• Published 26th Jun 2012
  • 14,246 Views, 672 Comments

Ponyville goes to the...dragons?? - Freelancer



When one of Twilight's spells goes wrong, Ponyville ends up with three very unusual visitors

  • ...
30
 672
 14,246

Chapter 13: Enter the Dragonfly

Chapter 13: Enter the Dragonfly

Pre-read/Edited by: Edragon



Despite being of a relatively young age in both dragon and pony terms, as well as only having lived in two places throughout the entire land of Equestria, Spike had always, though never overly, prided himself on the vast variety of his personal experiences and encounters. He’d physically witnessed things that most ponies could never even hope to dream of, some being extremely good, such as seeing his very own older sister figure stop a rampaging Ursa minor, and some… not so good, to put it mildly; such as being subjected to the full extent of Discord’s powers and twisted sense of humour.

Despite nearly half a year having passed since then, he still often shuddered, and his stomach still cramped, when that particular day came up in conversation.

None of those particular situations, however, were quite as weird as the one he was presently witnessing; the situation itself consisted of a talking dragonfly having appeared from the depths of Princess Celestia’s multi-coloured mane, and then his recently acquired friend, and the only somewhat normal male dragon he’d ever met, Spyro, as well as his dragonessfriend, Ember, both breaking into ear-to-ear grins at the mere presence of said dragonfly.

Ok, just who’d released Discord this time round?

“Sparx!” Spyro, Ember, Cynder all cried at once, Spyro and Ember sounding as if they were about to literally jump out of their scales in joy, while Cynder seemed far more shocked, and possibly dare Spike say, even a little agitated at his sudden appearance.

The dragonfly in return, apparently named Sparx, just grinned and chuckled at their outbursts.

“Ah sheesh, can’t a guy make his own introduction round here?” he joked, swiftly leaving Celestia’s side at the call of his name. “Na, seriously though, man it’s great to see you three, you have absolutely no idea just how weird the last two days have been for me.”

“It’s great to see you too Sparx.” Spyro smiled gleefully, the purple dragon craning his neck forward to… nuzzle the dragonfly? “I know how you feel though, we’ve had a few interesting encounters of our own.”

His statement drew a quiet “What do you mean ‘just a few’?” from a groaning Cynder, the dark dragoness’s display causing Spike to roll his eyes, and quickly garnered her a snort and a glare from both of Ember and Shining Armor.

“Spyro’s right, but the ponies here are really nice once you get to know them,” Ember went on after a moment.

“Heh, we all gotta give each other a rundown later… I’ll tell ya though, sounds like you guys had it pretty easy; first pony other than Celestia I end up meeting, goes and magically hurls a suit of armor at me! Do you have any idea how heavy those things are?”

“Evidently not heavy enough.” Cynder grumbled as small flicks of shadow fire escaped her nostrils.

Sparx’s attention suddenly left the conversation and, much to his own surprise, drifted across and over onto a formerly, quietly, observing Spike.

The dragonfly proceeded to fly a few quick circles around the purple and green dragon as he apparently inspected and examined him, while Spike, in turn, just stood perfectly still, and looked between Ember and Sparx in a state of mild unease as he twiddled his claws.

Ember, having apparently noticed his unease, offered him a reassuring smile to quell his nerves, which Spike found was both nice of her and gladly received, but it didn’t exactly help the fact that having everypony looking his way was beginning to bug him, no pun intended.

“Heh, so you’re the ‘Spike’ Celestia mentioned then huh?” Sparx stated curiously as he eventually flew up to Spike’s face. “Well, you’re a funny looking dragon for sure… but hey, if you and Spyro get along, then you’re alright in my book.”

“Uh… thanks?” he replied. “I’m being told I’m a funny looking dragon… by a talking insect… go figure.”

A loud, an obviously forced cough reminded the four long-time friends they weren’t exactly alone. Upon turning around to everyone else present in the library-turned-demolition-site, they found themselves with the unfaltering gazes of everypony in the room resting squarely on them, some accompanied by sets of raised eyebrows, and others by loosely or freely hanging bottom jaws.

“Um, if you don’t mind me asking, how do you three… know him exactly?” Shining Armor asked curiously at last, his blue eyes and a raised hoof switching between the three dragons and one talking dragonfly.

His question, judging by their relatively confused facial expressions and simultaneous silent nods, was presently being shared by just about everypony else in the room, or, to put it more accurately, everypony still in a state of full consciousness.

A moment later, Shining Armor found his own vision filled with gold as Sparx crossed his arms, and then promptly flew right up to the guard captain’s face. The still grinning dragonfly proceeded to laugh as he perched himself on the end of the surprised stallion’s white muzzle, subsequently causing the usually staunch and stoic royal guard captain to step back in mild surprise, eliciting a rather large grin from Spike at his brother’s reaction, and making Spyro, Ember, and even Cynder smirk… even Princess Celestia found the moment worthy of a quiet giggle, well concealed of course, lest she unnecessarily wound her captain’s pride.

“Are you kidding? How do these three know me? You’re looking at Spyro’s brother here.”

For all of about two moments after Sparx had spoken, everything and everypony in the room just stopped dead, before over a dozen pony voices all loudly stuttered ‘B-brother!’ at once. The barrage of confused gasps served to cause the three young dragons, and one dragonfly, to burst into yet another round of laughter.

Spike felt his own jaw work itself up and down a few times, though any words he’d come up with failed to subsequently emerge. As much as he could relate to the pair of apparently adopted siblings, given he’d come to consider both Shining Armor and Twilight to be his own brother and sister over the years, his brain, quite frankly, refused to even try and make sense of Sparx’s somewhat awkward statement. Instead, he quietly guessed it was better to just go and apply logic similar to that of ‘Pinkie Pie just being Pinkie Pie’; In other words, ‘for the sake of keeping your sanity, don’t ask questions, just go with it’.

After all, the other option was to try and look at the statement logically, and that would presumably bring up mental images that could be described best by Big Macintosh. ENOPE!

After a few more moments, Spike watched as Princess Celestia finally removed an alabaster hoof from her giggling muzzle. “I take it you both share a very strong bond with each other? Or do I need to commission new biology texts?” She asked gently.

Spyro, after his own laughter finally died down, smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. “Yeah… it’s a bit of a complicated story to be honest, but trust me when I say we’ve been through a lot together,” the purple dragon sighed happily, his smile only widening as Sparx returned to flying around his head. “Anyway, as Sparx has probably already said Princess, I’m Spyro, and this is my mate Cynder, and my friend Ember.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” the alabaster alicorn replied with a quick inclining of her head, seemingly low enough to show it was a friendly gesture, but high enough so as to apparently not tempt her regalia to fall off of her forehead. “Now, if you would kindly give me a moment, there are a few things I need to clear up before we go any further; sergeant Iron Sides, if you will please.”

The clang of metal armor, as well as the clack of hooves meeting the wooden floor, rebounded through the library as one of the remaining conscious royal guards, a rather heavily built earth pony, stepped forward and raised a hoof to his ruler in salute.

Upon realizing it was the same earth pony that Ember had been fraying with only minutes earlier, Spike quietly and swiftly put himself in front of the pink dragoness, ready to literally return-to-sender the stallion if the need arose.

“Sergeant, while Shining Armor and I try to sort this situation out, I would like you to take your fellow guards to Ponyville Hospital for medical attention; I highly doubt their injuries are anywhere near severe or life-threatening, but I’d rather be on the safe side. Once that is done, you and the remaining members of your detachment may return to Canterlot.”

“Forgive me, Princess, but given what these three can do… I’m not sure that’s such a good id…”

The guard fell silent the moment he noticed the marble alicorn’s displeased expression.

“I am well aware of what they are capable of, sergeant, and I thank you for your concern, but I assure you I will be perfectly fine; am I understood?”

With a “Yes, Princess!” and a slightly shaky final parting salute, the collection of royal guards, bar a now unsure looking Shining Armor, gathered up their comrades, and trotted off out the door and into the darkness of the night, their still unconscious brethren slung firmly over their backs as they disappeared from the library and faded from sight.

Only once their hoof beats died away did Spike finally lower his guard.

“Forgive me for that, Captain Armor, but I believe their presences would have only complicated things,” Celestia stated gently, her eyes leaving the doorway and falling on the three non-Equestrian dragons. “Now then, as I have already asked Cynder, may I inquire as to just how you three came to be in the home of my student?”

“Umm…” Spyro started only to be cut off by the voice of a particularly nervous mare.

“I… I can answer that, P-Princess.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………


Twilight unintentionally flinched as every set of eyes in the room turned and focused on her, said eyes including those of her cherished mentor, the four dragons she was presently housing, her now obviously unsure-of-what-to-think older brother, plus those of just about everypony around and behind her, all of them staring like she had something unfortunate splattered profusely across her face.

The mare suddenly felt like Discord had, just to make the situation even more harrowing for her, gone and placed a five kilo lead weight in her stomach.

“Would you mind coming here and explaining, my faithful student?”

Gingerly, Twilight nodded, and began leading everypony who’d recently followed her up to the second floor, in order to escape the recent dragon-royal guard clash, back down the flight of wooden stairs. All the while, she switched her gaze between the face of her mentor, and the destruction and devastation that the prior fighting had brought down upon the main room of her home, devastation which she herself had played some part in bringing about.

The unicorn herself now felt both particularly nervous and ashamed of her actions, and that made facing her tutor all the more difficult. If she wanted to give a rough description about how she felt at that point, the best example would be the day she’d had a tardy panic attack, gone and cast the ‘want it, need it’ spell, subsequently hypnotized just about everypony in Ponyville, and ended up needing Princess Celestia’s intervention to return things to normal.

Much like those of today, that certain series of unfortunate events, as Twilight knew, neither she nor Ponyville would ever manage to fully forget; she made a mental note that once this was all over, she’d be burning Star Swirl’s Tartarus damned book herself.

“Ya’ll alright there sugercube?” a country accent asked, abruptly ending Twilight’s period of silent reminiscence. “Ya look a little bit off colour.”

“Just… feeling that the probability of me ending up on the moon is… well, you know… kind of high at the moment Applejack.”

“Look, whatever happens here Twi, just remember, ya’ll aren’t the only one responsible for this,” Applejack said calmly, the mare trying to reassure her jittery friend as they descended the stairs. “Ah’ had a hoof in this here mess as well, and I wouldn’t be worthy a’ being the element of honesty if I didn’t own up to it.”

“Heh, t-thanks.”

The moment when Twilight found herself standing directly before the tall form of Princess Celestia came far quicker than she realized; one second she was on the stairs with her friends, the next she was standing at the golden shoed hooves of Celestia, her mentor, Equestria’s ruler, and the pony who could, and probably would, send her to the moon in a heartbeat if she felt like it.

That thought was made worse by the concerned look said Princess’s face was wearing; mentally, Twilight wondered if it was better to give her explanations, or just jump ship now, and run out the door with her purple streaked tail tucked between her legs like all Tartarus was after her.

“W-well… you see P-princess…” she started, only to find her voice die after the first few words.

“I’m not angry with you, Twilight, if that’s what you’re thinking,” the alicorn said gently, leaning forward and nuzzling the obviously quivering unicorn in an effort to calm her down. “I assure you that you have nothing to fear, if I’m right none of this was intentional, correct?”

Twilight nodded a few times as she tried to bring her breathing back to a near normal rhythm, silently a little embarrassed at her present state of composure. “Sorry… this is just a little overwhelming for me. So, umm, where do you want me to start Princess?”

“How about… you just tell her what you told us Twilight,” Spyro suggested, glancing between the pair of ponies as he spoke.

“That would make for a good starting place I think; all I want to know is how this rather unusual situation has come about, nothing more Twilight.”

Twilight gulped and nodded in understanding, trying to swallow the lump in her throat at the prospect of revealing everything to her teacher. “Well… it all started two days ago…”

For the next few minutes, Spike stood protectively beside Ember and, along with everypony else still present at the fragmented remains of Pinkie’s party, watched and listened as Twilight briefly ran through the events that had transpired over the last two or so days. Occasionally, when he wasn’t groaning and face-clawing at somepony gasping in shock, or complaining about how they’d managed to set a hoof down in a pile of cake, he’d give his own input where he felt appropriate, with Applejack, Cherilee, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and even the three crusaders respectively doing the same.

He didn’t exactly find it an enjoyable experience overall, especially given he was basically forced to watch Twilight descend into a trembling wreck and Applejack just about chew her bottom lip off.

And then there was Celestia’s own facial expression. Spike might not have been a great player of card games, but even he could see the princess was a true master of the ‘poker face’, and that put the young dragon downright on edge. He always preferred to know how somepony was feeling, even if it meant knowing they were angry or totally enraged, at least then you knew what to expect, and thus had a chance to prepare for the moment when they blew up in your face. But, with Celestia’s lack of expression, he had no clue what to expect; was she amused by Twilight’s words? Was she suspicious of the dragon’s intentions in Ponyville? Was she so angry she planned to send Cynder to the moon for threatening Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon?

Spike snorted and vigorously shook his head free of such thoughts, the idea of trying to fall asleep with an overthinking induced headache was not exactly an appealing one; plus it was nearing midnight and his brain had promptly clocked off at around nine.

If anypony had previously been able to hold their jaws together, they couldn’t by the time Twilight had finished speaking, and the ‘friends from the migration’ mask had been thrown out the metaphorical window, even Vinyl’s shades looked ready to fall of her forehead; the exception, as Spike guessed he should have predicted, was Pinkie Pie, who for some inexplicable reason, didn’t find the situation surprising in the slightest.

The chances of ever understanding that mare were now officially zero.

“This is… a most unfortunate series of events,” the Princess sighed once Twilight ended her retelling, the regal alicorn quickly casting her eyes over to the room’s three seated scaly anomalies. “You have my sincerest apologies for all this; the fact of the matter is that I personally requested that Twilight be sent that book to begin with, so I believe I must bear some of the burden for bringing you four to Equestria as well.”

“That’s another thing Princess. If you’re saying the same spell brought us all here… together… then why exactly did Sparx get separated from us anyway? Not that I’m really complaining about it, mind you.”

Cynder’s words ended with a distasteful glare at the gold dragonfly, who simply folded his arms and returned the gesture with a huff, their obvious distrust and dislike of each other rearing its ugly head.

“W-well, the spell I cast was only intended for dragons… ” Twilight started weakly.

“Actually, that… would probably be my own doing,” Princess Celestia cut in, the alicorn looking at her hooves for a moment and sounding, dare Spike say, almost a little embarrassed. “I trust Twilight and her magic abilities to the fullest extent, but… I also know that, at times, she gets caught up in the moment, sometimes without being fully prepared for what ‘might’ happen should something go wrong… I’m guessing you remember the smarty pants incident, Twilight?” She asked, glancing over and finding her student’s lavender cheeks flaring a bright shade of crimson, her five close friends shying away, and the usually expressionless Big Macintosh staring at the floor. “In light of such a thing possibly occurring again… I never expected it to happen, Twilight, so please don’t think I’d lost my faith in you… I took the precaution of enchanting the book I sent her and Spike.”

The dark dragoness’s eyebrow arched a little at the words. “What do you mean by enchanting?” Cynder queried, her eyes then flicking over to Twilight. "And who's this... smarty pants?"

"Please... don't ask."

“Basically, the point of the spell was that should something go wrong, and this sort of situation potentially arise, then whatever found its way into Equestria would appear before myself in Canterlot, rather than here in Ponyville… that way the royal guard and I could deal with it should the situation become hostile.”

“So… why was it Sparx that got separated? And only Sparx for that matter?” Spyro asked with a slight tilt of his head. “He’s the least dangerous out of all of us.”

“Hey! Just because I don’t go throwing out flames, doesn’t mean I ain’t dangerous!”

Sparx’s remark only drew a quiet snigger from both Cynder and Spyro; some things truly would never change, and Sparx’s macho attitude was most definitely one of those things.

"I never said you weren't Sparx." Spyro chuckled as he shook his head.

“I’m afraid I can’t give you an exact answer to that phenomenon… but to be honest, Twilight’s own spell, I think…” Celestia began, trying to suppress a giggle of her own. “Well, when her spell failed, from what I can gather... I believe the pure amount of magical energy released by her may have overwhelmed my own enchantment… something which I probably should have foreseen the possibility of, given the strength of my student’s magical potential. Thus it seems my weakened spell only managed to retrieve one of you, logically that one being the smallest and lightest of you four, Sparx.”

“Hehe, my little sister overpowered one of Princess Celestia’s own spells,” Shining Armor chuckled as he sat back on his haunches. “Hey Twily, maybe they should make you the princess of magic.”

The stallion’s suggestion was met by the rebuttal of a blue covered book being lifted from the floor in a purple aura, being promptly hurled in his directed, and meeting his face with a dull thud, the action only drawing another playful laugh from the royal guard captain, and an amused eye-roll from Celestia.

“Jokes aside… I am very sorry for separating you two,” The Princess went on, her voice taking on a slightly sorrowed tone as she looked between Sparx and Spyro. “I know all too well what it feels like to miss a sibling, so again, my sincerest apologies.”

Spyro, after a rather long moment of looking at his talons, just shook his head and waved his claw dismissively, almost looking as if he was shooing a particularly annoying fly. “It’s alright Princess, we’ve all agreed none of this was anyone’s intention; what we really need to focus on now is finding a way to get home.”

“Besides, I finally got to have some time away from venom breath,” Sparx said flatly, his gaze once more shifting to Cynder, who simply gave him a ‘do-you-actually-want-me-to-squash-you?’ sort of stare in return.

Celestia blinked a few times in mild surprise, before smiling and nodding. “Thank you, I understand that this has no doubt been a stressful few days for you three… speaking of which, captain, how exactly did all of this destruction come about?”

She spoke while motioning to the wreckage that was the library's main room.

Shining Armor nervously rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof. "I... let my experiences cloud my judgement, Princess. We received what now appears to be a bogus letter of complaint relating to Cynder, and... when it mentioned Twilight being involved... ugh, I acted unprofessionally in response."

"You only wanted to protect those you care about; can't exactly fault you for something like that."

Every set of eyes were on Cynder in a heartbeat, prompting the dragoness to roll her eyes. "Well let's all not get amazed at the same time."

Celestia smiled and shook her head. "I'm surprised to hear such words from you, Cynder, especially after what you've all no doubt been put through."

“It’s actually been really enjoyable so far Princess.” Ember abruptly jumped in. “I mean, it was a bit frightening at first… and not a lot of ponies trusted us… but everything’s calmed down now, and we’ve made some really good friends in the last two days.”

As she ended her input, Ember capped it off by giving Spike a quick nuzzle on the cheek and gently laying one of her pink wings over him, prompting the purple dragon’s cheeks to flare a bright shade of red as Spyro chuckled from beside him, Cynder mock-groaned to herself, and both Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy quietly squeed from somewhere in the background of the conversation.

Although unnoticed by everypony else, Rarity snorted to herself and looked away in annoyance.

It was then that a curious Princess Celestia, as well as a now wide-eyed and downright surprised Shining Armor, both noticed just how close the young dragon and dragoness were standing to each other; given they were either a few millennia old or happily married respectively, within a moment the gears in their heads stopped turning as the dots were connected, and, despite how utterly ludicrous it seemed, everything became a little clearer in regards to the two dragons’ unusual behaviours, especially Spike’s continuous protectiveness of Ember.

“Twily, don’t tell me my little brother’s gone and got himself a fillyfriend?” the white stallion asked as a grin spread across his face.

If Spike’s embarrassed flinch didn’t answer the stallion’s question, then a chuckle from Applejack did a moment later.

“Considering some ah’ us might’ve walked in on a little kissin’ session of theirs Shining, I’d say so.”

If there was anypony who’d had their attention focused elsewhere up until then, it was most definitely no longer wandering; the young dragon couple were now, somewhat against their will and with absolutely nowhere and no way to escape their position, finding themselves the centre of everypony’s combination of intrigued and cheesy attention.

Shining Armor’s own smirk only widened as both dragons in question glanced at each other, and then blushed as they looked down at their claws, the additions of a wolf whistle from Vinyl, excited giggles from the three Cutie Mark Crusaders, and a squealed gasp from Rainbow Dash, only serving to deepen the red hues of their cheeks.

“Wait, you two were making out? And you actually walked in on them, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash sniggered as she tried, and then dramatically failed, to contain herself as she rolled around the ceiling. “Pfffffft! Bahahahaha!”

Twilight couldn’t help but turn as crimson as Spike as the memory came back. “Yeah… I’m not going to lie; it was a bit awkward.”

“OOH! OOH! How was it? How was it?”

“Pinkie Pie!” nearly every equine voice cried once.

The mare in question took no notice of the collective outburst, and just continued to happily bounce circles around the young couple.

“Um…” Ember smiled sheepishly, trying to hide her now burning face behind a pink wing. “Really nice,” she answered quietly.

“Spike… come here… you little stud.” Shining Armor managed to get out between his hysteric pants, using his own magic to pull the purple dragon over, before delivering an affectionate noogie to his crimson faced sibling’s head.

The action apparently managed to draw another wave of amusement from everyone still present, even Cynder’s maw managed to break into a sly grin, much to Spike’s surprise and further embarrassment.

All the while, Twilight just sat back and smiled as the scene unfolded, with a giggling Ember quickly finding herself pulled into Shining Armor’s embrace as well. If Twilight’s trained memory served her right, it had been far too long since she’d seen Spike as happy as he was now, save perhaps the day Rarity kissed him on the cheek. It was still perhaps the strangest and most illogical turn off events she’d ever known or come across, a situation that would, in theory, only ever make sense if it were contained within the crummy pages of a second-rate romance story.

But quietly, and although still being a little sceptical of the thought herself, she was somewhat thankful for her spell’s unintended outcome.

That thought, however, shattered like a glass meeting the floor when a golden-shoed hoof fell upon her shoulder, and, upon looking up, she found her mentor wearing a very unsure expression… one that strangely reminded her all too well of the day Discord had managed to escape from being an oversized lawn ornament.

“Twilight, I need to speak with you in private, now.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Author's Note:

Notes:

Dun, dun, DUUUUUUNNN!!

I hereby acknowledge that I am a terrible person for making you all wait this long.

I’ve been getting queries about when the ‘Raribitch’ bomb will get dropped; the truth is that it will be playing out for a decent part of the story… but let me tell you all now, when it does get dropped… oh boy…

Anyway, as I do like to do with my fics, I’m looking for suggestions on some side-scenarios and situations that I can put in here (e.g. given their personalities, I want to have Ember meet Cadence later on). So, yeah, please throw them at me if you feel inclined to.

Edragon: I’m gonna put my suggestion right here; Send the dragons to the Crystal Empire and see how long they can resist eating it. :rainbowlaugh:

Finally, just so those who don't know the Spyro games too well, Sparx's parents raised Spyro in L.O.S, so they basically are brothers.