2 Years after Twilight's Ascension

Spike's mind was blank and despite his consciousness returning very slowly, he wasn't prepared for the stinging pain that followed. His body was decorated with shallow scratches and dried blood, followed by a very deep gash across his right side. His mind finally rebooted despite the pain and he opened his eyes, but scrunched them shut in pain. He could feel stiffness made worse by what felt like bruises on his tail, legs and lower torso, and his arms had small bandages wrapped around them indicating that there had been either scalpels or shots administered to the spots.

Spike reopened his eyes and he was met with a dark blurry ceiling and room, and the only light was the light emanating from the crack underneath the door. His vision didn't clear, but he felt circulation fly through his arms and legs and he started with moving his fingers and toes. Cracks emanated from the joints and he repeated this procedure until his whole body stiffness had lessened.

"Oooooooooh," Spike moaned in pleasure, "That feels great, but I still need to get up."

He turned his hands down towards the stone table he laid upon, and pushed his body up slowly to avoid a head rush. He sat up and his vision finally cleared to a very small blur, and he circumviewed the room. The walls were stone, but were painted with silver with ink depicting what appeared to be alicorns. The room itself was nothing special, but it appeared to be a research room. The floor had disarrayed papers, broken ink vials, and black stain on some of the papers.

There was a chalkboard, but it was too dark to see what was written. There were some papers on the table he sat on, but they were still unreadable in the darkness. He turned his legs towards edge and pushed himself down to the ground, but his body still wasn't awake enough to take the landing and he collapsed on his side with the gash.

"AAAAGHHHH," Spike screamed clutching his side in pain. He his hands met a warm, sticky substance and when he raised one of his hands to his eyes he could make out the fresh blood staining his fingers. He returned his hand on to the gash and looked around, hoping to find something to patch it with. His eyes landed on a roll of bandages laying on the wooden chair a few feet away.

Pulling one hand from his gash he pushed himself up and stumbled over to the chair. He fell down next to it and his body felt a fresh wave of pain, it began to dull his senses and the world was returning to it's blurry state. But Spike wouldn't let himself lose conciousness and he reached to one of the chair legs and tipped the chair over. The bandages rolled on to the ground next to Spike, he grabbed them and let out of a grunt of contentment. Pulling his other hand from the wound he pushed himself into a sitting position and began to wrap the bandages around his body.

"They need to be tight, but not too tight," he muttered remembering the words Nurse Redheart taught him. After a few more times around his body and the wound was covered by the bandages. Pushing himself up and grimacing in partial pain, he placed one foot in front of the other and walked to the door. Putting his hand on the chilled metal he pushed it open and was met with an overpowering light. He covered his eyes, and pushed himself forward. The light faded and illuminated below him was a foyer of sorts with golden colored pillars decorated with a architecture he hadn't seen before.

With the light illuminating the second floor, he turned his head back to the room he exited. Walking to the doorway he looked at the papers that weren't ruined by the ink and the chalkboard that had a runic circle drawn in chalk with papers listing meanings or ingredients.

"Whatever the ponies were doing here, it seemed like they were preparing for a ritual," Spike muttered to himself. He had seen Twilight and Glimmer use runic circles in some of their experiments but what was odd was how those circles seemed concise and neat.

"But these seem corrupted or something," he whispered. The main difference was the symbols used detailing the constructional formula, they seemed rougher or more ancient than the ones Twilight used. Glancing back down the hall he placed one hand on it for support and began to move towards the stairs. As he walked down the hall he took more of his surroundings.

The hallway walls had murals painted on them, but what was interesting is they all showed alicorns instead of the main pony tribes. He stopped and stared at the one alicorn picture near his hand, it was black with white eyes and similar smaller alicorns were shown beneath him. There pictures melded from radiant and powerful detailing before what appeared to be a rather grim war.

Strangely enough, similar symbols were painted on the wall but they were rushed and had dripped down the wall. Spike stopped and stared at them, it was strange as to why somebody would deface a mural such as this. He turned his head to the other side and looked out across the foyer. The seats were stone benches and they lead to a large ebony stage. That stood out to Spike, with all the time he had spent with Rarity he had began to pay more attention to detail and it seemed odd to have a completely black stage as opposed to the old gold, silver, and brown stone that made up his main predicament.

Turning back towards the stairs he took his hand off the wall and walked a little shakily down the hall. As he neared the stairs, he heard a distant bang like someone hitting the wall with a bar and he turned in the direction. He couldn't pinpoint which hall it came from, but it seemed closer than he would like. But before turning away, he looked at another mural that showed to alicorns one with the sun and the other with the moon.

"Wait that's the princesses," Spike spoke in confusion but then put it to a bit more thought, "Then again it makes sense why they would be in this temple, but that begs the question how old are Princess Celestia and Luna?" he wondered placing a claw near his lip. Storing the question for another time he reached the first step and with one at a time he walked down the stairs. As he neared the turn to the last set his nostrils were hit with a revolting odor that threatened to raise the bile.

"UGHH! What is that," he groaned in disgust.

Covering his nose he pushed past the turn and looked down the stairs, and the sight made his heart freeze middbeat. The remains of a mare lied at the bottom step, her coat had turned a sickly dark green, there were puddles of coagulated blood around her body, and what's worse was her eyes were missing from the sockets. The body was covered in bite marks, and large chunks of flesh had been ripped from the underside and forelegs revealing the decaying muscle and dark bones underneath. Spike could only stare with his hand covering his mouth and nose.

The mare's head was positioned in a way that made it look like it was looking at Spike, it's mouth was wide open and flies buzzed in and out. Spike could no longer stand the sight of the mauled corpse and he willed himself to turn around and move as quickly as possible back up the stairs. The mare's empty, decrepit, abyss-like eyes continued to bore in to his mind. Not being able to hold it down, he dashed to the ledge and released the building bile from his maw.

The poor drake threw up twice more before falling next to a pillar and curling his tail around his legs. Tears began to rush from his eyes and sobbing tore itself from his throat. This was nothing compared to he scary stories he, Big Mac, and the other stallions would read to each other, it was real and that image had seared itself deep within Spike. Hugging his arms around himself, he put his head in to his legs and quietly continued to sob.

"Tw-Tw-Twilight...where a-a-are you," he sniveled. Twilight had always been there to calm him when he was hurt, bullied, or he just needed somepony to care. Spike's train of thought slowed as he remembered every one of the times Twilight comforted him. When he was a newborn and he cried she would sing a lullaby that her mom sang to her. She taught him how to sort books, clean up the room, and how to read. All those things that a mother would do.

"Mother...." he whispered. Twilight to him was his mother, as for all his life that's what she has been to him. Sometimes she was a sister, but the memories like that were few and far between as his memories of her motherly side took hold.

"Mother....Twilight's my mother," he murmured and then sobbed. He craved her calming touch and hugs, the way she whispered to him that it would all be ok, and all the times she tucked him back into bed when he passed out from Nightmare Night.

Spike's sobbing quieted down and he snickered quietly at all the times she had to catch him from a sugar rush only for him to fall down fast asleep. He sniffled and wiped his eyes, a small smile stretched itself on his face and he continued to snicker at all his antics on Twilight.

"I always made it hard on her when she took care of me. I remember I once burned her favorite book and sheesh...she was absolutely livid," he chuckled at the memory.

"I'm pretty sure that's where she first gained a pyrokinetic mane, and it somehow burned the roof!" he laughed as tears streamed down his face. He just laughed at all the times he and Twilight had growing up from Canterlot and then to Ponyville. As his laughing died down he stared down at the floor, his thoughts were now focused on Twilight.

"That's right, Twilight would want me to be strong, after all I am her number one assistant!" he claimed to the decaying foyer.

"Now that I think about it...how did I end up here?" he queried at the question he should've answered earlier.

"If I remember correctly, Twilight and I were at the train station waiting for Thorax to arrive for diplomacy reasons and catching up," he reminisced piecing the first parts of his memory.

"The train was running late, and I was getting pretty tired. Twilight had asked me if I wanted to go back to the castle but I said no because I wanted to see Thorax before I went to bed," he finished.

"We waited for five more minutes, and then we saw the train in the distance but right as it arrived everything went black," he trailed off in confusion. He bonked his head few times trying to spur some sore of epiphany but his mind kept drawing blanks.

"It doesn't make any sense!" he said exasperated and pushed himself back up to his feet, "But first things first, if I ended up here then there is the possibility that Twilight did as well."

"If that is true, then I should try to find out where that bang came from. There could be another pony here and chances are it's probably Twilight trying to fight for more scrolls or books," he quipped.

He turned back towards the stairs and the corpse flashed through his mind and sent a shiver down his spine. His legs began to shake but he willed himself down the stairs and when he rounded the corner he came back to the position just above the dead mare. He felt the bile rising, but he pushed it down and quickly ran down the stairs past the pony and towards the main door.

He stopped and gasped as the bile was forced down, it hurt but it was worth it to keep what little lunch he had left. Looking up at the door he slipped through the cracked doors and came in to a split hallway one way leading to what appeared to be a turn at the end and the opposite leading to where the noise seemed to originate.

"How many horror characters die is by going to the problem instead of just running," Spike quipped again, "But this time I think I can make an exception." He turned and walked down the hallway in the direction of the noise. The murals decorated the walls on both sides, but they were faded so he couldn't make out some of the depictions. However, one in particular had remained fresh and it showed the same black alicorn, but it as him standing above what appeared to be Celestia and Luna who were knocked on the ground.

Spike raised a brow in confusion,'Why would Celestia and Luna not be able to match this pony?" he wondered. His eyes were the captured by more black writing except this time it was equestrian what it said unnerved him.

FAUST HELP US

The mere words were enough to scare Spike and it he looked around at the hallway noticing that it was too quiet, especially for a place that would've been bustling with small animals. He walked forward a little bit until his foot his a piece of a broken vase and it was kicked in to the door. As if on cue, he heard a raspy breathing echo from the door followed by uneven hoof steps.

Spike couldn't move, despite every fiber of his being wailing at him to run away. The door rattled with a large bang and Spike let loose a scream before dashing behind table turned sideways against a pillar. His heart was pounding against his chest and the door banging had increased ten-fold. The door flew open and the raspy breathing filled the hallway. Spike dared to look through the crack between the table and pillar and the sight was something he wasn't expecting.

Instead of a zombie pony, the stallion had a light grey coat, but it was unnaturally colored light grey and there were black veins stretching from his face down his neck and in to his body. The stallion's mouth was hanging open and his eyes were a piercing yellow. It's head flopped right, away from Spike and then towards the direction of the table.

Their eyes seemed to meet of a split second before Spike pushed himself back behind the pillar. Covering his mouth to stifle his breathing, but the uneven sets began to come towards the pillar and the raspy breathing began to increase in pressure. Spike, as quietly as he could, moved farther behind the pillar until he was between the ledge protector and pillar. The steps came to the table and paused he heard the pony put his hoof on the table and move it slightly, and for what felt like hours it just stood there staring at the spot.

Spike spotted a small rock next to his foot, and he got a quick idea. He inched downwards and picked up the rock, he prepared his arm and launched the rock back where he came from. It echoed through the hallway but it did the trick. The stallion's head snapped towards the sound and his uneven steps echoed down the hallway as it ran to find the source.

Spike uncovered his mouth and let loose a long sigh. He pushed himself from behind the pillar and snuck down the opposite direction, towards what he hoped would be Twilight. But just before the pony disappeared from view Spike ran into a table and a vase flew from the impact. Time slowed and he outstretched his arms to catch it but too little too late, it hit the ground with loud shatter. Spike froze and snapped his head back towards the stallion, it had turned its head towards the new sound and its eyes glued themselves on Spike.

Spike quickly pushed himself up and dashed down the hallway, he heard uneven steps dashing behind him and the raspy breathing increasing in frequency. Spike lost all sense of where he was and just focused on getting away from whatever that thing was. He rounded few corners and right before he made it to the end of a hallway a door flew open right before Spike could process it.

The impact knocked him back and he felt his world going dark and before it all disappeared he saw a blue shape exit from behind the door and pass him.

3 hours later

Spike's head was throbbing and his thoughts were a jumbled mess. He pulled a hand to his head, and he rubbed the new bruise. As his senses began to return to the world, he smelled something that made his stomach growl.

"Well well well, look who's awake," a voice spoke.

"Wh-who's there?" Spike asked. The voice was male and he turned his head toward the direction the voice originated, and he opened his eyes just barely to see a blue blur coming towards him.

"It's alright kid, you're safe now. You were lucky I found you before that corrupted got you, if only few seconds later you'd be dead," he said grimly.

Spike's eyes tried to widen, but the blurriness prevented it and he held a hand to his throbbing head.

"Easy now, I hit you with the door pretty hard. At least that dragon durability prevented a concussion," he chuckled. Spike then felt a magical grip pull him up and he floated towards the smell. The crackling of fire reached his ears and he felt the grip lower him to a sitting position on a small cushion. The blurred world started to clear and he could make out a cooking spit hanging above the fire.

A blue light shone is his vision and a bowl filled with the food lowered into his lap. He wrapped his hand around it and he lifted it to his mouth and tipped it towards his mouth.

"Hold on there kid," the blue stallion said and levitated a spoon to his bowl, "We got to have a few manners here." Spike chuckled and filled the spoon and lifted it too his mouth. His eyes widened in delight, and dove into the dish. In just a matter of seconds he had devoured the food. He heard magic activate and he turned towards the stallion who was writing something down in a brown leather journal.

Spike turned his head and looked around the room, and it was bigger than the room he first awoke. There were a few chalkboards, but instead of the same runic circles, there just maps of what appeared to be the ruins and notes were written around them. In the corner there was a desk that wasn't turned over or destroyed that had more notes. There was a makeshift bed in the opposite corner, and where he had woken up there was a couch.

"Getting used to it yet?" the stallion asked, "I can understand seeing as you just woke up."

"Who are you? Where am I? What happened here?" Spike stammered out question after question.

"I am Arkaytis, call me Ark, you're in my safehouse, and as for what happened that's a bit tougher," he answered without looking up from his journal. Spike frowned in response and he set his bowl down.

"Can you tell me what happened and if you've seen a purple alicorn with dark violet mane with one pink stripe?" he pleaded. Ark closed his journal and stared at Spike.

"Sorry kid, I haven't seen an alicorn in here and to be honest I don't know if anypony is still alive in here. I don't know the exact details, but the cause is what I am trying to figure out. Basically that pony you saw is a corrupted, and the corrupted are basically ponies who's souls have been filled with dark magic," he explained showing Spike a few pages out of the journal. Spike examined the details about each symptom and the page turned to a full body picture of a corrupted stallion and mare.

"We were researching the old rituals that took place here under restricted orders. In other words, we received a job we came to do it, but nopony knew who the client was. All we knew was they wanted something here. We've stayed here for five weeks, and then my coworkers started disappearing," he trailed off looking off into the notes.

Spike took a moment to look at the stallion, his clothes were that of a mage, his coat was a deep blue, his eyes were light brown and his mane and tail were a darker brown and he had a few patches on him meaning he had been in a few fights.

"Oh I didn't introduce myself, I am Spike and have you seen any signs of more survivors," he asked breaking the silence. Ark turned back to him and gave a small smile.

"Nice to meet you, I haven't seen any signs of other survivors. But, something tells me if this alicorn is here then she'll be fine," he asserted.

"Mr. Ark, can you help me find her? She's pretty much my mother and I don't know where to start," Spike admitted. Ark shared a look of deep thought, and he stared at Spike and the door.

"Sure I can help you, but you need to help me get to the exit so we can get away from here," he said.

"Deal," Spike accepted without hesitation holding a hand for a shake. Ark shook it and he went over to his satchel, packed a few items and picked up a metal rod. He turned back towards Spike and tossed the rod towards him. Spike stumbled to catch it and was successful and he looked at Ark confused.

"What? You need to have something to protect yourself," he stated as a matter of factly. Spike opened to retort but he then nodded in agreement, and he went over to the door. Ark joined him and they pushed it open and stepped back into the temple.

Author's Note

Here's chapter 1 completely redone as I had taken too much from KOTOR 2 the first time and it's no problem I understand what I did so I changed the setting, the meeting, and gave Spike a bit more time to walk around and get his bearings unlike last time which was just a carbon copy of Peragus.
With this in mind I will do my best to refrain from copying KOTOR 2.

Revision: currently 1:19 A.M. and I am half asleep going to go pass out see you later.

Next time: Chapter 2: Two mages One problem