Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy

Spike glanced up. "Hey, little brother."

"…Hi," Snarl said disarmingly.

Spike frowned at Snarl, who had crept into their shared bedroom rather stealthily. "Everything okay?"

Snarl beamed. "Everything's gonna be just fine, big brother. Just fine. I think it's about that time."

"Time for what?"

"Just time."

Spike tilted his head. "Weren't your eyes… green?"

"…No," said Snarl. "No, my eyes have always been blue."

"Um… okay," Spike said uncertainly. "I was sure… but, uh… what's up?"

"Oh, just thinking about stuff," said Snarl, creeping closer. "Thinking about the times we've had over the years, as opposed to you…"

Spike tried to make sense of that. "…What?"

"It all comes down to you, Spike," said Snarl with a smirk, one hypnotic blue eye glimmering as it focused on Spike. "Your brother's been through a hard time, Spike. You, not so much. But I think I can even things out a bit."

Spike's lips thinned. "You're not Snarl," he stated confidently. "What are you?"

The larger dragon chuckled. "I'm more Snarl than that stuttering twerp will ever be."

Snarl pounced. Spike raised his hands to defend himself, and the two of them rolled across the floor, a tangle of limbs and tails.

"This life you have…" Snarl rasped. "We must have it!"

"We?" Spike said desperately.

"How do I take this life away from you? Back to those who truly deserve it?" Snarl spat. "I can think of only one way. Killing you."

Snarl's tail lunged at Spike, who jerked out of the way. Contrary to what he had claimed earlier, Snarl's aim with the pointy end of his tail was extremely precise, and would have gotten Spike right between the eyes had he not wrenched himself away.

"Holy guac," Spike breathed, seeing Snarl's tail embedded in the wall inches from his head. As the flexible tail jerked and thrashed, still stuck in the wood, Spike took a chance and dug his claws into the tail, though he failed to draw blood through the tough scales.

"You think you can kill me and take over my life?" Spike said conversationally, instead gripping the tail as tightly as he could. "That's insane. You realize that?"

"Ah, but it does make a certain degree of sense, though, doesn't it?" Snarl taunted, grasping at Spike's face with his own claws.

"No," Spike said brightly. "No, it's just insane."

"You don't buy it?" Snarl hissed. "Then perhaps I'll just take it all away from you so we're on even ground. And I'll start with all those beautiful pony girlfriends of yours."

"All my… girlfriends?" Spike said blankly, swallowing hard. "What?"

Snarl held up three fingers. "Scootaloo. Sweetie. Rarity."

In shock, Spike's grip slackened. Finally wrenching his tail out of the wall, Snarl turned to leave.

"Snarl!" Spike barked. "I mean… you, you monster, whatever you are. Don't do this! I won't let you!"

Snarl casually swung his tail, hitting Spike in the side of the head and knocking him into a bedside table.

"I don't see what you're going to do about it," Snarl said coldly.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Twilight sleepily trotted down the stairs to the main library.

"Spike, what is that crackling noise?" she said blearily. "Oh… Snarl, it's you. What are you…?"

In her half-awake state, it took her several moments to make sense of what Snarl was doing. He stood before the pedestal that held the five changeling eggs, and was holding one of them in his claws, breathing a steady stream of fire at it.

The moist egg had grown dry, and soon the shell began to crack, before the egg popped open with a sickening snap. The incomplete changeling embryo within emerged, crackling, wreathed in flames, shriveling until it could burn no more, before Snarl unceremoniously dropped it to the ground, where it joined two other tiny, twisted bodies among shattered eggshells.

Twilight's heart was pounding. She was no longer sleepy. She shivered, terrified, smoke sizzling out of the tip of her horn as her eyes filled with tears.

"You… you…"

He smirked expectantly.

"You… will… die," Twilight said shakily.

The rage and magical energy building up inside her was released in a heated surge. Her eyes glowed red, her mane erupted in flames, and wings of pure fire burst from her shoulders. Her wits completely gone, she didn't even think of using magic, instead jumping forth and tackling him.

He swung his tail in an arc, slicing across her sternum, but they were so entangled that the cutting edge of his tail nicked his own flanks as well. She wrapped her arms tightly around his head, wrestling him to the ground.

An odd creaking sound emanated from within Snarl's body, and all of a sudden, two wings emerged from his back. Batlike and ribbed, they were twice as long as his body, and they flared out, spilling blood all over the floor. From where they had emerged from somewhere deep within his body, two long gashes, horrendous open wounds, had been gouged in his back from the inside, on the left and right of his spine.

With the wings, he batted Twilight aside, and with a hind leg, viciously kicked her across the room. He turned to a wall and breathed fire on it for a few moments, then burst through the weakened wood and flew off into Ponyville. Flames continued to spread through the library. Weak and on her side, Twilight's flaming mane and illusory wings had caused a bit of fire damage as well.

Spike emerged from his bedroom, having barely regained consciousness. Quickly sobered by the sight of the flames, he began rushing around, picking up a rug from the floor and beating away some of the fires with them, while stomping and rolling on others. When he was finished, the flames were gone, replaced by ashes and the massive stains left by blood, mostly Snarl's with a bit of Twilight's.

"Twilight!" he said wildly, rushing to her side. Seeing the dead changelings, he gasped in terror and went ghostly pale. "No," Spike peeped. "No! He did that?"

Twilight nodded. The wild energy surge was beginning to dissipate, with only a scattering of flame and red pupils remaining, but she looked deadlier than ever. "Yeah," she said raggedly. "Your brother did that."

"That wasn't Snarl," Spike said quickly.

"What?" Twilight snapped.

"Snarl's an innocent child!" Spike said adamantly. "It looked like him, but it also looked different… it didn't act like him… we've got to help him."

"Help him?!" Twilight snarled. "Spike… be honest with yourself. You don't know Snarl very well. This is probably just a side of him you've never seen. No doubt, he's got a lot of them."

"I know him well enough!" Spike said wildly, nearly sobbing. "This wasn't him! He's being possessed or controlled by something! You've got to trust me, Twilight! We've got to catch him and bring him back and save him, not hurt him! We can't hurt him!"

Twilight's rage completely dissipated, sizzling out until she was normal again, and she took a deep, calming breath. "Of course I trust you, Spike. Let's go, then."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Snarl flew over the rooftops of Ponyville, observing a pattern among the citizens below: first alarm, then calm as they recognized a small dragon, followed by terror at the sight of his mangled, bloody body. He chuckled, enjoying the attention.

"Come out, come out, beautiful girlfriends," he whispered to himself. "First to catch my eye is first to die. Where are you? …Ah, there's a couple."

Far below, out of his earshot, he saw Rarity and Sweetie Belle together outside the doors of Carousel Boutique. Rarity seemed to be pleading to Sweetie, who was studiously ignoring her, and after a moment, just walked off.

A bit caught off-guard that the two had separated, Snarl swerved and wavered in the air before making his decision and diving forcefully toward Rarity.

Rarity had no time whatsoever to register the attack. His scaly, gangly form filled her entire field of vision. He swiped at her twice with his claws, before a jab of his tail pinned her against the wall of the boutique. Rarity fought back as much as she could, but in such close quarters all she could do was bat at him pitifully.

Twilight and Spike appeared in a flash of magic. "NO!" Spike bellowed, charging at Snarl and barreling into him with every bit of his body weight, to very little effect. Snarl tossed him aside and turned to face Twilight.

Snarl jabbed at Twilight with his scorpion-like tail, once, twice, a third time. Twilight erected magical shields to deflect him the first and second time, but his third strike broke through, the sparkling tail breaching the shields and nicking the base of her throat.

"Oh my," Twilight said faintly as blood began pouring from the tiny hole in her neck. She had no chance to say or do anything else before fainting.

Snarl turned back to Rarity. Spike had recovered and was standing over her, and the two froze, in the midst of attempting to sneak out of where Snarl had had them cornered.

"Fine," Snarl said pleasantly, smirking. "Both of you, then."

As he began corralling them with measured strikes of his tail, Sweetie Belle returned, her eyes on the ground, but the whip-crack of Snarl's tail caught her attention.

"No!" she shrieked, darting forward.

With a big flying leap, Sweetie Belle placed herself between Snarl and his two victims, and screamed in his face.

The scream came out as a glorious musical note, the air visibly rippling in front of her, setting Snarl back on his heels, then his hind legs. Blood dripped from the sides of his head, and he passed out, his muscles still shaking from the force of the note.

Before the powerful note faded away, a symbol, a pair of musical notes connected by a beam, textured with a complex pale-green gradient, appeared on Sweetie Belle's flanks.

"Sweetie Belle?" Spike said quietly.

"Spike, are you okay?" she said brusquely.

"Sweetie Belle, you saved our lives," he said in disbelief. "Thank you." He fell to his knees, and began sobbing. "I'm sorry," he choked out. "I've been so cruel… thank you…"

"It's okay!" she said in alarm. "Of course I helped you. Nopony is that petty… not even me. I… Rarity?"

"Oh, darling…" Rarity said tenderly. "Sweetie Belle, darling, I was so worried about you… I feared you were becoming some sort of priss or queen bee, that nothing mattered to you anymore. You were going back and forth there for a while… but no. No, now it's clear who you are. You're a good filly. A hero, a friend… an artist. A dazzling singer who will never, ever need a microphone, hehe. That was an impressive display."

Confused, Sweetie Belle followed Rarity's gaze to her own flank, and did a double-take. "Is that…?"

"It is!" Rarity gushed. "And just look at it… so elegant in its simplicity… and it matches your eyes! Without hyperbole, darling, that is the best cutie mark I have ever seen." She stepped back to admire it.

"Yeah, Sweetie," Spike stammered. "It's… it's great."

"Thanks, Spike," she mumbled shyly.

"Ah, well," Rarity said wistfully. "I lost my chance at outright winning the pool when Apple Bloom was the first to get her mark, but at least now I'll perhaps break even."

"What are you talking about?" Sweetie said blankly.

"I had you, then Apple Bloom, then Scootaloo," said Rarity. "Whoever had Apple Bloom then you wins. I don't recall who that was…"

"There was a betting pool about the Crusaders?" Sweetie demanded. "And what order we'd get our marks in?"

"Ah… yes," Rarity admitted. Suddenly sobered by catching the sight of Snarl in the corner of her eye, she turned wide-eyed to Spike. "Spike… what happened here?"

"That's what I intend to find out," said Twilight, trotting up to them.

"Twilight!" Spike exclaimed. "How did you…?"

"I put a little buff spell on myself before we found him," Twilight said casually. "I saw how dangerous he was, I wasn't about to face him again without a few precautions. Such as one to bounce me back momentarily if I got knocked out…"

As she spoke, she lifted Snarl's crumpled body into the air with magic. "He's alive," she said flatly.

"We gotta keep him that way," Spike pleaded.

"Yeah, I know, Spike. I know."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

In the library cellar where Twilight had once examined Pinkie Pie with the most advanced technology available to her, Snarl was unconscious and suspended in a cage fortified with a mix of magic spells and electrical currents.

"You're sure about this, Spike?" said Twilight. "You maintain that he wasn't responsible for this?"

"Yes," Spike said firmly.

"Well… if something was controlling him, I can't learn a thing about it until he wakes up," she said, exhausted, needing a moment to catch her breath. "It'll be fine… he won't get away."

"We have to save him," Spike mumbled.

"I don't know that we can, Spike. I've never heard of a thing like this happening."

"It wasn't him, okay?" Spike said harshly. "And even if it was, he's my brother. If I have to go through security at Tartaros to visit him, he's still my brother."

Twilight frowned, and had to fight the urge to scoff. "Family ties aren't that important, Spike. The truth is, you still don't know him all that well."

"Blood is thicker than water," Spike shot back.

"…Is an incomplete phrase," Twilight said dryly. "Yes, it's used to imply that family relationships are more important than friends, but the actual expression is 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'. Means the opposite. Means you shouldn't take family ties to heart so much, that bonds you've genuinely forged in life of your own will are more important."

"This wasn't my brother!" Spike wailed. "This was something else using his body! Can't you just trust me on this?"

"I am, Spike!" she snapped. "I am! Why do you think he's not dead right now? Because I'm choosing to trust you! Okay? But the bloodline thing, it's…"

"It matters to me, okay?" he muttered. "I've never met anything that came from the same place I come from. Not really. I've met other dragons, sure, but if Snarl really is my brother, that's… that's something that came from the exact same place as me, that's made of the same stuff I am, down to every drop of blood. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, maybe it shouldn't mean anything to me, but it does."

"Well, putting that much emphasis on blood ties is extremely antiquated, Spike, but… but I understand. And I respect you, Spike. You know that I do."

With that, they fell silent, apprehensively examining Snarl's wings and the huge gashes in his back, not saying a word.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The following morning came chilly, Ponyville blanketed by a layer of still and silent clouds.

Behind the library, at the roots of Spike's olive tree, three tiny graves sat, freshly dug, tiny crosses made from olive branches placed over them.

Inside, Twilight adjusted the ribbons on the other two eggs. The eggs had grown again and the ribbons had become tight.

"I promise," she whispered, "nothing will ever happen to you, my little queens. Perhaps… perhaps it's best that there's nopony for you to stand above. It was wrong of me to give you two the fancier ribbons, to place you higher up on the pedestal. It was just for the sake of telling you apart, but it may have been a sign of things to come. I may not have been a good mother to the other three."

She gazed out the window. "That they had to die before they were born for me to notice the mistake I was making… yeah. That will leave a hole in my heart forever. This family will always seem a bit too small in my eyes, without them. But I still have you two. And my heart is spilling with love for you. Spilling. Now more than ever."

She adjusted the eggs one last time, tucking them in gently. "Sleep well, my daughters," she said softly. "I'll be here. Always."