Starlight received the least amount of impact from the blast. She climbed to her hooves rather slowly. She shook off the blow and tried to get the ringing in her ears to die down a little before planning her next move.

Twilight hit the wall in front of her after the initial ‘boom’ sounded. Starlight considered galloping over to where Twilight had landed. But not before realizing that she had already lost track of Spike.

“Oh Twilight is going to be furious with me!” Starlight thought. “Why didn’t Spike stay behind me?”

Twilight was a strong pony. And a little bit less fragile to magical explosions than a baby dragon perhaps. Starlight considered starting in on her role as medic with Spike first.

She remembered seeing what looked like Spike’s figure fly in the opposite direction from Twilight and over her own head. So Starlight decided to start looking in that direction.

“Spike? Spike!” Starlight called. “Spike where are you? Please tell us you’re alright!”

You know what would make it especially hard for Starlight to find Spike? Well quite simply all of the BOOKS.

Books.

Books lay strewn everywhere across the floor. Pages torn from every which-a-way littered the boisterous room around her. It was a mess to behold. As if her task was hard enough add to it the hindrance of every book in Twilight’s study occupying the floor around her.

But despite all of the chaos one thing remained untouched: one happy, healthy, potted daisy still sat in the middle of the room as if saying, “Hey, I think you missed me.”

Starlight kept searching for Spike while worry and fear crept over her. To make matters worse Spike was tiny enough that a pile of books could easily conceal him. She had everywhere to look!

“Spike? Spike!”

Just then a piercing noise arose out of nowhere and caused the unicorn’s ears to resume ringing all over again. It was a sound she wasn’t all too familiar with. Yet, not one she ever wanted to become reacquainted.

It was the unmistakable sound of a crying foal. And it sounded like it was coming from the direction Spike flew in.

“How did a foal get in here?” Starlight asked nopony in particular sprinting towards the wails.

She began throwing books and papers around with her magic desperately trying to find the source of all that crying. Books like “A Weather Ponies Guide to Winter Wrap-Up”, “How to Teach Magic Kindergarten”, and “Goodnight, Firebreather” were thrown out of the way as fast as Starlight Glimmer could perform the search part of the search and rescue. Eventually with enough throws she would find the source of the annoying crying.

Underneath a pile of magic encyclopedias, she found it.

There sat a much smaller version of Spike. Make that a much louder version of him as well.

Starlight reached a hoof out just to touch the poor thing. Was what she was seeing actually real or did she just hit her head a little too hard on the way down?

“Spike? Is that you?” Starlight blinked a couple of times.. “Oh please, oh please let this be somepony else’s dragon that just happens to look exactly like…” Starlight paused to swallow hard. “Spike…”

The hatchling dragon stared in horror at the massive pony that stood towering before him.

If this littler dragon was in fact Spike, a claim Starlight could point to by way of the creature’s light purple scales and bright, watery, emerald green eyes, then Spike wasn’t recognizing her. Or maybe Starlight had something on her face?

“Spike! It’s me! Starlight Glimmer? You know? Assistant number two?” Starlight turned downtrodden. “Oh Sweet Celestia… you absorbed all of the magic didn’t you?”

Spike just continued to ball his eyes out and shy away under the rest of the books Starlight hadn’t yet tossed away.

“Oh geez. Twilight is going to be so peeved…”

Thinking out loud made her realize she forgot something. “TWILIGHT.”

Without hesitation Starlight galloped to the other side of the room leaving the infant Spike to cry a little longer. She stopped in front of where Twilight was lying. It looked like Twilight was already coming to her senses. She was trying to stand up.

“Twilight! You’re alright. Oh thank Celestia you’re alright!” Starlight put her hooves around her mentor and pulled her into a hug.

“Ugh, wha– what happened?” Twilight asked.

“Well you sort of went rogue there, all of our books and papers started flying around the room–” Twilight put a hoof up to her own mouth the moment she realized something had happened to her books. Starlight continued on, “–and well uh, you missed the daisy.”

“This is the last time I conjoin Descartes with Star Swirl the Bearded.” Twilight rubbed her head.

“This time was supposed to be different,” thought Twilight.

Down but not defeated, Twilight supposed it would all be ok if nopony got hurt.

If...

Twilight continued, “I guess we’ll just have to tidy up the study tomorrow and pick up where we left off. Where’s Spike?”

Twilight regained the acuity in her posture much sooner than that of her hearing it seemed. She wasn’t quite aware of the tiny dragon crying in the background.

Or maybe it’s the opposite? Maybe she was so used to the sound of Spike’s crying that the sound actually wasn’t foreign to her at all?

“Well, you see, er– that’s the thing,” Starlight stammered. “Spike sort of, um. Well he kind of just– and you were so distracting–.” Eventually Starlight took a deep breath and said.. “Twilight, I can’t get him to stop crying.”

Twilight wasn’t sure if she understood.

“Is he hurt? Where? Do we have the first aid kit?” Twilight ran towards the sound of the wails. “Oh Spike! Don’t cry. I’m sure whatever it is I can fix it!”

Starlight trotted close behind her. “Twilight, what I meant is– I can’t get Spike to stop crying because... he got in the way.”

“'In the way?’ What–-”

Twilight reached the other side of the room expecting to see Spike holding his knee or his elbow or some other appendage. What she really saw made her jaw drop.

There on the floor of her study in front of her sat a figure Twilight never thought she’d see outside the photo albums again. It was her assistant. But a much, much earlier version of him. Way back before she even graduated Celestia’s school. His chubby cheeks, tail, arms, legs, and body were unmistakable to Twilight. She would recognize her baby dragon anywhere.

But did he recognize her?

“Bahada Gah!” Spike sat up and clapped his claws together. Remarkably enough he stopped his crying and reached both of his chubby little dragon arms out to try and grab Twilight.

“This… this is terrible!” Twilight was a potpourri of emotions right now. Fear, sadness, and desperation among them.

“Well, hey at least he stopped crying,” Starlight said.

Twilight shot her student an annoyed look.

The alicorn returned her attention back down towards Spike. Twilight had felt a lot of magical energy during the course of that botched spell. Like a lot of energy. If Spike had absorbed all of it well then she really had no idea how she was meant to turn him back. She cast a quick glance at her books, randomly tossed around the room, some pages torn and burnt. Twilight wished the current Spike was still around to help her clean this up. He had the entire shelving process memorized by genre, subject, and title.

“Oh Spike," Twilight kneeled down to let Spike wrap one of his tiny claws around her hoof. "I'm so sorry.”

Spike simply held onto her hoof and babbled. He was no longer comprehensible to Twilight and Starlight anymore. It all just came out as baby gibberish to them.

"Don't beat yourself up too bad over this, Twi. I mean at least he's still cute this way," Starlight giggled.

She quickly turned serious when she felt Twilight omit a reaction. Starlight put a hoof around Twilight's back while she was embracing Spike. "We can still fix this..." she whispered.

Twilight continued to hold Spike in her hooves. Everything to her felt the same as she held him. His weight, figure, the way he constantly tried clawing at her mane, the way he sucked on her hooves while she held him. It was all the same.

It took her back to a place in time that was exciting and different. A time where Spike depended on her for so much. For food, for health, for life.

Suddenly, Spike spit up all over Twilight's hooves. Twilight eyed Spike completely dumbfounded. A spit bubble popped causing Starlight's eye to twitch.

"Er, uh well- Twilight?"

"Can you grab me a towel please, Starlight?"

Author's Note

Well this story might have to officially go on hiatus for a bit. But like I said it WILL get finished. So stay tuned everypony! /)

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