Sour Dreams

by PieDisliker

Intro to Nightmares

Night One:

Spike was assisting Twilight’s research on the effects of magic on trees in their library. Twilight asked for him to retrieve a few books that were relevant to her research, one on trees, another on plants, and two that involved the proper precautions when dealing with using magic on living things. With his knowledge of what Twilight had worked on previously, he knew exactly which books she would need..

Spike grabbed one from the shelf, and used the ladder to retrieve the other three before Twilight could ask him for anything else. Twilight’s eyes widened a little when she noticed that Spike was already finished.

“Woah there,” Twilight proclaimed. “Seems that my number one assistant finished pretty quickly. You’ve been doing a great job, Spike.”

“Well I’ve been working with you for quite a while,” Spike bragged. “I’ve gotten pretty skilled at knowing which books to look for.”

“Not just that,” explained Twilight. “You’ve gotten taller, as well.”

She was right, Spike normally would have needed a ladder to retrieve all of the books, but he was able to reach to the third shelf from the bottom without a ladder, which enabled him to grab the book about trees easily.

Spike looked back at the bookcase behind him and smiled, leaning on it proudly. “Heh, I guess I have. I’m growing stronger and taller each day, so it’s about time I get some more use out of it.”

He looked toward his left arm, and even though he didn’t see any change in his muscles, he would never admit to that. He looked back at Twilight and gasped, something seemed different about her.

“Hey Twilight, did you get some sort of shrinking side effect from one of your spells? It’s worrying me a bit. And I don’t remember that ceiling being so low, is there something wrong with it?”

“No, Spike! I’m not getting smaller, you’re getting bigger!”

“What are you ta- Oh my gosh! Am I changing into that greedy dragon again? Protect Rarity from me, I can’t imagine what could happen to her!”

Twilight turned around to look for a spell in one of her books as she said, “No! You still look like yourself, you’re just increasing in size! I’ve got to find some sort of spell to rev-”

Before she could finish her sentence, she heard a loud crash and Spike’s head went up through the ceiling, still expanding rapidly along with the rest of his body.

“Twilight! Get out of there and use anything that can help me out! I’m scared of what might happen… and now my scales are becoming soft? What gives?”

He looked at his scales along his outer body, and they looked… rubbery?

“My arms feel so weak. Why can’t I move them?”

“Heheeheeheee,” a familiar and friendly voice laughed.

“Who’s there? Go get somepony to help me out! Wait, is that you, Pinkie?”

“This giant balloon will sure make the party more lively,” exclaimed Pinkie Pie.

“Balloon? Oh no, please stop it! Pinkie, why are you doing this?”

Spike suddenly realized what Pinkie was doing. She was pushing on a pump to make Spike expand! He quickly lost all control of his body, as he started to become more and more round. The scales on his body were non-existent and he was now starting to leave the ground.

‘Oh no,’ Spike thought. ‘She’s not stopping. I don’t know how much more I can take this! When balloons get too big they-’

Spike the balloon popped.

~ ~ ~

Day One:

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” Spike opened his eyes to daylight streaming into the library’s bedroom. It had all been just a dream, but he didn’t think he was going to forget it any time soon.

“What’s going on? Is something wrong? Did you hurt yourself?” Twilight asked.

Spike took a deep breath and waited for a second to collect his thoughts. “No, I just… had this crazy nightmare. That’s all.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief. I don’t know how I could continue my studies on time without my number one assistant. Are you feeling alright, Spike?” Twilight was still eyeing Spike with a worried frown; she knew how terrifying nightmares could be.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s no big deal. So… what are our plans for today?”

Spike wasn’t exactly fine, but he wasn’t just about to admit that he was afraid of a dream. Besides, he didn’t get nightmares often. Most of his dreams were wonderful and imaginative, and he looked forward to a good night’s rest. He wasn’t that worried.

“Well then,” Twilight spoke, “Today we’re going to visit Fluttershy. I wanted to try this water spell out.”

Spike shrugged and packed a couple of books into a sack and ran off, excited to get out and help Twilight, even though he didn’t quite know what this water spell was.

Twilight giggled and shouted after him, “Hold up Spike! Wait for me!”

* * *

They met over by Fluttershy’s cottage. The animals were all happy and cheerful as usual. Fluttershy was waiting by the river.

“Hey, Fluttershy!” Twilight yelled from a distance.

“Oh, thanks so much for coming,” said Fluttershy in her selfless tone. “I just hope that I’m not being much of a hassle.”

“Nonsense, this is going to be great!” Twilight replied.

“Hold up now, what are we doing here?” Spike brought up.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Fluttershy asked. “Well, I’ve been taking care of animals on land and in the air so well, and I just felt sorry for those poor little creatures underwater.”

“Fluttershy told me about her situation,” Twilight continued. “So I looked up a spell for breathing underwater and communicating with fish. If I could give Rarity wings, then surely I can give Fluttershy gills.”

“Well this should be interesting,” Spike commented.

“Let’s get started,” said Twilight, opening up a book with multiple types of fish on the cover. It was pretty thick, but after a minute or so she found the spell she wanted. “Are you ready, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy exhaled and responded to Twilight with a slight amount of confidence. “Yes.”

Twilight nodded and began to focus. Steam flowed around Fluttershy as Twilight’s horn started to be enveloped by a magical glow, with a changing from pink to light blue brightness as Twilight concentrated. The steam completely blocked Fluttershy from sight during the transformation. Eventually, the steam started to disappear, and Fluttershy was left standing just as she was earlier. She appeared basically the same, aside from gill slits along her body that were mostly covered by her wings.

“Well,” Twilight spoke. “How do you feel?”

Fluttershy was about to speak, but realized she had trouble breathing. She dashed over to the river, and frantically immersed herself . Fluttershy tried speaking, but she was interrupted by Twilight.

“I’m sorry Fluttershy, I forgot to mention that the gills would replace your lungs. Don’t bother trying to speak; you won’t be able to without them.”

Fluttershy nodded and then pointed back to her cottage, still seeming concerned.

Twilight realized what Fluttershy meant. “Oh, don’t you worry, we’ll take great care of your animal friends! And we’ll be waiting for you to get done!” Fluttershy nodded once again, and headed underwater. Twilight waved while watching her.

Spike waved as well and said, “Be sure to tell us all about it after you finish!”

“Spike,” Twilight spoke. “I need you to take a few notes for me while I continue the studies on this river to make sure everything’s under control.”

Spiked sighed and agreed. This was probably going to be very boring, but at least he would get to hear about what Fluttershy experienced.

* * *

It was sundown when Fluttershy finally came up. She was greeted by Twilight and Spike, and transformed back so that she could greet her other animal friends as she told Twilight and Spike about how great it was underwater. There were types of fish that she never even heard of under there! Although she may not be able to get as close to them as she could before, she promised she would visit them again soon and at least give them a friendly gesture.

Twilight and Spike headed back home to get some shut eye. After their busy day today, Spike had completely forgotten about his nightmare last night. They cleaned up a little and went to bed, getting ready for another exciting day in Ponyville.

Author's Note:

Welcome to my first fanfic. Unfortunately since this because of the fact that having one nightmare isn't weird, this chapter was mostly filler. Also, most of the chapters should end up being longer than this one. I've gotten more confident when I've been writing further chapters and the story should be much more interesting after this.

Also huge props to DoomManta for his magical editing skills, he really fixed this up.