//------------------------------// // The Great Switcheroo–Part 2 // Story: Peewee and Spike's Ponyville Adventures // by AbstractThought //------------------------------// Peewee had once wondered what it’d be like to be Spike, but he had never really thought about how different it’d feel to have his body, mainly because his train of thought dissolved once he realized being Spike would involve a lot of chores. Of course, now that it was actually happening, he realized just how amazing it really was! Not only was he big now (well, big compared to his original size, anyway), but he also had fingers! Well, technically they were claws, but who cares? They were still perfectly designed for snapping, something he’d always wanted to do ever since he saw Spike do it! His newly acquired dragon blood churning with excitement, he put his fingers together and…they just slipped pass each other without making a snapping noise. “Hey, where’s the snappy noise?” Peewee-as-Spike griped as he kept fiddling with his fingers in vain (though it was still a lot of fun having fingers to play with). “Hey Spike, do you think you could help me out here?” “Me help you out?!” Spike-as-Peewee squawked from across the room, his new birdy body enhancing his squawking skills quite well. “What about me?! I’m trapped in a bird’s body and I have no idea what to do with it!” “Hey, cheer up, little guy!” Peewee said with a smile, one that Spike didn’t return for some strange reason. “Now that you’re a bird, you can finally fly! Like this!” At that, Peewee flapped his new arms and sprang up into the air…only to faceplant onto the floor. “Uh, I think your arms are busted or something.” Spike responded with a facepalm, or rather, facewing. I can’t believe this is happening… “Okay,” Twilight said, grabbing Peewee’s Spike head so their eyes met. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I am going to contact my old teachers so I can figure out a way to reverse this. While I’m gone, you better not mess up Spike’s body or anything else, or you’re really going to regret it. You got that?” “Mhm,” Peewee responded. “Good.” She let go of Peewee’s Spike head and let it fall back on the floor. “Now stay here.” With that, she stormed up the stairs and out the door, her head steaming like the time Pinkie decided to roast marshmallows on a campfire in the middle of a sauna, an event that ensured Rarity would never invite her to another spa visit. Once the coast was clear, Peewee blew a raspberry at the departed Twilight and was amazed at how much better it was compared to his usual raspberries, mainly due to Spike’s tongue being much longer than Peewee’s. Wow, Spike’s tongue is amazing! …The forked end is gonna take some getting used to, though. He also noticed that Spike’s body was also quite a bit heavier than his own when he tried to push himself up, though fortunately his new arms were also a lot stronger, giving him the successful push he needed. Now upright, he looked down at Spike’s belly and gave it an experimental pat, which rewarded him with a pleasant drum sound. “Ooh, this is perfect! Certainly a lot better than my old belly!” He then went to work on his new belly bongo, creating a soulful rhythm that would have moved the music god’s soul, if the music god was a thing that existed in Equestria. “Hey, uh, Peewee?” Spike said over Peewee’s rhythm. “I’m glad you’re having fun with my belly, real impressive drumming, by the way, but do you think you could, uh, help me out here first?” “Help you out with what?” Peewee asked, still immersed in his belly drumming. “I can’t fly!” Spike cried, his newly acquired phoenix wings flapping like mad to no avail. Peewee stopped short at that. “Oh wow, how could I be so stupid?” he berated himself with a slap to Spike’s head, which he noticed was a good deal harder than his old head (or maybe his old slapping appendage was just softer?). “I was whining about how I couldn’t snap fingers as well as you could, but I never considered that you wouldn’t be able to fly as well as I could!” He walked over to his old body, somewhat stiffly and wobbly due to how different his new legs were, not to mention how little he walked to begin with, and gingerly pet his familiar feathered head with a claw like Spike liked to do. “Does this help?” “Ooh yeah, that’s the spot!” Spike cooed, his wings beating not unlike a hummingbird’s, but very unlike a dragon’s. “Wow, this is so great!” Peewee breathed. “I never dreamed I’d one day get to pet myself!” “Wow…I just realized how surreal this whole thing is,” Spike said. “Yeah…me too…” The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, all while Peewee continued stroking his old head, because it felt too good for a little awkwardness to get in the way of that. Just then, their stomachs growled in unison, prompted a gaggle of giggles between them. “Geez, you haven’t eaten anything in a while, have you?” “Heh, well, you know, comic writing is pretty busy work!” Spike laughed. “Looks like you haven’t eaten in a while either!” “Well, being a hero and getting punished for it can be pretty busy work as well!” Peewee responded with a toothy grin. Oh yeah, I have teeth now! And sharp ones to boot! Just imagine what I could chomp through! Including my tongue…ouch. “Hey, you wanna get some food?” “You bet I do!” Spike cheered with a non-toothy grin. Aww…it’s gonna be tough eating without my trusty fangs… “Um…do you think you could carry me there?” How embarrassing… “Sure, no problem!” Cupping Spike’s hands together, Peewee lifted his old body and cradled it like a baby bird that wasn’t him. “Wow, now I know what it’s truly like to cuddle myself!” he gushed, rubbing his old body against his new cheek. Spike was in an awkward position, in more ways than one. He definitely found getting cuddled by himself enjoyable, even if it was a little embarrassing, but he got the feeling that Peewee would end up cuddling him indefinitely if he didn’t say something. “Uh, Peewee? Not getting any less hungry here.” “Oh! Sorry!” Peewee said with a grimace. “Sometimes my cuteness can work against me, it seems!” He started to head to the kitchen, only to stop at the stairs. “Hey, why’d you stop?” Spike asked. “There’s no food down here.” “I…I’ve never walked up stairs before,” Peewee admitted. “Especially not in a body with longer legs. I don’t want to fall over and crush you…or me with you in me, or however it works.” “It’s okay, I’ll help you out,” Spike assured him. “Just carefully lift one of your…uh, my…legs, and put it on the step in front of you.” “Okay…” With awkward trepidation, Peewee lifted Spike’s right leg and placed it on the step as instructed. “Good, now just do the same thing with the other leg.” Peewee carefully lifted Spike’s leg on the bottom and quickly found his center of balance shift dangerously, something he quickly tried to correct by placing more pressure on the leg on the step while he lifted the other leg higher. Come on, legs, don’t fail me now! Fortunately, he managed to place it on the next step just fine. “There you go!” Spike said with a proud smile. “Now just keep doing that until we make it to the top.” As Peewee continued up the stairs, he found it easier and easier to move Spike’s legs as needed. Wow, I’m really starting to feel at home in Spike’s body! I’m really gonna miss it when I have to leave it…I wonder if I’ll be able to visit it sometimes? I bet we could be great friends! Assuming bodies can be friends with the people in them, of course… Eventually, Peewee came to a stunning realization: he was out of stairs. “Hey…I made it! I can climb stairs now! I am…the Stair Master!” With that proclamation, trumpets and kazoos played an epic fanfare in his head, one fitting for his momentous accomplishment. “Sorry Peewee, but only Fluttershy can be the Stare Master!” Spike said, giggling at his birdy dragon wit. Peewee stared blankly into his own eyes. “I don’t get it.” “Never mind,” Spike sighed. “Let’s go get some food!” “Music to my ears!” Peewee added with a hungry grin. “Or, your ears, I guess…oh, whatever, chow time!” ---------- The two of them were now in the kitchen, eagerly looking forward to filling their empty stomachs. Spike-as-Peewee was sitting in the middle of the table like the sort of little centerpiece that fancy ponies would put for cheesy decoration, while Peewee-as-Spike was rummaging through the refrigerator in search of some scrumptious treats to satisfy Spike’s much bigger stomach. He decided to grab everything in reach (apart from the Brussels’s sprouts, of course) and place it on the table. “Lunch is served!” he announced in the fanciest accent he could affect, which is to say, about as fancy as a hay fry. Spike giggled and grabbed the nearest thing to him: a nice, chilled sapphire. He clamped Peewee’s beak on the delectable gem, only for it to stop dead against it with a surge of pain. “AHH!” he yelped, dropping the sapphire in front of him. “Oh, right…birds can’t eat gems…” “Gems?” Peewee put down the pudding cup he was about to eat and looked at the sapphire lying on the table before his body. “I never really got why you ate them before, but now that I am you…maybe we could trade?” he offered, holding the pudding cup out in the offering gesture of an offerer. “Sure, why now?” The two of them traded their treats with hungry eagerness. “Trust me, you haven’t lived until you’ve feasted on a tasty gem!” “Well, you’ve never steered me wrong before…” Peewee was hesitant about breaking Spike’s teeth at first, only to remember that dragon teeth were much tougher than phoenix non-teeth just in time for him to chomp down on the sapphire and experience an explosion of taste that he certainly didn’t expect. It was like rock candy mixed with blueberries and toothpaste. In other words, nirvana. “Mmm!” Peewee gushed, strongly enough to warrant up to thirty M’s, except that would be annoying in writing. “Wow, who knew dragon taste buds were capable of this sort of crazy taste sensation making?” Spike only giggle at that reaction. Well, that and chow down on an orange about Peewee’s size. Amazingly, despite the great decrease in stomach size, his appetite hadn’t diminished much. Of course, it couldn’t compare to Peewee’s appetite in his much bigger body; he had devoured about half the food on the table in less than five minutes. “Man, Twilight’s not gonna be happy to see how you cleaned out the fridge,” Spike said with a chuckle. “So?” Peewee responded with Spike’s mouth full of apple-flavored pasta, an experiment of Applejack’s that got mixed results. “She’s a princess; she can just get new food no problem, right? That’s the great part about being royalty: you can do anything you want!” Spike laughed even harder at that quip. “I’ve been trying to tell that to Twi for ages now! Of course, you know how firmly the stick up her flank can be.” Peewee burst into a table-pounding guffaw, at least until the food still in Spike’s mouth went down his throat, causing him to choke. “Peewee!” Spike cried out in alarm. If only I wasn’t in such a small body that I don’t know how to use… Thankfully, Spike’s worries were put at ease when Peewee figured out how to breath a nice strong flame that cleared the dragon’s throat quite efficiently…along with all the rest of the food on the table. “Ahem…excuse me!” Peewee said with an embarrassed smile. “Oh boy…” Spike stared at the pile of ashes now sitting on the table. “I’m not cleaning that up.” A laugh track then played in his mind for some reason. “Hey, I just remembered!” Peewee exclaimed. “Your fire can send letters to Celestia, right? Ooh, this is too good an opportunity to pass up!” With that, he scampered over to Twilight’s desk. “You got a letter for her in mind?” Spike asked with a mischievous yet nervous grin. “You bet I do!” Peewee placed a paper on the desk, grabbed a quill in Spike’s right hand, and started writing as best he could with his draconic extremities. “Dear Princess Celestia,” he recited out loud, “today I learned that Spike is the awesomest dragon who ever lived and he deserves his own holiday! It should have all sorts of food and games and his phoenix Peewee should be hugged by everyone! Also, why do you keep raising the sun? Wouldn’t it be better to teach it to raise itself? Otherwise it might get lazy and not make things bright whenever you oversleep or something. Also also, there’s a spider on your head. Just kidding! Your faithful stu–uh, princess, Twilight Sparkle. And done!” With the letter complete, he rolled it up like Spike always did, took a deep breath, and engulfed it in flames. “Nicely done!” Spike praised. “I can only imagine how Celestia will react to that letter.” Hopefully I won’t get any heat from it… ---------- Princess Celestia was sitting on her throne, doing boring princess stuff, when she saw a familiar fire generate a slightly crumpled scroll in front of her. “Hm? A letter from Twilight?” she said quizzically. “It’s been too long since I’ve last received one from her. I hope nothing’s troubling her.” She opened the scroll with her magic…only to be greeted with a strange array of chicken scratches. They looked like they were supposed to be words, but they were written very messily, as if whoever wrote them had only just started writing. “If this is meant to be a prank…I don’t get it.” ---------- “Hehehe! This is fun!” Peewee said with an energetic jump in the air. “I can’t wait to see what fun I can have outside!” Spike did a double-take at that. “Wait…you’re leaving?! But…Twilight said you were supposed to stay here!” “Forget Twilight!” Peewee whined. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’m gonna make the most of it before she ruins it all over again! I have bigger arms to hug the world, and I’m not gonna let go!” With that, he opened the front door and started out on another little adventure. Spike could only sit there in disbelief. Why can things never be simple? End of Part 2