Spike was awoken by a stream of sunlight beaming in his eyes, an alarm he was unaccustomed to. He tried to cover his face with the blanket, but found Twilight had somehow rolled herself into a ball with it in the night. She was still sleeping, the blanket like a mummy's wrappings on her small body-
Wait. Small body? Spike thought, panic quickly rising in his chest.
Taking care not to wake the filly, he crept into the boy's room. He found Zack in the middle of dressing, shirt only half on. Quinn was still sleeping soundly. Zack took notice of Spike's expression and abandoned his efforts to put on his shoes, following the short dragon out to the main room. Silently and solemnly, he pointed to the sleeping form of Twilight, who'd partially unraveled herself from the blanket.
Zack's eyes widened with surprise and concern. "Did you use the antidote?" he confirmed in a hushed tone.
Spike nodded. "I-don't-know-what-to-do-please-help-me-I-don't-want-to-get-in-trouble-and-I-"
Zack covered his mouth, but not before Spike's partial breakdown woke the small filly. "Is it morning?"
Suppressing the urge to forget about the situation and give into her adorable voice, Spike merely nodded again. Having taken a moment to collect himself, he realized that he may need to check on the others. The same situation could apply to them, making things even more complicated than necessary.
"Go wake up Quinn," he asked Zack. Spike then headed upstairs to check on the others.
As he opened the door, he was upset but unsurprised to see that none of the other ponies had aged either. AppleJack was only just rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her little hooves. The others were still sleeping, as it seemed.
"Are we having apple pancakes?" She asked hopefully.
"Uh, I'm not sure," Spike responded hesitantly. "Why don't you go check downstairs?"
AppleJack slipped off the bed with a thump, and ran down the stairs to see what her breakfast would be. The thump woke up Pinkie with a jolt, which bumped Rarity and knocked her out of the bed. She began to cry, waking the remaining girls. FlutterShy hopped down to comfort the crying filly. Pinkie apologized repeatedly, and her own eyes began to tear up when she didn't hear any acceptance. This all took place in a matter of seconds, which Spike rapidly caught up with. He knelt down and picked Rarity off the floor as Rainbow and FlutterShy looked on with concern.
"Shh, it's okay, it's okay. Let me see," He comforted.
The simpering filly lifted up a foreleg, which seemed unmarked. She recoiled when Spike made to touch it.
"Aw, don't worry, it's just a bump," he said to her. "It won't hurt for long."
"Kiss it?" She asked, the streams of tears stopping.
He hesitated. Long had he awaited this day, but this was not how he was expecting it to happen. He knelt down and kissed her foreleg. The filly giggled, threw her arms around him in a hug, and ran off with the others downstairs.
"Well, aren't we a charmer?" he heard Quinn's teasing tone.
Face reddening, he turned to the bespectacled boy. "Shut up. She just would've kept crying otherwise."
Quinn held up his arms in surrender. "Hey, I won't tell anyone." His face turned serious. "Were you sure the book said to apply externally? Did you make it correctly? Use a proper dosage?"
The dragon nodded furiously. "Yes, I'm sure."
Quinn scowled and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps we overdosed the original potion, or made it incorrectly, then. I'm going to need to attempt to remake the antidote. Zack wasn't very reassuring when I asked him whether he made it right or not. I'll also need to take one of the girls with me to test it, too."
"Hey!" Zack called from below. "Breakfast you guys!"
The two returned to the main room, where pancakes were being devoured by the fillies. Two plates stood separate for them, which they dug into with enthusiasm. Zack really had learned a quite a lot from his job at the bakery. Quinn wolfed his down quickly, keeping the urgency of his task in mind.
Quinn abandoned his plate and tugged on his boots, running around the library to gather the materials he'd need for remaking the antidote. He was unable, however, to find the age potion itself. That is, most of it.
"Spike," he said despairingly. "Please, for the love of god, tell me that bottle is not almost empty."
"You mean the syrup?" Pinkie Pie piped up. "It didn't taste very good anyway."
"Y-you used that-" Spike stammered. He'd eaten a full plate.
"Tasted like bad apple juice," AppleJack commented.
"At least there's a little left?" Zack added unhelpfully.
"No time to assign blame," Quinn said, holding his head. He turned to Rainbow Dash, or rather, looked down at her. "You get to come with me for a little walk, okay? We're going out to the woods."
"Can I watch the pegasuses?" The filly asked.
"On the way there, you can."
"Okay!" She agreed happily. Quinn opened the door and the two were off to try and remedy the situation.
Meanwhile, Spike was just coming to terms with what the empty bottle being referred to as syrup implied. The girls were already so young- this would make them even younger. As for him- what would happen to him? It was only supposed to effect ponies, but what would it do to a dragon? A human, like Quinn? Zack, thankfully, hadn't eaten any, but the results of this could be catastrophic. Things were only getting worse. How long had it taken for it to work on the girls? An hour? Two? He groaned aloud, slumping against a bookshelf.
Twilight walked up to him, her head tilted with concern. She offered an apple from the table to him.
Spike smiled, in spite of the situation. He had confidence this could be fixed. Quinn was smart. The dragon knew he could fix this.