spike The Dragon!" "Your wish is my command. Spike wants to be everypony's number one assistant, to assist everypony, to help everypony to give to everypony, to provide to everypony who wants to be provided for." Twilight sighed, I don't think this is the first time we've had this conversation. She looked over my entire body, she sniffs as tears come down her muzzle. Her entire body is reflected in one of my eyes like a full a length mirror, she stand before my body that is now as large as the red dragon that once roosted above Ponyville. But it's...dirty, skinny, the scales are shaggy, my ribs are visible through my scales. One of my avatars appears and provides her a handkerchief, she looks at it, looking wistfully at it as I look up at her through it, but she doesn't tae the hankie, she never does. "I...I had better go, my...my foals are waiting for me. I'll...speak to you later Spike." "If that is what you wish." She teleported away to where she, and her foals, did not wanted me to have any of my avatars near, so I did not. Button Mash meanwhile wants a new video game. So I provide him one. Scootaloo meanwhile like a skating course as tall as MountEverPony, so I provide her one. Pinkie Pie meanwhile wants more pies, so I provide them to her. Lilly wants a full body massage, so I provide it. Rainbow Dash wants a Daring Do book with herself as the main character, so I provide it. So many ponies, wanting so many things, everywhere, so much at once, and I provide.