I figured I'd post this on Fanfiction as a back up in case the one on Fimfiction gets taken down for some stupid reason.
Twilight, Cadance, Luna, and Celestia stood on a stage in front of a room full of delegates and representatives from throughout Equestria. The grand hall of Celestia's castle was brimming with nothing but the most elegant decorations and at its center stood the fealty statue, dedicated to every territory in the empire. Spike idled in the far corner, out of sight from everypony who wasn't standing at the front. It was that time again, the big diplomatic summit: what happens here today would certainly create political fallout should the summit break down, at least, that's what Twilight told Spike while planning for the day's events.
Twilight walked forward to center stage, her eyelids drooped from exhaustion as she spoke to the crowd, "Thank you, everypony. With representatives from over fifty cities attending three days of conferences, this is the largest Equestrian Congressional Summit ever." The crowd cheered wildly at her introduction of the summit, with several delegates practically foaming at the mouth with excitement. Her drooping head turned to Spike upstage, "And now my eternally loyal servant Spike would like to say a few words."
Spike meekly walked in front of Twilight, rubbing his hands to calm his nerves. His stage fright got the best of him as he stuttered, "Uh-umm, hello, everypony! I'm here to—"
Before he could even finish his introduction a delegate shouted out, "Quit hogging the stage!" Another one yelled out, "Bring back the princesses!" A wave of cheers followed crying for the princesses' return to the forefront.
Spike took a deep sigh and thought, "I guess that's the kind of treatment I should expect by now."
The commencement ceremony was the first event of the ECS but was hours away from the next talk, leaving the attendees time to socialize and acclimate. Not long after, Spike was humbly cleaning Twilight's bedroom in her Canterlot vacation castle when he heard a knock on the door. As he reached for the doorknob to see who was knocking, the door suddenly slammed open, knocking the little dragon into one of Twilight's bookshelves nearby. As he fell to the ground he felt insult added to his injury as a dozen hardcover books fell from the shelf squarely on his head.
"Spike!" Princess Cadance called out in urgency as she burst into the room. Her eyes darted around the room in panic until she heard a muffled voice coming from a stack of books on the floor.
"Heeeelp." Spike muttered weakly as he reached a claw out to the ceiling.
Cadance's horn glimmered as she magically picked Spike out of the pile. "This is no time for horseplay, Spike." Cadance chided.
"Of course, your highness," Spike said slavishly, "Whatever can I do to serve the princesses?" Suddenly Twilight stumbled through the door, barely awake. "What happened to Twilight?" Spike asked.
"Don't worry, Spike." Twilight said in a daze. "I just need to take a nap…. A little kid nap." She yawned while trailing off muttering.
Cadance looked down on Spike with stern determination as she explained what had happened, "Twilight's throat was sore from making a speech that shook Equestrian politics to its foundations; she took a drink of water and that's when she started feeling really drowsy. The only clue as to what happened was this bottle of dragon strength sleeping pills. Whoever put those pills into Twilight's water better hope that I don't figure out who it is."
Spike gulped noticeably as he asked, "What can I do to help?"
"The empire has to look strong in the face of this attack," Cadance explained, "whoever did this must have been trying to humiliate us by making Princess Twilight look vulnerable to fits of exhaustion, so whatever you do, don't let anypony know about what happened to Twilight. Can I count on you with the simple task of guarding this door?
"Of course, your excellency, I won't fail you." Spike said subserviently.
"And remember, Spike," Cadance added. "Twilight likes fresh air, so whatever you do, don't close the windows."
Spike paced back and forth, telescope on shoulder, as Twilight slept. The telescope was equipped with a long range directional microphone, normally issued to the Whinnistry of Intelligence but Spike managed to get his claws on one after calling in a few favors. It set him back quite a bit, but he felt he had no choice in going to such lengths, especially after making such a big mistake. He remembered that back when he lived in the library he took sleeping pills for the nights when Twilight did her late night pacing but he hadn't seen them since the two of them moved to Ponyville's new castle.
"Could they have been my pills?" Spike thought.
The purple dragon stood on a stool as he surveyed the outside as he looked for anypony that could be watching the tower. Scanning the outside he heard civilian chatter through the microphone while listening for any keywords that could be indicative of a conspiracy. Seeing nothing on the ground level Spike turned his attention to the rooftops and spires of Canterlot. There on top of the golden spire of the Royal Canterlot Resort his green eye spotted a little red bird through the telescope.
"A little birdie, eh?" Spike whispered to himself, "We can't have that thing seeing Twilight like this and spreading whatever nasty rumors it can think of."
Climbing his way to the top of the Spire he nervously said to the tiny bird "Erm, by order of her royal majesty Cadance, I uh, present you with this notice of eviction so, erm, please vacate this spire at once."
The bird, seemingly convinced, left the tip of the spire but mid-flight turned and blew a raspberry at Spike before flying straight into Twilight's bedroom. Spike ran as quickly as he could down the spire and up the stairs back to Twilight's room. Before opening the double doors he huffed and puffed out of breath as he lamented his doughy, pudgy body. Spike entered the room to find the bird mocking Spike's orders by singing on Twilight's horn.
"Please, this isn't what it looks like!" Spike whispered as loud as he could. "I'll give you gold, jewels, your own little birdcastle! Just please don't tell anypony about this!"
The bird paused momentarily as it considered Spike's offer. In rejection of his measly offer it continued singing.
"Okay! A full sized castle! Please, I'll do anything!" Spike begged.
The bird, satisfied with the terms, gracefully bowed out of the room.
"That's coming out of my paycheck but as long as that little birdie keeps quiet." Spike said to himself optimistically.
Before he could even take a breath, Spike heard a commotion outside. He looked out the window to find the wall piercing sound pack of ponies playing polo. "Oh no, Twilight gets really grumpy when people wake her up. I better stop those polo players before they get in over their heads," Spike thought.
Down at the polo game, several well-dressed spectators shouted cheerily for the players, making the noise even louder. Spike approached the crowd and did his best to yell over their cheering but sadly his small, pathetic diaphragm couldn't shout over them. He decided to instead do what he did best and as the ball soared through the air he leapt up and ate it. The polo players were in shock and one by one they surrounded Spike in anger for eating their ball.
Spike said to them, "Hi fellas, sorry for eating your ball but I need you to keep it down for the Princess. Maybe you could move your game somewhere further from the castle?"
Rather than accepting his request, the ponies stepped even closer to Spike. Perhaps they thought they could get the ball out of him or that the little dragon simply needed to be punished for his impudence but whatever the reason, the mob pummeled Spike with hooves and mallets. After a trampling or two the pony mob decided that they were done with Spike and left him to lick his wounds. Fortunately for Spike, his thick dragon scales meant that the only real injury he sustained was to his pride, along with some minor internal bleeding.
Spike rose to his feet after the beating, hacking and coughing, but relieved to finally be done with his task of keeping Twilight's condition secret while letting her rest. Suddenly, a cacophonous whirring sound ripped through the air and looking up Spike saw a green Pegasus with a chainsaw hacking off the limbs of a tree. He wished that it was simply a delusion from being tossed about for so long but the sound and the pony carried on.
"Pardon me, but is this trimming necessary right now?" Spike asked boldly, pretending as though the stallion hadn't just watched Spike being beaten senseless.
"Sorry, pal but these trees are too top-heavy. I need to trim them now or they'll fall over and crush somepony," the green Pegasus said.
"Wait, are these dragon sneeze trees?" Spike asked as he let off a fiery sneeze. "Could you just wait a few hours?"
"Sorry, it's a public hazard. I got my orders," the Pegasus rebutted.
"Well I have my orders too!" Spike said nervously. He wasn't very good at bluffing his way through a conversation, "From, uh, Princess Twilight!"
"Oh of course! Why didn't you say so?" The Pegasus asked condescendingly. "And I presume you have a copy of these orders from Princess Twilight." He said with a wink and a nudge.
"I must hav—ah, ah! AH! CHOO!" Spike sneezed a blast of fire right on the pony's face. Luckily for Spike, it was no ordinary sneeze, as the dragon sneeze trees made it one of the strongest he'd ever have in his entire life. When Spike opened his eyes to see the look on the green pony's face he found that the only thing left of the pony was a chainsaw and some protective goggles. Fortunately there were no witnesses so it was as if he had just abandoned his equipment right next to a pile of ashes. As though Spike's task consisted of nothing more than one overused joke, just as Spike thought he could take a rest, he was proven wrong once again.
The ground shook and rattled as a public works pony unearthed a water main with a jackhammer. "Excuse me!" Spike tried screaming over the jackhammer. "Sir I really need you to stop!" The pony shut the jackhammer off right as Spike shouted 'stop' as if on command.
"Lemme guess, another noise complaint?" The half-deaf public works pony asked loudly. "Sorry but we can't put off this repair any longer."
"Why wasn't this done yesterday?" Spike said with a look of admonishment on his face.
"Sorry, pal, I had orders to postpone it while the princesses planned the summit." He replied.
"Well Princess Twilight—"
"Oh! Princess Twilight" The pony said in annoyance. "First she tells me to postpone the repairs to keep the noise down while she plans the summit and now she wants to postpone the repairs more?! You know what? I'm done. I'm gone, if that's what she wants, I'm leaving."
Spike sighed in relief at what appeared to be the last of his problems. Just then the pony darted back and, putting his face up to Spike's, said, "But if somethings happens, it's your fault, and I'm tellin' everypony that."
Now that all of the noise problems had been dealt with, Spike went back to Twilight's room, climbing the absurdly tall spire's pony sized stairs. Twilight made sure to get the room with stairs that were too big for Spike to walk up normally so that he would have to climb in order to always remind him of his weak and impotent position. She also made sure to get a room in a tall spire to keep away hoofdicapped ponies, for she had no love for the weak and unpony-like, just like any good citizen of the empire. Before reentering Twilight's room, Spike took some time to catch his breath, luckily nopony saw him.
He thought on the day's events and said to himself, "Princess Twilight stays asleep, Princess Cadance will be proud, and nopony will ever even know." He gasped in elation and said aloud, "Maybe they'll give me that promotion instead of Owlowiscious! That'll show him who's stuck in a dead-end job!"
Once again Spike was interrupted by some distant noise, but instead of a jackhammer or a chainsaw or a pack of ponies playing polo or a tiny bird singing softly it was the sound of delegates arguing. Spike gasped again but this time in fear, 'they were coming to see Princess Twilight,' he thought. Of course, the princess was asleep and he definitely couldn't let them know about her condition but there was no way he could get rid of them without somepony becoming suspicious. Two delegates go missing while visiting Princess Twilight? That definitely wouldn't end well for Canterlot and Spike would be to blame.
"I worked on this speech forever and you come in here thinkin' that you can prance all over—" A burly stallion said to a mare as they walked up the stairs.
"Um, hello. Can I help you?" Spike asked humbly.
"This selfish knickerbucker and I, the distinguished pony from Whinnyapolis, are in a bit of coleslaw, and we need princess Twilight to resolve it," the mare said. Her fur was covered in a visible layer of sweat. Despite being in Canterlot in the middle of summer, the mare insisted on wearing a thick, fuzzy coat with a matching hat that had earmuffs.
"Uh, what seems to be the problem?" Spike whispered, "And could you talk a bit quieter?"
"Oh, sure now, gosh, we sure can but we're not gonna, don't'cha know. We're both supposed to give a speech on how much we love the princesses in five minutes, but we've been booked in the same hall!" The Whinnyapolis mare explained.
"I had the room first," the Manehattan delegate said. "And let's be honest, my speech is way better."
"I think you'll find that my speech is much more impressive, don't'cha know?" the Whinnyapolis delegate countered.
"Point is, little dragon, youse is gonna have a lot of unhappy delegates on your hooves unless we get a ruling from Princess Twilight now! And by 'a lot' I mean two. Specifically, us two because there ain't no more delegates who care about this issue aside from the two's of us." The burly stallion said.
The two ponies glared at him angrily for a moment until he gave up. With a Sigh spike conceded and said, "Lemme see what I can do."
He stepped inside the room and popped out a few moments afterward. The two delegates took turns as they talked.
"Well? What did she say? She picked me right?" The Manehattan delegate asked. Stay outta my shed
"Hey, hey, hey. It's fatty Manehattan delegate here that's getting ahead of himself. Let's not be too hasty," the Whinnyapolis delegate cautioned. "Still I think he's rather tasty." She said, referring to Spike.
The Manehatan delegate leered at her in disapproval and said, "If princess Twilight didn't pick me, I'm countin' that as an insult to all of Manehattan."
"And Ponyville and Whinnyapolis sure have a nice relationship between the two of them. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it, don't'cha know." The Whinnyapolis delegate subtly threatened.
"Uh, we're in Canterlot right now, not Ponyville, you know that right, toots?" The Manehattan delegate pointed out.
"Um, she said that… you should share it?" Spike said, unsure of himself.
"That doesn't sound like the kind of decision any conscious person would make but if that's what the princess wants, what are ya gonna do?" The manehattan delegate remarked.
"Yer darn tootin' mister delegate. You'd have to be asleep to make a call that stupid but, hay, I'd never disagree with a princess's opinion in public." The Whinnyapolis delegate said.
They talked over each other indistinctly as they went down the stairs. Spike couldn't understand how they could communicate like that in any meaningful way but nonetheless thought, "Now to finally take a breath from my exhausting day. Gosh, wouldn't it be hilarious if I never got a break from my day? That would be a pretty horrifying experience for me, though. Well, I'm sure that my day is finally over now."
At last, Spike took the time to relax after being subjected to an absurd amount of stress. He sat at the front of Twilight's door, eating a bowl of his favorite snack. Because his diet was incompatible with ponies, Spike's food was always much more expensive than anything ponies ate. In fact, Spike's food was a commodity to ponies and often used in jewelry, making his food that much more expensive. Often times Spike would go hungry for several nights in a row when S-whinny-dlers get brave enough to steal his stash of gems. He was lucky today, a full meal in his belly, but he took care to always conserve energy. It was the real reason why Spike stayed fat, he never knew when he'd get his next meal stolen so keeping a lot of energy stored in his system was the only way to keep himself from going too hungry to fulfill Twilight's every demand.
Soon after, several more delegates appeared at Twilight's door, asking for advice for their manely idiotic and generally easily resolved but simultaneously very selfish problems such as asking for special privileges for delegations and favors for the cities they represented. Using the same trick he used for the Manehattan and Whinnyapolis delegates, Spike advised them on all of their problems by pretending to relay messages from Princess Twilight. It wasn't a difficult lie to tell, Twilight often had him perform menial tasks like that when she didn't feel like meeting with diplomats or anypony else she thought wasn't worth her time.
When it was all done, Spike decided that it would be best for him to carry out the rest of Twilight's schedule, both to make sure that none of her plans would fall apart and to keep up the appearance that Princess Twilight was simply in her tower but too busy to see to things herself. Doing a few favors for a princess never hurt either, especially since Spike was trying so hard to get that promotion over Owlowiscious. For some reason Twilight always seemed to favor Owlowiscious, even though Spike had been loyally serving Twilight since childhood. "Maybe she's just giving the new assistant some special treatment until he gets settled in. I'm sure Twilight would never replace me with an owl." Spike thought nervously. Taking Twilight's schedule from the wall, he set off to fulfill everything on the checklist.
Meeting with a gaunt pony dressed in the latest basement-dweller fashions in a café, Spike jumped on a conveniently placed stack of books and addressed her directly. "Uh, it says here you have a meeting with Princess Twilight?" He asked as he scanned through the checklist.
The nerdy pony adjusted her massive librarian glasses with one hoof as the other hoof played with a zipper on her fanny pack. "Uh, yupperth. Thhe wanted me to prep her on all the different gemthtoneth in the thitithenth of Equethtria thatue before the retheption tonight," She lisped as she pulled a rolled up schematic from her fanny pack and slid it towards Spike.
"Okay, go ahead." Spike stated confidently.
"Um, well, I'd rather, um, talk to a printheth about thith." She said sheepishly.
Oh brother, she's harder to understand than Fluttershy. Spike thought. Understanding what kind of pony he was dealing with he set out to charm her with his suave personality. "Well, if it helps, you can call me 'Princess Spike.'" He said while batting his eyelashes at her.
She blushed and gasped quietly at his insinuations, thinking that the little dragon was propositioning her. Spike wasn't very charming. She turned to leave before he said, "No-no-no, it's alright. I represent the princess, see." He motioned to a brand on the inside of his arm that bore the insignia of Princess Twilight.
"Um, I don't know, I've theen thome pretty good copieth of that but… if you thay tho," The nerdy pony responded in submission.
"The princess says so!" Spike reassured her.
After a lengthy and quite dull briefing on the composition and architecture of the statue Spike set out to find the next meeting on Schedule. "I can't believe I had to sit through all of that. Why does Twilight want a briefing on something that she knows about already anyway? At least I'll never have to think about that statue ever again after this is all over." Spike thought.
Coming back to a familiar part of Canterlot Spike found Twilight's two o'clock meeting. It was the public works pony again. Not the one who he had turned to ashes with his dragonfire earlier, but the one with the jackhammer trying to fix a water main.
"You again?! Don't tell me Princess Twilight is sending you to tell me that I can't fix this yet." The pony asked in mild agitation.
"She sure did!" Spike said smugly.
"Fine, but if it takes too long for her to do whatever it is that she's doin' I'm fixin' this, princesses or not." The pony said defiantly.
Spike rolled his eyes in dismissal as he walked away from the stallion, unaware that Princess Cadance. "Oh! Your majesty, I didn't see you there." Spike said humbly as he punctuated his sentence with a bow. "How goes the investigation?"
"We find more and more at the crime scene every minute, Spike." Cadance said flatly. "Unfortunately he still don't know who the culprit is, but we did find a few green and purple scales surrounded by a thin dusting of ashes. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this crime, right Spike?" She asked in a subtly accusatory tone.
Spike visibly gulped as he said, "Um, nope."
"Of course, the empire would understand if this was simply a big mistake made by a clumsy but well-meaning assistant." Cadance said in a coaxing tone.
"No, your majesty, I haven't the faintest idea who could've done this. Heh heh," He chuckled nervously as he hoped that the princess couldn't see the sweat dripping between his scales. "Well, it was a pleasure to see you again milady, but I must attend to the rest of Twilight's meetings. We have to keep up appearances, after all." Spike darted off to carry out the rest of Twilight's duties.
The meetings and briefings went on for what felt like hours with barely any time for Spike to take a break. Perhaps the schedule felt so tight simply because Spike couldn't move quite as quickly as Twilight could but whatever the reason and whatever the challenge Spike had to do it. He was honor-bound to carry out the wishes of the princesses, no matter the burden placed on him. During the meetings he thought about the sweet rewards he could get if he managed to get through this entire fiasco with his reputation in one piece. Perhaps he'd take the time to get that portrait taken of himself so that future generations would have some proof of his existence. Or perhaps he'd get a day at the spa, being massaged and pampered for once in his life. Maybe he'd finally get a chance to taste food the way it's prepared for ponies instead of the eating it raw like he'd been forced to do his whole life, as he'd been forbidden from being in a kitchen due to his clumsiness and inability to use tools the way ponies could.
As Twilight's final meeting came to a close in the grand hall of Celestia castle, Spike could barely keep on his feet anymore and sat them on the edge of a table, being careful not to let any of the dirt get on the tablecloth. He ate a few jewels that he bought with the last of his allowance for their trip to canterlot. The next few days would be difficult without food but this was the only way he could deal with the stress of covering for Twilight. As he shut his eyes to rest he heard a familiar, voice by his side, a regal voice.
"Getting sleepy, Spike? You didn't add anything to those jewels, did you?" Cadance asked accusingly.
"Nope! Just tired from doing everything that you asked of me, milady" Spike responded anxiously.
"We know that it was you, Spike, we found this receipt for dragon strength sleeping pills by your bed in the servants' quarters." Cadance stated.
"I swear I didn't do it!" Spike begged, "I bought the pills for myself yesterday but I forgot that I even had them until a few minutes ago! Please, your majesty, you must believe me!"
"Spike, I believe you but all the evidence points to you. If you can't prove your innocence then I'm going to have to take you in." Cadance explained.
Just as Cadance was readying to arrest Spike, the little red bird that was extorting Spike earlier swooped down from the rooftops on to a tree covered in blooming, orange flowers. Taking refuge from the blazing heat under the tree was a certain public works pony who had almost completed his repairs on a damaged water main. To Spike's misfortune, the weight of the bird was too much for that dragon sneeze tree and it fell to ground, crushing the pony responsible for the water main's repairs. With the critical repairs unfinished the water main burst open, shooting a stream of water into the air straight through the window of the grand hall. The jet of water flooded the hall, sweeping Cadance away from Spike.
"I'll deal with the water main, you drain the water Spike!" She said as she leapt into action in a time of crisis.
Straight away she leapt through the broken window to shut off the water main as Spike tried to figure out how to empty the room. A curious Fancy Pants came to check on all the commotion and as he opened the door to the grand hall he unwittingly unleashed a surge of water upon the rest of the castle and knocking Fancy Pants against the opposite wall. Looking about at the state of the grand hall Spike was relieved to see that the damage wasn't irreparable.
"At least the statue's okay." Spike said aloud.
Examining the room more closely Spike realized that he was surrounded by dragon sneeze flowers and tried his very best to keep himself from destroying the biggest symbol of unity in the entire empire. "Oh no." He said, trying to contain his sneeze.
"Oh no!" Fancy pants shouted as he walked into the hall, seeing what Spike was about to do.
"Oh no!" A crowd of delegates yelled as they followed Fancy Pants in.
Luckily, Spike's tiny body was incapable of generating a sneeze powerful enough to knock down anything, even with the aid of several dozen dragon sneeze flowers. In fact, his sneeze was barely noticeable compared to the ruckus the delegates were making.
Suddenly, a large creature burst through the wall behind the statue and shouted in a deep, gruff voice, "Oh yeah!"
The strange creature looked vaguely like Spike in his proportions except much larger with transparent skin and filled with red fluid. The flying debris from the destroyed wall shattered the statue into dozens of smaller gems. Sensing that it was very inappropriate for him to interrupt whatever it was that it just walked into, the creature left through the same opening that it made.
"Hey! It's that dragon that we keep seein' whenever we have problems!" The Manehattan delegate shouted from the crowd.
"Yeah, he must be the reason why everything bad has happened today!" The Whinnyapolis delegate said in agreement.
"I've got an idea," Fancy Pants dictated to the rest of the crowd, "Let's trample that fat little troublemaker!"
"YEAH!" The crowd cheered in unison.
The crowd, which was now more akin to an angry mob, charged at Spike, trampling him under a stampede of hooves. The ponies gave him no mercy with this beating and despite his impervious scales, Spike knew that he would feel sore from all the bruises the next morning. The ponies left one by one as they slowly grew bored of beating up Spike. Eventually, Spike was left alone with Princess Cadance.
"Sorry for letting this get so out of hoof, your majesty." Spike said, "I don't even understand how it all got so out of control."
Cadance took a quick look around the room to make sure that nopony else was around before she said, "It's alright, Spike, everything went smoothly, just as we planned."
Spike's face contorted in confusion before he asked, "What?"
"All of this was supposed to happen!" Cadance explained with a chuckle. "We knew that the summit was about to fall apart so we had to get somepony to distract the delegates with petty inconveniences to keep them from focusing on the diplomatic situation that was about to unfold. Now that all the diplomats have walked out on the summit, the whole thing can be canceled and nopony will even think twice about those complaints they were filing!"
"So that's why everypony seemed so on edge!" Spike exclaimed. "Wait but then who put sleeping pills in Twilight's water?"
"We did, of course! Most of the delegates had complaints about Twilight so if she were to be suddenly unavailable then they couldn't take it up with her. Of course we had to conduct an investigation unless we wanted ponies to get suspicious. You were just the most convenient fall pony, Spike." Cadance answered.
"Hold on a second, why didn't you let me in on the plan? I was scared to death thinking that I was going to be thrown in the dungeon from that investigation." Spike worriedly muttered.
"Oh, that. That was Twilight's decision, she just likes messing with you." Cadance stated flatly.
Spike raised an eyebrow making a face that questioned if she was being serious. Cadance nodded in affirmation.
"Spike, we weren't really going to throw you in the dungeon, if we did then the delegates wouldn't have been able to take out their frustrations on you."
"Okay then, the plan makes sense to me, but what about that monster destroying the fealty statue?" Spike pressed.
"That was just one of the ambassadors from a very distant land. They're quite strange looking creatures. The statue being destroyed had nothing to do with any of this but luckily those mindless delegates pinned the blame all on you." Cadance responded.
"Lucky me, I guess." Spike said with a chuckle.
Despite the ordeal he just went through, Spike was happy to have done what the Princesses wanted of him. At least now his life could go back to normal.
Epilogue
"Hurry up, Spike, this floor won't mop itself up!" Twilight ordered.
"I'm on it, Twilight!" Spike said cheerily.