'Damn did I leave my window open or something? This heat wave is ridiculous! It feels like I’m on… HOLY FLYING COWS I’M ON FIRE!’
Spike’s eyes popped open as he saw his hands were covered in a light green flame and his bed was charred in places. He jumped up as he shook his hands wildly, trying to extinguish them but nothing seemed to help and he was only spreading tiny flames everywhere on his floor that he stomped out immediately. His panic and the heat on his feet caused him to slam against his wall, a knock soon coming to his door. He cursed silently and put his back against his door before it could open.
“Spike? Bro are you okay in there? You were slamming on the wall and stomping like crazy!” Cadence asked kindly even though Spike knew that she hated being woken up by anyone that wasn’t Shining.
“Y-yeah I’m hot, I mean cool! Look I’m just having a burning morning! I pumped myself up to burn through a game and got too excited…”
“Umm sure, keep it down though or I won’t be so nice next time! I have a date later and need my beauty sleep.”
“Not expecting to sleep for a year are ya?”
“Oh ha ha the boy with the dragon hoodie has jokes.”
He smiled at the sound of her footsteps walking away and slowly relaxed when he realized that his hands weren’t burning from the flames. The emerald fire was actually quite warm and kind of comforting in a strange way that he couldn’t explain. He took a deep breath and closed his hands as the fire vanished but he began to excitedly run in place before looking at his window and opened it before breathing in and focusing on his hand. He raised it to the center of his chest and he quickly aimed it at his window, trying to make a fireball but a stream of fire came out and burned his window frame.
He cursed and smacked it with his special Margana pillow, putting it out but killing his pillow in the process. “I won’t forget your sacrifice buddy! Wait… if these powers are from that stone… Oh crap! Twilight could be in big trouble I have to get to her before she destroys her house or something!” He tossed his pillow aside and threw off his pajamas before slipping on some torn jeans, a green t-shirt, and a loose spiked collar. He made himself a bagel while writing down a note to his family that he was visiting Twilight. Snatching the bagel out of the air as it popped out of the toaster and jumping onto his bike he rode down towards Shining Armor’s house.
The town was barely waking up as the boy rode through, smiling and waving at the friendly faces that he had gotten to know here and there as he grew up. He jumped and couldn’t help but show off a bit as he landed on one wheel and kept that up before smiling and laughing. He hadn’t been on his bike in a while as he was so busy and focused on other things that he had neglected the outside world. He skidded to a stop in front of the apartment of his best friend. Shining lived in the more average parts of town even though he had the money to get a better place, Spike once asked him about that and Shining said that the finer things in life weren’t for him and that places like this made him feel more at home.
Spike smiled to himself when he thought back to the day Shining admitted to the boy that he wanted to date his sister and Spike was a bit hesitant to give him his blessing but saw how happy he made her and that Shining really did love her. He thought the two were silly, tough, shy, and above all, perfectly adorkable. His sister was a romantic who would do anything for those she loved and Shining was the one she grew close to. He spent time with the man to see what kind of person he was and found a guy he wished was a brother. He agreed that their dating would be great as long as he stayed the way he was for her. Shining agreed and Spike never doubted him.
He knocked on the door hoping that Twilight lived there or was at least close that he could get to her fast. Behind the door, a loud thump could be heard as someone must have fallen. Shining soon answered the door with a serious mess of bed head, a yawn, and dressed in some pajamas that resembled knight armor which made the boy snicker. Shining rubbed his eyes and focused, seeing that it was Spike and he blushed a bit before rushing back into his room and coming out in a plain white shirt and oversized blue jeans.
“Sooo… what brings you here so early Spike? You would usually be nose first in a book or playing a game right now.” Spike looked around the apartment as it was clean but messy enough to feel natural to any male. He smiled and turned to his friend.
“Yeah but I had something really important that I needed Twilight to see, is she here?”
“Twily? Nah I took her back to her dorm last night, she seemed to not be feeling well and was really tired so I took her back early so she could sleep in at her school.” Spike groaned innerly as he imagined a school catching on fire.
“W-what school!?”
“Yours, of course, Crystal Prep.” Spike thanked his friend and dashed out of the apartment and back onto his bike. He cursed a bit as he used his phone’s GPS and headed to the school. It was far and getting there on a bike would normally take an hour, luckily Spike was anything but normal. He cheated and took each and any kind shortcut he could find, even using his new abilities to burn his way into a large construction site.
“Don’t worry Twilight I’m on my way!”
. . .
Twilight groaned as she turned on her bed and cuddled her pillow closer, reaching for her old friend/toy Smartypants. When she didn’t find her friend and the headache she was feeling got worse she finally opened her eyes and found her toy immediately. Smartypants and a collection of other items that were around her bed normally were now surrounded by a lavender aura and floating in the air. Twilight shrieked and the items were sent flying hard against the wall. She held her head and shook it while more things began to fly around her. She began to scream as she hit her head against the wall to make the pain stop but then she heard knocks and voices from her door. She hid under her covers as she didn’t want anyone to see her and think she was even more of a freak.
She heard something as her eyes began to glow and the covered were removed, the sweet color of emerald filling her sight as Spike had barged in and locked the door behind him. He grabbed her shoulders even when the items began to hit and attack him but he just smiled and hugged her. “S-Spike? Why are y-you here?”
“Sorry I was so late, this was a hell of a bike ride I’ll tell you… I woke up with strange new powers too and I thought you might so I came looking for you. Yours are a lot more powerful and unstable than I thought. Look at me and try to focus, you need to focus to make them stop. Think about what you want and what you don’t.”
Twilight couldn’t understand this and she hated not understanding things but this time she decided to put her faith in a person than in what she knew, she took a deep breath and slowly the light faded from her eyes and the objects all fell to the ground. Twilight sighed and hugged the boy back in thanks before looking at her mess of a room and shaking her head.
“We really are freaks…”
“Yep but, then again, we always were right?” Twilight smiled a bit and pushed the boy away before looking around and finding his dragon hood. She removed the stone from it carefully before giving the hood back to him.
“Speak for yourself kid, I am the textbook definition of normal.” Spike looked over the girl in the space-themed lavender pajamas that had bed head that rivaled her brother’s. He smirked and grabbed Smartypants from his place on the floor.
“If that’s true then heaven help us all. Also, I thought is a bit strange that a high schooler’s best friend would be a stuffed… what is this little guy? A horse?”
“Whoa whoa do not insult Smartypants!” She took the toy and held it against her chest with a small childish pout. “He will curse you and I can’t save you because you deserved it.”
“Heh and here I thought you wouldn’t believe in curses.”
“I don’t but Smartypant’s powers cannot be denied!” The two laughed and Twilight blushed a solid scarlet after thinking for a moment about their situation and how it looked to the other girls. She said that she needed to change and when Spike didn’t seem to understand she dragged him to her door and pulled it open to toss him out. “I say I need to ch-” The two looked up as the rest of the dorm were all there and seemingly were trying to listen or look into the darkened room. Twilight’s blush grew and Spike also realized that he had entered the girls' dorm and then locked the door behind him as he went into one of the rooms. He waved at all the girls and would be lying if he said that he didn’t notice they were mostly all in pajamas and sleep gear.
“Yeaaah… I better go!” Spike escaped the grip and whispered to Twilight to meet him in the construction site nearby before running off. A few of the girls snickered at Twilight while others just looked confused but she shook her head and went to change and find her glasses. Spike stretched and smiled as he was laying down on the dirt ground that still had faint patches of grass here and there. His view getting blocked not too long later by Twilight crossing her arms down at him.
“So this is how you treat a gift? I just got you that hood and you already got it all dirty!”
“Dragons aren’t known for their cleanliness! We’re known for our awesomeness! Besides, it feels good down here, lay next to me.”
“I’m not in the mood to do another load of laundry later so I’ll pass but I do need you to tell me what happened when you woke up this morning. This stone did something to us and I need all the information that I can get.” She held up a small purple pouch that was meant for marbles but held the stone for now. “Even now I can feel power or something radiating off it but I ran a quick scan on it before leaving and it wasn’t any type of radiation that we know of.”
“So it’s alien stuff!? That’s so awesome!!” Twilight gave him a light glare and he smiled and rubbed his head. “Focusing sorry, okay so I woke up this morning and found my hands had caught fire! It was green and I panicked a lot like you did and scorched a bit of my room here and there before Cadance asked me what was wrong and I realized that my hands weren’t burning and I was able to turn it off.”
“So your power is tied to fire and doesn’t hurt you like mine does me, it seems like my power is tied more to mental power and if I can keep it focused and imagine what I want to do. Show me a bit of your power.”
“So you admit it’s a superpower~”
“I admit something has changed in us and mostly it’s tied to the radiation on the stone than to magic or something.” Spike sighed and lit his hands on fire after a moment of thought. He tried again to throw a fireball but a stream of fire erupted. “Try to make a flame in your hands instead of your whole hand turning on fire, we don’t want that happening accidentally and you burn someone.” Spike nodded and slowly closed a fist as the fire recited slowly but it broke out again after he began to sweat. “So it can take a mental drain on you too.”
“Y-yeah but it’s pretty hot huh~” Twilight cracked a small smile and took her turn next and focused on the pebbles around her and willed them to move to her command. They shook and some finally began to float as she tried to bring them all together but the magic went unstable and shot the rocks outward and towards the two. Spike tackled Twilight before any stone could hit her. “Yeah… we have to get better at this…”
“Really? Here I thought we were just perfect… you can let go Spike.” The boy removed his arms from her and rolled away getting dust everywhere and sneezing. The two practiced using their powers for the next hour, Twilight finding that she was able to shoot a concentrated beam of energy from her hands but it wiped her out for a few minutes after a single use. Spike finally was able to shoot a fireball after rolling the flames in both his hands again and again until he had a ball. Seeing that it was still breakfast and Twilight was writing in a book, he made sure he had enough bits that were given to him for his birthday in a letter from an old friend before offering a hand to the girl.
“You look like a girl that could use some food, ever been to Big Bang Burger? No finer place to get some food in town, plus it has games!!” Twilight rolled her eyes a bit at the childish reasoning but decided that she could afford to relax a bit and agreed. Spike left his bike hidden while they walked to the large restaurant, the two more or so walking in silence until he decided to ask a question. “How is Crystal Prep really? I was planning to get into Canterlot High but the school board denied it for at least a year so I’m going to CP.”
“It’s… a very prestigious school and the staff and students have great pride in that. I like it enough and seeing as I’m one of the best students when it comes to classes other than gym and they may even give me an old broom closet that isn’t used anymore for my studies but it can be a bit lonely there as the students are a bit distant…” Spike rubbed his head a bit before giving her a smile.
“Well, at least there is one problem I’m able to fix.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that we’re friends right? When I go there we can hang out and maybe we can make the school a bit more fun.”
“Friends....” Twilight thought about that as they arrived at the burger joint. It was a large black building that had stars and neon lights of various colors everywhere. The entrance to the building was a tunnel that led to a pair of see through sliding doors but before the doors were markers that had glowing ink. The sign next to the markers said that the guests should take one and draw a message or sign on the wall but that anything wrong would be erased. Spike took a green one and Twilight took a purple one before they each drew one thing on the wall. Twilight had drawn a large star with several others surrounding it, something she came up with when she was small and had more or less used it as her own calling sign. Spike went with a green flame for obvious new reasons and asked her what she thought and she smiled before complimenting him of his creativity.
The two entered and were nearly hit by a girl with short purple hair and purple eyes who was holding three plates on her each arm and one on her head while skating. “My bad! I’ll be right over to help you just need to get these delivered.” The two nodded and took a booth for themselves while looking around at the kids and teens that were around playing games or just hanging out. The girl from before skated over and smiled at them while holding a notepad. “Sorry again for before, I’m more of a scooter user than skates but my sister taught me well enough. I’m Scootaloo, what could I get you two? Hey, I know that uniform! You’re from Crystal Prep right? I’m going to Canterlot High with my friends as freshmen right now.”
“I’m just started Crystal Prep myself, I’m Spike.”
“Twilight Sparkle.” Spike and Twilight shook the girl’s hand and they talked a bit before giving her their orders. Spike taking a burger with fries hile Twilight got a pizza slice with a large cupcake. She blushed a bit at the look Spike gave her and she crossed her arms while pouting. “Hey I barely eat nowadays, don’t judge my desserts…” Spike held up his hands in surrender before smiling and pulling her to a game. “Spike I’m not great at the video games…”
“Lucky for you then, I have enough skill for the both of us! I’m pretty much the second or third best gamer in Canterlot.”
“Who’s better than you?” Spike pointed to a young teen nearby who had spiky brown hair, brown eyes, a colorful cap, red jacket, faded blue jeans, and a juice box hanging from his mouth. He had a small group around him as he was nearing the high score.
“That’s Button Mash. He and I are pretty even but my aunt Luna is number one!” Twilight nodded and then was dragged over to a pair of dancing machine games and she immediately shook her head.
“Nope! Not happening!” Spike ignored the girl and started the two machines while pulling her onto the one next to him. She bit her lip and fixed her glasses while trying hard to keep up with the game’s instructions but Spike only stopped her for a moment and told her to try and just have fun and ignore the steps it was telling her to make and just dance her way. She sighed and took a deep breath before slowly singing the song to ignore everything around her. “Hey brother, there’s an endless road to rediscover…”
Spike could see what she was doing and smiled while spinning and taking the next verse. “Hey sister, know the water’s sweet but blood is thicker.” The two began to sing in unison and back to taking turns while Twilight did get into the music and their moves started to slightly mirror each other. Neither noticed the small crowd that was clapping and stomping in beat to the song and their singing, no one cared much about the score on the game and more just on watching the two. Twilight smiled with her eyes closed as it had been so long since she had sung and had so much fun. The song soon came to its end and the two blushed at seeing the crowd that cheered them on. They thanked everyone and let another two on the game while they went back and ate their food. The meal was silent as both still had a blush on their faces.
“T-thanks Spike for bringing me here… I had a lot of fun. Maybe Shining was right about getting out more.”
“Me too! Never really had a partner that could sing, Cadence is skilled in many many things but cooking and singing ain’t some of them.”
“Shining and I used to sing a lot when I was small but I grew out of it when I young but I guess the skill never went away. “
“I’ll say.” They shared a laugh and finished their meal, leaving money and a large tip. Scootaloo passed them a cupcake on the house from her as she liked their song and waved at them as they left. The two walked aimlessly for a while when Spike got a phone call and answered it to his mother’s voice. “Hmm? Hey mom.”
“Spike, I need you to get home quickly if you can and is Twilight with you?”
“Uhh yeah? What’s wrong.”
“I just need you home and bring her if you can.” The call went dead and Spike told Twilight what happened and the two ran straight to the house on the hill.
. . .
Celestia frowned after she finished her call and crossed her arms at the uninvited guest in her living room. “My son and his friend are on their way, Mister Beezen, but after they tell you they weren’t where you said they were you have to leave.” Luna and Cadence both nodded in agreement as they weren’t happy at the Mayor who basically forced his way into the house saying that he suspected their Spike had accidentally gotten his hands on something he wasn’t meant to have. One officer searched Spike’s room but reported nothing found.
“I only wish to speak to the boy, after that, I can leave you all in peace.” The mayor toyed with a cane in his hand that had a large red jewel on top that seemed to glow on its own. “Just a friendly chat…”