Dangerous Dog and Pony Show

As they entered the next cave, if the five ponies could have done around their bits, they would have gasped when they saw Rarity. Either that, or thrown up.

Their friend was hooked up to a cart, was wearing a bridle like them and was casting a spell to locate gems. Welts and bruises covered her body, and her pristine white fur was covered in dirt and blood from various injuries. Her mane was a tangled mess, also filled with red blood stains, and her tail was nearly destroyed, half seemly ripped out at the root from the cart behind her. She looked miserable, disheveled, thirsty, dirty, beaten and broken…

…and their unicorn friend was indeed all of these things.

What the others couldn't tell, but was clear to Twilight, was just how bad Rarity’s mind was. It was clear that Rarity had not been given any rest or sleep since her capture and had been up for more than a day. But worse for a unicorn was that she had clearly been overdoing, or more accurately forced to overdo, her magic casting.

Rarity could of course use her magic for long periods of time when dress making, and in that regards actually had more magic stamina than the average unicorn. In fact, hardly anypony would be able to spend the amount of time levitating fabric and running sewing machines like Rarity did on her epic Idea nights.

But even so, she was no mage level unicorn and clearly was on the verge of complete magical collapse. With her physical body also damaged and unlike Twilight not trained in advance magic recovery techniques, Twilight was worried what that would mean for Rarity’s abilities and mental state permanently should the worse happen...

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This truly was the worst possible thing! Since allowing herself to be captured in order to protect her little Spikey Wikey’s life, Rarity had never experienced anything like it before. To start off with she was forced into these old fashion bindings, and warned not to use her magic unless instructed.

Of course with Spike out of harms way she was tempted to start fighting, but she was massively outnumbered. She had tried to learn from Twilight shield casting or teleportation spells, but she simply wasn't a powerful enough unicorn to do that sort of magic. Levitation, tool use and of course her gem finding spell was as far as her skills went. So she had little choice but to comply with her captors orders until help arrived.

Within minutes her beautiful tail was ruined by the cart, but that was only the start. Pulling the heavy cart and using spells to find and dig up gems quickly made her tire. But as soon as she slowed down, the dogs whipped her flank. Of course the pain spurred her on, but as her physical and mental energy reserves faded the punishment increased in frequency and severity. She retreated into her mind, started acting on instinct, just hoping rescue would come soon.

After what seemed like years, Freedom and fun seemed like a distant memory in Rarity’s mind. But she suddenly looked up in hope when she heard the familiar sound of five groups of pony hooves clicking on the floor. When she saw her friends ridden or led in, seemingly as helpless as her, her mind and body just gave up. Her magic stopped working and she slumped to her knees.

“Keep going pony” one of the dogs near her yelled at her, but Rarity simply could not continue anymore – she needed to rest her magic, she needed water and food, she needed sleep. The dog grabbed a whip and struck it against her flank, but the unicorn didn't respond as she simply had no more to give.

“You will keep working!” the dog yelled again, and struck Rarity round the face with his paw. This knocked Rarity over, and blood started seeping from the cuts from the claws. She just lay there and looked over at her friends despondently.

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This was too much for them all to witness, especially Twilight who was the only one currently able to do anything about it - it was time for action. Originally she thought she needed a good ten second cast time to be able to protect all of them with one spell – with the anger inside of her spurring her on this was down to eight. But she needed a distraction in order to have enough time to free her and her friends, keep Fluttershy safe and do something about Rarity.

She started looking around the cave for anything to help her. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the cave she could set fire to, or make explode. There were no loose boulders to make a landslide, and no creatures nearby she could summon for help. Things were looking a little bad for an instant escape attempt, but she had to think of something...her friend needed her.

The unicorn must have been concentrating too hard on planning her move as suddenly she noticed a bit of pandemonium around her. She turned her head and saw a large dragon had joined them, but then realised this was not just any dragon…it was her dragon assistant.

Twilight recognised what had happened from her books – Dragons came in all shapes and sizes, and most were driven by greed which made them grow huge. But a very small subset were not greedy dragons, but protectors. She stood there starting to recall everything she had learnt about dragons...this was a lot as when she hatched Spike she was tasked of bringing up the young dragon. A knock from Applejack brought her mind back to the present more dire situation.

With all the chaos being caused by Spike, Twilight first cast a spell to destroy the bindings around her and her friends…

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Spike was laying helplessly in the cage looking on as he saw Rarity get hit for the first time. He was already distraught from seeing his secret crush in such a state, but to see the most beautiful pony in all the land being treated like this was too much. His blood started to boil with anger, and then literally started to boil inside him. When the dog then drew blood from his love, that sealed the canines fate.

Spike burst out of the cage with pure raw strength, and jumping off Fluttershy’s back started growing. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he just knew what he had to do. He let out a piercing roar that grabbed every creature’s attention, and then swatted away the dog threatening Futtershy like he was a parasprite.

He continued to grow to at least ten times his former size and felt his whole body start to feel tighter – this was his skin thickening up into a nearly impenetrable armour, taking on a dark metallic look. His vision changed as he eyeballs became crystal coated, and felt a popping sensation as his old spine bumps turned into vicious looking spikes. But the strangest physical sensation was when two massive wings sprung fought from his back and unfurled.

Yet, he barely noticed these changes as his mind went into fight mode. He instantly sized up his opposition, their strengths and weaknesses and the location he was in, working through all the permutations and possibilities like a trained expert. He seemed to have a vast physical and also magical armoury at his disposal, but there was no need for any that against these pathetic creatures.

Spike roared as the majority of the Dogs raced towards him. One threw a spear, and it simply snapped against his chest plate. Spike let out a massive burst of purple fire, causing every dog and pony to dive for cover. Another dog attacked him from behind with a sword, but the tool just snapped against his thick wings. A group of dogs were batted away to clear some space around him.

Enraged, he started seeking out a certain dog who he had decided was the first on his list. But He then saw his muse, the white pony that meant more than the entire world to him.

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Rarity looked on from her position on the floor as this strange beast stormed towards her, and unable to move or defend herself she fell into a blissful unconscious at the sight and thought of what was to come. Spike carefully scooped her up in a claw, turned, and started running down the path they had come. His five pony friends, who had just watched as all this had happened, jumped out of the way, then started running after pair.

The dogs began to give chase and hearing them, the pony group turned to fight. However, four of them were surprised to find Twilight having a strange dark aura emanating from her horn. Growing up she had always been given nearly unrestricted access when reading by the Princess, with only one section of the vast canterlot library off limits. But like most young fillies she had disobeyed orders and had read things she shouldn’t have...that nopony should ever read.

“DOGS, COME ONE STEP CLOSER AND YOU DIE!” she yelled in full Canterlot voice, streaks of lightning flashing randomly off her horn exploding in front of the dogs “WHAT YOU DID TO MY FRIEND IS INEXCUSABLE!”

The leader of the dogs looked at the large Dragon escaping and the powerful unicorn channelling dark magic in front of him, and made one of the best decisions of his life “Retreat!”

“AND YOU BETTER HOPE SHE RECOVERS FULLY OR I WILL HUNT…YOU…DOWN…AND…KILL…YOU…ALL!” Twilight yelled after them, not sounding like herself but almost as evil as Nightmare Moon. Despite the dark surroundings, her fur and mane suddenly seem a little darker than usual, almost like it was absorbing anylight that came close to it.

Her friends looked at the powerful unicorn in a mixture of confusion and worry. They had seen Twilight have little breakdowns before, but this was on a different scale. But then, what the dogs had done was on a different scale than anything they had seen before...and they had seen a lot in the past few months. Thinking it best not to mention it, they just started running after Spike and Rarity, followed closely by a lavender unicorn that seemed to have a few seconds gap in her memory.