In an alternate universe, Spike and Tirek battle for the fate of Equestria after the Golden Oaks library was destroyed. This sets off a turn of events that changes Spikes life forever.
Where did Spikes egg come from? Why did Celestia have his egg in the first place? Why was she using it in a test to find a pony she would eventually groom into a Princess?
In shock over the loss of the Golden oaks library and believing his friends are gone, Spike has something trigger within his little dragon body that he had never felt before....or had he?
The world seemed so quiet to Spike as he stared out towards the destruction before him.The Golden Oaks library, his home where some of his fondest memories had been made in his life, now lay utterly destroyed before him, a smoldering husk of what it once been. It's former shape and appearance still clung so vividly in his mind. He knew what it was meant to look like, and the fact that it was just burning ruins now bought up the worst kinds of dissonant feelings into his mind. He was such a tiny creature. He stood there, staring into the distance, his large, watering green eyes as he watched the rampaging Centaur tearing up the Everfree Forest far in the distance. The tiny dragon was in such a state of shock. His face was void of all expression as he kept his eyes in the general direction of the Centaurs carnage. Nothing resembling coherent thought was going through his mind. It was just a jumble of images and emotions that broiled under the surface of his blank expression.
His body shook, trembled at the world that presented itself to the broiling storm of his mind. The Princesses were locked in Tartarus, everything was on fire, and now his friends, the bearers of the elements of harmony and the last hope for Equestria were nowhere within his sight. Where they dead? Was he all alone now? Was nopony going to save Equestria? Was nopony going to stop Tirek and his rampage? What was going to happen to everyone now that all hope was lost? No more Twilight tucking him into bed? No more Rarity watch with doting eyes? To help with her sewing? No more Dash crashing into the Tree-house and knocking down all the books he had just organized?
Spike fell to his knees, his whole body shaking as he gripped his head, trying in vain to steady his rumbling storm of incoherent thoughts. He felt like he was going mad. His heart felt like it wanted to pound itself out of his chest. His adrenaline feuled into his bloodstream as his muscles began to flex. His mouth began to feel weird, like his teeth were suddenly becoming to large for the confines of his mouth. It made him snarl as he struggled to keep his stinging eyes closed. It was all simply too much for him to handle. He wanted to escape. He wanted to fade away into the din of his mind and let whatever this storm was take over his body.
He surrendered to the storm in his mind, this ever-growing force that saught to lay claim over his body. In doing so, he became calm. Calmer than he had ever been in his life. A type of calm that he had not known his body to ever achieve before, yet felt strangely familiar at the same time. It was the calm of a predator, ready to stalk and lay claim to its prey.
He stood up straight with a measure of confidence that the young dragon had never shown. When his eyes opened, his pupils contracted into razor-thin slits as they honed into its prey, the target that he wanted to rend in half and bury his teeth into. He walked forward, away from the tree as his eyes and head were locked in the direction of one thing and one thing only. Nothing else in the world mattered now. All he wanted to do was go after the prey that had dared to touch his hoard. What creature dared to defile a dragons lair? What creature was so lacking in self preservation that they would touch the things that belonged to a dragon? The thoughts alone made Spike's lips curl into a snarl, his eyes glow with an emerald flame that it hadn't had to summon since his hatching.
Tirek paid no attention to the little dragon walking towards him. He was far to invested in his high off of Equestrian magic to pay attention to oncoming threats. Even he could have noticed the little dragon at that moment he wouldn't have cared anyway. What was a baby to a god such as him?
The ground hissed in Spikes ears as his footsteps singed and burned the ground beneath him. His body was steaming with heat, making the air around him begin to waver and distort the light like over an open flame. His expression remained blank as his gaze stayed locked onto the Centaur in the distance. He paid no attention to the sparks of green fire that were erupting erratically all around him. Each step became imperceptibly larger than the last as Spike began to grow in size. He paid no attention to his limbs and torso that seemed to stretch and grow more defined with each step of this march that he took. His snarling mouth began to stretch from his face, and his eyes were glowing in greater intensity with the second until they illuminated his increasingly feral features. His morphing chest heaved in and out, undefined musculature taking shape across it as it kept expanding and stretching along with the rest of his body.
Spikes body was gaining mass like a runaway snowball, each step forward resulting in more mutations to his appearance. Once small and docile limbs began coiling with muscles that grew larger by the moment. His small and practiced claws honed for writing friendship letters stretched and thickened into bony claws that could rend through stone. His infant scales were falling off in droves, erupting in emerald flames before they hit the ground, only to be replaced with the armored scales of an adult, a warrior. That tiny pudgy thing of a tail was now whipping about behind him, coiled with musculature that knew exactly how to use its growing size to its advantage. Preternatural muscle memory formed into his body in ways that felt so utterly familiar to him, like an echo of a far off dream.
He started picking up the pace as he began to tower in height. Each footfall of his erupted into emerald flame, scarring the ground as his clawed toes gripped into the charring earth and launched him ever faster. The ground shook with each punishing slam of his hind legs, each one stronger than the last as his body grew thicker and larger than it had been the second before. Soon his back was coiled with musculature, Spiked scales jutting out of it all the way up his thicker and longer neck and head all the way down to his trunk-like tail. His body was swollen with muscles that were all diligently working to pick up the dragons pace. His arms and legs were even more of a blur than the rest of his body, pushing his body to achieve such speeds now that a cone of air was beginning to form around him much like it did with Rainbow Dash.
An enemy that had taken away his treasure. He had invaded his lair. It had dared touch his possessions, take away the things he cared about. A creature that touched a dragons hoard was not one with a sense of self preservation.
Dragons felt very greedy about their treasure.
Tirek was unaware of the world around him. He only knew that he wanted to blast more trees with his magic. All his planning, all his scheming, all the ideas about what he wanted to do with his newfound ability seemed to fall at the wayside as the euphoria filled his mind. He didn't even notice the frightfully massive and muscular dragon barreling towards him. Not until the Dragon was on top of him, throwing a hay-maker into the Centaurs face that moved with such speed and power behind it that a mach-cone formed over the closed fist.
That moment of collision seemed to draw on for a millennium to the surprised centaur. His eyes widened as his face distorted at the impact -- flecks of saliva leaving his mouth and his teeth dislodging from their designated spots. He even seemed to have enough time to wheel his eyes around to see the feral visage of an enormous royal-purple dragon glaring into him with his smoldering green eyes. Confusion filled his magically high mind as time snapped back for him, and the force of the punch caught up with the rest of his body. His hooves lost their footing from the immense kinetic assault that had just struck him, and his massive body careened through the air into the buckling trunks of several dozen trees. He didn't even have a chance to recover from the jarring attack on his face before he had the wind knocked out of him by a kick from a leg thicker than any tree in this forest. All the air in his formidable lungs left him as the cracked trees gave way and let him crash into the thick trunks of the trees behind them. He couldn't get a his legs to find purchase on the ground fast enough, and his awkwardly shaped body was having a hard time finding balance with these rapid assaults.
After tumbling several times across the forest, punching through trees with his battering ram of a body, he managed to finally grip into the ground with his hooves and grind himself into a halt. He flailed wildly at his fast approaching assailant whom he couldn't quite see through his blurred vision, but each swing of his arms and legs were deftly blocked by the purple behemoth. One of Tirek's swings became interlocked with the dragons arm, holding his limb hostage as the dragon balanced on his ever-expanding tail. The dragons thick purple legs moved in unison, pulling back before firing into the Centaurs captive chest like twin shots from a crossbow. The force behind the two simultaneous kicks and having the centaurs arm interlocked with his own managed to dislocate Tirek's shoulder with a resounding crack that echoed throughout the Everfree.
Tirek roared out in more indignation than pain. His twin horns flared up with magic to strike out at his attacker. Battle strategy was non-existent in this fight; this thing wanted to beat him into the ground and he was willing to oblige him in kind. Spike released Tireks arm and narrowly dodged out of point-blank range before the magic beam tore into him. Even with his increasing speed he still ended up getting clipped in the shoulder. Tirek hadn't fully recovered his senses yet, so he fired one beam after another at anything he thought was his enemy. He grunted out in pain as Spike took advantage of his confusion and tackled into him, sending the both of them flying with enough force to crash into a far off mountain and keep going till they had crashed straight through it.
As the two of them careened downwards from the hole in a mountain they had just made, Tirek finally was able to focus on the dragon that was clasping his massive claws around his throat. His partially swollen face broke into a grin even as they crashed into the forest below, skipping through the ground and trees like a smooth stone across the pond. Now that he saw who his adversary was, he relished the idea of fighting him. They finally skidded to halt next to a cliff face, Spike looming over top of him as he pulled his head back, filling his throat with emerald flames as he snarled down at the horned Centaur.
"Well I'll be damned.... after all this time, here you are..."
Emerald flames enveloped Tirek as he laughed. The forceful breath of the dragon drowned him out as they ate into the cliff-face and the ground beneath him, utterly melting and destroying anything it came in contact with save for Tirek himself. The centaur didn't pull away from the dragon breath, but let it wash over him as he continued his guttural belly laugh at the absurdity of the situation, not caring in the least as the ground and cliff he lay against became molten liquid.
Now that Tirek had his barings he was able to force himself up from his molten confines, even with the dragon attempting to choke the life out of him. He grinned through the assaulting flames and pushed Spike back, working himself onto his hooves despite the dragons best efforts. "Spike kept assaulting him with dragon-breath as he stepped back from his opponent, gearing up for another assault against the red monster. Tirek looked down at his dislocated arm with a smirk, reaching over with his other limb before effortlessly snapping it back into place. Triek's eyes turned to Spike as he looked down at his shoulder, yelling out with amusement at the feral creature before him.
"To think that Wench turned you into her lapdog!" His gruff voice roared out over the flame. "I am almost impressed you managed this much against me, Spike!"
The fires of Spikes attack were starting to waver as Tirek began to waltz towards him. While Spike was losing steam fast, finally slowing down in his growth that had turned him into this towering giant, Tirek was just beginning to warm up to this fight. Spike gritted his teeth as the centaur blurred towards him, only just managing to catch the Centaurs arms as the threatened to close aorund spike in a back breaking hold. His muscular body braced against the force Tirek was exerting, his maw finally closed in concentration as he tried to force Tirek back into the molten ground behind him. The centaur maneuvered body, slamming into Spike till they were resting their shoulders on each-other, trying to force each-other back, no ground given or taken as they continued to shove.
A shock-wave issued as they forcefully broke apart and collided again. This time they were trading blows. For each slamming fist that Spike landed against Tireks face and torso, Tirek responded with thrice the force he was given. While Spike managed little bruises and scrapes against the magically infused behemoth, each of Tireks blows rattled him to his core. Bones shattered and reformed as Spike continued to get assaulted, his brain growing more frenzied and feral as the pain required him to give into more animal instincts. Punches became racking claws, and his maw snapped out at Tireks throat, trying to rip it out with his teeth that could pierce diamonds. Tirek was that much faster and more agile than the dragon, making sure he stayed just out of reach of his snapping jaws while shrugging off the dragons arms and claws.
"I told you!" Tirek yelled into the dragon’s face as he delivered a blow to his stomach. "I told you that you weren't strong enough!"
Spike's feral mind was getting confused. Each blow he landed on. The few injuries on Tirek were disappearing as the fight raged on, and his wounds were getting slower and slower to heal as crimson fists crashed into his body from seemingly all sides. His body was failing him, it would not be long before it would stop healing all together and he would crumble under the force of the god-like Centaur.
Reserves of adrenaline gave Spike the strength and speed to grip Tireks seemingly indomitable arms, holding them up in the air as his body shook with the strain of it. Tirek grinned down at Spike, spitting blood into the dragons face as he kept talking.
"Still! I'm almost proud of my ..."
His words became suddenly cut off by a defiant head butt from the dragon into his smug mouth.
"Impudent little... "
Spike shook as his body was about to cave from another round of attacks from the Centaur. Everything seemed hopeless now. That power he felt surging through him was leaving his body now, and his form was slowly beginning to shrink and lose power. It was only with his partially swollen eye nearly rolling into his skull that he saw hope coming his way. In the distance, there was a bright light, and within its light were six ponies speeding towards them. His eyes widened as much as they could on his swollen disfigured face and his quaking mouth errupted into a childlike smile that seemed out of place on his towering body. His eyes were no longer glowing green and feral now that he saw his friends.
"Twilight...Rarity..." Spike rasped out in a deep guttural voice, tears of joy in his formally rage-filled eyes. Tirek gripped Spike by the throat, entirely unaware of the light in the distance. The centaur casually dragged the shrinking dragon across the forest, slamming the purple creatures head through trees without a care in the world. Now that he had broken the beast, he wanted to make his killing of the dragon as long and drawn out as he could. Spike's legs struggled in the air as they tried to find lodging on the ground, his body and strength was shrinking by the second, and he needed to do something to give the girls a chance to get a shot at Tirek. With a desperate maneuver, he whipped his gradually shrinking tail through Tireks leg, tripping him up at the expense of feeling his bones crack at the might of the Centaurs legs. Tirek tipped over and Spike whipped around to get a grip onto Tirek, using his last reserves of strength and the centaurs momentum to launch him through the air.
All went silent as he watched Tirek flipping through the air towards the bright light. Spike watched his friends floating there like angels. They delivered a powerful beam of rainbow-colored energy, enveloping Tirek and making him roar out in defeat. They had utterly ended him.
Spike was so happy. His body shrank all at once into a battered and broken baby form. He fell slowly, his eyes closing with a tearful smile on his face even as he was caught by the Elements of Harmony.
"My poor Spikey wikey!" Came the muffled sound of Rarity cradling his battered body in the sky with her forehooves.
"Rarity..." he said with a dopey grin as he passed out, "...I love y..."
The Dragon Lord had trespassers on his lands. These pests had infested his mountains and fields for months, bringing an endless winter with them. They were annoying, quarreling little creatures, and The Dragon Lord wanted to wipe their pestilence off the face of his lands. He had not made this exodus, established the largest organized dragon brood in existence, and amassed a hoard like nothing any dragon had ever dreamed of just to be driven off by a herd of pathetic mammals.
At least the Buffalo had known their place and made the appropriate treaties with him. They treated him the way a dragon was meant to be treated, so he honored their request for land in a gesture of goodwill. But these things...these ponies saw fit to claim even the sun and moon for themselves, and even change the climate to this abominable winter. Was it any wonder his subjects attacked their villages and drove them into hiding? Was it any wonder he made them soil the ground whenever he roared out?
Still, he could not simply wipe these pests out. The God Tree had seen to that. Even before he had established his kingdom here centuries ago, he had known that the Tree that resided in the Forest was not to be messed with. It had powers greater than even his old master or any other creature he had known, and it had its own silent agenda that it was pushing. An agenda that did not have Dragons in the equation, it seemed. His kind had been in these lands for centuries now without so much as an acknowledgement of their existence from the silent totem of power. The wayward ponies with Windigos nipping at their hooves, however, received preferential treatment.
The Tree had appointed new rulers among the ponies. Two young things with coats of white and deep blue respectively. They were hungry and still fighting off the residual cold of the Windigos who had left them. Whatever deal they had made with the Tree, it seemed to have been enough to drive off those frigid spirits. The tree had not even fought the mass of them, they just turned around and floated off towards the north, leaving their chilling winter in their wake. Some of his more full hearty subjects had flown up and tried to fight the Wendigos despite his warnings and orders to not approach them. They were snuffed of their life before they had even came close to their equine shapes. Their bodies had frozen so completely that they had shattered into pieces by the time they fell to the mountains below. Such powerful Spirits could easily exterminate the entirety of the dragon nation, yet they were driven off by the mere whim of a Twig. A twig with the power to topple gods as well as make them.
It was by this Tree's authority alone that these newly appointed leaders of the ponies had stridden into The Dragon Lord’s lands with heads held high. They had not earned their bravery as they strode onto his lands. The elements gifted to them by the Twig garunteed their victory, and that is the power they placed their trust in to win against the Dragon Lord. The tree had born fruits for the two of them it seemed. fruit that these two ponies dubbed "the Elements of Harmony."
As they marched towards his mountains, his subjects waged a one sided war against them. They made sweeping attacks, scorching the ground they walked with fire, rack their bodies with their claws, try to devour them with their teeth that could rend diamond, anything in their power to halt the advance of these cursed ponies. All of it was futile against the pair. The power of the God Tree shrugged off all comers in an impenetrable barrier. Their claws, teeth, and flames were not even slowing these two ponies down, nor did it distract them from continuing towards his domain. As long as those elements remained on their person, they were the harbingers of the Trees will, and now the tree had come to finally strike him down through its new subjects. The only advantage The Dragon Lord had over the Tree was mobility, and now it had devised a way to weave its altruistic power towards his new slaves. It saw no grey. It saw no gradients of morality. All it knew were absolutes. It had decided that it was good, and the Dragon Lord was evil, and it would bring his end upon the rising of the morning sun.
The sun that the White One now could raise into the sky with her own will.
The Dragon Lord summoned a flame in his right claw and used the smoke to project a visual of the two ponies while he soaked his scales in the royal Volcano. The black smoke churned in the air from his palm and began to assume colored shapes, until it fully manifested into the image of the two ponies marching through the snow, shrugging off every assault that his royal guards threw at them. They didn't even flinch at the torrents of flame that cascade over Harmony's shields. They put too much faith in the gifts given to them. They had not earned this power, they were given it because of their pact with the Twig. It infuriated him to no end that these undeserving mammals may in fact lay claim over his domain and the lands beyond simply because they had bargained with something they didn't even understand. It would be a cheap victory if they did win this day, hollow in comparison to the trials and tribulations he and his kin had gone through to forge this independent nation.
The thick clouds the Windigos had brought began cracking in the night sky. The unholy clouds that the ponies had brought with them finally seemed to have run out of their endless volley of snow and hail and finally was leaving his lands. Though he wanted this endless blizzard to end, he could not help but feel like this was a very ominous sign. How much power was really within those seemingly limitless depths of that Tree?
He watched the two younglings march through the snow in the distance. They looked like specks barely taller than the snow they walked through. He shifted the visual into a closer perspective, but could only get so close without getting interference. The Tree wanted him to watch, but it didn't want him to get too close. His brood continued pelting them with crimson flame, though it proved more pointless the more they kept trying. Each stream of flame bounced off an imperceptible field, melting away the snow instead of the mares. He gritted his teeth at the power emanating from the Tree's fruit. It was taunting him with just how ineffectual his forces were against little slivers of his power. It was toying with his empire, silently challenging him to come out to meet these ponies head on.
The Dragon Lord raised tilted his massive head towards the sky from within his volcano and let out a crimson burst of flame into the sky, signalling to his forces to fall back from the two ponies. If they wished to invade his lands he would oblige them with a proper welcome. He stood up to his full height from the pit of lava, letting the molten rock drip off of his scales as he began to focus his mind to his armory far below the depths of the mountains foundations. His mind visualized his suit of armor, forged of tens of thousands of tons of blackened metal that were form-fitted for his titanic physique. Emerald flame surrounded his body, summoning forth the familiar segments of his ancient plate-mail as it magically clasped onto his limbs and torso. It was meticulously forged by his own claws during the early days of his kingdom, emblazoned with runes of magic that were lost to all but a handful of beings on the planet.
The armor was designed to do one thing. Augment his already considerable power. It was a glyph he learned from the Umbrum during his quest for power those centuries ago. It was one of the most useful symbols of power that he had ever learned, and it was something that worked better the more the effect was layered. It enabled him to perform powerful magic with a fraction of the effort it took to cast it, and cast far more powerful magic than he was capable of without it. Even with so much augmentation added to him, he still knew deep down that he was no match for these elements that these two-winged ponies were bringing to him.
With his mind focused on his targets, he reached into the depths of his mountains to his armory once again, this time to his defense systems that he had created just for this day. He knew this would ultimately be futile, but he had to try to save his kingdom. Without his guidance, he feared that the Dragons would not be able to handle the vacuum of power and become a nomadic race that ended up getting them taken over by the Centaurs and Gargoyles all those centuries ago. He could not let them lose the power they had earned and fade away into history as some scary beasts the ponies spoke of, instead of a noble, renowned civilization.
The two ponies reacted as the sky seem to tear open around them with rifts of green flame. Erupting from these patches of fire came arrows from his armory that were the size of buildings. They two ponies maneuvered around the onslaught of massive arrows that stabbed into the ground and the mountain as he tried to hone in on their location. The Elements aided their movements, guiding each and every action they took while making it seem like it was their instincts that won the day. He summoned a spear into his hand and stabbed through a flaming tear he created inside his volcano, narrowly missing the two mares at the end of the spear hundreds of miles away from where it started. He hated having to do battle with such insignificant creatures without being in same location as them, but he knew the second he showed himself to the Elements, no amount of magic would be able to save him from their power. Though he held powers on par with gods and goddesses, he was nothing against the might of the Tree.
A claymore still hot from the forge materialized in his hand and he struck down at a flaming rift he created. On the Princesses’ end, a towering wall of sharpened metal that was glowing from the intensity of its own heat sliced into the ground below them, evaporating the snow and scarring the ground with its searing heat. The wind from the attack made them lose control of their flight and they toppled through the air like leaves in an autumn breeze. In their panic, they lost their hold on the Elements and they fell to the earth.
His chance had come. The massive dragon enveloped himself in his own emerald flames, using his natural magic to materialize himself to their location and end this once and for all.
The princesses gawked as the sky itself seemed to catch on fire. It was like a cloud of emerald flame, and the silhouette of a truly terrifying titan of a dragon crashed into the earth before them, stabbing the ground with his massive claymore on impact.
The Dragon Lord had made himself known.
Never before had any pony seen a creature big enough to rival a mountain in stature, especially not one clad in plates of armor wielding a wall of forged black metal that, to him, was a two-handed sword.
There was a reason the dragons followed the Lord. His greed had made him strong and powerful, he had brought unity to their species, and without him they would revert back to the roaming disorganized mass they had been before he met them. He brought an armored boot down, crushing the Elements and sending the two ponies tumbling backwards with the force of the blow.
He had won.
"You dare come into my lands, wielding trinkets you barely understand and believe yourself superior to my kin?! You dare threaten my rule, on behalf of a twig that help fix a problem your kind started!" His voice rumbled like thunder above them. Each syllable shook the land as surely as any of his footfalls.
They got to their hooves and flew up into the air, each of them no bigger than the gap between one of his teeth.
"Your reign is over" The white one shouted. He couldn't help but laugh. These ponies thought so highly of themselves, especially these two in particular. They had horns and wings, which apparently was significant for their species. His smoldering emerald eyes locked onto them as he spoke out in a booming voice.
"Did you not see that I smashed your so called Elements?! You're finished! You could have agreed to my terms and avoided all of this, but you turn towards the Twig instead!"
The broken pieces of the elements, looking like flecks of dust, surrounded them.
"Spike, you need to wake up!" The blue one said.
He became confused....what was he doing? Where was he? Why was he so tall? Why was he fighting the princesses?
He opened his maw to finish them off.
No no he didn't want to do that. Celestia and Luna were his friends.
"Spike, thou art having a nightmare, forget this troubling fantasy and return to your friends!"
This...was this a dream? It felt so real, though....like he had....
"AWAKEN, SPIKE!" The Elements fired at his body as the sun rose, and his vision grew black.
---
Spike snapped awake. He instantly regretted lurching in his bed as his whole body screamed at him in protest. He flopped back down on the bed with his vision swimming. He didn't know for certain, but he had a feeling he had broken nearly every major bone in his body. Whatever had been flooding his brain in his dreams was wafting away, as all dreams tend to do. It didn't feel like a particularly good dream, though. It had this unpleasant sensation he would get when he forgot to do something on one of Twilight's lists.
"Spike, you're awake!" Twilight called out as she sped over to his side and patted his head. She looked so happy to see him and he felt the same way as he gave a weak smile in return. She gave his body a tentative hug, trying to be as gentle as possible to not cause him any undue pain.
"Twilight, I'm so happy you are okay!" Spike gripped her neck in a tight hug, ignoring the pain to show his affection towards her. He had thought he had lost everything.
"I'm the one who supposed to be saying that to you! You've been out for three whole days after...whatever happened between you and Tirek. Speaking of which..."
She rapped him over the noggin with her hoof, causing him to yelp before hugging him again.
"What was that for?" he asked in slight indignation
"It was for making me worry while you were all beaten up like that. You need to promise me you'll never do anything like that again. I thought you were going to..." her voice hitched on the last part of the sentence
"I...don't really know what happened Twilight, it just sorta... happened. I was next to the library and the next thing I know I was seeing you guys with weird manes flying in the air and I was getting my tail handed to me by Tirek. I don't even know how I got so big..."
"Heh...did they really look that weird? Rarity was complaining about it the other day." Twilight said ruefully.
"Twilight, it was a fashion disaster, whatever you did to get that kind of power it came at a price of looking completely tacky."
"Shut up!" Twilight said in mock rage, but she couldn't fight the grin playing on her face at the same time.
He pulled back from her, his eyes glinting as he looked from right to left "Did...did I look cool?"
She gave a face that was equal parts amused and annoyed and ran a hoof over his head roughly. "Of course that's what you would ask!"
"Well?"
She nodded, her smirk growing as he tried to celebrate his victory before wincing and remembering his body was made of bruises and covered in bandages.
"Lay back down, slugger, you need to rest. Apparently dragons heal from these kinds of injuries fairly quickly because you were looking terrible three days ago."
"So I was really out for three days? That's nuts..." he blinked, just registering that they were inside. Where this 'inside' was was entirely lost on him though.
"Where are we?"
"Oh...this," She waved a hoof at the towering walls of purple crystal "...Is our new castle. Apparently after the Tree of Harmony gave us the power to take down Tirek it decided to give me a brand new castle as well. You should've seen it -- it just kind of got planted and popped out of the ground. "
"Wow."
"Why do you look mad all of a sudden, Spike?"
"I do?" he adjusted his apparently sour expression into one of confusion.
"Maybe it's just the injuries."
Twilight accepted that answer and gave him a kiss on the forehead "Get some sleep, I want my number one assistant back in tip top shape ASAP!"
"I've been sleeping for three days, though!"
~~~
Little did either of them know they had someone listening in on them.
Perched atop a cloud high above them, Luna looked down upon the castle with a deeply troubled expression. This would need to be rectified, and soon -- before everything they had worked for fell to ruin.
Spike hadn’t been sleeping well lately. He would wake up from a nightmare with a start in his new room nearly every night after his fight with Tirek, yet he would never remember what the dreams were really about. There were flashes of images if he tried to think about it hard enough, but none of them really made any sense. His days were spent trying to help Twilight get used to their new castle. She had no idea what to do with it all.
The young dragon didn't really care for it either, as his chores had increased many times over. He used to think taking care of Golden Oaks was a lot of work, but it was like a walk in the park by comparison to an entire castle. Twilight only used a minuscule fraction of the rooms in the expansive building, as she was reluctant to go into the upper floors or to see how far the roots of the basement of the Castle tree went below the earth. If it wasn't the throne room, the library or the entrance hallway the princess really didn't want anything to do with it. That didn't stop him from hauling a mop and bucket through its hallways and hard floored rooms and cleaning the place top to bottom. Unlike the library, this place felt cold and hard and more than a little unwelcoming. Even Celestia's castle, while even larger by comparison, had felt more hospitable than the aura he got off of this place.
Dusting, sweeping, mopping, cleaning, his routine had returned with a vengeance after his wounds had healed. Still, Twilight had given him a day off to talk sports with Big Mac, that was nice of her.
Yet why did that feel like such a...hollow reward? It wasn't until he moved to Ponyville that he had received a present for his birthday from Twilight that wasn't a book. Just one book, no more, no less. Of course when he did get more he ended up terrorizing the town as a giant dragon stealing everything he could get his hands on. Ponies still gave him sidelong glances over that incident, especially after he had somehow done it again against Tirek.
"To think that Wench had turned you into her Lapdog!"
He was starting to remember bits and pieces of that fight. He tried to mimic the moves he used against the centaur, but they were pale imitations to what he had accomplished in that massive form. The punches he threw in the air did not have the power behind them that those coiled limbs had had. His claws were small, and his limbs were stumpy and clumsy. He was just a baby dragon to get smacked with doors and to do chores for a pony princess. He was just supposed to wear an apron and serve as a pincushion for...
He looked at the dirty water of the mop bucket and saw his face contorted in anger so alien compared to what he was used to seeing it caused him to topple backwards.
What was wrong with him? He had never had a problem with any of this. Ever since he could remember he had lived with and served under Twilight and the Princesses. He was happy to deliver letters from Celestia, even when she sent so many that it incapacitated him and gave him terrible stomach cramps.
But she had those books...those books that she had made for Sunset Shimmer that did exactly the same thing without forcing him to be a living mailbox. Books she had made before Twilight had even become her student.
He looked up in surprise to see the bucket of water boiling and steaming before calming down again.
"I TOLD YOU!" Tirek yelled into the dragon's face as he delivered a blow to his stomach, "I TOLD YOU YOU WEREN'T STRONG ENOUGH!" No, he hadn’t. He had never said that in the entire fight. He was talking to him like he...like he knew him. Why had Tirek said that? It didn't make any sense. It gave Spike a headache just trying to think about it.
"I am almost impressed that you managed this much against me, Spike!"
Spike's eyes dilated as he let go of his mop, sitting on the ground with confusion running through his brain. He DID know Spike. That was impossible though, Tirek had been in Tartarus for over a thousand years before Spike was even hatched. All he had ever known was living with Twilight and the princesses. He even considered himself a pony in some respects, for the dragons he had met acted nothing like his friends. They were disorganized and rude. They were undisciplined and bullies.
He remembered being in the trench with his friends. They were watching the dragon migration. Even Rainbow Dash admitted they seemed fierce and formidable...
He had a trolley of cupcakes and handed one of them to Pinkie Pie, saying, "Yeah, us dragons are not a force to be messed with." Rainbow Dash had laughed at him.
"Yeah right Spike, that's one of the scariest aprons I've ever seen..."
The bucket exploded, causing Spike to jump off the floor. The water had entirely evaporated and the wood the bucket was made out of was smoldering in green flame. He had taken on Tirek. He had gone toe to hoof against something they had had to run to the Tree of Harmony for help to defeat, and yet here he was...
No... no he shouldn't be mad. He loved his friends...
"What's wrong with wearing an apron? You won't be laughing when you spill blueberries all over your scales."
Dear Celestia, how pathetic had he sounded to them?
"Isn't he adorable when he waddles off in anger?" Rarity had commented when he had climbed out of the trench with them...
He needed some air. He needed to get whatever this was under control.
Where did he come from? Where did his egg come from?
"For the last time, Spike, you were given to me as an egg! I don't know who found you or where they found you."
And yet she never bothered to ask either. What were they hiding from him? What did they not want him to know?
"Spike? Where are you off too?"
"I'm going out Twilight, I’ll be back later."
"No you are not, not if you want to have that day with Big Mac this weekend," Twilight said in an authoritative tone. Spike stopped in his tracks. He...he didn't care about hoofball anymore. Why did any of this matter to him? Why was he taking orders from a pony? He was a Dragon! He was supposed to be feared and respected not given an apron with a heart on it and perform in plays for these ...things...
"Spike...Spike, what's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?" Concern filled her voice as Spike looked over his shoulder at her. He was about to say something when fire involuntarily shot out of his mouth, revealing a blank letter. Then another one came out. More spilled out of him, one after another, making his whole body ache at the exertion. Celestia was sending a deluge of parchments, more than she had ever had before, and it was causing him to double over in pain, mentally begging for it to stop.
"What is going on?!" Twilight was alarmed at the blank sheets of parchment piling up and her assistant doubling over on the ground. A bright light flashed, revealing Celestia and Luna with serious looks on their face.
"Twilight, I need you to come with me.w We have things we need to discuss...things that are long overdue, it seems..." Spike tried to get to his feet but his body was too weak to move. Shackles appeared, clasping onto his wrists and ankles.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO SPIKE?!" Twilight yelled at the two of them. Celestia went over to her and stroked her cheek with her hoof.
"Twilight...you don't have all the information, I need you to trust me that this is for Spike’s and Equestria's own good, everything will be back to normal soon enough."
"I'm not going anywhere until you explain to me why MY DRAGON is shackled and nearly knocked out on the floor!"
Her dragon...
Her dragon...
Spike was her dragon...
Spike started to laugh. It was a weak laugh, strained from the overuse of Celestia's incapacitating magic, yet it sounded totally foreign to the child-like giggles he usually made. This was a dry laugh of someone who was incredibly jaded and...old.
"I must say, Celestia...Out of all the ways you took down your enemies...I dare say mine was the most humiliating."
"Spike? What's wrong with your voice?" Twilight didn't like how gruff it sounded at all. This wasn't her number one assistant that she had grownup with.
"You took down Sombra, whose BETRAYAL had given him the power to subjugate the Crystal Empire, by sealing him in the icy depths of that land with the powers of the Elements of Harmony."
Spike shakily got to his feet, doubled over by the chains that connected his wrists to his ankles.
"...you took down Discord, who was living out his purpose as the spirit of CHAOS, sealing him in stone by the Elements of Harmony."
Spike didn't know why he was saying any of this. The words were just spilling out of his mouth like it was from another being entirely. Twilight's eyes were watering as she shook her head in disbelief. What was wrong with him? Why was he saying these things? It didn't make sense to her at all.
"You took down Tirek, whose CRUELTY had driven him to try and subjugate the entire planet, only to be sealed in Tartarus by the Elements of Harmony..."
"You even took down your own Sister, whose ENVY had driven her to try and bring the whole world in eternal night in order to be revered by her subjects. You sealed her on the moon before the Twig took the Elements of Harmony away from you. It must have reprimanded you for being so...disharmonious with another..." He laughed dryly at that, causing Luna's face to grow stony and turn away from the seemingly possessed Spike.
Spike had no control over his body anymore — something much older than him was moving his mouth and making him stare defiantly into Celestia's eyes. The little Dragon wanted to stop; he didn't like what was happening at all. It scared him how enraged he was, how he couldn't stop any of this from coming out. He may have been shackled, but he felt like he was trapped inside his own body at this moment. "And then there was me, The first one you defeated before all the others. I, whose GREED had unified an entire species and ushered in an a new age for Dragon kind...Only to be sealed inside an EGG for ONE THOUSAND YEARS by the Elements of Harmony, TO BE USED AS SOME KIND OF OBJECT FOR YOUR LITTLE TEST..." Celestia stood tall, looking down at Spike’s glowing eyes and hissing tongue
"...What’s worse, you made me believe I was a willing participant in all this... in order to what? Have an ally? Use me as some kind of weapon once I learned to behave like a good little pony, to be your LAPDOG?! I'M TRAPPED INSIDE THE MIND OF THIS PATHETIC INFANT, MADE TO WATCH MY LEGACY TURN INTO LUSTING AFTER ONE OF YOUR WRETCHED PESTS AND WONDERING WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE IF I WERE ONE OF YOU...PONIES."
Whatever was controlling his body spat at the ground at the Princesses hoof, he wanted to curl up in a ball with the onslaught of vitriolic words spilling out of his own mouth. " I WAS A GOD BEFORE YOU STRUCK ME DOWN, DAMN YOU!"
"Enough, Dragon...sleep," Luna intoned, putting a tendril of magic to the dragon's forehead, making his eyes snap to normal before rolling into the back of his head and flopping onto the ground.
" Princess C...Celestia...what was Spike...was...is that... is that why you never told..."
"Please, Twilight...come with me...I will explain everything."
Spike was floating in a black void. He had no idea where he was and that frightened him. He felt something there with him, something that had been slumbering for a long time and had awoken with rage in its heart.
"T...Twilight?" he called out. It echoed feebly into the endless darkness. "Rarity? Rainbow Dash? Anyone?"
Two large green lights fired off behind him. He swiveled around to see the face of a massive Dragon clad in black armor staring right at his tiny form. Those emerald eyes that broiled with magical flame seemed so foreign and yet so familiar to him. He was so small in comparison to this titan that he wouldn't even suffice as a snack to it. It could eat him and get him stuck in his teeth and would be none the wiser.
"Please don't hurt me!" Spike yelped, shielding himself with his arms and curling his tail between his legs.
"What have they done to me..." the voice of the elder dragon rumbled. Spike peered over his arms and saw the rage and sadness in his eyes were not really directed at him.
"Y...you're me...."
"I am The Dragon Lord....you are a wretched slave who kisses the hooves of his pony masters."
Spike's cheeks burned at that, he screwed up the courage to yell at his elder counterpart, "Shut up! You don't know me!"
"YOU DO NOT KNOW YOURSELF!" The Dragon Lord roared out, causing Spike to yelp in fright. He wanted to go home and forget about all this. He wanted to curl into a ball and make this giant go away. He jumped in fear as he felt his body taken into the massive claw. The palm of his hand could have flattened all of Ponyville. The Dragon Lord brought the shivering baby close to his face, making Spike’s heart nearly thump out of his chest as tried to fathom how something so large could possibly exist.
"What happened to me is entirely unnatural. No living thing should be forced into their egg twice in one lifetime. You are the result, a hollow shell of my former glory -- groomed to believe yourself inferior to ponies and serve under them without a second thought. You never questioned your place in their society once, you just did what you were told and ate out of their hooves like you were some pet. They even turned you into a dog and you felt no shame for it."
Tears rolled down Spike's cheeks as he trembled under the crashing voice of The Dragon Lord "N...no...you are wrong...Twilight loves me..." The behemoths face contorted in rage as his eyes blazed even brighter "SHE LOVES YOU AS ONE LOVES A DUMB ANIMAL. YOU ARE NOT HER EQUAL, YOU ARE HER INFERIOR. WE'VE ALREADY BEEN THE INFERIOR TO ONE MAMMAL IN ONE LIFETIME. ONE IS ENOUGH!"
"She isn't like Tirek! She is a good pony!"
"So its alright to be a slave as long as the master gives you a hug and tells you she cares about you every now and then? Is that what my reincarnation is feeding me as an answer right now?"
"I'M NOT A SLAVE!"
They stared at each other a moment, watery childish eyes glaring into ancient experienced orbs.
"What is your greatest fear?"
"W...What?"
"The Crystal Empire, you rushed down after Twilight who had been staring at a door. A door that King Sombra created to reveal the greatest fear in one's heart. Guess which one came from yours..."
"B...Be quiet..."
A spark of flame erupted next to the little dragon on that palm, and it's smoke revealed the sight of Spike standing outside of Golden Oaks Library, his bed and his meager collection of belongings tossed outside the door. Twilight was still a Unicorn and pointing a hoof away from her home.
"It's time for you to leave Spike." The vision of Twilight said.
"What? But I don't want to go!" The little dragon pleaded in the apparition. Spike wanted to look away from what The Dragon Lord was showing him. It still hurt to think about that vision the dark magic had pulled out of him.
"I don't need you anymore, you are useless to me now. Leave my sight and never come back." With that Twilight closed the door. The Spike in the vision pounded on the door before him pitifully, even as he heard the door lock.
"Please, Twilight! Don't leave me!"
Spike angrily waved his arms through the smoke and stomped out the green fire, he didn't want to see that ever again. The Dragon Lord looked on impassively as Spike nearly started to bawl.
"You tell me you are not a slave, and yet you fear Twilight having no use for you anymore."
"She said that would never happen!"
The massive dragon laughed. "To think I could be made to be so gullible... I am almost glad Tirek was my first master, If he had coddled me as this Twilight has I may never have had became the Dragon I was. You make me sick with how pathetic you are."
"What makes you so much better than me!? The Princesses and Twilight have been nothing but good to me..."
"You want to know my tale then....Well considering your oh so 'good' Princesses have locked our minds in this state until they figure out what to do with us I say we have time..."
"They...what?" ----------- Spike tossed and turned in his shackles as he fitfully slept in the cage. Twilight’s nostrils flared as she thought about the way he was being handled. What right did they have to treat her Spike like that? She had reluctantly left that cage deep below the castle in order to talk to the Princesses in the throne room. Never before had she wanted to strike out at them as much as she did in this situation.
"Why was Spike saying those things to you, princess? Why is he in a cage like that? What is going on?!" Celestia breathed deeply and hovered over a pot of tea and some cups.
Twilight smashed it with her hoof, "NO! ANSWER ME NOW! THIS ISN'T A VISIT, I WANT TO KNOW WHY MY DRAGON IS LOCKED UP DOWN THERE! HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!"
"Calm yourself, Twilight, use that breathing technique Princess Cadence taught you. You need to have a level head as a Princess of Equestria."
They stood there in silence over the broken porcelain and spilled tea until Twilight relinquished and went through the calming motions. Celestia settled down on her throne and Luna sat at her side. The Princess of the sun seemed to need to take a calming breath of her own as she looked down at her former student.
"You recall the tale of Hearth’s Warming I trust. Your friends and yourself performed the play depicting it, after all."
"Yes...but what does this have to do with Spike?"
"Hearth's Warming is the story we tell to the public. It is a...romanticized version of the events that took place. In truth the transition from the warring tribes to a unified race of ponies was not without its struggles. We owe much to The Tree of Harmony in this regard."
Twilight said nothing, but there was something that was starting to click in her mind.
"The Tree of Harmony...it's a very intelligent and powerful being. It had...It had been the real reason the Windigos left us alone. Without it we would surely have become extinct."
"I thought Friendship did it." Twilight said with unease in her voice.
"That isn't a lie, per se.... The Tree of Harmony's goal is to bring unity to the world. It chose us as the arbiters of this mission. It wanted to prove that even an unrepentant, self-destructive species like ours could be made to follow the tenets of its beliefs. That’s why it bestowed cutie marks onto our race."
"Wait... we didn't have cutie marks before Equestria...and again what does this have to do with Spike?"
"Patience, young one." Luna said in a placating tone.
"The cutie marks we have now are different from anything we had before. They were meaningless marks before this. These marks...encourage ponies to follow what they are good at and behave harmoniously. Its effects are non compulsory, and you can behave in a disharmonious manner, but that has side effects.
"Side effects that strengthen if you are particularly close and trusted by the Tree of Harmony." Luna added, looking away from the two of them.
Twilight tried to pay attention to what they were saying but her patience was growing thin. Celestia saw this.
"The Tree made an offer to the two of us, the last remaining Alicorns among all of ponykind. It offered us the power to unify our kind, to defend them against any enemy that may come our way, to bring Harmony to the place we would call home...that we would call Equestria." She breathed in and out again. "It's only stipulation beyond obedience to its commands when it gave them was...The Dragon Lord had to be defeated."
"Who?" Twilight asked with a look of confusion on her face. Before they could answer however one of the last things the possessed Spike had yelled at Celestia rang back into her mind.
" I WAS A GOD BEFORE YOU STRUCK ME DOWN, DAMN YOU!"
"Spike...The Dragon Lord was Spike..." she said putting the pieces together. "You... you attacked Spike with the Elements of Harmony in order to found Equestria...and ponies only behave the way they do today because it changed our cutie marks to be...behavioral control mechanisms of some kind?" Disbelief and incredulity filled her voice as she said this. She wanted to be corrected. To be told that she had heard them wrong and that there was a much simpler explanation.
"His brood were terrorizing ponies Twilight, They were scorching our villages and making us hide in caves."
"Were they here first?"
"Twilight..."
"Were they here first!? Were we invading their... Princess... What did you do to Spike?"
"We kept his egg safe. The tree told me, after it had taken the Elements away from us, that the next bearers of the Elements would appear on the same day his egg hatches, and that baby would go to the one who opens the egg. It told me that the one who opens the egg would become the leader of its next arbiters...that castle it gave you is a sign that it's ready to give you orders directly instead of through me."
"Are...are you not even the rulers of Equestria? Do you just follow what it says?"
"Twilight...There is a reason we are called Princesses and not Queens. The Tree has always had dominion over these lands."
Twilight felt something on her flank. She turned to see her cutie mark glowing and pulsating. She had wondered after the Tree had given her and her friends the power to topple Tirek if there would be any changes to her body. This was not what she had been expecting.
"You are its chosen now, and it is calling you to your castle, most likely with your friends."
She felt her skin crawl. Was it...was it listening to them right now? Was its magic just under her skin, influencing her behavior? How much control did it have over her? Twilight's eyes widened in panic as pieces began to fit together.
She had been so happy that day. The last day she had been a unicorn. It had seemed like a perfect day until she realized Rarity had the wrong cutie mark. The fashionista had been making patterns with clouds in the sky because she had Rainbow Dash's cutie mark.
She believed she always had Rainbow Dash's cutie mark. It wasn't just her. They all believed Rainbow Dash lived in Fluttershy's cottage. They believed she had always lived there, taking care of animals. All of Ponyville walked around like nothing had changed, because their minds had been altered to believe that was exactly the case.
"It's what my cutie mark is telling me..."
Twilight began to panic as the vibrations and pulsations of her cutie mark became all the more apparent. Their minds had all been altered based on their cutie marks, it just wasn't apparent until they had had switched them around.
"Twilight, I need you to calm down" Celestia said slowly. Twilight's legs were shaking as more pieces were coming together.
Rarity had told her that one day her horn started glowing and dragged her to a giant rock, where she saw the rainboom Rainbow Dash made. Did...Did the Tree of Harmony plan that? Did it...did it just have its magic in everypony, telling them where to be without anypony even being aware of what was happening? What was going on?
"G...Give me Spike back..."
"Twilight...we have already had so many of our enemies return from one thousand years ago. We don't want to have force you to turn on Spike if he becomes an enemy of ponies once again.'
"WE ARE UNDER THE CONTROL OF SOME KIND OF THING AND YOU WANT ME TO BE OKAY ABOUT SPIKE BEING IN SOME CAGE IN CANTERLOT RIGHT NOW? WHAT IS GOING ON? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME ANY OF THIS?"
"This is the price we paid for the life we live today. We have never had a more peaceful time in history than we had at this moment. You have to understand—"
"NO!" Twilight retched out of her throat, tears flooding down her cheeks. "What kind of sick twisted thing is this? Is this what Harmony is supposed to be?" ----
Spike found himself in a strange place with a chain around his throat. There was a Minotaur yanking him by that chain out in front of a red Centaur that sat on his throne. His beard was well groomed and pitch black and he looked far younger, but it was unmistakably Tirek. The place was foreign to Spike. It was hot and arid and covered in sand from what he could see out of the Centaurs ornate open windows. They were in some kind of city in the middle of a desert wasteland, probably in another part of the planet entirely. Tirek looked at the little purple body of Spike with disdain and then shot his gaze back up at the Minotaur.
"What is this little thing? How do you dare bring me such a pathetic looking dragon Minotaur?"
Spike had blown emerald flames on from his tiny body in defiance at the Centaurs face. Tirek blinked, and then smiled before busting out into hearty laughter.
"How much do you want for the lizard, Minotaur…? He amuses me..." The Minotaur grinned broadly at this.
The scene dimmed and froze, a much smaller version of The Dragon Lord appeared before the chained-up Spike.
"Welcome to my first memory Spike, my True first memory."
Someone was there. Spike knew that much was certain. Or at least, his past self was certain of it. The baby Dragon had found himself on a ride through the eyes of the Dragon Lord, reliving moments of his past one after another. The ancient version of himself had stopped communicating with him directly, and now he seemed to have the goal of making his reincarnation walk through every step he ever did before the elements had turned his body back into an egg.
This information still boggled the baby dragons mind. To think that there was this whole other life locked away inside his head that he wasn't even aware of. He was taller at the moment. Not to the gigantic scale that he had seen The Dragon Lord become, but a thinner lither version of his purple body. The dragon was wearing black robes with runes etched onto them, and claw welded armor with magic forged into it that was taught to him by Tirek himself.
Tirek beat him, kicked him, bludgeoned him, and bestowed unto him every kind of punishment one could imagine -- sometimes just for his amusement. However in that same breath he would goad the dragon into trying to fight him, using everything his scaly body could muster. It had made him strong and agile, and he was quickly becoming his go too right hand soldier.
There was movement on the ceiling, but the cloaked dragon didn't make a move just yet. He walked down the ornate hallway of the desert palace that Tireks father had built, silently listening for the moment the intruder would make its move.
There was shift and a flap and something dove down towards him. Green flame erupted from Spikes hand and summoned a sabre, blocking the sword strike that came from above from, to his astonishment, a red dragon not much bigger than he was. The dragon's wings flapped and pushed him backwards, skidding on the stone floor before hooking his claws in to go in for a strike to his legs. Spike couldn't help but feel some pride for his past self as he leaped over the strike with a flourish and gripped the assaulting drake by the neck with one arm.
The red dragon growled and took to the night sky, desperately twirling in the air trying to shake the compactly muscled servant of Tirek off of him. Spike obliged him, letting go and falling down to the earth calmly --his cloak flapping around him as he picked up speed. his eyes never left the red dragon, and then after being engulfed with emerald flame Spike found that his past self had materialized his body right in front of the intruders flight path and had converted the momentum of the fall into a well aimed kick to the jaw with both his armored feet. A loud grunt could be heard as the red dragon tumbled out of control in the air, trying to correct himself as best as he could.
Spike straightened like an arrow, letting the fabric of the dark cloak flap wildly as he dived towards his adversary. He didn't even know why this dragon was there, all he knew is Tirek would have his head if he didn't defend his home from invasion, especially not from a spy like this seemed to be. The enemy dragon spread his wings out wide and took the blow from Spikes Sabre head on with his own blade. It was sturdier and straighter than the curved implement Spike's passed self had conjured up.
They fell slowly to the ground, Spikes Cloak and the enemy's outstretched wings catching the air and fighting against gravity as green eyes met orange.
"Why are you fighting for Tirek?!" he yelled into Spikes face over the wind "You are one of us!"
The baby dragon could not believe what his past self was pulling off. Was this really him? Was this really the kinds of things he could do? Knowing his stumpy limbs he sometimes had a hard time going through Ponyville without having an accident and here he was trading blows in the sky with something that actually had wings.
Spikes body vanished in smoke and arrived in a flare of green flame behind the dragon, skillfully locking its limbs with his own and putting his sabre right at the the falling dragons throat.
"Because I'm not stupid." Spike growled in the dragons ear. "Why would I turn on the one thing that could teach me how to defeat him?"
"What?"
They broke off and skidded on the grounds of the courtyard. The dragon was about to charge him again when Spike raised a claw and fired off a green flare, alerting the guards in the area that their was trouble. It hissed and began to flap its wings to escape. The cloaked drake curled his claw , igniting the runes on his armor and summoning forth chains from the bowels of the dungeons that snaked out from beneath the fabric of his cloak and clamped onto the fleeing dragons limbs. they were pulled back into his robes now smoldering with black smoke, reeling in the dragon like a fish. The red dragon breathed in in desperation and fired off a plumb of red flame at him. His eyes dilated the wingless dragon effortlessly cancelled it out with his own breath before landing a crushing blow to the dragons throat, knocking him out and making him grow limp in his grasp.
Chains released the unconscious dragon and returned back to the dungeon they came from through his cloak. The baby dragon watching this whole thing unfold within the body of his past self could not help but gawk at the display. The meanings of the runes on his cloak and armor were starting to make sense to him as well.
Or rather it felt like he was recalling them.
"I see you caught an intruder." The voice of Tirek called out to Spike as he walked into the courtyard. His beard and mane were white now but he still seemed pretty young in comparison to the decrepit thing sitting in Tartarus. Spike knelt and placed the dragon down before him. He wasn't strong enough yet. He had to bide his time. This dragon was young and reckless. He wasn't going to be a help. Only a hindrance.
-----------
Twilight never felt more out of her depth than she had returning to the castle without Spike. She wanted to barge down there and just break him out -- but what would that accomplish? She couldn't take on all of Canterlot and the mentor she had grown up idolizing and expect it to go smoothly. She needed a plan of some kind. She needed to figure out a way to fix this.
How though? What was the answer to this equation? She had grown up believing harmony, friendship, cutie marks, all of it was just apart of the fabric of their very natures. She had been taught that cutie marks were simply representations of what their talents were and nothing more. Twilight had been made to believe that ponies had made their peace and unity all of their own power. The more she thought about it as she traveled back to her castle, the more that this just didn't add up with the reality that was presented to her.
Ponies were admonished for not having their cutie marks, decried as blank flanks and teased until they found what made them special... what made them a contributing member of society. She looked back on her own joy at gaining her cutie mark back when she had opened Spikes Egg with shudder of growing horror.
Was....was everything she had ever known some demented lie?
What was to become of her? Luna said there were side effects to resisting Harmony....was Nightmare Moon what she was talking about? Did the tree warp her mind in punishment for defying the order it had created and then....had her sister lock her on the moon for a thousand years? She could barely fly with how shook up she was. Twilight wanted to scream, She wanted to rip her cutie mark right off her flank.
How much of her was tied to it though? How much of her being was invested in that cutie mark? How much would she change if she didn't have it subtly influencing her decisions? Would she be warped into some nightmarish monster to be sealed away for a thousand years if she tried to stand up against it? Too many questions flooded her mind without answers to calm them.
"Hiya Twilight! Our cutie marks started glowing and we thought it had something to do with your castle!" Pinkie yelled out to the princess as she circled down in front of the now ominous structure the Tree had gifted her.
"Darling where is Spikey Wikey? I still haven't given him a proper present for being such a brave little dragon the other day. It must of been dreadful trying to fight off that mean old centaur. He's such a sensitive little thing."
"He's...." Twilight's mind raced. Should she tell her friends the truth? Would that accomplish anything? Would that let the Tree know she was up to something? The presence of the Castle loomed over her and her friends and made her rub her foreleg nervously.
"He's what dear? What's wrong?" Rarity walked up close to Twilight with a concerned look on her face, concern that only grew as twilight backed away from her like she was carrying some kind of infectious disease.
"N...nothing, he's visiting the Princesses right now... Lets go inside...."
Applejack looked over at Twilight with a raised eyebrow but didn't say anything. Twilight gritted her teeth as she led her friends inside the place she honestly never wanted to go inside again. Applejack could read a lie from a mile off. She was the element of honesty after all.
They were all the elements of harmony... Arbiters of the Tree... a thought that made her sick to her stomach.
Absentmindedly Twilight wandered over to the thrones and sat in her own, causing the symbol of her cutie mark to glow behind her. Did she really choose to sit here, or was she compelled to sit there like her smiling and giggling friends? As they all took their places the floor beneath them started to react. Jagged shards of crystal began stabbing up through the smooth surface and lights beamed from the marks on their thrones. They watched in awe as the crystal formed together and expanded out into a round table. A table that had a map on its surface.
A map of all of Equestria.
Twilight gulped and shuddered at what she was seeing. This castle was alive, probably directly connected to the tree itself. Her friends didn't question its appearance for even a moment, they even poured over the map with interest and laughter like it was some innocent little trinket they had found. Their marks hovered above their location on the map and then trailed over to another spot she had never been before.
They had to go there.
It was a simple thought that crossed her mind without even thinking about it. It sounded like her thought. It felt like her idea.....but she knew that that wasn't the case.
Her friends all agreed to go on the journey one after another. They made it sound so fun and inviting. Even Fluttershy relented with some prodding.
Then they all stared at Twiilight with friendly smiles. It sent a chill up her spine and made her want to run and never want to stop.
"Absolutely..." she said nervously '...lets follow the map..." ----------
Luna had expected many things when she had entered the baby dragons mind. An empty void was not one of them. She had seen the drake twitching and moaning in his induced sleep, so he was having some kind of dream. This wasn't that dream. This felt like something prepared for her.
In the distance on any side of her that she could see, rows of emerald glyphs showed up around her in massive walls of indecipherable jargon. She tried to pull out of the dragons mind but found that she couldn't. She was trapped.
"Hello Princess of Envy." cooed out a deep rumbling voice that seemed to come from all around her. She tried to leave the dragons mind again, squeezing her eyes shut in determination as she tried to find the exit that usually just made itself known to her. The magic that was holding her there was much older and stronger than her own.
Two giant orbs flared open, revealing the face of the immense dragon before her. The alicorn steeled her nerves and tried to keep calm as much as she could. She had wandered right into a trap and now she had to figure a way out of it. Luna held her head high and stared up at the seeming force of nature before her and spoke to the Dragon Lord.
"What hast thou done with the baby dragon?"
She gritted her teeth as the Dragon Lord chuckled. He loomed in closer; The princess had forgotten how truly massive this creature was. In the blackness of this void so little was seen of him, but what was illuminated by his eyes spoke volumes of the rest of his body that she could practically feel that descended far below where she was standing. She stood her ground on whatever her hooves had found footing on, not backing away from him even as his unfathomably expansive grin was disturbingly close to her comparatively minuscule body. Showing fear in this instance would be counterproductive.
"Your slave is fine. I had considered merely wiping out his consciousness and replacing it with my own, but I will be honest with you; My time has long since passed. The kingdom I had established a thousand years ago is nothing but a shell of its former self and the dragons of modern day are far too primitive for my liking."
"Then why hast thou hidden the other from us?"
"My time is up, however my reincarnation is just starting his journey. I am walking him through my memories as we speak."
Luna gritted her teeth at that and tried to reach for her magic. Whatever these symbols that surrounded her were meant for, one of the purposes was to separate her link with her own magic.
"What makes up a being, Princess of Envy? What makes someone who they are?"
"You can't do this Dragon, you would..."
"Answer. The. Question."
She took in a deep breath and glowered at him. "Memories. Experiences. Choices. Those are the fabric that make up the mind and being of a free thinking creature."
"Exactly. Now imagine for a moment if someone who had barely ever experienced life or made many of his own choices was filled with the memories and decisions of someone hundreds of years older than them. How much do you think that mind would change considering his level of experience is nowhere near my own? Do you really think he will be the same baby dragon you exploited when he awakens from here?"
"I thought thou said thou would not destroy him! Filling his mind with experiences that are not his own would..."
A deep rumbling growl filled the void, sounding from the Dragon Lords throat.
"You have no room to speak dream walker. You submit your mind to the Twig, letting it control your kind in exchange for some thin fallacy you have the gull to call peace. How Spike chooses to interpret the memories I'm providing him is entirely in his claws. I am showing him what he could be, instead of the life of inferiority and servitude you have imposed onto him. I'm already undoing many of the spells Celestia has cast on his body."
She took an intake of breath at that, causing him to chuckle dryly.
"Oh yes. Connecting her magic to his own flame in order to incapacitate him regardless of his location. I dare say even Tirek never devised something so cleverly manipulative. If our baby dragon ever did decide to turn on her she could just bring him down and then you would fix his mind so that it never happened that way again. Truly you are learning from your master quite well."
"Silence. We must think of the safety of Equestria. Letting a...." she stopped herself from continuing that sentence, but from the grin that seemed to take up her entire field of vision she could tell he had already surmised what she was going to say.
"....Letting a DRAGON like Spike roam about without a proverbial collar and leash was just not something you could risk. That was what you were going to say. You really do think like the Twig now."
"The tree of Harmony saved pony kind. I would make that deal a thousand times over if it meant saving their lives."
The Dragon Lord shifted his head so one glowing eye was pressed extremely close to her. She had to shield her face with her hooves at the smoldering iris that glared its emerald glow over her. She felt like the Sun was staring at her.
"And how pray tell , my little Princess of Envy.... do you know for certain that the Tree didn't have its roots in the Windegos chasing your kind into its lands in the first place?"
Her body froze. Her mind went blank. Her mouth could form no words. The thought was so utterly alien to her and yet...
Rage filled within the Alicorn, black smoke smoldering from her body as she lost all control of her emotions. She could feel her teeth wanting to grow sharp and her pupils trying to contract into slits. Nightmare Moon almost burst out of her at that moment, it was only through sheer willpower she did not succumb to it as she hoarsely screeched out at him.
Tirek's kingdom was on fire. Armored dragons flooded the sky like drops of rain, peppering the palace with balls of flame that exploded on impact. Gargoyles commanded by Scorpan flooded the sky to meet their adversary firing off bolts of magic against the massive brood that was converging on them. On the ground level The larger dragons were demolishing homes and military structures alike. The attack had come suddenly and in the middle of the night, and it seemed to be aware of every single exploitable weakness the structures had.
In the center of all that din, Tirek and Spike were in the heat of combat. A century of planning had gone into this night. Gone was his lithe and nimble form of decades earlier to be replaced by the barrel chested giant whose cloak violently blew back and forth at the explosions going on around him. Tirek was both infuriated and impressed with the betrayal. Never before had his kingdom been so thoroughly trounced as it had been that night.
"SPIKE!" He roared out, charging full speed towards the one whom betrayed him wielding an ornate spear. The massive dragon vanished in smoke. With reflexes unexpected of a such a large centaur he swung his metal spear about his body, blocking a quick succession of blows from a blade with several hooked edges that seemed to come from all sides from the rapidly teleporting drake. The whole time he worked his arms blocking the onslaught of slashes and stabs he charged his raw magic between his horn. He roared out, letting out a blast that attacked everything within its radius. Several dozen dragons and Gargoyles alike Fell from high in the sky to the ground with sickening thuds from that attack and several structures had been completely leveled in the blast, yet he could not find his traitor among them.
He pivoted the spear behind his arm and back, holding it at the ready for any strike that might come as the war continued to rage over head. He charged his horns again, glaring up at the sky at the swarm of dragons and intended on blasting the lot of them out of the sky.
Tirek's eyes shot wide in pain and looked behind him. A Black sword stuck out of his horseback, he had been stabbed from below between his legs and it had pierced his hide all the way through to the other side. Spike was below in a firey portal he had made, grinning devilishly at his former master before twisting the blade. It hurt like nothing Tirek had ever felt, and that enraged him. He leaped into the air, dragging the dragon and the hooked blade and dragon out of his portal as his powerful jump catapulted them over the din of the war.
He flipped violently and cringed as the hooked blade pulled out of him, and it took everything he had to seal the pervasive wounds shut with his magic, the pain was that hard to focus through. He barely managed to react with a horizontal block with his spear as the Dragon slammed his blade into it, sending the Centaur flying clear across the sky from the force of it.
This was the first fight in his entire life where he was actually on the defensive. His body arced down finally as gravity started to overcome his velocity, slamming and tumbling into a dune with an explosion of sand in the moonlight. His burning Palace and kingdom was a speck in the distance now. The explosions of fire and ethereal cries of magic were mere pops and and rumbles that rolled across the air as fast as sound could carry them.
Tirek tried to get his footing in the desert sand, only to find it starting to give and swirl beneath him. Much to his surprise it seemed to become alive and runes of flame began to pop up on them.
He cursed, barely able to leap out of the way as the sand suddenly grew hot and spiked out in all sides, instantly becoming glass before his eyes from the emerald heat. He had to fire his magic from his horns to direct his course from another spire of glass shards that had coiled out of the ground and threatened to impale him.
The entire desert was a threat to him.
Spike revealed himself from the depths of the sand, firing up into the air and breathing in deep.
The thin line of fire that poured out of his mouth hit the sand and spread out, controlling a massive chunk of land in that instant and causing it to churn like the sea and light up the night like an earth bound sun.
The next thing Tirek knew he was impaled on all sides by thick spines of glass covered in runic magic.
Truly Spike had surpassed him when it had came to magic. He had suspicions, but held suspended by nearly unbreakable mountain of glass with it burrowing into his flesh from all sides, he was utterly trapped and cut off from his magic.
Spike appeared in a flash of green flame and added insult to injury by stabbing him straight through the gut and releasing the hooked blade from his grasp.
Tirek growled through the pain he was in and glared into Spikes eyes. The traitor crouched there on a parallel pillar off glass seemingly made for the dragon to rest on.
"You are defeated, your army has surrendered, and The dragons are free from your rule..."
Tirek struggled in his bonds, exacerbating the wounds he already had.
"You had better kill me Spike..."
"I am The Dragon Lord, when you address me as such, I will do you the honor of ending your life... not a moment sooner."
Tirek scoffed and tried to spit in his face, only to have it evaporate in a fleck of emerald flame that snapped out of the dragon's claws.
"I will never call you that...leave my lands..."
He could feel the shame of defeat filling his body. Spike knew he would eventually get out of these bonds and heal himself. He knew that Tirek was utterly trounced for the entire world to see. He would have to become an indomitable force before he ever attempted to reclaim the dragons again. He would have to absorb as much magic as he possibly could before trying to fight his former soldier and student once again.
The dragon lord brought his face close to Tirek's and grinned, starring him right in the eyes.
"We intend to, I already have the place of my kingdom all planned out. I simply wanted you to know how utterly futile chasing after us would be."
"YOU ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH! YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO LEAD A NATION BUT YOU DO NOT! MARK MY WORDS SPIKE, SOMEONE WILL TOPPLE YOU AS SURELY AS YOU HAVE DONE TO ME."
He pivoted on the pillar of glass and looked over his shoulder. "When the shame is too much for you to bear, feel free to seek me out and call me by my proper name, I will be happy to end your life when that day comes."
With that The Dragon Lord had vanished in smoke. The war had lasted only a few hours, and it had left the Kingdom of Tirek's in shambles.
The exodus of the dragons was about to begin. -------
Twilight was quiet on the train ride towards the place that had been revealed on the map. Her brain was working overtime trying to fit the pieces of her memory together and see if she could of seen the true nature of the Tree and the elements sooner. Her thoughts kept trailing back to her foray into the human world after she had had her element stolen by Sunset Shimmer. There was something there that spoke to the nefarious nature of the Tree, she knew this in her heart.
She exchanged letters with Sunset now through the books. They were friends, and the personality she has now was entirely different to the one she first met. She wanted to write it off as a change of heart, but she felt like there was something else there that wasn't clicking. Her redemption had been too quick. She thought that even when she had returned to that world a second time, tentative to even take her hand. Sunset was a good pony though, she had a great sense of humor and she enjoyed the little exchanges she had with her in writing. It was such a stark contrast to the unrepentant cruel thing she had been initially.
"At last...more power than I could ever imagine..."
Twilight sat up as she recalled that moment. The moment Sunset shimmer placed Twilight's element upon her head. How did she not see this? The moment she had placed it on her head, what happened next had made her flinch and give off an expression of fear. The Element had emitted dark magic and violently pulled her into the sky in a pillar of darkness. She was crying, her eyes streaming with tears before they had been evaporated right off her face and her eyes had snapped open in a horrified and pained expression -- seeming to glow from the inside with magic.
Twilight had assumed that was her plan, but knowing her now it just didn't make sense. She couldn't help but feel like that demonic form she had in the human world was disturbingly similar in personality to something else she had fought.
Nightmare Moon.
The element had turned her into that monster, and if what she had surmised was correct, it may of even influenced her into walking into the human world after rebelling against Celestia...after going against the order the Tree provided her.
"...The crown may be upon your head Sunset Shimmer, but you cannot wield it, because you do not have the most powerful magic of all. The magic of friendship."
She spoke of friendship, and yet it was always used as a weapon against her enemies. Sunset had been engulfed in a rainbow beam, swirling around her as she was violently taken down. The next words Twilight had spoken to Sunset shimmer had made her really question how much control she really had.
"Here and in Equestria, it is the only magic that can truly unite us all..."
"That isn't a lie per say... The Tree of Harmony's goal is to bring unity to the world..."
It disturbed her that while she was wielding the elements she had said something that virtually mimicked Princess Celestia's own words. It made her question if The tree was just using her as a vehicle to dole out punishment against the girl who dared to question its harmony. Was that whole event just a ruse to break her and make her...
Was she wielding the elements...or were the elements wielding her?
The tree had forcibly broke and converted Sunset. It had violated her mind simply to teach her how futile working outside out of the tree's influence really was. Now Luna and Sunset were examples of what happened to those who turned against its tenets that are in prominent positions.... the very same position Twilight found herself in.
"Sugarcube are y'all alright?" Applejack had sat down next to Twilight on the train without her realizing it. Twilight looked up at the farm mare and tried to give a convincing smile and nod. Applejack leaned in closer and tried to look her in the eye, something that the princess couldn't help but try to avoid. What could she do against this? She loved her friends. The tree had brought them together and they were all so close, and yet she knew deep in her heart that this was twisted and wrong. It shouldn't be like this.
"If y'all want to talk y'all know a'hm here right? Ah ain't gonna bite..."
Twilight wiped her face with her hoof, she couldn't let her emotions get to her right now. This was not the time or the place to curl in a ball in the corner and ball her eyes out. Spike was imprisoned, everything she knew was a lie, and she had no idea who to trust anymore. Even her friends. If her suspicions were correct, and the Tree did warp ponies minds who actively go against its order, then it was only a matter of time until such a thing starts to happen to her. She didn't want to drag her friends down that path with her, as much as trying to take this on alone hurt.
"Thank you Applejack..."
That image of Sunset shimmer crawling out of a crater, sobbing profusely as she said she didn't know there was another way... was that going to be her fate?
----------
Celestia had no idea why she walked down into Tartarus. What kind of answers did she expect out of Tirek? Especially so soon after his defeat, he was not going to want to give anything up. Maybe it was because he had managed to ruin everything even in his defeat. Her sister still hadn't left Spikes mind, Her former student fled from her upon learning the truth, and Spike was in a cage deep within the dungeons of Canterlot. She wanted to blame it all on him. She wanted him to answer for what he did, explain why even after a thousand years he still sought indomitable power and total dominance over the world.
"Well...This is a surprise." Tirek remarked in his gravely voice trying to struggle to his hooves. Ever since all the magic of Equestria had left him he could feel his aged bones even more than he did before he had started his one centaur takeover. He had almost won, but he had been lost in the high of the stolen magic to go through with the plan he had devised for a thousand years. He hated that of all things, euphoria was the thing that had been his undoing.
Standing before him was none other than the Alicorn Princess herself, Celestia. She never visited him down in Tartarus the entire time he had been down there, and yet here she was glaring at him -- silently judging him. He couldn't help but feel like she was giving him a present with that glower. Nothing made him happier than making this high and mighty pony enraged.
"Come here to gloat wench?" Tirek growled out. He hated how unblemished her face was. Time seemed entirely removed from her body, and he knew exactly why that was too.
Celestia said nothing, she just stared at him. He tested his chains, chains that were fresh and new, made out of the same metal that took damn near a thousand years to bust through the last time. He didn't know if he had another thousand in him, which meant he'd likely die in this hole.
"I saw what you did to Spike..." The centaur said with a laugh "...How did you do it? I thought you had killed the bastard! That was the whole reason I came to this accursed land in the first place! How did you break that Dragon's mind like that huh? Was it those vaunted elements of yours? Are you considering trying to break my mind as well?"
Celestia shook her head silently and turned. She wouldn't get the answers she wanted out of him.
"HEY! I have something to tell you...." Tirek called out with a malicious grin. Celestia stopped and turned to look at him over her shoulder.
"Your magic is tainted..." He looked at his shaky hands and then back to her. "...I had intended destroying that Tree of yours...That accursed thing that lets you have the entire world under your hooves...I thought all I needed to do was gather up all the magic of Equestria and then take it straight to the Tree to wipe it out once and for all."
He shook his head and laughed before his thin legs collapsed under him. Celestia was listening intently now. She hadn't expected him to outright lead off with this.
"I had even gotten into the Trees's little Forest...I was so close..." He sounded frustrated as he gripped his horns. "I was so agonizingly close...but now that my mind is clear I saw that it was playing me for a fool. I had no idea before its to late that it had addled my brain with the magic I stole. All my plans flew right out of my mind and I was just a marauding mindless beast until It had got your Twilight Sparkle to finish me off. It wasn't until Spike clocked me in the jaw that I was even partially snapped out of it. "
He looked up at her and grinned maniacally. "You never told me you already had a tyrant. I may die in this place Princess, But at least my mind is my own. Which is more than I can say of you ponies..." He laughed louder at that, and it grew louder and echoed throughout tartarus as Celestia slowly walked her way out of it.
"Give my regards to Spike! I pray when he finally breaks whatever curse you have on his mind that he will give your kind exactly what they deserve. We may of been mortal enemies, but I would of at least honored him with death instead of turning him into a feral lap dog. Honestly I thought I was supposed to be the villain here!"
----------
"I don't like it, I don't like it one bit!" Pinkie said as they peered over the edge of a boulder at an odd little village. There were two rows of symmetrical houses that had absolutely no flourishes or differentiation on them what so ever. The ponies walking around had these disturbing smiles plastered on their faces and their coat's colors were all extremely unsaturated. What was more creepy...
They all had the same equal sign cutie mark.
"This is just an ordinary village filled with ordinary ponyfolk." Applejack had commented. Twilight wasn't so sure. Now that her eyes had been open to the manipulative nature of cutie marks, she had a feeling they had something to do with them all behaving the way they were. Why would the Tree be interested in such a place though? What about this warranted sending the elements of harmony after it?
They were all saying their pieces, but Twilight began walking towards the village.
"Whoa, Twilight where are you going!" Rainbow Dash called after her before the rest of the gang joined in behind her.
A string of "welcome's" started filling the air as each of the strange ponies greeted her and her friends. They were all behaving exactly the same, they all had the same mane styles save for gender differentiation, and their cutie mark was unvaried throughout the group of them.
She remembered when her friends had their cutie marks switched around and how their behavior and memory had changed because of it...what would happen if they had all been given the same cutie mark? Would they all think and act relatively the same with some personality quirks? She could tell given her recent disillusionment that whatever had caused these marks was controlling these ponies behavior, or at least giving them a template of behaviors to go by.
"Welcome! This may come off as a bit forward but are you an alicorn?"
This pony who walked into their path creeped her out. Applejack was about to say something before Twilight spoke.
"Yes I'm an alicorn, Who gave you these cutie marks?" Twilight said in a blunt flat tone.
The stallion blinked and looked over at his grinning friend, a blue stallion, before turning back to the group.
"Why...Starlight Glimmer of course... Would you like to meet her?"
"Yes." Twilight said curtly. With that the two ponies turned and walked at exactly the same speed towards the house at the far end of the street.
"Twi, what's gotten into you, how'd y'all know somepony gave em these cutie marks?" Applejack asked incredulously as the followed.
"Yes darling, I would like to know how you deduced such a thing myself. I never even heard of somepony GIVING cutie marks..."
"And what are with these smiles! They aren't right at all!" Added Pinkie as she glowered at all of the equal ponies staring at their group.
Twilight's brow was furrowed in anger as she whispered to the others. "This is why we are here...These equal sign marks aren't connected to the Tree of Harmony, and the Tree wants these ponies connected to their original cutie marks once again...."
"What do you mean 'connected to the tree of harmony'? " Rainbow Dash asked with a confused expression.
Somepony had figured out the exploitative nature of cutie marks, and that pony had used that knowledge to make her own twisted version of utopia...just like the Tree itself. Except this one was even worse because even individuality was stripped away. There wasn't even an illusion of freedom here.
"I'll explain later, we have a mission to complete first...and some questions to get answered...."
"Twi ahm not liking the sound of yer voice right now, you sound a mite bit peeved about something, even Pinkie isn't looking as mad as y'all right now."
"These smiles are all wrong I tell you!" Pinkie growled.
They walked into the house and the white one called out. "Starlight, we have some new visitors who would like to meet you."
A pony came out to greet them, a light pink pony with a purple mane and a light blue streak on it. Her coat was saturated with color unlike all of her followers, her mane was in a different style, and that equal sign mark on her flank was not fooling Twilight's demystified eyes.
This mare also had a smug looking face.
"Welcome! I'm so glad to meet you all h..." Her voice was cut off by a powerful punch from Twilight's forehoof that sent her toppling into the wall.
Her friends all gasped at Twilight's sudden assault on a complete stranger but Twilight did not care one Iota.
"WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE TO TAKE AWAY THE FREEDOM OF THESE PONIES!" Twilight shrieked at the downed mare. "HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO THEM! DO YOU THINK THIS IS WHAT HARMONY IS? WHAT FRIENDSHIP IS? MANIPULATING THEM FROM YOUR PEDESTAL LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR THEM!? WHAT KIND OF TWISTED FREAK ARE YOU!?"
"Twilight! What the hay girl!?" Applejack and Rainbow Dash had tried to pull her away but the one called Starlight had removed all pretense of friendliness and tried to blast them right then and there with magic.
Twilight summoned up a purple shield before gripping the other mare in a telekinetic hold and smacking her body hard into the wall, causing Starlight's beam of magic to rip through her house instead and leave a gash on the roof. The princess was so furious magic was randomly sparking off of her horn. Starlight wasn't just someone who had made this twisted village, she was practically a representation of the Tree of Harmony that she desperately wanted to give a beating to.
It would be cathartic as Tartarus right about now.
Starlight tried to get to her hooves but she was tackled by the Alicorn, a foreleg jammed right into her throat.
"WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT?!" Twilight roared into her face.
Starlight was afraid of her in that moment. Twilight's eyes had begun to glow, and her mouth was curled in a ferocious snarl.
"Twilight please stop!" Fluttershy wailed, "She didn't do anything! She was just trying to say hi! Let her go!"
"That's it!" Rainbow tried to charge her.
All five of them began to glow in an twilight's magical aura and were held in place as she turned around.
"SILENCE!'
She didn't care that black smoke was churning around her body right now. She didn't care that her brain was starting to get foggy as her wrath towards the injustice of the Tree of Harmony and this Starlight Glimmer reached a fever pitch. All she knew was that she wanted answers.
The entire house glowed and was promptly ripped from its foundations, revealing the whole scene to the village at large before crumpling the wooden building and all its contents in the forceful glow of Twilights magic.
"You're insane!" Starlight yelled out with her pupils shrunk to pin pricks, too terrified to use her magic.
Twilight laughed. She laughed some more. The nightmare alicorn couldn't stop laughing in an ever growing staccato as her manic state began to hurt. Her body was growing taller and thinner and her wing feathers began to turn pitch black.
Her friends were shocked. They didn't know what to make of this at all.
"WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM HMMM? WHAT WAS THE STORY YOU FED THESE PONIES FOR THEM TO GIVE UP THEIR FREEDOM FOR YOU!?"
Twilight felt her teeth growing sharper in her mouth. She didn't care.
"Please...I just wanted to give them harmony..." Starlight whimpered in fright, the mare before her growing more nightmarish by the second.
"HARMONY! YES THAT IS THE WORD OF THE DAY ISN'T IT..." Twilight's larger wings didn't even need to flap anymore as she floated above the equal village, presenting their leader to them.
"TELL ME VILLAGE, WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS..." Twilight got rid of the fake mark on Starlight's flank, revealing the true mark underneath. They were shocked at the sight, but also terrified of what Twilight had become. She had walked in an alicorn princess, but before them was a nightmarish entity.
"WHERE IS THEIR CUTIE MARKS?!"
"In a cave, please don't hurt me!" Starlight had lost any sense of decorum in that moment shivering under the power of Twilight's nightmare form.
A sharp menacing grin spread across Twilight's demented face as she rounded the mare to have them eye to eye with one another.
"GOOD, NOW QUESTION NUMBER TWO! AND THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ONE! ITS WORTH A LOT OF POINTS ON THIS EXAM!"
Her eyes narrowed menacingly as their glow intensified. "Tell me how to remove cutie marks...."
She would rid the world of these marks, and the control the tree had over them. Even if it meant being a nightmare entity to do it. The Tree knew she had turned on it now and had doled out its punishment upon her. Her mane flowed with the inundation of dark magic and her black wings stretched out wide, her horn now jaged and contorted like Queen Chrysalis's.
Midnight Sparkle, Nightmare of Magic has risen, may her foes know fear this day.
---------
Far from Appaloosa, a historic meeting was taking place. A collection of high ranking Buffalo led by chief Thunderhooves were meeting with a collection of large elder dragons. The oldest dragon among them, a massive red being with broad shoulders and opaque eyes, gingerly walked his aching limbs out into the forefront opposite of the Chief Buffalo.
There was silence between the brood and the herd. The red dragon raised his head from the ground, slithering his tongue out to feel out all in the air to see if all was accounted for and if anyone was listening in on their secret rendezvous.
"A few days ago..." he wheezed out, a smile creaking on his aged face. "...Something I thought I never again would feel in my lifetime made itself known to me. As you all know, the dreaded tyrant Tirek had risen from Tartarus and was reeking havoc throughout this land. His target were ponies, but he would of surely set his sights on the rest of the world if he had been given the opportunity."
He had to take a shuddering breath before he continued. "...and then a miracle happened..." His blind face looked up in the sky, gazing into his memories of time long since past. "... I felt the power of the Dragon Lord make itself known on the land once again. Out of everyone here, I am the only living being left who had known The Dragon Lord as a friend. He had saved my life as I had foolishly sneaked into Tirek's Palace believing him to be a traitor to our kind. I was to learn that he in fact would be the one to save us all. None were as great as The Dragon lord, and he has returned to us after all these centuries as strong as ever."
Each elated word sounded like it hurt for him to say, like he was straining to work out each syllable from his aged throat. Still, his excitement for his old fiend returning could be felt through his fragile voice. It was a wonder that the ancient dragon was even still alive with how decrepit he was. The crowd around him was starting to mumble excitedly. The Dragon Lord was a legend among both the Buffalo and Dragon alike. He was the reason their alliance was honored to this day, because to betray the other was to go against the wishes of greatest ruler they had ever known.
"We have met him as well, though at the time we knew not who he truly was." Chief Thunderhooves spoke. "He's scales and name were much the same as the legends our forefathers had told, but his mind was that of a child and he lived among ponies."
The aged dragon nodded. A smaller dragon with a similar scale color as the ancient one came out from behind him, He was a teenager whom had the expression of being caught with his claw in a cookie jar.
"My name is Garble...I saw the fight between Tirek and The Dragon Lord...I watched his green fire melt an entire mountain... The ponies have him with them and his mind isn't like the one we've heard in the legends. My friends and I thought he was just a little wingless hatchling... we had no idea that he was really THAT Spike."
"Which...brings us to the purpose of this meeting..." The ancient dragons face hardened and hints of his former glory was shown in him expanding his arthritic wings.
"The Ponies struck down the Dragon Lord one thousand years ago. We did not have the power to rectify this at the time. We had to learn about our enemy, even if it meant waiting for centuries for the right moment. The Dragon Lord had subjected himself to being a servant to Tirek just to wait for the right moment to strike. In his patience he had gained absolute victory. We have followed his example." He let out a growl from his throat, "We have reason to believe that the dragon lord is being held beneath the castle of Canterlot by the princesses. Their kingdom has never been more complacent as they are now, and the Elements have been relocated to another castle entirely."
"It is understood then." Chief Thunderhooves spoke as the elder caught his breath, "The buffalo will charge in and deal with the ground forces and eliminate the anti dragon flora, and the dragons will take the castle from above."
The elder Dragon nodded. "I am Moussaieff, Elder of the dragon brood..." "I am Thunderhoof, Chief of the buffalo...."
Together they roared out in unison "AND WE DECLARE WAR ON CANTERLOT!"
Far to the north in the frozen wastelands where no mortal lived, something was stirring. The thick clouds that hung so high in the sky above the expanse of ice began to rumble and swirl as its master called to them. As it moved, individual shapes could be made out. Shapes of giant horses made of the very concept of cold itself, eyes glowing with indomitable energy as they began to gallop through the air in unison.
The Windegos were coming.
As the rumble of their stampede spread across the planet to their destination, the lands below grew cold. The sky grew with incoming arrival. They could not be reasoned with. They could not be dissuaded from their mission. When their master called to them, they answered without question.
The element of Magic had turned on their master.
The Tree of Harmony saw no grey. It saw no gradients of morality. It had decided that it was good...
...and that this reality was evil... and it would end it by the rising of the morning sun.
The sun that was risen by its princesses will.
-----------
The canterlot military were not prepared for the attack. The buffalo had stampeded into the city in the middle of the night, whooping war cries as they smashed through walls and ponies alike. They poured in form every entrance by the thousands in an organized mass, some groups wielding ropes that pulled out Dragon sneeze Trees and other similar flora and pulled them out of the building. The few guards that were on duty wandering the streets were only prepared to meet an occasional pony drunk off of cider or had gone on a bit too long on the salt lick, not a military force.
Before an alarm was even able to be raised it had been stripped of its ground defenses against dragons. The soldiers poured out of the castle in droves, some of them barely in armor as they tried to figure out what was going on in the middle of the night like this.
Then fire began to rain from the sky.
The entire city of canterlot was in a panicked state. Thousands upon thousands of dragons of all sizes swarmed in the sky, carpet bombing home and military structure alike. Nobility were shrieking in terror, fillies clung to their mothers, and those who could fight and weren't running were finding themselves on the end of a losing battle.
Celestia burst though one of her stained glass windows and fired off a beam of magic at the first dragons she saw. She tried her best to maneuver around the sky with her wonderbolts and pegasi soldiers, doing everything in her power to try to save her ponies. She had not expected such an organized assault. Her castle was crumbling below her and her magic was not strong enough to fend off the massive brood that had descended upon the land.
Shining Armor rushed out in full military garb, focusing his magic to summon up his force field that had driven back an entire changeling army. The stampeding buffalo prevented such an action from happening. This group had been especially trained to spot this one unicorn, and was briefed on his ability to summon such shields.
He struggled valiantly but against their overwhelming numbers and larger size he was shoved to the ground.
A Hoof smashed down onto his horn, making him cry out as It was crushed under the weight of the blow.
Celestia looked at the burning desolation and shook her head slowly. All the sacrifices she had made to give her ponies peace, to save them from utter extinction from the windegos, all of it was unraveling in front of her eyes.
"Looks like I missed a party..."
Celestia started in the air before turning around. Her student was behind her with a malevolent grin on her face, her body warped in a strange yet far too familiar way.
'Twilight...not you too..."
Midnight Sparkle laughed uproariously at that. Everything seemed funny to her in her nightmare form as her mouth twitched in an uncontrollable grin.
"Dear princess Celestia....Today I learned that everything is a lie and that pony kind are nothing but pawns to some super powered crystal WEED...."
A green dragon swooped in while Midnight was talking and tried to eat her right out of the sky. That moment dragged for Midnight as she casually looked over to the critter's open maw.
"Shh.... The grownups are talking..." In a show of force the Dragon yelped as he was rocketed back from a pulse of magic from the Nightmare, crashing into a guard tower far in the distance.
Celestia flapped in place and gripped her head between her hooves, her composure that seemed so absolute starting to waver.
"Twilight, You have to understand, All I did I did for the good of Equestria..."
The nightmare teleported right in front of Celestia and back handed her across the face, sending her former teacher catapulting her back into her throne room through another stained glass window. It was the one depicting her former student that was now floating through the broken shards of glass. She was a stark contrast to the peaceful looking pony that once resided in that window since her coronation.
"WAKE UP CELESTIA! THE TREE OF HARMONY DOESN'T CARE ABOUT US! IT NEVER CARED ABOUT US! ALL IT WANTED WERE PUPPETS AND WE WERE THE ONLY SPECIES STUPID ENOUGH TO HAND OVER OUR STRINGS!"
"SHE SPEAKS THE TRUTH SISTER. WE HAVE ALL BEEN PLAYED THE FOOL OF"
Celestia's bruised face turned to see her worst fears coming to life before her eyes. Nightmare Moon walked into the throne room and stood beside the maniacal Twilight. Surprisingly, Her sister's nightmare form was far more stoic than it had been the last time.
"Luna...Why? After all we've done...You don't know how hard it was for me to convince it to simply seal you on the moon instead of killing you....I wanted so desperately to have you back...."
Nightmare Moon raised her wings and looked down at her fallen sister.
"THE WINDEGOS WORK FOR THE TREE OF HARMONY DEAR SISTER...WE MADE OUR PACT WITH THE VERY DEVIL THAT DROVE OUR KIND TO THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION!"
Celestia stared off into space in that moment. That information hit her like a ton of bricks. The din of war going on outside and the warcries of pony, buffalo, and dragon alike grew silent to her ears.
How could she, The supposedly regal princess everypony looked up to, not see the truth after all this time. Perhaps she didn't want to. Perhaps she was too afraid to admit it. The tree was a terrifying force of nature. In the entire time she had known it it had never been defeated, never once did its magic fail to smite an enemy.
The princess of the sun cried as her kingdom fell, and black smoke began to envelope her body. She cried tears of rage that it had been made a fool of, forced to seal the only family member she had on the moon because she wanted to keep her subjects safe from its wrath. She had been a good little princess for it for so long, and for what...
The slowly rising sun inflated and grew a deep shed of red in the morning sky, its darkened presence looming over the land as it was risen by her power. Her mane was no longer regal and shades of green and purple, it was a fiery mass of rolling magic, as was her tail. Through her tears she let out a peal of laughter, the maddening laughter of fear as she knew this world wasn't going to last much longer. Midnight and Nightmare Moon joined her in her fearful mirth.
Nightmare Star Stood with her comrades in arms.
"IT IS A PLEASURE TO HAVE YOU WITH US DEAR SISTER, WE HAVE ANOTHER THAT IS ABOUT TO AWAKEN FROM THEIR SLUMBER AS WELL."
The castle shook at its foundations.
The Dragon Lord was making himself known.
----- "Uh...guys? Why why is the sun all big and red?" Rainbow Dash asked nervously as she looked at the ominous sunrise. She turned to her friends. "You....you don't think this has anything to do with...you know...Twilight going...."
Fluttershy was still sobbing over the whole affair. The equal sign villagers had deserted the town and nopony knew what she did with their leader Starlight Glimmer. None of them could stop Twilight after she had went nightmare on them, and none of them understood why it happened. The ever increasing wind that had a bone chilling edge to it wasn't helping matters in the slightest.
"Ah knew somethin was troublin her, Ah shoulda pressed harder..."
"No worries Applejack, nothing much you can do about it now."
They turned to see a familiar Draconequus nestled on the roof of one of the equal sign houses. He looked at the town in disgust.
"Blegh, far too orderly for my taste. I would dress this drab place up but since this reality is coming to an end soon I guess there isn't a point....ah what the hey." He snapped his fingers and made one of the houses out of candy canes and lollipops.
"What y'all mean...about this reality ending..." Applejack asked apprehensively.
Discord looked down at the group of them. "I mean literally what I said dear old AppleJack, This reality is coming to an end."
Fluttershy sped up to him with a panicked look "But why? Can't you do something? I don't want it to end Discord!"
Rainbow looked at him suspiciously, "This isn't your fault is it?"
"Goodness no, I haven't even BEEN in this reality for a few weeks. Apparently somepony went and pissed off The Tree of Harmony. Trust me from personal experience..." he stretched his body out and brought the upper half of himself to where they were standing and whispered "...it doesn't end well..."
"Well....well how do we...UNpiss it off..." Applejack said, her legs starting to shake as she saw a rolling cloud pillar of clouds like nothing pony kind had ever seen started to appear on the horizon. All they had known was their little manageable pony made weather. This was something else entirely.
"You can't my dear, its already made up its mind. You are lucky I decided to drop in when I did." He stuck his claw through something in mid air and ripped a hole in reality.
"I'll be honest with you, I just came for Fluttershy, but I know she'll be grumpy with me if I leave her friends behind. Well come on in, I'm not waiting in this reality for too much longer."
"Wait! What about mah family, our friends, Twilight, our..." Her eyes were watering as the gravity of the situation started hitting her.
Discord's face hardened for a brief second before levitating Applejack up into the air so they were face to face. Applejack had never seen the trickster as serious as he was at that moment. "This. is. Your. literal. only. chance. to survive this...I suggest you take it while I'm feeling generous."
Fluttershy hugged Discord and sobbed. One by one, with varying degrees of apprehension, the other ponies started to clamber into the portal. Discord wanted to leave this reality as soon as possible. He did not want to be around when the final act played in this reality. Not if he could help it.
"Good luck Twilight." he said in a somber tone. "Maybe this time will be different."
----------
The war of Canterlot halted with a sudden earthquake. Enemy combatant and fleeing civilian alike froze as the ground began to crack and the burning castle of Canterlot began to implode on itself. Something had shattered its foundations and it was coming apart in seeming slow motion. A large silhouette pressed through it, growing larger and larger as it towered in the place the castle once stood. The massive being made the former structure seem trivial in comparison, its height seemed to stretch into the sky itself, and its tail whipped about, creating whirlwinds in the wake of its movement.
The Dragon Lord had awakened.
Three nightmares descended to the ground. Nightmare Star Nightmare Moon Midnight Sparkle
The Dragon lord crouched down before the frozen battle, all eyes staring up at him, not daring to move an inch.
The ponies knew not what to do. They looked to their rulers, all in terrifying forms as they bent a knee towards the behemoth before them in submission.
"Dragons! Buffalo! Pony!" The Dragon Lord that had once been a baby dragon called out. He was just as scared as they were in this moment, but he had learned to steel his nerves like his former self all those years ago. He must not show weakness to his subjects. He must be strong for them.
"Our battle is not among ourselves...There is only one enemy we must face. An enemy that has sunk its roots into all of our lives and claims ownership of this entire world."
The clouds that rolled in over the Everfree Frorest started to block out the bloated and darkened sun.
The windegos were coming.
"All those who can still fight, I ask you to join me in a war to end all wars. We will not submit to the rule of the Twig any longer. Do not look with wrath at the ponies my dragon kin, for they are under my rule now. The princesses have relinquished their kingdom unto me."
The Dragon Lord stood up tall and spread his arms wide. Spells he had learned in his slumber filled his mind. His old Armory was exactly as his past self had left it.
Black Armor was summoned with emerald flame around his body and on the bodies of all the dragons present. The Nightmares raised up and called their ponies to arms in unison. The Buffalo readied themselves for their last Stampede.
Out of the smoldering ruins of Canterlot, The Dragon Lords new brood charged.
They charged...united against the Tree Of Harmony. --------------
How many times had this timeline played out? The tree did not recall the exact number as it sent its windegos charging after the advancing army. Their cold spread throughout the land as they collided with Dragon, Pony, and buffalo alike. This was a rare timeline to be sure, but that did not mean that it hadn't seen this same formation billions of times before.
Just as it would see it billions of times again.
The Tree of Harmony had its roots in all realities, and all times within those realities. The Dragon Lord charging against it with a band of dragons and ponies alike for their final struggles against it was just another cog in the machine of the multiverse to it. It had given them every opportunity to repent. It had given them every chance to see the error in their logic so they can enjoy the true peace that it was offering.
These near sighted third dimensional creatures simply didn't know any better. No matter. Even if one reality is a failure, many others will be just as likely to see its line of thinking. For every Twilight that turns against the Tree of Harmony, millions upon millions of others just like her in different realities preached its message with a smile on her face. They did not see the good they were rejecting by trying to fight it.
The Tree allowed that though.
It was their right to choose to perish if that is what they truly desire.
----------
Spike had never felt more alive than he had in this moment as he swung his runic blade into Windego spirits, its magic making them screech in agony as it cut them right through their Spirit. The trio of nightmares were working in unison through the sky, scorching the amalgamation of frost spirits with magic as the laughed in maniacal glee. The lesser warriors like Earth ponies and Buffalo were succumbing to the overwhelming force of the millions of giant spirits that spilled onto the land like a Tsunami. Even Some of the Medium sized dragons were growing too cold to fight properly.
Still Spike pressed on. Blasting his emerald flame throughout the sky, Roaring against the onslaught of vicious wraiths that kept the army from advancing any further on the Tree. His powerful body was only an equal to the windegos, not a superior. they pressed against him in mass, trying to shove him back, and he responded in kind, digging his armored claws into the earth as the rest of his army pelted the spirits with everything they had.
"NEVER SURRENDER!" Spike roared out. Their numbers were dropping like flies to the encroaching cold, all but the largest or most powerful of them were keeping themselves from being frozen to the core. Dragons of all sizes had already been falling from the sky and shattering into frozen pieces, their internal flames snuffed out by the Windego's frigid might.
Still Spike pressed on. His blade was getting through the thick collection of spirits. Each laborious step brought him that much closer to where the Tree watched on impassively. His flame shot forward, before being snuffed out by the cold.
Even he was starting to feel it now.
Still...Spike Pressed on.
The nightmares were growing sluggish now as the windegos had less targets to focus on. They swirled around the former princesses as they cackled in their maddening frenzy. The cold eyes of the windegos pressed into them for the last time as they were utterly snuffed out and fell to the ground.
"Twilight!" Spike had roared out. His face hardened in furry and he charged forward with the last remaining dregs of strength left in his body slowly succumbing to the mass of freezing entities that clung onto him. He pressed on through the damaged forest he had fought Tirek through. He pressed on through the pain of loss. He pressed on fueled by his own rage until he had the Tree in his sights.
A single ball of energy formed over The Tree of Harmony. A simple ball of energy formed by the Tree's own power. Spike watched as a simple clear explosion emanated from its form.
He watched his massive claws disintegrate as it hit him, and he knew no more once it wiped him out.
The radius of the blast expanded as it enveloped the entirety of the planet, stripping it of life and water in a matter of moments.
This reality was just one of an infinite number that the Tree had its roots in.
Sometimes bad branches needed to be pruned to keep the tree healthy.
----
In a desolate wasteland, devoid of life, a map appeared. With that map came two ponies named Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, and a little dragon by the name of Spike. They had been hopping from one timeline to another, having an argument over wrongs they think they had committed against each-other. Starlight looked around her at the flattened, dry, lifeless environment in anger and confusion.
"Where are we?!" She asked to Twilight, the one whom she thought took everything from her.
"The Future...Or rather, the present." Twilight intoned sadly as she looked at Starlight with a hoof on the caste's map.
"But...There is nothing here..." The pink mare said with a frustrated expression, not liking the answer the princess was giving her.
"I wish I could say I was surprised, but every world I come back to is worse than the last. I don't know why my friends and I are so important to Equestria, but we are..."
"I don't believe you!"
"Come on Starlight, look around!" Spike said exasperatedly on the table, extending his claw out to the barren nothingness that had only the wind to keep it company.
"Like I said, everything in the past affects the future, even the tiniest act." Twilight held up a hoof of soil that was robbed of any substance to it in her hoof and let it fall back to the lifeless planet. "...What you are doing leads here...I know I can't stop you, but I thought showing you this might change your mind."
"CHANGE MY MIND!?" Starlight rounded on her "I was perfectly happy until you and YOUR FRIENDS RUINED WHAT I BUILT!"
The tree had heard this conversation so many times before. Just as it would hear it many times in the future. Each and every reality worked together like cogs in a perfect clock. Not every reality would be convinced Harmony is the true path to unify their world, but for the ones that did it knew that the best possible future awaited them. This Twilight that was visiting this failed reality was doing quite well as its element of harmony. She never questioned the tenets of its beliefs for a moment.
Just as it should be.
The magic of friendship is the only magic that can truly....unite them all.
