Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1)

by Barrobroadcaster

Errands: Grave Understandings

Back at the cemetery

Dan didn't find Rice's son's grave, but he did find Rice's. It wasn't a small grave set off to the side or a large, ornate headstone, not something obscure or regal. It was the largest one in the cemetery and the most decorated one by far.

Dan was a bit surprised when he finally found it. He didn't have a shovel so he'd started digging with his bare hands. The name Rice Puddinghead IV was carved into a large, square headstone. At first, it was all Dan read, but he couldn't help but read more. He made excuses, kept glancing up at it, telling himself it might help him find a way to exact revenge on Rice. Finally, he put down the dirt and read the full epitaph:

Here Lies A Beloved Friend To All
Our Cherished Chancellor
Who Lead Us Through Our Darkest Days
Our Second Sun
His Light Went Out Far Too Soon
Our Hero
Forever In Our Hearts, He Will Be Shining

Beautiful words, Dan thought. He couldn't imagine Rice would write anything like that about himself. From what Dan knew, Rice had survived, made his way to the outskirts of the Crystal Empire and was trapped in the Crystal Heart for a thousand years. After that, Rice had infiltrated Canterlot as a history teacher and began plotting the destruction of the kingdom and revenge.

Dan had known Rice was a leader, even a well-liked leader and inventor in Ponyville's past. But he hadn't known how well-liked. Any sympathy Dan had for Rice was long since gone, but now... he was beginning to see uncomfortable similarities. He looked down at his own hands, covered in dirt, felt his heartbeat and was reminded of his own mortality. Whose grave was he digging?

"Dan!"

"Hey... Spike," Dan said, exhausted. "Did you get... did you get everything on the shopping list?"

Spike stopped just short of him, looking at the half-dug hole the human was sitting next to.

"What the heck are you doing, Dan?"

"I'm..." He looked up at Spike, no longer feeling any anger at the moment. "I have no idea."

Spike scratched his neck. "Well, you've spent the whole day trying to get people to join a revenge scheme, you went crazy in a supermarket and now you're tearing up a cemetery. My question is, why?"

"Why? Dan got up. "I... I don't think I can let this go, Spike. Not this. Not Vice. Or... whatever the squeeity squeeing squeeing squee his fake name was. I n-need to go after him, Spike. I NEED this!"

Spike shook his head. Where did he even begin? "Dan, do you know why I asked you to come with me today?"

"Because... no, I don't. It was to get me out of the house, right?"

"Yes, Dan. Because this is what I do. This is what I HAVE to do just about every week. Sometimes, Twilight does it, and she brings stuff back while she's out but eventually, I have to go to the grocery store." The small dragon walked up to him, even walked into Rice's half-dug grave. Even though he was shorter than Dan, much shorter now that he was in a hole, he was still a commanding presence. This was Spike in Dragon Code mode.

"Ponies all over Equestria do this. In the wake of, in the face of and DURING disaster. Life has to keep going. The wheel has to keep spinning, the world has to keep turning even as those out there threaten to stop it!"

"We SHOULDN'T be forgiving ponies who nearly BLEW UP THE WORLD ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS!" Dan fired back.

"I KNOW!!" Spike shouted. "We've had to do this FOUR TIMES in case you're counting!!"

"Four...?"

"YES!" Spike yelled. "Sombra, who's SAM now, , Nightmare Luna, Chrysalis-"

"Stop," Dan said. "You say a word about my Chrys and the next grave I dig up will... umm...

Spike raised an eyebrow. "You wanna try that again?"

"Hold on, I had something there but... I'm saying like, we're in a graveyard-"

"Yeah, I got that, so it's like you're going to bury me."

"Yeah," Dan said. "It's just... it didn't came out right. I mean, I HAD something."

Spike gave him that. "No no, you definitely were going somewhere, I'll give you that."

Dan thought. "Okay, so... you say something about my Chrys and uh..."

"The next grave."

"The next grave... the next grave I defile will be yours! There we go!"

"Good job," Spike said. And the two smiled for a moment.

Dan leaned on Rice's tombstone. "Yeah, I tell ya, it's been a rough week. Rough month, even."

"Yep." Both men shared a bit of a bro moment, a broment, taking the time to just reflect on everything as a couple of guys in the middle of a graveyard at night. One of them standing in a half-dug up grave. Totally typical, nothing out of the ordinary at all about that.

"So... what were we talking about again?" Dan asked.

Spike sighed. "Maybe I should start over. So... Luna."

"Luna."

"Luna," Spike began. "When Twilight left the house, with her friends, to look for the Elements to beat Nightmare Moon, she left me behind. I mean, I get why; it was really dangerous and all that. But the first I ever saw of Nightmare Moon was her taking over Equestria. And when Twilight came back, there Luna was. I was happy, but..." He looked away. "Part of me always thought it was too easy."

"Because it WAS too easy, Spike. It was too easy for her, too easy for Sombra- I mean, where even WAS his redemption arc? Too easy for Discord and now he's gonna be mayor all of a sudden? This is the dude that was going to plunge Equestria into total chaos!" Dan exclaimed.

"Dan, that's not-"

"That's not how we do things? That's not how Equestria DOES THINGS?!" He swept his arms wide, "Seems like it's business as usual for the princesses. Doesn't matter if you threaten the whole world, just say "I'm sorry!" and you're totally fine, everything's fine, we forgive you, have a nice day."

"Dan-"

Dan got out of the hole. "Is this going to happen to me? Is this... is this..."

"How can you even say that?"

"Vice was a hero, too! He's a hero and some weirdo princess we don't even know tried to murder him, ended up offing his son instead! What if that happens to us?! What if try doing something the princesses don't like and they try to kill me, Spike?! What if they kill you instead?!!"

"That's not going to happen, Dan!"

"HOW. DO YOU. KNOW."

"I don't!" Spike threw up his arms. "You're nuts, Dan! You've gone off the deep end. Completely. You want me to predict the future? Is that it?"

"I'm crazy? I want to know what YOU do, how YOU can just be fine with all of this when the SAME THINGS KEEP HAPPENING!" The two men were now shouting in each others' faces.

"I JUST TOLD YOU," Spike shouted. "I MAN UP, DAN! That's what I've been trying to show you this whole day! I know you have trouble accepting things- so do I! But we do and we have a little bit of faith in our friends! We trust each other!"

"How can you trust ME to do that?"

"Because you're our friend!"

"WHY?!?!?"

And that was when Spike took a step back. "You're afraid."

"YES, I'M AFRAID!! Why do you think I wan to kill Vice Grip? I have to find him. I have to fight him. I have to do this for all of us and we should be doing this together!" Dan shouted.

"Why does it matter if we're not with you?"

"I don't wanna do this alone, don't you get it? I don't want him to take away everything we have."

"Dan-"

"I don't want him to take away all my friends again!"

"Dan-"

"I DON'T WANT YOU TO LEAVE ME!!!"

Silence. It wasn't the fact that he might die, or that Rice might kill them all that frightened Dan. It was the possibility that it would change things, that doing things the wrong way, or just letting things go the way they were meant that they would be separated eventually. That things would either end with Dan being killed... or left completely alone. That they wouldn't want him because he was too violent, because he was a failure or any number of things. Now that Dan had friends, he was afraid of losing them. He was afraid of being alone.

Dan stood with his head down, eyes somewhere in the hole he'd half-dug. That was how he felt in more ways than one. Perhaps it was a metaphor for a lot of things, in that moment.

Spike walked over and wrapped his arms around Dan's legs. The human knelt down and hugged his dirt-caked arms around the tiny dragon. Now, they shared a fear together, something in both hearts that connected them. There was a point where they could get beyond that fear, but it would always be there. Losing Twilight would be more than either of them could bear, but every few days, she would be off on another adventure with her friends. Sometimes, they would join them and sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes, they'd have to stay at home and run errands.

"I'm sorry, Spike."

"I'm sorry, too. I just... I didn't realize someone would ever understand. What I do."

"It's okay, I..." Dan sobbed just a bit. "I'll give it up. I promise. I'm tired, I'm... I'm done. I'll give up getting revenge."

"What are you talking about?"

Dan pushed away, nodding. "It's alright, I'm better now. I got it out of my system. I can give up-"

"No," Spike said, shaking his head. "You're not giving up anything."

"What? What are you saying? Spike-"

"You're not giving up anything, Dan," Spike said. Tiny, crystal-like tears formed in the corners of his eyes. "I'm going to help you kill Rice."

"What? Spike-"

"We're gonna get that motherbucker together, Dan!"

"OH, you little purple son of a squee!" Dan wrapped his arms around Spike's shoulders again. "Thank gawd you said that. You're really gonna help me kill him?"

"Yes," Spike nodded. Both men were in tears now. "And we're gonna get Twilight and Chrys and Phoenix and everybody to come with us. The way it should be." They cried, they hugged, even as Dan tried to push away.

"Oh thank goodness you said that- because I was just bluffing. I was never really going to give it up. That was jus-just a bluff."

"No it wasn't," Spike said.

Dan nodded. "Fine, it wasn't! But you can't tell anypony this conversation even happened!"

"What the buck are you talking about- I'm telling Rarity tomorrow!"

Dan lifted up Spike. "Alright, I'm burying you in the grave now!"

"Hahaha, not if bury you first!"

"Come here, you little Spyro ripoff!"

"You can't catch me!"

Dan and Spike laughed, cried and played probably the most effed-up version of hide-and-seek Ponyville had ever seen. They took turns trying to bury each other, both of them rolling around in the dirt, playfighting. They were part of Equestria's sweetest dysfunctional family, and nothing was ever going to change that.

Exhausted, they both dusted themselves off as best they could, a futile effort but one they made.

"Hey, let's go home."

"Best idea I've heard all day," Spike said.

Dan threw his arms back. "You know, no matter what happens, Equestria, Twilight, all of 'em, they've got us. We're gonna be alright."

"Yeah!"

"Even if we DO tear up the place sometimes... Twilight understands. She's always the responsible one, you know?"

"Yeah," Spike nodded in agreement. "She always forgives her friends, even if they were villains."

"Heh," Dan chuckled. "Hey, could you imagine Twilight as a villain?"

"Pffft, are you kidding? That'd never happen."

"Crazy idea, right?"

"Completely."

In fact, neither of them could imagine Twilight as a villain. They couldn't imagine Chrys or Sam as villains, for that matter. Discord, well, he was getting his own t.v. show so he was another story. Twilight and Chrys being anything other than themselves, however, that sounded like another universe.

It was.

Comments

[hamster wizard]

...and all was right with the world.

[Barrobroadcaster]

10731532
Yep. Just two guys, rolling around in a cemetery after dark, talking about killing a dude, subverting the will of the kingdom's rulers and enlisting their friends to go on a murder quest. Just a regular day.

[hamster wizard]

10731549
Just bros being bros.

[Booster Spice]

Of course Dan and Spike were playing. Dan could Angry Punch Spike over the horizon, Spike could accidentally bite Dans limbs off or flame mail to Celestia.

Nothing serious at all about it.

IfDiscord is having a TV show, does that mean Dan, Spike etc are going to end up doing the Bushtucker challange on Im a Celebrity, get me outa here? Except give Spike, Extra Bush?

[LadyLeomon]

A new chapter means it’s ~Sunday~ now let me see n’ere *dons reading glasses*

Oh wow, he’s actually physically doing it, I thought he’d at least need to get a shovel first but he proved me wrong-oh ... oh wow ... I really can’t decide if this is more sad or beautiful, in a really weird way. Our RPG-loving Dragon has the potential to be as bad a bad-ass as Dan? *Squee* yeah! The Power of Friendship-Vengeance compels you Vice-Rice!

Now for my Favourite Quotes:

Dan pushed away, nodding. "It's alright, I'm better now. I got it out of my system. I can give up-"

"No," Spike said, shaking his head. "You're not giving up anything."

"What? What are you saying? Spike-"

"You're not giving up anything, Dan," Spike said. Tiny, crystal-like tears formed in the corners of his eyes. "I'm going to help you kill Rice."

"What? Spike-"

"We're gonna get that motherbucker together, Dan!"

"OH, you little purple son of a squee!" Dan wrapped his arms around Spike's shoulders again. "Thank gawd you said that. You're really gonna help me kill him?"

"Yes," Spike nodded. Both men were in tears now. "And we're gonna get Twilight and Chrys and Phoenix and everybody to come with us. The way it should be." They cried, they hugged, even as Dan tried to push away.

This right here, well the whole chapter is like taking a full-powered Head Smash from a Tyrantrum with Rock Head, but this moment right here, when our nerdy little Dragon (no judgements, I am too) let Dan know he wasn't alone in his vengeance, with a perfectly-timed cuss word, and that he’ll back him up till the end like a good lil’ Dragon Bro? ... I didn’t know I needed this till now

Thanks for another awesome chapter and I’ll eagerly await the next.

Awesome as always and I’ll see you ~next time~

Your Eternal Fan ^_^

[Razzy]

Nothing to see here, just two dudes doing wholesome things.