It all started out as a perfectly ordinary afternoon. Nothing going wrong or right, nothing serious happening throughout all of Equestria, but it was especially quiet in the small town of Ponyville. At least, it was until-

“SPIKE! Something is horribly wrong!”

The teenage dragon came barreling down the stairs, nearly stumbling over his own feet, to his friend’s rescue. He wore his favorite blue jeans, black shirt and trademark Wonderbolt sneakers, and around his waist he wore a belt with some form of gem socket on the front and held a gemstone in hand. “What’s going on, Twilight? Do I need to trans…?”

Not to Spike’s surprise, Twilight’s distress call seemed no more than another organizational hazard on the part of the librarian herself. The librarian herself wore a lab coat over her lavender dress and matching skirt. She pushed aside the piles of books in her way and scampered over to Spike. “Oh, good, you’re here. So, as you can see I got myself into a little bit of a-hey wait, where are you going?” Spike had already begun to retreat back up the stairs. “Spike, I need help here!”

“You called me like your life was in danger, Twilight! It’s just a bunch of books!”

Twilight pouted. “Spike, I’m serious!” Her gaze met the floor. “I can’t find my crown…”

Spike immediately halted at the middle step and turned around, heading back down. “For real? You actually can’t find your crown?” Twilight nodded rapidly. “And you’re sure you didn’t just leave it in Canterlot?” Another nod.

“Believe me, that’s the first place I checked. I flew all the way to Canterlot and scoured the palace. I didn’t want to alert Princess Celestia because…well, how do you think she’d feel if she’d heard I lost my crown AGAIN? Anyway, Flash Sentry helped me look all over the castle grounds, but we couldn’t find anything.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t just an excuse to go see your boyfriend?” Spike gave Twilight a sly grin. She flushed slightly but her gaze turned furious.

“That wasn’t the ONLY reason! I’m serious, Spike! I know it doesn’t have its element in it anymore, but it’s what symbolizes everything all of us have come so far to achieve! Not just me becoming a princess, everything! That crown has been a part of your life and mine, and my friendship with the girls for years!”

“Okay, Twilight, calm down, I’ll help you look.”

Twilight took a deep breath and sighed. “Thank you, Spike. And…sorry for making you think I was in some kind of serious trouble again. I know you don’t like using that belt of yours for anything other than dire emergencies. I actually think that’s very mature of you.”

“Well, yeah. I’m eighteen.”

“’Age’ and ‘maturity’ aren’t the same, Spike. You still gawk at Rarity every now and then.”

“It’s not gawking!” Spike blushed intensely. “It’s more like…admiration now.”

Twilight held back a giggle fit. “Okay, Spike. Whatever you say.”

The two spent hours digging through bookshelves and desk drawers only to come up with nothing. There was no trace of Twilight’s crown, and the more she realized it, the less panicked and more disappointed in herself she seemed to become. “What if we never find it? How am I supposed to show myself as a princess without my crown?”

“Don’t worry, Twi, we’ll find-“

CRASH!

“What the heck was that?!” the two said in unison, rushing to the window to spot what was going on outside. To their absolute shock, a monstrous beast resembling a bear stood just before the library, but faced the other way. Another notable feature about it was that it was made entirely of emerald, or at least seemed to be.

“Spike…? Is that…”

Spike nodded. “Unfortunately. Seriously, why do all the monsters I have to deal with have to be edible?”

Twilight looked back to the mess in her library, then back out to the monster ready to tear Ponyville apart. “…Spike, you know what you have to do. Ponyville’s fate rests in your hands here.”

He nodded again. “I know. I’ll deal with this as quickly as I possibly can, and we’ll get back to looking for your crown.”

Twilight smiled and gave a nod in return. With that, Spike ran out the door of the library and confronted the emerald bear. “Hey, dragon food!” The ursine beast turned around, growling deeply like the feral monster it was. It saw Spike not as a predator, but as prey, and roared viciously no more than a foot in front of his face. “Yeah, I take it you don’t know who I am, then. It’s a shame whatever idiot sent you out here to wreck my home didn’t tell you about me.”

Spike pulled a green gem from his pocket and tossed it into the air, catching it with style and grace.

“Allow me to show you just who I am! HENSHIN!”

Spike socketed the gem into the slot on his belt and a bright green glow flashed across his entire body, forming the first layer of armor. A set of black lines crossed over his arms, legs and chest to form the next, then a spiral of burning green flame embraced his body, forming into a glowing emerald chest plate and arm and leg bracers. Spike’s helmet formed last, taking the shape of a dragon’s maw as it breathed out the same colored fire which manifested into his visor.

“You wanna know my name? It’s Kamen Rider Jadefire! Never forget it!”

The emerald bear, unfazed by Spike’s impressive transformation, roared at the armored hero again to a much lesser effect. Spike simply grinned and clapped his hands together. A green flame spiraled out of the vents on his bracers and formed into a jade Longsword which he gripped easily in one hand. “You wanna dance then, bear? Well, come on! Let’s DANCE!”

The bear took an immediate swipe at the armored drake, which Spike was able to dodge with ease by jumping nearly ten feet up. “Seriously? You’re trying to threaten me by roaring when you’re actually THAT slow?” With a midair shift, Spike altered his downward momentum and jammed his sword right into the bear’s massive paw. The beast reared back, howling in pain as Spike dislodged his weapon from its claw and dropped back to the ground. “Is that all you’ve got?” The bear roared and slammed the ground, sending a wave of rising emerald stalagmites at Spike. “That’s new!” The drake quickly rolled back again and again to evade the oncoming gems, but they just kept charging until they made contact with their target, sending Spike flying backwards into a nearby tree, snapping it clean in half The bear growled victoriously as it approached the fallen knight to finish the job.

“Crystal Shatter! JADE DRAGON!”

A glass-like shatter is heard from the felled tree as a fiery green dragon spirit rose up, growled at the now-terrified emerald bear, and charged head-first into the monster, searing its gemstone body from within. The creature shrieked and flailed about, unable to fight back against an intangible foe. The dragon spirit rose up out from the bear’s back, and once it was high enough, formed back into Spike himself, who with his sword still drawn, dove back down, angling for the bear’s neck, and cleaved straight through, decapitating the gemstone beast. He dismissed the Longsword in a cloud of flame as his transformation fizzled out.

“And that’s…how it’s…done…” Spike proceeded to collapse on the ground as the emerald monster behind him crumbled to nothing more than a huge pile of gem dust. Twilight immediately rushed out the door upon seeing this, and swiftly dove to Spike’s side.

“It wore him out again…he’s gotta stop using the Shatter, it’s gonna seriously hurt him some…huh?” Twilight glanced over to the remains of the ursine beast to see something gold sparkling just atop the pile of dust. When she got closer, she was horrified with what she found.

A mere shard of her crown lying in the emerald dust.

Author's Note

Note: There WILL be more relevant characters than Twilight and Spike, but due to the obvious mystery required by Kamen Riders in general, they will not be added to the tag list until they become major parts of the story.