Taken

The thing on the bed freezes and slowly turns to look at me. I see now that it actually is what I thought it was before. A dragon. But it’s so small… Maybe it’s a baby dragon. But what would one be doing here?

A better question would be, I guess, what is it doing existing at all? Is it something else native to this world, something that I just haven’t encountered yet? I guess I shouldn’t really be questioning why it exists; I mean, I’ve pretty much come to accept Twilight and Discord as being actually there.

Why not a dragon? It’s not that big of a jump.

My Flame is still up, though. I don’t know this thing’s intentions, or anything about it really. I don’t want to let my guard down, then suddenly find it at my throat about to tear it out.

It’s looking at my Flame now, a bit more intently than I’d like. After a moment, it speaks, its voice wavering a bit: “Your Flame is starting to turn black. Twilight warned me that this would happen eventually…”

It knows about my Flame? More importantly, it knows Twilight in some aspect- if I believe what it’s saying, that is. I don’t lower my Flame, but I do shift it to its regular blue color. I don’t want to kill this thing anymore, but at the same time I want to have that option available to me, should things go south.

I see things going south somehow.

“Who are you?” I ask. Like it’s really just going to volunteer that information to me. We just met and-

“My name’s Spike.”

Whoa. It actually told me what its name was. Maybe it’s not as rabid and kill-minded as I initially thought. I glance at Twilight for a second. Whatever grand mal seizure she was having seems to have passed. That’s good, at least.

“How do you know Twilight?” Seems like an appropriate next question.

“We come from the same world,” Spike replies. “I’m her number one assistant.” He seems to put a good bit of stock in his position, I’m guessing, just judging from the tone of his voice when he said that.

“You both come from Equestria?” I ask. “So there are more species than just ponies there?”

He visibly recoils at my words. “You… you know about Equestria?”

I smile thinly. “More than you realize, friend.”

“How much do you know?” he asks.

“Well, let’s see. You have a princess named Luna, and she controls the night-time and the moon. I know the names of at least three other ponies, besides Twilight: Lyra, Vinyl, and Rainbow Dash. I’m figuring Dash has some sort of romantic feelings for Twilight, but I have no idea if Twi even knows it or not-“

“Hah!” Spike interrupted, pumping his fist into the air.

“Did I say something you like?” I said, smirking. Against my better judgment, I let my Flame fade. He seemed to be of no threat, really, not immediately anyways.

“Yeah, you told me that Rainbow Dash has a crush on Twilight. I’ve always figured she did, but I could never get any kind of confirmation from either of them.” He grinned. “Pinkie totally owes me those ten bits now.”

“Bits?”

He looks at me a bit funny, but then straightens out his expression. “Oh yeah, you’re not from our world. Bits are what we call our money.” He pulls a gold-ish coin out from pretty much nowhere. “This is one bit.”

“Impressive magic trick,” I comment. “What’s next, pulling a rabbit out of a hat?”

“Already tried that once. Angel wasn’t too happy about that.”

“Who’s that?”

Spike chuckles. “Angel is Fluttershy’s rabbit. She’s always getting into some kind of trouble. Kind of physically abusive towards Fluttershy, but she never does anything about it. She’s way too timid for that.”

I vaguely remember Twilight mentioning something about Fluttershy some time ago. “Is she friends with Twilight?”

“Oh yeah. She’s one of the Elements of Harmony, her and Twilight both are.”

It’s my turn to look confused. “The elements of what?”

“Oh, has Twilight not explained that to you yet?”

“No,” I reply, shaking my head. “We’ve been having a lot to do over here, what with everything trying to kill us and Discord and all-“

Without notice, Spike jumps from Twilight’s bed in my direction. I see the look in his eyes, and he looks fit to kill. I put the Flame up as a shield, and he bounces off and lands on the floor by the bed.

“Are you ok?” I ask. “I didn’t mean for it to-“

“What does Discord want with you?” he demands. “Tell me!”

I lower the Flame-shield. “He wants to put me through some kind of test- well, me and Twilight, really, but it’s intended primarily for me. He wants me to learn something before I die here.”

“What does he want you to learn?”

“I don’t know; that’s the whole thing. He refuses to tell me. Obviously he cares if I die here before I learn my lesson, because he’s been rather benevolent towards me. He’s provided me places to stay, food to eat, even teaching me a bit about my Flame- which is really weird, because he knows more about it than either Twilight or I do…”

“He’s playing with you.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Spike hops back up onto the bed and looks at Twilight for a second. He has an almost forlorn look on his face for a moment, but then he goes back to looking like normal and turns back to me.

“I’m going to tell you about Discord, so just sit back and let me talk. Twilight had me doing research on him at one point, so that’s how I know all of this. I wasn’t a part of Discord corrupting the Elements when he was released the first time, but Twilight has relayed that information to me as well.”

I nodded, encouraging him to continue. He did.

“Discord is what is known as a draconequus. He embodies the spirits of chaos and disharmony, which naturally puts him at direct odds with our Elements of Harmony. Just for future reference, there are six Elements: Rainbow Dash, who is Loyalty; Twilight, who is Magic; Applejack, who is Honesty; Rarity, who is Generosity; Fluttershy, who is Kindness; and Pinkie Pie, who is Laughter.”

“Alright.” I’m going to have to try to remember that for later. Don’t ask me why, but it seems like something I’m going to have to know sometime soon.

“Ok, so for the most part, what Discord does seems to be pretty harmless. Creating cotton candy clouds and chocolate milk rain- Pinkie Pie especially enjoyed that one- and turning the gravity off on Ponyville, making mazes appear out of nowhere… Like I said, it all seems harmless, but all of it fits his end objective.”

“Chaos.”

Spike nods. “And disharmony. His ultimate purpose in life is to drive ponies apart with his antics and magic. He, as far as we know, can do no real good for the universe.”

“So then why does Celestia allow him to exist?”

He sighed. “I honestly wish I could tell you the answer to that question, but… I can’t. Not because of any direct order from the Princess, mind you, but because I simply don’t know. Celestia is a benevolent goddess, and I’m sure she has her reasons. I just can’t see them for the life of me…”

“Well, how long has Discord been around?”

“Longer than any records we have, can indicate. Our earliest records mention him as being fully-grown and already pretty powerful, so obviously he’d been around much longer before then.”

I lean back in my chair, making so that only the back two legs are supporting the full weight of my body. “So what does he want with me? I mean, he kidnaps me and Twilight and drops us both here in this goddess-forsaken wasteland, with everything wanting to kill us-“

“Um yeah, about that… What are you talking about? I was walking for at least a few days before I finally found you guys, and the only thing I saw was this really weird rat-like thing-“

“Let me guess: six legs, beady eyes, tried to rip your flesh off the moment it saw you.”

Spike laughed awkwardly. “You’ve been in contact with it too, I guess?”

“Yeah, the first night I found myself in this… dimension, world, whatever it is. Twilight saved me from it. Hey, how did you defend yourself against it?”

Spike looks kind of sheepish now. “Um… I burped.”

I can’t help but laugh at the thought that passes through my mind at that particular point, and apparently my mind decides to speak it as well: “Damn, Spike, is your breath really that bad?”

Spike laughs at this, luckily. “No, it wasn’t really that. You see, I have a very unique thing that I can do. Whenever Twilight or somepony else wants to write a letter to Princess Celestia, they give me the scroll and I send it to them with my fire-breath.”

“So it’s like using the fireplace Floo network in Harry Potter, right?” Spike is looking  at me now like he has no idea what I’m talking about, and it takes me a minute to realize that once again, I made a reference to something that more than likely doesn’t even exist in Equestria.

“Heh. Sorry ‘bout that. It’s not important. Basically, you use fire to send the messages?”

“Yeah…” Spike replies. “Anyways, whenever I get a response back from the sender- usually Celestia, like I said- I burp and flames come out. Well, it just so happened that when that thing was just about to get me, I got a letter from Princess Celestia for Twilight, and the flames scared it off.”

“A letter for Twilight?” That reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to ask him since he got here. “So, Spike. How the hell did you get here to begin with? Is Luna finished with her inter-dimensional transporter?”

Spike shook his head. “Nope. That’s still a ways off. That changeling attack- I assume you know about that already- really took a toll on everything, in terms of the damage it caused. Luna and Vinyl still haven’t been able to get the energy they need to power it.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t tell me how you got here.”

Spike suddenly starts looking a little shifty. “Um… technically I can’t say… The Princess told me not to.”

“She told you not to tell who? Me or Twilight?”

“You. She specifically mentioned you.”

Oh. So the goddess of the known pony universe knows about me. Great.

“Why doesn’t she want me to know? I’m of no harm to-“ Something occurs to me, then. “It’s not actually me that she doesn’t want knowing about how you got here… It’s Discord, isn’t it?”

Spike nods, obviously relieved that he didn’t have to come out and tell me himself, but rather that I’d made the connection on my own.

“But according to Lyra, Discord is still a stone statue in Equestria. How can he even be here, but still be sealed away? I’ve asked him that once or twice, and he’s always skirted around the issue.”

“That’s Discord for ya,” Spike replies. He’s about to say something else, when a soft voice is heard from the bed.

“Why am I not surprised to see you here, my number one assistant?” Immediately, Spike’s countenance rose, and he turned to see his best friend with a grin.

“Twilight! You’re awake!” He runs up to her and hugs her tightly around the neck. She laughs softly.

“It’s ok, Spike. I’m back.” She looks at me for a moment. “You took care of me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Didn’t really get the chance, to be honest. I had another conversation with Discord, then I saw you through the window in some kind of grand mal seizure, and Spike was standing above you watching you. I honestly thought Discord had sent him to kill you or something.”

Twilight smiles. “No, Matthew. Spike is my faithful friend. He would never do anything to harm me-“

“But I’ll bet they would,” Spike interjects, pointing outside the window. I look outside. Oh shit. You remember that armed deranged man, who nearly killed Twilight earlier? Yeah. Now there are a couple hundred people outside, and they all look just as deranged- and dead- as he did.

Oh, and they’ve all got weapons of some kind. Even the women and children.

I look at Twilight and Spike fearfully. “This… is not good.”