//------------------------------// // Unexpected Appetite // Story: Bigger Than Mac // by DraconequusMaximus //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle woke up at the same time as she always did, 7:00 AM on the dot. She had become so scheduled that she no longer even needed an alarm. She got out of bed and simultaneously stretched herself and wings while using magic to fix her hair into it's usual fashion. She trotted down the hall to Spike's room to wake the dragon as per usual, but found his door open and his bed unmade and empty. "Huh, Spike usually sleeps like a rock until I get him up." Twilight said to herself. She shrugged it off and trotted down the stairs and into the kitchen. She silently hoped Spike had already started breakfast. She was immediately awestruck at the room that had once been her kitchen. The walls that once bore cabinets and appliances like the microwave and oven were now bare and marred with bite or scratch marks. Everything including the sink was gone, the pipes eaten down to the wall. In the center of the room was a familiar purple dragon finishing off what appeared to be the aforementioned sink's faucet. The cherry on top of the hard to believe scene was that Spike seemed to be at least a foot taller than he had been last night. Twilight picked her jaw off the floor and snapped back into coherent thought. "Spike! What in the world are you doing? Is this a greed growth thing again?" She asked obviously worried for oldest friend and adoptive brother. Spike looked to her and swallowed the chewed up metal before responding. "I Don't think so, I just can't stop eating. Still so hungry." Spike said before heading to the door on all fours as opposed to his normal two. Twilight could hardly believe what was happening, or that Spike could run so fast after eating so much metal. Twilight tried putting a shield in front of him at the last second, but he broke it with a swipe of his claws. It was theorized that dragons steadily grew more resistant to magic as they aged. Twilight hadn't had much difficulty casting spells on him before, but she was starting to agree with the theory. She summoned up a piece of parchment and quill and penned a letter: Everypony, Spike emergency. Bring food/gems/things you won't miss to town square. -Twilight Satisfied with the message she duplicated the letter seven times. One for each of the girls, the princesses, and Discord. She concentrated and used the mailing spell Celestia had taught her. After that she rushed off to find Spike who was apparently making a meal of the tools and various metal parts of things in the hardware and farm supply store. Twilight was curious how he was consuming so much without seeming to grow fatter or get full, but decided that science could wait. She spread her magic to the entire room and grabbed Spike along with all the remaining tools and swept them into a large sphere and carried him to the town square. Spike barely acknowledged being brought to the new location as he merely kept eating. He was currently busy slurping up a large roll of barbed wire like it was pasta. It only seemed to take him a few seconds to down the spiky wire and before he could say anything else he started in on a shovel. His body seemed to pilot itself, on a mission to devour everything in sight. Rainbow Dash was unsurprisingly the first to arrive with her contribution. She seemed to be carrying a large bundle of random objects bundled up in a bed sheet. Twilight took the opportunity to disperse the sphere and set Spike down with his "meal". Rainbow opened the sheet up and threw an assortment of broken exercise equipment and old cloud machine parts. She watched Spike finish off the shovel and take a large bite out of a plow. "Twilight, is he becoming a giant again?" Rainbow asked looking to the distressed alicorn princess. She shook her head negative before responding. "He says this is different than the greed growth incident, besides he isn't exactly stealing. He just doesn't seem to be able to stop eating and he doesn't seem to be getting full at all." She replied, her worry was getting worse by the moment. It seemed like if this kept up he might move on to houses, all of Ponyville could be eaten. The pair was soon joined by the princesses and Discord, the latter of which was carrying a seemingly ordinary bucket. Before anyone said anything about it he poured an impossibly large amount of treasure onto the pile of assorted food substitutes. He then threw the bucket itself onto the pile and rejoined the others. "So, it seems yesterday's feast wasn't enough for the growing boy." Discord said as he watched Spike start in on a handful of gold bits. "Discord, what do you know of this?" Celestia said with a tone angrier than anypony other than Luna and Discord had ever heard. Her mane even seemed to become fire for a moment. Discord was fairly used to this tone and merely rolled his eyes. "Little Spike is going through his first growth spurt. His species of dragon does this every twenty years or so. They devour everything they can then go through a pretty painful change. I assumed you knew about it Celestia, you might have just lost mother of the year." Discord said in his normal mocking tone. I'll deal with Discord later, Spike is more important. She thought to calm herself. "How much will he need to consume, Discord?" Luna asked as she marveled at the rate her dear nephew was packing away the metals and jewels. "Hard to say, dragon nature is very primal but Spike isn't. I'm actually pretty surprised he isn't snacking on things that are more... fleshy. His control is astounding really, I'm only part dragon and I was a real terror when I was a baby." Discord said, possibly being sincere. "My son isn't a baby Discord, he's legally an adult." Celestia said trying not to let the stress get to her. "On the contrary, Spike is less than a toddler by dragon standards. They don't have an upper lifespan limit, never heard of a dragon going from old age in fact, and I'm positively ancient." Discord said as he made himself appear as a shriveled hunched over version of himself. Unfortunately Applejack and Big Mac had just shown up with their contributions in time to hear the insane draconequus' words. Big Mac felt like he had been bucked in the face, Spike was going to live forever and he wasn't. He hadn't even considered that Spike might live longer since he wasn't a pony. This combined with seeing his colt/drake friend as a mindless eating machine was nearly too much. His sister snapped him out of his sudden despair as she passed him with her cart of apples. She deposited them on the pile, prompting him to do the same with his cartload of rusty farm tools. Applejack was brought up to speed while Big Mac looked at the dragon with sadness in his eyes. Spike met his gaze momentarily and saw the hurt and worry there. He managed to stop himself from eating and dropped the scrap of metal he was holding with great difficulty. "Big Mac... I-" Spike was stopped by himself as he momentarily froze and suddenly began convulsing. What could only be described as both a scream and a roar followed. A series of sickening pops and what sounded like tearing accompanied it soon after. The remaining members of the mane six arrived with their various items just in time to see Spike rear back up onto his hind legs as he began to stretch. His form became longer and seemed to inflate with powerful, but lithe muscle. After another series of pops his neck elongated considerably and his face followed suit. His spines were now a further distance apart and more numerous. He slammed down onto all fours again and panted like he had just run several miles. Big Mac was about to rush to him, but was pulled back by an invisible force. He looked back to see himself floating in midair next to Discord. Macintosh glared at him intensely, struggling in his magical bonds. Discord merely shook his head. "Not done yet." Discord said before pointing back to Spike. Upon closer inspection, the scales on Spike's back were shifting as if there was something crawling underneath his skin. After another much louder roar two bony thinly skinned protrusions erupted from Spike's back dripping with a crimson coat of blood. Twilight had the sense to erect a shield around Spike just before the protrusions opened revealing themselves to be massive membranous wings and spattering the shield with a crimson spray. The blood seemed to boil away and Spike looked to the assorted ponies around him. Many of the townsponies had come to see the commotion but kept a reasonable distance from what was now seemingly a fast growing dragon. Spike hurt so much he couldn't see straight, but there was somepony he needed right now. Spike ignored the onlookers, taking a step toward Big Mac just as the world started to go dark. He wobbled for a moment before falling to the ground. Everypony was unmoving, except for Big Mac. He didn't hesitate to try and move the unconscious dragon. It wasn't easy, Spike was easily more than twice his size now so he could barely lift him onto his shoulders let alone carry him. "Help me get him to the hospital!" He barked to the princesses who were still in shock. They immediately snapped into action and used their combined magics to make themselves, Spike, and Big Mac vanish. Twilight teleported herself away as well right after. "What on earth is going on?" Rarity was the first to speak up what everypony had been thinking. Pinkie Pie was uncharacteristically silent, Fluttershy was trembling slightly, Rainbow was trying to figure out if this was awesome or terrible, and Applejack was confused as to exactly how close Spike and her brother were. Discord produced another bucket from thin air and sucked up all the remaining things in the pile and in the ponies possession. They all looked at him curiously, as Discord wasn't well known for cleaning up messes he hadn't caused himself. "Our dear friend Spike is going to be very hungry when he wakes up, he's a growing boy after all." Discord said before diving into the bucket himself. It then promptly exploded into pink smoke. He had presumably gone to see Spike as well. The remaining members of the mane six decided that three princesses and the living manifestation of entropy could handle Spike. They were left to crowd control and attempted to field everypony's questions even though they knew little about the situation. But they were all certain of one thing. Things were about to change.