//------------------------------// // Act 5: No // Story: A Tale of two Fillies // by Skyeheart //------------------------------// Octavia hummed a few bars as she sightread her next page. The door then burst open as Spike paraded in, a swagger in his step. "Alright Octavia, it's time to play the music!" "You certainly seem to be in a more vigorous spirit," she noted. Spike just scratched the side of his neck confidently. "Let's just say I had a bit of a second wind there, ten times." "Well then, permit me to continue after I've gotten a fresh glass of water-" Octavia had barely finished moving her lips when a little purple blur whizzed by into the kitchen and back in the blink of an eye. Spike held up the full pitcher and empty glass for her, pouring until it was at the rim. "Oh, my. You certainly weren't kidding." Octavia, slightly bemused, accepted the glass and drank deeply. Her bemusement crept up just a little when Spike blinked out and back again, now holding a napkin to wipe herself with. And this point, Octavia had a suspicion that her score would appear to be turning itself as she resumed her piece. She wasn't disappointed. Every time she paused to reach out, a flick of a purple wrist swept over the sheet and had the next part open to view. Within the next ten minutes she finally reached the coda. And the applause of a single dragon erupted heavily when she did her customary bow. "Bravo! Bravo!" Spike cheered, his claws coming together ten claps per second. "You might want to reel in your enthusiasm a little until all five of my planned pieces are played," Octavia said, half expecting a whistle to go with the enthusiastic reception. "A runner does not sprint at the starting line of a marathon." "Oh, not to worry, Octavia," Spike assured. "Like I said, I feel like I've got more energy than what to do with right now." He then raised both a foot and a finger. "Now if you'll pardon me for just one minute, and one minute exactly. I'd like to step out for a bit of fresh air before we start the next number." A passing taxi puller on the streets below could have sworn he was going the other way right before a streak of purple blew right him, spinning everything in a close proximity that wasn't nailed down into a mini-whirlwind. Rarity proudly held up Octavia's finished dress in her aura. "Oh, yes, this is wonderful! Now, where did I put that ponyquin-" She nearly yelped in surprise when Spike appeared right next to her, thunking the life-size plastic model in front of her. "Oh! Well, thank you very much Spikey! I was just about to ask you for that." "It's what I'm here for," he boasted with pride. "Yes, well. Let's move on to the next dress," Rarity said a she hung up the dress and began to trot over to her design table. "I was think we could take a look at Twilight's design ne-" *zip* Spike appeared before her with the sketching unfurled in both claws. "Oh, yes! There it is. Hmmmm...good! I know just what we need for this. Let's first get a ream of midnight blue-" *zip* Rarity blinked as Spike now stood there with a full rack of the aforementioned cloth in his arms. She looked to his grinning face, then across the room to where the fabric was stored, then back to him. "...And for the midriff we'll also need a bit of celeste-" *zip* "-a set of crystal glass horseshoes-" *zip* "-roughly two dozen silver five-pointed-star shaped sequins in varying degrees of blue and white-" *zip* "-purple thread and spool-" *zip* "-a canvas sheet-" *zip* "-pincushion-" *zip* "-scissors-" *zip* "You know you're not supposed to run with those." Spike drew back sheepishly as Rarity inspected the materials littered before her. "Well, I must say!" she said at last. "I do believe that's everything, and all under a minute too!" "Like I promised!" "What?" "Nothing!" Spike covered hastily. "So, with all of this, I do believe I will be 'in the zone' for a while. Why don't you go out and get yourself a little something in the meantime?" Rarity floated a couple bits to Spike as she began humming to herself as she snipped. "It would be my pleasure," Spike raised a foot and finger again. "I'll be back very soon," he winked. "Boy, this potion is great!" Spike said to himself as he sped out into the hallway. "I don't see what Twilight was so worried about. With this much talent enhancement, I feel like I could be an assistant to every pony in this city!" He whooshed past a maid dusting the decorative knick-knacks and pictures. But without warning, he suddenly screeched to a halt as she accidentally dropped it. "Huh? What th-" Arms outstretched, he turned on his heel and dashed right back. The maid who was bending down to pick up her dropped cleaning tool sprang back in a frightened yelp as he seized it off the ground and frantically began to cover every nook and cranny in the hall. "What do you think you're doing?!" she exclaimed. "I-I don't know! But it looks like I'm doing your dusting for you!" A clear understatement on his part, as Spike's vigorous brushing of every inch of the wall in seconds kicked up enough dust to cloud the entire hallway. The maid coughed through the ash and soot in an annoyed attitude. "Oh great, now my uniform's dirty and-AHH!" She squealed in surprise as the little dragon hosted her up by her backside and zoomed down the stairs to the laundry room in seconds. She squealed again in an even more mortified tone when he stopped inches from an open machine and stripped her outfit off in one clean yank before stuffing it in and popping a bit into the coin slot. Then he grabbed every loose garment and towel hanging around the area and in few quick flicks of his claws, had every article folded into squares within moments. "Wha-what's going on?" he cried as he sped out of the room and towards the entrance. "I didn't want to do any of that!" He stopped on the edge of the sidewalk as he burst out of the doors, barely having time to catch his breath before he noticed a fruit vendor stacking his peaches on his cart stand. Before he could even blurt out a warning his body lunged at the cart and in a flurry of arm thrusts and tossing, there was a pyramid of peaches reaching all the way to the cart's roof. The stallion gaped in shock at the tower on his cart as the dragon ran off. He tentatively poked the cornerstone of the structure, and the pile collapsed on top of him. The little dragon ran back, and in just a little while he left behind another pyramid of peaches, this time with eyes in the center. "I can't...control my body!" Spike screamed. "I can't stop helping ponies!" Blossomforth walked into her greenhouse with a watering can hanging from her mouth. Nothing like a day off to spend quality time with her lovelies! First thing was first, quenching their thirst. She was only done with the tulips and half the daisies though when her can ran dry. An inward sigh escaped her as she trotted back out. One problem that came with having designed her own greenhouse was that lacking foresight, she filled the entire building with beds and left no room for indoor plumbing. That meant she had to go back and forth between here and her apartment around a dozen times daily. Of course, being a member of the weather team had its advantages in that case, as at the end of the month if there was any surplus rain clouds in their inventory she was allowed to take them home. And if there weren't, well at least she got her exercise for the day. She hummed a little tune to herself as she refilled her can over her kitchen sink. But to her surprise, the sound of running water did not stop after she shut the faucet off. She gave the nozzle a curious tap, then, confirming her sink was indeed off, wandered toward where the noise was coming from. She nearly screamed when she stepped outside. There, holding a hose that extended all the way to the pump house for Manehattan University's outdoor fountain, was Spike. And he was shooting a full stream right into her greenhouse! "Spike! What are you doing?!! You're flooding my garden!!!" She lunged at the little drake, her eyes starting to see red. At that moment Spike turned in the direction of the shouting, and so did the hose. Blossomforth suddenly found herself flailing against the wall, pinned down by 100 psi of water pressure. When the hose finally stopped, her friend gasped at the soaking wet mare. "Oh, I'm so sorry Blossomforth! Let me get you a towellllllll I really shouldn't have said that!" And before you could say 'bad mane day', a purple blur with a white cloth had given a stupefied pegasus the latest in tornado survivor hairstyles right before he charged off out of sight again. "At last!" Honey rubbed her hooves eagerly as Trixie pushed a very large crate into the Reneighsance hall of her museum. "An authentic working Taurusi trebuchet! You don't know how many requisition forms I had to go through to get this puppy on display in here! Did you know Taurusi conceived the first counterweight system for siege weapons, so they no longer required a pony to always jump down on the lever mechanism to fire?" "Fascinating," Trixie grunted with her usual sarcasm to the historian's tangential quips. "This sort of manual labor is beneath Trixie's talents! Why must she be subjected to such menial torments?" "My usual mover's on sick leave and I just couldn't wait. I did say the museum has a dolly that's used for situations exactly like this, why didn't you use it?" Trixie sniffed. "A dolly has wheels. Trixie doesn't trust wheels." Honey looked at her, eyes half-lidded. "Your wagon has wheels." "Exactly! Do you know how many times she's had to change an axle, felloe, or tongue every time she's hit a bump in the road? If she could afford her own airship, she would!" "Or you could invest in some cart tires and an iron frame like most long distance travelers do," Honey said as she rolled her eyes. She then pulled out a crowbar from her turtleneck. "Anyways, back to the matter at hoof. This new piece will be the crowning attraction of my exhibits for weeks to come! Just one more jerk off this crate's side, and it's display time!" With one large pry, she pulled the side of the container open, and out spilled several dozen pulleys, planks, and ropes. They looked at the mess in stunned silence for some time before Trixie broke it. "Some assembly required, batteries not included." "Ha ha," Honey snarked. "Luckily, I have all of Taurusi's schematics on reference. We can put this back together easily." "Oh no no no," Trixie held a hoof and shook her head. "Trixie's pulled enough muscles for one day, her part is done here. You want a 'we'? Suggest a venture to that new frozen yogurt vendor. Until then, make due with another assistant." That was when the doors burst open to allow Spike to speed in, send Trixie flying, and dive into the pile at lightning speed. With a series of hammer, drill, and sawing noises, the dust cloud settled to reveal the fully constructed trebuchet, just in time for Trixie to land in the sling. "...woah. Gee Spike, I- are you mopping my floor?" "Heeeelp meeeeeee!!!" was Spike's response to Honey as he disappeared down the corridor, leaving a trail of water in his wake. "Call it a hunch, but Trixie suspects there's something wrong with Spike. Hmm, this is actually pretty comfortable sitting." "Don't get too comfortable. It looks like we're going to be paying Twilight a little visit today-" Honey slipped on the slick floor and into the trebuchet, her head banging against a lever that gave a sharp click. A sharp jerk from the whirring mechanism drew a bead of sweat from Trixie. "Uh oh..." A second later there was a scream and a Trixie shaped pancake laying against an 8th century mosaic mural depicting the life of the legendary Minotaur Emperor Oxenander the Great. "Well..." she muffled through the marble tiling, "we certainly know whether it really works or not now..." "So Creme Brulee, Broil Braze, and Main Dish are all out sick?" Orange Sherbet asked her manager at the hotel's restaurant. The yellow mustached earth pony nodded. "Apparently that cabbage head they had last night for their salad was contaminated." "That leaves our kitchen drastically short staffed..." she tapped her chin, "and the lunch hour rush is practically upon us." After another rub, she set her hoof down and nodded. "No way around it then. Have the waiters and busboys fill in for the less complex tasks. I'll pull a few of the cleaning staff to sub for them until peak hours end." "Yes madame, at once." As her manager went behind the silver-lined double doors, she turned to the lobby to call for the mares who handled room service. She had not taken two steps though when a resounding crash echoed from where her manager had gone. "SACRE BLEU!!" Sherbet raced back into the employee only area to find dishes and food flying everywhere. "What in Equestria-" A shooting hayburger quickly replaced the words in her mouth. She looked to her frantic cooks, huddled at one end of the baking station, who all pointed in the other direction at the little dragon whose arms were moving across the stove and grill so fast it looked like he had eight. "I was just taking out the trash, and he barged in without any warning!" one of them said. "He grabbed the entire order list and now he's throwing them all at us like they were dodgeballs!" Sherbet spat out her impromptu meal to address her little friend. "Spike! Dearie, what are you trying to-" A eggplant casserole missile silenced her. "Sorry Auntie!" Spike shouted over the din of clanging spatulas and ladles. "I just heard the words 'short-staffed' a block away and my body just acted on its own!" "But how-" Her gut instinct got her to duck that time, but not quite fast enough. She looked back up sporting a lovely new hairdo of linguini alfredo. As for Spike, he suddenly jumped off the stool that kept him at the stove's level and started to speed off again. "Uh oh, guess that was the last order! Auntie! Get Twilight! Ask her how to turn off the potionnnnnnnnnn!!!" A stallion rushed in with some leaflets in hoof. "We got another five orders for-" He stopped, then looked at the huge stack of prepared dishes around all the ponies in the kitchen, and some on them. "Huh, wasn't aware our kitchens served fast food." Octavia stretched her legs for the third time today. It had been forty minutes since Spike had stepped out, the longest break he had taken yet, and she was starting to get concerned. His behavior had been a little strange when he first arrived this morning, but she had paid it no mind at first considering his young nature. Now, however, she was starting to suspect that there was something that was affecting him that he was trying to keep from her knowledge, and thus why for some reason he kept getting up and leaving for trivial matters. "Put me down already!" Octavia blinked and stuck her head out of her window. The sight below surprised her, as it was the little dragon in question, hefting at least three grizzled old mares by their backs over his head and jogging across the intersection below. "You've been carrying us for ten blocks already! I don't need to cross anymore streets!!" Now Octavia knew Spike had been hiding something from her. Dropping all sense of decorum, she galloped out of her studio and down to the first floor as quick as she could. By the time she was out of the apartment building, she found Spike at a road work site, jack-hammering the pavement with one claw, his other scooping hot tarmac from a mixer, and his tail smoothing it out with a trowel. "Spike/Spikey, what are you doing?" She blinked at the echo in her words, and looked to her side to see Rarity her nonplussed expression mirroring hers. Spike looked up from the lap of the peeved mother, whose baby he was now bottlefeeding. Oh no no no no no no NO! "Ladies...I can explain everythIIIIIIIING!!" He was off like a shot the minute the baby burped. A frizzy and disgruntled Blossomforth marched up the marble steps to the Manehatten public library. To her surprise, she found a bruised Honey, a plaster-caked Trixie, and a noodle-wigged Orange Sherbet at the doors ready to knock as well. "...Spike helped?" she ventured. "Spike helped," they all answered in a low tone. "It seems when it rains, it pours," Octavia said as she came up from behind along with Rarity. "Goodness gracious! You all went out in public looking like that?!" the white unicorn nearly shrieked. "Well! Lucky thing I always carry an emergency kit for last minute touch ups!" As she winked a makeup box into existence and went to work fixing the the others up to look 'presentable', Octavia went ahead to talk with Twilight. "Twilight Sparkle?" she called out as she crossed the foyer. "Twilight? Are you here?" She ascended to the second level to find Twilight hunched down over her desk, a wall of notes, books and graphs magically encircling her as she scribbled down intensively. "Twilight? Twilight!" When Octavia found that her friend's ear hadn't even twitched from her name being called out, she tapped her chin. Looking to her side, she grinned and gave a small clinking jostle to an inkwell on the cabinet next to her. "Agh!" Every loose-leaf spilled to floor as Twilight's trance was broken. "Pardon," Octavia said. "But I think this was a nicer way of getting your attention as opposed to clipping another library book page." "That's okay, now would probably be a time Spike insists I take a break anyways," Twilight replied. She left her spot at her desk and cantered over to straighten out the inkwell that was tipped. "Say, shouldn't you be with him right now? Practicing your new cello number?" "That seems to be where the plan did not survive the enemy," Octavia started to explain. "Your assistant Spike has, how should I put it?" "He's gone nuttier than a maple cashew fruitcake!" Trixie joined the pair, followed by Honey, Blossomforth, Orange Sherbet, and Rarity in that order. "What Trixie means," Honey clarified, "is that your assistant for some reason or another has gone on an assisting spree with alarming results. It's turning out to be more harmful than helpful at the level he's doing it. It's like somepony flipped a turbo switch on him and he can't turn it off." "What?! How is he doing that? Why is he doing this? And why are you all wearing eyeliner? It looks nice, by the way." "Oh, you like it? Rarity said the purple highlights really went well with my hair color-" Sherbet interrupted Blossomforth's latest tangent. "To be honest, we were hoping you'd have a clue, especially since he mentioned you had the most knowledge about his predicament." "Me? But I haven't the faintest idea what's happened to him! I've been in here all weekend working on my thesis for my recently finished talent enhancer potion and getting ready to test it-" Her eyes drew to beaker rack on her table, and widened when she saw it was empty. "What? No, no. Where is it? Where is it?!" She zipped to every chest and drawer, opening them up violently and flinging the contents out every which way in semi-automatic rounds. "Where is it?! WHERE IS IT?! WHERE IS IT?!?!" A good tailwind blew through the other ponies as a lavender blur zoomed downstairs and into the basement, preluding a series of crashing and shattering noises and even a little bit of shaking, all supplemented by a constant 'NONONONONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!'. In a flash of a teleport, Twilight reappeared in front of the group, her front hooves pulling at her mane. "IT'S GONE! IT'S ALL GONE!!!" She flailed, and waved, and even shook the occasional neighbor frantically as she freaked out. "OVER TEN YEARS OF RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTS...WASTED!!! I'LL HAVE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN! I'LL HAVE TO CANCEL MY DISSERTATION SPEECH AT CANTERLOT UNIVERSITY! I'LL-" Trixie choose that moment to give Twilight a good slap in the face. "Ow!" Twilight rubbed her cheek. "We already have one freak out on the loose right now, we don't need another! Now crazy dragon assistant first, missing homework later! What was the last thing you remember doing with him?" Twilight pondered, but not before shooting a glance at Trixie out of the corner of her eye. "The last thing I can think of is when he was cleaning up my lab after I put the finishing touches on my potion..." She trailed off, her expression evolving into a face of realization, shock, pure rage, then aggravated exasperation. "Okay girls," she slowly started, "I think I know exactly what's happened..." "So he chugged down your super juice and now is on an unstoppable do what he does best spree?" Blossomforth surmised after Twilight's lengthy explanation. "It all fits, in theory," Twilight said. "That's great and all, but how do we go about stopping him? You got an anti-super-talent drink, right?" Honey asked. "No!" Twilight smacked her hoof against a desk. "It's not a disease, there's no cure or anything! All we can do is wait for the effects to wear off!" "This is probably not going to be the answer I want to hear, but how long will that take?" Honey asked again. "I don't know!" Twilight threw her hooves into the air. "That's the whole point of an experiment! To find out what you don't know! This potion could wear off in a day, a week, even a year from now for all I can guess!!" A resounding crash shook them all, and Blossomforth flew up to the window to peek out. "I'm not sure Manehattan can stand as much as an hour more of this," she noted as from the wreckage of several food carts nearby a swarm of carrot dogs flew through the air an into the mouths of gaping bystanders. "Okay, so Trixie thinks the plan is clear. We catch Spike before he helps this city into oblivion. The problem? He's a protein shake injected jalapeño coffee bean in a spring factory. And even if we can catch up, we can't so much get within two steps of him before he 'helps' us. So anypony have an idea how to get past that?" Everypony sat and rubbed their chins. After a while, Octavia was the first to stop and smiled. "By helping us to help him." A hydrant across the street burst as Spike twisted a monkey wrench too tightly around the lug nut of a leaky pipe, sending nearby pedestrians screaming for cover. "Oh, no. I'm heading to the umbrella store next, aren't I?" Spike asked his jittering, jogging legs. "Ugh, work, dang it!" The words crossed his ears in but a millisecond and he was turned about, dashing towards the source. Oh, great. Who am I 'helping' now? OH NO, NOT TRIXIE AGAIN! There in the center of the street was the showmare, trying to set up a box of some kind that kept falling apart. Seeing Spike coming, she quickly jumped aside as the pieces were engulfed in a whirlwind of work. "He took the bait, bring in phase two!" Rarity walked by with a strange article of clothing. "Oh, frazzles! I just can't seem to get this jacket right! If only my model was here to try it on I could see what is wrong!" With hammer and nail spinning in the air, Spike left the newly completed contraption and leapt right into the garment Rarity held. With a whirring blur that could be seen in a crazy and violent marsupial, his body fumbled with the jacket until it suddenly stopped with a jerk, and fell to the ground, completely bound by all limbs. "Oh, there's the problem," Rarity sang in a playful tune. "It's a straitjacket!" Spike, still squirming nonstop involuntarily, then found himself lifted up by Trixie's aura and then hovering over the top of the open hatch. "A thousand and one thank yous Spike, for helping Trixie put together her latest escape art trick," she said with a smirk. "The one hundred lock box!" Before anything else could be said and done, Spike was instantly plunged into the tiny prison, and all the mares were gathered around all sides, snapping and clicking every lock into place. They held fast against the box for at least half an hour as it started to rock and bang violently. But surely and slowly, the shaking slowed, and when it finally stopped everypony leaned back against the box with a sigh of relief. "I guess it finally wore off..." Twilight said. "About time," Honey breathed. "So he's back to normal right?" "Either that or..." Sherbet pressed an ear against the box, then looked up at her friend. "Trixie, this box of yours does have air holes, right?"