The Great Parent Rescue

by Kaipony

"Father" Did Know Something

If the shrill clangor of the school bell were audibly upsetting to anyone at the School of Friendship, it would not have have been evident from the expressions of the students as they poured out of their classrooms and out into the halls. Chatter rose and fell in undulating waves, the mass of students forming into smaller groups and diverse crowds. With great haste, they headed for the exit doors, freshly imagined adventures of the weekend vividly impressed upon their brows. Had any of those who passed by the staff rooms paused to tilt an ear in their direction, a potential eavesdropper might have heard a rhythmic crumpling sound coming from behind the closed door of an office that bore the label “HEADMARE.”

“Why,” Spike pleaded between gasping breaths as he hyperventilated into a brown paper bag. “Is. This. Happening. To me?” He sat perched on the edge of a chair in front of Twilight’s desk. The bag he held was expanding and contracting in rapid succession; his free claw clenched so tightly that its purple scales were a pale lavender.

“Keep breathing, Spike,” Twilight advised, pacing back and forth behind her desk. “Just keep at it and let your breathing slow down on its own.” She paused to give Spike a wan smile when he glanced over at her, his head nodding in acceptance, before continuing her nervous pattern. The Headmare glanced out of the bay window that framed the wall behind her desk each time she passed by as her assistant gradually wrangled his breathing back under control.

“Where are they?” she wondered aloud.

When Spike was again breathing at a reasonable rate, Twilight took the bag from him with her magic and ceased her pacing. She guided him from the chair over to a small couch that sat against the wall nearest to the door. Spike hopped up onto the sofa and immediately sprawled across its purple cushions. He grabbed one of the six throw pillows that were placed across the back of the couch at precisely measured intervals and held it close to his chest. It was pearly white and embroidered with a trio of diamonds.

“Feeling a little better?” Twilight asked. “Is the headache still there? Are you feeling any nausea? Dizziness? I know a few minor medicinal spells.”

Spike buried his face into the pillow and held up a single talon. “I’m going to need a minute,” his muffled voice requested.

Twilight nodded silently. She drew in a deep breath through her nostrils, held it for precisely three seconds, and released it slowly out of her mouth. She did this twice more and then took a seat on the open cushion next to the little dragon. The clock which was hanging over the door ticked for precisely sixty seconds before she spoke again.

“This a lot to process. It would be for anyone. I didn’t believe myself, at first. It took me a full day and a half to dig up more of the details but...oh, ponyfeathers! This is...” Twilight ran through her breathing exercise again and when she finished, leaned over to Spike. Concern was etched into the corners of her eyes. “I don’t know what else to say. What can I do to help?”

“I don’t know,” Spike muttered, pulling the pillow away from his face. He sat up, still clutching it tightly, and then stood so that he was eye level with Twilight. “I mean, what am I supposed to do? Can’t a guy get one break?” He held up his index digit. “Everyone’s been extra nice to me after they found out Sludge lied to me.” He added a second talon to the count. “Starlight sat down with me and did her counselor thing, and we talked about me not knowing anything about my real parents.” A third one popped up to join the other two. “And Smolder’s even been taking me up for extra flying lessons. You know, to help clear my head and all. Not to mention that I only just got my room back in order after the mess Sludge made. Now, this happens.” He flopped back onto the cushions, releasing the pillow to fall on the floor.

Twilight was levitating the pillow up off the floor when the office door burst open. Six ponies flowed into the room, each wearing apprehensive expressions.

“What’s the situation, Twilight?” Rainbow asked immediately, flitting into the center of the room’s airspace. “Is it another map quest? An impending monster attack?” She rubbed her forehooves together. “Please tell me its a monster attack. I need a good story for my lessons next week.”

Pinkie Pie bounced in and settled between the chairs in front of Twilight’s desk. “If it were a monster attack I’m sure we’d have heard something. I bet its a map quest. Ooh! I hope they have postcards where we’re going. I love postcards!”

Twilight shook her head at the pair and then motioned towards the supine dragon on the couch.

Rarity quickly moved to sit by Spike’s side. “Spikey, whatever is the matter? You look positively exhausted.” She plucked at one of the spikes on his head which sported a slight kink to the left. “Even your spikes seem a tad frazzled.”

Twilight signaled for silence and waited until she had everyone’s attention. “Girls, there’s no easy way to say this, but I’ve recently learned that Spike’s parents are being held captive by the Scale Collectors.” There was a collective gasp from the room’s newest occupants.

“Back the cart up, sugarcube,” Applejack countered. “Didn’t that no-good fella Sludge make up all that stuff about Scale Collectors?”

Twilight nodded stiffly. “Yes, but since none of us had heard of any group with that name, I decided some additional investigation was necessary. Just to be sure that Sludge was actually lying and not just misconstruing real information.”

Starlight trotted over to Twilight’s side, her face set in a grime look of serious intent. “What did you learn?”

“Well, it turns out that Sludge wasn’t lying, at least about one part of his story.” The rest of the pony gang glanced at one another anxiously as Twilight strode over to the window behind her desk. She spared a brief look out at the school grounds, and her eyes briefly followed the dwindling shape of Smolder as the young dragon followed after her friends. “The Scale Collectors are real.”

Fluttershy’s hooves flew to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

Applejack solemnly removed her hat and gave Spike an empathetic look before asking Twilight, “How’d ya figure it out?”

Twilight turned back towards the group. “I caught up with Sludge soon after he left Ponyville. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. When I found him, I demanded to know why he would do such a thing to Spike.” She shook her head and resumed her pacing from earlier.

“He kept saying that he wasn’t the bad guy; that he was only doing what any dragon in his situation would have done.” Twilight halted and frowned. She stamped a hoof. “I wasn’t going just to accept that, so I...um...” Her frown quickly vanished. She cast her eyes down and scuffed a hoof against the floorboards.

“I might have gotten a little bit frustrated and said that I would turn him into a chameleon, permanently, if he didn’t come clean. That’s when he said that the Scale Collectors were real. They were the ones who needed to be punished, and he was just another victim who was lucky enough to have gotten away.” Her ears flattened themselves against her head. “I thought he was still lying. I...I was just so fed up that I...cast a truth-telling spell on him.”

“A what now?” Applejack was nonplussed. “Y’all can do that?”

Starlight nodded and answered for Twilight. “It’s possible. That kind of spell is not something any unicorn would want to use because it takes away someone’s freedom to choose to be honest.”

“But I was angry and not thinking straight,” Twilight admitted.

Spike scooted himself off the couch and walked over to Twilight, shifting his tilted spike back into place. He put a comforting claw on her shoulder. “Thanks for going after him, Twilight.”

Rarity followed the dragon over and nuzzled her guilt-ridden friend. “The brigand had it coming to him, I’m sure. You did what you thought was right for a friend in need. Please continue, dear.”

“Thanks.” Twilight patted Spike on the head and did as Rarity had urged. “Even with the spell, he continued to say the Scale Collectors were real. One day, they just freed him and told him to get lost. When he asked them why, they allegedly said he was no longer a physical danger to ponies. After I let Sludge go, I sent a few discreet letters to the Princesses.” There was a flash of raspberry magic, and a thin stack of papers appeared in front of Twilight. “This is what they sent in return.” She spread out the pages for all to view.

Pinkie was immediately in the middle of the deconstructed dossiers, inspecting each page that had pictures drawn on them. Many were rough sketches that looked like they had likely been dictated from memory. “So who are these ponies?”

Clearing her throat, Twilight pulled a few notepads from out of a desk drawer. “The Scale Collectors are a group that believes all dragons are born as menaces to civilized creatures. The few reports available say that their numbers are made up of not just ponies, but of many different creatures. Including minotaurs. One report said that even the yaks have a few of their kind within the Collector’s ranks.”

Pinkie’s normally undaunted smile drooped along with her ears and tails. “Not my yak friends.”

Dropping down to the floor, Rainbow scooped up a drawing with an imposing figure outlined across the paper. A familiar, two-pronged symbol was clearly visible. “Didn’t Sludge also say something about guards from the Storm King’s army?”

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed. “Second-hoof reports say that the Scale Collectors will recruit anyone willing to join their crusade against the dragons. And, from the looks of their rosters, they’ll hire anyone who doesn’t care where their bits are coming from.”

“Crusade?” Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “I don’t like the sound of that.” She quickly moved to Spike’s side, placing a protective wing around him. “Do they want to hurt Spike or Smolder? What about Ember?”

Twilight rubbed her temples. “I don’t know. We have more questions than answers, and there are just too many variables to make accurate assumptions. I do know that their claims mentioned nothing about physically injuring a dragon, but some of their techniques do come dangerously close. While the hired hooves and guards are just there for the money, the most loyal of the Collectors join because they’ve lost something because of a dragon’s actions. It doesn’t seem to matter if those actions were deliberate or accidental.”

“I know some dragons are just big bullies and like to pick on innocent creatures,” Fluttershy remarked. “But those are the exceptions.” To emphasize her point, she hugged Spike closer to her.

Twilight shuffled through a few pages and produced a sheet that looked more sloppily written than the others. “Dragons have come a long way recently, but these Scale Collectors refuse to forgive or move on. And it’s not just property that’s the issue. Some claim to have lost family or friends. So, they capture every dragon they can and imprison them.”

“But why?” Spike blurted out before politely detached himself from Fluttershy’s embrace. He scratched his head. “If they’re not going to hurt us, then what do they want? Why would they take my parents?” A single note from the report, wrapped in raspberry magic, floated over to Spike. He plucked it from Twilight’s magic, read the words on the page to himself, and nearly dropped the sheet as his claws shook. “Th-they want to make us...stop being dragons. What does that even mean?”

Applejack, having returned her hat to its usual perch, narrowed her eyes. “It don’t make no sense. You can’t make a dragon not be a dragon. It’d be like tryin’ to get a jackrabbit to plow a field cause he’s been told he’s a mule.” She shook her head.” It ain’t happening.”

Starlight, having remained quiet through Twilight’s review, cleared her throat. “I think I know.” Everyone’s turned their attention to her.

“After Spike and I had our little counseling session, I decided to do a little digging of my own. While Twilight was contacting the princesses, I sent letters of my own to Sunburst and King Thorax.” She pawed at the floor and hung her head a bit. “I would have said something earlier, but I was still looking through the results when Twilight called all of us in.”

There was a flash of turquoise magic, and a thin sheaf of pages popped into existence, adding to the collected reports. “Those methods I used to break down a pony’s will and make them believe what I wanted? It looks like the Scale Collectors are doing almost the same thing. They keep their prisoners locked up and force them to act contrary to normal dragon behavior. They fill their heads with stuff about how dragons are all greedy beasts and nothing but a danger to everyone. They even withhold food unless a dragon agrees to participate in etiquette lessons and anger management classes.”

“Sunburst and Thorax found all that out?” Twilight asked, amazed, as she sifted through Starlight’s reports. “The Princess’ file didn’t include any of those points.”

Starlight chuckled in spite of the gravity of the situation. “Sunburst has a knack and a passion for obscure research, and you’d be more surprised than you’d think at what a Changeling can overhear.”

“Those poor dragons,” Fluttershy breathed as she and Rarity quietly regarded Starlight’s information.

“Well put, Fluttershy,” Rarity added. “I must say, while I feel everyone can benefit from a little extra training in the fine art of sophistication, the very notion of coercing change through forced deprivation is horribly barbaric.”

“How about we stick to the Scale Collector’s and Spike’s parents before we start planning about a charm school for dragons?” Rainbow quipped.

“Even so,” Rarity continued, leveling an accusatory hoof at the folder of papers. “If Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had enough information to send even this small report to Twilight, then surely they must have known about these brigands before Sludge came along.”

“Why wouldn’t they have warned us before?” Spike pleaded.

“Because the Collectors operate outside of Equestria’s borders,” Starlight countered. “There’s nothing the princesses can personally do to stop them. And,” she added. “Most of this is based on second-hoof information, marketplace gossip, and alleged escapees. There’s very little verifiable information.”

“Which means no diplomatic solutions,” Twilight sighed. “Not if we don’t have a single official document as proof.”

“You mean there’s nothing we can do?” Pinkie worried aloud.

“Of course not!” Spike hopped up and hovered in the center of the group, his claws clutching the page Twilight had given him so hard that it had crumpled into a tight ball. “There’s nothing the Princesses of Equestria can do, but that doesn’t stop me from going after my parents.” Stunned silence followed his declaration. Rainbow Dash was the first to recover.

“Our dragon buddy’s going rogue?” She flipped around in a tight loop and stopped in a hover next to Spike. “I like it. Count me in. This’ll make a great topic for my class.”

“No,” Twilight loudly declared. “It’s too risky, walking into an unknown situation against dangerous ponies and whatever else they have with them. Not to mention that if they happen to be inside another country’s borders, any rescue attempt could turn into an international incident.”

“Really?” Spike’s voice began to waver, and his eyes trembled. “But I need to do this. I have to do this.” He spread his arms wide, as though he were imploring the whole of Equestria itself to listen. “They’re my parents! They’re my family!”

“We’re not going to let a couple of rules stop us from tracking down Spike’s parents, are we?” Rainbow asked Twilight, incredulous.

Again, Starlight stepped in. “It’s not that simple. As a Princess, Twilight is bound to the law in ways that go beyond what even we all have to obey.” She looked to the alicorn for confirmation and Twilight offered the barest of nods before turning away and looking out on the school grounds once more.

Spike glanced around at all his friends. Then he moved to Twilight’s side and landed next to her. “I know it’s going to be dangerous,” he began. “I know that if I go, and if I get into big trouble, there’s probably not going to be any help coming.” His voice grew strong again. “But I don’t care. You don’t give up on family. I won’t give up on family.”

Silence reigned again, as it had when Spike had first declared that he was going after the Scale Collectors. It continued for almost a minute with every eye locked on Twilight’s unmoving form. Then, she looked down at Spike.

“No.” Spike seemed to deflate where he stood before Twilight placed a hoof on his shoulder. “You don’t give up on family. We won’t give up on family. Which is why I’m going with you, regardless of what the implications might be.” Twilight turned when she felt a hoof tapping on her shoulder. She glanced over and found Applejack wearing an easy smile.

“Ahem. I think you mean we’re going, Twilight.”

Twilight blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t want to speak for everypony.”

“You need not, dear.” Rarity stood tall and postured herself proudly. “Spike is family. And, as he so eloquently put it, you do not give up on family.”

“Thank you.” Tears formed in the corner of the dragon’s eyes and he wiped at them with the back of a claw. “Thank you all so--oomph!”

Pinkie swept Spike out of the air and into a tight hug. “We are so having a parent rescue party when we get back!” She released him. “But, um, where exactly are these Collectors? Did the Princesses or Sunburst or Thorax say where we could find them?”

There was silence for a moment before a light lit up in Spike’s eyes. He rubbed his claws together, a devious smirk spreading across his face as he did so. “Leave that to me. I think I have an idea about how to find out.”

“Attaboy, Spike.” Twilight’s magic began to simultaneously pull several volumes and binders from the bookshelves that lined her office. “Girls, you and our little strategist head to the map room and start planning. I’ll catch up after I write a few letters, check on the status of some treaties and international agreements, make a checklist or two, confirm...” Twilight glanced up from the tower of references and paperwork that was accumulating on her desk to find her friends all starting at her with wry smiles. “What? I might be about to violate international law. I want to make sure we’ll be covered by as much legal precedent as possible.”

As they all began to file out, Twilight called out. “Starlight, would you please stay behind?”

Starlight nodded and waited until the rest of the group had exited. “What’s up, Twilight?”

Before she answered, Twilight moved to her desk and slid into her chair. She levitated out a quill, inkpot, and several clean scrolls of paper. “Starlight, I need you to stay behind and watch after the school.” The quill dipped once into the pot and started to scribble across the paper rapidly. “You’re the best one suited for the job.”

“Oh.” Starlight’s ears flattened, and her tail twitched. “I think I’d rather be going off on an adventure with you all instead of doing a bunch of paperwork.” Her ears perked back up, and she gave Twilight a little smile. “But thanks for the vote of confidence. I promise it won’t be like last time. Oh!” Starlight took hold of a set of writing implements with her magic and started to make notes of her own.

“I have a few ideas for stand-ins who can cover for most of everypony’s classes, but I won’t be able to take care of my counseling duties, fill in as Headmare, and teach your weeklong history class all at the same time.” She paused and tapped the stem of the quill against her chin. “Unless I made a few extra copies of myself.”

“No!” Twilight looked up from her writing and gave Starlight an apologetic look. “Sorry. What I meant was, don’t worry about my class. That’s one of the letters I’m writing.” She passed the scroll to Starlight, who took one look at the addressee and blanched. “I think I know somepony who would be a great substitute teacher while I’m away.”

Comments

[TheAncientPolitzanian]

Well, you're off to a good start. I look forward to seeing where this goes!

EDIT: I can't believe it took me this long to realize that this is related to your other fic The Substitute Teacher.

[Kaipony]

9673510
I will do my best to make it worth your time. And I’m thrilled you caught that little reference.

[SpikeSmolder fan]

Really loving this first chapter of Spike's parent rescue story, looking forward to see what happens next!

EDIT : Just realized this is a companion piece to The Substitute Teacher story, which makes this one even more awesome!

[TasermonsPartner]

You did it! You took that interesting, yet un-seen, subplot from The Substitute Teacher and turned it into a full-fledged story! YES!

And a very good story so far! Everyone is in-character, and the story is engaging.

Though, even with the suspicion of the scale collectors being real, I do wonder how the ponies came to the conclusion that they have Spike's parents, since they weren't specifically mentioned?

Looking forward to more chapters!

(Alternative scene) Twilight: "Hey Spike, I know that you've been a little down since that Sludge dragon tried to take advantage of you, and that you've also been missing Pee-wee some lately, so I thought it was about time that you got a new pet to take care of." Twilight levitates a small terrarium over.

Spike: "Oh wow, a chameleon!" Spike looks excitedly at the yellow and purple lizard as it bangs feebly against the glass enclosure, pleading to be released, its small voice unable to convey its pleas for mercy or shouts of apologies for trying to deceive Spike. "Aw! He's so happy to see me! Thanks Twi!"

Twilight: "Just make sure he doesn't escape. It's a big world out there and we'd hate to have somepony accidentally squash him under their hooves." She turns and glares threateningly at the small lizard "Wouldn't we?" The lizard cowers back and shakes its head "no" vigorously. "Good. Now it can live out its life as a pampered pet, just like I'm sure it always wanted to." Twilight grins slyly while the chameleon shudders and Spike reaches in to poke at it.

[Godslittleprincess]

She passed the scroll to Starlight, who took one look at the addressee and blanched. “I think I know somepony who would be a great substitute teacher while I’m away.”

Looks like Daddy is coming for a visit.

[Lively Librarian]

I'm a little biased but I love the writing as always!