Rejection

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

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Sunset Shimmer struggled to lift her head up, propping herself up on her arms.

She lost.

She'd failed.

Against some power-drunk novice with no clue what she was doing!

But looking up, watching Spike stand on shaking legs and deny her, reject that this could be his best friend?

She couldn't believe he'd be so naive.

Worse still, she felt guilty when the thing wearing Twilight Sparkle had admitted he was right.

But whatever Spike was doing now, she didn't comprehend.

There had been a brief haze of heat and then something hit the ground, hard. It stood on four legs, a great tail as long as the body and a narrow, pointed head atop a long neck. Great gouts of flame sputtered from its back before solidifying into a grand pair of wings.

A dragon made of emerald flames roared.

Sunset Shimmer had never heard of a spell that could do this. Never heard of magic that could summon something like that.

"How dare you?!" Though 'Zeb' seemed to recognize it. "Unimaginative worm, uninspired, thoughtless whelp! You bring my tormentor here, here where I am free?!"

"Get out of her!" Spike's voice barely covered the distance. Weak, but resolved none the less. "Now!"

"Never!" Zeb dodged a swipe from the claws, far faster than Sunset Shimmer had expected. "Years ago, I thought my freedom at hoof! A dream, what you could be if you'd been born to the race of your masters!"

White light seared across cement, always a meter behind the dragon that rushed and dodged as though it weighed nothing.

"It was pitiful and small! An uninspired hope from a fool! But, but just enough!" Zeb blinked out of existence just ahead of a gout of emerald flames. "Yes! A hope, a dream! The magic I'd bound myself to could use that! Twisted, subtle, sneaky it had to be to escape from my prison!"

Blasts rained down in bursts, scorching the earth and sending everyone who was left scampering away from the battle. Holes were punched in the dragon's wings before being sealed in fire.

"The golem I made was to find you! Find you and devour you, disjoining the magic and giving me control and you ruined it! Flesh and blood and bone when it found you, not cold iron. Not cold magic! Ruin, so much ruin you inflicted on it! Directing the magic to repair it, you stole it from me!" Zeb was screaming, hate in her voice and madness in her eyes.

"My body, my new body playing host to a dragon's soul? Madness! Treachery! I was supposed to be in control! Me! Not you! It was my body, my magic you stole from me!" Zeb flinched back in fear as the dragon ascended in an instant, grabbing her in its claws.

"You would take another body from me?! Was two not too many? Thief! Dragon! Wor-"

"Shut up." The dragons teeth clamped down on Twilight's throat.

"Oh no!" Fluttershy grabbed Sunsets shoulder and pulled her to her feet.

Sunset didn't have an answer. It was over... Spike had-

The dragon pulled away, writhing shadows clutched in its teeth, screaming as smoke and fire burned the putrid mass.

It couldn't hold it for long, however, and spat the raw, teeming malice away from itself, clutching Twilight to its chest.

It descended, gently placing Twilight on the ground next to where Spike lay.

"Monster... Look at this. Look at what you've done to me!" A hoof stepped out of the puddle of shadow, transparent black and made of stripes of murk.

Sunset could see right through it.

"The air hurts here. The magic is gone, void, empty of this world! You would condemn me? Fool, look at yourself!" The horse-sized shadow charged, only to be rebuffed by an almost negligent wave of the dragons tail.

"I know. We're fading away." Sunset ran over to Twilight, staring at her neck. Free of marks, free of stripes. She was staring blankly into space though. That couldn't be good.

Spike, next to her, looked far worse. He'd been shifting, changing into something resembling a dragon at first. Now he looked nearly human again, though his skin was raw, wrinkled and pink and the few scales still on him looked old. Gray and cracked.

He hadn't turned his head to look at her, to look at Twilight.

"Hah! You would abandon her to harm me? Strike me? Wound me? Monster, worm, you are a monster!" The dragon didn't respond to the taunts, choosing instead to stand guard between the shadow and his friends. "Feh, fool. I would fade to nothing, and what of you? Do you think to return to your corpse? Pretend for a while longer to live among magicless apes as your soul burns you from the inside out? Without me, you are without magic! Useless, worthless! A joke no longer funny, you linger like stench!"

Sunset was really getting tired of listening to it. Her friends surrounded her, each looking over the two catatonic students from their opposing school.

"Twilight..." A small dog, the Spike belonging to this world, nudged at her immobile form. He wiggled his way under her wings to stand against her, his face against hers. "We need to go. It's scary here."

One hand slowly reached up, set itself on Spikes head and gave him a soft, hesitant rub.

"We can't leave yet." Her voice was quiet, she sounded distracted as she stared at her best (human) friends immobile form. "Spike can't keep this up much longer."

She pushed herself to her feet, bracing herself against the ruined remnants of the horse statue as the Zebra and Dragon charged each other once more.

"Then we'll do this together. You don't have to be alone." Sunset held out one hand to Twilight.

She rubbed away tears and reached out, taking the offered hand.

With a solemn nod, Applejack grabbed Twilight's other hand and held out her free hand to Rainbow Dash.

One after another, the Elements of Harmony joined together. A faint spark, determination, hope and so many other emotions fuelled something so much greater.

The dragon grinned as magic washed over the area. With a burst of speed, his sluggish legs propelled him to latch on to the writhing shadows.

"What is this?! Unhand me! You know what happened last time! You have no fleshy shell to hide within now! It will erode us, wear away at us, annihilate us! Is my demise worth so much to you?!" The zebra struggled against the claws grasping it in a tired struggle, failing to free itself.

"If it means you can't hurt her again? It will always be worth it." Spike smiled as the rainbow washed over him.

It felt... Right.

Author's Notes:

...Binding your own soul to an artifact of power, and then languishing for over a thousand years? I wonder if Zeb was aware of the world outside of the book, could feel the passage of time? Either way, as you may be able to tell, he's not quite right in the head.
Of course, he was a living curse. That's not going to be a good thing any way you slice it.