Rebirth

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony, nor am I profiting off this literary venture.

----

Spike followed behind Pinkie, doing his best to keep up as she spoke at the speed of light.

He liked the mare, he really did (It was hard not to) but she tended to babble and get distracted on tangents that were confusing on a good day.

Some ponies insisted she was 'Just so random' and waved her eccentricities off as 'She's just Pinkie Pie'.

He didn't quite agree.

Pinkie Pie was just... Bad at explanations.

Like back during the parasprite incident. (That was almost as bad as my birthday) He'd been with Twilight when she was asking why Pinkie was getting all those instruments together. She'd tried getting them to play a part in a makeshift band to drive the little critters off but she hadn't explained why.

She even got frustrated when she was asked why she'd been doing that

Twilight got like that, too, sometimes. It was why Rarity never came to her for lessons on magic.

"-Anyway, Mrs.Cake hadn't actually been replaced by a changeling but was in Las Pegasus for a bakery convention and Rainbow Dash thought-" She was still going on about the trip they'd been on.

He was interested. Really, he was, he just... Couldn't keep up.

"-But we found some changelings, actual ones when Applejack went to this place called a club because she heard they were serving something named after her and the changelings were dancing! But we didn't know they were dancing then. No, wait, we knew they were dancing but we didn't know they were changelings! Things got really weird then because-" She hadn't told him where Twilight was.

Just that she had something important to tell him.

"-They actually splintered off from the hive because the magic broke at Canterlot and found their friends spread around and we're here!" The sun was setting, the lights were off at Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie opened the front door, Spike couldn't make anything out inside.

He didn't even think twice while he followed her in.

The door closed behind him, dropping everything into the abyss of darkness.

"SURPRISE!"

The lights flicked on, the room was full of ponies.

Spike was surrounded.

He jumped, flailed in the air and dropped down in an unkempt mess.

"Pinkie Pie, ah thought you said Spike was back?" An orange mare wearing a stetson asked the pink one.

Applejack, element of honesty. Adorned with neither horn nor wings, she was an Earth Pony. Her physical might immense and unquestionable.

"But it is Spike!"

"Sugarcube, ah'm sure you mighta noticed while you were bringin' the little fella here but, well, that's a pony."

"Yeah, totally not a dragon, Pinks."

"I'm afraid I must agree, dear."

A fifth voice tried to speak, but it was too quiet to be heard.

"But I am Spike!"

"I am sorry you got dragged into this, dear. Pinkie Pie is... Pardon?" An alabaster unicorn, her mane a royal purple paused as she processed his words.

"Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie! Not pardon! I told you he was Spike, you just wouldn't listen!"

Spike looked at the cake, the five mares, the great big banner proclaiming 'Welcome Home!'.

At least he couldn't say today was boring.

----

"Is the dragon sober yet?" Clues had dried up at the scene of the incident. The dark magic was too faded to be followed by any divining spells nor was there any more biological material to be found.

"Yes your highness. He's down this way, in holding. We were about to process him and send him off." The unicorn, Frisky led the two princesses to the back room where a trio of holding cells were kept.

"I thought we got everything he knew about it, Luna?" Twilight was curious, a commendable trait, Luna knew, but in this case quite troublesome.

She needed answers. A friend had been lost to her. Twilight would figure out this was beyond routine in short order, she was sure.

"It would be best if you waited out here, Lieutenant." Twilight started to speak but was silenced with a nearly indecipherable look.

"I can't do that, Princess. Policy says that-"

"Then I shall make it an order. Celestia has signed away much of her royal privilege and prevented our youngest additions from gaining the power we wielded. I have not. You will remain outside this door, you will not enter until our business is concluded." Princess Luna, she who raised the moon, did not ask if her order was understood. The Lieutenant meekly nodded, knowing better than to argue when a superior was pulling rank.

The door to the holding cells slammed shut behind them, an aura magic sealing it shut.

"Luna, what's going on?" Twilight was growing uncomfortable. The atmosphere had been oppressive since they'd walked away from the scene of the incident, but this was worse.

She was almost willing to say she was afraid of the elder alicorn.

"One-thousand years ago, Twilight, we were the absolute authority of the land. Celestia and I passed judgement as needed, we'd begun writing the new laws defining the legal power we wielded." She was speaking loudly, ensuring her voice carried to all the corners of the room.

"Slavers and murderers were not uncommon, even among the pony tribes. Then, as she does now, Celestia favored forgiveness. I did not. Tell me, Twilight, did Celestia ever share with you which of the elements lent her their aid in the battle against Discord?" They were walking slowly to the end of the hall, no dragon present in either the first or second cage.

"No, Princess." Twilight's ears laid flat. She knew whatever was burning under Luna's visage wasn't aimed at her. It was terrifying none the less.

"I cannot claim to be surprised. Once upon a time, she strove for perfection. Likely enough, she still feels an echo of shame that Loyalty, Honesty and Magic chose myself." The hunched red form looked miserable, even to Luna's dispassionate gaze.

"My greatest regret is not that the nightmare possessed me, Twilight. It turned my horn upon my sister, struck down those that remained whom I called friend, ally. Honeyed words that exposed them at their weakest. My greatest regret was that it was my weakness that brought about such harm."

Luna's horn glowed, and Garble was lifted, flailing.

And slammed into the side of his cell at speed. He was flung into the wall opposite before he was dragged, pulled into the bars at front.

"Luna! What are you doing?!" Twilight was horrified, this was wrong, cruelty she hadn't dreamed the princess capable of.

Luna, in contrast, stared down at the quivering dragon with a wrothful, imperial stare.

"What had you intended for Spike upon your ambush!" Twilight opened her mouth, confusion, disbelief marred her face.

"Speak, Worm!"

Author's Notes:

I pull most of my inspiration from reading other stories or watching things on Youtube.
I cannot praise Undertale enough. The story is amazing, but the fandom... Much of what they've made is heart rending.