A/N (December)- A little shorter than usual for a chapter, but I felt like the cut-off was an appropriate one for now. Enjoy!
Spike rode on a perilous torrent of emotion as he made his way through the narrow, thankfully crowded, streets of Ponyville toward his eventual destination. Armed with the power of magic, and rafting down a river of uncontrollable desire, Spike's long time pony friend was a threat to anypony she met and perceived as a potential obstacle in her way. Spike wanted to shout in the streets that there was a hazardous, possibly deadly, purple unicorn on the loose, and that any who find her should stay as far from the premises as they could. A conflict bubbled in his head over the townsfolk running like mad and screaming through the streets, and the bloodshed that could erupt if Twilight was enraged inadvertently. Another problem might occur, if the others find out, in that Twilight, instead of trying to be helped or rehabilitated, would be punished severely if anypony thought that she was a renegade on the loose, committing heinous acts of debauchery in her wake.
He smiled and waved with a wooden, tense nod to everypony he met on the road to Sugarcube Corner, hoping to deter their need for casual conversation and keeping the lowest profile imaginable. Couldn't have the citizens of Ponyville interrupting the head rush of scenarios and situations he would undoubtedly have to prepare for in case of extreme emergency. He mused to himself, humored by his own remarks, that Twilight couldn't possibly have made it all the way to Sugarcube Corner by now, as half of her waking hours were probably spent daydreaming and goofing around when Princess Celestia was on her mind every moment of the day. He was momentarily confident that the unicorn wouldn't even see him on his way out there, and that he'd be able to make it out of the store in one piece. Then again, even just the sheer possibility of running into Twilight, catching her in the act of incriminating him, filled the small dragon with a primal, primordial terror. The burden of Twilight being aware that he knew her plans would leave him at the disadvantage, not her, as a painful, smoldering death was a tiny, but existent, degree of measure that his mentally distraught friend might impose on him.
"Come on, Spike," he kicked himself mentally, "this is Twilight we're talking about! She's the most fair-minded pony in this whole town! She's the most intelligent magician I've ever known, not to mention the most reasonable!"
Spike thought to himself woefully.
"At least...when she's not like this..."
It was all the more reason that he had to help her. He had done everything he felt was necessary by not talking about the princess, as such topics would bring out her inner demons. He never mentioned her, even when taking down letters most of the time. As long as Twilight's awareness of the things Celestia was doing was kept under wraps, he felt that she wouldn't give in to the raging hormones the princess' utterance would envelop her in. The newspapers in Ponyville? Spike would read them occasionally, and then torch them into char-broiled piles of ash, never to be seen by Twilight in the library, as Celestia, as absurd and mocking as the dragon felt it was, seemed to be on almost every page of the paper. Such a preposterous assault of the princess' mental imagery in Twilight's head would probably make her crack even more often than was feared.
"Spike," he remembered Twilight asking him one time, "what happened to the Ponyville Monthly I just picked up earlier this morning?"
Spike's eyes shifted around as he had just roasted it into nothing and swept it into the trash, nopony the wiser.
"I uh...don't know what you're talking about Twilight..."
"Oh come on," Twilight would say to him, "I could've sworn that newspaper was in here somewhere! Are you sure you haven't seen it today Spike?"
Twilight would give him that devilishly hopeful, doe-eyed expression that could have melted his face off with how cute and expectant it was. He absolutely hated lying to her, but he knew it had to be done.
"...No Twilight," he was about to cry with every sad nuance made clear in her face, "I haven't seen it at all today."
It was almost sinister how upset she would seem, as if she knew about him burning them to the ground all along, and was just along for the ride with this lie he had cooked up, trying to get him to bend and break under the pressure of that tortured puppy look in her eyes. Spike shivered from head to toe just thinking about those times, it's a good thing it only happened every month, or else he would've been broken to her will a long time ago. That unicorn is one scary...
"BITCH!"
Spike jumped at the loud, exclamatory insult thrown by some unknown mare at another pony on the left side of his hearing range.
"Well..." Spike started thinking that somepony was answering for him, "I don't know if I'd go that far..."
"How dare you commission the exact same dress as I would for the Ponyville Gentlecolt's Society Dinner tonight! Get your own style, and quit copying mine, you copycat!"
Spike was now completely interested in the scene enveloping on the left side of the street he was on. He gasped and jumped behind a bush as, lost in his own thoughts, he had unintentionally made his way over to the Carousel Boutique, one of the places Twilight had probably already been to tell her sick, twisted tale of SpikeXTwilight rape-shipping. Spike, though living in a town predominantly female for most of his life had made him sensitive and caring to fillies' and mares' specific issues, the male side of his reptilian mind was secretly fascinated by the cat-fight in front of his eyes.
"Whoa...this is going to be sweet," the little lizard stared wide eyed at the front of the store where, he assumed, two mares of the elite class in Ponyville were fighting over Rarity making them identical party dresses for this high society dinner they were so ravenous about. Rarity was on the sidelines, doing everything she could to calm the two ladies down and get them to be more civilized about the whole ordeal.
It didn't hurt to Spike that both said unicorns were quite attractive, and he knew he was in for a good show. The first mare, the one who had just stabbed her opponent with that venomous insult, was a light red pony, almost as bright as a strawberry. Her full, rich mane, a brownish gold with darker brown highlights interspersed throughout, cascaded down her withers wonderfully, and shook a little as she tore into her rival with a merciless barrage. Her tail was similarly colored, and almost stood on end with how furious she was. The eyes of this mare were lit with anger, and held a similar light brown tint. He also took note, though he'd deny peeking at her nice plot, that her cutie mark looked like a cup made out of some kind of gold. Now what could that possibly mean... Oh, now he knew what they meant when they coined the term "trophy wife", so that's what it was...
"Ladies please, do not fight over this! I'll make you both another dress for the dinner party tonight! It would be no trouble at all!" Rarity tried to quell the fight to a dull roar at most.
The other mare wouldn't back down herself, although she was much more calm and collected about the whole thing, at least on the outside. Her own coat was a color that could've been an orange, or apricot, or possibly both. The mane she was sporting was done up in a neat, tidy bun with only a few stray bangs and curls popping out in an organized fashion. The tone of such a hairstyle resembled that of a dark chocolate, probably closer to black than brown. A similarly shaded tail was swaying with a steady, pendulous rhythm, sleek and silky, as if she had just had it groomed. Her indignant humor was apparent in her light grey eyes. The cutie mark on her own flank, once again at Spike's denial of gazing at, was a pair of glass slippers, indicative of a wealthy shoe tycoon...or possibly a hooker... She was quite reserved in her own behavior, not being as noticeably callous as her opponent was, though she was still giving her own malicious insults blow by blow.
"Oh, Sassy," the unicorn quipped, "I don't know what you were thinking by attempting to fit into such a marvelous dress. You aren't exactly...built for it...if you want my honest opinion. In fact, I'd suggest a little more work on those thighs, when it comes right down to it."
Spike didn't have any idea what the apricot colored unicorn was talking about. Sassy's, as she was called, thighs were, by Spike's standards, probably every stallions' wet dream. If he weren't in love with, and completely devoted to, Rarity, he wouldn't mind if she were his marefriend one bit with that smoking hot body.
"No no no Spike," he chastised himself, "Rarity is the ONLY one for you! Yeah...Rarity..."
He was still having trouble not being excited about both of the unicorns, despite his temporary resolve. Sassy was grinding her teeth in absolute frustration at her long time friend and verbal sparring partner.
"I don't hear anypony else complaining about them, unlike that ratty excuse for a tail on your plot, Chardonnay!"
This seemed to bait the more reserved of the pair to stoop to the same level.
"Well I never! I would be more concerned about that horrible, hairy growth on your own, My Dear!"
As the two mares almost threw hooves at each other, Rarity was once again trying to separate the two with no considerable amount of success.
"Girls, girls! This is not the time, place, or way to behave like this! I will take it upon myself to give you both your own, personal styles of dress, but you two need to quit bickering and follow me, right now!"
It was a useless command, as neither unicorn was anywhere near done arguing with the other. Spike felt terrible for leaving Rarity to pick up the pieces and take the flak, but he had to get going over to his intended point while he still had the time, and this fight gave him the perfect cover to sneak by her.
"Next time, Rarity, I'll help you out, but I can't risk you seeing me right now..."
Spike apologetically crawled out of the bush and back onto the Ponyville streets as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. Spike took one last glance at Rarity, nearly crying in frustration from the dust cloud that had started to build up from the two mares fighting with each other. He felt pretty bad, but it couldn't be helped right now. He had a mission that was many times more important than a squabble between two rich, upper class ponies.
Twilight was still nowhere to be found, which Spike both praised, and feared deeply. Who knew what kind of shenanigans she was trying to pull over on everypony now? She could've already claimed the head of her first victim for all he could surmise. The more times the little dragon foiled her plans, the more her state of calm and reason diminished, and was replaced by cunning, craftiness, and rage. Hell, she had tried to kill somepony on her last tirade through the Canterlot Palace! What would she do to her first unsuspecting soul this time around?
In the distance, like a haunted castle on a hill, Spike could make out Sugarcube Corner. He trembled unknowingly at whether or not Twilight was there, since she hadn't been spotted all day, and neither had he. There were no sound clues yet as to if she were inside, or if she had possibly already beaten him to it, but he forced his legs to move in the direction his mind was hoping he would not have to enter.
Every step felt like a ton of bricks, making him want to go back to the library and curl up into a ball, waiting for the inevitable banishment Twilight would be imposed after luring the princess into her cave-like lair that she passed off as a lab and molesting her in every sense of the word. Such a fate would've been better in comparison to the physical and emotional trauma that Twilight had given not only him, but had involved her friends into now.
"I've gotta get over there! I can't just let Twilight ruin her own life, what kind of assistant would I be if I let that happen?"
Various mechanisms in the dragon's body groaned and squealed together. His racing, frightened mind, his insistently forward-moving legs, and the palpitations in his chest rebelled against one another. He passed by some other ponies he knew, and when they saw the look of dread in the beady little pupils of their resident dragon, they knew to stay away from whatever executioner's block he was doomed for. With his head held down in a solemn bid to keep from taking off in the other direction, giving Ponyville a sharp decree that Twilight Sparkle had officially lost every vestige of her sanity, Spike threw all caution to the wind and strode with awkward, choppy steps up to his final resting place.
Sugarcube Corner, Spike never got why they called it a "corner" as it wasn't really a street, stood menacingly above his tiny, frail body. He recalled the tales told in Hoofsel and Gretel, where the colt and filly approached a gingerbread house, not unlike this one, and were a hair's width close to being eaten alive by the old witch inside. In this case, Spike felt like Hoofsel, and Twilight was the potential witch, lurking inside to gobble him up.
"Well...here goes...prepare for anything, Spike..."
KNOCK...KNOCK...KNOCK...
The slow, resounding clack of scaly flesh on hard wood was deafening to the little dragon, as he could no longer distinguish the outside world from the fear that this once innocent place instilled in him in this moment. The wait for an answer was maddening, as hours seemed to pass without any sign of life from the hollow specter of a house. His breathing started to pick up rapidly as he thought the worst of this situation.
"Oh...CELESTIA...NO...SHE DIDN'T, DID SHE? She wouldn't just kill Pinkie Pie in cold blood right in her own store! This is insane! I'm going to burn this door down in like three seconds if somepony doesn't answer soon..."
The latch of the lock on the door suddenly tripped with a metallic chirp, breaking Spike out of his frantic assumptions. Slowly, but surely, the wooden door creaked open, and Spike saw a pony he thought he'd never hear from again.
"Oh hey there Spike!"
"Oh crap!" Twilight sucked in a quiet shallow breath as she heard Pinkie Pie greet her nosy purple companion with a gleeful zest. She scrambled over to the doorway unthinkingly, trying to stop the next phrase coming out of Pinkie's mouth.
"Twilight was just telling me this crazy story about you beating up her and her coltfriend a few days ago..."
Twilight threw her hoof over the pink mare's face, but it was too late. Spike had caught her red-hoofed in the middle of an even more convoluted tale than the last two that were set up. Spike's shocked, but somehow more aware than he was letting on, gaze scanned over the unicorn's features in a probing manner, searching for some kind of sign that she would pounce on him now that he knew what was going on. Her own look of bashful malevolence, embarrassed at being caught in the act, but not backing down from Spike one bit, was made to counter his own. Nothing was stated for minutes on end, as the tension was so thick that one little peep could set somepony off.
"...Um...Spike...Twilight...you two okay?" Pinkie Pie looked between the two as she tried to decipher the stares given between them.
"Oh good grief..." Spike thought to himself, not speaking out loud yet, "I guess I'm going to have to go with the flow of her story from here on out. Goodbye, cruel world..."
Spike's whimpering glances turned into an unnatural, full-tooth grin on his face, extremely sinister in its intent. Twilight was nowhere near the dragon at the time, but once he gave her those heated eyes, she was so unnerved that receding into the store became a much more viable option. Pinkie Pie allowed Spike to step in and closed the door behind for him.
"Is this all true Spike...is Twilight just a part of your harem like the rest of us are?..."
Twilight also spoke up, "...and what are you doing here when you should be taking care of the library right now?..."
The three of them dreaded the answer he was about to give, even Spike himself, as it was now or never to enact his next move.
"Twilight..." an uncomfortable silence was drawn out as it took a few seconds for him to get his act together, he ignored Twilight's question altogether in favor of his own question, "...you do realize that I am the only coltfriend you will ever have...right?..."
Both of the mares in the room gasped loudly, and gaped wide-eyed at the lustful nuances in Spike's behavior. Twilight's words had slipped out before she even registered exactly what Spike had just uttered.
"Quit trying to deny it, Spike, you're...A WHOS AND THE WHAT NOW?"
Spike purred convincingly, though in his own mind was mildly disgusted with his own actions, at Twilight as he started strutting toward her with some kind of sadistic posturing.
"Oh...Twilight Twilight Twilight...you just don't know when to keep pony scum out of our bed...do you?"
Pinkie just stood there, fascinated by this really life-like interpretation of what the violet unicorn had just got done telling her. It was so surreal how Spike was sauntering up to his pony friend, grabbing her lightly, but with purpose, around the back of her neck and whispering into her ear as if the conversation they were having was reserved for their love nest alone. Twilight, on the other hoof, was freaking the fuck out!
"A...y...wh...SPIKE, WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME ARE YOU DOING?"
Spike's demeanor became increasingly pushy, impatient, and abrasive. He pinched her with the fleshy parts of his claws on her soft chest, not wanting to draw blood, but wanting to make it clear that he meant business.
"Don't be so innocent with me, My Little Pet! You know how badly you've been behaving lately, and once we get home, I'll make sure that you stay in your place this time!"
"Ow Spike! Why are you pinching me like that?"
Twilight thought SHE was the one who had gone off the deep end of the pool. Spike was really starting to scare her now, and it showed in the trembling, almost tear-filled eyes of the purple pony. The little lizard's own eyes burned through her retinas with a possessive, tawdry steam she had never seen before. He was internally suffering by doing this, but it was all just a part of the plan, and would be over eventually.
"Oh...yes...Twilight...when I look into your eyes, I know that I made the right choice in making you number one..."
The earth pony interjected, confused by the terminology.
"Number one?..."
Spike's focus was robbed from him for a minute as he turned his head toward the pink pony to listen to her question.
"What are you talking about Spike?"
Spike's brain could've exploded with the smorgasbord of fibs collecting in his head.
"Well...let's just put it this way Pinkie...you see, I've got plenty of babes around Equestria in my little group. Twilight, as the first mare I've really known, became my number one marefriend, the cream of the crop, the best of the bunch. Do you get it now?"
"Um...so what number am I in this?..."
Both Spike and Twilight were giving Pinkie a "I can't believe you just asked that!" look. Spike had some trouble adjusting to all of the questions bombarding him, as well as Twilight trying to get him off of her.
"Oh uh...you're up there somewhere really high, Pinkie, don't worry your pretty little head."
Pinkie wasn't satisfied with the evasive answer Spike had just given her.
"No no...I mean what number am I exactly Spike?"
If Spike wasn't preoccupied holding down Twilight in his grasp, he would've face-palmed himself in disbelief. Why was this so important to Pinkie Pie all of a sudden? What, did she WANT to be Spike's marefriend or something?
"OKAY, you're number three, after Rarity, if you're really that desperate to know!"
"THAT'S AWESOME!"
She was joking, right? Being a part of Spike's harem was perceived by any who heard Twilight's nasty stories as a deadly torture, a nightmare from which one could not wake! She must not have told Pinkie all of the gory details before he knocked on the door.
"Am I really that special to you Spike?"
Pinkie all but tore Spike off of Twilight, leaving her in a tired heap of confusion on the bakery floor, and grasping Spike lovingly in her front hooves. She gave a soulful look into Spike's eyes, one that unnerved him so much that his entire charade was about to crack under the pressure.
"Uh...well...uh...yes?..."
She cheered with delight at his confession.
"WHEEEEEEE!"
The miniscule dragon almost flew out of her hooves, and head-first into the ceiling, as she made a motion to launch him up into the air before stopping herself.
"Wait...I've gotta tell Rainbow Dash! She'll be sooooo jealous!"
Spike had no idea, as usual, what Pinkie Pie was rambling on about, but was just happy to see her leave the place to him and Twilight, taking the extreme amount of energy with her before somepony got seriously injured. She was as fast as lightning in her exit, and he could only guess that her enthusiasm was somehow genuine... Of course, now this left the two of them alone, where there would be no witnesses to Spike's beat-down at the hooves of the crazed Twilight.
"...SPIIIIKE!"
Twilight's eye twitched violently as she nastily glared at her dragon assistant.
"That was a bad move on your part! Where do you get off, fondling your own mentor? That's just freaky!"
Well, there was no turning back now, may as well lay into her with his best shots.
"Hey, come now, Twilight," he started ironically, "after all, you're the one who told everypony about me doing horrible things to you! Furthermore, it's not like you don't fantasize about touching the princess either!"
"That's completely different Spike! Celestia and I..."
"...are meant to be together! Yes, Twilight, I've already heard that line enough! You're really starting to scare me! If you're going to make me jump through hoops to keep you from regretting your actions, that's one thing, but it's getting out of hand! You've already gotten more than one pony into this mess with this unhealthy addiction!"
Twilight's horn started glowing threateningly, her ire rising every second.
"It's not an addiction, Spike! It's love, you got that? All you're doing is trying to ruin everything for me! You're just sour grapes because I've actually found my true love, while you're still chasing something that will never happen (Rarity)! Well, I've had it up to here with your nonsense, Spike, get out!"
Spike glanced around Sugarcube Corner with a nervous confusion in his voice.
"...Uh...you do realize that this isn't the library, right?"
The horn on Twilight's head was pulsing with that familiar energy, charging up in the heat of her anger. Spike stepped back a little as the rogue current sparked in front of his feet. He knew what he had to do...
"I said, get out, Spike! I don't want to see you right now!"
Spike took off as fast as he could for the door, but whether the shot was intentional or not, a beam of some kind of energy was nudged into his back forcefully, sending him through the opened door to the bakery, flying about six feet into the grassy, dirt covered streets of Ponyville. Spike was covered in dust, coughing a little as the wind had just been knocked out of him. He did everything he could to tell himself that she was just temperamental, and that in a few hours this wave of anger would eventually subside. She was usually very sweet, and kind, but this was a dark time for her, and he just had to be as patient as he could muster. Getting angry at her wouldn't help the situation, only by deterring her grand schemes and trying to show her the error of her ways would she pull through it.
Twilight would probably be in there for a while, wanting to avoid contact with the dragon as much as possible before she was ready to have it. Maybe that was for the best, as Spike knew that he wouldn't be able to get through to her at the moment. He picked himself up and decided that he would get those ingredients later, when nopony else was around. He started a sulking trek back over to the library, as he would still have to avoid some of their other friends. There was no way he would give up on his own strategies now, no matter how sorry he sometimes felt for the purple mare.
As he walked he started thinking about what Twilight had said in there, about how he's just jealous because Twilight has somepony, and Spike...what did Spike really have?... Of course, Spike didn't have the horrendous delusions going through his mind that the unicorn had. He was content, in most cases, with being Rarity's pincushion more so than her coltfriend. He knew she wasn't exactly smitten with the young whelp. He even enjoyed the challenge that dynamic created with them. Though, maybe in some remote bastion of his psyche, he secretly envied how determined and unmovable his purple friend was when it came to her own feelings.
The implications were discomforting, to say the least. Spike had always just assumed that everything he did for Twilight was for her own good, to the point that he had her every best interest at heart. Even in trying to help, it often occurred to him that selfish motives were never far behind. Fear of his own punishment was one of those, since if any connections were made to incriminate both Twilight and Spike, he would suffer the same grievous consequences. Also, if jealousy were added to that fairly short list of incentives, that would complicate things greatly in his attempt to prove that he was in the right here, instead of the wrong.
Though, to reiterate the point, Spike KNEW that Rarity wasn't gaga over him, and as much as he would like her to be more interested in him, he was still completely fine with that. That left him with an interesting proposition. If Twilight was in love with Princess Celestia, and Spike was jealous of them...then that could only mean that he was secretly, almost subconsciously, admiring one pony or the other. He guessed that maybe the attention Twilight showed him less when she went goofy over Celestia was one possible cause to that scenario, if Twilight were the object of his desire, completely unknown to his conscious self. He supposed he knew the princess well enough, and was appreciative enough of her ideal female pony form... Good gravy! Maybe the rumors spreading around Equestria like a virus were true... Maybe everypony, combined at the least, was in love with either one of the princesses, in his case, Celestia! His sources for that datum were probably pretty damn biased, as Snips and Snails were not the brightest, most studious unicorns in the world after all, but he had heard other ponies comment on the possibility as well... However, the scariest notion of them all coalesced into a wall of thorny vines, tearing away at his tender brain matter, he could be in love with both Twilight AND Princess Celestia!
"AAAAGH! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Spike tried to keep himself from imagining threesomes between him and his two older mare companions and teachers, but the chance thought-seed planted into his head took a horrible root, and attempted to wrap him into his own mind-fuck...
Twilight sat at one of the tables in Sugarcube Corner, pondering craftily over her latest tactics. She was incredibly shaken up from the sudden appearance of Spike, but she thought up another ruse to distract him with almost too easily. She had remembered that she had a comb still stashed away in her saddlebags, ones she thought earlier to be completely empty, save the umbrella hat she put away when the clouds started clearing up.
She had taken out the comb and sat comfortably in one of the seats. She began utilizing soft, deep strokes to pull out the kinks in her tail. Having ran around all day was not a great way for a tail and mane to stay untangled. Spreading rumors around town and using the power of suggestion to put Spike into a similar dementia state was...how could Twilight put it..."hairy"...work...(HAH!)
She grinned maniacally at her own pun, and the assurance that calling Spike "jealous of her and the princess" would put him into a mental tailspin of epic proportions. He was just so easy to manipulate, when the proper button sequence was decoded, and Twilight knew the ins and outs of his mind better than anypony else in Ponyville. She reasoned, somewhat soberly, that their relationship was both so cohesive and yet also so competitive because of their grasps on each others mindsets.
She really didn't like to mess with Spike so much, on most occasions, but with the princess only about two and a half days away from her waiting, wanton hooves, even Spike would get no special considerations for mercy! If he insisted on charging at her, time and time again, then she would not hesitate to slam the hammer down on him to teach him his place.
The dastardly mare stared lovingly at her own tail after her brushing, every strand of hair perfectly in its place. She may have booted him out of there with her magic, but it was the mind-magic of her words that would ultimately break the dragon's fighting spirit, once and for all...
"Oh Spike," the purple unicorn cooed as she caressed her tail, "you're my little pet now!"
UPDATED A/N MARCH 2012 - ...Yikes...I don't know about anyone else, but I just cringe every time I read this. Well, feel free to let me know what you thought about these "lost" chapters as compared to the new chapter 6 (which essentially covers about twice as much ground as these two did). Thanks, bye guys.
