Chapter Seven
Spike took a sip from a mug of warm soup, and said; "So you're telling me that Twilight sparkle, because of ponies trying to attack you, cast a spell to make all of Equestria forget about you. And sent you to live with a zebra clan to the west? I find that hard to believe, she would never willingly give up a friend. And you have no evidence other than the wings you claim are hiding under that vest." Taking another sip, he asked, "Why were the ponies attacking you?"
Nyx looked through her glasses at spike and said; "It is a long story, and I have no desire to tell it all at once. But, if you seek proof, here you are." At that, she stood. And using a bit of magic, she transformed into a cloud of starry purple smoke. The smoke then began to take shape, becoming a mare as tall and slender as Celestia, the mare stretched out her wings, then let them fold to her side. Still looking through her glasses, she asked; "Proof enough, Spike?"
"What the- Why do you look like Nightmare moon!?" Spike said, standing and backing away quickly.
"For Celestia's sake, this isn't going at all to plan" Nyx said, then, removing her glasses with her magic, she looked the panicked dragon in the eye and cast a spell.
Spike temporarily frozen at the sight of Nyx's eyes; which were now the same as his, only turquoise, and did not have time to dodge the spell. A flood of memories and feelings entered his mind, and he grinned as he remembered his adopted sister. The draconic grin faded, however, when a question entered his mind.
"Why didn't you come back sooner?"
Nyx's eyes widened in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to track you down!? I have wandered alone for five hundred years, just trying to find you!"
Spike asked another question, "Alone? Surely you've heard that Twilight became an alicorn."
The black alicorn smiled sadly, "I'm afraid that you are the one here who is under-informed, Spike. Twilight is out of my reach. And she is the reason I must ask for help." She took a breath, and said, "We must save the Princess of Friendship. From herself."
Spike hid just outside Canterlot, waiting for the signal. It was difficult to conceal his large frame. He was something of a natural phenomenon among dragon kind, having no wings and growing without any greed, he was around eight feet tall, and fourteen hundred pounds of nothing but muscle; a formidable force to be reckoned with, even though he was not the brave knight he imagined himself becoming as a child.
Instead of the jousting pole he used to pretend to swing around when no one was looking, he preferred to use his bare claws, Nyx had given him a reflective shield for magic attacks though, just in case. He ran the plan through his head one more time; "When the signal goes off, I distract the guards with enough violence for them to require a lot of reinforcements."
A pink star flickered to life in the night sky overhead; the signal, subtle enough that no one would notice, and if a random pony did, they'd think little of it.
Spike rose from his position and shot a blast of fire at the wall surrounding the city, the guards on top of the wall giving him their full attention, he ran at the wall and jumped, landing in the center of the walkway that the guards patrolled.
"I am so sorry!" Spike said as he dropped the closest guard with what he considered a light whack. Two other ponies, seeing his violent intent; charged at him with spears. He sidestepped with a speed that defied his bulk, allowing the two attackers to run past. Then, picking up the fallen pony's spear, Spike broke the head off and hit one of the guards with the stick, he would have got the other one too, but the headless spear exploded into splinters on impact.
The remaining guard shrieked like a filly, "I need backup!" just before getting a heavy blow to the skull.
Spike heard a flapping noise behind him. Turning, he saw three full squads of pegasi advancing. "Surrender now!" The leading pegasus guard shouted.
Looking at the fallen wall sentry, Spike picked him up and threw him at the flying guards, purposefully aiming high. The unconscious pony flew over the heads of the pegasi, forcing a group of them to break off to try and catch the sailing sentry.
The rest of the troops swarmed him from all sides, he let them get close, then spun in a circle, using his arms and tail to bat them away. The sheer force of this attack broke bones and knocked several guards unconscious, leaving the less harmed ones to reconsider their attack plan.
"Take him out! Quick! K Formation!" One guard shouted.
A memory flickered to life in Spikes head. K Form… He remembered that. If it was the same as a thousand years ago, then the pegasi were about to fly in a complex pattern, attempting to distract him while another pony silently glided from behind and hit a spot on the back of his head, which was a weakness on most living things, including dragons.
The pegasi began flying in every direction, up, down, forward, backward, left, right. Spike stared at them, pretending to be trying to analyze their attack plan. Then, after waiting a few moments, he spun around, catching the lone guard by surprise, and hit him. With a thump, the pony went limp and fell to the stone floor. Turning back, he let loose a might roar, then, with a trick he used to only use on Nightmare night, he blinked his inner eyelids to intimidate his foes.
Taking the challenge, the remaining guards rushed him. All but one, who flew off in a different direction, likely to get some magic support.
As the closest guard reached him, he grabbed the pegasus's foreleg, then swung him around like a rag doll, using the soon unconscious pony as a weapon.
Defeating the last flying guard, Spike felt the scales on his neck prickle.
"I would ask you to surrender, but you've already made your answer abundantly clear."
Spike looked at the owner of the voice. A unicorn with armor slightly more ornate than the rest of the guard; a captain.
Without wasting anymore time, the captain drew a long sword with his magic, and lunged at the dragon.
Nyx trotted down the halls of Canterlot in her true form, not another pony in sight. She had decided that she would reveal herself in her true form to Celestia for two reasons; one, the strategy that she was using was already using more deception than she liked, and two, Nyx felt that the Princess of the Sun would respect an adult a lot more than a the filly she was more comfortable as.
She smiled, remembering the first time she had met the regal Princess.
After the play, the group consisting of Nyx, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Celestia, Luna, and the other three remaining Cutie Mark Crusaders had all gone to a restaurant that the four fillies had picked.
It was Apple Bloom, interestingly enough, who started a conversation with the two princesses, quickly bringing her (completely normal) obsession with Cutie Marks in as a topic, she asked them, "Princesses, how did yall get yer Cutie Marks? If ya don't mind mah askin, that is."
Celestia smiled, she loved talking to fillies. Because they were too young to fully understand her royal position, they often treated her like they would anypony else, letting her take a break from the usual topics from the Canterlot elite; how is Canterlot, why did the sun come up three seconds early, what do you think the stock market will do in the next couple of months, etc. (She always told them the stock market would rise, because she didn't really know much about it.)
Breaking out of her thoughts, she said, "Well, it started shortly after Equestria was founded, actually. The ponies of the old country, Pongea, wanted to immigrate to Equestria because the cold from the windigos had magically created a lot of snow, which in turn, was flooding the entire region. There was one problem though, the pony who raised the sun and moon wouldn't leave, and threatened that he would leave the sun up if anypony left, frying that side of the world and freezing the other.
But, half of Pongea decided to call his bluff, and left anyway. When he found out, he pulled through on his threat, and for two weeks, the temperatures rose higher and higher. After two weeks, ponies were hiding in their homes, unable to go out and get food. Me and my sister were a lot like you back then, trying to find our Cutie Marks and doing everything that came to mind to get them."
The heat didn't deter us, and we did things indoors. Eventually our food and water supply ran out, and our dear, sweet mother decided to brave the heat to feed us. We waited a long time, and then our father left to look for her. N-neither of them came back, and we w-were alone for a while." Celestia tried to continue, but Luna saw that she was breaking down and picked up.
"We didn't know what to do, and had stopped trying to get our Cutie Marks after father left. Then Celestia had a ridiculous idea. We could try to lower the sun ourselves. I was mad at her for still thinking about Cutie Marks, but it was something to distract me, so I went with her to her room, where she opened the window letting in a heat that stung like boiling water.
"we both tried to lower the sun at the same time, converting our desires into a spell. For several minutes, we struggled with the sun, and in our stubborn refusal to give up, we blacked out. We woke up in darkness, and Celestia used her magic to light a candle. The window was still open, but, to our shock, it was night time.
"Then, looking at each other, I said, "you're an alicorn!" at the same time Celestia said, "you got your Cutie mark!" We both turned to look at what the other had seen and there, behind us, were our Cutie Marks and wings sitting there like they had been there the whole time. Everything we had ever dreamed of in our wildest dreams. Alicorns only existed in legends from thousands of years ago, even then."
The meal had arrived while the story was told, and Sweetie Belle stopped eating her sandwich to ask, "what happened to your parents?"
Celestia hesitated before started to answer, "they came home, and-" but was cut off by Luna.
"Sister, protecting them from reality will only make it hurt more when it decides to hit them." Then she said to the four Crusaders, "We went looking for them, and when we found them, they had died, both of sunstroke, even though it appeared that father had tried to shelter mother when he found her."
The group went silent for a bit, then Scootaloo broke the silence by asking in a shaky voice, "how old were you?" it was a sensitive topic for the filly, having lost her parents too. Only Rainbow Dash knew about this, though, because Scootaloo had kept it a secret so she could stay in the town that her parents lived. Fluttershy had almost found out by stumbling upon the filly while she was in her shack on the edge of the woods, but Scootaloo had convinced the yellow pegasus that it was her secret clubhouse.
Celestia answered the question, saying; "older than you, I'm sure. We were out of school and looking for work just before the sun stayed in the sky for two weeks."
Sweetie belle and Scootaloo's expressions became horrified at the thought of waiting so long. And Nyx and Apple Bloom looked relieved that somepony, even the age old Princesses, had waited longer than them.
Twilight, noticing that Nyx hadn't really joined the conversation, said, "Nyx, why don't you tell the princesses about your favorite subject in school?"
The black filly perked up by just thinking about it, and said, "I really like learning about history, finding out how the original ponies in Ponyville got by is really cool, and ancient spells tell you a lot about the time period that they were made."
Celestia was surprised at this, asking, "I thought Ponyville Elementary was a mixed school, why do they teach ancient spells if two thirds of the ponies aren't unicorns?"
It was Twilight who answered, saying, "Actually, they don't. Nyx here loves to learn, and living in the library has only encouraged it."
Apple Bloom burst out, "I've never met somepony who loves learning like she does!"
"She asks so many questions! We almost miss recess!" Scootaloo continued.
Sweetie Belle picked up, saying, "but the questions she asks bring up really cool topics, and it makes class a lot more interesting."
Nyx almost shouted as she had a thought, "Maybe I can get my Cutie Mark in studying!" her eyes gleamed at the thought.
The other three fillies visibly shuddered, and Scootaloo said, "Maybe. You should look into it in your free time. While we do that ski jump you didn't want to do."
Celestia smiled, the four fillies were so very different, but it was apparent that they were very close friends. It reminded her of herself and Luna before Nightmare Moon was banished.
The group continued to talk about a wide variety of subjects till late in the night.
Nyx's flashback ended as she arrived at the door to the princess's quarters. She lit up her horn. It was time to get a little messy.
