Rejuvination

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

----

She took one step, and the another. He was just standing there, looking at her with the most innocent expression.

But it wasn't recognition.

"H-hi Spike. I'm Twilight." This wasn't her Spike. The mannerisms, just the way he was standing were all wrong.

And last she recalled, Spike was a unicorn.

Well, not quite true. She could put two and two together well enough to know that the last time she'd seen Spike, he'd been a human.

And calling himself Thorn.

She was almost a hoof away from the grinning dragon, his tail wagging like a dog, when the mirror bulged out towards her.

"You're Twilight too? I-" Spike never finished what he was saying before he got bowled over, impacting with Twilight and barely slowing down his fall.

Twilight had developed an instinctual response to magic blowing up in her face. That being, drop down and go limp until the ringing stops.

It was only marginally effective.

Following the magical burst was another thing Twilight hadn't been expecting to see.

An Alicorn. Great black wings at her side and eyes rimmed in fire, holding on to something and trying to decelerate all at the same time.

She ended up crashing into a chair, dropping what, who she was carrying and rolling into a bookshelf.

Twilight gave her an eight for her entrance, but her total score came out to a measly three for sticking the landing.

"Twilight!" Spike jumped to his feet and was already running for the downed alicorn.

Twilight herself slowly got to her hooves and cautiously walked towards the downed pony.

"Spike! Check on Spike! I dropped him, I can't-" She was trying to get her hooves under her.

And failing spectacularly.

The dragon veered to the side, running for the immobile lump instead of the flailing alicorn. His claws pressed against the unicorns barrel, palms flat against his ribs.

"He's breathing!" The dragon shouted, much less gleeful than before.

Twilight finally got a good look at the unicorn he was checking on.

And she thought she was going to be sick.

He was out cold, his tongue splayed out of his mouth and... Twilight could count his ribs.

And worse still, she recognized him.

Her mind wanted to lock up.

She wanted to freeze.

She refused.

Water. No, no, doctor. Yes. Definitely a doctor.

"Hey! You, um, listen!" The alicorn had finally gotten her hooves under her and was walking unsteadily towards Twilight. "My friend, he's really sick. I need to get him to Canterlot!"

Canterlot? There was a perfectly decent hospital in Ponyville. Why would she, a human by Twilight's guess, need to take him specifically to Canterlot?

"What happened to him?" The pieces would come together eventually. Asking would make it happen much faster though.

"He did something, with his soul and magic and-and this zebra-spirit-curse thing called Zeb! And now whatever part of him is a dragon is burning off the rest of him that isn't and it's killing him!" The alicorn was trying to wrap her hooves around him again, but she simply couldn't make them work properly.

Twilight easily hefted him in her magic.

The time loop had happened before Celestia's promised books had arrived, unfortunately, and she hadn't made a point of it yet to go to the mail sorting center and dig them up.

They might have had the answer to this.

Probably not though.

"And Sunset Shimmer said to go to the hospital in Canterlot? Did she say the learners wing or Canterlot General?"

He wasn't supposed to be this easy to lift, he'd always felt like he 'weighed' more than he actually did when she used her magic on him.

This was definitely a magical issue then.

The hospital wing of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, then.

"No-no, she didn't say which. Just that he had to go to Canterlot." Behind the flames, Twilight was starting to piece the new alicorn together.

The pink streak in her mane, a baby dragon attached to her side and the general nervousness?

She'd bet she was looking at herself.

She wondered if her duplicate had figured that out as well.

"He can't teleport in his condition." For a dozen different reasons, the least of which being that he wasn't quite all there. He may not be able to keep himself together during the teleport, and leaving half of him here while the rest was a hundred miles away?

That would defeat the purpose entirely.

"We have to do something! He wasn't breathing earlier and he just- he- I can't lose him!" The dragon put one claw against her side and she leaned in to him.

It was almost comical to watch somepony so much bigger draw strength from something so little.

"And we will. With help. Think you can keep up?" At this time of day, seeing as she wasn't wasn't barreling into her study at speeds touching on sound, Rainbow Dash would be sleeping in a cloud, just over Applejack's farm so as to enjoy a nap right over top of someone working their flank off.

Twilight's wings flared open and a nearby window unlatched under her magic.

"It doesn't matter if I can." Her doppelganger said.

"Because I will!"

----

Rainbow Dash awoke with a jolt, breaking an awesome dream where she'd been showing off a totally rad triple-woozy corkscrew feint to the wonderbolts.

She blearily rubbed one hoof over her eyes before blinking at what woke her.

Well, who woke her.

Twilight Sparkle was hovering next to her cloud.

And Twilight Sparkle was hovering next to her cloud, except darker with fire around her eyes and looking, at least, twenty percent cooler than normal.

And Spike was a baby dragon again and on her back.

Alright, nevermind. She was clearly still dreaming.

"Rainbow Dash, we need your help." Normal Twilight spoke.

Yeah, that was usually how these dreams started.

Then a unicorn was levitated onto her cloud and she reared back.

Mostly dead unicorns were not how these dreams started!