Spike ran through the streets with a smile on his face, and with such high spirits that he actually waved to all of the ponies that he passed by, using the hand that didn't have the ring on it, of course. The bright sunlight managed to hide the bright glow of the ring more or less, so he didn't have to worry about somepony spotting it. But just to be safe, he turned the side of the ring with the symbol on it to the inside of his hand so that it looked like a regular green ring. Spike ran into the market place where a large number of ponies spent most of their days shopping and interacting with each other. He recognized most of them, whether they visited the library or not, while some of them seemed to be from out of town. He looked at the list and noticed that his first stop was Sugarcube Corners.
"Starting the day with Twilight leaving, then having a ring talk to me, and now Pinkie? This is going to be an odd day," he said to himself with a shrug as he walked to the shop. The shop was more of a giant gingerbread house than an actual building (Spike often wondered if Pinkie had anything to do with that). As the name implied, she sold sweets and party supplies for all of Ponyville. Pinkie was a bit of an odd one, but was still a good friend of his. Spike opened the door to the shop and walked inside, his eyes on the lookout for the pink pony who seemed to be come out of anywhere. But instead of Pinkie bouncing around the shop and taking orders, he found that Mr. Cake was behind the counter today.
"Hiya Mr. Cake, how ya doing?" Spike asked him as he walked up to the counter, looking over the sweets in the glass case under the counter.
"Hi there, Spike. What can I do for you today?" he asked with a smile as Spike tore his eyes away from the sweets and looked down at his list.
"Um, about three cookies, two brownies, and maybe a sapphire cupcake while you're at it," Spike ordered, adding the last one for himself. Mr. Cake nodded and went into the back to get the order, leaving Spike alone for a moment. Or so he thought.
WHUMP!
"Ow! What the?" he muttered to himself as he felt something soft land on his head. He reached up and picked up whatever was on his head, bringing it down in front of his eyes. "Pumpkin Cake?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, when he saw that the Cakes' baby unicorn had somehow ended up on his head. "What are you doing up there?" he asked the baby unicorn, who giggled in response and tried to grab his face. Her giggling was followed by the sound of a door bursting open and hooves sprinting overhead, the owner of said hooves came flying down the stairs a moment later.
"PUMPKIN!" Mrs. Cake cried out as she looked around the shop in desperation. Her panicked eyes fell on Spike who was still holding Pumpkin, and a wave of relief washed over her face. "Oh, thank goodness," she said with a shaky voice as she walked over to Spike and gently took her filly from him, placing her on a baby carrier on her back. "Thank you for catching her Spike. I turned around for one minute and when I looked back, she was gone. I was so worried about her."
"It's no problem, but how did she get down here anyway?" Spike asked as the filly tried to escape the carrier.
"She's getting to the age where she'll start to perform random magic on her own," Mrs. Cake explained as she tried to wrestle the squirming filly back into the carrier. "Yesterday she floated around the place, winding up in all sorts of different places. Today it seems like she's going to be teleporting around the shop."
"Sounds like Twilight when she was first learning how to use magic," Spike said with a smile, not so much remembering the actual events but the stories her parents had told him, much to her embarassment. "Don't worry, from what Twilight told me she'll stop soon enough."
"That's good to hear. I hate the thought of waking up in the morning and finding my baby in the middle of a force field while her brother flies around the room dropping things," Mrs. Cake said with a sigh as the baby teleported herself out of her carrier and re-appeared on a table, where she began to chow down on a cupcake that a pony had left laying out. Mrs. Cake told her daughter not to eat that and ran over to pick her back up, just as Mr. Cake came back out with Spike's order.
"Here ya go Spike. Sorry it took so long; the sapphire cupcake took longer to make than usual," he explained as he placed each of the items on the counter and rang them up for Spike, watching his daughter teleport around the room, filling it with laughter as her terrified mother chased after her. Spike looked at the scene with a shake of his head, thinking to himself how much trouble foals were. "Alright, that will come to fifteen bits please." Spike rummaged around and pulled out the requested amount, placing them on the counter as Mr. Cake put the items in a bag.
"Anything else I can do for you?"
"Nope, that'll do it," Spike said with a smile and a wave as he picked up the bag, swinging it over his shoulder and heading for the door. He opened the door and stepped outside to be immediately greeted by big blue eyes and a massive smile. "Gah!" Spike yelled as he fell back on his tail and dropped his bag. The sight of the startled Spike caused Pinkie to begin laughing at him. "Pinkie! What-hic-was that-hic-for?" Spike yelled as the hiccups came on, which only caused Pinkie to fall over backwards from her laughter and clutch her stomach.
"Sorry, Spikey, but it's just so funny when you get scared," Pinkie said with a massive smile as she got back to her hooves and wiped a tear out from under her eye. "You just look so adorable when you're mad, and you get the funniest of hiccups."
"Glad to see that my pain amuses you," Spike grumbled to himself as he bent over and picked up his bag. Pinkie walked over to help when she noticed a small green band on his finger.
"Spike, what's that on your hand?" she asked with curiosity and excitement. Spike's eyes shrunk when she said this, and he immediately hid his hand behind his back while he turned to face her.
"Nothing! It's nothing! Why, don't you have something on your hand?" Spike stalled while trying to slip the ring off behind his back, giving Pinkie an unsuspecting smile to distract her. She frowned at his feeble attempt to lie to her and sped over behind him faster than he thought she could move, snatching the ring right out of his hands the moment that he took it off. "Hey, give it back!" Spike yelled as he ran at her, but she placed one hoof on his head to keep him at bay while she looked over the ring in the other one.
"This is a really weird ring," she muttered to herself as Spike still struggled to get past her hoof. She pointed the ring up into the sky and closed one eye. "Abracadabra!" When nothing happened, Pinkie took a closer look at it, searching for a button or instructions. "Where did you get this ring?" she asked him, moving her hoof and taking a step back as Spike continued his charge into a wall. Spike collapsed to the ground and struggled back to his feet, stomping over to Pinkie and snatching the ring from her hoof with a glare.
"I found it on the ground," he said with a bit of pain in his voice, slipping the ring back on before rubbing his head. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't take my things from me without ask-hic-dang it!"
"Sorry Spikey, it's just that this ring feels...odd," she muttered while moving her head closer to get a better look, but Spike hid the ring behind his other hand and moved it away from her. "There's a power coming from it that I've never felt before. Are you sure that you found it on the ground?" she asked as she looked at Spike with one wide eye, who shuffled back uncomfortably. Spike knew better than to lie to Pinkie, but he was telling the truth this time.
"I'm telling the truth, I swear!" Spike said nervously.
"Pinkie swear?" Pinkie asked in a whisper. Spike gulped nervously at this, for no pony said a Pinkie swear unless they were certain that they would never break it, or if they were ready to die. But Spike swore anyway, knowing that he couldn't break this promise because it was the truth. Pinkie glared at him for a minute with an intense stare, as if gazing into his soul to see if he were lying. Her smile returned a minute later and she sprang up. "Okie-Dokie then. I'll see you later. Keep an eye on that ring, it's giving off a weird power." Spike sighed in relief as she bounced off while humming to herself, opening his hand and looking at his ring that had began to glow again.
"That was a close one. If you had decided to work for her she would have seen what you really are," Spike said as he tried to calm his heart. He then looked at the ring with a curious expression. "Why didn't you work for her anyway?"
'She was not chosen.'
"Neither was I," Spike reminded it.
'No, but the original chosen one rejected the power. You wield it now.' Spike wanted to point out the flaws in its reasoning, but he noticed that a number of ponies had been watching while Pinkie had talked with him--and were now watching him apparently talk to himself. He smiled at them awkwardly and picked up his bag before running off to his next stop, looking down at his list again.
"Alright, now with that little distraction out of the way, my next stop is...Rarity!" he said with a squeal before clamping his hand over his mouth, while looking around to make sure that none of the ponies had heard him. His smile returned a moment later as he sprinted off towards Rarity's home that was not too far off. On his way over, he heard somepony grunting and looked to his side, noticing that Fluttershy was struggling to drag two bags of bird food back to her home. Spike looked from her to Rarity's Boutique off in the distance, struggling with what he should do before letting out a sigh and rushing over to Fluttershy.
"Hi, Fluttershy. Need some help?" Spike asked her. She 'eeped' in surprise, not hearing him approach and spun to face him, smiling when she saw who had spoken to her.
"Oh, hello Spike," she said in her naturally gentle tone while hiding her face behind her long pink mane. "Thank you for offering, but I'm fine," she said with a soft smile before straining her body against the bags, using all of her might to move them an inch.
"Uh-huh," Spike replied totally unconvinced. "Yeah, you need my help. Here, I'll trade you." He walked over to Fluttershy and handed her his bag of sweets before turning his attention to one of the bags, wrapped his arms around it and struggling to lift it. Even though he had the strength of the dragons, he was still having a hard time.
"Oh, please be careful. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," Fluttershy said with concern from behind her hooves as he continued to struggle. Spike gave up on lifting either of the bags and leaned against them, panting heavily and wondering how the heck he was going to move them. But after a quick glance at the ring on his finger, he got an idea. Spike bent down again to try and lift them, but this time he willed the ring to slip a green claw under the bag and lift it for him. Fluttershy gasped as Spike lifted up both bags over his head with one hand and a triumphant smile on his face.
"How did you do that?" she asked him with awe in her voice as she walked over to Spike, looking up at the bird seed with a bit of curiousity.
"I'm stronger than I look!" Spike said triumphantly as he started to walk towards Fluttershy's cottage, a little amazed himself at the power of the ring. He had made the claw under the bags as small as possible, but it still lifted the bags with no problems and placed no weight on Spike's arm. Fluttershy walked along side him, keeping an eye on the bags in case his arm gave out. Fluttershy eventually asked him about how he was doing with Twilight gone again, which he didn't answer immediately. She sensed that she had upset him and changed the topic, hoping that he would quickly forget about Twilight being gone. She instead asked him what it was like when he helped to defeat Sombra awhile back, a story that he didn't mind re-telling.
"...and that's when I dove down after the Crystal Heart while Sombra jumped up in his Pillar of Darkness to try and beat me to it. However, I was fast enough to...Um, should those birds be doing that?" Fluttershy turned her attention from Spike to a number of baby birds that were tightrope walking on Fluttershy's laundry line, chirping to themselves as they moved quickly on the lines. Fluttershy's heart nearly fell out of her chest when she looked upon the baby birds and realized the danger they were in. Fluttershy screamed and rushed over to the wire faster than Spike would have believed possible for her.
"What do you three think you're doing? It's dangerous. Get down here this instant!" Fluttershy demanded of the baby birds, while she stared up at them from under the wire. The baby birds looked down at her and started to chirp in laughter, ignoring her pleas and continuing to dance on the wire. Fluttershy frowned and flapped her wings weakly, but with enough force to lift her small body into the air and slowly up to the wire. "You three could get hurt! Come on, we're getting down from there," she said with a stern tone as she scooped the birds up into her arms and started to float them down to the ground. Spike started to look around, as Fluttershy gave the birds a scolding that he had been on the receiving end of a few times. But while she scolded the baby birds in a tone that she rarely used, Spike noticed that there had been a fourth bird that was a lot smaller than its brothers and had only just now built up the confidence to walk across the wire. Unlike its brethern, this one did not have the balancing skills of the other three, so as it took one wrong step forward it quickly found itself falling towards the ground with a chirp. Fluttershy was too busy dealing with the other three birds to notice that it was falling, but fortunately for it, Spike saw it fall.
"I gotcha," Spike told it as he pointed his ring at the ground where the baby bird was falling, willing a green construct of a baseball glove to appear on the ground. The baby bird fell into the glove, bounced once and found itself sitting in a green glove a few inches above the ground, shaking slightly. Spike quickly changed the glove to a claw and gently placed the bird on the ground, before cutting off his will to the ring so that Fluttershy wouldn't notice. "See, told you that I had you," Spike said to the trembling bird as he walked over to it, placing a hand on the ground and allowing it to climb into his hand so that he could take it over to Fluttershy. Once Spike told her what had happened (cutting out the part about the green ring and simply telling her that he caught it) she immediately responded by taking the bird from him and holding it close to her, while singing to it until it had finally stopped shaking, eventually looking up at her with a smile.
"Thank you so much, Spike," Fluttershy said with tears of relief falling down her face as she clutched the bird to her chest. "I don't know what I would have done if he had gotten hurt. All of my little animals mean so much to me," she said as she gently placed the bird in a ground nest and wrapped her hooves around Spike's shoulders in a hug.
"It's no problem. Really, no prob," Spike said quickly, trying to wriggle out of Fluttershy's death hug so that he could go to Rarity's as soon as possible. Fluttershy let go as he finally got free and waved to him with a few tears in her eyes, while he ran off down the road with a wave goodbye and a smile on his face at the thought of going to Rarity's. Rarity (to him and many others) was the most beautiful pony in all of Equestria, and considering all the beautiful ponies in the land including the princesses, that was saying something. But Spike knew that despite all the stallions that said they loved her, he knew that his feelings for her were the truest of them all. In fact, as Spike skipped down the road to where the Carousel Boutique was, he was considering showing the green ring to her and telling her all about his new powers. Then she would fall for him like a knight in shining armor and they would have a happy life. Spike smiled to himself, feeling himself getting warmer at the thought of...no, it wasn't the thoughts that were making him warmer, it was something else. Spike heard the reason for the sudden heat before he actually saw it as he turned a corner into town.
"FIRE!" a number of ponies screamed as Spike saw the roaring inferno that was engulfing a number of buildings in the town. His eyes widened in shock as he saw the collumns of fire shoot into the sky, while ponies ran around him with buckets of water and hoses in a desperate effort to get the blaze under control. A number of buildings had already burned to the ground, but that wasn't what had interested Spike as he gazed into the blaze. He knew this kind of fire, a redish hue fire that seemed to change colors every few seconds. It was a magical fire. Spike didn't have time to think about who would do this as he ran into the town center along with all the other ponies, looking around to see what he could do.
"You have to let me go back in there!" Spike's heart dropped as he heard a very familiar voice call out on the edge of hysterics, turning slowly to see Mr. and Mrs. Cake covered head to hoof in soot as they tried to force their way past a number of fire ponies that were holding them back.
"We told you already, it's far too dangerous to go in there!" one of the fire ponies yelled at her, struggling to hold her back despite being the larger pony. "We barely managed to get you two out in time before the flames consumed the building. Two of our own were already lost in the blaze. If you were to go back in you would surely die!"
"But my babies are in there!" Mrs. Cake screamed, throwing him off of her and sprinting forward, only to be tackled to the ground by a number of other ponies. Despite her adrenaline, she was unable to shake these ones off of her, while Mr. Cake just stared at the inferno with a 'thousand-yard stare.' Spike could only watch as Mrs. Cake tried to get back up again, thinking about what he had just heard. A simple turn of his head showed him that Sugarcube Corners was indeed the main building that was burning, with flames covering it from top to bottom. And if what Mrs. Cake said was true...
"I have to get Twilight!" Spike yelled out as he spun towards the library, but then he remembered that Twilight wasn't there. "Then Rain..." She was off teaching a group of foals. Spike looked around in desperation, hoping that there was soempony that could help. But as the flames continued to spread and the cries of the Cakes got louder, he realized that no pony could do anything. No pony could stop the fire in time to save everypony.
'There is still you.' Spike snapped out of his trance and looked down at his ring.
"How? The fires would consume me just as they did those firefighters!" Spike yelled at his ring, none of the ponies paying attention to him as they struggled with the flames. "I would barely last ten seconds against those flames, even with my dragon scales! I...can't. I'm too afraid," Spike said with spite in his voice as he glared at the ground, tears forming in his eyes.
'But you have the power to overcome great fear. You are a Green Lantern.' Spike looked down at the ring again, the device that had been given to him. Spike was powerless to stop the fires on his own; it would be a death sentence. But as he tightened his grip on the ring, he realized that he was no longer the powerless dragon he had once been. And with all of the other ponies helpless, he was the only one with the power to help. So faster than a speeding bullet, Spike rushed behind a building that hadn't caught fire and looked down at his ring, ready for what he had to do.
"Ring...suit me up." The ring let loose a brilliant green glow which wrapped itself around Spike, crystalizing on him in the uniform of the Green Lanterns, with a completely green outfit that covered everything but his legs, which were instead covered with black energy. A green lantern appeared on the center of his chest, symbolizing his connection to the Corps. Spike opened his eyes and looked down at his body, a smile spreading across his face as he 'fan boyed.'
"Okay, this is all levels of cool. But I need a mask," Spike mumbled to himself as he felt his face, thinking that the others would still recognize him. No sooner had he thought of it did the green mask appear, covering about seventy percent of his face. And while he couldn't see it, the ring also turned the purple scales on his face green as well to complete the mask. Spike was about to comment on how the outfit even covered his tail, but another cry brought him back to reality. He turned towards the flames, looking down one last time at the ring that said if he willed it, it would happen. "Right now, I will myself to be a hero." Spike pointed his arm forward and shot off into the sky...overshooting the fire a bit, but he managed to catch himself and redirect back. The ponies who had gathered around the burning buildings and given up on trying to stop the fire, had just decided to try and control it, but they stared in awe as a blur of green shot past them, flying right through the center of the flames. Spike burst through the wall of fire and came to a stop inside of the burning Sugarcube Corners, looking around desperately for the two foals.
"Ring, how long can this suit hold back the flames?" Spike asked the ring as he started to look under tables for the two.
'Ring is now operating at one hundred percent, so hours. But those inside do not have the same protection,' it replied. So that gave Spike even more incentive to rush through the building, rushing upstairs first in hopes that they were still in their rooms. He reached their room to find a blazing door blocking his path and since he was in a rush he decided just to blast the door down instead of putting out the flames. So he pointed the ring at the door and concentrated a single blast into the door, blasting it off its hinges and turning it into ash. Spike willed a green sphere around himself as he leapt through the flames, looking in the room with a smile. The two foals were both under a force field in the center of the room, rolling a ball back and forth between them, unaware of the flames. As he walked towards them, he noticed that Pumpkin's horn was glowing and he figured that she was the cause of the barrier.
"Hey there, you two," he said in as calm a voice possible as he kept a careful eye on the roof, noticing that it was beginning to give out. "How about you lower that shield and we get the two of you out of here to see your mom?" The two foals looked at him with narrow eyes, not recognizing him. They stuck out their tongues and went back to playing with their ball, not caring when a chunk of the ceiling gave out and nearly hit Spike. Spike looked up at the roof again, knowing that his ring would hold if it fell, but wasn't certain that theirs would. So he walked over to their shield and knelt down, reaching up and removing his mask. "Come on you two, it's me." Pound looked at him funny, but Pumpkin immediately recognized him with a smile and lowered the shield so that she could crawl over to him. Pound followed her example and crawled over to Spike as well while he scooped both of them into his arms. He was just about to make his escape when the roof finally gave, becoming a blazing death trap. Spike was quick enough to erect a shield around them, but the flames were getting through to the foals and almost set them ablaze. The sight of the foals in danger strengthened Spike's resolve to levels that even he didn't know it could go, and he poured all of it into his ring, willing himself to be the hero that was needed.
Outside, the ponies had watched in pure horror as the building began to collapse upon itself, shooting flames into the air. The Cakes, along with the rest of the pony populace, had just about given up hope when a sight greeted them that would be forever ingrained into their minds. With a roar that shook the earth, a massive emerald-colored dragon the size of a building came bursting out of the flaming structure. It rose up and out of the fire until it sat well above the flames, letting out another roar that forced the ponies to cover their ears. Then with a few flaps of its mighty wings, it quickly extinguished the flames that had covered the buildings. The ponies in the streets had no idea what to think as the massive dragon landed on the ground in front of them, looking down on all of them with its emerald gaze. Then it vanished in a flash of green light, leaving a sight that many would recall for the rest of their lives. It was the sight of a small dragon with a green mask and suit holding two soot-covered foals.
"There's no need to fear. I got them."