Spike was alone... He could see it now; he was alone from the start. ‘Loneliness doesn't come from being alone, it comes from being surrounded by ponies that don't understand you, and the deep feeling of isolation comes when you realize that even the pony that's closest to you is so far away that you could never touch them,’ Spike recalled the words spoken by ‘mad’ and ‘happy’ not long after he summoned them.
It's been three days since he left his bed and he was glad that he didn't need much food, thanks to the gems. He only needed water to survive, but that still didn't change the fact that he was alone, without any friends or family, all he had was the three artifacts... if they're even real...
“Waiting... For what? Do you have a chance? Do you want to keep living like the past? To live as a slave to everyone? Spike, everyone wants happiness, and no one wants pain, but you can’t make a rainbow without a little rain. Move on,MR Spike,” friend said without even bothering to show up.
After a few more hours of doing nothing, he wiped the tears from his eyes and started packing up, he had no idea where he was going to go next; there is no future, and his past... he wants to forget them, forget them all... but he can’t lose them: they've changed him too much; shaped him to their liking...
He's stuck. He can’t go back to his dragon nature, but he can’t go back to the ponies that used him, either. He's caught in the middle of these two factions, and he doesn't know what to do...But he does know that he must move on, despite the hardships he faced...
After a few minutes he finished packing and began walking across the bridge towards the abandoned castle. ’Gotta get to higher ground,’ he thought to himself. Maybe it’s time to do something with his life...
He climbed the walls of the castle to their highest point. By the time he got there, he was panting pretty hard, but he still managed to squint his eyes and look around, taking the view, which was amazing to him.
What he saw was an ocean of green that stretched as far as his eyes could see, which covered nearly all of the forest. He could see ponyville, that wretched place he once called home, he even saw a outline of a what looks like a giant glass dome in the distance, a tall mountain with a little snow on top at the horizon, and even his first camp, which wasn't far from here.
“Strange, the Everfree looks a lot smaller in the maps than in does real life,” he said as he rubbed his chin with the his claw, looking around some more, his mind drawing a blank as he tried to avoid remembering the pain he suffered from those ponies.
Unbeknownst to him, however, something saw him and was watching him closely... observing his every movement as the dragon took in his surroundings. The woodland creatures wouldn’t dare to even think of approaching this figure, just like the dragon that held the two artifacts.
The mysterious figure’s flesh soon melted like liquid silver, exposing it’s pony skeleton before, just a second later, a new coat of silver covered it, and when the liquid covered its whole body again, the silver faded into a different color. Now, instead if a stallion, it was a beautiful mare with a white coat, sky blue mane and tail, and golden eyes that fluttered open as she looked around and walked towards the mountains with a wicked smile on her face.
---
After some rest on the top of the tower, spike climbed down, actually ready for a long walk... At least until he reached the bottom, where he sighed and looked down towards the ground, remembering what friend said to him a few hours before.
so he took a stroll around the castle and scavenged somethings of use. when he was done, he took off towards the tall mountains.
He has to remain strong... so, with a heavy heart, he looked towards the mountains, took a deep breath and began walking towards his goal.
After a few hours of walking with nothing to do, his mind decided to bring up the fact that he was essentially abandoned in the span of a week, so, to drive his mind out of this, he took out his ocarina, closed his eyes, and started playing a song called 'Misty Mountains Cold' to distract himself.
But, while he played, he felt a weird sensation around his body, like that wind blew towards him in every direction, but he ignores it. He blew every note according to his memory, playing the instrument with not just his body, but with his very own soul.
Every note he blew came from the bottom of his heart and, after the song was finished, he opened his eyes to found that he was in a different location; one he didn't recognize... he was on an floating island, but it was the other beings before him that surprised him.
Standing there, right beside each other were two bodies twitching madly and fading into and out of view. It was ‘happy’ and ‘mad', both surrounded by sparks igniting all around them, they looked as if they were both burning and freezing at the same time. As they saw Spike look upon them, they gritted their teeth and said with a pained voice, “k-kh-kh o-o-oly-y-y-olyhv! Kh-kh-kh lv q-q-qr DUUJK, K-k-kh kdv-kdv-kdv d-d-d ZKROH-ROH vr-vr-DUUUJK. Doo-doo WKH SDLQ kh-kh dozdbv-dozdbv-ihhov! ULS-ULS-ULS IURP WKH ERGB ZKROH!” The instant their chanting ceased, they exploded into sparks and the floating island collapsed.
---
Spike awoke gasping for air and took in his surroundings. It was nighttime and the forest looked very different. He felt cold and instantly dug out his torch and blew flame onto it.
As expected, everything stopped moving and a shout of pain rang out “AHHHHHH-NEVER SUMMON ALL OF US AT THE SAME TIME!!!” mad yelled out as he appeared behind Spike, all while walking like a drunk.
“Do you have any idea how much it hurts? Thank god I can forget it all in just a few days,” he gritted as he held his hoof to his forehead as if he just violently banged his head before stomping his hoof towards the ground.
Spike raised an eyebrow and asked, ”what do you mean? I didn't summon you. Why would you say that? ... And what did you mean by 'uls iurp wkh ergb zkroh?'” Spike was getting mad, but the red stallion in question just rubbed his forehead and sighed...
“Kid, in order to summon the souls in the artifacts, you just need to bring up the emotions the souls feel the most. When you played the ocarina, you summoned the mare as well as me, and now you’re depressed, so that very angry being I once met, who ever he is, got summoned” he cringed and Spike’s surroundings moved a little, but stopped soon after.
“Well, now, thanks to you, I Have a full soul. ARRGH!!! THANK GOD it fades in a few days...” he held his head is if it was going to explode, spike cringing at the reaction.
“What do you mean a full soul? I thought you were just a part of a soul?” Spike asked, a little worried about the red stallion rubbing his head and rolling on his back.
“Look, kid, all you need to know is that when two or more artifacts are used at the same time, the souls merge and share a personality, meaning that the two will become one. Now I am going back into the torch, it hurts just being outside,” and with that simple sentence, he vanished.
Spike, with the flame’s glow, finally began to really take in the surroundings, and his jaw hit the ground. He was at the foot of the mountain he wanted to travel to... in just the span of one song...
The dragon’s eye twitched and he began laughing like crazy. After he calmed down, he put his still lit torch on the side of his bag and began climbing, his claw digging into the stone with a ‘crack’.
---
It’s been three hours, but he finally made it to the top with little effort, and what greeted him was snow, a clearing and a chest... well, two chests strapped together. One was white with a black lock and the other was black with a white lock...
He opened the two chest with little delay and began reading the pieces of paper inside each of them, quickly finding out that they were littered with holes... "Great..." Spike rolled his eyes and stack them together to roll them up, only to pause as he saw that the holes lined up with the text on the other sheet.
‘Heh, that was easy...', he thought to himself as he stacked the two pieces of paper together and began to read, and, unlike last time, he was going to read this seriously.
A note of advice: these are suppose to be very dangerous.
One can bring life and one can bring death. The white one brings life
and black one brings death... [ ] are suppose to bring [ ] back but
[ ] one doesn't feels like it, [ ] won't work...
star s
With that, spike rolled up the two pieces of paper and looked at two chest to find out what’s inside them... and what greeted him was not what he expected. He expected it to be a badge or something, but what greeted him was the most beautifully crafted swords he has ever seen in his life... even though they were the only swords he has ever see with his own eyes.
Spike then went about hollowing out the chests when it suddenly hit him: ‘These chests are mostly hollow anyway, with only four jems, two swords, and two pieces of paper, so why not use them as bags, instead?’, He thought to himself as he began to pack everything he could into the chest...
After some time, and some careful packing, he shut the two chest and locked them with the built in locks, making sure that the contents wouldn't fall out, he tied some rope he ‘scavenge’ from the castle of the two sisters, which brought up the memory of why he was in this situation in the first place...
He was going to take out the ocarina, but he reminded himself about what he did to mad and happy... and he still hasn’t seen ‘friend’ yet, and as if on cue, time stopped and there he was, standing there, looking out to the distance...”listen,” he said with his usual dull and boring voice...
Unlike the last time they’ve met, friend did not free him from the ‘time jam’, nor did he talk with any warmth or care,hidden beneath his voice "there's someone that took something away from me. It was important enough for my very soul to remember it, and you need to remember what I’ve said or I might forget, or even die soon...”his voice becoming grim...
"He who survives over the years must be put down in order to relieve your fears, or he will become your worst nightmare. But when you find the one who remembers, you'll have nothing to fear-” he was cut off by something as a look of fear crossed his face.
ALSO unlike last time, he disappeared by turning to stone and crumbling to dust as time resumed, and as it did, Spike noticed that his necklace began to glow. At first it was red, then it turned orange and started smoking, then it became white, and then finally blue. A light then shot out of the shield and bolted straight towards a random direction that spike presumed was north-east.
Spike, still confused by what happened, tapped the shield and found out that it was boiling hot. Needless to say, he was surprised, not by the temperature, but that ‘friend’ didn't appear at all. What spike thought was his cutie mark was also gone...
So Spike did the only thing he thought he should; he went after the glowing trail that Spike guessed was leading him to the rest of 'friend's soul…”it’s been a wild week” he muttered to himself as he began to walk.
---
Twilight returned home after yet another picnic. It’s been a few months since Spike went missing, but she's gotten over it. The library's been a constant mess without Spike to do his daily chores.
Feeling the sudden urge to send a letter to Celestia on the first day she found out that spike was missing. Sure she's been out more since he left, but without the constant reminders from him to eat, she's become much thinner, not terribly noticeably, but still a significant change that her friends jumped to help fix.
Within a few minutes of her return, Princess Celestia send her yet another letter by the royal guards instead of spike’s flame. The message stated that there's something preventing them from reaching the dragon, and that a squad's been sent to look for him, but turned up empty.
And so Twilight had to do everything on her own now. She couldn't help but feel bad from the things she said all those months ago, but she was in a very stressful situation back then.
Though it was Rarity that was hit the hardest when she noticed Spike stopped showing up to help her with her dresses. She first went to Twilight, but when she found out that he was missing she became very worried and asked the girls to help look for him. That also, unfortunately, turned up empty...
Rarity blamed herself for what happened after that day, but she's gotten over it a few weeks ago. Twilight knows that she never intended to hurt Spike that way.
With that, she decided that she'd go and look for him with her friends where he'd most likely be: a place his young mind would look for comfort from a very powerful zebra: Zecora, the enchantress...