//------------------------------//
// Spike fights for his hoard (reworked version) 
// Story: Where Spike came from 
// by Billy G Gruff 
//------------------------------//

The world seemed so quiet to Spike as he stared out towards the destruction before him.The Golden Oaks library, his home where some of his fondest memories had been made in his life, now lay utterly destroyed before him, a smoldering husk of what it once been. It's former shape and appearance still clung so vividly in his mind. He knew what it was meant to look like, and the fact that it was just burning ruins now bought up the worst kinds of dissonant feelings into his mind. He was such a tiny creature. He stood there, staring into the distance, his large, watering green eyes as he watched the rampaging Centaur tearing up the Everfree Forest far in the distance. The tiny dragon was in such a state of shock. His face was void of all expression as he kept his eyes in the general direction of the Centaurs carnage. Nothing resembling coherent thought was going through his mind. It was just a jumble of images and emotions that broiled under the surface of his blank expression. 


His body shook, trembled at the world that presented itself to the broiling storm of his mind. The Princesses were locked in Tartarus, everything was on fire, and now his friends, the bearers of the elements of harmony and the last hope for Equestria were nowhere within his sight. Where they dead? Was he all alone now? Was nopony going to save Equestria? Was nopony going to stop Tirek and his rampage? What was going to happen to everyone now that all hope was lost?  No more Twilight tucking him into bed? No more Rarity watch with doting eyes? To help with her sewing? No more Dash crashing into the Tree-house and knocking down all the books he had just organized?

Spike fell to his knees, his whole body shaking as he gripped his head, trying in vain to steady his rumbling storm of incoherent thoughts. He felt like he was going mad. His heart felt like it wanted to pound itself out of his chest. His adrenaline feuled into his bloodstream as his muscles began to flex. His mouth began to feel weird, like his teeth were suddenly becoming to large for the confines of his mouth. It made him snarl as he struggled to keep his stinging eyes closed. It was all simply too much for him to handle. He wanted to escape. He wanted to fade away into the din of his mind and let whatever this storm was take over his body. 

He surrendered to the storm in his mind, this ever-growing force that saught to lay claim over his body. In doing so, he became calm. Calmer than he had ever been in his life. A type of calm that he had not known his body to ever achieve before, yet felt strangely familiar at the same time. It was the calm of a predator, ready to stalk and lay claim to its prey. 



He stood up straight with a measure of confidence that the young dragon had never shown. When his eyes opened, his pupils contracted into razor-thin slits as they honed into its prey, the target that he wanted to rend in half and bury his teeth into. He walked forward, away from the tree as his eyes and head were locked in the direction of one thing and one thing only. Nothing else in the world mattered now. All he wanted to do was go after the prey that had dared to touch his hoard. What creature dared to defile a dragons lair? What creature was so lacking in self preservation that they would touch the things that belonged to a dragon? The thoughts alone made Spike's lips curl into a snarl, his eyes glow with an emerald flame that it hadn't had to summon since his hatching. 

Tirek paid no attention to the little dragon walking towards him. He was far to invested in his high off of Equestrian magic to pay attention to oncoming threats. Even he could have noticed the little dragon at that moment he wouldn't have cared anyway. What was a baby to a god such as him? 

The ground hissed in Spikes ears as his footsteps singed and burned the ground beneath him. His body was steaming with heat, making the air around him begin to waver and distort the light like over an open flame. His expression remained blank as his gaze stayed locked onto the Centaur in the distance. He paid no attention to the sparks of green fire that were erupting erratically all around him. Each step became imperceptibly larger than the last as Spike began to grow in size. He paid no attention to his limbs and torso that seemed to stretch and grow more defined with each step of this march that he took. His snarling mouth began to stretch from his face, and his eyes were glowing in greater intensity with the second until they illuminated his increasingly feral features. His morphing chest heaved in and out, undefined musculature taking shape across it as it kept expanding and stretching along with the rest of his body. 



Spikes body was gaining mass like a runaway snowball, each step forward resulting in more mutations to his appearance. Once small and docile limbs began coiling with muscles that grew larger by the moment. His small and practiced claws honed for writing friendship letters stretched and thickened into bony claws that could rend through stone. His infant scales were falling off in droves, erupting in emerald flames before they hit the ground, only to be replaced with the armored scales of an adult, a warrior. That tiny pudgy thing of a tail was now whipping about behind him, coiled with musculature that knew exactly how to use its growing size to its advantage. Preternatural muscle memory formed into his body in ways that felt so utterly familiar to him, like an echo of a far off dream. 



He started picking up the pace as he began to tower in height. Each footfall of his erupted into emerald flame, scarring the ground as his clawed toes gripped into the charring earth and launched him ever faster. The ground shook with each punishing slam of his hind legs, each one stronger than the last as his body grew thicker and larger than it had been the second before. Soon his back was coiled with musculature, Spiked scales jutting out of it all the way up his thicker and longer neck and head all the way down to his trunk-like tail. His body was swollen with muscles that were all diligently working to pick up the dragons pace. His arms and legs were even more of a blur than the rest of his body, pushing his body to achieve such speeds now that a cone of air was beginning to form around him much like it did with Rainbow Dash. 

An enemy that had taken away his treasure. He had invaded his lair. It had dared touch his possessions, take away the things he cared about. A creature that touched a dragons hoard was not one with a sense of self preservation. 



Dragons felt very greedy about their treasure.





Tirek was unaware of the world around him. He only knew that he wanted to blast more trees with his magic. All his planning, all his scheming, all the ideas about what he wanted to do with his newfound ability seemed to fall at the wayside as the euphoria filled his mind. He didn't even notice the frightfully massive and muscular dragon barreling towards him. Not until the Dragon was on top of him, throwing a hay-maker into the Centaurs face that moved with such speed and power behind it that a mach-cone formed over the closed fist. 

That moment of collision seemed to draw on for a millennium to the surprised centaur. His eyes widened as his face distorted at the impact -- flecks of saliva leaving his mouth and his teeth dislodging from their designated spots. He even seemed to have enough time to wheel his eyes around to see the feral visage of an enormous royal-purple dragon glaring into him with his smoldering green eyes. Confusion filled his magically high mind as time snapped back for him, and the force of the punch caught up with the rest of his body. His hooves lost their footing from the immense kinetic assault that had just struck him, and his massive body careened through the air into the buckling trunks of several dozen trees. He didn't even have a chance to recover from the jarring attack on his face before he had the wind knocked out of him by a kick from a leg thicker than any tree in this forest. All the air in his formidable lungs left him as the cracked trees gave way and let him crash into the thick trunks of the trees behind them. He couldn't get a his legs to find purchase on the ground fast enough, and his awkwardly shaped body was having a hard time finding balance with these rapid assaults. 



After tumbling several times across the forest, punching through trees with his battering ram of a body, he managed to finally grip into the ground with his hooves and grind himself into a halt. He flailed wildly at his fast approaching assailant whom he couldn't quite see through his blurred vision, but each swing of his arms and legs were deftly blocked by the purple behemoth. One of Tirek's swings became interlocked with the dragons arm, holding his limb hostage as the dragon balanced on his ever-expanding tail. The dragons thick purple legs moved in unison, pulling back before firing into the Centaurs captive chest like twin shots from a crossbow. The force behind the two simultaneous kicks and having the centaurs arm interlocked with his own managed to dislocate Tirek's shoulder with a resounding crack that echoed throughout the Everfree. 

Tirek roared out in more indignation than pain. His twin horns flared up with magic to strike out at his attacker. Battle strategy was non-existent in this fight; this thing wanted to beat him into the ground and he was willing to oblige him in kind. Spike released Tireks arm and narrowly dodged out of point-blank range before the magic beam tore into him. Even with his increasing speed he still ended up  getting clipped in the shoulder. Tirek hadn't fully recovered his senses yet, so he fired one beam after another at anything he thought was his enemy. He grunted out in pain as Spike took advantage of his confusion and tackled into him, sending the both of them flying with enough force to crash into a far off mountain and keep going till they had crashed straight through it. 



As the two of them careened downwards from the hole in a mountain they had just made, Tirek finally was able to focus on the dragon that was clasping his massive claws around his throat. His partially swollen face broke into a grin even as they crashed into the forest below, skipping through the ground and trees like a smooth stone across the pond. Now that he saw who his adversary was, he relished the idea of fighting him. They finally skidded to halt next to a cliff face, Spike looming over top of him as he pulled his head back, filling his throat with emerald flames as he snarled down at the horned Centaur. 

"Well I'll be damned.... after all this time, here you are..."



Emerald flames enveloped Tirek as he laughed. The forceful breath of the dragon drowned him out as they ate into the cliff-face and the ground beneath him, utterly melting and destroying anything it came in contact with save for Tirek himself. The centaur didn't pull away from the dragon breath, but let it wash over him as he continued his guttural belly laugh at the absurdity of the situation, not caring in the least as the ground and cliff he lay against became molten liquid. 



Now that Tirek had his barings he was able to force himself up from his molten confines, even with the dragon attempting to choke the life out of him. He grinned through the assaulting flames and pushed Spike back, working himself onto his hooves despite the dragons best efforts. "Spike kept assaulting him with dragon-breath as he stepped back from his opponent, gearing up for another assault against the red monster. Tirek looked down at his dislocated arm with a smirk, reaching over with his other limb before effortlessly snapping it back into place. Triek's eyes turned to Spike as he looked down at his shoulder, yelling out with amusement at the feral creature before him. 

"To think that Wench turned you into her lapdog!" His gruff voice roared out over the flame. "I am almost impressed you managed this much against me, Spike!" 



The fires of Spikes attack were starting to waver as Tirek began to waltz towards him. While Spike was losing steam fast, finally slowing down in his growth that had turned him into this towering giant, Tirek was just beginning to warm up to this fight. Spike gritted his teeth as the centaur blurred towards him, only just managing to catch the Centaurs arms as the threatened to close aorund spike in a back breaking hold. His muscular body braced against the force Tirek was exerting, his maw finally closed in concentration as he tried to force Tirek back into the molten ground behind him. The centaur maneuvered body, slamming into Spike till they were resting their shoulders on each-other, trying to force each-other back, no ground given or taken as they continued to shove. 



A shock-wave issued as they forcefully broke apart and collided again. This time they were trading blows. For each slamming fist that Spike landed against Tireks face and torso, Tirek responded with thrice the force he was given. While Spike managed little bruises and scrapes against the magically infused behemoth, each of Tireks blows rattled him to his core. Bones shattered and reformed as Spike continued to get assaulted, his brain growing more frenzied and feral as the pain required him to give into more animal instincts. Punches became racking claws, and his maw snapped out at Tireks throat, trying to rip it out with his teeth that could pierce diamonds. Tirek was that much faster and more agile than the dragon, making sure he stayed just out of reach of his snapping jaws while shrugging off the dragons arms and claws. 



"I told you!" Tirek yelled into the dragon’s face as he delivered a blow to his stomach. "I told you that you weren't strong enough!"



Spike's feral mind was getting confused. Each blow he landed on. The few injuries on Tirek were disappearing as the fight raged on, and his wounds were getting slower and slower to heal as crimson fists crashed into his body from seemingly all sides. His body was failing him, it would not be long before it would stop healing all together and he would crumble under the force of the god-like Centaur. 



Reserves of adrenaline gave Spike the strength and speed to grip Tireks seemingly indomitable arms, holding them up in the air as his body shook with the strain of it. Tirek grinned down at Spike, spitting blood into the dragons face as he kept talking. 



"Still! I'm almost proud of my ..." 

His words became suddenly cut off by a defiant head butt from the dragon into his smug mouth. 



"Impudent little... "



Spike shook as his body was about to cave from another round of attacks from the Centaur. Everything seemed hopeless now. That power he felt surging through him was leaving his body now, and his form was slowly beginning to shrink and lose power. It was only with his partially swollen eye nearly rolling into his skull that he saw hope coming his way. In the distance, there was a bright light, and within its light were six ponies speeding towards them. His eyes widened as much as they could on his swollen disfigured face and his quaking mouth errupted into a childlike smile that seemed out of place on his towering body. His eyes were no longer glowing green and feral now that he saw his friends. 



"Twilight...Rarity..." Spike rasped out in a deep guttural voice, tears of joy in his formally rage-filled eyes. Tirek gripped Spike by the throat, entirely unaware of the light in the distance. The centaur casually dragged the shrinking dragon across the forest, slamming the purple creatures head through trees without a care in the world. Now that he had broken the beast, he wanted to make his killing of the dragon as long and drawn out as he could. Spike's legs struggled in the air as they tried to find lodging on the ground, his body and strength was shrinking by the second, and he needed to do something to give the girls a chance to get a shot at Tirek. With a desperate maneuver, he whipped his gradually shrinking tail through Tireks leg, tripping him up at the expense of feeling his bones crack at the might of the Centaurs legs. Tirek tipped over and Spike whipped around to get a grip onto Tirek, using his last reserves of strength and the centaurs momentum to launch him through the air. 



All went silent as he watched Tirek flipping through the air towards the bright light. Spike watched his friends floating there like angels. They delivered a powerful beam of rainbow-colored energy, enveloping Tirek and making him roar out in defeat. They had utterly ended him.

Spike was so happy. His body shrank all at once into a battered and broken baby form. He fell slowly, his eyes closing with a tearful smile on his face even as he was caught by the Elements of Harmony.



"My poor Spikey wikey!" Came the muffled sound of Rarity cradling his battered body in the sky with her forehooves.



"Rarity..." he said with a dopey grin as he passed out, "...I love y..."



End of Chapter one