Render unto Tirek
Someone was there. Spike knew that much was certain. Or at least, his past self was certain of it. The baby Dragon had found himself on a ride through the eyes of the Dragon Lord, reliving moments of his past one after another. The ancient version of himself had stopped communicating with him directly, and now he seemed to have the goal of making his reincarnation walk through every step he ever did before the elements had turned his body back into an egg.
This information still boggled the baby dragons mind. To think that there was this whole other life locked away inside his head that he wasn't even aware of. He was taller at the moment. Not to the gigantic scale that he had seen The Dragon Lord become, but a thinner lither version of his purple body. The dragon was wearing black robes with runes etched onto them, and claw welded armor with magic forged into it that was taught to him by Tirek himself.
Tirek beat him, kicked him, bludgeoned him, and bestowed unto him every kind of punishment one could imagine -- sometimes just for his amusement. However in that same breath he would goad the dragon into trying to fight him, using everything his scaly body could muster. It had made him strong and agile, and he was quickly becoming his go too right hand soldier.
There was movement on the ceiling, but the cloaked dragon didn't make a move just yet. He walked down the ornate hallway of the desert palace that Tireks father had built, silently listening for the moment the intruder would make its move.
There was shift and a flap and something dove down towards him. Green flame erupted from Spikes hand and summoned a sabre, blocking the sword strike that came from above from, to his astonishment, a red dragon not much bigger than he was. The dragon's wings flapped and pushed him backwards, skidding on the stone floor before hooking his claws in to go in for a strike to his legs. Spike couldn't help but feel some pride for his past self as he leaped over the strike with a flourish and gripped the assaulting drake by the neck with one arm.
The red dragon growled and took to the night sky, desperately twirling in the air trying to shake the compactly muscled servant of Tirek off of him. Spike obliged him, letting go and falling down to the earth calmly --his cloak flapping around him as he picked up speed. his eyes never left the red dragon, and then after being engulfed with emerald flame Spike found that his past self had materialized his body right in front of the intruders flight path and had converted the momentum of the fall into a well aimed kick to the jaw with both his armored feet. A loud grunt could be heard as the red dragon tumbled out of control in the air, trying to correct himself as best as he could.
Spike straightened like an arrow, letting the fabric of the dark cloak flap wildly as he dived towards his adversary. He didn't even know why this dragon was there, all he knew is Tirek would have his head if he didn't defend his home from invasion, especially not from a spy like this seemed to be. The enemy dragon spread his wings out wide and took the blow from Spikes Sabre head on with his own blade. It was sturdier and straighter than the curved implement Spike's passed self had conjured up.
They fell slowly to the ground, Spikes Cloak and the enemy's outstretched wings catching the air and fighting against gravity as green eyes met orange.
"Why are you fighting for Tirek?!" he yelled into Spikes face over the wind "You are one of us!"
The baby dragon could not believe what his past self was pulling off. Was this really him? Was this really the kinds of things he could do? Knowing his stumpy limbs he sometimes had a hard time going through Ponyville without having an accident and here he was trading blows in the sky with something that actually had wings.
Spikes body vanished in smoke and arrived in a flare of green flame behind the dragon, skillfully locking its limbs with his own and putting his sabre right at the the falling dragons throat.
"Because I'm not stupid." Spike growled in the dragons ear. "Why would I turn on the one thing that could teach me how to defeat him?"
"What?"
They broke off and skidded on the grounds of the courtyard. The dragon was about to charge him again when Spike raised a claw and fired off a green flare, alerting the guards in the area that their was trouble. It hissed and began to flap its wings to escape. The cloaked drake curled his claw , igniting the runes on his armor and summoning forth chains from the bowels of the dungeons that snaked out from beneath the fabric of his cloak and clamped onto the fleeing dragons limbs. they were pulled back into his robes now smoldering with black smoke, reeling in the dragon like a fish. The red dragon breathed in in desperation and fired off a plumb of red flame at him. His eyes dilated the wingless dragon effortlessly cancelled it out with his own breath before landing a crushing blow to the dragons throat, knocking him out and making him grow limp in his grasp.
Chains released the unconscious dragon and returned back to the dungeon they came from through his cloak. The baby dragon watching this whole thing unfold within the body of his past self could not help but gawk at the display. The meanings of the runes on his cloak and armor were starting to make sense to him as well.
Or rather it felt like he was recalling them.
"I see you caught an intruder." The voice of Tirek called out to Spike as he walked into the courtyard. His beard and mane were white now but he still seemed pretty young in comparison to the decrepit thing sitting in Tartarus. Spike knelt and placed the dragon down before him. He wasn't strong enough yet. He had to bide his time. This dragon was young and reckless. He wasn't going to be a help. Only a hindrance.
-----------
Twilight never felt more out of her depth than she had returning to the castle without Spike. She wanted to barge down there and just break him out -- but what would that accomplish? She couldn't take on all of Canterlot and the mentor she had grown up idolizing and expect it to go smoothly. She needed a plan of some kind. She needed to figure out a way to fix this.
How though? What was the answer to this equation? She had grown up believing harmony, friendship, cutie marks, all of it was just apart of the fabric of their very natures. She had been taught that cutie marks were simply representations of what their talents were and nothing more. Twilight had been made to believe that ponies had made their peace and unity all of their own power. The more she thought about it as she traveled back to her castle, the more that this just didn't add up with the reality that was presented to her.
Ponies were admonished for not having their cutie marks, decried as blank flanks and teased until they found what made them special... what made them a contributing member of society. She looked back on her own joy at gaining her cutie mark back when she had opened Spikes Egg with shudder of growing horror.
Was....was everything she had ever known some demented lie?
What was to become of her? Luna said there were side effects to resisting Harmony....was Nightmare Moon what she was talking about? Did the tree warp her mind in punishment for defying the order it had created and then....had her sister lock her on the moon for a thousand years? She could barely fly with how shook up she was. Twilight wanted to scream, She wanted to rip her cutie mark right off her flank.
How much of her was tied to it though? How much of her being was invested in that cutie mark? How much would she change if she didn't have it subtly influencing her decisions? Would she be warped into some nightmarish monster to be sealed away for a thousand years if she tried to stand up against it? Too many questions flooded her mind without answers to calm them.
"Hiya Twilight! Our cutie marks started glowing and we thought it had something to do with your castle!" Pinkie yelled out to the princess as she circled down in front of the now ominous structure the Tree had gifted her.
"Darling where is Spikey Wikey? I still haven't given him a proper present for being such a brave little dragon the other day. It must of been dreadful trying to fight off that mean old centaur. He's such a sensitive little thing."
"He's...." Twilight's mind raced. Should she tell her friends the truth? Would that accomplish anything? Would that let the Tree know she was up to something? The presence of the Castle loomed over her and her friends and made her rub her foreleg nervously.
"He's what dear? What's wrong?" Rarity walked up close to Twilight with a concerned look on her face, concern that only grew as twilight backed away from her like she was carrying some kind of infectious disease.
"N...nothing, he's visiting the Princesses right now... Lets go inside...."
Applejack looked over at Twilight with a raised eyebrow but didn't say anything. Twilight gritted her teeth as she led her friends inside the place she honestly never wanted to go inside again. Applejack could read a lie from a mile off. She was the element of honesty after all.
They were all the elements of harmony... Arbiters of the Tree... a thought that made her sick to her stomach.
Absentmindedly Twilight wandered over to the thrones and sat in her own, causing the symbol of her cutie mark to glow behind her. Did she really choose to sit here, or was she compelled to sit there like her smiling and giggling friends? As they all took their places the floor beneath them started to react. Jagged shards of crystal began stabbing up through the smooth surface and lights beamed from the marks on their thrones. They watched in awe as the crystal formed together and expanded out into a round table. A table that had a map on its surface.
A map of all of Equestria.
Twilight gulped and shuddered at what she was seeing. This castle was alive, probably directly connected to the tree itself. Her friends didn't question its appearance for even a moment, they even poured over the map with interest and laughter like it was some innocent little trinket they had found. Their marks hovered above their location on the map and then trailed over to another spot she had never been before.
They had to go there.
It was a simple thought that crossed her mind without even thinking about it. It sounded like her thought. It felt like her idea.....but she knew that that wasn't the case.
Her friends all agreed to go on the journey one after another. They made it sound so fun and inviting. Even Fluttershy relented with some prodding.
Then they all stared at Twiilight with friendly smiles. It sent a chill up her spine and made her want to run and never want to stop.
"Absolutely..." she said nervously '...lets follow the map..."
----------
Luna had expected many things when she had entered the baby dragons mind. An empty void was not one of them. She had seen the drake twitching and moaning in his induced sleep, so he was having some kind of dream. This wasn't that dream. This felt like something prepared for her.
In the distance on any side of her that she could see, rows of emerald glyphs showed up around her in massive walls of indecipherable jargon. She tried to pull out of the dragons mind but found that she couldn't. She was trapped.
"Hello Princess of Envy." cooed out a deep rumbling voice that seemed to come from all around her. She tried to leave the dragons mind again, squeezing her eyes shut in determination as she tried to find the exit that usually just made itself known to her. The magic that was holding her there was much older and stronger than her own.
Two giant orbs flared open, revealing the face of the immense dragon before her. The alicorn steeled her nerves and tried to keep calm as much as she could. She had wandered right into a trap and now she had to figure a way out of it. Luna held her head high and stared up at the seeming force of nature before her and spoke to the Dragon Lord.
"What hast thou done with the baby dragon?"
She gritted her teeth as the Dragon Lord chuckled. He loomed in closer; The princess had forgotten how truly massive this creature was. In the blackness of this void so little was seen of him, but what was illuminated by his eyes spoke volumes of the rest of his body that she could practically feel that descended far below where she was standing. She stood her ground on whatever her hooves had found footing on, not backing away from him even as his unfathomably expansive grin was disturbingly close to her comparatively minuscule body. Showing fear in this instance would be counterproductive.
"Your slave is fine. I had considered merely wiping out his consciousness and replacing it with my own, but I will be honest with you; My time has long since passed. The kingdom I had established a thousand years ago is nothing but a shell of its former self and the dragons of modern day are far too primitive for my liking."
"Then why hast thou hidden the other from us?"
"My time is up, however my reincarnation is just starting his journey. I am walking him through my memories as we speak."
Luna gritted her teeth at that and tried to reach for her magic. Whatever these symbols that surrounded her were meant for, one of the purposes was to separate her link with her own magic.
"What makes up a being, Princess of Envy? What makes someone who they are?"
"You can't do this Dragon, you would..."
"Answer. The. Question."
She took in a deep breath and glowered at him. "Memories. Experiences. Choices. Those are the fabric that make up the mind and being of a free thinking creature."
"Exactly. Now imagine for a moment if someone who had barely ever experienced life or made many of his own choices was filled with the memories and decisions of someone hundreds of years older than them. How much do you think that mind would change considering his level of experience is nowhere near my own? Do you really think he will be the same baby dragon you exploited when he awakens from here?"
"I thought thou said thou would not destroy him! Filling his mind with experiences that are not his own would..."
A deep rumbling growl filled the void, sounding from the Dragon Lords throat.
"You have no room to speak dream walker. You submit your mind to the Twig, letting it control your kind in exchange for some thin fallacy you have the gull to call peace. How Spike chooses to interpret the memories I'm providing him is entirely in his claws. I am showing him what he could be, instead of the life of inferiority and servitude you have imposed onto him. I'm already undoing many of the spells Celestia has cast on his body."
She took an intake of breath at that, causing him to chuckle dryly.
"Oh yes. Connecting her magic to his own flame in order to incapacitate him regardless of his location. I dare say even Tirek never devised something so cleverly manipulative. If our baby dragon ever did decide to turn on her she could just bring him down and then you would fix his mind so that it never happened that way again. Truly you are learning from your master quite well."
"Silence. We must think of the safety of Equestria. Letting a...." she stopped herself from continuing that sentence, but from the grin that seemed to take up her entire field of vision she could tell he had already surmised what she was going to say.
"....Letting a DRAGON like Spike roam about without a proverbial collar and leash was just not something you could risk. That was what you were going to say. You really do think like the Twig now."
"The tree of Harmony saved pony kind. I would make that deal a thousand times over if it meant saving their lives."
The Dragon Lord shifted his head so one glowing eye was pressed extremely close to her. She had to shield her face with her hooves at the smoldering iris that glared its emerald glow over her. She felt like the Sun was staring at her.
"And how pray tell , my little Princess of Envy.... do you know for certain that the Tree didn't have its roots in the Windegos chasing your kind into its lands in the first place?"
Her body froze.
Her mind went blank.
Her mouth could form no words.
The thought was so utterly alien to her and yet...
Rage filled within the Alicorn, black smoke smoldering from her body as she lost all control of her emotions. She could feel her teeth wanting to grow sharp and her pupils trying to contract into slits. Nightmare Moon almost burst out of her at that moment, it was only through sheer willpower she did not succumb to it as she hoarsely screeched out at him.
"YOU LIE!"
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This is so good!
t07.deviantart.net/r1QK6utIabjZ8p4IT_DDQvFShD0=/300x200/filters:fixed_height(100,100):origin()/pre12/5c2b/th/pre/i/2015/325/8/5/bed_time_story_by_hillbe-d9hkh8m.jpg
7057408 Daww thanks
What I expect when Spike wakes up:
What will actually happen: I don't know, but it's certainly not my expectation up there.
7057454 Is that that Homestuck thing I've heard people talk about? I've never really looked up anything on it.
7057408 So, so good!
7056089 Paradise and Peace sounds like such great things on paper, but its the cost of those comforts that makes you wonder if its really worth it. When that peace is coming from an altruistic deity like the Tree, it could make even the friendliness of Equestria feel oppressive and foreboding.
Its a really fun concept to employ with a show about pastel colored ponies let me tell ya
i can't wait to imagine the looks on their faces when Spike/past him is proven right...
7057489 Yes, and it has only gotten worse.
The idea that the Nightmare form is the tree's "punishment" for dissension is creepy as all hell. I like how unsettling you're making it.
I wanna see a physical manifestation of tree in the final chapter so spike and company(whoever that is) fight agaisnt it to give everyone the so called freedom. The plot is so amazing. The possibilities this story have!! OMG I love Spike by the way! Keep it up
Not to mention the Mane 6 will be shamed, blamed, and excommunicated because of Spike.
Does SERIOUSLY adds up about the tree and the Windegos.
Dude I think you might just surpass Never Broken With this fic.
The question here is will the Tree us Glimmer or will Twilight fine a way to use it for her own freedom.
Also am surprise that Twilight isn't having issues over the fact that it was throw powers of the elements.