Spike blinked at the hovering unicorn. "You really are little ponies," he blurted, his voice sounding mostly like his own but somehow deeper, rounder, more resonant.
The princess shrugged, her shoulders rising and falling even as the gentle motion of her wings kept her floating steadily in place in front of him. "Size is relative, really." Her tone now that Spike was listening more closely was fuller than Twilight's, too, but he definitely recognized that she was sliding into lecture mode. "I've often thought it would be worthwhile to experiment with carrying objects of carefully calibrated weight and measurement through the mirror in an effort to establish—"
"Spike!" The distant shout was unmistakably Twilight—his Twilight—and turning, he saw a purple unicorn galloping across the field toward him. She was even smaller than this flying one, was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and behind her...
Behind her was the fanciest toy set Spike had ever imagined he would see. A castle, cut from crystal also in various shades of purple, stood maybe ten yards off from where he sat, its highest spire reaching just above his eye level, and the town beyond it looked even more fantastic, buildings he could've stepped over with ease but perfectly constructed and decorated right down to the miniature flowers in the miniature window boxes.
More movement caught his eye from beside the castle, a platform set up there with a mirror and another purple, winged figure, but the little unicorn wearing Twilight's glasses commanded his attention as she slowed to a trot, her jaw dropping and her eyes going wide. "Spike?" She asked it this time, and even though he could tell she was whispering, the word came to him loud and clear.
As did the almost irresistible impulse to pick her up. He could've done it easily, he was sure, wrapping his new claw-fingers carefully around her and hoisting her in both hands.
But he shook the idea away with the same decisiveness as he did the impulses he still occasionally got to jump onto the kitchen table. "Twilight?" He made sure to say it quietly, too, pushing against the impulse that was urging him to let loose a roar that would send cracks shattering through every inch of that castle.
Twilight stopped entirely, her head and body tilting back till she dropped onto her haunches to stare up at him.
Instead of bending over, scooping her up, and squeezing her to his chest the way a large portion of him wanted to, he forced himself to merely point a claw at her and say in as close to his regular voice as he could manage, "You are seriously adorable that way, you know that?"
A shadow swept over the grass, and the winged unicorn settled delicately beside the non-winged one. "It's so wonderful to see you again, Twilight!" the princess said, lowering her neck to nuzzle the side of Twilight's head in a way that kicked the adorableness of the scene up another dozen notches. The princess straightened with a smile and a sideways glance upward. "And I'm so glad you finally persuaded Spike to come through and pay us a visit. My own Spike and I have been looking forward to—"
"He's huge!" Twilight shouted. Waving her forehooves, she jerked her head back and forth between gaping at him and gaping at the princess. "Look at him! He's huge!"
The princess gave that little shrug again. "Well, size is—"
"And don't tell me size is relative!" Twilight sprang onto all four hooves, and even though she only came up to about the middle of the princess's chest, the glare she was employing made Spike very glad she wasn't aiming it at him. "I have studied every aspect of relativity theory, both special and general, during my years at Canterlot Tech, and none of it said anything about my dog becoming some sort of reptilian behemoth!"
"As we've discussed," the princess said with a sigh, and Spike found himself thinking there might be reasons other than her students that kept Twilight from coming through the mirror more often, "science and magic have both correspondences and differences. Still, I was under the impression that you understood how Spike's relative age as a dog would translate through the mirror into—"
"Big, you said, yes!" Falling back to sit on the grass, Twilight did some more hoof waving. "But this is ridiculous!"
Spike pricked his ears—though the things rising on the sides of his head didn't quite feel like ears... "Wait a minute. You're saying it's not that you're little ponies but that I'm a giant dragon?"
"Pretty much," something very much like his own voice said right beside him. Darting his glance up from the two ponies, he saw a purple dragon, square-jawed, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, but still about chew toy sized, his arms folded across his chest and his wings holding him easily in the air. "When Twilight and I first went through to your world, I was just a baby, scarcely a decade and a half old, so I came out as a puppy. Even now, if I crossed over again, I'd probably look pretty much the same. But you?" The dragon—the other him, Spike realized with a swallow—cleared his throat. "You're about as old as a dog can get, aren't you?"
"No, no, no!" Twilight was shouting somewhere below him. "Spike! This...this isn't how it was supposed to happen!"
"Excuse me," the other Twilight said, a very familiar note of peevishness entering her voice, "but I recall quite distinctly telling you that your Spike, being an ancient dog, would likely emerge here as an ancient dragon. And ancient dragons—"
"No!" Twilight shouted again. "You only said it was possible, not that it was probable! You said—"
A very horse-like snort interrupted her. "I said that I couldn't give you precise percentages on what might occur because we didn't have enough data. And you said it didn't really matter as long as he was too big to fit back through the mirror."
"What?" Spike had been about to jump in and ask if they could maybe stop arguing and start explaining what was going on, but the princess's words struck him as hard as a thrown tennis ball when he was looking the other way. "Too big to—?" Things began clicking together in his head so loudly, he could almost feel them shake when they collided. "That's why the platform." He gestured past the other dragon to the structure beside the castle. "And why we're outside. I mean, unless you always keep your magic mirror in the middle of a field."
"Of course," the princess said, rising up into view again. "Not 'of course' about us keeping the mirror out here, I mean, but 'of course' that we brought it down from Canterlot Tower. We needed a nice, big, open field just to be on the safe side."
Spike wasn't looking at her by then, though. He was looking at the unicorn practically cowering in the grass, her eyes shimmering. "You knew," he said, again shoving down the impulse to roar it. "You counted on me being too big to fit through and get home again. Didn't you?"
She was shivering now.
"Spike?" the princess asked from somewhere off his right ear. "You mean she didn't...didn't tell you what we'd discussed? Sent you through without telling you—?"
"He kept saying no!" Leaping onto her hind legs, Twilight waved her front hooves, wobbled, and toppled over onto her back. "And I couldn't just...couldn't do nothing!" She rolled onto her side, tears streaming down her face now. "I love you, Spike! I couldn't just watch you—"
"You love me?" And this time, he did roar it, surged to stand upright in a way that had never felt as natural, clenched his claws into fists and let his wings unfurl behind him. "Love to you means lying to me and tricking me?" And now that the words were pouring out, he couldn't have stopped them if he'd wanted to. "Because I love you, Twilight Sparkle, have loved you since before I had a word for it! I love you so much, I refused to even think about going on with my life if I couldn't see you every day! And now? Now?"
Twilight had buried her face under her hooves, her sobs stabbing like pins into Spike's head and driving him to bellow. "Now I'm doomed to live in a place where I'll never see you again: the real you, I mean! Where I'll never get to sit in your lap or see your nose wrinkle when you laugh or feel your fingers stroking through my fur! Ever again!"
"I'm sorry!" The words bubbled up from the little purple heap of her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—"
Giving in to his impulses at last, he threw back his head and howled with a thunder unmatched by any storm that had ever driven him to hide under the bed. Springing upward, he pounded the air with his wings till the ground disappeared, the clouds closed in around him, and he couldn't hear her voice anymore.
Two more chapters:
To get everything fixed: "Face to Face" and "Heart to Heart."
Mike
Good job scitwi. Good job.
uh... oops. Good going there, four-eyes.
"It'll be perfect! We just need to steal the official kilogram!"
"Couldn't we use literally any other kilogram weight?"
"Of course not! Then it wouldn't be official!"
Yeah, usually mammals don't turn into other forms of life until Warp 10.
Oh st
That may be doable. Goodness knows we've seen transmutation before. But first they need Spike to calm down. This is going to get awkward...
...Well, they've gotten themselves into quite a fine mess, that's for sure.
:)
Geez. Never deceive a creature that has the possibility of turning into another creature that could easily tear you limb from limb. Even if he loves you. Nice going there, Sci-Twi.
I'm glad that you mentioned him being too big to fit back through the mirror in this chapter. I wasn't sure if that had crossed your mind, and I would have likely spoiled part of the betrayal if I had asked about that.
Spike got bamboozled and he's not happy about it
Oh, boy. This is an excellent work on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up, but yikes. Yeah, the discussion concerning Dog Spike's size makes sense, and both Sci-Twi AND Spike have points (Sci-Twi in that he DID refuse every time she and her Spike discussed this and Spike in that she talked him into this WITHOUT giving him ALL the relevant details), but this is getting pretty darn scary. An upset being who can breathe fire, fly AND is larger than a far number of buildings equals at least temporary bad news. I know this will most likely end for the best for the lack of either a "dark" tag OR a "sad" tag, but the interesting thing will be seeing HOW.
Anyway, definitely looking forward to more of this.
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I'd like to feel sorry for Sci Twi here. But I don't. She fucked up so much that even the magic of friendship can't fix this mess.
Unless Princess Twilight has a way to shrink back down to normal size so he can go back to the Human World where he belongs.
Because I doubt she's any happier about this than he is. She was lied to as much as Spike. I think a good ol' fashion permanent banishment from Equestria for Sci Twi is in order.
Harsh? Maybe. But this is 100% her fault.
10479282
I for one think on Sci-Twi and how she was desperate to have more years with her Spike
Was NOT expecting this. This is very interesting, sand far different than a human reaction probably
10478786
Oh geeze, I remember that episode. It's been years. Also, if Barclay gets infected with a de-volving virus.
I think a whole lot of the reason Sci-Twi did it might have to do with dog Spike also being sapient now. She likely could have handled a regular dog dying of old age, but Spike has become more than a dog to her now, he's a "person" now.
10478786
There is no prototype kilogram anymore, the metricians redefined it in terms of Planck's constant two years ago (effective a year and a half ago).
10479282
She already has a big punishment, Spike likely hates her, or at least severly dislikes her now, and he is JUST as ancient a dragon as he was a dog.... In other words, he's still close to death....it'll be longer than when he was a dog, since dragons live long enough to take century long naps....but still not that long left as dragons view it.
10479370
Funny thing is that episode was officially reconned out of existence due to its rediculousness, I mean besides the events that happen how the heck would a bunch of c team starfleet members and ragtag rebels actually be able to discover warp 10.
He does not act like an adult at all.
This is so sad... I love it
Wow. Straight into the heavy drama. Part of me sympathizes with Sci-Twi here. If given the choice of letting a family member die, or saving them by any means necessary, I think most people would prefer life over death. However, I do believe she is in the wrong. Spike made his choice. He knew he could live for centuries, or even longer, if he went to Equestria, but he chose to remain in his world and die in the arms of his best friend. I'm the kind of guy who almost always sides with life, but if a person has made the conscious decision to end their life on their own terms, that is their choice to make.
10478786
And then he went nuts and ate all the ponies...
Why does Dog Spike talk, really? I mean, REALLY? Why are Celestia and Luna still alive there? WHY?! And where or what is their version of Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra and all that if everything else has a counterpart? EqG is just too silly to take as serious writing! I can't do it! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGH!!
Glad to see more so soon, hope it ends well with them. Sci-Twi just couldn't watch her Spike pass while knowing Equestria's Spike keeps living, so had that idea. Something I thought of though... with Dog Spike being a dragon, even 'ancient' still have more years that even if (Human) Twilight retired to Equestria. So with it like this ... Spike will end up outliving Twilight.
Oh, wow. This is turning out rather different than I'd expected, and very compelling. You're raising big questions of death and the value of life here.
10480118 expressed it perfectly: both sides are understandable here, but Sci-Twi is definitely in the wrong.
It is very difficult envisioning Spike the dragon as anything but little baby. @_@
So Equestria Spike is post-S9 version, and that makes EQG Spike... Like Secret of My Excess size?
Also I realize the "P-Twilight" nomenclature absolutely does not work for Spike and I demand FOME fix this. >:V
I consider SciTwi's actions to be in the same GENERAL category as lying to someone to stop them from jumping off a bridge..Granted it doesn't s a lot less predictable a death in terms of timing, but if nothing else was working...
10479739
Just remind me of that one time in TNG where the alien race used Barkley to shoot the enterprise several galaxies over in seconds