• Published 27th Apr 2014
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The Emerald Dragon - Onomonopia



A weapon of infinite power and unlimited potential falls into the claws of a certain dragon.

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Reap The Rewards

Spike had been having so much fun helping Rarity that he barely even noticed that it had gone from day to night in what he thought was a matter of minutes, but when he looked at the clock he realized that hours had instead flown by. He probably wouldn't have even noticed that so much time had passed if his ring had spoken in front of everypony.

'Power levels below fifty percent.' Spike's heart dropped as he heard that and he quickly looked at the other two ponies, hoping that neither of them had heard it speak.

"Did you say something Sweetie?" Rarity asked her sister groggily.

"No. I think you're tired Rarity," Sweetie had responded, moving her weary eyes to the clock and yawning. "It's gotten really late and I have school in the morning. Can't we call it for tonight?" Rarity wanted to continue working since the presentation of her outfit was in the morning, but she realized that Sweetie was right and it had gotten really late. Sweetie could barely keep her eyes open and had started to nod off. Spike was still eager to help, but even he was reaching his limits and she could see that he was barely keeping his eyes open as well.

"You are correct, Sweetie Belle, it has gotten very late indeed," Rarity agreed as she stood up, shaking the numbness out of her hind leg. "Alright Spike, I will continue to work on my own. You should go home and get some sleep." Spike opened his mouth to argue, but his protest turned into a yawn and he could only nod dumbly in response. Sweetie Belle yawned again and headed off to her room, mumbling something about how school was going to suck tomorrow. Rarity offered to take Spike home, but as much as he would love her to do that, he knew that she would question the giant ring of green energy infused with the table in the room. As much as he liked her, he didn't want anypony knowing about him being the Emerald Dragon...especially since Rarity said that she loathed the color green. Spike stood up sleepily and waved goodbye to Rarity, who waved at him from the kitchen where she was getting a massive jug of coffee out of a cabinet, preparing for another massive all-nighter. Spike walked himself to the front of the store, opening the door as he left.

The first thing that he noticed was that there was still ash in the air, covering the ground in black soot for quite a ways. Spike yawned again and started walking back to the library, too tired to think. His thought were a blur as the weariness from a long day overtook him, not even noticing that he had made it back to the library until he had smacked his head against the front door, where he rested it as he began to snore.

"Hoo?" Owlicious asked as he opened the door with his talons, wondering who would be bothering them this late at night. As the door opened, Spike's face slipped off the door and he landed face first on the ground where he continued to snore. Owlicious looked down at him with a hoot before landing next to him, where he began to peck Spike in the face with his beak.

"Ow! Jeez, can't you wake a dragon up in a nicer way? My face has taken enough abuse for today," Spike muttered to the owl as he picked himself slowly off the ground, glaring at Owlicious who simply stared back at him. Spike grumbled to himself and got back to his feet, heading up the stairs for the bedroom with Owlicious following him up. He followed Spike into the bedroom and landed on Twilight's desk, hooting at him as Spike climbed the stairs to his bed. "Can you please go away? Just because YOU'RE nocturnal doesn't mean the rest of us are." Spike passed out only a few seconds later, not even bothering to remove his ring from his finger as he started to drool. Owlicious shook his head slightly at the dragon's tone, but silently flew over to him and pulled the covers over Spike. Once he was certain that Spike was comfortable, he flew back down the stairs to his own perch and looked out at the sky, blinking twice as he saw what looked like a small meteor falling across the sky.

"Hoo," he said with a small shrug as he closed his eyes as well, allowing himself to sip off into dream land. What Owlicious hadn't noticed about the small meteor was that it gave off an unusual color for a meteor. The color it gave off was a dark orange.

IOI

Spike woke up the next morning to the sounds of chirping birds, a beautiful sunrise and a certain owl that had placed himself on Spike's chest. Spike yawned and opened his eyes to look into the eyes of Owlicious, who hooted his good mornings to Spike.

"GAH!" Spike yelled as he shot out of the bed in shock at waking up to find an owl on his chest. His Green Lantern ring read what his will demanded and threw up a green barrier around Spike while moving him to the back of the room far away from the owl, who flapped his wings to keep himself airborne as the ring threw him off of Spike. Owlicious turned his head slightly to the side as he looked at Spike, who was clutching his chest and breathing heavily, his face turning quiet white as he struggled to get control of his breathing. "Owlicious, what the heck? Why did you decide to sit on my chest and wait for me to wake up? Don't you know that waking a sleeping dragon is bad luck?"

"Hoo?" Owlicious asked in confusion as Spike sighed, closing his eyes as he willed the barrier around him to go back into the ring, which it did so quickly. Now that his horrific morning of terror was over, Spike threw open the door to the bedroom and headed down stairs to the kitchen to feed himself, but allowed Owlicious to ride on his arm when the owl asked. Spike let Owlicious off on the table and walked over to the shelves in the kitchen, pulling out a large gem that Twilight had left him for his dinner. So naturally he was going to eat it for breakfast. Owlicious hooted and flew out the window to go catch his own breakfast, leaving Spike alone to eat his breakfast.

"Wonder what's up with him?" Spike asked himself as he chomped down on the ruby's side, smiling as the flavor filled up his mouth. Spike looked down at the green ring, thinking about what he had planned out for today. Today was the day that he finally started going out and helping the ponies in any way he could, hopefully earning some gems or other form of reward in the process. He smiled dreamily as he thought about all the rewards that he might get, since most ponies were very generous when their life or something else they cared about was saved. And lately there had been a lot of problems around the town, from Timberwolves making off with some of Applejacks' pigs to thieves breaking into ponies homes and taking their possessions. Twilight's library was safe because most feared what she would do to them if they damaged one of her books, a fear that Spike equally shared. So Spike figured that Ponyville could be using a heroic character to help with all the troubles that they were having. And more trouble meant more loot.

"Hoo?" Owlicious asked Spike as he downed the rest of the ruby with a huge smile as he hopped out of his chair and ran to the center of the room. Owlicious landed on his perch with the mouse that he had caught in his beak, looking at Spike with some confusion. Normally the dragon would have gone right back to bed this early in the morning, but he looked wide awake for some reason.

"I'll see you later Owlicious, because today I start my career as a...SUPERHERO!" Spike yelled with triumph in his voice as he lifted his ring hand above his head and cast down a green light upon himself. Green energy emerged from the ring and started to wrap itself around his body, forming his uniform and just like last time it also gave him a mask that changed his scales from purple to green. "Alright, I think it's time for me to-"

'I would recommend charging the ring before leaving,' the ring interrupted. Spike sighed in frustration and pointed his ring at the ground to summon the battery unit. The ring opened the portal to where the battery was kept and brought it into the room with a flash of light, leaving the steaming battery on the center of the floor with another green ring in the floor beneath it.

"Oh great, not again," Spike growled as he saw the ring, remembering that there was also the one in the table that he had to get rid of at some point. He picked up the battery by the handle and pointed his ring at it, feeling it's power course through his claws.

'Do you remember the oath?' the ring asked.

"Yeah yeah, I got it," he said, hating that he had to go through the oath every time he wanted to charge the ring. "In brightest day in blackest night no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might beware my power Green Lanterns light," he said rather quickly, wanting to get that part of the charging process done as quickly as possible. But all his frustration melted away into a smile when he saw the ring glowing even brighter as it charged to full power. "Alright, now I'm off for real. Emerald Dragon, AWAY!" he yelled as he thrust his hand over his head and shot through the roof in a burst of speed, causing a number of planks and branches to fall down inside the library. Owlicious watched him fly away, looking from the hole in the ceiling to the unlocked door that he could have taken instead. The owl sighed and flew over to the closet, grabbing the broom and started to pick up after Spike. Spike meanwhile was shooting through the sky over Ponyville, laughing to himself happily as he started to roll and weave through the clouds in sheer bliss.

"I'm starting to get what Rainbow Dash meant by how awesome it is to fly," he chuckled to himself as he ascended even higher into the sky, using the ring to start bringing clouds together for no other purpose that he could. He looked at the giant ball of cloud with a smile before he willed a giant baseball bat to materialize in his hands. He aimed the bat at the back of the cloud ball and brought it back to his shoulders before he swung for the fences, laughing as the cloud sailed off into the sky. "Oh man, is there nothing this ring can't do?"

'I am detecting cries for help coming from the southernmost part of the town,' the ring said to him. Spike turned towards the southern part of town with a smile on his face, ready for his first real day as a hero for Equestria.

"Alrighty then, let's go save the day!" he yelled into the sky as he pointed his ring forward and rocketed himself towards where the cry for help was supposed to have come from. He flew down to the streets in a flash of green, ready for whatever was causing the trouble. Would it be a hydra? A manticore? Maybe Chrysalis was back? What he found though was a small crying filly who stood under a tree that had a grey cat in one of its branches, clearly stuck in the tree. Spike looked at the scene with crushed hopes.

'A cat in a tree?' he asked himself. 'THIS is the first act of heroism that I get to perform as my first day as a hero? Saving a stupid cat?' While he stood there cursing his luck, the crying filly rubbed her eyes and looked over at him, her eyes lighting up at the sight of the glowing green dragon. All of her sorrow vanished as hope took its place and she rushed over to him with a huge smile.

"Oh my gosh, you're the Emerald Dragon right?" she asked him with giddiness in her voice, trying to contain her excitement at meeting Equestria's newest hero. Spike noticed that she wore a pair of earrings with two beautiful looking emeralds in them and emeralds were some of the tastier gems. "Please, you have to help me. My kitty ran up a tree and I can't get her down, no matter what I do. You'll save her, won't you?" Spike, while still upset about this being his first act as a hero, couldn't look into the young filly's pleading eyes and tell her no. So as he muttered under his breath about how much this sucked, he pointed his ring at the tree and willed a giant green axe to materialize out of the ring. He swung the axe down through the branch was on in one clean swipe, causing the filly to scream in horror as her cat started to fall to the ground. Spike smiled thought as the cat fell and quickly willed the giant axe to turn into one of the cushions that he saw often at Rarity's, moving the cushion under the falling branch and cat before either could hit the ground.

"Tada! One kitty cat in perfect condition!" Spike exclaimed with a bow as he pried the cat off the branch with a crowbar before it unleashed it's fury upon his face, only stopping when the filly pulled it off.

"Oh thank you! How can I ever repay you?" she asked him while Spike held his face in pain. Spike eyed her earrings with greed, knowing exactly what he wanted.

"Well, I couldn't help but notice that you had a pair of lovely earrings there," he said as nonchalantly as he could, keeping his eyes on them as he placed both his hands behind his head. "Now I'm not going to ask you to give them to me, but if you don't mind..."

"Oh of course," she said quickly as she placed her cat on the ground, taking off her earrings and offering them to Spike. "They're my moms, but you saved my kitty so it's the least I can do!" She picked her cat back up again and placed it on her back. "Thanks again for the help!" she called out as she started to walk away, waving at him as she did so. Spike gave a halfhearted wave back at her as he eyed the emeralds with hungry eyes, tossing them into the air over his mouth and crunching down on them in a single bite.

"Ah, nothing tastes better than a pair of emeralds earned through a good deed. You've done good Spike," he said, continuing to praise himself on his good deed as he ascended back into the sky. Spike felt great about his noble action and the gems tasted great as well. He was considering heading over to where most of the robberies had taken place when he heard another cry from help coming from the distance, so with a smile on his face he flew off towards the sound of the distress call. His ring told him when he had gotten close to the source of the call and he descended in a flash of green light...only to once again find that it was not what he had been expecting. Granny Smith was standing on one end of the street and couldn't make it across due to the insane amount of ponies that were in the road.

"Ah, yer that Emerald character, aren't you?" she asked with a smile as he landed next to her, looking around at all the other ponies just to make sure that she had really been the one who called out for help. When he could no longer deny it, he turned towards her with a sigh and a look of annoyance.

"Are...you the one who's been asking for help?" he asked her with a groan, secretly hoping that she wasn't.

"Yes sirey! Ah been standing here for nearly ten minutes trying to get across this road but none of these young whipper snappers seem to want to help an old pony across the street," she said as she gave an evil glare to all the ponies in the streets. "But ah bet that a hero such as yourself would have no problem helping me out, would ya?" Spike muttered under his breath again as he pointed his ring at the group of ponies in the street, shooting two green brick walls that moved the ponies in the streets to the side and made a path for Granny Smith so she could get across. She did so slowly, forcing Spike to stand there holding up the brick walls while the ponies all complained at him for what he was doing.

"Whooee! Ah haven't seen a ring that fancy since mah daughter’s wedding day," Granny Smith said with a smile as she finally reached the other side and looked at Spike's green ring. Spike grumbled to himself as he willed away the constructs that he had made and allowed traffic to start moving again. "Ah feel like ah should reward ya for your good deed. Now hold out that green claw of yours." Spike did as she asked with a hidden smile on his face, wondering what sort of gem he would get for his act of goodness this time. Ruby? Sapphire? Maybe the elusive pearl? He felt something heavy being placed in his claw and he looked down excitedly to see...

"An apple," he said in the most deadpan voice that he could muster as he looked at the green apple in his claw. "How...nice."

"Ah figured that a green apple would go well with yer green outfit," she said with a chuckle as she started to head towards the marketplace with one last wave. "Thanks again." Spike waved back only once before looking down at the apple with a scowl. This was not what he had wanted for his works, he could get apples anywhere, so he took careful aim at a trash can and threw the apple in a perfect arc, smiling to himself as it landed square in the center of the can.

"Alright, I'm one for two right now," he muttered to himself as he once again flew back up into the sky. "Let's hope the next cry for help is actually one that has something rewarding about it." He looked down when he noticed that a large crowd of ponies had formed underneath him, most of them looking up in awe at the sight of the glowing green dragon. Spike smiled down at them and struck a few poses, getting the crowd to cheer for him. "Yeah, that's more like it!" His little show was interrupted when a rainbow blur blew right by him and almost knocked the dragon out of the air, forcing him to concentrate to keep himself upright. "That looked like Rainbow Dash and she was really moving," he muttered to himself as he watched the rainbow trail headed towards what looked to be the Ponyville Dam. "Maybe there's a fire or some sort of trouble. And if there's trouble, I'll be there!" Spike shot off after RD, his rings speed amazingly was able to not only keep up with the fastest flier, but he over took her in a few seconds. Spike would never forget the look on her face when he shot right by her and reached the dam first, taking him only a few seconds to realize what was wrong. The dam had a large number of cracks running along the front end of it and water was already starting to leak through, the extra pressure making the cracks growing even larger.

"That dam doesn't have long until it breaks," Spike muttered to himself as he looked around the dam, noticing a large number of unicorns standing at the bottom of the dam and trying to repair it with their magic, but the cracks were growing faster than they could be repaired. It was only a matter of time until the dam burst and would unleash a torrent of water upon the land.

"And just who the heck are you?" RD asked him as she screeched to a halt next to him, looking up and down at his outfit with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm the Emerald Dragon!" Spike exclaimed heroically as he placed both hands on his hips and stuck his chest out, glowing with energy.

"Wait a second...I think I've heard your voice somewhere before..." she muttered to herself. Fortunately for Spike, any thoughts she was having were cut off by the sound of ponies screaming as another massive crack spread on the dam.

"Everypony get back! The dam is going to burst any minute!" Spike shot up into the air again to get an aerial view of the situation, his eyes widening in horror as he realized that there were only seconds until the entire thing broke apart.

"There's no way they can repair the dam in time! And I can't stop all that water from breaking free...Can I?" he asked the ring.

'As long as you have the will, it can be done.' Spike found hope in those simple words and he looked up at the dam as the wall finally gave out, sending a cascade of water storming down upon the land. The ponies that had been trying to fix the dam barely had time to throw their hooves over their heads in a futile effort to protect themselves, bracing themselves for the end...that never came. The ponies all uncovered their heads and looked up in confusion, confusion that turned into sheer awe as they saw that all of the water had been trapped inside of a giant green aquarium. All eyes turned to the floating green dragon who was pointing a green beam at the water, his teeth gritted as he tried to hold it all back.

"Hurry up and fix the dam! I don't know how long it will hold!" he yelled out to them, sweat running down his face as he struggled to maintain his concentration. The unicorns nodded at each other and doubled their efforts to repair that wall, having it repaired within a minute. Once the wall had been completely repaired, Spike let go of the water with a sigh of relief and sunk down to the ground. The ponies all cheered and rushed to him, swarming him to the point where he had to throw up a barrier around himself to keep them all back.

"That was incredible!" one of the unicorns in a workers outfit exclaimed, walking up as close to the barrier as he could get without touching it. "You just stopped an entire dam's worth of water with ease! How can we ever repay you?"

"One, it wasn't that easy," Spike panted as he tried to regain his breath, having no will to move after pulling a stunt like that. "Second, what kind of reward are you offering?" The unicorn reached inside his outfits pocket and pulled out a blacked ruby, with cracks and chunks of it missing.

"This was the gem that was supposed to be keeping the dam from breaking," he explained. "Normally we switch them out every few months, but somepony forgot to this time and you were here to see the result. But while we can't use it for keeping the dam up, I believe that dragons can still eat it." Spike lowered the barrier and took the dark red ruby in his claws, drool starting to come out of his mouth at the smell of it.

"It looks awesome! Thanks for the gift," he said with a smile, tucking it under his arm, planning to save it for later. He pointed his ring arm into the air and shot up into the sky, but before he could head back a rainbow blur shot in front of him.

"Oh no, you're not getting away that easily. I have some questions for you," Rainbow Dash said, floating in front of him with her arms crossed. Spike raised an eyebrow at her before looking down at his ring. He then looked back up at her with a smile and pointed his ring at her, willing a green bubble to form around her. "HEY! What did you do?" she roared at him as she started hitting her hooves on the side of the bubble to no avail, while Spike just smiled and waved to her before he flew off back to the library. He landed at the front door after making sure that nopony had been watching, closing the door gently behind him as he slipped inside. He let out a sigh and slid to the ground, his suit and mask went back into his ring at his thought.

"Hoo?" Owlicious asked as he floated down next to Spike, happy to see that he was back unharmed. Owlicious also noticed the ruby and hopped over to get a better look at it, but leapt back with a shriek when a green shield shot up in front of him.

"It's my ruby! MINE!" Spike half yelled at Owlicious as he cradled the ruby with an evil glare, his eyes a pure orange. Owlicious backed away slowly, watching as Spike slowly began to relax and stopped cuddling the gem. He stood up and started to head for the stairs, not taking his still orange eyes off of the gem as he walked. Another hoot from Owlicious snapped him out of his trance. "What...oh right, I left Rainbow in that bubble. Ring, get rid of that for me will you? I want to be alone with this baby right here." Owlicious watched Spike as he headed back up the stairs, eyes narrowed at what he had just seen. Spike might be a little greedy at times, but he had never seen that level of greed before. Something was seriously wrong. Spike spent the rest of the day in his room, simply marveling at the ruby which he broke chunks off to eat. Owlicious watched him the entire time, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of him acting weird.

"Alright, Owlicious, I think that it's time for bed," Spike said with a yawn as he looked out the window at the setting sun, picking up the ruby and putting it in the closet after one last look of live at it. He walked over to his bed and face-planted onto it, falling asleep within seconds. Owlicious continued his watch, but eventually closed his eyes as well and drifted off to sleep. If he had stayed awake for a few more seconds as the light died, he would have seen a tiny orange light that sat on top of one of the bookshelves and seemed to be pointing right at Spike.

IOI

Spike awoke the next morning to another perfect day, with sunlight beaming through the windows and not a cloud in the sky. He hopped out of bed and reached under the pillow to grab his ring, slipping it on with a smile as he used its power to open the closet door to pull out his ruby. A look of confusion spread on his face when the ring came out with nothing, forcing him to look inside the closet himself.

"Hey, where's my ruby?" he asked as he shot out of the closet, looking around the room for it, using his ring to lift up the heavier stuff just in case it had somehow rolled under there. Spike looked up to Owlicious to see if he was still there, but his perch for their room was empty. So Spike opened the bedroom door and ran down the stairs to see if Owlicious had seen the ruby. "Hey Owlicious, have you seen-?" He came to a dead stop when he reached the bottom stair, his heart sinking into the basement at the sight. His ruby was on the table next to Owlicious, who looked at him with an apologetic stare. But neither of that was what terrified Spike. What terrified him was the purple alicorn sitting at the table with her hooves crossed and an angry look on her face.

"Hi Twilight," Spike said weakly.