The spotlight is on our favorite purple dragon as he learns his own lessons on friendship.
When Spike decided that he was a special kind of dragon, he hadn't meant it literally. Now with a mysterious voice in his head, a growth spurt, and his friends, he's going to learn his own lessons about friendship, love, and the very essence of the world around him as he becomes the dragon he was always destined to become.
"What I'm saying, Spike, is that you were a total jerk to Fluttershy, and you should really go apologize."
Spike groaned loudly as the purple unicorn fussed at him, earning himself a glare from Celestia's prized student.. He had only come down from the bedroom to make a sandwich for himself and then Twilight had started on a rant. Personally, the young dragon didn't see what the big deal was about the whole thing. The residents of Ponyville had just tried to break a record for wingpower or something. He hadn't really cared about what was going on, as it had mostly involved the pegasi of the town and despite all the research, flexing of back muscles, and old fashioned wishing on every star he could see in the sky... well, he didn't have wings. It hadn't really applied to him until Twilight had decided to be her typical busybody self and tried to help Rainbow Dash get better results with scientific analysis and research. He had tagged along because it beat being stuck alone in the library re-re-re-re-reorganizing books. It didn't mean he was excited to be there, and while he might have said some things that could have been taken wrongly to Fluttershy, he had also made quips about half the pegasi there.
"She got over it though, Twilight! Fluttershy made the tornado happen and the day was saved. It's all good. Can I eat my sandwich now?" Without waiting for her response, the young purple dragon raised the food to his mouth. He was not, however, expecting a purple blast of energy to suddenly turn it to ashes in his hands.
"It is NOT 'all good', you made her run off and cry, Spike! You can stuff your face later. Go apologize. She's at home, last I checked. Now go apologize or you're grounded!"
Pouting a little bit over the loss of his sandwich, Spike sighed and walked out the door. - -
He loved Twilight, he really did, but gosh, she was a nag. The librarian of Ponyville was some weird combination of mother and sister to him. She had hatched him but the fairly small age gap (roughly five to six years) between the two kept things fairly sibling-like. If he had looked at it objectively, maybe he was just going though typical teenage grumpiness. Snark and sarcasm and dry wit were things just rolled off his little forked tongue. Maybe it was just a leftover from his unplanned jump to giant spikey purple dragon dinosaur thing (as Pinkie Pie had so eloquently described him), maybe it was...whatever. Fluttershy hadn't really done anything to him, nothing to warrant all of the mean comments he had made about her flying ability. He knew that when the situation called for it, Fluttershy was one of the quicker fliers in Ponyville. Why had he said that stuff? Sure, he could be insensitive a lot, but he had been raised with and by a socially reclusive super-bookworm. Twilight wasn't exactly perfect in that regard, and they had both come a long way since they had come to Ponyville. He had friends outside of Twilight and her family now, even if they were mostly the younger colts and fillies of the neighborhood. Sure, they weren't as close to him as Twilight and the most beautiful and talented fashonista in all of Equestria, a.k.a Rarity, but he had his own circles.
The point was, he was better than he used to be. And he was way better than those jerky older dragons. Familiar feelings of disgust and anger ran through him. He was glad that being raised by ponies had kept him from becoming like those guys. His pony family had kept an eye on him through his journey, and had even almost gotten into a fight to save him. Sure, he still had questions about his birth family... but he figured it would come in time. Really, the only thing he was worried about dragon-wise was whether or not he would become the GSPDDT (Pinkie Pie usually called his big dragon form this as a short-hand) again... and how compatible dragons and ponies were for...well...
Shaking his head to remove both the blush that had come to spread across his face and the slightly risque thoughts that had popped up in his head.
"Ugh. Focus, Spike," the young dragon muttered to himself.
The buildings had begun to taper off while Spike was walking, a sign he was getting further from the town center and closer to the forest. He usually zoned out like that while walking, preferring to think about things when he was by himself. The dragon made eye contact with a few of the residents walking by on the other side of the street, greeting them with a wave and a small smile that was returned. It had take a few months of doing as much charity work as he could, but his rampage had been forgiven by his fellow townspeople which was something he was quite grateful for.
To be honest, his little brush with magical puberty had been a lot of what inspired his involvement with the dragon migration. He was more than miffed at himself for getting so caught up trying to prove himself to the older teen dragons when he should have been trying to find an adult or elder dragon to learn from. Spike had almost no way to learn about dragons. He'd really only met one other dragon outside of the migration and it was the one who had nearly roasted him upon finding Spike in his cave at his horde. So, yeah, that guy was definitely not on his Hearth's Warming card list.
While he had now more than ever embraced his pony-raised heritage, it was the things like his greed-growth that made him curious about his kind. He didn't want to put anypony in danger like that again. Especially not Rarity or Twilight. Even Princess Celestia seemed to not know much about dragons, and she was ancient! There were no books, nothing. It was incredibly infuriating finding things out as they happened. Would he get wings? Would he stay this small forever if he avoided getting all greedy again? Was there anything else he needed to know that he couldn't even imagine? And seriously, would he get wings?
As his thoughts turned from his heritage to fantasies of flying through the air and being awesome and somehow making a burning heart-shaped fire in the sky to woo Rarity, he noticed he had gotten close to his destination, crossing the bridge and stream that lead to the outskirts of the Everfree forest and Fluttershy's cabin.
"Guess I better get this over with. Gah, what am I saying?" Spike popped himself in the back of the head, before shaking it rapidly. Where was all the negativity and deep thought coming from? Yeesh!
"Yeah, Fluttershy's a great mare. Cute and kind and almost as gorgeous as Rarity!" a voice sounded in his head.
Spike stopped in his tracks and his eyes bulged as he looked behind him, trying to find the source of the voice, only to be unsuccessful. There was nopony around, not anything but rocks and grass and the bridge. And if bridges were starting to talk, he was getting the Tartarus out of Ponyville and going back to Canterlot and hiding underneath Celestia's bed.
But the thing was... nopony was around. Maybe he had imagined it? It wasn't like he hadn't thought that a couple times. Eh, whatever. Voice in his head. Taking another moment to search the area again, just in case, he shrugged and started walking towards the house again. Within a few minutes, he stood at the door and was suddenly a little more nervous. Would she forgive him? He knew, deep down, that it was a silly thought, Fluttershy was essentially the ponification of kindness. Still, he had been really jerky.
"Super jerky, actually." The voice again! He turned around, trying to pinpoint the source and again, seeing nothing. He was about to call out to see if there was someone following him, when a terrified scream pierced the air from behind the cabin. It sounded like...
"Fluttershy?!" Spike imminently began to run as fast as his little legs could carry him. Fluttershy wasn't THAT prone to that kind of terrified sound. He didn't know what to expect as he rounded the corners to the back yard that led to the outskirts of Everfree...
But it sure wasn't Fluttershy trying to hold baby rabbits in midair while trying to fend off a pack of timberwolves.
Without thinking, the little dragon charged. He tackled the closest one, out of the five that were snapping at Fluttershy's hooves. Spike didn't weigh all that much, but timberwolves weren't exactly made of anything substantial. The one he had tackled had instantly shifted priorites to him, starting to twist and snap at the dragon. Thankfully, dragonhide was much tougher than pony or rabbit skin so it didn't really puncture his skin so much as give the cursed wooden beast a place to latch onto. However, it began snatch and pull on Spike's shoulder, making the little dragon shout in pain. Spike, out of instinct, started slamming his tiny fists into the monster. The shock of the blow made the wolf let go, and Spike rolled out of the way onto all fours. Spike scrambled up on his legs and began to move towards the forest, hoping to draw the beasts away from Fluttershy and the bunnies.
On the bright side, it worked. The pack of timberwolves began barking and howling as they left Fluttershy and began to chase him into the woods. However, he forgot, in his little spur of the moment plan, that he was closer to Tank than Rainbow Dash as far as landspeed went. The pack of wolves were on him in seconds, nipping at his heels as he willed his body to move faster. He turned his head and tried to breathe out a flame to distract the animals but he couldn't muster the concentration. To make matters worse, he wasn't in all that great of shape and he was quickly becoming winded. Darting to the left, his foot caught the root of a tree, and he began to tumble and roll. Now on the ground, he twisted around to look at the timberwolves, breathing heavily. Spike was terrified, barely able to think straight.
The timberwolves slowly approched him, growling, tensed and ready to pounce on their prey. Barely a few steps away, one hunched down and then everything...
Stopped.
"Do you want to live? Do you want the power to save yourself and to protect what matters? No matter the cost to yourself?"
He always liked it when somepony read to him. Celestia would read him stories, silly little things like "Green Oats and Hay" as he learned to speak and read. Twilight Sparkle, however, would tell him old stories about knights and monsters and saving the princess of a far away land. Those had certainly left an impact on him, and he would spend many hours as a young(er) dragon waving sticks at imaginary creatures, pretending to be a gallant warrior in the name of the Princess of the Sun. Stories stay with children, though. They're in the back of the minds of little colts and fillies, and inspire them to leave their own tales upon the world.
None of this was going through Spike's mind, however, because Spike was unconscious on the ground, surrounded by a ring of green flames. Also the timberwolves were nowhere in sight, so there was that.
Handy, that. --
"Wake up, my little dragon."
Said little dragon groggily stood, and was immediately shocked into alertness. This wasn't a forest floor. This wasn't a castle, a home, a library.
This was an endless white void, and that wasn't something one expects to see upon awakening.
"The heck? Man, I'm never eating fire rubies before bed ever again."
"Probably for the best. They give you terrible indigestion and even worse gas," a voice announced. It sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn't one he could place. "However, Spike, I must inform you that I am not a hallucination caused by your eating habits."
As the voice spoke, he felt his attention drawn ahead of him. A bizarre apparition began to form in front of him, and he could only blink in surprise. There was a ghost of a dragon staring him down with a serene smile, and he dumbly waved. It waved back, serenity turning to friendly cheer. The dragon was obviously see through, but he could see pale color coming from it. It was like he was looking at a photo negative, a mostly green dragon with purple spikes.
"Hi there!"
Spike scratched the back of his head, before waving again.
"Uh... hi?"
"Oh, Spike, don't look so dull. It's unbecoming of someone with your destiny!"
The purple reptilian could only raise a questioning eyebrow.
"Destiny?"
"Silly! Of course you have a destiny, that's not even a real question! Everyone has a destiny! No one knows what it's going to be though, and that is the fun part!"
A small part of him wondered how well this weird hallucination ghost thingy would get along with Pinkie Pie, before purging the thought as he realized the absurdity of this whole situation. But then, Pinkie and absurdity went hoof-in-hoof. In fact, he wouldn't put it past Pinkie to somehow be behind this.
"I mean, I appreciate the thought but I'm not Pinkie Pie, nor anything to do with her. This is all you, kid. I'm a part of you. Also, I just saved your life. Gosh, do you not realize how tasty baby dragons are to some creatures? Especially if they feed off magic. All the power of a dragon for the effort of a quick snack run. Things like timberwolves love that kind of thing."
"THE TIMBERWOLVES!"
It all came rushing back to Spike, who began to process everything in an attempt to figure out why he wasn't currently lunch.
"You're welcome, by the way. You weren't supposed to really tap into your power this way, but as a part of you, if you die, I... well, I won't die because I'm a ghost. Huh. What would happen?"it trailed off for a brief moment, before continuing,"ANYWAYS. Long story short, I made it to where we didn't die. I tapped into our latent magic, which, buddy let me tell you, there is A LOT, and you fought them off instinctively. Good job.
"W-what?"
"You, me, dragons... dragon? BESIDES THE POINT. Anyway, I'm...more or less a conscious manifestation of your magic power, and like I said, there's a lot. Dragons are super scary in a fight and, boy, oh boy, did we live up to that one. That thing you did with your tail? And that cool corkscrew flip! Oh, and your big finisher with the green fire! You do good. We do good... sorry, I don't mean to talk so much but I've gone YEARS with no one to talk to. Like, since you were running around chasing Cadence and Twilight and having an imaginary friend amounts of years."
"Wait, you're my imaginary friend?"
"Spike, Spike, Spike, you can't just label people, bro. I'm a whole lot of things. But I digress. You're in this state because I triggered your growth as a dragon forcefully. You came out fighting but it burned you out, and you're unconscious. So yeah. Anyway, good talk, but you should probably wake up. Your cute pegasus friend is probably worried sick."
Before he could object, Spike blinked, and the void was no more. --
"Wha-where am I?" As he came to, the dragon took in everything he could. No trees, no void, just normal ceiling. He breathed in- so many scents! Familiar but so much stronger than he had ever smelled before. Touch... he was under a blanket, on a bed. Firm mattress.
"Oh...Spike! You're awake!" a quiet voice interrupted his thoughts. A voice that was very familiar to him this time. What a relief.
Fluttershy hovered over to him. Now realizing he was in her bed, he sheepishly made to get out.
"No, sir! You get back down and rest, mister. You could be hurt!" It was a tone that, despite it coming from the shiest of ponies, left no room for argument. He didn't really have the energy for it, either. He was quite exhausted.
"Are the bunnies okay?"
"Oh, yes. Thank you for helping me keep them safe! You're very brave!" Fluttershy nodded with enthusiasm, to reinforce her point.
Spike sighed happily, "Good, good. Always glad to help...", as he dozed back off. --
"Dude, he's so much bigger now!"
"I have no idea where I'm going to get a bed for him this short notice"
"Y'don't reckon he's gonna turn into a huge monster like last time, d'ya?"
"Nah, he's been his usual Spikey self!"
"Oh, dear, I do hope he's okay."
"I couldn't find anything wrong with him, so I'm sure he'll be back to normal in no time!"
Spike began to awaken again, this time to many voices and a much more familiar site. This time, he was on Twilight's bed, and that meant he was home. Crowding around him were the six ponies who the world around them seem to revolve around. His friends.
"Hey guys...anyone catch the ID of the mountain that hit me? Yeesh." --
So, he filled them in. Over dinner, of course, because as soon as he was really aware of himself and the world around him, he realized that he was very hungry. Thankfully, the girls were always very generous with snacks when he did a good deed, and saving a family of rabbits in front of Fluttershy was an open invitation to his stomach to go to heaven. He kept the bit about his imaginary friend unleashing his magic quiet, because that was just a silly dream, and embellished the parts of the fight he could not recollect in the slightest.
"So you promise that you're not doing anything to make you greedy or anything?" Twilight asked. To be fair, she had every right to be cautious. Last time he put on size he had destroyed half of Ponyville single-handedly.
"Nope. Not that I'm aware. Unless I'm sleep walking or something," he said in between bites of various sandwiches and gems, "but it's definitely given me an appetite. I appreciate all the snacks!"
"Oh, it's not a problem, Spike. You did a very brave thing for Fluttershy today and it was the least we could do," Rarity spoke with a smile, causing the dragon to blush slightly.
The dinner continued with small talk and laughs. You could almost miss the fact that there was any tension, fear, and worry from the six ponies. --
As the next few days passed, Spike had found himself with too much energy to remain indoors. Debating between going to help Applejack on the farm or find something else, he eventually went back to Fluttershy's cottage. After all, he had never gotten around to apologizing for making fun of her flying, and his sense of honor wouldn't let that stand. A few questions here and there to Rarity and Pinkie had him with a half dozen of her favorite kind of cupcakes as an extra present to sweeten the apology, so to speak.
And this was how Spike found himself helping Fluttershy take care of her animal friends.
He had never really hung around the shy pegasus by himself before, but he found it to be quite the treat. He certainly learned a great deal more about the mare. For instance: Fluttershy didn't just take care of random animals. She was more or less running an animal shelter and rehabilitation clinic for the town. She made her money from mostly charity donations, though the funding from the government was nothing to sneeze at either, and she made quite a bit as well. It was a testament to her kindness that she chose instead to live in near poverty to make sure she had enough bits to care for any and every animal that came her way. Learning this made him feel even worse about his criticisms of her flying. Fluttershy was such a genuinely kind soul, and he felt like a total heel.
She appreciated the help. Spike, for all his flaws, was a quick study, and his new size came with more strength. Some of the more wild animals were a lot more hesitant to wrestle with a dragon, even a young one, than they were with a small pegasus, and the ones that did want to tango were put in submission by the duo.
In return, she helped him care for his own pet, the phoenix chick he named Peewee. It was good experience and it also got him used to his new body. Two months eventually passed. Twilight had been thrilled at the idea of him helping Fluttershy, as she appreciated anything that helped her ward become more responsible and mature. She had helped him organize a schedule that allowed him plenty of time to relax, but also kept him working with Rarity and herself along with his new duties with Fluttershy. Since Rarity was in a slow season of dress work, he had ample time to do all these things without overworking himself.
Two months, and things had really settled. Things were nice. Things were going really well, actually.
