• Published 27th Mar 2013
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Spike the Knight - vadram



Spikes fears the day Twilight will leave to fight for Equestria and never return.

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Chapter 78 Then it all came crashing down

Then it all came crashing down


Within the Everfree forest, built within a hollowed out tree was the house of a zebra. At the door of that house, a purple and green baby dragon stood, his hand clenched into a fist, mere moments away from knocking on the door of the house and announcing his presence to the sole inhabitant, Zecora.

After the conversation he had with Kirabo, Spike’s determination and will to continue were shaken to say the least. He knocked as softly and as quietly as he could, deep down hoping that Zecora would not hear his knock or wouldn’t be home so he could go back to the library, to his safe and peaceful, albeit boring, life, back to worrying about Twilight’s wellbeing.

After the third knock, the door came crashing down.

“That’s a fitting metaphor for my life,” Spike told himself, eyes fixed on the fallen door.

He lifted his eyes to see Zecora and Apple Bloom looking back at him. Zecora was sitting at a table and had a steaming cup of something in her hooves, while Apple Bloom was busy making sure the rope that kept a sleeping bag rolled up was properly tied.

Next to her were two more sleeping bags, both rolled up and tied with rope, one filly size saddlebag, one regular size one, and a brown backpack roughly the size of the smaller one completed the set. All three of them seemed filled to the brink.

A shovel, a small axe and a pickaxe were leaning against a nearby wall, and above them hung three cloaks; two small ones and one large one. One of the smaller ones and the larger one were winter cloaks, complete with wool lining. The other smaller cloak seemed to serve no other function that protect its wearer against the rain and possibly against wind. All three of them were earthish brown in color.

“Hiya Spike,” Apple Bloom greeted Spike after she made sure that the bedroll was properly fastened.

“Hey,” he replied, still looking around.

Compared to the last time he was here, the place looked spotless. Every potion, every vial, every exotic ingredients container seemed to be put back in its place. Spike looked around some more before finally setting his gaze upon Zecora, who looked completely normal.

“Zecora! You’ve grown!” Spike said in amazement. Zecora laughed, took a sip from her cup, and put it down before walking over to Spike.

“Haven’t I told you
What may happen if you grew,
Without me and Imamu there
To see you through?” she asked Spike with a fierce look in her eyes.

“Umm... sorry?” Spike replied. Apple Bloom looked confused as the two carried on their discussion.

“Until now you have been in luck,
But fate is one must not mock.
So I ask of you once more
To not change while alone.
Or I will break your every bone,
Just like you did to my door,” Zecora rhymed, her eyes falling upon the knocked-down door she stood on.

“Yes ma’am,” Spike instantly responded.

Zecora smiled and she turned around to return to her drink.

Spike stood in the doorway motionless for a while, letting Zecora’s words sink in.

“I will break your every bone, just like you did to my door,” her threat echoed through his mind. Surprisingly, the ”...like you did to my door,” part seemed to get more of his attention then the “I will break your every bone,” part.

“Umm... Zecora?” Spike called her name in order to get her attention, it worked. Zecora attention now shifted from her still steaming cup to Spike, one of her eyebrows lifted as if to ask “What?”

“I did not break your door. I just knocked,” Spike said now that Zecora was listening to him.

Her eyes shifted again, not to the door below, but at the yellow-coated pony that seemed to make herself busy by checking the bags again.

“Tsk, tsk, Apple Bloom,
I expected more from you.”

“I’ll get the hammer,” the filly said as she made her way towards the bed.

“So Zecora...” Spike started saying as he entered the room,“I just meet Kirabo and he told me that you ask that I receive some special training.”

“Yes we had a little chat,
And I did tell him that,
Because there is a task that I alone cannot face,
A thing that must be taken to some place,
A place that most consider a myth,
And you two are coming with.”

“So we are going on a quest to deliver something somewhere?” Spike asked.

Zecora responded by nodding.

Apple Bloom returned carrying a hammer and some nails and started working on fixing the door.

“So Kirabo is coming too?” he asked. Zecora shook her head from left to right.

“But he said that you both are going to train me.”

“There is more that one thing that you can train,
I will train your body, and he your brain.
I will have you while you are awake,
And be sure your body is going to ache.
While he, as you may have guessed,
He will have you while you rest,” Zecora said with an evil smile on her face.

“While I rest? That doesn't make any sense.”

Zecora sighted; she was hoping that Spike understood what she meant.

“Do you remember the cave you were in?
Do you remember what it had been?
Before the gold, the gems and even stone?
Have you forgotten about the nowhere zone?”

“I remember being confused. And the voices telling me something about ‘Before going somewhere, I first have to reach nowhere’, or something like that.”

“The place you have seen,
Is the place next to a dream.”

“Thought so, but it seemed so real. I mean it really hurt when the gold burned my hand. My dreams never hurt... never hurt my body... never caused me physical pain.”

“But they do,
You just chose not to.”

“Huh?”

“When you dream, your mind protects you
By choosing to forget the pain you knew.
Your body never feels the pain,
So you will still remain sane.
But the place you have been,
The place that burnt your skin,
First lets the memories set
So the brain could not just forget,
And that is why the memory of pain you kept,
Despite the fact that you slept.
So when I say you are going to be his when asleep you lie,
I had not wanted to be some wise guy,
I actually meant that you are going to train,
And only your mind is going to strain,
Not your physical body,
But it is still going to hurt, badly.”

“Great...” Spike said after taking a moment to understand what Zecora just said. “So while you train my body while I am awake, he trains my mind in some sort of dreamland.”

“Close, but he does not just train your mind,
For the dreamland can be designed
For all manner of training to occur,
All you learn from your dream to reality you can transfer.
He will build the dream as real as life
So if there you learn to fight with a knife,
You will be able to do it when you are awake,
Easy as a piece of cake. Or gutting a snake.”

“Aha... so if I can be strong there, I can be strong here too.”

“No. You only learn while you sleep,
If your body is still weak,
You cannot do the things you want to do,
That is why I’m training you.”

“Oh, so you are training my body so it can do the things Kirabo is teaching me to do while I sleep,” Spike said, finally understanding why he needed two teachers. Zecora agreed with his summary.

After Apple Bloom finished fixing the entrance to Zecora’s home, Spike, Zecora and Apple Bloom got their equipment and headed into the Everfree towards a place that only Zecora knew where they would deliver an object she would not tell them anything about.

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