//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: The Diary // Story: The New Generation of Spike the Dragon // by Wrangle Wolfe //------------------------------// The New Generation of Spike the Dragon Chapter 2: The Diary By SonicMlpGamerandArtist The following morning I woke up and mechanically did my daily morning routine. After a hot shower and a quick breakfast, I headed straight to Mister Darkness’ room. On the way there, I spotted a few of my friends and made sure to quickly greet them. Letting my mind wander, I didn’t expect to come face-to-face with Con as I rounded a corner in the long hallway. “Gah!” “Good morning!” “Ugh, just please shut up.” “Well, you’re such a ray of sunshine today!” “Stop being so happy.” The bastard knew I wasn’t a morning pony. I was drowsy, stressed, and not in the damn mood for shenanigans in the morning. The cheeriness in Con’s voice was straight up irritating me, and he knew it. Which made me even more pissed. “With such a wonderful mood you’re having, I feel like we should…” “No.” “Sing…” “You won’t live to see tomorrow.” “A song!” “Don’t you dare!” “Goooood morning! Good morning! It’s great to stay up la-” SMACK! Con immediately fell to the ground, smashing against the marble painfully. I had punched him very hard in the face as I growled in irritation. He coughed a few times as I walked away with a huff. “Worth it!” I snorted and rolled my eyes, turning to Mister Darkness’ door. I knocked twice, paused, then knocked twice again. A voice beckoned me from inside. I smiled lightly, and as I walked in, I was immediately greeted to the familiar sight of Mister Darkness’ room. It was formerly Celestia’s room, so it was unsurprisingly huge. Paintings of past rulers and a few other things decorated the walls, which were a plain light cream color. Off to one side of the room was a large bookshelf with heavy novels and encyclopedias from centuries ago, which were lined with dust with yellowing pages. Off to the side of that was a large wooden cabinet that contained hundreds of fresh, unused scrolls along with several quills and jars of ink. Right beside that was a large chest containing several letters to Celestia from some pony named ‘Twilight Sparkle’. This pony seemed to be important to Mister Darkness, seeing that he went through some of the letters every night before he fell into a fitful rest. It had taken some time, but one day, he let me read some of the letters. They were all about friendship and the stuff she’s learned with all of her friends. I was recently told that the rest of the friends were actually five of the servants here in this castle. I had made a mental note to talk to them about it soon. My eyes then met Mister Darkness’. His blue and green ones calmly stared back at me. He bent down to come eye-level to me. “Good morning.” “Good morning.” “Did Con give you trouble out there?” “Pretty much.” “Figured.” He snorted and smiled lightly. Over the years he had grown softer, and allowed himself to smile more often. It seemed as if my plan was working, so I did my best to maintain it as much as possible. I looked over to his left to see a few scrolls. “Have you been reading those letters again?” I questioned. He blinked and looked over to the scrolls. “Yeah, I have…” He said slowly. “You know, I have to do that. She did-” “‘Hatch me after all’. I know, I was just asking.” He stared for a moment, then chuckled. “Yes, of course, I must sound like a broken record. It’s just that… well… that’s important to me. Just as important as you and all of my other children are.” “You always say that too.” I giggled. “Only because it’s true, Love.” He said seriously. “Even the ones that want to kill me.” I frowned at that. “Anyways,” I began, diverting the topic. I really didn’t like knowing that the ones he wants to make better ponies hates his guts. I was probably the only one who appreciated the things he did for us. “I was wondering if I could have a free day.” Twice a month we could have a free day, which was a day where we could just stroll around the city or the castle without actually working. Roaming the city wasn’t too common among us due to the fact that the townsponies weren’t very fond of us. They were always scared, angry or pitying us, which wasn’t the best experience. Still, I was one of the few who took advantage of it since I loved being outside so much. A frown slipped onto Mister Darkness’ face. “You really want to? After what happened last time…?” Last time I had a free day, I got into a fight with some ponies. They looked fairly skinny, as the outline of their ribcage began to show. Obviously, they were beginning to starve. I had seen them bothering a stallion who was walking away with what looked to be just enough food to feed himself. It's been very hard for ponies to get food. While the ponies still manage to grow some food, at least 30-40% of it is taken by us. In fact, the entirety of businesses and jobs have been quite disorderly and rough. Ponies still work on things, because they need to survive. They need water, food and shelter, but they’ve been struggling to get it back after all of the destruction. Still, they do a good job of maintaining things to be just good enough for them to live. These ponies, however, made things harder for others. Then again, hunger can drive ponies to do reckless things. The Adversary was ultimately made to make others suffer and follow the rules placed by Lord Darkness, along with finding members of the resistance and taking them down. However some, if not all of us end up helping somepony every once in awhile, though we’d be dumb to always break the rules. We were supposed to invoke fear and hopelessness, but we have mercy. And that’s what caused the fight. I made an effort to help the stallion, but couldn’t do so without getting my hooves a bit dirty. The starving fools really thought they could take me on. Not only was I well trained in combat, but they were weak due to malnutrition. So, they sloppily attacked. I didn’t even make too much of an effort to take them down, since they were just a group of weak thugs who only looked a little mean. The stallion I had helped didn’t know whether to thank me or fear me, so he simply opted to sit there and gawk. I sighed. “Get away from here. There are still thieves lurking.” I had told him. He hadn’t needed any more prompting before he rushed out of my sight. “I won’t be out there that long this time. I’ll just use most of the day to train.” I insisted. He took a moment to think over it. “Sure. Just be careful.” I nodded and thanked him, then walked out of the room. Sure enough, I kept my promise. Instead of going straight outside, I went to the castle’s gym. When I got there, Rapacity was already destroying a punching bag across the room. I walked up to him. “Hey Rap, mind if we do a bit of sparring for a minute?” I asked him. Any early birds in the gym suddenly focused on us. They’re always excited to see us spar. We were a bit of an odd duo, especially for heavy sparring. Rapacity had always been taller than average. When we met the first day we got here, he still towered over me, even though we were foals. Our first day of training, we were assigned partners that we would learn combat training with. Ironically me, the smallest of all of the foals was paired with the largest of us, for a reason I’ll probably never know. It was tough for me at first, but it had definitely toughened me up. Now I could handle more than an average pony, which said a lot for me. I had always viewed myself as weak before Darkness picked me up and brought me here. With hard work and some bruises, I have become sompony I never thought I’d be. “Ha, sure. I need to get you back for last time.” He said with a smirk. “It’s not like you’ll actually do much damage this time. Or ever.” I teased. “C’mon, show me what you’ve got!” His fighting was very powerful, yet slow. While he didn’t have the most graceful style, he definitely knew how to align his attack nearly perfectly. Although his precision was phenomenal, my wit gave me an advantage. Knowing how to read his body to forecast his attack and being able to take or easily avoid hits, I can always find a way to overtake him. I suddenly lurched and felt an intense pain in my stomach. He had uppercut me and I just began noticing that I was about to fall. I tried to stop myself but it was no use. He pinned me down and raised a hoof. I braced myself, but the hit never came. I looked up at him in confusion. “You’re not fighting normally.” He said, then took his hoof away from my chest. “You’re elegant, graceful, precise… but today, you’re sloppy and distracted. Tell me what’s wrong.” With I frown, I stood up and let out a small sigh. “I’m not supposed to be down there unless ordered to, but…” I looked down. “But there’s someone there I’ve got to talk to.” “You mean, in the dungeon? Why would-” “Somepony down there. He’s… He knows something about….” “Oh…” His brow creased. “...Are you sure? I mean, this isn’t like last time is i-” “It’s not.” I interrupted. His frown was indignant. “Whatever you say…” He huffed and headed towards the door. “Well, let’s get this over with now. No use in fighting a distracted partner right now.” “No.” I huffed in frustration at that one word. He absolutely refused to answer the question “Who do you work with?” I repeated. “Why would ANYpony in their right mind tell the one holding them captive about their teammates?” He asked rolling his eyes. “Okay then… well then, could you give me at least some information about one specific pony that you may know?” “Hmm…” The old stallion pet his beard. “Depends on the pony.” I smiled a little in anticipation. “Okay…so what can you tell me about a stallion named Virtuous Charm?” “Virtuous Charm… Oooh my... “ He began, his eyes slightly widened in mild surprise at the name. “That boy is odd. So darn helpful, carin’ and shy. Why, if my friend hadn’t bumped into him out there in some debris, he wouldn’t ‘ve made it. We took him somewhere and kept that boy safe for a while. He helped us out with some things fer quite a while and we were considerin’ recruiting him before one day, he packed all his stuff. All he really had was a dog tag necklace, a hoodie and a notebook. He left us, simply saying that he’ll come back. He had a sister to find.” He shook his head. “He woulda been great. Who knew he could fight so well? But nope, he declined us. He didn’t even let us figure out where she was first. He wanted to be the one. That ignorant child.” I felt tears in my eyes but, in an act of professionalism, blinked them away. He wasn’t dead. My searching was worth it. “That diary...:” He began. “I dunno why you should see it. But.. this feeling in my gut… For some reason, I can feel that this is right. Maybe it’s ‘cause you kids are just that: kids. Not some power hungry beast.” I sighed and nodded. “Well then, thanks for the info.” “Don’t mention it kid. Ever.” We left the old stallion there and exited the dungeon. From there I almost broke down, nearly falling to the ground until Rapacity grabbed me. “Need a break? We could go to the-” “No.” I interrupted. “N-no, let’s go get that diary.” I said and began walking to the front of the castle. Rapacity followed silently behind. We hurried through town to the house that I had found the stallion in. I ignored the spit that landed on my face from an angry passerbyer who didn’t care about consequences, I just wanted to get to that book. It hadn’t taken too long to make it to the worn down place. I opened the door which was very unsturdy and walked inside. There was a long search with an unsettling silence looming in the small place, before I found it in one of the most typical spots. Under the bed. Huffed in frustration, pissed that I took the time to go through more… hidden spots. But nope, it had to be under the bed. The diary itself was a fading purple color and its pages were yellowing. There was a lot of notes wedged in between the pages, some of which were crumpled or slightly torn. With Rapacity at my side, I gently began to open the worn diary with a trembling hoof.