> Spike and Rainbow Dash
>  by winzaur
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It was a bright sunny day in everypony’s favourite town of Ponyville. The birds were chirping, the grass was growing, and all of the ponies were going about their business as they always were. One creature in particular was extra excited about today and he was running around the library fretting over every little detail more so then the town’s resident librarian and newly crowned princess of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle. 

“Spike, don’t you think you’ve smoothed your scales enough? I’m starting to choke on the fumes that spray is giving off.” Twilight said, giggling as her number one assistant bolted around the library. 

“I can’t help it Twi,” He said, as he arranged his bowtie for the hundredth time. “Today’s the day I’m going to tell Rarity I love her!” 

“Spike, gassing Owlicious and I isn’t going to win you any points with Rarity. I’m sure if you just go over there and be yourself you’ll get an answer.” Twilight said with a sad look on her face. Everyone in Ponyville knew about Spike’s crush on Rarity and no one ever said anything, everyone knew what the answer was going to be. 

“But, but…” 

“No buts mister now as much as I love the fact that you've triple checked that list I’m going to have to kick you out while I find someone in town who can supply enough air fresheners to fix this smell.” Twilight said while pushing Spike out the door, as it closed with a loud SMACK. 

‘Well now what am I going to do?’ he thought, pacing back and forth in front of the library. He continued pacing back and forth making a trench that kept getting deeper and deeper until someone shouted at the top of their lungs.

“INCOMING!” 

What happened next can only be described in one word. Boom. A large crater had formed around Spike who was sprawled out in a comically stereotypical pose at the epicenter. Slowly a cyan pegasus crawled towards Spike who continued to lie unmoving in the center of the crater. 

“Spike…Spike can you hear me?” She said shaking his body. “Oh man Twi’s gonna kill me.” Slowly Spike began to stir, his eyes fluttered open. 

“Rainbow…tell my blanky… to strangle you in your sleep” He said trying his very best to hold back his laughter.

“Oh hah ha very funny Spike and here I was worried about you for a second,” Rainbow said as she burst out laughing. Spike, unable to contain his laughter anymore joined in and for a solid 5 minutes the pair were doubled over laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. 

"Ok I needed that," Spike said clutching his sides as he tried to regain something of his composure. “Anyways what’s up Rainbow? I mean it used to be you but me and the ground here can’t really say that anymore.” Due to the fact that he was still laughing from before and now doubled from his own incredibly witty joke, Spike fell over once again rolling back into the center of the crater. A couple of the other residents of the town looked over and saw one of the Elements of Harmony and a purple and green baby dragon laughing like maniacs in the middle of a crater in front of the most famous building in Ponyville, looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and continued on their way. It was a standard day in Ponyville to be sure. 

“Well I was practicing this super great extremely radical awesome trick for the best young flyer competition that’s coming up, and it just so happened that the ground got in the way!” Rainbow said glaring at that infuriating brown stuff that so many earth ponies, unicorns and Fluttershys’ found so incredibly interesting. 

“Oh yeah, when is that?” Spike said, a scheme coming up in his head, ‘I can take Rarity to see this!’ He thought, forgetting her past experience with the competition. “Thanks Dash, you’ve given me a great idea!” and with that he sped off leaving dash in a small cloud of dirt and small floating pink hearts. 

“Don’t mention it!” She said getting ready to try her trick all over again. ‘This time I’m going to add a corkscrew, corkscrews are awesome.’ Just as she was about to take off a very scared yet very determined princess of Equestia leapt out of the doorway poised for battle.

“You’ll never take me alive zombie ponies!” She cried wearing her full battle regalia consisting of a pot placed on her head that somehow fell around her horn and covered her eyes. Rainbow sighed and said,

“It’s going to be a long day.” 

Spike continued in his mad dash around Ponyville trying to find somewhere that he might acquire tickets to the competition when after running into a particularly grumpy donkey who uttered a mighty “DEAR CELESTIA MY BUNIONS” came upon an idea. 

“I’ll ask mom!” He then pulled out a piece of paper, quill and ink pot from the magical pockets that he discovered on himself after he had been hatched. 

Dear Mom,
Would it be ok if I took one of my friends to see the best young flyer competition? Please! If answer is yes please send some tickets as Twilight believes that the best allowance I can have is knowledge in the form of multiple choice tests. If no please send some tickets so I can destroy them.
Love 
Spike

He quickly incinerated the letter and watched as the enchanted ashes travelled upwards and towards Canterlot. ‘That should do the trick’ he thought to himself, ‘now all I have to do is wait for a reply.’ And so he sat. 

And waited

And waited

Till finally he burped up a scroll what seemed like ages later. It said

Dear Spike,
It was so good to hear from you 10 minutes ago! I hope you’ve been keeping well and making sure that you brush your scales (especially behind your fins young drake!). While I am most pleased to hear that Twilight has been taking such a keen interest in your education, I must say that her expectations are… interesting. I will send a letter to her letting her know what allowance means to young dragons like yourself. 
Miss you lots and lots
Mum 
P.S Oh and here are two tickets to the competition, give Twilight my best!

Spike’s cheer was so loud that it was said to have been louder than the great cheer of the previous year when Fluttershy’s cheer was so loud that it is said to have caused every creature to bow down and praise her cuteness. He then sprinted over to Rarity’s with tickets in hand not paying attention to whom or what was in his way. When he finally reached the boutique he began to mentally prepare himself on what he should say. “Okay Spike, this is it baby, when you knock you are gonna blow her away with your pure smoothness and machoness. That’s totally a word. Go get her tiger.” He confidently knocked on the door and heard his favourite,

“Cominnng” His eyes became filled with pink hearts again.  “Oh Spike darling, what a pleasant surprise to see you here.” Rarity said quite confused to why the dragon was floating without wings. “I don’t really have anything for you to work on but please do come in for some tea.”

“Rarity I have these two great tickets and you’re a great girl, come with me on my magic carpet” Spike intended to say. What really came out was “You’re pretttttttttty.” 

“Right…Spike are you alright dear, you seem to be quite delusional, you haven’t been hanging around with Pinkie and Discord have you?” Rarity said getting quite concerned now.   

“WouldYouLikeToGoWithMeToCompetition” Spike said extremely quickly hoping to get it out before he made more of a fool of himself. 

“Once more darling, I didn’t quite catch that.” 

“Would you like to go to the young flyers competition” Spike said trying very hard not to curl up into a little ball and shrivel out of existence. 

“Of course I would Spike you’re such a great friend asking me to go! Who else is coming?” Slowly all of Spike’s dreams crumbled away leaving nothing but dust and ruin much like the front of the library from the morning.  

“Oh um, all of us I guess,” he said trying very hard to not let his words betray his sadness. 

“Perfect! Ooh I’ll have to make something to wear for this event! Thanks Spikey-Wikey for inviting me!” Rarity said closing the door and humming as she went about preparing for the competition. 

Poor Spike began his long walk home. When he got there, he was very confused to see Twilight blasting beams of purple light all over the place as Rainbow was ducking behind trees and rocks and sometimes other ponies in an attempt to calm her down. “Spike you have to stop her! She thinks I’m a zombie pony!” 

“Twilight the books are out of order and the library is unattended” He said with a bemused expression, his previous encounter temporarily forgotten. Twilight however immediately stopped moving. Her left eye started twitching.

“Unattended…?” With a blinding purple flash she was gone inside the library. “LIES” she shouted from the inside, “All the books were in order. Rainbow stop hiding behind Spike!” Twilight appeared a little calmer if only due to the fact that no deadly lasers were being hurled. “Why is there a giant crater in front of my tree with a Spike shaped impression in the middle! Why is Rainbow covered in leaves and what appears to be tree sap. And for the love of me why is there a pot on my head!”

“Well you see Twi…”


	
> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“So I was just doing this crazy new stunt I developed for the best young flyers competition when Spike and the ground here decided to gang up on me.” 

“And I was just pacing here deciding how to ask Rarity out when…” Spike got quiet, finally remembering what happened before this whole mess. “Oh, Rarity” His face instantly fell as he sat down in a little ball. Now while Twilight was and is an extremely awkward individual, when her little brother was sad she could pick up on it instantly. Keep in mind that she didn’t really know what to do, but it’s the thought that counts right?

“Oh Spike, come inside. Rainbow I guess if Spike doesn’t mind you can come to.” As Rainbow had just been standing there awkwardly pawing the ground. 

“I don’t mind, I could use the company I guess…” 

“Perfect, let’s head inside.” Twilight said, leading the way into the comfort of the library. Her head was still trying to puzzle out what exactly could be bothering the little drake, he was usually so cheerful after seeing Rarity.  “So Spike what happened over there? I pushed you out of the library and then the next thing I can see is a giant crater in front of the house.”

“Yeah that one was kinda my fault…” Rainbow said sheepishly, rubbing a hoof behind her head. “Like I was saying earlier, I was working on a new stunt for the competition when I kinda-sorta-maybe crashed into Spike and the ground while approaching the speed of light.” Twilight stared at Rainbow and Spike for a few seconds.

“How are you two alive?” 

“Not important, anyways, Spike heard about the flyers competition from me and I guess wanted to take Rarity to it. He can probably fill you in on the rest of it since I spent the last part of my day dodging zombie killing lasers.” Rainbow said with a snort glaring at Twilight who attempted to look at anything else that wasn't cyan and rainbow like in nature. “Well Spike. Spill,” 

“She wants to go as friends.” Both mares looked at the dragon in confusion. “As FRIENDS guys, not as drakefriend and marefriend but just as plain old regular friends.” Twilight still looked very confused by Rainbow seemed to catch on a little quicker. 

“Ohhhh” She said, looking at Spike sympathetically. “She friendzoned you. Rough luck Spike.” 

Twilight of course, had no idea what that meant. “So she just wants to go as friends, isn’t that normal? I mean, did you ask her to go in a different way?”

Spike was naturally a little flustered by this, “Of course I did! I asked her if she wanted to go to the competition with me and she said sure! I couldn’t have made it clearer.”

“So that’s a no on the whole asking her specifically thing.” Twilight said, “You assume she’s a mind reader then? What have you done to get her to go out with you besides being nice to her. You got to earn it Spike!” 

“Hey yeah that’s a great idea Twi,” Rainbow said, “Spike, I’ll train you to help your game with the ladies and I can totally get you to help me with my stunts namely telling me when I need to pull up and stupid technical stuff like ‘Rainbow there’s a building in front of you’ it’ll be totally great!” 

“You’d do that Rainbow?” Spike said with some hope in his eyes, “That’ll be great, with you as my wingpony I can get all the mares!” Twilight was not very happy about this. 

“The only thing you’re getting right now mister is a broom and a shovel. You’re going to fill in this hole you made.” Twilight said. Rainbow was trying to make her escape at the same time when Twilight lit up her horn and pulled Rainbow back into the tree and said “That goes for you too missy. This crater comes from your disregard for physics as well as his.” 

“Awwww Twilight do we have to?” They both said in unison trying to make puppy dog eyes at Twilight to little success. How Twilight managed to defeat the combined cuteness of a puppy dog Rainbow Dash and a puppy dog Spike is still a mystery. But by the end of the struggle with the shovel and broom, the crater was filled and Spike had a new ally in his quest for the ultimate goal of all males.  To escape the friendzone. 

Before that came dinner though, and since Rainbow didn’t have time to order hay fries for herself, she ended up ordering hay fries with Twilight and Spike. Twilight had of course attempted to make some food while Spike and Rainbow were filling in the hole but somehow managed to set water on fire. This led to the quick and speedy delivery of hay fries to the treehouse, being a princess also helped in that regard. Twilight was still a little puzzled by this whole friendzone thing and decided the most logical way to figure it out, was to open a book. She then kicked Rainbow and Spike out of the living area so that she could read in peace.  “What do you wanna do now?” Spike said, looking around to see if there was anything they could do while Twilight went full bookworm on them. 

“Duh,” Rainbow said, “We begin your training young grasshopper. First you must snatch the bit from my hoof.” She maintained a straight face for all of 2 minutes before bursting out into laughter. Spike of course was a little let down by this as he was fully ready to snatch any bit from anyone’s hoof but decided it wasn’t a good idea to bother Rainbow especially since she was now his mentor in the fine art of mares. “Seriously though Spike, first we start with the basics. What do you like to do?” 

“Well, I like to clean, and cook, and read, and write letters to my mom, and…” 

“Woah woah woah, stop right there bub, you can’t win mares’ hearts like that! You gotta show some backbone, some pizazz. A wow factor! Mares like adventure and daring and awesomeness. You gotta toughen up, maybe do some radical stunts to get her attention.” Rainbow said, completely caught up in her rant. “Now show me your best tough guy face.” 

“Grar?” 

“Tougher!”

“Grarrrr…?” 

“TOUGHER!”

Spike took a massively deep breath. “grarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”, needless to say Rainbow was not that impressed but the little guy was probably tired and being rammed into the ground at a fair fraction of the speed of light is nobody’s picnic so she decided to give him a break. 

“Not bad Spike, but you need to be as awesome as this to get with all the mares. I’ll meet up with you bright and early at noonish tomorrow to work on our stuff. K? I’m out. See ya round Spike!” And with that Rainbow took off in a streak towards her giant floating cloud house. 

“Wait… isn’t noonish kinda late to be bright and early…?” Spike shrugged his shoulders and went upstairs to his basket to try and get some sleep. ‘Got a big day tomorrow, better be ready for it’ he thought to himself. Tomorrow was a new day and his training with Rainbow would begin. Who knows, it might even be fun.
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	This was it, the first day of Spike’s training. He felt as if every moment of his existence had been building up to this point. Every part of him was exhilarated and ready to go. The only problem was that it was 4:56 in the morning and he hadn’t fallen asleep yet.  He tried pacing, he tried a glass of warm milk, a bowl of rubies and sapphires, but nothing seemed to work in putting him to sleep. He looked back at the clock, 4:58. How was he supposed to have any energy tomorrow when Rainbow put him through her death defying training. He was supposed to meet her in 7 hours! There was no way he’d be rested enough for that. Spike had to think quickly, racing downstairs as fast as he could, he came across a strange drink that he saw Twilight drink when she was doing her late night study bonanzas. Plastered on the tin in big red letters was the warning DO NOT GIVE TO PINKIE PIE. ‘This could be interesting’ thought Spike, ‘I wonder what this stuff does’. 

3 hours later

Twilight woke up at 8 am sharp every day and today was no different. She got up, went to the bathroom to brush her mane and teeth and was about to jump in the shower when she heard a noise. She slowly raised her head up and saw Spike staring at her from the top of the shower curtain. “HiThereTwilightIFoundThisSuperFunDrinkThatYouHad” he said, at this point Twilight decided that she had had enough of today and slowly walked back towards her bed. She crept back under the covers and closed her eyes. Unfortunately the busy body in Twilight would not allow this to happen for very long, she opened her eyes and there she found that sitting on top her, was Spike. 

“THIS DRINK IS AMAZING! I FEEL LIKE I CAN TAKE ON THE WORLDDDDDDD” Spike shouted as he ran across the room, jumping over bookshelves, baskets and really anything that happened to be in his path. As he reached his tenth circuit of the room, Twilight, finally awake enough to do something, summoned her magic and stopped him from completely destroying the room. Of course this only meant that Spike stopped moving forward and was in fact, simply running in mid-air.  

“Spike, calm down.” Twilight said, trying her very best to contain the small dragon who was, for the first time in his life, experiencing a caffeine high. “Now I’m going to put you down in the closet for a couple hours ok? No breaking through the walls or anything.” After shoving the dragon in the small cupboard that she used as a closet and waiting several hours, Twilight finally had a solution to deal with the overly energetic dragon. Make Rainbow deal with. It was almost noon and Twilight needed some peace and quiet. She loved the dragon dearly but sometimes it was a little much being a princess and the head librarian of an extremely busy library. Maybe the extremely busy library was a stretch but she used it quite thoroughly and it required her constant care and attention. So after liberating Spike from the closet she managed to levitate him to the ground outside the door, shutting it quickly so as to prevent him from returning. 

Ponies in Ponyville were in for a treat today. One hyper active pink party pony was enough, now there was a dragon on one of the most dangerous substances in Equestria. 

Coffee.

Spike on the other hand, was having the time of his life. He felt as if he was faster, stronger and more agile then before. He also felt that the world was moving in slow motion and that he had to find a spirit walrus to guide him on his quest to find the lost key of power. But that was probably just a feeling he was having. No, Spike was on top of the world and was on a quest to find Rainbow Dash to learn the ancient art of mares. If only he could find her. She was usually asleep on a cloud, usually shaped into something as flashy as she was. In this case, Spike found a giant swordfish in the sky and at the top of his lungs shouted, 

“Rainbow!” This of course caused the mare in question to panic, fall off of the cloud, break out into the legendary art of fight flying and land gracefully with a well-timed,

“Sup” 

“You said to be here by noon and here I am,” Spike said with  a big smile on his face. If there’s one thing that Twilight taught him, always be on time. 

"Yeah yeah, don’t worry about it. Anyways we’re gonna start with me. I need the sun to be able to do the super awesome tricks that we’ll win me that competition. So here’s the plan, Spike, you stay here and time me during the routine. I’ll do the routine and you can tell me how awesome it was. Ok?” Rainbow said with a smile. “Also you know, make sure me and the ground have a healthy distance between each other.” 

“You got it boss!” Spike said, getting himself ready for the show. Rainbow launched herself into the air with a flourish, gaining altitude rapidly. When she judged that she had reached the appropriate height, she said, 

“Ready or not here I go!” And with that she began the routine. Whipping round and round, corkscrews and loops, death defying drops and perfectly shaped parabolas, Rainbow did stunt after stunt as Spike watched in awe from the ground. He occasionally shouted a warning or cheered after a particularly great feat but for the most part just watched in awe.  At one point Rainbow stopped dead in the middle of the sky in preparation for her last trick. Spike gazed in wonder as he took in every detail, the sunlight hitting her rainbow coloured mane, the look of intensity and pure bliss that took up her face as she prepared for the grand finale. He was so distracted, that he almost missed it. As Rainbow began her dive, Spike was shaken out of his stupor and did some quick mental calculations in his head. ‘She’s not going to make the pull out’ he thought, his face growing more and more worried. As Rainbow rocketed towards him he made one extremely quick decision. He jumped.
Rainbow was completely lost in the dive when she saw the ground approaching. She knew that she wouldn’t have enough time to pull out and braced herself when suddenly, she felt an impact in her side. Throwing up her hooves to protect her head, Rainbow and the object tumbled in the air until they both collided into a tree. The tree was cut in half, however, Rainbow was slowed enough that she hit the ground at a safe enough speed to survive. 

Within a couple minutes, ponies from the town came to investigate all the commotion. Several trees had been knocked over, and there was a large gash in the ground when Rainbow had impacted. When they got there, they saw a peculiar sight. Rainbow and Spike were both clutching each other and curled into a small little ball. At first the crowd thought they were injured as they were both shaking so much. Then, as they got closer, they saw and heard, laughter. Grumbling to themselves, the towns ponies went back to their homes complaining about how they had to live in this strange town. 

“That…Was….AWESOME!” Rainbow said, picking Spike up and spinning him around. “Did you see that dive, oh man and your save was all like whoosh and then pow into those trees. Man Spike, you are awesome.” Rainbow continued to rant about the stunt and how Spike had saved the day even though she totally had it covered. Spike just nodded to himself all the while feeling very proud to have saved the day, “If Rarity had seen that Spike, ooo you would be running through the town like a mad dragon.” 

“Yeah… hey Rainbow can we go sit down somewhere… I think I’m going to be sick with all this crashing and making craters.” Spike said, starting to become more green and less purple. 

“Good idea Spike, lets hit SugarCube Corner, Pinkie has got to hear this.” 

> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When Spike and Rainbow got to SugarCube Corner, Spike was about ready to explode. He had spent the entire way riding on Rainbow’s back, and though it was a lot more comfy then he expected, Spike was ready to sit down.

As they walked inside the restaurant-café-den-of-the-sugar-god, Rainbow could tell something was amiss. It was quiet, too quiet. 

“SURPRISE” Came the customary Pinkie Pie greeting, firing off her party cannon, “You guys are the 746 and 747 customers today! You get a free mini celebration!” 

Spike and Rainbow stood still for a second while Pinkie’s unflinching smile pressed against their faces. “It’s great Pinkie,” Spike said, looking around a little nervously, “We were just looking for a quick snack after lowering the ground level today.” Rainbow laughed sheepishly as Spike then went on to explain the day’s events. Pinkie listened intently during Spike’s recounting and then jumped up into the air, hovered there for a few seconds, and said,

“That sounds so super-duper fun! You know what this calls for right??” She started hopping around the corner, making a mental checklist of all the things she’d need. “A PARTAYYYYYYYYYY”

“Or… we can get some food first?” Spike said, hopeful for Pinkie’s famous gem cupcake, the tastiest delectable treat in all the land. Legend has it, that Pinkie gained her deity status by seducing an elder dragon with the cupcake, then, as it was leaning in for a kiss, she stole all of its magical powers. The magic she gained allows her to exist in a multitemporal plane of existence giving her the power to travel at the speed of light. 

“Well of course Spikey! Anything for you and your daaaaaateeeeeee,” Pinkie said with a giggle ignoring the now extreme blushes coming from both Rainbow and Spike. Spike less so due to his desire for the magical cupcake, but Rainbow’s blush was something to behold. Almost as bright as the red streak in her mane, the blush seemed to take hold of her entire face. 

“Pinkie! We are not on a date, we just spent too much time getting blown into each other. I mean… we spent too much time in the dirt together… err.. We just  need some food okay?” Rainbow said, her blush intensifying with each word she said. Pinkie just kept smiling wider and wider. 

“Sure thing Dashie! I’ll get you that cupcake you’ve been eying Spike, anything you want Rainbow?”

“Sure Pinks, I’ll get a sundae with extra sprinkles,” Spike looked at Rainbow curiously. “Whatcha thinking Spike?”

Before Spike had a chance to answer, Pinkie returned with the food and all hopes of having a conversation with Spike were lost. Within moments, he had taken a bite of the cupcake and he began to experience an amazing feeling. He had wings! He tried to move them but they wouldn’t budge. He then tried to move himself but he was also stuck. Then everything returned to normal. “Pinkie, what do you call the stuff you put in this?” He asked, 

Pinkie stuck her head out of the kitchen, “I call it Red Minotaur, it gives you wings.” 

“Huh” Spike said, “That’s weird, I feel kinda like how I felt this morning…” His eyes narrowed until the pupils became slits. 

“Uh, Spike are you okay?” Rainbow asked, getting a little nervous. Typically most mammals know to avoid reptiles with eyes like that, but in this case she found it a little interesting. ‘ Man Spike’s eyes are awesome, he is kind of more awesome then most of the colts in this town. To be fair that’s not saying much…’ She thought, “Hey Spike, what’s up?”

“Rainbow,” he said, a creepy grin taking over his face. “We are going to do, EVERYTHING.” Rainbow of course, was a little confused by this but always in the mood for some mischief said,

“Alright what’s the plan?”

“Well first we can …” Spike launched into a long and tedious plan about how they can prank every single pony in town; with the exception of Fluttershy of course. First they would start with Twilight, it would take some glue, some feathers and some invisible magic ink. Then after they finished with Twilight, they would move onto Applejack. They would need some paint a couple of cardboard cut-outs and the recruitment of Apple Bloom who would be more than willing to prank her sister. Next it got a little harder. With Pinkie being so good at pranking herself, this would be an incredible challenge for the pair. They thought long and hard about what they wanted to do and in the end they came up with the best prank of all time. It was so complex and convoluted that they hired a technical engineer to help design the trebuchet and a pyro technician to launch the fireworks. 

7 hours later

“That…Was…intense…” Spike said as he and Rainbow both collapsed on the ground just under the swordfish cloud.  They both lay there for a couple minutes before Spike said “We should totally do that again, I just wish I didn’t have to clean up the feathers tomorrow.”

“Twilight was sure mad about that, the funniest was when she kept trying to open her books but the glue wouldn’t budge.” Rainbow said, rolling on the ground trying to control her laughter. “Hey look the sun is setting.”

“Yeah I always loved the sunset,” Spike said, turning towards the now darkening sky. “I always thought it looked beautiful. Couldn’t really see it in Canterlot all that much, but in Ponyville it looks amazing.”

“Hey Spike?”

“Yeah Rainbow what’s up?” 

“This is kinda nice, just not moving and relaxing. It feels peaceful.” Rainbow said as she stared of into the distance. “Hey don’t tell anyone, but, I did have a lot of fun today Spike. You’re pretty cool.”  

“Thanks Rainbow, you’re pretty cool too” Spike said with a grin knowing what was coming next.”

“Pretty cool? Don’t you mean super mega awesome radical cool?” Rainbow shot back all traces of the moment that was just shared gone once again.  Spike rolled his eyes and said,

“Of course Rainbow, I should head home, I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Course, see you back here whenever you want, we got loads to do tomorrow. Remember competition is in a month.” Rainbow said already getting ready to leave for her home. 

“Oh and Rainbow? Thanks for today,” Spike said. “I’ll see you later.” 

Rainbow flew off to her house extra quickly today, for some reason, she wanted the morning to come quicker. She wasn’t entirely sure why but as she bedded down for the night, remembering to feed Tank, she thought about the day and said quietly before falling asleep, “See you tomorrow Spike.”

When Spike got home, he was faced with a  still angry Twilight who said, “Spike you better have  a good reason for all the ruckus you caused today. Applejack came over here with a  very confused expression and ponies thought the apocalypse was happening with the trebuchet stunt. What were you thinking?” Spike looked at her with a smile and simply said,

“Today was fun, and tomorrow will be just as fun.”

> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Rainbow was up before the first rooster crowed at the sun; this was surprising as Rainbow Dash was never seen around the town before the sun came up.  But today was different. Today Rainbow leapt out of bed with energy she had never had before.  Tank was startled; his friend was never up this early. He looked up at her slowly and began to smile at Rainbow. Rainbow looked down at him and smiled back and said, “Morning buddy, how’d you sleep?” Tank simply nodded his head in happiness and started to prepare for his busy day. He intended to get all the way to the kitchen today! “Well buddy, I got to get going, have a busy day today! Bye Tank.” Rainbow zoomed out of her house and headed to her now favourite cloud. 

Spike’s morning was eventful to say the least, after waking up; Spike had to clean the entire library. It turns out feathers and glue are extremely difficult to get out of hardwood floors and walls. All of the books were spared of the carnage of the prank though. Twilight was marginally calmer especially after hearing about Spike’s day. In fact, when Spike told her about it, she seemed to get an extremely huge smile and started giggling to herself. Spike brushed it off as partial insanity due to insane amounts of word intake.  

“That’s it Twi, I’m finished with all my chores and I’ve cleaned up the library.” Spike said with a spring in his step. “I’m going to see Rainbow now.” 

“Ok Spike, don’t be out too late, or if you are, send me a scroll ok?” Twilight said, with that smile still plastered on her face.  

“Sure thing Twilight, I’ll be back later.” He said as he ran out the door. 

‘Oh they grow up so fast’ Twilight thought as she watched her number one assistant and little brother run out the door. ‘If only he stopped pursuing Rarity he’d have so much more fun with his life. Although… I haven’t really seen him around her really. Hmmmm. Maybe I should go ask her.’ With that last thought, Twilight went off to see Rarity to ask about Spike. 

“Rarity? Are you home?” Twilight said as she reached her friends shop. “I let myself in considering it’s a shop and all. The sign said open…” 

“Just a second darling!” Rarity called from a backroom in the boutique. “Ah, dear Twilight, how can I help you this fine morning?” She asked, curious as to why Twilight would come visit her so randomly. Usually with Twilight, the most impromptu meetings were scheduled 3 weeks in advance. 

“Hey Rarity, I was just wondering if Spike has been here at all these last few days? I’m just curious as he seems to spend all of his time with Dash; I was hoping you knew something about that. I keep getting this feeling that something is going on between those two.” Twilight then went on to explain the different pranks that Rainbow and Spike pulled as well as the lunch/date that Pinkie was so excited about.

“Well he hasn’t been here Twilight. In fact, I haven’t really seen Spike since he asked me to come with you and the girls to the best young flyers competition. Do you think that he may be developing a crush on Rainbow?” Rarity said, quite surprised to recall that Spike hadn’t actually been spending as much time on her as he used to. It was kind of hurtful in some regards but she was also proud of the little drake for moving on to other prospects. “It’s quite possible after all, those two are quite similar.”

Twilight considered this for a couple of moments before shaking her head, “I just don’t get it Rarity, I always thought that Spike had a crush on yo-” at that moment Pinkie’s head appeared on one of Rarity’s mannequins shouting “FOREVERRRRR” –“yogurt, yes yogurt. Spike has a crush on yogurt.” Twilight hastily corrected herself as no one breaks a Pinkie Promise.  Rarity of course, was not as blind as Twilight would have hoped, but didn’t see any reason to acknowledge the crush. The truth was that she had known about it for such a long time that she just ended up using it to her advantage.  

“Righttt, well dear, I guess we will just have to find out about Spike and Rainbow Dash. If this is true, then we will have to do everything in our power to meddle until the two are happily together!” Rarity declared as her romantic side came out in full force. Already plans were rocketing through her head, giving makeovers to Rainbow, organizing romantic picnics and such. She did not, however, remember who she was talking about, and that the events she wanted to create were more likely to create tension between the two then create anything productive. Oh well, such is love.  “Come Twilight, we must prepare. I declare project SPIKEDASH a go!”

“Well… if you think that it’s a good idea…” Twilight was not so sure about this whole thing but she did want her friends to be happy, and if this got Spike to stop obsessing over Rarity, he might be more productive in his studies. “But Rarity, do you even like Spike a little bit?”

“Well of course I like my little Spikey-Wikey, but unfortunately not in the way he would want it. Alas, I could never be with a dragon, even if he is a prince. No I am saving myself for a nice pony.” Rarity said, confident that the dragon in question would never here that phrase. Unfortunately for her, he did. 

Spike had been walking towards the spot where he was supposed to meet Rainbow when he saw Twilight going into the boutique. Being the curious dragon he is, he stopped to have a listen and was going to announce himself when he heard that they were talking about him. He hid himself in the bushes right in front of Rarity’s boutique and tried his very hardest to listen in on the conversation. He missed the first bit of it as he was trying to find a good spot, something about him and Rainbow but then he managed to sit still for Rarity’s final line. After hearing it, he got up slowly, and trudged towards where he was supposed to meet Rainbow. 

Meanwhile, Rainbow had been waiting on top of the swordfish cloud for a couple hours, not because Spike was late, but because she had been a couple hours early. She was starting to get a little impatient when she suddenly saw her favourite dragon cross over the hill. Her face lit up in a smile as soon as she was able to make out the green spikes on top of his head. However, when she looked more closely at him, she was able to see that his spikes were in fact quite droopy. He wasn’t walking with a spring in his step and he didn’t look happy at all. Rainbow zoomed towards him and said “Spike! What’s wrong, you look so down.” He looked up at her and what she saw made her mad. He was crying. Someone had made Spike, her Spike, cry. “Spike what happened?” 

He told her everything, all of the things he had heard at the boutique, what Rarity had said to him, everything. “I never want to see her again, all these years she was just using me to do chores for her. She used my love and affection!” He began to cry again and Rainbow, not knowing what else to do, hugged him. 

> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Spike immediately stopped shuddering, his wails slowly turned into whimpers before fading away completely. He remained buried in Rainbow’s hug feeling a strange surge of emotions flowing through him. It felt, nice. He slowly pulled back from the hug looking at Rainbow with a small smile on his face and said, “Thanks Dash.”

“Anytime Spike, anytime.” Rainbow replied. She wasn’t entirely sure what possessed her to hug the little drake but she was sure of one thing. She liked it. A smile started to grow on her face as she came up with an idea to cheer Spike up. “Hey Spike, I want to show you something!” 

“Sure Rainbow, what is it?” Spike said, slowly becoming more and more animated. Rainbow’s excitement was infectious and he soon found himself giggling. His eyes became less red and he rubbed them to get rid of any signs of the tears he had had. “Can we take it easy though on the way there? I kinda want to take it easy…” he said, looking down. Rainbow looked at him, and put a hoof under his chin lifting it up. When she was finally looking eye to eye with the dragon, she smiled and said,

“Of course Spike, wanna ride?” 

“But Rainbow, I thought you liked to hover along next to me when we walked. I don’t want to keep you landlocked just for me!” Spike said, not really understanding the big grin on Rainbow’s face as she picked him up and threw him on her back.

“Who said anything about being on the ground?” 

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” Spike shouted as he and Rainbow soared into the air, Rainbow graceful as a soaring eagle, while Spike held on for dear life. Eventually he managed to calm down and relax his hold on his friend. He looked around and saw the most beautiful sight of his life. The sun was just about to set, the stars were just about to come out and Rainbow was looking at him with a small smile on her face. Wait. 

What was that last part? Spike shook his head, and focused once more on the amazing view unfolding around him. The sunset was quickly turning the night as Rainbow came to a landing on some secluded hills not too far outside of Ponyville. “Hop off Spike, we’re almost there!” Rainbow said; bouncing with each step she took towards a small cave that was situated within the hillside. The pair entered the cave, and Spike gasped as he looked out upon a beautiful natural spring that filled the cave. Glowing gem outcrops and veins were protruding from the walls providing a magical sort of atmosphere. “What do you think? I found it during one of my routines when I took shelter from an Everfree storm.” 

“It’s amazing” Spike said, completely in awe of the cave, “These gems look so cool, I wouldn’t even dream of snacking on one of them. This place is also pretty old, seems almost as old as that castle in the Everfree.” He finished examining the cave and looked at Rainbow, “Why are we here Rainbow? I mean it’s great and all, but…” 

“Well I know one thing that’ll get your mind off of things.” Rainbow said, a mischievous grin coming over her face. “In fact…”

“Oh you are not going t-” SPLASH. Rainbow had just tackled Spike knocking him full force into the spring. “It. Is. So. ON!” and with that, the splash war began. Neither side could get an edge. At first it seemed like Rainbow had the advantage, using her wings as weapons, she created great tsunamis that crashed against Spike’s defenses. But then the tide turned as Spike, with a heroic battle cry, dunked the cyan mare underwater winning the contest and declaring himself master of the waves.  As Rainbow resurfaced, spewing water out of her mouth, Spike began that most time honoured tradition at the end of a great conflict. “I wonnnnnnnnnnn” He was about to break out into a custom song that he wrote to signify the defeat of the enemy force when Rainbow began to give him the largest tickle attack ever received by a dragon. 

“No! Stop! I surrender!” Spike giggled as Rainbow continued her merciless assault. Finally after getting Spike to admit she was the true queen of the splash wars, she ceased her attack and both of them lay panting on the edge of the spring giggling at each other. 

“Now tell me something Spike, do I know how to have fun or what?” Rainbow said, shaking off some of the excess water onto Spike who was now both tickled and wet again. 

“Yeah, yeah, I guess you know how to have somewhat of a good time.” He laughed as he used his flame breath to quickly dry himself off. “Oh man, what time is it? Twi’s going to kill me!” He rushed out to the mouth of the cave and made some quick astronomical calculations. “Ok,” he said, “It’s just after 11 pm, if I hurry I can make it home just before 12.”

Rainbow looked at Spike running around and made some quick decisions, she said quietly, “You know Spike; you can send Twilight a letter if you wanna come hang with me for the night?” Spike looked at her waiting for her to continue. With more confidence, she said “We can work on some super cool tricks and stuff! Ooh I can show you my Wonderbolts collection, or my Daring Do gear! It’ll be a lot of fun. Please Spike pleaseeeeeeee.” Rainbow then began the most adorable cute face that Spike had ever seen, and after a second’s hesitation, he agreed.  “YAY THIS NIGHT JUST GOT 20% COOLER”

“Alright just lemme write a letter,”

Dear Twilight, princess of the library, yadda yadda ,

I’m going to stay at Rainbow’s tonight for some epic hangouts! Be back in the morning.

Love Spike,

“There, that should do the trick” Spike said as he looked at Rainbow who was being very Pinkie Piesque at the moment. The whole floating without wings trick didn’t look as cool on a pegasus who, well, had wings, but the fact that they weren’t flapping was pretty cool. “Hey Dash, you ready to go?”

“Sure thing Spike, hop on!”

Meanwhile at the boutique

“They’re having a sleepover?” Twilight said to Rarity who was currently pacing in front of a large billboard with pictures of Spike and Rainbow pinned together with string crisscrossing their different likes and dislikes. In fact, Twilight thought to herself that the whole thing looked like a scene from that new Sherlock Hooves book she was reading. “Rarity, can you hear me?” 

“Quiet darling I’m pondering, a lady must not be disturbed when pondering.”

‘Yep, just like the book’ Twilight thought to herself, “I just thought you should know that Spike and Rainbow are having a slumber party tonight at Rainbow’s place. Seems that they may like each other after all,” 

Rarity froze, and then slowly rotated in a very creepy way towards Twilight. Lightning flashed outside the window, as Rarity moved closer and closer before standing on her two hind legs and saying “Twilight! Fetch my cloak; we are going to find out more about this “slumber party” and you are going to help me my faithful assistant princess!”

“But Rarity, isn’t spying on our friends, kinda, I don’t know, weird?” 

“Oh dear Twilight, you don’t understand! We aren’t spying, we are simply going out for a stroll on a cloud that just so happens to be right outside Rainbows cloud house while wearing dark clothing and using a sound muffling spell and using…” Rarity continued on while Twilight rubbed her temples with her hoof and said under her hoof,

“Oh brother here we go again”

> Chapter 7 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Rainbow’s cloud house was easily one of the most recognizable buildings in Equestria. It was about two stories off of the ground and was had a giant rainbow fall, making the building seem to be quite large from the outside. As Rainbow came in to land, Spike saw Tank standing on the porch of Rainbow’s house, “Hey Rainbow,” he said, “How’s Tank able to walk on your cloud house?” 

“Oh, after I got him, I had Twilight enchant the clouds so that he could walk around without the helicopter on his back. She offered to just enchant him, but I figured it would be easier to do this.” Rainbow explained, “So Spike what you wanna do first?”

Twilight and Rarity arrived a few minutes after Spike and Rainbow walked inside the cloud house. Rarity leapt from cover to cover glancing up every so often to see if the coast was clear, while Twilight followed her around in a much more calm way. “Rarity, are you sure this is a good idea? What if Rainbow or Spike sees us?” Twilight whispered, still highly entertained by Rarity’s strange antics. She wasn’t entirely sure why Rarity was also using a giant cardboard box to sneak from place to place, but hey, it seemed to make her happy, so why not. 

“Twilight, the reward is equal to the risk. We must find out more of this juicy juicy gossip!” Rarity said, looking around before diving into a cloud that Rainbow appeared to have made into a statue of Daring Do. “Now get in here before they catch us!” Twilight sighed and walked over to the cloud statue. Rarity pulled her inside and said, “Now let’s see what their up to…”

Rainbow and Spike of course, were doing the best and most exciting thing that any male and female can do on a bed together. Building a giant fort, with pillow turrets.  They both had crawled into the fort and had set up a flashlight so that Rainbow could show Spike her giant Daring Do collection. Spike also loved Daring Do, living in a library meant that he was able to read almost anything he wanted and these were the first books he picked up. Right now though, he and Rainbow were having a heated discussion about whether or not Daring Do was going to make it through the pie throwing tunnel of doom. This continued for some time until they agreed to disagree, then on the count of three, they burst out of the pillow fort.

“What do you want to do now Rainbow?” Spike asked. He was having a blast; he didn’t know that Rainbow was so much like him. They both enjoyed Daring Do, she had the same kind of kidlike personality and she also loved pranking people. Spike continued, “We could play a game if you want? Or we can go look at the stars, their always really cool near midnight.” 

“Sure thing Spike, want me to grab like a blanket or something? It’s kinda chilly outside.” Rainbow said; she loved looking at the stars. Sometimes she would take Tank up with her and just watch them for hours and sleep in. No one ever knew that was the real reason she slept in all the time, she usually only fell asleep as the sun came up. 

“Nah, I’ll be fine Dash, internal fire and all” Spike said, Rainbow laughed and they both headed outside. 

“They’re coming!” Rarity said, peering through the binoculars at the windows. She and Twilight both dived further into the cloud structure trying to be as quiet as possible. “Um, Twilight, why are your wings so stiff?” Twilight of course, had been shoved up against Rarity as they were hiding and was now effectively lying on top of her. 

“Nothing… nope. Nope nope nope.” She said, a massive blush taking over her face.  “They’re not stiff, what are you talking about?” hoping that Rarity would stop asking questions. 

“I see…” Rarity said, completely confused about the situation. Rarity had absolutely no idea about why a pegasus’, or in this case alicorn’s wings got stiff. In fact the only time she had seen it happen was when she was at the spa with Fluttershy who was getting some sort of massage. When she mentioned it to her later, Fluttershy turned pure red and teleported to her house for a week. “Well hush, it looks like they’re going to the roof.  We need a closer look!” Rarity picked up her trusty cardboard box and put it over Twilight and her. They crept forward until they were within listening range of Rainbow and Spike’s conversation. 

Rainbow and Spike had set up on the roof of her cloud house and were staring up at the sky. “Look over there!” Spike said, “It’s an Ursa Minor and Major!” he pointed to the eastern edge of the sky. Rainbow looked over brushing up against Spike to get a better angle, her head just touching the bottom of his chin as she gazed at the sky.  Spike glanced down when he felt her brush against his chin but didn’t want to move as she looked so enthralled by the sky. He smiled down at her and as she moved back to her hold spot she looked at him and…

“NOOOOOO” Rarity hissed, “A cloud blocked our view! Now I don’t know what they did. Did they kiss? Did they look awkwardly away? Gahhh stupid clouds!”

Rainbow and Spike were smiling at each other, neither one wanting to look away and neither one feeling awkward at all. “Spike, you’re a pretty great guy you know that right? You don’t actually need all that mare training.” Rainbow said, looking away with a small blush starting to form on her cheeks. Spike started to blush as well and said,

“Rainbow you never needed my help for the best young flyers competition, did you?” Spike said, not really sure what he was doing. He had a feeling that although he didn’t quite know what it was.  “I don’t mind helping you but you’re already the best young flyer once in a row. I’m sure you’ll blow them all away.” 

“You don’t know that, what if I’m not good enough? What if I mess up like last time and only win with a random sonic rainboom?” Rainbow said, shrinking down. She tried to avoid Spike’s gaze but he put a claw under her chin and lifted he face up gently. 

“Rainbow, you’ll be fine. Besides, you’ll have the best cheering section ever!” Spike said. 

“How’s that, none of you are coming to the competition. You were only going to go because of Rarity! Twilight is busy with princess things, Applejack has harvest season, Fluttershy has a giant animal shelter to run, and Pinkie Pie is building a party howitzer.” Rainbow said. Spike instantly started laughing at the top of his lungs. He fell over and started rolling around as Rainbow’s blush got bigger and bigger. “What?”

“Rainbow, you really think that I’m not going to the competition to see you fly? I’ll go by myself if I have to. You’re my best friend Rainbow and I care about you…” He started to blush again. “I wouldn’t miss it for all the gems in the world.” 

Rainbow looked at Spike with a small smile, “Really? You’d do that for me?”

“Anytime Dash, anytime.”

At that moment the cloud moved from Rarity’s view and she immediately moved a little bit causing the box to shake.

“What was that?” Spike said, as he looked around. 

“Probably nothing,” Rainbow said as she walked to the edge of the roof and looked around the solid space around her house. “Hey, what’s that box over there?”

“Derpy probably delivered it to the wrong house. I’ll send it to the post office with my flame.” With that, Spike walked over to the box, took a deep breath, and whoosh. The box disappeared in a puff and the ashes floated over to the Ponyville post office. “That took care of it, now do you wanna keep stargazing or do something else?” Spike said, 

“We should probably crash Spike; I’m kinda tired from today. Here we can use my bed.” Rainbow stopped, realizing what that sounded like, “It’s a big bed! We can share it. Um, yeah…” 

Spike laughed, “Sure Rainbow whatever you want.” The two hopped into the bed and Rainbow turned off the little lamp that she kept next to it. 

“Night Spike.” She said, cuddling deeper into her bed “today was great by the way,”

“Night Rainbow; and it was. Thanks for cheering me up earlier; you really know how to make me laugh.” Spike said as he rolled over and closed his eyes. 

“Hey Spike?” 

“Yeah Dash?”

“Tomorrow is going to be awesome,” Rainbow said. And with that last thought in her head she fell asleep.

Meanwhile a very confused mail pony was trying to explain to his supervisor that there was an element of harmony and a princess in the mail sorting bin. His supervisor of course, thought he was insane and chalked it up to licking all those envelopes and stamps, when he saw a floating cardboard box and the very two ponies that his employee was talking about. They did not look very happy. 

“Well it could have been worse Rarity; at least they didn’t catch us.” Twilight said, just happy the night was over.  She was looking forward to a long shower and then a goodnight’s sleep. 

“I missed it.” Rarity said again, she had been repeating this phrase for the entire unboxing process and appeared to still be stuck in the loop. Twilight looked over and said, 	

“Come on, might as well stay in the library with me tonight, you don’t look like you can get yourself home.” Rarity just turned, still muttering to herself and started to follow Twilight to the library.  “We will have to share a bed by the way, unless you want to sleep in a basket.” She said. It looked like Rarity had calmed down enough, well; she had stopped muttering to herself so that technically counts. 

“You shall have no complaint out of me my dear. If I can stomach a bed with Applejack then I will be alright with you.” Rarity said, “And my thanks for letting me stay over, I don’t think I would have snapped out of that without your company.” They both went upstairs and got ready for bed. Rarity and Twilight got in and just as they were about to go to sleep Rarity said, “Get some rest Twilight; we have a long day ahead of us.” 

“Ugh…”  

> Chapter 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	There she stood at the best young flyers competition where she had just won first place and the coveted prize. This year, the trophy she was receiving was a beautifully stuffed purple dragon plushie and Rainbow loved it. She squeezed it against her as she stood on the platform taking in the cheering fans and the monarchs standing behind her. The chants of the crowd filled her ears as she heard them say over and over. “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!”

“Rainbow Dash!” 

“Dash wake up!” Rainbow rolled over a bit in her sleep, clutching her prize closer towards her and burying her face in the soft…Scales? Her eyes shot open and she slowly looked up to see Spike staring at her with a confused expression. “Hi…?” Rainbow froze in position, her eyes darting around looking for an escape from this extremely awkward encounter. Unfortunately, in her sleep, Rainbow had managed to entangle herself with Spike in such a way, escape was an impossible hope. 

“Um, Hi Spike…” Rainbow said, her face turning as red as her mane. “How’s it hanging?” 

“Rainbow you don’t have to move you know. You’re kinda comfy anyways.” Spike said, a smile on his face. “Friends can be giant pillows for other friends, it’s cool. It’s still dark; we can sleep for a bit more if you want.” He said closing his eyes and pulling her closer and falling back asleep. Rainbow lay there for a couple more seconds, before a giant internal squee took hold of her. She snuggled deeper into Spike’s now willing embrace and sighed to herself.

“Best day ever.”


___________


Across town, two ponies were having their own interesting morning experience. It started in much the same way that Rainbow and Spike’s did, but it ended in a rather more violent way. 

Rarity was standing in the middle of Celestia and Luna’s court, receiving an official certificate of gratitude for the creation of the new royal dress line. She made a low bow to the monarchs, and grabbed her prince charming who swept her up in a hug. They looked deep into each other’s eyes, and as they leaned in for the kiss, he turned purple. Then he screamed in an extremely high voice, “RARITY GET OFF ME.” The next thing that Rarity knew, she was flying across a room that was definitely not the royal throne room. As she “landed” on the bookshelf, Rarity opened her eyes to see a very embarrassed Twilight Sparkle, wings outstretched. “You tried to kiss me!” 

“Ahem, yes well. I was having the loveliest dream. Then I collided with a bookcase. How has your morning been Twilight?” Rarity said, a combination of annoyance and embarrassment evident on her face. 

“Well, there was a Rarity on me, and then it tried to kiss me, so I did what any sensible mare would do.  I launched it at a bookcase.” Twilight said, attempting to get her wings under control. “What’s the plan for today?” 

“I was hoping we could get some breakfast together, but I feel like this incident has put a damper on that whole idea. I’m going to the bathroom to find something to put on this nasty terrible scratch from the bookcase event. I shall join you, in the lounge.” Rarity said, walking into the bathroom. Twilight shook her head and trudged off to the kitchen to prepare some sort of food that required absolutely no appliances. When Rarity came down the stairs, Twilight was sitting at the table with her head in her hooves, smoke rising from the glass of milk on the counter. She looked up when she heard Rarity enter and glared, “Don’t even ask.” 

After a quick run to Sugarcube Corner, Twilight and Rarity were on their way to observe the latest shenanigans of Spike and Rainbow, neither of them noticing that they walked a little closer together. 


___________


Spike and Rainbow got out of bed at 10 o’clock; they ate a light breakfast of pancakes -courtesy of Spike - and prepared for the days training. “What do you want to do today Rainbow? We have a lot of time to practice still.” Rainbow looked at Spike and smiled. 

“Yeah, I was thinking we head over to the hill area we were at last time, makes the crashes less painful.” She laughed with Spike as they both remembered the last time Rainbow practiced. She got quiet though and said to Spike, “Thanks for this morning Spike, I needed the sleep, I've just been so nervous for the competition,” hoping that Spike wouldn’t realize that it was just an excuse for cuddling. Spike looked at her, shook his head and smiled,

“No problem Rainbow,” Spike said. The two left the cloud house and sped off towards their practice area. Spike hoped off of Rainbow’s back as they arrived, he said “Alright, you need to really wow the judges with your stunts this time Dash. I say leave the sonic rainboom for the grand finale and focus on the other tricks for now.” Rainbow nodded, took a quick breath, and leapt into the air to begin her routine. She started with a quick roll to make sure she was all warmed up before beginning her acceleration to trick speed. Once she thought she was going fast enough, she began her first loop, leaving a small rainbow trail behind her. In the middle of the loop though, her mind filled with images of her morning encounter with Spike and her wings immediately locked up. She started to fall for a few seconds before her instincts kicked back in and she regained her path. Rainbow shook her head trying to clear the images from her mind.

‘That was weird,’ she thought to herself, ‘He’s an awesome guy but I shouldn't be that distracted by him.’  She looked down and saw Spike watching, looking a little a concerned, but otherwise still smiling.

“You got this Rainbow!” He shouted, waving to her.

“Thanks Spike,” Rainbow turned back to her path and resumed her routine. She attempted the loop and continued on with the rest of her routine without incident. As she reached the last trick in her routine, Rainbow felt the unfamiliar feeling of fear. Every time she had attempted this trick it had resulted in her crashing and nearly causing Spike injury. She paused for a few seconds and began her dive towards the ground. As she went faster and faster she tried to remember when she needed to pull up, but the speed was becoming too much for her. All of a sudden, she saw a burst of green fire and immediately began to pull up. 

Spike sighed with relief, as he saw Rainbow pull up at the last minute, narrowly avoiding collision with the ground. He had been trying so signal her earlier but she couldn’t hear him over the noise of the wind. Rainbow landed and ran over to Spike who gave her a huge hug. “Thanks for that Spike, didn’t know when I needed to stop the dive.” Rainbow said, laughing and shivering from how close that was. 

Spike didn’t say anything as he looked her over, trying to make sure that she was actually all right. Rainbow watched as the dragon checked for any possible injury before sighing and joining her in her laugh. “Hey Rainbow,”

“Yeah Spike?” 

“Let’s not keep doing that. As much fun as you are to look at, I’d rather not actually find an injury.” Spike said, “We still have some time left if you want to go get something to eat before I head home?” 


	___________


“Well that was pointless.” Twilight said, as she and Rarity entered Sugarcube Corner. “Hey Pinkie are you here?”

“Hiya Twilight! What’s new? Ooo or what’s old? Or maybe-” Pinkie continued on as Twilight looked at her. 

“Pinkie, can we just get some food?  Rarity and I had a long day.” Twilight said, pointing to Rarity who was busy using the utensils to plot her next reconnaissance operation. “Besides, she gets a little crazy without food.”

“I heard that!” Rarity exclaimed, not looking up from her intricate design.

“What do you want guys want? I can pretty much whip up anything back here.” Pinkie said.

“We’ll just grab some hayfries Pinkie, nothing to special.” Twilight replied slowly trudging over to her seat. 

“Okie dokie lokie! Two orders of hayfries on the way!”

“Dear, do be careful, your head is resting on the escape part of the plan.” Rarity said, “I need absolute concentration if we are to find where our two mystery friends are!”

“How bout right behind you?” Twilight said as she pointed at the two who had just walked in.

“Twilight,” Rarity said, her voice taking on any icy tone. “Fetch my box, we have work to do.” 
 
> Chapter 9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Spike and Rainbow entered the corner just as Twilight teleported herself, Rarity, and the box under a table. Spike walked up to the counter where Pinkie Pie was busying herself by coloring in a giant version of a cupcake. “Hi Spike! Are you and Rainbow here for round two?” Pinkie said, her giant smile plastered to her face as usual. Spike rolled his eyes and said to Pinkie,

"No Pinks, we’re just here to grab some food before I head home. What do you have that’s special?”

“Well, I do have this awesome new creation that I was working on, but I’m not really sure you should have it Spike.” Pinkie looked around before whispering really loudly, “It has alcohol.” At this, Twilight’s ears flicked up and she thought 

‘No way is Spike getting alcohol or he is so grounded tonigh-,’

“Sure we’ll have it Pinkie! I’m over 18 anyway, might as well enjoy it every once in a while.” He said, as he and Rainbow made their way over to a table. The very same table that a certain alicorn and unicorn were under. As they sat down, Pinkie brought over her special creation and said,

“Okay guys, hope you enjoy it! You’re the first two who will actually be trying it; so have as much as you want! I call it a daiquiri, and while it’s not nearly as strong as AJ’s special cider, it does have quite a kick to it.” As she bounced away, Rainbow looked down at the interesting creation in front of her.

“Well, here goes nothing,” she said to Spike. The first sip she had was a little unclear to her. The second was ok but not super great. The third on the other hoof, well, that was pretty special. “I love it!” Rainbow looked up and said, “Come on Spike, you gotta try this stuff.” Spike looked at Rainbow, noticing how her face had a little bit more blush to it. He shrugged his shoulders and took a sip. For him, the taste settled in immediately and he said,

"Wow you’re right Dash, this stuff is really good! Hey Pinkie, can we get another round?” Spike and Rainbow went through another 4 rounds, giggling all the while. They talked about almost every story the two could think of. Rainbow talking more about her life in Cloudsdale and her time in flight camp, while Spike talked about what he did in Canterlot and how he was effectively a crown prince of Equestria. At this statement, Rarity’s ears perked up and she quickly whispered to Twilight,

“Little Spike really is a prince?” Not believing what her ears were telling her. In an effort to minimize how much noise they made, Twilight simply nodded, looking up at the table. This was the first time Spike had really consumed alcohol, except for that time where she was doing an experiment and accidentally launched a bottle of 100% ethanol at his face. That took a really long time to make up for.

A few hours passed, and it was pretty clear that both Spike and Rainbow were pretty tipsy. Neither of the two were quite drunk yet, but Pinkie had decided to cut them off. Neither of them noticed however and continued to laugh and talk for a while. Eventually Rainbow said, “Hey Spike, -hehe- why did you always do stuff for Rares, like she’s not even that hot.” Rarity, hearing something interesting, started to pay attention again. Twilight had fallen asleep on her, and that was a very distracting event.

“Well you see Dash,” Spike said, a big grin on his face. “She has… a nice flank.” Both Rainbow and Spike burst out laughing as Rarity’s face started to get warmer. “No no but seriously the truth is Dash; I don’t really know why I kept following Rarity around.” His face becoming more serious, “We don’t have anything in common, and like, you’re waayy cooler then she is.”

Dash’s blush got a tiny bit bigger, “But I’m not pretty like she is or anything.” She said, a sad look coming on her face. “She’s so much more beautiful than me.” She looked down, trying to avoid eye contact with Spike. He shook his head and put his claw under her head and looked her in the eyes.

“You’re pretty too,” he said, trying his very best to hold her head steady with his shaky claws. “You’re like, ten bajlllion times more pretty then she is!” Rarity smiled, this was exactly the moment she was waiting for and now it was happening. She nudged Twilight who simply cuddled in deeper and smiled.

“You’re pretty awesome too Spike,” Rainbow said, holding her head up. “You deserve more than her.” Slowly, the two moved closer together.

“You think so Dash? Spike said, moving towards Rainbow’s head, eyes half closed. Just as the two were about to kiss, Twilight woke up, looked around, realized she was cuddled on Rarity.

And flipped out, quite literally flipping the table and causing the current occupants of that table to fly in different directions. Rarity, having been flung in the air for the second time that day, simply sighed, and waited for the inevitable impact on to whatever she was about to hit. Unfortunately for her it wasn’t a bookshelf, it was a Rainbow Dash; a tipsy, mad, Rainbow Dash. “Have you been spying on us!?” Rainbow shouted, throwing Rarity off of her and onto Twilight who was trying to free herself of the box. “After what you said about Spike, you couldn’t leave him alone and were spying on us!?”

“Now Rainbow, calm down.” Rarity stuttered, “I know that you must be quite upset about all of this…”

“Upset?! Upset doesn’t even cover it!” Rainbow was shouting louder now, “You made him cry Rarity. Spike, the best dragon in Equestria, you made him cry.” Spike had regained his feet at this point and quickly came over to Rainbow.

“Dash,” He said, “It’s ok, just calm down and lets leave.” He looked at her with a small smile on his face, “She’s not worth it, I’ll walk you home.” Rainbow nodded her head slowly, eyes not leaving Rarity’s face. Spike was about to lead her out of Sugarcube Corner, when he saw Twilight pop out from under the box as well. “Twi…? What are you doing here?” he asked, now very confused.

“Well I was concerned about why you hadn’t spent any time with Rarity lately and wanted to see how she was, then she told me all of this and we were following you, and now I’m just really emotionally confused, and…” Twilight started to cry as all the stress of the past few days hit her. She ran out of the room and towards the library, wailing all the way. Rarity turned to Spike and said,

“Please forgive me Spike; I need to check on Twilight.” Rainbow glared at her with the promise of drunken vengeance in her eyes. Rarity continued, “Um… see you all later perhaps.” With her trusty box in her magical grip, she chased after Twilight.

“Rainbow are you ok?” Spike said, looking at Rainbow who was visibly holding back some choice words about Rarity. “Let’s get you home.”

“She just, she hurt you Spike. How can you be so calm about it?” Rainbow said, tears coming to her eyes as she buried her face in Spike’s chest.

“Because I have you,” Spike said, “And your friendship means more to me than all the sad feelings in the world.” Rainbow smiled to herself, 

“You’re the best Spike,” Rainbow said. As Spike and Rainbow walked to the cloudhouse, Rainbow asked, “Hey Spike, you want to stay for a bit? I don’t think you should head back to the library.” 

“Yeah if you don’t mind I’ll probably crash here for the night," Spike said, hopping on Rainbow’s back as she flew up to her cloud house. 


___________


Back at the library, Twilight was busy sobbing into her blanket as Rarity was stroking her back attempting to soothe her. “Spike probably hates me now!” Twilight wailed, as she tried to burrow in closer to her bed. 

“Shhh dear, he doesn’t hate you, he was just really confused.” Rarity said, “I don’t think he can hate you, you’re his big sister after all. ” 

Twilight’s cries started to decrease in volume, first turning into soft cries before just becoming sniffles. “You mean it?” She said, looking up at Rarity hopefully. 

“Of course darling,” Rarity said with a smile on her face. “Now get to bed! You need to rest.” Twilight nodded and slowly climbed into bed.

“Hey Rarity?”

“Yes dear?” Rarity said, ready to leave and begin the long walk back to the boutique.

“Could you maybe stay over again? I don’t want to be alone.” Twilight said in a small voice. Rarity sighed and climbed into bed with her. 

“Good night Twilight,” She said, smoothing Twilight’s mane one last time. She felt a small warm wet thing on her cheek for a split second as Twilight said with her eyes closed,

“Good night Rarity.” 

Rarity felt a blush take over her face, and whispered to herself, “This is not good.” 
> Chapter 10 The morning after
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Rainbow was flying through the skies over Ponyville when suddenly she was being attacked by a batch of Pinkie’s most famous cupcakes. She managed to defeat these flying confections by swatting them away with her trusty purple pillow and after an amazingly epic battle, Rainbow stood atop the wreckage of paper wrappers and clutched her pillow triumphantly. “Oh pillow!” she said, gazing at her pillow intently, “Promise me you’ll never bash cupcakes without me?"

“mrghmmff,”

“Say wha…?” Rainbow said, not actually expecting a response from the pillow.

“Cant… Breathe….” Spike said as Rainbow continued to hold his head in a death grip. 

“Rainbow immediately dropped Spike and landed upside down on the roof “Oh, hey Spike,” she said, feigning casualness. “How’s it hanging?”

“Apparently not as well as it is for you,” Spike smirked looking up at her. “Fighting monsters in your sleep eh? You win?” Rainbow smiled,

“Have I ever lost?”

“Well wasn’t there this incident where you tried to falcon kick a dragon…” Spike said laughing as Rainbow slowly came down from the roof of her house, a blush now present on her cheeks.

“Hush you. You should probably go see Twilight, she didn’t seem so happy yesterday.” She said, rubbing the back of her head with her hoof as she remembered last night’s events. “I should also probably go see Rarity too…”

"This is going to be fun,” Spike sighed as Rainbow carried him down from her cloud house. “And Rainbow?”

"Yeah Spike?”

“I had a great time to last night” He smiled at her, we should do that again sometime, “It’s nice to have a great friend to hang out with.” He was still a little fuzzy on the details of the night before and wasn’t sure how Rainbow (or himself for that matter) felt about each other. “Well, I’ll see you later then! Good luck with Rarity.”

“Same to you with Twilight,” Rainbow watched as Spike walked down the road towards the center of Ponyville and sighed. She of course remembered most of last night, and realized it was going to be a lot harder for her to confront Rarity than it would be for Spike to confront Twilight. “Well,” she said to herself, “Here goes everything.”

As Spike continued on into Ponyville, he found himself walking slower and slower as his mind was trying very hard to piece together the bits of his time with Rainbow at SugarCube Corner. He vaguely remembered going to get some food with her, Pinkie offering one of her inventions to him and after that things started to get a little hazy. ‘Did I do something?’ Spike remembered that Rarity and Twilight were there and that something happened between Rarity and Rainbow if the conversation this morning was anything to be believed. ‘What happened last night…? I remember we were eating and laughing and telling stories. Something about a box…’ as his memory started to return, Spike became more and more aware of something. “I almost kissed Rainbow.” Spike said. “Well bu-”

“Hi Spikey!” Pinkie said, “Whatcha doing?”

“Hi Pinkie, I’m just heading back to the library to see Twilight, what are you doing?” He asked, slightly annoyed at being interrupted in his thoughts.

“Welllllll, I’m just watching a dragon walk into the corner of SugarCube Corner and create a little rut, and before that I was coming back from the library after a fun night of stalking Twilight and Rarity, did you know she hasn’t left the library yet? And then I was cleaning out the different barrels of my party arsenal and then before that you Rainbow Twilight and Rarity were here and then you all left without saying bye.” Pinkie smiled at Spike whose eyes had rolled back into his head from the sheer amount of information that had been thrown at him. “Did you come back to say bye?”

“Wait… Rarity is still with Twilight?”

___________


Rarity was having the most wonderful dream.

She was at her wedding, waiting at the altar for the stallion of her dreams to walk down the aisle. Oddly instead of wearing a normal white dress, she was wearing a lavender coloured wedding dress. She was also a little perplexed because instead of in Ponyville where she pictured her wedding, she was in fact, in the throne room in Canterlot. Celestia herself was presiding over the wedding and Princess Luna was playing the organ except instead of the actual wedding music she was playing what appeared to be the theme music to one of her favourite ponybox games. However as the music got louder Rarity focused on the aisle to see the wonderful handmade suit and the wonderful groom Twilight.

Wait.

Twilight?

The pony in question was currently still cuddled up to Rarity when the screams started. She vaguely remembered doing the projection equation for a falling body if launched at a 45 degree angle as she was flung into the air. She calculated, that by her current speed she would impact upon a bookshelf with a downward force of mgcos(45) discounting the normal air resistance. With her calculation she was able to levitate something that was softer in the way right before she hit the bookshelf, unfortunately for the screaming Rarity, this object was in fact, the bed.

‘Take that everyone who said math was boring!’ She smiled to herself as she lowered the bed and snuggled onto her pillow.  

Rarity, having finally calmed down, looked around in confusion, “This isn’t my bed, this isn’t a bed at all.” Continuing her scan of the room, “Oh there’s the bed I was sleeping in, with Twilight, I was sleeping with Twilight.” She calmly proceeded to stand up from the floor and slowly walk towards the door. “I am perfectly okay with this,” She said as she reached the door. Once she got outside she looked around, saw the coast was clear, and screamed her way back to the boutique.

Twilight, along with the majority of Equestria, heard the second set of screams and finally decided that now was a good time to get out of bed. She went over the events of last night in the same way that she went over absolutely everything that she did. She panicked, sprinted to the mental health and emotions section of the library, pulled every book off the shelf and started reading.


___________


Rainbow was slowly flapping on her way to see Rarity in the boutique. Like Spike, she was lost in thought about the previous night’s events and decided that before she should see Rarity, she should pay a visit to her good friend Fluttershy. Despite her outwardly quiet nature or perhaps because of it, Fluttershy was one of the best listeners in the group and Rainbow’s oldest friend. As she crossed the bridge leading to her friend’s cottage, she heard the sound of faint humming flow out of the small house. Rainbow smiled as she knocked on the door causing the humming to stop and the cottage to elicit a small squeak.  “W-w-w who is it?” Fluttershy said, nearly inaudible.

“It’s me Fluttershy,” Rainbow said, “Can I come in?”

“Oh of course Rainbow,” she replied, “I’m sorry the place is so messy, oh I hope you don’t mind.” Rainbow looked around looking at the spotless room.

“Right… anyways, Fluttershy, I was hoping to talk to you about some strange feelings I’ve been having.”

Fluttershy started blushing, “Well Rainbow, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much…”

“What?! No! Not like that, it was more I may have started to have feelings for somedra- someone.” Rainbow caught herself, trying extremely hard to not give away her confused feelings for Spike. “I think I may like him more than a friend.” At this Fluttershy stopped blushing and looked quizzically at Rainbow. Rainbow sighed and looked down at the ground, “I’m just so confused about it…”

“Well Rainbow, have you talked to him about this?”

“I’m scared I’ll lose him as a friend if he says no. What if he rejects me?” Rainbow said, getting closer and closer to the ground with each word. “We’re just so different, I’m a pegasus, he’s a dragon…” She stopped realizing her mistake. As Rainbow slowly turned to Fluttershy she expected a myriad of different responses, all centered around making fun of her, but instead received a small smile and a,

“Awww that’s so sweet Rainbow,” Fluttershy said, “Spike is one of the most understanding dragons I know, I’m sure he won’t hate you or stop talking to you if he says no. Why don’t you think it over for a few days? ”

“Thanks Fluttershy, that’s a great help. Also I may have kinda pissed Rarity off a bit so if you see her at the spa or something in the odd chance I don’t find her, could you maybe tell her I overreacted a bit to her. I was drunk. Also I was a little confused about her and Twilight cuddled up so if you could ask her about that that would be great.” Rainbow said, a smile now gracing her features as she turned to leave the cottage. “Bye Fluttershy!”

“Bye Rainbow and I will!” Fluttershy said, ‘Wait, what was that about Twilight and Rarity?’ 

> Apology
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------