//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: The Boy in the Dragon Costume // Story: The Day that Life Spiked my Punch // by rathgood //------------------------------// Chapter 1: The Boy in the Dragon Costume. "Night sport", I intoned as the light switch was thrown, bathing the room in the pale glow of the harvest moon, just barely visible over the trees and houses outside the window. "Night Drew." came the response; the weariness in it making it sound deeper than the teen's normal voice. Closing the door, I sigh a little. Even after a year this still feels weird and now with the paper work all signed, he's my official ward., which only makes it feel weirder. Now before you say it, no I am not rich enough, nor traumatized enough to make my ward dress up in a bird suit and fight crime together. Besides, the poor guy has been through enough already. The next thing you might wonder is how a guy in their late 20's has, what's basically a Kid. One he didn't have a year ago. Ex-girlfriend or ex-wife would be the obvious conclusion. Next would be adoption, which was technically the case here, but the truth of the matter is far less mundane and very very odd. It all started about a year ago on Halloween night. "Why the hell am I out here at a quarter to midnight" I ask to no one in particular. Mainly because i'm the only person on this god forsaken street. Why was I out here anyways? Oh right, the bloody neighbor hood watch I joined a year ago to impress that cute chick down the street. The same one who moved away three months later. Serves me right eh? Now I'm out here in the cold all because I drew the short straw and have to monitor the street for sugar crazed youths wrecking havoc. So far I've found a sum total of zero, zip, nada, zilch, nothing. Boring as hell, just walking, shining my flash light left to right, right to left, like a clockwork monkey. "Feh, close enough to midnight, no ones gonna blame me for heading back." Turning back towards my house I catch a bright purplish flash out of the corner of my eye and hear a resounding thunk, like something or someone hitting the ground. Of course, just as I head back something happens. Murphy's law in full effect. Probably just one of the brats from one of the near by streets messing around with some flashy firework. Still, I should check it out in case they hurt themselves in their stupidity. Walking towards the origin of the flash and noise I call out. "Anyone there? I heard a noise and saw a flash, you all right?" My only response is a small groan. Turning my light onto them, I see a kid laying face down in a purple and green dragon costume. Kneeling down, I gently turn the kid over and see that its a he and maybe 12 or 13 years old. Hmm, I don't recognize the face, not that I'm all to good with them mind you, but still. Looking up to me with groggy eyes he mumbles out. "Man, I must have hit that Sweet Apple Acre's Cider a little to hard. I'm seeing things, like this big hairless ape." Cider? Seeing things? Big hairless ape? Not only am I dealing with a tween, but now it looks like its a drunk tween. Great, just great. Well first things first, its not to far from my house, I'll get him there and out of the cold and work from there. Standing up I offer him a hand. "Come on, lets get you off the ground and out of the cold." Grabbing my hand he stands up and takes a step. Then promptly falls backwards. Thankfully I'm close enough to grab his shoulder and keep him from hitting the ground again. Last thing we need is head trauma. "Whoa there, kid. Watch yourself, don't try and walk so fast when you either have a head injury or are drunk (or maybe both)". The last part mumbled under my breath. "I'm not drunk, I can handle my cider fine. Also, I'm a dragon, simple falls don't hurt us at all." Tapping his costume. "Thick scales. Besides, I just lost my balance, that’s all." Dragon? Great, its either the booze talking, a head injury, or I have a nut job on my hands. This night just keeps getting better and better. Taking a few shaky steps, nearly falling each time he reluctantly lets me guide him. Its not long until we get back to my house. I sit him down on the couch and call the local cops. Need to report in finding the kid and see if anyone’s missing him. A quick call later and I'm informed that no ones reported a missing child fitting my description yet. They said to take him to the local urgent care for an exam and an officer will meet me there to get a formal statement. Yay, looks like the night drags on! Rummaging around in one of my closets I pull out some cloths that should fit the kid. Sometimes its good to be a packrat, or just good to have forgetful cousins who leave their stuff when they visit. Setting them on the counter in the guest bathroom I yell to the kid. "Hey Kid, just got off the phone with the cops, they want me to take you to the hospital to get a checkup, they'll meet us there. Now come over and change out of that costume of yours. If you need a clean change of cloths, I left some on the counter here that might fit." "Costume? Oh right, I was at the Nightmare Night after party before this whole thing started. I'll just assume you're some magical creature and that I'm not hallucinating from something Pinkie put into the punch." Nightmare night? Can't say I've heard Halloween called that before. Kids these days.... "Whatever kid, just come and get changed so I can get you to the doctor. Don't want to keep the cops waiting either." And the sooner I get you there, the sooner you're there problem. "Jeeze, you're almost as bossy as Twilight." comes the grumpy response. "Besides, names not 'Kid', its Spike!" With a humph, the kid, I mean Spike closes the door to the bathroom. I myself head to the kitchen to get a heavily caffeinated beverage. I need it. Relaxing a little I prepare to take a sip, when, Murphy's law goes into effect and the kid starts screaming. "Where’s my tail!? Where are my scales!? Why am I pink!? Why am I so hideous!?" Face palming I rush to the bathroom door. "Cool it ki, Spike. It's late and I don't want to bother the neighbors. Besides you're human just like me. We don't have tails or scales and pink is a common enough skin tone." Throwing open the door he points at himself as if to emphasize his point. Not really caring about where he's going with this, I'm just happy he has pants on. "No no, you don't understand. I'm a Dragon. I should have a tail. I should have purple and green scales." "like you're costume then?" "Yes! But not a costume, just myself!" "So yer saying you wore a costume that looked exactly like how you say you should look? Why?" "Its Nightmare Night. We wear costumes so that Nightmare Moon doesn't recognize us. I wanted to be a bigger dragon so I wore a dragon costume over my scales." Well, I guess it's no stranger a reason then a person wearing one of those inflatable muscle suits. Still, he must have hit his head or something to believe he's a dragon. "I get it, I get it. You were at a Halloween party" "Nightmare Night" "Whatever. You were at a party, hit your head or got wasted, fell down, until I found you and now think you're a dragon." "I didn't hit my head or drink to much! And I don't think I'm a dragon, I AM A DRAGON!!" He yells. "Wait.... Nightmare Night....Princess Luna! She was there and she can control dreams. That’s it! This all a bad prank by Twilight and the rest of them. I'm actually asleep in my bed, snuggled under my blue blanket. I bet if I just follow where this goes they'll eventually grow tired and I'll wake up." Content in his explanation, the kid finished dressing. Me? I knew for sure now that he needed a head scan. Princesses? Dream control? Right. If its not head trauma, then I rolled snake eyes and found a real winner. Checking my watch, its been about a half hour since this whole fiasco started. Hopefully its all over in another half hour. Smiling to myself I lead Spike to my car, and we're off to the hospital. He looked at the car with a little bit of awe. "How does this move? It looks to small for a steam engine and I don't see a horn, so it can't be magic." "Ummm, I don't know 100% of the engineering, but its a car. It used an internal combustion engine. Burns gas to move pistons to turn an axel to move the wheels to move the car." That made sense right? Explaining things was never my forte. Looking at the kids face it looks like he was thinking about it, at least he was quite. "That makes no sense, but what should I expect from a dream anyways? I just need to get through this and everything will be back to normal." Sighing, I shrug my shoulders as best I can while still driving the car safely. Whatever. I turn on the radio for some music, anything to keep us occupied on the last 5-10 till the hospital. The first few notes play and I immediately groan, why'd it have to be Kate Perry? What bus full of puppies did I drown in a former life to garner this kind of karma? At least Spike is listening to the song. "California girls? Where the hay is California? Its supposed to be Equestria girls! Why is this dream so weird!?" He yells "Come on Princess, Twilight let me wake up!" Well, that was a smashing success. Way to go Drew, way to go. Sighing for the umpteenth time tonight I spy the hospital ahead. Finally sweet, sweet relief is in sight! "Listen kid, we're almost there. Once we get out of the car, I'll take you in and hand you off to the nursing staff to give you a full checkup to make sure you're not injured. After that, I'll most likely have talked with the officer they sent to handle this. From there you'll most likely be taken to child services until they can find your family. Do you understand?" Nodding his head in agreement he's either accepting that his fun is over or just believing in his dream theory. Either way is fine with me. Parking the car, we get out and in we go. I explain to the elderly nurse working the reception counter whats going on and she starts the paper work to get him checked in. Thankfully its rather quite for a Halloween night, not that I'll complain, and he's processed really quickly. An intern comes out to escort him into the exam area. "Well Spike, its been interesting meeting you and if we don't see each other before you're taken to where ever, take care." Patting him on the shoulder as I say that, I nod to the intern to go ahead and take him back. Spike remains silent. As they walk through the doors, I look around for the cop. Yawning a little, I decide to go get a cup of coffee first and find whatever officer pulled the short straw to handle this second. Its not that its late for me, but all of this has taken it out of me. Sipping the sludge they call free coffee I spy a familiar looking man in blue, so I go and see if he's the lucky winner. Now mind you I'm happy that an officer was there to hopefully take this kid off my hands, I'm rather unhappy on who they sent. You remember that woman down the street I mentioned earlier? Yeah, she was this mountain of a man's kid sister. One that did not seem to appreciate me helping her load the moving van. It was....awkward...That aside, he see me approaching so I decide to get the conversation over with. "Good evening Officer Barton, is been a while since I last saw you. How's your sister doing?" Glaring at me he responds. "That’s Sargent Barton now and she's fine. Now dispatch told me you found some kid passed out on the street near your place?" "Yeah, I believe the doctor's looking him over now." I go over the events of the night with Sargent Barton (leaving out all of the dragon and dream nonsense to save both me and the kid some hell). He just nods and listens. "And that brings us back to now. So, any questions?" "Nope, sounds like you did everything mostly right" "Great, so will you be taking Spike or will someone from child services be coming by later to get him?" I say slightly eagerly. Taking off his hat, the officer runs his hand through his hair. "Well, that’s the problem." "Problem?" "Yes. No ones available to come and get him tonight, budget cuts have forced us to reduce late night staffing. Add in the fact that we have neither a missing child report or any reason to transfer him to a youth detention facility for the night. We're left in a bit of a conundrum, we don't have anyplace for him to really spend the night, baring the staff here wanting to observe him over night. So I was hoping..." Realizing where this might go I try and head it off at the pass. "That I know of someone who can watch him for the night?" "Drew, I ran your name through the system again and, like the last time, your record came up clean." "Wait....Again? Why did you run my name a first time?" "Well, my sister mentioned your name to me and I was just looking out for her well being..." I'd suspected he'd done this when I first met him and he knew more about me than I was comfortable with, but to hear it from his own mouth made me angry, but I needed to focus on the situation and save that for later. He pauses, as if waiting for me to go off. I don't. "As I was saying. You did good so far and we all would appreciate it if you could watch him for the rest of the night. Its either that or we have no choice but to drop him in the detention facility for the night and we don't want to." Seriously? After telling me he invaded my privacy, he asks me a favor to watch this kid for a night? I was preparing to tell him hell no, when a cough interrupted us. "Gentleman, sorry to interrupt, but I'm Doctor Jennings and I just completed the checkup on young Spike." Barton is the first to speak. "Very good doctor, how is he?" "Other than the mysteriously natural looking green hair? Nothing at all. He seems to be in perfect health. Also, Mr. Hall as you asked, we did a mental exam to look for any kind of head trauma and thankfully that was also clear. Now, who will be signing the papers to complete his visit and take him home?" I look at Barton and then at Spike, who has just come through the doors to the waiting area. I look again at Barton, who sighs and begins to speak. "Well, none of our agents can take the boy to one of our houses so..." "I'll be watching him for the night." I interrupt. My guilty conscious got the better of me. I couldn't help but think of the monsters they keep in those detention homes and what they'd do to someone as confused and lost as Spike. "The officer and I were just finalizing the details." "Is that correct Officer?" Looking at me with a relieved look on his face, "Yes Doctor, that’s correct." "Well then, Mr. Hall please come over here and sign these waivers and forms." Walking over to where the Doctor pointed I mouth "You owe me one" to the officer, he looks to get the words. Signing about a half dozen forms, I turn to the young man sitting silently in one of the chairs. "Looks like yer stuck with me for a little longer Spike."