Chapter 4

“My Reflection”

[In Spike's Consciousness]

Where am I? Why is it all dark? Did I die?

I was standing on air. There was nothing in sight and all I saw was just darkness.

“Hello!” I shouted.

Silence. I was starting to fear this place when all of a sudden, I saw a blinding flash. I shielded my eyes from the brightness and the light started to decrease. At first, it revealed a silhouette of a large dragon. As the brightness started to fade more, I saw that it was… me?

The dragon's features were almost like mine. He was purple scaled with green spikes, green eyes and was much taller than me.

“Who are you?” I asked with a hint of fear in my voice.

The dragon gave me a toothy grin, revealing his huge canine fangs. They were probably a foot long!

“I am of your existance,” he replied in a rich, deep voice.

Confused at what he said, I replied with, “What?”.

The elder dragon that looked like me, came closer to me and interrogated me.

“Spike, have you not already guessed who I am?”

I took a good look at him. He had the same color of scales as me, same color of spikes as me, and same color of eyes. My guess was soon a wild one.

“You're… me?”

The dragon grinned and replied, “Correct.”

“B-but… how?” I stammered.

“You see Spike, a dragon's soul is divided into two sections. You are the dragon that mostly controls your consciousness and your body. The other half of your soul that you can't control very well but can use, is me. I am an exact, older duplicate of you. The only difference is that I am the wielder of your abilities, strengths, skills and limits. I can help you increase or decrease your abilities when you really need it,” he explained.

“So basically, you are like a secondary adrenaline power source?”

“In a way, yes,” he replied.

“Then how do I use it?”

“You already did…”

“Wha…?” I already did it? How?

“Do you remember what happened when General Ignus ordered Haywyre to execute your friend Razre first?”

Fresh images of the incident, came back to me. I remembered what happened.

“I got very furious…”

“Do you remember anything of what happened afterwards?” he asked with curiosity.

The next set of images were a haze to me. I tried focusing on what I could make out of my memory but it was all a blur.

“No,” I finally replied.

The elder duplicate gave me a frown.

“I thought so… After you had your rage tantrum, I took over your instincts and your consciousness to destroy the dragons. You may not know but I'll explain it to you. The three dragons and the General were killed by me. Their existence is no more.”

I was in shock. He killed them for me. “You fought for me… why? I could've done it myself!” I said with pride.

The duplicate looked at me with a “WTF” expression on his face.

“Obviously, you do not know your skills in fighting,” he said. “Fight me and I'll prove you what your skills are.”

I was caught off guard by that last statement. I gave him a confused look.

“I said… fight me,” he repeated.

Well, this would be an fantastic battle. I am battling the older version of myself… and the scenery changed to plains.

The little battle began as I made a feint with my left claw and directed my right to his chest, ready to scrape him. The next thing I know is that I am being hanged upside-down. The duplicate gave me a smirk. He then threw me with his full force to the grass. I landed with a crater that was at least fifteen meters wide in diameter. My older self then came charging at me and I tried to block him but somehow, he managed to hit me in stomach. My air was knocked out and I was gasping for more oxygen. The older drake, grabbed me by my tail with his powerful, large claws and flung me like a rag to a nearby tree. I went sailing through the air at a very fast rate and destroyed the tree's trunk as I went right through it.

I felt lightheaded and my ears were ringing. I felt something trickle down my chin and found out that it was blood. My duplicate came at me fast but I reacted as well. He was quick and I could only block his attacks but I was soon starting to get weary. Eventually, I did a wrong attempt and I was hit forcefully in my jaw. Blood was now pouring out of my maw and I lay in the dirt. The older dragon looked at me and shook his head slowly.

“You are very vulnerable Spike,” he said.

I tried to get up but I couldn't. I soon felt as if I were in a compact space and I looked up to see the older version of myself to use his magic. His claw ignited with a dark green aura and a beam of green energy hit me. I didn't feel any pain, in the contrary, I felt much better. My bruises and cuts disappeared and my aching as well.

“You used a healing spell, right?”

“Obviously,” he huffed while also emitting smoke from his nostrils.

“You need to train if you're going to go survive in the Everfree Forest,” he said, “…you'll need it.”

“Wait… I'm not going to the Everfree.”

“I'm afraid you'll have to because there are more dragons that are looking for you and your companion Razre.”

“Then I'll just get help from my friends and the princesses! They will be able to help!”

“They can't,” he simply replied.

“Why not?”

The older me face-clawed. “Haven't you already realized that bringing this to the princesses' attention will cause a war between ponies and dragons?”

“I haven't - ”

“It will be your fault if you bring the subject to your princesses. Surely, you don't want to start a war, do you?”

“No but - ”

“Then go to the Everfree Forest and survive. Train yourself and…” he lowered his voice. “Don't make idiotic decisions.”

“LET ME SPEAK!” I yelled as loud as I could.

The older drake looked at me and arched a scaly brow.

“First of all, how the hell am I supposed to survive in the Everfree Forest? Secondly, how will I start a war and third of all, do you even have a name?”

The dragon smirked and then finally gave me a response.

“You can survive in the Everfree Forest, Spike. You are a dragon, not a pony. Dragons can live in almost any condition and habitat. To answer your second question, a long story short, you must go to the Dragonlands and find out,” his expression then turned grim. “I also have a name. My name is the same as yours but I also go by another title. My draconic name is Ex’ze.”

“Okay, but where - ”

“You are in your inner conscious,” he interrupted.

How did he know what I was going to ask him? Does he know something I don't?

“How'd you know I'd ask you that?” I asked with curiosity.

“Spike, I'm the ‘other half’ of you. I can read your thoughts, help regulate and stabilize your body, control your skills and I can even help you through tough situations,” Ex’ze replied.

“That's nice but how - ”

“You'll be waking up in a few moments,” he said.

I began feeling pain and soon everything became black as I prepared to re-enter my consciousness…

[Spike's Point of View]

“Uuggh…”

I felt sore, numb and exhausted. I heard some muffled sounds from where I was lying. The muffled sounds started to get clearer until I recognized the voice.

“Spike!” I heard Razre shouting. “Are you okay?”

I opened my eyes and at first, it was all a blur. After a few seconds, my vision became clearer and I saw Razre's golden eyes looking straight at me with concern.

Razre exhaled throughly and asked if I was alright. I replied that I felt very sore, numb and felt pain.

“I thought you had died because of exhaustion,” the black scaled drake said.

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, you fought three dragons and the best general of Draconia. You killed them all either bare clawed or by magic!” he said with awe.

I killed them all… Ex’ze wasn't lying about that…

“Hey Spike, are you okay?” Razre asked while waving a claw at my face. I immediately snapped out of my trance and directed my attention to him.

“Huh?”

“You were thinking right?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“What were you thinking of?”

“Nothing important.”

Razre didn't reply and he remained silent until he spotted something in the sky.

“Hey, what's that?” he said to me while pointing a claw to a dark silhouette in the sky.

“I don't know,” I replied slowly. “Wait a minute…”

I squinted my eyes but I could barely make out the colors I was seeing. I saw orange and yellow but then it became a silhouette again as it flew higher until it started to descend fast. It came closer and closer until I saw that it was… a phoenix? Suddenly, I remembered…

“Solaris?” I said.

The phoenix looked at me and gave me a happy chirp. I held out my arm and the fiery bird landed on it.

“Where have you been little one?” I asked while gently rubbing its head.

The phoenix flew away from my arm and gave me a chirp. It flew a few trees until it turned around. Solaris chirped twice and directed its neck to a tree… as if to point to something.

“Spike, I think Solaris wants to show us something,” said Razre.

“Let's follow him.”

I followed Solaris to a pond that I didn't even know was here. The phoenix flew above the surface of the water and stopped almost in the center of the lake.

“It seems whatever he found is on the bottom of the lake,” Razre said.

I got closer to the edge of the pond and saw something glistening on the bottom of the lake.

“Gems!” I exclaimed. “Solaris found us gems!” The black scaled dragon looked down and confirmed that it was gems.

“Wait here. I'll get them,” I said. I took a deep breath and then dived into the lake. When I was fully enveloped by the pond's clean water, I felt cool as the liquid touched all of my scales. I looked down and saw the glistening gems right below me. I swam to the bottom until I felt a cold current of water hit me. I felt something watching me and turned around… nothing. I grabbed the gems and started to reach the surface until I received a second cold current of water. I turned around and saw two glowing, cobalt eyes staring right back at me.

I slowly started to swim away from the aquatic creature and tried to move to the surface of the water. To my mistake, I felt something wrap around my torso and saw that it was scaly and also cobalt-like. I struggled to get free but I couldn't. The creature came out of the dark depths and let the sunlight hit it. The creature was a cobalt scaled dragon with purple spikes. It also seemed to direct its attention at the gems I had grabbed, so I directed my claw with the gems to the cobalt dragon. A blue claw was held out at me and I gave the gems to the dragon. The cobalt dragon let go of me and returned to the depths of the lake. I swam to the surface of the lake and got out. Razre looked at me from a tree that he was lying on.

“Did you find any gems?” he asked.

“Yes but its someone's property,” I replied.

“Wait… there's something down there?”

“Yeah, there's a cobalt scaled dragon down there. I don't know if its a dragon or dragoness.”

“Let's leave the dragon or dragoness alone, surely it doesn't want any company.”

As if on cue, a splash of water hit me and Razre. We both turned around and saw the cobalt scaled creature with purple spikes looking at us…

Author's Note

Finally got this chapter done… on my birthday [December 21st], what a coincidence. Anyways, any guesses on what will happen next? Who is this new aquatic dragon that Spike encountered?

If you liked this story, don't forget to click that thumbs up icon and favorite.