Episode 4
Cold Blood, Part 2
Metamorphosis
When it came to heavy sleepers, Spike considered himself among the best of them, and most of the time slept like a rock no matter what happened. Tonight however, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't manage to relax for even a second...let alone have any hope of falling asleep anytime soon.
The covers had flown off his bed pretty soon after an unbearable itch started to break out all over his body. It left him twitching and spasming like crazy, and his arms went out to desperately scratch every part of his skin he could reach. To him, it felt like he was on fire...or possibly being stung by a thousand wasps at the same time. Either way, it was far from a pleasant experience.
"Ergggh...eh, MAKE IT STOP!" he screamed into the empty room, now on the verge of tears.
Not being able to take it anymore, Spike jumped out of bed and made a run for the bathroom, unceremoniously slamming open any door in his way. He didn't really have a plan for what he was going to do when he got there, but it was the only thing he could think of doing.
In retrospect however, he probably should have just stayed in bed.
Like most bathrooms, the one in Twilight and Spike's apartment of course had a mirror over the sink. That was nothing special. What he saw in that mirror on the other hand...definitively was.
So far Spike had assumed that he was just experiencing some major growing pains or maybe having caught the flu or something, but when he caught sight of his own face in the mirror...he immediately knew that this was something much, much more serious.
Scales...shiny, green, and distinctively reptilian scales was growing out of his skin. It was particularly bad on the left side of his face, but all over his body he could feel them forming slowly but steadily.
Even worse, his entire left eye had changed. It now had a slit snake-like pupil and his retina had turned from white to a bizarre brownish yellow hue. More than that, he soon came to notice that from his changed eye, the world around him looked remarkably different. Colours that he had never seen before, and that he couldn't describe even if he wanted to, were everywhere around him. Stranger still, he could clearly see those colours very well despite not having turned on a single light bulb in the dark apartment he was in. In fact, he wasn't even sure if he could tell whether it was light or dark anymore.
Seeing that face staring back at him though the mirror, Spike couldn't help but scream, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGHHH! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!?"
Reflexively, he brought his hands up to his face when he did so...but that only made him realise that the situation was even worse than he thought it was.
In horror, he soon saw that his entire left hand was now completely covered in shiny scales, and at the tips of his fingers, where he was used to seeing his usual simian nails and soft fingertips, sharp lizard-like claws were starting to emerge instead.
'This must be a nightmare! I mean, this can't be real!' he desperately thought, now on the verge of panic. ' Maybe I just got to...pinch myself! Yes! That's it, I'll pinch myself and prove this is all just a dream!'
Unfortunately, Spike tried to pinch his right hand, specifically the one that was still decidedly human...with his left reptilian hand covered in razor-sharp claws. Needless to say, the small pinch ended up being a bit more painful than he bargained for.
"Ouuuugh! Son of a-" he shouted in response, his teeth clenched and his eyes closed to quell the pain.
He also realised exactly what that meant a moment later.
'But wait...if I felt pain, then that means...'
His eyes snapped wide open.
'THIS IS REAL!'
In clear contrast to her adoptive brother's situation, Twilight Sparkle was actually sleeping quite comfortably under the covers of her own bed that night.
After a long and exhausting day, she had been looking forward to a good night's sleep, and now she was out like a log. The only signs of life in her dark bedroom being the soft and harmonic sound of her gentle breaths, along with the occasional twist and turn she made in her slumber.
She was truly at peace...
...
...
...
...At least until Spike abruptly slammed open the door and ran into her room screaming bloody murder.
"TWILIGHT, WAKE UP! I NEED YOUR HELP!"
With no time given for her brain to start up properly and process what on earth was going on, Twilight let out a distressed scream of her own and accidentally rolled out of her bed in the process.
She slammed into the floor shoulder-first, and let out a tired groan as well as a pained "ouuuw..." a moment later.
Spike however was in too much of a panic to wake her up in a respectful manner, and instead ran up to her and urged, "Come on, Twilight! WAKE UP!"
Twilight squinted her eyes in his general direction, but saw only blurry shapes in her dimly lit room. She did definitively recognise his voice however, and hearing it prompted her to ask, "Spike? Ughh...what time is it?" sounding half-asleep while she did so.
"Twilight! Something's happening to me, and I have no idea what it is, BUT PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!"
"What do you mean?" Twilight questioned, having only been able to process about half the words he just said.
Spike grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her up to look him face to face. "JUST LOOK AT ME!"
Twilight used her left hand to rub her eyes a bit, then tried to focus them on Spike's face. After squinting a fair bit, and using all the concentration she could muster...the most she could make out was "Is that a...green...uh...something on your left side? Or is that just the lighting? Spike, have seen my-"
Now realising what the problem was, Spike reached over to her nightstand to pick up her glasses and quickly slammed them on her face in a not so graceful manner.
After taking a second to readjust them, Twilight then took a good long look at Spike's now far less blurry face...and then...it was her turn to panic.
Almost as if someone had suddenly turned on a light switch, Twilight woke up in an instant with all apparent signs of sleepiness in her demeanour vanishing just as quickly. Her eyes opened wide, her brain started to go into overdrive, and she even grabbed Spike's face and turned it around at several different angles to get a better idea of what was going on.
"Oh my gosh! How did this happen?! When did it start?! Did you touch one of my experiments, or possibly eat something you weren't supposed to?!" she asked at a rapid pace.
"I DON'T KNOW!" Spike answered hysterically. "I just woke up like this! Please, make it stop!"
Twilight stared at him with a focus that was almost unsettling, showing no emotion on her face or even so much as blinking while she did so. That didn't mean she didn't have some strong emotions about this, she just refused to show them.
In truth, this was by far the most alarming situation she had ever found herself in.
Spike, the closest family member she had for all intents and purposes, was transforming. His face had reptilian scales growing out of it, and at least one of his eyes looked far more like that of a gecko than the familiar gentle eyes she was used to seeing from him. And worst of all, it was clear to her that the situation was going to get far worse before it got better.
By all rights, Twilight had every reason to freak out, scream or run around in a panic...but she didn't. She couldn't afford to.
Spike was in trouble, real serious trouble, and she knew that the best way to help him was to remain calm and rational as long as she possibly could. It was one of the most important lessons Celestia had ever taught her, and if there was one thing Twilight was good at, it was learning.
Now, being as rational as she could possibly be in this situation, Twilight quickly surmised that the first step in helping Spike was to determine what caused his current...'condition'.
'This is clearly no normal illness, that much is certain. And I highly doubt any genetic defect or abnormality would result in symptoms like these. On the other hand is Spike's genetic history practically unknown due to a lack of blood relatives. But even so, why would it suddenly spring up now all of a sudden?
Come on, Twilight, think! There must be a reason for this! I mean, people don't just grow reptile parts overnight, do they?'
Clenching her hands on her skull in thought, she practically ripped her hair out while her overly-stressed mind went over every single thing she knew about science...and then compared it to what she was seeing in front of her.
While she at first only succeeded in giving herself a headache...eventually an idea just clicked, and she was finally able to connect the dots to the answers she sought.
"THE BOX!" Twilight suddenly shouted, making Spike look at her with a confused expression.
"What are you talking about?!"
Instead of answering, she quickly sprang up on her feet and ran out of the room, then headed straight over to her designated workroom (A fairly small room in their apartment where she kept most of her CelestiaCorp homework and other experiments in...which also doubled as both a workshop and a laboratory).
Spike, desperate for answers, promptly followed after her, eagerly waiting for her to give them to him.
At one of her work benches, Twilight picked up the object she was looking for. Which in this case turned out to be a small mechanical canister. The same one, in fact, that Doctor Silk Mane had stuffed inside her shoddily wrapped up 'gift' to Twilight. She had planned to make a more thorough analysis of it later on, possibly after catching a few hours of sleep at least, but now she had no time for that.
Once she had grabbed the suspicious object, she didn't waste a second before she dropped it inside a fairly large machine of Twilight's own design: the Twi-Scanner!
And before you ask: no, Twilight did not name it after herself...Sunset Shimmer did.
Basically, it was a very advanced scanning tool that could identify objects, and even traces of objects, at a molecular level with an accuracy beyond anything you would find on the market. The only problem was that she needed to install a computer just as advanced, if not even more so, to it in order to make it work at all...and that set her budget back a fair bit more than she liked.
She was not regretting it now though, given that it gave her the means to conclusively figure out what on earth was going on with her poor younger brother.
After switching it on and plugging in a nearby laptop to it, she impatiently tapped her fingers on the desk while she waited for the results to show.
"Come on, come on..."
When they eventually did however, Twilight's concerned expression soon turned to one of dread, "Oh no, this...this is even worse than I thought."
"WORSE!?" Spike sputtered out in disbelief, wondering how anything could possibly be worse than his current situation.
Twilight closed her eyes and took in a deep breath to collect herself. Then she looked at Spike and said, "Okay, I know what's happening to you, but...um, it's bad. I mean, really, really bad."
Spike gulped, but nevertheless decided, "Please just tell me what's going on."
After a moment's hesitation, Twilight explained, "At CelestiaCorp, Sunset and I were working on a project which involved taking the traits of one living organism and transfer it over to another. For example, taking the regenerative properties of a newt and then giving it to an amputee person so they could grow their arm or leg back. However, in order to keep the subject from transforming more than we wanted to, we had to be extremely careful with the dosage of a certain substance called the 'Catalyst Factor'. Now, remember that present I got yesterday that sprayed a cloud of gas in your face?"
"The stink bomb thing?"
"That wasn't just a stink bomb. It was an unstable version of the formula combined with the DNA of what appears to be leopard gecko, tuatara, and...a fair bit of Komodo dragon mixed in. In addition to that, this dose also contains way more of the Catalyst Factor than a human body can take. We need to reverse this process as soon as possible, or...eh, or..."
Twilight hesitated again. She knew telling him would do nothing to make him feel any better about it, but at the same time, she also knew not telling him wouldn't be all that good either.
"Or...what?" Spike asked, his panicked expression making it very clear he dreaded what the answer would be.
"Well..." she started, taking in a breath and steeling herself. "...if we don't find a way to get rid of the substance from your body soon, your human side will be completely overridden by the formula and...and you will transform into something...not human."
Understandably, Spike's jaw dropped when he heard that, leaving him blankly staring at her with his currently asymmetrical eyes. His opened mouth also unfortunately gave Twilight a close observation of his teeth...which by now had turned sharp and inhuman in nature.
In a state of shock, he carefully asked, "So...let me get this straight. You're telling me...that if you don't whip up a cure for this soon...I'M GONNA TURN INTO A LIZARD!?"
"Unfortunately...yes," Twilight answered. "But it's not gonna come to that, I promise! In fact, I have actually developed a countermeasure for the formula in case something like this happened. It should cure you!"
"Then what are we waiting for!?" Spike hysterically questioned, grabbing her by the shoulders when he did so. "Give me a doze of that thing right away, and I won't have to-"
"I don't have it here!" she interrupted. "It's in my lab at CelestiaCorp. Our only hope is too get there before it's too late, come on!"
Around the same time but in another part of Canterlot, Rainbow Dash was also having trouble sleeping that night. Though, of course, her problems weren't nearly as severe as Spike's.
Despite it being more than an hour after midnight, Rainbow couldn't sleep, and instead just laid in her bed, staring aimlessly at the ceiling. The only movement she showed was an erratic twitch in her fingers as well as her left foot every now and then.
It was no secret that Dash had a pretty erratic and unpredictable sleep schedule, mostly caused by her tendency to fall asleep at random places and random times at a drop of a hat, likely as a symptom of her ADHD or just a result of her lifestyle.
Either way, this problem had nothing to do with that...at least not primarily.
No, the reason she couldn't sleep was that her own thoughts were keeping her awake. Specifically, she was having an internal battle with herself over what she was supposed to do with her life.
'I mean, I guess I could just forget about the whole superhero thing and try to go about my life just the, you know, normal way. But wouldn't that just mean that mom died for nothing, and that her whole responsibility thing didn't mean anything either?
On the other hand, I could try superheroing again. I mean, it would be the right thing to do, and I guess I did save that Thorax kid and the truck driver. Plus, it would be pretty nice to be admired for being a hero for once.
The problem with that is if I run into that Goblin-weirdo again...or end up meeting someone even worse. I nearly died last time, and if I did, then...well, dad has already gone through enough already, and what about my friends...or Scootaloo, hell the girl looks up to me! What would she do if I just dropped dead all of a sudden? Also, not to sound selfish, but I'm not in the mood of dying either.'
Having already given up any hopes of falling asleep anytime soon, Rainbow let out a frustrated sigh, then sat up straight in her bed.
Since Dash was currently only wearing a sleeveless top and some underwear, it would be pretty easy to see if she had any injuries on her body. Amazingly though, despite having recently taken a bullet and a knife slash to her arm and wrist respectively, as well as having experienced the shockwave of two explosions at close range, she didn't even have as much as a scar on her body.
As it turned out, she apparently had one more superpower at her disposal than she previously knew about. She healed from injuries a lot faster than the average woman. While she wasn't sure yet if it could do anything about broken bones or a serious head trauma, the ability did make all of her scars disappear only a day or so after getting them.
It was a convenient power, and one that would help her immensely if she decided to continue putting herself in dangerous situations often...but even Rainbow knew she wasn't invincible by any means.
'So is it selfish to put my life in danger...or not? Damn, this whole thing is confusing! I mean, of course I want to do the right thing, but right now, what the hell is that even?!'
She let out a groan while she pinched the bridge of her nose, then took in a deep breath and turned her attention to a certain poster on the wall.
"What would Daring do?" she asked herself as she considered her dilemma.
After she had sat there for little more than a minute just thinking about it, eventually, she decided to get out of bed and say, "Screw it, Spider-Girl it is."
Back in the more active part of the city, Twilight and Spike were moving as fast as they could through the crowded streets in the hope of reaching CelestiaCorp before it was too late.
In order to hide his rapidly mutating appearance from prying eyes, Spike made sure to grab his hoodie on the way out, and in spite of the present danger, made sure to keep the hood up as much as possible. Unfortunately, this also had the unfortunate consequence of making it harder for him to see where he was going.
Even with Twilight making sure to keep a firm grip on his currently unmutated right hand as she pulled him to where they needed to go, the constant influx of people coming and going from all over, with many even pushing and shoving the two out of their way to get to their various destinations, made it harder and harder for him to keep up with her.
"Uh, Twilight? I don't feel so good. Think you can slow down a bit?!" Spike requested after he nearly tripped over his own shoes.
But Twilight wasn't having any of it, she kept her eyes forward and focused, and pushed her way through the crowds while running as fast as they would allow her. "We have no time for that! We're almost there!"
Given that she could actually see the CelestiaCorp Tower from where they were right now, she was correct about that. However, her single-minded determination to get there as fast as possible made her blind to what was going on around her...which proved problematic when a very stressed man ran right into her.
The impact knocked her off her feet, and she soon found herself falling down to the ground, her glasses flying off her face in the process.
The person who ran into her made no effort to help her up or apologise, and instead got up and left before Twilight could make sense of what happened, leaving the poor near-sighted teenager on the pavement fumbling around for her missing glasses once she realised they were off.
And with so many people running to and fro from every direction, her already blurry vision became even blurrier, making it even harder to find her missing spectacles.
Eventually though, by a stroke of luck, her hand finally touched the familiar shape of her glasses, which thankfully nobody had stepped on yet, and quickly put them back on her face so she could make sense of what was going on.
But as she took in her surroundings with her newly regained vision, a cold dread took hold in her once she noticed something.
Spike was gone!
"Spike? Spike!? SPIKE?!"
Not too far away from all this, a masked figure in a tight blue outfit was making her way throughout the city, using her nifty web-shooting devices on her wrists to swing from building to building in search of wrongs to right.
The Awesome Spider-Girl was back in business!
Though Rainbow still didn't have a clue as to where to find any problems in need of a superhero to intervene, she still felt a lot better being out here keeping a watch over the neighbourhood than staying back home doing nothing.
And if she just so happened to run into the Nightmare Goblin again, well...this time, she was ready for her.
However, by mere chance, she ended up picking a very good time to be out doing this, as her spider-sense soon told her of some kind of commotion going on nearby. So naturally, she decided to go and investigate.
Down below, Twilight took note of the commotion as well.
Though she, of course, didn't have a spider-sense like Rainbow did, she did notice that a fair amount of people were gathering around somewhere nearby, with many of them talking in hushed voices or calling over others to come and see what they were looking at.
Hoping, and simultaneously dreading, that the commotion had anything to do with Spike, she nevertheless made her way over there to see for herself.
When she got through the mass of people blocking her view though, she saw to her horror that she was right about that assumption...and that it was even worse than she imagined.
Surrounded by people curiously looking at him from every angle, with some even taking pictures of him with their smartphones, Spike lay curled up into a ball, clenching his own skull in pain while he was spasming and sweating profusely.
His erratic behaviour had little to do with the nearby crowd though. It was rather his rapidly changing biology that affected him so.
Now both of his hands had turned reptilian, a tail had started to grow out of his back, his arms and legs were becoming longer and lankier, with his clothes ripping open in many areas, and all along his backbone, long spines began to emerge, tearing holes in his hoodie in the process. Even the constant pants that he gave out started to sound way more like animalistic hisses than normal human breaths.
Seeing him in this state, Twilight immediately ran over to his side while shouting his name.
However...his response to her presence was definitively not what she was hoping for.
Instead of looking at her with hope, give her a relieved hug or at the very least do something reasonable, Spike instead rose up and swiped her clear across her chest with his claws while letting out a primal growl that didn't sound anything like the Spike she knew.
Twilight ended up with her back on the ground and a bleeding slash in her torso, shocked and confused by his reaction. Though she didn't lose her glasses this time, she almost wished she had considering what she ended up seeing when looking up to face him.
While releasing a bone-chillingly creepy hiss to the surrounding people, exposing his sharp teeth and forked tongue to them while doing so, Spike started to transform even further, rapidly growing about twice his original size in only a few seconds, his face morphing into something that resembled a relatively short-snouted lizard while a very long tail slithered out from behind him.
Worst of all, what Twilight saw when she looking into his inhuman eyes...was not that of her cheerful little brother...but that of a monster! All traces of the innocent human boy he was before was now gone, right down to his mind and personality...and all that remained was that of a rabid animal surrounded by people that were effectively blocking all of his exits.
Feeling trapped and seeing no easy way out, Spike...or rather 'the Lizard', went on the attack!
Making a sharp twist, the Lizard used his newly grown tail as a weapon and swung it at the people closest to him, knocking many of them down to the ground in the process while sending the rest panicking and screaming.
That also happened to be around the time Rainbow Dash stumbled upon the scene, landing on the wall of a nearby building from her latest swing.
Behind her mask, her eyes widened in amazement. 'Holy guacamole! What the hell is that!? I mean, I've heard about alligators in the sewers, but this is something else!'
Then her eyes turned to the pile of injured people next to the creature and she decided to save her questions for later. 'Whatever it is, those people are in danger, and I have to do something.'
After having effectively created an opening in the crowd around him, the Lizard charged through it running on all fours like a wild animal. Anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way or ended up otherwise too close to him were either pushed aside or knocked down to the ground.
In the creature's dust was one Twilight Sparkle, still lying on the ground but now holding her arms over her head to protect herself from all the panicking bystanders that were running and kicking all around her. Though currently hidden, if one looked closely, you would see tears leaking out of her eyes.
Now operating entirely on animal instincts and having no idea that he was once a human, the Lizard left her behind without a second glance as he ran around searching for shelter from the people around him.
The problem was that those people ended up being pretty much everywhere, and when equipped with sharp teeth and claws, as well as a surprisingly dangerous tail weapon, it was only a matter of time before he would attempt to use them on some innocent bystander.
However, before he had a chance to do anything like that, a certain masked superhero decided to get involved, swinging down from above feet first and on a trajectory course right into the monster's face. With the speed she was moving at and the force she put into her kick, the Lizard was sent flying back-first into a parked car on the sidewalk, crushing two of its windows and leaving a huge buckle in its side.
Basically, whoever owned that car would probably not be so happy finding it in its current state. But hey, if you had to choose between sparing a parked vehicle or potentially saving human lives, which would you choose?
After having made her dynamic entrance, the Spider-Girl dropped down on the ground in front of the Lizard and shouted, "Hey lizard-dude, take a chill pill, would ya?!" sounding surprisingly jovial considering the situation.
The Lizard got back on his claws and let out a deep growl while menacingly fixing his eyes on Spider-Girl. It would be a pretty reasonable assumption to make that he was pissed off...and now saw the costumed hero as a threat.
"Come on, no need to be like that!" she urged while taking a few steps back. "If you just calm down, this will be so much easi-"
Having no intention of talking it out, the Lizard lunged at her mid-sentence, grabbing her lithe frame with his enlarged monster hands and using his superior weight to pin her down to the ground. Then he tried to bite her face off with his sharp (and also coincidentally venomous) teeth, but she quickly reached her hands up and grabbed his skull before he had a chance to do so.
While she used her impressive superhuman strength to keep his face away from her own as he repeatedly tried to snap at her, she quipped, "Hey! Hey! HEY! NO KISSES!"
Then, with a strong enough kick to the Lizard's abdomen, she pushed him away from her long enough to roll out from his shadow and get back on her feet.
Before he had a chance to attack her again though, Spider-Girl quickly shot a wad of webbing in his face, temporarily blinding the creature.
Naturally, the Lizard's response to that was to desperately try to rip the web off his face with his claws. Given his strength, it wouldn't take very long to get rid of it...but even so...that was all the distraction Spider-Girl needed to go on the offensive.
In an attempt to subdue the rampaging reptile, Spider-Girl went ahead and leapt up on his back while throwing an arm around his throat in an attempt to choke him out.
The protruding spikes coming out of his spine of course made this a very uncomfortable position to be in, but she didn't let that stop her...nor did she let the Lizard's erratic movements get the better of her either.
No matter what, she was squeezing her arm tightly around the reptile's throat...and she was gonna keep it there until he eventually passed out. No sooner, no later. It didn't matter how much he ran around in circles or scratched at her trying to get her off, Rainbow was not giving up.
"There there, big guy...go to sleep..." she said in as soothing of a tone as she could muster...until he responded to that with a particularly uncomfortable scratch at her left leg that immediately made her lose her patience. "I SAID GO TO SLEEP, DAMMIT!"
Her persistence paid off though, and after awhile, it actually seemed as though the Lizard was finally slowing down and succumbing to the Spider-Girl's grip. He fell down on all fours, closed his eyes and seemed all but ready to fall down to the ground in exhaustion.
And then...just when it seemed as though this would all be over, a hysterical voice screamed, "NO, STOP! DON'T HURT HIM!"
Rainbow recognised the voice and turned to see her good friend Twilight Sparkle running towards them with an alarmed expression on her face and slightly ripped shirt.
That distraction proved however to be very badly timed, as Rainbow subconsciously loosened her grip on the Lizard's throat when her attention was directed at Twilight, giving the creature a chance to catch his breath.
As soon as that precious gulp of fresh oxygen came into his lungs, the Lizard's eyes snapped open and he swung up his tail and wrapped it around Spider-Girl's neck like a boa constrictor, choking her air out of her throat as form of karmic revenge.
Naturally, her reaction was to immediately grab the tail and try prying it off of her, but by doing so, she was also forced to let go of his neck too. And as soon as she did, the Lizard used his tight grip on her to pull her off his back and hold her in the air.
After releasing a fierce growl to her face, he swung his tail around and threw her straight into a nearby wall.
Rather than attacking her any further though, the Lizard instead made a mad dash for the nearest alleyway and quickly disappeared from sight.
Having witnessed all this go down, Twilight Sparkle ran over to the dazed, but still mostly unharmed, Spider-Girl trying to get her bearings together.
"Rainbow, are you okay?!" she asked while trying to help her up.
Once back on her feet again, Rainbow rudely pushed her friend away and angrily replied, "No thanks to you, Twilight! I mean, what the hell was that?!"
"You could have hurt him!" Twilight insisted, sounding rather distraught.
Dash got up in her face and argued, "HE'S A GIANT LIZARD-MAN ATTACKING PEOPLE ON THE STREET! What was I supposed to do, leave him to it!?"
"But he's-"
"And I could have stopped him there! But then you just had to show up and throw me off my game! WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"
"BECAUSE HE'S SPIKE!" Twilight suddenly blurted out.
Rainbow shut up immediately and was left staring at Twilight with a baffled expression...that nobody could see of course, but it was still there.
"Excuse me...WHAT?!" Dash eventually questioned, her mind still trying to process whether she heard her correctly or not.
Twilight took in a deep breath, then calmly clarified, "That creature...the one you just tried to strangle...was Spike."
Rainbow Dash turned away and rubbed her temples while letting out a groan...then looked back at Twilight and asked, "Okay, fine, I believe you. But would you mind telling me WHY SPIKE IS A GIANT LIZARD-MONSTER?!"
"It's a long story," Twilight began. "The important thing is that I think I know a way to turn him back, but the equipment I need is in CelestiaCorp. I was just about to take him there when he turned into...well, you saw."
"Then there's no time to waste!" Rainbow advised, momentarily putting aside her own confusion to focus on the task at hand. "Here's how we handle this: you get to CelestiaCorp and get a cure ready while I make sure 'Spike from the Black Lagoon' doesn't hurt anyone else. Got it?!"
Twilight hesitated only for a second, but then gave Rainbow a nod. "Alright. Just make sure Spike doesn't get hurt either. If anything happens to him, then it's my fault, and he doesn't deserve that."
"I'll try my best," was all Rainbow had to say about that before she turned around and leapt up on the nearest wall, then bounced off of it and began to swing towards the general area the Lizard ran off to.
After taking in a deep breath, Twilight looked over at the CelestiaCorp Tower in the distance and began to make her way over to it.
This was going to be a long night...