The Ten Million Year Hello

by Bandy

Chapter Three

Ten million glittering lights greeted Spike as he crested the hills north of Starlight City. Every bit as much a play on its appearance as a nod to its founder, the metropolis of twenty eight million creatures spread out over the Greater Gander Grasslands to the east and west, all the way to the Yak Ultra Glorious Friendship With All Races River in the south.

Spike touched down in an empty suburban park several miles outside the city and pulled out his trusty enchanted map. From there, it was a breeze finding the nearest entrypoint to the city’s vast underground subway system.

He muttered, “Sorry,” to no one in particular. Then he cupped his hands and started digging.

After replacing the topsoil as best he could, Spike slithered through an old subway line until he reached one of the city’s several abandoned metro stations. The faint rhythm of autocarriages and hoofsteps played down the filled-in stairwells and echoed in the corners. Emergency lights flickered pale blue. Long shadows crept up the walls.

But none of that stood out to Spike. He was totally focused. He had work to do.

The slime on the walls and faint scurrying sound of rats got worse the further down he went. Soon another sound joined in, a faint rumble that reminded him of thunder.

Spike paused, his ears up. Was it getting louder?

That was when he noticed the light coming from behind him, casting a distorted silhouette of himself on the tracks in front of him. The rumble leapt from faint thunder to a tornado barreling down on top of him.

Train.

Spike took off down the tunnel. No chance he could simply squeeze to the side and let the train pass. He had to find someplace to hide.

He passed a service tunnel. Too small. Then a substation. Too many sensitive electronics. All the while, the sound of the train crept closer and closer, its automated conductor system oblivious to the threat in front of it.

Just as Spike felt the front of the train brush against his tail, he saw a subway station a few hundred yards in front of him bathed in electric blue lights and bustling with ponies.

So much for abandoned, he thought. Then he redoubled his stride and leapt onto the platform.

Ponies screamed and scrambled to get out of the way. Colorful ceramic tiles dislodged by the impact flew everywhere. The train’s horn wailed in his ears.

A split second later, the train hit the brakes and decelerated to a graceful stop in front of the platform. Playful music and at least a hundred commuters spilled from the cars. By twos and by threes, they stopped what they were doing to glare at the massive dragon blocking the platform.

“Uh.” Spike coughed. Soot from his nose discolored a tile mural on the wall. The staring grew more intense.

After a moment of pause, the pedestrians got moving again, flowing around and underneath Spike. He lifted himself up and sucked in his belly, trying to make himself as small as possible and failing miserably.

“Sorry,” he said as he felt ponies brush past his scales. “Sorry. Sorry. Uh. Sorry.”

The train shut its doors and started off down the tunnel. The platform cleared. Spike let out a breath and resumed his trek deeper into the subway. This time he made sure the tunnels were out of commision first.

---

Later on, as he picked his way through another tunnel line, he heard the familiar rumbling sound heralding a train. He cursed inwardly. Must have made a wrong turn somewhere and wandered onto another active line. He resolved to check his map once he was out of danger, and started off down the tunnel at a trot.

This wasn’t nearly as urgent as the first encounter. Within a minute, he found another abandoned station. He curled up on the platform, waiting for the train to pass.

But something felt off. The rumble was different somehow. He caught a whiff of sulfur and brimstone that curled his nose.

Then a wave of unnatural heat bowled him over.

With a screaming roar, the wounded dragon from the library, Banshee, flew down the subway tube at terrifying speeds. Her face was frozen in a twisted roar. Her legs kicked up wood beams and chunks of gravel. Steel supports buckled under the heat. Steel rails curled as she raced past.

And then she was gone, leaving a very dazed Spike lying flat on his back.

He sat there for a moment as his senses returned to him. He counted the seconds between breaths, felt the faint slickness of the floor, listened to the ringing in his ears fade to an ambient hum.

Then he got to his feet and gave chase.

---

The tube emptied into a vast subterranean rail yard, complete with rotating tracks and tiered car storage tubes. Banshee paused to circle the room a couple times, then disappeared into one of the upper tunnels.

Spike waited until the light faded and the sound quieted to a faint rumbling, then crept out.

A quick look through the enchanted map revealed he was directly underneath the city center and the Starlight Center for Civic Services. Its eye-catching diamond-shaped shell and its crystalline upper tiers towered over every other building in the city.

The map also revealed a large concrete arrow buried in the foundation, pointing down towards the rail yard. This was Starlight’s brand of subtlety, alright.

Spike breathed a ball of dragonfire into his hands and molded it into a hovering orb of light, then commenced his search. Being careful not to make too much noise, he gently overturned train cars and excavated chunks of concrete, working his way methodically from one end of the yard to the other.

When he reached the very center of the track exchange, he pulled up the rusted central pivot to reveal a concrete cap buried in the ground. When he tapped it, it rang hollow.

Jackpot.

He had almost succeeded in cutting the cap open with his talons when he heard a sound like a train coming from the upper tunnels. He turned around and only too late realized there was no place to hide.

Banshee descended from the tunnel in a flurry of heat and sound. Spike jumped back, shielding his eyes, readying a blast of dragonfire to parry the inevitable attack.

But much to his surprise, no attack came.

He looked up and saw her standing on a slowly melting railroad tie, giving him a look as scorching as the dragonfire leaking from the side of her mouth.

His eyes were drawn to the motion of her internal organs. He saw her lungs inflate, then realized it was probably rude to stare and moved his eyes back up to her face. “Uh. Hello.”

She spoke in a raspy whisper. Flecks of dragonfire leaked from her mouth as she spoke. “You scratched my chainmail. Back in the library.”

“Sorry.” He straightened up a little. “But you did destroy thousands of priceless books.”

“It was almost worth it.” Her voice slithered in the space. “You couldn’t possibly need it more than I do.”

Spike again found himself staring at her lungs. In. Out. Inflate. Deflate. He shuddered. “What happened to you?”

“Pride happened. Did you know if a dragon rips her own arm off, it sets the aging process back by ten years? You don’t even lose the arm for good. It grows back.”

Creeping horror slowly dawned on Spike. “You didn’t--”

“I didn’t want to live without an arm. But a kidney? An appendix? Each one gives you back twenty years.”

Spike felt nauseous. The heat started to make him dizzy. “You did that to yourself.”

“I had to know what the limits were.” She took a menacing step forward. “Once I’m fixed, I can go back to living forever. I just need that book.”

“No!” Spike heard the panic in his own voice. “I won’t let you hurt yourself like that.”

A dragonfire smirk flashed across her face. “You’re a pony, aren’t you.”

“No,” he shot back defensively.

“You are.” her voice took on a sing-song lilt. “You’ve got scales on the outside, but you’re all pony on the inside.”

“You don’t know how dragon I am.”

She laughed in his face. “Prove it then. Kill me. Bite my head off.”

Spike let out a frustrated groan. “This is stupid. If I just give you the book, it’ll burn to ash before you can touch it. What if I keep the book? You stay put somewhere safe where you can’t hurt anyone, and I’ll look for the other books. When we have all three, we can cast the spell on both of us.”

Without a hint of warning, she exploded, “Do you think I’m stupid?” The fire subsided to a simmer just as quickly as it had sprung up. “You’ll find the spells and forget about me.”

“That’s not true. I want to help you.”

“Liar!” Her heart sped up in her exposed chest. The chainmail changed color from orange to bright red. Her lungs inflated, and Spike knew if he stayed put another moment she’d spew dragonfire in his face, and he wouldn’t be able to get the other spell pieces if he was a scaly puddle mingling with the subway slime.

So, although it pained him greatly, he lowered his head, wrapped a wing around his saddlebag to keep its fragile contents safe, and did what dragons did best: attack.

Spike was a full two heads taller than Banshee. Charging into her full-force, he wrapped his arms around her and pushed up with his legs, propelling them both into the air before crashing back down on the center of the rail turnstyle.

The concrete cap concealing the second spell book cracked. Banshee’s open chest cavity singed Spike’s face. He squeezed his eyes shut against the heat, but it still felt like his head was being microwaved.

He leapt to his feet and delivered a single decisive kick to her left knee. She gasped in pain and curled up into a ball. For a moment, Spike thought the fight was over. Then she twisted and shot a fireball at his face.

He barely managed to dodge out of the way. She shot a second fireball, which grazed off his shoulder, then a third, which hit him squarely in the chest and sent him flying backwards.

The impact forced the air from his lungs. He staggered to his feet only to catch another blast of flame to the face. He backed up, withering under a barrage of fireballs.

Suddenly, the barrage stopped. Spike sputtered and wiped the soot from his eyes to find Banshee had collapsed. Dragonfire leaked from her mouth in a thin trickle. Her whole body trembled. She wrapped her arms around her chainmail chest and murmured incoherently.

A wave of guilt burned Spike’s face worse than any fireball. He’d just attacked a wounded dragon in distress. Forget dragon ethics. She was hurting and he’d made it worse.

He took a step towards her, reaching out with a claw. “I’m so sorry--”

She whipped her head around and let out a blood curdling scream. The whole structure shook. Ceiling tiles rained down on the two dragons. A stack of decommissioned train cars overturned like toy blocks.

Spike flinched away, covering his ears. He saw Banshee staggering to her feet and decided the best course of action was to get the spell book and run like hell. He leapt over her to the cracked concrete pad and smashed it to pieces with a single precise kick.

Inside was another message in the stone and a second plaster-cased book.

If you’re reading this, then you must be in serious need of some empathy cocoa. I’ve included--

A fireball bounced off his back. He let out a roar of pain. Before Banshee could summon up another attack, Spike plucked the book out of the cubby and filled the gap with dragonfire, melting the message in the stone. If it contained any hint of the location of the final book, Banshee might find it, and then he’d have a repeat of this awful fight on his hands.

Sorry Starlight, he thought as he made his escape.

Comments

[Jake The Army Guy]

I'm a bit confused about Spike's size here. Earlier he had to suck in his belly to fit in a hole 40 yards wide, but here he's crawling through subway tunnels?

[resonance]

Why would a super heated wounded dragon be able to find spike deep in a metropolis metro?

And what’s up with this map

[Seizure Specialist]

11257869
They’re fucking big subway tunnels, duh.

[ibanix]

11257869
Starlight made really wide subways?